Blog Post
Banned but not forgotten.
by RiponGood
Join us as we celebrate Banned Books Week. Here are four classic science-fiction/ dystopia novels.
1984 by George Orwell - Banned in the USSR for political reasons. Accused of anti-semitism. Challenged in Florida for pro communist and sexual theme.
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin - Banned in the USSR for political reasons.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess - Removed from a high schools (1976 and 1977) for "objectionable" language.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley -
Banned in Ireland (1932) and multiple times in the US.
Blog Post
Want Radiohead's new album? Name your price!
by remnil
"In Rainbows," the latest album by consummate alt rockers Radiohead, is garnering attention. Unlike with the now legendary OK Computer, however, it's not for it's musical brilliance. In fact, the album isn't even out yet. Instead, Radiohead's getting press because they're letting you name your own price to buy it.
Aside from the obvious pricing mechanism, Radiohead is innovating in several other ways. First, the album is only available for digital download on the band's website. Second, the album will be DRM-free. Third, the band is bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of music, the recording industry.
Like Prince's July 2007 scheme with his latest album Planet Earth, Radiohead's actions are likely to anger an industry exec or two. But should they be afraid? Might artists be able to bypass them altogether and get their music out to the masses? Will such promotions only work for musical demigods like Prince and Radiohead? What do you think?
Blog Post
The Play Ground
by Albert
Set in the 1840s, Big River is essentially a musical tale of Mark Twain's THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. Scored by Roger Miller of KING OF THE ROAD fame, this famous journey down the Mississippi on a raft brings Huck and Jim into contact with the some of Twain’s most colorful characters including the scalawags King and Duke. Big River won 7 Tony Awards and 7 Drama Desk Awards including Best Musical and Score. University of Michigan Department of Musical Theatre, Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, October 11-14. 763-3333.
Blog Post
The Diversifyin’ Late 60s/Early 70s, Part IV: Hot Burritos
by John J. Madonna
No group was on the front of the country-rock movement more than The Flying Burrito Brothers. After Gram Parsons’s brief stint with The Byrds, where his influence resulted in the country Sweetheart of the Rodeo, he pilfered Byrd Chris Hillman and formed the new band. Unlike blues-rock, country-rock is ultimately indistinguishable from country and caters to the same crowd. Parsons brought his high lonesome voice and songs about heartache and drinking into a bona fide country group, whose sound was highlighted by the amazing work of Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel. Though FBB albums are hard to find, the library has a greatest hits.
Country music gets a bad rap. It irks me when I someone tells me, “Well, I like all kinds of music… except country.” I mean, first off, no one likes all kinds of music. I like a lot of different music, but you would never see me listening to, I don’t know, the newest Genghis Tron release. No offense to all the GT fans out there—both of them—it’s just not my cup of meat. But secondly, the negative associations of country probably stem from cowboys in rhinestones, melodramatic ballads, the Grand Ole Opry, and basically the entire campy Nashville scene from the seventies. But that isn’t the extent of country as several popular musicians best associated for non-country music have dabbled in it. Whether it be a song or two on their albums (The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, George Harrison, CSNY) or dedicating entire records to country (Bob Dylan on Nashville Skyline and Elvis Costello on Almost Blue,) country-rock merely reinforces the importance of country in popular music’s influences.
After four parts of talking about The Great Rock Schism, we can start to see why rock is as all encompassing as it is. Sub-genres like progressive and punk move away from the norm either through adoption of outside sources or complete rejection of the current traditions. Other movements re-embrace the roots of the music once the genre has drifted too far away.
The End?
Blog Post
The Diversifyin’ Late 60s/Early 70s, Part III: Why Isn’t There Rock-Blues
by John J. Madonna
If rock is blues and country, then is blues-rock just bluesy blues and country? How blues is blues-rock in comparison to rock? Of course, if someone in 1956 called a group or artist “blues-rock,” it most certainly would have been redundant, but by the time of the sub-genre explosion in rock music (or as I like to call it, The Great Rock Schism) in the late sixties, all sorts of groups like Cream (and for that matter, any of Eric Clapton’s groups,) The Spencer Davis Group, The Rolling Stones, J. Geils Band, Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green’s version,) and hoards more identified themselves as blues-rock.
