(empo-caallii) California music? Sons of the Pioneers

Perhaps you missed this story - I put it in my Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog because of the Victorville connection - but the contents of the former Roy Rogers Museum are being sold at auction. Yes, you can buy Trigger.

While Roy Rogers had a multi-faceted career as a movie star, museum owner, and yes, restaurateur - he also had a notable musical career as part of the Sons of the Pioneers.

The West has always had its heros but until the 1930s a distinct type of music was not part of Western lore. The public did not connect any separate genre of music to the West and the cowboy. Starting in the early 1930s the film and radio industry changed all that forever.

From the earliest days of the film industry the cowboy has been a favorite movie subject. Westerns became the bread and butter of most early studios. When musical segments were added to broaden a movie’s interest the “singing cowboy” was born. It created mega stardom for people like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter and Rex Allen. Enter the Sons of the Pioneers in 1934.

The Pioneers were different right from the start. While some screen stars sang traditional sweetheart songs the Pioneers actually sang about the West. The Pioneers' songs painted unforgettable images and stories of horses, cattle, cowboys, “night herds”, tall timber, cool water, canyons and prairies. The songs were original compositions freshly penned by the original members, Bob Nolan, Tim Spencer and Roy Rogers (then known as Leonard Sly). They created a whole new library of music. The group and their music garnered millions of both national and international fans through appearances in over 90 movies, numerous radio shows, major label recording projects and later television appearances.

And yes, the Sons of the Pioneers were a California band, since Roy Rogers (then Leonard Slye) had ended up in Tinseltown, following a familiar Depression route:

Leonard and his father felt imprisoned by their [Ohio] factory jobs. In 1929, his older sister Mary was living at Lawndale, California with her husband. Father and son decided to quit their shoe factory jobs. The family packed their 1923 Dodge for a visit with Mary and stayed four months before returning to Ohio. Almost immediately, Leonard had the opportunity to travel to California with Mary's father-in-law, and the rest of the family followed in the spring of 1930.

The Slyes rented a small house near Mary. Leonard and his father immediately found employment as truck drivers for a highway construction project. They reported to work one morning, however, to learn their employer had gone bankrupt. The economic hardship of the Great Depression had followed them west, and the Slyes soon found themselves among the economic refugees traveling from job to job picking fruit and living in worker campsites. (He would later read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and marvel at its accuracy.) One day Andy Slye heard of a shoe factory hiring in Los Angeles and asked Leonard to join him in applying there for work. Leonard, having seen the joy that his guitar and singing had brought to the destitute around the campfires, hesitantly told his father that he was going to pursue a living in music.

And pursue he did.

While Roy Rogers left the group in 1937, he continued to be associated with the group for years afterwards. The Sons have gone through numerous membership changes, but are still a going concern today. (Yes, another of those forever and ever amen groups.)

One interesting song in the Sons' catalog is "Old Man Atom" - see my FriendFeed thread on this song. The song was written in 1945 on Vern Partlow, but was then recorded by Sam Hinton.

Sam recorded Old Man Atom in 1950 for ABC Eagle, a small independent label.

Influential New York disc jockey Martin Block played the record on his show 'Make Believe Ballroom.' Overwhelming listener response prompted Columbia Records to acquire the rights for national distribution.

From all indications, it promised to be one of the year's biggest novelty records. RCA Victor rush-released a cover version by the Sons of the Pioneers.

Bing Crosby was reportedly ready to record Old Man Atom for Decca when right-wing organizations began attacking Columbia and RCA Victor for releasing a song that reflected a Communist ideology.

Buckling under pressure, both Columbia and RCA Victor withdrew Old Man Atom from distribution.

As Variety said at the time:

Victor has quietly withdrawn its Sons of the Pioneers plattering of “Old Man Atom” off the market. It is reported that RCA top tier execs feel that the lyrics of the novelty stresses capitulation as an ideal to be pursued by US foreign policy in light of present world conflict, with focus, of course, on Korea.

To my knowledge, right-wing groups never protested "Tumbling Tumbleweeds."

(empo-caallii) California music? Vladimir Lande

The Empoprise-MU music blog has looked at a number of California musicians, including some who live in California, some who sing about California, some who died in California, and some who briefly stayed in California before going back east. This post is the story of Vladimir Lande, a musician who grew up outside of California and then went to California.

His biography begins as follows:

Vladimir Lande was born in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia. He graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music with a Master's Degree in Oboe while maintaining studies in conducting and piano. He served as a principal oboist with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra from 1984 until 1989.

In December 1989 Lande immigrated to the United States, and spent some time in Maryland before going to California.

Vladimir Lande works as a principal oboist and soloist with groups such as The Baltimore Opera and Concert Artists of Baltimore. He also worked with the Baltimore, Delaware, Richmond and many other symphony orchestras.

But all of that changed when Lande went to California in September 2003 to become the music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Southern Maryland.

Now you're probably asking why Lande would go to California to direct an orchestra in southern Maryland. The answer is simple - the Chamber Orchestra of Southern Maryland is located in California.

California, Maryland - population about 9,000 (9,307 as of the 2000 census).


View Larger Map

Hey, we all know that there's more than one Los Angeles - why can't there be more than one California?

But there's one similarity to the state of California. The aforementioned chamber orchestra goes by the acronym "COSMIC." Pretty cool.

As for the orchestra itself, here is the program from their last performance:

Beethoven and Bess
Featuring COSMIC Community Chorus
Saturday, May 15, 2010 7:00 PM
Great Mills High School in Great Mills, MD
Sunday, May 16, 2010 4:00 PM
Huntingtown High School in Huntingtown, MD

Leonard Bernstein Mambo from West Side Story

Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1
Featuring Kirsten Taylor

Alexander Borodin Polovtsian Dances
Featuring COSMIC Community Chorus

George Gershwin Porgy and Bess

Lande is also involved with several other orchestras, and is also a member of the Poulenc Trio. But the latter's repertoire does not include any Beach Boys, Eagles, or Tupac - although an oboe/bassoon/piano arrangement of "California Love" sounds intriguing.

(empo-caallii) California music? Ed Crawford (ed fROMOHIO)

I was researching this series of posts, and happened to run across a Wikipedia page entitled Category:Musicians from California. While perusing the list, I noticed Ed Crawford's name on it.

Crawford certainly wasn't born in California, and he certainly doesn't live in California today, but he's definitely associated with California music. But let's allow Mike Watt to tell the tale.

edward blew everyone's mind (including watt's) when he found watt's phone number in the phone book (didn't know you had to pay to be unlisted, do now) and just rang up saying he wanted to come out to cali and play. so in the spring of 1986, edward came to pedro and became ed fROMOHIO.

Watt is known for his economy of words, so let's flesh out a fuller version of the story via Wikipedia:

In 1985, Minutemen vocalist and guitarist D. Boon was killed in a car wreck. In 1986, Ed, a recent Ohio State University graduate and Minutemen fan, found out that Minutemen bassist, Watt, and drummer, Hurley, were not going to continue the group. Ed was determined to motivate them to continue making music and contacted Watt after obtaining his phone number. However, Watt and Hurley were still very much grief stricken over the death of their friend and bandmate. Nonetheless, Crawford traveled all the way from Ohio to San Pedro, California to meet Watt. Crawford was about return to Ohio, when at the last minute, Watt accepted Ed's offer. Along with Hurley, they formed fIREHOSE.

This is probably one of my favorite stories in music - fan shows up and ends up joining a new version of his favorite band. I actually saw fIREHOSE back in the day (at the Green Door in Montclair, if memory serves me correctly), and still have to add "If'n" to the list of CDs that I need to acquire (I used to own it on cassette).

