8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

The Residents – One Minute Movies

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Revisiting a wonderful and influential moment from ‘North Louisiana’s Phenomenal Pop Combo‘ The Residents:


“Perfect Love” – both the video and song – really are quite perfect.

Pitchfork:

More immediately influential are the “one-minute movies” the Residents made for songs from 1980’s Commercial Album. These illustrative clips were among the first to show how the music video could be its own form– not just a song or a movie or an ad, but something in between. That point was made all the more profound by the album, which includes a set of 40 one-minute songs that sound like concentrated extracts of larger tunes (liner notes actually suggest that each track should be played three times in a row to form a full pop song). They sound like jingles– and to further point out the blurry lines between art and advertising, the Residents bought 40 one-minute spots on a San Francisco Top 40 station, airing the entire album over a three-day period.


When I actually lived in North Louisiana there was a bit of Residents lore floating about (if you spoke to the right people) … that there were two core members from Shreveport, and that one had a rich stepfather who, frustrated and at odds with his increasingly weird stepson, gave him a bunch of money to move to San Francisco and buy recording gear. Or probably not. It’s sort of amazing that we still don’t really know their story.

The Quietus:

The band have strived to keep their identities a secret, employing all manner of conceptual subterfuge and sleight of hand to misdirect attention away from any singular version of the truth. When discussing conceptual art in the realm of pop music, people always talk about the KLF, but it’s worth pointing out that Bill Drummond would have been a young man of 21 when Meet The Residents was released.

Hitting The Links

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So many links, so little time. For your perusal, here’s a round-up of some unrelated articles that I’ve found interesting in the past week:

Alchemy Of Sound: On The Occult And Soviet Synthesizers

The father of futurist music, a Russian occultist and experimental composer by the name of Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, inspired the creation of an optoelectronic machine capable of converting into sound any symbols sketched onto a large pane of glass: the Soviet ANS synthesizer.


Dubbing Is A Must: A Beginner’s Guide To Jamaica’s Most Influential Genre

For many, dub appears an impenetrable genre – the sort of thing we know we should be into, but we don’t quite know where to start with. That’s why we asked David Katz – renowned reggae historian, photographer and more – to write us the Beginner’s Guide to Dub, with quotes from Bunny Lee, Niney the Observer, Glen Brown, Adrian Sherwood, Dennis Alcapone, Roy Cousins and more. We’ve also compiled an accompanying playlist on the last page of this article.


Apple Admits It Has ‘Homework To Do’ To Improve Apple Music

“There’s a lot of work going into making the product better. Our focus is on editorial and playlists, and obviously we have teams all around the world working on that, but we’re also adding features and cleaning up certain things,” Oliver Schusser, vice president, iTunes International, told the Guardian.



Asked about criticisms of Apple Music’s usability – which has seen users complaining of corrupted libraries and unintuitive interfaces – Schusser said: “The product is always our priority, and we are getting a lot of feedback. Remember, this was a very big launch in 110 markets instantly, so we get a ton of feedback. We’re obviously trying to make it better every day.” he said.


Lawrence Lessig: The Question For My Critics

Yes, we cannot know the details. But we cannot let the details stop us from the most important reform our democracy needs. The question isn’t simply, what might go wrong. The question is also, what do we know will go wrong if we do nothing? And is that risk greater than the risk of trying something different?

Music Hasn’t Killed The Compact Cassette

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Here’s a comprehensive article from a couple years back on the history of the ‘compact cassette’, featuring this nugget that might ring familiar:

With [all-in-one stereo systems] gaining popularity through the mid-1970s and beyond, the issue of copying became a bone of contention. People were sharing their vinyl records and taping them. Records could be borrowed from public libraries and cassette copies made. It was stealing. In other territories, developing countries in particular, where the Compact Cassette was more widespread than other forms of recorded media, the sale of pirate copies was commonplace.



While these overseas activities were beyond the reach of Western record companies, back home in Blighty, the BPI led a campaign to bring our music-ripping nation to book in the 1980s. The slogan “Home Taping Is Killing Music” was the industry’s browbeating missive to counter its fears that record sales would suffer due as a consequence.



Yet for the consumer, taping and sharing music was a way of discovering new bands and for many artists, this was acceptable because it was a way of growing their fan base. Fans that would soon enough buy their records and probably attend concerts with their mates.



The pros and cons of copying is an argument that still rages to this day. Certainly, Philips had no idea that the introduction of a dictation machine some two decades earlier would lead to such strife.


Meanwhile, this piece in Deutsche Welle – How Magnetic Tape Changed Music Consumption – also runs down the cassette’s history with a photo gallery and a short video documentary.

And then Bloomberg Business presents a recent video visit to National Audio Company, a ‘blank media supplier’ that claims to be be “making more audio cassettes than we’ve ever made.” A shocking claim, but I know my friends at the Cold Busted label have been releasing limited edition cassettes to some surprising success.

I do have fond memories of recording songs and projects on my Tascam four-track cassette ‘portastudio’. I’ve even said that this may have been my most creative time, given how the limitations of the medium forced ‘outside-of-the-box’ thinking. But it’s a format I certainly don’t miss (besides its kinda endearing hiss), and I admit being a bit bewildered at its tiny resurgence, beyond writing it all off as some sort of ironic statement. Any current fans of the compact cassette care to enlighten us on how it maintains appeal?

Some Days We Rave Like We Used To

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Reminiscing about olden times, The Guardian presents “the story of the UK’s biggest rave anthems.” Here’s A Guy Called Gerald on “Voodoo Ray”:

When Voodoo Ray was in the charts, I was still working at McDonald’s. There were all these excuses [about why the money didn’t come through]. I thought, something’s gone wrong here: I’ve got two tracks in the charts – Voodoo Ray and [808 State’s] Pacific State [which Simpson co-wrote] – but I’m still having to walk to the centre of Manchester from Longsight with a bag of equipment because I can’t afford to get a bus.


… and Garry Cobain of The Future Sound of London on “Papua New Guinea”:

Name me another period of music when way-out instrumental music could be hits. People were talking about the deepest bassline like it was a hooky vocal. The further out we went, the more people would trip out and the more people would buy it, and that’s a complete inversion of how pop usually works. We didn’t feel like we could work with exotic musicians but we wanted to bring that level of depth into sampling, which was the ability of two skint boys in their early 20s to seem exotic and worldly without asking anybody’s permission.


But then, unrelated – or is it? – comes this bit of unintentional nostalgia from Los Angeles via Billboard Biz:

Following the death of two teenagers attending the HARD Summer electronic music festival — held at the Los Angeles County-owned Fairplex — the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors yesterday (Sep. 1) unanimously approved the formation of an “Electronic Music Task Force” that would provide recommendations on ways to make electronic music fests safer for attendees. The motion also states a ban on electronic music festivals “remains a possibility.”


Everything old is new again?

The Larry Levan Bump

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Pitchfork:

Bands that once defined ‘70s punk rock at CBGB’s began making music that would appeal to the dancefloor (at The Paradise Garage) located but one mile west of that notoriously filthy venue. Blondie cut “Heart of Glass” and “Rapture”, while Talking Heads locked into a groove to smooth out the spastic tendencies of frontman David Byrne, and the aquatic funk of “Once in a Lifetime” became a Garage favorite. Meanwhile, Levan used to tune the room’s sound to the Clash’s “The Magnificent Dance”, and even rock royalty like the Rolling Stones and the Who vied for club play.



It speaks to Levan’s DJ sensibilities that it didn’t matter the genre of music—punk, pop, funk, disco, R&B—as long as it moved the crowd, it worked for him. And if Levan loved something, such as Pat Benatar’s brooding metallic synth-pop power ballad “Love is a Battlefield”, he would play it multiple times in a night, until any and all resistance was overcome.



Well before YouTube and Shazam provided metrics to forecast a song’s popularity, one only needed to peer out on the Paradise Garage’s dancefloor to see what was going to be a hit.


