David Helfgott

Back in October 2009 BFF and I went on one of our epic expeditions. This time we traveled to Vienna to attend the David Helfgott concert at the Mozart Hall of the Concert House – front row too!

Some of you may recognise his name, he was the subject of the Oscar winning film Shine in 1996. David, an Australian born concert pianist, son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, developed a schizoaffective disorder during his time in London at the Royal College of Music. He returned to Perth where, after numerous treatment methods, was a rehearsal pianist for the Australian Opera and part time pianist at a wine bar.

His performance style has often been criticised as “reducing music to a rubble of notes”, but he does have a completely innocent, child like rapture and charm that comes through the emotion of the pieces he plays. His disorder maybe unpredictable and mannerisms unusual but he truly just wants to bring joy to all. He brings back the ethos that classical music is for all, not just the black tie, exclusive, regimentally trained few.

David is incredibly tactile, and verbal with his little mantras. After the show he hugged us plentifully and uttered “Be happy today, we must be happy”. My endearing memory as he was part way down the stairs from the dressing room was to scurry back to me declaring “Just one more” as he hugged and kissed us both again.

Vienna itself is a stunningly beautiful city, we wandered around the grounds of Belvedere Palace, once home to the Austrian Royal Family, including Frank Ferdinand whose assassination sparked the outbreak of World War One. The Palace itself an art gallery where we saw art by Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, Jacques Louis David, although the quiet was rather disturbed by my wheelchair’s slight squeak and the creak of the parquet flooring. The marble room with its six foot tall fire places and tromploy ceilings was something to be marvelled.

Wandering the streets through the stunning architecture, beautiful buildings with incredible tableaux, discovering alabaster white statues or fountains at every corner. The sound of horses hooves echoing through the narrow streets made everything so atmospheric. Seeing the famous Lipizzaner horses in their stables. The food of the coffee houses, all the wood panelling, mirrors and crystal chandeliers.

A completely enchanting experience.

 

Brett “Cosmo” Thorngren

Yesterday I was stunned to receive a message that Brett had died a few days before. I came across his Sister on social media who had, with heart wrenching emotion, live streamed her appreciation at the messages, texts and calls she had received. It was palpable how raw the devastation is as she vented her sorrow, anger and tears about what had occurred and caused such a life affecting, changing set of circumstances.

Across the past couple of decades Cosmo was a character that had crossed my on-line path as he often worked with a mutual friend. Brett was an energetic, vivacious drummer, song writer and composer, music mixer and producer, who had learnt his craft from some incredible names, Tommy Lee and Alex Van Halen. He’d learnt so much from his epic music producer father Eric Thorngren, as well as his talented maternal grandfather and great uncles, the Cosimo Trio. He was a cornerstone of the electronic dance music in Miami in its early days and always had several music projects on the go.

We ‘met’ directly when I had contacted him for permission to host a music video of the group Lisbon, which had included our mutual friend Stephen Gibb. As conversation over time continued I helped him source links and info that was already around the internet in order to put together a more detailed biography as he was beginning to put his vast catalogue of work on streaming sites.

As part of this project, I did the same for the Cosimo Trio and he generously shared some lovely atmospheric photos, bill fliers and letters of their career through the 1940/50 big band era.

When I had told him of my Big Sis situ (at the time she had just been diagnosed with brain tumours) he wanted me to stop my researching for him but I said no, it gave me a few minutes of escape. After Big Sis died he sent me a number of unreleased music tracks as he thought they would comfort me or distract me in my grief – he was right.

Often he would record a message to send as he wasn’t an expert typist and in one of them he told me he was going to a school where he was teaching youngsters drumming. The uplifting pride in his voice as he recounted the joy in these tiny faces as they realised they created something themselves was tangible.

Together we had worked hard to create a Wikipedia page about his work in the music industry. He had shared a great deal of information with me and I had found numerous online links from papers, publications and websites confirming the stated facts – sadly the wiki-warriors kept rejecting the sources and deleting the technical effort in coding the page. But it can be found if you search hard enough. Brett had hoped to do a couple of interviews about upcoming music but the pandemic broke and everything stopped.

I will miss his “Hey how you doing?” emails.

I cannot imagine the pain his mother, partner and siblings are feeling. My heart breaks at how they are trying to help his two young boys (3 and 5 years old) understand about Daddy.

Brett has scattered his music and his talent across the internet, reaching a global audience. His generosity of soul and energetic spirit stay with all those who spent the briefest of moments with him.

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I am determined to have the biography published somewhere, so here it is.

Brett “Cosmo” Thorngren is an American Music Producer, singer, drummer, CEO of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Records (who have released over 300 tracks) and songwriter.

Early life

Born 25 December 1974 in Cortland New York, son of Eric “ET” Thorngren, maternal grandson of Salvatore Cosimo of the Cosmo Trio. Brett relocated to Miami Florida in the early 1990’s.

Music career

Along with Paul Isaac (vocals), Gerson (guitar), Ari Eisenstein (bass) and Brett (drums) formed Muse around 1992 in Miami, Florida. Their self-titled debut album was released in May 1995 by independent label Velocity Records. Tiring of the lack of quality live music venues in Miami the band decided to relocate, initially to Atlanta, Georgia. The follow up album “Arcana” was released 18 May 1997 by Atlantic Records.

In 1999, Brett left Muse to join (Astralwerks Records) recording artists, Metrodub, getting back to his Miami DJ roots, he was back out on the road touring with Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, and FatBoy Slim. Performing under the name Cosmo, he became a resident DJ at Liquid, Bar Room, Chili Peppers and Level. 

In early 2000 Brett with Gil Bitton formed the side project Lisbon recording a number of tracks with a view to releasing. Contract obligations with record companies meant they were shelved. The tracks were remastered and made available to purchase and stream online from mid December 2019.

Brett wrote and produced a handful of dance records, some released internationally, on various labels (Universal, Filtered, Neo Records). At this point in his career Brett was able to work on his skills as a music producer and engineer, producing various indie rock bands. He worked as Barry Gibb’s (Bee Gees) personal engineer on several projects, including the 2004 Guilty Too, Barbra Streisand’s album which earned him a gold record.

In 2005 Brett mastered Kirk Windstein’s Crowbar studio album Lifesblood For The Downtrodden.

In July 2007 Arctic Tale documentary released an official soundtrack album, which included the track “Underworld”, written and recorded by Barry Gibb, Stephen Gibb and Ashley Gibb, which credited Brett as Engineer.

In 2010 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Records was incorporated in Miami Florida providing an independent record label releasing in excess off 300 tracks for local artists via BeatPort, SoundCloud and other online music streaming services.

When Kendra Erika was buzzing around the club dance scene in Miami she went into Brett’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang studios and recorded a 5 track digital EP titled Hostage.

Never far from his DJ roots, performing under the stage name Cosmo, Brett often been part of the Ultra Music Festival line up, appearing at Oasis from Noon to 1pm Saturday 25 March 2017.

In 2019 Brett mixed and mastered Alpha Cat’s studio album “Thatched Roof Glass House”.

Former member of Metrodub (Astralwerks Records), Skreamerz and Thrillers.

#BrettThorngren #CosmoThorngren

 

Spring Like A March Hare

I say spring, more like enthusiastically lurch……. well I say enthusiastically but it’s more like begrudgingly shuffle…….. hmm begrudgingly that’s on point and shuffle, hmm yeah, kind of outch, dawdle, mosey.

Whether it is the decline of my physical abilities, the endless endurance of the shielding lockdown, the cold fingers of winter or a mix of it all, I cannot seem to shake off the shackles of winter oppression and awaken, find the joy in things, the pleasures in purpose, everything feels exhaustingly ::sigh:: As I said to BFF I cannot be bothered to be bothered.

There are the tentative hints of improvement. Doesn’t it make the day seem nicer when there is sunshine? It has an extra energy, almost an optimism. So in that fashion one might dare to tackle a bit of a to-do list.

• Add crochet border to red cat blanket
• Start the Alan Davies book
• Check domain registry dates
• Go through iTunes genre
• File images accumilated

A chunk of that involves my desk, which is dependent on who my carers are and the times they are due here. Plus the sitting position isn’t the most comfortable.

