City Council: Let’s Try Destroying Chicago Music

The specimens that inhabit the Chicago city council chambers are an odd lot. When they raise upon their hind legs and bleat as one, the strangest, most alien ideas are aired. Ideas that do not boggle so much as numb the mind with their breathtaking vacancy. Kafka is merely the quaint reference point for the depths of the council’s legal absurdism - when this governing body flies by the seat of its pants and burps up legislation without the direct cajoling of the Mayor, you can always bet on comedy gold.

This time, they have decided that this city’s most well-known and precious cultural resource - music - needs fixin’. And they’re gonna fix it good.

Pointing to a five year old tragedy that may not even have involved live music, the E2 nightclub stampede of 2003, the city council is proposing to create an incredibly draconian series of licensing, background checking, police notification and insurance ordinances for all promoters of live music — except, of course the ones who already own or control the city’s largest rooms.

The proposed law, being voted on tomorrow and published in its full, impenetrable ancient Greek on Jim DeRogatis’s blog, is bad news for anybody putting on small shows in Chicago. The ordinance’s definition of “promoter” is insanely loose and will include bands putting on their own shows.

Normally, city council members don’t have such a antagonistic attitude toward entrepreneurism, and it’s almost certain that even this ridiculous proposal, if passed, would be enforced as selectively as clout with City Hall allows.

In any case, this is a time when resistance needs to be mounted. Sign this petition. Show up tomorrow to city hall if you can.

UPDATE: Reportedly this ordinance has been tabled and will not be voted upon tomorrow. More details forthcoming, but at this point it looks like public outcry got the council’s attention. Really.

In related news, pigs are appearing on the radar screens at Midway Airport and volcanos are spewing crushed ice.

What’s In Devo’s Basement?

Once, I produced music technology video and stuff for Gearwire.com, but nothing as cool as this piece wherein GW producers Bill Holland and Gretchen Hasse are invited into the basement of Mutato Muzika, the Los Angeles studio home of Devo. Gretchen turns on the nightvision and Bill leads us through the Mines of Mutato.

Artifacts spanning Devo’s career as well as Mutato’s business of soundtrack composition for the likes of feature film director Wes Anderson are casually piled hither and yon in the ghostly Baghdad-esque nightvision light. We stub our toe on the Wasp bass synth, almost knock over the Acoustic Reverbrato used on the keyboards on Devo’s “Gut Feeling” (!!), spot Devo’s Roland D-50 leaned up against the wall with “Gates Of Steel” patch numbers helpfully written thereupon and get an earful of guidance from Mutato composer / curator John Enroth.

Just when it couldn’t get any cooler, we find Raymond Scott’s (broken) Electronium - the world’s first sequencer - complete with “Doo Wah” knob. It goes to prove what I always guessed: Mark Mothersbaugh + major-league film budgets + Ebay = The Coolest Basement In The Western World.

Gear porn doesn’t get any better than this. Nice work Gearwire!

The Abiding Appeal Of Comedy Underpants

I love the National Lampoon from the 1970s. And I also love the defunct DeKalb, IL rock band named Shorty (who more or less went on to become U.S. Maple). But what I didn’t know was that these two cultural forces, separated by generations, had common ground when it came to comedy undergarments.

First: the ad clipped from the back pages of the February ‘77 issue of NatLamp:

Informative booklet!

Fast-forward 17 years and see these underpants in action in the jaw-droppingly brilliant ‘94 Shorty video “Coopie n’ Me”

Void Drummer Sean Finnegan 1965-2008

According to Dischord Records, Sean Finnegan, drummer with the band Void has passed away. (Link from Can’t Stop The Bleeding.)

Sean’s drumming in Void was always a standout in the crowded field of DC hardcore. Most drummers channeled their intensity into a straight, linear increase in regular tempo, but Sean’s style was way beyond that athletic exercise. His drums swell and contract with the guitar changes without ever giving up any focus or energy. Nobody in or out of the genre matched his elastic anarchic fury behind the kit.

We are sad to announce that Sean Finnegan, the drummer from Void and an original member of the Dischord family, passed away on Wednesday January 30th of an apparent heart attack, he was 43. Sean’s family will receive friends Monday 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. at HARRY H. WITZKE’S FAMILY FUNERAL HOME, INC., 4112 Old Columbia Pike, Ellicott City, Maryland. Sean played in Void while they we’re active from 1980-1983 and was recently working on the set of the HBO production, “The Wire”. An obituary and guest book can be found in the Baltimore Sun. Our thoughts and best wishes go out to Sean’s many friends and family members.

In lieu of flowers Sean’s family ask that donations may be made to the Fisher House, Walter Reed Hospital , Washington, D.C

So long, Sean.

David Yow: Collapsed Lung in Brooklyn

Vice has posted that beloved Qui / Jesus Lizard frontman David Yow has been hospitalized with a collapsed lung after a show with Miracle Condition in Brooklyn last night. Cross your fingers that all he’s gonna need is a chest incision, bicycle pump and local anaesthetic to recover. Get well David!

EDIT: (2/4) Word is that Mr. Yow has for the moment recovered and has had to travel home to Los Angeles on a train on doctor’s orders - no cabin pressurization allowed. David is not the only guy in Qui facing a challenge - Guitarist Matt Cronk is under the weather as well with huge medical bills looming. Los Angelinos take note of an event this evening:

**MONDAY NIGHT ( 2/4/08 )BENEFIT FOR MATT**

Ever been rocked off your ass by QUI? Well… Matt’s been in the hospital, and now
sprung, but diagnosed for cardio myopothy, meaning he has an enlarged heart… which is gonna take some time to recover from — especially since his heart’s made of gold.

The medical bills are HARDCORE.
So if you love Matt and his badass band…

COME TO THE CHA CHA LOUNGE on MONDAY NIGHT. Glendale Blvd/Sliverlake.

Paul The Guy will be hosting Matt’s usual Karaoke night, and there wll be special drinks in which
ALL THE PROCEEDS WILL GO TO MATT’S BILLS.

They will also be passing around BUCKETS FOR DONATIONS.

So stuff your pockets and bras with cash, and head on down to the Cha Cha.

HELP MATT KICK HIS MEDICAL BILLS’ ASS,
SO HE CAN RESUME KICKING OUR ASSES ASAP

While the question of where to donate toward David’s recovery remains unanswered, it’s probably best at this point to simply order another round and dedicate it to him.

Zut Alors! Camus, Debord, and Kezdy Get A Metra Pass

So a couple of weeks ago, I heard for the first time the Effigies’ first new record in 400 years, Reside. (It came out in ‘07, so I’m late — sue me. Wait, on second thought, please don’t sue me.)

Even though the shimmering tones and arabic modes of original guitarist Earl Lettiq are missed, Bob McNaughton does a fine job. Add to this the rhythmic litigation excellence of the firm of Economou and Zamost and Reside signifies as a pretty remarkable piece of work all the way through. What has me scratching my head is the burial of the album’s best track “Haz-Mat” at the end of the record.

In these lyrics, singer and lyricist John Kezdy brilliantly redevelops Guy Debord and Albert Camus as a synthesized commuter-train passenger persona who regards the billboards, banal mass obsessions and landmarks of the media wasteland as these whip by at ninety miles an hour. Criticism of spectacle isn’t supposed to rock, but Kezdy and company pull it off:

Morning sheets / unfold on the train

Turn from the glass / stare at the page

…

Review of a billboard / a familiar score

no one is sure / they haven’t seen it before

…

Spectactles by day and night / Haz-mat pulsing blood of life

…

Then at night / they fornicate

Camus’ old quote “A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.” might or might not have been an inspiration here, but it hardly matters. The Effigies are now and have always been a band of modern men who shoulder that particular burden with clear eye and steady hand. I’ve admired their work since I first saw them as a pup in 1982 and I appreciate that they didn’t stop at a single sentence — or 7″.

Hello SIRS, So Long Suzanne

While it’s a shame that veteran actress Suzanne Pleshette and SIRS can’t share the planet, look at it this way: finally, another rock band!

SIRS greets the world with a poor attitude, demo recordings and a full international dance card. We’re going to have an excellent reason to have a low audience.

Killing Joke Bassist Paul Raven 1961-2007

Shit.

(Mr. Raven was in Prong and Ministry too. )

Killing Joke bio at All Music Guide

Fairly recent gear interview with Patrick Ogle

Bummer.

Who’s Right Slap-Fight

I wrote that VH’s keyboards and not Eddie Van Halen or his guitar tech were the culprit in this clip. For the sake of argument, let’s hear and evaluate the technically possible reasons the keys and guitar are clashing.

Reasons AGAINST the 44/48 explanation:

1) The keys aren’t wrong, Eddie’s guitar was “knocked” out of tune before the song started. Untrue: this doesn’t make any sense because in the clip, Eddie’s whole guitar, all the strings - are in tune with themselves. Therefore, a bonked headstock or a broken string can’t be the reason, it has to be systemic. I received many comments insisting that this was the case. I maintain it isn’t - not even with a Floyd Rose bridge, as many have sworn.

2) Eddie’s guitar tech gave him a guitar tuned incorrectly for the song. If this is true, then it’s the biggest coincidence in the world that (i) the guitar’s tuning is correct for the album’s tuning of “Jump” and (ii) the tech tuned the guitar to a pitch that somehow couldn’t be transposed with the allegedly in-tune keyboards. Highly unlikely.

3) Many posters have claimed that VH has a keyboard player onstage (which we don’t see in the clip), so why use a recording? Even if there were a live keyboardist, if he was playing the part live through an improperly-set digital audio interface, he would still experience the sharpened, non-western-scale pitch. See (Reason FOR #5 below).

4) VH are intentionally playing the song in C# as opposed to the C it was originally recorded in on the 1984 album. The problem there: as far as I can perceive, that keyboard pitch is not C#, it’s north of C# but south of D.

5) “Wolfy is in tune.” This is pretty funny since I can’t, and I challenge anyone to hear - any bass in this cellphone recording. Nor would I expect to - it’s a cellphone recording. I sure can’t hear any Michael Anthony. Oof!

Reasons FOR the 44/48 explanation:

1) The difference in pitch between the keys in the clip and the keys in the original 1984 recording is the same.

2) Eddie never gets back to in tune. If the pitch difference were just a semitone instead of about 1.5 semitones off, he certainly could, but he can’t - the difference in pitch does not lie in the western scale, it lies between the notes of C# and D. He can’t get in tune (without twisting all the tuning pegs of his guitar) because there’s no fret between C# and D.

3) The tempo of the song as compared to the original LP recording is also sped up to just about the degree that a 44.1 recording would be at if it were played at 48K.

4) If, as many have said, Eddies guitar was out and the keys were on, and their difference was just a semitone apart, why in the world wouldn’t one of the most virtuosic guitarists in the world not be able to transpose after a few bars? I say he didn’t because he couldn’t. (see reason FOR #2)

5) This video below demonstrates the principle at play with the difference between 44.1Khz and 48Khz, it actually shows the button, the clips and the match between EVH’s tuning in the clip and the tuning on the 1984 record.

Add these together and then show respect for the simplest explanation and you come up with screwed-up keyboards.

Since it’s not obvious, I should make it clear: I was not there, I was not backstage, and I did not witness the problem’s specific cause. I used my ears and experience and came up with the best explanation.

I Wasn’t Kidding, I Like It Better

This Van Halen video clip is finding itself in a lot of places, and creating lots of typing. Unfortunately, most of this comment and message-board chatter is kind of dumb. Especially the sanctimonious blah-blah from the many pony-tailed inhabitants of various guitar/gear sites. To hear them tell it, this is some kind of moment of failure for the Van Halens and isn’t it a shame?

Listen up, shreddy: It is not a shame, it is transcendent.

While I like VH’s Fair Warning a lot, it’s true that I have always hated 1984’s “Jump”. Thanks to the song’s intense and enduring popularity it has stubbornly refused to fade from my memory as so many REO Speedwagon and Styx songs obligingly have. When I first saw this clip, my jaw dropped as all of yours did, but mine dropped because finally, this song was coming out of the speakers the same way I had always heard it.

Let me explain: this song’s ridiculous, obvious major-key swells, as used for the the ground under guitarist Eddie Van Halen’s histrionics are intended to be stirring and uplifting. Indeed, this is how most appreciative listeners experience these moments. I’m just not that lucky.

This is the clip’s genius: when the anthems’ most triumphant peaks arrive with an alarming leviathan groan instead of the intended sound of angels gently urinating arcs into the sky, it throws, finally, the overt phoniness of this wretched song into sharp contrast. The dissonance highlights exactly where you were supposed to be most elated, most manipulated by greeting-card level sentimentality — but instead leaves you appropriately laughing. Bless you, Van Halen.

The dissonance itself, well, that’s no crime at all. On-stage dissonance is in fact pretty goddamn cool, as the following clips clearly prove.

(Fred Willard introduces the lead guitar stylings of Mark Mothersbaugh)

(A tender ballad from a skinny bunch)

(The late, great Brainiac)