HEARD ON ALL THINGS CONSIDERED By NPR Staff
(This story appeared in 2014 but we thought it had new relevance with the 70th anniversary of Godzilla and 2023’s release of the excellent Godzilla Minus One.
What’s In A Roar? Crafting Godzilla’s Iconic Sound
26 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: godzilla
Quora: What is something a Pink Floyd fan may find surprising about Syd Barrett?
17 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: pink floyd, syd barrett
(Answered by Nick Ford)
This is the famous picture of Syd, taken when he walked into the Abbey Road studios while Pink Floyd were recording “Wish You Were Here”. Bloated, with shaven head and eyebrows, for a time he was unrecognized by his old bandmates only 6 or so years after leaving the band. Syd himself had ceased to make any sort of recorded music after 1974.
During and after this unfortunate encounter, Syd lived in a succession of London hotels, spending money on anything and everything, and often gifting his acquisitions to the staff.
Syd found communication with the band and his old life to be too upsetting and emotionally disturbing. He had a chance 1977 encounter with Roger Waters in the exclusive department store Harrods, as Roger recalled – “but we didn’t speak – he sort of scuttled away.” Apparently, Syd would buy sweets (candy) there, and this wordless meeting was disturbing enough for him to drop his purchases and flee.
When eventually the money ran out, he gave away all his possessions, leaving only a bag of dirty laundry, and walked the 50 miles back to his home town of Cambridge to live with his mother. He dropped “Syd” and returned to using his original name, Roger.
He would slam the door in the face of anyone looking for “Syd”.
Even though they never talked or met again after mid 1975, David Gilmour quietly made sure that his old friend Syd’s financial needs were taken care of until the day he died. As well as ensuring that royalties were getting paid, he would also insist on a Syd song being included on any PF compilation to ensure an income stream.
Syd lived out the rest of his life in a modest Cambridge house, decorated in a highly eccentric style, enjoying painting and DIY (as you can see in the video, with rather mixed results). His siblings kept a reasonably close eye on him until his death from pancreatic cancer in 2006. His last years were plagued with health issues- diabetes and stomach ulcers.
He watched a BBC documentary on himself, but didn’t like it. His sister reported that “He came to watch it with me. He didn’t enjoy it. He didn’t like it – he didn’t quite know what was going on, I don’t think. He just said, ‘It’s very noisy. The music’s very noisy.’”
Despite refusing all contact with most people from his past, and anyone associated with the music industry in general, in 2002, he surprisingly agreed to sign 320 copies of Mick Rock’s book of photographs called “Psychedelic Renegades”. As he no longer used the name Syd, he simply signed them “Barrett”.
His family always denied he had any form of mental illness, insisting that he lived his life as he saw fit, and didn’t feel the need to conform to others’ expectations.
Quora: Why Was ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ So Popular?
07 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: frampton comes alive, peter frampton
Why was ‘Frampton Comes Alive‘ so Popular?
(answered by Don Stuart)
Well I was there, a junior in high school (and a bass player) around the time Frampton hit it big. Here’s how I remember it going down.
KISS had been kind of a cult rock band until they released KISS ALIVE in September of ‘75, just as we were heading back to school. Rock and Roll All Night and Party Every Day was basically the motto of many mid-70’s high school kids in the US (see the film Dazed and Confused, it’s deadly accurate). So KISS had an AM radio hit on a double live album, kind of setting the stage for Frampton’s.
Peter’s band started appearing on a Friday night show called Midnight Special on NBC in the fall. There was no MTV in those days, not much rock to watch on TV at all, and us kids watched that show in droves because it came on after we had to be home (by midnight, right?).
The guy looked good and there was definite buzz among girls like my younger sisters who had watched him on TV. Plus he’d been killing on tour all year and some of the cool older girls had seen him in concert. They were the evangelists.
Frampton Comes Alive is released in January 1976, to little fanfare but a single off the album, Show Me The Way, breaks on AM pop radio rotation in February. Where I lived, Baby I Love Your Way broke on the radio first because girls were requesting it.
The girls have had to put up with KISS ALIVE and Ted Nugent (also released in Sept. ‘75) at our parties and in our cars for months now. Around Spring Break, they whip out Frampton. Us guys are like, “Okay, chicks dig it and he doesn’t completely suck.” Peter played great lead guitar, which was essential for 70’s rockers.
Turns out the album had brilliant song-order mastering, too. It definitely has a trajectory, peaks and valleys and a big finish with Do You Feel Like We Do. We used 8-track tapes in those days to do the audio at our outdoor keggers. Frampton Live was the soundtrack for the spring and summer party season in ‘76. That’s the niche it filled.
Nearly every year has an big record like this — one that epitomizes the party season. It has a hit song or two and sells like gangbusters. Frampton scored, and we scored with Frampton. I mean, we choreographed our makeout sessions to that album.
We smoked a lot of low-THC giggle weed and mashed with a bunch of mildly stoned girls who were happy that they could listen to music with us that wasn’t the absurd 70’s cock and prog rock that guys were usually blasting. Thanks Peter!
