Music

That’s Why the Lady Is a Gaga

June 5, 2011
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That’s Why the Lady Is a Gaga

By Larry Kaufmann Maybe you hadn’t heard, but we live in the Age of Gaga.  Lady Gaga, the elfin musician who was unrecorded three years ago, is now the most influential celebrity in the world.  This rise to musical superstardom is the most rapid in a generation.  She is more of a force than Britney a decade ago, or Nirvana ten years before that.  In fact, other than Gaga, the only artists to go from zero to world domination in the blink of an eye (e.g. Elvis, The Beatles, arguably Madonna) are among the most storied names in pop music history. Does Lady Gaga belong in this company?   To judge by Born This Way, her recently-released third album, not by a long shot.  That’s not to say the CD doesn’t have its moments.  Gaga actually has a strong and expressive voice (better than Madonna’s, although that’s a low bar to clear), and at times her vocals soar.  If you’re not paying close attention, you might also find yourself tapping your toes on stretches of several songs, and a couple are moderately listenable all the way through.  But to take in the entire CD in one setting (full frontal Gaga, if

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Big Big Train and Progressive Rock’s Sacramental Depths

May 14, 2011
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Big Big Train and Progressive Rock’s Sacramental Depths

Until relatively recently, I’d thought Progressive Rock had passed into the dustbin of musical history. As time went on I learned Yes produced and toured in support of a new album, and that Greg Lake and Keith Emerson, from the great Emerson, Lake and Palmer, had a critically successful North American tour. In addition to these prog rock A-listers, prog rock bands Spock’s Beard and Glass Hammer are hard at work producing new music and touring to a strong fan base. Now, thanks to a rather unlikely source, Bradley J. Birzer, History Professor and holder of the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies at Hillsdale College, I have discovered Progressive Rock’s sacramental depths. In a brilliant essay, Prof. Birzer begins with how Progressive Rock moves him much more than “the ranting of some London or New York toughs or some sugary and bubblegum airheads.” Music, to be sure, serves as an escape for me, and it has been such since I was a small boy growing up next to a wheat field in central Kansas. Whether I was starting to listen to Yes in the 1970s (grade school), Rush in the early 1980s (junior high), Talk Talk in the

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Academic Rap-ture — Or Rupture?

May 13, 2011
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Academic Rap-ture — Or Rupture?

By Mike Gray The idea of a perpetual black underclass has served rappers well as an excuse to cover up lack of artistic merit.  And it’s the justification for a certain kind of politics, namely one that seeks to promote racial and class conflict in the service of a socialist agenda. — Mary Grabar Many college profs share the President’s enthusiasm for hip-hop culture: It’s rare that poetry explications are done on Fox News, but guests weighed in on the depth of meaning in a line like “burn a Bush for peace” and a panegyric to convicted cop-killer and Black Panther Assata Shakur with “May God bless your soul.”  The “poet” in question was the rapper Common, invited to the White House on May 11 for workshops and readings, along with Rita Dove, Billy Collins, and others. Those on the left trotted out the usual defenses, citing poetry’s “purpose” (to “challenge us”), free speech, and a subtlety to the poetry that right-wing critics just are too dense to understand. The White House, of course, cautioned against taking a few objectionable lines out of context and stressed Common’s charitable organization (Common Ground enjoys the advice of Cornel West on

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A Fictional 100th Birthday Commemoration for Mr. Johnson

May 7, 2011
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A Fictional 100th Birthday Commemoration for Mr. Johnson

The crowd emitted an audible wail. They shook in superstitious fear as Peetie forced the six strings of his guitar to scream above his moan. Zann smiled as he watched the group, unawares, rise collectively several inches above the ground. He hadn't taught Peetie this parlor trick. Peetie was levitating crowds without their knowledge even before Zann met him.

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Guitar Virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel

April 27, 2011
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Guitar Virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel

Tommy Emmanuel is one of the finest guitarists of our time. His playing skill is as great as anybody’s, and his taste, musicality, and positive attitude are far superior to those of most guitar gods of the past couple of decades. In this clip (h/t to Mike D’Virgilio), Emmanuel shows his debt to the great Chet Atkins while providing musical delights of his own. Enjoy:

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A Musical Tour of Alabama

April 24, 2011
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A Musical Tour of Alabama

When you think of the places that created the great music of the American South, which come to mind?  Well Nashville of course, the home of Country Music for more than 70 years.  Memphis might be right behind, as the likely birthplace of rock and roll in addition to being a blues and soul Mecca.  Many of those blues musicians migrated from the nearby Mississippi Delta, a land shrouded in musical mythology and revered by many musicians from the 60s’ British Invasion.  And naturally there’s New Orleans, a musical melting pot that gave the world jazz and whose streets almost literally vibrate to an intoxicating brew of sounds. The State of Alabama is probably way down the list, perhaps vaguely remembered for the Muscle Shoals and FAME recording studios.  More likely, though, the average listener’s knowledge of Alabama music doesn’t go far beyond one song (“Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd – which hailed from Florida) and one group (the eponymous and – let’s face it- cheesy 1980s country band of the same name). This is a shame, because a recent CD provides ample evidence that Alabama has been a hive of often neglected or underappreciated musical talent for more

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Trashing Hitler’s Leftovers

April 21, 2011
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Trashing Hitler’s Leftovers

By Mike Gray Cleese and other stars of the post-war England ‘satire boom’ (beginning with Beyond the Fringe) were doing almost as much to destroy England as the Luftwaffe: What was left of Britain after the war was barely worth “satirizing”; the Pythons et al were “spoofing” an “Establishment” that was already dying, but they thought they were pretty brave to be trampling its grave. Weirdly, the Establishment then worked hard to ingratiate itself with these cheeky young upstarts, with gauche displays such as the awarding of those OBEs to The Beatles. — Kathy Shaidle Apparently, there’ll always be people saying there’ll always be an England: Cleese also spoke about the shift in British attitudes away from a “middle-class culture” and the emergence of a “yob culture”. He said: “There were disadvantages to the old culture, it was a bit stuffy and it was more sexist and more racist. But it was an educated and middle-class culture. Now it’s a yob culture. The values are so strange.” He added that he preferred living in Bath to London because the capital no longer felt “English”. “London is no longer an English city which is why I love Bath,” he said.

