Quora: Why did Peter Cetera refuse to associate with the band Chicago after he left including the induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

29 Jun 2024 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

(Answered by Adam Begun)

In Peter’s own words: “when it’s over, its over”.

Pete didn’t leave with a polite handshake and a “best to you all” attitude. He left with a “thank f*cking God I don’t ever have to do THIS/THAT again” attitude.

As for the R&RHOF: he was approached by the band to sing “25 or 6 to 4” for the group’s performance that evening. The song is in the key of A minor and has been played that way since it’s inception and the horn parts are (virtually) cemented in place in A minor. Pete wanted to change the key to E minor…deliberately…knowing that would be impossible for the horns to cope…and the band said: “no”. Pete shrugged and said: “ok, then…no”. The rest of the group said: “fine, then…it’s a shame, but I guess it’s not to be…”.

(For the record: you can’t “just” transpose a brass section down a fourth without major, MAJOR musical issues.

Pete might as well have said: “I’ll do it if you guys can swim fast in quicksand….no, faster than that…”)

Peter drew up his own terms to play in the R&RHOF induction and chose not to even show up when his “demand” couldn’t be met.

This really does show Cetera’s utter contempt for Chicago and his indifference to his time in the group…

…even if he wouldn’t perform he could have been in the audience cheering on his old group for finally getting the respect that they deserve.

Whatever. It’s (very) over by now and a reunion is completely impossible.

Snopes: Taylor Swift Can’t Read Music?

23 Jun 2024 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

(via Snopes) by Aleksandra Wrona

“I’m not as much into technique as I am into the emotion of it,” the popular songstress has said.

For years, fans of Taylor Swift have speculated about the extent of her musical abilities, often focusing on the question of whether or not the extraordinarily popular singer-songwriter can read music.

“Fun fact: Taylor Swift Can’t Read Sheet Music. She Plays By Ear!” one Reddit post on the topic claimed, for example. “Does Taylor Swift actually read music notation?” a Quora user asked.

“She most likely writes a melody on a guitar or piano, and then the production is simply built around it. typical ‘reading music’ type of music is very mechanical to compose sometimes, taylor’s melodies are good because they come directly from her own creativity,” one Reddit user commented, while another wrote “I feel like this is the way she was shown doing it in Miss Americana [a documentary about Swift’s career]. She hums a melody into her phone when it comes to her and then works it out from there on a piano or guitar.”

Read more: https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/06/09/taylor-swift-cant-read-music/

Video of the Week: Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other

16 Jun 2024 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Video of the Week Tags: , ,

On a Lighter Note…

02 Jun 2024 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in On a Lighter Note

Some Important Observations On Steeleye Span, Experiments In Folk Rock And Cows

01 Jun 2024 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

Maddy Prior (right) sings with the English folk-rock band Steeleye Span. (Stephen Cooke)

(via wbur) by Chris Braiotta

I want to talk to you about what it means to experiment. Let’s begin with the following sentence: “We did try a reggae ‘Spotted Cow’ and we weren’t terribly convinced by it, so we stopped doing it.”

You’ll be needing a little context for that. “Spotted Cow” is a song from around 1740. It’s about a woman who’s lost her cow. She complains about it to this guy she runs into. He’s like, “Lady, I am game to help you find your cow. Let us do this.” They go off to a field to find it. Obvious place to start, right? Before long … well, you know how fields are. Sexiest thing in nature. So they decide to do what comes naturally to a man and a woman in a field, which isn’t really looking for cows. From then on, whenever the lady’s looking for a bit of you-know-what, she finds some guy and tells him about her cow.

The speaker of that sentence was Maddy Prior, singer of the great English folk-rock band Steeleye Span. This is a band that she’s led since 1969.

So, to sum up: ‘70s English folk-rock band, cow used as cover story for Georgian booty call. And then: reggae.

“When you’re experimenting with things they can’t all be winners,” she says. “I’m pleased that we tried things.”

I don’t care how “out there” you think your favorite band is. This is what it means to be fearless. This is what experimenting is.

Now “experiments” aren’t something we think of when it comes to folk music. Learning the ancient craft of candle making? Sure. Experimenting? That’s the sort of thing that gets you booed at Newport.

Maddy Prior isn’t moved by any of that.

“The minute you bring guitar into it it’s not English anyways,” she told me. “I think as far as we were concerned the song itself was there and what you did with it was what you did with it. In my world we were never bothered by the way it should be. We took all these songs and made them our own, and then you pass them on and someone else makes them their own. You can mimic other people singing the songs but that’s what you’re doing and why would you do that?”

Read more: https://www.wbur.org/news/2015/07/20/steeleye-span

Songs You May Have Missed #743

15 May 2024 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: ,

Priscilla Ahn: “Fine on the Outside” (2014)

The beautiful and heartbreaking 2014 Studio Ghibli film When Marnie Was There ends with the beautifully heartbreaking “Fine On the Outside”, which seems to sum up its main character and protagonist.

I can’t recommend the film more earnestly. If it’s not one of the more “magical” of the Ghibli films, it is the finest work the studio has ever produced in this writer’s opinion and boasts gorgeous animation and a poignant story about a girl and…well, spoilers.

Priscilla Ahn plays a remarkably faithful version of the end credit song in the below video.

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