Tag: music

Seven Christmas Songs I Love (Plus 2) – Part 3

I’m one of those weirdos who enjoys it when a musician or band that I love takes on a Holiday Album. Or even just a Holiday Song. Some of them are wonderful (The Lovemongers, formerly Heart, produced the lovely album Here is Christmas in 1998) while others are tolerable (Paul McCartney, take a bow). I tend to avoid the horrible ones.

But for all of these, my favorite is and has been since I first saw it when I was very young, “Riu Chiu” as sung by the Monkees. I remember trying to record it off of the TV so that I could listen to it, and later getting it from a video recording. But then I was delighted when Rhino Records released Missing Links Vol 2, and there was “Riu Chiu.” (There were quite a few other songs on that album that I love, too, but “Riu”‘s the only Christmas one.)

Some of my other favorites, that don’t quite make the Seven (Plus 2) list, include The Eurythmics doing “Winter Wonderland,” Sting doing “Gabriel’s Message,” and the one that would be included if I had done Seven (Plus 3), Alison Moyet doing “The Coventry Carol.” Interesting that they’re all from the same album… (Actually, it’s the only Very Special Christmas album that I own in its entirety.)

Seven Christmas Songs I Love (Plus 2) – Part 2

I suspect that many other Christmas music lovers have a particular singer or group that they identify with their childhood more than others. I suspect that for judiang that it is Johnny Mathis. For me, it’s Julie Andrews.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a nun, just like Julie Andrews. Heh. The fact that I wasn’t Catholic and Julie wasn’t a nun weren’t important then. Still, her Christmas albums are some of the most listened ones in my collection (next to Sesame Street and the Chipmunks, I suspect).

Trying to pick out one of Julie’s pieces to represent what I love about her renditions wasn’t easy. But I decided upon “Pat-a-Pan,” which is another Christmas Song that I Love. It was one of the first that I learned to play on the piano, as well. (But not, alas, on a fife or drum.)

Julie’s version is my favorite “Pat-a-Pan,” but I must admit that David Archuleta gives her a good run for her money. Julie’s also the singer of my definitive “I Wonder as I Wander.”

(And I am sitting here amused by my eclectic tastes – King’s College Choir singing “Away in a Manger” followed by The Chipmunks “The Chipmunk Song.”)

Seven Christmas Songs I Love (Plus 2) – Part 1

I loved gregmce‘s recent series of posts about the Seven Christmas Songs that he loves. So I started compiling a list in my own head to see if I could do as well as he did – could I slim down my 1400+ collection of Christmas songs to seven? Well, no, I couldn’t. But I got it down to nine! I was impressed – I figured I’d have at least 12.

My other big issue is that the music that I love is, well, not always what others love. So finding examples on YouTube like he did – not so much luck. But I’ll do my best.

The first song I picked to focus on illustrates my love for the King’s College Choir. I suspect that my love of boys’ choirs and the like is due to seeing The Box of Delights and a PBS special on the King’s College Choir on Christmas Eve at an impressionable age. I wore out my dad’s audio tape of Christmas Eve at Kings (but not before ripping the songs from it that I can’t find anywhere else!) My last.fm Christmas account shows King’s College Choir as my most played group, which is partly due to my owning so many of their Christmas albums.

My favorite piece that they do (and I have several favorites) is “Remember O Thou Man.” Of course, YouTube doesn’t have that, nor does Last.fm. (Indeed, it’s one of the songs I “rescued” from the Christmas Eve at Kings album.) But I found a nice, rather upbeat, version on YouTube if you’ve not heard the tune before.

In addition to “Remember O Thou Man,” I recommend the King’s College Choir doing “Alleluya” and “The Sans Day Carol.” I’ll talk more about “The Sans Day Carol” in another post.

Musical Interlude

I have had a Last.FM account since August 15, 2005. In that time, I have “scrobbled”* 9,164 songs. According to Last.FM, that’s an average of 12 tracks a day. And really, that’s not entirely honest since I don’t only use QCD to listen to music. (I have installed a plug-in with QCD which scrobbles my songs.) And I certainly don’t always listen to music on my PC. (This doesn’t record my iPods or my Roku Soundbridge players.) Also, I don’t listen to music every day. But I do listen to it in great spurts.

