Baron Dave Romm
Capitol Steps, Carrie Dahlby, Feng Shui Ninjas
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater podcasts
2009 is already a good year
The pressure to make new music is always hard for those who don't make their living at it, and making quality CDs is even harder. Here are three recent CDs; the 29th, 2nd and first CD by the various groups.
Obama Mia!
Baron
Dave and three cast members of The Capitol Steps
two CDs
ago
Washington DC, April 14. 2007CE
Obama Mia! is the 29th Album from the Capitol Steps. Their album sales are incidental to their performances, which constantly change as the political landscape changes. If you're ever in DC -- or around their road show -- make time to go see them. They'll have updated material, poking fun at the politics of the day. You'll probably be about a half-album ahead of their next release. Obama Mia! contains more of their routines and spoken intros than others, partially because they work so well.
Singling out Capitol Steps cuts is difficult, as the transitions to and from songs add to each, but I'll mention a few favorites. Lirty Dies: 2008 -- The Load To Erection (mp3, 8:07) is one of the better entries in a very strong string of political commentary made pungent by spoonerism. Ebony and Ovaries (mp3, 3:56) is a duet between former rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to the tune of... well, you can probably figure it out.
Soon-to-be-former President Bush is rendered harmless by his inability to speak English in the spoken routine "George Bush: A Time for Refraction":
As you know, we've had a historic election in our country, and despite my difference with Barack Obama, I find him to be a inspiring man.They get a few last licks into W. with "The Chap Who Threw His Two Shoes" and "George W. Creditreport.com". Still, my favorite bit on the CD is he duet between Obama and Bush, "Barackberry", where Obama demonstrates that he is a president for the 21st Century whereas Bush isn't quite up to the 19th. Barack: "I mean your PDA? How did you stay connected? How did you stay in touch?" George W: "Well, if I proved anything during my presidency, is that keeping out of touch was kinda my forte. heh heh heh"
He's written a book where he outlines several of his thoughts and ideas for the future. I haven't seen these ideas... because they're in a book....
As you may be aware, as my term is coming to its end, I feel it's a time for refraction. I've always show the greatest affliction for the American people. Even my retractors agree that I have been successful in reversing many of the accomplishments of past administrations.
The Capitol Steps are an equal opportunity basher, and targets include Oprah, Joe the Plumber, former Gov. Blagojevich, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton and Subprime Mortgage Holders.
Like their other albums, Obama Mia! is political filk done right. Get the CD now, before the political spotlight moves on and the jokes are fresh. Highly recommended for anyone who follows politics even alittle.
Giant Kitten
Carrie
Dahlby, Marscon, March 6, 2009CE
Carrie and Josh got married a few days ago, so I should really review her latest CD, which premiered at Marscon. As a Wedding present, I have entered all the track info for the album and uploaded it to CDDB.
Giant Kitten, the sophomore solo effort from Dementia Music artist Carry Dahlby, has one of my favorite album covers: A giant kitten head poking through the clouds to gaze mischievously at London. The CD is a fine effort, tapping the talents of many Dementia Music artists and promoting fired radio personality T. D. Mischke (who performs the first cut).In Carrie Dahlby's first CD, Happy Ranch, she threw in, almost as an afterthought, some of the short songs she sang over her cell phone to Buffy Kitty. Those were so much fun that she has 16 of them here, in better audio, which is why the CD has 35 tracks. Be careful playing on Shuffle (or Genius) as your cat will get jealous.
My favorite of her new songs is "The World Is Made Of". It's become almost an anthem which will rev up a crowd. A version was on the Marscon 2009 Dementia Track Fundraiser which I talked about earlier. Bartcop-E is a family site, so I won't give away what the world is made of, but knowing this crowd, you'll like the song too. You can get the solo track on iTunes from a FuMP collection.
Carrie does a lot of overdubbing to harmonize with herself. This works well most of the time, especially on the a cappella "The Last Half Birthday", about turning 29 1/2. Once you turn 30 your life is over. She relates the equivalent of her bucket list, what she's going to do in the next six months. Besides harmonizing with herself, Carrie shares the CD with the great Luke Ski and ShoEboX of Worm Quartet, among others.
She backs up Devo Spice in the Nerdcore Rap paean to the spread of STDs, "Give It To Everyone", sort of an update of Tom Lehrer's I Got It From Agnes, skipping over the innocence of Nate Bucklin's "The Chart Song" and passing through the scary time of Boiled In Lead's Microorganism to come full circle.
