When it comes to titles, Americans place the punctuation mark on the inside and the Brits place the punctuation mark on the outside. It's always interesting to see both methods used in the U.S. For example, Pitchfork follows the British practice and Rolling Stone follows the American practice. I honestly can't decide which one to follow, or whether or not one is more appropriate over the other. Anyone want to throw their two cents in here?
Apologies for using this music space as a place to vent my punctuation frustration, but blogs are all about expressing things -- yeah.
Below is the article, which is followed by a short podcast at the bottom of this post.
The following are actual quotes from Twitter reacting to the winners of the 2011 Grammy Awards this past Sunday.
"How can this group get album of the year when they didn't even have as many top 10 as Gaga. Did this group even have a number 1 hit?" (source)
"@thegrammys Fuck you! WHO THE FUK IS ARCADE FIRE? STOP RIGGIN THIS SHIT.... U LOST MANY VIEWERS..LOOK AT THE REACTIONS U LOST ALOT" (source)
"The Grammy's [sic] are fixed, like straight up; how are all these nobodys [sic] winning? And why is everyone from Arcade Fire hideously ugly? #appalled" (source)
"Esperanza Spaulding's [sic] twitter account isnt even VERIFIED thats how much of a nobody she is!!11k followers, thats it, & she won a grammy??!" (source)
"The fact that Arcade Fire are winning over people who have actually made an impact on the music industry is really fucking annoying." (source)
The issues at hand here are so great in number that it's nearly impossible to approach them all without dragging on a long discussion: kids raised in the autotune/Twitter/Facebook/MySpace age, bias, close-mindedness, mainstream mass marketing, good vs. bad, opinion vs. fact, etc. As a result, I'll try to stick to just a few points here.
I've had a long, off-and-on relationship with the album Grace by Jeff Buckley. It has come through for me when I have felt completely lost and don't know where else to look. It's true; I have gone long periods of months or years without it, but what keeps me inevitably coming back to it is Buckley's voice. If I had the pipes he had, I would gladly opt to never speak a word again. I would sing when spoken to. Modern rock singers with a commanding voice like his are incredibly rare.
When I was 14, I used to listen to the album while playing video games. When I was 18, I spent my mornings in community college classes, and my afternoons working by myself at a dry cleaner. Instead of tagging and hanging up blazers and skirts, I slacked off in the break room with an acoustic guitar, learning each song on the album, one by one. And most recently, at age 23, Grace has helped me through a long, painful series of break-ups with my ex-girlfriend.
Like all great albums, it comes through for me in many different ways.
I admit to sharing with the world an odd affinity for musicians who died prematurely. Suicide, homicide, bus accident, ski accident, spontaneous combustion... I guess I just love a good dead musician story.
Jeff Buckley drowned on the night of May 29, 1997. He went out for a swim in the Wolf River Harbor with all of his clothes on. (The Wolf River is a stream in Tennessee which flows directly into the Mississippi River. Coast Guard Petty Officer H.C. Kilpatrick says of the harbor, "We used to call it 'the chute.'") His roadie, Keith Foti, called out to him from the shore, "You can't swim in that water." Jeff turned around and grinned back at him, and didn't speak his response, he sang it. He reclined his head back, and belted the chorus of "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin as he backstroked farther into the channel. Suddenly, a couple of tugboats approached the area where Buckley was. Foti yelled for him to get away, and he did. But the larger of the two tugboats created a wake which reached the shoreline. Yoti scrambled to move a boombox that was sitting on a rock near the water. When he looked back up, he didn't see Jeff anywhere. Buckley wasn't found until six days later, when his body was spotted by a passenger aboard a riverboat. Otherwise unrecognizable, he was identified by his navel ring and green toenail polish.
During Jeff Buckley's all too short career, he tried but couldn't avoid constant comparison to his father, folk artist Tim Buckley. He had only met his father once when he was 8. Shortly after the meeting, his father died of an overdose by combining heroin, morphine and alcohol.
In the past few years, vinyl records have made a comeback. I’m certain this is just a reiteration of what most of you already know. Vinyl is back and continues selling better and better each year. Then again, vinyl records never really went away.
Last night while listening to Titus Andronicus’ new LP, The Monitor, I began to think about how no one really makes albums anymore. It’s not a new thought by any means, but The Monitor really made it apparent that it is so uncommon these days for bands to look at the big picture – that is the album as a whole as opposed to a collection of songs in a particular vein. The Monitor is sprawling and entirely ambitious both sonically and in terms of its content (apparently a loose concept on the Civil War). Songs flow distinctly but evenly into one another and help to create a body of work rather than a collection of material.
This seems to be less and less of an occurrence as we now live in an age where the majority of the public is more concerned with singles and paying out for one or more tracks off of an album. In a way, music has become more of a convenience and quiet soundtrack for our days rather than something that is worthy of our attention. How often is it that people take albums and carefully listen to them? How often do people actually sit down with the intention of listening to an album intently? I’m not saying that society is completely devoid of such people, but it is, undoubtedly, a small percentage of the population.
Now, vinyl records require you to flip them, subsequently breaking up your listening experience. However, not only do records offer a truer presentation of music, they also require attention. You can’t walk around with a record player while you’re on the subway; can’t walk around with a record player while you’re grocery shopping; can’t jog with a record player attached to your arm; can’t take a record player on a cruise in a convertible. I’m not trying to say that music should cause a temporary paralysis that requires attentive listening, but it is arguably something that has become more of a passing fancy.
Over the past decade, we’ve taken the blood, sweat, time, and sleepless nights put into making albums and condensed, minimized, them into data that we never even really see. We’ve taken this art and pushed it from a small cabin in the woods to the other side of the world, playing it in a cafe thousands of miles away from where it was born. It really is incredible when you think about it. The digital age has spawned a boom in both musical production as well as musical consumption. Sure, MP3s (and all of the other music file types like FLAC and WAV) have allowed music to have a wider and larger audience and reach areas of the world that it might never have reached before, but convenience doesn’t always necessarily lend itself to authenticity.
I’d like to think that the renewed interest in vinyl is sort of strengthening our society’s ties to the past. Digital technology is most certainly going to grow and become an ever-present element of our daily lives – more so than it is now – and while we’ll claim that we’re evolving to a more advanced way of life, I’m not sure it’ll be entirely true. The vinyl record, for me, embodies a facet of humanity that it slowly fading with our inevitable and gradual migration into the digital realm. Vinyl records, spinning under the weight of the stylus to reveal their hidden musical peaks and valleys, are preservations of human nature. As one vinyl enthusiast and writer once said, vinyl records come with stories and have their own character. Their crackles and pops are distinct and make them unique. When was the last time that MP3 you downloaded came with a story?
Records are one of the few things in life that have stood the test of time and helped document years of not only our country’s but also our world’s evolution – specifically through the songs that thousands of artists have recorded over the years (e.g. “What’s Going On?,” “White Riot,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” etc.). Whatever happens in the next few decades, let's hope that as the world spins on its axis, so to will the vinyl record on the player's platter.
sometimes it feels like we're just going in circles/photo via Nevver
I missed the majority of last night's broadcast of the Grammys, but I very briefly live tweeted the last hour or so that I managed to catch. Apparently, I didn't miss too much and, once again, the Grammys came off as a popular awards show biased towards a select group of artists and bands. It can claim to be a ceremony celebrating the best in the business, but really it has a narrow scope -- even if it does include top-notch performers/artists like Jay-Z and Beyonce.
Are the Grammys really a ceremony honoring the most talented musicians or the most talented entertainers? It certainly helps if you sell a lot of albums. I'm starting to realize that the majority of people in this country are more in tune with praising those that entertain us rather than those that intrigue or excite us. Of course what is entertaining can excite us, but does it stimulate us the way art does? Has our country gradually drifted towards celebrating the talent to entertain rather than the actual artistic talent of the artist?
Case in point: If you stuck The Black Eyed Peas in a room full of instruments (that they'd have to play...oh, and there was no autotune around) and, say Midlake, in the very same room, who do you think would impress you more? Is that unfair to the Black Eyed Peas? It's not fair to pit two groups from opposite genres against one another and it's also not fair to pose such questions with a bias towards one genre. Then again, are the Grammys really fair when you think about all that's overlooked and what is actually celebrated (though they did honor some guitar greats last night and gave an entire frame of the "In Memoriam" slideshow to Vic Chesnutt). Maybe I'm being too stringent on what defines talent. But according to the official Grammy website, the Grammys are unique because they "are the only peer-presented award to honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position." Uh huh.
The blogosphere seems to be on fire since Monday night following Japandroids' performance of "Wet Hair" (from 2009's critically-acclaimed Post-Nothing) on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I came across points discussing the band's technical abilities on their instruments and the band's emotional delivery. People said they "sucked" while others said they "rocked." Of course opinions can differ. But as Rob Gordon said in High Fidelity, how can it be wrong to state an opinion?
For example, I just saw that new pop star Ke$ha perform her breakout hit "Tik Tok" on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. I think that the song is pretty terrible -- an epitome of the cheap, lifeless pop music that most people take down like coffee in the morning -- and this performance just affirmed my thoughts on the song. There's trying too hard and then there's just too much. I'll admit it does take a modicum of talent to write a song, but that doesn't mean it's good. Ke$ha is most likely the first descendant of the Lady Gaga-style pop music, but I can honestly say that Lady Gaga -- however cloying/annoying she might get -- is a real performer and can really pound it out on the piano. Of course, this is just my opinion so you take it as you wish.
This brings me back to Japandroids. Those making a case against Japandroids have said that the band has essentially zero technical ability, making music that a 12-year old is capable of. The fierce strumming and punk-like energy of guitarist Brian King's guitar playing is never clean cut, nor does it attempt to be, because King never really aims to blow you away with his proficiency on guitar -- that's not what this band is about anyway. With drummer David Prowse's heavy-hitting, King's playing becomes something more. I'm not saying Japandroids are something spectacular or groundbreaking, but they certainly don't suck.
Prowse and King together under the name Japandroids form a unified front with the emotional delivery of their early 90s-flavored, garage rock-meets-noise pop sound. You can tell that both guys are genuinely enjoying themselves as they are clearly incredibly passionate on stage. Sure, the lyrics and vocal hook of "Wet Hair" rely on only three lines throughout the 3-minute plus song, but it's catchy nevertheless and they just go for it. It's endearing if only for the fact that they make you believe in what they're doing. Maybe Ke$ha is really going for it, too, but what separates Japandroids and Ke$ha is the former's genuineness and integrity.
A quote from guitarist Brian King in 2009 interview with "Death + Taxes" magazine says it best:
"I suspect that we will quit long before we become a shadow of our former selves. People often describe our band as very earnest. There's no bullshit, it's just two guys who love to play music getting up there to rock and singing about the things that they know. As long as the band can continue to do that, then we'll keep doing it. But the second that we can't do it, then I'm fucking done. Because I don't believe in anything but that. I want to make sure that every time we make a record and play a show, that we exist in the most pure, real and passionate way possible....We'll sacrifice the band long before we become a part of the machine."*
Check out the performance in question below.
Japandroids 2010 Tour Dates:
1/23 Hanover, DE - Cafe Glocksee
1/25 Vienna, AT - Arena #
1/26 Krarkow, PL - RE
1/27 Warsaw, PL - Jadlodajnia
1/28 Poznan, PL - Eskulap
1/30 MSPRKT, RU - Aktzal
2/2 Aarhus, DK - Musikcafeen
2/3 Copenhagen, DNK - Loppen
2/4 Lund, SWE - Mejeriet
2/5 Oslo, NOR - Blaa
2/6 Stockholm, SWE - Debaser Slussen
2/8 Cologne, DEU - Luxor
2/9 Hamburg, DEU - Molotow
2/10 Berlin, DEU - Bang Bang Club
2/11 Munich, DEU - 59TO1
2/12 Offenbach, DEU - Hafen 2
2/13 Munster, DEU - Gleis 22
2/15 Paris, FRA - Le Point Ephemere
2/16 Amsterdam, NLD - Paradiso
2/17 Nijmegen, NLD - Merleyn
2/18 Leuven, BEL - Stuk
2/19 Diksmuide, BEL - 4AD
2/20 Lille, FRA - La Peniche
2/22 Brighton, UK - The Freebutt
2/23 London, UK - ICA
2/24 Leeds, UK - Cockpit 3
2/25 Manchester, UK - Deaf Institute
2/26 Glasgow, UK - King Tuts
2/27 Liverpool, UK - Korova
3/17 Austin, TX - SXSW
3/18 Austin, TX - SXSW
3/19 Austin, TX - SXSW
3/20 Austin, TX - SXSW
3/21 Austin, TX - SXSW
3/24 Oxford, MS - Proud Larry's *
3/25 Birmingham, AL - Bottle Tree *
3/26 Nashville, TN - The End *
3/27 Charlotte, NC - Snug Harbor *
3/29 Washington, DC - Rock and Roll Hotel **
3/30 Philadelphia, PA - The Barbary **
3/31 Boston, MA - Middle East **
4/1 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
4/2 Montreal, QC - Il Motore **
4/3 Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern **
4/5 Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig ^
4/6 Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
4/7 Champaign, IL - High Dive
4/8 Indianapolis, IN - Radio Radio
4/9 Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall
4/10 Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry
4/12 Columbia, MO - Mojo's
4/13 Lawrence, KS - Bottleneck
4/15 Las Vegas, NV - Beauty Bar
4/19 Phoenix, AZ - Trunk Space
4/21 San Diego, CA - Casbah
4/22 Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex
4/23 San Francisco, CA - Independent
4/24 Salem, OR - Willamatte University
# w/The Big Pink
* w/A Sunny Day in Glasgow
** w/Love is All
^ w/Bear in Heaven
Well, by now we're all familiar with what happened at the VMA's between Kanye West and Taylor Swift. He got a lot of heat for what he did, but let's consider something. Although he invaded the stage like he always does, he didn't actually do it on his behalf. He didn't jump on the stage to boast about how great he is. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that it was bad form. The CAPS-locked apology he issued later on his blog didn't really help either.
Last night, he appeared on the debut episode of The Jay Leno Show shortly before he performed with Jay-Z and Rihanna. He wanted to apologize for his actions and he seemed genuinely remorseful. I think Jay may have gone a tad too far when he asked West what his mother would have thought of his actions. West really had to hold back from crying at that point. If it's true that he hasn't taken any time off since the death of his mother, he really should. Watch his sit-down with Leno below.
Guitarist Chad Gilbert of pop punk band New Found Glory seems to suggest that we might want to take West's apologies with a grain of salt. According to Gilbert's Twitter, West flicked everyone off after handing Swift the mic.
It’s been miserable here the past few days. If it’s not raining the sky is still overcast, full of the same shades of gray, the same mess of clouds. I used to like the rain a lot, and I guess I still do. But when you have begun to grow tired of your daily routine and don’t see change on the horizon for a while, the weather can keep things exciting – it’s the one thing that does change from day to day. It’s been raining for a while. I never believed in that old adage “April showers bring May flowers” because it never really rained that much in April. That adage must be true now.
Last night it was raining and when I got in my car to drive home from school, it just so happened that I had Ryan Adams & The Cardinal’s Jacksonville City Nights playing. The record has a certain level of comfort that takes you in and lets your mind unwind. It’s got a loose and natural feeling that was highly fitting for the short trip home. It was past two in the morning, so the streets were empty aside from the washes of color laid down by the street lights and traffic lights on the rain water. Highly memorable.
Jacksonville City Nights + a drive in the rain…try it sometime.
A few hours ago it was April Fools' Day. It's not a "holiday" that I happen to like. I can't say why exactly, it's just not something I've ever been particularly fond of. My friend got everyone today when he told us he had chopped off all his hair. He's abroad in England, so we had no real reason not to believe him (totally forgot what the day was). He's got long, long black hair -- the kind of hair that says "yeah, I headbang." I thought maybe this was the year he might have actually gone for it, but no. You got us, Asa. You got us well.
From all of the April Fools' Day stuff I happened to hear about, I'd say my favorite was Bjork announcing she had joined Led Zeppelin as their new vocalist. Think about it...no really. Can you imagine say, the breakdown of "Whole Lotta Love" with Bjork doing her thing over it? Yeah, wild indeed. I'm not afraid to admit, I almost believed it when I saw the headline. Consider the possibilities Mr. Jones, Mr. Page, and Mr. Bonham.
Anyone hear about that new Nine Inch Nails record? It's got Justin Timberlake on it and it was produced by Timberland! Yeah, that's not actually happening, but you caught the subtle jab at Chris Cornell's recent Timbaland-produced outing, right? Oh, but if it were real, if only...just look at Strobe Light's tracklist:
intro skit
everybody's doing it (featuring chris martin, jay-z AND bono)
black t-shirt
pussygrinder (featuring sheryl crow)
coffin on the dancefloor
this rhythm is infected
slide to the dark side
even closer (featuring justin timberlake and maynard james keenan)
on the list (she's not)
clap trap crack slap
laid, paid and played (featuring fergie of the black eyed peas and al jourgensen)
feel like being dead again
still hurts (featuring alicia keys)
outro skit
AbsolutePunk's news post that the latest Plain White T's album had gone diamond, putting the band in the ranks of The Beatles and The Eagles was pretty hilarious, too.
Anyone who actually follows this blog and actually knows me is aware of the fact that, ideally, I would make a living being a full-time musician after school. It's a lofty goal considering where I'm at in life and what I've managed to accomplish in my nine years of making music. Plus, let's face it, the internet may have provided a place for anyone and everyone to have their music heard but it's also made it more difficult to get out there, as well. Anyone from a person with zero talent to a person with a great deal of talent can find a way to have their work heard which is exactly why the internet can also end up being an obstacle. There is so much music to sift through anymore -- I guess that's where MP3/music blogs come in.
Anyways, I'm posting tonight to explain a few things. The reason Mixtape Muse doesn't constantly have new posts and what not is because, more or less, I find it increasingly difficult to find a balance between writing music and writing about music. So much time can be spent on either. Of course, it's also challenging to balance the aforementioned with school and two jobs. I could see myself going down one of two paths in life: musician or music critic/journalist. Then again, I could do both, too, but I'd rather place my focus on one or the other.
Do not mistake any of this for complaining. I simply just wanted to take a moment to A) thank everyone who visits and who supports the blog and B) say that I'm working on trying to have a new post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday -- at least that's been my goal for the longest time. Please, I cannot say this or stress this enough...if you have anything you would like to see on the blog OR the radio show (technology permitting -- every Thursday from 7-8PM/EST @ http://www.goucher-radio.net/ or iTunes Radio) please e-mail me or "tweet" at me.
New posts will come in time. I just finished recording an E.P., so I'm feeling pretty accomplished in that realm. Now, time to tackle this whole music journalism thing.
Aside from failing to go to bed at a reasonable time both Friday and Saturday...and now Sunday...I spent much of my weekend working on music with a friend. It's nothing serious, we were just in it for the pure pleasure of making something on our own. I'll save you my spiel about trying to forge a career in music. I'll just say that I've come to understand how important and rewarding it is just to simply write and jam with friends. If you aren't having fun, there's no point.
Anyways, today I was attempting to craft a mixtape, or in the 21st century's case a mix CD, for a friend. I was aiming for a dance-oriented, electronic mix, a genre that's not really my forte, but what I struggled with most was trying to get it to flow. Whenever I make a mix, I put most of my focus on how each song flows into the other. It took me, like it usually does, a few hours to go through my library, find songs to use, and then arrange them. I couldn't imagine having to make it on a cassette tape. It's a true artform.
Back in January, I was hanging out at a friend's apartment watching High Fidelity. My feelings on the movie are for another post, but I must admit that as I watched Cusack completely nail a role, I understood the significance of the cassette in the art of making a mixtape.
Today, we e-mail people mixes or construct them in our universal iTunes players from where we burn them to CD. The problem with the modern day mixtape is that if you don't dig a song on the mix, you can just skip to the next one with ease. That is where the problem lies. Aside from those mixtapes that are simply created to give a friend new music to checkout, the mixtape is meant to say something, to have a flow, a rhythm, a path of its own. The tracklist was not meant to be skipped through because it gives a mood, expresses a feeling (or feelings), and at its full potential, tells a story.
When mixtapes were actually made on cassettes they achieved this potential. We all know that cassettes are not the easiest thing to go through track-by-track, but they helped maintain and preserve the effect of that story, that mood, that feeling that the tapes creator intended it to project. The truly sad thing is how tape players are basically non-existent anymore. Yes, they still exist, but because they aren't such a popular medium anymore, there are fewer tape players produced these days.
I recommend checking out Rob Sheffield's book Love is a Mix Tape for a better understanding about the subject. Plus, it's a terrific read.
For those who want the convenience of digital but the spirit of the old, check out the USB mixtape by clicking one of the links below. USB mixtape 1 USB mixtape 2 USB mixtape 3
or just check out the search results. (courtesy of Yahoo!)
Coming Soon: My review of What Laura Say's new LP Thinks and Feels.
