Ian Leslie has released what looks to be a fascinating book about the Beatles and more specifically the relationship between Lennon and McCartney. I thought that I too might as well get in on the act and talk about the Beatles story and why it is so remarkable, mysterious and...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NCNUoY0UJA&t=20s A few weeks back I was rather taken aback to receive an email which I took to be a hoax: Hi Nicholas We would like to invite you on the Greatest Music of All Time podcast. The episodes are a good opportunity to promote upcoming...
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Sometimes, it feels like 1910 all over again. Then, a confident Germany was the up-and-coming industrial power house, fearing an even more up-and-coming Russia, with the UK and France desperately holding on to their colonial empires. Now, a confident China is the up-and-coming...
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Posted in Politics - national, Politics - international, Philosophy, Environment, History, Miscellaneous, Humour, Society, Religion, Sport-general, Theatre, Music, Economics and public policy, Science, regulation, Gender, Journalism, Media, Geeky Musings, Climate Change, Political theory, Business, Travel, Immigration and refugees, Information, Intellectual Monopoly Privileges, Innovation, Social, Race and indigenous, Ethics, Cultural Critique, Public and Private Goods, Death and taxes, Inequality, Social Policy, Democracy, Bullshit, Indigenous, Employment
Let me indulge, purely for entertainment value, in some fan-speculation on what we will see on-screen after the Long Night is over and the final 6 episodes Of Game of Thrones are run in 2019. Let me first talk about the end-game aspects I think the books and the tv-series seem...
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Posted in Uncategorized, Uncategorised, Politics - international, Life, Philosophy, Print media, Environment, History, Miscellaneous, Humour, Education, Literature, Society, Religion, Films and TV, Sport-general, Theatre, Music, IT and Internet, Economics and public policy, Food, Terror, Science, Art and Architecture, regulation, Gender, Journalism, Media, Libertarian Musings, Geeky Musings, Health, Climate Change, Political theory, Metablogging, Law, Dance, Space, Review, Startup, Products, Travel, Immigration and refugees, Information, bubble, WOW! - Amazing, Social, Parenting, Race and indigenous, Ethics, Cultural Critique, Medical, Public and Private Goods, Death and taxes, Inequality, Personal, Social Policy, Democracy, Bullshit, Indigenous, Employment
Just had to put this up here, because it's wonderful: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g[/embed] These people were waiting for a Green Day concert when Bohemian Rhapsody started playing over the speakers ...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_7h0TzqFA8 I'm a big fan of Colin Hay, whom I saw on stage for the first time about three years ago. Hilariously funny and great songs. I particularly like "It's a beautiful world". The video above is a good clip showing how funny he is. It's i...
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I drove for the best part of 11 hours over the last few days giving a Do Lecture (would you believe?) which was fun. In any event I listened to some seriously great radio. Inside the drug court I was riveted by three 50 minute docos on the NSW Drug Court. It really is a traged...
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The Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) lives in the suburb next to mine and is a Good Thing. It's housed in one of the umpteen magnificent town halls of Melbourne, in this case South Melbourne Town Hall and a lot of its concerts are put on by students, often supplemen...
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S7QxOllK0VU
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This TED talk from 2008 was recommended to me by my piano teacher. If you haven't already seen it it's well worth taking a look. If you have seen it, a second look wouldn't be wasted. [ted id=286] After watching it I realised I had a considerable challenge in front of me - to...
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No more singing unless you are as good as this. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44wDwMQVqCc&w=560&h=315] Happy new year
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There's a beauty to cover songs. The musician, free from obligation to be new, hip commercial or even original, has simply to play homage to the songs that they love. When some people, not big stars, just talented people with some recording gear and the desire to have a crack...
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It wasn't enough that we were all recently exposed to the unbelievably tone-deaf talents of Craig Emerson. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1pEt7bgY2U Before that there was former Senator Mary Jo Fisher's very strange spoken rendition of the Rocky Horror Timewarp number, eerily...
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They played the studio version of this song by Colin Hay on the day that we learned that Greg Ham had died. It was a good choice. I saw Colin Hay play this song back in 2002 at Woodford. Back then it was just him, a guitar and his gorgeous wife. Here he is playing it at the Co...
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This wasn't supposed to be the theme of part two (Part One is here ) but Jessica Irvine's recent and timely column on superstardom and One Direction prompted me to add my two cents' worth - well someone else's two cents' worth but at least inserted by me. First; highlights fro...
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http://youtu.be/NOyx3r59L-I
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8urgvC0TR8&feature=related
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http://youtu.be/PEwf8e5jHTg
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Well I can't say I really agree with the criterion of quality - but anyway, at least by our intrepid old friend Joel's lights file sharing hasn't harmed music making. Recent technological changes may have altered the balance between technology and copyright law for digital pro...
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ii8m1jgn_M&feature=player_embedded
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE8qRDHfA5Y&feature=related When I was in the market for young kids music entertainment, my favourite entertainer was Peter Combe (pronounced Coom). The Wiggles were nice enough but very anodyne - so much so that, when Disney took them up they ne...
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Yes folks, the guy I probably very unfairly was rude about here , has done something with his life. He's lent some of his famous empirical skills to showing something we all know in our bones, namely that people are still producing records, even though the bottom has been slid...
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About to book United Airlines to the United States, I thought I'd let any Troppodillians who don't know of this video, that it exists, and that it's fun (and it lopped around $170 million off UA's market cap according to some factoid crazed journalists). And looking it up, I j...
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Orpheus and Eurydice by Carlo Cignani (1628-1719) O everlasting gods! I see your lovely eyes and your beautiful face, and yet I cannot believe my own eyes! These are the sentiments of Orpheus on being reunited with Eurydice in Hades, but they are also the standard reaction to...
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh0jOiz7pXk Joan Sutherland has passed on. Inevitably, obituarians are taking the opportunity to contend that she was the greatest soprano, or even the greatest singer, of the post war period, or even of the 20th Century. Others are content just...
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SBL6dgBBak
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A while ago, I was rung by Richard Letts of the Music Council of Australia , a kind of peak body of music organisations asking - to my amazement - if I would give the Annual address at their annual conference. Robyn Homes of the National Library of Australia had seen me speak...
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And why not? I wonder what his golf handicap is.
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In addition to Chris Lloyd's contribution below, several other bloggers have already published posts on last week's Federal Court decision ( Larrikin Music Publishing Pty Ltd v EMI Songs Australia Pty Limited ) about copyright breach in Men at Work's iconic pop anthem "Down Un...
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In 1934 an Aussie school teacher wrote a little ditty about Kookaburras that was enjoyed and sung by school kids for decades. She made pretty much no money out of it all, as it was, and is, still legal for kids to sing a song at school without paying the composer, thank the lo...
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Posted in Music, Media, Law
Every December since 2002 Sydney's Pinchgut Opera has produced an obscure baroque opera at the City Recital Hall. The company employs top-notch instrumentalists wth period instruments that produce an incredibly haunting and evocative blend of sounds; they gather outstanding so...
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Richard Ronald Brautigam:'What's really remarkable is not so much that he could compose something like this, but that he could play it.' I've only just managed to see In Search of Beethoven , and it's probably nearing the end of its inevitably short season. But it's still show...
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This is how Anke Hoeppner appeared when she played Leonore in Opera Queensland's production of Fidelio in July. On Saturday night she sang the same role in the Sydney Opera House in a cocktail dress (or some such thing) from the corner of the stage while Nicole Youl, in costum...
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I can't think of a single song of his that is a really big favourite of mine. But has there ever been any big star who was more of a genius as a dancer? Surely not. Not even Fred Astair comes close.
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Billy Joel Masterclass Concert 2001 (Pt.2 of 12) Uploaded by denimel . - Watch more music videos, in HD! If you click through to the source, you'll find twelve of these segments from a 'master class' of 2001. And I'd never heard the song featured in this final segment. Billy J...
