Author: tunequest

Welcome to the new tunequest

Hello everybody. Starting today, tunequest is being served with WordPress, a very very cool content-management system/blogging tool I discovered while working on one of my day jobs. The previous tunequest site had been manually coded using Adobe Golive CS2. It’s a nice enough program (though prone to crashing), but it was tedious for maintaining a journal-style site. Golive will continue to be used for the static pages (graphs and songlists) and because I like its CSS interface and site integration features.

I’m hoping the new site will allow me to post more fluidly about the journey that is tunequest. Plus, as a database-driven site, I’ll be able to implement some more advanced features, such as the cloud.

In the meantime, I’ll be integrating those old musings into this new format.

Shatner Rapping: No Tears for Caesar

Part of the Musical Star Trek Actors Series

  1. Shatner Rapping: No Tears for Caesar
  2. Leonard Nimoy – Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space

Below is the music video for No Tears For Caesar, available on the bonus materials DVD for Free Enterprise.


William Shatner raps some Shakespeare, Marc Anthony’s speech from Julius Caesar specifically. And true to form, the good Cap’n Kirk doesn’t disappoint; he’s always entertaining when he’s got a microphone. That’s the theory behind those old priceline.com ads anyway.

The song and video No Tears For Caesar from the 1998 movie Free Enterprise (a film tailor-made for the post-modern Star Trek fan) are, as Spock would say, fascinating little productions. Shatner rapping… well not rapping so much as doing his trademark spoken word routine, a kind of precursor to 2004’s Has Been.

In any event, I whole-heartedly recommend the film. It’s worth it for Shatner alone, but has lots of other trek-related gems, like Jerry Goldsmith references! and yes, i’m genuinely excited by those.

Oh. this isn’t Shatner’s only Shakespeare recording; his 1968 record The Transformed Man contains some much-exaggerated spoken word from Hamlet, Henry V and Romeo & Juliet.

Next in series

One Hundred Sixty-Eight Songs (that’s 17 albums) in 3 days.

  • the flaming lips [ego tripping at the gates of hell]
  • the faint [danse macabre remixes]
  • david bowie [earthling]
  • the clebanoff strings [exciting sounds]
  • saint etienne [finisterre]
  • they might be giants [factory showroom]
  • chris cornell [euphoria morning]
  • cq soundtrack
  • nobukazu takemura [finale: for issey miyake men by naoki takizawa]
  • southern culture on the skids [dirt track date]
  • the chemical brothers [dig your own hole]
  • pizzicato five [couples]
  • mudhoney [five dollar bob’s mock cooter stew]
  • eyes wide shut soundtrack
  • the chemical brothers [exit planet dust]
  • yo la tengo [fakebook]
  • lalo schifrin [enter the dragon]

A very productive couple of days. in fact the past 6 days represents 8.6% of the playtime accomplished since tunequest began. not a bad performance. however, now i’ve got far too many tunes to write about here, so here are some quick thoughts:

Continue reading →

Tchaikovsky, I’m Sure, would be nonplussed

nutcracker costume

You know, Tchaikovsky wasn’t all that pleased with his Nutcracker and I’m sure he would be both surprised and concerned about its modern-day popularity, particularly in America. Regardless of his feelings however, it is, in this writer’s opinion, indisputable, that the ballet (and especially the concert suite) is a fine, enjoyable composition. Maybe it’s because the pieces are simple, but clever. And if there’s something that Americans enjoy, it’s things that are simple and clever. Snide remarks aside, the Berliner Philharmoniker’s 1966 performance under Karajan is spectacular.

quickies:
though delay 1968 is before the bands’ prime, can delivers one fantastic song (‘thief’) on top of a ground-breaking album.
i’ve heard cornelius has been described as japan’s greatest natural resource and can pretty much confirm that.

I can never gauge if I like Puffy

Every time I think i’m ready to ditch those poppy-japanese-rock-girls, I hear the songs that got me interested in the first place. So i explore their music and find myself intrigued, but underwelmed by much of their catalog. Then I start contemplating the removal of the less compelling songs from my library. entering “evaluation mode,” I listen to their songs and can’t help but find most of them catchy and, at the same time, exasperating, with those two reactions constantly fighting each other. Then the cycle begins again. Maybe it’s because they’re Japanese and the cultural differences interfere with my normal reflexes.

In any event, Amiyumi is a decent enough record with Usagi Channel being a stand out track. If nothing else, that song is worth keeping around.

Facing the Phantom Menace

Though the movie was somewhat disappointing (Ii’m not a rabid Star Wars purist, but I do admit the film could have been better), John William exceeds expectations, filling his own very big shoes for the score to Episode I: The phantom Menace. Like any good Star Wars music fan, I bought the album when it was released and had most of it memorized by the film’s premiere (midnight showing!).

Williams pulls out all the stops, creating an original album that is closely tied to the Star Wars universe without being derivative of the first trilogy. His original themes are excellent: the action and conflict of The Duel of the Fates, the luster and majesty of the Theme for the Old Republic, the grinding militarism and menace of The Trade Federation Battle March and the tenderness of young Anakin’s Theme, which, if you listen closely, you can hear an echo of the Imperial March.

And to this day, whenever I hear the segue from the end celebration march to the closing fanfare, I still tense up with the memory of the theater packed with Star Wars fans exploding into cheers and applause.

Gives me goosebumps still.

Pretty hate machine

i wasn’t conscious of nine inch nails when pretty hate machine was released. in 1989, i turned 11 and whatever counted for my music appreciation at the time was mostly limited to the weekend top 40 countdown with casey kasem. it wasn’t until a couple years later that i had my first nails experience. i was about 14 by then and starting to comprehend music as an art and as pop culture phenomena. my dad had finally opted to subscribe to cable and the video for ‘wish’ was in heavy rotation on mtv, back when the M stood for "music" and not "mediocre." i was expanding my musical boundaries rapidly as the so-called "alternative revolution" was sweeping the nation.

though i was hooked by the end of the first guitar riff, i remember other, older nin fans just trashing ‘wish,’ proclaiming broken a disappointment (an understatement) compared to pretty hate machine. it became a refrain i would hear often with each new release. why those people continued to be nine inch nails fans, i still don’t understand, just as much as i don’t understand the pedestal PHM has been placed on. aside from a few stand out tracks (the opening trio is gangbusters), pretty hate machine is probably the weakest overall release in the catalog, even compared to all the weak material on the fragile. and why shouldn’t it be? it was a debut album after all, and trent has had 17 years to experiment, refine and improve his style.