There was a very interesting article in the New York Times Magazine about Rick Rubin . He's a fascinating man in his own right, but the real crux of the piece was whether or not the music industry could be saved from itself.

Rubin is a pioneer. He produced and helped launch the careers of the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, the Geto Boys, and LL Cool J, and in doing so brought hip hop to the attention of the music industry. At the same time, he was producing Slayer and Danzig, including such classics as Reign in Blood, Seasons in the Abyss, and Danzig's first three albums. He produced the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magic. He discovered System of a Down and produced most of their albums, and also helped revive Johnny Cash's career while producing the Man in Black's last five albums. The labels he has founded – Def Jam, Def American, and American Recordings – are responsible for too many legendary albums to name. ...

There was a very interesting article in the New York Times Magazine about Rick Rubin . He's a fascinating man in his own right, but the real crux of the piece was whether or not the music industry could be saved from itself.

Rubin is a pioneer. He produced and helped launch the careers of the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, the Geto Boys, and LL Cool J, and in doing so brought hip hop to the attention of the music industry. At the same time, he was producing Slayer and Danzig, including such classics as Reign in Blood, Seasons in the Abyss, and Danzig's first three albums. He produced the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magic. He discovered System of a Down and produced most of their albums, and also helped revive Johnny Cash's career while producing the Man in Black's last five albums. The labels he has founded – Def Jam, Def American, and American Recordings – are responsible for too many legendary albums to name.

Yet Rubin tells his interviewer: "'I have no training, no technical skill – it's only this ability to listen and try to coach the artists to be the best they can from the perspective of a fan.'" I have never known much about Rick Rubin personally, except that he had worked with a ton of great bands. I assumed he was an engineering wizard, to have risen to such prominence as a producer. It's really quite interesting that he essentially reduces what he does to being the ultimate fan.

Given his track record of consistent innovation, it was an especially adroit move on behalf of Columbia Records to hire Rubin as their new label co-head. Apparently it wasn't an altogether easy sell, either, because Rubin had sworn never to work with Columbia again after an album he'd produced for Neal Diamond, 12 Songs, which Rubin was especially proud of, suffered heavily in sales because Columbia's corporate paymaster, Sony, had decided to load it with DRM software that doubled as spyware. (I told you this article was interesting!)

One of Rubin's first accomplishments at Columbia was to convince them to "go green" and stop using plastic cases for all of their releases. For an industry that is completely out of touch with the present and mired in a vicious rear-guard action against the future, it was a nicely symbolic if inadequately small bit of acquiescence to the reality of where music is heading.

Of course, no one knows exactly where the music "business" is going, but everyone agrees that the majors seem bent on securing their profits even at the expense of allowing themselves to become completely obsolete. The actions of the Recording Industry Association of America have been thoroughly pilloried enough that everyone is aware of its crimes. Few people with half a brain still have any respect for the labels that use the RIAA as their attack dog against all those nefarious file-sharers that are "destroying" the music business. How does Rubin propose to pull Columbia out of this quagmire?

To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, [Rubin], like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set. "You would subscribe to music," Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. "You'd pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you'd like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You'll say, 'Today I want to listen to … Simon and Garfunkel,' and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now."

Obviously there's a lot that would have to be figured out to put this system in place. There will be many complexities to such a system that Rubin does not touch on, so it will not be anywhere near as simple as he describes it. But a virtual library does have its attractive points, such as the idea that all your favorite music will be on one universal platform and you can listen to it anywhere you want. Also, as a musician, I like the possibilities this would give me to put out my music however I choose: I could upload every show my band plays, for instance, and my music would be available to my audience as the ever-evolving entity it is, as opposed to something static that I recorded at one point in time.

It's certainly an interesting idea, but several issues raise themselves immediately, the most important being: Will people be willing to pay a subscription fee for digital copies of music, even if that money grants them access to a virtual universal library, rather than continue to freely share music digitally with their friends and online peers? I assume that, like with TV shows, hard copies will still be made available to those of us who insist on such archaic things. If CDs are available, how can the RIAA stop illegal file sharing altogether and force everyone to pay a subscription fee? It seems like they can't, not without continuing to sue every starving student and single mother who "steals" music from them, a practice that is the single biggest factor in ensuring their steady path into obsolescence.

But Rubin does say, after all, that the iPod will be obsolete in this future industry. Are the major labels, in fact, thinking about not making CDs and vinyl albums at all?

Without the option of hard copies being available, you will inevitably have two distinct music businesses develop: The majors who only put their stuff online because that's the best way for them to squeeze the money out of it; and the independent artists who won't play that game and still love and cherish the recorded artifact as much as the exposure and convenience of digital file sharing, free or otherwise. This would, again, ensure that the major labels remain the province of the mainstream, while all the true innovation will continue to happen under their radar – in other words, the majors, who do occasionally know a fresh new band when they see it (though that seems rarer and rarer these days, as they're forever behind the times), will be relegated forever to a type of limited obsolescence, but obsolescence all the same.

I mean, sure there's big money in Hannah Montana CDs, and the teeny-boppers who listen to that kind of thing are also entirely likely to buy into a subscription model because they don't buy hard copies of music anyway. But if the majors insist that their artists cannot release CDs of their music, what self-respecting independent artists of today, the heralds of the future of music, are going to agree to sign to them in the future? This is what I mean by limited obsolescence: You may make money off of Hannah Montana CDs and remain solvent as a busines, but that doesn't really make you musically relevant; Hannah Montana's music was trite before it was even written.

This could actually be a great thing: Let the majors cater to the teeny-boppers, which is pretty much what they do best anyway, and let everyone else figure their own way forward. I'm kind of liking this subscription model more and more…

[Mike G.]

You can comment on this article at Mike's personal blog, Look at the wee beasties!

DEATH SENTENCE: PANDA!
SHEARING PINK
THE MUTATORS
Artists Television Access
Dec. 12, 2007

On the concrete out in front of the Artists Television Access building, beside bicycles chained to parking meters, local noise rock fans drank beers wrapped in paper bags and smoked between sets.

Inside, the room was heavy with sweat as people rocked between the movie theatre chairs bolted to the floor. Someone fell off a chair, someone got pushed backwards and a mosh pit formed. As the third band, the Mutators, reached the loudest point in their set, the audience could barely stay on their feet and soon people were just jumping on one another and the mosh pit became a dog pile.  ...

DEATH SENTENCE: PANDA!
SHEARING PINK
THE MUTATORS
Artists Television Access
Dec. 12, 2007

On the concrete out in front of the Artists Television Access building, beside bicycles chained to parking meters, local noise rock fans drank beers wrapped in paper bags and smoked between sets.

Inside, the room was heavy with sweat as people rocked between the movie theatre chairs bolted to the floor. Someone fell off a chair, someone got pushed backwards and a mosh pit formed. As the third band, the Mutators, reached the loudest point in their set, the audience could barely stay on their feet and soon people were just jumping on one another and the mosh pit became a dog pile. 

The next band was Shearing Pink, from Vancouver. They have a drummer and two guitar players, one who sings. Their sound was heavy and intense, buzzing like the last moments of a heavy metal song stretched out for several minutes over a thrashing drum beat. They spent most of the time chugging through the dense haze of gurgling noise pulsing from their amplifiers, except for one melodic vocal part that came as a relief to the kids who's heads had been in a noise rock vice for the past two hours.

Then something really sweet happened: Death Sentence: Panda! took the floor. The three-piece lineup from San Francisco includes a clarinet played through a fuzzy distortion box, creating a sound that wraps up the room like an electric blanket. The front woman plays a chirping echoing flute and adds high pitched vocals that made visions of sugar plums dance in my head. Her voice and singing style reminded me of a more mellifluous Satomi from Deerhoof. Behind these two, the drummer bounced and rolled his sticks over the snare and toms like a marching band drummer. His drumming matched perfectly with the clarinet and flute to give the songs a big push of spastic momentum, without sounding out of place, as would a more rock oriented drumming technique.

For me, a good deal of the evening's pleasure was derived from the tripped-out cartoons on screen behind the band, especially those that featured tacos and hotdogs growing arms that had more tacos and hotdogs as hands, plus tons of other bizarre and fun videos. Big thanks to the good folks at ATA!  

[Jeff Bissell]

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[STREAM] Death Sentence: Panda!: "Island of Sexual Violence"

YO LA TENGO
Maxwell's (Hoboken, NJ)
12/08/07

And on the 5th night of Hannukah my true love gave to me… The best show I have seen in quite possibly the last decade. "Why?" you ask. Because it was magical. F-ing magical.

Every year during Hanukkah, Yo La Tengo do 8 nights of shows in their hometown of Hoboken, NJ at an awesome little club called Maxwell's. I happened to be in New York visiting a friend for her 30th birthday during Hanukkah this year, so another friend and I thought we'd take our chances by heading down to the already sold out Yo La Tengo show and seeing if luck was on our side. ...

YO LA TENGO
Maxwell's (Hoboken, NJ)
12/08/07

And on the 5th night of Hannukah my true love gave to me… The best show I have seen in quite possibly the last decade. "Why?" you ask. Because it was magical. F-ing magical.

Every year during Hanukkah, Yo La Tengo do 8 nights of shows in their hometown of Hoboken, NJ at an awesome little club called Maxwell's. I happened to be in New York visiting a friend for her 30th birthday during Hanukkah this year, so another friend and I thought we'd take our chances by heading down to the already sold out Yo La Tengo show and seeing if luck was on our side.

Turned out that more than luck was on our side. It was the best Hanukkah miracle since the oil burned for seven days & eight nights. For me, being Jewish, it was like destiny.

As if getting to see Yo La Tengo in their hometown wouldn't have been amazing enough, the night had many treats in store.

To begin with, after watching a band called Dew Claw play a few songs, who should happen to grace the stage but my favorite of favorites, one Ms. Sarah Vowell . If you have never read any of Ms. Vowell's books or essays you are doing yourself a tremendous disservice. She is amazing to say the least. Last April I saw her do a reading with David Sedaris and that was pretty stellar.  But, seeing her read one of my all-time favorite stories (about cartographer Charles Preuss) in a club smaller than Bottom of the Hill was mind blowing.

But that was just the beginning. After Sarah Vowell's reading, the audience was treated to a daily Kabala lesson from Ira's "Aunt Judith" – who was actually Amy Poehler in disguise! I have loved Amy Poehler since the Upright Citizen's Brigade, so I nearly crapped myself with excitement when she took the stage. Fortunately for everyone involved I didn't. And, no pun intended, holy shit was she hilarious. Sadly it wasn't until she was a minute or so into her reading that I remembered I had my camera on me, but I was able to catch much of the hilarity on video.

Lastly (or so we thought), out came Yo La Tengo . Their set spanned the band's 20 year history and every song sounded as fresh and new as if it were written yesterday. Yo La Tengo are such a mesmerizing band, you have to see them play live if you want your life to have any meaning. That's a fact.

As if seeing Yo La Tengo play in their  hometown wasn't amazing enough, as if seeing Amy Poehler and Sarah Vowell wasn't enough, the night was capped off by an encore set which included one Mr. Alex Chilton taking over lead vocals and playing guitar. They did covers ranging from "Oogum Boogum," "Let Me Get Close to You," and "Government Center" to the crowd favorite "Femme Fatale." The crowd swayed in awe and delight and everyone filed out of the club happier than words could have described.

It was kind of like seeing god that night - and when I say kind of, I mean exactly.

[Jen Chochinov]
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FROM MONUMENT TO MASSES
DESA
SILIAN RAIL
Bottom of the Hill
Dec. 1, 2007

The place was packed so full that it felt like the Bottom of the Hill was about to have a sell-out show, something I wasn’t expecting from a night of instrumental post-rock (or whatever you want to call it). At first I suspected it was the loyal and sizeable followings of indie darlings Silian Rail and From Monument to Masses, but I think it was probably more because of all the teenie-boppers out for an all ages show to see Desa. ...

FROM MONUMENT TO MASSES
DESA
SILIAN RAIL
Bottom of the Hill
Dec. 1, 2007

The place was packed so full that it felt like the Bottom of the Hill was about to have a sell-out show, something I wasn’t expecting from a night of instrumental post-rock (or whatever you want to call it). At first I suspected it was the loyal and sizeable followings of indie darlings Silian Rail and From Monument to Masses, but I think it was probably more because of all the teenie-boppers out for an all ages show to see Desa.

Whatever the reason, the crowd was out and energy was good and Silian Rail soon took to the stage and got things going. Part of the Thread Productions music collective, this San Francisco-based two-piece features Robin L. on guitar and Eric Kuhn on drums/glockenspiel yet has the musical prowess of a four-piece. It’s not their full sound that’s so impressive, it’s the music, which is rich, engaging, and gorgeous. It can be difficult for instrumental music to really capture an audience, but Silian Rail did it with old tried-and-true good music writing. They performed well-written and well-structured songs that bring the listener into the music. The crowd responded well to their performance, a showcase of the virtuosi of both musicians without being in any way ostentatious.

