"Please don't make me face my generation alone!"

Is that a great line or does it just sound like its supposed to sound like one?  It works just fine in this song:

 Is this band (fun.) huge?  They seem like they should be.  Watching this video, I'm struck by the way that,for me (and I imagine other members of generation video ground zero), the pleasures of watching a music video include a nostalgia for the unsatisfying.  This video is filled with images--like the band performing (for who?)* in the warehouse or the chase through the streets--similar to ones which I remember thinking ranged from cheesy to almost working when I watched them in the afternoons after school in 1983, but which now, at least when well executed and combined with a song I like, elicit a thrill of recognition: "yes, that's how you do that."

*They're playing just for themselves, that's how you know they really mean it.  It's just what they'd be doing anyway, acting out exactly what you need to feel right now.  No, they don't even need a sound system.

Anyway, my rock and roll friends can laugh, but I think this band is kind of amazing.  Here's a few more cuts: first a live version of that song, "All the Pretty Girls."

One thing that's interesting, watching this performance after the studio video: Part of the reason that the band is playing in the warehouse, for themselves and for the viewer's pleasure, which become one and the same, is that its actually very hard to film and record a live musical performance of a pop or rock band in such a way that reminds people effectively of the live experience.  For a variety of reasons. The in-studio style performance, as in the radio station video, has its own aesthetic, and I can't comment on it effectively because I am so fond of it.  In such a situation, a well recorded sound will also sound a lot like what you would hear in the room; bands will be relaxed but still honestly in performance and doing so in a room that is supposed to contain recording equipment; you can hear what's going on in the songs, etc.

And then there's this song, "Be Calm."  The epic.  The studio version is here.  More than worth a listen.  Below is a live performance in front of an audience, filmed by an audience member.

The last one is interesting.  I think that its power depends on both the poor production values, and its attention to the performance itself, which puts the viewer in the position of enacting the filmmakers engagement with the performance, an engagement whose verisimilitude is underscored by the shaky camera, the tiny sound, and the clear focus on that singer.  There's a few videos I've found like this, and down the road I want to look at a few of them together.

Tonight we'll finish up with one more from fun., their Christmas song:

Manteca/Media/Memory

This is just a note, as much to myself as to the world. Since I've been working on music from the 40s-60s I've used Youtube as a source for performances and recordings that I have a hard time finding otherwise. It's been very helpful and I've been reminded of Mike Albrecht's talk at the IASPM conference last year about youtube as the last repository of all popular music. I wasn't convinced then but I am more so now, though that's not my main interest today.

One thing I am finding more and more interesting are videos like this one:



This raises all kinds of interesting questions for me. I think that it says something about the uploader's feelings not only about the music, but about the technology that plays the music back. One thing that jumps out is the way that technology, which we often think of as perpetually forward-moving, is itself a repository of memory and feeling as well as having the ability to reproduce content which triggers memories and feelings. And these are feelings that the uploader expects to be shared to some degree, and which I think are shared, given the number of videos of LP records of various speeds and sizes that you can find on Youtube.

I wrote a little about this in my Nat Cole chapter, tho there i mainly focused on the comments that people post on videos and the opposition usually constructed in such comments between Cole's music and "all that noise they call music today." I think this has to be some kind of genre: videos of records on turntables or in jukeboxes playing old songs, often with model numbers specified and sometimes with information about the digital transfer. It's analog authenticity, which is ironic if you think about the meaning of the word "analog."

It's unlikely that this will come up to a great degree in the Gillespie chapter, but I think that it will in the Ronnie Hawkins chapter, as there I will specifically dealing with media forms in as part of the story of the invention of Americana and the search for the great bootleg in the sky.