The ‘remote’ app on the iPad that controls iTunes on my Mac is working really well, but as I scroll about trying to decide what I feel like listening to I find I tend to choose a genre and let the device shuffle. When I am at the desk I usually select an album or artist to listen to. As I think I have mentioned before my choice can be influenced by what I am doing, classical while html coding, rock/metal while photo editing, Rhythm/blues while dealing with accounts and numbers, etc. The automated comes-when-you-upload info of a cd can be a little odd, there are a few tweaks I would like to make and there are those with no genre tagged at all. Hardly a vital necessary task but it fills the time, like finding album covers and adding those.

My original iPad (gen1) has been struggling to deal with life for a while. When I purchased my new one I repurposed the old one to the bedroom for iPlayer, radio, audiobook usage, but many of the apps need an operating system it cannot cope with so I was using the browser, but even that struggled. Anywho, I took the decision to buy a refurbished one from MusicMagPie, it came today and so far so good. I’ve spent a couple of hours setting up and logging in, tweaking to my preferences, selecting display images etc.

Must think of more to blog about so it’s not eons again before I text lyrical.

 

Small Change, Profound Difference

It is not often I extoll the virtues of technology and it’s even more rare for such to bring a tear to the eye. Let me explain.

Across the decades I have amassed a significant music collection on my Mac, a mixture of uploaded cd’s, downloaded purchases from Amazon/iTunes and independent offerings. If I was to press play and let it run on unabashed it would take a month to get through. When I was spending every morning at my desk I could merrily listen to my tunes, mixing Mozart with Madness, a touch of Mancini mingled with Marmalade, Zakk moshing with ZZ Top, as I whittled some html coding, wrangled a bit of number crunching, wrestled with photo editing and such like. It was entertaining and uplifting, seeing as my brain seems to be mostly filled with lyrics and set to Kareoke mode.

With the loss of my mobility I became separated from this mentally motivating activity and I have so missed it, time spent at my desk has become seriously dwindled. I had considered streaming services but felt resentful at having to pay money to hear music I have already spent monies upon.

I had procrastinated about searching for an answer, I had dawdled over posting on the MacForum for a suggestion. I had hoped Siri could help but my Mac is too old. I started seeing adverts for the new HomePod mini and the sown seed slowly germinated, maybe one of these could access and play my music. It spurred me on to ask on the forum if this could work with my particular kit, I hit publish and waited for a potentially helpful reply.

To my delight and surprise a helpful bod answered my post and introduced me to the app “iTunes Remote” as a potential solution. Google and I spent an evening reading and researching, could this be the answer? Could it really be that straightforward? Well, dear reader, in short, yes!

So yesterday after carer had positioned me at my desk I set to. Slightly pessimistic because things that class themselves as quick or easy rarely are. I followed the instructions with a tingle of anticipatory expectation.

• App Store, download free app iTunes Remote to iPad
• Open app, select manual set up (4-digit code appears)
• Open music app on Mac
• From Devices list select iPad
• Enter iPads 4-digit code
• Done, sorted, connected.

It really was that easy!!!

Okay so far so good…..but…….. now to test the theory. From the iPad app I selected a track and hit play and music sprung forth from my Mac ✅ …… I adjusted the volume, skipped forward and backward. Alright…..but…… I put my Mac to sleep, counted to twenty, opened the app and selected a track and again the swinging piano vibes exuded from my dozing Mac ✅✅. Right then, the big test, shut down and restart both the Mac and the iPad, open app and select a tune, without hesitation the dulcet tones of the lyrical warbler wafted across the room ✅✅✅. Another test, this morning I opened the app and selected a play list annddd it’s playing ✅✅✅✅.

I am reconnected to my music, my smile could not be wider, I’m busting my (sat down) moves, twerking so much I’m gonna give my buttocks whiplash, I have gone from famine to feast ….. so much choice, it’s almost overwhelming. Brain is fizzing as it sings along to tracks it hasn’t heard for years.

 

Tim Minchin

It’s not very often that my ear worm chooses a whole artist but recently while lazing in bed or pootling on the iPad I suddenly get the urge to sing “……fuck I love boobs though…..”, maybe it’s just as well I am not out and about in public!

