Bogieblog

Dang, Missed It

Last Friday was Geek Pride day. I'm such a geek, that I don't have a problem celebrating it late. Check out the poster to see if you have any Geek in you (click poster to biggify).

Actually, I probably celebrated it a little; it seems to me that my Walkman played the Star Wars theme while I was on the bike that day (it definitely played the theme during my little trek either Friday or Saturday - I remember humming to it).

Yes, I'm such a sad little Geek that I have the original album music, which WS kindly recorded to CD a couple of years ago, on my Walkman!

Move Vinyl Meme

Another entry for Stu's vinyl meme, Ole Elo:

This album had so many good songs; 10538 Overture, Roll Over Beethoven, Can't Get it Out of My Head, Boy Blue, Evil Woman and Strange Magic.  Released in 1976, this is certainly over 30 years old. My draw to this band is the mixture of orchestra music blended with rock - which they acknowledge in their whole name, Electric Light Orchestra.

This was not neccessarily their best work (Theme for Wide World of Sports and Mr. Blue Sky come to mind as better), but it seems that it was the album that most of the songs made it to be played on the radio, so I actually knew what I was buying when I plunked down my money. So maney times we would buy albums and find that there were only one or two songs worth playing - with this album, we avoided that risk.

Unfortunately, there is only one YourTube video that I could find on YouTube, which was only of a partial song, but here it is FWIW:

 

And by the way Stu - you are incorrect that the only people that hung onto their vinyl must be in their 60's - we obviously hung onto our, and I'm not even 50 yet. I even bought WS a new turntable about 5 years ago because our other one had died. True, it is mainly used to play albums while transfering them to CD, but still, we have them.

Music Meme

Stu has started a meme on old vinyl that is 30-50 years old. He started with one of my favorites (and one I posess), Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. There were so many good songs on that album that I couldn't pick out a favorite. The Chain featured all the voices of Fleetwood Mac, so that is a good one. So is Gold Dust Woman - but Stevie Nicks has a voice that will just about make any song great.

As far as one of my favorite albums, Boston's self-titled album, from 1976, was awesome. I don't have a scanner big enough to contain the album (plus the album cover is very abused; being scuffed and worn), so I will cheat and use a picture from the internet:

(edited to add an authenic picture of our copy of the Boston album - with, you guessed it, the Fleetwood Mac Rumours album behind it).

The best song, of course, is Foreplay/Long Time - a song that lasted for dang near 8 minutes of enjoyable goodness. Although the words suggest that it should be a sad song (he is leaving: It's been such a long time, I think I should be going . . .), but it doesn't come out as sad. More of a launch into discovery and chasing dreams. There is acknowledgement of pain that it causes them both, but has excitement in seeing what is out there. And, the tune is rocking! Video from YouTube:

Although it could be a product of the fact I was a teenager - and dreams/discovery sound great at that age, I still find it to be one of my favorite songs that was one of the first I put on my Walkman.

Here are Stu's rules for the meme:

Here are the rules. Please join in.
1) Dig out one of your favourite old vinyl LPs, AT LEAST 30 YEARS OLD, and listen to it.
2) Blog a scan/photo of the cover.
3) Write a short review of your favourite track on the LP.
4) Link (if possible) to a YouTube version of the artist(s) performing, preferably of the same vintage.
5) Link to this blog entry. Copy these rules to your blog.
6) Mail me () a permalink to your blog entry that I may link back to you in the comments.
7) Repeat every sunday for the forseeable future :-)



New Hampshire State of Mind*

By way of the Weekend Pundit, comes this Facebook truism:

* Yes, I stole that from the song of the same title by the Super Secret Project.

Song of the Times

So I know the sopa/PIPA ado is done (for now, until Congress reworks it and hopes no one is paying attention except the PACS), but I just came across this on New Jovian Thunderbolt, and had to share.

 

Concert Going

After the town meeting, we went home, did some of our regular Saturday chores, packed and headed down to Auburn MA to check into our hotel. After grabbing some dinner, we headed to the DCU Center in Worcster to see Elton John.

He started the concert with probably our favorite song(s); Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding. He proceeded to rock us with other hits such as Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting, and Crocodile Rock (amongst others).

He was then joined by surprise guest, Leon Russel (who is to get a star in Hollywood soon). They brought in a second, smaller piano for Leon to play. Elton John and Leon played/sang 5-6 newer release songs. During introductions of the singers and players, it was revealed that two of the backup singers were from the Stones. No, not the Rolling Stones, but from Sly and the Family Stone. One was actually from the band, another was a niece or daughter (I am unclear as to the relationship, as Elton did not specify).

After Leon Russell was helped off stage, Elton got back to rocking the house with older tunes.

