Concerts - not mine for once

I haven't seen many live concerts. Well, I've seen lots of live concerts—heck, I've been in lots of live concerts—but not many involving world famous people. The first one I remember (although, granted, my memory is notoriously bad — just ask my family) was:

Miles Davis
When I was in high school, we had a Japanese exchange student, Yoshiyuki, stay with us for a couple of weeks. Miles Davis was apparently really big in Japan at the time and just happened to be playing in Berkeley while Yoshi was here, and Yoshi was a HUGE fan. All he could talk about was Mile Daybees this, and Mile Daybees that. I wouldn't be surprised if he had coordinated his trip to coincide with the Miles Davis concert. I had never heard of Miles Davis. So my father bought tickets, and we found ourselves in an auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus.

Yoshi was ecstatic, but my father and I weren't that impressed. All Miles did was walk around blatting notes at the ground while his band played. I was more transfixed by the wall changing colors behind him. It was far out! Lest you think I'm kidding about the blatting at the floor, note the third photo down on the Wikipedia article. Blatting. At. The. Floor. He obviously did it a lot.

Yoshi ended his visit by insisting on making dinner for us which consisted mostly of tofu from a can. It was still shaped like the can, and looked like canned, white, opaque, cranberry sauce. This English family of the '70s thought it was extremely odd. We ate it politely, but I don't think any of us had the courage to try tofu again for years.

SIDE NOTE: I was up late last night writing this because I couldn't sleep. Today, one of my Friends M (I have three Friends M) sent me an e-mail which included the sentence, "It was kind of like you seeing Miles Davis." I got the e-mail on my BlackBerry and FREAKED! I was saying to myself, "CRAP! I must have accidentally posted it, but it was only HALF DONE!" Turns out I hadn't posted and it was only a coincidence. I'm just really, really boring, and apparently tell the same stories over and over again.

Maynard Ferguson
I didn't always play just the bassoon. I started out on alto saxophone, and played it in my high school jazz band. The jazz band rehearsed before school and I got up really early (Hey, an hour early is a major sacrifice when you're a teenager) for four years.

In about 1980, we got to go to Reno, Nevada and compete in the Reno Jazz Festival. That particular year, we had a lot of musicians who played more than one instrument, and our band director arranged one of our pieces so that at a certain time, we all put down one instrument and picked up another. Instead of a row of five saxes, we had a flute, clarinet, oboe, bass clarinet and bassoon. In the brass section which normally only had trumpets and trombones, we had at least one French horn and a Sousaphone. We won third place in our division against some stiff competition.

The headliner that they had come and play for the school bands was Maynard Ferguson. Since I recently just had a not-so-great experience seeing another trumpeter, I wasn't looking forward to the concert. Certainly not as much as our trumpet section was. I don't remember much, except that I thoroughly enjoyed it, loved the music, and Maynard Ferguson could play really really high notes. And he didn't point his trumpet at the ground once.

Billy Joel
In high school, my brother's friend won two tickets on a radio show giveaway, wasn't a big Billy fan, gave them to my brother, who knew I was a HUGE Billy Joel fan, so he gave them to me. Yes, I DO have the nicest brother in the world. Who doesn't read this blog, so I don't know why I'm being so nice to him. If I was really mean, I'd stick in the photo of him with orange-peel teeth that he texted me, but I put that as my wallpaper at work, instead. Where was I? Oh, right. Billy Joel. I took my future ex-husband, David.

Fantastic concert, and since it was in 1982, he hadn't had that many hits, and I knew almost everything he sang by heart. AND people all over the building lit up as soon as the concert started and I got slightly high from all the secondhand weed. At least I imagined I did. I asked David what it was, and he said the same thing he said when I asked him what the F-word meant. "What do you think?"

Basia
Fairly soon after David and I broke up, I lived in an apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area with William, my Dalmatian Charlie, and my cat Pepper. Charlie weighed 75 lbs and I lived in one of only three apartment complexes in town that allowed dogs over 15 lbs. Because of this, virtually EVERYONE in the complex had a huge dog, and there were several large areas to allow them to run around.

The guy downstairs had a golden retriever that played with Charlie occasionally. He won tickets (the guy, not the golden retriever) to a Basia concert at the Concord Pavilion from a radio station (Gee. Sounds familiar. Probably the same station), and asked me if I wanted to go. I had never heard of Basia and I was in the process of getting a divorce and certainly didn't want to start dating anyone, especially not someone I saw as frequently as the guy downstairs just in case it didn't work out, but for some reason I said yes.

He drove, and I was acutely embarrassed for him because...the poor guy had the worst flatulence I've ever...er...smelled. While in the car. With me. The silent-but-deadly kind. I was too polite to say or do anything and just pretended I didn't notice. Nowadays, I would just exclaim, "DUDE!" and roll down the window while making rude gagging noises. That's what I do with Bill, anyway.

The main thing I remember about Basia was that she hurt my ears. I think I knew Time and Tide and Promises, but that was about it.

Fortunately Basia's opening act was:

Spiro Gyra
Again. Me. Never heard of Spiro Gyra. I was completely blown away. They were AWESOME!! (although I would have said something like, "Bitchen!," or "Outragous!," except that I was a complete unhip dweeb who only started using, "Cool!" relatively recently. Yes, I was a real Joanie). Basia was even impressed that they opened for her.

And any band that's named after filamentous green algae is fine by me, anyway. I would probably have liked them if they had been called Cyano Phyta.

Billy Joel redux
Or maybe it was Billy Joel's dad. Well, I certainly don't look the same 26 years later, either. I blogged about it here, so I won't say too much other than it was FANTASTIC and he's still got it. Whatever it is.

Leon Redbone
Very recently, my Friend M and I saw him in Sacramento. He was really good, and really funny, but I had some personal things going on so I had a hard time listening. It could also have been due to the two Long Island Iced Teas. We were slightly disappointed to find out (before we went) that he did NOT sing I'm Just a Bill OR Conjunction Junction.

Darwin - the Musical

This is great! It combines two of my favorite things: evolution and music. Richard Milner reminds me of the original Dr. Doolittle, for some reason. Or maybe a cross between Rex Harrison and PZ Myers.

His English accent is...well...better than Dick Van Dyke, maybe? Maybe not.

Thanks to my father and his friend Larry for the New York Times video link!

Theme music

Bill had just spooled up Bones on the DVD player while I was in the kitchen getting something to drink. The theme music, composed and performed by The Crystal Method, was playing softly in the background, and apropos nothing, Bill commented, "Don't you miss theme songs?"

I immediately started singing:

Come and knock on our door
We've been waiting for you
Where the kisses are hers and hers and his,
Three's Company, too.

Come and dance on our floor
Take a step that is n....

At this point, Bill turned up the Bones volume and drowned me out.

Tagged!

I was tagged by The Darwin Report. Luckily it didn't hurt very much. Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random (or arbitrary) things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. I just flew in from England, and boy are my arms....[shift forward in time 14 hours] actually my brain was too tired to think of 6 random things last night. Hopefully it's better this morning.

2. I have a concert tonight to which I'm driving the truck, although I'm a little out of practice with both the bassoon and driving on the right side.

This is one we do at a local retirement community on Veteran's Day every year, and makes me cry every time. For the first few years, they had WWII veterans in uniform carrying the flags (very slowly) down the aisle. Last year, I think they were replaced by Korean War veterans. I get all choked up when we play the Armed Forces Salute and veterans of each branch stand as we play their respective songs. Seeing the music through tears and playing with a lump in your throat isn't easy, I can tell you.

3. While in England, apart from attending my Grandad's 100th birthday party and getting to know some of my many relatives a little better, we went to the Dartmoor Zoological Park. I highly recommend going if you're in the neighbourhood. And even if you're not.

4. I didn't know until recently that Alcoholics Anonymous is a load of religious crap.

5. My son appears to be becoming a gay rights activist. He's really pissed off about how the passing of Proposition 8 could affect David and Pete (his Dad and Step-dad). I have more than one reason to be proud of him! Oh, all right. Lots, actually.

