Far and Near: On Days Like These

Far and Near: On Days Like These by Neil Peart

Neil Peart rode his motorcycle between venues while touring with Rush. He planned out trips to visit national parks as well as explore various parts of the world. He would seek out the back roads as much as possible. (Sometimes he would even luck out and get people to open gated off logging roads.) GPS may or may not help him. He would always travel with riding buddies and had trucks to carry the bikes in as part of the tour. (He needed to make sure he made it to the concerts.) He had various experiences, both good and bad. Some people recognized him as the drummer for Rush, while many did not. He rarely brought it up on his own. (Though one case where many people bonded together to help, he did go out and offer them tickets.) 

This book primarily has essays regarding his motorcycle tours, though there are a few from other travels and experiences (such as with cars). He uses it to detail his philosophy which sometimes appears directly as some of his songs. The philosophy may not always be externally consistent. (He criticizes the attempts by southern Christians to limit other's rights by limiting abortion, while also criticizing them for not limiting rights by not mandating helmets.) Despite disagreeing with some viewpoints, he takes an open view to the people and situations that occur. He is much more interested in the experience. He loves the streets that nobody goes down unless they live there. He enjoys the small towns and the unique experiences that differ from cookie cutter suburban life. It would be fun to be able to explore areas the way he did. He had both the freedom to go anywhere along with the support to make sure it happened, yet also had time and location constraints that forced moving on. I wonder if somebody has consolidated the locations and roads mentioned for a tour book.

Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to My Life and Times

Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to My Life and Times by Neil Peart

Peart motorcycles out to Big Bend National Park from LA. On the way, he reminisces about his life and music that he found interesting. It is a fairly eclectic mix with modern bands like Tragically Hip and Vertical Horizon, Coldplay and Linkin Park and older ones like Frank Sinatra and Buddy Rich. He covers some of his early music experiences and life. He went to some 60s festivals but missed others. He worked in London for a bit. He read books, joined a band and rode his motorcycle and bicycle around. His became a bit different as his band became more popular. He seemed to be fairly introverted, yet public.

The Living Years: The First Genesis Memoir

The Living Years: The First Genesis Memoir by Mike Rutherford

Mike Rutherford's father was a British naval officer that did not communicate well with his children. Mike wished he would have taken more time to get to know him and understand his life and experience. Mike had traveled around a lot while young and went to a well-to-do school. He ran into trouble and did drugs and joined a band. During his life, there were a few times he got in trouble with the drugs. He joined Genesis as a founding member and stayed with the band through multiple iterations. The band kept going, even after key band members left. However, finally when Phil Collins left, they realized their recruited singer would not be enough. They later had legacy tours with original members. Genesis also had multiple members go solo or have alternate groups with great success. Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel each had number one songs on their own. Rutherford's spin off, Mike + the Mechanics also had a number one along with a few other top 40 hits.

Genesis did have a fair amount of turn over. Rutherford was present for all of it. In the book he paints a picture of most people leaving because they wanted to. (The few that were "fired" were portrayed as short-termers.) It is interesting the Phil Collins could have a solo career that eclipsed the band and yet still return for a few more albums (that were also highly successful.) The book talks about the music, but doesn't go into much detail about the evolution through different genres and styles (and different fan appeal.) It is an interesting case of appealing to different groups.

Fahrenheit-182: A Humorous and Inspirational Memoir by Mark Hoppus of Blink-182

Fahrenheit-182: A Humorous and Inspirational Memoir by Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 by Mark Hoppus and Dan Ozzi

Mark Hoppus is the only person that has been a member of Blink-182 for the band's entire history. In his early life, he grew up in the Mojave desert. He was smart and did well in school. His family didn't have a whole lot of money, but they were not poor. Then his parents' marriage had issues. They separated and eventually divorced. There were violent boyfriends and other issues. Mark's sister chose to live with their mother, so Mark chose the father. They moved around a bit. Mark's academic performance faltered. He got into various substances and music. His first concert was They Might Be Giants in DC. He decided he liked to play bass. Later he managed get into a college in California, and lived with his Mom. His sister introduced him to Tom Delonge. They hit it off big and would form the nucleus of Blink-182.

The rest of the book is primarily related to the experience of the band. Even life events (like cancer) seem to be colored by the band. They were somewhat in the San Diego skate-punk scene, though there didn't seem to be a strong tie. Blink-182 was originally blink until another "blink" band sued. Their first concert had nobody in attendance. They had one guy at the next. However, they kept plugging away. Tom was the one that kept pushing for more goals and greater success. Scott, their first drummer was younger and more of an introvert. The book gently threads the issue of dumping him. Scott had a different personality and a drinking problem. He got booted and the band didn't talk to him much afterwards. Travis Barker was recruited from the Aquabats and that became the classic lineup.

They worked hard to get their break. Then they hit it big. They were willing to write poppy songs. They mocked boy bands and got pigeonholed as one. They ran around in nearly naked in a video. There were plenty of juvenile antics and jokes. There may be an undertext of this being a means to hide from concerns. Mark talks about many "one in a million" events. Travis was in a plane crash that killed others and left him burnt all over. Their producer died. Even a deer hit seemed to show tragedy. And later, Mark was diagnosed with cancer. The band became hugely popular. Then they broke up and did not-so-popular side projects. Then they got back together again to big success. Then Tom left again. This time they recruited another singer. They had some success. Finally after Mark's cancer treatment they got back together again as the original band.

The story is similar to other bands. There was a lot of hard work and a desire to succeed as well as lucky breaks. There was also plenty of tragedy of various types. There is very little that is taken outwardly very seriously. Even the cancer treatment was treated flippantly. The internal demons are a different story. How much of this is a facade and how much is just his way of looking at life?

The Wonky Donkey

The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith, illustrated by Katz Cowley

There is an official song that goes with wonky donkey, but I liked making up my own version. The chorus and the hehaws can be a lot of fun. After listening to the real version, I think my version was better. In the chorus, it keeps adding additional descriptors for the donkey that have fun sounds.

Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007)

Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007) by Dan Ozzi

After Nirvana hit is big with Nevermind, record labels were looking for the next big thing to come out of the musical underground. They struck gold with a punk band from Northern California, Green Day. From that, they were after any other punk band that could write catchy tunes. However, the punk scene particularly eschewed major labels and "selling out". Purist punk clubs would prevent big punk bands such as Green Day from playing there. Once a band reached it big, they needed the reach of a major label, yet would alienate their fanbase by doing so. (I must confess my interest in Green Day waned after they hit it big. Though I also recall them complaining about not being able to get enough CDs and other merch from their record label.)

The book explores the different experiences of a number of bands after they "sold out." The major labels promised more money, but still required more work. Green Day had the songs, showmanship and drive to make it big, even if they did struggle with the loss of some of their old base. Jawbreaker had repeatedly said they would not sell out. Signing a major label deal alienated their fans and couldn't stop the disintegration of their band. Jimmy Eat World was from Arizona and didn't have to worry about alienated a "purist punk" fanbase. They sold before they had a huge base. They were able to grow a bit on the label, but were eventually dropped. (It did feel odd that the book stopped before their big hit, "The Middle". However, that does come up later in the discussion of other bands. Jimmy Eat World ended up self producing and then signing with another label.)

Blink-182 was from San Diego, a scene that is more into skate and surf than self-righteous punks. They were unabashedly going after the best deal they could get and were willing to work hard to go on a major label. 

The punk scene could be very snobbish. Some bands would encounter violence as they tried to perform after signing major record deals. Woman-lead bands could run into some of the sexism and sex-symbol desires.  I was a bit confused of the discussion of Against Me! The process of retro-gendering a trans person may align with current identity, but confuses the external identity of past times. (If you are referring to "her" wearing women's clothes, shouldn't that be "cis-dressing" rather than "cross-dressing"?) Some of the stories of bands I hadn't heard of before were quite interesting. (And now I want to listen to the bands.) There were a few near the end that did seem to go on for a bit too long, but that might have been since I didn't recognize the bands or their associates. Rancid does get an especially bad rap here for their self-righteous mistreatment of the Distillers.

