Friday, October 31, 2003
Honestly, if you ignore some of the chord changes in the solo (to say nothing of the solo itself) and tweak the production a wee bit, the Guns 'n' Roses song "Garden of Eden" (off Illusion I) could be a Hives song. Seriously. Give it a listen. It's fuckin' garage rock.
And this is to say nothing of the weird Godrich-esque electro noises that come in at random! Awesome!
It's a good song, and damn, I'd love to cover it, but someone should. I can totally see it being really loose and screamy and good. Plus, it's kind of a Simpsons reference, in advance.
posted by Mike B. at 11:59 AM
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A Velvet Rope thread posts a Slate article about REM and how their fans all seem to think they suck, but at different times, and for different reasons, few of which have to do with the music.
R.E.M.'s fans have been saying "R.E.M. sucks" since 1984. Reckoning, the band's second album (not counting the Chronic Town EP), sucked because it wasn't Murmur. The next album, Fables of the Reconstruction (or was it Reconstruction of the Fables?), sucked because it was too soft. Life's Rich Pageant was louder but sucked because it was intelligible. The Top 10 Document sucked because it was too popular. Green, the first album R.E.M. put out that wasn't on the IRS label, sucked because it was too Warner Bros. Out of Time sucked because it was too pop. Automatic for the People—well, nobody thought Automatic sucked. But all the albums since Automatic: They suck.
So, let's be clear. R.E.M. does not suck. They're the best rock band of the last two decades of the 20th century.
(...)
But one thing breeds hope in the R.E.M. fan's heart that the band can avert its transmogrification into an alt-rock Eagles or Rolling Stones: Maybe it's easier to bear the cross of middle-aged rock stardom when a good chunk of your fan base has been accusing you of being washed up since before you were 30.
From almost the beginning, there's been something backward-looking about R.E.M. fandom, a secret wish that R.E.M. never become more than a heralded but middling-selling college band from Athens, Ga.—even though such obscurity would mean that the vast majority of R.E.M. fans engaged in this Edenic pining would never have discovered them.
The responses to said article then go on to, amusingly, give a case study of said phenomenon.
- "The personal feeling that sustained itself up to 'Document' just got lost during & after 'Green'."
- "These days, one gets the feeling that REM is existing just to exist."
- "A pal loaned me a bootleg of them on an Athens' radio station - it might have been right after Chronic Town. And I closed my eyes and remembered a period of time when frat boys would kick your ass for playing that shit loud. Those were the days. When R.E.M. came through town, even though they were dumping tickets, I didn't feel the urge to see Stipe forget half the lyrics. I saw them when it mattered. This night is for the tourists."
- "Add to that the fact that they haven't had a great album since AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE."
- "Both bands started well, but eventually became co-opted as "fake alternative" for the mainstream. Both bands allowed it to happen. Both bands welcomed it. Stipe and Bono are so similar, bloated, vain, self important, long winded dullards. They work their causes and beliefs in an effort to maintain postition in the limelight, all the while pretending to shun it. Really, it's gross. Both bands musical output has been nothing short of derivative. REM has been writing the same goddamn song for about twelve years now. There's only ONE pride of Atlanta, and that's the B-52s, my friends."
- "rem were great, but not since automatic. it's just weak filler from that point on. and just to echo what alot of others have said here...these guys are totally faking it for the cash at this point."
It is kind of sad that people won't let themselves enjoy New Adventures or Up or Reveal, all of which are great; New Adventures is better then every album except Automatic and Murmur in my book.
posted by Mike B. at 9:25 AM
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Thursday, October 30, 2003
How NOT to post a guitarist-wanted ad. Via the nyhappenings list:
By 4 Piece looking for a lead guitarist to take over our singer's guitar duties so he can focus on singing. We play at places like Arlene's, CB's, Elbow, ACME etc. We're starting a record company and releasing an album w/in the next 3 months. Short jaunts around U.S. & Europe are planned. We have a lot of fun, but we're serious about what we do. You'll have plenty of opportunity to wail away and write your own stuff but sometimes we'll want you to play in the pocket. We r a prepackaged deal so we'll want you to learn our repertoir but you can definitley put your signature on it, add too it and be gigging pronto. We're classy, loud, good sounding & looking and we're going to make money w/or w/out u. All originals. Influences include: Alpha Blondy, Stones, Stooges, Tricky, VU, Discharge, Bowie, John Lee Hooker, P-Funk, N.E.R.D., Marley, Sabbath, Daft Punk etc. We'll also try to make you sing back-up vox even if you think you can't but if u really can't...then....we'll let you slide. Email your postal address to recieve a sample. Or just come to a rehearsal and check out our vibe. We rehearse Sunday evenings in the Lower East Side. Serious inquiries only. NO MERCENARIES!!!
