perfidy

We're entering an era in rock history where "live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse" will soon be replaced with "live long, die slow, leave a beautiful album."

The last two years have seen several high-profile last albums from dying artists, and I suspect more will be on the way as artists from the golden age of Rock confront their mortality. Joey Ramone's final effort, 2002's "Don't Worry About Me" and Warren Zevon's August 2003 release "The Wind" were both recorded as the artists raced the clock against cancer, and Johnny Cash released three albums between being diagnosed with and dying of Parkinsons-related ailments.

There is something novel about music written by dying songwriters. Even if the material has little to do with death on the face of it, their condition, as long as the listener knows about it, inevitably colors the listening experience. It's part of a larger package of "performativity" issues that pointy-headed academics (like me, sometimes) talk about, and which boil down for our purposes to the relationship between a fan and the musician they venerate, and how that relationship works in the fan's mind.

Part of popular music's appeal has always been in the persona the performer creates. From the on-the-spot character plays and dying-children ballads of Vaudeville and music halls to Jimmie Rodgers as "The Singing Brakeman," Johnny Cash as "The Man in Black" to Curt Cobain as "Tortured Genius," how an artist presents themself is tightly bound up with the music itself. Without the personas, the music would still stand up, but the songs are richer for them.

Paradoxically, in light of the importance of image, rock has always thrived on asserting its "authenticity." Long before the first rapper kept it real, rock and roll musicians were downplaying artifice, theatricality, and forethought in favor of instinct, spontaneity, and honesty. Of course, to present yourself as honest can take a lot of planning, acting, and hard work (viz. Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan), but that's beside the point. The point is, popular music is often assumed to be (or presented as) an unedited communique' from the singer's heart to you. Indeed many artists enjoy the interplay between their "real" selves and the characters they create, and this interplay only works if the perception remains intact that the artist has a "real" side visible to the fan.

And what better way to get "real" then with death, the ultimate authenticity trip?

Some artists have made careers out of audiences predicting (or celebrating) their suffering and death (Keith Richards, GG Allin, Kurt Cobain, Iggy Pop, a whole slew of rap guys). Can you imagine a world in which Keith Richards had died shortly after recording "Sister Morphine"? Can you imagine the towering legend that he would be? Can you imagine a world where Kurt Cobain had entered rehab? Can you imagine his decline from relevance? The possibility of dying suffuses our (my?) experience of Keith's and Kurt's work to the point that it's shocking that Richards is alive, and not at all shocking that Cobain is dead.

The interplay of an artist's persona and the reality of death gives power to the music created under these conditions. What we're seeing today is a new twist. Whereas Janis, Jimi, and Jim Morrison all gained in stature after their deaths as their legends grew unhindered by the real person, that was accidental. And although a dead Elvis is a saint and a dead Sinatra is no longer a wife-beating cad, death in their cases too only uncoupled myth from reality. But now, artists from an autobiographical songwriting tradition are singing about the end of their own lives, taking the opportunity to fuse their "real" inner lives with the public personas they inhabit, and actively mold the outcome. So far, the first efforts along these lines are excellent works of art.

But isn't it a little weird that watching our heroes chronicle their own death holds such an appeal? I mean, George Jones sings about drinking killing him on literally every album, and every couple of years almost manages to pull it off. One of these times will be the last. Tupac Shakur sang about dying over and over, and his posthumous body of work exceeds that released during his life. Pete Townshend eventually backed off his "hope I die before I get old" schtick, because he was getting old and the sentiment was getting weird.

It seems to me that, like with most other things, rock fans use musicians as scapegoats for their own darker urges and deathwishes. It is exhilarating to see someone walk the line between junkie and corpse, and it is profoundly satisfying to honestly mourn the death of someone who has touched your life deeply yet doesn't share your last name. I wept for Johnny Cash when June died, and I wept again for the man himself, but at least it's not my wife, father, or mother in the grave. I mean, it's cool and all, but I just want to call it what it is.

That being said, it is right and good that the first Rock and Roll Death Autobiographies are from Warren Zevon, Joey Ramone, and Johnny Cash, three artists whose personalities seemed always to shine through the characters they created. Death settles all questions of authenticity.

Listening to Joey give the Ramones Treatment to Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" or sing "I want my life, it really sucks" in "I Get Knocked Down," you understand the pain Joey is in yet understand that he approaches death the way he approached life-- with equal measures humor, introspection, and cartoonish fervor. Ditto for Warren Zevon. The last track on "The Wind," "Keep Me In Your Heart For Awhile," is an elegiac, touching, and humble capstone on a career that encompassed everything from archly intellectual smartassery to lacerating fury. Here the weight of his young man's anger seems to be stripped away as Zevon accepts that he won't be here anymore very soon. (Ironically, Zevon's 'meditiations on death' album was 2001's "My Ride's Here," recorded before he was diagnosed with cancer, and I suspect the irony was not lost on him.) Finally, if there is any justice in the Christian tradition, I know that Johnny Cash is sitting on a lawn in heaven next to June, and they both have guitars.

