|
|
Tonight, I caught Angelique Kidjo at the Ram's Head in Annapolis MD. I have had three other opportunites to see her live, and things just never worked out. I really like her work, so I was pretty much going to go and see this show come hell or high water.
The show was one of the more higher energy shows I have seen in quite some time. I've been to several shows at the Ram's Head, and this is the first one that most of the crowd was up and dancing for a majority of the time. Granted, Ms. Kidjo was rather insistent that people get up and enjoy themselves, but her music has such an infectuous rhtyhm that she didn't have to prod all that much or all that hard. She even invited the entire crowd to come up on stage with her for one song for a communal dance.
Her backing band has been with her pretty much non-stop for the last three years, and it shows. They were very tight with each other, with good communication and sharing. I didn't manage to catch their names, though. Sorry 'bout that.
Most of her set came from her latest album Black Ivory Soul, with a healthy helping of her most popular songs from albums past.
This show marks the second time that the encore was an actual encore. Angelique did the usual thing, where she walks off stage, but the house lights don't come up, nor does the band even pretend that they aren't coming back. So they came back, and went through two more songs. When they were done, though, the backing band started to move to take off their instruments and go off stage when Angelique waved them off to play another song. She did this one more time, and then said that they really had to go.
All in all, this was a really good show; I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys world or pop music.
After finally finishing up recording all the tracks, Chris and I sat in the control room to do a spot check and really rough mixdown of the four songs. Aref sat in as well. This was actually a pretty short mixdown -- none of us intended this to be the final cut. I just wanted a copy that I could take with me to listen to a whole bunch of times and make notes on what I wanted to do when we regroup for the formal mixdown. Still, he and I did some small tweaking as we went and made a few notes for the next time. Chris had tweaked the mix for Waiting For Rain the night before on his own, and it already set up pretty well.
Afterwards, we went out into Aref's car and plopped in the CD to take a listen on normal speakers -- listening to a mix through studio monitors is a bit deceptive. The sound coming from a monitor set is so pure that you can hear everything exactly as it is recorded (which is what you want when your working on the mix). However, most people don't listen to music through studio monitors. The natural coloration of average speakers needs to be taken into account when mixing down tracks.
Things sounded really boomy and bass heavy, but I think that might just be Aref's settings. I'll be listening to the disc quite a few times through several different systems to try and get a good feel on what's going on.
We regrouped at 1:30, did some warming up and started laying down tracks at 2pm. The first two tries were flubs. Not surprising, as we are still warming up. The third one, however, was pretty good. After we were done tracking, we all went into the control room to take a listen. We did quite a bit of wincing and questioning looks: There are some problems with this take (I can think of three or four boo-boos of mine just off the top of my head), but we collectively decided that this take was good enough.
To be honest, I would have rather gone back and punched in to fix some of those problems, but we are starting to come to the end of our budget and the issues weren't big enough. It'll bother me -- it will bother me every single time I hear it. But the whole point of this exercise is to put together a demo that we can take to bars and restaurants to get work. Once we get work, we can put it into a more polished product that won't have me wincing every thirty seconds.
It's 1am, and I'm just now leaving the studio. We've retracked Soho I don't know how many times -- I lost count somewhere around fourteen or so. Nothing was working right; if Brett had a good solo, then I flubbed mine. Or if I nailed mine to the wall, Aref whiffed his. Or some other combination. Quite frustrating, if you must know.
I going to make the prediction that Soho will not survive in it's present incarnation for too much longer; the arrangement is very busy, and I think that some of the musicianship is getting lost in the mix. I know that Brett is playing a pretty darn complex drum line, and Aref and Shahin are really taking their guitars to task. I'm struggling to hold back and give everyone else room to breathe so they can play without tripping on me.
In any case, we decided to pull the plug on the evening and revisit the song tomorrow. Hopefully a night of sleep will allow us to come at the tune fresh.
After tracking all four songs, we went into the control room to take a earful of what we've done so far.
Faena was acceptable, and Persian Ballad was probably as good as we are going to do. Waiting For Rain came out pretty well.
Soho, on the other hand, was a bloody mess. Brett was right: the start is an irredeemable mess. The guitars never came in right, and the drum intro doesn't mesh with Shahin's rhythm. We got Chris to try and futz around with it for a bit, but after thirty minutes of his effort, we decided to just re-record it.
Our last song for this studio session is the Gipsy Kings song Faena. The original is a pretty song, and this isone that we are all pretty familiar with. Neither the drum nor the bass line is all that complex.
We got this one on the third take. It was probably too fast (well, it was way too fast for my own personal taste), but that's just me. I can live with the recording, because there were some good performances otherwise -- Aref in particular. I completely whiffed a chord change, so I picked up the first punch-in of the day.
For this tune, I decided to go with my Ibanez Acoustic. I wanted to have the warmth of the acoustic bass along with the extended range of the low B string.
After getting back from din-din, we tackled Persian Ballad. It's my understanding that this tune is actually a traditional Persian song that we are just doing as an instrumental. It's pretty enough, but kind of boring (at least from a rhythm section perspective).
After three takes, things just aren't gelling. Nothing major, just quite a few boo-boos. The fourth take was almost perfect. We each clicked with each other and the music just flowed. It's not perfect by any means, but more than sufficient for our purposes.
I decided to go with my Kubicki for this one. Not because I wanted the fretless "Mmph-wah" sound, but because the mellow tone of the electronics. It fits nicely between what Aref and Shahin are both playing for this tune.
Over dinner, Brett kept expressing his displeasure in the way that Soho had come together. He didn't like the drum lead-in, nor the opening start, saying that we needed to be together. His preference was to retrack the tune as soon as we got back to the studio. I suggested that we get through the other two songs and then revisit as needed.
After Brett and I finished up the rhythm tracks for both the songs (so far), Aref and Shahin took their turn at laying down the melody tracks.
Waiting For Rain went pretty well. Shahin got his track in one, while Aref retracked his solo.
Soho was another story. The opening of the song has both Aref and Shahin playing on their own for four measures. That's a long time for the two of them to keep on meter without having any other instrumentation to try and help them out. We spent quite a few takes trying to get them to come in at the right place. After a while, we figured out that the count we used at the outset was different than what we used when got four bars into the tune (which might give you an insight into how off tempo two melody players can get in a short period of time). Instead of being four even beats, it was more like 3.75 beats. After about three or four tries, we had something that was good enough, and we broke for dinner.
Recording the bass and drums separately worked so well for Soho that we decided to revisit Waiting For Rain using the same technique.
Brett and I knocked out WfR in two tries.
Next on the list is Soho. This is one of our more complex tunes. The blocking is still not quite worked out, and it showed. We spent a lot of time trying to figure who was playing what when. Not the most efficient use of studio time. After six takes with not much to show for it, we took a break.
After ten minutes of walking around outside and just resting, Chris had the idea that Brett and I would lay down rhythm tracks, and then Aref and Shahin could go back and redo their guitar lines afterwards. The concept was that Brett and I were having problems picking out our own work from the mix -- both the guitars and Shahin's synth patch were really overpowering the drums and the bass in the headphones.
So we redid Soho with the drums and bass high up in the mix. Aref and Shahin played, but mostly so that Brett and I could keep track of where we were in the song. It really made a difference; Brett and I nailed it in one. To be honest, my solo was one of the best I've recorded in quite some time.
This is another tune that I used the Fodera. Aref wanted a fairly funky bass line, and that almost always means the Fodera. I rolled the pickups back towards the bridge, scooped out the mids and reset the Ampeg to a shallower parameteric curve.
We decided to lead off with Waiting For Rain. Of the four songs, this is most upbeat one with which we are most familiar. We played through three times, and Aref's solo is kind of weak. I think he just hasn't gotten warmed up just yet. One more take, and then we're going to go on to the next song.
I decided to use my Fodera on this one; this is a song with a driving, pulsating beat. I wanted the Fodera to give that clean sound that I like so much.
The four of us got to the studio around 12pm or so. We loaded in (very steep stairs, not a lot of headroom), and it took quite a bit more time than it probably should have. After getting the rigs and gear physically loaded in, we configured the mics, took a few basic level checks and then got ready to do some tunes.
Chris and I talked about how we were going to set up for the sound. We put a DI in between my guitar and the head, and then a mike in front of the cabinet (in this case, a Peavey 4x10 from the studio). I haven't been a big fan of Peavey gear for a long time, but this cabinet sounds really good. Surprisingly so.
Brett's drums would be miked with a stereo overhead, directional mikes at the toms and each side of the kit, one on the snare, one on the hi-hat, a big ol' mike in the kick, and then one overtop and another underneath the congos/bongos. Aref and Shahin had their guitars directly miked just to the front of their sound hole, with Shahin's MIDI outs running directly into the board.
Okay, so I wasn't able to blog from the studio. Probably a good thing when I think about it. So, now you're going to get a lot of back dated posts (I wrote things out by hand as we were working)...
Anthony and I had talked about me borrowing on of his basses (his six string fretless)for today's festivities, but I think I've decided against it. The main reason is that I'm not at all familiar with his guitar. Normally, not a big deal, but fretless basses demand pretty precise intonation, and I'd hate to be paying studio time while I curse myself for hitting the G a few semitones sharp for the 83rd time.
If anything is in crisis, it is the record industry. The wider music industry is far from it.
The Guardian reports that just maybe the music industry isn't in quite the dire straits that the alarmists over at RIAA would have you believe.
...with album sales rising and the phenomenal growth of ringtones and legal downloads, plus record-breaking years for merchandising and publishing rights, it seems the death of the music industry has been greatly exaggerated.
According to recent record industry figures, UK sales rose by 4% in the first half of last year. The Publishing Rights Society reported that performance royalty collections (everything but record sales) in 2003 were the highest since records began in 1914.
In the US, Billboard Boxscore reported that the number of live music events worldwide was up by 25% in 2003 (generating £1.2bn in North America alone). Legal sales of downloadable songs topped 2m units a week for the first time last week. Apple's iTunes service has sold more than 30m songs, and has yet to celebrate its first birthday.
Moreover, the astonishing growth of the ringtone market continues to take everyone by surprise. Estimates as to its true size vary widely from a conservative £600,000 from Jupiter Research to a bullish £1.9m by the ARC Group.
And all this is happening in the age of illegal filesharing.
As the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA is discovering, hunting file sharers isn't always an easy thing to do.
Think twice the next time you access the Internet at home on your wireless laptop.
Your next-door neighbour, even passersby outside your home, could be tagging along for the ride and leave no trace of their online adventures, such as sharing music files, something the Canadian Recording Industry Association is intent on prosecuting.
So this does bring up an issue that network security people have been struggling with for some time. How do you conclusively track down someone over a wire? Hacker tactics (spoofing, masking, the usual bag of tricks) aside, it's hard to trace back activity to someone who isn't actively trying to hide their tracks. Throw in encryption technologies (check out FreeNet for this idea taken to its conclusion), and this would seem to be something that could never be successfully achieved.
Tonight, we had a last minute cram for the four songs we are going to record tomorrow. Personally, I don't like doing this kind of practices; if you don't have it already, another hour or two isn't likely to make a difference. Still, here we are.
I think that one of the songs are ready. Faena is consistent, strong and pretty tight. Soho isn't completely there yet (but it's so close); the blocking isn't 100%. I ended up playing traffic cop, pointing to each of us one at a time when it was our turn to take the lead. Of course, that isn't going to be all that useful tomorrow in a studio. I would have said that Persian Ballad was ready to go until Aref decided (the night before the studio no less) that a jazz feel might be better (we tried to talk him out of it for the session, but I suppose we'll see what ends up happening). Waiting For Rain had been one of our stronger songs, but it was having trouble coming together tonight. I think it will be okay for tomorrow, but I suppose we shall soon see.
As you've probably figured by now, I'm going to be in the studio all day tomorrow. If I have access to the web, I'll blog as I go. Otherwise, there'll be a massive backdated post sometime in the night.
Have you ever seen those buttons at crosswalks in cities saying "Push Button To Cross Street?" We have them here in DC. I call them pedestrian pacifiers; they don't actually cause any change in the traffic, but they make you think they do, so you're more willing to wait at the curb instead of striding into traffic.
I know that so of you think I'm wrong. Well, here's proof that I'm not as crazy as you might think.
The city deactivated most of the pedestrian buttons long ago with the emergence of computer-controlled traffic signals, even as an unwitting public continued to push on, according to city Department of Transportation officials. More than 2,500 of the 3,250 walk buttons that still exist function essentially as mechanical placebos, city figures show. Any benefit from them is only imagined.
Yes, I know the article is for NYC, but I suspect the same would hold in more places. As someone once said, "I try to be cynical, but I just can't keep up."
Not too long ago, I got an email from someone telling me that he liked my site (Thanks again!, by the way) and that he was going to subscribe to my RSS feed. I thanked him for the compliment and pretended that I knew what he was talking about. Here's an article in Forbes about what RSS does and why it's starting to be a big thing.
For those who have not heard this, Howard Stern has been tossed off of Clear Channel's stations.
This is pretty much a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Stern was only on six of CC's stations, and he just happened to be dropped as the CEO of clear channel heads up to Congress to testify about indecency.
As far as indecency goes, if you don't like it, just turn it off. It's like the guy who got Bubba the Love Sponge thrown off the air in Florida -- he was so offened by what he heard that he listened for hours. 'Please stop me before I sin again.'
The RIAA has expressed disinterest in the EFF's proposal on file sharing. I like the way that Silicon Valley puts it:
...[the RIAA] summarily dismissed the EFF's proposal as too "drastic" -- a remarkable choice of words given the RIAA's preferred solution to the file-sharing debacle (see "Music industry to recoup alleged file-sharing losses one 12-year-old at a time")
Last night, JoS played at the Barking Dog Lounge in Bethesda. This was our first outing with Ryan, and I was looking forwards to seeing how he did (it's one thing to play well in practice, it's another thing to play out).
First, a comment on the venue. Load-in was up two flights of stairs. Two long, steep flights of stairs. And bass rigs are both big and heavy. I'm pretty sure that my back will be killing me tomorrow morning. Particularly since we also helped Ray schlep his gear up those same stairs (I'm not complaining; Ray was doing us a favor).
Breakingform opened for us. We've known these guys for a while, and Ray's ran sound for us a few times before. This was the first time I've heard them play. Ray and the guys did a great job; really tight, together, a lot of fun. If you're into harder rock, I would recommend checking them out sometime.
We went on and started out decently enough, but things never really came together for me. A lot of the songs felt rushed, there were lots of wrong notes, it just never felt all the way there. I tried to throw myself into a few times to no avail. Hopefully next time will be better.
Ryan did well, though. Only two rehearsals and he was pretty spot on with most of the tunes.
-- Update --
Actually, something I forgot to put in here before. One of the nice things about playing in Montgomery County is that the bars are smoke free. So I can walk out without reeking of cigarettes.
Wired has an interesting article/interview about iPods and the way that people tend to use their personal entertainment systems.
In terms of usage, Apple got it intuitively right. People use (the iPod) as an alarm clock, and when they listen to it at night, they like the fact it can turn itself off. It's how people like to use music. I don't think Apple did much research into how people would use their players, but they got most of it right.
For example, a lot of people use it to go to work, for commuting. I found that they use the same music on a regular basis. They will often play the same half-dozen tunes for three months, and each part of the journey has its own tune....
It gives them control of the journey, the timing of the journey and the space they are moving through. It's a generalization, but the main use (of the iPod) is control. People like to be in control. They are controlling their space, their time and their interaction ... and they're having a good time. That can't be understated -- it gives them a lot of pleasure.
So, for example, music allows people to use their eyes when they're listening in public. I call it nonreciprocal looking. Listening to music lets you look at someone but don't look at them when they look back. The earplugs tell them you're otherwise engaged. It's a great urban strategy for controlling interaction.
It's also very cinematic. The music allows you to construct narratives about what's going on. Or you use it to control thoughts. A lot of people don't like to be alone with their thoughts. The best way to avoid that is to listen to music.
A lot of people don't like where they're going in the day. If you can delay thinking about that until the last minute.... People don't take off their earplugs until the very last minute, until they're inside the door at work. It's a great way to control mood and equilibrium.
Something to remember both when writing music and designing technologies to support music. Give the people what they want, make it very user friendly, take them a bit away from the normal day-to-day and you'll find success (or, more accurately, success will find you).
Apparently the hip-hop culture is invading British youth. I have trouble imagining someone talking about "bustin' a cap in yo ass" with a cockney accent, though.
Last Second Comeback will be playing a special show on Friday at Common Grounds in Clarendon as a part of the Six Points Music Festival. Also playing will be Cerulean Groove. I think that a guy I know will be sitting in with them on bass....
Gibraltar is a local band that plays music from Algeria and Morocco. I've known one of the guitarists in this band for quite a few years; they're quite good. Check them out sometime.
We got together in the afternoon (there's nothing quite driving on I-95 south at 4pm to put you in a spiffy mood for practice) to do a last minute cram session for tomorrow night's show. I think that we'll be okay. With this abbreviated of a rehearsal schedule, we're not learning tunes; rather, we're just trying to make sure that we all more or less know what to expect tomorrow night when we play. We're still feeling each other out.
I'm suspecting that tempo is springing up as an issue all over again, but I'm not sure. Songs are clearly ending faster than when we started, but there's no clear breakpoints as to when the meter starts to get away from us. I'm trying to keep an eye on it, but I'm just not sure about it.
15 minutes into their show in Toledo, Ohio, Puddle Of Mudd singer Wes Scantlin threw a bottle into the crowd and spit on them. That's always a good way to keep your fans happy.
The EFF has put forth a proposal to allow musicians to be compensated while allowing listeners to legally download tunes. On the face of it, it seems like a potentially good plan.
The concept is simple: the music industry forms a collecting society, which then offers file-sharing music fans the opportunity to "get legit" in exchange for a reasonable regular payment, say $5 per month. So long as they pay, the fans are free to keep doing what they are going to do anyway -- share the music they love using whatever software they like on whatever computer platform they prefer -- without fear of lawsuits. The money collected gets divided among rights-holders based on the popularity of their music.
In exchange, file-sharing music fans will be free to download whatever they like, using whatever software works best for them. The more people share, the more money goes to rights-holders. The more competition in applications, the more rapid the innovation and improvement. The more freedom to fans to publish what they care about, the deeper the catalog.
Read the whole article; it's worth your time. (Thanks to Eric for the pointer)
Napster has now legally sold 5 million tunes. Way to go, guys. Hopefully things are getting better in the legal download realm.
Content filters can stop your email if you happen to have a naughty word as a component of your name. Just ask Craig Cockburn.
See, Cockburn has a problem with e-mail. Or more to the point, e-mail has a problem with him. His e-mail doesn't always get where it's going. He first stumbled upon all this more than a year ago when he tried to update his Hotmail account. The online registration insisted that his profile contained characters that were unacceptable.
"After an extensive debate with Hotmail about this,'' says Cockburn, "the obvious explanation was the first four letters of my last name was one of the censored words.''
Never mind that his name is his name and it has been all his life. Never mind that it is a noble and popular name in Scotland, where he lives. Never mind that it's pronounced Co-burn.
Tonight, I saw Paco de Lucía live at the Warner Theatre. I had never heard of Paco before; the main reason why I was going was that Aref invited me to go as a way of returning the favor of me taking him to see Victor Wooten a while back.
What a revelation this was. According to several write-ups I have seen, Paco is generally considered to be one of the best flamenco style guitarists alive today. I can see why, and I largely feel the fool for not hearing of this guy before now. He plays very cleanly, infused with vibrant passion. Yes, it's fast as all get out, but that's not all that his playing is. One of the more impressive things that he did (well, at least impressive to me) was playing a single note extremely fast (sextuplets at least, maybe even sixty-fourth notes) with each individual note being distinct and clear.
The remainder of the band was comprised of a bass player, a drummer/percussionist, a secondary guitarist, a wind player (sax and flute) and two female vocalists. They all did a good job. Neither the drummer nor the second guitarist got a chance to really cut loose. The other members of the band took a few solos from time to time, each of them performing admirably. Nevertheless, it was still very clearly Paco's show.
The first set of the show varied from Paco playing solo, to having some backing percussion instruments join him, to having the entire band come out (doing handclaps and vocalizing). The second set featured the entire band as a ensemble.
As a side note, this was the first time in a long time that I have been to a show where the encore was not a foregone conclusion. You know, the band walks off stage, but the instruments are still out, the house lights are down, there's absolutely no indication that the show's actually over. This time, the instruments were left out, but the house lights came up and the sound crew at the rear of the venue started to break down some gear. However, the band did come back out and play an encore.
I just got my settlement check from the CD antitrust class action suit. My share=$13.86. Lawyers share=$44 million. I'll take it either buy dinner or another CD. They'll buy a small Carribean island. Sounds about right to me.<⁄sarcasm>
Prince is heading out on the road in '04. In his band will be Rhonda Smith on bass, Candy Dulfer on sax and Renato Neto on keys. Unforunately, there are no dates in the DC area as of yet.
As a Christmas gift (yeah, it's a bit past Christmas, but I've been busy), I got a copy of Marcus Miller in Concert. I've seen Marcus play live once or twice, so I had my hopes up for this DVD.
The DVD is a recording made for some German TV show (Ohne Filter Musik Pur) in 1994, and the production values are right in line with a mid-90's TV show. Accordingly, the camera work is sometimes off (one person is soloing and the camera angles switch around until the producer finds the actual soloist), and the sounds is hardly the best musical DVD I've ever heard. The crowd is very laid back, to the point of seeming nearly sedated.
Only six songs are included -- Rampage, Panther, Steveland, Scoop, Tutu and Ju Ju. The total play time of the disc is about 60 minutes. Marcus has his usual supporting cast (Poogie Bell, Michael "Patches" Stewart), but no guitarists. Instead, he uses two keyboard players. This produces a rather synthetic sound. I prefer hearing him with another guitarist; the energy is different and more full of life.
It's enjoyable to watch Marcus play; he's one of the best and it shows. I wish that the quality of the DVD was better. This isn't so much a DVD to take notes to, but something to enjoy from time to time.
Those really annoying cell phones that play Hey Ya when they get a call? Well, that's starting to be big business. To the tune of approximately 3 billion dolllars worth in 2003. And one of the companies that produces ringtones is starting to allow people to produce their own tones without going through a label to get it.
Already making strong headway in Japan, some companies are now starting to bring TV broadcasts to cell phones. This technology is still in it's infancy, but there might actually be a market for it.
Why would anyone want this? Well,
We may never want to watch Hollywood epics on a tiny handheld screen, but I'd be glad to pass a half-hour in a doctor's waiting room watching a rerun of "The Simpsons.''
I could live with that.
It looks like I will be playing with NGB at Jaxx next weekend. Given that I have rather full dance card between now and then, there probably won't be as many rehearsals as I would like, but I think that we'll probably be alright.
I found a blog that has a mountain of archives of Daily Show clips. So, I added it to the link list. Check Lisa out...
Lewis Black, commentator on the Daily Show, is heading out on tour. If you like political humor, I'd highly recommend him. He's acerbic, with a razor sharp wit. I caught him a few years ago at the Improv, but it seems he has grown his following in to bigger venues.
Here's a website with a few clips to whet your appetite.
This is an interesting clip of a some guy doing the beat box thing while simultaneously playing a harmonica. Not something that you see every day.
-- Update --
Now with a better link!
Thanks to Divya for the tip....
I've heard of this service that will fight parking tickets for you. You only pay if you win, and they say they'll handle everything for you.
Call me skeptical, but if it works, the guy's probably hit on a winning business model.
The demise of the album has again been foretold:
'Albums are overrated, maybe the music industry is just figuring that out."
It seemed like a casual remark at the time, but an apt one. The New York Times pop critic Kelefa Sanneh said it at the start off a recent audio review on the paper's website, making the point that rapper Missy Elliott's albums sound "more like mix tapes. There's no real theme or storyline, just a whole bunch of beats and jokes and hooks. ...
... Thirty years ago, at the apex of the concept-album era, calling albums overrated would have sounded hopelessly disparaging. It was assumed then that albums made for art, coming after years of pivotal releases from Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, to say nothing of predecessors such as Miles Davis's definitive exercise in modal jazz Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's meditative A Love Supreme. For a critic to have called albums overrated would have been prime bait for ridicule.
Now it seems to be the new orthodoxy. When listing its choice for the number one album of the 1990s, the influential music web site Pitchforkmedia.com led by saying, "The end of the nineties will be seen as the end of the album. The rise of MP3 technology and file downloading returned pop music consumption to [a] collective pre-Beatles mindset, where songs are judged as singles." This was meant as praise for Radiohead's OK Computer, as if describing that record as the passing of an era.
To say the least, the idea of what constitutes a proper album is unravelling, and the artists, as always, are causing a lot of that change themselves. Missy Elliott is only among the latest to push and pull, elevate and trash the album format. The rap duo OutKast succeeded by going the grandiose route, expanding their latest album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below into a double CD and splitting the two rappers' individual styles into separate discs. They managed the nearly impossible: high praise, high sales and a closing spot on the latest Grammy Awards with their win for best album of the year.
This is hardly the first time that the end of albums has been predicted. It's a pretty safe observation to make, and I generally share it. There will still be albums -- even concept albums -- but the market seems to be moving more and more towards singles.
To be honest, I think I'll probably stop reporting this little tidbit; this must be the third time in three weeks that I've posted a link to yet another prediction of the end of albums. I think the point has been amply made.
