Tag: music
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You Got Taylor Swift in My Trent Reznor!
I am not generally impressed by Taylor Swift. I like some Nine Inch Nails and respect Trent Reznor, but I also think the whole act is a little overwrought and silly sometimes.
I had no idea that the two, not unlike peanut butter and chocolate, could be so good together.And now, of course, “Shake it Off” is stuck in my head, and I’m beginning to get why the people like this Swift person so much. God dammit.
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The Quest for Peace, Through Headphones
I am told that I am poor at being “in the moment,” and I confess it to be the case. I am nothing if not riddled with anxieties, large and small. At my worst, I am engulfed in worries, drenched in waves of stomach-sickening dread, doubt, and guilt. But normally, just going about my day, I maintain a manageable baseline of unease; the quiet hum of preoccupation with Other Things always resonating, if just barely. I am told this is bad for my health, to say the least.I come by it all honestly, with anxious genes from my forebears, and traumatic life experiences from childhood and adulthood that have primed my lizard brain to needlessly rev itself while idle, overeager to burst into full fight-or-flight mode at the least cause, be it from a sense of physical danger to thoughts and fears of a more existential, personal, or mundane nature.
But while my limbic system is asserting itself, life is happening. There’s my wonderful family (who, in fairness, trigger not a small amount of anxiety themselves), music to be carried away by, books to be lost in, the lovely natural world that surrounds me here in Maine, Earl Gray tea, writing, bicycle rides, cool autumn air, my guitar, and even dumb video games and TV shows. To enjoy these things, I need to be there for them. I need to be “present.” Usually, I am not.
Being in the moment, being present, having a feeling of mindfulness; these things are enormous challenges for me. Elusive, to say the least, even when sincerely pursued. Being present, letting go of worries and preoccupations, takes up such time, time I could be spending being worried and preoccupied. There are all those Other Things!
The thing is, though, the worry and the preoccupation and the anxiety, it’s killing me. It’s ruining my sleep, shredding my nervous system, bruising my heart, pock-marking my brain, dampening my intellect, deadening my creativity, atrophying my muscles, and robbing me of genuine connection with my wife and kids, who I love deeply. I suffer from depression and I struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, but it’s also true that I could improve things by leaps and bounds if I could just manage to make room in my life – in my mind – for one simple thing.
Peace.
All this is to say that this is why I went on a weird and frustrating quest over the past few weeks trying to find a nice pair of headphones.
You see, even though I’m a musician and songwriter, actually listening to music, escaping into it, was something I’d lost the knack for sometime in my late 20s. As the Internet and podcasts and Other Things ascended, becoming absorbed in an album became a rare thing for me. I suppose this happens with a lot of people at this age; music is something we obsess over (and spend way too much money on) as teenagers and college students, and then more or less abandon as we become Regular Adults, save for occasional trips of nostalgia.
There’s another odd sore point for me, in that listening to good music comes with the baggage of opportunities missed. I once firmly believed that I would become a singer-songwriter by trade, and make a life of writing, recording, and performing music. Now that this is clearly not going to happen, it becomes more diffiult to enjoy much of the music I used to, or ought to, for it recalls thoughts of a youth spent, talent squandered, and lessons not taken. At times I get wrapped up in fantasies of what might have been, which, for when I was young and hopeful, was an exciting dream about a future, and as an adult is now a sad yearning for what can now never be.
Nonetheless, in the here and now, it seemed to me that music might be a good way to claim some peace for myself. Goodness knows, we have such easy access to so goddamn much of it, that there’s almost infinite choice. I have music in my iTunes library that I’ve owned for over a decade and probably never even pushed “play” on. But music, and audio more generally, seemed like a good way to ease into the pursuit of peace. When I sit to read a book, as Other Things go on around me, I could put on a pair of headphones, play some instrumental music, and escape into the world the author has laid out for me. (What more often happens is I that get distracted or fall asleep.) I could listen to guided meditations and affirmations to start rewiring some of the bad connections and memorizations encrusted in my addled brain. This wouldn’t be a way to be in the moment with people or nature, per se, but it would be a start, a first step toward letting the Other Things go, just for a little while, in favor of peace.
To do this, I’d of course need a decent pair of headphones, right? You can’t achieve inner peace with crummy earbuds, right?
Once upon a time, I’d had a kind-of-nice pair of over-ear headphones. Bose OE2’s, which sounded nice and warm, and were more or less comfortable, though cheaply built and easily broken. Before my quest for peace, I’d decided they were not being utilized enough to justify holding on to, so I sold them. (I also had sold my Kindle Paperwhite, since I was reading so much on my iPad mini – a choice I now regret for related peace-pursuit reasons.)
Now, I actually think Apple’s EarPods are quite nice for what they are, and we have at least two pairs of them in the house. I know there’s a kind of geek-cultural agreement that these are risible peaces of junk, but I have found them rather comfortable and sufficiently nice-sounding to serve most of my listening needs over the past couple of years.
But I didn’t think they’d suffice for finding peace. One needed comfortable over-ear headphones for that. I mean, everyone knows this, right? For true peace, you can’t have a little nugget in your ear canal vibrating the air and your skull. What you need is a couple of cushions lovingly embracing your ears, with earphones that produce a soundscape rich with detail. That’s the only way to peace, of course.
This was the tenet I had subconsciously agreed to, anyway. So I started researching and looking for deals. I was excited to find Logitech’s UE 4000 headphones go on some crazy discount to under $20, so I snapped them up, and at first thought they were a true epiphanic discovery. It wasn’t too long, though, that I realized they were painfully uncomfortable, with a kind of mushy, heavy sound. Dissatisfied and needing to find an alternative, my hunting instinct was triggered. It was time to shop for serious.
Let me say something about this. This is a thing with me, when there is an Important Purchase to be made, something takes over and I become obsessed with the process, consumed with researching possibilities, combing the Internet for bargains, digging through enthusiasts’ message boards, and gathering opinion. I used to only do this on those rare occasions when a new computer was to be bought, but that became a lot easier once I switched to Macs in 2004. But headphones were a new way for my meticulous shopping beast to howl at the moon.
Thinking on it now, how could it not? Headphones are the perfect snare for me: they are of near-infinite variety, there are models and makes that are widely agreed by certain communities to be superior, but dizzying nuance exists not just between price points and types and manufacturers and brands, but within those brands and individual models. And then there are factors that can affect one’s decision such as the quality of the production or compression of the music in question; the source player, be it a computer, an iPod, or a hi-fi system; the earpads, be they stock or purchased separately, made from all manner of materials; one’s surrounding environs; and even that maddening myth (is it just a myth?) of headphone “burn-in.” Audiophiles can give wine aficionados a run for their money, which they need a hell of a lot of.
And it’s not as though I live anywhere near a place that sells decent headphones, and has sufficient models on display for testing out in person. Yes, Apple Stores and other such places have headphones to sample, but they almost exclusively make available cans that are far out of my price range, which was really anything over $100 (technically, there is plenty below $100 that is out of my range, but as we can see rationality was lacking throughout this quest). I was limited almost entirely to what I could actually get delivered to my house. That meant actually buying them.
I won’t bore you with the shipment-by-shipment details, but suffice it to say I spent a great deal of time on websites like Head-Fi.org, r/headphones, and deep within the lowest levels of Amazon customer reviews. And by this time I have to assume that there is a red flag over my name, or perhaps a bullseye target over my picture, at Amazon’s returns department.
My primary experience was with three models: Sony’s MDR–7506, Audio-Technica’s ATH-M40x, and Sennheiser’s HD 380 Pro.
I began with the MDR–7506, which The Wirecutter has long named its top choice, and has been a staple of Those in the Know since they were introduced in 1991. I was at first surprised by how neutral they were, with no Beats-like thumping bass or Bose warmth. But I was quickly shocked by the level of detail I could suddenly percieve. I could hear the slightest taps of Erin McKeown’s fingernails on “Queen of Quiet,” and the bass crescendos in Pantera’s “Walk” sounded like they were physically coming toward me. But they were also rather uncomfortable. After a few minutes, parts of my earlobes would begin to ache. I tried a few minor hacks with the earpads to mitigate this, but the discomfort was undeniable.
Surely, I thought, the M40x’s would be perfect. Everyone (and by that I mean a lot of tech geeks) knows the M50x is some paragon of headphone perfection, and the M40x would just be a small step down in, well, some tech spec or other. They were big, rugged, puffy-looking, and extremely well-regarded.
But to my ears, they were claustrophobic where the Sonys were expansive. The sound was meaty, focused, tight, and powerful, but somehow scrunched. I doubted my own perceptions, thinking that I might even be wanting the “wrong thing,” for how could I not like these? But on top of the sound, they too were too painful to wear for long stretches. Replacing the earpads with something softer only made the sound feel empty, drained. Off they went.
The Sennheisers were very strange to me. Rather than pressing against the ears, they completely surround them, so your lobes never make contact with the hardware. I thought that might be just the ticket for my enormous ears, but the clamping sensation on my skull was off-putting, and the sound felt slightly tinny. Bass came through strongly, but mids were weak, as though being heard, well, in a can.
During this process, I began to doubt my senses. Could I even distinguish between crummy and high-end headphones? Was any of this even worth it? One night (yes it was late) I tried comparing the EarPods to one of the contender models, and found I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. I was going a little bit crazy.
I was feeling anxiety over the time and effort and money being put into this quest. I felt guilt. I felt worry.
At one point, I returned to the Sonys. Something indeed had been lost. The vast expanse of soundstage I had perceived from my initial experiences no longer struck me. Had I simply become acclimated to better headphones generally since my first time around the block with them? Or was there really nothing special there to begin with?
Despite the wash of “wow-ness” being gone, I found I still appreciated the “true” sound they produced. Not perfect, as some vocals sometimes came through a little recessed for my taste, but they still came across as superior to the others I’d gone through. I tried out a couple of different kinds of earpads that didn’t change the sound too drastically, but made them far more comfortable.
You can clearly see what happened here.
This all began with a sincere attempt to be more in the moment, to have a taste of relaxed mindfulness, to let go of immediate anxieties and remove myself from the frenetic stresses of work, parenthood, the news, battles on Twitter, and the like. But the process became its own source of stress. I simply had to find, if not the “perfect” solution, the solution that maximized the resources I had available to me, by way of money, time, and access to the objects themselves.
But I realized I was never going to achieve some kind of zen state by way of the headphones themselves. (If there is a doorway to the sublime to be found through headphones, it is likely well beyond my price range, so I may never truly know what it is to live with a pair of $400 cans, alas.) I finally understood that I could just pick a pair that was good enough, and move on to what started all of this. The quest for peace.
As I write this, I am donning my new Sony MDR–7506’s. I have a pair of Auray Ultra Deep earpads on them, which give a little more isolation and bass, and are far easier on my ears than the stock pads. I am still choosing between those and a pair of Beyerdynamic velour earpads, which are much softer, but a little less isolated, if barely. So I suppose this leg of the quest is not entirely over. But it’s manageable. It is not suffused with anxiety, just a twinge of guilt over the additional $20 spent on whichever pads I stick with.
I can stop worrying now about all the Other Headphones that I might test out. The next step, the first real step, begins now. It begins with writing this essay, with enjoying music through the good-enough headphones I’ve settled on. It begins with knowing that my family is here in my house with me, safe and tucked in for the night, and feeling my connection to them even as they’re not in the same room with me. It begins with being in this moment right here, right now, and then it begins again with the next moment. And I can be in those moments with nice headphones, with crummy earbuds, or even, when I’m ready, with blessed, blessed silence.
Note: Full credit to Iyaz Akhtar for first having the idea for using the Superman-related phrase “quest for peace” in the sense it’s used here. In fact, he has a whole show about it.
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The Apotheosis of Voltron
Did you already know about this? You probably already know about this.
Look, I had heard of MC Frontalot, but being 36 and out of touch, I never heard any of his stuff. Little did I know that he is artist rapping about toilet paper manufacture in Elmo’s Potty Time, which, let me tell you, I have seen many, many times. So I’m already impressed.
But lemme back up. Something recently got me thinking, wow, Voltron‘s lips sure are drawn prominently, aren’t they? Yes, I was thinking about Voltron’s lips. It amused me so much to realize that, here I was, a grown man thinking about Voltron’s lips, that I made a Twitter account for it: @VoltronsLips. The bio?
“And I’ll form…the head.“
Because that’s what Keith, the leader-guy, always says at the end of the forming of Voltron, which, if you haven’t figured out, is a gestalt robot thing, a la Devastator, where five mechanical lions, piloted by humans, join together to form a super-robot.
