Ordinary Day

As I have previously squeed about, O Internets, I just had a delightful time scampering up to BC again to see De Temps Antan! This time though there were specific opportunities to make musical noises myself in a house that happened to contain three of my favorite musicians–even aside from André’s workshop, there was also the after-concert session, and I did in fact wind up making noises on both my flutes and my guitar.

Trust me when I tell you that the prospect of making musical noises of my own in any room that contains these boys is simultaneously deeply exciting and nerve-wracking! I’m comfier on my flutes since those are my native instrument–so that did help. And so did the knowledge that I had the General with me. Because you better believe that if I was going to show up in Éric Beaudry’s proximity with a guitar, I was going to bring the good guitar.

Not that I actually played in the same room as Éric, and I don’t really have enough play-by-ear fu yet to be the backup guitar for a full roaring session. But I did wind up hanging out in one of the other rooms while I was chatting with Aussie Ian, and noodled around a lot on various songs I know. Because as will surprise none of you, I get the General in my hands, I start playing Great Big Sea.

And if you want to have an idea of what else I’m likely to do with a guitar in my hands, here now though is a roundup of Stuff I Can Do With the Guitar.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Et maintenant, une p’tite histoire, pour pratiquer mon français. Plusieurs de mes amis peuvent reconnaître cette histoire, parce que j’ai raconté cette histoire avant en anglais. Comme toujours, je vous invite tous à me dire où je fais des erreurs dans ma grammaire!

Mon père a dit toujours à moi que pendant mon enfance, parmi mes premières mots ont été, “Jouez plus d’Elvis, Papa!” C’est plausible, ça. J’ai beaucoup de mémoires d’écoutant des disques de Elvis Presley avec lui, et j’ai vraiment adoré.

D’autre part, ceci était le même père que dit à moi que je fis des sons comme un canard devant j’ai appris à parler.

Il a dit qu’il et ses frères ont aimé dire à moi, “Les chasseurs de canards viennent!” Ils faisaient semblant de viser fusils sur moi et faire des bruits BANG. Et moi, j’ai ri beaucoup et s’enfuis à travers la chambre.

Entre-temp, ma mère a été là, et elle insistait très fortement, “MA FILLE NE FAIT DES BRUITS DE CANARD.”

Et moi, j’ai dit, “Coin-coin!”

En 2001 mon père a décedé, et j’ai pris l’avion au Kentucky pour les funérailles. Ma famille s’est réunie à la maison de mon frère. J’étais là dans la cuisine de mon frère, et mon oncle Larry, je n’avais pas vu depuis quinze ans, entra.

Le premiere chose qu’il a me dit a été, “Sais-tu que tu ressembles exactement ta mère?”

Et le deuxiemes chose qu’il a me dit? “Sais-tu que tu as fait des bruits de canard quand tu as été un enfant?”

Aux funérailles, mon autre oncle Marion est venu sur moi. Il a dit aussi à moi, “Sais-tu que tu as fait des bruits de canard quand tu as été un enfant?” Et chaque fois que j’ai pleuré durant les funérailles, il se pencha vers moi et a dit, “Coin-coin!”

Ceci, mes amis d’Internet, est ma histoire de canards!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

A couple of people have asked me already if I’ve seen this video of 16-year-old David Thibault in Quebec, covering Elvis’ “Blue Christmas”. So before anybody else does, yep, seen it!

To my ear, the kid sounds like he’s trying just a little too hard to mimic Elvis’ accent and vocal mannerisms, which isn’t exactly his fault–I make that objection about most Elvis impersonators I hear. In his particular case, he’s crossing a language barrier here too. So I cut a lot of slack for that.

And he does have great resonance to his voice, and the overall quality of it is definitely Elvis-like. I’d love to hear him try something backing off just a tad on the accent, then he’d be spot on. Alternately, I’d love to hear him sing something in his natural accent, just to spook me right out and make me wonder when the hell Elvis got resurrected in Quebec.

