Attribution

The "quote of the day" on my Google mail header attributes to self-help charlatan Tony Robbins [1]:

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.

Of course, those of us of a certain impressionable age in 1993 might remember the proper phrasing [2]:

Cause if you do what you've always done / you'll always get what you always got / (Uh... could that be nothin'?)

On an unrelated note, so to speak, I listened to the Muse album Black Holes and Revelations recently. I think it's really good, although I haven't listened to enough Muse to compare this to their other work. Their style is right up my alley: it's generally rockous and progressive, overuses textural synthesizer and orchestral punctuation, and combines electronically driven tempos and overarching, squealing-dude vocal in a way that clearly follows, but is implemented distinctly from, the Radiohead archetype. Their use of instrumental synthesizer plucks some of the best from, perhaps, Gentle Giant; vocal harmonies emulate (what is undoubtedly) the best from Queen. If I were to select an objection, it's that they rely primarily on the extended-radio-pop-song form in their compositions. What my record collection needs is a serious composition from these guys: an album-length [3] masterpiece in the vein of The Fountain of Lamneth or Scenes from a Memory. Five people would buy it, and I'd be one of them.

[1] Ref. Nothing personal; if career = "self-help writer" and wealthy = yes, then this is my assumption.
[2] Ref
[3] In modern times, why limit a concept album to a 30-minute side, or even an 80-minute disc? I think my ipod has 3.2 GB available: that's about 640 minutes at high quality. Bring it on.

Battleground

First: better than morning coffee, it's a little afternoon Black Mountain (that does sound like a roast; hmmm...). I'm listening to their February concert recorded by NPR (and available here). The npr.org writeup describes an "epic storm of prog-rock riffs, '60s psychedelia and '70s metal." I hear a lot of Zeppelin and dudes singing in the high-tenor range, so I suppose they're right. It's a good way to struggle through a Friday afternoon with dramatically increased brainstorming creativity and typing speed. [*] Take that, Mavis Bacon. But not you, Mavis Staples. You're cool.

We're being inundated already, in our little mid-north-western battleground state, with TV ads for presidential wannabes. I was disappointed how early they've turned mostly negative. I note that the McCain camp is relying much more heavily on attack ads then the dems, but last night I caught some ominous-looking photos of J. Sidney next to Shrub and facts and figures about oil-company campaign contributions. There's certainly more truth to that than the opposing assertion that Mr. O features "fewer jobs" in his platform, but I'm disappointed nonetheless. Then again, these campaign organizers know what they're doing; if I think it sucks, I have nowhere to look but toward my fellow Americans. And I do. And it's sad.

[*] Another way? A 10-minute blogger break! Okay, back to work...

Fatherhood and whiny pop

The probability of a particular album being chosen from my CD case is, to first order, a function of the how good the music is and how long it's been since I've listened to it. There are probably some subtle effects (I often get a good tune stuck in my head, and want to listen to it again after a few days), so the density function looks something like this.
I found myself on the rightmost end of the orange curve recently, when I pulled an album by the band Something Corporate from my car case for a head-bopping commute in the VW. This is bad music, in the sense that it is harmonically simple, unimaginative, unmusical, over-engineered, predictable and whiny. I envision the musicians from Semisonic deciding they weren't getting to 'express' themselves and forming this group instead. That said, amongst such magna opera hooks as "be my punk rock princess" and "I kissed a drunk girl" was

Son / one day you'll be a man / and men can do terrible things

which caught me off guard and my attention. Well played, Mr. Corporate. Now I'll blog about the line and switch back to Steven Page and Colin Meloy for squishy tunes about fatherhood, putting your album back in its case for an expectation-value duration of two years.

Although I appreciate the sentiment, I'm not sure that* men can do terrible things. Free will might be real, but it might also make sense as an abstraction of a deterministic reality: certainly, we can envision a deterministic system so detailed that at the level of (modern) observation we're convinced that we control it. Under that layer is a stochastic reality, then under that, getting smaller and smaller, more determinism. Then Bill of O pleads, "enough!"

[*] A matter of word choice: I'm not sure what the distinction among "if", "that" and "whether" is, in this context.

Spanish techno

Driving to work this morning, I passed two consecutive bumper stickers:

"Favored and highly blessed"
"We're all family; we all have value"

I feel a cage fight brewing. Is driver #1 better than those around him because his deity digs his trunk magnet choice? Will driver #2 pound him for being part of the problem, not part of the solution? Stay tuned. A bit later I saw one of the semi-ubiquitous "My child is a peacemaker at Coventry school" and felt better about the world.

I received a cheque in the mail yesterday, of unidentified origin but paid through a bank in Barcelona. From past experience I know this to be some sort of work-related payment (I work for a European company, which apparently likes to pay some accounts transiberianly); I also know that it'll take a few extra days for the funds to appear after depositing it, as I learned last time this happened when I planned to turn the money around for an imminent car purchase.

If instead my funds were being paid through the other Spanish banks, I'd be happy to pick them up myself.

In typing that, my cerebrum has quickly filled with the beats of Spanish Techno, one of several ueber-catchy tunes from the New Pornographers (don't worry - it's just a wiki article), whose latest couple of releases I haven't been able to entirely strike from my mind since my acquisition of them months ago. Curse you, free association!

Reviewing the New Pornographers' Challengers and Twin Cinema
Pros: folksy singing, vocal harmony, great hooks, interesting instrumentation, varied songwriting, Canadian content
Cons: just a bunch of 3:00 pop songs
Listen to: "The Jessica Numbers", "Sing me Spanish Techno", "Challengers", "Adventures in Solitude".
Goes best with: coffee, long pants, Volkswagens

listening, Summer 2006

Everything here sounded exactly as expected. I think the Milt Jackson recording is the best bit I heard.

• Ellington: Far east suite
• Johhny Cash: Get rhythm
• Joan Baez: Gracias a la vida
• Joan Baez: Diamonds and rust
• Milt Jackson: In a new setting
• Bill Evans: But beautiful
• Miles Davis: at Newport, 1958
• Paris Combo: Attraction
• David Bowie: The man who sold the world
• Metallica: Reload

listening, Winter 2006

Night Train contains some great music, with the engineering in place to support some real listening. If you don't have DT on your record rack, Images and Words isn't a bad place to start.

• Peter Gabriel: Long walk home
• Rush: Test for echo
• Hindemith Piano Sonaten (Gould)
• Keith Jarrett: The out-of-towners
• Allison Krauss: Lonely goes both ways
• Dream Theater: Images and words

• Bernstein Mass
• Oscar Peterson: Night Train
• Opeth: Blackwater Park
• Verdi Requiem ()
• 1812 (Gothenberg / Jarvi)

listening, Fall 2005

Deadwing is a great album, and as a fan of both calm psychedelia and math rock I find that it really hits the spot. Joe turned me on to Youngblood; it's a must-listen for anyone with an embousure or ears.

• Elton John: Tumbleweed Connection
• Rush: Hemispheres

• Porcupine Tree: Deadwing
• Youngblood Brass Band: Center Level Roar
• Keith Jarrett: Facing You
• Bruckner 6,7 (Chicago / Solti)

listening, Summer 2005

The Elgar, palmed on a whim during a library visit, is the find here. Nickel Creek is a good effort, but I suspect it would come off better live.

• Dream Theater: Octavarium

• Elgar's The Apostles () [VG]
• Bon Jovi: Slippery when Wet
• Die Zauberfloete ()
• Altran: Harvest Storm
• Pink Floyd: Meddle

• Mozart cm Mass (St. MITF / Marriner)
• The Cure: Galore
• Nickel Creek: Nickel Creek
• Rite of Spring (NY / Bernstein)

• DMB: lillywhite / Busted Stuff
• Dream Theater: Train of Thought
• Miles Davis: Miles plays classic ballads
• Goldberg Variations (Gould)

listening, March and April 2005

The winners here? Joe Purdy, Keith Jarrett (Bremen) and AKUS Live.
Of course, that Mahler 2 recording is the best on this list, and maybe on my shelf, but I've not giving out classical recommendations here.

• Diana Krall: The look of love
• Gordon Goodwin's BFB: XXL
• Mahler 2 (Berlin / Haitink)
• Jewel: This way
• Joe Purdy: Julie Blue
• Vic Wooten: Yin/Yang
• Keith Jarrett: The Melody at Night, with You
  
• Bela Fleck & Flecktones: Live at the Quick
• Tori Amos: Under the Pink
• Rheingold (Haitink / Bayerischen Rundfunks 1988)
• Die Walkurie (same)
• Alison Krauss & Union Station: Live
• Keith Jarrett: Bremen, 1973
• Dizzy Gillespe: @ the Village Vanguard
• Eva Cassidy: American Tune
• Elton John: Madman Across the Water
• Miles Davis: The Birth of Cool
• Dream Theater: Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence