Oh, for those days of childhood when time would last forever and forever was a day.
And holidays and birthdays always seemed a million miles away.
But now my today is tomorrow and I seem to be missing a lot of yesterdays.
Yes, such is life. There's not much more that I can say.
 |
| Time to pack up... |
Time really got away from me this week, but I guess that happens every week. I do have somewhat reasonable excuses like getting ready for our summer trip and working on that song that I mentioned on earlier posts.
If you missed those mentions, the song is called "Let's Run" and my friends and I finished a reasonably decent demo considering the rush job that we put on it. I think I will have a surprise of sorts concerning this song in August or thereabouts.
For now, though, I do need to "run" in order to get this results post out for the Friday appearance.
Battle of the Band Results
I'm going to be doing a couple of summer-themed Battles in June and my recent Battle was one of those. The song was "Tom Sawyer" originally by Rush. The covers were jazzed up versions by an acoustic guitar trio and a heavy jazz piano trio whose specialty seems to be covers of heavy rock songs.
I like both of these a great deal, however I think Bad Plus captured the spirit of the song best. As John and Sixgun noted, any re-creation of Rush should have a massive drummer. The interplay between the musicians in both bands is amazing, but I felt that The Bad Plus version was more spontaneous and wild flowing as opposed to calculated precision playing--which is not a bad thing by any means.
In any case, my vote is going to The Bad Plus.
Final Vote Tally
Montreal Guitar Trio 11
The Bad Plus 4
Next Battle on Friday June 15th
Another summer daydream song in the vein of "Tom Sawyer" as I would envision the barefoot boy in Hannibal, Missouri with his pals. My next song has to do with a boyhood fantasy that Tom and his buddies might have played and I know that I did too. I don't know if kids still play this, but I'll bet more than a few readers probably did when they were young.
What was your favorite fantasy game to play when you were a kid? Do you like to hear artists performing in one genre doing cover versions from very different genres? Do you prefer precisely composed music or improvisation?
There is only one Neil Peart though.
ReplyDeleteFantasy game? D&D of course!
Alex, what a drum kit Pearl has!
DeleteI was an adult when D & D became popular. Some of my friends got into it, but I was on the road then and not involved in those types of activities.
Lee
Hi Lee - enjoy your travels ... take care - cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteHilary, thanks! I have every intention of enjoying the upcoming vacation.
DeleteLee
Ah... the speed of time. An insidious thing.
ReplyDeleteThe Bad Plus didn't deserve to lose this battle by this much. Their version was so great it should have at least been a close call in the voting.
As for games as a kid, how far back do we go? As a small boy I usually imagined myself as a soldier, or occasionally as a cowboy or Indian. I'm of an age when the show "COMBAT!" was on TV and so pretending to be a soldier was probably #1.
And finally, on song covers in other genres: depends, naturally. If it is the right song done well, then certainly. I've heard many rock songs done in jazz style and that often works well. Less successful are rock conversions of classical, but those can be excellent also. For example, I love ELO's "In the Hall of the Mountain King," Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Pictures at an Exhibition," and Jethro Tull's "Bourree" by Bach.
Safe travels!
6 Gun, Bad Plus is likely a jolt to someone who hasn't listened to a lot of this type of music.
DeleteI like the confluence of classical and rock especially when an orchestra is involved.
Lee
Take care on your travels Lee. My yes time does fly and not long having a birthday I went through the same tears for fears.....over it now though.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your weekend.
Yvonne.
PS: HAD THE WINNER this time.
Yvonne, life is filled with ups and downs. Hopefully mostly ups with an ability to rebound off the low times. That's been my experience at least.
DeleteLee
D & D was an unknown element in a farming community. Fantasy was Star Trek alone. Other than that fantasy was of other countries, war games, cops & robbers, nothing else.
ReplyDeleteWe are now hooked up with UnitedHeath Care w/ our existing Medicare. Our travels, however, beckon.
Susan K, I might have gotten involved in D & D at some other point in my life, but not when a lot of people I knew where playing it. I was too busy having a fun life.
DeleteIf I ever get to the point where I can't travel, I'm not sure what I'll do. Hopefully, I still have a decade or two with reasonable health.
Lee
My cousins and I grew up watching Bonanza and the other TV westerns, so our fave thing to do was 'get up a game' which was us play acting a cowboy/western themed game. We had cowboy hats and capguns. It was so much fun. As for music, I love the improvisation of the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Band in live shows the best.
ReplyDeleteJoJo, I always loved that smell of just fired caps. Those were fun days.
DeleteLee
Both covers were really good, LEE. The best that Rush ever sounded, IMO.
ReplyDelete;-)
I'm kind of surprised this Battle was so very lopsided. I voted for the boringly named Montreal Guitar Trio, so them winning this makes sense to me. But like Sixgun said, I don't get why it was such a blowout.
What was your favorite fantasy game to play when you were a kid?
Cowboys, for sure. (Followed by an Army game I invented which we played at night, trying to avoid car headlights, which represented enemy machine gun fire.)
Do you like to hear artists performing in one genre doing cover versions from very different genres?
Yeah, sometimes very much so. Tiny Tim doing a lounge version of 'Stairway To Heaven'; The Brothers And Sisters Of Los Angeles doing Gospel versions of early Dylan songs, and plenty more!
Do you prefer precisely composed music or improvisation?
Not sure I could say, in general, that I prefer one over the other. As a Jazz fan, of course I love improvisation. But some of my very favorite songs were meticulously composed. It really depends upon the song and the particular recording.
~ D-FensDogG
Stephen T. McCarthy Reviews...
STMcC, other than our votes, we align pretty much on the question answers.
DeleteI was kind of surprised that you didn't vote for The Bad Plus, but I guess I'm not real surprised about the lesser popularity of the group among my voters.
I wonder how many if any kids play those shooting games we used to play. The upcoming generation (David Hogg) seem scary to me. Individual pacifists are okay with me, but when we...well, you know. I don't need to go much into this in my comment.
Lee
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ReplyDelete