Check my myspace for a brand new recording (just done this afternoon) of a song I wrote last month and partly re-wrote this afternoon. It's called "100-Car Crash."

www.myspace.com/thebeaumondes

I'd love to hear what you think.

The trial ended in hung jury. He's going to face another trial soon--I think this spring.

OK, I admit I wouldn't have gone with two minutes or so of instrumental solos.

OK, I am almost 3:00 in, and I love this. The vocal harmony arrangement in the 2:00 range or so was just wonderful, and then when the drum kicks in at 2:20, it's a great beat.

Oh, and I should note, "Elder" was my favorite album for a while. I was a teenager, and I don't know if I could stomach it now. But they certainly took a chance on it.

I like what he did on Destroyer, too. And some of his work on the Jayhawks' Smile is nice.

Listening to the epic now. Like the intro.

I tend not to like Bob Ezrin's work, but his over-the-top production was just so perfect with Lou's trademark understatement. I really like that album as well. (I do think Transformer is better, by the way. But they're both fantastic, if totally different.)

That noise is some synth patch on my old Alesis, a single note--C#, I think--that I held throughout. I liked that idea of it fading back in and out of key based on what chords passed it by. It added tension, I thought. The noise most audible at the beginning and end is a slide being run in circles across the strings of an acoustic guitar, processed through a filter and panned to give it that stop-and-start feeling, again for tension.

I don't know what's up with my fuzz-bass love this week. (Or disturbing songs this week, for that matter.) I'm sure I'll be doing melodic-happy pop by tomorrow. Although I am thinking of finishing up an old song cycle that "Marianne" was a part of back in 2001. It occurred to me that I've redone several of those songs, and want to do some of the others. Others of my new songs fit right in, so it might just be an easy thing to throw together. We'll see how ambitious I remain.

reminds me of parts of 'Berlin' by Lou Reed, in fact vocally at the end on teh last line that sounds very Lou Reed-ish!

That was specifically what I had in mind with the dead vocal delivery in parts. Speaking of...

would be interested to hear your number 1 creepy song!

I can accommodate. Here is "Inertia," written and recorded Tuesday or Wednesday. Still needs a better mix. And to get as dead a vocal delivery as I could, I actually held a guitar pick in my mouth while singing the first two verses. I think you'll sense Berlin on this, too...

http://www.sendspace.com/file/p9hob6

I literally wrote the whole thing in five minutes and then started recording and made up most of the lyrics on the spot, I don't usually work that way but I needed to after spending months slaving over an album! I have loads of these little ditties lying around!

Awesome. Maybe I say that because I do usually work that way!

Actually, other than better mixing it, I don't intend to do a lot more with this. Originally written in 2001 but slightly rearranged and entirely re-recorded today, it's my second-creepiest song ever. So, you know...that's something.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6rata8

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

If making a major impact on the charts or having huge success is what they're waiting for, it might as well be forgotten. Brian Wilson's time for having anyone outside of a relatively small market care about his new work is long, long gone. It was pretty much gone by his first solo album, and that's 20 years ago now. (Oh, I know it got great reviews; I know writers were psyched, but that amounts to BW geeks, not a lot different than the sort of excitement around here.)

So if--if--some sort of concerns about getting a great deal out of the album are the hold-up, I'd say forget it and retire. That won't happen. If Smile couldn't do it, nothing will.

They ought to go the route of everyone else who isn't a 17-26-year-old star-of-the-moment with model's looks and just do it on an interested indie with a major distribution deal. The established crowd is going to buy it anyway, and some of those labels may be able to draw some new fans based on the bands they represent now who are interested (i.e., the Pitchfork set, for lack of a better term). And if there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that those labels have found some working financial model to release hard-copy discs with interesting packaging without breaking the bank. Last year's Okkervil River album, for example, on Jagujaguwar Records, came in a cardboard trifold, double-disc set. Disc 1 was the album, disc 2 was demos of the album, and it had a booklet. Of Montreal's album (Polyvinyl) had great packaging. And there are plenty of others that fit that mold, too. These labels aren't spending nearly as much on the machinery of the majors--a lot more is going into product. And it shows.

If BW goes that route, he'll get the usual established rock press attention because he's Brian Wilson. He might get some hipster interest because he's an aging legend (hell, p4k even interviewed Macca on his last release). Sales will be mediocre (relative to his past) regardless, but at least he can get another respected, respectable album out there (and likely turn a little profit).

Hell, he's better off than most musicians. At least he doesn't have to go back to a day job between albums and tours like most of the bands I listen to these days. 

I'm "blogging" this response.

Love the chord progression. Love the beat.

Reminds me of Euros Childs.

The guitar entrance replacing the keyboards is very cool--I'm a fan of textural changes like that in arrangements. Background vocals entrance is great.

Lyrics about cooking kick ass. Big fan of the "slice of life" stuff.

Not so sure I like the little "mmm" vocal bits throughout.

Really love the background vocals in the 2:30 range.

And it's over. In summary, this has The Official Luther Seal-slash-Stamp of Approval. Congratulations!

