An Awkward/NSFW Interview with Nirvana Producer Steve Albini (Plus B‑52 Frontman Fred Schneider)

in Comedy, Music | October 26th, 2013

Record engi­neer Steve Albi­ni got a fair amount of press last month when the music world cel­e­brat­ed the 20th anniver­sary of Nir­vana’s In Utero, an album Albi­ni helped ush­er into the world in 1993. It would be Nir­vana’s last stu­dio record­ing.

In a recent post on Open Cul­ture, Josh Jones described Albi­ni as fol­lows:

Jour­ney­man record pro­duc­er Steve Albi­ni … is per­haps the cranki­est man in rock. This is not an effect of age. He’s always been that way, since the emer­gence of his scary, no-frills post-punk band Big Black and lat­er projects Rape­man and Shel­lac. In his cur­rent role as elder states­man of indie rock and more, Chicago’s Albi­ni has devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion as kind of a hardass. He’s also a con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al who musi­cians want to know and work with.

In the video above cre­at­ed by leg­endary com­ic out­fit Sec­ond City, Albi­ni sits down (lit­er­al­ly) to talk with a stand­ing, awk­ward Tuck­er Wood­ley. It’s amus­ing, cer­tain­ly uncom­fort­able, and occa­sion­al­ly Not Safe for Work. We also have Wood­ley’s inter­view with Fred Schnei­der, of the B‑52s,  below.

Thanks to our read­er Nate D. for send­ing this along.

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Learn to Sing the Harmonies of Famous Beatles Songs with Master Harmonist Galeazzo Frudua

in Education, Music | October 25th, 2013

A recent Metafil­ter post intro­duces us to Galeaz­zo Frud­ua, a musi­cian from Bologna, Italy who, “pos­sess­es an uncan­ni­ly good ear for har­mo­ny, and has pro­duced a series of videos that painstak­ing­ly and expert­ly ana­lyze and demon­strate for you the vocal har­monies employed in var­i­ous Bea­t­les songs.” These detailed tuto­ri­als, writes the Metafil­ter poster, are made all the more watch­able by Frud­u­a’s “per­cep­tive com­men­tary, capa­ble singing voice, unas­sum­ing man­ner, impres­sive video edit­ing skills and, hey, his charm­ing Ital­ian accent.”

In his first tuto­r­i­al, for “Nowhere Man” (above), Frud­ua begins by intro­duc­ing “Lennon voice”: “Lennon voice is very sim­ple, and it goes like this.” And, hand­i­ly, flaw­less­ly, it does. Frud­ua, who seems to be record­ing in the back of a restau­rant, match­es the tone of Lennon, McCart­ney, and Harrison’s har­monies sep­a­rate­ly and togeth­er impres­sive­ly. He par­tic­u­lar­ly favors Rub­ber Soul. Hear his “In My Life” below. He calls it “one of the best per­for­mances ever of John Lennon in the Bea­t­les” as well as “a fan­tas­tic cam­pus on learn­ing how to sing.”

Anec­do­tal­ly, hav­ing worked with choir singers, opera singers, and a capel­la singers, I can say that Frudua’s abil­i­ty is not par­tic­u­lar­ly rare but is the effect of con­stant prac­tice. One Metafil­ter poster puts it well: “It’s not hard if you have a bit of an ear, and some expe­ri­ence.… Har­monies are a kind of lan­guage. Spend some time learn­ing the gram­mar and a few phras­es and it can open up quick­ly.” Frudua’s not only a mas­ter of vocal har­mo­ny, he’s also an expert luthi­er and builds cus­tom gui­tars for dozens of Ital­ian artists. In his break­down below of “You Nev­er Give Me Your Mon­ey,” the intro to the Abbey Road med­ley, Frud­ua takes on a par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult har­mo­ny, as he explains in great detail in his care­ful intro­duc­tion to the song’s har­mon­ic gram­mar. He tells us we can use this tuto­r­i­al “as a guide for your Bea­t­les’ trib­ute band or repro­duce them in your home record­ing.” You may do those things if you wish. Or you could watch Frud­ua do them bet­ter. See his full series here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Tracks for The Bea­t­les’ Cli­mac­tic 16-Minute Med­ley on Abbey Road

John Lennon’s Raw, Soul-Bar­ing Vocals From the Bea­t­les’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ (1969)

Decon­struct­ing The Mas­ter Track of The Bea­t­les’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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Mashup Artist “Kutiman” Travels to Tokyo and Creates an Incredible Musical Postcard

in Life, Music, Travel | October 25th, 2013

Israeli musi­cian and video artist Ophir Kutiel, aka Kuti­man, gained notice culling and remix­ing unre­lat­ed per­form­ers’ Youtube videos for his extreme­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive-feel­ing Thru You project.

With 2011’s Thru Jerusalem, the urge to con­nect fel­low musi­cians went live, as he left his com­put­er to film local instru­men­tal­ists per­form­ing tunes of their choice in var­i­ous city set­tings. Back in Tel Aviv, he edit­ed the results into one of his sig­na­ture mashups, not to men­tion a vir­tu­oso musi­cal trav­el­ogue.

Now he’s trav­eled even fur­ther afield to Tokyo, cap­tur­ing forms both tra­di­tion­al and ultra-mod­ern, for the first in a new series of orig­i­nal shorts from PBS Dig­i­tal Stu­dios.

Mayuko Kobayashi plucks serene­ly at the strings of a koto. Turntab­list KEIZOma­chine!, half of the break­beat duo Hifana, scratch­es in his stu­dio. The diminu­tive Ishii Chizu­ru pounds a taiko drum. Inven­tor May­wa Den­ki (aka Novu­michi Tosa) demon­strates his adorable Ota­ma-Tone. (Cur­rent­ly marked down in the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art’s gift shop, for those look­ing ahead to their hol­i­day shop­ping lists.)

The desire to inte­grate the ancient and the new is best embod­ied by kimono-clad Mako­to Takei, who clos­es his eyes on a high-rise bal­cony as he plays a shakuhachi flute, the ver­ti­cal city serv­ing as back­drop.

Add a pink haired Hara­juku girl, a string of red lanterns, innu­mer­able cell phones, some pixel­lat­ed video game char­ac­ters, an aged tem­ple or two, and sev­er­al teem­ing inter­sec­tions, then blend at top speed!

The prod­uct may be a bit ear­split­ting at times, but that in itself is fit­ting giv­en the loca­tion. Thru Tokyo is a mar­velous audio-visu­al post­card from 21st-cen­tu­ry Edo, Japan.

Relat­ed Kuti­man Videos:

Kuti­man Mash­es Led Zep’s Black Dog: 80 Clips Stitched into One

The Moth­er of All Funk Chords

The Sounds of Jerusalem

Ayun Hal­l­i­day feels the trav­el bug bit­ing yet again. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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David Sedaris Sings the Oscar Mayer Theme Song in the Voice of Billie Holiday

in Music | October 25th, 2013

I’m going to make your Fri­day, right here, right now. Above, we have a clip of David Sedaris doing a dead-on Bil­lie Hol­i­day impres­sion while singing the famous Oscar May­er theme song. The clip is an out­take from a 1998 episode of This Amer­i­can Life where Sedaris talks about his child­hood fan­ta­sy of singing com­mer­cial jin­gles in Hol­i­day’s voice. You can catch the jin­gles around the 9:00 mark (lis­ten here) … and again at the 17:45 mark. But I’d real­ly encour­age you to lis­ten to the full tale from the very start (6:00). Day made?

