The Delicate Sound

2009-03-03T13:45:00.000-05:00

The threshold of recognition

2009-02-05T11:31:00.009-05:00

I play in a cover band. We play live less than 6 times a year. That makes for a lot of fun at gigs because they occur so far apart. For us, one of the pinnacles in performing is that exquisite moment when someone in the audience recognizes what you are playing. Usually this moment is punctuated by a "yeah!" or on occasion "dude! That's [______] (insert artist/song name)." Whenever it happens we all get a little jolt of pride in our playing and a little bit of confirmation that we are playing to "our crowd."

I call that moment the threshold of recognition.

I also listen to a lot of music - sometimes live music. On quality live recordings I often enjoy hearing that moment on a macro level: the crowdsourcing version. One in particular that I like is from Underworld's Everything, Everything Live album. Underworld is a group that has been around since the 1980s and for the past 16 or 17 has been making excellent music that sits somewhere between indie rock and electronica. They play live as a duo these days - one singer who plays guitar and sings and one mixer/producer who controls the loops and effects and beats. Doesn't sound like much does it?

They combine the music with nothing less than spectacular graphic support that is as interesting as the music: still photos, video, film loops, lasers. A little bit of everything (everything). Nearly all of it is synchronized to the music which makes for a sensory smorgasbord. Hearing the recordings on Everything Everything Live makes me remember the 4-5 times I was lucky to see Underworld live. The best part of that record is when they play Rez - a relatively unknown song that was the B-side to Cowgirl - arguably their biggest hit of the early 1990s. On the live record they play Rez (which is really just another instrumental version of Cowgirl) and after 3 minutes or so transition into Cowgirl. The moment when the crowd recognizes the intro to Rez is great but falls short of the delerium that takes over when they recognize Cowgirl.

That's the Threshold of Recognition. Dude.

Schizofriendia

2009-01-07T13:22:00.003-05:00

I am hoping that I am the first person to use this term but I am sure that is not true.

Schizofriendia (SKIT-zoh-frend-ee-ah)
The common affliction amongst digerati that causes one to respond to a message received on one social platform with a message on a different social platform.

Ex. She pinged me on Facebook but I replied on AIM

Holiday Cards - why?

2008-12-11T10:43:00.003-05:00

For the past 15 odd years, my wife and I have diligently designed, created and posted holiday cards to our family and friends. It started the year we got married and has snowballed a bit since we had kids. Every year around September we started having conversations like this:

Me: "Do you think we should start our card for this year?"

She: "I told you that last week - you were going to start it..."

Me: "Right. Do you have any idea what you want to do?"

She: "YOU are the creative one - you had all these great ideas last week when we were out drinking..."

You get the picture.

I say holiday because we have a number of Jewish friends and a number that don't acknowledge religion or holidays. Making a non-denominational card was the thing to do. The first few years they were made by hand and posted by hand. That led to store-bought cards, followed by spreadsheets with Avery labels and ultimately to electronic cards designed online and the iTunes store. When our son was born in 1999 that really threw a spanner in the works. Now I had to be creative AND funny AND endearing AND adorable AND timely. Needless to say it took a lot of effort. The first baby year saw a 4x6 tipped into a Pottery Barn card. Genius in its simplicity.

The second year is below:

As the years progressed and we had a daughter too, the pictures became more involved, the text wittier and wittier until this year.

This year we decided that we would not send out cards.

Not because we are cheap, not because we don't care. We are not cheap and we do care.

It is simply too much work and expense for something that is tossed out a week or two later. Personally I get a kick out of saving family cards and looking at them years later. I am not going to say we are popular - but thanks to family, school, work, sports, the band etc. our list grows every year. Its not a like a wedding invitation list (which begat our original list) where there are levels of friendship. We send cards to everyone we know - that is simply lots of people. We used to send them to X people and keep a number of extras aside for those people we forgot about (or whose addresses we could not locate) and send them out one by one. With every new computer came the inevitable search for "The List."

