Today, we lost Aretha Franklin, unarguably a music legend no matter what you like to listen to.

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So I was wandering around the web earlier Saturday, just going where it took me, wound up reading  some of the Fluff for Warhammer 40K again.  I've discovered a WH40K writer/audiobook reader combination that I'm fascinated by of late (Aaron Dembski-Bowden and Jonathan Keeble and the Black Legion series), so I've been spending a lot of time in the 40K universe recently.  Fun to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there... and if I did, I expect it'd be a very short life with a very violent end.  That's just the way things are there.

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I have spoken of the 2012 movie Dredd before, about how I thought it captured the feel and texture of the Judge Dredd universe quite well.  My opinion on the film does need to be tempered by my lack of experience with the source material, but I've enough to realize that it done good.  Karl Urban in particular needs praise for his performance of the title character, particularly because he never takes off the iconic helmet during the film... when was the last time you saw a movie star do that?... and is still able to bring life to the role.  What I'm saying here is that if you like a good action film, or you're a fan of Judge Dredd, go watch it immediately.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:30 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Saturday night, somewhere around midnight.  I'm listening to a playlist I found somewhere, apparently just random music when a song pops up: Don't Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult.  Yes, yes, the "more cowbell" song, ha ha very clever skit.  Every time you listen to the song unironically an angel gets a Stratocaster, so forget you ever saw the skit.  Anyway.  That sent me on a tour of BOC's catalogue.  Classics like friend Ben's favorite tune, Godzilla, or their tribute to Cthulhu, The Old Gods Return, or even Cities Aflame With Rock And Roll.  It was at that point that I really realized:

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:25 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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As I was getting dressed for work this morning, or more correctly, dawdling over getting dressed for work this morning, I spied a post over at that Reddit place asking why people like music or songs in languages they do not understand.  Now, I've participated in a few threads like this in the past and have a stock answer: "You're wondering why people like this?"  But as I looked through the thread, two comments leaped out at me.  The first was a relative newby asking for music from anime... "I've seen FMA, and that had good music.  Is there anything better?"  A few moments later, I had posted God Knows...,  which even if you're tired of the whole Haruhi thing, you've got to admit is a pretty darn good song, Undine which is a beautiful song that can still bring me to tears, and my latest OP obsession, Live for Life from Ben-To!.  I felt smug.  Not for any good reason, I just felt like I had dropped a bomb on this rookie's musical world.  As it turns out, the responses have been quite positive.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:33 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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There comes a time for everybody who is honest with themselves where they must admit that they are not, and never will be, the absolute best at something.  There is always someone better.  Case in point: Ranveer Singh.

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Y'all remember Moonbase Alpha?   The co-op game that NASA put together to simulate spaceman life on the Moon?  For a while there, there was a hot meme involving the game's text-to-speech program repeatedly saying, and later singing, "John Madden."  It's that last bit that concerns us today, for some of the singing that was arranged was actually fairly good... I mean, as good as you could expect a Stephen Hawking soundalike to sound.  I've played around with text-to-speech in one game or another, and making it sound like... well, speech... isn't all that easy, so even those simple bits impress me.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:32 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The other day, I was chatting with a coworker during one of my rare lunchbreaks that didn't involve me taking a nap, and she told me something that both stunned and amused me.  See, the Powers That Be decided that it was time to put someone in the desk next to me... it had been empty for a month, much to my pleasure (imagine discovering you're the only person in a row of seats on an airliner)... and my new neighbor apparently was able to hear the music from my headphones... but only a certain type of music as it turns out.  Metal and/or Other Loud Aggressive Music.  Via conversations with her friends, a good portion of the office appeared to believe I listened exclusively to Screamo.

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The car is still in the shop, the costs are mounting, I don't care, let's have some live music!

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Most, if not all of you, my lovely readers, are looking at the title of this post and wondering just who the heck Pat DiNizio was.  This was Pat DiNizio:

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So the Cubs are playing the final game of the NLDS against the Washington Nationals as I write this.  It's kind of a slugfest, and I'm kinda going insane.  The Cubs lead 9 - 6, but that means nothing right now.  

