Yankovic, the director

Last night I posted a couple of videos, including Weird Al Yankovic's video for "Amish Paradise," which also happened to be directed by Yankovic. In addition to parodying Coolio's video, director Yankovic inserted other touches into the video, including an entire segment that was videotaped backwards as a visual reference to the datedness of Amish customs.

Ebay (Ebay?) explains the genesis of two of the bits in the video:

In one section, Yankovic is shown walking through a field while everything around him moves backwards. This was accomplished by having Yankovic "phonetically memorize the chorus of the song backwards, then sing it to a backwards music track while walking backwards across a field being crisscrossed by live farm animals," and then play the clip in reverse. The inspiration for this scene was a backwards scene performed in the movie "Top Secret!," a movie which has served as an inspiration for several of Yankovic's jokes.

The video shows many aspects of regular Amish life, such as churning butter and raising a barn. However, when the barn is raised, the frame falls towards Yankovic, who is standing where a gap in the frame is. He has acknowledged that this gag is a Buster Keaton "ripoff/homage"

Oh, and since I already posted Yankovic's video parody of "Gangsta's Paradise," I might as well show the original.

Coolio - New Music - More Music Videos

By the way, the singer on Coolio's song is L.V.

But "Amish Paradise" is not Yankovic's only video credit. filmreference.com lists several:

"Christmas at Ground Zero," 1986
"Babalu Music!," 1991
"Bedrock Anthem," 1993
"Headline News," 1994
"Amish Paradise," 1996
"Gump," 1996
"Spy Hard," 1996
"It's All about the Benjamins," 1999
"The Saga Begins," 1999
"Bob," 2003

And Yankovic doesn't only direct for himself:

Jeff Foxworthy, "Redneck Stomp," 1994
Jeff Foxworthy, "Party All Night," 1996
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, "Wail," 1997
(With others) Hanson, "The River," 1998
The Black Crowes, "Only a Fool," 1999
Ben Folds, "Rockin' the Suburbs," 2001

And for the record, Yankovic did not direct the movie "UHF."

Urban movie music, and a parody

I couldn't find a video version of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog's parody of Eminem's "Lose Yourself."

So here's the original.

Eminem - New Music - More Music Videos

I'll grant that even a synthetica lover like me thinks the instrumentals are a bit cheesy on the chorus, but it's still compelling movie music, comparable to "Gangsta's Paradise."

And I did find the parody of that.

Weird Al Yankovic - New Music - More Music Videos

The greatest bands you've never heard of

While my musical knowledge isn't as deep as the musical knowledge of others, I have heard of a lot of bands of which others aren't aware. I'm not sure why people haven't heard of some of these bands:

Cosby, Will, Cash, and Young. This band, one of the first supergroups, consisted of comedian Bill Cosby, columnist George Will, country singer Johnny Cash, and Canadian Neil Young. However, the band fell apart when Cosby, Will, and Cash decided that Young was just too weird. The others continued to have success, although Cosby had to battle a serious addiction to Jello pudding.

Carp. The success of the Beatles and the Monkees led to a slew of other bands formed in their wake, but Carp had an unusual twist - the "John" and "Paul" roles were played by females. While criticized by many (then-art student David Byrne thought the whole exercise ridiculous), Carp did put out some quality music, both slow songs such as "Cat and Bumblebee" and harder songs such as "River Dolphin."

Deck Boys Carp wasn't the only manufactured band out there. 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).

Jonathan Mann, "Torture Memos - Waterboarding"

Now there have been all sorts of "found object" songs. Some were inspired by Brian Eno and David Byrne's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" (in the early 1980s, some Reed College students issued a "New Music Sampler" cassette that had at least a couple of examples of the "marry radio to music" format), while others merely took written material and incorporated it into the song (the Wings song "The Broadcast" from Back to the Egg is an example of this).

Jonathan Mann fell into the latter category.

On this morning's "Handel on the News" segment, Bill Handel and his crew played an excerpt from this song:



my Fox Chicago explained the genesis of the song:

In January, singer/songwriter Jonathan Mann challenged himself to write a song and upload a video for it every single day. For his 109th song, Mann got lyrical assistance from former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo: "Torture Memos: Waterboarding" sets the content of a recently released CIA memo on waterboarding detainees to music.

The Vimeo video on this page explains Mann's Rock Cookie Bottom" project. And if you want to buy the song, click the "Buy Me $1" button here.

Tori Amos and 360 deals

In this blog, I've talked at various times about 360 deals. Turns out Tori Amos has the clout to reject them:

Amos is fully aware of her own strength as an artist. When she sat down with Universal Music Group chairman Doug Morris to discuss her Universal Republic deal, her longevity and devoted fan base gave her considerable clout. Amos, who has her own publishing and merchandising companies, was firm about not wanting a so-called 360 agreement, or multiple-rights deal, in which recording artists share not just revenue from album sales but concert, merchandise and other earnings with their label in exchange for more comprehensive career support.

"Tell me the upside of a 360 deal unless it's about $100 million?" she asks rhetorically. "I have to give half of it in tax, and a huge percent to my attorney, and then that's all I've got? And someone else owns songs I haven't even written yet?"

More here.

Only problem is, most artists don't have the clout of Tori Amos, so if you want a major label deal, you'll have to cave.

Assuming you want a major label deal.

The RIAA cleans up, or establishes a principle, or something

Read this New York Times article for the facts of the case. In essence, the RIAA accused Michelle and Robert Santangelo, who were aged 20 and 16 at the time and are the children of Patricia Santangelo, of illegally downloading about 1,000 songs, including "MMMBop" and "Beat It." After four years of litigation (originally against the mother, subsequently against her kids), the RIAA and the Santangelo family have reached a settlement in which the Santangelo family will pay dearly.

To the tune of $7,000.

Afterwards:

Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the R.I.A.A. [was asked] how much had been spent to win the $7,000 settlement, and whether it was a victory, she said, “We don’t break out costs per case, and it’s not a question of it being ‘worth it’ or a ‘victory.’ ”

She said the lawsuit had succeeded in showing that breaking the law has consequences and in steering music fans toward legal online services “that fairly compensate musicians and labels.”

Of course, some musicians may wonder whether they're being fairly compensated. Perhaps Ms. Duckworth can detail how much of the $7,000 will go to the artists and songwriters. It should be illuminating.

Even MTV does some geotarding

I was checking MTV's website to see what videos they had for Madness. I was hoping for a video version of one of their later, more thoughtful songs, such as "Yesterday's Men," but was disappointed. And when I went to watch the video for a very un-thoughtful song, "One Step Beyond,", I was disappointed even more.

SORRY, WE'RE UNABLE TO OFFER THIS VIDEO TO USERS IN YOUR REGION.

Then again, considering Madness' rather interesting recording history on both sides of the Atlantic, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Everything new becomes old

I just wrote an Empoprise-BI business blog post on people who evangelize for your business, and the portion of the post on KMET relied extensive on a post from Dave. But when he lamented the disappearance of free-form rock from the radio dial, Dave said the following:

For certain, the one-two punch of disco and "new wave" music in the late '70s and early '80s helped to push SoCal radio dials towards KIIS or KROQ, but think about this... how many "classic disco" or "classic new wave" format stations are around today? That's what I thought.

Dave didn't think hard enough.

As early as the 1990s, if not earlier, both "classic disco" and "classic new wave" formats were starting to appear, if not on fully-programmed radio stations, then certainly on portions of the radio programming. To name two examples, "Disco Saturday Night" and "Flashback Lunch" certainly epitomized the classic disco and classic new wave formats that were very popular.

And, of course, our listening habits have extended well beyond terrestrial radio. In the process of researching my Richard Blade wedding music post, I was alerted to the fact that Blade now hosts a show on Sirius XM radio. Here's what Blade says about his show:

I host a daily show on First Wave, Sirius channel 22, XM channel 44. It's an 80s station (how did you guess?) that features all your favorite music including D Mode, The Smiths, The Cure, Peter Murphy, New Order, Moz, INXS, TFF, Pet Shop Boys, Siouxsie, The Clash and so many others. It is, of course, commercial free.

But you're not really going to see this come into style until the oldies stations get a little less old. You see, the oldies stations shift their programming as the years go by to better address their listening demographics. It used to be tha oldies stations would play music from the 1950's and 1960's, but it appears that the 1950's stuff is being dropped and they're now playing 1960's and 1970's songs. So the classic disco is already there, and the classic new wave is sure to follow.

In a few years, get set for classic grunge.

Why your favorite music site is deplorable

In the course of writing this blog, I've talked about the relations of various corporations with the people responsible for writing and performing the music. Helienne Lindvall clearly does not come down on the side of the corporations. Here's a sampling of what she said in a recent article:

At least the Pirate Bay were blatantly open about the fact that they had no intention of compensating artists (though they weren't quite as open about the money they are making off the back of their business....

Many new internet music ventures, Last.fm being an example, build their businesses on providing unlicensed (which means they don't pay the artist) music with the view of selling their company for a hefty sum as soon as they have built up a big enough following. CBS bought Last.fm for $280m and set out to get licences for the music on the site. None of that money went to the artists whose music built the company....

Google/YouTube forces anyone who even attempts to make a licensing deal with them to sign Non Disclosure Agreements, preventing them from divulging how paltry the deals on offer are....

More here, including Lindvall's "Fair Trade" proposal.

On Pete Ham

The Music's Over features Badfinger's Pete Ham on the 39th anniversary of his death on April 23, 1975. You probably know how this story ended:

...by the early ’70s the band were caught up in a legal nightmare with their former management that left the members broke. It all became too much for Pete Ham who hanged himself in his garage on April 23, 1975 at the age of 27.

More here.

And in my old mrontemp blog, I previously linked to this account of Ham's band:

The story of Badfinger is one of the saddest and most unfair tales in rock and roll. Other artists may have struggled, been ripped off, suffered needless pain, and gone unrecognized for their talents, but rarely did one artist (or group) have to withstand all of this at the same time.

But why do we still talk about Badfinger? Not only because of the two suicides in the band, but primarily because of the music.

Another view on wedding music

I've spoken about wedding music previously, albeit briefly (solely in the context of one of my favorite hymns, "Now the Green Blade Riseth"). However, if you're planning the music for a wedding, there are a number of factors that need to be considered. To get guidance on this, you can refer to one of the experts on the topic - Richard Blade. And yes, I realize that half of you (the older half) are going, "RICHARD BLADE?!?" Meanwhile, the other half of you (the younger half) are going, "Who's Richard Blade?"

Blade is most famous for his 18 years of work as a disc jockey on Los Angeles radio station KROQ, and since he started there in the 1980s and was connected to a number of bands that gained prominence in the 1980s (he appears in the Depeche Mode movie "101" and was interviewed at the time of the Wherehouse Records signing), Blade is at this time generally regarded as an oldies deejay. (And again the older people are shaking their head at the idea that Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, and U2 are now considered oldies bands.)

But Blade, in common with many people who are or were involved in radio, has a number of projects going on at any one moment. His website mentions many of the things he's done, and the things he still does today. And one of the things that he will do is arrange music for your wedding ceremony.

The following is a list of some of the most popular wedding songs that I play at ceremonies and receptions. I’ve broken down each section of a traditional wedding, in order, from the ceremony to the reception. And please remember, these are past requests - it's what you want played that's important. After all, it's your
wedding day!

And, for the record, I did not find a single song by Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, or U2 in that entire list. Here's a sample from just one of the categories:

Processional & Bridal music: Played during the time the family, wedding party, and the bride walk down the aisle.

Bridal Chorus (Here Comes The Bride) from "Lohengrin" (Wagner)
Trumpet Voluntary in D (The Prince of Denmark's March) (Clarke or Purcell)
Canon in D (Pachelbel)
The Four Seasons (Handel)
Water Music (Handel)
What A Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong)
Unforgettable (Nat King Cole)
I Can't Help Falling In Love (Elvis Presley)
When A Man Loves A Woman (Percy Sledge)
In My Life (The Beatles)
March From Lohengrin (Wagner)

Well, we didn't have a deejay at our wedding, but if you're so inclined to have one, and if the Poorman doesn't meet your needs, there's always Richard Blade.

Well, you didn't think that they were gonna buy Eminem's catalog, did you?

I am not in the music industry, so in most cases the ownership of a particular music catalog doesn't really register in my brain. The exceptions have been celebrity cases, such as when Paul McCartney bought the music catalog of Buddy Holly, which inspired his then-friend Michael Jackson to buy the music catalog of John Lennon & Paul McCartney.

Well, I ran across this music catalog sale in the New York Times:

The estates of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II have sold the rights to the legendary duo’s songs and musicals — including “South Pacific,” “The Sound of Music” and “Oklahoma!”

And who bought the catalog, you may ask?

...to Imagem Music Group, an investment arm of a huge Netherlands-based pension fund, the company announced on Tuesday.

A pension fund? For songs that are decades old? Well, the songs are still popular.

Imagem was committed to maintaining high artistic standards for both future productions and the commercial licensing of specific songs, which include “My Favorite Things,” “Some Enchanted Evening” and standards from other Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals like “Carousel” and “The King and I.”...

André de Raaff, the chief executive of Imagem, said in an interview that he believed that musical theater classics like Rodgers and Hammerstein songs were “a very solid investment” for pension money.

You have to admit that Rodgers and Hammerstein songs are a much more stable investment than, say, oil.

More here, including the identity of the cat who almost bought the catalog himself.

Dubstar website and Facebook group?

I was listening to my randomly selected last.fm tracks, and Dubstar's "Stars" came up. A wonderful song that I admired song before I realized who performed the song, and that the lead singer ended up becoming a Client.

So as the melodies wafted about me, I started searching around and found http://www.dubstar.com/.

Huh? I thought that Sarah Blackwood had left Dubstar long ago.

The site merely consisted of a link to a Facebook group, which turned out to be a fan group.

So I nosed around and found out that the website had been registered by one Steve Hilliard.

And, after some further nosing about, I found this:

We have news, but it's sad news...
Share
Friday, November 28, 2008 at 12:21am
It looks as though the reunion will now not be happening.

I am incredibly sorry to have to tell you all this. Sarah has now decided (at the 11th hour) to not do anything with dubstar and to concentrate on Client.

So now Steve and Chris find themselves sitting on 20 brand new finished recordings.

For those of you who aren't aware, Sarah posted a statement over on the Client forum, but it got such a negative response from fans that they have now taken it down.

Chris and Steve will NEVER work with Sarah again. They are currently figuring out how to move forward through all of this.

I am sorry to have gotten all of your hopes up.

None of this would have been made public if people had not been committed in the first place.

Ouch.

Depeche Mode in Hollywood - what could go wrong?

My MeeHive account is paying its first dividends, since it helped me to find this Los Angeles Times article:

Authorities plan to shut Hollywood Boulevard near its storied intersection with Vine Street on Thursday for a free concert by the electro-pop band Depeche Mode.

Parts of the 8 p.m. event will be videotaped for airing later that night on the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show.


View Larger Map

Ah, Depeche Mode in Hollywood with thousands in attendance. Brings back memories. Slicing Up Eyeballs remembers:

Almost 20 years after sparking a near-riot when 20,000 fans showed up for an in-store appearance, Depeche Mode once again is venturing out onto the streets of Los Angeles....

Slicing links to a forum thread with a number of personal stories from people who went to the Wherehouse that evening, many years ago. Here's Franklin Avenue's summary:

In 1990, Depeche Mode had just released their "Violator" CD... and decided to make an in-store appearance at The Wherehouse music store in the Beverly Connection. About 15,000 people showed up -- some camping outside the La Cienega store for days.

By the time the band showed up, chaos erupted.

Both the Slicing post and the Franklin Avenue post include a YouTube video of the contemporary news coverage.



Franklin Avenue adds some observations:

Check out these news reports from the time... and how strangely out of touch these anchors sound. Odd that everyone keeps referring to the "hot new band from London," when Depeche Mode had been selling records in America for a decade by that point (and had even already performed its famous Rose Bowl show two years earlier).

And here's part two:




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To my knowledge, Zev Yaroslavsky has no comment on the Kimmel event.

Record Store Day follow-up

I mentioned Record Store Day in a post in my Inland Empire blog, but I personally didn't participate so I missed much of what went on. I did, however, read about the aftermath on a national level.

From New York:

The exclusives I was trying to snag sold out long before I even got to East Village institution Other Music. Fair enough, early bird gets the Beck/Sonic Youth split 7". Yet there was still a line just to shop in the store! ... DJ sets by Grizzly Bear, The Pains Of Being Pure Of Heart, and The Raveonettes ultimately soundtracked my shopping experience, which was was worth the wait.

From Chicago:

Billy [Corgan] went shopping at his favorite record store, Vintage Vinyl in Evanston, IL. He didn't know it was Record Store Day, though! Just a coincidence. Billy Corgan doesn't need a holiday to support indie record stores.

Re-creating a great moment in L A radio

So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I'll tell you want I want, what I really really want

So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I'll tell you want I want, what I really really want

So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I'll tell you want I want, what I really really want

So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I'll tell you want I want, what I really really want

So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I'll tell you want I want, what I really really want

So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I'll tell you want I want, what I really really want

So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I'll tell you want I want, what I really really want

Ad nauseum.

For more information.

Jango and "payola" - lost revenue will break my bones, but names will never hurt me

Follow-up to this March 9 post in my Empoprise-BI business blog, which included the following:

When we choose the words that we use to describe something, we know very well that the words we choose often affect how we look at the item being described.

Let's take the word "payola," used to describe a 1950s practice in which radio stations would be paid to play particular songs.

My March 9 post didn't discuss music per se (it concentrated on "pay per post" blogging), but this Guardian item did:

Payola – the illegal practice of paying or in any other way bribing a radio station to play your song – has existed since the advent of pop music. In the 1960s, Alan Freed was the first person convicted of payola and the book Hit Men described in detail how the practice was rife in the 70s and 80s....[A]s recently as 2005-06, three of the major labels were indicted and settled out of court for pay-for-play practices....

