This is the most important subject in the world

I must disagree with Kevin Drum's view on Jacob Weisberg's hit piece in Slate regarding Senator Clinton's IPod:  Everyone knows that what you listen to on your IPod (or red-haired Mpeg-playin' stepchild) defines the very substance of your being.  Indeed, it is vital that we all share ten songs recently played on our IPods with the world.  Drum's attempts to misdirect notwithstanding, this is the most important subject in the world.  Mine are below the fold.

Why the long silence from this loyal ObWingian?  Why might some assert that this post is "pretty frivolous" and "totally lacking in substance"?  Let's put it this way:  after being blasted by the conservative wing of the Republican party for failing to offer sufficient support for President Bush, I am now informed by the conservative wing of the Republican party that President Bush is, in fact, a liberal Republican.  Whiplash is a serious injury with long-term consequences.  The recovery is painful.  It takes time.   

At present, it's:

Neighborhood #2 (Laika) -- The Arcade Fire.

Cindy's on Methadone -- Screeching Weasel.

When the Tigers Broke Free -- Pink Floyd.

Pancho and Lefty -- Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson.

Conrad -- Jets to Brazil.

Blue Monday -- (Flunk's version).

Bad Mouth -- Fugazi.

The Man Comes Around -- Johnny Cash.

Rock the Casbah -- The Clash.

New Jack Hustler -- Ice-T.

I'm not sure what to conclude from this -- save, perhaps, that I need to update my rotation.  (I've kept it to one song per artist; otherwise, numbers 2-10 on this list would all be from the same artist and album [Screeching Weasel, "My Brain Hurts"].

Comments

[cleek]

it's nice to see Fugazi on a list. tho i'm sure you engineered the list appeal to the most people possible.

Indeed, it is vital that we all share ten songs recently played on our IPods with the world

agreed. that's why i do it every monday.

[von]

it's nice to see Fugazi on a list. tho i'm sure you engineered the list appeal to the most people possible.

Of course. My actual playlist is Mr. Big's "To Be With You" on repeat.

[rilkefan]

You managed to find a track I've not heard by the one band above I'm familiar with...

[John Thullen]

Just so you know, Von, this post is sadly deficient in frivolity and still wears the lead boots of substance.

Johnny Cash, "The Man Comes Around"

"and the whirlwind is in the thorn tree;
the virgins are all trimming their wicks.

and the whirlwind is in the thorn tree;
it's hard for thee to kick against the pricks."

That gets me right in the Flannery O'Conner gland.

Stay for awhile. Speak.

[Noumenon]

If Hillary's list looked like yours it probably would have sunk her into "indie snob" status, so she was better off lying.

[rilkefan]

Enjoyable article on a band where Steve Reich meets Slayer.

[CaseyL]

No iPod list, because I hain't got one, nor particularly want one, but I did go to Seattle's Folklife Friday and yesterday, so live music has been a big part of my weekend.

I love Celtic music, and spent a lot of time by the stages where that was playing.

But I also heard a wonderful Sousa set from the even more wonderfully named Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band. They all wear marching band outfits, of all different colors, embellishments, and styles; so they of course look like a bunch of refugees from a Sergeant Pepper photo shoot. They'll be playing at various venues throughout the summer, so I hope to see them again.

There was also a group playing old IWW activism songs. Beautiful voices, and they kept the arrangements simple, the words being important enough that one should hear them clearly. They didn't do "Joe Hill," which I would've liked to hear, though I doubt anyone can sing it better than Joan Baez, whose version I always hear when I'm playing the song in my head.

The Central District Drummers held court by Key Arena, down in the main entry well, where the accoustics are excellent. You could hear their set from far off, and there's nothing like marching band drumming to get my attention. They're all young, all students or alum of CD high schools (including, esp., Jimi Hendrix's alma mater, Garfield High). It was great fun: seven drums, one cymbal set, thumped and rolled and clashed with precision, enthusiasm, and many flourishes of drumstick and cymbal.

The weather hasn't been very cooperative. Friday the rain started about 3:00; yesterday around 4:00, and they're saying it'll be like that the whole weekend. For as long as I can remember, it's always rained on Folklife on Memorial Day Monday. Be kind of funny if, this year, Monday is the one day that stays dry.

[Charles Bird]

My top ten, at least for today:

I Am the Highway or What You Are -- Audioslave
Who Knows -- Jimi Hendrix/Band of Gypsies
Gone Shootin' -- AC/DC
The Scientist -- Coldplay
New Orleans is Sinking -- Tragically Hip
Rock n' Roll Queen -- The Subways
These Things -- She Wants Revenge
Brain Stew -- Green Day
Flake -- Jack Johnson
God Save Us All -- Lenny Kravitz
Adam Raised a Cain -- Springsteen

OK, that's 11 or 12. Might have to update my list, too. No Stones, but I have Can't Hear Me Knocking as a ring tone on my cell.

[cleek]

but I have Can't Hear Me Knocking as a ring tone on my cell

my ringtone is currently Minor Threat's I Don't Wanna Hear It. it sounds like white noise, coming out of that tiny cell speaker, but i know what it is. and it makes me smile.

[Pinko Punko]

von, a Final Cut track- nice.

[Bruce Baugh]

Lessee...

"Perchance to Dream", Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori, Halo soundtrack

"Brothers", Hans Zimmer, Broken Arrow soundtrack

Neuromancer disc 6, William Gibson, unabridged audio version

"I Don't Want to Be Your Friend", Cyndi Lauper, Time After Time

"Hold Back the Tears", Mark Heard, Tribal Opera

"Deliver Me", Sarah Brightman, Eden

"The White Tree", Howard Shore, The Return of the King soundtrack

"Three Boats Down from the Candy", Marillion, Singles 1989-1995

"Good News", Ray Lynch, The Sky of Mind

"Rock and Roll on the New Long March", Cui Jian, Rock and Roll on the New Long March

[rilkefan]

CB, glad to see that you like The T. Hip and Audioslave and Springsteen and several other bands I favor.

[Randy Paul]

Jeez, Von, where have you been? :-)

Several of us have been compiling our random lists on a weekly basis:

Here's my latest:

1.) Man from Tanganyika - McCoy Tyner (Tender Moments)

2.) Downstairs - Kenny Burrell (Guitar Forms)

3.) Passatempo - Sharon Isbin & Carlos Barbosa-Lima (Brazil, with Love)

4.) Jeca's Baiao - Trio da Paz (Brazil From the Inside)

5.) Não Enche - Caetano Veloso (Livro)

6.) Prague in March - Nilson Matta & Hendrik Meurkens (Encontros)

7.) Love for Sale - Claudio Roditi (Mind Games)

8.) Sawmill Blues - Joe Williams (I Just Want to Sing)

9.) My Foolish Heart - Carol Sloane (As Time Goes By)

10.) Commissão de Frente - João Bosco (Minha História)

[von]

If Hillary's list looked like yours it probably would have sunk her into "indie snob" status, so she was better off lying.

Yes, mine is a list that tries too hard to be cool.

