Tuesday, February 27, 2007

 

A little disagreement

Had a little disagreement with my assistent about quitting something... :-)

Saturday, February 24, 2007

 

Belgium 'Popcorn' invasion ?

While working and listening to 'Popcorn V-Rocket radio' I notice a Belgium invasion..... :-)
See people from Lokeren, Lede, Geraardsbergen, Kapellen, Berlare, Bever coming by.
What's up ? What's happening ? Is there something I can do for ya ?

Well here's something you Belgium can do for me :-)
During the first 2007 popcorn prg by Theo Dumoulin januari he played two unidentified songs. Your fellow countryman 'Witte' said he knew/had both of them.
The day after I wrote we'll 'hang him' if he should be wrong.
A few days later I got mail by 'mister Mellow Theo' himself proving 'Witte' was wrong on one song. So he has to be hanged.....!!!!!

Hangman
Hangman provided by The Free Dictionary

Labels:


Friday, February 23, 2007

 

Commercial Citi Cards : Defective merchandise

Got today the paycheck to renew my BLog account. No one has to pay for a Blog but it looks nice when it is written down......
So here's from YouTube my next 'commercial break' :

"Check it out : I need the money :-)"

EDIT 2007_07_01.
This video has been removed by the user.
Unbelievable such a harmless video....

Thursday, February 22, 2007

 

C is for Nat 'king' Cole : Spanish US to Brasil :-)

Just a week ago I posted a Spanish album by Nat 'king' Cole which was issued in 1962.
I called it vol 2 so there were questions about a/the 'missing' vol 1.
Actually, there isn't a vol 1 or even vol 2. Nat's first Spanish album was originally issued in 1958, the second in 1962.
Later re-release's were called volume 1 and volume 2.
Hope I have cleared that out now.

Although it wasn't my initial intention, here's now his first Spanish LP to ya.
Again nice quiet songs, easy listening, so relax with Quizas, Quizas, Quizas (Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps) & Acercate Mas (Come Closer To Me) & Te Quiero, Dijiste (Magic Is The Moonlight) & Ay, Cosita Linda.
I dedicate this LP to Brasilian soccer friend Furyanimal.

In the comments you can find Perhaps In the magic moonlight A closer way to me .. :-)

Labels:


Wednesday, February 21, 2007

 

Windows Vista ? I still use Office 2000 !

I don't wanna buy (and use ...) the new Windows Vista for a while.
I don't know how my old prg's will work. I still want to use them because I'm so used to them and they never let me down.
I still use Office 2000. Very reliable. And ... when my version was issued it was garanteed 100% Y2K compliant ! .. :-)

Monday, February 19, 2007

 

My mother's last photo

My mother was born 1922_02_19 and died about 1 1/2 years ago. So today she would have been 85.
This is the last photo of my mother, made by my son on her birthday 2 years ago.
She'll be remembered today of course by her remaining two sisters, her children, grandchildren and friends.

She typed 'till the end on her typewriter. Didn't wanted a PC we offered her.
We could show her only just a very little bit of the internet. Fascinating she said, but it wasn't meant for her anymore ...
Now and even more when 'Google catches this page' she's forever part of this medium !

See you 'up there' mom (but I admit I hope it will take some more time : I still have to do some more things over here ..).

Sunday, February 18, 2007

 

Golden greats of the Ink Spots

The Ink Spots, a fascinating black vocal group with their 'deep voices'.
Remember immediately the Mills Brothers, also such a fine group. Posting about them is something for the (nearby ?) future.

In a way most of their songs 'sound alike'. But that didn't matter, they scored high on the ranks.
Nice songs like If I didn't care, Java jive, No orchids for my lady, To each his own, We three & When the swallows come back to Capistrano.

Sadly I have no original LP's but only a few compilation LP's.
From these I made 2 cd's myself a long time ago. Here's one of them with the crackles going along ... No tracklist order as you will see in the comment.

Labels:


 

Star Sisters : Stars on 45

I notice lately a lot of 'Google searches' to the Star Sisters.
And because somehow my simple Blog seems tot score high on Google (can someone explain in a comment to me why/how ?) a lot (or is it just one person ?) come to my site.

