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Why Do Rock Stars Gotta Be So Fugly?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 19, 2009 by admin in Music

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Is there a clause in rock star contracts with the devil that says AND YOU HAVE TO BE FUGLY?


Poor Shane MacGowan of the Pogues
almost always tops these lists

The other day a friend and I were talking about Robin Trower, who – while a legendary and seminal rock guitarist – is not what you would call conventionally handsome. When I listened to him as a teen, I never really thought about this; there’s a pretty good chance that I was under the influence of something or making out with chicks at the time. But this got my friend and I thinking: is there some clause when rock stars sign their contracts with the Devil that says “but you have to be ugly in that rock star kind of way“? As I sought ideas for a list of ugly musicians, I realized a few things. First of all, as a musician who’s not exactly adorable himself, I should be careful here. Perhaps more importantly, there’s a lot of truth in expressions like “love is blind” or “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. For instance, while the average person would likely say that Tom Waits is a little on the ugly side, don’t say this to his fans. A friend of mine who worships Waits nearly smashed me over the head with a bourbon bottle when I suggested his name for the list. And on the inverse, Madonna almost universally ranks in the top ten on these sorts of lists, usually with an explanation about inner beauty being important. I’m also one of the worst people to address this topic; I mean, I think Sandra Bernhard is hot, for cryin’ out loud. Regardless of who you think is ugly, I think the PopCrunch article Rock’s Aging Sex Icons Need To Quit Already is on the mark when they point out that no-one wants to see grandpa running around in spandex. I mean c’mon, Eddie Van Halen, you look like you’re wearing a damn colostomy bag! Who would you add to the list? Read the rest of this entry »

ELO: The Guilty Pleasure Of 70′s Symphonic Rock

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on October 13, 2009 by admin in Music

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

How friend helped me let go of my shame and rediscover the genius of Electric Light Orchestra.


This Album Cover Looks Really
Cool If You’re Sixteen & Stoned

Thanks to the fact that my photographer friend Terry recently admitted publicly that he had been listening to Electric Light Orchestra, I can finally slither out of my little closet of shame and confess: I think ELO is one of the most amazing pop bands of the seventies. As long as Jeff Lynne’s hair isn’t blocking the sound (now I remember why Phil Spector’s hair looked so familiar a couple of years ago), any listener would probably acknowledge that tracks from albums like On The Third Day (1973), Eldorado (1974), Face The Music (1975), A New World Record (1976), and Out Of The Blue (1977) not only formed part of the tragic soundtrack of the early teen years for some of us, but also hold up surprisingly well today. For me the rediscovery of ELO started when I used Pandora for the first time a few months ago, and typed ELO as a sort of random test of Pandora’s capabilities. I was surprised a little by Pandora’s ability to spew out an interesting playlist based on entering a slightly forgotten band, but I was more surprised at how great the songs still sound. And a little embarrassed at my secret guilty pleasure. If you were alive and cognizant in 1976/1977, you might have experienced the same trauma that I did: while punk was in it’s early gestation, amazing double albums of SuperPop like ELO’s “Out of the Blue” and Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life were saturating the airwaves. That was a tough year or two; you might find yourself trying to hide your canary yellow hair and Clash albums so you could date the nice Catholic chick who was still playing KC & The Sunshine Band, Peter Frampton, or the BeeGees. Hearing these ELO songs after not hearing them for literally decades was a little unsettling; suddenly I was pining over Carol [REDACTED], Jeanne [REDACTED], and Kathy [REDACTED] and sloppy first kisses all over again. In fact, I just relived my whole heartbreaking relationship with Helen [REDACTED] by listening to Strange Magic and Evil Woman back-to-back. I’m gonna go cry in my room beneath my Farrah Fawcett poster now. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s More To Muse Than A Radiohead Cover Band

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on October 6, 2009 by admin in Music

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

If you’ve dismissed Muse as a Radiohead clone like I did, give them another try. Just don’t bother listening to them as mp3′s on your iPod.

I made the mistake back in 2003 of glossing over the band Muse because of their shameless Radiohead-ness. At the time, listening to Muse when Radiohead existed felt like listening to Coldplay when there’s a U2 around. Except I actually like Radiohead. All of which, in spite of being the perception of the music press in general, is incredibly unfair. In a way I’m glad I glossed over Muse like did, because after finally exhausting all the Radiohead in existence, it’s like there’s a back-catalogue to explore. Except when you finally give Muse a chance, you realize there are layers and layers and layers, and the comparison to Radiohead becomes incredibly inaccurate. My re-Muse-ment began when I saw the video for their new tune Uprising featured here (which seems, alas, to only be available at MTV.com. Apologies in advance for the commercials). In spite of the tune’s over-the-top “anthem for the common man” theme, I found myself nodding along with it, and ended up watching the video for Supermassive Black Hole from their 2006 release Black Holes And Revelations. I was sunk at this point, as I decided to dig back into my music collection. Starting with 2003′s Absolution, I almost wrote them off again. The first track – Apocalypse Please – is so Radiohead-esque that I was sure my resistance was legit. But I slowly realized it was actually just a good way Read the rest of this entry »

YouTube As A Musical Instrument

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 30, 2009 by admin in Music

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

My wikiphiliac ways lead to the strange discovery that not only is YouTube a musical instrument, but Ohio is a piano.

Although clearly not as epic a project as the incredible Kutiman – who remixed hundreds of YouTube music clips to create mindblowing mashups – Audiogravity is still pretty cool. It’s just a bunch of YouTube clips embedded in a single page, but you can start and stop any of them at the same time for some simple atmospheric “jazz”. Created by Darren Solomon of New York musical collaborative Science for Girls, Audiogravity is an extension of his Bb project, which (in a fashion similar to Jazzy Japanese Pop Band Sour’s fan-driven video) relies on user-submitted clips for the finished product. Solomon’s “band” Science for Girls is, in his words, “melodic electronica with roots in jazz and Brazillian music”, and their debut album features an eclectic group of guest vocalists from NYC’s indie music scene. Solomon’s blog is also pretty interesting; where else would I have learned about the Turkish instrument called a Cumbus? Which of course Solomon had to turn into a Cumbusfest. Which in turn led me in that Google-distracted, wikiphiliac fashion to discover today’s favorite waste of time: AudioPornCentral.com, where I learned that not only is YouTube a musical instrument as we’ve seen here, but Ohio is a piano. Read the rest of this entry »

Does Listening To Music Improve Productivity?

[ 3 Comments ]Posted on September 24, 2009 by admin in Music

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Well, not if you’re a terrorist and someone’s playing Metallica and The Barney Song 24 hours a day.


Apparently Chatter Blocker Also Makes You
Spontaneously Levitate In Your Cubicle

I got into a conversation yesterday with some of my smarty-pants friends about whether or not music in the workplace improves performance. The answer we arrived at, after a lot of pseudo-science was tossed around? Yes. If listening to music improves your performance. Although playing Metallica and Sesame Street music at high volume 24 hours a day will reliably make just about anybody insane, and playing music and feeding beer to cows will cause them to produce more milk*, most things about the experience of music are extremely subjective, and hard to research because of “self-reporting bias”. A classic example is that although mp3′s intrinsically suck as an audio format, they are actually preferred by many of today’s listeners. So if music doesn’t drive you crazy while you work, go for it. Apparently the Mozart Effect has some scientific basis. If you’re looking for some interesting alternatives, this LifeHacker article offers up some ideas. It’s where I found the Buddha Machine Wall, which I listened to while I typed all of this, and it’s also where I discovered Chatter Blocker, which, while an interesting piece of software, would probably be more useful for creating walla for your next movie than improving your productivity. By selecting the “Cypress Goats” and “Male/Female Chatter” settings, I was totally convinced I was at a Turkish Bazaar haggling over the price of my wife-to-be, rather than sitting at the computer. LifeHacker also mentions ambient music like Brian Eno’s Music for Airports. I’m personally pretty partial to this kind of stuff. In fact, I create it myself. Check some of my ambient stuff here (especially calming are “On The Eve” and “Redshore”). People compare it to Stars of the Lid, but in fact that should be the other way around. My stuff is older than their stuff, and both owe a lot to Fripp & Eno’s Evening Star, if anything, nanny nanny. So put on some jams and get back to work now. No-one’s paying you to read stupid web sites, okay? Read the rest of this entry »

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