Monday, September 21, 2009
MICHAELS SEES STADIUM, MISSES FOOTBALL GAME
NBC’s lengthy Sunday night advertorial for the new Dallas Cowboys’ stadium was intermittently interrupted by a football game. Al Michaels’ narration became increasingly maddening as the dramatic game between the Cowboys and New York Giants headed towards the decisive final second. (And yes, announcer emeritus John Madden was there, but sadly, as a spectator and halftime interview guest of Bob Costas.) The constant reversals of fortune between the Giants and Cowboys, one of the NFL great rivalries, was lost in Michaels’ relentless shilling for the the $1.15 billion “Jerryland.” Michaels could not have been more obsequious if he had announced before the game that he was leaving the network to seek a job as Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones’ personal publicist. Michaels’ announcing booth partner Cris Collinsworth struggled honorably but perhaps too passively to direct the focus towards the game, which was won by the Giants, 33-31, on two consecutive field goals by Lawrence Tynes. (The first was voided when the Cowboys’ were granted a time out as the first final kick seemed to be in progress). —Wayne Robins
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Labels: Dallas Cowboys, NBC, New York Giants, NFL, TV sports
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Switched On by Emma Peel
by Wayne Robins
Last night I was cruising the Reciva Internet radio aggregator looking for some exotica to take my mind off Colorado being crushed by…Toledo! The possibility of a 0-11 football season for my former school exists; so by “exotica,” I don’t just mean music, I was looking for the distraction that many years ago could only be provided by specially cultivated mushrooms.
In my teens I was briefly a ham radio operator, but became more permanently fixed on SWL-ing: short wave listening. The ease and accessibility of audio streams from every corner of the globe has made SWL-ing nearly obsolete, and after 40 years, the tubes on my Hallicrafters S-108 receiver have finally burned out.
Whenever I go to Reciva, I start by looking for the hard stuff: Iran, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands. I wasn’t getting any such streams, so I reduced the level of challenge, and got some decent Middle Eastern music, on Radio Salam Lyon, France, 91.1 FM if you’re in the neighborhood having lunch, say at Restaurant Paul Bocuse.
I clicked around some more and nailed some palatable if tame jazz streamed from Russia, 101.ru: Jazz, checking out Ray Brown and Herb Ellis’ “Blues for Junior” and Oscar Peterson’s “Satin Doll.” After a few more minutes I entered “The Cave,” a fairly cool program on funk-flavored www.4ST Radio.com. The host, whose name I didn’t catch (nor did I readily find on the Web site), was focusing on bass players, and nailed some decent tracks from Stanley Clarke (“Justice’s Groove” from the 1993 movie, “Poetic Justice”) and Bootsy Collins’ “Munchies for Your Love.”
And then I had my eureka moment. After clicking through some ordinary pop stations in Australia, I found the program “Switched On” hosted by DJ Emma Peel on
PBS 106.7 in Melbourne. PBS 106.7 has a positioner most stations would flee from: It calls itself “Home of Little Heard Music.” Not home of the hits, not “your alternative nation” not “thunder down under,” but “home of little heard music.” And my magnet for little heard music late Friday night was Emma Peel—in her own time zone, the program is heard from 1 to 3 p.m. each Friday, reason enough to start the weekend early. Peel’s a Go-Go dancer, club DJ, promoter-with-the-mostess—but mostly she has impeccable feel for the rarities of fascinating nooks and crannies of 1960s and 1970s music, specializing in latin soul and jazz, boogaloo, cinematic European jazz, blaxploitation and stuff that just sounds good. She turned me on to a character from the 60s named Charles Wilps and his track “Beautiful Bald Woman”; a selection from Italian composer Piero Piciconi’s soundtrack to the 1969 film “Colpo Rovente”; and some excursions into Serge Gainsbourg’s cult concept album, “Histoire de Melody Nelson.” Peel’s thick accent—along with my daft hearing and the need to keep the speakers low so not to disturb those sleeping in the house—to me was part of the charm. At every music break, I turned the speakers up, trying to penetrate the pronunciation, as if fighting static on the old Hallicrafters S-108.
