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Archive for the ‘Rock / Pop’ Category

Day 39. Beethoven and the Powerpuff Girls.

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Celia grabbed ‘Heros and Villians: Music Inspired By The Powerpuff Girls’ and the 1963 Herbert Von Karajan Beethoven symphony recordings tonight. I am quite tickled by the combination.
Over the next few hours, I will hear what I consider to be some of the greatest recordings of the greatest music of all time. But first – Devo, Shohen Knife, bis and Frank Black. Tamiko and I spent quite a bit of time watching the Powerpuff Girls early on in grad school. 10 minutes of sillyness with some pretty decent writing. ‘Meet the Beatalls’ is an episode I just referred someone to the other day (written almost completely in Beatles lyrics – pure genius). As for the music on the disc, it is rather hit or miss. But the bands above provide some pretty good tracks, especially Shohen Knife’s ode to Buttercup. I don’t think Celia or Mira are old enough for the Powerpuff Girls yet… but I am looking forward to the day when we can watch them together.
I think the Karajan discs are probably the recordings I sold more of then anything else during my record store days. Or it may be better to say, these are the discs I recommended to more people then anyone else (because I am pretty sure that even if I suggested and sold 50 of these sets, it would still pale in number to the thousands of copies of pop hits I would have actually taken cash for). These older analog recordings sound great, and the performances are stunningly beautiful. Quite possibly the height of Deutche Grammophone’s recording days matched by the height of Karajan’s conducting. I believe Karajan had recorded complete sets of the Beethoven symphonies two or three times before these DG recordings with his orchestra (Berlin). And he would go on to record the complete cylce two more times (once in the 70s and again in the 80s so they could be captured digitally), but it is the 1963 recordings that stand above and beyond the other recordings.
I tend to like my Beethoven played with smaller orchestras though. In fact I prpbably like other recordings here and there better then individual performances on these discs. But these performances really are the standard of standards for these pieces, and the quality and musicianship across the whole set really hasn’t been matched before or since. While tempos may be slower then what Beethoven may have wanted or the orchestra bigger, what these recordings seem to capture for me is a sense of what Karajan was doing as an interpreter in his time. This was HIS orchestra (he had been appointed director for life in 1955) and he had been shaping its sound for quite some time. And the Beethoven symphinies were the backbone of his repertoire. As recording technology improved he was always at the forefront, eager to explore new possibilites. I think in the 70s and 80s, this actually hurt his recorded documents however. These recordings were mostly recorded (I believe) in a church in Berlin, and the recording engineers were in a building across the street because of the lack of space. After a take was done, Karajan would run across the street to hear the recording and judge whether or not to do another take. But recording technology in these days wasn’t as advanced as they would be in the 70s… and while I am sure there is some editing in these discs, they feel more dynamic and musical to me then the performances from the 70s that seems unrealistically smooth and even (and the poor early digital technology couple with his old age make the recordings from the 80s particularly difficult to listen to). These are quite fiery at times, as well as amazingly dramatic.
The recording of the 7th on these discs is especially beautiful. It is the stand out of this set. The first movement has excitement (the transition from the opening Adagio to the Allegro almost sounds avant-garde in it’s clarity). The second movement is by far the most deeply moving version of this piece I have ever heard, and it provides stunning contrast to the third and fourth movements. Karajan is often given credit (in his live performances) for shaping a beautiful dramatic arch through an entire piece, and while his reocrdings sometimes lose this it is far from the case in this recording of the 7th.
Time to put it on actually…

Day 36. Led Zeppelin.

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

‘The New Yardbirds’ was supposed to be a super group featuring Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck (from the Yardbirds), members of The Who and Steve Winwood. What Jimmy Page got was Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. Jimmy Page lucked out.

