OK, kids, it’s time to climb back into the Terrordome for another round of music biz news and cheeky analysis with yours truly. When you’ve observed this stuff for any stretch of time, you start to notice patterns, the most persistent being that the whole thing is fucked.

But let’s not be overly cynical. After all, music brings joy to the world. Joy, and sometimes even chlamydia.

• Want to sell music in this wacky new marketplace? Come up with an elaborate plan
  This post talks about how no one is making any money off recorded music (duh), but also suggests that the cure for this is to get out of the album/single mindset and go broadly (but strategically) conceptual. While I don’t disagree with the basic premise here, it’s a bit vague, and requires a skill set many musicians simply don’t have. I’m a musician myself, and I’ve increasingly looked for clever ways to leverage my brand (just threw up in my mouth) across my digital assets (oops, I did it again). And it’s worked really well! I’ve heard plenty of hucksters selling new strategies for musicians, and a lot of what they say boils down to “be interesting.” Unfortunately, a lot of artists that are really great at making music happen to be as dull as doornobs. On the other hand, Lady GaGa is “interesting,” but do I want to listen to her music? Negative.

• Cloud music gets better sounding
  And it’s made by Dolby! No, not Thomas Dolby. Although he did blind us with. . . science! This is a “High Efficiency AAC audio codec (part of the MPEG-4 standard) that “offers high quality audio at low bit rates,” and is “designed specifically to ensure no detectable deterioration in sound quality for music on bandwidth-constrained applications.” Maybe it’ll go some way to solving the “digital music sounds like ass” problem we talked about in the comments of my last post. Or not.

• Abbey Road Studios almost put up for sale; rescued by “historic landmark” protection
  EMI owns Abbey Road Studios. EMI is hemorrhaging cash. Hence the “for sale” sign. Well, there’s not gonna be any foreclosures on the horizon, ’cause the British Government has bestowed historic status upon the Fab Four’s track-laying HQ. The Grade II classification doesn’t prohibit changes to the building but requires that “care must be taken to ensure that any alterations with respect to its character and interest are fully considered.” Which means it won’t be a Ben & Jerry’s like the corner of Haight and Ashbury. Still, I’d love to taste a cone called “Revolution Number Lime.”

• Google pulls music blogs; scribes to leave moms’ basements for first time in decade
  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is the gift that keeps on giving. Because of this legislation, Google is required to take down sites using its Blogger architecture that are in violation of copyright law, lest the search giant be liable for infringement. I don’t disagree with the basic premise that if you’re doing illegal stuff, you should be stopped from doing more of it, but everybody and their hipster brother knows that blogs are a major marketing/promotions engine for today’s music. As a semi-retired music writer who is still deluged with MP3s from labels who hope I’ll post their stuff, I find it a bit disingenuous that these notices of suspected infringement are sent at the same time the labels are pestering people to post tracks without negotiating licenses like they require for every other non-broadcast use. I’m just sayin.’

• Mommy, what’s a fair use?
  Well, my dear, fair use is a part of copyright law that recognizes that there are certain, limited conditions within which a copyrighted work can be used without requiring permission from rightsholders for “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research” without being considered unlawful. Does everyone’s favorite mashup master Girl Talk qualify for this exception? He seems to think so. The law, on the other hand, might not.

And that’s all you get. See you next time inside the Terrordome!

Casey Rae-Hunter is a musician, producer, writer and music/media/tech/policy wonk in Washington, DC. This post does not necessarily reflect the views of his employer. You can harass Casey at his site, The Contrarian.

Ghostly International, one of my favorite below the radar labels of the last handful of years has been quietly putting out incredible albums by artists like The School of Seven Bells, Lusine, and Tadd Mullinix.  Their artists range is style from slightly left of center indie-rock, to the far corners of minimal electronica and experimental composition, but regardless of what genres GA’s artists are pulling from, they seem to maintain a very high level of quality and that unique Ghostly International character.

GA just released a great list compiling their favorites of the decade for no other reason than just to share what they like – and well, you know how much we like a good list. And this is one of the best. I mean, any best of list that contains Bonnie Prince Billy, Farben, Tim Hecker and Broadcast on the same page is basically a contender for best list ever.

This month sees the reissuing of the Buzzcocks’ first three albums in comprehensive two-disc sets from Mute Records. Even though I’ve yet to hear the quality of their mastering, I’m going to call this good news on faith. All three albums are wonderful. The Buzzcocks legacy may be dwarfed by some of their peers like The Clash or The Sex Pistols, but their output is as good as anything in the 70’s British Punk canon.