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Last night I was cruising the Reciva Internet radio aggregator looking for some exotica to take my mind off Colorado being crushed by…Toledo! The possibility of a 0-11 football season for my former school exists; so by “exotica,” I don’t just mean music, I was looking for the distraction that many years ago could only be provided by specially cultivated mushrooms.
In my teens I was briefly a ham radio operator, but became more permanently fixed on SWL-ing: short wave listening. The ease and accessibility of audio streams from every corner of the globe has made SWL-ing nearly obsolete, and after 40 years, the tubes on my Hallicrafters S-108 receiver have finally burned out.
Whenever I go to Reciva, I start by looking for the hard stuff: Iran, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands. I wasn’t getting any such streams, so I reduced the level of challenge, and got some decent Middle Eastern music, on Radio Salam Lyon, France, 91.1 FM if you’re in the neighborhood having lunch, say at Restaurant Paul Bocuse.
I clicked around some more and nailed some palatable if tame jazz streamed from Russia, 101.ru: Jazz, checking out Ray Brown and Herb Ellis’ “Blues for Junior” and Oscar Peterson’s “Satin Doll.” After a few more minutes I entered “The Cave,” a fairly cool program on funk-flavored www.4ST Radio.com. The host, whose name I didn’t catch (nor did I readily find on the Web site), was focusing on bass players, and nailed some decent tracks from Stanley Clarke (“Justice’s Groove” from the 1993 movie, “Poetic Justice”) and Bootsy Collins’ “Munchies for Your Love.”
And then I had my eureka moment. After clicking through some ordinary pop stations in Australia, I found the program “Switched On” hosted by DJ Emma Peel on
PBS 106.7 in Melbourne. PBS 106.7 has a positioner most stations would flee from: It calls itself “Home of Little Heard Music.” Not home of the hits, not “your alternative nation” not “thunder down under,” but “home of little heard music.” And my magnet for little heard music late Friday night was Emma Peel—in her own time zone, the program is heard from 1 to 3 p.m. each Friday, reason enough to start the weekend early. Peel’s a Go-Go dancer, club DJ, promoter-with-the-mostess—but mostly she has impeccable feel for the rarities of fascinating nooks and crannies of 1960s and 1970s music, specializing in latin soul and jazz, boogaloo, cinematic European jazz, blaxploitation and stuff that just sounds good. She turned me on to a character from the 60s named Charles Wilps and his track “Beautiful Bald Woman”; a selection from Italian composer Piero Piciconi’s soundtrack to the 1969 film “Colpo Rovente”; and some excursions into Serge Gainsbourg’s cult concept album, “Histoire de Melody Nelson.” Peel’s thick accent—along with my daft hearing and the need to keep the speakers low so not to disturb those sleeping in the house—to me was part of the charm. At every music break, I turned the speakers up, trying to penetrate the pronunciation, as if fighting static on the old Hallicrafters S-108.
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Labels: Australia, boogaloo, Emma Peel, exotica, Internet radio
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Traveling Back to Pine Bush
TRAVELING BACK TO PINE BUSH
By Wayne Robins
I was listening to Christina Vitale hosting “The Group Harmony Alley” on WFDU (89.1 FM, Sundays 6-9 p.m.), which seemed like a sensible way to end a week dedicated to retracing footsteps from my past. Wednesday night and Thursday we were in Pine Bush, N.Y., up hard and once utterly remote against the Orange County/Ulster County border.
Pine Bush has a claim to interest above and beyond the fact that my grandparents had a summer house there in the 1950s. As far as I know, no East Coast locale has as strong a reputation as a UFO “hot spot.” While it’s not quite Roswell (New Mexico) East, there have been enough sightings to put it on the close encounters map.
