This is London.UK:
Forget Richard Simmons: Air Guitar Aerobics! Churn your air guitar with Pete Townshend windmills, and shed that flab.
BBC:
Time to dump MP3’s? “The wrong things are that it is old and no longer up to the job. In order to keep file sizes down MP3 encoding loses a lot of data, a lot more than modern formats, and this shows in the quality of the listening experience. The way it compresses files and plays them back means that the music too often sounds awful on anything but tinny laptop speakers or cheap earphones.” And here I got dumped on, when P2P first started, for saying MP3 sound quality was bloody awful. Well, the new-tech blinders are coming off, finally.
Guardian.UK:
Teaching rap in schools. “Why is it there? Principally, the authorities argue, because it gets kids reading - and, just like marijuana, it leads on to the hard stuff, like Shakespeare.” The mistake schools make, is that Shakespeare is meant to be performed, not force-fed to youngsters a half-dozen pages at a time. It is not ‘hard’. Reading “Romeo and Juliet” seems torture to youths; seeing it performed live will change kids’ perceptions of Shakespeare forever:
“If it were now to die,
‘Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear,
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate ...”
Yeah, you know which one.
NY Times Letters to the Editor:
“Let Freedom Reign”, I thought, after hearing it coined, was a reference to Martina McBride’s “Independence Day.”
Cow cow boogie.
A mention of Santa Fe. I love running across musical references ... Ella Fitzgerald, this time.
Camworld:
Draft Bruce. Fine idea.
Guardian.UK:
Death and the muse. In search of Beethoven’s “immortal beloved.” I guess the coda is ... if you don’t fess up, the immortality will go to the grave with you.
NY Times:
Ray Charles is dead. You’ve seen me through many ups and downs; I will miss you greatly. It’s not just a rainy night in Georgia, tonight. Rest in peace, sir.
Spiked-Online:
Harnessing innovation. Some might say, hogtying.
Boston Globe:
Be an elitist, and be proud. At least, over classical music. Then again, owning up to your copy of “The Court of the Crimson King” isn’t serfdom, either ...
NY Times:
The curse of beauty for serious musicians. She should have ignored the critics.
MSNBC/Reuters:
Viennese veggie orchestra makes sweet music. “Afterwards, 90 lbs of instruments are cooked for a soup ...”
SF New Mexican:
Clapton plans a guitar festival in Dallas. Damn, wish I could go.
The Economist:
Rest in peace, Sir Coxsone. “Reggae was meant to express peace, love and human solidarity. He lost patience with it once computers were brought in and obscenity cluttered the lyric line. Yet much of it was his music all the same, based on rhythms he and his players had invented in his tiny studio in Kingston.”
USA Today:
Particle physicists to help restore old audio recordings. Cool. Might I request more ancient Cab Calloway, sans scratches?
Village Voice:
I believe I will respect dancers quite a bit more, after reading this. (As if I didn’t, already.)
Globe and Mail:
US Military employs loud music in Fallujah. It is a conundrum, that we can use loud music as a weapon in foreign countries, but cannot get noise ordinances passed in the US.
It would be terribly ironic if Rage Against The Machine’s “Wake Up” was being played ...
BlackAmericaWeb:
Chubby Checker goes rap. “Chubby C.”
Editor & Publisher:
Newspaper Rock Critics Face the Music on Ageism. Ask the audience. Bob Dylan’s helping push mass-market lingerie. What else needs be said?
Commentary:
Fiddlers three. “Because he spent his peak years laboring anonymously in the Hollywood studios instead of performing in major American cities. As a result, he failed to win the critical acclaim that a violinist of his quality might reasonably have expected to receive.” I’ll have to listen to some of the classic movie scores more attentively ...
Leaves of Oak:
Austin, Live Music Gulag?
Prospect Magazine
looks at rap. Calling Eminem the ‘final chapter’? Eminem makes me think of Boswell describing Johnson; I may be stretching it comparing him to an ‘advocacy scholar.’
NY Daily News:
Artists pay homage to Jazz Diva Nina Simone. The late Ms. Simone has her own website.
Guardian.UK:
Four legs good, two legs better. Woodwinds good, violins better?
Washington Times:
Classical music hiding out in Hollywood. There’s a particular piece of classical music I’ve heard in more than one movie. I can’t remember it offhand; when I do, I’ll post it.
