'TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Psychedelic Rock, Jazz and Grunge from Seattle
By Baron Dave Romm
Seattle, well-known for the grunge scene, is also home to some other energetic music. Vagrant Records is an independent label that has been around for several years, and has a large catalog of punk, surf and other music. I've been listening to more of their catalog, and will mention a few of their CDs now and again.
The Goats is an eponymous release from this year. All the tracks are rock instrumentals that would be at home in the grunge 90s or the psychedelic 60s. Throw in a twist of surf and a dash of punk. These guys have confidence in their own abilities. I don't really have a lot to say about them, except that they're going into my listening rotation. Clean melodic lines, fuzzy guitar, excellent percussion, electronic keyboard and a strong base produce some very iPod worthy (iPw) tunes.
Bastardos, by The Bastards of Jazz is Vagrant's other recent release. Like The Goats, the CD is all instrumental, but this time it's jazz. The sextet comprises excellent musicians on trumpet, trombone, sax, guitar, bass and drums. They effortlessly slip from smooth jazz to atonal to a large sound, and they're as comfortable with old standards from Thelonius Monk and Benny Goodman as they are with their original pieces. Upbeat jazz with a brassy, latin beat. Definitely iPw.
Doesn't Play Well With Others by Six Select tries to add a bit more range to the Seattle grunge scene, and often succeeds. Solid, if weepy, rock with nice vocals and occasional surprises in instrumentation; haven't heard a good flugelhorn in a long time. Well performed with good hooks. None of the songs grabbed me on first listening, but perhaps grunge connoisseurs will appreciate the lyrics more. "Would you stop pretending, you're so condescending", "You see me falling down like a satellite, the gravity is close to the hole" and so forth. Despair stuff for teens. What the heck. I'll pick a couple iPw tunes and see if I develop a taste.
I have a spare copy of Doesn't Play Well With Others which I'll include in the next order of Shockwave Silver, the 25th commemorative CD comprising 12 hours of mp3s of the show. This offer is good for readers of Bartcop-E until the next column (8/8/05) only. Order Shockwave Silver here (remember to add postage) and I'll add the Six Select CD to the mailing
On a sad note, I mourn the passing of Pat McCormick, one of my all-time favorite comics. His career as a writer was wide and varied, and moved in front of the camera fairly often. Whether a writer for the Johnny Carson Show or a panelist on The Gong Show, he always seemed to have a knack for the right pun and the deadly comic timing. One of the original 'out of the box' writers, he will be missed.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia with a radio show, a Live Journal demi-blog, 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 , and you can hear the last two Shockwave broadcasts in Real Audio (scroll down to Shockwave). Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
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Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Kristen Lombardi: Hillary Clinton Strikes Gold in Bush Country (villagevoice.com)
Texas ranks second only to New York in bucks for the senator
Charles Cutter: The Best President America Never Had (cuttersway.com)
Americans have not yet begun to pay the price for the Bush presidency.
GENE JOHNSON: Judge Gets in Swipe at Bush Administration (The Associated Press)
The sentence itself was fairly straightforward: An Algerian man received 22 years for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium. It was what the judge said in imposing the term that raised eyebrows.
Nikki Finke: The Michael Kinsley Experiment Ends at L.A. Times (L.A. Weekly)
Michael Kinsley said he'd done a pretty good job of editing the Los Angeles Times editorial pages but on what planet? He's actually done a pretty horrible job that's proved disastrous both to his persona and the paper's prestige.
Lauren Patrizi: My College Addiction (Campus Progress. Posted on Alternet)
There is a new addiction plaguing college campuses -- online gambling.
Ben Kenigsberg: Infinite Jest: Countless Variations on a Classic Naughty Joke
Going deep inside the improvisers' studio, The Aristocrats examines the timeless appeal of a notorious vaudeville joke-a kind of "secret handshake" among comedians.
A NEW RANT
FROM AVERY ANT
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny & pleasant, but hot & cruel further inland.
Had fun on Erin's show last night - as usual. Bummer her computer system crashed.
Thanks for the nice note, Marianne!
TV Network Debuts Today
Al Gore
Much of the talk around Al Gore's new Current TV network has been broadly philosophical, like the former vice president's statement that "we want to be the television home page for the Internet generation." With its debut Monday, Current TV will be judged by the same mundane standards as other networks - on whether its programming can hold a viewer's interest.
Gore and his fellow investors envision Current as a sounding board for young people, a step beyond traditional notions of interactivity. They want viewers to contribute much of the network's content now that quality video equipment is widely available.
Most of its programming will be in "pods," roughly two to seven minutes long, covering topics like jobs, technology, spirituality and current events. An Internet-like on-screen progress bar will show the pod's length.
Every half-hour, Current promises a news update using data from Google on news stories most frequently searched for on the Web.
Al Gore
MSGOP Moves Show - 'Ratings Not A Factor'
Tucker Carlson
MSNBC is moving low-rated rookie "The Situation With Tucker Carlson" to 11 p.m. ET to make way for Rita Cosby's new show and also to open up a West Coast front in the cable news war.
The former "Crossfire" co-host moved to MSNBC this year after a well-publicized break with CNN. "The Situation" bowed in the 9 p.m. ET slot in June with ratings that haven't matched Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes" or even CNN's top-rated show, "Larry King Live."
But MSNBC president Rick Kaplan said Friday that ratings weren't a factor in relocating "The Situation" to the final hour of six hours of live primetime programing in cable news. Kaplan said and 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT live show has been in the plan since well before "The Situation" debuted. At that time, Fox News reruns "The O'Reilly Factor" and CNN airs "Lou Dobbs Tonight" for the West Coast.
Tucker Carlson
Chinese Pirates Hawk Translations
Harry Potter
Though it's missing some paragraphs and gets a couple of facts wrong, an unauthorized Chinese version of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was on sale Sunday in Beijing, just two weeks after the book appeared in English and almost three months ahead of the planned October launch of the official Chinese-language edition.
Impatient Chinese fans also have begun posting their own translations online. One reader was so upset about the ending he wrote his own and posted it on a university Web site.
The fantasy series by J.K. Rowling is wildly popular in China, where the hero is known as "Ha-li Bo-te" and authorized translations of five earlier books have sold millions of copies. In 2002, an unknown Chinese author produced an entire fake adventure, "Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon."
Harry Potter
Kicked Out Of Sports Show
O.J. Simpson
O.J. Simpson -- acquitted of killing his ex-wife and her friend nearly 10 years ago -- showed up to sign autographs at the National Sports Collectors Convention in Rosemont on Saturday but was asked to leave within an hour, convention organizers said.
Celebrities need prior approval to sign autographs at the show, and neither Simpson nor the exhibitor that apparently invited him had sought permission, convention spokesman Bob Ibach said.
Simpson apparently was invited by exhibitor Justin Communications, which had advertised memorabilia autographed and personalized by Simpson, officials said. Some of his signed items reportedly were going for about $100 Saturday.
When convention officials got wind of Simpson's arrival, they had security escort him from the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center without incident. Justin Communications was also evicted from the show, which ends today.
O.J. Simpson
Finds 10th Planet
Caltech
A California astronomer has discovered what he believes is the 10th planet in our solar system, a group of NASA-funded researchers said on Friday.
The new planet, known as 2003UB313, has been identified as the most distant object ever detected orbiting the sun, California Institute of Technology astronomer Michael Brown said.
Brown and colleagues Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz have submitted a name for the planet to the International Astronomical Union and are confident it will be designated a planet. Brown did not reveal the proposed name.
Brown said the new planet was detected in January by the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego.
Caltech
Wonder if they'll name it 'Xena'?
Leave Your Water Pistols Home
Oh, Canada
Exasperated Canadian air safety officials Thursday told passengers "to leave their water pistols and toy guns at home" because they were triggering big delays at airport security.
Screening staff found nearly 3,000 toy guns, water pistols, toy grenades and other items resembling real weapons between January and June of this year, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority said.
Last year, the interception of prohibited items at Canadian airport security checkpoints caused delays totaling 15,000 hours, the authority said.
Oh, Canada
Image Of Jesus On Tree
Pilgrims
Christians are flocking to a northwestern Bosnian town to view an image of Jesus Christ that allegedly appeared in a section of a cut tree branch two days ago, Bosnian media reported Friday.
The image resembling Jesus' face cannot be seen from a close distance but only from a few meters away. The branch in the town of Bijeljina was cut about a year ago, said Oslobodjenje daily.
Sceptics have dismissed the image as a freak of nature, but pilgrims have been streaming to the tree, kneeling before it to pray, lighting candles, leaving money and cutting off bark to take home.
Pilgrims
Sponsor Pulls Plug On Toss
Tomato Festival
The first Great Tomato Toss has gone to seed. Appliance manufacturer Maytag pulled its support for the Aug. 13 event, which was to feature hundreds of Fairfield residents hurling tomatoes at each other. Maytag planned to film the event to advertise a new washing machine.
Organizers had hoped the 15-minute event would juice up the annual Tomato Festival in this town about an hour south of Sacramento. The festival will go on, but probably without any tossed fruit.
Maytag declined to say why the event was called off.
Tomato Festival
Smelly Fungus Sparks Police Hunt
Stinkhorn
The odour given off by an unusually large fungus in Germany was so foul that it sparked off a police hunt for a corpse, authorities said on Sunday.
A spokesman for police in the eastern city of Dresden said that following reports from local people about the smell, five officers and a sniffer dog went to investigate in a forest close to the German-Czech border.
"Then they discovered this gigantic stinkhorn," he said, referring to the foetid-smelling, oddly-shaped fungus with the Latin name Phallus impudicus. "Those things really do stink."
Stinkhorn
In Memory
Hildegarde
Hildegarde, the "incomparable" cabaret singer whose career spanned almost seven decades, has died. She was 99.
The performer, who was credited with starting the single-name vogue among entertainers, died Friday at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Hospital, said Don Dellair, her longtime friend and manager.
Born Hildegarde Loretta Sell in Adell, Wis., she was known for 70 years simply as "The Incomparable Hildegarde," a title bestowed on her by columnist Walter Winchell.
During the peak of her popularity in the 1930s and '40s, she was booked in cabarets and supper clubs at least 45 weeks a year. She appeared on the cover of Life magazine in 1939, and her recordings sold in the hundreds of thousands. Revlon even introduced a Hildegarde shade of lipstick and nail polish.
From the 1950s through the '70s, in addition to her cabaret performances and record albums, she appeared in a number of television specials and toured with the national company of the Stephen Sondheim Musical "Follies."
Hildegarde
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