Its the time

Well first off, Merry Thanksgiving to you, my loyal readers. I do know its been awhile since my recent publishing but you must understand holidays, family stress and videos games have taken a toll on the time I can dedicate to this blog. Never mind the endless preparation for Christmas gigs.

So this entry will be scattered as usual as it will cover a couple issues these past few weeks have brought up. First off, the UMBC Symphony concert last Sunday went incredibly well. The group pulled off almost professional level performances of Stravinsky, Bizet, Mendelssohn, Strauss, and Mozart. I must say this concert left me quite winded due to the recent dietary changes I have made. Less calories = Less fuel for a performing. I cracked a few notes but overall I felt good about my playing. The quintet also played before the concert in the lobby, and as usual people enjoyed my arrangements. They especially liked the arrangement of the Godfather theme for tuba, and Good King Wenceslas. So lets say it was a success.

In the mail today, I received my copy of Jekyl and Hyde Concert Tour. This is PDQ Bach's newest CD. It was recorded live at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts in Owings Mills, MD. I was lucky enough to attend this concert for a bargain of $11. It was quite interest to witness how these sessions work. The string quartet that was there was able to pick up in the middle of phrases, and actually sound like they had played all the notes before it. Almost like a live "drop the needle". At this concert I was also blessed to meet THE PDQ Bach himself, Professor Peter Schickele.


With that photo I must say good night and take care, and may your turkey left overs be tender and moist.

Explorations

Hello friend(s). I write to you with fond greetings and a grasp at being entertained.

In my quest to find myself entertained, I took a journey to the local Super Walmart which just opened its doors to my Baltimore suburb. It is a bittersweet thing. As much as I despise walmart for censoring song lyrics on albums, thus making me go to a local record store to get my new copy of the Avenged Sevenfold CD. But they did happen to have, set up in demo mode, "Rock Band".

"Rock Band" is a new game coming out from the original designers of Guitar Hero, that not only allows you to play guitar, but drums, bass, and even be a vocalist! I played this demo for an hour, mot of it with a complete stranger on guitar. We became an amazing band. It will be coming out for PS2 on December 11, so I have started saving my pennies already. I may even...trade in....Guitar Hero III to help pay for it.

As I mentioned above about having to go to a local record store to pick up a CD. Thanks to the Walmart policy of censoring, it helped me rediscover the coolness of the "Record and Tape Traders" store in Catonsville. A whole section dedicated to metal. I'm in heaven. While picking up Avenged Sevenfold's new CD, which is incredible, as they continue what they did last album with amazing arrangements, and great vocals, with wonderful lyrics. Its a must buy. Back on topic though, I was able to also pick up another Dream Theater album, and an actual album by Dragonforce. This store not only had the albums I wanted and uncensored, but the CDs were a dollar cheaper. I spent 45 minutes in this little store just browsing. I was never bothered nor did I get odd looks for browsing metal, or buying the groups I was buying. It was a great shopping experience. Not to mention that the CDs I bought, all three of them, stellar.

Well my friends, I hope you find your drum heads tuned and your fills even and intriguing.

The Modern Legacy

With the recent passing of Robert Goulet and Lucianno Pavarotti, my brain has been working overtime on a single question to which I am at a loss to come up with an answer and hope my loyal readers can assist me with. The Question is this:

Who will be the legendary performers, that when they die, will truly be missed and be the defining voice and music of this generation, my generation?

Before we can approach this question, we must ask how an artist would reach that level. The obvious answers are they must sustain their popularity, they must be prolific, and of course, a smart agent and label that knows how to get them to the masses quickly.

The 1950's obviously gave us the "Rat Pack", led by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Frankie Blue Eyes made it in the 40's but was able to keep performing and recording into the 1980's carrying that generation from adolescence pretty much all the way to death. The same with Dean Martin, but the days then required them to be more than music personalities but stagemen and movie stars. They were also supported by a cast of lesser known musicians. Paul Anka and other songwriters, along with the bands of Al hirt, Tommy Dorsey, and others helped these talented vocalists obtain superstar status.

The 1960's changed this whole thing. Singer/songwriters took over as the folk movement pulled musc out of the nightclubs and theaters and put it in any long haired hippie with enough money to buy a guitar and get to San Francisco. The Beatles, holy moses were they big. John and Pauls songwriting charmed just about every ear in America, as Rock n Roll was being brought to forefront on the variety shows popping up on TV as the appliance was found in almost every living room. The birth of multimedia meant that you not only had to sound good, you had to look good. This idea was HUGE in the 1980's with the birth of MTV and later, VH1. A whole channel dedicated to music, and the art of the music video.

MTV started the overflow of bands. This overflow really led to the groups getting wilder and wilder, with the long hair, bright costumes, and really the virtuosity on electric guitar. If the Beatles were around in the 1980's they would have hair to their butt, wore leopard print pants and make up to make you kind of think they were girls so they could survive this era of you have 4 minutes of air time to hook teenagers with your crappy song to sell a million albums. GO! This really continued through 90's. If you ask someone to name a great band from the 1980's everyone will disagree. Everyone liked Sinatra, Deano and Sammy Davis Jr in their hayday.

The new millinium really brought this market saturation to a new level, with broadband music sharing. Everybody with a synthesizer and a microphone has a myspace music account, every band has a separate release date for iTunes and stores for hard copies of their music. They put demos on the net. Someone actually showe dme a band that was really good, bu they don't even have an album out yet! Just 4 tracks on myspace.

So with age of oversaturation (notice I'm not saying mediocrity, because there is some really great stuff going on) how is our generation to recognize an icon of their time when we no longer have them? The segregation of genres as well these days can cause a loss of focus. There is no Rock, Rap, Folk, Jazz, Classical anymore. Its not that simple. There are atleast 4 different types of metal these days. I can't tell someone I like Heavy Metal, I have to say Progressive/Symphonic metal. To which they say, "What the hell is that?" And I say, "Groups like Dream Theater, Symphony X." "Who the hell are they?". "They have a great guitarist, drummer, and synth players." "Oh, thats cool." We can't discuss music anymore without leaving one person completely clueless within two sentences. My grandfather though could talk for hours comparing Nat King Cole to Frank Sinatra to my great uncle, Ralph Sigwald, who was a famous singer for awhile in the 1950's. He was known as "The Caruso of the South."

So really this brings up the backside of the question of, does our generation care enough? The only artist I can imagine my generation and people a few years older and younger than me really caring about when his time comes is Michael Jackson. But I hope its for his amazing dancing and his partnership with Quincy Jones that made him bigger than Elvis. Elvis, I always like to think that if he was still alive, he'd have one of those every night shows in Vegas in his own theater. He would atleast make Celine Dion shut up. Maybe she wouldn't even have her own show.

On an unrelated topic, i bought tickets yesterday to go see Ozzy Osbourne and Rob Zombie. ALLLL ABOARD THE CRAZY TRAIN HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA