Category: Music

Be Your Husband

Last Friday I was humming this tune, the first cut from the Legacy Edition of Jeff Buckley’s Live at Sin-é (if you don’t own this, you Must get it, it’s phenomenal), and I wondered if there were any videos for it on YouTube. Alas there were not. No live cuts, no covers, no fan-made videos. So I took it upon myself, since I needed to learn how to use Adobe Premiere Elements (thanks, Brian). I dug up some marital instruction footage at the Prelinger Archives and sliced and diced them over the song. Here is the result:

Teach Your Children Death Metal

Glenn McDonald is a guy from Boston who happens to be one of the most brilliant music critics I’ve ever read. He has an infant daughter now, and has been posting occasional blog entries addressed to her, presumably for her future reference.

This recent blog entry I found particularly amusing.

Some things to point out: “B” is Glenn’s wife and “we” refers to the two of them. It’s almost as if the fact that this blog is public is an afterthought to Glenn.

My Hooverphonic Story

Years ago I worked in a music store in Maumelle. When the store was going out of business, I bought a lot of CDs from them, two of which were “Hot Buttered Soul” by Isaac Hayes and “A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular” by Hooverphonic.

As I took both discs on a road trip to Texas, I discovered that Hooverphonic’s track “2Wicky” samples its groove from Isaac’s “Walk On By.” What a peculiar coincidence that I bought these two discs at the same time.

That was about 2002 or so. Over the weekend I was talking to my friend Chris, who is tour manager for Isaac Hayes (because his life is far, far weirder than mine). I ripped him an mp3 of “2Wicky” and he played it for Isaac, who had NEVER HEARD IT. He liked it, though. Chris tells me that Ike has very little control over his back catalog, so he likely does not receive any notice or compensation when he is sampled. “2Wicky” was a big hit for Hooverphonic back in 1996. It just seems really strange to me that Isaac Hayes’s music gave Hooverphonic a career and he has no idea.

Ike:

Hooverphonic:

Freelancing

Last week marked my debut as a freelance entertainment writer for Arkansas Times. I reviewed a show by the band Giant Bear from Memphis. The online version can be found here, although the author is attributed to “Staff.” I have two more pieces in this week’s issue: a review of the Guru’s Jazzmatazz show at RevRoom, and a CD review of Goon Squad’s debut disc.

Hooray me and my expanded career horizons right before departure. Still no firm ETA, but I’m hoping to land in NYC by October 1. Maybe in New York there’s a job for a swiss army knife writer/musician/internet nerd.

FYI

WalMart.com has the widest selection of karaoke backing tracks I’ve ever seen. All for $.88 each.

I know this because DeLaine called me today in dire need of the backing track to Allison Krauss and Union Station’s “When You Say Nothing At All” for a wedding she’s singing at this Saturday. I was charged with finding it. A quick Google search revealed the answer. And by the way, no, the karaoke selection at iTunes is severely lacking. Leave it to Wal-Mart to fill the niche.

Otis and Jimi

A few years ago I discovered a particular LP. One side was Otis Redding. The other side was Jimi Hendrix. Both were performances from the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. Until this month, that record has always been a little-known secret. It has never, to my knowledge, been released on CD. But now, as of last week, it’s available as a full-length concert DVD from Criterion (the people who know how to do DVDs real fancy)!

I don’t want to sound like a salesman, but dammit everyone and their pets should see and hear this thing! First of all, it’s one of the only surviving color presentations of Otis Redding performing live. And he’s backed up the legendary Booker T. and the MG’s (Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, and Al Jackson, Jr.). This is the stuff:

Will R&B ever be that good again? Sadly, I doubt it.

Rant: Stop the Singer-Songwriters with Band-Like Stage Names

OK MySpace is plugging this kid named “Young Love.” What the hell kind of stupid name is that? Could you possibly pick a more irritating stage name than “Young Love?” Is it even possible? The only thing that might be worse would be to name yourself “Basket of Puppies of Kittens.”

While we’re on the subject, I’m really really getting sick of all these singer-songwriters who give themselves stage names like they’re bands. It has to be the most annoying, pretentious trend in semi-popular music since the whole mid-90’s “one random word band names” (Sponge, Wax, Filter, Bush). Today we have individuals named Bright Eyes, Aqualung, and Iron & Wine, and more are popping up every day.

A case can be made for artists like Nine Inch Nails and Aphex Twin (ask me about my Aphex Twin story) who present themselves as something larger than their individual selves – for example you don’t see a picture of Trent Reznor on his album covers because it’s not about a man and his songs, it’s about a whole imaginative universe of sound. But if you’re just a bearded guy with an acoustic guitar and you walk up to the mic and say “Hi, I’m Iron and Wine?” No. Sorry. Get real. I love Iron & Wine as much as everyone should, but come on. It’s just goofy and trendy. You’re Sam Beam. It’s a perfectly fine name. No need to puff yourself up by fooling new listeners into thinking you’re a band.

But anything is better than “Young Love.” It just makes my skin crawl. Even more than the impossibly saccharine “Bright Eyes.” And this is coming from a guy who loves a band called The Softlightes.

I’m not saying my position is logically defensible, I’m just saying that this trend irritates me. But then, most trends irritate me.

Just Maybe the Songs

Perhaps the iTunes revolution will help to detach us somewhat from the musician cult of personality. Last year I was suckered into a subscription to Blender[1], which is the most heinous rag of celebrity music journalism (complete with Us Weekly-esque paparazzi shots of musicians clearly unaware that they’re being photographed), and it reminded me that the primary focus of music magazines is not music, but the people who make it. Of course this has probably always been the case, but it seems like today it’s even worse, as every magazine out there has a section full of pictures of famous people at parties, famous people buying groceries, famous people doing whatever.

I do know that there was a day when a hit song was a hit song, and ideally it didn’t matter who sang it [2]. But especially after the Beatles, the songs became unextractable from the musicians. So the musicians became more important (and easier for writers to talk about, as songs are far less often to be found stumbling out of a nightclub with Lindsay Lohan). But as we move away from albums and back to singles, just maybe the artists will become less important. MTV and ProTools have made the artist irrelevant anyway, as today almost anyone can sell millions of records, given the proper marketing push.

We’ll always be attracted to the vicarious thrills of watching celebrities, but I think as the music industry loses focus, the ocean of celebrity will be diluted. I’m probably wrong, but one can hope.

1.) If you want my full rant on Blender, say the word.
2.) So long as they were white.

The Old 97’s in Dallas

Meredith and I went to Dallas last weekend to see her friends The Old 97’s play at the brand new House of Blues that opened this week down there. Here’s a picture of her and her friend Murry, the bass player. He got us tickets and All Access passes so we chilled backstage like rock stars after the show.

We stayed two nights with my friend Allison and Saturday I ran around catching up with Odie and Torrey and going to Ikea where I bought an Expedit shelf. Good times.

Oh, and I bought another guitar. Shhh.