Category: music

On Yacht Rock and the Yacht Rock “dockumentary”

I’m a fan of yacht rock, so I was keen to watch “Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary”. I’m happy to say it does a great job not only of reviewing the music being made at that time, but also in analyzing how a term (yacht rock) got applied to this music (since the term didn’t exist at that time).

that said, like some of the musicians involved, I have issues with the term. For one thing, I can also see why some of the musicians hate it, since it seems pejorative. For another, it’s also arbitrary and limited. For example, you can say Michael McDonald was Yacht Rock and Hall and Oates is not, but to me they’re all part of that soft rock era of the 70s. Likewise, Quincy Jones may have used Yacht Rock musicians on Thriller, but I just can’t think of it belonging to the same genre of music as Christopher Cross.

So enjoy the documentary…or Dockumentary. And if you find yourself liking what you hear, check out any of your favorite stream services: you’ll be bound to find a number of playlists serving up that easy listening sound.

P.S. How for to watch it online and stream from anywhere, see Tom’s Guide. Also my older post on Yacht Rock is here.

(Image from Tom’s Guide.)

Friday Night Music: Cab Calloway, Betty Boop doing St. James Infirmary Blues

 

The good folks behind the web site Open Culture recently did a story on the surreal 1933 animation of Snow White (shown above). The only thing more fascinating than the story of the video is the video itself. Once you see it, you’ll never forget it.

Highly recommended.

Do you love music? Then you want to read Absolutely on Music by Murakami and Ozawa

The great conductor Seiji Ozawa died last week. The New York Times has his obit here. If you don’t know much about him, I recommend you read that obiturary.

Regardless of how much you knew of the man, if you haven’t read it already, I hope you have the chance to read the book he did with Haruki Murakami, Absolutely on Music. Anyone who loves music will get something out of this book, which is a document of six conversations the two men had. (It’s a podcast before they were a thing, so to speak.) And no you don’t have to be an expert in classical music to get enjoyment from reading it.

Here’s a review of the book. And here more on the book from the publisher.

Get a copy today.

 

 

Friday Night Music: Doctor, My Eyes (now and then)

What is that, you say? Let Open Culture explain:

The music collective Playing for Change is back. This time, they have Jackson Browne performing his 1970s hit, “Doctor, My Eyes,” supported by musicians from Brazil, Jamaica, India, Puerto Rico, France and beyond. Browne is also joined by Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel, who played on the original 1972 song, and they still sound amazing.

They really do sound amazing. So many musicians I have loved have lost their voice, but Browne sounds as good as he ever did.

Don’t believe me? Here he is in 1978 doing it live:

Before there was “Stop Making Sense”, there was Talking Heads on Letterman

Somewhere in between June 1st, 1983 when the album Speaking in Tongues was released and December, 1983 when “Stop Making Sense” was filmed, Talking Heads and their extended band went on David Letterman to perform two of their songs: “Burning Down the House” and “I Zimbra”.

If you are a fan of the film, you’ll enjoy these two performances. Already you can see echoes of what will you will see in the show. Indeed, other than Dolette McDonald being replaced by Edna Holt, everyone on stage at Letterman appears in the film.

That was televised in the beginning of July, one month after the record was released. Already the band is pretty tight. They had months of shows to do before Jonathan Demme started filming. No wonder the performances in the film were superb.

As for “I Zimbra”, if you think you hadn’t seen it in the original concert film, you’d be correct. The band did perform it, and it was intended to be in the film, but it was taken out. Good news, it is included in the recent rerelease of the film (which I wrote about, here).

Here’s “I Zimbra”

and here’s “Burning Down the House”

Stop Making Sense! (Some thoughts on the newly released classic)

“Stop Making Sense” is making a comeback this September, 40 years after it’s initial release. There’s an expanded audio album out today, and a new version of the film premiered at TIFF this Monday.

To some it may seem like a comeback, but for many like me, it never left. This film has meant so much to me in my life: it’s like a good friend I met in college who stayed close to me four decades later. I can watch it any time, anywhere, and I often have since it first came out. Unlike me, it’s timeless, even four decades later.

