I'm not sure but I felt sort of a sea theme on OCDJ's show this week. I'm sad to hear he's leaving the WFMU schedule but wish him the best in his nautical expeditions, and hope he makes a safe return.
All MP3 and RealAudio links are streaming links from the WFMU Archives.
Rock And Roll
Go Sailor - "Fine Day For Sailing" RealAudio from Plug and Play with OCDJ, June 10, 2006
International
Csokolom - "Eva, Szivem Eva" RealAudio from Give the Drummer Some with Doug Schulkind, June 9, 2006
Experimental
Bulent Arel - "Stereo Electronic Music No. 2" RealAudio from Bryce's show, June 9, 2006
Dance
Ram Balram - "Ursula 1000" RealAudio from I'm Sorry I Had To Kill That Guy with Laure, June 10, 2006
Humor
Spike Jones - "Pal-Yat-Chee" RealAudio from Greasy Kid Stuff, June 10, 2006
Ambient
Chuck Bettis - "track 5, from Sonic Sigils" RealAudio from The Belly of the Beast with Stefan, June 9, 2006
Fave Song of the Week
Gal Costa - "Sebastiana" RealAudio from Scott Williams' show, June 8, 2006
"Pal-yat-chee" is kind of amusing, and shows Homer and Jethro's usual virtuosity (I saw them live in 1969, and they had a table full of instruments they'd switch whenever they felt like, and they could play the hide off of all of them), but it's almost Rovean in how it takes the opera's strengths and reverses them.
* "Seven hours later?" It's about an hour long. One of the shortest in the repertory.
* "He sings 'I am dying, I am dying..." No, he doesn't. He kills two people and says, "The comedy is over!"
* "Then he stabs the lady and his self..." No, he doesn't stab himself. Jeez!
The opera was a ground-breaking "verismo" tale with less of that laff-riot artificiality than operagoers of its time were really ready for. So the songwriters here had to make up stuff to make fun of, like there weren't any operas that really were long, or full of tedium that they could have taken on. Jones frequently hit the heights of genius, make no mistake, but they should have done this one as an instrumental.
Posted by: Kip W | June 20, 2006 at 02:09 PM