Sunday, May 24, 2009

"And You Wonder Why People Don't Worship Beauty"

So, I almost went a month without a new post.

First off, I posted a song a while back called "Love'n", proported to be a lost Beatles song. It is NOT actually the Beatles, but The Colours, a never-made-it sixties band, featuring Carl Radle on bass. The track, "Lovin", was on their Mickie Most produced LP. Someone edited the song to make the vocals (which would have made it obviously not the Beatles) near inaudible. I was kind of hoping it was the Beatles, but either way, it is a cool track.

Now, I mentioned a possible Paul McCartney box set, a new "Cold Cuts". Well, since then, tracklistings for 3 of 4 discs have been leaked. Each disc has 25 songs, plus a hidden track. Tracks are edited to fit all of them on a disc. For the full tracklists, check wogew.blogspot.com

Just about every unreleased gem we know about is featured, plus many more, including things we've never heard of before. The set is limited to studio work only, as another set of live material, as well as a set of demos, will be on horizon. Hints of a set actually date back to 2001, when Paul produced a documentary called "Wingspan." On a mini website dedicated to the film, a message said fans will be pleased with a new release coming soon. However, Paul got sidetracked, most likely with his new relationship with Heather Mills. But now, the set is back on track.

The set is a dream come true. Paul is releasing every track from the original "Cold Cuts" save for the instrumental "Tomorrow." And he is putting out thing that have never been booted, like "Crawl of The Wild," a "Venus & Mars" outtake featuring Dave Mason (who also played guitar on "Listen To What The Man Said.) "Crawl Of The Wild" has been renamed (or corrected to be) "Wild Cat." Paul has also opened the vault on the "London Town" sessions, from which we've had very little save for rough mixes and such.

There a few well known booted songs missing, like "Jazz Street", but the listing is nothing to complain about. One interesting note, though, is that, save for an early "Ram" version of the song "Sunshine Sometime," Paul has ignored his unreleased "Rupert The Bear" soundtrack. Paul did a soundtrack to his favorite childhood character, with instrumentals and some sung songs, along with some narration, and after years of coming back to it, recorded a full listing with Wings in '78. The project never materialized, but a few years later, Paul did make a short Rupert cartoon, which featured the song "We All Stand Together." I suspect Paul will release the Rupert song seperatly (well, I sure hope he does!)

Onto Jennette McCurdy, who has released another single. The song is a cover, called "Homeless Heart." Part of the proceeds of it go to charity. Like every other celeb, Jennette has not said anything about a release date for her album, and I'm beginning to doubt the rumoured "June 30th" date. In fact, Jennette is still hitting the recording studio (although she hasn't enlightened us as to whether she is still working on her first album, or starting another one.)

Along with Jennette, Miranda Cosgrove has been doing great on "iCarly." The show keeps getting high ratings, and deservingly so. It is consistently funny. Personally, I relate mostly to Spencer (being an artist myself, as well as a big brother, who one day will have to worry about a teenage sister.) But everyone is hysterical, and the development of different relationships and interactions with characters is great. I love when Freddie or Sam are alone with Spencer, with a dilema that Spencer tries to solve, like when Sam was having nightmares about a monster eating her soup. Spencer works so hard to help, like attempting to analyze Sam's dream, but in the end only causes more trouble, like after he dresses as a monster, and steals Sam's soup, to cure her, she beats him up, thinking he is a monster, and then Spencer has nightmares about monsters and soup. It is a clever set-up, and the actors pull it off convincinly and with personality that really sells the material.

Selena Gomez has a new release on Tuesday, a duet with the group "Forever The Sickest Kids." The single will be on iTunes (and maybe other d/l sites?) I'm looking forward to it.

Now, all these none of these celebs will give a release date, but Disney is different. On June 9th, Disney will release "Disney Channel Playlist," 15 songs from their TV shows and original TV movies. Of interest to me is "Everything Is Not What It Seems" (by Selena Gomez, it is the "Wizards Of Waverly Place" theme, "The Hero In Me" (by Emily Osment, from the movie "Dadnapped"), "So Far, So Great" (by Demi Lovato, it is the "Sonny With A Chance" theme), and "One And The Same" (a Demi and Selena duet from "Princess Protection Program.")

On July 14th, the "Hannah Montana 3" soundtrack will finally come out. It will feature 12 songs from season 3 (one of them by Mitchell Musson, the rest by Hannah Montana, including the duet with David Archuleta.) Track 13 is "If We Were A Movie" with Corbin Bleu, which was actually from season 2. It looks like another fun release, with song titles like "Ice Cream Freeze (Let's Chill)". Also, what is it with the word "Let's". "Let's Chill," "Let's Do This," "Let's Get Crazy," "Let's Dance."? Oh well, no matter. The titles are similar, but the songs are all different.

While Hannah is releasing a new disc, the real girl Miley doesn't seem to have a new disc on the near horizon. She will be filming "The Last Song," a film adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel. Rumors are also abound that Miley is wanted for the new "Footloose," although Miley has yet to say anything on that subject. Also, Miley will be touring again later this year, in Europe for sure, as she mentioned on her "Live In London" iTunes exclusive EP. Demi should have a "Live In London" EP coming out too. I wonder what is taking so long.

I can't say why people don't worship beauty. But what I can say is "The King Of Fuh" is a great song. By Brute Force, the song was presented to the Apple label, where George Harrison got a hold of it. Harrison loved it, mixed it a bit, and even had an orchestral arrangement added. The song talks about the King of Fuh, who is the "Fuh King." This line was too obscene to get a release, but George, as well as John Lennon, pushed for the song, which got a limited Apple release before being pulled. The song proved elusive after that, but Brute Force has since made it easily acquired on the album "Tour de Brute Force." It is such a beautiful song. I had wanted to hear it just to get a laugh from the lyrics, and while I did, the arrangement had such a sad, post-psychedelic beauty that enraptured me.

Happy Memorial Day weekend!