My iHate

I don't ask much of my computer. I don't need it to perform complicated, high end tasks. All I want it to do would seem to be a simple, common need: to transfer music from an iPod to iTunes. Yet, the designers did not include a way to do this, and there seems to be no simple solution without purchasing software from a 3rd party or doing lots of disc-burning. And I'm boiling over with frustration.

Before my old computer bit the dust last year, I moved our iTunes library onto my wife's iPod so we wouldn't lose the thousands of tracks we'd uploaded and purchased. (Okay, I'm really feeling like a sucker for using their branded spellings when their shitty devices cause so much trouble, so from now on I'll just refer to them in lowercase.) I figured I'd simply move the tracks onto the new computer. But I quickly realized Mac does not allow this, presumably to limit illegal file sharing. But every person who buys a new computer will encounter this basic problem. What are they supposed to do when they want to rebuild their itunes library? Moreover, if users don't change their synchronization settings with their new library, itunes will ERASE the files on their ipod when they sync it up, as the new library is empty. It doesn't make sense to have a one-way transfer road when itunes has so much more space and is supposed to be the library. The ipod should be able to move things back and forth as needed, to replace old tracks with new, and to free up space.

Sure, I could leave all the music on the ipod. But what if it runs out of space? What if I want to swap out old music for new? My main problem is that the ipod with all the music is my wife's, while I have my own ipod. (I had to buy a new one after my first one failed, which is another story of frustration. Mac handheld devices are so fragile that if you simply drop one you can't expect it to work again) Until mac provides an efficient way to transfer files from her ipod to itunes, I can't put any of our old library on my ipod, nor move my music off of her device. Believe me, she really loves it when she uses shuffle and a death metal track comes on.

Some users discovered a "back-door" way to copy the music back to itunes. But alas, if you keep up with the itunes updates, this is no longer possible in the new version. However, itunes 9 does provide a way to transfer files from ipod to itunes, PROVIDED YOU BURN THEM ALL TO CD FIRST AND THEN UPLOAD THEM. Like I'm going to do that.

The only other solution I've found is to use 3rd party software I've found online, but unless you purchase the full versions, they only allow transfers of one file at a time. For a library of thousands, that is not gonna work either. Finally, it seems as though Mac will allow transfers of MP3s purchased through itunes, but ultimately this is to their benefit because it encourages users to purchase itunes MP3s instead of CDs. Forcing users to use what I consider an inferior and ever dwindling music format is sad for music itself, but I can talk about that later.

So I'm stuck with our complete music library on my wife's ipod, and only newly added music on mine. I think I'll start carrying around a discman again; at least it functions as one would expect.

Catching Up

Here's a quick catch-up since I haven't posted in a while. Of the movies I've seen in the last few months, here are a few I'd like to comment on:

AN EDUCATION (2009, dir. Lone Scherfig)

Based on the memoirs of British journalist Lynn Barber, An Education is a sharply focused coming-of-age drama with excellent performances. Jenny is a culture-hungry schoolgirl pressured by her father to attend Oxford. But when she meets the older and charming David (perfectly cast in Peter Sarsgaard) who introduces her to music, art, and the finer things in life, she thinks she's found a shortcut to getting what she wants and plans to bail on college. The best film I've seen in a while; highly recommended.

INVICTUS (2009, dir. Clint Eastwood)

Based on the early challenges of Mandela's presidency, Invictus might have been a great film, but it only manages to be a fair one. Mandela's story is certainly incredible: a man jailed for 28 years assumes the presidency and must immediately forgive his captors in order to unify the country. But the film does not focus on this part of his life. Rather, at the time of the film's story, Mandela has already completed his reconciliation, and is trying to teach his fellow South Africans how to do the same. As good as Morgan Freeman is at impersonating Mandela, he's "all dressed up with nowhere to go," as one reviewer put it. Told as a sports story, the film's climax is not as rousing as it should be, as it's hampered by sloppy execution.

UP IN THE AIR (dir. Jason Reitman, 2009)

Very similar to his last writing/directing project Thank You For Smoking, Up in the Air is about a smooth-talker with a heartless job who has trouble connecting with his family emotionally. A very hyped film that's merely an okay one, Reitman's work feels like a feature-length student film: hyper-real with excessive narration and unemotional but cool-sounding stats and figures delivered quickly.

CRAZY HEART (dir. Scott Cooper, 2009)

What's the point? Jeff Bridges is great in the starring role, but Crazy Heart is nearly identical to the 1983 film Tender Mercies, only not nearly as good. Both concern an alcoholic country singer estranged from his child who is taken in by a kind younger woman and her son. What makes the carbon copy even more puzzling is the fact that Robert Duvall, who won an Oscar for playing the country singer in Tender Mercies, is one of Crazy Heart's producers and has a small role in the film. Bridges showcases legitimate country music chops, but the drama of the film feels cliche when compared to Tender Mercies' poetic, Oscar-winning screenplay by legendary writer Horton Foote, who'd previously adapted To Kill A Mockingbird, also featuring Duvall.

They're Coming to Get You, Barbara

In honor of Halloween, here's a list of guaranteed-scary films if you're looking for something creepy to watch:

Repulsion

Rosemary's Baby

Candyman

Alien

Paranormal Activity (currently in theaters)

These are some of the most chilling films I've seen. I haven't seen tons of horror films, because I avoid the gory and sadistic ones. Torture and explicit gore are NOT scare-inducing. Disgust and nausea inducing, yes, but what's the difference between that and watching open heart surgery? There's very little artisty in cheap shock.

Most of the above films operate on a psychological level. They are about the horror within the mind of the protagonist. Repulsion, one of the scariest, has almost no violence or gore, yet the sense of dread that build is very unsettling. That's true for Rosemary's Baby as well. The delicate Mia Farrow doesn't know if she's going mad or the world around her is, and we are right with her. Candyman is brilliant because it puts the existence of a fictional monster in the power of people's minds: if you believe he exists, then he does. Alien and Paranormal Activity are about the unknown. We know there's something bad out there, but we don't know what it is, or what it's capable of. It's not the things we see in full flesh and blood that are scary, it's what we don't see, lurking out there in the dark...

The Church of AC/DC, part 3

THE AC/DC LEGACY

The members of AC/DC are getting old, and probably can't do what they do for many more years, their singer Brian Johnson in particular. Their current world tour marks the first time they have detuned the guitars (only a half-step) in order to make it easier for him to hit high notes. But rumors have that it may be his last tour. Even if they replace him with another singer, it will be the end of an era, and with the rest of the band approaching 60, AC/DC is clearly in its twilight. So what will be their legacy?

The commercial success speaks for itself. Since the band's first LP in 1975, all of their albums have gone gold; most have gone platinum. Unlike other hard rock acts that were big in the 1980s but now tour small club circuits, AC/DC continues to sell out arena shows internationally. They are the second largest-selling band internationally next to The Beatles. Back in Black is the #2 best selling album of all time behind Michael Jackson's Thriller, having sold over 20 million copies. Their success is due to many things. They haven't become a victim of their own success. They haven't sought fame for its own sake. They've lived private lives, marketed themselves wisely, and stuck to their brand.

But critical understanding of the band is lacking. They are often misclassified as heavy metal, not hard rock. Critics usually gloss over them for their apparent simplicity. Even while acknowledging that some of AC/DC's albums are classics of the rock genre, they refer to the band condescendingly, as a second rate act not to be taken seriously. They were not inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility, which so angered Courtney Love that she demanded the museum return all of the Kurt Cobain artifacts on display (she was also outraged that they panned Lynard Skynard). AC/DC is perceived as dumb and frivolous, merely a low-brow distraction in the rock genre.

AC/DC's incomplete critical assessment may be partly of their own doing. They don't give revealing interviews, they don't engage in a dialectic with their critics, and they tend to embrace comical portrayals of themselves. Ultimately, I think they don't care about their critical reputation.

But the band has also been smeared by people like Tipper Gore, who in the 1980s led an ignorant campaign against rock music considered threatening to youth. AC/DC was made out to be dark, evil, and dangerous. The band was mystified by the accusations, yet the impression has stuck among people unfamiliar with the band. But anyone familiar with them knows AC/DC is about as harmful as Little Richard.

In my estimation, AC/DC has a better fundamental understanding of what rock and roll is than most every other so-called rock band. Amidst all the bland, safe, and self-conscious groups you might find in a record store, there are actually very few who are true rock bands. AC/DC is one of them. If you see them perform live, you cannot help but recognize that these guys eat, breathe and sleep the genre. They may not be able to do anything else, but they do rock as good as it gets. Their fans know this already, and it's why they continue to come out in droves whenever they do a tour and buy up their records. But for AC/DC to have the proper legacy of other highly regarded rock acts like The Rolling Stones, there needs to be more serious critical evaluation of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ2YJm03Oqc&feature=related

The Church of AC/DC, part 2

THE SOUND OF BURNING

AC/DC's sound is primarily the sound of two guitars played by brothers Angus and Malcolm Young. Malcolm founded the band in the early 1970s and recruited his younger brother to play lead. The band has seen two vocalists and a number of drummers and bassists in its time, but the one constant has been the Young brothers.

There are a number of famous bands who have had siblings in their line-ups: Earth, Wind, & Fire, Radiohead, Oasis, The Black Crowes, The Kinks, Van Halen, Heart, Iggy and the Stooges, The Replacements, The Beach Boys, The Bee Gees, The Allman Brothers, Creedance Clearwater Revival, The Jackson Five, Pantera, The Breeders, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Stone Temple Pilots, Kings of Leon, My Chemical Romance, and more. I suspect it is the closeness - or in some cases the antagonism - between the siblings that makes them play well together.

AC/DC's guitar sound is shaped by the use of vintage guitars and amplifiers without effects added to the signal loop that would water down the tone. Angus devotedly uses the Marshall JTM45, the same amp popularlized by Eric Clapton's early recordings, which has been called the "holy grail" of guitar amplifiers. These amps achieve distorted tones not through effects pedals, but by turning the volume up to the point at which the signal overloads the circuit. This is natural, organic distortion, which responds to a player's dynamics. It's the sound of the filaments in the tubes being overdriven. It's the sound of things burning, and it is a rich, warm, natural sound.

There's another "burning" element to the band's sound, and that's the voice of the singer. Brian Johnson similarly pushes his voice beyond normal to the point of distortion. When he sings, you are listening to something being destroyed. Like the filaments in the amplifiers, a resource is being expended in order to create a sound.

AC/DC is often described as writing "power chord" riffs, that is, chords played in a set hand position that can be moved around the neck of the instrument. But actually they use open chords, played at the bottom of the neck, which make use of open, ringing strings. The sound between the two is quite different. Power chords sound thinner, but open chords sound "wider." The sound of open strings on a guitar maximizes what a guitar sounds like. It's the truest, least obstructed use of a guitar's resonance.

Angus' lead playing is mainly blues-based. While his schoolboy uniform gives him the image of an irreverant juvenile, his lead playing is actually tasteful, melodic, and phrased. He always plays to the song, rather than use the song as a vehicle for a solo. His vibrato is refined and his note bending is well-intonated, yet it does not sacrifice any rawness. He often allows for a natural voicing of the amplifier's tendancies, rather than try to erase all accidental noises and mispicking. And unlike other elite rock guitarists like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page who have lost the edginess in their studio work in recent years, Angus has continued to put blistering solos to tape.

The Church of AC/DC

INTRODUCTION

There's no occassion for writing this, other than I have given a lot of thought to this band - probably more than is deserved - and now that I have a blog, I can put it all down in one place.

The subject is AC/DC. For a long time after I first heard them, I thought they were a joke: stupidly macho, boringly simplistic, and musically out of touch and old-fashioned when compared to other 80s hard rock groups like Metallica. My first impressions weren't completely inaccurate. A lot of the great rock bands like The Beatles or Led Zeppelin showcased their brilliance in the compelling variety of music they created. There are many groups who have been more musically artistic. Several bands have stronger lyrics, better individual talent, or pushed themselves to grow one album to the next. But when you talk about fundamental rock and roll - pure, primal rocking out - I submit to you that no one does it better than AC/DC.

AC/DC doesn't have ballads. They don't vary their instrumentation. They don't update their sound, follow trends, or change their musical direction. Their drummer plays the same simple 4/4 beat in nearly every song (yet I can't think of any drummer who makes that beat sound better, or who plays it with more care and concentration). In each and every song, they are purely and simply about rocking out. And usually, they hit the mark.

AC/DC has been accused of writing the same song over and over, and they have admitted to it. But isn't that what most artists try? Whether a musician, a novelist, or a director, many auteurs have a singular kind of artistic intent, and try to perfect that intent in every instance of their work. AC/DC's intent happens to be the Platonic form of rock.

