OK SO UM

A few caveats before we start this long lost vastly ignored blogventure that I am despite all appearances over the last few weeks DEEPLY COMMITTED TO:

1) So I realize that in the recent timespan my efforts on this blog have amounted to what the hip internet intelligentsia refer to as EPIC FAIL but you do not fully understand the situation because (as far as I can tell) you do not live in my house and you have not been cheerfully cleaning up surprise poo.

No, I have not become incontinent, or at least not more so than before. I have a dog. He is the awesome. His name is Henry, and he looks like this:















Ok then, obviously you see the gravity of my situation.

2) YES THIS NEXT POST SOUNDS FAMILIAR BECAUSE YOU HAVE SEEN TWELVE MONKEYS AND YOU ARE SO, SO, SMART

but listen up.

Astor Piazzolla (RIP) is the shit. If you lived outside of Argentina, I can understand that you have no idea who he is, despite the fact that 12 monkeys used his music posthumously to rub your dilettante hipster belly with the sounds of bizarre alien tango. It's OK. We are all friends here, and I have my share of Triple Five Soul sweatshirts and that "DEFEND BROOKLYN" t-shirt with the AK47 on it despite the fact that I live in West Saint Paul and proudly own the first 30 issues of McSweeneys.

See? We are all friends here.

Anyway, Astor Piazzolla was a genius, and as long as you manage to dodge some of his messy middle period questionable work (a hint for the wise, if there is a soccer theme involved put that one back in the stacks) he is a 100% godsend that will change the way you think about the overuse of novelty accordion and maybe just maybe the definition of modern classical composition.

AHEM

So continuing on a recent theme (hey, it's a theme for me, roll with it), another great lost classical foreigner that I can't stop forcing upon any of my friends that are too slow to escape my clutches is the incomparable Mado Robin, a coloratura that is still the Guinness book record holder for the highest note ever sung by a human (as long as you ignore a couple of dreadful singers and that whole squeaky Mariah Carey nonsense). And to be fair, maybe some of them have hit notes as high or higher (D above double-high C for those opera super fans keeping score at home), but the reason that I and all other right thinking individuals don't give a shit is that the last time I checked, singing was still an art, not some SUPER LONG JUMP BENCH PRESS CRAP STEROIDS OH WAIT MY ARMS FELL OFF competition. Mado Robin is worth listening to because she can sing. Also, her high notes might be able to microwave eggs. not sure. you judge:

OH SNAP THAT IS A HIGH SINGING LADY

(two songs there by the way CLICK BOTH LINKS. Oh, and the payoff is towards the end. WAIT FOR IT.)

OK, thats it for tonight. I promise that next time I will stop with all the classical nonsense and return to my regularly scheduled meathead indie fuxor programming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Piazzolla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mado_Robin

NOTE: there are no really worthwhile pages for Mado Robin, so if your interest is piqued, email me, and I will set you on the long painful path to finding the small traces of her recorded work.