September 21, 2006 (link)

6:37 PM

I don't know if I get it anymore, either.

("He doesn't play lots of notes, or fast runs, or any particularly fancy licks" -- way too easy to imagine this being said in Homer Simpson's human-interest-story voice. Something along the lines of "We didn't have the best tools or all the know-how, but we did have a wheelbarrow full of love".)

("And a cement-mixer full of hope and some cement.")

("For no reason, here's Apu...")

Current music: Wave World - "Life's Orchestra"

(Comments for September 21, 2006)

September 18, 2006 (link)

10:21 PM

I've written about it here, and here, and here too, among other places. And now I can say:

One more Holy Grail found, and another one sent to me privately, all thanks to Mr. G.

He tells me that the film clip from which the bassoon and glockenspiel song is taken depicted a hawk in flight; that sounds about right to me, though I can't retrieve the visual. The transcription I did from memory back in 1998 turned out to be fairly accurate for the kayak song, less so for the hawk; that also sounds about right to me, since I strongly suspect that the kayak clip got way, way more airplay. (Of the two, the kayak song is also arguably the more fully realized composition.)

And they're both written by Joe Raposo! How cool is that? "I was surprised to learn that he considered Raposo a bigger influence on his music than Brian Wilson" -- and I might too, at that.

Before we get off the Sesame Street topic, this might be the greatest Ernie and Bert sketch ever. "Lemme just check...I don't know who that is!" "Lyle, Talbot, don't worry!"

And though at first the visuals to this film about crayons felt more familiar than the music, after a listen or two the awesomeness of the tunes was in full effect. Those big chords at 0:47, like a cross between "The Juggler" and Ladyhawke. And check out the part in 5/8, starting at about 1:05, it's like a Gentle Giant song or something! So many notes, all that work, and the part only happens once -- these guys had tashinamu in spades. I might transcribe it later this year, I wanna play it on stage...someday.

(I originally wrote "...before the world goes rotten" but that's a bit too grim even for me.)

Meanwhile, some guys put together a list of the five greatest video games ever, each of them doing their own set of five. Here's mine, at least for today -- keeping in mind that, as a dyed-in-the-wool retrogamer, I've scarcely played any systems post-SNES:

• Dungeons of Daggorath (ridiculously ahead of its time; gave me nightmares for years)
• Robotron: 2084 (cokehead gaming perfection)
• Marble Madness (maybe shouldn't quite be here, but I love it)
• Mortal Kombat II (the greatest fighting game ever, perfectly balanced and paced, a kind of classical simplicity to it)
• Super Metroid (might be the best "modern" video game, i.e. with an ending, of all time)

(Honorable mentions include: Galaga, Tempest, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Out of This World, Super Monkey Ball 2. One of the Hugo games might deserve a mention; there's gotta be an NES game I'm missing, too. And that's not to mention all the ones I've found in some way haunting, of which there are too many to list.)

Finally: they didn't input it as a phrase (i.e. in quotes), but someone got here searching on "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything Croatian", which is pretty out of hand.

("Razbicu ti glavu!" "Now, see, that's exactly what I mean.")

Current music: P. - "Untitled #2"

(Comments for September 18, 2006)

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