Now webcaster Jango has come up with an ingenious way of legitimising these bribes, by declaring publicly that they've been paid to play songs. For as little as $30, a band can buy 1,000 plays on the music-streaming service, slotted in between established artists (who don't pay for their slots, I assume). The artists themselves choose what other music they'd like to be played next to.

More here. As far as I'm concerned, disclosure is disclosure, and for those purists who condemn Jango's process, I submit that it's just another avenue for unsigned bands to flex their own power as opposed to the power of the major labels.

If Jango artists are to be criticized for buying airplay, should the major labels be criticized for buying commercials on radio stations? Yes, I know that radio stations publicly maintain that their programming decisions are separate from their advertising decisions, but those ads obviously help the major labels to obtain mindshare at the stations. And even if the radio stations don't change their programming, they can't necessarily control the sounds that are heard during the 15, 30, or 60 second sports. With sufficient money, you can buy up enough airtime for your artist to be heard more than any other artist on the station - granted it won't be counted in the station's official charts, but it will register in the listener's heads.

So how is that different from Jango?

The Brat Pack Sings - "Smile" (an old song)

Oh all of the Brat Packers, probably the person with the most intruiging resume is Robert Downey Jr. And he has moved in a new direction:

This fall [2004], the actor strikes out in a new direction with the release of The Futurist, his debut album as a singer/songwriter, on the Sony Classical label. Working in collaboration with producers Jonathan Elias and Mark Hudson in a style he calls .highbrow pop with jazz and classical influences,. Downey has written eight powerful, deeply felt new songs for The Futurist, which also includes two striking covers . Charlie Chaplin.s .Smile,. featuring jazz bassist Charlie Haden, and the Yes classic .Your Move,. with Yes.s Jon Anderson joining him on the vocal.

But this isn't something new for Downey:

Downey began playing music and writing songs when he was a struggling actor in New York some 20 years ago, with influences as diverse as Harry Nilsson and Steely Dan, and The Police and U2. After years of encouragement from friends and colleagues, the actor decided to go into the studio and build his first album (for which he also designed the cover) largely on original tunes that have been around for several years as well new songs he recently wrote.

Matt Collar reviewed the album:

Having sang in various film and TV projects, it was often rumored that Downey wanted to make a move to the music business. Well, the rumors were true and the results are largely laudable. Vocally, Downey has a unique sound that falls somewhere between the melancholy twang of Bruce Hornsby and the soulful grit of Joe Cocker — think Bruce Springsteen doing a cabaret night....Downey's ear tends toward the languid and his lyrics, while heartfelt, are obtuse and often seem to dance around deep issues without revealing much.

To date, Downey has not recorded a follow-up.

Regarding the cover version of "Smile," here are some details:

'Smile' was the theme music for Chaplin last silent picture 'Modern Times' in 1936. It became officially 'Smile' when John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons added lyrics to Chaplin's composition in 1954. Nat 'King' Cole recorded the song and it became a hit!

Here's the 1936 version:

A respected tenure at the Los Angeles Philharmonic

Perhaps it's fitting that this article ran in the New York Times:

On Thursday night Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted his next-to-last program as the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. And the most tangible manifestation of his galvanizing 17-year tenure with the orchestra may be the place the program was performed: Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s home since 2003.

In the Thursday performance, Salonen's own Violin Concerto was premiered:

Mr. Salonen, with his vast experience as a conductor, is so skilled at orchestration that every piece he writes, including this concerto, has a brilliant surface and wondrous sound. In the late 1990s he had a sort of California epiphany, realizing that without his modernist mentors looking over his shoulder, he could write the way he wanted to.

Perhaps all the modernist mentors were safely far away in New York? More here.

Michael Jackson auction cancelled

Normally in the Empoprise-MU music blog, I try to stick to music issues rather than non-music issues involving musicians. But this Michael Jackson story caught my eye.

Perhaps you heard about the planned auction of Michael Jackson effects? Well, it's been cancelled:

Mr. Jackson hired Julien’s Auctions last year to sell the contents of Neverland Valley Ranch, his former estate northwest of Los Angeles, and the company put together an auction of more than 1,000 items. But last month Mr. Jackson’s company, MJJ Productions, sued to prevent the auction, saying that he had not been given an opportunity to review the items in advance.

Litigation was avoided, and the auction will not take place. But apparently a lot of people are saying "Michael who?"

Mr. Julien had expected a large turnout for the auction, and said that his company invested $2 million to prepare it.

But when the doors opened for the exhibition Tuesday morning, only a few dozen fans and passers-by were on hand.

More here (New York Times).