Tim Minchin describes himself as a musician, but this underplays his artistry, his creative skills and his often dark humour. How he analyses the things that make you think, how he dissects and interprets thoughts, ideas, philosophies and puts them into a song that hooks you in linguistically, musically, emotionally and mentally. But what is it about his creations that seem to appeal to me.

Maybe it is his acrobatic linguistics and agility, in songs like Prejudice or his piano whimsy of Rock & Roll Nerd, maybe it is the poignancy of I’ll Take Lonely Tonight or the deep thought of Not Perfect, perhaps it’s the pure risqué amusement of Inflatable You or the musicians amusement of F Sharp, he performs a couple of beat poems which take you on a journey so adroitly, especially Storm. It could be the absurdity that he sees meets with me.

Now I should add a warning here, he uses language some don’t care for and he has opinions that some would not agree with, especially on the controversial topics like religion, creationism. It is not a mocking attitude, more of an “I’ve read and listened but still don’t understand how people wholeheartedly believe ‘this'”.

I enjoy watching his live performances as his expressions and timings add another layer of language, there are few piano players that almost mesmerise me, Jools Holland is another, Tim seems to throw his hands (and sometimes feet) at the keys and they always hit the right notes, the right way at the right time, he cannot sit still as he plays (unless it’s a serious song). He tends to perform barefoot, a throwback to early experimental days where going barefoot helped him feel confident and quelled the stage nerves.

It took me a while to decide which song to link here, I make no apology if you find yourself merrily, absentmindedly singing “…..fuck I like boobs though….”

 

Slow Desk Day

 

There really is nothing like playing ‘name that tune’ with the random shuffle of your desktop iTunes, and there are not many places where Saint-Seans is followed by Alice Cooper, Dean Martin, Zakk Wylde, Samantha Gibb or Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band with a side of Lord Rockingham XI (eclectic you say? Maybe).

After a few weeks of procrastination I forced myself to attend to the growing clutter on the desk. I enjoy my desk, I can get on with the admin of life, I can amuse and entertain myself and I can feel like something has been achieved. My to-do lists (I have categories) is totalling 27 and I’ve whittled it down to …..drumroll….. 24 🤣

There is nothing like a new toy to get the motivation going. It may sound pretty unspectacular but I’m a bit geeky. It’s a confidentiality roller. You look perplexed. It’s just a pre-inked roller that you roll across paper and it covers any print with a pattern, ideal for scrolling across letters containing addresses, personal details, before putting it in the recycling bin.

New toys need new homes, as I was adjusting bits and bobs in the desk draw I came across the spare refill for my twisty pen, you know the one I couldn’t find but knew I had somewhere. I found it, yippee, right after opening the replacement I had bought as I couldn’t find the b-loom-ing thing. Sod’s Law is alive and wreaking havoc.

I was just finishing off a little task when my tea time carer arrived, I’d lost time and was unprepared. That’s the power of …… the desk!

Must finish off an email.

 

The Stunned Pause

Yesterday I had one of those instances where Big Sis would have literally laughed out loud. It began with my afternoon care visit, the carer is one I do not have very regularly but has been coming here for a few Saturday afternoons, we’ve had a number of conversations about various things. How to describe her, she’s short and rounded, akin the Estelle Getty look. She has a tendency to speak as if she’s looking after a half-deaf tottery ancient oldie who starts each sentence with a croaky “I’m eighty four you know…” type vibe.

She mentioned that her brother goes to a music evening where those gathered listen to and discuss music, wondered whether that would be something of interest to me (absolutely not). I replied that not many people listen to the styles of music that I enjoy. I went on to explain that I have a very mixed musical taste, depending on what I’m doing at the time. When I am concentrating on writing the HTML for the website I tend to listen to classical music, the likes of Debussy, Bach, Saint-Saën, Rachmaninov and such, for other creative musings it might be general rock and pop of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s preferring proper good tunes to specific groups, but my absolute go to for pure enjoyment and mood uplifting and this was my driving music was…..

(When I was telling BFF this in a telephone call at this point she went “You didn’t!”, oh yes I absolutely did.)

