The current organ performance of As Slow as Possible at St Burchardi church in Halberstadt, Germany, began in 2001 and is scheduled to end in 2640. There have been periods of silence, there was an 18-month pause until February 5 2003 which came as a welcome relief to some but where in the rules does it say that music has to have a set length?
The vast majority of pop songs are still between two and five minutes long and much more than that and there is little chance of it being played on the radio or music channels and for us children of the 80s the only way you would get a song over 5 minutes back then was to buy the 12" Extended Remix although they were mostly just an instrumental version with the original song tacked on the end.
I much prefer short, punchy songs but as a life long Guns N Roses fan i get a bit of both from 3 minute rock outs (Perfect Crime, Right Next Door To Hell, Garden of Eden) to 7 minute plus epics (Coma, November Rain, Civil War).
I sometimes wonder why musicians spin out long songs when really they'd said and done everything in 3 minutes, the 17 minutes of Inna Gadda Da Vidi just seems excessive and the 12 minutes plus of Meat Loaf's 'I Would Do Anything For Love' is about 11 minutes too long but then Meat Loaf never has sung anything in 3 minutes when he can sing it in 9.
There are some brilliant longer songs but they are mainly the ones that start off as one song and then turn into something else halfway through such as 'One' by Metallica, 'The Spirit of Radio' by Rush and Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Free Bird' which is the ultimate 'pfft, this-is-boring' first 4 minutes to 'wow, this-is-brilliant' last 5 minutes.
For fans of the long songs in music, the average length of the pop song has been creeping ever-upwards over the years, from 2 minutes 36 seconds in the 1950s, up to a patience-testing 4 minute 26 seconds today and i put the blame firmly on Meat Loaf and German organ performances for that.
Friday, 7 September 2018
A Lack Of All Girl Bands
As i go about the task of picking the 500 top songs to go on my whizzy new Mp3 player, i noticed two things with the first being i do seem to favour songs pre-2000 and that i have a serious lack of all female bands on my slowly dwindling list.
The Bangles and The Donnas are the sole representatives left standing so either it's me or there are a lack of good all female bands.
I saw a Behind the Music VH1 show once about The Bangles which suggested the rest of them got fed up with Susannah Hoffs getting drooled over and considering some of the other all female bands, jealousy does seem to be contributing factor of why they seem to implode.
Pondering on it some more, i reached the further conclusion that the all girl bands who reach the top, think Sugarbabes, Spice Girls, Girls Aloud, Mis-Teeq, Destiny's Child, All Saints etc don't play any instruments which means that unlike in a band which has the standard hierarchy of singer, guitarists and drummer, they all share the same spotlight whereas in a band the singer invariably gets all the attention.
Working this through, in most cases one member gains more attention than the others so Spice Girls it was Geri, Girls Aloud it was Cheryl Cole, All Saints Shaznay Lewis, in Mis-Teeq Alesha Dixon took the attention, Beyonce in Destiny's Child and so on so although they are all doing the same thing, one gaining more attention (and even being more prominently featured in magazines) is probably always going to cause friction.
As this is all based on one VH1 episode about The Bangles i could be completely wrong but Susannah Hoffs getting all the limelight seemed to be the cause of their split but as they played instruments and were a proper 'band', they stayed together by tolerating it a long longer then all the just singers bands whose members assume they have a chance of making it as a solo artist whereas the drummer and bass player of most bands, not quite so much.
The Bangles and The Donnas are the sole representatives left standing so either it's me or there are a lack of good all female bands.
I saw a Behind the Music VH1 show once about The Bangles which suggested the rest of them got fed up with Susannah Hoffs getting drooled over and considering some of the other all female bands, jealousy does seem to be contributing factor of why they seem to implode.
Pondering on it some more, i reached the further conclusion that the all girl bands who reach the top, think Sugarbabes, Spice Girls, Girls Aloud, Mis-Teeq, Destiny's Child, All Saints etc don't play any instruments which means that unlike in a band which has the standard hierarchy of singer, guitarists and drummer, they all share the same spotlight whereas in a band the singer invariably gets all the attention.
