Done too soon

Like many was saddened to hear Neil Diamond announce he was retiring from touring performances due to suffering the effects of Parkinson's Disease.

As again like many I grew up with 'Hot August night", and we were all excited to be allowed to stay up and watch his 1976 Sydney concert on tv (provided we had got changed into our pjs prior). 
It was a great concert performance, he gave that guitar a real work-out. 
Can still remember his explanation of where "Song sung blue" came from - a Mozart piece.  

Believe "Cherry cherry" opened the concert (thanks Andrew C. on YouTube).
It seems more and more of the inspiring writers, performers, actors that I've watched, read and listened to are succumbing to the ills of mere-mortals - live long in our minds and memories, and get a cure for Parkinson's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah

I've reached Thing 20 'Mobile music' which looks at music, streaming music sites, and the distribution of music to mobile devices generally.
I checked out a heap of online music delivery sites earlier, see Free MP3s post
I used to access LastFM till they asked for [payment (knowing the music wants to be free) it now requires you to download Spotify. I feel that the free version of Pandora is better and easier to navigate.
Looked at Freegal, which has been subscribed to by some of the city libraries.
Re streaming music - true, the way music is distributed has been revolutionised. More and more people subscribe to streaming services where you pay for access to a big catalogue of music instead of buying an album or downloading a single.

Totally different to actually going to a physical music store and flicking through CDs, cassettes or even vinyl records. Though with the renewed interest in vinyl LPs could there be a resurgence of the Brashs or Allans music shops?
Going even further back in time is the record selectors in cafes, milk-bars etc. where for a few coins you got to select your song from a Wurlitzer style machine - so American soda - a time when Top 40 charts meant record sales, not the number of downloads.
So music in libraries - demand still seems to show a preference for borrowing CDs, and often CDs of times gone by. 
Playing on demand and 'ownership' of the music may still be a factor rather than the here at the moment gone in a instant streaming services. Time will tell.

Music memories

What are the chances - two of the sites that I monitor both featuring music location posts.
There is Twisted Sifter's 'Famous album covers superimposed onto their actual locations' This is Bob Egan again, see my earlier post 'The photography of music' that one was in New York, this one is a 'Now & then' of album covers in London, England.
Firstly there was the iconic one that everyone wants to emulate - The Beatles on Abbey Road. The cover photo of the Abbey Road album was taken on 8 August 1969 outside EMI studio on Abbey Road. And here, superimposed, is the album over the modern street, from Google Street views.

Personally I'd love the excuse to actually shoot on location rather than use Google from home. As I said it is iconic and there are a multitude of takes on the original, including a number with Lego.

 Then David Bowie as Ziggy from 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars' recorded in 1972, the photograph was taken outside of 23 Heddon Street, a small, block-long, dead end street in central London, just west of Carnaby Street. Apparently photographer, Brian Ward, had his studio on Heddon Street and shot stills of Bowie using black & white film. The resulting pictures were later colourised to give Bowie an alien appearance.

There's Liam & Noel Gallagher on the Oasis What's the Story, Morning Glory? album. The cover photo was taken on Berwick Street, a street featuring several popular record shops in the Soho section of London in 1995.

The Clash's self-titled The Clash, the album cover photo location is an outdoor stairway near the band's rehearsal studio in Camden ("Stables") Market in Camden Town in northern London, shot in 1977.

And, in addition to the Bob Egan post is this one from Gondwana (who don't immediately shout 'music'), but here is their link to an Interactive map which pinpoints every New York City reference in song. There are virtually a countless number of songs that refer to New York - from its neighbourhoods to familiar & famous streets - and now you can see them all on a map, and link to the song on YouTube, from Greshwin to The Killers. Apparently Paul Simon's 'Me & Julio down by the schoolyard' refers to a location between 48th & 49th Avenue. There are about 200 songs referenced.

Tested trestles

So much after my own heart (this proves I’m not alone) here is 'Highest Steam: 9 Abandoned Railroad & Train Bridge Trestles', another WebUrbanist post.

Durable by design and situated by necessity in difficult to access locations, railway trestles are often all that remain when rail lines are closed and abandoned.

Tallulah Falls Railway, Georgia

Georgia’s Tallulah Falls Railway operated for nearly 90 years – from 1st September 1871 to 25th March 1961. The railway featured in several films including 1951′s ‘I’d Climb the Highest Mountain’ and the 1955 Disney production, ‘The Great Locomotive Chase’. The 1972 epic film ‘Deliverance’ (have Duelling Banjos playing) featured two of the main tourist attractions of the Tallulah Falls Railway: the waterfall at Lake Tallulah Falls, and the view from Tallulah Gorge.

Only the steel & concrete trestles of the Tallulah Falls Railway remain

In order to keep trains running on the straight and level along the railway’s 58 mile stretch from Cornelia, Georgia to Franklin, North Carolina,they had more than 40 wooden trestles and one series of steel and concrete trestles constructed. It’s little wonder the railway closed due to a mounting and unsustainable debt load.

Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railroad, Michigan

A combination wood and steel trestle and pocket dock was constructed in 1931, to bring iron ore to ships waiting in Marquette, Michigan’s lower harbour. 

The wooden trestle portion standing in majestic solitude after the adjoining steel dock was salvaged

The dock officially closed on December 31st, 1971 when ore shipments were diverted to Escanaba and the railway, trestles and dock subsequently fell into disrepair. In the early 2000′s, redevelopment resulted in portions of the trestle and dock being demolished.

Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railroad, Colorado

In 1903 when the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railroad first laid rails across the Great Divide at Colorado’s 11,660 foot high Rollins Pass, it was hailed as a triumph of American railway engineering. 25 years later, another engineering triumph – the Moffat Tunnel – negated the need for the Rollins Pass line and the rail bed was converted to accommodate road traffic.

Devil's Slide

  









Supported by the east and west Devils Slide Trestles, the route has been off-limits to vehicles since 1990 when a rock slide blocked the Needle’s Eye tunnel. 
Hikers and cyclists are still allowed to cross the over-a-century-old wooden trestles, though one might end up meeting the Devil himself should he or she take an unexpected slide.

White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad, Yukon, Canada

 This isn’t the “After The Gold Rush” Neil Young was thinking of, though it’s almost as moving as the man’s music, and any excuse to play the track.

The old Dead Horse Gulch railroad trestle bridge is on the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad to the heart of the Klondike. The rail line was constructed during the gold rush of the 1890s. The Dead Horse Gulch bridge being built in 1899. 
After 70 years of stalwart service, it was bypassed in 1969 by a new tunnel and bridge designed to withstand the weight of loaded ore trains from the Faro lead-zinc mine, which opened the same year. 
The new bridge was just a stone’s throw from the old one, providing riders on the revived WP&YR Heritage Railway an awesome sight, especially when the fog rolls in.

Florida East Coast Railway, Florida

Just over 101 years ago and 7 years after construction began, the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway was finally completed. Dubbed “the Overseas Railroad” and “the 8th wonder of the world”, Henry Flagler’s dream was made real at the cost of $50 million and the lives of dozens of workers. Until 1972 the Bahia Honda Rail Bridge connected Bahia Honda Key and Spanish Harbor Key. The Hurricane of 2nd September 1935 put the money-losing railway out of business. Flagler’s innovative bridge construction techniques were not wasted, however, being quickly re-purposed into the 127.5 mile (205.2km) long Overseas Highway that opened in March of 1938 (the Overseas Highway was substantially rebuilt in the 1970s and ’80s).

The Bahia Honda Rail Bridge looking more like a take-off ramp

 The Bahia Honda Rail Bridge’s notorious gap wasn’t caused by storms or decay - two spans of the bridge were removed to accommodate boat traffic and discourage pedestrian use of the span.
As always there are more photos and stories at WebUrbanist.

I still luv rock n roll

News today, that Victoria’s first and only female Premier  - Joan Kirner is being treated for cancer. Ms Kirner, 75, was diagnosed last month and has started chemotherapy and radiation treatment for oesophageal cancer.

So I’m prepared to put in the background all the old Razor Gang business with Race Matthews & the Arts, and remember the night when Joan decked out in leather did a version of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts’ “I love rock n’ roll” on the Late Show (It was also the first thing that everyone here recalled about her).

Good on you Joan!

Stone the crows

In his memoir 'Life' Keith Richards admitted that he once considered becoming a librarian before the birth of The Stones, and recently he'd sought professional training in the Dewey Decimal Classification System to manage his large personal library (apparently he was painstakingly arranging his vast rare book collections of  early American rock and World War II histories via Dewey - but then doesn't everyone?!) Try to reconcile the hell-raising rock guitarist famous for his life of sex, drugs and rock n roll with that of an avid bookworm! 
And in a quotation featured on many library websites, Keith is reported to have said: “When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equalizer.”

In his book, Keith Richards, one of the Rolling Stones' founding members,opens up about his childhood, rise to super-stardom, and personal life. From his turbulent relationships, including his well-publicised estrangement from, and reconciliation with Stones' front man Mick Jagger to his drug shenanigans that made even more of a legend amongst his fans. With the Rolling Stones, Keith created the guitar riffs, the lyrics and the songs that roused the world, and over four decades he lived the original rock and roll life: taking chances, speaking his mind, and making it all work in a way that no one before him had ever done. Richards tells all in this poignant biography.

Oooo records

Conversation the other day got around to what was the first record (or cassette, or CD - depending on your age) that you bought.
I didn't have to think for long, still remember it - "Explosive hits '74". I purchased it for my sister's birthday, and the first chance we had to play it was at our grandparents. Our grandfather totally disapproved of this loud pop music on a machine which previously had only ever played classical and operatic works (maybe it had sometime to do with the first track starting with the guttural ooga ooga ooga chaka).

I didn't remember all the tracks, but seeing the listing again -
Side 1:
Hooked on a feeling - Blue Swede
Dance with the devil - Cozy Powell
Billy don't be a hero - Paper Lace
Ships in the night - Vicki Lawrence
Too pooped to pop - The La De Das
The Entertainer - New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble
La Grange - ZZ Top
Emma - Hot Chocolate
Seasons in the sun - Bobby Wright
Side 2:
The Loco-Motion - Grand Funk Railway
Devil Gate Drive - Suzi Quarto
I am Pegasus - Ross Ryan
The air that I breathe - The Hollies
Over the rainbow - Billy Thorpe
The last time I saw him - Diana Ross
Evie Part 1 - Stevie Wright
My coo ca choo - Alvin Stardust

brings most of it back, though there were a couple that didn't ring a bell till I searched for them on iTunes, also checked my iTunes library and I have two-thirds of them. Umm is that good or bad? 
The other thing that reminiscing about these old tracks is, you also remember events of those times too - listening again conjures up memories...
And then there was "Explosive hits '76"!

The photography of music

I've just been told to lift my game in the "Now & Then" stakes!
After viewing the latest post from the WebUrbanist people - PopSpots: New York City Album Covers Now & Then.
It is a look into New York City’s past, at the locations where iconic album cover photos were taken. Photographer Bob Egan has tracked down the exact places where the photos were taken in the 1960s and 1970s and transposed the album covers onto modern-day photographs.

"After the gold rush" by Neil Young

Neil Young walking at the northwest corner of Sullivan Street and West 3rd Street, Greenwich Village in New York.

"The freewheelin' Bob Dylan"

21 year old Bob Dylan with then girlfriend Suze Rotolo on Jones Street, near West 4th and Bleecker in Greenwich Village.
“Manhattan is constantly being torn down and rebuilt anew, and I’m trying to find these places while they are still around,” says Egan. At times it can take a lot of work to identify the exact spot.
The photo of Bruce Springsteen was taken in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York on the southeast corner of Tenth Avenue and 53rd Street about a half block down and across the street from The Power Station, the recording studio where Bruce was working on "The River" album.

Bruce Springteen at Public School 111 for "The River"

Egan had to do some sleuthing to spot the exact subway platform upon which Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon stood approximately 47 years ago for the cover of "Wednesday Morning, 3AM". Several websites identified it as the platform at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, but to find the exact spot he had to look to things like the height of the support beams.

"Wednesday morning, 3am" by Simon & Garfunkel

"Pretzel logic" by Steely Dan

The site of the "Pretzel logic" album cover was Fifth Avenue and 79th Street, west side of street, just above the 79th Street Transverse (the road through Central Park) at the park entrance called "Miners' Gate".
See Bob Egan’s whole collection at PopSpotsNYC.com.
The Beatles have a few locations they have made famous. The most infamous of all "Abbey Road" which a crowd of people have copied, and their early album "Please please me" with the fab four on a balcony of the EMI offices, which was used again for the compilation albums "1962-1966" and "1967-1970".
Thinking about Australian album covers and not many come to mind, Dragon - "Bondi Rd", Cold Chisel with "Breakfast at Sweethearts" (the Sweethearts Cafe in Kings Cross is now a McDonalds) or "Last wave of summer" (the band at a Wyong service station) though like Dylan's iconic "Subterranean Homesick Blues" film-clip (which has been imitated to the nth degree),

I can think of a number of iconic film-clips that could qualify as potential "now & thens" -
AC/DCs "It's a long way to the top" with the guys on the back of a flat-bed truck through the streets of Melbourne; The Mixtures' "Push bike song" again Melbourne streets; The Oils "U.S.Forces" against the backdrop of the Harbour Bridge.

A Bee Gee

Just had to create a post on the Bee Gees after Robin Gibb died today.
I've two Bee Gees, no make that three, Bee Gees memorable anecdotes.
The first was going down the street from school with Janice and Eileen to buy the "Best of the Bee Gees" (on cassette) from Brashs, but since they didn't have it in stock, had to climb the hill to Myers. Hence we were back late and got gated for the rest of the year.
The second was watching the film Melody and listening to "First of May" and "To love somebody" in the graveyard scenes - beautiful. I still fondly remember the film for the music - the Bee Gees and then C.S.N&Y "Teach your children" at the finale.


The final was going with a group of Res students to see Saturday night fever at the Regent Cinema, with the Bee Gees rebirth in the disco era. But instead of the Bee Gees clip, here is the best version, the Goodies spoof.

Lost America

"Route 66 lost and found : ruins and relics revisited" by Russell A. Olsen I had this book recommended to me (in fact the note came to me with a very librarian-ish list of its bibliographic details, and the "heaps of abandoned and derelict buildings" comment). Naturally I placed a Hold on it & waited patiently for the borrower to return it. America's Route 66 boasted bustling commercial hubs, some remain, but many have crumbled or vanished. The book is a series of 'then and now' photographs of streets, petrol stations, motels and cafes. For such an iconic road the decline of some of these stopping places in 50-70 years is incredible.

The front cover features the Painted Desert Trading Post in Navajo, Arizona. It opened in the early 1940s selling Indian curios, but in the late 50s the highway was relocated and the building has sat empty and abandoned in the desert ever since. The Gascozark Cafe in Missouri was established in 1931 with the stone facade added in 1939. It operated as a popular tourist fishing resort for the Gasconade River. It is now vacant and abandoned.

Two Guns, between Flagstaff and Winslow Arizona (off topic -"standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona" is from Jackson Browne's 'Take it easy' sung by the Eagles). Apparently Two Guns was the site of a massacre of Apaches by the Navajo in 1881. The store, service station & motel are now a crumbling ghost town carrying the curse of bad luck for people entering or disturbing the Indian site.

70 years on

The weekend saw what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, so as I did for Elvis some time ago, here are some Lennon clips.

Free MP3s

This is the final Thing in the Web2.1, and I’ve been attempting to finish it for months. When I first saw the title Websites that offer free MP3s, I thought wow! - free music, can’t wait. The Discovery Exercise, was to:
1. Go to one of the websites posted below.

2. Choose a song to download.
3. Transfer that song from the computer to your MP3 player .

I started accessing the sites, and spent ages flipping past heaps of music I either didn’t know or like, it wasn’t the Nirvana (pun intended) I thought, believe I’ll just save time and pay Mr Itunes the money.

Here are the sites, with my comments in red.

Amazon MP3 Store - The vast majority of the music at Amazon is for sale, but they do have a rotation of free tracks available for download. Only available to U.S. customers
AmieStreet.com - Focused on promoting new and independent music, their downloads range from free to $0.98 as they grow in popularity.All genres Afrobeat, experimental, lots of Hip hop
Archive.org - An enormous collection of public domain music, expired copyright tracks, as well as some free contemporary music. Weird assortment of new “I want to kill everybody” to Margaret Woodrow Wilson (daughter of US Pressie) singing the “Star spangled banner” in 1915 from an old cylinder recording
ArtistServer.com - It started off as a resource for independent electronic musicians, but is now open to all. All tracks can be downloaded for free.

Kept locking up when attempting to stream songs
BeSonic.com - Offers over 13,000 free tracks from mostly European acts.

Is in German & wants email signin
BetterPropaganda.com - A music webzine covering hundreds of music labels, and offering thousands of free & legal songs for you to download.

Sends you to iMesh which wants to download it’s file
CCMixter.org - a site dedicated to music that you can download to remix and post your results, all under the Creative Commons license.
Cooltoad.com Gave up when it kept telling me my passwords didn’t match, even though I pasted the same one in both fields!
Download.com - Most people think CNet’s Download.com is just about software, but they also have tens of thousands of free MP3s you can download from new as well as up and coming bands.
Epitonic.com - A large selection of free tracks from smaller record companies that are free to download with larger releases available for purchase It states its is “cutting edge” maybe that is why its genres are mainly Techno, and Rock only has Punk, Indie & Math Rock.
EZ-Tracks.com - Offers over 30,000 legal downloads that are managed through a partnership with the labels. Starts you off with credit for 101 free upon registering. Need to look closely to see often not performed by the original artists
FreeAlbums.blogsome.com - A blog that posts reviews of complete albums that are available for free downloads from numerous sources. Has a range of genres, and a range of download types. My choice linked to Jamendo (see below)
GarageBand.com - Independent bands can upload their music, then have it rated by users, as well as downloaded for free.
Imeem.com - Features streaming music from all of the major labels as well as numerous smaller companies, with numerous free downloadable tracks.
ItsFreeDownloads.com - Finding the free downloads on iTunes can be a chore, this site does the work for you and lets you know what’s free each week. Wouldn’t open
Jamendo.com - Artists upload their albums under Creative Commons, allowing new listeners to discover their work. Although free, there is the opportunity to donate to the performers of your choice.
Last.fm - While most people know Last.fm for its streaming and social aspects, they offer a weekly chart of downloadable free mp3s. Loved Last.fm till they wanted me to pay.
Live Music Archive - Part of Archive.org, features thousands of live performances by smaller bands as well as the likes of the Grateful Dead and Jason Mraz.
MetalHordes.com - A band promotion site focusing on various forms of heavy metal, and allowing bands to upload mp3s users can download for free.
MP3.com - Besides their paid section, MP3.com does offer a large selection of free tracks from acts small and large alike.
MP3.com.au - Focusing on Australian bands, mp3.com.au offers a repository for bands to upload their music for people to download and try for free.
MP34U - Works in conjunction with Muzic.com, this site finds sources of free music & legal music from all over the Web.
MP3Raid.com - Searches multiple sources to bring you approximately a million free song downloads.
Muzic.com - A sister site to MP34U, wherein the artists upload their tracks themselves, and muzic.com helps them promote their work.
Music.download.com—click on “111,000 Free MP3s” at the top of the page
Purevolume.com - Allows independent musicians to set up profiles for themselves, stream their music and gives them the option of enabling their work for free downloads.
Ruckus.com - Ruckus provides free music to people with .edu email addresses, and requires you to renew your licenses for DRM once a year.
SoundClick.com - Offering a mixture of signed and unsigned artists the opportunity to set up profile pages and either stream their music or offer it up for free downloads.
SpiralFrog.com- Major release albums and tracks available for the price of just watching some advertisements.
Stereogum.com - Daily free mp3s from various artists, as well as rotating free albums.
TuneShout.com - A site for independent artists to promote themselves. Artists can upload tracks either for free or at a user cost of $0.89.
We7.com - We7 offers mp3 downloads for free, but they do have advertisements attached to them. If you want them without the ads, they do offer a paid alternative.

So finally finished!!

Awesome ad

Here's the link to how they make the babies it doesn't ruin the charm
This Billie Jean version has a moon walk towards the end - cute as!

Wake in fright

I studied Kenneth Cook's "Wake in fright" at school, and had never seen the film. After attempting to see it in the theatre in Melbourne, (but the session was booked out) I ordered the DVD, just released after the original negative was saved from a rubbish skip in the U.S.

John Grant, a teacher at a remote rural school, is looking forward to his Christmas break in Sydney. Staying overnight, before catching the plane to Sydney, in Bundanyabba a rough mining town, Grant decides to a visit a pub with a Two-up game. After nearly buying out his bond, he loses the lot, and with a number of the town's characters he descends into a Lost Weekend. Five days later he leaves town a broken man, with a single bullet in his gun.
It has been called "stunning, brutal and uncompromising, one of the best films ever made in Australia." Macho with menace and mateship its actors and locations set the scene for a stark depiction of remote Australia and Outback life. It was Jack Thompson's first, and Chips Rafferty's last film. Made in 1971 it was the forerunner of the emergence of an Australian film industry, before Peter Weir, & Bruce Beresford, etc.
Getting a pic of the cover I copied the cover from Fishpond.com which like many sales sites had below the Customers who bought this product also purchased: message, and the customer also bought Susan Boyle's "I dreamed a dream" - find it hard to believe!

