…and crawled off to sleep in the bath.

holiday cheer, 12/05

1. Starlight on Union Square.

2. I wonder what the SC stands for.

3. Ghost trees on the Lower East Side.

postal workers canceling stamps at the university of ghana post office

“Postal Workers Canceling Stamps at the University of Ghana Post Office” – field recording by Jim Koetting (File expires on December 14th.) .

This is a remarkable field recording that I first encountered in Rod Knight’s world music class at Oberlin College. “Postal Workers Canceling Stamps at the University of Ghana Post Office” is a pretty well spread track, and I imagine it gets taught in many/most world music courses, but there’s no harm in spreading it further. The content is exactly what the title implies, yet it still surprises and floors me just as much as it did the first time I heard it. From the textbook we used:

The men making the sounds you hear are workers canceling letters at the University of Ghana post office… This is what you are hearing: the two men seated at the table slap a letter rhythmically several times to bring it from the file to the position on the table where it is to be canceled (this act makes a light-sounding thud). The marker is inked one or more times (the lowest, most resonant sound you hear) and then stamped on the letter (the high-pitched mechanized sound you hear). As you can hear, the rhythm produced is not a simple one-two-three (bring forward the letter — ink the marker — stamp the letter). Rather, musical sensitivities take over. Several slaps on the letter bring it down, repeated thuds of the marker in the ink pad and multiple cancellations are done for rhythmic interest… The other sounds you hear have nothing to do with the work itself. A third man has a pair of scissors that he clicks — not cutting anything, but adding to the rhythm…. the fourth worker simply whistles along. He and any of the other three workers who care to join him whistle popular tunes or church music that kits the rhythm.

(Blast, I see that WFMU recently blogged this track, too. Fuckers. This has been in my backlog since October.)

links of dubious usefulness

o Reportedly, Bob Dylan recently gave Neil Young a copy of this box set as a gift. Gotta git my hands on that one.

o Get yourself a Team Zissou identification card.

o Earlier this year, the Coen brothers and writer Charlie Kaufman (“Being John Malkovich,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) created “sound plays” for the Theater For the New Ear. Scored by longtime Coens’ collaborator Carter Burwell, the one-acts starred (among others) John Goodman, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Steve Buscemi, and Meryl Streep. Burwell has posted some excerpts on his website. They’re ridiculously tantalizing, if a bit cryptic without context. Hopefully, they’ll see full release in the future. (Particularly bitchin’ and self-contained is Kaufman’s Computer Love.)

o JEFF GOLDBLUM IS WATCHING YOU POOP! (Told you.)

more on the dead/archive.org brouhaha

I guest-blogged again over at LiveMusicBlog.com. Could the story be over? Is it an end or the beginning?

neutral milk hotel

I sometimes have a hard time expressing how important Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea remains to me. (Sometimes.) Without getting all obsessive, some links of interest:

o Some “new” old Jeff Mangum tapes have been posted online. They’re very much in the vein of the other pre-Avery Island projects that have been circulating. “How did Aeroplane happen?” people ask. The answer — as these tapes prove — is very slowly.

o Over at John Darnielle’s Last Plane to Jakarta, there’s a very thoughtful discussion about the ethics of circulating old tapes and demos, with a few chimings from the head Mountain Goat himself. Given the totally inspiring Elephant 6 enthusiasm for exchanging music, I don’t think it’s wrong to be circulating these. For that matter, I think to call them “demos” is to sell them short. Just because they were never issued on CD makes them no less important. In fact, it makes them more quintessentially E6.

o This week also sees the publication of Kim Cooper’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea volume in Continuum’s 33 1/3 series. I read it over the weekend (thanks, Wendy!), and enjoyed it quite a bit, though it’s more of a play-by-play than an attempt to channel or explain the album’s beauty. More of an emphasis on the latter, I think, would have served the former. But, hey, it’s added invaluably to the way I understand Aeroplane without robbing it of any of its mystery. In fact, I think I’ll listen to it right now.

o In the fall of 2002, Jeff Mangum hosted nine radio shows for New Jersey’s WFMU. The only way to grok their mind-bending diversity is to peep the playlists. Or, better yet, check ’em out yourself. A spoiler of sorts: episode 1 begins with one of Jeff’s rare post-Aeroplane creations, a spectacularly weird Korena Pang sound collage, “To Animate The Body With The Cocoon of the Her Unconscious Christ The Mother Removes Her Death Body of 1910 Only To Be Reborn In The Same Spirit as a School of Blow Fish Believing in the Coming of the Milk Christ.”

o In early 2001, Jeff and Elf Power’s Laura Carter played a show at a random-ass bar in New Zealand, where they were camping and visiting (and recording) with the Tall Dwarfs. It remains Jeff’s only public performance of his own songs since 1998. It took, I think, two years for the news of the show to reach the States, and another two years for the tape to circulate. It’s an ultra-crispy soundboard, and — for reasons Jeff explains — an ultra-powerful performance. Perhaps a bit unforgiving, it’s well worth hearing any Aeroplane fan. Check it.

saturday night in nyc, 11/05

1:02 am Asian markets provide respite.

1:04 am Jealous of silicon, neon broods behind grated shop windows.

1:24 am When society’s dominant sensual paradigm finally switches from sight to smell and cell phone manufacturers are forced to provide odor messaging, this picture will (retroactively) make a lot more sense. Flowers trapped under bodega awnings are just the best.

3:05 am On the First Avenue subway platform, MTA employees cluster, seemingly unmindful of what appears to be a human body several feet away from them…

3:06 am…or, perhaps, they put the dummy there to fuck with people (though that doesn’t explain the fishing twine) (nor the rectangular legs) who are waiting patiently to go home and crawl into bed.

“playmate” – pearls before swine

“Playmate” – Pearls Before Swine (file expires on December 8th)
from One Nation Underground (1967)
reissued by ESP-Disk (buy)

Watched a fair bit of Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home Dylan documentary last month. In it, Dylan talks about how musicians began imitating him, doing “some kind of jingly-jangly thing” (I think that was his phrase). He doesn’t name names, but — clearly — Pearls Before Swine’s “Playmate” falls under this heading. It’s got a jangly thing going, alrighty: the still-fresh organ-driven buoyancy of Blonde on Blonde backed by a rhythmic hook lifted directly from “Desolation Row.” And vocalist Tom Rapp sounds more like Dylan than Dylan (at least on this cut) (1). It’s pretty alright, as far as these Nuggets-style derivatives go. As Dylan himself (most likely) knew, there really was a peculiar emotional effect created by that particular combination of carnival organ and electric guitar that probably couldn’t be described as anything but jangly. There’s material on One Nation Underground — recently rereleased by ESP-Disk — that’s far more original (and, er, “influential”), but “Playmate” is certainly a curiosity for the cabinet.

(1) Rapp grew up nearby Dylan in Minnesota. If you believe what you read on the internets (and why shouldn’t you?), Rapp once beat l’il Bobby Zimmerman in a songwriting contest (finishing 2nd to Zimmy’s 6th). No shit? Maybe when they’re singing they’re both doing imitations of the Iron Range’s regional ghosts?

archive.org debacleness

For those of you who didn’t end up here via my post at LiveMusicBlog.com: I made the first of what will hopefully be occasional guest entries over thar, a rant on the aforementoned.

For those of you who did end up here via that post: hallo!

Either way, Brewster’s post at archive.org restoring access to many Grateful Dead recordings seems to conclude this misfit-brand news cycle, though there’s plenty left to the story, though.

nature trail to hell (in 3-D)

High school in Northport, New York was made oddly bearable by the fact that I ended up hanging out with some truly gifted and committed geeks. In autumn 1993, a year before I transferred in, they staged a mammoth production of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Nature Trail To Hell (in 3-D)” as part of the school variety show, replete with note-perfect metal shredding, a choral arrangement, a dude ripping his shirt off, and my friend Evan hacking up Cub Scouts with a plastic machete. Pretty impressive for a bunch of 15 year-olds.

On Thanksgiving, three Al tunes came up on my shuffle; on Friday, Bill (the bassist in the video) heard “Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung” in a bar (“they just went back to normal bar music after that… it’s like I hallucinated it,” he texted me), and now Matt — the keyboardist dude at stage left — finally digitized (and subtitled) the video. As he blogs, “Geeks rejoice! A crowd of rowdy teenagers will cheer for you. Especially if you’ve got a guy on stage with a machete chasing around a bunch of cub scouts.”

Totally lo-fi, totally inspiring. Thanks, Matt.

Here it is, in all its glory: Nature Trail to Hell (in 3-D). (8.5 MB, wmv file).

useful things

Besides obvious, everyday web tools — Wikipedia, the All Music Guide, the Internet Movie Database, Flickr, and such — I’ve come across a few other handy useful digital devices and information sources. Some are more utilitarian than others. There’s a lot of bullshit on the web, this blog fully included, and I have a certain fondness for pages that exist with genuine purpose.

o YouSendIt — A simple way to temporarily share files among groups of people without emailing them to everybody. Perfect for mp3s.

o BugMeNot.com — Shared logins for websites that require both free and paid registration, like the New York Times and MediaBistro. BugMeNot doesn’t always work but — when it does — it’s frickin’ sweet.

o PodWorks — This is one of the only pieces of downloaded software I have ever paid for. For a whopping $8, I can now copy music from my iPod back onto my computer, which is awesome, since my harddrive just isn’t big enough to hold all the music on my pod. By allowing me to copy songs, playlists, and albums, it converts my iPod from a play-only memory box into a functional harddrive.

o iWannaSleep — I like to listen to a really long shuffled playlist of quiet, purdy tunes while I’m falling asleep. This cute-as-a-button app is a sleep function for iTunes. Simple.

o Oblique Strategies widget — I have an old HyperCard edition of Brian Eno’s wondrous Oblique Strategies deck, though it clumsily opens OS 9 whenever I fire it up. I haven’t yet upgraded to OS 10.4 but, when I do, this Oblique widget will be my first download.

o Find A Human — If I call a customer support line, it’s generally because I can’t find the information I need online and would really like to speak to a person. I hate, hate, hate the hierarchy of menus I often have to go through to get there. Enter the IVR cheat sheet, which has come through with flying colors both times I’ve used it. Like the washing machine in the basement of my building that secretly only requires one quarter in the middle slot (shhhh!), these are video game codes for real life.

o The Hidden In-n-Out Burger — As a lifelong right-coaster, I admittedly have no practical use for the complete secret menu of In-n-Out Burger (those are good burgers, Walter), but some you westerly weirdoes might.

a day in transit, 10/05

Perhaps because it’s so stressful, air travel is a mighty reliable source for Zen in the new, weird America.

1. An early morning shoeshine in MacArthur Airport’s imperial new extension.

2. Iconography.

3. In which we achieve levity.

“alice’s restaurant” – arlo guthrie

“Alice’s Restaurant” – Arlo Guthrie (File expires on November 30th.)
from Alice’s Restaurant (1967)

It all started 40 Thanksgivings ago — that’s 40 years ago on Thanksgiving — that Arlo Guthrie ran afoul of the law in sleepy Stockbridge, Massachusetts and found himself in jail for littering, an offense that would later free him from the draft, and provide gristle for the above linked-to 18-minute boomer/rockist campfire yarn called “Alice’s Restaurant” (remember Alice?) that doesn’t really have anything to do with Alice or the restaurant. Yeah, you’ve heard the song a million times, so what’s once more for an old friend? On Thanksgiving, no less?

In my last SpamBands.com column, I blathered about whether it was possible for digital files to have auras (1). This lo-fi mp3 of “Alice” demonstrates, to me, that they can. I downloaded this from the O.G. Napster one homesick night during (probably) my junior year of college. It’s followed me through three computers, more than a dozen system crashes, three or four different mp3-playing applications and their attendant playlists (its icon belongs to an app whose name I don’t recall), two iPods, without me ever consciously making a back-up.

To me, the shoddy digital flutter on the acoustic guitar is just as distinct as the post-radiator-flood warble on my parent’s vinyl copy. And while I don’t expect all of that to translate universally to whoever downloads this particular copy of “Alice,” I do think that the idiosyncratically subpar sound quality of the recording will have an emotional effect different from a more standard, ripped version. Through mere survival, it has become unique. Yes, most art these days is the product of mechanical reproduction, but not all copies are equal — they all communicate something unique to their medium.

All of which is to say: it’s Thanksgiving and here’s a copy of “Alice’s Restaurant,” where you can still get anything you want.

(1) Don’t feel like giving Google your name?

a whole lotta articles

Oodles of catching up to do. Here goes, organized for your convenience…

Feature:
Café Curiousity: A Shot of Herbie With That Latté, Sir? – feature interview with Herbie Hancock, published in Paste #18.

DVD review:
Video Overview in Deceleration, 1992-2005 – The Flaming Lips, published in Paste #18.

CD reviews:
Cripple Crow – Devendra Banhart, published in Paste #18.
The Sunset Tree – The Mountain Goats, published in May Hear/Say.
Shine – Trey Anastasio
Sixty Six Steps – Leo Kottke and Mike Gordon, published in Paste #18.
Bootleg Series, vol. 7: No Direction Home – Bob Dylan
The Jerry Garcia Collection, vol. 1: Legion of Mary and Pure Jerry: Warner Theater, March 18, 1978 – Jerry Garcia
Takk – Sigur Ros, published in September Hear/Say.
You’re Only As Pretty As You Feel – Caroleen Beatty and Mushroom
Acoustica: Alarm Will Sounds performs Aphex Twin – Alarm Will Sound
Bande Orignale du Film da OUTRE MER – Garage A Trois
Mehenata: New York Gypsymania – various artists

Live reviews:
Sun Ra Arkestra and the MC5 at Summerstage, 30 July 2005
Trey Anastasio at Jones Beach Amphitheater, 6 August 2005
Sufjan Stevens at the Bowery Ballroom, 19 August 2005
Seu Jorge at the Bowery Ballroom, 12 September 2005
The Disco Biscuits at Spirit, 13 September 2005
The White Stripes and The Shins at Keyspan Park, 24 September 2005
Paul McCartney at Madison Square Garden, 1 October 2005
Mike Gordon and Leo Kottke at Irving Plaza, 29 October 2005

Columns:
BRAIN TUBA: Time Passes Slowly
BRAIN TUBA: An Open Letter to Tapers
BRAIN TUBA: Bobology, fall 2005
BRAIN TUBA: Digital Rights Management and Other Digressions

Only in print:
o Rolling Stone #984 (Evangeline Lilly cover): Hot List item, Hot Attempt at Cataloging Everything (p. 92, next to the half-naked hipster chicks).
o Paste #18 (Cameron Crowe cover): album reviews of North Mississippi Allstars and Brian Eno.
o September/October Relix (Santana cover): Only the Pronoid Remain: John Perry Barlow Rides Again; album review of Phish; DVD reviews of Bernie Worrell and Woody Guthrie.
o November Relix (O.A.R. cover): Smoke. Stacks. Lightning: A Librarian Catalogues the Dead; album reviews of Why?, Seu Jorge and Bob Dylan; combined book/DVD review of current Pink Floyd product.
o August Hear/Say: album reviews of John Vanderslice and Son Volt.
o September Hear/Say: album reviews of Steve Kimock and Blues Traveler, book review of Jerry Garcia: The Collected Artwork.
o October Hear/Say: album reviews of Apollo Sunshine and Iron and Wine/Calexico.
o November Hear/Say: album reviews of Bell Orchestre and the Fiery Furnaces.

“london calling” – bob dylan

“London Calling” (wma) – Bob Dylan (re-upped through January 6th.)
21 November 2005, Brixton Academy, London, UK

Fly-by-night, lo-fi, punk-frickin’-rock recording of Dylan performing a solid minute of The Clash’s “London Calling” yesterday in London. The super-digitized distortion on the Windows media file is the 21st century equivalent of an oversaturated cassette bootleg made with a built-in condenser mic (and, hell, for all I know, this recording was made on an oversaturated cassette with a condenser mic). Dylan’s post-“Love and Theft” gruntfest howl is perfectly suited to the medium, cutting through the shit like a rude, distorted guitar and beamed around the world in a matter of hours by an anonymous head. (Thanks, anonymous head!) (…and to Aaron & Russ for pointing it out.)

frow show, it’s the frow show!

Back in the spring, I made four episodes of The Frow Show for the Ropedope Podcast Network. Episode 4 is a late night/headphones-recommended sound collage. Here are the playlists and links.

These editions follow previous stints on WNPT (the fake radio station/closed circuit radio at my high school), WOBC in Oberlin, Ohio (four to six am on Saturday mornings!), and a pirate radio station my friend Jeff set up in his living room (also in Oberlin) whose call letters I can’t recall.

Episode 1: Listen // Playlist
Episode 2: Listen // Playlist
Episode 3: Listen // Playlist
Episode 4: Listen // Playlist

If these don’t work, try here. They seem to have all the Ropeadope podcasts archived.

I’m in the process of putting together some new episodes.

frow show, episode 4 (the sound collage)

A three segment sound collage, with epilogue. Headphones recommended. Listen here.

1. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB

Segment 1 (containing, in roughly this order)
2. excerpt from “Orange Twin Field Works, vol. 1” – Jeff Mangum (from “Orange Twin Field Works, vol. 1”
3. random tracks from “The Lonesome Executive’s Fantastic Tape Recorder” – The Lonesome Executive (from “The Lonesome Executive’s Fantastic Tape Recorder”)
4. “Dripsody” – Hugh Le Caine (from “OHM: Early Gurus of Electronic Music” compilation
5. “Time Steps” – Walter Carlos (from “Walter Carlos’ Clockwork Orange”)
6. “Arrival in Mas” – recorded by David Baker (from “Pitamaha: Music from Bali”)
7. “Oh My God! Nature! Run!” – Funny Cry Happy (from “Postcards: Atlantic City” EP)
8. “To Inflate…” – Korena Pang (from “AUX” compilation)
9. “Black Firs” – A Hawk and a Hacksaw (from “A Hawk and a Hacksaw”)

Segment 2:
10. “(Tape Composition)/Evening Drones/Dusk At Cubist Castle, etc.” – Black Swan Network (from “Black Swan Network vs. Olivia Tremor Control”)

Segment 3 (containing overlapping excerpts from, roughly in this order):
11. “O Relogio” – Os Mutantes (from “Os Mutantes”)
12. “Karmic Light” – Tetsu Inoue (from “Ambient Otaku”)
13. “1/1” – Brian Eno (from “Music For Airports”)
14. “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet” – Gavin Bryars (from “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet”)
15. “Journey Through the Outer Darkness” – Sun Ra (from “Concert For the Comet Kohoutek”)
16. “I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground” – Bascom Lamar Lunsford (from “Anthology of American Folk Music” compilation)

Epilogue:
17. “Sea Song” – Robert Wyatt (from “Rock Bottom”)

frow show, episode 3

Listen here.

1. “Astro Black” – Sun Ra (from “Concert For the Comet Kohoutek”)
2. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
3. “Wowie Zowie” – Frank Zappa (from “Freak Out!”)
4. “Halifax” – Hampton Grease Band (from “Music To Eat”)
5. “NYC Is Like A Graveyard” – The Moldy Peaches (from “The Moldy Peaches”)
6. “Hot Rocks Polka” – Weird Al Yankovic (from “UHF” soundtrack”)
7. “Ruby Tuesday” – Rolling Stones (from “Between The Buttons”)
8. “She Shot A Hole In My Soul” – Clifford Curry (from “Night Train to Nashville” compilation)
9. “Don’t” – Seu Jorge (from “Cru”)
10. “Drifter in the Dark” – Ween (from “Chocolate and Cheese”)
11. “Death Is Only A Dream” – The Stanley Brothers (from “The Complete Rich-R-Tone Recordings”)
12. “Train Song” – Phish (from “Billy Breathes”)
13. “Strange Fruit” – Robert Wyatt (from “Nothing Can Stop Us”)
14. “Nannou” – Aphex Twin (from “Windowlicker” EP)

frow show, episode 2

Listen here.

1. “Walking at Night on Key West” – Allen Ginsberg (from “Holy Soul Jelly Roll” box set)
2. “Go” – Apples in Stereo (from “Discovery of a World Inside the Moone”)
3. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
4. “Radio India #1” – Sublime Frequencies (from “Radio India: The Eternal Dream of Sound”
5. “Alabama” – Mark de Gli Antoni (from “Horse Tricks”)
6. “Non Dirle Che Non E’ Cosi’ (If You See Her, Say Hello)” – Francesco De Gregori (from “Masked and Anonymous” soundtrack)
7. “Sweet Young Thing” – The Monkees (from “The Monkees”)
8. “The Enemy” – Matt Van Winkle
9. “94 The Hard Way” – Jim O’Rourke (from “Bad Timing”)
10. “Phonoballoon Song” – Takako Minekawa (from “Candy Cloud Calculator”)
11. “My Boy Lollipop” – Millie (from “This is Reggae Music” box set)
12. “White Lexus” – Mike Doughty (from “Haughty Melodic”)
13. “It Must’ve Been the Roses” – the Grateful Dead (from “One From the Vault”)
14. “Hazy SF” – Six Organs of Admittance (from “Golden Apples of the Sun” compilation)
15. “Pink Bullets” – The Shins (from “Chutes Too Narrow’)
16. “You Belong To Me” (altered version) – Bob Dylan (from “Natural Born Killers” soundtrack)
17. “No Ke Ano Ahiahi” – Medeski, Martin, and Wood (from “Combustication”)

frow show, episode 1

Listen here.

1. “We Shall Overcome” – Charlie Haden (from “Liberation Music Orchestra”)
2. “The Infanta” – The Decemberists (from “Picaresque”)
3. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
4. “Yellow Brick Road” – Capt. Beefheart (from “Safe As Milk”)
5. “Allah Wakbarr” – Ofo & the Black Company (from “Love’s A Real Thing: the Funky, Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa”)
6. “Micro Disneycal World Tour” – Cornelius (from “Fantasma”)
7. “Grass Canons” – the Olivia Tremor Control (from “Black Foliage: Animation Music, vol. 1”)
8. “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” – Neutral Milk Hotel (from “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”)
9. “Happy Today” – The Wowz (from “Long Grain Rights”)
10. “In the Wake” – John Biz (from “The Elephant in the Room”)
11. “The Bug Speaks” – The Song Corporation (from “Raisin Bran in the Sun” EP)
12. “Totaled” (alternate “I’ll Come Running”) – Brian Eno & the Winkies (from random BBC session)
13. “Burro” (mariachi “Jack-ass”) – Beck (from “Sissyneck” single)
14. “Too Much of Nothing (take II)” – Bob Dylan (from the complete Basement Tapes)
15. “Cars Can’t Escape” – Wilco (from “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” demos)
16. “Round-Up Time In Texas” – Girls of the Golden West (from “Flowers in the Wildwood: Women in Early Country Music” compilation)
17. “Dreaming” (Sun Ra cover) – Yo La Tengo (from “Prisoners of Love”)
18. “Ragtime Nightingale” – David Boeddinghaus and Craig Ventresco (from “Crumb” soundtrack)
19. “Surf’s Up” – The Beach Boys (unreleased bootleg version)

coney island, 10/05

An early October trip to Coney Island.

1. We caught the bus by Keyspan Park, took it down Surf Avenue, got off at 33rd Street, made a right on 34th, and the first left onto Mermaid Avenue. We looked for #3520, formerly occupied by Woody Guthrie and family. We found the apartment complex that replaced it long before we were born.

(1a. Incidentally, if you enter “3520 Mermaid Ave., Brooklyn, NY” into Google Maps, and look at the satellite view, Coney Island is a lush blur, like a SimCity screenshot printed on sunbleached Kodachrome.)

2. We walked down the Boardwalk. The sounds of the Polyphonic Spree ricocheted between the projects. We walked through Astroland at dusk.

3. The Parachute Drop as the light disappears. The cell phone camera overcompensates with its usual granular aplomb.

“down home (rehearsal version)” – jerry garcia

“Down Home (rehearsal)” – Jerry Garcia (File expires on November 24th.)
outtake from Cats Under the Stars (1978)
available from Rhino (buy)

If you’ve ever dreamed of hearing Jerry Garcia’s (1) voice layered over itself in wordless harmony — ala the Beach Boys on “Our Prayer,” the invocation to Brian Wilson’s SMiLE — then the rehearsal take of “Down Home” is for you. And if you haven’t dreamed of that, well, too bad. Though the arrangement is basically the same, the official version released on Cats Under the Stars, sung primarily by then-Dead vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux — is something quite different. John Kahn’s bass guides sparsely but, here, it’s all Garcia, basically a capella, all northern California sweetness and heartache.

(1) Should you be a hater, at this point, I would like to both quote from and direct you towards a fine article by my friend Bill, published on the uber-heady BoomSalon:

“…a decade [after Garcia’s death], we Deadheads – yes, I now wear that label proudly, so bite me – still all too often keep ourselves closeted, having internalized the embarrassment we’re still told we should feel, its patent absurdity notwithstanding.

“Well, fuck that. Here’s how it is: The Grateful Dead are the hippest goddamn rock band there ever was, and if you don’t get it, YOU’RE the one who’s not cool. That is no longer my – our – problem. I am embarking on a campaign, starting now, to see to it that those brilliant bastards finally get the respect they deserve, and I shall beat it out of you, o reader, with every rhetorical bludgeon I possess should you attempt to resist me.”

the return of the frank & earthy blog.

Thanks to Craig’ers & Dave, the Frank & Earthy Blog is back. I’ve got a whole backload of entries from around the time the site shit the bed, so I’ll be putting those up in the next few days.

I’ve also stocked the new blog with all the entries from my initial It’s Got A Good Beat blog (circa 2003-2004), which are mostly (maybe uninteresting) exercises in listening carefully to and writing very specifically about Billboard hits, as well as the past 10 months worth of entries from wunderkammern27.com. They’re all properly dated, 1984-style, so as to give the illusion that they were always there. Just as Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, this has always been exactly what my blog has looked like.

I’m using new software, so it’ll prolly take a few days to work out the kinks. Anyway, glad to be back and shinier than ever.

more fun with light sources

1. In which the sun explodes over Bourgwick…

2. …and later sets behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sucking the foreground into pure, black silhouette.

3. And, of course: the (accidental, digital) agony of Paul McCartney.

the new polaroids

I’m a big fan of Polaroids, I have a few cameras, some of them even working, and my shelves are littered with boxes of pictures. With the ubiquity of digital cameras, all consumer-level photography is pretty much instant these days. Everything is a Polaroid. I’ve long thought, though, that lo-fi cell phone cams probably come closest to embodying what was special about the obsolete technology.

On one hand, cell pictures are silly and “cheap” (more on that in a moment), but — on the other hand — they present a series of technical limitations that can result in some great pictures. Polaroids are/were very good at capturing certain subjects and colors — rich blue skies, for example. I imagine that cell cams will prove to have their own specialties.

Like Polaroids, cell pictures are meant to be ephemeral. Where Polaroids generally cost $1 a shot and took a long moment to develop, one likewise doesn’t really know what cell phone shots look like until he sends them back to his computer (and, just as he had to be judgmental at a dollar a pop, barring the purchase of a USB cable, he usually has a limit of pictures he can upload each month).

All of which is to say: I got a new phone this week and have started to take some pictures. So far, I’m most enjoying the varying ways the low resolution distorts different light sources (a TV, a digital radio tuner, a candle). Check it.

More to come, hopefully! I think I need a USB cable…

“funky lil’ song” – beck

“Funky Lil’ Song” – Beck

(buy)

(This file will expire August 30th.)

Been on a minor Beck kick lately (more on that soon, hopefully), wishing Guero made me happier than it does. But “Funky Lil’ Song,” Beck’s contribution to Dimension Mix (Eenie Menie, Aug. 22nd) — a tribute to Bruce Haack, Esther Nelson, and their utterly psychedelic children’s imprint, Dimension 5 Records — makes me quite happy, indeed. It’s a cover, but it shouldn’t be, reviving as it does a fine strain of Beck’s older music that he didn’t bring back for Guero: the novelty number. With spoken asides (“the bad vibrations are all around / when your house is upside down”), falsetto overdrive, and some kind of exaggerated soul singer voice I’ve never heard him use before, Beck definitely plays it for somelaughs. It’s a children’s song, after all.

But, while playful, it also retains that somber (ahem) “maturity” that crept into his music beginning with Sea Change that’s frequently toosomber. Beck sounds plenty world-weary on “Funky Lil’ Song,” but when you’re swaying and singing “ding dong, funky little song, everything is up and nothing is down” it’s tough to sound like a miserable sod. More than the comedy factor, though, what makes this feel like the Beck of yore is the sheer surprise of its discovery: a freshly minted obscurity. It’s nice to have that back, if only for five minutes and 15 seconds.

some recent stories

The Mountain Goats: Turning the Kleig Lights Around; feature inteview with John Darnielle, published in Paste#16

Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman, published in Paste #17

Illinois – Sufjan Stevens, published in Paste#17

One Step Closer – String Cheese Incident

David Byrne at Central Park, 29 June 2005

Yo La Tengo and Stephen Malkmus at Battery Park, 4 July 2005

The Olivia Tremor Control at the Bowery Ballroom, 2 August 2005

BRAIN TUBA: Sea Change?

In the current Relix (Jerry Garcia cover), only in print: Mike Doughty and the Unsingable Name feature, album reviews of Lake Trout, Erin McKeown, and the Grateful Dead; DVD review of Brian Wilson presents SMiLE; book review of Anthony DeCurtis’s In Other Words

stopwatch recordings on the cyberweb

Thanks to the good utopians at Archive.org, I’ve recently uploaded a bunch of Stopwatch Recordings. Now available for free download:

sw02: Postcards: Atlantic City EP (Funny Cry Happy)
Casinos are tuned to the key of C. Slot machine bleeps, video poker blurps, the pings that come before public announcements — all in C. The sum total is a surprisingly warm hum, designed to keep gamblers hypnotized. Like the lack of natural light, the absence of clocks, and the recycled air, it is one of the many surreal environmental features of our nation’s gambling halls.

Postcards: Atlantic City melds field recordings made in the seedy New Jersey resort town with slight modifications made at home — new drones, toy pianos run through delay pedals, chirping birds recorded in Chelsea — that interact, occasionally accidentally, with the source.

sw03: On A Clear Night, You Can Smell For Miles (Funny Cry Happy)
The second Funny Cry Happy full-length. Songs ‘n’ shit.

sw04: Running at the Sunshine (Matthew Van Brink/Jesse Jarnow)
Running at the Sunshine was conceived as an imagined community behind the doors (and up the stairs) of the incongruously named Sunshine Hotel, one of the last remaining men’s flophouses on Manhattan’s Bowery — a point on a late-night ramble from Chinatown to a greasy taco stand in the Village. These fantasies were later bolstered by an NPR documentary, and a wonderful book of photographs (“Flophouse” by David Isay, Stacy Abramson, and Harvey Wang), which uncovered links to a New York of a bygone era.

With the story and text in place, choreographer-director Judith Chaffee and composer (and my old friend) Matthew Van Brink worked closely together to realize the story in space and sound. Employing a deep percussion arsenal, Van Brink evokes a still clattering, post-industrial New York filled with squealing breaks, rusty dumpsters, and the undergridding rhythmic bustle of a city filled with permanent transients.

NOTE: Handmade meatspace versions of these recordings are also available. Drop me a line, if interested.

Studio 77 loves you!

some recent stories

Got a lotta catching up to do.

Picaresque – The Decemberists

Face the Truth – Stephen Malkmus

Bonnaroo 2004 – various artists

Sun Ra Arkestra and the Dub Trio at the Knitting Factory, 24 April 2005

Bob Dylan at the Beacon Theater, 25 April 2005

Caribou and Four Tet at the Bowery Ballroom, 4 May 2005

Yo La Tengo at Rose Theater, 18 May 2005

Derek Trucks Band at Rocks Off Boat Cruise, 22 June 2005

BRAIN TUBA: The Catalogue

BRAIN TUBA: Black and White Hiss

In the current Paste (Billy Corgan cover), only in print: The Mountain Goats: Turning the Klieg Lights Around, album review of The Stanley Brothers.

In the previous Relix (Trey Anastasio/Robert Randolph/John Butler cover), only in print: album reviews of Mike Doughty and A Hawk and a Hacksaw/Four Tet/Caribou; book reviews of Dave Van Ronk and All Yesterday’s Party: the Velvet Underground in Print, 1966-1970

In the current Relix (Jack Johnson cover), only in print: album reviews of Skeletons and the Girl-Faced Boys, The White Stripes, and Spirit; DVD review of Classic Album Series: The Band; book review of Greil Marcus. (I am also interviewed in Shain Shapiro’s article about message boards.)

In the current Signal To Noise(Four Tet cover), only in print: live review of Sonic Youth; album review of A Hawk and a Hacksaw.

In the current Hear/Say(Vans Warped Tour cover), only in print: album reviews of The Bad Plus and Head of Femur.

welcome to bourgwick (some neighborly navel-gazing)

July 1st marks my fourth anniversary as a Brooklyn resident, where I moved after college (and following a month on Mom’s couch). Since then, I have occupied the same corner of the same loft above the Morgan Avenue L-train stop, on Seigel Street. I have watched the walls grow around me and hem me in, the open 900 square foot room first divided by a half-assed frame/bedsheet construction, then scrapped to create three doorless/roofless cubicles. This year, a ceiling grew, stairs were built, and an attic was created. There was painting.

When we moved in, the remains of the A.M. Knitwear Corporation were intact below us, a ghost factory filled with unused envelopes in abandoned desks where plates of fried chicken sat uneaten, milk left to curdle in the office refrigerator. We salvaged what we could: a few clothing racks, some furniture, and what is now my absurdly huge wooden desk. Within the year, the remains of the factory were wiped free, and more rooms installed.

The building has changed. Graffiti-etched paint was scraped from the walls to reveal a rich brick. Clean marble was laid on the cement hallway floors. There are new doorways in the stairwells, and security cameras. Most of the rooms now have hardwood floors. Our crap was already in by the time that was added to the deal and you can still see the yellow paint from the factory floor in our living room.

There were people on the block before us. They were across the street when we got here. I suspect some of them were responsible for the founding of the health food store and the bar. I am not entirely sure. And so, outside our front door, a neighborhood began. The New York Times said so last weekend. My ex-roommate, who recently vacated the premises for more civilized digs elsewhere in Brooklyn, weighed in with a pretty fair critique of the Timesstory.

