Yap

Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61”
Bob Dylan

Happy Birthday

Photo by Don Hunstein - New York City, 1961

Happy 68th birthday Aretha Franklin.  Yes, that means she's only 18 in the photo above.

Happy Birthday Bob

    Photo is from Rolling Stone, by Matthew Rolston.  Mr. Dylan appears to have his hat nailed on.

Bob Dylan is 68 today.

Yap

And no one brings anything 
Small into a bar around here.  
They all started out with bad directions.
Tom Waits, 9th & Hennepin

Yap

Don't you know there ain't no Devil,
that's just God when He's drunk.
Tom Waits - Heart Attack & Vine

Top Singers List

    Aretha Franklin, New York, 1961 

Rolling Stone has a list of the top 100 singers of all time.  Its a bit predictable, and heavy on 60's R&B, but still fun.  Guess who was number 1?

Fun Facts To Know And Share

Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and James Brown all made their first records in 1954.  Berry is the only one still alive.  He is still performing at age 82.  Here is his website .  I saw him perform in the late 1970's.  It was a great concert.

Faves: Everybody's Rockin'

I've got a soft spot for both Neil Young and Rockabilly.  So his 1983 Rockabilly album Everybody's Rockin' was a favorite from day one.

Rockabilly is the forgotten genre of American music.  Its an article of faith that Elvis' success came from re-packaging "colored" music for white audiences.  I've never agreed, because Elvis was Rockabilly through and through from the beginning.  His earliest and best records were made in Sam Phillips' Sun Records studios, the capitol of Rockabilly.  The same place that a young Johnny Cash was also making Rockabilly records before he went Country.

Neil Young captured the weird undercurrents in Rockabilly on Everybody's Rockin'.  You can see in Rockabilly the precursors of Las Vegas, Liberace, and over-the-top elements of white working class culture.  Fins, pompadours, leather jackets, motorcycles, electric guitars.  See exhibit A below:

    Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps in the studio, mid '50s.  These guys are intense.

Neil Young has been the most consistently inconsistent musician out there.  Going his own way has often left his fans behind.  Its been a struggle for relevance. I sympathize.  Getting people to pay attention has been a struggle in my various creative endevours.

Anyway, a Rockabilly album was natural for Young, and he delivered.  He made a bizarre and funny video for the single Wonderin'.  The only version online is this poor quality one, but its a little better than nothing.

Faves: Burn On

There's an oil barge winding
Down the Cuyahoga River
Rolling into Cleveland to the lake


Cleveland city of light city of magic
Cleveland city of light you're calling me
Cleveland, even now I can remember
'Cause the Cuyahoga River
Goes smokin' through my dreams


Burn on, big river, burn on
Burn on, big river, burn on
Now the Lord can make you tumble
And the Lord can make you turn
And the Lord can make you overflow
But the Lord can't make you burn

From Randy Newman's Burn On, an ode to Cleveland and the Cuyahoga River, so polluted that it famously caught fire in 1969. It was not the first time. The photo is from a similar eruption in 1952. One of many. The 1969 fire, however, did make a difference. Time magazine said the river: "oozes rather than flows". The publicity led to a realization about the extent of industrial pollution in North America.

Faves: Sandinista

London Calling is considered by many to be among the best albums ever made.  I've always thought their best material was on Sandinista.  Its The Clash's Exile on Main Street, a band at the height of its powers that couldn't stop cranking out fabulous material fueled by unapologetic political sophistication.  I remember hearing the triple album the day it came out in December 1980.  It was amazing.  I've never stopped listening.  Unfortunately, this was the last gasp artistically for The Clash.  Subsequent material was embarrassing, if popular.  But I don't begrudge them selling out, they earned it.  I'll always have Sandinista.

Faves: Abbey Road, The Double White Christmas Album

Sooner or later I was going to have to deal with the Beatles.  Let's do it now.  Abbey Road and The Beatles are two of my alltime favorite albums.  Abbey Road is the only album I invariably listen to in its entirety.  IMHO, the finest work they did individually and together can be found on The Beatles.

After the Beatles broke up, Abbey Road was long considered their best album, apart from Sgt Pepper which had instantly gone to the top of the pantheon and was no longer discussed in comparison to anything else.  As time went on, through the mid-late 70's, opinon shifted with The Beatles being favoured more highly.  Nowadays, Rubber Soul and Revolver are more highly thought of.

At the time it came out, Abbey Road was a sensation for side 2.  Nobody, as far as I know, has really tried something like it, at least not with any success, until Jesus of Suburbia by Green Day.   Anyway, I like Abbey Road because it is so comfortable, cozy, like your favorite comfy chair.  It really delivers a bit of everything the band did well.  No rough edges, no outraged political statements, no wild experimentation, just a good solid, thorough album from a band that had not actually tried to do this in some time.  Not to impugn their previous efforts, but they did have other things on their minds besides a solid, professional, fast-ball-across-the-plate type album.  As it turned out, this was their last release.  How many other bands have delivered such a great last album?  Not a lot.  Just a note that although Abbey Road came out in 1969 and Let It Be in 1970, Abbey Road was recorded after Let It Be and released before.  She's So Heavy was the last track all four recorded together.

Until sometime in the '80's, I had never heard The Beatles referred to as anything except the double white christmas album, or the white album.  It came out in December 1968 and its length was considered by fans to be a present from the band.  Younger readers may not remember how tumultuous 1968 was.  It started out with the Tet Offensive and went downhill from there. A lot happened.  But the year of epic upheaval ended on an epic high note with the excellent white album and Apollo 8 orbiting the moon.

The funny thing about The Beatles was that they evolved into a backup band, backing up each other.  This arrangement worked pretty well, and never better than on the white album.  Sexy Sadie, Revolution, Back in the USSR, Blackbird, Helter Skelter, Mother Nature's Son, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Long, Long, Long; these are among the best songs the three wrote.  For an album so contentious in its making, there are a lot of magic moments.  Not all of it stands up, particularly John Lennon's material.  But the best stuff is among the best stuff ever by anyone. 

I like both of these albums better than any of the earlier ones, even the deified Sgt Pepper.  The only thing the earlier albums have is a 100% there John Lennon.  His sad life became an object lesson in the danger of drugs. Except for a few very notable exceptions, he went away some time in 1967 and never really came back.  By the time of his death, he was a shadow.  Nothing more than another self-indulgent, coddled junkie in a terminal stupor.  When asked his opinion of Elvis Presley's death in 1974, Lennon replied that Elvis died in 1957 when he went in the Army.  This was cruel, but entirely true.  The ironic thing is that John Lennon didn't die in 1980, he died in 1967 when he became consumed by drugs and Yoko Ono.

Faves: The Stranger Song

Songs of Leonard Cohen - 1967

I've spent my life looking for the card that is so high and wild I'll never need to deal another. Card sharps, artists, opportunists, entrepreneurs, addicts... they're all strangers. This song is kind of the other side of Bob Dylan's "Shelter From The Storm"  You can listen to a snippit here at Amazon.


The Stranger Song - Leonard Cohen, 1967
It's true that all the men you knew were dealers
who said they were through with dealing
Every time you gave them shelter
I know that kind of man
It's hard to hold the hand of anyone
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender,
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender.
And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind
you find he did not leave you very much
not even laughter
Like any dealer he was watching for the card
that is so high and wild
he'll never need to deal another
He was just some Joseph looking for a manger
He was just some Joseph looking for a manger

And then leaning on your window sill
he'll say one day you caused his will
to weaken with your love and warmth and shelter
And then taking from his wallet
an old schedule of trains, he'll say
I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger.

But now another stranger seems
to want you to ignore his dreams
as though they were the burden of some other
O you've seen that man before
his golden arm dispatching cards
but now it's rusted from the elbows to the finger
And he wants to trade the game he plays for shelter
Yes he wants to trade the game he knows for shelter.

Ah you hate to see another tired man
lay down his hand
like he was giving up the holy game of poker
And while he talks his dreams to sleep
you notice there's a highway
that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder.
It is curling just like smoke above his shoulder.

You tell him to come in sit down
but something makes you turn around
The door is open you can't close your shelter
You try the handle of the road
It opens do not be afraid
It's you my love, you who are the stranger
It's you my love, you who are the stranger.

Well, I've been waiting, I was sure
we'd meet between the trains we're waiting for
I think it's time to board another
Please understand, I never had a secret chart
to get me to the heart of this
or any other matter
When he talks like this
you don't know what he's after
When he speaks like this,
you don't know what he's after.

Let's meet tomorrow if you choose
upon the shore, beneath the bridge
that they are building on some endless river
Then he leaves the platform
for the sleeping car that's warm
You realize, he's only advertising one more shelter
And it comes to you, he never was a stranger
And you say ok the bridge or someplace later.

And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind ...

And leaning on your window sill ...

I told you when I came I was a stranger.

More Dylan

Coincidentally with the Dylan quote that went up a few days ago, I watched I'm Not There, the 2007 film about Dylan. It was good but not great. Not quite as good as I had expected. Still pretty interesting for anyone that likes Bob Dylan.

The film made me realize something. For most of his songs, I haven't got a clue what Bob Dylan is talking about. Even for some of the ones I really love and play often. Watching the film and reading some other stuff on the web, I realized that nobody else has much clue either. And Dylan has either forgotten what he meant or isn't saying. Or maybe never had a clear meaning in mind to begin with.

Still, I love some of his stuff in an odd way. I'm not a Dylan fan. I don't own a significant number of his albums. Most of his stuff I've never listened to. But the stuff I do like, I've worn out. Literally. I wore out copies of Highway 61 and the Basement Tapes back in the vinyl days.
I think the thing with Dylan is that people see their own meaning in his lyrics. Kind of like a musical rorsach. But the pictures he conjures aren't completely abstract, like the rorsach pictures. He writes about specific things, like ingratitude, or spurned love, or a thrilling ride, but in such a way that we can project our own experience onto the words he provides.

Apparently Obama likes Dylan. His staffers let it be known he had Dylan and Miles Davis and Yo-Yo Ma among many others on his iPod. Clearly they were highlighting a broad range to polish Obama's image. But they actually said he really likes Maggie's Farm. That he listens to it often. I believe it. Maggie's Farm is about ingratitude. About all the ways you can get screwed on the job and the kind of people who do the screwing. It was Dylan's break with the Folk movement. My guess is that anyone with a career in public service could relate, and add a few verses of their own. Obama's liking that song enough for them to mention it tells me a lot more about him than if they said he really likes Hey Jude or Stairway to Heaven or Papa's Got A Brand New Bag.

Yap

Asked how he chose his career:
Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I started drinking. The first thing I know, I'm in a card game. Then I'm in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a "before" in a Charles Atlas "before and after" ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy — he ain't so mild: He gives her the knife, and the next thing I know I'm in Omaha. It's so cold there, by this time I'm robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble onto some luck and get a job as a carburetor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night. I move in with a high school teacher who also does a little plumbing on the side, who ain't much to look at, but who's built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything's going good until that delivery boy shows up and tries to knife me. Needless to say, he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy that picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. What could I say?
Bob Dylan - Playboy interview, February 1966

From a great article at New York Magazine: The Ten Most Incomprehensible Bob Dylan Interviews of All Time.  This was #1.

Memo to EB: STFU

Edgar Bronfman; scion of a bootlegging fortune, would-be media mogul, serial idiot.  I won't call him Mr. Bronfman, that title is reserved for his father, who I respect.  By all accounts, Edgar is a nice guy. But he's an unfortunately bone-headed businessman.  He has made tons of money for various partners over the years, but managed to destroy billions of his own family's wealth.  The sad tale is too long and complex to list here.  You can look it up if you like. He also looks uncomfortably like Seth Green playing a billionaire.

Edgar has made headlines in the past for peevish statements that betray fundamental misunderstanding of the entertainment and technology industries.  For example, he famously whined about the iPod: "We are selling our songs through iPod, but we don’t have a share of iPod’s revenue. We want to share in those revenue streams. We have to get out of the mindset that our content has promotional value only." I would have liked to be there when Steve Jobs heard that.  That's like McDonald's demanding a share of GM's revenue because drive-thrus make automobiles more valuable.

Techdirt reports that Edgar is at it again.  This time, he's upset about the phenomenally successful Guitar Hero and Rock Band games.  These games have invented a new mini-industry.  Bands are clamouring to get in.  Its better than advertising because the customers get really engaged with your music.  They can even buy MP3s through an embedded online store.  And the game companys pay you to include your music.  Bands are enthusiastic.  Metallica is releasing its new album via Guitar Hero the same day it goes on sale at retail. 

But that's not good enough for Edgar.  He said, "The amount being paid to the music industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small." Or what?  Warner will pull its artists?  I think Edgar is getting a bunch of STFU memos from his artists today.

Techdirt sums it up nicely:

The industry simply assumes that, if something makes use of their content, all of the value is in the content. That's incorrect. Yes, the content is a part of the value, but it's the game that's making that content valuable. [snip] Until the recording industry recognizes that this isn't a zero sum game, and someone out there promoting your content is helping to make it more valuable, the industry is never going to figure out how to really adapt.

The idea of copyright as zero-sum game is fundamental to the problems with intellectual property. This is a powerful point to remember when evaluating any of the numerous policy issues currently on the table. But that's another post.

Faves: Remain In Light

This album blew me away when it came out (1980).  That's a while ago now.  It still sounds great, and to my ear, not at all dated.  The sound itself was a bit of a shock.  The Talking Heads started with a very spare new wave sound.  But this was dense, layered, thick.  Like pop music kidnapped as a baby and raised by anarchists.  The lyrics are also terrific.  David Byrne laid off the ironic button long enough to actually tell some stories.  Stilted nonsensical stories, but stories nevertheless.  There was a bit of this on their previous album, but he took it farther here.  For example:

He would see faces in movies, on T.V., in magazines, and in books....
He thought that some of these faces might be right for him....And
that through the years, by keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in his
mind....Or somewhere in the back of his mind....That he might, by
force of will, cause his face to approach those of his ideal....The
change would be very subtle....It might take ten years or so....
Gradually his face would change it's shape....A more hooked nose...
Wider, thinner lips....Beady eyes....A larger forehead.

He imagined that this was an ability he shared with most other
people....They had also molded their faces according to some
ideal....Maybe they imagined that their new face would better
suit their personality....Or maybe they imagined that their
personality would be forced to change to fit the new appear-
ance....This is why first impressions are often correct...
Although some people might have made mistakes....They may have
arrived at an appearance that bears no relationship to them....
They may have picked an ideal appearance based on some childish
whim, or momentary impulse....Some may have gotten half-way
there, and then changed their minds.

He wonders if he too might have made a similar mistake.
Seen and Not Seen

RANT: Bill C-61 Canada's Copyright Cave-in - Update

photo: AADL.org
If blacksmiths had been as well organized and connected as the music industry, horses would still be a common sight and automobiles a tightly controlled rarity.

I don't like Bill C-61 (Canada's proposed new copyright law). Some form of copyright update is certainly due, this bill is entirely the product of lobbying by US multi-nationals and the Bush administration. The bill's shortcomings have been widely condemned. Three things, in particular, have drawn criticism. First, Industry Minister Jim Prentice promised public consultations before a bill was introduced. The only consultations he actually had time for were with the US Ambassador and several content ownership lobbyists. Second, the consumer "rights" introduced in the law are inadequate for the way people use purchased content. Lastly, the "rights" themselves are overruled by any Digital Rights Management (DRM) introduced by the content owners. The anti-circumvention clause makes it lllegal to break DRM, or to posess the tools to break DRM regardless of purpose or intent. So you can enjoy your right to rip a CD for your iPod, as long as the record label doesn't include DRM on the CD to prevent ripping. It is also worth noting that many Canadian artists and artist's associations are against this law. Bill C-61 was formulated to protect the interests of multi-nationals, not artists.

Critics have also pointed at messy clauses that make compliance nearly impossible. For example, not only uploading copyrighted material becomes illegal, mearly "making available" files for digital distribution would also be illegal. You don't have to actually commit the crime of infringement, you only have to capable of it. Also, it will be legal to use tools that protect your privacy, but illegal to distribute such tools. WTF does that mean? Jim Prentice doesn't know. He brushes off such questions as "too technical". Many legitimate and (currently) legal software programs used by Canadian consumers contain tools to circumvent DRM. You probaly have such programs on your computer.

Besides these objections, two more things really bother me. First, the bill assumes that whoever puts the DRM on the content is always right, and the customer always wrong. That amounts to a get out of jail free card when it comes to Provincial Consumer protection. Product doesn't work as advertised? Too bad, its a DRM issue. You must have broken the DRM rules, that's why it doesn't work. Case closed. There are numerous examples of bad DRM implementations. Here two current examples of DRM going horribly wrong with no consequences for the vendor.

In April, Yahoo! announced that they are closing their current online music store. Last week, they announced the DRM servers that provide continuing authorization for music purchases will go offline September 30, 2008. Music that has been purchased through the store is periodically re-authorized. This is done when you upgrade your operating system, or move the music to a different device. Its also possible a firmware upgrade for your device could trigger an authorization. Firmware upgrades are usually automatic, without user intervention. If you do something that triggers an authorization after September 30, the music will deem itself unauthorized and refuse to play. It just stops working. Yahoo promises to "take care" of customers, but declines to specify how and leaving the onus on the customer to figure out why their music doesn't work and contact Yahoo for releif. Most importantly, this is a good-will gesture by Yahoo. They are under no legal obligation to do anything for these customers. Today, it would be legal in Canada to simply strip the DRM off the tracks and continue using them. Bill C-61 would make it illegal to circumvent DRM regardless of reason or intent and subject to a statutory $20,000 fine .