On the other hand, I just took a bike ride; to update today's playlist: Skynard, "Sweet Home Alabama"; Neil Diamond, "Sweet Caroline"; and NWA, "Express Yourself". Not quite sure why I chose to listen to those songs in that order, but it is one of the peculiar beauties of the iPod that I was able to -- because those were exactly the songs I wanted to hear at the time.

a Final Cut track- nice.

Actually -- at the risk of being further branded a snob and run out of ObWi -- I was listening to the track from The Wall -- which track, of course, is not actually on the album (altho' it shows up in the movie, along with the similarly excellent "Empty Spaces"*).

FYI, the original 1982 release of The Final Cut does not include "When the Tigers Broke Free"; the song was included only in the 2001 (?) re-release of the album. For a long time the only available versions of "When the Tigers Broke Free" were those that were taped from the movie.

von

*Might have gotten the name wrong, but the song is unmistakable. Starts (SFAIR): "What shall we use to fill the empty spaces where we used to talk?"

[Noumenon]

I don't know if your list tried too hard to be cool, just that it's obscure. If Hillary had gone for NWA that would have been way awesome.

[cleek]

"What shall we use to fill the empty spaces where we used to talk?"

FYI, that's on my copy of The Wall, right before Young Lust.

[Gary Farber]

"No iPod list, because I hain't got one, nor particularly want one, but I did go to Seattle's Folklife Friday and yesterday, so live music has been a big part of my weekend."

An event I was extremely fond of, and miss.

No matter if it was when I was living on Capitol Hill, or the U. District, or best of all, at 420 Vine St., between 2nd and 3rd Avenue, right off the monorail, and just about 2 blocks from the site.

"The weather hasn't been very cooperative."

I'll trade you your rain for the heat here; it set a record yesterday at 93 degrees F -- the norm is supposed to be 75. Today is better, but it's only noonish. On the other hand, the pool in our little apartment complex (3 buildings, 3 floors each, 4 little studios per floor) opened on Friday, so I'll probably go use it soon.

My iTunes list (on computer; no iPod) is boring, though Joan Jett's cover of "Wild Thing" is on at the moment, on shuffle. I still recall the novelty 45 version supposedly of Bobby Kennedy, and Everett Dirksen on the B side, from my youth. Whoops, "Nowhere To Run" by Martha and the Vandellas just came up.

Let's see, if I recall correctly, before that was Sleator-Kinney's "Modern Girl," before that Mr. T Experience's "Ba ba ba ba ba," before that Puffy AmyiYu's "Teen Titans Theme," before that Mekons' "Sin City," October Project's "Bury My Lovely," Muddy Waters' "Whiskey Blues," Miles Davis and John Coltrane's "Crazeology," Widespread Panic's cover of "Can't Find My Way Home," something by the McGarrigles before that, something Steeleye Span before that, something Throwing Muses before that, and now it's Patti Smith's cover of "My Generation." Whoops, here's Sleator-Kinney again with "One Beat."

So there you go. It's very boring.

[Gary Farber]

Oh, and before that, "Find Your Grail" from Spamalot, and now it's Mingus & Eric Dolphy's "I'll Remember April."

Must. Stop.

[CharleyCarp]

Ok, 11 at random (I nearly always shuffle, so 'favorite' wouldn't mean anything):

1. Old Town, The Corrs
2. The Race is On, Grateful Dead
3. When They Ring the Golden Bell, Natalie Merchant
4. Alberta, Eric Clapton
5. Homeless, Paul Simon
6. Do You Like the Way, Santana (& Lauryn Hill)
7. Lucky Day, Mission Muntain Wood Band
8. Sunrise, Kantner & Slick
9. Cumberland Blues, Grateful Dead (Europe '72 version)
10. Tired Eyes, Neil Young
11. Laughing, David Crosby

Does this say something about me? Sure. But if the machine had thrown in a cut from Cat Power, something from Blind Willie McTell, or an excerpt from Paradise Lost, well, that'd say something maybe a little different. It's a pretty blunt instrument for measuring personality type.

[cleek]

just for fun:

1. Hector - Rustbelt (one of my college bands)
2. Wolfmother - Apple Tree (think White Stripes meet Black Sabbath)
3. Fleetwood Mac - Over and Over (middling McVie ballad)
4. Apples In Stereo - Innerspace
5. Talking Heads - The Big Country (live from "The Name of This Band...)
6. Bob Dylan - Desolation Row
7. Silver Jews - Introduction II
8. Pixies - In Heaven (live)
9. Carol King - Tapestry
10. Sunshine Fix - See Yourself
11. Beastie Boys - Time To Build

i think that says "graduated college in 93"

[Gromit]

Am I the only person left on Earth who listens to albums, and not playlists? In fact, I always had a hard time hearing songs I knew on the radio, back when I could stomach commercial radio, because I invariably expected the next track to follow, and it never did.

Me, I like Greg Brown a lot these days. One of the most consistently good songwriters out there for my money, and prolific, too, which I find to be a very rare combination.

[von]

FYI, that's on my copy of The Wall, right before Young Lust.

Yes, but in the movie you get a completely different song.

Here's the portion common to both album and movie:

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces,
Where we used to talk?
How shall I fill the final places?
How should I complete the wall?

And then you immediately go into "Young Lust".

In the movie, however, you get the following:

What shall

We use

To fill

The empty

Spaces

Where waves

Of hunger

Roar

Shall we set out

Across this sea of

Faces

In search of more

And more

Applause

Shall we buy a new guitar?

Shall we drive a more powerful car?

Shall we work straight through the night?

Shall we get into fights,

Leave the lights on,

Drop bombs,

Do tours of the East,

Contract diseases,

Bury bones,

Break up homes,

Send flowers by phone,

Take to drink,

Go to shrinks,

Give up meat,

Rarely sleep,

Keep people as pets,

Train dogs,

Race rats,

Fill the attic with cash,

Bury treasure,

Store up leisure,

But never relax at all?

With our backs to the wall.

[bob mcmanus]

Bohemian Vendetta - House of the Rising Sun(60s garage)
Juliana Hatfield - Ruthless
Jean-Jacques Milteau - Hometown (Nawleens swamp comp)
Caedmon - Columbas Song (Brit psych-folk)
Bruce Springsteen - My Best was Never Good Enough (Tom Joad)
The Hives - A Little More for Little You(punk)
King Curtis - Fever (big band sax blues)
Swell - The Price (slowcore)
Charlie Parker - Thriving on a Riff
John Foxx - He's a Liquid (ex-Ultravoxx, synthpop)

My style is terminal eclecticism

[bob mcmanus]

Of the above, I really relate to Farber's and charleycarp's. Something very close to those could show up in a random shuffle.

The Crosby album is just terrific.

[dutchmarbel]

I always shuffle. So 10 most played in the last week:

1/Broad daylight - Gabriel Rios
2/I'm Every Woman (Remix) - chaka Khan
3/Een Vriend Zien Huilen - Herman Van Veen
4/Hall of Memories - Jenica Rayne
5/New York's Not My Home - Jim Croce
6/La Pistola y El Corazón - Los Lobos 7/Children's Crusade - Sting
8/I'm Under Your Spell - Tara Buffy
9/La nuit est à nous - Dany Brillant
10/Happily Unemployed - Gruppo Sportivo

[kenB]

Am I the only person left on Earth who listens to albums, and not playlists?

