Month: November 2011

The Three Greatest Recordings of Handel’s Messiah, By Don Lundell

My favorite is this one – Robert Shaw, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Great tempos, terrific soloists. http://www.amazon.com/Handel-Complete-Oratorio-George-Frideric/dp/B000003CT7 And I’d also mention this one, for a big chorus version – Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra of London. This version played in our house at Christmas, growing up in Chicago. http://www.amazon.com/Messiah-George-Frideric-Handel/dp/B000002S20 And finally for a good version with period …

The Other F Word – A Movie About Aging Punk Rockers and What Fatherhood Means to Them, By Holly Homan

On Thanksgiving Eve I ventured out to Seattle’s University District to Landmark Theater’s Varsity Theater to view The Other F Word. The movie is a documentary about punk rockers (mostly from California) and what it’s like for the ultimate rebels to be fathers. The movie begins with Art Alexakis (Everclear), Fat Mike (NOFX), Jim Lindberg …

RETURN OF THE RATS – Vintage Portland Music That Deserves to Live On – By Ben Easher

Music historians rarely mention the Rats except when listing bands that Portland singer/songwriter/guitarist Fred Cole played in before Dead Moon. In fact, the Rose City’s alternative music scene of the early 1980s is mostly regarded as a footnote to the hype generated in Seattle a decade later. When former Dead Moon drummer Andrew Loomis invited …

Keith Olbermann’s Murrow-esque Excoriation of Michael Bloomberg, By Steve Stav

Keith Olbermann’s a disciple of Edward R. Murrow, but I find his addition of wry humor to the latter’s delivery paradigm to be hit-and-miss, though he maintains an admirable batting average. In contrast to Keith’s surging, bellowing blasts of Mayor Bloomberg, Murrow laid into Joseph McCarthy with this remarkably calm determination that watchers at the …