I really really like Rush's new album. It's the style they've been working toward since the early 2000's honed to perfection. Very modern sounding, less progressive but still technical and challenging, and never lacking hooks.
I've been watching recent interviews with the band members and they all say they same thing: they're playing at a peak. Their chops are better than ever. They're probably right. While they no longer have the youthful energy (and the sort of naivete that comes with it), their skills certainly haven't diminished. The rhythm section is as tight as ever, and Alex Lifeson plays the best guitar solos he's done since Moving Pictures.
Rush's style has always been fluid. I think they've taken their current style about as far as it can go. I wonder if they think the same thing. I'm interested to see what direction they'll go in next. But for now, they'll tour Clockwork Angels. I just bought a ticket today to see them on the 18th and I am fucking stoked. I missed them on the Time Machine tour, and I was really bummed, but if I had to choose between the Time Machine tour and the Clockwork Angels tour I'd pick the latter every time. I am SO much more interested in seeing them play new stuff that they are excited about (and that I'm excited about) rather than a 30 year old album.
Obviously I can't comment on the Time Machine tour because I didn't see it but it seems like they may have been on the verge of becoming a nostalgia act. That's not the worst thing to be, though.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
On the nineteenth day, of a spring day in May...
Happy birthday, Peter Dennis Blandford Fucking Townshend. The Great One. The undisputed master genius of rock and roll. The greatest guitarist, greatest songwriter the world has ever known and will ever know. The Alpha and Omega. Creator and Destroyer. The man who invented rock and smashed the electric guitar. Pioneer of punk and prog. He is not afraid to bleed in the name of music. He is 67 on this day.
Long Live Rock.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Who I Am
No, not me... Him:
I'm going to take some time to write about my favorite human being in the world. I'll try to keep it short, because I could go on forever about him.
His autobiography is released on October 8th. I have a lot of hopes and a lot of fears regarding the contents of this book. Pete is an absolute genius, and there is not a musician alive that gives more insightful, cogent and humorous interviews. But he is 66 years old (67 in a week and a half) and he recently sold the publishing rights to The Who's catalog for a handsome fee. He's retired. The chances of him touring again, with The Who or solo, are very slim.
He has to sell books. Rock autobiographies are quite popular these days. Keith Richards recently released one, and Slash had his a few years ago, Nikki Sixx and Anthony Kiedis had popular autobiographies as well. Each one of those is identical to the others. Each one contains the same rehashed-heroin-confession rock star story. And surely Pete could tell that story as well as anyone, and it would sell well.
What might not sell as well would be an honest and critical reflection by the artist on himself and his art. Will Pete tell me what I want to know about art and being an artist in this book? I hope so. He certainly can. He's obviously a good writer and has a lot to say on the subject. But Pete is not necessarily above "selling out," as it were.
But of course he's a complex man. He often changes his mind and frequently contradicts himself and I'm not entirely sure he has a clearer picture of his artistic vision than we do. That's the price of genius. It's reflected in his music. The Who was a band that often changed its mind and frequently contradicted itself. One moment it was a loud punk band, devolving into pure noise and destruction, and the next moment it was a progressive rock band playing dynamic, delicate and difficult concept pieces.
Very few bands ever covered so much ground, and when they did, they were only treading the paths that Pete and The Who forged. I am of the controversial opinion that Pete Townshend is the most influential musician of the 20th century. I could go into dozens and dozens of reasons for that and I might later. Or I might now. I didn't plan any of this.
So there were always at least two sides to Pete; the punk side and the prog side. But even in all of the wildly divergent styles that Pete created the subject matter was usually the same. Pete wrote music for socially troubled young men, and I think he may have been the first person to ever do so. Sure, the old blues men wrote about their troubles with life and women (particularly women), but no one that I'm aware of wrote introspective songs about estranged youths. Certainly the Beatles never wrote anything approaching "My Generation" and could never have dreamed of coming up with anything as grandiose yet personal as Quadrophenia. And Dylan, while hugely influential, never touched on that subject matter much either.
That is what I want Pete to talk about in his book. Sure, he's going to mention his drug use, it was a large part of his development as an artist. And so was giving up drugs. All of that information has been covered, though, in books like Who Are You: The Life of Pete Townshend by Mark Wilkerson. But I've had that book sitting on my shelf for years. I'm less than halfway through it because it is a tedious read filled with endless footnotes and the prose is encyclopedic and sterile.
