Showing posts with label classical. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classical. Show all posts

Friday, January 26, 2024

3 Chords & the Truth: What a drag it is. . . .

What a drag it is living here.

Life is different today, I hear everybody say. People need something today to calm us down.

And though we're not really ill, there's a big, big podcast show. We go running for the shelter of the Big Show outlook helper.

And it helps us on our way -- gets us through our busy day.

FOLKS ARE different today, I hear everybody say. Watching the TV news has become such a drag.

So here's 3 Chords & the Truth, and life seems less uncouth. We go running for the shelter of Favog's little helper.

And it helps you on your way -- gets you through your busy day.

Let's go running for the shelter of your Big Show podcast helper. . . .

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Friday, October 06, 2023

3 Chords & the Truth: That's freeform for ya

I have a new minimum standard for the Big Show.

All I need to do is not f*** this thing up as badly as House Republicans f*** up everything. That should be easy enough.

And what am I not f***ing up? Basically, playing what the hell I want. All I have to do is make sure that makes some sort of sense.

Again . . . way ahead of the House GOP.

Freeform in the 21st century. That's exactly what 3 Chords & the Truth is, and this week's program is about as freeform as it gets. Minus the Tuvan throat singing or Bulgarian folk songs.

This time.

The Big Show. It's a little of the 1960s in the 2020s. It's a little vintage big-city, freewheeling FM radio behind red-state lines.

What it is, is 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all.  Be there. Aloha.

Friday, September 15, 2023

3 Chords & the Truth: Walk on by?

Some of the most vexing questions in our daily lives revolve around a single vexing question.

Walk on by, or don't walk on by? That is the question.

3 Chords & the Truth cannot answer that for you, but we do have a strong suggestion in one particular case. A strong suggestion.

Another strong suggestion for you right now is not to walk on by this week's episode of the Big Show. It's another good one.

And dat's the name of dat tune.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Thursday, May 25, 2023

3 Chords & the Truth: Something stupid


Something unusual happened. The world has noticed Nebraska . . . and its politics.
 
Nebraskans long have lamented being overlooked by the world. They long have wanted a little attention. They long have wanted their props, dammit!
 
You know that old saying, "Be careful what you wish for"? Bingo.
 
This week's installment of 3 Chords & the Truth notes that we finally got some attention from the folks in the Big Apple -- a long examination of this year's dominant legislative shenanigans by New York magazine. It wasn't pretty.
 
And Omaha Sen. Christy Armendariz didn't come off so well.
 
One day, a freshman senator named Christy Armendariz led me to a bench in an empty hallway. She found it puzzling that a reporter from New York would come all the way to Nebraska to cover this affair. "I don’t watch the news or get the newspaper," she said. "Is there anything going on I should be aware of?" I mentioned that other states had passed similar bills and that a federal appeals court in the same circuit as Nebraska had ruled one of them unconstitutional. "So is it a big widespread thing?" she asked. As far as she could tell, ordinary Nebraskans did not know about the issue. "I knocked doors for a year, and nobody brought this up." She said she wished the bill had never been introduced.
 
Yet, she voted for it.
 
THE BILL was LB574 which, in its original iteration, banned all "gender-affirming" medical care and surgery for transgender minors. It ended up being amended to regulate the medical care while still banning surgeries.
 
And senators tacked a 12-week gestational-age abortion ban (about 10 weeks from conception) onto the bill after a six-week ban failed earlier.
 
You'd like to think legislators knew that all this was a big Republican Party push nationwide this year. You'd like to think that even someone as as negligent and clueless as Armendariz would've known her party was pushing all that as a grand culture-war political strategy.
 
You'd also like to think that readers nationwide might not believe all Nebraskans are that @#*$%+! dumb. Not all legislators here are, though many probably are. And, to be fair, ordinary Nebraskans elected these clods, so there's that.
 