But don’t just take my word on it. Read this great piece by Jon Pareles in The New York Times, Talking Heads on the Return of ‘Stop Making Sense’, and you should see why I think so highly of it.

One thing he seems to bypass that makes the film great is the fact that it was directed by Jonathan Demme. Demme was coming into his own when he filmed it, not unlike Martin Scorsese was when he made “The Last Waltz” with the Band. His talent is what transforms a great show into a great film. Later Demme went on to make other concert films of Neil Young and Justin Timberlake, but neither of those had the impact that “Stop Making Sense” did. You need a groundbreaking show for that.

And it was groundbreaking. Before the cameras start, David Byrne already had a vision of what it would be like. He had been gathering ideas from other artists like Robert Wilson (whose lighting designer, Beverly Emmons, he used) and Twyla Tharp (worked with her on The Catherine Wheel), not to mention Japanese Kabuki theatre (where he got the idea for the Big Suit).  He had a vision of how everyone should look on stage (dressed in drab grays). He had a storyboard for each song performed. And while he didn’t have a choreographer, he had a ton of talented performers who brought their own moves to the performance. All that, combined with the narrative of the film, makes it compelling to watch.

Pareles believes the narrative is…”of a freaked-out loner who eventually finds joy in community. The concert starts with Byrne singing “Psycho Killer” alone, to a drum-machine track, with a sociopathic stare. By the end of the show, he’s surrounded by singing, dancing, smiling musicians and singers, carried by one groove after another.” And that is partially the narrative.  But it’s also a narrative of the band itself, a story of a small stiff group of “slightly angsty white” art school students that grew into a large ensemble capable of fluidly and energetically incorporating punk, funk, new age, world, R&B…you name it…onto one stage for 90 minutes of eclectic dance music. It’s smart, it’s gotta beat, and you can dance to it.

If you think of “Stop Making Sense” as a documentary or an art piece, you’ll be missing out on the fun. And fun it is. It’s been playing off and on at the Bloor Cinema / Hot Doc cinema on Bloor near Bathurst in Toronto since the time it came out, and everytime people go they treat it as more like a concert than a film. If you ever have the chance to see the it in that theatre, grab a ticket and an adult beverage and you’ll see what I mean.

I think the film is best described by the second song in the film, “Heaven”. Just like in song, the band in this film plays your favorite song. Everyone is there. When the film is over, everyone leaves, only to return to the next showing of it. It plays again, exactly the same. It will not be any different. Byrne wrote, “It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all, could be so exciting, could be so much fun”. And yet it is. The film is heaven to me.

The Wham! documentary is surprising and good and watch it you should

Like Austin Kleon, I found the Wham! documentary a “delight”. He adds (and it’s true) that it is “tight, light, well-edited, and stylistically coherent”. It’s also 90 minutes, and on Netflix. If want to watch something good to watch this week, make it that.

There’s no spoilers here but I must say I found the documentary surprising in several ways. Surprised at how different the men were than I thought they were. Surprised they achieved fame well before fortune. Surprised how lots of things I thought about their career and their music were very different than I imagined.

The documentary also cleared up one of the biggest mysteries I had about the band, which was what was the point of Andrew Ridgeley in Wham. I just thought he was some weird side performer that managed to get stuck to George Michael. After watching this, I can see there would be no George Michael without Andrew Ridgeley. The evolution of Michael from shy guy to major star would not have been possible without Ridgeley and Wham.

There’s been a number of good reviews of the documentary. This take at the New York Times I found interesting, especially this comment: “born during Motown’s ascent in the early 1960s and, in adolescence, bonded to each other as disco was handing the party baton to new wave and rap. They synthesized it all (plus a little Barry Manilow and Freddie Mercury, and some Billy Joel) into a genre whose only other alchemists, really, were Hall and Oates.” Once that thought is stuck in your brain, you can clearly hear all the influences Wham! bleeding into their music.

Besides that, this piece from the San Francisco Chronicle really understands the two men. This review at rogerebert.com was the one I most agreed with. Here’s something from the Guardian for those who like that sort of thing.

