Music

Music is a necessity. Though I focus mostly on alternative/industrial/EBM/electronic styles, my tastes are eclectic and wide-ranging.

Jello Über Alles

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About a week ago, Mike Whybark attended a small event involving local performer Jason Webley), and subsequently posted a video of fellow accordionist Aaron Seeman leading the accordion class in a rousing rendition of the Dead Kennedys‘ ‘California Über Alles‘.

In an entertaining little bit of synchronicity, while driving around on Saturday afternoon Prairie and I happened to catch the last half of this week’s This American Life show on the local NPR station. The show (at least in this latter half) was a fascinating look at Michael Guarino, most notorious for being the prosecuting lawyer in the 1986 obscenity trial against Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys over their _Frankenchrist_ album and the H. R. Giger print included with it.

From the Alternative Tentacles website:

When a San Fernando Valley mother complained that her 13- year old daughter had purchased the record as a gift for her 11-year old brother (at a Wherehouse Records outlet in a large mall), the LA City Attorney’s Office decided to prosecute the case. Deputy city attorney Michael Guarino, the prosecutor in the case, admitted they chose to prosecute the DKs because it would be a “cost-effective” way to send a message to other musicians, record companies and fans. Guarino had been considering prosecuting several other groups when this case came along, and he thought he could win this one.

…

Charged in the case were Biafra, and four others, including the 67-year old man whose company pressed the Frankenchrist disc. Conspicuously not charged were Wherehouse Records which sold the offending album. They had agreed to stop selling Frankenchrist and all other Dead Kennedys albums when the controversy first surfaced.

Biafra and the others decided to fight the charges of distributing harmful matter to minors, and set up the No More Censorship Defense Fund…

Finally, after months of delay, during which Biafra’s time was taxed enough that he had no time to work on his music, the case went to trial. After a week-long trial in which witnesses such as Greil Marcus testified on the group’s behalf, and a respected art teacher attempted to show how the poster was an integral part of the Frankenchrist package, the jury came out deadlocked (7-5 in favor of acquittal), and the judge dismissed the case.

Jello has talked about this case many times over the years at spoken word performances, some of which have been recorded and released as albums. I first learned about the case from Jello’s spoken word album No More Cocoons, and have heard it referenced quite a few times over the years since.

Apparently, though, Mr. Guarino has come to see his zealous attack against the Dead Kennedys as a mistake — and has since come to gain an appreciation for the causes that Jello supports. From a 1997 Music News of the World article:

In fact, Guarino, whose son is a big fan of Biafra, said he now appreciates a lot of what the punk poet has to say in his spoken-word rants.

“In retrospect,” Guarino, the Director of Clinical Programs at JFK University in Orinda, Calif., told ATN last week, “I think it’s more important for (District Attorneys) offices and US Attorneys offices to focus on the tremendous amount of conflict of interest at the top, the accountants, the lawyers, the politicians, and get out of the area of freedom of expression.”

…

In one of life’s great ironies, Guarino said his teenage son “idolizes” Biafra and constantly listens to the punk poet’s CDs of spoken-word rants. “I keep trying to tell him that there’s much more to all of this than what Jello talks about, but he is definitely right about a lot of stuff,” Guarino said about Biafra’s conspiratorial rants. “He’s an interesting guy, but he only sees what he’s in a position to see and he can’t get beyond a quarter-inch or so of what’s going on. In some cases, it’s much worse than he could ever imagine.”

Towards the end of the This American Life segment, interviewer David Seagal (sp?) has called Jello and gotten the two men to talk. Not only do they end up talking about the nearly two-decade old case, but they go on from there, finding more common ground than might be expected and chatting like old friends.

It was an incredibly interesting bit of radio to randomly stumble across. The show (Know Your Enemy) isn’t available online yet, but according to the This American Life website, it should be downloadable in about a week or so. Consider it highly recommended listening.

iTunes “California Über Alles” by Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, The from the album Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury (1992, 4:13).

DJ Wüdi Mashup: Just Can’t Get Flexible in 1999

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JCGF Cover ArtOkay, folks — for better or for worse (but hopefully not too much worse), I spent some time playing around in GarageBand over the past couple of days. The result: Depeche Mode’s ‘Flexible’ and ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ plus Prince’s ‘1999’ equals DJ Wüdi – Just Can’t Get Flexible in 1999 (7.8Mb MP3).

