Post on the Hidden Track

Today I had one of my pieces posted on the Hidden Track website. Read it here:
http://www.glidemagazine.com/hiddentrack/b-list-10-talk-box-songs-not-performed-by-frampton/

What I didn't realize when I wrote the piece was that Frampton is still performing - see this recent, kind of depressing article, which contains a quote from "the owner of Hot Poop" (WTF?):
http://www.eastoregonian.com/news/regional/rocker-peter-frampton-to-come-alive-in-walla-walla/article_07e8bf1e-0955-11e1-9a96-001cc4c03286.html

Occupy Wall Street to Police: Synchronicity Was the Worst Album Ever

David Crosby and Graham Nash played in Zuccotti Park yesterday for the Occupy Wall Street protestors. The New York Times covered it in this awesome little article:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/at-zuccotti-park-a-sound-of-the-60s/

The post includes a video of them singing "Teach Your Children Well", but for me the highlight was this line:

As the men played, a sign hung from the tree behind him: “Demand: Return Bankruptcy Protections to All Student Loans.” On the park’s western edge, one protester marked the occasion with a more musically inclined offering: “Dear Police, Synchronicity Was the Worst Album Ever.”

Youtube Grants a Wish

The Wish You Were Here "Immersion Set" was released today. According to USA Today:

The most sought-after unreleased song in the Pink Floyd catalog is an alternate version of the title track Wish You Were Here found on new versions of the 1975 album out today. Jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli, who was recording at London's Abbey Road at the same time, joined the band in the studio, adding an impromptu, haunting mid-song solo. Of the entire ongoing campaign of refurbished Pink Floyd releases, that track is "perhaps the best piece we have, because no one has heard it before. We all thought it had been lost forever," says Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. "When I hear it, I'm astonished, really, that we didn't go, 'Of course, we must have that.'"

Now, thanks to the magic of youtube, you can hear it right now for free:
http://youtu.be/P16yozSgXDo

Zep IV's XL Anniversary

Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of Led Zeppelin IV (originally released November 8, 1971). To mark the occasion, here is one of the best descriptions of the album ever. It's from pitchfork.com's top 100 albums of the seventies. They ranked Zep IV at #7, with the following explanation:

007: Led Zeppelin IV [Atlantic; 1971]

We must be lying to ourselves: There is no way this album should not be #1. If my fellow PFM writers could go to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 's memory-erasure clinic and wipe out everything related to this record and band-- the radio overplay, the Spinal Tapjokes, Robert Plant asking, "Does anybody remember laughter ?"-- and hear IV again for the first time, it would be at the very top of this list. Because when the riff from "Black Dog" hits you for the first time, you come face to face with God. Nothing is bigger than Led Zeppelin IV. It tears your skin and grinds away your doubt and self-hatred, freeing the rage and lust and anger of cockblocked adolescence. Listening to this album is like fucking the Grand Canyon.

Some people call "When the Levee Breaks" the album's true epic, because it sounds like the blues while "Stairway to Heaven" sounds like druids. But that was the fucking point . Zeppelin understood that you spend your days under the weight of shit, so they show you the way out with a moronized stewpot of myth, Tolkien and California daydreaming, a place where you can pray for greatness from battles you'll never fight. Zeppelin spanned it all, because they knew sometimes you wield the Hammer of the Gods and sometimes you just get the shaft.

From http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5932-top-100-albums-of-the-1970s/10/

"The Medium is The Menace"

Recent article about how technology is destroying the imagination, from the angle of a songwriter. In true rock nerd fashion, the author weaves a discussion of Marshal McLuhan in with Bob Dylan, Lennon & McCartney, bar chords, and The Black Death of 1350. The irony of all this being posted online is not lost on me:

http://www.americansongwriter.com/2011/10/measure-for-measure-the-medium-is-the-menace/

Día de los Muertos Agradecidos

from http://www.gazette.com/articles/dead-12585-colsprings-dean-exhibits.html

Celebrating 11/1/11

In honor of today: