tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39958162024-03-18T23:35:49.937-05:00RockHackMarcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.comBlogger361125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-20876400584701689562020-12-07T18:15:00.001-06:002020-12-07T18:15:36.882-06:00Dreidel Song Variations<p>I'm resurrecting my long-dormant blog to share some Chanukah frivolity at a time when frivolity is in short supply.</p><p>I first encountered humorous variations on the familiar dreidel song at the boisterous Chanukah service at my synagogue in the early '00s. (One congregant described the house band as "garage klezmer," and the rabbi referred to the area where the kids were dancing as the mosh pit.) The rabbi said he found the lyrical variations on the internet, which I found easily enough. The quality varied, so my family picked the best ones and wrote some of our own, which we happily sing every Chanukah. The original page is lost to the annals of time.</p><p>(All start with “I had a little dreidel” (IHALD))</p><p>IHALD, I made it out of bread,<br />It looked so very yummy<br />I ate it up instead</p><p>IHALD, I made it out of glass,<br />My mom days I can spin it,<br />but only on the grass.</p><p>IHALD, I made it out of snow<br />I baked it in the oven... <br />Where'd my dreidel go?</p><p>IHALD, I carved it from a log<br />And when I threw it on the floor <br />it nearly killed the dog</p><p>IHALD, I made it out of plastic<br />I put a gimel on every side, <br />that dreidel is fantastic!</p><p>IHALD, I made it out of soap<br />I carved a shin on every side<br />Boy, am I a dope!</p><p>IHALD, I made it out of felt<br />I put a hay on every side, <br />so I get half the gelt.</p><p>IHALD, I made it out of flooring<br />I put a nun on every side<br />That dreidel is quite boring</p><p>IHALD, I made it out of glue<br />The baby tried to spin it, <br />and now she's spinning too!</p><div><div>IHALD, I made it from cement</div><div>And now our lovely hardwood floor </div><div>has a nasty dent</div><div><br /></div><div>IHALD, I made it out of meat</div><div>I can't stand to be near it</div><div>It smells just like my feet</div><div><br /></div><div>IHALD, I made it out of brass</div><div>I brought it in to Sunday school </div><div>and showed it to my class</div><div><br /></div><div>IHALD, I made it out of sand,</div><div>but when I went to spin it, </div><div>it crumbled in my hand</div><div><br /></div><div>IHALD, It came from the UK.</div><div>It wrote a little poem, </div><div>and then it shied away</div><div><br /></div><div>IHALD, I made it from a broom</div><div>I think I'll try to talk it into </div><div>cleaning up my room.</div><div><br /></div><div>IHALD, made from gefilte fish</div><div>My mother served it for Shabbat, </div><div>but it spun right off my dish!</div><div><br /></div><div>IHALD, I made it out of lox</div><div>it tastes good on a bagel, </div><div>but it smells worse than my socks</div><div><br /></div><div>IHALD, I made it out of straw</div><div>It went 80 miles an hour, </div><div>and broke the speeding law</div></div><div><br /></div>Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-1456126470232834552018-10-18T20:18:00.000-05:002018-10-18T20:18:46.946-05:00Why I'm Not Going to Nine Inch Nails<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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An open letter to Trent Reznor.<br />
<br />
Dear Trent:<br />
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Do you know who understands his audience's demographics? Stewart Copeland. When describing the Police's reunion tour they embarked on a decade and a half after their commercial peak, he entitled the section of his <a href="http://rockhack.blogspot.com/2018/03/book-review-strange-things-happen-by.html">memoir</a> "Lock Up Your Mothers." Know who else understands his audience's demographics? David Gedge. In a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000mvt">recent interview</a>, he noted that early Wedding Present fans are returning to their shows now that their kids have gone off to university ("empty nesters" as we'd say in these parts). I ask because you claimed, when putting tickets on sale for your latest tour only at the venue box offices, that your aim was to get tickets into the hands of real fans, and I don't think you understand the demographics of your fans.<br />
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I think I qualify as a real fan. To this day, I count the Nine Inch Nails/Jesus & Mary Chain show in March 1990 at the Trocadero in Philly as one of the greatest concerts I've seen in my life, and I've seen hundreds of bands since then. I still have the Hate 1990 T-shirt I bought when you returned the following month, blowing headliner Peter Murphy off the suburban stage at Glenside's Keswick Theater. I've continued to see your band and buy the albums in the decades since, including picking up <i>Year Zero </i>on the day of release because my baby had just started walking and I needed an emergency babyproofing supply Target run. My holey T-shirt is older than many of the people who will turn up on your current tour.<br />
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I can understand your desire to circumvent Ticketmaster. I <a href="https://thehardtimes.net/culture/ticketmaster-adds-5-15-fuck-you-fee/">have issues</a> with Ticketmaster myself, but when a scalper advocacy group(!) is <a href="https://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/touring/8478382/scalper-lobbying-group-fires-shot-at-ticketmaster-in-wake-of-ftc">complaining</a> that ticket resale is too difficult with Ticketbastard's Verified Fan program, you should have some confidence that tickets are remaining in the hands of people who intend to come to the show.<br />
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Back to my point about understanding demographics. Do you know what people my age (and yours) were doing the day tickets went on sale? They were attending their kids' dance recitals and soccer games. They were running the elementary school fair to raise funds for the PTO. Me? I was attending the Shabbat service my son's sixth grade Hebrew school class was running, the culmination of the year's effort, and probably their last activity as a group before they start taking the bima individually for their bar and bat mitzvahs. In other words, we were being responsible, caring parents who don't have endless hours to stand in line waiting to buy concert tickets at a box office that wasn't set up for volume sales. Do we really need to revert to the old days when scalpers would pay homeless people to stand in line to buy tickets?<br />
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I know you have kids, but maybe you don't get the parenting thing. Maybe you send your kids to private school, so you don't understand why PTO fundraising is a big deal for middle class public schools, where it enables us to attract the best teachers because they aren't expected to pay for their own classroom supplies. I know from your lyrics (because I've pored over those) that you have issues with the church and perhaps don't value religion. But supporting our kids through a rite of passage is a big deal. You're outspoken on lefty politics, but maybe you aren't woke about emotional labor and leave all the parenting to your wife. For the rest of us, we might be focused our kids on a Saturday morning, but we'd still appreciate seeing a favorite band from our youth on a Saturday night, whether that means dealing with the expense and hassle of hiring a sitter or bringing our kids along to share an experience we value with them.<br />
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So I won't be at your show, but don't feel sorry for me. I'll be a few blocks away seeing CHVRCHES with my kids, with tickets I bought online during my lunch hour. If you aren't familiar, you might like them since they draw heavily on the early '80s synth pop that I listened to in my teens and that influenced NIN. My kids are fans because it sounds like video game music to them. I like that my kids are into them because front woman Lauren Mayberry is not only a charismatic performer, she's also an outspoken feminist.<br />
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To quote a song from <i>Love Is Dead, </i>CHVRCHES' latest album, I'm not asking for a miracle. I know you're a creative guy. So, the next time you tour, use some of that creativity to find ways to not exclude the very same fans you claim you're trying to cater to.<br />
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<i>CHVRCHES play the Orpheum Theater, 1 Hamilton Place, Boston MA at 8:00 p.m. Saturday, October 20 and Sunday, October 21.</i>Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-63635011664619503592018-06-10T09:27:00.000-05:002018-06-10T09:27:13.128-05:00Concert Review: Depeche Mode, TD Garden, June 9The last time I saw Depeche Mode was in 1990, and it's one of the reasons I generally stopped going to arena shows. I grew weary of David Gahan's pandering to the audience, especially when he repeatedly held his hand to his ear and proclaimed, "I can't hear you." "Getting a fucking hearing aid!" I responded, drowned out by the thousands who were singing along like sheep. That same week was the first time I saw the Wedding Present. They put on an intense show in a sweaty little club and announced at the end of the set that they don't do encores. I subsequently skipped Depeche Mode every time they came through town and saw the Wedding Present at every opportunity, even at 8 1/2 months pregnant, and had no regrets about either choice.<br />
