[FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Joe geezerfr...@... wrote: Cippolina was a real master, way ahead of his time. Is he still around? Those Quicksilver concerts when they were a quartet with Gary Duncan, were incredible! As I see from Message View that Bhairitu posted, John died some time ago. I agree with you about the original quartet. Back when I and my college hippie friends were promoting rock concerts, Quicksilver was our favorite group to hire. And to party with. The dynamic between Cippolina and Gary Duncan (self-described as The Agony and the Ecstasy) was electric, and wonderful. None of the latter formations of Quicksilver (adding Dino Valenti and Nicky Hopkins) were as good. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: I had some email exchanges with Alan a few years back. He had claimed on his podcast that rock musicians of the 1960s didn't know that much about music (he claims to be a former profession songwriter). Au contraire, even people like Graham Parson had jazz backgrounds. Brian Wilson was also into jazz and composition. So were many of the well known rock stars I met and we used to compare notes. I particularly remember siting with some of the guys from the Greatful Dead at my house listening to John Cage. We were all music students that looked at the rock scene and thought hey we can write that stuff in our sleep! With all due respect to John Cage -- he broke a lot of boundaries, but the John Cage concert I went to -- was about 1000 record players each playing a different song, symphony opera, nature sound world music or spoken narrative. And John was there, but no visibly present. Probably walking around the audience -- who were walking among the record players. Or perhaps hiding behind a stage curtain -- I could have written that in my sleep. In fact I think I have a few times. Did you know Emil Richards and his cosmic micro tonal band? Paul Horn's friend. And a meditator of course. The Grateful Dead seemed to be sort of micro tonal -- tuning their guitars to some out there scale. And particularly QuickSilver live -- who I used to tell friends they played like you know, 100 dissonate notes and chords per second Or maybe they were just to far tripping to tune their guitars by standard means. And thanks for the Digital video insights I didn't know Emil Richards but did know Paul Horn. I knew the Quicksilver guys too. Lived next door to John Cipollina and Nicky Hopkins (who also played on a lot of the Beatles cuts as well as in The Rolling Stones). I like the breadth of Nicky Hopkins -- he was everywhere. I remember him from the Jeff Beck Group (with Rod Stewart -- when he was good :), Ronny Wood and of course Jeff Beck. And later with Jefferson Airplane -- and about everybody else. John Cipollina was amazing to watch live. And had the look of the archetypal hippie -- when the term was new and fresh -- tall, thin, long stringy hair, intense gaunt look, good and interesting guitarist. QS's Who Do You Love -- the greatest rock song ever recorded -- or played live. To create his distinctive guitar sound, Cipollina developed a one of a kind amplifier stack. His Gibson SG guitars had two pickups, one for bass and one for treble. The bass pickup fed into two Standel bass amps on the bottom of the stack, each equipped with two 15-inch speakers. The treble pickups fed two Fender amps: a Fender Twin Reverb with two 12-inch speakers and a Fender Dual Showman that drove six Wurlitzer horns. His style was highly melodic and expressive. Cipollina's classical past no doubt influenced his guitar style, which was miles beyond the usual pentatonic blues-scale work of many of the other psychedelic-era guitarists. His work on fellow dueling guitarist Gary Duncan's electric arrangement/adaption of Dave Brubeck's Take Five, retitled Gold and Silver, which appears on the self-titled first album of Quicksilver, is an excellent example of how Cipollina took rock to places it usually didn't dare to venture. You didn't live next door to them in Mill Valley did you? If so -- did you hang with Clover? Sons of Champlain? (And who was The Girl from Mill Valley that Hopkins composed a song for on Beckola?) Yup, it was Mill Valley with George and Marsha Lucas living across the street. Nick Gravenites hung out there frequently. Didn't know the Son of Champlain but hitched a ride with the father once. Don't know who the girl was. Played in
[FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
Indeed. Dino Valenti (IMO) basically ruined an incredible band with his ego-mad, semi-serviceable vocals. Nicky was a wonderful pianist but he was much to mellow to compete with Valenti or even to get Valenti to lighten up a bit. Valenti ended up writing practically all the material after that. All those incredible Bo Diddley jams and the brilliant tune The Fool from the first album. That's the QSM that I loved in concert and on record. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Joe geezerfreak@ wrote: Cippolina was a real master, way ahead of his time. Is he still around? Those Quicksilver concerts when they were a quartet with Gary Duncan, were incredible! As I see from Message View that Bhairitu posted, John died some time ago. I agree with you about the original quartet. Back when I and my college hippie friends were promoting rock concerts, Quicksilver was our favorite group to hire. And to party with. The dynamic between Cippolina and Gary Duncan (self-described as The Agony and the Ecstasy) was electric, and wonderful. None of the latter formations of Quicksilver (adding Dino Valenti and Nicky Hopkins) were as good. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: I had some email exchanges with Alan a few years back. He had claimed on his podcast that rock musicians of the 1960s didn't know that much about music (he claims to be a former profession songwriter). Au contraire, even people like Graham Parson had jazz backgrounds. Brian Wilson was also into jazz and composition. So were many of the well known rock stars I met and we used to compare notes. I particularly remember siting with some of the guys from the Greatful Dead at my house listening to John Cage. We were all music students that looked at the rock scene and thought hey we can write that stuff in our sleep! With all due respect to John Cage -- he broke a lot of boundaries, but the John Cage concert I went to -- was about 1000 record players each playing a different song, symphony opera, nature sound world music or spoken narrative. And John was there, but no visibly present. Probably walking around the audience -- who were walking among the record players. Or perhaps hiding behind a stage curtain -- I could have written that in my sleep. In fact I think I have a few times. Did you know Emil Richards and his cosmic micro tonal band? Paul Horn's friend. And a meditator of course. The Grateful Dead seemed to be sort of micro tonal -- tuning their guitars to some out there scale. And particularly QuickSilver live -- who I used to tell friends they played like you know, 100 dissonate notes and chords per second Or maybe they were just to far tripping to tune their guitars by standard means. And thanks for the Digital video insights I didn't know Emil Richards but did know Paul Horn. I knew the Quicksilver guys too. Lived next door to John Cipollina and Nicky Hopkins (who also played on a lot of the Beatles cuts as well as in The Rolling Stones). I like the breadth of Nicky Hopkins -- he was everywhere. I remember him from the Jeff Beck Group (with Rod Stewart -- when he was good :), Ronny Wood and of course Jeff Beck. And later with Jefferson Airplane -- and about everybody else. John Cipollina was amazing to watch live. And had the look of the archetypal hippie -- when the term was new and fresh -- tall, thin, long stringy hair, intense gaunt look, good and interesting guitarist. QS's Who Do You Love -- the greatest rock song ever recorded -- or played live. To create his distinctive guitar sound, Cipollina developed a one of a kind amplifier stack. His Gibson SG guitars had two pickups, one for bass and one for treble. The bass pickup fed into two Standel bass amps on the bottom of the stack, each equipped with two 15-inch speakers. The treble pickups fed two Fender amps: a Fender Twin Reverb with two 12-inch speakers and a Fender Dual Showman that drove six Wurlitzer horns. His style was highly melodic and expressive. Cipollina's classical past no doubt influenced his guitar style, which was miles beyond the usual pentatonic blues-scale work of many of the other psychedelic-era guitarists. His work on fellow dueling guitarist Gary Duncan's electric arrangement/adaption of Dave Brubeck's Take Five, retitled Gold and Silver, which
[FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: With the local Hollywood Video going out of business and a new Samsung networked Bluray player I decided to sign up again for Netflix. As I've mentioned before I used Netflix over 10 years ago when DVD first came out because few if any of the local stores had DVDs to rent. Then they began getting them and I stopped using Netflix. So upon Turq's recommendation I put Starz's Spartacus: Blood and Sand in my Instant Watch list. Last night I watched the first half of the first episode. Interesting series though nowhere as well produced as HBO's Rome... Just you wait. Heh heh. :-) ...but quite interesting how they put green screen and CG to work to create the episode. Not sure if it's my cup of tea as I found plenty to fill the queue otherwise. Of course I've seen enough to see why Turq liked it. ;-) As much as I like tits, it's not just the tits. :-) Spartacus has some of the best villains I have ever seen onscreen, and some of the most nefarious plotting. Not to mention a depth of characterization I had absolutely no reason to suspect was coming in the first couple of episodes. I have gone beyond being an apologetic fan and have become an unapologetic fan. I think that -- for good or ill -- it defines the future of television. I expect there to be six knockoff copycat series within a year. None of them will be as good, but all of them will use the violence porn metaphor. The first thing I watched in HD on Instant Play was was a quirky psychological thriller which could easily make the weird film list called Order of Chaos. I have a download of this, but haven't watched it yet. I had stumbled across the movie looking at the Alan Watt http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com site as they used a couple of Alan's Internet radio raps in the movie and he had put a link to Amazon's listing there. Those not familiar with Alan is he is a Scotsman living in Canada doing historical conspiracy podcasts. I can somehow see why this would be your cuppa tea. :-) You can find these on his site and they can be very entertaining. One interesting thing is he claims that TM was an attempt by the Freemason's to create a new religion using Maharishi. That's just silly. The Freemasons I've met were much smarter than that. :-) I suspect that Alan may have at one time practiced TM or was even a teacher. The movie was interesting enough that I had Netflix send me the DVD so that I could listen to the commentary and see what was behind the making of the movie. Let me guess: The making of money? :-) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1159721/ Between Netflix, Vudu, Redbox and Amazon's service I might ditch most of my cable bill. Cable companies are so yesterday. I find it difficult to even conceive of why I'd need cable or a satellite hookup. The only rationale I see for them is if you're a sports fan or, in the case of many UK ex-pats living here, lonely for British TV shows from home. I am neither, and live in a country that wisely sees nothing wrong with downloading media for private viewing, so I don't see myself ever needing to hook up to a media tit other than the Internet ever again.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: With the local Hollywood Video going out of business and a new Samsung networked Bluray player I decided to sign up again for Netflix. As I've mentioned before I used Netflix over 10 years ago when DVD first came out because few if any of the local stores had DVDs to rent. Then they began getting them and I stopped using Netflix. So upon Turq's recommendation I put Starz's Spartacus: Blood and Sand in my Instant Watch list. Last night I watched the first half of the first episode. Interesting series though nowhere as well produced as HBO's Rome but quite interesting how they put green screen and CG to work to create the episode. Not sure if it's my cup of tea as I found plenty to fill the queue otherwise. Of course I've seen enough to see why Turq liked it. ;-) The first thing I watched in HD on Instant Play I recently suspended my membership -- lack of time -- but when I was active, I was disappointed in many of the instant plays. First, many were edited to 4:3 format -- losing 2/3's of the actual picture. i have refused to watch that format for years. (sort like using a 1/2 inch thick condom.) Second, the resolution was mediocre on many (better on some). I have a 25 MB connection so I assumed they hwouldhave the throttle opend up a bit on their side -- maybe 6-10 MG which would enable HD streaming. Have they changed and upped their output speeds? Third, selection was primarily old cable fodder -- though still a lot of old art house films. No, they now have a pretty good selection but they like Redbox are getting delayed releases from the studios. Folks on the home theater forums say that Netflix HD offerings have recently increased dramatically. Except for the episodes of Spartacus which look more like they are WMV streams what I've watched has been 720p streams. You only need about 2.5 to 3 mbps for those. Vudu's HDX which 1080p requires about 4.5 mbps but I have 6 mbps DSL and so it works fine. Vudu has the best selection and current films including some of the IFC also in theaters stuff. What I also like is a lot of older films which are also available in HD. Vudu's encoding is excellent but the company was founded by HD geeks. Walmart just bought them and I hope leaves them alone. Amazon's service is the one with current TV series from FX and Syfy. Redbox is talking about a $4 a month streaming service. VOD is the future. I can't stand 4:3 on an HD set. I even noticed that 1930's movies seemed to be filmed by cinematographers who were used to shooting photography in a landscape widescreen format as there is often dead space on the top and bottom of the 4:3 frame (even with Citizen Kane). Widescreen has been around since the beginning of film as that is what the French Lumiere brothers shot in just using the 5x3 post card film stock. It may have been the studios were having the 30's films done that way for European audiences where 5:3 was used. I have a couple Kino DVDs of those early films. Warner developed widescreen in the late 1920s. There was one western shot in 70mm widescreen back then and recently released on DVD (mabye Bluray). The studios introduced it again in the 1950s as an extra to get people to go to theaters after the introduction of TV. For instance I have This Island Earth which was filmed in 4:3 but framed for Cinemascope which was what I saw it in originally. Between Netflix, Vudu, Redbox and Amazon's service I might ditch most of my cable bill. Cable companies are so yesterday. I cancelled my subscription. A lot of stuff I watch is on hulu or you tube -- at least the best parts. For some reason NBC doesn't want people to watch Hulu on their sets though one can do it just using a computer with component or HDMI output. I tried PlayOn but my Samsung player said it couldn't play the Hulu stream. Boxee was told by Hulu to remove their support though there is supposedly a work around. I might try that. The weekend my 53 set was out I watched TV and Hulu on my laptop using a networked HD tuner.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: With the local Hollywood Video going out of business and a new Samsung networked Bluray player I decided to sign up again for Netflix. As I've mentioned before I used Netflix over 10 years ago when DVD first came out because few if any of the local stores had DVDs to rent. Then they began getting them and I stopped using Netflix. So upon Turq's recommendation I put Starz's Spartacus: Blood and Sand in my Instant Watch list. Last night I watched the first half of the first episode. Interesting series though nowhere as well produced as HBO's Rome... Just you wait. Heh heh. :-) The second episode was better. There is an interesting subtext going on which is almost more about current affairs than life in Rome. ...but quite interesting how they put green screen and CG to work to create the episode. Not sure if it's my cup of tea as I found plenty to fill the queue otherwise. Of course I've seen enough to see why Turq liked it. ;-) As much as I like tits, it's not just the tits. :-) Spartacus has some of the best villains I have ever seen onscreen, and some of the most nefarious plotting. Not to mention a depth of characterization I had absolutely no reason to suspect was coming in the first couple of episodes. I have gone beyond being an apologetic fan and have become an unapologetic fan. I think that -- for good or ill -- it defines the future of television. I expect there to be six knockoff copycat series within a year. None of them will be as good, but all of them will use the violence porn metaphor. Unfortunately that is the way that horror has gone especially since the Saw and Hostel successes. The first thing I watched in HD on Instant Play was was a quirky psychological thriller which could easily make the weird film list called Order of Chaos. I have a download of this, but haven't watched it yet. I had stumbled across the movie looking at the Alan Watt http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com site as they used a couple of Alan's Internet radio raps in the movie and he had put a link to Amazon's listing there. Those not familiar with Alan is he is