Review: Walter Isaacson – Steve Jobs, a biography
Oh my. How painful it is to read this book and think “what could have been”. Here you have a guy that has amazing access to the man Steve Jobs and then he writes a turd of a book. I remember reading Gruber’s review in February and thinking “it can’t be that bad”… Well I hate to say it, it is bad.
1. It was either a bad decision to put so little passion in this book or it is just bad writing. It reads not written a guy having amazing access but like a homework assignment. “I have to cover this, this, this and that. Done.”
2. Never have I been bothered as much by shitty structuring as in this book (or it is just bad writing). First he tries chronological, later topical, then mixes both approaches. WTF. Loads of approaches possible but this mixtures leaves the reader scratching his head wondering, “what does this have to do with the chapter I just read?”
3. The book has 5oosomething pages. I am not saying it should be shorter, but how about focusing not so much on the know parts of Steve Jobs’ life but instead delving deeper into the heart of his design sense or no-compromise-attitude? Or following up on a question like you mean it. Jobs went to India and read an Autobiography of a Yogi? Good, thank you. NOT. What are the main points of that book, what were Jobs’ key take-aways?
This book is a summary, nothing more. Unfortunately. What a wasted chance.
The fun begins: NHL Playoff preview
Sleep will be scarce for the next two months as the NHL playoffs begin. Here’s a little preview aka my picks for the first round.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
No. 1 Rangers vs. No. 8 Ottawa
The Rangers will win this in 5 games. And they will go much deeper.
No. 2 Boston vs. No. 7 Washington
Most people have Boston winning this but I smell upset IF Semin realizes he’s playing for a contract, if Backstrom’s health holds and if Boston goalie Tim Thomas can’t tune out the political charade. So either Washington in 7 or Boston in 5…
No. 3 Florida vs. No. 6 New Jersey
It should be Devils in 5.
No. 4 Pittsburgh vs. No. 5 Philadelphia
It’s hard to bet against the Penguins with all their firepower, defensive strengths and the playoff proven goalie. If Giroux, Hartnell, Jagr and especially Bryzgalow can keep their pace it will be a very interesting series though. The thing that bugs me though is that if the Rangers, the Bruins, the Panthers and the Penguins were to advance, Pittsburgh would play New York in the next round and that would be much too early. Pens in seven.
WESTERN CONFERENCE
No. 1 Vancouver vs. No. 8 Los Angeles
If Daniel Sedin doesn’t play the Kings will pull off the upset in 6 games, unless Ryan Kesler turns it on.
No. 2 St. Louis vs. No. 7 San Jose
San Jose’s window is closing, as they say. From everything I read and saw St. Louis is the much hungrier. As the skill level is obviously there, this will be Blues in 5.
No. 3 Phoenix vs. No. 6 Chicago
Chicago in 6.
No. 4 Nashville vs. No. 5 Detroit
This isn’t Detroit’s year yet, they will shop in the summer and next year some of the younger players will be ready to attack. This time, Nashville in 6.
Mitte dreißig
Die ursprünglich geplanten (und geklauten) Weekly Notes pendeln sich monatlich ein, soll mir recht sein.
Letzten Sonntag vor dem Tatort waren der Nachbar und ich wieder joggen und diskutierten so die Wehwehchen, die man mit Mitte 30 so mit sich rumträgt und was es so im Bekanntenkreis für Hiobsbotschaften gesundheitlicher Art gab. Danach noch ein bisschen Stretchen, die Einsicht, dass es nur wenige Tatorte gibt, die man sich anschauen muss (dieser Sonntag gehörte nicht dazu), und Ruhe bevor ein neuer Abschnitt beginnt.
