I know I haven’t posted much (read: anything) of interest on this blog in a long while.
This isn’t about to change. But in the meantime, here is a Music Quizz, on par with what we had here a while back, made of dub, reggae, disco and pretty much everything in between… It’s tough but interesting (very large spectrum and a few unsuspected samples).
Go have a go at it (I think I got about 5 out of eight).
On my way to work this morning, it downed on me that what the world so desperately needs right now is yet another Human League electro remix, and that I may be the ideal candidate for the task.
Unfortunately, my project-manager, on the other hand, seems to think that what the world desperately needs, is another 3000 lines of code by Monday and that, incidentally, I am the ideal, if not only, candidate for the task.
I think I may be a sell-out.
Heard tonight, while crossing the Seine near Notre-Dame, where a guitarist was giving a [rather mediocre] rendition of Albéniz’s Suite española, op. 47:
Oh, honey! I know this one, that’s the Gipsy kings!
Tonight, in Paris and most other urban areas, is La Fête de la Musique
Not that there’s any point mentioning it: if you don’t live in France, you rightfully don’t give a flying rat’s ass, if you do, I reckon you are all too aware of it by now.
My mum always told me that when you have nothing nice to say, you should keep your mouth shut.
Obviously my mum has never heard of blogging.
I was really looking forward to hearing Bumcello live. I have loved many of their electro-loungy-hip-hop productions of the past few years.
Seeing the ‘acoustic’ mention on the bill when we got there was a big tip-off: when your band is a two-people act and so much of your music relies on sampling and overdubbing, pulling a proper live show would already be enough of a challenge. But choosing to strip it down to a couple drums, a cello and two lo-tech samplers while mostly improvising outside of your usual repertoire… is taking a huge leap of faith in your own live performer abilities.
Something they did, unfortunately to very mitigated results.
Nevermind the fact he couldn’t mix his way out of a wet paper bag… Felix da Housecat’s old House Excursions mix is still to this day one of the bounciest, most badassest, piece of electro ever put together.
At last the long-awaited solutions to last week’s spot-the-sample quizz. In the end, you guys did pretty good collectively: I sure didn’t expect that many to be found.
Let’s start with those you found:
I know you (all three of you) are eagerly waiting for more heady insights on French society seen through the prism of a dusty ten-volume political theory handbook, but my aspirin ran out mid-sentence and I have been busy doing other things. Things such as getting woken up at 6am by timezone-agnostic Japanese flight attendants calling to ask if I need green tea brought over and wondering why I sound sleepy. So we’ll be taking a break off socio-politico-froggy-bashing and resuming in a few days.
Instead, today is Musical Quizz.
Not any musical quizz: Catch-the-sample musical quizz!
A few cool things coming up:
Wednesday (07/20) - Japanbloggers Meetup - Zest, Harajuku
A group of people from all horizons and many countries, brought together by a common love of blogging, tech gizmos and cheap somewhat reasonably priced beer.
Newcomers always warmly welcomed.
Thursday (07/28) - Laurent Garnier - Yokohama Museum of Art [Note: I got the date wrong initially. This is taking place next week, not this week. Thanks to Martine for pointing that out!]
Reels of silent early-century B&W movies, with live instrumentation by worldwide famous, veteran techno DJ and producer: Laurent Garnier.
Sounds very experimental, but the man is insanely talented, should be interesting.
Update (also playing on 08/06):
Friday (07/22) - screening of Bondi Tsunami - Super Deluxe, near Roppongi Hills
An indy surf-movie about a bunch of crazy Japanese and their adventures in Ozland…
Miss Tracey blogged about it a few weeks ago. Turned out last week-end that my friend, the awesome Stacia, is going steady with the lead actor… It’s a small, tiny, star-studded, world, after all.
About Laurent Garnier:
Contest is Officially Over!
I know I said I would post the solution this week-end, but things didn’t go as planned. Far from the comfort of my home and my little computer on Sunday night, I did try to sneak out of bed to send a quick post, around 4am, but was sharply reminded of House Rules regarding computer use, by the most evil phosphorescent glare, this side of the Pacific. I figured I’d rather be one day late on my promise than end up with a ritual katana neatly inserted between shoulder blades.
Without further ado:
By order of appearance in the entry (I’ll leave it up to you to match translations and text).
For your ears only, and very temporarily, I have uploaded all the ones I have on digital support, here. But hurry up, as I’ll probably remove these very much not-copyright-safe files within a day or two.
All right, now for the man who shall be getting our unrestrained admiration, as well as a bottle of that nasty paper glue solvant the locals refer to as “alcohol” (comes in a cute bottle) [a picture will soon follow]:
Well, there is no surprise and Mr. Tuitui (helped by family) is the lucky winner. With an impressive 77% result (perhaps a bit less, as I suspect he only spotted the Traviata once, but let’s not be picky) or 10 tracks out of 13. Being French helped, seeing how it was heavily represented with four tracks. But then again, English would have been just a bit too easy.
Congratulation, Mr. Tuitui, my people shall be contacting your people and arrange for delivery. Preferably on a drier day than today.
I think I may, when I have a sec, do another one. I’ll try to spend more than 10 minutes this time and make an entry slightly less nonsensical. In fact, perhaps you won’t even notice it’s there. Keep your eyes peeled.
Remember that contest I started a while back?
You know: “Guess the songs and win a sample of refined Japanese spirit, straight from my own personal cellar“…
You thought I’d forget? I most definitely haven’t. Neither have a handful brave, who’ve been communicating to me all along their level of advancement through various means and methods.
So far, most contestants are staling at a puny two or three songs. And by most, I mean all. Save for two gentlemen who have made their strides to within close reach of the goal: the favorite, Mr. MacTuitui, seems well positioned to get that bottle, which might save me on postage stamps, seeing as we happen to be sharing residence on the same island in the Pacific.
Chicago jazzman Oscar Brown Jr. died last Sunday.
He wasn’t perhaps sitting at the top of my personal pantheon of Jazz, but one of his track most definitely is.
But I was cool has to be the most hilariously infectious tune ever howled by a talented musician this side of the Funk belt, and the only way you should spend your next 2 minutes 55 seconds.
And until my bandwidth freezes over, or the vindicative Gods of Copyrighted Music kick me in the karma nuts, I’m gonna put the track for download on my server: please be nice and buy the album, it is well worth it. The trial sample is right here.
Today: a Game!
A real game. With winners, losers, gladiators, wild beasts and blood. Lots of blood!
OK. Perhaps no blood, to start with. But we are hard at work incorporating this element for further installments…
Perhaps you noticed there was a strange air of déjà-dit to my last pre-logged post. In fact, one single person noticed it: I’m slightly disappointed in you, dear readers, I thought we were all playing at a higher plane, already… somewhere high above the clouds and the mass of the vulgar and the ignorant. Apparently not.
For the thick and obtuse, let me cut it out clear as crystal meth:
The previous entry (italicized introduction excepted) is entirely composed of lyrics stolen from miscellaneous musical pieces performed at some point during the past 2000 years or so.
Your mission, if you accept it, is to find which musical pieces were used. All fairly popular tracks. By “fairly popular”, I’d say most, if not all, proudly boast at least a Gold Record status…
Now, put back that Google where you found it: it won’t help you none (just try if you don’t believe me). It won’t help, because the pieces of this wonderful little riddle span over six (6) languages (in no particular order: Spanish, Greek, English, Italian, French and German). Translations were furthermore adapted a little, both to fit my fancy and preserve you from the all too tempting Google option.
That’s thirteen (13) fragments (only twelve tracks, as two fragments could be considered part of the same), covering quite a wide array of musical genres.
One last time for those who slept through: the riddle is HERE.
Yes, there is a prize. No, I’m not kidding.
Automated posting pre-logged on 05/25/05.
Today’s entry is brought to you by a few hundred monkeys trained in touch-typing, under the supervision of Mr. Public Domain & Mrs. Fair Use
You know, Love is a fucking Gipsy kid… We are all gypsies come from afar, after all…
And if you don’t love me, dear reader, know that I dearly, dearly love you. and beware.
You know, when he holds me in his arms and whispers to me, it does something to me. That love, mysterious, unattainable, the torment and delight of my heart… Just like when they sifted sand together on the beach, how she shook her bottom, how Chan Chan was turned on…
I saw her again the other night: it’d been such a long time. I got drunk listening to her and woke up to her kisses on my forehead. And she screamed out kicking on her side and said: j’ai perdu les pédales… Everybody knows that’s how it goes, that you live forever when you’ve done a line or two, that nothing’s ever safe: your strengths, your weaknesses… stand arms wide open in embrace: your shadow’s just a cross. There’s no happy love ending…
Dunno what this means, why I’m so sad, kind of like a dream from ancient times. Oh, Lord have mercy…
Automated posting pre-logged on 05/25/05.
I think by now it’s sufficiently clear that I won’t be coming back for a while: this auto-blog thing is just too damn convenient. Expect the Eliza-blogger-bot to kick in soon.
Music for any and all occasions. No time to linkify, I’ll leave it up to you to check out the tracks at your favorite non-traceable P2P software legal outlet…