In his solid interview with Sting and his long-time guitarist Dominic Cooper, Rick Beato asked “If you were able to meet one musician, go back in time and hear one musician play…” and both immediately answered Bach. So I checked the dude out. Spoiler: they’re not talking about C.P.E. Bach or PDQ Bach, it’s Johann Sebastian Bach.
His lyrics are seriously weeeeak, but damn his instrumentals are non-stop riffing. In this rocker “Violin Concerto In A Minor, BWV 1041: III. Allegro Assai In A Minor” (his song titles suck too) the lead violinist freaks out, then plays one note 72 times! Take that, Chris Difford of Squeeze, who runs out of steam after playing the same note 34 times in “Pulling Mussels (from the Shell).”
Nile Rodgers is auctioning a bunch of guitars. I don’t think he’s selling his famous white Fender Stratocaster “the Hitmaker,” which I couldn’t afford anyway. It reminded me that I meant to blog about David Gilmour (of Pink Floyd’s) record-breaking guitar auction.
Obviously “The Black Strat” he played on their hit albums and on tour was going to go for $$$$$$$, and it did, for $3.975M!! But even utter non-entities like an Ovation 12-string acoustic bought from the factory along with several other models, that he never composed on, never recorded, never played on tour, estimated to sell for $1,500 tops, sold for $93,750, 60 times its estimate! You can buy the same guitar from a nobody for $750, tell friends it sat in a cupboard in David Gilmour’s home, and donate the $93,000 you saved to your own charity of choice. There are enough wealthy geezer fans who want a conversation piece on the wall for prices to be ridiculous. Meanwhile there are local guitar makers who will make a beautiful handmade thing to your own specifications for 1/10th the cost.
the iconic instrument of a great musician
an instrument a great musician left in a cupboard
“Something owned by a famous person of whom I’m a fan” doesn’t appeal much. I’d be as happy with a signed Scritti Politti record sleeve of the greatest B-side ever.
Interesting but not valuable
The prices attained by these Ovation guitars are crazy, but they’re decent interesting instruments in their own right. I even owned one. I blogged about them in The rise and fall of Ovation.
I blogged about the crazy auction prices that guitars owned by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour attained, particular those he’d never even used. The example I gave was a Ovation 12-string acoustic bought from the factory along with several other models, that he never composed on, never recorded, never played on tour, estimated to sell for $1,500 tops, sold for $93,750, 60 times its estimate!
That’s not to say that Ovations aren’t interesting guitars.
Reinventing the back and sides of the guitar
tough as nails on the back and sides
Back when I fantasized about having musical talent beyond rote skill, I bought an Ovation Folklore. I had damaged my classical guitar, so a guitar with nigh indestructible fiberglass back and sides appealed, and the sound projection of the resulting bowl shape was extraordinary. In the 1960s and 1970s this space-age reinvention (literally, founder Charles Kaman worked in aerospace and developed helicopters) was very popular. Glen Campbell made Ovation guitars famous, then Ovation over-expanded into oddball electric guitars, supplying them to the TV show “The Partridge Family.” The show made teen heartthrob David Cassidy famous, and destroyed any street cred that Ovation had.
Ovation later rethought the front of the guitar, coming up with the gorgeous Adamas with sound holes in the upper bout, instead of a gaping hole under the strings that requires lots of bracing to avoid the guitar self-destructing. The wonderfully talented Adrian Legg played one. But tastes have shifted back to authenticity and “naturalness,” plus as I understand it guitar makers have figured out how to get as much projection from conventional all-wood guitars, and Ovation is a shadow of its former self. A nice history.
Here’s Adrian playing “Cajun Interlude” off Guitars and Other Cathedrals on his Ovation Adamas.
Hydrogen, the clean fuel of the future (as long as you ignore the problems of making it cleanly, distributing it, and storing it, and its inevitably worse efficiency than electrifying all the things) keeps getting hyped by people who choose not to know better. The latest credulous nonsense is YouTuber “Undecided with Matt Ferrell” thoughtlessly parroting the claims of Plasma Kinetics in Energy Storage Breakthrough – Solid Hydrogen Explained. This company has a poor computer rendering of a cartridge containing a tape that can absorb lots of hydrogen and then release the hydrogen when it’s unspooled past a laser. It’s like LaserVision meets 8-track cartridges (two failed media formats, kids).
Here’s my comment (this link may work to view it in context on YouTube, where the timestamps should jump to the right part of the video).
What an utter garbage dumpster fire of a video. The nonsense starts in the first seconds with “Being clean and abundant, green hydrogen…” Green hydrogen is almost non-existent! “As of 2020, the most common source for global hydrogen production was methane via steam-reforming [i.e. dirty unnatural gas with massive CO2 emissions], with renewable electrolysis only accounting for 0.3 percent” [source]. That’s why fossil fuel companies and their shills promote new uses for hydrogen, because it means DECADES of increased demand for their dirty product. We definitely need to switch the 70 Mt of dirty hydrogen that industry already uses annually to green hydrogen, but that will take 400 GW of electrolyzers if they run 24 hours a day, requiring 1 Terawatt of dedicated renewables and storage.
You mention the grim reality of today’s high-carbon hydrogen production at 6:55, suggesting that “Plasma Kinetics zero-carbon capture could have a massive environmental benefit.” But there’s no connection. The only way to get a stream of hydrogen for their film cartridges to absorb is… to make hydrogen. 3:54 “The device could extract metric tons per day of 99.99% pure hydrogen directly from smokestacks” is, haha, a nonsensical smokescreen. There’s minimal hydrogen in what comes out of a smokestack, but there’s a crapton of CO2 in it.
Hydrogen storage is a challenge and worth addressing for air and land transportation and long-duration energy storage. But Matt Ferrell, you utterly failed to do any kind of critical reporting on this “breakthrough.” At a bare minimum, you should have contacted manufactures of hydrogen storage equipment – tanks, pressure vessels, compressors – and asked for their take, instead of parroting the company’s highly optimistic claims. And they aren’t that impressive. 9:03 “by loading their containers on a single ship, they can safely move 20,000 tons of hydrogen”. Oh wow, cool! But Kawasaki has built the Suiso Frontier H2 transport ship that it claims carries 1,250 m^3 of liquid hydrogen. That’s… 87,000 tonnes, four times more. Anyone who thinks shipping hundreds of thousands of 8-track cartridges will be cheaper than filling a liquid hydrogen tanker is a fool.
The obvious problem with this is power density. Look at the stupidity of the animation at 9:00. There’s one open tray containing 4 cartridges among 120 more trays. Presumably some robotic tape loader crams the 8-track into the 8-track player that shines light on it. (Does this sound cheaper than a large pressurized container? but anyway…) But how much hydrogen per second, and thus power does the player produce? Matt Ferrell, nowhere does your awful video give a figure for this. The idea that unspooling a thin tape can produce gobs of hydrogen strains credulity. I suspect to power a truck you’ll need dozens of the players feeding hydrogen into its fuel cell.
And here’s the next problem, the economics of it. The claimed cost reductions for H2 storage undoubtedly hinge on reusing the tape and cartridge 150 times, amortizing the high cost of the cartridges and the tape player. Well, we’ll see! But even accepting that projection, how much does it cost to send the cartridges back to Plasma Kinetics for a top-up? How much will this elaborate robotic videocassette rewinding factory-cum-green hydrogen facility cost per kg of hydrogen going out the door?
When you order stuff, you get unwanted crap. Why send me stuff that costs a non-zero amount that I’m immediately going to throw away or struggle to recycle!?
order food for takeout or delivery, you get sauce packets, chopsticks, plastic utensils, napkins. I usually don’t want any of this.
order electronics, you get another unwanted USB charger
order other goods, you get unwanted stickers, storage bags, assembly tools, etc.
donate money, you get unwanted bumper stickers, tote bags, Christmas cards, calendars, etc.