The bands mentioned

• Green Day
• Jawbreaker
• Jimmy Eat World
• Blink-182
• At the Drive-In
• The Donnas
• Thursday
• The Distillers
• My Chemical Romance
• Rise Against
• Against Me!

Record Play Pause: Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist: the Joy Division Years: Volume I

Record Play Pause: Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist: the Joy Division Years: Volume I by Stephen Morris

Stephen Morris's memoir is the best of the Joy Division autobiography. There is very little "set the record straight" content and just a history of where he came from and what he feels. He came from a fairly normal house. He became enamoured with music. He was not so keen on school. He got into drugs which got him suspended from school. He was only too happy to drop out when he had a chance. He had a stint as a freelance music writer. He took up drums, but was not that good. (He thought he could disguise it by having more drums.) He want on to meet up with the other guys and form Joy Division. He also became attracted to synthesizers and drum machines. The book details the formation and some of the initial activities of the band. The focus is very much on his experience. He self-deprecatingly declares himself a horrible singer and a not very good drummer. (Though he does have a drummer's desire to be on time.) There is very little on conflicts within the band - it seems the biggest "conflict" is him retroactively wondering what they could have done to help Ian Curtis to help him from committing suicide. The book is interesting look at life and experiences in the late 1970s punk and post-punk scene in northern England.

Beginner's Mind: Words + Music, Vol. 13

Beginner's Mind: Words + Music, Vol. 13 by Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma tells us about his history and some of the key events that took place via the "beginner's mind". There is also abundant cello work in the story. He comes across as a very open personality rather than a rigid musician.

The Marching Band Nerds Handbook: Rules from the 13th Chair Trombone Player

The Marching Band Nerds Handbook: Rules from the 13th Chair Trombone Player by DJ Corchin (Author), Dan Dougherty (Illustrator)

This book present a picture and a bit of text on each page describing some parts of marching band. I could relate to many from my time in band. Though some were a little bit modern or just plain "weird".

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly

Spotify was started as a marketing company. Music was seen as a good target. It had sought to focus on the long tail. However, it gradually morphed to supporting "big music" instead. Spotify has private contracts with big music labels that weigh things in their favors. There are also schemes to allow artists to promote their own works in a form of "pay for play".  The artist payout mechanisms have lead to favoring of "background music". Songs with minimal streams have been demonetized.

The book starts by analyzing Spotify, but then pivots to search for a way to improve the life of musicians. Streaming is a primary way that people engage with music today. However, it is very difficult for musicians to make money. Many musicians need to maintain other jobs to support themselves. There are also concerns about "work for hire" vs. "artistic endeavors". I wonder if there is just a lot of recency bias in looking at the life of musicians. How would musicians survive 100 years ago? Mass success has only been something fairly recent. Local musicians doing local music may be the way to support oneselves long term.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R Hofstadter

How could you resist a math book that name drops a great composer and artist in the title? The book ties together the works of the two brilliantly with the Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Examples abound of self-referencing or self-continuing systems. Escher has drawings that seem to extend up endlessly. Bach has compositions that go up only to be back where they started. 

Alas, the book is incredibly verbose. The preface to the 20th Anniversary edition goes on for more than 20 pages. The book itself extends beyond 700 pages. The chapters are mostly in couplets, with the first being a conversation between Tortoise and Achilles, followed by a chapter containing detailed analysis. The author was inspired by Lewis Carroll in approach, but not in succinctness. By the end, I was speed skimming. Perhaps I should have just read the outline at the start. The only problem with that would be missing out on the various drawings (primarily from Escher) included. The author did mention that he started out writing a paper and then transformed it into a book. It would have been nice to see that paper.

The first part of the book talks about incompleteness and systems that return on themselves or require themselves for definition. It elaborates that ad nauseum, and then focuses more on artificial intelligence. The view of machine learning and artificial intelligence from a 45 years ago is much different than today.  At that time approaching human capabilities was seen as fairly impossible. Things are much closer now. The approach has also changed. Rather than try to create detailed decision trees, today most machine learning is done from models and training. AI "learns" and helps program itself. The book can be an interesting reference on the history of artificial intelligence and how things have changed in the past decades.

