101.9 FM in New York is no longer CD 101.9, the home of smooth jazz (music made by computers, for computers) but is instead now 101.9 RXP – The New York Rock Experience, which claims that it will focus on variety, intelligence and local acts.
Between the death of Jack FM (music programmed by computers) and now CD 101 (music written by computers) and the return and creation of rock-focused stations with DJ’s, this looks like a realization that radio is more than just playlists. Radio is about the connection between the music, the DJ and the listeners.
Author: Andrew Raff
FNL and the Second Half Collapse
Even with three months of the strike behind us, I’m still almost not quite caught up with Friday Night Lights. I started with the season 1 DVD in the fall and am now only two episodes behind with episodes.
But for everything that the series did right in season 1, season 2 just hasn’t clicked in the same way.
The football games have fallen to the background, which seems out of place when season 1 established that the most important thing in Dillon is Dillon HS football.
Or, as usual with most things TV-related, go read Sepinwall:
“I’ve had lots of problems with “FNL” season two, but none moreso than the way the show has completely lost track of the damn team. We’ve seen, what, six games in 13 episodes? (With Smash playing terribly in almost all of them, which makes his big college recruiting story seem doubly baffling.) And now there are only three more before the playoffs start? And we spend an entire episode with zero football action or practice, but with a subplot devoted to the girls’ volleyball team?
I know the company line is that “FNL” isn’t really about football, but that’s just a lie to lure in the people who would otherwise refuse to watch a show about football — and who, based on the ratings for season two, aren’t going to watch anyway. Season one was absolutely about football, and that’s what made it great. It was about how a town defined itself through this team and how the pressure of being that defining element shaped the lives of the coaches, the players and their friends and family. There was plenty of action that took place away from the gridiron, but the season was always there in the background. We were always aware of how the Panthers were doing, how Saracen and Smash and Riggins were playing, how secure Eric’s job was, etc.
Football was the foundation on which everything else was built, and now it’s become this obligatory thing that the writers feel like they have to bring up from time to time, when they’d rather be spending time on another romance or crime plot.”
The pressure on the coach and the team from the talk radio, boosters, and everyone else in Dillon shaped characters and relationships, but we haven’t seen that since Coach returned to Dillon. That’s one reason why the characters seem to be in a vacuum. Foorball is what brings everyone in Dillon together, and without it, the characters are all off in little groups doing their own thing without any other context.
If there’s going to be no attention to the football details that were the basis of the world of Dillon in season 1, why not keep season 2 in the same school year after the championship? This way, there’s no need to fudge that Riggins and Lyla weren’t also originally seniors in the same class as Street.
How does the show reboot for season 3 (assuming that there is one)? First, bring in new characters to fill in for Smash and Riggins on the team and maybe add some more non-QB, non-RB characters into the mix. A lineman, a wideout, a backup. At the same time, don’t lose Smash or Riggins. Wouldn’t The Smash not be quite the big fish in college he is in Dillon? How would Riggins deal with graduating and being stuck in Dillon (besides dating the MILF next door or living with the town Meth dealer)?
Great Moments in Keytar History – 2008 Grammys
This is apparently going to be a series– if not the entire raison d’être of the blog.
At the Grammy Awards last night, Morris Day and the Time reunited to rock some awesome keytar action (and play with Rhianna):
Great Moments in Keytar History
Howard Jones, Herbie Hancock, Thomas Dolby, Stevie Wonder perform a medley at the Grammy awards in 1985:
William Howard Taft
The Two Man Gentlemen Band bring their old-timey song style to video, with this snappy song about the only person to serve as both President of the US and Chief Justice of the US. And the only President whose girth enabled him to get stuck in the White House bathtub.
He’s Leaving
30 Rock, I’ll miss you most of all…
Getting a new episode of 30 Rock last night was a nice bonus in these strike depleted days.
I was going to embed the musical clip from Hulu, but it’s a shame that the online market is so nascent that NBC hasn’t figured out how to make money on online video, aside from runing pre-roll ads. If they give those away to Cisco as promotional material, how can they earn money on the content?
Food Fight
Food Fight by Stefan Nadelman: “Food Fight is an abridged history of war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict. Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smorgasbord of aggression.”
Very clever.
Mario Paint Nirvana
Ever wonder what it would sound like to recreate songs using Mario Paint? No? Me neither. But someone did:
When backing tracks go wrong
Here’s a clip of Van Halen playing Jump on their reunion tour earlier this month in Greensboro, NC:
Something sounds off.
It seems that the synthesizer part is played on a pre-recorded backing track, and at that show it was played back at 48 khz instead of 44.1 khz. RW370, Jump (in pitch)! “Eddie tries to transpose on the fly and match the wildly fucked up keyboards but the great thing there is the difference in pitch is non-musical – about 1.5 semitones sharp. So there’s no frets he can choose to fix the problem!”
Why is indie rock generally lame?
In the New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones wonders why indie rock is so lame and, well, white. A Paler Shade of White: How indie rock lost its soul
In the past few years, I’ve spent too many evenings at indie concerts waiting in vain for vigor, for rhythm, for a musical effect that could justify all the preciousness.
How did rhythm come to be discounted in an art form that was born as a celebration of rhythm’s possibilities? Where is the impulse to reach out to an audience—to entertain? I can imagine James Brown writing dull material. I can even imagine the Meters wearing out their fans by playing a little too long. But I can’t imagine any of these musicians retreating inward and settling for the lassitude and monotony that so many indie acts seem to confuse with authenticity and significance.
Is this a new segregation of music between the black (beats and rhymes) and white (precious and dreary tones)?