The Music Blog @ Tokens From The Well

Whenever the urge hits, commentary on music results. These are highlighted posts from the music blog of multimedia artist Matthew White.

. . . And One More Thing About Sun Ra

January 31, 2017 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

As discussed in a recent Brain Fuzz podcast episode with artist Michi Meko, I recently revisited Sun Ra for some reason. Probably because I’m rebooting my record collection and realized he wasn’t represented.

I couldn’t remember how the evolution of his music worked, so I decided to start again from the beginning. This proved tougher than expected – the discography is massive and disorganized. Recordings were made, then shelved for years in some cases, then released, then maybe released on another label and combined with another title.

What’s striking is just how the early work fits nicely into jazz sub-genres like bop or swing. The early Supersonic Jazz and Sound of Joy are enjoyable simply as jazz records.

Sun Ra as he appears on album cover of Space Is The Place.

I say simply, because something noticeable happens with Nubians of Plutonia – a new favorite of mine. The emphasis shifts to experimentation, and from there, the listening gets more complicated. Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy is downright difficult – the seemingly devil-may-care approach coupled with percussion at the forefront makes for tough going, even on repeat listens.

By the time of Atlantis and later, Space Is The Place, Sun Ra has struck a balance between the avant garde and the approachable.

Is Space The Place?

But of course, approachable is far from accessible. It’s tough to connect the cosmic and demonic references in the titles of even the earlier, more traditional jazz works. And at first glance, it just gets stranger from there.

For most potential listeners, the Sun Ra persona is a barrier. In the past, I lumped the costumes and the language all in neatly as “Afrofuturism,” mainly because it was easy to label and move on and, hey it’s just weird and maybe even nonsense.

In actuality, there’s much more to it. Spoiler alert: Space isn’t the place after all.

. . . And that is why you should not only listen to Sun Ra, but check out our Brain Fuzz arts podcast episode with Michi Meko for unique insights on Afrofuturism, altered destiny, and persona.

When The Alternative Goes Number One

August 27, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

As explored among earlier posts, country music has a problem. If Jason Isbell is accurately capturing the rural southern experience, then there isn’t really anything alternative about alternative country.

Add the fact that his Something More Than Free has spent time at number one on the country chart, and it isn’t even alternative in a market or business sense.

Hard kicking southern rock hat made in China.

Cultural confusion on multiple levels . . . a hard kickin southern rock cap made in China.

Alternative Country

There are countless other acts in the “alternative country” space that are producing extremely good work: Amanda Shires, Ryan Bingham, Bobby Bare Jr, and Hayes Carll come to mind. All are expanding on themes that have run from country music’s inception through its blues, R&B, and soul influences. In their music, contemporary humor meshes with traditional thematic material, and though it may not always aim for the emotional or psychological impact that is a consistent component of Isbell’s work, it doesn’t have to.

Alternative? If anything, it’s just the next logical evolution in country music. Or, what “country” really is.

Americana

Isbell took some well-deserved trophies home from 2014’s Americana Music Awards. Here are lyrics from a song that helped earn those awards – “Elephant” – about a friend dying from cancer:

She said Andy you’re better than your past,
winked at me and drained her glass,
cross-legged on the barstool, like nobody sits anymore.

She said Andy you’re taking me home,
but I knew she planned to sleep alone.
I’d carry her to bed and sweep up the hair from the floor.

If I had fucked her before she got sick
I’d never hear the end of it
she don’t have the spirit for that now.

We drink these drinks and laugh out loud,
bitch about the weekend crowd,
and try to ignore the elephant somehow.

John Hiatt, another artist classified as “Americana,” painted this picture in “Master of Disaster” – a blues rock trip through the LA area (with a shoutout to Madame Wong):

Close one there
Choking in clean underwear
Bleeding tongue
8-ball pounding in my lungs

I still don’t know what Americana as a genre really is. To me, Americana is the flea market ephemera that decorates the dining area of Cracker Barrel. All that the Americana label does is keep the more intellectually challenging country-influenced music conveniently away from the trough of fodder that distributors and big box stores can easily peddle as “country.”

