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Archive for September, 2006

Funky London : Albert King grooves with the Bar-Kays

30 September 2006 Leave a comment

Re-listening to Albert King’s early 1970s tracks on Funky London was quite a revelation. When I first acquired the disc many years ago, the songs didn’t particularly strike me as outstanding. When I gave a spin recently, however, I found the music very funky. Albert King once said that he wanted to try to make the music more accessible for the younger generation and thus he created music with a more soulful and funky sound rather than another straight blues album. Being a Stax recording, the backup band consisted of members of Booker T & The MGS as well as the Bar-Kays. The tracks are a mixture of groovy instrumental work-outs mixed with a few slow blues numbers; Albert King’s guitar work sounds fresher than on most sessions and there are loads of great solos to be found on the disc.

Verdict : not essential Albert King, but very good nonetheless.

Categories: Music - Blues

Sonny Boy Williamson’s King Biscuit Time

26 September 2006 Leave a comment

Sonny Boy Williamson made a name for himself with the radio show King Biscuit Time in the early 1940s. Tall and imposing physically, Sonny Boy Williamson remained an enigmatic figure. If legend is to be believed, he was supposed to have been playing with Robert Johnson on the night Johnson died. He was supposed to have advised Robert Johnson against drinking a bottle of opened beer offered. Sonny Boy was himself a hard-bitten professional with a fondness for alcohol and gambling. He also gave many blues players their first break and inspired many others.

Little Milton : Rice Miller was a hell of a musician as far as the harmonica was concerned. He taught me self-esteem, he taught me respect, taught me how to not only respect yourself but to respect the audience.

King Biscuit Time

Sonny Boy Williamson blowing the harp

Source: Portrait of the Blues by Paul Trynka

Categories: Music - Blues

Real Folk Blues is outstanding value for money

26 September 2006 Leave a comment

The music of Sonny Boy Williamson II (a.k.a Rice Miller) ought to be on every blues fans’ collection. Sonny Boy Williamson started playing the blues way back in the 1920’s and has played with influential figures like Robert Johnson, Elmore James and Robert Lockwood Jr., a guitarist who would often feature in his backing band.

Sonny Boy Williamson plays in a simple style. He blows with a nice tone, clear bending notes and a killer vibrato. In fact, some of his solo breaks almost have a guitar solo quality to them. He never overplays like more contemporary harpists (I’m thinking of Sugar Blue in particular). Robert Santelli acknowledges Sonny Boy as “the most lyrical harp player the postwar blues period produced” in The Best Of The Blues: 101 Essential Albums.

I like most of Sonny Boy Williamson’s recordings on Chess, but the 2-in-1 CD The Real Folk Blues / More Real Folk Blues is a good value for money buy. The CD collects the blues maestro’s best cuts from his 10 year stint at Chess records and features essential blues tunes including:

- One Way Out
- Bring It On Home
- Dissatisfied
- Nine Below Zero

Band members differ on most cuts, but the regulars include Otis Spann (piano), Lefayette Leake (piano), Robert Lockwood Jr. (guitar), Luther Tucker (guitar), Buddy Guy (guitar), Willie Dixon (bass), Fred Below (drums).

Verdict : another must buy blues CD!

Categories: Music - Blues

Big Walter With Carey Bell : essential blues harp

26 September 2006 Leave a comment

I’ll be reviewing my collection of blues harp albums in the months to come.

Today I have been listening to perhaps my favourite blues harp disc – Big Walter Horton’s Alligator CD with Carey Bell. Cut originally in 1973, Alligator Records secured the rights and re-released the CD version in 1989. Featuring 11 cuts, the CD contains absolutely no filler – and all the tracks are driven by Big Walter’s full sounding harp. Big Walter chose to feature his protege Carey Bell as second harp and the chemistry between them rubs off on the music.

Apart from Big Walter and Carey Bell, the band features a solid rhythm section with Eddie Taylor (guitar), Joe Harper (bass) and Frank Swan (drums). Taylor and Harper were regular sidemen Big Walter played with throughout his career.

Star tracks : the entire album!

Verdict : an essential blues harp

Categories: Music - Blues

Sony Z610i : sleek OLED clamshell phone

26 September 2006 Leave a comment

Just saw this today over at HardwareZone – the Sony Z610i, a very stylish cell phone that uses Sony’s cool looking MP3 players as a template. The guys over at HardwareZone rightly see this phone as appealing to both the fashion conscious as well as tech-savy and corporate users. The clamshell phone features the usual array of features – froma 2.0 mega pixel camera to MP3 playback functions. The front of the phone consists of an OLED screen. Wonder if this is finger-print proof.

Link

Update [11 October 2006]

According to GSMArena.com, “the mirror-like clamshell Z610 has a magic top half and an invisible external display; it supports 3G, has a 2 megapixel camera, and has one of the most luxurious keypads ever seen on the mobile market. Memory card slot is available, of course. In other words, Sony Ericsson’s portfolio has been enriched with another top-quality model.”

Link to review

Categories: Tech - Gadgets

Ultima II : my first RPG

26 September 2006 Leave a comment

Back in the Apple II Plus days, apart from Lode Runner, my favorite game was the role playing classic Ultima II. My mother was very confused – to her Ultima II was a cosmetic brand. Anyway, I spent hours and hours trekking the world of Ultima II, searching for clues, exploring the dungeons and fighting the beasts. I hadn’t experienced the more advanced paper and pen version of Dungeons & Dragons yet (that would be a few years away), so I found the Ultima II world very expansive and engrossing. I still have fond memories of the game.


Categories: Tech & Hardware

Lode Runner : still one of the best games I’ve played

23 September 2006 Leave a comment


And what did we do with the Apple II+?

Dad would study the manuals, input programs written in Basic (and published in magazines) into the PC as well as play Pac Man.

I would also write simple Basic programs to solve area, perimeter and surface area problems and play Lode Runner. Man, it was such a blast and did not require hours and hours to simply learn how to play.

The game was very simply: get your man to the top of the screen by digging holes to drop the enemies. The gameplay was very addictive.

Categories: Tech & Hardware

Apple II Plus . . . actually a cloned version

23 September 2006 Leave a comment


The first real PC that I laid my hands on was my father’s Apple II+ clone. Bought and assembled in the infamous Golden Computer Center, the system had a 1MHz processor, 64K RAM, which was impressive for the time, and two 5.25 inch floppy drives (not the Apple brand drives pictured above). We used a green monitor. Dad and I would go to the Computer Centre nearly every Satuday afternoon to window shop – and Dad would marvel at the magnificent NEC color monitor every weekend.

After half a year, Dad installed an 80-column card and began playing around with the CP/M operating system (which can be seen as a precursor to Microsoft’s MS-DOS). I had fun with Pro Dos, which introduced the system of using folders and sub-folders to organize files – this is basically the same way we manage files today but without all the graphic icons and razzle dazzle.

Categories: Tech & Hardware

Sharp PC 1500 : my first computing experience

23 September 2006 Leave a comment


As I was browsing the net a few days ago, I ran into an article about vintage personal computers. Which got me reminiscing about my first experience.

Back in my primary school days (circa early 1980s), my father bought a Sharp PC 1500 – the then cutting edge “PC” looks like a “powerful” calculator and could handle a rudimentary version of basic. I remember after setting some simple formulas, I had the PC solving some of my math assignments on area and perimeter. The PC 1500 could also be slotted onto a printer dock and output data onto a roll of paper (like a calculator with a printer).

Searching the web, I found it had a 8-bit CMOS processor and a whopping 3.5K RAM!!!

Categories: Tech & Hardware

Theli : an accessible classic Scandinavian Metal album

23 September 2006 Leave a comment

Swedish band Therion sound thoroughly unique and defies categorization within the various metal sub-genres – their albums are sometimes referred to as death metal, symphonic death metal or progressive metal. The group produces ambitious metal music that is melodic, catchy and even features choir choruses and elaborate orchestrations. Fans consider their 1996 album Theli one of the highlights in their career and an essential purchase.

With a total of 10 tracks, Theli features songs that range from catchy and straight-forward metal rockers (Nightside Of Eden) to epic instrumental compositions (The Siren Of The Woods). Therion possess a distinctive sound that seamlessly blends the pseudo-classical style choir choruses with heavy riffage – and the second track on the album To Mega Therion is a good example of this.

Star tracks : #2 To Mega Therion, #6 Nightside Of Eden, #7 Opus Eclipse, #9 The Siren Of The Woods

Verdict : highly recommended for all rock / metal fans. Unlike many other Scandinavian metal groups which sound inaccessible, I found Therion very enjoyable and easy to like.

Categories: Music - Metal

New X-Men : the return of Nimrod

23 September 2006 Leave a comment

Over the last year, I have become a fan of New X-Men. Despite not being one of the flagship mutant books (that would be Astonishing X-Men I suppose), I find New X-Men extremely fun to read and decently addictive. One reason may be that the mutants featured in the comic don’t carry the burden of backstory that makes the rest of the X-Men comics such a headache. I also believe this gives the writers more freedom to create more original stories – like the current arc that features one of my favourite mutant menaces – Nimrod, the ultimate Sentinel from the future.

I also have a fondness for Paco Medina’s arresting artwork on the New X-Men. I suppose it can hardly be called original – it shares too many similarities with Chris Bachalo and Humberto Ramos’ work – but the pencils are still dazzling.


Categories: Comics

Track you music preferences with Last.FM

22 September 2006 Leave a comment

Considered one of the leading Web 2.0 music sites, Last.FM uses the Audio Scrobbler engine to collect music played on a user’s PC and compiles charts on listening behavior. I created an account with Last.FM on 08 September 2006 and downloaded the Audio Scrobbler plugin for my preferred audio player Foobar 2000. The scribbler sends data back to the website in the background and is transparent in everyday operation. I have not noticed any significant system slowdown after using the plugin.

I found this web utility to be quite helpful in tracking what I have listened. The site shows the most recently played tracks, top 10 weekly artists, overall top artists, and overall top tracks. In my first week, I found myself playing specific songs to compile charts that reflect my tastes – the site uses engines that guess your preferences and recommends tracks as well as fellow users to you. Now that I have played 1,000+ tracks, I don’t feel the intrusive need to influence the charts by purposely playing certain artists.

One of the bonuses of the site is it provides scripts for users to add customized graphic charts of their music listening behavior to their blogs and website (mine are in the sidebar). I found this feature convenient and easy to use. Now I can point my friends to my profile at Last.FM or my blogs to see what music I have been listening recently.

My profile at Last.FM

Categories: Music

The Banquet : an over-cooked "feast" for foreigners

22 September 2006 1 comment

The modern Chinese period epic has become a genre targeted primarily at international audiences hungry for exotic Chinese history and dazzling action sequences. With over-produced set pieces and plots tailored for western consumption, these “epics” are no doubt profitable for the Chinese film industry and the stars.

The latest “epic” to receive the treatment is Feng Xiaogang’s The Banquet. A director known for making comedies, this is new territory for Feng as he tries to outdo Zhang Yimou. The film features a very calculated all-star line-up designed to appeal to all segments – Zhang Ziyi for the international market, Daniel Wu for the Far Eastern market, Zhou Xun and Ge You for the Mainland Chinese market. Behind the scenes we have Yuen Woo Ping creating the action scenes, Oscar winner Tan Dun scoring the film with virtuoso pianist Lang Lang performing the music. The film really should be a banquet for the eyes – instead it comes across as an overcooked duck with rough meat and no flavor .

Among many things, The Banquet is also a Chinese version of Hamlet with the ambiguity taken out. We no longer need to figure out whether Claudius has poisoned the king or not; he has. Nor do we need to guess whether Hamlet has a crush on Gertrude; here, the queen was his lover to begin with. Having taken the intrigue out of the plot, it becomes a drag as we wait for the “climatic” finale. Feng has opted to make a “drama” with just a few action sequences. I’m not sure this is wise as I found the film lacking in entertainment value. We expect great sets and costumes – but as I have already mentioned, the film is over-produced. Daniel Wu delivers his usual stiffness and Zhang Ziyi does not have the experience to play the queen. She does not really come across as a manipulative consort but a whore who uses her body to get what she desires.

Of the modern day Chinese “epics” I have seen, my current preference is : House Of Flying Daggers > Hero > The Banquet > The Promise. I look forward to seeing the next mess that will be The Curse Of The Golden Flower, which will at least have Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat.

The verdict : not recommended!

Categories: Films

Epitafios : Argentinean serial killers are sadistic

22 September 2006 Leave a comment

Released as a DVD set, the 13-part HBO mini-series Epitafios is a Spanish language serial killer crime thriller than became a sensational hit in Argentina. So successful in fact that HBO decided its viewers in America ought to see it – the mini-series was carried on HBO’s American outlets and subsequently released on DVD.

Apparently the South Americans have a long tradition of crime fiction and it shows in the impeccable scripting on Epitafios, which translates into “Epitaphs” in English. The series follows the trials of an ex-detective Renzo and a psychologist Laura as they try to put a stop to a maniac killer who seeks revenge for wrongdoings committed by selective people five years ago. A botched mission causes 4 students to be burnt to death five years ago, and both Renzo and Laura played a part in the disaster. Over the course of the series, the serial killer taunts them and it gradually becomes clear that he is out to make them suffer as much as possible.

Shot in Buenos Aires