Category: Music

Okay, so you see this chart of album sales? So where’s all the money that mp3s and fille sharing have taken from the record industry? Surely, 1996, before the explosion of the Internet and file sharing, should be higher than now, correct?
Unless, of course, the record industry has just been MAKING SHIT UP.

For without Steinweiss, there would be no Abbey Road.

Big Town Songbook: Make ’em sing
Most people who have bought any musical recordings over the past 60 years might have assumed they always came in covers, or sleeves, or jackets, that featured a colorful graphic designed to enhance the lure of the music.
They didn’t. Album covers had to be invented. This was a task that largely fell to a Brooklyn kid named Alex Steinweiss.

Link Wray died a few days ago, but I just came across this excellent interview from 1993, where Link meets Mark E. Smith and they get along like a house on fire. Too bad there was never a Fall-Wray jam session!

MES: “The trouble with the rock business is that it’s too easy to make music. That’s why they use the machines. If you want to hear something that’s perfect you should go away and listen to classical music, but that’s not what rock’n’roll’s about, is it!”
LW: “No it ain’t. It’s about feeling and hurting and pain. That is rock’n’roll, and that’s soul music. Soul music is pain – you can hear the slaves, the beatin’ and the hurtin’. Who cares if we’re playing the right notes or not! Who gives a shit if it’s in tune!”

Larry Fast’s gallery of behind the scene shots from the making of the first four Peter Gabriel Albums. I have a soft spot for Peter Gabriel 2. Larry Fast is PG’s long time keyboard player.

A one of a kind object: a model of Yellow Magic Orchestra, circa 1979, and their full live rig. Apparently sold at auction in 2003.

I’m going to be poor this year end. What with the Talking Heads reissues, Sony/BMG in the UK have at last got around to remastering the Eurythmics catalog, and including all sorts of bonus tracks and such. I’m a big fan of the entire Sweet Dreams album, most of Touch (except for Here Comes the Rain Again, which I heard too much growing up), and–despite what critics say–Savage. But hold on–where’s the 1984 soundtrack and the extra dub tracks from TouchDance? Oh well. But I’m sure the remasters will sound great–the CD releases date from the late ’80s and have virtually no bass.

Bumrocks is an mp3 blog that posts a single mp3 every couple of days or so. The tracks are either spacerock circa 1978 or retro new stuff that sounds like 1978 in all the good ways (Moogs, Clavinets, oh my). It certainly is filling my head up with good stuff this last month. Try Metropolitain by Hydravion, as an example, light up a spliff, and don those ‘phones, man. All tracks stay up for about a month.

I get so much music these days, either buying, dowloading, or ripping, that I think I should just list it. I won’t even begin to list individual tracks.
Boards of Canada – The Campfire Headphase
The Kinks – The Ultimate Collection (2 CDs – What’s with all these Kinks comps and no Village Green excerpts?)
Carl Cox – Back to Mine (Cox chose the tracks on this mix CD, downtempo funky stuff, which all flows well, except for a rap song dropped in there.)
Actually, that’s it for this week!

Here’s the most excellent music video for Elbow’s “Leaders of the Free World”, one of my favorite songs at the moment. The video doesn’t disappoint, with Tron meeting Empire Strikes Back meets, well, I dunno, but the band all wear fake moustaches. File size is about 18mb, but oh so worth it.

Narnack
2005

At last a new Fall album! American label Narnack picked the group up and for the first time the U.S. release appears before the British. I don’t know if it’s the American engineers, but this album plain out rocks more than any album the group has done. (The last one, the UK “Real New Fall Album” had absolutely no bass on it). I mean, on “What About Us,” when the bass kicks in, the Fall sound seriously heavy and hard, man. Woo! The album opener “Ride Away” is one of the weakest on the album, though–absolutely mystifying why they chose this to start with. (Although, as with most dull Fall songs, there’s one redeeming feature. For “Ride Away” its when Mark E. Smith says “Hey hey” as if he’s just realized he’s in a dumb song.

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