Day: July 19, 2009

From Moon to Mars?

On NPR this morning I heard author Daniel Wilson suggest that by now, 40 years after landing on the Moon, we could have made it to Mars. But I’m sure he knows as well as anybody that the reason America went Lunar roving was not for its own sake, but to beat the Soviet Union in the space race. With that goal accomplished, the pressure was off.

My opinion is that a journey to Mars is still too ambitious and costly an undertaking. The scenario postulated in “2001: A Space Odyssey” is what I favor — a Moon base with a way station. The future was indeed set in 1969, but it was the Arpanet going online, and not Apollo 11, that changed everything.

Which reminds me. Way back in my first month of turning my old web site into this web log, and I wasn’t yet embedding audio, I said that Buddy Holly recorded only three songs in stereo. That is incorrect. There is a fourth recording, called “Moondreams”, although this particular dub doesn’t bring out the full stereo effect.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/JUL/Moondreams.mp3]

And back on the subject of Mars, my son Eric has of late taken an interest in the early works of David Bowie, who has a song on “Hunky Dory” called “Life On Mars?”.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/JUL/LifeOnMars.flv 400 300]

Whoever posted “Life On Mars?” on YouTube disabled embedding, so I had to work around that. I got the poster picture of Bowie looking like Keith Richard playing the Cavern Club from a 1972 issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

Words about Music…

As I’ve said before, I don’t keep up with the music biz like I used to do. Bands come and go and I really have no idea — I’m middle-aged, OK? — although recently I’ve been listening to the World Cafe, and playing Music Choice’s adult contemporary channel. Past exceptions to my lack of awareness include Green Day‘s “American Idiot”, which caught my attention instantly, radiohead’s “Creep”, and a song that I can’t believe is already more than ten years old. “The Way”, by Fastball.

I don’t know if this was intended to be an homage to Elvis Costello, but that’s what it is. That’s not a knock! It’s hard to convey just how much I admire something like this, that gets everything right and really gets under my skin, whether it’s a scruffy indie band or a piece of slick, commercial fluff — like this. Forty years ago, “Whole Lotta Love” and “Sugar, Sugar” were on the radio at the same time, and I loved listening to both.

Another tune that I think shows something of the influence of Declan McManus is by a MySpace friend of Lía Pamina en España, named Prudencia Valenica, aka: Prudence.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/JUL/NoNameNoPlace.mp3]

Love that last chord! Very Beatles-ish. This tune is a real gem. On one of the music programs I mention above, I heard something new from Sting, and it was just a long atmospheric drone with no real idea behind it. In contrast, in just the first ten seconds of “No Name No Place”, it’s obviously a winner. You should listen to everything on Prudence’s playlist. I guess I’m just a frustrated A&R man.

And here’s more of Lía! First her lovely performance of Margo Guryan‘s “Someone I Know”, which borrows from J.S. Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”. Then you’ll see Lia’s creatively animated video for Guryan’s demo of “Love Songs” that she later revised and refined for Margo’s studio recording.