Foo Fighters - Sonic Highways, Nashville Edition (HBO)

[onager]

Since Tennessee made the news this week for its draconian new abortion law, some of y'all might like to see this episode of Dave Grohl's HBO series.

In one segment, everybody talks about how important religion is in the state. At least Dolly Parton says, "Church was recreation. Because there was nothing else." That's pretty much the same story in the part of the South where I grew up.

This thing has a helluva cast for a one-hour show: Parton, Emmylou Harris, Zac Brown, Willie Nelson, Tony Joe White, producer Tony Brown, Steve Earle and many others.

Lots of other greats show up in vintage film clips - everybody from Hank Williams to Lightning Hopkins.

The show works in some info on Nashville's bare-knuckle business dealings with its creative artists. Dolly Parton has a good story about tangling with Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's manager. Don't want to do *SPOILERS* so give it a watch.

Dave Grohl also had a part in another great documentary, Sound City. About the nondescript recording studio in Van Nuys, CA, where about half the pop music industry did its recording in the 1970s-1990s. I caught that one on the Palladia cable channel (basically the BBC version of MTV, only with better shows and fewer obnoxious shit-heads.)

[Act_of_Reparation]

1. Sound City was great

I especially liked how they followed up all of the anti-digital grumpiness with the paragon digital audio producer: Trent Reznor.

"He can use it cuz he's a genius," or something to that effect. Made me chuckle.

[RussBLib]

2. I hear somewhere, can't remember where...

...that the Foo Fighters were a very "religious" band. Ever since hearing that, I have kinda soured on their music. Never liked it all that much, but now...eh, forget it. It sounds like a cacophony to me. (I've never spent any time researching that claim, BTW)

I think I prefer not to know about a musician's religious life at all. No pre-conceived notions that way. It's really cool if a band comes out as atheist. They're automatically going against the grain. It doesn't make their sound music to my ears, but I'll give them a shot.

But if I know a band is really religious, I don't wanna be bothered with their shit, as in "Christian rock." Is that shallow?

Maybe.
Maybe not.
And I don't really care.

That's just the way it is.

[onager]

3. Grohl says music is his religion.

I didn't know anything about his beliefs, either. Your post led me to do a quick search.

Grohl doesn't appear to be religious at all. Maybe for the same reason as many other people - he survived Catholic school as a kid.

Here's an interesting page on his religious/political views:

http://hollowverse.com/dave-grohl/

"Christian rock?" Ugh! Oxymoron. Sometimes I'll watch a few minutes of megachurch services on Sunday morning, until my gag reflex takes over. I've noticed that the girls in the congregation look at the "Xian rock" musicians onstage exactly the same way girls look at secular rock musicians. With hero worship and lust.

I've mentioned my Weird Hobby of scale modeling, and not too long ago I was on a forum dedicated to that topic.

One modeller mentioned that he was going to build a model of a band tour bus - complete with guitars, drugs scattered around, booze bottles, porn DVD boxes and half-naked groupies.

Some wiseass (not me!) posted: "And if you want to build a Christian band tour bus - just put all the same stuff in it and add a Bible."

[Gelliebeans]

12. Been recording that

Amazing to think that he learned to play by ear.

[Promethean]

7. Him and the band were anti-vaccine for a while.

Last I heard they wised up to the con and have abandoned it.

[beam me up scottie]

4. The Nashville Music Industry hates real musicians.

It has nothing to do with music and everything to do with making money.

They choose who will be the next superstar, groom them and sell their image long before they make their first album.

Reminds me of Pope Francis and the con they pulled on idiots around the world.

[onager]

5. The show goes into that, more than I expected...

Some of the people interviewed say Nashville Inc, REALLY hates singer-songwriters, and they all had to struggle against that.

Singer-songwriters violate the laws of Nashville, and probably Gawd. Song writers are supposed to sit in a room all day cranking out music and lyrics. Then that song is supposed to go to a "groomed" singer for final production.

During one of the discussions, there's a film clip showing cogs in a factory machine. Perfect visual metaphor.

I did crack up when the show talked about George Jones' great weeper, "He Stopped Loving Her Today."

That song was such a PITA, a whole BOOK was written about it. It took months to record, partly because Jones absolutely hated the song and thought it was too depressing.

When they finally wrapped it, Jones said: "Nobody's ever gonna buy that morbid son-of-a-bitch." Fortunately for him, he was wrong.

[beam me up scottie]

6. Damn, I don't get HBO.

I wish I could watch it.

Remember the famous Johnny Cash middle finger picture? Here's the story of how it was used in an ad in Billboard Magazine:

However the picture remained relatively obscure until 1998. At the time Johnny was working with legendary producer Rick Rubin on his American Recordings albums. Rick revitalized Cash’s career, introducing him to a new generation of fans spanning multiple genres. Commercially and critically the albums were successful. The second American album Unchained (included the song “Mean Eyed Cat”) won the 1998 Grammy for Best Country Album.

But could you hear Johnny Cash’s music on the country radio? Not so much.

Rick Rubin started his career as the DJ for The Beastie Boys, and later on went to work with groups like Slayer, Metallica, and Tom Petty. Rick had never dealt with being snubbed by radio, but when he took on his first country artist, he learned country was a different animal. Rubin called country radio a “trendy scene,” and decided to fire a shot right at Music Row.

Rubin dug deep and pulled out $20,000 to take a full page ad out in Billboard Magazine. The ad featured the famous Cash bird flipping, and the caption: “American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support.”

“We hope it will open the eyes of the country community and hopefully they’ll say, ‘The guy did win’” said Rick, “And he’s making records considered the best in country and maybe we should readdress the situation.

Willie Nelson loved the ad and hung it up in his bus. “John speaks for all of us. Everyone who comes in has to see it.”

George Jones loved the ad too and made one of his own to promote his song “Wild Irish Rose” showing George surrounded by basketballs, footballs and baseballs and the caption, “If radio had any, they’d play this record.”

“All of us older artists feel that way. Radio gives us one of the biggest insults there is when they don’t play our music. If no one is going to stick up for us, we’ll have to do it ourselves.”

http://www.savingcountrymusic.com/johnny-cashs-famous-middle-finger

The new kountry music superstars get the credit while singer-songwriters do all the work.


When Bruce Springsteen performed here on his Born To Run tour, the audience was filled with song-writers. The guys sitting all around me knew every word, every note, they put this Boss fan to shame.

Btw, my kayak is named "Barefoot Girl".

I hope the cretins who stole her find a pissed off water moccasin in her the next time they take her out. The idiots left the skirt and cover behind.

[AlbertCat]

8. singer-songwriters do all the work.

Well, from what I've heard, they need to work more....

Country is at the bottom of my music list. I'd rather hear rap! But music is music and, of course there are fine country songs. I like classical so when I put that on, I frequently get told to take it off. This makes one feel like 2 cents so I NEVER ask anyone to turn their music off. One should listen to some of everything anyway. You never know what you're gonna hear.....


....except on Country radio! The construction guys at my house listen to it all day. It's so....fake.... overproduced...the "pop" version anyway. Every song is sung in the strange twangy nasal accent they do and from what I can tell every song involves drinking.

Of course like with Rock or even Jazz, there is a top 40 set and... somewhere on internet radio... a more sophisticated, informed, artsy Country that sings about things worthwhile.... or even does cliches in a way that makes them intriguing. There must be! But it ain't what the guys building my porch listen to!

When I suggest people go to the opera, I do so meaning for people going with no expectations, forget all the high brow stuff you've been told and go as a blank slate....and listen to the MUSIC (not just the lyrics). I try to do this with Country and genres that I do not naturally gravitate toward. But this radio stuff is just so shallow and the same from artist to artist.

Well, time will weed out the chaff, leaving the stuff that anyone would appreciate as worthwhile. True of any music...even classical. (those Meyerbeer operas of dreadful! He was all the rage in his day)

[beam me up scottie]

9. I loathe the "new" country music.

I wasn't a huge fan of the old stuff but some of the artists were exceptional; Johnny Cash, for example.

I like music that makes me feel, I was raised on opera, classical, jazz, blues, folk, etc. We only got 2-3 tv channels when I was a kid so music was on in our house all of the time. When I killed my tv a few years back I listened to NPR 24/7.

Don't hold your breath waiting for actual music to win over new country or pop, that ship sailed long ago.

[onager]

10. AC, I was taking your advice one day...

...some years ago.

Listening to the weekly opera show, in a futile attempt to give myself some culture, and working in my workshop. But suddenly I heard something so weird and beautiful that I just stopped working and listened.

Incredibly gorgeous female voices, with some kind of sound effect at odd intervals...

It was Francis Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites." Fictionalized story of some resisting nuns during the Reign of Terror in France.

The "sound effects" were a falling guillotine blade. The scene starts with 12 women singing together. Each time the blade falls, one voice goes quiet. Until only one voice is left, the blade falls for the last time, and...silence.

That opera has an interesting back-story, according to Wiki:

Poulenc...had recommitted himself to spirituality and Roman Catholicism, although he was openly gay and the church officially opposed homosexuality.

Opera critic Alan Rich believes that Poulenc's concerns for the travails of post-World War II France, as it tried to reconcile issues related to the Holocaust, German occupation and the Resistance, was a subtext within the opera.

[AlbertCat]

11. Wow!

Poulanc is a contemporary of Stravinsky and not an "easy" composer.... and "Dialogues of the Carmelites" is not an opera I'd sent a novice to. (ooh... good pun!) But there is always something in these old war horses that makes them stick around. Just think how it stopped you in your tracks and you weren't even seeing the stage picture or action. It's when the music actually drives the action that opera is the best! (And then of course there are moments when the music brings the action to a full stop.... usually for yet another amazing effect)

I'm not sure what it is that makes people "get" it. (by "it" I mean anything!) Perhaps it's different for each person, but it does have something to do with familiarity..... not knowing the music (or whatever), but becoming comfortable with the components of the genre.

I always liked modern dance, but those 19th century story ballets I wasn't too keen on.... UNTIL... I had to work in the lighting grid switching circuits for a production of "Giselle". I had to watch closely for my cues....for 28 performances (2 on Saturdays) and 3 tech rehearsals. At some point....it clicked. I got it! It all made sense....for "Swan Lake" and "FireBird" and "Coppelia" as well a "Giselle".

And "Giselle's" music is not great at all.... merely adequate. (Tho' Adolphe Adam, not the greatest composer, did write one of the few Christmas carols I like: "Oh Holy Night". You really start to understand what Tchaikovsky did for ballet music when you hear Adam and Glinka and all that "om-pa-pa" stuff.)

I hate anti-intellectualism (and over-intellectualism is just as bad).
Anti-intellectualism is what gave us the Bush administration and the Tea Party. I hate it!