These are lyrics penned by contemporary human beings wrestling with contemporary pain.

The Real Alternative?

Logically, the real alternative country sound is what emanates from the alternative universe created by musicians mimicking thick southern or country accents native to nowhere. They stick to themes that are now industry standard and keep convenient stereotypes of country life and southerners alive.

Why kill the golden goose anyway?

If Americana is the decorative ephemera in Cracker Barrel’s dining area, what has become identified as country is the Chinese-made shlock pushed in their waiting area “gift” shops. It feigns authenticity . . . just enough.

Something More Complicated

August 20, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

Every geographic region has its own flavors of joy and hardship. Life in southern Mississippi demands something different than the plains of Oklahoma. Job prospects in Trenton or the ports of New Jersey are different than those of Mobile or New Orleans.

Bottling The Essence

Consistently across his writing and recording, Jason Isbell is capturing probably better than anyone else the unique experience of contemporary and rural southern life.

You thought God was an architect and now you know
He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow.

Jason Isbell (image from Picasa)

With that line from “24 Frames,” it’s easy to see that Something More Than Free requires more than just one good listen.

A line like this:

I don’t keep liquor here, never cared for wine or beer
And working for the county keeps me pissing clear.

. . . is comic on one level, but it also nails the vicious cycle now so common in southern rural life: Pain of personal ambition choked by lack of job prospects; add drug or alcohol addiction as a way of escape; further limit your job prospects; repeat.

It’s one thing to craft the imagery (in Something‘s “Speed Trap Town” for example), but it’s another to bottle the essence.

Even with Wal-Mart a half hour away, the country life is one that requires a different grit and know-how than what is required in urban life. Sound farfetched in 2015? Deal with a flooded dirt road in southern Alabama, a dried up well in middle Georgia, or an ice storm in the foothills of Appalachia. Sure, it’s easier now than it was in 1915, but life can be surprisingly difficult.

Meanwhile, farming isn’t what it used to be and most of the manufacturing jobs are gone. It’s a big deal when the new Kia, Mercedes, or BMW plant opens.

Then there’s military service, a related theme Isbell frequently explores. It is a fact that military enlistments have always been represented disproportionately by southerners and the trend actually continues to rise. As a result, armed conflict disproportionately impacts southern families and communities. Take a look at the lyrics from “Dress Blues”, a cut from the previous album Southeastern:

You never planned on the bombs in the sand
Or sleeping in your dress blues.

And no, Zac Brown did not write that.

Digging Deeper

As with “Dress Blues” and so much else in his work, Isbell insists on digging deeper into the southern and rural psyche – so much so that at times the writing has a Faulknerian quality. Isbell has expressed genuine surprise at the commercial success of Something More Than Free, and it’s understandable. The message in this work is contrary to the blind, usually mindless flag-waving, God-fearing, beer-guzzling stereotype peddled in what has become known as country music.

The southern existence is a lot more complicated. Indeed, country life – not just southern life – is a lot more complicated.

Country Music Has a Problem

August 10, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

Country music has a problem. More accurately, country music has a new problem. Jason Isbell’s excellent Something More Than Free hit number one on Billboard’s country chart and number one on the rock chart . . . in addition to spending some time in the top ten on the Billboard 200.

It probably wasn’t supposed to work out this way. More about that later.

That Don’t Impress Me Much

Country has been defined by the “contemporary country” or “country pop” sound, look, and feel since the arrival of Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, and Billy Ray Cyrus between 1990 and 1993.

It started off innocently enough – each of those artists are talented, each in his or her own way. There is no debating this fact. But, the powers that be got greedy when they saw just how much money could be made with country music after years of slow country sales and the “new traditionalist” country of the 1980’s.

Bad Rock With a Fiddle

Jason Isbell, from the cover of Something More Than Free.

Tom Petty once called it “bad rock with a fiddle.” And, that’s exactly what country music – as it is now generally accepted – started to become in the early 90’s.

With time, the color that our friends in low places had was lost. The jokes grew stale. Conversation became a bland re-hash every time: God, country, family, pickup trucks. S.O.S. different day. Same beer. Same bar. Slightly different chorus.

In this case of (extreme) arrested development, we grew apart. You know, like, when you grow up and they don’t.

Eventually, that’s also how we ended up with Keith Urban on American Idol.

Alt-Country and Americana

Several things the powers that be couldn’t explain began in the mid-90’s. For one, there was Johnny Cash’s “revival” with the help of Rick Rubin and the American recordings. It was often explained away as simple nostalgia. But, the demographic that embraced those records and went to the concerts weren’t old country fans looking to relive the past. It was a new – and very different looking – group of fans. In fact, many of those fans were likely still mourning the death of Kurt Cobain who passed away loudly on April 5, 1994. The first of Cash’s American recordings was released only weeks later that very same month.

It was about this same time, the term “alternative country” – now often also referred to as “Americana” – was born. One of the glaring issues with this label is that many alternative country artists also happen to be new traditionalists: Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam, and Steve Earle, for example.

And, there are the artists that actually pre-date new traditionalism: Loretta Lynn and Emmylou Harris. Don’t forget Willie Nelson – also now usually lumped into alternative country.

Interestingly enough, there is also Shooter Jennings (yes, that Jennings), Hank III (yes, that Hank), and Bobby Bare Jr. (yes, that Bobby Bare).

Jason Isbell on Facebook with a post in response to accusations of “hype” surrounding Something More Than Free.

Still, early alternative country artists such as Uncle Tupelo and Wilco are largely credited with defining alternative country. Drive-By Truckers with their Muscle Shoals ties – and with whom Jason Isbell played – have helped further the sub-genre. Somehow though, bands like Wilco can also “graduate” from alt-country to alt-rock. Or, in the case of Drive-By Truckers, southern rock.

It all gets very confusing.

More importantly, what happens when the alternative goes number one?

Gimme The Sound, Man

February 6, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

Contemporary Art - Matthew White - I want the sound injectly directed into my head. (2015)

Detail from I want the sound injectly directed into my head. (2015)

Sales of song downloads last year suddenly dropped, dramatically. The recent music industry sales numbers, as covered here in “Streaming Is Killing the MP3 Industry,” illustrate the broad cultural shifts underway:

What we expect as music listeners (consumers) is changing.
How we consume music is changing.
The nature of music delivery – now, as packets of data – is changing.

I want the sound injectly directed into my head. is an exploration of these ideas and related questions. It is an industrial style guitar fitted with black iron pipe as a neck, which also acts as conduit. The guitar is restrung with cat 5e cable (I now routinely enjoy working with it, by the way), exploding in a bouquet from its non-existent headstock.

Fitted for wall mounting, the piece displays much as a guitar would on a musician’s studio wall.

What Next?

For links to upcoming Tokens From the Well blog articles, follow @mwgallery on Twitter or “like” artist Matthew White on Facebook.

Updated February 25, 2016.

Streaming Is Killing the MP3 Industry

January 6, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

Nope. 2014 was not a great year for the MP3 industry. According to reports in The Wall Street Journal, sales of downloaded songs and albums “plummeted” while the use of streaming grew “sharply.”

And, for the icing on the cake: Vinyl sales are up significantly.

The Who and What By Numbers

Streaming is killing the MP3 industry, and hipsters should note the numbers on vinyl.

Let’s briefly review 2014:

Downloaded album sales dropped 9%.
Downloaded song sales dropped 12%.
Streaming grew by a whopping 54%.

Total album consumption was 257 million units. Downloaded albums represent 106.5 million of that total.

