Not long ago, young artist, musician and Friend of Science Dana recorded a cover version of Pomplamoose’s “Beat The Horse” in her high school music lab.  When I heard her track, I was simply blown away by how great it was. Anyone that can record in a classroom on a $50 USB mic and sound that good clearly has got mad skillz, as the kids say.

Coincidentally, “Beat The Horse” is one of my favorite Pomplamoose tunes, and I had always wanted to do a remix of it.  I asked Dana if I could use her vocal tracks, and she was kind enough to get them to me a on a flash drive.  So, complements of Dana and myself, here is the Science for Girls remix of Dana’s cover of “Beat The Horse”-

Beat The Horse (Pomplamoose cover) – Science for Girls feat. Dana

You can download the track here, and don’t forget to support Pomplamoose by buying some music from their iTunes page.

Sometimes when we’d be talking about music, I’d mention an album or composition, and he’d make this sound – sort of like an elongated guttural “gor”. I think it was related to the British “cor!”, which would have come from growing up in London’s East End. It was his way of saying “Amazing!” or “Of course!”, and it indicated that the music meant something really special to him. The pieces he deemed “gor”-worthy always became favorites of mine too, and I still go back to them when I need some inspiration or musical nourishment.  Here’s some of those tracks:

I had just discovered Mozart’s Requiem Mass, and was blasting it daily from my room. He took the opportunity to introduce me to the lesser known but equally awesome C Minor Mass. This is the Kyrie.

My dad loved West Coast Jazz. The counterpoint in the Gerry Mulligan-Chet Baker pianoless quartet was a mix of his two favorite genres.

I remember listening to Bach organ fugues together in the car and thinking that music just couldn’t get any better.  Every note was the inevitable consequence of the one that came before it.  This beautiful performance of the A Minor fugue on piano by Michel Block is one of my favorite recordings ever.

Another Jazz-Classical bridge, Dave Brubeck playing “Brother Can You Spare A Dime” as an ersatz fugue. The track that got me into jazz.

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If you’ve listened to these tracks, that was the sound of my house when I was a kid.

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And I recently had a chat with Jeff from Sonic Scoop, who wrote up this very kind profile.

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture

Whoever did say it, it resonates with me (and many others, judging by how often it shows up).  I’ve always felt that everything you need to know about music can be gained by just listening (and listening better).  The second you open your mouth to talk about it, the chance of communicating any valuable insight decreases tenfold.

But… I like to read music magazines, like TapeOp and Sound On Sound.  I like Nate Chinen in the NYT.  And I follow music blogs, like Fuck Yeah Classical, Et Musique Pour Tous, A Blog Supreme, Aurgasm, Do The Math, I Guess I’m Floating, AudioPorn, The Late Greats, Create Digital Music and rekkerd.org.

Why?  Mostly to satisfy my hunger for new music and new ways to make music.  I’ll rip a music review out of Time Out NY and stuff it in my pocket, so I can Google the artist later and check out the music.  When I read about a new audio plugin, I usually go hunt down the demo, to hear it for myself. In other words, even though it’s not easy, I try to bridge that gap between the written word and the audio.  I don’t always agree with the writer, but at least I’ve had the opportunity to hear something I might not have known about otherwise.

Two recent innovations have me exited at the potential make the text-audio connection more intuitive, to bring the music closer to the words:

1. The Digital edition of Jazziz.

Love this – check it out here.  Reading an article about an artist?  Click on it and hear some music or watch a video.  See an ad for an interesting sounding album?  Click to hear an excerpt.  Sure, music blogs have been doing this for years, but it feels even better in the context of a magazine.  The interface is somewhat clunky, but I really enjoyed looking through the magazine and listening to a bunch of music I was unfamiliar with.  It feels very natural to me — if I’m reading about music, I’d like to hear it!

2. The iPad

OK, so it’s been getting spanked by pretty much every media outlet I care about.  But if you checked out the digital Jazziz, you may have felt, like I did, that it’s biggest drawback was that you have to be sitting in front of a computer to use it.  Imagine this on the iPad.  Seems like a natural.

After all, like the song says, it’s all about the convenient distribution of software and media…

After having some fun recently with Translation Party, I wanted to try doing something similar with a Twitter account, using the web mashup tool Yahoo Pipes to automate the process.  After some tweaking, KimKarMASHian was born – Kim Kardashian’s tweets translated into Japanese and back to English.

The results range from the nonsensically zen (”It is tasty, to be good health lightly is the food what?”) to the simply nonsensical (”I let escape sooo where the rock is many greatly! The normal state which is not!”).  Check it out.

(Thanks to Owen for the pics)

-Surely This Was A Golden Decade For The Makers Of Novelty Eyewear, The Likes Of Which We Will Not See Again In Our Lifetime.

