School for the Duet

Things have changed for tonight's show. Both Max and Brian are indisposed so we will not be a full band. Tony and I, however, are completely disposed and we will be playing as a duet.

Now, we've done this before on a number of occasions and it's always great fun. We'll still try to play the new songs and at least a few of the requests that people emailed to us. I'll be playing the acoustic guitar. Tony will play the electric guitar. We'll both sing.

I don't know what slot of the evening we will be playing, however. I wish I could tell you, but my guess is as good as yours. The show starts at 10:00.

I also think I have thought up a good instant survey for y'all to fill out. I hope you can make it. This will be a special rare show and I think a nice way to display the songs.

Thanks,
Henning

The Meltdown

One of the great things about winter in New England is that the snow falls and it stays there for a really long time. OK, actually that's not so great. But because that happens, when it does finally melt, all kinds of lost or forgotten things are suddenly uncovered. When I walk down the street on a warmish day like today, I feel a little like an archaeologist observing my dig. Different levels from different storms are unveiled and then eventually, beneath those, are the treasures of the past.

Like for instance, in the front of my neighbors lawn, which just this morning finally has been uncovered, there appeared today, a pile of leaves with a rake lying on top of it. It looks like a snow storm suddenly came along and the person just vanished in the middle of their project. That pile of leaves and rake have now been hidden beneath the snow for two or three months. Mysterious.

Then you come across creatures like the one pictured here. This pin-headed snow person in its last moments seems to be sadly observing the coming of spring.

Mailing List Bonus and This Friday's Show

If you were on our mailing list you would have received the following in your inbox today. Notice that in the second section there is talk of a special download that is currently only available to our mailing list friends.

If you'd like to join our mailing list you can do that right there on the left where it says "Join our mailing list". If not, hey man, that's cool. No pressure.

Today's Mailing:

Hello hello hello hello,

It's the worst time of the year here in New England...late February. It feels like winter will never end. We've had enough. Still, there are nights like tonight where the frigid air feels real and fresh, like it's just blown down out of the starry skies. There are moments in winter where things are nice like that, but really, it's enough already.

But fear not. School for the Dead is going to try to smash some of the winter doldrums to bits this Friday night with our first show of 2009! We'll be a four piece band with Max, Brian, Tony, and Me and we've got a couple brand new songs to play for you. These two songs, "Someone Else's Problem" and "Title Unknown" have never been heard by anyone outside of my house before, so that should be fun.

We'll also play some other new stuff like "The Infinite Kitchen" and some tracks off of our last album, probably "Feel Like I Should" and "Thinking of a Time" and others. We'll also be playing songs from "The New You" and the "Chain CD" and who knows what else.

In fact, if you have a request, send it to me right now and I'll see if we can do it.

Here's the skinny on the show:

Friday - February 27th, 2009
At The Elevens, Northampton, MA (http://www.elevensmusic.com)
10:00 PM - 1:30 AM (I'm not sure when we are playing yet. My guess is near the end of the evening)
with these bands:
The Angels Share (http://www.myspace.com/thebandangelsshare)
Twin Berlin (http://www.twinberlin.com)
So Very Small (www.myspace.com/soverysmall)

Here's the poster: http://www.flickr.com/photos/henningo/3292265936

I hope you can make it. It won't be the same without you. Seriously.

________________________________________________________________

Here's a special thing that right now only you, as a friend on this mailing list, is privy to:

I've made a little mp3 deconstruction of the song "Looks Like I'm Tall" from my similarly titled solo album. In this download, I dismantle the recording of the song, pointing out individual parts and how they all fit together. If you are interested in how a song becomes a song in the studio, you might dig it. You can find it right here:

(Omitted)

Hope you enjoy it and that you don't find it too self-indulgent.

_________________________________________________________________

I think that is it for this mailing. I hope your 2009 is going well so far.

Thanks for all your support and for listening,
Henning
School for the Dead
http://www.schoolforthedead.com
http://rockumentary.net

Lousy Smarch Weather

I'm well aware of March.

All year long, I am completely and totally aware that the month March exists. I also know with no doubt that March is a cold long winter month here in New England. I know with utmost certainty that it is always a surprise when you are struggling through a treacherous February that you still have that long and windy month of March to get through before things start to ease up on you, weather-wise.

Yet here I am, in the midst of February, and I CAN'T BELIEVE that we still have March to get through. Every year it's the same thing and yet every year I can't freakin' believe it.

That's the beauty of living in an area of extreme seasons. They are so long and so all-encompassing that you really can forget what it is like on the other side of the calendar. Here, right now, in the thick of a salt-covered frozen gray February, the very idea of green trees and flowers and crickets and humidity seems completely impossible. I don't know how I got so stupid but the thrill is that each season feels brand new to me.

Except for right now. Right now winter is feeling really old, callously unforgiving, and relentlessly unrelenting. Even the mailbox outside looks like it's suffering.

(ask me again in ten minutes and I'll tell you how much I love the winter.)

Norm MacDonald and My Adventure In Idiocracy

I live in a college town. It's an arts community and a destination. I feel at home here and sometimes I forget that the rest of the country isn't just the same as this little city. That is...until I visit someplace else.

I get most of my impression of the world outside of my home through the television. For the last few years the quality of television has gotten really, really great. I've found that things I am watching are intellectually stimulating and surprisingly funny. The writers of today all grew up in the same generation as I did, I guess, and maybe that's why things speak to me so right-on these days. But, my view of the world is certainly distorted, since the programs that I am choosing to watch all lean in a certain direction. The Wire, Lost, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Office, 30 Rock, The Bill Maher Show, and Flight Of The Conchords for example are all somewhat cerebral. They have lots of layers, they require some attention to absorb. If I watched more things like The Hills or The Girls Next Door or whatever, I would have a different idea about the people how I share this world with. Just like if I lived in a place other than a small arty college town.

Last Friday night I went to see Norm MacDonald at The Huke Lau in Chicopee, Massachusetts. I'd been to The Huke Lau twice before (both times as a performer) so I knew what to expect from the room and the food and drinks. It's a completely hokey-goofy-cheeseball place with fake tropical decor and scorpion bowls and the likes. What I didn't expect was the people who made up the audience at this show. Certainly, I was aware that there would be plenty of baseball hats and perfume in the room, but I kind of expected that fans of Norm MacDonald might have a bit of edge to them, since his humor and delivery always seemed a little slow and deliberate and unusual to me.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

The place was as I remembered it. It was loud and chaotic and unabashedly in-your-face. But the audience was straight out of the movie Idiocracy. Throughout the entire performance there was an almost constant barrage of meat-heads just yelling out, "Hey Norm!" or "Dirty Work!" or "Artie Lang!". It was hell. I felt like I was on a school bus.

Jerks with huge shoulders were just yelling out these phrases while Norm MacDonald was trying to make it through his jokes. His delivery is slow and rhythmic and sometimes his gags are sort of hidden near the end of whatever little story he is telling. On many occasions, he couldn't make it to the end of his sentence because this crowd of frat boys and girls couldn't stand listening to something that took more than thirty seconds to pay off. The whole time I felt like I had to lean in and really try to focus on picking up the jokes. That's not the way to see comedy.

How was he supposed to react to these shouts anyway? Why were you yelling "Dirty Work!" at him? Yes, he was in a movie called that. Now what?

The comedian himself seemed totally resigned to this life on the road. He charges people thirty bucks to sit in a room, drink, and yell at him and his job is to just stand there. I felt terrible.

Other people weren't yelling anything out. They were just having full-on loud conversations at their tables. It's one thing to talk during a musical performance (something that drives me nuts, too) but it's even crazier to do it at a comedy show. I mean, what's the point of even being there? Why'd you shell out thirty bucks to eat crappy food and order expensive drinks in an uncomfortable room if it wasn't to see the performer? I am completely at a loss.

The show ended and it was almost a relief for me, because I could finally relax. I didn't have to strain to not be distracted by the constant movement and blabbering all around me. I didn't have to sit with tensed shoulders and feel like Norm MacDonald was going to snap at any minute, yell "shut-up you room full of idiots", and then get pummeled to death by guys with something to prove.

If that's the real world, I'm glad I live in the fake one.

25 Albums of Note - Another Facebook Meme

Another Facebook meme that's been going around is the list of 25 life-changing albums. I quickly made a list and then I thought, maybe I can make a thing that'll stream a song from each album here. I found something from every one except for The Figments. Sorry, Figments. I haven't listened to it yet, though, so I don't know if some might be live versions or wrongly labeled or anything. Here's the player:


SeeqPod - Playable Search

And here is my list of 25 albums:

1. Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother
2. Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
3. Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega
4. Freedy Johnston - This Perfect World
5. Velvet Underground - VU
6. The Beatles - Revolver
7. Ultravox! - Ha! Ha! Ha!
8. Jane Siberry - The Walking
9. Robyn Hitchcock - I Often Dream Of Trains
10. R.E.M. - Reckoning
11. XTC - English Settlement
12. World Party - Goodbye Jumbo
13. Nick Drake - Pink Moon
14. Elvis Costello - King Of America
15. Yes - The Yes Album
16. Harry Nilsson - Son Of Schmilsson
17. Randy Newman - Sail Away
18. They Might Be Giants - Apollo 18
19. The Church - Of Skins and Hearts
20. Simon and Garfunkel - Bookends
21. Paul Simon - Paul Simon
22. Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love
23. Hugo Largo - Drum
24. The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta
25. The Figments - Feel The Fields

The Fake Album Cover Meme on Facebook - Now In The Real World

Well, this is a thing going around on Facebook, but I figured I'd bring it out here to the real world so people who aren't members of Facebook can still play along. The instructions are here:

Make your fake band's album cover:

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

These are five that I did. I cheated a little on the images. Some of the ones that came up just weren't good enough even for a random thing. I'm sorry. Also, some Flickr images are protected in a way that they can't be copied or saved, so I had to refresh the random thing a few times to find ones that did.

My favorite thing is that it really feels like you can tell what kind of music is on these fake albums just by their fake covers. Ah the beauty of randomness...makes you wonder why it takes us so long to make our own real album covers.

The Whirlpool Is Here.

Ultravox - Slow Motion Live 1978

If you don't already like this song and these guys, this'll probably sound horrible to you. But for those of us that are fans, its a rare thing to see.

Sitting Next To Guitars

I spent a good part of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday working on recording guitars for Sitting Next To Brian. I didn't have too much luck really. I got some ideas but I was having trouble getting good sounds. Sometimes, it takes a little time to get back into the recording groove. But once it starts, I begin to hear all music differently. All the little parts jump out when I hear a song. I'm now listening to guitars in songs. If I'm in the car or in a store and there is music playing, my brain instantly focuses on the guitars. What do they sound like? Are they clean or distorted? Are they loud or quiet? Do they have an echo on them? What kinds of things are they playing and what is the rest of the band doing when they are playing? How do they fit in with the rest of the song?

By Monday, I started to have a little success. Brian's away in Mexico so I can pretty much do anything I want on these recordings. What's he gonna do throw a taco at me? That's a pretty far throw for a taco. A burrito....maybe.

Tonight, Tomorrow, and Beyond

Tonight I'm going over to the Elevens to see The Novels, Prabir and the Substitutes, and The Mountain Movers.

Tomorrow, Brian's coming into the studio and we are going to work on some guitar tracks for the new Sitting next To Brian CD. That's pretty exciting.

And hey, look at this! School for the Dead just booked a local show. We're playing at our home field, The Elevens, with So Very Small and Twin Berlin. I think we'll be a four-piece band for this show. Hopefully, we'll be able to bring a few new School for the Dead songs to the stage. Wouldn't that be something?

In the meantime, Rub Wrongways Records has a new plan, a new project, unfolding. It's totally top secret. Sorry.

Ultravox! Ha!-Ha!-Ha!

Am I the only person in the world who loves the first three Ultravox albums? Well, no, I know that I am not. My two older brothers are the ones who initially introduced them to me and I then went on to share them with other friends. Both Jims liked the albums and so did Herb. In fact one of the Jims made me a painting called "The Frozen Juans" which was based on the Ultravox song "The Frozen Ones". The painting was of a refrigerator full of sombrero wearing little guys.

But, I haven't really come across anyone else that seems to know the records. My favorite is "Ha!-Ha!-Ha!" (1977) which is one of those albums that I became so familiar with that I can start singing the next song at the exact time that it starts. You know what I mean?

It's a crazy combination of early synth glam electronic rock and punk. The album has a great sense of fun in it. When you listen you can feel how much the band must have been enjoying themselves in the studio, its experimental and loose and feels off-the-cuff while it maintains really solid arrangement and songs. It's definitely not for everyone, but come on! it's gotta be for some one! I mean, I like it, why doesn't everybody else?

This is the Ultravox! that existed before Midge Ure joined them and took them into the charts with singles like Vienna and Dancing With Tears In My Eyes. This Ultravox! yes, it had an exclamation point at the time, was led by John Foxx. I don't know much about these guys. I'm not one to delve too deeply into the history of the musicians I listen to. I wish I was, but instead I'll focus on the way the music has been with me for so many years.

