ramonz wrote:http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/ ... usic-scene

If you dig the Laurel Canyon scene/stories, you'll like this.

A different world.

It turns out all the songs really are about heroin:

Ever noticed how much Jesse Colin Young's "Lightshine" (1974) sounds like ABB/Haynes "Soulshine" (1994)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyhpFs0cvfI

I need someone to explain to me why what seems like 95% of all rock and roll records are sequenced to close with a slow/ mellow song. I get why the last song of the final encore at live shows is that way, but why aren't albums sequenced like pre-encore live shows? Leave the listener screaming for more, etc.

Markalanbishop wrote:I need someone to explain to me why what seems like 95% of all rock and roll records are sequenced to close with a slow/ mellow song. I get why the last song of the final encore at live shows is that way, but why aren't albums sequenced like pre-encore live shows? Leave the listener screaming for more, etc.

I'm a big fan of relaxing after climax.

Aquarium Drunkard Presents: Country Soul Sisters II – A Mixtape



As promised, the much-anticipated return of Country Soul Sisters, celebrating the ladies that tamed the outlaws, took the reigns and subsequently changed the face of country music forever.

Aquarium Drunkard Presents: Country Soul Sisters II – A Mixtape

Tammy Wynette – Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad
Sue Thompson – Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass?
Donna Fargo – The Happiest Girl In The Whole USA
Lynn Anderson – If I Kiss You (Will You Go Away?)
Melba Montgomery – The World Didn’t Cost Me A Dime
Norma Jean – Heaven Help The Working Girl
Dolly Parton – Games People Play
Nancy Sinatra – Hello L.A., Bye-Bye Birmingham
Wanda Jackson – I Wonder Could I Live There Anymore
Wilma Burgess – Baby
Skeeter Davis – My Last Date (With You)
Jeannie Seely – Can I Sleep In Your Arms
Jody Miller – Natural Woman

Streaming here:
http://aquariumdrunkard.info/upload/Cou ... s%20II.mp3

How did they get Buck Dharma to referee?

I have no idea where this should go, but it has to go somewhere. This is just the first page--click for the whole thing:



I agree with Stubby the Rocket that this is one of the best fan comics ever. Marvel should buy this and make it canon.

This is a very good time to be in this world, isn't it?

As the Firesign Theatre says, "Everything you know is wrong!"

Dangerous Minds wrote:We are talking about a looooong scroll of Glenn Beck-esque diagramming of Paul McCartney’s eyebrows, crowd-sourced from a community of people on message boards who suspect The Beatles are some kind of elaborate hoax.

Ask Polly: I’m Sick of Being Unhappy and Alone!

I remember when she was the TV critic for Salon and writing a rabbit blog on the side. Now she gives advice. I suppose it's easy to be jealous of Cary English, but it's hard to do something about it, so good for her! Anyway...

Dear Polly,

Things suck for me right now. They have sucked for me for such a long time. I am so sick and tired of trying to look on the bright side. I am so sick and tired of waiting for things to get better. I am so sick and utterly weary of having no actual friends. I know I am difficult, but during my brighter moments, this is what I believe makes me beautiful. Why can’t anyone else see me shine?

And so on.



So what do you say to that, if you're an advice columnist?

Because I'm old, I will now quote a band called Yes that was embraced by smart stoners in the olden days. You might know Yes from their 1983 hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart," but that song is not typical of their oeuvre. Yes was math rock meets emo meets Lord of the Rings grandiosity. Their songs were very orchestral but also faintly jammy, almost like a higher-end, British version of the Dead (which is probably an insult to both the Dead and Yes). The members of Yes were serious musicians, though, the kinds of musicians who believe in alternative tunings and Lydian dominant scales and riffs so complicated that you need a degree in higher math just to unpack them. Looking back, I think Yes was music for highly sensitive smarties plagued by heavy feels. Yes had all of the melodrama of Zeppelin, but instead of singing about tricking little girls into squeezing your disgusting lemon or offering up a piece of their cherished custard pie (Jesus, keep it in your filthy pants for once, Zeppelin), Yes sang about seasons passing you by and instant karma and "Oh, coins and crosses never know their fruitless worth!"

Turns out her advice comes with analysis of guitar solos and cruise ships.

Had to share this music-related "kids say the darndest things" moment. We had some people over on Easter and one couple had a 6 year old girl. I was putting on an album and she walks by and says, "Wow, that's a giant CD!" OK, that's out of my system. Now back to the snark.

The True Story of Some Stupid with a Flare Gun (as told by Funky Claude, who was running in and out, putting kids on the ground)

You helped get people out of the burning building. There’s even a lyric about it in “Smoke On The Water.”

It was actually not that difficult because we had big bow windows in the concert hall overlooking the swimming pool. Frank Zappa took his guitar – a Gibson, a very strong one – and he smashed the big window down with his guitar. Then a lot of people could go out through there. The people went out through that exit, and within about five minutes, the 2,000 kids were out. And the people were watching the fire thinking, “Oh, you know, Frank Zappa is just doing an incredible ending to his show.”

The time: 1979. The place: Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin, Texas. The occasion: A Talking Heads performance.



The verdict: For you to decide. Exhibit A:

Crooked 'music wood' dealer: 'I am an honorable man'
$500k public old-growth timber theft nets Winlock man jail term

“I am a law abiding citizen,” the former corrections officer said in the letter. “Without rules and laws people would run amuck.

Decided to convert from Spotify to Amazon Prime Music since I buy a ton from Amazon and already have a bunch of stuff in their cloud anyway, and I don't know, I get oddly restless about this kind of stuff. After a (mostly) painless process of uploading my entire collection to the cloud, I'm discovering today that there are random songs missing from random albums all over the place. So tonight I get to go home and find a couple dozen needles in several thousand haystacks. The 21st century version of reorganizing your records fuckin' sucks.

Duke Silver wrote:Decided to convert from Spotify to Amazon Prime Music since I buy a ton from Amazon and already have a bunch of stuff in their cloud anyway, and I don't know, I get oddly restless about this kind of stuff. After a (mostly) painless process of uploading my entire collection to the cloud, I'm discovering today that there are random songs missing from random albums all over the place. So tonight I get to go home and find a couple dozen needles in several thousand haystacks. The 21st century version of reorganizing your records fuckin' sucks.

Curious to hear how this works out for you. I'm fully invested in Spotify Premium (playlists, local files uploaded, sharing, everything downloaded to my phone, etc) and I love it, but I already pay for Amazon Prime - so definitely interested to hear how the two compare.

Clams wrote:

Duke Silver wrote:Decided to convert from Spotify to Amazon Prime Music since I buy a ton from Amazon and already have a bunch of stuff in their cloud anyway, and I don't know, I get oddly restless about this kind of stuff. After a (mostly) painless process of uploading my entire collection to the cloud, I'm discovering today that there are random songs missing from random albums all over the place. So tonight I get to go home and find a couple dozen needles in several thousand haystacks. The 21st century version of reorganizing your records fuckin' sucks.

Curious to hear how this works out for you. I'm fully invested in Spotify Premium (playlists, local files uploaded, sharing, everything downloaded to my phone, etc) and I love it, but I already pay for Amazon Prime - so definitely interested to hear how the two compare.

The selection is definitely lacking compared to Spotify. I did a few quick searches for popular 3dd artists and there are missing albums all over the place. Only about half of DBT's catalog is on there, about the same for MMJ, no Kathleen Edwards at all, the new Richmond Fontaine isn't there. Obviously that's not a big deal if you own those albums anyway, but it's probably a good indicator of the quality of their library. Seems to be geared more toward top 40.

Other than that, the android app is pretty slick and user-friendly. I do miss the "play next" feature that Spotify has. Playing my own music from their cloud has been seamless so far. (I did have to buy extra storage for $25/year, though. But I think I can also use that for backing up photos and video, so that's kinda cool.)

I'm gonna give it a shot for a month or two, at least. I'm paying for it anyway, so I might as well.

PS: If anyone else out there moves to Prime Music, here's how I think you can avoid the "missing songs and albums" issue I'm having after uploading my collection to their cloud. When you buy MP3s from Amazon (or buy a CD or vinyl that has "Autorip", i.e. comes with free MP3s), by default the files are saved on your computer in a folder called "Amazon Music." When you use their upload tool, it scans that folder first. If it finds a matching artist or album when scanning the rest of your collection, it assumes everything in that folder is a duplicate and skips it. If I did it again I would move everything out of that Amazon Music folder and into its respective artist or album folder. Kind of a pain, but there you go.

I was listening to NPR's "Song Exploder" podcast the other day. They had Rivers Cuomo on there explaining how he writes songs for Weezer. Conclusion: he is batshit crazy.

Basically he keeps a massive spreadsheet of potential song titles and lyrics -- from a stream of consciousness journal he writes in every morning -- broken down by number of syllables. When it's time to write a song he mines Spotify for songs with interesting chord progressions, then plays around with them on guitar until he comes up with something of his own. Then he locks himself in a room, plays the progression on a loop, and scats along with it until he comes up with a melody. Once he has a melody, he figures out the meter and goes back to his spreadsheet to look for lines with the right number of syllables, then puts them together whether they make sense or not. So if you listen to recent Weezer material, any sense of a cohesive narrative in the lyrics is an accident.

For solos, he records himself singing the solo in a low octave then pitches it up with auto-tune, before finally transposing it to guitar.

And you know those goofy, spontaneous studio moments Weezer are known for (whistling, screeching, etc.)? All bullshit. After the song is finished the whole band gathers around a mic and overdubs that stuff.

Writing it all out like this I guess it doesn't seem quite so crazy, and probably isn't a whole lot different from the way guys like Robert Pollard work. But hearing him describe it so coldly and mechanically was a bit jarring.