I guess there are two or three of us -- I neither rip nor burn. More out of laziness than principle, though; and the lack of an mp3 player probably figures somewhere in there as well.

[cleek]

Am I the only person left on Earth who listens to albums, and not playlists?

i don't listen to playlists. i listen to Random. it used to be random albums, now it's just random songs - except when i'm in the car, then it's albums.

[Bruce Baugh]

I almost always listen to albums, actually. To my random 10, I set up a playlist that grabs 10 random songs from those I've listened to in the last day. In 7 or 8 of the cases on my list, that's one song from an album I listened to all of, and in the others, I'd assembled a personal "best of" mix which amounts to the same thing.

[Jon H]

Now von, how can anyone take you seriously. Why, claiming to listen to both Cash AND Haggard & Nelson is like... like... claiming to listen to both the Beatles and the Stones.

Just kidding.

Here's a random 10 of my highest-rated songs, since I mostly listen on shuffle.

This Is How It Feels, The Golden Palominos
Life On the Moon (Live), Erin McKeown
Hex, Neko Case
Burn, John Wesley Harding
Circle, Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians
Everyone's a Little Bit Racist, Avenue Q
You Do, Aimee Mann
Fade Away, Texas
Feral Children, Beth Orton
Unsound, Bettie Serveert

(As far as shuffle goes, what I'd really like is if it would randomly pick three songs from the same artist or album, play them, then randomly pick another three from another artist or album, etc.

I often find that when I'm listening to shuffle I want to hear more like the current song, but not too much.

iTunes now has the feature where you can adust the shuffling so that it's more or less likely that tracks from the same artist or album will appear close together in the playlist, but I find that to be even more aggravating than regular shuffle.)

[SomeOtherDude]

1. Wake The Fuck Up - Liam Prodigy
2. Feel Good Hit Of The Summer - Queens Of The Stone Age
Welcome To The Terrordome - Public Enemy
4. I'm 5 Years Ahead Of My Time - The Third Bardo
Smiling Dogs - Vatican DC
Jolene - Dolly Parton
7. Rise - P.I.L.)
8. Chase The Devil - Max Romeo
9. Radio Babylon - Meat Beat Manifesto
10. Airport '89 - Woody Allen
11. Release Yourself - Method Man
12. Nothin' - Noreaga
13. Message To You Rudy, A - The Specials
14. Peaches - The Stranglers
15. In The City - The Jam
16. Living Thing - ELO

(I know I went over, but it's all on the same Set!)

[SomeOtherDude]

I can’t do shuffle; I enjoy DJ Sets and Mixes with a mood in mind.

I have 400 gigs of really extreme and diverse stuff. So….I like DJ’s DJing for each other.

[Gary Farber]

"I'm Under Your Spell - Tara Buffy"

Ha!

I play that a lot, when I'm not shuffling, along with, from the same source, "Drawn To The Fire," "Life's A Show," (I wordoed that as "Life's A Shuffle," heehee), "Standing In The Way" and "I've Got A Theory." Not so much the other songs.

I shouldn't list more, I know. So, of course, the latest shuffle brought were:
Natalie Merchant, "Thank You"
Muddy Waters, "Marijuana Hemp Blues"
The Who, "We're Not Gonna Take It"
Blade Runner (Vangelis), "End Titles"
The Commitments, "Mr. Pitiful,"
Dido, "I Am What I Am"
Neil Young, "Everbody Knows This Is Nowhere,"
Cranberries, "Dreams"
Scott McKenzie, "If You're Going To San Francisco"
Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughn, Charlie Parker, "All The Things You Are"
Bruce Hornsby, "That's Just The Way It Is"
Liz Phair, "Blow Job Queen"
Richard Thompson, "Banks Of The Nile"

Remarkably, no Beatles, Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, CSN(Y) (though one Y), Warren Zevon, Greatful Dead, Dylan, among several other groups that I have large strings of, very boringly. Also a lot of movie music.

What's on the computer is very slanted, though, because a) of the few CDs I have, I don't put them on the computer, because the 40 gig hard drive is 3/4s full; b) I've not had buying music in my budget in over 20 years, so what I have is accumulated from CDs made by friends or copied from friends, or, horrors, downloaded via file-sharing (which means only stuff that's popular with Today's Kids, largely speaking, which does include a lot of classic oldies). I'd have more jazz and musicals and blues than I do, for instance, although I have a certain amount of jazz and blues.

And also, for various reasons, I pretty much fell out of picking up on most anything new in the last 20 years, and have just been almost entirely out of touch with all but a few things that have managed to somehow cross my event horizon; I'm deeply, deeply, deeply, ignorant of music of the last 20 years of every and any category, and was never terribly expert on much of anything before that.

But my tastes are a bit eclectic, and I have a disgusting weakness for catchy dumb pop tunes, along with strong female vocalists. (I'm particularly fond of October Project.)

And, yeah, I do listen to albums occasionally, but for aforementioned reasons, have very few these days. Oh, and I lost all my few hundred LPs back in the fire of '91, along with many many tapes (and some singles). And then when I lost almost everything else in '86, that took care of what smattering of CDs I'd begun to acquire.

[Anarch]

I just listened to Arvo Part's Da Pacem Domine (sung by the Hilliard Ensemble) ten times in a row, so I guess that's my list for the day.

[Charles Bird]

Over the weekend, I discovered this local station to listen to on the computer. The music director is some 44-year old bloke who lives on Camano (a beautiful little island) and has a dream job.

[CharleyCarp]

That was random, but now that I'm at home, I can see what the michine has played most often. I guess all really is revealed . . .

Whiter Shade of Pale, Elisabeth von Trapp
Seventeen Seconds, Cowboy Junkies
Walls of Time, Emmylou Harris
It's a Hard Life/Abraham Martin & John, Emmylou Harris
Linda Paloma, Jackson Browne
The Way You Do the Things You Do, Jerry Garcia
Knockin' On Heaven's Door, Warren Zevon
Further On Up Road, The Band (& Clapton)
Darkness, Darkness, Cowboy Junkies
For Everyman, Jackson Browne
Wonder Why We Ever Go Home, Jimmy Buffett
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues, Neil Young
Wild Horses, Old & In The Way
For Gods, For Kings, and For Gold, Peter Rowan

[bob mcmanus]

I am drooling over some of those covers.

Jackson Browne owns a year of my life. Wrote out the lyrics in a notebook. Jackson Browne, Kierkkegaard, Casteneda, and I was working as a busboy/dishwasher in an boutique restaurant where all the other employees(4) were lesbians. I blushed a lot.
It was a good year.

[Gary Farber]

"Jackson Browne, Kierkkegaard, Casteneda, and I was working as a busboy/dishwasher in an boutique restaurant where all the other employees(4) were lesbians."

I can't resist.

Wow, that must have been some restaurant, Bob. The one where you worked with Browne, Kierkkegaard, and Casteneda.