The record makes me think of winter. Come to think of it, a lot of music makes me think of winter. I don't know if I listen to more music in the wintertime or if it somehow resonates with me more during those cold months, but much of my album collection makes me think of icy sidewalks in freezing winter nights. Ha!-Ha!-Ha! makes me think of Jim's big old car cruising up and down the sleepy streets of my home town. It brings back images of busted up old factories surrounded by the bony fingers of leafless brambles and trees. It's screaming and swooping guitars and its spacey analog synthesizers make me remember a late-night Boston-bound train careening through a snowstorm.

Have you ever heard the music that I am talking about?

1. ROckWrok (Foxx) – 3:34
2. The Frozen Ones (Foxx) – 4:07
3. Fear in the Western World (Foxx/Currie/Cross/Cann/Shears) – 4:00
4. Distant Smile (Foxx/Currie) – 5:21
5. The Man Who Dies Every Day (Foxx/Currie/Cross/Cann/Shears) – 4:10
6. Artificial Life (Foxx/Currie) – 4:59
7. While I'm Still Alive (Foxx) – 3:16
8. Hiroshima Mon Amour (Foxx/Currie/Cann) – 5:13

I had the album on a good old Maxell cassette. On the reverse side was their third record, "Systems of Romance", which I listened to far less. It was still great but it didn't have the chaos and immediacy that Ha!-Ha!-Ha! had for me. Why was it that this obscure British music from 1977 appealed so much to me in 1987 Massachusetts? I'm not sure. Who knows why any music or art actually works for anybody in particular? It felt real to me. It seemed like it was made by real people. In the late eighties, there wasn't much around that felt that way to me. Anyway at that time, I was mostly listening to music from the past decades. I had my contemporary favorites like R.E.M., Robyn Hitchcock, The Police but the records that really became mine were things like Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" and Yes' "The Yes Album". I was listening with all my concentration to Roger Waters and Suzanne Vega, Dire Straits and Kate Bush, Jane Siberry and Syd Barrett. And, strangely, Ultravox!

They somehow fit in with my love of psychedelic music. Their piercing reverbed guitar lines reminded me of albums like "Saucer Full Of Secrets". I got that same feeling in my gut as I got from those early Floyd albums or Jefferson Airplane or King Crimson or Moody Blues. It doesn't really make much sense musically I guess, but there was something in the ingredients of those early Ultravox! albums that left the same taste as those late sixties albums.

Also, it felt like a discovery, like it was our little secret. I'm pretty sure that Jim, Jim, and I were the only ones in my high school who regularly listened to these albums. It was like a little club. Once again, it was thanks to my brothers that I even ever heard the stuff.

For a while, there was no way to get a hold of these first three albums. In 2006 they were released on CD with bonus tracks. I haven't heard any of those. I'm not even sure I'm interested in hearing the outtakes and live versions etc. But Wikipedia tells me that they were on The Old Grey Whistle Test and I'll have to search for that. Also in 1999, The Church covered the song Hiroshima Mon Amour. My band in high school covered that in 1986 thank you very much. By the way, I also was really into the Church and I still am but I'll save that for another day.

In the meantime, you can find Ha!-Ha!-Ha! on Itunes right here: Oops, no I guess you can't. They don't seem to be on Itunes.

Well, they are on Rhapsody and you can go there and get 25 Free Listens if you want. UPDATE: Turns out those albums are NOT on Rhapsody.

I'm sure you can find them some other way. Like maybe on SeeQPod.

Here are the albums on Amazon:




I hope you like it.

Remember School for the Dead?

Remember the good old School for the Dead Activity Pages? At some of our shows in the past, I made Activity Pages for our audience. They were hand drawn, puzzles and games, you know, things like word searches and anagrams and spaces for people to draw. I used to the scan in everybody's drawings and post them in our Gig Diaries.

Remember the good old Gig Diaries? I used to post pictures and stories about each of our gigs. Each Gig Diary had its own page on our website. In the beginning all five members of the band would write their perspective on the show.

Remember when there were five members of the band? There still are, I guess, officially, or at least I like to pretend that there are. Ken and Tony are always a gamble, since they are so busy with other projects. Remember when we used to all write on here? That was a long time ago wasn't it?

We used to have conversations and discussions and then our readers would chime in as well on our discussion board, Your Own Rockumentary. Then spammers ruined that so I switched from a forum to a commenting system. I love it when people comment.

Speaking of Gig Diaries, do you remember when we used to play gigs? Well, we still do. But we don't as often as we used to. We used to play Living Room Concerts and once and a while we would travel out of town to play a show or two. We went as far west as Chicago and south as North Carolina. True we did a show in San Francisco last year, but that was just Brian and I with a guest bassist (Han from Invisible Cities).

