CitizenTed

We're the fucking Beatles, godammit!

Some say they’re the greatest musical group of all time. Some say their body of work comprises the best songwriting of the 20th century. Some say they defined an entire generation. Who are they?

The fucking Beatles, of course. I mean, didn’t you read the post title? Jesus. Keep up, willya?

I have a deep-love, deep-hate relationship with the fucking Beatles.  The deep-love is derived from my youth; by the time I was able to discern real music from television sing-songs, the fucking Beatles became my #1. It wasn’t because they were famous or popular. It was their dolphin-like harmonies that grabbed my soft-skulled mind. Couple that with the head-bopping lilt of their infectious rhythms (punctuated with well-choreographed guitar strums to add some drama) and you have gold vinyl.

To this day, there are some fucking Beatles songs that I consider profound and timeless.

Adoring us isn't optional!

Yes, everyone has their favorite fucking Beatles songs. But you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who likes all – or even most – of their output. Let’s face it: even the fucking Beatles themselves had some serious qualms with some of their stuff.

That said, it’s awfully easy to sit here on a 21st century perch and dismiss the music of the fucking Beatles. Nonetheless, I intend to do just that.

Being a man of Science, I plan to critique the Beatles reductively. Without further ado…

1962 Please Please Me

The early fucking Beatles were raw, raucous and sensational live.  The recording industry’s job was to take all that energy and dilute it for public consumption. In that, they were triumphant. Despite this record’s blockbuster appeal, its actual content of dance-hall rock n’ roll standards and “composed to fit” original hit songs is an embarrassment. Nostalgic vinyl hipsters may swoon over the tube-compressed sound of “A Taste of Honey”, but the rest of us find it dated and boring. Grade: F.

1963 With the Fucking Beatles

Shooting to fame and wealth gave the fucking Beatles a bit more leverage and 1963′s “With the Fucking Beatles” gave the boys a bit more input on the album. Though sonically similar to the first record, this record bristles with some of the energy Lennon wanted to express. Sadly, the album itself is mediocre. The fucking Beatles were leading a trend that they were, in fact, behind. This record couldn’t hold a candle to some of the innovative sounds being wrought elsewhere in the early 1960′s, not to mention the output of some of their rock n’ roll influences who had held over from the 1950′s.  Grade: F.

1964 A Hard Day's Night

Now firmly ensconced as the Biggest Thing Ever, the fucking Beatles took control in 1964. To their credit, this album shows that the fucking Beatles could innovate. A perusal of the cuts on this record shows a slow evolution from dance-hall standards to the expression of something wholly original. This is the album of toe-tapping ankle boots and mop tops that declared a new day dawning. Most of the cuts are pure crap, but the slow-dance “If I Fell” shows the band was capable of tight, sparse composition with an emotional tug. Sadly, any value wrung from this record was tainted by the asinine film that accompanied it. Grade: D.

1964 Fucking Beatles for Sale

This album title is ironic, for the previous records were cynical marketing tools while this one made a valiant effort to do something musically interesting. Songs like “No Reply”, “I’m a Loser” and the very Who-like “Every Little Thing” showed a band describing its environment. England emerging from post-war austerity was a place of low morale. Its youth yearned for something newer and bigger and brighter, and their comparatively trivial travails (broken hearts, loneliness, etc) and desire for more (sex, fun, frivolity) were honored in this record. Nonetheless, there’s a nagging reliance on the ole’ dance hall standards. The umbilical cord is still clearly attached. Grade: D.

1965 Help!

This is the record that “Fucking Beatles for Sale” should have been. I’m gonna be fair and dismiss the awful film associated with this record, but even rating this album on its merits can only be done in light of the contemporary music of the time. And this album still reeks of the 1950′s dance hall umbilical cord. Well-composed nuggets like “I Need You” and “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and the inexplicably mature “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” are shat on by drivel like “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” and “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl”. Perhaps most horrifically, the one song that from this album that rings through the ages is “Yesterday”, a sappy dollop of syrup that makes me puke bile . Christ, I hate that fucking song. I know I’m losing you guys now, but I don’t care. Grade D.