6. After 33 years in this country, I got my U.S. Citizenship eight years ago because I was tired of not being able to vote. Finally it's going the way I voted...

Hmm. Six people I can tag? I had a hard enough time coming up with 6 arbitrary things about me...

1. Kia at A Blog About Everything, who is definitely still alive.
2. Mr Farty at Better Oot Than In
3. Barry at Staring at Empty Pages
4. Andrew at Artificial Habitat, even though he hasn't posted anything for months, and may, in fact, be dead.
5. David at Musings by the Hairslave. Welcome to the blogging world!
6. The King of Ferrets at Ferret's Cage

You're it!

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9

Last night we went to Beethoven's 9th Symphony at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento. Pete conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of All Hallows, one of only two Catholic parishes in the United States that have a full symphony orchestra. The other is Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

The performance was superb. The orchestra and chorus played and sang flawlessly, as far as I could tell, and Pete got us upgraded to the Conductor's booth, so we had some of the best seats in the house. Could have used a little padding, but hey. The music was so beautiful and moving, I had tears streaming down my face at the end. It was an amazing experience. I am really grateful to Pete for inviting us.

---

The Cathedral was built in the 1880s/1890s and has undergone a recent renovation. It is very, very pretty inside and out, and the Diocese has every right to be proud. I probably would have been much more impressed if I hadn't visited cathedrals all through England and Scotland. Unfortunately, it sort of reminded me of Aesop's jackdaw. And I didn't see any cathedrals in England with a giant (a little bit tacky?) Jesus on a cross suspended from the ceiling, which according to Wikipedia weighs 2000 lbs. I wouldn't want to be sitting under it in an earthquake. One of my friends M (I have three friends M) went to the concert too, and reminded me that a few years ago we watched from a nearby high-rise as a very brave man put gold leaf on the cross on top of the cathedral spire.

Luckily, neither Bill nor I burst into flames, even when I stuck my finger in the holy water (David sort of dared me to do it).

But it's not even Halloween yet!

UPDATE: Hey! PZ stole the title of this post! At least his wasn't about band.

Last night I missed most of the VP debate because I had band rehearsal. Yes, I know. That's dedication. A few years ago, our Holiday^[1] concert was not up to our usual standard pretty darn awful sucked because for various reasons we only rehearsed for it twice. Since then, our Director has started inserting holiday music into rehearsals earlier and earlier, which is how we ended up playing White Christmas,^[2] The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), Silent Night (the Mannheim Steamroller version), and Greensleeves^[3] on the second of October. I'm already getting in the spirit! I feel the urge to run out and buy presents right now! What does everyone want? Unfortunately, we've never played my favourite Christmas song - Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.^[4] My mother has never liked that song for some reason, even before she became a grandma...

Thank God the FSM our Director we also rehearsed the un-Christmassy Gustav Holst's Second Suite in F for Military Band,^[5] and Richard Rogers' Victory at Sea.

[1] It may be called a Holiday Concert, but the vast majority of music is Christmas music. We did play The Dradle Song one year, but I don't think that makes up for it. Lucky Christmas is now a secular holiday.
[2] Written by that famous agnostic, Irving Berlin
[3] Since when did a traditional 16th Century English folk song supposedly (but not likely) written by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn become a Christmas favourite? What's next? O Tannembaum becoming the state song of Maryland?
[4] Actually, my favourite is really Sleighride by Leroy Anderson, which we do play.
[5] I love Holst. Maybe I'll get a bumper sticker to that effect to go with my Darwinfish, COEXIST with NASA images rather than religious symbols, Charlie Brown for Congress, and Obama/Biden ones.

Once a band geek always a band geek

I know you'll find it hard to believe, but I was a band geek in high school. Some things never change. I currently play the bassoon in a local community band.

"What is a bassoon?," you may ask. I know you may ask this because I am asked it fairly regularly. Bassoons are a double reed low woodwind instrument. Here is my bassoon:It is a Fox 220, made in South Whitley, Indiana.

