A couple of catch up items on past blogs.
1. Geraldo Rivera was escorted out of Iraq today. Thank God for small favors.
2. Reporters are now saying that the Iraqi resistance did affect a change in plans. Originally the allied forces were slated to go straight to Baghdad, but since there was such a frequent interruption of supply lines along the way, the coalition forces began to "clean up" certain cities and towns that presented a problem. I'll accept that.
This may sound like I'm hammering on a minor point, but for days and days all we heard was "we are on our time table. There have been no surprises." When the war's on my dime, I don't like the feeling that I'm being lied to.
3. On Talk of the Nation (NPR) yesterday there was a disabled Vietnam Vet who called in near the end of the show who tried to ask two questions. I couldn't figure out what his first question was aiming at, but the second was exactly the same as my point of the other day- why is the content of the reportage we are gertting at home so different from what appears, for example, on the BBC? Of course, the host of TOTN redirected the question thus, "Do you mean like on Iraqi television?" Of course that wasn't what the vet meant, but that unexpected (and hostile) response got the poor vet so thrown off and confused that he ended up babbling his way out to the end of the show - he too was "just trying to find the words." Neither of his questions were answered.
I can't stand that jerk who hosts TOTN. Where did NPR find that guy anyway?
To only slightly happier things, I am this evening engaged in a project that kind of dropped into my lap. A friend of a friend of my wife's learned I knew how to burn CDs from LPs and dropped off a record for me to transfer. She only wanted one song done, but didn't give me a clear idea of which one it was. So I am burning the song I "think" it was and then the whole album for her. The record arrived without a cover, is badly warped, and has seen some hard use. I've had it now about five months, and word has gravitated through the grapevine of my wife's female friends that I am one ungracious bastard for holding onto this lady's record for so long. So tonight I am doing the deed.
Words cannot express how bad this album is. It's a country LP with a return address of Taylor, Michigan. "Kenny Miller and the Country Lads Live at the All Around" (All Around JLB 90777). It is obviously a vanity pressing from about 1980 of a band playing two sets of banal and faceless country music in a bar. There are no seperations between tracks, and the recording to start with was pretty bad - may have been from cassette. How do I get stuck with projects like these?
But I am good sound archivist, and I'm making a copy of the record exactly as it is (though physically cleaned up) and putting what I think is the key track up front and the whole work behind. I am making a copy of for my friend Tex, as this is so obscure that he might find value in it where I cannot. Hopefully he won't lose all respect for me when I try to pass it off onto him, although this is so mediocre I wouldn't be surprised if he just handed it right back to me. There is a putrid cover of Elvis' "Don't Cry Daddy" that seems to linger on just forever.
Today I did listen to some good music, namely piano sonatas of Kabalevsky and Stravinsky played by the great German pianist Werner Haas (1931-1977). You will be forgiven of having never heard of Haas, who played only in Europe and recorded for the domestic branch of Philips. The disc I was listening to, "Homage to Wener Haas", is an incredibly generous program (6 discs!) put together for the Historical series run by MDG, one of my favorite classical labels. These tapes are not drawn from his Philips recordings, but from the archives of German Radio. Sound quality, therefore, is variable but generally good, although it is not as clearly etched as I would have liked for the Kabalevsky. I wanted to use it on my radio show, and still will, but the Stravinsky sonata that follows it shows how weak the Kabalevsky recording really is. But the Stravinsky is a little too thorny, at least Haas' recording of it is (Charles Rosen recorded a mono version of this work back in the 1950s that's more delicate and to my taste.)
Nontheless you really ought to hear the touch that this guy has - it's indescribable. There is no sense whatsoever of technique; all of his playing goes towards an interpretation of the music which is carefully planned, clear, and emotionally satisfying. He was the greatest friend a composer of piano music would want to have, as everything he states makes the written score sing. His life ended, not thorugh some self-depricating habit, dark secret, or illness, but simply because he couldn't get his car out of the way of a trucker who was tired and made a wrong turn.
I have no idea how much this set costs, and I didn't have to pay for mine. But if you run into the anonymous looking, el cheapo 2-for-1 Debussy Piano Music Vol. 1 package on Philips Duo, that's all Werner Haas, and well worth owning even if you have plenty of Debussy already.
Uncle Dave Lewis