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Triumph Of The Mud
By Ed Driscoll · July 05, 2008 06:59 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Hollywood, Interrupted · Liberal Fascism · Muggeridge's Law · The Memory Hole
John Nolte, on his Dirty Harry's Place film blog, spots Roger Ebert making quite an interesting analogy in his latest review, which revisits Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous Triumph of the Will: Try to imagine another film where hundreds of thousands gathered. Where all focus was on one or a few figures on a distant stage. Where those figures were the object of adulation. The film, of course, is the rock documentary “Woodstock” (1970). But consider how Michael Wadleigh, that film’s director, approached the formal challenge of his work. He begins with the preparations for this massive concert. He shows arrivals coming by car, bus, bicycle, foot. He show the arrangements to feed them. He makes the Port-O-San Man, serving the portable toilets, into a folk hero. …Wow, who knew that the famously leftwing Roger Ebert was such a fan of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism?! But such a comparison is ultimately futile: Freddie Mercury and Queen weren't even bandmates when Woodstock occurred in 1969, and they were history's first fascist rock and roll group--just ask Rolling Stone. Coloring Between The Staves
By Ed Driscoll · May 27, 2008 10:16 AM · All You Need Is Ears
When I first started playing guitar, I remember reading a sort of dual-interview published in 1982 in the now sadly-deceased Musician magazine between Robert Fripp of King Crimson (a pretty amazing guitarist in his own right) and John McLaughlin, who, as I've written before, I think can safely be considered amongst the greatest guitarists alive: McLaughlin: I don't meditate or fast or anything, but I reflect on the ramifications of what I do. For example, there's a relationship between two chords that you've known, that I've known, for a long time, and only recently do I begin to discover this more intimate relationship, what it means. Even though I've looked at these chords from every possible viewpoint, I'm looking for a way that maybe exists up there, but I don't know where it is. Then, a little while ago, I discovered it, it just arrived. So the work that we do, I don't think we benefit from it until later. But once we have colors and palette, the richer the palette is, the richer the music can be.I've long thought that this passage was simply musical hyperbole, but perhaps its an example of a condition that Oliver Sacks describes as "synesthesia". (I wonder if Jan Hammer "suffers" from that...?) Place Them In A Box Until A Quieter Time
By Ed Driscoll · May 23, 2008 12:52 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Muggeridge's Law · The Assault On Reason
Much like his lyrics, Dave Matthews puts a typically goofy ironic spin on what numerous conservatives--and even some musicians--said last year: "The whole joke of Live Earth was how wasteful it was": The May 29 edition of Rolling Stone looks ahead to the summer concert season, and the rock-music mag is praising the Dave Matthews Band for their use of biodiesel for buses and "biodegradable goods for catering." But this exchange was interesting, about Al Gore's "Live Earth" concerts.As I wrote last year, right around this time: I wouldn't have as much of a problem with Live Earth if it really were The Last Rock Concert by those who participated in it. It takes an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance to simultaneously believe that the planet's ecosphere is soon to be doomed, but the solution is a blowout concert in two different football stadiums.Or as Glenn Reynolds said at the time, "I'll start acting as if it's a crisis when the people who are telling me it's a crisis start acting as if it's a crisis." Music For Driving
By Ed Driscoll · May 19, 2008 12:12 PM · All You Need Is Ears
Ann Althouse discusses her favorite driving songs here. One of my favorites--at least as long as our overseas betters actually allow us to drive--is this: Given the song's stately, rolling feel, it's not a coincidence that its working title was "Driving To Kashmir". Wish You Were Here
By Ed Driscoll · April 25, 2008 12:13 PM · All You Need Is Ears · The Return of the Primitive · War And Anti-War
I once dubbed Pink Floyd's Roger Waters the Pat Buchanan of British rock: both, in retrospect, would have been quite OK with appeasing Nazi Germany; both are anti-Israel. But Julia Gorin has an excellent suggestion (and yes I'm very late to this) for Waters' next destination on his bringing "The Wall To The Wall" tours. Of course, I could see why Rogers wouldn't want to Meddle there, not when his prospective audience would likely shout "One Of These Days, I'm Going To Cut You Into Little Pieces!" The Final Cut would then be followed by the Great Gig In The Sky, unless Waters plans to Run Like Hell after the gig. OK, I'll stop now, before Brain Damage occurs... The Wild, The Innocent, And The Barack Street Shuffle
By Ed Driscoll · April 19, 2008 08:08 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Bobos In Paradise · The Making of the President · The New Puritans