But this is not a political column in the newspaper. This is a music show. On the other hand, the political stuff certainly informed the music show . . . and now you know that's the name of that tune on the Big Show this go around.

FRANKLY, that's why I love doing an old-school, beatnik-adjacent, freeform kind of a thing here on the Internets. One, you don't much see this kind of thing on the radio anymore. Two, when folks on the radio give you the impression they think at all, what they want to you to think they think might not be what they actually think. They just pander to what they think you think.

And those folks don't even have any good tunes. 3 Chords & the Truth, though. . . .

Anyway, perhaps the real value of the New York magazine piece is something akin to Robert Burns’ poetic wisdom:
 
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!
 
It’s a hard pill to swallow when what “ithers” see ain’t so flattering. But at least you know, and knowing gives you the chance to evaluate, and evaluating gives you the opportunity to change.

Just as long as you don't change that Internet dial!

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Friday, April 21, 2023

3 Chords & the Truth: Two steps forward, 80 years back

Big shows don't play on tiny radios . . . and, to tell you the truth, they're not easy to do in small-minded states. Like this one.

Yet here we are with the latest edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

After the last week in the Nebraska Legislature, I am tempted to tell you to boycott this state. But then you'd probably boycott the Big Show, too, and that would be like Ron DeSantis trying to kill Mickey Mouse. Wouldn't end well for anyone.

So I just curl up next to the big, big radio and just do the damn show. With appropriate measures of snark, sarcasm, warped humor and a great and eclectic mix of music -- mostly great music.

I mean, if you're contemplating curling up into a fetal position, turn on some tunes first, man.

But brace yourself for that King Crimson to George Martin segué. You'll understand when you hear it.

Well, that's about all before I curl up next to the stereo system and turn on the program. Except for this. . . .

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Saturday, July 23, 2022

3 Chords & the Truth: Out there

way back there then,

it was a hell of a thing

to see the poetry of e.e. cummings

who wrote

but did not capitalize.

bt thn smbdy invntd txting.

this week on 3 Chords & the Truth, we're exploring musical innovation, thinking outside the clichéd and metaphorical box, and how that just -- eventually -- became . . . music.

by the way, my shift key is feeling unappreciated right now. it's just going to have to take two Theramin and call me in the morning. but speaking of the Theramin, that's where electronic music started, and we've been coloring outside the conventional lines ever since.

kind of. well, at least the innovators have, and all innovation eventually becomes conventional, and then somebody else has to get farther out, man.

and still farther out, man.

f*** me, this is freeing, this typing with no caps. or few caps. whatever, man. watch out punctuation you're next

lol

i think you're getting an idea of the thrust of this week's edition of the Big Show. it's gonna be out there. maaaaaaaan.

it's also gonna be a hell of a ride and a hell of a lot of fun. which is kinda what we do here.

so, let's hear it for the innovators and the musical freethinkers. better yet, let's just hear them.

right here.

on this here program.

it's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all.  be there. aloha.

Saturday, July 16, 2022

3 Chords & the Truth: This + That = Awesome

You take some of this, add a little of that, stir well, and you end up with some kind of wonderful.

That's the genius of 3 Chords & the Truth.

This edition of said program is as good an example of that simple recipe as anything. And it's something that hasn't sounded so good since a long-haired DJ let the spirit move him -- or her -- on the FM radio before the Gods of Homogeneity killed everything with their moneygrubbing wrath.

IF YOU'RE HERE, and if you're of a certain age, you know what I mean. If you're not of a certain age, welcome to freeform radio.

Now, this week's Big Show is all about the some of this and a little of that, including a 78 RPM rarity, one of the last performances of Maj. Glenn Miller's Army Air Forces Overseas Orchestra, which just might be the most astoundingly good big band ever assembled. At 50 pieces, it was a regular swing symphony.

The original 78, circa February 1946, was pretty scratchy and noisy, but the magic of modern computer technology here in the studio cleaned it up as best as possible without scrubbing it so much that it just sounded lifeless. 

There are also a lot of other gems in the lineup this go 'round, and you'd be quite edified if you stuck around to hear them all. He says humbly. 

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Thursday, December 23, 2021

3 Chords & the Truth: 'Twas the night before COVID . . .

'Twas the night before omicron, and all through the house,

Not a body was sleeping, not even the mouse. . . .

That's because who's sleeping these days? On this, our second pandemic Christmas.

SUCH IS WHERE we find ourselves these days, and we're making do as best as we can . . . without ending up sick and quarantined, or sick and in the hospital, or sick and. . . . Well, you know.

Still, the show must go on, and for your listening enjoyment, your Mighty Favog presents the big 3 Chords & the Truth Christmas-music extravaganza -- 2 hours and 42 minutes of as much yuletide cheer as we can muster. Alas.

I would say more, but this year's sponsor for the Big Show blowout doesn't want me to step on the corporate message. And that, I must respect.

So I will take my literary leave -- allowing you to start your holiday listening -- with a simple message: Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. See you in '22.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Alo-ho-ho-ho-ha.

Saturday, July 17, 2021

3 Chords & the Truth: As real as you can stand

It's a strange thing to try to talk -- via Facebook, alas -- someone through a horrible loss, telling him that what he could not control was not his fault. Me and more than a few others, actually. 

It's stranger yet -- sick-making, actually -- to learn the next week that this Facebook friend, someone who graduated from your high school a year or two after you did, was found dead in his house a few days ago. One's mind draws the logical conclusions.

And then you think, "Jesus, the abyss is so much nearer than we'd like to believe." 

And then you have to do another edition of 3 Chords & the Truth that night. I had figured the theme, such as it is, of the show would be all about "real." Little did I know. 

So, this edition of the Big Show is a strange agglomeration of "real" -- really real -- and fake it till you make it. You have to do what you do. One foot in front of the other and all that rot.

So there you go. Fittingly, it's pouring rain right now. How "real" of it. 

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Saturday, June 12, 2021

3 Chords & the Truth: You've gotta warm up to it

It could be that you're listening to the Big Show and thinking "What the f***???" 

If you are,  maybe you've gotta warm up to it. And -- maybe -- once you've warmed up to it, you'll be hooked. Maybe you'll look forward to not looking forward to what you figure will be playing next on the show. 

Maybe you'll be hooked on being surprised. A lot. 

Maybe you'll find that you're the type who likes shows like 3 Chords & the Truth, which is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get next.

IN FACT, there's at least a couple of those moments on this very episode. Really, you'll be surprised -- pleasantly so, one hopes.

Like the time when I go from. . . . Hang on. If I give it away, you won't be surprised, now, will you?

That was close.

So I guess you'll have to just listen to yet another stellar installment of this here program and be waylaid all over again. Because that's what we do.

Yes, indeed.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there.  Aloha.

Saturday, October 24, 2020

3 Chords & the Truth: Shine

Winter is here. Darkness is upon the land.

There is only one thing left to do.

Shine.

You shine your light as we rage against the darkness. And 3 Chords & the Truth will supply the soundtrack.

Now is the time to rise . . . and shine

That said, this week's show is going to blow your mind, man. Shine? Oh, about a megawatt's worth, I'm reckoning.

That is all.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Saturday, October 17, 2020

3 Chords & the Truth: The Warm Sound

Welcome to the Big Show, coming to you from a time and place somewhere near the end of the world.

We don't call the studios of 3 Chords & the Truth the Apocalypse Bunker for nothing, pally.

This week finds the 'rona raging more than ever, the president of the United States rage-retweeting a post from a satirical website, thinking it's real, and these Disunited States of America as disunited as ever with an election coming up in November. Stock up on the toilet paper and canned goods now, folks. It's gonna be a rough ride.

Too, stock up on the best music on the Internet, here on the Big Show. We all need all the consolation and distraction we can get, and this here program is just the ticket.

In other words, send lawyers, guns and music -- the shit has hit the fan. I kid. I think.

AS USUAL, we have a great playlist of music here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska, and there is the usual compliment of twists, turns and eclecticism scattered through it for your ears' listening pleasure. There's a reason it's called the Big Show, and this is it. Not many places feature this diverse a selection of music, and even fewer are on the radio . . . and probably not anywhere near you.

But here on the Internet, here we are. 

Bet you're glad you shelled out for that broadband connection, aren't you? Actually what you'll find here is worth the long, long download even if all you have is dial-up. Is that still a thing? 

The show is freeform. It's also a twist on freeform programming.

It's . . . the Warm Sound. Or something. 

AND JUST about now, I'm flashing back to high school all those decades ago and wondering whether I've hit 500 words yet. And, no, I'm not going to count them.

So, in conclusion ("in conclusion" gets me two more free words), I'll just say the following: 

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Saturday, September 05, 2020

3 Chords & the Truth: The Big Show @ 500 (episodes)

It all started at a 10-watt radio station in Baton Rouge, Louisiana -- a young man behind the microphone with little ambition and less talent. . . .

And 43 years later, well . . . it is what it is, 3 Chords & the Truth.

I kid. Sort of.

But what did start four decades ago at WBRH radio at Baton Rouge Magnet High School does live on today, on the Internet, in the form of the Big Show. Unsurprisingly, you'll hear a lot of what I was playing then on the program now -- because my generation did have the best music.

The occasion for all this ruminating is a landmark edition of the podcast. This is No. 500.

Five. Hundred. Shows.

FOR A YEAR or so, Revolution 21 was the home of the brilliantly named Revolution 21 Podcast. On Jan. 11, 2008, that became 3 Chords & the Truth, and we've been plowing ahead ever since -- always eclectic, always adventurous and always trying to surprise you.

Well, at least a little now and again.

Being this is the 500th episode of the Big Show,  we'll celebrate by giving you bonus podcast this week. You'll get a half hour more of the best music you'll find online -- lagniappe for just being here and sharing in No. 500.

Did I mention this is the 500th program? It is, you know.

I'll shut up now so you can enjoy in just a second.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Saturday, May 16, 2020

3 Chords & the Truth: Virally stylish


New for '20! Style goes viral!

And, perhaps, shaving and lipstick become superfluous?

No matter what, 3 Chords & the Truth is your dedicated follower of fashion . . . and breakout music on the hot spot of your Internet dial. And while you'd be smart -- and considerate -- to mask your face to stop the spread of the coronavirus, there's no masking the reality that good music makes hard times just a little bit better.

And the forecast for the next 90 minutes of the Big Show is a marked improvement in conditions wherever you are.

Now grab a drink, crank up the high-fidelity apparatus, and settle in for the musical journey. It'll be an adventure -- we guarantee it.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all.  Be there. Aloha.


Saturday, March 21, 2020

3 Chords & the Truth: Doing our level best


End of Week 2 in nearly total home sequestration: Mr. and Mrs. Favog have not killed one another.

So far, so good.

In the name of "flattening the curve" of COVID-19 cases, we certainly hope you're doing the same. Your health, your neighbor's health, your grandmama's health and the health of our American health-care system demand that middling sacrifice of us all.

The virus, it is real. And real bad.

SO, IN THE NAME of making your homebound state as pleasant as possible, here's another episode of the Big Show . . . 3 Chords & the Truth. As usual, it's a good one.

An eclectic one.

One that will make you, at least once (maybe twice . . . OK, maybe three times) go "WHOA!"

That is how we roll here in the Apocalypse Bunker in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. We're doing our level best.

Now turn us on and listen to the music. And wash your damn hands.

So . . . is anybody else disinfecting groceries? Yesterday's gobstoppering paranoia is today's mere prudence, I suppose -- here in Coronavirus Nation.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Friday, March 06, 2020

3 Chords & the Truth: Watch your step


The covid-19 thing, the "novel coronavirus," is getting real here in the United States. So far, 15 are dead. Total confirmed American infections are north of 300.

