The Arctic Monkeys’ reworked version of “Dancing Shoes” with a ridiculously catchy Cuban rhythm, featured on last fall’s Rhythms del Mundo compilation, first seems noteworthy simply for its goofy exuberance. A YouTube video, which borrows a classic Bollywood dance sequence, makes the song even more relentlessly silly. But beneath the surface humor is a desperate plea for help, revealing the Arctic Monkeys’ struggle for survival in an increasingly inhospitable climate.

Sadly, the Arctic Monkeys’ plight is representative of a huge, and until now, underreported problem: the threat climate change poses to the world’s music supply. This six-part essay reports on the impending musical catastrophe and the global efforts, spearheaded by international celebrity and unofficial “fifth Monkey” Al Gore, to bring about a saner and more musically balanced future.


Holiday in the Sun

Between 1971 and 2000, July high temperatures in the Arctic Monkeys’ hometown of Sheffield, England averaged a moderate 67.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Monkeys members fear a rise of several degrees could induce a complacency that would thwart their ability to turn aging Buzzcocks and Libertines riffs into snappy pop songs. It’s hardly a coincidence that the Arctic Monkeys’ new album is titled Favorite Worst Nightmare. “This is serious, man,” remarked lead singer Alex Turner. “Take away that distinctly British chill, and before you know it, we’d be crooning bloody Cliff Richard songs on ‘Top of the Pops’ for me bloody mum and auntie.”

British musicians fear that warming trends threaten the supply of angst, guilt and irony, the three pillars of British musical expression, and arguably of all Anglo-Saxon culture. MySpace ska-pop princess Lily Allen announced she is canceling a spring break in Ibiza and touring by dogsled in Lapland instead. Allen, who asked “sun is in the sky, oh why?” on last year’s prescient “LDN,” wants a secure place for her music. “The reindeer are a bit daft, but I feel safe here,” she said, sipping Absolut vodka in Sweden’s Jukkasjarvi Ice Hotel, 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle.

The direst warnings came from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. “Look, I’m not trying to get all Bono on you about global warming,” he said, “but I think we may already have reached the tipping point. You know that old Pink Floyd concert movie filmed at Pompeii, where the lads are so out of it that they sing a 23-minute song about an albatross and babble incoherently about wanting pie with no crust? Well, that would be Radiohead in a warmer world. If you thought Kid A was already full of little blips and burps, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

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While you were busy not paying attention, the world changed: “Buyers of digital music are purchasing singles over albums by a margin of 19 to 1.” That stat could be a smidge misleading, since an album may consist of, say, 12 songs, and only get counted as a single purchase, but still, “Individual songs account for roughly two-thirds of all music sales volume in the United States.”

We all know that the theory was that digital downloads would let people only purchase the songs they liked, rather than the entire album, but I had no idea the tide had shifted this far already. Me, I’ve bought exactly one single from iTMS in the past few years – a track from Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, which I needed for a performance piece we were prepping for a friend’s wedding.

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Yesterday on National Public Radio’s dependably hilarious quiz show, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Associate Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer attempted to answer questions inspired by a Blender article on the 50 craziest pop stars. Justice Breyer proved to be a good sport with a decent sense of humor, which you’d need to get through a day job spent arguing with Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas. But unfortunately, the esteemed justice was unable to correctly answer any of the questions about David Bowie (crazy pop star #41), Ozzy Osbourne (#10), or Iggy Pop (#26). Justice Breyer was not only unaware that Ozzy had asked for directions to the bar at the Betty Ford clinic, but was unaware of his very existence. He had no idea that David Bowie had once attempted to exorcise Satan from his swimming pool. Most disappointingly for me, Breyer incorrectly believed that the Chief Stooge had spoken only in rhyme for a year while hanging out with Bowie in Berlin. The correct answer–as I’m sure our readers already know–is that Iggy ate only German sausages for a year. So much for Stanford, Harvard and the highest circles of American jurisprudence giving you a proper education.

If you scratch at the surface a bit, Mr. Pop and Mr. Breyer may have more in common than meets the eye. One wrote a satirical (I think) song called “I’m a Conservative,” while the other spends most of his waking hours skewering the logic of right-wing jurists. Both understand the fearsome consequences of raw power. Both grew up in middle class families; both try to stay in shape and know their way around a golf course; both ride through the city at night, seeing the bright and hollow sky and the city’s ripped backsides. Okay, maybe Iggy a little more than Steve on the last one.

