Ahira's Hangar

that is where I usually get to listen to classical music in Ann Arbor



you can see bits of the concert hall in Detroit in this one

The ASIMO robot is awesome. Funny thing is, I'll betcha there was more feeling in the audience applause for the robot than if it had been just a "regular" human conductor. I mean, I wanted to stand up and cheer for ASIMO - and I was just watching a youtube clip. Wish they would program more repertoire into him and send him to other places...I wanna see ASIMO lead the Winnipeg Symphony!

Anyway, doing some late night listening on my headphones: Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here is spinning in my player. This is my first time listening to this album.

it is pretty much the dream of everyone here, regardless of socioeconomic class or race, to have a little lakefront place Up North.

Rat Dog (Bob Weir from the Dead)
has a cool jukebox function on his website - need to mix in a few new tunes tho....

New OASIS song The shock of the Lightning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87IQhui_Yy8 The album Dig out your soul aint too bad either

Nothing could be more appropriate tonight of all nights. Yes, we can. We can overcome fear and devisiveness and the weight of history and turn to hope and faith and love. Yes we can.

*also posted on the Watch*

Having never seen Goodfellas, this song has been out of my consciousness for some three decades. Today it was played on the radio as I was driving, and I just had to find it online...

Donovan ~

The continent of Atlantis was an island
which lay before the great flood
in the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.
So great an area of land, that from her western shores
those beautiful sailors journeyed
to the South and the North Americas with ease,
in their ships with painted sails.

To the East Africa was a neighbour, across a short strait of sea miles.
The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantian culture.
The antediluvian kings colonised the world
All the Gods who play in the mythological dramas
In all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.

Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the Twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.
Though Gods they were
And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind
Let us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the new
Hail Atlantis!

Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be.
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be.
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah,
I wanna see you some day
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah,
My antediluvian baby,
My antediluvian baby, I love you, girl,
Girl, I wanna see you some day.
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah
I wanna see you some day, oh
My antediluvian baby.
My antediluvian baby, I wanna see you
My antediluvian baby, gotta tell me where she gone
I wanna see you some day
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, oh yeah
Oh glub glub, down down, yeah
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah yeah yeah yeah

At the moment I'm plugged into the 2-CD Led Zep compilation Mothership. Yeah, I'm a sucker for remastered stuff. Although with Led Zep, they're pushing redundancy; I mean, how many times has Jimmy Page already "tweaked" his band's material over the years?

Ah well, all that matters is that the music's still a blast to listen to. The sound on this Mothership release is more than adequately magnificent.

It is that time.
The CD carousel is filled with my Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Manheim Steamroller holiday CDs and will remain so through tomorrow.

Just listened to the 1st movement of Bruckner's 9th symphony. It's an epic movement that is like a symphony unto itself. Depending on the conductor, it ranges from 20 to 24 minutes. I love this symphony, but I prefer to take it in small doses, because, geez, it's INTENSE. Intensely beautiful and intensely spiritual. This work is comprised of 3 glorious movements. Technically it's an "unfinished" symphony, because a 4th movement had been planned by Bruckner, but he died before he could get to it. The thing is that the symphony doesn't feel unfinished.

Anyway, I thought it'd be a good idea to look up possible youtube clips of Bruckner's 9th before posting here. Well, I ended up listening to a bunch of 'em. This one with Leonard Bernstein leading the Vienna Philharmonic seems pretty good:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=w4lGf42ecVc

The version I own is Bruno Walter's miraculous 1959 recording with the Columbia Symphony. It sounds fantastically good for an early stereo recording. Its wide dynamic range and sonic clarity honestly puts some modern digital recordings to shame, while Walter's interpretation of the music is every bit as lucid and powerful as the sound. This was my introduction to Bruckner's 9th, and Walter's performance remains the gold standard for me. (But again the Bernstein/VPO clip sounds promising. In his later years, Bernstein made a lot of magic with the VPO, so I wouldn't be surprised if they produced an excellent Bruckner 9th.)

Silly stuff

Earlier, played The Planets with Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. I didn't warm to this version the first time I heard it years ago. I like it somewhat better now; but my favorite remains Karajan's digital recording with the Berlin Philharmonic, followed by James Levine with the Chicago Symphony. The Montrealers do produce a beautiful, ambient sound that maybe fits well with the "celestial" quality of the music; but to me, Karajan still grasps the totality of the work better than anybody else, imo. His rendition of Mars still has an intensity and propulsive power that no one else has matched. And for sublime string playing, nobody but nobody rivals the Berliners in Venus. Levine and the Chicago Symphony are impressive in their own right. I'll always love Dutoit and Montreal for their Bartok, Ravel and Berlioz...time will tell if I'll love their Holst as well.

My older sister was a huge Dylan fan and when she played this when I was 12 I thought it was bunch of skritches on the turntable. Man, this song grows on you, after 8 years of Bush it grows even more...