“The Simpsons” & Music

My editor is pleased with my updates to Chapter 1 of Be Sharp: ‘The Simpsons’ & Music. I will shortly revise Chapter 3, and then the book will go to the external reviewers. I am optimistic that this book will be published in 2010. In addition, “Intertextual Music & Discursive Parody in The Simpsons” (which I presented at a conference at McGill in Montreal in April) has been accepted for the 4th Annual ECHO conference, Music and Humor, being held at UCLA on June 5 and 6. Eric Wang, one of my 2008 teaching assistants, has agreed to present it for me.

“EMC” articles

My Encyclopedia of Music in Canada articles from March, April and May 2009:

  • Peter Oundjian
  • Choral Singing
  • Ensemble Anonymous
  • Arion Male Voice Choir
  • Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir
  • Bluegrass
  • Rap
  • Cantatas
  • Canadian Electronic Ensemble
  • Blues
  • Heavy Metal
  • The Internet and Music

(Yes, that IS all over the map!)

For my existing EMC articles, do a search on my name at: http://canadianencyclopedia.ca/index.cfm?PgNm=EMCSubjects&Params=U1.

Kalsubai

After “finding” and posting a copy of the album cover, I managed to “track down” the opening song and first single, “My Pal in (d)Rome,” from the album A Defining Characteristic of Intelligence (1974) by the Canadian-British progressive rock band Kalsubai. The music is heavily influenced by King Crimson, Genesis, and early world music “fusions,” and it thus provides a sort of cross between “psychedelic progressive” jazz-rock (perhaps also a little bit along the lines of the Mahavishnu Orchestra) and what would later be called “new age” music” (but along the relatively “rock”-oriented lines of Mike Oldfield). “My Pal in (d)Rome” is mainly noted for having reached #41 in the US “Top 40,” although it also reached #34 in the UK’s “Top 30” and #21 in Canada’s “Top 20.” Magically, the song includes approximations of all of the instruments mentioned on Facebook by people who “remember” this album: Shakuhachi flute, clarinet, Mellotron, harmonica, and a Hammond organ “solo,” in addition to drums and percussion, jazzy guitar-chord comping, fretless bass, and weirdly-echoed, semi-pompous (!) lyrics and vocals. See https://youtu.be/2Gmr_JV2R6M.

Rush book

In March, I heard from an upstate New York teacher (Jim Berti) who is interested in putting together a book called Rush and Philosophy in the ongoing series that began with Seinfeld and Philosophy. After some discussions by email, I agreed to co-edit (and contribute to) this book, contacted a number of likely contributors, and proposed that abstracts be submitted by the end of May. For my own contributions, I will use elements from my dissertation, an article on Canadianness I had recently submitted to an academic journal, and my “Rush Tributes” article that may still be published elsewhere. Hopefully, we would be able to get this published in 2010. I still also hope to publish my own book on Rush (i.e., more closely related to my dissertation), possibly in 2011.