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Reba

Published
by
Paul Aitken
on May 15, 2007
in General and Music
. 3 Comments

One of the great things about my involvement in music, both as a practitioner and as an academic, is that every year I am fortunate enough to be introduced to new music. Recently, when this happens I also find myself readdressing my musical history, in particular, favourite artists from my past that I had for one reason or another stopped listening to as much as I once did. Last year, the new band was Coheed & Cambria, courtesy of my 15 year old cousin, which led me to turn back to Rush and some of the heavier music of my high school years (Metallica, Van Halen). This year, I became acquainted (obsessed is perhaps a better word) with Umphrey’s McGee, courtesy of my friend Alex. Umphrey’s, with their incredible blend of jamband and prog rock aesthetics, inspired me to go back and listen with fresh ears to one of my favourite bands, Phish.

In doing so, I find that I come back, time and time again, to Trey Anastasio’s incredible guitar work on Phish’s quirky but epic “Reba” from 1990’s Lawnboy. I have always held the guitar solo from the studio version as an example of a “perfect” guitar solo, if there can be such a thing. I saw Phish a few times live (Concert Hall-Masonic Temple, Toronto 04/06/1994, The Great Went, Limestone, ME 08/16/1997, 08/17/1997 and Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids, MI 11/11/1998) but I never once saw a live “Reba”. I have been on a bit of a Phish binge recently, and have been focussing on a lot of the Live Phish series, a great many of which come with “Reba’s”, to my delight. After hearing a few, I went on a search for “the best ‘Reba’ ever” and have since been compiling, when time permits, as many as I can get my hands on. I have also spent some time paring them down so I can listen to endless “Reba” “jam sections” (the guitar solo has evolved in the live setting to be oh so much more!) over and over, in a row, without being interrupted by the rest of the tune. These days I find myself returning over and over again to the classic New Year’s eve performance at Madison Square Garden (12/31/1995), this “Reba” solo has all but displaced the studio version as my new idea of what “perfect” might sound like.

Take a listen to both for yourself (or right-click on the titles to download)!

Reba (Lawnboy, 1990) (MP3, 7mb)

Reba (Madison Square Garden, NYC, NY 1995) (MP3, 15.5mb)

You can also see this being performed here (solo begins around 5′50″).

Some highlights from the Madison Square Garden solo (time indicators are for the above edited MP3):

  • It begins ever so quietly with Trey’s simple phrase, based on an alternation between two notes, which bassist Mike Gordon picks up on (0’34”) and is given some space to play around with as Trey eases back a bit.
  • A trademark staccato high note to begin Trey’s next phrase (0’43”) which picks up on the descending line established by Mike moments earlier.
  • Trey just milks the arpeggio at 1’12”, using it, in the same way as Coltrane would often do, almost as a pedal point, returning to it several times while embellishing it as the solo progresses.
  • The tone at 1’32” just “pops” out at you, as my friend Alex would say!
  • There is a rapturous pedal-point section at 2’11” and at this point I’m just in awe of the way that these four men could communicate onstage. This precedes a return to a two note pattern that echoes the opening phrase (2’30”).
  • 3’03”-3’09” Trey picks up on keyboardist Paige McConnell’s descending line, and Paige responds in kind.
  • The phrase that just gets me every time is the little golden nugget we get 3’38”-3’41” where you can here that Trey has switched to the bridge pick-up and has (likely) engaged the first of two Ibanez Tube Screamer overdrive pedals. We’re preparing for lift off here babies!
  • 3’49”-4’06” another arpeggio to milk, singing high note “poppin’” out atcha!
  • 5’06”, that’s the second Tube Screamer, and anticipates the beautiful legato line from 5’10”-5’15”.
  • Classic Trey 05’25”-5’40” (not that the rest of the solo isn’t, mind).
  • Triumphant is the only word I’ve ever been able to think of that describes the kind of phrasing he uses between 6’04-6’12”.
  • 6’23”-6’27”: How in the hell do you make that crazy bend on a guitar with no whammy bar? It’s so…seamless.
  • The phrase that begins at 7’22” is superb, listen to the way he plays the line several times and then speeds up the rhythm, playing the same notes, towards the end (7’26”).
  • The upper register face-melting that brings us home from 7’53” onwards is just gold.

I mean really, the whole damn thing is fantastic. The sensitivity of Paige’s piano playing is great to listen to after you’ve got past a few listens to Trey’s solo. Mike and drummer Jon Fishman aren’t slouches either. This performance is a great example of how what in another band would be “just a guitar solo” can turn into a serious bit of group improvisation where the guitar is really just another voice, albeit a prominent one.

Now, if you play, go play.

Teh Broken Interwebs

Published
by
Paul Aitken
on May 11, 2007
in General, Teaching and Tech
. 0 Comments

My web host decided to upgrade their servers without telling anyone first and as a result I was without my primary email account for the last five days. Honestly, I had to start rerouting to people to my (gasp!) gmail account, an account that I was trying to hold in secret until the end of the world when the only things left are google services and everyone has been googlefied.  I never thought that I would be so agitated at having to go without my main email, I guess it just shows what an integral part of my daily communicative actions email has become.  To top it all off, there were some troubles with the class website for the class I am teaching this summer.  The Interwebs are conspiring against me.

In other news, I am once again back in Halifax teaching the history of popular music course “The Rock’n'Roll Era and Beyond”.  The first week of classes is almost over and, as I expected, it has already been so much fun.  I just get a huge kick out of teaching.  It also helps that I have the privelege of teaching this particular course, I have been living with this music all my life, the only real difference is I get to talk about it at length with an interested group of students (and get paid for it!).

Today was one of those amazing Halifax days where one wakes up in a literal fog.  I couldn’t see three feet out of my window, such was the thickness of the fog over the penninsula.  And then, as suddenly as it had come late last night, the fog disappeared and I could see straight out of window across to Dartmouth.

Some links to lift the fog off the web a little:

  • Claire works for cookthink now, and also has a good article up on blogcritics.
  • danah boyd keeps putting out amazing stuff on social networking.
  • It appears that Condoleeza Rice was, not surprisingly, involved in some pretty shady dealings with Chevron and Iraq.
  • Tony Blair is stepping down, Gordon Brown likely to repalce him.  I don’t know what to think - Bush’s lap-dog is gone, which is good, but Gordon Brown is a pretty scary character too, responsible for many of the “administrative” (er…surveillance) aspects of contemporary British daily life. I also hate the whole “Prime-minister in waiting” bullshit. What does it say about democracy when we start assuming who will lead a country, and when the mainstream media simply fuels the “inevitability” by focussing on this one potential leader?

YouTurkey

Published
by
Paul Aitken
on March 7, 2007
in Democracy, General, Media and Politics
. 0 Comments

I read today that the Turkish court has banned Turkish Internet users from accessing YouTube. The reason is that recently there has been a “virtual war” of sorts between Greeks and Turks who are using YouTube to post videos that insult each other’s cultures. The offending video reportedly insults Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s early 20th C revolutionary founder.

The CBC appropriated a disappointing Associated Press article on the matter and ends with the following:

“It’s not the first time YouTube has been banned. The Australian state of Victoria recently banned it from government schools in a crackdown on cyber-bullying after a gang of male students videotaped their assault on a 17-year-old girl on the outskirts of Melbourne.”

It is already troublesome to see that schools are banning YouTube access, danah boyd writes on similar problematic practices involving the Deleting Online Predators Act in the United States. It is always unfortunate that, as my grandmother would say “one bad apple has to spoil the lot”.

However, I think the linking the particular instance of assault to the large-scale restriction of communication technologies because a video was taken badly by a government that sends people to prison for “Insulting Turkishness”. I recoil at the notion of the assault on the 17 year old, and certainly would want the perpetrators to come to justice. But I certainly don’t equate posting a video of someone hurling an insult at a historical figure in the category of a crime, and certainly it doesn’t warrant restricting the freedoms of the Turkish citizenry to free access to the Internet – but unfortunately the Turkish government does.

This illustrates the very slippery slope that comes with considering too heavy-handed regulation of communications technologies.  At points it may be useful to monitor activity (such as porn in schools, or bullying) but not to the point of shutting down access to these sites.  In the case of the Turksih, it’s just another excercise in exerting control over the population, a common practice inTurkey, where the events of early 20th C Armenian Genocide are not even taught in Turkish schools (not even without the term genocide) thus prohibiting informed debate.  If governments shut down access to the opinions of those with whom they disagree, then effective debate is nullified - which, of course, would be a reasonable goal if you were into controlling your citezenry.  Of course internet restriction is nothing new at the level of the nation-state, remember Google China’s capitulation? See the difference?

Todayszaman, an English-language Turkish newspaper had the following headline in their online version: “YouTube broadcasts Greek marches full of hatred toward Turks”. This reads like it lays the blame for the videos at the feet of YouTube, as if they had a content meeting and decided “Yes, yes, we’ll lead with the Greek anti-Turk marches today.” The article goes on to translate the lyrics of a song reportedly videotaped as sung by a Greek military unit:

There was a ship, a tank-carrying ship. It left from Volos to plant fear. It goes to the shores of Little Asia (Turkey). To spread fire and ashes all over Turkey. It was full of sea marines. They blew the heads of any Turks they could find into the air. The heroes died opening the road to Hagia Sophia. I will march to Hagia Sophia, take off the Turkish caliphate sign and plant a cross there. Only then will God shed light on İstanbul and the Greek national march will ring from every corner.

I don’t really know what much of that actually means, but it certainly sounds like a little religious nationalism to me!

The Guardian indicates that there were other insults, including accusations that Ataturk was homosexual, and that so are the Turks themselves. So not only is the Turkish government against insults in general, they also have a deep-seeded homophobia, which of course doesn’t surprise me since they are willing to enact bans on communications technology, deny genocide, and imprison dissenters.

So after reading all of that, I found this blog, a pro-Turkish tourism site where the writer has used links to YouTube videos in order to promote tourism in Turkey.

I guess the YouTube execs should have led with those.

Or this. (and read the comments, they’re priceless)

New Book

Published
by
Paul Aitken
on February 17, 2007
in Academia and General
. 0 Comments

My friend and mentor Jacqueline Warwick has just released a much-anticpated book on “Girl Group” culture in the 1960s.  All those great artists who history has traditionally dealt a bad hand are addressed here.  And damned good music to boot!

Warwick, Jacqueline.  Girl Groups, Girl Culture:  Popular Music and Identity in the 1960s.  London, New York:  Routledge, 2007.

Oooh yeah, Prince rules!

Published
by
Paul Aitken
on February 5, 2007
in General, Media and Music
. 4 Comments

In 2003, Mark Morford commented on Shania Twain’s Superbowl XXXVII performance in “Is Shania Twain Human?” in the SF Gate Morning Fix. Here he compared the sex appeal of Twain’s performance to that of Gwen Stefani who performed with Sting afterwards. He suggests that in her lip-synced, “plastic” performance, “despite all the bare midriffs and push-up bras and coy lyrics, Shania Twain is not a sexual person.” Stefani, on the other hand, “swivelled her hips so gorgeously and so deeply that the TV cameras were forced to shoot her only from the waist up…”

I agree mostly with these statements, preferring Stefani’s music to Twain’s. But damn if this past Sunday’s performance by Prince wasn’t the most refreshing halftime show I’ve ever seen!

[EDIT] I had links to the videos on youtube here for a couple of weeks, with the warning to “get ‘em soon”, suspecting that they would be pulled for whatever idiotic copyright reason.  Well, it turns out they were!  I’m sure you can find them if you go here.  

It was almost disconcerting watch Prince rock out, doing something so loose, when in recent years Superbowl halftimes have been as boring as the games they were interrupting.  CCR, a Foo Fighters cover, All Along the Watchtower, and some killer guitar playing…Now that’s sexy!

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