Zappa plays Pippi Longstocking on new CD

Is the upcoming Frank Zappa CD maybe a collection of solos where he quotes childrens songs? The short snippet on www.zappa.com includes the first bars of a Pippi Longstocking song.
In the 50 second snippet from the new CD Joe's Menage Frank actually plays the first four bars of a song that appears in one of the films on Pippi. Visit http://www.zappa.com/ and listen. Check out the 17th to 20th bars.
Swedish author Astrid Lindgren wrote her first book about Pippi Longstocking in the 1940's. There were also films made in the late 60's and in this particular scene Pippi sings an ode to the first snow "Åh, vad jag tycker om att det snöar..."
This is probably just by pure coincidence, although Frank may have been familiar with Swedish tunes. He had played several shows in Sweden since 1967 and in a radio interview from 1988 Frank said that his brother Bobby actually lived in Sweden for a while: "I'm keeping my eye on the Swedes."
What about the reference to "Danish" then? Well, that almost makes sense too. When author Astrid Lindgren was about to give birth to her first child, she travelled to Copenhagen, (since she was not married and Sweden might have been a little more conservative on such matters back in the 1920's).
What else is there to say? Take me to the Falcum!
//S.H.

What's on this new Zappa CD?

Can it be a live recording from the Bongo Fury days? Or from Yugoslavia, November 1975?
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OK, the new Zappa CD Joe's Menage announced yesterday sounds quite interesting, I mean "rare 1975 thrillingness"...But what's on it? We don't get too much information here...
"Be very afraid of being Danish." The most natural thing that comes to mind is that it may be a live recording fråm Denmark, but as far as I know FZ did not play in Denmark in 1975. He played Copenhagen in September 1974 and then came back in February 1976.

Or can it be a recording just referring to "Danish" in some other way. Let's see what Frank did in 1975: The Bongo Fury tour in April-May, the two Orchestral Favorites concerts in September, the fall tour in US and Canada...or can it be something from the very short stint in Yugoslavia in November? This Zappa gig list http://members.shaw.ca/fz-pomd/giglist/1975.html tells us that the 75/11/22 Ljubljana show took place in a location called Hala Tivoli. Maybe Frank did a reference to Tivoli in Copenhagen, where the Mothers had played in 1968.
Well, we are just guessing here...please join us with your theories. Let's track this one down!

New Zappa CD!

We just got the news from www.zappa.com
The title of the new Vaulternative Records release is Joe's Menage.
But there's not much information on what this really is: "$16.00 Newest Corsaga - for NOW! Rare 1975 thrillingness. Be very afraid of being Danish. Or not. Rant & Roll. Please Note: This item will ship on or around October 1, 2008."

Weekend music: The Kransky Sisters!

Got an emal from Siggy with anewspaper clipping saying The Kransky Sisters had played a cover of Radio Dupree favourite Warren Zevon's Werewolves Of London during their gig in our hometown on Thursday.
I went looking for a clip of the sisters singing the song. No luck. But I did find a few others and picked one as our Weekend music this time around. Just watch and listen to what three talented women from Australia can do with Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman:

And here's a link to a few more Kransky Sisters videos including Born To Be Wild, Highway To Hell and Sexual Healing!

P.S.
Any help getting a recording of the Kransky Sisters and Werewolves Of London appreciated!

/Neb

The musical road...

It should be gone by now; the "musical road" in Lancaster, California. The people living close to it couldn't get any sleep and this week is the week it's supposed to go back to being an ordinary road. BBC has the full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7627713.stm

Quite a few happy drivers went there with their video cameas while the road was still playing. Here's one of the clips:

Most clips end with silly giggles of joy. Radio Dupree do approve of silliness like this!

Playing the road by driving is apparently not a new thing. Roads like this can be found in Japan and Korea, but apparently a couple of guys in Denmark were first. Here's an old clip of the Asphaltophone from 1995 (the actual road appears after 1:30):

Wonder if it's still around? We doubt it...

: : : : :

And here's an item totally unrelated to the musical roads:

Steely Dan? Some get it, some don't. Cue a blog entry from a Scott McClatchy that certainly gets filed under "I don't get Steely Dan":
http://brothersmcc.blogspot.com/2008/09/i-have-never-liked-steely-dan.html

Joe's Garage on stage in L.A.

Here is an event that would be cool to attend. A staging of Joe's Garage! But it takes place in Los Angeles, so...
http://www.openfist.org/
Consultant on all things Zappa - Gail Zappa.

Begins - a review

The members of Blue Floyd come from bands such as Allman Brothers Band and Gov't Mule.
This 2 CD set is said to be "a homage to the influence of Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters as a re-discovery of both FLOYD classics and rarities."
The combination of blues rock and some of Britain's most sacred rock music is a winning concept if you want to sell albums, but when you actually listen to the album it shows that it is far from a perfect product.
The performance is quite loose, which probably goes along with the idea that blues should be a bit rough around the edges.
But on some tracks it gets embarrassing, the most obvious f***-up comes in Wish You Were Here where the vocalist (Marc Ford?) forgets the lyrics in the first verse and is very much out of tune.
Other examples are the ugly out of time bass in the intro to Young Lust and the guitarist hitting a wrong note in the intro to In The Flesh. (In my opinion you can hit a wrong note, yes, but rather not in the first bars of the theme to a song.)

But there are good things on this album too. Two of the best tracks are Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Fearless. Both contain some great guitar and harmonica. And fans of Pink Floyd will surely find it interesting enough to listen through these songs at least once.
To sum things up, this album sounds like a concert of "Allman Brothers plays Pink Floyd", and this 2 CD set would have been much better if they would have shaved it down to a single CD. The first tracks to delete would be Wish You Were Here and Drums (10 minutes of...drums).
Hear for yourself...the album is already spinning on Radio Dupree.
/S.H.

donaldfagen.com updates

Apart from a reprinted article in about the tour, things have been quiet on donaldfagen.com. But this week the Lexi Says page was updated with two short texts dated September 16 and 18 respectively.

And to celebrate that as well as today being the International Talk Like A Pirate Day we dug up this gem from the sixties; Shakin' All Over from Johnny Kidd & The Pirates. The video happen to be blurry enough (or maybe its our computer's graphic card acing up) to seem to feature a (bad) Donald Fagen lookalike in just over two minutes of ... shenaningans.
Avast!

Richard Wright of Pink Floyd dies

Richard Wright, keyboard player of the group Pink Floyd has died from cancer at the age of 65.
Wright was one of the members that founded the group circa 1966.
His playing can be heard on most of the group's albums, but maybe most memorable on the first one, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and the huge 1973 success Dark Side Of The Moon.

http://www.pinkfloyd.co.uk/ has published this short message:

"The family of Richard Wright, founder member of Pink Floyd, announce with great sadness that Richard died today after a short struggle with cancer. The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this difficult time."

Pink Floyd guitar player David Gilmour writes this on his website http://www.davidgilmour.com/:

"In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick's enormous input was frequently forgotten.He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound."

UPDATE September 20: Timesonline has published the last interview with Rick, done back in 2007. Read it here.

Wayne Escoffery offers reward for lost saxophone

Saxophonist Wayne Escoffery (pictured with wife Carolyn) lost his saxophone in New York last week and is offering a reward for its safe return. Here's his mail:

Hi all,

I hope you are all well. I unfortunately am not feeling so hot.

On Thursday Sept. 11, 2008 myself (jazz saxophonist Wayne Escoffery) and my wife (singer Carolyn Leonhart) jumped out of a white Lincoln livery cab in mid-town while carrying our two month old son (Vaughn) and accidentally left my saxophone in the trunk. I very much want it back and am offering a big reward. The saxophone is my prime instrument and has been at my side since I moved to NYC in 2000. I play this saxophone with such groups as the Charles Mingus Big Band, The Ben Riley Monk Legacy Septet, Tom Harrell's Quintet, and my own band, Veneration. I have performed at most of the NYC Jazz venues including Jazz at Lincoln Center and have toured the world with this instrument.

My wife and I were married in 2004 and recently gave birth to our first child, a boy named Vaughn Jalen Escoffery. Like so many couples in NYC these days, we are adjusting to Manhattan life with a newborn. Unfortunately, I have been on tour for most of the 2 months since our son was born.
Last week, I returned home for a 3 day break from a tour with trumpeter Tom Harrell. On Thursday, we - in a rush - hailed a white Lincoln gypsy cab in front of our Harlem apartment at 153rd and Saint Nicholas Place, packed our son and my horn to go downtown for some family time while I brought my saxophone in for some quick repairs. Two minutes after exiting the cab in midtown, we realized the unthinkable had happened! We had left my irreplaceable 1951 Super Balanced Action Tenor Saxophone in the trunk of the car--a car that had no company name or any identifying logos. The only details of note were that the car was an older white Lincoln and the driver was female.

Because no two horns are alike, the instrument a musician chooses to use becomes an indispensable part of his or her sound. It is impossible to re-create the horn, especially one that is as old as this particular saxophone. It's value therefore is not only monetary, but artistic. My #9 NY Otto Link mouthpiece was also in the case.
This is the only instrument I have used for the past 8 years, and I have used the mouthpiece for as long as I can remember. The saxophone and piece are an indispensable part of my sound and now they are gone. But I truly hope and pray they might be returned.

We got the car at 153rd and Saint Nicholas Place and took it to 50th street and 7th ave. at 1pm on Thursday September 11th 2008. We have spent the last three days reaching out to drivers and dispatchers in our neighborhood in the hopes of locating the driver and retrieving the horn, but have had no luck. Please keep a lookout and any help you can offer is much appreciated - and will be rewarded!

Thank You,
Wayne

Contact at info(AT)escofferymusic(DOT)com

Steely Dan Do It Again in Guitar Hero World Tour

Last month we posted the news that Steely Dan's Bodhisattva is one of the tracks you can play along to in Rock Band 2. Read the whole post here (including video).

And here's the next Steely Dan track on you music video game; Do It Again. It's included in Guitar Hero 4 World Tour. And for all who wonder what tis Guitar Hero is all about; here's a video:


So go ahead and form your own Guitar Hero band! Do your own treatment of Do It Again, upload it and add a link in the comments. We want to know what you sound like.

Weekend music: Computer Love

We saw this pic and can't be sure the accompanying story isn't just another Internet hoax making the rounds, but according to The Register, who in turn quote the IOL website, in Japan you can now bring your computers to the temple to have them blessed for protection.

Could this help against viruses and hard drisk crashes?

Some suitable music to this story? We immediately thought of Kraftwerk, and after listening and looking at a number of classics from the German group we found the perfect one for this occasion; Computer Love.

In keeping with this week's slightly educational posts regarding CERN and the LHC, we bring you a video that compress the history of computers into 7 minutes.

And felt a sting of nostalgia when a picture of the first computer we ever got to play with appeared in the video; a Vic 20.
Is it really that long ago already? And what did we know of computer life as it is in 2008 back in 1981 when Kraftwerk sang Computer Love = Computer Liebe?

Marillion release new album for free on the Internet

The English group Marillion from the 80's? They're still around and has released the new studio album Happiness Is The Road ... for free on file-sharing sites!

Keyboard player Mark Kelly is quoted in timesonline saying "While we don't condone illegal file-sharing, it's a fact of life that a lot of music fans do it. We want to know who our file-sharing fans are. If they like our new album enough, then we want to persuade them to at least come and see us on tour."

Once downloaded you will see a video message from the band asking you to visiting the website, buy merchandise, music or concert tickets. You have to register an email address to get the free album.

But using the Internet is nothing new to this band. They've had fans helping them out with tour and albums through marillion.com for the past decade. In 2004 they got a song to 7 in the charts after asking each fan to buy three copies online. That top 10 position meant they got to play the song on televionon's Top of the Pops, thereby reaching an audience that had never heard of Marillion.

While you wait for the new album to appear on your favourite file-sharing site you can download the song Whatever Is Wrong With You and make a video for it. Upload your video to YouTube and the one with the most views by December 1 will win £5000. And Marillion will give another £5000 to the video they like the best. At last count there were more than 150 videos up on YouTube with more added daily.

Read Marillion's own thoughts regarding distributing an album for free.

: : : : :

UPDATE: We did of course go looking for the album. And we found it, downloaded it and listened to it. Well, not quite. The listening part took a bit of extra work compared to your average illigal download.

First of all we sat with a Linux OS that meant that the downloaded album coded in wma played silently or threw up a message saying that these files are encrypted and won't play.

So it was time to fire up the old PC and find that clicking on the same files will start the Media Player. After a few seconds a small page opens and you get the above mentioned video message from the band before you're directed to a page where you have to enter an email address to get a mail with a link to download the non-protected mp3 file of the song.

You click the next song and the whole thing repeats. Well, actually, no. The page with the video opens but your address is already there and while it says you'll get a link posted, the confirm button push instantly brings up the mp3 download page.

