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 Richard
posted on Sunday, 05 June, 2005 - 11:32 pm
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I almost forgot...
I set a quiz question on the old forum (to which one reply managed to come in before we went belly-up). This came up in an email conversation I'd been having with Bill, so I thought I'd open it up to everyone else.
The question was:
Name the direct connection (i.e. specific collaboration) between "our" John Williams and Frank Zappa. (NB: as Bill noted, a graphic artist of the same name designed many of F.Z.'s album covers and other stuff for him, so he's not the connection.)
For those who want to cheat, there is info about this on the WWW (but not, at present, on my site).
Whoever gets it right can ask another quiz question (in this same thread, please). But make it difficult, please (I shall try to give other people a chance before submitting answers myself). :-) |
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| Bill Darlington posted on Monday, 06 June, 2005 - 10:19 am
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This is probably too easy but...
What's the connection between Don Partridge ("Rosie") and SKY? |
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| richard posted on Tuesday, 07 June, 2005 - 01:07 am
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OK, here's a clue, as nobody seems to be having any luck...
Google on the two names. One of the sites Google finds is a list of all F.Z.'s collaborators and it includes both JWs. (I won't say which site 'cos that'd be too easy!).
As for Bill's question, if nobody has a go by tomorrow (Tuesday) evening, I'll supply an answer which I assume is the one Bill's looking for... (I admit I had to think about where I'd heard the name before for a moment).
(BTW yes, Bill, you were meant to answer the Zappa question first before asking your own, but I'll let you off this time) :-) |
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| Bill posted on Tuesday, 07 June, 2005 - 03:03 pm
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OK, finally got it! :-)
John Williams supervised the "Classical Guitar Ensemble" on "200 Motels". |
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| Richard posted on Tuesday, 07 June, 2005 - 07:18 pm
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Give the man a banana! 
I assume, Bill, that the answer you were looking for was that Don Partridge is a great mate of Herbie's and is currently represented by Richard Durrant's record label (LongMan Records); didn't Herbie provide some input on his latest recording? |
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| Bill posted on Tuesday, 07 June, 2005 - 08:02 pm
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After 34 years away from the record industry, Don Partridge finally made another album in 2001, "The Highwayman". Richard Durrant produced it. HF played on the album (bass presumably) and on the UKtour.
DP originally released one album of his own and two hit singles, "Rosie" (great song) and "Blue Eyes". Then he dropped out of sight and went busking again. Until now.
That's the full answer. Smuggery abounds but I can't feel truly complete until I come up with a John Williams trivium that Richard doesn't know! :-) Yeah, unlikely but you never know... |
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| Richard Sliwa posted on Thursday, 16 June, 2005 - 02:21 am
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While shutting down the computer for the night, I just dreamt up a new wheeze.
Here is a waveform representation of a Sky track. Simple question: which one?
For obvious reasons, I've removed the main indications of scale, and thus duration - I'm not going to make things too easy, but it shouldn't be all that difficult. If you guys like this game, I'll do some more. |
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| Bill posted on Thursday, 16 June, 2005 - 01:02 pm
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| Meheeco? |
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| Chris posted on Thursday, 16 June, 2005 - 03:28 pm
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I'm tempted to say SAHARA -- simply because I can't think of another sky tune that has the quiet-loud-quiet-loud structure that the waveform seems to suggest. If I had access to my dad's computer, I'd do what you've done, Richard, and see if I was right. But, as they are in Cambridge and I'm not, I can't! Plus, of course, that would be cheating...!!!
Anyway, that's my guess...Sahara... |
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| Chris posted on Thursday, 16 June, 2005 - 03:53 pm
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...Just thought of another possible contender...
VIVALDI.
Actually, looking at the waveform again and thinking about the track in question, I'm probably way out. Still, that's my second and final stab at it... |
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| Richard Sliwa posted on Thursday, 16 June, 2005 - 06:09 pm
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All 3 suggestions are wrong.
Your reasoning, Chris, is correct, although you've got the description wrong. It's not quiet-loud-quiet-loud, it's quiet-pause-quiet-pause-(etc for several more iterations, while getting slightly louder very gradually)-VERY LOUD-quiet-peters off.
I can see where Bill was coming from with Meheeco, though...
Any more guesses?