Enough I say! I communicate with a staggering percentage of that list by email as it is. If and when we decide to do a "card" this year - it will be electronic.

And you can be damn sure it will be adorable.

Top 10 1980s tunes and why

2008-11-07T22:42:00.000-05:00

I created a box set of 1980s songs for my brother for Christmas a few years ago. It was broken up into themes: Cool Kids, American Rock, Soundtracks, Anthems, Synth Pop, Hair Bands etc. I had a lot of fun making it and even more enjoyment listening to it with him.

The 1980s, for all it is maligned as a musical era, gave birth to a lot of things: the CD, the cassette single, the music video (this is debatable) as a commodity and visual marketing as a whole. Prior to 1979 (the year I consider the beginning of the 1980s musically), marketing and production were formulaic: go into the studio, make a record, release the record and tour in support of the record. If it failed, you went back in and made another - this time with a big name producer and spending months at a time. In the 1980s, musical technology came of age too: MIDI was formalized as a technology and it allowed for all sorts of amazing musical advances: songs could be sequenced, tempos could be set - for an entire song!?! This control simultaneously created freedom - freedom for people to make records faster and more economically.

Thus artists and labels in the 1980s made more records of more types in more genres and sub-genres than ever before. This led to an explosion of product in the market and a need for a different type of marketing - visual marketing. No longer was musical style the single defining characteristic of an artist. The hair, the clothes - the ensemble were now part of the public consciousness. I blame MTV.

We didn't have cable at my house until I went to college. Thus I didn't see MTV with any regularity until 1986 or 1987. My exposure to records to this point was framed largely by college radio (WDCV FM, 88.3 - the bottom of the dial but the top of the charts) and by my several tiimes per week visits to the local record stores. I credit much of what I know about music to reading record sleeves. Rolling Stone played a bit part but nothing beats the source.

On to the list. My favorite ten songs of the 1980s with occasional reasoning and commentary (in no particular order):

1. REM - So. Central Rain (Reckoning - 1984)
How much more can you say than "I'm sorry" and sum up so many things?

2. The Smiths - How Soon Is Now - (Hatful of Hollow - 1984)
The most ubiquitous guitar riff of the decade. Never gets old. Makes the fact that Johnny Marr is now in Modest Mouse even more meaningful.

3. U2 - Sweetest Thing (B-side to Where the Streets Have No Name single - 1987)

4. Lloyd Cole & the Commotions - Perfect Skin (Easy Pieces - 1984)
Lloyd Cole wrote the soundtrack to a lot of NYC lives. I just didn't know it until I lived there.

5. Felt - Primitive Painters (Ignite the Seven Cannons - 1987)
We all wanted to be shoegazers in 1985-1987. We wore leather jackets and tried not to smile. This song sums up that feeling. Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins singing made it perfect.

6. Shriekback - Nemesis (Oil and Gold - 1985)
I used to know I was at a good party when this song came on. It was - like "Groove Is In the Heart" by Deelite in the 1990s - THE party song of 1986-1987. At least where I was.

7. The Feelies - Slipping (into something) (The Good Earth - 1985)
I wrote a post about this record somewhere along the line. May be the most fun song to play live. Ever.

8. Oingo Boingo - Not My Slave (Boi-ngo - 1987)
This song was on the Something Wild soundtrack (with Melanie Griffiths - and the Feelies as the prom band). I helped my friend Kate move out of the freshman dorms to the soundtrack. We listened to it on her boombox (an 80s artifact to be sure!) over and over. Love cassettes.

9. The Stone Roses - Waterfall (The Stone Roses - 1989)
Most people who know me know this is my favorite record of all time. I had to choose one.

10. Modern English - Melt With You (After the Snow - 1983)
The song that sums up all my 1980s experiences - and probably yours too? This song is timeless - despite the frequent appearances in television commercials etc.

Rob succumbs. Again.