So with a bit of clicking and some patience we got the double album as non-protected mp3 files at 128 kbps. The originally downloaded wma-files play on the computer without the video message popping up and all is fine. Better even, as the wma's are coded in a better bitrate; 192 kbps.

So ... the whole experience left us ... a bit fidgety. We would have loved it to be a bit more seamless, but can understand the whole email thing as they want to get a picture of where the downloaders are and also add them to the Marillion newsletter.

But the DRM (Digital rights management)-protected files effectively shut out the Linux user. I'm not Apple enough to know how an Apple computer handles these DRM wma's, but expect that they work fine. If any Marillion-downloading Apple user read this; please add a comment to this post and tell us how it worked out for you.

In the meantime the downloaders where we got our copy see frustrated to run into the DRM encryption as well. But we expect an nprotected mp3-version of the album to be uploaded in the time it has taken us to download the album, get the mp3's and write this.

Oh! So what about the music? We have listened to a few tracks and it sounds fine. A couple already is on the Radio Dupree playlist.

Steely Dan: A fourth date in November

The brand new November 21 date in Mashantucket brings the number of shows for November to four ... so far:

Nov 17 - The Wellmont Theatre - Montclair NJ | on sale Sept 13
Nov 18 - The Wellmont Theatre - Montclair NJ | on sale Sept 13
Nov 21 - MGM Grand @ Foxwoods - Mashantucket CT | on sale Sept 19
Nov 22 - Borgata Event Center - Atlantic City NJ | on sale now

The end is not nigh, and we're chasing Steely Dan

To celebrate that the CERN people didn't manage to suck the world into a black hole (not that we ever subscribed to that idea!), we thought we'd do like this hip cat named Eddie Murphy and chase some Steely Dan while we continue reelin' in the years.

Watch the video and ponder the answer to this question: Does Eddie Murphy (the cat) like Steely Dan or not?

Chasing Steely Dan from sarahmeadows on Vimeo.

Bonus: How about a little reading? There's always the British comic book/fanzine The End Is Nigh - "The Official Magazine of the Apocalypse". Go here and you can download a free copy as a PDF. But it's a big magazine (100 pages) and a big download (24MB).

Steely Dan: Two more dates in November

The two dates we wote about last Wednesday has now been officially confirmed over on steelydan.com:

November 17 - The Wellmont Theatre - Montclair NJ
November 18 - The Wellmont Theatre - Montclair NJ

Tickets go on sale September 13.

Let's celebrate the good news with some great pics snapped by Ken Gilbertsen when Steely Dan played Chicago August 16:

And for a review of the show you can click this sentence.

Thanks to Carsten who sent us the photos and review links!

The world ends tomorrow!

At least that's what people behind a couple of lawsuits believe could happen when the world's biggest particle accelerator is fired up Wednesday. The accelerator, known as Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is the pride of CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research) and is situated just outside Geneva on the border between Switzerland and France.

Walter Wagner, a former nuclear safety officer, and Spanish science writer Luis Sancho, have filed a civil suit in federal district court in Hawaii asking for a temporary restraining order to stop the researchers at CERN from switching on the LHC until further safety analyses are completed. In Europe, Professor Otto Rössler, a chemist at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in Germany filed a similar suit with the European Court of Human Rights.

So what's the accelerator up to on Wednesday? Well, it will collide protons at almost-the-speed-of-light and see what happens. Those trying to stop this say that vacuum bubbles, magnetic monopoles, microscopic black holes, or strangelets produced by the high-energy proton-proton collisions planned by CERN physicists could run amok and destroy the Earth.

"Don't be silly. That won't happen", is the answer from CERN. Although worded a bit different and lengthier in this press release.

So we'll see what happens Wednesday. But just in case: It's been nice writing this blog and thanks for reading this final(?) post.

Enough with the words! Let's have some music! As the Large Hadron Collider was being completed a few people at CERN got together with the idea of doing a song/rap explaining what the LHC does. Even Neb, who found physics hard to grasp in school, found this piece of art enlightening. And here it is:

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Pink Floyd in a bluesy way

Pink Floyd is not exactly famous for playing the blues. But here is a band that crams the blues into Pink Floyd's music. Blue Floyd has just released a 2 CD set loaded with Pink Floyd songs. Done in blues style.

