Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

off-topics

A Back Yard Music Festival

by

Six years ago my friend Lindsay had a birthday party with music. With tongue in cheek she called it “Lyndzapalooza.” I carried all of my meager musical equipment down the street to her apartment on my back and we partied to a full day of our friends’ musical talents.

In each of the intervening years Lindsay threw another party, and I helped with each. Starting in 2007 the party become more of a festival – both in execution and atmosphere.

At the moment I am getting dressed to head out to Snipes Farm, where tomorrow Lyndzapalooza (LP) will host their first full-scale musical festival as a recognized non-profit.

In that shift from party to festival, we kept something very important in place: LP is a place to share and listen. The first year people played that had never had a set of their own before – including Gina and I, separately.

Even though our scale is bigger now, the concept remains the same. We’re combining a bill of bands about to get signed with some who’ve never played a show of this scale, and everyone gets hefty, full-length sets. Lindsay, Gina, and I spent the past two weeks interviewing those artists, and each article is an awesome snapshot in the development of a major talent on the Philly scene.

I have different levels of touchy-feely feelings before and after our festivals each year, largely dependent on how many times I skipped lunch, dinner, or sleep leading up to the festival and how many times I feel frustrated, angry, or incapable during the festival.

This year my pre-festival feeling is achievement. As college students we didn’t plan for our musical kegger to transform into a non-profit organization. The us of then could conceive of such a thing, but I don’t think any of us expected it to transpire.

Yet, six years later, here I am inviting you to come out tomorrow to BYM Fest to enjoy ten artists (including our duo Arcati Crisis) playing from 2pm until close to midnight, rain or shine, for just $20.

I think you’ll love it. I think college-us would have loved it, too.

You are sitting next to my wife.

by

I’ve now been married for a little over a quarter of a year.

It’s been really swell, aside from the part where I was really pissed off in France for a day or two. And the quality of gouda there more than made up for it.

We’re still the newest newlyweds in most of our social circles, so we’re still getting those ever-so-nebulous questions: “How’s married life treating you? / Is married life any different?”

At first I thought there was inherent comedy in the idea that something so simple as a wedding would have fundamentally altered the nature of our unbroken seven-year relationship.

On second thought, I realized that some things are different. People treat us as more of a team than they used to. I feel more responsible to be a (dys?)functional part of her family. We own a car!

Really, the biggest difference is the way we look at each other when we’re at home watching a movie. I can’t describe it. There’s just something knowing in the glance, like, “I married you just so we could sit around and do this for the rest of our lives.”

That’s a little too intangible of a nuance for elevator chat, so I usually tell people the biggest difference is that now when people sit down next to Elise on the train I say, “Excuse me, but you are sitting next to my wife.”

They usually move.

Lambert Crosses the Gay Rubicon?

by

A strongly-worded NYT Style Article about my American Idol obsession Adam Lambert, whose “is he or isn’t he” gay controversy is DOA.

Interesting, though, that the article is ostensibly about the recent Neil Patrick Harris effect – wherein “He crossed the Rubicon. He did the ‘sudden death’ play. Supposedly you come out and your career is over. He came out and his career is in better shape than it ever was” – and yet carries a sidebar pairing Lambert with Bowie, Liberace, and Prince – two flamboyant straight men who managed to plausibly deny any actual homosexual tendencies and a gay man in deep denial who was finally outed by his own lifestyle.

Essentially, NPH is the only example to date of the mythological Rubicon-crossing that Lambert is currently forging through.

And, not every hot, talented, triple-threat gay guy was Doogie Howser.

(from my stalkee J. Clifton on Twitter, who may have just hinted at having a farcical virtual Tori Amos listening party with me next month, the mere thought of which slays me. Oh, the list of bloggers in this country I could get into trouble with (Jett, I am looking at you).)

Worth seeing/hearing: Digg Dialogg with Trent Reznor

by

Ten super-perceptive questions with Trent Reznor, courtesy of Digg users.

The interview is incredible. Trent is articulate and honest, laying out his opinion on the shifting models of the music business.

His answer to the first question is lengthy and fantastic – talking us through how he manages the NIN brand, about generating income to do R&D for his website, and into the world of digital business models.

Radiohead’s little experiment aside, Trent is at the very forefront of interacting with fans in the digital domain – plugging in to their opinions and offering a variety of models to obtain his music. It shows through in the interview – right down to letting fans remix his songs and edit his concert videos to the development of NIN’s own somewhat ground-breaking iPhone app.

Later in the first question, he touches on digital subscription models, and how if the labels go that route they could put the whammy on independent artists doing their own experiments in the digital domain. And, that he tried to “pay if you will” approach with one of his artists, and only netted 18%.

Also, in question three he gives advice to aspiring pop stars versus bubbling-under indie bands. Note the respect and relevance he affords to American Idol and Christina Aguilera. And, realistically says there is a no profit in iTunes, and to try TopSpin instead.

Finally, in the second question he confesses a love for AND ALSO SINGS Ce Ce Peniston’s “Finally.” Seriously. I died.

I wish Tori was still speaking with him, because she needs to learn how to do this shit. If ever there was an artist whose fan base is ready to mobilize and tune in to every possible content- and revenue-stream, its Tori.

PS: At the moment Juliana Hatfield is doing an honor system sale of rare and demo tracks. Her approach is a little misguided, as her site is suggesting paying the standard $.99 a song. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to recoup that much (or anything), but I will certainly donate once I’ve had a chance to listen.

Arranging “I Do Not Hook Up” for acappella (and, i don’t. anymore. or ever, really.)

by

E and I got the word last week that the Drexel Treblemakers were putting out a last call for arrangements for this year’s repertoire, which meant several all-nighters between the two of us.

The TMs are a contemporary acappella group, which E used to sing-for and music-direct when she was at Drexel. “Contemporary acappella” means that they recreate modern pop hits with just their voices.

As an example, here’s perhaps their best arrangement of all time, of the Beatles “Eleanor Rigby”:

When I say “arrangement,” I mean just that – an arrangement of notes that make up the composite song that comes out of the group. Acappella songs don’t happen out of thin air. Unless you’re in a group of the finest doo-wop singers around (each equipped with pitch-perfect ear and all egalitarian when it comes to choosing what instrument to sing) it takes some specifics to turn a pop song into an all vocal jam.

It’s the job of an arrangement to replicate the song for voices in the form of sheet music. As an arranger, you might take the approach of transcribing each specific instrument individually for voice, or you might prefer to address the overall tonality of the song instead. Either way, it’s hard work – especially if you’re doing it by ear rather than from print music for the song.

“By ear” means you sit down and pluck out every note that’s being made in the song, transcribing its pitch, rhythm, and dynamics, until you’ve got an entire song. An average 100-bar rock song in 4/4 with six voice parts offers circa 3000 notes to transcribe.

It’s even harder when arranging for an all-female group, because you have less dynamic range to work with. With a bisexual group you have men to sing the lowest of the lows – you can duplicate a guitar easily, and cover most bass parts (or create the illusion of them by maintaining the divide between the lowest note and the next highest note).

Even an all-guy group has a massive range – as a baritone I can reliable produce soprano Ds and higher, which means a group of 12 of me would only be half-an-octave shy of the highs of a girl group … but with an entire extra octave on the bottom (and that assumes all girl-groups will be able to sing down to a Baritone D, which most cannot. TMs has always been special in that regard).

Female groups have a reduced range, which makes it harder to arrange well for them. Thrashy rock songs rely on a lot of low Ds and Es, and most girl groups don’t have them. And, girl groups largely wuss out when it comes to vocal percussion.

Luckily, the TMs have never had those two problems, and have stretched to crazy lengths to accommodate my arrangements. I had my good buddy Sara singing low C#s on “Stay,” and our maid of honor Amanda doing sub-woofer rattling kick drums on “I Think I’m Paranoid.”

Both of us used to arrange like mad for the TMs when we were in school – we arranged two-thirds of their first CD (That page has sound-clips, and The TrebleMakers on MySpace has whole songs. Listen to “I Think I’m Paranoid” on the former, and “Rhiannon” on the latter – one of the best all-female acappella arrangements I’ve ever heard (not surprisingly, by my wife)).

Since we’ve graduated we always have a glut of songs we want to do for the TMs, and this year we actually finished two – the most we’ve done since 2006. I arranged Paramore’s “That’s What You Get,” and Erocked Ingrid Michaelson’s “Die Alone. Mine was good-but-wobbly when I first heard it; E’s sounds even better than the actual version.

We both wanted to do another song had been debating between Rilo Kiley’s “Portions for Foxes” and “Breakin’ Up.” The former – a guitar rocker – was more my speed, but the latter – a sparse, funky tune – was better for E.

When we got the word that the deadline was looming E forged ahead with “Breakin’ Up,” which left me songless. The group now includes singers born after the release of Like a Prayer, so digging out an old Madonna chestnut wasn’t necessarily the best option (and that means they were only ages 6-9 when most of my favorite female modern rock was on the radio – yikes).

In a pinch, I went to the path of least resistance: Kelly Clarkson.

I love her. TMs love her. Audiences know her stuff. Easy pick.

The lead single from her new disc All I Ever Wanted is “My Life Would Suck Without You,” which is a bit of a … hrm, how shall I phrase this … piece of tripe. It’s a straight-forward DDR stomper with an unsubtle melody and absolute crap lyrics.

The next single is scheduled to be “I Do Not Hook Up,” co-penned by Kate Perry & new AI judge Kara DioGuardi. You can see that Kelly is already rocking it pretty fiercely:

The lyrics are a bit dishwatery, but the music is awesome – like KC fronting Fall Out Boy. Once I got past some of the lamer turns of phrase it was insta-love, listening to it ten times a day.

Last Thursdayish, on perhaps listen number six of the day and while contemplating if I could really arrange it for TMs due to the spread of notes in that main riff, I realized something major – the chorus is the same damn thing as “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down,” just a whole step higher. You can sing the melodies of each interchangeably.

Go ahead, try it.

Acappella groups love medleys, and I didn’t think the TMs could resist the next KC single combined with FOB’s biggest hit. My mind was made up. I walked home on Friday singing the bass notes of the song over and over, and began arranging as soon as I was in the door.

In crazy-record time – under 72 hours – I arranged the entire song by ear. That’s a big leap from the months it took my to do “Stay,” which started out as guitar tab on a cocktail napkin.

I started out sketching in as many of the bass notes as I could, skimping on rhythm unless it was important (which it is with the walks on the chorus), and then adding the vocals. I find that to be the easiest way to get started with a by-ear arrangement, as everything else has to fit between the two.

Afterward I went back to layer in the guitar riffs, heard mostly in the verses, before wrestling with chorus harmony Kelly notoriously stacks multiple harmony notes and auto-tunes them to sit tightly together, which makes it nearly impossible to pick them out. It’s more of a best guess situation, and I needed the guitars first so I’d have a litmus test for if I got the harmony wrong.

Finally, I fleshed out the interior chords of chorus and the remainder of bass rhythms, as well as brought the bridge to life. I spent the remainder of Sunday and Monday splitting instruments intro appropriate voice parts, fudging the riffs a bit where necessary to sound smoother for voice, and adding the “SWGD” medley to the bridge.

I finally gave in to sleep and needing to do other stuff, emailing the group my arrangement without all of the lyrics, syllables, and dynamics. I told them I’d go back and add them if they picked it.

TMs chose new tunes last night, and both “IDNHU w/SWGD” and “Breakin’ Up” were on their list. We’re still waiting to hear if either of our tunes made it in to the repertoire.

And that’s where I was through Monday night. Next up: open mics, impromptu press kits, twitter addictions, and impending broadway auditions.