Recovering from a Birthday....

So yesterday was my birthday. It was my number swap birthday, where the digits in my age are the opposite of my birth year.

My parents came down and even though it was really hot we went to the Racine Zoo to try and see the new Lion Cubs. They were smarter than us, sleeping in the shade inside their den.

For dinner we went to Olde Madrid for Tapas and Paella where my wife and I went for Valentine's Day in 2009. This time we tried the Gazpacho, Seville Crab Cakes, Roasted Chicken and Cherries, Almond Crusted Cod, Empanadas, Baked Goat Cheese, Spanish Meatballs, Don Quixote Paella "A legendary combination of garlic, sautéed chicken, and pork tenderloin, baked in a garlic lemon broth." We ended with the Plantana al Carmaleo "Sautéed banana with caramel sauce and ice cream."

I have not been that full in a long time :)

Today I got up early and checked the Weather Channel, more hot and muggy weather all week so went out started mowing the lawn **again**. I wish it would quit raining so the grass would go to sleep! I have two cordless electric lawnmowers which are nice and quiet but one of them stopped working - the ignition switch broke so it's a trip to the repair shop. But that's not the worst thing! "Me Ole Bamboo" from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang got stuck in my head! So here it is because the best way to get rid of an "Ear Worm" is to share it!

Caravan by Juan Tizol

One of the number we are playing at Thursday's nights Shorewood Concert Band concert is Juan Tizol's Caravan.
Here he is with the Duke Ellington Orchestra taking the solo on his valve Trombone:

"Big Band Salute"

This Thursday is the fourth and final free concert of the year for the Shorewood Concert Band.
7 pm in Atwater Park, where Capital Drive meets Lake Drive in Shorewood Wisconsin!

"The Shorewood Concert Band Presents: Big Band Salute" will feature these numbers and possibly some surprises:

Welcome March
High Society
La Virgen De La Macarena
Boogie-Woogie Band
L’Inglesina
Waltzes from Sari
Elmer Bernstein’s Jazz Selections
Progress March
Ballin’ The Jack
Caravan

Hope to see you there!

A Star Spangled Band

The third concert of the 2009 Season is coming tomorrow July 4th at 6:30 pm at Atwater Park.

National Emblem - EE Bagley
You're A Grand Old Flag - George M Cohan
Bucky Badger - arranged by Wayne Becker
This Land Is Your Land - Woody Guthrie
I Am The Guard - Arthur Fields
The Star and Stripes Forever - John Philip Sousa
Washington Grays - Claudio S Grafulla
Independentia - RB Hall
Semper Fidelis - John Philip Sousa
Armed Forces - The Pride of Americ - arranged by Larry Clark & Greg Gilpan
Beer Barrel Polka - L. Brown, WA Timm, V Zeman and J Vejvoda

Our last concert of the year will be Thursday July 15th at 7 pm.

Shorewood Concert Band - second concert tomorrow night!

Tomorrow Night June 24th, 2010!
7 pm!!
Atwater Park, Shorewood Wisconsin!!!
Free!!!!

"The Shorewood Concert Band Presents: Movie Magic" will feature these numbers and possibly some surprises:
Noble Men - Henry Fillmore
Ewok Celebration - John Williams
Highlights from South Pacific - Richard Rodgers
I've Made My Plans for the Summer - John Philip Sousa
Highlights from The Pink Panther - Hanry Mancini
Under The Double Eagle - JF Wagner
Hollywood Serenade - Albert Oliver Davis

The Muppets sing Danny Boy

Shorewood Concert Band - First concert this Saturday!

It's time to kick of the 2010 Shorewood Concert Band Season this Saturday at 12:30 pm in Atwater Park in Shorewood Wisconsin.

"The Shorewood Concert Band On Broadway" will feature these numbers and possibly some surprises:
"Highlights from West Side Story" Leonard Bernstein; arr. Ted Ingram
"Manhattan Beach" John Philip Sousa
"Danny" Edwin Franko Goldman; arr. Erik Leidzen
"Rubber Ducky" Jeffrey Moss; arr. Paul Yoder
"Colonel Bogey" Kenneth J. Alford
"The Phantom of the Opera Medley" Andrew Lloyd Weber; arr. Jonnie Vinson
"Brighton Beach" William P. Latham
"The Klaxon" Henry Fillmore; arr. Frederick Fennell
"Die Fledermaus" Johann Strauss; arr. Charles Carter
"The Hustle" Van McCoy; arr. Andrew Balent
"A Festival Prelude" Alfred Reed

Order and pieces might change depending on instrumentation of the band.
In case of inclement weather the concerts will be cancelled - although the Shorewood Men's Club Chicken Bar-B-Que will continue so please still stop by and pick some up!

