Category: News

Today I return to the Listening Project series (pt.1 – pt. 2 – pt. 3 – pt. 4 – pt. 5); As our fifth birthday passed last September, I’ve been listening to every release roughly in order, making notes as I go.

MFR023 – Pat Bradley, “The Musical Tales of Pat Bradley”

• As leader of Lincoln’s Tangelo, Pat is responsible for one of my favorite records ever (“Year of Saturdays”).  Scoring “The Musical Tales…” for MFR continues to feel like a huge coup.
• I don’t know exactly how long these songs were recorded before we released them in March 2008, but Cory had been telling me about this unreleased CDR of Pat’s he’d heard for at least a year.  Cory gets full credit for discovering this project, and keeping after Pat until we were able to put it out.
• Since the music was already recorded, my only involvement was mastering.  I have really clear memories of driving south on hwy. 71 in KC, just southeast of downtown, listening to test masters and thinking about notes and changes.  It took me a long time to master, not because it was hard or the songs were very different in sound from each other, but I think just because I enjoyed listening to Pat so much.  I usually am tired of a project by the time the master’s finished, and I need a break from it in order to come back and enjoy it; that was not the case with “The Musical Tales…”
• The songs are amazing, I love how bite-sized they are, I love Pat’s voice and playing… I am always happy when one of these songs comes up in shuffle.  Pat captures an honest folk/country feel without falling into genre traps or coming off as affected at all.  He just nails it.
• Plus “Sunny Farm” is ridiculously awesome.

MFR024 – “Songs of -h”

• This is kind of an unusual release for us; a CD compilation of my best stuff I put together to sell as a fundraiser for a house-building trip to Mexico.  In addition to songs from the echoes EPs and “Lone Wolf,” the first two Sally M/S Ride records, and “XMAS,” it had three unique tunes: an acoustic recording of “Major & Minor,” made especially for the comp, “Stop Walking (live),” an unreleased cut from howie&scott’s “Summer’s End” sessions, and “Set You Ablaze” from Lone Prairie Records’ “Killers in the Nebraska Territory” compilation.
• I had a terrible time with the plant that pressed the discs.  A bunch of them had weird pops and clicks.  I tried to warn everyone and even give people who I don’t see often two copies in case one was bad, but if you have a poppy one, let me know; there’s a few left, and I’ll get one to you.  Because of the bad discs, I had the plant send some replacements – no more than 50, but I can’t remember for sure – so there are some un-numbered copies in circulation.
• Friends & readers helped pick some of the tunes (the acoustic “Open Columns,” “New Slow Sea,” and “The Picture Song”); it always surprises me what jumps out to others as favorites, compared to what I think of as the best stuff.  Sometimes there’s consensus, but just as often, not.  (I guess that could mean it’s all about the same.)
• It’s always so good to hear others’ voices pop up; Cory, Scott, everybody on “Back in the Fire…”
• Been a long time since I heard this; it sounds better than I expected.  Happens with time, sometimes.  It’s not as comprehensive as I’d like – there’s sides of my songs that aren’t represented – but that’s my own fault, since they’re from albums I haven’t finished yet!  There are days when listening to this could super-bum me out, but this weekend is not one of those.
• I’ll look for the digital liner notes, hopefully to post Monday.  (Updated 28 June 2010: Songs of h liner notes.pdf.)

MFR025 – Arturo Got The Shaft, “A Life Without Fireflies”

• My thoughts on this album are already documented fairly exhaustively in the credits/liner notes.
• I remember we’d done a bunch of vocal takes on “Pants and Backpacks,” and Rob was getting a bit tired and frustrated.  As we started yet another take and Rob reached the line “We’ll create modern art…” on impulse I ran over to the mic and finished it (“…with some grape pop-tarts”) like we did sometimes live, just to goof off and break up the situation.  You can hear that that’s the take we ended up using.
• Looking back, the track sequencing is right on.  1-4 rock pretty hard, with a slight break at 3.  5 takes it all the way down, leading the way into 6’s epic size.  7 starts tight and driving but it takes the vocals a while to enter; the long, taut intro is a sort of palette cleanser for the record’s endgame.  So 7-10 mirror 1-4; two rockers, a break, and another rocker, saving the punkest for last.
• “Hey, Gordon Shumway!” is one of a very very few songs with 5-star ratings in my iTunes, and the only one in which I had any part of creating.
• The more I try to explain “Fireflies,” the farther words seem to take me away from its heart.  I see myself keep trying, though; it might have something to do with those precious emails from old friends or people who just caught a Shaft show, asking about more music.  *Something* is coming across in translation to some folks, at least, and if that’s not enough then what could ever be?