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Long have I been of the belief that the flat-out filthiest instrumental line in the history of rock music is found in Rage Against The Machine's track entitled Killing In The Name Of.  I can take or leave Zach de la Rocha's vocals, but Tim Commerford's punching bass,  Tom Morello's hot guitar lick and Brad Wilk's metronomic drum performance is, in my mind, about as close as you can come to perfection in a post-punk / alt-funk-rap-metal thing.  Listening to live performances of the song, you have no doubt that band came either to play or kick your butt, and they still haven't figured out which they want to do more... so what the hell, let's do both!

Which is why this made do an honest-to-god spit-take when it popped up on my screen.

Actually pretty funky... makes me wonder what the apparently joyless de la Rocha would think of it.  Or any of the cover versions that are out there.  See, there's actually quite the cottage industry around covering the song...

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:48 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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During my usual peregrinations throughout yootoob, amazon and twitch, I have been exposed to music and bands that I'd never trip over normally.  Usually it comes to nothing... 90% of everything is still crap, no matter how you wind up finding it... but every now and again something bubbles up out of the remaining 10% that forces you to pay attention.  At which point you listen to it, say "huh, that's nice," and immediately forget it.  Then there's the the really special songs, the ones that you listen to twice in a row, save in your "trax" folder in Firefoxy, so you can revisit it every few days.  I've had a few of those experiences recently, and they've all been... emotion-appropriate.  So here, my friends, are a few songs I've recently been impressed by.


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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:59 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I think that 2017 cannot improve upon what I just witnessed, for I have seen 10000 people cheering deliriously as they watch a Japanese hologram dab.

Hatsune Miku - 39 Music! (from Magical Mirai 2016)
How does one top that?

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Caravan Palace - Black Betty

Ramalam.

Apocalyptica w/ Till Lindemann - Helden

How this slipped past me all these years is entirely beyond me.  Apocalyptica is a heavy metal cello trio, and Till Lindemann is the lead singer of Rammstein... and the song is, of course, a cover of David Bowie's "Heroes". 

Want more?  Click...

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The unstoppable beast that is 2016 has claimed another victim.

Leonard Cohen died today at the age of 82.  By the time I first experienced his incredibly rich, almost frighteningly bass voice, he was already legend.  Strangely, it was in the slightly-better-than-mediocre movie Pump Up The Volume, which had a killer soundtrack.  Cohen's "Everybody Knows" was featured throughout the film.

This young duck was stunned... and then he quickly tried to find out more about this guy.  Turned out he'd been around for nearly 30 years by that point.   I felt right at home with I'm Your Man, the album I purchased.  It was all full of synths and drum machines, and it reminded me a lot of the band Double.  Which just goes to show what I knew of Leonard Cohen.

Allow me a digression here... I promise it all ties together in the end.  When I moved to the northlands for grad school, it was actually the second time I'd been there.  The first time was when I went up to find an apartment.  I was graciously shown around the town by a lass I had contacted via Prodigy... yes, that long ago.  I had sent out 25 or 30 e-mails more or less at random to people in Mankato that were on Prodigy, essentially saying "I'm moving there in a few months for grad school, I don't know anybody, will you be my friend?"  Most went unanswered.  One replied "no."  One said he didn't live there anymore, but he owned a bar and grill in town... I should stop in, tell the guy behind the bar that he had sent me, and I'd get a burger and beer out of it.  Sure 'nuff, I did.  And then there was the one who accused me of writing to her because she was female... "yeah, that's so slick."  Well, she wasn't entirely wrong... anyway, she agreed to show me around the town, have dinner with me the first night I was up there, you know the drill.  And she gave me the nickname that stuck with me throughout my Minnesota years: "Slick".  Actually, for many years after she continued to call me that.  Um.  Like I was saying...  Somewhere along the line, it came out that I worked in radio, and she insisted I let her hear some of my stuff.  So, I made her a mixtape in the station's production studio, with voice drops by me.  The catch was, every song had something to do with her.  The featured tune?

I've often joked that "Suzanne" was Cohen singing falsetto.  According to him, he just wasn't quite sure how to use his voice at that time.  Still, a lovely song.  In case you're wondering, that picture at the start of this digression is of a Mankato landmark; my apartment would be just off-picture to the right.  I could see the place from my bedroom window.

I've often wondered just what it must be like to have written and sung one of the most beautiful songs of all time and have it be famous because of the performances of others.  "Hallelujah", off the album Various Positions, was popularized somewhat by John Cale, turned famous when Jeff Buckley covered Cale's version, which then got used in the movie Shrek, though Rufus Wainright's version was on the soundtrack album, and then kd lang did my favorite performance of the song at the opening ceremonies to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

There are at least 300 known recordings of the song.  He's certainly been honored worldwide for the song, both by the public and by fellow musicians, but one wonders... 

Just a couple of weeks ago, Leonard Cohen released a new album, You Want It Darker.  Given the lyrics of the title song, it's hard to imagine that he didn't know his time was short.

If so, then I think it can be said that he went out on his own terms.

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While I work on the KonoSuba review, I'm going to entertain you somewhat by showing you the "Top Five", such as it is, on my MP3 player.  Mind you, these are the songs that get me through the day at work... the hours upon hours of claims... when the Cubs aren't playing.  Enjoy, won't you?  Or at least pretend that you're interested.  Humor me.

I dare you.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:18 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I was a fan of Prince's music.  Not the biggest fan, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.  I think most people my age at last respect the man for his ridiculous string of hits.

But for me, it wasn't the hits that made him the legend he was.  Instead, it was the sheer amount of musical talent he possessed.  He played all the instruments on his first five albums, only creating a band for touring purposes.  Liner notes to his albums show around 40 different instruments, including vocals.  Of course, his vocal range went from ridiculously high falsetto to a baritone that began to impinge on bass.  But his guitar was his true standout skill.

There's a story making the rounds that Eric Clapton was once asked what it was like being the best guitarist in the world, and he replied "I don't know, but you can ask him, he's right over there" while pointing at Prince.

There's no evidence Clapton actually said that, but there's no denying his talent.  But it was sometimes hard to notice the ability behind the flamboyance and self-indulgent behavior that was endemic to his persona.  If there's one thing Prince was, however, it was performer.

Superbowl XLI was a painful one for me, as the Bears lost to the Colts that year, but the halftime show by Prince was jaw-dropping.  According to an NFL Films documentary about the entire game-event-thing, the producer of the halftime show came to Prince and said "I'm sorry, but it's raining."  Prince replied with a casual "Yes, it's raining."  Mind you, the set was made out of a type of tile that was slippery to begin with, and now you've got rain on it as well.  The producer, worried, asked if there was "anything we can do for you?"  Prince's response was "Can you make it rain harder?"  I haven't seen the whole performance since that game, as Prince was virulently anti-digital; he did everything he could to keep his stuff off of youtube, for example.

Having lived in Minnesota, having been to 1st Avenue, the club/concert hall seen in the movie Purple Rain, and other places in and around Minneapolis, one knew that it was always possible that one night he would show up unannounced, play a small intimate concert, then leave, just because he wanted to.  This was just something he did.  Never any rhyme or reason as to where, either... he could show up in Duluth just as easily as St Paul.  I'm not ashamed to say that I took advantage of that one Halloween.

I dressed in a pair of black jeans, black turtleneck, black combat boots, a black duster, black shades, I even dyed my hair, eyebrows and mustache black (somewhere in San Francisco, Vaucaunson's Duck has just died laughing).  I borrowed a fake cellphone and an earpiece from the theatre props shop, and told my friends that I'd catch up with them.  About an hour later, I climbed the stairs leading to a local bar with a stage at the end of it; an acoustic guitarist was playing not overly well.  I walked in, ignored my friends, and stood at the end of the bar as far away from the stage as I could.  Anybody who approached me got the cold shoulder, or a deadpan look from behind the sunglasses.  After a couple of beers, the bartender finally made his way over to me to ask what my deal was.  I quietly said that I was one of Prince's bodyguards... hinting without outright saying it that he was in the area looking for a place to play, and I was scouting this place.

For the next 90 minutes or so, I didn't have to pay for anything... and the beer had stopped, the bartender providing me mixed drinks instead.  At one point, I could see the bartender leaning over and talking to a couple of people at the other side of the bar.  I couldn't hear what he said, but suddenly the were staring at me intently... then they practically ran back to their table, and then everybody there was staring at me.  It took almost no time at all for the message to make it to my friend's table... and they were staring at me, not with eager and hopeful anticipation like the others, but in frank admiration.  To their credit, they did not blow my cover.