Another Music in a Different Kitchen, their debut, is also their third best. This is only in light of the excellence of the subsequent albums and is not to say Another Music isn’t worthy of your time. Tracks like “Fast Cars” and “Autonomy” are among the band’s greatest. This is a brisk and consistent collection of quality punk songs.

Love Bites, my favorite Buzzcocks record, came out six months later. The band didn’t revolutionize their approach with this album, but they sure refined it. The music on Love Bites is fantastic and the lyrics are inspired, anti-love tirades. One of the catalysts for the punk rock movement was the need for an antidote to the glutenous, over-wrought popular music of the time. The way Love Bites subverts the cliched sentiments of conventional pop music is delightful and just a bit devilish.

The Buzzcocks third album (which would be followed by an extended hiatus and irregular appearances of forgettable albums) was A Different Kind of Tension, released a mere year and a half after their debut. A Different Kind of Tension, though a bit uneven, finds the Buzzcocks in an ambitious and exploratory mood. Tracks like “Paradise” and “I Don’t Know What To Do With My Life” wouldn’t be out of place on either of the previous albums, but others, like the deceptively sweet “You Say You Don’t Love Me” and the sprawling, album-highlight “I Believe,” push the boundaries of the band’s sound in exciting directions.

These two-disc sets retail at $16.97, which is a heck of a price. Anyone with the slightest interest in punk owes it to his or herself to look into these seminal albums.

Jack Rose -- one of our favorite guitar players, passed way yesterday at the age of 38 of a heart attack. If you’ve been a fan of his raga style guitar playing for a while you know how great of a talent was lost, if you wern’t familiar with him but are a fan of the other greats in his ilk, Fahey, Basho, Kottke, et al -- then now would be a good time to pick up one of his albums of mesmerizing, vibrant, ambling yet exacting guitar work.

RIP.

Norah Jones – The Fall

Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures

Ladies and gentlemen, Them Crooked Vultures — the second-best band John Paul Jones has ever been in! The Led Zeppelin guys never made much of a splash in the supergroup scene, unless you’re the kind of die-hard fan who still busts out those old records by the Honeydrippers or the Firm. But when John Paul Jones got the hard-rock supersession itch, he didn’t mess around. For Them Crooked Vultures, he hooks up with Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), two of Zep’s smartest disciples. If these three 800-pound gorillas want to bash out an album as willfully weird and slapdash as Them Crooked Vultures, who can tell them not to? And if they do a song called “Elephants” where they basically crunch every riff on Led Zeppelin II into seven dizzy minutes, why not? (Read The Full Review)

John Mayer – Battle Studies

As Pat Benatar once said, love is a battlefield. That’s the main point John Mayer wants to convey on his fourth studio album. It’s called Battle Studies, and militaristic song titles expand on the theme: “Heartbreak Warfare,” “War of My Life,” “Assassin.” That last one is the set’s most ambitious track — an obsessive groove building louder toward clatter and buzz for five minutes, insulated by Middle Eastern background wails as Mayer likens both parties in an apparent one-night stand to killers performing a night’s mission. But the album’s tone is already set in the first two numbers, both prominently featuring broken hearts; by the third – a duet with Taylor Swift, who enters only briefly, toward the song’s end – his heart has been split in half. (Read The Full Review)

David Rawlings Machine – A Friend of a Friend

For more than 12 years, the Nashville-based musician has toured, written and recorded with Gillian Welch, exploring the well-worn byways of country, bluegrass and stringband music while making the old-timey sound new. As a hired gun, he’s played sideman to artists following in Welch’s wake or creating their own: Sara Watkins, Ryan Adams, Bright Eyes, Guy Clark, Mark Knopfler and Jay Farrar, among others. So his debut as Dave Rawlings Machine is either a case of him stepping up, or everyone else stepping back. Welch herself appears on almost all of these songs, either singing harmony or playing guitar, as do several other musician friends. But Rawlings takes the lead on every track, as a singer and picker.