So I'm certainly looking forward to reading Pete's own thoughts but I pray he gives me information that I can't find elsewhere.
I'm going to take some time to write about my favorite human being in the world. I'll try to keep it short, because I could go on forever about him.
His autobiography is released on October 8th. I have a lot of hopes and a lot of fears regarding the contents of this book. Pete is an absolute genius, and there is not a musician alive that gives more insightful, cogent and humorous interviews. But he is 66 years old (67 in a week and a half) and he recently sold the publishing rights to The Who's catalog for a handsome fee. He's retired. The chances of him touring again, with The Who or solo, are very slim.
He has to sell books. Rock autobiographies are quite popular these days. Keith Richards recently released one, and Slash had his a few years ago, Nikki Sixx and Anthony Kiedis had popular autobiographies as well. Each one of those is identical to the others. Each one contains the same rehashed-heroin-confession rock star story. And surely Pete could tell that story as well as anyone, and it would sell well.
What might not sell as well would be an honest and critical reflection by the artist on himself and his art. Will Pete tell me what I want to know about art and being an artist in this book? I hope so. He certainly can. He's obviously a good writer and has a lot to say on the subject. But Pete is not necessarily above "selling out," as it were.
But of course he's a complex man. He often changes his mind and frequently contradicts himself and I'm not entirely sure he has a clearer picture of his artistic vision than we do. That's the price of genius. It's reflected in his music. The Who was a band that often changed its mind and frequently contradicted itself. One moment it was a loud punk band, devolving into pure noise and destruction, and the next moment it was a progressive rock band playing dynamic, delicate and difficult concept pieces.
Very few bands ever covered so much ground, and when they did, they were only treading the paths that Pete and The Who forged. I am of the controversial opinion that Pete Townshend is the most influential musician of the 20th century. I could go into dozens and dozens of reasons for that and I might later. Or I might now. I didn't plan any of this.
So there were always at least two sides to Pete; the punk side and the prog side. But even in all of the wildly divergent styles that Pete created the subject matter was usually the same. Pete wrote music for socially troubled young men, and I think he may have been the first person to ever do so. Sure, the old blues men wrote about their troubles with life and women (particularly women), but no one that I'm aware of wrote introspective songs about estranged youths. Certainly the Beatles never wrote anything approaching "My Generation" and could never have dreamed of coming up with anything as grandiose yet personal as Quadrophenia. And Dylan, while hugely influential, never touched on that subject matter much either.
That is what I want Pete to talk about in his book. Sure, he's going to mention his drug use, it was a large part of his development as an artist. And so was giving up drugs. All of that information has been covered, though, in books like Who Are You: The Life of Pete Townshend by Mark Wilkerson. But I've had that book sitting on my shelf for years. I'm less than halfway through it because it is a tedious read filled with endless footnotes and the prose is encyclopedic and sterile.
So I'm certainly looking forward to reading Pete's own thoughts but I pray he gives me information that I can't find elsewhere.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Blunderbuss Revisited
Just like he did when I first started listening to the White Stripes, Jack White has revitalized my faith in rock and roll. I was in a bit of a dark night of the soul recently and I truly believed that rock was dead.
Along came Blunderbuss.
This album not only met all my expectations but surpassed them. It has everything I wanted and everything I needed and everything I wish I could do. The songs are typical Jack, and each could have been a White Stripes song except for the fact that they are played with a full band. In fact, if the White Stripes' material had been recorded this way, it would probably have been much better. The album is dense with not only rock band guitars, basses and drums, but also mandolins, pianos and organs, violins, pedal steels, and more.
Except for one cover, Jack wrote and produced every song. He also played a variety of instruments on the record, which is expected from such a fantastic multi-instrumentalist. Throughout his career he has played guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, mandolin, marimba and probably others I'm forgetting. He is like a modern day Neil Young, and my generation's only real rock hero.
Like Neil Young, Jack White's best skill is his songwriting. The lyrics on Blunderbuss are brilliant and rather dark. Like Neil Young, Jack White is an incredibly eclectic and diverse songwriter. There is quite a wide variety of sounds and emotions on Blunderbuss, particularly comparing the first and second halves. In an interview on NPR recently, Jack said he approaches the track order of his albums as if it's a vinyl record with two sides, and there is an obvious change in direction halfway through after "Weep Themselves to Sleep." The songs after lean much more toward classic Little Richard rock and roll, folk music and blues.