Now, since I’ve joined Last.FM, they’ve made several improvements, including better record keeping on albums. Plus Last.FM and I have had disagreements on titles for music groups. So when you looked at my top 5 artists overall, #2 was “Unknown.” This is mostly due to my soundtracks & musicals.

If I went to use Last.FM radio to play my favorite tunes, it would mix regular music along with Christmas music. Unlike one friend I can mention, I don’t like to mix my Christmas music listening with my regular music listening.

So today I have decided to clear out my current database from Last.FM. And when Christmas time comes around, I’ll either create a second Last.FM account (trinalinXmas or something) or just not use QCD to scrobble my music.

Before I deleted everything, I decided to save all of my current stats. (Yes, I am that sort of person.) And if you’re interested, I’ll share some of these stats with you.

Top 10 Artists (excluding “Unknown” and “Original Cast Recording.”)

  1. The Beatles

  2. The Monkees

  3. Pet Shop Boys

  4. Chumbawamba

  5. King’s College Choir

  6. Monty Python

  7. The Bonzo Dog Band

  8. George Harrison

  9. Kirsty MacColl

  10. Squirrel Nut Zippers

Top 10 Albums (which isn’t very indicative since the album feature came late.)

  1. GRIMMS – Sleepers

  2. Chumbawamba – A Singsong and a Scrap

  3. The Chieftains – The Bells of Dublin

  4. Kirsty MacColl – Galore

  5. Neil Innes – Re-cycled Vinyl Blues

  6. Kirsty MacColl – Tropical Brainstorm

  7. Mackeel – Plaid

  8. Julie Andrews – Christmas With Julie Andrews

  9. Monty Python – Monty Python Sings

  10. Julie Andrews & André Previn – A Christmas Treasure & The Rutles – The Rutles

Top 10 Tracks (I have several albums where King’s College Choir sings some of the same Christmas tunes.)

  1. King’s College Choir – O Little Town of Bethlehem

  2. King’s College Choir – O Come, All Ye Faithful

  3. The Beatles – Eleanor Rigby

  4. Chumbawamba – Just Desserts

  5. King’s College Choir – Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

  6. King’s College Choir – Away In A Manger

  7. King’s College Choir – Once in Royal David’s City

  8. Kirsty MacColl – England 2, Columbia 0

  9. Pet Shop Boys – What Keeps Mankind Alive?

  10. The Beatles – Nowhere Man

(6-10 were actually all tied for 6th place.)

*Scrobbling is what Last.FM calls “recording what music you’re playing at the time.”

Last.FM Personal Radio

Well, they finally figured out a way to embed Last.FM radios into LiveJournal. So I present for your amusement, Trina’s Personal Radio. (I apologize for any Christmas toons that come up if you happen to give it a listen.)

And more Geek Stuff

Heh – two things I forgot to mention in my last Ultra Geeky Post: I’m using VNC to remotely run my new MusicServer now that I’ve got all of the major work done on it. And I’m going to try and embed my Last.FM radio station in this post.

So, what’s VNC? Virtual Network Computing. I use it at work a lot (it’s how I can monitor student machines while they’re working on computers. Embarrassed my cousin Chris one time by projecting his screen on the board during physics one day. Heh heh, yes, I am evil.) It basically lets you run another machine as if you were on it rather than on your own. It’s a little sluggish in running, but for running playlists or double checking a certain service is running, it’s wonderful. I use TightVNC as my program of choice. It’s the program I picked at work to be the server program, however, I view multiple screens with VNCon.

Anyhoo, there ya go.

ETA: Darn LJ and their lack of Flash support… I guess if you want to listen to my Last.FM station, you’ll have to take the link above. 🙂

Musical Geeky Treen

After I did my taxes this year, I decided to research small form PCs to use as a music server. Although I loved the Pandora Mini PCs that Cappuccino PC had on offer, I didn’t want to spend much more than $400 on a PC. And once I kitted one of those puppies up with the RAM and HD space I thought I’d need, I’d get into the $600+ range. I was also debating OS or no OS. If I got it without an OS, it would have been cheaper, but could I get Ubuntu or another Linux flavor to do what I wanted? Well, playing around with my old PC which had Ubuntu on it had convinced me that I don’t have enough Linux experience yet to do everything I wanted to do.

