Why Sound City Makes Me Angry

The Dave Grohl-directed Sound City has been praised as a love letter to rock and roll.

It left me seething with rage.

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 Nevermind. 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.

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.

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 Nevermind because it framed it as backwards-looking.

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.

People of color got even less screen time than women.

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.

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.

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.

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 Paul's Boutique, artists who have created great music that embraces technology, music that has looked to the future instead of being trapped in the past.

Concert Recommendation: The Hives, House of Blues, June 23

In the charming Mo Willems' childrens' book Edwina, The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct, the title character goes around town making people happy, blissfully unaware that dinosaurs should no longer inhabit the earth. When a know-it-all in need of an audience explains to her that she should be extinct, she buys his arguments but just doesn't care. She just goes on having fun, and even her lecturer joins her.

Substitute "garage rock" for "dinosaur," and you've got the story of the Hives. They burst onto the scene a decade ago as part of the third wave of garage. The White Stripes appeared to be the only long-term survivors of the fad, and even they've broken up, and not before Jack White repositioned his duo as blues revivalists. But armed with unflagging bravado, especially by satirically arrogant lead singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, the Hives have kept chugging along, blissfully unaware that there won't be a Grandchildren of Nuggets compilation. And, like Edwina, they go around making people happy by putting on great shows. "Go Right Ahead," the lead track from the new Lex Hives is their raucous take on ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down," and it is just as energizing as any of the highlights from their breakthrough album Veni, Vidi, Vicious.

The Hives play the House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston, (888) 693–2583 at 6:30 on Saturday, June 23.

2011: The Non-Year of the Year of Women in Music

Much has been made of women's achievements in comedy this year. Funny women have written best-selling books and have worked both in front of and behind the camera on popular TV shows and in movies. Many commentaries on this also add that it shouldn't be a big deal that women, who are majority of the world's population, are succeeding in any particular endeavor, but the fact remains that it is still seen as a trend and a novelty.

But the real news is not only that women dominated the world of popular music in 2011 but that their collective achievement doesn't warrant commentary. Taylor Swift was Billboard's women of the year for her phenominal sales, and they didn't name a corresponding man of the year. Adele had the year's top-selling album and is poised to clean up at the Grammys. Katy Perry broke one of Michael Jackson's sales records. Britney Spears was newsworthy only for her ticket and single sales. Nicki Minaj was one of the biggest break-out artists of the year. Not a single male solo artist or band made Entertainment Weekly's reader poll for favorite musician of the year. And none of this has been the subject of trend stories; most people acccept this as unworthy of comment.

It's true that accepted roles for women in popular music are still limited, but it is a sign of genuine progress when the success of so many women to the exclusion of the success of men is no big deal.

Why I'm Not Reviewing Ida Maria's New Album

I loved Ida Maria's debut album, Fortress 'Round My Heart. It's one of my favorite albums of the last five years, so I jumped at the chance to review Katla, her recent follow-up. But my primary outlet for album reviews these days is CD Hotlist, an online publication aimed at people who buy music recordings for libraries. And that's the hitch. Katla is part of a growing trend of albums that are only available as digital downloads, not in physical form. To make a long story short, because of standard end-user license agreements, libraries can't buy digital downloads for their borrowers to use. My colleague D. J. Hoek has written about this issue in greater detail. So there is no point in CD Hotlist running a review of an album that libraries can't buy.

I'm hoping the situation will change. In the short run, I hope Ida Maria's label will view Katla as enough of a priority to issue it on CD. In the long run, I hope the copyright laws will change or vendors will change their restrictions so that libraries can collect, preserve and allow access to digital-only recordings. I've got a review of the album ready to go. The short version is that it's awesome.

Concert Recommendation: Fountains of Wayne, Brighton Music Hall, August 12 & 13

I just finished my third music theory class. My professor praised my work on my final project, asking if was my first composition. I explained that I had only composed for assignments in my music theory classes. I've been aware that I'm perfectly capable of writing something that meets the criteria for an assignment but have absolutely no idea about its aesthetic values: it's correct, but is it any good? I have my doubts.

