The really long notes

In my earlier post I talked about some great really short songs, mostly punk. These are the obvious logical extension of punk's "less is more" philosophy which came as a result of the excesses of the psychedelic era, like long sprawling solos, rock operas, and endless Grateful Dead concerts that went on for days. I am down with that in theory. But you have to admit there were some really cool, really long songs of the psychedelic era. Before prog rock had to ruin everything.

The evolution of rock from the Jump Blues, Swing, R&B, Rockabilly, Doo-Wop, Honky-Tonk, Girl Group, Skiffle, Mersey Beat, Surf, Frat Rock, Folk Rock, Garage days of rock's first decade to the Psychedelic excess of the late 1960's was actually perfectly logical in retrospect. The first generation of Rock was based around the limitations of the jukebox single, tightly constructed dance songs or ballads that could fit onto a two and half to four minute single. AM radio simply followed that model. However by the late sixties the single had been taken over as the main focus of Rock by the long playing album which meant that artists were no longer faced with the time limitations of the 45 single. Jazz musicians had already been exploring this new freedom with the likes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman abandoning structured, song oriented swing in favour of long jam oriented suites with extended solos that could take up the entire side of an album. Many Rock musicians were fully aware of these developments and were eager to engage in some of the same freedoms.

This brings us to the other change in rock in it's second generation aside from the technical development of the LP, and that is the fact that both the artists and audience had now grown up listening to Rock and Roll and were not just high school kids and working class youth but now included middle class, educated and cultured youth who would never have been caught dead listening to Rock and Roll in the 1950's. It's often forgotten that in Rock's first decade few university students took it seriously and instead listened to either jazz, folk or pop vocals. However by the late sixties there were a whole generation of youth who had grown up with Rock and Roll as well as being exposed to jazz and classical music as well as poetry and high literature and art. For these musicians the freedom of being able to explore these ideas in the context of Rock and Roll was perfectly logical. Others had also developed ideals of virtuoso musicianship that opened the way for extended jazzy solos and instrumentals. Add in to this the influence of psychedelic drugs, pot and/or heroin as well in place of the liquor and pills of the 1950's as an added ingredient. The new medium of FM radio, looking for a way to differentiate itself from AM radio's top 40 formats eagerly embraced these new approaches.

Later this sort of experimentation would lead to sprawling, wretched excess of course. And hopelessly wrongheaded ideas like rock operas and classical rock fusions. Which would in turn lead to an inevitable back to basics reactions like punk, new wave, glam, pub rock and revivals of rockabilly and garage.

But as necessary as these reactions were, that doesn't mean that some of the early extended explorations of the psychedelic era should just be dismissed as bloated hippie crap. Some of the classic examples still stand as solid rock songs in their own right. Some are really just basic garage or R&B songs stretched out with long solos, (ie Iron Butterfly, CCR, Chambers Bros, Black Sabbath, Ten Years After, The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray") while others are jazz influenced jams (Paul Butterfield, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Pharaoh Sanders crossover epic) and then there are conceptual art pieces like The Velvet's "Heroin" or Arlo Guthrie's comedy jam.

The Top 20 over 7 minutes long (I figure they are so long that a Top 40 would go on forever);

1. The Chambers Brothers ~ "Time has come today";




2. Credence Clearwater Revival ~ "I heard it through the grapevine";




3. Paul Butterfield Blues Band ~ "East/West";




4. The Velvet Underground ~ "Heroin";




5. The Chambers Brothers ~ "Love peace and happiness";




6. Iron Butterfly ~ "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida";




7. Credence Clearwater Revival ~ "Suzie Q";




8. Led Zeppelin ~ "Stairway to Heaven";




9. The Temptations ~ "Papa was a rolling stone";




10. The Doors ~ "The End";




11. Pink Floyd ~ "Interstellar Overdrive";




12. Black Sabbath ~ "Warning";




13. The Velvet Underground ~ "Sister Ray";




14. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band ~ "Work Song";




15. The MC5 ~ "Starship";




16. Vanilla Fudge ~ "You keep me hanging on";




17. Ten Years After ~ "Going home";




18. Quicksilver Messenger Service ~ "Who do you love";




19. Pharaoh Sanders; ~ "The creator has a master plan";



20. Tangerine Dream ~ "Journey through a burning brain" (a remix, couldn't find a embeddable copy of the original;



21. Arlo Guthrie ~ "Alice's Restaurant massacree";

Blink and you'll miss it.

As mentioned in an earlier post Toronto radio station CKLN was finally, deservedly ordered off the air in April. Refusing to take "fuck off" for an answer CKLN's stubbornly inept management recently announced that hey had gotten permission to broadcast again as a "micro broadcaster" with a less than 1 watt signal. No that's not a typo, not even one whole watt with a range of about 700 feet. No that's not a typo either, 700 feet. Wow. That should carry clear across the street. Thus reaching that much coveted "people who happen to be driving by for a split second" demographic. They could literally reach more people by putting the speakers out the window.

My reconstruction of the conversation in a car of loyal CKLN listeners driving down to listen in on their car radio;
(sounds of static)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.."You're listening to.." Bzzzzzzzzzzzz
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Back up!"
(gears shift and..)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."CKLN.." Bzzzzzzzzzzz"
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Go forward!"
(gears shift and...)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."88.1fm" Bzzzzzzzzz
2nd CKLN fan; "This is stupid"

I'm guessing they are going to have to play a lot of really short songs.

That's where I can help. No really, I can offer some free advice here. The genre of "absurdly short punk songs" is much beloved if inherently limited one. Remember the first album by DRI where half the song were less than 30 seconds long? Actually some were less than 20 seconds long. Then Napalm Death once took this sort of thing to it's logical conclusion by having a one second song called "you suffer". In the immortal words of Napalm Death singer/guitarist Justin Broadwick;

"We played that song in front of 30 local kids, like, every weekend. We played that song 30 times."

There is even a word for this; "Micro Thrash". Therefore in the spirit of radio brotherhood I offer up for further research some bands known for songs 90 seconds long or less (this list is by no means exhaustive);

The Accused
Adrenaline O.D.
The Angry Samoans
Black Flag
The Circle Jerks
The Descendants
Destroy All Monsters
Discharge
D.R.I.
The Feederz
The Germs
Glue Gun
Government Issue
The High Fives
Minor Threat
The Minutemen
The Mr.T Experience
The Misfits
The Mono Men
Muck and The Mires
The Mummies
Napalm Death
The New Bomb Turks
Operation Ivy
The Ramones
Rancid
7 Seconds
REO Speedealer
Screaching Weasel
Social Unrest
State of Alert
The Subsonics
The Teen Idles
T.S.O.L.
The Undertones
Verbal Abuse
The Vibrators
Voorhees
Wehrmacht
Wire

Need some Can Con? No problem;

Beyond Possession
Bloodshot Bill
Bored Stiff
The Brutal Knights
Cub
Death Sentence
Dementia 13
DOA
The Evaporators
Danko Jones
Deja Voodoo
Thee Goblins
The House of Knives
The Leather Uppers
Maow
Maximum RnR
Molested Youth
The Rocket Reducers
The Sadies
The Screamagers
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
The Sick Boys
The Smugglers
The Sophisticatos
The Subhumans
The Ugly
The Vapids
The Viletones

These actually range in quality from the obviously stoopid and proudly goofy to those who surprisingly managed to come up with proper songs, with a beginning, middle and end, sometimes even a solo, in under 90 seconds. Some of these are classics, all should be required listening for any aspiring rocker. Less is more.

THE MISFITS ~ "RETURN OF THE FLY" (this video has a long intro which pads out the song length which is only about 90 seconds);



WIZO ~ "The Count";



FIZZY BANGERS ~ "SHORT ATTENTION SPAN":



DEJA VOODOO ~ "STOP";



DUANE EDDY ~ "SOME KINDA EARTHQUAKE";



SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET ~ "INTERLUDE/COUNTDOWN" (TWO SONGS);



MAOW ~ "MS. LEFEVRE";



THE GRUESOMES ~ "MY BROKEN HEART WILL NEVER MEND";



THE JAM ~ "BATMAN THEME";



THE ANGRY SAMOANS ~ "THEY SAVED HITLER"S COCK";



THE VIBRATORS ~ "YEAH YEAH YEAH";



THE CYNICS ~ "BUSINESS AS USUAL";



T.S.O.L. ~ "SUPERFICIAL LOVE";



THE NEW BOMB TURKS ~ "I WANT MY BABY DEAD";




THE DESCENDENTS ~ "I DON'T WANNA GROW UP";



THE VANDALS ~ "TO ALL THE KIDS";



WIRE ~ "FEELING CALLED LOVE";



THE MINUTEMEN ~ "POLITICAL SONG FOR MICHEAL JACKSON TO SING" (live);



THE FORGOTTEN REBELS ~ "ELVIS IS DEAD";



THE UNDERTONES ~ "SMARTER THAN YOU";



ADRENALINE O.D. ~ "SUBURBIA";




CAUSTIC SODA ~ WELCOME TO DUMPSVILLE, POPULATION YOU";



MR.T EXPERIENCE ~ "SPEEDRACER";




THE RAMONES ~ "CRETIN HOP";



THE CIRCLE JERKS ~ "WASTED";



DEAD KENNEDYS ~ "I LIKE SHORT SONGS" (live);



BLACK FLAG ~ "REVENGE";



SCREECHING WEASEL ~ "I HATE LED ZEPPELIN";



OPERATION IVY ~ "BOMBSHELL";



7 SECONDS ~ "NOT JUST BOYS FUN";




GLUE GUN ~ "THE SCENE IS NOT FOR SALE;



DEATH SENTENCE ~ "FEEL FUCKED";




BEYOND POSSESSION ~ "NO RELIGION";




DRI ~ "Who am I?";




DISCHARGE ~ "HEAR NOTHING SEE NOTHING SAY NOTHING";



VOORHEES ~ "KEVIN KEEGAN";



NAPALM DEATH ~ "YOU SUFFER";



And then here is of course an entire compilation called "Short Music for short people" which has 99 songs 30 seconds and under.

Want some thing a little less punk and obnoxious? How about Elvis Presley, Duane Eddys, Hank Williams, Ersal Hickey, Chan Romero, Mac Wiseman, Ray Campi, Link Wray, Arch Hall jr, Cliff Richard, Glenn Glen, Merle Travis, Roscoe Holcomb, Hobart Smith, The Byrds, Bluecaps and The Swingin' Blue Jeans? There are also demos from Johnny Horton, Willie Nelson, Elvis (again), Cliff Richard (ditto), and Buffalo Springfield. Then there's the Alan Lomax collections which have some really short tracks by blues, folk and gospel singers including Josh White, Jimmie Strother, Moses Clear Rock Pratt, May Fortune and others.

Of course CKLN could also just play some of those Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Throbbing Gristle, Nurse with Wound, Ramleh and John Cage records that sound like static anyway.

I actually did that once; while doing an overnight show I played John Cage's "HPSCHRD" which is basically 20 minutes of three or more harpsichords playing randomly buried under mountains of distortion. Eventually somebody called in;

Caller; "Are you on the air"
Me; "Probably"
Caller; "It sounds like I'm going under a tunnel and I'm not"
Me; "Well let's see (turning up volume);

JOHN CAGE ~ "HPSCHD";



Me; "Sounds fine to me. I'll be playing some Cabaret Voltaire later, you may want to stick around for that."

Hey it was 3:30 in the morning.

FOX NORTH is outraged, OUTRAGED I tell you!! And it's all your fault!

Ever since SUN TV (AKA FOX North) went on the air smack in the middle of the last election FOX North has been searching for a wedge issue comparable to the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-gay hysteria that their American mentors have used so successfully. Not that they haven't also pushed those buttons as well, but they must sense that that sort of thing will exclude them forever from mainstream Canadian society.

That brings us to the arts, yeah that's the ticket. Attacking "elitists" is the new black. The poisonous idea that anybody who makes the mistake of actually treasuring arts, culture, education, science or the environment over greed, guns and god is naturally an "elitist".

Never mind that those who scream this the loudest are always rich and powerful media types and politicians who get out of their limos long enough to plant themselves in front of another microphone and complain about how they are once again being silenced and victimized for their "patriotism" by "the elite".

Of course they are utterly shameless and cynical hypocrites who deserve to be treated with the utter disdain usually reserved for those wingnuts who walk around with their sandwich boards warning us about the end of the world. Combined with the contempt given to telemarketers who scam us while we are trying to have dinner, with perhaps a touch of the "shut the fuck up" we save for those ignorant louts at hockey games screaming at the ref and cheering the most concussion inducing body checks with all too revealing glee. (Significant aside; I can't help but noticing that these types usually don't actually play hockey themselves). I seriously doubt these soulless opportunists have any actual beliefs other than lust for power, greed and attention who will not only yell fire in a crowed theatre, but then blame the resulting stampede on those damn liberal elitists. And the artists on stage of course, let us not forget the real enemy.

In the recent (and ongoing) budget debate in the U.S.A. the Republicans have used deficit hysteria to once again demand the cutting off of such perennial straw men as the National Endowment for the Arts, PBS and NPR. Hey it almost make sense to ask about taxpayer funding during a recession and budget cuts right? Until you realize that arts funding in the USA counts for less than one tenth of one percent of the entire U.S. budget. That's right, you read that correctly. Less than one tenth of one percent. Mind you most Americans think it's more like ten percent. Gee, I wonder how they got that idea? Could it be that Republicans find it useful to attack the arts so as to distract voters away from the cost of the massive tax cuts and giveaways Republicans have pledged to protect even at the cost of total economic collapse? What a cynical elitist idea and you should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking that. GET A JOB YOU STONERS!!!

And yet; I can't help but remember in the previous election Stephen Harper's speech attacking the "cultural elites" in Quebec which cost him the lead in the polls there and which he has never recovered from. After that he kind of backed of a bit. But now the election is over and he has his "More centrist" (remember when they promised that?) majority promising massive cuts to deal with the deficit they would like us to forget they did not in fact inherit from the previously Liberal government. I can't help but noticing SUN TV, AKA FOX North's new fixation on attacking the arts in Canada, especially those artists that most of us have frankly never heard of.

First there was Ezra Levant attacking some band B.C. called "Living With Lions" for accepting a FACTOR grant. We had the spectacle of this comically smug tightass proclaiming his love for The Clash and punk rock and demanding that the band return the money and demanding that “public funding” to be cut to “so called musicians", "a bunch of losers" and a “crummy band". He also brayed his outrage of their "anti-christian" message calling them "Christophobic", which is a little rich coming from a blowhard who made his bones by attacking Islam on a regular basis.

He demanded that the band "return the money" to the taxpayers. Which the shell shocked band then did. Clearly the band should be renamed "Living With Pussies" All of which proves by the way that punk is truly dead. And so is satire.

Then enjoying the taste of easy blood FOX North picked another easy target. An award winning interpretive dancer who I am apparently not elite enough to have ever hard of named Margie Gillis.



The resulting ambush interview between SUN TV's mini-skirted attack bunny Krista Erickson and the almost comically soft spoken and polite Gillis has become a much re-posted horror show of an absurdly uniformed and arrogant host alternating between rank sycophancy of the most cloying sort and text book bullying tactics borrowed from FOX and every other talk radio dick with delusions of grandeur. Constant interruptions, blanket assertions, manufactured outrage, faux working class self pity, bizarre digressions and non-sequitors, oh and of course a completely gratuitous invoking of "Our Troops". It has to be seen to be believed.




(aside update; It turns out you can't actually see it after all since SUN TV regularly uses bullshit copyright complaints to ban any and all embarrassing clips from Youtube. They have had to do this quite a lot lately given the tendency of SUN TV's "Flagship Show" host Ezra Levant to engage in the sort of vitriolic race-baiting that actually got them on the receiving end of a police investigation for violating the country's hate laws, seriously, he's that disgusting. For months the response from the SUN Bunker was to defiantly state that they would never, ever, apologize or cave in to "political correctness" so there, take that. Until the police paid a polite call, then SUN fired off a hurried and half-assed apology. Then they had all the numerous Youtube evidence banned. Not to state the obvious but this is the same SUN TV which has always demanded "openness and transparency" of The CBC. And Native Band Councils. And Arts Groups. And Unions. And any political parties they don't like. Just sayin. Back to our rant already in progress.)

Then a strange thing happened. Normally polite Canadians were revolted by the spectacle of a perfectly nice (if somewhat goofy) hippie lady being attacked by this hard faced bottle blonde harpy and did something they rarely do in large numbers. They got off their butts and complained to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (AKA CBSC). I know there's been complaints before, Howard Stern got a bunch and earlier this year there was a whole kerfuffle over a Dire Straits song (which I also blogged about on here) but there has literally never been a deluge like this. That entire Dire Straits clusterfuck came as a result on just one single complaint for example.

How bad? The CBSC got an astounding over 4,350 complaints an a matter of weeks where they normally get around 2000 in an entire year. In fact they got so many complaints that the CBSC took the unique step of actually putting out a press release begging people to stop sending in complaints as they were completely overwhelmed. Allow me to paraphrase; "We heard you the first 4,350 times! Now please stop, really, we are totally swamped over here". Wow; Nice work people. Seriously, I am impressed.

Just to add salt to the wounds according to the BBM surveys thus far the ratings for SUN TV are so pathetic that at times they have only averaged 7,000 viewers nation wide. So I guess they should be happy that over 4,350 people were watching at all.

For some reason Sun TV and Erickson don't see it that way of course and have been predictably whining about being "bullied" and "threatened" with "four letter words". SUN TV's owners blamed the whole thing on Facebook. Turns out they are outraged at the idea of people using the media to push political agendas. Yeah; this is all your fault Facebook! Shame on you. So let us never forget that the real victims are always the right wing media, our most vulnerable resource.

Now the CBSC doesn't have the power to ban Erickson or fine FOX North and I'm fine with that but I like the fact that Canadians were actually willing to show support for their artists. Harper learned that one once already but that was before the recession so it's nice to see it again. I think Canadians also stood up as well for basic civility, if Erickson had merely asked a question about tax dollars and arts funding that would be one thing, but honestly, she's a snide whining bitch.

But then again if they are going to suckerpunch the straw man of arts funding then FOX North and Erickson have a few questions to answer themselves.

First of all Krista Erickson herself made her name working at the taxpayer funded CBC for years so if FOX North can smugly demand that the hapless band "Living With Lions" return the their funding to the taxpayers than surely Erickson can do the same. Now. And if we are really going to make the tired argument of pay based solely on "merit" then the next obvious question is exactly what are Erickson's qualifications anyway for being some sort of expert on public policy, I mean aside from the obvious fact that she is exactly the type of imperious pinch faced, blow dried, bottle blonde, mini-skirted harpy that right wingers get a hard on for. I mean if we are supposed to give jobs only to the most qualified and experienced than why not give the gig to former Reform M.P. Deborah Grey? She's actually done policy and media stuff and could do actually do a credible job. She also has impeccable conservative credentials and is even good on camera, she certainly wouldn't behave like a rabid chihuahua. I'm guessing that FOX North is assuming that there is little demand to see Deb Grey in a mini-skirt. No offense to Deb Grey. She seems nice and polite.

But now I'm engaging in the sort of nasty "persecution" that conservatives so love to complain about suffering. Sorry about that. Won't happen again. So how do you respond to these tea-bagger douchebags? How about by pointing out the indisputable fact that SUN TV gets more taxpayer money than all these silly dancers and musicians combined? No shit. I kid you not.

SUN TV is owned by Quebecor, which also owns the SUN newspaper chain (obviously) along with the free daily "24 Hours" commuter paper and a bunch of other papers and magazines. All presumably profitable. And it turns out they also get a lot of taxpayer grants from something called The Canadian Periodical Fund. How much you may ask, since clearly nobody at FOX North will. Well check this out;

"Granted to magazine publishers under the Canadian Periodical Fund.

A list of Quebecor properties and the commensurate amount they received from taxpayers for 2010-11, via the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Chez Soi: $487, 735
Cool: $191.136
7 Jours: $327,160
TV Hebdo: $1,157,100
TV Hebdo Teleromans: $8,480
Les idees de ma maison: $376,943
Clin d’oeil: $480,749
Cote Jardins: $33,678
Derniere Heure: $154,966
Echoes Vedettes: $188,704
Le Lundi: $376,018
Moi & Cie: $7,947
Tout simplement Clodine: $99,489
Clodine Hors serie: $4,366

TOTAL $3.7 million."

And keep in mind that's in JUST ONE YEAR, not the decade that Erickson was so hot and bothered about. Soooo...Krista, Ezra, howabout it? When is Quebecor going to return that money? All of it? As a taxpayer I demand to know. Now. Why should I have to subsidize your no doubt generous salaries? Surely Quebecor doesn't actually require an annual taxpayer bailout? And even if they did then surely you would be the first ones to insist that Qubecor must be allowed to fail. No?

And when are you going to do an ambush interview about that? I'm waiting. And I'm sure so are your 7,000 viewers.


pc screen shot

"The Rodeo Song" writer dies

If you are a (probably) white Canadian over the age of 30 you probably remember "The Rodeo Song". The infamously filthy non-hit that could never, ever. get played on the radio anywhere. And yet we all knew it, and used to sing it idiotically in high school to show how bad ass we were. Yeah sure there's gangsta rap and death metal but really, who could listen to that crap? Besides it wasn't nearly as funny. And juvenile. And filthy. It actually came as a bit of a surprise to discover that it was actually a legitimate song recorded in 1980 by a band from Alberta called The Showmen, who actually recorded a full album, which is more low key.

The Showmen ` "The Rodeo Song" (note whoever posted this on youtube obviously thought it was by the late American country singer Chris LeDoux, in spite of the fact that he sounds nothing like this. He did have a song with that name though, as did David Allen Coe);



That does mean that there was an actual songwriter for this. It was in fact Gaye Delorme, a usually respectable and successful song writer and session guitarist who also worked with a number of thoroughly respectable people including Jann Arden, the Powder Blues Band, Lenny Breau, David Foster and even the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. He also produced KD Lang's first album. He did have another comedy hit though as he also wrote the Cheech and Chong semi-hit "Earache my eye". This was another hit with the easily stoned back in the day. It's since been covered by the likes of Metallica and Korn. I'm not sure this is the legacy a respected producer was looking for but on the other hand most musicians slave away their entire lives without anybody noticing so what the Hell. Delorme died June 23 aged 64 of a heart attack.

CHEECH & CHONG ~ "EARACHE MY EYE":



As for The Showmen, they never lived down their notoriety and broke up some time in the 1980's after recording another album which included a straight forward cover of the classic "Make me do anything you want" failed to break through.