I expected that driving into Pine Bush (pop. 1,539 in the 2000 U.S. census), everything would turn black and white, Martin Block and the Make Believe Ballroom would have Dinah Shore singing through static on an AM-only radio. When we got to our motel on Boniface Road—a commercial area on one side of Rte. 52 which at this point is known as Maple Avenue—we saw that this part of Pine Bush had evolved into a suburb, with townhomes, garden apartments, even a few ill-placed McMansions, not to mention strip malls. Our motel, the nicely refurbished Harvest Inn, was directly across the street from the Cup and Saucer Diner, one of the few places in town with both good food and the sense to take full advantage of Pine Bush’s claim to intergalactic iconography: We had both of our meals (dinner and breakfast) there, the other choices being mostly pizza, and pizza, and pizza, with a Chinese and a vegetarian thrown in for variation. One of the pizza joints was noted by the motel. “Joey Tomato’s: I think that’s Italian,” one of the motel employees said with a wry smile.
Looking at a map, I believe I had found my grandparents summer home, which they had sold quite nearly 50 years ago. This was on a relatively undisturbed tiny street dead-ending on the then, to us, unnamed stream which is now listed on maps as the Shawangunk Kill. Somewhat protected from development, Shawangunk Kill has been the subject of considerable study by ecologists from Bard College (one of the many schools I proudly attended) mater); it remains relatively unspoiled and is home to some rare species of both fish and vegetation.
It was purely coincidental that I had rediscovered this childhood idyll on August 27, the second anniversary of the death of my brother David. The airwaves, meanwhile, were full of tributes to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who had just died of brain cancer—as had my brother.
I was beginning to remember the appeal of Pine Bush to both earthlings and aliens, though frankly, I would have liked to have seen more of the latter and fewer of the former. You find the right piece of land and you’re as isolated as you can be from the uproar of daily life. Drive a few blocks, and you find they’ve paved paradise and put up 16 kinds of take out, dry cleaners, dollar stores and exiles who couldn’t afford suburbia anymore but wanted the replicant lifestyle. Among that population, there is always a percentage, small though it may be, that knows there has to be meaningful life elsewhere, and we do what we can to find it.
Meanwhile, in my own backyard while I’m grilling the swordfish bought today in Astoria—where I was born, and where my grandparents lived year round—I stumbled upon Christina Vitale’s doo-wop show. Christina was talking about the Five Royales. (The group which did the original version of “Dedicated to the One I Love” about five years before the Shirelles hit.)
Christina said something about the Five Royales finally getting some respect.
The Five Royales had their peak in 1954-1955, a summer I most likely spent in Pine Bush.
Perhaps something happened there last week after all.
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By Wayne Robins
I was listening to Christina Vitale hosting “The Group Harmony Alley” on WFDU (89.1 FM, Sundays 6-9 p.m.), which seemed like a sensible way to end a week dedicated to retracing footsteps from my past. Wednesday night and Thursday we were in Pine Bush, N.Y., up hard and once utterly remote against the Orange County/Ulster County border.
Pine Bush has a claim to interest above and beyond the fact that my grandparents had a summer house there in the 1950s. As far as I know, no East Coast locale has as strong a reputation as a UFO “hot spot.” While it’s not quite Roswell (New Mexico) East, there have been enough sightings to put it on the close encounters map.
I expected that driving into Pine Bush (pop. 1,539 in the 2000 U.S. census), everything would turn black and white, Martin Block and the Make Believe Ballroom would have Dinah Shore singing through static on an AM-only radio. When we got to our motel on Boniface Road—a commercial area on one side of Rte. 52 which at this point is known as Maple Avenue—we saw that this part of Pine Bush had evolved into a suburb, with townhomes, garden apartments, even a few ill-placed McMansions, not to mention strip malls. Our motel, the nicely refurbished Harvest Inn, was directly across the street from the Cup and Saucer Diner, one of the few places in town with both good food and the sense to take full advantage of Pine Bush’s claim to intergalactic iconography: We had both of our meals (dinner and breakfast) there, the other choices being mostly pizza, and pizza, and pizza, with a Chinese and a vegetarian thrown in for variation. One of the pizza joints was noted by the motel. “Joey Tomato’s: I think that’s Italian,” one of the motel employees said with a wry smile.
