Category Archives: Video Fridays

Video Fridays: Bon Iver, Auto-Tune

Posted on
Reply

If you’re as old as me, and you remember the ubiquitous commercials for Memorex cassette tapes, you’ll remember the company’s tag line: Is it live, or is it Memorex?

The claim was that their tapes were so good you wouldn’t be able to tell a live performance from a recording if you were blindfolded.

Anyway, I thought of that old ad copy when I saw a video at Pitchfork of Bon Iver‘s Justin Vernon performing with The Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

When it comes to music, as I’ve written before, I’m often very late to the party, so I admit that it’s a bit ridiculous that, when Justin Vernon first put his mouth to the microphone and out came this vocal drenched in Auto-Tune, I was seriously taken aback.

The debate’s been raging for quite some time (just Google a while, you’ll see) as to the artistic legitimacy of this technology, a technology that can both correct bad singing or digitally embellish a vocal to create sounds that would be impossible to recreate without it. But, I’m pretty sure that this is the first time I’ve ever seen Auto-Tune used in a live performance, and I have to say that I have really mixed feelings about it.

On one hand, it seems like it’s no different than a tremolo bar or Wah-Wah pedal or a thousand other electronic effects for an electric guitar. It’s just another tool in a musician’s tool box, and it can be used well or used poorly or overused, depending on the quality of the artist using it.

On the other hand, in a live setting it just seems odd. That’s it. Not wrong, just odd.

The truth is, there’s no doubt that Justin Vernon is a talented vocalist, and there’s a wonderful video of him singing a cappella with two of his mates to prove it. At the same time, I had no problem falling in love with his Auto-Tune-heavy song Woods, as I wrote in June 2011.

For now, I’ll leave it up to you. Here’s the clip from Fallon, an extended version of the Bon Iver song Perth.

Video Fridays: A Change Is Gonna Come

Posted on
1

This morning, when I stumbled upon an unusual clip at Paste of Lou Reed performing the Sam Cooke classic A Change Is Gonna Come, I really, really did want to like it.

I’ve been a Lou Reed fan for years, including his Velvet Underground days, and I’ve known about his love for early Rock & Roll and soul music from his discussion with Elvis Costello on Elvis’s show Spectacle. And yet, despite a stellar performance by a very good backing band, despite the fact that I got a kick out of Lou reading the lyrics off of an iPad, occasionally scrolling and pinching a zooming, I just couldn’t abide his vocals for this particular song.

Now, I’m not a snob who thinks that all vocals have to be pretty (I’m a HUGE Bob Dylan fan, nuff said), and I can see that Lou really feels the emotional intensity of the song. But, A Change Is Gonna Come is so special to me because of Sam Cooke’s gorgeous, soaring vocal delivery, and Lou’s voice just doesn’t work here.

Please do go and check out Lou’s version, because if you’re a music geek like me it’s still TOTALLY worth it from an academic standpoint. In the meantime, however, I thought I’d post a version of A Change Is Gonna Come by someone other than Sam Cooke that I think does work.

In fact, it works in a big, BIG way.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the incomparable Al Green:

Video Fridays: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Posted on
2

For this installment of Video Fridays, I was inspired by a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, their 2003 debut hit Maps, a song that I’ve loved for a while, but then I saw the following live acoustic version and it knocked my socks off all over again.

I thought it would be interesting to post both the acoustic and the original electric versions here for comparison’s sake, but it took some time for me to decide in which order to post them. Ultimately, since one of the pleasures of hearing an acoustic version of an electric song that you know well is noticing the differences — how the instrument choices, playing technique, and in this case the vocal delivery are changed to suit the arrangement — I figured I’d start out with the original for the sake of anyone who isn’t familiar with the song.

There are two notable things about this video:

  1. The story goes that Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer/songwriter Karen O wrote the song for her then-boyfriend Angus (Maps is an acronym for My Angus Please Stay), at a time when the relationship was on the verge of breaking up, and on the day they shot the video Angus was supposed to be there, he was three hours late, Karen went ahead with the performance, not knowing whether he’d show up or not, and the result is incredibly moving. It seems at the beginning that she has her eyes fixed on the back of the room, still hoping Angus would arrive, she tries to carry on but you can see it’s a struggle, holding on to the microphone as if it was a lifeline, and then, at around the 2:50 mark, she’s overcome and the tears are real. Just.Wow.
  2. Musically, drummer Brian Chase’s syncopated beat is trance-inducing and he brings some awesome power to the crescendos; and guitarist Nick Zinner is frickin’ amazing, building an incredibly lush sound that makes you forget that it’s just him and that there’s no bass player.

And at last, the acoustic version, which doesn’t require nearly as much of an explanation. Nick Zinner plays a sweet-sounding Martin guitar, adapting the main power riff into a beautiful, gentle arpeggio, and Karen delivers a subdued, melancholic vocal, still full of sadness, but also a touch of resignation and even acceptance that Angus is never coming back.

The Escargot Revolution Begins

Posted on
3

Too long have humans, particularly those voracious French humans, feasted on snails, a veritable mollusk genocide, if you will.

Now, the snails are fighting back!

Via Gizmodo:

Ok, so, these are sea snails, not land snails like those ingested in fine restaurants. But, this could be an evolutionary trait that land snails will also develop at some point, one day, perhaps, when they get fed up with the humiliation of adorning fine china swimming in garlic butter.

Personally, this scares the hell out of me!

Video Fridays: Wilco, Mavis, Nick, and the music circle

Posted on
1

WAY back in August 2010, I wrote about how Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy was producing an album for soul music legend Mavis Staples.

Meanwhile, Wilco’s been touring with veteran English rocker Nick Lowe, after having covered Lowe’s 1977 song I Love My Label earlier in 2011, in celebration of the founding of their own label: dBpm Records.

Well, Wilco recently played what they called the Incredible Shrinking Tour of Chicago, five consecutive nights in five different Chicago venues, with guest appearances by Mavis Staples and Nick Lowe, and, lucky for us, someone filmed a wonderful backstage rehearsal (see below) of The Band‘s hit The Weight, a song Mavis has been singing for years, ever since she, her father, and her sisters, The Staple Singers, performed it with The Band in Martin Scorcese’s amazing 1976 concert film The Last Waltz.

I watched this video and felt a warm rush of feelings, as it evoked the incomparable joy I feel making music with family and friends. I’ve been blessed, for the past 15 years or so, to have had many occasions to join together in circles of musical compatriots, singing songs old and new, blending instruments and voices together, creating a vibe of love and community on which I thrive.

The timing of having stumbled upon this video is pretty incredible. I’d just sent out an email to invite folks over to my house for a music jam later this month. Now, that day can’t come soon enough!

Video Fridays: Icelandia

Posted on
3

Well, I owe a big thanks to my favorite radio station, KEXP in Seattle, for turning me on to all of the great music I’m featuring here in today’s Video Fridays installment.

Back in October, KEXP traveled to Iceland and set up recording equipment in the KEX Hostel in Reykjavík, capturing some incredible, intimate, and beautiful performances by artists participating in the Iceland Airwaves festival.

And by beautiful, I don’t just mean musically. Judging by the members of the various groups, it appears that every single person in Iceland is ridiculously good-looking!

Seriously, prior to checking out these videos, the only Icelandic musicians I was familiar with were Björk and Sigur Rós, so it’s a real pleasant surprise to discover all this great new music!

It’s hard to nail down specifics, but listening to all of these performances, and thinking of the Icelandic pop music I’ve heard before, there is a definite Icelandic sound that resonates throughout. The music can range from dark and moody to light and airy, and vocals tend to have a distinctive trill. There’s something ethereal going on there, born of that remote land of fire and ice perhaps, and though I haven’t listened to any traditional Icelandic folk music, my best guess is that it has a major influence as well.

There are many more clips on YouTube (search “Live on KEXP KEX”), including more artists than I’m featuring here, so be sure to spend some time browsing and listening.

First up, a band that reminds me a little bit of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, here’s Of Monsters and Men:

Next up, Sóley starts and closes this beautiful song with some looping that reminded me a little bit of tUnE-yArDs, whom I wrote about back in July:

Finally, the most unusual group of the bunch, Retro Stefson…well…um…I really don’t know how to classify them. Perhaps trying to do so would actually diminish them in some way. All I will say, then, is that there’s is happy, fun, energetic music that just brings a smile to my face.

Enjoy!