Category: Music

Adventure trip to The Sound Well in Berkeley to get a new needle for the turntable today – it was damaged when we moved, hadn’t listened to an LP for six months. Love to wander around in there, a jungle of amps and pre-amps and turntables and speakers from the past 50 years. They even have the exact same Pioneer receiver I grew up with, which they use as a test amp. Since the turntable I brought in was also the same one I used as a teenager, it was (virtually) reunited with the same amp it spent the 70s and early 80s with, which made me smile.

I heard one of the employees, a 50-ish man, saying to a customer: “Someone brought in one of those iPods yesterday. 2500 songs in a unit the size of a deck of cards. Sounded fantastic, too. Sometimes I wonder why we futz around with all this old gear. But then I remember. Because it’s simple.”

I bet a lot of people would argue that the iPod is simpler. Matter of perspective.

Great to listen to vinyl tonight.

Last-minute invitation to usher tonight’s Anthony Braxton show at the Victoria Theater (same place Matthew’s Hedwig shows were, also the venue for the benefit show with Tom Waits a few months ago). Billed as a ten-tet, but there were 12 musician on stage. Braxton as always the chess-playing, leather-elbow-patch jazz composer genius surrounded by crazy virtuosos. Not sure who all was on stage, but recognized Dan Plonsey, Jon Shiurba, Scott Rosenberg, Gino Robair, others? No bass, interestingly — out of respect to Matthew? (Matthew was on Braxton’s last album). Multi-layered orchestral improv, more cerebral than bodily (I know some people bristle when Braxton is described that way, but it rings true for me). Braxton has been a hero for years, but I’ve somehow managed never to have seen him before.

Downhill Battle brilliantly critiques the financial model of the iTunes Music Store, noting that they’ve blown a great opportunity — they could have leveraged internet distribution to give the artist a much larger cut of every song sold. Instead, iTMS is just another iteration of “the man” abusing the artist. The site challenges iTMS to post the artists’ cut for each song right there in the UI. Similar discussion going on here.

First of all, Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale.

Interestingly, Apple recently removed the claim that iTunes is “fair to the artists” from their web site. Downhill Battle claims this change as their victory.

And yet, Apple is losing money on ITMS, according to CNET.

My take: The solution proposed by Downhill Battle (download from free services, then donate money directly to the artist) puts wayyyy too much faith in humanity (reminds me of libertarianism’s fatal flaw – sounds ideal on paper, but no way could it ever work). Hate to sound so negative, but really — what percentage of people are going to have a download festival on Kazza and then go donate money to the artist through a separate channel? Bzzzzzt. Ain’t going to happen.

kurt von finck recently passed me a note out of the blue – his personal ruminations on how SNL’s musical guests actually mattered once upon a time. Changed our minds. Turned us on. His experience and memories mirrored my own pretty closely, and I asked his permission to re-run the note here (follow the links for background).

I happened to listen to the Elvis Costello/Beastie Boys version of “Radio Radio” recently. Very, very cool of Beastie Boys to re-create this moment with Elvis on the 25th Anniversary special. It reminded me of the two early SNL musical guests I remember. Seminal stuff at 12-14 years old.

The first was Elvis Costello’s 1977 “Less Than Zero-Radio Radio.” I already owned the “My Aim Is True” vinyl album, and at first was psyched to hear him sing “Less Than Zero.” Things didn’t work out that way.

Man, I was blown away. A new song, and the lyrics were a scathing indictment of the disco and recycled crap (Allman Brothers vs. Molly Hatchet) “classic” rock my friends were listening to. I can still see it in my mind. Here’s the episode blurb and a link to the actual performance in MP3.

The other musical act I remember is Devo. This one more people seem to remember, maybe because it was in the next season, when SNL was really becoming popular. I remember wondering if they were a goof or not, probably because of the Booji Boy sketch that preceded their second song. I think that was “Jocko Homo” (their cover of “Satisfaction” being the first tune). Here’s the blurb.

Kinda figured you all would remember one, if not both, of these performances. SNL’s musical acts today just kinda suck. “Radio Radio” has sorta come to pass, and even bands like The White Stripes seem kinda hackneyed. I want something new.

Amen to that. SNL’s musical acts were something to look forward to in the 70s and early 80s; almost a reason to watch the show in and of themselves. I got turned on to so much music from that soundstage. From the same period, add The Specials and The B-52s (if you’re going to remember this, you have to remember these acts as totally fresh). The Clash, Joe Jackson, The Cars, Sun Ra, Zappa, Talking Heads, Ornette Coleman, Blondie, The Roches, Gary Numan, Captain Beefheart, Fear, Laurie Anderson, P-Funk… If you check the musical history of the show from season to season, you can see that the creativity quotient starts to decline in the mid 80s. By the 90s it’s pretty much all pop, no risk.

It’s not all SNL’s fault that we’ve reached the current nadir or creativity on that stage – music was in the midst of an especially fertile passage. But still, there are dozens of interesting acts out there who could be filling the musical minds of new viewers with that raw thrill… the feeling that music could go anywhere, be anything, just keep exploding outward in a million new directions. Creative stuff is out there. SNL has just decided that the Clear Channel route is safer and more lucrative.

