I Need A New Drum Kit—In Praise Of Ringo & Art

My drum kit she is a gone. And she’s a no coming back. My loverly Ludwig Silver Sparkle set (aka ‘Old Ringo’ appears to have been ‘liberated’ from the storage space I had kept it at during my recent studio renovation. I am told that it is not insured for the current market value of $1,500 smackers.

So it’s time to mourn. Not just for the dough-re-mi. And not just because it was my pal for several decades. But rather because it was a critical part of my education as a musician. Drums are a big deal. Even if you’re playing bass or guitar, the more you know about ‘the set’, the better you do your job. So I shall grieve.

And then? I gotsta get me a new one. And, since every loss is also a chance to ‘learn something’ (grumble, grouse, grumble), I think I ought to use this tragedy to re-think my drumming.

From Pee Wee To Ring-o

My whole concept […]

Submitted for your approval. I give you Pomplamoose; apparently the hottest indie band in America right now, due to their hugely viral videos.

Do Americans know the term twee? Well, ya oughta. It’s a word that perfectly describes what is to me a really disturbing trend in pop music (and art in general); specifically it’s dumbing down. Or rather, it’s what I like to call the glorification of not growing up.

Now it’s not so much the ‘dumbing down’ of music that’s got me in my current lather. I’ve had most of my life to get used to that form of sadness. No,  it’s simply that current flavour is so insidious that makes it so troubling.

See in days of yore, you’d have a group like The Beach Boys or later on Abba who did simplistic, tuneful, carefree songs featuring fresh-faced kids. This was marketing gold. I call it  Audio-Wonderbread: Everybody likes it even though it provides all the nutrition for the spirit as the alleged baked good does for the […]

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/123260-pour-some-sugarland-on-me-why-country-music-is-the-new-classic-rock

Man do I love this column. I love it so much I have absolutely nothing to add. He said it all.

Back in the day, there would often be three guys who wrote a broadway musical: the composer, the lyricist and ‘the book’. So for example, with Fiddler On The Roof you’ve got music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein.

OK, so to laypeople (like me for example) the music and lyrics are pretty obvious but ‘the book’ may not be. The book is essentially all the bits that occur between the musical numbers. As followers know by now, I’m always looking for analogs between opera and Broadway and I think a good way to think of this is that the music/lyrics are the arias and the book contains all the recitatives. As with opera, the music/lyrics describe the characters feelings and the book drives the story. Or to put it in the context of Hollywood, the music/lyrics are the action and […]

I actually started this post back in August. So the immediacy has worn off. But, like world hunger, the war in Iraq and my various ex-wives, it’s an issue that just won’t seem to go away. 😀

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/aug/14/beatles-rock-band-videogame-preview

I have rarely had such a combination of out and out fear, revulsion and lust as when I first saw this. And both times, the lawyers got the lion’s share of the leavings. 😀

Look, you know I’m totally with the arriere garde (I do prog rock fer cryin’ out loud!) But, this, like nuclear science, begs the question that even Einstein couldn’t figure out: just because we can do a technology, does it really mean we should? Are there not some machines that ought not be built?

Does the need to have a machine that women in bikinis will ride in the water merit something as loud as a Waverunner? Is it really crucial to mankind to develop a strain of marijuana that doesn’t cause cancer? A microwave-able pizza with a genuinely crispy crust?

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