Dead Weather

Via Boing Boing, an amusing "interview" with the new alt-supergroup the Dead Weather (a bonus video for their single "Treat Me Like Your Mother." If you're curious, you the whole album is streaming online here. It's not bad; some pretty good tracks and some filler, which is enough to get a B or a B+ in my book. I think Alison Mosshart and Jack White complement each other vocally and there's some potential for some great music there, so I'm interested if they have any plans for another album after this one.

But There's A Catch

Last month I blogged about the exciting new collaboration between Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse, which also hosts an array of talented musicians and is accompanied by a book of photos taken by filmmaker David Lynch. Apparently Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse are in a bit of spat with the record label EMI, who is holding up the release of the album, and they've taken an unusual step to get their music out to their fans (via Boing Boing):

An unnamed spokesperson for Danger Mouse says that "due to an ongoing dispute with EMI" the book of photographs will "now come with a blank, recordable CD-R. All copies will be clearly labeled: 'For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.'" When contacted, EMI declined to comment and wouldn't confirm whether the label is even involved in the project.

The implication being that since the album is out there, buyers should take the CD they're given and burn a copy of the new album to it...after downloading it (illegally) via a P2P client, of course. Interesting.

Now, you can also do what I'm about to do in a few minutes, and listen to the entire album online on NPR's website. Enjoy.

"$5 Cover"

So far I've really enjoyed what I've seen of MTV's new series "$5 Cover", directed by Hustle & Flow writer-director Craig Brewer (discovered via the ever-wonderful Boing Boing.) It's a sort-of quasi-reality show about real-life local musicians in Brewer's hometown of Memphis, Tenn., with the musicians (mostly) acting as fictionalized versions of themselves. This approach produces some slightly wooden acting, but that's hardly of importance when the real highlight of the show is the local music scene, with the music performed either by musicians who are characters in the show, or by local musicians as a backdrop to their antics. So far my favorite discoveries are Amy Levere, who recently showed off her music in Austin at SXSW, Al Kapone, a rapper who wrote some of the music for Hustle & Flow, and Harlan T. Bobo, who apparently has an anfinity for performing in clown make-up. While watching the episodes online I thought "Wouldn't it be great if they could do this for other local music scenes?", so I'm delighted to here that that's apparently the plan. I can promise I'll stay tuned in if they do.

Van Cliburn Online

The Cliburn Competition, named for noted pianist Van Cliburn and one of the most noteworthy American music competitions (which just so happens to be held in Ft. Worth's Bass Performance hall), is streaming the upcoming competition live online:

This player will offer extensive functionality with an array of interactive features, including an online audience vote after each round, an “email the competitor” option, and a blog. Online audiences will also have special access to rehearsals between the Takács Quartet and the pianists, the private sessions between the pianists and the conductor, and orchestra rehearsals with the conductor and the six finalists.

Yet another innovative feature will be a commentary at the bottom of the screen, which will offer pointers and alert the viewer what to listen for during each piece.

Pretty awesome. Check it out.

Stunning

I stumbled across this recording of the 2nd movement of Shotakovich's 10th symphony on accident. The performance is by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, and it is one of the most passionate, stirring, and technically proficient renditions of the movement that I've ever heard. Listen for yourself:

According to this article, the orchestra is comprised of troubled and at-risk youth in their teens and twenties, and the program has produced a half million young musicians, many of whom have gone on to play in Venezueala's growing classical music scene. The conductor of this performance, Gustavo Dudamel, is himself only 28 years old and has guest conducted a variety of orchestras around the world.

Anyway, it's a fantastic performance, by a fantastic group of kids, who are apparently the result of a fantastic program. To which I say, bravo!

Thursday Morning Links

There's a lot of interesting stuff to read this morning.

1. More troubling violence in Iraq, as sixteen Iraqi soldiers die in a suicide attack in Anbar province.

2. This is very interesting; George Mitchell, U.S. Middle East envoy, is in Israel today. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the Obama administration will communicate to Israel that they intend to link the issue of Iran's nuclear program to illegal Israeli settlements. As in, if Israel wants help with Iran, they're going to have to make concessions on settlement activity. That message probably won't go over very well.

3. More on the "truce" with the Taliban in Swat: unsurprisingly, militants who pledged to surrender their arms...aren't.

4. Science news: researchers report setbacks in their explorations of the genetic underpinnings of many inherited diseases. Apparently, it's impossible to link some common conditions (like Schizophrenia) to one or two genetic markers. Scientists suspect that interactions between a countless number of genes can produce or make people vulnerable to disease, making it considerably more difficult to predict the possibility of disease in certain individuals, as well as fashion targeted treatments. Also, Nicholas Kristof (who's had some great columns recently) writes about recent research showing that the IQ's of poor children living in chaotic households suffers, and has suggestions for what we can do about that. And lastly, the "last voyage" of an astronaut whose job has been to tend the Hubble Space telescope, a scientific achievement that has made incalculable contributions to our understanding of the universe.

5. Jonathan Capehart dismisses the tired arguments for intolerance that underpin opposition to allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

6. Legislation that would create a new University of North Texas law school in Dallas passes the Texas Senate, but could face stiff opposition in the House. Despite the downturn in the legal market, I'm not entirely opposed to the idea. North Texas could use a less expensive public law school, and unless we really are in the Great Depression II, the economy should improve in time for the first graduates of the school. Still, it seems like a difficult time to ask for money to produce lawyers who right now couldn't find jobs.

7. John Madden to retire after thirty years in the booth. Madden's an easy target for ridicule, but I've always liked his earnestness and his understanding of the game. Clearly the guy loves football, and has always done a good job of explaining the game to football amateurs like myself. He'll be missed.

8. Bonus music review: the new Metric album "Fantasies" came out on Tuesday. It's good. The hooks are catchier, the themes are gloomier, and song structure is tighter. I especially like the darker and fuzzier synth sounds, which give the album a somewhat more ambient feel. On other Metric albums I've found there's usually 2-3 good songs and a lot of filler. Not so here; all the songs are keepers. Anyway buy it, or listen to it here.

Wednesday Evening Links

1. A poignant article about how real life-and cheap-ass taxpayers-can get in the way of students living their dreams. Maybe she wouldn't make it to Juilliard, but why can't she have every opportunity to explore her talent while also getting a useful degree?

2. Randy Cohen, writing about how we should only have so much tolerance for the beliefs and practices of other culture.

3. I can't remember if I linked to this already, but the NY Times had this worrisome piece about Pakistan's instability in last Sunday's magazine. You can be rest assured that if Pakistan falls to pieces, the Taliban in Afghanistan will be the least of our worries.

4. Gun nuts protest even the most minor of tracking measures designed to help law enforcement prevent the flow of weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

5. CIA Intelligence officials bitch and moan about the release of OLC memos related to torture, threaten to hold their breaths and turn blue if the Obama administration follows through on its promise.

6. Via War & Piece, NY Times reveals that NSA has-surprise-exceeded it's Congressional authority in eavesdropping on Americans. I suppose supports the Obama administration's that there should be absolutely no judicial oversight of NSA wiretapping whatsoever.

Musical High Notes

A couple of things worth noting:

1. The Dallas Observer has a story on indie folk masters the Great Lake Swimmers. Their music is populated with references to things that folk singers should be singing about like mountains and bears and lakes (only in this case, Canadian mountains and bears and lakes.) "Moving Pictures, Silent Films" is my all time favorite song by the band. They're playing tomorrow in Denton, and you should check them out if you'd like a nice quiet evening of lovely music.

2. I'm very excited about this new collaboration coming out between Danger Mouse (probably most known for his work as one half of Gnarls Barkley) and Sparklehorse. Danger Mouse produced some of the songs from Sparklehorse's last album "Dreamt For Light Years..." so I'm not exactly sure how this collaboration will differ, though that seems to be the point. But check out the "guest stars" on the CD: Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, James Mercer of The Shins, Iggy Pop, Suzanne Vega, The Flaming Lips...Vic Chesnutt? Nina Persson from The Cardigans? And...David Lynch? I have no idea where all that is going, but it should be interesting.