And if he REALLY wants to combine more of my musical interests, he should play the bouzouki!

+10 as well for the reaction of the lady at the mike. I’m pretty sure I actually understood her crying “t’es incroyable!”–i.e., “you’re incredible”. \0/

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, and as many of y’all will know, Elvis was my very first musical fandom, the very first musician I ever adored. So naturally, I took it upon myself to post amusing Elvis-related things to the Intarwebz (such as a callback to last year when Alan Doyle sang “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and killed me DED FROM SWOON).

Then a Facebook friend (hi Venus!) sent me this! And this is the most OMG ADORABLE thing I have seen this entire week: a baby girl singing along with Elvis on “American Trilogy”. In no small part because it totally reminded me of how my dad used to swear up and down that among the first words I ever uttered were “Play more Elvis, Daddy!”

I’m not sure what slays me more, how she keeps going Daddy Daddy Daddy HI DADDY, how she then realizes there’s music happening and swaps back and forth, how she starts coming in on “look away”, the bit where she headbangs, or how she’s either conducting the orchestra or maybe playing imaginary timpani in the bridge leading up to the final chorus. <3

If this kid starts asking for Great Big Sea and Le Vent du Nord next, I’m going to have to have a word with Dara about my clones escaping into the wild too early.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

My alarm clock has a long and glorious history of jolting me out of dreams before they get to the really good part. This morning, it interrupted my subconscious just as it was trying to, of all things, act out an Elvis movie!

Now as you know, Bob Internets, I have seen many an Elvis movie in my time. I know how these plots work. And this one was set up perfectly: it had poor-and-broody-and-honest Elvis competing with slightly-skeevy-rich-boy, played in this particular movie by Brendan Fraser, competing for my affections. When the alarm clock went off I distinctly remember that Rich Boy had just given me a Kindle Fire and was trying to get me to agree to watch a bunch of anime with him. I was in the middle of protesting that not only did I have two ereaders already, but he’d also set up the Kindle with my actual Amazon account. Which I had not given him access to. (C.f. the ‘skeevy’ part of the character archetype here!)

I also remember a scene just before that bit, where I was out on a dock with Elvis’ character, and we were having the obligatory initial Bonding With Each Other Over Shared Background scene. I was making rueful commentary about my background with my father. But since this was indeed early in the plot, Elvis’ character got cranky at me, thinking I was making commentary about his father. (Boy howdy, do I know how these plots work. >:D)

I am somewhat disgruntled that we never got to the part where Elvis wins the day (and by day I mean girl, and by girl I mean me) when I get to overhear him belting out a suitably mournful love song. In fact, Elvis didn’t get to sing anything in this dream before I woke up. Which I suppose was my brain trying to follow the Murkworks Law of Elvis Movie Quality, i.e., that the quality of any given Elvis movie is inversely proportional to the number of songs in it (unless that movie is King Creole).

Well played, brain. Next time, though, if you really want to up the ante, make the rival another musician, and make him Quebecois. And have Elvis whip out a bouzouki.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Those Francophone boys I’ve fallen in love with these past many months may have been heavily distracting me, but I’m tellin’ ya, people, when it comes to downright ability to take me right out at the knees, The Doyle Himself is still unparalleled. I still prefer him in the company of Great Big Sea, just because the classic style of GBS music–i.e., the irrepressible, roar-at-the-top-of-your-lungs trad–is more my thing than his solo style.

But that said, Alan Doyle by himself is still pretty damned swoonable, and we did have great fun at the Tractor last night. Dara and I got up by the stage, right in front of Alan’s mike, along with fellow fangirls Jaime and Sara. I’d never been to a show at the Tractor Tavern before, and it was an amazing switch from what I’m used to these days, with Great Big Sea playing the Moore.

Alan’s opening act was this young man named Dustin Bentall, and he was good, but I was more actively impressed by Kendall Carson, the fiddle player who first played with him and then with Alan’s full band. She was GREAT.