Not only do I play in the band...somehow I became chairman of the board of directors, and have been for three years now. I am "termed out" next September, thank goodness.

I started out on the alto saxophone in intermediate school, and when I got to high school, my band director, Mr. Williams, said, "We have plenty of alto saxes. How would you like to play the bassoon?"

"What's a bassoon?" I asked.

He brought out a case and opened it, and it was love at first sight.

My bassoon. The frog was given to me by the Queen of the Fairies when I played in the pit for a local production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe
He gave me a fingering chart and threw me in the deep end. I played the sax during marching season and bassoon during concert season. Since the school only owned one bassoon, I was the only bassoonist all four years.

I also played sax in the high school Jazz Band. I loved that enough to get up and go to school an hour early for four years. We played everything from Big Band, to Mainstream to Earth, Wind and Fire.

I used to walk a mile home up the steepest hill in Benicia, California with a huge backpack full of books, and a bassoon and alto sax balancing each other on each side. I'm pretty sure it's why I have bad knees now. Did I ever practice them, though? Of course not.

I met my first husband, David, in that band. Well, actually it was in Mrs. Hutchinson's biology class, but I really got to know him over the years in band. He played the French horn. My brother, three years behind me in school, was also in the band and Jazz Band. He played the oboe. And trombone. And flute. He always has to one-up me. Oh, wait. I have two more degrees than he does...um...maybe it's the other way around.

After high school I played for a short while at the University of California at Davis, and then David and I played for a while in the now defunct Yolo County Concert Band, but then I stopped playing altogether for about five years.

About ten years ago, David's partner Pete needed a bassoonist for a wind ensemble at UC Davis he was putting together. After about a year of pestering, he finally lured me in with promises of playing the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro. I owe him big time, even though I eventually ended up buying a VERY expensive instrument. I would have a hard time giving it up again.

The band I'm in now is a "Pops" band. We play everything I liked from both bands in high school. Big Band; John Phillip Sousa marches; Broadway Musical numbers; Rock and Roll medleys (The Beatles, Queen, The Village People, etc.); the best of Frank Sinatra; with a bit of classical and ragtime thrown in occasionally. I love it! So do our audiences.Note that my red fuzzy blanket serves multiple purposes. Isis is also sitting on it in the "herding cats" photo.
Concert band vs. Orchestra tutorial

An orchestra has a few wind instruments and percussion and a lot of stringed instruments (violins, violas, cellos, etc.). A band is made up of mostly wind instruments and percussion with maybe a couple of stringed ones. We have a string bass and a harp at the moment, although we have had a few band members complain that a harp does not belong in a band.

Wind instruments are made up of woodwinds - flutes, clarinets, saxes, oboes, English horns, and bassoons, and brass - French horns, trumpets, trombones, euphoniums, and tubas.

And remember: a bassoon is NOT an oboe. People are always getting them mixed up. Bassoon BIG. Oboe small. Oboe sticks out like a sore thumb. Bassoon virtually inaudible in a band (darn brass instruments and saxes drown us out).

Lyric Meme

Mr Farty recently posted a Movie Meme (a word coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, by the way. Not Movie. Meme) that I really enjoyed.

1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. GUESSERS: NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions. I mean, you can cheat if you want, but is it really that important?
6. One movie guess per commenter.

I am modifying it to be lyrics from my favourite Musical songs. Guess the name of the song, AND the name of the musical. If you guess one or both right and I mark it thusly, feel free to guess on another one (why do I feel as though I'm plagiarising? Oh, wait. Probably because I am). So here are my musical quotes.

1.David. Somewhere that's Green, Little Shop of Horrors.
I cook like Betty Crocker,
And I look like Donna Reed.

2.Pete. I'm in Love With a Wonderful Guy, South Pacific (NOT Oklahoma).
I'm as corny as Kansas in August,
I'm as normal as blueberry pie

3.David. Pore Jud is Daid, Oklahoma.
He looks like he's asleep.
It's a shame that he won't keep,
But it's summer and we're runnin' out of ice.

