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Trivia, west coast grunge and the obsessive mind

My mind is trivia-oriented. A psychologist would probably diagnose all manner of syndromes if they ever took the lid off but I’m pretty happy just to accept that I like to know details. I obsess about the big picture too, but details matter just as much and somehow I function with this parallel focus. Thus, in the same manner that my forebears may have spent a Saturday night reading the dictionary or checking the shipping news (more interesting than you’d think), I spent last Saturday night clicking though links in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia’s myriad of links work the way my brain does. Particularly when I view it in Google Chrome and each click opens in a new tab rather than a myriad of windows. So, on a quiet winter evening after the family had gone to bed, the dogs (whippets) asleep by the fire and one eye on the Wales vs Australia rugby match…I decided to re-arrange my iTunes library. This always ends up triggering some musical notion or another and this time it was the 1998 album Celebrity Skin by Hole that flicked my switch.

I don’t know how many of you are fans of Hole’s music – frankly, I don’t like all of it – but Celebrity Skin is something else. Their last studio album, their most commercially successful and arguably their most conflicted. Hot guitar sounds, vocal harmonies and tight, tight rhythm section. Somehow this growling, discordant bunch of west coast punks produced a classic power pop record. You could almost call it pure West Coast .

If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about: try this for starters:

So having stumbled back across one of my old favourites, I whipped out the headphones (Marshalls, you may recall), plugged in and turned it up. Wonderful. Then, simply because I couldn’t resist, I started searching for some background with Jimmy Wales’ help. There was plenty.

The first surprise was that despite the liner note credits, the drums were all played by a stand-in; metal player Deen Castranovo. Patty Schemel is no slouch on drums but somehow the producer Michael Beinhorn (3rd choice after Brian Eno and Billy Corgan) decided that she wasn’t up to it and cut her out of the recording sessions. That must have been a fun time for everyone in the studio…. nevertheless, Castronovo did a great job. I play drums a little and in my dreams, I dream of playing drums like this. Or at least somewhere between this and Dennis Chambers…. What makes it even more magical is the bass playing of Melissa Auf-der-mer. Just perfect.

I read on and clicked though. The details behind Eric Erlandson’s guitar work led me to finding out for the first time ever about Veleno aluminium guitars, for instance. Who knew? Or that the guitar parts were recorded, mixed and produced through two separate channels with different effects? Or the magical harmonies of Heaven Tonight – how did they do that?

Then I decided to click through and learn a little more about the producer, Michael Beinhorn. Turns out he produced a lot of music and then had a Jerry Maguire-esque moment and decided to write a blog about how to save the music industry. Seriously. Actually, it’s not bad. A wonderful essay on the importance of “feel” in music with an avalanche of references . I’m tempted to post a big section here from Beinhorn but I won’t (like how he argues that John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin owes a little to James Jamerson, house bassist at Motown. Seriously influential player). You’ll find it in a second with Google, anyway.

Hopefully by now you get the picture. Take a listen if you can. Its pretty good.

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Karise Eden – The Voice

The TV singing show “The Voice” is being run in different countries, right? You’ve all got your own national versions of it, I assume.

The votes still have to be counted, but the Australian version will be won tomorrow night, I’m quite sure, by a young woman from New South Wales named Karise Eden.

I can be as cynical about ‘reality’ shows as the next person, but the emergence of this girl via this particular TV show has made the last 10 years or so of reality TV worthwhile for me. Maybe she would have been found anyway. Either way, I’m just glad she’s made it.

You might benefit from a little bit of backstory before you hear her sing. Karise has been self-harming since she was around 11 years old and has lived in 20 different shelters or foster homes in that time (she’s now 19, I believe). She’s recently been in a more stable home, friends of the family, the older lady and gentleman you see in this video.

This is her Blind Audition for the show. For those unfamiliar with the format, the judges have their back to the singer and they hit a button to turn around if they like what they hear. As you’ll see, it didn’t take long 🙂

This is Karise Eden – The Voice.

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This is a video from before The Voice. It’s unaccompanied and you’ll have to give it some time. This song builds.

She’s pretty raw in this, but I think you’ll see the talent.

If she keeps singing soul music with such conviction, I think I’ll probably buy every record she ever sells. She’s an absolute freight train.

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Eurovision 2012 – the Swadeology review

What a weekend. My nephew’s wife had a baby boy, my football team won, my fantasy football team won, Mark Webber took pole position in Monaco (and as I write this, he’s leading the race) and SWEDEN WON THE 2012 EUROVISION SONG CONTEST!!!!!!

It was another fantastic show. I don’t know what Europeans think of Eurovision and I don’t know if Americans even see Eurovision. Here in Australia, we tend to enjoy most of the songs as well as having a quiet giggle at some of the Europeans singing some of the most wonderfully corny clichés in English.

It’s a lot of fun and it could only be done in Europe. Next year’s event, according to custom, will be hosted by the winning country – in Sweden. Sounds like a good excuse to go visiting!

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I’ve never managed to pick the winner as the show progresses and this year was no different. The Swedish song was OK, but it certainly wasn’t my favourite. It was a good song, though, and a very good performance, which is probably why it was so universally popular.

This is Sweden’s fifth Eurovision win.

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I’d like to extend a vote of sympathy to the Danish entry, which had a nice story behind it and was a pretty decent song IMHO. Maybe it was a little too generic, but I liked it.

This entry received votes from just 6 out of 42 countries for a total of 21 votes, which I thought was a travesty.

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This year’s novelty act came from Russia; a sextet of grannies collectively known as Babushki who partied on whilst making a tray of biscuits. I’m going to sound like a real party pooper here, but I’m sure there are some really, really talented young singers in Russia who could have benefitted from performing in Eurovision. This is purely a novelty act, even if it’s a toe-tapper.

It seems novelties go down well in Europe. Babushki finished second with 259 votes.

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Norway came last – for the 11th time.

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My personal favourite was the entry from Iceland. Loved the song. Loved the performance, too. I thought it was outstanding.

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Great Britain and Ireland really have to spend some time in a room full of mirrors, having a good hard look at themselves.

Britain’s entry was sung by Engelbert Humperdink, a guy my mother used to listen to before I was born. Rumours of him cavorting with Babushki at the after-party are yet to be confirmed.

Ireland’s entry was wonderful in terms of comedy value, thereby showing some of the best bits of Eurovision, but if I was Irish I’d be a little bit embarrassed today.

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One more honorable mention – for Albania. This is not a song that would have widespread appeal. It’s very much an artistic performance rather than a populist one. I’m so glad it got votes as I thought it was brilliant.

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Congratulations to Azerbaijan for putting on a wonderful show.

Here’s to Sweden in 2013!!

Stuff I like: The Beta Band

Like many others, I suspect, my first awareness of the Beta Band was via the priceless scene in the 2000 adaption of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel, High Fidelity, where John Cusack (as Rob Gordon, owner of the record store Championship Vinyl) plays their classic Dry the Rain to unsuspecting shoppers in his store.

Not only did Rob sink the hook into his customers, he sunk it into me too and I set off in search of this wonderful sound. At this stage the band was probably pretty close to the zenith of its life. Having started quietly in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1996, they were really hitting a groove by the time of High Fidelity, only to call it all quits in late 2004. Luckily, they seem to have recorded a great selection of both live and studio work, which remains for us to explore posthumously.

Why do I like them?

Dry the Rain seems to be often cited as their masterpiece and although I really, really like this song, my Beta obsession is founded in the fact that so much of their work is so good, you simply have to take time exploring the whole back-catalogue.

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