Duke Silver wrote:I was listening to NPR's "Song Exploder" podcast the other day. They had Rivers Cuomo on there explaining how he writes songs for Weezer. Conclusion: he is batshit crazy.

Basically he keeps a massive spreadsheet of potential song titles and lyrics -- from a stream of consciousness journal he writes in every morning -- broken down by number of syllables. When it's time to write a song he mines Spotify for songs with interesting chord progressions, then plays around with them on guitar until he comes up with something of his own. Then he locks himself in a room, plays the progression on a loop, and scats along with it until he comes up with a melody. Once he has a melody, he figures out the meter and goes back to his spreadsheet to look for lines with the right number of syllables, then puts them together whether they make sense or not. So if you listen to recent Weezer material, any sense of a cohesive narrative in the lyrics is an accident.

For solos, he records himself singing the solo in a low octave then pitches it up with auto-tune, before finally transposing it to guitar.

And you know those goofy, spontaneous studio moments Weezer are known for (whistling, screeching, etc.)? All bullshit. After the song is finished the whole band gathers around a mic and overdubs that stuff.

Writing it all out like this I guess it doesn't seem quite so crazy, and probably isn't a whole lot different from the way guys like Robert Pollard work. But hearing him describe it so coldly and mechanically was a bit jarring.

this week's episode of "When Demystifying the Process goes Wrong"

No better way to go than doing something you love. RIP

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/aso-bassis ... nce/nrNSG/

Smitty wrote:bands that need an "artist of the week" feature (but havent got one yetthat i can remember)

Vic Chesnutt
Glossary
Bloodkin
Dashboard Saviors
Cracker
Scott H. Biram (littlemamma!)
Will Kimbrough (dee dee!)
Malcolm Holcombe
Jerry Joseph & Jackmormons
Kathleen Edwards
Will Oldham

Still no Vic. Ready to dive in - where too start?

Too lazy to Google it. Has anyone claimed the album title "Make Americana Great Again" yet?

Today was the memorial service for my long time bandmate and dear friend. It was held at a small Methodist church in Fayetteville, GA. It's safe to say that today is the first time that Wooly Booly has ever been performed there live. Lots of musicians there--the place was rockin' RIP Edward.

So going through vinyl I still own is great fun, and sometimes educational. Yesterday, I dug out Joe South's Greatest Hits, Vol. 1. Great voice, wonderful songs, fine playing--but where was the bottom? That was treblier than the Pete Seeger Memorial Banjo and High Tenor Choir (with piccolo)! Not much clarity, either. To check my ears and head against another old record, I put on The 3rd Time Around, by Roger Miller. The contrast couldn't be greater. Full, rich sound! What gives?

John A Arkansawyer wrote:So going through vinyl I still own is great fun, and sometimes educational. Yesterday, I dug out Joe South's Greatest Hits, Vol. 1. Great voice, wonderful songs, fine playing--but where was the bottom? That was treblier than the Pete Seeger Memorial Banjo and High Tenor Choir (with piccolo)! Not much clarity, either. To check my ears and head against another old record, I put on The 3rd Time Around, by Roger Miller. The contrast couldn't be greater. Full, rich sound! What gives?

Very true. I assume that was just what South preferred.
I am able to get past it the same way I get through some of the questionable production on Springsteen's 1980's stuff....the songs are that good.
Joe South ruled.

I would love to hear these ,Flying Burrito Bro. Master/Alt tapes
up for auction on ebay now.....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FLYING-BURRITO- ... SwzLlXgZ1N


http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/MrYAAOSw0 ... -l1600.jpg

Has any decent music come out of Florida since the early 70's? I mean after Parsons, Skynyrd, ABB, Petty, Buffett, the Mavericks, and I'm sure a couple of others I'm forgetting, it seems like a wasteland. There are no doubt good local bands but I never hear about them. I grew up there but left in 1976. The explosion in population after Disney just fucked everything up I guess.

Was googling and laughed at this:
As a borderline banana republic—and the unequivocal wang of the US—Florida as a cesspool of old people, tourism, Nascar fans, shame, and pretty much everything else that sucks, is the ongoing reason why a majority of music from the Sunshine State tends to suck as well. From shitty boy bands in the late 90s, to crappy pop-punk bands and revolting death-metal crapola, it’s hard to imagine anything musically proficient emerging from some place so awful.

Can anyone educate me?

when did the population boom begin in fla?

dime in the gutter wrote:when did the population boom begin in fla?

This is only anecdotal from my personal experience but it seems like it started in the mid 70's right around the time I left. I grew up 50 miles south of Orlando and I remember driving around (that's all there was to do) in the middle of nowhere and wondering, what's all this road construction? Turns out Disney had been very quietly buying up massive tracts of land and were installing infrastructure. Now my little hometown of 10,000 swells to easily twice that in the winter, which never happened when I lived there.