As an unrepentant hippie, however, I take some umbrage with use of the term “hippie music” to describe what comes out of this neighborhood. At its worst, it’s usually sub-indie shitpiles or Radiohead-knockoffs. The latter can be particularly dangerous, what with their love of bass and all. But, as an unrepentant hippie, I will also defend to death their right to make it in their natural habitat. Which, I guess, doesmake them hippies (and relegates jamband kids to the suburban youth demographic it probably always was).

The picture at the head of the Times pieces is of the public area in front of Brooklyn’s Natural and The Archive — the main drag of what I’ve been trying to get people to call Bourgwick Village. Next to the entrance to Brooklyn’s Natural, there are several surfaces ripe for graffiti. Recently, some new stickers have cropped up: KEEP YOUR ART TO YOURSELF NEXT TIME. I laughed when I saw it, but every time I think about it, it gets more and more repellant. Self-righteousness is certainly the tone of most of the neighborhood graffiti — the standard issue liberal arts cultural critiques on the subway ads, to spray-painted slogans like “devious semantics.” If graffiti’s anonymous safety is a forum for a neighborhood’s true self, then we petty Bourgwickians are a pretty navel-gazing lot. But we also live here. Don’t like street art? Get outta Brooklyn, asshole.

“I guess I’ll say that I think that everybody should play music,” Laura Carter of Elf Power once told me. “The more the better. I guess I like the Sun Ra perspective on it that you’re giving and making things, by choosing to play music, versus a lot of other things you could choose to do.” Probably 1% — if that — of all the art ever created will ever mean anything substantial to anybody besides its creator. But I don’t think that’s sad or pathetic. It’s just how it goes. And that’s cool! Make that album! But it doesn’t mean I want, or even need, to hear it, either. Maybe I’m being a bad neighbor by not going out and seeing my local bands whenever they make the trek to gig on the Lower East Side or wherever. but — shit yeah — go play.

As for people practicing music “all night,” I can honestly say that it doesn’t happen. At least not in ear shot of my open windows (and I can hear the pinched hi-hats of at least three drummers practicing most afternoons). I think that’s mostly hyperbole. (As for people listeningto music at all hours, that’s another story.) But the musicians aren’t the only loud part. There’s also a city park out our back window. And, as anybody who has ever tried to record music in the building will tell you, it’s not the other bands that leak onto your virtual tape, it’s the fucking ice cream trucks.

That said, calling it the new Haight-Ashbury is a tad absurd, and I don’t really believe that the dude meant it. Though maybe he did. The Haight, after all, was overrun with herpes-carrying pilgrims come to find the San Francisco dream (“how I love ya, how I love ya, how I love ya, ‘frisssssscooooooo — oh, my hair’s getting good in the back…”) George Harrison called them “spotty.” Even the Grateful Dead bounced for Marin County pretty early on. It’s not quite the Summer of Love out here, thankfully.

Nobody’s trying to save the world (except my friend Jeff, and he moved out a while ago) though that might change when the pilgrims start to arrive — which, with the promised Williamsburg waterfront project, could be soon. Or it might not be. Or maybe they’re already here. How can one tell? Is there a secret handshake? Maybe the Timesarticle was a blip that won’t turn out to mean anything, but it’s a blip that at least warrants some attention from those being blipped.

There is also the matter of the new building going up one block over, between the Wonton factory and the Boar’s Head plant. It is next to another pair of loft buildings owned by my landlords, and it is being built to look exactly like them. Except that it will not serve any time as a factory, despite what its architecture might suggest. It kind of creeps me out, like one of the memory-impregnated replicants from Blade Runner. Do the residents of android buildings even dream, let alone of sheep (electric, organic or otherwise)?

I moved here because there was space and because I could afford it. Split three ways, places still seem affordable. Perhaps it is an existence of prolonged adolescence, though I suppose I prefer it to one of premature adulthood. Yes, welcome to Bourgwick my hippies. Go forth and try not to suck..

(And I mean that in the nicest possible way.)

the return of the FROW SHOW

Thanks to the lovely and effervescent Andy Blackman Hurwitz of Ropeadope Records, today marks the first new episode of the FROW SHOW since the shutdown of my friend Jeff’s pirate radio station in the spring of 2001.

For the next four Tuesdays, the Ropeadope Podcast Network will distribute installments of my favorite music (plus slick DJ chatter). This week’s show includes tracks by Captain Beefheart, Cornelius, the Olivia Tremor Control, some of my favorite unsigned NYC/Brooklyn acts (The Song Coproration, The Wowz, John Biz), outtakes and B-sides by Yo La Tengo, Bob Dylan, Wilco, Brian Eno, and Beck, the all-important Frow Show theme (of course), and much mo’.

Thanks again to Andy and everybody at the fake office!

You can listen here.

“you belong to me” – bob dylan

“You Belong to Me” – Bob Dylan

(This file will expire on February 9th.)

Dylan did a really lovely version of Pee Wee King, Chilton Price, and Redd Stewart’s “You Belong to Me” on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, from 1994. It’s just Dylan and guitar. Because of that — and the warmth of the recording, and those chord changes, and that tempo, and Dylan’s level of engagement — it feels to me very much like something that could come near the end of Blood on the Tracks, in the vicinity of “Shelter From the Storm” and “Buckets of Rain.” It’s real pretty-like.

The only problem with the recording was that, right after the last verse, came a sample of Woody Harrelson from the film. To put it mildly, it killed the vibe. Dunno why it didn’t occur to me earlier, but — tonight — I finally dumped it into ProTools, removed Woody, and fixed the ending. I was feeling nerdy. Enjoy.

“hazy sf” – six organs of admittance

“Hazy SF” – Six Organs of Admittance

(This file will expire on May 29th.)

I’ve been feeling the need to travel for a few months now, ideally ending up in San Francisco where I could visit my old college housemates. But I put off using my airline credit until the last possible minute, and now it seems as if it’s probably gonna expire before I can go. Feh.

Until I get my shit together, “Hazy SF” by Six Organs of Admittance is gonna have to do. It’s a perfect little slab of shimmering California boosterism that — along with the Devandra Banhart-curated Golden Apples of the Suncompilation that it’s drawn from — has become part of my morning routine lately. I lie by the living room window and shuffle through email while my head wakes up far away, on the couch of my friends’ North Beach apartment, sun pouring in, the cat skittering.

Thanks to Mike McGonigal and his awesome ‘buked & scorned blog for the YouSendIt idea.

some recent stories

Happier in Hoboken, my 20th anniversary Yo La Tengo feature, from Paste (on newsstands now, yo).

BRAIN TUBA: The Clock Ticked, At Times, A Regular Tock

This Feeling’s Called Goodbye by Brothers Past

The Allman Brothers Band at the Beacon Theater, 21 March 2005

Medeski, Martin, and Wood at Tonic, 7 & 8 March 2005

In the current Signal To Noise (Genesis P-Orridge cover), only in print: album review of Sound Tribe Sector 9.

In the current Tracks (Lucinda Williams cover), only in print: album review of Jack Johnson, and book review of Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason.

In the current Relix (Disco Biscuits cover), only in print: album reviews of Andrew Bird and the Chris Stamey Experience, DVD reviews of Bob Dylan World Tours 1966-1974 and Looking For A Thrill: An Anthology of Inspiration

yeah, sorry

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, I know. I’ve been busy bending circuits (both intentionally and accidentally), serving jury duty (the case of Glen C. Campbell, not the singer, and Seven-Fingered Sampson), falling in and out of mood with the turbulent season, ushering roommates in and out, and traveling to Athens, Georgia (to see the frabjous Olivia Tremor Control) and a few places in New Jersey (Dayton, to International Flavors and Fragrances, and Montclair, to see a performance of Harry Partch’s Oedipus).

And working. Oh, yes. Much of that. A post with some recent links will follow shortly, hopefully with a more regular posting schedule to resume not long after that. Since I hate meta-posts, I’ll defer to Perfect Sound Forever‘s Jason Gross and his righteous Ye Wei blog for thoughts about balancing blogging with other forms of writing.

a tip of the hat

We at wunderkammern27.com, as duly named representatives for the Friends of the Center for Anthropological Computing, would like to offer a tip o’ the hat to Rob and his fine work in reconstructing the narrative of “Alicia.” She is a true Ordovician!

“disco inferno” – 50 cent

week of March 26, 2005
#3 this week, #5 last week, 16 weeks on chart

More sex as seductive boredom from 50. There’s comedy, too, but it’s the kind I can’t put my finger on; the kinda resigned bleakness of Waiting for Godot that doesn’t make any particular sense as humor, but can’t really be recognized as anything else Like in “Candy Shop,” 50 laughs midway through, and — again — it’s a totally secret laugh, closed. And I guess there’s an allure to that — the private joke — and, as an audience member, I should wanna get in on it.

The groove — an ethereal theremin keyboard melody, handclaps, a tinny orchestra hit, a few synths — is subterranean: low and mean and slinky. There’s a little moment of transcendence that I almost like. The song drops out in some indefinable way (backing tracks just dimmed slightly?) and 50’s boredom, for a minute, blurs and refocuses into a dreamier fantasy: “See me shining, lit up with diamonds,” he sings. “Catch me swooping, gently couping (?), switching lanes…” And that’s where the laugh is. The “switching lanes” line — nestled atop this music — makes me imagine a late night driver, switching lanes for no other reason than that there’s nobody else on the road, and he can ’cause he wants to. I don’t imagine that it was intended, though lethargy as transcendence is kinda dreamy.

Still, not enough to carry the tune. So it goes. Long weekend. I’m taking a damn bath.

HST

Finally finished/posted my Hunter S. Thompson rememberence.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. — Raoul Duke

new wilco tunes

Last night, I downloaded the three newest Wilco tunes: “Just A Kid,” from the SpongeBob Squarepants soundtrack, and “Panthers” and “Kicking Television” from their online EP. I even paid for some of them. I’d used the iTunes store before, but never to purchase new material from a band I really like. There was something really fun about it, and it wasn’t just the guilt-free feeling of buying instead of downloading from a p2p network. There was an aethethic legitmacy to the act. I searched for what I wanted, and got it instantly, by itself, without a whole rash of ugly file names that — even if I could successfully download all of them them — might be mislabeled or corrupted anyway. Yes, yes.

“Panthers” and “Kicking Television” are A ghost is born outtakes. Of the three songs, “Panthers” is the first one that jumped out at me. It’s Wilco in quiet mode, all quiet parts flown around the gravitational center of Glenn Kotche’s metronomic tick. In places, it feels elegantly like Hail to the Thief-era Radiohead, stripped of their electronic bells and whistles. Still, I can see why it was an outtake. The song sorta ambles on in the same groove for a bit too long — like a less funky, less interesting version of “Spiders” — and just generally seems to be missing that extra oomph. “Kicking Television,” on the other hand, is perfectly serviceable Wilco punk, sorta in the vein of “I’m A Wheel” and “The Late Greats.” No use in splitting hairs over it, but those had a place on Ghost, and this didn’t. A nice footnote, and probably a good late-set/early encore number.

I think “Spiders” is going to end up being an important touchstone for Wilco, as they become (it seems) more of a band. If they continue on the sparse course they set with Ghost, the stripped Krautrock grooves of “Spiders” might easily become the template for the way Wilco play together. If “Just A Kid” — the first song recorded by the band’s current touring lineup — is any indication, that just might be the case. The song is driven by an insistent tock, established right away. The band never falls below this starting tempo, but accelerate beyond it with riffs and rhythmic inserts, and then fall back perfectly. They groove effortlessly — like a band that has been playing “Spiders” for 15 minutes on stage every night.

“Just A Kid” is a children’s song for adults in the same way as “In My Room,” though more self-aware of that fact. “I don’t wanna go to bed, there’s so much going on in my head,” Jeff Tweedy sings, in a great power pop evocation of childhood (made all the cuter by the fact that his son sings during the song’s bridge). “Everybody’s gotta do something they don’t wanna do,” runs the chorus — innocent advice for kids, weirdly comforting for adults. Most of all, it sounds like a song on the soundtrack to a children’s movie: big hooks, almost syrupy production, and undeniable bounce. It sounds mainstream (which makes it a more legitimate children’s song; what kid in his right mind would be turned on by “Radio Cure” or “Hell Is Chrome”?)

In short: New Wilco songs. Yay.

“candy shop” – 50 cent featuring olivia

week of March 19, 2005
#1 this week, #1 last week, 7 weeks on chart

So, there’s all this backstory to 50 Cent and — while I guess I’ve read it through a few times — I don’t instinctively connect it to “Candy Shop.” No matter how much I listen to it, the music that tends to penetrate the Top 10 often sounds positively exotic to my ears. Or at least it does so in this context, sitting at my desk late at night. Hearing pop in public makes perfect sense to me. “How obvious!” I’ll think if I hear one of these tunes coming out of the speakers of a passing car, its sonics blending with the natural audio environment of Brooklyn or Manhattan, circa 2005. But here, in my private space, amidst poctcards and Polaroids tacked to the walls, it feels very foreign.

A history of drugs and violence notwithstanding, the voice that sings “Candy Shop” sounds — to me — either bored or real baked. Either way, I don’t believe it when he intones “so seductive” during the song’s lead-in. (But, then again, I already admitted that I’m basically a tourist, so I’m willing to concede that maybe it’s a part of some local mating ritual.) But, to me, 50 sounds apathetic about the whole process of seduction — possibly even disdainful, if one allows the ominous orchestral loop to be some kind of mirror of the singer’s emotional state. I heard somebody say that this song was tailor-made to be played in strip joints, and I think that about nails it. That is not sex as a treat; this is sex as an inevitability, a reality as desperate and weirded out as other parts of the human psyche.

What makes the song unique — and creepy — is its lack of humor (well underscored by the mechanical deep thump/finger snap groove). It’s not that the lyrics aren’t funny. Because they could be. Sex as candy ain’t exactly a new conceit, but it’s a reliable one. “I’m trying to explain, baby, the best way I can / I melt in your mouth, girl, not in your hand,” 50 sings, and then laughs. It’s a satisfied laugh, not a shared one. The punchline serves nobody but the teller. It’s amazing how much the backing track defines this. It could be remixed into something way happier, but it would likely lose all of its peculiar sexuality.

Pop music is often so positively dumb that surrendering to it becomes a compact between two people dancing with each other, both willing to overlook (or just not care about) how silly it is, such that they might get it on. “Candy Shop” inspires a similar effect, except — instead of its mindlessness — our potential couple must jointly forget about the song’s pimples-and-all pathos. Together. Isn’t that sweet?

some recent stories

BRAIN TUBA: Entropicalia (Five Semi-Connected Thoughts About the Future)

Love’s A Real Thing: The Funky, Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa (World Psychedelic Classics, v. 3) – various artists

moe. and friends at Roseland, 10 February 2005

Jim O’Rourke at Tonic, 23 February 2005

David Byrne at Eisner-Lubin Auditorium, 2 March 2005

hullo dear bloglings

It’s been a wooly-ass three weeks, which included (but certainly wasn’t limited to): the meltdown of my computer’s harddrive, the collapse of a proposed trip to the Himalayan foothills to assist a friend in building a recording studio at a monastery, the departure of my roommate of the past three-and-a-half years, the death of Dr. Thompson, the spiffy (albeit messy) construction of ceilings and stairways and bookshelves and such in my loft, the occasional non-delivery of pieces of snail mail I would very much like to receive (new contact lenses, money), the consumption of small chocolate hamburgers from the pan-Asian convenience store on Third Avenue, the unplanned viewing of Wes Anderson’s first three films on consecutive evenings, the discovery of David Byrne’s totally fucking awesome blog/tour journal, an accidental usurpation of this site by the Biscuits Internet Project, a seemingly Kafkaesque pursuit of my missing computer with the folks at TekServe and the eventual resolution of its problems with a simple conclusion (loose wire), the subsequent non-loss of any data whatsoever, and much dancing in victory. So it went. I’m back now. More posts to follow.

ginchy shit

1.) Bob Dylan playing five nights at the Beacon Theater in late April with Merle Haggard.

2.) Bollywood For the Skeptical, a well-organized introduction to Indian film music for newbies (like me), complete with an album’s worth of mp3s.

3.) A 3-D flash recreation of PT Barnum’s American Museum, an occasional pet obsession of mine. Filled with mermaid bones, little people (the real Tom Thumb!), and artifacts from around the globe, the Museum — which burned down in 1865, was moved up Broadway, and burned again in 1868 — was a discomforting mix of real specimens and fabrications. The website — which also has a feature where one can try to figure out who set the place ablaze — is a creepy fusion of Myst and history.
(3a.) The previous two links both came via BoingBoing, undoubtedly my favorite blog not written by a roommate.)

4.) Medeski, Martin, and Wood playing what will surely be four weirded-out sets at Tonic on March 7th and 8th. It’s too bad it took Tonic’s threatened closing to get ’em back. (And that’s not to mention Jim O’Rourke’s own benefit there on February 23rd.)