"Society of Masks"

Listening to Shostakovich's Fifth inspired me to look up the Wikipedia article on the symphony, which I found to be unusually lyrical. A passage, describing the atomosphere that Shostakovich was forced to compose the symphony in:

At the height of the Stalinist Terror, over half a million people were shot and another seven million despatched to the Gulag in just over a year's time. Conservative estimates place the Gulag population at between nine and 15 million. The apparent motives for the Terror were three-fold. The first was to stop independent thought so Stalin could hold onto power. The second was to stock a plentiful slave-labor force. The third was to smash conventional social relations and effectively place everyone in a form of solitary confinement. Next came brainwashing through propaganda, to replace personal feelings with communal ones; this process was interrupted by World War II but resumed after its close, reaching its zenith around 1950. The goal was to produce a population of human robots programmed to love only the state. Nadezhda Mandelstam remembered,

"We were capable of coming to work with a smile on our face after a night in which our home had been searched or a member of the family arrested. It was essential to smile—if you didn't, it meant you were afraid or discontented. This nobody could afford to admit—if you were afraid, then you must have a bad conscience. The mask was taken off only at home; and then not always—even from your children you had to conceal how horror-struck you were; otherwise, God save you, they might let something slip in school."

It was people in this society of masks who filed smiling into Philharmonic Hall in Leningrad to hear Shostakovksh's Fifth Symphony for the first time. It was people in this society of masks who broke down and wept during the largo.

It is impossible for us to imagine the cruel and bitter repression that these people endured, though Shostakovich's symphony powerfully evokes the experience of living in Stalin's police state. That Shostakovich was even able to compose a symphony in such an age, when both his career and life were staked closely to the success of his symphony with Soviet authorities, is a testament to the power of art and the human spirit.

The Conductor

I recommend this fascinating portrait of Valery Gergiev, a Russian musician who definitely fits the mold of the larger-than-life conductor. His story is one of the intersection of politics and music in Russia, where even today classical music thrives largely as a result of the patronage of powerful politicians, a phenomenon which remained unchanged in Russia even through the rise and fall of the Soviet Union.

In Ye Olden Days

Given that Christmas music these days can get a little repetitive, I've taken the opportunity the last few Christmases to become more familiar with Christmas music of the late middle ages and the renaissance. In that vein, here's an enjoyable version of the Castellian Villancico "Riu Riu Chiu" from the 16th century. An English translation of the lyrics can be found here. 

American Orchestras Predominant

Gramophone, the leading magazine of classical music, polled various classical music critics on who they judged the world's best symphony orchestras. Seven American orchestras were selected, out of a list of twenty, an accomplishment I think our nation should be justifiably proud of given that Europe is the birthplace of classical music.

Incidentally, orchestras are now catching up to the internet age. The Berlin Philharmonic is now streaming their live concerts online, which you can watch for a relatively small fee.

New Metallica video unveils old Soviet footage

This is too interesting of a story not to share. You can hear Kirk Hammett tell it himself (although he says "cool" way too many times). And even if you don't care for Metallica (or even hate them, you bastard) I think you'll still find this to be a pretty nifty music video.

To summarize, on Metallica's tour a few years ago they went to Russia. In Moscow, Hammett went out to have fun and ended up purchasing some old filmstrips from a vendor in Moscow. He didn't know if they were legit (and still doesn't, really) but it was five bucks so he figured why not and just bought them. He didn't get around to looking at them for quite a while, and when he did he was very impressed with what he saw. He decided they should incorporate the footage into one of Metallica's music videos, and that's how they got the All Nightmare Long video. I have to say, I approve. That's a pretty dang neat video.

But I was interested in finding out which parts were inserted and which parts were original. I mean, I figured the shots of the undead and the obviously CGI creatures were additions, but other than that, I really didn't know. So I followed the link in the interview with Hammett to The New Kremlinology, a pretty cool blog. They have some interesting discussions of the film there, and it's quite enlightening, no matter how close to the truth (or far from it) they are. I suggest taking a look at the video then going through to their blog.

Last, but not least, if you look through the New Kremlinology, you find links to some other Soviet videos on You Tube. It's some interesting and disturbing stuff like this (do not watch if you are not prepared to be disturbed or aren't bothered by disembodied organs).

To sum up: awesome Metallica video!

"Chasing Light"

While we're on the subject of amateur classical musicians, I'm reminded of a story NPR did last month on a program whose purpose is to bring a new classical composition to municipal orchestras that could never afford to commission a piece on their own:

It isn't every day that a small community orchestra gets to play a new work by a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer. But that's what's happening now — and over the course of the next year and a half — in all 50 states. First up was the Reno Chamber Orchestra.

The audience after the concert was buzzing in the lobby of the Nightingale Theater on the campus of the University of Nevada in Reno. Sure, audience members had heard their local orchestra play the always-stirring Fifth Symphony by Beethoven, but what really excited them was hearing the first performance — ever — of Joseph Schwantner's Chasing Light..., with the composer in attendance. Ashley Stein was excited to be at a world premiere; the 17-year-old is a drum major at her high school and plays piano, flute and oboe.

"I thought it was seriously amazing," she says. "Like, I've never been to one before, and it really means something to be one of the first people to ever hear it. And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard, and I'll never forget it."

As a former amateur musician myself, I can tell you that I would have jumped at the opportunity to perform a new piece written by a noted American composer. As it is, all we got were the end of semester efforts by kids in the music composition classes at school (some of which weren't bad, I must admit...but most were bad.)

The story has a local connection as well. The Irving Symphony Orchestra was one of two Texas symphonies selected to play the new piece, which they did on Nov. 8th. I don't have audio of that performance, but you can listen to the Reno Chamber Orchestra perform the piece at the NPR link above.

Can You Hack It?

Whoever came up with this idea is a genius. YouTube is apparently soliciting auditions via video for a chance to play at Carnegie Hall. The orchestra will apparently consist of people selected from the video auditions, and they'll perform a work by noted Chinese composer Tan Dun under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. From the webpage (via WRR):

Play your part in music history.

Interested in joining the first-ever collaborative online orchestra? Professionals and amateur musicians of all ages, locations and instruments are welcome to audition for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra by submitting a video performance of a new piece written for the occasion by the renowned Chinese composer Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). We have tools to help you learn the music, rehearse with the conductor, and upload your part for the collaborative video.

Surely somewhere someone has tried out for a music gig by video submission, but I've never heard of anything quite so bold as having everyone try out via audition videos they submit online. I think it's a brilliant idea, and were I not years removed from last playing the violin seriously I would consider taking a shot at it myself. But if you have any musical talent at all I say go for it. I have no idea how many submissions they'll receive and I imagine competition will be fierce, but even the smallest chance to play at Carnegie Hall is worth whatever effort you put into the audition. Submissions are due January 28th though so if you're interested drag that old instrument out of your closet, dust it off, and get to work!

No on 8

Itzhak Perleman, the greatest violinist of our age, says vote no on California's Proposition 8, which would amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage. One of his daughters is gay, and apparently he would like her to be treated as fully human, like the rest of us. I agree. If you live in California and you don't like Christian moralists telling you who people can and cannot marry, then you owe to all of us to get out and vote this ridiculous proposition down.

Democracy to Come to China

Well, not exactly. Rather, Guns n' Roses (in the person of Axl Rose, who basically is Guns n' Roses) will finally release it's long-awaited new album Chinese Democracy. No, really:

After years of delay, Guns N' Roses is finally releasing "Chinese Democracy."
Geffen Records has announced that the band's eagerly awaited album will be released Nov. 23 at Best Buy stores and the retail chain's Web site.

"Chinese Democracy" is the first album of new Guns N' Roses material since 1991's "Use Your Illusion I" and "Use Your Illusion II."

