BillHeise | March 29, 2011
Okay, here’s another post on why I find modern art’s lyrical direction so problematical. It has nothing to do with the music or its experimental aspect, both of which I said last week that I enjoy. It’s that I always thought that there had to be more to art than songs about love with a [...]
BillHeise | March 21, 2011
I love European music, but I find it a little limiting. For instance, I had said that Nina Hagen is one of my favorite musicians on account of her range of musical styles, but as far as her ends in a mix of Indian religion and Christianity I remain skeptical. That doesn’t stop me from [...]
BillHeise | March 17, 2011
I’m really far behind this week, so here’s my weekly musical offering without comment (It’s the Beatles, so what can I say?). These are covers of other people’s R&B songs. The Hippy Hippy Shake Money Twist and Shout Roll Over Beethoven Kansas City
BillHeise | March 7, 2011
Okay, I’m planning on posting the article I used when I wrote the ‘Reykjavik’ chapter of Poker Tales this week, and it needs a lot of work. So here are four songs from the band that defines the essence of 60s cool: Booker T and the MGs. The first is called Boot Leg’: You can [...]
BillHeise | February 28, 2011
I’m preparing to upgrade my WordPress blog to version 3.1, which is called ‘Reinhart,’ after Django Reinhart. So I thought I would pay tribute to Django. But I would be remiss if I didn’t include his partner, the violin player Stéphane Grappelli in the mix. According to Wikipedia, Django invented an entirely new form of [...]
BillHeise | February 21, 2011
This week, I was talking about the distinction between critics and artists in my novel Poker Tales. This is one of those things that concerned me when I was an academic. As a literary critic, I thought it was my role to come in after a work had been written and explain more thoroughly the [...]
BillHeise | February 18, 2011
I’m way behind on my work this week, so here’s a Beach Boys inspired song from Japanese superstar Yumi Arai, aka Yumi Matsutoya. It’s called Rouge no Dengon ["Lipstick Message" in English]: While you’re listening, you can read about Yumi here. But if not, here are the salient facts: She has had 21 #1 albums [...]
BillHeise | February 8, 2011
So the other day I was talking about my last Leone film, and I got caught up in the film’s score, which was written by my favorite movie scorer, Ennio Morricone. He, of course, scored my favorite Western of all time, Once Upon a Time in the West. I could listen to the lilting theme [...]
BillHeise | January 31, 2011
I’m sick today, so I’ll just post this and I’ll see you next week:
BillHeise | January 26, 2011
Okay, I’m done with my ‘authentic’ American music for a while. Now I’m going to travel to Eastern Europe, where they are gradually imitating the individualism of the West without penetrating the surface. In this, they are perhaps imitating the worst parts of the American experience without necessarily appreciating what drives us to get rich [...]