5.) My 10 favorite albums of 2004 as they stood on the day I filled out my Pazz & Jop ballot.

the gates

This afternoon, after a minty-fresh visit to my dentist on Central Park West, I passed through Christo’s fabled Gates just south of Tavern on the Green. I walked to the Sheep Meadow and wended my way through the southern tip of what Rem Koolhaas called “synthetic Arcadian carpet grafted onto the Grid.” This arcadia is my arcadia, indeed. It was a glorious afternoon, sun glancing perfectly over every conceivable surface, illuminating them with postcard precision: hot dog stands, ducks on half-frozen ponds, cyclists, midtown secretaries out for cigarette strolls on their lunch hours, even horse shit. It was almost unbearably picturesque.

But I must admit to being fairly baffled – disappointed, I think – by the Gates themselves. Most certainly, there are many qualities about the work that I admire. Public environmental art can be astounding, especially in Manhattan, which absorbs weirdness with a natural ease. A large aspect of the Gates, I think, is the way it forces people into interaction with their space and the people around them. Christo has said that one can’t really understand the piece without walking through it. There’s a certain amount of truth to that, of course, but mostly it seems like a New Age excuse. The potential for a public art project spread across the entirety of Central Park, interacting/playing/dialoguing with Frederick Law Olmstead’s sweeping Arcadian landscapes is so unbelievably vast, so incredibly rich, that it is a true shame that Christo and Jeanne-Claude didn’t do more with it.

Simply, the Gates follow the park’s existing walkways, pulling them out of the environment like an ink pellet through varicose veins. And that’s nice and all. Pleasant. But why do they have to follow the park’s proscribed paths? Why can’t they take the viewers on little journeys, dips off the beaten trails, winding through the faux-wilderness to small, Zen conclusions? Why shouldn’t they play with scale, increasing the size of dimensions of the Gates to create Wonderland-like optical illusions? The Gates, uniform in their abrupt day-glo orange are astounding in their repetition. That is quite pretty. Yes, yes. But why that color orange? It doesn’t seem to relate to its surroundings at all — not the glass and concrete boxes surrounding the park, not the bare trees, not the snow-fortified mud. And, if the point is for people to go out and interact with them, why the middle of fucking February when the public (remember them?) will be lucky to get one or two nice days to check it out?

The Gates feel very much like a gentrified happening, a much deeper bureaucratic achievement than aesthetic one. I had a wonderful time walking through them, but only because I was astounded (as I always am) by Law’s vision of Central Park. I imagine the Gates would be a lot prettier right about now (approaching 3:30 in the morning), their shapes looming like a massed army of shadows in the park’s peculiar, still nightmare-infested darkness. Perhaps I’ll go back sometime.

“boulevard of broken dreams” – green day

week of February 19, 2005
#3 this week, #4 last week, 13 weeks on chart

1.) A guitar song. This is probably the only second one that has come up in the weeks I’ve been doing this (the other being “This Love” by Maroon5). I have a hard time thinking about it on the same terms as Ciara and Mario and Lil Jon, because its form is familiar, less exotic, though it does sound contemporary (especially the intro, which sounds like it could include some kinda spoken-word tag-line).

Mostly, I feel like I’m at a family gathering and have been introduced to a distant cousin that I will undoubtedly get along with because we share common ground in some wholly unspecific interest, like music. “This song has guitars. You like guitars.”

2.) The title seems hackneyed to me, like a shitty lyric off of a latter-day Allman Brothers album. I know I’ve heard the expression before, but it’s one that’s lost a specific meaning. Is it a reference to something older? Google searching, the popularity of the Green Day tune has overwhelmed and obscured other bits. In the first 10 pages, we get: a vinyl-only 1985 Joy Division bootleg, a celebrity studded parody of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks,” a graphic novel, Final Fantasy fan fiction, and a 1933 song by Al Dubin and Harry Warren (along with an instrumental MIDI file that automatically fired up inside Explorer and played atonally along with the Green Day song streaming through my iTunes). This, I suspect, will be the oldest reference to be found Googling.

The very diversity of results goes to show just how well the expression has melted into common usage. I still don’t like it much.

3.) Pirates of the Caribbean has circulated around my building recently, so I’ve watched various bits of it here and there. I saw it in the theater and – for a big budget Disney movie – I quite enjoyed it. There’s something to be said for a picture that’s accessible without being excessively stupid, that keeps the viewer locked in through a nice pace of swash-buckling sequences, chases, cannon fire, bawdy “family” humor, and the high seas. The Aviator does this, too, in its own way.
And Green Day’s American Idiot is a musical version of that: a Pirates of the Caribbean for us rockist savages. But there’s a difference between Pirates and AI, at least for me: listening to popular music is very different from seeing a popular movie, the latter being such a forcibly immersive experience, compared to the flexibility of songs and the ways we listen to them. Unless it is an artist I am intimately familiar with, it is rare that I sacrifice myself to a piece of music the way I automatically do if I go to the movies (or even watch one at home). All of which is to say that I dig “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” for what it is, but it’s not likely to make any of my playlists anytime soon.

4.) I like the brief, wordless verse that begins at the 1:15 mark. I can imagine this becoming a big sing-along at an arena show. It is for this reason that I like this song ideologically. It means that, at least while it’s popular, kids will still wanna go to big-ass rock concerts and do things like sing along. Hey, I think guitar-based pop music is a form worth preserving beyond the future equivalent of contemporary jazz clubs.

5.) That main riff is familiar, the melody kinda haunting, like it’s lifted from a Dire Straits record or something else I can’t place. The phrasing certainly helps — methodical, assured, sweet as candy.

some recent stories

BRAIN TUBA: iTunes A Go Go

Corn Syrup Conspiracy by SeepeopleS

Dick’s Picks, v. 33 by the Grateful Dead

brief reviews of 10 bands

Real Gone by Tom Waits

In the new Tracks (John Lennon cover), only in print: album reviews of Frank Zappa and the North Mississippi All-Stars, and a book review of The Wilco Book.

And, in the new Relix (Gov’t Mule cover), only in print: a live review of Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s, a feature I edited (and wrote chunks of) titled “36 (Studio) Albums By Which To Get Yer Jam On,” album reviews of Pinback, Precious Bryant, and RANA, a DVD review of Vida Blue, and book reviews of Da Capo Best Music Writing 2004 edited by Mickey Hart and Rolling Thunder Logbook by Sam Shepard.

a sampling

Spam received between 5:15 am and 5:15 pm on Saturday, 5 February 2005, organized according to Dr. Harold Tuttledge’s classification system by spam type and listed by sender.

0. No content
[email protected] (2/6/05, 12:10 pm)
[email protected] (2/6/05, 11:50 am)
Dion Cotton (2/6/05, 8:39 am)
Donald H. Callahan (2/6/05, 8:38 am)
Donovan Jewell (2/6/05, 6:32 am)
Beverley Fletcher (2/6/05, 6:29 am)
Ismael Peck (2/6/05, 5:16 am)

0.1 Foreign language
Adan Sea (2/6/05, 1:17 pm)
�U�����~���?��r�W�l�X�`�����X (2/6/05, 10:01 am)

0.2 English nonsense
Lange (2/6/05, 7:44 am)

1. Goods
Monique (2/6/05, 4:39 pm)
Jennifer A. Clark (2/6/05, 4:28 pm)
Phoebe Frazier (2/6/05, 3:44 pm)
Rosemarie Givens (2/6/05, 3:36 pm)
Preston Murphy (2/6/05, 2:35 pm)
Harry Crane (2/6/05, 1:09 pm)
Benita Wiseman (2/6/05, 12:05 pm)
Darcy Cernvantes (2/6/05, 11:39 am)
Rickie Bell (2/6/05, 11:32 am)
Deidre Reeves (2/6/05, 10:56 am)
[email protected] (2/6/05, 10:13 am)
Carlton (2/6/05, 9:39 am)
Ella Fenton (2/6/05, 9:32 am)
Felice Mungan (2/6/05, 8:09 am)
Beryl Fisher (2/6/05, 7:53 am)
Mike Cameron (2/6/05, 7:45 am)
ZNPI New York Gzlobal (2/6/05, 6:03 am)
Tammie Parrish (2/6/05, 5:35 am)
Tamika England (2/6/05, 5:31 am)

1.1 Insurance
Autowarrantydelz.com (2/6/055, 11:30 am)

2. Urgent Messages
no examples received

3. Real Estate
Hattie (2/6/05, 10:07 am)
Twila Albert (2/6/05, 9:35 am)
Scott Holden (2/6/05, 8:40 am)
Saman (2/6/05, 7:16 am)

4. Work at Home
no examples received

5. Elegant chains and investment opportunities
Chris Erickson (2/6/05, 4:35 pm)
Ernie Ponce (2/6/05, 4:06 pm)
Rosemary Souza (2/6/05, 3:02 pm)
Wilfred Petty (2/6/05, 1:41 pm)
Brandy Culley (2/6/05, 1:05 pm)
Sydel Buske (2/6/05, 1:04 pm)
Lacey Rasmussen (2/6/05, 1:03 pm)
Philip Kirkpatrick (2/6/05, 12:42 pm)
Anita Chan (2/6/05, 12:23 pm)
Greg Heard (2/6/05, 12:17 pm)
Sharron Tipton (2/6/05, 12:11 pm)
Camille Bassett (2/6/05, 10:39 am)
Tonya Lin (2/6/05, 10:28 am)
Luke Velz (2/6/05, 10:21 am)
Sebastian Ash (2/6/05, 9:16 am)
Sally Carlisle (2/6/05, 8:33 am)
Wendy Askew (2/6/05, 6:50 am)

6. Pornography
Alvaro Randall (2/6/05, 4:43 pm)
Cotopaxi O. Angle (2/6/05, 4:26 pm)
Lucy (2/6/05, 3:40 pm)
Christy Ashley (2/6/05, 3:08 pm)
Henderson (2/6/05, 2:44 pm)
Roland Paul (2/6/05, 2:04 pm)
Doug Wilson (2/6/05, 12:52 pm)
Crystal (2/6/05 12:44 pm)
Stuff Q. Detests (2/6/05, 12:19 pm)
Lily (2/6/05, 12:12 pm)
Dustin Rouse (2/6/05, 11:30 am)
Gogol K. Depths (2/6/05 10:39 am)
Lisa (2/6/05, 8:28 am)
Crystal (2/6/05, 6:45 am)
Paltry O. Kathiawar (2/6/05, 6:06 am)

7. Personal appearance and general health
Clint Oliver (2/6/05, 8:06 am)

7.1 Drug distribution
Noah Devine (2/6/05, 4:45 pm)
Jason Barnier (2/6/05, 4:37 pm)
Ola Surez (2/6/05, 3:57 pm)
Bob Haines (2/6/05, 1:36 pm)
Althea Flowers (2/6/05 1:31 pm)
Luciano Mckay (2/6/05, 1:06 pm)
Lionel Newton (2/6/05, 11:33 am)
Kristin Magee (2/6/05, 11:32 am)
Niki (2/6/05, 10:58 am)
Drew Ames (2/6/05, 10:20 am)
Kevin Bynum (2/6/05 10:00 am)
King Ashton (2/6/05, 9:32 am)
Janey Taylor (2/6/05, 9:32 am)
Johnnie Browning (2/6/05, 9:28 am)
Donnie Melvin (2/6/05, 9:02 am)
Wilson Briggs (2/6/05, 8:58 am)
Jacquelyn G. Joiner (2/6/05, 8:56 am)
Delia Solomon (2/6/05, 8:31 am)
Barney Hutchins (2/6/05, 8:30 am)
Morton Frasier (2/6/05, 7:45 am)
Garland Garrick (2/6/05, 7:45 am)
Emilio Ortega (2/6/05, 7:06 am)
Roosevelt Webber (2/6/05, 7:03 am)
Yvonne Hicks (2/6/05, 6:24 am)
Ed (2/6/05, 6:14 am)
Raymon Boberg (2/6/05, 6:13 am)
Augusta Maria (2/6/05, 5:42 am)
Maria Harden (2/6/05, 5:42 am)
Geoffrey Levitin (2/6/05, 5:35 am)

8. Sexual performance and mating
Raul Muller (2/6/05, 5:15 pm)
Beck Amip (2/5/05, 4:59 pm)
Ariana Rivera (2/6/05, 4:58 pm)
Tim (2/6/05, 4:59 pm)
Kenton Ybarra (2/6/05, 4:46 pm)
Inez Sanford (2/6/05, 4:24 pm)
h Quinn Incoporated (2/6/05, 3:45 pm)
Tabitha Langston (2/6/05, 3:31 pm)
Parmutations C. Capsizes (2/6/05, 3:31 pm)
Entreating T. Ballot (2/6/05, 3:17 pm)
Synopsized M. Anguished (2/6/05, 3:17 pm)
Sean Bell (2/6/05, 2:50 pm)
Connie Burrell (2/6/05, 2:42 pm)
Keisha L. Rangel (2/6/05, 12:53 pm)
Karl Emerson (2/6/05, 12:53 pm)
Kerri Novak (2/6/05, 12:23 pm)
glay.org (2/6/05, 12:10 pm)
Nathan Henson (2/6/05, 12:02 am)
Vilma Ross (2/6/05, 10:18 am)
k Belcher Inc. (2/6/05, 10:17 am)
Brain (2/6/05, 9:45 am)
[email protected] (2/6/05, 9:37 am)
Weston Ramierz (2/6/05, 9:09 am)
Liver K. Elongated (2/6/05, 8:46 am)
dbzmail.com (2/6/05, 8:27 am)
lycos.com (2/6/05 (8:16 am)
Delbert (2/6/05, 8:11 am)
Cristina J. Vazquez (2/6/05, 8:07 am)
Bettie Key (2/6/05, 8:06 am)
Rachelle Springer (2/6/05, 5:17 am)

9. Anti-spam devices
Gordon Harding (2/6/05, 10:26 am)
SurfClean (2/6/05, 9:58 am)
Margaret Booth (2/6/05, 7:59 am)

a very long engagement

A Very Long Engagement is grotesque, sweet, and darkly hilarious — and sustains these three traits, in nearly perfect balance, for its entirety. There is hardly a moment that isn’t all at once. It’s also (easily) the most Decemberists-y movie ever made: a distinctly French romance set in the trenches and hospitals of World War I.

People often speak of maturation, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more clear-cut example than this. In City of Lost Children, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and collaborator Marc Caro created an authoritatively immersive reality. With cloned half-wits, a circus strongman, a cult of cyclops (and that’s not to mention the talking brain) the film was a bit surreal. Amelie, on the other hand, applied the same weird logic to the task of a Rube Goldberg-like romance that genuinely was romantic (if simultaneously a wee too cute).

Turned out, the best way to resolve these two over-excited directions was by introducing a hard-line “realism” into the picture. A Very Long Engagement doesn’t flinch from brutality. There are decapitations, maimings, mutilations, and about a half-dozen other varieties of death. Whether or not it’s accurate to classify these devices as “realism” is another question, but they certainly achieve that effect — people in the theater where I saw the film often turned their heads from the screen during particularly graphic sequences.

In a way, the humor and romance help the violent stuff go down, or at least give us a way to rationalize watching it. Mostly, though, the characters are such unique and vulnerable specimens that it’s nearly impossible not to get drawn in, and soon stirred by the two dozen simple twists of fate strung along an elegantly knotted plot dotted with nooses. Highly recommended.

“1, 2 step” – ciera featuring missy elliot

week of January 29, 2005

#2 this week, #2 last week, 14 weeks on chart

Listening to the leaked Guero last week, I got to thinking about the still-yawning divide between the music that I sincerely, unabashedly enjoy and, well, songs like Ciara’s “1, 2 Step,” currently hovering at #2. As a piece of music, “One Two Step” is beautiful. I admire it immensely. The arrangement is fantastic and adventurous. There are a million things going on: strings, kettle drums (or maybe very deep bass drums), a half-dozen synth patterns and countermelodies, bells, near-ambient filter beats, backwards masking, echoes, voices talking back, and probably a good handful of tricks that I’m missing owing to the lo-fi mp3.

It’s really cool. And, if it were on Guero with Beck doing his thang on top, I’d probably not only like it a lot, but also think it one of the best songs on the album. That said, I can’t realistically see myself getting excited about “1, 2 Step” coming on in shuffle. My first inclination is to say that it’s probably because of the lyrics. But that’s sorta dumb, ’cause there are tons of songs that I love (like most of Automatic For the People and Astral Weeks) that I couldn’t quote more than a phrase or two from, and enjoy them simply because I am enamored with the way they sound.

Of course, I feel confident that “1, 2 Step” isn’t meant to be listened to sitting at a desk, under headphones, repeatedly (12 times now), while consciously dissecting. It’s meant to be listened to… well, lots of places – the car, at a party/club, in passing – but certainly not here, like this. From a distance, like an impressionist painting, the details might blur into something mysterious, something not meant to hold up over time at all, but simply to hold up in your imagination until next time, and – when that time comes – over again before you could entirely remember to remember it. So, with that, I’ll leave Ciara on my harddrive. Perhaps, some day, we’ll meet again…

guero

My review of the leaked version of Guero is up on Salon.com.

I s’ppose I’m probably going to hell (or the non-union Scientologist equivalent) for reviewing a leaked album. Consider it a news report on a work-in-progress. Please?

swing s. chrysler

I don’t have Dr. Tuttledge’s classification scheme handy, but I just got a pretty interesting piece of spam, in what (to me) is a new category: the diatribe.

The Dylan lyric caught my eye first, and I thought for a second that it might be a letter from an angry leader. But then I looked closer, and saw that the spambot was just pulling from a topical database, in this case stocked with stern aphorisms. There’s actually some remarkably sage stuff in thar.

(For best effect, read first paragraph or two, then skip to bottom.)

From: Swing S. Chrysler
Date: Friday, January 21, 2005 2:28 PM
Subject: (SPAM?) Ave! 🙂

Well! He who is not busy being born is busy dying. I didn’t find my friends the good Lord gave them to me. Other people’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality. One does a whole painting for one peach and people think just the opposite — that particular peach is but a detail.

A great fortune depends on luck, a small one on diligence.

He is useless on top of the ground he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages. Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play. Man may be defined as the animal that can say ”I,” that can be aware of himself as a separate entity. Know-how will surpass guess-how. Laughter is the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man

Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people. Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.

Friendship is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.

An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.

Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd it must be communicated by contagion. Thou art all ice. Thy kindness freezes. Calamity is virtue’s opportunity. Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.A short absence is the safest. It’s fun being a kid. Refuse the evil, and choose the good. [Isaiah 7:15] A man’s feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.

To look at the cross-section of any plan of a big city is to look at something like the section of a fibrous tumor. Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?

Bye

playlists-o-rama

Mike points me towards this project:

1. Open up the music player on your computer.

2. Set it to play your entire music collection.

3. Hit the “shuffle” command.

4. Tell us the title of the next ten songs that show up (with their musicians), no matter how embarrassing. That’s right, no skipping that Carpenters tune that will totally destroy your hip credibility. It’s time for total musical honesty. Write it up in your blog or journal and link back to at least a couple of the other sites where you saw this.

5. If you get the same artist twice, you may skip the second (or third, or etc.) occurances. You don’t have to, but since randomness could mean you end up with a list of ten song with five artists, you can if you’d like.
Here’s what came up (pretty accurate, except for the lack of unfamiliar tunes dumped into my iTunes via various friends’ mp3 mixes):

1. “Little Fishes” – Brian Eno
2. “Alberta #2” – Bob Dylan
3. “Pont of View Point” – Cornelius
4. “Night in Buenos Aires” – Les Baxter
5. “To Spacefuzz With Dub” – Funny Cry Happy
6. “Surfer Girl” – The Beach Boys
7. “Oney” – Johnny Cash
(8a. “Tal Coat” – Brian Eno)
8b. “Everyday People” – Medeski, Martin and Wood
9. “Up To You” – Yo La Tengo
10. “Sugar-Free Jazz” – Soul Coughing

“let me love you” – mario

week of January 22, 2005
#1 this week, #1 last week, 14 weeks on chart

What’s amazing to me about the “Let Me Love You” isn’t the tune’s particular catchiness (I mean, it’s alright), but the way it places itself in that very specific slow-dance space. More, it conjures the same vibe as (say) “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton, even though it literally sounds nothing like it, and draws from an entirely different palette of synthesizers and sonic gimcracks. In some ways, it’s like discovering that we can keep finding new and exciting ways to mix different elements with (basically) the same results. (In other ways, it’s like remembering that one can mix any number of radically vivid colors together and still get brown.)

But let’s go with the former for the duration of this post.

The base of Scott Storch’s production is an alternating groove of subtle bass drum (with subtler melodic properties) and handclaps. Then there’s swelling synth string section that sounds on the verge of shorting out (though it could be the mp3). There’s also another keyboard that surfaces occasionally that sounds a bit like a pedal steel swoop, but it disappears quickly. This all makes the vibe, Mario’s voice merely reinforcing it, and adding a few more hooks to the top.

I particularly like the not-really-call-and-response that feeds into the chorus, where no questions are posed (and no answers are given), and Mario sorta sounds like he’s reacting to obviously rhetorical inquiries even though it’s just obvious boasting. Lots of voices: “You’re the type of woman.” Mario: “deserve good things.” Lots of voices: “Fistful of diamonds.” Mario: “Handful of rings.”

Maybe that’s what good pop is: answering questions that weren’t asked with answers that aren’t answers. How’s that for a Greil Marcus-y conclusion?

Cue Warner Brothers outro theme, Porky Pig, and “That’s All Folks!”

mancala fever

A few days ago, my neighbor’s new loftmate introduced me to mancala — an ancient (?!) game involving strategy and the counting of rocks.

“I call it ‘Ug!'” my friend grunted happily, upon the realization that people of any age from any culture in any period of history could (and likely did) play and understand the utterly elegant principles of the game.

The rules are simple: pick up a pile of shiny pebbles and move them around the board, counting them off as you go. If your last piece lands in your mancala (your bank at the end of your side), you go again. If it lands in an empty bowl on your side, you collect whatever pebbles are in your opponent’s adjacent space.

And from those two rules flower all manners of possibilities, and various strategies by which to parse them. Over the past several days, several friends have dropped by, each with their own minute variations. Each has shifted the game in new ways. On the cyberweb, we’ve found other variations — Egyptian rules, Nigerian rules, Ethiopian rules.

Especially if one has been playing for an hour or so, allowing himself to get fully inside the logic, the introduction of a new rule is a mathematically awesome experience, his brain automatically spinning out equations, unfolding inwards into hypothetical spaces of endless pebbles.

There, I encounter eternally finite riddles, and the vague ghosts of fellow puzzlers past. I envision myself in the midst of some desert city, playing mancala in a cool alleyway between wind-beaten sandstone structures. I am winning.

funny cry happy at kenny’s castaways, 1/12

It’s been a while since I’ve done this, but I’m gonna be playing at Kenny’s Castaways with my old friend Danny Gale’s band, GOBA, this Wednesday (the 12th).

I’m gonna be on around 9:30-10ish, supposedly. My set will likely include some (if not all) of the following: ukulele, yodeling, maritime themes, musical nails, and a couple of songs backed by Danny & GOBA.

I’d love to see ya.

Kenny’s Castaways
157 Bleecker Street
(’cause I know how much you love goin’ to Bleecker Street)

one final smile…? (part II)

More observations about Tim Smolen’s Smile:

– The various sources enter at different points in the stereo image, popping in and out of the mix, and giving the recording an almost literal depth.

– Going with Brian’s original ending to “Good Vibrations” is probably okay, after all — though I still can’t stand the 2004 version in that regard. But, ultimately, it does no harm to the canonical civilian classic, and even suits the album well — not because the lyrics fit with Smile’s “concept” better (or worse), except that it’s Brian’s version. Given what Smile is, I can see how that would be meaningful, beyond any petty anti-Mike Love sentiments that might be lingering in our favorite vegetable.

That and hearing the 20something Brian croon the lyrics as opposed to the 50something Brian really underscores the song’s context as a dopey-love sequel to Pet Sounds (and everything else in the Beach Boys’ catalogue, for that matter).

– There are still a few things I’d edit. Some of those new lyrics sections could really use a snip — especially the out-of-character maritime jig affixed to the delightfully pastoral Americana backing track of “On a Holiday” (one of the most alluring bits of the initial Smile bootleg I got a few years ago). So that leaves the question: who’s gonna keep fucking with Smile? Are people gonna start making aesthetic choices about it? How far can you refine it?

‘kay, promise I’m done for now.

one final smile…?

Well, it happened.

Somebody – specifically Tim Smolen – re-edited the ’60s tapes of Brian Wilson’s Smile into the order suggested by the version completed last year by Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, and company. Smolen’s attention to detail is wonderful. The original recordings are used wherever possible, often to the last possible second before vocal parts from the Nonesuch edition make their entrances (such as on “Wonderful”).

Listening on headphones, everything has a slightly digitalized quality, the result of a ProTools mixdown, or perhaps even a layer of mp3, which is a little off-putting at first, but also provides a surprisingly level playing field for the sources. The pristine digital fidelity of the new Smile thus blends more easily with the high-generation fuzziness of the oft-bootlegged studio leaks.
I’m still a little miffed about the treatment of “Good Vibrations” on Smile 2004. I think the “original” lyrics that Wilson reverted to (presumably so he wouldn’t have to sing words penned by estranged cousin Mike Love?) are pretty lame. More, I think it makes for a horrific closer, and will be dead in my cold, cold grave before I recognize anything other than “Surf’s Up” as the proper ending to the suite. But, Smolen does some good work here.

For starters, he fuses the famous single recording with the earlier takes of the original lyrics and omits the clunker about “working on my brain.” The words are still kinda dumb, but – y’know what? – so is most of Pet Sounds and that’s still heartbreaking. At least on the original “Good Vibrations” recordings, Wilson sings the lyrics with such wide-eyed eyed California beauty that you can take ’em seriously. Sort of.

Smolen also fuses on the retarded false ending that Smile 2004 has (instead of the more graceful theramin fade-out), though makes up for it with the left-field inclusion of the near-a capella “You’re Welcome” – from 1968’s Wild Honey, and previously unconnected to the Smile sessions – as an “Our Prayer”-like coda to the album. “Of course! How obvious!” I thought, when I heard “You’re Welcome” fading in, that same amazed glee I experienced when I heard “Gee” fade out of “Our Prayer” for the first time.

As strange as it is to say this, I think Smile is really finished.

Weird.

see also:
– Wouldn’t It Have Been NIce?, my February 2004 Smile feature for Salon.com.
– Their Hearts Were Full of Spring, in the Winter 2005 edition of Signal To Noise, on newsstands now (not online).

Props to Tim Smolen for making the recording, and David Jay Brown for sending me the disc.

some recent stories

BRAIN TUBA: Whatever Happened to the Band of Tomorrow?
moe. at Roseland, 26 November 2004
The Duo with Andrew Barr and Marc Friedman at the Knitting Factory Tap Bar, 27 November 2004
Lake Trout at Tribeca, 1 December 2004
Medeski/Ribot/Warner/Wood at Tonic, 15 December 2004
Unsilent Night, 18 December 2004
Just Another Diamond Day by Vashti Bunyan

weird al

Weird Al’s brilliant polka medleys were my first exposure to oodles of popular songs, including a good portion of the Stones’ repertoire (“Hot Rocks Polka,” from UHF), early ’90s power pop (“Polka Your Eyes Out,” from Off The Deep End), and – since my hippie parents (Jah bless ’em) never got cable – even MTV standards (“Polka Party” from, um, Polka Party).
Tonight, I downloaded everything that I’d been missing — mostly from the albums Al has released since my 1997 high school graduation. And, having since become that most impolite breed of listener known as a “rockist,” this is some of my first exposure to many of the relatively contemporary numbers included. Once again, Al is serving as my Cliff’s Notes.
The polkas are incredible: succinct indexes of melody that create a surprisingly level playing field for the quality of the songs. Somebody could write a wonderful musicological essay about the timeless (?) themes revealed by these juxtapositions. (I’ll just add that to the list of things to do…)
In consulting the ever-helpful All Music Guide, I discovered several refreshingly thoughtful reviews of Al albums by the likes of AMG founder Stephen Thomas Erlewine and avant-garde banjoist Dr. Eugene Chadbourne (when the hell did he write for All Music?).
Erlewine’s critique of the recent Poodle Hat is genuinely impassioned — though his charges against “Angry White Boy Polka” seem overblown. While the title certainly doesn’t describe The White Stripes or The Strokes too well (at least compared to, say, Eminem), the juxtaposition of the latter and the former is preceisely what’s important. The Strokes’ “Last Nite” as doo-wop ragtime is a Zappa-like twist of genius
(And, at the risk of turning into the guy from The Onion‘s “I Must Take Issue with the Wikipedia Entry For ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic” piece, I’d also like to correct a repeated gaff in Chadbourne’s insightful reviews of Al’s first three albums — specifically that “no children of any age have expressed much interest in the original material [on In 3-D].” As literally one of the mythical 11-year olds Dr. Chad refers to elsewhere, I loved his original tunes just as much as his parodies, so much so I don’t remember even differentiating between ’em.)
Well, now that that’s outta my system…
(PS. Anybody know when The Onion’s archives became subscriber only? Weak.)

new year’s resolution #1: post more often

Watching the Flaming Lips’ New Year’s show at Madison Square Garden last night, opening for Wilco, wasn’t so much about being surprised but about seeing the culmination (one hopes) of Yoshimi, knowing exactly what was coming, and enjoying every second of it. It was beautiful to see the Lips’ stage show transplanted into such a large room. Part of the drama was wondering whether or not it would work.
I was in the upper 300s, straight back and across the room. As their set opened, the Lips looked very small and distant, the sound muddy and gross, the houselights still dim above our heads. But the balloons kept coming, growing like a lush psychedelic flower from the stage as fast the Lips’ Okie buddy roadies could fill ’em, It was like the climax of Akira in slow motion.
By the end of “Race For the Prize,” the room was filled with color, and the Lips were in charge. Wayne Coyne does a very good job of making it look and sound like he’s giving the audience exactly what they want. And certainly the sing-alongs, the images of Dick Cheney and company flashing on the screen during a cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” the goading from Coyne, etc., can all be used as evidence that the Lips are pandering.
But then what do you make off all the truly gruesome images flashing on the screen in the Lips’ videos? The blood and the guts and the people getting shot, cut open, collapsing, dying? Is that what people want? Is it Coyne’s party trick to make people think that they do?
I think it’s high time for the Lips to take the money and run, to go finish Christmas on Mars before it turns into Coyne’s personal SMiLE.

can it really be this easy?

Good golly gosh. I bought this website well over a year ago, put that damn message up, and then promptly got sucked into a half-dozen other projects (including co-curating an art exhibit about spam, co-editing an issue of Relix about Phish, finishing an album, writing the libretto for an opera, DJing a wedding, and writing). And didn’t update this. Yeah, right, right. I know. Anyway, this is a start.

“overnight celebrity” – twista featuring kanye west

#6 this week, #6 last week, 11 weeks on the chart

Here’s the second appearance of motor-mouthed Twista since I relaunched this project. The follow-up to “Slow Jamz” is cool, and I like a lot of the production a bunch, but it doesn’t gel for me as a song. There is no single moment that I can latch onto — a little in-joke, or a vocal hook that lodges itself in my brain. Of course, there are things we’re supposed to notice: Twista’s hyperspeed vocals, West’s sing-songy chorus, etc., but none of them – for me – create that really satisfying sense of fun that comes with a great pop tune (and certainly did so with the hilarious/sexy “Slow Jamz”).

I do like the beginning a fair bit, though grimace when I imagine stodgy old LA session string players performing this at the Grammys or some shit. Either way, it’s a cool little tension builder (like the crashingly bombastic orchestral flourishes that would often begin old Sinatra sides). There’s that bit of braggadocio (“you didn’t think we could do it again…”) and the drums somehow overtake the orchestra, which simultaneously accelerates and fragments into stuttered samples. Great effect. It’s a great 30-second tag opening, then into the chorus.

West’s chorus drives the point home, before handing off to Twista. A lot of Twista’s appeal is his virtuosity, I think — something about the way he is able to effortlessly overlay rhythms atop his precise delivery. I like that, too. (Though I also suspect he might be looked back on as the Yngwie Malmsteen of rappers, where it’ll later be revealed that the whole thing was a ProTools-altered sham…)

The collage of samples and production throughout the song – which switches, quasi-episodically, between Twista and West – is subtly astounding. The beats meld perfectly with the string samples, as well as a twinkling little piano figure that’s too fast to be an arpeggio, but too slow to be a chord (is there a word for that?). There’s also a sample of singing woman. Together, all of these elements syncopate grandly, locking in around each other. Unfortunately, they never quite transcend themselves, never quite combine themselves into that magical arrangement of elements unglimpsable during the song’s opening.

I do quite like the bit later in the song when West proclaims “see baby girl, you see how you make a brother break down” as the fractured beats suddenly smooth back out into a “live” orchestra. That, too, is a cool effect — a sonic/technical feat, at the very least. After that, though, it jumps back into the chorus, which I think is unfortunate. I think I’d like this song more if there were more attention paid to its architecture — the way it flows, and the way it ends. Likewise, after the intro, it’s a fairly simple ABABCAB structure (or something), where the C (“see baby girl…”) reaches no further out than to reprise the intro. I wish it went deeper.

“the reason” – hoobastank

#5 this week, #8 last week, 11 weeks on the chart

There’s definitely something afoot here. Well, maybe not definitely, but I do find it a mite interesting that the #5 slot, both this week and last, has been occupied by an honest-to-“Bob” guitar-driven band playing a song with fairly normal/innocuous verse/chorus/verse songs. Last week, it was Maroon5, who slipped down to #7 this week. This time, it’s Hoobastank (whose name I remembered from a walk with my friend Paul around lower Manhattan, repeatedly reading their name on construction site wall posters, and collapsing into hysterics at our exaggerated elongated pronunciation of “Whooooooo-bah”).

When I was driving around Los Angeles last month, I was flipping through the radio stations on my aunt’s car, and found some station playing one of the cuts from The Postal Service album. The station announcements informed me breathlessly that I was listening to “The Indie” (or some variation thereof) the same way Z1000 in New York used to brag about being “the alternative station” (or some variation thereof). The Indie, as I read later, was just another ClearChannel station. The intro to Hoobastank’s “The Reason” kind of reminds me of that feeling — a half-second rush of excitement that maybe something cool has triumphed, followed by a muted acceptance that the reality is actually very different.

“The Reason” begins with a repeated piano note. It is joined, at three seconds in, by a cool modern sounding beat. At six seconds, an icily spider-like guitar figure is uncoiled. Both very cool. At 12 seconds come a sorta cheesy bassline. It doesn’t feel wrong, exactly, ’cause it still seems like a cool song could be made out of those elements. Then, at 14 seconds, things veer off horribly. The vocal melody comes in and, like The Indie, “The Reason” turns out to be just another mid-tempo love ballad. In fact, it hit a peak that is uncannily similar to Clay Aiken’s “Solitaire” (and achieved with a power metal-sorta build) when they get to the first, dramatic “and the reason is yoooooooooooooooou” (after that, it’s more like metal).

By the end of the song, when all of the elements have been cycled into the ground, it’s almost embarrassing for me to admit that I was even fooled by them during the song’s intro. All the pop trappings are added – synthesizer, strings, even giant “Disarm”-style bells – and it loses whatever it was that was interesting about it during its opening seconds.

“this love” – maroon5

#5 this week, #5 last week, 15 weeks on the chart

In the upper reaches of the chart, like a team 15 games ahead of the nearest competition at All-Star Break, Usher is doing battle with himself (“Burn” and “Yeah,” flip-flopped between the first and third spots this week). It’s boring in some ways but insistently enthralling others. Meanwhile, a few slots down, there’s a surprise in store — one that I’m still not sure if I understand correctly. If their AMG entry is to be believed, Maroon5 is an actual rock band (they’ve got, y’know guitars) from New York, recording for a genuinely independent label (Octotone). It seems like a Spin Doctors story, since their album, Songs About Jane, came out in 2002. But wherever they came from, here they are.

“This Love” really does crossbreed indie and pop-circa-2004. Atop a decidedly hip-hop beat are stabbing guitars and a singer who sounds (to my ears) uncannily like Woody Ranere from Lake Trout. In fact, come to think of it, the whole package sounds like Lake Trout during the verses (kinda minimalist jungle rhythms with an assured dry melody). When they hit the chorus, Maroon5 is definitely pop — albeit made with a weird fusion of hip-hop/reggae/ska-punk (ie. those indie guitar stabs sped to stuttered upbeats and threaded with a syncopated vocal line). And if they didn’t make the point with the chorus, the all-soul bridge emphatically drives it home: they are all of these things.

But, ultimately, the switch between the verse and the eventual bridge is drastic. The mood in the verses is decidedly cool — a narrator in fine, even refined, control of himself. The chorus’s switch to sexy pop-mode works. The singer is still playing high status (“her heart is breaking in front of me”), or trying to, but then comes that bridge, where the singer breaks down to pleading (“I’ll fix these broken things, repair your broken wings, and make sure everything’s alright…”) and reveals in his inner softy who’s happy to, say, listen to Enya if it makes his girlfriend happy. It’s a cool little trick of musical narrative.

It’s also kind of a depressing song, a break-up song or maybe a make-up-in-resignation song. There haven’t been many of those, at least while I’ve been watching the charts, and I wonder what that means in relation to the national psyche (or maybe just in relation to the psyche of the Independent Promoters and other keepers of the gated playlists). And just in time for summer, too, huh? I gotta admit, I’m confused on that level, however well the song is written (and, as the song cycles for its eighth play on iTunes, I’ve come to admit that it’s quite clever). No shit? Does this turn in mood have anything to do with a turn in current events? The UFOs’ arrival over Mexico? That’s probably a stupid assumption to make. The only thing to do, I suppose, is to keep watching the skies.

“naughty girl” – beyoncé

#4 this week, #4 last week, 8 weeks on the chart

Been a while. Almost a month, folks. (Say, are there folks? Drop me a line if there are. I never bothered to install a counter on this thing.) In the time I was gone, it doesn’t look the top three have shifted at all, so I guess I didn’t as much as I feared. At number four this week, same as last, is what somebody recently called the “single of the summer” — Beyoncé’s “Naughty Girl.” I can definitely see that happening. The song doesn’t feel like an event or a defining/epic musical destination. The way some songs are meant to hit you big, some are meant to not so much hit you as slide around you. “Naughty Girl” is one of those. It’s really undramatic. It’s kind of just a groove that I can easily imagine in the background of summer weather — a cool contemporary groove, at that.

It’s definitely the center of the song. The tune begins with (and is based around) a repeating funk guitar riff. It’s like the guitar figure is the alpha male and everything else that comes into the mix must fix itself relative to that part. And they do — which is precisely what maintains the ear’s interest throughout. The first sample is just a Zeppelin-like quasi-Egyptian string thang, which begins at the beginning of the pattern. A wash leads to Beyoncé’s intro vocal, soaring over the changes, then different Egyptian string parts, which disappear intermittently (and not predictably) during the verse. The first cool trick comes when Beyoncé’s voice suddenly doubles one of the rising exotica samples and finds itself then doubling the main funk riff. I like the effect — two figures that were once laid atop one another (string sample and the funk riff) are now laid back-to-back linearly. I’m not sure if there’s term for that or not, but it’s satisfying to me as a listener — it makes the pre-chorus of the song feel inevitable, which then feeds to the title chorus which feels like a release from everything that’s come before.

The chorus, though, doesn’t feel dramatic. There’s a slight rise in the melody to let you know that it’s the chorus, but it doesn’t soar or anything. It barely moves — which is why it feels like a summertime song. It’s not aggressive about making you wanna dance. If you’re dripping in the heat fanning yourself with a newspaper, the song still feels right. On the other hand, I can imagine the song having a pleasantly sultry impact on the dance floor. In fact, the song feels like a dizzying heatwave where one must beat it or be beaten. The song capitalizes on that feeling in a sexy, confident way.

“burn” – usher

#5 this week, #10 last week, 6 weeks on the chart

Usher, whose “Yeah!” has been nestled at number one since I relaunched this blog a month or two back, is now competing with himself in the Top 10. It’s a ballad, a love song (and a solo one at that), but retains the performative structure, where it flows from section to section in a… well, I want to say “cinematic,” but that doesn’t feel right. It’s more “episodic,” or something other metaphor that can be tied to television. The idea of the beginning, middle, and end do seem important to this kind of songwriting, even if that beginning/middle/end isn’t literally tied to a plot.

So, “Burn” begins with a quick spoken intro over, first, noise, then, strings and mellotron (I think). For the first two seconds of the song (noise and “I don’t understand… why…”) it sounds as if the song could kick in with one of those sharply mixed techno grooves. Instead, Usher’s voice changes, the strings establish themselves, and it makes the turn/commitment to be a slow tune. I love the way the keyboard and the strings work with each other, the keys sounding really sweet and romantic and ballad-like, in a way that would seem incongruous with strings that also sound really sweet and romantic and ballad-like… but it doesn’t, and they don’t. As the classical guitar comes in, this becomes the ambient base of the song, and the spoken part crests into an overemotive/soulful vocal (the strings drop out there).

There is no over-arching melody (at least one that jumps out), but – instead – there are lots of very small hooks (“I do but you don’t”, a quick jump to falsetto, an almost South African vocal break later on, etc.) that are predominantly rhythmic. I like that, actually, even if it’s not as elegant as having one really good melody. They’re like little nooks for the ear to discover (and definitely lend to the picaresque – there’s the word! – effect). The little blurp of white noise used to lead into the spoken intro also cues the chorus, and lets us know that we have achieved title. The picaresque is a neat trick. It makes music more playful, and keeps it from being entirely grandiose and serious. In terms of Usher, it also lets him find his own voice and way of singing.

As a follow-up to “Yeah,” it seems like a good choice. If one imagines that the only two tracks by Usher that somebody knows are “Yeah” and this – and those are the only two that I know – then they serve to establish Usher as a character. And, since this is a slow song, the message would seem to be that, gee, Usher has depth. I’m not convinced of that yet, but “Burn” is a pretty impressive performance, even if Usher himself comes off as a tad hyperactive and eager to show off his vocal range.

Well, buckaroos, I’m off for some travel this week. I’m not sure if I’m gonna update next week, or the week after… but circumstances will tell.

“i don’t wanna know” – mario winans featuring p. diddy and enya

#4 this week, #9 last week, 8 weeks on the chart

There’s a fantastic, fantastic article in The New Yorker this week by Jake Halpern about the Trackboyz and J-Kwon. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It confirms what I suspected (or maybe wanted to suspect): that there is no firm, singular, one-way star system in the music industry. Sure, the right wheels need to be greased, and the right folks have to get paid, but – the point is – anybody who succeeds has to follow a long, hard path of greasing wheels and the like. That, in itself, is a talent with a certain accompanying skill set and even musical qualities. The Trackboyz are from St. Louis, and that’s cool. The article talks about where/how they live, and generally paints a picture of how they got there.

I don’t know much about Mario Winans – he appears to be predominantly a producer – but I can only imagine that he’s had to beat his own path, especially if he’s producing his own full-length debut. The first thing that jumps out at me about this song is a production thing: the drums are dominant with flaming oodles of practically ambient strings and keyboards and what floating beneath. There’s a lot of stuff happening, but it’s hard to make out any specifics. The second thing that jumps out (which I only noticed after a few listens) is the nature of the beat. On one hand, it’s not insistent. It doesn’t draw me in at all, and feels far too mellow to be effective in a club. But, the more I listen, the more I can get into it. Somehow, the tempo is just right. It’s punchier than a ballad, but slower than anything else. Likewise, it’s got a cool stuttered kick that doesn’t quite repeat the same way each time. (I also like how it drops out for half-a-second before P. Diddy’s solo.)

It begins with a bit of performative plot (a ringing phone, “let me call you right back, we’re doing this mix tape right now…”) and drops into a little spoken intro that’s slathered in echo. The strings are impossibly distant, like Jordan and Daisy from The Great Gatsby listening to a symphony recording in a small corner of a vast, airy porch. I like the feeling of longing they create, both in general (their syrupy tone) and their liternalness (wanting to hear more). The chorus is catchy, and P. Diddy’s appearance is pleasant enough (I swear he drops a line about Western Beef, which is hilarious), but the whole thing is just sleepy sounding to me.

“solitaire” – clay aiken

#4 this week, first week on chart

I don’t think I really like the music on the pop charts, or – at the very least – I don’t find so much pleasure in them that I put them on when I’m listening to music outside the time I’m working on this weekly blog. But I’ve been getting into the idea of pop music as a game, comparing and contrasting these different songs and seeing what moves they’re making in terms of the structure and hooks and all the little tricks that go into Top 5 pop (like the way “Good Vibrations” is often revered because it had different sections, used a theremin, etc.). Mike Doughty wrote that music isn’t a technology and that it doesn’t “progress.” Well, perhaps, but try explaining that to genuinely pop songwriters and producers.

The number one record this week is “Solitaire” by Clay Aiken, who I gather was a contestant on American Idol. I’m not sure if this is the recording that’s made the charts, but it appears to be taken from a live taping. (Even if it’s not the one that’s on the chart, it’s the one that’s circulating on the networks, so that probably says something.) There’s a crowd that cheers for half-a-second at the beginning. And, then, the performance. The two things that jump out immediately for me are the fact that it’s barely longer than a minute long (which can be explained by the fact that was for a segment of a television show), but also that it’s a real performance by one person (a sharp contrast to all of the other songs I’ve listened to for this project) singing in the traditional image of pop (as opposed to hip-hop).

I’ve never seen a full episode of American Idol, though I remember reading a commentary somewhere that the contestants on the show essentially present a composite of some subconscious idea about both what talent and pop music should be. I like that argument — especially because this conception of pop music and virtuosity is nothing at all like the other things that have been in the Top 5 lately. That’s not to say that it’s an original-sounding song. It’s not; precisely because it does seem to represent subconscious ideas about talent and what pop should be. It’s a bit of a paradox.

The song is very straightforward: a band backs a singer singing of heartache. But, at the same time, it doesn’t really follow the formula because it’s boiled down for television. Everything has to be condensed into just over a minute. It just cuts to the chase. Fuck this verse/chorus shit, “Solitaire” is just one big build towards The Big Note at the end. That Big Note is the song’s calling card and, even though it’s a moment that’s not repeated, it serves as the hook. After all, the song was performed to demonstrate Aiken’s vocal agility, and The Big Note is the most agile of ’em all. That’s all that’s important, really. I don’t think people really listen to the lyrics on a song like this. Though it appears to be a narrative (there’s a “he” and a “she” and some elements of time and a story) there’s nothing one could reasonably flesh out without liberal doses of imagination. Key words pop out “solitaire,” of course, which comes up in different places (the lyrics of the song are just one extended metaphor). Clearly, the song (or this arrangement of it) is arranged for a showcase performance.

I like, then, how the equation changes. I feel like there could be a cool flow chart made to demonstrate this (like something offa Last Plane to Jakarta, except a little less ironic). The first box is “Idea of Pop Song,” with an arrow into two successive boxes, labeled “Television” and “Demonstration of Virtuosity,” and a resulting box, labeled “Idea of Pop Song (x)” (where “(x)” represents the transformation). Right. The point is, it’s something unique and different than what got fed into it to start.

What’s bizarre is that the song begins with applause (to cue the listener into the fact that this is, in fact, live, a real/”real” performance), but there are no applause at the end. You’d think there would be, to underscore the fact that the crowd reacted wildly. But maybe there is a good reason. Presumably this is getting played on the radio. Without that applause, the song would just have to feed instantly into whatever’s next. Since the Big Note is also the last note, there’s no time for anything but a super-quick crossfade, or the DJ (or robo-DJ) runs the risk of ruining the song (though maybe they do). That’s probably gives the song even more visceral impact, leaving one a little dizzy as the next song begins, still trying to assimilate what he just heard. Maybe. That’s sort of my conception of it. Some time, next time I’m on a long car trip (a few weeks, actually), maybe I’ll put on a pop radio station and see how much I recognize, and how it works in context.

“tipsy” – j-kwon

#3 this week, #4 last week, 11 weeks on the chart
I’m constantly reminded how little I actually know about pop music — real pop music. It’s a natural inclination to reach for other songs to make comparisons. Context. But there’s so little I can reach for here. I wonder what year it escaped me. What would be the last chart one could put in front of me where I could hum a few bars of even 50% of the songs on there, or identify 75% of the bands? What decade would it even be in? My guess it that it happened sometime around 1992, which is about the year where I started making conscious decisions about what music I wanted to listen to (ironically via listening to Nirvana). That’s a 10-year blackout in my cultural memory, which is weird to think about. But it also makes me a relative blank slate when listening to these songs. Go figure. That’s kind of nice.

So, here we are with “Tipsy.” Or, more accurately, here I am with “Tipsy.” It’s by J-Kwon, a guy so new that the usually reliable All Music Guide is of no help. Arista’s website reveals that this is his debut single. His first full-length won’t even be out until next week, and this tune has been on the charts for almost three months already. Here it is at number three. That seems like a pretty well-timed promotional campaign. But, well, that’s the kind of cynicism I want to avoid. The song is here, someplace in the public consciousness, regardless of how it arrived. What is it doing?

Even before I read Arista’s marketing pitch about J-Kwon as a streetwise 17-year old, the song seemed to have split personalities. The verses of the tune are delivered in a sort of inward mumble, a kid walking down the street (or walking through a club) quietly rapping to himself, working on his flow. The vocals are tight-lipped, and – indeed – the lyrics serve this kind of delivery well, which seems like an internal monologue of sorts (“Now I’m in the back…”). The chorus, then, has J-Kwon (no guests here, even!) busting into a more open-throated delivery (“Everybody in the club get tipsy”) and one can imagine the shy kid suddenly on stage, or at the center of attention, and delivering the lyrics. There’s a video to this too, I suppose, which I probably now have to watch to see if that seemingly obvious version of the song is how they choose to portray it. I’ll check that out later.

The production on this is pretty fresh-sounding to my ears, though not hugely experimental. It’s all sterile synthesizers and beats. I imagine the whole beat carved in imperial grays and silvers, the sort of sharp shapes that might decorate the inside of the Empire State Building. It feels very electronic — like IDM stripped of all its self-qualifying pretensions. The music is very even throughout, and the structure is very simple verse/chorus/verse/chorus, etc.. The episodic structure definitely lends itself to the of guest appearances. It’s sort of natural for that. None of that here. I like it. It’s definitely a change for the ears. Okay, time to watch the video.

“slow jamz” – twista featuring kanye west and jamie foxx

#3 this week, #3 last week, 16 weeks on the chart

Hey, I’m a honky. I like this song. I think it’s really clever, and can see how and why it works. For starters, it takes the episodic structure of these pop tunes and not only defines the sections well, but keeps them somehow both varied and intrinsically connected. The basic structure: a slow female-sung slow jam, a pair of verses by producer Kenye West, and (finally) Twista’s own contribution. Once each element is introduced, it is free to appear underneath the other ones. The female voice comes back a few times for her own verses, but it also appears underneath Twista’s hyperactive rhymes as a counterpoint (a fugue sample?).

The song works, I think, in a very complex way, as far as being genuine social music. For starters, it’s sexy. That’s obviously important. But what’s equally important is that it’s playful. It’s an icebreaker song, the kind of thing that bridges that void in the conceptual gymnasium that will always exist between guys and girls. So, it’s sexy, with all the tension that implies, but it also breaks that tension down with sheer humor. Great lines like West’s priceless “Got a light-skinned friend looks just like Michael Jackson / Got a dark-skinned friend looks just like Michael Jackson” are the kinds of things that everybody can just shout along with when they hear it in a bar, and then – bam – back to the sexiness. The first line breaks the ice with humor, and the second keeps it hot.