I’m glad Ridgeley is having a moment. He seems like he deserves it. More from him, here.

All that said, go watch it. You’ll be glad you did.

Paul McCartney’s newest creations using history and science fiction


McCartney has always been one to explore new ideas. So it doesn’t surprise me to learn that he used AI to help with a ‘final’ Beatles song. Unlike others who might muck about and try to create something Beatlesque with AI, he argues that there is nothing artificial in the “new” Beatles song. AI was just an additional instrument Paul used to create music.

While he’s been in the realm of science fiction with his AI project, he’s also been going back in time using photographs to produce a new book. He writes about the book, “1964: Eyes of the Storm – Photographs and Reflections” in the Guardian, here and in The Atlantic, here.

Regardless of what he is using, here’s a good essay by Austin Kleon on McCartney’s creative process: McCartney on not knowing and doing it now. McCartney often gets dinged for his creative failures, but I would argue he has been so massively successful because he tries and fails often enough and he does not stop whenever so called failure occurs. (It helps that things that were once considered failures (e.g., McCartney I and II) turn out later to be considered successes.)

Here’s to Paul successfully living to be a 100 and providing us more great creative works.

(Image of McCartney recording McCartney II, via Austin Kleon’s site)

Revisiting McCartney after watching Get Back

For a long time I held the common view that there was two Paul McCartneys: the Beatles one and the solo one. This view also states that once he went solo, he went from making great music to making bad music. Sure there were exceptions (Maybe I’m Amazed, Band on the Run), but that was the view.

That view was supported by many people, starting with John Lennon and many of the music press writing in the 70s and 80s. How could it be wrong? Even a fan of Paul like me thought so.

Well it was wrong and I was wrong too. I came to that conclusion after watching Get Back. Watching Get Back, I was struck by the continuum of the Beatles and their music.  In the documentary you hear snippets of songs that wouldn’t come into their own until later albums. You hear them play old songs as they try and finish the new songs. It’s all sonically fluid and connected. Paul’s music –before and after the breakup — is very much of that continuum. There is no switch that suddenly deprives him of his talent. He does lose the feedback and the guidance of the others, especially John’s, and no doubt that hurt him. But his ability to write a song and perform a song remains strong.

I thought of that some more after spending time relistening to songs from McCartney I.  Songs I had dismissed as bad I gave a relisten to. Listened to the music of the guy who performed so well on Get Back, the music of the guy who  went on to record Abbey Road. The talent is strong and steady on those solo records, despite some ups and downs. 

I’ve often contended that if you combined the best of the Beatles solo work from the 70s and just kept the best and put in on 3 or 4 recordings, you would have music as good as anything they made in the 60s. In some cases even better.

The talent was still there.  The music was still good. For all them. Including Paul.

 

 

You Of All People can Live a Quiet Life

It’s funny and good and strange how something new can remind you of something very old that you barely remember. That happened to me recently.

In the early 70s (1972-4) there was a TV documentary show on CBC called Of All People. It was a simple show that did short profiles of everyday Canadians.

I would watch it as a preteen with my Dad, and afterwards we would talk about what we saw and how we thought about it. It was a great show to watch as a kid (and with your kid). I think it shaped my worldview to some degree. This idea, that a worthwhile life can be anything and anywhere, was a main theme of the series, and this idea has stuck with me ever since.

It was a lovely show. Watching each episode, you were left feeling better about people and the world. I wish I could write more about it and share more about it, but barely anything exists online.

And I thought of all that again when I listened to Denison Witmer’s new song, “It’s OK to Live a Quiet Life”. The people in Of All People lived lives that were quiet and fine and good. You can live such a life too. It’s OK. Maybe more than OK. But OK is good too.

Here’s two versions of his song. For A:

and E:

Go and listen to them on your favorite music service via this link.

You can find out more about Denison and his other work, here.

Everything but the Girl, in three times

After 24 years, one of my favorite bands has released a new album. It’s incredible that not only has this happened after a quarter of a century, but that it has managed to do so well. It’s incredible and fantastic.

