The Tale of the Tape

I own a tape deck, a turntable and a VCR (and I’ve used two within the last week!), but even I had to do a double take at Time’s one-page feature this week on the resurgence of cassette tapes.  It seems that sales are up for both blank and re-recorded tapes, a surprising phenomenon given the digital revolution and the fact that even back in the day pre-recorded cassette tapes were the butt of jokes just shy of those for the 8-track.  Store-bought cassettes, it was widely known, were recorded on poor quality tapes that never sounded right on a good cassette deck.  The high ends were particularly bad and the overall sound couldn’t compare with that of LPs or CDs.  When I worked at a record store (remember those?) in 1991-1992, we sold thousands tapes, including a ridiculous number of cassette singles, and I couldn’t believe how many people were willing to shell out cash for such an inferior medium. 

Now I learn that new albums are being released on cassette and the collection of old tapes is gaining steam.  I truly didn’t see this coming.  Not two years ago, I finally decided that my studio needed to be freed of the cassette tapes that were mucking up coveted shelf-space and discarded several dozen.  Some were old store-bought tapes that my wife had accumulated, but most were Maxell XLII tapes of albums I’d collected over the years.  The thought that I could possibly sell these, or even find a home for them, was beyond comprehension.

Tapes were ubiquitous in the 70s and 80s.  For Christmas in 1978, I received a cheap cassette deck with a built-in microphone that my friends and I used it to record skits, but it was my brother’s purchase of a high-quality tape-deck that spurred daily recordings, be it songs off the radio, my own compositions, or copies of my LPs.  As soon as I purchased a vinyl LP, I transferred it onto tape in order to preserve the vinyl copy as well as have a more portable medium to play in the car.  So now if I play, say, my vinyl copy of Yes’s Going for the One, it should sound pristine, as it probably hasn’t been played more than twice since I purchased it. 

Maxell XLII was the tape of choice among my friends in the 80s, though some opted to pay the extra cash for the XLII-S.  Currently, in my now sparse collection of old tapes, I find I’ve got some of both.  The 90 minute tape was the norm, which was usually perfect because you could fit an album on each side, but some albums required a few extra minutes.  Hence, the 100 minute tape.  Genesis albums were the worst.  You could purchase a 100 minute tape, but even then you’d have to skip a track to fit, say, A Trick of the Tale onto one side. 

Aside from recording one’s own LPs, there were concerts to record off of Sunday night’s King Biscuit Flower Hour or interviews off of Monday night’s Rockline (which, I’ve come to learn, it still going strong after 32 years.  Nice!).  More important were the recordings shared between friends.  An old girlfriend made me a concert tape of Bruce Springsteen’s second night at Alpine Valley in 1984, a particularly cool memento given that I’d attended the concert the day before.  Other friends of mine made me mix tapes, exposing me to terrific bands and recordings I would have never heard on my own (Cracker’s version of the Carpenter’s song, “Rainy Days and Mondays”?  Fantastic!).  These, I haven’t the heart to get rid of.  I still have a box of cassettes, including many recordings of my own compositions in the 1980s and several copies of my first two albums, Meals and Ulcers (1992) and Rocks Off On Humboldt (1996).

And even though I don’t have copies of the mix tapes I gave to potential girlfriends, I like to think that scattered amongst the attics of the United States, these tapes still exist, little fragments of a guy with hopes that the beautiful female specimen might look at him in a different light.

One mix tape hit pay-dirt. 

I still have the tape I made for my future wife in 1993 when she was just a hope.  Looking at it now, I wonder why the hell I didn’t include more selections from the very solid year of 1992.  Where is the REM?  Peter Gabriel?  Lemonheads?  XTC?  But oh well.  It’s a little snapshot of a lovesick boy.  And it got the job done.

