underdog of perfection » Album

Unnatural Disasters expanded edition now available!

room34.com — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:29:51 +0000

Last week I finished a “remastered” version of my new album, Unnatural Disasters. Sure, it’s barely a month old, but I’m still perfecting my “studio” (such as it is) techniques, and even though this new version wasn’t done in time to become my official RPM Challenge submission, I consider it the definitive version of the album. I’ve also thrown in my secondary RPM project, Technetium, as a bonus track. (Sure, this bonus track is longer than all 9 tracks on the actual album combined, but it all still fits nicely onto one CD. You do miss out on the great cover art, though.)

The new versions of all of the tracks are now available here and on VIRB. Better yet, get a copy for yourself! It’s available as a name-your-own-price MP3 download on INDISTR or for $7.99 on CD from Kunaki.

My two RPM projects are both now available on CD

room34.com — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:20:00 +0000

In a rare bout of overabundant creativity (or inadequate self-restraint), I have finished not one but two CDs for the RPM Challenge. They’re available now on CD from Kunaki.

The first project, Unnatural Disasters, is a more traditional album of 9 tracks in styles running from straight-ahead rock to prog rock to Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis electric jazz to electronica, and running a little over 36 minutes. The music could serve as a soundtrack for a world tour of the strange places I’ve written about in my blog.

Also unnatural but less of a disaster, the second project, a single 38-minute track, is a piece of minimalist electronica with a structure based on the composition of a technetium atom. It is, appropriately enough, entitled Technetium. Up close, the music is ever-changing, yet on a large scale it is completely static; it doesn’t really go anywhere, but it also never precisely repeats in its entire 936 measures. It went from concept to completed album in about 6 hours, which is the half-life of technetium’s least-stable isotope.

You can learn more about the two projects, and listen to streaming versions of all tracks from the albums, by clicking on their respective covers to the right.

The beat (and harmony, and occasionally melody) goes on…

room34.com — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:24:19 +0000

We’re approaching the halfway point in this year’s RPM Challenge, to record an album during the month of February, and things are progressing pretty well for me. The challenge is to record at least 10 songs or 35 minutes of material in 29 days. So far I’m up to 35:30 on 8 of my 9 intended tracks. That time will probably get reduced a bit as I master the tracks and remove some of the dead space at the ends of them, but I should still be well above 35 minutes, probably around 40.

As I’ve mentioned previously, my album is entitled Unnatural Disasters, and you can read more about it (and even hear the full in-progress tracks in streaming audio) on my album page. You can also find out more about my project on the RPM site.

The RPM Challenge is underway!

room34.com — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:51:11 +0000

This year I am participating in the RPM Challenge to record an album during the month of February. I already have 6 tracks in some state of completion for my album entitled Unnatural Disasters. You can keep up with my progress and listen to the tracks on the album page.

New Mars Volta album out today

room34.com — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:35:42 +0000

I haven’t even listened to it yet (ripping the CD now), but I just wanted to draw attention to the new Mars Volta album out today, The Bedlam in Goliath.

These guys are quite possibly the most adventurous band out there in the “mainstream” today. (Whether or not their music is what you call “mainstream,” it’s certainly no sign of obscurity to have your album featured in Target’s Sunday circular.) It’s progressive rock for a new generation. But call it what you will; how can you not like a couple of guys who look like this?

NPR has a great review of the album.

It’s here!

room34.com — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:44:19 +0000

My Radiohead In Rainbows “discbox” set arrived today, and it’s quite a sight.

There’s a heavy cardboard slipcover over the box/book package. Inside, an inner pocket holds a 12-inch square glossy booklet of abstract artwork. The right side consists of an attached 12×6 booklet containing more art and the lyrics along with the two CDs (the album proper on the first, 8 bonus tracks plus a couple of folders full of more digital artwork and photography from the recording sessions on the second). And lastly, slits on each side (in traditional LP gatefold sleeve fashion) contain the two heavyweight 12-inch 45 RPM vinyl records with the album’s 10 tracks.

I haven’t had a chance to listen to any of the new material yet (although I’ve already enjoyed the main album via download for the past couple of months), but already I am incredibly impressed with the quality of the presentation. The product itself is a work of art.

With all due apologies to Bill Bruford (and the rest of Yes)

room34.com — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:58:33 +0000

Endure it if you dare.

Things were just different back in 1971. And if you don’t believe me, consider this: a very successful rock album from that year was Fragile by Yes.

This album contained not only three tracks near or longer than eight minutes each, but five brief tracks that were the individual creations of each member of the band. Some members were not so enthusiastic about this approach, most notably drummer Bill Bruford, whose contribution was an awkward, 37-second noodlefest for drums, guitar, bass, and organ entitled “Five Per Cent for Nothing” [sic, although apparently that's how they spell it in Britain].

Only 37 seconds, you say? Or more to the point, only five percent, you say? I have now attempted to rectify that shortcoming.

The piece as it originally appears consists of a complex rhythmic pattern, played through twice by the band. Well, if twice through constitutes five percent, simple arithmetic tells us that 40 times through will yield the full 100%. (It also clocks in at a pleasing 11:11.)

So here you go…

Yes, I suppose I am infringing on the band’s copyright with this, though I assure you it is bringing me no great wealth (not that this particular track was ever a money machine for the band, either). But just to prove I mean no ill, I encourage you to consider purchasing the full album. (For what it’s worth, I myself have purchased it in one form or another no less than seven times.) It features some outstanding playing and great songs, including my favorite piece of music in the history of human civilization, “Heart of the Sunrise.”

But if you’re in the market for something a little more current… a little more seasonally-appropriate… a little more ridiculously titled, then I would steer you no further than to Chris Squire’s Swiss Choir, a drunken joke new Christmas album featuring Yes bassist Chris Squire, drummer Jeremy Stacey (formerly of Sheryl Crow’s touring band and more recently of the briefly-reformed-and-now-once-again-defunct lineup of Squire’s pre-Yes band, The Syn), and ’70s-era Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett.

Normally I would look at something like this and think, “Mannheim Steamroller, but somehow, incomprehensibly worse.” And yet, from the samples I checked out online, it’s surprisingly not complete shit! “Complete” being the operative word. When I emailed a friend about this album, with the subject line “Holy crap,” he replied “I think you have just come up with the perfect two word review for this album.”

If by any chance you do choose to purchase it, I would implore you to consider doing so via this link to the iTunes store, so they’ll know who recommended it! (OK, they won’t. But at least I’ll get a tiny piece of the action.)

Top 5 Albums of 2007

room34.com — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:21:13 +0000

Wow, I can’t believe this is already the fourth year I’ve been doing this. I am truly an old fart because the years really are flying by now. That’s what happens when you’ve made 34 trips around the sun. I’m just scared to think what it’ll feel like when I’m 60.

Well enough angst. Let’s talk music. And there’s a lot to talk about: 2007 has, for my tastes at least, been an unparalleled year for new music. I would have a hard time identifying a year that’s produced more great music without going all the way back to 1971. (And I wasn’t around to experience that firsthand.) So, without further ado, here we go.

5. Rush: Snakes and Arrows: I’ve been a Rush-head for over half my life now. A sad fact of a band this long-lived and prolific is watching the quality of their output deteriorate over time. The band’s last full-length album, 2002’s Vapor Trails, was surprisingly good musically, but suffered from some of the worst production in the last several decades. The band had been enthusiastically touting Snakes and Arrows for several months before its release, and with good reason. The album is phenomenal. Easily their best work since 1984’s Grace Under Pressure. Great, rocking music, with more dynamics and variety than we’ve heard from the boys in years; lyrics with surprisingly deep insight into the woes of early 21st century American society; first-rate production; and… well what can I say? Three instrumentals. It just doesn’t get much better in the Rush canon.
4. Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage: Michael Brecker was at the pinnacle of the post-Coltrane jazz world for upwards of 30 years. Late last year he was diagnosed with terminal leukemia, and with less than 5 months to live, he put together a final farewell to those of us who’ve followed his brilliant music over the years. This album is full of moments of profound beauty and intense burning jazz as full of life as anything he’d ever done. Sadly he did not survive to see the album released, but it remains a fitting good-bye to this jazz legend.
3. Wilco: Sky Blue Sky: I’ve enjoyed Wilco’s music since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and have been fascinated to hear the evolution of the band’s sound on each album. This is very much back-to-basics, and it works extraordinarily well. It’s simply not possible to listen to this music and not feel good. In a good way.
2. Radiohead: In Rainbows: This is the album it seems everyone was talking about in October. It may still see a traditional release in stores in 2008, but so far it’s only available as a pay-what-you-want download from the band’s website. But that in no way means it’s inferior work. The band has covered some challenging musical ground in the past decade since the release of their masterpiece, OK Computer, and this album bookends that one nicely. (There’s plenty of speculation out there that the albums really were intended to integrate in Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon style, but I’ll leave that to the stoners to prove.) If you haven’t already, download it now. What are you waiting for? (I assume you are wondering what, if anything, I paid for it. Well, I sucked it up and bought the £40 deluxe package, which should be arriving next month.
1. Foo Fighters: Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace: I loved In Your Honor so I was eagerly awaiting the release of this album and it did not disappoint! From the lead single “The Pretender” straight on through, the band displays brilliant songwriting, impeccable chops (these guys can really play, and if you doubt that, be sure also to check out drummer Taylor Hawkins’ guest work on Coheed and Cambria’s No World for Tomorrow), and a wide stylistic and dynamic range. Dave Grohl’s voice matches the music perfectly, from a delicate whisper to a larynx-shredding scream. The best album of a great year of music.

Top 5 Albums of 2006

room34.com — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:30:13 +0000

At least it didn’t take me until July this time, but the only reason I’ve gotten around to this year’s list so soon is because I just happened to be looking at last year’s list and I realized, “Hey, I haven’t made a new list yet!” So, here you go.

5. Field Music: Field Music: This is what Gentle Giant might sound like if they appeared on the scene today. What’s amazing is how much nerdy intricacy these guys can cram into each song without coming across as pretentious, something first-wave prog rockers constantly struggled with (or, occasionally, as with Gentle Giant, embraced with tongue in cheek).
4. Beck: The Information: As I said with 2005’s Guero, any Beck is good. When I first heard this I thought it was too reminiscent of things he’s done before, but now I’ve come to see it as a further refinement of his style. I don’t get the last track though… and I pride myself on getting weird-for-the-sake-of-weird stuff.
3. Keane: Under the Iron Sea: I’m not sure the world really needs the next Coldplay yet, but here’s the next Coldplay. Great atmospheric yet melodic piano-driven pop-rock.
2. Donald Fagen: Morph the Cat: Half a Dan is better than no Dan at all. The Fagen/Becker duo has given us a lot to relish in the new century, and that continues with this fantastic album, easily the best of Fagen’s outstanding (if very slowly emerging) solo trilogy.
1. The Decemberists: The Crane Wife: I consider this to be the best album in nearly a decade, certainly on par with the likes of OK Computer. I was immediately blown away by this band upon hearing this album and within a couple of weeks, had bought everything they’ve released. Why are you still reading this? Buy the album! Now!

Honorable Mention

Here are some other great albums released in 2006 that didn’t make the cut:

Umphrey’s McGee: Safety in Numbers
Wolfmother: Wolfmother
Dave Douglas: Keystone
Tool: 10,000 Days
The Mars Volta: Amputechture
The Flaming Lips: At War with the Mystics
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Stadium Arcadium

Take a trip on the “Morgantown Expressway”

room34.com — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:17:34 +0000

The first release candidate (version 1.2) of “Morgantown Expressway” is ready. I have a rather humorous track of my almost-4-year-old son rambling on about light sabers and Pokémon, which he did directly after sitting in while I recorded the saxophone parts, and I’m still debating whether to include it in the final mix or not. Here, it is not.

How about a fresh Hors d’Oeuvreture?

room34.com — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 05:04:18 +0000

I’ve continued to tweak the two tracks I’ve been working on for the new album. I just posted a major update to “Heavy Water,” which you can listen to here or on the “official” page for the album.