Then I came home and listened again to Sky Full of Holes, the new album by Fountains of Wayne. My rudimentary composition skills will never match their ability to craft hooks. The new album isn't quite as heavy on them as some of their previous releases, but the band's entire body of work is overrun with them. They will showing off their hooks in a pair of Boston shows, one electric, one acoustic, this weekend. They will also be showing off their other skills: the specificity of their lyrics, Jody Porter as their secret weapon adding muscle on guitar, and a general sense of playfulness with their presentation.

I'm not fretting over not matching their compositional skills since I can compensate with other expertise. I've reviewed the new album for CDHotlist: New Releases for Libraries. I'm surprised that other reviewers have failed to comment on the change in perspective, that they are now writing about people well into adulthood, which I particularly appreciate as someone who is well into adulthood myself.

Fountains of Wayne play the Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Avenue, Allston, MA, 617-779-0140, with Nicole Atkins at 9:00 p.m. on Friday, August 12 (electric) and Saturday, August 13 (acoustic).

Book Review: Just Kids by Patti Smith

It has already won the 2010 National Book Award for non-fiction, but I'll add what I can to the heaps of praise for Just Kids by Patti Smith.

The world is overrun with celebrity memoirs. Even those with ghost writers or co-authors are rarely worth reading unless one is already interested in that celebrity. But Patti Smith established herself as a writer of poetry and prose before making her biggest splash as a nonconformist rock star. What makes this book so special is that it is a beautiful, fascinating read even for those who aren't fans of her or Robert Mapplethorpe's work.

The title refers to Smith and Mapplethorpe's early adulthood, when most of the book is set. Smith offers sketches of her childhood, leading to her decision to take off to New York by herself to become an artist. Through a series of coincidences that were stranger than fiction, she repeatedly runs into the young Robert Mapplethorpe, and the two become lovers. Together, they struggle to find their way in the world. Both know that they want to be artists but are working through the process of determining what sort of art to pursue. They also just need to survive on a day-to-day basis, scraping by on meager incomes, trying to fund their art and fill their bellies. As time goes on, together they come to terms with Mapplethorpe's homosexuality and how it affects their relationship.

Smith chronicles not only their own lives but the literary, art and music scene in New York in late 1960s and early 1970s. Famous names pass through their orbits, but Smith is no mere name-dropper and conveys the atmosphere at places like the Chelsea Hotel and Max's Kansas City for all its denizens. She unravels how she found her voice, and eventually an audience, as a poet and musician and how Mapplethorpe did so with his photography. The story trails off when they are no longer "just kids" but wraps up with Mapplethorpe's untimely death from AIDS.

I laughed in recognition when Smith said she made more money selling promo copies of records than she did selling her writing as a rock critic. But I was also amazed by her bravery in setting out into the world to pursue her dreams, with only the safety net of Mapplethorpe. It was a wonderfully complex, supportive relationship. Their life together was quite an adventure, exquisitely rendered by Smith.

Update on Some Thoughts about NIN

The last time I saw Nine Inch Nails, I commented in my review "Reznor is screaming, 'Too fucked up to care anymore.' I'm pondering whether Nine Inch Nails has received the academic examination it so clearly merits, and whether filling that possible void is why I should be heading back to grad school."

I'm happy to say that I'm just putting the finishing touches on a paper about Nine Inch Nails. I decided to analyze "The Great Destroyer" rather than "Somewhat Damaged," but the semester is still young. The shorter version: Fuck you, Adorno. Just because it's modern and it's popular doesn't mean it isn't also serious art.

Concert Review: The English Beat, Johnny D's, Somerville, January 4

The English Beat are better than you remember. Off the top of your head, you can only recall "Mirror in the Bathroom" and their cool logo. But they have more songs that make you go, "Oh, yeah, this is really good," than you realized. And they can get a party going on a cold Tuesday night in January like nobody's business.

"How Can You Stand There?" was the unofficial theme song for the night. It was probably about political apathy, but it applied to the audience at a more literal level to the few hold-outs in the audience. Most of the sold-out crowd at Johnny D's was on their feet and dancing. Even people with seats at tables on the edges of the crowded room were up and moving. Dave Wakeling could taunt someone up front for standing still with arms folded only because it was a rarity. Even more impressive about "How Can You Stand There?" is that it was a new song, not yet recorded, but it fit in so easily with their repertoire of hits that the audience never slowed down.