2008-11-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

In an effort to be fully compliant, I admitted several years ago that I was not an iPod owner and then when I got one, I gave full disclosure. Same goes for Facebook. I was not using it, resisting using, very happy with LinkedIn etc. Then I started working on Facebook applications and suddenly I needed to be on Facebook. For the articles - as it were.

Long story short, I have been using it for a few months now and I am hooked. I have communicated with friends I haven't spoken to since high school and college. I went from a few friends to a lot of friends - and I mean friends. These are people I genuinely am friendly with. I have a distaste for people on LinkedIn (and probably Facebook too) that have hundreds and thousands of connections. Honestly - what do you do with all those people? I have almost 400 connections on LinkedIn and I think that is too many. How someone can have 4,000 is beyond me. The tools to find and contact people on LinkedIn just aren't there yet. maybe I need to be patient.

Facebook on the other hand has tremendous tools and applications. I created a page for my band, for the record store I used to work at in college and became a fan of several artists I like. Dig it.

The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America

2007-11-05T21:21:00.001-05:00

Why have I become obsessed with The Hold Steady? Is it because they are a band of guys on the far north side of 30 who rock out? Is it that their songs "speak to me?" Craig Finn and his crew from Brooklyn (by way of Minneapolis) write songs that repeat phrases like "kicking it," "separate trips," "getting high" and other staples of high school life. Or are they?

The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America (2006) takes its title from a Jack Kerouac reference that somehow winds its way to Minneapolis and John Berryman. The songs are amateur sociology at its finest: girls, drunken escapades, winning at the track, taking drugs at an outdoor concert and that staple of everyone's teen years: the all-ages hardcore matinee show. And girls. The endless girls vs. boys allusions carry every song to a peak that leaves you wondering what you did wrong.

Beyond the epic quality of the lyrics, the songs are musically very Springsteen in their construction. Most of the songs have two if not three distinct parts - not just your typical whole note modulation but key changes and resolutions that make you want to cry because you didn't write them. Pure freaking genius.

This is the third full-length from The Hold Steady - released in October 2006. An updated Special Edition will be released in the UK on November 12 (next week) that includes second CD with 8 live tracks. Previous releases include The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me (2004) and their "concept album" The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday(2005).

The Hold Steady will be playing in NYC on November 21 at Terminal 5. See you there. Man.

Mood :: Music Part 2

2007-10-18T09:12:00.000-04:00

I realized today that I could clarify my statements regarding mood and music. It really comes down to whether you want to the music to change your mood or sustain it. Sometimes you just need to wallow in misery - roll around in it and really get your hands dirty with misery. That is the case for sustaining your mood with music. To go back to what I was saying in my previous post, sometimes you want to change your mood or more accurately: you want the music to change your mood.

What I Am Doing Today

2007-10-17T11:04:00.000-04:00

For thirteen years I have been sending an email to a group of my friends from college on this day with that subject line. It generally revolves around what I am thinking, what I have been reading and most importantly what I have been listening to. The music part is the key because thirteen years ago today my best friend Bob Suwala died.

The recipients have shrunk in numbers due to moves, lost addresses and the general and gradual disconnection of modern life. Bob’s girlfriend, his housemates, bike riding buddies and the many people he knew. Bob was the most connected person I knew when he was alive: he had an internet connection from school and we spent a lot of late (very late) nights perusing and posting to the Usenet groups in particular alt.rave. This was in 1990 - 1992 and the web was still but a glint in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye.

Bob and I shared a passion for music particularly electronic music – in those days it was house and becoming techno. Hardcore wasn’t really a term yet and raves were a term for parties that happened in the UK. We were a DJ partnership in the small town where we went to school. I worked at the record store during the day (Bob was still a student) and we played at parties at night. A common weekend would involve an overnight party on Friday followed by small party early Saturday followed by another big one on the other side of town that might go until the sun came up Sunday at which point we would head to the diner for breakfast. Ah the halcyon days of our youth.

Instead of the George Bailey scenario where people wonder what life would be like had they never been born – I often wonder what life would be like had Bob lived. He would be almost 37 now and I imagine working as a developer for someone like Google. He would (I surmise) be a big fan of AJAX and 2.0 methodologies and everything that tries to look forward. I also imagine he would be a big fan of the French techno that has been bubbling sub-rosa for the past ten years: Daft Punk, Cassius, Justice etc. Or maybe he would like Justin Timberlake – but I like to imagine the former.

Thirteen years and it still hurts. Miss you man.

Mood :: Music

2007-10-16T11:00:00.000-04:00

Music can be bi-directional for me: it can change my mood or I can change the music to fit my mood. Either way it is a symbiotic relationship of a sort. On my short drive to work each day I listen to my own personal radio station in the form of my iPod. I always like the songs as a whole but they are not always what I want to hear so I find myself skipping a lot – particularly in the morning. Sometimes my iPod really feels my mood and plays a lot of good songs in a row. Sometimes I get frustrated and skip the whole way to the office. I listen to albums in their entirety more in the morning than at night. I also find that an album or group of songs will seem great in the morning but after a day at work, the same songs can have little or no relevance to my mood.

Today iPod Radio played Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti (Disc 2) in its entirety. If “Down By the Seaside” cannot put you in a good mood, you have issues. Led Zeppelin will be available on iTunes in November. Rock on!

So I was late to the iPod parade...not so with the iPhone

2007-06-29T22:44:00.001-04:00

I have been an Apple and Mac devotee for 20 years - today I got to join the future. I stood in line at an AT&T store to buy an iPhone. I got there at 5:30 thinking "no one in Stamford will be buying an iPhone." Hmmm...It seems like apple.com is available in Fairfield County, CT and 30+ people had my same stroke of brilliance - before me.

I worked the whole day and made it to the store only to find myslef roughly 40th in line. No big deal. The store manager dork came out and announced at 5:45 PM "You must have a verifiable email address and a credit card. And you must have Windows XP or higher." Clunk. What an idiot. "Or OSX..."

Long story short - after letting 4 people at a time into the phonebooth (!) sized store, the same dork announced there were no more 8 GB iPhones - only an undisclosed number of 4 GB. But they were offering a way to pre-order the 8GB and get it by overnight mail in "a business day" which meant Tuesday. After waiting in line for an hour - who wants to wait 3 more days? I left North Stamford and headed to the Stamford Town Center to the Apple Store (cue angelic music, lights and a wholesome retail feeling). Why did I listen to Steve Jobs? He told us that the easiest way to get an iPhone might be to go to an AT&T store. I should have thought about that...

Even longer story made shorter: I parked at a meter that had 18 minutes of free time. I only needed 10 of the minutes...Cupertino - my hat is off.

Next post - unboxing and review of the performance (aka EDGE network rocks!).

Big night

2007-04-13T01:44:00.000-04:00

For those of you who know me - I lived in Manhattan for 5 years and loved it. I used to go out to dinner, shop for records and go to shows and get home really late. Tonight I had the good fortune to do all those things again.

Mini restaurant review:

Rare (228 Bleecker Street) is a bistro that combines two great tastes that taste great together: beef from the nearby meatpacking district with Murray's famous cheese from across the street. I am a longtime fan of the burgers at the Corner Bistro on Jane Street - but these are on a whole different level. No manner of prose can describe them - just go have one.

The same people that own Generation Records (210 Thompson Street) also own Bleecker Street Records (239 Bleecker Street). While vinyl is clearly enjoying a revival if not rebirth, the pickings are slim these days. I did manage to find a copy of Freur's Doot Doot album from 1984. The photo on the back of the sleeve was worth the $10. Thanks to Clay for that one...

Besides a last minute dinner, tonight was all about going to see the Kaiser Chiefs at Roseland. While the Kaiser Chiefs' two full length records: Employment and Yours Truly, Angry Mob are really good, their live show doesn't quite hold up. Maybe I am too old. Maybe I am too picky. My apologies for the sad cellphone image of the live show above. The band was enthusiastic but it seemed a bit contrived. Their hits: Ruby, Modern Way and I Predict a Riot were pretty much paint by numbers for the 20-somethings in the crowd, posturing for each other more than watching the show. That has always bothered me.

