The Sound of Money

Los Lonely Boys' Forgiven - perfectly pleasant with lots of evident talent, but every bet is hedged.

Reading Press Releases

I recently received the following press release from indie hip-hop artist Myself. Myself tried with limited success to establish himself in New Orleans, and by "limited," I mean "not very much." The project that got the most notoriety was 21-C-B Boyz - a blues/hip-hop project helmed by Chris Thomas King that paired Myself with blues guitarist Kipori Woods. Unfortunately, it wasn't particularly good blues or hip-hop. He has a new CD, Protest in Disguise, which is the occasion for the press release.

MYSELF is an Alternative / Rock artist who defies genres & defines originality.

- That's a tough line to open with, much less live up to, particularly when variations on the next phrase have been used to describe Bob Marley and Joe Strummer.

The rebel rocker, MYSELF has worked with multiple platinum and Grammy winners such as Arrested Development, The Roots, Public Enemy, blues maestro Chris Thomas King and countless other industry veterans.

- I'm suspicious of any press release that mentions other, more famous bands in the first paragraph, and I'm doubly so when I see squishy phrases like "worked with". He may have been an S1W, but he might also have been the opening act one night, and opening acts open for a host of reasons, compatability being only one of them.

MYSELF’s musical styling has been described as COUTURE {tailor made to fit every style}. He mixes & combines Punk, HipHop, Alternative Rock & Funk like never before. Being from New Orleans {birthplace of Jazz} MYSELF incorporates his signature spicy hot southern fried flavor allowing him to re-define what it is to be COOL!

- All those capital letters remind me of the days when I collected crazy religious tracts.

MYSELF has been featured on MTV JAMS, FOX TV,MTV Japan, CW Network and in magazines such as Billboard, Living Blues, and Whoofin.

- "Featured in" is another vague phrase. Did the CW air a profile of Myself, or a five-second snippet behind a scene in Gossip Girl?

MYSELF has recently signed an exclusive Licensing, Manufacturing, Distribution deal with Sumthing Distribution. Nile Rodgers is the president of Sumthing Distribution and a multi platinum producer for Madonna, Sting, David Bowie and Duran Duran.

- Note that it doesn't say Nile Rodgers signed him. Rodgers might well think Myself is perfectly wonderful, but it's equally possible that he only knows Myself as a line item on the ledger. It's also odd that the press release omits Rodgers' days with Chic, which were far more significant than most of his production work.

MYSELF will be launching his own imprint boutique record label/fashion house called Couture Music Wear. He will be releasing his own recordings, producing, writing and developing for other acts as well.

- Releasing his own records - that makes Myself like almost every other indie band.

Hitomi Okuno has been named Vice President of the Couture Music Wear Brand.

- Who, and why do I care?

MYSELF’s upcoming album release “Protest in Disguise” was recorded, mixed and engineered at the legendary Chung King Studios (original home of super-producer Rick Rubin, Beastie Boys, RUN-DMC and Public Enemy). “Protest in Disguise” is slated for an June 17, 2008 scheduled release street date.

- If Rick Rubin was behind the board again, this would mean more to me, but perfectly mediocre records have come out of excellent studios, and it will happen again.

GIANT STEP will be coordinating all the Lifestyle Marketing for the MYSELF album campaign.

- This is now a very busy press release, reintroducing Myself, mentioning a new CD (which it has barely touched on), introduced us to Nile Rodgers' distribution company (which I didn't know existed), dropped the name of his new label (which has only him as an artist), and now we meet the firm that coordinate his "Lifestyle Marketing" (which I didn't know existed). There are also occasions when jargon doesn't sound jargon-y; starting a paragraph with a discussion of his Lifestyle Marketer underlines the buzz words then draws hearts, exclamation marks and motion lines around them.

GIANT STEP specializes in grass roots alternative media focusing on third party on-line promotions, street promotions, tastemaker servicing, dj promotions and co-branding.

-More buzzing.

GIANT STEP in the past has successfully implemented marketing campaigns for (Gnarls Barkley, Outkast, Sergio Mendes, Amy Whinehouse) plus many other notable artists.

- I'd probably respond better to this if Amy Winehouse's name was spelled correctly, and if the parentheses around the list of names was there for a good reason. Are they the velvet rope in this sentence, cordoning off the A-Listers from the rest of the hoi polloi in the sentence? It's also handy to notice the verb here - "implemented." The sentence doesn't say that Giant Step successfully marketed those artists; it says they implemented their marketing campaigns. Giant Step might be the company that marketed pre-"Stankonia" Outkast and the most recent Gnarls Barkley, not "St. Elsewhere."

Industry Veteran Manager Kevin Connal will be representing MYSELF. Kevin Connal is the President of Exposure Management Group. Kevin Connal has managed/tour managed and consulted for Jay Z, Ludacris, Pharell Williams, Gwen Stefani and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

- Rather than employ vague verbs, here the press release runs three verbs into the fray, two slashed together. What's Connal doing for Myself? And what did he do for the others? Manage, road manage and consult and three very different things. I'm also suspicious because if he had Gwen Stefani and Jay-Z's manager, you'd think he'd say so instead of fuzz things up.

I count 24 names dropped, but two of those are Okuno and Connal. That's pretty dazzling, but it's a bad sign when I'm more engaged with an artist's press release than the CD it's hyping.

How Far Do We Have to Go?

There's a new album due out by a New Orleans hip-hop artist that I'd like to review and possibly do a feature on. The catch? So far, the only way to hear the CD is at a listening party or a private listening session in an office. I admit I feel like I'm being manipulated as I'm being treated like someone special enough to attend a party or merit a private session, but that might just be me.

That aside, I have definite issues with having to rearrange my life to review an album. I'm being inconvenienced because the company is afraid someone will leak or bootleg the music. The publicist reassured me that I wasn't suspected, but what she meant was that I'm not personally suspected. Anyone who might hear the music in advance is viewed as a potential pirate, which means they're still suspicious of me, but in a general way.

I wonder if I'm overreacting to this, and I realize I'm bargaining from a weak hand. New Orleans hip-hop has largely worked around the print media, though to be fair, New Orleans' print media hasn't strained itself with its efforts to cover bounce, Cash Money, No Limit and the like. Still, if the label controls the way the music is heard, it exerts some control over the way it's covered, and that's not right.

Breaking My Own Rule

A smooth jazz moment: The L.A. Chillharmonic featuring Richard Smith (Artistry): What happens to someone to make them make muzak? What happened to their ambition? The version of "Boogie On Reggae Woman" is coming soon to a Piggly Wiggly near you.

Soul Enemy No. 1

Will someone stop Jon Tiven before he produces another soul album? His Betty Harris album Intuition lacked warmth, made her voice smaller than it is, and subjected her to sub-par material written by Tiven and his wife, Sally. Howard Tate's Blue Day just arrived, also produced by Tiven and sharing all the weakness of Harris' album. The material's slightly better - perhaps a result of collaborations with Dan Penn, Mike Farris, Ellis Hooks, Sir Mack Rice and others - but the trade-off is that Tiven plays most of the instruments, so there's not much groove.

Garnet Mimms' Is Anybody Out There? came in the same package, also produced by Tiven - evidently Evidence Records' house soul producer - and I don't have the heart to listen to it to hear another soul singer made average.

Nothing Fancy

I'm perfectly entertained by Chromeo's Fancier Footwork (Vice), but the two-disc set brings to mind another notion of "album." Like a photo album or stamp album, Fancier Footwork is a place for Chromeo to store music, video and remixes. With that much material, any notion of the album as a larger, cohesive body of work is dispelled, but perhaps that's sensible. In iPod days, that may be the role that may albums serve, just as they did in the infancy of the vinyl album. In this case, it's nice to know I have the videos if I ever choose to watch them, and I can imagine making a mix with one or two tracks from the remix disc. I've pulled five tracks from the original release for my iPod - I prefer their early '80s electro funk to the remixes - and am amused enough by their faux tough talk and abuse of Auto-Tune that I'll enjoy the other tracks on the occasion when I put on the CD.

