Category: Music

Dusting Off My Horns

12/19/2015

1 Ticket to AC/DC: $ 171.88
Light-Up Horns: $ had them
Earplugs: $ .50
Stadium Brews: $ 20.00
Getting to sit next to me: Priceless

I wouldn't normally be so crass, and this only applies to an AC/DC concert, but you lucky ducks!

Presto Pete's Program for Increasing Workout Speeds

10/8/2015

Last week, I talked about an idea that I came up with for a way to improve workout speeds. If you missed the post, here is a link to it:

https://lisabondphotography.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/free-personal-training-with-presto-pete/

I promised that I would come back this week and give you a list of songs from my iPod library that matched the Presto tempo of 192 BPM (beats per minute) or higher. Here is that list:

There were more songs that could have been added, but I knew I had more than enough to get me through a typical run, so I stopped with 49.

Now in the event you are thinking, "Well, that's really nice Lisa, thanks for thinking of us, but I personally don't like any of those bands, so how can this possibly help me?", I am prepared. Here are 3 videos demonstrating 192, 200 and 208 BPM. And to tie back to my post from last week, I am using "Fell In Love with a Girl" by The White Stripes so you can see how to best put your songs through the metronome rhythm test.

Alternatively, but not nearly as interestingly, you can use an online metronome. Yes it is true, not only is there an online metronome, there are multiple online metronomes. Here's one example:

https://www.metronomeonline.com/

If that wasn't the icing on the cake, it turns out that somebody figured this out long ago and I am a day late and a dollar short to inventing the first training program specifically structured around metronome speeds.

#GOODGRIEF @CharlieBrown

Never one to give up more than momentarily in the face of defeat, I decide to carry on.

Here is a video of a song that is almost a perfect match to 192 BPM. The song is "Super Bon Bon" by Soul Coughing. Have a listen:

Come back next week when I show you the workout charts using my old Playlist versus my new "Presto Pete" playlist.

I hope you are or were enjoying this experiment and as always, thanks for stopping by!

Free Personal Training with Presto Pete

10/2/2015

Have you ever wished you could run a little bit faster or work out a little bit harder? It can be challenging to make yourself do anything faster if the only person telling you to do it is yourself. If there is someone hollering at you to go faster or if you have the pressure of someone passing you on a bike or on foot, it is quite instinctive to speed up whatever it is you are doing.

I have been wishing for some time now that I could kick myself in the butt and run a little bit faster then my barely-moving-pedestrian-shuffle. Once I even hired a personal trainer to go on a run with me to see what he could do to improve my time. He ran faster than me all right. Since I was trying to keep up with him I naturally ran faster. But the next time I ran and he wasn't there, I was back to my old cadence.

One thing I realized is that have I tendency to run to the speed of whatever is playing on my iPod. Try running to a slow song and you will find it difficult or that you have slowed way down. Now try doing it when you have a hill to climb and you will think you are going to die. The top of the hill looks miles away. I noticed a couple years ago that when a particular song came on from my playlist, I always ran much faster. I've witnessed the same thing happen in my biking class. Everyone starts peddling faster when an upbeat song comes over the speakers.

I recently decided to investigate this a little more. Could there be any other songs that had the same tempo? What if I strung those songs together? What tempo was it and could I do my entire run to that song looping endlessly (yawn...boredom) or any other songs that matched that speed?

First off, I had to determine what the speed of that song was that made me run so fast. Take a listen to "Fell In Love with A Girl" by The White Stripes:

(this particular video includes a mid-song rap by Jack which is not in the studio recording of the song, if you decide to purchase/download it)

Employing an available metronome in my laboratory, I continued to increase the tempo until I found a match. I decided that this tune fell in the range of 192 BPM (beats per minute), commonly referred to as Presto in the music world. That gave me something to work with. Now I could start seeing if there were other songs that were 192 BPM or higher. Using the very limited library of music on my iPod, I started searching for likely candidates one-by-one.

Come back next week when I publish a list of those songs and show you graphical evidence of how my workouts changed and your's could too.

As always, thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

FAQs with Justin Hayward

9/23/2014

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Justin Hayward is the celebrated singer-songwriter from The Moody Blues. At some point, he became the frontman for the band, despite being a latecomer to an already existing group, probably because he is the main singer and lead guitar player. Or maybe it could be chalked up to his insightful and philosophically introspective reflections of life and love. Maybe it was his melodic voice or skillful guitar playing. Or maybe it was the long list of songs he has written over the years, this compilation credited to The Moody Blues' website:

"Justin’s much-respected and comprehensive songwriting and recording career can be listed under various categories, as follows:

Compositions for The Moody Blues:
“Fly Me High”
“Leave This Man Alone”
“Cities”
“Tuesday Afternoon”
“Nights in White Satin”
“Voiced In The Sky”
“Visions of Paradise” (with Ray)
“The Actor”
“Lovely To See You”
“Never Comes the Day”
“Are You Sitting Comfortably?” (with ray)
“I Never Thought I’d Live To Be A Hundred”
“Gypsy”
“I Never Thought I’d Live To Be A Million”
“Watching and Waiting”
“What Am I Doing Here?”
“King and Queen”
“Long Summer Days”
“Question”
“It’s Up to You”
“Dawning Is The Day”
“Procession” (with the band)
“The Story In Your Eyes”
“You Can Never Go Home”
“New Horizons”
“You and Me” (with Graeme)
“The Land of Make Believe”
“Had to Fall in Love”
“Driftwood”
“Top Rank Suite”
“The Day We Meet Again”
“The Voice”
“Gemini Dream” (with John)
“In My World”
“Meanwhile”
“Blue World”
“Meet Me Halfway” (with John)
“It’s Cold Outside Of Your Heart”
“Running Water”
“Your Wildest Dreams”
“Talkin’, Talkin’” (with John)
“I Just Don’t Care”
“Running Out Of Love” (with John)
“The Other Side of Life”
“Slings and Arrows” (with John)
“I Know You’re Out There Somewhere”
“Want To Be With You” (with John)
“River of Endless Love” (with John)
“No More Lies”
“Vintage Wine”
“Breaking Point” (with John)
“Miracle” (with John)
“Deep”
“Say It With Love”
“Bless The Wings” (That Bring You Back)
“Is This Heaven?” (with John)
“Say What You Mean (Part 1 & 2)”
“Hope and Pray”
“Once Is Enough” (with John)
“Never Blame The rainbows For the Rain” (with Ray)
“Highway” (with John)
“English Sunset”
“Haunted”
“Sooner or Later (Walkin’ on Air)” (with John)
‘Foolish Love”
“All That is Real is You”
“Strange Times” (with John)
“The One” (with John)
“The Swallow”
“Water”
“We Can Fly”
“Don’t Need a Reindeer”
“Yes I Believe”
“December Snow”

A lot of those songs were written when he was in his late teens and early 20s, making this list even more amazing.

The discography is long and one can argue many songs would be the one to pick as his #1 Best. A very strong candidate must surely be "Question". Written in April of 1970 when Justin was 24 years old, it hits all the notes musically, philosophically, in its complex arrangement, and melodically. Here is a wonderful video from the 1970s, most likely one of the early performances of it:

Here is another great rendition, this time Justin is performing an acoustic version of it by himself. Note how well he carries this on his own. Never mind the complacent crowd, at least they seem to be somewhat roused by the end. I wonder if some of them wanted to dance but felt they should just go along with the crowd and stayed seated.

And lastly, I sadly missed the Moody's performance in late August here in Minnesota. They played at the newly remodeled Northrup Auditorium but tickets were priced especially high and it just wasn't in the cards for me right now. Fortunately, someone videotaped it for our viewing pleasure and here is a brand spanking new version of it.

I have a feeling I will be talking about The Moody Blues or Justin Hayward again in the future. I am a renewed-old fan of theirs, it actually all started about 25 years ago and involved a box of Suddenly Salad, shrimp impostors, a Magritte poster ("Golconda"), In Search Of The Lost Chord, and my friends Jes and Martha, so thanks a lot Jes, this is all your doing. Actually, I really mean that, thanks Jes and thanks to The Moody Blues for reminding us still, after all these years, to think a little deeper and for raising more questions than answers.

