/dev/null/kevin

Perhaps you've heard of the upcoming Led Zeppelin Reunion Tour.  Never mind that a true reunion would require a shovel, these guys are almost older than the Rolling Stones.  And they've been dead for years, right?

The new tour is going to require them to change a few of their songs:

New Led Zeppelin Song Titles:

UPDATE [09/13/2007]: Hey, I'm not the only one who thinks this thing could go south.  Who is the Robert Plant guy anyway?  Oh, right.  Look at this youthful face of rock n' roll.

For the record, I own every Led Zeppelin album released.  I even own a Dread Zeppelin reggae album.  However, I've also heard many of their later live performances and they're not very good.  Even Page's and Plant's solo live covers aren't good.  For whatever reason, they jumped the shark long ago.

Final Update [02/15/2008]: Does anyone remember laughter?

In one of the worst abuses of the DMCA, Universal Music had YouTube take down a 29 second video of a child dancing to Prince's song Let's Go Crazy.  Fortunately, the EFF, and the mom, are suing Universal for it.  YouTube also reinstated the video.

The EFF is claiming that 29 seconds falls within "fair use."  I hope they win, but what is completely ridiculous is that the music is just playing in the background.  It's not dubbed over.  No artist in the world could show that this video hurt their IP or affected their sales in any way.

OK, I'm getting old. And as such, I've earned the right to talk about the past.

As a child of the 80s, I've seen all sort of things go out of style, come back, and go out of style again (yes you, bell-bottom jeans and Donny Osmond). However, there are a few things that went away and I don't think are ever coming back.

Today's Edition: Music

• The Fade Out.
  Songs used to not end, they just faded out and got quieter and quieter. What was with that? How lazy are you to not write an ending for your song? I'm sure it played better on the radio or something, but with the iGeneration out there I don't think that's ever going to fly again.

• The Never-Ending Song
  While some songs faded out on the radio, the live version of a song might never end. Endless "solos" and schtick could prolong a song well past its expiration date. I'm listening to a live version of Y&T's song "Forever" and it's taking forever for this song to end. I checked and it took one minute and 20 seconds from the "last" note to when they actually stopped playing.

  
  

• The Gong.
  There was a time that every drummer had a huge gong behind him. We're talking 6 to 8 feet across here. It must have weighed 100 pounds, not including the huge stand required to hold it. And for what? How many songs needed that gong? One. Just one. And I don't mean "one song per band" - I mean one song in the history of songs. That song was Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. So unless you are Roger Taylor, it's back to Gong World for you.

  
  

• The Drum Solo.
  I'm picking on drummers since I am one, but the era of the self-indulgent drummer is over. Sorry guys. In the old days drummers like John Bohnam and Neil Peart would go off for hours while their band mates got high and scored with groupies (true!) but no more. The truth is, no one wants to hear it except the other drummers in the audience. The chicks all want the lead singer anyway.

• Kung Fu.
  OK, this might be limited to David Lee Roth and Van Halen, but you just don't see lead singers doing martial arts on stage any more. Is the world a better place? You decide.

  
  

• The Bridge.
  Don't know what a musical bridge is? It's neither the chorus nor the verse, but it ties the two together. It also takes some musical talent to write. Some bands think a bridge is a guitar solo or a rap break. Please. Some of these bands set the bar so low that I'm impressed if I get a key change out of them.

• Keyboards.
  Now of course bands have keyboards, but when was the last time you actually heard one played as a keyboard? Unless it's being a piano you don't. The keyboard has become an effects and sequencing system. You'll hear sustained chords and sampled sounds but you never hear that synth sound anymore. It must tough to be Jean Michel Jarre now.

Next up: Things you just don't see on TV anymore.

KSJO, 92.3 on your FM dial and the last real rock station in San Jose and the Bay Area, is no more. As of 7:00pm last night, it is now a Spanish music station. The last song they played was Wall Of Voodoo's Mexican Radio. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, however. I learned about their demise, not from listening, but from reading it in the paper. Read the full story.
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October 29, 2004 11:28 AM PDT Permalink | Comments [2] |

This slashdotted site (here is a new mirror site) talks about a robotic drum machine.  It brought back memories of building my own electronic drum set using piezoelectic sensors.  Even back then in the 1990s, the sensors were quite cheap and we got a bunch from Radio Shack.  At first, we just taped them to pizza boxes and plugged the into a cheap drum machine for sounds.  It was fun for an afternoon's worth of jamming, but not really practical.

So, the next week, I started building a more useful set. Instead of pizza boxes, I used actual Remo practice pads, since they had a realistic feel.  Additionally, they open up easily so you can place the sensor inside. The pads can also be mounted upside down so you're hitting the neoprene side and not the normal head.  This cuts down on the noise of the stick hitting the pad (which you normally want).  I wired up a snare, three toms and a kick drum.  The pads all mount to a practice pad frame that positions the pads like a drum set.

I built some "cymbals" using the front and back of a binder (cut out the middle spine).  It was funny to have rectangular cymbals. I also built a hi-hat out of a small pad and used a foot pedal as the open/close switch.  While it did work, it really wasn't as good as a real hi-hat.

I plugged all of the triggers into an Alesis D4 "brain" that was all the rage back then.  Viola! "Instant" drum set.  We had another jam session that weekend where I showed off the new and improved model.

But the story doesn't end there.  I few weeks later, I was playing in the pit for a performance of Little Shop of Horrors with Stanford's Ram's Head theater group.  The performace "hall" was quite small, and the pit was tiny.  In addition to the space limitation, the room was so small that the band was likely to overpower the singers.  The solution was an all electric band, now possible with my new electric set.  Fortunately, we had a couple more rehearsals to get the kinks worked out.

In the end, the performance was quite successful.  Drums have their best sounds when hit hard because you get all of the overtones, which creates a fuller sound.  I wouldn't have been able to get that same sound quality just playing very softly.  I've played in scores of musical theater shows, and this show remains one of my favorites.  The band was awesome and the cast was terrific.  I was very happy that my little hobby project had such a great payoff.

Since that show, I've used that set, or parts of it, several more times.  I added a DrumKat trigger pad (wow, prices have gone up!) and and keyboard so I can have things like tympani and mallet instruments (glock, chimes, xylophone) where I couldn't before.  I haven't played it in a while (new baby) was even thinking about selling it, but now I think I'll dust it off and set it up again.

My band will be playing at the Mountain View Small Brewers Festival this Saturday. We're a different kind of band, but people still like us. Remember, the more you drink, the better we sound!
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August 09, 2004 10:33 PM PDT Permalink | |