Category: Music

Music notes from all over

Stars of Track and Field

Seth Anderson0 comment


“If You’re Feeling Sinister” (Belle & Sebastian)

For some reason, I was humming this song when I awoke today. Probably related to some now forgotten dream, but am passing it along for you to decipher.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIF8n5-hbrg

The lyrics are something like:

Make a new cult every day to suit your affairs

Kissing girls in english, at the back of the stairs

You’re a honey, with a following of innocent boys

They never know it

Because you never show it

You always get your way

They never know it

Because you never show it

You always get your way



Have you and her been taking pictures of your obsessions?

Because I met a [boy] who went through one of your sessions

In his blue velour and silk

You liberated

A boy I never rated

And now he’s throwing discuss

For Liverpool and witness

You liberated

A boy I never rated

And now he’s doing business



The stars of track and field, you are

The stars of track and field, you are

The stars of track and field are beautiful people



Could I write a piece about you now that youve made it?

About the hours spent, the worldliness in your training

You only did it so that you could wear

Your terry underwear

And feel the city air

Run past your body



Could I write a requiem for you when you’re dead?

“She had the moves, she had the speed, it went to her head

She never needed anyone to get her round the track

But when she’s on her back

She had the knowledge

To get her into college

But when she’s on her back

She had the knowledge

To get her what she wanted”

The stars of track and field, you are

The stars of track and field, you are

The stars of track and field are beautiful people

Ethiopiques 19

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Another Quickie review


“Ethiopiques 19” (Ethiopiques (Buda Series), Mahmoud Ahmed)

I don’t have every album in this series1 , but every CD except one has been a great addition to my African music library. My favorite song on this album, called Tezeta, has a simply stunning bass line, along with a moody vocal, sort of like a Hazzan2, though in Ethiopian. Great sax too.

Tezeta means nostalgia, a bittersweet longing for the past, btw, and is a frequent song subject. In fact, there is an entire Ethiopiques album devoted to it.

Footnotes:
  1. estimate without counting that I’ve picked up slightly more than half of the 23 titles, mostly from my pals at Aquarius Records in San Francisco [↩]
  2. cantor [↩]

Forca Bruta

Seth Anderson0 comment

Another Quickie Review


“Forca Bruta” (Jorge Ben)

The guitar rhythms circle around a moving middle, makes me move my belly button in concentric ovals in my chair. Huge thumbs up.
From the Amazon blurb

First time on CD in the US – and first time in the world in over 15 years! A groundbreaking album from the young Jorge Ben – one of Brazil’s most soulful singers ever – heard here at a pivotal point in his career! Forca Bruta is a record forever transformed Brazilian music with its unique blend of samba and soul – and it features some tremendous rhythm work from Trio Mocoto – who bring in a wide variety of percussion techniques to make the whole thing groove. There’s an earthy, laidback feel to the whole set – one that makes the album feel like a spontaneous expression of genius, even at the few points when larger orchestrations slide into the mix. The album’s easily one of Jorge Ben’s greatest – and it’s a much-heralded Brazilian treasure that’s finally getting reissued!

Musebin sounds cool

Seth Anderson6 Comments

I requested a beta invitation to Musebin.

Musebin wants music reviewers to cut to the chase, big-time. Never mind that girl you made a mix for in high school. Other music fans want to know what you think, and they want it now. In 140 characters or less.

Musebin is a response to technology-related shifts in music criticism. Like Twitter, it limits each album review to a single, 140-character line. And like Reddit, it allows users to rate those reviews up or down using Yea or Nay buttons. The result: a fresh and compelling way to share opinions and be entertained while discovering music.
“It’s a reaction to the wordy, wordy MP3 blogs and people craving really concise content,” explained Musebin COO Adam Varga.

[From Musebin: Twitter-Style Music Reviews with Reddit-Style Ratings | Listening Post from Wired.com]

CDs shelf one

Sounds perfect for me – I’m fairly reticent here on my blog, I’ve used Twitter long enough to be familiar with the medium and its restrictions, and I’m a big consumer of music.

I’m probably going to start practicing here whether I get a beta invite or not, so be prepared for a plethora of short, succinct reviews of albums. Kind of a tune-up for all those best of year lists that are going to start appearing.