Pink Floyd actually took the group name from two blues artists, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, but have never played too much blues. One of the few exceptions is More Blues from the More soundtrack album.

Blue Floyd's album Begins includes 14 lengthy bluesy Pink Floyd songs, some of them segway into the next one. There are also a couple of Beatles songs on the disc. Blue Floyd consists of members from The Allman Brothers and The Black Crowes.

Here's a mixtape for you!

While surfing the World Wide Web we stumbled across a place called Mixwit. What made us stay and explore the site was the familiar view of a cassette tape. We have a few boxes of those stacked away here at Radio Dupree. Yesterday's technology...

But even if this cassette tape online isn't the real thing, seeing it brought back quite a few memories. Taping favourite songs from the radio... Making mixtapes of music that you liked....

"Look at it! The tape turns and moves from the left to the right just like a real cassette!"

You can also open the playlist and jump between tracks. Just point at the cassette.

The site proved to be a search engine that uses other sites to find music/audio that you can add to your own online mixtape. That can be posted like this:

We just did a search for "Dupree" and took four songs to try the concept out. At least one of these is from a legitimate site, but most of the stuff that Mixwit serves up comes from places on the internet where we're sure no license fees have been paid or contracts signed.

Mixwit is just one of many similar sites, and will probably shut down sooner rather than later if they don't get the legal matters worked out.
Radio Dupree would like to see a fully functioning song-sharing site like this. When we post this all four songs on our "mixtape" play fine, but since Mixwit has no control over the files they can stop working any time. Not good, but something that comes with the way the site has been constructed.

UPDATE FIVE MINUTES AFTER POSTING: Looks like our third track; Nancy Dupree's James Brown has silenced. Probably because the source took down the file. It's just as well, as this post was meant to show off the workings of Mixwit, and disappearing files is one of the "features". ;)

Tell me what music you like, and I'll tell you what type of person you are!

Scientific studies and reported in media. We all know how it works. The findings from last week are squashed by new findings this week. And next week will bring yet another study with completely different answers.

With that in mind we present a study where over 36,000 people from all over the world were asked to rate 104 musical styles. They also answered questiones about aspects of their personality.

The goal? To find out if there is a connection between what music you like and what type of person you are. And the answer? Yes!

Like listening to reggae? Then you'll likely not a hard working person, but you're creative, at ease and outgoing.

Chart pop? High self-esteem, not creative, hardworking, outgoing, gentle, not at ease.

Jazz? High self-esteem, creative, outgoing and at ease.

Read more about various musical styles here. And remember; if you don't like what the study says, chances are another one will be along in a couple of weeks to refute this one.

Rock + Roll + time = money

Back in July the BBC reported that the found Jimi Hendrix torched guitar was expected to fetch £500 000/$884 000 at auction in London in September.

Well, the auction has been and the 1965 Fender Stratocaster that Jimi Hendrix set on fire at the London Astoria in 1967 went for a "measly" £280 000/$495 000. Read all about it here.
There's also a link to The Fame Bureau ("with a passion for history") who organize these auctions of music memorabilia.

It's fascinating looking at all the stuff for sale. Page after page of instruments, clothes, posters, contracts... But we also get a sense of the slightly macabre looking at music and memories converted to dollars and cents, pound and pennies.

"Happy-mail"!

Today's high: 12 C = 54 F.

With the grey (or if you prefer it spelled "gray") autumn lurking outside and the hours of daylight rapidly decreasing it's easy to get depressed. Summer's certainly history here in Radio Dupree-land... And the summer of 2008 was a cold one with far too few days of sunshine.

We're looking for something to cheer us up, and today the mail helped raise our spirits:

Maybe we should just pack up the station, grab our shorts and sandals and relocate to Hawaii with our unopened sunblock products?

Aloha!

(And an extra special "Aloha" to Miles Hampton, Radio Margaritaville!)

Think Fast; Steely Dan to play more shows in November?

Steely Dan was scheduled to play the final date of the Think Fast - Steely Dan '08 tour on August 27. But just a few days before a new date was announced; November 22, Atlantic City, New Jersey.

And of course the fans started speculating that more dates in November might turn up.

Nothing official yet, but this blog post about the refurbished Wellmont Theater in Montclair, New Jersey reopening late October also lists the initial schedule. And guess what; November 17 and 18 says Steely Dan.

The blog also adds "some of these dates are not 100% confirmed". But still...