Greetings,

Today's Mystery Date will work a bit differently than how we've conducted these in the past. Rather than post an "unmarked" mp3 for you to identify, I'm posting a screen capture from a video. Excluding Townsman E. Pluribus Gergely, who chose this frame for analysis in our recent long night's work, the first Townsperson who can identify the video from which this screen capture appears will not only win an actual musically relevant PRIZE but, more importantly, can claim the top rock nerd honors on our most recent Last Man Standing, on bands that have employed two drummmers.

Are you ready for our Mystery Date? For those who feel they can handle the full weight of what's to follow...

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Name a band with two drummers. It's okay if they just have the second drummer for their live set up, a' la Genesis, but bands with a drummer and a percussionist do not count. Eligible bands must have two full contraption kits.

I'll start with the aforementioned Genesis.

You were expecting Wham?

This afternoon I found myself back in the dentist's chair. Part of my four-session, four-figure, root canal journey. It's not all that pleasant to have the inside of a tooth filed clean. Even when it has been heavily sedated.

But the whole situation was made worse - much, much worse by the soundtrack. Dentists of course always want nice relaxing background music. Maybe some warbling [cough] r'n'b, or classic hits to hum along to as they drill and fill. Maybe a little Erik Satie. So what was the sound that had me begging for mercy in the dentist's chair? Right now it is July. I am in Australia. The dental music of choice? It was "Last Christmas," by Wham. Yes, during root canal.

The question is, have Town Hall members had similar inappropriate music moments?

(Please note: I spared you a link to any video connected to any of the above.)

A few months ago I discussed with HVB, The Back Office, and The Mod (collectively “the Board Members”) the possibility of forming a Rock Town Hall Recording Society. The concept would be that someone records a basic track (as simple as just a beat or a single instrument track, but no more complicated that a sparse track containing chords and a melody/lyrics). Then, they would forward it to the next person in line so they could add something to it, and so on until we have a finished track. We could evaluate each addition and decide whether or not it should stay in the mix. If we could figure out a way to forward the thing as unmixed tracks, then everyone could take a shot at a final mix. The idea is that anything on any track can be edited, deleted or replaced, including my lyrics or melody. No experience necessary!

The main issue is what format would we use.

This should be a digital project. That way we could have all of the tracks sync up while their being passed from machine to machine. Also, I think we should be able to save the tracks as WAV files and it wouldn’t matter if people were using PCs or Macs. Based on my previous discussions the Board Members, a series of WAV files would quickly become too big to e-mail, so we might need to snail mail a disc from person to person. I’m not a very tech savvy guy, so Board Members feel free to remind me why this wouldn’t work.

I have a song that I wrote back in the days when RTH was a Yahoo Group. Someone had suggested that we write short songs about Angry Gnomes. I wrote one that day but have never recorded it. I’d gladly offer up that gem as a starting point. If that’s the starting point, I could record a rhythm guitar track and a scratch vocal track. It’s about a minute long.

I’m certain the final outcome will conclusively prove that creating art by committee is a fool’s errand but I think it could be an interesting journey, especially if we get to the point where different people are mixing the same tracks.

Anybody want to give this a shot? Any suggestions how to make it work?

I've got something to confess. Although I'm known for my fair-balanced impersonal moderation of Rock Town Hall, there are times in which I struggle to maintain my balance, times when I need to catch myself and say, Hey, it's about them, not me! Last night was one of those times.

I had the following post ready to load, until a force that's hard to explain made me think better of it. It's not enough that I thought better of posting what I wanted to post; I feel compelled to share with you the depths to which I almost sunk...after the jump!

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Friends of mine will either know or will have gathered by now that I've been working on a collection of childrens' music for the last month or so. It's been fun. A wonderful 79-year-old Jewish grandmother comes into the studio, hands me a lyric sheet and sings a few lines, and then I get to do what I want with them. Some songs are substantively expanded, edited and/or rewritten; others are fun just as they are and just get a bit of polish. This one, entitled "Bubblegum," was one of the "I went ape-shit crazy, rewrote everything and loved every minute of it" variety. When I played it for my business partner, I was surprised by his reaction to a very specific section of it. I told him I would turn it over to you, the most music-obsessive parents I know, for your thoughts.

Bubblegum

Please note that this is an early take on the song, featuring a somewhat rough mix and "for placement only" drum loops in the place of what will eventually be a real human pounding the skins. So please leave the tweaky-tweaky engineering comments, if you have any, at the door. The issue under review is more substantive than that. Note that you may not hear it, or not care if you do. I just need to know whose team you're on -- mine or Uncle Steve's!

While you're at it, by the way, a question: are you, or were you, if the relevant years have passed, frustrated by the general lousiness of children's music out there? Any recommendations? How do you gently pour kid-friendly -- but good -- music down your child's gullet?

I look forward to your comments.

HVB

Happy birthday, Mick.

This weekend the band I'm in with a few Townsman played semi-acoustic at a house concert. In 25 years (and then some) with the core of us playing together, I don't think we ever played as acoustic as we did on Saturday night: both of our guitarists played primarily acoustic stringed instruments (our other guitarist, Jim McMahon, played 12-string acoustic, mandolin, and something called a charango) only mic'd, not using any pickups, which we thought would defeat the purpose. The two of us even sat on stools, which I don't think I'd ever done in concert before, not even when I played in a primarily acoustic band with Townsman E. Pluribus Gergely. It was cool. I felt like one of the guys from Badfinger in Concert for Bangladesh.

There were some other firsts for our band that resulted from that gig, but perhaps the most significant one was it was the first time we ever covered a Grateful Dead song. The hosts for our show are Deadheads, and we wanted to give them a treat. The obvious choice was "Bertha," a Dead song that hints at a Motown beat and contains no extraneous "space" breakdowns. For some reason, I was the obvious choice to take the solo. In preparing for the solo, I asked myself, What would Jerry do?

Although I didn't have time to match his facility in moving up and down the neck in his loopy approach to the pentatonic scale, I could focus on a couple of keys that would unlock the secrets of Jerry's soloing style:

• Give all notes equal rhythmic weight, minimizing rests, syncopations, and the like.
• Maintain a pleasant, easy-going facade while soloing, avoiding the urge to make any kind of Rock Faces.

These two simple keys aided my performance. I stumbled on one segment of my solo and another time I unsuccessfully fought the urge to crack a sarcastic smile, but for the most part I felt like I'd learned something. Should I have the opportunity to play this or another Dead song in the future, what other keys might I find in unlocking the secrets to Jerry's soloing style?

As maybe a corollary to our recent Rock Aldas and Grouchos thread, I've been thinking about a few instances of musical and other artistic performances and works that almost singlehandedly justified an entire genre that never previously appealed to me - and that may cause me some pause to this day.

One of my favorite Lenny Bruce bits from his Carnegie Hall Concert album begins with the self-confessed jazz afficianado talking about this relatively new genre of rock 'n roll. He says that he doesn't dig most of it, slipping in a mocking chorus of "Yackety Yack," but that there's one song out called "Spanish Harlem." He asks his audience if they've ever heard it, quoting the opening verse. "It's so pretty," he says. This one rock 'n roll song has clearly opened his mind to the fact that the genre may contain other gems. Dig?

Tonight, after the kids went to bed, my wife reminded that I could catch the end of the Vincente Minelli-Gene Kelly-Leslie Caron masterpiece, An American in Paris. I quickly turned it on just in time to catch the mindblowing, long fantasy sequence that ends the movie, a scene that chokes me up in recognition of its beauty just thinking about it. Sure enough the sequence got me for at least the 25th time. I'm not a big fan of dance and choreography by any means, but Gene Kelly is by far the one dancer I love seeing in action. He's so athletic, not showy. I can appreciate him as an athlete more than an "entertainer." Likewise, the fantasy ballet sequence that brings home An American in Paris strikes me as a work of art that fully expresses the emotional content of the film. It's not some stitched-in talent show piece, as I find most dance sequences, even in the better musicals. The Gershwin music with the choreography and the choreographed camera work speak to me like no other dance sequence I've ever seen. Only Saturday Night Fever's big dance to "More Than a Woman" comes remotely close to speaking to me on any level.

Those of you who know me and know my complete lack of interest in dance and musicals may agree with my wife that my love for An American in Paris is the most surprising thing that I love.* I'm still shocked myself, but as I told her, that scene is so pretty and well done that, for me, it singlehandedly justifies the entire art of choreography. It's the only thing that keeps my mind open even a sliver to the possibility that any other piece of choreography I'll ever see might contain a shred of worthwhile storytelling and emotional content. I'm still a complete oaf when it comes to appreciating choreographed dance, but at least I'm willing to believe it has a place in the arts.

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What's the best rock song about travel to the moon or other points in space? As Rock Town Hall marks the 40th anniversary of humankind's first landing on the moon, I can't help but think back to the night, as a 6-year-old boy, my family gathered around a little B&W tv at the apartment we were renting in Ocean City, New Jersey. I went to bed late that night, sleeping in the top bunk of the kids' bedroom. I awoke on the floor the next morning, presumably having rolled out of bed, dropping 5 feet, and probably getting knocked unconscious before I had a chance to awake from my fall. The other thing I've been thinking about is David Bowie's "Space Oddity." That song always painted such a clear picture of space travel when I was a kid, and it still does today.

What's your favorite Moon Rock song?