A bonus for them being a two-piece is that they break down quickly after their set.  Didn’t really save us all that much time though because the second band, Desa, from Oakland, was a five-piece and took their time setting up. I knew something was up when I saw a bunch of dudes on stage all with tight black t-shirts and wrist bands. I’d never heard Desa before, though I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard them again soon, on the radio. Out of my ignorance I assumed that, being sandwiched between Silian Rail and From Monument to Masses, Desa would be equally experimental/post-rock/instrumental. I assumed wrong. 

My first clue that things were not as I thought was all the young, under-18 faux-punk kids with their Mohawks from Supercuts and their moms waiting outside in mini-vans. My second clue was the sweatbands. What sealed it was the lame four person mosh pit.

Let me say, straight out, I didn’t like Desa. They’re everything about modern mainstream rock/punk that I dislike: loud and obnoxious, affecting a post-punk power pop bullshit attitude, music laden with clichéd hooks, and boring predictable song structures. They even had the guitarist who’s back-up singing style is literally only screaming. And I never saw the bass player’s face once. He hid behind the rest of the band, his hoodie drawn over his head, and his back to the audience. Did he need ‘total concentwation’ or is he a terminally shy musician?

That being said, I have no doubt in my mind that if they keep churning out songs like the ones they played that night, their posters will be plastered on every 13 year-old’s bedroom wall by the end of 2008. They are proficient musicians and they have the attitude (“DESA is from Oakland, CA where the homicide rate is high, the drug of choice is crack, and the streets are paved with safety glass,” seriously, right off their Myspace page), the look, and the bland, easily consumed music necessary to infect the hearts of the teenaged.

Personally, I was just waiting out the rest of the show at the bar. Eventually, they finished and the headliners, From Monument to Masses took to the stage.

Originally formed in 2000 from Bay Area musicians Francis Choung on drums, keys, and programming, Sergio Robledo-Moderazo, on bass, keys, and samples, and Matthew Solberg on guitar and loops, these instrumental post-rockers are now living bicoastal, with one of the group’s members having moved to New York City. Yet they are still making great music and playing great shows.

Anybody who knows From Monument to Masses or looks up reviews or goes to their website knows or will see that these guys are darlings of critics and reviewers everywhere, myself included. I’ve never seen a band that can integrate samples and loops so seamlessly. Their vocal samples, culled from historic and archival audio and presumably video sources, are so smooth and pervasive that I could see someone making the case that From Monument to Masses are not in fact an instrumental band. And, while sometimes it can be difficult for me to get into music that I’m hearing for the very first time, they played a lot of new songs that were immediately accessible.

The great thing about their music is its accessibility even as From Monument to Masses has moved away from more traditional chorus/verse song structures. The newer songs have what feels like very open organic structures, combined with innovative rhythms, and vocal samples that feel like they move in and out of the music effortlessly. And yet, this never comes off as high brow or pretentious.

The only thing negative I could say about them is that part of their message, part of their style, part of their image is the socialist/communist revolutionary. Now maybe I’m just reading too much into it, but even though their message and their execution is great, it still kinda feels like they’re putting on an act. I’m sure they’re sincere about their revolutionary message, but in the end what are they doing? They’re just like any other rock band. They have their merch table in the back like everybody else, they have their T-shirts on sale for the same price as everybody else, they have their website with their merch like everybody else, and they have their CD’s for sale like everybody else.

I don’t get it; what’s so revolutionary about these guys?  I’m not saying they have to live on a commune, or give away all their tracks for free online (they don’t allow you to download their tracks off Myspace, but you can grab three tracks off their website), or throw away all their worldly possessions, or pull a Chumbawamba (though, I have to say, we all know they practiced what they preached), but there’s definitely some action these three bright and creative guys could come up with. I mean talk is cheap, right? Their Wikipedia entry describes them as “politically-charged,” and that’s just it: they are politically charged, but don’t seem politically active, not as a band at least.

Course, I’m no expert on these guys and their political activity; by day they could be chaining themselves across the entrances of Wal-Marts and trying to destroy the imperial-capitalist machine. But if they are, why not include that in the music? 