Some more searching around online led me to check out Shuttle PCs. They’re not as small as Mini PCs, but I found one kitted out with the specs I wanted and it was only $425 including shipping. Yay! Not only that, but it came with keyboard, mouse, and what could laughingly be called speakers. (I’ve had Solo Cup Phones with better sound, IMO.) I’d never ordered from Silicon Assets, but they did just as advertised. The PC arrived a few days after I ordered it and it’s so cute!

While rearranging the desk, I finally replaced the wonky fan in my main PC and put some fresh conductive goo on top of the CPU in order to fix my overheating problems. I also moved my old PC out from under the desk and will set it back up as a Win98 machine to give to my Aunt Becky. Two days after my Shuttle arrived, I finally got to turn it on. I didn’t have to uninstall too much crap from it, which is one way that Silicon Assets differs from, say, Dell or HP. And I figured I might as well leave OpenOffice.org on it. 🙂 (I have Star Office on my main PC and my laptop. No MS Office for me at home!)

I moved all of my MP3s onto the new MusicServer (which is what I’ve called it in the network). While doing so, I discovered FINALLY where all of my Christmas 2005 photos were stored on my main PC! I was sure I’d taken pictures that year, but I couldn’t find them at all. I’m not sure how it happened, but they were in my Shared folder (which I never use). I probably pulled ’em from my laptop and put ’em there or something. Finding those pictures, IMO, was worth the new PC. Heh heh.

I downloaded several programs which I figured I could use – MediaMonkey, Quintessential Player, Rhapsody, Last.FM and the Last.FM Proxy. Everything but iTunes, actually. Oh yeah, and Firefox. It turns out that Windows Media Connect is now part of Windows MediaPlayer 11, so they don’t have a standalone download of it. Thankfully, I had Media Connect 2.0 on my main PC so I installed that rather than MP11.

Once I had all of my media software installed and the songs moved over, I checked out my Roku Soundbridge to see if it could see the server. It could, and I can have it access my collection via Media Connect, my Rhapsody radio stations via Rhapsody, or even my Last.FM radio stations via Last.FM proxy. Woot! I can serve up any tunes anywhere! Well, OK, not anywhere, but in my reading room. Which got me thinking… What if I get myself another Roku? One for the living room or my bedroom?

As I started researching the Roku Soundbridge prices (this morning), I found out that the best place to get the M500 (which I have) is from them – refurbished. The M1001 sounds really nice, but the M500 works just peachy keen in my house. So I’ve ordered myself a second one. Of course, the drawback to a Roku is there are no speakers on it. So I decided to research speakers too.

I discovered the Bose Companion 2 in my research. Well, rediscovered was more like it. I’d actually seen them before, at Sam’s Club. And while researching them, I found out Sam’s Club had ’em $30 less than anyone else. Ah ha! A shopping trip was in order! I washed my hair, got dressed, and was ready to head off to Miller Lane for a good lunch and a Sam’s Club trip.

I had the Basil Pesto dish at Nothing But Noodles (without mushrooms, TYVM) for lunch, and then found the back way into Sam’s Club. I bought 2 sets of the speakers (one for the new PC, the other for the future Roku) and some CD-Rs plus some shelled pistachios. (Heh – at least I didn’t get the jumbo vat o’ cheese fondue.) A stop at Krogers for a few groceries and then I was back home.

When I opened the Bose Companion 2 speakers, I discovered they have RCA inputs. This was GREAT news, because that’s the inputs in the Soundbridge. Yay! No odd connections required to get down to 1/8″ stereo plug! (And they give you two cables, one all RCA and the other RCA to 1/8″.) They allow for 2 connections in one pair of speakers, so I could hook both computers up to the speakers. (I may have to play with the speaker setting some, however. I noticed the music sounds are WONDERFUL, but game playback sounds muted somehow. If I sort that out, I’ll just use the Bose for both PCs.)

