Tag: music

Is A Puzzlement?

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=recordMy wife recently picked up an Israeli CD at an estate sale. While importing that CD into my iPod, my thoughts turned to a puzzlement from many years ago, where I had another Israeli CD. That time, no amount of searching could find me the artist name, album name, or track information. I tried again tonight, and still no luck. So I’m asking you. Below are scans of the front cover and back cover (click on the images for the full size versions). Can you help me figure out album artist, album name, and the track names so I can import this into my iPod?

Unknown Album Cover

Unknown Album Back

[ETA- 11/24/14:]

For those in the future finding this message, my step-brother-in-law transliterated the song titles for me:

  1. Ve Begin | Because of (Aramaic)
  2. Raza Dae Shabat | The Sabbath secret (Raza is Aramaic)
  3. Techiyat Ha’Metim | Resurrection
  4. Ha’Mehara | The Cave
  5. Berich Shemayah | Prayed to God
  6. Eilat Eilat | (like the southern city)
  7. Adam Holech | A person walks
  8. Zevagim | (No such word in modern Hebrew, probably Aramaic)
  9. Zakif | (It has a  double meaning : 1) stalagmite 2) a guard)
  10. HIlulah | (In free translation as there is no specific word for it in English)
  11. Asher Barah | (That he has created)
  12. Hineni | (Here I am) (public celebration in memory of a saintly rabbi)

The album’s title is “Sod Ha-Echad” (Secret of the One), and the artist is Adam. It is a product of the Kabbalah Center, and appears to have something to do with the Zohar.

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Sunday Stew: A Day Late, and Appropriately Short

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Observation StewIt’s Sunday again, and … what’s this? No stew on Saturday? We must remedy this, with this hastily thrown together pot of material collected during what was, again, a very busy week and an even busier weekend:

  • It’s Too Big. Here’s a call from a congressional candidate in Los Angeles to break up LA Unified. What’s interesting here is how he wants to do it: His bill would make school districts with more than 100,000 students ineligible for federal aid.  This would affect almost every major city school district, and result in lots of wasted money as many of the supporting school services — payroll, human resources, legal, and such… as well as school boards — get duplicated. The larger question, perhaps, is how much of LA Unified’s problem is LA Unified. After all, there are schools within the district that are excellent (many of them charters, such as Granada Hills or Pacific Palisades). There are lower performing schools, but these tend to be in lower performing neighborhoods. Often, the district’s hands are tied by state and federal requirements, as well as their own procedures. Breaking up the district doesn’t solve those problems. Decentralization (where appropriate) and local empowerment (when appropriate) does.
  • It’s Everywhere. One little snippet in the latest from Donald Sterling was not emphasized in the news — where he repeated Jewish stereotypes. You might have thought or hoped antisemitism would be dead … but you would be wrong. A new ADL survey shows that pnly 54 percent of people polled globally are aware of the Holocaust — and an alarming 32 percent of them believe the mass genocide of Jews was a myth or has been greatly exaggerated.  The survey found that 26 percent — more than one in four — of the 53,100 adults surveyed are “deeply infected” with anti-Semitic attitudes. Nine percent of Americans surveyed harbor at least six of the 11 anti-Semitic views. About 31 percent of respondents believe Jews “are more loyal to Israel” than the U.S.
  • It’s Scary. Antisemitism is really scary. The Disney comedy Frozen, edited into a horror movie trailer, is less so. Still, it is a great example of how the Frozen mania is continuing unabated. I think the last Disney film that got this deep into the social context was The Lion King.
  • It’s Dying. When they came out, CDs were touted as the perfect music medium. Crystal clear digital reproduction (as opposed to those scratchy vinyl records or tapes that wore out and broke), and they would last forever. Guess what? That was all a lie — CDs are degrading at an alarming rate. I have a large CD collection (and a large LP collection, and a large digital only collection … my iPod just crossed the 34,000 song mark). Of these, only the LPs have a long life — they degrade by scratches and stuff. All the tapes I made of records are long gone, and I rarely pull out the physical CDs anymore. Will they be there as backups, or will only the professionally made ones be readable. This, friends, is why people stick with analog data in the form of vinyl and paper.
  • It’s Dead. The death of the Fountainbleu in Las Vegas is closer: the construction crane has been removed. It is now less likely that this 80% finished mega-hotel will ever be completed. More than likely, it will be an expensive scrap recovery project, with loads of material destined for landfills. What a waste. How much dead landfill space in Las Vegas is taken up by the remains of hotels?
  • It’s, uhh, I forget. There might be some good news for those of you taking antidepressants. It turns out that certain antidepressants — particularly Celexa — is good a combatting memory loss. This may help combat Altzheimers Disease.
  • It’s Back. Lastly, those in the Bay Area can rest assured in the safety of the Bay Bridge. Sure, the bridge might fall down in an earthquake due to newly discovered flaws. But the protective troll is back, protecting drivers from his barely visible perch.

 

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An Interesting Deal on Jewish Music

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=folk-artistsI originally highlighted this on Facebook a few weeks ago, but felt it should go here as well. I learned about this from my brother-in-law, and I purchased it about two weeks ago… and I’m still working my way through it. For 0.99, you get over 200 songs, 8+ hours of “Jewish” music. In reality, it is a mix of 1960s Israeli music (including a lot of Israeli dance song), loads of Yiddish, Klezmer, a few Russian folks songs (mostly drawn from albums published by Vanguard), and a Jan Peerce album about Passover. A real eclectic mix, but I’ve figured out what some of the source albums were — and some are rare and going for over $100 on Amazon, so the value is surprisingly tremendous. I have no idea when they will reprice this — it’s been up for a week. Here’s the link for the MP3 album. [ETA: It looks like they won’t reprice it — it seems this group’s deal is to create big collections of music that is out of copyright. What this likely means, for this album, is they are going from the original vinyl, as opposed to any CD reissues.]

The albums that seem to make this up (in whole or in part) are:

  • “Israel Sings!”, Karmon Israeli Singers, 1998 Vanguard
  • “Sings Jewish Folk Songs”, Martha Schlamme, Vanguard 1998
  • “Tumbalalaika! [Yiddish Folksongs without Words]”, Emil Decameron Orchestra, 1959, 1991 Vanguard
  • “Behold Thou Art Fair” And Other Songs Of Israel , Netania Davrath, Vanguard
  • “Martha Schlamme Sings Israeli Folk Songs”, Martha Schlamme, 1960 Vanguard VRS 9072
  • “The Singing Waltz: Klezmer Guitar and Mandolin”, Jeff Warschauer, 1997
  • “The Yiddish dream”, Vanguard 1991
  • “Raisins and Almonds: Jewish Folk Songs, Martha Schlamme
  • “Out of the Ghetto: Songs of the Jews in America”, Leon Lishner
  • “Songs of the Sabras”, Karmon Israeli Singers, 1993
  • “Netania Davrath Sings Russian, Yiddish & Israeli Folk Songs”, Netania Davrath
  • “A Passover Seder”, Jan Peerce, 1997

For the price, as they say, “what a buy!”

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Technical Items of Yore

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=televisionIn my continuing question to clear off my accumulated news chum list, here is a collection of links related to technical items of olden days (like, say, when I was young 🙂 ):

 

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News Chum Stew: A Tasty Thread

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy2 Comments

Observation StewJust because I’m in Portland doesn’t mean I can’t prepare you some tasty news chum stew for breakfast. Let’s dig in, before you all decide to abandon me for Voodoo Donuts… luckily, I’ve been able to come up with a thread for this — no overall theme, only a connection between each article and the next…

  • Twisted in a Pretzel. Before NPR wrote about it on Friday, the LA Business Journal was writing about the invention of the Peanut Butter filled pretzel (which is where I saw it), how a company named Maxim’s pioneered the product 26 years ago, and how TJs picked it up and sold it. The crunchy snack became a major part of Maxim’s business, and Maxim oversaw the production by companies such as ConAgra. Then TJs decided to cut out the middleman… The point of the article being that even companies we perceive as “nice and good” are, at their heart, businesses.
  • Put a Ring on It. Perhaps you saw, a few weeks ago, the video showing how the entire engagement ring custom was designed by DeBeers to sell diamonds. Here’s another bit of news from the jewelry industry. Kay Jewelers is being bought by Signet, the owner of Zales. Signet operates 1,400 U.S. stores, including its higher end Jared chain. Zale has about 800 Zales and Gordon’s Jewelers stores, as well as 630 Piercing Pagoda mall kiosks. In Canada, Zale operates the successful Peoples Jewellers chain. The net translation of this: most of the jewelers you see in malls are all owned by the same parent company. As always: support local business; buy from a local jeweler.
  • All Generics Are Not Equal. Knowing from where you buy is important. In the US, when you buy brand name medicine, you know what you are getting and who made it, but you pay a big price for that knowledge. If you buy generic, you save money — but are you getting the equivalent? The answer… not always. In particular, it appears that medicines manufactured in India are creating safety concerns. This one actually hit home: my wife has one medicine that used to be brand-name only that has finally gone generic. Our 90-supplier recently sent us the generic. My wife checked with her doctor, and the first batch was fine — it was made in England. He told her he only wanted her to take medicines made in first-world countries. The second batch — from India. We had to coordinate getting it returned and replaced.
  • How We Look at the World. The mention of first-world and third-world makes one think about how we view the world. Here’s a question for you: Have you ever thought about why North is always at the top of a map? Al-Jazeera America did. What’s interesting is looking at the alternate maps — your bearings are totally off. By the way, having N at the top is a recent invention; N has been at the top only for about the last 500 years.
  • Whose on Top. It’s always a battle to determine who should be at the top of the heap. Alas, such a battle is happening over Casey Kasem — the DJ who used to be ubiquitous on the radio. Kasem’s children from his first marriage are battling over the right to visit their father. Who are they battling? Jean Kasem, his current wife. Jean, if you recall, played Nick Tortelli’s wife on Cheers. Note that this isn’t a battle over money — only the right to visit their father.
  • Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah. Speaking of mothers and fathers, Mark Evanier writes of a recently released collection of Allan Sherman’s early parody material. For those of us who remember who Allan Sherman was, this is of great interest. Mark notes: “But let me warn you of two things. One is that some of the 13 songs on this CD are kinda short. The whole thing runs around 34 minutes. And the other thing is that the audio quality is not wonderful. If you go to this page to order (and I’m not suggesting you not, especially if you’re a big Sherman fan), play a few samples so you can hear the quality of the recordings you’ll be getting.” Still, new Sherman music is quite tempting.