RIP Mitch Mitchell

Seth Anderson0 comment


“Jimi Hendrix: Live at Monterey” (Experience Hendrix)

By now you’ve probably heard that former Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell has died. The Criterion Collection blog mentions an interesting factoid:

Mitch Mitchell, the inimitable drummer featured in all of the Jimi Hendrix material in Monterey Pop, died this week at age sixty-one. A one-of-a-kind player, Mitchell was the perfect foil for Hendrix and integral to the sound of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. His roiling, explosive approach was a rhythmic analogue to Jimi’s redefinition of the guitar.

For the Monterey Pop Criterion release, we had a hell of a time trying to re-create that huge drum sound from the studio records. The great remote recordist at Monterey, Wally Heider, did a valiant job just trying to get anything on tape. The seven-track master we had to work with had mics being moved and repatched in the middle of songs. Drums were an afterthought to the vocals and guitar, so legendary engineer Eddie Kramer had to build much of the drum sound from bass player Noel Redding’s open vocal mic!

[From On Five: The Criterion Collection Blog]


“Are You Experienced?” (The Jimi Hendrix Experience)

The three first Jimi Hendrix albums1 are essential to any self-respecting rock snob’s music library.

Footnotes:
  1. Electric Ladyland is my favorite of the three, but Are You Experienced and Axis : Bold as Love are almost as good [↩]

Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash

Seth Anderson2 Comments


“The Johnny Cash Show: The Best of Johnny Cash 1969-1971” (Michael B Borofsky)

I feel strongly that Louis Armstrong was one of the foremost geniuses of the 20th Century. Not just for the jazz world, or the music world, but in every aspect, Louis Armstrong accords respect as an innovator, and creator of themes emulated, copied and echoed by others. A genius, in other words.

I would have never guessed, but Louis Armstrong was a guest on the Johnny Cash Show. This and the story about Satchmo and Jimmie Rogers show how diverse musical tastes these men had and once again that music is a great connector.

This is from episode 38, Oct., 28, 1970 and must be one of Satchmo’s last performances. He was such a great performer right to the end and the Nashville audience and Johnny just loved him.

Louis Armstrong cracks everybody up at the start of the song: Let’s give it to ’em in black and white.

THIS AND OTHER GREAT PERFORMANCES ARE NOW AVAILABLE ON A 2-DVD-SET “BEST OF THE JOHNNY CASH TV SHOW”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqc209-rwNI

Jason Kottke links to this Paris Review sampler of some of Louis Armstrong’s visual art:

When not pressing the valves on his trumpet or the record button on his tape recorder, Armstrong’s fingers found other arts with which to occupy themselves. One of them was collage, which became a visual outlet for his improvisational genius. The story goes that he did a series of collages on paper and tacked them up on the wall of his den, but Lucille, who had supervised the purchase and interior decoration of their house in Corona, Queens, objected. Armstrong decided to use his extensive library of tapes as a canvas instead, and the result is a collection of some five hundred decorated reel-to-reel boxes, one thousand collages counting front and back. The collages feature photographs of Armstrong with friends (like the snapshot captioned “Taken at Catherine and Count Basie’s swimming pool, at his birthday party, August 1969”) and with fans (Armstrong seems never to have refused a photo op or an autograph); congratulatory telegrams and clippings from reviews of his performances; a blessing from the Vatican (as reassembled by Louis, the first lines read: “Mr. and Mrs. Most Holy Father Louis Armstrong”); and cutouts from packages of Swiss Kriss herbal laxatives, which, judging from the label’s ubiquity in these pieces, were as much a staple of Armstrong’s daily life as playing the horn. Only occasionally do the collages indicate the musical content within; usually there is no correlation. Armstrong made generous use of various kinds of adhesive tape not only to attach images to each box but also to laminate, frame, or highlight them. The works are untitled and undated, but he was making them as early as the 1950s; in a letter from 1953 he wrote, “Well, you know, my hobbie (one of them anyway) is using a lot of scotch tape . . . My hobbie is to pick out the different things during what I read and piece them together and [make] a little story of my own.”

[Click to read more of The Paris Review – Reel to Reel]

and we posted this a year or so ago…

As mentioned on a Bob Dylan XM radio broadcast, Louis Armstrong appeared in a Betty Boop short.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVIb72b12OI

One of the classic Depression-era musical cartoons created by Max and Dave Fleischer. Satchmo’s soundtrack obviously inspires the artists – even if the visuals aren’t in any way “politically correct” 70-plus years later.

Yes, besides the wince-inducing racism, this piece is a great meld of Fleischer brothers cartoon, live action of Louis Armstrong’s crack jazz band of the 20s and 30s – The Hot Fives and Sevens, and Mr. Armstrong’s floating head.


“The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings” (Louis Armstrong)

Jimmie Rodgers and Johnny Cash are important musical icons too, any fledgling musical historian should own multiple albums by both, but Louis Armstrong transcends them.

Brighten the Corners Reissued

Seth Anderson0 comment


“Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition” (Pavement)

Matador Records is re-issuing Brighten the Corners, Pavement’s penultimate album, with a second disc of goodies, and more.

Our latest edition of Buy Early Get Now is perennial favorite, Pavement’s classic album Brighten The Corners!

Buy Early Get Now and receive the 2 CD deluxe edition in an embossed and die-cut slipcase, with a 62-page perfect-bound book AND a stream of the album, two bonus tracks and a whole vinyl LP containing an unreleased live show. That’s right. A free LP if you Buy Early Get Now. The bonus live LP was recorded during the first Brighten tour and scheduled for release as OLE-324 in July 1998, but was then shelved… until now.

[From Matador Records ]

I assume this bonus LP will eventually be released in the future in other formats, but maybe not.1

Pavement is intertwined with my memories of the 1990s, they were by far my favorite contemporary band, eclipsing even the mighty Sonic Youth who had already started their decline by then. Pavement rewards multiple, concentrated listening, their lyrics were comprised of obtuse bits of American indie subculture, and whatever else was on our bookshelves. In my own iTunes rating scheme five songs are classics, 4 star songs that are always included on my iPod2.

Clicking around to read contemporary reviews of the album, stumbled on this gem from Pitchfork. I imagine the reviewer3 smoking a big bowl of something interesting, and then being unable to write anything coherent about an album he loved, but still typing something anyway on his laptop. Err, or something. I simply don’t know what you are implying.

Still shocking the music world with their wacky, off-kilter brand of music, Pavement come back hard in 1997 with Brighten The Corners. Having never released an album that was even remotely bad, Pavement continue to awe with songs like “Shady Lane” and “We are Underused.” Yeah, it’s a fact. Stephen Malkmus and company pretty much got it goin’ on.

When this disc opens with “Stereo,” you’re immediately compelled to grin. And grin you do. For the duration of the album. A natural high, the tracks roll on. “Transport is Arranged,” “Date With Ikea,” “Old to Begin.” Each one somehow ultimately more awesome than the last. Stuck in a joyous stupor, your only option is to go limp and let the music move you.

Luckily, the disc ends and after a few minutes of continued incapacitation and twitching, you’re able to move again. Best not put it on repeat.

Actually, Robert Christgau wasn’t much deeper in his rave:

Brighten the Corners [Matador, 1997]

Mature or die is the whole of the law. So of course there’s no longer much insurgency in their ill-mannered sounds, now deployed to serenade a self-sustaining subculture and celebrate a band’s collective success. Moderate tempos that once breathed psychedelic wooze turn reflective if not thoughtful as lyrics reference the material emoluments of middle-class life. Yet it’s still exciting, because it isn’t dragged under by the nagging disappointments that generally dull such music (and security). As convinced ironists, Pavement never expected anything else. Closure is a chimera–they’ll drink to that. Onetime insurgent Thelonious Monk–they’ll drink to him, too. A man known for his brilliant corners. A

At least neither reviewer4 uses the word, angular.

Footnotes:
  1. Only available directly from Matador, not the Amazon link, btw [↩]
  2. Stereo; Blue Hawaiian; We are Underused; Starlings of the Slipstream; and Fin, in case you were curious [↩]
  3. Ryan Schreiber [↩]
  4. nor myself, up until this point. Doh!! [↩]

Wilco Blue ray ripoff

Seth Anderson0 comment


“I Am Trying to Break Your Heart – A Film About Wilco” (Sam Jones (IV))

Wilco emails warning about an upcoming Blue-Ray disc that is not worth purchasing:

Also, we have a CONSUMER ALERT. Without consulting us, the DVD company (not WB/Nonesuch) that released “I am trying to break your heart” is about to issue a Blu-Ray Edition which, no surprise, costs considerably more (nearly 2x) than the standard DVD. We’re unsure as to the rationale for the release, given that the film was shot in beautiful grainy B&W and has a stereo-only audio track… there is, in our opinion, not much to be gained by spending the extra cash. It’s your money… and in this case you should probably hang onto it. [From W I L C O – N E W S]

The film is quite interesting, if you are familiar with the band, but apparently, you can just rent it from Netflix instead of forking out for the new version. Or get the standard DVD.

or just read Greg Kot’s book:


“Wilco: Learning How to Die” (Greg Kot)

Sugar Mountain Live

Seth Anderson0 comment


Neil Young’s Sugar Mountain Live

Forty years after its recording, “Sugar Mountain”” by Neil Young will finally see the light of day, live Michigan gigs which helped establish the singer as a solo artist.
Young’s solo career launched in earnest with an engagement at The Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, Mich. Having left the Buffalo Springfield six months earlier, Young brought just his guitar along to the University of Michigan facility.

The gig was a stealth booking to determine if audiences would accept Young’s music in its most elemental form since he previously was in band.

The night of Nov. 9-10, 1968, he performed his music and told stories between the songs. The performances were recorded those evenings on a TEAC 2 track tape recorder, the tapes kept in storage over the intervening years.

“Sugar Mountain Live At Canterbury House 1968” will be out Nov. 25 by Reprise as part of the continuing Neil Young Archive Performance Series. The 23-track album will include recordings made on both nights. The album includes songs that were written during his Buffalo Springfield tenure as well as newly written material that would appear on future solo albums. One of the spoken word pieces is a tale of Young’s hapless “day job” experience working in a Toronto bookstore.

[From Neil Young’s “Sugar Mountain Live” sees light of day]

I’m sure this is better than Living With War…

Just To Watch It Die

Seth Anderson0 comment


“At Folsom Prison” (Johnny Cash)

I’ve heard cover versions of Johnny Cash’s famous song, Folsom Prison Blues, and the audience always cheers the line, “…just to watch him die.” Turns out the spontaneity we were celebrating was based upon a studio concoction. Next they’ll be reporting that when June Carter replied to Johnny Cash’s sentence, “I love to watch you talk”, with the great line, “I’m talking with my mouth, way up here”, she dubbed it in the studio! No, probably not.

Anyway, another myth debunked:

As it turns out, one of the most iconic moments in American music history is the result of a razor blade, a prerecorded hunk of hollering and some Scotch tape.

On “Folsom Prison Blues,” the opening track of Johnny Cash’s landmark live album, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison,” the Man in Black darkly intones: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”

The 1,000 inmates packed into the California prison’s cafeteria that Jan. 16, 1968, morning screamed, whistled and wildly applauded the musical murder.

For 40 years, music fans have regarded the chilling moment as a key component in the DNA of Cash’s career-making mystique.

But it never happened.

Columbia Records producer Bob Johnston later spliced the crowd response into the song.

Writer Michael Streissguth discovered the bit of larcenous creative license while he was researching his 2004 book, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece.”

Streissguth was in a studio listening to the master tapes of the concert with Sony Legacy engineers. On the weathered reel-to-reel tape, the moment whizzed past without any audience eruption.

Curious, the writer and the engineers pulled out the edited master. Sure enough, on the final version when Cash’s iconic line was cued up, the spliced in, taped up edit was evident.

[From Boxed set shines light on legendary Cash prison show | AccessAtlanta]

(via)

Oh well, still love that album.

Uncle Tupelo March 16-20, 1992

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“March 16-20, 1992” (Uncle Tupelo)

For an evening of alcohol-inspired melancholy, there are few albums1 as good a soundtrack as Uncle Tupelo’s March 16-20, 1992. In my rudimentary iTunes rating system, ten of the fifteen songs2 on this album3 are rated 4 stars, and thus are always on my iPod.

Although Uncle Tupelo usually mixed in punk-rock with their traditional songs and traditional-sounding tunes on their other three albums, the March 16-20, 1992 album is all acoustic, guitar, banjo, etc., and decidedly minor key. Peter Buck of R.E.M. produced, and the emphasis is certainly on mood. I love all of the Uncle Tupelo albums, but this is always the one played the most.