Maybe I’m looking too deep, but these are the things that I look for, and enjoy. In the end, their execution is still flawless. From Monument to Masses put on a great show with a great message and they do so effortlessly.

[Marky Snark]

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Check out our review of Silian Rail's show at The Stork Club on 06/07/07.  

[STREAM] From Monument To Masses: "Clinical Features of Rock Trauma" (Live on KALX)

[STREAM] Desa: Various Tracks

[STREAM] Silian Rail: Various Tracks  

PARKER STREET CINEMA
FRENCH MIAMI
EXCUSES FOR SKIPPING
The Rickshaw Stop
Dec. 5, 2007

This time, you don’t even have to just take our word for it: Emily over at The Deli SF called the December Wiretap show “one of the best line-ups” she’d seen this year.

Excuses for Skipping started off the night with a ton of energy. Featuring a guest musician on keyboards, the band sounded a bit like a shoegazer version of Sleater-Kinney: interlocking guitar parts threaded their way through deep undercurrents of lush noise and humming bass lines. The Rickshaw Stop was full to the brim with glorious sound. ...

PARKER STREET CINEMA
FRENCH MIAMI
EXCUSES FOR SKIPPING
The Rickshaw Stop
Dec. 5, 2007

This time, you don’t even have to just take our word for it: Emily over at The Deli SF called the December Wiretap show “one of the best line-ups” she’d seen this year.

Excuses for Skipping started off the night with a ton of energy. Featuring a guest musician on keyboards, the band sounded a bit like a shoegazer version of Sleater-Kinney: interlocking guitar parts threaded their way through deep undercurrents of lush noise and humming bass lines. The Rickshaw Stop was full to the brim with glorious sound.

Vocalists/guitarists Linda Moody and Tammy Fortin are an exciting team as the frontpeople of Excuses for Skipping. Linda is all energy and attitude, while Tammy is more about precision and style. It’s hard to take your eyes off of Linda; she’s more of the lead singer and is constantly dancing and getting into the music, obviously enjoying herself immensely. And it’s hard to take your ears off of Tammy; she’s more of the lead guitarist and her precisely executed riffs and blasts of sheer art noise keep the songs dynamic and unpredictable.

  While the opener could have just as easily headlined the night, French Miami was more than up to the task of following Excuses for Skipping onstage. The three-piece’s sometimes minimal, sometimes massive, but always intriguing take on indie rock is just damned good. They opened, for instance, with “All On Fire,” a song with a guitar intro that is one of the tightest and most effective riffs I’ve heard in a long time.

French Miami’s sound is full of big burping keyboard bass, adroit guitar riffs, and urgent drum beats. Watching them, you could plainly see that singer Jason Heiselmann was feeling his band’s music. At one point when he wasn’t playing his guitar or his keyboards he was doing a dance that looked like he was bent over double, maybe in pain, and the look on his face was totally hurts so good. It’s perhaps trite to say of a three-piece band, but French Miami make an awfully big noise for only three dudes. They put on a damned fine show of undeniably compelling and intense indie rock.

It was not an easy act to follow, but Parker Street Cinema took the stage and owned it. Fresh off a West Coast tour and celebrating the release of their new album, Music, in the Blood, Parker Street Cinema were entirely on top of their game. They delivered a flawless performance that had everyone in the crowd enthralled. You can’t put it better or more simply than Emily does in her Deli SF review : “Their timing was impeccable, and their musicianship was outstanding.”

In true celebratory style, Parker Street Cinema pulled out all the stops. Joining the three-piece, all-instrumental band onstage for various songs were guest horn players and guest singers (including Lindsay Garfield of another stellar SF band, Or, the Whale ). They even had audience participation! That’s right, the fine lads of Parker Street Cinema passed out kudzus to the entire crowd and taught us all the refrain melody that we were supposed to play. Audience participation is always welcome, but audience participation that features kudzus is just sheer brilliance.

Filling in the gaps was Gioia, who spun some fantastic cuts and kept the crowd on its toes.

The show benefited the Boxcar Theatre Group. But really, we all benefited.

[Mike G.]

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Check out our review of French Miami's show at Edinburgh Castle on 09/05/07.


[STREAM] Parker Stree Cinema: Various Tracks

[STREAM] French Miami: "Alibi"

[STREAM] Excuses for Skipping: "Gravity"