And the major and minor hits kept coming: "Hands Off She's Mine," "I Confess," "Best Friend," "Twist and Crawl," "Save It For Later" (See what I said about more good songs than you remember?) They brought out the covers that they put their own stamp on, "Tears of a Clown," "Can't Get Used to Losing You" and "I'll Take You There." Guitarist and singer Dave Wakeling is the only original member still with the band; the current keyboard player probably wasn't even born when the Ranking Roger was bobbing around in videos in the early days of MTV. But the line-up in tight, ably delivering the material that made the band the epitome of the early '80s ska revival.

No, the evening wasn't perfect. While it was impressive that they played more than two hours, the energy in the room sagged at around the 1 hour 45 mark; they could have trimmed a few songs and still kept the audience more than satisfied. And it's hard to fully endorse a group so clearly trading on nostalgia. But it's also hard to fault a band that generates so much fun.

Concert Review: Grinderman, House of Blues, November 13

At a point in his career when most of his remaining peers are treading the nostalgia circuit, Nick Cave is attracting sizable crowds for not just new material but a new band that doesn't include his name. Cave has always oozed charisma and put on a great show, but he also has the songwriting chops to engender a continued following. Scaling back from the sprawling Bad Seeds to the stripped down four piece Grinderman has created a boost of energy for someone whose energy wasn't flagging, as seen on Saturday at Boston's House of Blues.

For all of Cave's intensity and command of the stage, this wasn't a one-man show. Guitarist/violinist Warren Ellis, with his stringy hair and beard and demonic flailing looked liked he'd gone nuts after years of solitary confinement in a third world prison. The rhythm section functioned as the band's anchor to sanity.

The band came out and set the stage on fire with the impolite "Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man." "Worm Tamer" had the texture of a wire brush. The blues got electric shock treatment with "Get It On." Cave started out playing guitar, but put it aside for a tambourine, which he soon pitched during "Heathen Child." His posture demanded attention, but Ellis was cranking out unearthly sounds. Ellis was down on the floor for "Evil!" but the impassioned delivery still couldn't fully save the song from its weak lyrics.

The band scaled back the intensity for "When My Baby Comes," but Ellis started brandishing his frayed violin bow like a whip and soon was leaving acres of scorched earth in his wake. They came up for a breather with "What I Know" but leaped back into the fire with "Honey Bee (Let's Fly to Mars)." But they stumbled with "Kitchenette;" Cave overstepped the line into self-parody with heavy-handed double entendres and wacky falsetto utterances of "tippy toe, tippy toe." Cave regained his footing as gospel preacher who's now playing for the other team with "No Pussy Blues." During the encore, "When My Love Comes Down to Meet You" was brimming with psychedelic distortion. They wrapped the set with "Grinderman" as the band's name glowed in red on the back curtain.

Cave has shaved off his mustache, no doubt to stay a step ahead of ironic hipsters. The guy knows how to remain relevant.

Set list:
   
Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man
Worm Tamer
Get It On
Heathen Child
Evil!
When My Baby Comes
What I Know
Honey Bee (Let's Fly to Mars)
Kitchenette
No Pussy Blues
Bellringer Blues

Encore:

Palaces of Montezuma
When My Love Comes Down to Meet You
Man in the Moon
Love Bomb
Grinderman

Kickin' It Real Old School

My blog was dormant for two months because I'm back in school, pursuing a masters in music at Tufts, which has left me with little time to see shows or even blog. My first major paper was on a historic music text in one of Tufts' special collections, A General History of Music by Charles Burney. It was one of the first two comprehensive histories of music published in England. Burney released his first volume in January, 1776 but didn't finish the four-volume series until 1789. His rival Sir John Hawkins released his history 10 months later in its entirety. The rivalry was immediate and has persisted for 200 years. Hawkins's strength was in his coverage of ancient music, but that's about the only advantage he held. Burney's writing style was accessible, and the clear structure of the work made it a useful research tool, whereas Hawkins's style was detached and the work is so disorganized that it is difficult to find a particular subject within the text. While Hawkins intentionally excluded contemporary music, viewing it as worthless, Burney embraced it; it is largely because of his extensive coverage of his contemporaries that he is still cited today. Besides being an antiquarian, Hawkins was also a curmudgeon, while Burney's social skills allowed him to travel in more prestigious circles than his middle class background might have limited him to. The story has the makings of a great screenplay.

