Sunday morning gospel: The Singing Millers--In the Spirit

Late last month, I featured five tracks from this LP--today, the whole album. First-rate Seventies gospel, though I can't give you an exact year. 1973-ish?

"Lively, spiritual, great talent and true gospel"--this is how Eva Mae Le Fevre describes the Singing Millers in her liner notes for the LP. While that sentence doesn't quite work, series-wise, I'll go along with each part.

Click here to hear: The Singing Millers--In the Spirit

PLAYLIST

I FOUND CALVARY (Winston Miller)
LOVE LIFTED ME (Rowe-Smith)
PREACH THE WORD (Aimee Semple McPherson)--Instrumental
HIS GREAT ARMS (Winston Miller)
OVER IN THE GLORY LAND (James W. Acuff-Emmett S. Dean)
WHAT A PRICE HE PAID (Winston Miller)
OH HAPPY DAY (Arr: Hawkins)
GOD'S NOT DEAD (Cummings)--Instrumental
SOUL MUSIC (Winston Miller)
THE BLIND MAN (Danny Smart)
WHAT A DAY, GLORIOUS DAY (Winston Miller)


Lee

Will I ever learn? Never, ever upgrade

So, AVG anti-virus asked if I wanted to upgrade to version 9--for free, no less. And, for some reason, I went ahead and did so.

First sign that I had done a dumb thing: the "up"grade was being slowed down by Spyware Doctor (which I'd paid for 2 months' worth) to the point that the Internet didn't work, though don't ask me how one caused the other. So I had to get rid of Spyware Doctor. I did, and everything was fine. Almost. Except for occasional slowdowns. Then, tonight, my Outlook Express stopped "responding." My email program stopped working!!!!!!!!!!!

I tried to use it, you see. AVG got confused.

So, I'm one tiny step away from uninstalling the darn thing (AVG, not my email program). I have a year left on the subscription, but if it's going to cripple the operation of my computer, it's goodbye. Checking out various message boards that discuss AVG issues (including one with a comically bureaucratic and controlling monitor), I see that AVG's customer service is the usual conversation with a wall.

I'd just gotten used to a great product from AVG. So, naturally, they go the way of McAfee. Darn. Double-darn. Darn X 10.

Dang it, even.

78s for Friday: way-old exotica

Or any day that calls out for the sounds of acoustic grooves. In this playlist, an early Veterans' Day offering with the E.T. Paull march Battle of Gettysburg, which really creates an authentic mood. Authentic to a college fight song, that is. Nothing much to do with the battle of Gettysburg, though. Paull's marches were technically competent, imo, but pretty cookie-cutter.

The disc itself is to be pitied--warped, cracked, and groove-worn. But the performance, by Conway's Band, is fabulous. Best of all, I managed to get a very decent file out of it. You'd never know the disc was so badly off. Unless I told you. Which I just did. (Oops.)

Also, two exotica mega-classics--Alexandre's Luigini's circa-1903 Ballet Egyptien and a repeat posting of Albert Ketelbey's In a Monastery Garden. Both are acoustical recordings by the Victor Concert Orch., and they're models of their type. As in, perfect.

To the sounds: 78s for Friday


PLAYLIST

BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG (Descriptive March) (E.T. Paull)--Conway's Band, 1917.
BALLET EGYPTIEN--Part 1 (Allegretto) (A. Luigini)--Victor Concert O., Josef Pasternack, 1917.
BALLET EGYPTIEN--Part 2 (Andante Sostenuto)--Same.
IN A MONASTERY GARDEN (Ketelbey)--Victor Concert Orch. w. male chorus, 1921.



Lee

Three-monster quartet

Three of my Godzilla figures were sitting on the couch in the living room, and they seemed to be swaying in song. So I snapped their image and added the necessary embellishments. Except for handlebar mustaches, which I somehow forgot.

There was a fourth Godzilla, three times the size of the other three, off to the side and looking annoyed. I decided not to mess with him. So a three-monster quartet it is.


Lee

Thanks!

74 (or was it 73?) downloads of my Christmas at Halloween suite. Thanks! Hope it got everyone into the Halloween/Christmas spirit.

Beggars' Night on Jupiter, more....

In an age when spelling and punctuation are things only the "spelling police" care about (or so I gather), I find myself worrying about spelling and punctuation. I guess that makes me the Spelling Police. So, do I have back-pay coming? Anyway, you'll notice I use the correct punctuation for Beggars' Night, with the apostrophe after the s, since we're talking one or more beggars. "Beggar's Night," as it's often called, would consist of a single beggar. This is important. To a spelling/punctuation cop, I mean.

The photo shows kids trick-or-treating on Jupiter. That's what the surface of Jupiter looks like. Which is news to me--I didn't even know it had a surface. But photos never lie. Especially when I patch them together and add bubble effects. (Bubbles on Jupiter--gas bubbles?)

This is my final, day-late contribution to/for Halloween 2009. All four pieces were entered into my Noteworthy Composer software--nothing "live" is happening. I couldn't play a left hand like the first one if someone offered me Merv's entire discography, including lost sides. The left-hand pattern is from Dominic Frontiere's Outer Limits score: three parallel fifths by half steps (example: C-G-Ab-Eb-E-B). Great effect. Move it up and down by minor 3rds and add echo. Whether or not this left hand works with the right-hand chords I leave to your (hopefully kind) judgment.

More perfect-interval stuff for the second, and an extension of the Frontiere chord for the third, which sounds like the background to a lost Twilight Zone installment. The fourth number, which depicts a Japanese lady bug assault, is the kind of sound I love to come up with. The music itself is lost to time--I failed to save it. So I can't say for sure what patches I used (aside from birds chirping), but they were the right ones. If MAGIX didn't allow for track overlapping, my school of composition would be finished.

To the pieces: Beggars' Night on Jupiter, more

SLAYLIST

BEGGARS' NIGHT (Hartsfeld)
BEGGARS' NIGHT ON JUPITER (Hartsfeld)
BEGGARS' NIGHT IN THE LAND OF HARPS (Hartsfeld)
ATTACK OF THE LADY BUGS (Hartsfeld)



Lee

Sunday morning gospel back next week

I would have had something ready, but... my Box.net downloading bandwidth had maxed out, and (now that Box is back) nothing wants to upload. Ditto for 4Shared.

However, I don't know that either site is at fault.

UPDATE: Software clash was the problem. My AVG update didn't like Spyware Doctor. I removed the latter, and suddenly uploads are quick and unmessy.

Ya never know what's causing the latest slowdown.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. We're back to cold weather--the Indian Summer is over, far as I know. Maybe the ladybug infestation will lessen. Without our mini-vac, I don't know how I'd survive their presence up here (Media Room, bedroom). The things are bouncing off my head, crawling on my keyboard, etc. Then out comes the vacuum for temporary relief. And into the mini-bag go the ladybugs (and assorted flies and wasps). Blogging is not a glamorous occupation.

My sinuses? I'm nearly over this bug, but the sinus infection is carrying on. Once the bug has fully departed, I suspect the infection will go with it. The former facilitates the latter.


Lee