Working this through, in most cases one member gains more attention than the others so Spice Girls it was Geri, Girls Aloud it was Cheryl Cole, All Saints Shaznay Lewis, in Mis-Teeq Alesha Dixon took the attention, Beyonce in Destiny's Child and so on so although they are all doing the same thing, one gaining more attention (and even being more prominently featured in magazines) is probably always going to cause friction.
As this is all based on one VH1 episode about The Bangles i could be completely wrong but Susannah Hoffs getting all the limelight seemed to be the cause of their split but as they played instruments and were a proper 'band', they stayed together by tolerating it a long longer then all the just singers bands whose members assume they have a chance of making it as a solo artist whereas the drummer and bass player of most bands, not quite so much.
Holding Two Contrary Thoughts On Elon Musk
I am in a bind with Space X head Elon Musk, on the one hand i want him and his Space Exploration operation to succeed but on the other the guy is an absolute dick and i don't want any success to come to him.
I was always in the Musk camp right up until he threw a tantrum over the Thai children rescue where he tried to muscle in with a submarine he designed and was told it wasn't needed on which he threw appalling insults at the rescuer, calling him a paedophile.
Then he whinged continually about the press writing negative comments about him and today he gave an interview while smoking a cannabis joint.
Tesla stock fell by 9% following this latest interview and that's where my bind comes in because where i would love it if the obnoxious idiot and his companies fell from a great height, he is pushing Space exploration onwards and upwards much faster than if it was left to NASA or the ESA.
In a perfect world someone else will come up behind him and overtake him, someone who isn't such a douche bag, but until then it's a case of holding the two contrary positions of hating the person but hoping his company succeeds which gives me a headache.
I was always in the Musk camp right up until he threw a tantrum over the Thai children rescue where he tried to muscle in with a submarine he designed and was told it wasn't needed on which he threw appalling insults at the rescuer, calling him a paedophile.
Then he whinged continually about the press writing negative comments about him and today he gave an interview while smoking a cannabis joint.
Tesla stock fell by 9% following this latest interview and that's where my bind comes in because where i would love it if the obnoxious idiot and his companies fell from a great height, he is pushing Space exploration onwards and upwards much faster than if it was left to NASA or the ESA.
In a perfect world someone else will come up behind him and overtake him, someone who isn't such a douche bag, but until then it's a case of holding the two contrary positions of hating the person but hoping his company succeeds which gives me a headache.
Thursday, 6 September 2018
Musicians Before They Were Famous
Not shy to blow his own trumpet, Kanye West once said that he is the No 1 living and breathing rock star but whether he was the No1 T-shirt folder when he worked at GAP is strangely not something he boasts about.
Musicians may be effortlessly cool now but they all had to start somewhere and while Kanye may have been working on his raps while selling brand new brightly coloured trousers, Freddie Mercury was selling second hand ones on a market stall before him and his band made it big.
Before Beyonce sang about putting a ring on it she was putting a rinse on it as a hairdresser and Kurt Cobain was smelling less like teen spirit and more like floor polish at his janitors job before Nirvana came knocking.
Less fragrant was Chris Cornell and Jarvis Cocker who both had jobs cleaning up the fish guts at the local fish markets and Cyndi Lauper's sense of smell would have been equally as assaulted as her first job as a dog kennel cleaner.
If you were after fast food in the 80s and 90s you could have been served by Madonna in Dunkin' Donuts, Pink at McDonald's or even Eminem who was a cook in a greasy spoon cafe.
Eddie Vedder was a Security Guard and Kelis and her bitter shandies bought all the guys to the bar in her job as a barmaid while David Bowie was a butcher and Elvis got his blue suede shoes all over the brake pedal in the delivery truck he drove.
Teaching turned out to be a first career choice for Gene Simmons, Sting and Art Garfunkel before choosing music over text books and Jack White decided that as a furniture upholsterer he made a decent musician and Elvis Costello wasn't pumping it up at the bank so bought some Buddy Holly style spectacles and tried song writing instead.
