Blog Post
Today In Music History
by manz
It’s time once again to look into music’s past for a reminder of what once was. Musicians are always up to something, such as making #1 hits, getting divorced or breaking up and going their separate ways. Here’s a glimpse of what was happening on October 28 throughout the decades:
-In 1956 Elvis Presley’s "Love Me Tender" was #1 on the Billboard Pop Chart.
-In 1968 John Lennon and wife Cynthia filed for divorce. Next up: Yoko Ono!
-In 1982 At the end of their UK tour, punk band The Jam announced they’d be splitting up.
-In 1997 R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry announced he was leaving the band after 17 years with them. The band did not break up even though decades earlier they had made a pact to break up if any member left the band.
And now it’s all history!
Blog Post
Quality music for free
by Maxine
The The University of Michigan School of Music offers a rich array of student and faculty performances that are open to the general public. These often free events are all on the University of Michigan campus including the Duderstadt Center, on North Campus, formerly called the Media Union. This Friday, October 26, the Symphony Band performs the premiere of New York City opera composer Daron Hagen's "Banner of My Purpose", an operatic scena based on a letter from a Civil War soldier to his wife written just before a battle in which he dies. Familiar tunes from West Side Story as well baroque and neo-classical pieces fill the evening. The performance will be at Hill Auditorium at 8 p.m. Check out other events on their calendar.
Blog Post
This Ark Is Your Ark
by manz
The Ark’s 11th Annual Fall Fund Raiser features Odetta, Jimmy LaFave, The Burns Sisters, and Joel Rafael – in A Celebration in the Spirit of Woody Guthrie. This Ark Is Your Ark takes place Saturday, November 10 at 8pm at The Ark in Ann Arbor. There are four ticket levels currently available for purchase and a portion of the cost is tax deductible. Proceeds from the event will benefit The Ark and will assist in continuing to bring world-class folk music to Ann Arbor.
Blog Post
Those Ghastly 80s, Part II: Why People Should Love The 80s
by John J. Madonna
The decade has a bad reputation; I personally find it difficult see past hair bands playing pointless power ballads with vapid lyrics, or how Joe Piscopo was considered sexy, or how at Live Aid, Phil Collins played in London, jumped the Concorde, then played in Philadelphia… and people cheered! People cheered because Phil Collins played music. You can’t tell me that wasn’t just a messed up decade. But fixating on 80s pop culture’s ludicrousness only prevents us from appreciating some truly great music. The punk scene of the 70s evolved into alternative in the US (The Replacements, Violent Femmes, and They Might Be Giants) and ska revival (Two Tone) in the UK (Dexys Midnight Runners, Madness, UB40, and The Jam.)
Blog Post
Those Ghastly 80s, Part I: Why People Should Hate The 80s
by John J. Madonna
As far as “classic rock” goes, the 80s were a bad decade. For two decades, so many rock stars like Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, Elton John, all of Fleetwood Mac, even my hero George Harrison had been doing drug (and hard ones at that,) but by the beginning of the 80s, so many had overdosed, Lennon was shot, and so rock stars everywhere were saying, “Maybe I shouldn’t kill myself with drugs.” The 80s thusly became a time for rock stars to detox, and, with their attention diverted toward not dying, their music suffered.
When describing the transition of Classic Rock into Classic Rock--80s, I don’t want to say “train wreck,” but I really can’t think of any better way to put it. When Clapton starts using synths, Steve Winwood goes to adult alternative, Keith Richards releases solo albums, and basically everyone attempts to adopt very mainstream productions and a middle of the road sound, you know that something is going on. These failures of Classic Rock--80s highlight the successes of following two decades. Bob Dylan released Empire Burlesque in Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five, which could be most kindly described as Bob Dylan meets . His recent, critically acclaimed albums Love and Theft, Time out of Mind, and Modern Times, though, have all been in the vein of classic Dylan. It wasn’t just drugs. It was probably a little bit drugs, but it wasn’t just drugs.
Whereas musicians and bands of the 60s honoured those heroes of the decade before like Jerry Lee, Chuck, and Muddy, the punk movement the late 60s through the 80s raised the question, “Do dinosaurs like Clapton or The Rutles still have anything relevant to say, or are they, like the real dinosaurs, just going to lay dormant underground until one day they rise up and retake what was rightfully theirs?” The mainstream sound of Classic Rock--80s was the last stab at relevance from the vanguard of the 60s. When Bob Dylan decided to go back to releasing the kind of material he did best, he was conceding that he was now playing for a niche audience, and that no matter how good his music was, no one would ever listen to “Thunder on the Mountain” like they did “Like A Rolling Stone.”
Blog Post
My First Love? Love On The Rocks
by John J. Madonna
I don’t know if I would like Neil Diamond nearly as much as I do were it not for Will Ferrell’s unique interpretation of the man, but needless to say he does not get enough credit from rock circles as he should. His music, though oft disregarded as bubblegum, has contributed as much as Carole King and , Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and all of the other authors from the sixties-era Tin Pan Alley.
Of course, at that point, rock snobs will then acknowledge his songwriting contributions to other musicians such as The Monkees, but continue to snub his own music: they hate the rhinestones, the voice, and everyone always complains, “Why was Neil Diamond at The Last Waltz?” But, you know, personally, I like the songs; I like his voice… the rhinestones I could do without.
Neil's arrangements, certainly in keeping with early seventies’ productions, exemplify the good aspects of the era rather than the bad, such as when the string sections, ubiquitous with singer/songwriters at the times, become mushy, heavy-handed and take over the music instead of complementing the tune. While his lyrics might not be the heaviest out there, he never promotes them as such; rather he keeps his music in keeping with straightforward fun rock music. His music also felt like early nostalgia pieces, harkening back to sixties’ music albeit with a seventies’ feel.
And, let’s face it: baseball at Fenway wouldn’t be the same without Neil Diamond.
Blog Post
Even if you don't like to dance....
by Maxine
...check out Los Gatos at the the Firefly Club where they play every Thursday night. The quintet headed by local drummer Pete Siers draws on more traditional Latin beats like in the music of Mongo Santamaria and Tito Puente. PKO Records who distributes their new cd, "Insight" describes it as "a brilliant compilation of elegant boleros, delightful pachangas, firery mambos, relaxed cha cha chas, and exotic, 6/8 Afro/Cuban dance music." Dancing instruction for beginners starts at 7:15 p.m.
Blog Post
Why I Listen…
by John J. Madonna
To Music
I heard R.E.M.’s “ Man on the Moon” on the radio this morning. As I sang along the “Yeah, yeah, yeah”s, my mind was transported back to October 2004. I climbed the stairs in Cobo Hall to those seats even the nosebleeders scoffed at to see The Boss, wsg R.E.M., John Fogerty, and Bright Eyes in tow. I never heard R.E.M. before, but they were so bright and jangly, so the next few weeks, I dove into their music. But listening to R.E.M. today didn’t just remind of the concert or October/November of ‘04, it reminded me of who I was at nineteen.
Music documents my life. The summer of ‘05: I grew out my hair and listened to George Harrison, CSNY, The Mamas and The Papas, and Donovan. Summer of 2004: I worked graveyards at Target, listening to Born In The U.S.A. and Peter Gabriel. In 1989, my family drove to Estes Park, and I listened to Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” (a rebel was born, I guess.) Throughout the different changes in my life, music was playing. Today when I heard “ Man On The Moon,” the song hadn’t changed since I last heard it years ago. But I’ve changed. I love it, you know, because once a song is waxed, it is unchanging. Yet we’ve all heard songs we’ve hated, only to rehear later and love. We’ve all loved songs and grown tired of them until months later, years later, we hear it again and suddenly we go back in time and appreciate how much we’ve changed (or how little.) I don’t watch home movies, I don’t take pictures, I listen to music.
To LPs
Starting with my dad’s copy of The Game, I collected LPs. As analog technology, in an age where digital has gone crazy, I can’t stress enough, the uncompressed full LPs sound better; they have much richer album art and lower prices. And, hey, LPs are way cooler. Anyone wanting to enter the realm of music snobbery, a turntable is certainly a necessity. But most importantly, LPs add a physical connection to music listening: pushing play on an iPod is in no way similar to placing a needle on an LP.
The first LP I bought after moving to Ann Arbor was Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. As Layla become a chapter of my life (my first weeks at college,) it occurred to me that this was somebody’s. I imagined someone coming home from the record store thirty years ago with a brand new LP playing it while getting over a break-up, or entertaining guests, or learning the riff from “Layla” on guitar. LPs are very much pieces of the past, and the pops and noise, remnants of each play, and integral parts of the LP aesthetic, transform the art of the music into a product of the listener. Mp3’s, collections of ones and naughts, can never be destroyed, but LPs wear out, turning music almost into an auto destructive art form. An LP is like if everyone who visited the statue of David in Florence took a small chip of marble home with them. Granted, those non-breakable LPs are more fragile, but that just puts more importance on every spin.
Blog Post
The impending death of the used bookseller
by remnil
provocative article on Entrepreneur.com recently profiled several industries on the verge of extinction. Among the condemned: record stores, newspapers, and used bookstores.
As the article notes, newspapers aren't really going to die; they're just going to change. But what about those book and record stores? It would perhaps be more accurate to say that and record stores are under threat. Sure, a few widely successful independents will remain. But even iconic independents are finding it harder to stay open.
What do you think? Are independent book and record stores disappearing? Should we even care, in the age of the long tail thrift and accessibility of Amazon and Barnes & Noble? Or will such stores simply adapt like their allegedly-doomed newspaper brethren?
Blog Post
Why Is The World In Love Again
by John J. Madonna
They Might Be Giants may only be two guys named John, a guitarist and an accordioner, but the music that they produce is something else. The lyrics—funny, tragic, weird, poetic, meaningless—are backdropped by consciously bizarre, irresistibly catchy, and off the wall rocking music. After twenty years, they have but two gold albums to their names, a few minor hit singles. They’ve made serious records, kids records, TV themes (Malcolm In The Middle, The Daily Show,) and unique music videos. And I am happy to say (now that I have my ticket) that They Might Be Giants are coming here to the Michigan Theatre, November 14th.
TMBG’s first records from the late 80’s, their eponymous record and Lincoln, epitomize the quirky musicianship with which TMBG has made their name, featuring prominent, rocking accordion, computer effects care of Apple IIe’s, tongue-in-cheek drum machines, and the oddly charming vocals of the two Johns. After minor success with their first records, Elektra signed them and released Flood. Not their best work, but it became their most popular, featuring a cover of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and “Birdhouse In Your Soul,” which may be the greatest song ever made.
Everything thing was turning up roses for TMBG. They played on Carson, Flood went gold… but along came grunge. Grunge destroyed hair metal, synth pop, and everything bad about the 80s. Unfortunately, it destroyed everything good about the 80s, too, like the diverse alternative scene including TMBG. Flood’s follow-up, Apollo 18 did not sell nearly as well. So they expanded their sound by adding a band of Dans, going for a more straight ahead rock motif. While records like John Henry and Factory Showroom don’t get the praises of the earlier records, they still contain the unmistakable sound.
They Might Be Giants made the gigantic documentary Gigantic, highlighting their meteoric rise to… kind of fame. In it, we see a pair of guys excited about their fiercely devoted cult following. I have had the privilege of seeing TMBG twice in my life. Once during their tour of Borders Book Stores across the nation to promote Here Come The ABCs, and I saw them again at the Majestic in Detroit, when they did probably the best show I’ve ever seen (maybe a close second to Dylan.) They closed with “Fingertips.” That knocked me out.