#PerthFest Out Of Context: For Pina

Straight up, this was the simply the best piece of dance theatre that I have ever seen.

#PerthFest reflections: #RoyAyers

Roy Ayers and Ubiquty at the Music Box 12 Feb was fantastic. He did Searching, he did Evolution, he did Running Away, he even had the audience help him sing Everybody Loves The Sunshine!! (nothing from the Coffy soundtrack though, but hey!)

#PIAF reflections; part 1

The Opening event Transition by Pan.Optikum was full of old European pretensions about war and grand visions, all intoned by an old man with a broken voice while acrobats did acrobatic things that you couldn’t understand how they related to Europa being kidnapped and people being decapitated on the beach as the old man had solemnly related, and then, lots of fireworks at the end.  It was so great to see bodies moving amongst so many sparks and how they were moving, as if tied to the hands of gigantic metronomes. I really enjoyed it.

Can we still play this song past the year 2000?

  Of course we can!

It happened the other night when my fiancée came back from the library to tell me that a book on the history of Island Records was on the new books display (she has since gone and got the book out for me – thank you!).

It’s just all part of the game

Went record hunting yesterday at the Belmont swap meet and came away with the debut album by the Specials (why was Elvis Costello chosen to produce that album? Never really thought of him as being a ska man Was it because his first album cover featured a two tone like design? Just a thought), as well as an album by Basil Brush with music by George Martin (could it be that George Martin?). Almost brought home a soundtrack to the Black Hole, but in another case of misplaced records this sleeve (complete with a booklet of photos from the film) contained the Supremes’ Christmas album. Now how did someone get those two mixed up?

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health (all their words, not mine, except this bit):

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,900 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 123 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 198 posts. There were 323 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 50mb. That’s about 6 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was July 16th with 36 views. The most popular post that day was Song for a Friday.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twittergadget.com, twitter.com, google.com.au, 23thingsuwa.wordpress.com, and facebook.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for alice cooper goes to hell, led zeppelin ii, kate bush lionheart, manfred mann, and make way for dionne warwick.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Song for a Friday July 2010
2 comments

2

You’d better sit down June 2010
1 comment

3

About what you will find here May 2009

4

Focus on Song for a Friday September 2010
1 comment

5

Sit Down to Get Up July 2010
1 comment

Halloween display

Halloween is just around the corner, and I can’t say that I really pay much attention to this imported event (my partner reminded me recently how we used to shut our gate at our previous house to deter trick or treaters; they came by one year and we had nothing to offer, but also the kids themselves had made no effort at all, just dabbed some of their mum’s make up on to look ghostly and for that they wanted food, so yeah, we just shut the gate every year after that) but I couldn’t resist assembling some of my records together for a Halloween themed Record Cover Triptych. Hello Hell would be another way to think of this trio.

On the topic of scary and ghastly, had a quick look at the Belmont swap meet yesterday and had a dreadful fright. There was one seller with a stack of records, and many of them were great titles. However, he must have kept them in the back shed or something for nearly every record had water damage and mold on it. He had a copy of Just Another Band From LA by the Mothers of Invention and I was keen to buy it, but there was mold on the vinyl itself. The same was true of a live Country Joe album that was on offer (the guy next to me decided to give it a go and bought it; who knows how that will turn out). Despite the state of the covers and the platters themselves, the seller was convinced that his records were worth something and that they would only increase in value. My partner was with me and could not resist retorting that if such was the case why not store them better than this? The only album in decent condition that I could find was a Gene Pitney record where every song incorporates the name of a different girl. It took a lot of haggling to get it for a buck.

The Hand You Are Dealt

This week’s vinyl display is all about what is in the cards.

Two songs for this Friday

I finally bought Lee Hazlewood’s last album Cake Or Death the other day, and I was listening to it on the way to work. I really enjoyed it and got a lump in my throat when he had his grand-daughter, named Phaedra, singing “Some Velvet Morning”. So I was all set to have that song today as my song for a Friday.

Chad and Jeremy return

Spent some time today on a journey of discovery about Chad and Jeremy, after I mentioned them in my earlier post. I had confused them with Peter and Gordon, which is not that hard to do really. Both of them are English singing duos and they do bear a striking resemblence to each other. Both pairs had one guy with glasses, and one without. You could easily interchange the groups, say Chad and Gordon or Peter and Jeremy.

Anyway, turns out that Chad and Jeremy sang the song  ”The Family Way“, which I have not heard for many a year.

Also, they did the soundtrack to a 60′s film called Three In The Attic. Now I hope history is not repeating here when I say that I am pretty certain that I have an old video rental copy of that film, which I have never watched. When I go home and look, it might turn out that I have another film entirely; perhaps I only think I have Three In The Attic. The film is meant to be a comedy, but I do think that the title has a rather sinister sound to it.

What’s more Chad and Jeremy had guest spots on numerous US TV shows in the 1960s, such as Batman. I used to watch Batman when I was a kid, but I don’t remember this episode myself.

Ah, Julie Newmar as Catwoman. Some say they prefer Eartha Kitt in the role, and though it is true Eartha was more catlike, I just loved Julie, and her legs, in that outfit. I think I grew up thinking catsuits were so called because Julie wore such a thing as Catwoman.