Vapour Trails by mattjones

Pauline Oliveros was a pioneer of electronic music in the 1960s. This is Alien Bog / Beautiful Soop from 1967 (Spotify link).

Following up my response to yesterdays comment in the Pinball Song thread, Walt Kraemer has been kind enough to email me with some information about the song. So here it is, definitive and from the person who composed and produced it, everything you ever wanted to know about the Sesame Street Pinball Number Count.

As composer and producer of Sesame Street’s Pinball Music I was flattered to find interest in something I created over a quarter of a century ago. Our company, Imagination, Inc in San Francisco produced a great number of animation pieces for Children’s Television Workshop at that time so forgive me if I’m a bit hazy as to some of the particulars.

Those were indeed the Pointer Sisters. All four of them. At the time only three were performing regularly and I recall budgeting for just the three when June showed up at the session with the rest. It was a bonus. The basic track was performed by San Francisco Bay Area musicians and since there were to be eleven pieces of animation I had the track structured to accomodate three different lead instrument overdubs to give the pieces some variety. On some numbers Andy Narell plays a steel drums solo, on others Mel Martin plays a soprano sax solo, on the rest… I forget. Much credit should go to Ed Bogas for interpreting my melody ideas and for the musical arrangements.

The concept and design was devised by our animation director, Jeff Hale. It was his idea that I create basic tracks then record as ‘wild-lines’ the Pointers shouting the various 2-11 numbers in different intensities and different compliments of voices. Then, each time the pin ball hit a selected number he would drop in these (off-key—couldn’t be helped) wild lines. While I have retained first or second generation masters (quarter inch tape now converted to DAT and CD) of 99% my audio productions over the years it is for above reason there was never a ‘master’ track. This news came as a dissapointment to the folks back at Sesame Street who were planning the current CD release. Unfortunately, I have retained nothing from this session. Matter of fact, I haven’t heard the piece in years.

On the techinal side, we recorded at Richard Beggs’ (Francis Ford Coppola’s) studio in the Columbus Towers Building, 24 track, analog—of course. Mag transfers were made at Imagination, Inc. which is long out of business. And, again unfortunately, there is nothing left of either the animation cells nor audio elements for any of that beautiful work.

Personally, I am honored to be thought of in the same company as Herbie Hancock and Frank Zappa. My approach was to write the piece in 12-4 or 12-8 time but that didn’t quite work out. And it wasn’t until we had completed the project that I realized I may have stolen the first five notes of the Woody Woodpecker Song. Something I’m sure neither Hancock nor Zappa would be guilty of.

Cordially,

Walt Kraemer

Mark Knopfler. Rock Dinosaur. Literally.

Buy this!: Kings of Convenience: Quiet Is The New Loud. Two guitars, voice and cello… simple. The best thing I’ve heard all [er…] year! [Jim, where would I be without ya?]. The album is released on January 29th.

Recent musical purchases: Cinematic Orchestra’s Remixes album [check out their website], and Squarepusher’s Budakhan Mindphone [both on vinyl in an attempt to make my record collection into more that just a load of old charity shop records]

Apparently, it is possible to create a hyperlink straight into a Napster search (if you have Napster installed that is). I don’t know how cross platform/browser compatible it is though. So far, I’ve only got it working on IE5 for the Mac. [cheers Phil]

a href=”nap:search?artist=name&title=name”

iTunes – digital music for your mac

This from Stu:

“Do a Napster search for “Paranoid Android” by Brad Mehldau. It’s a very nice cover version of the Radiohead track, and it kinda shows how good their music is…”

This guy’s is definitely one for the Amazon wishlist

Just had a listen Rob Ellis’ album, Music For The Home [he’s PJ Harvey’s original drummer]. It’s pretty minimal instrumental stuff, but it’s a bit too ‘cranky’ if you see what I mean – much of it seems to be flurries of random notes played on piano, synth and other crazy instruments. It’s obviously Eno inspired [hence the album name] with a bit of Morton Feldman thrown in there as well. Not sure about it, I think it’s going to take a few more listens.

So here it is Merry Christmas

Everybody’s having fun

Look to the future now

It’s only just begun

Radiohead’s next album is called ‘Amnesiac’ and is going to be released in April June.

There’s more here: http://www.followmearound.com/news/

Currently downloading Johnny Jones and the King Casuals’ version of Purple Haze from Napster. It’s a belter. Of course, having sampled this, I now intend to purchase some of their stuff.

Shirley Bassey’s version of Light My Fire is also a must.

Interesting article about John Lennon over at salon.com

I second Luke’s recommendations for decent minimalist classical stuff. That Glass CD on the NAXOS label is only about 5 quid – so I agree, it’s a must buy. Maximum Minimalists is also a good one to get if you want a general flavour of this genre of music (or is it a ‘movement’?). I also recommend Morton Feldman (who’s compositions sometimes last for 5 hours or so) and Gavin Bryers (‘Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet’ involves an hour long loop of a tramp singing in the streets of London – sounds bonkers but it’s actually really moving).

Radiohead’s Kid A has been voted ‘album of the year’ in a poll of 40 UK music journalists. Funny that, I seem to remember the press giving the album a good slating when it came out.
::.
My god, I haven’t bought any music so far this month. I’m resisting the temptation in order to save a few pennies for Christmas frivolities and presents. Looking forward to New Year, I’m celebrating it on the fabulous Island of Skye with 40 other nice people. Can’t wait, specially when we all have a quasi-religious experience listening to ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ as we watch the sun rise on Jan 1st, 2001. Original idea huh?

Dilemma: Buy this now, or put it on my christmas list. Tough one.

You know when you download music from Napster, you have to wait patiently for the song to download before you can play it? Well, Friskit is a new music sharing tool which streams the mp3s to your computer, so that the music plays [almost] straight away. I haven’t checked it out yet, so it might be rubbish… sounds pretty interesting anyway though.

Medeski, Martin and Wood: The Dropper and Cat Power: Dear Sir.

::.

Boycott HMV because their CDs cost 5 or 6 quid more than other places. They regularly have ‘bargain bin’ style sales just you get you through the door – I hate it when companies use ploys (like the way sweets are always positioned near the till queue in supermarkets, exploiting our lack of willpower when comes to buying junk food). There has definitely been an increase in this kind of activity in the last few years and it annoys me.

Napster download of the day: Senor Coconut – Tour De France (Kraftwerk ala Samba). Now gonna get the album (well… I might do).

Red Snapper are playing up here on Friday which should be good. I much prefer their earlier stuff (Reeled & Skinned, Prince Blimey) to Making Bones (I haven’t heard their latest album so I can’t really comment on that). I’m not sure about the addition of an MC since the Prince Blimey album… it seems they’re going for mass appeal rather than unique sounding music (as contained on their earlier albums). Whatever, I’m up for a bit of live music anyway.