Author: colter

The Decline of the Tactile Music Experience

It starts with the impulse, the want. The desire to purchase music. The spark may come from a magazine, a memory, or wherever it is these miniature divine jolts come from[1]. Ooh-must-get-now.

And today there are two options for the cessation of this particular mania: download digitally or purchase physically.

For myself, the end result is currently the same. The music will live in my iPod and be played occasionally via iTunes. And yet, I find myself being drawn to Virgin Megastore[2] to seek out the packaged goods. There is a joy attached to the experience of purchasing the object. But this is music we’re dealing with. Sound. Shouldn’t the sound be the most important thing here? Shouldn’t the physical be largely irrelevant?

I feel like it should. I feel like 60 years or so ago, record companies got Americans hooked on a drug of sorts. The buying of a shiny shrink-wrapped disc is now an end to itself. We just don’t get the same jolt from clicking “Buy” on iTunes, although we do get the ameliorating bonus of instant gratification, so future generations likely will not suffer our 60-year affliction. I’ve even heard rumors that Virgin Megastore, the last great music retailer, may be ready to close up shop. Perhaps I should revel in some pre-retail-music-apocalypse excursions. Lord knows I did when Tower Records closed.

Maybe I should enjoy it while it lasts. It’s a cultural experience that is not long for this world. Sure, dusty specialty vinyl and used CD stores will be around for a long time before they metamorphose into antique malls and flea markets. By then I imagine I’ll be 70, telling my grandkids about “record stores” while admonishing them to take off their cybernetic implants and stop pronouncing OMG and LOL as if they were actual words. I won’t even bother to mention longboxes.

1.) The amygdala?
2.) Please understand this is only a place I go when I need to find something specific that I know they will have. The vast majority of my CD shopping is still adventure-based and/or bargain-oriented. Usually at Downtown Music Gallery, Ear Wax, or the various record shops in the Village.

Writings Abound

I’ve got two music reviews in the Arkansas Times this week, as well as two blog entries over at The Deli, a New York music magazine. The Deli is starting me on blog entries before assigning me stuff for their print version. I wrote short bits on Beau Jennings and Shannon McArdle.

For the Times, I reviewed the new CDs by Isaac Alexander and Hayes Carll. It was weird to review Hayes. He and I played together once at Hendrix College in a theatre production my freshman year. It was called “Unchanging Love,” an old-timey tale with lots of songs. Hayes and I were the musicians, sitting off to the side of the stage with our guitars, cranking out the tunes. I’m glad to see he’s doing well with his music career; he was a nice guy. As a music nerd I heartily applaud his choice of producer on the record, Brad Jones. I think I’m one of the only people in the world with a copy of Brad’s only solo CD, Gilt Flake.

Death of a Man, Birth of a Legend

I’ve often wondered why artists are so often under-appreciated during their lifetimes and only after death do they become truly legendary. For example, I’m betting there has been and will continue to be an appreciable spike in the sales of Isaac Hayes’s music this week.

I think the answer is that once an artist dies, then their story is finally written. The book is closed. Only after death can sense be made of their lives and a solid narrative arc constructed without fear of any unexpected alteration. The artist becomes a known and agreed-upon quantity, and their piece of the cultural puzzle is affixed to its proper place, forever.

Isaac Hayes (1942-2008)

One of the coolest individuals this planet has ever known died today. In addition to his role as Chef on South Park and as composer of the theme to “Shaft,” Isaac Hayes was also a hit maker for Stax Records in Memphis, writing Sam and Dave’s two biggest hits, “Hold On, I’m Coming” and “Soul Man,” among many, many others. He was also one of the first soul musicians to approach the album as an art form rather than as a compilation of singles with “Hot Buttered Soul” and the double-album “Black Moses.” In addition to his film work in “I’m Gonna Get You Sucka” and “Hustle and Flow” (not to mention the MST3K-worthy “Truck Turner”) he had recently completed filming the movie “Soul Men” with Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac.

He collapsed today in his home. He was 65 years old.

I got the chance to meet him last summer in L.A. at the Hollywood Bowl. I now seriously regret not taking advantage of a mutual friend’s access to hang out more with this legendary gentleman.

I’d also like to clear up something about his departure from South Park. Isaac had suffered a stroke at the time, and his management had requested he be released from his contract. It was not Isaac’s decision, it was theirs.

Go download “Walk on By” (the 12 minute version) and find out what a master composer, arranger, and vocalist Isaac Hayes was. There aren’t many people left in the world who can truly be considered “legendary.” Now there’s one less.

The Up Series

At Amy’s behest, I recently completed watching all 7 installments of Michael Apted’s Up series. It’s a novel use of film. It started in 1964 with interviews of various young British kids, and then repeated the process every 7 years. The next installment is due in 2011.

To be able to watch someone grow up and find their way through life, to see how they change and yet don’t, is fascinating. In a way it’s a precursor to reality TV shows, but only on the surface. The Up series is a sociological document, not voyeuristic crap. It’s available on Netflix, and most of the installments are on the free instant streaming service. Check it out.

Meanwhile, I’ve been taking a ton of pictures and not linking to them, so here are some recent highlights:

Crying Hello Kitty
Waldorf-Astoria lobby
hat man
The Unisphere and Towers
round the corner from my place
McCarren Park Pool
Catholic Jazz band
saint on a boat
holy pole
Jewish Elvis
Jackson Pollock closeup

The Chain of Academia

I know XKCD.com has done well when my brain returns to it weeks later as I drift off to sleep. Here is the gist of a recent ponderable:

Sociology is just applied Psychology
Psychology is just applied Biology
Biology is just applied Chemistry
Chemistry is just applied Physics
Physics is just applied Mathematics

It left me wondering where the Arts fit in, if at all. Are literature, art, or even philosophy merely applied sociology? Perhaps they aren’t involved at all since they’re not SCIENCE.

Thom Robb: Klan Blogger

Today I stumbled across the blog of Knights of the Ku Klux Klan head cheese Thom Robb.

It’s adorable, typos and all. Here are some highlights:

“Barack Obama, if elected, will try to take the bread from our children’s mouths and send it to Africa.”

“I want to thank all of those who have been praying for my recovery from the flu.”

“The repulsive little black kid that stared [sic] in the pro-race-mixing show of the 80‘s, Different Strokes has recently gotten married.”

“The Bible tells us that we should “not follow a multitude to do evil.”

“Surprisingly an awaken[sic] White populous[sic] would not only allow us to regain our racial integrity and survival but would also provide greater safety and a brighter future for Negroes as well.”

“I had written a post on my blog yesterday and as I went to post it I evidently hit the wrong key and it disappeared.”

But then my giggles subsided when I read his celebratory Black History Month address[1]. Caution: dander-raising ahead. Further shudders came from the White Pride Home Schooling website.

Fortunately he doesn’t seem to have many followers on the web, as I notice he gets about as many comments as I do, so I’m assuming his readership to be roughly the same size (10? 15? Feel free to give a show of hands here). His son has an apparently even less popular blog.

Some final amusements, though: the Knights’ website, http://kkk.bz/ was apparently registered by someone who thought they were getting .biz but instead got the top-level domain for Belize[2]. Also, on that site is a story with the headline, “Grizzly Hate Crime Gets NO National Attention.” For a moment I wondered if this was some kind of anti-bear, Stephen Colbert-inspired cross-mammalian hate crime, but I think they just meant “grisly.”

1.) The man’s deft satire is as sharp as a Nerf® basketball and his argument just as firm.
2.) White nationalists, if they in fact exist in Belize, are understandably peeved. Doubly so, since the Knights, as a non-profit organization, don’t qualify as a “biz” anyway.

Do Adjust Your Sets

We’ve moved! We’re now located at the slightly less verbose address of pointedstick.net/colter rather than pointedstick.net/colter/journal. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away. Adjust your RSS feeds, links and whatnot. My thanks to Heath for his script fu and ill science.

Tidying Up a Bit

I’ve done some cleaning, trying to fold in the various pages of my website into WordPress. Note at the top of the right-hand column that there are some new links. I’ve also taken out the old, odd navigation graphics that used to be further down, and the /colter/ address now takes you straight here. My website has officially succumbed to the blogging paradigm. Take a look at those new links, I’ve added some new commentary at the top of each for historical perspective.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with the old photo log. The Dogpatch pictures and many random others are on Flickr now. I guess I’ll just slowly toss the old pics in over time.

And then there’s the matter of the detritus. I have a lot of pages just sitting on the server that I need to delete. Ironically one of them gets the most traffic of any page on pointedstick, thanks to a link from some apparently very popular site in Australia. I need to set up Google AdSense on that page, but I’m lazy.

Greatest Hits

I’ve been on Flickr for three years now, and so I thought it might be a good idea to compile a “Best-Of” set. Check it out.

I haven’t been posting many links to pictures, but I have been taking a lot lately. Note the top of the right-hand column which always gives links to most recent six.