Recovering Baptist

A second week of American Idol covering Beatles tunes shows why Apple Corp is in desperate need of ending its long running feud with Apple Inc. Last week’s finalists could get by on their cursory knowledge of the Fab Four, but this week required a better knowledge of the band’s material. And never has an age gap been more apparent on Idol than this week when the CD generation (who can legally buy Beatles music in this country) showed that they knew their stuff while the iPod generation really had no idea who they were.

Apple Inc. and iTunes really don’t need the Beatles catalog. Sure, it would be nice to have the top selling band available, and it would bring in some older customers. But let’s face it, a full 1/3 of the customers will be buying the proverbial White Album for the fourth time. The stewards of the Beatles music, however, needs to wake up. While their albums are great and literally changed music for generations, there is no compelling reason for kids to go out of their way to get it, either through legal or illegal means. And the result is that the Beatles, dare I say it, are at risk of quickly becoming footnotes in music history. The argument (before it became blatant that the real issue is money) has always been that the classic albums were meant to be enjoyed as entire works (try getting Revolution 9 in a random mix to understand why), but the greater loss is that without some serious marketing and easy availability, the legacy might soon be lost.

Last week of Idol gave us a few nice performances. This week was just plain awful. Let’s hope that AI doesn’t bother to try extending a theme for two weeks again in the future. And it would be nice for the contestants to get to perform music that is relevant to them more than once or twice in a season. But for the sake of us music buffs, let’s hope that the Apples can put their grievances behind them.

While they make for decent TV, I’ve always thought the artificial constraints on those do-it-yourself shows were kind of silly. Even Mythbusters falls for the trap of giving someone two days for some sort of impossible task like building an Archimedes death ray. What kind of nutcase decides to remodel a room in two days and expect it to actually look good? Perhaps one like me.

I’ve written before about Fringe. It is one of the more unique arts organizations, as an evening at a fringe event combines a DJ spinning techno with a short film and two pieces of chamber music. It’s being held this year at a church, and the bar is generally manned by either one of the church elders or possibly the pastor. I made the first event, but I was on an airplane for the second one.

A few weeks ago I was asked to engineer the third event in this year’s series. Engineering one of these shows means not only ensuring that the DJ and the movie can be heard, it also means recording the show and putting it up on Disc Revolt. It’s a helluva opportunity, but it’s also turned out to be a bigger challenge than I ever thought.

Recording chamber music is a tricky affair, especially when the arrangement is a trio of piano, violin, and either clarinet or French horn. For starters, how the hell do you mic a French horn??? There’s only one take, and not a lot of rehearsal time. That doesn’t leave much time for precise mic placement. And since the only recording device we have is a CD burner, it meant one shot at getting the mix right. But none of that is the bad part.

The real work comes in the post production, and that’s the tough part, because part of the deal is that the music will be posted in 24 hours. While I’ve recorded a lot of material, I haven’t done much post-production. I’ve spent most the night and this morning learning the software, identifying the right effects, cutting the tracks, labeling them, and putting them up on the web. I can’t say that it’s the best classical recording ever, but given the circumstances, I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out. Now it’s time for a nap.

I happened to walk through the rehearsal for the first Fringe Atlanta event last night and heard the last few minutes of the feature piece of music. All I can say is, “wow.” If you’re free this Saturday night, you really ought to check it out.

I can’t describe Fringe anywhere near as well as their website does, but I can say that this weekend’s event includes several forms of art ranging from a gallery to a DJ to a jury selected short film and culminating in a piece of chamber music so intense that the musicians really can’t play it more than once a day. And what’s better, it’s pretty cheap to experience fine music in a small (less than 300 person) venue. If you decide to join me there, let me know you’re coming and I’ll buy you a glass of wine.

Many many years ago I didn’t really really care about music. My “non-christian” peers listened to music, which meant that I didn’t. I certainly didn’t listen to “secular” music! What little music I listened to was total crap. Somewhere along the way that changed, and I fell in love with Simon and Garfunkel. Through college my tastes progressed through just about every from of music from the psychedelic music of the 60’s to bluegrass. And it’s continued to progress.

Today we always have music playing. One of these days I hope to figure out how to make our playlist public so my two curious readers can take a peak at what we’re listening to here. For the most part, though, our playlist includes many newer artists who have fewer than two albums each on major labels. Artists like Evanescence, Jem, Imogen Heap, Anna Nalick, Butterfly Boucher, Eisley (thank you girls), Mute Math, Electronic Soft Parade, and the Strokes dominate our house. Older favorites like the Beatles, Johnny Cash, and Simon and Garfunkel are in the mix, too. But in the past two weeks I’ve rediscovered another old favorite - the guitar god himself.

When my wallet full of CD’s was stolen years ago I lost my Clapton collection, and I never bothered to replace it. Now, thanks to my favorite music store, I can afford to rediscover my college days. While I knew 24 Nights would still sound great, I didn’t recall the production on Unplugged being that great. It’s always nice to find out that something you used think sounded good still does. And now I’m catching up on his other albums, including Me and Mr. Johnson. All I can say is wow. Suddenly I’m in love with the blues again.