Tag Archives: I Like it

Music

Toni Tennille

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Toni Tennille: A Memoir
by Toni Tennille & Caroline Tennille St. Clair (2016)

 

This memoir covers Tennille’s life from her childhood in the segregated South to rise to fame in the world of pop music.

It’s a story I was vaguely aware of as she was a big star during my teenage years. Looking back at her videos, the music still has a timeless quality I can still enjoy. So this was a memoir I was interested in. It’s a well-written account of her time in the music industry, while I was aware of her contribution to ‘The Wall’, I didn’t know that she took over from Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria. I also didn’t know until reading the book that she had a TV series and flirtation with her own talk show. Her difficult relationship with husband Daryl is frequently mentioned, although never fully explained. An interesting read for a fan.

A disappointment was that she barely mentions the song I remember her for – “Do that to me one more time”
One her best was “Come in from the Rain”

And a recent interview

 

Books

Omega

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Omega (Chess Team Adventure #5)
by Jeremy Robinson & Kane Gilmour (2013)

Jack Sigler, call sign “King,” field leader for a black ops organization known as Endgame, is accustomed to feeling capable of handling most any situation. It is a confidence forged in the fires of battle against both monsters and madmen. But the introduction of Asya, a sister he never knew existed, and the kidnapping of his parents has him reeling. Using Endgame’s resources, King and his Chess Team (Queen, Rook, Bishop, and Knight) scour the planet for his parents, tracking a man known to the world as Alexander Diotrephes, but known to King by another name.

This is better than the previous book as there is a more adventure than action and warfare in  the story.The action comes at the end on a big beach showdown, similar to ‘Rogue One’

It must be the first book that introduces time-travel into the Chess-Team world.  Maybe this is where the Continuum series starts.

Music

Spaceship Earth

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The first impression of Spaceship Earth’s Interdimensional Passport is the similarity to Jay Tausig’s ‘Trip around the Sun’. So it’s space-rock, but with a difference. There is a definite psybient influence with the steady heavy beats, but it’s what happens between the beat that is interesting. All sorts of instruments and genres are thrown into the gaps, from Indian ragas to flutes, samples and voices. This gives it a very slow, spacey chill-out effect.

Just the thing for late at night weirdness.

Television

24 Season 4

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Another season, another set of improbabilities for Jack Bauer to fix. The central story is a terrorist controlling America’s nuclear reactors.

The intensity, mainly due to the music is cranked up to stupid and the plot holes get bigger. But somehow you can’t stop watching. They really have the genre nailed here and give it everything. Start watching if you want sleepless nights.

Events

Ropable

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By Ross Gumbley & Allison Horsley
Featuring Lara Macgregor & Eilish Moran
Weddings can be murder…

Prudence has come to the Hitchcock-themed MacGuffin Hotel for her niece Eden’s wedding to Montgomery Parker (yes, the Montgomery Parker). But when Eden’s disapproving mother Constance arrives, everyone finds themselves embroiled in a case of dangerous lies, suspicion and murder!

Cut off by a landslide, run by an amorous Austrian and filled with family secrets and homicidal tendencies, the MacGuffin is about to become home for a twisted story that even the Master of Suspense couldn’t have imagined…

It’s a black comedy Agatha Christie/Hitchcock story set in modern times (despite a very old-fashioned set). Eilish Moran is always good as the mother and Kathleen Burns brings out a familiar German accent.

It’s generally a fun romp, however the ending attempts to change the tone. I would have preferred an ending where the baddie gets away with evil doings. It may be unfashionable, but more fun and dramatic.

Music

Downlouders

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Downlouders – Arca

 

Downlouders is a music laboratory based on improvisation and psychedelia.

This is a mutated form of spacerock with:
Andrea Cajelli: drums
Andrea Manenti: bass
Enrico Mangione: guitars
Marco Sessa: synths
Giandomenico Fraschini: piano
Boris Tarpini: viola

it’s the viola that gives the music a unique characteristic, it feels more like the ECM jazz style. They come from Varese, Italy.

 

 

Movies

Moana

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Moana is a 2016 American 3D computer-animated musical fantasy comedy adventure film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 56th Disney animated feature film. The film was directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, and co-directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams. The film features music written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i, and Mark Mancina.

Cast

  • Auli’i Cravalho as Moana Waialiki, the sixteen-year-old daughter of village chief Tui.
    • Louise Bush as a younger Moana
  • Dwayne Johnson as Maui, a legendary
    Shapeshifting Demigod who sets off with Moana on her journey.
  • Rachel House as Gramma Tala Waialiki, Moana’s grandmother. Like Moana, Tala shares a passion for the ocean.
  • Temuera Morrison as Chief Tui Waialiki, Moana’s overprotective father and chief of Motunui Island.
  • Christopher Jackson as Tui’s singing voice
  • Jemaine Clement as Tamatoa, a giant treasure-hoarding coconut crab from Lalotai, the Realm of Monsters.
  • Nicole Scherzinger as Sina Waialiki, Moana’s mother and Tui’s wife.
  • Alan Tudyk as Heihei, Moana’s pet rooster, described by director Ron Clements as “the dumbest character in the history of Disney animation.”
    • Tudyk also provided the voice of a character credited as Villager #3
  • Oscar Kightley as Fisherman
  • Troy Polamalu as Villager #1

This Disney film is really as good as the reviews indicate. It’s fun, scary with great characters and a solid story.

But the best scene involves a chicken: