Music Monday - Kids Pop!

See?? I still do music stuff when I get the chance!

I've never claimed to have very sophisticated taste in music - I simply demand that it be GOOD.

Now, "Good" of course is a somewhat subjective term, but to me, it's just something I can typically recognize from any given 3 to 5 second snippet of a song. It's got to have a strong melody, and the chords have to progress nicely throughout each section of the song. (verse, chorus, bridge, etc) I absolutely can't stand songs where they just sit on one chord - or loop through the same set of chords - for the entire song. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me! Also, the recording quality has to be good for its time. Meaning, a classic Motown hit doesn't need to (and really shouldn't) sound like it was made in 2010, but anything recorded in the last 40 years had better have nice clear highs and a solid low end. And finally, I just have to like it. :)

So - now that I've established my personal criteria for good music, AND admitted that I'm not very highbrow about it, it shouldn't be a big surprise that I'm a sucker for the kids bands. From Musical Youth in the early '80s, Hanson in the '90s and the Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato today, the kids almost always seem to "get it" on all the main points. Now, it's rare (if ever) that they can pull it off for a whole album, but you're almost always guaranteed to get three or four good solid singles out of them before they start to grow up and decide that they need "credibility." (Miley Cyrus' latest effort, "Can't Be Tamed" is smack in the middle of this category.)

Anyway, last week Cindy, Kaylee and Danee all went over to the Tri-Cities to visit grandparents, leaving Ellysa and me home alone. Not surprisingly, Ellysa opted to spend the majority of her time at her boyfriend Dan's house, leaving me all by my lonesome. I did some basic housekeeping, ate some food, and then decided to get caught up on the latest music. I mainly do that through a service called "Promo Only" that I got hooked up with back in the '90s when I was producing the Friday Night PartyZone on C-89.5 FM. So with the house to myself, I loaded up the August CD, cranked up the volume, and turned on the Wii for some quality time with Dr. Mario.

Each Promo Only CD has 20-23 songs, and for the past few years, there are usually only 3 or 4 that really stand out to my ears... But this month's disc is LOADED with catchy, quality tunes! One in particular jumped out at me, to the point that I ran over to the computer to see what it was. The band was "Burnham" and the song was "Catch Me If You Can." Great sing-a-long power pop, which is one of my favorite styles! From listening to it, I assumed the singer was a girl... but then I noticed the last line in the chorus goes "You probably still think that I'm your man, but girl catch me if you can."

Huh? Wait... If that says what it sounded like it said, then this isn't very likely to be a Power Pop Chick Band, this must be a Power Pop Kids Band...? Really?? So I hit up the YouTube and did a little research - and sure enough, it's the Burnham brothers, with the youngest right up front with pre-growth-spurt chubby cheeks and everything. They look like they're having a blast, and I still loved the song!



Having solved the mystery of Burnham, I resumed the August disc of new releases, and just a few minutes later, I was off the couch again, looking to check on another song... And it was the latest from Hanson - I'd noticed it on the track listing, and kind of laughed, not expecting it to be anything to get excited about... but this song was GREAT! Fresh sounding, soulful, not at all like everything else out there... I'm not sure why, but I decided to look it up on YouTube as well, and was very pleasantly blown away by what I found... A direct, move-for-move tribute to one of my favorite movie musical numbers EVER: The Ray Charles "Shake A Tail Feather" number from The Blues Brothers! And the Hanson boys obviously have a strong love - even a reverence - for the original...

So as much as I like the kids bands while they're new and fresh, the sad fact is that they usually don't age well. It's very nice to see that Hanson has turned out what may be their best work ever, more than a decade after their last significant chart appearance!

As if that wasn't enough, a little more research informed me that Taylor Hanson, the keyboardist and lead singer, formed a Power Pop SuperGroup last year with the guitarist from Smashing Pumpkins, the drummer from Cheap Trick, and the bassist from Fountains of Wayne... And they're AWESOME!!! I was going to embed the video here, but it's disabled - so you have to actually go there to check them out. (click here!)

That's it for this week - I've got lots of great new music to get me through the next seven days, and beyond!

Music Monday - 2 Minutes of Love

A good friend of mine is a music teacher at a local school. He contacted me the other day, asking if I'd help him out with something for his Spring Music Program.

The theme of the program is Love, and I was asked to put together a short (2 minutes or less) Manic Mix all about Love.

Click Play to experience 2 Minutes of Love, Love, Love!

Music Monday - A Little Baby Music, Please!

Wha-wha-whaaa?? A Music Monday column?? Didn't that thing die off a year ago??

Yeah, pretty much, only instead of "die" it more "went to sleep" and unlike animals who "went to sleep," this column occasionally wakes up and makes a guest appearance.

The topic that dragged it out of hibernation this week?

Music for my baby girl, of course!

I consider music as a necessity, vital for a full and enjoyable life. It's also one of the easiest seeds to plant in your kids, because in my experience, they all leave the factory loving music!

Since in the pre-Danee days, our youngest was Tyler, age 11, it had been a while since I'd visited the world of kids music. With each kid I've been around, from my nieces and nephews in the '80s, through my own kids, there have been the classics that you always play for kids like Disney's Movie Music, Sesame Street, and the Chipmunks. Well, Chipmunks are mainly at Christmas time... so we won't go there this time around.

There have also always been one or two contemporary releases that somehow beat the odds and emerge as a quality album that kids and parents can enjoy together. When those "new" albums become "old" they may lose the charm that made them so much fun. (Hi there Teletubbies! Long time no see!) But a few of them remain perched high above the landscape of wretchid children's music, pitying the kids whose parents don't know any better and buy the overly sweet, pandering, patronizing sugar jobs that pass for entertainment in the mass market at any given time.

These albums are good not because of a timely gimmick, or commercial tie-in, but because they are actually GOOD MUSIC! Take away the kid centered, nonsensical lyrics, take away the squeaky voices, and you still have a well arranged, well produced and well played collection of songs.

So why is it that the kids albums I've loved for more than 20 years are not available today, outside of ebay, garage sales and lucky finds in Grandma's attic??

I've got a couple of prime examples, and a couple that I used to have and would love to have again.

THE HAVES:



Two of my prized possessions, and both still quite playable - yes, I've archived them digitally so the actual records never get touched anymore...

First up: Smurfing Sing Song



If you were a kid in the '80s, you know this album. You may not have owned it, you may not have even heard it, but you know it! The commercial for it was EVERYWHERE during our TV Time! Amazingly, after a couple weeks of searching YouTube, I have been completely unable to find that commercial. But trust me, it was ubiquitous.

I was a little old for the Smurfs by the time this album came out in 1980, so I used to mock the commercial with my friends... And then, because my nieces were spending so much time at our house, my mom bought the album.

And while I certainly wouldn't have intentionally listened to it, I overheard enough of it that after a few days, I realized that it was actually a very well made album! There's not a bad song on it, and there's enough variety that you can listen to the whole thing and not want to claw your ears off.

Years later, it's still great! But if you want it, you better be able to play records... because it's not available on CD or (legal) download. I think that's tragic, because it's one of Danee's favorite things to listen to, and I'm sure other babies would love it too!

Next Up: SESAME DISCO



Remember what I said about these timeless albums not honoring current trends? Throw that away for this one. This was all about the Disco Craze of the late '70s.  And yet - it's GREAT!! It's not quite up to Smurf level, with maybe two songs that don't sparkle as brightly as the rest, but it's a very solid album. And the visuals that go along with it must have had the muppeteers and photographers in stitches.. Just check out the Cookie Monster / George Clinton-esque picture from inside the cover!



Just like pictures of the real George Clinton, I can't really tell where the feathers and accessories end and the face begins...  and the song that goes with that picture, "Me Lost Me Cookie At The Disco" is absolute, 100% Pure Disco Gold!

And like the Smurfs, I'd really love to hear it in crystal clear digital stereo... At least my copy of the record is in pretty good condition.

Here's a newer one that I KINDA have...

Arthur & Friends:



I really, REALLY wanted to hate this CD. But man, from the opening riff of Ziggy Marley's theme song, it's a shockingly good play! Tons of variety from Reggae to Rock to '60s Girl Group Soundy Stuff, and then the one truly skip-worthy song from Art Garfunkel. (who? and more importantly, WHY?)

Best of all, this one's still available! Not from amazonmp3.com, but at least you can get an actual CD directly from the record company!

Finally, here's one that I had as a kid - I'm pretty sure I had it on 8-Track... And I would LOVE to have it again. I can't remember any of the specifics, but I remember loving it, and I think it would make a great companion to Sesame Disco:



That album cover takes the fun of Sesame Disco and multiplies it by infinity to come up with the ultimate tribute to Saturday Night Fever! I want this album. I'm going to have to start searching...

I also had a Disney disco album that wasn't nearly as good... Even at the time, it seemed Disney was just doing a disco album for the money, but the Sesame Street gang was doing it because they loved it. I remember one song was called "Disco Mickey Mouse" and was really, really weak. I'm pretty sure there was a Donald Duck song too, and since Donald's my hero, it was my favorite on the album. I'd like to hear it again, but it's not something I'd put much effort into finding...

Okay, I just looked up that Disney one, and the Donald song was "Macho Duck" - and now, I DO want to find it again! Still not as badly as Sesame Street Fever, but seeing this does bring back the memories...



The floor is now yours - what great kids music did you listen to, that you've been able to share with your kids? Anybody got copies of my missing classics?

I'm Secure Enough To Admit It

My nephew The Donald (or El Donaldo, to our Spanish speaking friends!) recently made the bold, brave move of admitting that he's a Miley Cyrus fan. I related to that post, because I really enjoy a lot of Miley's music too... Maybe not quite to the extent that The Donald does - his Miley Glasses are rosy enough that he even likes her ill-conceived cover of "Girls Just Want To Have Fun," which I thought would be great when I saw it on the track listing, but about fifteen seconds in, was reaching for the skip button.

But his post raised an issue that I am actually quite passionate about, and that is how important it is to recognize quality and talent wherever they are, even when you're the minority in an ocean of people groaning that it's fake, lame, terrible, phony, or worse. His key points are valid whether you like Miley Cyrus' music or not. She wrote or co-wrote nearly all of her last two albums, and has sold out concert halls with a fervor that doesn't happen much now that The Beatles have broken up... Come to think of it, The Beatles, in their heyday, had an awful lot in common with young Ms. Cyrus. Their core audience was positively rabid in their adoration, and their core audience's parents insisted that they were talentless hacks.

Please don't threaten to hang me on the cross of culturally sacred cows... I'm not saying Miley is as good as The Beatles (though I'd rather listen to her, any day!) - I'm just saying that the passion amongst her fan base is something that you don't get very often in this day and age, where everything is so on-demand that nothing really builds any sort of anticipation, and therefore, there's never really much to get excited about.

But I have digressed from my original intent for this post - it's almost like I'm out of practice at actual writing, after two months of posting nonstop tidbits of baby news and pictures! (don't worry, more of those will be coming soon...)

Okay, so against the backdrop that I just set up, I get extremely annoyed by things like this:



Okay... Let's see now... When I first heard of the Jonas Brothers, I figured they were a manufactured-for-TV fake band. Then I heard their remake of the Little Mermaid song, "Poor Unfortunate Souls." It was a pretty respectable re-interpretation of it, and I figured that even if they're fake, someone was making them sound good.

My opinion got bumped up several notches when I heard "S.O.S." It was on heavy rotation on the local college station I listen to, and it was an extremely catchy song. I bought their self titled CD for use at the elementary school's Halloween dance in 2007, and ended up playing half of the album, by request. To my amazement, all the songs I played were good!

Normally I'm a total credit reader. I'll scour over the booklet from a CD, taking note of the writers, producers and musicians... but for some reason, I never looked at the JB notes. It wasn't until their current album, "A Little Bit Longer" came out, that I really looked into them.



The first thing I noticed is that the AllMusic Guide gave it a 4-star rating. This caught my eye, because they tend to be rather conservative with their reviews. So I hit up my good friend, Wikipedia. There, I found that they are indeed, brothers with the last name of Jonas. I also learned that they were hardly manufactured. Nick Jonas started out as a Contemporary Christian solo artist, and on one of his demos, his brothers sang backup with him. Poof, the Jonas Brothers were born.

Okay, I am not a happy little cheerleading fanboy here, but Nick Jonas is three months older than my son Andy. At the age of 16, he has written and performed two albums of excellent material. Actually, there have been four albums, including his original solo album... But I'm just focusing on the ones that have made them household names. Looking at the writing credits, he and his brothers co-wrote every song on the new album, and all but the two covers from the previous album.

But it's not just about the songwriting. A few weeks ago, on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve with Ryan Seacrest And Some Kind Of Robot Pretending To Be Dick Clark, there were several musical guests. Taylor Swift proved that she should never, ever be allowed to sing live. Let her lip sync, for the sake of all those within earshot. Lionel Richie phoned in a medley of his hits... I was beginning to think that maybe since it was so cold in Times Square, nobody would sound good. When the Jonas Brothers took the stage, I was very concerned that they'd justify some of the negativity aimed at them. But no, they did an outstanding set! Vocals in tune, music played tightly... and it was actually LIVE! (unlike the why-do-they-even-exist pussycat dolls, who lip synced.. badly...)

I'm sorry, but to have all that under your belt within three months of your 16th birthday doesn't happen without a rather large helping of a little thing called TALENT!! You may not like the style - after all, it's cool to hate things that people actually like - but the people who claim they have no talent are really just exposing themselves as the purveyors of haterade that they are.

My favorite song on the new album is "Can't Have You," which starts off with a very moody sounding piano and drum loop. It would sound right at home on one of the GOOD Depeche Mode albums. Of course, once it hits the chorus, they go for the straight up pop hook, then blend the two on the subsequent verse. Oh, and that song was written by Nick Jonas. Alone. No help from his brothers, or any other professional writers.

The brothers are just hitting their stride. I'm fully aware that their next album could be the one where they try too hard, and their empire implodes on top of them, but I sure hope not. It seems like there's a lot of good songs still to come.

My name is Mike Brinkerhoff, and I like the Jonas Brothers.

Chipmunk Rock!

Back in high school, I was pretty big into New Wave music. My source of all things Wave-y was KJET, a low power station all the way at the right edge of the AM dial. It took some getting used to, listening to music on AM, but the KJET guys helped out by mocking themselves, often describing themselves as "coming through the two-inch speaker."

One day while driving home from school, they played a new song from The Alarm, called "Absolute Reality." I LOVED IT! I checked my local record store, and was bummed to discover that the group didn't have a new album out, so I couldn't get that song. I called the station - oh, for the days when you could actually call the station and get useful information - and they said it was an import, and that Easy Street Records in Bellevue had it. Well, as luck would have it, I lived in Bellevue at the time, and Easy Street was even close to my house!

The next day after school I took a detour to Easy Street Records and picked up my hot new import 12" single by The Alarm. I got home... Took the record out of the cover... Carefully put it on the turntable... Gently dropped the needle in the groove...

...and almost immediately got the sense that something was wrong! It was the right song, but it just didn't sound right! Somehow, it sounded better coming through the two-inch speaker on KJET than it did coming through my awesome stereo system.

The next year I was in the Radio Broadcasting program at Bellevue High, and learned that most broadcast equipment had a switch on the back to increase the speed by 2%. Psychologically, it wasn't enough to really notice that it was faster, but it did hit your ears as fresher and more energetic. I immediately thought back to my Alarm experience. Since I didn't have a variable speed turntable, I did a little hackery to get the desired result. Soon enough, I had that song on a tape in my car, sounding just like it had on KJET, only with the clarity of NOT being on AM Radio.

For the next several years, nearly everything I recorded for myself and others was slightly sped up, to utilize the same benefits that the radio stations used.

Okay, now don't groan, but I told you all that because of (say it with me now) The Radio At Work! In this digital age, it seems that the practice of stations speeding up the music has died off... But a couple days ago, I noticed that songs on JACK had that little 2%-ish boost. I kinda chuckled to myself and remembered my experience back in high school.

Now, ever since JACK started up in Seattle, they've done promos for themselves where they take snippets from a bunch of different songs and force them to match a constant backbeat. Kinda like Stars on 45, for those of us old enough to remember that... (note to self: Stars on 45 for Song of the Day??) Those promos often resulted in songs sounding comically fast, but still recognizable.

This morning, EVERYTHING is being played that fast. The 2% switch is, I would guess, at least 5%, quite possibly even 7 or 8 percent. The intro to "Hurts So Good" sounded like "That Thing You Do!" Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" sounded like a comic parody of itself.

I doubt they intended for it to be so ridiculously sped up, and since it's a completely automated drone station, as long as there's sound going over the air, the Engineers-R-Us guys don't have a reason to actually listen and notice that the Chipmunks are taking over. So it may not last... But if you're in the Seattle area today, turn on 96.5 FM and enjoy the high energy classic hits! If you're out of town, you can listen live at jackseattle.com - just click on the Listen Live button right below the logo. Just be warned - they've got issues today! When I clicked on it to test it just now, it started playing "Alice FM 97.3" from some other market. I closed that and re-tried and it brought up SpeedyJack.

If this new SpeedyJack format is intentional, it's the biggest judgement failure in Seattle radio since "Young Country" had all their DJs talking through an echo box. Hey wait, that was also on 96.5... Could the frequency be cursed??

UPDATE: SpeedyJack is back to Just Jack. Apparently they read my blog too!

Music Monday - Introducing the Song of the Day!

Wow, I haven't gotten a Music Monday post out for over a month... I WISH I could say this marked a return to the weekly entries, but I don't think I could back that up right now. But there IS a good reason for this one today...

Right above this post is a new feature on Ye Olde Family Blogge, and it is a Song of the Day player!

Now, obviously I love music. There's really no disputing that... But I've resisted the urge to put a music player on this blog for a number of reasons, the top two being:

1. Quite often when I'm cruisin' the blogosphere, I already have music playing, either on the computer, or in the room. Loading up a page and suddenly being bombarded with competing music sets off a frenzied hunt to find the stop button.
2. That stop button is often buried deep in a sidebar, which places it somewhere in the middle of the top-to-bottom page, which makes the hunt take much longer than you'd think it should.

So a while ago, I began looking for a way to do "My Music, My Way" here on the blog. I love sharing my music with the world (which is why I DJ!) but I didn't want to annoy anyone who didn't want to hear what I had to offer. I also like to give a little info about the song beyond the artist and title.

So, after several trial-and-error tests to get my code working, I am finally happy with the end result! The Song of the Day will change each day automatically, so if you're interested in discovering new music, or just hearing the randomness of my picks, be sure to stop by every day at some point!

Finally, a little pre-emptive tech-support. You will need to manually click Play to hear the song. During testing, I had it set to auto-play, but the clicking around I was doing in testing the player, I just about drove myself crazy because it would restart every time the page loaded. So until I come up with a scheme to make it auto-play ONCE then sit nicely on all future page loads, it's all manual, hence the name:

Song of the Day - Just Click Play

Oh, and just in case there's something you wanna hear here, just drop a request in the comments!

Music Monday - Takin' It To The Streets

This week's column is definitely inspired by the cool street musician in Port Townsend on Saturday. He was very talented, which was great! However, even the less-than-super-talented specimens of street musician still do a great job of enhancing the atmosphere of the streets on which they play.

First example though, the great guitar guy (GGG) from Port Townsend! He set up on Water Street, which is the main road through town. If you're coming in to town, or doing any shopcrawling, you're doing it on Water Street. It's already a very concentrated area, with large, old-construction, block-long buildings divided into all manner of clothing, knick-knacks, and eating establishments. Given the diversity of the shops, there's already quite a buzz going on. But when GGG sat down, tuned up and started playing, everything including the cars driving by seemed to gel together into a rich tapestry of sound. His raspy voice lamenting how he hates to see the sun go down, put a smile on my face - one of those smiles that just appears all on its own! I didn't say to myself, "Oh, he's doing good. I'll smile to show my appreciation..." No, this was a case where I was listening, looking all around at how everything seemed connected, and realized I had a goofy grin. (That was when I knew I had to get a picture.) No doubt about it, the beach was the biggest star of that day's show, but this guy was a very solid opening act!

But wait, there's more! Although the lone guy (or gal) sitting on the sidewalk is by far the most common street musician business model, there are several variations that make just as strong an impression. Ever been to a Mariner's home game?

There are several regular performers on the streets around Safeco Field, playing guitar, singing, playing sax, trumpet... But there's one guy who was so legendary he made the setup sequence that Fox Sports NW put together a few years ago. I'm sure his mother gave him a name, but most people in the Seattle area will know who you're talking about if you just mention "Tuba Man". He'll add to the euphoria after a rare win, and drive home the defeated feeling of, well, another Seattle big league defeat. It really wouldn't be the same without him there!

But for my two favorite examples come from Victoria, BC.

First, we'll go to the main ferry terminal in downtown Victoria - where the Clipper docks. (The state ferry docks at the other end of Vancouver Island, in Sydney... Although you can still walk down to the Victoria dock, it's not the same as emerging from the boat to what I'm about to describe.) So your ship sails in... you join the cattle to disembark, go through customs, and finally emerge into the sunshine to the downtown waterfront. A unique combination of relaxed and frantic... Tons of stuff going on, but each individual part is laid back, taking it easy. And though you'd never guess that it's what you'd hear ringing above it all, there's almost always a guy... In a kilt... Playing bagpipes! I've seen other unique musical acts on that waterfront, from one-man-band-mimes to mermaids playing accordions, there's a ton of variety. But nothing tells me I'm in Victoria like hearing the 'pipes as I walk up from the ferry terminal!

Our next Street Musician highlight also comes from the streets of Victoria, BC. If you go up from the waterfront on Douglas, you may get lucky like Cindy and I did on our last trip, and encounter an amazing percussion troupe! We saw them setting up across the street as we headed into a shop... When we came out, it was absolutely mesmerizing! We stood across the street watching for probably half an hour! There was a guy playing a relatively standard drum set, along with several other people - I'd say 8-10 people in all. The other people were playing everything percussion. Bongos, Congas, Tambourines, Vibes, Marimbas... And then there was the leader - or at least the focal point, was a guy who was dancing around, holding some sort of Indian or Asian drum, and he had various drum type accessories on both ankles, and danced all over the sidewalk, leading the rhythm and melody over hills, under valleys, twisting and turning like Kaa from the jungle book. And the effect on us was just like Kaa's was on Mowgli - we could not resist. It was without a doubt the coolest unexpected concert I've ever seen.

By now, you should know the drill... Tell me about your favorite public performances!! Thanks in advance!

Music Monday - Quality vs. Credibility

This is the third attempt to write this week's column... When I started (Friday) I thought I'd definitely get it done in time for an early Monday posting, but alas, I had a really hard time putting the following concept into words... or rather, into few enough words that anybody would make it to the end... Music Rant Take Three: ACTION!

Okay. I think the problem with the first two incarnations of this post was that I put too much effort into setting it up. So I'm just gonna dive into it now.

There are a lot of artists who used to be great, and are now jokes at their own expense, sounding like they're locked in a drifting time capsule, bobbing to the surface once a year or so, their talent getting more and more diluted with each cycle.

Then there are the artists who are equally past their prime, but rather than do the honorable thing (GIVE UP - RETIRE!) or the capitalist thing (RESIDENCY IN VEGAS, BABY!), or even the aforementioned bobbing to insignificance, they decide to become "credible" by hiring the current, often self-appointed tastemakers, to re-invent them every few years.

Problem is, the core problem doesn't go away. The artist is out of good ideas. Or has lost the ability to sing well. Or really, just needs to go away.

Case Number One:

MADONNA.

Yep, I went there. She seems to still be considered "untouchable" by the industry as a whole. But why?? It's certainly not because she's churning out hit after sing-along hit like she did 20 years ago! No, the press she gets these days is all about hand-picking a child to adopt from a 3rd world country (complete with ethics controversies), breaking up A-Rod's marriage, or writing children's books that I've never read, but according to people who have, I'm not missing anything.

Her music, meanwhile is dead in the water. She'd hinted that she was heading this way ever since Erotica came out in the mid '90s, but really made it official with her first single of the 21st century, 2000's Music. You (or anyone else!) could easily play the bass line for this song. Just find the note that the opening bass riff is on, and repeat for four minutes. Seriously. Remember the old Cheech 'n' Chong "Earache My Eye" bit, that had the stereotypical rocker gloating that he's so successful but only knows three chords? Well, Madonna topped it by only using one chord. And then when it gets to the chorus, the way she wails out "Music... Makes the people... Come together...." sounds like fingernails on a blackboard. I mean, it's just plain NOT good singing. Not that Madonna was ever a technically excellent singer, but go back and listen to any of her early hits, then jump back up to the current stuff, and it's hard to believe it's the same woman singing.

The latest big hit, her duet with Justin Timberlake, 4 Minutes, isn't quite as blatant... but again, it's seriously lacking in the melody department. I will admit to liking the chorus, but the verses just go on and on and on, with the backing track repeating the same eight notes over and over and over. Just to head off anyone who is preparing to say "But wait Mike! You used 4 Minutes in your latest DJ Mix!"... I used a remix of the song that actually made the daring move of changing the chords during the verse. And it worked.

In closing the Madonna chapter, I'll mention that my wife and girls love 4 minutes. But WHAT do they love about it?? Kaylee loves the part where Timbaland says "Madonna" in the post-chorus, pre-verse section. Cindy loves, from the same section of the song, when Madonna says "Tick Tock Tick Tock..." Note that the parts that make them love the song, really have nothing to do with it being a good song, or even a real "song." The second single from her current album is called "Give It To Me." I was sampling it the other night (while writing take one of this post) and Cindy said "That's HORRIBLE!"

I was happy to agree... Yo, Madonna! MELODY MATTERS!!!

The other grievous offender in today's article is none other than...

Michael Jackson.

"Oh, come now Mike..." you're saying. "He's too easy a target!" you're saying.

I say no. None of this has ANYTHING to do with what he may or may not have done in his fantasy/nightmare land. It has EVERYTHING to do with what he has done in a recording studio on and off since 1991's Dangerous CD.

For some reason, MJ has decided that the best way to counter the fact that his skin has faded and all of his "ethnic" features have literally melted away, is to work with the producers and tastemakers of the R&B scene to earn - just like Madonna - "credibility."

The thing is, Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad weren't historically huge sellers because they aimed at a certain segment of the music buying public. They were historically huge sellers because they were historically excellent albums! Michael clearly knows this, since he was afraid to release his 1995ish album on its own, and instead packaged it as a 2-disc set, with disc 1 being his greatest hits, and disc 2 being what should have been a standalone album. Except that if he'd released it as a standalone album, it would have flopped. Well, not completely flopped... That album had his very best song since he quit working with Quincy Jones (who produced the three huge albums). That song, "You Are Not Alone" still stands as an incredibly rich, gorgeous sounding production that fits in nicely with his other great songs. Let's see, what else did that album offer? "Scream" was a duet with his sister Janet. I'm guessing neither of them pulls it out for their concert sets... The rest of the singles pulled from there were even less memorable. But they sure did have "credibility!"

All of that pales, however, to the recent 25th Anniversary Re-Release of Thriller.

Yeah, again, he is always reportedly working on his next big thing, but all that ever comes out is hits collections and a repackaged Thriller. As part of the tribute to the legacy of that album, someone, probably an "image consultant" decided that re-doing "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" was a great idea. "Oooh! Ooooh!" they must have said, "And we'll get someone to guest vocal on it with you, to bring more CREDIBILITY to it!" But then they had to pick someone.... I can just hear it now... "I got it! We'll get Akon to duet with you! He's already doing guest vocals on 85% of the R&B songs out this year!" And I'm absolutely certain that someone, somewhere in the making of that pairing, enjoyed an evil chuckle at the fact that Akon was in big trouble for inappropriate behavior with a minor at a concert last year... to the extent that Verizon dropped their support of his tour...

Well, this new version of a classic song came out. Its label reads "Michael Jackson, featuring Akon". But if you have the misfortune of listening to the song, it's the other way around. Akon sings a completely re-written song, that occasionally leads into MJ singing one or two lines. But it's HARDLY his song.

Michael, you have an incredible legacy. You're also a hideous freak of nature. It's time to quit trying to re-invent yourself, and just relax. Sing the songs people actually want to hear, the way they want to hear them.

Until then, I'll be passing the time with my ORIGINAL edition of Thriller.

Music Monday - So Bad It's Good

Ahh, the perspective of age!

As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate many of the things that I couldn't stand as a kid. Things like vegetables, which I think I went at least 15 years without eating ANY; but now I get upset if I go more than two meals without some fresh vegetation.

In much the same way that my tastes in food have evolved, my tastes in music have expanded and broadened as well. Most of this happened through my experiences of working in Music Retail and Programming Music for Businesses. Those career phases put me in positions where I had to work with music that I would have never listened to on my own, and you know how it goes... You're forced to work with something you don't like, and over time you find a few aspects that don't annoy you so much, and given more time and exposure, you even start to find little highlights that go a bit further, and actually qualify as enjoyable!

Among the types of music that my forced exposure helped me learn to appreciate: Country, Traditional Jazz, Smooth Jazz, Classical, and Nostalgic Vocals. That last category was one that I really have grown to love. The amount of quality music produced, primarily from the mid-'50s to the mid-'60s, from Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and many, many more is amazing. And about ten years ago, there was a resurgence in "Lounge Music" which caught much of the Classic Vocals category in its wake. I was programming business music at the time, and it seemed that nearly all of our customers were asking for that hip retro lounge sound.

Naturally, as soon as the music industry realized that it had a new avenue to make huge profits by re-releasing back-catalogue material, they jumped all over that. Capitol Records started up a sub-label called "Ultra Lounge" that released countless compilations and classic albums aimed at the 20-somethings who were driving the trend.

In the midst of the seemingly endless tide of irresistibly hip, swingin' music, one day this showed up in our library...

Ok.. I'd never heard of Mrs. Miller, but I had a program to produce, so I grabbed the CD and headed to my studio to scan through it and see what I could use to enhance various retailers' ambiance.

The first song on the disc was "The Girl From Ipanema," a seemingly safe classic. Sure enough, for the first minute or so, it's a very light bossa nova arrangement, totally harmless, maybe even too tame to pull off the hip vibe everyone was looking for.

And then Mrs. Miller began to sing.

It was as if the gentle breeze of the instrumental arrangement gave way to a category 5 hurricane! It's actually very hard to describe in writing just how Mrs. Miller's voice sounds, but I'll try...

First, Vibrato. Elva Miller LOVES her Vibrato. I'm pretty sure she has a personal vendetta against any pitch that holds steady for more than 1/4 of a second. So she keeps her voice modulating, up and down and up and down. And all around...

Second, Timing. I've heard it said that Sinatra often made a song his own, by ignoring the traditional phrasing, instead singing the song the way he wanted, coming in early on some parts, late on others, mixing it all together and creating a new arrangement in the process. Well, Mrs. Miller does the same thing. Only it doesn't really enhance or redefine the song - in fact, it rather confuses the listener, trying to understand why NONE of the singing goes with the music.

According to her supporters, the bad timing was "done to her" by the record company, to increase the comic factor of her recordings. There are stories of her being conducted one beat off from the orchestra... And that at first she didn't realize what was going on, then became aware but decided to play along with the joke. But the thing is, she sounded the same way after leaving Capitol records, and likely had that aspect of her performance intact when she was discovered by them in the first place.

All in all, listening to the entire CD in one setting is difficult at best. But for an occasional bit of comic relief, one or two tracks of Mrs. Miller can be a great thing! She is an excellent example of music that is so bad it's good!

BONUS - Video of Mrs. Miller in action!

Oh, and no, I never did end up using her music in any of our programs at AEI...

Music Monday - It's ALL Good

It's happened to everyone... You hear a song, really like it, buy the album, and... Ruh-Roh, everything except the one song you already knew is terrible! Well congratulations! You just bought a $15 single with 10 or more unwanted B-Sides!

Every now and then, fate will smile on you, and with repeated listens - often accidental, from not hitting stop after the good song ends - you find that there are actually redeeming qualities to other songs on the album... and in extremely rare cases, the would-be filler ends up being preferred over the initially favored lead single. When that happens, it's better than liking a whole album from the start, because you went through an experience to get there! But I'd be a badly lying liar if I didn't acknowledge that THAT scenario doesn't happen very often at all...

But then there are those other times... Those times that restore your faith in the artistic community, when you plunk down your cash for a largely unknown album, and know within minutes that it would have been a bargain at twice the price! Each new song surprises you with how good it is, and you find yourself evangelizing this great work of art to any and all who will listen!

I've had several albums like that, and several more that I knew were 100% good before I bought them.. But for those ones too, there were the early adopters who took a chance. It's hard to believe, but there were people who considered buying "Dark Side of the Moon" a potentially risky purchase! I tip my hat to those risk takers, and will now highlight - for the benefit of anyone who hasn't already thoroughly enjoyed them - some of my all time favorite albums, where every song is at least "Good," and several go all the way to "GREAT!"

By the way, these are presented in no particular order whatsoever...

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PINK FLOYD - DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Hardly needs to be mentioned here, it's been a classic since it came out in 1973. But even 35 years later, I have a hard time only listening to one song. If I hear one, I instinctively crave the rest of the album, and when I give in to those cravings I am never disappointed. Absolutely, Positively Brilliant from start to finish.

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SUPERTRAMP - BREAKFAST IN AMERICA

This is another one that I love to hear in its entirety. Every time "The Logical Song" or "Goodbye Stranger" comes on the radio, I get a little itch to hear the rest. In addition to being so strong musically, from a technical standpoint this album is a masterpiece. One of the cleanest recordings produced in the late '70s.

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NEW ORDER - TECHNIQUE

This album came out while I was working at Tape Town in Southcenter Mall. I had picked up the leadoff single, "Fine Time" for use while DJing dances, and I was just okay with it... Still, since their prior album, Brotherhood SHOULD be on this list too, I had faith and bought it the morning it was released. And I played it pretty much nonstop for the next couple weeks. New Order has always had two distinct personalities: New Order the Synth-Based Dance Band, and New Order the Guitar-Based New Wave Band. They do both well, but none of their albums has so evenly blended the personalities into an aural masterpiece. Just writing this makes me realize I need to put this in my car. Today.

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BILLY JOEL - 52nd STREET

I had this one on 8-track in 4th or 5th grade... And if you remember 8-track tapes, they did one thing extremely well, and that thing was playing on repeat, forever and ever, amen! I didn't abuse it TOO much, but this album had so much variety, from the (at the time) seemingly hard rock of "Big Shot" to the bubblegummy "My Life" and the heartwrenching "Honesty," that my ten year old tastes learned that it was good to like more than just one type of sound. A recent check at the reviews on Amazon made me laugh: "Just like the man himself, 52nd Street is obnoxious and overambitious but thoroughly lovable."

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PINK FLOYD - WISH YOU WERE HERE

I almost didn't list this one... I mean, I kept New Order to only one album, why should Pink Floyd get mentioned twice? Well, it's because this album has always been in Dark Side's shadow, and it seems the world at large only thinks about Dark Side, then The Wall. But Wish You Were Here is every bit as gripping as anything they've done. The first time I pulled the record out, I was shocked to see that the entire first side was just one song. Sure, it was one song listed in parts, but all one song. And not only that, but all the parts were good! I have to say, if you're a fan of their other two big albums, chances are VERY good that you'll like this one too.

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DEPECHE MODE - VIOLATOR

There was no way this one wouldn't make the list. Like New Order, Depeche Mode had had several strong albums leading up to this, their crowning achievement. Also like New Order, I was working in a record store (Silver Platters in Bellevue!) when this came out. I was off that day, but was at the store the minute the doors opened to pick up my copy. I had it out of the packaging and in my CD player before the ink on the receipt tape had dried, and my mind was truly blown. The depth, textures, layering, production, melodies, chord structures, percussion, vocals, EVERYTHING about EVERY song on this album stands up 18 years later as an example of how to do it right.

And with that, I'll wrap up this installment of It's ALL Good. There will be more, but I would really love to hear which albums you can listen to in their entirety, over and over, and keep on loving them... So just click on that Comment link and let me know!

Music Monday - The Concert Experience

Being the complete music freak that I am, I was beyond ecstatic at the prospect of my first live concert! Summer, 1984. I was 15, we had just moved from Des Moines to Bellevue, it was a nice warm summer, but I didn't have any friends in the neighborhood yet... And then one day one of my friends from Des Moines, who was older and had a car, called and said that he had tickets to go see The Cars, and would I be interested in going with him!



And what a show! The opening act was Wang Chung, riding high on the huge success of "Dance Hall Days," although since I was a connoisseur of fine New Wave, I was even more interested in their other great songs like "Don't Let Go," and "Wait." They didn't disappoint, performing most of their Points on the Curve album, and doing a great job of it. I remember thinking that it was a good thing most of the drums were pre-programmed, as their "drummer" on stage spent as much time dancing on his drumset as he did playing it. But I didn't care, because they sounded great, it was louder and clearer than anything I'd ever heard before, and they were just the opening act anyway!

When the cars took the stage, my mind was blown. They were on the stage, though as I recall, the musicians were largely in shadows, while the set was littered with TV monitors of varying sizes, showing images, Cars videos, and probably live footage of the band as well. I really don't remember the visual aspect as much as I do the music. It was flawless! They were incredibly tight, played ALL the hits (even "Touch & Go" which was is one of my all time favorite Cars songs) and they sounded incredible. The show ended way too soon for my taste, and I was ushered back to the real world.

A few years later, I had a chance to see The Cars again, this time with DEVO as their supporting act. I bought tickets immediately, then The Cars broke up, the tour was cancelled, and my hopes were dashed. To rub salt in my wounds, Devo re-scheduled their show about a month later, but at a 21 and over club so I didn't get to go. I did finally right that wrong two years ago, though!

Through the years between that first concert and Devo, I saw countless shows... Working in the music biz opened a lot of opportunities for free concerts, and I took advantage of as many as I could! I saw Duran Duran, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Tom Jones (YEAH!), Kitaro, John Tesh, George Michael (twice), Jellyfish, Bette Midler, Olivia Newton-John and so many others that I'm embarrassed to say I can't remember them all! Really embarrassed because I didn't realize that I couldn't remember them until I actually went to list them out!

But there were two concert experiences that stood out as well as that first Cars show. In the summer of 1990, two of my favorite '80s New Wave bands - two that began as one, and are therefore forever linked in my mind, both had new albums and went on tour. Those bands were Depeche Mode and Erasure... And while Erasure's "Wild" album is one of their weaker efforts in my view, DM's "Violator" was the absolute, undeniable, unsurpassable peak of their career.

Their tour skipped Seattle that year, hitting Vancouver and Portland instead. One of the guys in my group of like-minded friends had relatives in Portland, so we loaded up the minivan and his Accord and ran an extremely enthusiastic road trip down for what was to be an incredible concert... Like The Cars, the sound and performance were amazing. Unlike The Cars, the band was lively, dynamic, engaging... Wow... What a great show! I was incredibly disappointed with the drama (drug induced near deaths, band fighting, long delays) that preceded the followup album, but even more disappointed when I heard the leadoff single, "I Feel You." Gone were the rich, melodic textures that made Violator such a joy to listen to, even 18 years later. Instead, it was all distorted guitars, angst ridden vocals... it was like DM was trying to be Nine Inch Nails. There were a few good songs on "Songs of Faith and Devotion" but nothing that even convinced me to buy the album, first DM album I skipped since...well, ever. And I've never bought one since... Very sad, but I'm SO glad I got to see them at their peak. That makes the memory of the Portland Violator Tour show even sweeter in my mind, knowing that they really never did recapture that magic.

But this is about CONCERTS, not the decline and fall of a once-great band. So on to the other show that summer, Erasure at Seattle's Key Arena. I'm pretty sure it was still called the Colosseum at that point... Now, I mentioned that I didn't care for their 1989 album, "Wild!" Given that, I didn't rush out and buy tickets when they announced a Seattle show. Besides, Erasure is a two man synth pop group, where one guy sings, and the other guy plays ALL the instruments, so in a concert setting, 90% of the music would be programmed, where's the fun in watching that??

Wow. I learned not to pre-judge concerts after that show! It was a warm spring day, I was off work... Got home to a message from my boss that he'd just been handed a pair of tickets to the Erasure show THAT NIGHT, and would I like to go? Well, I wasn't interested in BUYING them, but for FREE?? Sure, I'd go.. They're BOUND to do at least a few of the songs I love...

Well, I still don't care much for the Wild album. But that show was SUCH a performance!! And Vince Clarke (the music-making guy, original founding member of Depeche Mode, writer of nearly all their first album, including "Just Can't Get Enough") was anything but a hermit hiding behind a bank of keyboards. He moved around, and even played live acoustic guitar on "A Little Respect!" Andy Bell, the singer, set a new definition for me of what a flamboyant performer is. Obviously inspired by Elton John's '70s and '80s shows, there were countless costume changes, each more extravagant and/or bizarre than the one before... Props like giant inflatable snails, just really odd stuff, and yet, so much joy of performing that it held my attention and kept any potential scorn at bay for the entire length of the show. Unlike DM, Erasure followed that album up with Chorus, which was excellence from start to finish. And they still put out a ratio of one great album to every two OK albums, on average. (If you like them, and don't have their late '90s Cowboy disc, GET IT!)

Still on my list of acts from that timeframe I'd love to see, are Pet Shop Boys. Like Erasure, they're a synth based duo, and from a live video I bought several years ago, they also put on an amazing show. They were even in Seattle a couple years ago, but I wasn't able to go... Don't you hate when things like LIFE RESPONSIBILITIES get in the way of frivolous fun?

I'm sure at least one person has noticed that I didn't mention Barry Manilow in the above list... That's because I've seen him at least three times, probably more... And want to see him at least once more (with Cindy, since she's never seen him!) before he quits performing. That man is a complete entertainer, which is why he's still performing constantly to sold out crowds nearly 30 years after his hitmaking prime.

In my current life-stage, concerts just don't happen very often. I am hoping to go see Smokey Robinson this summer, since my niece Lisa is going to be playing in his backing orchestra!

Once again, it's your turn now. Tell us all about the memorable, greatest concerts you've seen!

Music Monday - Living Room Idol

This week's column takes a look at a wonderful combination of two things I already love on their own... Karaoke and Video Games!! And not just any video games, but my beloved Nintendo Wii! (you know, the one I stood in line for at 5:00 in the morning back in November of 2006... yeah that one...) It also adds to the mix, the American Idol experience, something to kick the Karaoke game up a few notches! Here's how we were introduced, and subsequently hooked, on this game...

Saturday night, my niece Alicia and her husband Daniel came over for an evening of fun with the Brinkerhoffs! Along with themselves, they brought one of their new favorite pastimes:

Cindy and I hadn't played this game yet, but read about it on Alicia's blog and were very eager to try it out. After a few warmup rounds, it was time for a 4 way American Idol Tournament! I had done very well on my warmups, so the group decided I had to play on the "hard" setting to even the playing field.

ROUND ONE:

At the end of round one, I thought I was going to be just fine with that arrangement! I had sung "Copacabana" and nailed it! Simon said that he hated the song, but that I made him love the performance. Paula (who I think was drunk) blabbed on about how I'm a natural performer, blah, blah, blah, and Randy called me a Dawg who Brought It, Yo. Ummm, Thanks Mr. Jackson! The girls did really well that round too, but poor Daniel was told by Simon that he "invented notes that had never been sung in music before..." But round one didn't have any eliminations so we all went on to round two.

ROUND TWO:

By now I was feeling pretty comfortable in the game... I decided to tackle the Phil Collins classic, "In the Air Tonight." BAD. SONG. CHOICE. Not that I couldn't sing it, but without warning, it started IN THE @#^%#$ MIDDLE OF THE SONG!!! I'm all poised to sing a nice, gentle "I can feel it..." and suddenly the words on screen are "Well I remember..." Took me a couple lines to transition to that part of the song, but then I did ok. At the end, Randy said that I started off weak, but brought it together at the end yo, dawg. Simon & Paula said it was a bad song choice... I agree! What I didn't expect was that it would be my LAST song choice! I was eliminated in round two!!

I was playing as Scott, by the way. To help understand the situation, Soo Ling = Daniel, Angela = Alicia, and Sammy = Cindy.

ROUND THREE:

It turned out to be an all girls final, because in round three, Soo Ling Daniel joined me on the couch to watch the final showdown... it was JUST like Fantasia vs. Diana in season three! WOW! The DRAAAAAAMA!!

ROUND FOUR:

Okay, so we settled in for the Girl vs Girl smackdown. Angela Alicia was up first, and she did pretty good. All the judges were impressed!

Finally, Sammy Cindy got to give it her best shot, and didn't just do well... She nailed every single note in the song, earning a DIAMOND rating! What's more, she did it on what I had hoped would be MY signature song....

Still, since Angela Alicia had done very well in all the prior rounds, it was really hard to guess who would come out on top. And we'll find out.... Right after this word from Coca-Cola! Oh wait, no, that's one way that the game is better than the show, you don't get Seacrest building up the tension just to cut away to a commercial... We got the results right away, and the winner was...

Representing the home team, the winner and June 28, 2008 American Idol, it's...

CINDY BRINKERHOFF!!!
WOOOOOOOO!!! (the crowd goes wild)

I'm still kinda miffed about getting cut so early in the game, but I'm working hard to improve my chances for next time. How, you ask? Since the game was brought over by visitors??

Oh, don't you worry, dear readers... We are now the proud owners of our OWN copy of Karaoke Revolution American Idol!! And we'll welcome any challengers who want to take on the CHAMPION!! (...and her husband...)

Music Monday - Setting Guilty Pleasures Free

There's no disputing that the music we listen to early in life gently guides (and in some cases, strictly dictates) what we like to listen to later... I am definitely in the "gently guides" category, the people who still refuse to admit that the beatles broke up are in the latter.

Probably my earliest memories are from kindergarten. I was in the morning class, and after school, I would rush home as fast as I could, and while Mom would make my lunch, I'd be laying on the floor in front of our big console stereo, listening to records.
One in particular that I remember listening to over and over and over was "Standing on the Corner, Watchin' All the Girls Go By" by the Four Lads. Over and over and over... I was pretty much limited to the records my parents had in their collection, and the few Disney or Sesame Street themed ones they'd bought me.

Not much later than that though, my sisters started bringing their own music into the house, and I was exposed to Billy Joel, Elton John and Barry Manilow. The records changed, my devotion to just lay there and listen didn't. I can remember one time when my sister Susan had joined the Columbia House Record Club (against Mom's wishes, of course) and got a cassette of Steely Dan's "Can't Buy A Thrill". I commandeered the tape recorder and played "Reelin' In The Years" and "Do It Again" until I got yelled at to move on to other songs...

A trip with my uncle Richard from the Tri-Cities home to Des Moines introduced me to Fleetwood Mac, and a trip with him to the OK95 radio studios in Kennewick solidified my love for ELO... An afternoon listening to the radio and playing board games with my cousin Annette during the country crossover period of the early '80s locked in Johnny Lee's "Lookin' for Love" as a good timey classic...

If you read my earlier post about the new wave of the '80s, you'll recognize that my tastes shifted away from these mainstream early favorites. But they never actually left - just moved to the back of my consciousness. I'm sure that the quality of songwriting and musical craftsmanship I fell in love with as a child set the standard for what I personally considered "good" in my later years. It's why there always seemed to be songs that would fly up the charts and get everyone excited about them, but I'd be left totally flat, saying "it's just not a good song!"

As I hit my 30s, I discovered the joy of nostalgia. Pulling out an old K-Tel album from a box that hadn't seen daylight in 15 years was such a great feeling! I began seeking out those old songs again, and since I worked at AEI Music (if you missed that part of the story, click here) I had a pretty easy time collecting all my old favorites and making my own nostalgic CD library. Again, I differentiated myself from other 30-somethings enjoying their musical flashbacks, by fiercely clinging to new, cutting edge music as well... I was probably the only Dance & Trance Mixing DJ on Seattle Radio that listened to soft rock hits of the '80s on the way to the studio!

I was still riding that dual-wave of nostalgia and cutting edge when Cindy and I finally got DSL. I'd had several people telling me that I had to try out Napster... I knew what it was, but wasn't about to even start messing with it while on dial up. Would have been WAY too frustrating!! But with a then-unthinkably fast connection blazing through our apartment, I fired up Napster and did a few tentative searches... And as anyone who was using it back then can attest, it was hard to look for something that WASN'T available! That first night of playing around with it, after I'd gotten a few childhood classics, I called Cindy in, and showed her how easy it was to find things...

...and we both called in sick to work the next day, and spent the entire day at the computer, playing "Stump the Napster!" It was so fun... Since she grew up between California and Arizona, there were different regional hits than I knew, so certain songs that I may have either missed completely, or only somewhat recalled, she would light up and instantly remember every word. At the time, she was making a blanket for Kaylee, and she sat there chocheting, singing, laughing, remembering... before we knew it, it was time to pick the kids up from school!

Today, we still have a few CDs marked "Memory Lane" that are made up of songs from that day... And the songs on them crack me up - I would have never believed that I'd willingly - intentionally, even - listen to Helen Reddy or Anne Murray, but having the new memory of shared re-discovery added to the nostalgia of my own childhood, slips them up to the dignified category of All Time Favorites!

Oh, and even more than just having CDs, I have thoroughly embraced my love for Barry Manilow. So much so that four years ago (almost exactly - June 2004) I did a whirlwind trip with a friend from church who also openly loves Manilow... Barry was doing a one-night-only concert at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. My friend Dave got tickets... And invited me to go with him! We flew out on a Saturday morning, spent the day in Vegas, rode the NY, NY roller coaster, watched Smarty Jones fail to win the triple crown, snuck into the Mandalay Bay to see the stage as it was still being prepped for the show, and then experienced an amazing two hour concert. After the show, we tried (unsuccessfully) to sneak into a private meet-and-greet with Barry, eventually gave up, walked around Vegas some more, and finally crashed in the airport until our Sunday morning flight back home. Well, Dave crashed in the airport. I couldn't. You may recall that I can't sleep when there's music playing, because I just can't NOT listen to it... and there was music playing all night long in the terminal... So I was up all night, didn't sleep on the plane, got home, went and bought a car, got back home, said "wow, I can't believe I'm not tired!" then finally sat down, and crashed harder than I've ever crashed before... All for a Barry Manilow concert!!

I used to refer to these classics as guilty pleasures... But now I'm not even ashamed of them! I call 'em "Mellow Gold" and I'll happily play "Sweet Caroline" or "Looks Like We Made It" along with whatever is currently hot and new, with my head held high!

How about you?? What guilty pleasures have you been hiding? Set them free! Embrace the nostalgic goodness of it all!! It's not only okay, it's GOOD!

Music Monday - Making (Part III - Breathe!)

I am SO proud to present today's column...

I mentioned last week that a year ago, when she was 10, Kaylee wrote a song.

I also mentioned that it was really, really good.

What I DIDN'T mention, was that we have finally recorded her song!

I had hoped to include this with last week's column, but Kaylee was sick leading up to that, and couldn't record the vocals in time. But good things come to those who wait, and I am totally impressed with the song she wrote, and how well she sings it!!

So don't wait any longer!! Push that Play Button!!



Thanks for watching, reading, and enjoying! Now you can say, "I knew her when..."

Music Monday - Making rather than Playing (Part II)

(read part I)


After high school, I didn't do much music making for several years... like probably 15 years or so! And then one Sunday morning my big break came.

Cindy had managed to convince me to start going to church, and we were going to Champions Centre here in Tacoma. I was serving in the tech department, running the sound board in the 6-8 year old kids' room. For many of you, this concept is very foreign... but the classroom was a big auditorium with about 125 seats, and a stage at the front where the teachers would teach the lesson, do skits to illustrate the gospel principles, and at one end, a full band with drums, guitar, bass, keys and vocals. There was also a screen on the stage that projected the words to the songs, controlled by a computer in the tech booth. That's why I was there, and I did it a couple Sundays per month.

This one Sunday however, the drummer hadn't shown up for sound check... As the morning went on, and the official start time crept near, he still hadn't shown up... The lady in charge of the music ministry was starting to panic, so I stepped out of my comfort zone and said "Ya know, I could play the drums if you need me to..." It wasn't hard at all to find a kid who was semi-trained in the tech booth to run things, since I had already set pretty much everything. Five minutes later, I was up on stage, no sound check, no rehearsal, but I knew the songs... and I had an absolute BLAST!! Afterwards, the music lady (Tracy) told me - not asked, but told - that I was going to be on the schedule one week per month on drums from now on. I was SO EXCITED!!

From that unexpected beginning, I branched out and became a singer as well. After storming the stage at Kids Camp, grabbing Tracy's microphone, pushing her to the back of the stage, and whipping the kids into a God-Praising frenzy, she told me two things: "First, don't EVER do that again. And Second, you're now on the schedule for vocals as well as drums.

"I was just cruisin' right along with that, singing, drumming, leading kids in worship, helping to make church a place where the kids WANTED to go... And I really fell in love with the feeling of being in a band, putting together the different parts that make up a song, and performing it live.

In addition to the drums, I'd had a longstanding interest in playing Bass. I'd thought about it during school, but never did anything about it... I'd mentioned it to Cindy a few times, especially after playing drums at church, and really getting into the relationship between drums and bass...

Then, on the morning of my 37th birthday, Cindy told me she'd gotten me a really exciting present. Somehow, my instinct told me that she'd bought me a bass, but I couldn't allow myself to believe that - it was a crazy notion! Then she told me it was too big to wrap... (there's that thought again!)

Finally, she blindfolded me and set it across my lap - and there it was, I was holding a gorgeous Fender Jazz Bass! It was so unbelievably cool!! Almost instantly the panic set in - I'd been talking about playing bass for years, but what if I wasn't able to actually PLAY it?? Panic was unnecessary, as I took to it very naturally, and three months later - with no lessons - I was playing it on stage at church!

Cindy's dad came up from Arizona for a visit shortly after that, and kept talking about a guitar he had that he wanted to give me. Now, if you've met Cindy's dad, you know that somewhere in the range of 94.5% of what he says should be taken with a grain of salt, if it's taken at all. He went back to Arizona, and we got back to our regular lives... Until one day Cindy called me at work and said that a HUGE box from her dad had shown up, with my name on it. I opened it up, and WOAH! It was a very nice, hollow-bodied electric guitar!

I'd had an electric guitar as a teenager, but never took it beyond the photo prop stage. I was convinced that mere mortals couldn't manipulate six strings at the same time, and I was perfectly okay with that! Although by the time I received this incredible gift from my father-in-law, I'd gotten to know several of the guitarists at church, and they seemed to be as mortal as me, so maybe there was a way to make it work...

I invited our good friend (and real life guitar hero) Chris Cohoe over for dinner, and to check out my new guitar in the hopes that he would teach me a few things. He obliged, and taught me one or two chords, plus some scales for use when playing lead. By the end of the night, he was playing rhythm chords on Tyler's mini-guitar and I was playing lead on "Big Red." WOW! I was playing guitar!

One Saturday about a year ago, Kaylee (then 10 years old) came up to me and said she had written a song and needed me to help her polish it. Kaylee had written a few songs before, the type that little girls often come up with, so I am ashamed to say that I didn't immediately recognize that this time was different. I was doing some sort of busy work that I insisted on finishing up, but by the third time she asked me to help her, I got the hunch that this was bigger and/or better than her previous efforts. We went downstairs and I grabbed Big Red, she was clutching her notebook, and I asked her to show me what she had worked out already.

The kid had written 2 verses, a chorus and a bridge! But that wasn't the biggest shock, the biggest shock was that it was REALLY GOOD! For the next hour or two, we figured out how the melody went, recording each little section on the laptop so we wouldn't forget how it went by the time we got the next part down. Finally, when we put it all together and went through the whole song, I had goosebumps on both arms - an indicator that what I'm hearing is better than good, it's GREAT!

We called up Chris (my guitar mentor) and played it for him, and he was like "no really, who wrote that?" Kaylee was singing with me on the team at church, so a few weeks later, when rehearsals ended, we taught Chris her song, and had her sing it with a proper guitar backing. Everyone on the kids music ministry was blown away, and told Kaylee she should sing it for talent night! Unfortunately, we haven't gotten the song done with a full band yet, but it's going to happen. That kid has amazing talent... and guess what? Next year she's starting 6th grade, and wants to play... ALTO SAX! I can't wait to have a sax around the house again... and am looking forward to helping her learn to play it.

Meanwhile, I haven't graduated to actually playing the guitar with other people yet... The biggest problem is lack of time to practice. But I have played it with the family many times, can do a few complete songs, co-wrote Kaylee's #1 smash hit, "Breathe" on it, and have a strong enough desire that I know it'll happen before too much more time passes.

After that, I may just revisit the piano!

There's a special Part III Next Monday - Don't Miss It!

Music Monday - Making rather than Playing (Part I)

Welcome back to Music Monday, after a week off for Memorial day... I actually had wanted to write this one then, but did fun outdoorsy stuff instead.

The last two columns were about my careers in the field of playing back music that's already been made.

I will fiercely defend the notion that a good DJ is - in a way - being a musician, especially when doing seamless mixing, weaving a musical tapestry from several different pre-made ingredients. But that still isn't quite the same as actually making music - as in playing an instrument that's more universally recognized and accepted as an instrument.

For me, my first taste of making music came with the piano downstairs when I was a kid. Like all kids, I'd bang on it, but unlike many kids, I recognized that the banging wasn't actually music. And I did something about it, teaching myself to play simple melodies, learning little songs, even somewhat learning to read music. My mom decided that I was a natural at the piano, and put me in piano lessons.

I hated piano lessons.

It was a combination of not getting along with the teacher, feeling like I already knew more than she was trying to teach me, and wanting to play outside with my friends instead of practicing and going to lessons. After a month or two, I quit the lessons and never went back.

Now, of course, I really wish I'd stuck with it! I can still muddle around on the piano, but I know that my personal satisfaction level would be much, much higher if I'd learned good strong fundamentals as a child.

There were also a few weeks in my childhood when my sister Janice (or maybe Karen, maybe Linda, or maybe all three) tried to teach me to play the violin. In that case, I liked the teacher just fine, but it still competed with friends and summer vacation for my time, and the violin was decidedly NOT cool for a boy to play...

Then in 5th grade everyone had the opportunity to take Band, which not only sounded like fun, it also got you out of the regular classroom for 45 minutes or so each day. And, since it was during school, it didn't have the impact on my playtime that the other musical endeavours had had.

The one instrument above all others that I really wanted to play, was The Drums.

My parents were rather emphatic in saying "NO WAY ARE YOU PLAYING THE DRUMS!!" There wasn't any of this touchy-feely crap that today's parents are screwing around with, it was flat-out, "NO DRUMS IN THIS HOUSE, MISTER!"

So I decided that a passable alternative would be to play the Saxophone.

My parents agreed to that, and found a used sax for me to learn on. The first time I slipped the strap around my neck I felt SO cool! Not as cool as I would have if I was learning to throw drumsticks high in the air and catch them on the beat, but still very cool. That is, until I actually tried to play my cool new saxophone... Then I was not so much cool, as I was anxious, to find out why it made such horrible noises instead of smooth saxy music.

Turned out it wasn't the sax, it was me. As 5th grade progressed, I learned sax basics, really learned to read music, and got my first taste of playing in an organized band. I also decided that it was a good thing I didn't get to play the drums, because the drummers had to do exercises that made my complaints about piano lessons look like nothing!

So I stuck with it, and played Alto Sax all the way up through 12th grade. Then my niece Feniffer ended up with my old sax, and as I recall it served her well too.

Interlake High School was a great place to be in band. We had this band director, Mr. Leo Dodd, who was about as close to a perfectionist as a high school band director could possibly be. Excellence was expected, and as is often the case with kids, we all rose to the expectation. We didn't go to a single band contest that we didn't place in, and more often than not, we'd come home with one of the major awards from the day. Interlake also had a good football team, which meant that the band did double-duty as Marching Band for the first few months of the school year. And Mr. Dodd being Mr. Dodd, we didn't just do marching band, we actually did formations on the football field while playing!

Looking back, I can't believe how much we learned each week! I guess we probably had two weeks between home games most of the time, but each home game would bring one or two new songs, and a new marching program with directions, distances and routines to memorize. And when Friday Night came, we'd all pile into the bleachers and play during every time out, every break, after scoring, really any time there was any break in the action. Then at halftime, we'd spill out on to the field, get to our starting marks, and make the magic happen. Those were SUCH good times!

We also did marching band in the spring, when we would march in the Victoria Day parade in Victoria, B.C. That didn't have any fancy routines, but we had to learn to march in strict formation, every row evenly spaced, everyone playing perfectly in tune, and NO SHEET MUSIC ALLOWED! For weeks leading up to the Victoria trip, everyone in the band would be tested and re-tested on their parts without reading the music. If you couldn't do it from memory, you couldn't march in the parade. And if you didn't march in the parade, your grade took an epic nosedive. Again, everyone always rose to the expectation and memorized their parts! To this day, I still turn my nose up at bands in parades who are reading from their little cheat sheet music...

My Senior year, I took an interesting fork on the band path, and played Sousaphone in marching band. (FYI, Sousaphone is the big, wrap-around Tuba that marching bands use for bass)

Almost all the tuba/sousaphone players from the year before had graduated, so on the first day of school, Mr. Dodd asked for volunteers to fill out the "Sousa Squad." He said you didn't even need to know how to play the instrument, he would teach you. But you did have to be a bit of a ham, and not be embarrassed to be the center of attention. By the end of his speech, most of the band was pointing at me... so I accepted the challenge and took half the sax section with me! Sousa Squad that year had 1 tuba player, a couple trombone players, a trumpet player, and four sax players who had never played any brass instrument. We may not have won awards for our sound, but we loved being the highlight of the halftime show! One night we did the classic tap-dancing song, "Tea For Two," with the Sousa Squad carrying the entire melody, and dancing on the football field. Pretty sure we got a standing ovation for that one!

It was also during high school that my uncle Richard was putting together a band for a church talent show. He invited me to play basslines on a keyboard, a sax solo or two, and also to sing. During rehearsals for this talent show, I finally got to play drums for the first time. The guy who was playing drums just COULD-NOT-GET a drum riff toward the end of "Desperado" by The Eagles. I tried verbally telling him how it should go, but it wasn't helping. Finally I asked if I could show him... He got up and handed me the sticks. Suddenly, I was VERY nervous! I had never actually played drums, not even one time. But I KNEW that I could! I had known it since I was in fifth grade! So I just did what I knew was right, and nailed it. He looked at me and said "well, why don't you just play drums on this one?" I ended up playing drums on a couple other songs too, and it felt so great to finally play what I felt I should have been playing all along...

Check back next week for Part II of this series, where I move beyond the School Band model and embrace the Rock Band one!

Music Monday - Music as Income Part II - LIVE!

This week's Music Monday is courtesy of my niece Heidi, who mentioned something in comments that I didn't bring up...

I can't believe I neglected to mention it in the last Music Monday post, but in addition to Mon-Fri at AEI, and Friday Nights at C-89, I spent the 3rd and 4th Saturday nights each month DJing church youth dances! And also, during the Summers of '97 and '98, The Friday Night PartyZone was broadcasting live from nightclubs in Seattle... The summer of '97, in particular, was an extremely busy time. I worked 6:00 am to 2:30 pm at AEI Music, and on Fridays, around 6:30 pm I would pack up my car with music and head up to Seattle for my night at Club F/X, where I'd DJ my heart out from 8 to 2:00 am. Then I'd drive home, sleep, and on Saturday between 5 and 6, load up again with music and equipment to head up to either Bellevue or Redmond for a stake dance. Thankfully, they got over at 11, so I got to go to bed at a semi-human hour those nights.

You'd think that schedule would wear you down, and I'm sure that physically it probably did, but the music and crowd interaction was so completely euphoric that it generated all the energy I needed to keep going and going and going.

I DJ'd my first dance when I was 14. I was so excited to finally be old enough to go to the church dances, but I got there and was faced with epic disappointment. Lame music, no atmosphere whatsoever, and nobody was dancing. I went a few times, then lost interest... But knew that I could make it better someday!

Around the same time, an older friend called and said he'd gotten the opportunity to DJ a young adult dance, and could I help him out. He didn't have to ask me twice! Not only was it my first shot at actually DJing a dance, it was the annual Seattle Aquarium dance, and we were setting up in the underwater dome. Goodbye disappointment, hello EPIC COOLNESS!! It went off as well as I'd hoped, and I had been bit by the DJ bug. From that somewhat thrown-together event, I gradually gained experience through a wedding reception here, another young adult dance there, but never lost sight of my goal to DJ the youth dances.

My first taste of doing a youth dance was in the spring of 1985. I'd moved to Bellevue by then, but was still in touch with the same friend who originally got the Aquarium dance. He called me up and asked if I'd like to do a Video dance for the Seattle stake youth. WOAH! VIDEO DANCE?? AWE YEAH!!! One of the guys in the stake owned a video store - and this is back when video stores carried VCRs and TVs too. He loaned me a Hi-Fi VCR a couple weeks before the dance, so I could record all the top videos from MTV. Then the night of the dance came, and we had three or four big screen (like 48") projection TVs set up around the room, and played something like one video for every three or four non-video songs. It was a huge hit, and at the end of the night the guy who owned all the equipment asked me if I'd consider Video DJing weekly teen dances on Vashon Island. WOW!! A regular, paying DJ job! He perma-loaned me the Hi-Fi VCR, and every day after school I would record videos, keeping a log of what was recorded on every tape. The goal for these dances was to be ALL video, so I needed a complete current library.

I was so completely nervous the first afternoon when I went to catch the ferry to Vashon! I checked and re-checked the trunk of my car a half-dozen times to make sure I didn't forget anything, because Vashon was (and probably still is) quite isolated on its own... I wasn't confident that I could make up for forgetting anything. Setup took around two hours - and that was WITH my friend Scott helping out! We'd never hooked up so many TVs before! The venue was a large reception hall, and we had TVs in every corner, plus one on each side of my table. Finally, 8:00 came, and kids started showing up. These kids were starved for FUN entertainment that was ON the island. They were one of the most enthusiastic crowds I've ever played for! The dances went on all summer long, with takedown being a frantic race against the ferry schedule. One time, I took a little too long, and pulled into the dock right as the last boat home was sailing off. Even though it was summer, it was a VERY cold night there on the terminal... I'm sure my parents were at least a little concerned when I called and said I would be spending the night on the dock, but there wasn't anything either of us could do, so I just hunkered down in my little Mazda 808 and wished I could sleep. I was never quite so happy to hear the loud horn of an early morning ferry before!

After that summer, the video club never returned... and things slowed down while I finished school. I did manage to DJ one dance at my own high school (Go Interlake!) and also one at Bellevue High, where I spent two hours each day in the radio broadcasting class.

After graduation, I finally made the right contacts to get a trial shot at the Bellevue stake youth dances. I thought things went exceptionally well, and obviously they did too, because they contracted me to keep doing them! That first night in December of 1987, maybe 50-75 kids showed up. About four months later, that had more than doubled. By the early '90s, these dances were legendary, with kids driving from as far away as Olympia each month. I had started calling it Club Bellevue, and promoted the dances to the kids as THE place to be on the 3rd Saturday of the month. There was a group of girls who always danced right up front by the stage, and I nicknamed them the Club Bellevue Solid Gold Dancers. After a few months of giving them shoutouts, they all showed up wearing matching T-Shirts that said "CLUB BELLEVUE SOLID GOLD DANCERS". Those dances were insanely fun times for the kids, for the chaperons, and for me. There was enough longevity that I'd seen the same kids go from 14, awkward and shy, to 18 and bound for college. The rapport was something that I know I'll never encounter again, and is one of my treasured memories.

At the height of the Club Bellevue years, neighboring Redmond stake called and asked me to DJ their dances on the 4th Saturday. I agreed, and was shocked the first time, to see only about 30 kids. But those 30 kids had fun, and the next month I told Club Bellevue to come to Redmond next week, and the Redmond kids who had been there all brought friends, and within a few months Redmond was nearly up to Bellevue levels of awesome.

For a couple years, my posse and I rocked the dances of Bellevue and Redmond, and gave countless kids an incredibly fun, safe environment to be crazy in.

Then there was a change in the stake youth leadership in both stakes.

Almost overnight, I was getting phone calls nitpicking about this, that and the other thing. I kept smoothing things out, believing that in time the leadership would relax and let the good times roll.

But no.

Both stakes decided that things were bad enough that they got together and hired a "church dance expert" from Ricks college - now BYU Idaho - to teach me how to properly put on a dance. This guy was pushing 70, had an unnatural fascination with line dancing, and badmouthed every single aspect of DJing that I had used to make these dances so phenomenal. This was an all day session, with the normal Bellevue stake dance at the end of the night. Hundreds of unsuspecting kids showed up expecting Club Bellevue, and instead got "Line Dancing with Mr. Geriatric". They were running up to me asking why I wasn't up there, and what was going on... It was like those recent Burger King ads where they told people that the Whopper had been discontinued!

Finally, I was told that I had to sign a new contract stating that I would follow all 27 of his "pointers" or I wouldn't be welcomed back. I didn't even consider it, I quit on the spot. Never heard from Bellevue again about it, but Redmond still felt the need to call me THE DAY OF THEIR NEXT DANCE and tell me that they wouldn't be requiring my services that night. I told them that was good, because in case they had forgotten, I quit and wasn't going to be there anyway. Bleah!

So that was the end of my church dance career. Bellevue provided around ten years of good times and good money (I was making $350 per night by the end of it, possibly why they wanted to get rid of me) and Redmond was two or three years. But the memories are priceless, and will last a lifetime.

Other than a few wedding receptions each year, and the Whittier Elementary Harvest Hop (aka Halloween Dance) I haven't done much live DJing in the 21st century. The last actual recurring gig I had was as the opening week DJ at The Loft, a then-brand new club in downtown Tacoma. They had wanted me to be their full time resident DJ, and the club was supposed to open in August of 2000. But delays pushed it back a few weeks at a time, with the actual grand opening happening the week between Christmas and New Years. By that time, my interest had faded (see last week's column for an understanding on how I could get burned out on music) and I ended up only doing the first week. There were some good times there, but it was clear to me that the thrill was gone...

Of course, now that I make my living doing boring computer stuff all day long, the prospect of getting paid for music services sounds pretty good again... Anyone wanna hire a DJ?