Bob Seger’s Live Bullet came out in the spring of ’76 too, so we had two new live albums to party with. The thing about live albums was they kind of blended and amplified the atmosphere and cacophony of the party scene.
In the Fall of ’76 came Boston’s mega-album, then the Eagles’ Hotel California and McCartney’s live album in December, followed by Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours in February ‘77.
Oh, and this happened, too. Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)” The longest-running Billboard #1 since Hey Jude. The Stairway to Heaven of car-radio date songs.
Frampton got crushed, but it didn’t really matter.
Because Saturday Night Fever rolled in and ruined the party for all of us. When rock resurrected with Van Halen it was different, and an era was in the past.
Quora: Is Paul McCartney a Jerk?
03 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: paul mccartney
Is Paul McCartney a jerk?
McCartney was on the Oprah show in 1997. She seemed as much in awe of him as any fan. On her next show she talked about what kind of guest he’d been. She said something like: I have a lot of stars on my show, but nobody is bigger than Paul McCartney. Many of the stars are very demanding, wanting special things in their dressing rooms, champagne, wine, etc. Usually my staff handles their requests but I did it myself for Paul. I asked if there was anything special he wanted in his dressing room and he said he’d appreciate some bottled water, if it wasn’t too much trouble.
Then I asked him what he’d like to eat, as we could cater from anywhere in the city. He said he saw a buffet being set up in the back. I told him that was for the staff and camera crew. He asked if it would be OK for him to eat from that. No guest ever asked to dine with the staff before.
9 of The Best Beatle Intros
01 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
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(via CultureSonar) BY ADAM LEADBEATER
An often underappreciated element of the Beatles’ songwriting is their seemingly effortless ability to craft a truly memorable ‘intro.’ The art of writing a timeless song opening is a masterful skill. The Fab Four were particularly expert in doing so throughout their eight years together.
The band’s finest introductions are typically iconic in their own right, innovative for their time, and often acts of musical genius in and of themselves. Here are nine of the best intros by the Fab Four.
I Saw Her Standing There (1963)
One of the most simplistic yet impactful Beatles intros appears immediately on track one of their debut album Please Please Me.
Paul McCartney’s sharp and purposeful count of “One, Two, Three, Four!” injects raw energy into this relentless rock and roll classic.
The bouncing bassline and clanking guitar work are pure magic, perfectly setting the scene for the rest of the band’s first LP and also their formative years.
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
“A Hard Day’s Night’s” intro is all about a single sound. This title track from the Beatles’ third album opens with a very distinctive note, created using a combination of twelve-string electric guitar, an acoustic six-string, bass, and piano. Strummed aggressively and left to ring out, the exact chord has become the subject of much speculation over the years.
“It is F with a G on top,” George Harrison would finally confirm in 2001. “But you’ll have to ask Paul about the bass note to get the proper story.”
Read more: https://www.culturesonar.com/9-of-the-best-beatle-intros/?mc_cid=8151c5c393&mc_eid=b43e532c6f
Quora: If Paul McCartney is a musical genius, why doesn’t he continue to write hit songs or music that’s at the level he used to?
17 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: quora
(Answered by Douglas Cutler)
The answer is simple though you may not be willing to accept it.
But before I tell you I will suggest we could ask the same question of all the great aging singer-songwriters like Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Neil Young, Jimmy Paige, Cheryl Crow, Leonard Cohen (now deceased), Gordon Lightfoot, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, even Sting. So many more. While many of these writers continue to write really good songs, they virtually never write material equal to the A-list songs of their prime. Why?
Also, ask why younger songwriters just don’t seem to quite measure up melodically to their musical forefathers. Also ask why we never hear new instrumental pop hits anymore like Linus and Lucy, Green Onions, Classical Gas and Cast Your Fate to the Wind. Also ask why we never hear any more great new tunes in the American Songbook style – though thousands of musicians try every year. Also ask why classic country and western seemed destined to morph into new country.
Same answer in all cases: we’re running out of melodies. Melody is a finite set made up of only 12 steps in the chromatic scale, except in most cases 8 notes of the diatonic scale or 5 to 6 notes of the pentatonic scale which dominates so much soul and gospel flavored pop. Also a gospel and blues connection to country music. Plus, many musical motives define themselves in as few as 4–8 events. Think of the opening to Beethoven’s 5th: Ba Da Da Dah. Plus, there are further limitations like a melody must be comprised primarily of easy to sing step and skip-wise motions. Mathematically you could argue the possibilities for 12 pitches still run into the billions but most of those are random combinations full of hard to sing chromatic jumps. Also billions of atonal combinations but who cares about those?
Also, many melodies just sound common and mundane even if they follow the rules. Writing a hit song is like writing out a sequence of numbers equal to a winning lottery ticket, actually very rare compared to the hundreds of thousand songs that get written every year. There is something magical about a certain combination of notes that stick in your head in a uniquely pleasant way but such melodies just seem to get rarer as the years go by.
Break it down, Linus and Lucy melody in solfege: Do-Re-Mi/ Mi-Re-Do/ Re Do/ Do-Re-Mi-Mi. Can’t get much simpler than that and once it’s written it gone from the possibility set for the next generation of writers.
