18 October 2007

PERFECT PITCH

I have perfect pitch. It's a blessing. It allows me to be able to walk up to a piano and bust out the intro to 'Hold the Line' by Toto. It allows me to know which notes are played on a telephone for a dial tone (F & A) and the three consecutive notes when you call a disconnected number (Bb, E, A). The Gilligans Island theme song is in D-minor.

I can re-create the piano line that Bugs Bunny plays in the cartoon where Yosemite Sam has wired the hi-C note on the piano with dynamite (Bugs hits the C#. What a maroon!) In essence, it's a party trick. There's an online test, if you have some music background, try it out:

Popular notable musicians who also possess it:

Bach. Ritchie Blackmore. Paul Shaffer, which means he KNOWS how out-of-tune he sings. Phil Lesh, in case Jerry was too fucked up to remember that Sugar Magnolia goes from A to D. Florence Henderson. (Does anyone have an mp3 of the Wesson commercial?)

Anyway, you don't need perfect pitch to appreciate these:

Van Halen plays 'Jump' with the synth loop playing at the wrong sampling speed.
(via Travelers' Diagram)

Star Wars + trumpet.

15 October 2007

RED JACKET ORCHARDS

Get Help has been tying up a licensing project with George Vitray & Via Skyway. We've set up a music publishing company, we're going to sell some soap. Hopefully tonight represents one of the last one or two sessions. We hope you hear 'Arroz Con Pollo' in a Corel commercial or 'Chicken Taco' during the next Chris Kattan vehicle, but if not, we'll send you a cd to put on anytime you do some online shopping.

In the meantime, we got a cool email from a guy who grew up in a place I wrote a song about called Red Jacket Orchards. He felt that the song did a pretty good job of encapsulating what life was like on an orchard, recounting arguments with his grandfather. It took him back there.

The closest I've been to Red Jacket Orchards is approximately 60 paces east and 30 paces north, where I bought a delicious bottle of Red Jacket Orchards apple cider at the Tompkins Square park farmer's market one Sunday a year ago. I did grow up in Northern California, which, while 3,000+ miles from the Geneva, NY metropolitan area, hosted an overgrown pear tree orchard looming past the heights of my backyard fence, chaotic heights due to my lesser stature in those days.

Bob Mould once described songwriting as something other than creation, as an exercise (and I paraphase *very* roughly) of translation. A song isn't written so much as it's harnessed and transcribed. I've always agreed with this notion; it's a little ridiculous to credit Pete Townshend with the Can't Explain riff when someone else would've come up with it, like, 10-15 days later. Ideas rarely come from within, they're clutched from the air at in/opportune times. It's as much communication as inspiration, if not more.

A point in Bob's favor: I remember reading that in the late '70s Glenn Frey used to wake up and spend a few hours each morning at the piano writing songs, because he was too rich to work. And look at those songs! They SUCK. He harnessed crap.

But the other thing I drew from the friendly user comment about my song was that it paid off to 'release' all Get Help's songs for free in a format where people we've never might would stumble across them and forge connections to them. At the least, it gives me a little gasoline to burn, a spark to write another song that might be consumed.

HARRY CARAY

The Hives kick ass. As does this American soldier, doing his impression of Will Ferrell doing Harry Caray to an Iraqi. (via College Humor)

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1750946

08 October 2007

A REASON TO BELIEVE

People find religion all the time. In dreams, in boxcars, in 'Three Men And a Baby'. If you look hard enough, you'll find *something*. That's one half of it. Effort.

The other half of the equation is redemption. That's something worth seeking! Let's quantify it:

Effort + ? = Redemption

For you algebra geeks (down in the aisles!) that's 'Redemption' - 'Effort' = ?

So what is '?'

It's the HIVES. They're playing tomorrow night at Webster Hall, and they've got me. Never have I seen a juggernaut extinguish so many with so little. They rock songs like your biggest grandfather swats horseflies, and it looks so cool and sounds so when he snaps the belt that you don't even notice his pants around his ankles. (Grandma does, though!)

The last Hives show was one of the best I've ever seen. Tomorrow's will be better. I will snap hipsters in half during 'Outsmarted'.

(I'll get back to providing links eventually.)

web 3.0

I just peeled off a shirt to free my arms to write this post. Seriously. I pop a shoulder every time I hit the left 'shift' key. I bought a bad chair.

I poured a fifth of a glass of wine. Before I'm done, I'll have launched new wine into the atmosphere and spilled a bit of it into my lily-white t-shirt. The cork will end up under my bed, and I'll find it there next to a hastily scrawled setlist in someone else's handwriting for a band I used to be in.

Here's where we stand: I am tired of 'content'. I am tired of music. I will create more of both until the day I die.

The music is worth appreciating. The 'content'? Let's see...