Recently in Music Category

From The Open University and the BBC:

How technology changed music: Nick Mason presents BBC World Service series
A new landmark nine-part OU/BBC series on the BBC World Service, A History of Music in Technology continues on Saturday mornings, through to June 22nd.

Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason presents the series, charting the history of music and technology and exploring the world of legendary artists, producers, engineers and inventors. The series shines a light on game-changing innovations including the synthesizer, electric guitar, samplers, drum machines and the recording studio itself.

Check it out over the next couple of days.

Mac Rebennack? Otherwise known as Dr. John. From the New York Times:

Dr. John, of Voodoo Beads, Feathers and New Orleans Sound, Dies at 77
Mac Rebennack, the pianist, singer, songwriter and producer better known as Dr. John, who embodied the New Orleans sound for generations of music fans, died on Thursday. He was 77.

A family statement released by his publicist said the cause was a heart attack. The statement did not say where he died. He had been living in recent years on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, La.

Mr. Rebennack belonged to the pantheon of New Orleans keyboard wizards that includes Professor Longhair, James Booker, Huey (Piano) Smith and Fats Domino. What distinguished him from his peers was the showmanship of his public persona.

Onstage as Dr. John, he adorned himself with snakeskin, beads and colorful feathers, and his shows blended Mardi Gras bonhomie with voodoo mystery.

He recorded more than 30 albums, including jazz projects (“Bluesiana Triangle,” 1990, with the drummer Art Blakey and the saxophonist David Newman), solo piano records (“Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack,” 1981) and his version of Afropop (“Locked Down,” 2012). His 1989 album of standards, “In a Sentimental Mood,” earned him the first of six Grammy Awards, for his duet with Rickie Lee Jones on “Makin’ Whoopee!”

Saw him a bunch of times in Boston and Seattle. Always put on a great show - got a bunch of his music digitised and listen to it every so often.

Two excellent lists of Music and Media software with emphasis on open source and Linux. Jack is the best package for doing audio under Linux and many people have written enhancements to it or written applications for other things (video, etc...) that 'talk' to it.

Here is Jack Audio Connection Kit - Applications

And here is a general collection (8,000+) of music and media software applications: Software Music Machine Archive

These are taken with a grain of salt as some of them are no longer in production, they sometimes list older versions, and a good share of 404's. Still, a great jumping-off point.

Who can forget Steve Goodman's Perfect Country and Western Song

Who knew that Sir Anthony Hopkins composes music when he is not acting:

And after the concert he murdered and ate one of the clarinet players.
With Fava beans and a nice Chianti...

Tip of the hat to Kim DuToit - his website is a daily read for me.

Raining lightly but I have rain gear so will be working outside.

Heading over to Whidbey Island later today for a Craigslist deal. Someone is selling a pair of Event Audio 20/20 BAS speakers for a decent price. I already have a pair for my music computer. Having another pair for my video/media computer will be perfect. Same speakers deliver the same frequency response so I can move files from one to the other and they will sound the same. Perfect for editing.

Looks like reel to reel tape recording is coming back into vogue. I started out in music with a Sony R2R because it was the only game in town. Wound up owning an Ampex 4-track and then a TEAC 8-track but then, decent quality audio converters became available for computers and it was all over. Never looked back.

Now this from Thorens:

High End 2019: Thorens TM 1600 – High-End-Tape Machine
Thorens as the oldest brand in audio opens a new chapter in history of high quality analogue reproduction with the presentation of the new tape machine TM 1600

This time not only records, which are called “vinyls” today, are experiencing a strong revival, also the for a long time seen dead magnetic tape technology with quarter inch tapes is rising like a phoenix from the ashes.

In connection with Duesseldorf based tape machine manufactory Ballfinger Thorens meets the rising demand for master tape copies with it’s brand new tape machine TM 1600. A lot of pre-recorded tapes are distributed e.g. by STS-Analog, Analogy Records, Zavalinka Records or Analogify from Berlin.

Prices start at around $13,000USD so very much a status thing. The Saudis will buy a ton of them. I'll stick with my converter and Cubase. Been using this combo for over five years and love it.