Anyhoo, I’ve decided to kit this post out with lots of Links, and I’m going to go one step further. I have photographed my new desktop setup and I’ve made an image map of it. Heh – thank you Paint Shop Pro for doing all the difficult bits. (Gah! When did Corel buy Paint Shop Pro from Jasc? I feel betrayed!) If your browser knows how to interpret the “title” tag, you should see little pop ups over the image as you move around. They describe what you’re looking at. And there are links to them too! The one link I left off is for my current desktop wallpaper for the new MusicServer. It’s from the Big Finish audio The Rapture and was designed to look like a music CD cover. I thought that highly appropriate.

Autumn Harvest Concert

For the past couple of years, the First Universalist Church of New Madison has held an Autumn Harvest Concert with proceeds going to some worthy charity. Last year was Red Cross & the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund and the year before was Habitat for Humanity. This year they raised funds for Hospice. They had a wonderful mix of musicians, all of whom donated their time and talents for the cause.

We started off with a soprano who sang three songs, including a piece by Puccini (no, McGann fans, not Un Bel Di). She had a lovely voice – and what I found especially neat is that she’s a music therapist. She works for this Hospice organization in that capacity. I didn’t even know there was such a career, but I think it’s neat that there is.

The next treat was a Ragtime Quartet. We had a flute/piccolo, clarinets (alto & bass), oboe and trombone. Not what I normally associate with a ragtime quartet. They did several pieces by Scott Joplin, finishing up on his classic Maple Leaf Rag. The music was excellent and it drove home the point that I need some ragtime in my music collection. (Thank you Rhapsody for having a nice assortment of ragtime!)

From the sublime to the ridiculous, we finished with the Simple Gifts Duo (the top half of a quartet). They sang a couple of classics, but brought the house down with their “Sea Shanty.” Bemoaning the lack of playtime for sea shanties, they sang (with accompanying guitar) one sea shanty they assured us we would know. One that used to be played even up to the 1970s. As soon as the music started, the audience started laughing. Then they began to see The Ballad of Gilligan’s Island. Heh heh. They then sang a couple of other lovely pieces to finish the concert up.

It was a fun time and the president of the First Universalist Church advertised for the church. She said that any church that has a concert where Puccini, ragtime and Gilligan’s Island appear must be a very open church. Hee!

Music

From time to time, I see friends on my flist recommend songs and/or groups that are currently their most played. Normally, I just play whatever and don’t have any that are sticking or that are especially “true” to me at the time. But lately, I’ve been on a real kick for Kirsty MacColl and Neil Innes.

Neil Innes (whom you may know through his association with the Monty Python troupe – he’s Robin’s chief musician in Holy Grail, for instance) has been my favorite musician since forever. (Well, since I was a teenager at least.) Back when Amy and I used to go to record collectors conventions, she was buying up all the Heart that an 11/12 year old could afford and I was buying up all the Bonzo Dog Band and other Neil Innes related stuff that a 15/16 year old could afford. Needless to say, we both ended up with a lot of swag. 🙂

It was recent purchases of the Re-cycled Vinyl Blues and Sleeper (by GRIMMS) CDs which has re-awakened my love for all things Innes. My favorite solo album of Neil’s is How Sweet to be an Idiot, which is contained in the Re-cycled Vinyl Blues CD (in addition to some other tunes). And Sleeper, as I mentioned in an earlier post, had been my own holy grail since I was a teen. I was so pleased to discover it was a wonderful album. Some key GRIMMS songs for replay include “Backbreaker” and “Where Am I Now?”

Kirsty MacColl was introduced to me by a friend in England. He’d sent me the song “Here Comes that Man Again” which is about Internet chatting of the adult nature. Quite funny song. So I ordered her CDs and enjoy her music a lot. Kirsty’s songs are usually about a woman being wronged by some bastard – and always with a bit of humor and probably a Latin beat. My current favorite song of hers is “England 2 Columbia Nil.” I usually play it twice in a row when I hear it. Heh.

Another tune which I’ve been fixated on lately include “Just Desserts” by Chumbawamba. It’s about a group of protesters who use cream pies in their protests (slapstick anarchists, as the song says). Actually, there’s still a number of songs from Chumabawamba that I fixate on. Tis why I enjoy them so much. 🙂