Reader Paul Pickard recommended this one. Big thank you, Paul!
And there's a first time for everything—I (me!) actually bought an album of Christmas music, which goes to show you that even the reprobate can be redeemed.
It's Nick Lowe's Quality Street. I'm mystified by the title, which seems calculated to help the album not make money. But it's delightful to catch up with Nick Lowe again after many years—I remember hunting down the European vinyl version of Jesus of Cool many years ago. The years have been good to Nick's voice and musicianly skills; Quality Street is a gem.
Here's Nick talking briefly about "Rise Up Shepherd":
It's kind of comical that I possess two Christmas albums, and one is by Low and the other by Lowe.
And both happen to contain "Silent Night," which is the "Yesterday" of Christmas songs (Nick says there have been more than 3,000 covers). "Silent Night" is best when it's played straight, as it's a beautiful song and deserves to be played as such, but I just love Nick Lowe's uptempo rockabilly version. Nick himself calls the arrangement "irresistable" and I agree. Here's the link if you want to hear that one.
Consider buying the CD, as Nick's a working musician.
Mike (Thanks to Paul Pickard)
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
Mike A: "Another selection enjoyed at Christmas called Quality Street. I think just about everyone in the UK would get it!"
Mike replies: Ah, so it's a UK thing. I get it. Thanks.
Bob Zimmerman: "Nick Lowe is a working musician and a damn good, if lazy one, at that. His solo career, particularly throughout the '80s, was wonderful in that his records always sounded like they were done in one take and then released, warts and all.
"My favorite story (and I think it's more story than fact) is Nick going to the mailbox one day in 1994 to discover a royalty check for a million bucks. Curtis Stigers recorded a dreadful cover of 'What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding' for The Bodyguard soundtrack. Since Nick The Knife was the composer he scored on the songwriting royalties. The album has gone on to sell 45 million copies worldwide. I'm guessing he's gotten several more of those million dollar checks. Sometimes the good guys do win!"
Mike Chisholm: "On Low/Lowe, I presume you know Nick Lowe brought out an EP in 1977 titled 'Bowi,' as a response to Bowie's album 'Low.' Heh.... Don't think they'd let you do that, these days."
Steve P.: "Among other gems Nick Lowe wrote the classic song 'The Beast In Me' for his then-father-in-law Johnny Cash. For this alone he deserves his place in the rock and roll hall of fame."
I'm not quite keeping up with my program of 12 Christmas songs over the 12 days of Christmas (this is the eighth day of Christmas). And this one could keep you busy for a while, depending on how far you go with it.
It is Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, performed by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. It's nice to have the lyrics translated on the video.
Bach had a little bit the same problem bloggers do...his composing was episodic and occasional, tied to specific church services and sermons. Scholars generally agree that he intended the parts of the Christmas Oratorio to go together as a coherent larger single work, but they're not quite agreed at to how he went about it. He pulled it off, though. It's one of Bach's most genial and appealing choral pieces.
The Christmas Oratorio is not the most famous classical Christmas composition. That (dubious) honor probably has to go to Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, which I did not like even when I was ten years old. (Mine isn't the majority opinion. Wikipedia informs us that "major American ballet companies generate around 40 percent of their annual ticket revenues from performances of The Nutcracker." Yikes.) I also have to admit I've never cared for Handel's Messiah either. I just don't like that piece of music*. It's popular despite being overtly religious; it's a curious fact that all of the top 15 Christmas songs overplayed on the radio at Christmastime are secular songs. None are religious.
But you can't go wrong with Bach. Each time I start this string of videos I can't turn it off again. I've listened to the whole piece about three times now.
Mike (Thanks to Speed)
P.S. Set aside fear, banish lamentation.
*For me I'm sure it's partly due to that huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh vocal flourish that Handel uses ad nauseam; what's it called? I know it was standard fare in the Baroque but I think it's ugly.
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Mike Chisholm: "Re Handel, I think the word you want may be 'melisma.' It's the same idea as that mannered, arpeggiated style that Whitney Houston et al. pour all over songs like syrup, as a substitute for 'expression'... Stevie Wonder does it best. Happy New Year!"
Tim Auger: "Whenever I feel that the world has gone insane, I find a solid slice of Bach very reassuring. It's so sensible, like very good fruitcake. One never tires of it, I think because there is a lot for the brain to follow, with all that counterpoint. As I was listening to some of this earlier today, it seemed remarkable to be able to connect so directly with the mind of Bach some three hundred years ago.
"Maria Carey Syndrome, a form of melisma (see earlier comments), is an easily spread condition that must be rigorously controlled, and ideally eliminated."
Sorry for the radio silence—the buyers of my old house moved up the closing from the 15th to the 7th and now they want to close on Friday (i.e., in two days). I'm not complaining—God bless 'em—but with the New Year's holidays intervening, we're all scrambling. My pool table is still in the basement there and I have a trailer full of stuff in the driveway and a hundred and one things to do—I need the property tax receipt, my realtor has to collect lien waivers, all sorts of details I thought I'd have another week to plug away at. It's not so much that this move has been difficult, as that I'm just really bad at this sort of thing.
In a lot of ways, 2014 was one of the best years of my life. I'll be sorry to see it go, and I'll be hoping for a lot of carryover into 2015. I didn't have one of these—
Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson's "Blue Christmas" is mainly associated with Elvis Presley, who recorded it in 1957, but it had already been a hit for several musicians by that time and it would go on to be recorded by everyone from Shakin' Stevens to Polkadot Cadaver. Including a version by the Beach Boys in 1964 that's so schlocky it'll make your fillings tingle.
On the other hand, it's a perfect match for the antiquarian stylings of Mister Colonel Redbone, whose '20s jug band sensibilities and mouth-full-of-cotton-balls singing is perfectly matched to the lugubrious sentiment of the song...which benefits from the straight deadpan delivery and stripped-down accompaniment. Joined in this video by some beautiful playing by the swing stalwart Ken Peplowski (virtually all of whose many records are enjoyable—I love his Benny Goodman interpretations for instance) and some guy doing a pitch-perfect comedic impression of a TV host. I love it in the beginning when the camera pulls back from the host to reveal old Leon in his shades and top hat. Makes me laugh even when I know it's coming.
Have a good New Year's Eve and be careful out there if you're driving tonight. And don't be blue. Raise a glass of seltzer water to me and my beloved S. if you think about it. Here's to you and here's to 2015.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
Mike replies: Oh, so he's a real music guy then. My bad. All is forgiven.
Bob Keefer: "Another Ken Peplowski fan! He's not only a great musician, but a lovely guy. I've gotten to know him a bit over the years as he's frequently played in Oregon."
We're counting down the Songs of Christmas this week and next. For the Fifth Day of Christmas, we turn to Americana, a subgenre of country music.
Now, country is not my favorite kind of music, and I don't know much about it, but "Merry Christmas from the Family" is one awesome Christmas song—Texas songwriter Robert Earl Keen starts out with "Mom got drunk and Dad got drunk" as the clearly blissed-out audience chants along, and eventually he ends the video by ceremonially spittin' a little terbacky. In the meantime we get a cheerfully dysfunctional Murricun white-trash family Christmas and some foot-tapping holiday greatness. I don't know about you, but marketers are missing a trick, because I find this irresitable—makes me want to head straight to the Quickpak store and buy, brother, buy:
We need some ice and an extension cord A can of bean dip and some Diet Rites A box of tampons, some Marlboro Lights....
As a bonus, a great live recording. Enjoy.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
"Ellens dritter Gesang" (Ellen's Third Song) by the Viennese composer Franz Schubert, written in 1824, is surely one of the most famous songs in music history.
The original German lyrics (which can be heard on the Wikipedia page in a performance by Mezzo-soprano Dorothea Fayne and pianist Uwe Streibel) came from a translation by Adam Storck of Sir Walter Scott's poem "The Lady of the Lake." Later, the tune was used to set to music a traditional Catholic prayer in Latin, and that is the version, and the title, under which the famous song is best known today...the "Ave Maria."
There are many great renditions of "Ave Maria" (which means hail Mary), and of course there's no one best. My favorite is by the New Orleans-born jazz crooner Harry Connick Jr., from his triple-platinum 1993 Christmas album When My Heart Finds Christmas, which contains four original compositions along with ten standards. I love the way his plain and somewhat hesitant piano intro lasts for half the length of the piece, lulling you into thinking it's merely an instrumental, which makes the entry of the strings and the first bars of the sung lyrics all the more emotional.
But you can have fun exploring the many versions to find your own favorites.
Curiously, the number one all-time U.S. hit in a foreign language was also mainly in Latin—Sadeness [sic] Part I by Enigma, an early techno hit from 1991.
Mike
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Continuing with our Twelve Songs of Christmas for the Twelve Days of Christmas, today's song starts out, "What, you didn't know Christmas went hip-hop? Check the clock!" I did, and in great big oversized numerals it said "1-9-8-7." This pure period piece by Sweet Tee from that year's Profile Records compilation Christmas Rap is an answer to Bobby Helms' Jingle Bell Rock from exactly thirty years earlier. The way the late-'80s-caught-in-amber attitude contrasts with Tee's sweet, positive lyrics makes me smile. "Let the Jingle Bells Rock" was the B-side of the original release of Run-D.M.C.'s "Christmas in Hollis." The sample is a 1971 track from Funk, Inc. called "Kool Is Back."
Period piece: the 45 pressed on red vinyl.
Queens NY rapper Sweet Tee, whose real name is Toi Jackson, was an early influence on Queen Latifah. She was produced here by Hurby "Luv Bug" Azor, who also produced Salt-N-Pepa and Kid 'n' Play (and if those names don't take you back...). To whoever's in charge of these things, I say we should hear this in the supermarket at least once for every two times we have to hear "Grandma Got Run Over."
