Music Industry News: The Phoebe Buffay Law

This is kind of amazing (from Florida Today):

Six months after raising the curtain on their gourmet coffee shop in the beachside Indian Harbour Place shopping center, Laurie and Jim Hall decided to offer live music on Friday and Saturday nights. The performers, normally duos, mainly covered songs written and made famous by other musicians. There was no cover charge, no pay for the musicians, no limit to how long patrons could sit on a couch with their coffee, playing chess and enjoying the music.

No problem.

Then a few months later, music industry giant ASCAP started calling and sending letters saying East Coast Coffee & Tea was in violation of copyright laws. The fee to continue the music was $400 a year.... Six months later, other music copyright companies began calling the Halls and demanding money. Most days there would be three or four phone calls from each company, Hall said. Finally, unable to afford the fees, she had to call most of her musicians -- those who did not play original music -- and tell them they would not be allowed to continue performing.
...
[This} comes on the heels of a massive music industry crackdown during the past several years on illegal downloads from the Internet. Whether it's a professional recording taken from a Web site or an accordion player singing a Jimmy Buffet tune in a small venue, the industry is working to collect royalties for whoever wrote the songs.
...
Singer/songwriter Al Urezzio, who played at East Coast Coffee, said he recently lost his steady gig at the Getaway Lounge in Suntree because the owners were being asked to pay copyright fees as well. Now Urezzio, who performs as "Grumpy Al," is relegated to performing only his original compositions. That means his options on where to perform are limited. "This is really bull," said Urezzio, who owns the Burger Inn on U.S. 1 in Melbourne. "East Coast called and told me to only play originals from now on."

So you see, it's really the audience who will be suffering. Smelly cat, oh smelly cat, what are they feeding you?

Lou Reed - Sweet Jane - live in Paris, 1974

A little funk on Friday. This version of "Sweet Jane" is quite Advanced.

Super Karate Monkey Death Car

Something fun for Friday. The writing is amazing in this scene, but the delivery is absolutely perfect.

Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature: Not True

Psychology Today has a list of ten "politically incorrect truths about human nature." This caught my eye:

7. What Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have in common with criminals

For nearly a quarter of a century, criminologists have known about the "age-crime curve." In every society at all historical times, the tendency to commit crimes and other risk-taking behavior rapidly increases in early adolescence, peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood, rapidly decreases throughout the 20s and 30s, and levels off in middle age.

This curve is not limited to crime. The same age profile characterizes every quantifiable human behavior that is public (i.e., perceived by many potential mates) and costly (i.e., not affordable by all sexual competitors). The relationship between age and productivity among male jazz musicians, male painters, male writers, and male scientists—which might be called the "age-genius curve"—is essentially the same as the age-crime curve. Their productivity—the expressions of their genius—quickly peaks in early adulthood, and then equally quickly declines throughout adulthood. The age-genius curve among their female counterparts is much less pronounced; it does not peak or vary as much as a function of age.

...A single theory can explain the productivity of both creative geniuses and criminals over the life course: Both crime and genius are expressions of young men's competitive desires, whose ultimate function in the ancestral environment would have been to increase reproductive success.

That my be true about creativity in general, but I don't think it really applies to true geniuses, especially Advanced ones. I would be interested in hearing what their definition of "creative genius"is because genius comes in so many forms. For instance, I happen to believe in a sort of genius that is ageless and a looks a bit like this: long hair in the back, black sunglasses, black leather jacket.

Walk on the Wild Side Headline Watch

The Evening Standard has an article about Lou Reed's Berlin revival (which I reviewed too). We'll get to the headline in a minute, but first, a bit of the article:

Every song, even the already wondrous Caroline Says II, was an improvement on the recorded version and the sound was the finest I've heard at any venue in years. Most brave and most incongruous was not merely the brass and string sections, but the 12-strong New London Children's Choir, whose angelic vocals, particularly on the closing Sad Song, acted as an innocent counterpart to Reed's tales of darkness, squalor and violence.

As ever, Reed ran to form by not speaking during the set (some narrative to a tale sorely lacking it might have been a benison), but the troupe did craft an encore of non-Berlin classics: a raucous Sweet Jane; an almost unbearably gorgeous Satellite Of Love, where bassist Fernando Saunders sang one verse and the choir another, and Walk On The Wild Side which fooled the censor in 1973 and, in 2007, still sounds subversive with children on backing vocals. Mesmerising.

Nice. But back to the headline. As you probably know, every article about Lou Reed has to have "Walk on the Wild Side" in its headline, and this most recent story is no exception. But they have twisted things a bit because it is not Reed who is talking a walk on the wild side (or mild side or wilder side) but his album instead. Here it is: "Dark Classic Takes a Walk on the Wild Side." I love how completely meaningless that is. First of all, can an album take a walk? And second, nothing in the review suggests that this version of Berlin is wilder than the original. Nevertheless, "Dark Classic Takes a Walk on the Wild Side" is the editor's final decision.

Sly Stone Is Back

I've written that the most Overt hairstyle you can have is a green mohawk. But the mohawk can be an Advanced hairstyle in the right context.

Sly Stone is nothing but context. (And he's giving interviews.)

Greatest Movie Quote Ever

From Idiocracy:

People wrote books and movies; movies with stories that made you care about who's ass it was and why it was farting.

If you haven't seen this movie, I recommend your renting it today. (I saw it a pretty long time ago, but for some reason the quote popped into my head this morning. I've been laughing about the line--and Luke Wilson's perfect delivery of the line--for the last couple of hours.)

Brian Eno Interview in Wired

Here's some of it:

Wired News: What drew you toward working with generative art and generative music?

Brian Eno: Well, part of it is that it's an extremely good value (laughter) because it was possible to make a lot of work from a very small amount of original material. That was one thing I found very interesting, because once I started working with generative music in the 1970s, I was flirting with ideas of making a kind of endless music -- not like a record that you'd put on and which would play for a while and finish. I like the idea of a kind of eternal music, but I didn't want it to be eternally repetitive, either. I wanted it to be eternally changing. So I developed two ideas in that way. Discreet Music was like that and Music for Airports. What you hear on the recordings is a little part of one of those processes working itself out. Theoretically, the processes were infinite but unfortunately, recordings aren't of infinite length. So you sort of had a diagram, or really you got a "still" from the piece. That was really the best way of explaining it.

***

WN: How much of a relationship does place have with how you think the audience perceives 77 Million Paintings? You know, where it's installed, whether they're viewing it at home or in a gallery.

Eno: It makes a lot of difference. First of all, if people go somewhere to look at something, they've already made a commitment of time. They are therefore likely to make a bigger commitment. It's unlikely that they'll ride all the way across town, look in and leave in 15 or 30 seconds. You'll probably think just because you made that long journey, you'll stay longer. [Brian Eno would make an excellent online marketer -jh]

If you want to feel like a talentless dummy, go read the rest of the article.

Free Prince CD: Record Sellers Don't Like It

This is an amusing story about the incredibly brilliant record-store industry (from the Guardian):

The eagerly awaited new album by Prince is being launched as a free CD with a national Sunday newspaper in a move that has drawn widespread criticism from music retailers. The Mail on Sunday revealed yesterday that the 10-track Planet Earth CD will be available with an "imminent" edition, making it the first place in the world to get the album. Planet Earth will go on sale on July 24.

One music store executive described the plan as "madness" while others said it was a huge insult to an industry battling fierce competition from supermarkets and online stores. Prince's label has cut its ties with the album in the UK to try to appease music stores.

The Entertainment Retailers Association said the giveaway "beggars belief". "It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career," ERA co-chairman Paul Quirk told a music conference. "It would be yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music.

"The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday."

What would we do if we couldn't buy Prince's (or other artists') music at record stores? Where could we go? By the way, this free-CD promotion is Advanced.

Lou Reed in Time

There is a little thing about Lou Reed's Berlin revival at Time.com. Here's a bit:

While the singer shares his tales of depression, drug abuse and disoriented expats, the audience for the most part sits quietly in their seats. The choir and orchestra add a strangely upbeat air to the songs, the bleakness of which had irritated critics when it was released. There is not much movement on stage, except a background singer in a red dress gently rocking back and forth in a chair. One cannot help but wonder, has Berlin become re-unified but boring? A clean, family-entertainment culture, as one man describes the show afterwards, "worse than Las Vegas"?

First of all, the "worse than Las Vegas" man is obviously an idiot (appreciating Las Vegas is Advanced). But second, I'd like to talk about the headline of this article: "A Walk on the No-Longer-So-Wild Side." It's yet another example of the heroic lack of effort so often evident in articles about Lou Reed. Time gets extra credit, though, for creating one of the clunkiest headlines I've ever seen. It's worse than Las Vegas.

Paul McCartney's In-Store Show

There's an article in USA Today about a show Paul McCartney did in a record store. Nothing too surprising. However, I thought the list of celebrity attendees was amusing/interesting. Here's who was there:

• Michael Eisner
• Alanis Morissette
• Joe Walsh
• Rick Rubin
• Jeff Lynne
• Woody Harrelson
• Jennifer Love Hewitt
• Cybill Shepherd
• Twiggy
• Rosanna Arquette
• Victoria Tennant

It always breaks my heart to think about Twiggy waiting for Elwood. (My heart breaks for him, not her, of course.)

Theory of Advancement in the Independent (or CK in the UK)

As most of you know, Chuck Klosterman wrote about the theory in Esquire, which was quite something. An unfortunate side effect of having someone way, way, way more popular than you write about something you've come up with is that people forget that the way, way, way more popular person didn't invent it. The latest example is in an interview Klosterman did with "MT" from the Independent:

MT: My favourite essay in your new collection is the one about people who are "advanced". [Klosterman argues that certain artists reach a point where they often lose their audience because they've advanced beyond normal comprehension.] I love what you write about Liz Phair heading towards "advancement" as her music becomes harder for an audience to cope with, or how Lou Reed became advanced with his album Animal Serenade. In that essay, you really seem to define something accurate and true about pop culture. What inspired this "theory of advancement"?

Fortunately CK set MT straight:

CK:It's not my theory. I just explained the theory as it was explained to me. I'm still trying to figure it out in totality. But it's essentially a way to understand the nature of genius, particularly in situations where that genius is not self-evident.

This kind of honesty is the only way we'll keep our Wikipedia pages separate. I wonder if people think that he just invented me. I guess if I didn't exist, he would have had to.