a Scotsman living in Canada doing historical conspiracy podcasts. I can somehow see why this would be your cuppa tea. :-) I had some email exchanges with Alan a few years back. He had claimed on his podcast that rock musicians of the 1960s didn't know that much about music (he claims to be a former profession songwriter). Au contraire, even people like Graham Parson had jazz backgrounds. Brian Wilson was also into jazz and composition. So were many of the well known rock stars I met and we used to compare notes. I particularly remember siting with some of the guys from the Greatful Dead at my house listening to John Cage. We were all music students that looked at the rock scene and thought hey we can write that stuff in our sleep! Well writing it was one thing the politics of the record industry is another. You can find these on his site and they can be very entertaining. One interesting thing is he claims that TM was an attempt by the Freemason's to create a new religion using Maharishi. That's just silly. The Freemasons I've met were much smarter than that. :-) I'm thinking he was into TM and went to Charlie's lectures and derived it from that. I suspect that Alan may have at one time practiced TM or was even a teacher. The movie was interesting enough that I had Netflix send me the DVD so that I could listen to the commentary and see what was behind the making of the movie. Let me guess: The making of money? :-) Or losing it. I was reading a commentary in THR this morning on companies looking to make money in Hollywood and winding up losing instead. No, what I'm interested in is how he came up with the story line. The DVD arrives today. How you write for money is to make the story compelling enough that people want to back its production. Before the 1986 tax laws the losing of money was also profitable. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1159721/ Between Netflix, Vudu, Redbox and Amazon's service I might ditch most of my cable bill. Cable companies are so yesterday. I find it difficult to even conceive of why I'd need cable or a satellite hookup. The only rationale I see for them is if you're a sports fan or, in the case of many UK ex-pats living here, lonely for British TV shows from home. I am neither, and live in a country that wisely sees nothing wrong with downloading media for private viewing, so I don't see myself ever needing to hook up to a media tit other than the Internet ever again. Well they are finally waking up to VOD as the way. Sort of a if you can't beat them join them attitude though the software industry saw the Internet
[FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: With the local Hollywood Video going out of business and a new Samsung networked Bluray player I decided to sign up again for Netflix. As I've mentioned before I used Netflix over 10 years ago when DVD first came out because few if any of the local stores had DVDs to rent. Then they began getting them and I stopped using Netflix. So upon Turq's recommendation I put Starz's Spartacus: Blood and Sand in my Instant Watch list. Last night I watched the first half of the first episode. Interesting series though nowhere as well produced as HBO's Rome... Just you wait. Heh heh. :-) The second episode was better. There is an interesting subtext going on which is almost more about current affairs than life in Rome. If you perceive a modern subtext in the series, I suspect it is more due to projecting it there than the producers intending it there. It's a remarkably factual portrayal of the Roman society of the time. If there is a resemblance to modern times, that's probably due more to Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it than to artistic intent IMO. ...but quite interesting how they put green screen and CG to work to create the episode. Not sure if it's my cup of tea as I found plenty to fill the queue otherwise. Of course I've seen enough to see why Turq liked it. ;-) As much as I like tits, it's not just the tits. :-) Spartacus has some of the best villains I have ever seen onscreen, and some of the most nefarious plotting. Not to mention a depth of characterization I had absolutely no reason to suspect was coming in the first couple of episodes. I have gone beyond being an apologetic fan and have become an unapologetic fan. I think that -- for good or ill -- it defines the future of television. I expect there to be six knockoff copycat series within a year. None of them will be as good, but all of them will use the violence porn metaphor. Unfortunately that is the way that horror has gone especially since the Saw and Hostel successes. Not entirely. The latest episode of Bones was a delight- ful spoof of the horror genre, going so far as to co-star Robert Englund (Freddie Krueger). It was a hoot.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: With the local Hollywood Video going out of business and a new Samsung networked Bluray player I decided to sign up again for Netflix. As I've mentioned before I used Netflix over 10 years ago when DVD first came out because few if any of the local stores had DVDs to rent. Then they began getting them and I stopped using Netflix. So upon Turq's recommendation I put Starz's Spartacus: Blood and Sand in my Instant Watch list. Last night I watched the first half of the first episode. Interesting series though nowhere as well produced as HBO's Rome... Just you wait. Heh heh. :-) The second episode was better. There is an interesting subtext going on which is almost more about current affairs than life in Rome. ...but quite interesting how they put green screen and CG to work to create the episode. Not sure if it's my cup of tea as I found plenty to fill the queue otherwise. Of course I've seen enough to see why Turq liked it. ;-) As much as I like tits, it's not just the tits. :-) Spartacus has some of the best villains I have ever seen onscreen, and some of the most nefarious plotting. Not to mention a depth of characterization I had absolutely no reason to suspect was coming in the