Just a quick note to say that I won't be posting here for the time being. Coming up with content for 3 blogs (without relying heavily on the ol' cut & paste) was getting to be tres difficult. I had hidden this blog for a while but decided to open it up again for those who wanted to check out the Sunday Morning Call archives.
Enjoy!
And now, some Estonian animation...
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
BLOG THE CASBAH: Colorado town energized to go off electric grid
Read the entire story...
Credit: 9NEWS.com
I am interested to see how this works out. It could be a template for other communities across North America. According to Wikipedia, the population of Fowler was 1200 in 2000. I live in a town with about 4800 people...I'd love to see us try something like this.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
BLOG THE CASBAH: Alternative Radio - David Suzuki - Betraying Nature
A synopsis...
Our planet and its people are in peril. Diminishing fresh water supplies, destruction of forests, polluted air, species extinction at an unparalleled rate, and a toxic petrochemical environment are all clear signals that things are going seriously haywire. And climate change, the impacts of which are already evidenced at an accelerating pace, threatens environmental devastation on an almost incomprehensible scale. Rising sea levels will overwhelm island states, low lying countries such as Bangladesh, and many of the coastal areas where the world's population is concentrated. Climate change will bring more disease outbreaks, including new diseases and variants of existing ones for which there is no treatment. Changing weather patterns will leave many populated regions with too little rain to sustain agriculture. Existing environmental problems will worsen severely unless focused and rapid steps are taken to reverse the practices that are causing them. | ||||
Monday, April 19, 2010
BLOG THE CASBAH: Double Down by the Numbers - Unhealthiest Sandwich Ever?
Go read this article. As bad as it looks, the DD (Double Down) is far from the worst of the bunch. Mmmmm...greasy.
FiveThirtyEight: Double Down by the Numbers: Unhealthiest Sandwich Ever?
Thursday, April 8, 2010
BLOG THE CASBAH: BILL C-311 (CLIMATE CHANGE ACCOUNTABILITY ACT)
A summary of Bill C-311 from the Government of Canada website --
The purpose of this enactment is to ensure that Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by committing to a long-term target to reduce Canadian greenhouse gas emissions to a level that is 80% below the 1990 level by the year 2050, and by establishing interim targets for the period 2015 to 2045. It creates an obligation on the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to review proposed measures to meet the targets and submit a report to Parliament.
It also sets out the duties of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.
The entire bill can be seen here.
TAKE ACTION!
- Please contact Members of Parliament. Ask your MP to support Bill C-311 to take action on climate change. Even better, you can visit your MP. Call your MP's constituency office to set up a meeting. http://www.parl.gc.ca/.
- Call or email the following Liberal MPs. During a crucial vote last October, Michael Ignatieff and the majority of Liberals voted with the Conservatives to delay passage of Bill C-311.
* Michael Ignatieff (Opposition Leader), IgnatM@parl.gc.ca, (613) 995-9364, (416) 251-5510
* David McGuinty (Environment and Energy), McGuiDa@parl.gc.ca, (613) 992-3269, (613) 990-8640
* Francis Scarpaleggia (Member of the Environment Committee), ScarpF@parl.gc.ca, (613) 995-8281, (514) 695-6661
* Justin Trudeau (Member of the Environment Committee), Trudeau.J@parl.gc.ca, (613) 995-8872, (514) 277-6020
* Hon. Bob Rae (Foreign Affairs), RaeB@parl.gc.ca, (613) 992-5234, (416) 954-2222
* Hon. Carolyn Bennett (Health), BenneC@parl.gc.ca, (613) 995-9666, (416) 952-3990
* Marc Garneau (Industry, Science and Technology), Garneau.M@parl.gc.ca, (613) 996-7267, (514) 283-2013
* Hon. Geoff Regan (Natural Resources), ReganG@parl.gc.ca, (613) 996-3085, (902) 426-2217
* Martha Hall Findlay (Public Works and Government Services), HallM@parl.gc.ca, (613) 992-4964, (416) 223-2858
* Hon. Larry Bagnell (Arctic Issues and Northern Development), BagneLL@parl.gc.ca, (613) 995-9368, (867) 668-6565
* Gerard Kennedy (Infrastructure, Communities and Cities), Kennedy.G@parl.gc.ca, (613) 992-2936, (416) 769-5072
* Hon. Gerry Byrne (Fisheries and Oceans Critic), ByrneG@parl.gc.ca, (613) 996-5511, (709) 637-4540
View the complete list here:
http://www.liberal.ca/en/team/critics
- Download this profile pic:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3986306&l=cd30cb640a&id=513599219
- Join the following events and groups on Facebook:
Save Bill C-311 / Sauver le Projet de loi C-311
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=111646015524829
Save Canada's Climate Bill!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107530802617338
SAVE BILL C-311! SAUVER LE PROJET DE LOI C-311!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113062605387570
Stop Climate Chaos - Canada
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5775162577
Climate Action Network Canada
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Climate-Action-Network-Canada/59355549371
Sierra Club Canada
http://www.facebook.com/sierraclubcanada
- Pass this message on to your friends.
----------
[SAMPLE LETTER TO MPs]
I am writing to ask you to support the swift passage of Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act.
Bill C-311 would ensure that Canada does its fair share to prevent dangerous climate change. It would set national greenhouse gas emission targets, following recommendations from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Canadians want our country to play a leadership role. We need to take action to prevent the dangerous impacts of climate change – droughts, famines, water shortages, devastating hurricanes and mass extinctions of many of the world's plant and animal species.
I am asking that all parties work together to pass the Climate Change Accountability Act as soon as possible. For the sake of the environment and future generations, we need to take action now.
Sincerely,
[your name and address]
Friday, April 2, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
BLOG THE CASBAH: SUNDAY MORNING CALL -- 03/28/10 -- THE CURE 'TRILOGY'
Some folks may have forgotten about The Cure in recent years. They have, however, released 3 excellent records in the last decade -- Bloodflowers, The Cure & 4:13 Dream -- as well as 2 DVDs; Festival 2005 and, the subject of today's Call, Trilogy.
Simply put, the band decided to perform (in their entirety) the 3 records that have come to be known as their 'Dark Trilogy' -- Pornography, Disintegration & Bloodflowers. The results were recorded to DVD and then ripped to mp3.
Here is the Wiki entry...
The Cure: Trilogy is a double live album video by The Cure, released on two double layer DVD-9 discs, and later on a single Blu-Ray disc. It documents The Trilogy Concerts, in which the three albums, Pornography (1982), Disintegration (1989) and Bloodflowers (2000) were played live in their entirety one after the other each night, the songs being played in the order in which they appeared on the albums. Trilogy was recorded on two consecutive nights, 11–12 November 2002, at the Tempodrom arena in Berlin. A third, previous Trilogy concert in Brussels on 7 November was not used.
Robert Smith is quoted on the sleeve about the "trilogy" concept and its eventual execution:
"The albums Pornography, Disintegration and Bloodflowers are inextricably linked in so many ways, and the realisation of this Trilogy show is one of the highlights of my time in The Cure."
Smith began arranging the concerts days after seeing David Bowie's Heathen Tour concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 29 June 2002, when Bowie played 10 of the 11 Low tracks consecutively (though not in album order), and the whole of the Heathen album in order. It was, said Smith, "the best I'd seen him on stage for years and years".[1]
The two DVDs feature a letterboxed 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio and a choice of Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound or regular PCM stereo. Two interviews with the band are also included, though one is hidden and requires the specific manipulation of a DVD player's remote control to be accessed. Another hidden feature is the "mic cam", a camera mounted on Smith's microphone pole which, when accessed with the angle control buttons, shows him in a fish-eye view, singing.
The band's line-up for this production was Smith (vocals, guitar, 6-string bass guitar), Simon Gallup (4- and 6-string bass guitars), Perry Bamonte (guitar, 6-string bass, keyboards), Jason Cooper (drums, percussion) and Roger O'Donnell (keyboards, percussion). The songs performed were written by the band members, and, in the case of the first two albums, by former members Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst, Porl Thompson and Boris Williams.
The first DVD contains the Pornography and Disintegration sets, and the second consists of the Bloodflowers set, a short encore—"If Only Tonight We Could Sleep" and "The Kiss" from the album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987)—and both interviews. Robert said that the two extra songs were included as a preview of "what was to come" in future Cure releases, despite later saying that the Trilogy concerts were supposed to be the Cure's swan song, though Smith has been notorious for saying such things in the past, usually coinciding with the release of new albums. In the two Trilogy shows at the Tempodrom a second encore was performed consisting of "M", "Play For Today" and "A Forest" the first night, and the same plus "Grinding Halt" and "Boys Don't Cry" the second night.
On the web...
Chain of Flowers (news, rumors, minutiae about The Cure)
For whatever reason, the file names did not upload to the Grooveshark widget. Here's the tracklist in order:
- 1. "100 Seconds" (intro)
"Pornography"
- 2. "One Hundred Years"
- 3. "A Short Term Effect"
- 4. "The Hanging Garden"
- 5. "Siamese Twins"
- 6. "The Figurehead"
- 7. "A Strange Day"
- 8. "Cold"
- 9. "Pornography"
"Disintegration"
- 10. "Plainsong"
- 11. "Pictures of You"
- 12. "Closedown"
- 13. "Lovesong"
- 14. "Last Dance"
- 15. "Lullaby"
- 16. "Fascination Street"
- 17. "Prayers for Rain"
- 18. "The Same Deep Water as You"
- 19. "Disintegration"
- 20. "Homesick"
- 21. "Untitled"
"Bloodflowers"
- "Out of This World"
- "Watching Me Fall"
- "Where the Birds Always Sing"
- "Maybe Someday"
- "The Last Day of Summer"
- "There Is No If..."
- "The Loudest Sound"
- "39"
- "Bloodflowers"
Encore section
- 10. "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep"
- 11. "The Kiss"
Sunday, March 21, 2010
BLOG THE CASBAH: SUNDAY MORNING CALL -- 03/21/10 -- THE WATERBOYS 'THIS IS THE SEA'
One of my favourite of all-time. This Is The Sea is, to me, a perfect storm of rock, folk and spirit. This record was (and continues to be) a touchstone...one of those pillars that seems to have always been there and to which I can return at any time. The Waterboys continue to make excellent records but none can match This Is The Sea in its significance.
From Wiki:
This Is the Sea is the third and last of The Waterboys' "Big Music" albums. Considered by critics to be the finest album of their early rock-oriented sound,[1] described as "epic" and "a defining moment",[2] it was the first Waterboys album to enter the United Kingdom charts, peaking at number thirty-seven. Steve Wickham was not on this album but joined the band to tour it and for the video of "The Whole Of The Moon". This Is the Sea is the last album with contributions from Karl Wallinger, who left the group to form his own band, World Party.
Mike Scott, the album's principal songwriter and leader of The Waterboys, describes This Is the Sea as "the record on which I achieved all my youthful musical ambitions",[3] "the final, fully realised expression of the early Waterboys sound", influenced by The Velvet Underground, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, and Steve Reich.[4] The album was recorded between March and July 1985, and released that October (see 1985 in music). A remastered and expanded version was released in 2004. This Is the Sea contains the best-selling Waterboys single, the song "The Whole of the Moon". The album cover is a photograph taken by Lynn Goldsmith.
Production history
Scott began writing songs for This Is the Sea in the spring of 1984, beginning with the song "Trumpets". Scott recalls that in December 1984 "during The Waterboys' first American tour, [he] bought two huge hard-bound books... in which to assemble [his] new songs"[4] For the following two months Scott worked on the songs in his apartment, writing the lyrics, and working on guitar and piano arrangements. Scott wrote between thirty-five and forty songs, but felt that the nine songs that made it onto the album "were the ones that were intended to be there".[4] The first song from the album to be played live was "Trumpets", on April 10, 1984.[5]
The first recording session for This Is the Sea began in March 1985 at Park Gates Studio in Hastings, England. Band members Scott, Anthony Thistlethwaite, Karl Wallinger, Kevin Wilkinson, and Roddy Lorimer performed the new material. Wallinger's home studio heard demo recordings for a number of the album's songs. Some of the recordings, like the ones of the last two albums, are relatively untouched by studio engineering. On other recordings, however, Scott added a drum machine and layered the sound,[6] using a studio technique similar to that of the famous record producer Phil Spector, with help from Wallinger. "Having Karl [Wallinger] in the studio", writes Scott, "was like having a one-man orchestra around. There might have been a This Is the Sea without him, but it wouldn't have been the same -- or as good".[4] (Nonetheless, it was Wallinger's second and last appearance on a Waterboys' album.)
