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The street: a musician's last (only?) venue

REVIEW

Here in Boston, on our subway called The "T," there was an attempt last year by the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority) to pipe music into the stations, which would have ostensibly driven, forced, left no room for the street musicians that occasionally grace our platforms. But as it turns out, there was such an outcry of support for these musicians, the MBTA scrapped the idea . . . and the musicians stayed.

Continuing on the theme of places for music to be heard and for venues to perform in, the greed and pernicious myopia of General Managers and Program Directors of local radio stations nationwide - especially their Jurassic hesitation to step into the new broadcast technologies of the 21st century - have successfully diminished the importance and impact of  the radio industry, which for years served to both entertain and educate us with an incredible array of musical styles and tastes that were once available across the dial.

And when you consider the ever-shrinking number of local LIVE music clubs/venues still open in cities across America - no longer being supported/patronized as they have been in decades past - it quickly becomes apparent how few places there really are for talented musicians to go to be seen or heard . . except to the street.

So we wanted to pre-showcase this extraordinary musician, not only because he so brilliantly plays the guitar, not only because of his courage and dedication to overcome a seemingly enormous personal challenge - he can only play the guitar with his feet - but because he also inspired us to shine a small spotlight on the cultural damage we're doing to our nation when music's only place to turn . . . is the street.

But then again, and considering the alternative, thank goodness we still have that.

Coldplay: does a band's success invite greater authorship scrutiny . . . and risk?

In general, how do songwriters keep other tunes out of their creative heads . . . or even avoid a coincidence?

One of our favorite bands is Coldplay and Chris Martin, their lead singer, front man and head writer also happens to be married to actress Gwynneth Paltrow, which really is of no consequence to this story, merely a point of reference.

Anyway, for background and a few years back, our own Head Geek took the Mrs. to a Coldplay concert down in The Meadowlands (Northern New Jersey) and their opening act was another extraordinary band, The Verve. Now, other than the fact that our seats were so close to one set of arena speakers - it was, after all, where both The New Jersey Nets and Devils played basketball and hockey, respectively - it was unquestionably the best (non-jazz) concert ever.

Well, Coldplay's newest album and title song, Viva la Vida is a huge hit but the British press is now abuzz with an allegation being made against Coldplay that may greatly affect their reputation . . . and their pockets:

In a video posted on the video-sharing website YouTube, Andrew Hoepfner, Creaky Boards' singer and songwriter, claimed that the melody of Coldplay's song, "Viva La Vida", is pinched from a track he wrote last year called, ironically, "The Songs I Didn't Write".

. . . The clip, which was first posted on Sunday, rapidly went viral. By last night, it had been watched by nearly 300,000 people, many thousands of whom had typed comments remarking upon the various similarities between the two tracks. In an industry where even small chord sequences can become subject of costly copyright disputes, allegations of plagiarism are as potentially damaging to a musician's finances as they are to their reputation.

Now, Coldplay immediately issued some vigorous denials and is already offering proof to counter the claims. But ironically - in a somewhat different context and having absolutely nothing to do with Coldplay other than The Verve had been one of their opening acts - Bittersweet Symphony, the hauntingly beautiful song by The Verve, ran into some difficulties with copyright issues as well back around 1997. Too detailed to go into now but you can read more about it here.

In the meantime, we wish both Coldplay and Creaky Boards well in the hope that they settle any potential disputes - and we leave it to you to judge how similar Viva la Vida (Coldplay) and The Songs I Didn't Write (Creaky Boards) truly are when you watch the video immediately below, created by Andrew Hoepfner of Creaky Boards and posted on YouTube:
 

The genius & creativity of jazz man Jay Leonhart

The videos below are performances by a living legend with the stand-up bass and in the world of jazz, Mr. Jay Leonhart.

A friend of our very own Head Geek here at [: neon :], Jay's talent goes well beyond his having accompanied some of the great legends of jazz, including Mel Torme.

Jay is also a triple threat.

He not only plays the stand-up bass better than anyone has for the past 60 years, he's also a prolific songwriter - doing both the lyrics and the music - and has a terrific voice that's more than capable of singing the very unique, stylized songs he creates, as you'll see below (and as we featured here a few months back).

The first video is I Used to Love Bill Clinton while the second is It's Impossible to Sing and Play the Bass.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jay Leonhart:

Charlotte Perrelli, yet another fine performer from Eurovision 2008

REVIEW

We've discovered yet another fine performance from the world of Eurovision 2008, this time it's from Charlotte Perrelli singing Hero, accompanied by outstanding orchestration and super back-up singers.

Who she is, we have no idea, but Charlotte, her singers and this music are great to watch and to listen to.

Too bad the Dancing with the Stars producers haven't yet learned to hire quality back-up singers like these.

UPDATE: 06-04-08 - This particular post has been so popular we decided to do some additional research on this fine singer and found that she had her own MySpace page here. Visually it's a rather well-done site and gives you not only some of her other songs but contact information to her Management, if you're so inclined. And although we haven't done so yet, she apparently has a link on it to click for a free(?) download of the song featured in this video below. Our only other observation is that you have to suffer a bit reading Charlotte's Biography as it's an obvious translation into English. Their incorrect sentence structures and frequent use of incorrect verb tenses (describing/mixing past events with present tenses in just the first paragraph alone) tells us that English was probably not the translator's first language.

Louis Armstrong: Immortal jazz legend

One of the great masters of jazz in America was Louis Armstrong and the video below features him doing the classic, What a Wonderful World, pretty much the de facto standard that will forever define him - yet just one of the countless contributions he made to this art form.

What a Wonderful Man.

 

Ani Lorak's a fine singer, but why haven't we heard of her?

Well, somehow we picked up on a video that was just posted today from Eurovision 2008 Ukraine and features a woman we've never heard of - and considering the hour - we're not going to do further research on her until sometime tomorrow.

But this song is very Euro-pop and very disco - but don't hold that entirely against them (although Head Geek loves Euro-pop) because there's also a fine Euro-style melody supported by what appears to be a powerful voice from Ani Lorak, whom none of us have ever heard of.

We'll learn more about Ani tomorrow, but for now, enjoy this brand new upload:

Head Geek has so fallen in love with this song (and Ani ain't too tough to look at either) we checked out her other videos and came across this one performed LIVE at Eurovision, doing Shady Lady once again.

 

Looking for this kind of creativity from New Englanders

Talk about creativity . . .

We've been setting up some vLog accounts (a.k.a., Video Blogging) with select video hosting services, e.g., Viddler, YouTube and just today, with Vimeo. Anyway, while waiting for some of our uploads to be coded on Vimeo, we checked out some of their featured plays and came across this very cool production from an FM radio station in Scotland, where they turned a day in the office - from DJ to the staff - into a full-blown music video.

Loved the concept, loved the humor, loved the creativity.

So come on, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire, show us your good stuff. We're looking for this kind of creativity, intelligence and fun to feature right here on [: neon :]. iwatchneonATgmail.com

 

 

Boston/Boylston: thousands expected for Grand Opening of largest Apple store in U.S.

UPDATE: We have video of the entire event and much more here.

UPDATE: 05/15/08 - 02:58 - Just about ready to leave but we wanted to test something first. Yesterday, we subscribed to TalkShoe for LIVE audio shows to post here, so today I thought, if we can't be absolutely certain whether we can do a LIVE streaming video feed from the new store, maybe we can at least schedule a LIVE radio feed via TalkShoe and through my cellular phone from the site. So the LIVE audio feed is set to begin @ 5:30 p.m. Eastern and will go for up to 2 hours. To join in the conversation LIVE, just dial (724) 444-7444 no earlier than 5:25 p.m. and then when prompted, enter the show code 19595, or just log-on to http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/19595. Hope it works. We'll give it our best shot.

It's beautiful, isn't it? This is the pic Apple now has on their site. Can't really tell if it's an actual shot or a CAD-style rendering.

Wow, can't wait to see it - although planning on going to the Grand Opening of Apple's newest store tonight may not be as easy as it sounds for us - or anyone. Been hearing on the local news that "thousands" are expected to be lined up for the 6:00 p.m. door opening, which means that a casual stroll to the Starbucks a few doors away may be darn near impossible.

Crowd control.

Boston's finest everywhere. (Love those guys).

Traffic snarls. (God bless the MBTA).

Barricades?

I do have some ideas as to how to bypass the crowds, but one thing is certain now, we will not be able to LIVE feed any kind of video as we have no air cards to deploy. I know, dumb mistake. But I also have an audio idea that just might work, but I'll be scrambling this afternoon to see if it does.

Anyway, we'll head out around 3 or 3:30 this afternoon to begin our trek on the T. The goal is to be there no later than around 4 to get a good enough position to take some pics. However and from experience, my guess is that they'll have a designated area in front of the store's entrance for the media (sometimes referred to as a press pen), and if so, any hopes of staying up front may be dimmed since we've been unable to secure any credentials in such a short window between announcement and day of.

So, we'll do our part and keep you posted throughout the day with LIVE blogging, and if you drop in to [: neon :] every chance you get to see what's up, then we can share the excitement.

Frank Sinatra: ten years ago today we lost him, never to be equaled

Today, May 14th, is the 10th Anniversary of the passing of Frank Sinatra, though many sources list it as May 15th. The Sinatra family website, however, says that it was May 14th, so May 14th it is.

Anyway, in tribute to his memory and in appreciation of his legendary contributions to jazz and The Great American Songbook, we play this signature song - accompanied by a photo history of a few stages in his life.

Wthout question, the legend is truly missed.