Mike
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
We had a lovely Christmas. A very nice Polish Wigilia (the traditional Christmas Eve vigil supper) at the home of our dear friends Ed and Mary Noyszewski, in Berwyn, where I took a lot of pictures.
On Christmas Day, my brother and sister-in-law continued their longstanding tradition of an Internationally-themed Christmas dinner. Barbara (Basia) and Char were mildly stung by criticisms here when I mentioned their Oceania-themed dinner last year, and wanted me to point out that this year's Malaysian dinner was not intended to mimic what Malaysians themselves actually eat for a holiday feast, but is just a meal in honor of Malaysia. For one thing, Charlie says they used approximately 1/10th the amount of the hot spices the recipes called for. For another, Malaysia encompasses many cultures with several distinct cuisines, so no one meal can be typical of the whole country.
This great shot was my nephew David Johnston's idea.
The fun in the meal is that Basia and Charlie research it for a month ahead of time, seeking out the appropriate ethnic restaurants (they found only one Malaysian restaurant in Chicago), trying out various dishes to taste-test them, and locating incredients. One dish this year called for pig brain, liver, and intestines, but mentioned that if offal wasn't your thing, lean pork could be sustituted. The resulting feng made of pork tenderloin was superb.
Program by Mari Johnston
The meal was just fantastic. Every single dish was delicious. I especially liked the popiah. Every year, a favorite dish or two makes it into CharBarb's regular rotation, and they're going to have trouble exlcuding anything from this year. It was all great. Very tasty meal. Even if it was a lot less spicy-hot than Malaysians themselves prefer.
And by the bye, pavlova isn't Malaysian, but we all liked last year's Australia vs. New Zealand dessert so much that it's in the running to become an annual tradition. The garnishes this year had a Malaysian inflection, at least.
Here's today Christmas song: The Walkmen covering Lindsay Buckingham's "Holiday Road" on A.V. Undercover. The NYC-based Walkmen are a band of friends from an elite East-coast prep school. An antidote to the whiteboyishness tomorrow.
On a photographic note (...and we're back on topic) I wanted to add a "Photobook of Interest" for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Today's book is Back to the Future. Irina Werning is the single-auteur apotheosis of the Young Me / Now Me idea, and is so skilled at recreating old snapshots that people from around the world write to her imploring her to work her magic on snapshots that are special to them. The work is about time and the ways we all change and can be both funny and touching.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
Raden: "Nice post on Malaysian food Mike! Though as Pieter has pointed out in the Comments, to get a good sampling of Malaysian dishes you should visit Kuala Lumpur. By the way, watch this amazing time lapse of Kuala Lumpur by Rob Whitworth on Youtube. I'm a long time reader of your blog and have always enjoyed your writings. Thank you for sharing so much of your photographic knowledge with the rest of the world. From a Malaysian in Saudi Arabia."
So I started out meaning to write an amusingly snarky post about bad Christmas songs.
Speaking as a critic, there are some things best left uncriticized. For example: few weeks ago, I had a steak at Denny's. Here's my critical take on that meal: Denny's should stop serving steak. All Denny's restaurants, everywhere, should remove steak from their menus. Just do their best to erase all trace of having ever offered steak to customers. Pretend it never happened. The chain should never serve another steak. It is useless to try to critique that steak; it just shouldn't have happened, is all, and should never happen again.
I feel somewhat similarly about Christmas songs. It's not that I hate them, it's that I hate being force-fed the same bad ones for an entire month in the service of mindless commerce. I feel like a mental patient being dosed with meds against my will. I know people (many of them people who don't like music, or rather any other kind of music) are sentimental about Christmas music. And far be it from me to tell them they're wrong; that would be obnoxious. Of course they're not wrong. Except if they like The Jingle Dogs or anything by the Chipmunks.
The world around, from time immemorial, musicians have been seduced into creating or recording Christmas songs. Usually with visions of sugarplum cha-ching dancing in their heads. For the most part, they would be well advised to just...not. Refrain. Forbear. Resist the impulse. Rest over the holidays; start writing songs again in February.
Christmas songs are an easy target. I was going to gas on about how fortunate it is that Burl Ives is already dead, because if he wasn't, I would be in jail for the rest of my life for his murder, having set aside my philosophical pacifism, bought a deer rifle, and hunted the fat bastard down. A bloody violent death is far too mild a punishment for "Holly Jolly Christmas," the #1 worst Christmas song ever.
Songs deliberately intended to be bad have a built-in excuse. But we still have to listen to the infernal things over and over again, for which there is no excuse. That explains the #1 worst Christmas song ever, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer."
Wait...how can both those songs be the #1 worst songs ever, you might (reasonably) be asking? Simple. Because there are lots of lists. You could even make a list of all the number one worst evers from all the various lists.
The problem with writing a list of the worst Christmas songs, of course, is that then you have to research bad Christmas songs. Which means you have to listen to lots of really, really awful ones. And bad Christmas songs, as you must know if you live here (on Earth, I mean) can be really bad. A purgatory for the unhappy critic, who is then self-inflicting his own wounds.
That light bulb lit up over my head when I read a short appraisal of Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime," which, along with its secular twin "Silly Little Love Songs" embodies everything about Paul McCartney that everyone, even his staunchest fans, hates, and which is, yes, another #1 worst Christmas song ever. Shane Ryan of Paste said, "I refuse to listen to check this out, but if my memory serves me correctly, the only lyrics in this song are, 'simply having a wonderful Christmastime,' and they’re repeated over and over for 16 minutes." I do not know much, but I know that no human being should ever be forced to listen to "Wonderful Christmastime" against his or her will, even as a research project. It's not an atrocity, but it's indecent. And if you're never heard "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas," by 11-year-old Gayla Peevey, you should extend that winning streak. I did not.
The principle became painfully (extremely painfully) obvious when I encountered—at #1 on a surprising number of lists—a song I'd never heard of before called "The Christmas Shoes" by a Christian group called Newsong. I warn you, do not Google that song and listen to it. It's so appallingly tasteless and stupid it will drain the blood from your head and leave your brain starved of nutrients. I actually listened to it. I did that to myself. Not smart.
So I decided not to write that article. Even though it would have allowed me to vent my spleen about "Frosty the Snowman," which makes "Happy Birthday" look musically sophisticated and which is capable of turning almost anyone permanently against the whole idea of snowmen by, oh, say, the 500th time they're tortured with it. It isn't anybody's #1 worst Christmas song, but excessive overexposure has made me hate it enthusiastically anyway.
So, mainly to be easy on myself, I've decided to create a list of good Christmas songs instead. Rather than trying to rank them—always a suspect enterprise, even more so than lists themselves, which are pointless enough (although I love them)—I thought I'd just put up one song for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas.
This one's for tomorrow, when I'll be taking the day off. It's by the Duluth, Minnesota slowcore trio known as Low, from their EP Christmas. On a good stereo system that drum accent is magical. And, should you happen to be Christian, apparently the members of Low are believers as well, which might set their efforts apart from more cynical indie bands for you.
The what? Now about the Twelve Days of Christmas. Were it not for the horrible Christmas song about some guy who gave his true love livestock and quite a few live human beings*, which I'm pretty sure is illegal, I don't think anybody would have more than a hazy idea what the Twelve Days of Christmas actually are. Turns out no one really agrees anyway, which sort of goes along with everything else about religion, but basically it's the twelve days or so between Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany, which often falls on January 6th, although nobody quite agrees on that either.
To make the rest of the list topical, I think I'll add a photobook to each day's song as well. Don't hold me to this grand plan, though, because I might lose interest. You know how I can be.
Anyway, Merry Christmas and warmest best wishes to any of you who celebrate it. And if you do or do not celebrate Christmas, heartfelt greetings to you and your loved ones on the occasion of the religious or winter solstice holiday you choose to observe.
Wishing you health, prosperity, calmness, kindness, and peace of mind in the season!
All best,
Mike
*Twenty-seven to be exact—eight maids a-milking, nine ladies dancing, and ten lords a-leaping. Let hope it's not a case of human trafficking!
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
Speed: "JG wrote in the Comments Section about The Waitresses' 'Christmas Wrapping' (1981). The song was featured this week in an NPR piece about...Christmas songs.
John Goehrke of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says around three-quarters of its inductees have made a Christmas record. [ ... ] "Five of the Top 20 all-time best-selling singles are Christmas records," Goehrke says. "Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas Is You' from '94—that's in the Top 10. That has sold more copies than 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' by the Beatles." [ ... ] Chris Butler says he certainly can't live off "Christmas Wrapping," but he does get a nice little annuity from the seasonal hit.
"Somebody buys them."
Mike replies: Somebody certainly does.
Roger: "Well thanks, Mike. Now I have 'Holly Jolly Christmas' stuck in my brain. I should deploy the Ninjas to inflict a nuclear wedgie upon you. Instead I'll just wish you a holly jolly Christmas."
Dana: "So Mike…I come up with my own songs to combat the cacophony of holiday music. I know how much you enjoy a good jazz number so I offer to you my favorite tune of the year for your Christmas ear: Aaron Parks 'Dear Someone.' Thank you Mike."
Mike replies: No, thank you. That's beautiful. And it is Christmas-carol-like.
In a move reminiscent of its sadly faded historical tradition of progressivism, the State Legislature of Wisconsin has banned the playing of any song from the album "Fly Like an Eagle" by former favorite son Stevie "Guitar" Miller. Wisconsinites have all agreed that the songs were very nice for the first thirty years, somewhat aggravating for the ensuing ten, and have become insufferable.
"But only because of repetition. It's not like we got anyt'ing against Steve. Wisconsin loves Steve," State Legislator Walt Staller stated, adding, with characteristic Wisconsin niceness (and a touch of confusion), "...all Steves, in fact."