This article also appears at blogcritics.org.

N.B. Revised extensively on the advice of commenters including my wife, who is more wise than I.

I am a man of many peeves, so many that I don't have pets. I'm more like a peeve farmer. And the "white person clap" is the first among them.

"What?," you ask? Well, I'll tell you! The white-person clap is when one claps one's hands on the first and third beats of a measure of music, no matter whether it's the 1812 Overture-- where it is almost appropriate-- or "Funky Drummer"-- where it's just not. The net effect, when such people inhabit an audience alongside more soulful people clapping on two and four, is that claps occur on all four beats of the measure as the two traditions collide. Ugly, ugly, ugly, and decidedly unfunky.

This time of year, PBS' programming is nothing but wall-to-wall music performances punctuated by reruns of The Vicar of Dibley. The same-ness of the performances is both stunning and discouraging. From the dude with the frizzy mullet and the white piano to former members of Elvis Presley's band with special guests, every single audience is the same: uniformly anglo, trending older, and uniformly unable to distinguish weak pulses from strong ones. 

Here's what happens every time: the big show finale comes... the house band kicks into some ridiculous arrangement of Proud Mary featuring The Canadian Brass... the band is tight, the backbeat is heavy on TWO and FOUR, and 1500 white people in boat shoes begin swaying back and forth and clapping on ONE and THREE like it's goddamned Lawrence Welk.

I swear to God, every time I see this shit it makes me crazy. We've had sixty years... sixty fricking years... of Rock and Roll... of TWO and FOUR - these people grew up on Little Richard, Elvis and Aretha... and they still can't find a backbeat. The JB's might as well be a polka band! The MG's might as well be Peter Paul and Mary! What the hell is so hard about feeling one TWO three FOUR?

It's not even like people are being asked to feel funky shit like "bom rest CHICKadika bom bombom CHICKadicka." Leave that to the pros. It's "boom CHUCK boom CHUCK boom CHUCK boom CHUCK." That's four on the floor, people, you grew up with it! There are no excuses! What the hell?

Jesus Christ! &*%! @?^!!!!

*panting*

The December Award for Inadvertant or Vertant Perfidy goes to... PBS, because I can. Stank you very much.

[wik] Duane, on my crosspost at Blogcritics, notes the following:

Traditionally (and there is a tradition here, oh yes!), the white person's clap consists of clapping on the 1 and 3 beats of a 4/4 meter, when the natural emphasis is on the 2 and 4 beats. You can see that in large audiences when a bunch of dorks are one beat out of sync with the music, so the net effect is that there are clapping sounds on all four beats -- the dorks (about 1/2 the crowd) and the rest (the eyerolling other 1/2) contributing equally. Quite maddening. Who are these people? Why are they mostly white? I used to blame Lawrence Welk and the polka, but now. I just don't know.

I don't know either, Duane. Maybe there's a vaccine? 

The New Yorker is running an article by Alex Ross that aims to pit "Wagner vs. Tolkein." It's a fairly interesting but airy piece about the influence of Wagner on Tolkien, and a discussion of the parallels between the "Ring" cycle and Howard Shore's score to LotR. Not bad. However, what sticks in my craw is Ross' lazy and mistaken deployment of music theory in his discussion. You could fill Graceland with all the shitty books written about the music theory of Wagner's operas, so I'm used to that. But dude! Lord of the Rings! Music Theory! I believe you're in my house... so excuse me while I load my bop gun.

Warning: read on only if you have a high tolerance for wonkery.

Ross writes,

Early in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first film in Peter Jackson's monumental Lord of the Rings trilogy, the wizard Gandalf finds himself alone in a room with the trinket that could end the world. It lies gleaming on the floor, and Gandalf regards it with an attitude of fascinated fear. The audience feels a chill that neither Jackson's vertiginous camera angles nor Ian McKellen's arching eyebrows can fully explain. The Ring of Power extends its grip through the medium of music, which is the work of the gifted film composer Howard Shore. In the preceding scenes, an overview of the habits of hobbits, Shore's music had an English-pastoral, dance-around-the-Maypole air, but when the ring begins to do its work a Wagnerian tinge creeps in - fittingly, since The Lord of the Rings dwells in the shadow of Wagner's even more monumental Ring of the Nibelung. J. R. R. Tolkien's fans have long maintained a certain conspiracy of silence concerning Wagner, but there is no point in denying his influence, not when characters deliver lines like "Ride to ruin and the world's ending!" Brünnhilde condensed to seven words.

