те ж саме

Very reminiscent of a similar speech, under similar circumstances, a long time ago.

"So, let us not be blind to our differences - but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

--JFK 06-10-1963

Brad Paisley with Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Same Here - те ж саме

Today's Fuddy Duddy

... from way back in the day - when kids were getting a little pop-crazy and parents were getting a little worried about all this change that's happening so fast ... 

Which, I think, is normal. Isn't that how this shit's supposed to work?

"These kids today" always worry their parents - what with their ukuleles and their ragtime music, and their boogie woogie and their bobby socks, and their halter tops and their peace signs - it's just too much for good and sensible folks who've managed either to forget about all the weird shit they did as teenagers, or remember all too well, so they feel really bad about having been so recklessly rebellious and are now terrified that their kids might be doing some of things they did back in the day.

A little selective amnesia mixed in with a kind of self-righteous pearl-clutching (ie: "We just don't want our kids making the same mistakes we made"), makes for some pretty strange-sounding rhetoric and unnecessary conflict.

The kids are alright.

The more things change - y'know?

Australia 1964:

A Tune For You

🎶 

Misirlou

A Good Passing Teaches Us Something

Doing simple basic things exquisitely well.

Michael Palmisano in tribute to David Crosby and CSN

(this is pretty nerdy, btw - feel free to blow right by it)

Here's the full studio version:

And one from Crosby's debut solo release:

David Crosby

August 14, 1941 - January 18, 2023

Today's Tune

Joshua Lee Turner with

Gabe Terracciano

Zach Brown

William Carrigan

Katie Martucci

Caroline Kuhn

Allie Chipkin

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

New For Me

Tiny Desk Concerts

SET LIST

"Cursed"

"Winter is Hopeful"

"Let Us Die"

MUSICIANS

Mikaela Mullaney Straus: Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar 

Antoine Fadavi: Drums

Keyboards: Kaela Sinclair

Bass: Logan McQuade

Lead Guitar: Zack Page

Acoustic Guitar: Asaf Rodeh

Percussion: Steve Jay

Musica

An old favorite

Yundi - Beethoven, Adagio Cantabile (from Sonata Pathétique No. 8, op. 13)

Something I Learned Today

While reading about the 10 year anniversary of "Pitch Perfect", I learned there's a thing called The Bechdel Test.

And the Reverse Bechdel is:

Two men

talk to each other about

nothing but women

BTW, Pitch Perfect is a personal fave for me - something special about a cappella, and something extra special about lady voices singing a cappella.

This one makes me cry.

Here's Millie Mae Healy's piece in yesterday's Harvard Crimson:

‘Pitch Perfect’ at 10: ‘Not Like Other Girls’

“Pitch Perfect” has a difficult legacy. It’s a wonderful, hilarious, and empowering film that by all accounts should have been an offensive fail. Ten years on, its flaws are more obvious than ever, but it also stands out as a triumph of late-2000s comedies.

The biggest weakness in “Pitch Perfect” is its laziness. There’s a misogynistic radio host, and that’s the entire joke. Consistently, there is a reliance on harmful stereotypes in constructing characters who are racial minorities or queer. All in all, this should culminate in a really redundant, stale, and derivative rom-com, but somehow it gets two things really, really right.

First, “Pitch Perfect” is not a musical. All of the music is diegetic; it’s actually happening in real time for the characters. They don’t wail and dance about their feelings; they yell at each other like contemporary people in the real world. But in addition to the great vocal performances and iconic cover choices, the music is a great vehicle for the plot. The a cappella group the Barden Bellas sound discordant when they are struggling to mesh as a group. Their use of “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” and “S&M” in the Riff Off are iconic even today, and deftly establish the world and community of a cappella in the film. The audition scene is particularly spectacular for this: The rendition of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” holds up today while also doing an incredible amount of legwork to establish all of the minor characters and the role of a cappella on this college campus. The music adds another dimension to what would otherwise be a college comedy, creatively providing an avenue to express the characters’ feelings and growth, as well as being engaging in its own right.

