Revolutionaries on the Move

http://www.pink-floyd.org/artint/revonthemove.htm
Revolutionaries on the Move, by Jean Noël Coghe (in Rock & Folk, issue of May 1968)

If you want to know what anticommercial is, you have to listen to Pink Floyd's music and, or, read the article called Revolutionaries on the Move by Jean Noel Coghe, which was published in May 1968 for the first time; and translated by Jean Gregoire Royer for the Laughing Madcaps, January 2001. In this article the author wants to make emphasis to the great music of Pink Floyd. That's why she calls the band "revolutionaries on the move." The entire article is about how Pink Floyd has become the best, not only for the author, but to many people from different parts of the world.

The Pink Floyd is a five-men band, all of them come from London. Syd Barret (solo guitar and lead vocals), Roger Wright (organ), Nick Mason (drums), Roger Waters and David Gilmour (gitars and vocals) and they would also be the ones writing the songs, same as Syd Barret. The themes Pink Floyd has been playing are mainly from Syd, and some others from Waters, but the author says that of Syd's style is definately unique. Syd uses all kinds of objects to get a different and good effect to their songs; which have made their music a perfect one.

Pink Floyd was born in 1963, but they were known until 1966. This group met at the London's Polytechnic School of Architecture. Syd Barret was the only one attending to the London's Art School. They were all about 22 years old. After they studied architecture for four years, except for Syd, who studied art; they all decided to devote their lives to music, and they really made it.

As the author says, Pink Floyd's music is solid stuff. They would never do things such as easy gimmicks, cheap gap filling or ill-devised experiments. They made good experiments with their songs, and they even improvised sometimes, but all would sound gorgeous. There is a recommended album of Pink Floyd, this is called "Piper at the Gates of Dawn." This album offers a wonderfully orchestrated series of sounds, voices, and whispers. It is considered a real musical fresco.

But Pink Floyd is not any band, even though their music is a real pleasure to listen to, they wanted to do something different. They were the first group who would take advantage of the addition of light to sound. By adapting all kinds of different colors to their "weird" and "unique" music. They also used pre-recorded loops and many more sound effects to help them make their shows as perfect as their recordings.

In 1966, the Pink Floyd gave a lot of concerts, these concerts allowed them to be known all around England and some other countries. They were also chosen as the best representatives of the UFO club. There is a paragraph in this article which grabbed my attention, and is something like this: "Of couse it takes some perseverance to listen through the 10-minute-long Interstellar Overdrive, the number which depicts the journey of a space vehicle from the traffic jams of earth's suburbs to the infinite and unspeakable fullness of emptiness." I guess the author really got into Pink Floyd's music.

I guess the author wrote about this article about Pink Floyd because she wanted to recognize how good their work is, and show people how would they enjoy their music and get into their music once they listen to it. She says that Pink's music is a trend and dangerous for pop music, and I agree with her. I also think that Pink Floyd is the best of the best, in all kinds of ways. There is not a single song from Pink Floyd that would get me bored or tired of listening to, I really love that band; and you too should take the time to listen to them and judge their music for yourself. You have to know what I'm talking about when I say they're "the best." And if you still don't like them, you must learn a little bit more about what's real music.

Aerosmith

http://classicrock.about.com/cs/aerosmith/p/aeroprofile.htm

Does Aerosmith sounds familiar to you? Well I don't think that you know them, but maybe you've heard a song by them, without really knowing who they are. Probably the movie "Armageddon" and its soundtrack song called 'I Dont't Want To Miss A Thing' would be known by you, and if this song and this movie are some things that you can hardly recognize, I really recommend you to watch the movie, and to listen to that song. They're real good.

In the article called Aerosmith, "A look at the boys from Boston," by Patty Williams; or maybe it would be better to say that is the biography of Aerosmith, and it tells the history of this classic rock band.
The band was formed in 1970 in Boston, MA. Its members are Steven Tyler in the vocals, Joe Perry and Brad Whitford in the guitars, Tom Hamilton in the bass guitar and keyboard, and Joey Kramer in the drums and percussion. These makes five members of the band.

In 1972 the band signed a contract with Columbia Records, and its debut album was titled "Dream On," and it was a real hit. Even though a lot of Aerosmith's albums were a bomb, it wasn't until 1975 when Aerosmith started receiving commercial and artistic acclaims. Most of their songs and albums were a success and they were also in the Top 10. Every step in music that the band took was getting better and better through all the decade. It wasn't until 1982 when the two guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford had to be replaced because of their big drug and alcohol addictions.

These problems with drugs pushed Aerosmith down for several years, until 1984 when the Perry and Whitford rejoined for a new beginning; with the well-received Back in the Saddle tour. Their new albums were not as good as their firsts, but their success in 1987 elevated them to a super-stardom. From there on they kept on having a lot of good luck with their music, they would keep on having the top position in the radio through the late 80's and 90's. One of their best songs which was in the top position for weeks was the soundtrack of the movie Armageddon, it's the one I already mentioned earlier in the synopsis which is called "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing."

The author of the article says that Aerosmith is one of the few bands of classic rock that has been remaining succesful for more than thirty years. She says that Aerosmith continues entertaining the old and new generations. I think that she's right, because I personally like Aerosmith, a lot. I agree that Aerosmith is one of the best, I know that they sound commercial, but they have good rhythm and good lyrics like some other pretty good bands, just like 'Pink Floyd' and 'Metallica,' and for me they're also considered a good band.

Rhetorical devices are being used in this biography, alliteration is used in the words contract and Columbia, heavy-handed, string and succesful, and super-stardom. The author made a comparison between the days when they were good and the days when Aerosmith was the bomb, by saying that there was a time when they were doing a mediocre success. The author's allusion to the Columbia Records Company is to make emphasis to the important role this company played for Aerosmith's success.

High Notes

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0838/is_1998_Nov/ai_54309020

How can you find a way to get music into your children's lives? You can find the answer to this question in the article called "High Notes: The Best Ways to Get Music Into Your Child's Life," by an unknown author, the date this article was made, was November 1998. This article basically talks about how some parents want their children to have a lot of knowledge in music, or they want them to play instruments that are very hard to learn, so they keep on pressuring the poor kids. The author of the article gives a variety of better choices to make the parents understand the different ways to help their children to get into music without making the kids miserable by learning something so complicated.

He says that many children are being taught to play the piano, or the violin or some other hard instruments, before they even know how to tie their shoelaces. He says that this is bad because the kids don't have the ear/eye/body coordination necessary to play an instrument like any of these, it would probably be better to start teaching them until they're eight or nine years old.

The author talks about some different kinds of techniques that we can use to help the kids. One of them is the Suzuki method, which has been a very successful one at teaching musical instruments to children as young as three, this is because they teach in a way an infant learns, so children are not taught to read music until much later. Another way was the one that Zoltan Kodoly, a composer and music educator said that we could use; he said that the best instrument we all carry is our voice.

The Kindermusik program is another like Kodoly, in which the kids learn to make music, cover musical instruments, rhythm and spontaneous dancing as well as singing. Sounds fun, doesn't it?
The author mentioned a philosopher named Rudolf Steiner, he was against of listening to recorded music, insted he urged the parents, especially mothers to sing to their children and make music together.
Emile Dalcroze was a pioneer trying to simulate the creativity musicality of children. His method called Eurythmics, emphasizes a whole-body approach to music primarly through rhythm.

The last of these educators is Carl Orff, adapted some Dalcrozes ideas. His method encourages improvisation on basic instruments such as xylophones. He says that kids don't need to have sophisticated techniques to learn these instruments, the only thing they need to have is curiosity about sounds.

In this article the author uses rhetorical devices such as alliteration in the words trombone and tuba, experts and express, and age-appropriate, for example. He also uses allusion when he mentions the music educators and the philosopher. The last device he used was the analogy, or the simile that he made with music becoming an extension of how a child plays everyday.

I think this is a very good article that can help many parents to make a better decision on their children's music education. Kids should not be worried about learning how to play an instrument in a highly structured, disciplined way, like the author said. I totally agree with him. I also think that the methods he presented are very well described to the readers.

