'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
By Baron Dave Romm
It's a mistake to lump music by decades. "The 1960s" doesn't tell you anything in terms of music influence or style. Here are two collections, only five or six years apart, that reflected and altered the tastes of many in the Baby Boom generation. It's also a mistake to lump all Boomers together, as these CDs demonstrate. With some overlap of audience, the teens listening to AM radio in 1963 were a very different group than the teens listening to FM radio in 1968.
One of the best aspects of CDs is Best of collections. Companies can mine old material without new recordings at all. Try to avoid the little 10-song throw-aways and get the extensive retrospectives. I've reviewed Boomer music collections from some of the major artists, and finally got to The Best of the Rooftop Singers. I, like most people, know them for their one hit, Walk Right In. They weren't together for very long and produced only three albums 1963-65. They were formed by Erik Darling (who had replaced Pete Seeger in The Weavers) and other pros.
The CD is unexpectedly great. The Rooftop Singers never quite caught on, but should have. They introduced 12-String guitar to folk, and their harmonies terrific and song selection varied. 1962 was right at the beginning of the folk revival (though many would say it never went away) and at the end of the 50s beat era. Imagine the harmonies of Peter, Paul and Mary with the jazz vocals of The Manhattan Transfer with dialog coach Maynard G. Krebs.
Interestingly (to me), one of the songs on the CD, credited to Darling, I'd just heard the week before. The American Folksay vinyl wasn't worth getting at the time, but the CD releases are better. The sound is still awful, but at least they put two records on a CD, and the digitization means I can try to clean up the tracks myself. American Folksay 5-6/Chain Gang, is one of several CDs in the series. I was unable to find the date of the original released, but Leadbelly died in 1949 so I'm assuming the recordings are from the late 30s or early 40s.
Both CDs have a version of Ham and Eggs and Froggy Went A'Courtin'. The latter is simply "Adapt. with new music" while the former is stolen. A common occurrence with folk music, alas. The obvious connection -- Pete Seeger -- isn't on either song. Still, I'm vastly amused that two records, from as much as 30 years apart, are mining the same material. Circa 1963, Depression Era music and Chain Gang work songs weren't quite as popular as they had been in the days of Woody Guthrie.
Walk Right In may have been The Rooftop Singers' only song to chart nationally, but some of the songs got regional airplay; a good example of the taste of independent radio stations. The songs still work today. Recommended, and more than iPod worthy.
The White Album (technically, The Beatles) could be a Best Of. I hadn't needed to enter the double CD set into my Individual Song Database since I was very familiar with the songs, but it rose to the top of the stack. Formally entering the songs into my system means a close listen with headphones.
What a great album! The ninth best selling album of all time in the US is near the top of several Music of the Millennium lists. Some of the all-time best songs by one of the all-time best musical groups. While My Guitar Gently Weeps has long been one of my two favorite Beatles songs (the other being Eleanor Rigby) but I had to also give my highest rating to: Dear Prudence, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Piggies (how can anyone live without hearing Piggies now and again?) and Rocky Raccoon. But you knew that. What really prompted this review was Revolution 9. It's a very famous song that almost everyone recognizes from Ringo singing, "number nine, number nine, number nine..." but almost no one could tell you anything else about. I don't think I've heard the entire 8:13 since... well, I'm tempted to say ever but I'm sure I made it through the whole thing at least once in college. Certainly, it's not a song in the traditional sense. On the other hand, it is a very early example of what's all-too-common now: Sampling. Revolution 9 doesn't have a plot (that I can discern) but the bits and pieces are edited exceptionally smoothly. This was quite a feat in 1968, when the Killer App was... stereo. The first two Beatles albums were released in Mono (in the US). One of the reasons The Firesign Theatre made such a splash was their innovative use of stereo. By 1968, the year The White Album came out, stereo was no longer cutting edge but was still a new toy for producers to play with. Indeed, The White Album was released in mono in Britain (along with a stereo release). Revolution 9 uses stereo very nicely; that it still holds up as a piece of engineered sampling nearly 40 years later is testament to George Martin, the Producer.I will unhesitantly recommend The White Album for anyone. Pick your favorites, if you will, but most of the songs should be on your iPod. I don't necessarily recommend that you listen to all of Revolution 9 more than once every 30 years or so...
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. To receive the show as podcasts go to Shockwave Radio Theater Podcast or paste the following string in your podcast software: http://www.romm.org/podcast and if that doesn't work try the link from Podcastalley.com's listing. All podcasts also on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air. --////
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Hailey Woldt: A Young American in the Muslim World (beliefnet.com)
In traveling through the Muslim world, I learned that compassion and dialogue is the only way to build a lasting relationship.
Kim Ficera: Don't Quote Me: Faith in America (afterellen.com)
"Our hope is that the ads will speak to those people who are using religious teachings to justify attitudes of intolerance and discriminationŠ I felt it necessary for me to develop some concepts that would speak to Christians who hold attitudes I once held." - Brent Childers
ASLAN BROOKE: On The QT OLD HOLLYWOOD'S DEEP, DARK SECRETS (frontierspublishing.com)
In his engrossing and meticulously researched book Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969, William J. Mann notes that Hollywood's goal in the early days was to portray "the bourgeois American ideal."
SUCCESS & HAPPINESS
The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the milestones are lifted. - George Bernard Shaw
Gay duck couple 'come out' (iafrica.com)
In the middle of mating season, a couple of male ducks returned to a park in southern Sweden, for the third consecutive year, ignoring the siren calls of all the lady ducks around them.
Toys for Billionaires
An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture
Quiz: Test your knowledge of lesbian comedians
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Warm, sunny day.
Added a new flag - Bahamas 
'Gnomeo' to Miramax
Elton John
Weeks after Disney's new animation chiefs scrapped Elton John's musical "Gnomeo & Juliet," the pop star has taken his project to Miramax Films.
The animated twist on Shakespeare's tragic romance is set in the world of tacky garden gnomes. It will be produced in Britain, with lyricist Tim Rice still on board to collaborate with John on the songs, and Kate Winslet attached to voice Juliet. Rice and John won an Oscar in 1995 for their work on the "Lion King" song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight."
"Gnomeo" was in development for several years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, but was axed last month in the wake of Disney's purchase of Pixar Animation Studios. Pixar chiefs John Lasseter and Ed Catmull are reviewing all Walt Disney Feature Animation legacy projects while simultaneously developing new animated titles.
Elton John
Gibson Factory To Host
Ponderosa Stomp
Displaced by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans-based music festival the Ponderosa Stomp will take place May 8-10 at the Gibson Guitar factory in downtown Memphis.
The festival is organized by the Mystic Knights of the Mau Mau, a nonprofit organization benefiting the New Orleans Musicians Clinic and MusiCares.
The factory builds Gibson's ES Series of electric guitars -- specifically, the B.B. King "Lucille" model and the Chet Atkins Country Gentleman model. Assembly lines will be shut down for the Stomp. Capacity is 1,200, and the factory has served as a venue in the past.
Ponderosa Stomp
Reaches North Pole, Issues Warming Warning
Albert of Monaco
Prince Albert of Monaco reached the North Pole and issued a warning about the effects of global warming, calling on everyone to make an effort to combat it.
Albert reached the North Pole after a four-day husky-drawn sled journey aimed at drawing attention to global warming, the palace in the principality said earlier.
He said the effects of global warming were evident: near the pole some open channels were hardly frozen
Albert of Monaco
Electrifies Libyans
Lionel Richie
With Muammar Gaddafi's home as a backdrop, U.S. singer Lionel Richie jived and rocked for an adoring Libyan audience on Saturday in a concert to mark the 20th anniversary of a U.S. raid on the North African country.
He was followed by Spanish opera stars Jose Carreras and Ofelia Sala who belted through a selection of classic favorites backed by 60-piece orchestra under a cloudless night sky.
The Organizers said they wanted the Western singers' star power to underline the sincerity of Libya's three-year-old rapprochement with the outside world, bury past enmities and promote a message of goodwill.
Lionel Richie
Voted Britain's Favorite Lyric
U2's 'One'
The Irish band U2 has given Britain its favorite song lyric, according to a survey released Monday.
The line "One life, with each other, sisters, brothers" from the 1992 song "One" topped a poll conducted by music channel VH1.
Runner-up was the downbeat "So you go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home, and you cry, and you want to die" from The Smiths' "How Soon is Now."
U2's 'One'
Apocalypto Delayed
Mel Gibson
Movie fans will have to wait a bit longer to see Mel Gibson's next foray into olden times, the Mayan epic Apocalypto.
The action adventure has been bumped from Aug. 4 release to Dec. 8. A spokesman for Disney, which is releasing Apocalypto, said Sunday the production had fallen behind because of heavy rains in the wilds of Mexico, where Gibson is shooting the film.
Like Gibson's religious blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, which was shot in Aramaic and Latin, Apocalypto is being done in an ancient tongue, Yucatec Maya.
Mel Gibson
Stays the Course
Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity will not abandon ship. Resident Bush's approval ratings have sunk into the 30s, but Fox News Channel's tenacious conservative isn't wavering in his support, even while parting ways with the president over immigration and the Dubai ports deal.
"Let me be straight with you - I like George Bush," Hannity said. "I think he's a man of principle, a man of faith. I think he's got a backbone of steel and he's a real, genuine, big-time leader ... He's a consequential figure for his time. We don't see it right now."
Hannity was plucked from talk radio nearly 10 years ago for the Fox show. He labored largely unnoticed in those early years, which was probably a good thing, said Bill Shine, Fox News Channel's senior vice president of programming.
"In the beginning, he was awful. Really bad," Shine said. Hannity would ask three-minute questions that would end with, "aren't I right?" he said.
Sean Hannity
Blocked E-Mail
AOL
America Online on Wednesday apparently began blocking e-mail on its servers containing the Web address of a petition against the company's upcoming certified-mail program, an issue the company called a "glitch."
The Internet service provider, which has roughly 20 million subscribers in the United States, began bouncing e-mail communications with the URL "Dearaol.com" sometime late Wednesday and continuing through Thursday.
An e-mail sent by CNET News.com to an AOL.com address and containing the URL "www.dearaol.com" bounced back on Thursday afternoon with a system administrator note that read: "The e-mail system was unable to deliver the message, but did not report a specific reason."
AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said late Thursday that AOL e-mails mentioning Dearaol.com would now be delivered as normal. The issue, he said, arose late Wednesday because of a software glitch that "affected dozens of Web links in messages," including the Dearaol.com.
AOL
Thousands Celebrate
1916 Irish Rebellion
More than 2,500 Irish military personnel, some saluting atop tanks and others marching with fixed bayonets, paraded Sunday past the bullet-scarred spot where rebels launched a fateful Easter 1916 rebellion against British rule.
It was the first such commemoration in four decades because of official sensitivities over IRA bloodshed.
Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, President Mary McAleese and several hundred descendants of the Easter Rising rebels watched from the main viewing stands as the military parade passed down Dublin's major thoroughfare, O'Connell Street, and past its iconic General Post Office, the rebels' headquarters for the weeklong Easter Rising.
"Today is a day of remembrance, reconciliation and renewal," Ahern said in a speech shortly before the parade. "Today is about discharging one generation's debt of honor to another. Today, we will fittingly commemorate the patriotism and vision of those who set in train an unstoppable process which led to this country's political independence."
1916 Irish Rebellion
Saves Baby's Life
Unnamed Cat
A cat saved the life of a newborn baby abandoned on the doorstep of a Cologne house in the middle of the night by meowing loudly until someone woke up, a police spokesman said Saturday.
"The cat is a hero," Cologne police spokesman Uwe Beier said. "Its loud meowing got the attention of the homeowner and saved the baby from suffering life-threatening hypothermia. The homeowner opened door to see why the cat was making so much noise and discovered the newborn."
Beier said the boy was taken to hospital at 5 a.m. on Thursday, when overnight temperatures fell toward zero, and had suffered only mild hypothermia. He said there was no indication of what happened to the boy's mother.
Unnamed Cat
In Memory
Walter Clyde "Puggy" Pearson
Poker legend Walter Clyde "Puggy" Pearson, the man credited with creating the style of play made famous by the World Series of Poker, died Wednesday, his family said. He was 77.
Pearson was known as the father of no-limit freeze out poker, the game Benny Binion turned into the World Series of Poker at his Horseshoe Club casino in downtown Las Vegas in 1970.
Pearson also was known as a classic Las Vegas character, a storyteller with a flare for the dramatic who donned elaborate costumes and wacky hats at the start of each World Series competition.
He won the tournament four times in the 1970s and 1980s, when the game was largely the province of big gamblers from Texas. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1987.
Walter Clyde "Puggy" Pearson
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