Filthy lucre.

Took time last night to see Banyan with Roger at Great American Music Hall. Pretty floatin’ show, though not quite as tight as last February’s performance. Kind of Laswell-like stew of atmosphere, jazz, funk, punk. Virtuosic, but somehow had trouble finding its overall groove. Still, how often do you get to hear Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” morph into Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme?” Sadly underattended – less than 100 people in the house.

Have been debating whether to go to this or to see Watt with Iggy and the Stooges in December. But that show is part of the Not So Silent Night festival, which includes a bunch of bands I don’t really care about (don’t have the time of day for Perry Ferrell, sorry, even though Jane’s drummer Steve Perkins is himself the heart of Banyan). And it’s harder for dads to go these longer performances, so Rog and I opted for something we could do quickly after kids went off to Slumberland.

This morning dreamed of parachuting/hang-gliding through an endless valley with Amy (but she was my fiance’ in the dream), through miles of craggy outcroppings, trees, lakes, contours in the land beautiful beyond all description, kind of a visual representation of last night’s music, I think. At one point my ‘chute got tangled on a tree, but all I had to do was hunch my shoulder a bit to lift it out of the branches.

MP3.com‘s was one of the largest public IPOs in history. Their database represents the largest collection of musical work by unsigned artists ever assembled – more than a million songs by a quarter million artists. Vivendi sold the MP3.com domain to c|net — the domain, but not the business. And now, for whatever reason, the entire collection is going to be destroyed Dec. 3.

Not sure how I feel about this. At least no one is trying to transfer rights out from under the artists, but I have to think there’s a better way than demolishing the collection, and the business model. Michael Robertson is pleading with archive.org to mirror the lot, but time is short. I think what makes me sad about this is the fact that MP3.com was the best living example of how to do an end-run around the music industry legally. How to let good, unheard music bubble up to the surface organically, by the will of the people, rather stars being manufactured by execs and spoon-fed to passive audiences. And it was the best example of artists selling music without getting ripped off.

Not sure if I’d equate this loss with the burning of library at Alexandria, but it’s a disappointment nonetheless.

Everyone has their favorite unexpected discovery from trawling the MP3.com archives. Mine is Bruce Lash. Try “I Went to Tea with the Elephant Man” or anything from Prozak for Lovers.

Lots of bitterness out there about how today marks the end of the all-you-can-eat $9.95 music download program at emusic.com. As of today, your ten bucks “only” buys you forty tracks/month, i.e. 3-4 albums.

I was turned on to emusic days after starting to poke around the iTunes Music Store, and quickly discovered that not only was emusic much cheaper than ITMS, but it also had a catalog more in line with my tastes. Like most emusic users, I went on a month-long download binge after the announcement that the business model would change to resemble something remotely profitable. Today we are returned forcibly to our senses.
Continue reading “EMusic and the Hoarding Instinct”

The first record I ever owned* was the Partridge Family’s “Up to Date.” Actually, I acquired this and a copy of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” at the same time — they were given to me by a cousin who was “growing out of them” (and growing into ABBA). Yesterday while jogging Amy and I came across a box of 8-track tapes, and there it was — my first album, albeit on different media. A Donny Osmond collection and the Star Wars soundtrack was also in the pile. So sad that someone had just tossed these aside, as if worthless. Well, I guess I don’t blame them. It’s not like anyone but Pagan Kennedy can play 8-tracks anymore. But still. Brought back great memories to see this cover, with the birthdays of each of the Partridges on it. I used to wonder whether these were the real birthdays of the Partridges, and if so, did they get flooded with presents every year.

* Full disclosure: I actually did have a couple of children’s records before this — some kind of Mickey Mouse adventure in a recording studio and a record where all the instruments of the orchestra had personalities and we got to know them and their voices. But those didn’t count because they were given to me by parents, i.e. not hip.

So what was your first album? (LP, CD, cassette, 8-track…)

Amy and I had our first real date in over a year — babysitter and everything. Went to see Ravi Coltrane at Yoshi’s. Ravi is the son of the great John Coltrane, though his father died when he was only two, so he didn’t grow up under the influence (though certainly under the shadow). Modern bop, pulsing rhythm section, very moving but not quite mind blowing. It must be incredibly difficult to be on stage with everyone looking for your father in you. Especially when you’ve chosen to take up the same instrument.

Yoshi’s is so genteel — “jazz under glass.” No smoking allowed. Nobody talks, glasses don’t clink, everyone totally attentive. There’s a lot to be said for that, and the sound system there is unparalleled — truly marvelous cahoustics. But it also feels a bit sterile; you find yourself wishing someone would fall drunk over your table, or knock an ashtray onto the floor or something.

Started with sushi dinner. Used to see music so often, felt great to be out at a club; even greater to date my wife again!

The RIAA is now suing dentists (and chiropractors, and etc.) to get them to license the music they play for their patients. The punch line is that in most cases they’re being asked to pay to play easy listening, adult contemporary… the quiet storm. As if getting drilled wasn’t bad enough.