wendex.net

By the Numbers 2

CGH — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:37:16 +0000

The sequel to the long-ago By the Numbers took a few liberties not taken in the original: an ordinal, rather than cardinal number (“21st Century Schizoid Man”); a song in which part of the title, but not the actual number, is mentioned (“5 D,” which uses the word “dimension”); and the Prince song, in which “4″ is used in a sense other than numerical. Not to mention that the Brothers Johnson, as did Shuggie Otis in the original, don’t actually say “23,” but do say “22.” I figure that this departure from stylistic purity will help if ever I do By the Numbers 3.

Track listing for 111144-2:

The Fixx: Saved by Zero
Len Barry: 1-2-3
Prince: I Would Die 4 U
The Byrds: 5 D (Fifth Dimension)
Dave Dudley: Six Days on the Road
Rosanne Cash: Seven Year Ache
Herman’s Hermits: I’m Henry VIII, I Am
The Temptations: Cloud Nine
The Yardbirds: Happenings Ten Years Time Ago
Neil Sedaka: Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen
Alice Cooper: I’m Eighteen
Paul Hardcastle: 19
King Crimson: 21st Century Schizoid Man
The Brothers Johnson: Strawberry Letter 23
Edwin Starr: Twenty-Five Miles
Toni Basil: I’m 28
The Showmen: 39-21-40 Shape*
Little Carl Carlton: 46 Drums 1 Guitar
Paul Simon: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
Sammy Hagar: I Can’t Drive 55
Candy and the Kisses: The 81
Nena: 99 Luftballons
Wilson Pickett: Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do)

* Occasionally shown as “39-21-46.”

Copyright © 2010 wendex.net. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact chaz@dustbury.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Yeah, it’s a new theme

CGH — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:33:56 +0000

After three years, I figured it was time. This is Burlap Texture Orange, with a few minor modifications. It’s actually fairly readable, I think.

Two dot nine

CGH — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:16:48 +0000

We have updated to WordPress 2.9. Please advise if anything is working even worse than usual.

The legality of it all

CGH — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:11:03 +0000

Occasionally someone asks for a download link for a CD-R seen here, and I wind up quoting chapter and verse to explain why I didn’t. (Said chapter and verse can be found here.) But we used to swap tapes all the time, didn’t we?

Well, yes, we did, but that really was different:

[M]any of those analog mix tapes were covered by the safe harbor established in the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (“AHRA”), which barred infringement actions for private, noncommercial musical recordings. When it comes to digital mix tapes however, your computer isn’t an audio recording device covered by AHRA. [See RIAA v. Diamond, 180 F.3d 1072, 1078 (9th Cir. 1999).] More importantly, when a mix tape is posted on a blog for any and all to access and download, it isn’t a private use anymore, but a distribution to the public.

(Seen at Planet Kaua’i.)

Midnight for Oasis

CGH — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:42:10 +0000

With the departure of Noel Gallagher from Oasis, ShortFormBlog is recommending this five-song set, including four Oasis tunes on which Gallagher sings and the Chemical Brothers’ “Setting Sun.” As usual, SFB has linked the whole thing to the online store at lala.com, making acquisition of these tracks much simpler.

A tool for us non-pros

CGH — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 01:43:25 +0000

Rather a long time ago, I put together a compilation called Random Reclaimed Vinyl, which involved some painstaking work with old records and the software of its time. The end result was pretty good, sometimes a smidgen better than that, but I’d hate to have to do it again the same way.

And if I wanted the highest possible hi-fi, I’d have to do it again the same way, albeit with some pricey sound tools. But I can come rather a lot closer than I thought with a $34.95 package called Spin It Again from Acoustica. It’s intended as a full-fledged recording package for people who want to convert vinyl and cassettes to digital form, but so far I’ve used it solely as a cleanup tool for existing digital files that weren’t quite clean enough.

That cleanup, you’ll want to know, is absurdly simple: the software comes with several preset filters tuned specifically for the sorts of noises you’ll get from analog sources. They range in severity from fairly light to industrial strength; inevitably, filters like this introduce some artifacts or distortion, but the lighter ones pass almost completely unnoticed. The heaviest is labeled “Clean Everything.” One I was happy to see compensates for what happens when you play a record using a magnetic cartridge but don’t have a preamp to correct for the usual RIAA curve. You can also create custom filters if you know what you’re doing.

The trial version is not crippled, but it permits you to do only three cleanup jobs. I was ready to buy after two, one of which was an obscure Buchanan and Goodman cut-in record that sounded utterly horrid beforehand and downright acceptable afterward. I can recommend Spin It Again to anyone who wants a relatively-painless way to clean up those oldies but goodies — and who has a recent version of Windows, since there’s no Mac or Unix version to be had.

Give It To Me

CGH — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:17:41 +0000

With one notable exception, these are songs with “give” or “gimme” in the title — and given how ferociously Chrissie Hynde demands “Give it to me,” I wasn’t about to leave off “Brass in Pocket.” And yes, Rick Astley is rolled into the mix. Artwork from a mid-20th-century ad for “NoMend” hosiery.

Track listing for 111143-2:

The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter
Supertramp: Give a Little Bit
Abba: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
Spencer Davis Group: Gimme Some Lovin’
George Benson: Give Me the Night
Crazy Elephant: Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’
Jessica James and the Outlaws: Give Her Up (Baby)
The All-American Rejects: Gives You Hell
Rick Astley: Never Gonna Give You Up
Spanky and Our Gang: Give a Damn
James Brown: I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing
The Chairmen of the Board: Give Me Just a Little More Time
Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush: Don’t Give Up
1910 Fruitgum Co.: Indian Giver
Jerry Butler: Never Give You Up
Brenton Wood: Gimme Little Sign
Parliament: (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker) Give Up the Funk
Pretenders: Brass in Pocket (I’m Special)
The J. Geils Band: Give It to Me

Two point eight

CGH — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:57:11 +0000

We’ve updated to WordPress 2.8. The last few upgrades have turned up no serious anomalies, which motivated me to do the update without actually backing up the database, which proves, I suppose, that I’m a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

Perfect timing

CGH — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:40:10 +0000

Joshua Allen argued last year that the perfect length for a pop single was 2:42, and put up a muxtape to illustrate, though muxtape.com subsequently ran afoul of The Authorities. Featured track: “There She Goes” by the La’s.

It occurs to me that no one (well, hardly anyone) puts out a song that short anymore. In contrast, there were three 2:42 tracks on the Beatles’ White Album.

I wrote about this phenomenon at greater length last year on another site, but I figured it was, um, time to bring it up again.

Danger: heartbreak dead ahead

CGH — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:15:58 +0000

Entertainment Weekly has a list (with playable samples, if you can get their widget to work) called The 50 Most Heartbreaking Songs of All Time, which drew many comments, mostly along the lines of “How could you leave off [title]?”

Of course, we’ve already made an attempt at such here.

Progressivism

CGH — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:13:31 +0000

From C-60 Low Noise (and isn’t that a great name?):

Prog Rock! Just the word makes some people nervous. Long haired nerds with lots of instruments and money, making music for themself down in some dark basement. But on the other hand, whats wrong with that picture! Prog Rock have always been the ugly stepbrother of Rock, but some of the biggest selling album in the world have been pure prog-rock. Dark Side of the Moon to just namedrop one.

They suggest six tracks, which in prog rock ought to run at least an hour total, and so they do. The closer is indeed from Pink Floyd, but not from DSOTM.

