Here, There, Everywhere

I'm out of school for the summer, so I've had a chance to do some leisure reading. I'm currently re-reading Nelson George's The Death of Rhythm & Blues mostly because I hadn't read it in about 15 years and it was in my line-of-sight when I scanned the bookshelf. As such, I don't remember much, so it's been a pleasure revisiting the book. It's an obvious read for the historic observations, but a better source for observations on the changes in the music industry, particularly radio, that phased out rhythm & blues and introduced rock & roll. Like a lot of George's writing, it's heavy on opinion, but there are some great insights. The part about the decline of the Negro Baseball League and the tradeoff of black business sovereignty potential in the face of Jackie Robinson and integration in the Major Leagues is pretty great.

Unexpectedly, Death has been a great resource in thinking about EDM and the new Daft Punk album.

First, a point about EDM and DP.

Part of the chatter leading up to Daft Punk's 'return' (from where exactly?) has been to historicize the group's relevance. Take for example The Guardian's framing of the Random Access Memories release announcement as a grand affirmation of the group's status as "EDM Godfathers." This pat narrative suggests on Day One ('96's Homework? '01's Discovery?), there was Daft Punk and sometime later in the week/decade, Skrillex, wackawackwackwacka, dubstep, EDM, The End. Of course, this is ridiculous, but this is the land of marketing language, not journalism or history writing.

Oddly enough Daft Punk weathered a similar conversation around the time of its first album when the chatter-of-the-day was about "electronica," the catch-all-term for The Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Orbital, and anything that came out of a club/open field. Little surprise that Guy-Man would respond to a question about EDM artists Skrillex & Deadmau5 with this gem: "At first I thought it was all just one guy, some DJ called EDM." Marketing and cultural terms like EDM and electronica are rarely of significant use for an artist, but the conversation about where the group fits into the EDM, electronica or whatever narrative is interesting,  because they provide cues about where the market would like to place the group.

Electronica's distinction was its broad market push. In Los Angeles, it (both the term and its artists) was pushed on diverse outlets ranging from KCRW (the grown & nebbish) to KROQ (the young & horny; remember Jason Bentley's one-hour slot on the station?). The term failed to stick, perhaps the messaging got muddled, i.e. the music couldn't reconcile being both young and old. On one hand, these artists had roots in the clubs and rave scenes. However, the effect of William Orbit producing Madonna's Ray of Light was not so much a reinvention of the artist, so much as an aging of the relatively young club art.

Which may explain EDM's tighter focus and appeal as a youth form. Although the stupidly generic term "electronic dance music" does a better semantic job of capturing the myriad types of club/rave/dance music (as opposed to sounding like the Esperanto-ish "electronica"), EDM is not meant to speak to the past club-goers and older heads who can talk about Paradise Garage, the Loft, or any person, song or place mentioned in Michaelangelo Matos's great piece on NYC house. It is meant to alienate my middle-aged mother friends who ask, "Who is Molly?" It is meant to alienate me, simply because I was never within spitting range of EDM's target demographic.

Which brings us back to Daft Punk and why it is a) ridiculous to even place the group within the canon of EDM, simply because they've been around too long; and b) though the group plays coy with their cute "Who is Mr. EDM?" comments, Random Access Memories is turning out to be a great inversion of what electronic dance music can encapsulate.

Let's pivot quickly and bring in Mr. George. Early on in Death, George makes a point about the contrasting appeal and 'soul' of rhythm & blues versus rock & roll (emphasis added):

The generational schism and teen-eye view that has always been the crux of the rock & roll ethos was mostly foreign to black consumers, young as well as old. That is not to say that all blacks rejected rock & roll, both as a business term or social attitude, but R&B made a connection to black listeners that was both musical and extramusical. Music made by the white bands was inevitably (and often deliberately) adolescent, addressed to adolescent ears about adolescent fears. Black teens might listen, but their heads were in different places, and R&B articulated that difference not just in vocal or aural effect but in attitude. Rock & roll was young music; R&B managed to be young and old, filled both with references to the past and with fresh interpretations, all at the same time (68-69).