So many on the left seemed perpetually trapped in the past, usually in the 1930s, '60s, or the 1970s, but recently, Jonah Goldberg spotted the slightly more recent epoch that has made Barack Obama so bitter: There’s always been a certain cultural lag time to Barack and Michelle Obama, a kitschiness that’s hard to pinpoint. But I think I’ve got it: They’re self-hating yuppies straight out of the 1980s, which were to the Obamas what the 1960s were to the Clintons.And as Abe Greenwald of Commentary writes, so does someone else with a Brilliant Disguise, whose artistic career peaked just before the decade the Gipper made: It’s true that Obama speaks to the America Springsteen usually writes about. But I’m not sure what he’s referring to in this description. Springsteen’s America is a soot-covered wasteland of junked cars, violent townies, shotgun weddings, racist cops, closed factories, and endless unemployment lines. If you think Obama was tough on small town mentalities, consider the lyrics of Springsteen’s “Born to Run”:Sadly, as Slate of all publications once noted, Bruce's second manager, Jon Landau, who went from Rolling Stone critic to rock Svengali, took that Springsteen away from us, transforming Bruce in his formative years from an exciting quirky apolitical musician to just another leftwing product on the showbiz assembly line.Baby this town rips the bones from your back (And speaking of Slate, nice of them to create a fun anti-Obama ad, which will have a little traction even after this week's PA primary has passed.) A Working Class Hero Is Something To Be
By Ed Driscoll · April 17, 2008 02:43 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Bobos In Paradise · The Making of the President
Proof that your 1970s-era leather jacketed populist hero to the working man persona may be looking a bit threadbare these days--when you actually say with a straight face, “I’ve found enormous sustenance from Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd”. Update: Bruuuuuuce! is Reason #4 of the 20 Reasons Why Frank Martin Is Bitter. And I'm even more bitter than he is over Reason #17: 17. I now own 'Blade Runner' in 5 different DVD formats.Heck, in addition to owning multiple DVD copies, and writing about the movie for Pajamas, I've owned it on VHS, and two different laser disc versions. And reading in Billboard around 1987 that there was this new company called Voyager with something called a "Criterion Collection" that had released Blade Runner as a letterboxed laser disc (back when letterboxing was new and controversial!) and was planning to release a letterboxed 2001: A Space Odyssey later that year is why I bought my first laser disc player. I mean, you go into these small colonies near Clavius and the Tycho Magnetic Anomaly and, like a lot of small earth colonies in the Sol Sector, it's not surprising that when people get bitter, they cling to laser discs, DVDs, or (via Lileks) space age prunes... Conspiracies So Vast
By Ed Driscoll · April 13, 2008 12:31 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Radical Chic · The Future and its Enemies · The Return of the Primitive
Matthew Sheffield writes, "If you've always thought her music was hackneyed and dull now you may have another reason to dislike Alicia Keys: she's apparently a racist conspiracymonger", as this AP report highlights (ellipses in Matthew's post): There's another side to Alicia Keys: conspiracy theorist. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter tells Blender magazine: "'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other."[...]Matthew adds, "All this nonsense really should come as a surprise to Keys's mother, Teresa Augello, who is white. Is this just a phase? In any case, it's hard to see how a white entertainer or a religious-oriented entertainer making statements like this and it not doing significant harm to their career." She's not alone of course; Keys' remarks regarding her profession sound much like those expressed by Rev. Eric Lee of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who featured prominently in several recent articles over on the main Pajamas site this past week, including this one: “In a very small part of my presentation, I referenced a meeting I had with Rabbi’s and other community leaders. A Rabbi stated in that meeting that the close relationship between the African American and Jewish communities had been disconnected after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. I further referenced in my speech that my response to the Rabbi was that the Black Power Movement emerged after the assassination of Dr. King and it was a direct response to the negative characterizations of African Americans through the silver screen, TV and the music industry, industries that are influenced by many in the Jewish community. I then stated to the Rabbis that the Black Power Movement was our effort to define for ourselves our own identity rather than be defined by anyone else. I then indicated in my presentation that I told the Rabbis’ that before a genuine coalition could be rebuilt between our communities, there would have to be dialogue and efforts made to deal with the negative characterizations of African Americans.”But Keys' and Lee's conspiratorial ravings ignore a crucial element of the success of "Gangsta" rap: nobody twisted the arms of performers to record those records, or to strike thugish poses in videos and magazine covers to promote them, or consumers to purchase them. As Mark Steyn wrote last month regarding another prominent conspiracy theorist: The Reverend Wright believes that AIDs was created by the government of the United States — and not as a cure for the common cold that went tragically awry and had to be covered up by Karl Rove, but for the explicit purpose of killing millions of its own citizens. The government has never come clean about this, but the Reverend Wright knows the truth. “The government lied,” he told his flock, “about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”Rather than conspiracy theories about "the government and the media" as Keys believes, the latter "influenced by many in the Jewish community" as Lee believes, and the former fermenting "genocide against people of color" as Wright believes, where are the calls for personal responsibility, by three people who are all voices of influence in their respective circles? (Onion video originally found here.) Both Ends Burning
I've been a bit surprised to see ascots appearing in my latest Brooks Brothers catalogs; I think it's still a look that's far too affected, even for me, but Betsy Newmark wonders if we aren't seeing the aura of a penumbra of its comeback: According to USA Today, we are seeing glimmerings of a comeback of the ascot. A handful of guys in the public eye are wearing them. The most public practitioner is American Idol contestant, Michael Johns. While I really like Johns and he's my favorite on Idol, I hope he starts to resist such advice from the Idol stylist as this:With the unfortunate death of Robert Palmer in 2003, doesn't Bryan Ferry currently have the absolute lock on that job description? (At least as frontman--Charlie Watts is often the best dressed drummer since Tony Williams.)And yet: American Idol contender Michael Johns sang a bluesy number last week while wearing a pink-and-purple Alexander McQueen ascot, chosen by Idol stylist Miles Siggins. The contestants need "a recognizable brand, and I was thinking dandy rocker," says Siggins, who has picked out a vintage ascot for Johns to wear this week."Dandy rocker?" You gotta be kidding. "Indeed, Queen May Be The First Truly Fascist Rock Band"
By Ed Driscoll · April 08, 2008 06:54 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Liberal Fascism · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole
Jonah Goldberg goes F-Spotting: I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Behold a new sport for readers. Send me your examples of people just using "fascist" to describe things they don't like. For example, Kevin Costner in Bull Durham: “Quit trying to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring and besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls. They’re more democratic.”Here's an oldie-but-a-goodie from 1979 by music critic and veteran Bruce Springsteen hagiographer Dave Marsh in Rolling Stone magazine: Whatever its claims, Queen isn't here just to entertain. This group has come to make it clear exactly who is superior and who is inferior. Its anthem, "We Will Rock You," is a marching order: you will not rock us, we will rock you. Indeed, Queen may be the first truly fascist rock band.As an audience member (and Queen was my first rock concert, as I recall, with Billy Squier opening), I would not have presumed to have rocked Queen. It seems reasonable to assume that when one plunked down money to see Queen, one presumed that they would be the core element of the experience which would be doing the rocking during the concert. How that made Freddie Mercury and company fascist, I cannot fathom, but like the man said... Incidentally, in 1992, Rolling Stone magazine celebrated its 25th anniversary with a lavish party at the Four Seasons in Manhattan, a restaurant whose interior was designed by Philip Johnson. Their Geriatric Majesties' Request
By Ed Driscoll · April 05, 2008 10:52 AM · All You Need Is Ears · Bobos In Paradise · Hollywood, Interrupted
In the Weekly Standard, Sonny Bunch writes that Martin Scorsese's Shine A Light, his Rolling Stones concert movie, is no Last Waltz. Cold comfort for those of us who also thought the latter was more than a little overrated--or to be more charitable, hasn't been well served by the passage of time. (Speaking of which, don't miss Bunch calling the modern sixty-something Stones "leather Muppets"! And for a great Rolling Stones concert movie, you can't go wrong with the classics.) How The West Was Won
Ace spots this amusing Reuters item: If you are male and a Led Zeppelin fan, chances are you may be leaning toward voting Republican in the U.S. presidential election, according to a survey of rock radio fans released on Wednesday.Gosh, never saw that one coming! Exile On McCain Street
By Ed Driscoll · April 03, 2008 12:14 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Muggeridge's Law · The Making of the President
One of these two people is 96 years old. Or maybe both... Neil Aspinall, "The Fifth Beatle", Dies
By Ed Driscoll · March 24, 2008 01:12 PM · All You Need Is Ears