Dark Side

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/5937468/pinkfloyd?pageid=rs.ArtistArticles&rnd=1111172833027&has-player=unknown

What does David Gilmour have to say about his work experience with Pink Floyd. This synopsis is taken from the Rolling Stone magazine, the title of the article is "'Dark Side' at 30: David Gilmour. The Guitarist bares Pink Floyd's Soul Roots" by John Harris, and published on March 12, 2003. The reason of why this article was written was because the author wanted to know the experiences of Gilmour when he was in Pink Floyd. At the same time the author made and published this interview because he also wanted to entertained all Pink Floyd's fans.

We all know that David Gilmour joined Pink Floyd in 1968, to replace Syd Barret. Dave and Roger were the main vocals and also the main gitarists. They had a lot of big differences, personal problems and legal problems. Another thing that we know too, is that these two mucisians haven't spoke to eachother since the band's split.

In this interview, John Harris asked Gilmour how he felt about the Dark Side of the Moon concept was born. He said that it was all Roger's idea. Dave thinks that it was a very good job they all did to cooperate with Roger. He also thinks that everyone has their periods where sometimes one is unable to do things the way it's suppose to be. He thinks that he wasn't very creative when they were doing the Dark Side of the Moon album.

In this interview, the author couldn't resist to ask him what was his creative relation with Roger. He said that even though Roger had a fantastic drive, a good brain for lyrics and a very creative force; he considers himself like having a much better sense of musicality than Waters, and he "could certainly sing in tune much better." Gilmour says that unfortunately their good relationship felt apart after "The Wall" was made.

They talked about the female vocals on " The Great Gig in the Sky." The reason for the vocals was that they wanted to have a girl screaming orgasmically. As for me, if I wouldn't have read this article and the reason why they have this girl screaming, I wouldn't notice that she was having orgasms. Only when you pay a lot of attention to it, you can notice that.

The rest of the interview says how he felt about the album's great success. Dave said that he expected that the album was going to be good, but not that much as it became. Because of the album's brilliant cover and the really good music inside it, that album is still on top of many more that are new. It's how Dave says, "it has been sitting there ever since." And will continue to be.

One and One and One is Three

Thursday, February 17, 2005.

http://classicrock.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rollingstone.com%2Fsections%2Fartists%2Ftext%2Fartistgen.asp%3Fafl%3Dfans%26LookUpString%3D317

IT'S A MIRACLE... PAUL McCARTNEY IS ALIVE!!!! This is the topic of the article about Paul McCartney, a guy who used to play with the Beatles. The name of the article is "One and One and One Is Three." The subtitle is "McCartney 'Alive and Well'." Written by an unknown author. The main purpose of this article is to let people know that McCartney is more than alive, but he also is very well. There was this rumor about Paul, that he was dead since 1966, but it was just a lie.

Some people started to play the Revolution No. 9 backward, and they notice a voice saying some things that were kind of weird. So all these called for some investigation on the case. By searching into earlier and later Beatles to find an answer to this things, they found some evidence that he was alive. On Sgt. Pepper it was noted that there is a hand over Paul's head on the cover, and on the back cover his back is turned. The guitar on the grave on the cover is left-handed, just like Paul's.

On Magical Mystery Tour, There's another hand over Paul's head. on Abbey Road, Paul is out of step with the other three on the cover. But who knows. LaBour of the Michigan Daily has turned out the most baroque explication of Paul's suppose death, having Paul died in a car crash. But he was not the only one who would talked about McCartney's dead. The Northern Star student paper at Illinois University carried an article headlined "Clues Hint at Possible Beattle Death," on September 23, of 1966. Too much for poor McCartney.

But the only truth is that there is a lie. People like E. Alvin Davis would do anything to spread this rumor around the world, he says that he doesn't even believe it, but it was some great, good, bad news to entertain people. So that's why some reporters were saying that Paul was dead, because they wanted to have more people talking about it.

As for Paul McCartney himself, who was house-hunting with his wife Linda in London, said that he is alive and well, and that if he was dead he would be the last to know. Duh!!! To come to New York for Thanksgiving, Paul got an entry visa to the United States. I thought that U.S. State Department officials would not give these kinds of permits to dead people, why would that happened? Oh, I know why, because Paul is alive.

The author of this article uses the words "swept the Midwest", "Linda in London," as the only alliterations used. Another rhetorical device was the allusion he made to the U.S State Department officials. The last rhetorical device, the analogy was the comparison he made between the Beatles and an anthropomorphic God, an undertaker, a resurrected and a grave digger.

In my opinion I think that sometimes is okay to talk about the artists, in order to maintain the audience informed and entertained, but I also think is not okay to say that someone died, just to have more people listening to their shows and programs. If they want us to follow their programs, they should at least tell the truth, don't you think?

Total Drumming

Mick Fleetwood is considered the top drummer of the world, is that true? In the interview-article called Mick Fleetwood: Total Drummer, Totally on Top of the World, written by special correspondent Shaw Perry; posted originally at classicrock.about.com/library; ot says that Fleetwood is the top drummer. This interview is based on Fleetwwod's achievements in music. Fleetwood's journey started on the 60's, and it is still moving on. As the author stated, Fleetwood is an explorer of different world music rythms, and he is above the crowd.

Now in the 21st century, Fleetwood comes with a new revolutionary offer called Total Drumming. This Total Drumming involves a series of drum loops created by himself, and by the cooperation of Sonic Foundry. This new album boasts over 800 drumm patterns. No wonder he is called the Top Drummer. In his own words he says that he always wanted to learn new loops, which he found very interesting. He did not only play his music, but he also used old blues and some other music he found himself listening to. What a guy!!!

The author of Total Drummer uses all of Fleetwood responses to support his article. He lets the readers know how did Fleetwood start with his goal of producing the Total Drumming album. Fleetwood was able to play for 16 or 17 hours for two solid days. The end result was a comprehensive library of blues, funk and rock grooves, one-shots and an assortment of percussive sound bytes. Sounds nice, doesn't?

In the article, Fleetwood proudly exclaims that he did not use any short cut for all the work he did. He thinks that even that technology can be of great help to people who are "lazy" or to people who might get frustrated trying to learn something creative and difficult; but for him is different, because he really puts effort to all his work. He says that "nothing means anything unless you've suffered." I agree with him, how about you?

I think that Shaw Perry likes the way Fleetwood works, because he said good things about him, not as same as Douglas Wolk, a reporter who was saying bad things about the band called Nirvana. Perry also admires Fleetwood because even though Fleetwood is in his 50's, his life seems to be on a role. It really does. Good for Perry and Fleetwood!

The Drown Baby

Why is that Douglas Wolk, author of the article from the Villagevoice.com, called "THE DROWN BOY," thinks that band Nirvana's old reputation is balanced only on one song. "Lucky Messy Boys from Seattle Peel Down their Christmas Stocking and Show Their Context," this is the sub title of the article which was posted in December 3rd, 2004.

The band Nirvana exists since the 1980's, and since then they just have one good compact disc, or would it be better to say only one song? That's what Douglas Wolk thinks, and says in his article. Nirvana has being doing the same all, same all for their music. In this article, the author presents his comments about Nirvana's music. He says that there's always this one song called "Polly," that they have to put "by law" on every of Nirvana's records. At least if you like that song it will be easy for you to find it in every of Nirvana's albums.

Wolk says that the jolt of Nirvana's formative years is their "ordinariness" and that we could easily mistake a heavy Pacific Northwest band for a lesser Nirvanabe. At the last paragraph the author of the Drown Boy Article, tells that Nirvana made their complicated work sound so simple that many poeple still pick up guitars to try to do the same thing. This is one good thing for this simple band.

In my own point of view, I think that Douglas Wolk is trying to express his thinking about Nirvana's work in this article, by telling the readers that Nirvana's work is not so good to have their three-CD-plus-DVD set on sale, and is even worse that he's using other people's opinion his own. This article reminds me of the hundreds of reportes who make articles just like this one to say bad things about the artists. I certainly believe also that Nirvana is not so good, but if they have all those fans out there is because they are original, and because they have not only one good song, but they're two...