For nine songs over 40 minutes, Rawlings proves fascinating company — a good man to share a front porch with. As a performer, he makes good use of his distinct, reedy tenor (imagine a twangier Loudon Wainwright). And he has a spry, jumpy guitar style that lends his arrangements some bounce. As a producer, he keeps things loose and lively, mixing covers with originals. A Friend of a Friend plays like a rough, intimate live album instead of a polished studio affair. (Read the Full Review)

LCD Soundsystem – Bye Bye Bayou (12″ Single)

Like a strong, expertly crafted cocktail downed right before what is sure to be one hell of a dinner (new album, hint hint!), LCD Soundsystem’s single “Bye Bye Bayou” (an Alan Vega cover recorded for November’s Record Store Day spinoff Vinyl Saturday) is a slippery buzz-opener that sneaks up on you in the weirdest of ways. While LCD would seem to be unconcerned with racking up any more cool-kid tokens (they have enough by now to cash in for a lifetime supply of plastic spider rings and vampire teeth), “Bayou” simply lifts Vega’s already very cool original out of the swamps, swapping the Cajun paranoia for dead-eyed heavy funk. (Read Full Track Review)

Jerry Garcia – Let It Rock

For Jerry Garcia, 1975 was a seminal year that found him splitting time between recording Blues for Allah with the Dead, directing The Grateful Dead Movie, and forming the Jerry Garcia Band–his long-running side project.

The Jerry Garcia Band — Garcia, his constant collaborator bassist John Kahn and drummer Ron Tutt — played its first show with Nicky Hopkins on piano in August 1975. The ultimate session player, Hopkins’ credits include work with The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and Jefferson Airplane to name a very few. While Hopkins residency was brief with the Jerry Garcia Band, it played an important role in the group’s shift away from big jams toward song-oriented material. (Read the Full Review)

Starline Rhythm Boys – Masquerade for Heartache

Dust off those shitkickers, Burlington. Your blue-collar heroes ride again. Rooted in rockabilly, the Starline Rhythm Boys have been shaking honky-tonks for a decade, evoking an era of checkerboard floors and poodle skirts. Their latest, Masquerade For Heartache, finds the trio plugged into Charlie O’s — that Capital City citadel of sin — where guitarists Al Lemery and Danny Coane lead a jukebox jubilee. All that’s missing is the chicken wire, as the Boys resurrect salty anthems (“Red’s Place”) and 10-gallon covers (“Trucker from Tennessee”) to rowdy effect.

Anchored by Billy Bratcher’s strolling bass, Heartache is a vintage buffet. Western boogie? Check. Hillbilly blues? Yep, it’s all here. And if Coane’s lyrical twang sounds just a bit south of his native Montpelier, blame it on the Narragansett — beer sweetens the masquerade. (Read the Full Review)

Doom – Unexpected Guests

The early news of DOOM compilation Unexpected Guests positioned it as a field report from the indie MC’s late-decade wilderness period, spanning a half-committed star turn (2005’s Danger Doom collaboration with Danger Mouse) to this year’s bullish return to form on Born Like This. And it is… except when it isn’t– “Rock Co.Kane Flow”, taken from De La Soul’s The Grind Date, actually finds DOOM doing something of a victory lap in 2004 after his essential triad of Take Me to Your Leader (released under the name King Geedorah), Vaudeville Villain (Viktor Vaughn), and Madvillainy (Madvillain). “Rock Co.Kane Flow” is a fantastic symbiosis of DOOM’s many playful styles, but the beat itself feels weightier than what we’re used to from De La and the stakes higher (ahem) than what we’re used to from DOOM when he guests on a track. The other high(er)-profile collaborations on Unexpected don’t always fare as well– while “Da Supafriendz” spotlights a nerdy side of Vast Aire that often goes overlooked amidst Cannibal Ox’s doomsayer image, “Fly That Knot” is the second hopelessly corny track DOOM’s done with Talib Kweli (see also: “Old School” from The Mouse and the Mask) and most of the blame lies with Kweli’s increasing ineptitude at hook-writing, it’s clear these two share more camaraderie than chemistry. (Read The Full Review)

About a month ago, we did a toungue-in-cheek article about the future video games featuring five absurd and hypothetical games inspired by the music industry. Well, the new Daniel Johnston iPhone game would not have been out-of-place on that list. Hi, How Are You? is a conventional puzzle-platformer built around the Johnston mythology. It features his music and various characters from his art. In the game, the player must rescue Laurie, a real-life muse of Johnston’s from way back when. It’s totally ridiculous and very very cool.

I’m not really a fan of these kind of iPhone games. Navigating 3D space by tilting your phone or with a touch-controlled virtual joystick (the game gives you both options) is a pain in the ass. Most of the challenge in these games seems to be derived from the sloppiness of their mechanics. That said, this is a very straight-forward and simply designed game. It’s completely worth it just to marvel at the absurdity of a world constructed from Daniel Johnston imagery.

This kind of stuff is great. Let’s hope we keep seeing more of the same. Rod Stewart Pong, anyone?

When Anthology 1 came out in 1995 in a limited vinyl edition, I made a vow to myself that I’d keep buying new Beatles releases only on vinyl. Since then i’d broken that vow twice; first when i had a chance to get a collection of the Beatles Christmas messages on CD (who can afford $200 bucks for the record?), and second, the LOVE project, which isn’t really the Beatles at all but an amazing mashup project.). So why did I buy the remastered Sgt. Pepper compact disc? Maybe I succumbed to that zombie dance at Abbey Road crosswalk that Microsoft created for the Rock band commercial. Or maybe I just plain gave in to the siren song of that word remastered like I’ve always done. Whatever the reason, on Sept 11, I bought the remastered Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. In researching this little rant I found out that the record was released Thursday, June 1, 1967, which means i can say with relative certainty that I bought my first copy of Sgt. Pepper on Saturday June 3, 1967, and probably at Gaynes Shopper’s World in South Burlington for $2.37. Know where Staples Plaza is? Anyway, it was probably a mono copy and I listened to it the way you’re supposed to listen to mono records – on a portable RCA hi-fi with a single 3 inch speaker. Sometime that afternoon I became addicted to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and started sketching backgrounds for a cartoon that i wanted to try and make with my father’s 8mm movie camera. He’d stumbled on the single frame possibilities of the camera and had started animating titles for some of his home movies and shown me the trick. A pretty high concept for a 14 year old who’d just brushed up against psychedelia for the first time. Anyway, back to 2009 and that remastered CD. Entertainment Magazine had warned me about the compression utilized in the remastering processing and there WAS a flatness to the music I heard when I put in the disc the next morning.

But there was also a new clarity and subtlety to those songs I knew so well. Here are some of the notes I scribbled during that first headphone listen: … Listen to the fades and the silences…the echoes…the doubled vocals, those hand claps…the first REAL kick in the head is the clarity of “She’s Leaving Home”…the break on “Within You Without You” (that whispered “da ta da two” lead (George?) at the end of the instrumental break) …even in its crystalline remastered glory “When I’m 64″ is still right there with “Besame Mucho” for ultimate Beatle cheese…The fadeout on “Lovely Rita” might have been Charlie Manson’s head’s up for “Helter Skelter” …”Good Morning” has that patented sax chorus that George Martin found for his Boys …Lennon’s “Bye” at the start and that little organ bit in the fade into “Day In The Life”…and of course the inner groove at the end of the now strangely anti climactic “Day in the Life”…

The next morning brought 2 more listens at home on speakers. The CD went on first and it sounded great. Then I got down my copy of EMI BC 13, the Beatles Collection box that first came out in 1978, pulled out Sgt. Pepper, put it on the turntable and set the needle to the vinyl. And there’s that analog/digital divide which I can’t really tell you about. The vinyl is, as they say, warmer, and to this geezer’s ears, the way the Beatles are supposed to sound. But what about those subtleties? Some of them are there in the room as I listen, but on Listen #4, with the vinyl on headphones, all of those little things I thought I was hearing for the first time Friday morning on the CD come right back out at me from the LP. So what is there to write about now?

A few days later I did another listen with my friend Erik. A couple of cuts in both formats and there’s that omnipresent word warmth again. A few days after that I rediscover my copy of Sgt. Peppeb’s Loney Hearps Club Band, a Chinese knockoff on Liming Records from back in the day that I picked up at a porch sale in Richmond, Virginia, and when I listen to it on headphones, some of those subtleties I heard on the remastered compact disc last week come bubbling out through 30 years worth of surface noise. So I guess I’ll end this with, not the Rockband Beatles which a lot of you love, and not the remastered Beatles catalog on compact disc that will launch akagillion memories, rants and lies, but rather, a Utopian to do list.
First, find a good record player and speakers. Second, track down the cleanest LPs that you can find (at least until they come at us with the limited edition remastered vinyl). Third, plop ‘em on, turn ‘em up, and enjoy some great records by a great band. And that’s not to say you shouldn’t be buying these CD’s, cuz I’m pretty sure that at some point, I’ll be getting the CDs of Abbey Road, The White Album and Past Masters, it’s just that, as they say, nothing is real.

-Michael Breiner