Aw, man. It just got a little dusty in my office at Cooper. Seeing my old childhood home in Leawood, Kansas will do that, especially when the Arcade Fire provides the soundtrack and when Google engineers work with a music video director to create the experience.

The photo above is from an “interactive video” called “The Wilderness Downtown,” and it’s actually as technologically interesting as it is emotionally-provocative. (It’s especially emo if the Google Maps satellite imagery from your home looks appropriately old and nostalgic; see image above). Anyway, it’s referred to as an “experiment” with Google’s Chrome browser, which is probably why, at times, it started to feel like a showcase of whizzy HTML5 elements — windows get launched and shuffled around; you’re asked to scribble on the screen; graphics are animated and layered. I don’t know, maybe I’m just the right mix of cheeseball and geek, but it kind of worked for me.

In yet another shallow record-industry ploy to sell the same album twice, the Rolling Stones recently asked producer Don Was to dig through their Exile On Main Street archives and produce a remastered version with a few additional tracks. Thinking about Exile reminds me, of course, of Robert Frank’s documentary with an unprintable name, a chronicle the Stones’ daily lives around the time of Exile. This film presented in very raw form (in the words of one reviewer) “massive, almost unthinkable amounts of ego-gratification, and routine, torpid, everyday boredom,” and it was essentially unreleasable, shown only in art houses and pirated VHS. It’s safe to say that no massively successful band has ever, or will ever, give the kind of access that the Stones gave to Frank. (The sex and the drugs, they are everywhere amidst the rock ‘n roll). The above video is some of the cleaner stuff culled from Frank’s footage. Needless to say, the whole thing is worth seeing, even if you have to cover your eyes every once in a while. Additional reading: A nice little NPR interview with Mick and Keef.

Wordle seems sort of perfect for representing James Brown lyrics. I used Internet lyrics, which don’t appear to be a true transcription of the version on In the Jungle Groove, which is 8+ minutes of “huh!” and “hey!” and “Good God!” and “smokin!” Still, good enough. While you’re considering James Brown as a lyricist, you should check out Eddie Murphy’s theme song for “James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub Party” — the video; and in Wordle, which is an interesting way of visualizing one element of the satire.

Oh wow, our pal Greg Gardner put together a really nice collection of new music from local bands. It’s called In A Cloud, which describes the recent winter weather and the album itself is a time capsule of San Francisco sounds in 2009-10. My favorite song is a sweet little thing called “Baby Held” by the elusive and pseudonymous Jacques Butters; you can listen to it below. There’s plenty more on the album — a lovely track by Sonny & the Sunsets, a good one from the Sandwitches, a keeper from Kelley Stoltz. You can buy it directly from Greg’s label, Secret Seven Records. Yay.

Jacques Butters, Baby Held

Wordle + The First 100% Accurate Transcription of Led Zeppelin II Lyrics =

I’ve love infographics, and I’ve gone on and on about collaboration and the Beatles before, so when I heard that someone had created an infographic displaying the degree to which Beatles collaborated on songs — well, “interested” would be hugely understating my emotions at the time. (Thanks, Dan, for the tip).

Author: Michael Deal. Full image here.

“The Beatles: Authorship & Collaboration” is a nicely composed graphic, clearly breaking down the contributors to each song, Beatle and non-Beatle. The songs are laid out chronologically, and the overall effect clearly reveals that the Beatles collaborated less as they progressed in their careers. (If anything is true of the Beatles, it’s that they grew apart over time). The chart’s data is drawn from Beatlesongs, which quantifies the degree to which each Beatle contributed to the writing of a song, using a scale of 0–100%.

I can’t quibble with the desire to understand and visualize the degree to which each Beatle shaped each song, but I find the quantification bit a little — well — falsely precise. It makes for a nice infographic, but a mere skim through The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962–1970 makes it clear that there was quite a lot of collaboration among the four Beatles — not to mention the various “fifth Beatles,” the “Black Beatle,” and their producer, George Martin. Perhaps there’s a difference between “collaboration” and “authorship?”

In the example to the right, “Octopus’s Garden,” is said to be 100% Ringo? Yes, Ringo does receive sole credit for “authorship,” but it is widely known that George had a significant role in shaping it. In fact, George works out the song on a piano in the Let It Be movie. How to represent this softer sort of collaboration? Good question. Shapes? Sizes? Colors? Dimensions? Whatever it is, it should fairly communicate the organic nature of creative collaboration. And dispense with the too-neat round numbers.

Curious about what songs I’ve listened to most, I navigated over to my last.fm profile and saw this:

Do I love “Immigrant Song?” Yes. Do I imitate its opening vocal, Robert Plant’s reverberating war cry that gets as close to the heart of awesomeness as any lyric in the history of rock? Frequently. But have I listened to it 3,000+ times in the past couple of years? Roughly 5x per day?

I would say that there would be no way of knowing, but I guess that there is.

Jim James of My Morning Jacket has recorded some pared-down, reverbed-up covers of George Harrison songs under the name Yim Yames. I’ve included one here: “Long, Long, Long” from the White Album, and I appreciate the quiet, deferential treatment that Jim James gives his songs. Good stuff, “Yim.”

Here’s a good story in the engineer’s notes from the original recording of “Long, Long, Long” on Monday, October 6, 1968:

There’s a sound near the end of the song [best heard on the right channel] which is a bottle of Blue Nun wine rattling away on the top of a Leslie speaker cabinet. It just happened. Paul hit a certain organ note and the bottle started vibrating. We thought it was so good that we set the mikes up and did it again. The Beatles always took advantage of accidents.

From the indispensable Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn.

Friday usually means Stevie Wonder, but today it’s Panda Bear and Atlas Sound, a guy from Deerhunter. I have been playing the 1s and 0s out of their new thing. Warning: It’s going to give you a craving to drink a milkshake with equal parts Beach Boys, organs of the Motown variety, and Animal Collective raspy echoes. Listen at your own risk.

Atlas Sound & Panda Bear. The song is called “Walkabout”

Atlas Sound guy describes the beginning of the collaboration, from Brooklyn Vegan:

I toured for a period in Europe with Animal Collective, whose band dynamic was very inspirational to be around. On the bus, we often played improvised iPod games. We would take turns formulating a theme or unifying concept and then play three songs. The goal would be for everyone to try and figure out the theme. During one of these games, someone played “What Am I Going to Do” by the Dovers. I was amazed at the hook — a weird organ thing with drums and electric bass. I mentioned to Noah that someone should really sample that riff. He agreed and he taught me a little about sampling and matching up beats. This ended up as the collaborative effort “Walkabout.”

Via Tom Haverford, aka Randy, aka Aziz Ansari.

Stop whatever you’re doing and watch this. It’s called “Windowdipper,” and it’s by Jib Kidder, aka Sean Schuster-Craig. I remember Sean describing his music as something like minimalist crunk, or Dirty South boogie, or Memphis dirty go-go, or something, but you really have to see this to get it. Sean, if you read this, remind me of the official sub-sub-genre. In the meantime, holy crap. Enjoy.

My pal Greg Gardner is working on some night moves called Secret Seven Records. A few months ago, he released some friendly sounds by Mt. Egypt, and now he’s getting ready to drop some more home cooking: The Two Sides of Tim Cohen. It’s a solo album by a local rapscallion named Tim Cohen, formerly of Black Fiction, and it’s a real nice collection of foggy folk songs. I tend to favor the loose, spacey side of rock music, and this album is open and astral — but with rough edges that reminded me of Panda Bear minus the Beach Boys-ish harmonies. More Floyd, early Floyd. Saucerful of Secrets, soundtrack to “More” Floyd. Whatever the vibe is, it’s rough and quiet and psychedelic and probably has British roots. But I’ll stop before I say more because it’s better than I’m making it sound, and I’ll probably be on someone’s knuckle sandwich list if I throw around any more crazy notions. I’ll attach a song that’s more Leonard Cohen, or maybe mellow Replacements, than Floyd, okay?

It’s a quiet, moody jam called “Warriors & Clowns.” A choice cut.

Karp, playing someone’s apartment/bedroom/closet in Atlanta, 1996. This video makes me regret not rallying to see them at Gilman Street even more. Thanks for the memories, Jacob. PS, you may feel moved to add your own vocal track.