1965 Rubber Soul

Thank God, the fucking Beatles finally discover psychedelic drugs! Leaving the crutches of crappy rock n’ roll behind, the Fab Fucking Four can finally stand on their own eight feet. This album is dotted with songs that actually sound like they were composed by some guys who thought hard about life, love, stress and longing. “Norwegian Wood” is, for its time, one of the best descriptions of the loosening sexual mores of the times (and their consequences) ever written. Sure, the album is still plagued with trifles like “Drive My Car”, but one can detect a hypnotic drone adding some sonic breadth to the “fucking Beatles sound”. Witness “Think for Yourself”. Ringo’s disposable “What Goes On” should have been binned or sold to The Who.  Grade: C.

1966 Revolver

The fucking Beatles come to fruition in 1966. This is the first album where George Martin pretty much took over control, and what he considered a “light touch” sometimes resulted in some oafish arrangements, but overall it was a record that reflected the changing zeitgeist with verve and precision. Typically fucking Beatlesy fluff like “And Your Bird Can Sing” were lathered in layers of swirling guitar. We can smirk about the shameless Eastern psychedelic expositions “She Said She Said” and “Tomorrow Never Knows”, but this stuff was defining a new sound brilliantly. So suck it. Sadly, Paul just couldn’t help buttering up the sandwich with crap like “Good Day Sunshine” and the execrable “Got to Get You Into My Life” (a George Martin abortion if ever there was one). He makes up for it by penning what was probably his best fucking Beatles effort “For No One”. Grade: B.

1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Mountains have been written about this record. It’s been called “watershed” and “breakthrough” and all kinds of crap. In reality, this album is George Martin jizzing all over the place. I can applaud the band’s desire to shed its screaming-teen reputation and do something truly epic, but this record is far too hit-and-miss for consideration as a watershed event. Here’s where I really piss off the readership: this record had promise but was littered with effluvia. Specifically, the stilted title track, its awful reprise, “Lovely Rita”, and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” are giant balls of suck that weigh this record down. Fortunately, Lennon once again saves the day with a truly brilliant, off-kilter masterpiece called “A Day in the Life”. That song is clear evidence that George Martin can be harnessed for good as well as evil. And once again, McCartney drops a turd in the punchbowl with “When I’m Sixty-Four”. Grade: C.

1967 Magical Mystery Tour

Oh, man. I could really unload a can of whoop-ass on this record, but my own nostalgia stays my hand. Once again, I’m going to give them a pass on the awful film tie-in to this record and judge the album on its musical merits. And there are a  few: the absurd instrumental “Flying” is a charming bit of silliness. “Blue Jay Way” is an wonderfully creepy sludge of filters and flangers, slugging forward on the low notes of a lugubrious cello. Lennon’s equally dark “I Am the Walrus” featured some startling use of studio trickery to create an abstract whole from a set of mismatched melodies. I won’t acknowledge the idiotic theories regarding this song. So STFU. The rest of the record is an awful face-slapping of mediocre McCartney middens. If Paul wasn’t dead at this point, somebody should have actually killed him. “Hello, Goodbye” and “Penny Lane” are the stuff of nightmares. Grade: D.

1968 "The White Album"

By 1968, Lennon had found Yoko and decided to jettison the cutesy crap in favor of artistic endeavors. McCartney was dragged kicking and screaming into Lennon’s vision, leaving the other two fucking Beatles feeling quite uneasy. This double-record set is clearly a mish-mash of solo tunes by each of the bandmates, held together by George Martin’s increasingly frustrated hand. As a result, while thoroughly modern and maybe even bold, the death of the toe-tapping ankle boots that hung their earlier works together was costly. Fortunately for us listeners, this means we can pick and choose some truly great songs from the minefield of dog crap. Lennon’s angry steel rage shines through (“Glass Onion”, “I’m So Tired”, “Yer Blues”), Harrison asserts himself with some timeless bits of songcraft (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Savoy Truffle”) while McCartney continues fucking that chicken (“Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da”, “Rocky Raccoon”, “Honey Pie”) and Ringo just doesn’t give a shit anymore (“Don’t Pass Me By”, “Goodnight”). 1968 was a year of tremendous forward movement in modern music, and despite its abstract sheen, The White Album is nowhere near as innovative and inspiring as output from Hendrix, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and dare I say: The Doors! Grade: B.

1969 The Yellow Submarine

When I was a little kid, I loved this album and I adored the film. But like many things, when you become an adult you put away childish things. Particularly crap like this shitty album. Harrison comes to the rescue with “Only a Northern Song”, and “Hey Bulldog” is a powerful song that probably belonged on The White Album. But nothing can save this record. Nothing. Grade: F.

