h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The links have gone haywire...my head's spinning...that's why I find it relaxing...I don't know why that's happening

I didn't add it to my music on that very un-user friendly site

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Tabla+Solo+In+Jhaptal/3zbXbW?src=5

I have to have this on this thread. Done.

BTW psychocandy I looked at your links and ...even if I don't comment. YouTube is great.

Variety is the spice of life...especially on a music thread.

Did you like The Jam? They were my favourite British punk band....especially 'Down in the tube station at midnight' and 'That's entertainment'.

I do like the Jam very much. They're one of my (many) favorites. I have too many favorites... we're looking for a larger place because we've run out of shelves for all the records and books.

Now I have a Jam song in my head : "This is the Modern World".

What I love about Jam songs are that there is all that tenderness beneath the aggro and hate...

In *Down on the Tube Station at Midnight*, 'I'm on the way home to my wife'...when he gets beaten up. And the song is about 'to take them home to the ones they love and who love them forever'

Punk at its best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf4EFDGP4yg

If I could take one punk song to a desert island that would be it...

Lilac Wine - Nina Simone

It just came in my head this morning...I don't know why...it was always a favourite song but I hadn't thought about it in years.

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Lilac+Wine/1xyERt?src=5

Damn brilliant.

This was in my head this morning:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/the_13th_floor_elevators

And now this:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Gatecrasher/9pmuv?src=5

(I switched to using Grooveshark, since you've been, instead of just automatically looking on Youtube)

It's Friday I'm in Love - The Cure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa2nLEhUcZ0

(Great video with the music which is excellent quality on this version).

I saw this link on NPR and it made me think of you.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/02/10/146687324/who-says-classical-music-cant-be-sexy?sc=fb&cc=fp

My last 3 long term lovers were huge classical music fans and introduced me to a lot and I them.

My last partner played the violin to an incredible standard. She played all sorts though and had in fact been the fiddle player in a rock band for a number of years in her early youth.

But my god when she played classical stuff it was all too much. She practiced everyday, but it took a couple of months before she could play in my pressence it was so affecting...

I didn't actually realise that some people thought classical music might not be able to be sexy.

She had a wonderful old video recording of her playing as a child in an orchestra in Lincoln cathedral as part of the BBC programme Songs of Praise, (it goes to a differet town each week). She was pretty good even then.

But really her parents should have paid for proper tuition, they could have afforded it...but she ended up eventually going to the same Art school as me, where I met her.

She now teaches it to children using the Suzuki method...including her daughter.

Oh that is a rather scrumptious list he has beneath the blog text.

Thanks.

I took piano and violin lessons as a child, but around junior high school, my mother lost interest in paying for lessons so I never got very skilled or advanced.

I don't listen to a lot of classical music, but my dad always did, both really strong and assertive pieces as well as baroque stuff, so I appreciate it even if I don't often find myself listening.

But I always thought a lot of it was quite sexy. Having seen Salome, I have no doubt that risque music is not a recent phenomenon.

Yes, it was actually the list that brought you to mind.

Whitney Houston RIP

Man that woman could sing about emotion. That intensity isn't easy to live with. But she gave a heck of a lot of it to give pleasure to others...but it's over now.

I feel quite affected.

I feel like that sometimes when musicians die. I was quite devastated at the deaths of Syd Barrett and Lux Interior.

It's even more poignant when the person was so young.

Thanks. Even up the fishmongers earlier when I went to buy some fish one of her songs was on the radio...they have it on, on sundays for some reason..and he told me his wife was very upset.

Talking of strong emotion in music I'm a big opera fan..the Italian ones always are full of life and passionate love and of course end tragically. Mozart's tend to be more full of humour and fun...The Magic flute is magic...though Christ his own life was one big Italian opera...and Wagner is a different kettle of fish. I like the full range though.

I've been to the Royal Opera House in London twice and on both ocassions the *whole* experience was worth a weeks holiday for other people. We have a smaller place I've also been to. I also went to Bolshoi in Moscow at the end of the Soviet era...that was amazing. The huge red curtains were decorated with vast numbers of small hammers and sickles...and it was cheap as chips for us western visitors to buy tickets. It was a ballet...I forget which...I'm not a ballet fan apart from Swan Lake.

But yeah The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London is like the most gigantic cathedral you've ever seen. Not high but stretches back lengthways...seemingly forever. They refurbished it for, no-one will admit how much, a few years ago...and now inside it is like a small city with numerous bars and restaurants and very stylishly done with escalators...and then as you approach the holy of holies and go back in time the architecture merges. And then there is a whole city of practice areas, props, scenery workshops behind the scenes.

It is an experience like no other.

Here are a few images of it. It's impossible to photograph the actual auditorium area properly because its so enormous. It is simply incredible. Photography just can cope with all that space.


http://intermezzo.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/06/02/theatre11.jpg

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/tm/2008/05/OperahouseF150508_428x269_to_468x312.jpg


(1. is looking from the stage to the back of the auditorium...and 2. the other way obviously.)


1. http://www.london-attractions.info/images/attractions/royal-opera-house.jpg

2. http://simmons-estates.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/The-Royal-Opera-House.jpg


End with a song.

Overture to Bizet's Carmen...Totally life affirmative and wonderful....ends tragically of course though...

http://grooveshark.com/#!/barnswell66/music

Sorry I completely messed that up. I hate the design of that site..and, oh never mind...my excuses..

http://grooveshark.com/s/Overture/3dE2nt?src=5

What a beautiful opera house! Thanks for sharing the photos, as I'd likely never have seen it otherwise. I love the internet for that.

>. I also went to Bolshoi in Moscow at the end of the Soviet era...that was amazing



My dad went in the early 90s. He spent almost a month in Russia then.