October 8, 2008
This. Is. Brilliant.
So, yeah, we’re back.
My friend Lisa alerted me to this video she saw on Popdose. Very clever.
March 11, 2008
Tuesday Trivia
Put on your thinking caps for this one. I’m not including a “highlight here for answer” thing, because I don’t know the answer myself. It’s a real stumper (and the answer will probably be something so obvious that I’ll kick myself next week).
What unusual distinction is shared by these songs? “The Boy Is Mine,” “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love,” “Embraceable You,” “Happy Birthday to You,” “Hey Little Cobra,” “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” and “Summer in the City.”
Update:
Okay, here’s the answer: All were written by siblings–famous ones like the Gershwins in some cases (“Embraceable You”) and not-famous ones like Patty and Mildred Hill (“Happy Birthday”) in others.
March 4, 2008
Tuesday Trivia
Courtesy of Ken “That guy who won a couple million on Jeopardy” Jennings…
What rock act is a duo made up of two men, one named Russell, the other surnamed Russell?
(Highlight here for answer: Air Supply)
What legendary label-mate wrote Mary Wells’s “My Guy” and the Temptations’ “My Girl”?
(Highlight here for answer: Smokey Robinson)
February 29, 2008
Two sad notes
In just the past few days, the music world lost two of its finest members.
First Buddy Miles, drummer for Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys passed away earlier this week. My friend Jeff informed me that Miles had a career resurgence of sorts in the late 80s when he became the leade singer of the California Raisins (and if you don’t know what that was, you are too young to be reading this). I didn’t know that.
Theother death was Mike Smith, lead singer of the Dave Clark Five, a band that some would argue, was at the forefront of the British invasion. If I’m not mistaken, the DC5 actually appeared on US television before the Beatles, so there is some merit to the claim.
Here’s some press coverage:
Mike Smith, the lead singer of the 1960s British band the Dave Clark Five, died on Thursday of pneumonia at an English hospital, his U.S. agent said.
Smith, 64, was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday morning with a chest infection resulting from complications of a 2003 spinal cord injury that had left him paralyzed from the waist down, his New York agent, Margo Lewis, said in a statement.
Miles and Smith brought us a lot of good music, and they will be missed.
And we’re back…
…with a cool new http://www.bluesuedeschubert.com domain.
Now I just have to dust off the keyboard and crank this thing up once again.
December 26, 2007
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
This is an incredibly busy time, so stop reading blogs, go and interact with real human beings and sample life for a change… then come back on January 1.
December 1, 2007
An Incredibly Challenging Music Game
Andy Van Ness may have turned my brain into soup. He is responsible for probably the most challenging music games I’ve ever played. Counterpoint is a listening game that plays many songs from your iTunes library at once. As you guess correctly what songs are playing, they stop one by one. If you can guess them all, then you win. Your score is determined based on four factors: elapsed time, level, number of songs chosen from, and number of incorrect guesses.
If you’re a music freak and have a Mac (sorry, no PC version… but maybe there’s somethng comparable), you will want to check out Counterpoint, a cool, extremely challenging game. Best of all, it’s free. At the higher levels Counterpoint will drain you mentally, and maybe even physically. If you are up for a challenge, this is it.
November 29, 2007
Kevin Federline: Video Game Champ
Sam Greenspan at Pandasmash.com made an interesting discovery when he was flipping through some old gamer magazines. In a 1988 issue of Nintendo Fun Club News he found a page where readers submitted their high scores. Right there in the middle is a high score submitted by 9-year-old Kevin Federline of Salem, Oregon, for beating Great Puma (The perfect warrior) in Pro Wrestling.
Yes, that Kevin Federline. A true legend in his own mind.
Greenspan scolds those of us (me included) who say that the score only proves K-Fed’s lameness was evident even as a child. “Stop it, just stop it,” Greenspan says (tongue firmly in cheek). “Beating Puma was just as hard as beating Mike Tyson, just as hard as curing cancer.” Watch the video.
November 27, 2007
Marilyn Manson Wants To Bathe With Snakes
I’m always suspicious of stories that include citations like, “a source close to the singer,” because it smacks of tabloid writing. Why would I consider someone who isn’t named as a reliable source? And this unnamed person is quoted! What’s the point? If it truly is someone close to the singer, that’s a pretty small universe, so why not use names?
Anyway, according to 411mania, singer and goth cover boy Marilyn Manson wants to break the world record for sharing a bath with snakes. Why? Maybe he figures breaking records will be easier than selling records. The current world record for bathing with snakes is held by a guy named Jackie Bibby, or the “Texas Snakeman”as his friends call him. Bibby currently holds the world record by bathing with 87 rattlesnakes for 45 minutes. Besides snake bathing, Bibby has quite a list of accomplishments to his name, including actor, bull rider, and Texas state arm wrestling champion.
A source close to the singer said: “Marilyn is desperate to get into the famous book, and wants to do it for something people will associate him with… He thought about all the wacky records he could try and break, and came across Jackie Bibby’s record. That’s when he decided he wanted to try and break it.”
Tuesday Trivia
Time for a Tuesday Trivia post. As usual, the questions come from Ken Jennings’ weekly trivia e-mail. He always includes at least one music related question. For the answers, highlight the space between the bars after each question.
1. What song title was a U.S. #1 for Rihanna, though it didn’t even crack the Top Ten for ABBA?
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Answer: “SOS” (ABBA’s “SOS” peaked at #15, and no, they aren’t the same song, just the same titles)
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2. What two neighboring beaches in Rio de Janeiro each inspired hit songs, one in 1963 and one in 1978?
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Answer: “The Girl from Ipanema” and “Copacabana” are both names that originated with Brazilian beaches.
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Blue Suede Schubert 