Patricia Paay, her sister Yvonne (later on also known as Yvonne Keely and married to Steve Harley...) and friend Sylvana Van Veen were The Star Sisters at the time and did a nice act as the Andrew Sisters with 1940s voices and music style.
Dutch producer Jaap Eggermont produced before several Stars on 45 medley's.
He saw Patricia (later married to Adam Curry), Yvonne and their mother appearing on a TV show by Ivo Niehe as a kind of joke with an Andrews Sisters act.
So he decided to make a single with them. Mother didn't wanted to go along so Sylvana joined in (although the singing was done just by Patricia and Yvonne).
The title became "Stars On 45 proudly presents the Star Sisters" and for the first time his "Stars on 45" serie had a 'real face'.
They made two more hits with medleys "Hooray For Hollywood" en "A Tribute For Marilyn Monroe".
Sylvana was later on kicked out and replaced by Ingrid Ferdinandusse. They made more records but those didn't became hits.

Go to my archives 2006_november_11 where I wrote about the LP which was issued after that huge succes of that first single. It's a real 'gem'.
Have fun again.

Labels: ,


Saturday, February 17, 2007

 

That's the way I feel today

If you want to know how I feel today go to furyanimal and Johnny Burnette will tell ya !

By the way, on 2007 jan 10 I myself also wrote about Johnny Burnette and his Rockabilly trio. A very nice 1956 recording.
So go back into time, wayback into time .. :-)

Labels:


Friday, February 16, 2007

 

On this day 1912 : Frank Paul Grillo born in Havana, Cuba


I hear you say 'Who the hell is Frank Paul Grillo ??'
If you like Afro-Cuban music you will know. He's better known as Machito. Hope now you've heard of that nick name or else go to AllMusicGuide and read !

V-Tone has remembered his birthday and made a nice compilation of some of his great dancing music (mambo aso) which you can admire on his V-Rocket blog.
So hurry up and go to him !

By the way he died Apr 15, 1984 in London, England : almost 25 years ago.
Talking about figures. Also on this day, but in 1959, Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

 

On this day 1965 : Nat 'king' Cole died

I came into Nat 'king' Cole by his hits like Those lazy hazy crazy days of summer, Mona Lisa, Let true love begin and Unforgettable.

Later on I discovered he started much earlier as a pianist sec. I learned about his trio. I learned about the fine orchestra's he played with.
I read how difficult it was for him when he and his wife moved to a new house in the 'white area'.
I read about his smoking.

I simply refer for his biography to wikipedia or All Music guide (astonishing the extending list of albums he made !).

He was born as Nathaniel Adams Coles on Mar 17, 1919 in Montgomery, AL and died Feb 15, 1965 in Santa Monica, CA, so that's in two days from this writing.

Nowadays I have over 20 albums and today I played his two Spanish albums (issued in 1958 and 1962 respectivily).
Nat 'king' Cole is certainly a man who shouldn't be forgotten (..'Unforgettable'..) so here's the second one for ya also to remember his passing by 42 years ago.

Labels:


Wednesday, February 14, 2007

 

Valentine's day : why do fools fall in love ?

Did you ever wondered why fools always fall in love (and again and again....) ?
I believe Rubén Loaisa has found the answer ! He explains it a 20 times !!
So click on his cover below and he will tell ya !
Even Luis Torres knows ten more reasons ... :-)
If you have even more please give, as Luis did, your comment at Rubén's place !


EDIT 2007_04 : sadly elpickup.blogspot.com doesn't exist anymore.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

 

A big storm with a lot of rain

I grew up in the (big) city but I live for almost 30 years in the country side.
I hope I never have to go back to any city. Life is soooo relaxing here.
Ok, there are disadvantages. The supermarket is far away. No schools, cinema. It's dark.
My sister once told me she didn't want to live here for even a million dollars. She 'needs' the crowd, the busy things a city has.
I like to be with the farmers. Nice to see how a cow is born. Or die. See the fruit trees grow. The dogs have enough space. The cats find in the summer their own food ; have to defend their territory. Watch the horses in the backyard.
It's soooo quiet. I didn't went on holiday for almost 15 years (and even then I was back home earlier as planned).
Neighbours are 'far away' but I think we know each other better than people living in an appartment.
We help each other. Share our belongings.
Last year we topped all of my trees and even removed one. We thought for two it wasn't necessary.
Last week there was a big storm. And yes, from one of those two the top felt on my roof. Big hole in it. We managed to fix the roof in time before the storm reached it's top.
Today we repaired the damage. Thanks !

