May 2007 Archives

(from Tony Eastley's show, May 28):

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Sgt. Pepper was the Beatles as their fans had never seen or heard them before.

They'd ditched their grey suits and ties in favour of technicolour military style uniforms, and the catchy two minute pop tunes had given way to musical experimentation on a grand scale.

(excerpt from song Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!)

TIM RILEY: These were songs that were best suited to the recording studio, that nobody would try and reproduce these songs live. There wouldn't be any point. The ultimate version of these songs would be the way the Beatles produced them for tape...

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...Still, the Spider-Man film franchise is so strange that it's not unpleasant to watch it earn money even while idling. Like the new movie itself, we have our memories, and Tobey Maguire is still with us as Peter Parker, the goofiness wearing a little thin, but the earnestness holding up (in Spider-Man 2 the woman Peter loves appears in a Broadway production of The Importance of Being Earnest), and he does something very few actors can do: deliver portentous and self-pitying lines ('Spider-Man will always have enemies') not as if he believes in them but as if he knows that everything means something to somebody. Jonathan Lethem, writing about Spider-Man in these pages, reported on the child in the cinema who murmured, as Peter misses the school bus in the opening scene, 'It's always like that for him,' and this catches precisely the feeling Maguire projects.[*] He is a nerd with supernatural powers but that makes him more nerdy rather than less. We might feel sorry for him if he weren't so jovially expert at feeling sorry for himself, and we don't really connect the athletic figure swinging through the city streets at great heights with the abstracted and uncertain Peter Parker on his underpowered motorbike. I mean, we know it's the same person, but when the second self is so different from the first, it's definitely more alter than ego. Not a compensation but a kind of joke. It's always like that for him. Flying through the sky won't stop you missing the bus....

...Did anyone ever imagine Superman was an enemy of the people? This is what many folks want to believe about Spider-Man, in spite of his relentless good deeds. He is always having to prove his virtue, because like some other creatures from the Marvel Comics nursery, he is the superhero not as ultrahuman but as freak. When he thinks of his mission, as he repeatedly does, adopting a saintly look probably borrowed from some version of Joan of Arc, the people around him are trying to deal with his freakishness. Pretty much the only ones he doesn't make nervous are those whose life he literally saves - catching them as they drop from a high building, for example.

There is an exception to this response, and it appears in Spider-Man 2, a genuinely affecting and complex moment. Peter is unconscious on the floor of a subway train, having been knocked out in his battle with the wonderful Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius, a mad scientist who has managed to transform himself into a monster with four huge flailing metal arms in addition to his ordinary complement of limbs. Peter is wearing his Spider-Man suit but not his mask, and the train travellers look down at him in amazement. They already know what Spider-Man does, but now they are seeing who he is. 'He's just a kid,' one of them says. Then two boys appear having found the mask. Peter puts it on, and the boys say they will never tell anybody what they have seen. The rest of the crowd assents, effectively taking an oath of silence on this subject. This is loyal of them, and they think they are being loyal to the boy. In reality they are being loyal to the myth. Spider-Man has to be nobody. That's why he is no real help to Peter Parker. -- Michael Wood in the London Review of Books

A Sgt Pepper chat with Tim Page and Anthony DeCurtis from today's On Point, repeats tonight. (iTunes)

BOUNCEBACK
Drew got part of the point of my Monday post... let's see who can take the baton from him.

Finally, a blues guitarist with the soul of a trombonist. Putting a junkheap like "Peculiar Hop" as the lead track takes a seriously loose screw, covering Dylan without the lyrics ups the ante ("Rainy Day #12 & 35"), but it's the rare guitar hero who literalizes the mood of the country ("Dig Myself a Hole") after scrawling one of the better lines about Los Angeles ("A thousand dreams trapped in a silent scream..."). A critic's reward for plowing through stacks of CDs.