It’s my first attempt at creating a mashup rather than just listening to ’em. Probably not likely to make it to the top of the charts, but I don’t think it’s too terribly bad for a first try.

Give it a listen, and feel free to let me know what you think (good or bad)!

Update: I’ve made some slight tweaks to the track (mostly moving the rap section back by a few bars, it was coming in too early in the first version) and replaced the download file with v2. If you haven’t downloaded this yet, you’re set, otherwise feel free to re-download the updated mix.

Update 5/2/2008: Mini-review by Mashuptown: “wow! floor filla’. quite splendid indeed.” Sweet!

Mashups

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Lately I’ve been getting more and more into Mashups — songs created by taking two or more different songs and “mashing” them together into one. While some aren’t much more complex than the simple beatmatching I did while I was dj’ing, others I’ve found are jaw-droppingly cool, with layers of multiple tracks that really shouldn’t work together as well as they do.

The first one I can remember finding I stumbled across a few years ago, long before the term “mashup” gained popularity. A fairly simple mashup, it laid the vocal track from Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” over the acid electronica of Winx’ “Higher State of Consciousness”.

Over the past few months, as the mashup trend has become more and more mainstream, I’ve been able to find a lot of really good stuff, often thanks to links on either Boing Boing or Waxy.

The Kleptones‘ “A Night at the Hip-Hopera“, for instance, combines Queen’s music with a lot of old- and new-school hip-hop. More recently, they’ve released “From Detroit to J.A.“, which plays similar tricks with a ton of old Motown tunes.

DJ Danger Mouse‘s “Grey Album“, combining vocals from Jay-Z’s “Black Album” with The Beatles’ “White Album” got a lot of attention last year, leading to the “Grey Tuesday” campaign. It also led to more experiments with Jay-Z’s vocal tracks, including Cheap Cologne’s “Double Black” album using Metallica’s “Black Album” as the musical background.

The Beatles have proven to be a favorite of the mashup scene (much to the consternation of their record company and the RIAA). DJ BC combined the Beatles and the Beastie Boys to create The Beastles; and ccc just released Revolved, a re-working of their Revolver album.

The Who Boys is a mashup of The Who and The Beach Boys — not one of my personal favorites of the mashups I’ve found, but still interesting.

I also just grabbed a torrent of tracks from DJ Earworm that has some incredible work.

So, then, I’m curious about two things.

Firstly — is there anyone else dropping by here that’s been following this trend? If so, are there any mashup artists or particular tracks that you’d recommend?

Secondly — all the “how-to” tutorials I’ve seen for creating mashups so far have been PC-oriented. I poked around a little bit at GarageBand, but it doesn’t seem to be the best tool for this kind of work (specifically, while I can easily import tracks from my music library, there doesn’t seem to be a way to time-stretch or -compress imported audio to ensure that the tempos match). Any recommendations for Mac-specific audio software or tutorials in this realm? I may not actually be able to come up with anything, but there are a couple of ideas floating around my head that might be fun to play with.

iTunes “Policy of Sweet Dreams” by Depeche Mode/Eurythmics from the album www.djearworm.com (2004, 4:43).

Theatre Plans

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The Seattle Times has announced the 5th Ave. Theatre‘s 2005-2006 season. Lots of good stuff coming up, including The King and I, but the one that’s really catching my eye is Sweeney Todd.

I’ve seen Sweeney Todd on stage once before, years ago in Anchorage, and just recently was thrilled to see it heavily referenced in Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl. Should be fun to get a chance to see it again, it’s just the sort of twisted stuff I get a kick out of.

A bigger stretch for Armstrong and his audiences is a planned 5th Avenue mounting (Oct. 25-Nov. 13) of composer Sondheim and writer Hugh Wheeler’s macabre, musically daring epic about a barber’s bloody one-man crusade against the injustices of Victorian England.