Shore manages the admirable feat of summoning up a Wagnerian atmosphere without copying the original. He knows the science of harmonic dread. First, he lets loose an army of minor triads, or three-note chords in the minor mode. They immediately cast a shadow over the major-key music of the happy hobbits. (A digression for those who skipped grade-school music class or never had one: Why does the minor chord make the heart hang heavy? First, you have to understand why the major triad, its fair-haired companion, sounds "bright." It is based on the spectrum of notes that arise naturally from a vibrating string. If you pluck a C and then divide the string in half, in thirds, in fourths, and so on, you will hear one by one the clean notes that spell C major. Wagner's Ring begins with a demonstration: from one deep note, wave upon wave of majestic harmony flows. The C-minor triad, however, has a more obscure connection to natural sound. The middle note comes from much higher in the overtone series. It sets up grim vibrations in the mind.)

The minor triad would not in itself be enough to suggest something as richly sinister as the Ring of Power. Here Wagner comes in handy. He famously abandoned the neat structures of classical harmony for brooding, meandering strings of chords. In the Ring, special importance attaches to the pairing of two minor triads separated by four half-steps - say, E minor and C minor. Conventional musical grammar says that these chords should keep their distance, but they make an eerie couple, having one note (G) in common. Wagner uses them to represent, among other things, the Tarnhelm, the ring's companion device, which allows its user to assume any form. Tolkien's ring, likewise, makes its bearer disappear, and Shore leans on those same spooky chords to suggest the shape-shifting process.

In The Return of the King, which opens this week, Shore's music keeps pace with the burgeoning grandeur of the filmmaking. When the hobbits escape Mt. Doom, Renée Fleming sings, in Elvish. As the evil lord Sauron comes to grief, the dusky harmonies of the ring give way to their mirror image in the major key. There is an abrupt harmonic shift that has the effect of sun breaking through clouds. You would have thought that sometime between the birth of Stravinsky and the publication of Alexander's Ragtime Band such echt-Wagnerian material would have gone out of fashion, but there is life in the fat lady yet.

OK. First of all, although Ross' assertions are correct on a harmonic level, he is dead wrong about why Howard Shore's score to LoTR is a descendant of Wagner's operas.

On this point, Ross is right: the major third is lower down in the harmonic series of a vibrating string than is the minor third. Hence, it may be described as more "natural" sounding if you'd like. But to argue from that base that "natural" equals "happy" and "unnatural" leads to "grim vibrations in the mind" is so much handwaving. Music theory is as much a cultural construction as it is a matter of science. That's the problem that the Greeks ran into, as well as the problem that Bach papered over with his "Well-Tempered Clavier."

What that means is, although acoutistics and the properties of vibrating bodies are a matter of physics, how the ear interprets them is a matter of conditioning, context, and prior preparation more than anything else. Don't believe me? Then you tell ME how "Boot Scootin' Boogie" is as much a party song as Balinese gamelan music. What music-theoretical parallels can be drawn between the two to isolate the "happy sound"?

Within the boundaries I've just established, it's perfectly OK to say that major is a happy sound. In European society, it surely is. And it's even possible to theorize that it's so because major keys resolve so neatly.

Why is this? Because the half-steps in the major scale come between the 3rd and 4th degrees and the 7th and 8th (or 1st) degrees of the scale. In the key of C, that would be between E and F, and between B and C. Because of other aspects of theory which I won't bore you with, this means that these half-steps fall in harmonically crucial places.

In conventional music theory, a "V-7" chord, or "dominant 7th" in the key of C is spelled G-B-D-F (a G major chord plus an F on top). Theory dictactes that, in the key of C, a G chord likes to resolve back to a C chord (C-E-G). With the addition of the F on top, that tendency becomes far more pronounced.

Why? Two reasons. First, the minor third (D-F) placed on top of the nice-sounding G triad pollutes the harmony. A string vibrating G will generally contain prominent overtones of B and D. Any guitarist can tell you this. So this triad is part of what occurs naturally (and audibly) in any vibrating body. But adding the F on top sets up a series of conflicts that add dissonance to the mix. Dissonance, to Western ears, likes to resolve to consonance.

Second, the chord G-B-D-F contains a "tritone," or two notes separated by four whole steps. In music theory, the tritone is a black sheep, neither consonant nor particularly dissonant, and it is the only interval that does not naturally occur in the interaction of the root of a given major scale with the other elements of that scale. (That is, all the possible intervals between two notes, except the tritone, occur in the following two-note combinations: C-D C-E C-F C-G C-A C-B.)

Look at those notes F and B. Earlier I mentioned that the pairs E-F and B-C were special. Guess where this tritone of F and B contained in the G-B-D-F chord likes to resolve to? That's right-- E and C. E and C are two notes in a C chord (C-E-G). Thus, adding F to the triad G-B-D sets up a harmonic situation that tends very strongly to resolve to C-E-G, a nice, square, clean C major chord.

Since our ears are trained from birth with fundamentally simple songs that rely on this very harmonic device, such a tension-release series is very satisfying to us. Hence major keys produce harmonically balanced sounds that could be considered 'happy.' I'm not claiming that these theoretical reasons are the only reasons why major keys sound so happy, but it's a major part.

Minor keys, on the other hand, are a different story. The minor second intervals fall between the 2nd and 3rd degrees of the scale, and the 5th and 6th. In C minor, that would be between D and E-flat and G and A-flat. That means that the tritone in the scale exists not between F and B, which tends to resolve strongly to the home chord of the key, but between D and A-flat. The tendency is thus for the key to resolve to E-flat major (why? just bear with me). Therefore, minor keys are constantly fighting their own tendency to go elsewhere, and only frank harmonic trickery and exception-making causes minor-chord pieces to work out harmonically.

Since our ears, as I've asserted, are trained to hear the square, mathematically neat resolutions of major keys as deeply satisfying, minor keys sound by comparison unsettled and dissonant. The same goes to a certain degree with modal harmonies which are beyond the boundaries of this particular bit of wonkery.

So. All this crap is to say that Alex Ross is engaging in a lot of post-Romantic handwaving when he talks about "dark vibrations in the mind" (he is a Wagner fan, after all!) Tibetan throat singing sets up dark vibrations in my wife's mind, and that's neither major nor minor. The real feat is that, using the simplest of musical tools available in the Western tradition,Howard Shore's score advances the state of the art of "Mickey Mousing" (that is, keying musical cues to onscreen action) for almost the first time since John Williams did "Jaws" and "Star Wars: A New Hope," and comes close to the heft, grandeur, and complexity of Wagner's most demanding moments. Theme is heaped upon theme, harmonic relations are handled with a loose and masterful hand, and the tension-release cycle is closely keyed to the action we are seeing on the screen. In this regard more than anything else, Howard Shore has come very close to the spirit of Wagner's writing, as a thousand shitty books will tell you at great length. Regardless of whether Tolkien disavowed his Wagnerian inspiration or not, Howard Shore has brought the spirit of Wagner's operatic scoring to the big screen in high style.

Heh. Mark Saleski, a fellow blogcritic notes that a US Court of Appeals has sided with Verizon, finding that the RIAA's subpoena campaign is not authorized under current copyright law. Yeah! Take that you dinosaurs! Your business model is tired and outmoded! Your strategies are ossified! And you suck!

Speaking of copyright, I'm right now listening to one of the greatest things in the history of rock music: An "illegal" mix of Eminem's vocals from "Without Me" over top of Led Zeppelin's "The Wanton Song." It matches perfectly. Isn't technology grand???

Eric Boehlert, Salon.com's resident music critic, has a long history of alternating wildly between prescient music-industry watchdoggery and tepid stabs at political writing. All that means is he's well above par for music critics, most of whom suck worse than Aerosmith's "A Night In The Ruts" and Korn bassist Fieldy's solo effort "Fieldy's Dreams" combined.

I can't argue with his latest column at all, which asserts that Dec. 20, 1969 was the greatest week in the history of rock. In terms of what the Billboard charts say, he's dead right. Check this out:

No. 1, "Abbey Road," the Beatles
No. 2, "Led Zeppelin II," Led Zeppelin
No. 3, "Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas," Tom Jones
No. 4, "Green River," Creedence Clearwater Revival
No. 5, "Let It Bleed," the Rolling Stones
No. 6, "Santana," Santana
No. 7, "Puzzle People," the Temptations
No. 8, "Blood Sweat & Tears," Blood Sweat & Tears
No. 9, "Crosby, Stills & Nash," Crosby, Stills & Nash
No. 10, "Easy Rider" soundtrack (featuring the Byrds, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Steppenwolf)

I dare you to find another week, ever, in which every single album in the top ten is still listenable, relevant, and awesome. No matter what you may think of CS&N or Tom Jones, they are a lot better than other chart toppers like Andy Gibb, Rick Astley, or Milli Vanilli. Go check it out... it's enough to make you pull out a zippo and hold it overhead.

Personally speaking, this chart has my favorite Beatles record, my favorite Stones record on it (which is not the same thing as their greatest), Led Zep's leanest and meanest LP, two of the best soul-funk records of all time, and "It's Not Unusual." Damn! Boehlert is especially powerful writing about the content of the records in the chart, their relevance to the violence of the time, and the symbolic passing of the torch between the 60's and 70's.

If the best music writing (like the best rock lyrics) is nothing more (or less!) than the creative deployment of impressions and evocative imagery to make your point, Boehlert has earned a great deal of goodwill with me to get him through his next quixotic attempts to prove that Bush lied ergo people died.

A cabal of three critics (Sasha Frere-Jones, Keith Harris and Rob Sheffield) are doing an end-of-the-year music roundup on Slate (a wholly owned subsidiary of Globocorp). The general concensus is that this year was a bery, bery good year for American pop music in general, and indie rock, hip hop and microhouse in general. Since I no longer live in New York, and no longer go up in da club ever since I realized that "da club" is in general a shitty experience, I have no idea what microhouse is. Very short house songs? House music where the hook is deconstructed and turned inside out? I already know about Moodymann, and I've always felt that house tracks go on too long. But that bit of Manhattanite insularity aside, go read: 's fun!

I haven't bought an album of new music this year since I picked up Erin McKeown's disappointing third album this past Spring, at least that I can remember. But I do listen to the radio a lot and watch MTV and VH-1 in the morning, when they play actual videos. So. Was it a good year for music? In general, sure it was. One of my personal favorite trends in hip-hop continued with artists boosting totally unlikely styles and making them work like a twenty-dollar lapdance. Li'l Joe's "Get Low" used schoolyard handclaps, Missy Elliott's "Pass The Dutch" used jumprope rhymes and Kelis' "Milkshake" used street percussion (you know, those dudes who play 5-gallon buckets and trashcan lids for money outside the subway). Coming on the heels of Truth Hurts' "Addictive" late last year, which featured a ridiculously great Indian taxi-driver music loop, I thank God every day we live in a global culture. It really is the shit.

Indie rock does seem to be on a bit of a run. The White Stripes have become more than critical darlings and are actually played on the radio some. Jet ripped off of the Strokes ripping off Sweet ripping off the Dolls with their excellent "Are You Gonna Be My Girl." The Strokes released a second album, I hear. I bet it's pretty good. But do a handful of great singles indicate a breakthrough for indie rock to mirror the "alternative" breakthrough of the early 90s? No. But it sure sounds good on the radio.

Disappointingly, Liz Phair and Jewel both released boring albums. We expected this from Jewel, who has all the talent of a roll of paper towels. But Liz... come on, Liz. "Volcano!" Remember "Volcano?" This glammy pop shit we can get from Madonna. Just about the only critic that disagrees with me on this is Sasha Frere-Jones writing at Slate. Her take:

We understand that Liz Phair is flipping the mainstream syntax something fierce, but others think she "committed an embarrassing form of career suicide" with her brilliant new album. Her new album has sold 245,284 copies in six months, according to Nielsen SoundScan, while her previous album whitechocolatespaceegg has had five years to sell 274,542. This is why we love record companies! Because, for all the wrong reasons, they can get it right sometimes.

Well, Sasha, I disagree with both your opinion and your reasoning. Her new album isn't brilliant to my ears, merely tired and calculated. And to compare her new record, which got both pop radio and MTV exposure, with whitechocolatespaceegg which got neither and was widely recieved as a fan-only record to boot, is fatuous. I'm thrilled that "wcse" sold a quarter million, and a little surprised. I'm only sad that Liz Phair's moment of greatest exposure came when she apparently has run out of interesting things to say.

My favorite album of the year: Speakerboxx/The Love Below by Outkast. It's like Prince driving the Mothership with Eric B. and Rakim riding shotgun. It really is that weird and it really is that good.

I don't have a least favorite album of the year. I don't buy albums I don't like.

Special Roving Correspondent GeekLethal, the lethalest geek that ever walked the mean streets, has reminded me of this piece that I wrote about a year ago before my webloggin' days. From the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe, I tender this loving tribute to the faded genius of funk master and crackhead George Clinton (paint the white house black!) for your personal enjoyment. "33."

In response to his question, "John-0, If you had a gun to your head and had to choose only one Parliament record to have forever, with the rest facing certain and permanent destruction, which would it be and why?" I answered the following:
Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome.

Why?

Of all of Parliament's albums, from the early weird shit like "Osmium" or "Up For the Down Stroke," to the later shit like "Trombopulation," "Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome" achieves the best balance of forces. Like Funkadelic, Parliament's evil twin, Parliament's career has three phases: half-baked, baked, and too baked to get up to pee.

Parliament's early music has its' undeniable high points-- "Testify," "All Your Goodies are Gone" and " Up For the Downstroke" all qualify. But overall, the early records suffer the same fate as early Funkadelic-- half-assed production, too many drugs in the studio, and more ideas than
George Clinton knows how to stuff into 40 minutes of music.

Conversely, the later albums suffer from the opposite problems-- overpolished production, WAY too many drugs, and a dearth of original ideas combined with a creeping desire to appeal to the
disco set. Under no circumstances should you ever buy "Trombopulation" or its Funkadelic
equivalent, "The Electric Spanking of War Babies" unless you are a longtime fan of the hardcore jollies.

But for a golden period in the middle of their career, Parliament made lowbrow high-concept albums in outer space, underwater, in nursery rhymes, entombed in the Pyramids, and made it all work. The best of these is "Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome." As I'm sure you're aware, the album chronicles the battles of Starchild against Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk, and
Sir Nose's attempt to stop the power of the bop gun from funkatizing the masses with the torpid vibes of the Placebo Syndrome (don't fake the funk, or your nose will grow). Starchild is of course victorious, and Sir Nose finally gets up, gets shot with the bop gun, and shakes his motorbooty under the influence of the Flashlight.

Everything on the album works-- the "straight" funk jams like "Bop Gun" and the title track, the bizarre slow love jams like "Wizard of Finance," (my personal favorite love song P-Funk ever did) the weird political songs like "Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk [Pay Attention-B3M]", and the all out motherfuckers "Flash Light," which track proves once and for all that (Julliard-trained!) Bernie Worrell and (an uncredited!) Bootsy Collins are the now and future presidents of the world. Please note that most of the bass on this recording is handled by Cordell "Boogie" Mosson, a wonderful bassist eclipsed by Bootsy's star power, but Bootsy is believed to have played both
bass and guitar on "Flash Light."

Furthermore, writing this here has made me want to hear it, really really bad.

Frank Zappa died ten years ago today. Thanks to Mark Saleski at blogcritics for the reminder.

Or is the original version of "The Long And Winding Road" incredibly touching, strings and all? Made me tear up this morning.

By the way: good news-- I almost certainly do not have cancer.

Keith Richards is pretty annoyed that Mick Jagger has accepted a knighthood from the Queen.

His objections, stripped of mumbling and pretense, are this: " it's a paltry honor ... It's not what the Stones is about, is it?" I'm with Keith on this one, except for one thing-- Mick was destined for knighthood, just as Keith was destined for contempt of Mick for accepting it.

This rift exposes what has always been a source of greateness for the Stones-- the tension between Mick's calculated posing and Keith's elemental directness, between Mick's London School of Economics schoolboyish naughtiness and Keith's taciturn, stoned badness. Few other bands have two such singular and powerful personalities to draw upon, and Keith's exasperation with Mick's knighting might have something to do the fact that the Stones' last vital music was made twenty-five years ago, and their last great music almost twenty. When they were at their creative peak, these differences were assets, but now that their powers have diminished while their stature has not, they're just... differences.

I'm amused that CNN has bought into the tired myth of Mick's "near spotless rebel credentials," as if those credentials aren't 50% marketing and 50% opportunity.

[wik] Also posted to blogcritics.org

The body of swine and infantile shitmongers sometimes called the US Senate are considering a bill, introduced by Orrin Hatch, that would give the RIAA and MPAA-- get this--

Exemption from Anti-Trust Laws. Why? Because "market realities" are making it hard for them to stay in business!

O, how this poor heart bleeds.

In my world, when a business or business cartel sucks at what they do, they sink back into the common maelstrom that is the market and a new way of doing things takes hold. In the Bizarro World we live in (proof? Arnold friggin' Schwarzenegger is governer of Cahl-ee-for-ni-uh), cartels that suck at what they do get permission from the government to suck harder and cut the legs out from underneath anyone with the temerity to suck less.

A while back, Buckethead levelled a challenge to me to submit a white paper on the state of the recording industry and what is to be done about the current problems of economics, intellectual property, and art(lessness) that face it. Well, I think a good start would be to get rid of all the bastards in charge by any. Means. Necessary. After that, I don't really give a crap.

Buckethead, I know for a fact that land is very cheap in Newfoundland. Wanna go in on a compound? It's remote enough that Canada doesn't carry much weight up there, and we can cook chili, play music and distill corn liquor to our hearts' content.

Just a quick note: the concert I went to on Friday, "Fula Flute" was pretty killer. I'm a sucker for West African music anyway, and this was a top-notch group.

More on this later, but I had to plug them briefly now.