As I gingerly leafed through Burney's and Hawkins's books, it occurred to me that I doubt I've ever touched anything that old other than a building. And as I synthesized my research materials, I started to feel kinship with Burney. I have immersed myself in the world of contemporary music but struggle to make sense of music of the distant past, and until now my knowledge of music history has been through self-study and interaction with musicians. I'd like to think that my writing is accessible, but I am humble enough to seriously doubt that anyone will be quoting me 200 years from now.

Concert Review: Fountains of Wayne with Marshall Crenshaw, Paradise Rock Club

Every attempt to see Fountains of Wayne since I moved to Boston two and half years ago had been thwarted, so it was with great relief that I finally saw a full set by them last night. It is the rare band whose songs make one smile so much that their cheeks hurt.

The band previewed songs from their upcoming album, but only a few. Most memorable was "A Road Song," in which they sing about the cliches of a road song while mining new territory in that subgenre, including the lyrics, "I guess I'm not Steve Perry." And for that, the fans were very thankful.

Without a specific album to promote, they drew from their entire catalog. The set selection included no surprises, as much as I hope in vain for "Little Red Light." They brought a handful of audience members onto the stage for a percussion addition to "Hey, Julie." They explored their roster of songs about transportation from taxis to a lavender Lexus. They worked songs by Billy Joel and Blue Öyster Cult into the extended bridge for "Radiation Vibe." But mainly they did what they did best, wielding perfect power pop with sing-along hooks and sharply detailed lyrics. Their coterie of loyal fans recognized that "Stacy's Mom" is just the tip of the iceberg of their seemingly endless depths of should-be hits.

Marshall Crenshaw's voice has weathered since his '80s heyday, but his songs haven't aged at all. As he poured out semi-hit after semi-hit, from "Cynical Girl" to "Whenever You're on My Mind" to "There She Goes Again," it was an immediate reminder why he made such a splash and earned critical plaudits when he came onto the scene. Of course he played, "Some Day, Some Way," but I had forgotten how much other great material he had to draw from, so much so that he skipped the songs I specifically remembered beforehand, "Mary Anne" and "I'm Sorry (But So Is Brenda Lee)." His new material was in the same vein. Although he is nothing but sincere, without a trace of Fountains of Wayne's snarkiness humor, his singer/songwriter power pop was a well-suited pairing with the headliners.

Concert Review: Jody Porter, Lizard Lounge, Cambridge, August 14

Guitarist Jody Porter is the secret weapon of Fountains of Wayne. He puts the power in their power pop, is the muscle that keeps them from being helplessly twee, the musical punctuation marks in their quippy lyrics. So what happens when he's no longer reined in by his wordy band mates, when he and his guitar take center stage? Will it be Arcardia to Tinted Windows' Power Station, the less-successful splinter act but still with one hit up his sleeve? As he proved at the Lizard Lounge on August 14, he is mererly a solo act that meets expectations.

He is touring as the frontman of full four-piece band. It wasn't so much that they were too loud for the small club as much as too loud for the small audience. The opening act attracted a coterie of giggly, high-heeled blondes who looked out of place in a bar featuring unknown indie rock, and they evaporated before Porter's outfit took the floor. That left only a dozen or two in the audience while the band was amped to a volume for a crowd ten times that size. But Porter was clearly volume-minded. His solo style is surprisingly similar to Straitjacket Fits, New Zealander also-rans from two decades ago who were eclipsed by the likes of Chills but who churned up some blistering psychedelia at their creative peak. That the guy has chops was never in question. The problem is that as a solo act, he's got nothing but chops. In a group, there is creative push and pull, editing and containment of egos; in something resembling the democratic process of a band, the components of individual talent are ultimately subservient to the overall material. With Porter in charge and no one to say otherwise, the solo act is essentially one long guitar solo, with song structure and lyrics clearly an afterthought or just not his strong suit.