There was never a break for Elton, except when he left at the end of the show, and there was about a 5 minute break before he came back out for the encore performance. The show started shortly after 8, and finished up right around 11.

We had a great time at the show and it was well worth the bit of travel to see. If you are an Elton John fan, and have a chance to see him at a smaller venue, definitely take the opportunity!

NH Music Videos

The Super Secret Project is at it again. First is was a NH spin on the rap song New York State of Mind:

Now it is the Plow Guy Boogaloo (as featured by Fritz Weatherbee of New Hampshire Chronicle):

 Both songs are great fun. The second features many of NH's famous people (Matt Bonner, a writer etc). If nothing else, check out at 4:46 mark, that is what many of us go thru and say when the street plow goes by!

There is also original rap sond/video, The 603, from last year (or maybe it was 2 years ago - can't remember):

 That is it for your NH cultural entertainment today.

Mini Vacation

Friday we went to Connecticut to see Rodger Waters in concert. We stayed at a Holiday Indd in the middle of Hartford. Since we are a Priority Club Member (meaning we redeem points for the room), we got upgraded to the 9th floor (the top floor). That might seem a downgrade to some, but only a couple of the floors got a decent view of the park across the street. Most lower floors only got to see trees and the roadway (and construction).

This is the view from our room:

 

Zoom in on the State Capitol

 

Zoom in on a fountain:

 

Zoom in on what we later found out to be a memorial to Soldiers and Sailors from the Civil War:

 

We only had to walk about 1 1/2 blocks to get to the concert venu and about 5 blocks to get to where BIL and SIL were staying (they had points for another hotel chain). Once we got into town, we walked everywhere.

We went to a brew pub for dinner. Everyone else had a hard time deciding which beer to drink (yours truly doesn't like beer). Me, the hardest decision was what to eat - I finally decided on the Cajun Pasta, which was awesome. WS had a pulled pork burrito (huge), SIL had the Mac and Cheese (but oh, so much more thant that - a nice twist to a family favorite) and BIL had the meatloaf (also a different spin on an ole traditional favorite).

After stuffing ourselves, we walked over to the XL Center and enjoyed the concert. I'm sure everyone else would rave about it; to me it was good, but not my favorite type of concert. Put on The Wall soundtrack, watch The Wall video, and that is pretty much what it was. II enjoyed myself, but it wasn't in my top 5 concerts over the last couple of years.

After getting a night's sleep, WS found that the hotel had not supplied us with bath towels, only hand towels. Housekeeping did supply some a little after the fact. After I got my shower in (WITH a bath towel to dry off with), we had our free breakfast, which was basic buffet (eggs, bacon, toast, yogurt and coffee for me).

We then met up with BIL and SIL and we took a walking tour of the area. There were some neat architecture and one old cementary that we spent some time at (I'll post pics at a later date). After a couple of hours, we got back and found our room key no longer worked. Housekeeping let us in after verifying our info, and informed us that the keys were cut off aftere 11 AM. We had been told that as Priority Club memebers, we had a late checkout time of 2 PM, so I was not amused (the lady was very pleasant and friendly, so I didn't have a problem with her).

When we checked out I mentioned the issues with towels and the key cards. The woman at the desk looked at our bill and took off the only charge - the $13 for parking. That was just okey dokey with me, so I went away a happy camper.

We scooted home after our mini-vacation and started working. WS started stripping the front of the house. I starte laundry and other domestic chores. I also filled up the inside woodrack and did a burn-in run on the stove to drive the moisture out of the soapstone. This evening we will have our first full-length fire of the season.

We had a nice 26 hours off - we left about noon-thirty on Friday, and got home about 2:30. Just enough to refresh us, but not enough to make us lazy.

Flying Low

Holy Canoly, just took a look at the Top 10 Low Pass Fly By's, and I just gotta wonder how one does that in #2. Not that #1 wasn't amazing, just #2 is more surprising.

On another note, anyone know what the music is they play in the background (music is low key, so turn on the speakers to get sounds of the fly by's for extra afect).

Hat tip to Scott over at AMCGLTD

UPDATE: Just read on the second page of comments that the song is Angel by Massive Attack and can be found on the album Mezzanine.

Rock Sugar

Have you ever heard of "Slammed" music? I hadn't until our local rock station, WGIR Rock 101, featured some on the morning show. Although probably not to everyone's tastes (expecially purists), I found it quite intriguing that someone would think to combine such music as Don't Stop Believing (by Journey) and Enter Sandman (by Metallica) and create Don't Stop the Sandman (by Rock Sugar). (the link goes to a video)

Fortunately, I am not a purist and really like the results.

Unfortunately, Rock Sugar's store is temporarily unavailable, so I can't get their CD and hear the rest of their slammed music. But I'll be keeping an eye out!