You don't so much listen to Giant Kitten as enter the world of Carrie Dahlby. You will be amused depending on how much you like zombie stories for kids, ripping on Britney Spears, going to a Steely Dan concert, songs about the topic of songs, Heroes, or any of the other subjects and musical styles she zips through. Definitely iPod Worthy (iPw), and worth more than the sum of the individual tracks. Recommended if you like the other Dementia Music artists I've reviewed, or if you want to sing to your cats.
Garbage Pizza
Feng
Shui Ninjas, Marscon, March 7, 2009CE
I wasn't entirely sure about the Feng Shui Ninjas. At first. The musicians had been kicking around as Dementia Artist backups for a while, and they kept talking about their new group. They gave a great concert at Marscon, and their CD is better -- and different -- than I expected.
Garbage Pizza is, well, let me quote my own review from the CDBaby site: Fun and Strange. The Feng Shui Ninjas are serious musicians who don't always take themselves seriously. Garbage Pizza is well produced and well performed, with some good covers and emotional originals. Celtic and country with a little bit of weird; to play their description game: They sound like Poi Dog Pondering as produced by Syd Barrett. Sort of.
I must admit I'm not that fond of their signature song, an angry Celtic version of "Greensleeves". The rip on one of my favorite airs doesn't have quite the right spin for me, though I appreciate the effort and it's iPw. On the other hand, they do a cover of another of my faves, "Burning Bridges". Slightly weepy country-ish, which is just right for the song.
Songs about songs are a mainstay of songwriting (might as well write about what you know) and the CD starts off with "Writing A Book" about... writing a book. Or not writing a book, but writing a song about writing the book. Got it? That leads into the best song on the CD is "Another Song", about a lonely woman who adds another chorus to the song of her life. It helps that the bouncy honky-tonk instrumentation is odd, and includes a typewriter carriage return bell. "There's no reason to live life without trying."
Their odd, almost psychedelic, take on Paddy's Lamentation is a worthy cover. The journey described in "Peach Cobbler" reminded me of Lou and Peter Berryman, though I'm not sure I can explain why. "The Rainbow Song" is about Edgar Allen Poe, I think, and is the group at its most early Pink Floyd: emotional but distant, intellectual but disconsolate.
Garbage Pizza falls neatly into the category of "Uncategorizable". If you liked Songs In The Key of Z or Hawkwind or Renaldo and the Loaf , you're a very strange person and might like the Feng Shui Ninjas. It's easier to say what they're not than what they are, but I like the CD. Recommended for everyone who wants to try something a little different, that takes you to a slightly odd place, a place where you get to rewrite the ending.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
The Unforgettable Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3, 2009 (globalmindshift.wordpress.com)
When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." Boy, no pressure there.
Just another week of rapes (guardian.co.uk)
Nearly 50,000 rapes occur in the UK each year, but few get media coverage. Julie Bindel gives a snapshot.
This column will change your life (guardian.co.uk)
A curious mind is an active mind, realises Oliver Burkeman.
David Medsker: A Chat with Pete Docter, A Main Pixar Guy (bullz-eye.com)
"We don't really think about marketing and merchandising. That's not what makes a good movie. If you start with thatŠwell, you know where that goes."
Dana Stevens: Time To Get High (slate.com)
Pixar's 'Up' is awesome.
Christopher Kelly: "Pixar perfect: The people at this studio have important lessons to teach" (McClatchy Newspapers)
In order to make their sublimely inventive and affecting new film "Up," the tight-knit team at Pixar Animation Studios embarked upon a painstaking, complicated and, at times, even harrowing five-year journey.
Bill Gibron: 'Up' Makes It a Perfect 10 for Pixar (popmatters.com)
It's as serious as Wall-E, as action packed as The Incredibles, and hides a mysterious core of sadness which the company has never really explored - until now.
Rosanna Greenstreet: Q&A (guardian.co.uk)
Jerry Springer on enjoying infomercials and crying at chick flicks.
Roger Ebert's Journal: That's not the IMAX I grew up with
It started for me with a letter from a Los Angeles filmmaker named Mike Williamson, who contacted me March 7 in outrage about a bait-and-switch involving IMAX.
Robert Fulford: Viewing a TV death in four acts (National Post)
The natural life of a TV series, like the history of a nation or an art movement, falls into four periods, says Robert Fulford: primitive, classic, baroque, and decadent...