Tonight, we went through about forty songs or so, trying to spin Ryan up in time for the show on Thursday. I think that he's going to make it; the covers aren't really all that technically complex, and he's a pretty solid drummer. The hard part is going to be keeping that many songs straight with only three rehearsals. But I suspect he'll be just fine.
Today, the four of us when through the four songs several times, trying to get things as tight as possible before the studio session this weekend. There are still some outstanding blocking issues (particularly on Faena), but overall, things are coming together really nicely. Soho has really developed into a tune with lots of character. I think the results should be very pleasing.
JoS has booked a gig for Thursday of this week. Breakingform will be opening for us; I haven't caught them live before, so I'm looking forwards to their performance.
We'll be bringing Ryan along for an outing. By that time, he will have practiced with us three times. This won't be the first time that JoS has used the "throw 'em in the deep end" method of trying out a new musician. The first time I ever played with JoS, I had three rehearsals and about a week of time. So, we did three sets (forty songs total) off the cuff. It went okay, but I'd still rather have more rehearsal time.
Last night, I got a call from Nick; he's looking for a new bass player, and Anthony passed my name along to him as a reference. I had hoped to make it down for an audition today, but things just didn't work out. I had to go in to work for my day job, and things didn't clear up until it was too late. It's too bad, I kind of liked some of their originals.
-- Update --
After speaking with Nick and letting him know that I wouldn't be making it out to the rehearsal, I decided to drive out anyway and apologize in person. Tonight marks the first time in seventeen years that I have ever flaked out like this, and I wanted to let these guys know that it was the exception. As I was heading out there (and, by the way, I think that MapQuest is probably wrong just as often as it's right), Nick rang me up, saying that their 7 o'clock cancelled on them.
So I went on out and sat in with the three guys of NGB for a while. We did a warmup, went through two newer pieces that they are working on and then rolled through some of the existing originals. Afterwards, we just hung out for a while, talking about music and other sundry things. They're a pretty cool bunch of guys.
They have a gig on the 5th of March at Jaxx out in Springfield. I've so far managed to avoid setting foot in that place, but things might change.
Some in the industry are speculating that music will no longer be sold on physical objects in the near future.
"Get out of the plastics business!" an analyst implored the music industry at a recent technology conference. He predicted that the CD will be dead by 2007.
New studies show that young people have little interest in owning prepackaged music when just about every recording they want can be had as a download.
This doesn't quite ring true for me. While I suspect the industry will probably head more and more towards downloads, I think that there will always be a market for tangible copies of music.
I don't watch American Idol; to me, it's just like karoke, but sappier. However, there does seem to be a celebrity of sorts (despite himself) arising from the dreck. He really can't sing, nor can he dance, but he does have fun and he's completely guileless and sincere about it.
-- Update --
Here's a story on the Hung phenomenon.
NetFlix has found a great niche; allow people to rent DVDs at a set monthly fee; no late fees, no hassle, just movies in the mail. They have been wildly successful, and for good reason. It's a good product at a decent price. I used NetFlix myself last year when I was laid off. Unlimited movies in the mail at a low monthly rate seemed like a good way to pass the time in between job interviews.
The concept behind NetFlix has spun off into a number of similar industries (video games, porn, most anything that could be rented at Blockbuster). The interesting thing about NetFlix is that they acquired a patent on their model:
In June 2003, Netflix obtained a patent on a "method and apparatus for renting items." The patent covers "a computer-implemented approach for renting items to customers (in which) customers specify what items to rent using item selection criteria separate from deciding when to receive the specified items." In addition, it covers what it calls a "Max Out" approach, which allows a certain number of items to be rented simultaneously.
If enforced, the patent could conceivably turn all of Netflix's competitors, no matter what they rent, into paying licensees -- or run them out of business entirely.
Taking the heavy metal motif just a bit far, one guy has built his own heavy metal band.
The usual timing variations that exist in most music (the guitarist is a little ahead of the bass player who's a little behind the drummer) works well enough in live situations when everyone can be in contact with each other (that contact should keep each other from running too far away from one another). This doesn't fly in a studio situation.
Recording in a studio is far more stressful than playing out live. If you screw up (okay, to be a bit more accurate, when you screw up), no one else other than the people in the audience might be aware of it, and then only if they are paying attention. Even if they are paying attention, they can't go back and try to catch the boo-boo again. Making an album changes that; everyone who listens will be able to catch every mistake made, no matter how large or small. And not only will they hear it, they'll get the golden opportunity to hear it again and again. And since the cliché is true -- no one is a harsher critic than yourself -- when recording, there is an acute awareness of any error whatsoever.
So, in a studio situation, there's lots of stress and pressure and emotions tend to run high (particularly after re-recording the same f-in' song for the seventeenth time). Any natural meter variations that might have already existed between the members of the band will only be exacerbated. Couple that with isolation rooms and the odds of the band staying together quickly decrease. And if the music lines are rhythmically complex in anyway, then things fall apart in very short order.
As a quick digression, when playing in a studio, it's common to have the different members of the band in completely separate rooms (to isolate one person's sound from anothers'). All in all a good thing, as it allows one musician to go back and clean up a flubbed note without affecting any other instruments in the song.
As you might guess, keeping everyone together during a recording can be a challenge. One of the most common ways to do this is to pump a click track into everyone's headphones so they can hear a clear deliniation as to where the beats are at any given time. Most click tracks are produced by an electronic metronome that has some kind of output that can be processed as a signal.
Two primary purposes are met with a click track. Everyone stays together (or close to being together) and a consistent meter allows for a musician to revisit a part and be able to pick up the beat very quickly.
The first time a musician plays with a click track can be rather embarassing. No matter how good someone's internal metronome is, a machine never fails. If there's anything I can suggest to people who are preparing to enter the studio, if you are planning on using a click track, practice with a loud metronome a few times before you walk in the door. It's much cheaper to be flustered at home than at fifty dollars an hour (if not much more).
However, click tracks are far more useful than they are annoying. If you do any kind of studio work for any length of time, you will almost certainly encounter the track fairly quickly. Should the recording project be using any kind of sequencer, click tracks are required (to keep everyone in sync with the machine).
Tonight, we went over the same four songs again. And yes, we're starting to get rather sick of them. A good sign as to when you're ready to go into the studio. I also introduced the click track to both Aref and Shahin.
For those who aren't familiar with what a click track is, it's a raft of humiliation for public display of your own personal time failings. Or, it's a steady, chirping noise (also known as the "click") played through headphone by a machine to keep every member of the band on the beat with the same meter.
Aref took right to the click; he worked with it pretty naturally and had no problems. Shahin was struggling a little more (particularly during Soho, but that's a very rythmically complex part for him, and he was having trouble keeping both the rhythm he was playing and listening to the click). Brett and I have both done the click track thing quite a few times, so it was not an issue for either of us.
I think that we are going to be ready for the recording session next weekend.
The Dave Matthews Band is going back out on tour in 2004.
Some relevant dates for people in DC:
Sat, July 10 / Hershey Stadium / Hershey, PA
Sun, July 11 / Nissan Pavilion at Stone Ridge / Bristow, VA
Wed, July 14 / Merriweather Post Pavilion / Columbia MD
Fri, July 23 / Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheatre / Virginia Beach, VA
I haven't had a rehearsal in a while (cancellations, miscommunications, etc.), so I'm starting to feel a bit out of practice. I mean, I still practice on my own, but that's not really good enough. You need the synergy of playing with and playing off of other people to really make strong steps forwards. When I practice on my own, I can improve my dexterity or my understanding of theory. What doesn't get better is my ability to listen to other musicians and play with them. Practicing by myself leads to playing with myself (and that's in a strictly musical sense, gutter boy), which is not what I want to do.
Okay, the RIAA is probably going too far this time.
A California flea-market owner is liable for copyright infringement because he failed to stop vendors from selling pirated music, a federal judge ruled.
The Recording Industry Assn. of America sued Richard Sinnott, operator of the Marysville Flea Market near Sacramento, after notifying him at least four times that vendors at his market were selling thousands of illegal CDs.
The ruling, which the judge wrote is probably the first to hold a flea market owner liable for copyright infringement, may bolster the music industry's nationwide campaign against illegal music sales at flea markets.
What I don't get is how Verizon is off the hook but the flea market can be held liable. My understanding of the Verizon case is that Verizon was not liable on the principle of a telephone system vs. a magazine editor (I'm not a lawyer, and I can't find the actual citation right now) -- a phone system has no person monitoring the communications, so they cannot be held liable for the actions of anyone using the system, but a magazine has an actual person who approves or disapproves each individual article, there by giving an imprimatur of sorts to the content.
Just in case you decide to skip the middleman and actually sell yourself.