Though rock had its roots in jump blues, R&B, and country, throughout the 60s, the genre absorbed all sorts of influences like Tin Pan Alley, Phil Spector, classical music, urban folk, and not to mention the drug culture around it. So when bands like The Rolling Stones played Robert Johnson on Let It Bleed (the song Love In Vain, though credited as traditional is in fact Mr. Johnson,) they were reintegrating rock music’s original roots into their music, making blues-rock a callback to earlier times. Even though The Stones could play low-key Delta blues when they wanted to, or hard-driving Chicago blues, they were always a rock band. They played in front of thousands of screaming fans, played their instruments loud, and they played them fast.
Of course, this leaves us with the observation that no music is called “rock-blues.” Blues is too exclusive for that, yet what out there can’t fall under the umbrella of rock music? The Stones, a rock band, released Exile On Main St., a rock record, back in ’72 featuring blues, country, gospel flourishes (I love that… whenever I read about rock music integrating gospel, it’s always in flourishes,) as well as pop and rock. Nowhere else in popular music can a record like that exist. Jazz, blues, country, swing, and everything else are very purebred; rock is the hybrid genre. It absorbs everything it sees. Only rock could contain such divergent artists like The Stooges, The Moody Blues, and Duane Eddy?
The all encompassing nature of rock music might be the root of its longevity in the public consciousness, as it is a continuously evolving and growing genre, absorbing more styles, developing new ones, stepping back with roots revivals, making it possible for people to still enjoy rock music, even if “rock music” doesn’t necessarily stay the same over the years.
Blog Post
The Play Ground
by Albert
Dianne Reeves' voice has been described as cool, smooth, sultry and romantic.
Hmmm. Just what you need after a stressful day. You might know her from her appearance in the George Clooney film GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK. And soon she will be featured in a movie about Billy Strayhorn. Meanwhile, she and her trio will be appearing at Hill Auditorium with Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo. Kick back and listen. Jazzy. October 12, 8PM.
Blog Post
Great Lakes Myth Society playing in town this Friday
by manz
Southeastern Michigan’s Great Lakes Myth Society bring their blend of folk, pop and rock music back to Ann Arbor this Friday for a performance at the Blind Pig. A common theme throughout many of GLMS’s songs is Michigan and its natural surroundings. Singer/Songwriter Timothy Monger explains, “to reference our home in song has always been a natural reaction. It was only when we noticed how strong the themes were that the desire to center our project within the Lakes took hold."
Check it out for yourself on their latest album. Side note: In the song “Marquette County, 1959” the singer croons “Jimmy Stewart came to Marquette County in 1959.” This is true and references the film Anatomy of a Murder which Jimmy Stewart did indeed film in Marquette in 1959. (It’s a gem of a film costarring Lee Remick in a sassy roll.)
Blog Post
The Diversifyin’ Late 60s/Early 70s, Part II: Never Mind The Sex Pistols
by John J. Madonna
Truly, as far as punk rock is concerned, we must remember two things:
1) Never say you like punk because you like The Clash. That’s like saying you like rap because you like Run-DMC. Of course you like The Clash. They rule. That goes unsaid. Saying you like The Clash is going to make people think you don’t know what you’re talking about.
2) The Sex Pistols are awful. If you haven’t heard their one record displaying how truly bad and nonsensical their music is, don’t bother, because the Pistols are not the end all, be all of punk. Near the end of the punk’s prominence, a London clothier fabricated this band to capitalize on the punk fashion scene.