:-)

(This is not making fun of you! Don't take it that way! This is affectionate!)

[John Thullen]

Kierkagaard was a lesbian? Was that a rotation or a re-entry.

No iPod, just me and the stereo:

Lately, in no order.

Walk On By/Laura Nyro
Cliffs of Dover/Eric Johnson
Veronica/Elvis Costello
Girl Don't Tell Me/Beach Boys
Tell Her No/The Zombies
I Don't Know What I Can Save You From/Kings of Convenience
If You Don't, Don't/Jimmy Eat World
Catch The Sun/Doves
I'm Shakin'/Rooney
The Mayor of Simpleton/XTC
multiple successive bootleg takes of a I'm A Loser/Beatles

[Phillip J. Birmingham]

For a long time the only available versions of "When the Tigers Broke Free" were those that were taped from the movie.

I'm surprised -- it got a LOT of airplay when The Final Cut came out, so I assumed it was on the album.

Last ten played on Rhythmbox on my laptop (skipping multiple tracks by the same artist as Von does, as well as tracks that I skipped because I wasn't in the mood for them:)

"Supply and Demand" -- The Hives
"King of the Mountain" -- Midnight Oil
"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" -- The Ramones
"Suedehead" -- Morrisey
"Wedding Bell Blues" -- The Fifth Dimension
"Rock Lobster" -- The B52s
"Wolf" -- Veruca Salt
"Bad Luck" -- Social Distortion
"Fly Robin Fly" -- Silver Convention
"Valotte" -- Julian Lennon

[bob mcmanus]

Insert a semi-colon in an appropriate place, dudes. If it fits. :)

[ThirdGorchBro]

Mmmm, hot Kierkegaard lesbian action!

I don't have an iPod, but can I play anyway? I also listen to a lot of albums (on CD - live in the now, dude!). Lately I've been playing a lot of Steve Earle and Johnny Cash. I just bought Heartworn Highways, and I highly recommend it. But on my road trip last week, I was listening to The Misfits Walk Among Us. As a Republican, I'm used to the cognitive dissonance. ;)

[CharleyCarp]

Bob, my iPod wants to visit your house. What can I say, it has no respect for the rule of law . . .

Wouldn't the producer who assembles an appropriate modern band to record each of the songs from Astral Weeks pretty much end up a zillionaire?

Any nominations from you youngsters? (By which I mean anyone younger than 47).

[bob mcmanus]

"...an appropriate modern band to record each of the songs from Astral Weeks"

Waterboys

Mike Scott's version of "Sweet Thing" on Fisherman's Blues was good enough I would recommend him for the job;at least the Mike Scott who was making music in the mid-80s. Scott really tried to understand Morrison's mystic soul(R & B) music;tho I think Scott fell down toward the Yeats side in his lyrics than Morrison's channeling of Joyce's epiphanies.

"These things you keep
You'd better throw them away
You wanna turn your back
On your soulless days
Once you were tethered
And now you are free
Once you were tethered
Well now you are free
That was the river
This is the sea!

"Now if you're feelin' weary
If you've been alone too long
Maybe you've been suffering from
A few too many
Plans that have gone wrong
And you're trying to remember
How fine your life used to be
Running around banging your drum
Like it's 1973
Well that was the river
This is the sea!" ...Mike Scott,"This is the Sea"

"And i will raise my hand up
Into the night time sky
And count the stars
That's shining in your eye
Just to dig it all an' not to wonder
That's just fine
And i'll be satisfied
Not to read in between the lines
And i will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain
And i will never, ever, ever, ever
Grow so old again." ...Van Morrison, "Sweet Thing"

Symbolism is like, hard.

[J. Michael Neal]

"What shall we use to fill the empty spaces where we used to talk?"

FYI, that's on my copy of The Wall, right before Young Lust.

Jesus Christ, you're all wrong. What kind of Floyd fans are you?

"When the Tigers Broke Free" is not a track from on The Final Cut, at least not originally. It's a song from The Wall that was cut for the studio release. You could get in on the LP of the movie soundtrack, but those are rare.

It was unavailable on CD until the release of their 2001 greatest hits album. It was only put on The Final Cut in a 2004 re-release of the album. It was inserted, and, frankly, it's out of place there, since the protagonist was a gunner on RAF bombers.

In the movie of The Wall, it was broken into two parts, and neither one of them was between Empty Spaces and Young Lust; cleek is thinking of "What Shall We Do Now?" which was in the movie between those two songs. It can be found on the live recording of the original Wall tour "Is There Anybody Out There." It's probably on some other CDs, but I'm not sure what ones.

"When the Tigers Broke Free" has two verses. In the movie, the first one is played before the opening rendition of "In the Flesh" and the second one comes after "Another Brick in the Wall Part 1."

[J. Michael Neal]

As for my iPod, I have my main library on shuffle by album, so the ten most recent tracks are all going to be from Clan of Xymox's album of the same name. If you want the ten albums I listen to most frequently lately, you'd have:

Mark Knopfler - "Sailing to Philadelphia"
Yes - "Magnification"
Liquid Tension Experiment - "Liquid Tension Experiment II"
Dream Theater - "Octavarium"
Red Elvises - "I Want to See You Bellydance"
Reverend Horton heat - "Smoke 'em If You Got em"
Sipho Gumede - "Ubuntu - Humanity"
The Police - "Ghost in the Machine"
Sonny Landreth - "The Road We're On"
Tangerine Dream - "Turn of the Tides"

[SomeOtherDude]

Not to totally go off topic, but could we do lists of what people intentionally listen to. What are the "sets" you put together for a mood or memory? Something totally planned and not random! What combination of songs always seem to get you just in the right place as muse or distraction?

Tori Amos & Leonard Cohen - Silent All These Years (Live On KCRW)
Gene Clark - With Tomorrow
Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield - My Drug Buddy (Live On KCRW)
Frente - Bizarre Love Triangle
Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories - Stay (I Missed You) (Living Room Mix)
Cranberries - Close To You
Sonic Youth - Superstar
Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
Blind Melon - No Rain
Shawn Mullins - Lullaby
Smashing Pumpkins - Never Let Me Down Again
Smashing Pumpkins - Landslide
Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter
Porno For Pyros - Pets
Nirvana - Gallons Of Rubbing Alcohol
Tori Amos - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Tori Amos - Losing My Religion
Veruca Salt - Somebody
Stina Nordensta - Little Star
Throwing Muses - Cry Baby Cry
Annie Lennox - Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye

[SomeOtherDude]

And for later....

Pizzicato Five - I Wanna Be Like You
Massive Attack - Protection
Young Disciples - All I Have In Me
Lalomie Washburn - Try My Love
Martine Girault - Revival
Sade - No Ordinary Love
Jhelisa - Friendly Pressure
Paula Cole - Feelin' Love
Air - All I Need
Massive Attack - Teardrop
Gus Gus - Teenage Sensation
Madonna - Nothing Really Matters (K & D Remix)
Thomas Newman - Wierdest Home Videos

Seriously, I would really like to see (and then recreate them for my playlist) what stories your set could tell.

[GreginOz]

My, what an eclectic bunch! I just have to recommend an Aussie Alternative music station called FBi 94.5FM, based in Sydney it broadcasts 50% Australian content, half of that from Sydney. It has reinvented live gigs in Sydney. www.fbi.org.au for live streaming, it also lifts the "Sounds Eclectic" show from your PBS, every Sunday. It is great if commercial stations make you reach for your Browning!

[DaveC]

not exactly inspired by GregInOz, but von really really needs

Aloha Steve and Danno - Radio Birdman

on his tracklist. There are simply not enough law and order rock songs around nowadays, and it's a shame you have to go back to the 70's to hear lyrics like

Book him Danno, Murder One!

I 1st got the US 8-track of Radios Appear that had "Aloha ...", but when I bought the Aussie LP, it wasn't there. But a cover of The Stooges "TV Eye" kicked of the album pretty well. The Sub-Pop "Essential Radio Birdman" CD has Aloha, but not TV Eye. In any case, all three have the track "Descent into the Maelstrom" which kicks ass.

[platosearwax]

Shuffle from the Creative Zen of a 37 year old:

Desire - Gene Loves Jezebel (80's)
Karin Boye's Grave - Nanook of the North (Indie Electronic)
Wave of Mutilations - Pixies
This Time - INXS
True Faith - New Order
I Confess - The (English) Beat
Night Rider - Cabaret Voltaire (Dancy Industrialish)
Seconds - Human League
Rise - Doves
The Delicate Place - Spoon
1000 Memories - Bad Religion

If it showed the albums I have been listening to lately you would have seen Mogwai, She Wants Revenge, Snow Patrol and the new Mission of Burma. And at work, right now, I am listening to KROQ from LA (where I once upon a time lived before relocating to Norway) and their top 500 all time requested songs. Right now it's Filter with Hey Man Nice Shot.

[otto]

Since I just got my new iPod yesterday (no more borrowing my wife's now when I go to the gym), no top ten list. Instead, I'll share the best bands that I just saw at Coachella music festival a few weeks back ranked in order of how much a** they kicked on stage:

Audio Bullys (!!!)
Amadou and Mariam
Tosca
Daft Punk
Damiam Marley
Franz Ferdinand
Carl Cox
Infusion

If you all get the chance, make it out to this event. Worth every penny. No corporate logo feces smeared across the landscape. 10,000 people and I didn't see a single fight. In fact, at about 2 in the morning after the first day's shows when we were all packed like cattle on the way to the exits and things could have gotten ugly, instead the crowd's response was to break into a full rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody."

[otmar]

I guess I have to post a list, too.

(I usually play albums as well, but here are the playlists when I want my favorites)

[my cooldown playlist]
Peter Gabriel "Mercy Street"
The Nits "The train"
Pink Floyd "wish you were here"
Billy Joel "Vienna" (well, I *do* live in Vienna, so it fits)
Tom Petty "Time to move on"
Natalie Imbruglia "Torn"

[my rock favs]
Nick Cave "As I sat sadly by her side"
Midnight oil "Common ground"
RHCP "Californication"
Cranberries "Zombie"

[Slartibartfast]

I must have an eclectile dysfunction.

What? No Bruce Cockburn? No Nanci Griffith? No Screaming Blue Messiahs? No Guadalcanal Diary?

What's this world coming to?

[von]

Here's the complete explanation re: "When the Tigers Broke Free," from WikiPedia (if you trust it):

"When the Tigers Broke Free" is a Pink Floyd song by Roger Waters, describing the death of his father Eric Fletcher Waters, during World War II at Anzio. The song was written at the same time as The Wall, hence its copyright date of 1979, but not released until the movie version of Pink Floyd's album The Wall and first released as a separate track on a 7" single on July 26, 1982, before appearing in The Wall film.

The song would make its first CD appearance on the 1996 album Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Plays the Music of Pink Floyd. In its original form, it would be released on CD for the first time on Pink Floyd's 2001 compilation album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd. After that, the next time the song appeared was on the 2004 re-released, remastered version of The Final Cut, where it rests between "One of the Few" and "The Hero's Return".

[cleek]

cleek is thinking of "What Shall We Do Now?" which was in the movie between those two songs

ahem. no. i'm thinking of Empty Spaces (that's is how it is titled in the liner notes of my 1979 edition Wall LP), based on the lyric von initially quoted:

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces where we used to talk?

that's the first half of the words. the second half is:

How shall I fill the final places? how should I complete the wall?

and then the scream, and then Young Lust.

turns out, i didn't realize he was thinking of the expanded version.

[Phil]

Wow, Gary Farber, John Thullen, and cleek practically are me, musically speaking. Especially Thullen.

Anyway, here's the particulars: I have my entire music collection -- CDs, downloads, etc., aside from vinyl stuff which I haven't acquired electronically and haven't yet pulled onto my computer -- on a 180GB hard drive. I have a 20 GB iPod, and every Sunday night, I erase it and refill it with a random selection from my main music HD. I don't generally bring jazz or soundtrack stuff on my iPod, because for some reason I find it distracts from my workout at the gym, so this won't reflect that. But I've got a deep collection of Miles, Monk, Coltrane, Brubeck and Bill Evans stuff, lots of John Williams soundtrack work, etc.

Anyway, my most recent 10, from the gym yesterday:

1. "In Blue Tonight," The Knack
2. "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," The Who
3. "Cut Down Fight," Tizzy
4. "The Sad Punk," Pixies
5. "Femme Fatale," R.E.M.
6. "Underture," The Who
7. "Lucky One," Michael Penn
8. "Wires and Waves," Rilo Kiley
9. "Michelle," The Beatles
10. "Army Reserve," Pearl Jam

And, for fun, the next ten:

11. "A Sense of Betrayal," Terrible Parade
12. "Little Eyes," Yo La Tengo
13. "Dial Up," Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
14. "Was It A Lie?," Sleater-Kinney
15. "6 Billion People," Tender Trap
16. "Car," Catherine Wheel
17. "The Hippy Hippy Shake," The Beatles
18. "Hang On To Your Ego," Beach Boys
19. "Chump," Green Day
20. "Johnny Sunshine," Liz Phair

BTW, I can never remember where everyone lives, but my band is starting to experience quite a bit of success and get a lot of dates (meaning a lot of missed work time for me, but oh well), so if anyone's ever interested, here are a few upcoming ones:

Saturday, 6/3 Fairfax, VA
Thursday 6/8 Toronto, ON (part of the NXNE conference)
Friday 6/23 Harrisburg, PA (part of the Millennium Music Conf.)
Thursday 7/13 Richmond, VA
Friday 7/21 Fredericksburg, VA
Saturday 8/12 Alexandria, VA
Wednesday 8/22 Silver Spring, MD

[SomeOtherDude]

For the Gym (warm-up & peak):

AC-DC - Highway To Hell 3:27
Nine Inch Nails - The Perfect Drug 5:15
Portishead - Sour Times (Airbus Reconstruction Mix) 5:08
The Cult - The Witch 7:03
Mind Bomb - Do You Need Some (Roli Mosimann Club Mix) 9:30
Definition FX - Something Inside (Aquarius Mix) 7:29
White Zombie - I'm Your Boogie Man (Sex On The Rocks Mix By The Dust Brothers) 4:49
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - A Daisy Chain 4 Satan 6:22
Ministry - NWO 5:30
Ministry - Bad Blood 5:00
Chumbawamba - Mary Mary (Stigmatic Mix) 4:19
Meat Beat Manifesto - She's Unreal 4:12
Marilyn Manson - I Put A Spell On You 3:30
Nine Inch Nails - Help Me I Am In Hell 1:56
David Bowie - The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell 4:46

[SomeOtherDude]

I'm naming these playlists by the authors/posters!

