August 2009 Archives

More Intelligent Life is a favorite new addition to my Infobahn travels, in part because I enjoy its erudite take on culture, and in part because each article isn't followed up by a bunch of chuckleheads having stupid arguments and making fun of one another's typos. There are also very few references to death panels, of which I am very afraid. But I digress. Or I'm about to digress. Either way, my point is this:

There's recently been a bit of a back and forth over there about a recent statement by Radiohead's Chief Malaise Officer Thom Yorke. Apparently the recent "leaking" of individual Radiohead tracks reflects a general ambivalence about the album-making process. More Intelligent Life, being a British site and thus required to parse Mr. Yorke's various pronouncements with a zeal normally reserved for the Zapruder film, has now extrapolated this to mean that we are most certainly nearing the end of the album era.

But could this be a good thing, as this correspondent suggests? After all, the kids these days are downloading their single mp3s and shuffling their Ipods and wearing their pants so low you can see their underwear. The LP is a vestige of an earlier time, when serious artistes made epic statements, some brilliant, some ridiculous. According to the Brave New World types, it was a model that couldn't sustain itself, and eventually we'll be free of its tyranny altogether.

But hold on a second. There's always been a schism between singles artists and LP artists, hasn't there? It used to be as clear as the delineation between AM and FM radio. AM radio was for singles; it played the Archies and the 1910 Fruitgum Company and Creedence Clearwater Revival. FM radio was for the groovy Album Oriented Rock; it played Pink Floyd and Genesis and, uh, Creedence Clearwater Revival. Since the advent of "rock" as a separate genre from "pop," these distinctions have been made.

The difference is that the album as an artistic artifact seldom makes its way to the mainstream anymore. TV only cares about musicians when they forget to wear underpants or beat their girlfriends. Non-music publications (Time, Newsweek, Guns & Ammo) seldom offer music reviews. And radio... well, the less said, the better. That's part of the lesson Axl Rose learned last year when he tried to make a major event out of Chinese Democracy. (Wait, scratch that last bit. Axl Rose has never learned a lesson in his life.)

It's quite likely that the end of the album era has been underway for some time now, at least to Joe Twelvepack and Polly Peoplereader (if indeed those types ever lived in the album era, judging by the prevalence of John Denver's Greatest Hits at garage sales). And as long as the fragmentation and instant backlash of life in the digital age continue, we may well be witnessing the end of rock history. More on that later, but for now, let's settle in and enjoy a classic album track by one of the all-time great singles bands.

Ramble Tamble.mp3

Having spent some time reviewing music, occasionally even in exchange for filthy lucre, I can assure you that it is a skill unto itself. Not only are you expected to assess the relative merits of work into which someone has poured his or her very soul, but you must also back up these claims with some understanding of the music's rich and diverse traditions. Even when you're reviewing the latest piece of shark-jumpery from Kings of Leon.

When Fresh and I were deciding on what format Playlist's music reviews should take, we considered whether to assign a quantifiable mark to each review--stars, letter grades, or irritating Pitchfork-style decimals (ours would have gone to three decimal places, by the way, because we're much more into music than they are). Ultimately we opted for no rating, thus forcing our readership to plow through the entire review word by word by fascinating word, savoring every morsel of our wisdom.

Had our publication been in color throughout, I would have suggested the chart you see before you (patent pending). Using an elaborate system of colors, I have created a color-coded matrix by which you can determine whether a piece of music is right for you.

Click here to see the image in all its panoramic glory (patent pending).

The grid is divided along two axes. The y-axis measures accessibility--the farther "north" toward "Accessible," the poppier the record. Look for your sunshine pop, your smoother jazz, and your baroque composers hereabouts. The bottommost point is labeled "Difficult," largely for lack of a better term. The closer to "Difficult," the less likely grandmas will enjoy it. Death metal, free jazz, twelve-tone classical music--it'll all be found here.

The x-axis, meanwhile, places music along what we'll call the "hipster d-bag" continuum. Assume for a moment that the popular 1960s rock band the Beatles and the 1970s power-pop combo Big Star are at more or less the same level of accessibility. You have a date with a Pabst-swilling, Brooklyn-dwelling, box-glasses-wearing cultural stereotype (let's call this hipster "Terry" so as to sidestep the gender issue). You've managed to lure "Terry" to your pad and you want to impress "Terry" right out of "Terry's" skinny jeans. Obviously Big Star's cultist reputation will be far more successful, and thanks to this system of color-coding, you'll be able to make these decisions at a glance--even after several Pabsts!

