The Beatles reissue and remix "Let It Be"

For the last few years, The Beatles have been reissuing remixed versions of their most treasured albums: Sgt Pepper, The White Album, Abbey Road, and my original thought has been "why?" I love those albums, but really, the only reason I can think of for remixing them is to do away with the dodgy 60s sounding stereo mixes. The engineers of the time didn't spend too much time on them (they spent all their energies perfecting the mono mix), so the panning of instruments sounds a bit odd to modern ears.  

And so it comes around to Let It Be in 2021. It too received the remix treatment, and again, why? Paul McCartney has already issued "Let It Be: Naked" in 2003. So let's dig into the what's here and why. 

Let It Be was a contentious project from the get go. Morale in the band was at an all time low, and trying to flesh out an idea for a project to re-ignite enthusiasm was difficult. The idea was to work up new material and play live again, but they owed their film company another picture - Yellow Submarine still was a way off yet. 

The Apple Corps project was a way to keep ownership of more of their money and intellectual property, so they formed a label and a publishing company, a recording studio, an electronics R&D centre, and a fashion boutique. Largely, it was a disaster. The Apple Boutique was a haven for shoplifters and lost money hand over foot, Magic Alex, in charge of electronic R&D was a shyster who squandered loads of cash and achieved nothing, and the record label was short lived and only moderately successful. It all went downhill from there. 

Get Back, as the project was originally coined, was designed as a circuit breaker, to get back to basics and work together as a band creating music, as opposed to in isolation as it was for most of the White Album. They also decided to film the creative process, but more on that later. 

Over the course of January 1969 they set about working up material, and also loosely jamming on old songs and vintage favourites. The filming took place on a sound stage at a film studio, but that was fraught with tension too. The live concert idea went through many iterations and ideas and they ended up just jamming on the roof of their offices in Saville Row, London. 

The project was shelved ultimately after no one could agree on a final product. A single was released from the project, "Get Back"/"Don't Bring Me Down" but nothing else surfaced. 

Glyn Johns, an engineer who would soon go on to engineer some of The Who's major triumphs, like "Who's Next" had a crack at making an album of the tapes, but the Beatles shelved his version. The only part that saw the light of day from Johns' mixes was the "Get Back" single. The tapes were handed over to Phil Spector, for him to tamper with, and provide the album we've all loved since 1970. 

Spector's production was notorious, because he added massed choirs, reverb and overblown orchestrations to the mix and to some listeners (and especially Paul McCartney), it killed the music with kindness. That's why Paul remixed and reissued Let It Be in the "Naked" format in 2003 - the way he wanted it to sound. 

This new boxed set was particularly anticipated by me, as I do love the music on this album, but as there has already been a revisionist version previously issued, plus outtakes on the Beatles Anthology and a number of bootlegs of this material, what is there that could be exhumed from the vaults that would be interesting?

As it turns out, this box included the official release of the Glyn Johns mix, although that has been doing the rounds on the internet as a bootleg for years now. The rest of the alternate takes are works in progress, that are reasonably sloppy and don't add much to the picture of the album's creation. There are some demos of songs that would end up on post Beatles solo albums, like Teddy Boy and Gimme Some Truth, and some rehearsals for songs that ended up on Abbey Road, however, a lot of that stuff was also on Anthology 3. 

The real revelations are the jams with Billy Preston, like "Without a Song", and a band rehearsal of "All Things Must Pass" that was rejected as a Beatles song (which is unthinkable knowing what we know now!).

The real money, in my view, is the fact that director Peter Jackson has been through the 50 hours of video footage and is creating a 6-hour documentary from the remaining footage that wasn't issued in the original 1970 film. There promises to be some seriously fascinating things uncovered in that, and for that I cannot wait. 

It was 20 years ago today...that the Beatles reunited

20 Years ago today The Beatles reunited for a mammoth TV retrospective called "The Beatles Anthology" with an accompanying 9LP/6CD Outtakes and rarities compilation to go with it.

To go along with it, they issued two singles, the first of which celebrates its 20th anniversary today. Entitled "Free As a Bird" it was reconstituted from a home cassette recorded demo by John Lennon. The other three assumed "John was away for the weekend" and finished it without him.

They enlisted the help of Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) frontman Jeff Lynne to produce the two singles. Longtime Beatles producer George Martin declined as his hearing was beginning to fail at that point. Lynne was a curious choice of producer. Suggested by George Harrison, as he'd produced his "Cloud Nine" LP and was a member of his group Travelling Wilburys, Jeff had no doubt fulfilled a dream of his by working with the Beatles.

You see, Jeff's work in ELO always took its cues from the Beatles' experiments with orchestral instruments: "Eleanor Rigby", "I Am The Walrus", "A Day In The Life" et al. ELO didn't necessarily succeed in sounding like The Beatles as Jeff may have envisaged. He did, however, succeed in making The Beatles sound like ELO.

You see, everything Jeff is credited as the producer on all sounds the bloody same as ELO. These two singles were no different. That doesn't make them bad. In fact they're quite listenable. It just doesn't make them as idiosyncratic as the rest of the Beatles' catalog. These sound more like footnotes or, more to the point, "afterthoughts" rather than worthy additions to the canon.

The video for "Free as a Bird" was beautifully animated, full of references to the Beatles folklore and history. After the song finishes proper, there's a strange little reprise that has some garbled message from John that has been warped to sound mysterious, and some ukulele playing in the style of George Formby, whom George Harrison was obsessed with at the time and onward in his later years.

As a single release it didn't set the charts alight, but it was perfect fodder for plugging the release of the "Anthology" which was responsible for repositioning the Beatles in the forefront of every music-lovers mind as the premier band of the Rock era, irrespective of how old you were.

Take a look at the video again below:

The Curious Phenomenon of the EP

With physical audio formats seemingly disappearing and then reappearing again these days, it can be confusing to work out what exactly is the product an artist is really trying to sell.