first couple of episodes. I have gone beyond being an apologetic fan and have become an unapologetic fan. I think that -- for good or ill -- it defines the future of television. I expect there to be six knockoff copycat series within a year. None of them will be as good, but all of them will use the violence porn metaphor. Unfortunately that is the way that horror has gone especially since the Saw and Hostel successes. The first thing I watched in HD on Instant Play was was a quirky psychological thriller which could easily make the weird film list called Order of Chaos. I have a download of this, but haven't watched it yet. I had stumbled across the movie looking at the Alan Watt http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com site as they used a couple of Alan's Internet radio raps in the movie and he had put a link to Amazon's listing there. Those not familiar with Alan is he is a Scotsman living in Canada doing historical conspiracy podcasts. I can somehow see why this would be your cuppa tea. :-) I had some email exchanges with Alan a few years back. He had claimed on his podcast that rock musicians of the 1960s didn't know that much about music (he claims to be a former profession songwriter). Au contraire, even people like Graham Parson had jazz backgrounds. Brian Wilson was also into jazz and composition. So were many of the well known rock stars I met and we used to compare notes. I particularly remember siting with some of the guys from the Greatful Dead at my house listening to John Cage. We were all music students that looked at the rock scene and thought hey we can write that stuff in our sleep! With all due respect to John Cage -- he broke a lot of boundaries, but the John Cage concert I went to -- was about 1000 record players each playing a different song, symphony opera, nature sound world music or spoken narrative. And John was there, but no visibly present. Probably walking around the audience -- who were walking among the record players. Or perhaps hiding behind a stage curtain -- I could have written that in my sleep. In fact I think I have a few times. Did you know Emil Richards and his cosmic micro tonal band? Paul Horn's friend. And a meditator of course. The Grateful Dead seemed to be sort of micro tonal -- tuning their guitars to some out there scale. And particularly QuickSilver live -- who I used to tell friends they played like you know, 100 dissonate notes and chords per second Or maybe they were just to far tripping to tune their guitars by standard means. And thanks for the Digital video insights writing it was one thing the politics of the record industry is another. You can find these on his site and they can be very entertaining. One interesting thing is he claims that TM was an attempt by the Freemason's to create a new religion using Maharishi. That's just silly. The Freemasons I've met were much smarter than that. :-) I'm thinking he was into TM and went to Charlie's lectures and derived it from that. I suspect that Alan may have at one time practiced TM or was even a teacher. The movie was interesting enough that I had Netflix send me the DVD so that I could listen to the commentary and see what was behind the making of the movie. Let me guess: The making of money? :-) Or losing it. I was reading a commentary in THR this morning on
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: I had some email exchanges with Alan a few years back. He had claimed on his podcast that rock musicians of the 1960s didn't know that much about music (he claims to be a former profession songwriter). Au contraire, even people like Graham Parson had jazz backgrounds. Brian Wilson was also into jazz and composition. So were many of the well known rock stars I met and we used to compare notes. I particularly remember siting with some of the guys from the Greatful Dead at my house listening to John Cage. We were all music students that looked at the rock scene and thought hey we can write that stuff in our sleep! With all due respect to John Cage -- he broke a lot of boundaries, but the John Cage concert I went to -- was about 1000 record players each playing a different song, symphony opera, nature sound world music or spoken narrative. And John was there, but no visibly present. Probably walking around the audience -- who were walking among the record players. Or perhaps hiding behind a stage curtain -- I could have written that in my sleep. In fact I think I have a few times. Did you know Emil Richards and his cosmic micro tonal band? Paul Horn's friend. And a meditator of course. The Grateful Dead seemed to be sort of micro tonal -- tuning their guitars to some out there scale. And particularly QuickSilver live -- who I used to tell friends they played like you know, 100 dissonate notes and chords per second Or maybe they were just to far tripping to tune their guitars by standard means. And thanks for the Digital video insights I didn't know Emil Richards but did know Paul Horn. I knew the Quicksilver guys too. Lived next door to John Cipollina and Nicky Hopkins (who also played on a lot of the Beatles cuts as well as in The Rolling Stones). We used to have some wild poker parties. John is another case in point as his parents were also professional musicians. Nicky was the black sheep of a banker's family who decided to take up music instead and had a lot of classical and jazz chops. I often found Tibetan Gamelan music good to listen to then switch to western music and here in an entirely different way as if it were Gamelan music too.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: With the local Hollywood Video going out of business and a new Samsung networked Bluray player I decided to sign up again for Netflix. As I've mentioned before I used Netflix over 10 years ago when DVD first came out because few if any of the local stores had DVDs to rent. Then they began getting them and I stopped using Netflix. So upon Turq's recommendation I put Starz's Spartacus: Blood and Sand in my Instant Watch list. Last night I watched the first half of the first episode. Interesting series though nowhere as well produced as HBO's Rome... Just you wait. Heh heh. :-) The second episode was better. There is an interesting subtext going on which is almost more about current affairs than life in Rome. If you perceive a modern subtext in the series, I suspect it is more due to projecting it there than the producers intending it there. It's a remarkably factual portrayal of the Roman society of the time. If there is a resemblance to modern times, that's probably due more to Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it than to artistic intent IMO. I have to disagree with you there knowing how screen writers work. No projection, just observation. Bet they talk about it in the commentaries. ...but quite interesting how they put green screen and CG to work to create the episode. Not sure if it's my cup of tea as I found plenty to fill the queue otherwise. Of course I've seen enough to see why Turq liked it. ;-) As much as I like tits, it's not just the tits. :-) Spartacus has some of the best villains I have ever seen onscreen, and some of the most nefarious plotting. Not to mention a depth of characterization I had absolutely no reason to suspect was coming in the first couple of episodes. I have gone beyond being an apologetic fan and have become an unapologetic fan. I think that -- for good or ill -- it defines the future of television. I expect there to be six knockoff copycat series within a year. None of them will be as good, but all of them will use the violence porn metaphor. Unfortunately that is the way that horror has gone especially since the Saw and Hostel successes. Not entirely. The latest episode of Bones was a delight- ful spoof of the horror genre, going so far as to co-star Robert Englund (Freddie Krueger). It was a hoot. Bones is a TV series and so formula I found it difficult to watch. The Freddie remake is coming out so he was product placement. I'm talking about much of films being made especially ones in the After Dark Horrorfest 4 which I'm winding my way through. They're all on Vudu in HD except for the 8th one which each year is the winner and gets some theater bookings before going to video. I guess it's hard to scare audiences anymore. Just stepping outside your door in the US maybe more horrifying than any horror movie. Forgot to mention that I watched Defendor on DVD last night. You will be pleased to know that Redbox listed the genre correctly. But I think I would have enjoyed it more on Vudu where it was available in HD. Fun little film. I was reminded of some of the people downtown I've talked too that were equally out there.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: I had some email exchanges with Alan a few years back. He had claimed on his podcast that rock musicians of the 1960s didn't know that much about music (he claims to be a former profession songwriter). Au contraire, even people like Graham Parson had jazz backgrounds. Brian Wilson was also into jazz and composition. So were many of the well known rock stars I met and we used to compare notes. I particularly remember siting with some of the guys from the Greatful Dead at my house listening to John Cage. We were all music students that looked at the rock scene and thought hey we can write that stuff in our sleep! With all due respect to John Cage -- he broke a lot of boundaries, but the John Cage concert I went to -- was about 1000 record players each playing a different song, symphony opera, nature sound world music or spoken narrative. And John was there, but no visibly present. Probably walking around the audience -- who were walking among the record players. Or perhaps hiding behind a stage curtain -- I could have written that in my sleep. In fact I think I have a few times. Did you know Emil Richards and his cosmic micro tonal band? Paul Horn's friend. And a meditator of course. The Grateful Dead seemed to be sort of micro tonal -- tuning their guitars to some out there scale. And particularly QuickSilver live -- who I used to tell friends they played like you know, 100 dissonate notes and chords per second Or maybe they were just to far tripping to tune their guitars by standard means. And thanks for the Digital video insights I didn't know Emil Richards but did know Paul Horn. I knew the Quicksilver guys too. Lived next door to John Cipollina and Nicky Hopkins (who also played on a lot of the Beatles cuts as well as in The Rolling Stones). I like the breadth of Nicky Hopkins -- he was everywhere. I remember him from the Jeff Beck Group (with Rod Stewart -- when he was good :), Ronny Wood and of course Jeff Beck. And later with Jefferson Airplane -- and about everybody else. John Cipollina was amazing to watch live. And had the look of the archetypal hippie -- when the term was new and fresh -- tall, thin, long stringy hair, intense gaunt look, good and interesting guitarist. QS's Who Do You Love -- the greatest rock song ever recorded -- or played live. To create his distinctive guitar sound, Cipollina developed a one of a kind amplifier stack. His Gibson SG guitars had two pickups, one for bass and one for treble. The bass pickup fed into two Standel bass amps on the bottom of the stack, each equipped with two 15-inch speakers. The treble pickups fed two Fender amps: a Fender Twin Reverb with two 12-inch speakers and a Fender Dual Showman that drove six Wurlitzer horns. His style was highly melodic and expressive. Cipollina's classical past no doubt influenced his guitar style, which was miles beyond the usual pentatonic blues-scale work of many of the other psychedelic-era guitarists. His work on fellow dueling guitarist Gary Duncan's electric arrangement/adaption of Dave Brubeck's Take Five, retitled Gold and Silver, which appears on the self-titled first album of Quicksilver, is an excellent example of how Cipollina took rock to places it usually didn't dare to venture. You didn't live next door to them in Mill Valley did you? If so -- did you hang with Clover? Sons of Champlain? (And who was The Girl from Mill Valley that Hopkins composed a song for on Beckola?) We used to have some wild poker parties. John is another case in point as his parents were also professional musicians. Nicky was the black sheep of a banker's family who decided to take up music instead and had a lot of classical and jazz chops. I often found Tibetan Gamelan music good to listen to then switch to western music and here in an entirely different way as if it were Gamelan music too.