…..heavy metal, not the main stream but the off main rib rattling proper deep metal.

And then it happened, the face freezes as the mind adjusts and computes, the eyes reveal that they had a completely different perception of you. The sweet little innocent young (not so now) ‘nice’ girl. Ohhhh Noooooo, I have a dark side. I am sarcastic, cynical, stubborn, feisty, questioning. My tastes are eclectic, I enjoy Shakespeare and Dickens, but also Red Dwarf and child animation movies; tv quizzes like Tipping Point or The Chase and will have a crack at Only Connect and University Challenge; films it’s more the grizzly horror or mystery than sweet romance. Musically it’s what takes my fancy.

In a recent online convo with my BFF about getting my hair cut, she suggested like Tinkerbell, to which I posted the suitably cute smiling face and she, knowing me exceptionally well, said no, more like…

Can you guess who posted which, lol.

 

Behind The Screen

This blog is a little different to my usual because it is being written with the intention of adding a link elsewhere to try and explain/highlight what has happened ‘behind the screen’ to bring a web page together.

As some may know I administrate, edit and manage a web site about a particular musician and have done for many many years. It is an on-going, complex, multi-layered learning experience that gathers information into one place. I do it for my own satisfaction, to have a one-stop place that collates his work, for the fans and those interested to visit. Yes, it costs me money, but what hobby doesn’t.

Recently he was interviewed by Dom Familaro for The Sessions Artist Series published to YouTube. If you are interested in the workings of the music industry, the various musicians that back, support, perform with many A-list names, perhaps you play an instrument, these interviews are entertaining and interesting to hear so many peoples different life stories, how music became their profession and where that profession has taken them and things they’ve learnt and experienced on the way. But I digress…..

The website has a few interview transcripts and it occurred to me that even though YouTube has the ‘captions’ option (akin to on the go subtitles in language of your choice), there is still a section of the world wide audience who are missing out, so I decided to transcribe the thirty-eight minute interview and find a way it can be translated, thus broadening it’s reach. Sounds reasonably straightforward, doesn’t it. Ha!

Step 1. Using a mix of shorthand, speed writing and longhand I begin taking down the dialogue. Gone are the days when I could audio-type thanks to my depleted dexterity. So it’s listen intently, stop video, write, reread, rewind and listen again, correct script, add punctuation. Continue to listen, pause it, write it down, check it, relisten to the passage, make corrections and proceed ….. you get the idea. It took a few days, working an hour or two per day.

Step 2. Thanks to my muscle disease rendering my fingers/hands/wrists so weak the easiest way to transcribe the written word is to use dictation, no more confidently typing at between 70-75 wpm for me anymore. I create a fresh document, hit the microphone and speak clearly, deciphering my scrawl as I go. Stopping after a couple of paragraphs to read over the dictation, correct the errors, add the punctuation, capitalise names etc. Hit save and carry on. It takes a couple of days but at the end there are nine pages of crisp type, each paragraph a persons dialogue, all checked, proofed and corrected.

Step 3. Now it gets a little technical because I need to add the HTML tags that make it show on the eventual web page. Each paragraph needs a <p> at the beginning. It makes visual sense to have the interviewers dialogue in a different colour to the interviewees, so I add a font=“colornumber” to those lines. I also have to add the speakers name to each paragraph to make it easier to follow who is saying or asking what. So that’s added, all in capitals for emphasise.

Step 4. Using a specific software program I create the webpage, it’s basic style set to match the myriad of pages already there. I add the techie bit of code to embed the YouTube video, making sure it sits comfortably and is the correct size. I add the tab heading and explanation. Then in chunks I add the coded interview transcription. Crossing my fingers I hit the ‘test’ function to see what it looks like as a web page. I am reasonably pleased with the result except the colour is way way off, neon lime green, the hex code is a shade of red! Hmm……that needs investigating, it works on other pages already published.

Step 5. Thanks to an excellent web site that walks you through, teaches and shows how to grapple with HTML coding I can put together the five or six lines of instruction to add a button to bring up a menu of languages that Google will then translate the whole page. Wow! I add it at the top of the transcription coding and hit ‘test’. It’s there, and what’s more……it works! Victory! By chance it answers my query about the text colour coding, I think the issue is that versions of HTML change things, and that’s what has happened here, the code for changing the font colour is now a script command within the <p> notation, so I will need to put together the new bit of code, then copy and paste it at the beginning of each of the interviewers dialogue.