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The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Better Know a Beatle - Paul McCartney Colbert Report Full Episodes Paul McCartney Appearance Funny Political Videos More Funny Videos
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In a world rapidly sinking into a grand funk, with nothing going right for overpaid CEOs, for US Auto workers, for the climate, for climate scientists, for denialists, for the US (apart from Obama), for the sales of SUVs and large cars, for the US, UK and Europe, for Afghanist...
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Sara Macliver ....the best Pinchgut ever! I didn't really expect it to be. Though I admired their courage in picking such an obscure and, at first blush unsuitable, work, it seemd inconceivable that it would be as rapturously beautiful as, say, L'Orfeo or The Fairy Queen . But...
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"La Somme le roy", circa 1300, via Wikipedia I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women. 2 Samuel 1:26 (English Standard Version) What better definition could you ask for of '...
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Richard Hickox, 1948-2008 Another case of not appreciating something fully until you've lost it . I never met him, but spent many happy hours within metres of him, from my usual vantage point in Row B (the best value for money in the House), so I feel a certain bond. This was...
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Am I the only newspaper reader who expects an opinion column to develop a coherent thread of argumentation, as distinct from a series of provocative comments stuck together precariously with specious howevers and therefores? The editors who approve these pieces evidently think...
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Brilliant! HT: Peter Martin .
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Catherine Carby, Rachelle Durkin and Gábor Bretz If one wants uniformity to be the basic rule for an opera, it is easy to see that a more perfect subject ... than 'Don Giovanni' is simply not to be contemplated. (Source) Was Kierkegaard right about this opera being the greates...
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John Cargher is one of a handful of people who have been part of my consciousness for as long as I can I remember, and who are still doing their thing -- at least, he'll be in this category until tomorrow. There won't be many of these great constants left after that: a quick m...
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That's David Marr's verdict on the national song, and he asserts that many of his fellow best and brightest agree: EXTENSIVE soundings among delegates confirm I was not the only one who suddenly realised on Saturday morning as I was singing Advance Australia Fair that among th...
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I read on that other (more illustrious) CT that Tom Lehrer turned 80 recently (on the 9th April). I guess most Troppo readers know him. I can't think of a greater talent for satirical music ever. Prodigious in quality rather than quantity - he performed 109 shows, and wrote 37...
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"The Monkees are too hip for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ", writes Robert Forster . Is he right? Hired as actors for a TV series, Michael Nesmith , Peter Tork , Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones went on to feature in one of the most successful American pop bands of the 1960s. The...
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Juno is a great movie -- but there's something a little odd about the music. So you haven't seen the film? It's about a 16 year old girl called Juno who gets herself pregnant. And yes ... I can hear you. You're saying, "Gets HERSELF pregnant! Isn't there some male person who's...
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You wont get any deep insights from Ronnie . The autobiography of Ron Wood, the other Rolling Stones guitarist. What you will get is a stargazing jaunt through the best part of British Rock history. Youll also get plenty on the booze hes drunk, the coke hes used, and the women...
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Fiona Campbell For the sake of completeness, here's a brief and belated reaction to Juditha Triumphans , which I previewed last week. The production surpassed even my very high expectations. As commenter John Greenfield noted, the sets were not lavish, but I thought the use of...
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Christophano Allori, Judith with the Head of Halophernes Every December Pinchgut Opera puts on on an opera at The City Recital Hall in Angel Place. Juditha Triumphans is their sixth production, following Semele , The Fairy Queen , L'Orfeo , Dardanus and Idomeneo . As usual the...
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The Barber of Seville is the most popular opera buffa in the contemporary standard repertoire and, according to one estimate , the seventh most performed opera in the world. This is for good reason, because the work is a gem, and also one of the most accessible. However, opera...
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To start of what may (or may not) be a semi-regular post (whatever happened to Dr Troppo?) here is my quote of the week - from rookie Troppodillian DW Griffiths. Jagger seems a disciplined bloke, but he plays dissolute superbly - and it seems to be what the world reacts to mos...
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Ahead of this weekend's announcement of the 2006 Australian Idol , today's Age Green Guide acknowledges the popular culture phenomenon. The paper then labels the show, for about the tenth time, as "karaoke". The Age is not alone; a large part of the Australian pop/rock music i...