Secondly, “Pitch Perfect” successfully utilizes an unlikeable protagonist to create a story about female solidarity and kinship. The protagonist Beca, played by Anna Kendrick, sucks. She’s obnoxious, self-centered and judgemental. She’s sullen about getting a free college education because she’s mad at her dad for not funding her real dream, which is to head to L.A. by herself with no plans. She looks down on other characters for having interests and caring about things, and only deigns to join the Barden Bellas because her dad makes her. Because she’s the super special protagonist, co-head of the Bellas, Chloe (Brittany Snow), desperately wants her to join. Though she has some valid criticisms of Bella traditions, her refusal to participate and engage means she can’t have a positive impact on the group.

Yet, after self-destructing all of her relationships, Beca is made to reckon with her attitude and also her actions. She admits that she cares about something and that she wants to be a part of this group. And after everything, the revelation is simple: She’s just like other girls. Once Beca gets over herself and respects her friends and the institution she wants to belong to, she’s able to positively contribute and help lead the Bellas into the future.

But more than that, despite the toxicity that makes their relationships so compelling, the female characters care about each other as people. Yes, unfortunately this is a notable bar. It passes the Bechdel test with flying colors — and passes the reverse Bechdel test too. Despite having a romantic subplot, the focus is still on the dysfunctional, fun, and complex relationships between these women who love to sing. Thanks to the music, and the unapologetic focus on a group of young women engaging in an off-beat niche that they happen to love, there is a substance to this film that is just lacking in a lot of comedies. It has something to say, and it does so in an imaginative way that is joyful to watch.

“Pitch Perfect” remains extremely watchable today, and is genuinely hilarious for most of its runtime, so it’s a shame that it has some glaring flaws. And it’s a shame the sequels course-corrected in the wrong direction.

Today's Tune

The Milk Carton Kids - covering Pink Floyd

New Music

Allison Young and Joshua Lee Turner - Lucy

Homemade Music

One of my all-time favorite tunes, and these guys own it.

Among Friends, Episode 10 - Joshua Lee Turner, w/ Chase Eagleson

I Get Along Without You Very Well -Hoagy Carmichael

New Tune

The Comatose Brothers with Nicki Bluhm - Morning Time

Buy it

Another Eric Clapton Thing

A while back, Eric Clapton took some well-deserved heat for some pretty fucked up racist shit he spouted in the press.

Then, Clapton went public with his Anti-Vaxxer bullshit.

Ed Note: Rolling Stone did their typical thing - pumping thousands of words into a 700-word story.

So anyway I'm pretty well inclined to shit on Eric Clapton at every opportunity, and this latest thing is no exception.

That said, I'll never deviate from my position that the creators of the content deserve to benefit from their efforts above all others.

And that said: Give it a fuckin' rest, Eric. You can stop the bootleggers from skimming your profits while not being a complete dick about it.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Eric Clapton sued a woman who listed a bootleg CD on eBay for $11. She now owes thousands.

When a German woman listed an Eric Clapton CD on eBay over the summer, she thought the rock music purchased by her late husband decades earlier could fetch her around $11 in the online marketplace if she was lucky.

Instead, it somehow got the attention of Clapton, who sued the woman for copyright infringement and accused her of selling a bootleg CD of one of his live shows from the 1980s. Now, the 55-year-old widow, who did not sell the CD and claimed she did not know it was a bootleg, owes thousands of dollars in court fees.

A German judge on Wednesday sided with Clapton in his lawsuit, ordering that the woman known only as “Gabriele P.” pay nearly $4,000 in court costs for copyright infringement, according to the German news outlet DW.

The woman, who lives in Ratingen, a small German town about an hour outside Cologne, claimed her late husband bought the CD, “Eric Clapton — Live USA,” at a department store in 1987, DW reported. She told the court she did not know she was infringing copyright when she listed the bootleg recording of one of Clapton’s concerts on eBay for 9.95 euros, or about $11.20. The CD was listed for one day before it was removed.

