week in review: Mötley Crüe + Haydn

The title of this ridiculous entry says it all. I saw both Mötley Crüe and a performance of Haydn's The Creation in the space of a few days. I'm still reeling from the culture shock of seeing them in such close proximity. Here, see how your brain reacts to this:

Mötley Crüe













Franz Josef





















The Crüe
















Papa Haydn














"The Saints of Los Angeles"















"The Father of the Symphony"















See, I told you it was jarring. Now just take a deep breath, have a drink of water and realize it's going to be okay.

I am not a fan of Mötley Crüe and probably never will be but last Wednesday I fell ass-backwards into some free tickets to go see them in the Fox Sports suite at the Xcel Center. A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go and, not being able to turn down a free $100+ ticket, I decided to go to experience the entire thing. It wasn't as good as AC/DC a month or so back but it was certainly a big production. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures (and was actually forced back into the Minnesota cold to take my camera back to the car) so I don't have anything to back up what I'm about to describe. What this means, however, is that you'll just have to take me at my word that there was some extremely risque behavior between the respective 20-foot tall, moving silhouettes of an angel and a demon as the show began...like really, really, not-even-close-to-PG-13 bad. But it's the Shout at the Devil guys, right?

It's part of the package. No problem. Next song.

This isn't to say that I had a bad time at all. In fact, I had a blast. Remember Dr. Feelgood? He's the one that makes you feel all right. I totally just bought it on iTunes.

So that was Wednesday. On Friday I hit the Ordway Center to hear the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra celebrate their 50th Anniversary by putting on an amazing performance of Haydn's The Creation. I sang a few of the arias back in college and even did a presentation on this piece for choral/orchestral lit. class so it was nice to finally hear it live. It is such a nice piece of music and, since my local orchestra of choice up to this point has been the Minnesota Orchestra, it was awesome to finally hear the SPCO in person. Dale Warland even came out of quasi-retirement to prepare the chorus for the concert.

The only downside was that the tenor who was supposed to sing the show, James Taylor (no, not that one), was unable to perform due to illness. I've loved his voice ever since I got Helmuth Rilling's recording of the Mass in B Minor a couple of years back and getting to hear him live was the part of the concert I was most excited about. Oh well, right? They got another amazing tenor on short notice whose name escapes me at the moment (this shouldn't serve as an indictment of how awesome he was, though).

So, aside from a flurry of grant writing (which I'll talk about in the future if I actually get the thing), that was my week. I was trying to think of other weird combinations like this which would be just as ironic and weird unfortunately, none of them are as funny as how it all actually went down.

...can't make this stuff up.

now, now every children

It's been a while since I wrote about what I've been listening to lately. If you get a chance head over to MySpace to listen to a band called Now, Now Every Children. They're local, amazing and their new album, Cars, gets better each time I listen to it. I should probably try to see one of their shows before they go mega-platinum.

There's something different-but-compelling about the "orchestration" (if I can use that term) of this album. I think they may have perfected saying something in the simplest possible terms but still making it stick. The melodies and the scratch of the mix are indelible and the symmetry in the pop structures is endless...like a song you've heard before but never knew.

J'ai complété les chansons françaises! Enfin!

My new set of French songs is done and finished and off to the musicians at Chapman University's Conservatory of Music to work on! That is a load off my mind and I'm really excited to hear them.















I ended up calling the set Chansons de la Vigne ("Songs from the Vine") because, for some reason, 3 of the 4 texts I selected mentioned wine in them. That wasn't an agenda I set out with when I initially chose the poetry but it 's nice to know that there is a unifying theme throughout the 5 movements other than just the language.









The entire cycle should clock in just over 11 minutes and every movement has its own sort of character.

1. Ma Bohème ("My Bohemian Life") is the only one that uses a text by Arthur Rimbaud. It's a funny little thing with flat-out jazz chords near the end and a ton of metrical switches. I've been wanting to write something in 7/8 ever since I performed Berstein's Chichester Psalms years ago and, with certain passages in this piece, I think I finally put out something I'm happy with.

2. This was the first one I wrote way back in December. I can hear some Poulenc influencing some of the harmonic gestures in it but, frankly, this is no surprise given the fact that I was reading a biography about him and listening to a lot of his music at the time. Baquet de vin translates to "Bucket of wine."

3. Pitiè de moi ("Self-pity") is the only one that doesn't mention wine by name. The choir sings an ostinato throughout with a soprano soloing over the top of the entire thing.

4. La table et les deux verre ("The table and the two glasses") introduces the piano with a single A-flat in the left hand followed by an explosion of sound from the choir. It uses the first half of Guillaume Apollinaire's "Poem for the Marriage of André Salmon".

5. Chanson de Mariage ("Marriage Song") uses the second half of the poem from the previous movement and finishes out the set with a piano part that starts up with constant 16th notes and barely lets up. This one was a lot of fun to compose and is probably one of the more melodic things I've written.

So that's that. I spent a solid 4 months getting these pieces from a blank concept in need of a text to the finished product. The only casualty was my old computer (more on that later but see the previous entry for an explanation). Rest in pieces, my friend.

And to finish this entry off with a bit of funny business, I typed "Joshua needs" into Google and came out with the following:

• Joshua needs to crawl
• Joshua needs the Kwik-E-Mart
• Joshua needs to collect information about the kinds of stress pilots undergo
• Joshua needs a haircut
• Joshua needs glasses.

My personal favorite, however, was the first entry it spit back at me:

• Joshua needs a disciple

Uh, duh. Everyone needs a disciple. I think I would make an awesome leader of some sort of band of people. Benevolent and fair. Merciful and just.

geek squad & holy crap!

I finished the French pieces! The last pencil marking hit paper last Saturday and I drove home listening to some salsa music that, for some reason, I can't remember. I was so happy that, had it been spring, I might have rolled the window down.

Unfortunately fate struck, my Finale program began to malfunction and I couldn't open anything. So, with an approaching deadline and 2 movements to enter into the computer, my laptop sits at the local Geek Squad HQ waiting to be fixed.




















It's unbelievably frustrating. I had no idea how much I relied on that damn thing. Oh well. Hopefully I'll come out of it not having to buy another computer because, frankly, I'm probably due for one.

In other news, did anyone see this article? It's titled Man killed by 'exploding mobile phone.' Is that really possible?

According to the local Chinese daily Shin Min Daily News, the accident happened on January 30 at 7.30p.m. An employee at the shop told Chinese media that she heard a loud bang and saw her colleague lying on the floor of the shop in a pool of blood. The employee said the victim had recently changed the battery in his mobile phone.

I don't mean anybody any harm and I'm not trying to dance on this poor man's grave or anything but could we possibly pinpoint the make and model of this thing? Changing a battery can possibly cause your cell phone to blow up? Seriously. Someone's life could hang in the balance.















p.s. I have no idea who this guy is but it looks like he's trying to call in an air strike on Cool. Yea for the 1980s.