He had a heart valve replaced today - from Twitter:

This is the most viewed video on YouTube - currently at 6,096,158,566 views.
The world's population is just under 7.7 billion.

They are from Puerto Rico.
Just checked - the video is now up to 6,096,194,553 views - 36K viewings in about ten minutes.

Happy 334th Birthday. Love his music. Studied piano as a kid and switched to organ when my feet could reach the pedals. Bach was always one of my favorites to play. A favorite piece is BWV 564 - his Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major especially the middle Adagio section - simply sublime. One of my absolute favorite pieces of music. The Adagio begins at 5:05 if you do not want to listen to the whole piece, at least do yourself a favor and scroll to it.

The Toccata is nice and thunderous especially with the doubled bass notes and the Fugue is a wild romp of a thing -  a lot of fun to play.

NAMM is the National Association of Music Merchants and they hold a huge national conference every January (huge = 115K attendants). This is where people who invent new musical equipment go to showcase their project and try to find a marketer. 

A couple months afterwords, Barry Wood compiles the oddest of these and posts them to his website:  NAMM Oddities

Here are four photos - a lot more at the site:

Distortion box featuring a 3,000 volt plasma arc.

Ampeg is well known for bass amplifiers. This cabinet is 11 feet tall!

A couple cute Ukuleles

Clever idea from Remo - these drum heads snap on the top of your standard five gallon plastic pail.

King of the Surf Rock - from Rolling Stone:

Dick Dale, King of the Surf Guitar, Dead at 81
Dick Dale, “the King of the Surf Guitar,” has died at the age of 81.

California Rocker first reported that Dale died Sunday. His bassist Sam Bolle confirmed Dale’s death to the Guardian. No cause of death was revealed, but the guitarist suffered from health issues in recent years. In 2010, Dale said he was battling rectal cancer, and in an interview that went viral, Dale said in 2015 that “I can’t stop touring because I will die” due to medical expenses stemming from cancer treatment, diabetes and renal failure. “I have to raise $3,000 every month to pay for the medical supplies I need to stay alive, and that’s on top of the insurance that I pay for,” Dale said at the time.

As the progenitor of the surf rock genre and an innovator who helped stretch the possibilities of the electric guitar, Dale inspired musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Ry Cooder and the Beach Boys. Dale’s “Miserlou” also notably featured in the opening credits sequence of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

One of a kind - kept doing what he loved right up to the end. The local library has none of his CDs - checking a torrent site later this afternoon.

Alan Parsons is playing two dates here next April and the shows are already completely sold out. Had hoped to get a couple tickets but no go. Been listening to a lot of his stuff yesterday and today:

Here is one of his lesser known songs - no video, just the song but it gives you an idea of his compositional and arrangement skills. Closer to Heaven from Gaudi - gorgeous stuff.

Lyrics here: Closer to Heaven.

From Angélique Kidjo:

Global pop star and 3-time Grammy winner Angélique Kidjo has partnered with super producer Jeff Bhasker (Rihanna, Kanye West, Harry Styles, Bruno Mars, Drake, Jay-Z) to create 'Remain In Light'
A new project that finds the Benin-born artist reclaiming rock for Africa, bringing the Talking Heads' landmark 1980 album full circle.  The record is a track-by-track re-imagination of the original, considered to be one of the greatest albums of the ‘80s and deeply influenced by music from West Africa, notably Fela Kuti's afrobeat.  With her version of 'Remain In Light’ (out June 8/Kravenworks Records), Angélique celebrates the genius of Talking Heads, Brian Eno and the touchstones that made the original so revered and injects it with her euphoric singing, explosive percussion, horn orchestrations, and select lyrics performed in languages from her home country.

Looks like a lot of fun - here is the music video for Born under Punches:

She is touring but the closest venue is Boise, Idaho.

From The Guardian:

Mark Hollis, lead singer of Talk Talk, dies at age 64, reports say
Figures from the world of music have paid tribute to Mark Hollis, frontman of the band Talk Talk, after it was reported that he had died at the age of 64.

