no one is safe from the recession

Not even the hi-tech player piano industry.

first impressions of two recent heavy metal releases

Danny, since you asked ...

Today I took a trip back in time to 1991, sort of, as I checked out the new albums from Metallica and Guns N Roses. Listening to both albums back to back mirrored the experience of seeing both bands at Giants Stadium back when they both ruled the world as I knew it. Metallica came first and rocked like hell from start to finish. Guns N Roses followed and was pretty good, but clearly played second fiddle – they had some great moments but also plenty of schlock. Advantage: Metallica.

Chinese Democracy was pretty much what I expected: Use Your Illusion III or mid '90s GnR run through the contemporary ProTools strainer. Axl's voice sounds the same as ever, a pleasant surprise. There is guitar shredding galore, although on first listen the five or six guitarists are pretty much indistinguishable, Buckethead included. Dominant influences seem to be Nine Inch Nails, Queen, the Stones (late '60s period) and Elton John. The playing is stellar, as you would expect, given the rotating cast of hired guns and huge budget. Production quality is obviously great, but the arrangements are littered with extraneous crap (choirs, drum machines, all manner of synths and sound effects). One tune even starts with a funk groove that Duff and Steven Adler could never play ... nor would they want to. But there are some catchy songs down underneath all of the embellishments. I can't speak to the quality of the lyrics because I don't usually pay them much attention, but nothing jumped out as being horrendous.

It's likely that if this was released in 1993 it could have have been a big seller. There's nothing here that can hold a candle to Paradise City or Sweet Child Of Mine, but a couple of these tunes have gotten stuck in my head (after listening to leaked versions last year and again tonight). Bottom line: I enjoyed it, I don't feel that my money was wasted, and it'll stay in my iTunes playlist for a while. It's not an all-time great album, it's not the classic GnR sound, but I can still dig it.

Death Magnetic on the other hand is an amazing and unexpected return to form. Finally, a proper follow-up to the Black Album! It absolutely rocks from start to finish. The lame-ass mid-tempo AC/DC-southern rock hybrid that they had been pushing since the mid-90s has been shown the door. The tempos have been cranked back up for the most part, and the slower moments that remain have a bite to them that has been missing from recent Metallica albums. The arrangements consistently break the 7-minute mark and never get boring.

Kirk Hammet sounds pretty impressive to this non-guitarist. Lars plays like an animal, for the most part. There are a couple of moments where he sounds stiff as a board a la Load or St. Anger, but thankfully they are rare on this disc. The vocals are vintage Hetfield. He is singing like he's pissed off and that's when he sounds best. Again, I can't comment on the quality of the lyrics. Robert Trujillo didn't stand out on bass, which surprised me. I've known of him for years as a fantastic bassist who was front and center with Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves. But here he sticks close to the Jason Newstead formula – locking in with the rhythm guitar so completely that it becomes hard to distinguish where one ends and the other begins. My only complaint about this disc is the mastering, which sounded a little harsh through speakers and is even worse after ripping to MP3 and listening on headphones. But then again, metal ain't supposed to sound pretty.

rebirth of the cool

Earl Palmer, R.I.P.

Another of the all-time great drummers has died. Earl Palmer, one of the architects of rock and roll drumming, who could also swing you into bad health and back, died Friday at age 84.

Mr. Palmer, dapper and outspoken, may well have been the most recorded drummer in the history of popular music. He stamped his sound on everything from Fats Domino hits to movie soundtracks to the frantic, percussion-heavy theme music of "The Flintstones" cartoon.

"He was my right hand," said Dave Bartholomew, the producer and co-writer of Domino's catalog. "He was a professor of music. (With Mr. Palmer's passing) it's like I died myself."
Ed Betz / APThis March 6, 2000 file photo shows session drummer Earl Palmer, in New York during the 15th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Dinner. Palmer died Friday at his Los Angeles home after fighting a lengthy illness. He was 84. Palmer's pioneering backbeats were recorded on such classics as Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" and The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'."

Mr. Palmer grew up in the Treme neighborhood. He entered show business as a young boy, working as a tap dancer with his mother and aunt on the black vaudeville circuit. After a stint in the army during World War II, he returned to New Orleans and joined the popular big band fronted by Bartholomew, a trumpeter and a friend since childhood.

When Bartholomew became a talent scout and record producer for Imperial Records, he recruited Mr. Palmer as the drummer for recording sessions at engineer Cosimo Matassa's J&M Music on North Rampart Street. Those sessions bore witness to the very dawn of rock 'n roll.

Mr. Palmer's distinct back beat, built on a heavy bass kick and New Orleans second line shuffle, was also influenced heavily by bebop jazz. He considered himself a jazz musician at heart, even though his style, a synthesis of power and subtlety, facilitated the transition from rhythm & blues to rock 'n roll.

Mr. Palmer provided the pulse on scores of Fats Domino singles, including his 1949 debut "The Fat Man" and his hits "I'm In Love Again," "I'm Walkin" and "My Blue Heaven." He backed Little Richard on "Long Tall Sally" and "Tutti Frutti," Smiley Lewis on "I Hear You Knocking," Lloyd Price on "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and Shirley & Lee on "Let the Good Times Roll."

...

On the West Coast, his career as an elite, in-demand recording session drummer intensified. "Leaving New Orleans," Mr. Palmer said in "Backbeat," "was the best thing I ever did."

In California, he worked with legendary record producer Phil Spector on Ike and Tina Turner's "River Deep Mountain High" and many recordings for Motown Records. He is featured on the Righteous Brothers' smash "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" and Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba."