For my money, an even better line – albeit swallowed in the mix – “Imma play this Vandross / You gonna take your pants off.” Hilarious. And it’s made even better ’cause it’s a relevant reference (just like, say, the Tom Tom Club shout-out to funk heroes in “Genius of Love”) and because West’s base for the song is a sped-up Luther Vandross sample (which, despite being chipmunked still retains its fundamental qualities). After the brief two-line interval from Jamie Foxx, in comes Twista — a full two minutes into the song. On one hand, that’s kinda cheesy, being that it’s his single and all. But, on the other hand, I can dig it. Every goddamn single these days is driven by guest appearances, to the point where the marquee name really begins to disappear. Twista’s entrance, in some sense, is dramatic.

And his vocal part is cool, too, I think. It’s frenzied as fuck, but it’s never obnoxious. While it’s obviously virtuoustic, it’s never at the expense of the song. The words just tumble out, and Twista’s voice never sounds strained (also a little ironic titling the song “Slow Jamz” when Twista’s main gimmick is being a motormouth). The rhythms, too, are cool, and the arrangement works around the machine-gun vocals well. There are some cool drum fills behind Twista. Likewise, the samples sound neat behind him too — the Vandross, the female voice. In places, Twista’s rhythms are so weird that they remind one (or, at least, me) of some of the crazy vibraphone breaks on Ruth Underwood-era Frank Zappa.

This is not fulfilling music to me, and – as always – it’s a bit odd taking it out of context and pointing out all the stupid/silly tricks that exist within it. But, on the other hand, it’s still fun to try to figure all that out. For what it is – music designed to be consumed by a lot of people, probably in a public place – it’s extremely satisfying music, and very well done

“one call away” – chingy featuring j. weav

#2 this week, #4 last week, 7 weeks on the chart

The last time I wrote about Chingy, I wondered about the existence of regionalism in his music. It was maybe, I posited, detectable in the singer’s accent and the lyrics, but not necessarily in the beats and production itself. But, listening to his latest chart-topper, I’m having a stupid revelation: just how can one detect the existence of regionalism, anyway? I mean, it’s real obvious in music from the ’40s and ’50s. There is a marked existence between the Texas swing of Bob Wills and the Kentucky high and lonesome of Bill Monroe, and I’m inclined to believe – on some level – that difference is at least as much about the difference between what it’s like to live and write music in Texas and what it’s like to live and write music in Kentucky as it is about the difference between Wills and Monroe as human beings — mostly based on the evidence that similar differences can be derived between the various bands that followed in Wills’ and Monroe’s wake.

So, Chingy. Is this what the Dirty South sounds like? Sure, I can picture it, though perhaps not as unconsciously as I might be able to if I had never been to Atlanta, and not had it defined by other musical associations. There’s a warmly airy quality to the guitar part, underscored by the strings that blend nicely with the guitar. On top of that is a distorted beat. It feels like a warm night in an urban environment — the strings creating the quality of the air, the tone of the beat carving out a closed-in space (though one with wide streets and low buildings, as opposed to cluttered with tall buildings). I mean, more or less, I’m imagining Atlanta. Am I projecting because of what I know about both Chingy and the city of Atlanta? Most probably, but I think that’s how it’s supposed to work. By mentioning it with such frequency in their songs (though not here), Chingy and others of the Dirty South certainly do their best to create it as a place for the listener to imagine. Given music’s ambiguity, every listener will imagine something different.

I like the different vocal parts on the chorus. There are two or three vocal parts floating around, not to mention the guitar and the handclaps (which morph neatly into the beat). The drums all throughout the opening (a non-repeated element that leads into the chorus) are cool, methodically accelerating into the main groove (a cool rhythmic hook to pull the listener in). The first verse has strings, but no guitar. The second verse has guitar, but no strings. They meet back up again in the chorus. The third verse has both, but – at first – they don’t play at the same time, alternating snugly, before overlapping as the verse transitions into the chorus.

Of the songs I’ve listened to for this project, this one seems to have the closest to the verse/chorus/verse that I ignorantly figured would be prevalent on nearly all the tracks (preconceptions of pop?). Oddly, I also find this to be one of the most unexciting tunes I’ve listened to for it. Meh.

“yeah!” – usher featuring lil’ john and ludacris

#1 this week, #2 last week, 8 weeks on the chart

In an effort for this blog not to become just another web statistic, and me not to become further out of touch with what most of the people in the country are actually listening to, I’m gonna revive this here project with this week’s #1: “Yeah!” by Usher, featuring Lil’ Jon and Ludacris. Though the last thing I wrote about was by Lil’ Jon (“Get Low”), I really don’t remember all too much about it except what I wrote about (and, obviously, the “to the window… to the wall” hook).

Like “Get Low,” “Yeah” doesn’t have a verse/chorus/verse structure. Instead, it has what I’ve started unconsciously referring to as a “performative” structure. And though that’s a fucking pretentious term, I’m not sure how else to describe it. There is a catchy-ass repeating element in the tune, of course, but it’s not a vocal hook or a chorus or any of that — it’s this little three or four note synth figure that never quite lands the way I expect it to. Everything is organized on top of that, which is to say: Usher’s performance, as well as the guest appearances from Lil’ Jon and Ludacris. And since the different sections of the song by the different performers are all drastically varied in terms of rhythm and melody, it is that keyboard riff that ties everything together and guides the song from part to part.

The track begins with a quick shout-out to A-town (a “news” element that either serves to ground the song as part of reality or a hint that this is the beginning of a performance), and then what I figure is Usher’s vocal: a soulful/”soulful” vocal with a heaping helping of vibratto. Production-wise, there are high-pitched stereo-panned chimes. The vocal melody dives around the keyboard loop, which literally repeats until the end of the song. The second verse is marked by the introduction of a counterpoint on a synth flute. (I’m guessing the gruff vocals are Lil’ Jon.) The third verse, a solo by Usher (I think) is impassioned, with a different, sweet harmonized call-and-response.

The keyboard loop is really quite liberating, structurally. It repeats endlessly. Stupidly. At least, that is, until one thinks about it. Having it there for the entire song allows practically every other element of the song to change — different vocal arrangements, for example (multiple voices emphasizing different phrases in each verse), the different singers, etc.. It allows the tune to sustain a lot of different work.

Of the different sections, I think Ludacris’s is my favorite, because he pushes the hardest against the keyboard loop. (At least, I’m assuming it’s his, based on the identification.) There’s a nice atmospheric shift right before he starts singing. Not sure how, since there’s no real change in the production. It all hinges on the line “gimmie the rhythm,” where he crams about a billion syllables into one breath, and – for that second – the possibilities seem limitless, but the song quickly snaps back into line, and something that sounds like a chorus, even though I don’t retain a note of it when the song ends. Besides this middle part (the Moment of Being for the tune, maybe?), the track doesn’t excite me all too much.

“get low” – lil jon & the east side boyz featuring ying yang twins

#3 this week, #4 last week, 24 weeks on the chart.

Y’know what this reminds me of? Captain Beefheart. The timbre of one of the singer’s voices (the first one), specifically, combined with the absurdity of some of the lyrics. It’d be absurd to say that Beefheart had a direct influence on this track, but it might be relevant to point out how patently absurd base-level pop lyrics are these days. And, by “patently absurd,” I mean genuinely absurd. These aren’t the simple handholding stories of pre-Beatles stuff, nor are they simply thinnly veiled sex/drugs references (I don’t think). I mean, obviously, the bulk of it is (“Bend over to the front touch toes / Back that ass up and down and get low”), but it seems to be held together by this sense of urgent lunacy.

But there’s also the call and response, which is the part that first seemed Beefheartian to me: “to the window (to the window), to the wall (to the wall),” with the response being in the Beefheart voice. I’m not sure what it means, exactly, but it does seem to mean something, and does so for some of the same reasons that Beefheart lyrics do: they’ve got an internal logic to them. This song has a bunch of different repeating elements — multiple choruses, in a sense. Each one of them is catchy. It gives the song a different character than the usual, though, and adds to the sense of being driven by an internal logic. Here’s one of the choruses: “To all skee skee motherfucker (motherfucker!) all skee skee got dam (got dam!)” (I grabbed the lyrics off the web, and that seems to be the consensus.) So, does “skee skee” mean anything? Maybe. Objectively, probably not.

Also particularly Beefheartian to me, or at least absurd (or Absurd) in the same sense, is the intro to the song, transcribed as “Brr dum dum dum—dum da da da da dum.” In practice, it’s a cool little riff, just a little flat off the intended notes, I think. Either way, it sounds rough, like an old blues, except not really like an old blues at all. But it’s got a compatible weirdness. (Which maybe explains the Beefheart thang; one could probably draw parallel paths from old blues stuff to both Beefheart and the Dirty South crews.) It’s playful, and that playfulness runs under the whole track, which (along with the different repeating elements) lend it this vibe of spontaneity. I can’t say it necessarily has me convinced, but it’s one way to get at it.

I really like the structure of having lots of smaller call-and-responses, as opposed to one chorus that keeps getting driven home (though it hits the “skee skee” bit a bunch). It makes the track seem a little bit more like a performance, even if there’s no clear narrative (musical or lyrical). It’s what allows the tune to thrive for over five-and-a-half minutes. If it kept reverting to the same chorus, it wouldn’t be able to sustain itself for that whole time. In that sense, the tune feels musically episodic, jumping from one “incident” to the next. I can’t say it feels like a journey, but it moves through time nicely.

bitchin’ idea for an article

Fifth graders draw interpretations of Radiohead songs.
Awesome.

new articles

Out of the Aeroplane Into the Sea. My Salon.com debut. A fairly navel-gazin’ stab (ostensibly) at The Decemberists’ Her Majesty, The Decemberists.
A review of Yo La Tengo at Southpaw, 2 September.

“baby boy” featuring sean paul

#2 this week, #4 last week, 6 weeks on the chart.

My first collection, at least that I can remember, was baseball cards. I loved completing sets — getting a sequence of card numbers, getting a few cards of the same player, of the same team. As far as my pop collection goes, “Baby Boy” is officially a member of a set. It’s part of two sets, actually. At least this week, it fills in the hole between #1 (“Shake Ya Tailfeather”) and #3 (“Right Thurr”), both of which I’ve listened to and written about. It’s also my second Beyonce song (with “Crazy In Love”). So I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice. And which also means I can start generalizing/theorizing a little more. Yay.

On “Crazy In Love,” Jay-Z’s rap made a weirdly literal interpretation of craziness (just as bizarre as those Greil Marcus descriptions of What The Songs Really Mean). Here, instead of “crazy,” the concept is “fantasy” — as in the chorus of the song: “Baby boy, stay on my mind, fulfill my fantasy.” So, again, there’s this literal undercurrent to it, as the song brims with cool escapist cues. Frickin’ sitars, for example. They’re awesome — squiggly and completely weird during the intro, dropping curiously into the verse, but then they kind of just morph into the instrumental bed of the track until they’re completely indistinguishable (though brought back for a short solo/fill during the outro).

Then, there’s Sean Paul, who toasts through his breaks and does vocal fills throughout that add reggae off-rhythms to Beyonce’s lead. As a musical trick, that’s cool, but it also works with the fantasy conceit of the tune. Amidst dance pop (and especially atop the sitars and other noises), Paul’s vocals are exotic, the singer’s fantasy, and the subject of the tune.

All this connects back to Greil Marcus again, oddly. I read this quote when the article first came out, but a post today on RockCritics Daily reminded me. Anyway, Sir Greil posits, “I really used to believe, and I haven’t any reason to think differently, that in the ’50s and ’60s, with clear exceptions that you find out about later, for the most part the best records did break through, did get heard. There were exceptions to that, but the cream did rise to the top–I think that’s true. Nobody can make that argument today. You simply cannot make an argument that the top 10, the top 20, the top 40 on the Billboard charts of any given week represent the most adventurous, the most challenging, the most creative, the most surprising music being made today. It would be a ludicrous joke to try to make that argument today. It’s been a long time since the most striking work was showing up in those kinds of charts.”

There’s certainly some grumpy hippiness to what he’s saying but, for the most part, he’s right. The most adventurous music isn’t on the pop charts. But, that’s not what the pop charts are for. That’s not what pop is for. It can be, and it’s exciting when it is. But, for the most part, that’s what the avant-garde is for. And that’s not to separate the two, necessarily. There is an important correlation between them, as experimental ideas begin to infiltrate the mainstream like applied, functional research. So, “Baby Boy” by Beyonce has some shit going on it that wouldn’t be possible, even in the ’60s: a typical pop tune, fused with Indian melodies and Jamaican rhythms. Likewise, within that, there are all manners of experiments: big block piano chords (hints of Cage?), fractured electronics, irregular handclaps. Yeah, good stuff. I like Beyonce.

“three short words” – josie & the pussycats

(“If I could go back in time, I would want to meet Snoopy.”)

I watched Josie and the Pussycats tonight, which I like maybe more than I should. Whatever. It’s a great movie, and it reminded me that I should post to this thing more often. But, before I get to that, I just wanted to exult (briefly) about “Three Small Words,” one of the Pussycats’ tunes. It’s great. Go download it. It pretty much perfectly adheres to The Residents’ Commercial Album theory: that most pop songs can be boiled down to one minute — a verse, a chorus, and a bridge/solo. Sho’ nuff, after exactly a minute, “Three Small Words” jumps to its second cycle, and it’s hard to think the songwriters don’t know. Anyway, great song, catchy-ass chorus. A good, simple way of getting around the obvious phrase, never actually speaking/singing it. Two minutes and fifty-three seconds of goodness. Now, on with the countdown.

“right thurr” – chingy

#3 this week, #2 last week, 19 weeks on the chart.
(meant to do this last week but never quite around to it.)

Not quite as good as “Three Small Words,” but what can be, eh?

Mmmm, instant handclaps. My roommate has me well attuned to that. Again, right into the chorus/hook. Before downloading, I was sorta wondering what “thurr” was. A southern drawled “there,” apparently. Thoughts of Josie and slang-coining. Yeah, the use of “thurr” is totally jerkin’, indeed.

Like pretty much all pop songs, the song is built around the chorus. But, in this case, the chorus isn’t particularly triumphant, nor is it really a release from the rest of the tune. After a short prelude (introduction of handclaps and the various production tricks that run through the song), the tune jumps right into the chorus. For the first minute of the song, there’s virtually no variation in the arrangement, and the vocals stay rhythmically close to the chorus. Thus, there’s always an expectation that the tune is about to return to the chorus, but one doesn’t particularly yearn for it.

At around 1:15, a vocal solo begins. The arrangement stays almost the same, but something drops out. I can’t really tell what it is. I think it’s the big distorted kick drum. At the very least, I’m pretty sure it’s big distorted something. Anyway, it’s a rap that cuts out the sing-songy stuff of the chorus, and we have our first little moment of tension. Gratification comes thirty seconds later, when it resolves back to the chorus. Then another verse/solo/rap, and even more stuff drops out, starts to fall back in during a second verse/solo/rap, and then back to the chorus. A neat structural trick.

The song basically exists to drive the chorus home. The components of the music behind it that I can pick it up: handclaps, kick drum rhythm, almost accordion-like synth, subtle fireworks-like whistle, occasional white noise whooshes. I can’t make out a bassline, though that could be due to the inferior quality of the mp3. Meh, doesn’t seem too exciting to me, though the chorus is catchy enough to keep it afloat.

I just read the AllMusic.com entry on Chingy, from which I learned a few things worth considering. He “boasts a Southern dialect,” according to the description, which I don’t particularly notice except for the chorus, and there it seems like a forced caricature. “The party track blew up in the clubs first, especially throughout the South, and quickly infiltrated urban radio in the midst of summer.” Which means, I guess, that there still is some regionalism in American music — something I’ve long wondered about. That said, to my ears, that only applies to the song’s reception. It doesn’t sound like it came from a specific region, and the lyrics don’t seem so either (short of “hit me with what you got fo’ a po’kchop,” which – again – seems like caricature, though maybe it only becomes so when I point it out). Maybe I’m missing something. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Anyway, I’m gonna listen to “Three Small Words” again. Goddamn. Word. G’night.

a righteously amusing article by chuck klosterman

Twenty-four hours of VH1 Classic. Check it.

“crazy in love” – beyonce featuring jay-z (part II)

A tactic I frequently try to take when I write about music is to try to imagine what an imaginary listener with no foreknowledge of the group (or maybe even of the genre) might think. What would stand out? What would be puzzling? Usually, the reason to do that is try to force myself to listen with a fresh ear, and ultimately be able to communicate what it is that I love about a favorite track or band that I take for granted. Here, I find myself being genuinely naive. Here that comes to bear with the way I parse “Crazy In Love” without much knowledge of who Beyonce and Jay-Z are.