Okay?
Okay, and then as I’m tweeting about with @VoltronsLips, @LenSanook points me to the video below, and it is now my favorite song of all time.
So you probably knew about it, it’s been around a little while, but I’m having a religious experience over this.
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A Song to Unfollow By
I’m doing some light Twitter culling tonight, as the relentlessness that is the Torrent of Feelings, the constant barrage of snark and attacks and outrage and disgust, is getting to be too much.
Tonight I came upon this song by Jonathan Mann (the song-a-day guy who has been kind enough to pal around with me a little on Twitter). It’s just right.
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Final Fantasy VII’s Final Battle Against Sephiroth…Sung A Capella
Smooth McGroove, he who produces amazing a cappella renditions of music from video games, has created his masterpiece.
I’ve previously heaped praise on him for his versions of the Final Fantasy VII battle and Mega Man II Dr. Wily stage themes, and my absolute favorite, the DuckTales Moon theme. They all delighted me.
But this, well, this is something else entirely. Here’s Smooth McGroove doing “One-Winged Angel,” the theme of the final battle in Final Fantasy VII versus Sephiroth — complete with the Latin-singing choir of multiple Smooth McGrooves. Not only is it musically impressive (this is an entire orchestral piece done entirely with his voice), but also his best video editing.
And those scenes from the battle with Sephiroth, man, that’s some strong feelings that brings back. I tip my hat to you, Mr. McGroove.
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Weird Al Offers Safe Passage to Pop Music
“Weird Al” Yankovic was the first “popular music” I ever liked. Well, him and the Monkees, because I was a kid. From a young age I felt alienated from what I knew of pop music: Rock was aggressive and threatening (to me), and Top 40 pop was dopey. At the age of 8 or 9 or so, I really didn’t know much else (save for the Beatles, which were more like a cultural force of good than a “rock band,” revered in our house even if I was too young to appreciate them. They didn’t count).Weird Al gave me an avenue into pop music by mocking it. With Weird Al, I could enjoy the tunes and arrangements and harmonies of songs like “I Think We’re Alone Now,” and still stay “above” them, at a distance, with the parodized lyrics. Thus, “I Think I’m a Clone Now,” which is brilliant. Rock and pop became safe, in disguise.
Apparently, I’m not entirely alone in this. Sasha Frere-Jones at The New Yorker writes of how Weird Al makes pop music okay to like:
Anxiety starts early for pop audiences. For decades, I have had twenty-somethings tell me that they don’t know what’s on the charts, haven’t listened to any new artists since college, and don’t “know anything about music.” They feel confused by how quickly the value of their knowledge of what’s current fades. Weird Al’s songwriting process, almost without exception, is to confront that anxiety and to celebrate it. Yankovic will take a mysterious and masterful song and turn it into something mundane and universal.
These twenty-somethings are where I was when I was nine, except I of course didn’t feel like I had grown out of touch with age, but that I was already alienated from pop music from the start (I came around, FYI).
For those who feel ashamed to play a chart hit, or possibly even hate the chart hit, Yankovic offers an opportunity to have your cake and eat it.
Indeed part of my 9-year-old’s alienation was fueled by embarrassment. Not because the songs were necessarily “beneath” me and my refined tastes (I also played over and over the Transformers The Movie soundtrack), but because I felt out of my depth as a small kid even taking part in the more adult (or at least teenage) scenarios portrayed in popular music. What if someone saw me enjoying “Bad” or “Beat It”? I felt silly. Al was silly, which made it okay.
Here’s an important aspect to this, from Frere-Jones again:
None of these parodies would work with weak songs; he chooses ones with strong melodies and distinct personalities.
Right. The hits he parodies are hits for a reason. Even if their subject matter is vapid, the original songs themselves are often refined and crafted to within an inch of their lives to be pleasing and evocative. So even if you’re horrified by the words of “Blurred Lines” (as I am) you can indulge in its grooves and melodies with “Word Crimes,” and avoid the guilt over digging a song that reads like a rape threat.
This is also why his polka medleys work so well. Though not lyrical parodies, lots of popular, hook-filled songs mashed together and played at frenetically and joyously is often an enormous delight. It’s like a buffet of hits.