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My conviction finally gave in. In the last decade, a friend has repeatedly raised the possibility of seeing Depeche Mode when they toured, and I either resisted or it didn't work out, but this time I gave in for the sake of my kids. They discovered Depeche Mode less through my influence than from hearing "Just Can't Get Enough" in commercials then recognizing them as an influence on CHVRCHES. The Boston show was a few weeks after my older son's birthday, so the show lent itself to a birthday present and a night out with another family. I didn't tell the kids about my trepidation, my disdain for the shtick of arena performances, because I didn't want to poison their minds if they turned out to be into that.<br />
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So how would their performance hold up? To prepare for the show, I'd been playing a lot of their back catalog, and it really is an impressive body of work. The quality of the songwriting explains why they have long outlasted their synth-pop novelty peers. The production on the current tour had the requisite video screen and computer-controlled lights. David Gahan is gifted at working the stage, spinning, sashaying and generally showing off his impressive limberness for someone nearly 40 years into his career. Martin Gore took lead vocals for a few songs. Andrew Fletcher and two supplemental musicians stayed out of the spotlight.<br />
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They included a lot of newer materials without dipping heavily into their early hits, notably skipping "Just Can't Get Enough." Yes, there are artistic choices to be made, and they can't play everything. But the performance was bloated. They milked it too far, especially goading the audience into sing-alongs too often. They could have squeezed in a lot more songs if they aimed for more intense pacing instead of dragging songs out too much. I thought my kids would be more into the performance than I, but they got bored despite their familiarity with the materials from listening to First Wave in the car as one of our default stations.<br />
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This clearly appeals to a lot of people. Depeche Mode have been filling arenas for decades while the Wedding Present have never escaped the sweaty little clubs, at least in the U.S. Music for the masses, indeed. After a great show, I usually immerse myself in music from that artist. Today I'm binging on the Wedding Present.Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-56764670890575258352018-04-24T21:11:00.000-05:002018-04-24T21:11:47.565-05:00Concert Recommendation: Peter Hook & the Light, Paradise Rock Club, Saturday, April 28Peter Hook’s recent immensely-detailed memoir of his New Order years, <i>Substance</i>, may have gotten repetitive with the endless tales of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, misguided business decisions, and bitterness. But a recurring theme emerged: the guy loves touring. He loves touring whether he’s consuming mass quantities of alcohol and drugs or stone cold sober. He loves touring whether he’s chasing skirts or happily married. He loves touring whether he’s partying with his roadies, his support acts, or groupies, or hanging with his family, especially his grown son Jack taking over on bass as the elder Hook covers vocals with their band the Light. He loves touring as long as he’s not dealing with with Barney Sumner’s mercurial moods. He takes pride in bringing the songs he created with Joy Division and New Order to life and connecting with an audience, especially now that he’s past the years of audience members rioting or hurling bottles at the stage. Anyone who saw him when he was still in New Order will recall that he was the only member who reliably was committed to putting on a show, not just showing up. Barney may have the rights to the name, but Peter has held onto the true spirit (True Faith?). He’s got an able backing band, and they”ll be bringing the house down at the <a href="http://events.crossroadspresents.com/events/2018/4/28/peter-hook-and-the-light">Paradise Rock Club</a> on Saturday night.Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-48027964995712136462018-04-11T06:34:00.001-05:002018-04-11T11:27:21.550-05:00Concert Review: Franz Ferdinand, House of Blues Boston, April 8If you see only one sexy disco art rock band this year, make it Franz Ferdinand. Admittedly, there aren’t many other options, but damn, they do it well. Whether it’s full on Roxy Music or their take on Bryan Ferry fronting Talking Heads, they hit hard. And sometimes they go for straighter rock that punches even harder. <br />
<br />
If only they had the full confidence in their material to skip the arena rock cliches in pandering to the audience. Maybe if they had more faith in their songs, which they really deserve, Alex Kapranos could stop playing Simon Says to get the audience to clap and sing along. If he had only mentioned Boston once instead of dozens and dozens of times in a blatant attempt to ingratiate themselves with the locals, they could have squeezed “Bullet,” possibly their best song, into the set. With all the repetitions of "(your city here)", he went from suave lothario to creepy lech using cheesy pick-up lines. The band is tight and original, but these gestures just added bloat. <br />
<br />
Opening act Bodega has listened to a lot of the Fall or their Krautrock antecedents. Their female percussionist/backing vocalist even brings Brix Smith’s vivaciousness. However, they were disingenuous in claiming to have no political agenda when they kept spouting lefty politics. Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-1166678085437961112018-03-19T19:15:00.000-05:002018-03-19T19:15:22.716-05:00Book Review: Strange Things Happen by Stewart Copeland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke: 0px #000000; font-kerning: none; font: 13.0px Arial;">Stewart Copeland released a memoir in 2009, <i>Strange Things Happen: A Life With the Police, Polo, and Pygmies </i>and narrated the audiobook. I somehow overlooked this at the time but discovered the print edition when wandering through an unfamiliar library, an activity I recommend if only for that very reason.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke: 0px #000000; font-kerning: none; font: 13.0px Arial;">It’s best to start by describing what isn’t in the book. Except for a chapter on what it was like to become famous, he mostly skips his heyday with the Police, probably because he documented that with his film <i><a href="http://rockhack.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-had-merely-planned-to-review-everyone.html">Everyone Stares</a></i>. He also focuses on his professional rather than personal life. He devotes maybe a sentence to Sonja Kristina as his first wife, spilling more ink on their business relationship with Curved Air. In his book <i><a href="http://rockhack.blogspot.com/2007/03/since-ive-had-police-on-brain-i-finally.html">Wild Thing</a> </i>brother Ian detailed the circumstances of Stewart’s losing his virginity after his drumming debut; Stewart also recalls the gig but is discrete about the liaison. Ian’s 2006 death merits no mention. Even a story about playing Crusaders and Saracens as a kid growing up in Lebanon primarily serves as a set-up for writing Stewart's first opera about the Crusades. It’s also not a straight-up chronology, although he does provide dates for each exploit he recounts, useful to anyone wanting to generate a timeline. </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke: 0px #000000; font-kerning: none; font: 13.0px Arial;">Copeland does make his scope explicit. The episodic chapters recall the assortment of adventures he had leading up to, parallel to, and as a result of those early years with the Police. The book conveys his own sense of wonder at everything he’s done, including the patriotism that boiled up in him as he played polo against Prince Charles one July 4th. The polo chapter focuses on his brief time as a member of the leisure class, but almost everything else is about his work as a musician. And this is a strong theme: although he made his mark on the world as a drummer, he is a well-rounded musician/composer for whom percussion is just one aspect of his identity. His composing an opera sounds far less ludicrous after learning about his sideline in film scoring and his traditional music education in college; as someone who struggled through several semesters of music theory myself, I particularly appreciated his difficulties with parallel fifths.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke: 0px rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">Late in the book, he dives into the Police reunion in the Aughts, the events with Sting and Andy Summers that led up to it and anecdotes from the world tour. Those looking for dirt will find it here, especially the clash of egos. He is very respectful of his bandmates’ talents but also aware of refusing to be dictated to. After decades away from his old band, time spent when he was either clearly in charge or subordinate to others, he and his bandmates chafe at the adjustment to being peers in an alleged democracy. The civil war reaches a truce when they recognize that their reunion will be finite and they can more happily settle in to the remainder of the tour. That attitude and some technical aspects he goes into explain why I was much more impressed with their show during the <b style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://rockhack.blogspot.com/2008/08/review-police-with-elvis-costello.html">last stretch of the tour</a></b> than <a href="http://rockhack.blogspot.com/2007/07/concert-review-police-wrigley-field.html">in its first year</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke: 0px #000000; font-kerning: none; font: 13.0px Arial;">A few themes emerge. Copeland clearly embraces life and is game for all sorts of musical escapades, even acknowledging that serving as judge for a British TV singing competition was naff but fun. He’s aware of the Police’s place in the world as fake punks. He’s also humble about his musical shortcomings and has no axe to grind. He has a lot of affection for Sting and Andy and takes equal responsibility for the difficulties among them.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke: 0px #000000; font-kerning: none; font: 13.0px Arial;">The book is an entertaining read, but the audiobook is a more entertaining listen. The latter offers a distinct advantage over the print: interstitial music at the end of each chapter. I’ve read many books about musicians rather than listening to audiobooks so I don’t know if this is unusual. But many chapters left me wonder, “I wonder what that sounded like,” only to be followed with the answer to that question. Likely due to rights issues, the only music snippets are Copeland’s sole compositions rather than any collaborations with others.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke: 0px #000000; font-kerning: none; font: 13.0px Arial;">Copeland’s turns of phrase suggest an authentic voice rather than the generic tone of a ghost writer. As a favorite examples, bandmates are “bandsters” and Sting’s offspring are “Stingsters.” Read much of his press and you’ll start to recognize some stock answers. He acknowledged devising a set of off-repeated stories when promoting his first opera, and some anecdotes and stories he uses in the book have cropped up in interviews promoting Gizmodrome, his latest musical project. This is an observation more than a criticism. His character comes through in his writing. He's got a lot of character, and it's a likeable one.</span><br /><br /></div>
Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-92211517282185465972018-01-28T15:46:00.000-06:002018-01-28T15:46:13.375-06:00Mark E. Smith: An Appreciation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When David Bowie, Prince and Tom Petty died, they were recalled for not only their immense musical talent but also their kindness, generosity and principled behavior. Lou Reed was often described as mercurial; he could be nasty. but that wasn’t the only aspect of his personality many dealt with. You can’t say any of those things about Mark E. Smith, the mastermind of the Fall who died Jan. 24. He was cantankerous. He was irascible. He kicked so many people out of his band that this became fodder for a <a href="http://thefallenblog.blogspot.com/">whole book</a>. By almost any measure, he was a terrible person. But his death is a tremendous loss for music.<br />
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As staunch supporter John Peel described the Fall, "They are always different; they are always the same." You can hear their influence across the decades from Sonic Youth to LCD Soundsystem to Art Brut to Sleaford Mods. The Wedding Present's David Gedge stated upon Smith's death, "I have seen The Fall more times than any other band." Gedge acknowledged in an interview with me that his own band's cover of Bowie's "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family" from their <i>Hit Parade</i> series was their homage to the Fall; it bears an uncanny resemblance to "Bremen Nacht Run Out."<br /><br />The Fall were an acquired taste. MES was a shouter rather than a singer, prone to adding extra "uh" syllables to the ends of words and punctuating his lyrics with vocalizations like a dentist's drill. A joke in the '90s was that the band never sold any records because anyone who might buy one was already on the record label mailing list, in other words, someone who cared about music enough to make a career of it. The failed attempt to market Girls Against Boys as sounding like the Fall but looking like pin-ups shows what a precarious and rare position the Fall were in. Yet they somehow prevailed. Despite only skirting the UK Top 40 in a career lasting four decades and documented on 30 studio albums, BBC6 devoted their homepage to memorial tributes to the departed frontman.<br />
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MES's unusual lyrical topics and rantings became like a secret code among fans. When I had surgery some years back, I was given a wristband labeled "FALL RISK," presumably because of the sedation. I subsequently joked with a select group of friends that they were afraid I'd screech, "High tension line. Step Down!" and scare the other patients in post-op.<br />
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On a good night, the Fall were the greatest band in the world. Bad nights were trainwrecks. Their unreliability mirrored that of the Replacements, not coincidentally another band known for their alcohol intake. MES was so inebriated when interviewed for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InXwZc4RS7M">The Fall - The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E Smith</a> that his segments required subtitles. Obituaries also reported that he had fondness for amphetamines. Every one of his 60 years showed on MES's gargoyle of a face. With a string of health-related tour cancellations since November, his death was shocking but unsurprising.<br />
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MES's volatility is what makes his death such a loss. Artists like Springsteen or the Stones have the professionalism and concern for their audience to produce reliably outstanding concerts, which is a big reason their careers have endured. But the Fall's unpredictability meant that you never knew what you were going to get, and made the good night that much more special. You couldn't count on the whole world falling away as they locked into a groove. And now we'll never have the chance again.<br />
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<br />Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-40168156112787725242017-12-06T19:43:00.000-06:002017-12-06T19:43:38.770-06:00Album Review: Bee Bee Sea: Sonic Boomerang<br />
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Everyone needs an album that makes you want to crank up the volume and jump up and down, and <i>Sonic Boomerang</i> by Bee Bee Sea is it. The guitar-driven trio crank out a remarkable racket from just three people, crafting chugging, driving beats while intervals create a brightness that make the songs explode. It's garage psych with some surf touches. Lyrics are kinda besides the point, kinda muffled and in English rather than their native Italian, so they are just there to provide structure to the songs. especially the repeated words and phrases. "The Dog is the King of Losers" has a bunch of "bow wow wow"s and the title track could include, "rev it up" or "live it up" or something like that as the key phrase. I could be wrong, but it doesn't matter. It's like Ty Segall without the noodly, shapeless indulgences. (Sorry, Ty. I love, but you need to edit.) Even the long guitar breaks are in service to the whole.<br />
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Yes, I know this album came out just a few weeks ago, too late for critics who had already drafted their year's best lists. Yes, I know that rock is dead and all the cultural conversation is, rightfully, around R&B and hip-hop, where the likes of Kendrick Lamar are making lyrically substantive albums. Yes, this is a mere trifle in comparison. But you'd be hard-pressed to find a more fun album right now than <i>Sonic Boomerang</i>.Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-38806446884184594752017-12-05T21:27:00.000-06:002017-12-05T21:27:56.939-06:00Concert Review: Gary Numan, Paradise Rock Club, Dec. 4I know what you're thinking. Gary Numan: one-hit wonder from decades ago. Synthesizer novelty hit guy. But you won't find Numan on any Retro '80s package tours with the Thompson Twins and Howard Jones. There aren't many artists with careers this long whose shows make you think, "Oh, good. He's doing lots of his new stuff."<br />
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Since his "Cars" days, Numan has discovered stage presence and industrial music, both of which served his performance well, facing a packed house at the Paradise last night. No Kraftwerkian Teutonic icy detachment from him. An old fan acknowledged after the show that back in the day, Numan was a stiff performer. However, at this show he moved around at odd angles, struck an assortment of poses and generally worked the stage, particularly appreciated at a club with two giant support columns that obstruct views from many angles. He was backed by a young band, all of them in post-apocalyptic desert wear. The guitarist and bass player were fairly animated without trying to steal the show. Vertical banks of lights added atmosphere and spectacle when they weren't inducing seizures. The overall level of showmanship was notably on display with "Love Hurt Bleed," when half the sound, including the vocals, dropped out of the PA. The band's in-ear monitors were apparently still going as they continued to grind through the song despite the growing murmurs in the audience. After a brief pause at the end of the number, full sound and the performance resumed unabated.<br />
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If there was any nostalgia in the music, it was for the industrial era of the late '80s into the '90s. Trent Reznor has acknowledged that Numan was big a influence, and the favor has been returned. Many NIN-like sounds turn up in Numan's recent work, and he even added more jagged edges to his once-pristine early songs. However, Numan eschews the anger and shoutiness that characterized the work of Trent and his industrial compatriots while incorporating other aesthetics of the genre.<br />
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Numan has maintained an audience by being a charismatic performer and not allowing himself to be constrained and defined by his early single hit.Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-61942564818334106892017-09-19T21:17:00.000-05:002017-09-19T21:17:39.972-05:00Concert Review: Chameleons Vox, Middle East, Cambridge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Third time's a charm. I attempt to the see some incarnation of the Chameleons every fifteen years, and I finally saw a great show by them. The first time was the fault of the venue, a not-dearly-departed Philly club that functioned as both a dance spot that sold memberships and a concert venue; those two business models were at odds on a frigid February night in 1987 when the Chameleons came through town at the peak of their popularity. Rather than letting audience members in until they reached capacity then declaring the show sold out, staffers let the fans stand in the cold while they tried to decide how many club members to leave space for as late arrivals. I gave up, recognizing a painful exercise in futility.<br />