MFR026 – The Sleepover, “The Sleepover EP”

• I hadn’t heard much from Cory about the Sleepover’s first recording sessions for this EP, so I was kind of surprised when he sent it over to master and release.  I knew they were doing *something,* but then it was like it just showed up, complete.
• “I’ll take it easy somewhere without humidity / All the booze I can drink” is a rad line, especially for those of us from Nebraska who understand what’s implied by reference to getting away from the damp air.
• As always, I love Kibler’s semi-Pavement-like anti-solos (see also; “What U Do 2 Me,” “Talk Me Down”)
• Great scream in “Always the Liar,” which is hard to do.  Tricky to master, too, because the levels at the end of the song are so much higher than at the beginning; had to use a bit of automation to bring the mix down so the output would be more balanced, which the band OK’d.

MFR027 – The Golden Age, “Calla Lily EP”

• For a long time back in late ’04 or early ’05 when this came out, I only had a burned version from Jaimie Tucci, which I was fairly obsessed with.  I tried to buy it at Homer’s every time I was back in Lincoln, but couldn’t find it.  I was hooked on “Serenade” the way I rarely get with specific songs (it’s usually albums), and it still speaks volumes to me.
• Credit again to Cory for securing Rob’s blessing to re-release this gem.  It’s beautiful and perfect, and I don’t know if I can say much else about it.  I didn’t touch the audio at all; MFR’s re-release is exactly the original CD EP.
• At the same time we got a hold of “Calla Lily,” we heard Rob had an unreleased full-length…

I’m on vacation from work through Wednesday, with the goal of recording all the drums (4 songs) and the remaining bass tracks (11 or 12) so that I can start mixing “You Have To Wear The Boots.”  Knocked 2 of the drum tracks out this morning (!) which is a great start.  Aiming for a September release at the latest – less than a year since “…not nothing”! -h

For a break from (non-)50B work, I’ve been remastering some Five Star Crush live tracks from back in 2007.  At the time we were playing what we thought could well be our last show, and I hired a guy to multitrack it, so it’s a pretty good-sounding recording.

We haven’t done anything with it and I don’t know that we ever will, but if you make a comment and include your email address, next weekend I’ll send the six songs to you via YouSendIt.  Just put your email in the “email” field; it’s secure and won’t be published publicly, it’ll just show up on my side.

Some of these versions I like listening to better than the studio cuts, because they sound much more like being on stage feels; they bring up stronger sense-memories.

The tracklist:

1. Cali

2. Aasta

3. Silver-Yellow Girl

4. Ms. Trouble

5. Transient

6. Under Spinning Lights

-h

…where can I stream full albums?

I’m looking for a replacement to Lala.com, which shuts down at the end of this month due to an Apple buyout.  iTunes store & Amazon mp3 don’t stream full songs or albums, which is what I’ve used Lala for to check out new music.

Hopefully p4k will find a new partner, but in the meantime, what do you suggest? -h

I went to Chicago last weekend to see Bear.  After that, and getting deep-dish pizza, the next thing I wanted to do was check out some record stores and see if I could find things I haven’t been able to in KC.

This list was a help, Bear picked out a couple within walking distance of her place, and off we went.

Groovin High is a cool little shop with handwritten receipts and an owner/operator who clearly knows the scene and his jams.  He had more new vinyl than used, which surprised me, but I found some great stuff, starting with the Madonna shown above.  When I went to pay, owner-guy complimented my eclectic choices.  It seemed to be a genuine compliment from a record store guy; I wondered if hell had frozen over.