Seit letzter Woche hat meine liebe Gattin wieder einen aushäusigen Schreibtisch, genauer gesagt am Zentrum für Demokratie und Friedensforschung (ZeDF) an der Uni Osnabrück und wird dort zwei Tage die Woche sein. Im Gegenzug reduziere ich meine Stunden so, dass ich an diesen Tagen die Kids vom Kindergarten abholen kann. Auf die Sprüche wie “halben Tag frei” oder “bist du krank” bin ich seelisch vorbereitet, freu mich sehr auf die Nachmittage mit den beiden, das Wetter wird ja auch eher wärmer. Die Crux wird sein, die reduzierten Stunden nicht am Abend nachzuarbeiten – das ist ja nicht der Sinn. Pitch ist immer anders, aber Pitch ist ja nicht immer. Aber da habe ich ja auch jemanden, der mich an mich erinnert…
Interessant ist immer noch, wie sehr sich die Interessen und Motivationen verschieben. Der English-Podcast läuft – allerdings ohne mich. Ein neues Video ist überfällig und obwohl es mich nur 20 Minuten Zeit kosten würde, komme ich nicht aus dem Quark. Stattdessen lese ich lieber über Unternehmensstrukturen, Wirtschaftswachstum oder Basketball. Und ich gucke wieder mehr NHL-Eishockey (gut zum Beispiel beim Spülmaschine ausräumen oder Wäsche zusammenlegen).
Musikmachen ist definitiv weiter in den Vordergrund gerückt. Aus meinen Auditions Ende letzten/Anfang diesen Jahres ist ja nichts geworden, dafür macht es bei den alten Herren um so mehr Spaß. Ich werde mich jetzt (äh, ja genau) selbst aktiv auf die Suche machen, auch über diese kleine Seite hier. (Die hat jetzt übrigens ein neues Antlitz bekommen, auch nicht so richtig hübsch aber man schlägt sich so durch.) Musik jedenfalls. Ich höre wieder sehr, sehr viel, immer noch die neue Flying Colors, dafür kaum noch Podcasts gerade. Eine von den Bands wo ich vorgespielt habe hat jetzt gerade die ersten Gigs. Ich wünsch ihnen viel Erfolg, bin aber auch sicher, im Nein-Sagen die richtige Entscheidung getroffen zu haben. Bei einer am anderen Trio waren wir verblieben mit “ja, wir melden uns in zwei Wochen” und keiner hats gemacht. Wohl eindeutig.
Nun denn, das Leben geht weiter. Gut.
A long musical story about 4 1/2 almost perfect minutes
(the writing might be slightly inspired by three books I read recently: Gentlemen, we’re living on the edge, Red, and Home Ice)
As a musician I am not very complicated. I have somewhat high standards in regards to the people I play with, yes, but when it comes to myself I don’t think I suffer from lead guitarists disease or something similar. There will be days when I am not as prepared as I should be but I accept that in others as well. Having said that, and getting older, I am a big fan of playing it by ear, putting the overall sound over “but this is what he plays on the record”, winging it if I have to, and more and more, just having a good time. I have played in bands from very early on after I took up the guitar until I moved to Hamburg to study. While I even had my guitar with me in the US in 1998 it took until 2008 when a bunch of guys from my home town rejoined forces and started playing again, getting that rust off. We used to play every 6-8 weeks and even went for a whole year without rehearsal after our room got torn down and schedules didn’t match. And we were still missing a bass player. When we met again we basically had to start, had to relearn some of the arrangements but it wasn’t until another friend from old moved back to town when found a complete line-up. I moved to bass guitar for all but three songs and we finally had a full sonic spectrum. We cut some songs from BB-setlist (before bass), added some new ones and now, after about half a year with a steady flow of rehearsals we have something you might call a set. One hour-ish, depending on how fast we play and how much we talk.
With a full band we finally also had the time to tackle one of the songs that is brilliant but not easy, especially for the vocals. It is one of the tracks I still play guitar on and enjoy immensely. It has a boogie feeling to me, a knee bender if you ever saw Satriani perform Satch Boogie live you’ll understand. But it’s more of a shuffle too, great guitar riff, epic chorus. Our keyboarder wrote it and we used to play it in the mid-nineties. I was actually scheduled to play it on a recording but had to drop out because the date was a week after I had left for the US. I was a little bit heartbroken when I heard the song later (true story) – I was in great shape back then and I would have killed it.