It's pretty easy to work out what an album is, or a single, but an EP (extended play) is a format that is ambiguous at best. especially when you introduce the Mini-LP into the mix.

In the earliest part of the 20th century, up until 1948, the single was the dominant format. Two sided 10-inch diameter shellac records, playing at 78 rpm, with one song on each side. At that speed, it confined the playing time to little over 4 minutes per side. Longer pieces, such as classical music needed to be split across multiple records, and as such they would be bundled into large books that resembled a photo album, and they would be called an "album". In the early 1950s these were superceded by a 7-inch 45rpm single.



In 1948 the Long Playing record emerged. 12 inches in diametre, playing at 33rpm and allowing for an average of 20 minutes per side. In America the RIAA stipulated that the maximum amount of material on an LP was 35 minutes (it was revised and expanded later on). It took a while but it soon became the dominant recorded music format.

However, as the LP was considered an artisan product, a luxury item with the price tag to match, record labels came up with cheaper alternatives to shore up their revenue base. They introduced the 10-inch LP, a mini-LP usually carrying 8 songs (4 a side) and a maximum playing time of around 13-15 minutes a side. By the 1960s these were all but obsolete, but during the 1950s these were hugely popular, with Frank Sinatra being one of the most popular selling artists with albums like "Songs for Young Lovers".

With the rock and roll boom, it was originally thought that teenagers only bought singles and not albums, but despite Elvis and the Beatles selling large amounts of albums, they were still expensive, so in Britain they came up with a mid-range product that would be a little more collectable and valuable than the single, but not as expensive as the LP. The Extended Play, or EP for short, was a four song 7-inch record that featured similar style packaging to the LP but at a fraction of the cost. They were given unique titles, similar to albums.



The EP was the same size and speed as the single and compressed the grooves on each side to allow for up to 7.5 minutes a side playing time These were massive selling items in the 1960s but fell out of favour with major labels in the 1970s. Independent labels and punk bands took to the EP in the 1970s and beyond, but the majors confused the issue by starting to release 12-inch equivalents of an EP in the late 1970s and 1980s. These usually contained 5 tracks and ran at around 20 minutes.

Major labels also introduced a new format in the 1980s, the 12-inch "Mini-LP" which was longer than an EP but shorter than an LP, but that also confused the classification of certain albums. For example, Alice In Chains compiled two EPs together in one package on two discs as "Jar of Flies/Sap". "Sap" had 5 tracks (4 listed on the sleeve and label) and ran at less that 20 minutes, while "Jar of Flies" has 7 tracks at lasts for almost 30 minutes. Is one an EP and the other a mini-LP? "Jar of Flies" topped the Billboard Album Chart. Is it regarded as a short LP?

Elvis Presley's first LP had 12 tracks and lasted 25 minutes while Pink Floyd's "Animals" has 5 tracks and has a 40+ minute duration. Is one a mini-LP?

Not exactly. The British Recording Industry classifies the EP as "any record with more than four distinct tracks or with a playing time of more than 25 minutes is classified as an album for sales-chart purposes. If priced as a single, they will not qualify for the main album chart..." as described by the Official Chart Company.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) defines an EP as "3-5 songs OR under 30 minutes, whereas a single is allowed to contain up to 4 songs."

In this modern age of downloads, the EP still exists in the form of a short release of just 4-5 songs lasting less than 20 minutes, and it still a common release format for young artists who don't yet want to create a longer form piece, and to attract all the scrutiny and analysis that goes with it.

This probably doesn't simplify the matter, however it is not a simple matter to begin with. In my own mind, if the release has 4-6 distinct tracks, lasts around 20-25 minutes and as a unit it has a title unto itself, it is an EP. A single has a lead track that gives the unit its name plus a number of b-sides or bonus songs (sometimes up to 4 or 5, not counting remixes). A mini-LP has 6-7 tracks and lasts up to 30 minutes. An Album has a duration of over 30 minutes and, unless they are long songs, 8 songs or more.



Using this criteria, I don't consider "For The Working Class Man" by Jimmy Barnes as an album, but rather a double 12-inch EP. It is billed on the sleeve as a having 5 new tracks and a "bonus disc" of seven remixes. Both discs total 45 minutes and is a single CD. It charted at #1 on the Australian album chart in spite of this.

Do you have a favourite EP? Tell us below in the comments.

News Flash! Manager rips off musician

Reports this week are that a conman calling himself Harry O'Connor has shut down his 6 week old Sydney-based touring and booking agency amidst fraud allegations. The musicians who were signed to the label are said to be not out of pocket, however a number of large debts for studio time were about to be assigned to the artists in question, potentially costing them thousands of dollars.

This has become big news in Australia. I'm not sure why, but there haven't been too many of these sorts of stories in the music media lately. The allegations of fraud by this guy are well documented on other music industry websites. The thing is, this isn't the first industry scam, not the will it be the last.

This got me thinking of some of the most famous music industry scams. Band managers and other industry types have a reputation as rip-off merchants. And while that is not true of everyone in the industry, it's not an undeserving reputation.

It has been said that Colonel Tom Parker (not his real name) was siphoning off 50% of Elvis's royalties during the latter half of his career. It may be true that Tom helped Elvis's career and kept him a profitable star, but 50%? seriously?

The Beatles struck gold with Brian Epstein as a manager. Brian looked after the band like his own family, until his own suspicious death in 1967. This left the Beatles quite rudderless. When they wanted to form Apple Corps, the band ran it themselves, and found that money was walking out of the venture at a rate of knots. Mick Jagger recommended his manager Allen Klein to sort things out. McCartney hated the idea and didn't sign the contract, while the other three did.

Klein started off well, negotiating the highest royalty rate in the industry at the time. However it was soon apparent that he screwed both the Stones and the Beatles out of heaps of money, making a mess of the business affairs of both bands. Post Beatles, Klein helped George organise the Concert for Bangladesh. Klein was found guilty in 1979 of having defrauded both the accounts of the Concert for Bangladesh and UNICEF.

The rumour going around, at least according to Eric Burdon, with whom he shared a manager, that Jimi Hendrix was killed off by hired goons set upon him by his then manager Mike Jeffries. And what was his crime? Jimi wanted to find a new manager because he thought he was being ripped off...

Recently, R&B singer Beyonce has dropped her manager, on the grounds he was ripping her off to the tune of millions of dollars. The plot thickens when you realise her manager was actually her dad...

Billy Joel, Chicago, Bob Dylan, Soundgarden, Aerosmith, Leonard Cohen, Bo Diddley and heaps of others have been dudded by their managers as well.

However, probably the worst of them all was Welsh band Badfinger, who got screwed over twice. Firstly, on a number of occasions by Allen Klein as a part of the aforementioned Apple Corps, and then by manager Stan Polley. Stan ensured all money they made was funneled into holding accounts of his own and then doles out proceeds to himself. Between late 1970 and the end of 1971, a financial statement claimed that each band member was paid between $6,000 and $9,000, while the business got a profit of $24,000 and Stan's management commission was $74,000. Go figure.

When the band left Apple to sign with Warner Brothers, there were more money issues between the three parties and lawsuits flew around like confetti. The lack of fair dealing, legal confusion and income held in escrow lead the two main songwriters to commit suicide within 8 years of each other, citing Stan Polley and money problems as a main source of despair.

In the 1960s, in the wake of the Beatlemania explosion, managers and record labels sprung up out of nowhere hoping to cash in and sign what they thought might be the next big thing. Unscrupulous minds took on naive young artists and ripped them off blind. Van Morrison claims his first band Them was never paid. Joan Jett and the band she was in as a teenager The Runaways couldn't get money out of their manager Kim Fowley. Vocal group The Coasters were paid next to nothing through their label and management deals in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

But why?

Largely, I think, because they could. There was a lot of money to go around and those with the know how cleaned up through dodgy deals and trick accounting practices. It was usually the bands, every trusting of these people, who lost out. The manager, with the intimate access to the finances, were usually able to fleece the naive. It's truly sad, but that's how it has been for years.

It is encouraging somewhat to hear from students in Music Industry courses today that lecturers implore future managers to "do the right thing" and look after their artists. They want to get rid of the concept of being rip-off merchants and, quite rightly, the only way that perception will change is when the actual business practices of managers start changing for the better.

Here's hoping things change soon then.....

Best Count-ins in Rock

What are the best count-in intros in rock?

Well it's probably worth explaining exactly what a count-in actually is first. All bands, especially in rehearsals, start off a song by counting to 4. The purpose is to focus the band and to given then a cue when to start playing together. It is also used to give an indication of tempo - how fast to start playing when everybody starts. It is usually the drummer who counts the band in by counting to 4 (for want of a better drummer joke, if they can't do that, they tap their sticks together four times). Having said that, in the Ramones it is the bass player Dee Dee who does the counting in, and oftentimes his count-ins are not of the same tempo of the actual song!!

The count-in is fast becoming an anomaly on records these days as most bands don't actually play live in the studio anymore. Each musician lays down each part of the song one at a time, layer by layer. In this environment, there is no need for a count-in to unify the band. In years gone by, live recording in the studio was common, if only to get the backing tracks recorded, with the other parts layered over the top. The count in would have be used, but in most cases edited out before reaching the mastering stage.



One of the earliest of these count-ins opened the first Beatles album. It's a wonderfully exuberant count-in that, I believe, was left in accidentally. In 1963 it was considered unprofessional to have that sort of thing on a record. However, it added a sense of realism to the album - the human touch. It also indicates that this would be a fun album, and it kicks it off beautifully.

Every now and then you hear then on various tracks, but it's not altogether very common. (For the record we are not counting songs that have sequential numbers as lyrics or count-ins in the middle of songs). Here are some of the best:

"Good Lovin'" - The Young Rascals



On the subject of exuberant count-ins, they don't get much more joyful than this. And in the stereo version, the counting jumps around the room (or the headphone space, depending on how you are listening) courtesy of the placement of the vocals in the stereo spread.

"Taxman" - The Beatles



The opening of the the debut Beatles album may have been joyous, three years later, after touring the world and achieving things most of us only ever dream of, it sounds deflated. Opening their 1966 album "Revolver" with a slamming indictment of the British taxation model, the count-in sounds sinister, smarmy and seedy.

"Incendiary Device" - Johnny Moped



In 1978, with tensions running high between the punk kids and their parents, the count-in on this track sums up the tension beautifully: "1-2-Cut your hair!"

"Used To Love Her" - Guns 'n Roses



This count-in is rather odd. Guitarist Izzy Stradlin' does away with formal counting and just uses rhythmic language (or rather, mild profanity, as is their wont) : "ok...bitchin' fussin' pissin'..."

"Hot Pants" - James Brown

James Brown only gets as far as three in real numbers, but he indicates that things are about to get raunchy and sweaty. "One, Two, ah One Two Three Uh!"

"Living In The Real World" - Blondie

This count-in is indicative of the neurotic paranoia of the lyric, with urgent grunts and a full throated scream of "1!! 2!! 1-2-3-4!!!" from Debbie Harry to kick off the proceedings.

Granted, this is not a complete list. I'm sure there are more. Which ones have we missed? Let us know in the comments below.

Cheers

Bernard Cribbins - "Right Said Fred"

The English have a grand tradition of the music-hall comedy song. They always seemed to produce such clever work. From George Formby to the Goons and beyond, their humour reaches me in a profound way.

Today's track is a piece by Bernard Cribbins, recorded in early 1962 at Abbey Road Studio 3 by none other than (soon to be forever known as the Beatles producer) George Martin. This was the same studio that the Fab Four recorded pretty much everything they committed to vinyl for the next 8 years starting in September of that year. (Bernard famously quipped in an article for The Guardian "we warmed the studio up for them!")