The recording sessions continued through June. By July, Wickham, after an invitation from Scott, entered the studio with the band to add his fiddle to "The Pan Within". Produced from the original sessions at Park Gates Studio, along with recordings from Livingston Studios in London, Amazon in Liverpool, Seaview, and The Townhouse Studio, among others, the album was released in October. Peter Anderson, writing in Record Collector, describes Scott as "completely at home in the studio" and writes that Scott "spared nothing on" This Is the Sea.[7]
A remastered version was released in 2004, with a second CD of material from the album's singles, and unreleased tracks from the This Is the Sea recording sessions.
Album promotion
This Is the Sea was promoted heavily and made it to number thirty-seven on the Top Forty album chart in the UK. Neither of the two preceding albums had charted in the Top Forty.
The album was followed by tours in the United Kingdom, and in North America as the headliners. Sinéad O'Connor made her United Kingdom live debut as a backup singer on "The Big Music" at a concert at the London Town and Country Club. In December, The Waterboys joined the band Simple Minds for a European tour. During the three major tours, the band's lineup began to change, and the album received more exposure than its two predecessors.[6] Mike Scott, however, in a decision that expressed the values he had written about when authoring punk rock fanzines, refused to promote the album and the single for "The Whole of the Moon" on Top of the Pops because he would not lip sync, a requirement on the show.[7]
Music video
Meiert Avis directed the video for "the Whole of the Moon", using visionary lighting elements based on Helprin's "Winter's Tale" and his memories of a 1962 theatrical production of Charles Kingsley's '"The Water Babies". Avis addressed Scott's aversion to lip syncing, by shooting the visuals for "The Whole of the Moon" while capturing a unique live audio performance of the single. Avis later used this technique on several videos with Bruce Springsteen, who shares Scott's aversion.[citation needed]
Song details
Themes of the album include spirituality ("Spirit", "The Pan Within"), romantic love ("Trumpets"), and English politics ("Old England"). Michael Tucker, in an article entitled "The Body Electric: The Shamanic Spirit in Twentieth Century Music", lists This Is the Sea as an example of shamanistic themes in twentieth-century Western music.[8] Irish musician Bono includes the album on his "top ten" list, noting "In rock, the word 'poet' gets thrown around a lot. Not here..."[9]
"Don't Bang the Drum", the lyrics of which encourage environmentalism, was released as a single in Germany, with a song titled "Ways of Men" as the b-side. The first draft of the song's music was written by Wallinger. Scott reworked the arrangement, changing its rhythm and "feel", but Wallinger's melody and chords were preserved.[4]
"The Whole of the Moon", one of The Waterboys' best-known songs and their most commercially successful, was first released as a twelve-inch single, and reached number twenty-eight on the United Kingdom singles chart. The single also contained a live recording of "The Girl in the Swing", from The Waterboys, the band's first album, an extended mix of "Spirit", and a song titled "Medicine Jack". The latter two appear on the second disc of the album's re-release. When the single was reissued in 1990, it reached number 3, and was awarded the Ivor Novello Award in 1991.[2] Including the 2004 remastered album, the song has been officially released four times.
The song began as a "scribble on the back of an envelope on a wintry New York street",[4] after Scott's girlfriend asked him if it was difficult to write a song,[10] and was unfinished at the beginning of the recording sessions, eventually being completed in May 1985.[4] The song, like The Waterboys' first single "A Girl Called Johnny" is a tribute to an inspirational figure. In each line, the singer describes his own perspective and immediately contrasts it with that of the song's subject, summarizing the difference with the line "I saw the crescent / You saw the whole of the moon". "You saw Brigadoon", one of these contrasts, refers to a fictional village that exists only one day every century (from the musical of the same name).