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A decade and a half later, the band was back together when their tour hit Chicago. They went on late, and leader Mark Burgess spent most of the set complaining about everything that wasn't up to his exacting standards. His pissy attitude was more memorable than any song they played.<br />
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So I tried again with great trepidation and low expectations on Saturday at the Middle East in Cambridge. First up were three opening acts that were musically aligned with the headliners, now dubbed Chameleons Vox to reflect that Burgess is the only remaining original member. All three bands would fit right into a Moody Fuckers playlist on a <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/LittleRecords/">Little Records</a> podcast. First up, the Milling Gowns had the right vibe but were totally stiff, and I've seen shoegazer bands make more eye contact with the audience. Way Out, a crack three-piece, had far more energy. Soft Kill sounded so much like the Chameleons that I almost hoped they'd cover one of the headliner's songs so that I'd be guaranteed to hear a solid version of it. All the bands had the atmospherics but no obvious songs.<br />
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Fortunately, I needn't have worried. Either Burgess has grown up in the passing years, or he has wild mood swings and I managed to catch him on a good night. The man at center stage was gracious and determined to put on a great show whatever the obstacles they faced. He acknowledged the first hurdle immediately: their lead guitarist became ill their first night in the U.S. and was unable to complete the tour. Things had gone so swimmingly with the opening acts that the Chameleons had three guitarists from two opening bands (Soft Kill and another that hadn't played at the Middle East) rotate throughout the set. Burgess immediately won the crowd's support for the able fill-ins. He also apologized, in a rasp, that his voice was wrecked, but his singing voice showed no signs of wear. Late in the set he admitted that they'd had to change the key on a song to fit his more limited range, but his tone was still perfect.<br />
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How good were they? You know how when a band nails a song that you really love that it feels like your head with explode with excitement? That happened. Repeatedly. Usually from the opening riffs.<br />
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Some background for those not familiar with the band. To call them a cult favorite would overstate their popularity. Their music has grandeur, and the lyrics are dark. They were the perfect soundtrack to my youthful days of confusion and heartbreak, exactly what you'd expect from a band with song titles like "Soul in Isolation." But they were never cosplay goth. They didn't have a cool logo to stand the test of time on a Hot Top t-shirt. They broke up at their peak of popularity because their manager died, which is tragic but not the stuff of romantic mythology. But they rightly earned a small fanbase.<br />
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They churned out the artfully-rendered fan favorites throughout their set. In introducing "Swamp Thing," their biggest hit, Burgess brought out one of the Soft Kill guitarists and explained that the song had just come together during sound check but they knew people wanted to hear it. The lead guitarist wobbled a bit with the intricate triples but did so well enough to give the song its emotional resonance. He then settled in more comfortably for his stretch of the set.<br />
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By the time they closed with "Don't Fall," I had no doubts about whether seeing them was worth the effort.<br />
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<br />Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-70449299054517337122017-09-11T20:40:00.000-05:002017-09-11T20:40:02.217-05:00Why Eric Clapton, unlike Dave Grohl's fans, isn't an old fart fuddy duddyAt a <a href="http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/7958003/eric-clapton-on-declining-guitar-sales-maybe-the-guitar-is-over">press conference</a> for a new documentary about Eric Clapton, a reporter tried to provoke the legendary guitarist with a question about a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-slow-secret-death-of-the-electric-guitar/?utm_term=.f6c54c7744a8">recent article</a> from the Washington Post about declining sales for guitars. Short version: WaPo's Geoff Edgers got his knickers in a twist because Millennials have different cultural and musical values from previous generations and this is a terrible problem. Clapton's response: Whatevs. Good for him in recognizing that different doesn't mean worse.<br />
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Meanwhile, Consequences of Sound reported "<a href="https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/09/dave-grohl-buys-his-8-year-old-daughter-acdc-album-instead-of-lana-del-rey/">Dave Grohl buys his 8-year-old daughter AC/DC album instead of Lana Del Rey</a>" reinforcing stereotypes that men of the past are better than women of the present. I'll give Grohl a pass on this one, sorta, because the details revealed that his daughter actually wanted an Imagine Dragons album and they happened to hit the record story during a Lana Del Ray event. But the article writes dismissively about the young female Del Ray fans who didn't recognize Grohl, and CoS posted in on Facebook with the comment, "Father knows best." At press time it garnered nearly 10K likes and loves vs. 83 angry or sad responses.<br />
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Let's transpose this half a century to get some perspective: Daughter wants a Janis Joplin album. Dad buys her Bing Crosby instead. Who is the revolutionary and who is the reactionary upholding the patriarchal status quo? Which side are you on?Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-10762998645967757012017-05-21T20:43:00.000-05:002017-05-21T20:43:52.298-05:00Voice of a Generation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Usually the phrase "voice of a generation" is used metaphorically for the words someone delivers in text or song rather than for their literal vocal skills. Kurt Cobain earned the tag, but so did F. Scott Fitzgerald, a guy never known as a singer. But if you take the expression literally, it's hard to find a Gen-Xer more deserving of the title than Chris Cornell.<br />
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Even if you aren't a huge fan of Soundgarden (and I'm not, always preferring Mudhoney's grunge Stooges to Soundgarden's grunge Led Zeppelin) or Chris's other work, there is no denying the power of his voice. Many have noted his four-octave range, but he also had impressive intonation and emotionally delivery. Yes, he could scream and wail, but he could also offset it with quiet contrast. Mariah Carey could be a another claimant of the title, and you don't have to be into her musical choices to appreciate her talent.<br />
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Chris Cornell wasn't just the frontman of a one of the biggest bands that exemplified Generation X. He was one of our best voices.Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-32483862113832622152017-02-07T20:28:00.000-06:002017-02-07T20:28:17.464-06:00Albums, Art, Youth and Beyonce<h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">What does Beyonce have in common with the Beach Boys and A Tribe Called Quest but not Elvis Presley or Grandmaster Flash? And what does this have to do with the Grammys?</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">The Grammys are imminent, and as people stake their claims on who will win album of the year, it’s worth looking at the place of the album as artistic statement in pop music.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Rock music gained cultural accreditation in the 1960s as it evolved from a singles-oriented genre to an album-oriented genre. Bernard Gendron posits this argument in <i>Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club,</i> but examples are rampant. </span><span style="direction: ltr; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed;">Chuck Berry</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">, </span><span style="direction: ltr; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed;">Elvis Presley</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">, the girl groups of the early ‘60s were all singles artists. </span><span style="direction: ltr; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed;">The Beach Boys</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’ crowning achievement was <i>Pet Sounds</i>. <i>Sgt. Pepper, r</i>ather than any individual song on that album, culminated in rock’s achieving cultural legitimacy. Two factors contributed to this shift. One was that rock artists were conceiving of the album as a unified work, but the other was that they were meeting the maturing tastes of their audience. Singles are for kids. Albums are for adults with their extended attention spans and thicker wallets. The first wave of Baby Boomers were entering adulthood, and albums that were conceived as more than a collection of singles with filler fit their evolving taste.