Hipsters should note that while vinyl sales are up, it’s only 9.2 million units in all. That’s about 4% of total (“new”) album sales across formats. Despite the saber rattling across posts and shares – as well as my own wishes for our culture – that’s not enough to spill a PBR (or Genessee) over.

To put a face on some of these numbers, Taylor Swift had the biggest album sales of the year with more than 3.66 million copies of her 1989.

So . . .

On the surface, the significant movement of these numbers in such a short period of time is what is most impressive. And, even more importantly, it’s interesting to put these numbers in perspective among broader trending across decades (RIAA offers a lot of data available via subscription). For example, notice how cycles in format adoption have sped up.

What would Rob and Barry think about streaming? High Fidelity is also a book by Nick Hornby that may or may not be available on Kindle.

The assumption that consumers are purchasing and downloading single songs while abandoning whole albums is wrong. The data backs this up. Among us enlightened music consumers, we may not like who they download or how they download it, but they still value the “album” as a collection of songs. In fact, since 2013, single song downloads declined more than album downloads.

The impact to what remains of an always clueless “music industry” is clear. People are listening to more music while they – and the artists – make less money.

. . . And In The End

These numbers tell us more about how our culture’s consumption habits and brains are evolving than they do about our music tastes.

The free market can be a real bitch. Music makers have greater access to instruments, collaboration, and distribution. Consumers have access to more music, more artists, and more formats. Are the sheeple engaging with albums and album tracks in ways that the enlightened would prefer? Who knows? They probably never will anyway.

These shifts in trends raise an interesting question about how artists integrate the distribution format into their work. For example, in 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hears Club Band, The Beatles mixed several seconds of sound for the record’s run-out groove. This was followed by a 15 kilocycle pitch that was included especially for dogs. Interestingly, use of the run-out groove actually dates back to recordings for 78s.

For most, the uncomfortable fact of the matter is that music now – like sales charts – is mostly data. That fact is not inherently good or bad. The real question is, what next?

The Ten Rules of Juking Off

November 16, 2013 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

I am a DJ, I am what I play,
I got believers,
Believing me. – David Bowie

Jukeboxes are wonderful and magical things. And, despite a brief lull in their popularity, they’ve somehow stayed with us.

TouchTunes, for one, have made the jukebox again a lively centerpiece of nightlife.

These TouchTunes jukeboxes are the best machines for what I’ve discovered as an emerging, lively social activity bringing communities, friends, and even enemies together: The Juke Off.

A Brief History of Juking Off

TouchTunes jukeboxes began popping up in restaurants and bars with unrestricted, vast web-enabled song databases. This made it possible to hear “Thick as a Brick” or “What’s He Building?” while at your favorite watering hole.

Patrick Swayze and a jukebox, not engaged in a juke off.

Patrick Swayze has nothing to do with the rise in popularity of the juke off per se. However, somehow, he embodies the spirit of the juke off.

This sparked meaningful conversation as other listeners were unable to press “skip” or “>>.”

It also sparked rivalry and led to aggressive – and sometimes expensive – competition.

Unfortunately, establishments soon began restricting song database access. The reason is unclear. Regardless, it was a sad turn of events that lowered the bar for, well, music while in a . . . bar.

The enthusiasm and hunger for good music whilst drinking – and the healthy competition that ensues – remains. Juking off has largely been casual until recently. Ten rules have emerged to make juking off as productive and engaging as possible.

The Ten Rules of Juking Off

The first rule of a juke off is: You tell everyone about juking off.

The second rule of a juke off is: The juker that plays a song twice immediately loses the juke off and should be shamed accordingly.

3: The first play is determined by challenge. The one who proposed juking off plays first.

4: The challengee has likely already accepted the challenge to juke off. However, after the first play, the challengee may still decline the challenge honorably. However, an audience member may assume the challenge.

5: Jukers rotate until the audience deems a juker no longer worthy of rotation. That juker has lost the juke off.