This is slamming!

Thanks and Happy Memorial Day!

(P2P: Soulseeker, WinMX)

[platosearwax]

That last list by SomeOtherDude is scorching. As I have virtually all those songs, I'm making that list.

As Phil said, I have a very large collection of jazz (Coltrane, Miles, Monk, anything hard bop) that doesn't make it to the player as it can mess up the continuity of a shuffle play. I should put some of that on there though, as I miss it sometimes when I am out.

[lily]

Gromit--I still have some slbums. If fact I have the Pauncho and Lifty Willie Nelson duet version von chose.

I don't have an ipod.
Moslty I listen to Cd's and, compared to you, all my list is conservative: this week I've played the Emmylou Harris, Mark Knolfer "All My Roadrunning" near to death, with John Prine's latest for seconds and my brand new cd of a very old Waylom Jennings album: "Lonesome, Orny and Mean" for afters.

[otmar]

btw, while working, I usually use last.fm to give me some variation. Right now I'm listening to "Similar Artist Station: Afterlife". That seems to produce the right tunes for work.

[Slartibartfast]

I have a website stored away in my favorites (at work, though) that you give it a song and it'll find music that has similar kinds of melody, etc. I gave it Sniff 'n' The Tears' New Lines On Love, and the string of artist/song combinations it spewed out as a result was quite interesting.

Paid service, though.

[SomeOtherDude]

For you elegantly dressed Jazz headz.

Nat King Cole & George Shearing - Fly Me To The Moon
Sarah Vaughan - I Won't Say I Will, But I Won't Say I Won't
Shirley Horn - I Wanna Be Loved
Billie Holiday - It Had To Be You
Blossom Dearie - Manhattan
Monica Zetterlund - Some Other Time
Shirley Horn - Ten Cents A Dance
Sarah Vaughan - Someone To Watch Over Me
Dinah Washington - Since I Fell For You
Shirley Horn - Only The Lonely
Anita O'Day - Early Autumn
Ella Fitzgerald - Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most
Blossom Dearie - Some Other Time
Sarah Vaughan - Embraceable You
Dinah Washington - My Old Flame
Ella Fitzgerald - Mood Indigo
Billie Holiday - I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues
Pearl Bailey - Tired
Dinah Washington - Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye

[otmar]

Slaarti, do you mean http://pandora.com/ ?

[md 20/400]

Aside from listening to Britten's War Requiem, these are the 11 most recently played songs on my PC:

Freight Train Blues, Warrior River Boys
All Along The Watchtower, Neil Young
Academy Fight Song, Mission Of Burma
Now Be Thankful, Fairport Convention
Trombone Dixie, The Beach Boys
Sugarlight, X
Friction, Timbuk 3
Stardust, Dave Brubeck
Stevie, Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
Last Night, The Mar-Keys
Ruby's Arms, Frente!

A random non-classical mix.

[SomeOtherDude]

Oh, this is sweeeet.

[SomeOtherDude]

I had forgotten all about Sleater-Kinney!

[Gary Farber]

"I have a website stored away in my favorites (at work, though) that you give it a song and it'll find music that has similar kinds of melody, etc"

Pandora?

Ah, as otmar also asked.

[Slartibartfast]

Yeah, that's it. Pretty cool, but I haven't checked into it all that deeply.

[SomeOtherDude]

Gary,

THAT IS SO FREAKIN' COOL!

Thanx!

[kvenlander]

We have something like 450 cds around the house. I finally almost finished a multi-year fits and starts project of ripping them. Now I'm all bored of all of them. Sigh.

I don't know if I have the budget to become cool and current. I like to pay for my stuff - even more so if it's indie, small label, world music, current jazz etc. I want to be part of the invisible hand that tells producers to put out more stuff like that.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Am I the only person left on Earth who listens to albums, and not playlists?"

No Ipod (shush all) and I definitely listen to albums. Today's is Heather Nova's "Storm".

[rilkefan]

One of my favorite albums, The Tragically Hip's "Night For Day", does not work for me as singles - it's much stronger as a unit. Similarly with Rush's most recent cd, Vapor Trails. (A homemade video from which).

[bob mcmanus]

"...does not work for me as singles - it's much stronger as a unit."

I don't know much about Itunes, but I use a tool called mp3merge (there are others) to...merge...several tracks into one. It is manual, so takes time, but I have a lot of doubles and triples. Songs with intros or segues, like charleycarp's Jackson Browne above is "Sing my Songs for Me + For Everyman" And Sgt Pepper, Forever Changes,
Dark Side of the Moon, Electro-Shock Blues etc are randomized as album sides/single songs.
...
Pandora is pretty interesting and useful. Maybe a little sensitive to the most recent recommendation.
Artists:Bonnie Raitt, Nick Drake, Townes van Zandt, Over the Rhine, East River Pipe, Johnny Dowd
Discoveries:Mi & L'au, Jackson C Frank(1965!), Nada Surf, Robert Pollard(Guided by Voices), Bill Morrissey, Chris Rosser
Good Picks Already Known:Jansch,Wainwright,Ochs, Pete Hammill, Early Day Miners(!),Eleventh Dream Day(!),Super Furry Animals

Some unliked stuff, but Pandora seem to intentionally push the limit of your range on occasion, and surprise you. Highly recommended.

[bob mcmanus]

Shoot. Lindsay Lohan's new album ain't bad at all. Alice Peacock?.

"I don't know if I have the budget to become cool and current."

Trust me. As someone who by any means possible to dig as much music as can absorbed, it can't be done, and that way leads to madness. I feel like I have gotten about halfway thru psych 65-75 after 40 years of working at it. Anything worth listening to needs 10+ listens. And I think there approaches an infinite amount of stuff worth listening to. I am drowning in reasons to live another day, I got new music needs hearing. Drowning.

It is an addiction, duh to those who know me. I am surrounded by the freaking library of congress, and I pick up a book, read a chapter, move to another book because it might be better. There is a quick rush and a constant crash. I hate music.

[bob mcmanus]

Oh. And someone could have opened a Memorial Day Open Thread. Watched "Band of Brothers" all the way thru one more time on History Channel. This time I noticed how often Ambrose's theme of the "citizen soldier" was alluded to.

On this weekend of the incident in Kabul and the talk of Haditha I can't imagine draftees being that much worse than the trained disciplined professionals. But God bless and protect our guys anyway, and Allah bless and protect the cvilians that surround them.