I imagine I could spend pages and pages on Led Zeppelin, and obviously MANY have written entire books. Yeah – they rock. Yeah – they had some great songs, but they also had their share of poor ones. How could the same group show off John Bonham with ‘Moby Dick’ and then record something like ‘Bonzo’s Montreux’ (which seems to say ‘his drumming is great, but listen to these electronic sounds and voices we can mix in too’)? As a band they certainly had their share of the good, the bad and the ugly (sorry classic rock stations, but ‘All Of My Love’ should never be broadcast ever again… really, the song sucks). But the good could be really really good. And the majority of their work IS good, so it is not too surprising that they are a legendary group. And as a group of musicians, all four of these guys should be in just about any serious rock lovers top 10 lists for their instruments. And while Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were the most visible members of the group, I would be hard pressed to think of a drummer that is/was better then John Bonham, and I think John Paul Jones may be one of the best rock musicians ever. He is an amazingly versatile and rock solid performer who was able to cover just about any instrument need the group had … he was a great bassist, but was also able to easily handle keyboards and mandolin. And he is still going! I remember being impressed with his album with Diamanda Galas back in the 90s, and now he is playing with Dave Grohl and Josh Homme!

I guess after reading the above, I can probably say that John Paul Jones was my favorite member of the band. I have ‘The Lemon Song’ playing right now… and I certainly remember learning the bass part to this song after I switched from guitar to bass. And while just about any rock guitarist will mention Jimmy Page as a guitarist they would want to play like, I imagine I am not the only bass player that heard this song (and ‘Dazed and Confused’ and ‘How Many More Times’ and ‘Achilles Last Stand’) and realized how cool being a bass player could be.

What is striking to me most of all about Led Zeppelin is how varied their work really is. Where The Beatles had a trajectory over their studio albums that evolved into more and more complex musical work, Led Zeppelin showed a great amount of stylistic variety on just about every album they put out (and they benefitted pretty much immediately from the studio techniques that The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd had already created). They aren’t just heavy metal’s grandfather… traditional blues, american country and folk, Celtic folk and Indian influences all show up within just the first couple albums. And if you played someone Led Zeppelin III (leaving off ‘Immigrant Song’), how many people would believe you if you said this is the group that basically gets the credit for creating hard rock? And while Led Zeppelin does get more experimental as they gain more experience, there is quite a bit to be said already with the bluesy and dreamy feel that shows up in Led Zeppelin I as it ends with ‘How Many More Times’ (probably my favorite Led Zeppelin song). Led Zeppelin II then starts off with ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and it’s hyper-stereo psychedelic middle section that pulls back together into one of the most amazing guitar and drum conversations on record. So of course the band rocked… but I also love how much of everything else they could be. And that being said – I think I’m going to throw on ‘Battle of Evermore’ and get to bed..

UPDATE: How many better side 1 track 1s are there then ‘Black Dog’??? man…

Day 35. Cowabunga!

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

The ‘Cowbunga Surf Box Set’ looks like a surfboard. There are even textured speckles on the front that mimic a surfboard’s texture. Rhino, in general, does a great job with box sets. This one was pretty much well done overall. And my guess is that it exists because of the ‘Pulp Fiction’ and Quentin Tarentino’s nod to surf and hot-rod music.

When most people think of ‘surf’ music they usually come up with ‘The Beach Boys’, and this of course would only be the early Beach Boys (and certainly not much beyond ‘Pet Sounds’). OR – Dick Dale (the king of the surf guitar!) comes to mind. For the most part I do like the early Beach Boys stuff, and it is represented in the box, but I LOVE the mostly instrumental and heavily reverbed music of ‘The Lively Ones’, ‘The Sentinals’ and ‘The Astronauts’. I’d take ‘Pipeline’ over ‘Surfin’ USA’ any day. Most of the set focusses on the 60s, but the last disc covers 20 years of surf as it changed through the 70s to the 90s. ‘The Mermen’ get a nice nod with a live rarity.

When I worked at Blue Note Music selling guitars, we had this great used and pieced together Fender Strat and a Music Man Twin Reverb knockoff that had a great California surf sound. It would have cost me probably $300 for the pair, but I was barely scraping by with tuition and rent. The both of them sat there for months and I would play them pretty much whenever I wanted, but I was so heart broken the day I came into work to see them missing. I never did find such an ideal surf guitar / amp combo again… something about the pickups in the guitar and the spring reverb just matched on those two pieces… oh well… Still, when I picture myself finally getting another band together, it is always a surf group playing dense, modal melodies over pounding drums.

Day 33. Pearl Jam, Pet Shop Boys and Singles.

