I’m not crazy about the theme song to Mad Men. I wish they had used period music, really knocked the audience back in time with some Les Baxter, Persuasive Percussion, maybe something a little earlier like Les Paul or some groovy hipster R&B. Though I love it when the music supervisor throws us a soulful nugget from a Numero Group compilation, whenever the theme song plays, all I hear is a conveniently composed DVD menu loop.
The Mad Men DVD Menu Loop
October 19, 2008
Leave a Comment » | 
Uncategorized | Tagged: les baxter, les paul, mad men, numero group | 
Permalink
Posted by songfolly
An Audio Engineer Has The Most Boring Dream Ever
October 8, 2008This is not hyperbole. I had *the most* boring dream last night. I dreamed I was daisy-chaining some audio gear together and couldn’t figure out which DIP switch to flip. I mean, seriously, can you think of a less boring subject to dream about?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: dreams, gear | Permalink
Posted by songfolly
Them Did That Best
October 6, 2008
I stated my position over dinner this weekend: Of all the blue-eyed soul / garage rock / cusp-of-psych bands that came out of England and Ireland in the 1960s, Them did that best.
It’s Van Morrison’s broken glass, no-holds-barred, arrow-through-my-heart vocals. They belie his foppish hair.
If Them were easier to search for on YouTube and Google Videos, I’d have tracked down footage of a live performance of “I’m Gonna Dress In Black” or “Little Girl,” two of my favorite tracks off The Angry Young Them.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Them, Van Morrison | Permalink
Posted by songfolly
The Fetish Of The Artifact
October 2, 2008I’ve been volunteering at the ARChive of Contemporary Music for almost a year, and my favorite thing to help them with is alphabetizing. Yes, putting things in alphabetical order. Not only does it satisfy my practically pathological need to organize, but it lets me get my hands on the real artifacts. Records that were shrink wrapped and shipped decades before I was born, marred by needles dropped repeatedly on the grooves. Album covers that are shaded with ringwear, indicating age like tree rings. Off-center labels with beautifully inconsistent typography, tattooed in ballpoint pen with the owner’s name. I love the artifact, the art, and its history.
Yesterday, I found a nine-inch 78 rpm record in the “J” section by George W. Johnson, the first African-American recording artist. This dusty little disc is 105 years old! And the voice of this man who was born into slavery but sang his way to Vaudeville still emanates from its grooves.
I wrote about it on the ARChive’s blog.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: 78 rpm, fetish | Permalink
Posted by songfolly
Sharing The (Musical) Wealth Feels Good
September 24, 2008It feels good to sell my old Jackson 5 The Ultimate Collection CD to a neighborhood kid for $2, and to part with a beautiful LP of Dylan Thomas’ spoken word on Caedmon for 50 cents. It feels good to part with dozens of CDs and boxes of LPs, pass them on (cheaply!) to new owners, and thus to appreciate better the stuff we decided to keep.
I love collecting records, but I don’t see the point in owning more than I could possibly listen to in a lifetime. That’d be like having so many children you forget their names.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by songfolly
She’s No Barracuda
September 5, 2008It’s hard not to feel passionate about politics these days, so, thank you Ann and Nancy Wilson, for issuing a cease-and-desist letter to the McCain/Palin campaign so they will stop using Barracuda as Palin’s theme song.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Heart | Permalink
Posted by songfolly
Vinyl: It Smells Funny
September 2, 2008From an interview with Amanda Petrusich on Salon.
Is it simply that we (some of us) yearn to engage all five senses when listening to music? Mp3s don’t smell musty and moldy. You don’t get papercuts taking off the shrink wrap. They don’t show their age with feathery ring wear and bits of dust. Have you ever licked an mp3?
And does this company make a vinyl scented candle?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Vinyl | Permalink
Posted by songfolly
Sunday Times Catch-Up
August 31, 2008I’ve been on vacation, driving the West coast from North to South with a broken iPod perpetually on shuffle. It was like listening to a radio station with a good playlist and a bad DJ. Given a working Menu button, I might not have deliberately played M.I.A. and Simon & Garfunkel back to back. At least the rental car had an iPod jack and a sunroof!
Lazy Sunday morning, perusing the New York Times online and drinking coffee that’s a little too cool, here’s what I find:
Metallica has a new album, and I’m sufficiently intrigued. (Ride The Lightning was part of the roadtrip playlist). I like Rick Rubin’s advice that “If your marching orders for the first 20 years have been ‘change, change, change,’ then letting go of those preconceived ideas is in its own way a new idea.” See why they call him a guru?
Daniel Levitin has a new book, summing up The World in Six Songs. While I admire his fusing of anthropology, neurology and musicology with unabashed fandom, I bristle at the sweepingness. What’s the point in making such a slick and tidy pronouncement? Book sales? It strikes me as self-serving academic grandiosity.
In all fairness, I have not read this book or his previous best seller. Given my academic and musical interests, I should be running out to buy it in hard cover, right? I guess I’d rather put on a record and listen to it and think about it and have a conversation with my husband about the sound quality, the recording process, the serendipity that brought band members, producers and engineers together, the inspiration that led to lyrics and riffs, the historical or mathematical basis of rhythms and harmonies, copyright law, playback technology, mix tapes, sex, road trips, geography, memory, policy. And then flip the record and listen to the B-side.
Finally, the resurgence of vinyl. Ah, sweet, manufactured nostalgia. The kids want to hear pops and crackle and feel the weight of an object as the place the record on the turntable. My colleagues who cut vinyl confirm that the demand is there. Good. Consuming music can be more deliberate, directed, personal. Listening to a record is an activity, requiring attention at least every 22 minutes or so. Listening to iTunes on shuffle is wallpaper. As for imperfections, there are plenty in an mp3 but they’re less visible and thus dulling not electrifying – haze, not lightning.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Academia, Metallica, Vinyl | Permalink
Posted by songfolly
What Rattled Through My Brain During The Radiohead Concert
August 14, 2008Last time I saw Radiohead was 2001, outside… Radiohead fans have gotten younger and fatter and seem to wear more baseball caps… I’m so thirsty… Free Tibet, right on, Radiohead… Should I pick a fight with the people who stole our seats? Probably not, someone stole theirs too… So close, I can see their sweat twinkle in stage lights… Nice Gibson SG, what year is it?… He’d look good in a crisp shirt and tie… I bet it sounds really ace in the center of this venue; I’m standing in a bass bump… Cherry Gibson 335… Smoking? Seriously?… Thom Yorke, nice dance moves, handsome man… I haven’t listened to In Rainbows much at all, just downloaded it and slapped it on the iPod, yet I listened to my CDs of Amnesiac and Kid A and OK Computer and The Bends so thoroughly… We had three copies of Kid A between the two us; where did the third come from?… A Rickenbacker… So many camera phones; so many crappy YouTube videos tomorrow morning… I have got to go get a drink of water… I can’t believe that Grizzly Bear CD at the merch booth only cost $10; all CDs should cost around $10; I’d buy twice as many… Camden, who’s straight outta Camden?… Is Jonny Greenwood playing a xylophone? A real xylophone, so much nicer than a synthesizer… If he hit a wrong note, he’d improvise a correction, and we’d never know… It’s not too loud, but I wish the crowd would stop screaming, and how do they all know the words?… I don’t know the words to Radiohead songs; I know the words to other songs, but not Radiohead songs… Remember, you once thought My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless was all instrumentals… He’s dancing again; such presence, I can’t take my eyes off him… There’s a baby in our row, snuggled in a Bjorn, tiny ear phones… I don’t understand the urge to take crappy cell phone pictures and videos, but who am I to begrudge these kids; they paid $60 for their tickets too, or their parents did; besides, it’s not like they’re listening any less attentively than previous generations; are they?… Pick marks on his acoustic guitar, a well-loved slightly beaten guitar… I really like my guitar, wish I played it more often… They stencil their band name on their gear crates; I’d have thought they might use some clever alias… I should go to arena shows more often, and skip the clubs with terrible sound and mediocre bands… It feels good to hear this; I feel it, the bass in my chest, the rest all around me…
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Grizzly Bear, Radiohead | Permalink
Posted by songfolly
Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead
August 6, 2008
I had the opportunity to walk through a part of Central Park I’d never been to yesterday. With my street vendor ice cream melting down my fingers, I stopped in the shade to listen to the carousel’s Wurlitzer tinkling and crashing. The sounds travel beautifully across the little algae-skinned ponds and over the curves of the landscaping. The song:
Naturally, all I could think of was Strangers On A Train + The Catcher In The Rye.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: carousel, wurlitzer | Permalink
Posted by songfolly