Hope to see you there!

Shorewood Concert Band 2010 Schedule

It's summer so once again it's time for the Shorewood Concert Band!

This all-volunteer band plays a series of four concerts in June and July in Atwater Park in Shorewood, Wisconsin.

2010 marks our 30th year!

This year's concerts:
Saturday June 12th 12:30 pm <- note new time, we are starting this year's entertainment for Shorewwod Men's Club Chicken BBQ
Thursday June 24th 7:00 pm
Sunday July 4th 6:30 pm
Thursday July 15th 7:00 pm

If you would like to join the band please email me - shorewoodcncrtband [AT] sbcglobal.net.
We have 4 practices, June 10, June 17, July 1 and July 8 from 7pm to 9pm in one of the school district's band rooms.
You are welcome to play even if you can only make it for some of the concerts.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Scott-o

The Office
One of very few TV series that we still watch (on www.nbc.com).

We fell in love with the British version when it was broadcast on BBC America and think the US version is one of the few who has successfully made the transfer over, unlike Coupling or Fawlty Towers.

Season 5 comes out on DVD Sept 8th and Season 6 starts on September 17th!

To hold you over here's a tribute video to the old Styx song:

Crayola Doesn't Make A Color For Your Eyes

So I was listening to A Prarie Home Companion last week and this song totally got stuck in my head!
The singer plays patty-cake as a percussion line while she is singing.

Crayola Doesn't Make A Color For Your Eyes by Kristin Andreassen & Megan Downes



Crayola Doesn't Make A Color For Your Eyes, with Danny Knicely on a spectacular whistle solo!
Sunspot Concert Series at the Lyceum in Alexandria, VA, 06Jan07.



This is the version from A Prarie Home Companion that someone put behind a still picture of the singer, it's a little easier to understand the words on this video.

American Overture for Band

Here's another video from the Shorewood Concert Band's 2009 Fourth of July Concert.

Joseph Willcox Jenkins began composing short pieces while in elementary school. American Overture for Band was composed in 1955 while Jenkins served on the arranging staff of the United States Army Field Band and he dedicated the work to their conductor, Colonel Chester E. Whiting. Reminiscing about the piece, his first for band, Jenkins states, “I wanted to write something for our magnificent horn section, because I was tired of them having to play off-beats. That was the inspiration for the piece. I have to admit that I was also inspired somewhat by the last movement of the Bartók Concerto for Orchestra. I heard it on a Boston Symphony Orchestra broadcast as a teenager and it really impressed me. Some of the themes in American Overture remind me of that piece.”

SCB Goes To The Circus!

The fourth and final concert of the Shorewood Concert Band's 2009 season is coming this Thursday July 16th at 7 pm in Atwater Park.

Our salute to the Great American Circus will be filled with the sounds of circus bands and music about the circus including:

Entry of the Gladiators - Julius Fucik
The Billboard - John N. Klohr
William Tell Overture (Finale) - G. Rossini
Circus Bee - Henry Fillmore
Send in the Clowns - Stephen Sondheim
E Pluribus Unum - Fred Jewell
Lassus Trombone - Henry Fillmore
The Show Boy - Will Huff
The Walking Frog - Karl L. King
Bravura - C.E. Duble
The Big Circus March - Robert E. Foster
Barnum & Bailey’s Favorite Karl L. King

In honor of Lincoln's 200th birthday and the 100th Anniversary of the Lincoln Penny we are holding a penny drive to support the Shorewood Band Parents organization so please dig deep into the cushions of your couches, clean out your car’s coin holder and bring them to the concert!

Here's a number from our Fourth of July concert, Herman "Dodo" Hupfeld's 1931 novelty hit "When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba"

Stars & Stripes

The third concert of the 2009 Season is coming tomorrow July 4th at 6:30 pm at Atwater Park.