The subject of the song has inspired some speculation. Musician Nikki Sudden, with whom Scott had collaborated before forming The Waterboys, said that Scott told Max Edie, the backup singer for "The Whole of the Moon", that the song was written about Sudden.[11] Allmusic instead suggests that its subject is actually a number of people who inspired Scott, including Christian writer C. S. Lewis and the musician Prince.[12] Scott himself says that he "couldn't have written" the song without having read Mark Helprin's novel Winter's Tale, but goes on to state that the song is not about Helprin.[4] The official Waterboys website's Frequently Asked Questions clarifies that Scott has said that the song's subject is "a composite of many people", including C. S. Lewis, but explicitly states that it is not about Prince.[13]
A feature of "The Whole of the Moon" is the trumpet work on the recording, courtesy of the classically-trained Lorimer. Lorimer spent three days with Scott working on the song's arrangement. According to Lorimer, he "went home with a tape of the song and thought about a more classical approach. After a while sitting at the piano I came up with the idea of antiphonal trumpets. A piccolo trumpet on the left answered a piccolo on the right and then the same again, growing by adding a Bb trumpet below each side of the stereo picture. Mike [Scott] loved it, except the slightly jazzy chords I had used on the run down at the very end, which he simplified. I used the same classical approach later in the song, mixing two classical-type trumpets behind a later verse."[14] Lorimer also contributes falsetto background vocals to the song, while Thistlethwaite, another brass section member, performs a saxophone solo near the end.
"The Whole of the Moon" was covered by Jennifer Warnes on her 1992 album The Hunter, by Mandy Moore on her 2003 album Coverage, by the band Human Drama on the compilation album New Wave Goes to Hell and by folk singer-songwriter Peter Mulvey on his 1995 release Rapture. It has also appeared on numerous other compilations.[12]
"Spirit", a song praising the resilience of the human spirit, originally appeared on a short, one-and-a-half minute version. A full four-minute version of the song was released on the 2004 remastered disc.
The lyrics of "The Pan Within" are partly derived from meditation techniques ("Close your eyes / Breathe slow / And we'll begin"). It was the first of two Waterboys songs about the Ancient Greek god Pan, which have been played as a medley at Waterboys concerts. Scott describes the song's guitar solo as "[consisting] of a series of phrases or lines/melodies that generally build in an order (which may change), though which includes a lot of improvisation which is different each night. The lines have never been 'tabbed' or written down... The song is in Aminor (the chords under the solo are F - Em - Am - Am repeated)".[15] The second Pan song, "The Return of Pan", appears on the album Dream Harder. "The Pan Within" is the first Waterboys song to feature Wickham's fiddle playing. It was selected as one of DWXB-FM's Hits of 1986.
An alternative version of "Medicine Bow" was released as a single in Germany, with an instrumental version of "Don't Bang the Drum" for the seven-inch. The twelve-inch contained another mix of "Medicine Bow" and "Ways of Men". Scott writes that he invented the name, and was unaware of Medicine Bow, Wyoming.[4] The album's re-release contains a "full length" version of the song that contains an instrumental "piano storm - from first sonic droplets of rain to final crashing thunder and lightning" performed by Adrian Johnston.[4]
"Old England" is a criticism of Thatcherism, blaming Margaret Thatcher's economic policies for what Scott perceived to be an increase in desperation amongst the young and poor in the England of that time, and a rise in drug addiction, specifically to heroin. The refrain, "Old England is dying" is a quote from James Joyce, and the lines "You're asking what makes me sigh now / What it is makes me shudder so" are from W.B. Yeats' poem, "Mad as the Mist and Snow". The Clash, one of the bands that had inspired Scott during his punk music phase, released "This Is England", a song with a similar theme, as a single the same year. Scott and The Waterboys would move to Ireland the following year.
"Trumpets", a love song, was the first song written for the album, in the spring of 1984,[4] and the first song from the album to be performed live. It quotes from "I'm Only Sleeping", a recording by The Beatles.
The title track, the last song on the original release, has a slower tempo than most of the other arrangements. Scott notes that he wrote over twenty verses for the song, some of which wound up included on the "alter ego" of "This Is the Sea", "That Was the River", which was released in 1994 on The Secret Life of the Waterboys.[4] The song "This Is the Sea" was first performed in Worcester on December 2, 1984,[5] and a longer version than would eventually appear on the album, was played at a benefit concert for miners in February 1985.[6] The subject of the lyrics is conflicted about their present ("You've got a war in your head / And it's tearing you up inside"), and nostalgic for a past clarity ("And you know you once held the key"). The speaker instead argues that the past is irrelevant ("But that was the river / This is the sea)".
Those additional tracks on the re-release that are not alternative versions of songs originally appearing on the album were recorded in the same recording sessions.
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