“The show is so layered and amazing in its writing, themes and score,” says Armstrong, who’ll direct. ” ‘Sweeney Todd’ was on Broadway recently in a chamber version, but we’ll have a full orchestra for this. And big theater voices to handle the songs.”

iTunes “Suck (Double Dipped and Plastered)” by Pigface from the album Feels Like Heaven, Sounds Like Shit (1996, 6:17).

Jim Steinman

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A few years ago, the radio at work was tuned into one of the Anchorage “adult contemporary” stations — brainless background work-safe music that I wasn’t really paying much attention to. One song came on that caught my ear, so I stopped to take a closer listen to it. I had no idea what it was or who was singing, but the more I listened to it, the more a certain suspicion grew.

So I called up the radio station.

“Mix 103.1, what can I do for you?”

“I just need to know what the song you just played was — but before you tell me, I want you to check something out for me. By any chance was that song written or produced by Jim Steinman?”

“What? I haven’t got a clue.”

“Could you check?”

“Um…sure, hold on.” The DJ must have thought that I was nuts. A moment later, he got back on the phone. “Actually, yeah, you’re right. Written and produced by Jim Steinman. How did you know that?”

I laughed. “It just sounded like him. He’s the guy who wrote and produced both of Meat Loaf‘s big albums, Bat out of Hell and Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell. Whatever that song was, it sounded like a Meat Loaf song, only it was someone else singing, so I figured it was probably Steinman.”

“Not bad.”

“Thanks. So who was it?”

“Celine Dion. It’s All Coming Back To Me Now.”

“Oh. Crap, I just liked a Celine Dion song?”

(Sigh.)

So, yeah. There’s one Celine Dion song that I do have to admit to liking. In my defense, though, it has nothing to do with Celine — it’s all about Jim Steinman. Overproduced, bombastic, and very often tongue-in-cheek rock and roll. I love it when Meatloaf’s singing it, and I even like it when Celine’s singing it.

Just another addition to my many guilty pleasures.

(This confession inspired by a MeFi pointer to this list of parody Steinman song titles, which isn’t really as amusing as I’d hoped it would be.)

iTunes “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” by Meat Loaf from the album Bat Out of Hell (1977, 5:05).

Another Music Meme: Cover Me

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Another music meme, this one being started by Terrance: Cover Me.

Here it is. Do these three things, either in the comments on this post or in a post on your own blog that trackbacks to this post.

This one’s not easy, especially given the size of my music library. I’ll try, though…

List your three favorite cover versions of previously recorded songs.

(This is by no means a “final” or “definitive” list. Trying to pin down just three of all the ones that kept popping into my head was difficult enough, and I know that there are tons that I didn’t think of. I’ll be coming up with more and kicking myself for the next week. I’m already coming up with more possibilities — there are a ton of good covers of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, for instance, and I don’t think I’ve heard a bad version of The Temptations’ ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’, not to mention Tom Jones and the Art of Noise taking on Prince’s ‘Kiss’, or Sid Vicious ripping his way through ‘My Way’…argh!)

List three songs you’d like to hear cover versions of, and the artists you like to hear perform them.

  1. Ain’t Goin’ Down ’til the Sun Comes Up, originally by Garth Brooks, re-done by Ministry with Les Claypool of Primus on vocals

I know we’re supposed to come up with three here, but this particular dream has been in my head for so long that it’s the only one I ever seem to come up with. Take a fun fast country song, re-do it with Ministry’s trademark high-speed distortion-heavy guitar work, and throw Les doing his best country bumpkin patter over the top of it. I’d pay good money for this to become a reality.

List three songs you would like to cover, if you could. (Assume you would have the musical abilities to do it well.)

  1. The Pet Shop Boys, It’s a Sin: One of my all-time favorite 80’s tracks, and at times, one that has seemed all too fitting in my life.
  2. Indigo Swing, How Lucky Can One Guy Be?: Great swing, and this is one of my favorite tracks off of an album that I have a hard time picking single favorites from.
  3. Queen, Dreamer’s Ball: Queen just kicking back and having fun with a silly little ditty. The live acoustic version of this is particularly good.

(Again, hardly a definitive list. One of these days I’ll actually get suckered into Karaoke, and then we’ll see what I can actually come up with…)

iTunes “Stagger” by Underworld from the album Second Toughest in the Infants (1996, 7:37).

