The things you find on old hard drives… a suite of music based on The Hobbit trailer, before the first film came out. It’s impressive what fans can do. 🙂 I admit — I used a utility to “rip” this from the YouTube video back in the day, and when i found it again inContinue reading “Rediscovering a Piece of Hobbit Music”
Category Archives: Music
A Late Christmas Arrival
The weekend of Christmas I learned that Norah Jones released a Christmas album this year. A Christmas album! From Norah Jones! And none of my so-called friends thought to inform me! I heard cuts from it on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas on various programs on WRTI, Philadelphia’s jazz radio station,Continue reading “A Late Christmas Arrival”
Elbow’s Forthcoming Ninth Album
Yesterday, Mancunian band elbow announced their ninth studio album, Flying Dream 1. According to the announcement email from the band, the album was “written remotely in the band’s home studios before coming together at the empty Brighton Theatre Royal to perfect, perform, and record the songs.” And the teaser video captures some of that. TheContinue reading “Elbow’s Forthcoming Ninth Album”
A Song That Feels Like Warm Summer Days
I am of an age where, when I hear the name Stan Getz, the famous jazz saxophonist, I think immediately of the exchange in That Thing You Do! in which while the Wonders are interviewed at KJZZ, a jazz radio station in southern California, Skitch Patterson begins to talk excitedly about the music that reallyContinue reading “A Song That Feels Like Warm Summer Days”
Starlings
A cover of elbow’s “Starlings” on the ukulele. I have a uke. I bought it in the spring. I thought so might learn to play it… and then I never found — or made — the time.
Hope Christmas Gets You To Me
I slept poorly last night. For some reason, I couldn’t get comfortable. I tossed. I turned. I had a headache; migraine or dehydration, I couldn’t tell. I yanked the sheets off the bed and, at one point, tossed off blankets, later having to recover them because I was cold. I know it’s a bad ideaContinue reading “Hope Christmas Gets You To Me”
A Beatle-esque “Happy Xmas”
No, the Beatles did not perform “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” But this video by a French Beatles tribute band, the Rabeats, gives one an idea of what the song would have been like as a Beatles song. I like the idea of “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” but two things about the song bug me. First,Continue reading “A Beatle-esque “Happy Xmas””
A Favorite Podcast Ends
This week, a podcast I’ve listened to since (at least) 2008 drew to an end — Tuesday saw the release of the final episode of BBC Radio Scotland’s Scotland Introducing podcast. Every other week, deejay and writer Vic Galloway would play four tracks from unsigned Scottish bands. Some of the music was to my taste.Continue reading “A Favorite Podcast Ends”
Carbon Leaf’s New Project
Carbon Leaf, the Richmond, Virginia based band I’ve been a fan of since my days at the University of Richmond in the 90s, is running a Kickstarter for their next album, their first “full-length album in 7 years,” and several other projects, including an EP, a live album, and a Blu-Ray of the live performance.Continue reading “Carbon Leaf’s New Project”
Finding Beauty in Sorrow
In March. when the world was shutting down in the face of COVID-19, Elbow announced two things. First, they were postponing their upcoming live shows due to the pandemic. Sad, but not unexpected, and not something that affected me directly, as the band hadn’t announced an east coast tour. Second, they were releasing a newContinue reading “Finding Beauty in Sorrow”