The PC game Mass Effect, released June 2008, calls home every 10 days for re-authorization. If it can't reach the authorization server, or if it decides your CD key is compromised, the game shuts down. In addition, you are allowed 3 installs per CD key. Upgrading your OS (e.g going from XP to Vista) counts as one of your 3. Re-installing Windows because it breaks? That counts as well. I have to re-install Windows at least once a year. Upgrading certain hardware on the computer also counts. Which hardware in particular? That's a secret. In the case of Mass Effect, you do have an option if the application bricks. You can call Bioware and beg for a new CD key. In at least one case, they refused to issue a new key to someone that had re-installed Windows. Again, if this were my game, I'd crack it in a minute. But after C-61 comes into effect, I'd be committing an illegal act.

My second objection is that a blanket prohibition on circumventing DRM gives content owners (frequently foriegn corporations) the ability to decide what is legal and illegal in Canada. This is just wrong. We have an elected Parliament that decides what the law is supposed to be and a courts system to interpret and apply those laws. There is no room here for a music executive in Los Angeles to say "this is legal" and "that is illegal" in Canada based on the latest snakeoil pitched by some DRM company. No taxation without representation. No legislative power without electoral accountability.

After all that, the really shocking thing is that DRM doesn't work. It has never worked, and it probably never will work. Before the latest DRM locked content hits the stores, there are cracks available online. That's not an exaggeration. None of the currently planned DRM schemes will work either. Content owners are trying to find new ways to lock the content to hardware because cracking software DRM has become trivial. Unfortunately, it will again be only the honest that are penalized. With Emulation now hitting the mainstream, tweaking the "hardware" that Windows thinks it is running on will become as trivial as cracking software DRM is now.

Even worse than the fact that it doesn't work, DRM imposes unreasonable restrictions on the way customers use the purchased content. Songs will work on one device, but not another. Sometimes they won't work on different devices made by the same manufacturer. Limited installs, time-outs, remote authorization, required installation of police-ware, crippled quality. As there are no standards for DRM, every company outsources their DRM from different suppliers. There is no uniformity of usage rules, privacy standards, or implementation between vendors. Different products from the same label or publisher can have completely different DRM schemes. For example, the PC Game BioShock, developed by BioWare and published by EA (just like Mass Effect), had the phone home component dropped due to customer outcry. The 3 strikes install rule was not included either. So these two games created and published by the same two companies have completely different DRM enforced usage rules. Content downloaded from the Internet has none of these restrictions. It can be used, shared, re-used, transferred, re-encoded and used as much as the customer likes and is usually of higher quality (for music anyway). Why on earth would someone want to pay for lousy content when the same content is available in better quality for free? The unintended consequence of this bill is to make it clear: only suckers pay for content. DRM punishes the honest and provides incentives to be dishonest.

Lastly, C-61 protects music companies and movie studios from technological change. In the 1920's, the music industry tried valiiantly to block the introduction of Radio. It would destroy the sheet music business they argued. Well, they were right about that, but the sheet music business was replaced with the vastly more lucrative recording business. Jack Valenti, the movie studio's great warhorse said in 1974 about Cable TV:

A huge parasite in the marketplace, feeding and fattening itself off of local television stations and copyright owners of copyrighted material. We do not like it because we think it wrong and unfair.

During a massive battle to make VCRs illegal, Valenti testified to the US Congress in 1982:

I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

Today, movie studios make far more profit on DVDs than they do at the box office. So the industry crying wolf is nothing new. The only thing that is new is that governments are caving in and giving them what they want. If blacksmiths had been as well organized and lobbied, horses would still be a common sight and automobiles a tightly controlled rarity.

-----------------------------
Update July 29
Yahoo has announced that all customers of the ill-fated music service will be given DRM free tracks of a full refund. Commendable and good for Yahoo. Unlike Microsoft, who left customers in the lurch until public outcry forced them to keep the DRM servers running.

Faves: Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia

Yes, a total rave-out from the Dandy Warhols. I love a good dirge, and this has 'em. With nasty sharp hooks and walls of guitar so dense you can't pick out the individual overdubs. Lots of heavy, heavy monster beat plus up-tempo poppy stuff as well. Tons of acoustic guitar for density and texture. They even have a trumpet on "Godless". This album has just about everything I love.

Faves: Exile On Main Street

The Rolling Stones went on a hot streak. After their indifferent experiment with psychedelia in 1967's Their Satanic Majesty's Request, The Stones went back to basics with Beggar's Banquet in 1968. This was the first of their golden era, followed by Let It Bleed in 1969, Sticky Fingers in 1971 and Exile in 1972. A double album, Exile is raw, spontaneous and risky. The band ventured to lots of interesting places other bands were to polite to visit. More than anything, this is Keith Richard's album and his finest accomplishment. IMHO, their high point and the best album by any of the great 60's British bands. Yes, that includes The Beatles.

The Rolling Stones on Wikipedia, Rolling Stone Magazine