Then of course Alan came out and we all went nuts. I’m still getting to know the material on his new album, so except when he jumped over to do a few Great Big Sea songs, I was mostly singing along on what choruses I could pick up. Until he got to the part of the show when he was taking Twitter requests. Of which there were three.

I, being, well, me, asked him for “Trois Navires de Ble” (because yeah, spot the girl in this audience who’s been passionately absorbing French Canadian music the last many months, wut?) or “alternately, anything by Elvis” (because I’ve been dying for years to hear Alan sing something by him). Dara, being Dara, promptly decided to ALSO ask for “anything by Elvis”, and got Jaime and Sara to do so too, just so we could twitterbomb Alan in the hopes of getting him to make a joke about it.

We didn’t expect him to actually take us up on it. He made a wry crack about how “there was some collusion” in the audience, at which point the four of us all shrieked happily.

And then this happened. And I died DED OF SWOON. This is Lynda Elstad’s video of the full song.

And THIS is Dara’s version, which is much grainier and isn’t the full song, but DOES have cuts to me for reaction shots of OMG OMG OMG OMG. Note how I keep biting my hand. This is because I’m trying desperately not to squeal at the top of my lungs, or maybe trying to keep from dropping dead RIGHT THERE ON THE SPOT, because O. M. G., Internets, Alan Doyle sang “Can’t Help Falling in Love” because we asked him to.

Sara and Jaime shoved me right up in front of them–I’d been standing behind them up until this point–and kept holding my arms to make sure I wasn’t about to keel over. They and Dara told me after that my eyes were HUGE.

The rest of the show, it was great and all (and I DID quite like Alan’s cover of Russell Crowe’s song “Testify”, which was rockin’), but none of it topped this: being right in front of Alan’s mike as he crooned an Elvis song. And not just any Elvis song–the seminal, most swoonable, most iconic Elvis song ever. And I sang harmony back at him, because good gods how could I not? And my eyes were full of stars.

ETA: And I had to add in a couple other comments about the show as I remembered them, just because for reasons I can’t get into yet aside from this show, THIS WEEK HAS BEEN AWESOME and my brain is quite scattered!

Awesome thing #1: Alan kept having trouble tuning his mandolin, and made a joke about how ‘I LOVE WATCHING PEOPLE TUNE THEIR INSTRUMENTS!’ Dara yelled back at him, “We tune because we care!” And he heard her and agreed, “We tune because we care!”

Awesome thing #2: Alan also kept making charmingly self-deprecating jokes about how as we were the very first show of the very first tour of the Alan Doyle Band, we got to see all the screwups and “the terror in our eyes”, and how in four or five more shows they’d get everything right, but we were getting all the good stuff. Also he kept repeating how “there’s only one first night!” When he joked about wondering “oh God what have I done?”, a guy in the audience yelled back, “Something awesome!” And Alan was all “I feel the love in the room!”

Awesome thing #3: Being that close to Alan meant I got a good look at the guitar strap he was using, a leather one, with his name embroidered on it in green down near where it connected with the neck of his guitar! And it was pretty cool seeing him play mandolin, even if I lamented the lack of his usual bouzouki.

Awesome thing #4: At the end of the show, Alan looked out at us all and said he saw several familiar faces, all of us who’ve loyally come to Great Big Sea shows. (heart) (heart)

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

I’ve mentioned before that something I ardently respond to in both Quebecois and Newfoundland trad music is how many of the bands and singers I’m following have learned their music from their parents, who learned it from their parents, etc. I.e., they grew up with this music, and it was woven into their lives so deeply that it made them who they are. Their love for it shines through brilliantly in their performances.

