Robert Baird Blog

Why We Fight Posted Mon Oct 29, 2007, 5:14 PM ET

There are many nights when being a music writer comes down to the whining about the stark question: why am I dragging my ass out on the town again? What reason do I really have to see this act? Or to see this act one more time?

I know, I know, boo hoo, free tickets for the poor wittle music writer who wants to stay home and watch bad TV. I'm aware this is a rarified problem that only a handful people can relate to but believe me there are times when getting up, or in my case staying in the naked city after work, waiting for an act to come on at 11 pm, can be a slog.

Last week in San Francisco at Herbst Theatre I saw the great Kronos Quartet. Now over the years I've seen David Harrington and Co. many times. I was an enthusiastic supporter of their whole late 80's heyday when they transformed the music of Thelonious Monk and most famously, Hendrix's "Purple Haze" by coming up with innovative, strangely organic transcriptions for string quartet. The stuff was undeniably weird but a whole lot of fun and brilliant in its way. Since those days they’ve collaborated with musicians from nearly every genre yet they've sort of lost their luster a bit, become old hat. At least that's what I thought until the overly chatty cab driver ("I'm going to run off to Vegas and get married")dropped me off at Herbst Theatre.

Once inside, one of the first people I'm introduced to is the legendary Orrin Keepnews and right then I knew why I'd come to that concert. It was a rare pleasure to meet the great engineer/producer who at 84 and not in the best of health, is still making it out to gigs. Keepnews is best known as the co-owner of Riverside Records (Monk, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins), the time he spent at Fantasy Records (1972-1980) and finally as co-owner of Landmark Records where he recorded a couple of Kronos albums. Along with the not-so-nice Rudy Van Gelder, he's one of the music businesses true remaining legends. It was a very great pleasure to meet him and tell him how much I loved many of the records he's made. I mean just his Bill Evans recordings alone make him damned near immortal.

As for Kronos, the half of their performance that I saw, reminded me again what a bunch of fearless explorers they are. Their physicality is always a shock: they do not sit even remotely still when they play. In a John Zorn piece, Selections from Dead Man, they showed their sense of humor by whipping their bows back and forth up in the air, together and apart, in silence, for at least five minutes. One great Kronos maxim has always been keep it short and sweet and this they accomplished wonderfully, proving the classical music need not drone on for hours, past the point when many ears turn off.

The most breathtaking point in the show came when they mimicked the sound and approach of a downtown jazz ensemble. The concert was part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival after all so some nod to jazz was expected. Other highlights included one of their constant staples, sawing away on a mishmash of the music of the great Raymond Scott whose music ended up being the centerpiece of many Warner Brothers cartoons and also a gorgeous, evocative piece by Indian composer Ram Narayan. In the end, their performance reminded me that more than a string quartet, they're really more an experimental music act who were once based in classical music.

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CMJ Posted Wed Oct 17, 2007, 2:43 PM ET

The new Miles Davis On The Corner set, which Sony says is the last metal boxed chunk of Miles they're gonna release, ever, is also the most beautiful, ever. Like the LP which reached its finest, most completely perfected form just before CDs came in, the boxed set is reaching its zenith with this one. The funky characters from the original cover are now stamped into the metal casing into which the set, book and CDs combined slip into. It's the same setup that Sony’s been using since the beginning of what has proved to be colossal reissue program.

CMJ week in NYC and the collective reaction I've heard from the local music writer rabble is a deafening, "Ho Hum." Most mystifying this year is who are all these acts no one's ever heard of? One theory is that these are all bands from the Midwest who don’t know that CMJ turned ripe and fell off the tree many years ago. The only act I’ve seen on this year's schedule that was worth schlepping downtown fir was UK angry young (now old) man Billy Bragg, who everyone who cares about music has already seen five times. Part of the problem is that New York is entirely too spread out to host a music conference. In Austin, SXSW works because everything, seminars, hotels, music, are all in a compact area. In Manhattan, there's too much going in just in the normal course of events for this festival to be able to foster any sense of community which is exactly what makes events like this go.

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Hopefully this will not... Posted Tue Sep 25, 2007, 5:35 PM ET

Hopefully the Meg White (or not) sex tape dustup will not engender a drummer sex tape trend. There are a lot of skin pounders that I for one have no desire to ever see in the buff. The mental images alone are like taking a woodburner to your brain.

