Category: music

music

Rock & Roll Bookend

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I wish I always could be so lucky: this past week I started and ended it at a concert. On Monday, I saw the Foo Fighters play an acoustic show at the Beacon Theatre (Frank Black – Pixies – opened). Last night, I saw Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY) perform at the Theatre at MSG after two different people in my life, separated age-wise by over 20 years, both raved about their performance on this tour. While I immensely enjoyed both shows, I was struck by the amazing emotional gulf between the two, mostly in terms of relevancy and importance. One was simply music – the other was music and so much more.
The Foo show was great and left me all smiles. Dave Grohl was engaging, a regular chatty Kathy actually, and their expanded roster of musicians (Pat Smear was back w/ them – gotta love a punk rock dude who was in a band called the Germs whose name rhymes with pap smear) played a lot of the new tracks off of the acoustic side of their new record along with a good number of older songs – “Its all about the catalog dude!” Dave yelled at one point. The songs were all really well done but one song sticks out in particular after last night’s show: “In Your Honor,” the title track from their latest album. Dave wrote that in honor of John Kerry while he was out on the campaign trail with him. He sung it well and the band rocked it out but he never mentioned the campaign, the current world we live in, Bush or anything political at all. He simply played the tune and moved on to other tunes, like “Everlong.” Looking back, it was like listening to rock & roll cotton candy – all fluff and no substance.
Comparabily, the CSNY show didn’t feed you at all: it threw a bucket of cold water in your face and let you know that shits all sorts of fucked up and then worked up your appetite to do something about it. I thought that CSNY would stick to a “safe” show of their classic hits but instead they grabbed the show by the balls. In a surprise, the group played a ton of songs off of Neil Young’s new album Living With War which completely slams the Imperial Bush Presidency and the GWOT (global war on terror for those not up on the lingo). I urged you months ago to listen to the Neil’s new disc and I urge you again now. The group displayed on a huge video screen US deaths broken out by month and lambasted the president for not attending a single soldier’s funeral. They showed a picture of every single dead soldier thus far – 2,607 of them (a fact I know because of last night’s show) – while they played a song dedicated to the troops. They put the words to the new Neil Young song “Let’s Impeach the President” on screen and urged the crowd to sing along. They played “Teach Your Children” and Crosby said “Every teacher’s salary should be tripled!” before launching into it. They played “Ohio” and as everyone was singing “4 dead in Ohio” it felt in a way like Kent State could have just happened.
My friend and I over and over again just couldn’t believe that it was 2006, almost 40 years after these gents made their debut, and that we were watching these 4 strong, clear voices belt out songs with such meaning, harmony and clarity, that we were watcing their fingers run wild and pluck out tunes that scarily matter more than ever. Their stamina too must be commended – they played for a total of 3 hours (with only a 20 min break in the middle so the show was almost 3.5 hrs long). Their message of peace is still a sound one. The peace symbol on the stage wasn’t a dated relic of the 60’s. It was a stark reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. There is a battle for peace too and that battle needs to be fought and not ignored.
Sitting around reflecting this morning, I wish every concert now packed the same emotional punch that the CSNY show did. Art for art’s sake in a world gone crazy sometimes is not enough. Someone has to be out there making art with a purpose, art with a message. It was like watching Lou Reed’s perfomance at the Hurricane Katrina Summerstage benefit for 3 hours. I feel blessed, energized and motivated. Maybe if every show packed this type of punch I would feel battered but a good slap in the face once in a while to me is a good thing.

music

"Sunday, Bloody Sunday" as sung by W

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Someone had a lot of time on their hands and spliced together this terrific video of George Bush singing U2’s hit song “Sunday, Bloody Sunday. Its pretty damn funny and weirdly catchy. Enjoy!

