Thought the Hall might like this. Cool site called Tubalr.com that lets you make a playlist of youtube videos without all the extra crap that comes with youtube. It just plays one song after another. Very clean design, too. And you can make playlists.
enjoy.
DOWNLOAD LINK: Rick Buckler Crash Cymbal Quotient Analysis, edited source material
I pass along a note I received today from RTH Labs’ Senior Music Engineer, Milo T. Frobisher:
MEMORANDUM
FROM: Milo T. Frobisher, Senior Music Engineer, RTH Labs
TO: Townsman Hrrundivbakshi, Senior RTH Labs Liaison
RE: Rick Buckler’ Crash Cymbal Quotient/Numerical Crash Analysis, “Away From the Numbers”
Townsman Hrrundivbakshi, I send this quick note to summarize our recent research findings in re: Rick Buckler’s Crash Cymbal Quotient (CCQ), as found in “Away From the Numbers,” by the Jam.
Our methodology was simple, though far from easy: over the full four minutes (exactly) of this song, our junior engineers counted the exact number of times Rick Buckler deployed his crash cymbal for rhythmic emphasis. Please note that we did not undertake the low-frequency extraction from his snare as you requested, nor a pattern analysis of his tom fills to determine their similarity to, or substantive difference from, those of KISS’ Peter Criss, aka “Cat Man.”
I should warn you that by listening to the edited source material above, in which we replaced each instance of Buckler hitting his crash cymbal with a spoken word marker, you run a significant risk of never being able to listen to this song in the same fashion again. I should specifically point out that my nephew, James Frobisher — an intern in RTH Labs — needed to physically remove himself from the Laboratory premises after being asked to do the CCQ analysis in the instrumental break in the middle of this song, so profound was its effect on his young mind. You have been warned.
The results of our investigation are startling. Over the course of this four-minute song, Rick Buckler hits the crash cymbal — importantly, he seems to hit the same cymbal every time — a total of 137 times. By our base-60 calculations, that amounts to, roughly, one cymbal crash every 1.8 seconds. We leave it to you and your more contextual thinkers in the Hall to determine the subjective value of this datum.
Thank you for your time in this matter. I look forward to working with you further in the future.
MTF
Bev Bevan and Rick Buckler have been raked over the coals in this long-suspended series already. Today a Townsperson other then E. Pluribus Gergely finally called bullshit on the drumming of Big Star’s Jody Stephens. In honor of cdm‘s candidness, let’s open the floor to other drummers who suck* despite powering the rhythms of bands we love!
*A point of clarification: By “worst” or “suck” I’m not really asking for a list of the technically worst drummers in rock, if any of us are even capable of assessing that, but drummers whose playing you find necessary to overlook (overhear?) while listening to a favorite artist.
I dig The Jam as much as most of you. Sure, I’ve got my beefs with drummer Rick Buckler, but I have given him props for his running skills. I can’t stand The Style Council, but that doesn’t color my views on The Jam or Paul Weller’s solo career. I’m not a fan of bassist Bruce Foxton’s bass tone, and that does factor into what I’m about to say.
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Driving home from Maine in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago, with my boys asleep in the back, my wife half out of it, and the iPod plugged into my car stereo and set to SHUFFLE, The Jam‘s “That’s Entertainment” came on. I had the volume down on the stereo so I wouldn’t wake anyone, but I started to get annoyed that I couldn’t follow the lyrics to this old favorite. I’m not married to lyrics – and I’m definitely not one of those people who search for a lyric sheet as soon as I buy a new album – but I’ve always like Paul Weller’s lyrics and will eventually pore over his latest set of words. I’ve always liked the lyrics to “That’s Entertainment,” but on this night, with the volume turned down, I couldn’t make out what he was singing. I had to stir my wife.
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Which songwriters come to mind when you think, Songwriters who frequently employ nonsense syllables to carry the melody? I think of two Pauls: Simon and Weller. It seems every third song by them includes a section that’s nothing more than melodic Las or Oohs. Are there other songwriters who stand out for using this device? No artists with a notable example only, please.
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The previous year, Polydor had rejected the fifth full-length Style Council studio album, the house-influenced Modernism: A New Decade, and John fought Paul’s corner, lifting head of Polydor David Munns out of his chair during a particularly fractious meeting and telling him: “You don’t talk about my son like that.”
One of rock’s coolest dads, John Weller, who supported and managed son Paul‘s career from his earliest rock aspirations as a teenager through The Jam, The Style Council, and his rebirth as a solo artist, has died. I don’t know a whole lot about the guy, but I’ve seen interviews with him and read some stuff and I’ve always thought that if either of my sons wants to be a rock musician, I’d like to be as willing as John Weller was to be in his son’s corner and help him achieve his rock dreams. Pere Weller had excellent hair to boot!
NEXT: Rock Town Hall’s Official Eulogy…
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