Always Magic in the Air

I've been away from the blog for a while (more on that later - maybe); I spent some of that time reading Always Magic in the Air, Ken Emerson's history of Brill Building-era songwriters. Reading the acknowledgments section, I get the impression this is the first book-length treatment of their collective story. The book reads as a pretty straight narrative of the careers the 7 or so songwriting teams Emerson chooses to focus on (Leiber/Stoller, Pomus/Schuman, Goffin/King, Bacharach/David, Sedaka/Greenfield, Mann/Weil, and Greenwich/Barry, if I remember correctly); my major disappointment is that he doesn't really do anything to challenge or question the orthodox view of that era of rock 'n' roll/pop music, or that group's role within it. It hews a little too closely to the general stereotypes of the era that permeate its depiction in popular film and television as well. In Emerson's defense, this could have more to do with the songs than with his writing, as the lyrical themes of these hits probably have a lot to do with the formation of these stereotypes in the first place. However, as it was largely a work of original scholarship, it makes a good foundational resource for others who may want to explore the topic in a more critical manner. At the very least, it led me to check out and appreciate some music that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. Check out a few tracks below (all links are zSHARE).

Ray Charles - "Lonely Avenue" (by Doc Pomus)
The Coasters - "Searchin'" (Leiber/Stoller) (original vinyl single from Boogie Woogie Flu, a blog featuring a lot of vintage vinyl rips)
The Drifters - "There Goes my Baby" (Leiber/Stoller)
Wilbert Harrison - "Kansas City" (Leiber/Stoller) (vinyl rip, also from Boogie Woogie Flu)
The Monkees - "Porpoise Song (Theme from Head)" (Goffin/King)

This find, from Moistworks, offers a great gimpse into the demo creation process discussed in Always Magic...
Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman - "Great to be Young and in Love" (Demo)

Things from other blogs

From C-Notes, via I Rock Cleveland: After earlier canceling his appearance at a Dennis Kucinich fundraiser, Sean Penn showed up with Kucinich at the Beachland Ballroom for the Wussy/Ringworm show, appearing on stage to introduce Ringworm. The show was a fundraiser for WJCU, John Carroll University's radio station. If you want to check out this surreal affair, C-Notes says, "the concert will be broadcast free on YeboTV.com on Saturday, March 1. The show will run continuously from 7 a.m. to midnight."

Jess Harvell has been whiling away his remaining days as Idolator's senior editor by frequently updating his Tumblr. It's occasionally interesting stuff; who knew working for Denton Media could take such a toll on one's psyche? (Ok, probably plenty of people.) Blog angst! Anyway, yesterday he posted this link. It must be seen to be believed.

Finally, Raven Sings The Blues has a post today about Valley sludgefeasters Witch. I've seen them twice in Brattleboro over the past few months, and each time they've put on a good show, despite subpar venue sound that's rendered the vocals inaudible. On March 20th they're visiting Northampton for a sweet Spring Break gig at The Elevens.

Black Fire Percussion

I'm a sucker for drumline videos, so when I saw this clip of Brooklyn's Black Fire Percussion featured on the front page of YouTube, I had to watch. The sling harnesses had me expecting something along the lines of the show band style of traditionally black colleges (usually seen on TV once a year, during the Grambling vs Southern game), but Black Fire's style is actually a great synthesis of that and corps style, with the showmanship of the former meeting the precision and challenging charts of the latter. I think these kids are only in high school; considering that, it's pretty impressive stuff.

Jumpstylee

Jess Harvell just posted this jumpstyle video, and it would be irresponsible of me not to share it, as it blew my mind. I'd never heard of jumpstyle, but it turns out that it's like DDR without the pad -- and thus greater freedom of movement. Watch these guys go! And then half way through they start kicking each other's feet! No surprise that this appears to be an invention/preoccupation of central and northern European kids (don't ask what I mean by that). I hope the music genre is also called "jumpstyle", because I really think that word should be getting as much use as possible.

Further MP3 deals @ Amazon

Piggybacking on yesterday's post about "In C", there's plenty of similarly priced music available in Amazon's download store. I remember reading a blog post a year or so ago (I don't remember where) about the iTunes store selling many long Miles Davis tracks for $0.99, despite their policy that generally makes songs over 7 mins "album only". It looks like the same thing has happened to some tracks/albums on Amazon, like Riley's "In C" and "A Rainbow In Curved Air". The latter album has 2 tracks ("Rainbow" is ~19 mins. and "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band" is ~22) each selling for $0.99, with the full album download priced at $1.98.