While New York DJ "Murray The K" may have claimed the title of "The Fifth Beatle" at the height of Beatlemania in a shameless act of self-promotion, in reality, if any man could claim the title, it was Neil Aspinall, who died recently at age 66, according to the Telegraph: One of his last tasks as their eminence grise had been to remaster the group's back catalogue for legal downloading on the internet. Aspinall's involvement with the Beatles dated from 1960 when the group's original drummer, Pete Best, asked him to become their driver.There's a direct line from Beatlemania to the most pretentious and overwrought aspects of the 1960s, but there's also hours and hours of brilliant music as well, and short of George Martin, who was recording and actively shaping the Beatles' output, Aspinall had the best seat in the house to watch its production. The Audacity of Copa
New York Post film critic Kyle Smith comes clean: I worshiped at the Church of Manilow for many years. He is a part of me. I can no more disown him than I can unload my LPs of ABBA’s “Super Trouper” or “The Best of Andy Gibb.” However, I respectfully request that you please not hold any facts against me and start talking about something else.No word yet on what Obama's grandmother thought of him. The Ghosts Of 1968, The Year Of The Hippie Poseur
Tom Stoppard describes 1968 as "The year of the posturing rebel". Or as John Lennon confessed a decade later: "I dabbled in politics in the late 1960s and 1970s, more out of guilt than anything. Guilt for being rich and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something, or get punched in the face to prove I'm one of the people. I was doing it against my instincts."Fascinating though, that the 1960s and '70s, a period that was rife with poseurs such as Lennon, is still influencing us to this day. You can see it in music, in the form of ersatz nostalgia acts such as Lenny Kravitz and Sheryl Crow, who dress in period costume (sort of the tie-dyed equivalent of greasers like Sha Na Na in leather jackets and D.A.s in 1975, or a big band that same year still playing in tan dinner jackets and bow ties). Or much more dangerously, in a politics that still takes it rhetoric from a period now four decades in the past, whether it's John Kerry in 2004, or Rev. Wright in 2008. But then, when starting from zero, one is always tempted to stay trapped in Year One. I Read The News Today, Oh Boy
This sounds like a Tiger Beat questionnaire from the Bizzaro universe: Which Beatle's wife you think Hillary would be reveals your true personality! "Okay, but don't start arguing Hillary's Barbara Bach." Broadway Babies Say Goodnight
By Ed Driscoll · March 09, 2008 01:36 PM · All You Need Is Ears · The Future and its Enemies · The Return of the Primitive
This just in: "Do NOT get Mark Steyn started on 'Show Boat'". Edge Of Darkness
By Ed Driscoll · February 24, 2008 12:52 PM · All You Need Is Ears
I've had the riffs from this moody Eric Clapton/Michael Kamen soundtrack piece rumbling through my head all weekend. Now it's your turn: This Just In
By Ed Driscoll · February 20, 2008 07:35 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Muggeridge's Law · The Return of the Primitive
UPI breathlessly reports that "Hearing rap music can spontaneously activate pre-existing awareness of sexist beliefs, North Carolina State University researchers determined." All together now: I need a study to tell me this? It's Doing A Pretty Good Job All By Itself
By Ed Driscoll · February 11, 2008 09:30 PM · All You Need Is Ears
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the American Spectator, James Bowman writes, with tongue only slightly in cheek: The New York Times obituary of Robert Goulet reminded us that "in 1961, The New York Daily News Magazine called him ‘just the man to help stamp out rock ’n’ roll.’" Alas, as the obituarist for The Times added — could it be just a touch wistfully? — "it was an impossible assignment." By 1967, when The American Spectator first saw the light of day in Bloomington, Indiana, most people of the generation of the Spectator’s editors — and your correspondent — would probably have forgotten that in that dim and distant past of six years previous anyone had even wanted to stamp out rock ‘n’ roll. By that time, the parents who had complained about the suggestiveness of Elvis Presley’s stage performances had much bigger problems to worry about. Yet for 40 years the magazine has offered the hospitality of its pages to those who would write the minority report out of the sixties, including even a few would-be Savanarolas who, however belatedly, might still be up for a campaign to stamp out rock ‘n’ roll.It's actually doing a pretty good job at the moment of finishing the job that Bob started: Amy Winehouse, Herbie Hancock and Kanye West didn't provide quite enough drama to enthrall television viewers. Preliminary estimates indicate the Grammy Awards telecast was watched by 17.5 million people.The industry can't blame this on sales lost to downloading, as we note each year when the typically dreadful postmortem arrives. The Decline Of Western Civilization, Part XXXVII
By Ed Driscoll · February 10, 2008 12:42 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Hollywood, Interrupted · The Return of the Primitive
(Via the vast Manolo empire.) Everybody Wants To Rule The World
"While in Berlin for the release of a new documentary he helped produce, music legend Neil Young shocked reporters Friday with the revelation that music cannot change the world." That painful moment when youthful naivete gives way to wisdom, made even more difficult when you're 62 years old. Sexy Sadie Has Left The Building
The ironically eponymous star of the Beatles' "Sexie Sadie" from the White Album moves on to the next plane of existence, at age 91. How Soon Is Now? About 600 A.D. If You're Morrissey
By Ed Driscoll · February 02, 2008 08:29 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Muggeridge's Law · The Return of the Primitive · War And Anti-War
As the Times of London aptly quips, "Never mind the fundamentalists, here’s Morrissey": Iran is still suspicious of pop music. Last summer police raided an underground festival in an orchard near the town of Karaj to stop what they called a “provocative, satanic concert”. More than 200 people were arrested.I guess that's as good a definition for the current meaning of progressive rock as anything. Does Anybody Remember Laughter?
By Ed Driscoll · January 31, 2008 05:05 PM · All You Need Is Ears
Here are two more tracks to add to the CD edition of SCTV's classic Stairways To Heaven album: Update: Here's an even cooler DIY mash-up. The Red Hot Chili Pipers!
By Ed Driscoll · January 24, 2008 06:12 PM · All You Need Is Ears
Back in early 2006, Australia's John Birmingham profiled Tim Blair, amongst others, in his look at conservative comedy: Blair, the closest antipodean analogue of O'Rourke, is a declared political warrior, with no interest in fairness, unlike traditional satirists such as Patrick Cook or Mike Carlton who are even-handed in their choice of targets. A Blair column is predictable insofar as you know who is going to get whacked - exactly the same people who took a beating in that morning's Miranda Devine op-ed piece. But unlike Devine, Blair consistently rewards attention with little hash cookies of humour such as his obsession with AC/DC's bagpipe player. Does he tour? Does he have groupies? Are they called bag ladies?He does indeed tour--and gets down with his bad, Utilikilted self! They Finally Made Her Go To Rehab
Amy Winehouse, this year's answer to the self-destructiveness of Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin, merged with the frightening visage of Patti Smith at her most emaciated, is "headed for rehab the same day The Sun newspaper ran on its Web site a video of her allegedly smoking a crack pipe." The Birth Of The Cool
By Ed Driscoll · January 18, 2008 11:02 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Bobos In Paradise · Hollywood, Interrupted
Tremendous passage from the late Michael Kelly, found via Cold Fury: Sinatra, as every obit observed, was the first true modern pop idol, inspiring in the 1940s the sort of mass adulation that was to become a familiar phenomenon in the '50s and '60s. One man, strolling onto the set at precisely the right moment in the youth of the Entertainment Age, made himself the prototype of the age's essential figure: the iconic celebrity. The iconic celebrity is the result of the central confusion of the age, which is that people possessed of creative or artistic gifts are somehow teachers-role models-in matters of personal conduct. The iconic celebrity is idolized-and obsessively studied and massively imitated-not merely for the creation of art but for the creation of public self, for the confection of affect and biography that the artist projects onto the national screen.One of the observations that Diana West made in The Death of the Grown-Up is how much of the heavy lifting in the birth of modern culture--with all its pluses and minuses--occurred in the 1950s, though the 1960s gets all the credit. But while Sinatra was indeed a harbinger of things to come, he was also very much a man of his times. In Gay Talese's epochal 1966 "Frank Sinatra Has A Cold" article for Esquire, you can actually see the cool style of Sinatra’s highpoint ebb into the sunset, and the aesthetic of the late sixties being born, when Sinatra encounters legendarily cranky sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison. And as Mark Steyn wrote recently, by the following decade dispatches between the two cultures--the post-war showbiz culture and the anti-war culture of mud--were even chillier: One reason why the Oscar shows of the early Seventies are such a hoot compared to the butt-numbing snoozeroos of today is the tension and sniping between the John Wayne/Bob Hope/Frank Sinatra set and the hipster crowd reading out telegrams from the Viet Cong. Back then, being anti-war meant taking a side. In today’s Hollywood, being anti-war is the only side.Which means, through the paradigm of The Manchurian Candidate and even programmers like Von Ryan's Express, plus his support of JFK and RWR, we can look back at Sinatra as a remarkably patriotic, all-American guy, in spite of himself, his myriad excesses, and nihilistic cool. Maybe it was simply that while Sinatra was indeed cool, he never succumbed to its successor pose: irony. Which, in retrospect, may have saved him from himself, unlike those who followed in his wake. Update: Welcome Libertas and Jules Crittenden readers! Long Live Rock!