Given the nature of the song (R & B/pop-style love tune), Jay-Z’s appearance in the middle, rapping about stuff that has little to do (upon first inspection) with the rest of the song, which is a fairly normal set of verses about being (not to sound too stiff or nothin’), er, crazy in love. Slowed down with the horns playing live, these parts could basically be an early Motown side (and a good one, at that). Jay-Z’s rap, then, is a far more literal interpretation of “crazy in love” might mean, hinging on the “crazy” part. “Crazy and deranged,” he sings. “They can’t figure ’em out, they’re like ‘hey, is he insane?’ Yes sir, I’m cut from a different cloth, my texture is the best fur, of chinchilla.” (Or, of course, this could be totally bunk. Me trying to figure this shit out reminds of that Bloom County strip where Michael Dukakis, George Bush, and Bill The Cat present their versions of the “Louie, Louie” lyrics.)

The two sections – Beyonce and Jay-Z – are vastly different. How is this meant to be read? As (like above) a literal embodiment of crazy, via the sudden shift from a sultry slice o’ R & B/pop to a rap? Or, does it hinge on the listener’s knowledge of Beyonce and Jay-Z? I dunno much about ’em, but her All Music entry refers to Jay-Z as “her man.” Okay, so we’ve got that. Whether or not one knows that, though, one is likely expected to know a bit about Jay-Z, which would then contextualize his appearance. (Though if one is expected to have background on Jay-Z, is he also expected to know that he is/was in a thang with Beyonce?) Can it be both? If one knew what Jay-Z normally sounded like, and even knew what was going on, would his appearance then be jarring and crazy-sounding? In this case, I don’t think one can have it both ways.

It’s not a matter that’s likely to be given much thought, nor should it be. That’s the nature of pop, and that’s why I’m probably more inclined to go with the latter explanation, even if the producers are going for the former. (Does it work, in my case, then, for the wrong reasons?)

The All Music Guide is a great resource, but it is unable to account for things going on now (again, that’s fine, it’s not what it’s designed to do). For example, much of the impact of “Crazy In Love” probably has to do with extra-musical things — bits of “news” about the musicians not conveyed by/through the medium of recorded music, but through culture at large: star gossip rags, websites, etc.. To me, that’s a very big element of pop music. For a listener who knows about Jay-Z and Beyonce’s history, that would add an amount of pleasure (in the form of expectation) when listening to the track for the first time. Star power, in other words.

Maybe that can be simplified into saying that it’s music that very much relies on its place in current culture. In that sense, content aside, pop can always be considered relevant, can always be considered “news” of a sort, in a way that more insular/consciously art-minded musicians (like, say, Phish or Yo La Tengo) never could be.

phish dialogue, cont.

I made the decision today to include other stuff in the blog that don’t really fit anywhere else. My and I have been talking recently about Phish and politics. A few weeks ago, he made a post to his blog, in response to an email I sent him (which is included in his post). Below is my response. I always feel like a bit of a dolt writing about politics, so hopefully he’ll be able to hammer me into shape (bloody politics major).

***

I’m gonna start somewhat away from Phish, with a passage I read this morning in (huh-huh) that Susan Orlean essay in the Best Music Writing book. It’s called “The Congo Sound” and is about music from Congo/Zaire.

“Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator who ruled the country for 32 years, was aware of how directly music communicated to the Congolese. When he took power, in 1965, he demanded that the country’s musicians write songs to celebrate his achievement, and then arranged for them to receive generous state sponsorship as a sort of insurance policy against future songs that might question his actions. When he introduced his Authenticité campaign, in 1971, with the aim of ridding the country of foreign influence, he designated the great soukous orchestra O.K. Jazz the official musical medium for conveying his doctrine. He traveled throughout Zaire with the orchestra; after each of his speeches, O.K. Jazz performed, both to sweeten the medicine of Authenticité and to use its lyrics to lecture the crowds, however gorgeously, about Mobutu’s programs. It would be like George W. Bush giving a series of speeches about why he wanted to go to war with Iraq, accompanied by foreign-policy songs by Bruce Springsteen.”

(Which, of course, is in itself an amusing idea.)

So, this is obviously an extreme example of what happens when music gets politicized. Of course, it doesn’t have to happen like this. Orlean points this out. In fact, the bulk of her article is about how so many Congolese musicians ended up in Paris. They were expatriates there, self-exiled because a particular leader would jail them for speaking/singing out against him. Amusingly (sort of), said leader actually was a big music fan, and repeatedly pardoned the worst offenders so they could play concerts. Hopefully, that wouldn’t happen in the United States, but it’s worth considering.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Howard Dean manages to convince Phish to join him on his campaign. They could play before his rallies, and tens of thousands of Phish fans would flock to him. Hell, I’d go. I like Phish. And let’s also say, for the sake of argument, that Dean won the election. Finally, let’s imagine that, somehow, a buncha electoral wonks derived some formula that proved, without a trace of a doubt, that it was Phishheads who put Dean over the top. All of that would put Phish in a mighty weird spot. Howard Dean is President. He knows Phish can help sell his policies. Then what? Does music then become a part of the government process, ala Zaire? Does Dean go mad with power? Okay, yeah, so that’s a paranoid fantasy played out to the extreme. But it leads us to another question, which perhaps we can use to reverse-engineer some interesting stuff: what is the ideal relationship between government/politics and music?

Now, there’s surely a difference between government and politics, which you can probably better define. Here’s the one I’m going to work with: government is decision-making body, politics is the mechanism that allows the decisions to be acted out.

What is the most ideal? A band that (only) allows themselves to be used to attract potential followers to a politician? Or a band that does this, and then uses their music to amplify the politician’s policies? The latter is mighty close to advertising. But, again, it doesn’t have to be. Newspapers who report on political decisions certainly don’t implicitly endorse what they’re covering. There’s no reason why a band couldn’t, y’know, intelligently critique policy decisions through their music. But what politician wants a band following him around like that? We’re then left with the model of the band as independent arbiter, functioning autonomously (again, like a newspaper). They, too, would make policy decisions. Just as the New York Times can make a show of their endorsements, so could Phish. At the beginning of each campaign season and/or Phish tour, they could write songs summarizing the issues, pointing out where everybody stands (a verse for Dean, a verse for Kerry, etc.), and present their conclusions at the end
of a climactic 40 minute jam. Dude, it’d be phat.

But who wants to do that? That’s hideously close to didactic Schoolhouse Rock – educational music and stuff – and not particularly what Phish are trying to achieve artistically. So, let’s keep on looking for ideals. We’re getting closer to the reality of the situation now. The most workable midway point would simply for Phish’s lyrics to become more socially conscious without
delving into the specifics. But, without an outright politicization, the impact on politics would be mostly unquantifiable. Nonetheless, I think that would be the ideal: socially conscious (though perhaps still abstract) lyrics, coupled with a political endorsement (or an active attempt to make
people go out and vote). One of the things that I value about Bob Dylan’s mid-’60s work (especially John Wesley Harding) is its ability to be completely socially conscious without losing an iota of emotional impact. “All Along The Watchtower” has been covered badly so many times by now that its meaning is mostly gone, but the lyrics are powerful:

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief,
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”

“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke,
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”

I can’t say exactly how that’s socially conscious, but simply through its use of language and character (businessman, joker, thief), the world it puts my imagination in is a real one. Phish, by contrast, puts my imagination in a very fantastical place. Their lyrics have always been vague — or, at least, obscure. Again, this is an artistic choice, for the most part. And I’d even argue that it’s a valid one. Or, at least, it’d be disingenuous if they suddenly became politicized now, 20 years into their career.

They have always been somewhat progressive, but only in small ways. For a long time, they had a Greenpeace table at every show. When Greenpeace discontinued their touring program, the band replaced them with the Waterwheel Foundation. Every show, they raffle off backstage passes, signed posters, etc., in return for donations. The donations are channeled to local charities — homeless shelters, safe houses for abused women, and the like. They are, like you said the initial post, safe political bets — Good Things by anybody’s standards. In that sense, Waterwheel isn’t too different from the philanthropic arm of any small corporation.

That leads to something else I’ve been thinking about: we assume that Phish’s fans are progressive, but why should they be? That’s not what the attraction of the music is. There’s a sense of exploration, for sure. But, it’s a safe kind of exploration. The Dead lived communally. Phish never did. While it might be said that Phish’s fans are of a lifestyle, it’s not the same thing. Most of Phish’s fans are college-age. The people who go out on tour with Phish, for the most part, aren’t (mostly) not doing so at the expense of their broader lives. Like college, Phish tour (and especially Phish festivals) is a liminal space, a sorta morally autonomous zone where
kids can try different things (usually drugs, but also living on less money, etc.). While the act of entering a liminal territory is a sign of some liberalism, it only is to a degree. I think it’d be more fair to say that it’s part of growing up. Of course, one can also look at Phish tour as a breeding ground for budding capitalists.

In terms of actual musical qualities, what brings Phish fans together is a sense of musical adventure, but only a certain kind of musical adventure. Medeski Martin and Wood are an interesting example, to this end: after Trey endorsed them in 1995 (they opened some Phish shows, and Trey wrote in the Phish newsletter that they were “music that makes [him] want to drive too fast”), Phish fans began showing up at their shows. Now, MMW are from the NYC scene — came up playing with Zorn and Ribot and that bunch. As was vogue in the early ’90s, they were also into Afro-Cuban rhythms, old funk, etc.. It was music that was danceable. There was a big spike in their popularity. A year or so after that, the band moved into a deeply atonal
period. The Phish fans hated it. While Phish frequently is atonal, it’s mostly as a counter-balance to their brighter stuff. There’s always brightness at the end. With MMW, they’d stay dark and discordant for entire sets. While they surely gained many new fans anyway, it’s clear that the
mass audience wasn’t into the weird stuff. (Their last album, FWIW, was a return to the groove-oriented material of yore.)

What brings Phish fans together, then, is an idea of whimsy. This doesn’t imply a liberal fanbase at all (nor does it exclude one). You wrote of Phish (and others) distrust of power, which I think is definitely true. You conclude by saying “But people need to be organized, and telling them what to think is different than identifying a bunch of people who think the same way and getting them to all speak together to get something done.” I agree, but I’m starting to wonder: do Phish fans really all think in the same way? Would there be some way of finding out? It’s possible that their fanbase is more democratic (as opposed to Democratic) than it might first appear. Even so, I’d still wager that – given the average age of Phish fans – that most of ’em would vote Democrat. However, whether they would do so as a result of the same thing which made them like Phish… well, that’s another question.

some more articles.

Here’s the current crop of my articles on the web:
A review of Mike Doughty at North 6, 21 August.
A review of Bob Dylan at the Hammerstein Ballroom, 13 August.
A review of the soundtrack to Bob Dylan’s Masked and Anonymous
A review of Solomon and Socalled’s HipHopKhasene.
A column about .
Also, a review of Masked and Anonymous (the film) is on the San Diego Fahreneheit’s website, but it’s impossible to link directly to. Blargh. That’s it for now, I think.

some fab articles

I think John Darnielle is an amazing writer. Everybody should worship at the altar of Last Plane to Jakarta. Word.
I mentioned this the other day, but Sasha Frere-Jones recently wrote a wonderful article called “When Critics Meet Pop.”

notes on pop

Over the past few days, I’ve tried to describe the blog to a few people. One of the reasons I came up with is that, to me, a lot of Top 40 pop music sounds like it was made on Mars. That’s not exotify pop specifically, so much as all music. Every genre has the potential to sound this weird, whether it’s from Bali or Hollywood or Des Moines. There’s so much crazy music circulating out there that there’s no reason why any one kind of music should sound any blander than another. (Whether or not one wants to listen to it is another question.) So pop is ubiquitous. Big deal. Just listen to less of it. It’ll sound way cooler. I’ve listened to more gamelan music over the past four years than Top 40 pop. Gamelan hasn’t lost its magic, but Top 40 sure has gained some.

“crazy in love” – beyonce featuring jay-z

#2 this week, #1 last week, 16 weeks on the chart
Ooh, I like this one very much.
It begins with just this fucking joyous horn blowout, grabbed from the peak of some other song. I swear I’ve heard it before, but it could be from anywhere. My brain is pulling up all kinds of explanations for where it’s from, which range from the Five Stairsteps to one of the horn arrangements from John Henry by They Might Be Giants. Either way, it comes in full-force, then drops into this sly “uh-oh, uh-oh” vocal, alternates very quickly back to the horn loop, then right back to Beyonce’s lead. It establishes the pattern for the rest of the song: alternation between Beyonce’s sexy/playful vocal and the horn chorus. Like the intro to “Shake Ya Tailfeather,” it’s got bumper elements to it — in this case, Jay-Z introducing the track. Again, that notion of performance.
And, since the horn is an obviously repeated figure, introduced first, it becomes the song’s chorus before we even get there. During the verses, we spend the whole time just waiting for that part to arrive, expecting it. And, yippee, it comes back reliably. The “uh-oh”s return, too, like a repeating riff separate from the chorus. When they return, they loop like the horn figure.
After the second chorus, instead of “uh-oh”s, we get Jay-Z. Sure, it’s a slight frustration, but it’s okay — they come back towards the end of his segment, just before the penultimate chorus rides in, which leads to a short gospel rave-up, which – in turn – is a prelude to the finale. The song, of course, ends with the horn part. Indeedy, indeedy, a fine slice o’ summer fun.
Tomorrow: do we have to know about the performers to dig the tune? Do I have to grasp Beyonce or Jay-Z’s characters to appreciate the collaboration? (Same question could be applied for “Shake Ya Tailfeather.”)

“shake ya tailfeather” – nelly, p. diddy, & murphy lee (part II)

The vocals flit by pretty quickly. Maybe I’m a 24-year old classist geezer, but I don’t think you’re particularly supposed to pick up on all of ’em. At any rate, I’m not gonna try. The vocal arrangement is centered around the chorus.

During the chorus, the three vocal parts interweave pretty much equally: I’m not sure who’s who, so I’ll just assign numbers to ’em:
1.) Vaguely epic “whoa”ing.
2.) A rhythmic semi-chant, building around the title.
3.) A slightly higher melody, building around the phrase (I think): “Just take your ass to the floor…”There might even be another layer or two in there.

Each of the song’s sets of verses – one each, I’m assuming, from Nelly. P. Diddy, and Murphy Lee – takes an aspect of the chorus and puts it in the foreground. A common trick through all is to have alternate (sometimes unpredictably pattern) words/phrases doubled.

The first verse, pulling from the “whoa”ing is the catchiest to me, especially the first few lines: “Who your names is, where you’re from, turn around, who you came with…”

The second verse, pulling from the title chant, has a cool little game. It begins with a call-and-response/echo between the lead voice and the background. Then, the lead phrase expands until there’s no room for an echo. Cool effect.

The third verse has a cool high voice doubling some lines to great effect (“when I’m really a Thundercat!”)

Since I can’t pick up on the vocals too well, I don’t really get a narrative outta the tune, and I don’t think I’m supposed to. Like I said last night, there’s no real instrumental narrative, either, in terms of solos. What pushes the song along is the combination of elements — in this case, the voices. In that sense, I guess it is a performance, albeit not the kind of literal/live/linear type that I (unfairly?) expect out of a song. It’s a collaborative performance in the one-off studio sense — not quite improvisation, but not quite pre-conceived (and certainly more of a collaboration than a random guitarist sitting in with a band and soloing over changes). And given that these are all megastars, it’s also a performance in a cultural sense — a specific combination of star power, perhaps never to be repeated again.

“shake ya tailfeather” – nelly, p. diddy, & murphy lee

I like how there’s a bumper identifier at the beginning and end of the track: “My man Nelly, Murph Lee, Puff Daddy! … Off the Bad Boys, part II…” It’s as if it was a video. There’s the acknowledgement that the listeners might tune in midway or even that they might be checking out an mp3 and that there will be no DJ to announce what it is — might as well embed the information, eh? Either way, it implies a nice autonomy, which I dig. The track exists on its own in the world.

Though I listen to plenty of guitar-less music, my ears still tend to grab for obvious chord changes. The approach here sounds alien to me, rhythmically. And even though I listen to plenty of electronic music, I still think of a song as a performance, and therefore look for instruments that are, y’know, doing things — a guitar playing a fill, a drummer accenting a rhythm, etc.. There’s a certain vocabulary of tricks that I can point to. Listening to “Shake Ya Tailfeather,” which doesn’t call on the same tricks I usually hear, underscores how much those effects become shorthand, understood as general tropes. Being pop music, there are obviously tricks at work here also, but I’m not attuned to them yet.

Anyway, the point is, what I think I’m looking for are describable things. There’s a police siren that turns up throughout the song. It’s one of the few elements that stand out. It’s not locked with the rest of the rhythms, and seems like a solo voice (which is why I think I keep noticing it). Rhythmically, the song is way more complex than the usual rock tune with guitar/bass/drums, at least in the way the rhythm shifts between different instruments. First, there’s the beat, with a snare that sounds like a handclap. There’s a high-pitched keyboard note that comes every four bars. Then, as the verse accelerates towards the chorus, a distantly faded brass hit. The way the rhythm shifts between these different voices creates an inevitability in the track the way the tension/release of chord changes building to a chorus would.
The vocals on top, almost all rhythm as well, add the final layer. With the exception of the first verse, and the neat “whoa”ing underneath the chorus, I don’t find the vocals so much catchy as texturally cool. I like the way they pull on the rhythms. There’s no big build, no climax, no solo. I like that. Admittedly, I know jack shit about Nelly, P. Diddy, and Murphy Lee, but it seems like their relative star power is the attraction, the sense of “place” that the song creates for the listener, the thing (whatever it is) that the song has achieved.
Lyrics, eh? Maybe tomorrow.