Notes from a Corporate Life: Thoughts on information and libraries in corporations, music and other things.

Mother Jones released a list and sampling of what is allegedly some of the music that guards and interrogators use in American military prisons to 'induce sleep deprivation...and disorient detainees during interrogations'.

A visit to this site is not complete without looking at the comments. People have contributed their own songs to be used as torture, question the validity of the list, and praise or discredit the choices ('I would gladly be tortured by those songs' 'DEICIDE!!!').

Whether or not this is a 'real' list, it's fascinating in many ways. One of the interesting things about this list is the 'genres' it includes. Sure, we've got the hard-core stuff that is intimidating just in itself (Metallica, Dope, etc.), but you've also got the Sesame Street and Barney theme songs, the Meow Mix commercial, The Bee Gees, Don McLean (American Pie), Neil Diamond, David Gray (Babylon - interesting choice) and Prince.

A few of these are good 'torture propaganda' songs, I guess, for want of a better word - Eminem's 'White America', for example. ('Born in the USA' is, of course, misused as it always is.) The Deicide and Dope stuff - and I'm guessing the Christina Aguilera - is obviously on the list because the music and/or topics are inherently offensive to most people, but probably thought most offensive to Muslim prisoners.

Let's face it, if you listen to any song at high volume over and over again without sleep and food, you'll go crazy. This kind of activity is, indeed, torture. Beyond everything that's wrong with any kind of torture to begin with, it's especially perverse to use music to torture. (As a side note, what does this say about music and power?)

But here's what's interesting to me. This list is so subjective. Barney and Sesame Street and Neil Diamond and the Bee Gees are a comment on the music itself: 'I hate this, so I'll impose it on you'.

With AC/DC, Deicide and Dope, though, these are very likely from soldiers' own personal playlists - stuff they listen to all the time anyway.

What does using one's favorite music to torture say about its effect on the listener who WANTS to listen to it? We go back to 'I would gladly be tortured by these songs.'

Are we torturing ourselves with our own music?

I'm not against free expression - you can listen to what you want to. In the film 'High Fidelity', the main character Rob wonders whether we're miserable and so listen to pop music, or whether pop music makes us so miserable. I wonder about this sometimes for myself - why am I listening to this? What am I getting from it? How is it affecting me?

When someone surrounds themselves with music like Deicide and Dope, how does that affect them?

Granted - these soldiers are in one of the most horrific man-made situations ever, all the time, every day. Anyone in that situation needs some support, often in whatever form he or she can get it. For me, I know, I use music as a refuge. But why surround yourself with more hate and horror through music? What good can that possibly do anyone, in the war or outside of it?

...also known as Huddie Ledbetter. I discovered Leadbelly's music while in college and working at the public library. To its credit, the Santa Cruz Public Library at that time had a very good vinyl collection, including lots of early folk and jazz music. For a while there, I was way into early folk and field recordings - and I still just love the sound of them. In addition to the music itself, which is often phenomenal and unique, it just sounds like history to me. I'm always floored when I hear a good field recording.

At that time, I came across the amazing recordings of Leadbelly from John Lomax and his son, Alan Lomax, that they had recorded for the Library of Congress in the 1930s. (Thank you, Library of Congress! And thank you Rounder Records for making this stuff available.)

Back when I discovered the vinyl records, I recorded a lot of it to cassette tape, and unfortunately lost some of them over time. I recently discovered that you could download a lot of these recordings from iTunes. Phew!

The Library of Congress recordings not only contain some great early recordings - including much better versions of songs that became his signature songs later - but also contained conversations that Huddie and Alan Lomax had about the blues, the origins and terminology of the songs, and about Huddie's life.

These conversations are as much a pleasure to listen to as are the songs. Where else will you hear phrases like 'sookie jump'? Often times Huddie will sing a little snippet of a song to illustrate a point, and these snippets themselves are some of the most surprising and satisfying pieces of music you'll ever hear. Huddie can sing a line like 'one dollar bill, baby, won't buy you no shoes' like nobody's business.

I was listening to some of his music this morning and marveling once again at the richness of these recordings and the music. Somewhere in the past, I picked up bits and pieces of lore about Huddie and his music:

• He played 12-string guitar, but tuned both strings to the same pitch, in order to get a louder sound. This was mainly to compete with the strength of his voice. When you listen to these early recordings, you can hear the mike distorting regularly due to the sheer volume of his voice. With a little effort, you can imagine what it might sound like live and in person.

• From the accounts I've read, there is a lot of debate about some of the facts of his life. For example, the entry in Wikipedia claims that his release from a Louisiana prison was due to good behavior. Huddie believed that it was due to his song, 'Governor O.K. Allen', an appeal to be pardoned; others more cynically believe that the Lomaxes persuaded the Governor to release Huddie because he was such a goldmine of songs. I imagine the truth is somewhere in there; I don't know where it is, but I love all of it.

• While he started out playing blues and barrelhouse tunes from his youth, Huddie later pulled his songs from what was happening around him, resulting in songs like 'The Roosevelt Song', 'Turn Yo Radio On', and 'Scottsboro Boys'. These are fascinating to listen to, because Huddie captured a contemporary phenomenon, a moment in time, which in many cases became pieces of history. It's history being told in the present tense.
  

I've read some negative things about Huddie - his rough early life, how he was frustrated toward the end of his life with his level of success, the truth in some of the claims he made. These may be true or they may be not. Like all great artists, that all falls away when he starts singing. Damn, it's good music.

I'm crazy for Vampire Weekend right now. If you need a few summer songs, check 'em out at their website and on MySpace. Despite the name (which brings up shades of Goth - nothing like Say Hi To Your Mom, though I know you could argue against that group being Goth, either), they are breezy and upbeat: "Their lyrics are endearingly wordy, delivered in a smooth, crystal-clear voice by singer/guitarist Ezra Koenig. The accompanying music is an expertly crafted, loving homage to first-wave ska, full of infectious, hard-to-follow drumming and squiggly guitar fills and melodies that reveal the influence of South African music — or at the very least, Graceland, which would be fine too." They are on tour; I'm going to try to catch them in San Francisco on the 18th (even though the show is sold out).

Well, hopefully you're not convinced I'm a total crackpot at this point and I still have some credibility :)

On the lighter side, I just wanted to share with you a few resources I use to find new music.

My top sources are some of KEXP's podcasts - KEXP is based out of Seattle and offers several terrific podcasts. My favorites are KEXP's Song of the Day, which provides you a free song every day of the working week, and KEXP's Music that Matters (from which several of the Songs of the Day are drawn), which is usually about an hour podcast with a variety of awesome music. You'll also find live music podcasts and other really interesting stuff on KEXP's website.

The reason these are my top sources is because of the variety of music offered. I generally tend towards alternative/power pop/punk kind of stuff, but I also like a bunch of other types of music (marimba, world, low-fi, dance, electronica), and KEXP really does a great job of mixing together a lot of interesting music.

Probably my second source is Pandora, which is essentially streaming online radio, but with a twist - you specify an artist or even a particular song, and Pandora will find similar music, based on attributes of the music. From the Pandora site: 'Together our team of fifty musician-analysts has been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes!'

In other words, it's music matching done by humans. Literally you have 50 DJs out there, finding music you might like. Pretty amazing stuff. And, the interface makes it easy for you to rate songs, to save songs or groups, etc.

Through these two sources, I find a lot of great music. I know there are a ton of other sources out there - if you have some you're really interested in, let me know.

Scott