MC Records
Rick Holmstrom on MySpace, Rick Holmstrom

American Journeys | Concord, Mass.
A Town That Has a Way With Words
by Glenn Rifkin, May 20, 2007
(New York Times Travel Section)
In the 19th century, Concord, Mass., was a peaceful country village and home to best-selling writers. In the 21st, Concord is a bustling, upscale Boston suburb and still home to best-selling writers.

A Writer's Sanctuary
The literary stars of the past were Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and Alcott. Today's include Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gregory Maguire, Alan Lightman and Robert Coles. But now as then, fall down in this town and you may land on a writer. In a population of 17,000, Concord counts dozens of them... (more)

Taschen, one of publishing's best web sites

From Chris Salewicz's new biography of Joe Strummer Redemption Song (Faber and Faber):
In his June 1979 NME interview with Charles Shaar Murray [Strummer] had declared, "There's ten thousand days of oil left. It's finite." Joe Strummer had been inspired to write the song riding back with Gaby Salter in a taxi from Vanilla to World's End. As the cab drove along Cheyne Walk, next to the River Thames, they were talking about the state of the world in the light of the nuclear disaster in the united States that March at Three Mile Island -- an event that worried people around the globe. "There was a lot of Cold War nonsense going on," Joe said. "We already knew London was susceptible to flooding. She told me to write something about that. So I sat in the front room, looking out at Edith Grove [a street near their place]. Years later, I found out I was looking right onto the flat where the Stones lived when they started out, which seemed appropriate..." (p. 251-2)

more from Chris Salewicz

Amazon.com to Launch DRM-Free MP3 Music Download Store with Songs and Albums from EMI Music and More Than 12,000 Other Labels

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 16, 2007--Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced it will launch a digital music store later this year offering millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels. EMI Music's digital catalog is the latest addition to the store. Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. Amazon's DRM-free MP3s will free customers to play their music on virtually any of their personal devices -- including PCs, Macs(TM), iPods(TM), Zunes(TM), Zens(TM) -- and to burn songs to CDs for personal use.

"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. "We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone."

"Amazon.com is known around the world for the unique experience it offers music customers through features such as customer reviews and personalized recommendations," said Eric Nicoli, EMI CEO. "They have been an important retail partner of ours, and we are delighted they will be offering consumers EMI's new premium DRM-free downloads in their new digital music store. We think having a trusted destination like Amazon.com offer a high-quality digital music product that will play across a number of devices gives consumers more options and will be a significant boost for the overall digital music market..."

An Open Letter to Sir Paul McCartney: Save Abbey Road (Huffington Post)

In 1897, a German-American inventor named Emile Berliner, inventor of the gramophone method of recording, founded the Gramophone Company in London. Five years later, Enrico Caruso recorded 10 songs for Berliner, transforming his company into a dominant force in the recording industry. In March 1931, Gramophone merged with the Columbia Graphophone [sic] Company to create Electric and Musical Industries Ltd, soon to be known as EMI...

See also:
Abbey Road Reunion (podcast from Recording the Beatles launch party November 2006)

CATEGORY: CAR AD SOUNDTRACK WITH "CELEBRITY"

Elvis Costello playing air guitar to Beethoven's Ninth in his Lexus ad beats out his wife Diana Krall raving on about Oscar Peterson in hers. (Who hogs the remote in that ride?) But would anybody buy a car from Elvis? Seems telling that neither of these are posted yet on youtube. We're still waiting for Paul and Yoko to Dance with the Stars.

CATEGORY: GREAT USE OF GOOD SONG BY GREAT ARTIST IN DECENT FLICK

"Bring on the Lucie" by John Lennon, from Mind Games, closing credits to Children of Men. This soundtrack had hints of intelligence early on when it framed the elitist art baron's scene with Greg Lake's bloviating "Court of the Crimson King." There was little irony. But that was just semi-respectable use of a bad song for a bad scene in a very good film. At the end, after watching a black baby humble a fierce battle and Clive Owen slump over dead in the rowboat (no Christ ID!), Lennon's throwaway took on added resonance, as if he'd composed it with Iraq in mind. Anyway, it was both a shock and a pleasure, and sent us away grinning. Honorary mention: Michael Caine's air guitar noise.

