Weekdays at 7am on Channel 11 (Saturdays too I think) we had Slam Bang Theater, featuring Icky Twerp plus all the Three Stooges and cartoons they could pack into an hour.  The intro theme song was a rousing march followed by a spirited “Hey Kids – good morning!” from the network announcer.  You can take a trip down memory lane at IckyTwerp.net.  That tune stayed in my head through the years, so a while back I dug up the clues to find the origin of the theme.

Oh, Didn’t He Ramble (Slam Bang Theater)

The tune is called “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble” from a 1959 LP called “Bill Cullen’s Minstrel Spectacular.”  The famous game-show host puts on his white tuxedo and guides the listener through what it was like when the old minstrel show pulled into town on a paddle-wheel riverboat.  Or rather, it’s an idealized, white-washed 1950′s nostalgia version of a piece of Americana that most of us try to forget, I suppose.  More about the album here.  The minstrel show’s contribution to American musical theater (Broadway in particular) is fascinating stuff, but that’s another story.ИкониikoniИдея за подаръкикониикониПравославни икониикони на светцииконописikoniсвети георгиikoniхудожник на икониИкони на светци

Next we spent a few days with Mom in her home town of Rock Rapids, Iowa, then visited Lovriens at Lake Okoboji.  Then on Father’s Day we drove through several notable towns (to me at least), with my wonderful daughter Stephanie buying meals.  First, the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend… magnificent.  Then to Union Cemetery in Humboldt, where more Lovriens are buried than anywhere else.  Visited my grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather’s graves for the 1st time.

We then headed into Cherokee, where I realized I should visit my aunt there but I had not called ahead.  She and her family were wonderfully accommodating and we had a nice visit.  Then to Quimby, my dad’s hometown, to visit my grandmother’s grave.  Then back to Omaha to spend the rest of the evening and the next day with my dad.

Be sure to click the photo above to view the full slideshow.икони

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The event was top-notch, top to bottom.  Held at the beautiful Marriott Legacy in Plano, it was a ritzy black-tie gala and we were happy to be a part of it.  Best of all, the audio-visual guys really outdid themselves.  Excellent sound and lighting everywhere, giant video screens to each side of the stage, and they videotaped the whole thing with a 3 camera setup.  We felt like we were on Austin City Limits!

So we just got our hands on the video and I have been cutting it up and uploading it to YouTube one song at a time.  One video included below, and click here to see the full playlist. If you have a high-speed Internet connection, be sure to look for the “watch in high quality” link – it makes a huge difference!

The piece I wrote last year for the Dallas Wind Symphony‘s Christmas concert is selling like hotcakes for the upcoming holiday season. It is easily the #1 best-seller from the Lovebird Music catalog this year. I was informed this morning that the United States Navy Band will be performing it on Dec. 5th. Have you heard it yet? If not, have a listen.

The idea started with an arrangement of “Pat-a-pan” that I did in 2006 as a demo of the capabilities of the Garritan Personal Orchestra sample library. Pat-a-pan is such a cool minor-key tune, almost Slavic sounding, and I wanted to slip some other Christmas-themed material into it, so I decided to transpose “Up On The Housetop” to minor. It worked out great and the arrangement was completed…

Several months later, as the DWS Christmas concert approached I came back to the same idea and started to expand on it. Grace and I were driving to my daughter’s orchestra concert when idea started coming quickly and I started giggling. She wanted to know what it was all about and I hummed some “warped” variations to her. She loved the idea. The layers and the “jokes within jokes” came together very quickly; taking tunes like “Here Comes Santa Claus” and transposing them to minor… oh wait, Danny Elfman did it just like that in “Nightmare Before Christmas,” didn’t he? OK, I’ll have to do better. Let’s make it a waltz… yes, that works. In fact it sounds a little like… ooh! Let’s use the accompaniment pattern from Shostakovich’s Waltz No. 2! Gosh, do you think people will get that? Hmm, better drop a couple bars of the melody on the end to make sure…

Then I had to assemble them all into a form. How about arranging them in tempo order from slow to fast, like a Jewish Hora? That way it builds energy from start to finish. Drop the waltz variations in the middle and it works great. It seems to hit the right balance between “sounds nothing like the original” and “oh, I know what tune that was.” And it’s a nice change of pace for Christmas concerts where things can get sickeningly sweet, like too much candy on Christmas morning.