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

I would call myself a mild Pet Shop Boys fan. I certainly wouldn’t collect every disc of theirs, but I am sure I’ve heard them all at one point or another. I have a pretty good disc of their greatest hits, and while I can go years without hearing them I do have to say that I think ‘West End Girls’ is one of the best songs of the 80s. Yes, it sounds a little dated, but I think it has actually stood up better then a lot of the music from the ‘early synth years’. I can’t listen to anything off ‘Like A Virgin’ without wincing at the crap synths on that thing. But the Pet Shop Boys had some good songwriting, and some nice attention to sonic detail. And I certainly don’t slap my head and think ‘ugh – bad 80s music’ when I hear most of there stuff.

At the same time, hearing Pearl Jam right after the Pet Shop Boys helps remind me of how refreshing it was to hear some grittier sound in the 90s after the pristine sound of the 80s. If you don’t believe me, dig up ‘Appetite For Destruction’ and throw on ‘Paradise City’. Then listen to ‘Spin the Black Circle’ from ‘Vitalogy.’ by Pearl Jam. Which one, based on quality of sound alone, rocks harder? And I say this knowing quite well that Guns ‘n Roses was THE mega-rockin-band of the 80s. But all I can say with the above comparison is ‘thank goodness for grunge’ (and yes – I have listened to ‘Nevermind’ recently and yes – I do realize how slick it sounds).

I started to work at the Tower in Roseville the year ‘Ten’ came out. Before it really hit though I remember putting it on in the store and we would maybe sell one or two copies. We had like 5 copies on the shelf, and those lasted us for a few good months (we’d sell one or two a week then replace them). When the album hit however, I remember ordering 30 for our small little store (30 was a lot for the Tower in Roseville!). We sold those in a few hours after they came in. I then tried to order 150 copies… and it was already back ordered. Didn’t matter though, when those 150 came they lasted us maybe three days.

I still remember the store artist Jude putting up the display sign for the ‘Singles’ soundtrack (and Jude looked like he came off the cover of the ‘Singles’ soundtrack). The disc came out a good 4 or 5 months BEFORE the movie, and we played (and sold) the hell out of it. While ‘Ten’ was a good album, I remember liking the changes Pearl Jam had made by the time the soundtrack for ‘Singles’ came out (‘Rearview Mirror’ is still one of my top 5 Pearl Jam songs, if not my favorite). But the music on the rest of that soundtrack was amazing as well (especially the Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Drown’, complete with four minutes of feedback and delay to end the song). Over the year or so after ‘Singles’ came out, I probably played that disc in my car 3-4 times a week. I also remember that during my senior year of high school, I was determined to move to Seattle. This was during the few months that Tamiko and I were broken up, and I figured getting into a school up in Seattle and getting a band going would be a great way to make a fresh start. Problem was, I spent more time being concerned with dying my hair then I did thinking about college applications. And a good thing too… since by the end of that school year my future wife and I were figuring things out and I was determined to move to the Bay Area with her. Seattle and my flannel grunge dreams would just have to wait.

One of my fondest record store memories though happened that year. I had moved to the Tower on Sunrise after the store in Roseville closed, and I remember staying open late for ‘Vs.’ the day it came out. At midnight we had a line of a couple hundred people there to buy the new disc, and we played it LOUD while people filed in. What a way to hear the new album – loudly in a large record store while you are selling it to hundreds of eager fans who all made it to Tower Records at midnight.

My friend Charles refers to ‘Ten’ as Pearl Jam’s stadium rock anthem album, and I can see that. But after ‘Vitalogy.’ came out Tamiko and I were lucky enough (through the non-Ticketmaster lottery system Pearl Jam was trying out) to get tickets to the show at Cal Expo in Sacramento. It was the first concert in some time that I wanted to go to and I wasn’t sure if I could get there (since I didn’t have the Ticketmaster machine at my disposal to grab some tix before the selling to everyone else). But we got a couple and the concert was amazing. The stage was filled with candles, and the warm early-summer Sacramento evening was a perfect back drop for the show. They played their asses off as well. The next day Eddie Vedder came down with food poisoning, and the day after that he only sang a few songs in Golden Gate Park before he couldn’t take it any more. Neil Young came out to finish the show (which I would have LOVED to have seen as well). But I remember that after that show, and the cancellation of most of the tour afterwards, I though that Tamiko and I had seen the last Pearl Jam show that would ever happen. The band talked about how the whole fight with Ticketmaster had drained them, and I thought for sure that they were done. I was quite glad to be proven wrong, and am amazed at the band’s longevity and creativity as their career reaches into its third decade (!). And as I work MY way through my third decade, I’m married to Tamiko with two great kids, living in Tacoma and working in Seattle. I may not be very grunge, but neither is Seattle really. And – I get to make music. It all worked out just fine.