Saturday, February 10, 2007

 

CWS commercial CleanSeats

Running a BLog is very expensive I read everywhere.
Suppose that's why I see more and more a lot of adds on various BLog's.
Please click the ads so I can buy more music and you can benefit it .....
I too spend a lot of money to keep my BLog 'on air' .... :-)
So I cannot stay behind.

Here's from YouTube my first 'commercial break' :

"Clubbing is nice. Cocaine also. The automatic "CleanSeats" vom CWS not :-)"

Seriously and to be true, if I catch one of my children with stuff like this my house will be too small, meaning I'll do anything to prevent them from using drugs.
It ruins your life !

Friday, February 09, 2007

 

On this day 1942 : Carol Klein / Carole King

An advantage of getting old(er) is (at least I hope) that we become more an adult.
But with the people I have contact each day I still try to behave like a child. Make jokes, tease and so on. But on the other hand still do my job in a professional way.
This week I talked a lot about Carol Klein. How many wonderful songs she (alone and with her, former, husband Gerry Goffin) wrote end 50's begin 60's.
I always describe those songs as 'what someone feels when he/she is 16'.
Something like 'I'll love you all my life so I like you to be my wife' or 'stupid girl/wife get out of my life'. Just simple love songs with nice loveable lyrics which tell a complete story in 2 minutes.

A link to computering.
Remember the 80's when we were writing prg's on the millimeter.... I mean we didn't have much 'memory' so we had to use every bit available and had to be very keen programming. Nowadays I see prg's written with too much different routines which could be embedded into one with only a little bit more effort/thinking.
A lot of RAM/HD-space is available so programming becomes inefficient. Who cares ?
But by this simple/easy programming one looses his (cap)ability to do first the real thinking (make a 'programming storyboard' for example) and so there will be a lot of errors/leaks in the program. Every Windows version is an example. It is never complete because there are too many programming errors. With Vista it will be the same.
I'm still proud of my own Monopoly game I programmed which was only 60K and went through the whole hobby circuit I noticed at that time.

Back to the music.
I like the songs to have a story and written as simple/short as possible.
That's not the case today. Much tooooo looooong !
Better give me the older music.
Carol Klein is such an example.
The 'Brill Building Sound' is such an example.
Pop music in a simple style.... :-)

Today Carol Klein celebrates her 65th birthday and next sunday 11 feb Gerry Goffin turns 68 !
I could offer you one of her great LP's. The best to me is stil her King, Carole - Tapestry 1971_03. Very interesting in a point of view for the woman's 'liberation' in my humble opinion (in my country we were way ahead ...). I mean this in a positive way, maybe my writing looks a little bit strange (English is not my native language).
But I offer you instead a home made compilation by Paul I got last year from him and to which I added some songs.
By this you get a nice overview to what Carol Klein (of course you already understood by now the birthname of Carole King) was capable of writing.
Nice artists like Everly Brothers, Drifters, Bobby Vee, Byrds, Blood Sweat & Tears, Animals, Steve Lawrence, Righteous Brothers, Diana Ross, Tony Orlando.
Need I go on ?

I think there will be a lot of songs you hear on the radio and like but don't know miss Klein (she divorced Gerry Goffin) was the author !
I'll continue in the comment and thank Paul_audiodrome but also 'cardiac' Josh :-)

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

 

I can laugh about nothing ....

I got a personal mail concerning my post 'the pranking of the telemarkers'.
Quote 'I could only smile a little ...'.
Sorry.... :-) My IQ will be above monkeys (50 or so, see Bonnie St C) but lower than 150. Have to do with it. :-)

Well I'm just a simple guy and humour doesn't need (has) to be difficult to me.
So here's something different from YouTube :

Dad at Comedy Barn...This is my father. Yes, that is his real laugh. Enjoy :)
The subject is 'nothing' and the man in the middle is the real star. Thanks to the person wo recorded this TV-fragment in which his/her father appeared and offered it this to the world !

Thanks to Dirk D. from Belgium who did send this to me.