• The Pretty Things, “S. F. Sorrow” (2008 Sundazed reissue) – Drew’s gotten me into The Pretty Things, and this is one of their classics.  It’s not original, but it will sound great and be fun to have.
• Madonna, “Like a Virgin” – I don’t have any Madonna, and this seemed like a place to start.
• Nilsson, “Aerial Pandemonium Ballet” – Groovin High actually had four Nilsson records I didn’t, but I wasn’t prepared to shell out twelve bucks apiece for four records.  Bear used her iPhone (handy in the city!) to pull up Allmusic and we figured out which one might be best.  This is selected tracks from “Pandemonium Shadow Show” and “Aerial Ballet,” some with new mixes and/or new vocal tracks

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From there we continued down to Reckless on Broadway, one of three Reckless Records stores in town.  It was giant, about 50/50 new/used, and thankfully had major artists separated out to make it easier to browse.  I started slow there, but eventually found finds:

• Elvis Costello, “Trust” and “Imperial Bedroom” – All my Costello was on CD until now – mixing media for an artist isn’t my favorite thing to do – but I got good deals on these albums.
• The Pretty Things, “Silk Torpedo” – At this point I have more ’70s Pretty Things than ’60s, but I’m still excited to hear this.
• U2, “The Joshua Tree” – It was kind of high, but it’s in beautiful shape, with the original poster, and it completes my U2 vinyl up to “Achtung Baby;” worth it.
• Bruce Springsteen, “Greetings from Asbury Park NJ” and “Born to Run” – These aren’t in great shape, but I think they’ll play, and they mostly finish out my Bruce.  At $2, I couldn’t pass them up.

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I was thoroughly satisfied and thought I was done at this point, but a couple days later on my trip home, I stopped in Iowa City to see Scott and he took me to Record Collector.

• Heart, “Little Queen” – I’d been looking for this ever since CA sang “Barracuda” at karaoke, including in Chicago, but finally found it here.
• Black Sabbath, “Paranoid” – In beautiful condition.
• The Beatles, “Abbey Road” – My year of late-onset Beatlemania continues.
• Blondie, “Eat To The Beat” – Hey, it was a buck.
• Erroll Garner, “Gems” – I never pass up a cheap Garner record.  If you’ve heard him, you probably dig why.

The drum kit’s set up again, and today I started seriously practicing to record the 4 drum tracks I need to do for “You Have To Wear The Boots.” It’s been a long time since I played drums; for the past couple weeks I’ve just been sitting down to jam for a few minutes at a time, trying not to get blisters. I should have some vacation later this month, and one of the things I want to do is record the drums and bass for “…Boots.” Then I can start mixing; the last voice and flute parts will be easy to slide right in, whenever they are recorded.

This is only possible because the first tunes by the Band Formerly Known As Fifty Bears In A Fight are exxxxxxxtremely close to being DONE. -h!

The A.V. Club – The Big Questions The story of my life: Is there such a thing as an honest song?

“…I’ll admit that the question is fundamentally unanswerable. You might as well ask “How do you quantify honesty?” or “Is anything really honest?” Pondering such a conundrum forces you to assume way too much about the inner reality and deepest intentions of a songwriter. But that doesn’t make it any less fun to bat the question around, especially since music fans, critics, and songwriters themselves take the issue of honesty so seriously…”

Worth the read, but as usual when it comes to issues of black, white, and gray, the author can’t quite manage to get it right.

Nothing’s purely, perfectly honest in the way the author seeks.  Nothing’s completely fake, either.  (There’s the black/white fallacy.)  Everything’s gray, but we can still make meaningful distinctions between lighter and darker gray (the fallacy of gray claims we can’t), and that’s all we need to do the critical work we’re trying to do.

Honesty and integrity are slippery buggers to nail down, but I suggest the real test is the presence, or absence, of a hidden agenda.  An artist who is sending dog whistle messages, or using irony in a way most listeners don’t pick up on, or is presenting fiction as fact, is less authentic than an artist who is not doing these things.  From this perspective, we avoid the issue of privileging either literal or abstract lyrics over the other.

Also, it separates the issue of honesty/integrity/authenticity from aesthetic value; it allows us to say a song lacks integrity and is amazing, or that an honest tune is rotten.

From: howie [mr@mrfuriousrecords.com]
To: Jake [jaywill@almamater.edu]

walking down the stairs first thing yesterday morning, i found myself singing “always on my mind” for no apparent reason. cool! -h

From: Jake [jaywill@almamater.edu]
To: howie [mr@mrfuriousrecords.com]

While working on lessons for my students, ran across an idea. We’re reading/writing over the idea of “Everything I know I learned in kindergarten” and this list spun out of that idea. Some of the first lyrics that popped into my head were h&s. Pretty crazy, because I haven’t spun those discs in a year or so.