(It's a cool little tune; a lot of fun.)

Might I suggest public radio?    Some public radio stations play the best music that can be found anywhere.

In Minneapolis, that is absolutely 100% true. In fact, I recommend anyone who listens to music online check it out. It's 89.3, the Current, locally. Otherwise, mpr.org, and click on "The Current"'s listen link. You can go from Sam Cooke to Of Montreal to to Prince to the Replacements to MIA to Thelonious Monk within half an hour. It's not all good, but that's half the fun. It's like eating at mom-n-pop diners instead of McDonald's: it's different everytime, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse...and that's a good thing.

And more to the general point, if you're suffering with Top 40 (ahem, Top 5 is more like it...they don't play that kind of variety on mainstream stations), turn the dial. Try the news, the oldies, classical music...

I find Stamos the least offensive part of the Stamos version. Virtually anyone here given a chance to be a part of a Beach Boys recording would jump at it. The Beach Boys (meaning the corporate entity as much as, if not more than, the guys) are to blame for that piece of sh*t, just as they are for pretty much all of their garbage "new product" of the past 25-30 years.

Sorry. (Not sorry.) But I promise you, if someone calls me and says I can take time off my day job to record "Day in the Life of a Tree" with Mike & Bruce, I'm going to do it.

And I expect that call any time.

Gotta go--the phone's ringing!

In some senses, sure; but not in terms of hitting a note. I mean, that's a pretty much Y/N question. Once there, you can discuss the timbre question. I'm all for rougher vocals in general if it means none of the slippery cheese, but for a featured note like the one in Live Let Live, you've got to be there, and if you're not, you're not. Liking that he's going for it isn't the same as him making it.

The music sounds good but their vocals are terrible.

Those were my thoughts. Unlike Aegir, I do hate the original production...just despise it. There's nothing stellar about this version, either, but straight-ahead is usually preferable to overdone in my book, and so stripping the 80s out only helps. But yeah, those vocals are not good. Sometimes during the harmonies they sound all right, but for the most part, meh.

By the way, we did this sort of a topic (whether covers ever exceed the originals) in the general music thread a while back.

I'm with Aegir on this: the Arctic Tale version beats the TLOS version. (I'm not with him on liking it more than Midnight's Another day.)

And where do people get this "Brian hits the high notes live" stuff? I think I've heard three or four of the shows, and never has he even remotely consistently hit the high notes in that or any of the other songs. He's game, which is nice, giving it an effort. But he's very rarely hitting them. It's like somebody's mistaking effort for success.

We should be on Point/Counterpoint.

You can be Tucker Carlson and wear the bowtie.

Tucker Carlson   

Me   

Doesn't work. You can be Tucker Carlson. And we'll bring in Jon Stewart for good measure.

I don't want to be Tucker Carlson, either. Maybe we'll just have Counterpoint/Counterpoint.

I love the piano and hammond fills all the way through the verse, it's got a cool jazzy sort of sound reminds me a bit of Steely Dan. The backing vocals are quite CSNY-like - a fine piece of work!

The jazzy feel, I suppose, is from the two primary chords in the verse: Cmaj7 and Fmaj7(b5). The keyboards are by a friend of mine, Seth, who did a nice job. (He's also the Seth named in the lyrics who "once you finish one [song], Seth makes you write another; lately I don't ever have any fun." We were in a band together. He was more ambitious than me.) Thanks for the compliments, even though the two bands you've named are two I don't even like. It's an odd coincidence that usually when someone says I sound like [band], it's a band I hate!

We should be on Point/Counterpoint.

You can be Tucker Carlson and wear the bowtie.

I have no doubt it's all absolutely true because Beach Boys and Brian Wilson fans aren't the type to deal in rumoUrs and speculation.

Beatles '68 demos.

As for her processed voice, yeah...but then again who doesnt do that? Her voice production isnt as bad as any others...she actually did have a decent voice

I'd clarify that to say "within that genre."

To be fair to her, Britney wasn't exactly allowed anything even resembling a normal childhood or adolescence. We don't know what kind of person she is, and chances are she doesn't either, having been in the spotlight as a manufactured character since she was a preteen. It's no surprise she's got problems. It's just a shame that she's famous enough that they become everyone's focus of attention. I'd hope if I were to flip out, nobody would pay any attention.

We've got a sick societal fascination with famous people, even in the areas of their lives that have nothing to do with the reason they're famous.

I replaced existing lead vocals, all the guitars, and did a pretty thorough remix of my song "Josiah Bildner." Stop by www.myspace.com/thebeaumondes and have a listen.

Just as is the case in any art, there is such a variety of what makes "good," someone who's good doesn't necessarily appreciate or understand everyone else who is good.

Think about how many fiction writers have criticized others for being too abstract, too difficult, too imitative, etc. (I'm thinking Capote calling Kerouac's "On the Road" "typing, not writing.") And in the past generation of pop stars we've seen almost incalculable (mostly older generation) artists criticize the emerging (and now fully dominant) artists in hip hop. Love and Parks are differently good, and one doesn't always necessarily appreciate the other.