Oh, OK. So it's a garage rock trip-hop psych glam blues funk R&B reggae metal house sound? Nice! You definitely won't be attracting any mercenaries that way, kids, given your strong vision and sound. It's not like, say, you're throwing out such a mismash of favorite records that the only people you'll attract will be the ones drawn to the more specific recording-and-touring bits. Not at all. Thank god!
posted by Mike B. at 6:23 PM
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I have no idea why a) I like this so much, or why b) someone sent it to me (who I don't know, as far as I can tell) but here it is:
Choose Your Own Adventure NYC
Of particular amusement to musicbloggers will be this page. This one is good, too.
Whoever did the pictures for these pages is a goddamn genius. The weird collages of Karen O with the make-a-wish foundation kid are just creepy and great. "No Justin, No Peace!!!"
Not many entries today and none to come tonight unless I hit a block, but some music tomorrow, mayhaps. Happy Devil's Night.
posted by Mike B. at 6:09 PM
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Wednesday, October 29, 2003
I started fucking around with Beyonce's "Yes" this morning, as I said I would, and it's promising--I've got the beginnings of 2.5 tracks so far (bluesy, organ-driven, maybe funk). But when I chopped everything up and resequenced it, apparently the damn song is at 56 bpm. Jeez! I can never get below 90. That's a sloooooow jam.
posted by Mike B. at 12:12 PM
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The other day I was sitting around practice and I did something that I do on an embarrassingly regular basis: bump into my amp. Now, this is problematic because it has a spring reverb tank in it, and when you bump the amp it makes this really loud reverb clanging noise that's presumably the spring whacking up against the casing. And while usually that causes me to cover my ears, this once I thought, hmm, could I use that in a song somehow?
Then this morning I was listening to the Rapture's (natch) "Sister Savior," and...well, they used that noise. Sigh. But give it a listen, because it's pretty interesting how it's done. It comes near the end of the track, pretty much in the outro, and it adds a cool other layer to the whole mess that's going on. (Faith, on this listen I'd begun to tire a bit of their outros; I could barely sit through the conclusion of "Jealous Lovers," and how weird is that?) But it's also an interesting comment, partially (in my mind) because of a weird little production bit at the beginning of "I Need Your Love": every, like, sixth beat the reverb gets turned on for the keyboard part, and then quickly turned off, so it rings through. What the hell? Why do that? What's up with the reverb, kids?
Well, one reason might lie in the different feels of the dance-pop songs on Echoes. To focus on three, "Olio" sounds like I should be dancing in a nightclub to it, "I Need Your Love" sounds like I should be driving to it, and "Sister Savior" sounds like I should be strutting to it. But they all have basically the same beat and pretty similar arrangements. Why these differences? How are they achieved? Partially, I guess, it's tempo; "Savior" has more of a gait to it, being a bit slower, and a groove. But it's also the little production touches. The way the sax is mixed on "Love," for instance, along with the detuned synth patch arpeggios, lend it a kind of head-bobbing as opposed to butt-shaking quality.
But the thing that really stands out to me is the reverb on the hi-hat on "Olio" (which I do still love deeply). Now, one of the things I've learned[1] is that you have to be sort of careful using reverb because the tracks are going to get played in a club where there's a natural reverb, and when you combine that with the existing echo, it can overwhelm the whole track. So maybe when this gets played it's too much, I dunno. But here it's perfect, and it actually nicely mimics the reverb you'd hear in a club on a dance song--and I guess, too, it's reminiscent of big dumb rave songs that I LOVE. But what's particularly nice about this use is the targeted nature of the reverb: it's just on that hat, and the hat's panned pretty precisely. And so it comes back to those weird bursts of reverb (clicking a bus channel in and out, I assume) on "I Need Your Love." And it comes back to the very different but still akin sound of a beaten guitar amp reverb tank on "Sister Savior." It's scattered through there, and it's nicely used.