Persuant to our conversation of earlier this week, may I direct your eyeballs to this article in Wired on the state of commercial radio today. There's lots more to say on this subject, but this piece hits the really important radio-industry points.

(excerpted below the link that says....)

SAN DIEGO -- If you want to hear Aretha Franklin or Lauryn Hill or Metallica on the radio in San Diego, you have no choice but to tune to a Clear Channel station. The same goes for sports talk, local news and Rush Limbaugh.

In the radio world, this pattern is about as unusual as a "first-time caller, longtime-listener."

From Honolulu (seven stations) to Des Moines, Iowa (six), and Ft. Myers, Florida (eight), Clear Channel Communications dominates the dial across the country.

But nowhere is its domination more prevalent than in San Diego. The world's largest radio company controls 14 stations there -- a half-dozen more than anywhere else in the United States -- and it still has room to grow by looking to the south.

Over the past three years, Clear Channel programmers sacked San Diego disc jockeys and replaced them with voices from out of town, hoodwinked listeners by airing national contests as if they were local, and rolled out cookie-cutter radio formats designed elsewhere. Meanwhile, the company sweet-talked Mexican station owners across the border and tore through legal loopholes in order to build its mini-empire.

. . . .

Since the company entered the San Diego market three years ago, a few successful stations retained their management and most of their staffs. But others have lost their local flavor and their local disc jockeys. Some of the stations are little more than clones of sister operations elsewhere.

For instance, a new Clear Channel country station called "Bob 99.3" -- "Turn your knob to Bob" -- ripped off the name and motto of a defunct Minneapolis station. Dimick said it appears to be a twin of a country station in Phoenix.

And when a San Diego rock station called "Mix" debuted in 1999, it was one of more than a dozen Clear Channel stations nationwide with identical nicknames, identical logos and similar playlists. While the San Diego station folded, the number of "Mix" stations nationwide has grown to 25.

Meanwhile, local contests have largely vanished from the San Diego airwaves.

In 1999, Clear Channel began running national contests without making it clear that local callers competed against listeners from dozens of other stations. The public didn't blink, and the media barely noticed. (After it was fined in Florida, the company now runs explicit disclaimers about the contests.)

. . . .

Even some competitors admit that Clear Channel isn't always the Radio Company of Doom. By consolidating stations into one group, Clear Channel contributes to making San Diego a more stable radio market, said Bob Hughes, co-owner of KPRI-FM, the only locally owned commercial station left in the region.

"You've gone from 20-25 owners with wildly different needs and pressures to just a handful," Hughes said. "In a lot of ways, it has made radio a better business."

Indeed, Clear Channel's growth may actually help adventurous stations like KPRI, which broadcasts an eclectic mix of classic and alternative rock, blues and reggae. By contrast, Clear Channel deploys its San Diego stations to reach specific demographics -- men 18-34, for example, or women 25-54 -- and never blends different genres of music.

But listeners don’t necessarily want distinctive radio. KPRI placed 21st in the latest San Diego ratings, lagging behind 12 stations run by -- you guessed it -- Clear Channel.

This is an ongoing irritation, like that weird rash you can't seem to shake.

Radio, to put it simply, sucks. Tiresome jocks with the same banal schtick (crank calls; ass jokes; "I got so trashed last night"- dialogue; porn). The same IDs that all say "We rock!" or "We kick your ass!" (like that's a good thing?!) and "The only station that rocks your world!!", each time invariably followed by "Ramble On" or some other light rock that hasn't been played for at least 2 hours.

So-called "classic" rock stations are especially onerous- why can "classic" mean Hootie but not old Iron Maiden? Counting Crows and not MC5? Why do they only have about 50 records they can play, most of them seemingly including at least one Beatle? Why can they only play about 2 approved songs off each of those records?

At least....at the VERY least.... "modern" rock stations get new stuff to spin. Most of it is entirely average, but at least it's new. If you didn't know better though you would easily mistake the "classic" format for the "modern" one- a terrific irony given the amount of Zeppelin and Sabbath the latter stations play. Why can't Led Zeppelin go the f--k away forever?

Weekends are the worst, when all stations pull out the most tiresome, overplayed tracks they
can muster. In the middle of the night on Saturdays you might- might- hear something both new AND good, but you can't plan for it.

So why don't I just shut the stupid thing off? Why the temper tantrum over lame radio? Because I just don't GET it, and would really appreciate someone explaining it to me. This technology, coupled with the proper power, can reach so many people simultaneously: in their homes, at work, driving to one or the other, in the store, through those CIA-implanted fillings; and over a huge area. Why not make a GOOD station? Is there any business reason to allow a station to suck?

Relating to my post earlier this week about how music just doesn't do it for me as much as it used to, here's an update.