Still with music, I believe Wedding, Parties, Anything's "By tomorrow" was inspired by the story:
Well you call it generosity
It's not a word I'd use
You say I'm slightly D and D
I'd say I've been abused
You know I can't resist your shout
You know full well I'm broke
So I sit hear and drink your beer
And laugh at all your stupid jokes

Oh Christ, I hate your dirty town
I hate your dirty street
And I despise your rank hotels
And everyone I meet
If you had a brain in your head
You'd be getting out
If I had a cent to my name
I'd hit the toe, I'd skip my shout
I've got to move, I've got to try
It's not a place I want to live
And I'm too young to die...

75 years on

The king is dead ... long live the king
Today 8th is Elvis' 75th birthday, and here are a few of his memorable performances

At World's End

At World’s End: 13 More Post-Apocalyptic Visions, another post from WebUrbanist.
Our small blue planet – and everything on it – is destined to be fried to a crisp by an expanding sun some 5 billion years hence. Will anyone be around to observe the final sunset, or will society and civilization be snuffed out long before? Here are 13 more visions of what a post-apocalyptic world might be like.
I've chosen just a few of the 13, which have some significance to me.

Mad To The Max

From Australia it came, and things would never be the same. Mad Max, released in 1979, was the inspiration of many post-apocalyptic films to come. I was at one of the Mad Max locations at the Mundi Mundi Plains just a few weeks ago.

Apocalypso music
An early sci-fi blockbuster is The War Of The Worlds in which invaders from Mars nearly triumph over humanity, only to be defeated by humble bacteria. One of the best treatments of Wells’ masterpiece is Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, issued as a double LP record in 1978 accompanied by bleak artwork by Peter Goodfellow, Geoff Taylor and Michael Trim. I've the LP version and just organised to have it digitised the day before yesterday - will still keep the LP and artwork though.

Silent Spring In Siberia
Some say the world will end not with a bang, but with a whimper… a slow slump into decay and decomposition. Witness the process in action by visiting the abandoned Russian city of Kadykchan. A Siberian tin-mining town that boasted a population of 5,794 as recently as 1989, Kadykchan has less than 300 inhabitants today.
This view of Kadykchan in its prime, taken from – seriously – the city’s official website.

 Panic in Detroit

It’s not only in Russia that parts of our modern world are slipping away into chaos and catastrophe – it’s happening in the city I've covered a number of times Detroit, Michigan building the American dream.

#48 Free music

This theme sounded great - go to music.download.com and find songs with a Download Free MP3 option and save it!
Well after about a frustrating hour I'd prefer to pay my money to the online stores and just buy it. I realise that in Australia we won't have the same level of free access, but I had to search and search to find something, and then when I found one, like this track from 'The Librarian' soundtrack, the song wouldn't download, I tried with another 2 songs, same result. I'll just play my LastFM radio station instead. I did notice that free music downloads are revisited with Thing 70, so if I ever get that far we'll see what else is available.

#47 Jam Studio

'This online music factory allows you to create and share songs on the web. You don't have to know much about music to use them. You can even create your own songs without knowing how to play an instrument'.

Though it would help if you at least knew what different chords sound like and which ones it is possible to string together to produce some kind of cacophany, as this task was to create a song on JamStudio, link to it and then blog about the experience. So here's the link (just press the Play button in the Mixer window to start it) which only took a couple of minutes (no hours in a cold garret bashing away on an old piano, which was just as well) and is quiet short. I found the electric guitars tended to take over, so I cut that back a bit. I'm definitely made for listening to not composing music.

# 40 Retroland

I didn't know what to expect seeing just the word Retroland, a social networking site where members can reconnect with the things they loved "back in the days" and interact with people who share the same fond memories.
It's a great site, least for me, reminiscing about old TV, films, music, lollies, games etc. However what the site needs is a link to the theme music, at least for the TV shows, so I've put links to the YouTube clips of some of my favourites -
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Bullwinkle J. Moose, was lovable, dimwitted, and his sidekick pal was a flying squirrel named Rocky, short for Rocket J. Squirrel. Their cliffhanger ending inspired comic adventures pitted them against the evil Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.
The Banana Splits combined live-action, psychedelic rock music and classic animation, with a generous helping of short comedic sketches. The group was comprised of Fleagle (beagle,) Bingo (gorilla,) Drooper (lion) and Snorky (elephant.) recurring live-action feature segment called Danger Island - aahh-oohh Chongo and the cartoons "The Three Musketeers" based on the classic literary work, and "The Arabian Nights". (loved those great buggies the Splits drove).
The Beverly Hillbillies, a clan of rural folk found their way to a world of luxury in the wealthy community of Bel Air. The ensuing antics as they tried to assimilate into their new high-brow surroundings was the simple, yet endearing premise that made them a television favourite. At the show’s peak, 60 million people were tuning in each week.
Addams Family ran for only 2 seasons, and cast Gomez, the father of the clan, as a flamboyant lawyer; Morticia, the mother, was an icy and aloof femme fatale; their children were Pugsley, a chubby hell-raiser, and Wednesday, a happy-go-lucky little girl; Granny, a batty old witch, and Uncle Fester, a bald middle-aged man. Lurch, a tall ghoulish-looking servant, who rarely spoke, except to boom out "You rang?" and Thing; a hand that scampered around on its fingers.
The Cattanooga Cats were a feline rock band. Members of the band included the lead singer-guitarist, Country, singer-dancer Kitty Jo, bassist-cellist Scoots, and Groove, the drummer. Segments featured on the show were "Around the World in 79 Days", very loosely based upon the Jules Verne novel, "It’s the Wolf!" which featured Mildew the wolf, who wanted nothing more than to eat Lambsy. "Motor Mouse and Auto Cat" pitted Auto Cat against Motor Mouse in various car races (a la Tom & Jerry). (My sister could remembrr this show, but I'd forgotten it, till I saw the theme clip and it all came rushing back).
The Lone Ranger (theme from "William Tell Overture") the incognito defender of justice whose weapon of choice was his intellect, rather than his sidearm. He carried one, but he would never kill with it, only wounding adversaries with his famed silver bullets as a last resort. starring Clayton Moore as the fabled hero and Jay Silverheels as his faithful friend and sidekick, Tonto.
There are toys, like the Smurfs, they were short, blue and bald, lived inside mushrooms in a remote part of a medieval forest and loved to sing and dance. Smurfs debuted as a Saturday morning cartoon, which created a phenomenon across the world that few toys have been able to surpass. Smurfrabilia came out in force: the little plastic figurines from BP servos, plush toys, school supplies, swimsuits, plates, cups, foodstuff, sheets, clothing, car accessories, lunch-boxes, video games, and wallpaper patterns.
Spirograph is a geometric drawing toy, the set comes with a variety of plastic shapes, like circles, triangles and spirals. The shapes are ridged so they can engage with other shapes like connected gears.
Troll Dolls, as we’ve come to know them are generally short, potbellied, with big hands and feet and exaggerated facial features. A tuft of crazy-coloured hair sprouted from the top of the troll’s virtually non-existent forehead. (so ugly I wasn't allowed to have one).

Unfortunately many of the toys are Americanised and this is especially true for the foods group, but here’s a few -
Jawbreakers, alternatelyknown as Everlasting Gobstoppers. Jawbreakers are a generic name for hard candies, They come in a variety of sizes, from the miniature (and fairly easy to chew) version, which are a bit smaller than marbles, to those that are nearly as big as apples and certainly not suitable for the unsuspecting novice. jawbreakers are legendary for their strength and ability to last and last. It turns out that the process for making them is even more time-consuming than eating them, it takes between 14 and 19 days to make a single candy.
Then there are the Chips Ahoy biscuits and lolly necklaces and finally this entry "Dear Australia, Please be so kind as to keep the Violet Crumble pipeline flowing to us in the States. I know we may not seem appreciative at times but there are those of us who really do cherish them. Your Friend, America PS: By all means, you can keep the Vegemite."

#39 Watermusic on Animoto

I discovered Animoto back in 2007 when doing Thing 10 - Image generators. Animoto is a web application that produces professional videos using their own technology to analyze your images and to select music to create your own short video production.
In 2007 I chose flowers as my theme, this time I've chosen underwater subjects, I must try something different to use the more dramatic/cresendo music that's available (maybe something using Carmens toureadors)