But a judge with the Düsseldorf regional court rejected the woman’s appeal this week, saying it did not matter that she did not purchase the CD or know it was an illegal recording, reported the German newspaper Bild.

The court also ruled that if she tried to sell the Clapton bootleg again, she could face up to six years in prison or a fine of nearly $282,000.

Klaus Günther, the woman’s attorney, did not immediately return a request for comment Friday. He told Bild that she planned to “appeal again.”

A spokesperson for Clapton did not immediately return a request for comment. Michael Eaton, Clapton’s business manager, told The Washington Post last month that “given the depressingly bad standard of journalism reflected in certain recent articles, Eric Clapton has no desire at the moment to engage with the US Press.” Eaton told the Guardian that “Germany is a country where sales of bootleg and counterfeit CDs are rife.”

“Along with a number of other major artists and record companies, over a number of years Eric Clapton has, through German lawyers, successfully pursued hundreds of bootleg cases in the German courts under routine German copyright procedures,” Eaton said.

The legal win for the musician comes at a time when Clapton has become one of the most vocal critics of coronavirus safety precautions in the entertainment world. During the course of the pandemic, Clapton has released multiple songs criticizing lockdowns, conducted a lengthy interview with vaccine skeptics and pledged to perform only where fans would not be required to be vaccinated.

Clapton’s turn against vaccination and covid-19 restrictions has left many friends and fans puzzled and frustrated.

“Nobody I’ve talked to that knows Eric has an answer,” drummer Jim Keltner, who has known Clapton for 51 years, told The Post last month. “We’re all in the same boat. We’re all going, ‘I can’t figure it out.’ ”

It’s unclear how Clapton, who has sold millions of records during his decorated career, was made aware of a bootleg CD being sold online in Germany in July. Attorneys for the 76-year-old musician sent an affidavit to the Düsseldorf regional court, saying that the illegal recordings featured on the CD were made without Clapton’s consent.

After Clapton’s legal team reached out to the woman, she replied, “I object and ask you not to harass or contact me any further,” according to the Guardian. She also allegedly told Clapton’s legal team that they should “feel free to file a lawsuit if you insist on the demands.”

“They told me Eric Clapton had complained,” she told Bild in November. “My husband bought the CD in a department store, not somewhere under the counter.”

Yet the judge ruled this week that she will need to pay about $3,800 in legal costs for her and Clapton.

“Costs are usually minimal unless the case is argued in court, which is what happened here as the lady instructed her own lawyers,” Eaton said to the Guardian. “Now that the full facts of this particular case have come to light, the intention is that the formal German proceedings will not be pursued any further.”

Gunther, the woman’s lawyer, has vowed to take the copyright infringement case to the European Court of Justice, the European Union’s top court.

Swampy Perfection

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

SET LIST 

"Can't Let Go"

"Searching For My Love"

"Trouble With My Lover"

MUSICIANS

Robert Plant: vocals

Alison Krauss: vocals

Jay Bellerose: percussion

JD McPherson: guitar, backing vocals

Dennis Crouch: upright bass

Stuart Duncan: acoustic guitar, electric 12-string guitar, ukulele, backing vocals

Viktor Krauss: electric bass, electric guitar

December

 George Winston

Listen Up

Rachael & Vilray - Do Friends Fall In Love

Today's Today

Woodstock, Aug 15-18, 1969

Max Yasgur owned the site of the event, and he spoke of how nearly half a million people spent the three days with music and peace on their minds. He stated, "If we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future."

New Music

A summertime belly-rubbin' tune.

Kelly Finnigan - Catch Me I'm Fallin'

Homemade Music

Stacey Ryan - Dancing Queen as a folkie thing 

A Song

John Denver, from his album Poems Prayers & Promises, released in April 1971.

A very long time ago, a young woman asked me to learn to play this one for her. I didn't do it. I mocked the song and John Denver, and it's come to be something I regret.

Never trust anyone who claims they regret nothing. It means they have an incredibly bad memory, or they've lived a life totally unaware of their own imperfections, or that they're just an over-privileged arrogant asshole who thinks they shit ice cream.