tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49002743684769217172024-03-17T23:08:01.202-06:00QueenvilleRandom Queen quips from a fan of 34 years.Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.comBlogger206125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-44217052835977022142018-11-09T10:39:00.000-07:002018-11-09T22:56:17.039-07:00Bohemian Rhapsody <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, I caught <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i> at the IMAX the other night and I must say that the best part, in my opinion, was the 20th Century Fox credit which occurs before the movie’s opening scene — to my delight, its famous orchestral theme got the Brian May wire choir treatment.<br />
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It was a Queen version of a classic piece of music we all recognize. Sadly, the movie that followed wasn’t able to sustain that level of excitement as the story unfolded.<br />
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By now, it’s obvious that the movie has its hardcore fans and its detractors. iMDB viewers are giving it very high ratings (8.4 at last count) but if you dare to read a random sampling of the external reviews, they’re pretty unanimous in panning it for being, well, not faithful to the band’s timeline or trying to shoehorn too many landmark moments into a 134-minute movie.<br />
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The scenes that stood out for me were:<br />
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<li>Freddie’s interactions with his family, which were both humorous and touching;</li>
<li>Mike Myers playing the EMI executive who’s having trouble understanding the whole opera thing;</li>
<li>The last 20 minutes where they re-enact their Live Aid performance </li>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BFuoyn6A_WY/W99eP6pIvuI/AAAAAAAAEkE/3gUdeMvFzOkR2kpriX7xY2SYJkeiF-VjwCLcBGAs/s1600/ww_br_myers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="476" data-original-width="430" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BFuoyn6A_WY/W99eP6pIvuI/AAAAAAAAEkE/3gUdeMvFzOkR2kpriX7xY2SYJkeiF-VjwCLcBGAs/s1600/ww_br_myers.jpg" /></a>In addition to Brian’s rendition of the 20th Century Fox theme, no one's commented on the Marlene Dietrich poster that Freddie walks by in one of the early scenes. I remember watching a Mick Rock documentary where he talks about his inspiration for the harsh lighting and iconic poses depicted on the <i>Queen II</i> cover photo...he more or less admitted that he borrowed the aesthetic from old Marlene Dietrich photos.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TeLn4rGpBbU/W-W5UbeW1oI/AAAAAAAAEkk/s7R61tO-KZA09uBj_5Ii_r80evTrN6_xQCLcBGAs/s1600/dietrich_2-up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="227" data-original-width="430" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TeLn4rGpBbU/W-W5UbeW1oI/AAAAAAAAEkk/s7R61tO-KZA09uBj_5Ii_r80evTrN6_xQCLcBGAs/s1600/dietrich_2-up.jpg" /></a>So while that small detail is probably lost on the casual movie-goer, my hat goes off to whoever decided to put that poster in the shot. Too bad the rest of the details in the movie didn’t have that same fundamental grounding in reality.<br />
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I’m disappointed in Brian and Roger for letting the script dismantle the integrity of the band’s history. By allowing blatant mistakes in their chronology, they are endorsing these fabrications. As stewards of their own legacy, they’ve taken extreme measures in the past to ensure quality and accuracy in everything Queen Productions has put out since Freddie’s death, so why would they rubber stamp a project with obvious errors even if it falls under creative license for a movie adaptation?<br />
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Beyond the liberties the script takes with the band’s history (i.e., <i>Fat Bottomed Girls</i> playing over a montage of their 1974 US tour, or Freddie learning he has AIDS in 1985), I would argue the portrayal of conflict is perhaps the film’s greatest weakness. I counted at least seven elements of conflict going on simultaneously:<br />
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<li>Freddie’s relationship with Mary and how it evolves (devolves?) over the years</li>
<li>Freddie’s relationship with Paul Prenter</li>
<li>Freddie’s relationship with Jim Hutton</li>
<li>Freddie’s relationship with his Parsi family</li>
<li>The band’s fighting with the record label to retain the vision for their music</li>
<li>Freddie being confronted with a solo record deal which puts him at odds with the band</li>
<li>Freddie learning he has HIV so time is now against him </li>
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Did the film studio simply push to get it done, especially given the setbacks that Sasha Baron Cohen and Bryan Singer brought to the movie's development and production? In hindsight, the two-minute trailers for <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i> were actually more effective at capturing the spirit and essence of Freddie and Queen than did the 134-minute film itself.<br />
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Did I like it at all? Sure. I’m over the moon whenever the band and Freddie make it into mainstream media and their achievements are recognized by the masses. But in my opinion it came off as sanitized and a bit cowardly. I have heard, however, that that was the stated intention of Brian and Roger from the beginning, which, of course, led to their falling out with Sasha Baron Cohen. Were they protecting Freddie’s parents’ honour? Did they simply want to avoid an “R” rating? Having Bryan Singer’s departure come at a time when he was called out during the #metoo movement certainly didn’t help.<br />
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Now I’m left wondering what a Sasha Baron Cohen interpretation <i>would</i> have looked like. There’s no question that Freddie did lots of drugs, chain-smoked, and could be as lewd as the next rock star. However, if Cohen managed to balance out Freddie’s debauchery with his fondness for Shakespeare, Liza Minnelli, Cecile B. DeMille, ballet, art history (Dadd, anyone?), and Jim Croce, then I think we’d be closer to understanding the man who was fearless in living life to the fullest.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5a5858; font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">#BohemianRhapsody </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5a5858; font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">#BohemianRhapsodyMovie </span><br />
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<span style="color: #5a5858; font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 11px;">#queen</span></span><br />
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Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-88797368642562610552018-06-03T20:39:00.002-06:002018-06-19T18:39:24.859-06:00From Stone Town to Heavy Metal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="s2">When <i>Another One Bites the Dust</i> came up on our PVR’s episode list for <i>The Amazing Race</i> (S29:E4) from April 2017, I was very curious to see how Queen factored into this very popular reality show.</span></div>
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After the obligatory recap of the previous week’s episode, host Phil Keoghan explains that the next leg of the race lands them in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous island off the coast of East Africa that is part of Tanzania. Aha, there’s the Queen connection, they’re visiting Freddie’s birthplace. I wondered if the choice of Zanzibar for one of the show’s locations was due to a producer knowing about Freddie’s history on that remote island and it would be a great fit as an exotic location the racers hadn’t been to yet? Or, did they choose Zanzibar because it is an exotic location that might give the American contestants a bit of ratings-friendly culture shock and it just so happened that when they Googled Zanzibar they discovered the Freddie connection and wrote an episode around him?</span></div>
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Whatever the case, it was neat to see Freddie’s birthplace included in a reality show.</span></div>
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The first time we learn that Freddie is part of the episode is when the contestants are told to make their way to Mercury House, although it’s initially referred to as “Farrokh House” which didn’t seem to resonate with the players given that they were in Zanzibar.</span></div>
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Once the teams began asking the locals about Farrokh House, the players discovered that it is Freddie Mercury’s childhood home. The problem, though, is that his original home was demolished and some of the locals knew this, so they were taken to a pile of rubble where they sifted through the debris for the next clue.</span></div>
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Luckier players were taken to the actual “Mercury House” that is part museum, part heritage home and was the location of the LOCK or KNOCK detour. The outside entrance to this building has a windowed display case featuring a variety of Freddie images.</span></div>
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Choosing LOCK meant players had to search through stacks of wooden chests of drawers seeking a key that would open a particular padlock and reveal the next destination. Choosing KNOCK required players to meander through the back alleys and walkways of Stone Town looking for three distinct doors which are considered “royal” doors by the residents. Once they visited all three, they’d get their next clue.</span></div>
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The final Queen connection came near the end of the episode when Phil and the players made their way off the island and back to Tanzania where a Road Block awaited.</span></div>
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For this “Heavy Metal” Road Block, the team had to fashion a metal straining spoon out of a sheet of aluminum without the benefit of modern tools.</span></div>
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Heavy metal? At this point, the Queen/royalty/music/Zanzibar connections seem a bit forced. But, since they were on a musical theme and they had a road block dealing with metal, why not use the term <i>heavy metal</i>...even though most of their music fell outside of that genre. It’s a minor detail, I suppose.</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pLNMKWZrAc8/WwsVcojDdRI/AAAAAAAAEfk/_ipv9QjDPfwO2cp5qTODGeiMiFNdJz4DgCLcBGAs/s1600/11_elise_bertram_credits_430px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="242" data-original-width="430" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pLNMKWZrAc8/WwsVcojDdRI/AAAAAAAAEfk/_ipv9QjDPfwO2cp5qTODGeiMiFNdJz4DgCLcBGAs/s1600/11_elise_bertram_credits_430px.jpg" /></a><span class="s2">So who connected the dots between Zanzibar and Freddie as a possible leg of the race? The husband and wife team of Dutch-born Bertram van Munster and American-born Elise Doganieri are a power couple in the world of reality TV producers. I tend to think that van Munster’s European upbringing — and Queen’s overall fanbase in the European community — would suggest that he knew about Freddie’s history with Zanzibar first and conceptualized the episode around those themes. But, maybe I’m wrong…perhaps Doganieri is the Queen aficionado in the family and she made it happen. Doesn’t matter…I’m just happy it made the cut and the episode was able to showcase Farrokh Bulsara’s humble beginnings and how remarkable his rise to international fame really was, all things considered.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">I wonder if tourism picked up for the tiny island after this episode. Much to the angst of the local politicians who govern the officially Muslim territory, his gay lifestyle is part of his legacy. </span></div>
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<span class="s2">They did succeed in banning a large scale celebration at Mercury’s, a local restaurant and bar, that was planned for Freddie’s 60th birthday, but this still shot from a YouTube video showing visitors to Mercury House prior to the <i>Amazing Race</i> appearance indicates that Freddie is a sizable draw for tourism dollars and at least some of the locals are keen to look past dogma and capitalize on his Western accomplishments.</span></div>
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<br />Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-43775440361385588412017-03-03T13:15:00.004-07:002017-03-05T19:56:52.512-07:00Steampunque?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I caught Trooper, Canada’s favourite party band, at a community association fundraiser recently. (Trooper, incidentally, was my very first arena concert experience as a kid in small-town Alberta, so the last time I saw them was in 1977, so this fundraiser was promising to bring us back together after nearly 40 years.)<br />
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As stoked as I was to see them, however, it was their opening act, Punch Drunk Cabaret (PDC), that actually made the night memorable for me.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3J-DX4Hp8es/WLeb6U21pfI/AAAAAAAAEVg/YanGwmgpoUs4y5bySA3vHseT6JrfCYwpwCLcB/s1600/PDC_2-header_430px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3J-DX4Hp8es/WLeb6U21pfI/AAAAAAAAEVg/YanGwmgpoUs4y5bySA3vHseT6JrfCYwpwCLcB/s1600/PDC_2-header_430px.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">The Punch Drunk Cabaret line-up (L-R): Sean E Watts (drums), Bandmeister Randy B (guitar/vocals), and Terry Sawbones Grant (bass)</td></tr>
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The lead guitarist, Bandmeister Randy B., was decked out in a white suit and bowler hat, and began throwing around some rockabilly riffs that really got the crowd going. A few minutes into their set, what started as <i>Rock This Town </i>by the Stray Cats, segued into a variety of song snippets and eventually ending with the Everly Brothers’ <i>Wake Up, Little Susie.</i> Half-way through this extended medley was a few seconds of <i>Fat Bottomed Girls!</i><br />
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PDC eventually conceded the stage to Trooper after a 40-minute set and as great as Trooper was that night, I kept thinking back to that medley which included <i>FBG</i>. When I got home that night, I tracked down PDC on Facebook and messaged them about the FBG appearance and if they’d be open to answering a few other Queen-related questions. To my surprise, Randy B., also the band’s manager, responded the next morning and invited me to send over whatever questions I had. So I cobbled together a list and fired them back.<br />
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QV) As mentioned, Randy, I caught PDC when you guys opened for Trooper on February 11th. To my surprise, I heard the intro to <i>Fat Bottomed Girls</i> during your song medley. Can you tell me the backstory on why you featured Queen and, more specifically, why that song was chosen.<br />
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RB) By design, Punch Drunk Cabaret is an act that is always looking for ways to involve the audience in the show. We’ll spike our originals with snippets of cover songs, and radically re-arrange cover songs to make them more original. Adding a chorus of <i>Fat Bottomed Girls</i> into the Stray Cats classic, <i>Rock This Town</i>, might seem an unlikely fit but it goes over with ANY audience, which is a testament to Queen’s universal appeal. The decision to juxtapose those two songs was completely stream of consciousness. I credit it to developing a broad musical vocabulary as a kid which had a lot to do with listening to Queen.<br />
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QV) On a scale of 1 to 39, how would you rate yourself as a Queen fan?<br />
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RB) I don’t really think of myself in terms of being “a fan.” It’s much more like a philosophy or belief system that I ascribe to as a musician and performer. Of course I have favourite songs and albums, but Queen’s manifesto was impressed upon me when I was a very impressionable nine- or ten-year-old. Thirty years later, I still adhere to that manifesto. It’s become a lifestyle. I don’t know how to conduct myself any other way. So it’s more like saying “I’m a practicing Buddhist” rather than, “I’m a fan of Buddhism.”<br />
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QV) That’s an interesting way to think of it. You told me earlier that you had the good fortune of discovering <i>ANATO</i> and <i>NOTW</i> when you were ten years old. What were the circumstances in which you discovered these two albums?<br />
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RB) In the mid to late ’70s, I had a cousin who was ten years older than me with a modern record collection. That exposed me to all kinds of great music that I would then beg my parents to buy me. At that age I was also really drawn to the cover art, which is why I initially bought <i>A Night at the Opera</i>. I loved that great regal, coat of arms. It was as if Queen was its own nation and the listener could belong to it. Then I got <i>News of the World</i> and that giant killer robot scared the hell out of me! The cover alone was such a great narrative.<br />
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QV) Funny you should say that…<a href="http://queenville.blogspot.ca/2012/03/killer-robot-monster-saves-family-guy.html">Seth MacFarlane</a> had the same fear as a kid. How has Queen’s music and/or stage presence influenced PDC?<br />
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RB) When I talk about Queen’s “manifesto,” I’m referring to things like...<br />
- “performing” music as opposed to simply “playing” it,<br />
- pairing great music with engaging visuals,<br />
- including the audience in the show and creating a communal experience,<br />
- creating a broad and dynamic body of work that defies genres and categories,<br />
- inhabiting a character or character's during a performance,<br />
- embracing the fact that you are an entertainer,<br />
- injecting a sense of humour into your art,<br />
I could go on and on...<br />
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QV) Do the other band members have a similar attitude towards Queen or is it just you?<br />
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RB) My bandmates didn’t have the same personal experience with single Queen albums like I did, but they were equally impacted by ’70s era theatrical rock that was also being popularized by KISS, Bowie, and to a lesser degree, Cheap Trick. <br />
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QV) As a professional guitarist, can you comment on Brian’s playing and songwriting?<br />
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RB) For me, Brian is counter-inspirational! His level of talent and skill set is so highly evolved that you just think to yourself “why do I even bother”? Studying Brian’s work is like studying alien DNA. From establishing a signature guitar AND guitar sound, to being an outstanding songwriter, he has it all. I remember buying the music for <i>The Game</i> when I first started playing guitar and thinking “how does he know so many chords”?<br />
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QV) Has the band done a proper Queen cover tune? To me, an obvious choice would be <i>CLTCL</i> since it’s rockabilly anyway, but I can easily imagine PDC reinterpreting a lot of Queen songs.<br />
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RB) We haven’t fully covered a Queen tune yet. On occasion we’ve lead the audience in a chorus of <i>We Will Rock You</i> during an original called <i>Digg</i> that’s a blues shuffle. It reframes the lyrics from a triumphant declaration to a veiled threat! <br />
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QV) That’s awesome! It seemed to me as I watched your performance the other night, that the steampunk, retro-technology element of your show had traces of <i>Metropolis</i>, and even a nod to Queen’s <i>The Works</i> era. Is this coincidence or is there a subtle Queen connection there as well?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Queen adopted many of the retro-futurism motifs from the film “Metropolis” for The Works album and tour in 1984.</td></tr>
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RB) Identifying the <i>Metropolis</i> link is most perceptive! What we share with Queen isn’t obvious to the casual observer. We look like steampunks, our sound is a rockabilly/swing/ rock mix and we play with the energy of a stadium rock act. But if you look under the hood, you’ll see that our approach and execution is built on the same template as Queen. On a personal note, I have to admit that on this tour, the armband and stripes down the legs of my suit harken back to Freddie’s iconic, mid-80s look.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dKBe2sHgXFs/WLedJHUZ9aI/AAAAAAAAEVo/dXcmY56tjqg2ghTB3ppJJaS-pNEof9YQQCLcB/s1600/PDC_gears_shadows_430px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dKBe2sHgXFs/WLedJHUZ9aI/AAAAAAAAEVo/dXcmY56tjqg2ghTB3ppJJaS-pNEof9YQQCLcB/s1600/PDC_gears_shadows_430px.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">An early Punch Drunk Cabaret set design with similar retro-futuristic imagery. Photo © Papa Razzo.</td></tr>
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QV) Were you lucky enough to catch Freddie and Queen back in the day? Any desire to catch Q+AL in Edmonton later this summer?<br />
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RB) Sadly, I never caught vintage Queen live. I saw one of the world’s top tribute acts and was left very underwhelmed, so it would be a good idea to see them with Adam Lambert this summer to wash that taste out of my mouth.<br />
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QV) Maybe it was serendipity that Queen and the Everly Brothers appear together in your song medley....when Phil Everly died in January 2014, Brian May is on record saying that the Everly Brothers were a major influence on Queen’s vocal harmonies years later.<br />
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RB) Interesting point. It certainly wasn’t planned to mash those songs together, but I find it endlessly intriguing how artistic decisions can seem so arbitrary at the time, only to discover the elements are connected after all. That’s far more interesting than calculating things in hopes that they’ll appeal to an audience.<br />
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Find out more about Punch Drunk Cabaret at their website <a href="http://www.punchdrunkcabaret.com/">here</a>.<br />
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</style>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-63792703898656427702017-01-28T23:37:00.001-07:002017-01-28T23:37:29.982-07:00Under Pressure Cooker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My wife picked up one of those Instant Pot pressure cookers a couple of weeks ago after reading great reviews about them online. It turns out, the brand has such a devoted following that they even have a name for an Instant Pot owner: a Pothead.<br />
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There’s also a unique trend happening within the Pothead community, which was brought to my attention when my wife showed me this:<br />
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The comments to this Facebook post were overwhelming positive, no doubt because the song is the musical manifestation of the kitchen appliance. There were a few snickers in the comments crowd, too, since Freddie's pose along with the position of the word “under” gave the impression that Freddie was actually releasing some pressure, so to speak.<br />
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The more knowledgeable Queen fans in the group came to Freddie’s rescue by reminding everyone that the decal was put on the Instant Pot incorrectly...it should be turned 90˚ counterclockwise so Freddie is seen leaning backward.<br />
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And then my wife discovered another UP reference:<br />
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And another:<br />
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And another:<br />
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Putting a clever decal on your Instant Pot usually means relating it back in some way to either cooking, steam, the letters “IP,” or the word “pot,” as these custom Instant Pot decals shows:<br />
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Some Potheads are so enthralled by their Instant Pot that they purchased two...and did up matching decals for them up, too.<br />
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So what about other Queen possibilities? A quick flip through their song list suggests these classics could make interesting decals:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Who Wants to Cook Forever</li>
<li>You’re My Best Friend</li>
<li>Love of My Life</li>
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Slim pickings, I must say. <i>Under Pressure</i> is without a doubt the best decal choice.<br />
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<span style="color: #fce5cd;">.</span><br />
<br />Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-69660177274506152222016-08-18T22:29:00.002-06:002017-03-05T20:35:24.408-07:00Suicide Squad Trumps Limitless Suits on Billboards from the ’70s<br />
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While I don’t have as much time these days to update Queenville as often as I’d like, pop culture references to Queen are as pervasive as ever it seems.<br />
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For example, I just finished watching Season 1 of <i>Suits</i>, a TV drama focusing on a high-powered law firm in NYC. (I noticed, however, that many of the high-rise shots actually featured Canadian buildings from downtown Toronto, so after some snooping on iMDB, I discovered it is indeed shot in Toronto and stars Canadian-born Patrick J. Adams as the gifted college drop-out, Mike Ross.)<br />
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What I didn’t expect was the nerdy character of Louis Litt (played by Rick Hoffman) proclaim Queen to be the best band ever, as seen in his S1:E8 exchange with Harvey Spector, the firm’s star lawyer, as he goes through Harvey’s record collection:<br />
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<i>Litt: I see that the greatest band of all time is conspicuously absent…</i><br />
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<i>Harvey Specter: Who would that be, Louis?</i></div>
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<i>Litt: Oh, I don’t know…a little British band called Queen.</i></div>
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<i>Specter: Should have seen that coming. You know, real musicians…they don’t wear eyeliner.</i><br />
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I’m assuming that the writer of this episode is a Queen fan who saw Louis Litt as a bit of an outsider; people seem to judge him based on his appearance rather than his abilities, not unlike Queen in many ways. But then Litt goes on to defend eyeliner on rock stars by reminding Specter that Prince would disagree with his assessment of “real musicians.” Or maybe Litt just has a preference for musicians with royalty titles because it reminds him of what he wants to achieve?<br />
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Another TV series that used an obscure Queen song was <i>Limitless</i> in the S1:E9 episode called <i>Headquarters</i>. The song plays for quite a long time over an extended montage of scenes mimicking pop culture/social media characters that were “trending” at the time. You can watch the YouTube segment <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKx7WXwPa5k">here</a>.<br />
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The connection to a father and a son wasn’t immediately obvious as I watched the show, although the main character’s dad does pay a visit to his son at one point late in the episode. Whatever the reason for the song selection, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked with the visuals.<br />
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In politics, it was Trump vs Queen – not once, but twice – during the GOP candidate’s campaign run leading up to the RNC last month. The Trump machine had used <i>WATC</i> at one point and Brian specifically asked that he not use their songs as a soundtrack to his campaign. And a month later, during the RNC, it was used again when he won the party’s endorsement as the official Republican party candidate.<br />
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There was a flurry of opinions as to whether or not Trump had secured the rights to the song for that particular event...some claimed it wasn’t his call but the event coordinator’s and that the licensing of the song was legitimate. Others contend that Queen doesn’t own their songs anyway so Brian has no say in the matter.<br />
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What?<br />
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Unless the ownership of Queen’s catalogue has changed hands in the last 20 years, I distinctly remember Brian claiming that the band had bought the rights back from their record label back in the day and that they were one of the few bands who actually had ownership of their music. So unless that was signed away during the whole Hollywood Records deal or some other transaction that I missed, I’d say that Brian has a pretty good leg to stand on as far as asking Trump to stop using it.<br />
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What’s a bit perplexing, though, is that Hollywood Records released a mash-up of <i>WATC</i> interspersed with Desert Storm quotes from Bush Sr. and I don’t remember Queen having much to say about that back in 1991. Whatever the case, I’m pretty sure that Brian and gang still retain the <i>moral</i> rights to their work and would conceivably have a say in how it is used separate from general licensing. At least that’s my understanding of intellectual property rights here in Canada.<br />
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As an aside, <i>WATC</i> has been a rallying cry for Americans before. When the White House announced that Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces military unit in 2011, a flash mob gathered at the White House to sing the national anthem and <i>WATC</i>. You can read about it <a href="http://queenville.blogspot.ca/2011/05/flash-mob-at-white-house.html">here</a> in a previous blog post. Coincidentally, I was watching <i>Celebrity Apprentice</i> when news broke of Bin Laden’s assassination.<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There’s some buzz going on right now about <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i> and its use in a trailer for <i>Suicide Squad</i>, the latest DC Comics adventure starring Will Smith. Queen’s version of the song was used in the trailer in a way that suggested the song would be a “character” in the film, much like its appearance in <i>Wayne’s World</i> back in 1992.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But it’s not Queen’s version that ends up in the actual movie...it’s a cover version by Panic! at the Disco. And when the Panic! version starting to get a lot of positive reaction from the — I’m guessing, younger — crowd who dominated the Comments section, a lot of people suggested that they check out the original by Queen which was better. Those that did check it out claimed that the lead singer of Panic! was as good as Freddie since he hit the big notes (I haven’t heard their version yet so I can’t verify this). But if Panic! is so great, why can’t they hit it out of the park with their own material?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Finally, a local radio station up here in Calgary has been marketing themselves as the “70s and more” station and this billboard featuring Freddie went up next to a high-volume thoroughfare. (They also have an Elton John silhouette sitting at a grand piano and a silhouette of the Fab Four walking across a crosswalk.)</span></div>
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I’m all for Freddie and the boys being used as a draw for listeners, but if they’re all about the ’70s, why did they use a Freddie pose from the Magic Tour?</div>
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<br />Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-54248484881124461012016-04-27T22:18:00.000-06:002016-04-28T20:19:13.611-06:00Another One Bites the Crust<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With the suspicious death of Prince a few days ago, the title of this blog post may seem cold and inconsiderate of his passing, but it’s not meant to be. It’s taken from a line of dialogue in a 1997 <i>Muppet Show</i> skit where Prince is challenged to write a song based on food and <i>Another One Bites the Crust</i> is thrown out as a facetious suggestion. He accepts the dare and comes up with <i>Starfish and Coffee</i> at the spur of the moment.<br />
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With the worlds of Queen and Prince coming together in that skit, one can’t ignore the unintended irony of that Queen song being referenced. Prince’s death follows an unusually long string of notable celebrity deaths over the past five months: Lemmy Kilmister (Dec 28), Natalie Cole (Dec 31), David Bowie (Jan 10), Glenn Frey (Jan 18), Paul Kantner (Jan 28), Vanity (Feb 15), George Martin (Mar 8), Keith Emerson (Mar 10), Merle Haggard (Apr 6), and Lonnie Mack (Apr 21). Wow, another one bites the dust is an understatement.<br />
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Besides Freddie, the most notable celebrity deaths from 1991 were Dr Seuss (Sept 24), Miles Davis (Sept 28), Tennessee Ernie Ford (Oct 17), and Gene Roddenberry (Oct 24). Freddie was the only casualty from rock music from what I can find. Fast forward to 2016...we’re only four months into the year and pop music has taken some serious hits.<br />
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I remember when I first heard Prince with <i>Little Red Corvette</i> and <i>1999</i> back in the early ’80s, I thought it was curious that another musical artist had adopted a royalty moniker, not unlike Queen. Then, a year or two later, a new wave band called King arrived on the scene and the entire royal hierarchy was now represented on the radio.<br />
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Theres no denying that like Queen (and their song!), Prince had staying power. His <i>Purple Rain</i> film and soundtrack was huge in 1984 and he continued his prolific output which, by all accounts, surpassed every mainstream pop songwriter — well, maybe not Diane Warren — with an estimated catalogue of between 500 and 1,000 songs he’s written over his career.<br />
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Although Prince struck me more as a Jimi Hendrix clone, many people saw a parallel of sorts between Freddie and Prince back in the 1980s. One Prince fan wrote on the prince.org site that Freddie was:<br />
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“…a big admirer of Prince, and loved Kiss. I know these things as fact. Also, the feeling appears to have been somewhat mutual, as according to the butler who worked for Prince during UK rehearsals for the <i>Sign ‘O’ The Times</i> tour, Prince spent a considerable amount of time in his room watching Queen shows on video when relaxing.”1</blockquote>
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The same Prince discussion group is also quick to claim that Prince was far-and-away the better songwriter and performer compared to Freddie. In fact, one contributor was so bold as to say:<br />
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“The songs Prince wrote from 1981 to 1987, including unreleased ones, are better than anything Queen could have possibly written...Freddie did some awesome songwriting with Queen, but I can take 50 [Prince] songs from 1981–1987 that can top damn near anything.”1</blockquote>
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And, apparently, he explored musical territory that Freddie was afraid to try:<br />
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“Prince’s musical palette dwarfs Freddie’s in every way possible. Whether his compositions were as complex or not, I couldn’t say. But I could never picture Freddie undertaking anything like <i>Sign ‘O’ The Times</i> or <i>WTWIAD</i> or <i>PARADE</i> and then giving us the <i>Symbol Album</i> or <i>The Truth</i>. In every way I can imagine, as much as I like Freddie, Prince simply has the upper hand in songwriting.”</blockquote>
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I’m not entirely convinced that Prince could go from <i>March of the Black Queen</i> to <i>Bring Back that Leroy Brown</i> to <i>Mustapha</i> to <i>Barcelona</i>. Maybe he can...I’ll have to give those Prince albums a listen and find out for myself. I will be pleasantly surprised if he changed genres as much as Freddie did. As for performing, again this same person claims Prince is superior to Freddie.<br />
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“Yes, Mercury had the costumes and the flare. Yes his performances (like Live Aid) are regarded as classics. So what. Prince’s performances were always tighter and more eye-popping than any rock ’n’ roll act (Kiss cheats with make-up and pyro). Prince never needed anything more than motion and attitude. Think he didn’t? Place two screens side-by-side. Prince <i>Sign ‘O’ The Times</i> movie on one side and any Queen concert you want on the other. Mute the sound on both, and tell me which one catches your eye more.”1</blockquote>
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Nice try. If I wanted to watch a tightly choreographed and eye-popping performance, I could bring up any Madonna or Janet Jackson video. But I typically don’t watch music performances for the visuals; I’m there for the music and the spontaneity it brings. Besides, it’s not fair to compare an edited movie with concert footage, is it? Nonetheless, this is something we can measure if we look at Queen’s performance at Live Aid in 1985, as noted in the earlier quote:<br />
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“Queen’s performance on that day has since been voted by more than 60 artists, journalists and music industry executives as the greatest live performance in the history of rock music, while Mercury’s powerful, sustained note during the a cappella section came to be known as “The Note Heard Round the World.”2</blockquote>
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Obviously, we'll never know how Prince would have performed at Live Aid since he didn’t participate in person but sent in a pre-recorded video instead.<br />
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I shouldn’t be whining about a Prince vs Freddie comparison since they’re both gone now and the world is ultimately a better place because of their legacies. Both were unconventional musicians who died too young. I wonder if they ever met. I didn’t see any evidence of it on Google but I found this image, which may be the closest they got to each other:<br />
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One last thought...maybe Prince was onto something with his adoption of a symbol and the resulting industry’s coining of his unofficial new name: “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.” With all the vitriol leveled at Brian and Roger when they went on the road with Adam Lambert recently, maybe they should have called themselves “The Band Formerly Known as Queen.” That would probably have satisfied most of the critics and Queen purists who had a problem with them using the name.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">1. http://prince.org</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Aid</span><br />
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.Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-71647617916178921912015-11-09T13:15:00.003-07:002015-11-09T13:19:15.229-07:00It's only natural that Freddie would end up on Supernatural<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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When I finally got through watching all six seasons of <i>Lost</i> on Netflix last year, I was hooked on binge watching and decided to flip through the other TV fair that Netflix offered. The synopsis for <i>Supernatural</i> seemed interesting. It sounded a bit like the X-Files but more occult-oriented. Okay, I’ll give the pilot a shot and see what happens.<br />
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The first thing that stood out for me was the use of classic rock music to help tell the story of the Winchester brothers. The references were not limited to just the musical score, though, as the names of classic rock musicians are frequently woven throughout the storylines, usually as fake identities that the hunter brothers use when playing FBI agents working on a case.<br />
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When I first heard Sam introduce the two of them as “Agents Bachman and Turner” to a local sheriff, my immediate reaction was to laugh out loud. As a Canadian, I immediately got the Bachman Turner Overdrive reference. BTO was well-known in Canada in the ’70s, and now Eric Kripke, the show’s American creator, was showing the range of his classic rock taste which, to my delight, was the beginning of a larger, tongue-in-cheek Canadian connection to the show.<br />
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So with Kripke’s fondness for classic rock — Led Zeppelin being one of his favourite bands — I wondered if or when Queen might make an appearance. Surely he’d find a place in one of the storylines to capitalize on Queen, one of the biggest bands from that era. Kripke is on record saying that the cost of licensing a Zeppelin song for the show was too steep but he did manage to include them in the characters’ dialogue or even within the episode title instead of music. Perhaps he’d do the same with Queen.<br />
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I do recall “the show must go on” and “another one bites the dust” being used in dialogue by Sam or Dean at one point, but those idioms are so common it’s difficult to say with certainty that Kripke wrote them as a subtle nod to Queen or simply as a reflection of pop culture.<br />
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The episode that I am fairly certain contains a cleverly disguised Queen reference was <i>Hammer of the Gods</i> (S5E19). Sam and Dean get called out to a convention of gods, so to speak, and there is a smattering of pagan deities from several cultures all discussing what to do about an impending showdown with Lucifer. One of the pagan gods present is the messenger god, Mercury (above). Obviously, this is the same Roman god that Freddie adopted for his last name, but who outside of Queendom and history buffs, would know that Mercury is the messenger god? Nonetheless, this is a perfect mix of story character and classic rock so I’d be surprised if Kripke chose Mercury for some reason other than it references his beloved classic rock. There is no Queen music featured in this episode but Mercury is actually the host of the god party, so we should be flattered that Kripke gave Freddie the top spot.<br />
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As an aside, this episode is a great example of the level of religious criticism and self-reflection inherent throughout the show’s storylines. The fact that a gathering of gods from different cultures and eras are all arguing over who’s the most powerful god is both funny and scathing since they all come off as absurd when compared with each other.<br />
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So I’ve watched up to the end of Season 10 (they’re currently shooting Season 11 in Vancouver), and I still haven’t encountered a Queen song in the soundtrack. I’m starting to think that the royalty fees are too high to include Queen tunes, just like Kripke stated was the case with Led Zeppelin.<br />
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But Freddie finally makes an appearance (in name, anyway) in <i>The Prisoner</i> (S10E22). Once again, Sam’s fake ID cards are being questioned by a local sheriff: “Ozzy Osbourne,” “Lemmy Kilmister,” “Freddie Mercury.” Ha! It’s official, Kripke is a fan. Wait, maybe not since this episode was written by Andrew Dabb and not Eric Kripke. Maybe Dabb is the bigger Queen fan and used this opportunity to get Freddie to the front of the line. But if that is the case, why is Freddie’s name spelt wrong:<br />
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Personally, I think it’s an inside joke with a double entendre. Queen fans know that Freddie’s name is misspelt a lot so having it wrong on the fake ID might be an acknowledgement of this. Maybe Sam got the name wrong, just like lots of others do.<br />
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I did a Google Map search for the address indicated on the license. Nothing. Too bad, it would have been a neat tie-in if there was a Queen reference of some kind at that address.<br />
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<span style="color: #fff2cc;">.</span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-85503545298826477402013-08-21T22:39:00.002-06:002013-08-21T22:39:38.345-06:00LA and Vegas sightings<br />
Holy procrastination, Batman . . . look who’s back.<br />
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Actually, I haven’t been procrastinating at all, we merely had a baby on April 1st (no fooling) which put everything else on hold, including blog writing.</div>
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Nonetheless, my wife and I figured we’d make a road trip this summer down to Disneyland before our five-year-old starts kindergarten in September. So we packed up the van, drove south through Helena, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and then on to Anaheim for a two-week stay at the World’s Happiest Place.</div>
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My first Queen sighting ended up being a “hearing,” so to speak. The mid-afternoon Pixar parade through the California Adventure Park featured <i>Don’t Stop Me Now</i> amongst the medley of tunes played. Here’s a video clip I managed to capture as The Incredibles family scootered by me:</div>
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This theme park sighting reminded me of the LegoLand rocks I wrote about <a href="http://queenville.blogspot.ca/2012/06/san-diego-sightings.html">here</a>.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pNpHLPlD1fQ/UhISLXIKNfI/AAAAAAAAC3M/QKjZ8nsxAm4/s1600/RadiatorSpringsRacers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pNpHLPlD1fQ/UhISLXIKNfI/AAAAAAAAC3M/QKjZ8nsxAm4/s1600/RadiatorSpringsRacers.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Patrick Brooks</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xemNQR4GZW8/UhIS38nl22I/AAAAAAAAC3U/2A3VPV7vWXo/s1600/FlosV-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xemNQR4GZW8/UhIS38nl22I/AAAAAAAAC3U/2A3VPV7vWXo/s200/FlosV-8.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: left;">Photo by Patrick Brooks</span></td></tr>
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The big attraction at California Adventure is the Radiator Springs Racers ride at the new Cars Land exhibit. The level of detail built into the simulated landscape and associated buildings of Radiator Springs was truly amazing. Automobile-themed music was being pumped throughout the walking areas of Cars Land and since Queen made an appearance in the Pixar parade, I half-expected a cover version of <i>I’m In Love With My Car</i> to be included on the playlist . . . but it wasn’t.</div>
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My next southern California Queen sighting was one that I deliberately sought out . . . their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Finding it was simple; I looked up the address for it on Wikipedia, typed it into Google Maps, and asked my buddy Mike May (aka ProphetM from the old alt.music.queen days back in the ’90s) to take us there.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g8cdj-neP08/UhWUmhhcjHI/AAAAAAAAC4c/oeg-tCRk8u8/s1600/HWF_star2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g8cdj-neP08/UhWUmhhcjHI/AAAAAAAAC4c/oeg-tCRk8u8/s1600/HWF_star2.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: left;">Photo by Patrick Brooks</span></td></tr>
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I remember the lobbying and fundraising effort in the early 2000s by a handful of dedicated Queen fans to get a coveted pink terrazzo marble star included on the Walk of Fame. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: left;">Photo by Patrick Brooks</span></td></tr>
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And while the exact location or address of a celebrity’s star may have some connection to their career (i.e., Farrah Fawcett in front of a hair salon or Roger Moore at 7007 Hollywood Blvd), I couldn’t see any immediate reason why 6356 Hollywood Blvd. would be special to Queen. The street numbers are arbitrary and the business establishment, Hemingway’s Lounge, doesn’t appear to have any connection to Queen’s history (assuming, of course, they were there in 2002 during the dedication ceremony).</div>
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After our holiday in LA was over, we again packed up the kids and van and headed back to Vegas again on our first stop-over on the journey home. (We stayed in Luxor’s pyramid this time, just to see how the elevators worked.) On the MGM promo TV channel there was a clip of Ryan Seacrest introducing the iHeart Radio Music Festival coming up in September.<br />
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To my surprise, he mentioned that Queen and Adam Lambert would be making an appearance together. Hmm, should I plan another trip to Vegas in a month’s time? Probably not, since it won’t be a full-on concert from Q+Lambert, just a limited appearance along with other artists. I’m sure Katy Perry will enjoy hanging out with Brian and Roger backstage talking about how well her Killer Queen perfume is selling.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gvpGyecSIA8/UhWRZ99qqVI/AAAAAAAAC4Q/f_tBViDOySk/s1600/ArtofRock_Drumstick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gvpGyecSIA8/UhWRZ99qqVI/AAAAAAAAC4Q/f_tBViDOySk/s1600/ArtofRock_Drumstick.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: left;">Photo by Patrick Brooks</span></td></tr>
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The final Queen sighting on our trip was also in Vegas. There is an entertainment collectibles store in Mandalay Bay called <a href="http://www.artofmusiclv.com/store/mandalay_bay">Art of Music</a> which I stopped into for the hell of it.<br />
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Instead of wasting time looking for Queen paraphernalia on their walls, I approached the fellow at the cash register and merely asked him what they had. He showed me an autographed drum stick by Roger up for sale. (The framing job didn’t impress me too much. In my opinion, Roger’s drum stick should be the focus rather than one of many eclectic images in the composition.) I then asked what guarantee I have that the autograph is genuine given my previous <a href="http://queenville.blogspot.ca/2011/12/game-of-autograph-authenticity.html">experience</a> with Antiquities over in the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace. He said he’s only had two returned items in the past five years compared to Antiquities two hundred or so returned pieces.<br />
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How he acquired those stats is a mystery but I’m inclined to believe him.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://festival.iheart.com/?cmp=artist19</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/07/16/how-to-get-a-star-on-the-hollywood-walk-of-fame/</span><br />
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Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-78175618270723552752013-04-02T00:10:00.001-06:002013-04-02T06:22:19.110-06:00Bigot, Kween, and Queer?<br />
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Here in Canada, there’s a television series called <i>Tribute Bands</i> which has been rebroadcasting episodes on <i>Much Music </i>lately. When I first saw the program listing, I set up a series recording on my PVR in the hopes that Queen might make an appearance at some point. Who knows, right?<br />
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Sure, there are more well-known tributes to bands such as Rain (The Beatles) or The Pink Floyd Experience, but I thought the Queen tribute bands I knew of would at least warrant some coverage on the series.<br />
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The first episode that recorded was a Rush-themed show (Canadian TV series = Canadian band?) but the second episode was on Queen. The program originally aired in 2007 which obviously predates the formation of the penultimate tribute to the band — Queen Extravaganza from last year. (Hey, maybe Roger caught this Queen-themed tribute program which resulted in his online QE contest a few years later.)<br />
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The hour-long episode basically follows the history of three Queen tribute bands and their Freddie impersonators: One Night of Queen from Ireland (featuring talent show winner Gary Mullen); Almost Queen from the United States; and MerQury from Germany (although by watching this episode, you'd think they were Canadian).<br />
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The struggles faced by these three bands in achieving any modicum of tribute success are considerable compared to those faced by the fast-tracked promotion of QE through the official support of Roger and Brian themselves. These bands earned their reputations through old-fashioned hard work fostered by a common love amongst the members for the band and their music.<br />
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Seeing the three tribute bands on the show got me thinking about what other tribute bands could be out there, or have been out there. After a few days of searching online (including a generous portion provided by <a href="http://queen.shanemcdonald.org/queen-links-tribute-bands.html">Shane’s Queen Site</a>) there appears to be at least 79 tribute bands that have channelled Queen. Remarkably, only a handful of these bands have dead URLs or a lack of obvious evidence that they were still active, so the worldwide demand for Queen tribute shows seems to be quite strong. Here’s the full list of band names:<br />
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What struck me as I researched the bands were not only the sheer quantity of them but also the diversity of regions from which they’re based. No surprise, the United Kingdom has a strong showing with 23 tribute bands. For whatever reason, though, Italy lays claim to the most at 25!<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UZNufTDt7EY/UVpq6lwdx6I/AAAAAAAACzk/yBo-8EtSAtM/s1600/piechart.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UZNufTDt7EY/UVpq6lwdx6I/AAAAAAAACzk/yBo-8EtSAtM/s1600/piechart.png" /></a></div>
What’s up with the love for Queen in Italy? I know that they’ve had a robust Queen bootleg community for years so perhaps the popularity of Queen tribute bands is further proof of some long-standing, deep-rooted fandom over there.<br />
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Since they can’t use the exact name <i>Queen</i>, most of the bands on this list settled for a moniker that has some connection to the band, either through song titles, song lyrics, royalty, or combination thereof. But what about those band names that have no obvious connection like Pilsen, The Pilgrims, Silk, or The Vipers? Well, <i>Rain</i> is a Beatles tribute band, so I guess it could work as long as the branding and promotion is strong enough.<br />
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The two names that were not like the others, though, are <i>Bigot</i> and <i>Queer</i>. Unless there is some cultural or linguistic wordplay going on that I’m not understanding, I wonder why they’d opt for such derogatory labels.<br />
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Another aspect that I find puzzling from a legal point of view is why the “sampling” of Queen’s musical intellectual property (i.e., bassline from <i>Under Pressure</i>) is considered an unethical business practice to the extent that Queen Productions will pursue the matter in court, but the sampling of their proprietary visual identity (i.e., typeface design, crest, legacy artwork) — used by pretty much all of these tribute bands to some degree — is literally ignored by Queen Productions. What’s the difference, I wonder.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.axs.tv/programs/worlds-greatest-tribute-bands/</span></td></tr>
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Did the Queen Extravaganza experiment — and subsequent media coverage — brought about by Roger and Brian give billionaire Mark Cuban the idea to put together an <i>American Idol</i>-ish reality show aimed at tribute bands? Maybe that question will be answered when Cuban’s newly launched AXS-TV network wraps up their series called <i>The World’s Greatest Tribute Bands</i>, which “…pays tributes to the legendary sounds, songs and artists especially of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.”<br />
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As an aside . . . Cuban, as you’ll remember, has at least a passing connection to Queen when his beloved Dallas Mavericks won the championship back in 2011. You can see how it all ties together <a href="http://queenville.blogspot.ca/2011/07/frankenfreddie.html">here</a> in an early Queenville blog entry.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-drYlmZf2H30/UVoQ4LjKohI/AAAAAAAACy8/1we7NyRV7bg/s1600/QueenNationlogo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="152" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-drYlmZf2H30/UVoQ4LjKohI/AAAAAAAACy8/1we7NyRV7bg/s200/QueenNationlogo.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.queennation.com</span></td></tr>
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Queen Nation, an American band listed among the 79 tribute bands above, is scheduled to be one of the acts for the new show on May 13, 2013. I wonder if Cuban and the producers considered inviting QE to perform. Surely, that would be a good test of the promises Roger made about their musicianship, right?<br />
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Wait a minute, maybe not. Most of the viewers would probably expect a Freddie impersonator, in which case they’d be very disappointed since QE is about being loyal to the music rather than recreating the spectacle of a Queen show.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/mark-cubans-axs-tv-spotlighting-421143</span><br />
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<span style="color: #fff2cc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">.</span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-77079389571102382162013-03-04T12:37:00.002-07:002013-03-04T12:37:44.495-07:0020/20 gets crazy<br />
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Hey, what’s this . . . Elizabeth Vargas in a Queen video? Not really. The theme of last night’s <i>20/20</i> program was mating and dating and the fallout that can happen when the pair-bonds of love are challenged.<br />
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The familiar chords of <i>CLTCL</i> begin almost immediately as the opening sequence for the program started. And then, to my surprise, a voiceover says that “the band Queen got it right when they said love can get crazy.”<br />
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Then they played a few seconds of the official music video before showing clips from the upcoming segments on love gone wrong . . . or right, depending on how you look at it.<br />
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Just as the segment teasers play out and Elizabeth Vargas begins her anchor duties, a stylized title design for the theme of the show appears and becomes the only recurring tie-in to <i>CLTCL</i> throughout the show. No more Queen appearances or song clips, I’m afraid.<br />
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I must say, though, that the title design isn’t that stellar. From what I’ve seen of past <i>20/20</i> title designs, they’re usually quite sophisticated; put together with a nod towards clever visual symbolism and effective correlation between the words and any connotative meanings associated with the segment itself. This one seems a bit pedestrian, in my opinion, with the heart motif and faux comic book aesthetic. But, hey, at least it was a Queen meme they were modifying and disseminating.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8QmsXBl0LKg/UTTnDn5y8GI/AAAAAAAACxk/xrKh8GGsw7w/s1600/Body_Language_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8QmsXBl0LKg/UTTnDn5y8GI/AAAAAAAACxk/xrKh8GGsw7w/s200/Body_Language_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
The variety of topics in this episode were nothing too shocking: high-paid mistresses, swingers, cheaters. What was missing on this relationship topic was a feature on porn stars. It would seem to be the obvious example of “co-workers with benefits,” so to speak, but perhaps the subject matter was too explicit for prime time.<br />
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Mind you, if they had an adult industry segment, they’d have to change the Queen reference to <i>Body Language</i>.<br />
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<span style="color: #fff2cc;">.</span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-12825791607259269262013-02-20T21:55:00.001-07:002013-02-21T06:00:45.076-07:00SNL under pressure to halt video release?<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MGXvtdFQibU/USRQXph2KMI/AAAAAAAACrA/f_gFbnTeKVE/s1600/SNL80s_Title_screen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MGXvtdFQibU/USRQXph2KMI/AAAAAAAACrA/f_gFbnTeKVE/s1600/SNL80s_Title_screen.jpg" /></a>In 2005, <i>Saturday Night Live</i> released a highlight reel of their tumultuous run during the 1980s. While it was interesting to hear from the cast members and writers from that era of the show’s history talk about the politics and drama going on at the landmark program, it was a brief clip of Queen’s <i>Under Pressure</i> that caught my ear when it was rebroadcast the other night on NBC.<br />
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I own the five-disc, 25th Anniversary box set of SNL’s musical numbers which contains <i>Crazy Little Thing Called Love </i>from 1982. What was missing from that box set was Queen’s encore performance from that 8th-season episode, <i>Under Pressure</i>.<br />
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A lot of Googling only resulted in a grainy, poor quality clip of <i>UP</i> from that show. The conspiracy theorist in me is beginning to think that someone is intentionally going out of their way to restrict the commercial distribution of that performance for some reason. Having watched the entire low-quality video, it’s obvious that Freddie’s voice wasn’t in full-on working mode so perhaps Queen Productions lobbied SNL to have it removed from any official release — either as part of the music compilation discs or from the Season 8 episode altogether.<br />
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The clip that the <i>In the ’80s</i> program aired only showed the band at the start of the song and Freddie’s voice was sounding as it should; it’s only when the higher notes kick in later in the song that he intentionally avoids them. I read somewhere that Freddie was up the night before having a loud argument with a “boy toy” of his and the performance suffered for it the next morning. Whatever the case, was his singing so bad that Queen Productions would want to banish it from seeing the light of day in its entirety? It seems that way. But then SNL goes and teases us with a high quality clip of that performance that we can’t buy anywhere?<br />
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What’s even more strange is what this Amazon reviewer says of the five-disc DVD set:<br />
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What? Queen performed four songs from that episode? Since when did SNL feature four songs by their musical guests? That would be pretty sweet if that was the case. (Damn, I wish they’d release that episode on DVD.) Even without four songs being played, seeing the band co-mingle with the SNL cast members at the end to say goodbye would be worth the price of admission.<br />
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Apparently, when Vanilla Ice was the musical guest on SNL in 1991, he did not make a fan out of Dennis Miller who played the real intro to <i>Under Pressure</i> before his <i>Weekend Update</i> segment and even said “I love Bowie.” Thank you, Dennis.<br />
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The other Queen-ish sighting on the <i>SNL in the ’80s</i> program had to do with the departure of Lorne Michaels as executive producer and his interim replacement, Jean Doumanian for the 1980-81 seasons. Politically, the move was controversial and threatened the loyalty of long-time SNL fans, but the changes she brought to the cast and crew did not signal the end of the TV series as everyone thought. Her appointment generated a lot of media scrutiny, however, as this newspaper article showed:<br />
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Not only does the story title contain the word “queen,” the illustration could easily be a recap of <i>Queen II</i> and <i>Innuendo</i>. Fairies? Court jesters? A white queen? An evil black queen? Land of the fireflies? Down in the dungeon with Peaches? (Sorry, different album.)<br />
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Maybe this is where Roger got the idea to use Grandville drawings for the <i>Innuendo</i> album. Or maybe the illustrator of this image drew inspiration by listening to <i>Queen II</i> uninterrupted for a few weeks straight.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390445/</span><br />
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<span style="color: #fff2cc;">.</span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-3883983664831516722013-02-14T14:22:00.001-07:002013-02-14T22:15:24.849-07:00Tooth Tune Stands Test of Time<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ladyIE-WXiA/URzo5juDCgI/AAAAAAAACpI/xeAKECDQFxA/s1600/WWRY_TT_pkg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ladyIE-WXiA/URzo5juDCgI/AAAAAAAACpI/xeAKECDQFxA/s1600/WWRY_TT_pkg.jpg" /></a>Queen can certainly lay claim to playing in front of tens of thousands of people at one time in arenas and stadiums where the sound is optimized for that particular venue. But I don’t think they anticipated having their music played through a “denta-mandibular sound-transmitting system.” That’s patent lingo for Tooth Tunes toothbrushes.<br />
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The physics behind the technology would make Brian proud. “. . . a small CPU in the handle plays the featured song on the chip by transferring vibrations through the bristles, which act as transducers, into the front teeth, through the jawbone, and into the inner ear.”<br />
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I actually picked one up at the drug store the other day thinking that our five-year-old might be easily duped into brushing his teeth for a full two minutes. He’s been on a WWRY kick lately that has him continually requesting the Queen + vonlichten version whenever we’re in the car, so why not keep the momentum going?<br />
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Out of interest, I checked out the Tooth Tunes website to see what other song choices there were and to my surprise the 2012 edition of brushes has Queen sharing the youth tooth market with artists that are a lot younger than themselves.<br />
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How did that happen? Were they selected merely through a voting system as their current website prompts you to do? Did WWRY survive the voting system going all the way back to 2005 when Hasbro first marketed the toothbrushes and has maintained the status quo ever since; up to and including its current manufacturer, Arm & Hammer? It kinda looks that way.<br />
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Tooth Tunes was originally marketed by Hasbro in 2005 with an expanding song list that’s included:<br />
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<i>Walking on Sunshine by </i>Aly & AJ<br />
<i>Fun, Fun, Fun</i> by The Beach Boys<br />
<i>Let’s Get It Started</i> by The Black Eyed Peas<br />
<i>Play My Music</i> by The Jonas Brothers<br />
<i>The Party’s Just Begun</i> by The Cheetah Girls<br />
<i>Shake a Tail Feather</i> by The Cheetah Girls<br />
<i>Survivor</i> by Destiny’s Child<br />
<i>Brush It!</i> by Devo<br />
<i>Get'cha Head In the Game</i> by Drew Seeley and Zac Efron<br />
<i>The Best of Both Worlds</i> by Hannah Montana<br />
<i>Pumpin’ Up the Party</i> by Hannah Montana<br />
<i>Rockstar</i> by Hannah Montana<br />
<i>We're All in this Together </i>by High School Musical Cast<br />
<i>What Time Is It?</i> by High School Musical Cast<br />
<i>Wake Up</i> by Hilary Duff<br />
<i>Canned Heat</i> by Jamiroquai<br />
<i>Beautiful Soul</i> by Jesse McCartney<br />
<i>Hold On</i> by The Jonas Brothers<br />
<i>Walk Away</i> by Kelly Clarkson<br />
<i>Rock and Roll All Nite</i> by Kiss<br />
<i>All Star</i> by Smash Mouth<br />
<i>Ser o Parecer</i> by RBD<br />
<i>Umbrella</i> by Rihanna<br />
<i>We Will Rock You</i> by Queen<br />
<i>YMCA</i> by The Village People<br />
<i>Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky)</i> by DeEtta Little and Nelson Pigford<br />
<i>Never Say Never</i> by Justin Bieber<br />
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Hey, look who’s on there twice. . . Cheetah Girls. Hannah Montana. The cast from High School Musical. I wonder if they’ll be helping the youth brush their teeth in the year 2037, which is essentially what WWRY is accomplishing. Do any of these artists have a 30-year shelf-life? Time will tell, I guess. Come to think of it, everyone thought that Bieber’s 15 minutes was up five years ago, so who knows.<br />
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I stumbled upon a fun little how-to project where Marty from Southeast Michigan (un)breaks apart a Tooth Tunes toothbrush, just to see how the technology works. Wouldn’t you know it? He had to pick the WWRY brush. (Who oh why couldn’t he have chosen Hilary Duff’s or The Village People’s?) It’s not for the faint of heart, but here’s a link to his <a href="https://nuxx.net/gallery/v/acquired_stuff/tooth_tunes/">photo essay</a> on the breakdown of the brush.<br />
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It does make one wonder how Queen lasted so long in this series of toothbrushes and through two different manufacturers who presumably would have a mechanism in place to select relevant songs for the demographic they’re selling to. If the average toothbrush user of this product is in their tweens, that would explain most of the song selections. But Kiss and Queen?<br />
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Ironically, Gene Simmons, the king of licensing, didn’t win this marathon of a licensing deal but Queen did. Was it the fan voting that got everyone kicked off the island (so to speak) and Queen won through honest-to-goodness popularity, or was the Hasbro and Arm & Hammer marketing teams playing a role in keeping Queen on the list? Hmm, inquiring minds want to know.<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">https://nuxx.net/gallery/v/acquired_stuff/tooth_tunes/</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_Tunes</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">.</span></span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-27151356828741049222013-02-12T16:33:00.001-07:002013-02-13T07:03:10.626-07:00Queen of Debt<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7A_Bdd0g0Pg/URqm5Cm0xFI/AAAAAAAAClQ/_qtWFXBMqwA/s1600/TDDUP_Title_screen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7A_Bdd0g0Pg/URqm5Cm0xFI/AAAAAAAAClQ/_qtWFXBMqwA/s1600/TDDUP_Title_screen.jpg" /></a>Here in Canada we have a reality show called <i>Til Debt Do Us Part</i> which is like “Super Nanny for money,” as the host, Gail Vaz-Oxlade describes it.<br />
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A few days ago, an episode from 2008 was broadcast again and it had an unexpected Queen reference to it, which my wife caught as the program was playing in the background. The episode was called <i>Queen of Debt</i> and featured a Toronto (or it is Winnipeg?) couple that met back in 2002 when they were both members of The Official International Queen Fan Club.<br />
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In their own words, Grant and Jacqueline said that they emailed back and forth for a few months, met face-to-face, and ended up getting married. They have one daughter named Taylor May although at the time of the original episode airing in 2008, Jacqueline was four-and-a-half months pregnant with their second child. (I wonder if Taylor’s name is lost on most viewers?)<br />
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No word on what they ended up naming Taylor’s sibling — who presumably would be four or five by now — but I suppose if they had a boy, they could name him Deacon John, just to reflect back on how John was referred to on <i>Queen I</i>.<br />
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I was really expecting the Queen theme to be more substantial than what it was on the show itself. There was no talk of their combined Queen collections and whether that was a contributing factor to their ballooning household debt. Mind you, this show is about finances and not about an intervention, as a Queen addiction would require! Nonetheless, I was hoping to see remnants of Queen memorabilia strewn about their house, either posters on the wall, or fridge magnets, or CD/video cases by the television. Nothing.<br />
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Sure the episode is called <i>Queen of Debt</i> and the two parents are big Queen fans and their daughter is named after two band members and Jacqueline has a reputation for being a “coupon queen,” but what about snippets of Queen music that could have been slotted into those moments in the program that called for a connection back to the band? Like<i> I Want It All </i>as they talked about Jacqueline’s penchant for spending and couponing? Or <i>Another One Bites the Dust</i> as they had to clean out their living areas of all of the clutter that was accumulating? The possibilities were endless but no Queen song made an appearance.<br />
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In the spirit of fiscal responsibility, as the show preaches, perhaps the song royalties were too high.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.slice.ca/Shows/ShowsPage.aspx?Title_ID=93097</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Vaz-Oxlade</span><br />
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<span style="color: #fff2cc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">.</span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-64372910200443588992013-02-05T19:38:00.000-07:002013-02-06T08:38:37.043-07:00My kingdom for a horse<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UYL3yHR_nFI/URGLAe7JIMI/AAAAAAAACjY/zV0KGnXyO8Q/s1600/CA272_Cover+(430px).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UYL3yHR_nFI/URGLAe7JIMI/AAAAAAAACjY/zV0KGnXyO8Q/s200/CA272_Cover+(430px).jpg" width="147" /></a>With a little mitochondrial help from a distant Canadian relative, the remains of Richard the III — recently found under a paved parking lot in Leicester — have been positively identified as those belonging to the late king who died in battle in 1485.<br />
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King Richard was immortalized in several mid-millenium writings, the most famous of which is <i>Richard III</i> by Shakespeare. One of the most famous lines spoken by Richard in this play is “A horse, a horse . . . my kingdom for a horse.”<br />
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I’ll admit, I didn’t know the phrase came from Shakespeare nor quoted from the character of Richard the III. I do, however, recall hearing “my kingdom for a horse” innumerable times while listening to <i>Lily of the Valley</i>.<br />
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Was Freddie trying to quote Shakespeare or is the reference more about King Richard? I don’t know. Whatever the case, with the <i>kingdom for a horse</i> phrase making the news this past week, Queen and the king have crossed paths as far as I’m concerned. <br />
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Will the remains of the King of Queen be found in some obscure resting place 500 years from now? According to the news coverage of his funeral, Freddie was cremated (which is actually against traditional Zoroastrian burial practices) so unless his cremains are kept in an urn of some kind and the container is rediscovered in the future lying under some olive green shag carpet from the 1970s, his mortal remains are gone forever; presumably cast over Lake Geneva near Montreux, but Mary Austin is keeping his whereabouts under wraps for the time being.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_mercury#Illness_and_death</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">.</span></span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-89893289775329980132013-01-30T21:38:00.000-07:002013-01-30T21:38:29.837-07:00Red Special gets popcharted<br />
Those crazy infographic nerds at Pop Chart Lab have done it again. Back in May 2011 they released a rock ’n’ roll <a href="http://queenville.blogspot.ca/2011/03/one-hundred-and-eight-hairdos-that-have.html">haircut poster</a> where both Freddie and Brian’s hairdos make an appearance. And now they’ve introduced a poster (<i><a href="ttp://popchartlab.com/products/a-visual-compendium-of-guitars">A Visual Compendium of Guitars</a></i>) that illustrates 64 of the most famous guitars in rock history. To no one’s surprise, the Red Special can be seen surrounded by other greats from the industry. <br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9rqkcktYKZ4/UQnp2uGVjkI/AAAAAAAAChQ/ywVa8w_-tr4/s1600/tumblr_mgmmg4lb6s1qdvqkoo1+(430px).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9rqkcktYKZ4/UQnp2uGVjkI/AAAAAAAAChQ/ywVa8w_-tr4/s1600/tumblr_mgmmg4lb6s1qdvqkoo1+(430px).jpg" /></a>Based on year of manufacture (1963), it gets wedged in between Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Number One” Strat from 1962 and Johnny Cash’s acoustic Martin D-35 from 1964.<br />
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I’m somewhat surprised that the 0001 Strat which currently belongs to David Gilmour wasn’t included. Oh well, I guess they only had so many years to work with and there wasn’t room for another Stratocaster. Or maybe immortalizing the 0001 on this poster was too risky because it is up for debate as to its authenticity.<br />
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Seeing all of these guitar designs together, it’s interesting to note how radical the body shapes and designs got once Gene Simmons broke away from a conventional solid body guitar mould in 1980 when he came out with his battle axe bass guitar. (I think he even got the term <i>battle axe</i> trademarked, didn’t he? I seem to recall reading something about it from the early ’80s.)<br />
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Prints of this poster are available on the Pop Chart Lab website and I see that they’ve also released a modified arrangement of the guitars for sale as a monochromatic t-shirt design, as seen here:<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YXvg2SEGI6o/UQnvjsvh2PI/AAAAAAAACic/t6PQB2w58IA/s1600/B&W_poster+(430px).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YXvg2SEGI6o/UQnvjsvh2PI/AAAAAAAACic/t6PQB2w58IA/s1600/B&W_poster+(430px).png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://popchartlab.com/products/a-visual-compendium-of-guitars</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #fce5cd;">.</span></span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-87697871685643419432013-01-22T22:50:00.001-07:002013-01-23T11:30:07.793-07:00Queen featured in Revv52 show<br />