I actually made this discovery after looking up On the Corner, which I'd seen earlier while browsing at Turn It Up!, but decided to hold off on purchasing. On Amazon, the two longer tracks are "album only", but as part of the full album download they're still priced at $0.99, making the entire 4 track, 55 min. album $3.96. At 6 tracks, Kind of Blue comes out to $5.94 (though the physical CD can be had for just $2 more)... and so on with much of his catalog. I haven't found any other artists yet whose albums are priced this way, but I imagine further searching in classical, jazz, and other typically long form genres would yield more good finds.

Note: I'm not necessarily advocating purchasing music from Amazon, but I was surprised that some of the album downloads were priced so low. There's certainly plenty to be said for supporting local music stores, not to mention the benefits of owning the physical albums rather than lossy, ethereal MP3s. Nonetheless, when I can find albums I've been looking for priced at <$5, I have a hard time saying no.

"In C" free @ Last.fm

I was just about to post about how Amazon's MP3 store is selling the entirety (a single 42:03 track) of Terry Riley's historic minimalist composition "In C" for $0.99, when I saw that Last.fm has it for free download. While the version available at Amazon is apparently the original 1968 recording by SUNY Buffalo's State University Center of Creative and Performing Arts, it's unclear which version is available at Last.fm.

What The Internet is good for:

Cory Snyder - Rifleman

Selling the Drama

Today at Zoilus, Carl Wilson briefly discusses the connection he sees between will.i.am's Obama video "Yes We Can" and "speech-based composition in other genres, notably the work of Steve Reich." He then links to John Shaw, who goes into greater detail about the history of "the setting of speech to melody." I'm not going to try to summarize or rehash either of the posts here, but both provide a compelling alternate view of the song, removed from the knee-jerk snobbishness coming from much of the rest of the blogosphere (Idolator goes so far as to use scare quotes, suggesting that this doesn't/shouldn't count as "music"). You should read them.

Wilson's and Shaw's posts actually led me to watch the video for the first time. I'm not sure I'm sold, but their analyses at least provide a reason to pay closer attention to the song, and try to get beyond the parade of questionable celebrities. I'm curious how it would have been received if it had been released audio-only, since I'm pretty sure the visuals had quite a bit to do with turning people off.

Wilson also posted this video from a British documentary on Reich. I will repost is here because it is pretty sweet. This is part 2 of 6, all of which are available if you click through to the video's YouTube page. This portion features a clip from a performance of Terry Riley's "In C" and interview footage of Brian Eno discoursing on Reich.

Friday - YAHHH TRICK YAHHHHHHH

Pitchfork

Who will be the first self-righteous blogger to complain about this?? First one to use the word "rape" wins my undying hate!

I call dibs on The Hater for part 1, though I definitely give her too much credit to think that she would go for part 2.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Progress

Does anyone else find the extent to which Obama supporters have embraced Shepard Fairey's posters (in his trademark totalitarian-propaganda-inspired style) kind of creepy/unfortunate/maddening? I showed this picture to my 10:10 class, and one student actually thought the posters weren't in support of Obama, but some sort of backhanded satirical insult. I don't really "get" the fervent Obama support. I've been asking my classes today, hoping that there may be one such supporter who can explain it to me, but all I keep finding are reasons why NOT to support Hillary or McCain. Another student (a McCain supporter) suggested that this segment of the Obama camp is simply part of a "movement about being excited." I'm inclined to think she's right.

I find the will.i.am video similarly unnerving. Check out Elliott's thoughts on it here.

Colleen posted about recent election developments here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I passed by the co-opted convenience store in the Student Union the other day, this song was playing. It's a good one.

Nat Baldwin

Jeremy Leclair (alto sax), Brett Deschenes (trumpet), Nat Baldwin (double bass)

New Hampshire native Nat Baldwin has been a favorite since early December, when I saw him open for Dirty Projectors at the Middle East. A former member of that band, Baldwin's solo work is a unique brand of contrabass-centric chamber jazz, with vocals in the manner of a reined-in, gentler Dave Longstreth. Last week I made a trip south to Wesleyan University to catch him playing a free show (w/ Angel Deradoorian, Deertick, and Belly Boat), and afterward picked up his new album, Most Valuable Player (due on Broken Sparrow either later this month or in April, sources vary). On his past albums, the lively sound of his performances (augmented by saxophone, trumpet, guitar, and drums) was often lost in the recording process, but MVP, recorded and produced by Grizzly Bear member Christopher Taylor, fares somewhat better. Lead track "Lake Erie" has just begun to make the blog rounds, written up (poorly, imo) yesterday in the Forkcast, and posted today on My Old Kentucky Blog (which also brings word that he studied under legendary free-jazzist Anthony Braxton). Having grown up on the shores of our most disgusting great lake, I'm partial to this track, and I also think it has the best horn sound of any of his studio recordings thus far. Much of the album features Dave Longstreth on 12-string guitar; other standout tracks include "Dome Branches", "One Two Three", a new arrangement of "Enter The Light Out", and closer "Look She Said", in which he shows Braxton's influence on a very free bass solo.

