January 30, 1969

Today is the anniversary of the Beatles last performance. This is one of those moments in time that I have always wanted to witness. It was less than 7 months before I was born, so I lived my whole childhood as a fan of a band that I knew I would never see perform, despite Lorne Michaels' attractive offer.

I got to thinking last night that Let It Be might actually be my favorite Beatles album. I remember listening to it on vinyl in King Me's family room, on his dad's awesome audiophile sound system. It had a looseness and a tightness at the same time. It combined live takes with studio overdubs and Phil Spector sheen.

Despite what it said about the end of the Beatles (I Me Mine), Let It Be was a window into the jovial atmosphere of the Beatles' working process. Long before the Anthology collection inundated us with between-take Beatle chatter and unfinished experiments, Let It Be drew back the curtain on how fun it must have been, at times, to be in this band.

Then there were songs drenched in camaraderie: Two of Us, I've Got a Feeling, Maggie Mae, Dig It -- songs that were not products of individuals working separately (so prevalent on the White Album), but true mic-sharing group efforts, songs that needed each Beatle at his peak powers to forge those infectiously fun and groovy jams.

Let It Be completes a picture of the Beatles that started to form with A Hard Day's Night. I desperately wanted to be part of a band like this.

While I love Sgt. Pepper and Revolver, and regard them as pop masterpieces, it's the elements of reality poking through Spector's production of Let It Be that really endeared the Beatles to me, and gave me a vision of working and playing in the studio and on stage with my best friends.

The more recent remix, Let It Be...Naked, serves to draw back that curtain even further, to reveal what Spector tried to gloss over. While this is a welcome and essential addition to the Beatle catalog, it cannot diminish the deep impact of the original record on kids like me, who knew that the Beatles were gone, but reveled in the dream of a band whose internal struggles did nothing to diminish the fantastic music that swirled and flowed and still endures.

Note

Nick brought home this note, which he wrote to us while in school.

A Poem

Today I happened upon this poem, written in 1937 about an English industrial town by John Betjeman. The first line clearly inspired Morrissey, though Slough is not a seaside town. It is also the original setting of the TV series The Office. I was just delighted to read another voice calling for the destruction of the machine. This poem would make for good song lyrics. The photo above is of a fire at a Slough plastics recycling company in 1996.


Slough

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

Bad Album Names

Because I loved Bruce's 2007 album Magic, I have been looking forward to hearing his next album. I think you can tell a lot about an artist by how they transition between works. A single great album is not nearly as interesting as a string of them, or a string of contrasting albums, whether strong to weak or demonstrating a variety of styles.

Working on a Dream is to be released next Tuesday. And I have to say that my enthusiasm is somewhat diminished by this title. Let's face it, this is a lame album title. It's trite as well as unimaginative. It evokes exactly the opposite emotion that is implied by the words; it doesn't feel like the title was the focus of much "work."

How many other good albums out there have really bad titles? Here's a few off the top of my head:

Nirvana, In Utero. Maybe this would be a good title for a demos collection, but you and your songs are no longer "in utero" when you're following up your #1 smash. Plus, this title was probably chosen in an effort to evoke the goriest aspects of childbirth as depicted on the back cover. What is this fascination with gore?

Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Really, guys? Really?

Fiona Apple, WHEN THE PAWN hits the conflicts he thinks like a king / What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight / And he'll win the whole thing before he enters the ring / There's no body to batter when your mind is your might / So when you go solo, you hold your own hand / And remember that depth is the greatest of heights / And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land / And if you fall it won't matter, cuz you'll know that you're right. Um, get over yourself.

U2, All That You Can't Leave Behind. Even though it's a lyric from a song on the album, this sounds pretentious, even for U2.


Liz Phair, whitechocolatespaceegg. Hey Liz, they're called spaces. Try 'em.

Miracle Legion, Drenched. An uninspired title for a wildly eclectic and beautifully produced album.

Ani DiFranco, Up Up Up Up Up Up. What's better than an idea? Six of them!

Plus, any album named for a song on that album. This is just lame. Put a little thought into it, please.

Can you think of any other good albums with bad titles?

Let the Prosecutions Begin

He has confessed to authorizing torture. Now he needs to be arrested and tried for the crime he admits to committing. Anything less, and we repeat the mistakes of the past, and doom ourselves to the same results.

Guitar Zero

When I own my own music store, this will be the first poster I put in the window.

Hey, let's talk stimulus

Two fingers in, via Gawker. Instant classic.

The Boat That I Row

Here is a new recording, just finished yesterday. It's a cover of a very early Neil Diamond song. The stated goal was to create a "Postal Service" version. Kim sings the lead vocal, and the backing vocals are Kim and Darcey. The drums were programmed using Dr. Groove. All of the synth parts were performed using the Dr. Groove as a controller with the Roland D2 as a sound bank. No synth parts were programmed. There's a bit of the Thomas organ in the low end. The water-drumming loop is a sample from The Big Bang box set of percussion music.

Listen here:



Download here.

Enjoy!

Best Pop Candy of 2008

Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) performed by Beyonce, written by Thaddis Kuk Harrell, Beyoncé Knowles, Terius Nash and Christopher Stewart. Glitchy loops. Crisp mix. Jazzy vocal. Funky hook. Sweet, sassy fun. What's not to love? (The SNL version is better than the album version, especially the bridge and the ending.)