Sunday, October 23, 2016

Spotify..."Winning!"

"1956, when the DJ broke to play us something new
Hearts broke, hearts skipped, and we knew that this made for me and you
When he told us he was lonely he was speaking from the heart
I was much to young to know but I knew it was a start

I was raised on the radio
Raised on the radio
Just an all-american boy
I found my favorite toy"
-Ravyns

Soooo…Terrestrial radio is dead.  You have NPR, Angry Talk Radio and Sports Radio.  Sure, there is still KSHE for classic rock and JOY (whatever) for Jesus Music and 4 country stations (which all suck) but other than Spotify (which should be discussed later) there is nothing for music lovers on Radio.  
“Radio is a sound salvation
Radio is cleaning up the nation
They say you better listen to the voice of reason
But they don't give you any choice
'cause they think that it's treason.
So you had better do as you are told.
You better listen to the radio.”-
-Elvis Costello
Maybe at one time.
Last Christmas I bucked up for Spotify.  $9.99 a month as part of my move to the future.  
Getting rid of CDs and freeing myself up from the tyranny and poor navigability of iTunes.  I had been on Spotify’s free service for several years and got used to it but the ads and the sometimes low quality of the stream (I think it is supposed to be same as the premium but that was not my experience) but I have to tell you that I am pretty much done with all my old sources of music.  The CD’s continue to move towards the used record store and I have not purchased anything from iTunes in a year.
Bob Lefsetz...the Sage of Santa Monica has been promoting Spotify for a long time, to the point of being accused of taking $$$ from them (which he denied).  He points out again and again that people keep trying to get into the streaming industry to compete seem to sputter.  I know some of you still use Pandora (a great Presidential Cantidate would just say “SAD”) and I have never met anyone who has used iTunes streaming service.  Here is a short list of some the services which are or have been in existence:
  • Last.fm
  • Amazon Music
  • TuneIn Radio
  • Radio.com
  • Tidal
  • Slacker
  • Google
  • IHeartRadio
  • Spotify
  • Rhapsody
  • iTunes Radio
Here is a really good article comparing the value and usability and value of the current services.


I do not know a great deal about any of them.  I am an Amazon Prime Member and I guess I should familiarize myself with the product which is cheaper but it would also require me messing with the family account and that is...above my pay grade.  I was an early adopter of Pandora and I enjoyed it but it just didnt have the freedom and function of Spotify.  
So what is so great.  Well, for one you have like 85% of all popular music ever released.  Maybe that is anover estimate but I dont think anyone really knows how much has been recorded.  I am an alt-country snob and am coming off of my own 1600 or so CD collection and another 500 albums and there is not much I cannot find in that library.  So… that is pretty awesome for a music head.  You want to listen to a little… I dont know...lets be pathetic… The Eagles...you search, they pop up along with their top 5 songs.  You can press shuffle and it starts with that and then goes through the others...as long as you want.  You can also scroll down and it comes up with the first few albums followed by an option to see all the artists albums. It is awesome.

 Play that funky music white boy
Play that funky music right
Play that funky music white boy
Lay down the boogie and play that funky music till you die
Till you die, ya
Till you die
-Wild Cherry
They also have a plethora of curated playlists and you can axcess other users playlists and that can be overwhlming.  The best part is the magic algorithm  Pandora used it to populate your station but this sends you playlists that match up with your listening interests and… it is really good.  The BEST part is new or newsish and that is their “Realease Radar” which curates a new 20 song playlist every friday of recent releases.  After an album appears on your Release Radar you willget songs off that album if the algorithm and the lisyening public think that they are good and, it has got me listening to new music again on a consistent basis.  
For me it allows to listen to new music the algorithm finds for me and then move it to a playlist of my own for later accessing. I dump everything I like into a 2016 playlist and then slowly move the best stuff to a Best of 2016 and… it is pretty fine for my tastes and once again, it is new stuff.  It might be John Prine or Bob Weirs new stuff but it is still new and often it is bands I have never heard of.  It is all good.

Switching it over to AM
Searching for a truer sound
Can't recall the call letters
Steel guitar and settle down
The bad part… well there is no bad part other than you cannot get certain artists like Taylor Swift or Neil Young…  The new services like Amazon and Tidal are trying to be more attractive through artists and exlusives that you can only find on their services.  It makes me yawn.  It willall be everywhere sooner or later and with all the worlds music at my fingertips… do I need Taylor Swift and her Dr. Luke and Max Martin “collaberated” gems or would I prefer listening to Bonnie Raitt Billie Holiday?  I can wait for her greatness.  
An example of what you cant get:

Anyway, SPotify is winning.  There is likely to be two other survivors and they are likely going to be Amazon and iTunes because they have massive capital behind them and a huge base of users who will want one provider for everything.  I like Amazon for Books and historically Apple for technology (though they appear to be “waining”) and Spotify… The St. Louis Diner Review recoemnds Spotify for music.  For 120 bucks a year, if you are a junky it feels like it is free.
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Monday, October 17, 2016

Sooooo…. Lest anyone think I am a shameless cheerleader, promoting everything I read and listen to as great, I need to make some amends.  As I have stated earlier I have been lucky enough to read a LOT of good books this year.  Almost everything i picked up was well written, well paced and had excellent plots and characters.  I was really excited when Jonathan Safran Foer came out with his new book.  His prior works of fiction,  Everything Is Illuminated (2002), Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005) were excellent and Everything Is Illuminated actually won the National Book Award.  That is a pretty fine pedigree.  His writing style tended to be pretty dense and complex and well frankly weird.  Something called “visual writing”.  If you want to find out about the style…




In any case, he is cool, trendy and much loved and hated by the critics so naturally, I am interested.  The 571 pages arrived from Amazon and I started reading it.  Two weeks later I was 100 pages into it.  I have a 100 page rule.  You have to get that far into a book before you can give it up, and I did.


What I can tell you is the book is one of the most well written depressing dissertations on a very, very dysfunctional family.  The book starts with the parents being summoned to Temple for a meeting with the Rabbi because their son wrote or texted some incredibly hateful misogynistic crap and as such was not going to get his bar mitzvah.  This apparently is an existential tragedy and from there we go to through the parents shitty marriage of betrayal and unhappiness and then explore the kids seemingly sociopathic nature.  We hadn't even gotten to his siblings yet and all I thought was… what a dark, shitty, unhappy family.  Even grandpa was a judgy know it all.


I couldn't take it anymore.  There was no apparent payoff.  If one of you makes it through the next 471 pages… let me know.  If you want to borrow my copy, let me know but for once I say….don’t read this...unless you want to stick a gun in your mouth.
 

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Sunday, October 9, 2016

The Mountain Goats! Kansas City, Columbia And The World!

Soooo… life is busy, awkward and exhausting but most of the time it is because choices I make.  Loving live music has always been a thing but when your a fan of a band, and your family is a fan, and your oldest son is a fan especially of the same band, you do stupid things.  Such was the case last weekend when we went on a family outing to Kansas City to see The Mountain Goats.  The tortured musings of John Darnielle frighteningly seem to resonate with my entire family and while I am sure we should all be concerned about loving a guy who writes funny, happy songs like “No Children” wherein he sings:
I hope it stays dark forever
I hope the worst isn't over
And I hope you blink before I do
And I hope I never get sober
And I hope when you think of me years down the line
You can't find one good thing to say
And I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out
You'd stay the hell out of my way
I am drowning, there is no sign of land
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand
And I hope you die
I hope we both die
What a crazy, kicky, lighthearted kid he is.  The song above, as an aside inspired this great YouTube video for what looks like a high school talent contest:
Heartbreaking.  Awesome.  Troubling.  Beckers.  What are you going to do?  So we traversed to KC.  Had lunch with my niece and her husband at a place called Char Bar in Westport.  I highly recommend.  Awesome BBQ ish high end menu with great cocktails for brunch lunch or dinner.  I had a duck gumbo which was...perfect.
The goats were playing at The Madrid.  The Madrid is like any of our old theaters in St. Louis.  More than anything it reminded me of the old AmericanTheater which was down of Kingshighway.  It is a decent venue and we lines up right before doors opened at 7.  My wife and I, my daughter Laura, My son Jon and his wife, my son Pat and his husband Kyle.  The only person missing on the scene was my future son in law Jon but other than that we were there in force.  The great thing about a Goats show is that it is not a pretty crowd.  Lot’s of died hair, tattoos, some unhappy kids and college students but generally a crowd of 30 somethings and a more unpretentious lot would be hard to find.  We scrambled in with about 80 people in front of us and were able to secure bar stools and tables in the balcony.  It is reasonably important for family outings to secure seating.  
The opener was a band called “Oh Pep” from Australia and I, on night one dismissed them as pleasant.  The stars of the band we females and the lead vocalist could really belt it out and the other woman played a mandolin and they were kind of charming and angry and fun, but I was in the balcony, drinking and dismissive.  On night 2 I determined I was wrong.  To get a little feel for them here is a little song they performed at KDHX:
They are definitely worth listening to and “I know what I want and its not what I need…”.  Who can argue?
Then shortly after 9:00 came the Goats coming on to some lovable cheese from the 70’s as background music and tore into “Blood Capsules”.  The entire set list was as follows:
When the last of the East Coast money ran dry
And the casually-dressed bill collectors
Started casually dropping on by
And the residuals, but there weren't any more residuals
At least several months behind
On the payments to certain individuals
The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again.
Feast like pagans, never get enough
Sleep like dead men, wake up like dead men
And when the sun comes, try not to hate the light
Someday we'll try to walk upright
Across a different bridge today
Over the river and down Broadway
Feels so good to have you here
Some of you will be dead next year
I see your destinies above you
Like angels who don't love you
Let them kiss you and hold you tight
As long as the money's right
On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time
I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared
And I began to talk to myself almost immediately
Not being used to being the only person there
I've been loving you so long
And now that I got the chance
I see you need to dance on your own
So I'll wait another day
Maybe another year
I'm gonna be right here, oh
Michael pulls the blinds back up
Stares blankly at the intersection
Watching for the guy who's got the angel dust
Crystal clear connection
Days like dominos
All in a line
We cheer for the home team every time
Lakeside View, Lakeside View
Lakeside View for my whole crew
I'm gonna jab you in the eye with a foreign object
I'm gonna stab you in the eye with a foreign object
Ba, ba da da, ba ba ba da, foreign object
Ba, ba da da, ba ba ba da, foreign object
Ba, ba da da, ba ba ba da, foreign object
And I handed you a drink of the lovely little thing
On which our survival depends
People say friends don't destroy one another
What do they know about friends?
Thunderclouds forming, cream white moon
Everything's going to be okay soon
Maybe tomorrow
Maybe the next day
Encore:
Never get away never get away I am never ever gonna get away from this place
Lay down on the street my eyes toward the sun your star next to my face
I broke free on a Saturday morning
I put the pedal to the floor
Headed north on Mills Avenue
And listened to the engine roar
My broken house behind me and good things ahead
A girl named Cathy wants a little of my time
Six cylinders underneath the hood crashing and kicking
Ahh, listen to the engine whine
I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me
I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me
I played video games in a drunken haze
I was 17 years young
Hurt my knuckles punching the machines
The taste of scotch rich on my tongue
And then Cathy showed up and we hung out
Trading swigs from a bottle, all bitter and clean
Locking eyes, holding hands
Twin high maintenance machines
I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me
I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me
I drove home in the California dusk
I could feel the alcohol inside of me hum
Pictured the look on my stepfather's face
Ready for the bad things to come
I down-shifted as I pulled into the driveway
The motor screaming out, stuck in second gear
The scene ends badly, as you might imagine
In a cavalcade of anger and fear
There will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem next year
I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me
I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me
Stay in the game.
Just try to play through the pain.
Like a fighter who's been told its finally time for him to quit.
Show up in shining colors,
And then stand there and get hit.
I had looked at prior set lists and made a little composite of them on Spottify for the ride over and about 15 of the songs were repeating each night. The Mountain Goats have about 15 CD’s out and this was still supporting their Album “Beat The Champ” which was released in 2015.  A collection of songs related to Darnielle’s passion for wrestling which I didn't really latch on to as awesome initially and now after hearing it live and taking in all the songs over time I can only describe as….brilliant.  I know the word is over used but the guy is passionate. Extremely passionate and has lived the life as troubled child, drug addict, survivor, game player, author, husband, father… nice resume.  It all comes to play in his songs and I cannot explain the beauty, the triumph, the anger… the praise of someone who triumphs over all that with the dread knowledge that he will still wake up as himself tomorrow.
I drank too much at the show.  To be fair, I had been drinking all day but...tomorrow would be another day, and i would still wake up as me but for tonight, with my family, watching this man and his fabulous band bleed all over the stage for 90 minutes… I was triumphant.
***
Sooooo...Day 2.  Day 2 required getting out of a hotel bed after too few hours of bad sleep.  We went to Methodist Mega church...hungover, where our old Pastor runs the “praise” service and then went to lunch, hungover (maybe I was the only one hungover) and then my wife, daughter and daughter in law went home to St. Louis and Pat and Kyle went to their place in Overland Park and Jon and I headed for Columbia to see night 2 of Oh Pep and The Mountain Goats.
We went to Boulevard Brewing in KC where I did not drink!  A lot of personal discipline here. We then headed east on 70 and having an allegiance to Camp Arcadia in northern Michigan where we have a place, we stopped when we saw this sign!
So we stopped.  It was lovely.  I am not a big fan of US Wine that does not grow in California or Oregon.  This dint do a lot to change that but it was not bad  and they also had beer and Jon had a flight and I sampled a couple of things.  Bought a bottle of Port and also liked their Rose’ and I don't like Rose’s.  It has a nice pastoral view of a lake...and highway 70 in the distance.  
Then it was off to Columbia where we kicked around, had a little pizza and hit The Blue Note.  The Blue Note is a great, old, broken down venue that has had a generation of great shows and new music.  Unlike the night before there would be no seating so we arrived shortly after doors and marched right up to the stage, standing about three rows of people back from the stage and I didn't move for 3 hours.
OH Pep who seemed pleasant the night before rocked it.  They were simply great from up close and I don't know whether they played better, or whether I was familiar with their set but it was a great opener.  They rocked it and set the table for night 2 of the Goats.
A few different songs tonight.