National Emblem - EE Bagley
You're A Grand Old Flag - George M Cohan
American Overture for Band - Joseph Willcox Jenkins
Music from Les Miserables - Alain Bouil and Claude-Michel Schonberg
When Yuba Plays the Rumba On The Tuba - Herman Hupfeld
Theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Jerry Goldsmith
Summon The Heroes - John Williams
Bucky Badger - arranged by Wayne Becker
Armed Forces - The Pride of America! - arranged by Larry Clark and Greg Gilpin
America the Beautiful - Katharine Lee Bates and Samuel A. Ward
This Land Is Your Land - Woody Guthrie
I Am The Guard - Arthyr Fields
Highlights from Oklahoma - Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein
The Star and Stripes Forever - John Philip Sousa

Our last concert of the year will be Thursday July 16th at 7 pm.

Here's a couple of videos from the second concert:

Instant Concert by Harold L. Walters


The 2009 version of Beer Barrel Polka now with 4 Tubas!

Bandology

The second concert of the 2009 Season is coming this Thursday June 25th at 7pm at Atwater Park.

Bandology - Eric Osterling
Instant Concert - Harold L. Walters
Bombasto - O.R. Farrar
The Theme from Mannix - Lalo Schfrin
Feels So Good - Chuck Mangione
The Rail Splitter - F.C. Menges
Ceremonial Prelude - John Cacavas
The Cowboys - John Williams
Chicago Tribune March - W. Paris Chambers
Beer Barrel Polka - L. Brown, W.A. Timm, V. Zeman and J Vejvoda
British Masters Suite - Gustav Holst, Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Washington Post March - John Phillip Sousa

In honor of Lincoln's 200th birthday and the 100th Anniversary of the Lincoln Penny we are holding a penny drive to support the Shorewood Band Parents organization so please dig deep into the cushions of your couches, clean out your car’s coin holder and bring them to the concert.

The March of the Belgian Paratroopers from the June 13th, 2009 concert:

Hands Across The Sea

The first concert of the Shorewood Concert Band season is always the most interesting for me.
So many questions awaiting answers!
Will we have any Saxophones?
Can we play another season without Percussion?
Can we dodge another weather bullet? So far no concerts of Dr. Pat's tenure have been rained out although last year's opener was a close call!

Here is our tentative play list:

The Shorewood Concert Band Presents:
Hands Across The Sea

March of the Belgian Paratroopers

British Master's Suite

Scottish Ballads

Pirates of the Caribbean

Sousa's Hands Across the Sea

Fiddler on the Roof

Osterling's Thundercrest

Star Trek

At the Summit

Vaugh William's Rhosymedre

Holst's First Suite for Military Band

Hope to see you there!

Shorewood Concert Band 2009

It's June so once again it's time for the Shorewood Concert Band!

This all-volunteer band plays a series of four concerts in June and July in Atwater Park in Shorewood, Wisconsin.

I've been playing in the group since the early 1980s and have been the announcer for four years.

This year's concerts:
Saturday June 13th 4:30 pm - Hands Across the Sea
Thursday June 25th 7:00 pm - 100th Year of the Lincoln Penny
Saturday July 4th 6:30 pm - Stars and Stripes
Thursday July 16th 7:00 pm - SCB Goes to the Circus

If you would like to join the band please email me - capnfrank [AT] sbcglobal.net.
We have 4 practices, June 11, June 18, June 30 and July 9 from 7pm to 9pm in one of the school district's band room.

Here are some pictures from summer 2007:









And here's a video of last year's encore "Skoda Lasky" aka "The Beer Barrel Polka"

She Blinded Me With Science!

And now a blast from the past!

From the depths of the 80s....

Thomas Dolby's 1982 Top 5 Hit

You can listen to another great version of this song by New England Folk Singer Bill Parsons here.

Why am I posting this? Check back soon!

Calabash Music - Tune Your World

In our area the cable provider is Time-Warner. After they raised their rates for the 3rd time in a year, we dropped it and got DirecTV.
After about a year of that we realized we were only watching about 5 channels and dropped that too.
So now our TV is used for watching DVDs and playing video games.
I don't miss it much although I do miss the LinkTV channel. A commercial-free channel they specialize in showing non-US news, documentaries and movies. My favorite program was the World Music Video Block, and you can watch some on their website.
Calabash Music is their associated website where you can support musicians from around the world by purchasing mp3s of their songs and albums and the artists get 1/2 of the money from the sales.
Each weekday they have 2 free songs that you can download and listen to. You will need to create a free login. Or use the handy new widget I have added over there -> below the LibraryThing box.
I have downloaded over 260 songs since April of 2006 when I discovered the site!
They also post video over on YouTube.