For instance, Fatal Wound, a Jeff Tweedy song, is one of my ten favorites. I’m still a little vague as to the song’s meaning, but I don’t mind if I hear if over and over again anyway, and my emotional response remains constant. I’m sure the song’s target understands the references.

don’t the lights look empty
when the streets are bare
almost as empty
as the look you give me
when I’m the only one

and it’s a long one
so it brings you down
so say you have nowhere else to go
and nothing to do
so you hang around
you hang around

but you wait around until
you’ve received that fatal wound

columns of sunlight
and glorious cities
oceans of opportunity
and all your decisions seem ancient

but you wait around until
you’ve received that fatal wound

Jay Farrar’s version of Moonshiner is also spectacular.

I’ve been a moonshiner
for seventeen long years
and I spent all my money
on whiskey and beer
and I go to some hollow
and set up my still
if whiskey don’t kill me
Lord, I don’t know what will
and I go to some barroom
to drink with my friends
where the women they can’t follow
to see what I spend
God bless them pretty women
I wish they was mine
with breath as sweet as
the dew on the vine
let me eat when I’m hungry
let me drink when I’m dry
two dollars when I’m hard up
religion when I die
the whole world is a bottle
and life is but a dram
when the bottle gets empty
Lord, it sure ain’t worth a damn

You can stream the album at Last.FM, if you are a little bit interested, or just pick up your own copy.

Jason Ankeny writes:

Produced by R.E.M.‘s Peter Buck, March 16-20, 1992 represents Uncle Tupelo’s full evolution into a true country unit; with the exception of the eerie squalls of guitar feedback which haunt Jeff Tweedy‘s mesmerizing “Wait Up,” there’s virtually no evidence of the trio’s punk heritage. Instead, the all-acoustic album — a combination of Tupelo originals and well-chosen traditional songs — taps into the very essence of backwoods culture, its music rooted in the darkest corners of Appalachian life. An inescapable sense of dread grips this collection, from the large-scale threat depicted in the stunning rendition of the Louvin Brothers‘ “The Great Atomic Power” to the fatalism of the worker anthems “Grindstone” and “Coalminers”; even the character studies, including a revelatory “Moonshiner,” are relentlessly grim. A vivid glimpse at the harsh realities of rural existence, March 16-20, 1992 is a brilliant resurrection of a bygone era of American folk artistry.

Footnotes:
  1. the only other comparable album that I can think of is Richard Thompson’s I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight [↩]
  2. actually, looking closer, the track Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down should probably be rated higher, so that’s 11 of 15 [↩]
  3. as originally released, the re-release contains a few more tracks [↩]

Over Compression is a Sin

Seth Anderson3 Comments


“Death Magnetic” (Metallica)

Compact discs and modern digital mastering techniques have been a sore spot with us for a while1, and the obnoxious density of sound has only gotten worse. I’m long since past the age of being part of Metallica’s demographic2, but perhaps they will listen to their fans. Do they really want to be like those annoying television commercials that blare you out of your seat when the show breaks? Similar principle: remove all silence from the audio spectrum, and the sound gets louder, and more annoying.

“Death Magnetic”” is a flashpoint in a long-running music-industry fight. Over the years, rock and pop artists have increasingly sought to make their recordings sound louder to stand out on the radio, jukeboxes and, especially, iPods.

But audiophiles, recording professionals and some ordinary fans say the extra sonic wallop comes at a steep price. To make recorded music seem louder, engineers must reduce the “dynamic range,” minimizing the difference between the soft and loud parts and creating a tidal wave of aural blandness.

“When there’s no quiet, there can be no loud,” said Matt Mayfield, a Minnesota electronic-music teacher, in a YouTube video that sketched out the battle lines of the loudness war. A recording’s dynamic range can be measured by calculating the variation between its average sound level and its maximum, and can be visually expressed through wave forms. Louder recordings, with higher average sound levels, leave less room for such variation than quieter ones.

Some fans are complaining that “Death Magnetic” has a thin, brittle sound that’s the result of the band’s attempts in the studio to make it as loud as possible. “Sonically it is barely listenable,” reads one fan’s online critique. Thousands have signed an online petition urging the band to re-mix the album and release it again.

[From Even Heavy-Metal Fans Complain That Today’s Music Is Too Loud!!! – WSJ.com]

Ted Jensen, the album’s mastering engineer, got quoted as saying he wasn’t too proud of being associated with this release. What’s more telling, is there was another version released for a video game console, and it sounds much better ((allegedly: I haven’t listened to either version, though this dude listened to the studio verison)

Data Dump

The battle has roots in the era before compact discs. With vinyl records, “it was impossible to make loud past a certain point,” says Bob Ludwig, a veteran mastering engineer. But digital technology made it possible to squeeze all of the sound into a narrow, high-volume range. In addition, music now is often optimized for play on the relatively low-fidelity earbuds for iPods, reducing incentives to offer a broad dynamic range.

The loudness war began heating up around the time CDs gained popularity, in the early 1980s. Guns N’ Roses’ “Appetite for Destruction” upped the ante in 1987, as did Metallica’s 1991 “Black Album” and then the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Californication” in 1999.

Music released today typically has a dynamic range only a fourth to an eighth as wide as that of the 1990s. That means if you play a newly released CD right after one that’s 15 years old, leaving the volume knob untouched, the new one is likely to sound four to eight times as loud. Many who’ve followed the controversy say “Death Magnetic” has one of the narrowest dynamic ranges ever on an album.

Sound engineers say artists who insist on loudness paradoxically give people less to hear, because they end up wiping away nuances and details. Everything from a gently strummed guitar to a pounding snare drum is equally loud, leading to what some call “ear fatigue.” If the listener turns down the volume knob, the music loses even more of its punch.

Footnotes:
  1. at least three blog posts that I remember writing, but am too lazy to look for at the moment [↩]
  2. though I used to own their first three albums, and saw them perform two or three times in the 1980s [↩]

Running on plenty

swanksalot0 comment


“Harps & Angels” (Randy Newman)

The new Randy Newman album, Harps and Angels, is growing on me the more I listen to it. I was unfamiliar with his prior work, with the exception of the over-played classic, I Love LA, but I’m increasingly intrigued by his non-film work.

In an apathetic age, only Neil Young among his original peers still consistently sounds any musical alarm against injustice and corruption. Browne agrees with Gore Vidal’s assessment that America’s largest political party is the “nonvoting party”, so such opinionated motivation is nothing short of admirable. Don’t ask me, ask Randy Newman. On the ever-laconic Newman’s new album, Harps and Angels, a song called A Piece of the Pie mischievously measures America’s collective languid self-interest against the undimmed commitment of one man. “The rich are getting richer, I should know,” he writes. “While we’re going up, you’re going down, and no one gives a shit but Jackson Browne.”

So, is Browne the last protest singer? “He didn’t really say that,” he says of Newman’s portrayal. “What he said was even funnier, that no one else gives a shit. Not true, of course, but very funny. My friend Don Henley referred to [the actor] Ed Asner, who’s active for social change, and Henley called it the Dreaded Asner Syndome. I guess I’ve contracted it, and am proud to be afflicted. I don’t think there’s any choice but to throw in with those people who are doing what they can to make the world inhabitable and beautiful. I’m a card-carrying member of hedonists for peace. I just don’t think peace and prosperity should only be for the wealthy.”

[From Jackson Browne: Running on plenty – Times Online ]

I actually was unfamiliar with Jackson Browne’s music up until about two months ago, but his first albums are excellent, and I’m slowly working through his back catalog.

We had mentioned John McCain’s keen urge to steal from artists without compensating them previously, but here’s Jackson Browne’s direct response to the situation:

This is more than benign idealism, as John McCain recently discovered. Browne is suing the Republican campaign, seeking damages of $75,000, for using his 1977 song Running on Empty in an “attack” ad against Barack Obama, in the apparent belief that a lifelong liberal would either not mind or not notice. “They broke two very clear laws,” he says calmly. “That they can’t use your song without your permission, and that they can’t imply you endorse a candidate if you don’t. Either they don’t know the law or they think they’re above it. Either way, it speaks volumes about the style of governance.” Browne has given $2,300 in support of Obama’s presidential campaign, according to public record.

“McCain’s campaign [managers] are trying to say he knew nothing about the ad,” Browne adds. “Do we believe that? It may be that it plays well to his constituency to steal my song, unapologetically take whatever you feel like using, and work out the details later. I’m sure I’ll prevail, because the laws are clear-cut, but I think the Republicans have a culture of impunity.”