One case was confirmed at the Omaha hospital a block from where I write.

And this is what the president of the United States said -- amid health officials praising him in Dear Leader terms -- during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta today: "People are really surprised I understand this stuff,” he said. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”

Believe me, Donald John Trump's only "natural ability" is for being a liar, an ignoramus, a buffoon and a flim-flam man.

SO . . . what does this have to do with this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth? Well, this week's edition of the Big Show is all about WATCH YOUR STEP. That's what we all have to do now, because we're pretty much on our own -- watch your step.

Part of watching your step, besides washing your hands -- a lot -- and substituting a wave for a handshake, and staying out of large crowds, and making sure you have enough provisions to hole up at home for a while if need be . . . is keeping a level head and keeping your spirits up.

The aim of 3 Chords & the Truth is that last thing. The aim is to play some good music, make you think a little bit . . . and to keep spirits up. We're going to need that. A lot.

Besides, this here program would serve as excellent entertainment if you're homebound and eating lots of beans, soup and tuna fish.

That . . . is all.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Saturday, June 29, 2019

3 Chords & the Truth: Patching it together


How do you put the Big Show together every week? One patch at a time.

You see, 3 Chords & the Truth is like a patchwork quilt. It has a bunch of musical scraps to it, and to the untrained eye, they look like pretty damned random scraps. To the untrained ear, it sounds like nothing sensible will come out of this mishmash.

Kind of how a box of discarded scraps looks like . . . a box of discarded scraps. Until you put them together into a beautiful quilt. Until you take the disorder and make it into order -- into a meaningful theme.

Until you create functional art out of random disorder.

That's exactly what's going on with the Big Show each and every week. We make a musical whole out of random songs and wildly diverse records.

It's a patchwork.

IT'S A SEEMING MESS until you add something that's in rare supply on the radio these days -- a vision.

I guess that's why the program's not on the radio. You need vision . . . and a bit of patience to see how things are going to turn out.

How the scraps get transformed into a whole.

Patchwork. That's the ticket to quality radio, even if it's just on the Internet.

Now let's you and me dig into that box of bits and pieces and see what we can make out of it.

 It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Saturday, June 01, 2019

3 Chords & the Truth: No, it's not your device


You're going to hear some things on the Big Show.

Rest assured, there's nothing wrong with your smartphone, computer, Internet radio, tablet or hi-fi apparatus. No, it's us.

I mean that in a good way.

You see, 3 Chords & the Truth is built to surprise, shock and stun.

I mean that in a good way.

SO, WHEN your mind gets blown -- as it is likely to be at least once during this edition (actually, every edition) of the Big Show -- you're not losing your mind, and there's not a solitary thing wrong with your preferred means of accessing podcasts. It's not you; it's us.

I mean that in the absolute best way.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Thursday, March 29, 2018

3 Chords & the Truth: Time to just . . . be


As we sit here in the thick of Holy Week, we sit here in darkness.

We dread what is to come, yet we know this present darkness will give way to a great light.

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, we find ourselves in something like limbo. We need to just . . . be. We need to contemplate some things.

Not to put too fine a point on it, we need to chill.

NOT TO put too fine a point on it, that's exactly what the Big Show is all about this week -- this holiest and most solemn of weeks on the Christian calendar. This week, the music asks us what time it is.

The music invites us to sit, to think . . . to just be.

And we will. We are. We invite you to, too.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Saturday, March 10, 2018

3 Chords & the Truth: Tune in, turn on, rock out


Here's what we're going to do this week on the Big Show: First of all, we're going to tune in.

Then we will turn on, maaaaan.

Finally, we will rock out. It's as simple as that.

Oh . . . we may end up jazzing out some, too. But we definitely will rock out.

Is what I'm saying.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.