Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Which is Better, New Stuff or Old Stuff?

A question for my many fans: Is Apologia better than We Three?

I ask the question because I was listening to a podcast recently and the woman interviewed, the writer Lorrie Moore, stated that she didn't read her writings from days past. I found that odd but not particularly surprising; it is an affliction many artists suffer from.
But not me.
My affliction is that I am quite critical of my craft as I work on it and spent many hours wasting much needed effort-that should be directed to other pressing affairs-believing it's all for naught. It's my own personal defect.
Time, however, suppresses this foolishness. There was a time when I did not think particularly well of Apologia, or the other albums I made in the 80's. Most of the criticism revolved around the fact that I was limited in what I could do and therefore would not create a masterpiece, or something resembling the noise on the radio.
I now think the albums are pretty f**king good all things considered.
Now I have all the processing power I longed for in ye good old days and am occasionally perplexed that I'm not creating masterpieces with my recent albums. On the plus side I don't care if they don't sound like what's on the radio. That's not necessarily a diss; I just know better.
So, is Apologia better than We Three or vice versa?
They are different, but that could be credited to the fact that they were made 30 years apart; perspectives change, musical direction changes, abilities and desires change.
And unlike Ms. Moore, I do listen to what I've recorded and as I made it primarily for me-that way if it's disappointing to others I have an out. So I listen to the differencesand marvel that it did turn out as good as it has given the limitations of my abilities and the equipment at my disposal.

If you wish to judge for yourself, the albums can be heard at mrprimitivemusic.com. Just go to the albums section.

Speaking of mrprimitive.com,
This week's song is from Apologia, Man On The Box. The song deals with pedophiles and the lengths they go to to excuse their actions while knowing it's wrong. I don't remember exactly what made me write this, but it was probably on one of those talk shows where people were rationalizing their addictions and their inability to stop even when confronted with being ostracized and jailed. It is also a meditation on how society sees runaways, street kids as afterthoughts and the detritus of broken families. The music, which like almost all of my songs came first and started with the drum pattern. The solo is my favorite part- I like the guttural tone that came from the Rat distortion box and the Effectron II delay.

©2018 David William Pearce










Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Ah, the Playlist is Back in Vogue

I am a long time playlister. Back at the dawn of time, I began making cassette tapes filled with my favorite songs from my vaunted LP collection. One reason was simple, mostly; there was not and there is still not, any phonograph that will work in a motor vehicle. Plus, I got to put on what I liked and not be subjected to the stuff I did not like. I grew up with radio, but inevitably grew tired of the following: the same rotation every day for commercial radio or hearing a great song that wasn't popular enough to be played more than once or twice a day and not being around when they played it, or I'd hear a great song on college/alternative radio and might never hear it again. Then there was all the music I'd read about that never got played on any station I'd ever listened to.
I also got heavy into Walkman's and you gotta have tapes for your Walkman.
and I made a bunch,
These are but a few.
I also created lists for the many iPods I've owned over the years; some habits die hard.
It is for this reason that I find the list-mania so interesting. I f you haven't heard, lists on streaming sites such as Spotify are the big thing and in order to be anybody you've got to get on the lists generating the most streams. Never mind the noise about labels and other big players buying spots or creating lists and then creatively covering their tracks, although I don't know why, being a corporate giant doesn't quite have the villainy it once did.

so for fun here's the latest playlist I put together (I set 20 as the song limit per list):
1. Free as a Bird, Lennon and the three other fabs; I know, I know...
2. Let Love Rule, Ledisi, R&B, totally grooves.
3. The Air That I Breathe, The Hollies, greta harmonies.
4. Rock Candy, Montrose, classic 70's rock.
5. My Baby Left Me, Elvis when he was a punk, love it.
6. Looking Forward to the Past, Tommy Immanuel with Rodney Crowell, the kinda country I love-greta tune, great guitar work.
7. Somebody's Baby, Jackson Browne, love it because it's not your typical JB tune.
8. Nobody, Doobie Brothers, first hit, classic Doobie's sound.
9. Candy, Nat King Cole, love that voice!
10. Highway Tune, Greta Van Fleet, the new alternate Zeps.
11. Seven Bridges Road, Eagles, yes, I'm trapped in the 70's, plus I love the harmonies.
12. Hey! Ya You, The Elwins, heard the band a few years ago at the ASCAP confab, quality Canadian pop.
13. You Oughta Know, Alanis Morissette, pissed at an old flame? This is your song.
14. When Will I Be Loved, Everly Brothers, classic plain and simple.
15. Mother Freedom, Bread, their only rock hit.
16. Lady D'Arbanville, Cat Stevens, I've always liked his early stuff.
17. Big Noise, Kyle Eastwood, thumping jazz.
18. Working Class Hero, Jon Lennon at his most acerbic.
19. Solitary Man, Neil Diamond, one of my favorites.
20. Muzika Dyla Fil'ma, Persephone's Bees, rocking indie band from Oakland, sung in Russian.

This sort of list is common for me and you'd never hear it on the radio or I wager on Spotify.
©2018 David William Pearce








Wednesday, April 4, 2018

So Close

I am, occasionally, asked if I ever think of selling my songs or I'm told that a particular song would be great for such and such a performer. I'm flattered, but I'm less inclined for a number of reasons, but mostly because I've found that a certain rigidity exists in those who pitch, or are pitched to, when it comes to song structures, lyrical content, and the like.

But I'm not one to completely disown any idea, so as an opportunity to expose my pre-existing biases, I submitted one of my songs in a contest recently. The songs was Do You Still Love Me Now from the We Three album I released a couple years ago.

You can here it at mrprimitivemusic.com; go to Albums and Music, click on We Three, and scroll down to the song. You can also hear it on Spotify or Apple Music, if you prefer.

The Music City SongStar Awards was the event and I am sad to say I did not win, or the song was not chosen. I was informed that a critique would be sent to me in the coming weeks and I received it a week or so ago.

I was so close!

I had to laugh at that, but I was not surprised. Here are their categories and comments:
Clear theme or cohesive idea; I scored well on this.
Clearly identifiable sections (verse/chorus,etc.); good job.
Lyrics evoke emotional response; another good job (I've had people tell me the song makes them cry!)
Lyrics are singable and memorable; good work.
Music/melody adds to the theme or emotional impact of the song; they reiterated the category and said to keep it up.
Music keeps listeners engaged; well done.

From here it gets more to the heart of the matter.
The dynamics take the listener to a satisfactory climax or conclusion; they felt I had but I should play with it a little more.
The song expresses the theme in a new or fresh way; they felt I was successful, but added I should go further with lyrical pictures that might capture the meaning of my idea. I thought this ironic in that there's no way you could misunderstand what the song was about.
*The song has commercial potential*; here they stated I should be lyrically precise, keep the intro short, play up the dynamic changes, and have hooks o' plenty.

Some final comments reiterated keeping the intro short-country especially, but they liked the song-good melody, lyrics worked well with the song; it comes across as heartfelt. 

They had category levels as follows: "less than good", "on the right path", "so close", and "nailed it". In every category listed the song was ranked "so close". Now I could be snarky and snide, but in truth, given the market-country especially, it would be better to argue that rather than so close, the problem with the song is that it's 30 to 40 years too late. I wrote it as I remembered country songs from my youth when those songs appealed to a much wider age demographic that they do now. People in their 20's and early 30's aren't going to get the song and classic country is content with hits of the past. 

Still, it's nice to know they liked the song.

This week's song, is Life Without Chickens, from the album of the same name:
It is, on the one hand, the oddball of the album, a long, 15 minutes, instrumental in 3 parts, each with a nonsensical title, while on the other, it sets the tone for the rest of the songs.
The 3 parts are:
A. A Ticket in Bill's Shirt,
B. Martians With Guns,
C. A Hymm to Life Without Chickens.
The inspiration came from too many hours listening to Miles Davis' work from the 60's and 70's; he had long pieces that moved from theme to theme. In the case of Life Without Chickens,  the connector is the bass track and the idea was to move from different rhythms within the framework of a simple drum pattern for each section, the bass, 2 guitars, and the synth. Simple as that. It has a lot of open space that allows the different instruments to be heard, which is a theme throughout the album and its successor, Apologia.

It can be heard at the same places as the about noted song.
©2018 David William Pearce