The set didn't end so much as peter out. Porter walked off leaving behind a guitar trapped in a feedback loop. The rest of band eventually followed, the drummer shrugging as he exited, conveying a lack of game plan. It looked like there was a mistaken assumption of an encore, but the attenuated audience was hardly demanding one. The show was a curiosity for die-hard Fountains of Wayne fans (not that they were in evidence), but proof that Porter shouldn't quit his day job.

Book Review: The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk by Steven Lee Beeber

It's an odd bit of nomenclature, the difference in implication in the expressions "Christian musician" and "Jewish musician." To call someone a Christian musician is taken to mean an artist whose material deals with religious and spiritual matters. Christian music is a recognized genre, even with its own Billboard charts. However, to call someone a Jewish musicians refers only to their religious background but says nothing about content of their songs. To talk about Jewish musicians, the default assumption is secular music by people who happen to be Jewish.

All of which boils down to this: don't approach Steven Lee Beeber's book The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk expecting to learn about an unknown subgenre of punk featuring the likes of a sped-up, angry version of "Kol Nidre," not that anyone is apt to make that mistake. Beeber even makes his outlook explicit, examining what it means to be Jewish from a cultural rather than religious perspective, on par with being Italian, Irish or Indian rather than Catholic or Hindu. He may trot out anecdotes about bar mitzvahs as evidence of Lou Reed's religious heritage, but Beeber is much more interested in Jews as an ethnic rather than religious group. And the big surprise is that the history of punk includes a lot of Jews in crucial roles.

Beeber goes far beyond the mere curiosity "outing" Jewish punks. Sure, you know that Joey Ramone was Jewish, but did you guess that Tommy Ramone is, too? The author even questions his own motivation when Richard Hell (né Meyers) asks Beeber his point in writing the book. Beeber examines the common cultural forces that influenced this set of people. Some manifestations are overt, such as the Ramones' exhortation to eat Kosher salami. Others are more subtle, such as the status of Jews as outsiders in American society and rebellion against parental desires to assimilate via respectable high-paying professions.

The author trips up when he lacks primary sources. Most notably in the chapters on Lou Reed and the reclusive Jonathan Richman, he struggles to interpret their inspiration through their lyrics and other press clippings. In doing so, his analysis gets stretched too thin and his writing becomes repetitive. In other instances, he worked around his inability to interview his subjects by drawing on other sources. Richard Hell was suspicious of Beeber's angle and refused to be interviewed, but Beeber researched Hell's archival materials at NYU for insights. Joey Ramone died before Beeber began to work on the book, but those close to Joey were clearly forthcoming about him.

The book's greatest strength is in examining early punk's obsession with Nazi Germany. The Ramone's brought it to the forefront with one of their most political songs, "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg." But before that, many in the scene used Nazi iconography in their work or collected it privately. Beeber teases this out, observing the place of this generation of Jews in history. For many, they were just young enough to have not been directly affected by the Holocaust but just old enough to grow up around those who were. Drawing on Susan Sontag's work in Notes on "Camp," he theorizes that the obsession is a manifestation of an ultimate psychology victory over the Nazis.

Many ethnic groups take justifiable pride in the accomplishments of its members in various fields. But in chronicling the impact of people such as band managers Danny Fields and Malcolm McLaren, CBGB's founder Hilly Kristal, Chris Stein of Blondie and Lenny Kaye of the Patti Smith Group as well as lesser lights in the punk spectrum, Beeber assembles a compelling argument. The Jewish experience provided a unique influence on this group of people, and without this cluster of Jews, punk as we know it would not exist.

RIP Dick Buckley, Jazz DJ

Dick Buckley, a jazz DJ who had a 50-year career on radio, has died. I have probably listened to more jazz on his WBEZ Chicago radio shows than I have from any other source in my life because his extensive record collection, encyclopedic knowledge of the genre, his turn of phrase and his melifluous baritone voice made his shows so appealing. Some typical comments from him were that a trumpeter played a piece, "with all ten fingers and both elbows," or that a song was from album entitled Greatest Garner but that any song by Erroll Garner was great. He'd provide extensive details on a particular recording then add, "Although the liner notes say that so-and-so was on that track, it was clearly the style of what's-his-name who was in the band at the time."

