Pono player--received today (Christmas present to myself)

Those who stumble upon this post--and know what Neil Young's Pono music player is--are probably early adopters, like me. I got one of the limited editions (chrome CSN&Y).  It's currently charging. I already have hi-rez music to copy to it... Definitely all my Rebecca Pidgeon hi-rez... Duke Ellington's "Money Jungle"... The list is endless. Pono is jumping into the hi-rez party at just the right time, because the music has been available for a while, just waiting for the right audio player to play it. But will it succeed?  Don't know, don't particularly care. I speak as the owner of at least (possibly seven) iPod Classics--the last two purchased last year, before Apple stopped making them. There will always be a market (although a niche one) for portable audio players. I don't care if they make millions--I just need one.

So will the music sound different, and will I be able to tell?  The first is a maybe, and the second is a probably.  I think that my biggest limitation will be headphones. Not sure which model to buy--except to say that it probably won't be Beats by Dre.

American Top 40, May, 1977

It's a very-rare 4-day weekend for me, so I actually had time to listen to some Casey (recorded via Dar.fm).  It's strange listening to this stuff, mostly because the bulk of this music never really left the radio. But there's always a song or two that I distinctly remember not remembering. And it's interesting for me to see what my now-refined musical palate thinks of the stuff I listened to as a teen. I didn't make note of exactly what week this show was from (but it was the week that Barry Manilow had his "third Number One hit," "Looks Like We Made It").  As usual, I skipped over about half the songs, including the aforementioned. The few notable songs from the playlist:

Slave, "Slide". Slave was a funk band from Ohio that I had never heard of. Their hit from that week, "Slide," sounds as solid as any funk song from that seminal period, and I can't believe that it was not more of a crossover. I don't remember hearing this song, ever.  I've added it to my Amazon Prime funk playlist. Thank you, Casey, for that one.

Another song that caught my ear was the one-hit wonder, "Ariel," by Dean Friedman. There's a sort of Billy Joel vibe going with this hippy-dippy song that could only have come from this decade. (Billy Joel has lately been critically reevaluated, though not entirely redeemed.)

My recording of this show included the "musical extra" of "Boogie Nights," by Heatwave, one of my fav tracks of the decade. (In the '80s or '90s I bought a white-label promo 45 with an extended mix.)

Honorary mention: "Smoke From A Distant Fire" from the Sanford-Townsend Band. I was too young to truly appreciate the lyrical nuance of that song in 1977, though it perfectly resonates now.

(There was also a Helen Reddy song in the countdown. I don't remember the name of it, and I mention it solely because I mistakenly thought that it was a Toni Tennille song that I'd never heard, which would indeed be a surprise. I've always quite liked Toni Tennille, for reasons I can't fully articulate.)

Insomnia compels me to offer an opinion of Nicki Minaj's video Only

First, I don't really know who Nicki Minaj is, aside from a few photographs I've seen of her in the celebrity news sections, wearing various outfits. But I'll go out on a limb and guess that she's a hip-hop artist. Contemporary hip-hop isn't my bag, and not for want of trying to make it so. I sampled Kanye's "Yeesus" a while back and found it unlistenable--noise, really.  (To be perfectly fair, I'm not hip to Taylor Swift, either.)  I keep wanting it to be like the golden-age stuff that turned my ears around in the early '90's, but, like trying to bring back the Beatles like we did in the '70s, it ain't happening.

So I'm biased. Still, I was prepared to be impressed with "Only."  I can somewhat dig that Minaj is trying to make a provocative statement by donning Nazi-esque imagery in her video (assuming that she's the one behind such a novel artistic move). On a strictly visual level, she succeeds. By evoking scratchy newsreel footage that pans through a mechanistic landscape of washed-out reds and grays, I can almost see it. Visually, it's quite impressive.

It's when her "lyrics" start rolling across the screen that she loses me. I'd quote them, but I'd have to up the safety level of my blog. And since they're plastered across the screen, I can't just turn off the sound and dig her freaky scene. They are a grotesque parody of the lowest hip-hop stereotypes that we've fallen to in--whatever this wasteland of a decade is called. (The Teens?) No narrative flow, no "story"-- just rants about activities that, in earlier days, would likely get you arrested in Boise and a number of other jurisdictions.

I can only recommend that Nicki dig out some Leni Riefenstahl next time (preferably in the original German) to get this done right. There's art, potentially, there, but I'm not feeling it.  (I'm tempted to recommend that she put on some Tribe to hear some REAL hip-hop, but I know that ain't happening, either.)

Update: Minaj disclaims any credit for the video's composition. The video's director, Jeff Osbourne, explains (Billboard):

First, I'm not apologizing for my work, nor will I dodge the immediate question. The flags, armbands, and gas mask (and perhaps my use of symmetry?) are all representative of Nazism.

But a majority of the recognizable models/symbols are American: MQ9 Reaper Drone, F22 Raptor, Sidewinder missile, security cameras, M60, SWAT uniform, General's uniform, the Supreme court, and the Lincoln Memorial. What's also American is the 1st Amendment, which I've unexpectedly succeeded in showing how we willfully squeeze ourselves out of that right every day.

I think that what Osbourne is trying to say is that he drew a deliberate analogy between symbols of Nazism and American militarism, as a way of highlighting the abuse of power in the latter, in a way that would not be automatically assumed by many Americans, particularly here (where I live, in a deep red state). Certainly something to ponder today, Veterans Day.

It still don't match the lyrics, tho.

Two excellent Nashville concerts this month

First was Paul McCartney, a voice from my 1960s (a decade that I remember all too well), and Mindy Smith, who did a tenth-anniversary live rendition of "One Moment More."  It was my first for Mindy, fifth for Paul. Mindy was clearly nervous at the beginning, fearful, she said, at performing these "old" songs. I sent her positive vibes; hopefully they helped. Of the singer-songwriters who come and go (and casual readers of this lowly blog know that this is my current bag, and has been for a while), Mindy Smith is one of those rare performers who would motivate me to drag myself to Nashville and pay for valet parking at some toney wine-establishment-frequented-by-millennials kind of scene (even if they do have wine on tap). Back in the day, I was an evangelist for Ms. Smith. I've turned more than one person on to her unique aural presence (even an agnostic who professed to hating her for recording "Come To Jesus," but later recanted after hearing the whole CD).  More than once I've wondered: how could this Long Island New Yorker express such authentic Americana?  But then, Gillian Welch is from New York also.  Perhaps there's something about New York that predisposes musicians to be un-New Yorkish and to seek authenticity where it is most easily found. Hey, even Mike Doughty is covering John Denver now.  BTW: "Come To Jesus" was the final song of her encore.  I suspected that it would be her finale, but I didn't know how the millennial crowd would respond. I needn't have feared; this was Mindy's crowd... It merited the last of several standing ovations.

A Mike Doughty curiosity

For the past year or so, I've been playing what apparently is a Mike Doughty "greatest hits" collection that is available only outside the a United States and Canada: "Introduction," on the label Nois-O-Lution, catalog number B001LPDJMY. You can find this disc on various international Amazon.coms, but no other info except maybe a track listing--no reviews, no notes. I wasn't even sure that it was a legitimate release (you can get bootlegs and probably counterfeits on Amazon.com; I keep looking for in vain "David Hasselhoff, Live In Germany").  So here's the cover:

I've been listening to the mp3s that I "found" somewhere but I decided to spring for the CD because is functions as a really good "greatest hits" of Mike Doughty's early period.

American Top 40, June 26, 1976

As I've mentioned before, I remember the music of 1976 as being better than it actually was. Still, the now-late Casey Kasem was a staple of my teen years and I certainly won't complain that his classic shows are being re-run. (I'm downloading them from 94.5 KOOL FM via dar.fm.)  While I credit myself as having a near-pornographic memory of that time, there were a few surprises from that show, to wit:

*If I ever knew this, I'd forgotten it: Todd Rundgren did a perfect note-for-note cover of the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" that got into the Top 40 that summer. Funny that I've never read about this in any of the adulatory (and probably deserved) Rundgren reportage that came later.

*One of my fave tunes from that year, "More More More," was introduced by Casey as being by Andrea True "from Nashville."  I'd forgotten that Andrea True, like Bettie Page, was from Nashville.

*A song that I did know, but had completely forgotten about, was America's "Today's The Day" (from their "Hideaway" album).  To my 2014 ears, though, it's an incredibly good song, well-crafted and well-produced, and it holds up very well. There's a hint of Beach Boys in the production.

*Speaking of which, it's only because the Beach Boys are so great that I forgive them for their '76 version of "Rock and Roll Music."  (The album that it came from, however--"15 Big Ones"--is a memorable one for me and impossible for me to dislike.)

*The standout tune from that show was Marvin Gaye's "I Want You."

Ray Smith has finally disappeared from the airwaves

Jazz collector extraordinaire Ray Smith passed away in 2010 at the age of 87, but his weekly radio show, "Jazz Decades," had been on the air for many, many years. I didn't become a fan until a year or so ago, when dar.fm made it possible for me to record online radio audio (a great service which I highly recommend, by the way).  His hour-long show became a weekly habit. I discovered many "new" artists through his show.  But the one radio station that broadcast his archives--KCSM in San Mateo--has apparently run out of past shows. They ceased broadcasting "Jazz Decades" about a month ago.  And I can't find the show listed anywhere else.  (WGBH has a handful of shows on their site, but nowhere near the thousands that Ray broadcast.)  Such a shame that this wonderful resource has been lost.

If you are a fan of Ray Smith, or perhaps know of where I might find some archived recordings of "Jazz Decades," feel free to post a comment.