With Hollis as its singer and creative mastermind, the group made a name with 1980s hit singles such as It’s My Life, Today, Talk Talk and Life’s What You Make It. They progressed to albums like Spirit of Eden, which was hailed as a “masterpiece,” and Laughing Stock.

His cousin-in-law Anthony Costello tweeted on Monday: “RIP Mark Hollis. Cousin-in-law. Wonderful husband and father. Fascinating and principled man. Retired from the music business 20 years ago but an indefinable musical icon.”

I have a bunch of their music already ripped onto the hard drive. Really liked them. 64 is way to young.

Ennio Morricone is one of my favorite composers and at age 90, he has come out with a book - from The Guardian:

Ennio Morricone settles old scores with ‘simplistic’ directors
As one of cinema’s greatest composers, he has written the music for hundreds of films, including classics such as A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, recreating the wild west of Sergio Leone’s imagination with a soundscape of haunting whistles and cracking whips.

But, after a lifetime’s career in both Hollywood and European cinema, Ennio Morricone is now settling scores of a different kind. In a book based on extensive interviews with the famously private man, he attacks film-makers who, he says, fail to understand the power of music to heighten emotions – and some fellow composers for enabling them to regard a soundtrack as merely “something that plays in the background”.

“There are times … when you get to the recording stage without having the slightest clue as to the director’s expectations,” he says in the book, Ennio Morricone: In His Own Words. Now 90, he recalls the US filmmaker and Halloween director John Carpenter commissioning him to write the score for The Thing: “He hardly said a word.” Don Siegel wanted Morricone’s music for the 1970 western Two Mules for Sister Sara, starring Shirley MacLaine and Clint Eastwood, but “we didn’t communicate much,” he says.

The composer remembers that his fellow Italian Franco Zeffirelli asked for music “devoid of themes, a music of moods and atmospheres”, but “when the music was ready … said, ‘You didn’t write any themes.’”

Available for pre-order at Amazon.

One of my favorite musicians and songwriters. Was driving past the Skagit Valley Casino and saw on their billboard that he is playing there April12th and 13th. Website here: Alan Parsons

You might not know it but you have heard a lot of his music and he was also very active as an engineer and producer. Here is a bit of his biography:

He was fortunate enough to work as assistant engineer on the last two albums by The Beatles and after he qualified as a fully-fledged recording engineer, he went on to work with Paul McCartney and The Hollies among many others. But it was his contribution as engineer on Pink Floyd’s classic The Dark Side Of The Moon that really got him world attention. That soon led to striking successes as a producer – notably with Pilot’s Magic, John Miles’ Highfly and Music and Steve Harley’s (Come Up And See Me) Make Me Smile. He also produced the hugely successful Year Of The Cat album with Al Stewart and two albums with American prog rock band Ambrosia.

In 1975 he met Eric Woolfson who not only became his manager, but joined forces with Alan as a songwriting and performing partner for what became known as The Alan Parsons Project. The APP’s debut album, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe paved the way for a signing to Clive Davis’ newly launched Arista label and a string of hit albums, namely I Robot (1977), Pyramid (1978), The Turn of a Friendly Card (1980), Eye in the Sky (1982), Ammonia Avenue (1984), Vulture Culture (1985), Stereotomy (1986) and Gaudi (1987).

Parsons is also the author of the amazing book / DVD course: Art And Science of Sound Recording which is currently unavailable and sells used for $1,500. It was $80 when I bought my copy about ten years ago. Really well written and timeless.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of The Day The Music Died

On February 3, 1959, rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with the pilot, Roger Peterson. The event later became known as "The Day the Music Died", after singer-songwriter Don McLean so referred to it in his song "American Pie"

I love film music and have a couple favorite composers - Michel Legrand was one of them. From the Los Angeles Times:

Michel Legrand, Academy Award-winning composer, dies at 86
Oscar-winning composer and pianist Michel Legrand, whose hits included the score for the '60s romance "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" and the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" and who worked with some of biggest singers of the 20th century, has died at age 86.

Legrand last performed on stage just last month, and was still composing and practicing piano an hour a day even as fatigue increasingly forced him to restrict his schedule, said Claire de Castellane, a musician and producer who organized a series of recent solo piano concerts by Legrand. De Castellane confirmed his death Saturday, without providing details.

"MICHEL LEGRAND Feb. 24, 1932-Jan. 26, 2019," read the home page of his official website Saturday, followed by photographs of Legrand with Barbara Streisand, Miles Davis, Yves Montand and others. Tributes poured in on Twitter and Facebook, and French radio and television replayed songs from his vast repertoire.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced condolences to Legrand's wife and children, hailing him as an "indefatigable genius." ''His unique tunes that run through our heads and are hummed in the streets have become like the soundtracks of our lives," he said.

A great voice has been stilled.

Played on sweet potatoes and squash:

Pupsi's YouTube channel is here

Great animation. Be sure to stay though the credits - the final scene is cute:

One of my favorite blues musicians is Joe Bonamassa. I have been listening to his music for the last week or so and tonight wondered if he was touring. Checked his website and yes, he is and crap. I missed it.

11/27/18 - PORTLAND, OR - ARLENE SCHNITZER CONCERT HALL
11/29/18 - VANCOUVER, CANADA - QUEEN ELIZABETH THEATRE
11/30/18 - VANCOUVER, CANADA - QUEEN ELIZABETH THEATRE
12/01/18 - VANCOUVER, CANADA - QUEEN ELIZABETH THEATRE

Not familiar with his music? Here is a taste:

Quite the lineup on this show too:

Joe Bonamassa – guitar, vocals, liner notes
Carmine Rojas – bass
Anton Fig – drums
Bogie Bowles – drums
Rick Melick – keyboards, tambourine, backing vocals

Oh well. Next year.

No synthesizers - all sampled from real sources seen on the screen. From their website:

Against our fast-moving world, in which media content is often reduced, Jonas and I let inspiration guide us to create a seven and a half minutes long sample project in a docks setting surrounded by abandoned industry. We’re glad about each viewer who appreciates our creation!

● Everything you're about to hear is visualized in this video.
● No additional sounds were used to produce this track.
● Best experienced with stereo headphones or hifi speakers.
● This project was made for the purpose of making art.
● No objects were damaged while recording.

All the sounds come from mechanical robots - not something I would want to listen to while driving up to the farm but four minutes of it are a lot of fun.

From Moritz Simon Geist

Making Techno with Music Robots
New sounds from the future! Robotic Electronic Music is played with only music robots, mechanics and physical sound devices. Its not a single instrument, its a full concept. I developed a lot of DIY futuristic music robots in the last years (like my big MR-808 Drum robot). beeing both a classically traines musician and a robotics engineer, I am creating a futuristic way of playing electronic music, to give a tangible body back to electronic music.

Great '30's Jazz cover of Michael Jackson's Thriller by Postmodern Jukebox featuring Wayne Brady:

Weezer doing Toto's Africa:

And that is actually Weird Al Yankovic singing lead, not Rivers Cuomo

UPDATE: Just found this version from Postmodern Jukebox

What a voice. From her hometown newspaper - The Detroit Free Press:

Aretha Franklin dies at 76: Detroit star transformed American music
Aretha Franklin, whose impassioned, riveting voice made her a titan of American music, has died, her niece, Sabrina Owens, confirmed to the Free Press. She was 76.

She died at 9:50 a.m. surrounded by family at her home in Detroit.

A family statement released by her publicist Gwendolyn Quinn said "Franklin's official cause of death was due to advance pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type, which was confirmed by Franklin's oncologist, Dr. Philip Phillip of Karmanos Cancer Institute" in Detroit.

The family added: "In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart. We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family."