EDIT 2007_06_21
I really don't understand why this funny TV video is removed by Youtube because of 'violation'.......
Well to every problem there's a solution so I provided a new link.
Comment 1 : Views: 5,769,253 until today (not by my Blog !) !
Comment 2 : this is way to funny, didnt stop laughing for 15 minutes, i wish my dad laughed like that :D hahaha
Comment 3 : think I broke a rib laughing so damn hard ROFL

EDIT 2007_06_24
Made a new link so you still can see this nice TV show.

Monday, February 05, 2007

 

Happy birthday little sister : Billy Fury for ya


I have to tell you all my little sister became today 59 years old (eh sorry : young) !
So happy birthday little sister !!

How she liked in the sixties Billy Fury's Halfway to paradise (written by Carole King).
Remember when Billy Fury was in our country to do a TV concert. It was the first time when more camera's were used and even a zoom camera.
She attended it and came home very excited. It seemed to have been a wonderful evening.
Three weeks later the concert was on TV.
Billy sang I will, Fools errand, Last night was made for love and of course Halfway to paradise. During this last song the camera zoomed in to a girl on the first row in complete adoration with her head in her hands and her elbows on the stage. She was completely in trance, completely 'in heaven', out of this world.
MY little sister that was, my little sister.
Looking at Billy Fury I can imagine she, like so many girls, was crazy about him.
To learn more about Billy Fury go to Wikepedia.

Above you see a nice picture of that girl when she was a little younger. Wasn't she cute ? Although older now, she's still cute. Of course, she's my sister !
Happy birthday again and have a nice evening !

Dear sister in the comment.
Just like the things we talked about this afternoon, this will bring back our youth again a littlebit. Have fun !

Labels:


Saturday, February 03, 2007

 

Is Popcorn this saturday indeed strange ?


Taking a look at the Strange Popcorn playlist you will find, at least in my humble opinion, a great song at #05 Miss X - Christine.
Simple but very effective is in this parody 'described' the affair UK foreign minister John Profumo had with call girl Christine Keeler.
At first it was uncertain who made this recording (looking at the cover we all assumed it was an Italian studio formation) but last year it was discovered by yours truly :-)
Om a radio prg (aired 8/9/1963) with hosts Keigh Fordyce & David Gell and, amongst others, guest Joyce Blair she reveals in this interview that she is the "Miss X" who recorded the single "I am Miss X" written by Count Jaime De Mora Y Aragon and issued on Ember Label in 1963.
Theo will almost certainly reveal this mystery on air to ya.
Anyway, after this sex-affair John Profumo had to resign.
If you want this song just click on the scan and/or look in the comment section.

So keep the time counter on top in sight (saturday at 20 hours local_CET time) and JOIN (just click this to attend live !) us !
This way you get the internet stream directly in your Winamp or Mediaplayer.

I wanted to give more info/songs but had to work today in my garden after last weeks storm. One tree even fell trough the roof. So I'll keep it to this.

Labels:


Thursday, February 01, 2007

 

On this day 1937 : Don Everly 70 years young !

How is it possible that a guy whose vocal harmonies with his 'baby brother' (as he, as well as his father Ike, called him) 'got me like a lighting strike' celebrates today his 70th birthday !!
Before you misinterprete me, I mean it seems like yesterday in the fifties I heard for the first time nice songs like Bye bye love, Wake up little Susie, All I Have to Do Is Dream, Bird Dog, ('Til) I Kissed You and so on and so on.
And now they are 70 and 68 years of age !
The Everly Brothers ! The Everly Brothers !
The Everly Brothers : Don was born February 1, 1937 and Phil on January 19, 1939.
What a party's in the family these weeks.
Anyway I wish Don a happy anniversary and all the best.



On Answers site you can find their biography plus other links or if that's not enough you can go to the Everly Brothers vocal group page which is dedicated to them.
I won't argue about their splitting in 1973 (was it ?). It isn't easy to do for so many years so much things together all the time.
So the Everly's : foreverly yours, foreverly mine !

Look for one of Don's solo albums in my archives 2006 april 4.

I was quite happy when they decided ten years later to give it another go.
Every fan of good vocal harmony must have been thrilled when they did their Reunion concert on 1983_09_23.
As far as I know/remember I give you here the ultimate complete concert of that reunion in London !
One only sees excerpts in the music store (see also AMG eg) but this is 100 minutes of great live harmonies.

So see the comments where

Labels:


Wanna see more ? Click the archive buttons in the left bar !

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

eXTReMe Tracker
My archives pictures