For anyone that appreciates good acapella, check out http://www.davincisnotebook.com and listen to a couple of their songs. Superb. Also, Enormous Penis is such a cool song title 
Great group, good songs. I’ve got Bob & Tom to thank for introducing them. EP is simply excellent.
If you dig a capella may I also suggest:
The Bobs
Rockapella
The Capitol Steps (political satire)
forgot…
Add Sweet Honey and the Rock if you groove on spirituals. They are very talented ladies.
Hey thinksnow how ya doin’? I agree. That’s where I heard them from.
Spritle I just happen to have a video of Mike Keneally and various other former members of Frank Zappa’s numerous bands and it includes Rockapella as well as another acpella doo-wop group whose name escape me at the moment. I seem to recall hearing The Bobs before but can’t remember where…
Ya know…I really should spellcheck before clicking submit…sigh.
In any case, the video is actually around two hours long and is nothing but Zappa tunes.
If you can’t guess, I’m quite a Zappa fan(atic).
I don’t dig a capella but I did think this was going to be another Bill Gates rant.
I believe I know what you are referring to, so I will comply with your wishes.
It has long been the practice of Robber Barons and emperors to purchase expensive and rare works of art, in a feeble attempt to change their public image from rapacious greedheads to patrons of the arts. One example is the famous DaVinci notebook pages known as the Codex Leicester. Note that due to the oddities of of English prononciation, Leicester is pronounced “lester.”
The Codex was intended to be the centerpiece of Armand Hammer’s museum in Los Angeles, but under threat of a lawsuit from Oxy Petroleum’s shareholders, Hammer was forced to sell his massive art collection that was purchased with shareholder funds. Bill Gates purchased the Codex Leicester from Armand Hammer for a sum of $30.8 million dollars.
Recently, it was reported in the prestigious art history journal “The Art Newspaper” that Bill Gates was invited to be the speaker at an event at the New York Museum of Modern Art. He spoke to the assembled audience of art patrons, artists, and art historians about his Codex Leicester. Except he committed a gaffe in front of this well-educated audience, he continually referred to it as the “Codex Lay-kester.” And then he launched into a sales pitch for one of his companies, The Corbis Archives, which has purchased the copyrights to millions of images formerly offered at nominal charges by museums around the world. The audience was appalled.
Well it just goes to show that money won’t buy you culture.
Well, I wouldn’t say that it was my wish to have a Bill Gates rant, just that I was expecting one.
The mispronounciation thing surprises me, though. He certainly knew how to pronounce it when he bought it.
But he is to be commended for even talking about it. If it were me, I’d buy the notebook and then spend the next decade manufacturing a convincing fake. All the while I would not talk about it and ignore requests to talk about it. Then, on the tenth anniversary of the purchase I would call a press conference where I would douse the fake in gasoline before a stunned audience and burn it to a small lump of charcoal.
I would spend the rest of my life basking in the glow of society’s hatred and gigling to myself as I looked at it every night in my special vault knowing that no either eyes would see while I continue to live. My dying thought would be bouyed by the realization of the shock that waited everybody in two weeks when my will was read and the joy of learning that the notebook still exists will be quickly dashed as they learn I have bequeathed the notebook to the American Arsonist Association.
But that’s just me.
I saw Da Vinci’s Notebook in January in Northampton (opening for The Bobs, in fact). Title of the Song is brilliant.
I loveDVN! I’ve seen them live twice now, but my mom (the perennial a cappella groupie) sorta knows/hangs out with Richard and Bernie, so I feel like I’ve seen more shows than I really have. Title of the Song is funny, but Three Little Words is very convenient in that now I can listen to a Meat Loaf album in three minutes as opposed to the 45-60 minutes it used to take.
Also, I cannot reccomend The Bobs and Rockapella enough. Go see them now. Buy the CDs. You will be a happy music consumer.
Have you ever seen a movie called “The Moderns?” Same theme. You really should see it.
And no, Gates didn’t come to speak about the Codex, he came to speak about Corbis. Except he was INVITED to talk about the Codex. The speech was interpreted as a blatant sales pitch to museum curators to allow Gates to buy up the reproduction rights to every museum artwork in the world.
I just realized that my current sig is actually an exchange between Richard Hsu of DVN and Joe Finetti of The Bobs from back in January when they shared the stage at The Bottom Line. It may not look like much in print, but at the time, I was about to fall out of my chair laughing. Plus, we got to hear Kingdom in the Sky and A Cappella Choir in the Sky back to back. See, both groups contain talented singers who deliver the funny in large, Utah-sized packages. You go buy CD now. 