He was an absolute treasure. The Chicago Public Library's Harold Washington Library Center houses Dick Buckley's Archives of Jazz in the Music Information Center. It covers 1989-1993, takes up 32 linear feet and contains over 400 hours from Mr. Buckley’s show on WBEZ, recorded on reel to reel audiotape, often with a program log included.

The Chicago Tribune web site had a brief obituary. I anticipate that more complete coverage will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

Concert Review: Alejandro Escovedo, the Middle East, July 19

Boston, what the hell is wrong with you? Why don’t you recognize the talent and glory that is Alejandro Escovedo?

I moved to Boston from Chicago two years ago. One thing Chicago has over Boston is that the city appreciates Escovedo. As I looked over the far-from-capacity crowd at the Middle East last night, I contemplated what has fostered Chicago’s love for him that Boston lacks. There are venues such as the Hideout and FitzGerald’s that cultivate an audience for Americana. There’s the trickle-down effect of the Taste of Chicago in the culture of free outdoor concerts throughout the summer, manifesting itself is such events and Escovedo opening for Patti Smith at a free show by Tribune Tower a few years back, which encourages residents to explore music they wouldn’t necessarily pay to see. He can get airplay on WXRT, an adult album alternative radio station with DJs who care about music rather than air personalities hired only to fill the space between songs that have been market-tested for their target demographic.

But these are excuses, rather than reasons. The guy keeps releasing great albums, coming to town and putting on great shows, and yet most of Boston ignores him. The fools.

While his previous visit to town was an intimate, acoustic evening, accompanied by David Pulkingham, now he was back with a full band, dubbed the Sensitive Boys. It was only twice as many musicians, but the additions of bass, drums and electricity made the volume grow exponentially. They blasted into “Always a Friend” to open the set and tore through a handful of songs, mostly from Escovedo’s latest album, Street Songs of Love and 2008’s Real Animal. Despite being a working musician for decades, he has never had a hit single, the advantage being that he is not beholden to his past. He barely dipped into his back catalog except for a “Castanets” sing-along.

But it wasn’t all brashness. The middle of the set took a more subdued tone, highlighted by “Down in the Bowery,” his homage to his teenage punk rocker son. As he sang, “I’d buy you a smile in a minute, but would you wear it? If I had one moment of time, would you come down and share it?” I thought of my own young boys, carefree and cuddly, and choked up at that thought of the days ahead when I’ll ask such questions.

Ian Hunter provided vocals on the album but didn’t come along for the tour, which partially explains the decision to cover Hunter’s biggest hit, Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes.” These days, all the young dudes carry the news on their smart phones. Fortunately Alejandro Escovedo is the rare old dude who can still rock without just riding on past glories.

Consider this before you download music without permission

Other artists such as Marillion and Jill Sobule have asked fans for direct financial support already, but Dayna Kurtz explains why in clear and precise detail in response to hate mail she got for doing so. More specifically, she points out that her latest record sold only 900 copies but was illegally downloaded 50,000 from four pirate sites alone.

Not everyone realizes that such downloading is illegal. Those who do come up with all sorts of rationalizations. "A huge artist is already rich so they don't need my money." "A new artist needs exposure to build an audience." These arguments fall apart for the glut of midlevel artists who have built a following but aren't getting rich and aren't even making enough to front their own recording costs.

As Kurtz points out, "the only thing that causes me some degree of regret about this venture is that i'd bet my bottom dollar that the the vast majority of people that donate are the sort of fans who already buy my music, legally and conscientiously."

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Rock and Roll GRE

Analytical Writing

Issue Task: Write a response to following statement. You can accept, reject, or qualify the claim made in the topic, as long as the ideas you present are clearly relevant to the topic below. Support your views with reasons and examples drawn from such areas as your reading, experience, observations, or academic studies.

The Beatles are overrated.

Argument: Write a critique of an argument presented in the following short passage.

Bon Jovi is great band. They have sold a shitload of albums. They are really nice guys. They have awesome hair.

