Yuletide By the Fireside, and Joyful Memories There

It's an established tradition at In Aurem A2D to use holidays as opportunities for Surface to Air Full Circle music challenges. Our last was on Valentine's Day.

You know the drill. (Connection between our game and the WDET-FM Music Head fundraiser is in our first challenge.) Starting with a particular song, chart a path along associated metadata to create a connected playlist; but at some point, reverse course and return along a different metadata path to arrive full circle back at the starting song, in "about an hour" of running time. Bonus points if you only use songs from your personal library (as I always do).

That bonus may get harder to achieve over time, if the trend continues away from music ownership and personal libraries to music access and personal playlists via streaming services.

To celebrate Christmas in the USA, our starting/ending song is Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here" from the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas. After ephemeralizing my own LP copy of Charlie Brown to weightless high-res digital, I donated it to the Library of Congress in 2012.

Full-size table here. Annotated table with metadata associations here.

For the first time, a list clocks in at 60 minutes on the nose. As a bonus, we included two consecutive Everly Brothers covers that both had other relevant metadata connections and were recorded by male/female duos. Previous lists can be found in the Surface to Air 2012 Retrospective.

Merry Christmas!

            Vinyl-to-Digital Restoration #63            

Artist: Linda Ronstadt

Title: Get Closer
Genre: Rock
Year: 1982





In an earlier piece on sustainable business models, we profiled a vinyl-to-digital restoration of an example of Linda Ronstadt's mid-career collaboration with Nelson Riddle. Get Closer is a title from her earlier "rocker chick" period, the music that got her elected to the Rock -n- Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2014. Well-deserved.

© 2013 Thomas G. Dennehy. All rights reserved.

The Fireworks are Hailin' over Little Eden Tonight

It's time for our next Surface to Air Full Circle music challenge.

You know the drill. (Connection between our game and the WDET-FM Music Head fundraiser is in our first challenge.) Starting with a particular song, chart a path along associated metadata to create a connected playlist; but at some point, you have to reverse course and return along a different metadata path to arrive full circle back at the starting song, in "about an hour" of running time. Bonus points if you only use songs from your personal library.

[Image: Detroit-Windsor fireworks.]

That bonus may get harder to achieve over time, if the trend continues away from music ownership and personal libraries to music access and personal playlists via streaming services. What is your relationship with music?

To celebrate Independence Day in the USA, our starting/ending song is Bruce Springsteen's "Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)."

Full-size table here. Annotated table with metadata associations here.

The list clocks in at one hour, seven seconds. Pretty good, I think — close enough to exactly an hour to probably be within the margin of error on the reported running time of the tracks.

Happy 4th of July!

             Vinyl-to-Digital Restoration #37             

Artist: Weather Report

Title: Heavy Weather
Genre: Jazz
Year: 1977



Heavy Weather was the first full album for Weather Report featuring bassist Jaco Pastorius. It registered significant sales upon initial release, and monster numbers for a jazz album. It even produced a hit single "Birdland,"now considered a landmark in the jazz-rock, or fusion, movement of the 1970s. I saw Weather Report on the Heavy Weather tour at the Royal Oak Theater in suburban Detroit. Even though concert start was delayed more than three hours due to a storm-induced power failure, the show went on.


© 2012 Thomas G. Dennehy. All rights reserved.

If You Don't Know Where You're Going, Any Road Will Get You There

Even if your metadata is not sufficiently rich to let you sort your music autobiographically, you can still have fun with it. Let's play a music association game.

[Image: Connect the Dots Music Festival, Beaumont TX]

WDET-FM in Detroit runs an annual event called Music Head. Starting with a song submitted from a listener, in-studio guests "connect the dots" among artists, titles, and musical collaborations to create playlists where each succeeding song is somehow connected to the previous song.

Unfortunately, the listening audience experience of Music Head is a lot of near-dead air as the hosts and studio guests hem and haw, battling the clock to navigate a journey that has no destination on a road that diverges in all directions at every decision point. How can you judge the value of any choice? If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.

Then, on her Essential Music show the following day, host Ann Delisi delivers a version of Music Head with a specific goal. Starting with a song previously submitted by a listener, she charts a path along associated metadata to create a connected playlist as before; but at some point, she has to reverse course and return along a different metadata path to arrive back at the starting song, and to come full circle in about an hour of running time. There's a real challenge.

To celebrate that challenge, here is the first Surface to Air Music Head Full Circle list. All songs come from my dematerialized music library:

Full-size table here. Annotated table with all the associations here.

What do you think? I intend to publish Full Circle lists from time to time. Readers are encouraged to submit song sugesstions via the Comment Form or via email. Let's collaborate on a journey.

            Vinyl-to-Digital Restoration #20            

Artist: Blondie

Title: Parallel Lines
Genre: Alternative
Year: 1978

More than five years before the Parents Music Resource Center (aka the "Washington Wives") advocated warning labels on physical music media for potentially objectionable content, the original LP release of Parallel Lines had the following label affixed to the shrink wrap: CONTAINS THE UNCUT, UNCENSORED VERSION OF 'HEART OF GLASS.' The line bleeped by radio station censors: "... it was a pain in the ass." Could anyone possibly be offended by it today?

            Vinyl-to-Digital Restoration #21            

Artist: Philip Glass

Title: The Photographer
Genre: Contemporary
Year: 1983

January 27, 2012 was the 75th birthday of composer Philip Glass. Among the tributes and retrospectives, the radio program Fresh Air ran an previously-unbroadcast This American Life conversation between Philip Glass and his cousin, host Ira Glass. For me, the highlight of the exchange was this quote: "Style is specialized technique. You can't have style until you have mastered technique."

© 2012 Thomas G. Dennehy. All rights reserved.