AN EAR-OPENING EXPERIENCE

I can mark the exact hour and day when my opinion of AC/DC changed. My friend Mike and I were in a record store when 100 tickets to AC/DC's upcoming show in Charlotte were released early. Being a fan, Mike insisted we buy them since it was guaranteed we'd get great seats, and I figured I might as well go if I could see a famous band up close. We were second in line and got seats in the middle of the second row. It was cool, but I didn't have any expectations I would enjoy the concert beyond having great seats.

It was January 13, 1996 when AC/DC played the Charlotte Coliseum on their "Ballbreaker" tour. Mike and I sat at the very front of a 20,000 seat audience. I can remember how amazing all those people looked behind us, virtually the same view the band would have as they're playing. After the opening band finished, there was a huge set piece with a wrecking ball that knocked over the stoned facade of a building, and AC/DC walked out on stage. The drummer clicked four slow quarter notes on the high hat, and the band started playing "Back in Black."

I was 18 years old in 1996. I'd seen a few concerts, and have seen many since. I played electric guitar and, at the time, was a passionate fan of shredder guitarists (guys who were very technically proficient on the instrument, but usually not good songwriters) mainly because I thought classical music was better than anything, and erroneously thought all music should aspire to the same level. As a result, I wasn't into bands whom I thought were simple rock bands. But when these guys came out on stage and started playing their simple rock songs, an involuntary smile crossed my face. I was witnessing soulfully played rock and roll in its purest form, and it got me. The band delivered a divine groove with sincerety and warmth. They weren't about showboating, or trying to impress, or enjoying their own superstardom. They were about rock and roll. I could see it up close, on their faces. They loved playing this stuff, and it was contagious. They were endearing in their shamelessness. It was sincerely delivered, and a whole lot of fun.

I stood the entire show. Even though I didn't own any of their albums, I somehow knew every song. The setlist was a crowd-pleasing collection of their greatest hits. There was no egotistical posturing, no self-indulgent performances of obscure tracks. The band had a blue collar attitude that they were supposed to put on a show for the ticket-buying audience. I realized that what I thought were stupidly macho lyrics were really just tongue-in-cheek irreverant fun. What I had believed were boring riffs communicated clearly and mightily when played at a high volume. And what I'd considered old-fashioned, out of touch music was really bluesy, universally familiar, and irresistibly timeless songwriting. AC/DC was a feel-good groove band whose drummer smoked cigarettes as he played.

After the show, I was in a bliss. I hated to admit to myself that this was a better show than the Metallica concert I'd seen just a few months ago. Metallica was my favorite band at the time, but I'd just been introduced to a band whom I'd eventually come to love and respect much more. And it was all because I happened to be in the right record store at the right time.

In future posts on this topic, I'm going to go a little academic on AC/DC and start analyzing them...

The Last Great Film I Saw Was...

It Might Get Loud, 2009, dir. Davis Guggenheim.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1229360/

It Might Get Loud celebrates the glory of rock guitar by gathering three generations of players - Jimmy Page, the Edge, and Jack White - to talk music and jam. In lesser hands, this documentary might have become self-indulgent and meandering, but Guggenheim organizes the footage of their backstories, jam session, and live performances so well that it's an absolute dream for fans of rock guitar.

Unlike other music documentaries, we hear the stories behind the music directly from the artists themselves. We watch as The Edge rediscovers a 4-track demo of Where the Streets Have No Name. We see Page giddily play air guitar along with one of his favorite songs, "Rumble." We go from Page speaking about his predilection for dark and light contrasts to a balls-out performance of "Stairway to Heaven."

The guitars sound incredible, and the music is mixed really well. Seeing newly-mixed concert footage of Led Zeppelin in a movie theater alone is worth the price of admission. But the careful editing keeps the film moving forward, and provides philosophical contrasts and commonalities by switching off between the three subjects. Jimmy Page steals the show as the vanguard of rock, comfortable in his old age to happily open up and storytell. Jack White can become tiresome because he's constantly putting forth an image of himself, but that may be because of his youth and the fact that unlike the other two, he has yet to carve out his own artistic legacy (he spends most of his time talking about influences and whom he tries to imitate). But even he is unable to contain his joy as he watches Jimmy Page play the riff to "Whole Lotta Love," one of the film's priceless moments. The powerful and selective use of concert footage, the thoughtful organization of artistic philosophies, and the spontaneous moments of a rock union make for a great documentary, and it's a tribute to the skill of the filmmakers to take this material and create something insightful, entertaining, and new.