I recently read an article in Rolling Stone (amazing they’re still in business) about the currently popular group ‘Foster The People’. And the leader, Marc Foster, said something like this:

I don’t want to be one of those one-hit wonders like James Taylor… you know… doing ‘Fire And Rain’ for the next 30 years. I want to do thirty more great songs like [insert number one song title I should know here]

In this Great Age of Narcissism (The Big G), I guess I shouldn’t be, but when I read this, I was quite gobsmacked. I think my amazement and umbrage is because for all the RS pretensions of ‘journalism’, the interviewer just let the guy get away with it; not challenging any of his deep pronouncements. But in the GAN, hyperbole like this goes as unnoticed as smog in the city. You don’t really see it until you get outta town.

I mean, this guy should be so lucky as to have a fraction of the career James Taylor has had. He’s […]

Time and again, I’m told to write something periodically to you, Dear Reader, in order that I may keep me at the forefront of your digital consciousness.

But lately? I……………….got nuthin’. Or rather, I got the beginnings of two dozen amazing bits of music-oriented prosody; but nothing complete.

Ironically, when there’s a ton of stuff going on, that’s when I have the least amount of time to write. And the corollary, of course, is when I’m most loquacious, is when musical activity is moving along a steep incline of torpor. At the risk of conjuring the spirit of Andy Rooney: I don’t know what bugs me more? All these famous people Tweeting a bunch of blather; or the 7,123,453 ‘Followers’ who ‘consume’ their 140 characters of bullshit many times each day. (Which begs the question: is bullshit best consumed in many bite-sized morsels every day, or as Sunday Dinner with all the trimmings one tends to get here.

But Even The Interweb Couldn’t Swallow It

I had one such heapin’ helpin’ of steamin’ […]

Comedy really is hard.

I recently saw Le triplettes de Belleville again and was reminded of this fact. It’s one of the great achievements in animation—hell in all moviedom. It’s funny, sad, warm and uplifting and it made me realise that very little recent art popular outside of animation has those qualities.

But let’s face it: There has never been much truly great art that is a whole lotta fun.

Do I have to feel like crap in order to have a transcendent experience? (No sex, drugs and rock and roll jokes, please.)

But how many life-changing moments come out of funny business? As much as I go on about Shakespeare this and Shakespeare that, how many of the comedies would I feel bad about missing before shaking off this mortal coil? Zero. From the whiny Hamlets to the homicidal Richards Henrys to complete nutjobs like Lear and Titus, let’s face it: it’s the death that really sticks with a person. All the rest? They feel mostly like what they were meant […]

Computer Scientist, Dennis Ritchie died this week. There was nary a mention of it anywhere in the major media, except perhaps below the fold on A6. But he was a hero to me for many reasons—his influence on my musicianship not being the least. I grieve. And I hope in vain to convince you, gentle reader, who would rather read about the guy in the black turtleneck, that Dennis was one of the more important guys of the twentieth century and worthy of becoming part of your dinner conversation.

The Requisite Preliminary Adulation

A hundred years from now, when devices with a certain fruity logo are as forgotten as ‘Pullman Cars’ are forgotten today, the fruits of Dennis‘ work will still be running the world; as it does now.

I originally went to school to study physics, simply because I got a scholarship to study physics. Back then, if you did physics, you learned to program computers in order to do the work. And for science geeks, ‘programming a computer’ meant writing […]

Maybe it’s this Great Recession or whatever but I can’t seem to turn around without hearing phrases like, ‘You just gotta be creative!’ or ‘You gotta think outside the box.’ Almost always this phrase is uttered in response to trying to ‘do more with less’. Sort of a ‘McGyver’ deal, I suppose. In other words, if you don’t have the money to hire someone to do ‘X’, just think up a lower cost solution ‘Y’ using the old noodle.