Needle Drop: Pale Virgins and Scallywags

Cut-Out Bin

needledrop.jpgStuck writers dig the tradition of music magazines such as Down Beat playing tracks for famous musicians “blindfolded” to extract un-scripted gut reactions. Most of our musician friends are better described as “notorious” and some of them are shy– so for now, we’re slumming it and playing tracks for each other. In our inaugural Needle Drop, Scot Hacker and transient Stuck writer Benoit Baald traded tracks and riffed on them live via iChat. We’ve included the tracks here so you can play along — spoilers at the end of each section.

Scot drops the needle for Baald

Listen for yourself:

[audio:http://stuckbetweenstations.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/fugs-sunflower.mp3]

Benoit Baald: ok, go
Scot Hacker: rolling
BB: great bass line, and I love the tremelo on the guitar
SH: Is that 2nd voice female?
BB: seems very summery, lazy
Needle LyricsBB: and then the vocals come in!
SH: Beatnik thing.
BB: well, the lyrics rock, the singing is lacking
BB: and the disjointed phrasing…
SH: Lacking in that Dylan / Neil Young kinda way – not about beautiful voice.
BB: but still…
SH: But that also makes it more “real” in a perverse kind of way.
BB: not in the same class as young/dylan
SH: I love the rolling drums, almost timpani.
BB: but its mixed too up front, which doesn’t help
BB: but the lyrics are golden
BB: it’s a beautiful song
SH: How old do you think this is?
BB: damn
BB: um
BB: ’65?
SH: So close. ’67.
BB: no
BB: oh
BB: wow
SH: Want spoiler?
BB: and the vocal harmonies take off a bit at the end
BB: no
BB: reminds me of hair for some reason
BB: comin down
SH: Heh – Plenty of hair involved.
BB: ok
BB: lay it on me
SH: Fugs: “Comin’ Down”
BB: reaaaaalllly
BB: damn
BB: how is it that i never listened to the fugs?
SH: That doesn’t fit your picture of them?
BB: that’s not what i expcted
BB: i expected garagier
BB: this was a little jerry’s kids…
SH: They’ve got plenty of that – this is a “pretty” song of theirs.
BB: oh, ok
BB: it was at that
BB: i’m not sure it would get into regular rotation, but i’m damn glad you turned me onto it

Baald drops the needle for Scot

Listen for yourself:
[audio:http://stuckbetweenstations.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/carlisles-myrtle.mp3]

SH: rolling
SH: That Buck Owens twang.
BB: yeah Harmonics SH: Scallywag! I love anything that uses the word “Scallywag.” 2nd only to “rapscallion.”
SH: That beat is so elemental – the guitar sound so pure. Mellotronic.
BB: y’know, a good song tells a story
SH: What’s that – harmonics?
BB: i think so
SH: Through a buzz filter?
BB: definitely one of the most bizarre guitar tones i’ve ever heard
SH: Yes, papa, well just a minnit!
BB: this was all pre-effects
SH: Totally.
SH: Soothing outro chord.
BB: so you get that the weird voice is the boyfriend mocking the dad, right?
SH: That was hilarious. Songs that incorporate a conversations are too rare.
SH: Ohh… I *didn’t* get that!
BB: they on the porch
BB: etc
SH: Yeah, it all fits now.
BB: ok, you get it now
BB: love that voice
SH: There’s a tradition of songs about boys in love with girls but who have to deal with the dad first.
BB: sounds like the wicked witch from wiz of oz
SH: Something I’ve strangely never had to deal with.
BB: ha!
BB: i once had a gf whose dad was a biker
BB: lived in a motel
SH: OK, I’m dying to know who this was.
BB: she brought me home to him and made me cook him dinner
BB: i’m LMO remembering this
Needle-Oil SH: I’m sure that won him over. “Used motor oil slick pasta.”
BB: lmao
BB: i think i was shaking
BB: i kinda broke it off with her after that
BB: STOOPIDEST thing i ever did
SH: Well, I’m shaking now. So give it up. Who’d we hear?
BB: The Carlisles, “Is Zat You Myrtle”
BB: let me get the date
BB: hold on
SH: The Carlisles. I’ll have to add that to the rotation.
BB: 1953
SH: Dang – you beat me by a decade and a half.
BB: it’s from that Boppin Hillbilly, Red Hot Rockabilly box i get
SH: Hillbilly at its Jethro-est.
BB: damn, it loops seamlessly
BB: bizarre
BB: for the past ten minutes i’ve been like “damn, this is the longest 2:17 i’ve EVER heard”
SH: LOL – I’ve been in silence for three minutes.
SH: OK, cut.

About Scot Hacker

Scot Hacker is a web developer, teacher, and blogger living in Northern California. He is the author of Can You Get to That? The Cosmology of P-Funk and Understanding Liberace: Grooving With The Fey Heckler. He works by day as webmaster at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Knight Digital Media Center, and runs Birdhouse Web and Mail Hosting on the side. Hacker is the author of The BeOS Bible and MP3: The Definitive Guide, and posts near-daily on random stuff at Scot Hacker's foobar blog. He's ecstatic that we're sitting on 100 years of recorded music history. How I Got Stuck When was the last time you bought a record because of the cover? 25 years before MP3s, I used to make a weekly pilgrimage to Cheap Thrills in San Luis Obispo with friends, where we'd surf through dusty wooden bins, de-flowering ourselves in a mist of vinyl, grabbing piles of cut-outs about which we knew virtually nothing. Junior Samples, Temple City Kazoo Orchestra, The Buggles, Paul Desmond, Instant Chic, Smithsonian collections, Robert Moog, Dream Syndicate... didn't matter. If the cover was cool, we assumed there was a good chance the music would turn us on. And we were often right. In that humongous wooden warehouse, between around 1977 and 1984, my musical universe bloomed. There were also duds - dumptruck loads of duds. The lesson that a great cover doesn't tell you jack about the music inside was a long time coming (the inverse correlation - that great music was often hidden behind terrible artwork - came much later). But it didn't matter, because cut-outs never cost more than a couple-three bucks, and all the good shit we uncovered made it worthwhile. In high school, I (for the most part) ignored the music going on around me. The jocks and aggies could keep their Rick Springfield and their Jefferson Starship - we were folding papers after school to The Roches and Zappa and Talking Heads and PiL. But inevitably, some of the spirit of that time stuck with me. ELO and McCartney wormed their way (perhaps undeservedly) into my heart. No one escapes high school without an indelible tattoo on their soul describing the music of that time. When I went away to college, the alt/grunge scene was being born, and getting chicks required familiarity with The Pixies and Porno for Pyros. I couldn't quite figure how these bands were supposed to be as interesting as Meat Puppets or Cecil Taylor or Syd Barrett, but I went along for the ride for a while, best I could. But I never quite "got" alt-rock. Never understood why The Pixies were elevated in the public imagination over a thousand bands I thought were so much more inventive / rocking / interesting. What exactly was Frank Black offering the world that Lou Reed had not? In general, I like music carved in bold strokes - extremely rockin', or extremely beautiful, or extremely weird... I like artists that have a unique sound, something I can hang my hat on. I love Mission of Burma and The Slits and The American Anthology of Folk Music and Devendra Banhart and Bowie and Nick Drake and Eric Dolphy and Ali Farka Toure and Marvin Pontiac. If you were to ask me who was the last great rock and roll band, I'd be likely to answer "The Minutemen." I know it's not true, but I'd say it anyway. And yet, in a weird way, I totally believe it. Today while jogging, I listened to a long interpretation by the Unknown Instructors: "Punk Is Whatever We Made It To Be" - half-spoken / half-sung sonic collage of some of D. Boon's best stanzas. Boon's powerful words rained like hammers and I felt like I was back in 1980, careening down the highway in a green VW bug with The Stooges blasting. It was that spirit of amazement that I used to live for - the one I never got from the 90s indie scene. And then, just as quickly, I thought "God, I'm living in the past. I suck." I'm stuck. I have vast collections of LPs, CDs, and MP3s. I listen to music for hours each day, and yet I'm completely out of it, musically speaking. I confess -- I've never listened to Guns-n-Roses or Pearl Jam or Prince, and I've only recently heard "Nevermind" in its entirety. If it weren't for Twitter, I wouldn't even know Lady Gaga existed. I'm oblivious to the stuff that supposedly matters to "music people." It's not like I'm totally unaware of pop music. I just have a finely tuned ability to tune out whatever doesn't interest me. I don't quite know how to explain it. I can only say that my friends register shock when they learn that I've never heard of Elliot Smith. And yet I do not feel thirsty. I'm always open to being turned on. But I learned long ago that, unfortunately, you can't trust beautiful cover art to promise great music, and you can't always trust your friends to push your music buttons. I'm happy to listen to damn near anything. And every now and then, that "anything" will turn into something that will become important to me over time. Something that will last. I like music with staying power. Belle and Sebastien have a certain appeal, but I don't think they're going to occupy even the tiniest slot in my consciousness in 20 years. But the power and inventiveness of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Fahey, Robert Wyatt, Can, The Carter Family, The Clash, will never dissipate. I have little interest in the "new" factor. I could not care less whether this year's model is the baddest thing going on in Atlanta or a rare gem rescued from 78 rpm oblivion by Robert Crumb. It's all the same to me. Just squeeze my lemon / 'till the juice runs down my leg. Please. A friend once said that he felt lucky to have been born so late in history, because the later you're born, the more history you have to work with. I don't think I really understood what he was saying until I was about 40. It's not about being born late, it's about this massive archive we're sitting on - the entire history of recorded music under our butts, which we can either choose to ignore or to mine for all it's worth. Every hour I spend checking out the flavor of the month is an hour I haven't spent with David Thomas or Richard Hell or Shuggie Otis. Life's too short. I'm going to use this site to drift back and forth through musical history, modernity be damned. You turn me on, I'm a radio. Let me know what I'm missing. shacker's station at last.fm