AFter fIREHOSE, Ed Crawford joined Whiskeytown for a time, then ended up in a trio, playing in Pittsburgh.

So while Crawford has left California, his influence is remarkable. I'll let Watt have the last word:

I am forever grateful to edward for getting me back in the saddle and wrestling bass again.

Incidentally, the one song that I remember from "If'n" is "Operation Solitaire." Probably atypical, but certainly melodic.

(empo-caallii) California music? Devo.

Perhaps this story is fairly well known, but I'll share it anyway. Devo is an example of a band who lives in California, but (at least initially) didn't really talk about California.

The geographical information in early Devo records refers to Ohio in general and Akron in particular. The members of Devo were obviously shaped by their years in Ohio, and a few of them were definitely affected by what they witnessed at their school one day - the school being Kent State University. (Scroll down to the bottom of my mrontemp post for the story.)

But Devo eventually left Ohio and moved to California. And boy, did they leave Ohio. By this time Bob Lewis had been edged out of any involvement in the band, and he got some local lawyers to represent him. Devo also retained local lawyers - L.A. lawyers. (No, not her.)

The move to California elicited one major change, as was noted in these 1993 notes from an interview with Gerald Casale:

On the pronunciation of Devo: When the band formed, the emphasis was on the second syllable (dee-VOE). But when they moved to California, everyone started calling them DEE-voe. So I guess either one is valid. Jerry said that the name is already butchered up so much (being short for de-evolution) that it doesn't matter how much worse it gets.

And there was one other thing that happened when Devo went to California. According to this story about the Wipeouters, Devo actually invented surfing music back in Ohio, back when the ninnies and the twits would toss the future Devo members around Lake Erie. When Devo relocated, the band members discovered a new kind of surfing:

[W]hen we finally did get out to California as Devo, the Bobs said, “Let's go down to the beach and go surfing.” We had heard about the muscle builders at Venice Beach and we figured we could find a few assholes to throw us across the water. We got down there and they were cheating, they were using boards. We were like, “What's that about?” We were again embarrassed for them. To us, it was like using training wheels.

(empo-caallii) California music? Lawrence Welk.

When people try to place the "wunnerful" Lawrence Welk geographically, the first place that comes to mind is North Dakota, the state where Welk was born in 1903. But the midwesterner Welk, like the midwesterner Johnny Carson before him, was determined to be successful, and to do that he'd have to leave North Dakota.

Initially, he didn't make it very far:

In 1927 the band decided to relocate to New Orleans to escape the early and harsh winters of North Dakota. The band never made it farther than Yankton, North Dakota, however. The quartet auditioned for local radio station WNAX, and the success of the audition's live broadcast netted them a contract for a regular radio program featuring the orchestra's music and commercials for hog tonic and other agricultural products.

Hog tonic paid the bills, so Welk and his band stayed put for a while, although they toured extensively. They did eventually move their base of operations southward, to Omaha Nebraska, but eventually played a decade-long engagement in Chicago. But that changed in 1951:

The waning popularity of big bands subsequently forced Welk to go back on tour to make ends meet. In 1951, he made a successful appearance on a late-night TV show in Los Angeles. The idea of working in television captured his imagination, and led him to move to L.A....

Welk definitely ended up working in television, creating "The Lawrence Welk Show" for local TV station KTLA. The results were wunnerful:



Meanwhile, the ABC television network was starting to gain steam, partially because of a 1954 show called "Disneyland." (The Wikipedia author noted that this was "the beginning of a relationship between the [Disney] studio and the [ABC] network which would eventually, four decades later, transform them both.") Other emerging shows at the time included The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and Leave It To Beaver.

By 1955, ABC aired Lawrence Welk in a summer replacement slot, eventually giving him a permanent slot. The show appeared under several names, but the format was recognizable to anyone who had seen the old KTLA local show - accordions, bubbles, and the like. Still produced in California, which was emerging as a national television production center, Welk and ABC remained together for over a decade. But ABC itself was changing:

Broadcasting in color from the mid-1960s, ABC started using the new science of demographics to tweak its programming and ad sales. ABC invested heavily in shows with wide appeal, especially situation comedies such as Happy Days, Barney Miller, Three's Company and Taxi. Programming head Fred Silverman was credited with reversing the network's fortunes by spinning off shows such as Laverne & Shirley and Mork and Mindy. He also commissioned series from Aaron Spelling such as Charlie's Angels.

While this youth surge proved wildly successful for ABC, it left little room at the network for the likes of Lawrence Welk, and ABC canceled Welk's show in 1971. This didn't hurt Welk, however, who not only arranged a syndication network to air new shows for another decade, but also branched out into a variety of other businesses. For example, if you remember when I discussed Vanguard Records and Sugar Hill Records, you may have noted that both labels are affiliated with the Welk Music Group. (And if you don't understand the latter link's reference "tried to push a song called "Grasser's Delight" on a fledgling record label," perhaps this fake radio transcript may jog your memory.)

So while Welk traveled all over the country, in a sense his best success came as a California musician, reaching massive popularity just a few years before the Beach Boys and the Byrds.

And if you need any further proof that Welk is a California guy, consider that he was not buried in the Dakotas, but in Culver City.

(empo-caallii) What is California music?

Those of you who have visited Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim, California probably can't forget the entrance to the theme park. As you walk under a cartoonish replica of the Golden Gate Bridge, your ears are surrounded by a sampling of "California music" to get you into the California mood.

If you have a Disney annual pass, you quickly realize that Disney pretty much plays the same songs over and over. Kinda like top 40 radio.

If you listen a little further, you'll notice that the playlist has been somewhat Disneyfied. Tupac Shakur's homage to California, for example, is never heard at the park.

But what exactly is California music? I can think of three possible definitions.

First, you can look at musicians and bands who use their songs to comment, explicitly or implicitly, on California. Whether you're singing about a "Hotel California," singing a song that lists a number of California surfing locations, or singing the praises of Compton and the LBC, you can definitely identify lyrical content that relates to California.

But what of musical content? Is there a "California sound"? Certainly there are Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Bakersfield-based musicians who have a clearly identifiable sound. Perhaps the Byrds, Buck Owens, Glen Campbell, Dick Dale, any of Phil Spector's bands, X, and the aforementioned Tupac Shakur never played a gig together, but there are certainly musical elements in all of their works that can be tied to the Golden State. (When speaking of Glen Campbell, I'm not only thinking of his solo work, but also his session work; he was, after all, a touring member of the Beach Boys for a while.)

And, of course, you can have musicians who don't sing about California, and who don't sound like California, but they happen to live in California. Are they part of the California sound? I've been mulling over this third question the most, and may end up posting some additional thoughts on this later. (Hence the blog label, should I care to revisit this, or any other California-related topic.)

I leave you with two things. First, you may not have seen the post that I wrote over a year ago, but it mentioned a California band that you probably don't know about. Not sure why you haven't heard of them.

There was a wealth of southern California bands devoted to surfing and/or cars - the Beach Boys were just the most popular of a slew of bands in those genres. But what of the younger set whose parents wouldn't let them own a surfboard, and who were too young for a car? Enter Don Kirshner, who was between gigs with the Monkees and the Archies and who decided that swimming pools and bicycles were the ticket to stardom with the younger set. Unlike the Beach Boys before them and the Beastie Boys after them, the Deck Boys truly were boys. Kirshner didn't want to monkey around with the Beach Boys' successful formula, so he started with the pool songs first and branched into bicycle songs later. "Floating Safari, "Swimming USA" (Kirshner avoided a lawsuit on that one), and "Be True To Your Bike" did respectably well, although the Deck Boys are best remembered for their subsequent novelty album "Pet Sounds," in which all of the lead vocals are sung by the members' dogs (and gerbil).