Via Chris

music

On Getting Old

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This is what it is like to be and feel old. It is to wake up each day and to feel that everything good has passed, at least in terms of an apex, at least in terms of appreciation of said apex. Nothing produced today, no art, no music, no films, etc can equal the impact of what was produced in the past. That which was produced in the past was produced at a time when I lived – that means to say that what I am appreciating occurred in the recent past, or at least the past that constitutes my life time, with compensation duly added for the time when I was alive yet had no comprehension of events occuring, mostly limited and focused to my childhood pre-five years old, although certain fugue like states later in life caused on purpose or by accident also qualify. I am listening to Metallica’s Master of Puppets right now and wish, oh so badly wished that I saw them in concert when they were in their prime.
But wait, I think I did. I think that during Woodstock one could consider them in their prime. If that is the case, then I saw them and crowd suffered to them, for when Master of Puppets came on I went up. I wound up kicking a dude from Texas in the face on my way down which would not have been so bad if he wasn’t the same person I had not only been hanging with for the past few hours but the same individual who was plying me with alcohol during the entire time. He was hooking me up and I kicked him in the face. He didn’t mind though – we both laughed and drank more. So I lived through it but didn’t live through itl, because that was one isolated instance, that was one show and an abnormal show at that, a show which helped shape the course of my life, something that opened me up though still limited me, something where I learned what I could control and what I could not, a show that set me up for all the rest that has transpired.
And the guitar soars as I type, the sound rising like the lines on my face, so beautifully hard, climbing towards the top of a cliff that will only make you dive, as a huge stone stab falls crushingly onto you, as if in slow motion the walls of a room closing menacingly without a human cyborg relations bot to rescue you. Chris Campenelli sang this to me with a crazy look in his eyes. I am realizing that every person is so deep, that the wells of the thoughts, even empty thoughts are deep, are perverse, are layered, are ready to multiply at a moment’s notice and only need the spark to cause it to flow. And the music dances onward, upward, swirling around in the melody maelstrom, cue the drums, smash smash smash smash smash

music

Living With War

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Neil Young’s new album Living With War is available on the ‘Net right now. Even if you aren’t a huge Neil fan (I’m not), the songs and especially the lyrics are powerful enough for you to pull up the album, turn on your speakers or plug in some headphone and lisen to them. “After the Garden” (track 1) is incredibly catchy and “Let’s Impeach The President” (track 7) and “Looking for a Leader” (track 8) are especially damming. Actually, the whole album is pretty much a big FU to our current administration and you know what? Good. They deserve it.
Can you believe that we invaded Iraq over 3 years ago? Mission Accomplished my fucking ass.

music

Let My Paltrow Go…

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Apple Paltrow has a new brother named Moses, just in time for Passover. Along with sister Apple, all Moses needs is for a few of his meshuganeh and movie rock star relatives to hang out together to form a family charoset ensemble.
Via Jessie

music

Music DNA

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Pandora is a neat site run the people who set up the Music Genome Project. For those that haven’t heard of this great idea, it captures the essence of music at the most fundamental level. Here is their spiel:

Hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” have been assembled into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song – everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records – it’s about what each individual song sounds like. Over the past 5 years, they carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists – ranging from popular to obscure – and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time.

Based on a simple starting point, say “Jeff likes Led Zeppelin,” Pandora serves up songs for your listening pleasure based on the genes that most closely identify with the chosen artist. For instance, “Cemetary Gates” by Pantera, one of my all-time favorite late 90s 104.3 FM songs, was played because it featured hard rock roots, mild rhythmic syncopation, minor key tonality, acoustic rhythm guitars and many other similarities identified in the music genome project. Based on user feedback (thumbs up, thumbs down), it further refines its suggestions until you are getting a steady diet of classics, recent classics and brand new songs and/or artists that you’ve never heard of that are just simply awesome.
I need some time to see how large the music database is because already I’ve heard some songs for the second time and I haven’t been listening that long. However, right now I think its a much better version of Launch.com, which I stopped using after it was bought by Yahoo! because somehow my profile was deleted after the move. After weeks of saying “yes, no, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, no, etc” all of my effort was lost. For shame!
Via Jessie

music

James Lipton recites K-Fed's PopoZao

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Even though this post is filed under “music,” PopoZao, Kevin Federline’s new soon to be hit single (because shit’s a hit if its played enough these days) should not be classified as music. Chris posted this MTV clip of K-Fed grooving to his own song at a sound board and while many in the blogosphere are full of schadenfreude about it, what the hell would you look like grooving to your own song at a sound board? I probably would look just as silly. A better thing to watch would be James Lipton reciting the words to this inane song on Conan.
In other related news, I love the K-Fed moniker because its the first non-hispanic usage of the “first initial first name, first syllable last name” type nickname I’ve seen in the entertainment world. K-Mart was the first in the sports world (A-Rod, I-Rod, K-Rod and F-Rod all came before him) and even though I only know of J-Lo in the show biz world, (P. Diddy does not count and not because he has a period instead of a dash, rather because Diddy is not short for Combs) K-Fed does break new ground. I’m mulling the switch to J-Lip as we speak.

music

Mr. Lawn Guyland Sets the Record

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Continuing on my recent kick of posting about LI, Billy Joel’s 11th MSG show breaks the record for most shows at MSG sold out on a single tour. The previous record, 10, was held by both Bruce Springsteen and the Grateful Dead. As a music fan and knowing the history of the Garden, I’m suitably impressed. Lawn Guyland’s home of rock n roll, WBAB, has some good info about the shows, the tour and other news about the Piano Man.