This isn’t related to Christmas, but I recently completed this project from the archives I’ve been editing, and so I’m putting it up. Sometime in the late 1990s, Craig Padilla produced a series of music events at the Schreder Planetarium in Redding. We played as a 4 piece band in darkness, while special lighting effects and the stars wheeled overhead on the dome. Along with Craig playing synths and guitar, I played more synthesizers, and ran some lighting. Al Mires of Music Max in Palo Cedro played electric guitar, and Dave Barnett of local band Montuno Salad played drums and percussion. I have offered some of the individual tracks before, but this is the first time I have presented the entire first set as a whole. It runs just over 40 minutes. This set of music is different when heard in totality, rather than as individual tracks.
Planetarium Show Live (Set 1) by SkipMurphy
I think it holds up very well over time. Hearing it again today , this rainy Christmas day, I am struck by just how ambitious the whole project was. It’s a fairly complex composition, played in near total darkness. As any live recording, it has some imperfections, and since it was recorded to analog 2 track, there’s no remixing. It is what it is. I feel proud of the effort, and I relish the artistic eloquence we brought to the planetarium venue. Thanks to Craig for putting the shows together, and for letting me contribute to his unique and original music. Thanks to Al and Dave as well. It was hard work, but we had fun too. Give it a listen and see what you think.
The spoken word art at the conclusion is Craig’s long departed grandmother, taken from a cherished message machine tape, speaking to us all from the across the divide between this world and the next:
Oh fudge and damn
I forgot
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Stick this machine
in your maple surple
That’s prose
This is Mom
Just being a little silly on Valentine’s Day
Love y’all.
Although it’s not specifically Christmas music, I hope you enjoy the mix. I submit that it’s the indigenous music of 21st Century Redding; it’s ReallyRedding.