This record features some clever editing and dropping in of sound effects onto the original tape (something very tricky to do with the primitive technology of the day!)

We know George Martin as the man who helmed the Beatles records. Bernard, on the other hand, was a veteran of the British film industry, starring in some Carry-on films and some early Dr Who specials. He is extremely well known to people now as Wilfred Mott, father of Donna in the recent series' of Doctor Who. He also narrated the children's show "The Wombles" in the 1970s.

This song is brilliant inasmuch as it's the tale of a bunch of workmen trying to move something heavy into a flat in an apartment building. The efforts of our boys are, well, pretty crap, really. So they end up drinking a few cups of tea. In fact, they drink a hell of a lot of tea. In fact, if this song doesn't hold the record for the most cups of tea drunk in a two-and-a-half minute pop record, well then it bloody well should. Between the three blokes mentioned in the song, they drink no less than 16 cups of tea!

Anyways, the song is made all the funnier by the dubbed in sound effects and the cheeky brogue of Mr Cribbins. At 51 years old, this song is still a charmer and never fails to raise a smile.

Check it out below, with a cute little period clip of an amination made for television to support the song.

Peter Sellers: "I'm So Ashamed"

In discussing the Miley Cyrus pop debacle, I was reminded of this classic from Peter Sellers, released in 1958 and produced by George Martin, the man who helmed the Beatles recordings.

He laments life as a pop star: once hugely famous, then he releases a series of flops. So he changes styles and nothing seems to work. He worries about becoming irrelevant and, as such, not having a career in music for much longer.

"Please buy this record", he whines at the end.

It makes me think of all the X Factor/Idol winners and contestants, who have to go through the kind of rigmarole of singing all styles despite the fact they don't suit them. They have massive success to begin with, then shortly after, die the death.

This record as released 55 years ago. Have things really changed much?

You be the judge.

RIP Richie Havens

Image Source: Time Inc

While we're on the subject of "heritage" acts, the great Richie Havens passed away on Monday, aged 72.

I use the term "Heritage" because we should be remembering musicians who have made some valuable contribution to popular music in years gone by, and that we could be at risk of forgetting about. As it is, people of the Woodstock generation know who Richie was, but I'd suggest that very people of subsequent generations know of his work. Even in his passing, it's worth taking another look.

Richie was a folk singer who got his start in the same 60s folkie circuit as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, et al, in Greenwich Village, New York. He was an anomaly as he was 6 foot 6, African American, and attacked his acoustic guitar with a vigourous strumming technique that could make any modern-day metal guitarist embarrassed. His ability to energise an audience with nothing more than his deep, gutteral vocals and impassioned strumming was amazing (as can be seen in the clip below of him improvising a song that became known as "Freedom" live at Woodstock).

Richie was a songwriter, but found greater fame as an interpreter of songs, mainly by Bob Dylan and the Beatles. He had a great ear for a great song, irrespective of who wrote it. He is probably best known for his version of "Here Comes The Sun" which chugs along with a rhythmic fervour that is instantly danceable, despite the idea of it sounding implausable.

In recent years he hasn't had anywhere near the success he had in the 60s and 70s, but then he only ever had one top 20 hit back in the day anyway. He still continued to tour regardless until 2010 when it was announced he was quitting due to ill health.

Richie was a unique talent whose passion and enthusiasm for his music carried across into his performance, and that enthusiasm just explodes off his records. Take a listen to his performance of "Freedom" at Woodstock below, and then have a listen to his sublime (and slightly challenging at times) album "Alarm Clock" from 1971.

He will be sadly missed.

Pathways into Classical Music Appreciation

or

How a awkward kid from an Australian semi-rural cultural back-water became all musically literate and edificated...

... or some crap like that...

People ask me frequently how I manage to listen to all kinds of varied music. I listen to everything from Renaissance-era Lute music through to hardcore punk, and all points in between. For some people, that's too broad a scope and it is beyond comprehension for them. I guess it all depends on the way it is introduced to you and the way you approach it in the first place.

For most people, and I was no different, they are introduced to this stuff in junior high school music. "This is what classical music is, now sit there and appreciate it." Others learn instruments and learn to play classical-era pieces at the expense of anything modern. This could go part of the way to explaining why we tend to hate it so much - we didn't come to the music on our own terms.

My psych lecturer at university explained a method of learning new information:

• take in new information,
• how does this new information relate to information I already know?
• how can I use this information in the future?

This explains how I managed to get into classical music: some of the bands I knew and loved as a kid were trying out new things that just happened to be classical ideas.

For example:

• "Jesus Christ Superstar" and The Who's "Tommy" were operas, albeit with rock instruments.
• The Beatles used 19th-century chamber quartet-style arrangements on songs like "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby".
• They also cribbed a short burst of melody from one of Bach's "Brandenburg" concertos for the trumpet solo in "Penny Lane".
• My dad played a lot of Neil Diamond around the house, so I was unwittingly exposed to Mozart via "Song Sung Blue".

Other initial contacts with classical music include the Warner Brothers classic cartoons where Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd parodied Rossini's "The Barber of Seville", and where they condensed 19 hours of Wagner's "The Ring of the Nebelung" down to just seven minutes.



Of course, some of the musicians I loved also happened to be classically trained: Yngwie Malmsteen and Randy Rhoads (who played on Ozzy Osbourne's first two solo albums) for instance.

It wasn't until I heard a piece of music by a person named Walter Carlos (now Wendy Carlos) entitled "Country Lane" that blew my mind. "Country Lane" was part of the soundtrack of "A Clockwork Orange" and it was a very early synthesizer work. Its ever-changing key signatures, complex chords and brooding dark atmosphere just hit the spot as a precocious 15 year old.



In high school I found a pivotal record among the music resources in the form of Carlos' "Switched On Bach", which contained famous Bach pieces played exclusively on some very embryonic Moog Synthesizers. By the time I'd heard it for the first time (circa 1993), synth technology had advanced considerably, so the sounds were quite archaic. However, the beauty of the music was evident, and I heard enough of it in "Switched On Bach" to know that this was impeccably crafted music, overflowing with melody and supported by a rich tapestry of ornamentation.

 The next step was to try some classical guitar albums. As a young guitarist at the time, this caught my imagination. I also listened to the Andre Segovia records that were also in the resource room and they were also fascinating. The musicianship, the complex chords, the lightening fast runs of notes; these players possessed a discipline and dedication to their instrument that far outstripped anything I was capable of.

 From there I found John Williams, the Melbourne born classical guitarist, student of Segovia, who was probably the first classical guitarist to risk his career and reputation by picking up that most dreaded instrument in the eyes of classical purists: the electric guitar. Mind you, his band Sky performed a rocked up version of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" that I consider to be the definitive performance of the piece.

 For a while it seemed almost everywhere I looked, classical influences were being integrated everywhere. The sportman's favourite theme music "Fanfare for the Common Man" was a trumpet fanfare written by composer Aaron Copeland, rocked up by Emerson Lake and Palmer. Electric Light Orchestra grafted a chamber string quartet onto a traditionally-configured rock band. Frank Zappa idolised Igor Stravinsky and Edgard Varese, and Frank was always incorporating some of the stranger, more avant garde aspects of their work into his own increasingly complex compositions.

 I'd purchased Zappa's "We're Only In It For The Money" in the mid 1990s on the recommendation from one of those lists of "Greatest albums of all time". For years I hated it, until I studied 20th century music as part of my degree. Listening to some of the strangest music I'd ever heard in that class, and hearing works by his inspirations suddenly made Zappa's more esoteric work (such as this one) make sense.

 

 Hearing Scheonberg's serialist piano works can be quite painful at times, but after hearing them, I now know why David Bowie was inspired by them. For years I hated the piano solo in "Alladin Sane". However, the song is about his mentally-ill half brother, and by adding a bizarre atonal, arhythmic piano solo of this nature to the song was actually a stroke of genius. After all, the title "Alladin Sane" is a pun on "A Lad Insane"...

 

20th Century music was the greatest liberating factor for me as a composer, as it meant that one could take the traditional music rule book and torch it with a flame thrower. Rules, syntax, constructs didn't matter anymore. You could write your own rules. That's one of the reasons that some of the most ugly, difficult sounding music (as it sounds to most) is quite a thrilling listen to me, as I find it to be very free and unhinged, unbound by complex rules and traditions that may in fact hold a piece of music down or make it sound like something else.

In all of the cases cited above, all it takes is for a musician to incorporate something unusual or different into their work for one to gain exposure to a number of different styles of music, and as such, I could then go and approach this music as I felt I needed to - on it's own merits, in my own way. I didn't just believe what people told me was "good music".  I didn't just assume that "I had to like it" just because someone said I did. Indeed, I probably would not have found the pieces of music that a music teacher would recommend a student should listen to, but that's precisely the point: From the massively green field of classical music, I've managed to cultivate my own, if strangely manicured, patch within it.

Everyone has their own story to tell, and not everybody would follow the same path to discovering music as I have.  Tell me about yours in the comments below.

And as much as I love Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", I still can't stand Romantic-period Opera!

100 LPs Shortlist #29b: Easy Star All-Stars "Sgt Pepper..."

What would you think if Sgt Pepper went Dub Reggae?

Think about that for a moment. The Beatles a la reggae. In theory, that should be dreadful (no pun intended). In the hands of the Easy Star All-stars, it's anything but.

Easy Star All-Stars had previously made a name for themselves with other Dub Reggae interpretations of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and Radiohead's "Ok Computer". "Dark Side of the Moon" Easy-Star style was done brilliantly. I was less enamoured with "Radiodread", their interpretation of "Ok Computer", and I held some trepidation as they released a version of "Sgt Pepper". I shouldn't have worried - they treat the music with the respect it deserves and bring out the flavour and groove of reggae at the same time. The whole experience for some reason, feels so natural...

...well, for me at least. In some respects, this album is the culmination of something I had always wanted to do. You see, around the time I was 16, the reggae bug bit. Like the Funk bug that caught me at age 18, it bit hard. For a few months, everything I played on my guitar had that "skank" rhythm to it. Whether it was the hymns in music class at school, or Beatles songs, I played them all with that staccato, clipped, choppy, on-the-off-beat rhythm. I had even worked out my own reggae arrangements of "Day Tripper" and "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". I played them once for my then-girlfriend's father (the Kinks fan in 100 LPs #24) - he thought I was being sacriligious.

However, Easy Star have worked out something that I felt all along - that not only are the rhythms of reggae incredibly infectious, and also that The Beatles' songs were so well written that you can apply a reggae arrangment, or almost any arrangement, to them and they still sound good. Master songwriters can only achieve that.

So here for your listening pleasure is Easy Star All-stars doing the complete album of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, eloquently renamed "Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band":

Enjoy!

100 LPs Shortlist #29a: The Beatles - "Sgt Pepper..."

There's very little to say about The Beatles that hasn't already been said more eloquently somewhere else. The same thought can be applied to their 1967 LP "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". But what probably makes this album interesting, before a note has even been heard, is the innovation that this record was.

The Beatles were nothing if not game-changers for the Music industry back in the day.

• They were the first band to write their own songs, thus becoming one of the first self contained artistic units.
• They were the first band to insist that all their singles (and thus tracks played on most radio stations) contained original material, not covers of existing songs.
• They were the first band to insist on choosing their own album art-work.
• They were the first band to use the LP as an art-form, a statement of intent unto itself, as a means of artistic expression.
• They were the first band to really extend the basic vocabulary of rock music by introducing new structures and instrumentation to the form.
• The were the first band to introduce foreign musical ideas into a largely western music.

"Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" continues on with these innovations, and then takes them further again. It was a record that well and truly broke the mold, for better or for worse, in terms of what a pop record could be and what it could look and sound like.

Let's look at some of its innovations:

• It was the first single LP to have a gatefold sleeve. Gatefold sleeves were common with double LPs (themselves were not common in rock music at that point).
• It was the first album really to have the songs join up with each other with no gaps between them: The opening two tracks and the final three tracks on side two had no silence between them.
• It was one of the first LPs to present the music as a conceptual piece - of a variety show.
• It was the first rock LP to feature all the lyrics for all the songs on the cover.
• It was the first LP to have such lavish cover artwork.
• It was also the first record to have all the bands (or track separation marks) on the vinyl removed, making it difficult to see where the tracks started and ended, effectively forcing you to listen to each side all the way through.

A vinyl record with the tracks separated into "bands"	An unbanded vinyl record.

It was the first LP to have a closed loop sound effect played at the end of the run-out groove on side two.

Most of these innovations would only be of note to people who have heard the album on vinyl. On CD, most of these things don't actually matter. But for the time, they were major innovations that no-one had actually seen before.

Of course, all this would amount to nothing if the music was no good. Fortunately, it is brilliant.

There are not many records, then or now, that start with the sound of an orchestra warming up before a performance. The title track appears twice, and while not one of the Beatles greatest songs, it is perfect for an intro and the outro of the album. The intro segues straight into Ringo's jolly singalong "With a Little Help From My Friends".

We take a trip (no pun intended) through all the styles the Beatles had attempted before on earlier records, such as Indian classical music ("Within You, Without You"), English-styled Music Hall ("Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite", "When I'm 64"), bouncy pop ("Fixing A Hole"), chamber pop ("She's Leaving Home") and hard rock ("Good Morning, Good Morning").  But the best examples of their attempts at these styles are featured here.

The whole thing concludes with "A Day In The Life", which somehow managed to fuse three disparate song ideas together and incorporate large scale, avant-garde, free-improvisation in the form of the orchestral climax at the end of the piece. It finishes with the longest sustained E Major chord in the history of recorded music.

This is a record that is designed to be played from start to finish with no tracks being skipped. And the good thing is, you can do just that without a problem. It is a thrilling journey through numerous styles of music played by a very talented quartet of musicians who were never content to stand still. They were always willing to try new things and push boundaries, and yet still remaining inviting, familiar and listenable.

Enjoy!

Note: there are no online streaming sources available for this LP.

Johnny Cash and friends vs The Record Industry

This is an archive piece written and posted on LiveJournal in 2006, albeit slightly edited and re-published in 2013: 

How high's the water mama?
I watched the Johnny Cash biopic last night entitled "Walk The Line" and that song didn't even make an appearance: "Five Feet High and Rising".

I didn't know that June Carter was such a tough nut to crack - she didn't want to have a bar of poor old Johnny for ages! I have to applaud him for his tenacity. I would have given up ages ago if it was me, no matter how great the girl was.

The thing that struck me though was, and like the Ray Charles biopic I saw last week, is how clueless record company execs can be. Columbia Records didn't see any merit in Johnny recording a live album at a prison. The "Live at Folsom Prison LP" turned out to be his biggest selling record ever, closely followed by its sequel "Johnny Cash at San Quentin". These are the same people who didn't see any faith in releasing Dave Brubeck's landmark 1959 LP "Time Out" because it wasn't "commercial" enough. Those bean-counters were eating their words when that album became the first ever jazz LP to chart in Billboard top 40 LPs and the first jazz album to spawn a hit single ("Take Five"). Go figure.

History is littered with stories like these. Around the same time as Johnny was arguing with Columbia's record execs, they passed on signing Frank Zappa and the Mothers.

We all know the story of the Beatles being snubbed by Decca in London in 1962. They were so annoyed with their decision they signed the Rolling Stones immediately after hearing their demo.

Ray Charles had the same problem. Atlantic didn't want to release "What'd I Say" as a single because it was over 6 minutes long. When they did, it was a massive hit - the biggest in the company's history.

Same deal with James Brown and his landmark album "Live at the Apollo" - the record company vetoed the idea. James funded the recording himself and it was the biggest selling LP record of his career (and it still is).

I wonder if these experiences have hardened the record company people now so that they don't take any risks on new talent or new ideas. Maybe that's why a lot of modern music on the radio sucks and all the good stuff is on the internet or on indie labels that get no media coverage. 

Or maybe i'm a curmudgeon. I dunno. Meh. Bah humbug. Turn the record over...

100 LPs Shortlist #28: Even - "Less Is More"

At the end of 1996, I'd finished tertiary study and was about to take a leap into the workforce for the first time. On the day I walked out of college, I went to my local indie record store wanting to buy a new LP to celebrate my new found freedom. The album I wanted was "One Hot Minute" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. And I bought it, on shiny new double vinyl.

However, while perusing the racks, I noticed another LP by a band that I'd never heard of, but it looked like it was an Australian band. The back cover showed a Rickenbaker guitar leaning up against a Vox AC30 amp, so right away that should have triggered thoughts about this being a classicist pop record. It was also a limited, numbered edition and it was only around $22 or so. I asked the man behind the counter "What does this sound like?" He said "well it's full of short, three chord jangle pop songs - very Beatle-esque. You'll love it". He'd known I was a Beatles fan, and I was also in a celebratory mood, so I bought this record as well as "One Hot Minute" and then caught the train back home.

The album was "Less Is More", the first LP by a three piece from Melbourne named Even. All the songs are written by lead singer and guitarist Ashley Naylor.

