Archive for the ‘Listening’ Category

Thanks to maru1221, I (and everyone else) can now see my wife Teresa at the Bon Jovi concert at the TD BankNorth Garden arena, July 10. She keeps a camera in front of her face during her screentime, but if you look closely, starting around 1:46,  you can see her trying to focus past Richie Sambora (12 feet away from her) to get a better picture of Jon (way the hell across the stage). She does have her preferences, my Teresa. Also, that piercing fangirl scream? That's her.

Teresa has decided to become a full-time groupie.

Not just the type who gushes about her band online, pins posters around her room and writes "Mrs. Bon Jovi" on her notebooks, although she does that too (not the Mrs. part, she said she has no interest in leaving our marriage or breaking his; I believe she has in mind more of a sophisticated arrangement, like a time-share). No, she plans to be the one who follows her band, concert to concert, city to city, country to country, becoming friends and confidant to the road crew. The fact that we're broke has no bearing on this. You can't deny your calling. She has already begun looking into which countries allow you to sell your children.

Yesterday, on an extended and carefully planned last minute whim, she flew to Boston to see Bon Jovi in concert. She's even now in the air on her way back, possibly without waiting for the plane. With her are the well-wishes, advice, and (in some cases) open envy of the other ladies on the Bon Jovi forum she frequents. They have kept up on her doings from other forum members at the concert who are calling in song-by-song updates, and from me, as I've been hearing from Teresa and posting on her behalf with her account. (I am, apparently, "Mr. Teresa.")

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Remember the "Sing a Song of Saffron" contest last year? It was won by Marian Call with her wonderful "It was Good For You Too."

Last year she also released a CD of her work called "Vanilla," with a special Browncoat edition that included the winning Saffron song along with her other amazing music.

And now QMx has declared her their "QMx Artist of the Month" in their latest Insider newsletter. Way to go Marian! And if you haven't gotten her CD yet, there's only about 30 left of the Browncoat version. E-mail her at mariancall@mac.com to get one, and ask about autographs. You can also visit her site at www.mariancall.com, or listen to her music at www.myspace.com/mariancall . And really, you should. She'll be big soon, and you'll want to get the CD now before it's going for hundreds on eBay.

While the Sing a Song of Saffron contest was going on, I didn't link to the entrants' web pages so you guys wouldn't be biased one way or another. But hey, contest is over! There are some great CDs out there, so let's check 'em out. First up: Marian Call's Vanilla.

Marian won the contest with "It Was Good For You Too" with unanimous praise from the judges, and with damn good reason. She has the voice of an angel: pure, clear, strong, and capable of wiping out a city. Talent, great song-writing ability, and a sense of humor: Marian Call is the anti-Britney.

There's a strong Firefly feel here. "Dark Dark Eyes" is about River, the stray "gorram" pops up, and these songs have a goal we identify with: there's a strong female character here. A lot of them, really. There's the one who's afraid she doesn't love enough, and the one that surrenders her heart completely. There's the one who rather wistfully wishes she was sexy and the one who delivers a verbal smackdown to a phony. My favorite songs are "Vanilla (I'm Not Sexy)" which describes my wife's self-image perfectly, and "Flying Feels Like" which should be riding the Top 40 if Billboard had any taste left. And you will be unable to not sing along with her cover of Joni Mitchell's "Chelsea Morning." Just give in, you'll get a headache trying to hold out. Head to her MySpace page for some samples, and more will be available at her web page soon.

(A quick description for Buffy fans: if she had been doing this 10 years ago, Marian would have been on stage at the Bronz, with the kind of lyrical songs that would have continued to play even as focus moved to Buffy and friends wrestling with personal issues. Also, she rocks.)

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Britney, Britney, Britney.

By now you’ve heard all the blowback from your… spectacular… comeback performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, and I’m guessing you haven’t been pleased. When the preponderance of critical articles, even the positive ones, include the word “trainwreck” in the first paragraph, things are not looking good.

And there are many elements of blame that led inexorably to you stumping around the stage in a leather bikini lip-syncing very nearly all of the words to your new hit song, “Gimme More.” The New York Times has reported you were rushed into doing the show by your management. There were problems with your hair. You may have had relationship issues with Criss Angel weighing on your mind. One fan has gone all Zapruder and produced a slo-mo video to prove that your heel was broken throughout the show (although the possibility of a second broken heel working with the CIA has yet to be documented).

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On Aug. 17, 1982, our relationship with our music changed forever. The compact disc was born.

It’s hard to explain, for those of you who weren’t around then, how big a change this was. You just popped a CD into your player, and it played. That was it. No longer did we have to go through the rituals of cleaning and wiping our vinyl albums to reduce (but rarely eliminate) the hisses and pops. No longer did we have to wince as our 8-tracks clunked to the next track. No longer did we have to fast-forward our cassettes when they started making that straining, whining sound. Music appreciation was not for the faint-hearted.

CDs changed the way we stored our music, too. Records had to be kept in the sleeves, upright, away from damp areas, or we’d find we had a wonderful collection of big taco shells. 8-tracks never stacked well and quickly filled up your car’s passenger side floor, and eventually they’d wear out and play the same four songs over and over and over, driving your mom insane when you left one running all night. We all became amateur splicers and learned how to get spilled Coke of our cassettes, and I remember the panic when the sound would suddenly stop and I’d have to scramble to pop it out before the tape erupted like the stereo was throwing up.

For the most part CDs just… worked.

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And about time, too. Actually I have to confess, I've known the winners for two weeks now, but while I knew which songs were chosen by Christina Hendricks, Cedric of The Bedlam Bards, and myself, I was really hoping to include Ms. Hendricks' actual notes. She gushed over them all (sample quote: "God, these people are amazing! I was telling Morena about it, it's just fantastic. I want a CD of this!") but wanted time to flesh out her notes since she had jotted them down whenever she had time. However, her new show "Mad Men" (Thursday nights at 10 on AMC) is getting huge reviews and record-breaking ratings — and richly deserves both – and she's been a bit swamped, so rather than keep everyone hanging I'm going to announce the winners and add the rest of her comments whenever they come in. 

First off I want to say that I'd have been happy with any of the songs winning, they were that good. I know, everyone running a contest says something schmaltzy like that, but come on. These were way beyond what I was hoping for, and I had pretty high hopes. I got exactly what I wanted out of this contest: some great songs about a lady who definitely deserved them. So… Read the rest of this entry »

"Never Did Catch Her Name (But She’s My Wife)"
by Marian Call
(Listen to it here) 

Well, she caught my eye on Daedelus
And I couldn’t look away
Imagine my surprise when she told me
That she felt the same way
That night she promised she’d be mine
And she swept me off my feet
And for eighteen golden hours there
My rapture was complete

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I knew MySpace only allows you to post 4 MP3s, but until I tried last night I was unaware that they don't like you linking to MP3 hosting sites, either. After trying several times and failing to embed more songs in my posts there, I gave up and hunted around for another hosting option.

The Saffron MP3s are now at imeem.com. You have to be a member to hear them there (registration is free) but I've also collected all of them on a page here at SerenityStuff and that's where you'll find new ones as I get them. I do want to set them up so they can be downloaded easily; I'll keep checking around for hosting.

And you'd better check back, they're coming in fast now. Just added three more: "Soliloquoy" by Satori (a smoky torch song), "Every Time You Stow Away" by Jesse Graber (a barbershop number), and "It Was Good For You Too" by Marian Call (a bluesy piece).

And a couple more filks: Ziv Gur-Arye contributed "The Husbands’ Lament" (to the tune of "Early One Morning") and "Yo-Saff-Bridge" (to the tune of "Mandy"), and J.M. Harmon continued his filking dominance with "Somebody to Love" (to the tune of "Somebody" by Depreche Mode). 

Just 11 days left! I've heard some big talking from people still working on theirs but time's running out…
 

"It Was Good For You Too" by Marian Call
(Listen to it here)

Don't you cry now, sweetie
Just you put that gun away
All I did was play the part
you wanted me to play

You thought that you were handsome
and strong, and good in bed
I just agreed with you
and you swallowed every word I said

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