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The Sad and the Sick Posted Tue Sep 25, 2007, 4:17 PM ET

First the sad. An old friend, harp player and all around sweetheart, Gary Primich passed away, suddenly as they say, in Austin on Sunday night. He was only 49. Although he'd had a solo career for some time, Gary was once a member of a smokin' Austin bar band called The Mannish Boys.

On my very first visit to SXSW many years ago, during the Austin Music Awards which we were clearly not watching, Gary and the band somehow got my friend Jeb and I into an inescapable whirlpool of beer drinking—Shiner Bocks of course—from which none of us emerged even remotely sober. We bonded that night and I'm proud to say the friendship lasted until Sunday night.

The list of labels he recorded for reads like an all-star list of who's who of defunct roots labels: Blacktop, Amazing and Antones among others. Of his records Mr. Freeze from 1995 is a favorite of mine though his last Ridin' the Darkhorse is also good. Somehow the title of a musician or film star's last project is always prophetic and Primich was no exception. Vaya con Dios amigo. The blues world has lost a great one.

On the sick and twisted end of things, I spent some (not all) of the past weekend trying to figure out if the woman shown in the now infamous Meg White Sex Tape (Google it) is actually the drummer of The White Stripes or more likely a look alike who is unfortunately trying to rattle not only poor Meg but also the rest of the pathetic sex-tape obsessed world. If I had to vote I'd say no, it's not her. Her body looks in the ballpark but I'm not so sure about the face.

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Prince or Penne Posted Fri Sep 21, 2007, 2:13 PM ET

To those who say the Bush Administration hasn't added anything meaningful to American society I say pshaw. He and Cheney have turned lying into an artform. Not lying exactly but a finer, more refined version of not telling the truth. It's still completely self-serving and wrong but now, if you have little or no education and/or sense of any kind, and you’re easily scared, these pronouncements sound vaguely plausible. It's all about the spin. The truth, in that view, is now relative. Everything is shaded and prismatic. Move several steps to the left and everything seems to look different. Looks like the truth. Sounds like the truth. There's a victory to be had in Iraq! Is it any wonder that we've become a more polarized society under the great decider.

While this is a tenuous connnection lemme give it whirl. This splintering effect, in a less menacing form, and driven by the sensory overload and ever increasing speed of everyday life, is the really the answer to the what's happened to the music business. Where there was one, there are now many. Want proof? Let’s look at the current Top 200 Album chart in Billboard. Here are the top 10 artists in order, one to ten: Kanye West, 50 Cent, Kenny Chesney, soundtrack to High School Musical 2, Hannah Montana 2 (soundtrack), Fergie, Nickelback, Colbie Caillet, the various artists Now 25 compilation and finally, coming in at number ten, new restaurateur, Justin Timberlake. And speaking of Timberlake and his former squeeze, let me add my two cents to the furor surrounding this troubled former Mouseketeer: it looked like booze to me. Remember that despite appearances, Frank and Dean often drank apple juice onstage. Booze and dance routines just do not mix.

By the way, Timberlake's got a new New York restaurant, Southern Hospitality, that's clearly geared to cater to the older edge of the crowd that buys his records. As a lifelong devotee of bad southern cooking (and by that I really mean good), I visited this greasy romper room. Everything in the joint is deep fried, and the bar in there is so loud, full of plasma TVs (the new bling) and Coyote Ugly-like J-Lo wannabes dancing on the bar that the ambiance is reminiscent of dining at a picnic table in the Port Authority-at-5 pm on Friday. But back to the list.

It's no surprise that every one of those records is aimed at kids, teenagers with disposable income. So the downloading and CD buying audiences are one and the same? Interesting. Even more intriguing, comical some might say, is the fact that Kanye West (enough on the whining) and Fiddy Cent are arguing over sales figures that are both below a million. Who cares? The real decline of the business can be measured by the fact that they are selling less records to a world where the population has increased significantly since even Thriller was released. Less records to more people. Course they'd say that was the scourge of downloads cutting into their business… but that's another story.

But to most other people who are either over 21 or addicted to music with a slightly more adult tinge, the music business of the Top 200 is completely disconnected from their reality. Or they relate to just a piece of it. Is Justin Timberlake ever gonna get a serious review in Stereophile? Very doubtful though in a staff ridden with guilty musical pleasures, let me just mention one act, The Carpenters, you never know.

My point is that while the business looks to be a general malaise, within many of the splinters there is health among listeners. Perhaps not like it was during the glory days of the record business, before computers instead of record players became the leisure activity of choice, but still healthier than you may have been led to believe. You may have never heard of Fergie but you know who's who in the blues world. Fans of classical music are as close sociologically to Kanye as they are to the NHL. In jazz the separation happens within a single genre. The reissue fanatics who prowl dusty little holes or megastores or megasites looking for the next batch of Van Gelder reissues they know are due to come this Tuesday have nothing to do with Chris Potter or worse yet, smooth jazz. The variety of forms that you can obtain music in and on these days has also stoked the focused obsessiveness of anyone absorbed in music. Ariel, our intrepid intern, a young man enamored of the rococo charms of Rush who I introduced to the pleasures of Philly Soul…ah, that sounded a little pink pussycatesque, let me try again. Who I turned on to…no, no, who learned about the music of Gamble and Huff through me, better, is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. He's a downloader, a CD ripper and a CD buyer. When he gets interested in a performer, he's off doing all three.

Conclusions? Yeah the biz is a mess and a long way from making any sense again but instead of incessant complaining in this blog, I'm finally saying something positive. Seeing light at…no, I won't use that particularly unfortunate cliché, but you get the idea. It all ain't lost yet.

As a coda, I just spoke with a friend here in New York who closed his record store and has decided to go into the restaurant business. So opening an Italian restaurant in New York, where there happen to be 10,000 already, is easier than record retailing? I guess everybody’s gotta eat.

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Welcome Back My Friends Posted Thu Sep 13, 2007, 4:47 PM ET

ELP As Christmas approaches, the reissues have begun to trickle in. Today's bounty was Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery or what the notes call "Prog Rock's masterpiece."

Listening again after 20 years reminded me what an overblown bunch of jackasses those three truly were. The only three guys in England who could make Rick Wakeman look disciplined. But as soon as I pushed play, the odd pleasures of this record all came rushing back: the bleeding chunk out of Ginastera's piano concerto, the sacrilegious bit of William Blake to open the record, the gongs, the moogs; those guys threw it all into this one. You get the feeling that no instrument was too large or too loud for them. Instead of Bowie's "Meant To Be Played Loud," the exhortation for this record should have been "Dress up like Charles the II, restage the Restoration and then take every drug you can find." Jesus, we were patient in the 70’s. Sit and listen to a whole album of Keith Emerson doing his Phantom of the Opera thing? It's enough to induce spontaneous combustion. Some of the really stoned white teenagers even thought there were profundities to be had amongst all the gnashing keyboard sturm and drang.

What made the record palatable was the completely out of place, "Still..You Turn Me On," still the only rock ballad with a harpsichord and a moog-derived didgeridoo.

That's followed by another oddity, the itchy, growly, barrelhouse piano mess "Bennie the Bouncer." Then BSS got really, REALLY heavy. The main attraction, "Karn Evil 9" is still the most overblown rock opera ever. Makes Tommy look like the touring company of The Lion King. Between the massive scale of this "epic" and the album’s still very cool, slightly Egyptian looking H.R. Giger cover art (a style he later reprised in the film Alien), I will admit to sitting and listening, repeatedly, feeling that there was something techtonic going on, the ground was shifting, but never being able to figure out why. Turns out of course that's what they wanted teenagers to think. Anyone with half an adult brain instinctively knew it was mock triumphant fluppery.

What strikes me now as even more amazing is that kids stood and watched the marathon, "Karn Evil 9" in concert. It's true that marijuana (remember "lumbo") figured heavily in many of the seminal concert experiences of the 70's, yet entertainment choices were severely limited then compared with today and kids quickly labeled ELP as rock pioneers to be admired. For what exact reason I never heard a logical, sober explanation of. But kids buying a record with a juiced up, excerpt of classical music on it ain't all bad. ELP vs Britney. Think about it. Progressive indeed. Back when fans waited for albums to come out. When there was an urgency in both music fans and musicians that does not exist today.

On to the next resurrected gem. Ah, the Bee Gees Greatest Hits! nothing overblown there. Actually,….No, another time.

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Do Re Me Posted Tue Aug 28, 2007, 5:49 PM ET

The amount of flux in the world of music and the businesses of marketing and selling creativity continues to be absolutely amazing. In nearly 25 years of writing about music I’m seeing things I almost don't believe.

Latest example: a flood of promotional pieces from Universal classical labels, DG, and Decca. That's right, from classical labels, albeit very proud ones, but still classical labels, a breed that's supposed to be going broke. Well if the book they’ve released first in Europe and now here for the new release by the red hot vocal marriage of convenience of soprano Anna Netrebko and tenor Rolando Villazon, is going broke then we should all be so lucky. We're talking lush here folks. Perfect bound, the works! The paper costs alone have to be staggering. Add to that the gorgeous, wonderful press kits for pianist Helene Grimaud (every page is doubled), fiddle player Valim Repin (wondrous coated paper stock) and Cecilia Bartoli (again absolutely astonishingly stupenderific design and printing and paper…) and you are talking thousands and thousands of dollars. Make no mistake: these are all truly great artists who deserve this kind of treatment. I'm just marveling at how many different opinions and realities exist in a world where there used to be many, always many realities, but never this many. The classical music business is going broke yet they're going out winning design awards for promo pieces. Ahh, no, don't think so.

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Bend Over Posted Mon Aug 13, 2007, 4:41 PM ET

For good measure alone, Critics, particularly the cranky ones like I've recently become, all deserve a well–placed boot up the arse once in awhile and so, much to my delight I too loved much of The Simpsons movie I prematurely sniffed at last week on this forum. I even get to add this delicious addendum: The critics are wrong! It's pretty wonderful. Many great bits. Much self-deprecation. Maggie emerging as a full–blown character. Okay, okay: I was wrong.

Saw a wonderful guitar pull over the weekend. For those unfamiliar with the term, guitar pulls involve three of four people, sitting in a line or around a circle, taking turns playing their own songs. Christopher Denny, Mike Ferrio and Matt Mays, all of whom are signed to the 2:59:00 label, were superb, managing with no rehearsal to accompany each other. Fresh off his debut record, Denny, from Arkansas, has a big voice and seems like a talent worthy keeping an eye on. Ferrio is the founder of the band Tandy, is a big talent. And finally there was Matt Mays, an accomplished singer/songwriter from Nova Scotia, where he leads a band called El Torpedo. All three were really focused, singing extremely well and being very respectful of each others space. All three have releases available on www.2minutes59.com.

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Lo Res Labels Posted Fri Aug 10, 2007, 3:15 PM ET

Insider music biz stuff should in most cases stay that way because normal folk, what I like to call "civilians," don't care about who said what to whom in the bowels of some label HQ in Burbank or Manhattan. There's also something pitifully self-indulgent and exclusionary and ultimately pathetic about people who are in the know about the music biz and live to tell you about it.

That all said, here's one that I can’t believe and just have to share. For a feature on Third Stream Jazz in the October issue of Stereophile I needed hi res jpegs of the cover art of two Modern Jazz Quartet albums that were both released in the early Sixties on Atlantic Records. After nearly two weeks all Atlantic could come up with was one low res jpeg that I couldn't use. I ended up having a Stereophile writer's wife scan an LP copy of one of the records.

So explain to me again why every cover in the Atlantic Records catalog has not already been scanned at this late date. The two covers I needed were from records Atlantic bought and paid for years and years ago. Selling old catalog is pure cream for labels. And it's something they all love and spend much time scheming about; How can we sell more catalog? How can we repackage the catalog? Blah Blah Blah. I'll tell ya how! Have something as simple and basic as artwork standing by when some damned fool magazine editor like me calls up and says he's doing a story on 40 year old records!!!

The reasons why the music business is in about as much trouble as the publishing business is right now is not rocket science. This is very basic marketing we're talking about here folks. There are times when I really do wonder what business the major music labels are in. It can't be selling records.

On a totally unrelated topic, I hear Springsteen's new record, much of it recorded in Atlanta, is finished. Sony has certainly managed to keep a lid on this one. I hear the material on it is classic E Street Band rockers with some soft Bruce solo stuff thrown in. Slated for a fall release, look out for a promotional tsunami to come crashing down soon. It couldn’t come at a better time for the biz. It really needs a solid Bruce record right now; something that might generate some enthusiasm, create some sales.

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Steamin' In The Rain Posted Mon Jul 23, 2007, 4:24 PM ET

It's Monday. It's raining. And people, tourists in particular, (excuse me, why don’t you just poke out the other eye while you're at it!) cannot walk with umbrellas, so let’s talk Ticketmaster.

In late September/early October singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams is coming to both Los Angeles and New York for multi-night stands where the first set will be one of her older records in its entirety and the second a mix of new stuff. It's a wonderful idea that I wish more artists would adopt. In some ways, it's a dream come true. How about the Stones do Let It Bleed or Exile followed by their new, ahhh, crap. Or Springsteen does, The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle followed by his ahhh, well, we will find out in the fall when his new record comes out.

So in the pouring rain, I walked over to the New York venue to avoid the service charge of buying on the web. The problem is that like many venues Town Hall doesn't sell tickets to its own shows until 3 weeks prior which in most cases means by then it'll be a sell out and there will be no tickets to sell. Which means, of course, you are trapped into going to those robber bastards at Ticketmaster.

Of all the despicable creatures that swim the music business seas, none are as slimy and calculated and utterly crooked as Ticketmaster. It's like what would happen if an Octopus and a Great White mated. It's ruthless and it's everywhere. Worst of all, they rub your nose in it by calling their exorbitant fees a "Convenience Charge."

I know, I know, I'm raging against the wind. It's a monopoly, and whatever big business wants is all good for the USA right? Sometimes it's just all about the rant.

Now that I was soaked and ticketless I alleviate my disgust with BBQ. In the middle of lunch I heard, "I Wouldn't Treat a Dog (The Way You Treated Me)," by Bobby Blue Bland and couldn’t help but think of Michael Vick. The whole bloodsport animal fighting culture, which I've always thought of as a rural, redneck kind of weirdness, is sick and horrible beyond words. Oddly enough humans killing humans seems easier to swallow than dog fighting because animals are so defenseless against our twisted designs. If represents for me, mankind at it’s very worst; like going backward several steps back in our mental and emotional evolution. If Vick is found guilty of bankrolling and being part of this mess, the NFL should lower the boom and banish him immediately.

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Pageant of the Transmundane Posted Fri Jul 20, 2007, 4:24 PM ET

Now that we're perched upon the precipice of the Simpson Movie opening—at least a decade too late—I, by chance, I caught the Hullabalooza episode with the Smashing Pumpkins this week, the one where Homer becomes part of the "pageant of the transmundane," by being shot in the stomach with a cannonball.

For those who don't remember the show when it still had fertile ideas and good to great one liners, this half hour, with Sonic Youth re-recording the theme song just for this episode, was pretty special—at least to the musically inclined. For me it's always been about the one–liners, "Groucho’s Dream" is how I often refer to its early days, and this episode has a few beauties.

Homer: "Why do you need new bands? Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It's a scientific fact," (followed by a blast of the opening riff of Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein.")

Marge: "Hmm. Record stores have always seemed crazy to me, but it doesn't upset me. Music is none of my business."

Billy Corgan: "Hey Cannonball, I like your statement: when life takes a cheap shot at you, you stand your ground. Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins." Homer: "Homer Simpson, smiling politely."

And the topper:

Homer: "Oh, Marge. I thought I had an appetite for destruction, but all I wanted was a club sandwich."

The movie is a disappointment waiting to happen. They should have done it years ago when they still had a stable of creative and funny writers. A shitload of celebrity voices a successful film does not make.

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New Math Posted Fri Jul 13, 2007, 3:09 PM ET

Here's a number to contemplate: 52% of recorded music sales at Sony/BMG are now via downloads.

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Jammin' Till The Jam Is Through Posted Thu Jul 12, 2007, 4:41 PM ET

It's too bad the word "jam" was ever invented, much less the concept it implies being attached to music.

Once, jammin' wasn’t all a horror. Like in the simple, non-indulgent reality of, "Duane Allman jammed." But then the evil spawn of the Grateful Dead took over and now it's oozed like so much poisonous Chinese toothpaste into every kind of music imaginable. And sorry Phish fans but the jam outbreak was still relatively localized until the Good Ship Trey made it okay for everyone to stop practicing their instruments, forget about songwriting and arranging and just, you know dude, jam.

Which leads me to Manu Chao. Standing on the storied Plains of Abraham in Quebec City at the summer festival last weekend, the giant Scene Bell Stage covering the ground where Montcalm and Wolfe once slugged it out, I got into the whole multicultural vibe that he and his band project. Part reggae, part rock band with much stoner reggae love music slathered in, these guys are huge for a reason Chuck Mangione once patented: it feels so good. Judging from the clouds of pot smoke wafting tastily over the crowds, the Spanish/French head banded one deserves props for keeping his constant groove thing so positive and easy to love. Filled with much Molson Dry, the fine folk of Quebec City, 80,000 strong, were all grooving heavily. And his band, many of whom were only partially dressed, is so motley and regular that everyone can relate.

But it's still too damned jammy. Jammy equals lazy-assed, self indulgent jackasses who think they’re the next Jerry. Newsflash: there was and will ever only be only one of those.

In practice the jam thing is by no means brain surgery, start a rhythm, add the band, and ride it as long as you feel it. At least some of M. Chao's sources are righteous. Many of his chants for example—"Oh, Yo, Yo, Yo"—are ripped straight from Bob Marley scat.

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Kim Richey Posted Fri Jun 22, 2007, 4:49 PM ET

The old saw about "the first album was their best" is often true, truer than most artists want to admit. And no where in music is that state more widespread than with singer/songwriters who only have a guitar, their voice and their material and no band to hide behind. Trying to hack out a career as a solo act is a bitch. Takes guts or overweening ego to get through it. Most soloists fall prey to the natural reaction which is to pour all their best ideas into the first project. That's cool until you're faced with coming up with a second and perhaps a third record. Yet sometimes the process can reverse itself, and after a fallow period a songwriter can recharge, again have something to say, and they come through with a late season masterpiece.

After seeing a show this week down on NYC's Lower East Side—the super trendy area that's gone from original cold water tenements to a frat boy, drink 'n' drown hell to the current swank wine store and bistro on every corner `hood—I think singer/songwriter Kim Richey is full into a long overdue return to form. While not a masterpiece, her new record, Chinese Boxes, is the best thing she's done since her 1997 sophomore record, Bitter Sweet. The title tune, for example, is tuneful, full of hit single.

Existing somewhere in the nexus of Shawn Colvin, John Hiatt, Linda Ronstadt and any number of other roots/pop performers, the sweet–voiced Richey is most famed for her eponymous, Richard Bennett–produced 1995 debut, which remains one of the finest collections of melancholically sweet, at times almost Britpop songs ever released. I listened to it before going to the show and the thing is still a knockout. "Those Words We Said," "You’ll Never Know," "Here I Go Again" and "Just My Luck" (all co-written, by the way, with her now ex-bandmate/collaborator Angelo) are all a perfect mix or upbeat pop tunes about love gone bad. Her second record, Bitter Sweet has what is perhaps her best song, "Every River," which has the kind of chord progression seen in the tunes by immortals like Dylan. Yeah you read right: I'm sayin' she wrote a tune that's in a league with something Bobby mighta thunk up.

Unfortunately, Richey has become much less interesting since. Her low point came in 1999 when her pairing with producer Hugh Padgham (Police, XTC) resulted in Glimmer, which suffered from weak material, an ill-judged, fussy production gloss and lyrics that make "cheesy" sound like a good thing. For a lesson in how not to produce a record, and bad sound incarnate, give that one a listen. It's one imperfect record that caused a lot of longtime fans like myself to think perhaps that Kim's run was over.

After her performance at the Living Room, and an unnamed backup singer who despite her best efforts could not even remotely keep time on a hand drum, I'm thinking she's not done yet. One sticky songwriting problem remains from her Glimmer days however: too many similar-sounding ballads about how she got her heart broke. I don't care if you ARE Dylan, no one gets away with a steady diet of boohoo, broken heart weepers, excepting of course those who have no interest in expanding their audience and/or having a viable career. C'mon Kim, let's mix in the upbeat numbers! There's gotta be some joy in your life?

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Sweet Children Posted Tue Jun 19, 2007, 5:31 PM ET

With increasing frequency, a litany of strange packages began arriving in my mail recently. Inside were, and continue to be, a series of very strange discs, entitled, Rockabye Baby!, that purport to be rock tunes made into lullabies. My first reaction? Smoking crack, as well all well saw in the 90's, can be a terrible, terrible thing.

Coldplay, The Beach Boys. The Eagles (easy to see why that one works), Pink Floyd (which I've nodded off to many times, course that coulda been all the…) all arrived and got a dutiful listen. But then came the terrible twosome of Tool and Green Day. Being childless, though sadly prone to swoops back into teenagery, I realize my opinion is of limited value here. I don't have a little Lars or a little Maynard to test these mostly marimba and keyboard efforts out on. But I do know abject fantasy when I see it and trying to take the rhythms out of rock music so it will lull infants, even ones with long hair and Blood on the Tracks posters up in their room, just ain't gonna work.

Go ahead and tell me I'm all wrong and your kid never slept a wink until you started playing him the lullaby versions of Tool's "Opiate" or Green Day’s "Basket Case."

This cottage industry, thunk up and perpetrated by one Michael Armstrong, a man bent on flooding the little people world with his twinkley creations, is one very strange parallel universe. How he stays awake long enough to record them is a mystery to me but I'm sure the guy is selling them. Upwardly mobile new parent types would think they were a scream. Like the New Yawkers in Baby Boom who just had to have baby applesauce. The only problem is that being bored and being sleepy are often two entirely different states of being and cute as these are, I mean Tool as lullabies, why it's almost standup comedy for toddlers, they do get a bit bland after awhile. Kind of like Raffi on Meth.

Not only that: but c'mon, if a kids gonna rock them let `em turn it up to 11 and blast "Basket Case" the way Billy Jo meant it.

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Happiness is a warm...MP3 Posted Mon Jun 11, 2007, 4:25 PM ET

You gotta hand it to The New York Times; they do try and cover the audio industry. And when it comes to dumbing it down, they truly aren't fucking around. Rather than have to read an article from last week's Circuits section on how MP3's might someday sound better, A Quest for That Warm Sound of Old (June 5, 2007), which was printed just above a piece entitled Making Tunes a Fixture on the Patio (snaring more Jersey readers is obviously an NYT priority) here are the some beauties, salient or otherwise. "The more you turn it up, the punchier it sounds…" "…tries to sweeten digital sound by putting back what compression has taken out." "…what are people really going for, accurate reproduction or pleasing reproduction?" "Our technology tricks your brain into hearing something that isn’t there." "When you can't hear the difference anymore, it's overkill." "The process is never perfect." "With a good recording, the quality may be improved by tweaking the playback." "Don’t throw away your records yet."

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When I'm Sixty Four minus Twenty Four Posted Fri Jun 1, 2007, 2:17 PM ET

Forty years ago today, June 1, 1967, The Beatles taught the world what innovation really sounded like.

It's unmistakably poignant that just as the record business' horribly painful and potentially fatal transition continues to tumble, this amazing artifact, so emblematic of when music was much more important to humankind and therefore capable of reaching greater heights of artistic expression, reaches this anniversary.

Where to start? Perhaps the visual. The assembled crowd cover art that now in the CD version comes with its own ID key. I always loved the fact that Bowery Boy, Leo Gorcey, clearly a great intellect, wanted to get paid for having his image included on the cover so he was painted out. Way to sense an opportunity for posterity there Leo ya friggin' knucklehead!

And then there were those garish satin military slash band uniforms and Lennon disarming the whole circus aspect of the costuming by tucking his hands in the front of the pants in one of the inside shots.

Musically, the riches as they say, are embarrassing. I often say that the longer time presses on, the larger and more savory the Beatles accomplishments become. My favorite musical moment here is Lennon’s sunny "Getting Better" and the one falsetto call and response verse, where with a single line he disarms everyone who thought this tune was simple minded rubbish by interjecting, "It can’t get no worse."

Is it the goliath of popular music that it's been lauded as for the past 40 years? Is it even the best Beatles record? My instinctual distrust of anything that's acclaimed as being this influential tells me the answer is NO. To be fair, time has dimmed the luster. So much time and music have passed that there's no way it could be the surprise it once was. The Beatles themselves went on to eclipse it. In a personal way, the White Album and Abbey Road have always resonated a little more for me. But again it's not about what this singleless hit album does now, it's about what it did then, which was show what could be done with a four track tape recorder after the Beatles stopped touring and concentrated their energies in the studio. Ah, the days when giants, musical giants roamed the earth and the release of an album of music was a cultural event. When did that last happen? Nevermind, which is 16 years distant now?

More proof that singles are the new weapon of music business choice. The Now series, which aggregates hits from Universal music labels is the favorite of my 11 year old nephew and his pals. When asked what record I can get him his standard reply is, "What volume are they up to now."

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Toe Jam Posted Fri May 25, 2007, 1:32 PM ET

Of the many advantages of living in NYC, Doctors has got to be one of the biggest. Many, many good, no nonsense ones to choose from, if you or your insurance can pay. Cosmic Justice. I survived HE 2007 only to fall prey to my own impatience. Instead of sliding the vegetable drawer in my refrigerator out slowly like a normal person, my tired, irritable and schmoozed out self jerked it and it jumped its track and smashed my foot. Damned apples and carrots weigh too friggin' much. After three days of denial and whistling in the graveyard about how it was gonna be fine, I finally broke down and dipped a damaged toe in the health care system. One scalpel slice later and things are looking up on the sore paw front.

While waiting for the surgeon's art to heal me, I ended up sitting in sun-drenched Washington Square Park with my leg up, watching a crazed collection of street musicians doing their thing. Along with the Hendrix imitator and the inevitable gaggle of saxophone players, one of whom could actually play something other than "I Got Rhythm" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," there was a small Dixieland/swing combo (trumpet, National steel guitar, clarinet, washtub bass) sitting in chairs, really swinging their asses off. They had a female vocalist (middling) and a killer couple of jitterbugging fools who were a very welcome visual accompaniment. Young and tireless, they were up on the balls of their feet, whipping each other around, having a hell of a time. On and on it went and I noticed that a large percentage of the crowd that had gathered was broadly grinning. That music is the very definition of the word "infectious" Bad toe and all, there ain't much that can beat Spring in NYC.

Saw the great Chandler Travis Philharmonic on Wednesday and was suitably awed. Much Zappa and Sun Ra in their music. Great hornwork and a charming addiction to wearing hats of all types on stage. Too bad they only play off Cape Cod every so often. Their new recordTarnation and Alastair Sim is all about being eclectic yet they know about putting hooks into the music and mixing the accessible with the more esoteric moments. Sort of intellectual and gritty at the same time. Quite a feat in my book.

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His Way Posted Mon May 14, 2007, 2:21 PM ET

Today, May 14, is a momentous day in music history as the anniversary of the passings of Keith Relf (Yardbirds), Chet Baker and one of the humankind's greatest musical talents, the one, the only, the chairman of the board, Francis Albert Sinatra who died in 1998. Somewhere, Frank's still got the world on a string—Ring–A–Ding–Ding!

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HE 2007 Posted Mon May 14, 2007, 2:05 PM ET

What a great show HE 2007 turned out to be. Large crowds and much good feeling all around. If two channel audio is truly dying then I didn't see it. Lots of good sounding rooms, much impressive, well-priced gear, a successful RAVE awards and a hotel with a key location all made for a very successful show.

Most Encouraging Note from the HE 2007 Show: The Stereophile CDs, new and old, jazz and classical, sold like hotcakes. Congrats to JA for all his fine engineering, A&R and major domo work on them. So does this mean that the shiny, rainbow disc ain't dead yet? At least among audiophiles?

Best Laugh of the HE 2007 Show: Sam Tellig recounting in the Stereophile editors shootout panel how he paid his daughter a dime to flip his LPs when she was a kid. She got a quarter if she pulled the record off the turntable, put it back in its sleeve and got another record out and put it on. Stereophile writer Art Dudley chipped in, thanking Sam for giving his daughter, who was in the back of the room, too many ideas. I was standing just behind Art's daughter who immediately got a big grin on her face. Classic.

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