On second thought, I Predict A Riot was actually really awesome. And I got home at 1:15 AM. That's rock and roll.

Make music. Make pictures. Make something.

The Feelies - the Good Earth

2007-02-27T01:12:00.000-05:00

I went to high school and college during the 1980s. I also spent 6 years working in a record store - the first three being 1987-1989. I like to think of it as the Golden Age of Indie Rock: Creation Records at its peak, Manchester swaggering in and grunge still on the rack at the Salvation Army. Record companies were still making LPs at this point - CDs were becoming the defacto standard but nonetheless, three formats were still being produced (cassettes being the third).

When you work in a record store, it goes without saying that you play cool music in the store. One such record that I came to know was The Feelies - The Good Earth, produced by Peter Buck himself - at the time the godfather of American indie rock. The Good Earth represented everything that was good about music: no pretense, quiet and noisy, subtly complex, reverent to its influences (Velvet Underground, Television and Big Star), awe-inspiring. I can think of no record save for the Stone Roses first record - that I have listened to start to finish as many times. To start it anywhere but on the first song is to miss the point.

The songs mostly follow this pattern: simple guitar riff, add a second, add another, add the bass, add percussion, increase tempo, increase volume, add another frenetic guitar part and stop. Like the 1-4-5 progression that has served countless bands for countless years, this template is infinitely varied yet never strays too far from the basics. Glenn Mercer and Bill Million were the guitar players and the songwriters and singers. The guitar tag they played was dexterous and hamfisted at the same time - brilliant harmonies came out of the simplest progressions. With Brenda Sauter on bass, the Feelies added the coup de grace by having not one, but two drummers. Dave Weckerman and Stan Demeski did so much with so little. Stan ultimately went on to become the drummer for another legendary band in the 1990s: Luna.

The Feelies are no more - frankly I have not taken the time to figure out what they are all up to. While their first record Crazy Rhythms is widely recognized by many critics as their finest, I stick by The Good Earth. You might too.

Rock for Rwanda

2007-02-10T01:09:00.000-05:00

My band (my COVER band if you must know) got together at the behest of our zealous lead singer to raise money for a school in Rwanda that he'd been involved with. Let's put on show!

Three bands: Jean-Paul Samputu from Rwanda, Space Cabbage from the NY area, and Ask Your Mom (us) from well, here.

The Beatles by Bob Spitz

2007-01-28T01:17:00.000-05:00

I was given this book by a friend who knows I like the Beatles and who knows I am a reader. These are both good points to make given how obsessive I have become about the Beatles as a result - and the fact that it is nearly 1000 pages long. I stayed out of trouble (i.e. didn't buy any more records, books or guitars) and spent time with my wife and kids - albeit in a state of near total ignorance at times...another parallel it turns out.

What this book showed me was that the Beatles were a unique sensation for two reasons: their collective and astonishing gifts with songwriting and a work ethic that was second to none. By the time the Beatles signed their first record deal in 1963, they had already played over 1000 shows in the UK and Hamburg. Not all those shows were a result of this work ethic, but the drive to keep playing, night after night (pills notwithstanding) was clearly driven by something intangible and incredible. The book is an exhaustively researched work that focuses much more on the songwriting craft and process - as well as the gear - than it does on the public sensation. The relationship that John, Paul, George and Ringo shared did not allow for others to get inside. Their tight-knit defenses resisted everything that spouses, in-laws and management could throw at them - at least until John discovered heroin...

Go buy the book and then buy the new Love record that is the soundtrack to the Cirque de Soleil show of the same name. You will never listen to the Beatles the same way. And you will still dislike Yoko Ono.