Quantitative Ability

1.

Column A	Column B
The Smiths' recorded output	Morrissey's recorded output

A) The quantity in Column A is greater
B) The quantity in Column B is greater
C) The two quantities are equal
D) The relationship cannot be determined from the information given
E) Well, are we comparing quantity or quality here?

2. Dave Clark x + Ben Folds x = yCC

Solve for y

A) 2
B) 5
C) 10
D) 17
E) 23.56432

3.  Seven & Seven Is

A) 14
B) A song by Love

4. Haircut x²

Solve for x

A) 1982
B) Love + 1
C) 16
D) ±10
E) 45

Verbal Ability

In the following questions, a related pair of words is followed by five more pairs of words. Select the pair that best expresses the same relationship as that expressed in the original pair.

1. NIRVANA : FOO FIGHTERS
A) Soundgarden : Candlebox
B) Roxy Music : Bryan Ferry
C) Joy Division : New Order
D) New York Dolls : KISS
E) Blue Oyster Cult : Foghat

2. DAVIES : KINKS
A) Deal : The Breeders
B) Followill : Kings of Leon
C) Taylor : Duran Duran
D) Gallagher : Oasis
E) White : The White Stripes

3. The REVOLUTION: THE NEW POWER GENERATION
A) The Attractions: The Imposters
B) Crazy Horse: The Band
C) The Heartbreakers: The Traveling Wilburys
D) The E Street Band: The Asbury Jukes
E) The Raiders: The Detroit Wheels

Each of the following questions provides a given word or phrase in capitalized letters followed by five word choices. Choose the word or phrase that is most opposite in meaning to the given word.

4. THE FALL
A) Sonic Youth
B) The Pretenders
C) The Wedding Present
D) The Cure
E) Dinosaur Jr.

5. BRITNEY SPEARS
A) Usher
B) Tom Waits
C) Pink
D) Tom Jones
E) Cher

6. MINISTRY
A) Revolting Cocks
B) Lead Into Gold
C) Lard
D) 1000 Homo DJs
E) The Bee-Gees

The sentences has blank spaces that indicate omitted words. Choose the best combination of words that fit the meaning and structure within the context of the sentence.

7. After _________ left __________, the band started selling more records while he ironically found both critical and commercial success by sticking with his arty instincts that had limited the band's audience.
A) Peter Frampton, Humble Pie
B) Peter Gabriel, Genesis
C) Justin Timberlake, the Backstreet Boys
D) Paul Weller, the Style Council
E) David Lee Roth, Van Halen

Please use this essay to answer the following questions.

8. The author's main point is that:
A) Inexpensive videos are the best way for bands to build an audience.
B) Record companies are short-sighted in viewing all artist activities as revenue sources.
C) Record companies have always expected to recoup all advances.
D) Bloggers are more important than radio for breaking new bands.
E) The treadmill video is really cool.

9. According to the author, the main function of record companies is to:
A) get CDs distributed to retailers.
B) get radio airplay for artists.
C) provide financial advances.
D) find directors who can create concepts for videos.
E) put bands on metaphorical treadmills.


Answers:

Analytical Writing

Issue

Sample response:
Well, yeah. Kinda.

Argument

Sample response:
You're out of your fucking mind.

Quantitative Ability

1. B or E
2. C
3. A or B
4. D

Verbal Ability

1. C
2. D
3. A
4. A
5. B
6. E
7. B
8. B
9. C

Concert Review: The Church, Arts at the Armory, April 21

A funny thing happened on the road to nostalgia for the Church. They took a detour and became relevant.

The initial route was a familiar one. After slowly building an audience, they scored a Top 30 hit, "Under the Milky Way," several albums into their career. The pressure to repeat their success nearly destroyed the band. Last summer they played Showcase Live, a venue at a football stadium's complex whose main selling point to suburban audiences is vast amounts of free parking, key for acts that are just trading on their long-past glories. The typical chain of events for such bands is that, if they even bother to record new material, it is at best forgettable but provides an excuse to tour. At worst, it squanders their legacy.

But that isn't what happened to the Church. The band is celebrating it 30th anniversary with a special tour. They deserved better than the nostalgia circuit room they played in Foxboro last year and got it with Somerville's Arts at the Armory on April 21. The gimmick of the tour is that they play one song from each album in reverse chronological order, starting with 2009's Untitled #23. The surprise to casual fans is that their newer material is worthy of both the band and the audience. Admittedly, the group have winnowed their following, but this was a crowd who was in it for the long haul, not the ones who would be disappointed that they didn't faithfully recreate "Reptile" from its Starfish incarnation.

In honor of the occasion, they provided a program highlighting their career, including a page devoted to each album and concluding with an inventory of their career, cataloging everything from the number of concerts played to the number of overdoses. Combining  their between-song banter, mostly from Steve Kilbey but with the others chiming in, and the written materials about their releases, the full narrative emerged. Their label largely ignored them in the early '80s in favor of acts like Loverboy. They eventually hit pay dirt and sold a bunch of albums, but that same success tore the band apart. They eventually regained their footing as the '90s progressed, with guitarist Peter Koppes rejoining the band, Tim Fowles settling in behind drums and the band finding a new creative freedom, in part from shedding expectations. They've weathered the failure of several indie labels by ultimately creating their own imprint.

It was a journey through their history, but they chose to not necessarily retrace their steps. They billed it as an intimate space, which manifested itself as a very casual atmosphere with no electric guitars. Since two of their albums were built around reinterpretations of their own songs, they were hardly married to their past. For example, they stripped away the layers of "Almost Yesterday." "The Unguarded Moment" felt like a Velvet Underground cover song. "Invisible" took the train theme of its lyrics as the basis for its tempo variations, speeding up then slowing down like a training pulling into the station.

They broke the proceedings into two sets then returned for two encores. For their first encore, they offered up the Smashing Pumpkins song "Disarm" as a thank you and response to their cover of "Reptile." They followed it up with "Space Saviour" from Untitled #23 that was so hypnotic it practically induced seizures and left audience drowning in puddles of their own drool. They wrapped up the evening with "Grind;" Marty Willson-Piper peppered it with Led Zeppelin-worthy fat riffs, but the rendition also lived up the song's own lyrics of "jangled decay." The band proved themselves worthy of the 30th anniversary celebration.

Concert Review: Alejandro Escovedo, Somerville Theater, April 6

Alejandro Escovedo came to town with a just a buddy to upend expectations. Yes, it was just two guys with acoustic guitars, but this was not evening of polite, gentle strumming; it's surprising they only broke one string in the course of the evening. Ecovedo's lyrics suggest that he's a singer/songwriter, but he knows how to rock. To put it another way, he knows how to make a lot of noise, but his lyrics convey genuine emotional complexity. He hits you in the heart, the feet and the brain. I frequently found myself with an irrepressible smile on my face.

The pair were previewing songs from Escovedo's upcoming album, due in June. Although he described it as a rock album with a full band, he was touring unplugged with fellow guitarist David Pulkingham. Their interaction was a paradox, effortlessly spontaneous and organic as a result of lots of practice. They had worked hard to make it look that easy. With a quick exchange of glances they could alter the tempo or intensity, and both clearly enjoyed the freedom they had in working together to make something so beautiful or so raucous.

Boston just isn't showing Escovedo the love he deserves, with the 900-seat venue maybe a third full. Rather than lamenting the poor turn-out (and he didn't mince words about another nearby venue where he'd played earlier in his career), he used the intimacy to his advantage. Especially since no one was in the balcony, the pair stepped down from the stage, away from the microphones, to perform a handful of songs in the aisles among the audience.

Escovedo peppered the set with stories about his family, taking great pride in their musical accomplishments. His father was a musician who bore 12 children, eight of whom went on to become professional musicians themselves. His 17-year-old son Paris is a punk rocker, and Alejandro is amused that Paris dismisses his father's current output at old man music for old people.

Escovedo was once a young punk rocker himself as a member of the Nuns in the mid-'70s. That band is now most famous as the launching point of his eventual solo career. Ironically, he emerged from a genre that disparaged virtuosity through his virtuosity, but the punk spirit still lives in this "old man."

Concert Review: A Place to Bury Strangers, Paradise Rock Club, March 27

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