Easy Questions

Since I listen to NPR on the morning and evening drive and like it, I'm bummed that its music blogs are so dumb. I admire Carrie Brownstein, but her Monitor Mix and the All Songs Considered blog try to get elicit response by asking people for their pet peeves, and overlooked songs, and albums due for reissue, and music-themed amusement park rides. It works, but wouldn't it be better if smart people like Brownstein, Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton actually put interesting thoughts into the world for people to consider and respond to?

Meaning is Overrated

My wife tends to make up her own lyrics to songs she hears. They sound right to her, and they're what she thinks the singer is singing, but they're often wrong. On the occasions when I tell her what they really are - which isn't always - she's often annoyed because she likes hers better. I often do to.

We're in no danger of dealing with this conundrum, though, when listening to This is Love Psychedelico (Hacktone). It looks like a hits collection for the popular Japanese band; I have "Your Song" and "Lady Madonna, U-Utsu-Naru Spider" on a Japan Night comp from South by Southwest from 2001, and those songs and "Last Night" date back to 2000. The duo's knack for melodies drawn from the British Invasion and California '70s rock invite you to try to sing along, and Kumi's relatively fluent English pronounciation makes the transition from Japanese to English mid-line almost seamless. Because of that, it's tempting to try to substitute English homophones for Japanese words, and the English words and phrases that end the lines give you reason to think your words are right.

The tunes and the charismatic Kumi (blood type O, I learned from their Web site) makes the songs work, but the garage textures provided by Naoki (also O) give the songs weight. Hopefully, This is Love Pyschedelico will give someone a reason to keep mining 'Delico's catalog. After listening to it, I went to YouTube and found another handful of songs worth paying attention to. Start here.

The Voting Question

I've wondered aloud here a few times what characteristics we really vote for. What traits move us to vote as we do? Michael Kinsley addresses this question with regard to Al Franken's run for the Senate:

This year a professional jokester, Al Franken (a Democrat), is challenging a professional politician, incumbent Norm Coleman (a Republican), for a Senate seat from Minnesota. Not every joke Franken wrote or told over a third of a century in the joke business was hilarious, OK? Minnesota voters will have to decide whether their dislike of professional politicians trumps their enjoyment in taking umbrage or vice versa. Coleman is a man of no interest, a run-of-the-mill political hypocrite who started out as a standard-issue long-haired student rebel leader on Long Island in the 1960s and surfed the zeitgeist: Now he is a standard-issue pro-war, tax-cut Republican. Franken, by contrast, needs no introduction and would be one of the most interesting people in the Senate from day one. Interesting isn't the most important quality in a senator. Honest, smart, and (for my taste) liberal are more important. But interesting would be nice.

Like any poll of people's dental habits, I suspect we say what we think is the right answer rather than the real answer when asked about our voting habits. Are we really voting on the issues, or did we - well, not me, but you know what I mean - vote for Bush because we knew people that we thought were like him? Someone nice enough who never made you feel stupid?

Lost Classic? Really?

Is it possible that a classic Chicago album was recorded after the mid-'70s? Is it possible a classic Chicago album was recorded? That's the hype for Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus (again, are you serious? XXXII? Sisyphus?) Amazon's "Editorial Reviews" read:

Product Description
"Sisyphus has attained legendary status among rock critics, Chicago fans, those who’ve heard parts of it and those who have only read about it." —from liner notes by Bill DeYoung

Formed in its namesake city in 1967, Chicago is the first American band ever to propel albums into Billboard®’s pop Top 40 for five consecutive decades, and is among the most successfully charting U.S.-grown acts of all time. Now, another page in the band’s history is revealed with the long-awaited release of Stone Of Sisyphus, the once shelved album that has attained legendary status among fans and critics alike. Recorded in 1993 and originally intended as Chicago XXII, the disc marked a return to the genre-transcending, adventurous fusion of sounds that defined the group’s 1970s-era heyday. Three tracks from it surfaced on Rhino’s 2003 Chicago box, but the album itself is previously unissued—now, this momentous release also features four incredibly rare bonus tracks.

If this is a lost classic, "classic" has suffered a conceptual demotion. It might not all sound like Chicago, but a lot of it does, and the tracks that don't sound like other MOR bands. We must all remember: obscure does not equal good.

A-Trak, take one

I was just listening to the Aural Exciters' "Marathon Runner" from Kid Creole's The August Darnell Years, and I'm not sure which would motivate me to exercise more - the cooing of disco dollies or the percolating beats of A-Trak's "Running Man," the latest in the series of 45-minute workout soundtracks commissioned by Nike. Since I need an oxygen tank at second base if I try to leg out a double in softball, I'm not going to put either track to the test.

I'm interested in A-Trak's mix, but I haven't listened to it for longer than 15 or so minutes yet so I'm not ready to pass judgment yet. On iTunes, though, one exerciser reviewed it, writing - and I quote - "I bought it yesterday, and I was running with it. I think it's totally cool. When I done my bodywork, I feel very laxative."

We Agree! We Agree!

At Carrie Brownstein's "Monitor Mix," she bemoans the crappy results of iPod shuffle. She writes:

Additionally, by placing the songs in a horrible sequence, iPod shuffle highlights the weaknesses of one's music collection instead of the strengths. After a few bad songs in a row, I begin to second-guess my taste in music. Why, for instance, do I still have that one Ludacris song on there, or entire albums by Mastodon, Journey, or The Magic Numbers when all I need is a handful of songs? Also, there seems to be too much Beatles and Roxy Music and not nearly enough Wilco or Springsteen. And why play only my least favorite songs by my favorite bands?

Not surprisingly, those who have commented on her blog entry all agree with her. I'm interested in Brownstein's blog, but too often the vibe I get from the readers is 'Me and Carrie from Sleater-Kinney agree,' so I don't spend much time reading the comments.

I've had unpleasant shuffling experiences as well. Mine became fixated on 1980s Joni Mitchell, stuff I put on the iPod with the hope that a new context would make me like it more. Those Joni tracks aren't there anymore, but in general, I've enjoyed hearing songs in odd contexts, and I've found contexts that make songs stand out that I thought were minor on the albums they came from. And compensating for my iPod's love of Joni is its ability to find its way back to John Cale's Vintage Violence or anything by Nikki Sudden.

And I've discovered why so much third tier, regional R&B didn't find a bigger audience. Heard next to each other, rare groove tracks, songs from the Night Train to Nashville sets and tunes from the Eccentric Soul series seem like cool variations on the themes that produced hits. Heard in a more eclectic context, their generic natures becomes clearer.

Early in the piece, Brownstein articulates the promise of shuffle as "an endless radio station that only plays your music," and at the end, she challenges readers to see if they like or can even tolerate the first five selections made by their iPod shuffle. I'd challenge readers to find a radio station that plays five songs in a row that they like, and if they find it, I want to know about it.

"Louisiana 1927"

From my recent comment on New Orleans' embrace of "Louisiana 1927" for the L.A. Weekly:

Like so many Newman songs, “Louisiana 1927” is tough to pin down as it moves from a narrator dramatically documenting the flood, to a chorus sung by the flood victims, to an account of President Coolidge’s chilly response to the flooding: “Little fat man, isn’t it a shame what the river has done to this poor cracker’s land.” The politician is insulting, even when sympathizing, and the first verses and chorus are there to set up the satire of a callous, indifferent government — one that spoke to the song’s Nixonian moment as much as Coolidge’s administration.

Obviously, it’s also spot-on today. Much has been made of the photo of Bush during the fly-over, but little has been written about the way the airspace had to be cleared of rescue helicopters before Air Force One could swing by for a look-see. Bush didn’t simply just offer platitudes in the face of disaster the way Newman’s Coolidge did; he actively obstructed the rescue effort for a photo op.

Thanks to Randall Roberts at the weekly, who put in all the cool video in the posting that I'm (so far) too lazy to do here.