Top 10 songs of presidentail candidates

by Charles Long

I was watching Rachel Ray's show 'Tasty Travels' proving once again that I have no life. RR was in Little Rock, Arkansas visiting the W.J. Clinton presidential library and eatery...I kid you not... it has a restaurant named 42. What was WAY COOL about the W. J. Clinton's library was his collection of saxophones. The man played. This got me to thinking...what does this current crop of candidates listen to? According to Blender.com, here are the candidates top ten songs...

BARACK OBAMA
1. Ready or Not Fugees
2. What's Going On Marvin Gaye
3. I'm On Fire Bruce Springsteen
4. Gimme Shelter Rolling Stones
5. Sinnerman Nina Simone
6. Touch the Sky Kanye West
7. You'd Be So Easy to Love Frank Sinatra
8. Think Aretha Franklin
9. City of Blinding Lights U2
10. Yes We Can will.i.am

JOHN McCAIN
1. Dancing Queen ABBA
2. Blue Bayou Roy Orbison
3. Take a Chance On Me ABBA
4. If We Make It Through December Merle Haggard
5. As Time Goes By Dooley Wilson
6. Good Vibrations The Beach Boys
7. What A Wonderful World Louis Armstrong
8. I've Got You Under My Skin Frank Sinatra
9. Sweet Caroline Neil Diamond1
0. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes The Platters

The only thing these guys have in common is Sinatra! Well, that about sums the election up!

Olymping Along

by Charles Long

We have all heard about the little Chinese girl (Yang Peiye) who was not allowed to be seen singing the Chinese national anthem because she was considered not pretty enough! Another girl, Lin Miaoke lip synced the anthem. Of course, American’s shouldn't be too self-righteous about this. We gave Grammy’s to Milli Vanilli as Best New Artist 1990 after all and they lip synced to beat the band. Then there was the classic play and film ‘My Fair Lady.’ On Broadway, Eliza Doolittle was sung by Julie Andrews (you know, Mary Poppins). The film version featured Katherine Hepburn: a great actress, but no singer. All the songs have Hepburn lip syncing. According to Wikipedia, the real singer was Marni Nixon. So before we cast stones at the Chinese…we ought to consider our glass housing!

All this says more about Man than it does Music. Music doesn’t care about the singer’s looks. What matters to music is the singer’s craft. I am personally so sick of singers who look like models. Give me Mama Cass over Mamma Mia! Give me Janice Joplin over Janet Jackson! Give me Pavarotti over Groben! Man makes everything look great but sound sterile. Music give us a vital sound and peasant looks. Give me music.

And as long as I am on a rant…can we please have some LESS produced music. In the pre-digital era, the music had an edge. The edge was the little imperfections that couldn’t be fixed. In the digital age, those little imperfections are fixed. We get perfect pitch in perfect time…and no soul. And in addition to less produced music can we please have some DISSONANCE, too? When every chord blends perfectly, we have consonant music that is dull! Can I get a clash now and again? Little grind? Its not the consonances that give music real beauty: it’s the dissonances.

So… China …I know you’re reading this…let the singer sing…on camera…the world will love her…she’s a seven year old girl. No one rejects a singing seven year old! So… America …let’s get off the over produced music band wagon and let’s get some real music. Finally, there is hope; the word is that a remake of My Fair Lady is in the works. Columbia Pictures…I know you’re reading this…let’s get some real singers…so don’t keep olymping along.

For the Record- by Charles Long

When I got started in the music biz, recording was done on long black strips of magnetic ribbon gathered onto reels. We called it 'tape.' I know...I'm old. I did some recording in a studio a few years ago and just about everything was digital; it was unreal (heh-heh). It used to be that setting up a recording studio required a lot of space, specialized equipment, lots of training, and BIG BUX. Nowadays, all you need to make really good recording can be carried in a briefcase.

How can you make your own recordings? First, you'll need some hardware: a computer with a USB 2.0 port and a sound card. Fortunately, just about every computer made nowadays has both these things included. Now, while you can plug things like a microphone or a guitar into your sound card, you will need an adapter that connects either a guitar plug (1/4 inch) or mic plug (usually called an XLR) to a miniplug (the size of the plug on ear buds). But, rather than doing this I'd recommend spending a few bucks on a USB recording unit from a company like Tascam or M-Audio. This gives you a standard mic input and guitar input and a bunch of other useful features as well. While you are at it, invest in some decent cables (check out our cables). You'll also want a decent set of headphones. When you are recording, use your headphones as monitors. Now this is the persnickety part of the process: getting everything talking to everything else. My experience is that this process goes easier on an APPLE, but it can be done on a WINDOWS machine, too.

Now once you have everything talking to everything else the fun starts. I've used GARAGE BAND to create most of the sound samples here at JAX. If you buy a USB recording device, you might get some very serviceable software with it (light versions of Cubase and ProTools, typically). Once you are running your software and your instruments are talking to your computer...well, all kinds of good things happen. Before you record, put some nice fresh strings on your guitar and read the article on tuning. Have fun!