I also posted minor updates to both tracks yesterday, in place of the earlier versions that were there. I didn’t bother to draw attention to them though, as they were basically just tweaks to the masters.

In addition to the current projects, I have a 16:18 ambient track I recorded last year, called “1.618″ (because it’s based on the golden ratio… the length of the track is a deliberate play on that number), that I’m planning to add as the final track on the CD. It needs some clean up back over in Pro Tools (because I discovered GarageBand buckles under the stress of loading a pair of 16-minute waveform tracks) and a new master. I got a new computer since I worked on it, and all I seem to have backed up are the Pro Tools project and an MP3, but no CD-quality mixdown. More on that later.

Note: To conserve server space, I’m clearing out older versions of the Hors d’Oeuvreture songs. Visit the album page to hear the latest available version of each track!

If you don’t have iTunes on your computer…

room34.com — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 14:12:12 +0000

Please, download it now. Why? So you can read all of the hilarious reviews of Kevin Federline’s album.

C’mon, it’s really worth it. One review compares the album to “putrid liquefied 52 million pounds of chicken.”

Top 5 Albums of 2005

room34.com — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 01:02:37 +0000

OK, I realize that we are now precisely (give or take the days various Caesars stole from February) halfway through 2006, but I still haven’t gotten around to compiling my list of the top 5 albums of 2005. I think I actually did start one back in December but I couldn’t narrow it down, or I couldn’t be bothered to care to finish it or… something.

5. Beck: Guero: A lot of the same critics who praised 2002’s Sea Change for its growth came back to declare Guero a grand return to form over what they now called dark and depressing. Get over it! I actually liked Sea Change better, but anything from Beck is good.
4. Porcupine Tree: Deadwing: Speaking of anything from being good, here we have Porcupine Tree, without a doubt the most undeservingly underheard band around today. This album is so good I can’t even write a coherent sentence about it.
3. Foo Fighters: In Your Honor: Great album. At first I thought the idea of splitting all of the acoustic/mellow tracks onto one CD and all of the rockers onto another was a risky idea, but it actually works out great. The pair complement each other well, and are perfectly suitable soundtracks for diametrically-opposed moods.
2. Coldplay: X&Y: A lot of people I know hate Coldplay, and I just don’t get it. Perhaps they’re overrated now, and it’s just that I started to get into them before they got really big, but I think their music is full of great melodies and atmospheres.
1. Coheed and Cambria: Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness: OK, this one had to win simply for the fact that these guys had the cojones to give their album such a title. C’mon guys, it’s not 1974! Unabashed prog rock seems to be making a comeback, but unlike the slightly more successful Mars Volta, these guys don’t pad each track out with aimless noodling filler (and I usually like bloat-prog).

Top 5 Albums of 2004

room34.com — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Another year is almost over (and considering where we’ve come, I can only hope the next four go as quickly… but I digress; besides, I’m still on political vacation). Time to review the sounds that made their way into my ears (or at least onto my iPod) this year…

5. Benoît Charest: The Triplets of Belleville (Soundtrack): This brilliant soundtrack lifts from such diverse influences as Django Reinhardt and Curtis Mayfield, and works as perfectly as the animated feature itself. Everyone owes it to themselves to experience both the film and its music.
4. Wilco: A Ghost Is Born: I’ve only just begun to delve into this album but it seems to hold great potential. (Plus, Jeff Tweedy lives in my sister-in-law’s neighborhood in Chicago.)
3. Beastie Boys: To the 5 Boroughs: Dripping with ’80s pop culture references, the only question that remains is best spoken in the words of George McFly: “Do you really think I ought to swear?” The occasional expletives don’t detract, however, from such delights as “Think twice before you start flossin’ / I’ve been in your bathroom often,” or “Ad-Rock, a.k.a. sharp cheddar / my rhymes are better / What the Helen of Troy is that? / Did I hear you say my rhymes is whack?” (More on that here…)
2. U2: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb: I was groovin’ on “Vertigo” for a couple of months (yes, cranked up to 14), and when the full album “dropped” (pardon the pun) I wasn’t the only one grabbing it from the rack at Target 10 minutes after they opened. This would easily win my best album of the year, were it not for…
1. Brian Wilson: Smile: Wow. Friggin’ holy crap, WOW. Perhaps not only the best album of the year, but of the past 37, since that’s when the former Beach Boy started working on it. No one (least of all Wilson himself) ever expected to see (and hear!) it finished, but here it is. And worth the wait.

Addendum: February 26, 2005

When I wrote this, I hadn’t yet checked out Green Day’s American Idiot. Having pretty much loathed the band before, I didn’t expect much, but this album really is quite amazing! If I were to revise the list above, I would probably put it at #2.

Got a Chronic Case of Pac-Man Fever? Drs. Buckner and Garcia Have the Prescription

room34.com — Sun, 23 Feb 2003 00:00:00 +0000

I make no attempts to conceal my lifelong obsession with the video games I played in my youth. My Atari 2600 and Intellivision are still hooked up to my TV, I have collected over 200 game cartridges for those systems, I own a pinball machine and an Asteroids cocktail table, I lurk in the forums at AtariAge.com, and I even have my own web site devoted to the topic.

But I can acknowledge some of the, er, pitfalls of such an obsession.

Yesterday a couple of friends and I stepped into the netherworld of arcade auctions. I went to a previous auction with one of them, and we each walked away with a machine in tow… I got the aforementioned Asteroids cocktail table; he took home a Ms. Pac-Man cabaret machine.

Yesterday’s auction was a comparative disappointment. Again, we each had our sights on a particular machine: I sought a Dig Dug, he wanted Tempest. And again, we found what we were looking for… the somewhat meager selection of machines up for bids did nonetheless include a fairly-decent Dig Dug and a pristine Tempest. Unfortunately, both of us were under strict spousal orders not to come home with another game.

I made a feeble attempt at bidding on the Dig Dug but ultimately let it go for a paltry $425. My friend didn’t even bother making a showing on the Tempest, which eventually closed at a surprisingly low, given its excellent condition, $900.

Although the auction was, for us, a failure (but a rousing success for our wives), it did inspire a renewed interest in, or at least awareness of, the music of Buckner & Garcia. (I think I phrased that wrong… this actually made a bad situation worse.)

In case you’ve forgotten, Buckner & Garcia were the one-hit wonders who provided the soundtrack to America’s early-’80s obsession with Pac-Man, in the form of “Pac-Man Fever.”

Most people, unaware of their good fortune in this matter, have probably lived the last 21 years in the belief that this was the only song ever recorded by the joystick-jockeying duo. But the blissfully ignorant among us are wrong. So very, very wrong.

In fact, Buckner & Garcia tried unsuccessfully to repeat their success cashing in on pop culture fads by recording a dreadful piece of rubbish entitled “E.T. I Love You.” But that wasn’t before CBS Records ill-advisedly inflated their “Pac-Man Fever” success into an entire LP… a concept album, no less, focused entirely upon the popular video arcade games of the day.

Marketing types have a curious unwillingness to take chances on new ideas, combined with an uncanny ability to take one small, unexpected success and run it into the ground with lightning speed. Such was the case with Buckner & Garcia’s “Pac-Man Fever” album… eight B&G songs about nothing but video games!

Of course, this was a bad idea.

But once the ball (or in this case, the tape, or to avoid the mixed metaphor I am about to produce, the locomotive) is rolling, nothing can stop the freight-train momentum of a fundamentally-flawed concept with obscene amounts of cash strapped to its back.

I’m sure some of you out there owned a copy of the album. Judging by the dozens of tattered copies of the LP I found at a St. Paul Cheapo Records store when I purchased my own in a surge of retro-kitsch interest in the mid-’90s, sales were quite brisk, at one time. I imagine most copies that haven’t yet found their way to used record stores are stuck away in attics around the country, alongside long-forgotten lava lamps, pet rocks, unopened six-packs of Billy Beer, leisure suits, leg warmers, and other detritus from the late ’70s and early ’80s. (Personally, I think the lava lamps deserve more respect than that, but I understand their place in most people’s forgotten fad attic archives.)

