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Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation, here is something you probably haven’t heard for a while: John Mills- Cockell on Arp and Moog synthesizers and keyboards, Doug Pringle on saxophone, bongos, guiro, and bells, and Alan Wells on congas and percussion, as Syrinx performing Tillicum (1971, 1:57) from their Long Lost Relatives album (a copy of the vinyl of which we have here in the studios), and which you will no doubt now recall was the theme song for the CTV network’s Here Come the Seventies show, which ran from 1970 through 1973.
Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.
In honour of Rosh Hashanah for our Jewish friends, check out this stirring Shofar call:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=686SoqV70y0
Not meaning to get all technical, but while a lot of people had used synthesisers, Syrinx were said to be the first to use a synth as an essential part of the band, with a bandmember dedicated to playing it. Indeed the Doors used a Moog, but it was one that was in the studio. They never toured with one or performed live with it. Syrinx did. Indeed I recall seeing them perform on the CBC (the only television we had in those days). God knows if that footage still exists – although, if anyone can track down, I bet the ever-amazing Vito could. In any event, they must have been serious contenders for the first synth band.
John Mills-Cockell did quite a lot of soundtrack work after Syrinx. A friend of mine was very fond of his music for the TV series that Malcolm Muggeridge did for the CBC, “A Third Testament”. Good show, good music.
Airplane nuts might like to see my overflight report.
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/2009/09/overflight-report.html
Westland Lysander just flew over my house. I have pictures!
Jay Leno’s “Acorn – Helps You Get Away With Stuff” video:
http://www.breitbart.tv/thank-you-acorn-leno-plays-commercial-featuring-prostitutes-gratitude/
Alberta workers flee angry Maritimers
A number of tradespeople from the Alberta-based contractor Integral Energy Service Ltd. were flown to Saint John 10 days ago after being hired by the engineering firm SNC-Lavalin to help complete the Canaport Liquefied Natural Gas plant, belonging to Irving Oil.
Andrew Dawson, the Atlantic Canada rep for the Canadian Office of the Building and Construction Trades Department said the protests are a cry for help.
“We have an abundance of local workers; our government spends millions of dollars training people to be tradesmen,” said Dawson, adding he thinks the out-of-province workers were brought in to keep budget costs down.
FROM>
http://www.calgarysun.com:80/news/alberta/2009/09/18/10971616-sun.html
Yeah, sure, they flew these people, all the way from Alberta and put them up in a hotel, people who were experienced experts in installing this technology, just to keep budget costs down.
It sorta looks to me like New Brunswick Union workers expect to soak “Big Oil” above the costs incurred from transporting and housing experienced Alberta techies.
If I was an Alberta worker from SNC-Lavalin, I’d sue the Canadian Office of the Building and Construction Trades Department for violating my Charter Right to job portability.
There are two significant errors in DP’s 12:35 post supra. Firstly, synthesizers never went away, given that every electronic keyboard made is essentially a synthesizer. And secondly, while there are no doubt plenty of pop bands substituting science for talent, it is also the case that synthesizers are widely used in all sorts of modern music, just with more subtlety than at first (as would be expected with the early experimentation with any new instrument). Even then though, there were plenty of subtle experiments in the early days too, such as Charles Wuorinen’s Time’s Encomium, which was the theme song for Marc Vasey’s Postmodern Music show at 16:00 on Saturday afternoons on CKUA radio, after Holger Petersen’s two-hour Natch’l Blues show, in 1969. It’s not available on-line, but I’ve got the vinyl here, so I’ll try to record it on-line when I get a chance.
David Shraub: Moron
He praises a bunch of far-left zealots, describes Mark Steyn & Jonah Goldberg as morons, and then says that he’s a middle of the road pundit, not particularly aligned to either party.
Oh, and he’s a University of Chicago law student. Their standards must be dreadfully low.
The gold standard of synth music was and is Walter/Wendy Carlos:”Switched on Bach” …”The Well Tempered Synthesizer”, Soundtrack to “A Clockwork Orange”and more. Not just synth sound effects, but MUSIC, you could easily dance or fall asleep to it.
Another notable that I recall, Keith Emmersons outro on Lucky Man: whoobs wheeseeez and burps like nobodys buisness.Weird and outther sounds, BUT…they work! And in art, that is the entire point of it all…
Want something softer and airier?: Tomita’s Pictures at An Exhibition (Debusy).
The analogue synth. On a good stereo…Gorgeous fat gobs of velvet sound. Nothing else has come close.