jeffpaulsen

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Pachelbel-Rant-Never-look-at-the-Canon-in-D-the-same

This guy plays the Canon in D on guitar, while ranting about it. He takes us through the horror of the boring cello part, and demonstrates how much popular music is nothing more than Canon in D with different lyrics. I recommend that you see this if you are a music geek, or if you know one.

Since you are reading this, you know one.

Sigivald and I went up to Seattle for the company xmas party. ula1066 couldn't make it due to her own work sucking muchly. The company had dinner at Union (1400 first ave), possibly the best restaurant meal I have ever had, no shit.

I got to meet some of this fall's new hires. We talked music for a while, and one of them turned me on to a band called DragonForce, which is Epic Power Metal of the geekiest kind. Two guitar harmony a la Iron Maiden, blast beat drumming in the hardcore / black metal style, clean falsetto vocals like Judas Priest, mega-catchy melodic hooks -- coupled with lyrics about D&D, video games, &c.

Breakfast was dim sum at Doong Kong Lau on Aurora. It's a Hakka place, which is the oppressed minority cuisine of China or something. The food looks familiar if you eat dim sum regularly, but the flavors are different and awesome.

So I'm listening to the new Southern Lord Records sampler Darkness Hath No Boundaries v2, and track 2 is "Corkscrew" by Oren Ambarchi. This is pure minimalism: a repeating series of tones that evolves over a long period (more than nine minutes in this case). It is somehow metal, because it is bleak and slow and heavy. There's no distortion or vocals.

I need more of this. It fits in with Philip Glass and John Adams quite well.

Lewis & Clark College wind band graciously lets me sit in with them, even though I am not a student, nor even an alumnus. Last night was the Rogers Concert, an annual celebration of a major donor to the college's music department, and lots of fun for all concerned. We played:

• Emissary Fanfare from Verdi's Otello, act 3
• Marche Hongroise from Berlioz's Damnation of Faust

It went very well. Playing good music is a mitzvah.

Shows coming up in Portland the next month: there is Gwar, which I haven't seen since '92 or so. The new album sounds pretty darn good, so that's on the maybe list. Also on the maybe list: Kool Keith, aka Dr Octagon, at the Doug Fir Lounge. Keith may be insane, and addicted to porno, but he also wrote "Earth People", the finest set of interplanetary rhymes available in this dimension.

The dude's skills are so fly, that he does not actually need to make his rhymes rhyme. He gave up on conventional logic and sense long ago. He says things like:

Supersonic, bionic robot voodoo power
Equator X, my chance to flex skills on Ampex

How can I resist? Well, by not going because I'm busy, and I don't know how I'd fit in at a hip-hop show. Even a weird one.

[update - Sigivald reminds me of another great Kool Keith rhyme from Rockets on the Battlefield:

Aluminum kneecaps release raps like rayguns, destroyin territories
Toys, pterodactyl dinosaurs get bombed in space wars
Layin on galactic floors, amputated, disconnected collections
in more than, fifty seconds, warehouse with skulls
Land amphibians, welfare recipients
with beautiful women from the Caribbean

That song is about him not liking his old record company, actually.]

I'm listening to Philip Glass - Powaqqatsi, to be specific - and it occurs to me that (in my musically informed opinion) you could put PLENTY of 20th C. music up against Bach and Beethoven and Mozart and others of much ilk, and not be ashamed of the output of our modern composers.

Here's what's good (feel free to mention more in comments, or simply argue with me; I'm cool with that):

• Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi
• John Adams - Christian Zeal and Activity, Nixon In China (in particular act 1 scene 1, from "Soldiers of heaven hold the sky" to "News has a kind of mystery")
• George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue, Porgy and Bess
• Bela Bartok - all three piano concertos

and of course plenty of goodness from Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten, and them-all.

On the down side of the century, we also produced Iannis Xenakis, George Crumb, and "Who Let the Dogs Out". [edit - it was very unfair of me to lump Crumb in with Xenakis and some pop crap. Specifically, I didn't like "Black Angels". The rest of the man's output might be fantastic, and I shouldn't have lumped him in with the guy who thought stochastic music was a good idea.]

Havergal Brian, I still can't classify. He might be great, but mostly he's just ambitious.

This was inspired by a question that came up on a pro wrestling video review site I read. How geeky is that? Anyhow, the question is: what cover songs are superior to the original? Here are some things I came up with:

This is for magni_ulfredson, since I think nobody else but me and Sigivald would care.