As someone who straddles musical and legal circles, I appreciate little moments when these worlds collide. One of my favorites is the 1987 appellate ruling in United States v. Abner, the notorious Talking Heads decision. In it, an enterprising Heads-obsessed judicial clerk managed to sneak 25 references to Talking Heads recordings into the published ruling of federal judge Reynaldo Garza.

Sadly, Don Aicardi’s comment about my previous Dylan-does-Dr. Seuss post is true: Dylan Hears a Who is no more, and you can blame the Doctor’s handlers. The message at dylanhearsawho.com notes: “At the request of Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LP, this site has been retired.” That brings this episode a bit of resemblance to that of Bruce Springstone, the 1982 moniker of Baltimore journalist and cartoonist Tom Chalkley, who completely nailed that wheezy working-class Jersey drone. To his credit, Springsteen got the joke and just sent a postcard to Chalkley saying “Heard your record. Cute.” But Hanna-Barbera got hot and bothered, filing a cease-and-desist order that terminated production after 35,000 copies of the record (including mine). Hanna-Barbera’s nastiness was perhaps predictable, because one of the record’s highlights was the cartoon cover art of drummer John Ebersberger featuring Dino the dinosaur in the Clarence Clemmons role (any resemblance of Clarence Clemmons’ sax riffs to those of an actual dinosaur was, I’m sure, just coincidental). For a novelty record, the music holds up as well; truth be told, I’ve probably played my vinyl copy of the “Bedrock Rap/ Meet the Flinstones” medley more often than “Born to Run” itself over the last quarter-century.

On a related note, the miracle of YouTube has brought back Little Roger and the Goosebumps’ proto-mashup of “Stairway to Heaven” and the Gilligan’s Island theme song, which caused quite a ruckus among self-righteous stoners back in 1978. For what it’s worth, Robert Plant eventually met Little Roger, claiming that he always liked the parody and that Jimmy Page was the humorless bore who successfully prevailed on Led Zeppelin’s legal team to get the record banned. That must have been a very busy legal team–during the same period, for example, the Zeppelin boys threw a couch out of the 11th floor window of Chicago’s Ambassador East hotel, apparently hoping that Joe Walsh’s accountants would pay for it all.

If you’re in the mood for a more challenging reworking of that Zeppelin warhorse, don’t miss the terrific 2006 version by Rodrigo y Gabriela, the most accomplished metal-influenced Mexican acoustic guitar duo in all of Ireland.

Guitar solos are self-indulgent. The bridge is always boring. Verses are repetitive. Everyone knows four minutes is way too long for a song. What we really want is the hook – the essence. Give me a meaty riff, and ditch the rest. Radio SASS (Short Attention Span System) “creative editing” to the rescue.

Short Attention Span System takes the playlist and musically condenses songs to their essence. Through time compression, you get the memorable heart of each song, with an average length of aproximately two minutes with NO self indulgent guitar solos, NO long intros, NO repetition of choruses again and again. Radio returns to the snappy song length of the 1960s.

In other words, everything long is bad. Because time is an inconvenience, and self-absorbed artists with no respect for your fast-paced lifestyle are wasting it. Ummm… ewwww? So what happens to Hot Rats? Cosmic Charlie? Fool in the Rain? Mothership Connection? Born Under Punches?

But look on the bright side — nobody cares!

Radio SASS starts out with the memorable beginning, followed by the best verses, best chorus and then wraps it up just as you remember … Will listeners object? The answer is no. Several focus groups conducted by Harker Research show that most people don’t even notice.

Also interesting here is the name of the service: “Short Attention Span System.” Since saying that someone has a short attention span is generally considered a bit derogatory, this represents a sea change. SASS must think that people are not only aware of the fact that they have short attention spans, but also don’t think of that as a bad thing. The marketing here is aimed at the heart of what has traditionally been considered a human weakness, or a negative aspect of media snack culture. Kind of like selling potato chips under the name “Obesity Chips.”

And, oh yeah – the new protocol is patented. You can patent butchery?

If you let iTunes set up cover art for your tracks, you’ve probably discovered by now that your copy of Led Zeppelin’s “BBC Sessions” has ended up with the cover art to Zepp whiteboy-dreadlock cover band Dread Zeppelin, and that George Harrison’s legendary “All Things Must Pass” is sporting cover art for “The Essential George Gershwin.” And so it was that I came across this image in my iTunes collection recently, associated with some tracks by The Shaggs (we’ll come back to them).
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1. She’s a genius, she’s gorgeous, and Bjork is out of your league.
2. As far as we know, she isn’t a blood relative.
3. The harp is the sexiest of all musical instruments, other than the bagpipe and the accordion.
4. She will introduce you to Devendra Banhart, who can help you do something else with your hair.
5. She’ll give you something to brag about next time San Francisco political rival Matt Gonzalez attempts to flaunt his knowledge of John Coltrane, Joy Division and the Clash.
6. Her arranger is Van Dyke Parks, who has worked closely with Brian Wilson and can hook you up with a good therapist.
7. Her obsession with the mythical Breton city of Ys will help educate you about the dangers of coastal flooding.
8. Gift shopping at second-hand stores and Renaissance Faires rather than designer boutiques will save you money.
9. The next time you give a speech that is a bit lengthy and self-involved, you can mention that “Only Skin” lasts almost seventeen minutes.
10. You’d make an excellent mayor of Nevada City, California.

Don Aicardi (aka the “Egg Roll King”), roots archivist extraordinaire and our favorite authority on all things Dylan, passes along this classic new bit of inspired insanity, featuring a faux mid-sixties Dylan voice assaulting Green Eggs and Ham, the Zax, and the Cat in the Hat, among other bits of classic Dr. Seuss. I wish he’d also taken on Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?, but it’s really hard to quibble. As these things go, it’s even better than Bruce Springstone: Live at Bedrock, and almost as good as the Temple City Kazoo Orchestra’s all-kazoo version of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”

When he tired of the expense, the navel-gazing, and the circular conversations in the weekly sessions of therapy, his bright idea was to revive his interest in drumming, and what he lacked in actual ability he could always compensate for with enthusiasm and volume. This was not music to the ears of his wife, for if there was one trait she brought from her four-year tenure at UC Santa Cruz, other than a healthy respect for diversity and an unhealthy interest in thrift-store bargains, it was her fear of drum circles. But a drummer in Berkeley, like an addict in a methadone ward, needs more than words to make him stop, and besides, it felt so good.

It brought him back to when he was fifteen, staring in the mirror with sticks in hand, thinking, well, they may think I live in the library, I may be the captain of the debate team, but damn it, I will be the next Zigaboo Modeliste.

They met every Monday. They studied a different Third World rhythm every month, and to assuage the guilt that accompanied their idleness, they tried to discuss the human rights problems of every country whose rhythms they clumsily appropriated. And it therefore came to pass that blond-haired, blue-eyed misapplications of son and rhumba rhythms were downed in minty mojitos and debates about the legacy of Castro. The rat-a-tatting of failed doumbek rhythms led to hooka pipe and hash-intensified meanderings about the problem of Palestine, the multiple meanings of Zionism, the dreams of diaspora, and the wandering of Western Sahara. Borderline unlistenable tappings on a tabla, coupled with too many six-packs of Singha beer, led his little circle to tie themselves in knots over nuclear proliferation between India and Pakistan and the unresolved status of Kashmir. The hollow echo of the talking drum, and the ingestion of a green substance he could barely hold, much less identify, left him with a vague sense that something was amiss in the slums of Lagos. Fumbling attempts at samba rhythms brought an appreciation of the old souls of Bahia and a sense of wonder about the Brazilian rainforest. Then came the steel drums of Trinidad, the reverb of reggae, the deluge of rum punch, and the sudden desire to atone for 500 years of colonialism in the Caribbean.

He couldn’t stop himself. He may have been white, and born to parents who revered Pat Boone and Andy Williams, but he was damned if he wouldn’t at least try to understand the world and its conversant rhymes, the march and pacing and order that spoke a universal language in which he was only a beginner, but determined to try.

The restless searching finally ended the week he saw his Middle Eastern drumming teacher play in a large festival with her star pupil, who performed the same rhythm he had learned in class, yet flawlessly and five times faster. The star pupil was eight. He went home, put his sticks and worldwide collection of percussion instruments into a box in the basement, and opened a book for the first time in months.

Guardian piece looking back on the origins of The Stooges and “the great Rock Iguana at 60.” Iggy talks a bit about his parents and how they viewed his quitting school to do music:

And my dad told me later, ‘Weeell, you remind me of a lot of pitchers that I used to go to see – a lot of speed, a lot of flash, no control.’”