Pronouncing Sandoval

While reacquainting myself with the classic At Folsom Prison album by Johnny Cash, something grabbed my interest. I doubt that I noticed this particularly interesting item way back when I was a kid listening to my father's copy of this album, but, if I did, I probably didn't think about it too much.

What I find interesting is in the bit just after the song "The Long Black Veil". If you are not familiar with At Folsom Prison, it was recorded live during a concert in a prison, the actual Folsom State Prison in California. And Folsom did not shut down for Johnny Cash's concert. It kept on operating. In the background during some of the songs you can hear bells ringing (as secure doors are opened, I presume), and in between songs prison officials make any necessary announcements for the prisoners. In the recording I have isolated below, one official calls for a prisoner to go to another section.

He says the name twice, pronouncing it with a Spanish emphasis and an English "a". Then he spells out the name. And then he pronounces it once again, this time with an Anglicized emphasis.

That's curious. Why did he feel the need to call out the name with two different pronunciations and emphasis? It's obvious that the announcement was intended for the ears of the prisoner named Sandoval, but was it a widespread practice in California back in the 1960s (when the album was recorded) to pronounce Spanish names with an English phonology, as the prison official did the last time? Would a Hispanic person back then expect to hear san-DO-vul rather than SAN-do-val, and the official was just making sure the announcement wasn't missed? Or was the official simply unsure if he was pronouncing it correctly in the first place, so he covered his bases?

In places that are heavily Hispanic, like San Antonio, Spanish surnames are all over the place, and even white guys like me know how to pronounce them. Some people have problems with ényes and double-r trills (one girl I knew pronounced her name "Aguirre" as uh-Gary because she couldn't trill for the life of her), but the generally accepted practice is to use Spanish phonology with Spanish names, even if you are speaking English. Is it different in California, or was it merely different back then and that's not the case today? I don't know, because I'm not from California, and I haven't been in prison. But I am genuinely curious.

What I just bought for $5.00

This:

That's Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison, one of the most influential albums of my young, tender formative years. It was one of my father's albums, and it was also one of the albums my mother hated for us boys to listen to. So, of course we listened to it on the sly whenever we could.

And, believe it or not, I never had this complete album in my collection. Until today, when Amazon chose to run it as a special -- just five dollars. For the whole album.

Childhood memories relived are worth a few bucks, dontcha think?

Now, excuse me while I go listen to it again. On the sly, for old time's sake.

The Mouse's Conquest

Yes, you've heard about the takeover. Now it's complete, and official. I have gathered the proof today.

The Empire has fallen. To the ---- uh, Evil Empire.

Soooo, ---- maybe it won't be so bad?

Accept: Stalingrad

Well, here are my initial thoughts on Accept's Stalingrad: Very, very good. My thanks to the South Texas Pistolero for convincing me to give it a whirl.

This is timeless metal/hard rock at its finest. Accept has been around since the mid-1970s, and it's really kind of amazing that they are still around. And that they are still cranking out the heavy music like they do. But, they are, and they're doing a good job of it.

I haven't listened to Accept much lately, but part of my rock and metal education came from the band's earlier albums, like Breaker, Restless and Wild, their self-titled debut album, and Balls to the Wall. So it's gratifying to see that they can still get together and produce quality material, and that Wolf Hoffman still shreds like he used to.

The current singer, Mark Tornillo, is a worthy successor for the original screamer, Udo Dirkschneider. Udo was unique, and his contribution to the world of metal is undeniable, but Tornillo works well. At times he kind of sounds kinda like Udo, but at others he sounds a lot like Brian Johnson, and that makes for a fine metal wailer.

The songs that have struck my fancy so far are "Twist of Fate", "Hellfire", and the title track, though all of them are fun to listen to. This was a good buy to make (especially since I got a cool download deal at Amazon for $3.99!), and I thank the Pistolero for his recommendation. By all means, keep making suggestions!

Best Motorhead cover I've heard all day

(Thanks to Alan at Blogonomicon for sharing this.)

Two things I ordered today

Both came from recommendations from blog buddies.

This:

On a recommendation from the South Texas Pistolero at Live from the Alamo City. (Downloaded and ready to listen to tomorrow on my way to work.)



And this:

On a recommendation from AlanDP at Blogonomicon. (Ordered, awaiting delivery.)


I've got some listening to do and some reading to do. Check back with you later when I have something to report.

Getting loose with it

Oh my word.



(hat tip: Cracked)

Slapping the musicians

Here's another tale of unintended consequences that could alter the face of the music industry.

Why seize guitars? Because many of those instruments are made from exotic woods that were outlawed by a 2008 amendment to the Lacey Act, an amendment Alexander himself wrote.

In 2008, [Senator Lamar] Alexander and fellow Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Wash., moved to protect the American forest products industry by adding wood to the century-old Lacey Act – which was passed to protect endangered birds, whose feathers were prized for ladies’ hats.

American timber companies were being unfairly undercut by foreign sources of wood, many of which were illegally logged. Environmental groups also supported the amendment for curbing illegal logging in rainforests by imposing criminal penalties for trading in endangered species of wood.

It was that same amendment that led federal agents to raid the factories of Gibson Guitars in 2009 and again in 2011 – raids in which substantial quantities of musical instrument-grade wood were seized. It also ignited a firestorm of fear among musicians that the feds could come gunning for their instruments, unless they had extensive documentation on when the guitar was made and where the wood was from.

After pointed questions from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and other lawmakers, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Fish and Wildlife Service sent a letter assuring musicians that they would not be targeted for “unknowingly” possessing instruments that were manufactured from illegal wood. [emphasis added]

(from Fox News)

A letter. How nice.

If you are a musician, would you trust them? Senator Alexander says he wants to "fix" the amended Lacey Act to ensure that musicians or instrument makers are not affected, but that seems to be too little, too late, and not nearly reassuring enough after Gibson has already been RAIDED BY THE GOVERNMENT!

TWICE!

That's mind-boggling.

If you are a serious musician, then you probably already know about this issue. If you are any kind of musician at all and haven't heard about the amended Lacey Act, then you should learn what you can. It might actually affect you in the long run.

For what it's worth, the instruments I have are cheap enough that I'm confident they don't contain any of the banned wood.

Confident. But not 100 percent sure.

The Twelve Caesars - page 263, Otho

Otho is said to have been haunted that night by Galba's ghost in a terrible nightmare; the servants who ran in when he screamed for help found him lying on the bedroom floor. After this he did everything in his power to placate the ghost; but next day, while he was taking the auspices, a hurricane sprang up and caused him a bad tumble -- which made him mutter repeatedly: 'Playing the long pipes is hardly my trade.' (Proverbial of undertaking an enterprise beyond one's capacity.)


I thought of doing an image search for "playing the long pipes", but I thought better of it. Here's a picture of a different kind of pipes instead:






And here's another kind of Otho:

Tony Iommi

So, I hear Tony Iommi has cancer. Lymphoma.

That's bad. The few people I've known that have come down with lymphoma have died. I hope Iommi survives it, I really do. I would miss him.

The stage in my life where I spent much of my free time and my extra money going to as many concerts as I could -- from small rock clubs to large, pyrotechnic arena shows -- began and ended with Tony Iommi. From the first time I saw Black Sabbath in 1984 to the last time I saw that band in 1999, Iommi laid out the dark chords for me and made me love loud music. And Black Sabbath has been a part of my musical preferences ever since.

Black Sabbath is undoubtedly one of the most influential bands of all time, and Iommi has always been the heart of that ensemble, the only constant in a band that proved to be both innovative and dysfunctional at the very same time. I love his unique, heavy style, and I think all of metal owes him much gratitude.

I recognize that not every metalhead finds Iommi's guitar work easy to listen to. But without him and his crazy, left-handed, two-leathered-fingertipped way of playing there would be no black metal today. There would be no doom metal, no death metal. And, dare I say, no real heavy metal at all. Oh, there was hard rock back in the 1970s, sure, and without Black Sabbath and Tony Iommi that hard rock eventually would have developed and grown into something like heavy metal, but there is no way that metal would have been anything like what we have today. Not without Iommi. His dark chords and low tuning have burned a template into the realm of rock that headbangers still use to this day.

I hate to gush like a fanboy, but I really do think that much of Iommi. And I hope he has all the strength and support he needs to pull through this personal crisis. I certainly hope the best for him.

What I was listening to today

This:



I hadn't heard Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues" in a very long time. But, in the process of dragging out some Cash recordings to introduce the departed singer to my young son, I came across this song and several others of a rather rough nature.

And they took me back to a time when I was a young boy, a time when my brothers and I would wait until my mother was gone so we could sneak out my dad's Johnny Cash albums, hidden away in the dark recesses behind the speakers of the wooden console stereo entertainment center. And then we would listen to them on the sly. Because, you see, my mother did not like us young children to listen to Johnny Cash. Or Tex Ritter. They were very rough, and crude.

She did not like us to listen to those albums because she did not like many of those songs. But my dad did, so he had the albums. And we would listen to them. When my mother was gone.

And I remembered all this, and I smiled. And then I told my son that the best way to listen to Johnny Cash is on the sly.

One of my favorite things, and one not so much

Steel drums and Dvořák.



But, hey, it actually comes out sounding pretty cool!

Two of my favorite things

Classical guitar and Dvořák.



Thanks, Jorge Caballero.

Heavy metal is easier than you think

In fact, it's child's play.



Besides the girl's guitar solo, the best part is at 3:31.

R.I.P. Steve Jobs

So the internets are brimming over with sadness now that Steve Jobs has passed away, the voices almost universally singing his praises and lamenting the passing of his greatness. I won't, though.

I'm not going to speak ill of the dead. In fact, I will acknowledge that Jobs was a very shrewd businessman, despite his aura of "coolness". And he built a very fine company. But I will say this: I have never owned an Apple product. Ever. And I even stopped using iTunes a while back because using Amazon to purchase music was easier and cheaper.

And I don't feel as if I've missed out on anything.

What else I've been listening to

The Pistolero finally drove me to purchase The Warning by Queensrÿche, and I'm certainly not disappointed for having done it. You can read my comments about the album here, but the nutshell version is that I've enjoyed getting familiar with it over the past few weeks. And I'm glad I got it.

But, in focusing on The Warning, I almost forgot to mention what else I've been listening to lately. And that's a shame, because it's some pretty good stuff.

It's this:



That's the latest album from Symphony X, a progressive metal outfit that's been around since the mid-1990s but that I've only just begun to pay attention to. And I'm really getting to like them.

Symphony X (I still haven't figured out whether that's supposed to be pronounced eks or ten) reminds me a lot of Dream Theater, another prog metal band that I liked briefly in the 1990s. And the singer makes me think of Ronnie James Dio. And when you put Dream Theater and Dio together, it's bound to be something good.

And it is.

I first ran across Symphony X several years ago, and I downloaded a few songs just to check them out. I liked what I heard, so when their album titled Paradise Lost came out in 2007 I downloaded a few more to see if they kept my interest. They did. So when Iconoclast came out earlier this summer I went the extra step and got the whole album.

And the thing keeps growing on me. I like it more and more with every listen.

The album has a general theme to it of machines supplanting humanity, taking over in a Borg-like manner, I suppose. As such, many of the songs cover subjects that are dark, threatening, and bleak. But there is also an unmistakable energy that keeps the blood pumping and the senses sharp.

But don't take my word for it. Have a brief listen, and then decide what you think of it.



There's a lot more, and I wish I could play the whole album for you. But if you are into metal and haven't yet checked out Symphony X, I suggest you try them out. Download a few songs and see if they grow on you like they did on me.

What I've been listening to lately

This:



So the South Texas Pistolero finally convinced me that I had waited way, way, way too long to get Queensrÿche's The Warning. And I'm a bit surprised at myself at how long it took me.

You see, I'm a huge fan of Queensrÿche, or rather I'm a huge fan of a stage in their career. I didn't really get into them until a friend of mine told me back in 1986 that I should check out Rage for Order when that album first came out. I already liked the band somewhat because I was familiar with the songs that had received a lot of airplay -- songs such as "The Lady Wore Black" and "Queen of the Reich" from the band's self-titled introductory EP as well as "Warning" and "Take Hold of the Flame" from The Warning -- and I respected QR's sound immensely. But I had not actually bought any recordings, and it was not until I got Rage for Order and fully immersed myself into it before I realized, Hey, these guys are great!

I still love Rage for Order. To this day I listen to it. And when the next album, Operation: Mindcrime, came out, I was more than eager to get that and enjoy it to its fullest. Ditto for Empire, which some see as a sellout record, but I don't. It's still a great work with many fantastic songs on it (there's a lot more to it than "Silent Lucidity").

After that, though, I lost interest in QR's new stuff, and, from what I've read about some of the follow-up albums, I didn't miss much.

But, back to The Warning.

This album is great, and I can't believe I never got to enjoy the full experience until now, 27 years down the road. Thanks, Pistolero. I should listen to you more often.

First off, there's "Warning" and "Take Hold of the Flame", great songs that received a lot of airplay back in the day. But there's also another song that I was somewhat familiar with, and that I had forgotten about until I listened to this album again. That's "Before the Storm", another great tune that must have been played on some radio station in the 1980s. (Probably KXZL -- any longtime San Antonians remember that one?)

There's also "Deliverance" and "No Sancturary", which I'm really growing to like, as well as "NM 156", "Child of Fire", and a great piece that shows the promise to come for this band, "Roads to Madness".

All in all this is a very strong work, even if it is the band's first full album, and the musical talents of Tate and company have really stood the test of time. Queensrÿche was ahead of the pack with The Warning. I'm just sorry it took me so long to catch up.



And now, a bit of "Before the Storm":

What I've been listening to lately

This.



No kidding, I really have. That's a great guitar tune. It's pretty catchy, and it's actually begun to worm its way into my brain lately, so much so that I catch myself at times thinking, Hey, I'm humming an anime theme song! And I kinda like it.

Thanks, Alan, for exposing this to me. I've never been a big fan of anime (unless you count the 1980s Thundercats), but I'm starting to get a little interested in the universe surrounding the planet Gunsmoke. Maybe I'll check out an episode or two.

Iron Maiden is more chill than you think

I love this Andy Rehfeldt stuff.

Death metal is older than you think

(Hat tip: The Macho Response)