Jennifer Makowsky: Let the Right One In, But Only the Right One (popmatters.com)
Lindqvist's book and Alfredson's film adaptation both convey a sweet, dark version of puppy love. We don't need the American remake.
Michael Davis: Something Down The Drain? Retrieve it Without a Wrench (familyhack.com)
An amazing trick! Our 1-minute video shows you how to easily retrieve anything that went down the drain-without a pipe wrench or a plumber.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
Lip Bomb
Back with THE Low Down on a Marital Showdown?
The Weekly Poll
The 'Guilty TV Pleasures' Edition...
Are there any TV programs that you secretly feel sheepish about watching regularly, but do so anyway because you REALLY like them? C'mon now, fess up! I will!
I double-dog dare ya, haha!
Send your response to
Results tomorrow
said:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still overcast, but got about an hour of sun late in the day.
US Journalists' Trial Begins
Ling & Lee
As global powers debate how to punish North Korea for its nuclear defiance, two American journalists seized nearly three months ago face a trial this week in Pyongyang on charges that could land them in one of the country's notorious labor camps.
North Korean guards detained Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's Current TV media venture, at the northeastern border with China on March 17. Activists who helped organize their trip say they had been reporting on North Korean women and children who fled to China for an uncertain life as refugees.
Pyongyang accused the Americans of engaging in "hostile acts" and crossing into communist North Korea illegally, and announced two weeks ago the women will stand trial June 4 in the nation's top court. Legal experts say conviction for "hostility" or espionage could mean five to 10 years in a labor camp.
Gore himself may head to North Korea to lobby for the reporters' release, the TBS television network in Tokyo said Saturday, citing unnamed sources. Messages left with Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider went unanswered Sunday, and San Francisco-based Current TV has refused to comment about the case.
Ling & Lee
Teen Cracks Math Puzzle
Mohamed Altoumaimi
A 16-year-old Iraqi immigrant living in Sweden has cracked a maths puzzle that has stumped experts for more than 300 years, Swedish media reported on Thursday.
In just four months, Mohamed Altoumaimi has found a formula to explain and simplify the so-called Bernoulli numbers, a sequence of calculations named after the 17th century Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli, the Dagens Nyheter daily said.
Altoumaimi, who came to Sweden six years ago, said teachers at his high school in Falun, central Sweden were not convinced about his work at first.
He then got in touch with professors at Uppsala University, one of Sweden's top institutions, to ask them to check his work.
After going through his notebooks, the professors found his work was indeed correct and offered him a place in Uppsala.
Mohamed Altoumaimi
NY Phil Clarinetist Retires
Stanley Drucker
With youthful looks and the energy of a person half his 80 years, Stanley Drucker, the New York Philharmonic's principal clarinetist still makes a precision commute - by train, by subway, and by his own spry steps - from his home in Massapequa to Lincoln Center. He times it so that he "can make the trains with a minute to spare."
After 60 years sitting at center stage, the Philharmonic's oldest member - once its youngest member - is about to retire.
Drucker, who was hired in 1948 at 19, has played under nine Philharmonic music directors. He has performed in some 10,200 Philharmonic concerts - about 70 percent of the performances presented by the 167-year-old orchestra, the nation's oldest. He has played in front of more than 40 million people, according to orchestra estimates.
Drucker's musical moment began in Brooklyn. To get him off the stickball lot, his parents - a tailor and housewife who immigrated from Ukraine - made an $18 investment for a clarinet for a present for his 10th birthday. (Good ones now cost around $3,000.)
Stanley Drucker
Marathon TV Show Cut Short
Hugo Chavez
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had promised a four-day marathon edition of his widely watched weekly television talkshow, but unspecified technical problems threw the plans awry this weekend.
In a three-line statement, the information ministry said Sunday's "Alo Presidente" program had been canceled for technical reasons. Saturday's show was called off without explanation.
To mark its 10 years on air, Chavez last week announced an extended edition of the program he frequently uses to criticize the United States and announce major policies like nationalizations in South America's top oil exporter. He planned to do one or two hours-long broadcasts a day.
Chavez was expected to transmit Sunday's show in the company of Bolivian President Evo Morales, before he travels to El Salvador for the inauguration of its new left-wing president, Mauricio Funes.
Hugo Chavez
Canada's 'Prince of Pot'
Marc Emery
Psychedelic rock booms through The Vapour Lounge. In the store, young and some not-so-young people smoke pot through a variety of devices. And owner Marc Emery stands in the middle of it all, proclaiming his goal of defeating the U.S. war on drugs.