When people think of punk, they instantly think of The Ramones, The Pistols, and The Clash (and, hopefully, The Jam.) But punk rock started almost ten years before any of those bands in ’68 and ’69 with hardly proficient musicians trying to say something with their lyrics and setting it to three-chord music. Now, to write off punk rockerss, or “punkers” as they’d prefer not to be called, as poor musicians would be inaccurate (The Velvet Underground should prove that.) While punk is just as slippery of a term as rock (in that, it is really hard to define what kind of music constitutes punk,) I would probably best describe it as the reaction. To progressive rock, to art music, to The Rutles, to the optimism of the Summer of Love, to everything. They reacted with experimental music that could be loud, fast, and angry or slow, atonal, and experimental, and the pessimistic, dark lyrics reflected the perceived failure of the hippie movement. Punk music was the antithesis of highly skilled blues bands and classically trained progressive acts.
Some of the earlier (and more famous) punk acts were The Stooges (from Ann Arbor/Ypsi,) The Motor City Five (or “MC5”,) Television, Talking Heads, The Velvet Underground, and Patti Smith. Of course the wonderful thing about punk, as hinted at in my opening, is that it is such a deep sub-genre with very devoted followers. The punk scene has so many bands, many with highly obscene names, each more angry than the next. I’m just throwing out the names of the ones that actually made it kind of big at the beginning of punk music.
Blog Post
The Diversifyin’ Late 60s/Early 70s, Part I: The Name of The Band Is Yes
by John J. Madonna
Most people (rightfully) believe rock music came from the hybridization of country and blues music. After all, the early rock and rollers like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis played nothing more than twelve-bar blues with a country backbeat. But toward the end of the sixties, rock music had a sub-genre explosion, with rock and roll giving way to [blank]-rock (the blank filled with some adjective, e.g. “hard,” “country,” “blues,” and cetera.) Progressive rock, though, while still in the blanket term of “rock,” has little to no blues background. Yes, especially by the time they hit their stride with The Yes Album and Fragile, were little more than a classical music ensemble playing rock instruments.
Their harmonies came straight from The Rutles and Simon and Garfunkel, but their music had serious classical influences. Guitarist Steve Howe was classically trained, on Fragile, keyboardist Rick Wakeman played Brahms, and rather than the three minute pop song, Yes compositions ended up as ten minute suites, seldom in the usual verse chorus bridge from. Progressive rock was the antithesis of garage bands. The musicians in Yes and other bands like King Crimson, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and Genesis studied for most of their lives on their instruments and knew music theory. When they finally interrupted the six minutes of instrumental noodling for singing, the lyrics would usually be nonsense strung together with Lewis Carroll imagery. Garage bands tend to practice for all of ten minutes before writing some three-chord verse-chorus songs with angst-ridden lyrics.
To be sure, the same noodling that made the progressive rockers famous also ended them when they got too much ego. When it came time for Yes to release a follow-up to the wildly successful Fragile, they released Close To The Edge, a three-song LP full of self-importance, which no one wanted to hear and certainly now sounds dated. But Yes left their legacy throughout the bands in the seventies. Gone were the days of wunderkinder in bands that taught themselves guitar by listening to beat-up blues forty-fives. Too many kids grew up listening to virtuosi like Clapton or Howe, and by the time the middle of the seventies came, every band seemed to have a well-educated, studied, crackerjack guitarist that could play anything, leading to bands like Foreigner or Styx or Van Halen Musical Group (not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that.)
What impact did this have on popular music? Well, that’ll be in Part II...
Blog Post
IBM 1401
by Employee 37
In 1971, the father of Icelandic musician and composer Johann Johannsson, bemoaning the deaccession of his office IBM 1401, and in one of the earliest examples of techno-romanticizational archival preservation(TM), made a recording of the sounds and electromagnet waves that the 1401 produced, utilizing a radio receiver and a reel-to-reel tape machine. It was nearly 30 years before his son rearranged these recordings, combined them with excerpts from an original audio instruction manual, and set the whole thing to a post-modern orchestral score. IBM 1401: A Users Manual is the result. You can click here to read a story from NPR's Song of the Day and listen to a sample track from the album.