Category Archives: Music

Not my Mother’s Irish Music, Doolin’ and Skerryvore at Tulsa’s Irishfest

Last weekend Heather and I ventured out to Tulsa Irishfest. One of those long time events that came to an end when covid hit and this year they brought it back for the first time since. We were in the mood for a little Irish beer and some music. The only Irish music I know is the jigs and such and they are okay but nothing I could get excited about. Did I get woken up by what I heard.

There is this Irish band out of France, what? They call themselves Doolin’. And wow, they can play. They can rock!! We and the rest of the audience loved them. Check the link for their facebook site. Check the videos. Their songs are not about drinking and such, they are about life and love. The message is great.

The other Irish band we saw was Skerryvore. They are actually from Scotland. Again, they can rock and their songs have a great message. The lead singer has such a voice.

We saw some other bands as well but these were my top two. Heather and I went home and downloaded a ton of their music and that is all I have been listening to since. We are going back to Tulsa’s Irishfest next year and hope that these guys are returning.

The Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma

In 2016 the Tulsa based George Kaiser Family Foundation purchased Bob Dylan’s archives from him and several years later opened up the Bob Dylan Center in the Arts District just north of Downtown Tulsa. I visited it recently.

The archive consists of over 100,000 items. Everything from clothes, to piano frames, to manuscripts, art works, music recordings, diaries, all sorts of records. Dylan was some sort of pack rat it appears and now his collection is in a place where it can be cataloged, preserved, and put on display.

The center starts with Bobby Zimmerman from Hibbing, Minnesota and goes on from there through all his various personal permutations and tribulations.

One of the supercool features of the center are these Ipods that are activated at dozens of touchpoints throughout the facility. You can hear interviews, music footage, reviews and all sorts of stuff. I thought these were very nice and worked lots better than similar things I have used at other museums. And it is covered under your admission price.

I’ll have to admit that I was never much of a Dylan fan. He was about half a generation ahead of me and so he and I never synched up except for a few songs.

What I learned about Dylan though was that he was all about the music and not so much about sales. He morphed several times in his career, folk music to rock, to country, to gospel. Sometimes his fans didn’t really want to go with him, he didn’t care, he did what he had to do.

The center picked out several songs and displays in detail the painstaking process that Dylan went through writing and rewriting the songs, sometimes it would take years. The guy put everything he had into his music.

He kept his scribblings as he worked things over and over and changed the songs over time.

They also have many of the costumes he wore over the years in his concerts.

There is a gigantic virtual juke box machine curated by Elvis Costello containing almost every song he ever did, or wrote, or collaborated with somebody else on. Turns out he wrote lots of songs for other performers.

I was there for a couple hours and went over everything twice and listened on the ipod to at list a little bit of dozens of songs and interviews. It was overwhelming. I told me wife about it. She is all about music and now she is all excited about going, so I get to go again!!

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 for his body of work. Reading his thoughts about it, it took him a while to understand that. He just couldn’t figure out why a songwriter was deserving of the honor. He accepted it though.

I strongly recommend the center. I loved it. And right down the block is the Woody Guthrie Center. Go check it out. I did a few years ago.

Here is a musical interlude. I told you that I wasn’t much of a fan but I loved Hurricane from 1975’s Blood on the Tracks album.

Katy Perry at the BOK Center

Heather and I went to see Katy Perry at the BOK Center here in Tulsa Monday night. We get lots of really nice concerts here in Tulsa and they are mainly on weeknights because the big popular guys and gals like to spend the weekends in the big cities where I guess they can make more money.

Anywho here we were at the concert late Monday night along with half the areas teenage and pre-teenage girls and their moms. Including our next door neighbor’s teenage daughter who sat right in front of us. We each pretended to act like we didn’t see the other.

I bet that there were lots of tired grumpy girls in class on Tuesday!! The concert didn’t let out until 11:30. That was late,even for me.

Anyway Katy Perry sang, and danced, and changed costumes, and then sang, and danced, and changed costumes again.

She sang loud and she sang soft, she sang while standing on the stage, laying on the stage and sitting on thrones.

She even sang wearing a cat suit.

And she sang while wearing a birthday suit (fully clothed of course, she is very classy)

Her guitarists flew through the air. I missed the shot where the guitars shot flame. Darn!!

She sang while adjusting her costume.

Did I mention something about flying through the air?

Oh yes, and she sang on a horse.

And she sang to everybody. She has quite the connection with the audience. That is what I like the connection. She can do it. Not quite like Michael Buble and Taylor Swift (nobody connects with her fans like Taylor Swift!) but Katy puts on a great show.

Now lets switch over the other people. This guy with the Murse is Katy Perry’s father Keith Hudson. He is a preacher!! He has a blog and made a very interesting post about meeting President Obama at the White House. Check it out!!

And I’m sorry, if you are taking a selfie, then I get to take a picture also. Its one of Newton’s laws of selfies. Something about for every photo taken then an equal an opposite photo must be taken. So I’m just representing the balance of nature.

I know this is a cute couple. I hope they don’t get mad. I don’t know why they would.

Ah, yes, well, ahem. Okay

Here is a little youtube of Katy. She really is quite talented and comes across as very grounded.

Edit this setlist | More Katy Perry setlists

And of course the set list. Gotta have the set list.

All in all, one of the better concerts we’ve been to in the last few years.

So, what do you think of Katy Perry?

Song-Ography – All You Need is Love by the Beatles

“All You Need Is Love”

Written by: Gary Glitter, Paul Mccartney, Mike Leander, John Lennon

Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It’s easy

Nothing you can make that can’t be made
No one you can save that can’t be saved
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time
It’s easy

Yesterday (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Oh yeah! (Love is all you need)
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah (Love is all you need)
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah (Love is all you need)

Linking up with:

Song-ography

Heart in Concert – Ann and Nancy Wilson at The Joint

(Sorry about the photo’s I did my best!)

Last Thursday, the day before V Day Heather and I with some friends went to see Heart at The Joint here in Tulsa. Ann and Nancy Wilson gave the crowd a great performance. They played their hits from the 70’s and 80’s and some Led Zeppelin covers. They sounded wonderful and were very lively.

I think everybody left satisfied. I hope they decide to come back. Check out their website here.

They didn’t play Stairway to Heaven here in Tulsa but they played it on television not too long ago. Check them out.

Have you been to a good concert lately.

Song-ography – Bare Naked Ladies Edition – “If I Had A Million Dollars”

Well, this is a good way to increase my Google search rating. Every perv in the world is going to be hitting on this post but I don’t have what they are looking for. The Barenaked Ladies are a Canadian Band and they have some really good offbeat ironic songs, many of them are hilarious. This week Song-ography’s prompt is the Barenaked Ladies “If I Had a Million Dollars.” Song-ography is fun meme that comes out on Sundays hosted by Kath at You’ll Shoot Your Eyes Out where you try to match up photographs with songs. It is a lot of fun!

If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
Well, Id buy you a house
I would buy you a house

(Sorry Sweetie, a million dollars just doesn’t go as far as it used to. You have to admit though the view is great.)

And if I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
Id buy you furniture for your house
Maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman

(Or how about a good deal on a wood stove. You know using wood warms you twice.)

And if I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
Well, Id buy you a K-Car
A nice reliant automobile
And if I had a million dollars, Id buy your love

(I know it doesn’t look that great Sweetie but it runs great and has good rubber.)

If I had a million dollars
Id build a tree-fort in our yard
If I had a million dollars you could help
It wouldnt be that hard

(I’d like to build you a tree fort but the tree is not cooperating.)

If I had a million dollars
Maybe we could put a little tiny fridge
In there somewhere
We could just go up there and hang out

Like open the fridge and stuff
And thered all be foods laid out for us
Like little pre-wrapped sausages and things

(I promise, once I get the oven working, I’ll start on the fridge. I mean right after I write a post about fixing the oven.)

They have pre-wrapped sausages
But they dont have pre-wrapped bacon
Well, can you blame them?
Yeah

If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
Well, Id buy you a fur a coat
But not a real fur coat, thats cruel

(Well, the bare chested PETA girls that came to town last year don’t really like fur coats, or soooo they sayyyyyy!) (This photo is for the pervs that showed up looking for one thing and decided to stay for a while. You guys can go now.)

And if I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
Well, Id buy you an exotic pet
Yep, like a llama or an emu

(How about a centipede, we already have too many big critters in the house.)

And if I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
Well, Id buy you John Merricks remains
All them crazy elephant bones
And if I had a million dollars Id buy your love

If I had a million dollars
We wouldnt have to walk to the store
If I had a million dollars
Wed take a Limousine cause it costs more

(Well you know it is colorful. Problem is that the color, symbol, and slogan are probable causes for everything from conspiracy to jaywalking on up.)

If I had a million dollars
We wouldnt have to eat Kraft dinner
But we would eat Kraft dinner

(Or a foot long coney, the PETA girls wouldn’t want that either, or sooo theyyyy sayyy!!! Remaining pervs can leave now. Please!!)

Of course we would, wed just eat more
And buy really expensive ketchups with it
Thats right, all the fanciest Dijon ketchups

(That is as fancy as it gets around here.)

If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
Well, Id buy you a green dress
But not a real green dress, thats cruel

(I mean really, who wears green dresses? Green is not even a color, its a mixture of colors.)

And if I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
Well, Id buy you some art
A Picasso or a Garfunkel

(How do you like it Sweetie! Isn’t it grand! We’ll put it by the television, yes in our house. Uh uh, yes the living room. What do you mean return it? It’s a work of art! A million bucks doesn’t get you a Picasso anymore Sweetie!)

If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
Well, Id buy you a monkey
Havent you always wanted a monkey?
If I had a million dollars Id buy your love

(Uh, well yeah, he might could fix the oven faster than I am, but I bet you that he doesn’t have a blog. What do you mean that that is a big plus?)

If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
Id be rich

(Hey, I am rich without the million dollars)

Songwriters: Ed Robertson, Steven Page

Song-ography

Song-ography – Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me”

“Lean On Me” by Bill Withers

“Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain, we all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there’s always tomorrow”

(SuperPizzaBoy, Sweetie, and Yogi horsing around at Orange Beach earlier this summer.)

“Lean on me when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on”

Growing up “Lean on Me” was one of those songs always in the background and wore very well. I never got tired of it but I never thought much about it either. It was just a great basic song that was part of my life.

Song-ography is a meme sponsored by Kathy at You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out. She has a different song every week that you use as a theme for your post and you link in Sunday Morning. Check it out.

Song-ography

Brady District Art Crawl

Friday night the Yogi’s decided to get out and do something besides watch the old boob tube.

We went to Brady District just north of downtown Tulsa for the First Friday Art Crawl.

We saw all sorts of art in museums and galleries.

A lot of it was fun. We met a few acquaintances and chatted. It was fun.

I found some reflective stuff and I captured Sweetie and SuperPizzaBoy. I cut off my own son’s head. That is awfull!! That’s okay though, he’s at that age where he’ll grow a new one overnight. You can see me in the pic above if you can figure out where to look.

At the Philbrook Museum’s new Brady District facility I saw my new avatar. It is a work of art and I am sure that I’m violating several laws but this is already my new facebook profile pic. Speaking of facebook, why are we not friends yet? I’m running out of people to unfriend me.