A search for Nat Baldwin still only yields 3 hits on the hype machine, but I have a feeling that will change as his tour continues and MVP's release date approaches. I don't mean this to be a self-serving "I was in before the buzz" kind of post, but the indie-blog hype factory can be a cruel mistress, and I hope he's able to emerge unscathed.

Baldwin has already gained some recognition in the U.K., where "Only In My Dreams", from debut album Lights Out (2005), was featured in a commercial for Orange Telecom. Check out the clip:



Nat Baldwin's Myspace
Elsewhere: Elliott covered Nat Baldwin yesterday.

More Robyn

First: Read Kelefa Sanneh's excellent review of Robyn in today's NY Times. [One note - I'm pretty sure the word "Nazi" has been censored on every album version of "Handle Me", from the initial 2005 Sweden release and last year's U.K. release, to the U.S. release scheduled for this April.]

Then: Check out Spin's coverage. Why didn't they talk to me and take my pic? Good question! Maybe I wasn't dressed New York enough for them??

Robyn blog attack

The best of the horrible pictures I took (during "Show Me Love").

Everyone in the music blogosphere is posting about the Robyn show last night. I was also there. My thoughts:

• I've never seen an audience so totally devoted to the performer. I think part of this has to do with the fact that she didn't attract a traditional indie-rock/blog band crowd, but it was still pretty remarkable.
• Accounts differ, but this was either the first time she's ever performed live in the U.S., or the first time she's ever performed here with a live band. Either way, it was at least the first time she's performed here in 10 years.
  
• Outside of the jam band circuit, having two drum kits & two drummers on stage is just about the awesomest thing anyone can do.
• For the first 2-3 songs, she sang with a backing track of her own voice, and I was worried it was going to be Blonde Redhead redux, but after those it was all live, with occasional backing vocals from the keyboard player.
• For me, one of the highlights was when she played the sweet Knife-style electro-drum fills in "Who's that Girl" (the album version of which is in fact produced by The Knife).
• Setlist:
  

  Cobrastyle
  Crash and Burn Girl
  Who's That Girl
  Bum Like You
  Handle Me
  Keep This Fire Burning (from Don't Stop the Music [2002])
  Konichiwa Bitches
  Be Mine!
  With Every Heartbeat

  --Encore--

  Show Me Love (from Robyn is Here [1998])
  Jack U Off (Prince cover)
  Be Mine! (ballad version)

• The venue was ridiculous. There were restroom attendants. I peed, he turned on the water so I could wash my hands, and handed me a paper towel. I DID NOT TIP. It generally seemed to have the atmosphere of a dance club rather than a live music venue.
• The opener, Drop the Lime (terrible name), was also ridiculous. I don't see how his "singing along to bass music" shtick could really fly outside of the Manhattan trust fund/prep school circuit, and he certainly appeared out of his element in front of the Robyn crowd. I saw people laughing at him, and not in a good way.
• Out of all the tracks the house DJ played before and in between acts, the only one that got any kind of response from the audience was The Outfield's 1986 hit "Your Love". It reminded me of Slate critic Jody Rosen joking that Journey was the #1 band of 2007. I mentioned it in an Idolator comment, hoping that a real music writer/someone smarter than me might have something to say about it, but apparently no one was interested.

With Every Heartbeat:

Cobrastyle (not from last night, but too sweet to not post):


More recaps:
Fluxblog
her jazz

Flavor Theory: An Introduction

Apparently, discoursing on the nature of flavors is seen as outré in some segments of the blogging population -- looked down upon as some sort of pseudo-intellectualism gleaned from reading Fast Food Nation. Let me state this upfront: I HAVE NEVER READ THIS BOOK. My knowledge of flavors comes squeezed from my own mind grapes, transmitted there by my taste buds. Maybe also some articles from Time or The New York Times or Morris Day and the Time. But be assured: I am a self taught flavor theorist. My flavor theorizations are pure and authentic. Unsullied by Eric Schlosser or required reading as part of my liberal arts education, I have known flavor theory for at least five years. To my knowledge, I am the first and only flavor theorist. Let us begin --

For years, various and sundry academics, intellectuals, journalists, pundits, grandparents, and vice presidents' wives have attempted to explain what they see as the decline of our culture and civilization (be it American or World). What is to blame? Guns? Movies? Video games? Gays? Rap music? The decline of prudence regarding the erotic act? Despite the best efforts of these self-appointed cultural saviors, the answer to each of these possibilities has always been no.