Mick Jagger worked as a porter at a mental Hospital, Rod Stewart wasn't asking anybody if he was sexy when he was a gravedigger and Jon Bon Jovi worked in a factory assembling Christmas Decorations but you wouldn't expect Ozzy Osbourne to have just have any boring old job, the Prince of Darkness worked in a Factory tuning car horns and it doesn't get much more rock n Roll than that!
Musicians may be effortlessly cool now but they all had to start somewhere and while Kanye may have been working on his raps while selling brand new brightly coloured trousers, Freddie Mercury was selling second hand ones on a market stall before him and his band made it big.
Before Beyonce sang about putting a ring on it she was putting a rinse on it as a hairdresser and Kurt Cobain was smelling less like teen spirit and more like floor polish at his janitors job before Nirvana came knocking.
Less fragrant was Chris Cornell and Jarvis Cocker who both had jobs cleaning up the fish guts at the local fish markets and Cyndi Lauper's sense of smell would have been equally as assaulted as her first job as a dog kennel cleaner.
If you were after fast food in the 80s and 90s you could have been served by Madonna in Dunkin' Donuts, Pink at McDonald's or even Eminem who was a cook in a greasy spoon cafe.
Eddie Vedder was a Security Guard and Kelis and her bitter shandies bought all the guys to the bar in her job as a barmaid while David Bowie was a butcher and Elvis got his blue suede shoes all over the brake pedal in the delivery truck he drove.
Teaching turned out to be a first career choice for Gene Simmons, Sting and Art Garfunkel before choosing music over text books and Jack White decided that as a furniture upholsterer he made a decent musician and Elvis Costello wasn't pumping it up at the bank so bought some Buddy Holly style spectacles and tried song writing instead.
Mick Jagger worked as a porter at a mental Hospital, Rod Stewart wasn't asking anybody if he was sexy when he was a gravedigger and Jon Bon Jovi worked in a factory assembling Christmas Decorations but you wouldn't expect Ozzy Osbourne to have just have any boring old job, the Prince of Darkness worked in a Factory tuning car horns and it doesn't get much more rock n Roll than that!
The Collectors Edition Scam
In my mind all the record executives got together in a meeting and said 'CD sales are stalling, how can we get the public to spend their money on Music CD's' and in my minds eye one git with a ponytail and a goatee stands up and says 'why can't we just resale them what they already have but stick an extra track on it' which is exactly what they have done.
The deluxe CD is a thing where the record companies take an existing album, stick a few extra songs on it or even lazily a live version of a song and stick it back in the shops for £15.99.
One of the worst artists for this is Meatloaf and his Bat out of Hell album which shows up every 3 or 4 years with a shiny 3D cover and a 'collectors edition' sticky label on it which no self-respecting Meatloaf fan would want to be seen without and can place alongside their other seven editions of the Bat Out Of Hell album they already own.
It does make me wonder just how low wattage some people are operating on that they will keep paying out for the same thing over and over again, there are only so many versions of 'Paradise by the dashboard light' you can own before something inside your brain clicks off.
Those of us whose brains have not be made squishy by repeated hearings of 'Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad' realise that a CD that you already own but with twinkly add-ons like live tracks and prettier packaging is just the same CD only with twinkly add-ons and prettier packaging and not worth shelling out another £15 for the same CD with an additional live track.
I just hope that when Meatloaf cashes those royalty cheque he thinks of all people clutching his CD (with the shiny 3D cover) and once they realise they have been duped again he collapses down at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun, torn and twisted at the foot of a burning' hell, think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell, and the last thing they see is their heart, still beating, breaking out
of their bodies and flying away.
Probably he just buys another sports car and a yacht but we can hope.
The deluxe CD is a thing where the record companies take an existing album, stick a few extra songs on it or even lazily a live version of a song and stick it back in the shops for £15.99.
One of the worst artists for this is Meatloaf and his Bat out of Hell album which shows up every 3 or 4 years with a shiny 3D cover and a 'collectors edition' sticky label on it which no self-respecting Meatloaf fan would want to be seen without and can place alongside their other seven editions of the Bat Out Of Hell album they already own.
It does make me wonder just how low wattage some people are operating on that they will keep paying out for the same thing over and over again, there are only so many versions of 'Paradise by the dashboard light' you can own before something inside your brain clicks off.
Those of us whose brains have not be made squishy by repeated hearings of 'Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad' realise that a CD that you already own but with twinkly add-ons like live tracks and prettier packaging is just the same CD only with twinkly add-ons and prettier packaging and not worth shelling out another £15 for the same CD with an additional live track.
I just hope that when Meatloaf cashes those royalty cheque he thinks of all people clutching his CD (with the shiny 3D cover) and once they realise they have been duped again he collapses down at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun, torn and twisted at the foot of a burning' hell, think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell, and the last thing they see is their heart, still beating, breaking out
of their bodies and flying away.
Probably he just buys another sports car and a yacht but we can hope.
Wednesday, 5 September 2018
They Named The Band After What?
In the post The Band's Called What? i said it was probably not wise to delve too deeply into how 10cc and Lovin' Spoonful came by their names and left it there because i thought it was well known exactly what i was alluding to but obviously not so for all those wondering it is the approximate volume of man's stuff, 10 cubic centimetres or roughly a teaspoonful of liquid. Eeew indeed, hope they washed the spoon after they measured it but i guess looking back at some of the older artists, how they came by their names (literally in some cases) is lost to the fogs of time so lets see who we can shed some light on.
Steely Dan's name is taken from a steam powered vibrator, UB40 from the top of an unemployment benefit card, Joy Division is a row of prostitutes huts, Lynyrd Skynyrd is named after their PE Teacher, Pogues is Irish Gaelic for Kiss My Arse and The Velvet Underground is taken from a book of perverted sexual practises.
Circle Jerks and Limp Bizkit are names of a game that involves biscuits and what the lovin' spoonful measured as is Pearl Jam (think about it).
Whitesnake and Captain Beefheart are penis related and Scissor Sisters is taken from a lesbian sex act.
Yep, musicians are massive perverts but i would suggest that if any of the Lovin' spoonful invite you around for coffee then take your own cutlery.
Steely Dan's name is taken from a steam powered vibrator, UB40 from the top of an unemployment benefit card, Joy Division is a row of prostitutes huts, Lynyrd Skynyrd is named after their PE Teacher, Pogues is Irish Gaelic for Kiss My Arse and The Velvet Underground is taken from a book of perverted sexual practises.
Circle Jerks and Limp Bizkit are names of a game that involves biscuits and what the lovin' spoonful measured as is Pearl Jam (think about it).
Whitesnake and Captain Beefheart are penis related and Scissor Sisters is taken from a lesbian sex act.
Yep, musicians are massive perverts but i would suggest that if any of the Lovin' spoonful invite you around for coffee then take your own cutlery.
Not Everyone Thinks Trumps An Idiot
If Michael Wolff is to be believed, '100 percent of the people around Donald Trump don’t think he’s fit for office. They all say he is a moron, an idiot' but in the orange one's defence, they don't all think he's an idiot and a moron, some consider him deplorable and crazy also. Toting up the insults against Trump, most think he is an idiot including H.R. McMaster, the National Security Adviser and the National Economic Council director Gary Cohn and Chief of Staff John Kelly, Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin and Chief of Staff Reince Preibus.
The Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, famously said Trump was a 'F****** moron' and that would be bad enough but the rest of the staff used other names for the President including Tom Barrack Jr who said he was 'stupid' but Gary Cohn went as far as to call him 'dumb as shit'.
The White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah called him 'deplorable' and John McCain said he was 'sad' and 'half-baked' and FBI Director James Comey went for 'Morally unfit to be president', 'unethical and untethered to truth'.
White House chief of staff John Kelly said the President was 'unhinged' and White House adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman went for 'a racist, misogynist and bigot', a view backed by Barbara Res, executive vice-president of Trump Organisation, who said he was a 'supreme sexist'.
Steve Bannon said he was like 'an 11-year-old child', White House deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh said working with Trump was like 'trying to figure out what a child wants' and Republican senator Bob Corker of Tennessee called the White House under Trump 'an adult day care center'
H R McMaster once again stuck the boot into his boss by saying he had the intelligence of a 'kindergartner' and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said Trump had the understanding of 'a fifth- or sixth-grader'.