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https://youtu.be/NAn6iDCpK5k A while back I turned on the tele late one Weekend night and saw that they were replaying old Videoclips of the Beatles. I watched mesmerised for around 45 minutes after which they went onto something else. I think I would have stayed a fair while...
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I. I enjoyed myself at The Boy from Oz last Friday night. I'd have loved to see one of Peter Allen's big Broadway shows and was curious as to what all the fuss was about The Boy's great success in New York. Mind you, the reason for its success seems pretty obvious. Peter Allen...
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I heard this track (2 Meg mp3) on Andrew Ford's marvellous Music Show this morning. It's quite striking I thought and perhaps many troppodillians have heard it. But I hadn't. It won't take you long to figure out who is singing it, but some other things about the song might sur...
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Norm Geras has collated the results of the 'five favourite composers' poll he ran, and it won't surprise you to know that number one, at 345 votes, is Beethoven, closely followed by Mozart at 340 votes and JS Bach at 335 votes. In fourth place is Schubert, at 119 votes, and Ch...
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Feeling generally overtired, a bit ill, and reeling from all sorts of things that are stressing me, I was delighted to be asked out by a good friend of mine for a Corona or two tonight (a very good rule of thumb is that any drink that can reasonably have a lime in it is a good...
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Quick pitstop from the Toowong net cafe closest to Thesis land. Just wanted to remind people in Brizvegas of the grogblog at Ric's Bar tomorrow night - Troppo readers and commenters are most welcome. Also a plug for Funk for Tsunami at No. 12 in the Valley tonight - which a fr...
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I feel a deep urge to vent my spleen. Despite being a babyboomer whose personal tastes in rock/pop music coincide to some extent with the voters in the Normblog poll that Sophie Masson blogged about immediately below, I find myself getting mightily irritated by the extraordina...
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Here's something worth a look! Back in December, Norm Geras asked people to send him their Top Ten favourite pop/rock songs. He had a record number of entries for such a poll--230--so it took some time to sort them out. Well, the results are now in, and it's interesting to see...
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It was my little sister's birthday yesterday - she's 34. As Lucy Harker said in Nosferatu "time is an abyss, a thousand nights deep". I will also be having a birthday soon - on the 13th of Feb (which wasn't a good High School birthday at all - the day before Valentine's...). I...
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I must be getting old. I had no idea til I read about it at Virulent Memes that Einstuerzende Neubauten had a new release out in 04... Anyone care to list the best new albums of the year just gone?
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The SMH previews new tv shows for 2005. This is really sad : Rock Star (Nine) In a nutshell INXS search for a new singer, with auditions in the US, Canada, Australia, Britain and Japan. Biggest hurdle Too much American polish on an Australian band. X factor Producer Mark Burne...
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Just popping my head up briefly from festive celebrations and heinous manuscript revisions to urge you all to take part in Norm Geras' poll, re your selections for the greatest ten pop and rock songs of all time. Email Norm, normblog@yahoo.co.uk and give him your list now(entr...
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Australian film might be in strife but Oz Music is in good form. I'm taking a break from the thesifying to clean the ap't up in time for Christmas. That requires music! I'm listening to Beth Gibbons' Out of Season , the wonderful Sia (originally from Adelaide)... and something...
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Posh and Becks feature in a nativity scene at Madame Tussaud's. Photo: Reuters. Continuing my musings on fame and its contemporary cultural significance, what's going on when our Nic is named UN Citizen of the World alongside Hans Blix and Lakhdar Brahimi, Angelina Jolie saves...
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I was chuffed today to discover that there is a tribute show to Leonard Cohen in Sydney headlined by Nick Cave and my absolute favourite songstress of all times, the wonderful Beth Orton . It's on over Australia Day weekend next year. I am so there. ESSENTIAL READING : Reading...
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The Finn brothers have been touring Australia . So I'm currently listening to Split Enz' excellent Moving Pictures (now playing - 'Poor Boy'...). Being a teenager of the 80s, (and one whose lp collection succumbed to a flood under a Queenslander), my first listen for yonks is...
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