Until next time, and I do hope they become more frequent, thanks for stopping by and I hope you are enjoying the beginning of the change to the fabulous colors of fall.

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Jack White vs. The Black Keys

6/5/2014

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All right, I just came right out and said it. Many a person has weighed in their opinion on the above match-off, and it's my turn to get on a soapbox about it too. First, the good and then, the ugly.

If you follow Jack White at all, you may know what he was up to on Record Store Day. Being the genius trend setter that he is, he didn't just follow the crowd and release an album to the record stores to sell on RSD. No, he recorded his own brand new record in his own recording studio. Then the lucky attendees got a copy of the record, all in the same day, to take home with them. I was not one of those who got to attend this event but a few of those records have shown up on Ebay and they are getting more expensive by the day. I'd like to have one but I am going to hold out and hope these recordings at least become available to the general public sometime soon.

There is an 11 minute video synopsis of it here:

Thanks to this video, I finally know what it really means to be "in the groove" and my personal favorite line from the "Lazaretto" title track is "When I say nothing, I say everything." That would be good advice for him to take on his stance with people copying his music. More on that in a minute.

In the meantime, you can hear the track from side "A", "Lazaretto", which will be included on his next Jack White III Cd of the same name to be released in June, next week in fact.

Just as interesting, is the "B" side of that record, a cover of Elvis Presley's "Power of My Love" and thank goodness it is available as an audio recording, at least temporarily (it's already been taken down from YouTube, so I'm not sure how long this link will work). This song is firing on all pistons and I can't get enough of the musical complexity it serves up. If you watched the video you got to see a little of it, but I wish it had included the entire song. At least we know it was recorded so I suppose it will surface one day.

http://songs.to/#!pl=23bbfd3d39aed9ed6ce43688a4628d3fe77dc84c

Now for the ugly. Unfortunately, Jack decided to throw a little more fuel on the fire he started over The Black Keys allegedly stealing his material. Thoughts were spoken that should have been caught in the brain's filter, the one right before the vocalization happens, but it's happened to many of us, and it recently culminated when he was quoted in the latest Rolling Stones magazine issue, of which he is gracing the cover, as saying "I hear ads where the music's ripping off my sound, to the point I think it's me. Half the time, it's the Black Keys." He has since taken to explaining himself, saying there was more to the story. People are choosing their sides and as much as I love Jack (I own just about everything he's produced but also own everything The Black Keys have ever produced), I am pretty sure that he A) did not invent the guitar or drums and B) did not invent music. Let's hope that he can save face. He has since issued a public apology on Third Man Records' website. You can read it here:

http://www.thirdmanrecords.com/news/view/an-apology-and-explanation-from-jack-white

Despite it being called an apology, it has such a bite to it that it reminds me of when I make one of my kids apologize to another one but they're still mad and they still think they are right. Like when they yell it at the tops of their lungs or whisper "sorry" so quietly even I can't hear it and they are facing the other way toward the wall. It sounds like someone made him write that letter but he still believes he is in the right. His ego may have gotten too big for his britches and I'm sorry to even think that cause I basically think he's the King of the music scene for the last decade or two.

If I were his advisor, I would be advocating actions speaking louder than words here, and I personally suggest he start with that Black Keys and White Stripes mix-up I dreamed up in my post from May 2012.

http://www.lisabondphotography.com/blog/dark-days-are-through-in-minnesota-the-black-keys-were-in-town

He is a brilliant musician but such grandstanding really is not terribly becoming and perhaps more than a bit tarnishing to his otherwise shiny Rock God image. Music is a lot like photography in this regard...there are a lot of guitar players and a lot of photographers and it's pretty darned tough to prove that somebody stole your ideas or copyrighted your work. If you don't want it to get out there, then you shouldn't publish it. But I think both bands have a good following, many fans are like me and appreciate Jack and The Keys with equal enthusiasm, and I think Jack would be worse off if he wasn't producing his stuff and frankly we would be too.