Err, don't bet on it--at least in its current form: IN 2006 EMI, the world's fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.Meanwhile, over at Blogingheads.tv, Michael Hirschorn of VH-1 and Jon Fine of Business Week bemoan what they call "The last days of the rock star". A fascinating subtext of their conversation is that both are unhappy over the media's continuing fragmentation, as the Long Tail grows longer. In Hirschorn's case, it's awfully ironic: In the decade before the World Wide Web began riding on top of the Internet in the early 1990s, cable television was the Long Tail of the 1980s, as narrowly-themed channels such as his own VH-1 began to demassify the Big Three television networks, ending their 35 year uncontested run. Bobos In Classrooms
By Ed Driscoll · January 12, 2008 01:28 AM · All You Need Is Ears · Bobos In Paradise · God And Man At Dupont University · The Long Tail · The Return of the Primitive
Back in the mid-1970s, Jimmy Page told an interviewer that "I always thought the good thing about guitar was that they didn't teach it in school." In other words, for Page, and his fellow British guitarists growing up in the late 1950s, rock and roll and the blues were genres you had to be dedicated enough to learn on your own. Found via Bloggingheads, David Brooks writes that "Miami" Steve Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen's longtime rhythm guitarist (and eventually, owner of the Bada Bing Club) would like to see that changed: It seems that whatever story I cover, people are anxious about fragmentation and longing for cohesion. This is the driving fear behind the inequality and immigration debates, behind worries of polarization and behind the entire Obama candidacy.Education used to do this as well. Not so much, anymore. But back to the main point of Brooks and Miami Steve. Jazz was essentially frozen in amber as a creative force once Lincoln Center hired Wynton Marsalis to be its "Musical Director of Jazz." Miami Steve wants to do the same thing to rock. And it's not like education isn't already dominated by Present Tense Culture. (Or, for another way to look at Brooks' column: this just into the New York Times: Pop culture is fractured and demassified, something that Alvin Toffler predicted 28 years ago.) Do The Huck Rap!
By Ed Driscoll · January 10, 2008 02:59 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Hollywood, Interrupted · The Making of the President
Sure John McCain may have picked up this key Hollywood celebrity endorsement, but how can he top the sheer animal power of this? Statistically Speaking, Are You Down With O.P.P?