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: I had some email exchanges with Alan a few years back. He had claimed on his podcast that rock musicians of the 1960s didn't know that much about music (he claims to be a former profession songwriter). Au contraire, even people like Graham Parson had jazz backgrounds. Brian Wilson was also into jazz and composition. So were many of the well known rock stars I met and we used to compare notes. I particularly remember siting with some of the guys from the Greatful Dead at my house listening to John Cage. We were all music students that looked at the rock scene and thought hey we can write that stuff in our sleep! With all due respect to John Cage -- he broke a lot of boundaries, but the John Cage concert I went to -- was about 1000 record players each playing a different song, symphony opera, nature sound world music or spoken narrative. And John was there, but no visibly present. Probably walking around the audience -- who were walking among the record players. Or perhaps hiding behind a stage curtain -- I could have written that in my sleep. In fact I think I have a few times. Did you know Emil Richards and his cosmic micro tonal band? Paul Horn's friend. And a meditator of course. The Grateful Dead seemed to be sort of micro tonal -- tuning their guitars to some out there scale. And particularly QuickSilver live -- who I used to tell friends they played like you know, 100 dissonate notes and chords per second Or maybe they were just to far tripping to tune their guitars by standard means. And thanks for the Digital video insights I didn't know Emil Richards but did know Paul Horn. I knew the Quicksilver guys too. Lived next door to John Cipollina and Nicky Hopkins (who also played on a lot of the Beatles cuts as well as in The Rolling Stones). I like the breadth of Nicky Hopkins -- he was everywhere. I remember him from the Jeff Beck Group (with Rod Stewart -- when he was good :), Ronny Wood and of course Jeff Beck. And later with Jefferson Airplane -- and about everybody else. John Cipollina was amazing to watch live. And had the look of the archetypal hippie -- when the term was new and fresh -- tall, thin, long stringy hair, intense gaunt look, good and interesting guitarist. QS's Who Do You Love -- the greatest rock song ever recorded -- or played live. To create his distinctive guitar sound, Cipollina developed a one of a kind amplifier stack. His Gibson SG guitars had two pickups, one for bass and one for treble. The bass pickup fed into two Standel bass amps on the bottom of the stack, each equipped with two 15-inch speakers. The treble pickups fed two Fender amps: a Fender Twin Reverb with two 12-inch speakers and a Fender Dual Showman that drove six Wurlitzer horns. His style was highly melodic and expressive. Cipollina's classical past no doubt influenced his guitar style, which was miles beyond the usual pentatonic blues-scale work of many of the other psychedelic-era guitarists. His work on fellow dueling guitarist Gary Duncan's electric arrangement/adaption of Dave Brubeck's Take Five, retitled Gold and Silver, which appears on the self-titled first album of Quicksilver, is an excellent example of how Cipollina took rock to places it usually didn't dare to venture. You didn't live next door to them in Mill Valley did you? If so -- did you hang with Clover? Sons of Champlain? (And who was The Girl from Mill Valley that Hopkins composed a song for on Beckola?) Yup, it was Mill Valley with George and Marsha Lucas living across the street. Nick Gravenites hung out there frequently. Didn't know the Son of Champlain but hitched a ride with the father once. Don't know who the girl was. Played in another band which had a house in San Anselmo where a little redhead girl would come over and belt out some blues (Bonnie Raitt). John was always working on his guitars doing custom things.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
Cippolina was a real master, way ahead of his time. Is he still around? Those Quicksilver concerts when they were a quartet with Gary Duncan, were incredible! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: tartbrain wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: I had some email exchanges with Alan a few years back. He had claimed on his podcast that rock musicians of the 1960s didn't know that much about music (he claims to be a former profession songwriter). Au contraire, even people like Graham Parson had jazz backgrounds. Brian Wilson was also into jazz and composition. So were many of the well known rock stars I met and we used to compare notes. I particularly remember siting with some of the guys from the Greatful Dead at my house listening to John Cage. We were all music students that looked at the rock scene and thought hey we can write that stuff in our sleep! With all due respect to John Cage -- he broke a lot of boundaries, but the John Cage concert I went to -- was about 1000 record players each playing a different song, symphony opera, nature sound world music or spoken narrative. And John was there, but no visibly present. Probably walking around the audience -- who were walking among the record players. Or perhaps hiding behind a stage curtain -- I could have written that in my sleep. In fact I think I have a few times. Did you know Emil Richards and his cosmic micro tonal band? Paul Horn's friend. And a meditator of course. The Grateful Dead seemed to be sort of micro tonal -- tuning their guitars to some out there scale. And