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Duke Ellington’s Sym­pho­ny in Black, Star­ring a 19-Year-old Bil­lie Hol­i­day

Bil­lie Hol­i­day Sings ‘Strange Fruit’

Bil­lie Holiday–The Life and Artistry of Lady Day: The Com­plete Film

David Sedaris Reads You a Sto­ry By Miran­da July

Find Sto­ries Read by David Sedaris on our list of 800 Free Audio­Books

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Animated Video: Kurt Cobain on Teenage Angst, Sexuality & Finding Salvation in Punk Music

in Animation, Life, Music | October 22nd, 2013

The Blank on Blank “Lost Inter­view” series con­tin­ues to roll along. Today, they’ve released an ani­mat­ed video based on a July, 1993 inter­view with Nir­vana front­man Kurt Cobain. Record­ed less than a year before his death, the inter­view­er, Jon Sav­age, finds Cobain feel­ing rel­a­tive­ly opti­mistic, upbeat, bet­ter than he’d felt in years. The inter­view touch­es on many things, but, if there’s a com­mon theme, it’s iden­ti­ty — Cobain’s Irish­ness, his ques­tions about his sex­u­al­i­ty as a younger man, his views on women and sex­ism, his sense of being an out­sider through­out his child­hood, and how punk music saved him from all of that. Pre­vi­ous Blank on Blank videos have revived inter­views from Ray Charles, Janis Joplin, David Fos­ter Wal­lace, Jim Mor­ri­son & Dave Brubeck. For footage of Kurt Cobain back in the day, see some of the choice mate­r­i­al below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nir­vana Plays in a Radio Shack, the Day After Record­ing its First Demo Tape (1988)

Nirvana’s Home Videos: An Inti­mate Look at the Band’s Life Away From the Spot­light (1988)

The “Priest” They Called Him: A Dark Col­lab­o­ra­tion Between Kurt Cobain & William S. Bur­roughs

Kurt Cobain’s Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track From ‘Smells Like Teen Spir­it,’ 1991

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William S. Burroughs “Sings” R.E.M. and The Doors, Backed by the Original Bands

in Literature, Music | October 22nd, 2013

The nineties saw a lot of alter­na­tive bands not only wear their influ­ences on their sleeves, but also bring them up on stage and into the stu­dio. William S. Bur­roughs was one such lumi­nary, appear­ing on Tom Waits’ 1993 The Black Rid­er, a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Kurt Cobain titled “Priest They Called Him,” and Sep­tem­ber Songs, a 1997 Kurt Weill trib­ute album fea­tur­ing the likes of PJ Har­vey, Nick Cave, Elvis Costel­lo, and Lou Reed. In 1996, Bur­roughs got togeth­er with R.E.M. for a cov­er of their “Star Me Kit­ten” from ‘92’s Auto­mat­ic for the Peo­ple. In the track above, hear Bur­roughs recite Michael Stipe’s lyrics over the band’s instru­men­ta­tion. The record­ing comes from an album called Songs in the Key of X: Music From and Inspired By the X‑Files, which includ­ed Frank Black, Soul Cough­ing, Foo Fight­ers, and PM Dawn. Bur­roughs intro­duces his ren­di­tion by cit­ing a much more clas­si­cal source for his cabaret approach to the song: Mar­lene Diet­rich. “Not one of my favorite peo­ple,” he mum­bles, dourly. See per­haps why.

Bur­roughs didn’t only work musi­cal­ly with con­tem­po­rary alt bands in the ’90s, and he had a long, illus­tri­ous record­ing career sev­er­al decades pri­or. In a mash-up that brings togeth­er a band clos­er to Bur­roughs’ prime, hear the beat writer’s rhyth­mic dead­pan of Jim Morrison’s “Is Every­body In?,” backed by the sur­viv­ing Doors. Despite the orig­i­nal play­ers, it’s still a very ‘90s pro­duc­tion (though released in 2000). From a Doors trib­ute album called Stoned Immac­u­late, the song sits, some­what uncom­fort­ably, next to cov­ers and inter­pre­ta­tions by Stone Tem­ple Pilots, The Cult, Creed, Smash Mouth, Days of the New, and Train, and a bit cozi­er next to stal­warts like John Lee Hook­er, Exene Cer­ven­ka, and Bo Did­dley. Bur­roughs’ is the stand-out track among many that also fea­ture the Doors as a back­ing band, although in an acid-jazz production–with sam­ples of soul music and Mor­ri­son himself–that may sound a bit dat­ed. But Bur­roughs is as dry as ever, under­lin­ing the sheer creepi­ness of Mor­rison’s poet­ry in a trib­ute that also high­lights the debt Mor­ri­son owed him.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

William S. Bur­roughs Explains What Artists & Cre­ative Thinkers Do for Human­i­ty: From Galileo to Cézanne and James Joyce

Pat­ti Smith Shares William S. Bur­roughs’ Advice for Writ­ers and Artists

“The Lost Paris Tapes” Pre­serves Jim Morrison’s Final Poet­ry Record­ings from 1971

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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The Challenge of Archiving Sound + Vision in the 21st Century

in Music | October 21st, 2013

Where is the wis­dom we have lost in knowl­edge?

Where is the knowl­edge we have lost in infor­ma­tion?

So won­ders T.S. Eliot’s cho­rus in a pageant play he once helped write in 1934. Nev­er one to let moder­ni­ty tram­ple glee­ful­ly over tra­di­tion, Eliot asks us to consider—long before it seemed necessary—what the sea of infor­ma­tion we now swim in might be worth with­out good maps to guide us and wise nav­i­ga­tors to chart out the course. We live in a time in which every­thing can be cat­a­logued, pre­served, backed up, and made open and search­able. This is a won­der­ful thing. But Will Pren­tice, Audio Engi­neer and Con­ser­va­tion Spe­cial­ist at the British Library’s Sound and Vision Divi­sion, points out a spe­cial prob­lem with archiv­ing in the dig­i­tal age. Echo­ing Eliot, Pren­tice says in the short film above, pro­duced by British music mag­a­zine The Wire:

The 20th cen­tu­ry was about audio­vi­su­al mate­r­i­al, our mem­o­ry of the 20th cen­tu­ry is heav­i­ly audio­vi­su­al, but our sense of the 21st cen­tu­ry is going to be a dif­fer­ent kind of audio­vi­su­al… archiv­ing is not going to be so much about what we can bring in, but about what to exclude.

As much as we mod­erns hate the idea of dis­crim­i­na­tion in any form, when it comes to media, past and present, it’s often a nec­es­sary good. In thought­ful inter­views above, see Pren­tice, Pop­u­lar Music Cura­tor Andy Line­han, and Wildlife Sounds Cura­tor Cheryl Tipp dis­cuss their roles as archivists of vast troves of audio­vi­su­al infor­ma­tion in their Lon­don library.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Brew­ster Kahle and the Inter­net Archive Will Pre­serve the Infi­nite Infor­ma­tion on the Web

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington: Solo Piano, Berlin 1969

in Music | October 20th, 2013

In Novem­ber of 1969 Thelo­nious Monk appeared at the Berlin­er Jaz­ztage (“Berlin Jazz Days,” now known as Jaz­zFest Berlin) and played a series of Duke Elling­ton pieces on solo piano. Monk brought his own quirky genius — his jagged-edged, per­cus­sive play­ing style and har­mon­ic dis­so­nance — to Elling­ton’s ele­gant melodies. The result was mag­ic.

In the video above, Monk plays four com­po­si­tions by Elling­ton — “Satin  Doll,” “Sophis­ti­cat­ed Lady,” “Car­a­van” and “Soli­tude” — fol­lowed by one of his own, “Cre­pus­cule With Nel­lie,” before join­ing the Joe Turn­er Trio in a per­for­mance of “Blues for Duke.” The trio includes Turn­er on Piano, Hans Ret­ten­bach­er on bass and Stu Mar­tin on drums. The per­for­mances are avail­able on the DVD Monk Plays Elling­ton: Solo Piano in Berlin ’69.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Thelo­nious Monk: Straight No Chas­er

Advice From the Mas­ter: Thelo­nious Monk Scrib­bles a List of Tips for Play­ing a Gig

Duke Elling­ton Plays for Joan Miró in the South of France, 1966: Bassist John Lamb Looks Back on the Day

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