(BTW I'm leaving home tomorrow morning and won't be back until after the weekend, so unless somebody gets this one right before I leave, you'll all have the weekend to think about it.) |
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| Chris posted on Thursday, 16 June, 2005 - 10:29 pm
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Oh well, at least I'm consistent. Consistently wrong, that is!
I won't humiliate myself further by making any more wide of the mark guesses.
Unless, of course, it's Toccata. Doh! There I go again, making myself look like a complete imbecile. And that's it...definitely my last guess.
(Well, it does have pauses at the beginning and it does get progressively louder... Or am I just listening to a completely different piece of music?)
Christopholusincorrecticus |
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| Bill posted on Thursday, 16 June, 2005 - 10:49 pm
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In that case, it has to be "Carillon". Unless, of course, I'm wrong...
I thought "Meheeco" because of the long, initially slow crescendo but it starts off too quiet and finishes too quickly. Couldn't think of anything else at first.
(BTW, I hate that illiterate phrase "building up to a crescendo"!) |
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| Richard Sliwa posted on Friday, 17 June, 2005 - 12:34 am
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Bill gets it right again!
OK, here's another.
Is anybody else reading this, or are Chris, Bill and I the only ones playing?
(BTW Bill, did you get my email yesterday? I have a CD-sized parcel to send you and I need a postal address...) |
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| Bill posted on Friday, 17 June, 2005 - 09:41 am
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Hang,on. I got the answer so I ask the next question ...! :-)
Where would you find Herbie Flowers alongside a recipe for cement?
(Google is cheating.)
(I think that wave form may be from Cadmium). |
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| Richard Sliwa posted on Friday, 17 June, 2005 - 12:06 pm
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Last post before I leave home...
Chris, (reply to message in the Bremen thread):
errr... "one waveform on top of the other" = stereo sound (as per convention: top=left, bottom=right)... Sorry I didn't make that clear. I really do tend to make assumptions too often!
You don't need Cadmium 'cos this track ain't on it (sorry, Bill).
Hmmm... Flowers and cement? A garden centre, perhaps? :-) (manages to resist temptation to Google) |
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| Bill posted on Friday, 17 June, 2005 - 01:42 pm
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Garden centre? Didn't think of that.
Anyway, no! (Nothing to do with "plant Life" either.) |
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| Mike posted on Monday, 20 June, 2005 - 11:33 pm
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In the KITCHEN ON THE SPICE RACK
lol |
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| Bill posted on Monday, 20 June, 2005 - 11:46 pm
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Since no-one has got it...
A picture of Herbie Flowers (and others) and a recipe for cement appear on the cover of George Harrison's "Gone Troppo" album. (HF played bass on that and GH's "Somewhere in England" album.)
Hmmm.... Does that mean I get to ask another question? |
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| Mike posted on Tuesday, 21 June, 2005 - 12:18 am
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Bill
Nice to see your valued input. Welcome aboard.
Your knowledge is immense but give us mear mortals a chance.
Give a little hint.
LOL |
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| Bill D posted on Tuesday, 21 June, 2005 - 01:06 pm
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Mike,
You must have thought I was a new "Bill". I answered my own question!
My knowledge appears not to be as immense as Richard's although I was amazed to find out today that I have some JW albums that he doesn't.
OK, a new question then. What do John Williams and Peter Cook have in common (musically)? (Easy one for Richard, this.) |
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| Chris posted on Tuesday, 21 June, 2005 - 04:27 pm
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| I am pretty certain that they both appeared on 'The Secret Policemans Ball' in the late 1970s. Although surely this cannot be the answer. Can it????!!! |
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| Richard Sliwa posted on Tuesday, 21 June, 2005 - 10:25 pm
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Well, that's the answer I would've come up with. Especially as, for one reason or another, Bill and I had been talking about TSPB in emails over the last 24 hours... (hence, presumably, his "easy" comment).
As for the albums Bill owns but I don't, I need to clarify (I don't want to undermine my credibility as an utter obsessive!) how come Bill owns a few JW CDs I don't. As I've said before, I do own a copy of every piece of music JW has ever recorded commercially in one format or another. (The same can't be said of JW himself, according to what he once told me.) It's just that I don't own all the CDs which have been made commercially available. :-)
(Partially in answer to Bill's latest email, but also for general consumption): it's been a while since I last counted my JW collections (I'll be doing it next week, in connection with updating the site) but there are currently well over 100 LPs alone. I have more than one edition of a few; in one case, I have the original UK release, UK re-release, US original release, US re-release and Japanese release, all of which have different covers. It's a recording not many people own, and it's never been issued on CD (Sor 20 Studies, recorded 1962). :-)
Apart from that, I have (turns around to count) 39 JW CDs (plus another dozen or so other CDs on which he appears as a guest, including film soundracks) and about 30 commercial audio cassettes (too lazy to go upstairs to count them). Some recordings I have in all 3 formats, some in 2 and some only on CD or LP.