 

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Thank You for the Honor of Your Company

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=folk-artistsMy tastes in music haven’t always been this varied. Although now I have over 33,000 songs on my iPod, from loads of different genres, things were different when I was young. Back in my teens, I wasn’t into the rock music of my friends — I was into folk. Primarily, that meant Peter, Paul, and Mary. Since then, I’ve branched out. I’ve also learned more about folk music, and the folk music revival of the 1960s. Kingston Trio. Tom Paxton. Chad Mitchell Trio. Dave Van Ronk. Joan Baez. Judy Collins. Brothers Four. Mississippi John Hurt. Burl Ives. … and the father of the entire movement, Pete Seeger.

The world lost Pete yesterday.

All I can say in response are the words of Tom Paxton, in his song “Thank You for the Honor of Your Company”:

When I find myself with a song to write,
I remember candles in the night.
Voices raised in ragged harmony,
Singing this land was made for you and me.
Some of those voices are silent now and gone;
I’m glad to see how you’ve been keeping on.
I remember the songs that pulled us through,
And when I hear those songs, I think of you.

So, thank you for the honor of your company;
The music was as sweet as the good red wine.
Thanks for the company,
And thanks for the harmony,
I’m here to say the honor was all mine.

Back when times were tough and the news was bad,
Faith and a couple of songs was all we had.
Songs we rearranged and made our own;
Songs it sometimes seemed we’d always known.
We’ve been together now for a long long time;
And if ever I was the poet, you were the rhyme.
It was always the music that kept us strong.
And, if ever I was the singer, you were the song.

So, thank you for the honor of your company;
The music was as sweet as the good red wine.
Thanks for the company,
And thanks for the harmony,
I’m here to say the honor was all mine.

Decade after decade, year by hear,
Season after season, we’re still here,
And it does not take a crystal ball to know
We’re gonna go out singing when we go.
A five-string banjo and a steel string guitar
Just a couple of the reasons why we’ve come this far,
Singing like we always have and will,
Knowing the circle is unbroken still.

So, thank you for the honor of your company;
The music was as sweet as the good red wine.
Thanks for the company,
And thanks for the harmony,
I’m here to say the honor was all mine.

 

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Saturday Stew: Beginnings, Endings, and Rebirths

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Observation StewThis has been a busy week, with lots of meetings, travel, and the exhaustion that comes with travel. Still, I did find a few stories to share; but alas, I never could find 3 or more on a coherent theme. As a result, they’ve been thrown in the news chum crockpot for your weekend cholent:

  • I Yam What I Yam. This week brings an overlooked birthday: Popeye the Sailor turns 85 this week. Here’s an interesting article on how Popeye (a Santa Monica sailor) got started.
  • Say Cheese. Here’s another origin story for you, this time related to a shortage. You probably think of Velveeta as a petroleum product, extruded for food use. But that’s not true. Velveeta harkens back to a time where processed food was seen as good, and it was developed as a way to prevent having to throw away broken blocks of cheese.
  • The End of Film. The last two articles have focused on the beginning of things; this one focuses on the end. In this case, it is the end of film as film, as Paramount has become the first studio to go to 100% digital distribution of new releases. Although this is cheaper for the studios, it is bad news for film purists and historians. Digital distribution means there will not be prints to preserve, and preservation of digital means also preserving the software that can read and translate the digital image, and preventing “bit rot”. I’m sure there are also film purists who will insist that the analog image on the celluloid media is better and warmer than the cold digital image, just as music purists insist that the sound from vinyl is purer and warmer than the sliced and diced sound from CDs. The main advantage of both analog media is that you can tinker with it: projection/turntable speed, audio cartridges, lenses and filters, and such.
  • Finding Vinyl. So as we’re speaking of vinyl, here’s a list of what CBS in LA thinks are the best vinyl stores in LA. Some of these I highly recommend (Amoeba, Record Surplus); others I still have to try. But there are other places I know that just aren’t on the list. For example, I’ve had some great finds at Brand Bookstore, with some equally great finds at the Goodwill across the street. Closer to home, there are tons of records at Orphaned CDs in Northridge, but they are badly organized in shelves on the walls. Still, the vast number means there’s a good chance of great finds. There’s also CD Trader on Ventura in Tarzana, where I’ve found loads of stuff. Looking for an old fashioned record store? I seem to recall seeing vinyl at Canterbury Records in Pasadena. There’s also a great collection of used vinyl at Nerdboy Records in Whittier. One thing all these places have in common is that they are inexpensive. I went to a few used record stores in San Diego (Nickelodeon, Folk Arts Rare Records), and almost every record I saw there was priced starting at $7-$9. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to pay CD prices for vinyl I have to digitize and that might turn out to have an unrecoverable skip, unless it is only available on vinyl.
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A Folksinging Legend

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

We see Tom Paxton whenever comes to town. I’d say last night was his annual visit, but it’s actually been about 18 months since he was last here (April 2012). The venue, of course, was the same: McCabes in Santa Monica. It wasn’t completely sold out, but was close (tonight’s show is sold out). The show itself was great, although looking back, it was roughly the same program as in April 2012 (about 80% of the songs, although the order was slightly different), and was also similar to January 2011.Tom was accompanied last night by Fred Sokolow, another talented performer, on slide dobro, mandolin, and banjo. The show consisted of the following songs (* indicates new for this year; † indicates songs not yet on a Tom Paxton album; ‡ performed by Fred Sokolow):.

Act I Act II
How Beautiful Upon The Mountain
Battle of the Sexes*†
Your Shoes, My Shoes
There Goes the Mountain*
Whose Garden Was This?*
My Pony Knows The Way
And If It’s Not True
Central Square†
Getting Up Early
Virginia Morning*†		 Anytime
Over The Hill*†‡
Redemption Road*†
Buffalo Dreams*†
Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound*
Did You Hear John Hurt?*
Bottle of Wine
Ireland*†
Last Thing on My Mind (Parody)
Last Thing on My Mind
Ramblin’ Boy
The Bravest
Comedians and Angels
Parting Glass*† (poem)

Tom indicated that he is working on a new CD, which is perhaps about 6 to 18 months from completion. Looking at the last 3 shows, songs that are likely for this CD are: Battle of the Sexes, Central Square, Virginia Morning, Redemption Road, Buffalo Dream, Ireland, and (from two years ago) He Couldn’t Lay His Hands On A Gun. It might also have Fred’s songs, Over The Hill and 10 Years (from 2011).

For you oldsters… Fred’s song was great. Here’s a video of Fred singing it. Give it a listen.

Upcoming Theatre and Concerts:  Tonight bring “Play It Again Sam” at REP East (FB) on Saturday, and the rescheduled “Miracle on S. Division Street” at the Colony Theatre (FB) on Sunday. Thanksgiving weekend brings “Falling“ at Rogue Machine on Sat November 30, and may also bring the concert “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays” at REP East (FB) on Sunday December 1 [I’m unsure about this — on the one hand, it supports REP East… but on the other hand, it’s Christmas music]. December will start with “The Little Mermaid” at Nobel Middle School on Friday, December 6. We then leave for New Orleans and the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC). When we return we have an interesting play, “Sherlock Through the Looking Glass“, at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble (FB). December, as currently scheduled, concludes with “Peter and the Starcatcher” at The Ahmanson Theatre (FB). Looking into January…. nothing is currently scheduled, but it will likely bring “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change“, which is the first show of the REP East (FB) season, running 1/17 through 2/15/2014… and the end of the month will bring “Forever Plaid” at Cabrillo Music Theatre (FB). Of course, we look forward to seeing you at ACSAC for the wonderful training opportunities there. As always, I’m keeping my eyes open for interesting productions mentioned on sites such as Bitter-Lemons, Musicals in LA and LA Stage Times, as well as productions I see on Goldstar, LA Stage Tix, Plays411.

 

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