Step 6. I confidently upload the new page to the server, add the link to the main media page so viewers can get to it and voila….well no, not quite yet, actually. I forgot the special text snaffoo, you see when you type characters like & ( ‘ ) “ and then copy/paste them into a coding page, things go a little bit odd, it turns a ‘ into ’ . So I need to go through the entire transcript and remove the gobbledygook and replace the appropriate punctuation mark.

Next time I am at my desk, I will have to go through the coding, change the font colour code and correct the ‘ (oh I hope the find and replace will help me). That a rough idea of what is involved for just one page. I intend to add the translation script to every page of the site, a mere thirty or so. Like the Forth Bridge, there is always something that needs working on to improve.

Link to the interview ….. The Sessions Artist Interview

Link to the website http://www.stcgibb.com

 

Zaberdak

In these odd days ahead I’m trying to find things that my brain wanders to and muses over. Such as, how come I know all the ‘words’ to Zaberdak by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch, although I remember seeing Marmalade perform it live.

Dave Dee wrote it to illustrate that at the time (mid 1960’s) “any garbage can get into the charts”, it means nothing, has a good melody and has been copied by others.

For those intrigued the English words over laying the made up sounds are “Look for meaning, not in words, but in the way you’re feeling. If it’s love, we’ll understand, for love is all revealing”.

Quite poetic. Enjoy!

 

To License or Not To License…

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I’ve been following the ‘debate’ on Twitter about the possible scraping of the BBC License Fee and making the BBC a subscription service. It’s been quite interesting weeding through the ignorant crap to find the intelligent comment. I have always felt that many people (myself included) don’t really know how far and where all the tendrils extend but I have also felt that like with any non-commercial cantered organisation, it is likely over staffed and mildly inefficient and archaic in its ways – and I think this is so with the BBC.

How people access their media entertainment has vastly changed, the style, genre and quality of media has dramatically changed – not all for the better. Statistics and research shows that the under 30’s are not sitting watching tv in general, or the BBC in particular, live as it airs but tending to pick and choose via the iPlayer on their smart tv’s and mobile devices. But they are still accessing BBC tv, however it is all the other branches of the organisation that are getting overlooked when people are questioned about it.

It stands to reason that people will only comment on the area of the corporation they access, that’s the only bit they know. So what of the BBC do I regularly access.

• BBC tv, admittedly I don’t watch as much as I used to, but I do watch numerous dramas series whether it’s weekly ones like Holly City, serial dramas like Peaky Blinders, or one off dramas like the Christine Keeler story; several quiz shows fun ones like Richard Osman’s House Of Card and impossible ones like Only Connect; a lot of the tennis especially Wimbledon; and films. I watch things live as well as via the iPlayer.
• BBC radio. I listen to The Archers each week, and often listen to panel games, comedies and dramas on BBC Sounds. I used to listen to BBC2 daily when I spent mornings at my desk but it’s a habit that has been broken. As a child it was the local BBC station we had on for news, weather, traffic, to hear if my school was closed on snow days, etc.
• BBCNews. Generally I tend to avoid the news but I do tend to watch my local BBC programme most nights, and tend to catch the BBC headlines. I find the delivery (if not the content) less sensationalised. I will often peruse the website for info, but find the content dated compared to some news sites.

Making the BBC a commercially motivated business will have an impact on the quantity, quality and variety of out put. It was interesting to read via some tweets areas that didn’t immediately spring to mind, such as The Proms and national and local orchestra funding, children’s tv, the nature and history out put, local news and magazine interest reports both local tv and radio, the publications available, these kinds of areas that cannot stand alone as viable businesses but can collectively support each other.

What I didn’t realise until today was that about half of my license fee covers salaries and pensions – that is staggering.

What worries me is how any change would affect what’s freely available, how much content would be lost, how it will significantly narrow what is produced being lead by what cheap to make and easy to mass sell.