Everything I know I learned through song lyrics.

10. You’re going to miss the innocence you’ve known.

9. If you want to end up with more, you should just stay in bed.

8. You’re never too old to come back with, “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.”

7. Sometimes you’re out of your league, like Jordan was with baseball.

6. If I hadn’t made me, I’d have fallen apart by now.

5. You can paint whatever pictures you want to when you’re on your own.

4. It takes a long time to stand, and an hour to fall.

3. We don’t stop until we reach an end.

2. Nobody gives a fuck about an oxford comma.

1. Turns out not where, but who you’re with, is what really matters.

You recognize all/any of these songs? It is pretty strange to think about the lyrics that run through your head at such random times. What would be on your top ten? -jake

From: howie [mr@mrfuriousrecords.com]
To: Jake [jaywill@almamater.edu]

mind if i blog this exchange this weekend? i’ll do my best from memory, then turn to google…

10. reminds me of wilco’s “i’ll miss the innocence i’ve known, playing KISS covers, beautiful and stoned…” from Heavy Metal Drummer.

9. huh, no idea. top google result is an article about how to stay awake all night at a sleepover. can’t find it.

8. Rage, of course! That record *always* sounds great when it comes on shuffle.

7. i’m sure it’s part of some rapper’s verse, but i don’t know who. could be Tribe given our past conversations.

6. yep, Incubus.

5. :-)

4. Don’t know – great line – oh, Elliott Smith, rad. He’s got a thousand great ones.

3. Stop Walking

2. Vampire Weekend

1. oh, I know this… oh, Dave!

here’s a few… don’t know how recognizable they’ll be… just scanning through my library, picking some stuff that always catches my ear or is more meaningful than usual. -h

10. Did you feel the breeze, my love? Summer’s kiss is over baby, over… Do you know the words? Sing along with me, and put on your rose fur coat, baby, ’cause it’s 1973…

9. Handfuls of pills, bottles of pills, now do you see? – this isn’t over yet. This isn’t what I’ve asked for, this is what I’ll get.

8. Hey, Gordon Shumway, what does a guy like you see when you look at me? Is there a geek extraterrestrially, or is the universe full of a bunch of MIBs? Is there a planet you’ve seen where everybody unique is jamming to the same hard geek rock beat? I said, “How do we get there, how do we stay, hey what do you say Gordon Shumway?”

7. I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wondering where it will go…

6. She’s got cigarette on each arm / She’s got the lily-white cavity crazes / She’s got a carburetor tied to the moon / Pink eyes looking to the food of the ages

5. This isn’t easy for me to say, Diane / I know you don’t need anybody’s protection / I really wish I was less of a thinking man, and more a fool who’s not afraid of rejection…

4. What is the Black Star? / Is it the cat with the black shades, the black car? / Is it shinin’ from very far, to where you are? / … / Black like my baby girl’s stare / Black like the veil that the muslimina wear / Black like the planet that they fear, why they scared? Black like the slave ship that later brought us here / … / Blacker than my granddaddy armchair / He never really got no time to chill there / Cause this life is warfare, warfare

3. Just the other day you tried to explain / Afraid and wondering what the older has to say about what it is that you are going though / And I would not listen / And it disappoints you, but I hope your wax wings keep the air under you…

2. Mystery achievement / Don’t breathe down my neck, no / I got no trophies on display / I sign them away, I mean what the heck / All of your promises don’t fill me with pride, no / I just want to get out on the floor and do the Cuban Slide, Slide, Slide…

1. I wonder what you’re waiting for / … working for / … living for / … dying for / First wave down / I wonder when they’re coming back / First wave intact

From: Jake [jaywill@almamater.edu]
To: howie [mr@mrfuriousrecords.com]

Nice job! Numer 9 and 7 were the most abstract. 9 is “The Streets” on “It Was Supposed to Be So Easy” one of my favorites from his best album. 7 is “Jurassic 5” from the track “At The Races.” Not sure on the rapper, but I think it is Big Daddy Kane absolutely killing it.

I had a hard time on your list. 7 is The Beatles. Is number one Modest Mouse? 4 is some emcee. 8 I’m thinking must be Arturo Got The Shaft. Feel free to blog it. It’s pretty interesting to look back at the tracks or lyrics that have stuck with you over the years. -jake

See the comments for my key. -h