6: Jukers are free to juke off all night. Jukers should be evaluated throughout the night based on these factors:

Consistency of theme or musical genre.
Accurate reading of – and response to – the audience and atmosphere.
Positive audience response is a plus.

7: If the establishment is preparing for close, an acceptable number of remaining turns is decided upon by the jukers, and the challengee plays the last song. The decision of a winner between jukers is put before the audience. Audience response determines the winner.

8: Wagers and awards in the form of house cash, drinks, and/or soakage are to be encouraged.

9: Freebird, Stairway to Heaven, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Hey Jude, and Thick As a Brick and any edited, live, or cover versions thereof are not allowed. Playing one of these songs results in automatic juke off loss.

10: Audience should be notified that a juke off is underway. Extra credits are likely required to maintain the pace of a juke off. However, audience members who cut into a juke off knowingly may be verbally ridiculed, regardless of the strength of their song choice(s). If they have acted unknowingly, they must at the very least be informed of their error.

Finally, remember: We could all get along, if we could all just juke off.

Why McCartney Records Are Still Worth Buying

November 2, 2013 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

I go back so far, I’m in front of me. – Paul McCartney

There’s a ferocity with which critics write about Paul McCartney. It’s either embarassingly gushing or oddly harsh. The oddly harsh part seems to stem from a position taken in either the Lennon or McCartney camps. The same way people stake a position on being either in the David Gilmour or Roger Waters camps. I have not looked into how serious the Peter Cetera camp is.

After some time with McCartney’s latest release, New, I’m reminded why his new work matters. I’m also reminded that he was written off as a washed up has-been by harsher critics as early as the 70’s. The 80’s were even more brutal for him. McCartney has certainly had ups and downs in his career, either in terms of critical acclaim or record sales (meaning, “didn’t go gold”). But, his work from roughly 1996 and forward is proving surprisingly consistent in its lyrical, musical, and artistic strength. This period coincides with several key events in his life: a) This work is all post-Beatles Anthology – a period kicked off by Jeff Lynne’s production of Flaming Pie, b) the passing of his wife and collaborator Linda, and c) last but not least, laying off the weed.

Interestingly, Heather Mills has proven to be a blip on his creative radar screen. Though, I’ve read that she’s the one who hoisted him up on the tee-totaler wagon’s weed equivalent.

I’m Talking 1970 and Forward

In the interest of full-disclosure, I’m a huge fan of Paul McCartney. My critical ethos would probably fall in the “embarrassingly gushing” category. Still, I seek to approach the subject objectively: Not all of his records are great. Two – OK, three – albums are painful if compared with the strengths of his other work. Every record, even to the most critical listener, has its moments though. For 30+ records (counting all Wings incarnations), that’s not bad.

The – shall I say, delightful? – cover of Paul McCartney’s 2013 release, New.

New, however, falls in the same creative risk category as his Fireman records. And, as with those records, the risk pays off. You may not like every track, but you are listening to an artist at work – not a writer of anthems. He doesn’t have to write another #1, and he sounds comfortable with that fact. Since 1996, he’s been collaborating with producers that are stretching his sound – Jeff Lynne, David Kahne (The Strokes and Lana Del Ray), and Nigel Godrich (Beck and Radiohead). Most recently on New, his producers include Mark Ronson (Adele and Amy Winehouse), Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams and Kings of Leon), and Paul Epworth (Bruno Mars and Crystal Castles).

Many thought the subtexts of Memory Almost Full – from its title to the undertones of “Vintage Clothes” and “The End of the End” – indicated a final release. It certainly sounded like it could make for a nice, neat bookend.

In reality, to all his critics and naysayers, Memory Almost Full was one aspect of a different McCartney that has been emerging over the last ten or fifteen years. This McCartney doesn’t sound like the creative/production control freak he’s been called, and he’s more comfortable moving away from a previously proven creative formula. New is his best example of this. And, it works extremely well.