By Ed Driscoll · December 14, 2007 07:21 PM · All You Need Is Ears
Err, in this case, Old PowerPoint Presentations. Found via Galley Slaves, it's Rap Music, the spreadsheets: ![]() ![]() (And yes, there's a language alert, but that probably goes without saying.) Geritol Graffiti
By Ed Driscoll · December 10, 2007 07:40 PM · All You Need Is Ears
Drudge has the early line on the Led Zeppelin comeback gig: LED ZEPPELIN FIRST REVIEW...Some photos here. But is it a one-off night on the tiles, or the precursor to an extended tour of the houses of the holy? Update: Video added above; elsewhere, the New York Times loves them some Zeppelin. Not sure how that will fly at the New Criterion, though. Video: The 2007 Arlington Guitar Show
Back in October, I visited the Arlington, Texas Guitar Show. I finally had a chance to come up for air from the PJM Political audio stuff to finish the short video I shot and edited of the action in the main showroom. (And yes, that's me playing assorted electric and acoustic guitars on the backing track): Latest PJM Political Online
In case you missed it, yesterday's show on XM satellite radio's POTUS '08 channel is available for downloading here. Pretty nifty line-up, too: Join host Bill Bradley for thoughts on yesterday's GOP YouTube/CNN debate, plus:For podcasting techies wondering what I used to record the segments with Liz and Scott, and the previous segments from the last two weeks' shows all recorded earlier this month from Blog World in Las Vegas, I simply used my trusty Samson Zoom H4 Handy Recorder (which has a pair of pro-style XLR jacks, visible in the photo that accompanies the Videomaker review), a pair of Shure SM58 mics, and a pair of tabletop mic stands. The Zoom recorder uses an SD card, and an 2-gig sized card provides about two hours of audio, which can quickly be ported over to a PC's hard drive and then into your DAW program of choice for editing and mixdown. I threw them all into a suitcase before heading to Vegas just as a lark, but I was astounded at how clean the audio was, even with the roar of Vegas Convention Center crowd all around, which is why I ended up doing so many interviews there. The trick, I think, is the Shure SM58s. There's a reason why so many rock groups use them on-stage and on live recordings--their cardioid input pattern makes them great at focusing the loudest sounds (which normally should be the person talking/singing/playing into them) and de-emphasizing the background noise. They'll Definitely Sing A Mean Version Of "Daisy"
Mark Steyn looks at Japan's demographic woes, beginning with a quote from the BBC: Japan has the world's highest proportion of elderly people. More than 20% of the population are now over the age of 65. By 2050, that figure is expected to rise to about 40%.Mark writes: I wouldn't want to be a Japanese teen circa 2020 in a Lawrence Welkified society. But maybe by then the robots will be hot enough to be pop singers and movie stars.As I wrote a few years ago for Tech Central Station, as far as the technology to create Max Headroom-style pop stars, it really is only a matter of time. Oye Como Buh-Bye
By Ed Driscoll · November 02, 2007 04:45 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Radical Chic · The Gulag Archipelago
I've been getting numerous visitors today searching on "Deborah Santana"; they've been going to my post with a photograph of Carlos Santana and his wife Deborah at the 2006 Oscars, with Carlos in his dinner jacket and uber-reactionary Che T-shirt, and now I know why: they're declaring their marriage splitsville. For those who are interested, here are the details from the San Jose Mercury of their divorce announcement. "Everything In The Music Industry Is Up!"
By Ed Driscoll · October 29, 2007 10:02 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Long Tail
Err, "except those plastic discs", writes Chris Anderson of Wired and The Long Tail in a good follow-up to our earlier post here. The Future Of Audio, Video...And Guitar
By Ed Driscoll · October 29, 2007 07:37 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Hollywood, Interrupted · Pajamas Theater 3000 · The Long Tail
Libertas's "Dirty Harry" writes that the format war between competing high definition DVD formats has slowed the acceptance of the successor to the DVD, which is now in its tenth year of existence. And the film studios are shooting themselves in the foot, since the money isn't in the player, but the back catalog. A format war merely slows--or stops--Hollywood's efforts to resell its back catalog yet again, which is where the real long term money is, anway. When I go high-def DVD, I'll be on my fourth or fith copies of some movies, having gone from VHS to 12-inch laser disc (remember those?!), to DVD. And along the way, having bought pan & scan and letterboxed LDs, and original issue and remastered DVDs of some of the titles I was more obsessive about. Meanwhile, I just downloaded my first MP3-only only album off Amazon.com. It's a complete win-win for both consumer and Amazon: there's no physical product to be inventoried, packaged and shipped, and it downloads so quickly over broadband that it's near-instantaneous consumer gratification. The individual tunes are MP3s so there's complete portability amongst the PC and iPod-style player. It's been licensed by the record company, so there are no Napster legal issues. And the MP3s are rendered in 256 kbps format, which is, I believe the second highest quality format available via MP3. (Per XM's request, we do PJM Political as a 320 kbps MP3, which is the highest quality MP3 format.) There's little doubt that as broadband speeds increase--and they will--video will be soon be added to the download mix, and not just teeny YouTube clips. Eventually DVD collections such as these will be a download away. I don't think bricks and morter stores will fade away anytime soon, but the Long Tail is becoming incr |