Hal Crook Play-Alongs Online

Yes, finals are approaching and many students will be heading out for the summer, but don't forget about the library while you're away. We can help you keep your chops up wherever you are with our online Hal Crook Play-Alongs. For each piece, you can download an MP3 that includes all instruments or one that leaves out piano, bass or drums and download a PDF of a lead sheet for your instrument. There are over 40 pieces to choose from, and they are rated by level of difficulty and tempo.

Happy Birthday, Kim Gordon

After a few too many posts about death, I wanted to celebrate life. Kim Gordon, the iconic bass player and singer for Sonic Youth turns 58 today. We have plenty of music and videos by the band as well as books about the band. If the full list is too daunting, a good starting point is their 1988 album Daydream Nation (CD 293).

RIP Phoebe Snow and Poly Styrene

The death knell keeps sounding, this time for two female singers who carved unique identities in the 1970s, singer/songwriter Phoebe Snow and Poly Styrene, leader of the punk band X-Ray Spex. NPR offers a tribute to Snow, and Slicing Up Eyeballs rounds up some of Styrene's videos and an eloquent tribute from Billy Bragg. Explore more of their work here at the library.

Phoebe Snow:
CDs
It Looks Like Snow, CD 4639
Never Letting Go, CD 5898
Phoebe Snow, CD 4648
Second Childhood, CD 9817
Something Real, CD 6653

Score
Phoebe Snow, MP1630.S645 P4

DVD
Phoebe Snow and David Bromberg, DVD 85

Poly Styrene
CD
Germfree adolescents / X-Ray Spex, CD 16754

DVDs
Punk: Attitude, DVD 1705-1706
Punk: The Early Years, DVD 3313

RIP TV on the Radio bassist Gerald Smith

TV on the Radio bassist Gerald Smith, 36, lost his battle with lung cancer on April 20. Come to the Media Center to listen to and watch his work with the band, including Dear Science (CD 30479 ) which topped the 2008 Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll.

National Grilled Cheese Month

You can't bring food into the library, but that shouldn't stop you from celebrating National Grilled Cheese Month. Some cheese-related items in our collection:

Frank Zappa, You Are What You Is, CD 2823
The liner notes open with an essay by Zappa entitled "Say Cheese" about our being a nation who chooses cheese. Zappa claims that it was written for Newsweek but rejected as too "idiosyncratic."

String Cheese Incident, 'Round the Wheel, CD 15292

Primus, Sailing the Seas of Cheese, CD 9641 and Score MP136.P75 S2

Ween, Chocolate and Cheese, CD 19475

Nirvana, Bleach, CD 25662, Score MP126.N58 B5
Includes the song "Big Cheese"

Robyn Hitchcock, Jewels for Sophia, CD 20374

Includes the song "The Cheese Alarm"

George & Ira Gershwin's Strike Up the Band, CD 7602
Includes the song "Fletcher's American Cheese Choral Society"

Edgar Meyer with Béla Fleck and Mike Marshall, Uncommon Ritual, CD 19351
Includes the song "The Big Cheese"

Remembering Joey Ramone

Joey Ramone, the gangly lead singer of one of the most influential punk bands, the Ramones, died ten years ago today after losing his battle with lymphatic cancer.

Of course the library has lots of material by the Ramones and about the Ramones.

A few highlights:

The Ramones, CD 23275
Their 1976 debut album that regularly turns up in lists of the greatest albums ever recorded. As Joey Ramone states in Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (ML3534 .P54 1996), the band recorded the album for $6,400 in a week at a time when superstar acts like Fleetwood Mac had recording budgets of half a million dollars and would spend years making an album. No wonder songs like "Blitzkrieg Bop" were hailed as a cleansing breath of fresh air compared to the bloated, rotting corpse of rock and roll at that time.

The Ramones: End of the Century, DVD 1593
It tells the story of the band but doesn't gloss over their difficult personalities.

Sleater-Kinney wrote a song in tribute to him, "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone," for their 1996 album Call the Doctor, CD 15498

National Library Week Trivia Contest

To celebrate National Library Week, Stan Getz Library will be posting library-related trivia questions to Twitter today and tomorrow. The contest is open to Berklee affiliates. We're giving away free burritos.

Follow us on Twitter.