I have lost the obsession with all things Al that I had as a kid, and sometimes I see his work as kind of weak (his New Kids parody “The White Stuff” and Chili Peppers lampoon “Bedrock Anthem” spring to mind). But I’m so glad he’s still doing what he’s doing. I’m surprised frankly that someone else hasn’t sprung up to steal his shtick in all the time he’s been around.
Maybe it’s because so far he’s the only one who’s been able to own uncoolness so entirely, and so totally unironically. And come on, the last thing we need is some above-it-all hipster version of Weird Al.
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One Way to Play “50 Ways”
What happens if you play Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” as a slow, bluesy, pained, Neil Young-inspired number?Let me back up. Yes, I’m a musician and songwriter, and I don’t think I suck or anything, but the real musical powerhouse bearing the Fidalgo name is my dad Phil Fidalgo, a true savant with guitar and songwriting, and who knows more songs than a troupe full of Edemah Ruh. He regularly meets up with some musician friends of his and they come up with interesting arrangements for various tunes, and this new one I thought was particularly brilliant.
You’re going to be listening to it, you’ll be thinking “Well this is good, but this style is just not going to work once he gets to the faster chorus,” and then you hear it and you’re like, “OMG this is how this song should always be played.”
Enjoy.
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If You Have Anything Bad to Say about Phil Collins, I Don’t Want to Hear It
The time has come for us nerds who really like Phil Collins to stand up. My friend and erstwhile musical collaborator Chris Seiler, who currently works as a sea, air, and space museum tour guide, has thrown down the gauntlet with this anecdote, originally posted to Facebook:
This will sound strange, but if you have anything bad to say about Phil Collins, I don’t want to hear it. He and his significant other, Dana Tyler, arranged a trip to our museum with his two kids and I got to walk them around. I asked them how long they wanted to stay and he replied “until we’re not having fun”. They stayed with me for two and a half hours. Very, very nice people. All four of them. I didn’t get to talk music with him, it really wasn’t the time or place for that, but I did get to talk to him a little about his experience with the Concorde jet, which is something I’ll get to pass on to people taking my tour.
If you have a problem with him as a musician, get over it. He was probably more surprised than you were when he became a superstar in the 80’s. He did some great drumming with the early prog-rock Genesis, was Robert Plant’s drummer of choice in the early 80’s and picked up the sticks when his buddy Eric Clapton called about playing the 2010 Prince’s trust concert, even though he had dislocated vertabre that made it almost impossible for him to sit behind a kit. He eventually became an incredibly entertaining, charismatic front man who made it cool to wear tennis shoes to prom. If you’re angry that he wrote the music for Tarzan, I’m sure your kids aren’t. Don’t rag on something that obviously isn’t written with you as the desired demographic. Instead, go find your old Abacab cassette and listen to “No Reply at All” or “Man on the Corner” and understand that he deserved his fame.
I agree with every word. Three points:
- Coincidentally, I read this just as I already had “Don’t Lose My Number” stuck in my head (technically I had my own version of it stuck in my head).
- Collins’ Tarzan soundtrack is awesome.
- Phil Collins is not the only really good songwriter in this post. Chris is an excellent songsmith himself.
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Walking on the Video Star Killed the Ocean (Two New Cover Songs)
Here’s two cover tunes I cooked up in my almost nonexistent spare time: my own little versions of The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” (which I’d always meant to cover, and was spurred to do so when Emily Hauser dissed the song on Twitter), and Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Walk on the Ocean,” which I used to sing to my son as a lullaby.
And he’s four years old today! I love you, buddy! (You can see him sing the song himself when he was 2 in this video.)
Anyway, here’s the tunes. Share and enjoy.
Update 12/1/2013: Fixed a drum issue with “Walk on the Ocean,” so the file is new.
Update 12/2/2013: Toad the Wet Sprocket, in the person of their Twitter account, just declared my cover of their song “Very cool.” Achievement unlocked.
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In Russia, Lucky Is Up All Night to Get YOU
I love stuff like this, when a stuffy-seeming artistic institution embraces a piece of pop culture with genuine enthusiasm.
However, I feel like I do have to note that there is something a tad menacing about a wall of Russian law enforcement officers boasting how they will be up all night in order to “get lucky.” Yes, boys, I’m sure you will be.