[ral]

Thanks for the pointer to Pandora -- very nice. I am such an old fogey (no iPod -- my kids have them of course). Ditto Bob M.'s sentiments.

[Paul]

My 10 most recently played. Eat your heart out Weisberg. I have the Jewish vote, the Balkan vote, the African-American vote, and the homicidal Boomer vote. Bow down before me! BOW!

1. "Offshore (Original)," Chicane.
2. "Last Tango In Paris," Gotan Project.
3. "SieSo (8a), Ricardo Villalobos.
4. "Bed/Café," Jewlia Eisenberg.
5. "A Pirin Medley: Devoiche Belo,Tsurveno/Povdigni Si MiloLibe/Vassilke, M," Angelite.
6. "Superstition," Melvin Van Peebles.
7. "Claudine," Rolling Stones.
8. "A Little Bit Of Love," Brenda And The Tabulations.
9. "Crazy 'bout my Baby," Bonnie Bramlett.
10. "Harlem," Bill Withers.

(Weisberg is a silly, silly man who should be dragged from his office and beaten with Conor Oberst's shoes.)

The Van Morrison fans among us might like to check out his latest attempt to channel Hank Williams. There are some really good cuts on the CD, though a few suffer from an excess of Van.

[st]

CB - Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. We agree on almost nothing else, but about that, absolutely. All day, most days. I have a kexpy sticker on my car and am currently drinking from a kexpy mug. And I don't live anywhere near Seattle.

[Anarch]

...and the homicidal Boomer vote.

Really? I don't see any music from BSG on there...

[Gary Farber]

I dig that crazy drumming sound. (But that's neo-BSG, not original.)

[Catsy]

Mmm, BSG.

I actually had a few very interesting discussions about BSG the other day on Redstate when I posted my first diary there--about politics in Sci-Fi.

[Anarch]

I dig that crazy drumming sound. (But that's neo-BSG, not original.)

I always get the giggles when viewing the title of the Television Without Pity thread on the music of the new BSG: Behold The Poundy Drums!

[Gary Farber]

Since I have no cable tv, more's the pity, I await with desperation the second half of the second season.

I only know neo-BSG via DVD (though anyone who doesn't misses the very rich deleted and extended scenes, so ha back).

But it keeps us on DVD way behind. Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell rule.

I also love the drumming. But I also liked similar drumming at the end of NYPD Blue. Possibly because drums are about as close to playing a musical instrument as I've ever come, not that I've ever played drums. But i love da beat. (I was theoretically taught to play a "recorder," a sucky flute, as a kid, but I sucked; my family wasn't musical, and listening and loving was about all I ever got genetically and experientially, alas. Even there, my mother mostly heard music as noise until I was in my thirties.)

But I still have a crush on Starbuck. Man, it's such a better show than the original, fake-Star Wars crap. I love it to death.

It's still space adventure, rather than science fiction, but no matter. Love it.

[Gary Farber]

I'm also catching up, belatedly, since Fox TV sadly disappeared from my broadcast area a year or so ago, on Stargate SG-1 via DVD, starting with season 7, in which the midst of it disappeared from my view.

Not science fiction, again, but a nice light and witty adventure series in a future fantasy setting, with rare moments of sf. (Please, out of politeness, avoid the "sci-fi" usage, if you'd please; in my background, it's an insult-only.)

The commentaries on the DVDs are, naturally, more amusing than the actual shows, although the wit of the actual shows is one of the primary appeals. Yes, parts are dumb: celebrate!

If I really revealed my weakness for this stuff, I'd talk about enjoying my Netflixing of the last season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's last season. It's very under-rated. So there.

Also, as mentioned by pal Zed here first, the incredibly good writer John Crowley has a blog here.

For some odd reason, I've not blogged this, mostly on the reasoning that I figure everyone reads the folks on my blogroll. But John Crowley is about one of the best writers in teh universe, and if you've not read Little, Big, well, then.

Though, also Geoff Ryman. And so many others.

[Anarch]

Since I have no cable tv, more's the pity, I await with desperation the second half of the second season.

Smart money says it won't be coming out until at least September to pave the way for S3, so you're gonna have to wait a while longer.

(I was theoretically taught to play a "recorder," a sucky flute, as a kid...

:o

The recorder is a perfectly awesome instrument, as a myriad of fine works by composers like Telemann can attest. The problem is that, for some ungodly reason, it got relegated to the status of Baby's First Instrument in the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) educational system.

Of course, you'll need a real wood recorder, not those plastic pieces of crap, to appreciate their beauty. Or (more realistically) look into grabbing some MP3s or whatever of people who have them (Piers Adams is a name that springs to mind, but I'm sure there are others).

If I really revealed my weakness for this stuff, I'd talk about enjoying my Netflixing of the last season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's last season. It's very under-rated. So there.

DS9 or DS9's last season? Because the former, at least, is supported more fervently than any other Star Trek series I know, albeit by a smaller crew.

[rilkefan]

"The recorder is a perfectly awesome instrument, as a myriad of fine works by composers like Telemann can attest."

Perhaps the question is, what can one do on the recorder that one can't do better on a flute (or oboe or clarinet)? Beyond producing the bare recorder sound?

[Anarch]

Perhaps the question is, what can one do on the recorder that one can't do better on a flute (or oboe or clarinet)? Beyond producing the bare recorder sound?

It can... sound like a recorder? I'm not really sure how one goes about ranking the instruments like this, nor what the point of the exercise would be...

[Gary Farber]

"Of course, you'll need a real wood recorder, not those plastic pieces of crap, to appreciate their beauty."

I did have an actual wood one. Any lack of decent music forthcoming from it was the fault of mine own lack of musical talent.

I have a variety of talents, including music appreciation, but it seems that as regards music production, drumming my fingers is about as far as it goes, alas.

"Because the former, at least, is supported more fervently than any other Star Trek series I know, albeit by a smaller crew."

Perhaps; all I was trying to say is that I think the series is the very best of all the Trek's and that the last couple of seasons are the best of the best. Morally ambiguous, often character-driven, and dealing with what people wind up doing in war. Not to mention the best space battles ever seen on tv, and close to that in movies (absent maybe the last Star Wars picture, of which I'm one of the also-few to like). (The whole B5 vs. DS9 thing never made sense to me; they were both great, in my book; neither was much as regards science fiction, but both were excellent space adventure stuff.)

[Katherine]

what sf books are most accessible to people who don't love the genre for the genre's sake?

Looking for summer reading...

No 1000 page door stops by Robert Jordan (who I guess is actually fantasy) please.

[rilkefan]

Have you read all the classics? _The Dispossessed_ by LeGuin, or _Lord of Light_ by Zelazny?

Recentish sf(ish) books I've liked: Kim Stanley Robinson's _Antarctica_, Jonathan Lethem's _Girl In Landscape_ (and _As She Climbed Across The Table_ for that matter), John M. Ford's _Growing Up Weightless_, Connie Willis's _To Say Nothing Of The Dog_, anything by Michael Swanwick. As Gary notes, John Crowley is a great writer (though I only really like the sf _Engine Summer_ and the magical realism? fantasy? high-falutin' literature? _Little, Big_ - well, and The Translator - but none of those are beach reading.) Anything by Robert Charles Wilson is likely to be extremely good but depressing - I'd get _To Say Nothing_.