Looking at a map, I believe I had found my grandparents summer home, which they had sold quite nearly 50 years ago. This was on a relatively undisturbed tiny street dead-ending on the then, to us, unnamed stream which is now listed on maps as the Shawangunk Kill. Somewhat protected from development, Shawangunk Kill has been the subject of considerable study by ecologists from Bard College (one of the many schools I proudly attended) mater); it remains relatively unspoiled and is home to some rare species of both fish and vegetation.
It was purely coincidental that I had rediscovered this childhood idyll on August 27, the second anniversary of the death of my brother David. The airwaves, meanwhile, were full of tributes to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who had just died of brain cancer—as had my brother.
I was beginning to remember the appeal of Pine Bush to both earthlings and aliens, though frankly, I would have liked to have seen more of the latter and fewer of the former. You find the right piece of land and you’re as isolated as you can be from the uproar of daily life. Drive a few blocks, and you find they’ve paved paradise and put up 16 kinds of take out, dry cleaners, dollar stores and exiles who couldn’t afford suburbia anymore but wanted the replicant lifestyle. Among that population, there is always a percentage, small though it may be, that knows there has to be meaningful life elsewhere, and we do what we can to find it.
Meanwhile, in my own backyard while I’m grilling the swordfish bought today in Astoria—where I was born, and where my grandparents lived year round—I stumbled upon Christina Vitale’s doo-wop show. Christina was talking about the Five Royales. (The group which did the original version of “Dedicated to the One I Love” about five years before the Shirelles hit.)
Christina said something about the Five Royales finally getting some respect.
The Five Royales had their peak in 1954-1955, a summer I most likely spent in Pine Bush.
Perhaps something happened there last week after all.
Google News
Labels: doo-wop, Pine Bush, UFOs, WFDU
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Is Motown Becoming A Generic Term?
by Wayne Robins
That's one conclusion to draw from the recent incorrect references to the label founded in Detroit by Berry Gordy and dubbed "The Sound of Young America." Motown produced some of the greatest pop music of the 20th century by the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson and a dozen others. But neither Freda Payne nor the Shirelles were ever Motown acts—in their time, they were almost defiantly not Motown artists, which is why recent references by the New Yorker (to Payne) and the New York Times (the Shirelles) are so disappointing in their cavalier incorrectness. The errors infer a new generation of editors considers Motown to be generic rather than a distinctive brand, the tissue rather than the Kleenex.
In the New Yorker issue dated Aug. 10 & 17, the Goings On About Town Jazz & Standards section took note of an Iridium date by Freda Payne, whom, the item declared, was "best known for the 1970 Motown hit 'Band of Gold.' " Actually, Payne's "Band of Gold" was the breakthrough hit for Invictus Records, the label founded by the production and writing team Holland Dozier Holland, who had fled Motown for a bigger share of their own creative pie.
Meanwhile, the Sunday, Aug. 23 column in the New York Times' Week in Review by the Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, delivers a well-deserved paddle to freelancer Cintra Wilson, whose Critical Shopper column recently mocked J.C. Penney and its customers. The offending column called Penney's goods cheap and its customers fat. "Hateful," "genuinely cruel" and "smug" were some reader comments. Times editor in chief Bill Keller told Hoyt it was "not just bad manners, but bad journalism." Wilson's direct editors missed the disastrous impact the column would have, possibly due to their own smug distance from JC Penney's America, and partly, according to fashion editor Anita LeClerc, because they are used to Wilson's barb-filled style. One example cited by by Hoyt: Wilson's zinger that "a size 14 caftan 'looked like a shower curtain Berry Gordy would have bought for the Shirelles.' "
But there are two factual errors in this brief sentence. One is that the Shirelles, elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, were not large women: check any photo from the early 1960s and you'll see none of them begin to approach a size 14, much less require a shower curtain. The other is that the Shirelles weren't a Motown group either: They recorded all of their dozen hits from 1960-1963 for Scepter Records. And why is Scepter important? Because it's founder and president, Florence Greenberg, was the first woman to run a successful record label in what was then entirely a man's world. Such sloppy work all around. You would think Motown's current owners would defend its trademark with a little more vitality. And that both the New Yorker and the New York Times would stop the condescending assumption that if it came out between 1960 and 1970 by a black woman, it had to be Motown.