Devon Léger quite correctly pointed out to me that Americans are not without such traditions–you just need to know where to look for them. Certainly many American Celtic or folk or country performers are fortunate enough to have that same sort of background, too, and classical performers as well. Those of us in the science fiction folk music community, filk, have some small rumblings of this too. Filk hasn’t really quite been around long enough to have songs handed down from one generation to the next, but I have met people who are doing it, and it’s really cool of them. (I am thinking specifically of you, mdlbear!)

In the bigger picture of American society, though, people getting together and making music just for the joy of making music is not so much of a thing. This is why I’m so very delighted to have discovered both Irish and Quebecois sessions, and it’s why I linger on the edges of filk circles as well; it’s all part of the same idea.

I had a delightful little epiphany last night, too: all that Elvis Presley music my dad played for me on the stereo when I was a kid is absolutely generational handing down of music. And I’ve actually done it too–playing Great Big Sea songs for kathrynt and llachglin‘s kid Lillian!

So the next time you hear me say “Let me sing for you the song of my people”, I’ll be about to belt out “Hound Dog”. Or “Ordinary Day”. Or maybe now also “Dans le ville de Paris”, or “Re: Your Brains”.

Because no matter where you’re from, Quebec or Newfoundland or Kentucky or any filk circle in any science fiction convention in the world, if you love music, and you get up and you share it with those around you, you are my people. And I will sing your songs.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

So according to this article, apparently the Elvis Presley estate has decided it would be a good idea to take a bunch of current country artists, whip out some fancy shiny mixing equipment, and build an album full of these people duetting it up with Elvis. My WTF, let me show you it!

I mean, don't get me wrong--I'm not necessarily opposed to remixing Elvis Presley in general. The remix version of "A Little Less Conversation"? Awesome from the first note to the last. But that's a situation where you started with a halfway decent song and elevated it to greatness.

"Blue Christmas" on the other hand does not, repeat, NOT, repeat, NOT need any alteration. Like unto the original edition of Star Wars, it was RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

Also, the whole idea of just wedging other people into Elvis songs just weirds me out, kind of like taking footage of dead movie stars and using it for commercials. Just... no.

And, before anybody thinks to ask--yes, an evil little corner of my brain has already asked, "But Anna, what if they mixed Great Big Sea vocals into an Elvis song?" Yes, I have already whimpered, weak-kneed, at the mere thought of the blending of that particular set of voices.

But even for that, I must put my foot down. Even if Alan Doyle Himself were to hand me a freshly minted CD of such a recording, on a velvet pillow with a chocolate truffle on top, I would have to refuse.

Just, no.

I would, however, take the truffle.

My very first music boyfriend. My first hardcore media crush. The man whose movies, godawful though many of them were, had me hastening happily home from school to watch afternoon marathons of them. The man whose voice, rolling out of my father's quadrophonic stereo speakers, blew me away even at the tender age of eight.

Dad always used to claim that the first words out of my mouth were "play more Elvis, Daddy!" I can't testify to this one way or another, but some of my best memories of Dad and me were of the two of us with a pair of headphones hooked into a double jack, listening to Elvis belting out "Way Down" or "American Trilogy", and I remember the thrill of hearing "Also Sprach Zarathrustra" and then "See See Rider" rumbling in those headphones--because it meant that the concert was starting. Dad's Elvis concert records were always the best to listen to--even as a kid, I was awed by the sheer volume of massed voices screaming in adulation. Even on that final Elvis in Concert record, when his voice was all but spent, his audience still loved him. I think it was that that first taught me about what kind of power a performer can wield in song. Dad told me, too, of going to see Elvis shows and being hoarse from screaming his own approval for three or four days after.

I remember my mother with tears in her eyes listening to "Suspicious Minds" on the radio, murmuring "Bless his heart".

I remember the huge, huge collection of inserts in the Sunday newspaper in Louisville when Elvis died, though I barely took in the impact of it at the time. And I remember Dad trying to pull an April Fool's stunt on his cousin Danny the year after, sending poor Danny out into a snowstorm on the premise that there was a headline claiming Elvis was still alive. Dirty rotten trick to pull, but it really just went to show how much Danny loved Elvis too.

I remember starting to collect his records myself, and being odd girl out in middle school because of it. Other kids always gave me shit about that--"he's dead," they chided. I didn't have the bravery to shoot back, "So's Beethoven, but people still listen to him anyway!" I thought it, though. And now that I'm grown up, I can say it with perfect equanamity. Because now I understand how all the grownups at the time felt.

When Dad died, I went back and listened to all the things he and I listened to together. I still can't listen to "Don't Cry Daddy" or "Kentucky Rain" without tearing up.

I named my first computer after him. I've played MUSH characters based on Elvis, and I've had other characters that have sung his songs. He's been in the back of my mind--and my hormones--with every singer or actor since then I've admired. I've even found Elvis in my SF--the quite nifty Jack Womack novel Elvissey, as well the anthology The King is Dead, where I read the original "Bubba Hotep" short story. And I snickered quite a bit at the Alternate Presidents anthology that featured "President Presley". ;)

There are Elvis movies that are too awful for even me to watch--but some of 'em, I'll get back out every so often, and they'll always make me smile. (What can I say, I'm a sucker for a gorgeous black-haired, blue-eyed guy serenading a girl till her knees turn to water.) Elvis' moves on stage--even in a movie, but better still in a concert--still kill me. And I'm still listening to and loving his music. Sometimes, I try to even play it on my own guitar.

Tonight I raise a glass to Elvis while I watch Viva Las Vegas on TCM. The King is dead. Long live the King.

Yesterday mamishka came over to hang out, which was very fun! We all went down to the Sunday market in Lake Forest Park, where we got the usual assortment of tasty market goods. Then, since Meems hadn't been through Log Boom Park yet, we walked back to MurkNorth via the Burke-Gilman trail and hung out by the lake for a while. We spotted several big birds, most likely eagles, flying in low over the water--we're pretty sure they were fishing. And we also saw a bunch of ducks, including two baby ducks, and OMG THE CUTENESS. Especially when one of them cheeped I'd never seen a real baby duck before or heard one cheep! And After that we hung out at the Murk and watched the first two episodes of the new season of The Dead Zone, finally. Fifth season gets off to a bit of a shaky start, but it's still pretty watchable. We'll see how it holds up through the forthcoming episodes.

As a result of that little frolic out into the sunshine, though, I am totally sunburned. I was silly enough to go out wearing a tank top and no sunscreen, and so I'm not only sunburned, I've got weird tan lines to show for it. It doesn't hurt--but I do feel it. It helped that solarbird smeared fresh aloe off her plant in our bathroom over my pink bits, though. That was unbelievably refreshing; fresh aloe is indeed incredible stuff. Dara's making me put it on my surgery scar on my throat, too, to see what that does. Dara, Meems, and spazzkat all claimed that it's already doing something, though I haven't really been able to tell yet past wondering if it's starting to change color. And that might just be because of summer sun exposure.

No sign yet of either of the manuscript acknowledgement postcards I included with the partials that went to Bantam; we'll see if either or both of those show up this week. Happily, I have plenty to work on in the meantime to keep me distracted--and although the lion's share of my writing attention still has to go to Queen of Souls, I am totally in the mood for the Shenner book right now thanks to re-reading all of my and Meems' old Paul and Shen logs. The oldest of which, I might add, are nearly ten years old. Yoiks. :)

And I am also totally in an Elvis mood, thanks to those pretty, pretty icons. Damn. I've missed him. That got fed by reading all the times I had Shen do (mutated) versions of Elvis songs in the logs, too! :)

Thursday miles: 4.2
Friday miles: 3.4
Saturday miles: 2.75
Sunday miles: 2.75
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1225.2
Miles out of Rivendell: 767.2
Miles out of Lothlórien: 305.2
Miles to Rauros Falls: 83.8