-Also A Golden Decade For Glockenspiel Manufacturers.

-If Still Thinking LOLCats Are Funny Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right. kthxbai.

-The Weather Outside Is Frightful, But In Here It’s Not Too Bad, No Complaints Really.

-Fuck Yeah A Life Well Wasted.

-Also NYC Ramen Counters.

-Some Music That Made The Decade More Tolerable:

Clare & The Reasons – The Movie

DJ Yoda & Greenpeace – Beach Tape Essential Mix

Pomplamoose – Every Frigging Note

Jon Levine Band – Jon Levine Band

Kate Earl – Fate Is The Hunter

Lang Lang – Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No.2; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

m-flo – Beat Space Nine

Michael Johnson – Nonsense Goes Mudslide

Pandatone – And Here I Thought It Was Pointless

Sam Yahel – Hometown

Scott Kinsey – Kinesthetics

Venetian Snares – Rossz Csillag Alatt Született

Travis Sullivan’s Bjorkestra – Enjoy

-I Know You’re Tired Of Holiday Music By Now, So Here’s The Antidote. Possibly One Of The Top Five Loveliest Christmas Songs In Three-Quarter Time Written By A West Australian Pagan Ever.

White Wine In The Sun – Tim Minchin

-To My Family, Everyone Who I’ve Made Music With This Decade, My Colleagues At Big Foote Music, Participants In Science For Girls And In B Flat, And Those Who Have Somehow Made It To This Point In The Post, I Wish You A Magical And Inspiring 2010, Filled With Wonderful Music And Great Friends. Peace, More Music Next Year.

I’ll be among the boombox-toting hordes in Washington Square Park this Saturday for the annual performance of Unsilent Night.

For those unfamiliar with the event, it’s a really unique experience. Hundreds of participants walk together across NYC carrying boomboxes playing CD’s or cassettes of original music composed by the amazing Phil Kline.  The sound is gorgeous, and people’s reactions are priceless.

You may notice some similarities with In Bb, particularly the asynchronous audio and user participation.  Phil Kline was definitely an influence on that project, and I think fans of In Bb would really dig this live performance.  If you’re in NYC, bring a boombox and join in!

Someone was talking to me at one point and they told me that Chuck Berry tours with one guitar and he plays on just, you know, the venue’s stage. You know, the point being, here is this legend and he tours with one guitar and … nothing else, really. And I thought: that’s sad. All he has is the music. In a perfect world he’d be able to present those songs from a 170-ton exoskeleton that’s got, say, even just twelve camera operators. You know? I mean, if he’s playing, say, “Lucille” why isn’t he coming out on a giant heart that he could float out over the crowd on, then the heart literally “breaks” and he comes out with a headset microphone—you know, get him a little more mobile on the catwalk—and I could have Millennial Scope® laser hits following him out to the … Anyway, someone was telling me that Chuck Berry tours with one guitar.

Great interview in the new TapeOp with legendary producer and world-class pottymouth Tommy “Snuff” Garrett, famous for his work in the ’60s and ’70s with Bobby Vee, Gary Lewis & The Playboys, Sonny & Cher and many others.  It’s chock full of old-school record business nuggets, from back when there was a record business.  Here’s a choice quote:

I’d bought a big home in Bel Air.  While I was working on the house, this couple whom I hadn’t seen in years comes from next door and said, “We’re having trouble.  We’ve already spent all the money from our success.” I said “Well, I could cut a hit with you.” I hadn’t worked in a year.  So, I went and cut Cher’s “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves”.  There was this thing we wrote called “Living in a House Divided”.  The next song I did was “Half-Breed”.  They all went number one and they all sold over three and a half million.  I went and published all those songs.

Sonny and I couldn’t get along.  He ain’t here, so I can’t say anything bad about him, but I don’t have anything good to say about him either.  One time I went next door to Sonny and Cher’s house and I took this song over.  I told Sonny, “This is a hit.”  He played the demo and threw the demo back at me, “That’s a piece of shit!” I said “No it’s not. That’s a hit.  I was gonna do it with Cher.”  He said, “But it’s not a hit!”  I said, “Hey! I don’t need your fucking approval.”  We went in and cut it a few days later on my own label.  Went number one, sold three and a half million – “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” with Vicki Lawrence.  Fuck you!  It’s the only way I know how to play.  It’s a game!  I loved it and I miss it.

Want more?

I heard a record of yours recently – Snuff Garrett’s Texas Opera Company’s Classical Country.

It’s one of the best concepts I’ve ever had.  It starts out big classical, then turns to a fiddle that’ll rip your nuts off.  It was really good.

Were the players feeling like it was a cool, different kind of challenge for them?

Fuck ‘em.  It only matters if it sounds right.