Uncle Mike and Auntie Shawna love you so very much!
Christmas is such an exciting and special time of year isn't it?
It really brings a smile to my face to think of all the fun that you guys must be having along with your mom and your dad.
And from the huge smiles on your faces I can tell that you will always be there for each other (if you really want to be cool you can say "I have your back" to each other).
And I also have a feeling that you will be carrying those smiles the whole year round as you live each day to the fullest with your many adventures, like this one on the Santa Train:
We love you Penelope and Mikaela! Merry Christmas!
With perhaps an eye to making a mark on cinema history and pop culture similar to Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard has released Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years. While there are already a ton of documentaries on the Fab Four, most of them either focus on the period after John, Paul, George and Ringo decided to retire from touring or choose to focus on individual
members. Never have the touring years been covered so extensively, as the trailer shows. Throw in new recollections from Paul and Ringo and completely remastered concert footage, with crowd screaming reduced so the music can actually be heard, and Eight Days A Week is likely how The Beatles will be heard and seen for generations to come. Were you laughing when the Nobel committee judged Bob Dylan's lyrics literature? Not me, because if all of his lyrics were collected, they would probably fill anywhere from 500 to 1000 books. And make no mistake, we are entering a time, maybe 50 or 100 years from now, when the music, lyrics and history of The Beatles will be studied as literature and art, just as Mozart and Shakespeare have been for centuries. And having Ron Howard's fresh historical document will make it much easier!
And for those wanting a bit of an insight into John Lennon, here is the trailer for a wonderful 1988 documentary, Imagine: John Lennon, edited together from 240 hours of personal audio, film, and video:
And for a great example of guys carrying on the Beatle tradition, check out Vancouver's The Fab Fourever, seen here performing at Beatle Week 2015. With Kevin as John, Jody as Paul, Charles as George and Paul as Ringo (trippy, man), you will see lifelike visual and sonic recreations of all the Beatle eras when they come to your area!
30 years ago today, I began my first day of Grade 8.
But more importantly, 30 years ago tonight I saw Huey Lewis and the News at the then Northlands Coliseum.
In the mid-80s they were huge, basically a horn-based blues band with tight drums and keyboards, which at the time was the golden ticket to maximum radio airplay.
And I have to laugh at that drum machine that shows up for the third song. Because while I fully remember and appreciate Huey's assertion that 80 percent of that era's music was produced by some form of drum machine, it is a wheezing oldster compared to the app or algorithm that produces the autotune that infects 105 percent of today's musical output.
But Huey and the boys used their highly trained musicianship to put on a very memorable show almost identical to the one pictured above, right down to the Tower of Power. A fun night out with my uncle Remi and aunt Wendy to be sure! (As fun as a school night can be, in any case).
39 years ago today, Elvis Presley left the first big hole in pop culture with his passing. Here he is near the height of his powers at New York's Madison Square Garden. The 16mm film editing is a little choppy, but it is still a testament to the power and energy of an icon.
Beloved and iconic character actor Kenny Baker, forever known as the man inside R2D2 in the Star Wars universe, died Saturday after years of poor health. The above interview, presumably for Swedish television, features Baker's fond recollections of Jeremy Brett, who played Boba Fett, and of David Prowse, the former bodybuilder who portrayed the physical presence of Darth Vader. Asked about his main costar Anthony Daniels, who portrays C3-P0, Baker responds simply, "I haven't seen Anthony", and the interviewer wisely doesn't push the issue. I can say that in 1999 I was at an Edmonton convention during which Daniels shot down a hapless child's question about whether R2D2 and C3P0 get along in real life by turning to him and imploring, "Do you get along with all YOUR friends all the time?" So no love lost there.
But really no matter. Such was the contribution of the 3"8' Baker (with Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt on "vocals") to the Star Wars fandom and legacy that in 2001 Lucasfilm produced a 3-part faux documentary on Artoo called Beneath The Dome which gives him a sister, brother, and (naturally) disapproving father. Throw in his days as a counterculture rebel, babe magnet, and tempermental movie star, and there is no way any of that should be any more than firmly tongue-in-cheek. Yet thanks to Kenny Baker's fine work over almost four decades, it is almost believable.
And the hole in pop culture's fabric continues to widen with the passing of Sir George Martin, a true genius who was known for producing everything from albums of classical music to comedy albums with Peter Sellers in the 40s and 50s. But he is perhaps best known for his groundbreaking work with The Beatles, most notably on their 1967 opus Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Martin pioneered the use of physical tape loops for effects in an era before sampling was done on computers with the click of a mouse.
And on one memorable occasion during the recording of Strawberry Fields Forever, physically cutting up tape, throwing it up in the air, and splicing it back together where it landed to produce the randomly jumbled orchestral piece which appeared at the end of the song. Ever repaired an 8-track cartridge? Times that about 1000 is what George Martin did.
Rest in peace, Sir George. You were a true pioneer and genius who will be missed, but your work will live on forever.
And now in closing, Ringo and George Martin discussing the recording of With a Little Help From My Friends, as well as George Harrison's use of the sitar:
George Martin's can-do spirit was certainly on display in 1978 when he produced the soundtrack for a movie that was essentially the answer to a drunken party question: "Hey man, d'you ever wonder what would happen if the Bee Gees ever recorded the Beatles music? Like maybe Sgt Pepper man? And somebody brought like a movie camera and Peter Frampton and Aerosmith and like the old guy from Oh God? And the old guy actually like SANG man?"
Really not as bad as all that if you just say what the hell and go with it. Under Martin's guidance the music is well produced, and nothing in this movie is as goofy or scattershot as the opening for the 1990 Oscars, which Allan Carr, the producer of the Sgt. Pepper's movie, also produced. Right?
