Tag: music

A proper Minnesotan

I always enjoy these old stories about Prince.

A member of Prince’s band, Morris Hayes, recalls one instance in which the singer, clad in a turtleneck sweater and fuzzy boots, walked in to a hardware store to the shock of locals in Minnesota.

‘People are looking like, “Oh my God, Prince is in the hardware store!”,’ Hayes said.

Hayes then recalled how Prince had walked into the Ace store even though the car they drove was still in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition.

‘I’m [saying to him], “What did you do with the car?”’

‘He says, “It’s out there—it’s just running”.’

‘I said, “Prince, you can’t leave the car running—somebody could just steal the car”.’

‘He said, “This is Chanhassen—nobody’s gonna steal the car”.’

‘So we get out to the car and sure enough it’s out there, just running, smoke coming out of the tailpipe.’

‘And he’s like, “I told you”.’

A couple of observations. First, notice that no one at the hardware store spoke to him, they just looked. No one ever pestered Prince in Minnesota, you just don’t bother someone because he happens to be famous, which was one thing he really liked about living there. If Prince wanted to talk to you, he’d send someone over to let you know.

Second, based on the way Hayes describes things, it was probably winter. Winter is REALLY REALLY cold there. So, it’s pretty common to leave the car running if you’re not going to be in the store for that long. It’s kind of weird when it’s really cold, because the smoke actually drops to the ground when it comes out of the tailpipe.

And third, he was right, at least back in the day. No one was ever going to steal your car when you left it running. People did it all the time back then. It would be nice to think that they still do.

You don’t need to die

Paisley Park opened to the public:

The complex opens one week before a memorial tribute concert in St. Paul, which is adjacent to Minneapolis. The public opening of the studio complex is a milestone for music lovers and historians. The complex opened in 1987, and was a fully functional recording studio used by a number of artists during its peak in the 1990s, including the Stone Temple Pilots, REM and Madonna.

Among the various acts that recorded there was Psykosonik. We recorded and mixed Unlearn there, although I spent almost no time in the studio since my only meaningful input on that CD was lyrical. Dan and Paul were going in a mellower, more ambient direction, and both Mike and I were not interested in it. We both left the band at the same time, after the CD was recorded, but before it was released, to focus on computer games.

However, I thought that one song off Unlearn, “Need to Die”, would be of interest in light of yesterday’s post about the way in which the choice to confront one’s fears or run from them as a young man tends to play a significant role in an individual’s life. Keep in mind that the song was written 22 years before “The Broken Freaks of Fandom”.



Caught in the mist like a rain shower
Life’s got you between your eyes
And wishful thinking don’t make it go away
That’s no surprise, yeah
There’s no surprise
Of living a lie
There’s no surprise


Face your fears alone now
And make them fly
When your dreams come home now
You don’t need to die


Been holding back on your inside
Looks like you hide it well
But laughing faces can’t cover all your pain,
That keeps you in Hell
That keeps you in Hell
If only for a day
That keeps you in Hell
If only for a day


Face your fears alone now
And make them fly
When your dreams come home now
You don’t need to die

Just here to pay my respects

Some of you might call him Harambee, you know what I’m saying?
It don’t make no difference, if he was alive, he wouldn’t want us fighting.
Over the pronunciation of his name.
So let’s just, be humble, yeah.

Get ’em out

I would like to apologize in advance, because you’re going to be singing this amazing song for the rest of the evening, whether you want to or not. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll take your pants off, you’ll listen to it 37 straight times.

 He was the king of the jungle now he’s king of my heart 
And I’m Curious George, when did this all start? 
Well my life fell apart when you killed him. 
Man, Harambe was a real one (I miss you)
Yeah, you can’t stop this shine
Cuz I know he’s watching us from the sky

Mind. Blown.

Now, you all know that I love Babymetal, and I thought it was pretty cool that they were playing “Breaking the Law” with Rob Halford of Judas Priest at the Alternative Press Music Awards. So, naturally, I had to check it out. But the last thing I expected was who was going to start playing guitar on stage….

Yui is only strumming along, but Moa can actually play, even though their guitars weren’t mixed very loud, if it all. And Su is obviously having a great time being on stage with Rob Halford.

遠征

Spacebunny heard Babymetal was going to be in Switzerland, a reasonable drive by American Midwestern standards, so she arranged to acquire some tickets as an early Father’s Day present. We prepared accordingly for the drive north… and yes, the bones do actually glow in the dark.

I was not the only one in costume. The various metalheads and headbangers greeted our outfits with distinct approval, as did the natives; cars were honking at us, and more than a few drivers waved and gave us thumbs-ups.

The venue was small and held about 1,000 people, with a stage that wasn’t much bigger than that of 7th Street Entry. The Kami band was great, Yui and Moa were ridiculously cute and hopped around like little Japanese Energizer bunnies, and Su-metal’s voice was surprisingly strong in the live environment. Ironically, the one downside of Babymetal is that the Kami band can be a little too focused on demonstrating their technical chops; they often sacrifice the song structure in order to show they can play as hard and as fast as anyone.

That’s why the audience was a little slow to totally get into it until they played Karate, which is more conventionally structured and has an anthemic quality to it as well as a big pop chorus. When they followed it up with Megitsune, the whole place blew up. There wasn’t enough space to do all the Road of Resistance theatrics properly, but the girls did bring out the black flags and got the crowd into singing along. I was a little disappointed they didn’t do Onedari Daisuken, but they did do Gimme Chocolate from the first album.

My favorite part was when the girls took a break, the two guitarists and the bassist mounted the pillars on which the girls had been standing at the front of the stage, and took turns doing some impressive solos. The two guitarists were very, very good, but the bassist played an Eddie Van Halen-style guitar solo on the bass, which is something I’d never actually seen before. It was a really fun show, and we all had a blast.

Mailvox: and this is me laughing at you

I always find it interesting to observe human behavior whenever I put up a music post. In addition to those who are locked in time and can’t pull their ossified preferences out of the 60s/70s/80s/90s through which they lived their formative years, I’m always somewhat mystified by those who seem to think that discussing music is some sort of competitive sport.

I mean, if instead of discussing the example at hand, your instinct is to say “you know what is even better!” (link), then how are you ever going to analyze or understand anything at all? I just don’t get that.

But what is probably funniest is those who appear to sincerely believe that they just happened to be between the ages of 14 and 19 when the greatest music in the history of mankind was recorded. Not only that, but even the young appreciate this when exposed for the very first time in their lives to music they have certainly never ever heard before and now vastly prefer it to the songs they listened to before, and continue to listen to afterwards.

No, Virginia, Journey is not the musical pinnacle of the human experience. Neither, I am sorry to inform you, is Led Zeppelin, even if “Stairway to Heaven” was the #1 request on KQRS for the 42nd year in a row this year.

(I have to admit, one of the unexpected pleasures of my life has been Millennials expressing a genuine appreciation for the various musical innovations of the 80s while snorting in derision at the lack of creativity, poor production, and technical inferiority of the Classic Rock that was repeatedly shoved down our Generation X throats by the Baby Boomers. Don’t get me wrong, I like “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Carry On, My Wayward Son” as much as the next guy, but music from that era now sounds as technologically dated now as the music from the 1950s did in the 1980s.)

As Bill Simmons wrote of basketball, you can respect the classic BMW for doing what it did first while understanding that the modern car is simply a much better automobile across the board. Anyhow, in response to some of the comments.

Sorry, Vox, you have no musical taste whatsoever.

I appreciate everything from Wagner and Vivaldi to Babymetal and DNCE and I can tell you exactly why in each case. But how can all of that compare to Skynrd? FREEBIRD!

I would like to commend you on not allowing your musical taste to age as you do. Too many continue to listen to what was popular when they were teenagers and it is embarrassing when these people attempt to foist their taste on next generation.

I understand why so many people age out, and it is entirely normal, but I find it absurd to dismiss music simply because it happens to have been recorded after you passed the age of caring intensely about music. And it’s particularly stupid to say “X is just Y” because it’s not true. In fact, quite often, X is musically influenced by Y, and Y not only recognizes that, but appreciates it.

Ironically, musicians are much more catholic in their tastes and generous in their praise than most of their fans are. I’ll never forget hearing Tommy Lee waxing on about what great musicians the guys in Duran Duran were, at a time when every Motley Crue fan would have dismissed them out of hand.

This is a joke right? I mean there is nothing funnier in the world then seeing the millennials victimized by their own sick twisted thinking and philosophy. The first thing I thought of when I heard the lyrics was that a Section 8 negro or illegal immigrants stole his car stereo haha…

It seems many of you fail to understand that the songwriter should be judged on how well he manages to evoke the emotion he is expressing rather than how you feel about the emotions being expressed. The mere fact that so many non-Millennials reacted so badly to the Millennial sense of loss and the desire to return to “the good old days” of childhood demonstrates how powerful the songwriting is.

You can learn a lot about a generation by listening to the music of its youth, and you can learn a lot about the history of that time too. It’s almost heartbreaking now to hear the optimism of the early 90s; I can barely stand to listen to the wonderfully intelligent Jesus Jones song, “Right Here, Right Now”, because now we know that we woke up from history only to get run over by the bus it was driving. We thought that we could move any mountain and that something good was going to happen, and we were so absolutely wrong.

Great song, it sounds like they couldn’t make up their mind what genre
they want to be in, so they went with all of them (emo, rock anthem,
trance).

Even more than that. They can do anything from country to early 80s to techno. Moreover, they know it and are not above musically flexing their muscles to flaunt it.

All these songs I’m hearing are so heartless
Don’t trust a perfect person and don’t trust a song that’s flawless
Honest, there’s a few songs on this record that feel common
I’m in constant confrontation with what I want and what is poppin’
In the industry it seems to me that singles on the radio are currency
My creativity’s only free when I’m playin’ shows

They say stay in your lane, boy, lane ,boy
But we go where we want to

They may not be confident about much, but they are certainly secure in their musical abilities and songwriting.

