Listening to: Morrissey - Redondo Beach
I'd like to thank everyone that made tonight such a resounding success. First of all, Alan gave me the idea. Secondly, Rachel really put things together and helped me to think big and feed the millions of people that ended up coming by for dinner. And last but certainly not least, Caleb, Johannes, Micah, Kim, and Clayton showed up and ate and laughed and watched the Big Lebowski even though it got really hot because we had to turn the A/C off in order to hear the movie.
Which brings me to my next point. Johannes and Micah went with me to get the movie (since I've lost my copy, we had to go rent it), and Micah requested that we stop by Tower so Johannes could buy a magazine for his brother (it was a copy of No Depression with John Prine on it, who I've only recently heard about - I thought it was amazing that someone in Germany was interested in an American alt.country magazine). I told them about my purchasing extravaganza the other night, but felt a bit sheepish when we went inside and the amazing sale was no longer going on. In fact, about 60% of the CD's in the $9.99 rack were gone, and the signs had been taken down. Anyway, I told them it was dangerous to let me in there because I was liable to buy something. This proved true when the clearance singles rack caught my eye. I saw a sweet Morrissey single slashed down to $1.99, but upon closer inspection I found two singles in the regular rack that were priced higher, but included more tracks. So I got those instead. "Redondo Beach" is quite weird, it being a Patti Smith song, and not a very good one in my opinion. Also, it's a live single - the other tracks are "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" and a new original called "Noise is the Best Revenge" - but it doesn't sound like Morrissey singing at all. Maybe they produced it differently or something (it was recorded for a BBC Radio 1 session), but his voice sounds almost normal. Kind of disappointing.
The other thing that's stupid about it (and this applies to the live DVD too) is that live performances need to reflect the spirit of the original studio track. What this means to me is if you are keeping the same basic arrangement, you must play the song up to tempo. Faster is ok, although groovier stuff will suffer. Slower is absolutely never acceptable. On this single, "There Is A Light" is at least 20 clicks slower than the studio version. I can't bear to listen to it; it feels like the band is just crawling through a huge muddy field, or all spaced out on Valium or something. The emotion and intensity is completely lost. The good news is the DVD is definitely up to speed, although the band always feels like they want to lay back too much on this number. The bad news is the DVD features "The Headmaster Ritual", which I thought was going to be great, but again it's way slower than the studio track and so it just ruins the experience for me.
I also bought "The First of the Gang to Die" single, which I think is a different (studio) recording than the album. (Update: from what I can tell, it's the same recording.) It really rocks - the band likes to slow this one down live, too. Bleah.
The Police never had this problem. That's one thing I think they always did right.
I'd like to thank everyone that made tonight such a resounding success. First of all, Alan gave me the idea. Secondly, Rachel really put things together and helped me to think big and feed the millions of people that ended up coming by for dinner. And last but certainly not least, Caleb, Johannes, Micah, Kim, and Clayton showed up and ate and laughed and watched the Big Lebowski even though it got really hot because we had to turn the A/C off in order to hear the movie.
Which brings me to my next point. Johannes and Micah went with me to get the movie (since I've lost my copy, we had to go rent it), and Micah requested that we stop by Tower so Johannes could buy a magazine for his brother (it was a copy of No Depression with John Prine on it, who I've only recently heard about - I thought it was amazing that someone in Germany was interested in an American alt.country magazine). I told them about my purchasing extravaganza the other night, but felt a bit sheepish when we went inside and the amazing sale was no longer going on. In fact, about 60% of the CD's in the $9.99 rack were gone, and the signs had been taken down. Anyway, I told them it was dangerous to let me in there because I was liable to buy something. This proved true when the clearance singles rack caught my eye. I saw a sweet Morrissey single slashed down to $1.99, but upon closer inspection I found two singles in the regular rack that were priced higher, but included more tracks. So I got those instead. "Redondo Beach" is quite weird, it being a Patti Smith song, and not a very good one in my opinion. Also, it's a live single - the other tracks are "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" and a new original called "Noise is the Best Revenge" - but it doesn't sound like Morrissey singing at all. Maybe they produced it differently or something (it was recorded for a BBC Radio 1 session), but his voice sounds almost normal. Kind of disappointing.
The other thing that's stupid about it (and this applies to the live DVD too) is that live performances need to reflect the spirit of the original studio track. What this means to me is if you are keeping the same basic arrangement, you must play the song up to tempo. Faster is ok, although groovier stuff will suffer. Slower is absolutely never acceptable. On this single, "There Is A Light" is at least 20 clicks slower than the studio version. I can't bear to listen to it; it feels like the band is just crawling through a huge muddy field, or all spaced out on Valium or something. The emotion and intensity is completely lost. The good news is the DVD is definitely up to speed, although the band always feels like they want to lay back too much on this number. The bad news is the DVD features "The Headmaster Ritual", which I thought was going to be great, but again it's way slower than the studio track and so it just ruins the experience for me.
I also bought "The First of the Gang to Die" single, which I think is a different (studio) recording than the album. (Update: from what I can tell, it's the same recording.) It really rocks - the band likes to slow this one down live, too. Bleah.
The Police never had this problem. That's one thing I think they always did right.
#
posted by Brandon at 1:19 AM
3 comments Home
