July 31, 2002

 
I Cross The Room Like A Dancing Architect

Assuming that Scott Miller has indeed given up recording music for good, the new Loud Family live album From Ritual To Romance will be the final record of his career. The album was recorded on two different tours, one for Interbabe Concern and the other for Days For Days, which I think is the peak of the band's career. I'm pretty happy with the tracklisting, which is heavy with my personal favorites: "Don't Respond, She Can Tell", "Sword Swallower", "Such Little Nonbelievers", "Sodium Laureth Sulfate", "Spot The Setup", "Deee-Pression", and "Good, There Are No Lions In The Street". Too bad they didn't include "Inverness", "Rosy Overdrive", "Slit My Wrists", or "Businessmen Are Okay", though - then this would be an almost perfect introduction record for new fans.

The record works well as an obituary for Miller's career, as it covers most of what was notable about his work - there's the abundance of clever, brainy lyrics; there's plenty of pop, there's a lot of experimentation with sound and structure. Three of the strange interludes from the Days For Days record are represented on this record, as well as the peculiar use of vocoder on "Go Ahead, You're Dying To" which reminds me hearing loud subway announcements while listening to a quiet, pretty song on a walkman.

I think that one of the things that makes Miller so difficult to sell is that most of his music is crisp, clear non-indie pop rock which turns off a lot of the people would normally be really into the more cerebral aspects of his music; and obviously the strange, obtuse experimental side of the band turns off most of the people who would want simplistic pop. I can't help but believe that there's a good number of people out there who would love Miller's work, but will never get around to hearing the man thanks to his painful obscurity and a music press who are either completely indifferent or dismiss Miller as a has-been who peaked with his 80's band Game Theory. Surely the fact that the entire Game Theory discography has been out of print since the early 90s doesn't help matters any.

One of the highlights of the live album is a recording of the Pixies' "Debaser" which is note-for-note faithful to the Doolittle album version of the original - that is, until Miller re-writes the lyrics of the second half of the song on the spot. The first time I heard this version, it felt exhilirating. It's like listening to a genius at work, Miller never sounds so confident on this album as in this one minute as he hijacks the song and makes it his own. He sounds excited as if he's getting away with something particularly scandelous. When he segues back to the chorus, gradually building up an impassioned finale of shouted "I am un chien Andulusian!"'s, I can't help but smile and love the guy even more than I already did.

Give the Loud Family a chance. This record is a great place to start.

60 Years Ago Today

There is an interesting article by John McDonough in today's Wall Street Journal about how the American music industry came to a halt in the early 1940s. Unfortunately, I can't link or cut/paste the article because the Wall Street Journal is only available to website subscribers online, and I only subscribe to the paper version. Here's an excerpt:

James Caesar Perillo, the pugnacious head of the American Federation of Musicians, had a simple zero-sum view of the business: Recorded music took jobs from working musicians - and to make it right, the record industry must pay. Technically, his target was records played on the radio, not in the home. But the courts had made that distinction impractical in 1940, ruling that manufacturers had no right to restrict records' use once they were sold. So with no way to kill half a goose, all records would be subject to Petrillo's demands which called for the payment of 1/4 to 3/4 cent royalty on most retail discs. To the companies, the amount was less important than where it was to go - directly into a union "employment fund". It became a matter of principal in the industry that it not be forced to make direct payments to the union.

Petrillo didn't care. He was single-minded where jobs were concerned, once quashing an NBC broadcast from the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan. High school amateurs, he said, took jobs from professionals. "Petrillo isn't very smart," one journalist noted. "Even Hitler makes believe he likes children."

Smart or not, he served notice that the record companies would either pay the union a royalty or do without the services of his 138,000 members. Producers and artists rushed to stockpile a war chest of inventory. Then at midnight on July 31, 1942, the turntables stopped, the studios fell silent, and a waiting game began.

The stockpiles could not anticipate popular tastes, as unexpected tunes poured from Broadway, radio, and Hollywood. No one imagined that in August 1942, for instance, that the release of Casablanca in 1943 would make "As Time Goes By" a hit that May. So record buyers had to choose between versions by Rudy Vallee or Jacques Bernard, both relics from 1931 (when the song was written) that were hastily released.