Day 28. Al Green and Stax Records.

Monday, February 15th, 2010

So tonight sees some soul / R&B getting ripped. The Rev. Al Green’s two disc set ‘Take Me To The River’ is a nice compilation… but the fact that I am missing his actual albums in my collection is a bit of an embarrassment to me. In fact, though I have thousands of discs to rip in this whole project, I am already starting to gasp at some of the things that are missing from my library, and Al Green certainly needs to be represented by more then just a two disc set. In fact, there is a lot of great R&B and Soul that is just not here on CD. Some of it I have on LP, but some I have just never gotten around to buying.

The Stax 50th Anniversary two disc set represents another gaping hole… but this one is huge. For YEARS I have wanted the Stax Singles box sets that used to sit on racks at Tower whispering ‘buy me! buy me!’. There are a few labels that I am willing to explore just as labels, and Stax is one of them. Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas, Issac Hayes, The Staple Singers, Jean Knight… what an AMAZING amount of talent this label cultivated! Like Motown, the label had a house band (Booker T. and the MGs) that provided the base sound for most of the singers that would come through the studios. As the label moved into the 70s, theirs stars would often bring in other musicians to back them up, but the label defined a brand of Soul / R & B that was solid and edgy. And at times, just plain hilarious. The Bar-Kays singing ‘Soul Finger’ or Rufus Thomas’ singing ‘Do The Funky Chicken’ are not meant to be anything more but fun songs. While Isaac Hayes’ extended orchestrated LP sides are colossal works, where ‘Shaft’ carried with it a rather loaded social commentary as well.

I checked a few months ago, and eMusic luckily carries Stax recordings. It would be well worth a few months downloads to grab those singles box sets. Then the other part of me thinks ‘I must be able to find those used somewhere… no???’. For now I have this two disc set, and I can certainly keep my fingers snapping along with the music until I start trying to fill in those holes.

Day 25. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Friday, February 12th, 2010


I was 9 when ‘Born In The USA’ came out and I got the LP that year for Christmas. Two years later the live box set (’75 – ’85) came out and it was that year’s Christmas present as well. While ‘Born In The USA’ is a good album, when I got the box set all of the pre-‘Born In The USA’ stuff was finally introduced to me. My dad had ‘Born To Run’ but I don’t really remember hearing it growing up. But that morning after I broke open the shrink wrap, my dad grabbed the second disc and immediately put on ‘Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)’. I felt like this was a completely different Bruce Springsteen and I saw the E Street Band as more then just the backing group. Hearing how all of these guys played together (and how Springsteen introduced all of them in the middle of ‘Rosalita’) made the group seem more like a hard working team. Stories of 3-4 hours concerts and the energy on these live recordings seemed super-human to me, and I wanted to be able to do this. It was these records that made me REALLY want to be in a rock band.

I bought ‘Greetings From Asbury Park’ and ‘The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle’ on LP that next year, and I’m pretty sure I basically let my dad’s ‘Born To Run’ disappear into my collection. Except disappear wouldn’t be the right word since I played it pretty constantly. And these three albums have never really left my music rotation. In Nick Hornby’s book ‘Songbook’, he talks about how ‘Thunder Road’ is the song he has played more then any other song in his life. And it is a great song… easily one of my favorites. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it is in my top 50 songs as well. But I am almost positive that ‘Rosalita’ is in the top 10. If I’m doing work and need a kick to get going again, I put on ‘Rosalita’. If I have a little bit of time alone and want to play something loudly, ‘Rosalita’ is close to the top of the list. I’ve listened to this song for 25 years of my life, and I’m stunned how good I still think it is.

But as much as I love ‘Rosalita’, my favorite Springsteen song is on ‘Greetings From Asbury Park’. When I first moved Roseville from San Jose, for some reason I put on ‘Greetings From Asbury Park’ right after I got my stereo set up in my new bedroom. And while I was unpacking, ‘For You’ caught my ear and I stopped for a few minutes and listened. I remembered this moment when I first moved to Berkeley and started renting a room on Page Street. This time, I was living on my own for the first time and moving to the Bay Area (with little money and a low paying job) for many reasons. I wanted to be a musician, I wanted to go to UC Berkeley, and I didn’t want to move to Texas with my parents. But the main reason, the one that really makes the reasons above look like excuses to satisfy parents and others, was that I wanted to live and be with Tamiko. As I was unpacking, I remembered putting ‘For You’ on when I first moved to Roseville (where Tamiko and I would meet) and I immediately got my stereo hooked up, speakers plugged in, and put on ‘Greetings From Asbury Park’. I have done this as a bit of a ritual since then… every place I have moved the stereo is one of the first things set up, I dig out the LP, and I play ‘For You’. It makes wherever I am, whatever new strange apartment or house feel like home within a couple of minutes. And it reminds me that while I am a composer, musician, teacher and many other things, when it all comes down to it I am Tamiko’s husband and now the father to our kids. I can’t imagine being anything else to anyone else… I’m very lucky.

Day 22. Weezer, Hank Williams and The Who.

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

There was an article the other day on NPR.org about Taylor Swift and her lackluster performance at this year’s Grammys. It goes on to say that it is perfectly fine to criticize a performer (especially a singer) that can’t really sing in a live setting. The evidence of this (in Swift’s case) wasn’t just the Grammys, but a large number of videos on YouTube and other comments about concert performances. I agree with the judgement above, and would go even further to say that this should be the case not just in live performance but also in regard to recordings. Recordings have really reached the point of being more production then a ‘record’ of anything that actually occurred. I know the medium itself allows for this, and this can certainly be traced back to The Beatles and other bands of that time that started to realize the benefits of multi-tracking and over-dubbing. And it is to the credit of The Beatles that they recognized this. They knew the sound that they wanted to create was no longer performance, but a patient crafting of a sonic result similar to the ‘music concrete’ and electronic music that was happening in the European avant-garde at the time. So, they stopped touring. And personally, I tend to look at a ‘recording’ of a piece as a different object then I do a live performance. Both have aspects that are exciting… but do most of the pop music industry’s stars realize this? Do they not know where there talents end and auto-tune begins?

So when I saw the video of The Who at last weeks SuperBowl, I was quite struck at how much performing was going on for a half-time show. Lip-syncing is much more the norm in those situations, but you could see that what we were hearing (flubs and all, and there were only a couple) were coming from the guys on the stage. Granted – The Who have been performing for a very long time – they have more experience then Taylor Swift will probably ever have the chance of having… but here is a link to a clip from an earlier time:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3099526434105125496#

Aren’t these guys amazing? I mean… damn, they could sing, play AND put on an amazing stage presence.

Then there is the other side of the coin – there are some that may never have the best voice or even performance style. And I tend to put Hank Williams (along with Bob Dylan and Tom Waits) into this category. Yet their music is compelling all the same because of the depth in the words and music. While I would probably prefer to hear Peter, Paul and Mary sing ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’, hearing it straight from Dylan’s mouth is amazing in its roughness. Patsy Cline’s version of ‘Your Cheating Heart’ has the same relationship to Hank Williams’. She brings such a grace and elegance to the song… but when Hank Williams sings it, his voice brings a feeling that this is a guy who is a bit of a mess at the moment. The falsetto breaks are not graceful at all, but they have so much emotion in them!

So – maybe Taylor Swift needs to find those vocal quirks that are hers and try to turn them into a strength? Maybe the music industry itself needs to start looking into a clean mirror rather then a funhouse mirror filled with distortion? Or – perhaps the changes in the recording industry in general away from albums (as CDs start to phase out) will start to bring about a different change … perhaps live performance will once again come to the forefront as it was before ‘Sgt. Pepper’ came out? The last thought is wishful thinking on one hand, but also a little ironic since this whole project/blog is about my attempt to re-capture thousands of recordings… I certainly can’t have TOO much of a problem with recordings since I obviously have been in the habit of collecting as many as I can.

Day 19. Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

In honor of Bob Marley’s birthday I grabbed the two compilations I have – the ‘Greatest Hits at Studio One’ disc of early Wailers songs and the ‘Songs of Freedom’ boxset (one of the original issues, numbered 354,687). ‘Songs of Freedom’ was originally a limited edition release, a concept I have always found quite laughable. On the one hand, EVERYTHING is limited – there is only so much matter in the universe – on the other, if something is selling well enough there will always be another ‘special release’ (just see Disney’s endless re-releasing on its movies). Obviously it is a marketing ploy. The question is will this kind of marketing survive once the physical artifact of the purchase has disappeared?

My dad had ‘Legend’ while I was growing up. A great compilation, and it was my main exposure to Bob Marley until I started working at Tower. I was surprised to see how many albums Bob Marley had and how expansive his career was. I picked up the ‘Songs of Freedom’ box set the day it came out. What I love about the set is the way it presents such an amazing retrospective of his career and how his music (and the musical tradition he was working in) changed. I hadn’t heard his earlier ska recordings before, and enjoyed the different mixes and recordings of the songs that had appeared on ‘Legend’. But it is tracks 5-7 on disc 2 that is the jewel on these discs. ‘Guava Jelly’ into the “Guava Jelly/This Train/Cornerstone/Comma Comma/Dewdrop/Stir It Up/I’m Hurting Inside” acoustic medley into the full bad version of ‘I’m Hurting Inside’. Bookending the medley with the songs that begin and end it was a move of genius, and it felt to me more like a friend was making me a mix disc then compiling a 4 disc box set. The acoustic medley is a beautiful snapshot of Bob Marley in what seems to be a personal moment that a tape recorder just happened to catch.

The ‘Studio One’ disc is one I found used and picked up maybe 6 or 7 years ago. I really liked the earlier recordings on the box set, and was excited to find this disc sitting in a bin one day. There is a great cover of ‘And I Love Her’ by The Beatles, and the heavy R&B influence is apparent throughout the disc (especially in ‘I’m Still Waiting’), while at the same time the ska horns make their presence quite known. The biggest surprise on the disc to me though was his version of ‘Sinnerman’. Nina Simone’s version of this song is one of my favorites, and I was surprised to love the Bob Marley version almost just as much.

Like many musicians who create greatness then die young, it is often tempting to wonder what would have happened if they had lived longer. Would they be able to keep on the trajectory they were on? Would they sell out? No way to know of course, but when I hear the acoustic medley on the ‘Songs of Freedom’ box, I wonder if Bob Marley would have found a way to start escaping the large crowds that his concerts were drawing. I have seen pictures of him performing and he appeared as such a huge figure, but because of the acoustic medley the image I tend to get of him in my mind is him sitting alone with an acoustic guitar performing his songs in smaller settings.

Day 17. The Mermen.

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Tonight has four discs from the San Francisco trio The Mermen (‘Krill Slipping’, ‘Food For Other Fish’, ‘Glorious Lethal Euphoria’ and ‘Songs Of The Cows’). The Mermen are often cited as one of the prime examples of the surf music revival of the ’90s, but they are really more like a combination of surf, psychedelic and the noisier side of Sonic Youth. They can go from ambient and melodic to walls of sound crashing around you (just like being in the water at the beach!). And usually, that can be like that all in one song.

I was introduced to The Mermen by my friend Charles. Charles and I worked at the Tower in Berkeley together close to 15 years ago now. Since then, we still get mix discs to each other pretty much every year. I have probably been introduced to more music from Charles then just about anyone else (except my Dad). In fact, I can probably look at the iTunes library on my laptop right now and find close to a 1/3 of what is newer pop and rock on it is there because of Charles. I don’t bother listening to much radio anymore (though I am lucky to be within the 3-4 mile radius that picks up KUPS!), but every year when I get new discs from Charles I find new music to explore. Charles and I have often complimented each others tastes while at the same time really liking about the same music. He buys pop records like a fanatic, while I hunt for jazz and blues. But when we share it with each other, the is little disagreement about what is good.

What is unique about The Mermen (from the Charles filter perspective) is that they are completely instrumental and not your traditional pop group. What got Charles into them though was meeting the bassist Alan, then going to one of the shows they put on at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. What was especially impressive about the group was how good they sounded live and how much their albums sounded like their performances. One of the startling things about their CDs is the lack of overdubs. They create a very full sound from one guitar, one bass and a drummer (that sounds like he has ten arms sometimes). The bass playing is full and melodic, and the guitar work often resonates through a dense reverb to create a large washes of color. I have been a fan of 60s surf music for about as long as I can remember, and the Mermen certainly caught my interest because they weren’t simply a rehash of that style, but a real update and outgrowth of it.