The band, fronted by Axl Rose, has sold 90 million albums and made a splash in the '80s with the hits "Sweet Child o' Mine," "Paradise City" and "Welcome to the Jungle."

Their 14-track album includes the song "If The World," which is part of the soundtrack to the recent film "Body of Lies." The band recently completed a world tour.

Yes, that's right, it's been seventeen years since the band released a new album. As I said to my co-bloggers in an email "Honestly, I don't even know what to make of this. I mean, how are you supposed to deal with experiencing instant nostalgia listening to an album for the first time? It's like...'Yeah man, these last seventeen years of waiting have been the best of my life!'" Seventeen years! Let's put that in perspective: in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, the Gulf War was waged, the Bosnian War broke out and Paul Reubens was caught committing acts of public indecency. I once opined to my co-bloggers that always getting ready to release Chinese Democracy had become Axl Rose's raison d etre, and that he could never actually release it because nobody who isn't a Guns n' Roses fan will care (and that's most people at this point) and the hype will be far more than the album could ever live up to among anybody who still is a Guns n' Roses fan at this point. But I guess I was wrong.

But so was Dr. Pepper, and they're willing to give you a free drink for it!

Radiohead Effort A Failure?

Ezra Klein doesn't think Radiohead's sale of their new CD online for any price the fans were willing to pay went over so well:

Results from the Great Radiohead Experiment of Ought-Seven are out, and they don't look particularly good. Radiohead, you'll remember, offered their new CD, In Rainbows, as an online download, and let fans choose what they'd pay. And 62 percent of the downloaders paid...nothing at all. Now, maybe the 38% who did pay was still larger than the 100 percent who would have bought the album, and when you factor in the absence of overhead, Radiohead did better than traditional distribution channels would have allowed. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Adam sent Nat-Wu and myself the same article, appended only with the word "assholes." But Nat-Wu, replying to that email, said we shouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions. I quote him in full:

Well, there's quite a bit to talk about here. 1.2 million visitors to the site: is that the number of people who downloaded the album? If the number of people who actually downloaded the album is anywhere near that, you know this has been a huge success. Why? Think about it this way, averaging in the people who didn't pay with those who did, Radiohead just made $2.28 per album download. Now don't most bands see a return of maybe $1 per cd? And how many of them sell 1.2 million copies in a month? Radiohead may have made a substantial outlay on the product to begin with, but they also cleaned up! I'd call this a smashing success.

Another point, payments online require some kind of payment other than cash or check. If they charged even 1c per download, how many people would not be able to pay it? So did they open their album up to a lot of people who otherwise would never hear it?

Furthermore, unless all 1.2 million of those visitors were hardcore Radiohead fans, naturally there were a lot of people downloading just because the album was free. I'd say the fact that 62% of people who downloaded didn't pay doesn't necessarily indicate that many actual Radiohead fans didn't pay. Rather, I'd say they got a lot of listeners they wouldn't ordinarily get if they had to pay for the music (especially since Radiohead never gets a lot of radio play anymore). And for all that, they still seem to have made a good bit of money.

Now maybe in the future what they can do is offer the low-fi for free and a high-fi version for payers (charging them 6$ apiece) to do the same thing, but perhaps tempt more paying customers with a better product.

Oh, and as far as outlay, if 100 other bands and artists would get with the times and get onboard, technology companies are going to spring up overnight to host these albums. That'll eat into the revenues, but also save individual bands and artists from having to invest in the technology. There's no reason Radiohead should own, lease, or run the servers that have their music on them.

So the great Radiohead experiment has hardly failed. Expect more of the same from other bands in the future, with further refinements of the process.

Radiohead Rant

"Low quality" my ass:

When Radiohead announced last week that they would be releasing their seventh album, In Rainbows, via their official Web site, there was much fanfare and some honest-to-goodness debate about the future of the music industry, the validity of major labels and just how people consume music.

But in the days since that announcement, a whole lot of that fanfare has curdled, thanks to moves by the band and its management that some see as dishonest, distasteful and, well, downright un-Radiohead.