4. William and Kia tied. Time Warp, Rocky Horror Show.
It's just a jump to the left.
And then a step to the right.

5.Pete. Agony, Into the Woods.
Cinderella Prince: Always ten steps behind--
Rapunzel Prince: Always ten feet below--
Both: and she's just out of reach.
Agony, that can cut like a knife!
I must have her to wife.

6.Mr Farty. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Mary Poppins.
So when the cat has got your tongue, there's no need for dismay!
Just summon up this word and then you've got a lot to say!
But better use it carefully
Or it may change your life
(for example) One night I said it to me girl
And now me girl's me wife!
(bonus points for spelling it correctly)

7.Pete. Send in the Clowns, A Little Night Music.
Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.

8.Pete. Memories, Cats.
If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is

9.Pete. It's actually called My Gallant Crew, Good Morning, H.M.S Pinafore.
I am never known to quail
At the furry of a gale,
And I'm never, never sick at sea!
ALL: What, never?
CAPT: No, never!
ALL: What, never?
CAPT: Hardly ever!
ALL: He's hardly ever sick at sea!

10.Artificialhabitat. Summer Nights, Grease.
Tell me more, tell me more,
Was it love at first sight?
Tell me more, tell me more,
Did she put up a fight?

11. (bonus)Pete. (How do you solve a problem like) Maria, Sound of Music.
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!

Hints: Two that star Julie Andrews, two that have "Horror" in the title, and two are Rogers and Hammerstein. There are also coincidentally two that mention clowns. I hate clowns.

Billy Joel

Bill and I went to see Billy Joel in concert last night. The last time I went to one of his concerts was in 1982. I enjoyed this one just as much. The light show was spectacular, although I don't very often go to rock concerts, so maybe they're all like that. His piano elevated through the stage while the lights were out, and the second song he sang was My Life, my favourite song since my ex-boyfriend introduced me to the music of Billy Joel about 27 years ago (thanks Dan!). Then he turned to the audience and said, "Hi, I'm Billy's dad. Billy couldn't be here tonight. He's home combing his hair."
The song that almost brought the house down - billed by Billy as a religious song that we would remember long after the concert was over - was actually Highway to Hell sung by Chainsaw, a member of his road crew. We were sitting in the nosebleed seats, and everybody in the stadium stomping in unison shook the whole building. I was just hoping that it didn't set up some sort of oscillation and literally bring the house down.

I knew all the songs by heart except one, and he sang most of his hits. I had a blast! At least the drummer didn't moon the audience this time. He finished his encore with, of course, Piano Man and amazed me again with the ability to sing, play the piano, and play the harmonica simultaneously.And, here's some trivia: Billy Joel is on the Celebrity Atheist list.

Ringo

Bill and I were listening to Paul McCartney and Wings Band on the Run in the car on the way home, and he said that he had read an article in the newspaper about Ringo Starr being scheduled to be on the Regis and "whoever the flavor of the week is." He was going to play a 4 minute song and they insisted that he had to cut it to 2.5 minutes. Ringo said he couldn't do that and when they insisted again, he just walked off the set. Bill's take was, "Well I should hope so! He's a fracking Beatle for goodness sake! Who does this Regis Philbin think he is?" Well, he didn't say fracking, but you get the drift. I totally agree.

I'm a hypocrite

I'm a hypocrite. So sue me. I love Christmas. I love the lights, the colors, the festive decorations, the fact that I have an excuse to give presents to people (although I always feel a little uncomfortable receiving them), the colder temperatures (in the temperate regions of this hemisphere, anyway), the cheeriness of people; I even like that my birthday is just a few days before Christmas.

Christmas music is some of my favorite music. My band just had a "Holiday" concert, in which most of the repertoir had the word Christmas in the title (at least we worked in the Dradle Song last year). We always play a couple of my favourites including The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) by Mel Torme and my favourite seasonal song of all time--Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson. We don't do it quite as well as Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, but we do it pretty darn well for a community band.

I very much doubt that a man who may or may not have existed was born that day, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the season. I also like the fact that the winter solstice is very close to Christmas (coincidence? I think not), and the days start getting longer from then out.