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That's one conclusion to draw from the recent incorrect references to the label founded in Detroit by Berry Gordy and dubbed "The Sound of Young America." Motown produced some of the greatest pop music of the 20th century by the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson and a dozen others. But neither Freda Payne nor the Shirelles were ever Motown acts—in their time, they were almost defiantly not Motown artists, which is why recent references by the New Yorker (to Payne) and the New York Times (the Shirelles) are so disappointing in their cavalier incorrectness. The errors infer a new generation of editors considers Motown to be generic rather than a distinctive brand, the tissue rather than the Kleenex.
In the New Yorker issue dated Aug. 10 & 17, the Goings On About Town Jazz & Standards section took note of an Iridium date by Freda Payne, whom, the item declared, was "best known for the 1970 Motown hit 'Band of Gold.' " Actually, Payne's "Band of Gold" was the breakthrough hit for Invictus Records, the label founded by the production and writing team Holland Dozier Holland, who had fled Motown for a bigger share of their own creative pie.
Meanwhile, the Sunday, Aug. 23 column in the New York Times' Week in Review by the Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, delivers a well-deserved paddle to freelancer Cintra Wilson, whose Critical Shopper column recently mocked J.C. Penney and its customers. The offending column called Penney's goods cheap and its customers fat. "Hateful," "genuinely cruel" and "smug" were some reader comments. Times editor in chief Bill Keller told Hoyt it was "not just bad manners, but bad journalism." Wilson's direct editors missed the disastrous impact the column would have, possibly due to their own smug distance from JC Penney's America, and partly, according to fashion editor Anita LeClerc, because they are used to Wilson's barb-filled style. One example cited by by Hoyt: Wilson's zinger that "a size 14 caftan 'looked like a shower curtain Berry Gordy would have bought for the Shirelles.' "
But there are two factual errors in this brief sentence. One is that the Shirelles, elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, were not large women: check any photo from the early 1960s and you'll see none of them begin to approach a size 14, much less require a shower curtain. The other is that the Shirelles weren't a Motown group either: They recorded all of their dozen hits from 1960-1963 for Scepter Records. And why is Scepter important? Because it's founder and president, Florence Greenberg, was the first woman to run a successful record label in what was then entirely a man's world. Such sloppy work all around. You would think Motown's current owners would defend its trademark with a little more vitality. And that both the New Yorker and the New York Times would stop the condescending assumption that if it came out between 1960 and 1970 by a black woman, it had to be Motown.
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Labels: Motown, New York Times, press criticism, rock music, the New Yorker
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Seeing Blur Clearly Now
Woke up this morning to more of New York's summer of storms.
Came across free stream of "Midlife: A Beginner's Guide to Blur" on AOL's
Spinner
We used to make fun of Britpop bands like Blur in the 1990s: They sounded like weak English tea to the black coffee of American grunge. But Blur stands up well: the Kinks of their generation, perhaps, unlucky enough to come along at a time when musical Anglophilia in the U.S. was at an all-time low. Time to take another listen.
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Came across free stream of "Midlife: A Beginner's Guide to Blur" on AOL's
Spinner
We used to make fun of Britpop bands like Blur in the 1990s: They sounded like weak English tea to the black coffee of American grunge. But Blur stands up well: the Kinks of their generation, perhaps, unlucky enough to come along at a time when musical Anglophilia in the U.S. was at an all-time low. Time to take another listen.
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