So take your pick if Donald Trump is an idiot, moron or any of the other insults thrown at him but as these are the people who worked and know him best, who are we to argue with them in their assessment.
Saturday, 1 September 2018
Was McCain Really A Hero?
I don't know much about John McCain apart from he introduced us to the comedy show that was Sarah Palin, he was shot down during the Vietnam War and he was beaten to the White House by Barack Obama.
There does seem to be a move afoot to make him into some great American war hero but surely there are better Americans who can be lionized.
He may have been shot down and tortured but he was fighting in the Vietnam war at the time, an ideological war that was hugely unpopular and he was shot down whilst dropping tonnes of bombs on civilians at the time.
Then there was his support for the Iraq War, another unjust and unpopular war, Obama called him the 'leading supporter of an invasion and occupation of Iraq' although my overriding memory of the man is a visit to Iraq in 2007 where he wanted to show the recent wave of terror attacks had subsided and Iraq was returning to normal thanks to the Iraq War he so vocally supported.
After the secret trip, photos emerged of him confidently strolling down the middle of a Baghdad Market and then at the press conference afterwards he claimed 'Things are getting better, there are encouraging signs' which was excellent news as long as the Iraqi's took the few minor precautions McCain undertook before his little jaunt.
All they needed to do to be as safe as McCain in their own nation whilst out shopping was to first send in soldiers to search for explosives, set up a perimeter and secure the neighbourhood, deploy snipers on rooftops, wear a flak jacket at all times, travel by a Humvee to the market and surround yourself with 100 armed soldiers while three Black Hawk helicopters and two Apache gunships patrol the skies above.
It really was that simple if the locals wanted to get back from the market-place in one piece.
I don't know what else he did, maybe he really was the hero he is being made out to be but the unwritten rule is that you don't speak ill of the dead but the other one is you don't make out somebody to be a hero when they were anything but just because they died.
There does seem to be a move afoot to make him into some great American war hero but surely there are better Americans who can be lionized.
He may have been shot down and tortured but he was fighting in the Vietnam war at the time, an ideological war that was hugely unpopular and he was shot down whilst dropping tonnes of bombs on civilians at the time.
Then there was his support for the Iraq War, another unjust and unpopular war, Obama called him the 'leading supporter of an invasion and occupation of Iraq' although my overriding memory of the man is a visit to Iraq in 2007 where he wanted to show the recent wave of terror attacks had subsided and Iraq was returning to normal thanks to the Iraq War he so vocally supported.
After the secret trip, photos emerged of him confidently strolling down the middle of a Baghdad Market and then at the press conference afterwards he claimed 'Things are getting better, there are encouraging signs' which was excellent news as long as the Iraqi's took the few minor precautions McCain undertook before his little jaunt.
All they needed to do to be as safe as McCain in their own nation whilst out shopping was to first send in soldiers to search for explosives, set up a perimeter and secure the neighbourhood, deploy snipers on rooftops, wear a flak jacket at all times, travel by a Humvee to the market and surround yourself with 100 armed soldiers while three Black Hawk helicopters and two Apache gunships patrol the skies above.
It really was that simple if the locals wanted to get back from the market-place in one piece.
I don't know what else he did, maybe he really was the hero he is being made out to be but the unwritten rule is that you don't speak ill of the dead but the other one is you don't make out somebody to be a hero when they were anything but just because they died.
America Backing The Israeli Oppressors
America can do what it likes with it's money and if it wants to stop donating $368m to the Palestinians then it is well within it's right to do so but what we should notice is that while it stops giving to Palestine, its donations to Israel continue.
The United States hands over $3.8 billion per year in aid to Israel which it uses to purchase the military hardware by which to continue repressing and occupying the Palestinians land as it has done for the past 70 years.
The recent act of killing came when 170 Palestinians were killed by Israeli snipers for protesting against the barrier wall Israel has built around Gaza, a death toll that included medical personnel helping the injured, farmers working in their fields and innocent bystanders including children.