I won’t bore you with my thoughts on Lisa Marie Presley’s MySpace thing about Michael (“I wanted to save him. I wanted to save him from the inevitable which is what has just happened”), or relate my story of finding out that the rumor was true (upon reading this tweet from Lil’ Jon: “RIP M J!!”), or discuss Justin’s excellent email about how MJ helped him stay in his “eight-year old zone.”

I will only spread some love about my favorite MJ recording, which is a very scratchy demo version of “Working Day And Night” from the Special Edition of “Off the Wall.”

Enjoy.

The fallout of greed and incompetence is once again trickling down to Main Street. Kiss my ass, you greedy Wall Street bastards. And you bureaucrats and cronies can kiss my ass, too. Is there anyone out there who thinks beyond the current economic cycle? Anyone? Is anyone trying to do anything other than make themselves rich, or keep their friends in office? Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg.

When I got laid off in 2001, I did a lot of soul-searching, ate a lot of Cancun veggie burritos (they were $3.29; they’re $4.99 now), and did a lot of reading at Green Apple. One afternoon, I came across Woody Guthrie’s autobiography, Bound for Glory. Now there was a guy who knows a thing or two about hard times. The title is deeply ironic, as Guthrie experienced a lot of hardship, but through it all he had deep confidence in himself and deep faith that he would do great things. Greed, incompetence and bad luck afflicted him, (and millions of others), but life goes on. And if you’re a person like Woody Guthrie, you take the hard lesson and you turn it into something like Dust Bowl Ballads.

[You should see a little Flash player below each song title; apologies if you don’t. Working on it].

Woody Guthrie, “I ain’t got no home” [Download]

Of course, I was never close to being caught out on a literal road with other literally displaced people, but this passage deeply affected me:

My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this road,
A hot and dusty road that a million feet have trod;
Rich man took my home and drove me from my door
And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.

2001 was no Dust Bowl, and I was nowhere near as destitute as Tom Joad. But the feeling of alienation and disillusion really rang true to me, the sense that “a million feet” have trod a much worse path gave me comfort, I guess. (Guthrie also hated Wall Street bastards more than anyone, which gave me a great deal of comfort).

So the next track is all about turning the corner, finding happiness, and being bound for glory. It’s from an incredible collection of music called Art of Field Recording, Vol. 1, a collection of recordings made in rural homes and churches over the past 50 years.

Lawrence McKiver and the McIntosh County Shouters, “Jubilee” [Download]

For me, this track is an excellent reminder that a few people with a lot of spirit and some knee-slapping can make something deeply affecting. It doesn’t take much. And that’s the first step, perhaps, to being bound for glory.

We have a house guest this week, and we’ve been doing a lot of hanging out while reading and listening to music. Last night, the discussion turned to Auto-Tune, and it quickly revealed the beauty of being at least somewhat Internet-literate.

Speaking of Internet-literate, this is our houseguest: Dave.

It started with Lil Wayne. I mentioned to Mara and Dave that Stereogum has an irritating post about Lil Wayne’s use of Auto-Tune on SNL. It was irritating because, to me, there’s a difference between using Auto-Tune to compensate for your own inability to hit the notes (e.g., Kelly Clarkson in “Since U Been Gone”), and using it to increase the funky quotient, as Lil Wayne does in “Lollipop.” Anyway, Dave recalled a Pitchfork interview with Neko Case in which she has some salty words on the subject of Auto-Tune. [tappity-tappity]

Neko Case: When I hear Auto-Tune on somebody’s voice, I don’t take them seriously. Or you hear somebody like Alicia Keys, who I know is pretty good, and you’ll hear a little bit of Auto-Tune and you’re like, “You’re too fucking good for that. Why would you let them do that to you? Don’t you know what that means?” It’s not an effect like people try to say, it’s for people like Shania Twain who can’t sing.

(It gets even saltier). Then the conversation turned to Auto-Tune’s first major splash, which was recently discussed in a Sasha Frere-Jones piece in the New Yorker [tappity-tappity]

The first popular example of Auto-Tune’s distorting effect was Cher’s 1998 hit “Believe,” produced by Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling. During the first verse, Auto-Tune makes the phrase “I can’t break through” wobble so much that it’s hard to discern.

Of course, then we had to hear “Believe,” so Dave suggested Favtape. [tappity-tappity] Bingo; briefly, we revisited 1998. Then, it seemed like it made sense to listen to Bedhead’s cover as well. [tappity-tappity] It features a touch-tone phone as an instrument.

So what’s the story with using Auto-Tune on “Believe?” Did the producers seek it out because Cher couldn’t hit the notes, or did they just want to get funky? [tappity-tappity] The Internet has your answer, sort of. It’s from a 1999 article in the British magazine Sound on Sound, but the problem is that the producers don’t admit to using Auto-Tune; it was still a trade secret at that point:

The ... obvious vocal effect in ‘Believe’ is the ‘telephoney’ quality of Cher’s vocal throughout. This idea came from the lady herself — she’d identified something similar on a Roachford record and asked Mark if he could reproduce it.

He explains, “Roachford uses a restricted bandwidth, and filters the vocals heavily so that the top and bottom ends are wound off and the whole vocal is slightly distorted. It took a while to work out exactly what it was that Cher liked about this particular Roachford song, but in the end we realised it was the ‘telephoney’ sound. I used the filter section on my Drawmer DS404 gate on the vocal before it went into the Talker to get that effect.”

Actually, we now know the truth. It was Auto-Tune.

All of this happened in about 15 minutes; we explored the arc of Auto-Tune in popular songs, with examples of early incarnations and deep discussion about how and why it was applied. Nice. [tappity-tappity]

Muxtape has blown up — just a matter of time, I guess — but I hope this doesn’t mean that they’ll add a bunch of “features” to it. It’s basically two things — the homepage where you pick a mix, and the player where you listen — and it doesn’t need much more. Really! Please!

Part one of two: The home page. It’s where the “navigation” is. There’s no keyword search, no “categories.” Just you, the name of each mix like a sticker on a cassette tape, and the sense of rooting around in a cryptic virtual shoebox, popping a mix in, listening for a little while, striking gold, or not, and moving on. It’s a really lovely and evocative of the simpler, more mysterious times.

Part two of two: The “player.” It’s genius. No “friends” or “people who are also listening to this” or “messaging” or “you may also like.” Just the songs, links to buy them, and an indication of which track is playing.

For the record, I don’t think it needs much else. Whatever happens, I really hope this stuff is NOT added:

• Search. Please, no search. Of course search would make it easier to find mixes that “match” your keywords, but who wants that? Well, I did, at first, but after I poked around I realized that I was having way more fun exploring, letting go of the way that I normally explore. We need more non-keyword-oriented ways of exploring! Seriously! It’s way more fun to roll the dice than to look for what you think that you want, and it’s somehow more appropriate to music
• Any kind of “profile-generating.” The madness must be stopped somewhere, sometime. A way to connect with mix-makers would be nice, but no names, birthdays, pictures, blogs, or any of that.
• Any kind of more “predictable” homepage. Please. Just show the random stuff. Let people start here. It’s scary and frustrating and annoying at first, but it becomes fun, magical. Perfect! Done!

A few years ago, it would have been surprising to see a San Francisco indie crowd move its feet around in a dance-style motion at a live show. Last week, Lightning Bolt got people moving at 12 Galaxies; it wasn’t exactly “dancing” but (from my vantage point in the balcony), it appeared kinetic — lots of mass moving back and forth, a little crowd-surfing, a little flailing around. I took a lot of pictures from my perch above the drums.

A lot of collaborative work goes on at Cooper (where I work). Designers team up to understand a problem, or to envision a better way of solving it. Sometimes, we collaborate with clients to figure out what’s possible and where possibility and desirability meet. In any case, it’s hard to trace back any particular idea to a particular person or moment; once an idea is out in the world, it gets pushed, pulled, disassembled, reassembled, and so on by everyone until it fits.

My friends and I used to argue over which Beatle wrote a particular song — John? Paul? George? In most cases, it seems pretty clear cut. Cheesy lyrics and a bouncy rhythm? Paul. More complicated, layered lyrics with more straight-ahead rock? John. A sitar in the background? George. In some cases, however, it’s much less clear. “With A Little Help From My Friends,” for instance; or, “Got To Get You Into My Life.” Both have recognizable earmarks of John and Paul.

Are these easy categorizations valid in any way? Is there any way of ultimately knowing who wrote what? I didn’t think so. Until I Googled “beatles songwriting” and found The Beatles Songwriting and Recording Database, an obsessively categorized collection quotes about who wrote what, pulled from various interviews conducted over the last 40 years.

For example:

With A Little Help From My Friends

JOHN 1970: “Paul had the line about ‘a little help from my friends.’ He had some kind of structure for it, and we wrote it pretty well fifty-fifty from his original idea.”

JOHN 1980: “That’s Paul, with a little help from me. ‘What do you see when you turn out the light/ I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine’ is mine.”

PAUL circa-1994: “This was written out at John’s house in Weybridge for Ringo... I think that was probably the best of our songs that we wrote for Ringo actually. I remember giggling with John as we wrote the lines, ‘What do you see when you turn out the light/ I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine.’ It could have been him playing with his willie under the covers, or it could have been taken on a deeper level. This is what it meant but it was a nice way to say it– a very non-specific way to say it. I always liked that.”

Especially intriguing: John wrote “And Your Bird Can Sing,” which (to me) seems to be the most obvious Paul song ever. Perhaps those earmarks I discussed earlier are less applicable than one would expect.

Today is the fifth anniversary of George Harrison’s death, as I found out when NPR ran a sweet tribute to him this evening. Back when such things mattered, George was my favorite Beatle. Why do such things not matter anymore? I mean, really, is there any question that is more revealing than “Who is your favorite Beatle?” Sure, it’s dated, but any rational, music-aware person should have one, and if they don’t, well, that says a lot right there.

Here’s a cheat sheet for what you can expect from the people you ask, based on very unscientific “research” ...

• If they say “Paul,” you can expect some (mostly superficial) charm, and a liberal helping of cheesiness. People who like Paul tend to see Sgt. Pepper as the height of Beatle achievement, and they probably enjoy “Yellow Submarine” and “story songs” about Beatles characters like Eleanor Rigby more than “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” or “Norwegian Wood.”
• If they say “John,” you can expect seriousness, outward lefty politics, a love of “meaningful” songs, and perhaps a disdain for both cheesiness and Paul. People who like John, I would guess, simply didn’t like Paul to begin with, or liked him until they heard “When I’m 64″ one too many times, and then dug around to see who wrote the lyrics to “A Day in the Life.”
• No one ever says “Ringo” in this day and age, and that’s too bad. He’s charming, a good sport, and (I think) not as bad a drummer as people seem to remember. I challenge you: Listen to “Rain” and tell me that Ringo is an insufferably bad drummer.
• George, finally, will always be the favorite of people who you want to know. He represents humility, first of all. He’s never mugging in the movies, and mostly he looks somewhat like you or I would look if we were thrown into the Beatles commercial juggernaut in the early 60’s. On the creativity side, he wasn’t Lennon/McCartney, but his guitar sound was an integral part of the Beatles appeal. It’s always tasteful, and he never tries to get all Eric Clapton on any song, which is why I — for one — can listen to roughly 50 Beatles songs for every Eric Clapton song. Finally, George’s solo stuff was way better than either Paul’s or John’s, and his low profile is endearing in a world in which the faces of rock stars’ are perpetually up in your grill.

Beatles, Taxman — from Alternate Revolver

Lately, I’ve been listening to Alternate Revolver, a bootleg album of demoes from the Revolver sessions. George’s first contribution to the Beatles’ catalogue — “Taxman” — is on Revolver; it’s not my favorite Beatles song, but it’s a little more straightforward and rockin’ than later George songs. Is it contradictory to commemorate an artist by listening to a pirated version of his/her work? Hmm. I’ll venture a guess that George would appreciate it, so check out Alternate Revolver’s mono mix of the song, and toast the quiet Beatle.

Being car-less keeps me (mostly) around the southeastern neighborhoods of San Francisco, but every once in a while I’ll venture out to the frontiers. Last Friday, we went out to Mollusk, the arty surf shop on 46th-ish Avenue and Irving, (i.e. WAY Outer Sunset), for an art opening and a performance by Peggy Honeywell, i.e. local art star and beautiful loser Clare Rojas. The surf shop setting was informal and cozy; the acoustics actually weren’t bad; there were dogs walking around; all in all, it makes me wish that I got out there more. This intimate setting was lots better than the cavernous, loud, obnoxious-people-filled place I saw her perform last, Barry McGee’s opening in Melbourne, Australia a couple of years ago.