The G Train

G Train Playlist 11.9.2010

2010-11-11T03:52:00.000-08:00

Playlist 11.2.2010

2010-11-05T03:38:00.000-07:00

Rebloggized

2010-10-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

Some of my recent posts haven't made over to here, but I think I have repaired the problem. Happy Hallowe'en to all!

Playlist 10.26.10

2010-10-27T04:13:00.001-07:00

The G Train Playlist 04.20.2010

2010-04-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

Blues for Samuel Beckett

2010-04-20T07:03:00.000-07:00

Here are the notes for a track I played last week from a compilation entitled "Memories of Sam" loaned to me by Ruth Waldhauer. They are in Leroy "Sam" Parkins' words:

Blues for Samuel Beckett (Track 3)

What it says on the tape box is, "Music performed and organized by Leroy Parkins. Electronic sounds designed and built by Fred Waldhauer. Now Fred needs a trip all his own. World class engineer/inventor at the Bell labs, his name is on the patent for the transistor (at RCA-his first gig out of Cornell). It was to his room at Cornell at the fraternity TKE I repaired after every Saturday gig no matter how stoned or how late-to listen to endless Bird records while he downed Ballentine's Ale-those green bottles-by the quart. Big green bottles.

But later. In those first years in New York I was a frequent to his pad in suburban New Jersey, where his excellent wife, Ruth, fed me, and we evolved electronic music, starting in maybe 1959. We were inventing the synthesizer but didn't know it. I lost Fred to Rauschenberg and David Tudor in about '62 and we never finished it. Thomas (sic) Moog did.

"Blues for Samuel Beckett" uses a page from Beckett's novel (if you can call it that), "Watt", where he notates what hearing three frogs at once sounds like:

oog.........oog.........oog.........oog.........oog.........oog........oog

..urk............urk............urk............urk............urk

....ooom................ooom...................ooom..............ooom

This kind of "phasing" is stuff of minimalism-which of course didn't exist by that name. I had started using it as a compositional tool in the late 50s, so reading "Watt" gave me a flash of recognition-oh-someone else thought of that...Scored for: top frog flute and flute parts (head joint with finger stuck in it); middle frog-clarinet and pieces of clarinet incl. top two pieces with finger therein. Bottom frog-bass oscillator. Plus other related noises. It's Halloween music. Some night....sit down with the kids, turn the lights out, turn it up a bit too loud and see if it scares everybody. Fred and I scared ourselves pretty good when we first played it back. Primitive. Tape delay is all we had. Several tape-to-tape over dubs. Mono of course. But the first industrial strength semi-pro tape recorder. Pre-Studer/Revox or Teac.

Blogger's Note: I had to insert periods between the frog sounds to accurately indicate spacing.

Hitchhiking Insects

2008-08-06T07:57:00.000-07:00

The day before yesterday on my way to work I spotted out of the right corner of my right eye a katydid attached to the right-rear window of my car. Those things can really hang on because this one was there for the whole 38 mile trip. At the end of the ride I managed to get it aboard a stick and then to some bushes, but it was really hanging on to the glass. Then yesterday a spider was meticulously securing an egg-case to the door of my car when I left. I couldn't be bothered moving it so I just drove away. The spider was a sad remnant of a spider when I got to work, but the egg case was still attached. I wiped it away. Normally I don't kill spiders, but that was a really dumb place to lay eggs.

Man Who Faked Suicide Was Wearing Wrong Hat

2008-07-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - After 23 days on the run, convicted hedge fund swindler Samuel Israel III said he turned himself in because federal authorities had charged his girlfriend with helping him flee.

"Yes, they arrested my girlfriend, and I turned myself in," Israel said yesterday as he was led from federal court in Springfield, Mass., by deputy U.S. marshals to a waiting sport utility vehicle.

Israel walked into a police station in Southwick, Mass., yesterday and surrendered to authorities, more than three weeks after his sport utility vehicle was found abandoned on the Bear Mountain Bridge. The key was still in the ignition and the the words "suicide is painless" were scrawled in the dust on the hood. That was just two hours before he was due to report to a federal prison in Ayer, Mass., to begin serving a 20-year sentence for a $450 million fraud against investors in his Bayou Group hedge funds.

But authorities never bought the suicide scenario and asked a federal judge for an arrest warrant just a few hours later.

Two weeks ago, deputy U.S. marshals charged Israel's girlfriend, Debra Ryan, with helping him in his plans. Charges against her are pending in U.S. District Court in White Plains. She faces a 10-year prison term if convicted. Deputy marshals said she admitted that she helped pack Israel's belongings into a recreational vehicle, helped load a blue motor scooter onto the back of the RV, and drove Israel back to their Armonk home after he stashed the RV at a rest area off of Interstate 684 on the morning he was to report to prison.

Israel drove that motor scooter to the Southwick police station after attempting to surrender at a closed part-time police station in nearby Granville, Mass., officials said. He was talking to his mother on a cell phone when he surrendered, said Frank Dawson, the public information officer for the U.S. Marshals Service in Boston. He said the Marshals Service had been in contact with Israel's mother, Ann, in Illinois for the past several days.

I take umbrage with the fact that this guy had the nerve, upon his arraignment, to be wearing a cap emblazoned with the Avedis Zildjian logo. Who the hell does he think he is?

6.25.08

2008-06-27T05:53:00.000-07:00

This was my second live show, the first being during the RandoRadio Launch Party during the not-to-be-missed GAGA Arts Festival. Actually they've all been "live" in the sense that the cds and records are being selected and played on the spot in the studio, but now the actual webcast is live, and it's exciting to know people are listening in real time.
I hope to share with listeners music that covers as much ground as possible, as I don't believe in genres so much as stuff that's good. I'd also really like to know what you're listening to, 'cause this whole thing is a learning experience. Speaking of stuff that's good, you can expect to hear more from Green Gartside (Scritti Politti) White Bread Black Beer. This record isn't exactly brand new, but I can't stop playing it.

I want to thank everybody at RandoRadio, especially Lou Cannizzaro, for giving me the opportunity to do this.