For those of you who’ve never heard the album, or have spent years in therapy trying to forget it, I’d like to share my recent experience, having brazenly subjected my ears and brain to the entire thing (not all at once, of course, or my head surely would have imploded before I had the opportunity to write this).

The music is god-awful, to be sure. But I discovered something upon my most recent listening that I never noticed before. If you pay close attention, you can actually hear the evolution of the musicians’ mental state during the recording of the album. This is, in fact, a brilliant case study in what happens to people who’ve come up with a goofy but novel idea when they are pressured to draw that idea out far beyond its inherent appeal.

Track 1: Pac-Man Fever

This, of course, is the original idea, recorded well before the rest of the album. If I remember the story right, Buckner & Garcia were a couple of commercial jingle writers and performers based in Atlanta, who came up with the idea of making a song about their enthusiasm for Pac-Man. The song effectively captured the public’s temporary obsession with the game, and was requested so much by listeners to local radio stations that the guys got a record deal out of it. Unfortunately, that meant they had to actually record an entire record.

I completely understand the decision to make a concept album. There is no way this song would fit with a program of serious songs. It had to be novelty all the way. But a better decision would’ve been to leave well enough alone.

Track 2: Froggy’s Lament

Fresh in the studio on the heels of their unexpected rise to fame with “Pac-Man Fever,” the boys put together this silly, but still fairly enjoyable little tune inspired by Frogger. They kept up the gimmick of using actual game sounds in the song, and engaged in some good-natured self-mockery in the form of bizarre, frog-like voices. But the concept was already beginning to fray.

Track 3: Ode to a Centipede

OK, let’s get one thing straight. There is no way a ballad about a centipede — the creature or the video game — could ever be a good idea. The fact that this nauseating experience is only the third track on the album has to be seen as an acknowledgement of the weakness of the concept. Hopefully, B&G’s intention was to send a warning to CBS management that this was a bad idea that would never work. They didn’t get the message. (I should just point out here that I realize the songs were probably not recorded in the sequence they appear on the album. But just work with me on this, OK?)

Track 4: Do the Donkey Kong

On the surface, this is a happy, bouncy, ’50s sock-hoppish dance tune, albeit one with horrifically stupid lyrics. But despite the perky tempo and forced enthusiasm of the singing, you can hear the band’s deep regret for ever having accepted the advance to record this album.

Track 5: Hyperspace

To resolve any ambiguity (“hyperspace” being a staple in the concept of scores of space-themed video games of the early ’80s), this song happens to be about Asteroids, a game that is near and dear to my heart. One of the most exciting things about this game (aside from its gripping black-and-white vector graphics) is the awesome bass-heavy rumble its speaker generates when you blow up an asteroid. (Homer Simpson might even describe the effect as “bong rattling.”) So it’s quite painful for me to hear those beloved explosions in the context of this song. I try to avoid listening to it much, lest the unfortunately-catchy chorus should find its way into my head uninvited while I’m playing the game.

By this point, Messrs. Buckner and Garcia were clearly just going through the motions, hoping to get the damn album over with as soon as possible so they could focus on their next big idea… a song about E.T.

Track 6: The Defender

Buckner (or is it Garcia?) sings with almost-believable conviction here about his passion for his role as the “captain of the ship and its men.” But his profound sense of self-loathing is beginning to overwhelm the music. Then again, from the listener’s perspective, that’s probably a plus.

Track 7: Mousetrap

By now, the band has basically worked through its issues. The guys know what they’re doing is hopelessly lame, but the end is in sight, and now their self-loathing is recast as a blatant contempt for the listener… an unmasked incredulity that anyone would bother to get this far into the album without flinging the disc out the nearest open window.

Track 8: Goin’ Berzerk

I think the title says it all. Every turn of emotion the musicians endured over the 3 days they took to write and record the album merges with the others and a final picture comes together of the stark reality of what they’ve just done: Here, at last, we are left with a document of one of the most monumentally-stupid attempts to cash in on a fad in human history.

Fads are defined by their temporality. Fads are, almost by definition, intrinsically ill-conceived. If they weren’t, they would endure. But they don’t. Sadly, they usually leave artifacts like this behind.