Milo T. Frobisher, Senior Research Analyst at RTH Labs, sent along the following, asking for your assistance:
Greetings, Hrrundi —
I wonder if you’d be so kind as to post the attached file on Rock Town Hall at your earliest convenience. It may help address the issue of “instant recollection” that some claim is possible upon hearing a few distinctive notes played on an elctric amplified guiitar. Our goal in assembling the audio sampler I’ve forwarded is to determine whether the notes are what is being recognized by RTH’s over-educated rock nerds, or the “tone” of the guitars in question. I for one have my doubts about the possibility that “tone” on its own is sufficient to generate recollection, but, with the help of RTH’s membership, we shall see.
You’ll note that all the audio samples in this collage are backwards. This should have no effect upon tone, but ought to do a reasonable job masking the musical phrases in question. I assure you all of the tunes in question, when played “forwards,” ought to be quite easily recognized by the basement-dwelling, mac-and-cheese-eating, pock-marked denizens of the Hall. To make matters easier, the RTH Labs have selected only the first second of all the songs being sampled.
If, as I suspect, few of the sampled songs are recognized, please post the second file I’ve attached, which features these same songs, played *forwards*. And please make it clear to those Townsmen with recording facilities enabling them to “flip” these tunes on their own, that doing so would run counter to both the spirit and technical purpose of this exercise.
Thank you once again for your service to the advancement of science in rock and roll, Hrrundi. You are a great asset to these halls, to be sure.
Sincerely,
Milo T. Frobisher
Senior Research Analyst
RTH Labs
Can you think of instances when more-established musicians try to re-cast themselves along the lines of a younger artist? Neil Young pretending to be Devo for an album does not count. I’m thinking more along the lines of the 30-year-old Pub Rock veterans who changed their date of birth and recast themselves, in 1976, as Punks.
Do you believe in Rock Repentance?
If given the chance to create a new ad campaign for a revamped AMC Pacer, what band/song would you use?
Do you own more “bad” Stones or “bad” Dylan albums?
Name something musical from a time you lived through that’s now considered part of a current-day nostalgic perspective on the era that does not ring true to your memory and experiences.
If there is such a thing as Rock Repentance, how might any of the following artists repent for their Rock Sins?
Twice in the last week, I punched up the local “classic rock” station on the car radio, and *twice* heard the exact same song the moment I switched to the station. I’ve attached an audio collage of snippets from the tune, processed a bit to do a decent job of masking the artist in question. Your task: summon all you know about classic rock playlists — and tune your nerdy earbulbs — then tell me the artist and the song in question. First correct answer gets a coveted RTH No-Prize, and the opportunity to rant at length about how totally lame today’s “classic rock” playlists are.
Postscript: please note that these two times I tuned in the classic rock station were the *only* two times I’d tuned to the damn station in about three years!
As some of you know, Townsman and RTH Main Stage contributor cdm dedicates a significant piece of his busy schedule to his band, The Donuts. In what’s practically an RTH exclusive, the band has agreed to provide the Halls of Rock with an early look at their new video, “Guantanamo”, scheduled for release on election day. Check it out!
Great tune. Great Look! I’m jealous of the jumpsuits. Your fellow Townsperson, cdm, is playing the blonde Telecaster. This handsome cat is featured on the right side of your screen at the 1:12 mark. Sorry, rock nerds, he’s taken, but that doesn’t mean you can’t turn him onto some rare German import-only B-sides!
Some of us have lived in towns that have been namechecked in songs. Often, the namechecking means little to you or is even annoying. There may be, however, that one song with a geographical namecheck that makes you proud to have had a direct association with it. What song and geographical namecheck has this effect on you? It doesn’t have to be your hometown, but it has to be a geographical location that you’ve spent significant time in. What you might associate in your imagination of some song namechecking a place you’ve only passed through at best does not count.
I’ve got to think about a song with a geographical namecheck that might mean something to me. I’ve spent most of my life in Philadelphia, which has been referenced frequently, but of songs namechecking my hometown only the insignificant and/or annnoying ones come to mind, like “Philadelphia Freedom”. I’d like to say “Expressway to Your Heart”, which Philadelphians know is a reference to a heavily trafficked expressway that we all dread being stuck on, but the song doesn’t directly namecheck Philadelphia or the specific expressway, the Schuylkill.
The recent discussion of the Abbey Road medley and my ability to slowly appreciate it thanks to the “communion” of seeing it performed by a lame, local Beatles cover band at my town’s annual July 4th fireworks extravaganza reminded me of this post. Feel free to think beyond issues of The Beatles and their cover bands, if you like. Feel free to think about the concept of Rock Communion. Wasn’t that a big part of the allure of the Dead? Have you ever taken Rock Communion?
This post initially appeared 6/22/07.
For my recent birthday my brother bought me 2 tickets to see The Fab Faux play at The Bowery Ballroom in New York. The Fab Faux is a Beatles cover band led by longtime, lanky Letterman bassist Will Lee and Conan guitarist Jimmy Vivino. My brother knows what makes me tick. Although he’s aware of my multitude of hang-ups, he rightly ignores them and helps steer me toward the path of pure pleasure now and then. So he had no worries about sending me off to see a show in which I’d be faced with the second- or third-most annoying member of the Letterman band. He had no worries about my fear that the whole thing would be as bad as I imagine that Cirque du Soleil thing must be. A pointy guitar or a strap-on synth never entered his mind. To him, this was about a Beatles fan and the music of The Beatles.
When I heard about this gift coming my way, I got myself in a very positive frame of mind, so much so that I was able to talk my wife, who can be as critical as yours truly, into a decent state of mind. For one thing, we’d get some time to ourselves in a favorite spot in New York, Soho. The theater was a mere few blocks away from our favorite restaurant, Balthazar, which we hit a few times a year. Traffic from Philadelphia to the Holland Tunnel complied with our mid-day departure plan, and we readily found street parking. The only thing that didn’t go perfectly right leading up to the show was my not seeing Kyle MacLachlan, who my wife spotted crossing a street. I got a look at him from the back, and his hair was long and dyed light brown. He must have looked a lot like his Ray Manzarek character from the front. Damn!
Regrets? I had one.
As we waited for the band to come out, I explained to my wife that this show could only be fun. A crappy Beatles cover band plays at our town’s July 4th fireworks each year, and we enjoy them simply because they’re playing the music of The Beatles. People of all ages and tastes feel good hearing the music of The Beatles on a warm summer night before fireworks shoot off. As we scanned the audience full of middle-aged Beatles dorks (myself included, although I think I was about the coolest guy there), I told her this would be like Wednesday night guitar mass, the only type of Catholic mass I could stomach during my rare visits to church as a boy. Wednesday night guitar mass was as hip as punching the clock would get.
During the long wait until The Fab Faux hit the stage we bitched about all the Harry Shearer’s Le Show-type Beatles covers that played over the sound system (ie, The Beatles as covered by artists sounding like Randy Newman, The Neville Brothers, and others who think it’s a good idea to make Beatles songs sound like they’re being performed by middle-aged white men in Louis Armstrong blackface) and tried to position ourselves safely away from all the big white collar guys who’d toked their first joint since 1992 and who were itching to elbow those around them while playing air guitar to the songs. It turned out to be impossible to avoid these types.
Finally, an Asian woman came out, and I thought, “Christ, they’ve got a Yoko Ono character with them?!?!”Continue reading »
