Ben Dowden lays down the beats in the streets of Bristol. Watch and be amazed. (testing how WP handles embed code straight from YouTube) Via dowdenboy’s YouTube channel and Google Reader, which is really opening up the social possibilities this week. Thanks, Zamil!
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3 young men, ages 14 and 15, tear it up on “O Solo Mio” on an Italian Idol-type program. Can you even sing like that without hurting yourself before your third decade? However, they’re miked, so not having to get the sound out the old-fashioned way over the studio orchestra (who aren’t that well rehearsed, frankly). One of them may technically be a baritone, all of them may be destined for either the opera, or some kind of romantic pop-idol musical limbo now inhabited by Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli. [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/FqUkUjeF4-c" width="425" height="344" wmode="transparent" /] A tip of the…
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Wow! They broke ground at church while I was on vacation for the addition! Ginny I can has iPhone? Via: Flickr Title: St Nick’s on the Move By: GinnyRED57 Originally uploaded: 7 Jun ’09, 10.31am CDT PST UPDATE: And it’s about frickin’ time. This morning was my first day back after vacation – we returned late last Sunday. I knew that ground had been broken but wasn’t prepared to see the big mound of dirt, two earth moving machines, and the Honey Bucket tactfully screened by the sign provided by the Diocese of Chicago. Ahem, I see there’s a rather…
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Their grandad wrangled the flipflops while their owners played in the shade, waiting to enter the hula show venue. Ginny I can has iPhone? Via: Flickr Title: Herd O’ Flipflops By: GinnyRED57 Originally uploaded: 24 May ’09, 4.40pm CDT PST UPDATE: We were in line for a hula showcase (being fans of Hawaiian music and culture) and I noticed the guy behind us instructing a bunch of pre-teen girls to stay in sight, and he’d watch their shoes so they could run on the grass lawn in front of Bagley Wright Theatre. This meant that he had to kick a…
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Ginny I can has iPhone? Via: Flickr Title: Missed The Pirate Wench Workshop By: GinnyRED57 Originally uploaded: 24 May ’09, 3.25pm CDT PST UPDATE: Drat, there’s always something going on that you’re going to have to miss. This looked like it would have been fun.
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Ginny I can has iPhone? Via: Flickr Title: Gradec Croatian Tamburitza Orchestra By: GinnyRED57 Originally uploaded: 24 May ’09, 3.14pm CDT PST UPDATE: We were waiting for the next act, after a long day wandering around mostly in the corner of the Seattle Center site near the Northwest Court Stage. This room seemed to have become the default “indoor folk venue where we stick acts that don’t have enough draw for a big outdoor stage” place. In years past, there was a coffeehouse vibe and this kind of act was in the Alki Room, a multi-level place with good sight…
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UPDATE: And then I saw these guys – two conga players, a maracas player, and two guys playing ELECTRIC mbiras (they were wearing battery powered amps. An empty sound gourd can just be seen in front, decorated with cowrie shells, being used as a tip bowl. The musicians were wearing animal skins and singing – I’m not sure the crowd realized how radical their electrified sound was compared to the trad sound of the other group that was in the Alki courtyard performing area behind me. Ginny I can has iPhone? Via: Flickr Title: Electric Mbira By: GinnyRED57 Originally…
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UPDATE: I own a kalimba, a small African musical instrument played on metal keys braced on a soundboard or soundbox. These musicians are playing mbira, larger versions of the same instrument that are attached to calabash gourd sounding bowls. This makes it difficult to see how the artists’ thumbs play the repetitive patterns and melodies. I took more pictures with the big camera trying to lock in an image of how the woman on the right was playing, but the singer’s butt kept getting in the way. These folks were very good, very traditional. Ginny I can has iPhone?…
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BBC NEWS | Entertainment | A session with Seeger Dropping yet more sugar into his cafe mocha, Pete Seeger laments the withering of his singing voice: “At my age the banjo-playing is shot too”. In fact musician Seeger often seems 20 years younger than he is – although these days what excites him is less his music and more the well-being of the US environment. But this weekend he will quit the Hudson Valley for his native Manhattan and a big concert to celebrate his 90th birthday. On the bill are Bruce Springsteen, Baez and more than 30 other names.…
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I’m not sure how much I should say, or how much I can safely say, about yesterday. So I’ll ease into it by catching up on the entire week. Last week this time, I was dropping David off at O’Hare, because he was getting ready to go to a technical conference, at which he was making a couple of presentations. He’d worked hard on his slides, and I’d helped him edit them and streamline them generally. At last year’s conference, he was nervous about being up for an award, and he called me in a panic demanding to know if…