piggybacking from Queen

I love the idea of YouTube! I strongly sympathize with those whose music is stolen and made public via the Internet, and I certainly do not watch all videos on these sorts of sites indiscriminately. I don't watch expose style reports about people, at all, and having watched far more than I ought to have of the interviews immediately before and after Freddie's death, enough to have a more than adequate impression of how it was for Freddy and his close friends during that time, I can do myself no good by dwelling any longer on this sad part of music history. It is enough to hear all the allusions to the pain and darkness of this time in the music of Queen from the 90's.

I really like this song, btw. I am listening to songs I have never heard, or heard of, on YouTube, as I write tonight, and right now it is "Why Don't We Try Again" by Brian May, a VH1 recording. Earlier it was a duet with a Sissel, who I will have hear more of. Maybe the reason I feel like I know him so well, from just the bits I have read of his soapbox pages is that his music 'clicks' with me, that he IS a sort of kindred spirit to me such that his music is so natural to my ear. It was alway his songs or John's that actually made the difference in keeping me alive through my deepest depressions, too. I enjoy Roger's music, and Freddie's, but it is more an entertainment and a diversion, rather than something I deeply relate to. Brian's Lost Horizon piece is one that the first time I heard it was like hearing a song I had always known, and could almost hear in the corner of my mind, and I still get a strong resonance with it.

I talked with Forrest tonight about building an electric guitar, and I think it sounds like an approachable task, though reading the Wikipedia article on electric guitars I know I have a huge learning curve to overcome on this one.

. . . not bad, not bad. . . .

I said earlier that I trust Brian May and Roger Taylor not to put music out under the name Queen unless it is good, and I must admit that I do like it. I am not keen on the title track, or C-lebrity, but I am already fond of Through the Night, and I have not even finished listening to the whole of it. But I wish Roger had been lead vocals for Cosmos Rocks, and C-lebrity, at least.

Cosmos Rocks vs. A Kind of Magic

yes, a standoff. And I am afraid I will have to get used to Paul Rogers' voice first before I can decide much. The track I am playing now is so obviously a Brian May song that it sounds off because it is not Brian's voice singing it. Paul is certainly making his voice a bit softer, closer to the tone the song needs, but . . . . There are old-Queen elements mixed into these tracks, but they don't sound so natural yet. Maybe never. The tracks that are strongly Paul's sound like Bay company enough that one could substitute any guitarist and any drummer for Brian and Roger and get the same song and sound. I am liking the softer ballad style though. Paul's loud clear voice doesn't quite mesh with the instrumentation on some of the others, like his voice was just pasted over the top of another instrumental track. That IS in fact what they did with Freddy's voice for much of Made in Heaven, but after 22 years making music together, they could do that easily enough; they grew together musically, enough that each of them has a style that meshes with the rest and brings out each other for a stronger band and sound. Paul seems still to be just a guy playing with Queen, not a true member of the band, and if they are to make much more of this they need to a) change their name and weave together the sounds that work for them, not so much clashing 80's hair band style with what remains of Queen, or b) they need to keep the name Queen, drop the "+ Paul Rogers" bit, and work at developing more of a mesh, where Brian and Roger sow equally with Paul in their music. [ Honestly I would not be at all surprised if Brian has already thought long and hard about this, and come to similar conclusions, from the contrast between the 'mesh' in his songs on this album, and that of the rest of the album. I really ought to be listening to Queen's first album next, as that is the Queen sound most directly comparable to this one.

life in big waves, progression optional

I hope I am making some progress in my life, and not just going in circles. I thought I was pretty well over the death of Freddy Mercury, which happened almost two decades ago, and which I was only aware of after the fact. I had never even really heard a Queen song, including We Will Rock You, or We are the Champions until 1992, so it seemed and still seems a bit silly that it hit me so hard watching the Concert for Life. I really did go through all the classic stages of grief despite having lost something I never knew anyway. These many years later, as an adult, it certainly affects me differently to see him in These are the Days of Our Lives, so gaunt and obviously ill, and I am so very glad I never saw that interview on British TV from the week after his death, till tonight. I can still recall the way John Deacon appeared at that tribute concert, and seeing someone in such obvious pain and grief did not help mitigate the affects of that whole episode in my life. Now, though, after years of knowing Queen's music rather thoroughly, and with how important their music was for me, it seems I almost did know Freddie, enough that I most certainly understand much better.
It is for us, the living, to continue to really live, to the best that is within us, if Freddie's life and death are to have any real lasting personal impact on any of us. This I understood well enough as a kid, and it was that as much as any Queen songs that kept me from suicide as a teenager. But life is not so straightforward and easy to assess as I used to think. I cannot really call where I am success or failure. I am simply alive. Alive and working on the rest.
And, yes, while it is incredibly unlikely and a silly wish, I do wish I might become acquainted with Brian May someday. He is a person I admire, and if he were a part of my life, actually in person, it could only be a good thing.