The first bone of contention arose October 9 — the day before Rainbows became available for download — when fans who ordered the album (either in its download-only form or as a deluxe, $81 "discbox" version) received an e-mail from Radiohead's official online store, announcing that "the album [would] come as a 48.4 MB ZIP file containing 10 x 160 [kilobits per second], DRM-free MP3s."

"Most promo MP3s come at a higher bit rate," wrote the author of U.K. blog Kids Pushing Kids. "Worst pound and pence I've ever spent."

"Radiohead has such delicate music that requires detail and depth of sound. ... I for one CAN tell the difference between 160 and 192," responded one commenter. "[With] 160 you can't hear the finer details that make Radiohead so great. I have lost a bit of respect for Radiohead for this. I would never make people pay for 160. They may as well just stream stuff off MySpace."

On one hand, the main reason so many are upset (the 160 kbps thing) seems rather inconsequential, especially given the fact that most people downloading Rainbows are going to be listening to it on their computers or a portable MP3 player. But there is a slightly noticeable difference between a 160 kbps-encoded song and, say, one encoded at 320 (it's heard most easily when played on a stereo). And Radiohead have yet to really offer up any plausible explanation for why they even chose to go the 160 route, especially since their entire catalog is already available at 320.

What a load of crap. Let me explain.

Most of the music I own I either downloaded off the internet via iTunes or Emusic, or uploaded from CDs I already own or that I buy. I store it all at somewhere between 148-192 kbps. That's because it either comes that way whether I want it to or not, or-in the case of CDs-because if I store it at a higher bit rate, a song file can take up as much as twice as much memory, if not more. And unless you're one of these people who enjoys devoting half or more of your hard drive to your music, or enjoys having to buy a 120 MB iPod so you can fit 5,000 songs on there at 320kbps, that's what you're going to do too.

Secondly, no you can't tell the difference between 160 and 192 (which is what it would come as via most online download services, or what most people would upload the CD at via iTunes automatic settings.) At least not on most audio equipment, and using my little portable CD player I can't tell the difference between a physical CD or the uploaded copies of the music that I listen to via my laptop or iPod. Now if you happen to own $2000 worth of stereo equipment and like to listen to Radiohead loudly in a quiet room, then yes, perhaps you can tell the difference. But "low quality" to describe a 160 kbps rate? That's absolutely ridiculous. I purchased the album, burned to a CD, and I can hear everything I need to hear. If I can't pick up Thom Yorke's slight nasal inhalation between syllables halfway through track 5, well I'm okay with that. Most people don't listen to their music on high quality digital audio equipment; they listen to it on their computer, or on their iPod or other Mp3 player, or on a old-fashioned CD player, and they're not going to notice the difference or think to complain about a different bit rate, unlike the knucklehead above who thinks that Radiohead should just stream their stuff through Myspace.

Secondly, Radiohead would have pretty good reasons for not making the files too large; if they were, you'd have people bitching about download problems as they jammed up the servers trying to download the 1.2 million copies of the album that people downloaded in just the first 48 hours.

Lastly, what makes Radiohead music so great is the music. You don't need to be able to hear the faint echo of the high hat running the background of a Radiohead song to appreciate their music. Radiohead doesn't hide subliminal messages in the music that you can only hear at 320 kbps. If you can hear Thom Yorke singing, if you can hear the guitar, if you can hear the drums, if you can hear the synthesized music, then you can hear the music.

I love Radiohead. If they wanted to record their music to Vinyl and give me a crappy personal record player to listen to it on, I would, and I'd be glad for it. Any Radiohead "fan" who thinks they are entitled to the equivalent of a virtual CD of the music after being a jerk and paying $3 for it...well, more power to you. But that makes you a nut, and an ingrate at that.

UPDATE: Another take on the "controversy."

New Radiohead

If you're into this sort of thing (like I am) Radiohead's new album "In Rainbows" (just recently completed) will be released by the band online next week, and you can pay whatever you want to download it, or if you're a nut you can wait until December and pay about $80 for a Discbox that includes two CDs, vinyl and some art (or if you're really a nut you can do both.)