particularly QuickSilver live -- who I used to tell friends they played like you know, 100 dissonate notes and chords per second Or maybe they were just to far tripping to tune their guitars by standard means. And thanks for the Digital video insights I didn't know Emil Richards but did know Paul Horn. I knew the Quicksilver guys too. Lived next door to John Cipollina and Nicky Hopkins (who also played on a lot of the Beatles cuts as well as in The Rolling Stones). I like the breadth of Nicky Hopkins -- he was everywhere. I remember him from the Jeff Beck Group (with Rod Stewart -- when he was good :), Ronny Wood and of course Jeff Beck. And later with Jefferson Airplane -- and about everybody else. John Cipollina was amazing to watch live. And had the look of the archetypal hippie -- when the term was new and fresh -- tall, thin, long stringy hair, intense gaunt look, good and interesting guitarist. QS's Who Do You Love -- the greatest rock song ever recorded -- or played live. To create his distinctive guitar sound, Cipollina developed a one of a kind amplifier stack. His Gibson SG guitars had two pickups, one for bass and one for treble. The bass pickup fed into two Standel bass amps on the bottom of the stack, each equipped with two 15-inch speakers. The treble pickups fed two Fender amps: a Fender Twin Reverb with two 12-inch speakers and a Fender Dual Showman that drove six Wurlitzer horns. His style was highly melodic and expressive. Cipollina's classical past no doubt influenced his guitar style, which was miles beyond the usual pentatonic blues-scale work of many of the other psychedelic-era guitarists. His work on fellow dueling guitarist Gary Duncan's electric arrangement/adaption of Dave Brubeck's Take Five, retitled Gold and Silver, which appears on the self-titled first album of Quicksilver, is an excellent example of how Cipollina took rock to places it usually didn't dare to venture. You didn't live next door to them in Mill Valley did you? If so -- did you hang with Clover? Sons of Champlain? (And who was The Girl from Mill Valley that Hopkins composed a song for on Beckola?) Yup, it was Mill Valley with George and Marsha Lucas living across the street. Nick Gravenites hung out there frequently. Didn't know the Son of Champlain but hitched a ride with the father once. Don't know who the girl was. Played in another band which had a house in San Anselmo where a little redhead girl would come over and belt out some blues (Bonnie Raitt). John was always working on his guitars doing custom things.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
No, he died of emphysema in 1989: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksilver_Messenger_Service Joe wrote: Cippolina was a real master, way ahead of his time. Is he still around? Those Quicksilver concerts when they were a quartet with Gary Duncan, were incredible!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Starz's Spartacus
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: With the local Hollywood Video going out of business and a new Samsung networked Bluray player I decided to sign up again for Netflix. As I've mentioned before I used Netflix over 10 years ago when DVD first came out because few if any of the local stores had DVDs to rent. Then they began getting them and I stopped using Netflix. So upon Turq's recommendation I put Starz's Spartacus: Blood and Sand in my Instant Watch list. Last night I watched the first half of the first episode. Interesting series though nowhere as well produced as HBO's Rome but quite interesting how they put green screen and CG to work to create the episode. Not sure if it's my cup of tea as I found plenty to fill the queue otherwise. Of course I've seen enough to see why Turq liked it. ;-) The first thing I watched in HD on Instant Play I recently suspended my membership -- lack of time -- but when I was active, I was disappointed in many of the instant plays. First, many were edited to 4:3 format -- losing 2/3's of the actual picture. i have refused to watch that format for years. (sort like using a 1/2 inch thick condom.) Second, the resolution was mediocre on many (better on some). I have a 25 MB connection so I assumed they hwouldhave the throttle opend up a bit on their side -- maybe 6-10 MG which would enable HD streaming. Have they changed and upped their output speeds? Third, selection was primarily old cable fodder -- though still a lot of old art house films. was was a quirky psychological thriller which could easily make the weird film list called Order of Chaos. I had stumbled across the movie looking at the Alan Watt www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com site as they used a couple of Alan's Internet radio raps in the movie and he had put a link to Amazon's listing there. Those not familiar with Alan is he is a Scotsman living in Canada doing historical conspiracy podcasts. You can find these on his site and they can be very entertaining. One interesting thing is he claims that TM was an attempt by the Freemason's to create a new religion using Maharishi. I suspect that Alan may have at one time practiced TM or was even a teacher. The movie was interesting enough that I had Netflix send me the DVD so that I could listen to the commentary and see what was behind the making of the movie. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1159721/ Between Netflix, Vudu, Redbox and Amazon's service I might ditch most of my cable bill. Cable companies are so yesterday. I cancelled my subscription. A lot of stuff I watch is on hulu or you tube -- at least the best parts. The MPEG-4 (AVC) encoding for these Internet streams looks far better than Comcast ever looks because Comcast starves the bit rate on their MPEG-2 streams. The Amazon app is yet to appear on my player but Samsung has it on their TVs so it is undoubtedly in the works for the players too. With Amazon I can ditch extended basic because they have many of the current series for rent that I watch (and way overpay for with the subscription).