What if it's all just a big publicity stunt?

As for The Black Keys, they seem to be playing their cards right. The Keys are lying low and any response I've read gives Jack an easy out saying such things like "we've all said stupid stuff." Like, it's all right man, and then the hug with the back slapping, you know the way guys do. So far, they sure seem to be taking the high road.

The Keys will be touring in support of their new album this summer and fall. I pre-ordered their newest release "The Black Keys Turn Blue" (which I think Jack would have titled "The Black Keys Turn Into the White Stripes" but never mind cause we're trying to move on here), for one reason only. So I could get the pre-sale super secret ticket access code. I generally prefer to buy that kind of stuff (records, cds) locally so I can avoid paying shipping costs. But I had another goal here: realizing my dreams of being in the front row and I had every hope that they were going to come true at last. I marked my calendar for the pre-sale date. I set 3 alarms: the oven timer, my Ipad timer, and my phone alarm. They were rigged to go off 10 minutes in advance so I could be in the right place at the right time: logged in to the website and registered, with my fingers eagerly waiting to type in the magic code. When those alarms went off, I was in position and then waiting, waiting, waiting for my turn to get into the virtual waiting room and finally, bam, I'm in and it says "pick your section from the drop down menu." Yes, this was the moment I had been waiting for! Then the bomb dropped. There was only one option. "General. Admission. Floor".

What??????

I had been duped. #1) I am older than The Black Keys. #2) I am short. Don't they realize us old people no longer choose to fight through those crowds on the floor. Been there, done that. I have a reputation amongst my friends for being able to weave my way to the front with the best of them. But that was then. Now, I want a seat and some elevation so I can see. Plus, I probably have a camera in one hand and a beer in the other and those two things are not conducive to crowd-weaving. I am not up for sneaking through the crowd or arriving the night before so I can sleep on the concrete and wait for the doors to open and run like heck to end up in the 21st row on the floor because they saved the first 20 rows for radio giveaways and people more important than me (my cat thinks I'm important, but he isn't handing out concert tickets). So hesitantly and with trepidation, I bought the tickets anyway because I didn't know what my options would be after that.

Naturally, the next logical thing was to wait for general ticket sales. Several days later, I was back at the computer, waiting for the gates to open. First try out of the chute, I land Row B tickets in the section right next to the stage. Directly across from me, on the opposite side of the stage from where my tickets are, the first two sections are being reserved and sold as premium seats with ticket prices starting at $275. So it seemed my payday came after all, but the old-fashioned way and with a little bittersweet sauce on the top of it because now I have 4 tickets to see The Black Keys.

As for Jack touring, well apparently he isn't too pleased with his perception that people having stopped clapping because they are too busy texting at his shows. I'll admit to being someone who might be a delayed clapper because I have to put down something I am holding such as a beer or maybe a camera. It's hard to say where this will end up but I sure hope he gives us another try at the concert thing. Maybe we could get some signs going that say "Everybody please put down your crap and clap". Until next time...enjoy the beginning of summer and thanks for visiting!

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2014: Let the Journey Begin

1/29/2014

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I attend a photo group on a monthly basis and a recent assignment was handed out as a prelude to a more difficult assignment that is coming up. The future work is to take a self-portrait without showing ourselves. The current work is to photograph something we love without showing it, in honor of the forthcoming St. Valentine's Day.

Here is one thing I love. Can you tell what it is?

I'm not sure if I was successful (i.e., ambiguous enough) in not showing it but I guess I'll find out when I attend class in February. I have a feeling people will follow similar execution, i.e. showing elements or abstractions of the things they love.

Hope you are keeping warm and enjoying the quiet days of January. Thanks for visiting!

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Dusting Off My Horns

Presto Pete's Program for Increasing Workout Speeds

#GOODGRIEF @CharlieBrown

Free Personal Training with Presto Pete

FAQs with Justin Hayward

Jack White vs. The Black Keys

2014: Let the Journey Begin

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