WWdN: In Exile

someone's listening

"Wherever you go
Wherever you land
I’ll say what this means to me
I’ll do what I can"

The birds on my patio have, as my wife would say, "got lots of shit to say!"

Ferris is rolling around on her back, grunting and wagging her tail. She's about ten feet away from me, and she keeps looking at me with her little teeth poking out of her mouth.

Riley is watching us both with her face tucked between her paws.

I feel good about the writing I've done the last week or so. Getting rid of advertising on my blog, so the focus returns to writing because I need to write, instead of because I feel obligated to write, was probably the wisest thing I've done this year. It's incredible to me how much of my happiness and serenity I was giving up, for so little.

I am alone and at peace in my house, sipping green tea on a break from writing. A warm breeze blows through the open windows, a welcome break from the June Gloom we've enjoyed for the last six days. Wilco's Sky Blue Sky plays on the stereo. It is a perfect soundtrack for this moment.

the sun is eclipsed by the moon

The first time I heard Pink Floyd, I actually thought it was Rick Dees.

My mom was driving me to work on a movie of the week, or a commercial, or some other acting job, and I was excited -- as always -- to stop at McDonald's for ultra-processed breakfast "food" while all my friends were in school, doing math like suckers.

"I want you to hear Rick Dees," she said, "I think you'll like him."

We were on the 170, driving toward Hollywood, just before the interchange with the 101. (Isn't it weird how some things like that stand out in your mind? I can see the mall and that big office building -- I think it was a bank with a big "S" in the name. Security Pacific, maybe?) She turned on the radio, and Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 came out of the Toyota wagon's speakers.

I instantly recognized it, because the other kids and I would sing "We don't need no education" in the playground, and Gilmour's guitar riff in that song was disco-perfect for an 8 year-old in 1980. I didn't know that it was Pink Floyd, or that Pink Floyd was even a band. I just figured it was Rick Dees, and for the next year or so, I assumed Rick Dees was the name of a band, not a DJ.

When we got into Hollywood, my mom asked me what I thought about Rick Dees.

"He's totally awesome," I said, blissfully unaware.

Later on, when I realized that Rick Dees was actually the guy behind Disco Duck, and when I became a KROQ teen instead of a KIIS FM kid, I felt a little foolish. I tried not to think of all the times I told my friends how awesome Rick Dees was, and how they should all listen to him because his music was so cool.

I told this story to Rick Dees on his late night talkshow Into the Night around 1989 or 1990, omitting the part about feeling foolish. All I got back was a blank look and some sound effects. It was perfect.

When I first heard Shine On You Crazy Diamond, I was listening to KLOS in afternoon traffic on my way home from Paramount in 1988. I was on Los Feliz, just passing Fern Dell, in my Honda Prelude. (This one is just as easy to recall as the other, but for different reasons. You don't forget the first time you hear that haunting guitar phrase, if you have any soul at all.) I was so moved by that song, I went straight to the record store and bought the CD. While I was there, I picked up Dark Side of the Moon.

"So you like the Floyd, eh?" The Record Store Man said when I checked out.

"Yeah," I said, afraid that there would be follow-up questions I couldn't answer. Thankfully, there were none.

When I got home, I listened to them both while I played Dark Castle on my Macintosh. Wish You Were Here was pretty cool, but something about Dark Side of the Moon really spoke to me. I recognized Money and Time from the radio, and thought they were cool songs on their own, but I was aware that the entire album had a theme, and it all just went together perfectly. I listened to it over and over again, and officially became a Pink Floyd fan. I went to a different record store, and bought as much of the catalogue as I could, including The Wall and Animals. I even picked up Relics, which was only available on cassette.

I was a weird case, I suppose. I liked Boingo and Depeche and The Smiths, but I also loved Pink Floyd and the Dead. And I wasn't a stoner. Go figure.

The first time I heard Animals, I was working on a show called Monsters. We were shooting in what used to be an auto shop in the middle of Hollywood, in an episode that starred me and a fresh off the boat actor named Matt LeBlanc. Yeah, back then, I was the big star and he was the wide-eyed rookie.

I was sitting in my school room, doing math like a sucker, when I put Animals into my CD player. I remember jumping up in my chair a little bit when Pigs (Three Different Ones) started, putting my pencil down, and just listening to the lyrics. When Shane Nickerson and I went to see Roger Waters at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this year, and he played Sheep, I jumped up in exactly the same way.

"Man, you are really a Pink Floyd fan, aren't you?" Shane said to me.

"Yes," I said, eager to answer all the follow up questions that didn't come.

In all these albums, including The Wall and The Final Cut, it seemed like Roger Waters was writing lyrics entirely for me, giving voice to a my own personal hopefulness that struggled to break through a thick layer of cynicism and irony. He did for me what punk rock did for a lot of my peers, and his lyrics are as meaningful to me today as they were when I was a teen, though for entirely different reasons.

Over the weekend, I watched a documentary from the Classic Albums series on the recording of Dark Side of the Moon. I already own the DVD, and I've watched it numerous times, but when I saw that it was on the television, I stopped what I was doing, sat down on the couch, and gave it my full attention. Watching the members of the band play bits of those songs now, and hearing them all talk about it, like they were sharing some great Saucerful of Secrets with me, still gave me a thrill. Sitting with Alan Parsons while he went through the mix was like watching Scorsese cut Woodstock, or Coppola cut Apocalypse Now. It was a rare case where seeing how the whole thing came together didn't take anything away from the final performance.

I came to a realization while I listened to Eclipse for the eleventybillionth time: Dark Side of the Moon is my favorite album of all time. There are classic albums that I love, like Kind of Blue (which, it turns out, inspired Great Gig In The Sky) and Abbey Road, Pet Sounds, and American Beauty . . . but there isn't another album that I can think of that I can listen to all the time, no matter where I am, what I'm doing, how I feel, or who I'm with. It took me nearly 35 years, but I finally have my Ultimate Desert Island Disc.

There's a strange sense of certainty that comes with identifying my favorite album of all time. It's at once entirely trivial and incredibly important, but is one of those very few things that I absolutely know about myself, and that brings me a great deal of unexpected peace.

i live in the world of spirits and i talk to the walls

If you love Boingo like I do, you'll want to read experience my latest post at blogging.la: Boingo. 1976. Gong Show. Awesome.

Geek in Review: Sound Salvation

Remember the story I mentioned last week about Internet radio, and its destruction at the hands of the RIAA?

I wrote it this week, with significantly less rantacular rantaliciousness:

[F]or music nerds, technology has allowed anyone with a passion for music to share that passion with like-minded listeners. It's allowed them to effectively make endless mixtapes and play them for the world. For artists -- especially indie artists -- Internet radio is the best promotional outlet they have for their music this side of a friend handing you a CD and saying, "dude, you have to listen to this!"

So why the hell is the RIAA trying so hard to destroy that? Because the RIAA (which is essentially the major labels) has spent a lot of time and a lot of money building a monopoly with a few media conglomerates, and it's been very profitable for them all for decades.

This effort to wipe out independent online radio has nothing to do with protecting artists, and everything to do with protecting a status quo that supports a very few top 40 acts at the expense of everyone else. In their effort to protect their outdated business model and insanely corrupt relationship with a few broadcasters, the RIAA is happy to prevent their artists from having a magnificent way to reach potential customers who will buy albums, merchandise, and concert tickets.

For the audience, this is about choice: The airwaves are supposedly owned by the American people, and licensed out to broadcasters for use. (Stop laughing. It's true.) So if we, the people, own the airwaves, who told Clear Channel that they could dictate what got played on the radio all over the nation? Who told Clear Channel that they could fill the airwaves with lowest common denominator crap and empty-headed, passionless DJs who read from a script? Who told Clear Channel that they could force out everyone else and ensure that the radio really, really sucks? I know that I wasn't consulted, that's for sure.

Is there an online radio station you love? Are you a member of the WWdN last.fm group? Do you stream your own radio station? Tell us in the comments, and please consider joining the SaveNetRadio coalition.

it's what it's all aboot

I don't watch a lot of TV, but my kids love this show How I Met Your Mother, so I watched it with them this week.

I enjoyed it, and will watch it again, but I don't know if any future episodes can match what they pulled off this week with this music video:



I guess one of the characters was a Canadian pop star in the 90s (everyone is dressed like the 80s in this video because, according to her, "the 80s didn't make it to Canada until the 90s") but was trying to hide it from the rest of her friends, for reasons which were obvious when they watched the video.

If you're of a certain age, I think you're going to love this video. Robin Sparkles is the perfect blend of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, and every gag in the video, from the lyrics to the choreography and photography, is a pitch-perfect parody of and homage to that 80s pop scene.

love

Channel 5-5 in Los Angeles is this really cool thing called The Tube, which is like MTV when it played music videos, before most of you were born.

It's hit and miss. It seems to play ten or twelve songs in a row that are great, and then an equal number that are Love Shack, so depending on when you catch it, it's either the greatest thing ever, or Love Shack.

A few weeks ago, I tuned in to see George Harrison grooving to something identified as Within Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows. I'm a pretty big Beatles fan, but I hadn't ever heard these two songs, from two different albums, put together like this. I wasn't aware that they had been remixed by George Martin as part of this new Beatles album called Love, which is, apparently, the soundtrack to the Cirque du Soleil show of the same name.

I know, I know. I was also very surprised to learn that people smoke weed at rock concerts; occasionally I miss some of the more obvious things in life.

"Well," I thought, "if the whole album is as groovy as this, it will be worth picking up," and I bought it yesterday.

I've only listened to it three times, and so far I'm "meh" on it. Without the associated visuals of the show, it has this Stars on 45 feeling that I can't get over, and I don't know if it will grow on me or not. It's trying, but . . . Stars on 45, man. One unintended side effect, though, is how clearly and undeniably it illustrates the perfection of Revolver, Abbey Road, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. My gods, those are some pretty incredible albums.

So, two questions:

1. Am I the only person who thinks the guitar phrase from She's So Heavy is very similar to the guitar phrase from In the Flesh? I never noticed it until I heard it on this album.

2. Have you heard this album? What do you think about it?

oh my fucking god. pink floyd polka

If you're anything like me, you avoid MySpace like a GOP fundraiser or the bird flu, but this is a case where it's not just okay to make an exception, it's an imperative: Go listen to Polka Floyd.

(via boingboing)

the brass was phasing tunes I couldn’t place

Wilco's next album is titled Sky Blue Sky, and according to Rolling Stone, it's one of 50 must-hear albums (take that with a grain of salt: RS also put Linkin Park on the list):

Its twelve songs are also a startling turnaround from the scarring distortion of Wilco's commercial breakthrough, 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and 2004's follow-up, A Ghost Is Born. There is a vocal clarity and wide-open space to Sky Blue Sky -- in the tender lysergic whirl of "Either Way" and the mix of Dixie-soul balladry and Badfinger-style pop crunch in "Hate It Here" -- that echoes the Grateful Dead's honing of their early acid rock into the warm detail of 1970's Workingman's Dead.

Inspired by the old tradition of previewing releases with record listening parties (usually sponsored by a radio station and played in a store or on air) Wilco's been previewing the record on their website on and off for the past few weeks.

I've managed to miss all of the previews, but over the weekend I was finally able to hear a few of the tracks, notably Impossible Germany and What Light (at the moment, you can download What Light from Wilco's website, but I don't know if that link will be good forever.)

The cover artwork is beautiful, and the songs that I've heard are outstanding. I can't wait to hear them all in the context of the album, which comes out on May 15.

a movie script ending

I've never been especially good at managing my time, but over the last year or so, I've nearly gotten a handle on balancing my various writing deadlines, personal writing projects, Netscape and WWdN stuff, poker, and the all-important time with my family.

I've had maybe six auditions in the last six months or so, and that's actually been just fine with me; I've been so focused on writing and raising teenagers, auditions just don't have the investment:return ratio that they once had for me. So now that I'm on a massive deadline (manga is due in just over 48 hours) I of course get a huge audition this afternoon, lose all of tomorrow afternoon to an InDigital shoot, and feel like all my careful planning and scheduling to maximize creativity while minimizing panic has gone entirely out into a black hole somewhere.

While I struggle to fix some dialog that I used to like but really, really hate now, as well as  flesh out a scene that was originally a few panels but apparently wants to be two pages, please enjoy this week's Geek in Review: Five Ways to Make iTunes (more) Awesome:

Some people whistle while they work; I listen to music. Depending on where I'm working, I'll listen to iTunes or Amarok, and occasionally even put on the radio to remember why I stopped listening to the radio in the first place.

Even though Amarok blows iTunes away in many departments, I like iTunes, and believe it's a great bit of software, especially for users like my parents: it's easy to use, hard to break (unless you're really trying to fuck something up) and it looks pretty, especially since they integrated Cover Flow. I think iTunes can be better, though, and since I'm not a programmer (though I once played a Nanite creator on TV) I puzzled out some idealistic ways that I think iTunes could be dialed up a little bit closer to Awesome.

I kept a couple of criteria in mind as I made this list: I think the average iTunes user doesn't want to mess around with AppleScript or do anything which involves the command line. I think they enjoy many of the "set it and forget it" features iTunes incorporates (like scheduling podcast downloads, auto-updating iPods when you connect them, etc.,) and enjoy that (most of the time,) iTunes "just works."

(You can Digg or vote for it at Netscape, if you're into that sort of thing.)

All panic aside, this continues to be a tremendously exhilarating process, just in that "I've jumped from an airplane and I haven't found out if the parachute will open, yet" way.

it's better together

This is one of those ideas that could be really cool, or totally lame:

The WWdN: Music for Exile group at Last.fm.

If you like the music I write about on my blog, or share on my last.fm profile, and you'd like to connect and share music with other WWdN:iX readers, this group is for you. You won't find any Top 40 crap, but you will find Pink Floyd, Wilco, Depeche Mode, Oingo Boingo, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Nada Surf, The Conet Project, Death Cab for Cutie, Zeppelin, Miles Davis, Underworld and a ton of indie stuff you didn't even know you liked.

I realize that Music for Exile is kind of a lame title. I thought it was close to Music for Airports, and we all know that I enjoy an obscure reference that I ruin by over-explaining. The important thing is, for forty-six blissful seconds, I'm not bashing my head against a wall trying to fix the second act of this story.