Category Archives: Music

The wisdom of Homer

You might recall this classic line from The Simpsons. After learning about the existence of wheelchairs, Homer moans something like, “and all this time I’ve been walking by using my legs — like a sucker!”

I just had a similar feeling while thinking about MP3s. There is a particular album I’ve been meaning to get for several years. And what’s stopping me isn’t really the cost; it’s that sense that I would be purchasing something that I could get for free, and more importantly, other people have gotten for free. For me to pay into the system — when others have not — marks me as a dupe. And I think that sensation, perhaps more than anything else, is what’s killed the music business. It’s not that people can’t afford $.99 a song, it’s that they hate to pay it, knowing that others have not.

Robot musicians

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Yesterday, I had interesting discussion with a fellow musician about the state of modern music technology. He was filling me in on a number of developments that I was unaware of. I think we all know that there are these modern vocoder type vocal effects which can autotune your voice in real time (most famously used by T Paine.) This guy was telling me there’s also some kind of guitar effects that can quantize your rhythm playing in real time, so if you are ahead or behind of a beat, it will correct the error.

As I walked away from his conversation, I wondered, “what’s the point of even playing live anymore?” If an audience is watching a live act with zero confidence that the musicians are actually creating the music in a meaningful way, then what’s the point?

I think this dilemma only applies to pop music. For styles like jazz or blues or country and certain forms of rock I think both the audience and the performers will demand that performances are done “without a safety net.”

My point isn’t to bemoan this turn of events. In a certain sense, this could be very liberating. Frankly, it’s always seemed a little stupid to watch some guy playing a keyboard part the same way every time; you might as well just replace him with a computer. And if the show is no longer about watching people play, the performance architects can focus on the visual aspect by employing dancing girls or 3-D holographic dinosaurs flying around the club. I’ve long felt that this quintessential idea of a band performance — four or five guys standing on stage, possibly rocking out or possibly being immobile — is very limiting. It’s high time we redefined what a music performance is.

Milli Vanilli may have had it right all along.

Recent jam

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Here’s a recent performance I did with a fellow I’d been playing with, Brian Bosen.

New “Shadey’s Jukebox” review

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The reviews are flying, er, walking, er, crawling in.
Rocktober magazine says “…these scoundrels put together some fine lyrics, solid chops, and good intentions, and end up with some super solid, sometimes funny/sometimes sad honky tonkers.”

Contemplating conservative country

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Back in the mid-2000’s, hippies and assorted scum decried the lack of political pop music. The country was neck deep in two wars yet few rock or pop songs even acknowledged the situation. Even the Dixie Chix, who probably fired up the most acrimony, did so not with song lyrics but with essentially offhand comments made on stage.

I mentioned that I’ve been watching the country video channel lately, and I can’t help but notice the definite presence of political content in some of the songs, generally of a conservative bent. For example, there’s this Eric Church song “Smoke a Little Smoke” which contains the line, “want a little more right, and a little less left.” It’s vague enough that you can wonder whether he’s talking about political philosophies. But, later in the song, he says:

I set my sails for a new direction
But the wind got in my way
I changed my course
But my definition of change
Just ain’t the same

Hmmm, who else do we know who’s been talking about “change?”

That said, “Smoke a Little Smoke” is probably one of the better country singles I’ve heard, driven by an infectious percussive guitar part.

More overtly political is the Josh Thompson song, “Way out Here.” Check out the opening lyrics.

Our houses are protected by the good Lord and a gun
And you might meet ’em both if you show up here not welcome son

It’s the final 2 lines of this stanza that really get political.

We got a fightin’ side a mile wide but we pray for peace
‘Cause it’s mostly us that end up servin’ overseas
If it was up to me I’d love to see this country run
Like it used to be, oughta be, just like it’s done

Music wise, the song is utter pablum, indiscernible from most country power ballads (or whatever they are.)

Will this brand of political country inspire an army of shotgun toting, chaw spitting rednecks to mount up and ride into the nearest metropolis with the goal of killing the weak metrosexual man and impregnating their women? Only time will tell.

Completely apolitical, but hilarious, is this Brad Paisley song “Celebrity.”

Oh brother

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I seem to be in a video mood this week. Here’s a version of the depression era classic “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.”

The state of modern country “music”

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Years ago, I figured that if I utterly failed to become a rock ‘n roll star (as I have) I would look into selling songs to other musicians and publishing houses etc. That idea popped back into my head again recently and I started thinking about it.

The problem becomes, what genre to write in? Most modern rock music is actually written by the band performing it. Hip-hop and R&B often have external authors, but they’re not genres I’m very comfortable with. Country music is a form that I am familiar with, and is frequently written by someone other than the artist. Thus it seems like an ideal candidate.

However, I’ve spent several nights over the past week watching the country music video channel and have determined that 98% of modern country music is absolute garbage. It’s one lyrical cliché after another atop an endless series of repetitious chords and riffs. It’s music so predictable that only the most lobotomized, brain-dead individuals could possibly find any interest in it.

How does this music get written? I’ve always made it a point to not engage in the disparagement of rural citizenry as often snidely practiced by Metropolitan urbanites, but I suspect the process is as follows: some chaw spitting hillbilly, his shriveled penis still wet with whatever juices lubricate the vaginal walls of a goat, crawls back into his farmhouse and says, “I’ve gots me an idea for a song!” He then picks up his Mel Bay book of basic chords, indiscriminately picks out a few, and then strains his neurons to the point of exhaustion to come up with lyrics vaguely resembling some kind of poetry. He ships it off to Publishers Row in Nashville, and they eat it up with a spoon.

How can someone such as I — one of the great minds of the modern era — force my brain down to the level where it would be capable of producing such pablum? Is it possible to drive a Lamborghini at five miles an hour? Would it be possible for Michelangelo to produce simple line drawings devoid of substance or style? I think not my friends. It is my very greatness that excludes me from writing material that the modern country fan would enjoy.

Patterns or consistency

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I was recently talking about a Ted talk delivered by Steven Pinker. He commented on a number of things, including the idea that the human brain is wired for certain aesthetic preferences, particularly patterns. He argued that much of the highbrow art and music of the 20th century ignored these preferences, falling under the spell of the “blank slate” hypothesis — the idea that humans are born with no innate biases. As such, much of that art and music never caught on with the public.

As I noted, this makes a lot of sense in terms of atonal music (by composers such as Stravinsky, Webern.) It’s music without discernible patterns such as repeating rhythmic phrase, or recurring structures (like four chords over and over for a verse.) Pattern loving humans should be frustrated by atonal music’s lack of patterns, and thus one would predict that atonal music would be only appreciated by tiny crowds of music nerds — exactly what has happened.

However, I’m not quite sure that it’s patterns which humans have a preference for. I think a better term might be consistency. If I see a plant with several leaves, and all the leaves are green, then there is no real pattern, but it is consistent that all the leaves have the same color. And if there was one purple leaf, it would stand out (e.g. that’s the inconsistently leaf.) I would propose that for much of evolution people were analyzing the consistency of their natural surroundings and became wary of inconsistency (“don’t eat the purple leaf!”) and now we apply this preference for consistency to our art forms.

Meow Meow