All posts by Stephen Macaulay

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We Swoon for Zune

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Clearly, a revolutionary experience...Actually, we don’t swoon for Zune. At least not yet. At least not exactly. You see, we are waiting to hear from Redmond. Waiting for that nice package. The FedEx guy has yet to arrive here at the GloNo office. But we’re sure that he will. With the Zune. That’s right, with Microsoft’s “experience.” This is not just a digital music player. This is an experience. Sure, it comes in three colors. Black, brown and white. We’re not picky. We’ll take any or all. And yes, there is a three-inch screen that will allow us to truly customize the experience that we have with the Zune. When it comes.

Actually, we’re sort of hoping that they send one of each color because that will allow us to, as our friends at Microsoft explain, “spontaneously share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists, or pictures with friends.” We’re friends. We should share. We’re a bit mystified about the adjective “select” in front of songs. Sort of sounds like there are just certain songs that can be shared, doesn’t it? Otherwise, wouldn’t it be that we at Team GloNo would share with one another, and then with our friends, and they with them, and before you know it, Kevin Bacon would have all of the songs on his Zune, which would probably overwhelm the 30 GB capacity. Of course, given that you can only listen to any given tune for three times during a three day period, Kevin’s probably OK and would be able to share his latest homemade recording with Michael. Yeah.

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Scritti Politti – White Bread Black Beer

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Scritti Politti - White Bread Black BeerScritti Politti – White Bread Black Beer (Nonesuch)

Pop For Romantic Literary Theorists. . . .

There is a concept that sometimes arises that has it that in order for a work for art to be completely understood, it is necessary to have contingent knowledge associated with that particular work, knowledge of such things as context and references and suchlike. The Thing-In-Itself may be a whole, or complete, but by having the contingent knowledge it becomes, quite possibly, something else because one’s relationship with the work changes by having a more thorough or informed understanding of what it is. The greater the level of contingent knowledge, the greater the acuteness of assessment.

All of which is to say that Green Gartside may be too clever by half.

Once a member of Scritti Politti, Gartside now is Scritti Politti. White Bread Black Beer is performed by Gartside in its entirety. As he is not, apparently, some sort of musical polymathic virtuoso (think Todd Rundgren), this Emersonian self-reliance makes the instrumental backings of Gartside’s plaintive vocal renderings much weaker than those on the group’s earlier work (that is, when it was a group), especially 1989’s Provision, which brought in no less than Miles Davis to play trumpet on some cuts. Gartside’s synth sounds just don’t have the same resonance—to put it with profound understatement. But his layering of vocals, especially on “Mrs. Hughes,” is evidence that he’s in Brian Wilson terrain, despite the fact that SoCal is a long, long way from Wales.

While some people undoubtedly dismiss Scritti Politti’s work as pop, which it is, it is pop that, in effect, undermines pop. Or so it sets out to do. Which brings us back to the contingent knowledge. Like the name of the band, glommed from early 20th century Italian communist Antonio Gramsci. Or the fact that lyrics have referenced Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Derrida, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. This is not pop territory. On the disc at hand, the opening track, “The Boom Boom Bap” is quite possibly a variation on the zaum style that was pioneered by the Russian Futurists or a rendering of the type of sound poetry that was performed by Kurt Schwitters. Or consider this lyric from “Petrococadollar” (can you say “portmanteau word?”): “If you don’t have the wherewithal / You don’t need the why.” Few—if any—pop lyricists would even know how to spell wherewithal, to say nothing of using it in a tune.

While it is good to have some new Scritti since the last release, Anomie & Bonhomie of 1999 (yes, there’s that lit-studies major approach at it again), it is a bit disappointing that there is too much Wonder and not enough Guinness. Still, “Robin Hood” (which is not ostensibly a paean to the redistribution of wealth) is almost a Scritti Politti anthem, and it’s about time there’s been one of those.

MP3: “Throw”

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Ray Davies – Other People’s Lives

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Ray Davies - Other People's LivesRay Davies – Other People’s Lives (V2)

So I’m listening to Ray Davies:

“Things are going to change, this is the morning after. . .

“Morality kicks in. . . .

“The morning after gets up from the floor. . .to do it all again. . . .”

And I’m remembering how many of my own mornings after, when I painfully remember the night before—not merely the pain that is physically wracking, the nauseous remembrance of drinks past, of too many cigarettes, too little food—but of the asinine things said, did, the sorts of things that the spinning bed didn’t make go away when all of the other stuff was made to disappear.

“Things Are Going To Change.” Right.

So here it is, the first solo album. But honestly: Is there a Kinks album that isn’t, in effect, a Ray Davies album?

And then there are those questions that come up, like: How come the Kinks seem to have been somewhere back in a tent or something when the British Invasion occurred? Or: Didn’t they do that novelty song, “Lola”, or was that Ray Stevens?

None of that matters. Other People’s Lives does matter, at least for those who are interested in hearing well-composed, well-written songs by someone who has undoubtedly spent more than his fair share of time in situations where morality kicks in, and he honestly is bothered by it. There is a certain authenticity here, artful, but not artificial. Sincere but not saccharine.

Davies has been on stage for a long, long time. But oddly enough, unlike the recent work of some of his erstwhile peers, there is an immediacy and freshness to this, there remains the sense of the wonder of the quotidian that makes some of his best work what it is.

“To do it all again.”

Yeah.

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Stones In China: Maybe They Should Have Been Dubbed

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Let's spend some time together...It is estimated that more than 20% of the people on the planet live in China. It’s on the order of 1.3-billion people. And so there were the Rolling Stones, playing in China, in Shanghai, the biggest city (approximately 12.8 million people; about 17 million if you throw in the ‘burbs). So what kind of venue does the “World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band” play in? One that can handle 8,000 people. One could argue that it is a statistically insignificant number, not even a rounding error on census data. Now, chances are good that of the total number of people in the crowd, there were plenty of ex-pats, not Chinese citizens, so that cuts the number of actual “Chinese citizens” in the crowd. Then there were probably plenty of people who are connected. Plenty of people who are, well, not your run-of-the-mill Chinese rock and roll fan. Some might think: “Well, the Stones have to play what they can get, so if that’s the venue, then that’s the venue.” Some might counter: “Well, the Stones have allegedly been trying to get into China for 30 years, so one would expect that they’d have worked to get a slightly larger crowd.”

It gets a little dingier when it becomes known that the band had a few deletions on their set list, as the government didn’t want them to play sexually suggestive songs. Let’s face it: When you have all of those people and a one-child policy, you’ve got to be careful vis-à-vis what your citizens might be excited into doing after a night of unadulterated rock. If you want to talk about a Bigger Bang, then just think of that. Mick is quoted as being rather nonchalant about the censorship, noting that if “Brown Sugar,” “Beast of Burden,” “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” “Honky Tonk Women,” and “Rough Justice” were prohibited, then there were plenty more where those came from. So, he is quoted as saying, “it doesn’t really matter.” Really? It doesn’t?

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RIAA: Fostering the Climate

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EvolveSo I got to thinking about some of the stuff right here on this page. About the RIAA suing some woman over filesharing. About not feeling particularly engaged and/or appropriate when attending live shows. About performers who have been around for a hell of a long time and aren’t a long time gone. And I start thinking. . . .

Like what’s the situation with the RIAA, which says on its website about itself: “Its mission is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members’ creative and financial vitality. Its members are the record companies that comprise the most vibrant national music industry in the world.” Now, maybe I’m being nitpicky, but if I was the person who wrote that first quoted sentence, I suppose this sentence would have started: “Now, maybe he’s being nitpicky. . . .” Then, before the sentence is over, it goes from describing itself as an object to moving to the plural possessive (“our”). Maybe the RIAA’s case isn’t as solid as it might seem if its lawyers are as ept as its copywriters. And did they buy a new thesaurus?: “vitality. . . vibrant.” Va-va-voom!

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Hey, Hey, My, My: Questions to Consider

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CSNIf you look to the little advertisement that’s opposite this (of course, when this entry moves down the page, this direction will make no sense, so please keep in mind that this is a spatio-temporal instruction, one that has a limited shelf-life—at most) you’ll see that there is the opportunity to “win” two discs that include the music of Crosby, Stills and Nash. This is music that was first released to the public in 1969 and 1982. When you do the math, that’s somewhat frightening. That is, the first “album”—called such then—made it to the racks 37 years ago. Chances are probably good that the vast proportion of the people who are looking at this site (this means you) have been around for less than that period of time. Then there is that 13-year gap between the release of the first disc, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and the group’s third disc, Daylight Again. Which brings to mind the fact that there are probably few—if any—contemporary (and relevant) bands who have lasted 13 years (or about whom it can be said that 100% of the original members have performed on a disc after that period of time, which means that bands like The Who don’t count, although a Bob Dylan solo performance would count).

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Losing the URGE to Listen

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SURGE!So now MTV and Microsoft are going to get together to offer an online music service. There will be the ability to rent music. The ability to buy music. And most of all, the ability to line the pockets of Viacom and Microsoft. It’s called “URGE.”

The man in charge of this from the MTV side, Jason Hirschhorn, who has “chief digital officer” on his business card, proclaimed, “We will be the preferred service.” Of course he thinks that. Otherwise, he’d probably be working elsewhere. Corporations don’t want their people saying anything but that they’re—the corporations, that is—the very best at whatever they turn their attention to. Which, of course, doesn’t explain why there is oft times abysmal quality in the products and services that many of these behemoths turn out to the market.

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What Price Fame?

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The pot into which Jerry shat...So now you can buy Jerry Garcia’s shitter on eBay (specifically from December 18 to 24, 2005). Oh, the humanity. In case you didn’t catch it, some guy bought a house that the man who has been, ideally, gratefully dead since 1995 lived in during the early ’90s and, evidently, gutted it. Consequently, there is the opportunity to get everything from the porcelain appliance to door pulls and other things that were within Garcia’s reach at some point in time. While the proceeds are going to a good cause, the Sophia Foundation, which helps kids from broken homes, it brings to rise the question of just how far people are sucked into the aura of stardom when it comes to musical demigods.

One could argue that if there is money to be made by selling the pot into which Jerry shat it is a far better thing than if the thing was otherwise recycled. But how far does one go into this realm?

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Sometimes Reluctant Hookers

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Thus Sprach ZarathustraThe John Densmore issue is one that ought to make people stop and think for a moment before proclaiming the fundamental righteousness of the man for holding out against the Empire, as was reported in an LA Times story by Geoff Boucher. That Densmore is unrelenting in his resistance to allowing The Doors music to be used for ads—despite the fact that the other two remaining breathing members of the band, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger, want to increase their income through the sales of the commercial use of the band’s songs—may seem laudable, but is not such a simple matter.

Fundamentally, the music of any band or performer tends to be sold in some way, shape, or form, whether it is a piece of ticket for a concert or in the price of a bottle of beer in a bar where a band is playing. Or it is the price paid via iTunes or at a music retailer (bricks and mortar or otherwise). When you’re listening to music on the radio—even satellite radio, in some instances—you are also hearing the advertisements, which is the price you pay to listen (and if it is satellite, there is a price on top of that price). So while it is seemingly a far, far better thing Densmore does to keep Cadillac from using “Break On Through (to the Other Side)”—which would have made more sense for the carmaker’s campaign, which uses “Break Through” as its tag line, than Zepplin’s “Rock and Roll,” which has nothing to do with breaking through anything (if they wanted to use Zep, then why not “Livin’ Lovin’ Maid”: “She’s cool around town in her aged Cadillac”)—for $14-million, what, really, is the point? When the music was first heard on FM stations, those stations were selling their time to advertisers for everything from Great Shakes to Falstaff (ads for them done, respectively, by The Who and Cream), so is there some sort of purity here? I don’t think so.

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Nashville Cat

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Pedal Steel TransmissionDuring a recent visit to Nashville, I had an opportunity to visit the Emerald Studio. Architecturally blocky and office-cum-warehouse on the outside; a state-of-the-art facility with polished wood surfaces and an array of electronics on the inside, yet a sense of being a place where work is done in a creative manner, not some sort of antiseptic environment where the creativity would be predicated on the technology. And I learned about how Nashville does charting in a way that makes the traditional approaches used in other parts of the music business seem molasses slow. There I watched part of a session. And had the opportunity to talk with one of the musicians, a long-time steel guitar session player. While he has had the opportunity to play on the road with some of the genre’s notables, mainly what he does is get called in to places like the Emerald to ply his craft, or art. He’s been doing it for more than 20 years. What, I asked him, is it like today, versus how it was in days gone by: different? better? same? Consider that this is a man who must play to get pay. A man with a family and a mortgage and truck payments and insurance and. . . all of the stuff that ordinary people deal with, yet while many people have day jobs that provide them with the means to financially deal with all of that, he has chosen a route that is far different. He is not a name-brand musician. He’s the sort of person whose name is on the liner notes in a comparatively diminutive font. He’s not complaining about this, mind you. But it strikes me that he—like many of the musicians who play the very fabric of much music that we hear (or not)—have taken a path whereby their livelihood depends on how good they were their last time out, and whether they can get another gig. He’s not complaining about this, mind you. It is what he does. But it is one thing to think about making a living this way when you’re in, say, your twenties and another thing entirely when you’ve pushed past 50 and are still living out the consequences of the earlier decision.

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