Now three weeks off his 60th birthday, a bearded Browne may be looking just a little older at last. As in a similarly long dialogue at the time of his 2002 album, The Naked Ride Home, however, he is likeably low-key. “The inspiration’s not a problem,” he says. “I’m not less inspired, I’m less free to shut myself away long enough to finish a song. I’m also not in a hurry. That’s the odd thing that’s happened, that there’s less and less time left, and I’m less in a hurry. Maybe I’ll get desperate towards the end. You want the things you sing about to be about life and other people’s lives, and if I shut myself away and tried to ramp up the output, it might limit the interest I take in things that are pretty universal.”


“Time the Conqueror” (Jackson Browne)

Another Green World

Seth Anderson0 comment


“Brian Eno’s Another Green World (33 1/3)” (Geeta Dayal)


“Another Green World” (Eno)

A favorite album of mine, and now the 33.3 book is imminent. I’ve already pre-ordered it I believe. As a teaser, here is the opening few paragraphs of Geeta Dayal’s book

When I initially set out to write a book on Brian Eno, I didn’t realize what a massive endeavor it would turn out to be. This short book has taken several years to write. I wrote, rewrote, threw out entire chapters, and started over more than once. Every idea fanned out into ten other intriguing ideas, and eventually I found myself enmeshed in a dense network of thought. Finally, I realized that I had to pick a direction and run with it, or risk never being finished.

Sometimes a good way to begin a drawing is to first carve out all of the negative space. So I will start out by telling you what this book isn’t. This is not a rock biography that meticulously documents the making of Another Green World. Nor is it a book that dwells very much on Eno’s personal life. It certainly touches on both of these things, to the extent that they are useful in creating a larger picture. This is a book about process. How did these songs grow from kernels of ideas into fully-formed pieces? How were these kernels of thought formed in the first place? I attempt to examine the confluence of ideas at a certain time in a certain place in the 1970s, and how these notions helped to shape the form of three records, all released in 1975: Another Green World, Discreet Music, and Evening Star.

My own background is in the sciences, and I approached this book as a sort of scientific experiment. I came up with hypotheses and tested them by doing research. Sometimes these hypotheses were wrong, so I went back to the drawing board. I did a lot of interviews, read a lot of books, and spent a lot of time thinking and listening. I spoke with dozens of people; one of the great gifts of writing a book on Eno is getting to interview some of the very interesting collaborators that he has worked with over the past thirty-odd years. I wasn’t just interested in speaking with those who worked on Another Green World; I wanted to learn more, in a general sense, about how Eno worked with other people.

I read dozens of books on a number of different subjects — from visual art to cybernetics to architecture to evolutionary biology to cooking to tape loops — for inspiration. Of course, I read books about Eno as well. But many of the most helpful books for understanding Eno’s methods are not explicitly about Eno at all. They are books like Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, Stafford Beer’s The Brain of the Firm, and Michael Nyman’s Experimental Music. What these books have in common — besides being books that Eno rates highly — are that they unite a variety of seemingly disparate things, and lay out general principles for thinking about these things. In this book, I look at how Eno devised his own sets of tools for thinking, such the “Oblique Strategies” cards he created with Peter Schmidt. (I used a deck of these cards myself while writing this book, whenever I reached an impasse).

Of course, there is the music. In the chapters that follow, I dig into some of the many unique sounds on these records. This is not any kind of formal musicological analysis. What it is, instead, is an exploration of the sonics–the timbres and layers of shifting textures. I spend more time on sonics than I do on the words. Eno has stated many times that lyrics, especially at this time period in his life, did not interest him very much. But that does not mean that words did not serve an important function. Using some ideas from cognitive science, I probe two different phenomena at play in Another Green World. The first, as Eno himself has pointed out, is that only five out of the 14 tracks on Another Green World have words, but that listeners tend to perceive the album as a “song record,” not an ambient record. Each song with lyrics “bleeds” into the surrounding ambient tracks. How does this effect work in our heads? The second phenomenon has to do with another type of sleight of hand — how chains of words, even nonsense words that do not make any sense in sequence, can nonetheless generate distinct, powerful images.

[Click to read more of 33 1/3: Another Green World]

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