Though Segovia’s classical influence is often proffered to explain her skill, Charo has a highly original style that weds intimate, lyrical classical melodies with the rhythmic flourishes of the flamenco tradition and spikes it all with a pop sensibility.
“She is a great guitar player,” said Kim Perlak, the chair of the guitar department at the Berklee College of Music. Citing her command of techniques like classical tremolo and flamenco scales, she added, “You have to practice that all the time to get to be that fluent, especially if you want it to be intuitive the way she does it.”
I only knew her as the “cuchi-cuchi” woman from Love Boat. Check out this fascinating article on María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza, her childhood in Francoist Spain and Segovia’s academy, to New York, Las Vegas, American 70’s and 80’s television, and beyond.
The narrator from the Gibson mini-doc sounds like the voice we all must have heard on half a billion educational videos. Who is that guy? Is it the same person narrating the above (always timely) video on maintaining classroom discipline? It’s twenty years before the Gibson video.
Heard this on First Wave the other day and realized I never knew the words to this Fables of the Reconstruction classic. So here they are, the lyrics to which you also probably mumbled along back in the mid-Eighties.
When the world is a monster
Bad to swallow you whole
Kick the clay that holds the teeth in
Throw your trolls out the door
If you’re needing inspiration
Philomath is where I go by dawn
Lawyer Jeff, he knows the lowdown
He’s mighty bad to visit home
(I’ve been there, I know the way)
Can’t get there from here
(I’ve been there, I know the way)
Can’t get there from here
(I’ve been there, I know the way)
Can’t get there from here
(I’ve been there, I know the way)
When your hands are feeling empty
Stick head jumping off the ground, ground
Tris is sure to shirr the deer out
Brother Ray can sing my song
CHORUS
Hands down, Calechee bound
Landlocked, kiss the ground
Dirt of seven continents going ’round and ’round
Go on ahead, Mr. Citywide, hypnotized, suit-and-tied
Gentlemen, testify
If your world is a monster
Bad to swallow you whole
Philomath, they know the lowdown
Throw your trolls out the door
Electronic pop duo Silver Apples released their first album in ’68. I believe that makes them the first ever electronic pop band, predating Can, Kraftwerk, et al. If any of you bastards know of someone prior to these guys, please clue me in. They sold very few albums, but one somehow ended up in my house in the mid 70’s. Ignorant that they predated Kraftwerk, I pretty much dismissed them because I didn’t like the songs very much. They typically set up good initial ideas but, in my opnion, are let down by the singing and trippy lyrics, which creep me out for some reason. But the electronic sounds are innovative and excellent. Those sounds come from “The Simeon,” a primitive, homemade synth built by singer Simeon Coxe, an Alabaman. He was just stringing together old WWII oscillators and claims that at the time he’d never heard of Moogs or other synthesizers in develpoment.
Silver Apples’ legacy is hard to pin down. Some 90’s experimental bands have cited them as an influence, but what about the electronic innovators of the 70’s? You never heard a word about these guys back then, so did they influence Krautrock, Eno, Devo, prog rockers, or just work in a vacuum? Who knows, but I can’t help but love their oddball creativity. Very much in the tradition of American cranks innovating alone in the basement or garage. But overall they show that first usually isn’t best.
Here is their full story, which is very interesting. If you want to hear more, below is the entire first album and one song, “You and I”, from their second and final album, which was withdrawn soon after release. The opening of “You and I” is suspiciously like “Station To Station,” but I have no idea if Bowie was familiar with it. The whole second album, which I haven’t heard, is also on YouTube.
XKCD is great fun. I enjoyed this for the historical perspective, and had no idea that Boston and New York were iced over as recently as 20,000 years ago.
Also: if this pandemic doesn’t get us, liquefied Antarctica surely will.
Have a nice day.
Drink commercial by @stevegiralt. The FTC prohibits color or texture enhancements in food commercials so staging is critical. pic.twitter.com/kfQevJbS53
ARCHIE HENDERSON (@jazzemu_) I am a music historian, and with @AdrianRMG I have researched the best-selling single of every decade all the way back to 14,000 BC:
