Everybody loves a good book…or movie…or album…or TV show or…everybody loves entertainment. The diversions that take us away from the drudgery of our everyday lives. Our escapes. Arts and entertainment should evoke an emotion in the viewer, the listener, and the participant. Good entertainment makes you think. Makes you talk about it. That’s the goal of this blog--to talk about arts and entertainment.
I think my friend Christopher Smith has one of the best jobs you can get with San Francisco Opera. It’s not steady and doesn’t pay much. But he gets to perform with the greatest singers in the world, and he doesn’t even have to sing.
In May, 1962 guitarist Brian Jones took an ad out in "Jazz News" looking for musicians interested in forming a rhythm and blues band. Ian Stewart, a gifted keyboard player and lifelong devotee of boogie woogie music, was the first to reply to the ad and promptly blew Jones' socks off with a devastating mastery of musical styles that had emerged from America's deep south. "Stu," as he was called, was in the band.
Big Audio Dynamite (BAD) was a band formed from the slowly drifting ashes of The Clash. The Clash would last a little longer, but would never be the same. Co-founder Mick Jones had just been kicked out for wanting to move the punk pioneers in new directions and into new sounds. Less than a year later, Jones quickly regrouped with BAD.
Some might suggest that I hate children's television. That's not true. I'm just uncomfortable with certain kids' TV shows because they scare the warm and fuzzies out of me. But if the TV is a babysitter, I would have totally let these defunct shows babysit my kids any time.
Hot off the Nielsen Wire is a report that the music industry is not dead yet. Quite the opposite, it's showing unexpected signs of life. Through the first week of May, US music sales are up 1.6%. What sounds like an insignificant number is actually a tremendous relief to the industry.
With San Francisco Opera’s upcoming "Ring" cycle, as well as the Met’s recent live and filmed versions of the first two of the four operas in the cycle, attention is turning to the composer again--as it should.
Backyard party season is upon us. Between graduations, Memorial Day barbecues and Saturday afternoons by the pool, it's high time to line up some new music for the festivities. With so many new releases and the annual deluge of summer tour announcements, taking it all in feels like drinking water from a fire hose.
If you're a fan of karaoke, chance are, you've seen a few singing competitions played out at your local dive bar. It's also highly likely that the winner of those contests in many cases wasn't the best vocalist of the group.
A good mystery is the kind of story anyone can love. The twists and turns, trying to figure out who's a saint and who's a sinner, who dunnit and who you only think dunnit--all these things captivate the attention as we viewers try to see if we can beat the detective to the answer.
One of the most exciting events in the world of classical music—or any type of musical performance, trust me—is taking place in San Francisco next month. San Francisco Opera is presenting Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, in three complete performances, one a week for three weeks.