A lot of this is cheap goodwill: the customer might want this stuff, so provide it for free. But the real goodwill ensues from giving customers a choice, and I hate companies that send me stuff I didn’t request. Let me uncheck all these items when I order!
It’s a no-brainer for restaurants that assemble each order, though the staff tend to be on autopilot and often include napkins and utensils even if I specifically and repeatedly tell them to leave them out.
It’s harder for companies that obsess over having a minimal number of SKUs (stock-keeping units) that end up on the shelf of a reseller such as Amazon; they want to default to having a single box that gets shipped out. But we have robots! It must be possible to pre-assemble, and eventually assemble on the fly, the add-ons that most people don’t want.
You dance with the lady with the hole in her stocking Didn’t it feel good? ‒ Joni Mitchell
Oh, you see me in a cardigan In a dress, dress, dress that I’ve been sick on Oh, how are you? Can’t say I really care at the end of it all ‒ The Sundays
Harriet Wheeler by a knockout! 🏆
Harriet Wheeler’s brutal self-awareness, hard-won from recollecting key youthful experiences (“It’s the memories of the shed that make me turn red,” “I won the war in the sitting room… but it cost me,” “Call it young and wild But I ran a mile in a minute and there’s no going back”), is more interesting, though more elusive, than Joni Mitchell mining her emotional states.
Today I learned from Genius that Joni was probably riffing on “Dance with the Dolly with the Hole in her Stocking” by the Andrews Sisters.
Leo Sayer’s “Once in a While” affected me as much as any other song. His urgent, increasingly desperate vocal stands out against the pleasant pop-rock stylings. After playing it 7 times in a row at increasing volume my landlord called: “There have been complaints…” Here’s the song. There was a music video but it was inappropriately jokey and embarrassing; Leo is singing his heart out.
Alan Tarney’s first big hit was 1979’s “We Don’t Talk Anymore” that he wrote for Cliff Richard. It’s OK and melodic, but nothing special, maybe because he didn’t produce it. I assume that big hit let him produce his songs. He spent 1979-1981 locked into a certain sound, exemplified by Barbara Dickson’s “January February”. Fairground organ, twelve-string strumming, workman-like drumming, good backing harmonies, and a great vocal performance – gotta be Alan Tarney.
from the Barbara Dickson Album on Epic
Thrice in a while
Alan Tarney liked his own song “Once in a While” so much he recorded it on two more records that he produced for Cliff Richard and Dan Seals.
off Wired for Sound album on Parlophone UK
Cliff Richard’s version gains an extra half-verse, a nice “Digging on this every night” pre-chorus, and he inserts some interesting vocal syncopations, but he doesn’t sound emotionally shredded. “What’ll I do if you walk away, Well I haven’t a chance” needs to leave blood on the floor! Cliff’s version is off his album Wired for Sound, whose title track is a rare piece of music about listening to music.
I like small speakers, I like tall speakers Wall speakers but most of all, I like loudspeakers.
Corny, but earnest, a nice fit for Cliff. The music video (on Vevo and pulled from YouTube, but here it is on Tidal) has Cliff roller-skating while listening to his Walkman. Peak 1981!
Why don’t you sell it?!
off unobtainium A&M single!
One lost excellent Alan Tarney song is “Why Don’t You Say It” by Elkie Brooks, another British singer (her biggest hits were “Pearl’s a Singer” and “Sunshine after the Rain”). Fairground organ, good backing harmonies, increasingly impassioned vocal – here we go again. I think I have the 45 RPM single somewhere, but let’s give her and Alan Tarney some money… you can’t! “Why Don’t You Say It” is not available on streaming services, or for purchase and download from any merchant ☹. It seems to be a one-off single release. It isn’t a lost B-side unlike these hidden gems; just another popular single lost in the transition to digital music, along with Prince’s singles on Paisley Park 😢 and so many more. Trying to find it I learned Elkie Brooks recorded a version of Peter Frampton’s wonderful song “Putting My Heart on the Line”; she’s got great taste. I wound up buying a used UK CD of her greatest hits to get the one song.
