Know when the holidays have officially arrived?

[Mark Suszko]

https://cridecoeur.vox.com/library/audio/6a00c2251ec0a6604a00cdf7ea29bf094f.html‘>

https://cridecoeur.vox.com/library/audio/6a00c2251ec0a6604a00cdf7ea29bf094f.html

I love Dread Zeppln, but Bob Rivers kicks butt on this clip

[Richard Cooper]

I LOVE Dred Zeppelin! I remember these guys from my Rock and Roll days back in the 90’s
Thank for sharing Ron.

Richard Cooper
FrostLine Productions, LLC
Anchorage, Alaska

Everyone has a story to tell.
https://www.FrostLineProductions.com

[Herb Sevush]

Ron –

Back in the Pleistocene era when I pretended to go to college I would, can you believe it, smoke some weed and get what they used to call “high.” And while I was mostly listening to The Band, Procol Harum and Jimi Hendrix in these situations, I would occasionally find myself sitting on my couch around 4pm with the TV on watching Hee-Haw and the Lawrence Welk show – and with the help of chemical stimulation I found I could enjoy the music there-in. It was like listening to something from another planet, but I figured music was music and I could dig it on those terms.

Dean Martin can be a little hard to take, especially if it’s anything either in Italian, about Christmas or recorded after about ’65, but it should be remembered that Deano was one of Elvis Presley’s favorite singers and an early model for him – which may not count for much, depending on how you view the King.

As for Sinatra – again, as long as you avoid anything recorded after the Beatles came out – he was the greatest interpreter of lyrics I ever heard. You just can’t be influenced by the fact that so many a**holes like him, or that he was a major jerk as well. That would be like not watching John Wayne movies because of his politics –

Anyhow, just imagine your never heard big band music before and treat it like you are listening to something just recorded in Malaysia – it’s not your thing, but it’s not bad.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Todd Terry]

Mike…. maybe it will warm your heart to know that even though I’m about as gentile as they come, one of my favorite parts of the holiday season is LATKES!!.

Sadly (and perhaps a bit sacrilegiously) they are often my first thought when I notice that B&H Photo is going to be closed for a few days).

Mmmmmmmmm.

Fortunately my better half learned to make them a few years ago when she was doing the graphic design and layout for a holiday cookbook (“Oh, these do sound good”). I was finally able to stop so meticulously timing my social calls to Jewish friends (“I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by to say happy holid….wait, do I smell latkes?”).

For those of you on the other side of the aisle… I urge you to Google a latke recipe now, get to cookin’, and join our Jewish brethren in the spirit of the season. And in a big heartwarming pile of potato cakes. Just like the Good Lord intended.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Ron Lindeboom]

I love Big Band music and have many CDs of it in my collection. I even got the chance to meet and hang out with Harry James before he died. Tres cool.

If I am forced to listen to crooners, I will take Mel Torme because of his ability to scat. I think that Deano is boring and no amount of alcohol will fix that opinion.

Regarding your reference to college and recreational substances, etc., I must confess that I was like the erstwhile President Clinton, who admitted that he once smoked pot but “didn’t inhale.” Me, I used to mess around as he did but if the truth be told, I didn’t “exhale” — no sense in wasting good smoke, after all.

I don’t listen to Gangsta Rap and I don’t watch TV shows like “Gangland” or “Growing Up Gotti,” or watch The Godfather movies. In the same way, I don’t like Frank Sinatra. If I have to listen to something of that ilk, I’ll take Bobby Darin or Bing Crosby.

I agree with many blacks that Elvis is about as much the King of Rock n Roll as Tiny Tim was. Did he help popularize it? Yes, but there are only about 5 true rock songs in his whole repertoire. The rest? You guessed it, lounge music.

But hey, these are just my opinions and my tastes have NEVER represented mainstream opinion. Hell, I buy all the albums that most people look at and say: “Don’t you own anything that anyone has ever heard of?”

But I like it.

And here’s one of my favorite guitarists of all time, he comes in about halfway through. There’s a false ending and it comes back for a second lead passage. Quite emotional playing…

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry

[Herb Sevush]

Ron –

It was only because I knew how wide ranging and eclectic your musical tastes were that I wrote to you – it surprised me that you had such definite limits – it shouldn’t have, we all do. Mine is Opera – can’t hear it, won’t try.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Ron Lindeboom]

I am a huge fan of *most every* kind of music, Herb. But I also take music as a spiritual journey/connection, and so I have limits to what I want to put into my cranium. That offends some people but that is okay, as I said that I also have very bizarre and eclectic tastes that are hardly mainstream in many instances.