In the future, I predict that this system will be an invaluable aid to music consumers everywhere. The RGB scale on which these colors are based will replace unhelpful labels forever. Instead of saying, "Oh, I'm really into early-period melodic post-rock," dorks at parties will say, "I'm a 47/73/44." The other person will then know that that person enjoys music made by people no one is familiar with and that is difficult to listen to. The other person will then probably make a move toward the kitchen.

Here are a few color-codings to get you started:
Beloved, slightly noisy Aussies AC/DC is 237/238/178:

The ever-centrist, yet often experimental Beatles are 224/170/177:

Obscure power-poppers the Vandalias are 72/11/36:
Frank Zappa (with or without the Mothers of Invention) is 165/147/100:
Unpopular 20^th century composer Iannis Xenakis is 30/61/38:
Of course, if you have any suggestions for ways this chart can be improved, I'm all ears--and if you can think of someone who would be smack dab in the center, drop me a line! While you're thinking please enjoy this track from the aforementioned obscure power-poppers the Vandalias!

05 Hey Kari G.mp3

 

The details are pretty sketchy right now, but apparently there's some sort of remake of Yellow Submarine in the works. At the helm is Robert Zemeckis, who delighted creeped out kids the world over with The Polar Express and still views Jim Carrey as a viable form of entertainment. What could possibly go wrong?

Of course Beatlemaniacs are flipping their original 1964 vintage-with-a-certificate-of-authenticity wigs over the prospect, and I can't say as I blame them. For children of the '60s, the Beatles presented a chance to be part of a communal experience as their alarmingly rapid musical and mustachial growth took place before their eyes. For later generations, they've been a way to opt out of the mainstream, to say "thanks but no thanks" to Boston or A Flock of Seagulls or Mandy Moore. Either way, the relationship people have with the Beatles is an invariably personal one.

While Yellow Submarine is a pretty minor chapter in the Beatles' story (the group's participation was minor, from their "cameo" at the end of the film to the cast-off songs they contributed), it still carries the weight of history. And whoever attempts to emend that part of people's lives needs to tread cautiously, lest ye wind up delivering another Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (the movie, that is). Can Robert Zemeckis be counted on to handle what was many children's first exposure to the Beatles with sensitivity? All signs point to "probably not."

Let's put aside this unpleasantness, then, with one of the more curious intersections of Beatledom and film. In the 1960s, Morgana King was a jazz and pop singer who recorded for Emarcy and Verve and palled around with Charlie Parker. But today she might be best known as Carmella Corleone, wife of Don Vito and mother to Sonny, Connie, Michael and stupid, weak Fredo. Here she is getting all psychedelic with her version of "Tomorrow Never Knows." (Sorry about the wma file.)

Tomorrow Never Knows.wma

From Times Online, hence the use of the super-classy "-ised" suffix.

The world's big four record companies are to go head-to-head with Apple with the launch of a new form of album download that will include a digitised version of a record sleeve.

Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI are putting the finishing touches to an album format that will give music fans a computerised version of the sleeve notes that come as standard with a CD, including lyrics and artwork, and videos.

I'm no music industry analyst. I'm not asked to appear on Fox & Friends to comment on the latest RIAA lawsuit or offer my opinions on that Jackson fellow who apparently died a few weeks ago. Much of my understanding of the music industry comes from watching old episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati, so I assume everyone walks around in satin roadie jackets and makes references to "Maui Wowie."

It seems to me, though, that the record industry's biggest problem is that it has no idea what it's doing.

Instead of hoping that "digitised record sleeves" with little virtual booklets that you can flip through will help save their grubby little business, maybe they could try asking people what they want. It's a bold concept, but it's worked in the past. It's why Tony Danza is no longer given TV shows. The people in charge of TV eventually thought to ask people what they like and don't like, and everyone universally agreed that they do not like Tony Danza. The music biz could do the same, only (and I cannot stress this enough, music biz) not about Tony Danza.

So industry folks--put down that rolled up twenty dollar bill for a moment and ask the right questions. Ask people how they actually use music in this day and age. You might hear things you don't want to hear, like the album is no longer a meaningful concept to young people. You might hear that killing off the single in the 1990s was a bad idea, because people are looking to hear that one song whenever they want. Apple taught us that most people will pay a little to get their music on demand, and we have every indication that this is the way things are heading. Reading shout-outs to God on a screen and scrolling up and down a picture of an album cover might be the answer, but if it is, it's only through sheer luck. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

Sure, old-timey folks like me still love albums. But we want a real artifact that we can idly look at as we sit and listen. CD booklets were daunting enough, with their tiny type and irritating little booklets that get stuck on those stupid little tabby things. Not to mention that darn sticky strip on the top of the case! And those kids who don't get off my lawn even when I shake my fist! Also, I fear death panels.

