9 posts from April 2009

Hi, everybody.  Betty Page dropped by to wish you all a Happy Donkey Wednesday.

Top Artists for the week ending Sunday 26 April 2009

1		Clara Rockmore		32
2		The Vaselines		19
3		Ben Harper		11
4		Robyn Hitchcock		10
5		Elvis Costello		9
5		Seu Jorge		9
5		Belle and Sebastian		9

5 Things About Clara Rockmore

1. Clara Rockmore (nee Reisenberg) started her music career as a violinist in Vilnius, Lithuania.  She studies at the Imperial Conservatory of Music at St. Petersburg.

2. She met Leon Theremin in New York in the late 1920s and she became his protege

3. She stood much closer to the instrument than any other thereminist-- which is impressive when you consider that you have to stand reeaally still to even play theremin.  Any fidgeting or flapping about creates "noise."  Clara could change pitch by moving her pinkie finger.

4. Clara declined to do the music for Hitchcock's Spellbound.  She and Theremin were both anxious to cement the Thermin as a classical instrument.  Neither one wanted to do anything that seemed faddish or "pop."  In later years she said, yeah,  maybe she should have done Spellbound.
 

5. You can also download your very own pdf of Clara Rockmore Method for Theremin In English, Spanish and Italian. 

Hey look!  It's Leon Theremin's patent for METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR THE GENERATION OF SOUND.

A minor tribute to Earth Day from Dena Dietrich (aka Mother Nature) and Tony Joe White.  Now please excuse me while I club a baby seal over the head with a disposable diaper.

Share a song for a sunny day.

What food would you miss most if you were sent to prison for the rest of your life?
Sponsored by “Inside Guantanamo” on National Geographic Channel. Premieres Sunday at 9P et/pt. 

Dear Vox and National Geographic:

Stop bumming me out.

K? Thnx!