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Is Music an Example of “Exaptation”?

April 11, 2011
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Is Music an Example of “Exaptation”?

By Mike Gray The embedding of words, skills, or sequences in melody and meter is uniquely human. — Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain It would be altogether opposed to the principle of evolution, if we were to admit that man’s musical capacity has been developed from the tones used in impassioned speech. — Charles Darwin, Descent of Man Our susceptibility to musical imagery indeed requires exceedingly sensitive and refined systems for perceiving and remembering music, systems far beyond anything in any nonhuman primate. — Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia What benefit could there be to diverting time and energy to the making of plinking noises? … As far as biological cause and effect are concerned, music is useless … It could vanish from our species and the rest of our lifestyle would be virtually unchanged. — Steven Pinker Since there is clearly no adaptive advantage to music, evolutionary biologists and psychologists have relied on the concept of exaptation: a process describing features that, in an evolutionary framework, were originally selected for one purpose but have since been co-opted for a different purpose. — Greg Demme egardless of all this—the extent to which human musical powers and susceptibilities are

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From Heartaches to Dreams: Revolver, 45 Years Later

April 6, 2011
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From Heartaches to Dreams: Revolver, 45 Years Later

by Warren Moore Forty-five years ago today, recording began on Revolver, which in recent years has become my favorite Beatles album. I tend to agree with Steve Earle, who says that despite all the advances in technology and studio craft, there has never been another album that sounds as good, as real, as rock and roll, as Revolver. But the songs and performances are the crux of the biscuit (as Frank Zappa would say), and they’re pretty stunning as well. I’ve discussed the idea of the White Album as being the Chaucerian “God’s Plenty” before, but I’d like to turn to another metaphor in the case of Revolver. Science fiction author Spider Robinson has said that for present-day musicians, the Beatles are like Latin in the Middle Ages — no matter where you go, someone will know some of it and you’ll have a shared space in which to communicate. Part of this, I think, lies in the range of both Latin and the Beatles, and Revolver is as good a place to see that as any. The album brings us everything from blue-eyed soul (“Got to Get You Into My Life”) to Macca’s effortlessly yearning “Here, There, and Everywhere”,

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Prog Rockers Yes to Release New Album, Tour USA

March 30, 2011
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Prog Rockers Yes to Release New Album, Tour USA

Progressive rock superband Yes has finished production work on their first new album in a decade and plans to tour in support of it this year. Longtime Yes singer, lyricist, co-songwriter, and inspirational leader Jon Anderson will not be participating in the album or tour. Bassist and band co-founder Chris Squire reports that Benoit David has taken over lead vocal duties for the band after having toured with Yes in 2008 while Anderson struggled with health problems that had precluded the band from touring for three years.

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Bill Bruford: The Road Less Travelled

March 3, 2011
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Bill Bruford: The Road Less Travelled

If there ever was a musician who embodied Robert Frost’s poetic aphorism, it is Bill Bruford. And if you appreciate a musician who could have had fame and riches and turned his back on that to pursue his deeper musical interests you’ll want to read Mr. Bruford’s autobiography. I became a fan of Bruford back in the late 1970s when I heard a song called The Abingdon Chasp on a college radio station while attending Arizona State University. I had been exposed to progressive rock music several years earlier, which moved my musical tastes from what is now called “classic rock” in a more progressive direction (probably the only time that word would be positively used on this website). I was immediately attracted to this song and had to find its author. What a find it was. In case you don’t know the story, Bruford was a founding member of Yes, and played on their first four albums. Just as they were becoming huge, with the hit Roundabout playing all over the radio in the early 70s, he decided to leave the band. Why would he do such a thing? You’ll have to read the book, but the man simply

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‘This Is the Sound of Your Life Getting Better’: Review of ‘The Ghost of Chivalry’

February 28, 2011
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‘This Is the Sound of Your Life Getting Better’: Review of ‘The Ghost of Chivalry’

(Available via iTunes on 22 Feb; Available on CD at ptwalkley.com on 1 Mar.) You may have heard P.T. Walkley before, but you probably didn’t know it. The Wisconsin native and New York City resident has composed scores for everything from independent films to credit card commercials, and has released a couple of rock albums, including 2009’s double-LP concept album Mr. Macy Wakes Alone. As befits his career in film scoring, he has demonstrated a chameleonic gift for genre-blending, but always manages to provide the listener with a memorable melody. Consequently, it’s really not surprising that his new three-song EP, Ghost of Chivalry, explores power pop, a type of rock that may be among the genre’s most hook-oriented. Power pop may have reached an apex of sorts in the 1970s, when bands like the Raspberries, Badfinger and Big Star began to combine Beatlesque melodicism with the high-energy hammering of the Who. Later practitioners like Cheap Trick, the Romantics, and the Smithereens had greater or lesser degrees of success, but the style has largely survived in an underground where devotees recognize one another by references to the Yellow Pills anthologies, the Rainbow Quartz label, and IPO (which stands for the International

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