Always loved that restaurant scene from Blues Brothers:

Great cameos of Matt 'Guitar' Murphy as the husband and saxophone solo by Blue Lou Marini

Been listening to some music and ran across this one:

I keep a weather eye on the horizon, back to the wall
I like to know who's coming through the door, that’s all
It's the old Army training, kickin' in
I'm not complaining, It's the world we live in
Blarney and Malarkey, they're a devious firm
They'll take you to the cleaners, or let you burn
The help is breaking dishes in the kitchen -- thanks a lot
We hired the worst dishwasher This place ever got

Comin’ in below the radar, they want to spoil our fun...
In the meantime, I'm cleaning my gun

Remember it got so cold ice froze up the tank
We lit a fire beneath her just so she would crank
Keep a weather eye on the horizon, tap the storm glass now and then
We got a case of Old Damnation For when you get here my friend

We can have ourselves a party before they come...
In the meantime, I'm cleaning my gun

We had women and a mirror ball, we had a DJ
We used to eat pretty much all came this way
Ever since the goons came in took apart the place
I keep a tire iron in the corner just in case

Gave you a magic bullet on a little chain
Keep you safe from the chilly winds and the howl of the rain
We're gonna might need bullets, should we get stuck
Any which way, we're gonna need a little luck

You can still get gas in heaven and drink in kingdom come...
In the meantime, I'm cleaning my gun

I love the minimalist recording studio and instrumentation. No AutoTune here, just a couple people who are masters at their craft and a recording engineer who knows to stay the hell away. Originally released in September 2009.

Great two-part article by Ed Driscol - Part One, Part Two

A lot of good information with links to softwarre - some free, some not but all good.

Bad management - from Bloomberg:

Gibson Files for Bankruptcy in Deal to Renew Guitar Business
Gibson Brands Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection, with lenders taking control of the iconic American business that’s supplied guitars to B.B. King, Elvis Presley and Pete Townshend.

The Chapter 11 filing on Tuesday in Delaware keeps Gibson in business but gives ownership to noteholders, replacing stockholders that include Chief Executive Officer Henry Juszkiewicz, the company’s leader for more than three decades. According to court filings, current noteholders include Silver Point Capital, Melody Capital Partners and funds affiliated with KKR Credit Advisors.

The restructuring will allow the instrument business to "unburden" itself of a consumer-electronics unit that Gibson blamed for its financial woes. Gibson owes as much as $500 million, and lenders will provide a new loan of up to $135 million to keep the company in business, according to court papers.

They lost sight of their core competencies and tried to expand to far into areas where they had no knowledge. Their CEO is an idiot:

Juszkiewicz bought the audio and home entertainment business from Koninklijke Philips NV in June 2014 for $135 million as part of a bid to relaunch Gibson Guitars as Gibson Brands Inc., a “music lifestyle” company. He also bought a line of consumer electronics from Japanese company Onkyo Corp. in his bid for diversification. But the purchases drained cash, and earnings plunged. The company ran out of time for a turnaround as a bond maturity and springing term loan loomed in July.

They need to dump these "brands" and dump Juszkiewicz. The guy trashed an american legend (founded in 1894)

Quite the collection of instuments - from Reverb:

Moby to Sell Synth Collection on Reverb, Donate Proceeds
Known for albums such as Play and 18, Moby has solidified his place within the electronica genre, having amassed a large fan base with his ethereal electronica. Last month, he released a his fifteenth studio album Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt. Today, we here at Reverb are excited to announce the launch of the Official Moby Reverb Shop on Thursday, April 26, which will feature over 100 pieces of his personal recording and touring equipment.

"This is the equipment I've used to make all my records," Moby told us. “I have so much equipment, and almost all of it has profound sentimental value to me, including synthesizers I started using in the ‘80s. But rather than keep it all in storage, I want to sell it for a good cause."

All of Moby's proceeds from the shop will benefit the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine — an organization dedicated to dramatically changing the way that doctors treat chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and cancer.

An amazing collection and the charity looks like they do fine work: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

From the Nashville Post:

Gibson ‘running out of time — rapidly’
“Gibson Brands, Inc. today announced that the company made a $16.6 million coupon payment to holders of its $375 million, 8.875% senior secured notes due 2018.”

That simple statement issued a week ago — at all of 26 words, it’s less than a quarter the length of Gibson’s boilerplate company description that accompanied it — suggests a business-as-usual tone of a company taking care of its contractual commitments.

But the situation facing the iconic Nashville-based music instrument maker, which has annual revenues of more than $1 billion, is far from normal: CFO Bill Lawrence recently left the company after less than a year on the job and just six months before $375 million of senior secured notes will mature. On top of that, another $145 million in bank loans will come due immediately if those notes, issued in 2013, are not refinanced by July 23.