All good things come to an end, however, and I eventually made the fake phone ring, "answered" it, said a few words into it, then briskly walked towards the exit.  The bartender looked a question at me, I shook my head, and left quickly.  About a half-hour later, when the rest of the gang showed up for the apres-party, the amount of grief I took was awesome.

Two weeks later, I went back to the place, except I was dressed normally, my hair back to its regular red... but I had the sunglasses with me, in a pocket.  I chatted with the bartender, and it looked like he wasn't sure if he had seen me before, until he asked me flat out.  At which point, I pushed my hair back, put on the sunglasses, and muttered something about Prince.  The bartender stared at me, said "you sunuvabitch!", shook my hand, handed me a beer, and said "when you're done with that, I don't want to see you here ever again."  That was fair... but I left a $40 tip anyway, which was the whole point of going back in the first place.

Prince Rogers Nelson passed away yesterday in his studio in Chanhassen, MN.  He was 57.  His music will live on.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:19 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The year is 1994.  Our Hero, horribly damaged by his failed expedition to grad school, has found himself a job where his (at the time) nigh-on encyclopedic knowledge of music actually has a use: he's a shift nabob in the music department at BigBlueBoxStore.  For once I'm going to brag about myself here: we were easily the best music store in town, and I was arguably the main reason why.  Between my radio experience, my personal collection, and a willingness to listen to anything except Country (and even some of that, too!), I could help just about any customer find something they'd like.  The other members of the music department would always come to me if their customer had managed to stump them on a song title... "Hey, Wonderduck, the song goes 'Juliet, the dice were loaded from the start...', who is that?"... and chances were pretty darn high I'd get it right. 

Remember, kids, this was before Google.

Or the internet, really.

I had been hearing rumors from various radio and music trade pubs (Billboard used to be the cat's meow, lemme tell ya!) that there was a movie coming out based on a comic book which sounded promising, but it was the soundtrack that had those of us in the music department drooling.  There was no way the purported lineup could be real.  Stone Temple Pilots, Pantera, Rage Against The Machine, MLWTTKK, Henry Rollins, the Violent Femmes, and The Cure?  And there's no way Nine Inch Nails could really be part of it.

Right?
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David Bowie died of liver cancer late Sunday night, two days after he turned 69.

During a musical career that spanned nearly 50 years, he managed to change musical styles practically as often as he released albums.  From glam to funk and soul to blues to electronica to rock to new wave to industrial and back again, one never really knew what you'd be hearing when you popped in a new Bowie disc.  My first real exposure to his work came in his "new wave" period, with the 1983 album, Let's Dance. 

In many ways, Let's Dance is both the best and worst way to be introduced to Bowie.  It's easily his most accessible work, being unabashedly pop-flavored... and it and 1984's Tonight are rather unlike the darker, more thoughtful work he produced before and after.  Ironically, the short movie/music video for "Jazzing For Blue Jean" off Tonight earned him his only Grammy out of 10 nominations. (he was given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2006).  I went into my next taste of Bowie's music thinking he was a slightly lightweight musician.

This is many things, but lightweight pop is not one of them.  David Bowie is very much like weather in the Midwest... if you don't like it, just wait a short time: it'll change.  But along with his music, the other thing that Bowie was known for was his ever-changing personae.  From Ziggy Stardust to The Thin White Duke to the Scary Goatee Guy to Elder Rock Statesman, again he changed from hither to yon constantly.  At one point in his life he gave an interview where he basically said that "David Bowie is the costume, the thing onstage is the real Me."  In his later career, after he married supermodel Imam and "settled down", he more or less stayed in the Statesman mode.  All the while, he stayed impeccably dressed.

He collaborated with artists like Queen, Mick Jagger, Nine Inch Nails, Peter Frampton, Tina Turner, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bing Crosby.  Countless artists covered his work.  Countless fans adored him.  I am not particularly a huge fan, to be honest... I own a couple of his CDs, know many of his hits, but beyond that?  There are many others who will write more about him in the coming days, more eloquently and with more knowledge than I can.  This, I admit.  None of this denies the fact that I know that he was a true Rock Icon, and with his passing the music world is greatly diminished.  I also know that he is the musician behind one of my favorite songs of all time.

It felt like David Bowie was immortal.  We know now that wasn't true, to our sorrow.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:43 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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