To Play or to Program

Recently, in Guitar Player magazine, Jack White clarified his supposed antipathy to Pro Tools and other software used in the recording industry. His objection is that too often the computer does the work through programing rather than the artist/musicians, and that the music loses something because of it. 

I thought of this as I was recording an album called Winter. Originally, the songs were recorded on my Tascam Portastudio 244, a 4-track cassette machine and these were the first songs I recorded using it. It has the usual tape hiss and noise one might associate with home recording, although most of the noise came from running the track recordings through a Fender deluxe reverb amp because portastudios didn't come with built-in effects in those days and quality reverb units were pricey. 

The tracks were demos for a band album that never was and although I promised to re-record the songs, it's only now that I've gotten around to it.

As with all my recordings, I play all the instruments, with the noted exception that in some cases I use drum patterns, either because I like the rhythm or because at the time of the recording I didn't have an actual drum kit.

Nor are the tracks composites of many recordings, say of a solo; what you hear is what was laid down in that take. That can make recording tedious if you are trying for the right series of notes or groove, etc. and not having a lot of success. Having a home studio, if nothing else, gives me the option of giving up till tomorrow what I can't find today; if you're paying for studio time, having an mixer splice something together might be the more affordable option if you're paying by the hour.

I do think by working out and playing the various parts, be it bass or percussion or keys, gives the song it's human element; I suppose you can use the correction tools to fix glitches or odd moments, but unless it seriously detracts from the song or is glaringly obvious, sometimes a supposed mistake give the song its quirk.

And I think that's what Mr. White is alluding to, the human quirkiness in doing the work, in giving the song its character, and that doesn't necessarily mean flaws or errors. It's what makes it interesting.

This week's song: As noted above, I'm working on an album called Winter,

Back in 1984 I wrote a bunch of songs that were meant to be a new band album after we'd recorded Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch in 1982. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, we never found the time and other projects and bands took precedence. This year I decided to finally re-record the songs into more finalized versions. So for this week's song we have both the original demo and the finished song. The song is Wind. You'll note I shorted it and changed the solo. The other most notable thing is the difference in the sound depth of the new version.

You can hear them at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce

Thoughts on Songwriters-Paul Simon

A few weeks ago I went with Nancy to see Paul Simon on his This is My Last Big Tour tour. It was a fine show as these elegiac events tend to be. I've made it a kind of bucket list to see as many of the performers and songwriters that informed my musical sensibilities as I can before they or I fade from view. Certain shows were somewhat prophetic; the Eagles before Glenn Frey died, Neil Diamond before Parkinson's, Fleetwood Mac with all its members together. Others never were; we had tickets to see Al Jarreau, but he died before the show could take place.

As a songwriter and recording artist with a fair sized catalog-though I don't pretend to be in their league-I tend to see them over the length of their careers and note the changes along the way. I also wonder if, as has been wondered after the end of the gloried Tin Pan days, if, like then, we aren't reaching the end of a particular period of musical creativity that permeated the greater public consciousness.

The 60's, 70's, and 80's were a prolific period for singer-songwriters across all genres of which Paul Simon is a shining example. From the folk inflected songs he wrote in the 60's for Simon and Garfunkel, through the R&B, gospel and soul sounds of his  70's solo records to the world music inflections of his albums of the 80's, Simon mined the sounds he heard over his life and produced a treasure trove of songs that are now part of the American songbook. The irony with Simon is the wake that followed him through these permutations of songcraft, whether is was grousing about his being a faux folkie or an appropriator of black music styles, whether American or World based. There is the counter argument about how he brought otherwise obscure, at least to the broader public, voices to greater acclaim.

As I said above, I wonder if there are any Simons in our future. Songs today that are as popular as his were in his day are the product of collaboration between many writers and tend to be emblematic of the particular sonic qualities inherent in modern computer based production. How many of these songs will be sung by many for many years to come? Will they be sung to old folks by old folks in forty or fifty years? Will Kanye or Kendrick Lamar be someday as Simon is today? Is Rap something others cover? I assume so; why wouldn't they?

It makes me wonder.

This Week's Song. For fun, this week's songs isn't from any album, but is a short song I wrote for a dance solo Nancy and I did late last summer called With a Man (Who Loves to Dance). It's written for a Foxtrot and I was inspired by Peggy Lee when I wrote it. Nancy sings lead. You can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com

©2018 David William Pearce

They Gave a Pulitzer to Hip-Hop: OMG or AFT?

I don't normally pay attention to who win the Pulitzer prize in music; I don't even know what the criteria might be, eligibility; anything like that. Some of the winners I know of, some I have no idea, but this year they gave it to the Rap/Hip-Hop artist, Kendrick Lamar for his album, Damn. 
It's caused quite a bit of talk, controversy; which I guess should be expected.
Traditionally, the Pulitzer has gone to Classical or Jazz artists, those who have, for the most part, defined musical educations. The assumption is that Kendrick Lamar does not, that he comes to his musical understanding by other means; I doubt Hip-Hop songs are charted out, however in this day and age of Pro Tools and plug-ins, beats, etc, it may simply be the creative melding of existing sounds and sampling, and I assume some performance, into something unique.
Now, I'm not ordinarily an aficionado of Hip-Hop, but I figured the smart thing to do would be to listen to the album, and I did, and it's very good. It grooves, it's got things to say, messages; all the things us oldsters remember the social critique albums of yore having.
Whether adding popular music to the mix in awarding Pulitzers is a good or bad thing I don't know. Does it diminish those who spend years learning and perfecting the classical canon of musical composition and theory and then trying to create and then compete against the titans of those genres for ear time? It might, but that's been a concern for some time.
The other comment made on this asks whether there is a racial component here because classically trained and educated musicians tend to be white, predominantly due to accessibility and wealth; music school ain't cheap!
To me the question inevitably goes to the value of a fine arts education, whether it's music, writing, or the visual arts. When everything is judged based on "Market Value" or what's popular at any given moment, its value will always be subjective even as debt is not. Whether the debt is worth the personal subjectivity is an individual conundrum.



This week's song is from Apologia,

Imperfect Touch. It's about love as a concept versus love as it really exists. The point that compromise and concession are inevitably the only way that love can work between two people no matter how they may wish it could be. Musically, the song came about from the drum track and the synth pattern derived from playing with it. The guitars are mildly distorted through the Effectron, and I pushed to vocals a bit.
Yo can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com.
©2018 David William Pearce

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

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

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

The Album is Dead...Nonsense!

As a reader of most things musical, insofar as music creation and production goes, nothing makes me either smile or roll my eyes like the now frequent declarations that the "album" as a musical construct is dead, done in by the nefarious forces of glassy-eyed internet streaming junkies for whom listening to more than one song by a particular band or performer is like so yesterday.

To this I say: uh-huh, sure.

My apathy is not merely based on my own predilection towards theme based albums, to which my recent releases will attest, but to the overwhelming fact that along with this proclamation of era in finem, are articles of bands and artists discussing their latest releases which invariably are albums! This is not surprising for most artists are thematic, whether rock, Jazz, or Metal.

So what is going on?

Everybody talk about Pop Muzak!

Pop music has always been about singles stretching back to the days of 45's, 78's, and further back if you include that period a hundred plus years ago when sheet music and player pianos were in vogue. Most of us have fond memories of one hit wonders and those bands or groups that were created in our formative years, whatever period that may mean to you-whether it was Bobby Sherman, Kajagoogoo, the Spice Girls, or the latest K-Pop-they were not created for the purposes of thematic music; they were created for mass consumption and as such are best represented by a series of singles, assuming the first gets any traction.

I won't get into the fine art of Pop sensation creation; that in itself would take up an entire column, but will say that, much like the death of Rock-which is somewhat precarious-talk of the death of the album, and certainly the disingenuous posturing that doing one is a waste of time and resources, is total bunk.

Not everyone wants to be the next teen sensation, most musicians and songwriters have stories to tell, loves to extoll or commiserate, and injustices to decry, and even if they are released separately, their songs inevitably build upon a theme; that's how we identify with them; that is their legacy. So just keep truckin' and do your thing.