Wikipedia says:

Bob Lefsetz is an American music industry figure and author of the email newsletter and blog, the Lefsetz Letter. Based in Santa Monica, California, Lefsetz worked previously as an entertainment business attorney, majordomo of Sanctuary Music's American division and as a consultant to major record labels. Lefsetz deals with issues at the core of the music industry.

I've been reading Bob's blog for at least a couple years now, and find it mostly interesting (at least when he sticks to writing about music¹).

Although his posts are typically peppered with vitriol for music industry bigwigs like Clive Davis, David Geffen and Doug Morris, the post to which I linked concisely reads to me like a concise summary of 'who fucked music up.'




¹ As opposed to, for example, his dismissal of the Wii and my general frustration when I try to leave a comment and forget that, in spite of their being a reply box on every post, the reply functionality is disabled, as he only wants responses via e-mail.

The Red Army Choir is a performing ensemble that served as the official army choir of the former Soviet Union's Red Army.

In 1993 the Red Army Choir became an item of pop culture by performing together with the Finnish cult band Leningrad Cowboys both in Helsinki, where they performed on the Senate Square in front of 70,000 ecstatic listeners, and in Berlin. [wikipedia]

Dear Lazyweb,

A few times a week I do some editing/proofreading for someone I know. It takes something like 25 minutes to an hour each time, and I've found that I like listening to music when I do it.

Sort of.

I think I do my absolute best without music entirely, but then it gets tedious and all I can think of is wanting to do something else, so I get pretty easily distracted. The music helps there.

But there's a problem.

It seems like almost all of the music I try listening to does nothing but hinder my work. I've found only a couple things I can work with:

1. The Sundays - Blind
2. Stereolab - Dots and Loops
   

And the latter only works some of the time!

I'm getting a little tired of that Sundays album, however perfect I've found it to be for the job. By perfect, I mean I can play it softly in the background for an airy, oddly-energetic sort of refreshing sound that doesn't force me to think or try to listen more closely.

Given the sort of things that work for me now, can anyone recommend anything else I could try?

So, I've got some work to do. I think I'm going to try Miles Davis. We'll see how that works out for me.


Love,
Everett

The death of dynamic range, the scourge of compression, etc.

I've been wondering about the identity of this song for a while now, but this clip came up on an old episode of This American Life that I heard last night.

I'm under the impression that it's pretty well-known, but that doesn't help me google the song's lyrics... which is what I'd normally do... if it weren't an instrumental track.

I'm also under the impression that this song is from a ways back. So say what you will about me being young and stuff. Will any old folks help me out, here? :-P

[source]

If you missed my posting of Jud Jud's No Tolerance for Instruments way back when... holy shit, go listen! Then come back and listen to these. At under ten minutes apiece, both of these albums simply breeze by.

Unfortunately, this and the other one are all I've got (and all I know to exist) of Jud Jud.

This is the full "album" featuring this and other tracks like it.

Stolen from one Paul Hipp.

Brilliant parody lyrical adaptation.

(found here)

This is a pretty nice listen. It sounded cool the first time through my laptop speakers, but I knew I had to go listen to it on my car stereo. I closed my eyes and wasn't disappointed.

Awesome, palindromic parody of a song of which I shouldn't even have knowledge, being that I according to legend was born in like 1998 or something.

This is easily the best thing I've seen all week.
Found here.

Frank Zappa on CNN's Crossfire in the mid-80s debating censorship of rock music.

Hardcore. Instrumental. Acapella.

Alone, none are really my thing.
But Jud Jud is simply amazing.


[CC licensed, and from the Archive]