TNT’s The Closer ran their Christmas episode this week, focusing on a man who played Santa professionally. That figure is generally presented as the personification of the holiday, even though he’s a relatively recent addition. The idea of a winter festival goes back to the Romans, but it took a couple thousand years to resemble [...]
Rockin’ Hard Around the Christmas Tree
As long as I can recall, certain things in life just struck me as funny. Sometimes that was from my skewed view of the world. Sometimes, from my laugh-to-keep-from-crying attitude. Sometimes, it’s just naïvety; I won’t get that somebody is actually serious about what they’re saying. I refer you back to this post from 2005, [...]
Cabaret for the Holiday
Lounge singer Kiki DuRane, accompanied by her longtime piano accompanist Herb, first appeared in San Francisco in the early Nineties. The duo were the alter egos of Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman. Kiki & Herb are a tribute/send-up of old lounge singers, reminiscent of the cabaret culture of the gay scene, a punk rock treatment [...]
Christmas in 3-Part Harmony
Are you a fan of the close three-part harmonies most typically associated with performers like the Andrews Sisters and the Boswell Sisters? Well, you’re in for a treat. Take a look at this Wikipedia entry on “voicing” to read about open and closed harmony, as well as a discussion of the difference here. Suffice to [...]
Christmas for the Little Children
Here we go again. For the seventh consecutive year, I will be posting Christmas music here. After so many years, and with so much available music, it’s hard to know where to start. But it couldn’t hurt to start in the strangest place possible. Ventriloquists are interesting entertainers. You got Jeff Dunham, Shari Lewis, and [...]
On the Old Ivory Road
At this point, I won’t even pretend I have any longtime readers, but about four years ago I would post occasionally about my love of the piano as used on pop music. There’s just something about that sound that really grabs my ear. The instrument has an incredible range of harmonics. It has strings, but [...]
Days of Wine and Roses (Part 2)
In my last post, I wrote about how much I admired Amy Winehouse as an artist. I think it’s an empirical matter that she was gifted. Beyond that, it gets more problematic. I never met Winehouse; I cannot claim to know her. One reads anecdotes (like this one from ?uestlove) and gets an impression beyond [...]
Days of Wine and Roses (Part 1)
Last weekend, I was leaving the Tahoe area. I hadn’t really been following the news at all while on vacation. While in a convenience store, I happened to glance at Twitter and saw the news: Amy Winehouse, dead at age 27. How you reacted probably depended on what your relationship was with Winehouse as a [...]
Tuning In, No Longer Plugged In
Okay, that’s it. I’m now feeling completely out of it. So, when I was at SXSW back in March, I “discovered” a new band: Fitz & the Tantrums. The fact is, I didn’t really know who any of the emerging bands at that festival were. I’d read that James Blake, for example, was a big [...]
No Longer the President: A Few Bits from David Frye
Almost two weeks ago, you may have read an obituary about the impressionist David Frye. Unless you’re old enough, you’re unlikely to have heard of him. For about eight years, he enjoyed great success and then he pretty much vanished. I was too young at the time, but I was a big fan of comedy [...]