I love Sarah Vaughn and many of the old jazz divas. I like many of the newer torch singers, as well.

I love SOME forms of opera and am a huge fan of classical music and also most every other form of music except hip hop and rap — it’s just not my thing. I can appreciate certain forms of metal and hardcore, and I like much of the new indie music that is out today.

I can do without Brittney and Christina or Mariah, am not big on Garth Brooks or any of the “cookie cutter country” stars that all look and sound the same.

Corporate music of any shape, size or description is not my cup of tea.

I tend to the eclectic and the melodic. The bigger the melodies and harmonies, the more I am probably going to like it.

But there are just some people that I do not want to listen to. It is less a style thing than a person thing.

After all, I even have a few hip hop and rap artists that I will listen to, and it is my least likely musical form.

I just don’t really like glorifying violence against women or other human beings and so the people that tend to the gangster thing and the mafia thing, etc., are not likely to score high on my list of people that I am going to “grant my rapidly turning time clock” to burning up its limited minutes, thank you.

But again, that’s just me. Others live in a different world and that’s what makes people so interesting.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry

[Herb Sevush]

Ron –

Not in a sense of argument but only to continue what I find to be an interesting conversation:

When I was in my twenties I remember talking to a friend of mine who much preferred the Beatles to the Stones because to him the Stones were too negative, too dark. It’s pretty hard to listen to Rock, a music based on the blues, and object to music based on all kinds of suffering, all kinds of abuse. If “darkness” was out then Robert Johnson should not be listened to, for his indeed was the devils own music – and if Johnson is out then where is John Lee hooker, Muddy Waters – yah da yah da. This was my argument with him. Being 22 I thought this was an argument that could be “won.” I’m a little older and don’t often make that same mistake.

Now you did say, as opposed to my old friend, that what you object to is music that “glorifies” violence, as opposed to being informed by it. That’s a reasonable position. But I do differentiate the artist from the art. I have no doubts that many of my musical hero’s have feet of clay – the less I know about them personally the better. But I can’t see giving up the Stones because Keith and Mick were whoring junkies or not listening to John Lennon because in a fit of pique he dropped a dime on Paul McCartney or not listening to The Who because Pete Townsend might have watched kiddie porn – I can carry the list to authors and poets and painters and comedians – I’m not willing to give all that up because I disapprove of the artists lifestyle. To contradict Mr Jagger – it’s the song, not the singer.

I am sympathetic to the idea that art should take us on a journey – when I read a book I love or listen to music that moves me I have to feel that I’m in communion with the artist – or else there is no art. However it is the artists soul I am in communion with, not his real life – his better-self, not the one that whacks his dog on a bad day.

As for Opera – my problem with European music in general is the belief that all of music is to be found in the notes, whereas I believe that what’s best in music cannot be notated. An operatic voice is trained to hit all the notes, but there is no notation that sounds like Van Morrison when he’s listening to the lion. I find the whole idea of the operatic voice, no matter how beautiful, to be anti-human – it treats the human voice as if it were an oboe, not a person. When I can hear an opera where the signer growls, roars, shouts and speaks – then I might give it a listen.

Just one man’s opinion.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Ron Lindeboom]

Music is a HIGHLY subjective experience, not one that is objective.

You don’t have to justify your contempt for opera, that is your prerogative. I never liked it either until I got to see some of the great operatic singers perform live. It is still not my favorite music, by a long shot, but I can appreciate it.

But like you, I will take Van Morrison over Luciano Pavarotti every time. ;o)

But…does that say that Van’s talent is greater than Luciano’s? Some would argue that it does — me, I wouldn’t.

The Rolling Stones have been too boring to talk about for a l-o-n-g time. I quit at Sticky Fingers. When Exile on Main Street had Happy and Tumbling Dice as the only two great songs, I gave away my copy and haven’t found one worth buying since.

But hey, I have the new Beatles Mono boxed set, so that must count for something, eh?

;o)

Ron Lindeboom

[Mark Suszko]

About as Catholic as they come, but we too enjoy latkes and sour cream this time of year, often with borsht on the side…… we also usually hand out some of the chocolate coin “gelt” as stocking stuffers for the kids, but alas, no dreidels.