Category: All Posts

The King Still Rules

This news item is courtesy of D. F. Rogers:

Memphis, Tenn. (Denro News) — Elvis Presley celebrated his 73rd birthday today in a quiet gathering held at his Graceland Mansion in Memphis. His daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, and her children, presented him with a golden, diamond encrusted guitar-shaped belt buckle.

Elvis, still known as “The King Of Rock and Roll”, has kept a low profile for the past few years due to ongoing health concerns. A near death experience in August 1977 caused a drastic lifestyle change for the beloved American Icon. After a months-long recovery from a heart attack, complicated by a serious prescription drug addiction, Presley fired his longtime manager, Tom Parker, and greatly reduced his public appearances.

He recorded mainly gospel tunes for the next ten years and his fans consider these to be some of his most passionate performances. His epic three hour concert in July 2004, marking fifty years in the recording industry, was his last major public appearance.

Elvis took his grandchildren for a ride around the Graceland grounds today and waved to the several hundred fans gathered outside the gates. Elvis is reportedly working an album of duets with a variety of contemporary performers, tentatively scheduled to be released this summer.

Elvis Presley, “Star Wars Summer”, 1977

Elvis '77

Colbert Rapport

The Colbert Report is back for the first time since Stephen Colbert met me in New York! OK, OK, so I met him. Whatever. This is also the first time I’ve watched Colbert on the PANASONIC PT-AX200U (that’s for the benefit of Google Alerts) video projector. And I would like to emphatically state that JON STEWART AND STEPHEN COLBERT NEED TO GO HDTV!

Without his writers, Colbert stretched things out a bit, and he padded with some video clips, but it came off all right. The question is, of course, how many consecutive nights can even a phenomenally intelligent and funny talent like Colbert go, before the ad-lids and improv start to wear thin?
[flv:/Video/2008/JAN/ColbertStrike.flv 400 300]

Being PETicular

Petula ClarkMy sister Jean has reminded me that it’s been a while since I’ve posted something about dear Petula Clark. Indeed! First, I would like to send you over to View Images to see a fabulous collection of over sixty Pet photos, some very early, and some very recent.

What a long and varied career Pet has had. She is so deserving of the title of Dame in the UK, but we’re still 100 shy of the 1000 mark for signatures on the PETition. I guess I’m not really entitled to say “we’re” because I can’t vote, not being a citizen or resident of the UK. There are only a couple more months to vote, folks! So please do it now. While you’re doing that you can listen to an audio interview with Pet, conducted for the U.S. Army in December, 1966, by disk jockey Harry Harrison, while he was with WMCA in New York. In ’68 Harrison jumped over to WABC to replace the departing Herb Oscar Anderson.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JAN/PetArmy.mp3]

As a child, Petula sang for the British troops on BBC radio during World War II. She was famous for singing “Mighty Lak A Rose.” Later, as a young woman she sang it again. I’m not sure exactly when this recording was made.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JAN/MightyLakARose.mp3]

And finally, I’ve a confession to make. I never wanted any of the Beatles to hold my hand. That’s why I’m glad Pet recorded her own version of “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JAN/PetHoldHand.mp3]

GOOD BAD AND LOUD

Dennis Rogers has pointed out that Rolling Stone magazine has an article called The Death of High Fidelity, about one of the negative effects that the influence of MP3 audio has had on the audio quality of recorded music. I featured something about this last summer at this link.

Not to get too nerdy-techie, but there are two forms of compression involved here. There’s the compression of the audio signal, that makes everything have the same loudness, and there’s the digital compression that is used by MP3 and other audio formats to reduce file size. They are two very different things.

Matt Mayfield, who I’m assuming is the guitarist in the recently-disbanded band Moses Mayfield, has a video that I’ve grabbed from YouTube, with an excellent explanation of what audio compression and loudness are all about.

[flv:/Video/2008/JAN/LoudnessWar.flv 400 300]

More Video Options

After mentioning the possibility of Netflix’s Watch Instantly service being available on Xbox Live, I got curious about watching it as it exists on Internet Explorer 7, but on the video projector. So I hooked up Carol’s laptop computer to the projector with a VGA cable, connected to Netflix over Wi-Fi, and started playing Manhattan Murder Mystery. It would be much more convenient if the service becomes available through the Xbox, but the laptop test worked. Are you tired yet of these photos of the projector screen?

Manhattan Murder Mystery