It’s always inspiring to hear these near-mythical stories of Larry Levan and other DJs from his era, and how they had the ability to create ‘hits’ within their cities and circles. As this story explains, Levan’s pull was augmented by his taste-making relationship with legendary NYC radio host Frankie “Hollywood” Crocker, and the two worked together in a perpetual search for the next big thing. This symbiosis may be particularly of a time … is there any similar relationship with such influence today? The web has given all DJs and artists a global audience, but has this decentralization diminished the importance and effectiveness of building scenes (and ‘hits’) organically within a city or region?

This piece’s stories also made me think of the classic New Order “Confusion” video showing Arthur Baker rushing to the Fun House to give Jellybean Benitez the reel-to-reel mixdown – hot off the presses! – to gauge the dance floor’s reaction:

These Are The Breaks: 10 Of The Most Sampled Drum Beats In Music History

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A.V. Club:

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the bandleader who considered every instrument a drum would be responsible for giving the world one of the most widely sampled drum breaks of all time. Performed by Clyde Stubblefield, the oft-pulled moment arrives around five and a half minutes into “Funky Drummer”; (James) Brown bookends the break with a “one-two-three-four” count in and out. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson hit the nail on the head: “It’s hands down the most perfect beat you can loop—it’s very lyrical, very melodic, very rhythmic. It’s perfect. It’s magical.”


A good little ten song list, most of which you’ll probably already know the sampled loops’ origins, but there may be a couple here to surprise you. If the list went to 11, I’m sure Banbarra’s “Shack Up” would be included … and it’s the drum loop I nearly got into trouble for using. Yes, dear reader, the myth that you can’t be sued for a drum loop is just that.

The Wild West Days Of The Web Are Over

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The Verge:

(Josh Greenberg) had violated the tenets of intellectual property law, of course, but there was precedent for that. Nullsoft’s Justin Frankel had coded Winamp without licensing the underlying mp3 technology; YouTube’s Steve Chen and Chad Hurley had looked the other way as users had uploaded thousands of infringing videos; Napster’s Shawn Fanning had acted as if the entire concept of copyright was obsolete. Greenberg resembled them. He was a scion of middle-class America; he’d attended a state school; he was young, and male, and comfortable with the internet’s culture of appropriation. The template was to move fast and to break things, and to let the lawyers figure out the repercussions once you’d earned your millions.



If Grooveshark had debuted in 2003, or maybe even 2005, he might have gotten away with it. Like a claim-jumper in the 19th century, Grooveshark could perhaps have emerged from the era of digital lawlessness with enough leverage to force the music companies to the negotiating table, and borrowed enough expertise from the venture capitalists to become a functional business. With a little luck, the company might have outmaneuvered Spotify, and Greenberg would have been a business icon.


I had a link to this month-old article hidden in one of my recent posts, but I think it deserves its own place as it’s well worth a read. The author shapes his piece as more of a commentary on changes in the Internet / entrepreneur industry – he believes the days of the budding teenage tech billionaire have passsed – but, of course, it’s all intertwined with developments in the music industry. The required move over the past decade from ‘digital lawlessness’ to legitimacy enlightens a bit about SoundCloud’s recent troubles, as well as how smart Spotify has been from the outset. The article also reminds me how it’s a deep shame that we won’t get to see what Josh Greenberg will come up with next as there was some seriously brilliant idea-making behind Grooveshark.

The Cure’s Head On The Door Revisited

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The Quietus:

The Head On The Door has the feeling of a solo effort in that Smith holds all the music credits, something that wouldn’t recur. But unlike The Top’s near total isolation and inward drama, The Head On The Door looks outward and brims with confidence, not least in the respective choices of opening songs – no ‘Shake Dog Shake’ and wailing anger, instead, New Order. Well, not really, but ‘In Between Days’ may be as famous for a bit of Peter Hook-style bass as for its video of dancing socks, swinging camera and black-light makeup. Above all else, it’s just a good song, sprightly, immediate, contrasting with the lyrical sentiments about feeling old and a love triangle’s aftermath with rushed acoustic guitar, musical hooks for days and a simple but perfect keyboard part that was the cherry on the cake. It feels like summer, a ruinous summer perhaps of mixed weather and mixed emotions, but summer nonetheless. All that and it starts with a perfect drum fill by (Boris) Williams, who as the one truly new member was at once the wild card and the secret weapon for the next seven years; The Head On The Door is as much his introductory showcase as anything else.


Released thirty years ago this year, huh?

“In Between Days” is one of the great album openers of ’80s ‘alternative rock’. I never thought to compare it to New Order, though, but I guess you could when thinking of another fine album opener, “Age Of Consent“.

How Much Is Music Really Worth?

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Pitchfork:

In 1889, when the first “phonograph parlor” opened in San Francisco, saloon patrons could listen to a song through a tube for a nickel. When Thomas Edison began manufacturing wax cylinders of recorded music for home entertainment in the late 1890s, they cost 50 cents each, played at 120 RPM, and could hold only two minutes of music. Loosely speaking, what cost a nickel in 1889 would cost $1.29 today, and what cost 50 cents in 1900 would go for $13.89 today. (Then as now, how much money ever ended up in the hands of musicians remains murky.)



We create the value of music through a sort of community consensus, whether in terms of its emotional impact or its monetary worth. As units of music have become difficult to price, they’ve also lost their economic value—so I agree with a recent Future of Music Coalition op-ed arguing that “the music business has a transparency problem.” Would more detail about dollars and cents restore the music economy’s spirit? Maybe. The industry has recovered before, and there are reasons for optimism, but ultimately music and business, though inextricable from each other, aren’t the same.


A useful article here from last April, just discovered thanks to contributing article-finder Jon Curtis, that doesn’t quite answer the headline’s question but does lay down some interesting facts and figures. And the historical information on formats and pricing that comprises the middle section of the article is fascinating as well as providing some context.

The vague conclusion from the writer seems to be not to think in terms of a recording’s worth, but in the overall income an artist can wrangle through his / her creative endeavors. One can also reach the assumption that artists controlling their revenue inputs – that is, not sharing huge portions of everything with a label – come out on top. But one might want to have a trusted manager to handle the numbers, to keep artist types from getting creatively derailed, as one interviewed musician put it. As I like to say, managers are the new record labels.

In a Land Before iTunes

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A review of Michael Denning’s new book Noise Uprising – which sounds fascinating – in New Republic:

Denning’s story starts in 1925, when engineers perfected the technique of electrical recording and the 78 RPM phonograph record supplanted sheet music as the basic unit of the music industry. A handful of Western record companies spent the next five years recording local music across the world. Some of the music they recorded—Indonesian kroncong, South African marabi, Shanghainese huangse yinyue—remains unfamiliar to most Americans. Others, like jazz and tango, have become ubiquitous. The quantity and diversity of recordings from this period reflect the record companies’ basic indifference to the music they put out: They were willing to record anything that might persuade local consumers they needed a record player.



The varieties of local music recorded during the phonograph boom were not quite “folk” music rooted in the rhythms of rural life. Instead Denning calls them “vernacular” music—music performed and listened to by the people, as opposed to the high tradition of “classical music,” guarded by a small, highly trained group of musicians and mostly performed in formal settings. Vernacular music, like vernacular languages—Spanish, Italian, etc—belongs to everyday life, whereas classical music is more like Latin, used by officials and in high art. And just as vernacular literature gained strength with the invention of the printing press, the rise of vernacular music began with the phonograph.


As the article points out, the fact that the publisher has supplied a follow-along Spotify playlist for the book creates a comment about the continuing evolution of these themes:

But accessing these songs as streaming data, rather than shellac 78s or expensive CD reissues, also suggests that the way we experience music is still being relentlessly transformed. Like the phonograph boom, the digital era combines elements of democratization with the persistence of large corporations and the commodity form. Perhaps more than any of its specific conclusions, Noise Uprising is valuable as a challenge to think through the audio politics of today.