10 years out, 10 years back

2006-08-03T11:41:00.000-04:00

I went to my 20th high school reunion this past weekend in my hometown in PA. I had many feelings about going: not going to go because I haven't seen any of those people in 20 years, definitely going for the same reason. It turns out I need not worry - everyone felt the same butterflies walking in.

One thing that struck me was how much some had aged and how little others had. It was not unexpected, just amazing in the execution. The journey we had all taken had clearly been more arduous for some. I found myself talking to many of the same people I did in high school as well as several that I never really knew. There were the cool kids, the athletic kids, the stoners, the nerds (my circle) and the smart kids - all mixed together, all drinking wine or beer in a very civilized way.

I got a drink for a woman I hadn't seen since high school and it struck me: the last time I saw her I wasn't even old enough to buy her a drink. Ten years out, ten years back is a long trip. My wife suffered silently (and minimally I hope) because she knew a couple of my classmates who we see at holiday parties and spent most of the time with them. Another thing that struck me was the longevity of some relationships - there were several couples who had been married 12, 14, 16 years - couples that had been together since sophomore year. Together for 22 years...awesome.

In keeping with the theme of this blog - the music - unfortuantely wasn't very good. The band that was hired also acted as DJs and didn't really do a good job. I was expecting more of a Grosse Point Blank kind of musical experience and instead got something more like the dance in Sixteen Candles. Why couldn't we have had Oingo Boingo?

Five songs that remind me of high school (all in a good way):

1. So. Central Rain - REM
2. Melt With You - Modern English
3. (Don't You) Forget About Me - Simple Minds
4. Should I Stay Or Should I Go? - The Clash
5. I Ran - A Flock of Seagulls

With sadness in my heart and joy in my mind
I thought about the ghost that we left behind.

More lists of five

2006-01-27T00:29:00.000-05:00

Five Drummers Who Rock

1. Mark Brzezicki (the Cult & Big Country)
2. Phill Rudd (AC/DC)
3. Charlie Watts
4. Reni (The Stone Roses)
5. Rick Buckler (The Jam)

Five Songs You Will Never Hear At My House

1. (anything) - by Billy Joel
2. The Chicken Dance
3. Brown-Eyed Girl - Van is the Man but I have to draw the line
4. Celebration - Kool & the Gang
5. American Pie - Don McLean (or anyone else)

Five Songs You Might Be Surprised to Hear at My House

1. Groove Is In the Heart - Deelite
2. Gimme Gimme Gimme - ABBA
3. Photograph - Def Leppard
4. Last Train To Trancentral - The KLF
5. Rubber Band Man - the Spinners

The Last Five Songs Played At My Last Party (New Year's Eve)

1. Train In Vain - The Clash
2. You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
3. Jane Says - Jane's Addiction
4. Panama - Van Halen
5. Photograph - Def Leppard

Long live the list...

5ives and Stuff

2006-01-24T12:16:00.000-05:00

Many people in my circle know the site www.5ives.com, whether due to my forwarding a particularly funny post or via del.icio.us or whatever. I subscribe to the RSS feed and get a chunk of 5ives lists pretty much once a week. In honor of today's list, here is a list of my own:

Five 1980s Albums I Own That Contain A Single Worthwhile Song (Thus Making the Album Worth It)

1. REM - Green (untitled last track)
2. Steve Winwood - Talking Back To the Night ("Valerie")
3. Icicle Works - Icicle Works ("Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)")
4. Donnie Iris - King Cool ("Love Is Like A Rock")
5. Shriekback - Oil & Gold ("Nemesis")

I can't believe it's true...

Music is Math

2005-12-01T10:36:00.000-05:00

I am certainly not the first to espouse this idea but I am a really big fan nonetheless. Music is really just a bunch of numbers - a sequence - with meta data attached to those numbers. Not unlike HTML.

Many people have written about this for years, but Stephen Wolfram has taken it one step further: WolframTones. His 2002 book A New Kind of Science broke new ground in scientific thinking and this site does the same for...ringtones. Yes, ringtones. Not everyone agrees with Wolfram - he does have a tendency to "toot his own horn."