But as this latest nonsense about liner notes we read on a tiny little iPhone screen proves, the industry keeps coming up with increasingly hare-brained schemes to cover for mistakes that they could have avoided if they weren't so gosh-darned stupid. Like a wacky neighbor in a failed Tony Danza sitcom.

01 Big Ten Inch Record.mp3

 

If the Internet has taught me anything, it's that no matter what you do, someone is going to think you're a complete tool.

I'm sure if two people read my entry about books (and that's a pretty big if), one guy would be all like, "Hmmph, I guess reading books by Richard Russo is now considered an 'intellectual' pursuit. Honestly, I weep for this nation," while the other guy would be all,  "Ohhh, Mr. Fancypants... only reads big boy books like he's too good for the rest of us. Excuse me that my Glenn Beck book isn't literary enough for you... I suppose you're too good for an old-fashioned fart-lighting too, huh, Poindexter?"

But there you go. And it's especially hard out here in flyover country. You subscribe to Netflix so that you can watch movies that you'd normally have to drive to Ann Arbor to rent, and the guy from Time Magazine tries to make you feel bad for ruining everything for that delightfully quirky independent video store where all the clerks are walking film encyclopedias who just want to hip you to the lesser works of John Cassavetes. What Time Magazine apparently forgets is that most of the world isn't New York City--and that out here, delightfully quirky video stores died off in the '90s, replaced by conglomerations whose motto is "Where Paul Blart: Mall Cop is always in stock--and if you don't want Paul Blart: Mall Cop, you're kind of gay."

Another case on point: a couple weeks ago, I took a trip to our town's new "lifestyle center" (read: outdoor mall trying to look like a fake downtown). I would have gone to one of the trendy, hip shops that line the streets of our thriving, actual downtown, but they don't exist. Anyway, I'm trying on shirts, and I'm feeling pretty chuffed that I'm able to wear a medium now (why, yes, I have lost weight--thanks for noticing!). I'm all set to start feeling good, and then I get home and read New York Times this charming takedown of the very store I was at, including the following bon mots:

My escort, Dr. Redacto, bought a T-shirt. He ordinarily wears a large. I advised him: "Get the medium. I guarantee, a large is going to be five times larger than any large you've ever seen."

While modeling it for me later, we discovered that even a Penney's medium is five times larger than any large T-shirt either of us had ever seen: The sleeves came down to the elbow, and there was enough room in front for eight months of unborn twins.

And that will probably make some guy feel pretty svelte.

Oh.

But that's the thing--chances are, right now someone is making fun of something that you like. Someone is judging you based on what you wear, or how you look, or (to be fair) the jerky stuff you say in Time Magazine or the New York Times. Someone has decided that your taste in music or books or movies isn't cool enough--or that it's too cool. And while you can take comfort in the fact that you don't hang out with anyone called "Dr. Redacto," this is one annoyance that's not likely to disappear soon.

So think of that while you enjoy "Eat That Chicken" by the great Charles Mingus. Its jazz cred makes it unimpeachable among your coastal elites, but it's also a down and dirty party record to put the dip in your hip. It's about eating chicken, so all of us fatties here in Fattietown can enjoy it, but it might also not be entirely about eating chicken (wink, wink), so we sophisticated sybarites can exchange knowing glances as we sip our chocotinis.

Eat That Chicken.mp3

I've been working at this software jiggery-pokery for a while now, and this might be as good as it gets. Just click on the link below and soon you'll be solving a puzzle on The Net, just like Sandra Bullock in that one movie -- The Bus that Couldn't Slow Down.

Cannonball.html

Today I unshackled myself from the cubicle for the day and hit some garage sales in search of tasty vinyl. What I got was quite tasty indeed, and it's given me a few ideas for future blog features.

I had forgotten how much of a thrill there is in hunting out vinyl. During my store-owning days, it was often the best part of the day (except on the days when I'd drive all over the county to thumb through smoke-stanky old Lawrence Welk LPs and come back with nothing to show for it). One sale today was mostly 45s, and I discovered that my instinct for finding rare soul hasn't totally evaporated. I'll be passing the deliciousness on to you in a feature on unusual records that I haven't gotten around to naming yet (names are hard -- I might ask for Mrs. Q's input).

Despite having graduated (from an accredited university!) with an (accidental) minor in English, I am not what you'd call well read.  I mostly took linguistics classes, and when I did take a literature course, I was good enough at synthesizing other people's thoughts and opinions to make the grade without actually reading Sister Carrie.

I'm sure they must have made me read books in high school, but not the masterworks that I'm told everyone else was assigned. Of Mice and Men? Nope. The Catcher in the Rye? Maybe my teacher though it encouraged back-sassery.  I seem to recall carrying Tess of the D'Urbervilles around with me for a couple weeks and worrying that it made me look effeminate. Plus I made the mistake of taking the same English classes as my girlfriend. Study sessions were less than productive, what with all the smooching and petty bickering.

After college, I probably had time to read a lot more, but for some reason I squandered the sad and fetid 1990's reading Goober in a Nutshell and Jerry Lewis in Person. OK, maybe "squandered" is a strong word, since the insights I gained from George "Goober" Lindsay carried me through some difficult times in my life. But still...

When I met Mrs. Qualifier and she started taking me to the library, I started to realize just how little actual literature I had gotten around to reading. I've got the gists of many of the great works of Western literature, and I do pretty well when it's a subject on Jeopardy, but it turns out my edumacation has been spotty at best. So I've decided to start reading proper books by actual authors (hereby defined as people whose picture isn't on the front cover of the book).

Where to begin, though? The Googler offered up a bunch of lists of books everyone should have read by now, including this daunting list from The Modern Library. I was all set to start at 100 and work my way up, but then I realized that it was looking like a Bataan Death March toward Ulysses, which is a little high up the brow for a guy who does most of his reading at 10:30 at night.

I then flirted with the list from Time Magazine. But not only does Time expect me to read Are You There God? It's Me Margaret like I'm a 12-year-old girl, they also expected me to read I, Claudius, which I managed to turn about 150 pages of before I realized not a stinking word of this book was registering in my brain.

I started poking around a little more and found a list that I can intersperse into the so-called canon without feeling guilty: winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Proper books that are still pretty accessible! The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay! A Confederacy of Dunces! Books I've actually already read, and some that I would have read anyway! We'll see how it goes when I get into the Herman Wouk years, but for now it's like a literary paradise. Here's a chart I made to illustrate my point as it relates to brows:


Of course, I'm always open to suggestions, with the following caveats:

1. I do most of my reading after 10 p.m., so nothing that will angry up the blood
2. Everything I've heard about Ayn Rand suggests that I would not like to read any of her books (see caveat #1)
3. I tend to tune out battle scenes
4. I'm very skeptical of any book that features a headmaster.
   

While you're pondering your suggestions, enjoy this bit of gray market brilliance from raspy-voiced rapscallion Tom Waits.
10 Just Another Dime Store Novel.mp3

In the annals of rock history, there are some albums that stand out above all others in their ignominiousness. Whether ill-timed, hubristic, or just plain awful, these LPs were poorly received on their arrival and have a reputation for suckiness that spans the ages. Your intrepid Qualifier wades into the mire of these red-headed stepchildren for an occasional series called How Bad Could It Be?

We begin with an album so poorly regarded that even its own creator has disavowed it, the 1973 Bob Dylan album simply titled Dylan.

Poor Columbia Records. In the early 1970s, the Tiffany of record labels was looking at the very real possibility of losing one of their marquee artists.

Here they stand by Bob Dylan through all his transformations, from earnest folkie to trickster poet to down-home front porch jug band family man, and he waltzes in one day and declares he's leaving them for David Geffen. Like a lot of jilted people, Columbia's feelings were apparently pretty hurt. But rather than just eat a quart of Haagen-Dazs and scribble furiously in its diary, Columbia decided to get a little revenge.

So while Dylan and Geffen's Asylum Records were making plans to officially announce their love to the world with Planet Waves, Columbia started boiling water for the bunny. Vengeance took the form of Dylan, a collection of outtakes from Self Portrait, Bob's heretofore least-loved record. Remember that time your ex turned up at your engagement party and showed everyone pictures of you dressed up like Naughty Baby New Year? That's what Columbia did, only in song form.

In the end though, Columbia's desperate stunt seems to have worked. Dylan was back home in time for Blood on the Tracks, and he's never looked back. The two lovebirds have apparently also agreed never to speak of the incident again--Dylan has never been released on CD. (Although it can apparently be downloaded from iTunes, Columbia being reasonably sure that Bob has a staff member load his iPod for him.)

So how bad could it be?

While one hesitates to call it good, it's not terrible. In fact, there's plenty to like, especially in light of Bob's recent predilection for pre-rock stylings. If you're expecting the Sermon on the Mount (which most rock critics were expecting from Dylan in the early '70s), you're going to feel cheated. But if you can accept that Bob has always had a cute streak in him, you might well be charmed by his rendition of "Can't Help Falling in Love," especially when the organist throws in the little lick from "Just Like a Woman" at the end of the chorus.

And I can't get enough of his version of "A Fool Such as I." So there.

Much of the album ("Big Yellow Taxi," "Mr. Bojangles") feels like Bob and his group are just screwing around in the studio. Quality control is out the window, and when he misses ("Spanish Is the Loving Tongue," "The Ballad of Ira Hayes"), the results are pretty cringeworthy. But mark my words, if these tracks had gone unreleased, the same Dylanologists who decried this disc would gladly be shelling out top dollar to the bootlegger man--and trying to make you feel stupid for not loving it.

08.A Fool Such As I.mp3

I am 40. You'd think by now I'd know myself pretty well. But recently I had a rather disturbing revelation about myself.

I might not hate Led Zeppelin.

It all started innocently enough. The classic rock radio station was counting down the Top 500 Classic Rock Songs of all time, and was dutifully entering the names and artists into an Excel spreadsheet as they were being played, thus enabling me to chart the various risings and fallings of the Scorpions and Eddie Money. All of a sudden I was tapping my foot. My head began nodding imperceptibly. The song? "Trampled Underfoot," from Physical Graffiti.

Not possible, I thought. Led Zeppelin belonged among the wispy mustaches and wallet chains of my high school parking lot. Still, I had to double check. I worked my way through several Zep standards: "Whole Lotta Love," "Living Loving Maid," "Hey Hey What Can I Do." And I didn't hate them. In fact there was quite a bit to like ("Dancing Days"!). So I pulled out the big guns... "Stairway"...

Actually, that one's still pretty hard to like unironically. But the point is that nostalgia is a pretty powerful leveler. Couple that with the fact that magazine covers routinely feature people with whom I'm not at all familiar. (Hayden Panettiere? Yeah, I had to use the Googler on that one.) It almost seems like there's a bubble that's closing up below me, and soon enough I'll be trapped amid the same surroundings, few of which date more recently than 1999.

You know how old folks all seem to like big band music, or how no boomers even seem to get mad when Jimmy Buffett music starts playing (even though they should)? It's discouraging to think that could happen to me as I enter middle age. Led Zeppelin? Sure. Phil Collins? Whatever, I remember him.

So it's up to us to press through. Keep looking. Keep digging. There's more to modern culture than just Miley Cyrus and Jon & Kate and whatever other crap Yahoo News is pushing. And for you young people, just remember--your time is gonna come.

The Hold Steady:
Hey Hey What Can I Do.mp3

For the past few years, eLarceny honcho Fresh and I were writing our various musings for a publication called Playlist. Each month, I'm told that folks would gather to read our views on the latest recordings (or "sound-roundies" as they were called in those days), our surefire picks in upcoming sporting events, and tasty recipes the whole family could enjoy.

Unfortunately, Playlist became a casualty of the economic crash of 2008, and Fresh and I were lowered to offering half-baked theories, angry tirades and half-hearted japery in area taverns and barbershops. Also we wrestled deer for the amusement of passers-by. It was a bleak time.

All that has changed, though, with the recent advent of the Internet, which I understand millions of people turn to every day for news, information and photographs of cats whose facial expressions suggest that they would like to eat a cheeseburger. So while I miss taking comfort in the idea that huge, expensive machines existed for the purpose of disseminating my opinions about the Monkees to a waiting world, I feel I have once again found a home. Only this time it's a home that's set in the not-too-distant future.

What form will The Qualifier take? That's for my corporate masters to decide. But based on preliminary communiqués, I can say that there will be music reviews, measured and insightful commentary on our culture (balanced with profanity-laden jeremiads about the Trilateral Commission), and, assuming I can figure out this newfangled "soft-ware," crossword puzzles to tease the brain.

So join me, won't you, as we take a bold step into this brave new cyber-world. While you decide, please enjoy this tune from singer/composer/fifth Beatle/Afro enthusiast Billy Preston. "That's the Way God Planned It," indeed.

That's the Way God Planned It.mp3

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