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A few nights ago, I attended a performance of British tunes by <a href="http://www.revv52.com/home.html">Revv52</a>, a local vocal ensemble based here in Calgary.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CUvvw7jz3wg/UP9YS3ILrZI/AAAAAAAACck/_sr_uUGG_6A/s1600/revv52_logo+smaller.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CUvvw7jz3wg/UP9YS3ILrZI/AAAAAAAACck/_sr_uUGG_6A/s1600/revv52_logo+smaller.png" /></a>Revv52 has been a local singing sensation here in Calgary since 1952 when it began life as the Calgary Choral Society operating out of the Wesley United Church. The essence of their group, as their website states, is to bring “…their unique and high energy performance to many audiences. Revv52 performances offer up a diverse fusion of musical styles and energy, layering vocal arrangements and rhythms.”<br />
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I must admit that I hadn’t heard of Revv52 until my colleague asked me if I was interested in going since she knew I was into classic British rock. When she showed me the London Calling promo for the event, I immediately noticed “Queen” listed first amongst the musical acts that were being covered. Hmm. How will they do on <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i>, I wondered. What the hell, I’m in. My friend arranged to buy the tickets and we met up prior to the show which was being held at a local church.<br />
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As the three of us sat waiting for the show to start, I flipped through the complimentary program and noticed two Queen references: 1) <i>Radio Ga Ga</i> was mentioned in the Artistic Director’s commentary about how the show came to be, and 2) <i>Ga Ga</i> is listed again in the centrefold spread at the end of Act 2.<br />
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Here’s the full list of 19 songs performed in the show:<br />
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<b>Act 1</b><br />
<i>Those Were the Days</i> (Mary Hopkins)<br />
<i>Dedicated Follower of Fashion</i> (The Kinks)<br />
<i>Ruby Tuesday</i> (Rolling Stones)<br />
<i>Son of a Preacher Man</i> (Dusty Springfield)<br />
<i>Downtown</i> (Petula Clark)<br />
<i>To Sir With Love</i> (Lulu)<br />
<i>For Your Love</i> (The Yardbirds)<br />
<i>Time of the Season</i> (The Zombies)<br />
<i>If I Fell</i> (The Beatles)<br />
<i>My Generation</i> (The Who)<br />
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<b>Act 2</b><br />
<i>Video Killed the Radio Star</i> (The Buggles)<br />
<i>Adventures of Major Tom</i> (David Bowie)<br />
<i>Mercy</i> (Aimee Duffy/Stephen Booker)<br />
<i>Wannabe</i> (The Spice Girls)<br />
<i>Every Breath You Take</i> (The Police)<br />
<i>Your Song</i> (Elton John)<br />
<i>I’m Not in Love</i> (10cc)<br />
<i>London Calling</i> (The Clash)<br />
<i>Radio Ga Ga</i> (Queen)<br />
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Wait a minute . . . they’re closing with <i>Radio Ga Ga</i>? I didn’t expect that. Okay, let’s see who in the audience will follow along in fascist style to the hand-clapping that was bound to come up during the chorus.<br />
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During the 30-minute intermission, I mentioned to my two concertmates that I didn’t think that <i>Radio Ga Ga</i> was famous enough for this crowd to be a strong closer. One of even admitted that she hadn’t even heard of the song. So I found it on my iPhone, hit play, and held it up to her ear but it still didn’t ring a bell for her. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come for the finale.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_uq1vHvKZbM/UP91-4ZeinI/AAAAAAAACfk/rqU5KO5QIhU/s1600/RiverParkChurchInterior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_uq1vHvKZbM/UP91-4ZeinI/AAAAAAAACfk/rqU5KO5QIhU/s1600/RiverParkChurchInterior.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: left;">Photo by Patrick Brooks</span></td></tr>
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After Dan Duguay — one of the senior members of the vocal ensemble — delivered a strong version of <i>London Calling,</i> he introduced the four musicians who constituted the “band” — Trevor Waters, Steve Pineo, Kit Johnson, and Nicolai Drost. His comments ended and another voice could be heard: “<i>The War of the Worlds</i>. Orson Welles. This was their finest hour. Winston Churchill. Freddie ‘freakin’ Mercury!” There was a mild roar from the crowd. At least a few people in the audience were on board for the finale.</div>
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The opening synthesizer segment to <i>Radio Ga Ga</i> could be heard and then the drums kicked in. Kitty Bosch, a female soloist from the group, stepped forward and delivered a decent rendition of the tune. The hand-clapping from the crowd didn’t happen (at least not that I could see from the angle I was seated at), but that’s okay. I think the fact that 55 singers were gesturing in unison was enough to mimic the music video and get the point across.<br />
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As a finale, this song did get a standing ovation so as a closer it seemed to work. Brian Farrell, the group’s Artistic Director and Conductor, turned around to face the audience during the ovation period and when people began to sit back down, Brian shared these thoughts . . .<br />
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“London, England...quite a town. It was 2004 when I went there for the first time. And I went there with a Calgarian who actually had two hit singles on the British charts at the time. He’s now an international singer and songwriter. He’s from Calgary. Well, at the time he was performing in a matter of ten days 30 clubs all over England. It was the very first time in my life that I had been to clubs like this. Very first time. I was amazed. Well, this summer I went back to London and this time I walked the streets where The Beatles walked; where the Rolling Stones did their very first audition at Duck Lane. And just around the corner from Duck Lane is Denmark Street . . . and there was this studio, Regent Studio . . . Regent Sound Studio. That’s where the Stones recorded their first album. Yeah, and around the corner from that, not too far away, Trident Studios. A multi-track studio where David Bowie recorded his song <i>Space Oddity</i>. And Queen. Queen recorded their great, great hits. Queen. Queen! Give a listen . . . ”</blockquote>
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And so began the piano intro to <i>Somebody To Love</i>. I guess <i>Radio Ga Ga</i> wasn’t the closer after all. Did they bring the house down, in my opinion? No, but it got more of a standing ovation than <i>Radio Ga Ga</i>, which is saying a lot. Apparently, the Revv52 show planned for May 2013 will be called British Rhapsody, so obviously they’ll be playing <i>BoRhap</i> at that show. Maybe they’ll even throw in an extra Queen tune like they did this time. <br />
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The next day, I sought out Brian Farrell’s opinion on all things Queen-related in this show as I figured he’d be privy to how those decisions were made. I compiled a list of questions and fired off an email to him after the performance:<br />
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<b>Q: </b>On the cover of the program, poster, etc., Queen gets first billing, so to speak, on the list of songs being featured. Was there a particular reason they were put first or was it simply coincidence?<br />
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<i><b>A: </b>Queen is so recognizable to the general public and certainly would draw attention.</i><br />
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<b>Q:</b> <i>Radio Ga Ga</i> ends the show according to the program. What criteria was in place to choose that Queen song over the more popular ones that could have been chosen, and was there a particular reason it was selected as the finale? <br />
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<i><b>A:</b> When I was in London this past summer, I talked to the gentleman who books punk bands at the 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street. He mentioned that Queen was embraced by him and the punk musicians when they performed their huge Wembley show in 1986. That song in particular is a huge stadium rock song.</i><br />
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<b>Q: </b>After RGG, you went on to describe the recording studios on Denmark Street that many famous acts used to record landmark albums. As soon as you mentioned Trident Studios, I knew where you were headed but was surprised at the passion behind your Queen commentary that segued into the real finale, <i>Somebody To Love</i>. Is Queen a favourite of yours and is that why you opted for a second Queen tune to wrap up with? Was there any discussion amongst the other Revv52 members as to alternative finale songs. If so, what were the suggestions?<br />
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<i><b>A: </b>I just appreciate great innovative music — Freddie Mercury had a one of a kind voice for that genre of music and the band was stellar. The innovations for the multi-track recordings were substantial! We were all confident that the closer would work as a Queen song — the theme of the song wraps nicely around what we were saying in the second act — radio was a thing of the past and video killed the radio star. </i>Bohemian Rhapsody<i> is the song we’ll perform in May. We knew that </i>Somebody To Love<i> was a strong arrangement and we could meet the demands of the music as Revv52.</i><br />
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<b>Q: </b>Did the gospel quality of STL have any bearing on its selection for a performance in a church setting? Just curious. <br />
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<i><b>A: </b>Hopefully the entire show didn’t reflect a church setting — we sought out the space because of its accoustic — we could do something with our signature sound in that venue. The arrangement of STL is excellent for the voices of Revv52 to shine!</i><br />
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<b>Q: </b>For what it’s worth, I think putting the Revv52 touch on Queen’s <i>The Prophet’s Song</i> would make an amazing performance. As a matter of fact, a whole concert of Queen tunes would be sweet, but that’s just me talking :-)<br />
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<i><b>A: </b>I enjoyed Queen in my earlier years, but I now appreciate the musicianship and the quality of the work as expressed in the writing when I am able to study an arrangement/vocal chart of their work. And when we can bring it to life and express the music of Queen as a vocal ensemble of 55 singers and rock band!</i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Patrick Brooks</span></td></tr>
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As a side note, Dan Duguay and I have crossed paths once before. I was asked to design the cover art and liner notes for a CD called <i><a href="http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4616672,00.html">Songs From the Oil Patch</a></i> by a group of local musicians who called themselves Hwy 63. Dan was one of the musicians involved with the project.<br />
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When I was at the recording studio one afternoon to get some cover art approved by the project’s main financier, I was called into the studio to help with background vocals on a song called <i>Roughneck.</i> Small world, eh?<br />
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<span style="color: #ffe599; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">.</span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-61616994232572302722012-12-26T08:19:00.003-07:002012-12-26T08:19:32.883-07:00Queen of the Night Time World<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_-VFB8IXm5U/UNpar_DlecI/AAAAAAAACTE/zCES8JXKMQk/s1600/Heros_cards.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_-VFB8IXm5U/UNpar_DlecI/AAAAAAAACTE/zCES8JXKMQk/s320/Heros_cards.png" width="235" /></a>One of my Christmas gifts this morning was a deck of cards that were a tribute to the greatest rock ’n’ roll musicians of all time. Needless to say, I was expecting Freddie to be hiding in there somewhere, probably on one of the Queen cards. That would make sense, right? But would it be the Queen of Spades, the dark(est) queen?<br />
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Nope. It turns out Freddie is the Queen of Clubs. Well, at least it’s a black queen, so there’s a subtle reference to a Queen song. But apart from that, I’m sort of surprised that he wasn’t paired with the Queen of Diamonds since that would be an obvious tie-in to the Crown Jewels, royalty, etc. (All things considered, I’d just be happy if they could get his named spelled right. Doesn’t anyone proof these things before they go to press?)<br />
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Although Gene Simmons was featured on the Jack of Clubs, I would have thought that he’d rank higher given the “king” connotations that Kiss has acquired over the years: <i>King of the Night Time World</i>, or “Kings in Satan’s Services” (i.e., acronym of KISS).<br />
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Seeing Gene next to Freddie in this card line-up reminded me of when I saw the members of Queen made up to look like Kiss characters; and not just one image, but I’ve seen at least three . . . all courtesy of Michael Rutherford, the Niteowl.<br />
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I’m not sure how Niteowl chose which Queen members to transform into which Kiss characters, but he definitely didn’t select them based on instruments. John as Ace Frehley? Shouldn’t the “Space Ace” be Brian, the guitarist? I guess Brian’s hair matched Gene’s the closest so that trumped the instrument match-up.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.kissonline.com/letters/letters/67</span></td></tr>
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The Freddie/Gene combo takes a weird turn as we can see in these penguin characters that apparently are being featured in Runescape, the world’s most popular online medieval fantasy game. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://finalscoreproducts.com/queen-freddie-mercury-acrylic-desk-top-paperweight/</span></td></tr>
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If you’re a hardcore fan of the individual musicians in the Hero Decks card collection, Final Score Products would like to sell you single cards from the deck as acrylic-encoated paperweights. I wonder how many of these they’ve sold. I wonder if they get a bulk sales discount from Hero Deck before they wrap them in plastic?<br />
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Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-55725823602927796062012-12-21T15:35:00.001-07:002012-12-30T18:43:18.690-07:00“People get shot by people, people with . . .”<br />
“Anti-firearm” is a term being thrown around a lot recently due to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary last week.<br />
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Brian was calling attention to the issue of gun control way back in the early ’80s, when he penned <i>Put Out the Fire</i> in 1982. Was he trying to make a point about gun access in response to the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan a year earlier? The timing would be about right but perhaps there was another shooting incident in the UK that sparked Brian’s outrage. Wait a minute, it was probably Lennon’s murder that prompted Brian’s song, just like Freddie’s homage to Lennon with <i>Life is Real</i>.<br />
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As for the United States, I’m surprised that with their undying allegiance to the 2nd Amendment, the National Rifle Association hasn’t lobbied to get this anti-gun statue removed from the steps of the United Nations.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Patrick Brooks </span></td></tr>
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The shooting tragedy in Newtown, CT has again triggered the debate about gun control in the United States. Are the innocent lives of 20 children lost to a deranged gunman a stronger argument for restricting gun access than, say, those adults killed in Aurora, Virginia Tech, or Columbine?<br />
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If the shooter’s mother hadn’t had a stockpile of the damned things around the house, would her son have had the same opportunity to mow down as many lives as he did? The NRA’s initial response was simple and unapologetic: if the teachers at Sandy Hook were adequately armed, they could have reacted to the threat with equal force. In a twisted way, that logic does makes some sense . . . a gun is called the “great equalizer” for a reason, is it not?<br />
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And when a culture of fear converges with the Second Amendment and an obscure <i>Stand Your Ground</i> law, you get a dead teenager. Does the NRA blame Trayvon Martin for not carrying a gun and denying himself his [God-given] right to defend himself against trigger-happy neighborhood watch volunteers? Based on their statements concerning the Sandy Hook tragedy, it would appear so. What is this, the wild west? The minute you leave your house it becomes High Noon so you’d better bring your firearm?<br />
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This stats meme on handgun deaths has been making the rounds since the Sandy Hook shooting. As a matter of fact, to keep making the point, a current set of statistics like this are circulated whenever any mass shooting occurs in the United States. Unlike Congress-backed changes to implement more rigorous airport screenings due to one attempted shoe bombing, there is virtually no change to the laws for preventing similar catastrophes when it comes to guns and gun violence. Unbelievable.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/walt-wawra</span></td></tr>
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Speaking of the wild west, here in Calgary we have something that comes close to it every July when the city puts on the Calgary Stampede. Locals and visitors alike dress as if it were the old west although but no one carries a holster and gun (fake or otherwise).<br />
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An American visitor to the Stampede last summer made the news when he and his wife were walking through Nose Hill Park (an open field green space) and were approached by two male youths who asked whether they had been to the Stampede yet. The visitor happened to be a Michigan cop and took exception to their questioning and through a letter to the editor, publicly acknowledged that he felt unsafe without his state-issued firearm to protect him for random encounters like this. (Maybe someone should remind/explain to him that police in the UK are still not armed during routine patrols and their annual handgun deaths are meagre, to say the least.)<br />
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The local media picked up on the <a href="http://www.calgaryherald.com/Lakritz+Kalamazoo+police+officer+letter+editor+about+handguns+points+cultural+divide/7054368/story.html#ixzz2FevW5Pyf">story</a> and it quickly became a talking point about the cultural differences between Canada and the United States, as this <i>Calgary Herald</i> writer explains:<br />
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And so, Americans, unaware of just how sick their handgun mentality is, continue to fight like crazy to prevent any kind of handgun-control legislation from being implemented. A 9 mm handgun, purchased legally, was the weapon of choice in Oak Creek, Wis., on Sunday when six people were killed and three more wounded by a white supremacist at a Sikh temple. One might argue that if the worshippers had carried guns, they could have killed the guy first. But sitting in a temple armed to the teeth while listening to a sermon about brotherhood and peace is ridiculous.</blockquote>
The same could be said about teachers at Sandy Hook if they were armed and ready for combat while reciting Dr. Seuss to First Graders. <br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Space#Put_Out_the_Fire</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_United_Kingdom</span><br />
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Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-64859824194165459082012-12-03T21:32:00.000-07:002012-12-03T21:32:19.459-07:00O’Brien May?<br />
Well, Movember is over and yours truly raised $1,120. It would have been more if I had time to guilt friends, family, and co-workers into honouring their promise to donate, but the end of the month came quickly and fundraising ended. While I was powering through Movember, however, I had plenty of time to think about my next Queenville blog and wouldn’t you know it, <i>Rocky Horror</i> appeared on my radar.<br />
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The Music, Theatre and Speech department at my university is currently in rehearsals for a production of <i>Rocky Horror</i> that’s set to debut in January. As part of a first-year visual communications class, design students were asked to pitch a poster idea for it. Out of the 30 or so entries, one would be selected as the official promotional poster for the upcoming show.<br />
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Not only was I asked to weigh in with my top two choices from the poster submissions, I remembered that I had the Director's Cut of the 1975 movie recorded on my PVR that was begging to be watched (again!) once I had a free moment. So the combination of <i>Rocky Horror</i> poster judging and <i>Rocky Horror</i> movie watching, I got to thinking that the Queen community and the Rocky Horror community have a lot in common.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FKyGGkVslec/ULwph7hP5jI/AAAAAAAACJ8/sfglFW06Gng/s1600/Freddie&Tim.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FKyGGkVslec/ULwph7hP5jI/AAAAAAAACJ8/sfglFW06Gng/s320/Freddie&Tim.png" width="320" /></a>At one point back in the mid-70s, Tim Curry and Freddie Mercury seemed to be cut from the same slab. Curry appeared as a shoo-in to play Freddie if a biopic was ever produced on his life, and Freddie probably could have pulled off the Frank-n-Furter character if a few circumstances were different — like Freddie being able to act, I suppose.<br />
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Not surprisingly, I’m not the first to raise the issue of Freddie playing Frankie. This Amazon album reviewer had this to say about the movie soundtrack:<br />
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“. . . the popular songs from the first half of the record (<i>Dammit Janet, Sweet Transvestite, Time Warp,</i> etc.) aren’t even the good ones. As the film develops the music telecopes in its ambition; the corny fifties throwback feel of the first three tracks is enveloped by swaggering, operatic pomp of which Freddie Mercury would have been proud. Achieving this was no mean feat by Tim Curry — outside the Queen singer I can’t think of anyone else who would have come close to pulling it off. By the time of the Floor Show medley and then the genuinely beautiful <i>I'm going home,</i> it’s impossible to not to be swept away by it all.”</blockquote>
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Richard O’Brien, the creative mastermind behind the <i>RHPS</i> phenomenon, has actually crossed paths with Queen. In 1980, he had a bit part in <i>Flash Gordon</i> as Fico, an Arboria native and friend of the Baron. I wonder if he and any members of Queen partook in small talk at the film’s premier back in the day.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eRg_arLyT2s/ULwp5uMuwAI/AAAAAAAACKE/czwta0JR9Vs/s1600/O'Brien_2-up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eRg_arLyT2s/ULwp5uMuwAI/AAAAAAAACKE/czwta0JR9Vs/s1600/O'Brien_2-up.jpg" /></a><br />
We know that Brian and Meat Loaf (Eddie from the RHPS) have done more than cross paths, they’ve actually collaborated on at least three occasions:<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-krqVKs8BLwQ/UL0WG5pIjII/AAAAAAAACKw/WrDdBL_mwvA/s1600/ATimeForHeroes.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-krqVKs8BLwQ/UL0WG5pIjII/AAAAAAAACKw/WrDdBL_mwvA/s200/ATimeForHeroes.png" width="199" /></a></div>
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<li>Brian plays guitar on the vocal version of <i>A Time For Heroes</i>, the theme song to the 1987 Special Olympics World Games (the instrumental version was performed by Tangerine Dream, whom Brian teamed up with at the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHn48Sqnpzw">Starmus Festival</a> in June 2011);</li>
<li>Brian was a guest on <i>Bad For Good</i>, a Steinman-penned song that Meat covered on his <i>Bat Out Hell III</i> album from 2006;</li>
<li>Brian also lent his expertise to two songs on the latest Meat Loaf effort, <i>Hang Cool Teddy Bear </i>from 2010.</li>
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There’s even a fun little <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ppaEcMsV9U">clip</a> of Meat selling Brian’s book, <i>A Village Lost and Found</i>. I’d be curious to know the circumstances behind this video. My guess is, it was during Brian’s guest appearance on <i>Hang Cool Teddy Bear</i> as it would have been around the time Brian’s book came out.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vNL-1arfCfE/UL10rYb9uMI/AAAAAAAACOA/TuL-_tXXGVg/s1600/Meatloaf_BM_RHPS.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vNL-1arfCfE/UL10rYb9uMI/AAAAAAAACOA/TuL-_tXXGVg/s1600/Meatloaf_BM_RHPS.png" /></a></div>
Brian manages to pay tribute to both Richard O’Brien and Meat Loaf at the same time when he did a cover in 1995 of <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGZbtGuO57U">Whatever Happened to Saturday Night</a></i>. I have this CD and actually prefer Brian’s version to Meat’s from the original 1975 movie.<br />
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In 2006, Meat tears down a <i>Queen II</i> poster in the opening sequence of <i>Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny</i>, which I talked about in an earlier <a href="http://queenville.blogspot.ca/2012/02/tenacious-q.html">blog</a>. Was the <i>Queen II</i> poster Meat’s idea or Tenacious D’s? It would have been around that time that Brian guested on <i>Bat Out of Hell III</i> and since <i>Queen II</i> (or the band for that matter) never really gets talked about in the actual movie (compared to other metal acts from that era), so I wouldn’t be surprised if Meat suggested the poster idea for that scene.<br />
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Remember when Barry Bostwick and Meat Loaf made a guest appearance on Glee when the theme was <i>Rocky Horror? </i>It would have been super cool if Brian and Roger made a guest appearance on the episode where <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i> was played at the Nationals.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.amazon.com/Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show-Soundtrack/dp/B000N9H3OO</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.buddytv.com/articles/glee/glee-recap-the-rocky-horror-gl-38492.aspx</span><br />
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<span style="color: #fff2cc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">.</span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-14886008435024105652012-10-31T10:01:00.001-06:002012-10-31T11:52:45.450-06:00Mo Bros & Angry Birds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Well, we’re one day shy of <a href="http://ca.movember.com/">Movember</a>, — that time of year formerly known as November — when Movember Brothers (Mo Bros) make money for male health issues by growing manly moustaches. (Yours truly has even set up a Mo Space <a href="http://ca.movember.com/mospace/3897645">here</a> for this very purpose.)</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FmROVlPlzLY/UIob_DLZH2I/AAAAAAAACCQ/qi3gmEqI9xg/s1600/freddiemercurytrim.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FmROVlPlzLY/UIob_DLZH2I/AAAAAAAACCQ/qi3gmEqI9xg/s1600/freddiemercurytrim.png" /></a><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">As their official <a href="http://ca.movember.com/about/mo-milestones/">website</a> describes, Movember went from “. . . 30 Mo Bros . . . in 2003 to 854,288 Mo Bros in 2011.” Quite an achievement considering it really started with two drinking buddies in Australia and spread to likeminded countries within a few short years.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">From what I have discovered online, 2011 was their most successful year to date for fundraising which comes as no surprise given the momentum generated by their recent campaigns. Most Google searches for Movember produced results from 2011 . . . along with an abundance of commentary on who owns the most famous moustache . . . ever.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">It is at this point that Freddie makes a repeated appearance in the official Movember effort. He was initially included in a series of famous ’stache owners alongside Joseph Stalin, Mr. Miyagi, Super Mario, Hulk Hogan, Salvador Dali, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, and Che Guevara. </span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SOos5M2LCCw/UIoXZ07ih2I/AAAAAAAACBg/BPREAxr6JfQ/s1600/movember-freddie-mercury.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SOos5M2LCCw/UIoXZ07ih2I/AAAAAAAACBg/BPREAxr6JfQ/s1600/movember-freddie-mercury.png" /></a><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">All famous personalities, indeed, with equally famous moustaches. But for some reason, Freddie was elevated to unofficial poster boy status for moustache season as we see with this fun cartoon that sums up Movember:</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7fpuTQ-5yWA/UJBWzCqFO1I/AAAAAAAACEc/xdIsM4vYgQk/s1600/SavageChicken_Movember2011.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7fpuTQ-5yWA/UJBWzCqFO1I/AAAAAAAACEc/xdIsM4vYgQk/s320/SavageChicken_Movember2011.png" width="202" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">I’m confused. When did Freddie go from being someone who represented the gay community through the outward expression of facial hair, to a symbol of manliness in its most basic sense . . . the ability to grow a mane of hair on the upper lip, an activity normally associated with the male of the human species? </span><br />
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">His adoption of a moustache is curious timing. If we look merely at the chronology of Queen albums, Freddie grew his ’stache some time between the photo shoot for <i>The Game</i> cover and the photo shoot for the liner notes to <i>Flash Gordon</i>, when we first see him sporting a moustache on a Queen album.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Ac</span><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">cording to <i>A moustache timeline</i> found on the New Zealand History online website, “For some in the gay community coming out in the 1980s, moustaches were an iconic symbol of identity. Inspired by singer Freddy [sic] Mercury or bearded ‘Bears,’ gay men wore their facial hair with pride.”</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Apart from the misspelling of Freddie’s name, I wonder if this statement is entirely accurate. If Freddie led the charge for homosexual men to identify themselves as gay through facial hair in the early ’80s, I think Glenn “Leatherman Biker” Hughes of The Village People deserves more credit than Freddie for inspiring a gay male identity. </span><br />
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Freddie mimicked Hughes’ outfit way back in 1979 and Rob Halford of Judas Priest worn a similar S&M outfit before Freddie. (I know Halford accused Freddie at one point of stealing his look but I’m wondering if Halford was mimicking Hughes as well?) And then there is speculation that Freddie adopted Hughes’ moustache look more </span><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">than a year later, but I’m guessing it had more to do with Freddie indulging in Germany’s gay underground while recording <i>The Game</i> in Munich, than following Hughes. Otherwise, why wouldn’t Freddie adopt the whole Hughes look instead of just the leather S&M attire? </span><br />
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Perhaps Freddie wasn’t ready to make such a public announcement back in 1979? Or maybe the moustache — that symbol of gay masculinity — wasn’t truly in vogue until after 1980?</span></div>
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Whatever the case, Freddie’s moustache is now considered so epic that its power to persuade is undeniable. He’s remained in the public spotlight long enough that his stellar achievements as a musician and all-round rock god status are inextricably linked to his physical attributes such as his moustache, overbite, and vocal range. His moustache, in particular, is now imbued with a connotative quality that goes waaayyy beyond gay symbolism to that of sheer manliness. </div>
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Even Jess below (a male given the tone of writing?) feels that Freddie’s homosexuality was separate from any sex appeal he held for the masses. Apparently, his moustache belongs on all best-of lists and not just Movember lists, as this online quote will attest to:</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wCmSkUCURrI/UIvvwH87VsI/AAAAAAAACDo/XswikVnsPps/s1600/Jess_FM_comment.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="96" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wCmSkUCURrI/UIvvwH87VsI/AAAAAAAACDo/XswikVnsPps/s400/Jess_FM_comment.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Obviously, this cover is not ‘scientific proof’ of Freddie’s effect on women, although I would be curious to hear what his ladyfriend here would say about working with Freddie for that shoot. </div>
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Now that Freddie For a Day is gaining in popularity every year as a fundraiser for the Mercury Phoenix Trust (MPT), dressing up as Freddie is as easy as donning a fake moustache and a Magic Years concert jacket. </div>
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Even Rovio, the makers of the mega-popular Angry Birds video game, got in on the action when they recently paid homage to Freddie by introducing an “Angry Freddie” character in Magic Years attire and crown. But they also added the epic moustache. This strikes me as proof positive that his ‘stache’ is perhaps the single most outward symbol of Freddie these days. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-12nAFMh22So/UIvvqhXTJ1I/AAAAAAAACDg/KzkUCkEapvs/s1600/ShippingForm.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-12nAFMh22So/UIvvqhXTJ1I/AAAAAAAACDg/KzkUCkEapvs/s1600/ShippingForm.png" /></a>In an effort to support the Freddie For a Day campaign, I purchased one of the Angry Birds shirts online for my four-year-old who has taken a liking to the Angry Birds characters, not the game so much. The FFAD online store is based in Finland but the fulfilment house is in California and when I received the shipment, I was annoyed that the invoice got Freddie’s name wrong. Bad optics people.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uScnNBdmWlE/UJFI8WuWW1I/AAAAAAAACF0/j_9qWlddmjM/s1600/FM_AngryBirdShirt3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uScnNBdmWlE/UJFI8WuWW1I/AAAAAAAACF0/j_9qWlddmjM/s1600/FM_AngryBirdShirt3.png" /></a></div>
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And what if Freddie were still around today to seeing his outward identity morphing from one stereotype to another. I’m sure he’d take it all in stride since he didn’t take himself or his moustache too seriously. He did shave it off in the late ’80s, right?</div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.savagechickens.com/2011/11/movember.html</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">'A moustache timeline', URL: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/men-and-their-moustaches/timeline, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 30-Aug-2012</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.theclevelandsound.com/?p=13655</span></div>
<br />Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-20855371122387080342012-10-17T21:25:00.002-06:002012-10-17T22:16:18.101-06:00An escape from reality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Being Facebook friends with your students has entertainment value. Sometimes being privy to their weekend indulgences explains why they missed class the following Monday. Other times, you can see them use Facebook for what it was originally meant to do...to allow post-secondary students to share ideas and exchange in meaningful dialogue.</div>
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Well, <i>meaningful</i> dialogue is open to interpretation sometimes, I guess.</div>
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Sometimes a status update will prompt a surprising discussion, which is what happened today when my (now former) student Alexis began quoting the opening line to <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i>. Needless to say, I was floored but amused. And then Hayden chimes in with the second and third lines to the song, at which point I joined in and jokingly laid down the law. The thread then takes on a Queen-ish life of its own as you can see.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1saOcAAHkdc/UH9DbFnhxwI/AAAAAAAAB_w/l4FkUXFJ518/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-10-17+at+2.30.02+PM+copy.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1saOcAAHkdc/UH9DbFnhxwI/AAAAAAAAB_w/l4FkUXFJ518/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-10-17+at+2.30.02+PM+copy.png" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1saOcAAHkdc/UH9DbFnhxwI/AAAAAAAAB_w/l4FkUXFJ518/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-10-17+at+2.30.02+PM+copy.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>Okay, enough goofing off on Facebook everyone. Back to work.<br />
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Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-6362335971767601562012-10-16T11:59:00.002-06:002012-10-16T11:59:59.199-06:00Phreddie’s phrenology<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It is just about Halloween and the third season of <i>The Walking Dead</i> has begun, so what better topic for discussion than Freddie’s skull.</div>
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If you’re a fan of the <a href="http://io9.com/5913590/portraits-of-20th-century-figures--or-at-least-their-skulls">io9 website</a>, “…a daily publication that covers science, science fiction, and the future,” then you’ve probably come across this series of skulls based on famous deceased artists, activitists, and politicians, all courtesy of Romanian artist, Istvan Laszlo.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MwuP8zRnSTE/UH1_7uPGyMI/AAAAAAAAB70/QgR2-W9nUQE/s1600/FM_notext.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MwuP8zRnSTE/UH1_7uPGyMI/AAAAAAAAB70/QgR2-W9nUQE/s1600/FM_notext.png" /></a></div>
Perhaps there were more in his <a href="http://blog.thaeger.com/2012/02/05/popular-skulls/">series</a> but here are the famous 20th century figures Laszlo chose for a public release:<br />
<br />• Mahatma Gandhi<br />• John Lennon<br />• Freddie Mercury<br />• Mother Teresa<br />• Moa Tse Tung<br />• Andy Warhol<div>
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In order to make these skulls retain any recognizable likeness to their owners, Laszlo had to intentionally blend physical characteristics of the individual (e.g., Freddie’s overbite) as well as any external adornments that that person was known for, such as eyeglasses or a piece of clothing. Certainly, without the nod to her unique Missionaries of Charity headscarf, Mother Teresa’s skull probably wouldn’t be read as being hers. Throw in some subtle references to hair, such as Mao’s receding hairline or the dark shadow above the upper jaw on Freddie and Gandhi, and voila, you’ve got an otherworldly portrait.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-duk-kulZbNY/UH2B60YgYWI/AAAAAAAAB78/YgN9I0JILrQ/s1600/MotherTheresa-Gandhi.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-duk-kulZbNY/UH2B60YgYWI/AAAAAAAAB78/YgN9I0JILrQ/s1600/MotherTheresa-Gandhi.png" /></a></div>
Without those defining external characteristics, a skull is just a skull as any episode of <i>Bones</i> or <i>Dateline NBC</i> will tell you. It’s really not recognizable until the skin and muscle tissue is methodically reconstructed that the likelihood of their likeness is finally revealed.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RGhKlS5OhSA/UH2IKcM9yzI/AAAAAAAAB9g/D5fJC1rvrIc/s1600/3-up_skulls.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RGhKlS5OhSA/UH2IKcM9yzI/AAAAAAAAB9g/D5fJC1rvrIc/s1600/3-up_skulls.png" /></a></div>
Perhaps the most interesting side effect of the io9 article is in the comments section where people began labelling the drawings as racist, in particular the implied epicanthic eyefolds on Mao’s skull. While I agree that if Mao’s portrait was generically labelled as “Chinese” instead of “Mao,” there would be an element of racism to the portrait because mongoloid skulls do not have eye sockets shaped like this.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CKH9sutgleI/UH2ZSYA-lII/AAAAAAAAB_A/bs8Rikmqkt8/s1600/PhrenologyPix.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CKH9sutgleI/UH2ZSYA-lII/AAAAAAAAB_A/bs8Rikmqkt8/s200/PhrenologyPix.png" width="186" /></a></div>
Introducing racism into the cranium discussion inevitably draws <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology">phrenology</a> into the debate as there have been numerous attempts from across the ethnicity spectrum to have science validate a hierarchy in the races based on skull measurements and other phenotypical attributes.<br />
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Is there a scientific basis to race superiority? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton">Jean Philippe Rushton</a>, a recently deceased University of Western Ontario professor, made it his life’s work to prove that there was. To the frustration of his many critics, he was tenured at UWO and couldn’t be muzzled for his unpopular and dangerous views.<br />
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As happens with discussions about race and “the other,” a sampling of a few members of an identifiable group — as we have seen in this series of drawings — can be interpreted as a generalized perception or stereotype of that particular group. Was Laszlo’s portrait of Mao meant to represent <i>all</i> Chinese people? Of course not. Is it meant to represent a single, Chinese individual? Yes, but with artistic license to borrow and manipulate certain stereotypes assigned to his ethnicity.<br />
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One could wonder how Laszlo decided on which historical figures to include in this series. Where’s Einstein (as activist of sorts)? Martin Luther King? Whitney Houston? Hitler? Were the final selections based on his own personal list or was it simply which larger-than-life figures could offer the best source material (i.e., photographs) to work from?<br />
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Whatever the case, Freddie gets first billing on the io9 article which could be interpreted as the editors at io9 believing that his persona would be the most favourable in capturing readership. They could easily have mentioned John Lennon right out of the gates for that story, but they went with Freddie. I’d wager, though, that Mao’s skull is probably more immediately recognizable than Freddie’s but would giving Mao more airtime, to so speak, sit well with most readers?<br />
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What I find curious is that out of the six historical figures Laszlo portrayed in this series, three of them are associated with India. How would phrenology explain away the individual triumphs that these three have accomplished on such a grand scale?<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://io9.com/5913590/portraits-of-20th-century-figures--or-at-least-their-skulls</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://blog.thaeger.com/2012/02/05/popular-skulls/</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PhrenologyPix.jpg</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton</span><br />
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Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-91314030763553041262012-09-25T12:10:00.001-06:002012-09-25T12:10:37.115-06:00FM on ET<br />
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I haven’t watched <i>Entertainment Tonight</i> in a long time — <i>ET Canada</i>, yes; regular <i>ET</i>, no — but caught a mention of Freddie by co-host, Chris Jacobs, as they went into a commercial break. He mentioned something about lost interviews with Freddie, don’t want to miss it, etc.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l43ZzqOo9Xc/UGHsYBxDGcI/AAAAAAAAB4U/Bh0FObq3LMk/s1600/ET_GreatPretender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l43ZzqOo9Xc/UGHsYBxDGcI/AAAAAAAAB4U/Bh0FObq3LMk/s1600/ET_GreatPretender.jpg" /></a></div>
Sure enough, after the break there was a lengthy (4–5 minute) segment that was a response to the newly released video documentary called <i>Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender </i>(TGP), and the companion photo book called <i>Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender, a Life in Pictures</i>.<br />
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Amongst the other biographical details mentioned in TGP, the lost interview they were referring to prior to the commercial break was taken during the period Freddie collaborated with Michael Jackson in the early ’80s. There was an audio clip of the two of them singing together and at one point Freddie claims that if the timing had been better, he might have been on <i>Thriller</i>.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ckKHWzjVtPs/UGHvBqWPM8I/AAAAAAAAB4k/mmP1Cf2mppQ/s1600/ET_Jackson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ckKHWzjVtPs/UGHvBqWPM8I/AAAAAAAAB4k/mmP1Cf2mppQ/s1600/ET_Jackson.jpg" /></a></div>
On thing that apparently irked Freddie about Michael’s recording routine was his propensity for bringing farm animals into the studio. I guess Freddie wasn’t accustomed to having a recording session turned into a petting zoo. But just when you think Freddie’s excesses were noteworthy, even his idiosyncrasies pale in comparison to Jackson’s.<br />
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All-in-all a positive look at Freddie’s latest posthumous effort. Chris Jacobs even made the comment that he loves Freddie and he loves Queen, so that was a nice wrap-up to the segment. As a car enthusiast, perhaps <i>I’m in Love With My Car</i> caught his ear as a kid and he’s been hooked on Queen ever since.<br />
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<span style="color: #fff2cc;">.</span>Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900274368476921717.post-71317839745189507262012-09-23T20:38:00.001-06:002012-09-23T20:38:25.107-06:00Separated at birth?<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e5yxcSYNQ8o/UF_EY_GuA6I/AAAAAAAAB3c/KtHjeiVKboQ/s1600/Deacon-Horshack2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e5yxcSYNQ8o/UF_EY_GuA6I/AAAAAAAAB3c/KtHjeiVKboQ/s1600/Deacon-Horshack2.jpg" /></a></div>
I see that there was a brief In Memorium on <i>The Emmys</i> tonight and they showed a clip of actor Ron Palillo from <i>Welcome Back, Kotter</i>.<br />
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Back in the early ’80s when John’s hair was straight out of a Fritz Lang video and reruns of <span style="font-style: italic;">Kotter</span> were still going strong, for some reason I always made the connection that Palillo was the spitting image of John Deacon.<br />
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Palillo suffered a heart attack and was pronounced dead at the hospital after paramedics removed him from his Florida home on August 14, 2012. He was 63.<br />
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Patrick Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05598733699972746754noreply@blogger.com0