Barnes is back with his Back Pages

Just in time to celebrate Bob Dylan turning 70 on Tuesday, Barnes Newberry returns to radio with My Back Pages. When? Tomorrow morning at 8! Barnes says…

Okay folks, looks like it is ON tomorrow at 8 am for the debut of My Back Pages with Barnes Newberry. Please join us online at mvyradio.com to pre-celebrate the 70th birthday of His Bobness! Thanks for all your early good wishes (to us both!) and of course, a big thanks to MVY.

WMVY is a commercial FM station on Martha’s Vineyard, and mvyradio is a public Net-only station, and that’s where Barnes will be. It has high-quality (96k) audio, and I’ll be listening on my excellent-sounding Logitech Squeezebox Radio. Note: mvyradio will be posting the complete Neil Innes show I attended last Saturday, A People’s Guide to World Domination, in its archives, and I’ll link to it when available.

Follow-up: Well, that was disappointing. There was a technical screw-up at the station and the show didn’t play over the live stream. It can be heard at this link.

Innes much as Ron’s Nasty

From Neil Innes last Saturday I got a typically nasty autograph from his Rutles alter ego, Ron Nasty.

After Innes and the Bonzo Dog Band were in Magical Mystery Tour with the Beatles, they were on a BBC TV show for kids called Do Not Adjust Your Set, where they met Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, and Terry Gilliam.

http://youtu.be/AI4ekBi5Hhc

During A People’s Guide to World Domination last Saturday night, Innes sang the “Brave” Sir Robin song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail…

… but he didn’t do the famous Knights of the Round Table song, for which he wrote the tune but not the words, which were by Cleese and Chapman.

http://youtu.be/sGAYk5VWkTw

A People’s Guide to World Domination is a wonderfully funny and engaging show, mixing British music hall humor with social satire. When Innes was in town he did this interview, and on his way up to Boston he stopped at the NPR music studios in Washington, for a Tiny Desk Concert. When I saw Innes he didn’t play Urban Spaceman, a Bonzo-era favorite, but you’ll hear it here.

A tip o’ the virtual toupee to Samjay, for spotting a Rutles song in the credits when he saw The Robber last weekend. It’s I Love You, from the Rutles second album, Archaeology.

Bought and sold

I’m sold on the Logitech Revue with Google TV. When it was introduced I doubted the concept of putting a full keyboard in the lap of a TV watcher, and I was unsure about integrating cable TV, but it all works and works well. But it’s complicated, and doesn’t really sing until you customize it. Once I realized it could do IR remote control throughout the room, and not just the RF for the keyboard, my last reservation gave way, because now the volume controls work with my ancient (8-year-old) Kenwood THX Dolby Digital receiver. Logitech’s hardware is great, as always, and only a few software improvements are needed:

  • Add an app for Amazon Instant Video similar to the Netflix player
  • Fix surround sound for Netflix and Amazon
  • Rework the UI

That’s pretty much it for me. For most people, internet TV is the killer app, and the Roku HD for $60 is all they need for hardware. But if you’re accustomed to sitting with a netbook or laptop with the TV on, the Logitech Revue is a good deal for $200.

Web TV returns

I have a couple of posts that are almost done, but I have to sit at my desktop computer to finish them. For one there’s audio work to do, for the other there’s scanning. But right now I’m neither there nor in my usual 11-12 weeknight spot on the porch, I’m downstairs in front of the projector screen. The Daily Show is playing in the corner while I type this. I never had a use for picture-in-picture, the most oversold feature in TV’s of a bygone age, but being able to browse the web while having TV in the corner, while sitting on the couch ten feet from a 65-inch image, is surprisingly better than having a netbook in my lap and having to look up at a regular TV. For a web TV player I prefer the Roku, but it is neat having the Logitech Revue combine online video with cable TV and web browsing.