Queen across 15 years of life

My sister is having a grand time teasing me about being obsessed, with my renewed interest in Queen, and I must admit I would have had more sleep the last two nights had I not been interested in them, most likely. Actually, no. The thing keeping me up is the new laptop, not the stuff I do with it. When the novelty- the faster computer with Internet, a laptop I can take into my room, and with this lovely small keypad- wears out, then I shall sleep more. I love the keypad. I am sure my typing speed is up a bit already. Now if only my drums widget was working all would be grand.

I was up last night learning about playing electric guitar, watching the 4 sections of guitar instruction by Brian May on YouTube. I may never be able to play guitar well without thumbs, but it was still an interesting thing to watch. Now I have a much better idea which sounds in these songs are Brian and which are John, which having never played or been around their instruments I was not so sure of. I can also hear now what Brian is doing much better. Yes, some of this was about as basic an understanding as knowing the difference between a slide trombone and a a tenor sax, but I usually just listen to the end results of rock music, and indeed of any music, except choirs, which my brain, after so many years singing in choirs, picks apart into the individual parts as easy as breathing.

I also was looking up other videos by the members of Queen, of course, to even stumble across those instruction videos. I am glad that Brian, and probably all three remaining Queen musicians, are comfortable with the idea of YouTube, because it is always a bit uneasy enjoying free media when the artists involved resent it. (Metallica and Napster come to mind right away, and the fact that most of Brad Paisley's videos are no longer on YouTube.) I was particularly interested in stuff I had read about but not heard, so I was watching videos of The Cross, and Brian's solo work, and the new Queen stuff, all songs I do not know, and tat I would really have to digest before I could say what I really think. I can say that I rather liked The Cross from what I heard, better perhaps than the Queen + Paul Rodgers sound. (This is a great argument in favor of free media. I am not at all inclined to buy music I don't already like, and if I can't hear a band without buying an album or accidentally hearing them on the radio, I won't buy their music, ever. I did order a used copy of the Cosmos Rocks album online when I bought the others this week, but only because it was cheap and I already trust Brian and Roger to make good music. Frankly, if either of them puts music out into the world, I have good cause to trust that it is good, whether it will be a favorite of mine or not. But there are never albums from bands like The Cross at my local chain music store, so I had not ever heard them before. I really liked Roger's version of Heaven for Everyone, better overall than the one on the Queen album. Ths song is a good fit for Roger's voice, and seemed a bit awkward for Freddie's style, though I have no idea what would have canged had he lived long enough to polish the tracks for that album himself.

It's Late, far too late...

and yes, I have been googling Queen again, this time Mr. John Deacon. From the way he looked and sounded at the Concert for life, and in interviews around that time, I am not at all surprised that he has left the public spotlight for good. And with a wife and 6 kids, he has plenty on his plate without trying to be in another band, or even a new version of Queen. Freddie was so decidedly the lead personality in Queen that for John, who did not have so much of a solo career alongside Queen, Freddie's death was the death of Queen as he experienced it. The same sort of dynamics underly the difference between my own reaction and Andrew's to changes at camp, and Chuck's retirement. I was integrally involved in the management and planning of camp for all of my years there, and for me the 'superstars' of camp, the ranger and the directors and executives, were people with whom I hung out at the South 40, swapping stories, or people with whom I tried to make Venturing exist in reality the way it appeared to on paper, through all the Venturing Leadership Council stuff I did. Andrew worked his way up through the ranks, so his view of camp was through the illusions and ideas the group I knew had helped to create. Had he been in my place he may have done more or better with it, but as it was he experienced PV in much the same sense as Mr. Deacon experienced Queen, as a vital and active part, but where the energy and direction come from elsewhere. And just as Mr. Deacon left Queen, so Andrew left PV, completely.
And with that overly complex analysis, I ought to sign off. I had a great time setting up my computer with Excel and then instead of doing the data spreadsheet and summary I was supposed to have sent off tonight, all the info from my records combined with all the stuff in my head about all those 80-90 species of plants I was raising for plant systematics this past year, instead of doing all this I went back into Project Gutenberg, a site I love and consider important. I had started proofreading books for this organization before my computer died, so now I had to go back and proof read a bit, and I wound up spending several hours proofreading mammalogy publications on pocket gophers and kangaroo rats. Fun, and maybe even good for me, since I am picking up that style of thought and writing again that I will need for grad school, but I have a lot to do for my own project still tomorrow.

Brian May, a new computer, and astrophysics

The juxtaposition of one of my favorite musicians with one of my favorite sciences comes about in my evening through my new computer and my looking up info on Queen and what they are doing now. I am a rather lousy 'fan' in my having had no idea that they made their 1995 album, Made in Heaven, let alone anything after that. I sort of figured from what I could tell about John Deacon when I was paying more attention, that he was not going to stay in the public eye. It was wearing on him in a way that Brian May and Roger Taylor seemed somehow better insulated against. Sad in a way, because as a fan I liked John by far the best of all four of them. However, I didn't know much about any of them, obviously. Still don't, really.
However, I have been browsing Brian's blog tonight. I felt a bit silly writing him a note at all, and while it is what I wanted to ask, I felt just as silly asking him about his thesis, since maybe he already had talked about that plenty if I had just been patient enough to read further. However, no, I don't know much more now. Having read quite a bit further, I know he was interested in interplanetary dust, but so is Kristine, and her research has her hanging out in caverns in Japan watching for rare blinks of light that might indicate a neutrino has passed through their pool of heavy water. Just being interested in interplanetary dust leaves a huge range of research and ideas to sift through still. I doubt I will hear back from him, but I wanted to congratulate him on his PhD, at least, and acknowledge my gratitude for his music, which has kept me company through so much already. It is always nice for me to know from people that my work, whether helping someone find jeans or a bra that fits, or teaching environmental science or pioneering, has done some real good for someone. I suppose even with being a superstar, Brian May might still really appreciate similar acknowledgment.
He will most likely never be any more personally involved in my life than he is now, but I still like the idea that as a scientist he is in fact much more accessible to me, and that it is in fact less impossible that I might one day actually be acquainted with him. Of course if I never get my own PhD that all is less likely, but as I am interested in English schools, and especially in the Scottish tundra, which is close to 'civilization' compared to the Taiga or the vast expanses of central Canada, I may wind up at a school near him, at least to visit. I at least like him well enough from his blog. He reminds me of my college friends, like Erin M, or Kristine W, and somewhat of Jessica S, in such a way that I think had we been students together we would have been at least casual friends. Yes, there are many other people in the world with whom I might be friends, but it is nice to think that a man whose voice sings me to sleep many nights is among those potential friends. It makes his music a bit more personal too, silly though that may be, and unnecessary as that is. He is almost 30 years older than I am, so well outside the usual range of people I am used to being easy friends with, though not outside the range of my actual friends...
I really just need to get on with my degree somewhere and see what happens. It would be quite lovely to actually know Brian May, if I could know him as a person, and a friend, not as a great famous rock star, but otherwise, I make a lousy fan. I have no desire for autographs, and no real drive to follow the careers of rock stars. I may still google Queen and its members occasionally, but it was almost 15 years between now and the last time I really paid any attention to anything about Queen besides the music. I consider it valid enough for me to know all the lyrics to all their songs, and all the notes in all the right places, and be able to hear every album in my mind, perfectly, from my well rehearsed memory, which needs refreshing badly, btw. It does not matter to that music when the musicians were born, to whom they are married, if they married, or anything else. I dreamt that I was going out with Brian May and a bunch of other people to a pob in Surrey, so as illogical as it is, I was not at all surprised that he lives in or around Surrey, and i probably actually knew that factoid earlier, but it doesn't matter the way the music does. Knowing about Freddie's death adds a huge element to much of the last few albums before his death, and makes aspects of Made in Heaven hauntingly beautiful, but the music has to stand alone too. That vignette about how those lines, "my soul is painted like the wings of butterflies, ..." were added into The Show Must Go On certainly made those lines more poignant, and Freddie's nearing death makes the whole song very heavy and sad, but it is important that that song is a great song no matter who sings it, and that when we tried to adapt it to our 8th grade choir, on my insistance, it meant something to all those who were singing it. Moulin Rouge gives it a great setting too, actually.
All in all, I am glad I did not hear Made in Heaven until a few weeks ago, and that I have so much new music to enjoy along with all the old albums I can now afford to start reacquiring. I only have Queen, News of the World, Greatest Hits I and II, and The Game in any format, besides Made in Heaven. The Game is on cassette, and is not going to last much longer, and News of the World and both Greatest Hits albums are as single MP3's from way back when Napster was legal. I found them on Napster shortly before my tape collection was stolen, and while I do not begrudge Queen the money it would take to buy new copies of those albums, I have been glad of those MP3's in the meantime. Now that I have some spending money again I can get the albums, and I can choose which song to play without having to play the whole album. I dislike the remix of We Will Rock You, from the end of News of the World, and would rather not have it pop up in my playlist, but I absolutely love some of the other songs on that album.