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">A few decades later, hip-hop went through that same maturation process. Early hip-hop stars were singles artists. Think </span><span style="direction: ltr; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed;">Afrika Bambaataa</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> and </span><span style="direction: ltr; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed;">Grandmaster Flash</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">. But hip-hop achieved its golden age as artists such as Public Enemy and </span><span style="direction: ltr; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed;">A Tribe Called Quest</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> put the emphasis on albums as a whole rather than singles. For all of popular music, the focus remained on albums throughout the CD era, as record companies largely phased out the single to force consumers to buy more expensive albums, which were increasingly bloated with filler to support their 70-minute playing time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Two components allowed the pendulum to swing back to singles as a dominant force in the cultural landscape: iTunes and Millennials. The launch of the iTunes Store in 2003 unbundled the single from the bloated album. Consumers once again had a choice in spending less but getting only what they wanted. And there was a huge consumer bulge of potential buyers: the kids of Baby Boomers. Singles are the music of youth, and there was a huge generation of youth following Generation X, who had been referred to as the Baby Bust for the sharp drop in birth rates until that generation earned their own distinctive moniker.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">But now the Millennials are moving into adulthood, and their tastes are maturing with them. They have the attention spans and income to consume albums. And in the realm of the Grammys, if you want to award an album as something conceived as a whole, not just a collection of hit songs, nothing comes close to </span><span style="direction: ltr; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed;">Beyonce</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">’s <i>Lemonade</i> in dominating the cultural conversation in the last year. This isn't a prediction of who will win since the Grammys have often gotten it wrong, just a warning that this could end up in the <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS507US512&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=grammys+got+it+wrong">many lists </a>of when the Grammys got it wrong.</span>Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-46579927352509789692016-11-11T20:59:00.000-06:002016-11-11T20:59:30.116-06:00Book Review: Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. by Viv Albertine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There are rock star memoirs you read because you're such a huge fan that you want to learn the inside scoop, such as Peter Hook’s book on Joy Division. There are rock star memoirs you read because they are so famous and have had a monumental cultural impact, such as Keith Richards'. Guitarist Viv Albertine's book is neither of those. You don't have to worship her band the Slits to appreciate her bio, which is good since they played a marginal role in the London punk scene. But Albertine has so much insight to offer to make this book a valuable read.<br />
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Albertine was in the thick of it during the London punk explosion. She formed her first band with Sid Vicious before he joined the Sex Pistols, and Johnny Thunders tipped her off that Vicious was kicking her out of the band before they even played a gig. She hung out at Sex, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's clothes shop. She dated Mick Jones for several years.<br />
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That insider's view is a strong start, but there's much more. She describes how the lack of female role models among musicians limited her early imagination of what she could possibly achieve before she decided to pick up a guitar. When she did finally buy an axe, she struggled to both master basic skills and to find her own style, not just bash out the same three chords that had already become a shorthand definition of punk. Her burning desire for creative expression came to fruition when she was asked to join the Slits, and the band's biggest challenge was manifesting their artistic ideas.<br />
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And that's just Side One. Albertine breaks the book into two sections modeled on an album sides. Side Two follows her life after leaving the Slits. It's not the stuff of standard rock memoirs, but her story and way of telling it are intriguing and inspiring. First she has to figure out what to do with her life, and she demonstrates the value of identifying concrete steps to achieve her goals. After several fizzled attempts at higher education in her youth, she makes it through film school and finds steady work as a commercial director. She overcomes her loneliness by agreeing with a friend to go on more dates, ask men out and include men in outings with her girlfriends, resulting in her meeting her husband.<br />
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Then things go south. She suffers a miscarriage with major complications, endures repeated rounds of IVF in a desperate attempt to eventually have a baby, then gets diagnosed with cervical cancer. As she slowly emerges from the fog of those lost years, she recognizes the void in her life, reduced to a stay-at-home suburban mom. So she takes it upon herself to get her groove back by returning to music. She had long since sold her guitars and lost her chops, but she obsessively rebuilds her skills, adding new ones as a singer, songwriter and solo performer. This is both the cause of and balm for the dissolution of her marriage, but she takes justifiable pride in her daughter's getting to see her as much more than a mom.<br />
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She readily admits to her ups and downs, giving the book real emotional heft. She describes when she felt invincible and when she was overcome with self doubt, when she wisely followed her instincts and one terrifying expample of when she ignored them with an abusive man. She was struck with sudden insight on a date with Vincent Gallo, making her realize why she'd never have an affair with him, and the same evening her confidence was bolstered by a Patti Smith sighting.<br />
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There is a refreshing lack of score-settling and dirt-dishing. Mick Jones remains mostly opaque, a supportive if imperfect boyfriend, but she freely admits that she wasn't interested in a serious relationship at the time. She never uses the cliched excuse of "artistic differences" to explain her departure from the New Slits, but she gives a good picture of what that truly looks like. While the expression is frequently a euphemism for personality clashes or bruised egos, she describes how it felt inauthentic to her to perform songs from her youth as she wrestled with the issues of middle age, and she holds no ill will towards her bandmates for continuing without her, especially since she enjoyed being back in their fold. She respects the privacy of her husband and daughter by never revealing their names. She finds kind words for Nancy Spungeon despite not particularly liking her. The juiciest tidbit she drops is that she and Johnny Thunders never consummated their romance between his heroin habit had rendered him impotent.<br />
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There’s always room for another “rock and roll with save your life” story, fiction or non-fiction. But those stories are is usually coming-of-age tales of young adults. Albertine crafts a unique perspective by recounting how rock and roll can save a middle-aged suburban mom’s life.Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-18932920375369989042016-11-10T18:37:00.003-06:002016-11-10T18:47:47.775-06:00Movie Review: Gimme Danger<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/StqNCvQHJnM" width="560"></iframe><br />
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How thorough is <i>Gimme Danger</i>, the Stooges documentary directed by Jim Jarmusch? I wrote a thesis on the Stooges, immersing myself for months in any anything Stooges-related I could lay my eyeballs on, and I still learned new things about the band. How good is <i>Gimme Danger</i>? I still got chills from the recordings that formed the central arguments of my thesis.<br />
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The story of the band is fairly well-known by now. A bunch of degenerates from the outskirts of Detroit, led by the flamboyant, antagonizing Iggy Pop, recorded a few albums and played a bunch of stages, earning few fans and pissing off many more. They crumbled under the weight of poor sales and their own drug habits. Rather than falling into obscurity, they were eventually heralded as important, ground-breaking revolutionaries. Their 2003 reunion served as a victory lap before the deaths of founding brothers Ron and Scott Ashton.<br />
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In lesser hands the documentary could have been straightforward but artless. But Jarmusch brings two strengths to piece. He has worked with Iggy since the '90s, and the centerpiece of the film is several extensive interviews with Iggy. And while the movie includes plenty of archival footage of the band, Jarmusch shows real flair in the selection of materials to fill in the gaps and illustrate the voiceover interviews. This includes a combination of stock footage, movie clips from other sources and newly-created animation that convey a sense of humor about the subject. For example, when they discuss using the Three Stooges as inspiration for the band name, the film includes a clip of the comedy trio playing instruments to a Stooges soundtrack.<br />
