Apr 282007
 

PORTLAND, OR – After 23 years in development, former Nixon’s Head and Autumn Carousel musician Mike Fingeroff has released a White Paper in support of the pending release of Strat-o-Matic Rock ‘n Roll, a virtual band development, composing, and recording tool.

“Although I respect the work Pete Townshend and his developers have been doing,” said Fingeroff in a recent interview, “their software will allow users to create little more than a musical self-portrait. That’s cool, but what rock ‘n roll fans really want to know is, ‘What would a band with Jimi Hendrix, John Bonham, John Entwistle, and Gary Rossington sound like?'”

What Strat-o-Matic Rock ‘n Roll offers is not only a chance to form these Supergroups but, through the software, to accurately simulate the writing and recording of original music. The possibiliities are endless, but the best way to understand exactly how this works is to study the following White Paper. Fingeroff will be available to field your technical questions.

Strat-o-Matic Rock ‘n Roll is a real-time system level performance modeler. It differs from other “performance engines” in that it allows both the novice and expert musician to create complete musical productions by applying a series of constraints in the design environment. The end result is pristine audio with song qualities that can rival creations that would normally takes years of practice to duplicate.

The key patent-pending technologies involve a combination of Linear Predictive Coding techniques for modeling vocal tract formant frequency acoustics (Fig. 1), Blind Adaptive Filtering analysis (Fig. 2) and reproduction of numerous amps, guitars, acoustics, etc, and Neural Networks for “on the fly” performance creation and modeling of a wide range of rock-n-roll styles.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

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Apr 272007
 

Don’t be shy. Surely you’ve got an answer.

What’s the happening album you’ve been spinning of late, old or new?

Are you or have you ever been into “hot rod music” – with all those rockabilly, hellcat, headlight, and pommade associations?

Can the exaggerated “vampire rock” of goth-related artists like Bauhaus and The Birthday Party (and other heavier Nick Cave projects, including this new Grinderman CD) be seen as an update of the hot rod ethos?

Opera excluded, have you ever been able to get into any foreign-language music and love it as much as something sung in English? I ask because I just downloaded a bunch of African guitar stuff that sounds really good and I know will be good background music for painting rooms and editing manuscripts, but as with other foreign-language albums I’ve bought over the years, I fear I’ll never get the added kick of being able to sing along with them. Some of the stuff is in French, so at least I can make out the gist of some couplets.

Perhaps you’ve got your own dugout chatter to stir. What’s the one question that hasn’t been asked yet?

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All-Star Jam

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Apr 262007
 


Boy, to hear you tell it around here, Hotel California is the worst thing ever recorded, and another thing…Hey, that’s not Jan!

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Apr 252007
 


If you’ll recall, we’d been making some progress toward a working definition of Proctomusicology and its practitioners’ common threads as expressed in what is becoming known as Prock music.

If the Proctomusicologist, as another Townsperson remarked, displays, “an overt intention to approach rock from an intellectual mindset,” then Todd Rundgren might be an artist we can study and use toward furthering our definition. If you have not already viewed the opening clip of Todd’s flashy, self-consciously bluesy performance of “Black Mariah”, I encourage you to do so now…

What did you think? There’s the obvious play for the glam market; the second-rate self-conscious “Yer Blues”-like use of blues structure; the green-haired taller brother of Paul Williams twiddling knobs, the last psychedelic painted guitar, chops and perms a’plenty… And how ’bout that intro: “You know what, he looks like he does everything!” All around, it’s a pretty joyless and stifling performance, no?
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All-Star Jam

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Apr 252007
 


Does every know that this is a real place? (though this wasn’t shot there) In fact there are two of them and they are really, really good.

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Apr 252007
 


Ever feel like you were the last person to get into an artist? About 2 years ago, Townsman Kpdexter burned me a CD with about 25 albums on it, most of which I’d never heard. In short time, Stephen MalkmusFace the Truth moved to the top of my playlist. I went out and bought the album, and it’s held onto the top spot as my favorite album of the 21st century ever since.

Similarly, after years of resisting overtures from lovers of the band, including one who dumped a copy of the sacred Bee Thousand on my lap, I used a gift certificate to buy that 30-track Guided By Voices “best of” collection, and what do you know? Suddenly, I was the last person past the age of being able to know better to get into the band.

Lately, a good 30+ years since first rejecting Heart up and down, I’m thinking I need to revisit their classic works and see if it’s not too late to sign on as a fan. I must say, Malkmus and GBV were very forgiving, even allowing me to dip into their back catalogs without mockery.

Do you recall ever having been late for the party?

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Apr 242007
 

Help me out today, drummers. Townswoman Sally Cinnamon sent me this Mod-era instrumental by The Jay Jays called “The Cruncher”. Pretty cool song with pretty cool drumming and guitar fragments. The drummer is playing what I call aerosol cymbals, a style of cymbal playing most frequently associated with Ringo Starr‘s work on early Beatles records. It has an undeniable appeal on early listens, but you may be aware by now that Mr. Moderator is typically uncomfortable with anything more than quarter notes on the ride cymbal and tight, controlled hi-hats. He could do without all but a handful of well-placed crash cymbals in any song. Check out what the drummer is doing in this song:

The Jay Jays, “The Cruncher”*

Now, please explain to your drum-naive Moderator the value of this style of playing, what cymbal is being smashed repeatedly, and why this style only seems to work in songs recorded from 1961-1965. Thank you.

*Rock Town Hall apologizes profusely for providing a digital version of this song. We do not yet have the technology to run an actual mono mix on a scratchy 45 through a Close-and-Play record player. Along the same lines, we apologize for the fact that some of our Townspeople are well past puberty.

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