That singer is a whiny little bitch. I prefer Sabaton when I’m lifting weights in the gym.

And then I eat red meat, raw, and throw down a couple of brewskis before I go out and slay some pussy!

I still say he needs a beatdown. It would straighten out his thinking a lot.

This is backwards. They are already beaten down. That is why they are looking backwards rather than forwards. That is also why they are so offensive to the Baby Boomers, who can’t help but react to their implicit rejection of Boomer assumptions and ideals.

In my view, those of previous generations who dismiss Twenty One Pilots for being quintessentially Millennial are completely missing the point and failing to ask the salient question. Why do they express such a sense of loss? What is it that they are missing, what is the yearning in their generation that they express so vividly? There is a depth there that is absent in the vapid self-absorption of Boomer music as well as in the optimism turned bitter of Gen X music, to say nothing of the superficial posturings of more than three decades worth of the musical dead end that is rap.

They may not have the answers, but they are asking the right questions. And they may not be the fighters, but they will raise them.

Seriously good

I don’t mind being older and out of it musically. Every now and then the itch to write and record strikes me, but I haven’t paid any attention to new releases for over a decade, and what I hear at the gym and on the radio seldom gives me any cause to regret that. I liked rap back in the Public Enemy and NWA days, but it really has turned out to be the musical dead end some said it was always bound to be.

Now, I did like “Stressed Out” a lot, but for all its potential to serve as the Millennial anthem, it sounded like just another good one-hit wonder band to me. I mean, “Cake by the Ocean” is even catchier. But then I heard this, which has me going through their entire catalog now, which is surprisingly interesting. “Semiautomatic” and “Lane Boy” are nearly as good, and “House of Gold” is nearly as pretty, but this is just a very, very good song… just be sure to stick with it until the third minute.

I promise you, it doesn’t go where one naturally assumes it will; it’s more than white Millennial emo-rap. And, of course, I can’t help but notice that techno is one of their musical influences or that there are Christian themes woven into their lyrics.

A summary of 2015

While we’re on the subject of music, one of my old NoBoys bandmates runs though the 2015 pop roundup with his a capella group, Face Vocal Band. One of these days, I’ll post a link to the first song he ever wrote, which is a bizarre one about a fish in love with a little girl who visits the sea shore.

There is no room for false modesty

Not where genius is concerned:

Keyboardist Morris Hayes arrived at Paisley Park as a production assistant. Under Prince’s tutelage, he eventually became not just a member of the New Power Generation but the band’s most senior member.

“I was just one of those church cats that played music by ear, so at first it was very difficult for me to keep up. We wouldn’t just learn one song, we’d learn a string of songs, and when we’d come back the next day I’d forget some. I remember he pulled me to the side and said, ‘Are you a genius, Morris?’ I said no. ‘O.K., then write it down. I don’t write it down ‘cause I’m a genius. I’ve got a million of ‘em, and I can remember. But unless you’re a genius, write it down.’ He gave you that extreme focus, where you knew you had to really come with it.”

It’s fascinating that unlike so many gifted individuals, Prince was able to coach less talented and help them improve. I wonder if that might have had something to do with his early relationship with Andre Cymone, his friend from junior high and member of both Grand Central and The Revolution, of whom it was said that he could play everything Prince could play, but only if Prince showed him how to do it first. Speaking of which, this article about his performance at the 2004 ceremony honoring George Harrison tends to support that anecdote as well as put both both his performance and his demeanor in context.

I had no idea that Prince was going to be there. Steve Winwood said, “Hey, Prince is over there.” And I said, “I guess he’s playing with us?”

So I said to Winwood, “I’m going to go over and say hello to him.” I wandered across the stage and I went up to him and I said, “Hi, Prince, it’s nice to meet you — Steve Ferrone.” And he said, “Oh, I know who you are!” Maybe because I’d played on Chaka Khan’s “I Feel for You,” which is a song that he wrote. I went back over and I sat down behind the drum kit, and Winwood was like: “What’s he like? What’d he say?”

Then I was sitting there, and I heard somebody playing a guitar riff from a song that I wrote with Average White Band. And I looked over and Prince was looking right at me and playing that song. And I thought, “Yeah, you actually do know who I am!”

I was actually more surprised that Prince had ever heard anything played by a band called Average White Band than at the fact he would remember a riff from it and be able to play it from memory. But then, they were pretty funky and even I would recognize “Pick up the Pieces”, so I suppose that makes sense.

My favorite part of the Harrison tribute article is how the clueless lead guitarist kept playing the Clapton solos in rehearsal and Prince didn’t make a fuss. He just strummed along, waited for someone else tell the guy to back off, then waited until they were on stage to show him how it’s done. Prince being Prince, I strongly suspect it was his quiet annoyance at the guy’s earlier failure to know his place that drove the unusual nature of his performance that night, particularly because he told the producer to let the guy go ahead and play the middle solo.


“Look, let this guy do what he does, and I’ll just step in at the end. For the end solo, forget the middle solo.”

That wasn’t just genius being expressed on that stage, it was also the contempt of a genius for mere talent and skill. Hey, even geniuses sometimes require motivation.