Leading up to the release, they’ve received some great reviews and lots of good press. You can read some of that here in the New York Times, or in the Guardian (here and here), or Pitchfork.

With the release of this new album, I can think of them as being of three times. One time is Now, of course, in the 2020s. A second time is the 1990s. In that time they were at their peak. Here you can see them performing in 1999, just before what I thought was then end (as no doubt many people did):

The third time – the 1980s – is the time I remember them most fondly. That was the time they were just starting. Here’s some rare footage of them from then:

Pick up Fuse when you can. Meanwhile, if you are a Spotify user, here’s their Complete Discography, I believe. Give Fuse and more a listen, there.

Everything old is new again, musically (think Sony Walkmans, for one)

Everything old is new again. That’s what I thought when I saw that Bay Bloor Radio in Toronto is still selling Sony Walkmans. It’s true. (You can see more of Sony’s line, here .)

Speaking of old to new, I see that the great tumblr known as Tuneage is still going strong. It is getting close to 20 years old, and despite that, it still is recommending great music to listen to. I recommend you check it out.

Also old to new is this: The Smithsonian Will Restore Hundreds of the World’s Oldest Sound Recording. Kudos to the Smithsonian for doing that.

Sadly some thing are going from old to passed on instead of from old to new. Namely old rock legends like David Crosby and Tom Verlaine. That’s a depressing thing to think ona. What’s even more depressing is this piece that shows how many more rock legends are in their late 70s and early 80s and will likely die soon.

Love the music you want, in the format you can get it in, as often as you can, be it new or old.

That 70s music post. On Harry Styles, Yacht Rock, and more


I have a confession: I have always hated the music from the 70s. If the music of the 60s was revolutionary and the music of the 80s was new wave and punk, the sounds of the 70s were dominated by excessive overproduced smoothness. What started musically in the 60s metastasized in the 70s until the spike of punk put an end to it. I was glad for that.

Lately, I have had a change of heart (ear?) and started to revisit and soften my stand towards that old 70s music. Maybe it was the Bee Gees documentary I recently watched that got me thinking. Or the notion that many of the bands I loved in the 80s got their start in the 70s, or that for every bad disco song there were songs from Bowie and Springsteen. Perhaps it was listening to just the good yacht rock artists like Hall and Oates, Robert Palmer, George Benson, and more. Whatever the cause, the more I listened to it, the more I thought I had thrown the baby out with the bath water, music-wise.

It also helped that I, along with many other people,  have been bopping along to Harry Styles and his music. There’s elements to his songs that reminds me of the best of the 70s. You could easily slide his songs into a Yacht Rock playlist and hardly notice the jump in time that occurs between those hits and his.

in fact you could take Harry S (seen below) and place him alongside Robin Zander of Cheap Trick or any of the androgynous rockers of the 70s and he would fit right in:

Now I don’t think Styles is going to lead to a great revisiting of the music of that era, other than for people like me. But who knows? Maybe the music as it was from back then will return for a spell. That would be golden.

For more on Yacht Rock, click here. Spotify users can click on the playlist above. Image of Styles from The New York Times.

 

 

Friday night music: the sultry sounds of Sophisti-pop

Wait, what is sophisti-pop, you ask? Let me let Wikipedia explain:

Sophisti-pop is a subgenre of pop music which developed out of the new wave movement in the UK during the mid 1980s. The term has been applied retrospectively to describe acts who blended elements of jazz, soul, and pop with lavish production. Music so classified often made extensive use of electronic keyboards, synthesizers and polished arrangements. Artists also utilized cutting-edge studio technology and perfectionist recording methods.The genre has been described as mellow, romantic, and atmospheric.

Sounds right. Sophisti-pop was made by artists like ABC, Aztec Camera, Bryan Ferry, Haircut One Hundred, Joe Jackson, Prefab Sprout, Simply Red and Spandau Ballet. Add to that list three of my favorite: The Style Council, Sade and Everything but the Girl (EBTG).