WolframTones is a site that allows users to create their own - potentially unique - ringtones based on instrumentation, tempo, scales and other parameters. These parameters are then mapped to an equation or numerical value which generates the sequence of data - and the ringtone. You can hear the one I created here.

PLEASE NOTE: you will need to have a polyphonic-capable phone that can receive email and has web access. Any camera phone these days should work (check the site for the phone test).

Full credit goes to Slashdot for clueing me in to this site.

Classic Rock V. I

2005-11-29T23:47:00.000-05:00

I live in suburban NY - which means I have little or no access to radio stations. I get WNYC which gives me NPR and there is a year-old station called The Peak 107.1 which plays 50% good music in my opinion. They play a decent mix of music aimed at my demographic. i will leave it at that.

Classic rock drives me crazy in two ways: it is so predictable that you can almost pick the next three songs and it is occasionally so enticing because it can catch you in the perfect mood. Most of the time, the three classic rock stations in my area play the standards: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Who, Allman Brothers you get the idea. The problem is that most of the time they play the exact same songs: "Wish You Were Here," "Another Brick In the Wall," "Rock & Roll," "Stairway to Heaven," "Kashmir," "Jessica," "Melissa" etc. When they throw a random song at you like "Going Mobile" or "That's the Way" it really kills you because it is always so appropriate to your mood. Damn you classic rock radio!

Why do people of the age group 30 - 50 feel the need to be spoon-fed the same 50 songs every day? I want variety - I don't want predictability. At least the peak plays Peter Tosh now and again - although they seem stuck in that scary Adult Contemporary/Alternative Dead Zone that seems to include the Smithereens, the Spin Doctors, Crowded House and virtually every band that came after grunge in the early 1990s.

I am not a big fan of radio for the obvious spoon-feeding reasons, but I do like to be surprised. This is why I listen to podcasts of radio stations like KCRW and Virgin Radio. They at least push new and untested music. I also like a podcast called Bands Under the Radar that goes even farther. All of these can be found easily in iTunes' podcast directory.

Rock on.

iTunes Advocacy Part II

2005-11-28T00:04:00.000-05:00

OK - so I bought an iPod. To be totally honest, I cannot understand how I lived without it. I don't commute anymore so I don't have a great deal of time to listen to it - but I find a way. I work out with it religiously. I fall asleep to it - a habit my wife really hates. I turned off the backlight because it is so freaking bright that it would wake her up every time I changed the song or album.

I still use iTunes the same way - like a maniacal data junkie. Now I download podcasts in addition to ripping my own CDs. I find that I am tired of what is on my iPod after about a week. I create new playlists every time I take a roadtrip but they too get boring very quickly. Too much music and not enough time.

I figure I listen to music - actively listen to music - about two hours a day - an hour in the car and an hour at work while writing documents/reports etc. I listen at home with my wife and kids (more with my kids) on occasion, but usually in a passive type of setting. My son, who just turned six, is now a huge Green Day fan. I have been listening to Green Day since 1991 (boy do I sound like a music snob) and was very excited to hear that he liked them so much. Since one of my hobbies is recoding music, I have Digidesign ProTools which allows me to create "clean" versions of any song. Thus he has clean versions of the American Idiot songs and I have the comfort of knowing he doesn't hear the occasional curse word. They are more Disney-like in their lyrics, but I don't worry to much because it takes nothing from their energy. It also helps that he is meticulously learning the lyrics - word by word. I wonder what he makes of the edits where I flipped the words around?

Everybody do the propaganda

Ian Brown

2005-04-04T15:22:00.000-04:00

Those who know me understand, or at least acknowledge my belief that the first Stone Roses record (The Stone Roses, 1989) is the finest pop album ever made. Many records are good, a few are spectacular, none reigns supreme like The Stone Roses. Let me qualify this statement by saying that I am referring to the work, not the artist.
As a band, the Stone Roses left much to be desired - they were together in their most significant form for several years prior to getting signed and did their best to irk nearly everyone who came within fifty yards. Ian Brown, the singer, has had a respectable if not admirable solo career in the years since. Truncated by the occasional arrest and jail term, Ian has put out three records and a handful of decent singles. He is currently touring in support of the third. This brings me to the blog check. Let me know what you think of this...