Saying that it is "Beatles-esque" and full of "three chord jangle pop songs" is a somewhat applicable description, and yet it is underselling the music as well. The Beatles may be an obvious reference point, but Even's sound runs deeper than that. Most guitar-pop bands can trace their roots back to the Beatles, so that really is a lazy comparison. Within these songs you'll hear distant echoes of The Who, The Kinks, You Am I, Big Star, David Bowie and T.Rex.

Stylistically this album runs the gamut of pop music, from short power pop tunes, epic sing-alongs, psychedelic experiments, sweet melancholy, to balls-out rock'n'roll, all delivered with the deft touch of Mr Naylor and his fully capable bandmates.

This record has some of the most catchy melodies with an earworm-like quality - and I mean that in a good way. These are songs that you would want to have in your head; that when you can't get rid of that awful Britney Spears song in your head, you can play this record and all those horrible thoughts about crappy music will be washed away. The instrumental playing is such that, while it used the REM-styled jangle pop as a basis, other dimensions are added to make it sound all their own: Wally Meanie on bass adds a bottom-end rumble that is rock solid, while Ash's occasionally self-deprecating lyrics elevate this above the ordinary, capturing the mood of some of those within the "Alternative Nation" at the time.

Even released this album in an extraordinary age of Alternative music in Australia where there were many different bands, and yet very few sounded like each other, making a scene that was fully vibrant, diverse and constantly exciting. Probably the closest sounding bands to them would have been Snout and You Am I, and even then they didn't sound much like Even. There was no rush to have a sound or a style that was consistent with someone else or some other prevailing trend. Within this environment, many great bands flourished and Even were one of the best. This was the start of a series of great albums that went sorely unrecognised by the public at large.

...and despite the fact I purchased this at the same time as a Red Hot Chili Peppers LP, I've played "Less Is More" about a million times more than "One Hot Minute"!

Check it out and enjoy!

RIPs today

It's been a big day for musicians passing today.

In the news today there were no less than four musicians who have shuffled off the mortal coil.  Let's a take a look at the recent acts at The Great Gig In The Sky:

Tony Sheridan

Tony was a musician in the red-light district of Hanburg in the 1960s.  He took a young group from Liverpool under his wing by the name of The (Silver) Beatles) and they played many shows together.  They even recorded an LP under the auspices of Bert Kaempfert, of all people.  Their first single together, "My Bonnie" was the record that piqued the interest of one Brian Epstein, and the rest, as they say, is history...

Tony didn't live to have anywhere near the success as his proteges did.  Nonetheless, he will be missed...

Shadow Morton

Shadow Morton was a record producer who originally discovered the Shangri-Las and produced their hit records "Leader of the Pack" and "Remember (Walking In The Sand)".  He also produced the first Vanilla Fudge LP and allegedly produced Iron Butterfly's epic "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".

Mindy McCready

Mindy McCready was a Nashville-country startlet who has had a reasonably successful career until now.  Her husband had only died a few weeks before now and she had found this extremely traumatic.  She has had two previous suicide attempts and today, unfortunately it looks like she was successful - authorities believe her gunshot would was self inflicted.  A very tragic story.  She was 37.

Kevin Peek

Kevin Peek was an Australian session guitarist and a member of Classical/Rock fusion band Sky.  He played on sessions for Manfred Mann and T.Rex before becoming a member of Cliff Richard's touring band.  His greatest success was with Sky, however he always seemed to play second fiddle to the main star of the band, guitarist John Williams.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of information around about the cause of his death but according to the Noise11 website it was cancer.

Sky's rocked up version of Bach's "Toccata an Fugue In D Minor" is, in my view, the definitive version of the song. Have a listen below.



May all the above rest in peace.

BBC Radio2 Recreates "Please Please Me"

BBC Radio 2 have attempted to recreate the recording of the Beatles LP "Please Please Me", under similar conditions (i.e. in 12 hours on the 11th of February in Studio 2 at Abbey Road) but with 11 different artists, including Beatle peers The Merseybeats, Paul Jones (ex-Manfred Mann), Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook from Squeeze, Joss Stone and more.

Is it a bold move or a stunt? You be the judge. I would have thought that the two remaining Beatles should have been involved with this, but alas they weren't. Ringo was in Australia with his All-Starr band, and who knows where Paul was and what he was up to.

Actually, it would have been interesting to see if the offspring of the Beatles, who recently hinted to the press they might get a band together (Dhani Harrison, Sean Ono Lennon, Zak Starkey and Mike(?) McCartney), could pull off playing those songs in 12 hours at Abbey Road.

I've only heard a couple of performances from this broadcast - one by the Stereophonics and one by Mick Hucknall. I don't care much for Mick, but the Stereophonics took "I Saw Her Standing There" and smashed it out of the park in one take. Take a listen below:



You can read my review of the First Beatles LP right here

Enjoy.

50 Years of "Please Please Me"

50 years ago, on February 11, 1962, the Beatles recorded their first LP at the Abbey Road Studios of EMI, under the guidance of producer George Martin.

It was recorded in 12 hours, with only 10 songs recorded in that time, live with some basic overdubbing, to two-track tape. The balance of the LP was padded out with both sides of the previously released singles "Love me Do" and "Please Please Me". The latter of which gives the album its name.

It's interesting how times have changed. Nobody in professional music circles records albums in 12 hours anymore. And what's more, the band made it abundantly clear that the lion's share of music on their albums was to be original. As a result, 8 of the 14 tracks were written by John and Paul. That in itself was a game-changer: before this, most bands and performers sourced their material from external professional song writers and never gave a thought to composing a song themselves.

The album is not one of my personal favourites by The Beatles. They would go onto bigger and better things, but this is a pretty decent start. It contains some great originals, some questionable cover choices and a handful of insipid performances, but their energy and passion are evident throughout.

By now, the band were a lean, mean performing machine. They tight as performers, they were tight as a group of friends. They could own the stage on any given night. They could bash out these songs competently and confidently, as they had been doing for months. However, performing to an audience of two from behind sound-proof glass must have been intimidating for them. All members took the lead vocal on at least one song. John shreds his vocal chords on "Twist and Shout", Ringo sounds confident on "Boys", George sounds a little intimidated by the studio on "Do You Want To Know A Secret".

Paul's energy is evident almost from the moment the needle hits the groove on side 1. One of the most famous count-ins in music history begins the album and it hints at the solid energy to come in tracks like "I Saw Her Standing There", "Boys" and "Twist and Shout". However, some of the song choices, while they demonstrate their versatility of taste and style, are a little of the naff side. "Chains" and "A Taste Of Honey" are quite twee, while "Anna (Go To Him)" is quite watered down compared to Arthur Alexander's original.

One thing that is quite noticeable about the sound of the original stereo mix is the amount of bleeding across channels you can hear. The album was recorded onto two-track reel-to-reel tape - instruments on one track, vocals on the other. As it was recorded without the luxury of isolating instruments and voices, there's heaps of sound seeping into the vocal mics, giving a weird echo effect that is not noticeable on the mono version. They did subsequent retakes of certain songs but others were cut in one take, like "Twist and Shout", which has to be one of the greatest one-take live-in-the-studio performances ever. Also, the guitars are quite tinny, because the bigwigs at Abbey Road wouldn't let the band turn up the amps to stage volume!!!

Plenty of bands have created amazing first records, only to see their second LP pale in comparison (here's looking at you Boston, The Jam, Dire Straits, Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys, Aerosmith, Bob Seger, Cold Chisel, Guns 'n' Roses et al) but the Beatles started off on the front foot, and got better and better in a rapid space of time. Their second LP "With The Beatles" has stronger material and stronger performances all round, while still maintaining the 8-orignals/6-covers template. With album number three, then they went stratospheric in terms of popularity.

One thing I didn't know is that this album topped the UK album charts in 1963 for 30 weeks once it was released in March 1963. Decca Records were surely kicking themselves once they saw that...

Stereo vs mono

With the recent reissue of the Beatles stereo catalog on vinyl and the mono versions being prepared as we speak, i thought it'd an ideal time to discuss the difference between stereo and mono vinyl.

It is still quite common for vinyl collectors to see both mono and stereo copies of the same albums among the racks as they shop. In a lot of cases, the mono versions of some albums sell for a substantial amount more than the stereo versions of the same LP. The question many modern listeners ask is what's the difference and which is better?

As far as what's better, well that's a matter of opinion.

The fact that two different recordings exist of certain vintage albums is more of an indication of the state of technology at the time. For a while the only tape available to record on was one track tape. By the time the Beatles recorded Revolver the recording was done on 4 track tape. Different sounds could be added to different tracks; and each track could be sent to either the left or right speaker depending on what the engineer wanted. By the time tape was discontinued in recording studios in the early parts of the 21st century, you could get up to 128-track tapes. These days, with computers and digital audio workstations, you get an unlimited amount of tracks. The only limit is in what the computer and its processor can handle.

The one track tape provided one sound source. On a two speaker sound system the same sound is output by both speakers equally. Multi-track tape could create stereo, which allows different sounds to be spread across both speakers. However, it required studio engineers to make two masters of every album - one mono and one stereo, and thus twice the work. This is one of the reasons that stereo records were more expensive than their mono counterparts.



From the advent of the LP in 1948, mono was the standard as that was all that was available. Stereo was available in the late 1950's but it caused massive confusion among music fans. Stereo records could not be played on mono players as half the sound in the record grooves wasn't picked up. You had to have a stereo technician rewire your tonearm in order to play the stereo record properly on a mono system. So it was during this time that records were issued in two versions - one stereo and one mono.

Plus, some early stereo mixes sound ridiculous. Some stereo mixes (such as on Cat's Squirrel" from the first Cream LP in 1966) had long passages where all the sound is playing in the right channel for over 30 seconds before any sound comes out of the left speaker! Granted, these were the days before headphones, so you'll often find instruments in one channel, voices in the other in stereo records of this vintage. This makes for interesting listening, but it can be frustrating. Other times it's drums to the left, bass to the right, which also makes for a disparate listen.

At the same time, the vinyl 7-inch single and 7-inch 45RPM EP were kept in mono all the time. Singles were regarded as cheap and disposable, and as such there was no need to release two different versions. Of course, stereo mixes of singles were made, but were not released unless on a stereo LP.

In 1969, stereo LPs were regarded as the standard, and the mono LP was done away with altogether. The last version of a Beatles album to be issued in Mono was the "Yellow Submarine" Original Soundtrack LP. Singles were still released in mono until the mid-1970s, largely because Radio was still broadcasting in mono on both the AM and FM bands.

When stereo became the norm, it also became commonplace for record labels to re-issue their old mono tracks on records adjusted with a "fake" stereo, which involved either adding stereo reverb or splitting up the frequency ranges in each channel: pumping up the bass in the left channel while cutting the bass and boosting the treble in the right. It sounds positively awful and you'd be advised to steer clear of anything that says "Electronically enhanced to simulate stereo"

A lot of purists claim that the mono mixes often sound fatter and meatier than their stereo counterparts. I tend to agree, however I find that some mono recordings are recorded very "hot", to the point of tape saturation. They're mixed in such a way to cram in as much sound as possible into a narrow bandwidth and as such can sound as they they have less clarity in the mix. Instruments can get lost in a mix in this environment. For this reason I can't stand the 1960s era works of Phil Spector.

At least with stereo, the music has room to breathe across a broad sound spectrum. After all, I have two ears, I like to use them both at once. Even if some of the early stereo mixes are ridiculous, I find good stereo mixes a lot of fun. I like being able to isolate certain instruments in each channel, and in some cases, the stereo mixes will show up mixing and mastering errors.

(Homework: manipulate the balance knob of your Hi-Fi system to find the mastering error in the stereo mix of "Eleanor Rigby" on the Beatles "Revolver" LP).

Enjoy!