Music Review: Def Leppard, Night Ranger, Rush, Soul Doctor, Top Gun Cowboy, and Munk

Good stuff from Rush, Night Ranger and Def Leppard.

I have reviewed the Oban anime series for BNN.

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Music Review: Def Leppard, Diamond Head, NFD, Fish, P.O.D., and Whitesnake

Cock rock glory, a bit of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal with some goth and classy folk rock.

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The most interesting Loose Women for a very long time.

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The UK music industry is gasping for air. Now they want to tax your iPod because they are losing money. It seems the UK industry is trying to out-stupid the RIAA.

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Not terribly surprising this; however pathetic it may seem. For more on what the UK music biz is thinking why not have a gander at my paper on the subject.

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Music Review: Avenging Force, Drive by Argument, Son Lux, Terror, and Michael Bormann

A bit of a journey this week; from the goth dancefloor, through the CBGB mosh pit to the classy end of hard rock.

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Today @ 10:05 est here you can listen to some acoustic tunes played by my uber-talented blues playing Uncle Bill. That man has a carbon fibre guitar and plays some mighty fine blues & bluegrass. He played a few tunes for us at the post-wedding pub get together back in May of last year. He attracted a crowd…that is how good the guy is.

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You may wish to include this version, with excerpt:
Music Reviews: Asia, Toto, New Found Glory, The Dreamscapes Project & Kingdom of Sorrow

Another week and another eclectic collection of rock.

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Music Reviews: Fish, Lillian Axe, Powerwolf and a Metallica DVD

Your lot for the week ranges from the mellowness of Fish to thrash’s finest through the quality of Lillian Axe.

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Marty’s Musical Meltdown: The Explicits, Blues Company, The Bangkok Five, Larry Carlton, and Seven Mary Three

A few pleasant shocks for me; a couple of releases in genres I am not keen on.

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Marty’s Musical Meltdown: Ancara, Crash Romeo, Fires of Babylon, Incrave, and Radamacher

Marty brings you another round-up of some of today’s metal and hard rock releases.

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An amusing little game of rock, paper, scissors.

An aside: what is the hell is Madonna doing in the Rock & Roll hall of fame? I mean she is about as rock as Liberace. What are the schmucks in charge thinking of when it comes to rock. Madonna is pop not rock you dimwits. What next Britney Spears gets in too?

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Well John McCain has clinched enough for the nomination for the Republican Party. He is heading off to the White House today to chat with President Bush. Like many others on the right, of various ilks, I have had my doubts about the man. However he has got the nod and I know he is far better than the two from the other side.

Now we have all heard about all the musos and actors sucking up to Obama by endorsing him. We hear that the guy from the Black Eyed Peas has written a song for him; as well as Pearl Jam writing a tune as well. We shan’t talk about Stevie Wonder’s lame dirge for the man.

Well this blog has at least two lyricists writing for it. Alas, because of my chemo, I am unable to get together with my band to put any music to this but I have done my bit to write up a few lyrics that might work as a theme song. Of course, I would love him to use Cry Freedom as his theme.

Its called McCain the Man

We wavered a bit
Some had a fit
but McCain is the man
to keep with the plan

He served his country
In so many brave ways
He’ll keep things going
Under his keen gaze

From the prison in Nam
to the floor of the Senate
He fights for his ideals
Always in the debate

He’‘ll brings things together
After all in the end
America’ll be on the mend

He’ll bring us all together
Yes in the end
Americas on the mend

When the nation needs
He will be there for her
When she bleeds
McCain will deliver

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—————————————————————————————-
Billy Joel was once asked in an interview what the hardest thing to do onstage was, and without hesitation he replied, “whistling.” There was a song on one of his early albums with a whistling intro, and he dreaded performing it for that reason.

I myself have dealt with this dilemma by never appearing on stage.

Or for that matter, ever writing a song with whistling in it. I hate songs with whistling in them.

There! Problem solved!

That left harmonies as our big stumbling block. It’s hard not to feel like a complete goof doing them, especially for my cousin, who had very little experience singing.

It’s a bit like a tightrope act, with Giggles the Clown constantly jiggling the wire and threatening to bring the whole thing down in a heap. (You can hear him puttering around in some of the more ragged edges.)

Or worse, one’s kid sister could stick her head into the door and exclaim, “Hey, you guys sound just like a barbershop quartet!” When that chilling verdict rang out, there was nothing to do but down our tools and head for the local pub to try and drown our sorrows. (Well, we had kind of planned that anyway, but now we had an official excuse.)

========================

[Verse]

Insidious wind come creeping up
A sly typhoon stirring up the dust
Secret tornado
Imploding the house

You’ll cry me a river [rpt.]

The crops you planted
Overtaken by worms
Your petri dishes
Overwhelmed by germs
Now the screws are on
And it’s your turn

To cry me a river [rpt.]
————————————————————————-

[Chorus]

The Mississippi or the Nile will do
I want you to hurt
Like I hurt for you

The Columbia
Or maybe the Rhine
When you fill up the oceans
You’ll be done your cryin’

[ad lib]

you’ll cry me a river [rpt.]
————————————————————————
[Verse, Instr.]
————————————————————————-

[rpt. 1st Chorus]
————————————————————————-

[Verse]

An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
Vengeance is mine
And it’s the solemn truth
Back to the stone age
And the pain of youth

You’ll cry me a river [rpt.]
————————————————————————-

[Chorus]

The Amazon
where it’s wild and slow
The Vistula
Where the diesel boats go
The Ganges with its banks on fire
The waters are risin’
And they’re gonna run higher
————————————————————————-

[ad. lib., out]

You’re gonna cry

====================

Cry Me A River Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

Alternately: Unfortunately it isn’t a streaming site, but you can click on the download link, and when the Windows or equivalent dialog box appears, you can elect to save it to disk, or (first choice) open up the song with the default media player, like iTunes, WinAmp, or Windows Media Player. Cry Me A River

Previous:

The Very Last Man On Earth
Golddigger
Hangin’ In The Park
Just So You KnowCaught By Computer
Me & J.B.
Dirty Little Secret
Fire In The Waxworks
Warning Shots
The Chase
Just Like A Woman
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Marty’s Musical Meltdown: Furtherdown, Arch Enemy, Airtime, Jaded Sun & Die So Fluid Live

More metal from Marty, as he checks out the latest CDs, and takes in a show by Die So Fluid.

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I have been a bit weak on writing on here of the last few days thanks to a few factors. First of all it has been determined that one of the forms of chemo I am having needs to be toned down a bit. I have a rather bothersome sore bits anywhere on my body that gets “moist”. Had to see the doctor before my antibodies on Wednesday which made for a rather long day that took quite a bit out of me. After I got home on the Wednesday I made my best efforts to relax and rest up so I was up for attending the Die So Fluid CD launch last night. I have known Grog and Co. since their first CD. I know they give a cracking show; so I thought it was apt for me to return to gig attending after my cancer with a trip to see em’.

It was a great night and I took along a good contingent including Kim, her brother Perry “This is England” Benson and a couple who are dear friends. We had a great time with a cracking performance, burlesque acts and some DSF videos. Marty will be reviewing the gig for Blogcritics.com later today or tomorrow. I have pictures as well.

I shall endeavor to get up the latest Carnival of the Vanities today as well.

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This was an attempt to simplify my lyrics, and I think it worked. What could be more basic than a love lust song trimmed down to “she” and “me.” And, um, “freckles.”

It also forced me to look at the song as a whole, and reduced the danger—in my case an all-too-common fault – of wandering off into la-la land in the later verses. It’s not unlike adhering to the rhyme and metrical schemes in that it imposes an internal structure to the song.

That said, I can think of enough counter-examples to invalidate it as the only way to write a song, but it is a useful exercise, to think of the lyrics as variations branching off a central unifying theme.

[Verse]

I got a girl
She she she she
She’s got freckles everywhere [rpt.]

Up and down her arms
Splashed across her breasts
I know this for a fact
I’ve seen that girl undressed

She she she she
Can squeeze so tight
Me me me me me me me
I’m doin’ all right [rpt.]

Wrapped up in her arms
How could one man be so blessed?
I know this for a fact
That woman is dangerous————————————————————————-

[Chorus]

She takes the money I make [rpt.]
————————————————————————-

[Instrumental]
————————————————————————-

[Chorus]
—————————————————————————
[Verse]

I’ve got a girl
She she she she
She’s got freckles
everywhere [rpt.]

Scattered on her back
Sprinkled on her nose
I know this for a fact
I’ve seen her with no clothes

Yeah, up and down her arms
Splashed across her breasts
I know that for a fact
I’ve seen that girl undressed
————————————————————————-
[instr., out]

=====================

I Got A Girl Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

For the sake of redundancy, I’ve uploaded to this link too. Unfortunately it isn’t a streaming site, but you can click on the download link, and when the Windows or equivalent dialog box appears, you can elect to save it to disk, or (first choice) open up the song with the default media player, like iTunes, WinAmp, or Windows Media Player. I Got A Girl

Previous:

The Very Last Man On Earth
Golddigger
Hangin’ In The Park
Just So You KnowCaught By Computer
Me & J.B.
Dirty Little Secret
Fire In The Waxworks
Warning Shots
The Chase
Just Like A Woman

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This marked a turning point of sorts. I bought a small four-channel mixer and it dramatically improved our sound; making it much cleaner and allowing us to place our instruments where we wanted them in the mix.

Second, I was more comfortable playing bass. This song was largely written around the bass riff, which itself is a variation of a “walking bass line,” a musical structure commonly found in rock and blues.

Third, I was taking more chances with the vocals. Follow along as I bravely flout stale old conventions like starting the verses and chorus on the beat and with some grasp of the correct lyrics. I’ve helpfully indicated (with a ”—>”) the boo-boos, though they should be quite obvious to anyone with ears. For comparison see the second chorus, marked with ”***.” That’s the way it was meant to sound. (In fairness, we were writing this on the spot, and this was my first attempt at it.)

And fourth, but by no means least, I was visited by the Spirit of Woo! By which I mean the apparently-spontaneous ejaculations (no, let’s not go there) that rock vocalists pepper their songs with. Such as: Woo! and Woo-Hoo! and that perennial favorite [Name of city here] rocks! *

There are two reasons for this. One reason is to show that the lead singer is inspired to emit these primal yelps to demonstrate his deep communion with the music, and also that he isn’t Barry Manilow.

The second reason is that the lead singer has completely lost his place in the song and is shouting out random gibberish until the music swings around to some portion he recognizes. There’s a bit of both in this one.

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she looks like a barracuda, frankly.

It’s been widely reported that Hillary Clinton has selected a new campaign song. which, if true, would have been a decidedly odd choice.

It’s called “When The Lady Smiles,” and it’s by the Dutch rock group Golden “Radar Love” Earring. What really raised eyebrows, though, was the video, in which a nun is raped and a dog is seen eating a dead man’s brains. Apparently MTV refused to play it, forcing a reshoot or at least big edits by the band.

Alas, it all appears to be a hoax, There’s no mention of it on her official website and a commenter in this BoingBoing thread points to that paragon of journalistic ethics, The Huffington Post, which seized on the fact that the song was played at one of Clinton’s campaign stops and made up the rest of it . So I’m guessing that Arianna is auditioning for the role of Obama’s new hatchetman.

A pity. Some of the lyrics seem quite appropriate:

My friends tell me, she’s the beast inside your paradise
I guess you’ve heard it all before
A fallen angel, that has got you hypnotised
and that always needs some more.

the blog québécois

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I wrote this after watching a documentary on TV about junkies and prostitutes in Vancouver`s Downtown Eastside, a notoriously seedy area. It was just depressing, a panorama of failure and misery. It was and still is a tough place: An acquaintance from high school went out there for the party scene and was dead within the year. As are, I presume, all of the people interviewed for the documentary. Dead from overdose; dead from AIDS. And though Robert Pickton was still only a malign shimmer on the horizon, there was no shortage of his predecessors.

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The Beatles, on their first tour of North America, were frequently quizzed by reporters about how they wrote their music. To which they had a set of flippant answers: “With a blue pen”; “First we sit down. Then we write the song.” So, you’re thinking: “Gee, were journalists as stupid back then as they are now?”

Well, yes. But it’s a legitimate question from outsiders who have no idea how songs are written.

Rock is a small subset of music and fairly easy to categorize, so let’s give it a whirl. It’s (usually) a heavily-amplified and sped-up mix in 4/4 time combining chords and musical techniques common to the blues and to country music. Structurally it follows some arrangement of verse/chorus, sometimes with a “bridge” or “middle 8” (a contrasting or complementary musical/lyrical passage) thrown in to tie the elements together.

For example, this song. The original lyrics are long lost, so I had to transcribe them from the recording. The lyrics from the bridge do not lend themselves to easy analysis. Indeed, the only word I can make out is “telephone.” The rest is, to quote a fellow countryman:

Just guitars screaming, screaming, screaming
Some guy screaming in a leather jacket

25 BonusPoints™ * go to the first person who gets the reference.

Once you have the broad outlines hammered out, you can turn your attention to details like the melody. Because the vocal drives the melody, you’re bound to make changes to it once you test it out against the full instrumentation, with its often-unexpected harmonics. At least that’s the way I approached things.

Now, writing a good song, that’s a bit of a different beast altogether. If you want to write one of those, ignore everything I’ve told you.

• Void where prohibited by law. BonusPoints™ are not transferable to any known legal tender; in fact, they are useful only for bragging rights. And now that I think about it, not so much for that, either.

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To paraphrase Otto von Bismarck, if you like laws and sausages and rock music, you should never watch them being made.

This was an older song that we’d never recorded, maybe because it had one glaring flaw. That would have been the last line of the chorus (the one I’ve marked with an asterisk). The original lyrics have long since vanished, but I recall announcing that I refused to sing it —at least that particular line—from that moment forever on. It was that bad. Not obscene-bad—just something that was intended to be clever and wasn’t, a pimple on the nose of the prom queen. Nor would it scan, no matter how I twisted the syllables.

So eventually I crossed it out and scribbled in something to remind me to replace it. We ran through the song one more time, and guess what? The line fit perfectly, so we kept it. Laws and sausages and rock music.

And now you know . . . the rest of the story.

========================

[Verse]

I wasn’t doing wrong
I was just too erratic
And it stood out
I said it stood out
—————————————————————————
[Chorus]

Caught by computer
Snagged and tagged
Sorted and recorded
Coded Gulag

Captured by a keyboard
Magnetic pulse mindless
This next line I gotta change *————————————————————————-

[Verse]

I wasn’t doing wrong
But you spat me out
It was innocent defiance
You figured it out
————————————————————————-

[Chorus]
————————————————————————-

[Verse]

I wasn’t doing wrong
You selected my file
Put it to the side
For a little while
————————————————————————-

[Verse]

[Chorus]

====================

Caught By Computer Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

Previous:

Me & J.B.
By The Lake
Dirty Little Secret
Fire In The Waxworks
Warning Shots
The Chase
Just Like A Woman

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Marty’s Musical Meltdown: Blackfield, Delain, Eyes of Eden, Indigo Dying, Sandalinas, and Bassinvaders

Another mad set of metal and hard rock reviews.

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Marty’s Musical Meltdown: Action, Lana Lane, Lechery, Leverage, and Sonata Artica
Another week’s worth of heavy metal and hard rock reviews!

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One day my cousin showed up with these lyrics about DamnYoko™ and wanted some help putting them to music. So I said sure, went off somewhere and returned a few days later with the body of the song. (I believe we both worked on the bridge.)

Although my cousin was much more proficient than me in almost any aspect of music, he was just starting to write his own songs. I’d been doing it from the start. I suppose it is somewhat a matter of focus; a songwriter sees the song as the target and the music as part of the puzzle getting there; a good musician is more interested in the journey, and the nuts and bolts of the jalopy we’re riding in. If I may mangle a metaphor or two.

My cousin wasn’t exactly Noel Coward when it came to writing lyrics, but no nevermind. Obviously a good song with good lyrics is preferable to a good song with bad lyrics (or—and I know, having written many examples of the genre—a bad song with bad lyrics), but I’ve never considered lyrics as a pivotal element of the song; rather as a framework to hang the vocals (which I do consider essential) on.

This was the first time my cousin added backing vocals. Also a few ad-libs aimed at cracking me up.

Note: I usually keep the volume of my computer speakers low, and listen to these (or anything else) with headphones. If you can, I’d recommend doing the same for this song, at least. There’s a truism that you should listen to music at around the same level that it was recorded at. As this would be inconvenient for most rock music (not to mention for your neighbors), producers use compression and equalization to make the record sound smoother at lower volumes. In part because we still hadn’t figured out how to record acoustic guitars, they sound jumbled and undifferentiated unless you crank up the sound somewhat. If the boss starts bitchin’, you can point out this highly scientific explanation.

Since I’ll be busy for the next few days, I’ll just take this occasion to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I’ll try to be back by next week, but I’m not promisin’ nuttin’.

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My, well Marty’s, review of a “learning” game has been mentioned on IMG. I hope to have a MMM column done today or tomorrow.

Oh yes and there is always my normal column over at Blogcritics.com.

Music Review: Gary Hughes, Seven Tears, Glyder, Vengeance, Helloween and Tarja
Marty’s Musical Meltdown brings you more metal and hard rock reviews.

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I roughly divide our recording “career” into three parts.

The first, as I’ve mentioned before, was mainly jam sessions. We started adding vocals near the end of this period, but mostly on jokey material like our “rock opera” and the previously-featured “Warning Shots”.

Singing that kind of stuff is a lot easier on the psyche. If you blow a note—an entire verse, for that matter—you can claim you intended it that way all along. But it was time to get serious.

Then we focused on my big backcatalog of songs, the quality of which was uneven, to say the least. Sometimes the music was lame, the melody non-existent or the lyrics laughable. Sometimes it would all come together in a perfect trifecta of awfulness. So we futzed around with those for some months, making improvements here and there, but I eventually realized that I was going to have to write some new stuff. Enter the final—and, I would argue, the most creative—part of our existence.

This was one of the first of the new songs. I found it easier to start with blank slate than go back to try and fix songs that I was heartily sick of by then. We were also finding out that we could play with some snap and precision. It would have been nice to have a real drummer to punch some of this home; but hey, you gotta work with what you got.

To that end, we deployed what I coyly describe as “additional percussion.” Which was:

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Marty’s Musical Meltdown: Pawbox, Carnival of Souls, Gang Green, Carlton Walker & more
Some of the latest CDs out there.

Plus I have reviewed What’s wrong with Islam? and the anime-like Vision of Rage.

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England’s loss to Croatia in the Euro 2008 qualifying rounds got off to an amusing start, at least.

Ananova:

Tony Henry was trying to sing the national anthem in Croatian, but reportedly got the words wrong.

Fans say the mispronounciation helped the players relax before the game at Wembley where Croatia beat England 3-2.

The national anthem is written in old style Croatian, and there can be slightly different interpretations in English because it is a very lyrical language.

The line in which Henry slipped up should have been “mila kuda si planina” (You know my dear how we love your mountains).

Which is kind of suggestive all by itself.

But what he actually sang was “mila kura si planina” which means “Dear Penis, you are a Mountain” or “My Dear, my penis is a mountain”.

Croat players like Manchester City’s Vedran Corluka and Arsenal target Luka Modric started looking at each other and grinning when they realised what he was singing.

Croat fan websites have been calling for Henry to be given a medal of honour for helping the players relax, they also want him made an official team mascot for the tournament.

I think they should make the change official. It’s much more intimidating than “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

*

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BWBK is reporting that Quiet Riots infamous lead singer Kevin Dubrow has been found dead in his apartment in Las Vegas. Quiet Riot, despite their critics, managed quite a feat in the 80s with their hits ‘Cum on Feel the Noize” and “Metal Health” which pushed their debut to number one. A first for a metal band in the US. He will be missed.

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When my cousin came over to record, we’d usually have a cup of coffee (occasionally stronger refreshments were served) before heading down to the basement. In September 1983 the radio was ablaze with the news that the Soviet Union had shot down a Korean Air Lines jumbo jet that had strayed off course on a flight from Alaska.

So we were listening to some of that, when, inspired, I wrote down the first verse and pushed it across the table to my cousin, who read it and laughed.

That is the acid test of songwriting, innit? Make your cousin laugh—next stop, The Ed Sullivan Show!

You will no doubt be amazed that the whole of it came together in twenty minutes. You’re thinking: No way! That couldn’t have taken more than ten, fifteen minutes, tops. Well, yeah, but we had to work out the harmonies.

Speaking of which, I never knew before that moment that my cousin could ad-lib perfectly good “Yahoooos!” The things you learn in the pressure cooker of the recording studio.

It was at times like that, with the world trembling on the brink of war, that the media (this was our theory, anyway) would turn our way and exclaim: “There’s a couple of guys with guitars! They must have something intelligent to say about all this!”

As it turned out, we didn’t. Like that ever stopped us.

Link Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

——————————————————————————————————-
Verse:

Cancel my trip to Korea
The skies are safe no more
First they lost my luggage
Then they lost the war

The valiant Red Air Force
Locked in mortal battle
With a deadly 747
armed with cameras
——————————————————————————————————-
Chorus:

Rotten stinking Commie pinkos
Dirty Soviet tricky finkos
Hear this now, you murderous lackeys
Americans on that plane, by Cracky!——————————————————————————————————-
Verse:

A thousand heat-seeking missiles
Fired in comradely warning
Trespassers in Soviet airspace
Will not live to see the morning
——————————————————————————————————-
Bridge:

Unscheduled stopover in the Sea of Okhotsk
But a Boeing makes for a lousy boat
Water rushing in, cold and green
Boeing’s even worse at making submarines!——————————————————————————————————-

[Rpt. 1st verse, chorus]
===============================

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The Chase
Just Like A Woman

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