A far-from-complete list of his 1960s credits includes Frank Sinatra, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke, Glen Campbell, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Paul Anka, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, the Ronettes, the Everly Brothers, the Beach Boys, Willie Nelson, Sonny & Cher, the Supremes, the Monkees and Neil Young. In the 1970s he appeared on albums by Randy Newman, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Waits, Maria Muldaur, Little Feat and Teena Marie.

He also contributed to the soundtracks of dozens of classic films in the 1960s and 1970s. They include "It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World," "Cool Hand Luke," "In the Heat of the Night," "Valley of the Dolls," "Rosemary's Baby," "Kelly's Heroes," "Harold and Maude," "Lady Sings the Blues," "What's Up, Doc?," "Walking Tall," "The Longest Yard" and "The Rose." In the 1980s, his film work included contributions to "Gremlins," "Top Gun," "Predator," "Cocktail" and "The Fabulous Baker Boys."

Phil Guy

Lots of things have happened over the past few months that I should have been blogging about but I just haven't been into it. But I must note the passing of Chicago blues guitarist Phil Guy. Phil was Buddy Guy's brother and was a wicked guitarist in his own right. He spent most of his career stuck in his brother's shadow and could never get any traction as a solo recording artist, but his work is out there if you're willing to look for it.

Phil Guy wasn't as flashy or famous as his older brother, Buddy, but made his own mark on stages around the world as both a rhythm guitarist and band leader.

Mr. Guy, 68, of Park Forest died of cancer on Wednesday, Aug. 20, in hospice care at St. James Hospital in Chicago Heights, said his wife, Jeniece.

Playing for the last decade with Phil Guy and the Chicago Machine, Mr. Guy sang growling blues and recorded albums that were a mix of blues, soul, rock and occasional hip-hop.

His albums include "Funky Booty," "Say What You Mean" and "He's My Blues Brother," the title track of which features a duet with Buddy.

Phil and Buddy Guy were the co-leaders on one of my favorite records of all time. It's called simply Buddy & Phil Guy, released in 1979. The LP contains only four tracks, a couple of which have surfaced on a JSP CD reissue called Buddy Guy & Friends. The original LP has an uptempo live version of "Knock on Wood" that is pretty good, but the meat of the session is contained in two funk bombs with vocals by Buddy: "Funk Is the Skunk" and "Feelin' Sexy," each of which are close to ten minutes long and never let up for even a second.

this is your brain on jazz

Jazz musicians turn their brains off? Yeah, I can believe that...

A pair of Johns Hopkins and government scientists have discovered that when jazz musicians improvise, their brains turn off areas linked to self-censoring and inhibition, and turn on those that let self-expression flow.

The joint research, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, and musician volunteers from the Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute, sheds light on the creative improvisation that artists and non-artists use in everyday life, the investigators say.

It appears, they conclude, that jazz musicians create their unique improvised riffs by turning off inhibition and turning up creativity.

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Limb and Braun then analyzed the brain scans. Since the brain areas activated during memorized playing are parts that tend to be active during any kind of piano playing, the researchers subtracted those images from ones taken during improvisation. Left only with brain activity unique to improvisation, the scientists saw strikingly similar patterns, regardless of whether the musicians were doing simple improvisation on the C-major scale or playing more complex tunes with the jazz quartet.

The scientists found that a region of the brain known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a broad portion of the front of the brain that extends to the sides, showed a slowdown in activity during improvisation. This area has been linked to planned actions and self-censoring, such as carefully deciding what words you might say at a job interview. Shutting down this area could lead to lowered inhibitions, Limb suggests.

The researchers also saw increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, which sits in the center of the brain’s frontal lobe. This area has been linked with self-expression and activities that convey individuality, such as telling a story about yourself.

lotta records

I am not the first to say this, but it bears repeating: this guy makes me feel less guilty about my own dirty little record habit. But hey, it paid off for him in the end.

Faced with health problems, particularly failing vision, Mr Mawhinney decided to retire, close his store and put the collection on eBay this month, for a minimum of $3 million with no reserve. That averages about one dollar a piece for the vault of approximately 3 million LPs, 45s, CDs, cassettes and 8-tracks, plus his own patented vinyl cleaning system and ownership of six publishing companies and eight independent labels. It is believed to be the second biggest sale in the history of eBay, after a $4.9 million private jet.

78

Via the ARSC listserv, we learn of the dwindling of the ranks of yet another dying breed:

Morton J. Savada, who lined the narrow aisles of his store in Midtown Manhattan with nearly a quarter of a million 78-r.p.m. records, offering devotees of King Oliver, Ma Rainey, Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman the chance to hear the original sound of nondigital discography, died at his home in Harrison, N.Y., on Feb. 11. He was 85.

The cause was complications of lung cancer, his son Elias said.

For more than 30 years, starting in the mid-’70s, Mr. Savada’s second-floor store, Records Revisited, at 34 West 33rd Street, was a haven for die-hard collectors of those rather fragile records, which were popular in the first half of the last century.

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“It was packed tight, so you didn’t turn around fast in those aisles, and there was always the great smell of old paper — the sleeves,” one regular customer, Rich Conaty, said on Tuesday. Mr. Conaty is the host of “The Big Broadcast” on WFUV, the Fordham University public radio station, on which he plays four hours of records from the 1920s and ’30s on Sunday evenings. “At least in New York,” Mr. Conaty said, “Morty was the go-to guy if you wanted just about any 78 you could think of.”

There was no computer in Mr. Savada’s store; every album was listed on a 3-by-5-inch card. There was also no credit-card device.

“If somebody called looking to buy a record, Morty would take the record off the shelf, put it in a little cabinet and wait for the check to come in the mail,” Mr. Conaty said.