And while the Coltrane discs I mentioned last night conjure up a very specific memory of a very specific moment, when I listen to the Mermen I am almost always reminded of the smell of fog as it rolled into Berkeley and me standing outside the record store drinking a hot cup of Wall Berlin coffee at 11pm.  And the more I think about it… both of these just make me realize that this is music that came to me when I was younger. I’m glad I was so open-minded to new music at 20… that’s how a 20 year old should be. And I know that all of this is really just nostalgia. I love my life now, but being 20 was fun. And I still have the soundtrack.

Suggested listening: The Mermen: Food For Other Fish if you can find it… if you can’t, let me know.

Day 10. Stuart Dempster, Os Mutantes and Mozart.

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Today’s discs are Stuart Dempster’s ‘Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel’, The Best of Os Mutantes and period instrument recordings of Mozart’s last four string quartets and late piano quartets.

I consider myself EXTREMELY lucky to know Stuart. He is quite possibly the most amazing musician I have ever had the chance to talk, listen to and learn from (though I don’t know how much Stuart knows this… so, just in case he is reading – Thanks Stuart!).

The ‘Cistern Chapel’ disc features Stuart and a number of musicians (including my friend Chad Kirby) that he taught and worked with in the Pacific Northwest recorded inside a huge underground water tank in Fort Warden, Washington. Every sound that is made in the cistern will echo for 35-45 seconds. The music on this disc includes trombones, didgeridoo, conch shells and voice. As every new sound is created, it is sustained as new material begins. The performers play the space in addition to their instruments. I find it strange now to say something like ‘the performers play the space in addition to their instruments’ since after hearing this disc, one of my big realizations as a musician is that a performer is ALWAYS playing the space in addition to their instruments. I remember how I would always have to make adjustments during performances once an audience was present or to adjust to a new space, but until I heard this disc is was something I did subconsciously, and certainly not something that I would have realized that I could play with. And it is still one of the biggest concerns (and joys) I have when performing electronic music.

I also have a string of pieces that were heavily influenced by the music on this disc. ‘Palimpsest’ for electric guitar was my first attempt to think of reverb and space as a compositional parameter and not just an effect. ‘Cadence’ for computer has the decay of sound (over 14 minutes) as it’s main concept. ‘Theta’ for viola is largely about making the performer resonate with themselves. And finally ‘Risonanza’ for computer, which was composed for the High Voltage Hall in Warsaw, Poland last year. The High Voltage Hall was a large, metallic cube that had a 30 second reverb time, and the piece was conceived for performance in that space and its unique qualities. ‘Space’ as a compositional concept, something to be shaped and controlled like melody or harmony, has become one of the most important aspects to my music. And it was Stuart’s disc that revealed the possibilities of musical space to me. This became one of my main topics of research for my doctoral exams, and it is still one of the most important areas of my work.

The music on ‘Cistern Chapel’ is often described as ambient, and I certainly understand this description. But what strikes me most about the disc is how much attention it draws from me when I listen to it. One might expect that once a sound plays and begins a 40 second decay, that there isn’t much more to hear beyond the space. But what you hear is how complex sound is and how timbre changes as energy dissipates. The result is a very dynamic and active music, constantly changing in ways that ‘more active’ music doesn’t. In most classical / pop music, there may be 1-5 notes of melody per second and harmony may change at a slightly slower pace. And it is these changes that usually draws our attention. But in the Cistern, there may only be one or two notes every 6-10 seconds, but the change is constant.

For those of you that haven’t heard of Os Mutantes, they are a psychedelic group from 1960s Brazil. They grab influence from ‘Sgt. Pepper’,’Electric Ladyland’,  ‘Pet Sounds’, Bossa Nova and Latin Jazz. If you haven’t heard (or seen) them, do a quick search on YouTube and enjoy a couple songs. And I highly recommend their compilation ‘Anything Is Possible’ on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label. ‘Fuga No. 11’ is my particular favorite.