As Donald Trump took the decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem and now to cut aid to the poorest people on the planet, it shows who the American President is backing in this recent move, and it's the brutal oppressors rather than the oppressed.
By backing the side who are illegally seizing and building settlements on Palestinian land, defying UN resolutions, killing Hamas politicians, holding over 9000 Palestinians in its prisons, destroying farms, abusing human rights, bulldozing homes and businesses and maintaining a monstrous wall deemed illegal by the international court of justice, peace seems even further away and just ensures that the cycle of violence will continue.
Rather than handing over $3.8 billion of American taxpayers money to Israel, America should stop bankrolling Israel as it couldn't maintain such a large military presence without US help, so it would have to make peace with its neighbour or go bankrupt.
The vast majority of the problems are due to Israel, a people who were once the brutally oppressed themselves, and America is giving willing financial and political assistance to it's brutal, violent and abhorrent treatment of the Palestinians.
The United States hands over $3.8 billion per year in aid to Israel which it uses to purchase the military hardware by which to continue repressing and occupying the Palestinians land as it has done for the past 70 years.
The recent act of killing came when 170 Palestinians were killed by Israeli snipers for protesting against the barrier wall Israel has built around Gaza, a death toll that included medical personnel helping the injured, farmers working in their fields and innocent bystanders including children.
As Donald Trump took the decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem and now to cut aid to the poorest people on the planet, it shows who the American President is backing in this recent move, and it's the brutal oppressors rather than the oppressed.
By backing the side who are illegally seizing and building settlements on Palestinian land, defying UN resolutions, killing Hamas politicians, holding over 9000 Palestinians in its prisons, destroying farms, abusing human rights, bulldozing homes and businesses and maintaining a monstrous wall deemed illegal by the international court of justice, peace seems even further away and just ensures that the cycle of violence will continue.
Rather than handing over $3.8 billion of American taxpayers money to Israel, America should stop bankrolling Israel as it couldn't maintain such a large military presence without US help, so it would have to make peace with its neighbour or go bankrupt.
The vast majority of the problems are due to Israel, a people who were once the brutally oppressed themselves, and America is giving willing financial and political assistance to it's brutal, violent and abhorrent treatment of the Palestinians.
What Hendrix Was Doing All Along The Watchtower
In the film 'Full Metal Jacket', there is a character called 'Hand Job' who is killed while waiting for his papers for a medical discharge due to 'jerking off ten times a day' and when he was sent to see the Navy head shrinker, 'he starts jerking off in the waiting room. Instant Section Eight. He was just waiting for his papers to clear division'.
What i didn't know was that the character was based on a real life person, Jimi Hendrix.
According to his own discharge papers, Hendrix displayed behaviour problems, required excessive supervision, has little regard for regulations and was apprehended masturbating in the platoon area while on duty.
To fans of feedback noise and 10 minute guitar solo's, Hendrix is arguably the greatest guitarist ever but he wouldn't be winning any awards for soldiering but then to be fair, he only enlisted in the Army to avoid going to prison for stealing cars.
To avoid any embarrassment, Hendrix's record company said that that his medical discharge was for a broken ankle following a parachute jump but now we know the real reason, i consider his recording of 'All Along The Watchtower' to be more of an explanation of what he was doing when he was apprehended in the platoon area that day.
What i didn't know was that the character was based on a real life person, Jimi Hendrix.
According to his own discharge papers, Hendrix displayed behaviour problems, required excessive supervision, has little regard for regulations and was apprehended masturbating in the platoon area while on duty.
To fans of feedback noise and 10 minute guitar solo's, Hendrix is arguably the greatest guitarist ever but he wouldn't be winning any awards for soldiering but then to be fair, he only enlisted in the Army to avoid going to prison for stealing cars.
To avoid any embarrassment, Hendrix's record company said that that his medical discharge was for a broken ankle following a parachute jump but now we know the real reason, i consider his recording of 'All Along The Watchtower' to be more of an explanation of what he was doing when he was apprehended in the platoon area that day.
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