Caligula

I prefer to look at the question this way: What, if any, are the most significant changes in the most base elements of human existence since the dawn of civilization? Is life now more violent, or more grotesquely violent? Certainly not. It may be easier to kill people, and plenty more people to kill, but wars and violence are nothing new. Have you seen Apocalypto?? I haven't, but I have heard about it. Let's look at the necessities of day-to-day survival. Do we poo or pee differently? Certainly not, only in different places (toilets). Do we copulate differently? No. By the end of Rome, everything had already been done. Everything. They may not have had "marital aids" but those only speed up the process, the bodily mechanics are essentially the same. Is sleep any different? More comfortably maybe, but no. What is left but eating and drinking?

In pre-modern times, before they had flavor science, humans were limited to those flavors naturally occurring in nature, like meat, berries, dirt, and squash. New flavors could only be developed by combining existing flavors, or modifying the flavor source in some way (cooked meat tastes different than raw meat, and meat marinated in a fine raspberry vinaigrette and then cooked tastes different still). Never were they able to produce new flavors radically different from those found in nature.

But now we can. Go to the grocery store and look at all the flavors: Blue Razz? Cooler Ranch?? Hot 'n' spicy Cheetos??? These do not even make sense. Not only that, but many flavors are given the names of naturally occurring flavors, when their taste is in fact far removed from the source. Have you ever had a watermelon Jolly Rancher? Then you know that I am right. These flavors are unnatural, and there are far too many. Our flavor library has to have at least tripled in size, and it has likely grown beyond even that! From the first taste of one of these perversions, our minds have been radically altered. This is too much. We cannot handle it. Our equilibrium, our collective unconscious, our sense of being, or whatever else you prefer to refer to, is totally fucked. Flavors are the root of our end.

Cleveland HS Rockoff Finals

Today is the final round (or "Final Exam", as they like to say) of the Cleveland High School Rockoff at the Cleveland House of Blues (previously mentioned here). While The Distractions unfortunately didn't make it to the finals, the band formerly known as Dr. Salt, now The Modern Electric, will be there representing my hometown and alma mater. Normally a four member group, the band will be performing as a two-piece - Garrett Komyati on guitar and regular bassist Matt Childers on drums - since the other members are no longer in high school and are thus ineligible. In the semi-final round they played a few original songs, plus an acoustic cover of Slade's "Come on Feel the Noise", and received some of the most positive reviews of any band in the tournament. The finals will be webcast live at Cleveland.com (direct link), with The Modern Electric set as the 2nd group to perform, around 3:20pm.

In other Rockoff news, The Distractions have posted a live recording (from last week's semi-finals) of their song "4th Time's a Charm" on their Myspace.

Dr. Salt/The Modern Electric - "Untitled" (mp3)

A clip from their semi-final set is about 3/4 of the way through this video.

From the Vault: Willoughby South Drumline - "2000 Cadence" (mp3 @ zShare)

Pictures from Saturday night:


Last night a DJ saved my life.


Kelly Link, Ed Skoog, John Hodgman, Thurston Moore, Rachel Sherman

[Source: essentials; HT: Colleen]

The Distractions

Today the Cleveland.com music blog, "Rockin'", posted a video update from last Sunday's High School Rock-Off semi-final round. Check out the video, and fast forward about 2/3 of the way through (to the group of dudes sitting on a couch) to see Willoughby's own skank-meisters, The Distractions. The one doing the talking is my brother.


One of only 39 bands called The Distractions.

As previously mentioned, I went to this on Saturday night. There wasn't much worth reporting about; some of the readers were very bad, others were better, John Hodgman was pretty funny. The DJ played some Dinosaur Jr. tracks from You're Living All Over Me, and later played quite a bit of noise. I was curious what kind of stuff he'd play, considering the event was a "dance party", but he generally steered clear of any dance music. At one point, before John Hodgman spoke, I believe, he played a long stretch of noise that cleared out the room pretty well. He had some records for sale, so at the end of the night I bought one and had him sign the insert. I mentioned that I appreciated the noise, and he seemed a little disappointed that rest of the room didn't care for it. Here are some pics of the score:

Elliott posted a brief recap of the evening as well.

The Hype Machine released their 2007 Music Blog Zeitgeist list today, compiled of data from the top 10 lists of 600 or so blogs. INCLUDING THIS ONE.

And Elliott's.

For some reason they only seem to have taken 9 of my top 10, because the Skeletons album is missing. OH WELL. That's life in the blogosphere, I guess!

Cleveland Death Ray

From Modern Mechanix, a 1934 article about a Cleveland scientist's deadly invention. Cleveland Death Ray is the name of my next album. (Via Boing Boing)

Yesterday I picked up Steve Reich’s Phases, a 5-disc Nonesuch retrospective of his phasing compositions of the ‘60s and ‘70s. When I looked it up on Amazon to see what other people had to say, I was surprised to see that – for a set of classic works – it was receiving some low ratings*. It turns out that the Nonesuch recordings are generally somewhat recent, from the 80s to early 2000s, and aren’t what many consider the “definitive” recordings of the pieces. Coincidentally or not, for these reviewers, definitive seems to be synonymous with “first”. It’s not that those were Reich’s own recordings and the Nonesuch versions are farmed out to various sub-par ensembles; many of the pieces, including “Music for 18 Musicians” and “Drumming”, are performed by Reich and his own group of musicians. Regardless, the reviewers dismiss these recordings as overproduced, criticizing things like mic placement and overall sound quality (too good); a common theme was that the recordings lack the immediacy and character of a live performance. To me, this sounded a lot like the griping generally heard from hard-line rock critics and fans. It was, of course, an appeal to authenticity. Since these tracks don’t recreate the feeling and sound of a live performance, they’re lacking. Never mind that the composer himself played on many of the recordings, and likely had a good deal of oversight during the recording process. In such a case, how are the new recordings any less authentic than the old? Particularly if they represent the artist’s evolving vision of the work.

Classical music presents an interesting contrast to rock music in that the pieces are written to be performed at different times, often by a variety of different ensembles. Pieces are generally written for live performance in front of an audience, rather than for recording. Classical music isn't designed to be consumed in the same manner as rock music - its variability is built in and assumed from the beginning. It's not a band writing a song for itself to perform, it's a composer writing a piece that could be performed by any number of ensembles. (It's interesting to note that in this sense, classical music bears more similarity to pop songwriting, ie. the Brill Building model, than it does to the traditional paradigms of rock music.) Thus, a recorded piece of classical music will always be lacking, and I think, as long as you keep this in perspective, it’s a reasonable attitude to take. These compositions are designed for live performance, to be heard in the concert hall, to be seen. Particularly for pieces like Reich’s phasing works, the dynamics and reverberations of a room can have a significant effect on the sounds created by the overlapping patterns. For an example, see my earlier post on “Clapping Music”. In the video, the sound is aided by the acoustics of the room, as well as the microphone of the video recorder, giving the sound a lo-fi quality that allows the single claps to occupy even more sonic space, filling out the sound beyond even the natural density created by the gradually shifting pattern. Compared to this, the studio recording off of his Early Works album sounds thin and precise, it is a little too perfect, but I don’t think this makes the recording any less essential.

The main problem that the detractors have is that they seem to expect the recorded pieces to be able to recreate the experience of the live performance – something they allege the original recordings were able to do. The short response to this is that nothing can recreate the live performance. Every live performance, no matter how perfect the ensemble’s performance, will be different. Every listen to a recording will be the same, even if the recording is of a live performance. By recording studio versions, the pieces are presented as a kind of blank slate – the piece performed as nothing more than the notes on the page, a perfect form that can never be replicated in a live setting. Just as such a perfect studio recording isn’t exactly ideal; I don’t think a live recording is either. Yes, a good live recording will capture the variables at work that day, that one moment in time, but once on record, those variables will never change, but even they will be degraded and altered by the recording process. Also, if you’ve only ever been exposed to one live recording of a piece, would you even be able to identify the variables as such? Is this any more true to the spirit of the piece than the perfect studio recording? Or are they both imperfect in their stasis when compared to the living sound of the live performance?

If we’re willing to acknowledge that a significant part of a piece of music’s beauty is found in its variable nature, to criticize a recording for lacking that variability is ultimately meaningless. It only serves to underscore the fact that the ideal setting for classical music is the live one. The only way to even begin to recreate the experience of variables that comes from the live performance is to listen to a variety of different recordings, noticing the differences in sound of all of them, in which case the studio recordings would have as much utility as any live recording. In this way, they serve their own purpose; these recordings are just as essential or definitive as any other.

*Some of the criticisms referred to below were found in reviews on the Amazon pages for the individual Nonesuch CDs, not the box set. However, these are the same recordings that are found in the set.