Second, I want to return to Tupac Shakur. I thought that I had previously posted the video for "California Love" in this blog, but I guess I haven't. Enjoy.

Do not adjust your record speed, revisited eight times

Back on March 10 I wrote a post entitled Do Not Adjust Your Record Speed which highlighted TotallySoundsLike's allegation that Rick James' "Super Freak" received a significant amount of inspiration from Michael Nesmith's "Cruisin."

The whole idea of borrowing from other songs is popular in music, and occurs in a variety of forms. Devo's "Some Things Never Change" includes an intentional quote from the lyrics of "A Day in the Life," but the snippet is so small that I doubt that lawyers needed to get involved. It was a different story, of course, with George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord." And then you have the whole topic of parodies.

Regardless of whether the borrowing was accidental or intentional, laudatory or malicious, there's certainly a lot of borrowing going around. Here's a list of a number of cases. In the list, the first song is the original, while the second song is the subsequent one. Here are a few...um, samples from the list:

AEROSMITH-- "Walk This Way"
"Walk this Way", Run D.M.C.

Inasmuch as Steven Tyler and Joe Perry appeared in Run D.M.C.'s video, presumably this was a case in which the borrowing was approved.



Incidentally, the idea to cover the song did not originate with the band.

While working on Raising Hell, Rick Rubin pulled out Toys in the Attic (an album they freestyled over) and explained who Aerosmith were. While Run and DMC had no idea who Aerosmith were at that time, Jam Master Jay suggested remaking the song. Both Run and DMC did not like the idea. Later, however, they covered the song with Aerosmith.

CHUCK BERRY*-- "Sweet Little Sixteen"
"Surfin' USA", The Beach Boys

This borrowing was not approved until the copyright of the latter song was changed to give Berry a co-writing credit.

THE MOMENTS-- "Sexy Mama"
"It Was a Good Day", Ice Cube

This illustrates something noted in the post - often when we hear a song, we have no idea that the song is based on a previous one. I've never heard of the Moments or their song.

ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM-- "Last Time" (From a Rolling Stones Instrumental Album)
"Bittersweet Symphony", The Verve

Now obviously I have heard of Oldham and the band he used to manage, but I never made the connection between "Bittersweet Symphony" and "Last Time." (To be fair, I had never heard the instrumental version before I wrote this post.) Incidentally, this was not a friendly borrowing - both Oldham and Allen Klein have sued the Verve over this.

THE POLICE-- "Every Breath You Take"
"I'll Be Missing You", Puff Daddy feat Faith Evans and 112

This song can result in polar opposite views. I was discussing this with someone once, and asserted my preference for the Police version because Mr. Combs really didn't add much of anything in his take. My verbal opponent disagreed, saying that Mr. Combs' version is a much more positive song, as opposed to the creepy version by the Police.

QUEEN and DAVID BOWIE-- "Under Pressure"
"Ice Ice Baby", Vanilla Ice

On the other hand, I know of no one who prefers Vanilla Ice's version over the original (even if Vanilla Ice once claimed that the two songs were totally different).

VAN HALEN-- "Jamie's Cryin"
"Wild Thing", Tone Loc

Here's another case where I never made the connection between the two songs, but it's obvious once you think about it. Did Jamie get paid to do her cryin'?

Watch your audience!

Many of us live under the illusion that musicians only play for their fans. Some of us are even uncomfortable with the fact that musicians play in casinos.

But if the truth be told, musicians make a lot of money off of corporate events. Over the years, I've chronicled a number of musicians who performed for Larry Ellison (at the annual Oracle OpenWorld conference).

True story - I once attended a sales conference run by a particular company. (I won't name the company, but its initials are HP.) Whoever was managing the sessions became very insistent on controlling where people sat. Rather than allowing you to take a seat in the back left corner of the room, the handlers insisted that you had to sit in row 4, smashed up against other attendees. This carried on all through the conference, including during the final dinner. Toward the end of the conference I was getting sick of this handling, and intentionally skipped the musical entertainment - John Fogerty. I like Fogerty, and it would have been fun to see him, but I couldn't take the overbearing person control any more.

Perhaps you heard that Elton John played a special event recently - Rush Limbaugh's wedding. If you're familiar with the two, the booking sounds somewhat surprising. Elton himself was surprised, but eventually concluded:

"Life is about building bridges, not walls."

Some fans, however, felt betrayed by the booking. Roseanne Barr was not pleased:

You sully the memory of Ryan White by performing for unsavory haters and rogue governments practicing ethnic cleansing.

The latter is a reference to Elton's Israel concert. Haaretz has noted that a number of artists have performed in Israel:

Last summer Israel hosted an array of international artists such as Madonna, Leonard Cohen, MGMT, Depeche Mode, Morrissey and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

I don't know if Roseanne is boycotting Madonna.

Of course, the granddaddy of all music boycotts took place a few decades ago, when Artists United Against Apartheid loudly declared, "I'm not gonna play Sun City." (This is not to be confused with The Sound Strike, the 21st century movement that refuses to play in Sun City...or any other city in Arizona.) As this 2005 article notes, Elton John played Sun City also.

Now it's not only the liberal commie America-haters who boycott musicians. The fascist baby-seal clubbers do it also. Note that Rush Limbaugh didn't invite Natalie Maines to sing at his wedding.

Or perhaps he would. In my view, it's sad when musicians are condemned for playing to the wrong people. Elton's "Life is about building bridges" statement rings true.

Cover version of the day - Atrocity, "The Sun Always Shines on TV"

In my view, a-ha's best song wasn't the video favorite "Take On Me." Their best song was a later one, "The Sun Always Shines on TV."

While trying to find the a-ha video for that song, I found Atrocity's version. Take the most disturbing parts of Devo's "Beautiful World," amplify them by ten, add operatic dramatics, and add the aforementioned Scandinavian song, and you have this video.



The song is taken from the album Werk 80 II, a sequel to Werk 80. Both albums include cover versions of a number of 1980s hits; the second installment includes (in addition to the a-ha song) Depeche Mode's "People Are People" and Visage's "Fade to Grey." A review of the album can be found at about.com.

Forever Young, Amen (actually, "Young Forever") with a passing reference to Sherlock Holmes

It's entirely coincidental that this post appears just after another post that mentioned "Forever," since this post originated in my radio listening on Thursday morning. (Since I was listening to KGGI, should I post this in my Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog?) So anyways, since I don't necessarily hear the top 40 all that much, it turns out that I had never heard this song before Thursday.



Those of a certain age will realize that Jay-Z's "Young Forever" song is primarily based on the old Alphaville song "Forever Young," although it's not accurate to refer to it as a complete sample, since the vocals were not sung by Alphaville's Marian Gold, but were actually done by Mr. Hudson.

Incidentally, the Alphaville song "Forever Young" should not be confused with Bob Dylan's identically-named song. Here's Joan Baez singing "Forever Young" (guess which).



Perhaps Mrs. Hudson will sing this one.

Forever and Ever, Amen

Some bands have an interesting trajectory. They start out, build a fan base, sign a record deal, have some hits...and then continue for decades afterwards.

At least in name only.

Take a fairly famous example, the Beach Boys, which was founded by the three Wilson Brothers, Mike Love, and (at various times) Al Jardine and David Marks. Time has passed, and if you were to go see a Beach Boys concert today, you would see...Mike Love. And Bruce Johnston (who initially joined the Beach Boys in the 1960s when Brian Wilson quit touring), along with Randell Kirsch, John Cowsill, Tim Bonhomme, Christian Love, and Scott Totten.

I ran across another example recently. The Music's Over published a death notice for Ali-Ollie Woodson, who was a former member of the Temptations. Specifically:

His terms with the group were 1984 to 1986, and then again from 1988 to 1996. His biggest hit for the group was the 1984 #2 record, “Treat Her Like A Lady,” on which he sang lead, co-wrote, and co-produced.

While I don't mean to demean this accomplishment, most people who think of the Temptations do not think of a 1984 hit. In fact, there are some people who would look oddly at me when I mention my favorite Temptations song.



Back to Woodson. It turns out that he has a bit of experience in joining bands that have been around for a long time.

During the early part of his career, Woodson was part of a Drifters revival act of the early ’70s.

On one level I can't fault musicians who join a band 20 or 30 years after it began. I mean, if there are people who want to hear a band's music, then it's nice if the band (or at least something that sounds like the band) is there to provide it.

But on the other hand, I feel kind of funny about.

P.S. My apologies to Randy Travis fans who came here expecting to find a ton of Randy Travis stuff in this post. Let me make it up to you.

Unfortunately, Randy's YouTube handlers requested that embedding be disabled. But (then) 14 year old Owen Pickard had no such restrictions.



Perhaps he'll tour as Randy Travis someday. But then, what would Kelcie do?

"Your Woman" in this millennium (DJ Sunquest)

This blog has devoted a couple of entries to the White Town song "Your Woman," beginning with the 1930s origins of the distinctive riff in the song, up to the White Town take on the song.

But songs continue to mutate, and I recently discovered DJ Sunquest's remix of the song. Enjoy.



DJ Sunquest has also remixed Lenny Kravitz's "Fly Away."

Intersecting lives - Dennis Hopper and Ike Turner

I learned of Dennis Hopper's not-unexpected death this morning via a FriendFeed entry. Some remember him for his movies, some for his commercials. I remember him for a Saturday Night Live sketch that played on his hard partying during his younger years - in the sketch, Hopper didn't recognize Jack Nicholson until he introduced himself as one of the stars of the (Michael Keaton) Batman movie.

But the anonymous author of The Music's Over (I know who it is, but I'm not telling) has highlighted another side of Dennis Hopper:

Hopper was also a respected painter, sculptor and photographer who made a couple of significant contributions to the world of popular music as well. In 1966, he created the cover art for “River Deep – Mountain High,” the hit single for Ike & Tina Turner. And more recently, he portrayed the narrator on “Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey’s Head” from Demon Days, the multi-million selling album by Gorillaz.

Regarding the Ike & Tina (or, more accurately, Tina and Phil Spector) cover art, Songfacts quotes from a Rolling Stone interview with Bob Krasnow:

"Dennis Hopper did the cover on that LP. He was broke on his ass in Hollywood and trying photography. He said he'd like to do the cover. He took us to this sign company, where there was this 70-foot high sign for a movie, with one of those sex stars - Boccaccio '70 or something. And he shot them in front of that big teardrop. Then the gas company had a big sign, and Hopper took them there and shot them in front of a big burner."

Several decades later, Hopper hooked up with the Gorillaz (and no, the writer of The Music's Over is not one of the members of the Gorillaz). Eventually, Hopper ended up at the Apollo in Harlem:



I found one little bit of irony while reading up on the Gorillaz' Demon Days:

Somehow, though, Albarn and his new cohort Danger Mouse (who replaces the quickly fading-in-relevance Dan the Automator) have managed to develop something resembling a cohesive statement from parts as disparate as Neneh "Buffalo Stance" Cherry, Dennis Hopper, Martina Topley-Bird, the London Community Gospel Choir (because every true exercise in self-indulgence needs a gospel choir attached to it), and Ike Turner. Yes, you read right. Ike freaking Turner.

As I implicitly mentioned earlier, Ike Turner does not appear on "River Deep, Mountain High" because Phil Spector preferred to use his own session musicians. So while Ike and Dennis (the photographer) were only technically associated on the earlier recording, they did legitimately appear on the credits for the Gorillaz album.

And, unfortunately, Turner and Hopper have one other thing in common. There's a huge battle over Ike Turner's estate, and there's going to be a huge battle over Dennis Hopper's estate.

On being American...or not (Elvis Presley's "American Trilogy")

On this vacation day, somehow this song has ingrained itself in my mind - Elvis Presley's "American Trilogy."



As the title implies, this medley (originally conceived by Mickey Newbury) consists of three songs, each of which is bound to offend someone or another. Atheists presumably don't care for "All My Trials." Peace-lovers (especially atheist peace-lovers) presumably don't care for the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

And then there's "Dixie," which has caused and still causes a variety of reactions:

"Dixie" -- a song strongly identified with the South -- stirs emotion and exposes timeworn rifts across American society.

It has been that way almost since "Dixie" was born in the days just before the Civil War. Adopted as a Confederate anthem, it was offered up by President Abraham Lincoln as a gesture of reconciliation after the war. It's accepted with affection by many whites and scorned by many blacks. And yet it's been recorded by everyone from Elvis Presley to the Robert Shaw chorale.

And Elvis merited special mention on the song "Fight the Power":

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant ---- to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother---- him and John Wayne
Cause I'm Black and I'm proud
I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped
Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps
Sample a look back you look and find
Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check

Later, in 2002, Public Enemy's Chuck D clarified:

Public Enemy frontman Chuck D derided Elvis Presley on the group's 1989 anthem "Fight The Power," but it turns out his feelings for Presley are a little more complicated than the song suggests.

"As a musicologist, and I consider myself one, there was always a great deal of respect for Elvis, especially during his Sun sessions. As a black people, we all knew that," the rapper told Newsday recently.

"My whole thing was the one-sidedness _ like, Elvis' icon status in America made it like nobody else counted ... . My heroes came from someone else. My heroes came before him. My heroes were probably his heroes. As far as Elvis being `The King,' I couldn't buy that."

Of course, a lot of this depends upon whether you believe that the actions of Elvis, and of Pat Boone and Dan Aykroyd, to cover black artists was a good thing or a bad thing.

On being rotten

It must be hard to be John Lydon all the time. People have their expectations of you, and what you'll do, and you always have to deliver. If someone catches you playing with a puppy or kissing a baby, your career's over.

So Lydon has to always act in character, whether he's reliving past glories on a Sex Pistols reunion tour (with Glen Matlock, inasmuch as Sid Vicious was unavailable) or reliving past glories on a Public Image Ltd. reunion tour.

“For your dubious pleasure!” John Lydon proclaimed as Public Image Ltd. started its set on Tuesday night at Terminal 5. That was Mr. Lydon’s famous cynicism.

Jon Pareles of the New York Times goes on to describe Lydon's history, then reviews the set.

Mr. Lydon sings the old songs with all their taunts, injuries, fury and sarcasm in a voice that’s as cutting as ever. And this lineup of PiL — with two members who joined the band in 1986, the guitarist Lu Edmonds and the drummer Bruce Smith, along with Scott Firth on bass and keyboards — finds its own way to make the songs bristle and churn.

Yet Pareles notes that this isn't a slavish copy of the original. See the review here.

Belated follow-up (Al Bowlly's "My Woman")

OK, so I guess I'm not that talented a journalist.

On September 28, 2009, I wrote a post dedicated to White Town's song "Your Woman." The post included some information on White Town and Jyoti Mishra, and even resulted in a comment from Jyoti Mishra...although it's conceivable that the comment might have been made by ANOTHER Jyoti Mishra.

The post even included a link to White Town's last.fm page, which then (and now) notes that the White Town song "Your Woman"

sampled a 1930s song called “My Woman” by Al Bowlly, which was featured in the Dennis Potter drama Pennies From Heaven.

Yet despite all this, I didn't make an effort at the time to seek out the aforementioned song. But in a whole deja vu all over again kind of way, I found a video that included a chunk of "My Woman" by Lew Stone and the Monseigneur Band, with vocals by Bowlly.



The song itself was originally released by Bing Crosby in 1932, with lyrics by Crosby and music by Irving Wallman and Max Wartell. I don't know who the trumpet player was on Lew Stone's version of the song, but as of 1933 the trumpet players were Nat Gonella and Alfie Noakes.

As for Bowlly, he has his own website and MySpace page, despite the fact that he died in 1941. Lew Stone survived several decades longer, dying in 1969.

Belated follow-up (White Town's "Make the World Go Away")

OK, so I guess I'm not that talented a journalist.

On September 28, 2009, I wrote a post dedicated to White Town's song "Your Woman." The post included some information on White Town and Jyoti Mishra, and even resulted in a comment from Jyoti Mishra...although it's conceivable that the comment might have been made by ANOTHER Jyoti Mishra.

The post even included a link to a September 2009 blog post about a recent White Town appearance - a post that said, in part,

What made me beam was seeing people singing along with songs that weren’t ‘Your Woman.’ There was a lad right at the front and I swear he knew the lyrics to everything from ‘We’ll Always Have Paris’ to ‘Death In Kettering.’ That’s basically 19 years’ worth of White Town covered! How flattering is that?

Yet despite all this, I didn't make an effort at the time to seek out any White Town songs that were actually recorded during the current millennium.

Until now.

I searched Mishra's YouTube account, and ran across this video for a 2007 song entitled "Make The World Go Away."



I don't know about you, but this song is as strong as that other White Town song that we've all heard. And the video itself is a self-produced affair:

I’m [quite] pleased with how it’s turned out. It’s obviously a bit rubbish as it’s the first time I’ve written and made a popvid with a story (the ‘Your Woman’-era ones were all by the godlike Mark Adcock) but hopefully I’ll get better with experience.

And the lyrics are just as happy-go-lucky as the lyrics for "Your Woman." (I'm joking here, of course - see my previous post for an excerpt of the lyrics from "Your Woman.") Here's the chorus:

Well you can paint out the sky
You can turn night into day
You can sleep as long as you like
But you can’t make the world go away
No you can’t make the world go away

And extra points to anyone who can work the word "provenance" into the lyrics of a pop song.

Another year older and deeper in sleep (Johnny gets ready for The Griffins)

About a year ago, I wrote a post that talked about how older music lovers might not necesarily stay up as late as younger music lovers. This doesn't affect lovers of certain types of music - symphony orchestras usually don't have a midnight show - but if you want to Understand This Groove in an electro sort of way, you may have to stay up beyond 3am to do it.

In the course of that post, I mentioned the defunct Inland Empire band Alexa's Wish, some of whose fans were in their 30s and thus had jobs and things to go to the morning after a show. Well, Alexa's Wish bassist/songwriter Ralph Tomaselli has since moved to the Griffins, who have a show coming up on the evening of Wednesday, May 12.

The Griffins are the headliners, and they appear at 9:30. Musically, the Griffins go a little bit beyond what Alexa's Wish did, as you can see by this video.



And they (like Alexa's Wish) will do a cover now and again:



Other bands performing Wednesday May 12 include Joey Get Down! and Once Bitten. They're appearing at the Crazy Horse, which is now in West Covina.

Say it is so, Popjustice Live!

Over a year ago, on March 22, 2009, I posted something about the Siobhan Donaghy song "Ghosts" and included two video clips in the post. Here is the second:



As noted on the video page itself, this was filmed at the second Popjustice Live event, in April 2007. This concert was reviewed in - where else? - Popjustice.

The second Popjustice Live took place in London on Wednesday night and it was very good....

The final live act was Siobhan Donaghy, who did a load of songs from her new album including the hit single 'Don't Give It Up'. Lots of her fans took lots of photographs which you will find on the internet if you look quite hard. Good old Siobhan.

Say it ain't so, Pops!

Continuing on the Talking Heads theme, and tying in on some items I'm discussing on my business blog, here's an unusual video of a song that many of us have never heard. Not just because the particular clip includes German overdubbing of the dialogue - you see, the song itself wasn't overdubbed. But the more famous version of the song, which was released on a best-selling record, was sung by David Byrne. This version, taken from the movie, is sung by Pops Staples.



Now Roebuck "Pops" Staples was well-known as a gospel musician who had some secular hits with the Staple Singers. And then he recorded this song called "Papa Legba," which, to put it mildly, is not necessarily orthodox Christian gospel. Not at all:

Amazingly, even today, while traveling in and around the Mississippi Delta, you’ll still hear fabled tales of the old bluesmen selling their souls at the crossroads in exchange for supernatural musical gifts. Whereas the Robert Johnson tale has become the most widely known (to the point of ad nauseam), it is in fact more of a composite story, derived from old African American folk traditions that found its way to the Americas centuries ago embedding itself into our cultural fabric.

Stateside, these themes morphed, and the sale of one’s soul at the “crossroads”, due to Christianity’s influence, was to be made with Satan, or the devil. If traced back to its roots though you’ll find it more likely that such a deal – if there was one to be made – would have been conducted with Papa Legba, the spiritual intermediary between our world and the next. Known by many a name in Voodoo, Voudou, Santeria, etc, Legba was a gatekeeper said to grant access to the spirit world.

In David Byrne's film, Pops' spells summon love for John Goodman's character. But Staples' own character was fused by two traditions, the Christian tradition and the blues tradition, that intertwined in the lives of many. Staples:

"I was a Christian man," Staples once said. "I figured blues wasn't the right field for me. My family was a real religious family. There were 14 of us. In the evening, when we used to get through working in the fields picking cotton, we didn't have no amusement but to sing to ourselves. We didn't have no radio, no television, nothing like that. That's the way my family got started singing. I took it from my father's family and brought it to Chicago with my own family. I knew how to get harmony and I taught each one. I'd hit the guitar string where they were supposed to sing and they caught on."

By the 1970s, when they reached the height of their popularity, the Staple Singers were the definition of crossover. Take the subsequent history of one of their biggest hits:

"I'll Take You There" ... has received a second life through numerous covers by BeBe & CeCe Winans and recently via General Motors commercials.

General Motors? Talk about a deal with the devil...

I think of the people that are working for me

I am an infrequent contributor (under my Ontario Emperor alter ego) to the Scrine website, and my most recent hobby there has been to tag several scrines with the tag "Talking Heads song Don't Worry About the Government." (See those scrines here.)

The meat of the song from our perspective comes from the second verse of the lyrics.

I see the states, across this big nation
I see the laws made in Washington, D.C.
I think of the ones I consider my favorites
I think of the people that are working for me

Some civil servants are just like my loved ones
They work so hard and they try to be strong
I'm a lucky guy to live in my building
They own the buildings to help them along

I've heard a recording of a live performance of this song, and the end of the song was greeted by laughter from the audience. Perhaps people didn't take David Byrne seriously.

Now I don't know if anyone laughed when the Talking Heads appeared on Old Grey Whistle Test.



And, to put it in historical perspective, this performance included the Talking Heads' new keyboard player, Jerry Harrison, who had previously been in another band.

#followfriday why @MissKellyO @rahsheen @clydetombaugh @chrisbrogan

First, a word of explanation.

I don't think I've ever participated in Follow Friday before, but I was inspired to do so by this post by Chris Brogan. Brogan, while lauding the practice, saw some drawbacks in the way it was implemented.

Follow Friday has become a bit of a mess to look at on Twitter, because every Friday, many people start posting 140 characters worth of names of people they feel you might benefit from knowing.

Brogan proposed a solution:

My idea: turn Follow Friday into a single tweet with a link to a blog post of the people you think others should follow.

It solves two problems: It gives you more than 140 to talk about the people you recommend, and it also cleans up Twitter so that we don’t watch a stream of @someoneawesome names rushing by all day.

You with me?

Not entirely. You see, here's what Chris' Follow Friday tweet looked like:

My list of people to follow for this Friday - http://bit.ly/b8Fg3S

Now perhaps some may regard the lack of @names in the tweet as a refreshing lack of clutter, but to my mind they reduce the usability of the tweet. How will Twitter users @Ed, @MayhemStudios, and the rest know why they're getting the sudden surge in traffic? The critical information is buried away in a blog post.

Initially I simply stated my thoughts in a comment to Brogan's original post, but then I figured it would be better off to model my ideal vision of how this should be done. Hence this post, with its title "#followfriday why @MissKellyO @rahsheen @clydetombaugh @chrisbrogan."

Since I'm writing this in my music blog, the listed #followfriday people are all musically-related. Well, with the exception of Brogan, and perhaps he's a karaoke master or something like that.

Let's start with @MissKellyO, or Kelly Osbourne. Introduced to the world via reality television, she earned her place on this list via one song - "One Word." See my June 2008 post about this song - sadly, the lip-synced all-male version of the song is no longer available on YouTube.

Next we have @rahsheen (Rahsheen Porter). He's known online for a number of things, one of which is his music. Check out his music page or his last.fm page.

My last Follow Friday person is not a musician, unless he warbles Barry Manilow songs to his pet pig. @clydetombaugh is the Twitter handle for Gene "Bean" Baxter, a resident of the state of Washington who broadcasts on a Los Angeles radio station. Some people consider him slightly eccentric. However, there's no denying that as one of the deejays for KROQ's morning show, Baxter has been an influential music figure for the better part of twenty years. Don't believe me? Just ask Gordon Lightfoot. Or the author of this page.

Well, this was fun. Perhaps I should do this with some of my other blogs - anyone up for an Inland Empire Follow Friday in the future?

P.S. If you have an interest in music-related tweeters, all of these people and more can be found on the Empoprise-MU Twitter list at http://twitter.com/empoprises/empoprise-mu.\\

[UPDATE 2:10 PM]

Chris Brogan responded to my comment on his blog. Here is his response:

That would take away the reason why I recommended the shift. In my mind, the shift is about cleaning up all the @ traffic that just is a mention of someone's name, and it's a way to extend the relationship.

They'll see it when they see a boost of followers, or if they've got big ears (google "grow bigger ears").

When you Google the phrase in question (I haven't checked to see if you can Bing it), the first search result is for Brogan's January 2009 post on self-monitoring. The post provides an example of how you can use various free services to monitor mentions of anything - you, your brand, your competitors.

While I still prefer the explicit mention of the followee in the tweet itself (as long as it's supplemented by a "why" reason, either in the tweet itself or in an external source), there's certainly an argument that can be made for the other view.

Jonathan Richman - Elementary, or Elemental?

I had a chance to see Jonathan Richman, but I couldn't. This was about 1982 or 1983 at Reed College, during Ren Fayre. There was a Ferris wheel on campus for the weekend, and I went around on the Ferris wheel. However, the operator didn't let me off, so I went around the Ferris wheel a second time, and after that didn't feel much like doing anything. (Incidentally, I subsequently heard a story, unverified, that Richman himself initially had trouble getting into Commons because he didn't have a Reed ID.)

Like just about everyone else, I divide Richman's career into two periods - the period in which he made some rock recordings that weren't even released for several years, and the period afterwards, in which he seems to do everything but rock. "Roadrunner" is probably the classic from that initial period, but I still have a liking for "I'm Straight." If I were forced to pick one song from the latter period, I'd probably choose "I'm a Little Airplane." If you want to read about "I'm a Little Airplane," visit this Sesame Street website. If you want to read about "I'm Straight," check this page about Richman and Gram Parsons:

The Modern Lovers’ early songs were affronts to the hip pieties of their time. “I’m Straight” is no longer startling as a gesture; since Jonathan invented the stance, preppy geeks like Harrison’s later employer David Byrne have taken it to the bank. But the performance makes it clear that there was no irony involved. “I’m certainly not stoned,” Jonathan sneers, dripping contempt for “Hippie Johnny,” that trendy guy who all the girls think is deep, and his band (which comprised three hippie Johnnies in leather pants, long hair and, one assumes, discreet drug habits) answers back with a rush of noise that underlines his frustration and makes the gesture feel heroic rather than merely petty.

The stereotypical comparison of Richman's early and later careers is pretty...um...straight. Initially a counter-countercultural artist who hung out with the Velvet Underground, Gram Parsons, and future New Wave heroes, Richman turned his back on all that and started writing silly, meaningless songs.

Or did he?

Over the weekend, as I was scrobbling various things on last.fm, I ran across the song "California Desert Party", which was released in 1988. In this song, the beach boy and his saxophone sing a happy little tune with lyrics such as this:

Everybody's dancin round in the cactus garden
yucca trees are all around Cholla too, look out
Guacamole's there for you, carrot juice and nachos too
it's a california desert party

What a silly little song...until you look at Richman's biography. Here's part of it:

While Richman and the Modern Lovers puzzled some people, they angered others. At a YMCA gig, people spat and threw cans from the balcony. In southern California, a large crowd greeted them with rocks and bottles when they opened for soul/funk outfit Tower of Power. After the set, ex-Byrd Gram Parsons had to rescue the band from toughs waiting backstage.

Needless to say, this is from Richman's first period. And the ties between Parsons and Richman were more than that of just show attendee:

Although Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers were managed by Eddie Tickner and Phil Kaufman in the early '70s, their sound couldn't have been farther away from that of Gram Parsons, or anyone else in the Byrds/Burritos axis.

But Richman wasn't around for Hippie Johnny - I mean Gram's - last, um, trip:

Parsons wasn't a suicide, but he killed himself all right. Blessed with charm and cash (his mother's family had made a pile in the citrus business), he got into booze and drugs early. In September 1973 he finished recording an album and went with some friends to an inn at Joshua Tree National Monument, one of his favorite places. The group spent much of the day by the pool getting tanked. By evening Gram looked like hell and went to his room to sleep. Later, on their way out for some food, his friends were unable to rouse him, so they left, returning a little before midnight. By that time Parsons was pretty far gone. Taken to a hospital, he was pronounced dead shortly after midnight on September 19. A lab analysis found large amounts of alcohol and morphine in his system; apparently the combination killed him.

So now you know about the California desert party.

Oh, and by the way, the story continues:

So far, your typical live-fast-die-young story. Then it gets strange.

Continued here.

"Walking in the Rain," version 1.0

I found it.

Let's jump back to a 2008 post on this very blog:

One of my favorite songs while I was growing up was Flash and the Pan's "Walking in the Rain." I couldn't find the original version on YouTube, but I did find Grace Jones' version.

The 2008 post then shared this video:



In my 2008 post, I described the original song:

If you're only familiar with Jones' version, the original is like Jones, only with less emotion.

Well, exactly three months after that September 25, 2008 post, some kind soul uploaded a sort-of video of Flash and the Pan's "Walking in the Rain." I say "sort of" because the video consists of someone putting a record on a turntable and playing it. Actually, come of think of it, perhaps that's the original video for the song.

Well, now you can listen (and watch) and judge for yourself.



From the album Flash and the Pan, by the band Flash and the Pan. Product link below, FCC disclosure applies.

Band names - when the band isn't the band you expect

Technically this isn't a music post, but it certainly applies to music.

If you know me, you know that I love to scrobble things in last.fm. In fact, at one point I was bugging Josh Haley because a ffundercats podcast didn't have proper ID3 tags, which meant that I couldn't scrobble it. The podcasts now have ID3 tags, so last.fm can record whenever you listen to a ffundercats podcast.

I was doing some non-musical work-related research, and I ran across a page on the Oracle website that included a two-year old podcast recorded by one of my co-workers. (This podcast was recorded back when we were still employees of Motorola.) I first clicked on the link for the podcast, which opened a QuickTime tab in my browser.

Well, that didn't suit me, so I downloaded the mp3 file and played it in Windows Media Player to match with my last.fm scrobbling configuration. So I scrobbled the track, which is listed in last.fm as follows:



Note that the listed "artist" for this track is Oracle. So I went to see what last.fm had to say about the company, and this is what I found:

Oracle is the name of several artists including a well-respected progressive/power metal band formed in the 1980’s.

1.) ‘’‘Oracle’‘’ was notable as a collaborative musical venture between Minimal Compact’s Malka Spigel & Samy Birnbach and Wire’s Colin Newman. The project spanned the years 1988-1993 and mostly took place in Brussels. Ony one album ‘’‘Tree’‘’ was released retrospectively (in 1994) on Colin & Malka’s Swim ~ label. The majority of the work remains unreleased.

There was another Florida band called Oracle who managed to release one album in the early nineties, solidly rooted in 80’s American power metal in mold of Liege Lord or early Queensryche. Hardly a popular style of music at the time, particularly in the US (hence the release on a European label), As Darkness Reigns is a fine album for the genre.
Brothers Kent and Brent Smedley have recently resurrected Oracle and are playing again, now under the name Odyssey. Brent also plays for a band called Tempest Reign.

2.) Drum and Bass DJ / Murder in America (M.I.A)

And it goes on and on like this, with (as I type this) five different bands, none of which include any band members named Larry Ellison, Charles Phillips, or Safra Catz.

Now this is not the only case in which a band name in last.fm refers to more than one band. And there are famous examples of bands who had to change their original names in certain markets - take the so-called English Beat, which had to add "English" to its name for North American releases to reduce confusion with the American band the Beat (now known as Paul Collins' Beat).

Confused yet?

And these are the instances in which two bands used the same name by accident. The whole issue of a band appropriating another band's name on purpose is an entirely different issue.

P.S. In the band Oracle, you know that Larry would be the lead vocalist, but who would get the guitar solos - Charles or Safra?

Sweet dreams are made of this.

Who am I to disagree?

(empo-tymshft) Who decides how customers consume a band's output?

In the olden days, if you wanted to buy music from a band, you would go down to your record store and see what it had to offer. When you got there, you'd see that if you wanted to get some Elton John music, you could buy an LP such as Rock of the Westies, or perhaps a single such as "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." But you couldn't march into the record store and say, "I just want to buy the song 'Roy Rogers,' but I don't want to buy the rest of the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album."

But now, in the wonderful twenty-first century world of downloadable music, you DO have more control over what you buy. In fact, you could go to your favorite online music store and buy "Roy Rogers" and Flash and the Pan's "Walking in the Rain" and Pink Floyd's "Us and Them."

Um, maybe not (H/T MediaMemo):

[Pink Floyd's] latest record deal, signed with EMI before legal downloads came along, said individual songs must not be sold without the band's permission.

They argued that the same rule should apply to digital sales as well as CDs.

EMI disagreed but a judge has sided with Pink Floyd.

Why would Pink Floyd want to enforce such a clause? Because they had a vision about how their music should be heard, and their vision is not a three-minute vision:

In court, Chancellor Sir Andrew Morritt said the contract contained a clause to "preserve the artistic integrity of the albums".

He said the contract meant EMI were "not entitled to exploit recording by online distribution or by any other means other than the original album, without the consent of Pink Floyd".

The band largely avoided releasing singles during their career, instead preferring fans to listen to entire albums such as Dark Side of the Moon, which has sold more than 35 million copies around the world.

OK, perhaps there is some financial motivation there also - perhaps the band will earn more if people are forced to buy the entire album rather than just buying, say, "Money." But since I've been listening to Dark Side of the Moon fairly frequently as of late, I can understand the artistic reasons why the band would prefer that the album be judged as a whole.

But Pink Floyd isn't the only artist who holds this position. The BBC cites Garth Brooks and AC/DC as two other artists who insist that albums should be downloadable in toto only. MediaMemo cites a couple of other artists who insisted on this - for a time:

And just because the band has won the ruling doesn’t mean that’s going to stop–its entirely possible, for instance, that a check of a certain size could allay the band’s concerns. Other album-only holdouts like Metallica and Radiohead eventually held their noses and allowed their stuff to be sold by the song on iTunes, too.

Yet it's important to note that we, the consumers, effectively have no say in the matter. We cannot download our own mix of one part Pink, one part Garth, and one part Bon - something that would cost about $3 at current prices could end up costing more like $30, since you'd have to buy three entire albums instead of three single songs.

Could this hurt the "album-only" artists in the long run? Probably not. Let's face it - you can't download Beatles songs OR Beatles albums in iTunes, but the band seems to be doing OK.

A Renaissance man

Now some people can consistently reproduce the same sound over and over, and we love them for it, and we don't expect them to do anything else. I don't think I want to hear George Thorogood behind a synthesizer, for example.

But then there are the people who can work in radically different styles. Compare these two songs: Don't Come Around Here No More and Friend or Foe.

Can you guess who was involved with both songs?

I'll give a hint. He was tangentially involved in songs such as End of the Line.

One last hint. He was tangentially involved with this song.

(References: Don't Come Around, Friend or Foe, a place to record, and a song to cover.

Do not adjust your record speed

The advantage of us old folks is that we are familiar with the fine art of playing music at different speeds. 33 1/3, 45, 78 - name a speed and we'll play it.

Well, if TotallySoundsLike is to be believed, Rick James must have been playing his Michael Nesmith records really fast. Listen.



Well, frankly I wouldn't take Steve Strong home to mother either.

P.S. For a non-freaky look at "Cruisin," go here.

Brilliant Dadashova - maybe you'll like this vokaliz song better

OK, maybe the look of Edward Anatolevich Hill turned you off to vokaliz.

Try this song, sung in the same no-words style.



For more on Brilliant Dadashova (in English), see this autobiography. She has two separate last.fm pages, neither of which has any music.

Why do musicians like Edward Anatolevich Hill's vokaliz hit "I am very glad, because I'm finally back home" (a/k/a "Trololo") so much?

Well, I don't know if this is viral yet, but I've seen it twice, and I'm usually slow in picking things up, so if I've seen it twice then it must be viral.

Let's start with the Tall Ships, who have their own Facebook page. The Tall Ships are a band that I kinda sorta discovered via last.fm - I had listened to a Dryve song, and the drummer of that former band, Keith Andrew, shared his new band, the Tall Ships, with me. So anyways, on Friday the Tall Ships posted an update to the aforementioned Facebook page that concluded as follows:

We're thinking of covering this song. Steve pretty much has the vocal down...

The band then shared this video:



However, since the title of the video was Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой, I couldn't really figure out who did it.

I didn't think much of it - the Tall Ships are on an eastern European record label (Minority Records from Prague), so I figured that was just some idiosyncracy.

Until a Texan chimed in.

Specifically, Josh Haley, well-known among FriendFeed circles as one of the two Ffundercats. Josh, like Keith Andrew, has a musical bent, and is known for his ukelele playing and his remixes.

Well, Josh shared a video with the comment

You can't possibly post a video more awesome than this.

And, although it was a different link, it ended up being the same video.



This one labeled the song as "Trololo," but that probably isn't an official title.

I ran Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой through Google Translate and got the translation "I am very glad, because I'm finally back home." Well, with that big grin on his face, I hope he's glad.

I initially couldn't find anything about the video, other than a bunch of blog posts linking to some occurrence of the video with a brief comment about how awesome it is. While much of the activity seems to have erupted in late February, and the Tall Ships' version was uploaded to YouTube in November, I did find something on mail.ru that seems to be from October 2009. But even that site listed the video as "Miscellaneous."

But finally, Know Your Meme provided the answer:

Singing in the video is Edward Anatolevich Hill, a Soviet-era vocalist once celebrated as the “Honored Artist of the USSR” in 1968 and “People’s Artist of the USSR” in 1974.

Because Edward’s performance was poorly lipsynched (albeit to his own vocal track) and entirely composed of mouth music without any lyrics, the song was perceived by some westerners as highly eccentric.

Still more information is available from Justin Erik Hallador Smith:

According to his Russian Wikipedia page, Hill was born in Smolensk in 1934, and finished his studies at the Leningrad Conservatory in 1960. By 1974 he had been named a People's Artist of the USSR, and in 1981 he was awarded the Order of the Friendship of Peoples. He is best known for his interpretations of the songs of the Soviet composer, Arkadii Ostrovskii....

The song he is interpreting, "I Am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home," is an Ostrovskii composition, and it is meant to be sung in the vokaliz style, that is to say sung, but without words...[V]okaliz was a well established genre, one that seems close in certain respects to pantomime.

I found the Russian Wikipedia page here. Now I can't read Russian, but I can read enough to know that Hill is still alive. And when I ran the article through Google Translate, I unearthed this little tidbit:

Since 1997 involved with his son in a joint project with the rock group Prepinaki.

I searched for the rock group Препинаки and found this page, which I again translated:

In 1996, Prepinaki "have created a joint project with his ideological father (another father! See the spiritual father), People's Artist of the RSFSR Edward Gil - Gil and Sons. As stated in a press release, "the creative task of the project - rethinking the heritage of the Soviet stage 60's - 70-ies." Project "Gil and Sons" recorded in 1997 album "There's song in a circle" and continues to tour.

As for Prepinaki's style, here's what the page said:

The band's style drifted between new wave and bossa-nova, and now represents a unique fusion of dance rhythms of different ages and continents: the traditional pop music, especially disco, Soviet music, hot Latin rhythms.

But, apparently, no vokaliz. But oddculture.com links to a video:



However, most people who see the original "I am very glad, because I'm finally back home" video aren't thinking about the deeper meaning of vokaliz style; most are thinking about bad lip-syncing. I'm fascinated by the fact that the two people from whom I first learned about the video both happened to be musicians.

Does this mean that when the music stars gather as hip joints, they'll demand that the deejay put "Trololo" on the video screens?

Or does this mean that vokaliz itself will suddenly sweep the English-speaking music world?

P.S. Hill's last.fm page is here and includes a biography but sadly no music. last.fm does list a December 29, 2009 concert, but apparently it was cancelled.

(empo-utoobd) Q: Are we not Akon YouTube? A: We are AkonVEVO

I was involved in a Facebook conversation about such antiquated concepts as LPs, and in the course of the conversation I referenced my August 12, 2008 post about the Akon song "Lonely." The post includes the following text:

Universal Music has provided the video on YouTube. However, embedding is disabled, so you'll have to go here to see it.

But when I follow the link that I provided in the original post, YouTube presents the message

This video has been removed by the user.

The video, still non-embeddable, has been moved to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EEW-9NDM5k, which is labeled as part of "AkonVEVO."

I mentioned VEVO previously in this blog (in the context of YouTube's 2009 disagreements in Britain and Germany), but I haven't really talked about the WHY of VEVO. Luckily, Mashable posted something in December 2009 that made up for the shortcomings of my coverage:

VEVO will host most of YouTube (YouTube)’s music videos (85 percent of them, actually), including ones from EMI, Sony Music and Universal....

VEVO will manage all ad sales

- The music video site is focusing on getting rid of duplicate videos. If you have ever browsed YouTube, you’ll find that many music videos do, in fact, have duplicates.

- VEVO will not launch with HD. That will come out next year.

- Now this is awesome: VEVO includes synchronized and integrated lyrics.

But YouTube and the music companies didn't create VEVO out of an altruistic desire to provide synchronized and integrated lyrics to the people. No, the key words here are "duplicate videos" and "ad sales." Basically, the idea is to centralize videos in a central location so that YouTube and the music companies can control the ad revenue.

And there is also a vevo.com website. However, I don't know if I am allowed to register with it, since YouTube has seen it to permanently disable my account without explanation.

Oh, and you may not be allowed to register with vevo.com, either:

By using the Site, you represent, warrant and covenant that (a) you are 13 years of age or older and (i) reside in the United States of America, its territories and possessions (the “U.S.”) or (ii) reside in Canada and, if you are a minor, you have obtained your parent or guardian’s consent to use the Site in accordance with these Terms of Use; (b) your use of the Site does not violate any applicable law, rule or regulation; and (c) all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate and you shall maintain and promptly update the accuracy of such information. If you provide information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, or VEVO suspects that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, VEVO has the right to suspend or terminate your registration (in whole or in part) and refuse any and all current or future use of the Site (or any portion thereof), in its sole discretion. If you reside in Canada, you further acknowledge and agree that the Site is operated exclusively from, and is being provided solely in accordance with, the laws of the United States. The laws of the United States may differ from those of Canada. Please ensure that you are comfortable with these differences before accessing and using the Site.

In other words, No Irish Need Apply. Or anyone from most other countries in the world, for that matter.

But if we're going to talk about Akon, we have to talk about Bobby Vinton. Bobby's website includes tour dates; here's what it says for Vinton's future dates:

May 8, 2010 Bryant, IN Bearcreek Farms
May 10 & 11, 2010 Oakbrook Terrace IL. Drury Lane Oakbrook
June 12, 2010 Las Vegas, NV Cannery Casino & Hotel
August 12, 2010 Plantsville CT, Aqua Turf Club The Flyer
August 14, 2010 FOXWOOD Casino & Resort Connecticut
August 26, 2010 Toronto, Canada Bandshell Park
September 25, 2010 Manistee, MI Little River Casino & Resort
November 12 & 13, 2020 Chandler AZ, Wild Horse Pass Resort & Casino

I'm assuming the last one is a typo, but maybe he IS booked for a show ten years from now.

P.S. for those who noticed the significance of the post title - yes, Devo has been "Fresh" on my mind. And doesn't "Akon" look a little bit like "Akron"?

Here's a video of Devo performing "Fresh" at SXSW 2009. It's not on VEVO.