Mix tapes

2005-04-04T14:18:00.000-04:00

In the old days, i.e. when cassettes were still a viable medium, I used to make mixes all the time. Everybody did it. You made mixes for road trips, a mix for the party Saturday night, a mix for your hangover Sunday morning, a mix for that new girl.
I spent lots of time working on the things, mostly because I honestly enjoyed the effort and the creativity required. References to High Fidelity notwithstanding, a good mix tape is a work of art and needs to have a theme and a significant song. This song didn't have to be a big hit or even be a known song - it just had to be significant to the theme. It may even be the inspiration for the the theme and the tape. Think of it as the anchor tenant in the mix tape mall.
The order had to be right and unfortunately, each side had to be just under 45 minutes. That is if you were using a 90 minute cassette and who used anything but?

Side note: I used to use the Maxell XL-II 46 minute tapes because I liked the whole "A side/B side" organization of LPs it afforded. Just as when a record ended you needed to flip the tape. My younger brother used to laugh at me as he was putting entire LPs onto each side of a 90 minute tape. Our individual senses of economics differed as you can see. It is worth noting that my brother has a degree in Economics and is president of his own successful company while I am a freelancer.

My mixes were always focused around whatever my current favorite song was. "Jimmy Jazz" by the Clash (London Calling 1979), Catapult by REM (Murmur 1983) or The Girl From Ipanema by Getz & Gilberto (Getz & Gilberto 1963). That last song was the basis for a tape I made for my girlfriend called "Tall and tan and young and lovely." Despite this sincere form of affection she married me.

iTunes advocacy Part I

2005-04-03T14:51:00.000-04:00

I may be the only person in my age group and industry that does not yet own an iPod. This does not preclude me from being an ardent fan of iTunes. If there were a perfect job for me it would probably be product manager for iTunes. I use it continuously and I use it well in my opinion.
I bought a used Powerbook on eBay last fall and it came with a ton of music in an iTunes library. I threw away half of it right off the bat because I knew I would never ever listen to it - not even in an alcohol induced search for "that song." Britney, Christina, Justin and all the other mouseketeers went into the trash. It was very liberating. The rest of the music I decided to keep for personal use. The problem with it was the previous owner wasn't as "meticulous" as I am: songs were mislabeled as to title, artist, genre you name it. The music itself was fine, it just wasn't very well organized. I chucked the entire iTunes library and started at the file level. After I cleaned up the flienames and established some basic conventions, I gradually dragged whole folders back into iTunes and started to work on the meta data.
Rather than change each file individually, I used the different sort capabilities and managed the meta data like Year and Genre in bulk. With the new Smart Play List function, I could add info to the comment field like "live" or "cover." These strings of text allowed me to find things like the live REM medley that includes Time After Time (AnnElise), Red Rain and So. Central Rain recorded in Utrecht on the document tour in 1987 (Finest Worksong single, 1987). It is both live and a cover. Cool. Geeky, but cool. I also include text like "soundtrack" so I can find all 1980s songs that were on a soundtrack or featured in a movie. More cool.
I find that I am not dumping my CDs into iTunes en masse as I expected. My ambient level of interest in an album directs how much gets added. Something I listen to as an entire album goes in as a complete unit. Stuff I generally listen to for a song or two gets the "song or two" treatment. I have a ton of compilations which are ripe for iTunes - epsecially the pop compilations. The DJ mixed compilations are messy with iTunes because they tend to be continuous and even if you rip the whole thing you get a little audio pause between tracks. iTunes lets you designate a playback gap of 0,1,2 seconds between songs but it is a little off fr my taste. Same thing with something like Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys (1989). Call me picky.