Random Crap

CGH — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:39:25 +0000

Actually, these selections are not entirely random, and some of them might not be crap; this compilation originated from an urge to come up with something with high WTF factor for automotive purposes — in the unlikely event I have a passenger, that’s the response desired — and the name and graphic originate with the fabled Woot grab-bag, which I’ve been fortunate enough to purchase three times now. The songs range from very recent to more than thirty years old, which enhances the WTFitude.

Track listing for 111142-2:

Bazuka featuring Tony Camillo: Dynomite
She & Him: I Was Made for You
Deftones: Hole in the Earth
Daft Punk: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Joan Baez: Time Rag
The White Stripes: Icky Thump
Plain White T’s: 1, 2, 3, 4
Alison Krauss + Union Station: New Favorite
Weezer: Pork and Beans
Leo Kottke: Up Tempo
Death Cab for Cutie: I Will Possess Your Heart
Stone Temple Pilots: Sour Girl
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
The Replacements: Waitress in the Sky
Gorod 312: Nevidimka
R. E. M.: Losing My Religion
The Explorer Club: Do You Love Me
Susan Fassbinder: Twilight Cafe
Modest Mouse: Float On
Jimmy Webb: If You See Me Getting Smaller I’m Leaving

Ahead of the curve

CGH — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:47:23 +0000

Jeff Robertson’s take on the legendary Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders:

The mix of artists even on a single one of these records [is] crazy diverse, and nothing is segregated by genre. On the early albums, you will quite literally find Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Randy Newman, James Taylor, and Gordon Lightfoot sharing the same record. This defies all notions of market segmentation.

Either they were really ahead of their time, reflecting how people would eventually put all those together on their mixtapes and iPods, or they just didn’t care.

They knew. They probably didn’t anticipate the iPod and its brethren, but they knew.

If you’re not familiar with the Loss Leaders, start here.

Cleaning up the place

CGH — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:08:51 +0000

With the arrival of WordPress 2.7, I figured I’d give the joint a bit of a facelift. It’s different, but not that different.

Songs Without Words 4

CGH — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:00:05 +0000

Last year I sort of promised Michael Bates I’d have another Songs without Words, and “Rinky Dink” would be in it. Well, I do, and it is. (There’s also a discussion of pop/rock instrumentals at that link, and at this one.) And yes, it’s that David Seville.

Track listing for 111141-2:

The Tornadoes: Telstar
Spencer Ross and His Orchestra: Tracy’s Theme
The Rebels: Wild Weekend
A. B. Skhy: Camel Back
Johnny and the Hurricanes: Reveille Rock
Mongo Santamaria: Watermelon Man
Billy Strange and His Orchestra: Goldfinger
The Marketts: Surfer’s Stomp
Morris Stoloff and His Orchestra: Moonglow and Theme from Picnic
Los Indios Tabajaras: Maria Elena
The Incredible Bongo Band: Apache
Charles Randolph Grean Sounde: Quentin’s Theme
Dave “Baby” Cortez: Rinky Dink
The Brass Ring: Love Theme from Flight of the Phoenix
Sandy Nelson: Let There Be Drums
Les Paul: Whispering
Duane Eddy and the Rebels: Because They’re Young
Henry Mancini and His Orchestra: Baby Elephant Walk
David Seville: Armen’s Theme
The Astronauts: Baja
Ferrante and Teicher: Theme from The Apartment
Travis Wammack: Scratchy
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass: Casino Royale
Chris Barber’s Jazz Band: Petite Fleur
The Fireballs: Torquay
Mantovani and His Orchestra: Games That Lovers Play
The Ventures: Nutty
The Beach Boys: Let’s Go Away for Awhile
The Champs: Tequila

With thanks to the good Doctor

CGH — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:53:57 +0000

Dr. Dave wrote the legendary Spam Karma plugin for WordPress, and while it was here it caught over 13,000 spams. He’s dropped development on SK, and with yet another new version of WordPress coming, maybe now’s the time to switch to something else. In the meantime, though, I thank Dave for all the work he put into this gizmo, and wish him well as he returns to Real Life.