Fast forward to 2012. We’re back at it and I am practicing. Not the 5 hours a day from when I was in school, but strategically and really practicing. While it is a groovy tune calling for a solo with feeling there is also a sixteenth triplets run that I play in unison with the keyboards. I practiced it slow. Real slow. Played around with the fingering, changed that about five times until it would sound not like shred but like a melody. Played it slowly w/o warm-up in the morning, after dinner with warmed-up fingers and a couple of times before I turned off the light. From a skills perspective I has them, I just need the practice. And I needed to play it great, no winging it this time.
When we rejoined last night I felt prepared. We rehearsed two new songs and all the work of the last six months paid off. We breezed through Huey Lewis’ Power of Love and took our time with Billy Jean, working on our own version. Afterwords came a couple of tunes we know by heart and which just groove. The fact that we didn’t have a mic for background vocals didn’t hurt the overall vibe too much which was good. At one point I said let’s play “the song” so I gave the bass guitar to my buddy, taking his guitar for a second. He plays an Ibanez (like I did years ago) but it hung too high, so I gave it back. He volunteered to make the strap longer and I tried it on, but I didn’t connect. Quite interesting. Tension was building up, happy tension, I didn’t want to take any chances. I wanted to give this my best shot. I wanted to milk the groove out of it. So I say thank you and that I feel quite comfortable with my block of wood (compared to his well set-up Ibanez with scalloped frets and ergonomic body, my Washburn N2 indeed looks somewhat like a brute). I don’t know much about the VOX amp they gave us this time, but what the hell, the sound is in the fingers.
So it begins. Short keyboard intro followed by the whole band playing the main riff. The high-hat and snare laying the beat, the bass drum the groove and a bass guitar pumping away. The verse builds slowly only to swell to full bloom, hinting at things to come. But not yet, first we play the main riff again. With a slight variation, the keyboarder and I looking at each other with knowing smiles. At that moment we love what we are doing. Verse again and into the chorus. After the chorus the run looms, then the solo. I feel like I’m in the zone. Bring it on, I can do it. But first the chorus. The guitar lays chords with restrained accents. The keyboard makes it epic, the vocals bring it home. We play the main riff again. No fear, no angst. We play the run. It flows. 8 sextuples. The keyboardist can play this in his sleep and I play it wide awake. Practice paid off. But I’m not done yet. I turn the final high note of the run into a bend and am high on adrenaline. I need to celebrate with just a couple of quick accents before I go down the fretboard and into some movements that kind of made sense when I practiced. Nothing fast or fancy, rather milking some bends and open string patterns. To open the second bar of “my” two bars I hit the G on the low E string with pick harmonics and bend it to the A – all the chunk you can have on an electric guitar. I make my way up the fretboard again looking for a final high bend and mess up the ending in a way because I want to keep on playing but haven’t told anybody. I don’t play the usual ending but stop the solo anyway, the adrenalin making way for a big smile. I catch some looks, thumbs up, all good.
We bring it home and I feel very happy.
As always with these things, there’s no recording. I explain the mess at the end of the solo and since we all had fun we decide to do it again, with a longer solo. And of course it doesn’t compare. I put pressure on myself to repeat and my fingers don’t connect to the strings as much as they should. The strings were cold during the first run, now the little residue that collected from playing bass for two hours settles on the guitar strings. Usually not a difference maker but I notice it and think about it. I also think about what I am going to two in the two extra solo bars. All this going on while we play the song. I’m in my head, not my soul and I feel like I am letting them down. They wanted to give me the chance to do it again, (you’re gonna come in with your guitar & you’re gonna play that nice, nice music you were telling me about) and it’s probably going to be fine, but not the magic from before, at least the magic I felt. So of course I mess up the end of the run and the solo is sort of ok but naturally I feel a bit down. The beauty is that I love playing this song so much that the minute and a half from the end of the solo to the end of the song lifts me up automatically. All I have to do is close my eyes, listen to the snare filling between the hi-hat, the bass guitar walking counterpoint to my funk in the verse, the vocals building up to the chorus, and the keyboard tying it all together.
