Sweat the Small Stuff

This one's for the underdogs of the musical world. No, I'm not talking of the numerous indie bands toiling in obscurity...this time I am talking about the instruments themselves. Drums, guitars, keyboards, we know you. You are part of every respectable rock band, in some configuration. I'm talking about the Rodney Dangerfields of the instrumentation world. These are the accent instruments that act, to me, as the "seasoning" of the song. In other words, they bring out the excellence of a song much like the proper spice brings out the flavor in food. Here are some examples of what I am talking about:

• Mandolin- Admit it...you liked Bruce Hornsby's 80's piece de resistance, "Mandolin Rain". That was my formative introduction to the high-pitched stringed instrument. To me, there is just something delicate and beautiful to the plucked notes of a mandolin cascading through a melody. See: "Green and Gray" by Nickel Creek (or virtually anything else by them, the darlings of "new grass.")

• Harmonica- I am such a sucker for a good harmonica solo. I tend to see the "Mississippi Saxophone" as a children's instrument, but after trying to play the dang thing, defer to someone who actually knows what they're doing. I must clarify here: I really don't care for the rambling harmonica solo, a la Blues Traveler, but a well-placed, subtle solo elevates a decent song to great for me. See: "Desire" by Ryan Adams, or various songs by Bob Dylan or Neil Young, the masters of the great harmonica solo.

• Piccolo Trumpet- Just naming this instrument in the context of rock music just has to conjure up the Beatles in musical minds. "Penny Lane" to be exact. OK, you got me, this song would be great without the famous meandering, staccato, piccolo trumpet solo, but can you really imagine the song without it?
  

• Marimba, French Horn, Shakers, Tambourine- White Stripes purists may have turned their noses up at the prospect of Jack and Meg not playing only searing guitar and steady drums, but for me, their courage to experiment and expand made them more interesting. One song, "Nurse" features the marimba prominently, which sounds great, but would have been the last instrument I would have guessed they would feature. One of my favorite super-mellow bands, Hem, has a song called "Sailor" that has the only known pop/rock French Horn solo (to my recollection). It's languid, lilting, and beautifully brilliant. And finally, there are the various percussive complementary instruments, like shakers and tambourines, without which songs would just not be the same. (Don't even get me started on cowbells!)

There you have it; I'm sure I will have french horn players all over the world thanking me for bringing their brass out of the shadows and onto the pages of an obscure blog.

The Good, The Bad, and The Pernice Brothers

Even though this blog encompasses much of the entertainment world, radio is a glaring omission. I don't listen to much radio anymore, as it doesn't seem to play the type of music I find compelling. Pop music, which I adored as a teenager (Culture Club, where have you gone?), is filled with vapid lyrics, questionable "musicians", and hits are determined by who is the most marketable and pretty, not the most talented. Some would say that I have gotten old and crotchety when it comes to devaluing the hip world of pop music. (I accidentally just now typed "poop" music, which somehow seemed more appropriate.) But I at least try and convince myself that I have just evolved musically, as I have in my life, to respect media that adds something of substance to my life.

My kids' room's radio happens to be set on a Top 40 type station, that they listen to for white noise while they fall asleep. When I lie down to coax my 3 year old into a nap, I am forced to listen to it. What strikes me most is not the quality of the music, (some of it is listenable) but the method in which "the machine" crams it down your throat. It would seem that their catalog consists of Daughtry's "Home" and that new crappy song by Nickelback about wanting to be a rock star. (It's nice that they still have goals.) The station alternates between those two songs, commercials, and DJs that drone on.

Luckily, here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, we have our own musical Messiah, the Current 89.3 FM. It is a station that revels in its eclecticity (is that even a word?) and one can listen for hours and maybe even days before hearing a repeat. And I believe I can safely say they have never played Nickelback. So I was particulary pleased when I was tuned in while driving and heard one of my favorite songs from my favorite band. On came "PCH One" by the Pernice Brothers, and I did an aural double-take.

It befuddles me why the Pernice Brothers toil in relative obscurity when bands like Nickelback flourish. The PB offer some substance, some feeling, the complexity of which the younger crowd maybe just isn't ready for. I, for one, think Joe Pernice is a musical and literary genius; he knows not only how to make a great melody, but to craft the lyrics to accompany it. He combines the sublime with the sad, and if you are not careful, you find yourself sunnily humming along to an utterly depressing story.

So I guess what I am saying is check him out, buy his records, really listen to the stories he tells, and maybe, just maybe when I lay down for a nap with my 3 year old, I will hear his songs.

Pottermania Magic

It seems that the past month has been filled by talk of the last installment of the Harry Potter series. I tend to dislike the mainstream zeitgeist more and more as the buzz increases, and my mind instructed me to muster up some ennui to deal with the maelstorm that is the Deathly Hallows. I told myself that:

A. I am too cheap to pay for a book that I would probably only read once.
B. It is not worth requesting it from my local library, as there were 396 people ahead of me with requests.
C. I was going to find out the plot twists ahead of time, no matter when I got my hands on it.

So I was resigned to getting the book in about a year when Pottermania died down. However, a stroke of luck more blinding than an Avada Kedavra curse hit me on the day of the book's release. I had to drop off a book at my library, and happened to get there right before it opened. I saw the coveted book there, under the heading of "Rental Books", which I then remembered cannot be reserved. I grabbed, without having to push away any teenagers in faux-Potter robes and glasses, the last available copy. All of a sudden, I was cool. I had it. I saw the envious look of the hordes of patrons filing into the library. I walked outside with the cover turned outward, as if to say, "See this? You won't get it for a year, sucker!" But then I thought I may get jumped, much like a inner-city teen with cool sneakers. People wanted this book, and I didn't know to what lengths they would go. So I now hid the cover, and if asked, was prepared to say it was Moby Dick, Ulysses, or some other voluminous tome. I quickly came up with a plan if I were found out. I would turn to the last pages and threaten to spoil the ending for any would-be thief...that would repel them. Long story short, I didn't have any problems, but I vowed to get my money's worth, and plow through the final installment so as to incur the least amount of charges for the rental as possible. Rowling makes this pretty easy, it turns out, and it helps that she writes in a breezy, page-turning way. Face it, this isn't Hawkings' "A Brief History of Time." But don't get me wrong, that's a good thing. I finished the book on Sunday, the day after it came out, and the whole serendipitous affair cost me all of 25 cents. Now, how's that for magical?

To Blog or Not to Blog...

So, this is my foray into blogging. I have long despised the word "Blogosphere" and made a mental note to not use it, much like most characters in the Harry Potter series will not utter the name Voldemort. I have not, until recently, figured out why people feel the need to blog. I realized that I have been creating a blog in my mind for quite some time now; I write a mini-editorial review after each movie watched, new CD listened to, book read, and TV show watched. I try to pride myself in sifting through the dregs of entertainment that is out there ("Singing Bee", I'm looking at you!) and find something that is, if not entirely cerebral, doesn't make my IQ decline while experiencing it. So my excuse to blog is this...I can be someone's savior, a media-messiah, if you will, and give my (hopefully) informed opinion about how you might spend a part of your leisure time.

Please, if you succeed in finding me, leave some comments. Agree, rebut, assail, suggest, whatever you want. Let's make the blogosphere a better place. (Dang, said it again!)