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Although Iggy is the star of the film, Jarmusch interviews many others, including guitarist James Williamson, Scott Ashton, his sister Kathy, Danny Fields, who signed them to Elektra, and Mike Watt, who replaced the late Dave Alexander on bass when they reunited. An existing interview with Ron Ashton, conducted shortly before his death, supplements the interviews done for this project.<br />
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A slight shortcoming is that the film glosses over some of the internal conflicts within the band. Paul Trynka's Iggy bio <i>Open Up and Bleed</i> shows great admiration for its subject without letting Iggy off the hook for his sometimes dismissive treatment of his bandmates. On the other hand, this movie was the first recognition I've seen of Alexander's specific musical contributions to their debut album, and it came straight from Iggy's lips. The film also fills in some of the dotted lines on the path to their reunion that started with Ron being asked to join with younger, admiring musicians for a faux-Stooges band for <i>Velvet Goldmine</i>, a fictional film loosely based on Iggy and David Bowie's relationship in the '70s.<br />
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<i>Gimme Danger</i> is currently in limited release and is recommended for Stooges fans and newcomers alike.Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-68266562982002936752016-10-02T10:17:00.001-05:002016-10-02T10:17:32.387-05:00Concert Recommendations: Ash, Kishi Bashi, October 3Do you prefer your exuberant music with noisy guitars or violin loops?<br />
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If that question is easy for you to answer, then your choice of concerts on Monday is easy. Me, I'm still torn.<br />
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On violin front is Kishi Bashi, the band name under which Kaoru Ishibashi performs, who just released a terrific third album Sonderlust. It is buoyant, a fun bounceback to his fetching debut <i>151a</i> after the sophomore slump of <i>Lighght</i>, that failed to make much of an impression. I haven't seen them live, but there are obvious musical connections to Animal Collective's textural use of loops and Passion Pit's synth pop, plus an unexpected homage to Pink Floyd's "Money" with "Who'd You Kill." As a former Berklee employee, I wish Ishibashi's name came up among famous alumni more often than the problematic John Mayer.<br />
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If you prefer your lyrics more at the forefront, if you're feeling nostalgic for '90s UK music that never made as a much of an impression on this side of the Atlantic, or you like your punk with power pop sensibilities and a lingering adolescent love of metal riffs, go see Ash touring in support of the 20th anniversary of <i>1977</i>, the album with such not-quite-hits "Girl from Mars" and "Kung Fu." The Irish band led by Tim Wheeler hit their commercial peak as a 4-piece, but guitarist Charlotte Hatherley left the fold a while back, so they are back to a trio.<br />
<br />
Use the comments section to chime in if I've helped you make up your mind, because I'm still conflicted by the wealth of riches in the Boston area on one night.<br />
<br />
<i>Ash plays <a href="http://www.mideastoffers.com/me/content/upcomingshows">The Middle East Upstair,</a> 472-480 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, doors at 8:00 pm. Kishi Bashi plays <a href="http://royaleboston.com/event/kishi-bashi/">Royale</a>, 279 Tremont St., Boston, MA, 02116, doors at 7:00 pm. Both shows Monday, October 3.</i>Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-13762058435508556552016-05-04T19:15:00.000-05:002016-05-04T19:15:07.321-05:00Road Trip Report: Ramones Exhibit at the Queens Museum<br />
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When the Ramones released their first album 40 years ago, they were either ignored or dismissed as reprobates by vast swaths of the population. Several decades later, they have now been embraced as hometown heroes in their birthplace. The Queens Museum is honoring their contributions to (the downfall of) society is an exhibition "<a href="http://www.queensmuseum.org/2016/01/hey-ho-lets-go-2">Hey! Ho! Let's Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk</a>" that opened in April and runs through July 31.<br />
<br />
The exhibit consists of four galleries of photos, music, artwork, artifacts, videos, instruments, handwritten lyrics, press clippings and other memorabilia. The materials and supporting text detail the story and influence of the band. Among the highlights are their first press release, penned by Tommy, that demonstrates his vision for the band from the get-go as well as their sense of humor. Visa applications provide a rare photo of Joey without shades. Video screens display early rehearsals and performances, and a block of six old CRT TVs offers a rotation of their music videos. One display includes Johnny's Mosrite guitar and clothes they wore in concert, which were definitely not costumes because part of their ethos was to dress the same on stage and off. As befitting a band with an art director, visuals compromise a significant component, primarily from Arturo Vega but also from other contributors, such as Mark Kostabi's original painting for the cover of <i>¡Adiós Amigos!</i><br />
<br />
It winds down by describing the post-Ramones careers of the members but ends on a bittersweet note, that the band had limited success while it was active but has grown in stature after the death the original members.<br />
<br />
The gift shop has a limited assortment of Ramones gear for most ages (babies and adults, but no t-shirts in kid sizes), and you can feel a lot better about buying stuff there than at Hot Topic.<br />
<br />
The museum has other exhibitions, too. I skipped them. They weren't about the Ramones.<br />
<br />
My visit lasted about an hour, accompanied by semi-squirmy/semi-interested kids who like but don't love the Ramones.<br />
<br />
If you are planning a visit and you are not familiar with the area, keep in mind that the museum is near Citi Field, USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the New York State Pavillion and the New York Hall of Science. These can either be added attractions for your trip to the area or causes of traffic tie-ups that you want to avoid.<br />
<br />
Finally, if you want to reenact "Happy Family," specifically "Sittin' here is Queens, eatin' refried beans," <a href="http://tortillerianixtamal.com/taqueria/">Taqueria Nixtamal</a> is a short drive or long walk from the museum and is a cheerful little hole-in-the-wall with seats and refried beans. Service isn't quick, but the Mexican food is very fresh and carefully prepared. (Disclaimer: this restaurant recommendation is not an endorsement for gulping down Thorazines. And you'll need to bring your own magazines.)<br />
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<br />Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-54226115484881251622016-04-23T19:38:00.001-05:002016-04-23T19:38:07.943-05:00Meditations on Prince and Bowie or; Why I'll Never Say, "I May Be Old, But at Least I Got to See All the Good Bands"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
The public outpouring over the deaths of Bowie and Prince says a lot about the similarities between the artists and explains why the death of, say, Glenn Frey just wasn't as big a deal. Yes, both had distinctive costuming, unprecedented business dealings, and interracial audiences, and they expanded our ideas of appropriate sexual behavior. But much more importantly, both were relentless in pursuing new musical boundaries, of exploring and exploding genre definitions. They didn't rest on the laurels of their back catalogs but spent their whole careers trying to create something new. That kind of vision resonates far more than just selling a shitlload of records.<br />
<br />
Which leads me to my challenge to the reader. If our most revered artists constantly looked forward and not just backward, shouldn't you be doing the same as a listener? It pisses me when people, especially those around my age, post the meme on Facebook, "I May Be Old, But at Least I Got to See All the good Bands" because it is closed-minded and backwards looking. And it pisses me off because it was the same bullshit that Gen Xers endured in our youth at the hands of Baby Boomers and that we are now aiming at Millennials. At that attitude's worst extremes, it's powerful Baby Boomers like Tipper Gore parading before the Senate because they fear the music of Prince (and I'll probably have more to say about this after I finish reading <i>Folk Devils and Moral Panics</i> by Stanley Cohen (no relation)). But it also plays in less virulent ways, such as the Steve Miller Band, who sold a shitload of records to Baby Boomers but offered no grand vision or musical innovation, getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before the Cure or Depeche Mode, who defined their musical genres and had the songwriting chops to sustain careers long after the novelty of goth and synth pop subsided, but they are icons to those who came after the Baby Boomers. As Jim DeRogatis said in <i>Color Me Obsessed</i>, "You had the motherfucking Baby Boomers consistently getting in your face and saying, 'Nothing you ever see in your life is going to be nearly as good as the Beatles. Nothing you ever experience is going to be nearly as good as Woodstock.' To which you and I were responding, 'Fuck you. We just saw the Replacements.'" But now the motherfucking Gen Xers are saying the same thing to Millennials, but replacing the Beatles with the Replacements or Nirvana.<br />
<br />
So get over yourself. Acknowledge that there is good music being made and still to be made, and go try to find some it. If you need a suggestion, start with OK Go the next time they hit your town. Kurt Cobain never got to see them, and he missed out.Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-14333088727999617472016-03-01T11:27:00.001-06:002016-03-01T11:27:13.913-06:0050th Birthday PlaylistAnother milestone birthday is approaching, so it was time to update <a href="http://rockhack.blogspot.com/2005/11/i-attended-40th-birthday-party-recently.html">the birthday playlist</a>. I had compiled my 120 favorite songs, enough to fill my iPod Shuffle, from throughout my life for my 40th birthday party. My current iPhone holds many more songs than that, but I decided to stick with the rule of 30 songs per decade.<br />
<br />
And once again, I have a few observations:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Because I have kids, I have rediscovered Top 40 radio. With age I've also gotten over a lot of my music snobbery, so I make no apologies for the pop songs.</li>
<li>The older songs are ones that have taken on greater significance for me in the last decade.</li>
<li>I'm happy to say that I've found enough new music in the last decade that I had to struggle to cut the list down to 30.</li>
</ul>
<div>
I played my 40th birthday playlist at my 40th birthday party. I won't have that opportunity with turning 50, but I've known all along that I wanted to update the playlist, because the original one is a gift to myself that keeps on giving. I frequently listen to my music on shuffle, so it's like a little surprise party whenever one of my favorite songs comes on.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The additions from the last decade:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>American Authors - Best Day of My Life</li>
<li>Animal Collective - Summertime Clothes</li>
<li>Art Brut - Slap Dash for No Cash</li>
<li>Barnett, Courtney - Nobody Really Cares If You Don't Go To The Party</li>
<li>Bloc Party - Helicopter</li>
<li>Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy</li>
<li>Case, Neko - Man</li>
<li>Chvrches - Clearest Blue</li>
<li>Collins, Edwyn - Losing Sleep</li>
<li>Django Django - Default</li>
<li>Escovedo, Alejandro - Always a Friend</li>
<li>Franz Ferdinand - Bullet</li>
<li>Fratellis - Henrietta </li>
<li>Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land</li>
<li>Ida Maria - Queen of the World</li>
<li>Joy Division - She’s Lost Control</li>
<li>Kishi Bashi - It All Began with a Burst</li>
<li>Lady Gaga - Bad Romance</li>
<li>Lekman, Jens - Your Arms Around Me</li>
<li>Monae, Janelle - Tightrope</li>
<li>OK Go - This Too Shall Pass</li>
<li>Pharrell - Happy</li>
<li>Redwalls - Modern Diet</li>
<li>Ronson, Mark & Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk</li>
<li>Savages - She Will</li>
<li>Segall, Ty - It’s Over</li>
<li>Sleater-Kinney - Surface Envy</li>
<li>St. Vincent - Digital Witness</li>
<li>Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog</li>
<li>Zola Jesus - Vessel</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-65380784441210059352016-02-14T10:26:00.001-06:002016-02-14T10:26:23.523-06:00Love Songs for ParentsPop music is a kids' game. It's not just due to risk-averse radio programmers that older artists' music rarely gets airplay. The emotional turmoil of youth, the extreme highs and lows, lends itself to song more easily to than the stability that comes with maturity. Even the most devout Adele fans have to say to themselves occasionally, "For God's sake, woman, pull yourself together already." Unless you're extricating yourself from the kind of tormented relationship that inspired Elvis Costello to write "Alibi" in his 40s (and his divorce from Cait O’Riordan came as little surprise to anyone who heard that song), it's hard to find music that really speaks to the experience of being middle aged.<br />
<br />
But what does cause intense emotion at this age? Parenthood. There are a handful of sappy tracks about parenthood, but the last year has brought two fantastic songs about platonic rather than romantic love. Perhaps their not being explicitly about parenthood is what keeps them from brimming with treacle; one is from a hilarious animated movie about the love between a farmer and his flock of sheep. But they buoyantly capture the happiness, the joyfulness, of being with your kids. Or at least how I feel about being with mine.<br />
<br />
The first is a power pop gem from Tim Wheeler of Ash, "Feels Like Summer" from <i>Shaun the Sheep The Movie.</i><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qAKCpoLhMME" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
The second is from Michael Franti, who has mellowed from his angry young man days of the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. He's still aggressive, but now he's aggressively joyous in "Once a Day," a song inspired by his son about the feeling the love of those around you.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gowi31zGyQA" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
Especially if you're feeling like the Romantic Industrial Complex is dictating your emotions today, look beyond the partners and paramours in your life (or lack thereof), and embrace all your loved ones, kids, parents, friends, pets and anyone else whose presence in your life makes it better.<br />
<br />Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-4839174278313059002016-01-11T19:22:00.000-06:002016-01-11T19:22:39.168-06:00Bowie's Lessons on Leadership<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.davidbowie.com/sites/g/files/g2000002506/f/201304/1973_sukita_hands_600h.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.davidbowie.com/sites/g/files/g2000002506/f/201304/1973_sukita_hands_600h.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<div>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal;"></span><br />
<ul>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Have a vision and delegate to people with complementary talents to carry it out.</b> NPR’s recent <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2015/12/17/460023894/all-songs-1-david-bowie-fulfills-his-jazz-dream">interview</a> with some of Bowie’s <i>Blackstar</i> collaborators highlights his creative process. Get a big idea, then bring in the right people whose skills differ from your own to fill in the gaps of what you can’t do yourself. Give them enough direction to achieve your goals, but trust them to run with it in their own way and don’t micromanage them. Janelle </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(35, 35, 35); color: #232323; font-kerning: none;">Monáe</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> has already nailed this, but the lesson applies more generally.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Bravely let your freak flag fly.</b> I first saw Bowie with his shockingly orange hair on Dinah Shore’s afternoon talk show. He was the strangest thing I’d on my TV in the bland suburbs, and perhaps the strangest thing I’d seen in my first decade on Earth. It clearly made an impression. If you’re going to be unconventional, then do it with conviction. Put it out there for everyone to see.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Know when to act like a rock star, but know when not to.</b> When Bowie was on stage, he was captivatingly charismatic. But when he was off stage, he didn't demand to be the center of attention. My two favorite examples: I worked at Tower Records at in London in the late '80s. When Michael Jackson was in town and wanted to shop there, his minions made arrangements for all the employees to be shooed out right at closing so that he could browse privately with only the store manager present. When Bowie wanted to shop there, he walked in the door in the middle of the day (sadly, not during my shift), selected his merchandise then stood in line with everyone else and to pay for it. And before his health declined, he reportedly got out to little clubs in New York on a regular basis to see up-and-coming bands, taking it in with the rest of the punters and leaving the spotlight to the young performers. Like a normal human being. Because it’s not always about you.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Pay attention to your colleagues’ health needs, and be a loyal friend.</b> When Iggy Pop’s life was sinking due to the interconnected problems of drug addiction and the Stooges’ demise, Bowie checked him into a residential mental health facility and visited him regularly during his convalescence. Iggy recovered. They decamped to Berlin, where they cowrote “China Girl” for Iggy. In the ‘80s, Bowie recorded the song for his insanely commercially successful <i>Let’s Dance</i>. Loyalty is not just the right thing to do, it can pay significant long-term dividends.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Be open to what’s new and be willing to embrace it.</b> When promoting <i>Never Let Me Down</i> in 1987, Bowie endorsed Screaming Blue Messiahs as his favorite new band. Paul McCartney was asked a similar question and that time, and he hemmed and hawed trying to think of any young bands before coming up with Dire Straits, who were already old fart music compared to Screaming Blue Messiahs by that point. It’s just one example of Bowie’s keeping his ear to the ground for new sounds.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Use your clout to shine a light on others. </b>When Bowie was flush with early success, he produced albums for the Stooges, Mott the Hoople and Lou Reed, drawing attention to artists on the commercial fringes. Over the years, he handpicked opening acts to expose them to his sizable audience, such as Polyphonic Spree on some dates on his final tour. He recognized that his big fanbase gave him power, and he could use it to help other artists. Sonic Youth did this on a smaller scale and earned lots of respect and loyalty for it.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Use your success as an opportunity to take more risks. </b>Having a few hits can be the equivalent of earning tenure. You could keep cranking out minor variations on the formula that made you successful. Or you could use it as the freedom to explore new musical idioms. Bowie’s constant expeditions into new musical territory made each album into an event, not just excuse to embark on a lucrative tour (I’m looking at you, Rolling Stones and Madonna). He went out on limbs and made you care about what he would do next.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-22734877449492681422014-12-03T12:31:00.001-06:002014-12-03T12:31:45.908-06:00Best Albums of 2014 Meta List<div class="p1">
I’ve read enough best-of lists over the years that I’ve finally nailed down the formula.</div>
<div class="p1">
</div>
<ol>
<li>The blockbuster album to prove that I’m not an elitist out of touch with what’s popular but I'll rank it low on my list to prove that I’m still cool.</li>
<li>The painfully obscure release that demonstrates that I listen to way more music than you do.</li>
<li>The bloated reissue that I claim helped me rediscover a classic. The publicist gave me a free copy so that I could encourage you to blow your money repurchasing something you already own.</li>
<li>The new album from a veteran performer that shows they are either still relevant or that they were ahead of their time. Bonus points if they’ve gotten a stamp of approval from someone younger and famous; Bob Seger would be on every list this year if Jack White had produced his latest.</li>
<li>A bunch of albums that have had buzz all year as the critical concensus so that I can maintain credibility with my peers.</li>
<li>The stuff I actually enjoyed and listened to repeatedly throughout the year. But I might not have the guts if it doesn't match the above criteria.</li>
</ol>
<div>
This may also be a preview of my 2015 list.</div>
Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-62683905766155094152014-09-14T13:49:00.003-05:002014-09-14T13:49:46.133-05:00Concert Review: Bob Mould, Paradise Rock ClubThe middle-aged man on stage, with his glasses and close-cropped thinning hair, could have passed for a suburban dad. Had he been out on Spy Pond Field for Arlington Town Night a few hours earlier, no one would have blinked an eye. Then Bob Mould unleashed a glorious cacophony with his guitar and left no doubt that he was someone special. <br /><br />Mould arrived at the Paradise on Friday to a packed house to support his latest album, <i>Beauty & Ruin</i>. He’s been making the promotional rounds, and as I listened to his new material, I realized how distinctive his guitar sound is, even for someone like me who isn’t a guitar geek, and how much I loved hearing it, even though I’d never been a huge Hüsker Dü or Sugar fan. The album has gotten a good response for Mould’s skill as a lyricist, but live it was all about the guitar: the distortion, depth and din. No angry young man, Mould wielded a smile and an axe, creating a joyous noise. <br /><br />Bassist Jason Narducy matched Mould in spirit, and the esteem in which Mould holds him was evident from their mic positions. Mould placed himself not in the center of the stage with Narducy shunted off to the side. Instead, each was equidistant from drummer Jon Wurster at the center, except when they frequently flung themselves around the stage. <br /><br />Punk is about more than a store-bought snarl and Hot Topic wardrobe. Hüsker Dü never fit that fashion mold back in the day, so there’s no reason for Mould to do it now. It’s in blazing his own path, guitar as machete, that Mould has lasted this long, playing to larger crowds than he did 25 years ago and remaining relevant.<br />
Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-2984370046268218412013-11-21T07:23:00.000-06:002013-11-21T07:23:19.798-06:00The Trouble with Chic<span style="font: 13.0px Arial;">We're midway through the voting process for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and there has been much debate about the relative merits of not only the nominees but also those who didn't get tapped. In almost every case, it boils down to one of two arguments:</span><br />
<ul>
<li>
<span style="font: 13.0px Arial;">The public loves an artist, but the critics don't. </span></li>
<li>
<span style="font: 13.0px Arial;">The critics love an artist, but the public doesn't. </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font: 13.0px Arial;">This isn't the issue with Nile Rodgers and Chic, and the fact that I named Rodgers separately indicates the problem. You can't say it's a lack a popularity or influence. Rodgers' distinctive fingerprints are all over not Chic but also his hits with Madonna, David Bowie, INXS, and, most recently Daft Punk. His style is prominent in his work as both performer and producer.</span><br />
<span style="font: 13.0px Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font: 13.0px Arial;">The issue is that Rodgers' credits are too diffuse to merit induction in any category despite the importance of his work taken as a whole. Although Chic epitomized disco and were </span><span style="font: 13.0px Arial;"><span style="font: 13.0px Arial;">were heavily sampled in hip hop, </span>but they only had a few hits; the band's career was eclipsed by Donna Summer, whose reign extended well beyond the disco era. To recognize Rodgers' work as a sideman (now called the Award for Musical Excellence) overlooks his work as a producer (now called the Ahmet Ertegun Award) and vice versa.</span><br />
<span style="font: 13.0px Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font: 13.0px Arial;">Nile Rodgers deserves to be in the Rock Hall, but their category structure makes it all but impossible to properly recognize his impact.</span><br />
<span style="font: 13.0px Arial;"> </span>
Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995816.post-84363243781172565172013-08-18T21:12:00.001-05:002013-08-18T21:12:28.627-05:00Why Sound City Makes Me AngryThe Dave Grohl-directed <i>Sound City</i> has been praised as a love letter to rock and roll.<br />
<br />
It left me seething with rage.<br />
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The film chronicles the Sound City studio in the Los Angeles suburbs. Despite the studio's unassuming appearance, many legendary and successful albums were recorded there, including <i>Nevermind</i>. Their success came down to several factors. Magical acoustics unintentionally made drums sound great. A sweet custom recording console afforded producers precise control. The people involved in running the place had great ears for commerce as well as music.<br />
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It's when the studio's fortunes decline that things start to turn ugly. Short version: their resolutely analog set-up was incompatible with the growing use of digital recording and production technology, so artists stopped booking there. They were forced to shut.<br />
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It's the condemnation of technology and its broader implications that make the movie intolerable. The talking heads are cantankerously retrograde in the view of music: Real music is purely analog. Using a sampler isn't making music. Software such as Pro Tools and Auto-Tune allows people who have no business calling themselves musicians to make music. Watching the narrow-minded white men outright reject any music that didn't meet their strictly-defined ideals made me seethe. It made me resent <i>Nevermind</i> because it framed it as backwards-looking.<br />
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Seeing this made me more annoyed about the casual sexism of the place. The highest ranking woman at the studio is fondly recalled for being hot and little else. The beloved rundown atmosphere included a wall covered in porn. Women were hired as secretaries who could be pulled into duty as back-up singers, but men hired as entry-level runners were groomed to become engineers and producers.<br />
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People of color got even less screen time than women.<br />
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It reminded me of the disco backlash, which wasn't just about musical purity but a backlash by straight white males, especially aging ones, against the rise of music by people who weren't straight, white or male. Then it reminded me of a strain of straight white male conservative Republicans who are bent out shape by the prospect of their reign of unquestioned dominance being challenged. Guess what, fellas, there's more to good popular music than bass, drums, guitar and vocals. And you sound just as cranky as your predecessors did a few generations back when musicians embraced the technology of the electric guitar. A prior generation no doubt decried singers who needed microphones.<br />
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It reeks of tokenism, but at least Trent Reznor gets a chance to advocate for technology, recognizing it as a tool that can enable new kinds of creative expression. But he probably only gets a pass because he also talks about playing classical piano growing up, so he still qualifies as a "real" musician.<br />
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A member of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club squeezes in a throwaway line about how apps like GarageBand make recording accessible to many more people than in the past. It's because of people like the pigheaded retrograde gatekeepers that populate this movie that GarageBand and its ilk are crucial to the continued revitalization of music.<br />
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The hope in making this movie was probably that the audience would run home listen to the great albums made there by Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, REO Speedwagon(?) or Ratt(???). Instead, it left me filled with the desire to listen to Depeche Mode, Lady Gaga and the Beastie Boys, especially <i>Paul's Boutique</i>, artists who have created great music that embraces technology, music that has looked to the future instead of being trapped in the past.<br />
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<br />Marcihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00432918571033088948noreply@blogger.com0