EBTG captured the genre recently when they wrote: “We were a band who listened to Chet Baker but also Buzzcocks, who loved Getz-Gilberto but also The Doors, whose lyrics were intimate but also political”.  The same could be said for many of the bands listed above.

If you want to know what was some of the best of it, check out the 10 of the Best Sophisti-Pop albums. If you’re a Spotify user, they have an entire section devoted to that sound. Also EBTG put together their Complete Discography 1982-2005 on Spotify.  They have a new album coming out soon: meanwhile go back in time and listen to what you may have missed.

Finally, here’s a song I’ve listened to a million billion times since it came out. A great song for walking alone at night in the rain:

 

Big hair, don’t care: more good links on the best decade, the 1980s


The 80s come back in vogue from time to time, such as when current works like Stranger Things delve into it.  Mostly the decade is seen historically. That’s fine. It was a good decade, at least for me, and I love to think and write on it. One of the great things about having your own blog is you can write what you want about whatever you want. 🙂 So here’s more things on that era that I found worth reading lately…

Much of the music of the early 80s started at the end of the 70s.  Take the music of bands like Talking Heads. Or the Ramones. Speaking of them, here’s some great bootleg footage of the Ramones in concert before the person filming it got caught!

As for other artists of that time, here’s a good piece on Blondie.  Like  punk and new wave, another trend of the time was Blitz.  This piece covers the Blitz era and all the music that was associated with it. Moving from the English music scene to Canada, here’s something on Rebecca Jenkins, an artist and musician who was involved with so many other performers I loved at the time, from Jane Siberry, to Holly Cole, to the incomparable Mary Margaret O’Hara.

Another incomparable artist from the time is Richard Grant. I will never forget him for his great turn in the film “Withnail and I” back in the 80s. Nowadays he has suffered a great loss but still keeps going and is inspirational on twitter and elsewhere. This is a good piece to catch up on him: Richard E Grant on grief fame and life without a filter.

Finally, gone but not forgotten, here’s a fine piece on Ruth Polsky Who Shaped New York’s Music Scene in that era. Recommended.

(Image from the piece on Blitz)

Great advice for anyone from 6 to 66, from Nick Cave (be foolish and be basic)

So someone named Chris wrote to Nick Cave and asked, “I’m 62 years old and decided to learn how to play guitar. Rock guitar. Is such an endeavour a fool’s errand for someone of my age?” To which he replied “Yes… AND…”. I think anyone considering starting something new should read it. (It can be found here: Nick Cave – The Red Hand Files – Issue #210 – I’m 62 years old and decided.) It reminds you that you can suck and you may be too old (or too short, tall, thin, fat, shy, awkward, etc.) but that good things can come out of it if you keep at it.

Reading it, I was reminded of the classic three chord recommendation: learn three chords and form a band! Why not? If this got you thinking hey maybe I should learn to play the guitar, then you might find this useful: Guitar card cheat sheet. Start with E. 🙂

BTW, I think the advice “learn the basics” and then get out there and make something is good for any creative endeavour, be it drawing or making a web page. Don’t try to learn a lot at first. Learn enough to get started and go from there.

P.S. I think “Yes….AND…” is a great way to answer things. It acknowledges the concerns someone might have while opening them up to possibilities they might not have considered or appreciated.

(More on three chords and form a band, here (and where I got the image from))

 

Got to get this into your life! The new special edition of Revolver

Yep, just like some of the later Beatles records, Revolver is getting remixed and maximized, with 64 tracks of goodness for you to purchase or stream. You can read about this new special edition of that great recording here: ANNOUNCING REVOLVER SPECIAL EDITIONS (news), The Beatles.

I’m a huge fan of Revolver: it may be second only to Abbey Road for me if I were to list my favourite Beatle records. It’s all killer, no filler. Get it into your life! 🙂

(Sunday) Night Music (one of the best music shows you never saw)

In the late 80s, Lorne Michaels (of SNL fame) produced this show called “Night Music” that was seen in Canada as well as elsewhere. For a show that only ran from 1988-1990, it featured a wealth of musicians. (You can see the list here.)

One of my favorite episodes was #208 which featured Sting and Mary Margaret O’Hara as well as many other fine musicians. If you have 40 minutes, you can see it here:

What I like about that episode, like most episodes, is that you get a wide range of musicians, old and new, all doing challenging or interesting music. You didn’t just see the latest artists performing their hits. You didn’t just see one style of music. You never knew what to expect, other than it would be good.

So check out that video while you can. I’ve posted Night Music videos before and they get pulled sooner or later. See it while you can, and see why it was so good.

Friday Night Music with the Psychedelic Furs and….Maroon 5?

I find it fascinating when ideas reoccur in music videos. Take these two. First up is “Heaven” by the Psychedelic Furs.

Next up, “Girl Like You” by Maroon 5, some years – decades – later.

Both use a similar style, where the camera seems to revolve around the singer, allowing for lots of motion even while the singer remains in one place. It’s effective in giving the video life. It’s also interesting to see it revisited after all this time in the latter video.

Of course, there are other things that give the video action. In “Heaven”, there is literally a downpour of water! While in “Girl Like You’, there is the effect of many women appearing behind Levine as he sings.

Anyway, both effective videos. I am loathe to post music videos these days: so many times the music companies will yank the videos and leave my blog posts looking poorly. Perhaps these ones, because they have been there for some time, won’t be removed.

P.S. It’s an impressive pantheon of women appearing in the Maroon 5 video, ranging from performers to athletes to activists. You can get the details on who they are, here.

P.S.S. Here’s a different version of “Girl Like You” which I like even more.

Four more on McCartney, who is 80 this year

Paul is 80 this year, and a good year he’s been having. People are writing pieces filled with praise. He had a big show at Glastonbury with his buds. Not bad for an octogenarian.

It’s been a long and winding road from the early days of the Beatles to now. Some argue that serendipity had a big part to play in Paul and the Beatles’ Success. I’ll let you read that and be the judge. I think it had a small part.

Finally, think of your favorite McCartney song. Then dive into this and see what others famous and less famous picked as theirs: People’s favorite McCartney song. I was surprised by the frequency of Martha My Dear and Temporary Secretary. I was also surprised that Band on the Run was only picked by one person. Read it and be surprised in your own way.

 

 

On the Smiths and those album covers

The Smith’s were (are?) great for many reasons. One reason in particular was their album covers. Looks like the folks at NME agree, because they put together

an exhaustive guide to each and everyone of their 27 single and album releases’ sleeves, and what they mean

You can find here. Fans of the band will enjoy that. I did.

Speaking of the Smiths, this piece by Doug Coupland, Morrissey will never be cancelled is worth a read.

What is a prelude? (and more ways to learn about classical music…)

Then consider going to this blog. Here’s the piece there discussing: What is a Prelude? After you read that,  scroll to the very bottom of the post, where you will see they also have introductions to minuets, cantatas, operettas and more.

Saturday afternoons are a good time to learn such things. Then find some music to listen to.

Cool Christmas gifts: the Orba

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For someone in your life that likes to make music, this could be just the gift for them. As the website explains:

Orba is a handheld synth, looper, and MIDI controller that lets anyone make music immediately. With Orba’s integrated looper you can layer Drum, Bass, Chord, and Lead parts to create beats and songs on the fly. Play through the built-in speaker or use the ⅛” jack to connect headphones or amplifiers. Pair wirelessly to the Orba app to customize your instrument and share your creations with friends.

I thought it was cool, especially for people who love to be on the go but also love to make music all the time.

Friday Night Music: Paris Match (Style Council with Tracey Thorn vocals)

If you are a fan of the Style Council, as I am, I highly recommend this: Long Hot Summers: The Story of The Style Council (2020) | SHOWTIME

It’s an excellent review of the career of the musicians that made up the band, and a fine reminder of how great they were.

While there were many people interviewed for it, Tracey Thorn didn’t appear, sadly. I would have loved to hear more about how she crossed paths and became a Councillor for a time.

Watch the documentary: you’ll be glad you did. Meanwhile, check this out:

On the historic smashed guitar of Paul Simonon of the Clash

From small moments of frustration, history is made.  As the Guardian explains:

The guitar was last played on stage at the Palladium in New York on 20 September 1979. Frustrated at the stiffness of the audience, Simonon raised his guitar like a giant axe, turned his back to singer Joe Strummer, and brought it crashing down.

That moment was captured on film, made into part of the cover for the band’s London Calling record, and the rest, as the cliche goes, is history.

For more details, see: Bass guitar smashed at Clash gig to join relics at Museum of London | The Clash | The Guardian

(Image via GuitarWorld)

Blue, the classic from Joni Mitchell, turned 50


Joni Mitchell’s great album, Blue, turned 50 this year. To celebrate, there’s been a number of good pieces done on it, including this superb one from the Times: Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ at 50 – The New York Times.

If you are a huge fan or just curious to know more about the album, I recommend this: Hear Demos & Outtakes of Joni Mitchell’s Blue on the 50th Anniversary of the Classic Album | Open Culture

Of course, you can also check out the Wikipedia entry too.

Finally, Carey is one off my favorite pieces on the album and one of my all time favorite songs. So I loved reading this piece on the inspiration of that song (and California, too): When Joni Mitchell Met Cary Raditz, Her ‘Mean Old Daddy’ – WSJ

 

Peter Jackson has Peter Jackson’d Get Back


When I first heard that Peter Jackson was going to remake “Get Back”, I was excited. I believe that he was going to find the happiness and joy in the making of the original film. Then sneak peaks of his work started to come out confirming this, and I was very excited indeed.

Unfortunately the pandemic hit before the film could be released and then the focus changed. As this piece explains, it is no longer going to be a feature film for general distribution. Rather it is going to be a three part feature only on Disney+.

In other words, Jackson is going to do to Get Back what he did with The Hobbit: stretch it out and over do it. I think that will be a shame. I am sure some fans will love it, and seeing the extra material will be good, but I also think it will be flabby and overdone. Just like The Hobbit.

Maybe I am too pessimistic. Maybe it will be great. We shall soon see.

(Image: link to IndieWire.com)

On the new Grado x series of headphones

Fans of Grado should know that they have upgraded their Prestige line. For example, those of you who may have had their SR125e may want tto upgrade to the new SR125x. I know, the e series is great and you may never want to give them up. But check this out regardless:  Grado Labs – SR125x.

They have upgrades from the SR60 to the SR325. Whether you have the 125s or the 325s or even the 60s — all great — you can consider moving up in terms of quality, even if it is just going from the SR60e to the SR60x. So gift your old cans to someone younger who can gain a new appreciation of music and sound through a good set of headphones, then head over to their website and upgrade yourself.

(Image from the Grado site. No sponsorship here: I just think they make a great product).

 

What I am interested in: music (lots of great links)

One of my regrets in life is I never learned how to play music. So I kept a bunch of links for me and anyone who wants to try:

If you don’t want to learn how to make music, here are some other interesting music links:

(Photo by Simon Noh on Unsplash)

More goodness from the 80s

David Salle painting

Here at this blog I will always share my love of the 1980s.

First up, here is a great piece in the New Yorker on a recent Whitney art show which highlighted the Joy of Eighties Art. It’s begins great:

Starting in the late nineteen-seventies, young American artists plunged, pell-mell, into making figurative paintings. That seemed ridiculously backward by the lights of the time’s reigning vanguards of flinty post-minimalism, cagey conceptualism, and chaste abstraction. The affront was part of the appeal. As with contemporaneous punk music, sheer nerve rocketed impudent twentysomethings to stardom on New York’s downtown scene. The powerful excitement of that moment has been languishing in a blind spot of recent art history, but “Fast Forward: Painting from the 1980s,” at the Whitney, a show of works by thirty-seven artists from the museum’s collection, comes to the rescue. Some of the names are famous: Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Eric Fischl, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring.

I loved reading every word of that. A great review.