[rilkefan]

A modern flute can produce at least three octaves more or less naturally in tune. It allows for a wide range of tone color and volume. It supports trills and overtones and a variety of technical tricks. It's a natural instrument for baroque music and unpleasant modern French stuff. My question is maybe something like, how much of the above applies to the recorder, and could one make a recorder-sounding instrument with these more features by adding keys and mechanism and so forth, and if so why not?

I like the harpsichord, but I can't listen to it for hours on end, and I wouldn't want to hear Schubert played on it.

[Gary Farber]

"Have you read all the classics? _The Dispossessed_ by LeGuin, or _Lord of Light_ by Zelazny?"

Chance to name-drop. Ursula is one of my heros or heras, or whatever. We've only chatted a couple of times, and I wouldn't expect her to remember me. Second, I was not responsible for the second cover on Lord of Light, I just worked on the re-issue. I first met Roger in '74, when peeing next to him, at Discon II.

It was a later privilege to work on various later books by him, and hang out. Losing him was a great, great, loss. His short stories, though, were his best later work.

I greatly enjoyed all our phone talks, and letters.

Otherwise, yes, Stan Robinson is great. Ditto Connie (let's set aside the episode in which I confused her daughter with her her), and Mike Ford (though our one-on-one dinner a few years ago was nice, even though I probably talked about Star Trek more than he'd have preferred; working on Dragon Waiting was a privilege. Ditto The Scholars of Night. He's effing brilliant).

Or Mike Swanwick. (Hearing bits of Iron Daughter's Dragon when Robert was copyediting, and we were roomates, but he was compelled to read bits aloud, was a pleasure.)

First met Bob (and Janet; probably shouldn't go into other complications and other kids) Wilson in 1975 in that first fateful trip to Tronna; he's a Derelict done good.

I have little current life, but I once did. Bob used to wannabe an sf writer, and so he became, excellently. Unlike so many wannabes.

[Gary Farber]

"what sf books are most accessible to people who don't love the genre for the genre's sake?"

I'm not a good person to ask; I'm too close. Though anything by Roger is great.

I'd want to ask you a lot more questions about your taste before trying to go there.

[Anarch]

It's a natural instrument for baroque music and unpleasant modern French stuff.

Late Baroque (1700+), sure; not really so much for early Baroque or pre-Baroque periods, assuming you're talking the standard transverse flute.

My question is maybe something like, how much of the above applies to the recorder, and could one make a recorder-sounding instrument with these more features by adding keys and mechanism and so forth, and if so why not?

I tend to doubt it, but I never studied the theory of the recorder enough to say. FWIW, the larger recorders (the bass for sure, and maybe the tenor? it's been too long) do in fact have mechanical keys because the column is simply too long to play barehanded.

As to the actual features: it's got about two octaves natural range (higher ones accessible through overtone-esque tricks) and is, in fact, remarkably similar to the oboe in both that and its fingering. It's got a tone that can range from dulcet to raucous and can trill as well as any other wind instrument. [Raucous recorder trills are particularly fun to watch as, depending on the precise nature of the trilling, you can get not just the finger (which is all that's actually necessary) but the hand and, in some cases, the whole arm moving to emphasize the trill!] It's also a fairly simple instrument to learn and play, which has marked advantages in many circumstances -- no broken keys or maladjusted keypads, for example, nor broken reeds (the bane of my "career" as an oboist).

Beyond that... I mean, why do we listen to any instrument other than say the piano or the organ? [Or a sitar or zheng if we're into microtones.] Because they sound good, and if we're lucky, appropriate to the piece in question. IOW, this kind of technical showdown seems to me markedly misplaced; it sounds to me like you're trying to get me to justify the recorder's existence for reasons other than aesthetic value, and I don't really know how to respond.

Of course, if you're just trying to find a tactful way to say that you don't like it, that's ok too :)

[Gary Farber]

A reply to Hilzoy's most recent comment slid into my head, but the fact that it's gone from "Recent Comments" and is no longer easily findable pretty much makes the point I was going for.

Come back, blogowners!

[rilkefan]

My questions were aimed at knowing if the recorder's utility has been compromised by the constraint of relative ease of use.

I consider for example the violin and piano to be better instruments than the flute - one can do and express more with them (and I'll probably encourage Rilkekind to learn one or the other when the time comes). But in all three cases, these instruments are (I would think) as well-designed as people know how. I imagine you could assemble my Hopf recorder and play something excellently plaintive or lively on it, but I at least don't know any recorder music that I wouldn't rather hear on a flute or oboe or clarinet - presumably because they have larger possibilities.

[Slartibartfast]

Perhaps the question is, what can one do on the recorder that one can't do better on a flute (or oboe or clarinet)? Beyond producing the bare recorder sound?

A proper rendition of Stairway to Heaven, maybe?

Hmmm...decent Sci-fi that's not so heavy on the "sci" or pagecount...I'd recommend any of these:

Neil Gaiman's American Gods...not classifiable as sci-fi, really, but a good story. 460-ish pages in hardback.

Greg Bear's Moving Mars; middling-length, kind of heavy on the science but nothing you need a graduate degree in physics to understand. Interesting moral problem.

Neil Stephenson's Zodiac. His first effort; more of a environmentalist whodunit, but I think Stephenson's at least associated with "the" genre (not that there's only one). It's a fairly quick read, and gives a glimpse of what's to come in terms of writing.

Stephen Barnes' Blood Brothers. Good vs, despicable evil, with a little blurring of racial boundaries thrown in for good measure.

Just to mention a few. None of these is strictly classic, nor is any of these new-within-the-last-couple-of-years. Gary of course may disagree wildly; that's what opinions are for.

Eye's coming right along, although I'm propping myself up with hydrocodone right now. Left eye is right at 20/20 unassisted (!), far-field, though, which is nice.

[Gary Farber]

"Ditto The Scholars of Night."

Better known as Scholars of Night, no "The." It's a common mistake, and here I went and made it myself for no good reason.

I agree with Slart's evaluation of Greg's Moving Mars, actually. Also, he and Astrid have a lovely house. A true sf dynasty there, given that Astrid is Poul Anderson's daughter. (Some recall her as the centerfold in an unusual issue of Algol, done by Andy Porter before I was his friend and assistant, and also as one of the original costumers in the early Worldcon Masquerades.)

I don't disagree with any of the rest of Slarti's views; I merely wince at everyone's use of "sci-fi," which used to mean "the stuff we call crap, unless we were Forry Ackerman," but that's an argument us purists lost a decade or two back. I still distinguish science fiction from crap sci-fi, myself, though. ("Sci-fi" being, say, Plan 9 From Outer Space by Ed Wood, and "sf" being the many-decades-long abbreviation for science fiction, coming after Gernsback's use of "scientifiction.")

[liberal japonicus]

A funny for (at?) anarch, I always loved the description of a baroque ensemble as 'a group of people looking dreamily intent while blowing on what appear to be table legs'...