Homework: has anybody come up with a definitive list of good/bad use of Beatle tracks in movies?

STEALTH COVERS

Blender's new list starts off with "Jersey Girl," popularized by Bruce Springsteen, originally performed by Tom Waits, as obvious as it is predictable. The lead track on this list is still "Tainted Love," which everybody STILL thinks it's fey 80s Britpop. We learned more from the Brenda Lee entry. But at least this list has some HISTORY going for it.

OBVIOUS OMISSIONS

"I Hear You Knockin'," Dave Edmunds retools Smiley Lewis
"Maggie Mae," the Beatles on Let it Be, covering the Vipers
"Harlem Shuffle," Rolling Stones envying Bob and Earl
"Trapped," Bruce Springsteen smokes Jimmy Cliff
"Man Who Sold the World," Kurt Cobain traumatizes David Bowie

KICK IT UP

Covers of covers: The Beatles doing The Isley Brothers doing the Top Notes's "Twist and Shout," or Rod Stewart doing the Rolling Stones doing Bobby Womack's "It's All Over Now." Or false covers: Marvin Gaye doing "Grapevine," unaware that Gladys Knight had already cut the song.

COVERS SURPASSING ORIGINALS

from the Onion's AV Club, lists:

1. Stevie Wonder, "We Can Work It Out"
2. Bryan Ferry, "It's My Party"
4. Ike & Tina Turner, "Proud Mary"
5. The Who, "Summertime Blues"
6. Elvis Costello, "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, And Understanding?"
7. The Mountain Goats, "The Sign"
8. Self, "What A Fool Believes"

It took TEN critics to miss Jimi Hendrix doing Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower"? Eric Clapton doing Hendrix's "Little Wing"?

LISTS WE'D PREFER

REMAKES BY ORIGINALS
Joni Mitchell redoes "Big Yellow Taxi" (Friends soundtrack)
Bruce Springsteen reignites "Adam Raised A Cain" acoustic tour 1995
John Lennon relives "Cold Turkey" Live in Toronto 1969
The Beatles genuflect to "One After 909" on Apple rooftop

HAD ENOUGH?

Remember that Pink Floyd soundtrack to WIZARD OF OZ that constituted the ONLY funny thing anybody had ever thought of around DARK SIDE OF THE MOON? Here's five other films paired with Pink Floyd soundtracks that actually enhance both silent film and rock aesthetics:

1. WISH YOU WERE HERE and GODFATHER PART 2
2. UMMAGUMMA and PULP FICTION
3. ANIMALS and DIVA
4. THE WALL and METROPOLIS
5. MEDDLE and BONNIE AND CLYDE

File Under: "Let a Thousand Memes Bloom."

DON'T FORGET

COVER ALBUM OF THE MONTH: Patti Smith's TWELVE (Sony), which resembles a cover record of Joan Jett's HIT LIST before swallowing it up.

Covers Project
The Covers Project.org
Lists of Lists

EMI's bumpy history approaches yet another tipping point: after five years of rejecting suitors, getting hit on by Warners, flirting with Warners, urging a merger with Warners, watching Sony bed down with BMG and Jeff Jones assume Neil Aspinall's Apple mysteriously vacated throne, the first major to drop DRM hopes to announce premium remastered Beatle digital downloads... soon. Or not. Coolfer points to Aussie's The Age, while the Financial Times seems to have the best wag beating bushes. Rumors swirling, stock jumping, pigs flying, it's enough to make you wonder: why isn't there an "official" Sgt. Pepper 40th anniversary commemoration? Is something BIGGER in the pipeline? Did Julian cash in his publishing "Just Because"?

Who digs headlines like this more, the board or the bidders:

Private equity firms stalking EMI could sell the company's recorded music arm to rival Warner as soon as a deal is struck...

And who's going to lay down in front of capitalist tanks for the hallowed studios in St. John's Wood (mp3)? We're just saying.

See also:
Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
Google news links