Tuesday, May 31, 2005

TechWeb: "Cell-Phone Tone Crosses Over To Music Best-Seller"

TechWeb reports that a ring tone, "Crazy Frog Axel F," is now at the top of the U.K. charts, with Cold Play's new song "Speed of Sound" next. How likely is it that when the history of music evolution is written, this day is seminal, like the day when the first rock n' roll song topped the charts? Are ringtones the new form of our time, to fit our ever shorter attention spans and the need for catchier, simpler sounds to go with these times?

As you can tell, I'm not a fan of the trend :). I'll post the tune if I can.

Swami

Friday, May 27, 2005

Great Wall Street Journal Article about the Meters



Tuesday's (May 24) edition of the Wall Street Journal has a great article about The Meters ("The Original Meters" as Ziggy always refers to them), and how they set the standard for so much great music that followed, from jam bands like the Radiators and Phish, to rappers like L.L. Cool J and Run-DMC (who sampled their music). Too bad we missed their reunion this year. I saw them in 2000 at the Warfield when they had their last reunion, but the Warfield is a crummy venue, so it wasn't as fun as it should have been. The journal quotes Art Neville as saying, during their reunion performance this year, "We may be a little older and a little fatter, but we're still black and we're still funky!" How true!!!

Since the site is subscription-only, here's an excerpt. (Btw, if you're gonna pay for any subscription content on the web, the Journal is a great choice: great reporting and incredible range of coverage and original content. The only downside is the crummy editorial page, which is full of right wing nutcases).

That the Meters came to be the Lost Tribe of Funk speaks to how music business success can be fleeting, and often band-splintering. In their heyday, they never cracked the charts with the consistency of outfits like Earth, Wind & Fire; their eight-year run was not long enough to earn them the seniority of James Brown or George Clinton. Yet as these more celebrated funk founders attest, the Meters stood out from the rest.

"To us, the only funk band around was the Meters," Mr. Clinton says of his early days in the late '60s, when he was molding the Parliament/Funkadelic family of bands. "Before I got with James Brown, they were like the funkiest cats to ever hit the planet," says bassist Bootsy Collins, whose stints with Messrs. Brown and Clinton preceded his own legendary career. "The Meters were different from other funk groups, because they were more like a band...and the drummer -- good Lord!"

"I first heard the Meters in the early '70s," recalls Earth, Wind & Fire leader Maurice White. "Everybody else was staying right to the beat, but they had a New Orleans flair....They made a really big sound for four guys."

The Meters did what other funk bands of their era could not do: playing a little behind the beat, dropping unexpected spaces into the rhythm that created an altogether surprising, foot-elevating effect. Meters bassist George Porter calls it "our New Orleans 'pocket' -- it was a little more syncopated and probably what made it harder to lock down than [the music of] George Clinton and James and all of those."

Mr. Porter is one of four childhood friends from the same New Orleans neighborhood (keyboardist Art Neville, guitarist Leo Nocentelli and drummer Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste are the others) who banded together in the late '60s, forced to limit the lineup to a simple quartet by the tight confines of the French Quarter bar that hired them. Over a two-year run, the band developed a loose, economic approach that was heavily swayed by the street-parade rhythms peculiar to their hometown, and built from the rhythm up.

Says Mr. Neville, the eldest of the group: "See, when we started out we didn't know anything about music. We just enjoyed playing. But drummers from New Orleans -- there's some kind of little edge there that I can't explain. The drummer was the trick -- Zigaboo."

The drummer prefers to share the credit. "It wasn't really me," says Mr. Modeliste. "The band said 'OK, you lay down this drum thing, and we'll compose the music to fit.' They composed the music to the drumbeats. That was the formula that was successful for us for a long time."

So now you know why this blog is named what it is. :)
Swami

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Clayton McMichen

I was listening this morning to a song by Clayton McMichen called "Prohibition Blues." It's an interesting, and surprisingly current song, which might just as well apply to current drug laws as it once did to prohibition. Here's some of the lyrics:

The preacher comes around and gives advice, and then you have to stall
But if he gets to the bottle first, he'll never leave you none at all

I'll tell you brother, and I won't lie, what's the matter in this land
They'll drink it wet, and vote it dry, and hide it if they can

They'll pitch a party and they'll all get drunk, and call it society
But if they catch you with a pint, good morning penitentiary, hey hey hey
I did a little research, and discovered that McMichen was one of the pioneers of the genre we now call "country," playing with fiddle with Jimmy Rodgers. Really interesting stuff.

Check out the song.

Swami

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

The Library of Congress' Memory Collection

In surfing around trying to find info on mp3 blogging, I found The Library of Congress' American Memory collection. This is quite extraordinary stuff, and will undoubtedly take me a long time to go through and check out. Here's one song from their Voices from The Dust Bowl Collection: Nolan Duncan singing "She'll be Coming Round the Mountain." Lovely stuff, even if I'm the only person who actually likes all this old music :). There's also this version of (the Jimmy Rodger's song?) "Talking Blues" (not the same as the one I'm more familiar with by Bob Marley) by Norman Nelson. Pretty interesting stuff, and not just about dust bowl ballads from the 30s. More to come on this!

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Best Moment of Fest '05

So, not that this has anything to do with music, but it was fun when a street guy walking by me said as he passed me, "Rich White Boy!" The only time I've ever been called that!

(The worst moment was losing my wallet, but I found it, so all's well that ends well :)

Swami

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Days Three and Four at JazzFest

Saturday night was a really good night of music. I saw Theresa Anderson at the Rock N'Bowl, which was unexpected, but really kind of good, country-rock kind of music. And then, got to see Anders Osborne at the Rock N' Bowl as well (that's who I'd really gone there to see). I had seen him some years ago opening for Dr. John at Tip's Uptown, and I had remembered him as a really good Delta bluesman. He's become a lot more rock-n-roll ish, but it was a really good show. The sousaphone player who he uses instead of a bass player was cool to watch. I wonder how someone can do that: it seems like a tough instrument to play!

After the Rock N' Bowl, went to the Allie Cat above the Blue Nile to see Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes. They're a talented bunch, but didn't make much of an impression on me this night. I did enjoy the band I saw at the Blue Nile, though, who's name I don't know. It was sort of a bluegrass band (Randy said maybe they're a genre called jamgrass), with a ukulele (update: as Randy points out, it was a mandolin :) and guitars. Very fun to watch and they had the crowd going! Saw Li'l Hercules for a little while afterwards at Cafe Brasil to wind up a loooooong night about 7 am :)

Of course I didn't make it to Fest Sunday after all that! Hung out by the river and did a little work during the day. Went to dba for a drink in the evening, and lost my wallet! It was a scary experience, but when I went back, I managed to find it under the chair we were sitting at. oooh! i had to miss a dinner at acme oyster house for it, but it was such a relief, i felt good. that night, i saw otra, my favorite new orleans cuban latin jazz band. it was really good, and relaxing. lot of new musicians on the band (only the band-leading bass player and the nicaraguan conga drummer seem to be the same from last year). After that, we went to see Ziggy's Krewe. He had only Chris, the guitarist, from his usual band here. The rest were local gig musicians. And Leo Nocentelli and Cyril Neville put in guest appearances. It's always great to see Ziggy in New Orleans. He puts on his best show here!

That brought this Fest to an end! Another good year. Sorry it had to end. :(