Hence Bill's e-mailed astonishment (repeated above) that he owns CDs of seminal JW oeuvre such as Portrait of JW or JW and Friends - whilst I don't have the CDs, I do have the LPs (actually, two copies each, having wrecked the first ones I'd bought due to overplaying; the second copies were acquired for my collection and remain in mint, unplayed, condition) and the cassettes (which is why the second copies remain unplayed). I don't own the CDs for the simple reason that at the times of their release I was poor and whilst I could stretch to both an LP and cassette of each (strange definition of "poor", I know!), I couldn't manage the CDs (not to mention that I'd have nothing to do with them as I didn't own a player until 1989).
There are other CDs I don't own now, but did before some bastard burgled me in 1994; like Portrait and Friends, I've simply not found replacements available to acquire. Whilst I'm not prepared to pay collectors' prices, I'm more than prepared to pay up to "new CD" price (i.e. about £15) for those I'm missing. (those two, and a couple of other CDs, are among my automated eBay searches set for email alerts - I've never had a single one yet). I'm also desperately looking for a better copy of the Stevie soundtrack (LP, as it's never been released on CD, and my cassette is well worn); I recorded it to CD some time ago, but it's ... well... "not very good".
Apart from some of the LPs (mainly those from the mid-70s, when JW seriously got an avant garde bug, a style of music which isn't to my taste and which have never seen commercial CD release), every JW recording I have is listened to at least once a month, depending on my mood. A few really stretch the "month" definition (for instance, the Movies album and The Magic Box are almost never played in full).
I also have a smaller set of about a dozen JW CDs and cassettes which are played at least once a week. My home arrangements are such that I have a CD player in the living room (where I am currently sitting) and a cassette recorder in my bedroom (and not vice-versa) - the collections reside where the players are; whilst I have a portable CD player and a Walkman, they generally stay with the respective collection unless I'm on the move.
"What are those dozen CDs?", I hear nobody asking. Well, ask no more. In no particular order:
From Australia
The Guitarist
Iberia
The Great Paraguayan (Barrios)
The Mantis and the Moon (with Tim Kain)
The Baroque Album
Bach suites (Vol 1+2)
The Guitar is the Song
Richard Harvey & Steve Gray concertos
Paul Hart Concerto for Jazz Orchestra
Spirit of the Guitar
(not JW as such although he's included, Inti Illimani: Leyenda)
Those are the CDs, but then there are the cassettes:
The aforementioned ... and Friends, and Portrait of..., plus
Barrios and Ponce
Rodrigo Aranjuez (I have all three JW complete recordings; which one I listen to depends on pot luck more than anything else)
Stevie OST
Recollections (1980 CBS compilation)
plus two compilations of my own devising, which are mainly CD tracks I don't own on cassette.
(Of course, in case it needs saying, apart from my compilation cassettes, they're all original commercial product.)
(second disclaimer: in case it needs saying, that's not all I listen to!)
OK, I've completely deviated from the topic of this thread, so I'll shut up now.) |
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| Bill posted on Tuesday, 21 June, 2005 - 11:46 pm
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Re JW and Peter Cook
Chris: "they both appeared on 'The Secret Policemans Ball'"
True but that's not it.
Clue: one of the avant-garde 70s albums that Richard dislikes.
BTW, it isn't exactly true that they never saw CD release. Three of them didn't appear as a whole album. "Changes" re-emerged as a CD called "Cavatina", with the title track shifted to track 1 and with bonus tracks. Almost all of the tracks from those four albums ("Travelling", "The Height Below", "Changes" and "Rhapsody) appeared on various compilation CDs. Only "The Swagman" (from "Travelling") and "Rhapsody" did not appear on them.
BTW, Richard, only 3 formats? No 8-tracks or reel-to-reel? :-) |
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| Chris posted on Wednesday, 22 June, 2005 - 01:31 am
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Richard,
I wonder if the 'bastard' that burgled you in 1994 was the same one who burgled me in 1992 and 1996? In my case(s) he/they got my hi-fi, video recorder, microwave and assorted cassettes and CDs. The CDs included, by the way, 'sky - Masterpieces'. As the haul also included 'The Shadows Live at the Paris Olympia' and a few others (on cassette and CD), I guess it's fair to assume that said burglar was a man of discerning musical taste! Mind you, he never took any of my original LPs -- thank goodness! In all seriousness, these people want shooting (not fatally, I hasten to add), as I lost stuff (as I suspect did you) that couldn't easily be replaced.
With regards the quiz question - that was my best shot. I won't guess again!!! (Mind you, did he, by any chance, guest on the little known album 'Derek and Clive get the Spanish Guitar horn'??? No didn't think so...)
Over to you, Richard... |
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| Richard Sliwa posted on Wednesday, 22 June, 2005 - 03:32 am
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The only other connection I can think of (especially given that Bill's talking about the avant garde recordings, although he seems to include the three Fly LPs which I wouldn't dream of doing - see my other post in the JW section) is that JW recorded a Dudley Moore piece, Horizon, on The Height Below (it's not generally known that Dud was a terrific pianist and composer, but it was his first love - chronologically, at least). I'm not aware of any direct input from Peter Cook in those recordings, or any other collaboration between JW and him at the time.
Alternatively, if you want to go by Cook's surname, Roger Cook was a member of Blue Mink (where have we heard of that band before?) :-) and co-wrote their Good Morning Freedom, which JW recorded on Changes.
(Oh, yes, I did have an 8-track of one of the CBS compilations at one time, but it got lost during one of my many moves in the 80s; I should still have a reel-to-reel of the 1968 Vivaldi concerti in a box in the attic somewhere - the mice have probably made mincemeat of it, though.) |
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| Bill posted on Wednesday, 22 June, 2005 - 10:19 am
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Correct. It was Dudley Moore.
I only asked what JW and Peter Cook had in common, not a collaboration. They were both musically accompanied by DM on the piano:
Now is the time to say Goodbye
Now is the time to yield a sigh
(Yield it, yield it, yield that heavy sigh!)
Now is the time to wend our waaaayeeeeee
Until we meet again
Some sunny day.
Goodbye
Goodbye
We're leaving now,
Tattybye
Goodbye
We wish you all goodbye
Fartatata, fartatata... |
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| Chris posted on Wednesday, 22 June, 2005 - 11:31 am
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| ...So the 'Derek and Clive' reference wasn't a million miles off target, then? But almost... |
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| Tricky
posted on Thursday, 23 June, 2005 - 10:10 am
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I know it's the wrong place for this but being as Bill D. seems to spend a lot of time here....
Bill, you should have received 3 mp3's from me on Saturday 16/06/05. I'm now getting messages from the mail administrator saying that 3 emails have bounced. Is your email working or is your mailbox full ? (It's not a Quiz question!!)
If you didn't get them email me and I'll send the rest. |
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| Bill posted on Thursday, 23 June, 2005 - 11:11 am
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Didn't get them. I e-mailed you a couple of times but got errors.
My mail box should not be full. I'll send you another e-mail address to try. |
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| Bill posted on Thursday, 30 June, 2005 - 11:41 pm
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| Richard got my Dudley Moore question so he is due (overdue) to set us another. |
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| Chris posted on Friday, 22 July, 2005 - 03:13 pm
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Yes, I agree that a new quiz question is long overdue.
Could I make a request; could you make it a bit simpler this time, so that even I am in with a chance!!!!!
Chris |
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| Richard posted on Friday, 22 July, 2005 - 06:40 pm
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As you seem so eager, Chris, why don't you give asking one a go? :-)
Bill's on hols until next week and I'm busy re-writing the JW site (I acutally didn't mean to check up on what was goig on here - I clicked on the wrong link). :-)
Is everyone else comatose, or what? (or busy reading the new Harry Potter?) |
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| Chris posted on Friday, 22 July, 2005 - 09:21 pm
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OK, Richard. And everyone else who's interested...
What is the connection (musical, of course) between Francis Monkman and Cambridge. And I only know this 'cos I lived there for a while.
I shall be very interested to see who gets this one. Or maybe I'm not actually being half as clever as I think!
Appropriate though, seeing as what is being released, officially, on Monday!
Right, get your thinking caps on... |
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| Tricky
posted on Friday, 22 July, 2005 - 10:22 pm
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W-hell, in mi case itsh th bere, or w-hisky to be prec.., prec.., prec.. ecsakt.
Who's this Cambridge woman ? |
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| Chris posted on Saturday, 23 July, 2005 - 03:01 pm
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Whatever it was you were drinking, I'll have some! Please!!
Never met anyone by the name of Cambridge, mind you, I'm not very good at remembering names.
Come on, chaps, do like Worzel Gummidge and put your thinking heads on. Now there was a great TV series; but no sky connections, I don't suppose...
I'll reveal the answer next week, unless someone gets it first... |
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| Chris posted on Sunday, 31 July, 2005 - 05:05 pm
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OK, seeing as how no one seems to know the answer (or possibly care?), here it is...
The answer is David Rubio.
David Rubio was a maker of spanish guitars and violins, who later branched out into making harpsichords. He lived in all parts of the world, but ended his days living and working in Cambridge. Francis told me in an email that on at least one occasion he visited David in his Cambridge workshop. I believe that he uses a David Rubio harpsichord on both his sky albums.
Sadly, David Rubio died on 21 October 2000. There was a concert in his memory, held at the Cambridge University Concert Hall, by the Faculty of Music, on January 7, 2001. More information on David's life and career can be found at www.rubioviolins.com - although this site, as the address suggests, concentrates mainly on his violin making.
Sorry if it was a bit of an obscure question, but I thought it would get your gray matter working!
Anyone else want to come up with something even more obscure? With Richard's permission, that is... |
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| Bill D posted on Monday, 01 August, 2005 - 09:52 am
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OK. I didn't get that one but I'll skip Richard's permission and ask this.
Name Herbie Flowers' two solo albums.
(Fairly easy although, as far as I can tell, the answer is only on eight web sites but you only find them through Google if you already know the answer!) |
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| Chris posted on Tuesday, 02 August, 2005 - 11:19 am
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No, don't take my bass away,
I could never face another day,
Please don't take my bass away...
And those are the only lyrics that I can remember from... A LITTLE POTTY. Pretty sure this was the title of his second solo album, from about 1980? I used to have it but, for some reason, found the strength to part with it at a record fair in the 1990s.
The other album, which I have never heard, is called PLANT LIFE.
Now then, as my name appears far too often in this thread (and a few others!), I shan't ask another question. Please could I request that someone else asks one for me... (Which I shall not try to answer!)
Chris.
P.S. Bill, saw your brother's name in a review for a CD called 'The Nightmare Fair' - you may have it? It's a fan production of an unfilmed Doctor Who story from the mid '80s by Philip Hinchcliffe. Not that I know anything about Doctor Who, of course! |
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| Bill D posted on Wednesday, 03 August, 2005 - 11:28 am
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I only have one of my brother's CDs, a soundtrack album of his music from the Excelis stories.
Took the piss out him yesterday by getting to autograph it!
I too no longer know much about Doctor Who but "The Nightmare Fair" was by Graham Williams.
BTW, Chris was correct about the HF albums. Damn. Too easy. |
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| Chris posted on Wednesday, 03 August, 2005 - 03:44 pm
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You're absolutely correct, Bill. The Nightmare Fair was by Graham Williams! Can't imagine how I made that stupid mistake! (Especially since I'd only just been looking at the CD cover artwork!!)
Graham Williams, of course, succeeded Philip Hinchcliffe as producer of Doctor Who, and was there between 1977 and 1979. Strangely enough, I never much cared for the Graham Williams era at the time, too slapstick, I thought, but have recently been watching some of his stories again on video and have thoroughly enjoyed them. Hinchcliffe's stuff was much darker - The Brian of Morbius, The Ark in Space, Genesis of the Daleks and Pyramids of Mars, for example - and seemed to owe more to the old Hammer and Universal horror movies and also to the sci-fi films of the 1950s (Forbidden Planet, for instance). I actually had the Target Book novelisation of The Nightmare Fair, many years ago, and felt that it would have made a good serial, if the BBC hadn't pulled the plug on it before it had a chance to go into production!
Sorry for going horribly off tangent! I won't mention Doctor Who again. Honest...
Chris |
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