A lot of old records found new life during the strike. "All For Nothing Or Nothing At All" from Columbia, ignored in 1939 as a Harry James record, was a smash when reissued in 1943 as a Frank Sinatra disc. But Sinatra couldn't record new material. Neither could Bing Crosby, Perry Como, or any other singer.

Then someone found a loophole. If singers couldn't record with Petrillo's musicians, what was to stop them from recording with other singers? Suddenly, a procession of odd a cappella sides appeared. Crosby teamed with the Ken Derby Singers to record his famous "Sunday, Monday or Always" for Decca. That put the pressure on Sinatra, who record "Close To You" and eight others with his own chorale. Como hit the charts with an a cappella "Goodbye Sue". But beneath their church-like choral tranquility beat a union-busting heart.

The article goes on to explain that Petrillo managed to halt all-vocal recording thanks to the number of arrangers, copyists and record executives who were members of the American Federation of Musicians. Decca was the first label to want to settle with the union, and broke off relations with the other two major labels, and was able to start recording again in 1943. A hundred other smaller labels followed, but the remaining large labels, Columbia and Victor, kept resisting the union. Artists on those label's rosters starting bailing out of their contracts to get back to work with other labels. Eventually, this led to Columbia and Victor's surrender.

McDonough notes that as a result of this industry collapse, entire genres suffered (most notably Big Band), and many important parts of music history (such as the birth of bebop) went unrecorded. Still, no matter how much Petrillo was able to achieve in the short term, he was unsuccessful in the longterm, as the record and radio industries returned to business as usual shortly after these events. There was no way for him to stop the technology that he feared, and McDonough draws a comparison with him and the RIAA. Interesting.

I'd Be Well Chuffed If I Could Do That

E. Randy Dupre has a very funny fake Amazon review for Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep. It's well worth checking out.

Everything Is Everything, But You're Still Missing

After having read about the new Bruce Springsteen record in virtually every magazine and newspaper that I've seen for a week, I decided to try out a few of the songs in spite of my general benign indifference for the man and his work.

"You're Missing" is really good, it reminds me of one of my favorite Boss songs, "I'm On Fire". Even though the song is pretty lush and glossy, it still manages to be sort of subtle. Though I'm a little suspicious to be hearing songs about 9/11, this song is probably about as good as it's going to get for mainstream artists. The lyrics are about a widow mourning the death of her husband, it's very straightfoward and admirably avoids being trite. It is sentimental, but I don't think any song about grieving could successfully get around that.

"Into The Fire" is pretty over the top - it's very Aging Boomer Rock. It's got faux-Americana guitar (or is that a banjo?) on the verses, and then hits an extremely bombastic chorus with lots of back-up vocals. The lyrics are a lot cheesier than "You're Missing", and the whole song just sort of leaves me cold. I can imagine that this song could be redeemed by being stripped down to just Bruce and his guitar, but as it stands it's just sort of tasteless. I do like when Bruce hits a high note when he sings "I need your kiiiiissssss" in the first verse, though.

The single "The Rising" is pretty typical of Bruce Springsteen, which is to say that it is huge, bombastic, and guaranteed to get 50 year old women dancing awkwardly in the cheap seats. I just can't get into this song, and a lot of my criticisms for "Into The Fire" apply to this one too.

I like "Waiting On A Sunny Day", which is like a hybrid of "Glory Days" and "Hungry Heart". It's the catchiest of the four songs I sampled, and would probably sound good on the radio. This is the kind of Bruce Springsteen that I like the most - whenever he gets too sentimental or too serious, I think he comes off as trying too hard. (Please note that this is personal, subjective opinion, Paul) Songs like "Waiting On A Sunny Day" seem a lot more natural for the guy. I guess I just prefer the guy when he's being pop.

So, that's two out of four that I like - it's still not enough to inspire me to download the rest of them. My curiosity has been satisfied.