A-ha, the big kahuna
Alan Tarney is most famous for producing a-ha’s smash “Take on Me” and four of their albums. That’s very different and shows his versatility, but no fairground organ.
Everybody reveres Fred Astaire’s dancing, but he’s an underrated singer despite his light thin voice. The way he swings and syncopates “Let the rain pit-ter pat-ter but it reallydoesn’tmatter if the skies are gray” in “Isn’t it a Lovely Day” by Irving Berlin is sheer delight. This recording (can’t embed it) is a spectacularly good version with Johnny Green’s “tea-dance orchestra” bouncing along on the balls of its own feet.
Here is the song with dancing from the movie Top Hat, not quite as delicious:
Let’s Kiss and have the fire squad mop up the incinerated remains
I watched “Funny Girl”, an OK satire on the fashion business and left-wing philosophizing with an unconvincing romance between a bookish younger woman (Audrey Hepburn) and the world-wise older man. The Paris scenes are nice. But in the middle of it Fred takes “Let’s Kiss and Make Up” by George and Ira Berlin, turns the knobs up to 11, swings SO F***ING HARD and torches the movie set. Here are the opening lyrics:
I didn’t mean to start any scene to, Make you sigh hope to die.
It’s most immoral for us to quarrel. Why can we both agree?
Don’t you know Ben Franklin wrote about this thing at length? On the proposition that in union there is strength?
Why raise a storm up if we’ll just warm up? We’ll be much stronger and live much longer.
You can hear the syncopation begging for someone with superb rhythm to NAIL IT TO THE F***ING WALL, and Fred does. Listen for the onomatopoeic (probably not, some other Greek term for poetic adjustment) pun where he sings “at length”… at length, then Fred jumps all over the long lines like he’s dancing up a giant-sized keyboard. And of course “much longer” runs subtly long. Then on “Let’s kiss — and make ——up, Come-on Let’s —wake ——up” he’s so far behind the beat the VOLTAGE GOES INTO OVERLOAD. And of course on the couplet “No use to break up When we can work in harmony” he goes for divine musical joke #4 in 50 seconds by detuning “harmony” like a METAL GUITARIST WARPING HER WHAMMY BAR. And he dances pretty well, too. 🎤😙🕺🏻❣️
These all make it too complicated. “Data collected by Greenpeace from MRFs across the U.S. showed that only #1 and #2 plastic bottles and jugs meet the standard for being marketed as recyclable.” Those little triangle symbols on every other product, especially on plastic bags and films, are simply a lie.
And “In store drop-off” (to later be added to the rest of the trash!) is pointless work for the consumer and the store. In San Francisco you can place your carefully-collected and folded plastic bags on top of your recycling bin, but someone from the waste company told me it ends up in the trash. Obviously it’s hundreds of times more expensive to try to turn a few grams of mixed post-consumer plastic film into new products than to make new film.
♳♴ might get recycled, if it’s clear, no colors, and with minimal dirt, gunk, plastic film, labels, plastic rings, etc. attached.
♵♶♷♸♹ is not recycling, no matter how many feel-good slogans are placed nearby. It’s just garbage along with all the rest of the trash we heedlessly produce. At least plastic packaging is light and so uses little resources.
(promotional image? I can’t find a photographer or copyright)
It’s a hell of a list (actually only 20, they updated the h1 heading but not the title) by one if the greats. We own original releases of almost everything Elvis Costello has recorded, but the rarities in the list make a good case for buying all the bonus disc deluxe Rhino blahblah reissues as well. I agree with every inclusion author Jim Beviglia makes, and he picks the best songs from Trust (that album was my gateway into major fandom after loving “Alison” and liking the early singles), but leaving out “Couldn’t Call it Unexpected No. 4”?!
Elvis is an elite member of the “run of five great albums” club, along with Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, … I don’t mind obscurity and one-hit wonders, but this level of quality will (often) out.
(that album was my gateway into major fandom after loving “Alison” and liking the early singles), but leaving out “Couldn’t Call it Unexpected No. 4”?!