Incidentally, can anyone think of other songs that use that noise? I'm pretty curious now. It comes in at the end of "Sister" and sounds like, well, a big spring. Anybody?
[1] For the record, no, clap clap blog has not suddenly morphed into hi hat afficianado.
posted by Mike B. at 12:10 PM
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Good Strokes review by Keith Harris, who also penned the Salon article I done replied to. As there is nothing in there about Missy Elliot or the Rapture, I have nothing bad to say. Actually, I have something good to say: that "Willy Deville fronting Tuff Darts" riff is awesome.
posted by Mike B. at 11:45 AM
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Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Well, I've certainly always thought of Sting as "Mr Serious who helps the Indians". Haven't you?
Also true: "The sun shines out of his arse." Yeah!
posted by Mike B. at 6:29 PM
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John Meyer's popularity is a response to the chart domination of Missy Elliot's acrobatic sexuality?
Like those of his former tour mate Norah Jones, with whom he shares a knack for the genteel nuzzle, Mayer's brisk sales have been at least partly a fearful response to hip-hop hegemony. Yet virtual white flight isn't the whole story. From Missy Elliott's threat, "I'll put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it" to Chingy's inviting a woman to whip her genitalia at him "like a shortstop," there's a pretty narrow definition of sexuality on the charts these days. Pop sex has become a strenuous combination of pole dancing, Pilates and pro wrestling -- plenty fun, but not really practical when you've both got to work in the morning.
Right now, I won't get into the easy acceptance of "hip-hop hegemony" as logical, or the weird way embarrassingly stereotypical white-boy Meyer is contrasted with two black artists, although I would suggest that it's probably a youth-vs-age thing rather than a race thing; it's not like you can't buy Luther albums anymore. The main issue here is that this is a total misrepresentation of Missy's sexuality from where I'm sitting.
There's certainly a lot of, um, unrealistic images of sexuality coming from hip-hop artists, and some of them are hilarious and some of them are sexy and some of them are dumb and some of them are offensive. But I defy you to find me anything in "Work It" that's unrealistic. First off, the line quoted above is a deliberate misreading; sure, "put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it" is a double entendre, but the whole point of a double entendre is that you couldn't necessarily perform the sexual act being literally described. The argument is especially weak given that following that line, Missy does the literal thing stated: having put it down, she flips it and reverses it. Where's the acrobatics? They're just verbal, son.
And indeed, the rest of the song celebrates the brand of sexuality that many of us find so appealing in Missy: a totally non-idealized, very up-front and real-world depiction of what it's actually like to get it on. For instance: "Not on the bed, lay me on your sofa / Phone before you come, I need to shave my chocha / You do or you don't or you will or won't ya / Go downtown and eat it like a vulture." Where's the acrobatics in that? What's great about it--and a bunch of other lines in the song that I'm going to restrain myself from quoting--is that they acknowledge all the things that the idealized bling-bling sheen of either loverman (thug or otherwise) or hyper-sexualized music ignores: plucking hairs, getting drunk, fucking on the sofa, messy oral sex ("eat it like a vulture"? eww!), etc., etc. If you're afraid of this, you're not put off by dominatrixes; you're put off by the simple mechanics of fucking. And that's no good.
In other words, Missy is exactly what Meyer is being made out to be--just without all the bullshit. There's no S&M or A2Ms, but there's no shy come-ons and misty fireplace shots, either. Missy's sexuality is extraordinary and banal, just like sex; I'm gonna do this thing and then yeah, get up in the morning and go to work. Meyer's is romantic music while Missy's is sexual. And I won't deny that there's a certain value to romantic music, even if Luther Vandross makes me want to sleep more than fuck. But let's not pretend that Missy is warping the poor sexual minds of this great nation. If anything, she's being honest about it while Meyer is still playing his game and trying to get laid. Which is OK, too.
That said, I don't know why there's all this defensiveness surrounding Meyer fandom--"Body is a Wonderland" is a great song, no two ways about it. But there's always been John Meyers--fifty years ago he was called Johnny Mercer, and there are some great Johnny Mercer songs out there too. But it would take a Missy-esque polymorphous perversity to acknowledge the value of all of it without necessarily opposing it to something. Use the Meyer if it works for you. Me, I'm gonna put on Prince.
posted by Mike B. at 6:07 PM
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Hey, Ry Cooder's behind me.