Not Gallimaufry

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Since I’ve kind of slacked off on my ‘Gallimaufry’ meme posts over the past few weeks, here’s a music meme from Don to play with.

How many songs?

15,293 songs, 69.10 GB, 51 days 11 hours 46 minutes 42 seconds total playing time.

Sorted by song title, the first and last songs:

Sorted by artist, the first and last songs:

  • Is It You (Scintillating), by :Wumpscut:, off of Born Again
  • Green Crumble, by μ-ziq, off of In Pine Effect

Sorted by album, the first and last songs:

Top 10 most-played songs (Most-played song at No. 1):

  1. Listen, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  2. Precession, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  3. Break, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  4. See, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  5. Live, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  6. Bite, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  7. Jazz, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  8. Play, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  9. Ridicule, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  10. Plan, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera

(Um…yeah. I’ve been listening to this a lot recently.)

Last 10 recently played songs (Most recently played at No. 1):

  1. This is a Collective (12″), by Consolidated, off of Dysfunctional Relationship
  2. The Day the World Went Away, by Nine Inch Nails, off of The Day the World Went Away
  3. Somebody Gotta Do It (Remix), by Ice-T, off of Just Say Yes
  4. Erased, Over, Out, by Nine Inch Nails, off of Further Down the Spiral
  5. Phantom of the Opera (’94 Club), by Harajuku, off of Phantom of the Opera
  6. We Care A Lot, by Faith No More, off of Never Mind the Mainstream
  7. It’s A Miracle, by Roger Waters, off of Amused to Death
  8. China, by Tori Amos, off of Little Earthquakes
  9. Sexcrime (Ninteen Eighty-Four), by The Eurythmics, off of 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)
  10. Brian Wilson’s Dreams, by The Who Boys, off of Tales of Townshend and Wilson

Find “sex”; how many songs?

  • Global (title, artist, album) search: 188 songs
  • Song title search: 83 songs

Find “death”; how many songs?

  • Global search: 150 songs
  • Song title search: 54 songs

Find “love”; how many songs?

  • Global search: 830 songs
  • Song title search: 557 songs

Find “peace”; how many songs?

  • Global search: 75 songs
  • Song title search: 30 songs

iTunes ”To Strong (Cosmic)“ by Ultimate from the album Tripnotized Vol. 3 (1996, 6:33).

Laurie Anderson: Mach 20

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SpermLadies and gentlemen, what you are observing here are magnified examples, or facsimiles, of human sperm. Generation after generation of these tiny creatures have sacrificed themselves in the persistent, often futile attempt to transport the basic male genetic code. But where’s this information coming from?

They have no eyes. No ears. Yet some of them already know that they will be bald. Some of them know that they will have small, crooked teeth. Over half of them will end up as women. Four hundred million living creatures, all knowing precisely the same thing. Carbon copies of each other, in a kamikaze race against the clock.

Now some of you may be surprised to learn that if a sperm were the size of a salmon, it would be swimming its seven inch journey at five hundred miles per hour.

If a sperm were the size of a whale, however, it would be traveling at fifteen thousand miles per hour, or mach 20.

Now imagine, if you will, four hundred million blind and desperate sperm whales departing from the Pacific coast of North America, swimming at fifteen thousand miles per hour, and arriving in Japanese coastal waters in just under forty-five minutes.

How would they be received?

Would they realize that they were carrying information? A message?

Would there be room for so many millions?

Would they know that they had been sent for a purpose?

— Laurie Andersen, ‘Mach 20’, off of United States Live

iTunes “Mach 20” by Anderson, Laurie from the album United States Live (1984, 2:47).

Pigface, Sheep on Drugs, and MY BIRTHDAY

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This is too damn cool.

The Pigface Free For All Tour is going to be coming through Seattle.

Pigface Free for All tour

Pigface and Sheep on Drugs (and Nocturne, and possibly The Damage Manual and The Countdown) in concert — and they’re performing at the Fenix Underground on Tuesday, May 3rd.

My birthday.

I’m so there.

(many thanks to Syren666 for mentioning this!)

iTunes “15 Minutes of Fame” by Sheep on Drugs from the album Sheep on Drugs Greatest Hits (1993, 5:06).