Other 80s things I found recently is this here ode to a great album of the the early 1980s: Rattlesnakes from Lloyd Cole and the Commotions.

Saxophones don’t feature on that recording, but they did on many other great recordings of the 1980s. Gradually they died off. Here’s a good piece exploring that.

If you still have music from that era, chances are some of it is on a cassette tape, which was big then. If you suddenly have the urge to listen to that, you can, with this player (shown below at Uncrate.com). It’s not the original Walkman, but in some ways it’s better.

cassette player

Rock on.

(Top image is David Salle’s “Sextant in Dogtown” (1987).Courtesy David Salle / VAGA, NY. Linked to in the article. Bottom image is from the uncrate.com article)

Not 1 but 2 good pieces on the eve of McCartney 3

Paul McCartney

Here’s two good pieces on Paul McCartney on the eve of his latest album, “McCartney 3”.

The first one is an interview with him. Among other things, it shows the difficulty of him doing interviews, since it’s hard for him to add anything new (he still manages to do so): Paul McCartney Is Still Trying to Figure Out Love – The New York Times

While the New York Times piece is really good, this piece is great: 64 Reasons To Celebrate Paul McCartney – The Ruffian.

I have always been a fan of McCartney, but this second piece made me a greater fan. I’ve read it a few times, and even though it is long, I look forward to reading it again. It really does do a fantastic job of highlighting what a great artist Paul really is and addresses some of the many criticisms of him over the years. McCartney has been pinned down over the years both by some bad musical choices and by some (unfair?) musical criticism.  One thing I liked about the second piece is how it nicely rebuffs some of that (e.g. “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, “Another Day”). Highly recommended that piece, but both are worth a read.

P.S. Since I am banging on about him, my two cents on McCartney from the late 60s to the late 70s is that the Beatles were originally Lennon’s band, but as time past, McCartney grew and started to dominate the Beatles more. Meanwhile Harrison also came into his own. At one late point Lennon tried to come up with an arrangement of how they would allocate songs on the future albums (I think 4 for John, 4 for Paul, 2 for George, and 1 for Ringo), but I think things were too far gone by then. They were too big for the band. That’s too bad (what an understatement). If you go through their musical output of the 70s and picked out the best songs of all of them and made 3 or 4 albums, they would have been great albums (just think of taking the best of Imagine + All Things Must Past + Band on the Run, for example). Plus if they were together they would have pushed each other to do more great things.

I’m not sure how well they would have done past then. The birth of hip hop, punk and new wave might have washed them aside. Or they could have become frozen in amber, like some other big bands of that era. (Look at a Rolling Stones concert play list some time.)  Then again, McCartney teamed up with Elvis Costello and made fine music, so they could have turned out to stay great.

Regardless of alternative histories, McCartney went on to make his own timeline  as a creative artist. Here’s to the success of McCartney III and perhaps IV one day as well.

The perfect headphones for working at home may be these Grado’s GW100 Wireless Headphones. Here’s why…

If you are in the market for headphones and you work by yourself at home, consider the GW100 from Grado. If you need convincing, read this rave review in Forbes. Working in a space with others isn’t great with them because they are open back (i.e. others can hear the sound). But WFH alone, these would be perfect. Sure, you can also go with the wired versions that Grado makes. They are also great. Even the lower end models are excellent. However, the wireless is a great feature, especially if you want to move around some or want to avoid yet another wire to deal with. 

In Canada, you can get the GW100 and so many more at Bay Bloor radio.

 

The Vocal Ranges of the Greatest Singers*

Ok, this is fun: The Vocal Ranges of the Greatest Singers*.

You really want to check out the site using your desktop: you don’t get to appreciate the site as well on your phone.

I found some of it surprising, though not all of it. Barry White is obviously well represented in the low end, and Mariah Carey is well represented in the high end. And while some singers don’t perform in a wide range, that’s no reflection on their singing ability (ahem, Aretha).

I also added an asterisk because people familiar with singers from the opera world would argue that all these pop singers are not truly the greatest.

But like I said, it’s just fun. Enjoy.