“A WONDERFUL LITTLE MIX”

Side A

These are Days – 10,000 Maniacs

Loveable – Elvis Costello

Under African Skies – Paul Simon

Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell

Be My Number Two – Joe Jackson

Chuck E.’s In Love – Rickie Lee Jones

Oh Daddy – Adrian Belew

Sail Away – Randy Newman

High Flying Bird – Elton John

Saturday – The Judy Bats

Don’t Get Me Wrong – The Pretenders

Umbrella – Innocence Mission

Taking My Life In Your Hands – Elvis Costello

Earn Enough for Us – XTC

It’s My Job – Jimmy Buffett

Side B

Late in the Evening – Paul Simon

Candy Everybody Wants – 10,000 Maniacs

The Woman’s Work – Kate Bush

Showdown at Big Sky – Robbie Robertson

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters – Elton John

Real Emotional Girl – Randy Newman

The Greatest Thing – Elvis Costello

Stranger than Fiction – Joe Jackson

The Wonder of Birds – The Innocence Mission

She’s Mad – David Byrne

Selections from Randy Newman’s score to the movie Avalon.

McCartney Sweats it out in Milwaukee

It’s a little bizarre that a man only four years younger than my father is able to transfix an audience in sweltering heat for just short of three hours.  On Tuesday night at Miller Park in Milwaukee, Paul McCartney, forty-nine years after taking the U.S. by storm with The Beatles, played his heart out, shirt soaked with sweat, and gave a performance that fans are sure to remember for another forty-nine years.  Just as with Springsteen’s recent concerts, last night’s show begged the question: why don’t all performers work as hard and show as much appreciation as this guy does?  If a seventy-one year old McCartney can do it, why not (fill in the blank of some of the lame performances you’ve seen lately)?

After seeing McCartney in 2005, I decided that I wasn’t going to attend any more of his shows.  I’d noticed he’d aged in the two years since I’d seen him last, and I didn’t want to see this iconic singer/songwriter continue to degrade before my eyes.  But allowing my son to see him this time around changed my mind, and eight years later, McCartney almost seems to have become younger, withstanding the blistering heat and deftly managing a set list that didn’t once take him out of the spotlight.

Of particular note last night was the setlist, offering surprises that left many of the die-hard fans elated.  For me, the inclusion of “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five” was worth the price of admission alone, but he surprised with other songs: “Junior’s Farm,” “Hi, Hi, Hi,” “Listen to What the Man Said,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” and several songs never performed live before this tour, including “Lovely Rita,” “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” “Another Day,” and “Your Mother Should Know.”  One of the most effective songs of the evening was another unexpected song, “Mrs. Vanderbilt” from his largely represented Band on the Run album, as even the unfamiliar in the crowd willingly shouted out the “Ho, Hey Ho” refrain. 

McCartney’s skipping of thirty years of repertoire between Tug of War’s “Here Today” and last year’s “My Valentine” is about the only criticism I could possibly make of the show.  It would have been cool if Paul had at least made a gentle nod to his compositions of the 80s and 90s, substituting a couple of the lesser interesting Beatles tunes for “Stranglehold,” “My Brave Face,” “Off the Ground” or “The World Tonight.”  But this is quibbling.  Backed my his proficient band of the last decade, the performances were uniformly fantastic, almost to a fault at times as keyboardist Paul Wickens recreated nearly note for note the brass and saxophone parts from McCartney’s repertoire, though his strings were a nice addition on songs like “Eleanor Rigby,” “The Long and Winding Road” and “Yesterday.”  Band members Rusty Anderson, Brian Ray and the particularly entertaining drummer Abe Laboriel Jr., supported McCartney throughout, and their impeccable backing vocals helped to mask McCartney’s weakening upper register.  Paul’s falsetto, however, required no masking, as showcased on songs like “Something” and “Maybe I’m Amazed.”  That he still has such brilliant falsetto at seventy-one is amazing to me, and it’s a skill that, if lost, would perhaps cause him to call it a day on live performing.

Ending the show with “Helter Skelter” and the last of the Abbey Road medley, McCartney completed a sampling of what is likely the most impressive repertoire of a live performer today.  There were audience members in attendance who had seen McCartney play in Milwaukee in 1964 with The Beatles.  I doubt they saw as good a show then as they did last night.

Song Forms: Doing away with AABA

Paul Simon once wrote the lyric, “I seem to lean on old familiar ways.”  And so it is for most songwriters, Simon included.  When it comes to song structure, inertia is strong, and few writers deviate substantially from one of two general song forms: AABA (most jazz songs follow this format, many show tunes, and several pop songs as well.  Think “Yesterday” by the Beatles) and, with modest modifications, ABAB (more identifiable as verse, chorus, verse, chorus, often adding a bridge after the second chorus).  Composers do it almost without thought, which makes exceptions all the more impressive.  Sure, it might not take a genius to write a song with the form ABCDCBA, but it’s not something that occurs to most people, so in that sense, maybe it does take a genius to compose a song in an interesting format, if only because no one else thought to do it.

Which means maybe JamesTaylor is a genius.  His 1991 song, “Shed a Little Light,” follows that song form – ABCDCBA - and somehow makes it flow nicely and memorably.  You would think after four sections foregoing repetition, the listener would be left to flounder, lost in a sea of unfamiliarity, but JT pulls it off impressively.  Most listeners probably aren’t even aware that the song is proceeding to unexplored territory; they’re only aware that the song continues to move forward, to gain momentum, before reversing the momentum and slowing to a halt, as if completing a four-minute train ride.

Of course, composers don’t need to go to these lengths to inject new life into their songwriting.  Even slight alterations from the standard formats can be inspiring.  For example, instead of following a format such as verse – chorus – verse – chorus – bridge – chorus, what about pushing the bridge up, or repeating it, or adding a second unique bridge?  Elvis Costello does a particular good job of mixing up song sections.  Consider the following song from his 1994 release: Brutal Youth:

“London’s Brilliant Parade”

Verse – Chorus – Bridge – Verse – Chorus – Verse – Chorus

ABCABAB

What I particularly like is the addition of a bridge immediately after the chorus, delaying the return to a verse.  I borrowed this technique for my song, “No Point In Seeing Me Through” from my album Pause.  After the first chorus I go to a bridge before returning to the verse.  To me, this keeps the song moving forward, plus I add a modulation up a step for the final verse before returning to the original key for the final chorus.

Costello song forms deviate even further in some of his compositions by repeating a bridge or by adding a second bridge (The labels of the song sections I use here are relatively irrelevant, and likely disputable, for in some of these songs each of the sections carry nearly equal weight):

“The Other Summer Side”

Verse – Chorus – Bridge – Chorus – Bridge – Verse – Chorus

ABCBCAC

“All Grown Up”

Verse – Chorus – Bridge – Chorus – Different Bridge – Verse – Chorus – Different Bridge

ABCBDABD

Even a successful song, like Costello’s modest 1989 hit, “Veronica,” can depart from the usual fare.  Here, Costello and Paul McCartney inject the bridge in a different place: after the second verse.  A very unusual tactic, but, in my find, an effective one.

“Veronica”

Verse – Chorus- Verse – Bridge – Chorus – Verse –Chorus

ABACAB

It’s odd that in light of these and countless other examples, so many songwriters – me included – continue to follow the formats we’ve grown accustomed to over the years.  Perhaps it’s time to try a little harder to mix things up.

Sara Bareilles in Milwaukee

Playing a solo show in front of a small audience in an intimate setting has got to be one of the most difficult tasks to pull off well.  Last Friday, my daughters and I had the pleasure of seeing Sara Bareilles at one of the coolest venues I’ve ever been to: Milwaukee's Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center Auditorium, a hall that seats 435 in an odd, miniaturized arena-like setting.

In the midst of a short solo tour to drum up support for her forthcoming album, The Blessed Unrest, Bareilles seems very much at ease in the more intimate setting, eager to exchange quips with fans, and exhibiting that rare quality of being witty while still coming off as appreciative and sincere.  

Bareilles’s piano chops are adequate, not brilliant, and her guitar work is similarly restrained, but none of that really mattered, because the star of the show was her vocal work on top of well-crafted pop songs.  She’s got some serious pipes, with far more dexterity and control that I could have anticipated.  As she effortlessly glided above the chord progressions of her new tune, “Manhattan,” to a perfectly hushed audience, Bareilles’s voice reminded me of Nora Jones with more of an edge.  Unlike Jones, Bareilles has just enough anger, as exhibited in songs like “Love Song” and “King of Anything,” to make her repertoire varied and interesting.

What I like about Bareilles, and what made me particularly eager to take my daughters to the show, is the strong nature of her lyrics.  Rarely do you find a performer whose words are both positive yet unyielding, vulnerable yet confident.  Even her angry songs don’t lash out at her victims.  Instead, they reveal her strength, as if to say, “You’re simply not good enough for me.”  Whether or not it’s been her intention as a performer, assisting girls and women to raise the bar in their love lives had been a fine byproduct of her career.

Her new song, “Brave,” co-written with Fun’s Jack Antonoff, couldn’t have a more fitting message, especially for teenagers: be who you are and don’t be afraid to speak out.  It’s not filled with f-bombs.  It doesn’t play the victim.  It doesn’t lay blame.  It just inspires. 

Bareilles’s 90 minute performance left the small crowd happy, even after the odd encore of Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”  But in a way, her rendition of this classic song exemplified the entire evening: her sparse arrangement cultivated a more creative approach, allowing for minor tempo and harmonic modifications, not to mention adlibbed vocal parts, that resulted in just enough unpredictability to make the song sound new again.

No small feat.

Sara's new album is due out in July.

Big Fish - The Musical

Producing a musical based on a movie based on a book, the 2003 film having only grossed $66 million domestically, ranking 43^rd for that year, takes some serious chutzpah.  The producers must have been sold on a huge leap of faith: that Big Fish is going to translate so well on stage compared to the film, it won’t need to rely on a built-in audience the way other musicals have (Dirty Dancing, The Lion King, The Addams Family, etc.).  Watching one of the final performances of Big Fish’s pre-Broadway run in Chicago last evening in a mostly empty balcony, I got the sense that the show will need to be tweaked in order to fulfill its promise, and even that might not be enough.  I actually enjoyed the show a great deal and was happy to have spent the money to see it.  But spectacular stage sets with creative use of multimedia, superb acting and singing by the three leads, and some fine melodies aside, there are three improvements the musical needs to make before it debuts in New York in September.

First, the show could benefit from a few reprises to help ingrain the finer of composer/lyricist Andrew Lippa’s melodies into the audience’s minds.  Some tunes are one-offs, pleasant little ditties that serve their purpose in one take (both ”I Know what you Want” and “Bigger” hit the mark beautifully), but others, most notably “This River Between Us” and “Daffodils,” could have benefitted from a reprisal, even if just in passing within a different tune.  Motifs are important in musicals or in any other extended work, and Big Fish suffers without them. 

Second, the ending of the first act, “Daffodils,” aims very high but falls just a bit flat.  I could tell what they were going to do minutes before it arrived, and I sensed that they were attempted to hit the high mark set by musicals such as Wicked’s “Defying Gravity” or, more probable, Sunday in the Park with George, when Georges Seurat’s masterpiece is displayed in all its radiant glory, but the field of Daffodils didn’t provide the lift they were meant to.  The result certainly can’t be classified as a Spinal Tap moment (when a miniature Stonehenge arrives on stage to the embarrassment of the band), but it should have made a bigger impact.  This will need to be rectified in New York.

Third is most problematic.  Like the film, the stage production of Big Fish lacks a plot.  There is nothing particularly dramatic to move the story forward.  A father with a penchant to tell tall takes and a son who wants to see the real man behind the stories don’t see eye to eye.  Big deal.  Additional conflict is required to keep the audience engaged.  There is a reveal at the end of Act One that’s meant to advance the plot, but to me, it wasn’t terribly important or interesting.  Suspected infidelity?  From a son who already doesn’t respect his father?  That’s hardly enough to fill a second act.

I’m not suggesting that the story be something it isn’t.  For me, fictional works of realistic people in realistic situations are always more interesting than fanciful creations, so why not throw some additional tension into the story?  Both of the wives, Sandra Bloom and Josephine Bloom, are left to play the role of supportive, one-dimensional characters: never bothered, always understanding, unrealistically wise.  How about making them human?  One or two additional scenes – a conflict between the son and his new bride, or between the son and his mother – would likely be enough to keep Big Fish from feeling like a day of casting on a calm lake.

Big Fish is clearly a labor of love for writer John August, Andrew Lippa and director Susan Stroman.  A few more waves, or even a white cap or two, might be enough to turn this beautifully done production into a sustainable Broadway musical.