To cover the wide variety of sounds on the record, Jack has gone from touring with a two-piece band to touring with two five-piece bands. One male, one female. Judging by the live concert stream this past Friday in which he played ~50 minute set with both bands, the female band is much tighter and much more energetic than the male band, and they're probably better instrumentalists too.
Blunderbuss is currently #1 in the US, UK, Canada and Switzerland. I contributed to that success by making it the first album I've actually paid for in about a year. The album was leaked a week early and of course I snatched it up and listened to it exhaustively. But I liked it so much I went out and bought it anyway on the day it was released. In fact, I liked it SO much that I almost bought the last two copies they had at the store...
Along came Blunderbuss.
This album not only met all my expectations but surpassed them. It has everything I wanted and everything I needed and everything I wish I could do. The songs are typical Jack, and each could have been a White Stripes song except for the fact that they are played with a full band. In fact, if the White Stripes' material had been recorded this way, it would probably have been much better. The album is dense with not only rock band guitars, basses and drums, but also mandolins, pianos and organs, violins, pedal steels, and more.
Except for one cover, Jack wrote and produced every song. He also played a variety of instruments on the record, which is expected from such a fantastic multi-instrumentalist. Throughout his career he has played guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, mandolin, marimba and probably others I'm forgetting. He is like a modern day Neil Young, and my generation's only real rock hero.
Like Neil Young, Jack White's best skill is his songwriting. The lyrics on Blunderbuss are brilliant and rather dark. Like Neil Young, Jack White is an incredibly eclectic and diverse songwriter. There is quite a wide variety of sounds and emotions on Blunderbuss, particularly comparing the first and second halves. In an interview on NPR recently, Jack said he approaches the track order of his albums as if it's a vinyl record with two sides, and there is an obvious change in direction halfway through after "Weep Themselves to Sleep." The songs after lean much more toward classic Little Richard rock and roll, folk music and blues.
To cover the wide variety of sounds on the record, Jack has gone from touring with a two-piece band to touring with two five-piece bands. One male, one female. Judging by the live concert stream this past Friday in which he played ~50 minute set with both bands, the female band is much tighter and much more energetic than the male band, and they're probably better instrumentalists too.
Blunderbuss is currently #1 in the US, UK, Canada and Switzerland. I contributed to that success by making it the first album I've actually paid for in about a year. The album was leaked a week early and of course I snatched it up and listened to it exhaustively. But I liked it so much I went out and bought it anyway on the day it was released. In fact, I liked it SO much that I almost bought the last two copies they had at the store...
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
It Changed My Life
The purpose of art is to communicate emotions. Thus, as an artist, you intend (or at least hope) to affect the emotional state of your audience. Most of the time this is a transient effect, but when it's not, you often hear the phrase "it changed my life" spoken about the piece of art (a book, film, piece of music or musical artist, et cetera). But what does that mean? Your "life" is the word we give to all the things that happen to you. Some of those are out of your control, others are a result of your own decisions. It's rare that a piece of art will affect the things that happen to you that are beyond your control.
No, it's almost always the latter. The art affects your decisions and actions. It affects you. Most art changes us and informs our view of the world in some way, whether we are really moved by it or not, but when the impact is so profound that it completely transforms our worldview then we say "it changed my life." But our life is only changed by proxy. Art changes us. We are changed, and as a result our lives are changed according to our actions.
Music changed me, and I changed my life, and I know I'm not the only one.
No, it's almost always the latter. The art affects your decisions and actions. It affects you. Most art changes us and informs our view of the world in some way, whether we are really moved by it or not, but when the impact is so profound that it completely transforms our worldview then we say "it changed my life." But our life is only changed by proxy. Art changes us. We are changed, and as a result our lives are changed according to our actions.
Music changed me, and I changed my life, and I know I'm not the only one.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Blunderbuss
Only a few weeks left until Jack White drops his debut solo album, Blunderbuss, on a seriously rock-deprived world. He's released two singles already, "Love Interruption" and "Sixteen Saltines."
I'll be very surprised if this isn't the best album of the year.