 If my prayer be not humble, make it so
In these last hours, if the spirit waits in check, help me let it go
And should my suffering double, let me never love you less
Let every knee be bent and every tongue confess
And I won't get better
But someday I'll be free
'Cause I am not this body
That imprisons me

People were mean to you
But I always thought you were cool
Clicking down the concrete hallways
With your spiked heels back in high school

And it was hard, but you were brave, you are splendid
And we will never be alone in this world
No matter what they say
We're going to be okay
We were safe inside
And our new son cried
"San Bernardino
Welcomes you!"

King Saul fell on his sword when it all went wrong
And Joseph's brothers sold him down the river for a song
And Sonny Liston rubbed some tiger balm into his glove
Some things you do for money
And some you do for love, love, love
Raskolnikov felt sick, but he couldn't say why
When he saw his face reflected in his victim's twinkling eye
Some things you'll do for money and some you'll do for fun
But the things you do for love
Are going to come back to you one by one
Love, love is going to lead you by the hand
Into a white and soundless place
Now we see things as in a mirror dimly
Then we shall see each other face to face
And way out in Seattle, young Kurt Cobain
Snuck out to the greenhouse, put a bullet in his brain
Snakes in the grass beneath our feet, rain in the clouds above
Some moments last forever
But some flare out with love, love, love
One of the things that makes the Goats is the band that he travels with.  The core of it is the drummer John Wurster and bassist Peter Hughs but he has added over the last few years multi instrumentalist Matt Douglas who just… fills it out.  Though I am always looking for the mournful cello from the album “Heretic Pride” the four of them… grounded by Wurster are just so very, VERY tight that it would be hard for Darnielle to be anything but brilliant.

This was just a life changing show but I have seen so many.  Seeing a bad this close, there the band can literally spit on you if they are of a mind is like no other experience ans the adding of “Love, Love, Love” brought the house down. It is always different seeing a concert stone cold sober but being there with several hundred stranger/friends and watching a guy who has worked out his own life’s problems through verse for so many years was touching and moving and rocking.  It always restores my faith and my joy when it comes together and for two nights in a row...God was smiling on me.
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