Alphabet Soup (H)

Hello, Alphabet Soup serves up H today. That means seventies icon Steve Harley, who sadly tended to overplay his hand when he let Cockney Rebel mk I go, even if he landed his biggest hit after that. Oh well such is life, overcompensating uncertainties can get in the way. ...next up a Dutch band from The Hague, Hallo Venray. Singer/guitarist Henk Koorn was told he sounded like Neil Young , it took him a decade to live record an album with Young covers and only because he was doing a side project with the partyband Supertroopers doing ABBA covers. To rap that all up his other sideproject Dakota Love Beach (great name) released a heavy psychedelic rock album, fin de siecle activities i would think. Anyway the one here is their breakthrough album in the Netherlands with the obstinate title, The More I Laugh, The Hornier Due Gets !.......Finally The Hidden Camera's from Canada displaying their assertive gayness with a great indie album..


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Steve Harley and The Cockney Rebel - Best of ( 72min.^ 172mb)

Steve Harley (born Steven Nice, 27 February 1951), grew up in London's New Cross area. He was stricken with polio at age two and spent the better part of his adolescence in and out of hospitals. After trying his hand at journalism, his musical career began in the late 1960s when he was busking (with John Crocker) and performing his own songs, some of which were later recorded by him and the band. The original Cockney Rebel was formed when Harley hooked up with his former folk music partner, John Crocker (fiddle / mandolin / guitar) in 1972. They auditioned drummer Stuart Elliott, bassist Paul Jeffreys, and keyboardist Milton Reame-James. They were signed to EMI after playing just five gigs. Their first single "Sebastian", a soaring rock epic ballad, was an immediate success in Europe, though failed to score in the UK Singles Chart. Their debut album, The Human Menagerie, was released in 1973 to critical acclaim

Harley regarded the band as little more than accompaniment to his own agenda, and already there were signs that things would not last, despite having a big hit with their second single, "Judy Teen". What followed was the album The Psychomodo, an adventurous and ambitious production which showed that there was real talent in the group. A second single from the album, "Mr. Soft", was also a big hit. The band was voted the "Most Outstanding New Act" of 1974. By this time the problems within the band had already reached a head, and all the musicians, with the exception of Stuart Elliott, quit at the end of a highly successful UK tour.

In 1974, the third album, The Best Years of Our Lives was made, produced by Alan Parsons. This included the track "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)" which would go on to be a UK Number one single and the band's biggest selling hit. Steve Harley followed up with an even more ambitious and artsy outing. Unfortunately, Timeless Flight neglects the strong pop hooks, much of Timeless Flight finds Harley getting bogged down in deliberately impenetrable wordplay and songs that, despite slick arrangements, are rather hookless. With the next album , Love's a Prima Donna, he regained some ground as it launched a Top Ten hit with the Beatles' cover "Here Comes the Sun." .But in the wake of 1977's Face to Face -- A Live Recording, Harley again disbanded Cockney Rebel and relocated to the U.S., recording the better part of Hobo With a Grin in Los Angeles before returning to Britain. 1979's The Candidate failed to restore his commercial lustre even when the Tamla Motown-inspired single "Freedom's Prisoner" was recieved well and bubbled just under the UK Top 40. Harley began touring again with his old Cockney Rebel songs in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Harley has released several solo albums since – Yes You Can in 1992, Poetic Justice in 1996.When his recording of "Mr. Soft" experienced a rebirth thanks to its use in a television commercial, Harley assembled a hits collection of the same name. Soon after he formed a new incarnation of Cockney Rebel and regularly toured into the following decade. 1999's Stripped to Bare Bones documents an acoustic set recorded the year previous. Yes You Can was re-issued in summer 2000.
Most recently, in 2005, The Quality of Mercy came out, the first since the 1970s to be released with the Cockney Rebel name.

Sad factoid, Cockney Rebel's original bass player, Paul Avron Jeffreys and his bride were among the victims on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, they were on their honeymoon.



01 - Make Me Smile - Come Up And See Me (4:01)
02 - Love - Compared With You (4:21)
03 - Judy Teen (3:41)
04 - Mr. Raffles - Man, It Was Mean (4:34)
05 - Mr. Soft (3:20)
06 - Sebastian (6:56)
07 - That's My Life In Your Hands (3:49)
08 - Here Comes The Sun (2:57)
09 - All Men Are Hungry (4:47)
10 - Roll The Dice (3:26)
11 - The Best Years Of Our Lives (5:45)
12 - Star For A Week - Dino (4:37)
13 - Rain In Venice (4:51)
14 - The Last Time I Saw You (5:38)
15 - Psychomodo (4:04)
16 - Irresistable - Remix (5:12)

extra lite
Steve Harley and The Cockney Rebel - Best of ( * 99mb)

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Hallo Venray - The More I Laugh, The Hornier Due Gets! (91 ^ 99mb)

Hallo Venray is founded in 1987 by Henk Koorn and Anno Houwing, soon after Dim Veldhuisen(drums) and Peter Konings (bass) joined, initially they sang in Dutch but that changed with the changing of the gitar guards, Toon Moerland stepped in, and in this line up they release the debut album You Don’t Hit a Guy With Glasses On in 1989. The following year the next album King is released. It is with the band’s third record The More I Laugh, The Hornier Due Gets that the band gets their due. Released in 1992 this album receives a lot of airplay on the Dutch national radio stations. The band tours extensively in their home country, with Pinkpop ( a 60,000 people festival) as crowning achievement.

A Million Planes to Fly (1993), the band’s fourth record builds on this success. The band plays a number of international shows. In 94 an acoustic radio session is released.In 1995 the band’s popularity has waned and the album Merry-Go-Round fails to live up to the success of the two previous albums. Two years later Hallo Venray releases a self-titled album. This album shows off a more modern sound with samples and electronic instruments. After this album the band becomes less active. In 1998 drummer Dim Veldhuizen leaves, he is replaced by Henk Jonkers.

1999 they release a livealbum with Neil Young covers, Roll Another Number'. The group’s members dedicate their time to side projects in the following years (Supertroopers and Dakota Love Beach each release an album and tour). But with 2001’s album I’m Not a Senseless Person, At Least I Don’t Want To Be Hallo Venray returns and sounds as vital as ever. Two years later they release a live album recorded in Rotterdam, Gallons & Gasoline. That year the band signs with Excelsior Recordings. Together with that label’s staff producer Frans Hagenaars, the band initiates recordings in November 2003. Two years later this results in the release of Vegetables and Fruit. The cd is presented in Paradiso, Amsterdam on January 23. This show lauds in an extensive club tour through the Netherlands. Currently they're recording a new album.



01 - The Summer Is Gone (2:36)
02 - Slow Change (4:03)
03 - Not So Long (4:41)
04 - Mr. Bigshot (2:42)
05 - Tuck, The Man (7:03)
06 - Eugene (4:21)
07 - Be Someone (4:52)
08 - The Heart And The Soul (5:08)
09 - The Road (4:37)
10 - Japanese Cars (1:36)
11 - Las Vegas (6:49)

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Hidden Cameras - The Smell Of Our Own ( 03 ^99mb)

Fronted by singer-songwriter Joel Gibb, the band consists of a varying roster of musicians who play what Gibb once described as "gay church folk music". A mix of queer politics, explicit sexuality, symphonic indie pop, and theatrical spectacle that borders on the religious. The band's first album was released independently in 2001 on EvilEvil, Ecce Homo -- a collection of four-track demos introduced a stripped-down version of the Hidden Cameras' witty, acoustic-based songwriting, which drew comparisons to the Magnetic Fields and Belle & Sebastian.

Ecce Homo also caught the ear of Rough Trade, whose signing of Gibb made the Hidden Cameras the first Canadian artist on the label in its 25-year history. Meanwhile, the group's elaborate live performances, which include up to 30 go-go dancers, strippers, and musicians, as well as videos, projected lyrics, and heavy audience participation, won the group a widespread and devoted following in Canada.

2003's Rough Trade debut, The Smell of Our Own, reflected some of the group's more elaborate sound more so than Ecce Homo did and spread the Hidden Cameras' subversively catchy music further afield. Joel Gibb and company not only celebrate sex and its accompanying smells and stains, but inflate them to divine status on their second album. This album brings back indie music's libido, which is certainly worth something; it's also possible that if the Cameras' music sounded as radical as its lyrics are, it wouldn't be nearly as well-received.

In 2004, they released their third album, Mississauga Goddam (Toronto suburb of Gibb's youth), on Rough Trade and also on EvilEvil in Canada. Their EP, The arms of his 'ill' , was released by California label Absolutely Kosher Records in the same year, and features jacket art specially created by Paul P. and G.B. Jones. Awoo, their 2006 recording was released on Rough Trade in Europe, EvilEvil in Canada and, in the U.S., on the Arts & Crafts label. The Hidden Cameras are featured on the soundtrack of the John Cameron Mitchell film Shortbus, which premiered in 2006.



01 - Golden Streams (4:29)
02 - Ban Marriage (4:20)
03 - A Miracle (2:56)
04 - The Animals Of Prey (4:05)
05 - Smells Like Happiness (3:09)
06 - Day Is Dawning (5:08)
07 - Boys Of Melody (5:01)
08 - Shame (5:28)
09 - Breathe On It (2:53)
10 - The Man That I Am With My Man (4:38)

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All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !

Eight-X (34)

Hello, Eight-X time again and today we have 3 solo artists (in name). First off a lady that was noted by me because of her John Cougar cover , i need a lover and years later Love is a Battlefield before researching i had no idea she had been so successful in the States, which makes me an European as she hasn't been such an item over here. I bought the album recently as now and then i scour for eighties vinyl again these days ( how come i wonder). In The Heat Of The Night is a pretty potent rock album of its time...Captain Sensible Lifestyles brings back the fun and satire to the everincreasing weightyness of the surviving first generation punk/wave bands , his own The Damned being one of them. Serious but light hearted, btw in 2006 he's formed The Blah ! Party, aiming to "give all politicians a kick up the jacksie"... .. finally Billy Idol with a string of eighties hits, after his first band, Generation X, collapsed, he did very well until his relationship with Perry Lister ended shortly after the birth of their son....The eighties were over and when he released Cyberpunk, inspired by computers / networks when revalidating from a motorbicycle crash , he was dropped from the MTV rostrum that had championed him for a decade..a close call with death after an OD in 94 and Billy disappeared from the limelight In 2001 a greatest hits album was released that unexpectedly sold very well , it led to Idol's first new album in nearly twelve years, Devil's Playground.

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Pat Benatar - In The Heat Of The Night ( 79 ^ 98mb)

Born Patricia Andrzejewski on January 10, 1953, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the singer was raised in the nearby town of Lindenhurst on Long Island, NY. After graduating in 1971 Pat Andrzejewski married her high school sweetheart Dennis Benatar that same year and took his name. Benatar began singing regularly in the New York City area by the '70s, where she was signed by Chrysalis Records. Backed by a stellar band led by guitarist Neil Geraldo that provided the perfect accompaniment that was able to effortlessly alternate between rockers and ballads. Benatar divorced in 1979 and married band leader/lead guitarist Neil Giraldo February 20, 1982.

Her single "Heartbreaker" was released in late 1979 and was an immediate hit, climbing to #23 in the U.S. Her debut LP, In the Heat of the Night, was even more successful, reaching #12 and establishing Benatar as a new force in rock. It solidified her place in a class of women who were taking the rock world by storm in the late '70s. In the Heat of the Night was an album that obviously had its share of filler, but the one-two punch of "Heartbreaker" and the John Cougar Mellencamp classic "I Need a Lover" leading off the album made enough of a statement to put her on the pop charts. The remainder of the album packs enough grit and solid songwriting (especially the Blondie-esque "So Sincere") that it remains an impressive debut and foreshadows a glimpse of great things to come.

1980's Crimes of Passion, more than delivered on the debut's promise and it's often considered to be the finest recording of her career. "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" was her first single to break the U.S. Top 10 and eventually sold more than four million copies in the United States . The album reached U.S. #2 in January 1981 and a month later, Benatar won her first Grammy Award for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1980. Benatar's first (and as yet only) U.S. chart-topper was the LP Precious Time, released in August 1981. It was also her first to chart in the UK. The album's lead single, "Fire and Ice", was another big hit and would win Benatar her second Grammy Award, this time for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1981.Get Nervous was released in late 1982. The album was another smash, reaching US #4, and the single, Shadows of the Night, would garner Benatar yet another Grammy, again for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1982. By 1983, Benatar had established a reputation for singing about "tough" subject matters, best exemplified by one of the biggest hits of her career, "Love Is a Battlefield" , released in December 1983. By then her sound had mellowed from hard rock to more atmospheric pop, obviously she picked up her fourth consecutive Grammy for it.

After all that exposure 1984's Tropico didnt reach platinum and neither did, 1985's Seven the Hard Way, and 1988's Wide Awake in Dreamland. By the end of the decade, it appeared as though Benatar had fallen of the face of the Earth as the hits seemed to dry up. During the 1990s Pat Benatar released 3 original albums. "True Love" was a jump blues record, released in 1991 and featured the blues band Roomful of Blues, backing up Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo and Myron Grombacher. The album reached gold status without any radio airplay . "Gravity's Rainbow" was released in 1993 and was a return to the AOR genre. "Everybody Lay Down" was released as a single to rock radio and went all the way to #3. Chrysalis was sold to EMI records and Pat Benatar had become pregnant , it was the last album recorded for Chrysalis records.

"Innamorata" was released in 1997 on the CMC International record label. A single video was produced for "Strawberry Wine(Life is Sweet)". In August 2003, Benatar returned to recording with Go (Vanguard), it revisited the arena rock/MOR sound that had defined Benatar's career, and was accompanied by an extensive tour. Although billed as a solo artist, Benatar recorded and toured with a consistent set of band members over most of her career, who contributed greatly to the writing and producing of songs



01 - Heartbreaker (3:24)
02 - I Need A Lover (3:25)
03 - If You Think You Know How To Love Me (4:16)
04 - In The Heat Of The Night (5:15)
05 - My Clone Sleeps Alone (3:22)

06 - We Live For Love (3:52)
07 - Rated X (3:13)
08 - Don't Let It Show (3:57
09 - No You Don't (3:15)
10 - So Sincere (3:23)
--Xs
11 - Love is a Battlefield (5:23) ( ' 83)

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Captain Sensible - Sensible Lifestyles ( ^ 99mb)
Captain Sensible (born Raymond Burns, 24 April 1954) grew up in Croydon, England, his signature headwear is a red beret. Originally a member of the Johnny Moped band, Sensible joined The Damned in 1976 on the suggestion of his work colleague Rat Scabies, the band's drummer, filling a number of positions during his tenure (including bassist, lead guitarist and keyboardist), and eventually becoming the band's main songwriter following the departure of Brian James. He left in the 1980s to concentrate on solo projects, but rejoined in 1996 after Scabies left, and co-wrote Grave Disorder, the band's first new studio album for 12 years, in 2001. He continues to tour with the band today.

In the early 1980s, Captain Sensible was signed to A&M as a solo artist, and he had a number one British hit with the old musical number "Happy Talk." He followed it up with an original, "Glad It's All Over," an anti-war song about the Falklands; for a time, he was also hooked up with Robyn Hitchcock. By this time, his status as a member of the Damned made him a regular topic of coverage in the British music press, and he became well-known for various beliefs, including devoted vegetarianism and an opposition to war, which he presented in bitingly satirical fashion. Captain Sensible proved more charming than any other veteran of the punk scene. His vegetarian-oriented single "Wot" was a success, and over the next few years, he recorded a series of albums, Power of Love, Revolution Now, and The Universe of Geoffrey Brown, that were good sellers and critical favorites, though only in England . He and his band -- Paul Gray on bass, Malcolm Dixon on organ and synthesizer, and Garrie Dreadful on drums -- became famous for their live shows, which were spiced by the Captain's savage wit. In 1994, he released Live at the Milky Way, the best album of his solo career and one of the finest live albums of the era. .

Previously a member of the Green Party, in 2006 Sensible formed the Blah! Party, for which he continues to serve as leader. An avowed "protest party" aiming to "give all politicians a kick up the jacksie", it entered into a sponsorship deal with Seabrook Crisps in September 2006.



01 - Rough Justice (5:29)
02 - Revolution Now (4:21)
03 - Jet Boy Jet Girl (3:24)
04 - A Riot on Eastbourne River (4:51)
05 - The Kamikaze Millionaire (5:27)
06 - Smash It Up (3:01)
07 - Happy Talk (3:27)
08 - Can You Hear Me (4:03)
09 - A Sporting Life (3:29)
10 - Wot (5:49)
11 - Smash It Up Pt. 4 (3:04)
12 - I Get So Excited (3:54)
13 - Street of Shame (3:58)
14 - So Far Out (6:28)
15 - Glad It's All Over (3:37)

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Billy Idol - Greatest Hits ( ^ 153mb)

William ( 11/30 55) was the first child born to Bill and Joan Broad, shortly after the family moved to Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York. The Broads returned to England after four years of living in the United States. He enrolled at Sussex University and took classes in English and Philosophy in September 1975. He soon immersed in the upcoming punkscene and became part of a Sex Pistols fan club called the Bromley Contingent. A year later and he quit school for a career in music. When thinking about a stage name he remembered a teachers sneer.."Billy is idle" into Billy Idol. In 1976, Idol and Tony James formed a band with John Towe and started playing shows. The band was named after the 1965 book Generation X. The band became a big deal throughout London and eventually record companies started showing up at shows. Generation X was an image-conscious band. They were more about the image than they were about the music. They signed to Chrysalis Records in 1977, even though Generation X took a lot of punk elements and added them into their sound and image, they were often seen as being too "commercial." Meanwhile they were the first punk band to appear on the BBC's "Top of the Pops" program. The band was on the rise, touring in countries like Japan.

By 1981, the band shortened their name to simply "Gen X" and released the single "Dancing With Myself" in the UK. It failed to become the big hit the band was waiting for. The new album was called Kiss Me Deadly. In 1980, the band embarked on a short but successful UK tour to promote the album. Generation X couldn't hold itself together and the members soon parted ways. Producer Keith Forsey and Bill Aucoin took hold of Billy Idol's career and quickly moved him to New York in hopes of capturing an American audience.The punk era had come and gone, and "New Wave" was taking over. Idol issued the 1981 EP Don't Stop (a cover of Tommy James' '60s hit "Mony Mony" and a pair of remixed Generation X tracks), which helped the singer score another record deal with his former band's label, Chrysalis. Idol was introduced to Steve Stevens by manager Bill Aucoin they hit it off, and Idol issued a self-titled debut in July of 1982. A pair of eye-catching videos for the tracks "White Wedding" and "Dancing With Myself" (the latter a remake of a Generation X composition) scored major air time on MTV.

In 1983, "Dancing With Myself" was released in the U.S. in an effort to introduce Idol to American audiences not yet as familiar with him. It was played in heavy rotation on MTV for six months. The "Dancing With Myself" video sparked a whole new era of feature film directors that would try their hand at directing music videos. Idol's second LP, Rebel Yell (1983) was a blockbuster success, and established his superstar status in the United States and in Canada with hits like "Eyes Without a Face", "Flesh For Fantasy", and the title cut; Idol also became very popular in Europe thanks to this album and its singles, particularly in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and later in his native UK.

But with massive success came its many distractions, which prevented Idol from issuing a new studio album until three years after Rebel Yell. 1987's Whiplash Smile was another sizeable hit on the strength of such hits as "To Be a Lover" and "Sweet Sixteen," but failed to live up to the lofty expectations set by his previous releases. Steve Stevens parted ways with Idol after Whiplash Smile. He claims that Idol's music was getting too synthesised and sequenced. Idol ran into trouble when he was busted by undercover police in New York City for carrying crack cocaine. Lister and Idol wanted to get "clean" ( heroin and cocaine), and start a new life, the two decided it would be best to move from New York to LA. When longtime girlfriend Perry Lister gave birth to their son, "Willem Wolfe Broad" Idol was still seeing other women ( the Hollywood nightlife), and even obtained a second house for his affairs. Lister eventually left Idol in favor of a normal life.

In 1989, following his breakup with Lister, Idol found his way to Thailand and let it all hang out...a quarter of a million dollars later he was thru dancing with himself again and went back to work on Charmed Life, a title undoubtely inspired by him surviving a serious motorcycle crash without lasting troubles. Against his doctors' orders, Idol decided to tour behind the Charmed Life album. Billy could be seen walking with a cane onstage. He got his personal jewellery maker, "Robin the Hammer" to customise a silver gauntlet for him. The gauntlet has "La Vie Enchantee" etched in the wrist. Robin also designed a large cross/knife necklace that can be seen in the "Cradle of Love" video.

In 1993, Idol released Cyberpunk, which fell on deaf ears. Music had changed in 1993, and a lot of the bands that were popular in the eighties were now being pushed to the wayside in favour of the new "Seattle" movement. Cyberpunk is considered to be ahead of its time by many people, and very experimental ( technobeats) for the US market. The inclusion of multimedia software as a special feature was unheard of when Idol first included the Billy Idol's Cyberpunk diskette.Nevertheless, the album tanked. Meanwhile, Idol was knee deep in drug addiction, resulting in another close brush with death when he overdosed and had to be treated in a Los Angeles hospital in 1994. After the incident, Idol realised that his children would never forgive him for dying of a drug overdose, and he began to focus more on fatherhood. Idol has never admitted that he is totally off drugs, just that he has his habit under control.

Idol returned to the popular eye in 1998, when he played himself in The Wedding Singer, an Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore 80s romantic comedy, where "White Wedding" was used as the title track. In 2001, Idol reunited with guitarist Steve Stevens to write and record a new album. Idol and Stevens started touring, which generated a lot of attention. A Greatest Hits CD was issued in 2001. The album also includes a live acoustic version of "Rebel Yell" which is taken from a performance at L.A. station KROQ's 1993 Acoustic Christmas concert. EMI expected the Greatest Hits album to sell around 100,000 copies. The album eventually sold over 1,000,000 copies and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on January 18, 2005.



01 - Dancing With Myself (4:50)
02 - Mony Mony (5:01)
03 - Hot In The City (3:33)
04 - White Wedding (Part 1) (4:12)
05 - Rebel Yell (4:46)
06 - Eyes Without A Face (4:57)
07 - Flesh For Fantasy (4:37)
08 - Catch My Fall (3:41)
09 - To Be A Lover (3:52)
10 - Don't Need A Gun (Single Edit) (5:23)
11 - Sweet Sixteen (4:14)
12 - Cradle Of Love (4:38)
13 - L.A. Woman (Single Edit) (4:03)
14 - Shock To The System (3:36)
15 - Rebel Yell (Live And Acoustic) (5:35)

Lite Billy (-14)
Billy Idol - Greatest Hits ( * 99mb)

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All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !

Obama Wins Nomination

The Democratic nominee for the 2008 Presidential Race!

Thank you, Senator Hillary Clinton, for a spirited campaign!

Now, let's get Senator Barack Obama elected President of the United States in November!

Tuesday Dribbles

This is my 900th post! Not that that's particularly important, but I decided to look at Blogger's stats before starting this entry, and that's what it says, so I thought why not mention it?

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Today was my final lecture of the quarter, and the last day of spring classes. Reading week starts tomorrow, and exams begin next Monday. I started off telling my class that I couldn't believe we had reached the end of the term, because the end of March and the first class are still vivid in my mind--so great was my anxiety about this class that I have experienced sciatica on the left side of my body, which culminated in almost paralyzing hip pain a month ago, and aoregeiria, or waking up too early every morning--and because we'd covered so much ground. But this was it, and after a few comments about the final exam, I spoke about Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the last book on the syllabus, and attempted to show how it broached all of the many thematic and formal concerns we had been discussing from modernist and Modernist moment forward to post-modernism, which we had focused on beginning with Donald Barthelme's "The Glass Mountain," reading backwards to Nathanaël West and Robert Lowell. (It helps, of course, that Díaz, with his limitless gifts for irony, invokes one of the central figures of Anglo-American pre-modernism and the exemplar of Aestheticism in the novel's title.) In order to leave them with some fairly current scholarship, I briefly touched upon Édouard Glissant's poetics of relation and the concept of "opacity," citing both the novel's poetic epigram from Derek Walcott's "The Schooner Flight" and the untitled prologue, as a way of thinking through the play of modes, genres, idioms, linguistic registers, languages, and language itself in the book, and also as a means of situating it within the context not only of American literatures, but also Caribbean, Latin American and African Diasporic literatures. Its Carnivalesque richness and capacity for creolizing and archipelagoizing American literature is something I'm sure someone will take up, if this hasn't occurred yet, but its many other concerns link it to everything we had read before. As I reread it last week, I could hear the echoes of Hughes and so many others--and I hope the students heard them as well.

And so the quarter is over...almost. I have another exam to give, another thesis to read, meetings, and much to wrap up before I head home and get some rest and back to my own work, but I can say that despite the amount of work, the class was pleasurable beyond belief, and working with the brilliant TAs, from English and African American Studies, and the many dozens of students, has been worth it.

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Recently, for a forthcoming art book a friend is publishing, I translated a very short prose introduction by the distinguished French poet Yves Bonnefoy, who had been one of my friend's teachers in graduate school, and whom I had the honor of meeting, briefly, some years ago when he read in New York. ("Je te nommerai désert/nuit ta voix, desolé ta visage....") Its difficulty surprised me; my French muscle, at least in terms of speaking and writing, is still functioning, but after so much Spanish (and somewhat less Portuguese), I did struggle with Bonnefoy's elliptical, elusive syntax, which demanded something beyond the adequatio approach to translation that has long been decried. I realized that most of the French texts I've translated, nearly all prose fiction except for Alain Mabanckou's poems, are far more straightforward, and even when infused with a great deal of figuration and idiomatic language, especially prose, they are not trying to express something ineffable, which is, of course, one of the aims of Bonnefoy's poetry in general. The piece, however, is done, and my friend is happy, but I do keep thinking, I could spend weeks on those two paragraphs, if I had the time...

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So long to Yves Saint Laurent and Bo Diddley, who recently passed away.

C and I particularly love David Teboul's 2002 cinema verité documentary on Saint-Laurent 5 avenue Marceau 75116 Paris, which shows him in his couture rooms, examining and working on new outfits. Catherine Deneuve and LouLou de la Falaise, along with Saint Laurent's longtime partner and business associate Pierre Berger all make appearances. To hear Saint Laurent whisper repeatedly and raspily with utter delight "ravissante" as several the models brings life to his art is worth the entire documentary.'

Mississippi native and Chicago product Diddley, one of the creators of the global music now known as Rock & Roll, should be best remembered aurally, I think. So here're some clips to check out. Start with the eponymous "Bo Diddley," and then check out "I'm a Man," "Who Do You Love," "Pretty Thang," "I'm Looking for a Woman," and "Diddley Daddy" if you don't know his work, though its echoes run like tributaries throughout so much subsequent rock.

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Bernie asked whether I and others were going to root for these people

Kobe Bryant, #24, passes to Pau Gasol, #14 (AFP/Getty Images/Stephen Dunn)

Kobe [Narcissus] Bryant (AP Photo/Hector Mata)

or these:

Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins (Photo by D. Lippitt/Einstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

Ray Allen practicing 3-point shots recently (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

in the championship matchup that is inducing spontaneous orgasms in TV sportscasters?

Although I gave up (on) the NBA after the last lockout/strike nonsense, I've decided to choose and root for the latter, something that I, having lived in Boston and witnessed Celtic fans up close never thought I'd do, but then again, I never thought Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen would be playing for the Celtics, so there's always a new day for everything.

Around The World (34)

Hello, today at Around the World the last in the Millenium Classics series, Opera Treasures, in a way filmmusic avant la lettre. Specially Verdi worked from a story line..called libretto in operalingo. Certainly with known stories this extended the reach as not everyone was able to see the imagery at an opera performance , the music was much more accessable. Mostly italian opera here, obviously they couldnt leave Mozart out, but Wagner was apperently a bit too much for the EMI compilers of this series, maybe i get back to him later....I havent seen much comments on the classics, though DL numbers have been satisfying, so if you'd like more, post a message.... i spilt this DL as Massmirror still seems sketchy..

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Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (10-10 1813 ) was born in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto, then in the Département Taro which was a part of the French Empire after the annexation of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza. Verdi went to Milan when he was twenty to continue his studies and he took private lessons in counterpoint while attending operatic performances , as well as concerts of, specifically, German music. Returning to Busseto, he became town music master and, with the support of Antonio Barezzi, a local merchant and music lover who had long supported Verdi's musical ambitions in Milan, Verdi gave his first public performance at Barezzi’s home in 1830. Because he loved Verdi’s music, Barezzi invited Verdi to be his daughter Margherita's music teacher and the two soon fell deeply in love. They were married in 1836 and Margherita gave birth to two children, both of whom died in infancy, followed by Margherita herself in 1840.

The production of his first opera, Oberto, by Milan's La Scala, achieved a degree of success, after which Bartolomeo Merelli, an impresario with La Scala, offered Verdi a contract for two more works.It was while he worked on his second opera, Un giorno di regno, that Verdi's wife and children died. The opera was a flop and Verdi was close to throw in the towel. However, Merelli persuaded him to write Nabucco in 1842 and its opening performance made Verdi famous. A large number of operas followed in the decade after 1843, a period which Verdi was to describe as his "galley years". These included his I Lombardi in 1843 and Ernani in 1844.For some, the most original and important opera that Verdi wrote is Macbeth in 1847. For the first time, Verdi attempted an opera without a love story, breaking a basic convention in 19th Century Italian opera. In 1847, I Lombardi, revised and renamed Jerusalem, was produced by the Paris Opera. As the "galley years" were drawing to a close, Verdi created one of his greatest masterpieces, Rigoletto which premiered in Venice in 1851. Based on a play by Victor Hugo (Le roi s'amuse), the libretto had to undergo substantial revisions in order to satisfy the epoch's censorship, and the composer was on the verge of giving it all up a number of times. The opera quickly became a great success.

There followed the second and third of the three major operas of Verdi's "middle period": in 1853 Il Trovatore was produced in Rome and La traviata in Venice. The latter was based on Alexandre Dumas, fils' play The Lady of the Camellias.Between 1855 and 1867 an outpouring of great Verdi operas were to follow, among them such repertory staples as Un ballo in maschera (1859), La forza del destino (commissioned by the Imperial Theatre of Saint Petersburg for 1861 . Aida, is sometimes thought to have been commissioned for the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, but, Verdi initially turned the commission down until he heard it would be offered to Richard Wagner. As there was little love between them Verdi accepted the commission, it inspired Verdi to write his grand opera, Aida.

During the following years Verdi worked on revising some of his earlier scores. Otello, based on William Shakespeare's play, with a libretto written by the younger composer of Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito, premiered in Milan in 1887. Its music is "continuous" and cannot easily be divided into separate "numbers" to be performed in concert. Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, whose libretto was also by Boito, was based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and Victor Hugo's subsequent translation. It was an international success and is one of the supreme comic operas which shows Verdi's genius as a contrapuntist. While staying at a hotel in Milan, Verdi had a stroke, he died on January 27, 1901. Arturo Toscanini conducted the vast forces of combined orchestras and choirs comprised of musicians from throughout Italy, at the State Funeral for Verdi in Milan, following the composer's death in 1901. To date, it remains the largest public assembly of any event, in the history of Italy.

Verdi was one of the first composers who insisted on patiently seeking out plots to suit his particular talents. Working closely with his librettists and well aware that dramatic expression was his forte, he made certain that the initial work upon which the libretto was based was stripped of all "unnecessary" detail and "superfluous" participants, and only characters brimming with passion and scenes rich in drama remained. Many of his operas, especially the later ones from 1851 onwards are a staple of the standard repertoire. No composer of Italian opera has managed to match Verdi's popularity, perhaps with the exception of Giacomo Puccini.

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Puccini was born December 22, 1858 in Lucca,Tuscany, into a family with five generations of musical history behind them. His father died when he was five years old, and he was sent to study with his uncle Fortunato Magi, who considered him to be a poor and undisciplined student. Later, Puccini took the position of church organist and choir master in Lucca, but it was not until he saw a performance of Verdi's Aida that he became inspired to be an opera composer.

In 1880, with the help of a relative and a grant, Puccini enrolled in the Milan Conservatory to study composition with Amilcare Ponchielli and Antonio Bazzini. In the same year, at the age of 21, he composed the Messa, which marks the culmination of his family's long association with church music in his native Lucca. While studying at the Conservatory, Puccini obtained a libretto from Ferdinando Fontana and entered a competition for a one-act opera in 1882. Although he did not win, Le Villi was later staged in 1884 and it caught the attention of Giulio Ricordi, who commissioned a second opera, Edgar, in 1889.

From 1891 onwards, Puccini spent most of his time at Torre del Lago, 15 miles from Lucca situated between the Tyrrhenian Sea and Lake Massaciuccoli. By 1900 he had acquired land and built a villa on the lake, now known as the "Villa Museo Puccini". He lived there until 1921.

Manon Lescaut (1893), his third opera, was his first great success. It launched his remarkable relationship with the librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, who collaborated with him on his next three operas, which became his three most famous and most performed operas. La Bohème (1896) is considered one of his best works as well as one of the most romantic operas ever composed. It is arguably today's most popular opera. Tosca (1900) was arguably Puccini's first foray into verismo, the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence. Madama Butterfly (1904) was initially greeted with great hostility (mostly organised by his rivals) but, after some reworking, became another of his most successful operas.

After 1904, compositions were less frequent. Following his passion for driving fast cars, Puccini was nearly killed in a major accident in 1903. However, Puccini completed La Fanciulla del West in 1910 and finished the score of La Rondine in 1917.In 1918, Il Trittico premiered in New York. This work is composed of three one-act operas, of the three, Gianni Schicchi has remained the most popular, containing the popular O Mio Babbino Caro.

Puccini began to complain of chronic sore throats towards the end of 1923. A diagnosis of throat cancer led his doctors to recommend a new and experimental radiation therapy treatment, which was being offered in Brussels. Puccini died there on November 29, 1924, from complications from the treatment. Turandot, his final opera, was left unfinished; and the last two scenes were completed by Franco Alfano based on the composer's sketches.

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Millenium Classics - Opera Treasures (99, 76min ^ 174mb)



Millenium Classics - Opera Treasures (^ 88mb)

01 - G.Verdi - Nabucco-Va pensiero (Act III)-Chrus of the Hebrew Slaves) (5:28)
02 - G.Bizet - Les pecheurs de perles-Au fond du temple saint (Act I) (5:25)
03 - Lakme - Viens, Mallika (Fllower duet) (Act I) (5:56)
04 - G.Bizet - Carmen-Vortre toast (Air du Toreador) (5:25)
05 - W.A.Mozart - Die Zauberflot-Der Vogelfanger bin ich ja (Akt I) (2:53)
06 - W.A.Mozart - Die Zauberflot-Der holle Rache (Akt I) (2:59)
07 - W.A.Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro, K.492-Voi che sapete (Atto II) (2:58)
08 - P.Mascagni - Cavalleria Rusticana-Regina coeli (7:07)

Millenium Classics - Opera Treasures 2 ( ^ 86mb)

09 - G.A.Rossini - II Barbiere di Siviglia-Largo al factotum (Atto I) (4:50)
10 - G.Puccini - Tosca - Vissi d'arte (Atoo II) (3:06)
11 - G.Puccini - Tosca-E lucevan le stelle (Atto III) (3:23)
12 - G.Verdi - Rigoletto-La donna e mobile (Atto III) (2:23)
13 - G.Verdi - La Traviata-Brindisi-Libiamo ne'liete calici (Atto I) (3:08)
14 - V.Bellini - Norma-Sediziose voci..Casta Diva (Atto I) (9:56)
15 - G.Puccini - Turandot-Nessun dorma (Atto III) (3:22)
16 - G.Verdi - Aida-Gloria all'Egittto (Atto II) (7:34)

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All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !

Foundation (VI)

Hello, it seems Massmirror redistribution has gone wrong lately, im working on it (re-upping) ..sigh. Well, at The Foundation they have bigger problems with "The Mule' ....

last week...

In response to the internal corruption on the Foundation, roughly 30 outer planets belonging to the Foundation who have become wealthy on their own through extensive trade begin to plan a civil war. The Independent Traders are gearing up for a war to secede from the Foundation. In addition to this internal corruption, an external threat arises in the form of a mysterious man who is known only as the Mule. The Mule (whose real name is never revealed) is a mental freak, and possesses the ability to sense and manipulate the emotions of others. He uses this ability to take over the independent systems bordering the Foundation, and has them wage a war against it.

While his vassals prosecute the war, the Mule travels under the guise of a refugee clown named "Magnifico Giganticus," with Foundation citizens Toran and Bayta Darell to different worlds of the Foundation. He uses his abilities to undermine the Foundation's war effort by spreading despair and destroying morale. In the end, the Foundation falls without much of a fight at all. As the Mule was advancing, the Foundation leadership complacently assumed that Seldon predicted his attack, and that even though the Mule was inexorably winning, the scheduled hologram crisis message appearance of Hari Seldon would tell them how to win (just as Bel Riose had seemed impossible to defeat, yet was "defeated" by Seldon's predictions). However, when Seldon's crisis tape plays they are shocked to discover that the crisis Seldon predicted was a civil war between the Foundation and the Independent Traders, and makes no mention of the Mule whatsoever. Several representatives of the Independent Traders in attendance explain that they were going to start a civil war of secession, but stopped when the Mule started his invasion: Seldon didn't predict the Mule. When the Mule's ships soon afterwards appear over Terminus, the Foundation surrenders with little fight. The Trader worlds, however, fight a losing war of attrition.

Still under the guise of a refugee clown, the Mule travels with the Darells, along with psychologist Ebling Mis, to the Great Library of Trantor. The Darells and Mis seek to contact the Second Foundation, which they believe will be able to defeat the Mule. The Mule, on the other hand, wishes to know the location of the Second Foundation so that he can use the First Foundation's technology to destroy it....

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Foundation VI - Flight From The Mule (37mb)

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All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !

Manny's 500th + Julie Patton & Henry Grimes Tonight in NYC

Last night, Boston Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramírez (above, photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images), 36, hit his 500th home run, joining only 23 other players who've achieved this mark. The two-time Hank Aaron Award winner (1999, 2002), who has a lifetime .312 average, is the third Dominican player, after Sammy Sosa (who has 609) and Alex Rodríguez (525) to achieve this honor. He's the first player ever to do so sporting a beautiful head of dreadlocks!

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From Margaret Grimes, an event tonight you don't want to miss if you're going to be in NYC (I won't):

Sunday, June 1st, 8 p.m: Julie Patton's “Ghost of a Chance Defense Fun(d) Band” rent party, w/ Julie Patton (“voicesays”), special guest Henry Grimes, “Poet of the Air” (words, instrumental voicing), Brad Jones (bass), Drew Gardner (percussion), Rod Williams (piano), Paul Van Curen (guitar), and more, at the Stone, northwest corner of Ave. C at 2nd St., Manhattan (NYC), www.thestonenyc.com, nycthestone@yahoo.com, 212-473-OO43. Juliesays: “So accustomed to throwing my own voice I no longer own it. Who does? … I exchange the tone poem (courtesy) my pause, self-contained in a room colandered for pipsqueak messages, every in an out.” NOTE: James Uhart and Gino Sitson follow at 1O p.m.