Fun Facts

Farting around on Wikipedia last night – did you know that Herb Alpert is a nice Jewish boy from Ellay? That none of the members of the Tijuana Brass is Mexican?  Neither did we.

Now that was just weird.

23 Comments

The band always sounded bored, like a bunch of session players waiting until the rest so they could get back to work on the crossword. Which I guess they were. It was kind of an embarrassment to American popular music to have Alpert calling himself a trumpet player with Soloff and Chase actually doing the work of defining the frontier for the instrument in popular music. I wonder how much of an inspiration Alpert provided to soprano sax fucktard Kenny G.

@FlyingChainSaw: TB was most of my parents’ record collection (admittedly, it wasn’t very big) so I heard a lot of it. Programmed, polished? Yes. But it’s a fun listen once in a while. Reminds me of my dad.

@FlyingChainSaw: Oh, what about the flugelhorn?

Yes, Stinque is Earworm Central today!

Ugh. PLEASE! PAINFUL! It’s like a fucking scene from Huis Clos!

If you like interesting people talking to the camera, here’s my dead boyfriend singing The Kinks.

I don’t want to see any more Kenny G references on this website. Ever. Even to mock him. We must eliminate that string of characters from all known languages.

I have to recuse myself from this discussion, since Herb Alpert is the reason I picked up the trumpet.

And thank god I’m a thousand miles away from battered LP’s of Lonely Bull and Going Places, or I’d really fuck up my weekend.

Fuck this shit. I thought this was fascinating. I’ve been hoping for some time that NYC could unmoor itself (under our liege lord Bloomburg) from the rest of the USA and set itself up as the new Hong Kong. Well, perhaps that day is coming.

@nojo: Herb Alpert has done no damage, especially when you consider the societal damage done by Kenny G (sorry DB), John Tesh, Yanni, Michael Bolton, and Cher. And don’t get me started on Zamfir ….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utYiLzCJk8o&feature=related

Chase was the edge, fucking insanely acrobatic and really starting to mature as a soloist when he died. Not a druggie or a drunk, who can really imagine what he would have done if the plane hadn’t crashed in 1974.

@blogenfreude: Certainly the Whipped Cream cover was a significant cultural contribution, for which no apology is needed.

@blogenfreude: It’s fun stuff but it doesn’t make your blood boil. The mariachi bands that hang around Garibaldi Square in Mexico City have ensembles that can really burn. The genre is not the apologetic schlock that Albert sold. Alpert might have done better if he went to Seville and took inspiration from the flamenco scene. The affinity of flamenco and serious brass was exhibited brilliantly on Corea’s beautifully written Spanish Fantasy album.

@FlyingChainSaw: Clifford Brown also died tragically young. I saw Chick Corea recently at UCLA; mighty disappointing. I blame Scientology. Do you have Now He Sings, Now He Sobs?

T/J: I just got in the mail a totally awesome camo tie-die shirt from Son of RML. Photo to follow on FB.

@Dodgerblue: Oh, I know. I have the Paris session recordings on vinyl and CD. Another guy with no hang-ups and morbid habits who would have been pushing back the frontier into his 90s. Cripes, between the death of school music programs and these two guys checking out and Maynard’s lost decade to disco, it’s a wonder anyone knows what a trumpet is. I’ve heard Chris Botti on radio and TV and not been tempted to buy one of his records.

@FlyingChainSaw: The mariachi bands that hang around Garibaldi Square in Mexico City have ensembles that can really burn.

Palabra, brother. I spent a night and a bottle of tequila digging those cats maybe a decade ago, violating every rule about not taking unmetered taxis, staying out past midnight, or traveling solo in el DF. We must compare notes someday.

@Dodgerblue: We’re thrilled that you like it.

If you want to go down the road of whatever genre Weather Report was called, I once declared that I would marry the woman who loved “A Remark You Made” (feat. primo de Beesko J. Pastorius) as much as I did. I still love it. As it turned out, I fell in love with a woman who likes Joe Ely and the Clash and rolls her eyes when I invoke The Great God Feedback with my Strat copy run through a Stack in a Box and my computer speakers after a few drinks on a week night.

Check out that lid on Joe – like the kids of today except it was 1978.

BTW, Metcllica’s first album “Kill ‘Em All” (1983) on the iPod had me working out at a heart rate equal to the 80 percent max of someone 20 years younger at the gym today. Damn machine was saying “slow the fuck down, ese” and I’m like “fuck you – this is the birth of speed fucking metal.”

I head up to the ancestral homeland tomorrow for the annual pilgrimage to where we came from. I’ll be incommunicado from tomorrow through Wednesday night. You all will be in my prayers.

My Broncos (who play tonight) may need more than prayer, however.

@Nabisco: @Nabisco: No kidding. The most troublesome part was some friend of a friend accepting a police escort to the tavern where we hung out for the night. For complex reasons, outside of Asia and Africa, I can usually pass for the locals with a little study. This broke every ChainSaw rule in the book of vanishing into the crowd. Strange evening but relatively safe evening replete with the electric shock games and wandering bands taking requests. Hey, got a gig out in Malaysia in 2011 that requires some planning and presence by yours truly. I can book multiple excursion probably as cheaply as direct service. Lemme know your schedule on the island. News there, in fact, I can tell about you offline.

interesting that herbie is jewish. little jewish boys and girls are forced at gunpoint to choose between the violin or the piano. my cute little violin playing daughter announced one day in 3rd grade, i’m not playing no fucking violin! i want to be in the band and play the trumpet! fuck the orchestra! well then, ok dearest. so it came to pass, my little angel, all grown up now, can rock the trumpet. i don’t know how she got this idea in her head, as she had no access to herb or nojo.
kids. can’t live without ’em, can’t eat ’em.

@redmanlaw:
son of RML is the size of dodger? man, what are you feeding him???
have a GREAT time reds, we’ll miss ya xo

@FlyingChainSaw: Lemme know your schedule on the island. News there, in fact, I can tell about you offline. Fire me some electrons through Lefty, JNOV or Nojo, all of whom have my email address.

@Nabisco: So, how ’bout those Steelers against Not-Manning?

@JNOV: Three QBs against a team without one? No contest. I’m rooting for Dennis the Duck to get signal calling duties during the NotBen part of the season, but suspect that the nod will go to Leftwich.

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