Nursery Songs. A Little Golden Book

Nursery Songs. A Little Golden Book by Arranged By Leah Gale. Illustrated By Corinne Malvern (Author)

This is a song book. It contains music and words for various classic nursery songs. It is not something you would read, but rather somethin gto play on the piano.

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History by David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan

This short book already feels dated. It also shows how much that technology has changed. The book explores the career of the Grateful Dead and how each aspect of their marketing strategy has been applied in the "modern" world. The Dead were a band of a different era. Cassette tapes, mail newsletters and VW busses were the tehch of the day. It is interesting to read how the Dead went their own way and created a loyal following. The tech companies mentioned as "modern" companies are less interesting. Most of the examples are still around in some sense, but out of the positive zeitgeist. Going counter-culture can be useful, but it must come from a company's internal DNA rather then being slapped on. 

A Sound Mind: How I Fell in Love with Classical Music (and Decided to Rewrite its Entire History)

A Sound Mind: How I Fell in Love with Classical Music (and Decided to Rewrite its Entire History) by Paul Morley

This is a book that must be skimmed. Morley's style is extremely verbose and jumps all over the place. He was in to Manchester "pop" music, especially Joy Division. He wrote extensively about it. Later he was asked to join a class to learn how to compose classical music. He got very into classical - and treated it like he treated pop. He has the greatest appreciation for experimental contemporary classical. There are significant sections of the book devoted to interviews with modern composers and performers. He also covers the modern people in context of their predecessors. John Cage is perhaps the most mentioned. Though some of the "bigs" like Mozart and Debussy have their roles to play. He does try to fit them in with the context of their time. His tastes in classical are similar to those with "pop" music. He tends to shun the most popular and prefers the more experimental and obscure that means something to him personally.

Joy Division: Piece by Piece: Writing About Joy Division 1977 2007

Joy Division: Piece by Piece: Writing About Joy Division 1977 2007 by Paul Morley

Paul Morley observed Joy Division from the very start (before they were even called Warsaw.) Their early concerts were nothing special. They were one of many bands that had some potential. They were mentioned here in there in the context of the many new bands that were popping up on the Manchester scene after the Sex Pistols concert.

Then the author fell in love with Joy Division. He wasn't even allowed to review Unknown Pleasure because he loved it so much. He got to know the band well. He could not say enough about the band and their music. He knew the musicians and all the people around them (The producer, Martin Hannett; Factory records owner Tony Wilson; Designer Peter Saville, etc.) He was just a much a member of the scene.

The death of Ian Curtis put his Joy Division love on overdrive. They became almost deified. His favorite band was now frozen in time.

The writing is incredibly verbose. A lot of parts must be rapidly skimmed just to keep the context. Names and bands are dropped with abandon. while some essays were explicitly about Joy Divisions, others are only tangentially related. (A long essay on a band may mention that Joy Division was an influence.)  The tone feels like that of a zine written by somebody deeply embedded with the musicians who could not be concerned with editing. He is not an impatient observer, but likely played a role in the legend of Joy Division.

Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies

Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies by Stewart Copeland

Stewart Copeland was the drummer in the influential band The Police. He was an American in a British band who loved improvisation. He also head a reputation for not getting along well with bassist/singer Sting. The first part of the book covers some of his adventures. He played polo and beat British royalty. He found himself chained to a bench in Africa. He also was able to defend himself from a lion attack by playing his drums loudly. He also wrote numerous film scores and even composed an opera.

The end of the book focuses on the final tour with the Police. It is quite easy to see why they had so much conflict. There are a couple of strong personalities that liked to make music his way.  They seemed to get along personally, but would be at total loggerheads when it came to making music. There was a lot of extreme self-criticism. The conflict may have helped make the music better, but made the band unsustainable in the long term.