And he's tellin' stories!
posted by Mike B. at 3:50 PM
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Dale Peck interview at Gawker. In which he asks the musical question:
"how can i begin to make people look at my own books in the context i've created. not as another novel or memoir from the queen bitch of the literary universe, but rather as a book by someone who tries incredibly hard not to let his own ambitions and vanity (which are, admititedly, huge) infect my writing. how can i keep my books about their subjects, rather than about my place in the zeitgeist or the canon."
Well, gee, Dale, maybe you could start by not masturbating in public for five years. Metaphorically speaking, of course. If you don't want to be seen as "the queen bitch of the literary universe," maybe you shouldn't have built your reputation by acting like one, huh? I'm just saying.
If you wanted to create a critical framework that explains your aesthetic, that's fine. Lots and lots of lots of artists do that. But you didn't do that. You just made entertainment. You just spent a lot of time insulting other writers. That's not creating a context. That's defining your dislikes. He says that this was the process of figuring out what he didn't want his writing to be. Problem is, that ultimately doesn't help you all that much in figuring out what it should be, because there are a million thing it can't be and only one or two it can. So maybe you should get started on that, eh Dale?
posted by Mike B. at 2:03 PM
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One of the tricks you can pull as a producer is to throw a slowed-down (i.e. pitched lower) hi-hat sample into the beat. This has become a staple of both trip-hop and the kind of vaguely trip-hop production you hear on a lot of midtempo MOR radio songs these days (think the backing for "Everyone Wears Sunscreen" or whatever the fuck that song was called), and it works well because it takes what's normally a tinny beat-keeper that tends to stand out in the mix into something darker, somewhere between a snare and a ride. It goes really well with slower, more atmospheric stuff, but it also makes the whole beat seem a little beefier in the midrange.
But I was kind of surprised to hear it on the Beyonce album, on the song "Yes," and I was especially surprised to hear it actually work well, given the way it's been abused of late. I really love the beat that starts off this song. It's slow and loping and sexy as hell, not really hip-hop but not really anything else either--just kind of industrial at 15 RPM. The vinyl crackle at the beginning can be a trip-hop signifier (that crackle's all over Portishead, of course) or dub signifier, but the first thing I thought of, semi-embarrassingly, is the remix of Tori Amos' "Hey Jupiter," partially because the accompanying video was slowed down too, given the slowed-down hat a particular resonance. But it's there in a lot of laptop stuff too, in granulated pitch-shifted samples (think the end of Donna Summer's "What You Truly Need" or some of Kid606's outros), as well as being in those mainstream trip-hop productions I talked about before.
Then there's the guitar loop. It's a backwards guitar, but it doesn't sound psych in the least; indeed, the weird part is how a lot of the tones it's running over there lead so clearly into the slow-jam. But what's especially odd about it is that it sounds like, well, an intro--an ambient or experimental intro or segue that would then resolve into something. But that's the beat! And that's, basically, the whole song. Beyonce just takes it and fucking runs with it, dropping all these different melodies and bits over it. I hear maybe some bass (?) and maybe an additional guitar added, but really, it's pretty sparse. I guess it's a slow jam, but at the same time it's very much not. Both the trip-hop and the industrial feels remain, while the vocals seem like they could have come from a rave-up, with the backing slowed down to half speed.
So what this song really reminds me of is Radiohead's "We Suck Young Blood," and of course the reason for that is the handclaps. Both have that same loose, slow, loping feel, with the beats falling somewhat imprecisely, like a drunken backing band falling under the weight of their instruments. And there's the handclaps, present in both, if a bit more prominent in the Radiohead, holding the whole thing together. The guitar loop wouldn't be so out of place on HTTT. And the vocals are similarly odd and high. Radiohead goes on to rock out and Beyonce drops in a shitload of backing vocals, but they both come back to that oddly similar beat.