1969 Abbey Road

George Martin needed to rally the troops after the Yellow Submarine was flushed down the toilet of disposable pop culture. He wanted the cohesion that was absent on The White Album. He wanted the fucking Beatles back. What he got was a fully disinterested John Lennon and a Paul McCartney who enjoys penning garbage. As Lennon watched on with cynical amusement, Martin cobbled together another incoherent mess of solo songs, running together Side Two of the record as a “concept”. Once gain, Harrison stepped up to the plate with the smooth, timeless “Something”. Then, on cue, McCartney dropped his pants and wiped “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Oh, Darling” onto the tapestry of popular music. Not to be out-done, Ringo chimed in with what may be the worst song ever recorded, “Octopus’s Garden”. What was a sad laugh for Lennon, a failed gambit for George Martin and an exercise in wankery for the rest of the band has become a time-honored classic in the fucking Beatles discography. Grade: F.

1970 Let It Be

At this point, the fucking Beatles were done. But for some reason ($$$) Apple Records decided to cobble together this godawful menagerie of terrible songs. Search high and low; every track sucks donkey balls. The only thing that could make this album worse would be the inclusion of “Hey Jude”, a single release that is so heinous, so terrible, so irredeemably shitty, that most people would rather throw themelves out of a window than endure one more fucking “na na na na-na-na-naaaa” from that irritating exaltation of Satan’s dominion on Earth. The fucking Beatles went out not with a bang, but a simper. Grade: F.

As you can see, while the fucking Beatles remain in the forefront of popular music history, their actual output was pretty damn dismal. This is sad, because they had a lot to offer: humor, style, talent and what became a unique presentation.  The fucking Beatles had a tremendously attractive ambiance. From their trend-setting hair styles to their jangly guitar strums, they could have been something truly moving, though perhaps ephemeral.

Lennon loved loud, sweaty dance hall rock n’ roll. Who can blame him? But when the dance halls closed, he decided to become an artist. George turned to weird religion and hypnotic Eastern sounds. Paul (to paraphrase Yoko) spent the balance of his life rhyming June with Moon. And Ringo? I have no fucking idea what Ringo is about.

Feel free to vent your spleen in the comments section.

Who can forget America's sweetheart?

Back in 2004, a young heartbreaker named Lynndie England became world famous for photos of her humiliating and torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

The Abu Ghraib photos shone a light on American policy regarding “enhanced interrogation techniques”. We have always portrayed ourselves as the Good Guys, the shining light of Liberty in a dark world of oppressive governments and gulag nightmares. These photos made it quite clear that we had joined the ranks of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and wartime Japan as employers of cruelty and barbarity.

The whole world hated Lynndie England. But I didn’t.

I didn’t see a heartless monster. I saw a stupid girl doing exactly what her superiors demanded. And that Chain of Cruel Command went all the way up to Dick Cheney and George Bush.

A-ten...HUT!

Let’s look at some facts:

- Barbaric abuse of prisoners was going on at Abu Ghraib long before Lynndie England got there;
- She was neither a trained guard nor an MI expert – she was a volunteer reservist.
- She was a low-level administrator at Abu Ghraib, not a jailer. It was Graner who convinced her to “join in the fun”;
- The staff all admitted that the inhumane treatment was conducted on orders from above – the CIA and the Army.

The “just following orders” defense is a murky subject. To some degree, it’s  valid defense. Should we blame rank-and-file guards at the gulags for Stalin’s homicidal purges? On the other hand is the assertion that if Stalin’s gulag guards had disobeyed orders and made a big public stink, that maybe the pogroms would have ceased earlier.

If a gulag is a gulag, is a despot a despot?

It may be true that refusing to obey barbaric orders is an admirable stance, but the “we’re all stewards of ethical behavior” maxim is easy to espouse when it isn’t your career, your body and your family that are at risk.

So, is Lynndie England a calculating, diabolical witch or a just a stupid little twat?

My vote is the latter.

If she, Graner and the others are morally culpable, then Cheney etal. should serve life in prison. But he won’t. There’s a saying in the military: “Shit rolls downhill”. Rank-and-file soldiers have been eating the shit from generals and kings since the Sumerian wars 4500 years ago. Leaders were responsible for victories while “poor morale” was responsible for defeats.

That leaves us with little Lynndie England, unwitting wingman for an administration that tossed her onto the scrapheap without one iota of regret.

Another stooge in the vaudeville of war.

Many years ago, I visited a parody site from a guy named M. Spaff Sumsion. See it here. I thought ole’ Spaff was pretty funny. One of his songs was “Everyone Knows It’s Lynndie”, sung to the tune of The Association’s Everyone Knows It’s Windy. I thought it was freaking hilarious and I asked Spaff for permission to score it, which he granted.

His link to my music is down (fixed soon, I hope) so I decided to embed it here along with a link to his lyrics page.

And so, without further ado…

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Lyrics found here.

If my audio link fails to work, please try another browser; Firefox is behaving badly.

Musical taste is subjective.

I like what I like. When it comes to music, I get pretty damn picky about it.  The music I like thrills me, moves me, transports me. The music I dislike drives me utterly bonkers.

I can sit through a crappy film or lousy play. I’ll even finish a book that I find a bit boring. But bad music? I’d kick a speaker to smithereens if I had to. That said, I try to refrain from criticizing the musical tastes of my peer group. I learned long ago that people who vehemently trash a musical act are loathe to declare their love for an alternative choice. It opens them up to criticism from the same punters they just insulted.

In today’s post, I want to talk about the music I like and why I like it. We’ll not tarry on music I dislike.

Here’s a run-down of my favorite musical acts at various points in my life:

Age 4-8:
The Banana Splits, shown to the right. Sewn together by Sid and Marty Kroft, the Splits were a  shameless, manufactured bit of TV music appropriation. And I loved them. I even got a six-wheeled Banana Splits car by sending in umpteen boxtops of breakfast cereal. Oddly enough, the Banana Splits had a slightly psychedelic twinge to their songs – many of them written by Al Kooper, Barry White and Gene Pitney.

At this time (the early 1970′s) I also enjoyed the Monkees, who were a more polished version of the Banana Splits.  The Monkees found worldwide acclaim, mostly because they actually played their instruments.

Age 9-12:

When I was 9, my parents bestowed on me a red transistor radio with which I could tune in WABC New York. This meant I had direct access to Elton John, the Bay City Rollers, the Bee Gees and John Denver.

By 1975, I discovered the joys of FM radio and everything changed. Not only did I pass through puberty, but music grew up with me. Gone were the pop sounds of AM radio, replaced with the AOR of Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.

In addition to these current acts, AOR radio replayed the Beatles, the Kinks, David Bowie and the Grateful Dead. WNEW-FM was something that modern radio listeners couldn’t imagine: a 24-hour museum of music where the DJ’s actually spun their own beloved music and told tales to hold the narrative together. We would actually tune in to WNEW to hear a specific DJ. Can you imagine?

Age 13-16:

Ah, teenage dope music.

When I was 13, we moved.  My new friends introduced me to new things. Among them was marijuana and psychedelic music. We would smoke ourselves stupid and blast druggie music at unspeakable volumes. These experiences changed my life.

These early experiences with music and drugs created a synesthesia similar to that of Moses on the mount, Jesus in the desert, Ghandi at the spinning wheel or Popeye on a spinach binge. If you’ve never experienced Pink Floyd’s early records with your mind painting pictures of the sounds within and without your head, you just haven’t had a very close affinity with music.

I discovered what makes a symphony conductor’s brow knit tightly as he commands a surge of violins. I unraveled the existential ribbons that formed in Mozart’s mind. I flew over rushing ground on wings of soaring guitars. I have not just heard Jimi Hendrix’s guitar,  I have seen it express itself as clearly and poignantly as a human voice. Poetry in tone and timbre.

With psychedelic music, I was floating downstream on my back while above me the sun strobed between the leaves of a forest canopy. From the shimmering walls of Black Sabbath metal to the dancing, multi-dimensional colored sprites of Pink Floyd were new worlds that only I could see.

This was something I had to explore.

Age 17-21

Becoming an adult, I graduated to a higher level. I still enjoyed all my druggie bands, but I needed to climb the ladder a rung or two. My brother Henry had introduced me to prog rock and by this time I had embraced it all.

Robert Fripp, scientist.

Early King Crimson fits well into psychedelia, but it offered some things that Pink Floyd lacked: lyrical depth and musical sophistication. I quickly assimilated the entire King Crimson library and committed every movement to memory.

Prog rock was the pinnacle of rock expression, daring to compose and conceive rather than just rock and roll. (It was also something of a sausage fest; prog fandom was a nerdy enterprise.)

Undeterred by the fact that girls had no interest in this music, my insatiable appetite for ever grander psychedelic music experiences found me wallowing in heaps of Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, ELP and Oldfield.

Despite the transition to a more symphonic milieu, I was still being moved by a singular aspect of this music: its ability to hypnotize and mesmerize. At this point, I had all but jettisoned any interest in “rock n’ roll” and its extreme conclusion, punk rock.

Oh, I appreciated punk rock for what it was and what they were doing. I just couldn’t sit still for four sloppy punks ramming their instruments in 4/4 and screaming into a microphone about how stupid society is. It’s kind of like silly performance art: yes, very nice, lovely. NEXT!

Age 22-28

During the mid-late 1980′s, there was no music worth mentioning.

Age 29-38

As the 90′s dawned, something important happened. Below the surface of the “grunge” movement, a bold new school of songwriters tossed out the playbook. Standing on the shoulders of giants, they looked back at the devastation wrought by the 1980′s and, from this great perch, saw even farther back.

From Bachelor Lounge to Neo-Traditional to “college rock”, this new generation started creating some truly amazing music. From the reborn 60′s retro sounds of Pizzicato 5 and Love Jones to the dark, serious, hypnotic sounds of Brad, Versus, and Codeine, borrowed atmospheres were given new life.

Japan's Pizzicato 5

Portland's Elliott Smith

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What do these two acts have in common? Nothing. And everything. Continents apart, they decided that what was cool wasn’t good enough and there was no shame in re-imagining the bygone music they loved. Rather than join the queues of punks, grunge rockers, nu metalers and pop tards, they proved that what was old can be so new that it’s cutting edge. And they didn’t have to be shamelessly derivative or sell their souls to do it.

In this galaxy of sounds, psychedelia wasn’t left behind. Sky Cries Mary, The Posies and My Bloody Valentine brought audiences to a state of bliss. But right around the corner, something even more wonderful was brewing…

The Present

Throughout the 90′s, electronic music exploded. Most of the new trends were born in Britain, but soon the whole world danced (and pop stars pranced) to computer-generated music. The worst of it was canned techno, which reigns supreme to this day. The best of it was a careful marriage of melodic analog songwriting and electronic instruments. This is the world of “trip hop”, or, as I prefer it, “Chill”.

Portishead

Born in the 1990′s and continuing today, Chill is a wonderful mix of psychedelia, electronica and plain old crafty songwriting.

Sucked in by Massive Attack and Portishead, the Internet offered me infinite paths to more of what I desired. But my journey was surely guided by Portishead.

Singer Beth Gibbons and musicians Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley created a new world of deft, understated atmospheres. At times, the music hearkened all the way back to pre-war European cabaret, while at other times it tipped its hat to 1960′s Brit Pop. Then again, it could be eerie and dark just for the sake of it.

Living in America, I found myself behind the curve with Chill Beats. I hadn’t discovered Hooverphonic until 2002. Shocking! Via the wonderful resource of somafm, I dove into this new genre of music that had everything I desired: hypnotic sounds, thoughtful lyrics and sophisticated songwriting.

But more importantly, I discovered an amazing fact: this is the perfect music for MAKIN’ LOVE!

It all happened by accident. I had a lady friend over for dinner. We had some wine, then fell into bed. I left somafm playing on my PC and as the night went on, we found moment after special moment playing out to a soundtrack that matched our intimacy perfectly. This was the holy grail of music! You can dance to techno, you can drink to rockabilly and you can drive to death metal. But when you want to make sweet love to that special somebody, Chill is the only way to go.

I challenge you, dear reader, to set your browser to somafm and click on Lush or Groove Salad. Then lure your honey to bed and let Lamb, Zero7, Ivy, Flunk and a snowstorm of other Chilly acts narrate your way to ecstasy. If this stuff fails to set the mood, I’ll send you $5. What I can’t send you is a BEATING HEART.

Final Words

This very long post was meant to describe my personal tastes in music. Most of all, I wanted to discuss the common thread: psychedelia. The word has been bruised by jam bands and stale 60′s numbers, but through it all, the dreamy, unearthly quality of psychedelia that I’ve found in everything from Pink Floyd to Hooverphonic has a deep connection to two things: our Universe and ourselves.

Hypnotic music is present in tribal drums, Indian sitars, Scottish bagpipes, Beethoven’s rounds and Hendrix’s arpeggios. When we play or listen to mesmerizing music, we transcend the banal and enter a higher place. We experience  the same chilling wonder astronomers feel when marveling at distant nebulae. We imagine mountains of color and beauty. It produces an aesthetic stirring in our hearts that we just don’t get from “rocking out” or banging our heads. It’s simultaneously earthly an other-worldly. It echoes the past and describes our deepest emotional attachments.

That’s the music I like.

On June 25th, a great American songwriter/performer passed away unexpectedly. He was a clever man with a dedicated cadre of fans who watched his career with admiration, from the 1960′s to the present.

I am talking, of course, about Sky Saxon.

This was a man who pioneered something that rock music sorely needed: humility. Rather than elevate himself and his music above reality and above his audience, he stripped everything down. With his feet planted on the terra firma, Sky Saxon raised a rebellious fist. But his rebellion was not against Mom & Dad or against The Man. It was against the pretension of superstardom.

Sky Saxon was the progenitor of Garage Rock. Some credit him with inventing 60′s Punk, which laid the foundation for all the punk rock to follow. His band, The Seeds, became a seminal influence on hundreds of acts that followed.

Now, you may look at some YouTube videos of his early work with The Seeds and conclude, “This guy is just another hippie riding the wave of 60′s psychedelia dreck!” But you’d be wrong. Sky Saxon loved psychedelic music, but he understood the value of accessibility. Where Pink Floyd blasted listeners into outer space and Yes conjured fantastic worlds of druggy weirdness, Sky wanted people to simply GROOVE.

It was Sky Saxon who brought us back down to Earth. He showed us that rock music can be raw and sparse and still pack a wallop big enough to change your outlook on life. Like most unconventional people, Sky was something of an enigma. His music was straight-ahead, stripped-down Garage Rock, but his personal life and beliefs were a feathery gauze of eclectic Eastern mysticism and transcendental weirdness. There were two Sky’s, and in all likelihood myriad Sky’s.

On June 25th, Sky Saxon died. He was 63 years old.

In what is a typical turn of events, the passing of this great man was overshadowed by the passing of a man whose music and persona were diametrically opposed to Sky Saxon. Sky Saxon wasn’t just a performer; he was a member of his audience. Michael Jackson, on the other hand, rarely if ever even talked to his audience. He was always above them, remote and inaccessible.

Not only was Sky Saxon accessible, he started a movement in rock music that required the shedding of such pretensions. He will be missed.

Michael Jackson? Please.

Henk Lubberding's latest folk-rock opus.

Behold the latest CD from Henk Lubberding. Henk’s soulful, environmentally-conscious music has touched thousands of people, and now his latest album is ready for your pine-floored livingroom. Henk covers everything from traditional bluegrass at a folksy tempo to melancholic guitar songs with a message. Lovers of Gordon Lightfoot or Tom Paxton will feel right at home as Henk invites y’all to a walk in the wilderness.

Ah, I’m just pullin’ yer leg.

Henk Lubberding doesn’t exist, and if he did exist his album would suck ass. This album cover is an exercise in random generation. Here’s what you do:

Get a band name by grabbing the subject title of a random link on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Don’t be shy! Your random link is PERFECT. You just don’t know it yet.

Then, get an album title by paraphrasing from this random quote webpage:
http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
Now you need to do some thinking! Find a section, clause or entire quote that best fits the genre that’s forming in your head.

And now, art! Off to Flickr with you!
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days

There you go.  Ten minutes in Photoshop and you now have something that would have cost you $5,000 if you had signed with Sony.  There is nothing that some twenty-something graphic “artist” twat in a high-rise can do that you can’t do yourself. Furthermore, you can record and mix your own music as well.

What you DO need, however, is a talented person to master your tracks. Giving $500 to someone with a good ear and nice equipment is a smart investment. Dupe you mastered tracks onto CD’s. Then, fire up your MySpace, give away MP3′s for free, sell your CD at shows and perform perform PERFORM!

If you are any good, you will make a living making music. More importantly, you’ll be doing it on your own terms without some bean-counting suit telling you to tone down the cowbell. Fuck those guys. Fuck the labels.

The future is here, people. Dive in.

Don’t believe me? Then suck on THIS:

Ramelton's sophomore effort "Drama is Life".

The second album from Bay Area Dark-Metal quintet Ramelton is the newly-minted Drama is Life. Smashing their way through the rubble of contemporary culture, Ramelton have finally come of age. This album combines the furor of their maiden effort “Wait for Them to Self-Destruct” with a new sensibility that infuses analog synthesizer sounds with a trembling wall of heavy guitars. Vocalist Ray Olins rips open the assault with the opening track “Insania” and refuses to give way until the somber, bass-heavy track “Defensive”. This album is a must-buy for fans and should be on the list of anyone interested in modern, heavy music.

Arcadia's "The Chance of Living"

Fresh from a North American tour, Liverpool trip-hop duo Arcadia have released their latest EP, The Chance of Living. Mixing straight-up beats with a galaxy of carefully-tweaked aerial envelopes, Arcadia weaves their usual web of 60′s retro and Mersey electronic chill. Guesting on this 5-cut diamond are vocalists Kate McAllister and French siren Dominique Cotillard. The standout track is clearly Never Fail, with Cotillard’s angelic voice rising and falling on the gentle sea of Arcadia’s smooth, dreamy beats. That song alone is worth the price of admission.

Well, there you go. I just manufactured three worthy album names and cover art (with inside cover review) in about 30 minutes at a total cost of $0.00.

Obviously, there is more to it. But this exercise shows that you don’t need to entrust the look and feel of your band to some dork who spent 12 months studying graphic art in community college. Granted, you can’t just lift cover art from Flickr. It’s bad form. Instead, you can either snap your own photo, create your own scribblings or run off to sxc.hu and ask nicely to nick someone else’s hard work.

With that off your plate, you can concentrate on making great music. And that’s important, because your band really sucks.

Sex and drugs but no rock n’ roll.

I like electronic music. Actually, I like some electronic music. I’m a big fan of the European Chill sound, as well the updated Lounge sound of Europe and the US. I like music that is smoldering, lyrical, melodious and hypnotizing.

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.I’ve been to plenty of clubs and raves. I understand the appeal, even though I don’t dig the scene. It’s a tribal thing. They know the music is canned and repetitive. The DJ’s are gesturing alpha’s with headphones whose musical skills are supplanted by programming skills. The club kids themselves just wanna dance. There’s no musical integrity to be found. But it’s THEIR thing. Older adults, music critics and naysayers can go fuck themselves, because the ravers are having fun. In its own way, this attitude is more rock n’ roll than rock n’ roll.

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I can dig it, even though I don’t like it.

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Thus, this 40-something musical snob found himself volunteering to VJ at a local rave. My company manufactures high end video gear, so I have access to all kinds of cool toys. A local promoter is a friend of mine, so I volunteered my services as a VJ. Why not? I own earplugs.

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I prepared a massive arsenal of content and loaded it into cutting-edge visualization gear. There would be abstract eye-candy, of course. But I also built up some narrative sequences: apocalyptic imagery, sensual imagery and even a complete narrative about the joy of journey and the relief of return. Would it be lost on the club kids? Probably. But I I had to go beyond eye candy.

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This is VJ Culture (Grant Davis), a VJ superstar at work.

At the show, I was bummed to find they only had a mediocre projector and a bare wall for a screen. Not optimal. But the show must go on. I did my thing and had some fun. The kids seemed to like it. When I went outside for some air, not one but TWO local promoters approached me. “Dude! Your visuals RULE! Holy shit! Can you work my party? Here’s a card. Got a card? Oh, man. We really NEED you!”

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Ah, sweet victory! They love me! They really do!

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But yea, the honor is dubious. Ask any VJ: there’s a lot of work and no money in it. Unless you go corporate, you’ll never live off earnings from VJing. The DJ is the star and you are the window dressing. Learn your place. Maggot.

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So I won’t become a big VJ. I am, however soliciting names. Email me with your choices. “VJ Ted” and VJ Retard” are already taken, just so you know.

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Before I go, I leave you with some samples of the kind of electronic music I truly adore: Chill. As you listen to it, try to imagine making love with your sweetie. It’s music made for fucking (languid and sweet), but it’s also melodious and hypnotic; it stands on its own.

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Hooverphonic \”2Wicky\”

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Zero7 \”Home\”

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Morcheeba \”Moog Island\”

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