If you've been following Jack lately you may have noticed a very marked change in his music, beginning last year with his collaboration with Danger Mouse. The lyrics that Jack White contributed to that album (Rome) are quite obviously those of a depressed, lonely and insular man, and are much darker than anything Jack wrote in the White Stripes or the Raconteurs.
Blunderbuss appears to be following that pattern, and I couldn't be happier about that. I think "Love Interruption" is one of the best songs of his career, and although "Sixteen Saltines" seems like a White Stripes outtake at first, listening to the lyrics reveals a very clear evolution from his work in that band.
I'll be very surprised if this isn't the best album of the year.
If you've been following Jack lately you may have noticed a very marked change in his music, beginning last year with his collaboration with Danger Mouse. The lyrics that Jack White contributed to that album (Rome) are quite obviously those of a depressed, lonely and insular man, and are much darker than anything Jack wrote in the White Stripes or the Raconteurs.
Blunderbuss appears to be following that pattern, and I couldn't be happier about that. I think "Love Interruption" is one of the best songs of his career, and although "Sixteen Saltines" seems like a White Stripes outtake at first, listening to the lyrics reveals a very clear evolution from his work in that band.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Originality
"The way to get to something new is to listen to different stuff." -Stewart Copeland
This man knows what he's talking about. Copeland was the drummer for The Police and grew up in the middle east, listening to Arabic music in addition to British rock music and those styles coalesced into the genius you hear on The Police's records. They were one of the most unique and original bands of their era, and after they broke up, Copeland went on to become a successful composer, creating film scores, video game soundtracks and even operas.
In the video, Copeland attempts to explain how to be an original musician. By listening to music that no one else is listening to, you will create music that no one else is creating. He explains it from a drummer's perspective, but I'm going to look at it from a guitarist's perspective.
Jimi Hendrix is one of the greatest guitarists of all time. I think very few people would disagree with that. It's no wonder then that so many people have copied his style. You can hear Hendrix everywhere, from jazz to metal, blues to pop and everything in between. This is exactly why I don't learn his music anymore. Hendrix imitators are a dime a dozen. It seems like every guitarist on the planet (including myself) has covered Voodoo Child. When I play that song, I don't use any of Jimi's licks- what's the point? I'm not Jimi. Yes, you have to stay close enough to the original that it's still recognizable, but I am an artist, not a record player (excuse me if that sounds arrogant).
There is a passage in Slash's autobiography where he talks about learning guitar when he was growing up and how every guitarist wanted to be Eddie Van Halen. Eddie Van Halen is an amazing guitar player and he blows my mind every time I listen to him. But there are too many great guitarists out there for me to spend all my time trying to be this one. The same goes for Slash (or anyone, really). Go on Youtube and you can find dozens of people with note-for-note perfect Guns N' Roses covers, and they look, dress and act just like Slash and have the same gear as him. Why? What's the point? If you have the skill to play those songs, you have the skill to be a great guitarist in your own right, so fucking do it. Why spend all your time trying to be someone else? Do you think that's what Slash did? (Spoiler- it's not).
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, though, are the people who desperately try to be original for originality's sake. They don't have any unique ideas, they just want to do something no one has done before. Tom Morello is the perfect example. He tries so hard to do something innovative but the results are always ridiculous and awful. An original musician shouldn't have to try to be original. Unoriginal musicians' attempts at being original just sound forced and contrived. When Black Sabbath released their first album, do you think they set out to invent an entirely new genre of music and change the world? No. They played the music that was in their hearts, which happened to be inspired by a dead, industrial town and their depressing lives.
Everything is inspired by something else, anyway. Jack White has a unique guitar style and is what Tom Morello wished he was, but you can clearly hear his influences from Neil Young and others. Eddie Van Halen was clearly inspired by Jimmy Page and Ritchie Blackmore. He took what he learned from them and brought guitar playing to a level that no human being should have been able to achieve. He wasn't trying to BE Jimmy Page, or Ritchie Blackmore, or Eric Clapton or anyone else he was a fan of. He copied their licks but he transformed them and made them his own.
The same can't be said for people like Kenny Wayne Shepherd, John Mayer, John Frusciante, Mike McCready, etc. The legion of Hendrix/Stevie Ray Vaughan copycats that bring nothing (or very little) new to the table.
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