See also: Superheroes staying up all night to get Loki.
Hat tip to Cherry Teresa.
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The New Toad Record Gives Me Feelings
Toad the Wet Sprocket has just dropped their first record in sixteen years to Kickstarter backers (I was late, but got in under the wire), New Constellation, and if you know me, you know I’m thrilled they’re back. I’ve been a fan since high school, and it’s been great that as I’ve grown up, and my tastes have seasoned, so have theirs (in particular lead singer Glen Phillips’ stylistically varied solo work).
Don’t get the wrong idea: New Constellation sounds, immediately, like a Toad the Wet Sprocket album. It doesn’t sound like an alt-folky Phillips side project, or like an old band trying to reinvent itself a la Spinal Tap’s “free-form jazz exploration” (or even R.E.M.’s several “this is the album we rock on” records). It’s Toad.
But it’s an older Toad. One could come to this record having not known that there have been no new albums since 1997’s amazing Coil, and feel like this is exactly where you’d expect them to be at this point in their career as a band. It’s new material, it’s a new energy, it’s a new perspective of age and experience, but it’s an old feeling. It’s Toad.
This is not a review, per se, I’ve only gone through it twice fully. More plays are coming, of course. But I did want to bring up one thing about one song.
After Toad broke up way back in olden times, the guys who aren’t Phillips formed a band called Lapdog. I never owned one of their records, but mainly because I could never find an MP3 or reasonably priced CD version of either of their albums. They did make a handful of tracks available online for download as samples, and one I fell in love with.
It’s called “See You Again,” and I’ve played it countless times over the years. It sounds like this (presuming this video is not pulled down):
Gorgeous, right?
New Constellation features a song called “I’ll Bet On You.” It sounds like this (again, presuming this obviously unauthorized clip is not pulled):
I know!!!
I have so many questions and feelings.
First, I just gotta know, guys: How did you decide to do this? Was Todd all, “Hey let’s do ‘See You Again’!” and Glen was all, “OK if I can rewrite the lyrics,” and then Todd was all “GODDAMN IT FINE I STILL HATE YOU!” I want to know how the decision to rejigger the song was made.
My feelings are very mixed. I think the new song is great, beautiful, and the new lyrics and melody fit the music like a glove. But “See You Again” makes richer use of the background vocal harmonies, and the overall feeling is a little smoother and more nuanced, which I like a lot. Put a gun to my head (please don’t) to choose only one, I’d have to pick “See You Again,” but “I’ll Bet On You” is also just great.
But someone, please, tell me, how did this come to be???
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Toad Pays its Dues
Toad the Wet Sprocket is back together, much to my delight, and about to release a new record, which last happened during the first year of Clinton’s second term. I’ve been following frontman Glen Phillips’ career since then, watching as he’s had to reestablish himself as a viable performer and recording artist with little name recognition outside the Toad fan base.
In this interview with New Times Broward-Palm Beach, he describes a realization of what it actually takes to be a working musician:
We did well off the bat when we were young, actually really well nine months into our third record, so we didn’t really understand how how hard it can be, how much work it really takes, all the little jobs that have to get done. In the last ten or fifteen years, I’ve done all those jobs and done most of them badly. I kind of understand how lucky we are now, and how special this position is, and I think everyone else understands that too. So we kind of have to pay our dues on the back end, whereas most bands pay them on the front end.
It’s so refreshing to see someone who’s achieved success recognize how fortune played a role that may have been as great as, say, their talent. And as someone who once planned on making a career of this singer-songwriter shtick, I take heart that, yes, a lot of it, like everything else, is just a job.
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A Song I Wrote Was Gonna Be in a Movie But Now It’s Not So You Can Hear It Now I Guess
Earlier this year, I was asked if one of my original songs, “Selfless,” could be used in a film being produced that a friend of mine is involved in. I was delighted, and I recorded a fresh version that I thought sounded a little stronger than the 2004 original.
Then a few weeks ago I was told they decided that actually they weren’t going to use it. That kind of sucked.
But it also means that I can now post it here and share it with you. So here’s “Selfless 2013.”
The 2004 original from my album Paul is Making Me Nervous can be heard here, and a couple years back, my friend Rin Barton covered the song very beautifully, and that’s here.
pav dot quest 