Less than six months out from those crucial deadlines, the prospects for an orderly refinancing — Gibson has hired investment bank Jefferies to help with that — look slim, observers say. And the alternative scenarios look likely to sideline longtime owner and CEO Henry Juszkiewicz.

“At the end of the day, someone will take control of this company — be it the debtors or the bondholders,” Debtwire reporter Reshmi Basu told the Post this week. “This has been a long time coming.”

Sheesh - they are an American Icon. There is no need for them to have been that deeply in hock except for poor management. Annual revenues of more than $1 billion? Come on - this is no way to run a company.

16:42 of pure bliss if you like Irish music. Martin Hayes lived in Seattle for a number of years so know of him from there

Their website is here: The Gloaming

From metal website Louder than War:

Dik Mik : Hawkind keyboard legend RIP
We are sad to report the death of the legendary Dik Mik who was the keyboard warrior in the classic Hawkwind and whose swooshes of noise not only opened up new constellations of sound but made him inaverdently one of the key musicians of his time. A harbinger of future eletronic based music it would be fair to argue that DikMik was a pioneeer of not only industrial music like Throbbing Gristle but also much electronic music from Aphex Twin and beyond.

He is also remembered as a genuine character, part of the heart and soul of the classic Hawkind chaos and the man who brought his mate Lemmy into the band because he needed a speed buddy – stuff like that is part of rock lore and we love the stories of the pair’s madness but we just want to thank the cosmic warrior for creating a whole new way of -playing music which is often overlooked…

A true innovator - he laid the foundation for several distinct genres of electronic and synthesizer music.

Justin Delay from reverb.com: The Synth Sounds of Blade Runner (1982)

A great fifteen minute demonstration of Bob Moog's designs for a modular synthesizer. Video is from 2014 which was the 50th anniversary of his initial demonstration. A couple years ago, I picked up a unit from these people: synthesizers.com. The Moog patents have expired so these units are built using the same basic designs but with modern components so there is a lot less noise, a much larger dynamic range and zero tuning issues. You get the same incredible sonorities of the Moog design but with none of the drawbacks.

I have a modular synthesizer that I purchased a few years ago. The original Moog patents have expired so the circut designs are in the public domain. The same march of technology that has given us modern electronics has also affected things down to the individual component level so although my "new" Moog has the same rich tone and flexibility as the original synthesizer, there is no noise, the thing stays in tune when the temperature changes and the reliability is light-years beyond what the original units used to have.

Here is a video from 1978 with Heinz Funk demonstrating a Moog Modular IIIc and a Sennheiser Vocoder VSM 201:

Tip of the hat to Mono Thyratron who did the subtitles.

J.S. Bach

From the kickstarter page:

Libre Art of the Fugue
The team of Kimiko Ishizaka, with help from the OpenScore project, the Teldex Studio, Sound engineer Anne-Marie Sylvestre, and a beautiful Bösendorfer grand piano, have previously brought you The Open Goldberg Variations and The Open Well-Tempered Clavier projects.

Kimiko Ishizaka is a German pianist, composer, and weightlifter who is on a mission to bring the music of J.S. Bach to the widest audience possible. Her breathtaking interpretations have been praised by classical music's top critics, and her previous Bach recordings have been streamed and downloaded millions of times.

Anne-Marie Sylvestre has recorded, edited, and mastered hundreds of classical recordings. Her keen understanding of Bach's music, and the excellent rapport she has with Kimiko makes her the perfect collaborator for this project.

The OpenScore project, a new initiative by the MuseScore team, extends a years-long collaboration with Kimiko Ishizaka to produce top quality digital scores of Bach's works. 

The Teldex Studio is one of the world's top recording locations. By continuing the tradition of recording at Teldex, on luxurious Bösendorfer grand pianos, Kimiko Ishizaka is steadily building the best Bach Box Set ever created, where the consistency of recording quality, sound, and piano tone will surpass any other collection ever made.

This is very cool - love Bach's music and his keyboard works are incredible.

Playing for Change goes around the world recording musicians playing a song - here is their latest: