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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:

The Answers

By order of appearance in the entry (I’ll leave it up to you to match translations and text).

  • La Traviata: “Noi siamo zingarelle” (“We are the gypsies”) – Verdi, on a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
  • Carmen: Acte 1: “Quand je vous aimerai?… L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” (“Love is an undomesticated bird”) – Bizet, on a libretto by Meilhac and Halévy (based on the novel by Prosper Mérimée).
  • La Vie En Rose – Original lyrics composed and sung by Edith Piaf. Though the only version I have on my hard drive is the cover by Grace Jones.
  • La Traviata (again): “Ah, fors’è lui che l’anima”
  • Chan Chan – Compay Segundo – Calle Salud
  • Le Tourbillon – sung by French actress Jeanne Moreau, written by Cyrus Bassiak: this song is featured in François Truffaut’s famous movie Jules et Jim.
  • She’s Lost Control – Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures (1980)
  • Everybody Knows – Leonard Cohen
  • Il n’y a pas d’amour heureux – Georges Brassens – Les Amoureux des Bancs Publiques
  • Die Lorelei – Schubert (many other versions) based on a poem by Heinrich Heine
  • Kyrie – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Requiem: Κυριε ἐλεησον means “Lord, have mercy!” in classical greek. What? No, I’m not joking. I did mention greek in the rules, did I or did I not?

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.

The Winner

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.

Another One?

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.

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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.

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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.

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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…

The Rules

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.

The Prize

Yes, there is a prize. No, I’m not kidding.

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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…

by ·Comments Off on Auto-Post: Music To…

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…

Music To…

… Rebel Your Adolescence To:

  • Mala Vida – 2:31 – Mano Negra
  • Kill Your Sons – 3:35 – Lou Reed
  • Common People – 5:51 – Pulp

… Rave To:

  • Horny Hustle – 4:21 – Joeski & Dano
  • Deus – 9:12 – Electric Skychurch
  • Rez/Cowgirl – 11:47 – Underworld

… Be Drunk To:

  • Alabama Song – 3:20 – The Doors
  • Dazed and Confused – 6:26 – Led Zeppelin
  • Les Nuits Parisiennes – 2:31 – Louise Attaque

… Drop To:

  • Pacific 202 – 3:51 – 808 State
  • Guitarra G – 8:40 – G-Club Pres. Banda Sonora G
  • Cool Kids of Death (Underworld mix) – 13:46 – Saint Etienne

… Hug To:

  • Song For Shelter – 11:26 – Fatboy Slim
  • Whistle Song – 8:17 – Frankie Knuckles
  • Little Fluffy Clouds – 9:07 – The Orb

… Snort To:

  • Funky Shit – 5:16 – The Prodigy
  • You Prefer Cocaine – 5:43 – Vitalic
  • Contagious – 3:13 – Adult

… Nurse a Loveover To:

  • Somewhere Over the Rainbow – 4:51 – Israel IZ Kamakawiwo’ole
  • No Communication, No Love – 5:30 – Charles Schillings
  • Nocturne op. 9 – 4:41 – Frédéric Chopin

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When I grow up, I want to become a snarky jaded bitter old man, just like him. Complete with asshole-tearing writing skills and all.

Ah, I wish…

No, please, don’t object: try as I might, I know I’m nowhere near that level of bitter, yet… I can’t keep up.

Plus, it just might be that I don’t care enough (I’m told caring only comes with age or when you go off your meds).

But I’m sure glad somebody does.

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When doing any academic work requiring a bit more than casual concentration, my choice for musical background invariably veers toward jazz.

House or techno is great coding music, but just takes too much of my attention off; and the kind of classical I can study to, also tends to get on my nerves quickly whenever the studying doesn’t go as smoothly as it should…

On the other hand, old jazz tracks, first half of the century, New-Orleans, Dixie, later French stuff… they just got the perfect mix of bouncy instrumental and subdued beat that helps keeping you in a working groove without turning your nerves into a knot. My playlist currently rotates lots of old no-names Charleston big-bands and swing tracks, along with everything I got by Stephan Grappelli, Django Reinhardt or Sidney Bechet…

As a high-school student in Paris, my buddy Pierre and I used to hang out quite often with local jazz musicians. Pierre’s younger cousin, despite being barely pubescent, was an incredible jazz piano player. Last in a lineage of music nuts, he had been enrolled very early on in the family affair, a band that had once, in typical jazz fashion, spanned over three generations and was now composed of the son-father duo completed by a couple other professional players. Among them was Daniel Bechet, son of Sidney and all around talented drummer.

Of the numerous episodes of strangely anachronistic fun I remember from these days, one particularly stands out:

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Something for your ears at the bottom »

Good evening.
Do not attempt to adjust your radio, there is nothing wrong.
We have taken control as to bring you this special show.
We will return it to you as soon as you are grooving.

Welcome to station W. E. F. U. N. K., better known as We-Funk,
Or deeper still, the Mothership Connection.
Home of the extraterrestrial brothers,
Dealers of funky music.
P-Funk, uncut funk, The Bomb.

Parliament Funkadelic – P-Funk

Welcome to Station K.D.R.D… better known as…

Well, at the moment, it’s not known as anything. for a reason: I just made it up.

The concept is quite simple, really.

I have tons of these small tracks, pseudo-remixes, work-in-progress and all around occasional hour spent screwing around on decks with good ole music on wax. Every once in a while, I go through the length of packaging one hour of these into a nice and somewhat clean format for the enjoyment of the masses. Sometimes I even go one step shorter and only release a half-assed half-hour long mix with aforementioned musical goofing around.

All these mixes are available for your aural pleasure on the Dr Dave’s Insanely Cool Mixes Collection Page.

But this somewhat formal release scheme was still not cutting it. Three main reasons:

  • Quality: Let’s face it, while I’ve gotten to a point I’d deem “fair” as a professional producer, I am still, for all purposes, a hobbyist DJ. Both in terms of skills and commitment.

    Which means that, to an overwhelming majority, times where I get on the decks and toy around with either records or computers, yield sub-par results in terms of overall mixing quality. What with the constant drinking and abusing substance while playing (OK, not this month, but I have still many ways to take my attention off whatever I’m supposed to mix). Even the Mini Mix collection requires a bit of effort, and I am a lazy person.

    Hence the need for an even cheaper/easier way to share some cool tunes without inflicting unfair damages to your eardrums nor spend every waking minutes doing so.

  • Live Audience: this point kinda goes against the one just above, but the idea is that having an audience is good.

    Let me explain… These mixes I upload most definitely have an audience. They are downloaded, and listened to, by cool people, the world over. some of these people even send me nice notes or thank you gifts, which is really a testament to how awesome this Intarweb thingie is. But a live audience, it ain’t.

    If you’ve ever done any sort of art or music live, then you know, otherwise, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine: with the right mindset, there is a sort of pressure that drives you to expand on your usual practices and break the mold. Play/act/do whatever you would be doing in a studio, in a way that you would never have thought of doing before. The live audience is a major catalyst there.

    I hardly ever play clubs these days, and for the most part, I’m quite fine with this. But I do miss the crazy-spur-of-the-moment wild experimentations with vinyl, keyboards, sequencer, chopsticks (yea, I really did it once) and anything an adrenalin-fueled brain can summon.

  • Technical Reasons: as mentioned last time, I am nearing the ceiling of my hosting quota. Each new mix I upload now requires difficult choices, moving around, shuffling of files etc. No fun. Especially for me, whose sleeping pattern is deeply perturbed by the mere thought of link rot at night.

The semi-answer to all these problems being…

KDRD: Dr Dave’s Very Own MP3 Radio Station

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A second, somewhat better, take of the Retrogressive Vol. 3 Mix. Same address, same music, better sound:

Only marginally better, but this time, no skipping CD track (and huge props to Ian for e-mailing me a clean version, less than two days after I sent him a begging email). The Timmy Regisford track still sound rather awful: after nearly taking my turntable apart, I was forced to conclude it was a shitty vinyl pressing (happens a lot with white label acetate pressings)… bah, we’ll say it adds to the authenticity….

Oh, and also: since it was recorded in faux-mono anyway (stupid mixing board issue + laziness from yours truly), I used single-channel mp3 encoding: freeing 30 much needed megs on my server drive, hopefully without noticeable difference in quality.