1) Tonight Goodwife O and I are going to see the "Flula Flute Ensemble" at the Somerville Theatre outside Boston. Although I have never heard Fulani music before, tell me if this don't sound awesome:

Capturing the mystery and poetry of West Africa's nomadic Fulani people, the Fula flute, or tambin, in one of West Africa's most haunting, though less familiar, instruments, whose melodies are known to call travelers back to their families and move listeners to tears. The wooden Fula flute is played unusually by making sounds with the vocal cords at the same time. These voice/flute effects create subtle yet powerful multi-phonics (more than one note sounded simultaneously) with startlingly gorgeous results. While the music is deeply rooted in the manding melodies and rhythms of Guinea and Senegal, the effect of the flute with balafon (xylophone), kora (harp-lute) and double bass has an exhilarating modern effect.

I'm really excited. I love Malian and Senegalese music already, being a huge fan of Ali Farka Toure, Baaba Maal and others, and it's been a couple years since I saw any West African music live. I'm so excited.

2) The Word. This record came out in 2001 to little note, and it's an incredible shame. "The Word" are a one-off supergroup composed of groove-organ god John Medeski, Cody and Luther Dickinson (members of the North Mississippi All Stars and sons of legendary producer Jim Dickinson), gospel-slide-guitarist Robert Randolph (who set my hair on fire when I saw him play live), and others. Combining the Dickinson Brothers' swampy skronk with Medeski's chunky organ and Randolph's exuberant, Hendrixian slide guitar was a genius move, and the result is magic. It's making my day. Almost forgot I owned it. Imagine.

The song selection features modern arrangements of gospel classics like "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning," off-the-wall folk songs like the Kossoy Sisters' "I'll Fly Away" (a version of which you already know from "O Brother Where Art Thou," but I bet you don't have it in a seven-minute New-Orleans gospel-brunch jam, do you?), and new compositions by members of the group. Everything works, and everything kicks.

I cannot say this strongly enough: go buy it now, if you have the slightest interest in American roots music, gospel, funk, or jazz. Hell, go buy it if you have a pulse.

In a disturbing development for Johno, CDs may soon be relegated to the ash heap of history. Ananova is reporting that those pesky scientists have discovered a way to make permanent data storage devices from plastic antistatic film. The new technology layers the polymer PEDOT with thin film silicon circuitry to create a new storage medium that could store in excess of a gigabyte of data in less than a cubic centimeter. This is passing dense, information wise. In addition, the new storage technology has the advantage of having no moving parts, requiring no batteries, and being fairly durable compared to traditional CDs.

So, in less than five years if the researchers are correct in their estimates, Johno will have to figure out what to do with thirty linear feet of beer coasters.

It's Wednesday! Time for music blogging!

My blogcritics colleague Rodney Welch has found this screedly little list of 100 albums that everyone must purge from their collections immediately. I can't say as that I agree with many of the choices, but it's a well-argued and provocative piece nonetheless.

I mean, I can see why The Replacement's "Tim" is on the list, when "Let it Be" is much better, and why Tom Waits' "The Mule Variations" is called a remake of the far better "Swordfishtrombones" and "Rain Dogs," but... "Giant Steps"? "Blood Sugar Sex Magic"? "Combat Rock"? "The Soft Bulletin"? "Bitches Brew"? "Daydream fucking Nation?" "Nothing's Shocking"?

Please.

Shoots straight past "the emperor has no clothes" to reveal a buncha half-Neanderthal Philistines pissed off that they don't get it. Cry me a river and go buy the new Cave-In record, ok?

Q: Know the best way to tell you are no longer a cutting-edge musical renegade and threat to society (tm)?

A: Your lyrics are the subject of a long, appreciative article in the New York Review of Books.

Marshall Mathers may now be mentioned in the same breath as the Rolling Stones, Beatles, and Sonic Youth. *shudder*

One, two and three.

I have been conflicted on this whole issue - on the one hand, file trading is certainly illegal, and likely wrong as well; but on the other hand, the RIAA is a nefarious organization whose ham-handed strongarm tactics have won it no sympathy from me or the general public.

I believe that in the not too distant future, this debate will be rendered moot by the advancement of technology. Someone will come along with a new distribution method and a sound legal and business strategy. Some of the old recording industry giants will adapt, others will not and will fade away. Consumers will be able to buy music by the song or in bulk, on physical media or over the interweb for much less money; and their selection will be vastly greater. The only real question is whether the artists will get a better deal from the new regime.

Via Rodney Welch I find the greatest thing I've seen this week, and possibly this year:

Ken Brashear's virtual drumkit.

Enjoy, kids!