According to Pitchfork, Jackpot Records is gearing up for a series of reissues, among them Jandek's debut LP, Ready for the House.
In contrast with their compact-disc cousins - expanded, polished and remastered in such a way as to make every album seem like the defining moment of an artist's career - vinyl reissues are simply a repressing of a record that has gone out of print. All that really changes with the vinyl reissue is the label - but isn't that everything? Reissues (not to be confused with repressings, another run on the same label), then, are nothing more than a reproduction of an original work.
The CD reissue, so long it bears the steroidal infusion of bonus materials, is an entirely separate product from the original. You can have both - heck, you can even have the album on vinyl - and possess distinctly separate products. Likewise, a vinyl reissue of a vinyl record is a distinctly separate product from the original pressing.
I'd like to think I'm not a Jandek elitist - for starters, I don't even know how I would define being a Jandek elitist. Nonetheless, there is definitely an aire of inauthenticity about Corwood reissued via Jackpot Records. Undoubtedly, one of the most definitive characterists of Jandek is the idea that Jandek is tied to Corwood, and Corwood to Jandek.
A reissue of a record this rare (often going for more than $300 on eBay, if you're lucky to find one), is like a poster of a painting. Pardon my hyperbole, but though it will look the same and sound the same, it still won't be the 'real' thing.
That being said, Corwood has made it very clear over the years that nothing happens without their stamp of approval, and I don't doubt any deviation from this policy for Corwood reissues via Jackpot. Part of me wants to think that the Corwood approval makes the reissue authentic, but the fact that it wouldn't be distributed via Corwood (purely speculation here, but probably accurate) just doesn't seem right to me.
Will I buy it? You bet. I'm eager to see whether it will contain the original recording from the LP or one of the 'remastered' versions Corwood has crafted over the years.
Will I still try for an original on eBay? You bet. And maybe I am a Jandek elitist after all.
Also, The Myth of The Blue Icicles was 'released' this Saturday. Check it out!
Showing posts with label authenticity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authenticity. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Let's Turn the Record Over
B-sides and bonus tracks allow artists the opportunity to showcase covers and toss-offs they would otherwise save for the occasional encore, as well as precious gems that didn’t end up meshing with the rest of the album. And, of course, absolute crap, stray live tracks, and pointless remixes. Yet even the most banal of bonus tracks becomes an absolute necessity to the obsessed fan.
The first b-side I encountered was a bonus track on the Japanese version of Fastball's 1998 release, All the Pain Money Can Buy. "Freeloader Freddy" seemed like the perfect name for the perfect, laid-back power pop song. Unwilling to dish out $30 for the imported release, I simply “visited” the album every now and again at the now-defunct CDNOW.com. The more artists I became enthralled with, the more forbidden tracks I had to pine for. Why, why did all the bonus tracks have to go to Japan?
When Napster burst on the scene in 1999, I suddenly had hundreds of these b-sides and bonus tracks at my fingertips. * I finally heard the opening riff of "Freeloader Freddy" after more than a year of waiting, and I was not disappointed. It's still one of my favorite pop songs today. I have roughly three discs of Everclear b-sides, non-album tracks and tracks from members’ preceding groups, and songs like “Gay Bar Song” and “The Swing” were a huge part of my high school experience.
I was born into an area when the b-side was transitioning out of the collective conscious of the record industry. What used to be a way to promote 45 rpm singles became bonus tracks on cassette and compact disc singles in the 1980’s and 1990’s, always accompanied by a completely worthless remix of the song (in case you didn’t want to hear the repeat of the chorus after the second verse; see Aerosmith’s Livin’ on the Edge radio promo for an example). Nowadays, finding a hard copy of a mainstream single outside of the checkout line at Walgreen’s is a feat, though various indie and hipster groups still release 45s and CD singles like it’s 1983.
What used to be a reward for buying a single track has now become an expectation with the purchase of every album. Most often, independent record labels reward listeners for pre-ordering albums by throwing in a 45 or several free downloads. Independent record stores will sometimes have a limited quantity of bonus discs, buttons and stickers to hand out on release days. DVDs of performances, too, have become quite popular. Since 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco has made a habit of releasing non-album tracks within about six months of an album’s release.
And it is in examining Wilco’s various bonus offerings that we encounter the bastard child of the Unnecessary Remix, the Needlessly Included Live Track. Whereas the bonus EP More Like the Moon, released in conjunction with the Australian edition of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot contains six studio tracks, the AGIB and SBS EPs include (what I find to be) rather bland live interpretations of several of the album tracks. Perhaps I’m just a completist, but I can’t see the interest in hearing one song from a single concert (see my upcoming post on live bootlegs).
The digital era does not itself lead to more songs per album (though arguably the prevalence of digital studios and recording technologies can decrease producing costs, increasing the amount of studio time artists are able to use), but it does definitely decrease the cost of making extra tracks publicly available. Therefore, the artist is able to pass on to the customer even the most banal studio riff raff (see Ryan Adams) free of charge.
And so I suppose you and I are both wondering what the moral of this story about b-sides is? Like the studio instantiations mentioned in my previous post, these extra tracks become evidence of the time that exists outside of the 42 minutes on any given album. While some of the songs seem like toss-offs – bridges to better songs and 2:30 of life lost – others are honestly compelling music that wouldn’t have fit on the album for which they were recorded.
My two favorite examples are Wilco’s excellent “The Thanks I Get,” left off of 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, and Sleater-Kinney’s powerhouse track “Everything,” left off The Woods. (Seriously, listen to how Janet alternates between the snare riff and the hi-hat riff depending on whether Carrie or Corin is singing.) Both of these tracks are fair assessments of where the respective bands were creatively during these times, but neither of them are particularly suitable for the albums. See also, “Kicking Television,” the Wilco track that is shit-kicking live, but fell incredibly short in the studio.
While the b-sides of the past were hard to track down because so few surfaced, and then nearly disappeard altogether as 45s went out of style, the bonus tracks of the present are more elusive simply because those that aren’t official leak in the strangest of places. Nevertheless, they have always had the elusive appeal of a forbidden fruit. Even when the song is crap, the hunt often renders them all worthwhile.
Well, except for this.
[*] Well, not my fingertips - too chicken to 'break the rules' as it were, I had my dear friend Alyssa download and burn at least 100 bonus tracks for me during high school. Bless you, Alyssa!
The first b-side I encountered was a bonus track on the Japanese version of Fastball's 1998 release, All the Pain Money Can Buy. "Freeloader Freddy" seemed like the perfect name for the perfect, laid-back power pop song. Unwilling to dish out $30 for the imported release, I simply “visited” the album every now and again at the now-defunct CDNOW.com. The more artists I became enthralled with, the more forbidden tracks I had to pine for. Why, why did all the bonus tracks have to go to Japan?
When Napster burst on the scene in 1999, I suddenly had hundreds of these b-sides and bonus tracks at my fingertips. * I finally heard the opening riff of "Freeloader Freddy" after more than a year of waiting, and I was not disappointed. It's still one of my favorite pop songs today. I have roughly three discs of Everclear b-sides, non-album tracks and tracks from members’ preceding groups, and songs like “Gay Bar Song” and “The Swing” were a huge part of my high school experience.
I was born into an area when the b-side was transitioning out of the collective conscious of the record industry. What used to be a way to promote 45 rpm singles became bonus tracks on cassette and compact disc singles in the 1980’s and 1990’s, always accompanied by a completely worthless remix of the song (in case you didn’t want to hear the repeat of the chorus after the second verse; see Aerosmith’s Livin’ on the Edge radio promo for an example). Nowadays, finding a hard copy of a mainstream single outside of the checkout line at Walgreen’s is a feat, though various indie and hipster groups still release 45s and CD singles like it’s 1983.
What used to be a reward for buying a single track has now become an expectation with the purchase of every album. Most often, independent record labels reward listeners for pre-ordering albums by throwing in a 45 or several free downloads. Independent record stores will sometimes have a limited quantity of bonus discs, buttons and stickers to hand out on release days. DVDs of performances, too, have become quite popular. Since 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco has made a habit of releasing non-album tracks within about six months of an album’s release.
And it is in examining Wilco’s various bonus offerings that we encounter the bastard child of the Unnecessary Remix, the Needlessly Included Live Track. Whereas the bonus EP More Like the Moon, released in conjunction with the Australian edition of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot contains six studio tracks, the AGIB and SBS EPs include (what I find to be) rather bland live interpretations of several of the album tracks. Perhaps I’m just a completist, but I can’t see the interest in hearing one song from a single concert (see my upcoming post on live bootlegs).
The digital era does not itself lead to more songs per album (though arguably the prevalence of digital studios and recording technologies can decrease producing costs, increasing the amount of studio time artists are able to use), but it does definitely decrease the cost of making extra tracks publicly available. Therefore, the artist is able to pass on to the customer even the most banal studio riff raff (see Ryan Adams) free of charge.
And so I suppose you and I are both wondering what the moral of this story about b-sides is? Like the studio instantiations mentioned in my previous post, these extra tracks become evidence of the time that exists outside of the 42 minutes on any given album. While some of the songs seem like toss-offs – bridges to better songs and 2:30 of life lost – others are honestly compelling music that wouldn’t have fit on the album for which they were recorded.
My two favorite examples are Wilco’s excellent “The Thanks I Get,” left off of 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, and Sleater-Kinney’s powerhouse track “Everything,” left off The Woods. (Seriously, listen to how Janet alternates between the snare riff and the hi-hat riff depending on whether Carrie or Corin is singing.) Both of these tracks are fair assessments of where the respective bands were creatively during these times, but neither of them are particularly suitable for the albums. See also, “Kicking Television,” the Wilco track that is shit-kicking live, but fell incredibly short in the studio.
While the b-sides of the past were hard to track down because so few surfaced, and then nearly disappeard altogether as 45s went out of style, the bonus tracks of the present are more elusive simply because those that aren’t official leak in the strangest of places. Nevertheless, they have always had the elusive appeal of a forbidden fruit. Even when the song is crap, the hunt often renders them all worthwhile.
Well, except for this.
[*] Well, not my fingertips - too chicken to 'break the rules' as it were, I had my dear friend Alyssa download and burn at least 100 bonus tracks for me during high school. Bless you, Alyssa!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
We're Burning Up Tape, Godammit!
I have a dim recollection of a family trip to Michigan, listening to Sheryl Crow’s “Hard to Make a Stand” on the Aiwa Walkman my aunt bought me for Christmas that year. As the song segued into the outro, I heard a voice! A voice where there shouldn’t be a voice! I rewound the tape 5 or 6 times, turning up the volume to try to make out the words. Finally, there it was: a faint, “c’mon boys.” After discovering it, I probably listened to it another six or seven times so I could actually hear Sheryl enjoying herself in the studio. In a word, I was shocked at how ‘real’ that toss off was.
Whether intentional or unintentional, stray studio blemishes wind their way onto the master tapes of our favorite and unfavorite recordings. Rarely reproduced live (and almost always viewed as inauthentic if they are), these studio quirks serve as a matter of proof that musicians are not robots – they actually record these songs! None of these are a necessary part of the bare song structure, but become instantiations (to borrow again from Gracyk) of the recording process.
Perhaps the most prevalent “studio authentication” present on recordings is the ‘count off,’ before starting a song. Wilco’s “It’s Just That Simple,” “When the Roses Bloom Again,” and “The Thanks I Get” all employ the count off, as do, well, other artists I’m sure. Billy Joel cuts the crap and incorporates the count off right into “Matter of Trust.”
Another common authentication is the pre-song chatter, between the artists, engineers or producers. Ani Difranco and the Old 97’s start “Imperfectly” and “Victoria,” respectively, with the query, “ya rollin’”? Fastball and Everclear include the ejaculations “We’re burning up tape, godammit!” and “Play the fucking song!” on “Freeloader Freddy” and “Bad Connection.” Elliott Smith’s “In the Lost and Found,” contains nearly a minute of studio clutter before the piano starts. The only studio chatter I think is really worth a damn is the first track on Ryan Adam’s breakthrough, Heartbreaker, “Argument With David Rawlings,” which segues into the ‘real’ opening track “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High).”
Scroll through your own music libraries to find numerous coughs, hacks, ‘c’mons’ and other sundry instantiations. Arguably, Jandek’s entire catalog pre-1994 is one giant studio blunder, and it is telling that his CD reissues painstakingly remove all microphone bumps, coughs, and motorcycle drive-bys.
Each of these studio moments caught on tape could have easily been edited out on the masters. The inclusion of banter, count offs, and other studio occurrences lend each of the songs a “genuine” quality that seem to say this really happened. The aesthetic quality they lend to the final product is a sense of immediacy, if not intimacy. Interesting, because there really is no other way for the song to be recorded than for at least one musician and one piece of equipment; the tracks thus occasionally urge the listener (or at least this one) to respond, I know this really happened, assholes.
Two of the Wilco songs mentioned, as well as the Everclear and Fastball tracks, are b-sides – a term that is becoming obsolete in favor of ‘bonus track.’ In any event, the banter and count offs also seem to signify a certain ‘unfinished’ quality. Arguably, the effort of preserving these instantiations was probably no more than removing them to appropriately ‘finalize’ the product.
Do these instantiations then further bolster the authenticity of a recording? Would removing them be more of an embellishment of reality than leaving them in when they could have been removed? Will Lassie save Timmy from the well? Tune into tomorrow’s episode, when we explore the authenticity and contemporary purpose of another gem, the b-side.
Whether intentional or unintentional, stray studio blemishes wind their way onto the master tapes of our favorite and unfavorite recordings. Rarely reproduced live (and almost always viewed as inauthentic if they are), these studio quirks serve as a matter of proof that musicians are not robots – they actually record these songs! None of these are a necessary part of the bare song structure, but become instantiations (to borrow again from Gracyk) of the recording process.
Perhaps the most prevalent “studio authentication” present on recordings is the ‘count off,’ before starting a song. Wilco’s “It’s Just That Simple,” “When the Roses Bloom Again,” and “The Thanks I Get” all employ the count off, as do, well, other artists I’m sure. Billy Joel cuts the crap and incorporates the count off right into “Matter of Trust.”
Another common authentication is the pre-song chatter, between the artists, engineers or producers. Ani Difranco and the Old 97’s start “Imperfectly” and “Victoria,” respectively, with the query, “ya rollin’”? Fastball and Everclear include the ejaculations “We’re burning up tape, godammit!” and “Play the fucking song!” on “Freeloader Freddy” and “Bad Connection.” Elliott Smith’s “In the Lost and Found,” contains nearly a minute of studio clutter before the piano starts. The only studio chatter I think is really worth a damn is the first track on Ryan Adam’s breakthrough, Heartbreaker, “Argument With David Rawlings,” which segues into the ‘real’ opening track “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High).”
Scroll through your own music libraries to find numerous coughs, hacks, ‘c’mons’ and other sundry instantiations. Arguably, Jandek’s entire catalog pre-1994 is one giant studio blunder, and it is telling that his CD reissues painstakingly remove all microphone bumps, coughs, and motorcycle drive-bys.
Each of these studio moments caught on tape could have easily been edited out on the masters. The inclusion of banter, count offs, and other studio occurrences lend each of the songs a “genuine” quality that seem to say this really happened. The aesthetic quality they lend to the final product is a sense of immediacy, if not intimacy. Interesting, because there really is no other way for the song to be recorded than for at least one musician and one piece of equipment; the tracks thus occasionally urge the listener (or at least this one) to respond, I know this really happened, assholes.
Two of the Wilco songs mentioned, as well as the Everclear and Fastball tracks, are b-sides – a term that is becoming obsolete in favor of ‘bonus track.’ In any event, the banter and count offs also seem to signify a certain ‘unfinished’ quality. Arguably, the effort of preserving these instantiations was probably no more than removing them to appropriately ‘finalize’ the product.
Do these instantiations then further bolster the authenticity of a recording? Would removing them be more of an embellishment of reality than leaving them in when they could have been removed? Will Lassie save Timmy from the well? Tune into tomorrow’s episode, when we explore the authenticity and contemporary purpose of another gem, the b-side.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
On Authenticity (Kevin Bacon, What the Fuck?!)
In the upcoming days, I would like to explore the idea of authenticity as it applies to various aspects of music. After recently finishing Theodore Gracyk's Rhythm and Noise - An Aesthetics of Rock (1996), I have started thinking about the different ways that authenticity and sincerity are both manifest and expected from the music we listen to and the people who create it.
The authenticity of music and artist can shift from song to song, performance to performance, simply based on intention, inflection, and even the medium through which songs are presented. Expanding some ideas from yesterday's post I will first explore the phenomenon of studio flubs, both intentional and unintentional, and the different ways they can change the authenticity of the music. I will continue with discussions on b-sides, demos, bootlegs, concerts, perhaps even a foray into different recorded mediums, and finally, the finally artists themselves.
Gracyk is quick to point out that authenticity can apply to a specific recording in hundreds of different ways: the artist is expected to conform to a specific genre in order for a song to be considered a 'genuine' effort; the medium this song is distributed by is either genuine or bootleg; this bootleg is either the 'original' bootleg, or a derivative of the derivative; the live performance is a genuine replication of the record or the live performance is a genuine re-incarnation of the record, not a phony performance; and last, the artist believes in what he or she is doing.
To apply the measure of authenticity, let us take the mp3 I have provided below: Ryan Adams' near-breakthrough rap effort, "Aw Shit (Look Who Got a Website)". Would-be alt-country hero turned speedballing crackpot goes apeshit with Garageband, resurfaces with 13 unreleased albums on his website and the homepage presents us with his alter-ego DJ Reggie's first 'hit,' and his record goes balsa wood in India (or someplace like that).
Genuine? Some people would argue this is a genuine piece of shit, but it holds a special place in my heart. The rap is flippant but clever, like most of Ryan's output between 2005-2006, and is most definitely coming from a man starved for attention. Or is he just bored? This is certainly not of the genre that gave him his name, and most people would argue that this presentation does not constitute an official release. Nevertheless, Pitchfork jumps at the chance for a track review the day after the song appears.
So why do I view this as an authentic Ryan Adams track? For a man who was playing with remote control cars onstage, leaving nasty messages on Jim DeRogatis's machine, and redesigning his website to better reflect DJ Reggie's tracks, I suppose it got to the point where "Come Pick Me Up" seemed inauthentic.
Dot com, muthafucker!
The authenticity of music and artist can shift from song to song, performance to performance, simply based on intention, inflection, and even the medium through which songs are presented. Expanding some ideas from yesterday's post I will first explore the phenomenon of studio flubs, both intentional and unintentional, and the different ways they can change the authenticity of the music. I will continue with discussions on b-sides, demos, bootlegs, concerts, perhaps even a foray into different recorded mediums, and finally, the finally artists themselves.
Gracyk is quick to point out that authenticity can apply to a specific recording in hundreds of different ways: the artist is expected to conform to a specific genre in order for a song to be considered a 'genuine' effort; the medium this song is distributed by is either genuine or bootleg; this bootleg is either the 'original' bootleg, or a derivative of the derivative; the live performance is a genuine replication of the record or the live performance is a genuine re-incarnation of the record, not a phony performance; and last, the artist believes in what he or she is doing.
To apply the measure of authenticity, let us take the mp3 I have provided below: Ryan Adams' near-breakthrough rap effort, "Aw Shit (Look Who Got a Website)". Would-be alt-country hero turned speedballing crackpot goes apeshit with Garageband, resurfaces with 13 unreleased albums on his website and the homepage presents us with his alter-ego DJ Reggie's first 'hit,' and his record goes balsa wood in India (or someplace like that).
Genuine? Some people would argue this is a genuine piece of shit, but it holds a special place in my heart. The rap is flippant but clever, like most of Ryan's output between 2005-2006, and is most definitely coming from a man starved for attention. Or is he just bored? This is certainly not of the genre that gave him his name, and most people would argue that this presentation does not constitute an official release. Nevertheless, Pitchfork jumps at the chance for a track review the day after the song appears.
So why do I view this as an authentic Ryan Adams track? For a man who was playing with remote control cars onstage, leaving nasty messages on Jim DeRogatis's machine, and redesigning his website to better reflect DJ Reggie's tracks, I suppose it got to the point where "Come Pick Me Up" seemed inauthentic.
Dot com, muthafucker!
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