Wisconsin radio stations playing songs from "Fly Like an Eagle" will be shut down and then burned to the ground. "It's created a climate of fear," said a radio station programmer, on condition of anonymity. "I mean, can you play 'The Joker' or 'Space Cowboy' or 'Livin' in the USA'? No, it's not safe, because everybody thinks those are from 'Fly Like an Eagle' too, even though they aren't. So one minute you're perfectly legally grooving to 'I'm a joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight toker,' and the next thing you know your station's vinyl archive is a superheated mass of moving goo and you're out in the rain with a fireman's cape over your shoulders and a lady from Community Outreach is pressing a cup of chamomile tea into your hands. What kind of country is this when you can't listen to your favorite tunes on the radio eighty-seven thousand times if you want to?"
The President of the Steve Miller Fan Club in Milwaukee, Ferdinand "Ferdie" McGurk, was unperturbed. "It's not like we don't have all the albums," he said.
When asked if he indeed had all the albums, he said, "No, I just have 'Greatest Hits 1974–78.'"
Mike
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
Nathan Degargoyle: "Banning any part of the SMB canon would be a global error. This is what made Milwaukee famous! What? You thought that was the watery, gassy excuse for beer? You're so full of Schlitz!"
Bruce K: "No Satire Alert? :-) "
Mike replies: Implied. :-)
Bob Burnett: "Ferdinand 'Ferdie' McGurk probably doesn't have all 16:26 of 'Macho City' from 1981's 'Circle of Love,' the pinnacle of the 'side 2 contract obligation' recording."
Mike replies: Hey, make the sign of the cross with your index fingers when you refer to that! (Note to those who don't know the cut: Do not go to iTunes to listen to the sample. You're welcome.)
Nicholas Condon: "There is similar legislation pending in Indiana regarding John Mellencamp. New Jersey's strict new 'Born in the USA' law is still under review by a federal court of appeals."
Mike replies: You laugh, but my end of the hallway in my freshman dorm nearly came to blows over Paul Nowosadko playing "Born to Run" ad nauseam, and at a later dorm, two girls ended their friendship over a terminal disagreement about how often "Blood on the Tracks" should be played. (One loved it and wanted to play it a lot, the other one loved it even more and thought it should be reserved for special occasions.)
Steve L.: "Nice, Mike, I love it. And I'm really glad Wisconsin loves 'all Steves.'
"The way I see it the problem isn't the music, it's the people who listen to the same thing over and over, year after year. There's great new music released daily, and it's been that way decade after decade. I've been an avid music listener since the mid-seventies, and I've never had a problem finding great new stuff. I even love hearing songs off 'Fly Like An Eagle' because I only hear them once every two or three years (or less) [that's because you don't live in Wisconsin —Mike], and they still sound fresh. Two pieces of advice to folks who get sick of stuff that's blasted at them—stop listening to commercial radio, and make a hobby of 'music finding.' There's more great stuff out there than ever."
Mike replies: Just a few recent favorite songs of mine: "River" by Ibeyi isn't standing up to repeated listens very well, but you owe it to yourself to see the simple but original video:
Next, for some reason I can't quite pinpoint I just love the album "You Had It Coming" by Jeff Beck, which I just discovered even though it came out in 2001. It's not at all the sort of thing I listen to—sort of electronica meets hip-hop with underpinnings of guitar-solo rock structure, and lots of synths and beats—but I love the whole thing and play it repeatedly. Sample "Earthquake" and "Nadia."
Another one I love is Mike Doughty's PledgeMusic-funded song from last summer, "Light Will Keep Your Heart Beating in the Future." (As I've mentioned I love songs with banjo parts used in weird ways.) I'm not a huge Soul Coughing fanatic but every now and then Doughty comes up with something I really like. There was a ghoul on the misty moor....
Yesteryear's top-of-the-line isn't a patch on today's high end where price is concerned. This gorgeous c. 1976 Sansui AU-11000, now the kind of thing pursued avidly by vintage audio enthusiasts, is for sale on eBay right now. (See Footnote 2.)
I'm a member of "Generation Jones" and for teenage males of my generation the toy of choice was a stereo—music during our formative years had achieved a cultural prominence it hadn't had before and hasn't had since. (My parents bought me "Abbey Road" for getting all A's in 7th grade, and I still have it.)
As we've aged and made more money, some of those who continue to indulge in the old toys have gotten pretty silly (a.k.a. "serious") about it. The Pear-Shaped One (Harry Pearson of The Absolute Sound) coined the term "the high end," and it has become possible—almost easy—to spend $500,000 on a stereo. It's partially status-seeking and/or obsessiveness (fun only if you can afford it), and I got sick of all of it a few years ago and cancelled all my subscriptions to the audio magazines. I listen to music all day (one of the primary attractions of working at home), but my main stereo (I have two) is a bit of a Rube Goldberg contraption (see footnote 1).
The question there isn't really "who spends that kind of money on a stereo?" The answer to that is obvious: people who aren't "price sensitive" to spending tens of thousands of dollars for toys. That means multi-millionaires, in this case those with typical generational Boomer or Joneser enthusiasms. They're out there (cf. the Piketty phenomenon).
The new VPI Classic Direct, an American-made direct-drive, fully manual turntable that costs $30,000. In this case, the cost might actually be related to development and manufacturing costs (but at the link, notice what's in the upper-left-hand corner of the page). Even the cartridge for a turntable of this caliber might cost $5,000 or more.
The more interesting question is how do manufacturers survive selling audio components for tens of thousands of dollars? How does that work? I find that interesting, so I thought I'd sketch it out for you.
The idea is to take the low-volume model to a reductio ad absurdum.
The way it's done is this. First, you do whatever you can to add value to, say, a pair of speakers (there isn't that much, so you have to get creative—and that might include concocting a comprehensive sales pitch of quasi-magical claims). Then you price them at something like $80,000 for a pair, projecting to one and all that they must be great, because, as we all know, price correlates to quality. Then you send a few pairs out to reviewers and let the reviewers pay, say, $8,000 if they want to keep them. You then pay for multiple lavish full-page ads in the audio publications. You thus assure your project of glowing reviews and the admiration of the magazines. (This is not necessarily dishonest—if you pour that much money into a pair of speakers, they will often indeed often—not always—sound good.) Then, say you sell a grand total of…ten pairs of your incredible speaker o' the moment.
A product run of ten doesn't sound great on the face of it. But hey: gross, $800,000. Total investment, $250,000...or whatever it was. (These aren't real numbers, just illustrative.) Your break-even point was three pairs of speakers. At ten, you (and the dealers) have profited half a million dollars or more. If you have a big hit and you find two dozen customers, well, you have a real bonanza on your hands.
Beats working. Also beats the exponentially larger headache of having to earn $800,000 by selling 800 pairs of speakers for $1,000 each or, God forbid, 8,000 pairs of speakers at $100 each.
Six months later the reviewers sell the review units onward for the incredible bargain price of only $16,000 for the pair, the magazines find new components o' the moment to exalt to the skies, and everybody moves on. Including, sometimes, the customers who paid $80k for their speakers, because audio at that level is in many cases an expression of severe obsessive/compulsive disorder, and perfection remains but a holy grail. In fact there is a whole subculture of somewhat less well-heeled audiophiles who feed on the castoffs of the superrich ones.
I heard—just a rumor—of one manufacturer that was boasting of a particular success: a grand total of 60 units sold of a particular high-end component. That's high volume at the high end! As I said, I don't buy the hi-fi magazines regularly any more, but recently I bought one for the first time in a couple of years, and in its pages were not one but two product reviews for electronic components that retailed for $45,000. One a pair of power amps, one a preamp, from different makers. Both from companies that are most likely hoping to sell a total worldwide production run of a few dozen units at best.
That's the way that world works now, for the most part. It's taken all the fun out of audio for all but the few—which is why many people now enjoy vintage audio as a hobby and hang out a places like AudioKarma. (My second system is a vintage system.) Building a great stereo system from multiple independent components is already hopelessly complex, involving million of possible combinations; adding to that all the problems of older components increases the difficulty another five- or tenfold...
...Meaning, it's even more fun. :-)
Mike
TOP goes off-topic on most Sundays, and don't think I didn't want to write even more about dogs again today.
Footnote 1: My music files are stored on a hard drive. I use iTunes for what we photographers call digital asset management, and Pure Music as a driver (much superior to the software in iTunes). My DAC (digital to analog converter) is the marvelous Halide DAC HD, which I recommend as a middling-expensive DAC for anyone who runs a system from their computer—whether it's a full rig or small high-quality desktop powered speakers. The Halide runs to a McIntosh C40 preamp within reach of my right hand, from which interconnect cables cross the room to a Belles 150A power amp. That feeds my speakers, which were custom-made for me by the talented Bill Waara in gutted Silverline Audio speaker cabinets. Cabling is all by Blue Jeans Cables, which I recommend unless you want to follow the March Hare where he leads.
It's an expensive system, but not crazily so. The amp and pre-amp were bought used. I sunk more money into the speakers than I might have liked, but I was trying to rescue a disastrous purchase—the Silverlines as they arrived were among the worst-built components I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen a few. The worst things about my stereo are a) the room, which is too small and too square, and b) the fact that I have a 27" iMac in front of my nose all day. About that, you know what they say: Oh well.
Footnote 2: And if I didn't already have a restored Accuphase (Kensonic) E-202 from the same era, I'd be tempted. Note that equipment this old often needs to be "serviced," which can mean anything from enough repair to get it running to a full-on restoration, replacing all the worn-out parts and re-doing all the solder joints. A restoration of a vintage piece can cost more than the component itself. Note also that old equipment being listened to in various states of decay complicates online reviewing to a truly marvelous degree, raising ordinary chaos to a higher plane altogether.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
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David Kieltyka: "I'm very particular when it comes to guitar and keyboard amps, and the speakers and cabinets connected to those amps, but not in the least when it comes to the reproduction of recorded music. I can certainly hear the differences between a higher-end audio system, a more typical consumer-level one, and my iPhone's tiny built-in speakers. But those differences have little if any impact on my enjoyment of the music. I guess this has saved me lotsa $$ over the years!"
Mike replies: Your attitude is curiously common among musicians. I speculate it might be because we music listeners are so dependent on our reproduction equipment for our music that it becomes closely associated in our minds with the emotional gratification of music, whereas musicians themselves associate the gratification of music with the making of music rather than the playback of recordings.
It's also possible that musicians are so aware of what music "should" sound like that they're able to translate much more effortlessly in their minds from whatever recorded sound they're presented with to what they know it probably sounded like in real life. I'm convinced I do this with photographic prints; I studied prints so obsessively for so long that when I see a small JPEG of a picture that started out as a print, whether it's a news shot from 60 years ago or a platinum print, I draw on my experience of originals to immediately visualize what the original probably looked like. (I think wilderness landscape photographers do a lot of this too—when they see heroic landscapes they associate the image intimately with their in-person experiences of real landscapes, so they "see more" in the picture than is there for people who haven't done any hiking.)
But back to musicians and stereos: in Hanover when I was in college, there was a classical composer who preferred a horrible old suitcase-style record player like this one, on which he played 33 1/3 records at 78 speed! He said the speeded-up playback let him listen to the structure of the writing more easily. Efforts to entice him to buy a nicer stereo system fell—excuse the expression—on deaf ears.
David Brown: "Back in the 1980s, Bob and Ray (remember them?) had a radio spot about a guy selling dot-matrix printers for $1 million. 'Yeah, but I only have to sell one!'"
Earl Dunbar (partial comment): "The thing about the 'hi-fi bug' is that you can enjoy both equipment acquisition and the music it reproduces at price points to suit one's means."
Mike replies: Excellent point, and you are right, you can.
John McMillin: "When it comes to audio gear, there's an amazingly flexible relationship between cost and performance. I though about this when I attended the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, where I sampled the sound and style of the upper reaches of the High End. You could spend hours there, wandering between demo rooms—so I did, impersonating the kind of person who spends five figures for a bespoke, boutique stereo component. All sounded great, and some sounded better than that. I was convinced, consecutively, that small two-way box speakers were best; that ribbon tweeters were better; that big multi-driver speaker towers were supreme; and then that 'free air' panel-mounted cone speakers with no box at all rule the universe.
"If you had given me a check for$50,000 and told me to spend it all right there, I'd still have to watch the budget...but I'd probably go mad first, trying to choose. Also, I couldn't figure out how their customers possessed the savvy and thrift to earn high incomes, but were willing to plow a sizable chunk of it into a small-batch gadget from a tiny company, with unknown future prospects and possibly scarce parts reserves.
"There's good news in audio these days for us 99-percenters, though. The price of good used gear has never been lower. I have three complete component systems in my home, including three Rotel components, a Luxman tuner, two Denon CD changers, two tube amps and four sets of NHT, Polk Audio and Mourdant-Short speakers. The average cost of the components, absent one $500 tube amp, comes out to about $75 each. On average, these speakers cost me $50 a pair, too. That's affordable—it may even be the best benefit I've felt from 'trickle-down economics'! So many people have lost interest in two-channel stereo, CDs, FM radio, in favor of one-box iMediocre audio, that the good gear has become very available, if you know where to look."
Musical taste is subjective, of course, and what I've been in a mood for recently is popular music (my usual staple being jazz), but of a particular variety: wistful, slow-drag, plaintive, romantic folkie songs with a certain gentleness.
Rats. This is the spot for a great quote I ran across recently about the difference between tradition and nostalgia. But I've lost the link. (I think I ran across it in a book, so the link should be in my brain. Not there. Typical.) Anyway a few of these songs are backward-looking in style.
Off we go: if you like psychedelic rock, which enjoyed a brief brief sunburst of popularity in the late '60s (I kinda had a thing for Tommy James and the Shondells at one point when I was a kid, and I prefer post-LSD John Lennon to pre-*), you might like the song "Lavender" by Ray LaMontagne, which makes use of certain cues from psychedelia to fine effect.
If your taste runs more to neo-R&B (if you favor the Black Keys, for instance, or the late Amy Winehouse), see if you like the Nick Waterhouse album Holly. He apparently doesn't want anyone to know about it, if the album cover is any indication. It looks like something you'd flip past in the LP bins at Goodwill. But it's a fascinating, tight, tense album, featuring sax and organ no less. I don't own it, but have heard it.
I'm a total sucker for banjo as an accent instrument—just love it. Old example, "Seaweed" by the Fruit Bats. When the banjo comes in it's heartrending—gets to me every time. Unfortunately, that song belongs on the "coulda been a classic" list—beautiful melody, beautiful arrangement, but a woefully wrong turn with those awful lyrics. It's a product of that short-lived fad of putting trivial lyrics with grand music, the pinnacle of which was the so-called sweater song by Weezer. Oh well. Anyway, a nice new song with banjo in it: Beck's "Say Goodbye" from the album Morning Phase. (Another album I don't own—I have to say I don't entirely get Beck, and I'm not sure he does either.)
Local boy plays good: Peter Mulvey
For those who like acoustic guitar, check out Milwaukee's own Peter Mulvey playing "Black Rabbit." The iTunes download features better (and very fine) sound.
Easy segue from there: I've unofficially become kind of an aficionado of covers since our big post about them a few years back. Recent favorite: "Seven Nation Army" covered by Zella Day as a single (iTunes is the best source). Sounds pretty great for leaving out the famous bass riff altogether. Don't know a thing about Zella.
I'm not very good at writing about music, because I don't know the vocabulary and I don't have any technical background. But there seems to be a strain in hip-hop that is slow and mournful and full of drones and refrains. A song I discovered that's been on replay in my head is "Eve's Perspective" by Lorine Chia of Cleveland, Ohio. Other bits and snippets from the album I've heard sound interesting so I'll probably investigate further. (She covers "Strange Fruit," which is either a good sign or a bad one.)
All the above are from albums I don't own and generally by artists I don't know anything about. It's harder to find whole albums you like. My major personal discoveries are unfortunately few and far between, coming along at the rate of maybe one a year. Slint's classic Spiderland has been on heavy rotation at sprawling TOP World Headquarters lately, in case anyone is interested in '90s post-rock masterpieces. I think the latest Mikey fave (I can never quite tell until some time has passed and I find out if it has legs) is "The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas" (note that it's also available on vinyl) by an Australian youngster named Courtney Barnett. I liked it the first time I heard it, and, as rarely happens with me, I seem to be liking it more with every hearing.
In photography one of the qualities I value is an offhand, casual feeling-tone, which you sometimes have to work very hard to achieve. I used to say I aspired to make photographs that look like you just picked up the camera and made a single shot (even if it took you all morning and five rolls of film to get to it). Courtney Barnett's languid singing and interior-oriented compostions achieve the musical equivalent. (I miss the days when musicians smoked lots of marijuana. It's very beneficial for them. Nothing worse than a bunch of musicians trying too hard to please, which you see all the time now. Calm down, kids.) Anyway, I think I'm in love again.
All you fans of Sri-Lankan-American Pete Seegers doubtless already know about Bhi Bhiman, but those of you who don't should check out his extraordinary paeon to 1930s hobos, "Guttersnipe." An anthem, I think you'll agree. For what, I don't quite know.
Happy music gets no respect, but people like it anyway. No matter how isolated you are from pop culture, you're probably aware of Pharrell Williams, he of the exaggeratedly big hat and constant mentions on the Ellen show. His song "Happy," which he performed at the Oscars, is one of those, well, happy hits that everybody needs to dance along to (remember "Walkin' on the Sun" by Smashmouth?). It overstays its welcome by the third time you hear it, true, but let's not be grumpy. Anyway, Pharrell used to be part of an act called "N.E.R.D" (which stands for "No one Ever Really Dies"—okay, the less said) that once received a description I prize: "a hip-hop duo consisting of Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo, and Shay Haley." Ya gotta love a duo with three people in it. It's a duo with more. Anyway what I'm getting to with painful slowness is that a N.E.R.D song I like, "Run to the Sun," has been resurrected due to Pharrell's recent newfound stardom, and you could listen to that too.
We could get into Jake Bugg, but that's enough for now I guess. In recent weeks I've already been feeling the gravitational pull of jazz gathering me home again (Tord Gustavsen Trio, a trio with only three people in it, is playing as I type), although I do enjoy my occasional toe-dippings into the vast ocean of pop.
And for those who would like a little gear-porn to leaven all this content talk, here are some neat snaps of a turntable I sold yesterday. A sweet one, but I'm into vintage direct-drive Japanese 'tables now.
Enjoy the last day of the U.S. Open. (I think we should get some country without its own golf stars to adopt Martin Kaymer, since Germany is preoccupied with soccer.) Or have a nice Sunday relaxing with tunes. I'll depart with another delightfully loopy quote I heard that somehow gets it right despite getting it wrong: "Music is the music of the soul."
Mike
*Are you only sleeping? Are you looking into a glass onion? Does tomorrow ever know? If you were a large flippered marine mammal, which one would you be, goo-goo-goo-joob?
"Open Mike" is the editorial page of TOP, when we let Mike off his leash to write about his various wayward enthusiasms.
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
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HT: "Some of my favorite banjo moments: The opening of 'I Believe' by R.E.M.—which I believe falls under the definition of pastiche. The bridge of 'To Sheila' by Smashing Pumpkins (starts at 2:23)—which marks the first and only time banjo appeared in their music. This isn't the most traditional use of banjo but I love how it sounds like raindrops."
Mike replies: Beautiful. Thanks.
John Camp: "Since you like both banjo accents and good covers, you'd probably enjoy Town Mountain's cover of Springsteen's 'I'm on Fire.' And you being you, I suspect you'd also like Gillian Welch's 'Elvis Presley Blues.' For all the criticism of YouTube that you hear from time to time, I love following musical threads across the different genre landscapes. I mean, you could start out with something delicate by Gillian Welch and wind up at this."
Mike replies: Isn't it interesting how YouTube is evolving as a way to listen to music? I never would have guessed. My son and his friends prefer it to iTunes samples because you can listen to whole songs.
Judith Wallerius: "It looks like Youtube is about to significantly change in how useful it is to discover new music. Apparently they have a new music service coming and will simply remove the videos of all record labels and artists that don't sign up to license for it. That hits mainly smaller independent labels (a.k.a. music you might not know and have to find by chance) that would get significantly worse deals than the big labels, so are reluctant to sign on. Let's hope there's enough protest to make them reconsider."
Just wondering. Do you cull your digital music collection? Or, if you have one, your physical carrier music collection?
Larry McMurtry, the author and book dealer who at one point had more than half a million volumes at his bookstore in Archer, Texas, once said that groups of books are always stronger when you cull them.
I have about 13,000 files in my iTunes folder now. I can imagine it would be a lot more useful if I were to cull out the stuff I don't care for from time to time, but doing so comes into conflict with my cheap gene—in my mind, I spent money on the files (I buy all my music, or 98% of it anyway), and if I toss them then it becomes a loss. That's how that works in my brain. Although keeping useless crap hanging around is just a loss in a different way.
All my CDs are now in boxes in the attic. I have a wonderful (okay, qualification again: to me) vintage/used stereo system down by the pool table on which I play LP records.
I don't cull my vinyl either.
The whole issue was highlighted for me a short time ago when I pulled out a couple of old records. One was Brian Eno and David Byrne's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" and the other was Boz Scaggs' "Silk Degrees."
David Byrne and Brian Eno then and now. The second is a still from Ride, Rise, Roar, a documentary directed by Hillman Curtis and shot by Ben Wolf. The photo above was taken by Hugh Brown. More pictures from the session can be seen here. (Thanks to ron for this last.)
One listen to "Silk Degrees" and I knew for sure that it was music I just never need to hear again. I can grow old and die and never hear it again and I'll be fine with that. No slag on Boz and no disrespect to his fans—just not my thing. But on the other hand, when I put on "Bush of Ghosts," a record I know really well from the CD, the first side was very familiar, but most of the second side was new to me. I'd never heard it before.
"My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" (the title from Amos Tutuola's 1954 novel, and the album a landmark of early sampling) came out in '81, and I bought my first CD player, a Sony D-5, in late '84. I imagine I bought the record at the same time I bought the CD—I did that for a while at first—and then never listened to the LP. I imagine some aficionado somewhere could still tell the tale of why the music on the LP and CD are different, but it points up the peril of getting rid of old things without being careful. "Silk Degress," for me, is completely surplus. Zero reason to hang on to it, which I might do anyway, just because that is what I do. But discovering side two of the "Bush of Ghosts" LP was an unexpected surprise.
Just wondering how you handle it, if you're a music listener and collector.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
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Jim Simmons: "We've done huge culls over the years, all prompted by major moves. I am spending this weekend building CD shelves that will hold 500 CDs and one shelf of DVDs, and that, we've agreed, will be the limit we hold to. If #501 comes in, then one goes out. Wish me luck on the discipline!"
Mike replies: Seriously.
Richard Tugwell: "Ahh—my music habits.... Quick answer. No. Why should I? If I don't listen to it, then I don't listen to it. Not having it doesn't doesn't affect that. But—most of my music collection is classical, and on CD. I played around with digitising it but never found that enhanced the playing experience. I like to 'pick a disc,' or pick a work and then 'pick a performance' or pick...etc. etc. etc. CDs are arranged alphabetically by composer in several bookshelves. I have about 1,200 altogether (not a lot by some standards) and I occasionally just browse and surprise myself. I have quite a lot of CDs that are still in their original wrapping, which also says something."
Joe Holmes: "Byrne and Eno were pioneers in taking found music and sound—talk radio, gospel preaching, obscure folk music—and mixing into the blender of their own music and rhythm to create 'Bush of Ghosts.' But when they released the original album, they didn't bother to clear the rights to the found material. This caused problems when it came time to release the CD of 'Bush of Ghosts,' and so they had to abandon some of the tracks that were impossible to clear. Or at least that's my memory of the story I heard long ago. To make up for the loss of some tracks, Byrne and Eno added other tracks that hadn't made the cut for the original release. And I agree with you, Mike, that 'Bush of Ghosts' holds up incredibly well. I still enjoy it immensely. It was recorded around the same time that Eno was heavily involved in producing Talking Heads' 'Remain in Light,' and you can certainly hear a lot of the same sound."
Jack Illingworth replies to Joe Holmes: "The Byrne/Eno revisions have little to do with clearances—legalities were well-looked after on the original release. The most famous change was the deletion of the track 'Qu'ran' from later pressings after complaints from an Islamic organization in London. It led side 2. The CD adds a lot of material but other than that doesn't take things away. Your auditory memory may be tricking you, and if you have a pressing with 'Qu'ran,' well, it does change the flow of side 2 quite a bit. Early CD versions actually saw 'Qu'ran' restored, but it was deleted on anything manufactured after 1990.
"I'm in the midst of a vinyl cull right now. LPs are taking on a new role in my listening as my library of recordings that I want to live with for the long term. I'm buying quite a few as they survive the ravages of time far better than CDs (which delaminate or become otherwise unplayable too easily) and can sound better to boot. Space for them in my living room is very finite. Much of my collection is inherited from friends, family, near-strangers (I accepted a lot of vinyl when everyone was ditching theirs). As such, some has got to go.
"Things that I want out of the listening pile but don't want to lose entirely go to basement storage. Everything else either goes for sale on discogs or goes into triage for a valedictory listen to decide whether it has a future. I'm always cautious; my musical interests have evolved so much that I'm never sure what will catch my interest a decade from now.
"I never throw my digital files away. A well-organized library looks after that. There's always the option of keeping a holding pen folder on your music drives and backups for things you don't want to lose but don't want in the main library. Don't let your playback software index it and you're set."
Joe Holmes responds: "Jack Illingworth's version of the changing tracks on 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' is accurate, and mine is not, as a quick trip to Wikipedia will prove. My version was based on rumors I heard long ago when the first CD version was released. I'm glad to have it cleared up and to learn that Byrne and Eno didn't play fast and loose with clearances."
DavidB: "Over the last several years I purchased many CDs to replace my vinyl—and then kept both. Mission failure."
David Lee: "David Byrne is also an accomplished photographer, by the way. He used to go to Oaxaca, Mexico, and spend some time doing photography there."
Paul Van: "Some days I just dream about culling my collection(s) to just the essentials. Maybe the top 100...so, I start a list, lose the list, start another list, and repeat. Eventually I find all the lists and discover there is very little material that made it to all versions. I remain perplexed, but committed to simplifying my possessions."
My friend-I've-never-met Gordon Lewis (and we should do something about that someday, Gordon) sent me a link the other day, wondering idly if perhaps photography needed an updated anthem now that Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" is as outdated as—well, Kodachrome. It was a song called "Bad Self Portraits" by a band I'd never heard of called Lake Street Dive.
Unfortunately, Lake Street Dive are not the only ones who've been busy penning songs about selfies. In return, I inflicted on Gordon a considerably less listenable song that I'd happened across while roving the radio band in the car a few days ago. I managed to find it online—turns out it's by a group called The Chainsmokers, and it's titled "#SELFIE."
Although fun in a kind of appalling way (it's satire), #SELFIE is mildly toxic music-product that might possibly damage your brain. I recommend proceeding with caution here.
A little more searching turned up an aspiring chanteuse called Nina Nesbitt, who has a song called "Selfies." And then—I almost hesitate to name this—I stumbled into the pit of "Me So Selfie" by "Tim Fite and Bonaparte." This is a bit beyond toxic—more like carcinogenic. :-) Do not listen! Brain damage can occur. (I kid. Although a page about it promises it could cure young people of taking selfies altogether, an idea which admittedly has appeal.)
All in all, with apologies to Gordon, I'd say photography is still waiting for its up-to-date two-thousand-teens anthem.
...But speaking of music, if you're a Zep fan (as most White Guys of a Certain Age are), check out a cover of "Ramble On" I stumbled across by a band called Redeye Empire. Love it.
Supposed to be reggae-tinged, although I think that's arguable. But an interesting new (but not too new) arrangement of an old favorite. This video had 322 views at the time of embedding, so I'm assuming this is not popular.
...And then speaking of selfies, recognize this young man?
General Colin L. Powell posted it on his Facebook page four days ago, along with this message (apparently addressed to Ellen Degeneres): "Throwback Thursday—I was doing selfies 60 years before you Facebook folks. Eat your heart out Ellen!"
The link came from William Barnett-Lewis, who says, "I love the old Kodak Signet 35 he's holding. Nice little rangefinder even if a bit limited in lens (44mm ƒ/3.5) and shutter (maximum speed 1/300th). According to Camerapedia, it was an expensive little toy—sold for $95 (app. $810 USD in 2007 dollars). Rather like a nice new Micro 4/3 kit would cost these days...."
Finally, I want to add this: I've listened to the song "Carnival" at least 50 times over many years (it came out 19 years ago!!) and love it to death, but I'd never once seen the video before reader Howard Linton sent me the link the other day. I guess it makes this the street photographer's anthem, for sure.
Mike (Thanks to Gordon, William, and Howard)
UPDATE from Gordon Lewis: "For what it's worth, I doubt there will ever be a new 'Kodachrome,' either literally or symbolically. One of the things that made Paul Simon's 'Kodachrome' so special was that underneath the bubbly froth of the rhythm and outro ('Mama don't take my Kodachrome, Mama don't take my Kodachrome...') was a clever metaphor that contrasted the negativity of the singer's life ('When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school') with the positivity of using Kodachrome in a Nikon camera. The fact that Kodachrome, unlike black-and-white, was a positive (i.e. slide) film only added to the cleverness. 'Bad Self Portraits,' the tune I turned Mike on to, isn't anywhere near as classic but at least it hints at how artists use cameras as a form of self-expression.
"As for the fact that I now find myself humming the melody (if you can call it that) to '#SELFIE,' all I can say is, I'll get even Mike. I'll get even."
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
robert e: "Well, Mike and Gordon, for your listening pleasure (or terror), there's a dubious list of songs 'about photography' on Wikipedia. (many of which have little to do with photography). There seems to be much overlap with this YouTube playlist. I've only scratched the surface, but I was pleased to revisit (via youtube) Blondie's 'Picture This' and Johnny Cash's 'Send A Picture of Mother,' and pleasantly surprised by the Kinks' 'People Take Pictures of Each Other' (anti-selfie anthem, anyone?). But as loose as the criteria seem to be, there's much missing, too, such as The Pretenders' 'Back On The Chain Gang,' or 10cc's 'I'm Not In Love.'"
Paul: "Re 'Carnival': I want to get a Leica and shoot blurry, off-kilter pictures. I'm not joking. I really do."
Dave in NM: "OK. You want a selfie song? How about a song that talks about a selfie done with B&W film? 'Are You Happy Now' by Richard Shindell."
Okay, normally it's easy to get overfed on irony, but a little of it here and there can be a treat. How ironic is it that the best review of the new Hurray for the Riff Raff album is in the Wall Street Journal?
Written by Steve Dougherty. I don't know if the link will work for you. I think the WSJ is normally behind a firewall which only Republicans, financiers, heirs, and people with investment portfolios are allowed past*. Something like that. If you have trouble, just type "Alynda Lee Segarra Hurray Riff Raff site:wsj.com" (without the quotation marks) in Google.
Anyway. Hurray for the Riff Raff's new album, Small Town Heroes, was released a few days ago. On February 11th. As far as I can tell it's that rarest of productions: plain old music. That is, people playing plain old instruments and one of 'em singing, recorded well. How crazy is that? What kind of radical exotica are they going to think up next?
It's a folk record, with touches of bluegrass, country, blues, cowboy plaints, even a hint of pop. A "rootsy gumbo," Steve Dougherty calls it. In the Wall Street Journal.
Alynda Lee Segarra was on the radio the other night talking about the song "The Body Electric." She wrote it as a curative for the traditional murder ballad (there are hundreds of 'em, from "Stagger Lee" to Jimi's "Hey Joe"). Her idea was that most—not all—of the victims in such songs are female, and she wanted to indicate the perspective of the victims. Along with a dark little threat there at the end.
I think it's my favorite country song since "Look at Miss Ohio" (well, not counting Hugo's country-blues rendition of Jay-Z's "99 Problems": see the first sentence of this post, above.)
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
1. My second favorite piano player (after Hank Jones). Watched this three times in a row. I like how he starts out by mopping his brow like he'd been digging ditches or something. Didn't know this piece, the Berceuse ("a musical composition usually in 6/8 time that resembles a lullaby" —Wikipedia). Lovely.
2. Speaking of lullabies, a nice new song—simple, but lyrically elegant and unspoiled by the usual cruditup electronica-y productioniness. And a sentiment to coincide with the Tao Te Ching discussion.
I've listened to "Let's Be Still" about ten times and for some reason my brain doesn't mind. I have a pretty serious problem with "earworm," i.e., pop songs getting stuck in my head. There's a radio song in rotation right now called "Royals" by a New Zealander singer-songwriter called Lorde that was like poison to my brain—I only heard it like twice in the car and I could not get that damned ditty out of my head. I thought I was going to have to submit to hypnosis. That one was so bad I'm scared to listen to the damned thing again.
3. Beautiful guitars, for those more or less of my generation. Nice live performance.
The older I get the more I like live performances better. This clip also seems like a demonstration of how much pop music has changed in my short adulthood...like that 'cello? Hello? 'Cello?
Mike
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Carsten W: "That Gilmour performance was just magnificent, exactly the opposite of the flamboyant, over-the-top, hundred-notes-per-second live performances that so many bands do, just quiet, beautiful, and true to the original. Gilmour has always been my guitar hero. Competent, unrushed, and with incredible feeling."
Cmans: "Chopin's Berceuse Op. 57 is my #1 go-to for defusing my negative mental energy. If I concentrate on the soothing tones and the interplay of the pianist's two hands, I'll have no room in my head for negativity.
"My favorite recording is from Maurizio Pollini's c. 1960 performance and is very similar to the Michelangeli you found, except that to my ear, Pollini's right hand plays a little softer and with slightly different coordination than Michelangeli's. Chopin's Berceuse seemed so complicated to me when i first heard it, that I had for a long time thought that it was played with four hands.
"If you search on YouTube for Chopin's Berceuse, you may find the post with ten different artist's renditions of this Bercuese. The portraits in the video that accompany these versions are as stunning as the various interpretations of this piece, and I think are worth the price of admission to view."
Just a few short musical notes: I've learned that Jimmy Page's project of remastering all the Led Zep albums, first talked about in 2012, is proceeding, and he expects to release the first three albums this year, with greatly improved sound quality. Along with (the hope is) some outtakes from the sessions paralleled by some selects from his own reportedly large archive of unreleased material.
This is not happening as quickly as expected, but as long as he gets to "Physical Graffiti" in my lifetime I guess I'm okay with it. (That and "On the Beach" were probably the favorite two albums of the most misspent year of my literally misspent youth.)
We last mentioned Imogen Heap (in "Canticle for a Tuesday Morning") when it was difficult to find Transit's a cappella version of her song "Hide and Seek." That's now easy to get: iTunes has it (search "Transit Vocal Band." Oren, who has a thing for a cappella, told me about that beautiful piece, which sounds like a hymn and is a reminder that "a cappella" means "of the chapel"). Speaking of a cappella, I assume fans have seen her virtuoso self-accompaniment in "Just For Now," which has aggregated almost five million views on YouTube. The woman is a wonder of nature and a treasure. So here's another nice thing: Imogen and Jeff Beck doing a fine version of Imogen's beautiful song "Blanket" at Ronnie Scott's in Soho in London. Beck's guitar is a perfect match for the song. With Tal Wilkenfeld, who I love, on bass. (I think Tal plays with Herbie Hancock now.)
Hump and Heap (Imogen selfie)
One of the problems I have in writing these days is the feeling that I've written the same thing before and I'm repeating myself. I don't think I've linked this to Beck/Heap "Blanket" before, but if I have, I hope you'll forgive me for repeating myself. I just ran across it again by chance, first time in years, and was reminded how much I like it. (I've mentioned Tal before here.)
Fans of lyrical, wistful indie rock injected with touches of '90s Britpop atmospherics might try Ivy's "Apartment Life," to which I just gave my once-a-decade listen and found holding up surprisingly well considering its advancing age. (Even though I'm pretty sure I heard some non-ironic horns in there. Which, okay, are beautiful in "Baker.") Songs to sample: "Never Do That Again" and "You Don't Know Anything."
Classical fans, tell me what you think of man o' the moment Jeremy Denk's 80 minutes of G major (i.e., Goldbergs). I'm finding the performance lyrical and full of color, not very musicological or "period" but loaded with musical understanding and feeling. I like, very much, but then I'm self educated, which makes me an "ignoramus visited with arrogance."
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
Jakub: "I like the Denk quite a bit as well. I have several versions and didn't expect much new in his take, but there is something fresh and easy in his performance that sets it apart. Glad to see someone else has heard of Ivy. Also a good recommendation."
Mike replies: Well said..."something fresh and easy in his performance that sets it apart" is a very good expression of my response to it too.
On the eve of my 30th birthday, I began rendering "automatic" "enhancements" of only the most salient points of the pop music of my youth; a line, bar, or fragment of a particular song (after being heard out in "the wild" in the present; akin to running into an old friend on the street) was chosen based on how much my nostalgic recollection of it differed from its contemporary reality. Each was played back at exactly half-speed, then run through a series of time- and gain-based processes that slowly and meticulously chewed through the audio, revealing hidden layers of content, context, and temporal/spectral production details…shining a flashlight into the dark corners of each selection, revealing the ghosts lurking within.
Interesting, although I confess I am unlikely to listen to the whole nearly 12 hours of it.
At least the hooks don't get stuck in your head.
Mike (via Bob Burnett)
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Ahem: "There is a rather amazing 'Symphonies of the Planets' 5-CD package, done by NASA. Truly unique sounds recorded and generated from various space-y sources, resulting in truly beautiful and haunting ambient soundscapes. Not sure if it's still available, though."
Following on to the vintage audio post: it's disappointing, but here is really all you need for quite good reproduced sound in a small to medium-sized room, assuming you a) are willing to forego nostalgia, b) are not a nut about stuff, and c) find yourself as yet unafflicted by audiophilia nervosa:
Your usual i-device of choice as a source (iPod, iPhone, or iPad);
A NuForce iDo
or some other good iPod dock with a DAC in it (ye don't want to be stuck with the wee dackish thing in the iPod, Pilgrim, heed me);
and
A pair of my fave baby speaks, the self-powered (i.e., amps on board) AudioEngine A5+. (They really do sound good, and I am picky.)
That's it.
That will get some really good music out into the air. It will be better than 97% of anything you could find that's as small or as cheap or as handy. It really doesn't even leave a whole lot of space left over for angst 'n' agonizing. Music—no fuss, no muss, 21st-century style.
Note that the i-word doesn't mean you need to listen to MP3's necessarily. You can put AAC, Apple Lossless, WAV, or AIFF files on your iPhone or iPod too. Only up to CD res, but you'll be all right with that.
The speakers have their own volume control.
All you have to do is make sure you get a dock with the same connector as your phone or iPod. The NuForce iDo comes with a pigtail to connect to most earlier i-devices, and your latest iPhone 5 or whatever comes with a device-to-USB cable that you can use. The speakers come with all the wires you need.
And the NuForce is a great headphone amp too. Doth your cup runneth over?
Rejoice: you can spend much more money, much more time, and a great deal more effort and energy putting together a vintage or an audiophile stereo system, and I wouldn't want to discourage you from having so much fun. It's just that you don't have to.
Mike
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
John King: "Good recommendation Mike.
I can vouch for the fine audio quality from both those companies. I have
the 50% less expensive models from three years ago (uDAC +
Audioengine2) handling music files from my computer. They are musical,
they don't fatigue the ears and they don't make me wish I was in the
other room where the high end gear lives."
Bryan Willman: "For those who don't want to deal with an 'iSomething' you can get a similar excellent effect with:
a) your windows machine of choice;
b) a DAC1 pre with USB [the current product is the DAC1-HDR —Ed.]; and
c) a pair of powered monitor speakers (mine happen to be KRKs).
Good DAC, external volume that can't be hacked or stalled, speakers that are fine for where I actually listen."
Avi Joshi: "I purchased the A5+ based on your glowing review from a while back and
have to say I'm absolutely thrilled. For non-audiophiles like me,
hooking its two inputs to the TV/AppleTV and an airport express has
meant blissful wireless convenience in my tiny apartment. One other
thing I did was program a universal remote to control the
TV/Cablebox/A5. I kept losing that little remote that came with the
speakers."
Michael Wollny and Heinz Sauer. Photo courtesy ACT / Grosse Geldermann
Best Jazz Records of 2012
• Not Getting Behind is the New Getting Ahead, Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola. Charlie Hunter Music. You know you're in for some fun with tracks titled "There Used to Be a Nightclub There" and "Those Desks Aren't Going to Clean Themselves." Track to sample: "Assessing the Assessors, an Assessor's Assessment."
• Four MFs Playin' Tunes, Branford Marsalis Quartet. Marsalis Music. Anyone who can quit a gig as juicy as the bandleader on "The Tonight Show" is perpetually all right with me. Branford Marsalis plays in the same straight-up boppish tradition as his more famous bro Wynton, but he's not as doctrinaire about it. Track to sample: "Teo."
• Mischief and Mayhem, Jenny Scheinman. If you're getting the idea that I like a bit o' rhythm in my modden jazz, you've got that right. Violinist Jenny is a collaborator of Bill Frisell and Ani DiFranco among others and is joined here by Wilco guitarist Nels Cline. Track to sample: "Ali Farka Touche."
Jenny Scheinman. Photo by Michael Wilson.
• Bright Light in Winter, Jeff Parker Trio. Delmark Records. One for guitar heads. Clean and spare, like, well, bright light in winter. Somethingelsereviews says "Parker's pillowy soft guitar tone permeates the record and his
steady-tempered jazzy lines never go past 4 on the adrenaline knob," not exactly what you'd expect on the first record in seven years from this veteran of the Chicago Underground Orchestra and Tortoise. A friendly, flowing record. Track to sample: "Mainz."
• Wasted & Wanted, Michael Wollny's [em]. ACT. From Germany, with love. Wollny is a rising European star with a darkish ethos who claims inspiration from literature, films and painting as well as from music. Wasted & Wanted bends genres but without making a big thing out of it. Track to sample: "Metall."
• Live at Kitano, Frank Kimbrough Trio. A classic piano trio. Fred Kaplan wrote that this lush recording of quiet jazz "is for late nights and close listening," and so it is. Track to sample: "Single Petal of a Rose."
• Black Radio, Robert Glasper. Blue Note has come a long way, baby...this might be too "crossover" for some tastes, with flavorings of everything from rap to the Isley Brothers. Glasper, his guests, and the Experiment Band create a fascinating soundworld that sounds like cities late at night, from the streets to the bars to the penthouses. Featuring Erika Badu and Lalah Hathaway (and Mos Def, as yasiin bey). And covers of Sade and Nirvana. You can argue that it's not jazz, but it's lovely. Track to sample: "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
• Bending Bridges, Mary Halvorson Quintet. I got a little obsessed with Mary Halvorson's Dragon's Head after my friend Bob Burnett turned me on to it. Gassy and noisy on first listens, its originality and quirky, spiky odd turns begin to delight deeply on repeat visits. I still don't know if I like Mary Halvorson, but I listen to her a lot. Track to sample: "The Periphery of Scandal."
• • •
Honorable mentions: Alexander Hawkins Ensemble, All There, Ever Out; Vijay Iyer Trio, Accelerando (this makes everybody's best of 2012 lists, better not leave it off mine); Lee Ritenour, Rhythm Sessions (with plenitudinous guest stars). Best Band name: Snarky Puppy. Yes, Snarky Puppy. Best album concept: The Atheist Gospel Trombone album (Jacob Garchik). I'm still waiting for the Acid Jazz Trip-Hop Accordion album, but maybe next year.
Best historical reissue: Thelonious Monk, Complete Albums Collection. The box set features all six of Thelonious Monk's Columbia album with Charlie Rouse: Monk's Dream (1962), Criss Cross (1962), It's Monk's Time (1964), Monk (1964), Straight, No Chaser (1966) and Underground (1967). (Criss Cross and Straight, No Chaser are among my favorites). No to-do is made about the remastering, but it's remarkable—the sound quality is stellar, the best ever. For this set you want to buy the physical CDs, since the box features the nifty booklet with lots of archive photos. Being a super-duper screaming great deal ($4.85 per CD, the box for less than $30) doesn't hurt anything, either.
I'm not an expert on jazz by any stretch, especially contemporary jazz, so I'm more than open to being corrected....
Mike
"Open Mike," frequently wandering off topic, scats past on Sundays here at TOP.
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. A book of interest today:
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
Dana: "...Hey Mike...I am going to narrow this down a bit and give you my jazz single of the year: Ahmad Jamal's 'Blue Moon.' At 81 years old this amazing musician produces and plays an absolute masterpiece. Listen once and you will be hooked."
Howard French: "This is one of my favorite features on this site, and I love the modesty of spirit reflected in the concluding comment: 'I'm no expert on Jazz...' I've been listening intently to the music all my life, and think you've got a first class sensibility and exquisite taste. Many of the past recommendations, mostly involving older music (Ellington, Wes Montgomery, Dexter Gordon, Hank Mobley, Archie Shepp etc., etc.) have been truly first rate. Now to Amazon to check some of this stuff out."
Mike replies: Thanks Howard. Posting this as a featured comment might contradict your point about my modesty, but since only about 38 readers have read this post down this far....[g]
Jamie Pillers: "Wha...?? Mike, what were you thinking? Christmas is gone, man. Now I have to put these on my wish list for next year!!"
Mike replies: Naw, music is more like food...a consumable necessary for survival. For all year 'round, not just for special occasions.
Dave: "Thanks for the ideas. I always want to get more into jazz but don't know where to start—just added Jazz 101 to my amazon shopping cart. Also, I added some of your recommended albums to my Spotify playlist. For those of you that don't know about Spotify this is the perfect opportunity to try out their service. Most of these albums are available on Spotify. It's free on your computer."
Mike replies: These aren't horribly "out there" or avant-garde as new jazz goes, but they're probably not the place to start for people who just want to "get more into jazz." For that, I'd recommend my Jazz Starter Kit. But by all means explore on Spotify as you like.
A modern console stereo from Symbol Audio, $26,000.
Looks like this is "Off-Topic" week at TOP. Ctein's writing about tea again (see below); I've been deeply troubled by, and preoccupied with, the Massacre of the Innocents in Connecticut, and had to write about it twice (and I want to write about it again, but am going to refrain); and then, in the comments to the "Geeky Tweaker" post, Nigel had to go and ask this question:
Tell me, Mike. Do amazing hi-fi systems sound better than real
instruments? If you had an acoustic guitarist in your living room would
it blow your hi-fi away? If one goes to a concert, say an acoustic one,
and hears a trio play, is it better than the most expensive hi-fi (like
the one in the picture)? I don't mean to be sarcastic, but I am
interested in the subjective pleasure of wonderfully reproduced music in
a room.
This is the sort of question I'm powerless to not answer. Tiny claxons go off in the nearly empty corridors of my brain; audio question! Must be addressed!
Sigh.
The answer, Nigel, is that a stereo system, at its best, will most likely be an adequate simulacrum (especially with acoustic guitar music, which is relatively easy to reproduce well)—but the real thing, while it won't "blow your hi-fi away," will sound better.
The difference—and it's a large one—is that with the stereo system, I can listen to Andres Segovia, Leo Kottke, Chet Atkins, Robert Johnson, and Wes Montgomery in my living room, whereas the best I could theoretically do with a live guitarist would probably be a neighbor or relative who plays a bit, or a local guitar teacher who's available for hire. It's a big difference. Music first, sound second.
Beyond that, I can't fit a symphony orchestra in my living room, and some musical performances were never played live, from "I Am the Walrus" to 32-track electronica to Glenn Gould.
There's a huge body of conventional wisdom—conventional sanctimony might be more like it—which holds that live music is always better. That it's "the absolute sound," the reference to which reproduced music should aspire. Not to me. I've heard just as many poor-sounding live performances as I've heard poor stereos. Great-sounding music is rare—and just as rare either live or reproduced.
Live music might sound more realistic at best. But...
The performances might not be the ones I want to hear: for instance, I once paid previously perfectly good money to see Neil Young perform one of his greatest guitar anthems, "Like a Hurricane," on solo organ. Right guy, right song, wrong night.
The performers might be having an off night. I once went to see the great flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, who insisted on conducting—badly—for half the concert. It was only slightly more relevant than watching him paint a house.
The performers might be impaired. I had the misfortune to see the Pogues live once, and Shane McGowan was so blindly drunk he wouldn't stop raving into the microphone...and you were sorry when he did. The experience was such torture I haven't willingly listened to the band or the singer since.
I might be uncomfortable in my seat or find the surroundings offensive: I saw the blues legend Freddy King once, while I was sitting next to a large table of very drunk, very loud servicemen who seemed to have been placed there by Satan specifically for the purpose of ruining everyone else's evening. And...
Yes, the sound quality might be bad. I heard Dizzy Gillespie in a 40-table jazz club, and he had the trumpet and the drums miked.
It was physically painful. Anyone who can't hear an unmiked trumpet and
full drum kit in a room the size of a large living room really doesn't
deserve to hear them, if you ask me. I actually complained directly to Dizzy about it, face to face, in person. My brushes with greatness are usually not what such encounters are meant to be, unfortunately. Big sigh.
That's not to say it's not worthwhile to hear real musicians playing
live. It certainly can be. I stopped going to most concerts years ago
because the music is too loud to hear, but I still go hear classical
music or acoustic jazz from time to time. Occasionally, live
performances can be transcendent—I got to see Lynyrd Skynryd play a
15-minute version of "Free Bird" in concert, before the plane crash, and that was fun. Sometimes
you get lucky. And sometimes you just need to get out of the house.
For better or worse, though, recordings
are the main form that music performance takes in our culture. It's the best way to listen to music, in my opinion.
Live
music can be nice...but it's often just no substitute for the real thing.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
John MacKechnie: "That band may suck on Floyd, but I hear they do an Amazing 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps.'"
HT: "I discovered this far too late, but your typical rock shows are much
more enjoyable when wearing earplugs. I know it sounds
counter-intuitive. But as you point out, popular music concerts have
the volume turned up way too loud anyway. Quieter volume would be
ideal, but the next best thing is to wear earplugs. Rock show decibels
will exhaust your ear after a few minutes but wearing earplugs will let
you enjoy the show in its entirety and, yes, you'll still hear the music
just fine. The only thing that will truly be muffled is the crowd
noise of those nearest to you. (And that's a good thing.)"
Ed Kirkpatrick: "I have been to my last rock concert.
"I am a huge Mark Knopfler fan. I consider him a fabulous guitarist and songwriter, I have everything he ever released. I wanted to see him for years. So when he brought his show to Wolf Trap Park at the Filene Center a few years ago we paid a lot of money for great seats. A nice part about an evening at this venue is that you can bring a picnic and enjoy food and drink before the show at many lovely spots in this outdoor park so lots of people pay to lay around on the lawn area and party, me included. However, as soon as the music started the behavior of the audience just ruined it for me. Drunk fans in the house seats and the lawn area continuously hooted and shouted, some people in front of us decided it would be fun to stand up and dance and sing and we had to stand just to see the show. The lighting engineers blasted extremely bright lights called blinders directly at the audience and it did literally, if temporarily, blind us. I have been told by some who know that this is done to defeat unauthorized video recording. What the whole experience did for me is convince me to just stay home and listen to good music on my system. So I agree that recorded sound is better than live, at least in the rock concert world.
"Oh and the beer is a lot cheaper!"
Son of Tarzan: "Having had the truly distinct pleasure of hearing three of the acoustic guitarists you mentioned above about 30–40 years ago, Segovia...concert hall, Atkins...small club venue in Chicago, and Kottke in a coffee house in Milwaukee, I can attest to the fact that there is no comparison to the feel of live music.
"When you are caught up in the sights and sounds of the live experience, sound quality is but one of multiple sensory stimulation one enjoys. In the confines of your own 'listening chamber,' no matter the price of the equipment, the media, or the construction of the room, lacking the peripheral parts of the performance, people, place, and presence can not compare.
"I listen to the three artists listed above and many other types of music that I have experienced in person quite often on my 15+-year-old system, sometimes from vinyl, sometimes from CD or even sometimes in the car. The detail of the sound is still not the driving factor in my enjoyment. Especially now, decades after seeing and hearing them in person, the most important part of the experience is the memory of the event."
Dennis: "Amen. Amen. I couldn't agree more. Live shows (rock at least) tend to be
over-the-top loud now and you get the feeling that the performer is
just running through the material. I too saw Lynyrd Skynyrd
appproximately six months before the crash. That and the Who (with Keith
Moon) and will cherish those memories until my dying day. There was
something special there that doesn't come 'round anymore. Better the
controlled environment of my living room, with DTS and HD video."
Joe: "I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania, and though my father loved classical music (especially Stravinsky), I never heard a live orchestra until I was away at college. My father did have a terrific stereo, and a great record collection, so I did grow up familiar with many great orchestral pieces.
"Then during my first year off at college, I went to see a performance one of my favorites, Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, my first time hearing a live orchestra. And I was totally blown away. I had never heard what real violins sound like, and it was like night and day. It was as if the instruments were breathing, like they were alive. I'll never forget it.
"On the other hand, I've had the opposite experience, like Mike describes. Hot Tuna played so loud it was painful. I've gone to see Keith Jarrett play solo improvisations at Carnegie Hall three times and one of those times he was in such a foul mood that I wish I'd stayed home. (The other times, though, were transcendent, and have not been released as recordings.)
"What can you do? You pays your money and you takes you chances."
Norm Snyder: "Growing up in Detroit, in the 'sixties, a close friend's dad owned a club called Baker's Keyboard Lounge, which only held about 110 people. There were a lot of great jazz musicians to be heard on their tiny stage. A few times, if an act had cancelled, my friend's dad would turn to his son and any friends who happened to be hanging around in their living room and say, 'Who would you guys like to hear?'—meaning, he'd see if he could book them. That's how we all heard Mose Allison, live, for the first time. Sonically, the club was great, but I also have recordings of his from that period and later that are good quality, and a pretty good system at home. Nothing can compare to the experience of being in the room, as the music was created. The phrase 'You had to be there' really applies.
"I think that's as true of recently enjoyed live performances by jazz and other musicians, as it was (admittedly in my memory) with Mose Allison that weekend long ago. Being in a small club, with live instruments/musicians involved a kind of participation and sharing of an energy that recordings can't ever really capture."
Mike replies: Norm, I hear you (maybe this post should have been titled "Live Music is Not Necessarily Better"), but you were luckier than most. Then, too, there's live and then there's live. In high school I used to travel to Chicago to hear music at the blues clubs, and enjoyed it hugely.
One of the most raucous and most fun was a wild set by Otis Rush, in a small club where the audience was in very high spirits and completely into the music. Otis chicken-walked the bar with his guitar, to great applause. Cut to college, when I was on a committee to bring concert artists to the 3,000-seat auditorium. We booked Otis Rush and his band, paid extra for their travel expenses. I was greatly looking forward to the event.
But apparently no one else was. Otis and his ensemble set up in the middle of the much-too-big stage looking like a small island in a big sea, and played to a house that was about one-third filled. Nobody sat in the front rows. And most people were sitting there quietly with an arms-crossed, "show me" attitude. No energy from the audience at all. The band clearly was not enjoying the experience either, although they tried their best.
Really taught me a thing or two about "music."
Jim Hart: "The Keyboard is still there, still operating. It is now the 'World's Oldest Jazz Club,' having first opened in 1934."
GH: "Live music is amplified and mic'ed in completely different ways than recorded music, so you're really at the mercy of the room and the engineers every night. I played in bands in Los Angeles for 10 years in just about every club around, and I don't ever recall the music sounding as good as a recording. Some rooms, like the Viper Room, tend to do a better job than others, but it's hard to replicate an album recording, especially if there are several members in the band. I'd say that seeing live music is about the energy and experience, but recorded music generally 'sounds' better."
Poagao: "I was fortunate enough to see Ennio Morricone direct music that he composed for films, and that sent a shiver down my spine. Yet even that shiver derived from hearing the same pieces played by cheap Italian orchestras on tinny TV speakers when I was a kid."
Player: "Recorded music is the idealized version of how the artist wants the
music to sound; live performance tries to match that ideal but falls
short. Recorded music is the standard; live performance is the reality."
).
" (note that it's also available on vinyl) by an Australian youngster named Courtney Barnett. I liked it the first time I heard it, and, as rarely happens with me, I seem to be liking it more with every hearing.
or some other good iPod dock with a DAC in it (ye don't want to be stuck with the wee dackish thing in the iPod, Pilgrim, heed me);
—Ed.]; and
c) a pair of powered monitor speakers (mine happen to be KRKs).
Good DAC, external volume that can't be hacked or stalled, speakers that are fine for where I actually listen."
. The box set features all six of Thelonious Monk's Columbia album with Charlie Rouse: Monk's Dream (1962), Criss Cross (1962), It's Monk's Time (1964), Monk (1964), Straight, No Chaser (1966) and Underground (1967). (Criss Cross and Straight, No Chaser are among my favorites). No to-do is made about the remastering, but it's remarkable—the sound quality is stellar, the best ever. For this set you want to buy the physical CDs, since the box features the nifty booklet with lots of archive photos. Being a super-duper screaming great deal ($4.85 per CD, the box for less than $30) doesn't hurt anything, either.
