The Voice on a Chocolate Crash?

You don’t have to be singing about love all the time in order to give love to the people. You don’t have to keep flashing those words all the time.
Jimi Hendrix

Microphone

I’m sitting here watching a new show called “The Voice” on NBC after watching a rather depressing show in french on Radio-Canada about Les Phoques. My voice is back to normal after sounding kinda “froggy” for about a week. I’m thankful for that since I’ll be recording some more radio in a few days. Could it be all the chocolate that I’ve binged on since Easter?

On Friday, I felt great about all the fun to be had on the long weekend. Now it’s Tuesday and I’m healthy, I felt a little sleep deprived over the weekend with work and celebrations. After going for a swim today my eyes are burning and I was wondering earlier if all that chocolate made me feel emotional, after all there’s supposed to be some stuff in chocolate (I’m not interested in doing any research at the moment, but it’s probably not hard to find info on Wikipedia or something) that gives you some kind of a high and what goes up must come down as they say.

The Moment Has Passed

I gotta say that right now I feel a lot happier than I did when I was washing dishes about an hour ago with thoughts of inadequacy crossing my mind as the ideas flowed as they often do while in the midst of a monotonous task. I was thinking about how much I want to get done this week and wishing I had more time to pull it off. Tomorrow I’m scheduled to interview a band called The Manifolds in town, meet with a local business owner who also happens to be a bit of a mentor to me to discuss the Atlantic music scene, and hopefully make it to a drummer’s circle in the evening.  There are a few options for Thursday as far as what to do. On Friday I plan to help my father out with some renovations. And on Saturday there’s a writing workshop.

I’m also getting close to finishing up my website for opening night reviews of the long running plays on PEI this summer. If I can stay focussed I’ll be done this week and get a domain name registered.

Everything actually seems to be pretty good now that I think about it, including the show “The Voice”. I think the performers are all very respectable as singers and people. I thought the auditions were probably well prepared for and sounded like great live renditions of some pretty decent songs. I’m sure that everybody’s impressed with at least one or two of the judges, the soulful Cee Lo Green, stellar vocalist Christina Aguilera, Maroon 5′s Adam Levine, and country singer Blake Shelton. They’re a good bunch up there, they get along (so far), and most importantly all of the criticism is constructive and well informed.

I used to think that show’s with auditions were kind of cruel and took the focus off of the music to shed light on how much “talent” someone has or doesn’t have. Personally, I think that there are many factors that decide whether or not a person is going to be a “star”. However, when it comes to vocals there’s really no gray area, you’re either singing in key or off key. This show seems to be more about the judges putting their name behind their favorite singers as opposed to giving opinions about what the contestant did right or wrong.

Tears of Joy?

I feel pretty good right now although my eyes are still stinging enough to make tears fall. Earlier on I convinced myself that it was sorrow, and obviously something in the water that I swam in didn’t mix well with my eyes. I turned down the brightness on my monitor, thought out what I have planned this week, and listened to some impressive television. I don’t want to sound picky or anything but TV doesn’t often impress me, so this is quite refreshing. I think I’ll give the computer a rest tonight.

Are there any shows that you thought you wouldn’t like that turned out to be pretty cool?

Here’s the video for “Crazy” sung by Cee Lo when he was Gnarls Barkley. (I couldn’t embed this one)

Portrayal or Betrayal? City of New Orleans

A few weeks ago I recorded a cover of the Arlo Guthrie classic “City of New Orleans” (see track 5). The challenge I gave myself was to look up the chords and lyrics on chordie and without actually listening to the song first, just record it how I think it might sound.

So I did it and then I checked out You Tube to find out how close I was, then I found out I wasn’t the only one who did a cover of this one, so here the other musicians with their tributes. Who’s your favorite?
Arlo

Back From “Radioland”…

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.
Frank Zappa

It’s been a somewhat busy week. I had a great time visiting the ECMA events, did a few interviews, heard a few live acts, and met some great people. On Wednesday I was on the air as one of the disc jockeys from 8pm until 6am. We interviewed Amanda Rae Gallant, Crazy Ann, Moe & Martin, Clinton Charlton, Color Code, and Sean Dalton. If any of the interviewees ever read this, thanks from the bottom of my heart. Amanda Rae and Clinton also did some wonderful performances. I am super-grateful for everyone who helped make my radio experience so much fun, especially Joseph, Mac, another Mac, and Bob. If I sounded good, they sounded tremendous!

Yesterday I went to the ECMA “Tweet-up” for a little while, it was sort of a meet and greet for people on Twitter and some people involved with the awards. I also got to hear a few songs from a band called The North Lakes. And a few hours ago I stopped by to talk to my friend Paul who was also volunteering at the Delta Hotel for the awards and heard a few songs by Carmen Townsend, who’s voice was wonderfully “wonderlandish”.

The Anatomy of an Interview

I may get back in town to check out some more music, but if I don’t, I’ve had enough fun for a while, I really want to get my writing back on track now that my little stint on the radio over with. I think it was a valuable experience for me as far as meeting people and learning to conduct interviews. The ability to establish an instant rapport with people isn’t really as hard as I thought it would be, I’ve done it many times before, I think it’s just a matter of keeping in mind that the other person is the guest and what they have to say trumps any questions that I’m curious about, while at the same time remembering to have those questions ready to avoid any awkward pauses. In the end an interview should probably sound as unscripted as possible and besides the interviews I was doing I got to hear radio veteran Bob Stanley pull off a really good one with Clinton Charlton just a little after midnight.

I remember seeing the coming of age film called “Almost Famous” about a teen who chases his dream of being featured in “Rolling Stone” magazine back in 2000 and thought to myself if I had the choice between being interviewed, doing the interview, and reading the interview, I would probably be content to just read it. The assumption that you would have to bend over backwards and follow around a bunch of ego-centric, under the influence rockers who could be replaced on the billboard charts in a heartbeat seems about as much fun as waiting for a lab-raised orangutang to recite his first Dr. Suess rhyme in sign language.

Of course, it’s not like that at all, at least for the artist’s I’ve met. Musicians are real people, too. They have a gift that they want to share with the world and the musicians with a real passion are the ones with the most real talent in most cases. I am so thankful that I was able to brush aside any fears about getting the “perfect” interview and just be myself with these people because I think their motive for being interviewed in the first place was to show that they are just as down to earth as the people buying their records and attending their shows.

Is that the end of my radio career? It may only be the beginning…  Here’s a video by Led Zeppelin called “That’s the Way“.

Have you ever met any musicians or actors that turned out to be really cool?

Portrayal or Betrayal? Sonny & Cher vs. Cher & Beavis & Butthead

 

So I decided to get Cher back this week, since there were some nice comments last week and ol’ Will Ferrell is tied up “Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie”. I’m not really what you’d call a “Cherologist”, but I do know that she is one of the few artists to take a song from decades earlier and re-release it in a whole new way.

The 1965 version with Sonny captures the typical 60′s vibe with the simple lyrics that were most definitely written while sitting around with an old acoustic guitar with the feeling of love in full bloom. It’s the usual pop setting with the adoring fans around the gracious artists with the musicians tucked away from camera view. The awkward and carefree expressions radiated by the two “love birds” really make you feel a connection that today’s more polished videos don’t always offer.

Now the next video, on the other hand is right in your face, featuring the cartoon duo that revolutionized slackerdom. That’s right, the infamous Beavis and Butthead helped Cher take this peaceful, laid back track to the next level. In this technological masterpeice, they actually got a human to be part of a cartoon’s virtual life experience and kind of turn the tables on reality when they summon their dream girl and go on a real trippy, guitar-driven journey where anything goes, including a far out motorcycle sequence!

I always knew that I was ment to write this post, and now I can finally look at myself in the mirror and call myself the premiere  ”slacker blogger”. If not only because I spent more time finding the videos than typing.

Who do you like?