We are still a band for sure. I just think the definition of "band" has changed a bit over the last decade. Many people that I know have bands with a rotating cast of characters. We do that on occasion but, still, we are never as good as when all five members of School for the Dead are together on a stage.

Brian, Max, Tony and Ken are all excellent musicians with just the right taste for this band but beyond that there is a friendly chemistry. Max is bouncy and enthusiastic, Brian is groovy and funny, Tony is unpredictable and strange, and Ken with his incredible ear, can play anything that might come into our collective mind.

When playing with these guys I know I don't need to worry about anything. I could stop and leave the stage for a while and they would keep things going perfectly. I can change in to a new song in the middle of a different one and they would be right there with me.

Anybody want to book a show for us? I can't guarantee that we'll all make it but it's possible. You never know.

SNTB, Gramercy Arms, The Grammys

On Friday night I played a show with Sitting Next To Brian at The Elevens in Northampton, MA. When I arrived at the club I found a parking space right in front of the door. That was convenient for me, but it's always a bad sign as far as attendance goes. Sitting Next To Brian was scheduled to go on second but since the first act arrived so late to the show we were pushed to first. Suddenly, I found myself on stage. I wasn't quite in the zone yet mentally but I think we played a good show. People seemed to dig it and I felt like we sounded good. When we were finished, I said to Thane (Keyboardist), "Ok, I'm ready to play now."

On Saturday, Lesa and I were just about to head down to the movie theater to see Slumdog Millionaire when we instead got the idea that maybe we should try and connect the rear speakers of our surround sound system. Since this would entail drilling holes in walls and running cable and other manly things, we begged her brother to help us and he luckily agreed. Many hours of multiple trips into the totally unfinished and tight-squeeze of an attic, we now have speakers mounted way up high. I put on the Classic Rock Radio Station to try it out and I hit the jackpot with a string of Pink Floyd songs.

That night Lesa and I headed back to The Elevens to see a great show featuring Lloyd Cole, Mary Kate O'Neil, and Gramercy Arms. We sat on the floor in front of the stage for Lloyd's solo performance. It was nice to see him play again, it had been a while. Then during Mary Kate's set I enjoyed our very own Ken, playing a fancy synthesizer that had a sound that perfectly mimicked a melodica. We were tired and said to a few friends that we were just going to stay for a couple of songs by Gramercy Arms, but we stayed for their whole show. They were that good. It was nice to see a band of such seasoned musicians play simple, subtle, and no-gimmick pop rock songs. On this night, the band featured members of Luna, Fuzzy, and The Dam Builders and maybe more fancy people, too.

I recommend checking them out live. I can't vouch for any recording since I haven't heard any. www.myspace.com/gramercyarms

On Sunday night, the music continued as we decided to watch The Grammys on TV. In general, The Grammys, leave me cold and feeling miserable about the state of popular music. This night wasn't so different although there were a few good performances. Mostly though, it was just kind of depressing, with all the back-up musicians and backing tapes and constantly-yelling singers. "Stop yelling at me!" I kept saying. Worst of all was this band Sugarland. The female singer just would not stop yelling. The mute button never sounded so sweet.

Radiohead came out and pretty much took over the whole show with a crazy yet powerful performance. You can see it right here right now:

I Heart Disney World

I have a problem. My problem is that I really do enjoy going to Orlando, Florida to the theme park resorts. It's embarrassing because so many other people hate it or think it is shallow and cold and represents all that is wrong with the world.

What could an intelligent grown man with no children see in such a place? Well, let me try to explain.

Ever since I was a little kid, I've been kind of obsessed with artificial worlds. There's nothing that I love more than outside inside. It may have started when I first saw Logan's Run. The idea of a domed city, of pools and lakes and plants all indoors, of giant ceilings and lights and conditioned air, blew my mind. I don't know what the appeal is actually, but I found myself, when watching the movie, and later the television series, more interested in the architecture and the design and the feeling of the place than I was in the actual story.

When I got older, I developed the same obsession for malls. I didn't care about the stores. I went to malls to get a taste of that domed-city sensation. I like to be tricked into feeling like I am somewhere that I am not. It's been the same way with museums and their artificial worlds. I've always loved the fake outdoors dioramas in the natural history section, or the man-made starry skies at the planetarium. Movie theaters have a touch of that as well with their cool lighting and high ceilings. I love the Christmas section at Yankee Candle Company in Deerfield, MA. I don't care about the ornaments or the sales or the candles, but I love the fake snow out the windows and the sound of trains and dogs barking in the distance. I get lost in the artificial trees and the ceiling that looks like the sky. I just eat that stuff up. Maybe it's the closest you can come to being awake in a dream-world, without hallucinogenics.

The resorts in Orlando are huge versions of these artificial dream worlds. There might not be a dome over the place, but the warm evening skies of Florida sometimes can make it feel like there is. When I am there, the rest of the world simply disappears. Again, I'm not interested in Mickey Mouse or the thrill rides or the souvenir stores, I am just looking for a dream-world to disappear into. When I walk around these places, I am wide-eyed and lost like a little kid. I'm aware of the huge money sucking machines around me, I see the product placements and flashing advertisements, but my desire for other-worldliness manages to let them just fade away, sort of like how I can feel my sleeves on my arm, but only if I make myself aware of them. I acknowledge the screaming kids and the lines of cattle-like people. I accept the feed-trough snack bars and the brash commercialism of the place. All of that pales in comparison to the magic that I see around me. I stroll around or sit on a bench beneath a bottom-lit palm tree and gaze out at the lights and details and I marvel at the imagination and work that went into it all.

Maybe everyone can do this, but I've always felt that I had a pretty good ability to let my mind ruminate on the craft that goes into something while at the same time allowing myself to get lost in the thing itself. I'm that way with music and movies. I can be fully immersed emotionally in a song while at the same time noting with wonder the perfect sound of, say, an electric piano, or the great placement of a tom drum. In movies, I can, at the same time be caught up in the drama of a scene while noting the smooth steady-cam tracking that the director has used. I'm the same way at these theme parks and resorts. I can be strolling through the Asia section of Animal Kingdom, feeling entirely like I am in a far-away exotic place and simultaneously pointing out the way that they designed the pathways for optimal crowd movement. I just eat that stuff up.

I've always been interested in alternate versions of reality. Drawing, photography, and song recording are all attempts at capturing moments and presenting them in a contained new reality. I've always felt that movies are the ultimate expression of creativity, because they contain and combine music, audio, story-telling, photography, acting, design and filming together. To me, being in the resort-worlds of Orlando is like being inside one of those movies.

So, Lesa and I are planning our next vacation and we've been running over different ideas. But, we keep coming back to Orlando. We've been on other vacations, we've gone to the ocean, to the cities, to the mountains and they are all great. But at none of them can we remove ourselves as completely from our normal every-day lives as we can in the Wonderful World of Disney. When we are there, all there is is that place. There is no real world. I'm told that it is the same on cruises. However, I am scared to be stuck on a big ship for a week when I don't know how it will effect my inner-ear. Las Vegas is similar, also, but there is a bit more touch of the real world there and it ends up taking a lot of money from you - it's a bit more cynical feeling. Just a touch.

So, I don't know. We might go back. I know it's crazy to many people. A lot of you can't understand how we can do it. You think of Disney World and you think of screaming babies and cartoon characters taking your money and a big evil corporation shaking you down and sucking out your soul. I think of warm breezes and hanging paper lanterns, I think of flowers and fireworks, or giant torches reflecting in a lake, of boats carrying people up winding canals beneath pelicans and eagles, of music playing in the bushes in manicured gardens, of warm swimming pools with waterfalls and tiki bars, of long carpeted hotel hallways, crazy architecture, stunning designs, awesome light-fixtures, haunted houses, dinosaur worlds, animals everywhere, ice-cream cones, laser shows, and an overall blurred feeling of forgetting the real world.

Don't make fun of me.

The La's - Timeless Melody Video

Sometimes I just want to share a video without explaining why.

Photos From The Big Show In November

I found these great pictures of The Night Of Music In Memory Of Melissa Rich on the Bourgeois Heroes Flickr page. Click a square to see the big picture.



These are from The Center For The Arts in Northampton, MA on November 14, 2008.

Wikipedia For Music Geeks

I discovered through Boing Boing that there is a crazy amount of info on Wikipedia about individual songs. I'll use Martha My Dear by The Beatles as an example (and certainly the most trivia and info will be on Beatles stuff). If you go to The White Album page on Wikipedia you can click on the individual tracks and read about each.

From Martha My Dear you get some introduction notes, info on the style and form, the origins of the song, a listing of all the performers and their instruments, and a paragraph about different cover versions.

Try it out here: Martha My Dear

Or the full album: The White Album