A two-parter on the notion of ‘criticism’. More on the Onward cover. Nobody cares about Hillary’s damned pneumonia. Prince. Blue Angels. George Van Eps. Old school gymnastics and the Olympics. Simplicity. Easy vs. hard. Simple vs. complex. Loops vs. clicks.

Roger CortonNo new Snippet this week? I thought you were going to throw up at least one new something every week.

JCHLook, don’t hassle me, man. It’s been a crappy week. Everywhere I go I just run into too much recession, man.

RCNo man, you mean he ran into too much repression (laughs). I haven’t heard that in a long time. So what’s going on?

JCHTo paraphrase Bernie Sanders, nobody cares about my damned whatever. The point is, I couldn’t get it done. Come to think about it, that’s what Hillary should tell people when she got sick last week. “Nobody cares about my damned whatever. Now fuck off!” It just amazes me that she can’t take a day off to be […]

Live snippet. Cover of Yes/Chris Squire’s ‘Onward’ from Tormato. Why we hate looping. Alfalfa and learning to croon. Simple things that are hard to do. Dick Van Dyke’s Recurring Nightmare. Tempo maps. Why do classical conductors make the big, big money? Astoria, OR is great in the autumn.

Roger CortonWe have that rarest sighting in the wild. You doing a cover song.

Onward (Cover) (Snippet)

JCHWell actually one verse, but yeah. As background, I finally got round to listening to that boxed set of Yes re-masters.

RCWhich came out, what, three or four years ago now?

JCHDo you actually listen to those door stops? I get these ‘gift boxes’ for Christmas pressies and…

RCI confess. I’ve gotten a few of those. Never listened to most of them.

JCHIndeed. Who has the time or patience to listen to the fifth outtake of whatever? Anyhoo, I listened to ‘Tormato’ again and… by the way, did you know, […]

Another snippet from the new opera, The Boats (Beautiful Boy). Two churches. Two organs. Your organ says a lot about you, heh heh. Deliverance. Guy Deutscher. Language and Culture. Philip Glass as career path? Walter White and the big, big money. The Who. Tommy. The best rhythm guitar ever?

Roger CortonOne last thing about the whole opera thing. We never got round to talking about the organs last week.

Beautiful Boy (Snippet)

RCI can’t decide if it’s really sincere or just really cheesy.

JCHWell don’t sugar coat it. Cheesy you say?

RCThe organ vibrato. Some of the lyrics sound so gushy. ‘Beautiful Boy’. People don’t really talk like that.

JCHOh yes they do. I know what you mean, though. OK, so there were two big churches when I was a kid. The C of I Church of Ireland–Protestant and the RC Roman Catholic. They were both almost across the street from […]