Showing posts with label Grammys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grammys. Show all posts

Thursday, August 13, 2015

This week's listening. So far.


Well, this is what I've been listening to so far this week.

I found a couple of cool 45 EP sets at an estate sale Sunday, along with a feast of LPs. I know, you're wondering what, exactly, is a "45 EP set." I don't blame you, really. The concept didn't stick for all that long.

A 45 EP set was an album, only on a couple -- or sometimes three -- 45s that typically had two songs to a side. They came in a little gatefold jacket that was a miniature version of a 12-inch LP jacket, and lasted as a format for about as long as there was a competition between LPs and 45s as a medium for record albums.

In that battle, the 45 r.p.m. record lost. The record industry more or less standardized release formats, with 45s being the common format for singles and 12-inch LPs being the common format for full albums. The 45 EP set largely disappeared by the end of the 1960s in the United States.

Basically, the sound quality wasn't as good as an LP record -- you're cramming a lot on music on a 7-inch record not really meant to hold that much. And, if you ask me, 45s by and large don't sound quite as good as LPs anyway. So there's that.

Then you have the "more records to mess with" factor, even if they're smaller records.

On the other hand, they are kind of cool. They're a curiosity, to be sure.

ANYWAY, the EPs we have here for my listening pleasure -- and soon yours, too, no doubt --  are the 45 version of Jackie Gleason's Music for Lovers Only, one of his 1950s albums with trumpeter Bobby Hackett fronting an orchestra "conducted" by The Great One. God help me, I love the stuff.

Jackie Gleason put the bachelor pad in "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music."

The other EP set is The Anthony Choir, a group that trumpeter Ray Anthony put together to perform with his orchestra, because somebody had to give Mitch Miller, Ray Conniff and Fred Waring a run for their money.

And, yes, your humble correspondent was born (1961) too late.




FINALLY on the agenda tonight was a little Bent Fabric.

Bent Fabric, the Danish pianist and composer born 90 years ago as Bent Fabricius-Bjerre. You know, the "Alley Cat" guy who, by Grammy logic, won for Best Rock & Roll Recording of 1962.

And, yes, Bent Fabric is still with us.

And -- once again -- God help me, I love this stuff. That is all. Nighty-night.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Because KMTV sucks. . . .


Unfortunately, the benighted television viewers of Omaha have to rely on folks like me -- and folks who put this stuff up on YouTube -- to see the rest of Sir Paul's "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" medley that closed the 2012 Grammy Awards on CBS.

This is because of the degree to which corporate ownership has destroyed local television, no station more than KMTV, Channel 3 in Omaha. See, the Grammys ran a few minutes long; the computer than runs Channel 3's master control (one must assume) didn't run 3 minutes long.

So in the middle of the medley -- featuring a guitar jam by McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Walsh and Dave Grohl -- Channel 3 dumps out at precisely 10:30 p.m. to bring us
Action 3 News . . . which led with a Whitney Houston reaction story that was nothing more than a thinly disguised promo for sister radio station Channel 94-1.

Oh . . . I forgot the weather alert about the 2 inches of snow on the way today. And the investigative report about the dog wedding.

Why do you think we call it Channel 3rd?

At any rate, let's hope the copyright police leaves this vid up on YouTube at least until Omaha can see what it missed. While Owen Saddler -- somewhere -- gently weeps.



UPDATE:
OK, let's try Metatube, now that the YouTube video has gone away.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Don't mess around when burtations strike


In Los Angeles, when a reporter does this, it's cause for alarm and much legitimate speculation about on-air strokes or possible brain tumors. Scary stuff.

In Omaha, when a reporter does this, it means you must be watching Channel 6.