Known as the Prince of Pot, Emery has sold millions of marijuana seeds around the world by mail over the past decade. In doing so, he has drawn the attention of U.S. drug officials, who want him extradited to Seattle. Emery has agreed to plead guilty in Seattle to one count of marijuana distribution in exchange for dismissal of all other counts, and the U.S. District Attorney is pressing for a sentence of five to eight years in a U.S. prison.
The case is the latest twist in Emery's two-decade-long fight against the prohibition of marijuana in North America. To his supporters, he is a brave crusader for the use and sale of a drug with both recreational and medicinal value. To drug officials, he is a criminal and the biggest purveyor of marijuana from Canada into the United States.
Emery sits "right smack in the middle" of the North American debate over marijuana prohibition, said Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in Washington, D.C. St. Pierre predicted that Emery's trial would "kick-start it all again."
Marc Emery
Arrested On Suspicion Of DUI
Lori Petty
Police in Los Angeles say "Point Break" actress Lori Petty has been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving after she struck and injured a skateboarder.
Police spokesman Bruce Borihanh says the 45-year-old Petty was arrested Saturday night in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles. He says the unidentified skateboarder was treated for injuries at the scene.
Petty was booked into jail early Sunday and released after posting $100,000 bail.
Petty was the star of the 1995 movie "Tank Girl" and has also appeared in "Point Break" and "A League of Their Own."
Lori Petty
Daughter Charged
Billy Bob Thornton
The oldest daughter of Billy Bob Thornton faces charges in the death of a 1-year-old girl she was babysitting in October, a celebrity gossip Web site reported Sunday.
Ocoee police confirmed that 29-year-old Amanda Brumfield is charged with child neglect causing harm or disability and was in custody.
Web site tmz.com reported she is Thornton's daughter, but police spokesman Lee Stephens said the police records department was closed Sunday and he couldn't find out whether Brumfield is related to Thornton.
Brumfield told detectives that a girl she was babysitting hit her head in a fall in an Ocoee home on Oct. 3, Detective James Berish said in a news release. Brumfield called for help more than two hours later when she couldn't revive the girl, police in the city near Orlando said.
Billy Bob Thornton
4th Estate Vacancy
Warren Times Observer
A local newspaper in northwest Pennsylvania apologized on Friday for running a classified advertisement that called implicitly for the assassination of U.S. President Barack Obama.
The Warren Times Observer, with a circulation of about 11,000, ran the ad in Thursday's paper and pulled it as soon as it was discovered by a manager, said publisher John Elchert.
The ad read: "May Obama follow in the footsteps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy," Elchert said.
Elchert said the representative who took the ad apparently didn't make the connection between the four assassinated presidents -- Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy -- and mistakenly allowed the ad to run.
Warren Times Observer
Weekend Box Office
`Up'
The animated action comedy "Up" took flight with a $68.2 million opening weekend, maintaining a perfect box-office track record for Pixar Animation, whose 10 films all have been commercial and critical hits.
"Up" took over the No. 1 spot from 20th Century Fox's "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," which slipped to second-place with $25.5 million. The "Museum" sequel raised its 10-day total to $105.3 million.
The weekend's other new wide release, Universal Pictures' horror tale "Drag Me to Hell," opened at No. 3 with $16.6 million. It was a relatively modest return for director Sam Raimi, whose three "Spider-Man" movies had blockbuster opening weekends.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Up," $68.2 million.
2. "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," $25.5 million.
3. "Drag Me to Hell," $16.6 million.
4. "Terminator Salvation," $16.1 million.
5. "Star Trek," $12.8 million.
6. "Angels & Demons," $11.2 million.
7. "Dance Flick," $4.9 million.
8. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," $3.9 million.
9. "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," $1.9 million.
10. "Obsessed," $665,000.
`Up'
In Memory
Millvina Dean
The Titanic International Society says Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, has died.
The society's president, Charles Haas, tells The Associated Press that Dean died Sunday at age 97. He said she was suffering from pneumonia and her companion, Bruno Nordmanis, had called the Swiss branch of the society to say she had passed away.
Dean was just over two months old when the Titanic hit an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912, sinking less than three hours later.
She was cared for at a nursing home in southern England. A staff nurse said no one could comment until administrators came on duty Monday.
"Titanic" stars Leonardo diCaprio and Kate Winslet donated money this month to help pay Dean's nursing home fees.
Millvina Dean
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