Chapter and Verse: New Order, Joy Division and Me

Chapter and Verse: New Order, Joy Division and Me by Bernard Sumner

Bernard Sumner is the lead singer of New Order and guitarist for Joy Division. This book is his contribution to the history of Joy Division and New Order. The narrative is much different than Peter Hook's. It feels much more polished than Peter Hook's. Sumner has had a more significant role in New Order and the book shows it. The book starts with his early life and quickly goes through time with Joy Division. Ian Curtis's suicide is a small blip. It gets about as much coverage as the death of others associated with the band (such as managers.) While this book is polished, it is easy to see the roots of the falling out between Sumner and Peter Hook. It feels that he is trying to paper over some of the bitterness and anger the two had. It also becomes clear that Sumner had been exerting more control though he appears to feel somewhat oblivious. (He feels his side project was a nice outlet, but is critical of a bandmate DJing.) There seem to be some interesting communication issues.

The narrative is primarily chronological and focuses more on the personal experiences than detailing all parts of the band. There are extensive details of recordings of certain albums, while others are skipped over. There is very little discussion of individual songs. More of the focus is on process and life events. It feels different than typical rock memoirs, but New Order has always been a little bit of different band.

Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division

Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division by Peter Hook

The surviving members of Joy Division have each written their story of the band. Peter Hook's was the first and one of the most popular. Stylistically it is a very much an unfiltered view of a young kids in band. This may be authentic, but it does not make for a great read. The combination of his accent and vernacular language makes it difficult to follow the audiobook. There were also numerous chronologies interspersed. These were easier to understand, but did not do much for the story. For most of the book, these were young kids messing around and gradually being able to live as musicians. 

The end covers the final days of the band and the death of Ian Curtis. It felt easier to understand. Now the inner feelings came out. The event was devastating and difficult for everybody involved. The band did regroup to form New Order. Hook seems to feel that the peak was reached with New Order. (Though there may be some revisionist history as he came to clash with his bandmates.) I had listened to an excerpts of Stephen Morris's book and found it easier on the ears. While hook is unfiltered and has a grudge, Morris is a better story.

What Is Punk?

What Is Punk? by Eric Morse and Anny Yi

This is a picture book for grandpa's to read to their toddlers. It has a bunch of clay-mation style images of punk rockers from the 1970s. It asks "What is Punk?", and then shows a picture of CBGB and a lot of early bands and artists. It gets about as far as the Ramones and Sex Pistols, with a dozen other acts thrown in. The Green Day-fueled  East Bay pop-punk scene is a couple decades too late for this book. Bad Brains get a mention, but Fugazi started much too late. Other than a lot of name dropping, there is not a whole lot of detail here.

Music by Year

My music "library" started back with cassette tapes in the 80s. There were songs taped from the radio as well as purchased tapes. Then it moved to CDs. There was also a brief sojourn into CDs. By 2000, digital downloads started to come to play. I had ripped many CDs to MP3s. (I even paid the for Audiograbber shareware - only to have it go free a year later.) I tried using Real music player. It did produce smaller file sizes, but had a tendency to create "noise" in the tracks. Later, I imported all the MP3s into iTunes. From there, I used Audacity to rip all the the cassette tapes and LP records to import to the library. There would also be a few new CDs coming in, as well as digital downloads - mostly from Amazon, Apple or Freegal. There were also a fare number from mp3.com and other sources at the time.

Now that streaming is available, why bother? We pay for the Amazon music membership. You can also listen to anything free on Spotify. These sources do have their problems. There are some things that just do not exist there. (I have not been able to find the Tuba flight of the bumblebee anywhere.) There is also the flexibility of having the music to play anywhere. And the best of all, it makes it easy to do analytics.

What is the Year?

There is a "year" field available in MP3 metadata. It is nice and vague. Just "year". I've interpreted it to be "year when this music was available". For contemporary music, this is usually the year the recording was released. For "greatest hits" and remasters, I try to add the original release date. This often involved some wikipedia hunting. There is also a little fudging. Sometimes, the album may have been released at a different time than the single. I would try to pick the consistent one. Covers could get a little trickier. If it is a faithful recording of a standard, I may go with the original date the song was written. If it takes a significant new spin, I'll use the date it was recorded.

For classical music, I'll use the date the song was "made". This allows for some fudging. It could be the composition date, the publication date or the first date it was performed. I prefer when all are the same, but sometimes there can be significant differences. I do try to end up with something that could be the first time it was "heard" by an audience.

I completed the effort to "date" most of the library. Some songs I did take with "FIX DATE" to indicate that I needed more work. Other songs already had a date that seemed to be about in the realm of reasonable, so I just left it. Maybe later, I could update those.

What Years do I have?

There were plenty of songs from the 80s and 90s. Almost every year was present for the past 100 years. However, there were a few gaps. Wikipedia's Years in Music was a great source for finding key songs from those years. Sometimes I already had a version of the song, just tagged with a different year. Freegal is a good source for finding songs to fill the gaps. However, many libraries are moving away from the downloadable Freegal songs to other streaming options. 

The Library of Congress Jukebox collection was useful for filling in some gaps. However, these were digitizations of old records and not of the highest quality. The Internet Archive Audio Collection also had a lot of items, but had numerous issues. It was hard to search, the quality was typically not very good, and copyright provenance was not very thorough. 

I was able to fairly quickly fill in the gaps for the 1900s. Then it started to get more challenging. Some of the older ones were "common" songs that could be found in the existing collection. I could also slowly fill in some gaps from Freegal. However, with only 5 downloads per week, and a clumsy search, this could take a long time. 

Since we were moving into the classical era, finding high quality, free "modern" recordings of songs seemed be the way to go. Classical Cat is a good index of classical music. It has links to classical recordings on other sites, but alas, does not have years. Many of these are musicians putting up recordings of their own music. Often I would discover performers such as Singakademie Tsukuba and the Gardner Museum that have a large number of recordings from various composers. The big effort is doing searches to find the dates of these compositions.

ISMLP is one of the few sources that has details on dates. Alas, the search for date, doesn't seem to work well, so I would manually chnage the year in a url like  https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Works_first_published_in_1678. It is geared towards sheet music. However, there is a filer to view items that have recordings. It is fairly thorough with copyright validation, and thus some of the recordings will appear as "non-PD US". Luckily,  can often find a different composition from the year that is publicly available. ISMLP also cross references performers. Thus, after finding a renaissance recording from Phillip Serna, I was able to see that he had many others on the site. 

One quirk I have found with ISMLP is that arrangements will often have their own recordings - often via MIDI. If I can't find a recording for a year, I can search for arrangements and then see if there are recordings there. Sometimes it is an actual MP3. Other Times, it is an MIDI file. I can import that into GarageBand and produce an MP3 from that. More work, but it does fill in gaps.

Going back, years get a little more questionable. ISMLP will have the publication year, which, for older compositions can be a few centuries after the year it was composed. Often, I'll need to search for compositions found on the Wikipedia year page after failing to come up with anything when searching by the year. There may be one year in ISMLP, another in the Wikipedia year page and another in the composer's works listing. Sometimes it just isn't clear when a composition was made, and there could be a range of a decade or more. If I am desperate to fill in a year. 

Another source for individual performances is Musicalion. This is another score site with recordings of songs uploaded. You have to register for scores, but recordings are freely downloadable. The search is pretty much only by composer or performer (with a really long drop down.) It can often be difficult to figure out what the recording is. (It may be a small piece of a greater work, with little metadata.) Luckily, you can often see some details on the sheet music - some even has the year written.

Freegal can also be a good source for older songs. I can search for a year like 1656 and get a list of songs with that in the name. Sometimes this is the actual year when it was made. At other times it may be a random number in the song. Freegal search has plenty of quirks of its own, and sometimes a search for a song will turn up empty, while I later stumble upon it when searching another way.

For each song I find, I try to annotate it with the source URL where it was downloaded as well as another source for the year it was made. As of now, I have recordings for every year from 1654-2024, with many older recordings. I like to sort the library by year and just start playing. It is interesting to see how music evolves - and how some old work sounds similar.