Composer Spotlight: Arnold Schoenberg

A new feature of the blog, Composer Spotlight, will delve into the works of various composers of different musical styles ranging from early orchestral works through to pop compositions of today. This will update on Wednesdays.

The first composer to look at is the head of what is known as the Second Viennese School, Arnold Schoenberg. Those working in this school... (I'll finish this later when I get home).

Mini Mix 1: Poetry and Prose

Mini mix not finished yet, sorry. Check back later.

May the Force Be With You

Yes, you saw that right. In 1999 Timothy Edward Smith and Hunter Russell Nolen adapted Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope the classic 1977 sci-fi movie into a free online concept album in the style of "Jesus Christ Superstar".

Of course, with the complexity of the effects, and the inclusion of the final battle at the Death Star, staging of this (unlike Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's aforementioned production) would be amazingly difficult, if not impossible to stage effectively.

Amazingly, though, they pulled off the music. The danger in writing it, of course, is that with the source material, it could come off incredibly cheesy. Instead of attempting to play it straight, they celebrate the inherent silliness of the concept, and purposely overdo the majority of the tracks. The pomposity of the whole thing is a treat, especially on songs such as "Do You Speak Bocce?" where Uncle Owen buying the droids from the Jawas is interwoven with a desire to find someone who truly understands him, a gloriously silly addition.

Some tracks, however, play it straight, which gives us the amazing solo piece "One Season More" where Luke struggles to accept what seems to be his fate to remain a moisture farmer on Tatooine for the rest of his life.

Other highlights include the first act closer "Docking Bay 94" and the climactic Death Star battle in "Let's Blow This Thing" which is easily the most overblown number, and takes most of its lyrics straight from the movie.

While not a real production, due mostly to legal issues, if you're a fan of Star Wars and musical theater, go to http://www.infauxmedia.com/swmusical/control_room.htm
and listen. As long as you don't try to take it too seriously, you should have some fun. 7/10

The songs listed in my review:
One Season More.mp3
Do You Speak Bocce.mp3
Docking Bay 94.mp3
Lets Blow This Thing.mp3

Song of the Week: Fading into Obscurity

Another new feature I'd like to introduce is the song of the week. It'll be posted on Saturdays, and will highlight a random favorite out of my music collection. I suppose, though, that since jazz and classical pieces will be included on occasion, that the name is a slight misnomer, but whatever.

This week's song is "Fading into Obscurity" by the Canadian indie rock band Sloan. Honestly, I have to admit, I know next to nothing about this band. In fact, this is the only song of theirs that I've heard.

You might be wondering then, how I discovered it, and all the credit for that must go to Sam Logan, creator of the webcomic "Sam and Fuzzy". I've been a fan of that comic for a while, and in one of his comic blog posts he talked about his excitement for Sloan's then upcoming album "Never Hear the End of It" referring to this song as being a leap forward for them in songwriting quality, and linking to their MySpace page where the song was posted as a preview. I listened to it, and then listened to it again literally a dozen times in a row and ended up spending the whole weekend searching it down to download it.

While I haven't bought the album it's off, that's not for lack of interest, I just haven't seen it at a store and had enough cash on me to buy it at the same time. I'm planning to eventually add it to my collection. Why didn't I use Amazon.com? To be frank, I don't trust myself enough with money to get a credit card.

Just listen and enjoy:
Fading into Obscurity.mp3

For some reason I don't seem to be able to link to the Amazon.com page for the album, as I discovered with the previous post on "A Hard Day's Night", but if you like the song and are interested in the album, please support the band and buy it.

Classic Album Fridays: A Hard Day's Night

As a new, and the first, weekly feature to the blog, I'd like to introduce "Classic Album Fridays" nevermind that it's technically Saturday now. The repeat of this week's 'House' was on, when I thought of the idea, and I was enjoying the episode too much to blog, so frankly, I don't care. Basically, this feature is an outlet for me to review a classic album. My only guidelines are it cannot be a compilation or live album, and it has to be at least five years old. Beyond that, it's wherever my mind chooses to take me.

For the innaugural post of this feature, I thought it only appropriate to review the first album I ever owned. My dad bought me this about a decade ago when I was either seven or eight (I don't recall for sure which) and it began my love affair with the music of the Beatles, who were basically all I listened to throughout elementary school, and remain my favorite band to this day. This album, as the post title has already revealed, is their third full-length release, "A Hard Day's Night."

Often considered to be the pinnacle of their early years, this was their first album consisting wholly of original material, and not a single number feels like filler.

The album opens with a single chord, before bursting fully into one of their most enduring songs, the title track. It's an irresistable piece of guitar-pop sung by John Lennon. Following is another with John's vocals, "I Should Have Known Better." With the single exception of "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You" which they let George sing, Lennon and McCartney wrote and sang every number.

While only a few songs made much chart or radio impression, every song on the album remains a true classic, and while the Beatles would write and record deeper and more complex songs, they never sounded like they were having more fun than they do here. If you're looking for simply a great, fun pop album, it doesn't get much better than this.

10/10

01 A Hard Days Night.wma
02 I Should Have Known Better.wma
05 And I Love Her.wma
07 Cant Buy Me Love.wma

(Note: the apostrophes were removed from the titles of "A Hard Day's Night" and "Can't Buy Me Love" due to FileDen's insistence that they cannot create HTML links to files with apostrophes ' in them.)

Buy this album at Amazon.com

Chaucer and Shakespeare for Heroes...

As of today it is November. A few of you may know what that means, but for those that don't, it's not only the month that we Americans get together for Thanksgiving, but it is also National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo). This is a personal challenge across the nation for participants to try to write a 50,000 word novel within the scope of the month. For those who're counting (and what a mind-numbingly boring task that must be) that equals a book roughly the length of "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, or "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. Not a mammoth task by any means, but a challenge. Quality of grammar and plot aren't necessary for completion, but it must wind up to be a single piece of at least that length to 'win'. I put win in parentheses because there isn't actually a prize, although you can submit your work to the official website of the challenge for authentification and recieve a printable certificate. I started my attempt for this year at around one this afternoon. Good luck to all of you 'competing' out there.

For more information:

The official site: http://www.nanowrimo.org/
The Wikipedia article on the challenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaNoWriMo

Forever Autumn

For my first full post, I thought I'd share with you folks a mix tape I made for Autumn. The tracks have either an acoustic or somewhat country-ish feel to them. Download, burn and enjoy. The name of the mix is the same as the name of this post, by the way.

01 The Beginning.wma by Brent Grenda
02 Pay No Mind (Snoozer).wma by Beck
03 Harvest Moon.wma by Neil Young
04 Blank.wma by Smashing Pumpkins
05 All I Can Do is Write About It.wma by Lynyrd Skynyrd [acoustic version]
06 Dreams.mp3 by Whiskeytown [Fleetwood Mac cover]
07 Bottom of the World.wma by Tom Waits
08 Wheat Kings.wma by The Tragically Hip
09 Forget.wma by Spades Alone
10 Road Going Anywhere.mp3 by Michael King
11 Mull of Kintyre.wma by Wings
12 Sister Golden Hair.wma by America
13 Free Fallin.wma by Tom Petty
14 Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).wma by Green Day
15 Pale Blue Eyes.mp3 by Alejandro Escovedo [Velvet Underground cover]
16 Fire and Rain.wma by James Taylor
17 Hello Old Friend.wma by Eric Clapton
18 Yesterday.wma by Brent Grenda
19 Keep Me in Your Heart.wma by Warren Zevon
20 Life by the Drop.wma by Stevie Ray Vaughan