And yes, I really do love that beat. Because every time I restart the song (and I've just done so about 5 times) I can hear a totally different part possibly kicking in instead of the vocals. I can hear a driving bassline. I can hear an organ part. I can hear a horn section. And all of these could be in totally different chord structures or riff models. In fact, I think it would be really interesting to make a riddim album off this beat. Maybe I'll try it sometime. But if not, maybe someone else will. Any takers?
posted by Mike B. at 12:10 PM
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"It can't be anti-intellectualism. I went to college!"
posted by Mike B. at 10:40 AM
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The Guardian lists the 40 Best US Bands. Let me give you a feel for how this is going to go:
16. DFA
15. Madonna
14. Red Hot Chili Peppers
13. Missy Elliott
DFA -> RHCP -> Missy? I'm getting whiplash here, guys...
posted by Mike B. at 8:51 AM
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Hurt.
Whoof.
posted by Mike B. at 8:47 AM
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Monday, October 27, 2003
Nice little NYLPM entry on the same AWK show I went to. I almost did go into the tourbus, but I knew how long I'd be there...
posted by Mike B. at 5:26 PM
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In a weird confluence of three of my interests, a conservative political commentator over at NRO calls "Welcome Interstate Managers" the album of the year. And executes an annoying AUR move while doing so. Hmm. I don't know how to feel about that.
posted by Mike B. at 5:20 PM
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Really, really nice bit of personal criticism by Lauren Viera, who used to be my editor in college: My Favorite Band: Jawbreaker. Give it a read.
posted by Mike B. at 1:31 PM
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Well, it's sort of a retraction.
Okay, can someone please remind me why The Strokes were such a polarizing force about two years ago? Listening to Is This It? last week had me scratching my head over how it managed to become the Roe vs. Wade of the rock crit world in 2001, with everyone forced to choose sides: "saviors of rock!" or "everything that's wrong with music today!" At the time, I found myself in the latter category, ironically earning myself a spot on this very staff with a lengthy diatribe against the band's hype machine, socioeconomic background, and rampant influence-pilfering. You know, basically everything but the music.
I feel pretty silly about such grandstanding nowadays, having finally listened to, and embraced, at least the show-stopping middle third of The Strokes' debut.
"Having finally listened to"? You can't mean that, right Rob? To be fair, I've never had much of a problem with Mr. Mitchum, and his ouevre is reasonably impressive (rescued PF from their SY-hate with the Murray Street review, and good looks at the All Girl Summer Fun Band and Junior Senior). And yeah, it's rare to see a critic do this, although they should do it more often. But let's just hope PF learns some lessons from this. We'll see, I guess.
posted by Mike B. at 12:28 PM
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From a correspondent:
A fascinating bit of history I read in Music Tech Magazine...
"Les Paul - as well as being credited as the inventor of the solid-bodied electric guitar - also invented multi-track recording. He wired up eight separate Ampex tape recorders and figured out a way to synchronise their playback. His first multi-track release was a single with the tunes "Lover" and "Brazil". It contained what sounded like bass and rhythm guitar, and an incredibly fast (for the time) guitar solo. These parts were all played on the same instrument, but recorded at different tape speeds."
This all makes me wonder new things about Brazil-the-movie (as opposed to Brazil-the-country and Brazil-the-song). It's never been clear exactly why the hell Gilliam called the movie Brazil; aside from the persistent use of the song, I don't think the word even appears anywhere in the script. This thread suggests some possibilities, but I'm not entirely convinced that it's supposed to be a look at the red-tape nightmare of the actual Brazil, since a) there's no indidication that it's Brazil whatsoever, and b) the same conditions apply equally well to the UK, and arguably to parts of America. This view is technically the standard, and the concept of "Brazil"-as-escapism lines up well with the dream sequences and/or the end of the movie.
However, doesn't the above quote suggest something more interesting? If "Brazil" was the first song released made with multi-track recording, doesn't that line up pretty well with the movie, too? It sounds like a bass, but you can't reproduce it in real life, i.e. you can't slow down the pitch of a guitar below that E without some form of mechanical assistance. So maybe it's about, too, the way the purity/naturalism of music becomes manipulated by artificial means, about the way culture (and then on to tastes and desire, etc.) can be recombinant in odd ways. But, too, it's a jury-rigged system, bursting at the seams; ways have been found to disguise this, but the synced single-tracks are still there below the surface.
And Brasillia is an artificial city, and, and...
posted by Mike B. at 11:08 AM
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It's not Virtual Valerie, but it's pretty good.
posted by Mike B. at 10:44 AM
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