Music

The Smartest Guys in the Room: Remembering George Martin and Keith Emerson

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Celebrated personages have been dropping like flies lately, from that Oscar-winning savior of airplanes George Kennedy to Sir Ken Adam, the man who designed the greatest James Bond sets and a war room made for fighting. As friend of the Recorder Fred Pelzer tweeted at me, “We’re hitting peak baby boomers. It’s going to be this way for the next while.”

George in Old Age Emerson Live

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two deaths in the past week especially stood out to me as the product of being raised on the rock ‘n’ roll my parents and my uncles. Sir George Martin, born in 1926, and Keith Emerson, born in 1944, were two musical figures who could both be considered the smartest guys in the room: they were men of technical brilliance and great creativity that outshone many. They used their gifts in very different and rewarding ways.

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ALL The Genres: The 2015 Album of the Year Nominees

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Here’s one of the biggest surprises of 2015 for me: one of the organizations best reflecting the American people is the NARAS. The five nominees for the Album of the Year Grammy each come from a different genre: pop, rock, rap, country, and the blend of soul and electronica that Abel Tesfaye creates. Moreover, for the first time in the three years I have written this round-up, every nominee topped the Billboard album charts. What you’re about to read is truly populist representation. You might agree it’s among the best of the world’s music. You also might find some of it pandering, annoying, or unlistenable. Me, I would have added Florence + The Machine, Father John Misty, and the first bootleg of the Grateful Dead’s Soldier Field shows—but who wants to carry the mantle of American taste on their shoulders?
That said, comments welcome!

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A Primer for the Concert for Chicago

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Friday, September 18 at 6:30, Chicago hosts one of its best annual free events. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra will perform their “Concert for Chicago” at Millennium Park with two classical masterworks from the nineteenth century. It will be a great night for wine-and-cheese picnics and quality time under the stars (or the Pritzker roof if it rains), but some people may feel unsure about attending a show where they know little to nothing about the performance. Hence, the Addison Recorder offers this handy primer!

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A Family Affair: Foo Fighters Live at Wrigley Field

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There is a casual tendency to observe the entirety of human culture as one long progression towards an evolved singular form – a belief that early art influenced the next wave influenced the next and so on, each form building on what came before it and improving it, making it better in pursuit of the ultimate form. There are truths and fallacies to this, to be sure – musical techniques have come a long way since Gregorian chants, but to say that the ultimate evolution of music ends with, say, “Uptown Funk” is to oversimplify the position. Music grows and changes, but is never a “set form” – there is no textbook end-all-be-all summation that says that this is the pinnacle of musical achievement, that it does not and will never get better than this.

Anyway, that’s all moot, because while Dave Grohl may not be the pinnacle of rock and roll evolution, he’s really fucking good at rocking out.

Yours truly took in the Foo Fighters at Wrigley Field on Saturday night, August 29th, 2015. Standing in the field, buffeted by rain, spilled beer, and thousands upon thousands of fans with no clear concept of concert etiquette (SERIOUSLY, YOU CANNOT COME ANY FURTHER FORWARD, BACK UP ALREADY, FOH CRAZY LADY), some friends and I took in three opening acts before having our minds melted and reforged into explosive particles by Dave Grohl’s band for two and a half hours. To recount this on a song by song basis would trivialize the night – so here’s the setlist if you’re curious about which greatest hits were rolled out. (Spoiler alert – all of them) [Read more…]

In the Heart of the Nation: The Titanic Spectacle of Taylor Swift

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The first impression is a memory from high school. My mother and I attend a sold-out performance of Mamma Mia! and cursory examination reveals I am one of a dozen men in the audience. Rarely in my life have I felt like such an interloper.

Taylor Live

Saturday night was this multiplied by fifty-five. Soldier Field is jammed with women and girls, wearing a mix of official merchandise, homemade T-shirts, and their finest dresses. There is plenty of red lipstick and homemade electric signs casting light in the darkening sky. This is Taylor Nation, and they have come to experience the biggest singer-songwriter in the world.

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“We will get by, we will survive.” The Last Concert of the Grateful Dead

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Glide

They were there for hours that hot summer day and I know because I was there for hours, too, walking through the greenery by the Field Museum and the south parking lot. I saw people begging for spare tickets holding up signs reading “I need a miracle.” I saw people in dirty khakis sitting on the grass playing acoustic guitars and selling everything from bottled water to jerk chicken burritos, from jewelry to bowls. I saw tailgaters who gave anyone who liked their little set-up a free beer. I saw elementary school girls bravely dressed in teddy bear costumes. I saw more tie-dye and vintage T-shirts (not thrift store vintage but owned and lived in for years, cherished vintage) then I’ll ever see in one place again.

It was the largest audience in the history of Soldier Field – 71,000 people – and they had gathered to see history that was not just Chicago’s but America’s. They came to see the last performance of the Grateful Dead.

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Best Coast’s “California Nights,” Reviewed

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Best Coast puts me in a good place, even though they play almost exclusively sad music. Reigning Queen of Upbeat Beach Songs with Downer Lyrics Bethany Cosentino teamed up again with musician Bobb Bruno for California Nights. The album came out May 5 and follows up 2012’s The Only Place and 2013’s Fade Away with more energetic songs about medicating depression.

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Mr. Rostan at the Movies (and Music): All Or Nothing with Ol’ Blue Eyes

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Andrew Rostan was a film student before he realized that making comics was his horrible destiny, but he’s never shaken his love of cinema. Every two weeks, he’ll opine on current pictures or important movies from the past.

Capitol Sinatra

His mother spoke over fifty dialects of Italian and helped neighborhood girls with abortions. His father was a barkeep who boxed under the last name O’Brien because people thought only the Irish could fight. His voice teacher was a drunk ex-opera singer who lived over a restaurant in New York. He was friends with lawbreakers and Presidents. He was a teen idol who became an institution.

Charlton Heston said at a testimonial dinner that every one of his songs sounded like a four-minute movie. Frank Sinatra, who celebrates his centennial this year (and died seventeen years ago today), had a past that fueled a lifetime of stories.

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Should You Watch It? HBO’s Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

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Image from Montage of HeckOn Monday, May 4th, HBO unveiled a new documentary about the life and demise of tortured Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, directed by Brett Morgen. A quick trip to Wikipedia will tell you that this is the first documentary about the singer/guitarist to be made with the cooperation of the Cobain family. It’s currently streaming on HBO Go after debuting at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

So, you’re probably wondering: should I watch this documentary?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: Here’s why.

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