Or maybe I just love making music with my friends so much.
English Music: album casey mcpherson dave larue dream theater flying colors mike portnoy neal morse review steve morse
by Sebastian
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Review: Flying Colors – Flying Colors
(before you get any ideas, I have the pre-order confirmation so I think it’s ok to write about it)
Although it’s only March I can say without a doubt that this album will contend for album of the year. Flying Colors, the supergroup consisting of Steve Morse (Dregs, Deep Purple), Neal Morse (Spock’s Beard, Transatlantic, Solo), Dave LaRue (Satriani, Dregs, numerous others), Casey McPherson (Alpha Rev) and of course Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, Transatlantic, numerous others) was for once not the brain child of Mike Portnoy but producer Bill Evans. With maybe the exemption of singer Casey McPherson, Evans put together a room full of egos and made it work. Flying Colors – Flying Colors is a great debut album and I am not just saying this as a Dream Theater/Mike Portnoy fan boy.
During the first listen, I didn’t even notice/remember/pay attention to the drums because they don’t stand out. Portnoy’s playing is of course outstanding, but this isn’t a drums album. When Portnoy characterized the album as Beatles meets Yes meets I don’t remember, I was thinking that this might be a tall order to follow. Of course I was hoping for it to be true but then of course the artist is going to laude is work.
Rest assured though: This album is a must have for music connaisseurs as it is as song-oriented as you would like a Beatles album to be, yet delivers enough nuggets for lovers of every instrument/fans of all participants to be very happy. Although only Portnoy knew singer McPherson and he was kind of the wild card in that quintett the vocal lines are catchy to a degree that I was whistling some lines after one listen. For a bunch of guys who haven’t been rehearsing material for half a year but just got together in a studio for 9 days, this album is truly epic. You think I am exaggerating? Listen to Blue Ocean and Kayla and try not to sing the chorus under the shower tomorrow? Listen to Fool in my heart and try not to think of old Steve Morse only to have your heart ripped out by McPherson’s lyrics.
Seriously, give it a spin.
Geschriebenes Wort: basketball bookreview buch rezension thomas pletzinger
by Sebastian
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Review: Thomas Pletzinger – Gentlemen, wir leben am Abgrund
Wer mich kennt weiß, dass ich eigentlich nur Bücher von drei Autoren auf deutsch lese. Max Buddenbohm, Thomas Pletzinger und Arne Vollstedt (wenn’s denn endlich rauskommt). Schön also, dass Pletzingers Zweitwerk (Bestattung eines Hundes hatte ich bereits empfohlen) ‘Gentlemen, wir leben am Abgrund‘ endlich erschienen ist.
Sportliteratur mag nicht jedermanns Sache sein, meine ist es. Vermutlich hängt das mit den aufgewühlten Emotionen durch Extremsituationen und wahnwitzige Dramaturgie zusammen, die Sport so mit sich bringt. Blood, Sweat and Tears. Pletzinger begleitete ein Jahr lang das Basketball Team von Alba Berlin. Wie das Schicksal es so will bis ins fünfte Spiel um die Deutsche Basketballkrone. Spiel 7 um den Stanley Cup wäre das Äquivalent in meiner Welt. Ich war mir während der ersten Kapitel des Buchs nicht sicher, ob die Zeitsprünge in seiner Erzählung wirklich nötig sind. Ich fragte mich, warum dieses Stilmittel, kommt hier der Postmoderne mögende Literaturwissenschaftler durch? Irgendwann jedoch passen die Puzzleteile zusammen und bilden ein ganzes – und dann nimmt das Buch noch mehr Geschwindigkeit auf und der Leser marschiert Richtung Finale.
Für mich ein Page-Turner, unbedingte Leseempfehlung!