Internet Radio Day of Silence

I just tried to get on my Pandora station and found this:

Hi, it's Tim from Pandora,

I'm sorry to say that today Pandora, along with most Internet radio sites, is going off the air in observance of a Day Of Silence. We are doing this to bring to your attention a disastrous turn of events that threatens the existence of Pandora and all of internet radio. We need your help.

Ignoring all rationality and responding only to the lobbying of the RIAA, an arbitration committee in Washington DC has drastically increased the licensing fees Internet radio sites must pay to stream songs. Pandora's fees will triple, and are retroactive for eighteen months! Left unchanged by Congress, every day will be like today as internet radio sites start shutting down and the music dies.

A bill called the "Internet Radio Equality Act" has already been introduced in both the Senate (S. 1353) and House of Representatives (H.R. 2060) to fix the problem and save Internet radio--and Pandora--from obliteration.

I'd like to ask you to call your Congressional representatives today and ask them to become co-sponsors of the bill. It will only take a few minutes and you can find your Congresspersons and their phone numbers by entering your zip code here.

Your opinion matters to your representatives - so please take just a minute to call.

Visit www.savenetradio.org to continue following the fight to Save Internet Radio.

As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.

I don't much about this, but feel free to click the links. I'm not so sure the day of silence is a good thing, as it punishes the people who listen, but I guess they wanted to make a bold statement.

**Update here.

Sonic Youth Teams With Starbucks

Sonic Youth is teaming up with Starbucks to release a covers record. From Digital Music News:

The release, a limited-edition compilation of Sonic Youth covers by well-known contributors, is expected in early 2008. It will be jointly released by both Starbucks Entertainment and Universal Special Markets, and will not be positioned under the freshly-launched Hear Music label, according to the representative. "This is not a Hear Music release," the representative underscored. But the album will be structured like "other joint venture releases," including the highly successful project involving Ray Charles, Concord Music Group (now a partner in Hear Music), and a number of big-name collaborators.

This is a sweet move by Sonic Youth if you ask me. And it also reminds me: It is very Overt to hate Starbucks. If you don't like the coffee, fine, but otherwise you're just being Overt if you aren't drinking a delicious venti coffee of the day (and M&M cookie) every day. One last thing: Is it me, or has Starbucks been playing a lot of great old R&B these days?

P.S. I like Starbucks coffee.
P.P.S. If they had asked me for something to add to the compilation, I would have contributed a version of their version of the Carpenters' "Superstar." But that might be Overt of me, so never mind.

Steve Martin Talks Banjos

There is a lengthy but interesting interview with Steve Martin stevemartin.com (it's from Banjo Newsletter). He talks about banjos, his weird album "The Steve Martin Brothers," how he stopped playing, how we started again, what banjos he likes, what players inspired him, and all kinds of other stuff. Like this:

I had a party over here the other night, a couple of months ago with John; Kevin Nealon, who plays the banjo well - he was on "Saturday Night Live" - a funny comedian; Eric Idle [from Monty Python] plays guitar really well - it's folky, but everything is backed up with all the cords, not just the basic ones, and he's a songwriter, too; and Billy Connolley - do you know him, the Scottish comedian? - he's a frailer - real good. They were all at the house and we had a little session. Martin Mull he played guitar.

I wish he would have called me. I would have enjoyed that. Maybe next time.

Me? Not a Fan

I've been trying for a long time to put something together about musicians who wouldn't seem to be fans of their own music. I guess you could say that they are cooler or more interesting or smarter than the music they make. The key to them, though, is that they really do like what they do, which is why it is fascinating. I can understand why Aerosmith would do a song by Dianne Warren (because it will be a hit), even though they would probably like to write another "Dream On" or "Sweet Emotion." With the people on this list, they are making the music that is a true artistic expression. As an Advanced Listener, I have to add that I like most of these artists, it's just that I can't imagine that they do. Unfortunately, I can come up with only five solid contenders and one alternate:

• Garth Brooks - Amazing on SNL, seems like a smart guy, has a sense of humor about himself; I just don't see him running on the treadmill with "The Thunder Rolls" on endless repeat. Side note: Chris Gaines rules.
• Cher - I actually like almost all of her hits from every era. But I just can't imagine Cher popping in a recent Cher CD, even if I could turn back time.
• Alice Cooper - I'll never exactly figure out who the real Alice Cooper is. But does he play "Welcome to My Nightmare" when he drives to the golf course?
• Jimmy Buffet - There a couple of exceptions, especially "Come Monday." That song is impossible not to love.
• Meat Loaf - He is probably the best example of the phenomenon. I actually think he is just Advanced, and I just haven't quite gotten a hold of how "Fight Club" and "Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose" fit together.
• Bruce Springsteen - I know, I know. But if you think about it, he kinda fits.

Top Ten Rules for a Guitarist (Captain Beefheart Edition)

Here are the "so Overt he might just be Advanced" Captain Beefheart's 10 commandments for guitar players:

1. Listen to the birds
2. Your guitar is not really a guitar
3. Practice in front of a bush
4. Walk with the devil
5. If you're guilty of thinking, you're out
7. Always carry your church key
8. Don't wipe the sweat off your instrument
9. Keep your guitar in a dark place
10. You gotta have a hood for your engine

Music Thing has the list, along with the explanation of each commandment. A sample, for number three, "Practice in front of a bush":

Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush doesn't shake, eat another piece of bread.

You can also make a bid on Freddie Mercury's piano while you're at Music Thing.

Dolly Parton: Girl Scout for Life and more...

Good headlines today:

• Ringo Starr plans downloads of song list. That didn't come easy.
  
• Rod Stewart marries model. So that's how he stays forever young.
• Dolly Parton named Girl Scout for life. I hope she won't fall into the same trap as Baby Doc Duvalier.
  
• Old rockers top UK charts. Some of them are even dead!

Sorry I've been away the last couple of weeks, but I'm back now.

Stewart Copeland on the Police's Disaster Gig

It's good to know that gigs like this happen to the best of them:

A philosophical Stewart Copeland unleashed his vitriol in a posting on his Web site on Thursday, a day after the band played its second show in Vancouver, the Canadian city where it began its first world tour in more than 20 years on Monday.

"This is unbelievably lame," Copeland wrote of Wednesday's show at the GM Place arena. "We are the mighty Police and we are totally at sea."

***

Copeland started the show off on the wrong foot, literally. He tripped as he took to the stage, and then banged his gong at the wrong time so that "the big pompous opening to the show is a damp squib." He did not hear Summers' opening riff to "Message In a Bottle," and Sting in turn misheard Copeland's drum intro -- "so we are half a bar out of sync with each other. Andy is in Idaho." They quickly recovered, but then Sting got his footwork wrong as he leapt into the air to signal the end to a shambolic version of their rat-race rant "Synchronicity II."

"The mighty Sting momentarily looks like a petulant pansy instead of the god of rock," Copeland reported. "And so it goes, for song after song," he wrote, with tunes such as "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me" reduced to ruin.

"It usually takes about four or five shows in a tour before you get to the disaster gig. But we're The Police so we are a little ahead of schedule," he said.

If you've ever been in a band, you know all too well what he's talking about. The worst one I experienced was when my band Spigot played what we called "The Astonishing 3-D Event." We had two slide projectors project the same image not quite on top of each other, and gave out 3-D glasses like in the old days, so the images looked like they were in 3-D (we used red and green acetate on the projectors and in the glasses). We also got an apple-scented fog machine for some reason. It was our first headlining show and the placed was packed. The first song went great, but that's when the strings started breaking. I broke I think four strings on three different guitars that night. Because I hadn't played live much, I didn't know to have backup guitars at the ready (I had to borrow guitars from the opening bands), so the whole thing ground to a halt again and again. Eventually there were no more guitars to play (though there was still plenty of apple-scented fog), and we just had to stop. I think I'm still depressed about it.

Anyway, I think Stewart will be fine.

Lou Reed Interview

There's a nice long article about Lou Reed in the Telegraph. Here's some of it:

'To leap right from Delmore Schwarz into the world of Warhol - of all the places in the world to end up!' Reed rolls his eyes. 'I just thought, this is heaven. I'm in the perfect place at the perfect time. Here you are, you want to write music and songs and look what you've landed in the middle of. This is really, really amazing if I live through this. We went from sleeping on the floor - nothing - and then Andy took us in, which meant we got to eat fruit every night. He really liked the songs. And he was the great protector. If you have a Warhol sitting next to you saying, "Oh, don't change any of that; don't let them change that, whatever you do," that really means something. The fact that he liked it meant that it was OK for it to be that way. And, my God, if he hadn't, it would have been devastating. We would have had to leave.'

***

'I say, no [Hubert] Selby, no anybody - that's the way I see it,' Reed says. 'Because he was a straight line between two points; no f***ing around over there; no polysyllabic anything - it's just, God... if that's not rock'n'roll, what is?'So that was my idea of fun: take Twist and Shout and really put something in it. What could be more fun? But then I had to do it right, otherwise it's going to be really pretentious. Like Last Exit to Brooklyn - you do that wrong and come up with, "We wear short shorts...'' ' He sings the first lines of the juvenile 1950s pop hit, and shudders. 'The Royal Teens. Why should I even know that? That scary trivia in your head...'

Even the master can get a bit Overt some times. Everybody knows that "Short-Shorts" is awesome. Check out the lyrics.

A Nod Is as Good as a Link to a Blind Bat

This is off topic, but have any of you noticed the growth of linking individual words in a series to reinforce the idea that there is a lot of evidence? Like this, from the New York Times:

But it defies belief — and a whole lot of economic research — to suggest that the problems of the middle class stem from illegal immigrants.

I think I like this technique (and not only when it exposes Lou Dobbs as a jackass), and I think it should have a name. But what?

Reihan Salam Is Abominably Bad

Here's why:

As a movie, Fletch is all but unwatchably bad.

That is the dumbest, "kill your idols," Overt bullshit I've ever read. Go here to read the truth.


What kind of a name is Poon anyway?

Cream Reuniting: Not a Fantasy

As you probably know, I hate Eric Clapton but Cream is the one project he was involved in that I liked. Still, I don't know how excited I am about this reunion. Jack Bruce tells us all about it:

Bruce would not say when the reunion would occur, but that it would not be the seven-continent Live Earth shows on July 7: "It's a bit later than that." Bruce recently told the Scotsman newspaper there was no chance the band would reunite because of long-standing tension between him and [Ginger] Baker. "Then, the next day, it came up we're doing something if I wanted to. Obviously, I'm not going to be the one to say no," Bruce told the AP during an appearance at the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp.

This is probably Overt of me, but there is a clue within that quote that tells us why Bruce is open to a Cream reunion despite his differences with Baker. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to ride off on a steamer to the violence of the sun.

U2 3D

As we all know, embracing new technology is Advanced, as is wearing black sunglasses, so this article from the New York Times caught my eye. Here's why:

...on Saturday nearly an hour of footage from the 3-D concert film of the Irish rock band U2 made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival.

As “U2 3D” demonstrates, this is definitely not the 3-D of drive-in memories. The concert film gives the audience the palpable experience of being present, as the camera swivels around Bono’s face, then soars over and down among the 60,000 concertgoers. And though the new version still requires audience members to wear glasses, they are not the old red-and-green variety but sleek black ones.

Of course they are black. It would be even better if they were Fly glasses, but I guess that could get pricey.

Prince to Give Ronnie Wood the Sheena Easton Treatment?

Here is something interesting:

Rolling Stones rocker RONNIE WOOD has been picked for a live duet with pop superstar PRINCE, according to his daughter. Leah Wood...claims he requested the rocker join him on stage at a recent gig in London. Unfortunately, Ronnie had to snub the offer due to pre-arranged travel commitments.... She says, "Prince called up my dad an hour before his show in Camden, and asked him to join him on stage. "I'm going to spike up his hair especially."

Prince's taste in proteges has certainly changed in his old age.

Brandon Flowers Is Fan-Tastic

I was looking at SI.com's recent photo gallery of celebs at NBA playoff games, and to my surprise, Brandon Flowers of the Killers was the last celeb shown. Obviously he went to the game only because he wants us to think he's Advanced (embracing popular sports is Advanced). He has an Overt "tell" though: He went to the Raptors-Nets game. It would have been much more Advanced to go to a Lakers game. But at least he's trying.

The Funniest Moment in TV History

"Oh my God, they're turkeys!"

Steve Miller Live and Ready for Your iPod

As a big Steve Miller fan, I was pretty excited to find a bunch of Steve Miller concerts from the mid- to late-70s at NargoTheBort's Deviant Subculture. And if you're worried that they aren't high quality Soundboard or FM recordings or that each show won't be in iPod-ready format with track names, track numbers, etc. filled out in the ID tags, don't!

(Learn all about the Pompatus of Steve Miller.)

Bob Dylan Goes to Kindergarten

From the New York Post:

KINDERGARTEN kids in ritzy L.A. suburb Calabasas have been coming home to their parents and talking about the "weird man" who keeps coming to their class to sing "scary" songs on his guitar. The "weird" one turns out to be Bob Dylan, whose grandson (Jakob Dylan's son) attends the school. He's been singing to the kindergarten class just for fun, but the kiddies have no idea they're being serenaded by a musical legend - to them, he's just Weird Guitar Guy.

They have even less idea that they're being serenaded by Advanced Weirdo Guitar Guy. I also find it amusing that he never plays guitar in concert anymore, but he does play it for a kindergarten class. And finally, I heard that he got booed the third time he came in because he showed up with an electric guitar and Al Kooper.

(Thanks to Jimmy Page's Sweater Vest)

Bono, David Bowie, Syracuse University Salute Lou Reed

This is nice:

BONO and DAVID BOWIE were among friends, students and fans who left rocker LOU REED visibly touched as he was honoured by New York's Syracuse University. Bowie and Bono joined in a 'Lou' chant when the former Velvet Underground frontman was handed the George Arents Pioneer Medal For Excellence In The Arts from his alma mater last week. Reed, who was an undergraduate at the college in the early 1960s, has also been named in a new scholarship for creative writing undergraduates. But he joked, "Everyone knows you can't do anything with an English degree."

The man speaks the truth!

Howard Stern: The Confessions of a White Widowed DJ

What is Howard Stern drinking and who is this girl with him? I think her name is Marilyn. (thanks to Goldenfiddle)

Pete Townshend: To the Lifehouse

Here's something:

Pete Townshend's decades-old vision of creating musical portraits through technology has come to fruition. The Who guitarist today unveiled his music creation, now dubbed the Lifehouse Method, to a small gathering of journalists in London. The Method is an Internet-based software program that enables the user -- or "sitter" -- to generate music from unique, inputted data. The sitter can upload four strands of personal information into the system, consisting of a digital photo, a rhythm, a sound and a voice.

...Townhend explained that the project was the culmination of an idea which had percolated since his art school days in the 1960s. The concept was first introduced in the early 1970s via music intended for the Townshend-penned "Lifehouse" song cycle and planned concept album, which eventually morphed into the Who's "Who's Next" album. Music composed through the Method's technology formed the basis of the track "Fragments" on the most recent Who album, "Endless Wire." Today's launch, Townshend noted, was an attempt "in essence, [to] close the book on the great lost project of Lifehouse, as a Who legendary non-event."

Advanced artists usually talk about their projects in grandiose terms. But talking like that about projects that never happened is pretty impressive.

Lou Reed Review

Brian J. Barr of the Seattle Weekly gets it:

Lou Reed's Hudson River Wind Meditations is built for quiet contemplation. For more than an hour, Reed, a longtime practitioner of tai chi and meditation, creates smooth and soothing sine waves that recall the gentle lolling of the fabled New York waterway. There are sounds on here that also recall the expanding harmony and ringing of Tibetan meditation bowls. The hipsters will probably laugh it off as a sign of Reed's old age, but this record has everything in common with LaMonte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, which was a major influence on the Velvet Underground. Instead of the confrontational repetition the Velvets were renowned for, however, this is an inviting sort of repetition. It invites you to explore your own soul, which, as Jung noted, is often the most confrontational experience. What's most striking is that, while the album is considered a meditation on a body of water, deeper listens reveal creaks and groans which echo the inner workings of N.Y.C. Perhaps if the people of New York would shut up for once, this is what their home would sound like.

Incidentally, Lou Reed likes to tell people to shut up too.

Lou Reed Download: Hudson River Wind Meditations

From Fauni Gena:

A practitioner of Yoga and Tai Chi for many years, Lou Reed brings his unique sensitivity and knowledge of a broad spectrum of music genres to provide a tranquil bed of soothing harmonics that open the heart and settle the mind. The pieces on this hypnotic album will wash away tension and negative energy with sparse instrumentation and subtle waves of electronic sound.

...Hudson River's two primary tracks consist of Doppler-effect sine waves, Tibetan-singing-bowl-like sounds, and deep subharmonics.

1 Move Your Heart 28:55
2 Find Your Note 31:35
3 Hudson River Wind (Blend the Ambiance) 1:51
4 Wind Coda 5:22

To download it, go to this site. I can't think of anything more relaxing than the winds off the Hudson River.

U2 and the Spiderman Musical

I was just thinking to myself how quiet the Advanced World has been recently. Then I found this on CNN:

Get ready for "Spider-Man: The Broadway Musical." That may not be the official title, but Marvel Studios is putting the pieces together for a musical on the Great White Way starring the popular superhero. Julie Taymor, who won Tonys for direction and costume design for the Broadway production of "The Lion King," will direct, with U2's Bono and the Edge creating new music and lyrics for the project.

What will happen when the Fly gets tangled up in Spiderman's web? I don't know, but I have a feeling it's going to be Advanced.

Trent Reznor Has Been Working Out

I saw this picture of Trent Reznor in the New York Times. When did he get so big? Now if he were Advanced and wanted to get into shape, he would try tai chi like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. Still I salute him, because I'm always pulling for the nerd who thinks he won't be a nerd anymore if he has big muscles.

Charles Pierce Is Lazy, or If Loving Nixon Is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right

I don't mean to be harsh, but this piece in the Boston Globe reeks of first draft. Go ahead, take a whiff and tell me that this took longer than five minutes to write. I would let it go, but Bob Dylan and the Pope are important to me. Plus, I don't care for his insinuation that the copy desk would somehow know more about the X-Men than the Catholic Church. I understand that not all columns are going to be brilliant, but a writer owes his readers a little effort. And if he did put a lot of effort into "Tangled Up in Bob" (yes, that's the amazing headline, a phrase that gets only about 1.1 million matches on Google), then I encourage you all to move to Boston and apply for a job at the Globe because they are obviously having a problem generating content.

If I can lazily attach to the theory this overly mean criticism of a writer who probably was working on lots of other things and didn't have much time to devote to his column that he writes to feed his family, laziness is a hallmark not just of dashed-off columns and brainless headlines, but of Overtness as well. The "Overt," which was originally short for "Overt Weirdos," do exactly what is expected of them (or exactly the opposite, which is just as easy to do). For example, there are lazy ways to be weird (tattoos, funny hair, hating Dark Side of the Moon) that everyone recognizes as weird, and that is what the Overt embrace. In other words, it's being weird without being weird. Not only that, it's being weird without consequences.

The Advanced, on the other hand, are weird in a way that is harder to categorize. It's Bob Dylan's conversion to Christianity. Lou Reed's haircut in the '80s. James Brown's loving Richard Nixon. Why would the man who wrote "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" embrace the man who said "I have the greatest affection for them [blacks], but I know they're not going to make it for 500 years. They aren't. You know it, too. The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they're dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life. They don't live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like." Whatever the explanation, you have to admit that Brown's affection for Nixon was thoroughly weird and not at all lazy.

Maybe the country would have been better off if James Brown would have supported the other guy, but it would have just given the headline writers just another excuse to use "James Brown Feels Good (About McGovern)." And Charles Pierce might not have a job today!

Elvis Costello: "Rock and Roll Music"

Andrew at Jimmy Page's Sweater Vest wrote to remind me that one of Elvis Costello's new collections of hits is called "Rock and Roll Music." As most of you know, embracing rock and roll (and using the term in song and album titles) is almost as important to the Advanced Artist as wearing black leather jackets and dark sunglasses.

Side note: Remember when he had that beard? Has anyone ever heard an explanation for that (other than Advancement)?

The Police to Record Again?

From NME:

"Andy Summers has hinted that the band may get to work on a new album after their forthcoming world tour.... He added: 'If we do well with these concerts we may well make a sixth album. I can't see why not.'

"'We've been jamming acoustically lately and we've been really enjoying it,' said Summers. 'We'll be playing a couple of new songs at the shows in the summer.'"

Is there anything better than hearing new songs tat a reunion concert? Yes, hearing new songs that are the product of acoustic jamming. You win, Sting.

New Balance Joy Division Sneakers

This story definitely belongs in this blog, but I don't know exactly what to think of it:

"Here is an interesting sneaker if you’re a fan of New Balance or English rock band Joy Division. It looks like New Balance has produced a tribute sneaker for this legendary group. The sneaker is done in white and grey featuring Joy Division’s first album cover graphics on the tongue and insole. We don’t know if these are going to release, but we will certainly keep you posted when more information surfaces."

I could see someone making Cure-tribute sneakers, but this one is a bit perplexing. And wonderful.

The Cure and Ashlee Simpson

I had my doubts a long time ago, but Robert Smith is definitely Advanced:

"The Cure frontman Robert Smith has teamed up with singer Ashlee Simpson for a collaboration on her new album. The as-yet-untitled album is the follow up to 2005's I Am Me. Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz denied any involvement in putting the unusual pair together, even though both of them are his personal friends. He said: 'I doubt I had anything to do with it, 'cause they were friends since she was performing in Chicago. But I definitely only have good things to say about Ash--I think the collaboration could be great.'"

I really can't think of a more Advanced move.

Lou Reed Concert New York

If you've got $85, you can see Lou Reed at a new venue owned by the the owner of B.B. King's Blues Club. Wait, it's not B.B. King? Anyway, here are the details:

"The HighLine Ballroom, a new performance space in New York's meat-packing district on 16th Street (between Ninth and 10th avenues), will open April 30 with a concert by Lou Reed.

The first month at the HighLine Ballroom will feature performances by Mos Def, Amy Winehouse, Jonatha Brooke, Spank Rock, Meshell Ndegeocello, Talib Kweli, moe., and Disco Biscuits.

Inspired by the aesthetics of High Line Park, the HighLine Ballroom features a minimal industrial decor providing open sightlines of the stage from every area within the club. Outfitted with a state-of-the-art sound system and lighting, digital sound boards and what's billed as the largest stage in the city for a club of comparable size, the 700-capacity venue will book bands at all levels."

If you're worried about the cost, you'll feel better knowing that 25 cents will go to the Friends of the High Line, the "nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and reuse of the High Line elevated rail structure."

Learn more about Lou Reed and Advancement!

The Kinks Fight for the Clissold of Old

For those of you who love the Kinks but hate posh gastro grub, this story from Earvolution will will be right up your alley:

"Ray and Dave Davies are taking issue with the new owner of The Clissold Arms, the London bar where The Kinks played their first show in 1963. In a scenario derived from their 1983 hit 'Come Dancing,' the venue's 'Kinks Corner,' a shrine including guitars, records and other souvenirs, is about to be removed to make room for an upscale eatery.

"'I would urge whoever has bought the pub to retain some reference to The Kinks so fans all over the world can retain it as a sense of 'place,'" Ray Davies reportedly pleaded. His brother Dave echoed his brother's sentiment to form a new variation of the Village Green Preservation Society. 'Why on earth can't they have their posh gastro grub and still keep a part of it for tourists, Kinks fans and the curious?' he said."

I'm going to have to side with posh gastro grub on this one, but I think the restaurant owner should at least name a sandwich after the Davies. Or maybe just have a soup of the "days."

The 10 Greatest Rap Songs of All Time

On this day in 1981, "Rapture" became the first rap song to go number one. So I thought this would be a good time to share with you my list of the 10 greatest rap songs of all time . Of course "Rapture" makes the list at number 10, but let's see what are the other nine:

• "Radio Song" by R.E.M. Baby, baby, baby this rap song is so good it's driving me crazy.
• "Kool Thing" by Sonic Youth. Let everybody know: punk rockers make good rap artists, too.
• "Roll the Bones" by Rush. Why are we here? To listen to some great Canadian rap.
• "Cheeseburger in Paradise" by Jimmy Buffet. I like mine with lettuce, tomato, and rap.
• "Wham! Rap" by Wham! The first use of "street cred." (Thanks to Very Little Known Facts)
• "Funky Man" by Dee Dee King (aka Dee Dee Ramone) I told you punk rockers make good rap artists, too.
  
• "Come With Me" by Puff Daddy featuring Jimmy Paige. A great blend of classic rock and old-school rap.
  
• "I Used to Be an Animal (But I'm Alright Now) by Eric Burdon. Jimmy Page's Sweater Vest says this is the best rap song ever. But I say it's...
  
• "Original Wrapper" by Lou Reed. This is the song that helped me fall in love with rap and remains the best rap song of all time.
  

Iggy Pop Channels the Big Lebowski (or Mr. Potatohead)

The Stooges did some kind of cyber Q&A concert deal. For those of you who don't know, embracing technology is Advanced, as is going solo, as is reuniting with your band, as is practicing the martial arts. So let's see what Iggy Pop has to say about his slim physique:

"He credited tai chi exercises, 'but I'm not spiritual about it.' He cryptically added: 'I had a benefactor, and when I hit about 45, he just went, 'You're either gonna be like the potato, or the dude.'"

There you have it.

Crazy Musical Scores

Dark Roasted Blend has some of the most Overt musical scores you've ever seen. Unless you think that "add bicycle" and "balance your chair on two legs" are just the workings of an Advanced Irritant.

The Jesuits Love Tom Waits

Here's something of note from Down Under:

"Even if Tom Waits's songs, which include Dragging a Dead Priest, are sung in a rasping voice that seems to have been soaked in a whisky barrel, he has won over friends in the Jesuit order. Barely a week after the Pope told of his dislike for the 'prophets of pop' and Bob Dylan in particular, the Jesuits in Rome have embraced Waits as a Christian role model.

"The latest issue of Civilta Cattolica, a Jesuit journal whose contents are subject to Vatican approval, says Waits represents 'the marginalised and misunderstood.'

"Father Antonio Spadaro, 40, who normally writes about literature but is emerging as a Catholic authority on pop music, said Waits had lived a youthful life of 'drugs, alcohol and sex'"as an outcast on the streets of California. He therefore understood 'the lower depths'" of society and was able to convey the desperation of those on the margins. His past enabled him to express their 'capacity for hope and instinct for happiness' in 'authentic songs devoid of vanity and false illusions,' Father Spadaro said."

Will the Civilta Cattolica become the new Pitchfork?

P.S. I've been away and busy, but I hope to start posting regularly again.

Bob Is an Anagram, Weird Al Is a Genius

Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog.

Mick Jagger and Martin Scorcese Together Again, Van Halen Kihnspiracy?, Twelve-Neck Guitar, Lou Reed and Phillip Glass

• Mick Jagger and Martin Scorcese are making a movie about something to do with music or something.
• The Van Halen reunion is in jeopardy! So is the Greg Kihn Band reunion (but that's a good thing in their case).
• It's hard to play a twelve-neck guitar! But sometimes you just need that sweet twelve-neck sound you can't get out of any other guitar.
• Lou Reed played with Phillip Glass at Carnegie Hall to benefit Tibet House. Also, loureed.org has some cool new (to me) stuff, including lots of good videos. Check him out in an old Night Flight article where he talks about his dedication to having fun among other things. (You have to navigate a bunch of floating links on the rights side of the site, but it's worth it.) One last thing: Don't you talk to him about work.

Tin Machine: Advancement in Action

Like most people, I was somewhat appalled when I heard Tin Machine for the first time. Then I saw them on SNL and I was blown away. Still I didn't get into the records much. But as I write this, "Under the God" is on my "Lou Reed" Pandora station, and I now completely understand why Tin Machine was not only awesome, but completely necessary. What's particularly Advanced is that David Bowie reversed the usual order of things by forming a band as an act of Advancement rather than going solo as most other Advanced musicians did.

The funniest thing is that I've been preaching the Advanced Theory for 15 years or so, but I can still be surprised by how correct it really is. There's nothing more basic to the theory than the idea that someone who is ahead of their time like David Bowie or Lou Reed will be ahead of their time. So it's funny that I'm surprised that Tin Machine were actually good because of course they were good. David Bowie was a member!

By the way, the song David Bowie sang in "Extras" is the best song he's written in twenty years. It would have been at home on Hunky Dory, don't you think?

Lou Reed and Pete Townshend at Joe's Pub: "Pale Blue Eyes"

Wow. Go here to see Lou Reed and Pete Townshend singing "Pale Blue Eyes." It's funny, but I don't think of those two occupying the same universe, and yet they clearly do. The universe of Advancement.

Ace Frehley Alive II

Let it be known:

"Contrary to published reports, Ace Frehley, formerly of KISS, is alive and well and working on his highly anticipated solo album. It has been erroneously reported on various websites and wire services that the legendaryguitarist had committed suicide. Not so! 'I don’t know how this ridiculous rumor got started,' smiles Ace, as he eats his daily allotment of wheat germ, preparing to jump back on his treadmill."

I think the treadmill has saved a lot of rockers' lives over the years. At any rate, glad that Ace is still on our planet, which, as you may remember, is not his home planet.

The Jam Reunite Except for One Member

From Aversion:

"The Jam have reunited -- though the veracity of that statement hinges on how you define 'The Jam' and 'reunion.' The mod-punk band announced it will gear up for a new album and a British tour, though it will do so without its original singer/guitarist and primary songwriter Paul Weller. Bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler rustled up a replacement for Weller -- singer Russell Hastings and guitarist David Moore -- when they reform to mark the 30th anniversary of the act's debut effort, In the City, which was released in late April 1977 from Polydor. While many fans may bristle at the notion of the influential act without its principal member, it's a big step up for Buckler, who joined a Jam tribute band, The Gift, in 2005 (read full story)."

Nicely done, the Jam.

Arcade Fire's Overt Tirade Against U2, Oasis, and the Rolling Stones

It doesn't get much more Overt than this:

Arcade Fire have accused U2, Oasis, and the Rolling Stones of being obsessed with taking over the world, calling it "a total crock of sh-t".

[Win Butler] said: "It's not like we shun success, but at the same time we don't want to shove it down people's throats. In the UK there's this kind of rock star competition. I don't know if U2 started it, or the Stones or Oasis, but a lot of bands think in terms of: 'I'm going to be the biggest band in the world. F--k all those bands who've got no ambition.' think that's a total crock of sh-t.

"There's nothing less interesting to me than the idea of marketing the f--k out of something so people are forced to like it. Some bands are just manipulating people to buy music. That's how 90 percent of the record industry works! It's basically the same as selling a f--king toaster or a cruise package."

I can think of something less interesting: a song about how you like to ride in the backseat of a car. Of course, you can't blame a band in their Overt stage for being so Overt, but it still kind of makes me mad. After all, he is essentially trying to manipulate the f--k out people by slagging bands that are way more famous, which is basically a total crock of sh-t. And of course, I'm hoping that by slagging them, I'll get traffic on my blog! Anyone want to buy a f--king toaster?