You just can’t sing in the supermarket…

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A couple of days ago, I got this somewhat cryptic e-mail…

Hello…

Something is happening in the produce section of your local Supermarket this weekend:

Jan 29 – 12:30 pm – Ballard Safeway – 8340 15th Ave NW
Jan 29 – 7 pm – University Safeway – 4732 Brooklyn Ave NE
Jan 30 – 12:30 pm – Capital Hill QFC – 523 Broadway E
Jan 30 – 7 pm – Everett QFC – 2615 Broadway

Still,
-jason webley

So, today Prairie and I wandered our way up to the Capital Hill QFC to see what would happen.

Broadway QFC, Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WAAs 12:30pm rolled around, there were quite a few people wandering around the produce section. Some made a pretense at shopping, some greeted friends, some just stood off to the side, and some continued on with their normal Sunday shopping. Occasionally a QFC employee would wander through to see if anyone needed any help, but we were all quite content to keep puttering around and investigating the fruits and vegetables.

Eventually, in strolled Jason, guitar case in hand, looking much younger now that he’s clean-shaven and still growing his hair out after his last deathday concert. A few nods, hugs, and friendly hellos passed between Jason and some of the gathered friends and fans, and then he joined us in our purported produce procurement. A few minutes later, Jason raised whatever vegetable he was holding up above his head, as if to get a better look at it in the light from the window. The person next to him raised their veggie in the air. Another went up, then another, then another.

One girl who’d been strolling around listening to a portable CD player started humming to herself, then swaying back and forth, and then singing. First softly, then more and more loudly, she sang along to The Clash‘s ‘Lost in the Supermarket‘: “I’m all lost in the supermarket! I can no longer shop happily!”

Broadway QFC, Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WAMoments later, a guy in white shirt, tie, and a tag reading “MANAGER” strolled over to her and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Miss? Miss? Excuse me, miss, but could you take your headphones off, please? Look, I’m very glad you enjoy shopping here, but you just can’t sing in the grocery store. I’m sure everyone else here would much rather shop in peace. You just can’t sing in the supermarket!”

And then he turned to the people standing around, drew a deep breath — and sang out, “You just can’t sing in the supermarket!”

A girl in a white shirt and white kerchief tied over her hair joined in — “Anyone will tell you so!”

Broadway QFC, Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WAJason started playing his guitar. Another guy pulled a clarinet out of his jacket. Three girls nearby joined the song, complete with chorus-line high kicks. Eventually, about half the people that had been hanging around in the produce section were involved in the lineup, waving their hands in the air for the grand finale: “Because if you sing in the supermarket, you will have to go!”

And with the clash of a small pair of hand cymbals, it was over. Jason’s guitar went back in its case, the clarinet disappeared back into the jacket, and, accompanied by much laugher and scattered applause from other shoppers, everyone quickly made their way back outside to the sidewalk.

Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WA“Off to the next one!” Jason cried, and up we all went to the QFC on 15th Avenue.

All told, we hit five grocery stores before Prairie and I had to break off from the group in order to get her back on the road to Ellensburg before it got too late in the day. When we left, the group was heading up to a Trader Joe’s, and we’d heard mention of the QFC at Pike and Broadway — we’re assuming they made it there as we saw them a bit later walking by Dick’s on Broadway as we were heading back from a detour by Twice Sold Tales on our way down the hill to the apartment.

What a blast. This world needs more random silliness in it from time to time, and we had a lot of fun being part of this particular bit of randomness. Much giggling and many smiles from everyone in the group and from whatever customers happened to be around in each store — just the thing for a grey winter day in Seattle.

More pictures of the event are, as usual, in a Flickr photoset.

Update: M. Whybark witnessed Saturday’s revelries.

Update: Accompanying M. Whybark were the not-entirely-mythical Danelope and Jim, who contributes this photo set (which, as he points out, is smaller but more focused than mine — hey, it was my first day with a new camera…[grin]).

Update: Steve Konscek, the “manager” of the troupe (more commonly known as Brandon) has posted his account of the weekend’s fun.

iTunes “Quite Contrary” by Webley, Jason from the album Counterpoint (2002, 3:08).