Central Scrutinizer

For a band that's aging (with its fans) it's a little frustrating that, while they included their lyrics in the gatefold, they made the type so itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny, tiny ...

I saw Jimmy at Levon Helm's a few years back. He was pseudo band director at a Midnight Ramble. He's a great guy, easy going, a lot of fun and a heckuva player.

But it's a big wang.

The value of the double-neck guitar is the drone -- particularly the 12-string neck. The other set of strings picks up the vibration. Nels playing a doubleneck with six strings also could afford alternate tunings between slide and standard. Interestng how offset the necks are in his guitar. They're show but it also has an impact musically.

Ibid.

That would require me to watch that movie a second time. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

Great, great lines: "Um, it’s got a camel on the cover—so I don’t know what more people can want." "... if anything, it’s the Whitman’s sampler record." "I think this band ... has become the definitive lineup of Wilco … I think this record is the least self-conscious and most confident of all the Wilco records. "I humbly submit that I have worked hard to get better. Beyond that, I can’t see getting beyond even the first round of “American Idol.” "We wear them very sparingly, because the fact is, most nights you put a Nudie suit on, you feel like an asshole." "I get bullshit from ol

What version of OS X are you running. If it's Leopard, Time Machine operating with an external drive will save a previous version of the whole drive, including OS if I understand correctly. You'd just revert to the last good version. That said, I have BounceBack, installed from another external device (Symantec, I believe, though the software isn't Symantec) that backs up the whole drive, applications, operating system and all.

I didn't see this before it was bumped. I would have wholeheartedly agreed with this assessment, but took my kids to see Coraline. The use of the technology in that film was subtle and astounding. I am confident that Pixar will use it in an equally creative and responsible way. Much as they're largely unsurpassed approach to computerized animation.

I'm betting they don't come with the house. I finally got mine framed and hung about a month ago. One of the best investments I've ever made.

I've been listening to this one and it's awesome. I love Casino Queen-meets-Tombstone Blues.

Max, I saw y'all in Jacksonville, Charleston and Cary, NC last year and each one was a treat! In several cases you guys just took songs in an entirely different direction, which was greatly appreciated.

Interesting Mike Campbell analogy.

That's not what I'm saying at all and I don't think you believe that either. Talent, artists are rare commodities so it's tough to get a break, all things being equal. Whether it's 1 to 1,000 or 1,000 to 1,000,000. My point is there is more of an opportunity for *anyone* to have access to the process. If the Beatles didn't develop like they did musically as well as artists, performers, writers and how they developed popularly, the whole DNA of music today would be different. They defined, as much as Dylan, the performer as artist, as writer/producer/icon. That is the indefinable quality o

I stand corrected. Everyone *should* create music. But Stevie has a point in that what made the Beatles great was honing their craft doing five shows a night and practicing in between. It was playing and replaying and dissecting the elements of the songs in order to borrow and build upon those elements to make arguably the greatest music since. Why shouldn't artists woodshed? They have much better tools than their ancestors, more basics at their disposal to recreate the greatest music. Young musicians doing cover songs in their bedrooms and videotaping it -- practicing a song a few times a

What is a constant? Technology isn't. Virtuosity could be; but that is not a threat of what is univerally considered the greatest music of the mid/late 20th century and early 21st. Art is harnessing the creative element and making a statement artistically. Rather than simply "too many notes." It's the haunting echoes that rattle around Sam Phillips' cramped studio. It's what Joey Ramone and Co. did with 3 chords. It's hi fi and lo fi and complex and simple and profound and brilliantly insipid. But comparing the business of music in Stevie's time to the essense of quality today is comparing a

I think there is documented proof that what you describe does not equate to an increase in quality music. It's called YouTube. Try a few hundred random songs recorded there. Lots of people have access to audio and video equipment and have the ability to make sounds. It doesn't mean they should. Even accounting for the larger number of views for a video being proportional to the quality of the video, what you have ready access too is predominately shite.

I would say the percentage of people with artistic talent is a constant. There are for several reasons more capable guitarists than at any time -- those reasons include better low-cost equipment (Chinese made bang-around guitars are better made than bangaround Mexican, Korean or Jpaanese guitarists or at least before they could be efficiently mass produced and distributed) but most importantly is the access to online insutrction, tabs, lessons, reinforcement -- as opposed to dropping the needle over and over again on a record in order to learn a song yourself -- certainly along the lines of wh

These are infinitely different times than those that spawned rock and roll from swing, R&B, country blues and jazz. The one constant has been the label (the Man), who decides who gets air time, under what conditions, how it gets distributed and who gets the cut. The rebellion against that system that became real rock and roll was thin veins to be mined -- radio stations and DJs that flew under the radar, dealers that would stock "forbidden music," and the live performances that drove the rhythm and sexuality home. The veins were thin but ran deep. Technology has flipped it over. The Man

Even within these models, no two guitars sound or "feel" alike. The odds of ordering/buying a guitar sight unseen and being 99.44% happy with it is 0.56%. Play a lot of 'em and one will jump out at you.

... you've been listening to the latest round of "I Know You Are, What Am I?"

He notes the comparison I've made to REM's Automatic for the People ("reached a much wider audience without compromising their artistic integrity"). However, I'm hoping that W(TA) is more akin to Out of Time and that a valid comparison to REM's greatest album will be the next one to come. I think that could come if Tweedy strove to please himself -- or set before himself the goal to create a masterpiece, not just to please his fans.

Honestly, I consider this fair-minded thinking. That said, I can forgive someone singing -- even a little off-key -- during a concert. What I can't abide by are people who are more caught up in their own (loud) conversation and oblivious to the concert that others paid good money to attend.

The daily e-mail blast Very short List noted this today. Jill Sobule had a hit with her 1995 single