Surely, there's room for argument here, but George makes an interesting point about how rhythm & blues had been pushed to all ages, whereas rock & roll was strictly for the young, dumb and blue-balled. George points to the rise of black radio and its open branding of stations as gateways to black communities—not communities of teens versus adults, but whole, black communities. WXLW proudly proclaimed it was "serving and selling 328,000 Negroes in the St Louis area since 1947." Jackson, Mississippi's WOKJ called itself "the ONLY way to the 107,000 Negroes" of that community. The name "rock & roll" alone makes clear the contrast, as it is code for fuckin'—rockin' and rollin' all night long... More telling are the specific examples. George quotes Robert Palmer's point about the shift in Leiber and Stoller's songwriting, "There is a definite progression in the Coasters records, from an in-group (black) humor o a more universal and teen-oriented sense of fun" (66). In sum, "if rhythm & blues was the discovery of the black market, rock & roll was the exploitation of white teens..." (George, 67)

What irks me about the supposed conventional wisdom of electronica and EDM is the familiar notion that music must be either this or that, simply because to suggest otherwise wouldn't make for a neat narrative. And, because we're all marketing geniuses courtesy of Don Draper's folk wisdom, we should all wonder, "Why does everybody need to talk about everything?" Because we need to sell these nylons, dammit.

The brilliance then of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories is its throwback not just to different artists (Giorgio Moroder, Paul Williams, Nile Rodgers) or recording styles (live instrumentation), but the idea of music for multiple generations. Certainly, this is not a dance record in the popular, contemporary sense. In all of the chatter leading up to the album's release, the pair made it clear their direction was both backward and forward, not now. Which, like all things different, is difficult to reconcile at first. Diplo, another major face in the EDM world, posted reactions to the album on Twitter, which were characterized as "trashing." Sure, suggesting Julian Casablancas should be replaced by Eddie Adams is hardly a complement. But looking at the Twitter posts in chronological order, you can see a progression in conflicted feelings, ranging from a familiar nostalgic twinge ("Reminds me of when I was 19 really high and listened to kid a over and over again but I don't know if yung kids will get It") to confusion ("These guys are way smarter then me.I'm definitely missing something.") to dismissive/makesmybrainhurt ("This album makes me not like LA now I jus wanna hang out with mexican kids and tag ur car"). Given that Diplo has built a career on nowness, yet is also old and knowledgeable enough to understand a good chunk of Daft Punk's reference points, his range of reactions should hardly be surprising. It is not au courant to be a little of this and that. Random Access Memories certainly hits notes on a number of scales.

Sidenote: Diplo's subsequent non-apology is yet another nod to the current trend of non-apologies.

I'll close by noting I'm still, like you, listening to a shitty, low-bit version of the album, so it's hardly fair to give a full assessment. I also don't have much else to add to the chorus of accolades for the songs themselves. That said, here are some Twitter-sized random thoughts:

• The Paul Williams joint "Touch" is pretty Muppets-y, which I dig. 
• I didn't get the album until "Fragments of Time." Todd Edwards channeling his inner #yachtrock. YES.
• Daft Punk doesn't make music for fucking. It's cool. It's very listenable. But in spite of the hard guitar work on "Lose Yourself to Dance," Daft Punk generally doesn't inspire fucking.

On a related note, this Triple J Radio interview began circulating in mid-May. Thomas's response to the DJ's suggestion that Pharrell doesn't need to stay up late "getting lucky" (@1:33) sounds amusingly naive and cute. He side-steps the idea of sexual innuendo and instead talks about "the collective we," "timeless bubbles," and "celebratory and optimistic lyrics." That said, his response sounds completely not ironic, which is incredibly refreshing. And confirms my feeling that "One More Time" intentionally sits in the same tonal lane as Cher's "Believe," given the blinding enthusiasm of both tracks.

Now That I'm Older

Shorts on Sundays: Wildcat on Nowness.com.

Saw FlyLo on Sunday night.  Here are some thoughts:

• Lo~tta white folks.
• I love dude, but it's telling when the highlights are when he dropped other people's records: TNGHT, Clams Casino/Lil B's "I'm God," and some song that uses the same progression as Inner City's "Good Life." 
• Low point was the Transylvanian Skrillex synths; too many people use that shit, brah.  
• I'm on the fence about whether I'd like to hear a FlyLo after hours house set.  
• Lo~tta white folks love Capt. Murphy. I'll stick to rappers to do my rappity raps.  
• If we're gonna talk about ratchet, please tweak Problem's "Twerk" or mess w/ DJ Mustard.

Re: the openers, Thundercat is great to hear, though I'd love to hear him with a Elvin Jones style power drummer, not a Keith Moon/Animal type.

I'm good on hearing any more producer side-project bands.

Finally, I'm getting older, but not quite old. Why? I had a good time. But I'd also be happy seeing dude recreate his Wildcat soundtrack at a 'proper' seated venue like Yoshi's.

LINER NOTES: Plant Life

Plant Life playlist

No commentary in light of what happened at the Boston Marathon yesterday. Just a quick thank you to all the heads for showing up this past Saturday. It really is a privilege to be able to spend time together simply to create beautiful, creative works. Let's keep this good thing going.

One.

LINER NOTES: Sound & Vision

Sound & Vision playlist

It's Oscars night, so we tailored today's session as a "pre-Oscars jump-off" and focused on soundtrack music—albeit to un-awarded films. Not to be confused with shitty films! Fritz the Cat is a bit of a mess, but the movie is pretty mandatory watching at a certain point in your life and the soundtrack is pretty solid. Foxes is perhaps best known as the only time Scott Baio was allowed to act in the same frame as Jodie Foster, as well as Donna Summer's magnificent "On the Radio," but I chose Giorgio Moroder's chase theme for its energy to kick off the session. From there, I wanted to cover a few musical bases while keeping the energy up for the 2-minute poses, so loads of disco and funk courtesy of Jermaine Jackson's noteworthy contribution to the Mahogany soundtrack and M.I.A.'s sample fodder "Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy" from the fantastically over-the-top (as if it could be anything else) Bollywood film Disco Dancer. By the way, glad at least one person found Ice-T's "Dick Tracy" joint mildly amusing.

As usual, there were sub-themes aplenty:

• A nod to the likelihood that Adele won for "Skyfall" by playing some spy/Bond joints: Many Bond themes are pretty well-known, but the Bond franchise's soundtracks have actually never received an award (three nods, but no statues). That said, I went with a lesser known track from one of those Pierce Brosnan Bond films, Garbage's "The World Is Not Enough," because I have always had a soft spot for Shirley Manson's voice and breakbeats. And, man, how have I not played Ennio Morricone's "Deep Down" from Danger: Diabolik yet? It's a pretty entertaining film of its period and genre, but the soundtrack is so ace. And so different from what he is normally known for. Il maestro!  
• Soundtrack music to unawarded films that appeared in other films: Would have been better if it were "soundtrack music to unawarded films that appeared in other unawarded films," but the great reuse of the Olive Oyl ballad "He Needs Me" in Punch Drunk Love and Tarantino's subtle use of the haunting All About Lily Chou-Chou music in the first Kill Bill made it impossible for me to not highlight these songs. But, a prime example of what this sub-theme should have been is the recent reuse of Queen's "Flash" in the uber-meta-party scene in Ted. Or, as David noted, the great reuse of the A Summer Place theme in Animal House. Amazing!  
• Fake bands: I know, it's an idea asking to be cherry-picked. In my defense, I avoided Wyld Stallyns and Stillwater (then again, Almost Famous was pretty well-received, which would have disqualified it from our criteria). I really enjoyed Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, so any opportunity to share some Sex Bob-Omb works for me. This is embarrassing to admit, but I didn't know K.K. Rockwell and Rodney C formed Double Trouble for Wild Style until I read Ed Piskor's fantastic recent Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree entry. Does that make them a fake band? Not entirely sure, but there is enough artifice to "debuting" on the big screen that allows them to make comfortable bedfellows with Adrian Younge's band in Black Dynamite and André 3000's Percival in Idlewild.
• Actors moonlighting as singers: pocket that knee-jerk reaction to dismiss a person for not staying in their lane. I mean, really, how could you possibly hate Bill Murray crooning "The Best Thing" in John Waters' Polyester? Sure, not everyone wants to hear Jason Segal do a labored Dracula schtick, but you kinda need to hear Doogie Howser get all musical 'n' shit in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. There's a reason why geeks love them some Joss Whedon...
• Blaxploitation-ish: Between shitty-films-with-awesome-hip-hop-soundtracks, like High School High and Who's The Man?, and blaxploitation soundtracks, there was more than enough material to fill out several sessions. To keep things different, I tried to pull music from films that have nods to either the genre or era of blaxploitation. Hence, Black Dynamite (a deep well of inspiration, up there with Bob Dylan, for LINER NOTES) makes an appearance. "Roc Boys" from American Gangster is also in the mix. I admittedly ran out of steam on this idea and just threw in some blaxploitation joints like "Shaft in Africa" and "Hung Up On My Baby" from Tough Guys. I'll have to revisit this some other time.

Thanks again to everyone for showing up! Lots of new faces, and lots of fun drawings, so Nate and I are pleased as punch to keep doing this. On that note, we'll be back in mid-March for a session of marching band-related joint! Yes, it sounds terrible on paper, but, trust me, it's an interesting theme when you start playing with what a marching band's sound can be...

LINER NOTES: HA!

HA! playlist.

As with many other Liner Notes, the "HA!" theme came about from a couple songs I ended up not using: the Beach Boys' "Little Pad" and Oschino and Meek Mill's "Laughin' At 'Em." The Beach Boys cut is like most of Smiley Smile in that it feels tender, melancholy and damaged, which is probably why the laughter always stuck out as sounding alternately refreshing and sad. "Laughin' At 'Em" is an emotional departure for being a track of pure confidence and aggression. The combination of the two was enough to set me on a path of exploring laughter in pop.

The "Okeh Laughing Record" is an excellent starting point because it gives both context for the acceptability of laughter in music, as well as a bizarre reference point for how far we have come. The record was a "hit" in the early '20s--mind you, at a time when phonograms were only beginning to take hold in households. Add the fact that the recording industry was in its nascent stages at the time and the lack of an existing culture of purchasing and playing a recording at home for leisure, and this record becomes evermore fascinating. Over two-minutes of cheap vaudvellian humor--someone trying to start a song, but becoming overcome with fits of laughter instead--"The Okeh Laughing Record" is a marvel for delivering numerous novel ideas at the time: voice, music, and the combination of the two into a joke. This must have been the equivalent of the Pink Floyd light show at the Observatory at the time.

The fact that the record was a hit and spawned numerous knockoff recordings or "covers" (Nate noted that he knew the bit from a Looney Tunes cartoon; gotta look into that) is not so much of a concern here. Instead, it's interesting to see how laughter becomes incorporated into popular recordings. Charles Penrose's "Laughing Policeman" is a great example of a straightforward incorporation, where the laughter is both a part of the song's description of the protagonist, as well as a rhythmic device in the chorus. It's also fucking annoying by today's standards, but interesting to think how this might have been funny at one point.

Unsurprisingly, musicians soon tapped into the idea of laughter as an expression of both joy and pathos. Paul Evans' "Happy Go-Lucky Me" is a quintessential example of deep sadness masked with kids'-cough-syrup-sweet optimism. The hiccup of his "huh-ha" before every "happy go-lucky me" sounds so choked and forced, the listener can see the tears through which Evans must have sang.

Perhaps this is the bias of LINER NOTES, but it seems that every worthwhile musician quickly turns meta with any musical device, as we hear in Morrissey's "We Hate It..." While Moz deadpans the silly chorus, he lets the punchy power chords and shiny '90s production provide the ironic counterpoint. I mean, really, is the line between this and Kanye's brassy "Can't Tell Me Nothing" that long? Hardly. No surprise then that current media darling/punching bag Chief Keef is "Laughing to the Bank" in such a despondent way. Laughter in both cases is increasingly stripped of meaning and just turned into a device to color a song.

A fine counterpoint to this use is spontaneous or "real" laughter, accidentally caught on tape. On paper, Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" can seem like a timeless critique of urban over/underdevelopment, but it's those last seconds where Joni reaches down an octave to "put up a parking lot," then punctuates it with a breezy, soprano giggle that reshape the tone and meaning of the song. It sounds like an accident, but, regardless, it is a quality unique to that moment alone that fundamentally changes that recording.

Little surprise then that these varied uses of laughter find their way in numerous songs of several pop iconoclasts: The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Before the end, the Fab Four could actually find hilarity in the simple act of recording, as with the Anthology 2 version of "And Your Bird Can Sing." More often than not, laughter was yet another instrument or sound to provide commentary within a song, as with George Harrison's insistence on closing "Within You, Without You" with a laugh track. And then the group perhaps had both purposes in mind when tossing in a sample "ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha" in "Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da." Dylan, on the other hand, seems to simply enjoy the rhythmic (and sometimes melodic) serendipity of spontaneous laughter. One man's flubbed take, is Dylan's accidental gold discovery. So, it is with his "115th Dream," "All I Really Want To Do," "Ballad Of A Thin Man," "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," etc. His more recent chuckles, as heard on "My Wife's Home Town" and "It's All Good" are like all his contemporary vocals: creaking croaks that come off more cryptic and infectious, but at least the master seems to be having a good time.

Which is perhaps the quality I enjoy most about this theme. Music recording is as much a performance as playing live. I mean performance in the sense of wearing a mask. However, laughter is recognized as a peek behind the mask, a chink in the armor, an opportunity to drop the facade. Thank goodness for the artists that embrace these moments.