Unknown Pleasures

Chances are you are British if you saw Joy Division live. They had a tour of the US planned, but they never made it here, another short lived band-span (just like the Sex Pistols).  I don't even think the band existed for 3 years. 

Peter Hook's book (I had to say that), Unknown Pleasures does a great job of capturing the exciting, but limited time he lived as a member of Joy Division.  I felt like I had a bird eye's view of what it's like to be a 20 year old in a band gaining momentum in England in the late 70's.   Read this book to get insight into their recording process, the trials and tribulations of performing live (when a show wasn’t cancelled) and the dynamics of a band. 

Peter owns his behavior.   He lets his immature self shine through.  I think a lot of people forget just how young and inexperienced these musicians were.  It was interesting reading this book back to back with Rotten.  They occur in the same time period and they were the same age when starting their bands.  In the case of Joy Division, they had a manager who cared and got them an exceptional record deal even by today’s standards.  (The band’s royalty rate was 58% to Factory Records 42%.  The band didn’t get an advance, but retained financial and creative control.)   We all know that The Sex Pistols manager Malcolm MacLaren didn’t have a clue and no one saw any money.  Not that the members of Joy Division got rich from record sales.  Money came later. 

There is plenty in the book about Ian Curtis, the band’s lead singer who suffered from epileptic seizures and killed himself on the eve of the band’s US tour.  Ian underplayed his illness and band members went along with him.  They just wanted to play music to make enough money to quit their day jobs. 

Martin Hannett, their record producer believed for a record to have a lasting effect and impact it has to have clarity and separation.  Joy Division’s records certainly have that.  Originally Peter and Barney hated the sound of their album Unknown Pleasures.  They wanted it harder and harsher, sounding more punk, which was hitting its peak at that time.  Martin had an interesting way of recording the drums:  which was one drum at a time, meaning the snare drum part was recorded by itself, the bass drum part by itself, etc.  I can’t imagine the music having the same feel or a musician being able to play that way.  That being said, Martin definitely carved out a distinct sound for the band. 

There is a thread of humor in Unknown Pleasures.  Peter in a typical British way takes a piss on everything including himself.  Apparently Martin wasn’t a fan of his and he describes Martin’s feelings about being in the studio.  “He used to get pissed off with us, especially me and Barney; we were about as welcome as a dog at a bowling alley.”  It should be noted that Martin was an eccentric. 

There does seem to be many similar band experiences in 1970’s England (mainly in the Manchester area). This is what I’ve taken away from reading these memoirs. 

1. Apparently no one properly drives a car in England.
2. Practical jokes were constantly played on each other.  I read a lot of “let’s jape their room” or “jape their bus”.  Jape is archaic for an act of mischief.  We need to revive the word. 
3. Bands experienced lots of cancelled shows, whether it was due to band reputation or circumstances.  I doubt that either Joy Division or The Sex Pistols put in their 10,000 hours.  There wasn’t enough time and venues were limited.

There is a lot of recap and redundancy in the book.  It almost reads like a self-help book in that each chapter has a timeline review.  It’s filler.  I could have done without it.  If you’re a die-hard fan of the band, you will love Peter for writing an anecdote on every song.    Peter put me in his shoes and I think that’s what made this book such a good read.  




On a packaging note:  If you are old enough to remember Joy Division when they were a band, you might get this reference.  The book looks like a 3/4" video tape. 

A Sign of Spring?

Carl Schurz Park this morning.

Kudos To Bunheads

If you loved Gilmore Girls (and how could you not?), you will like Bunheads.  It's a bit Gilmore-lite, but the fast banter and great pop culture references are there, not to mention a few of the actors also.

Kudos to Bunheads for their choreography to the Sparks song I Predict, in miner hats no less! 

I have to love a song with the lyrics
You're gonna eat a bowl of chow mein and be hungry real soon, I predict. 

Winter season finale tonight for the Bunheads. 

YouTube Can Send You To #1

Billboard is now incorporating YouTube plays in it's calculation for the Hot 100 charts.  As the magazine editor Bill Werde says in a NY Times article,  "there are lots of different ways a song can be a hit, and lots of different ways that the business can benefit from it being a hit.”  Hello Harlem Shakes.  It lands at #1. 

MTV Ruled The World, Well Maybe Not The World

In 2010 Greg Prato released MTV Ruled The World, The Early Years of Music Video.  I just read it.  I worked at MTV as an intern in it's beginning stages and it was exciting and fun to be a part of something that really had no direction except to get music played on TV.  It was a new concept to meld music and TV on one network for 24 hours.  That's a lot of airtime to fill up.  Everyone was interested in it, but in the early 80's, very few people could watch it.  I think it took over 2 years before anyone in NYC could actually see the network.  I had an advantage as it was playing all day long in the offices. 

The book opens with the cast of characters that you'll hear from and follows with quotes from those musicians and the employees of MTV.  I'm not sure why Frank Stallone gets so much time in this book. I don't remember him being a staple of MTV.  The quotes are grouped in chapters that cover the early days, fashion, black music, etc. 

The most insight comes from those who worked there, this included Nina Blackwood and Alan Hunter who are the two of the original VJ's interviewed.  I'd rather have read books by both of them. (Looks like a new book by the VJs comes out in May: VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave.) They have identical stories about realizing the impact of MTV when they take road trips to towns where people can actually watch the channel.  They have no idea why crowds are gathering, only to find out it's to see them.  They are stunned.  They basically go unrecognized in New York during the first two years, but in the heartland, they are stars.

I had no idea that MTV financed Michael Jackson's Thriller Video. I was shocked to hear that CBS/Epic records told Michael that they already paid for two videos (Billie Jean and Beat It) and were not going to lay out the money for a third video.  Here is another case of a major label not knowing how to spend the money judiciously.  The way MTV got around the criticism of paying for a music video was to launch it as a big making of the video documentary. (MTV was a genius network in that up until this video, they never laid a dime out for their programming.  The record labels paid for it.) I remember seeing the Billie Jean video in the offices.  It had not been released yet.  We were all glued to it. It was amazing.  It was a game changer.   MTV must have felt like they owed Michael and of course wanted the Michael train to keep on rolling.  People would put on the channel waiting to see his videos.  Hard to believe it now with any video at your fingertips. 

There are others interviewed which made no sense to me except for maybe comic relief.  Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedy's claims to have not watched the channel and has seen very few music videos, so his comments don't have much relevance.   The book drags and this could be because there is no narrative to carry it though, just groupings of quotes.  The cover artwork is questionable.  Is that suppose to be LL Cool J?  J Lo? It looks more like her, but maybe it's meant to be Madonna.  I'm lost on who the dude with the beard is. 

Read Before You Sign

Wow!  I read this a few hours after posting my revisited Rotten post.  Braindeadly should have read Rotten. I was shocked that the Sex Pistols had signed an in perpetuity contract with Warner Bros. in the US, well Techdirt had this story of Braindeadly (Ben Vacas) who apparently did the same thing with the owner of his YouTube network. 

As Techdirt states:   It's going to become increasingly important that formerly amateur YouTube stars read the contracts they sign with a growing number of upstart "YouTube Networks" very carefully, or else they are going to face situations such as we're seeing with Machinima [owner of the YouTube Network] stars, who are shutting down production because they're locked into lifetime and beyond contracts with the multi-channel network.

It pains me to hear that at this stage of the game people are still signing quickly and not reading or having someone else read, a contract before they sign.  There must be such panic to sign, that no thought is given to the consequences.  In the case of the Sex Pistols they just wanted to know how much money they would get, which turned out to be very little. 

Rotten Revisited

There are a few quotes from John Lydon that I think give the reader a good sense of what was going on with the Sex Pistols in the early stages of the band. 

A lot of people feel the Sex Pistols were just negative.  I agree, and what the f**k is wrong with that?  Sometimes the absolute most positive thing you can be in a boring society is completely negative. It helps.  If you’re not, you show weakness, and you must never do that!  You must always be committed.   
 
We were huge, but we couldn’t play anywhere, so we couldn’t earn any money.  Nobody wanted to release our records.  We were quite literally paupers. 
Too many days off between gigs on the Anarchy tour turned the Pistols against one another.  We became frustrated and began looking at each other suspiciously.  We were bored and at each other’s backs.  Today the animosity has transformed into a sense of loss.  

John's take on record companies and the record business:

 

There were virtually no independent labels when the Pistols started. 

You set yourself bigger than that; you want to be heard by as many people as possible.  Unless you have distribution, there’s no point.  When you sign with these independents-as they call themselves-they go and lease the contract to the big labels.  Again you’ve defeated the point, you’re now twice removed.  They still need to go through the major labels to the bloody records pressed, distributed, and paid for. 

On knowing little about record contracts:

To be honest, the only interest the band and I had was, how much do we each get?  Like true humanitarians.  Quite frankly you can’t tell an eighteen year old to think any other way. 

I was nowhere near capable of understanding what was going on.  I realize now that the contracts were shockingly bad.  Malcolm hadn’t the slightest idea what he was doing, either. 

The American contract with Warner Bros. was signed in perpetuity, forever and ever.

I don't think I know of any artist that signed a record contract in perpetuity.  This was a shocker to me; it probably shouldn't have been.   Although record contracts are not what they used to be, this book could easily be a musician primer of what-not-to-do. 

 

I Fight Dragons and the Record Company

You can write about it in a song and you can talk about it on YouTube.  Brian Mazzaferri from the band I Fight Dragons recalls his unending saga of writing what the record label calls a "hit song".  As Brian says, he is not one to give up, so he's going to keep going back to the drawing board every time the label deems the new version of the song "not a hit".  At the end of this ordeal, which besides being an exercise in frustration (although Brian seems to take this in stride), has yielded 18 songs with lots of co-writers. 

Brian posted every version of the song that exists at SoundCloud. 

His final version of the song was titled It's Not Me It's You.   Have you heard Graham Parker's Mercury Poisoning?  The Raspberries'  Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)? 

The Chicago band did release their album KABOOM! on Photo Finish/Atlantic Records.  No version of this song appears on it. 

Rotten

35 years ago on January 14, the Sex Pistols played their final gig as the band we remember,  that lineup with Sid Vicious.  It's ironic that on that date this year, I finished reading Rotten, John Lydon's memoir.
Takeaways: 

• Lydon has a great respect for women.  With the exception of Vivienne Westwood, who he disliked immensely, they come off pretty well.  As for the men in the book, there are few that he liked or had any patience for.  Strangely he did have patience for Sid Vicious who he brought into the band.
   
• The Sex Pistols career was short (not including reunions).  It was basically a two year stint.      

• Their only US tour during the 1970's took place in southern states.  Their manager Malcolm McLaren thought animosity would follow them throughout the South.  This would bring publicity.  Logic would have them playing NY, Philly, Chicago, LA.  Logic rarely entered into  McLaren's thinking.  

Some of the most interesting anecdotes come from the photographer Bob Gruen who accompanied the Pistols on the US tour.  The stories of tour manager Noel Monk trying to keep things in check are riveting.  Did you know that John and Sid were on a tour bus with the crew while bandmates Steve Jones and Paul Cook traveled separately and stayed in different hotels with McLaren?  Chaos hung around this band like a noose. 

The book also contains words from those who were part of Lydon's scene ( Billy Idol, Chrissie Hynde, Steve Severin). They shed an ancillary light on the Pistols story.  The commentary basically ends when the Sex Pistols ended. The book was published in 2008, but there was no mention of the 1996 Filthy Lucre Tour (Original member, Glen Matlock returned to replace a departed Sid).  There are mentions of his second band Public Image Ltd, but the bulk of the book deals with his life as Johnny Rotten. 

After reading Rotten,  I'm inclined to think that the Sex Pistols may have had a longer career than one album if Lydon had never brought Sid into the band.  He was disruptive and useless.  Except for his image and his tabloid attention-getting antics, there isn't much to say about him.  In today's world (with 24/7 media coverage of anyone's moves), I don't know if Sid would have been considered a legend.  His disruptive girlfriend Nancy Spungen would be dismissed as annoying (apparently everyone hated her and had no problem vocalizing it).  The media has had it's fill of the closest we've come to another Nancy in Courtney Love, who ironically I met when she was filming Sid and Nancy.  Lydon writes that there are many falsifications in that movie and nobody bothered to consult him on the story.  

John Lydon rants and raves throughout his story.  Would you expect anything else?

Baseball, Bob & Barry

Three things that interest me:  Baseball, Bob Costas and Barry Levinson.   Starting this Monday the 14th, they will be part of a six segment show on the MLB Network called Costas at the movies.  Bob is interviewing the stars and directors of iconic baseball movies.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, this is the lineup of films:

Monday, January 14 - Cobb
Interviews: Tommy Lee Jones (Ty Cobb) and director Ron Shelton

Monday, January 21 - Bad News Bears
Interview: Actress Tatum O'Neal (Amanda Whurlizer)

Monday, January 28 - A League of Their Own
Interviews: Geena Davis (Dottie Hinson) and director Penny Marshall

Monday, February 4 - Eight Men Out
Interviews: Director John Sayles

Monday, February 11 - The Natural
Interview: Director Barry Levinson

Gina Davis, A League of Their Own

As Bob says in THR:  “Not only do they take pride in the work they did in these movies, but they don’t often get a chance to talk at length about it,” Costas says. “Everything now is a sound bite. The idea of getting to speak in complete sentences and actually recalling something that was an important part of your life and career I think appeals to people.”

Bob's talk show, Later was one of my favorites. I met Bob during a taping of Later (an act I worked with was on the show) and he paid me one of the greatest compliments.  He said, "You really do know your baseball."  It doesn't get any better than that.

Bob and Howard Stern are the best interviewers out there.  They both get so much out of their guests.  Bob loves baseball and I see this series as being a (ahem) home run.  Can't wait. 

Strangely, the MLB Network does not have a mention of this show on their site.

The Major Labels Aren't Using Trolls

For years, the major record labels were able to manipulate sales numbers and the sales charts.  Billboard, Cash Box, Record World all charted records.  The numbers were a cumulative score including both radio play and sales.  I worked at Record World as an intern in the early 80's. My job was to call record stores and report units sold.  As you can guess, this is not the most scientific method and until Soundscan came along, it was the way things were done. 

There is a bit of a clamor that the labels are at it again, but this time it involves manipulating YouTube views for their videos.  YouTube began a campaign against falsely inflated views, but it turns out this has nothing to do with the decrease in views on videos by Universal and Sony artists. The sudden drop in views led people to believe the labels had their trolls out inflating the views. 

As TechDirt points out  it turns out that most of the issue was just that the labels had moved their videos from YouTube to Vevo -- the online video site that the labels had started a few years ago (built on top of YouTube technology). As Billboard notes, the "de-spamming" effort did delete about 1.5 million views from Sony and Universal Music videos -- so there may be some funny business, but that's tiny compared to the 2 billion views that disappeared.

YouTube also changed the way they count "dead videos" which would include those videos that have been moving over to Vevo.   Highly viewed videos that were on Universal and Sony's YouTube channels are now at Vevo. As a result, the views that those videos received during their time on the dedicated label channels were taken away in YouTube's latest "clean up" effort.

It's nice to start off the year with a clean slate. 

Play Dead—so that your eyes will stay open

To die your whole life [he is quoting Kafka]. Despite the morbidity, I can’t think of a better definition of the writing life. There’s something about writing that demands a leave-taking, an abandonment of the world, paradoxically, in order to see it clearly.

Jeffrey Eugenides offered this pearl of wisdom in a speech give to the 2012 Whiting Award winners.  It's printed in the New Yorker and well worth a read.  He was talking to up-and-coming writers.  Writers who have been published, are young and probably have a long life ahead of them.  Musicians, actors, directors of all ages could also benefit from what he has to say.   

Don't listen to what others tell you. Don't let it cloud your creativity. Write for yourself.  Create as if you were dead or dying.  You wouldn't care what anyone thought at that point.  Kennedy Center Honorees Led Zeppelin and David Letterman have followed this path.  Do you think Zeppelin or Letterman care what others think of their art?  I don't and that is what makes them great.  Dance all you want to a different drummer. 

Eugenides closes with the line that should be in the forefront of every creative person's head:
Play dead—so that your eyes will stay open.

Trains, Trains & Buildings

If you're looking for something enchanting to do over the Christmas break, pull into the NY Botanical Gardens for their annual Holiday Train Show. 

Chrysler Building

If you've never been (this was the first time I finally went), it's a wonderland of buildings made from nature's gifts.  Most of the scenery is recreations of old New York.

Macy's

And of course, there are the trains.

Don't Wait Until Tomorrow

If you're in San Antonio in the next few days, see Annie at The Playhouse San Antonio.  I will disclose that I'm close to the show.  Marissa Ramon who stars as Annie is my niece. I might be a little biased, but watch this clip of her signing Tomorrow on WOAI this morning, her talent shines  (Marissa starts singing with 2:11 remaining).  She takes the song to a place it hasn't been, which is refreshing and poignant.  Her performance is so touching there are more than a few tears in the audience.   Word has it that the interaction between Marissa's Annie and William McCrary's Daddy Warbucks is magical. 

We also have another family member in the musical. Sandy, my in-law's Golden Retriever, is Sandy. 

Annie runs until December 23rd at The Playhouse San Antonio, Russell Hill Rogers Theater. 

The Best Summer

The best summer was 1963. His dad took just him on a road trip in England.  They stopped in Liverpool, you might have a hint of what happened. 

The photographer Ethan Russell Tweeted a link to this story by the writer Bobby Stevenson.  It's a very touching account of the bond between he and his dad, that summer when he was 10 years old.  It would make a great movie. 

Dave Brubeck

My husband and I have a dinner ritual that usually starts with firing up Coltrane, Monk or Dave Brubeck's legendary album, Time Out. 

In  1959, Take Five was the first jazz single to sell a million copies.  He was also the first jazz musician to grace the cover of Time Magazine.  Brubeck was touring up until last year.  He died this morning, one day shy of his 92nd birthday.

According to the NY Times, Brubeck's mother forbid listening to the radio.  She believed that if you wanted to hear music, you should play it.  He and his two brothers learned instruments.  He was born cross-eyed so he couldn't read music.  He played by ear. 

One of the more interesting stories in the article is crediting Brubeck's wife Iola for his early success.
She was a pioneer promoter.

In 1953 she wrote to more than a hundred universities, suggesting that the quartet would be willing to play for student associations. The college circuit became the group’s bread and butter, and by the end of the 1950s it had sold hundreds of thousands of copies of its albums “Jazz at Oberlin” and “Jazz Goes to College.”

The fur and hammer sound is what got me.  The songs are so melodious, but there was an aspect of attack.  I liken it to  living in New York City (even though Brubeck settled in Wilton, CT). 

Here's my favorite, Blue Rondo ala Turk.  Check out the use of "green screen" in this video.  The Quartet is magic carpeting over an LA freeway.  That would be the best way to get around LA.  The cops can't ticket you if you're playing music on a magic carpet. 

The Booking Agent Who Changed the Business

Frank Barsalona was probably the first "rock" booking agent.  He founded Premier Talent in the 1960's.  He believed in the longevity of touring rock bands.  Many of the band he booked are still working today.  The first acts he signed to Premier were the Who, Herman's Hermits and Mitch Ryder. 

Billboard's look back at his life is a testament to how influential he was.  Agents, managers and promoters can't say enough good things about him. He is the only agent in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

Last paragraph of the article:

Barsalona's kind probably won't come along again, (Danny) Zelisko and several others who worked with Barsalona believe, though Zelisko says he wouldn't completely rule it out. "They said there wouldn't be anything like Elvis either, and along came the Beatles," he says. "And you know who booked them."

Frank passed away on Thanksgiving.   He changed the music business.

Love The Dickey

Congratulations to R. A. Dickey who won the Cy Young award.
He was such a bright spot this season for Mets fans.
Here are his performance stats:

• 20-6 
• 2.73 earned run average

Lead the league in

• Innings pitched 233 2/3
• Strikeouts 230
• Complete games 5
• Shutouts 3

To complete 5 games in a season is a feat for current pitchers.  Of all the records, I think complete games will stand with the record holder, Cy Young himself at 749 games.  The list barely includes any recent players and by recent I mean those that pitched 30 or 40 years ago. The Mets won 74 games this year, so for Dickey to be responsible for 20 of those wins, is a big deal.  Dickey is 38 and his pitch is the knuckleball.  He is the first knuckleballer to win the award.



The humble R.A. said to MLB, "But for me, this is an honor to be shared. It's a great honor, and I am not a self-made man by any stretch of the imagination. There have been countless people who have poured into me in a way that has changed my life -- not only on the field, but off."

Note:  R.A. stands for Robert Allen. I'd like to think it stands for Really Amazin'

Great Memories of a Gas Shortage

We're back to gas rationing in NYC and Long Island today.  This leads to my second post this week involving Ian Hunter.   In the summer of 1979 before I went to college, there was odd/even gas rationing.  My friend Annemarie and I would take her parents car, the boom box (which ran on batteries) and wait in line at the gas station in East Rockaway to fill up their tank. 

That spring Ian Hunter released You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic.  We loved that record! Still do. We'd wait in line for an hour or so to get gas, boom box blasting (I don't believe there was a cassette player in her parents car) and sing along to Just Another Night, Cleveland Rocks and Wild East.  It's nice to look back on a time of crisis with such fond memories.  Just proves what's been said a million times, good music can get you through any situation. 

Civil Wars Lead To Internal Discord

The duo The Civil Wars have either called it quits or are regrouping.  Just as their career is taking off they cancel their upcoming tour, citing on their facebook page:

However, due to internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition we are unable to continue as a touring entity at this time.

There are a few tidbits which make this interesting.

1.  They cite irreconcilable differences of ambition, not musical differences which is usually the response when someone in the band wants a solo career.

2.  They are both married, but not to each other.  According to the Huffington Post, Joy Williams is married to the band's manager Nate Yetton and they have a baby. 

3.  If I was their booking agent (it makes sense that it's Frank Riley), I'd be pulling my hair out.  It's so hard to find acts that can have a long career these days.  The Civil Wars looked like they were on the long road.

4. They realize fans might be taking a hit on ticket fees, travel costs, etc so they offer this not-exactly-a-guarantee, but a hopefully we can get you that money back offering:
Please email us at info@thecivilwars.com if there are costs incurred that you would like to be reimbursed for... and we will do our best to reimburse you for non-refundable charges.

5.  The cryptic ending to the post:
Our sincere hope is to have new music for you in 2013. 
 Does this mean they have music lying around that no one has heard, therefore it could come out as new music or are they ok in the studio just not on the road or do they think like the North and the South they will fight it out and whoever is victorious will see their ambition realized for the band?  I guess we'll have to wait till next year.