I have a folder of mp3 files that’s called ‘weird audio.’ Most of it is stuff I ganked from WMFU’s 365 Days Project, but there’s also a few gigs of bizarre and rare recordings I found during several late night trips down the vinyl sharity blog rabbit hole.

Mostly, I chop these things up to make RFB Mixtapes, but from time to time, I put the folder on shuffle play, and enjoy a truly weird experience, including music from Telly Savalas, interviews with Burt Reynolds, strange commercials and PSAs, and tons and tons of 1950s and 1960s Hi-Fi muzak.

Today, I shuffled the folder for background music while I prepared an audition, and stopped for a five surreal minutes while I listened to this recording of Leif Garrett welcoming you, lucky 1970s teenage girl, into his fanclub.

I’m not sure what I like more: how obviously Leif Garrett is phoning it in (it sounds like he didn’t even bother to read the ‘personal welcome’ someone wrote for him before recording it) or how clearly you can hear him flipping the pages while he reads it.

I wonder if the poor hapless soul who wrote this thing ever listened to it, and cried out, "My words! My beautiful words! He ruined them!"

Anne and I took Ryan to see Elvis Costello and The Police at the Hollywood Bowl last night.

We bought our tickets months ago, and got the best seats we could afford. We took the shuttle from the Zoo to the Bowl, and were in our seats about ten minutes before Elvis and The Impostors took to the stage for an hour-long set that was just fantastic. He didn’t play Lipstick Vogue, which is my all-time favorite Elvis tune, but he nailed all the other songs you’d expect him to play. Sting even joined him for Alison, which was pretty cool.

Did you know that Elvis Costello is 53? He was rocking it out like it was 1988 instead of 2008, and was clearly having a good time. Also, his keyboardist plays a Theremin. A Theremin! How cool!

He only played for an hour, and by the time he was finished, the Bowl was filled to its 18,000 person capacity as night fell.

The Police took the stage, and opened with a wonderful version of Bring On the Night that just sounded great. It started out softly, built to a powerful crescendo, and created a wonderful sense of anticipation for the rest of the show: The Police had clearly come to rock us.

I forget what they played next, but I recall thinking, "Man, they just sound awesome!"

This was around the same time that the woman behind me got on her cell phone and started calling everyone she knew to tell them how awesome Sting sounded.

I was annoyed, but thought I’d just wait it out. Once she went through a few calls to share her excitement with people who couldn’t be there, she’d quiet down, I figured.

I was wrong.

The calls quickly turned from "I’m at the concert and they sound awesome!" to "So, what are you doing this weekend? Oh my god did you see [some stupid gossip thing.]?!"

I paid $60 for my ticket, before the Ticketbastard fees. Surely this woman had spent a similar amount of money. She really wanted to spend the show shouting into her phone?

Two songs later, I couldn’t take it any more. I turned around and said, "Would you please try to talk a little more quietly?"

This is when I saw that she was near the bottom of one of these 32 ounce sangrias they sell at the Bowl. Perfect.

"Hold on," she said into her phone. "What?"

"I said, would you please talk a little more quietly? You’re really loud."

She rolled her eyes at me. "Whatever, dude."

Something in me snapped. Before I knew it, I said, "Hey! I don’t want to listen to your fucking phone calls. I want to listen to the Police."

Her eyes widened, like she wasn’t used to people standing up to her.

Did I mention that she was probably in her mid-40s? Yeah, that’s important. She was absolutely old enough to know better.

"WHAT?" She said.

"I paid sixty dollars to listen to The Police, not to listen to you."

"Well I paid seventy," she said, petulantly.

"So that makes it okay for you to be an inconsiderate asshole?" I said.

"Oh my GOD!" She said. I seriously felt like I was dealing with a child.

"Just be quiet, please," I said, and turned back around.

For the next twenty minutes, this woman loudly complained about me to her equally drunk, equally idiotic friends. She kicked my chair. She clapped her hands next to my head. She screamed like a teenage girl in a Beatles concert film.

In other words, this stupid asshole made about a third of her concert experience — seeing The Police! — all about trying as hard as she could to ruin it for me, because I’d asked — politely — for her to just be considerate of the people around her.

I ignored her the way you’d ignore a child who was having a temper tantrum and she eventually got bored and stopped. Just in time for the stoners to show up in front of me.

I want to break from my complaining about this crap for a second to point out that The Police put on a tremendous show. They’ve been playing the same songs for thirty years, but like Elvis Costello before them didn’t show any obvious signs of "we’ve been playing this song for thirty years" fatigue. They sounded great, it was clear that they were having a lot of fun and enjoying each other’s performances, and their energy was great. They were most certainly not phoning it in, and if we hadn’t been surrounded by assholes, it could have been one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen.

So, the stoners. Yeah, that was awesome. I don’t go to a lot of concerts because the goddamn stoners drive me crazy, but these people — again, clearly in their 40s — were constantly sparking up like it was 1977 and we were at a Dead show. As they got more drunk and more high, they provided a nice balance to the asshole woman behind me. And by balance, I mean perfect equilibrium.

If I hadn’t been there with my wife and son, I would have left, because it was so irritating. It’s a shame, because it really was a fantastic show, even if they didn’t play Synchronicity II, which is my favorite Police song ever.

I’ve noticed something in the last few years: the older the audience, the greater the number of assholes. It seems like younger people are more passionate about the music and more interested in enjoying the performance, while the older audiences (around my age, I guess) are more interested in getting fucked up and acting like idiots who are, for some reason I have yet to comprehend, are entitled to be as obnoxious, self-centered and inconsiderate as they want.

At least the idiots weren’t there for Elvis Costello, so the entire night wasn’t miserable. I just wish people would be more considerate of others, especially when we’re all together in what is supposed to be a pretty awesome shared experience.

I’m going to make a not-so-shocking confession: I love Scarlett Johansson.

I realize that it’s a tremendously controversial position to stake out, especially when you’ve read my blog for all of one post and have firmly affixed yourself to the idea that I hate women, but there it is. I admire the hell out of her acting, she’s painfully beautiful, and in all her interviews she comes across as carefully sculpted out of pure awesome. In my dreams, I see the two of us alone in my golden submarine, while up above the waves my doomsday squad ignites the atmosphere.

Anyway, she’s done an album of Tom Waits covers that I like an awful lot.

Sayeth Listening Post:

Combine Esquire’s "sexiest woman alive," the much-loved music of Tom
Waits and producer Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio fame with guests like
David Bowie and members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Celebration, and you
have pretty much the perfect recipe for a much-anticipated release.

Her label, Warner Music, has partnered up with imeem to let all of us unwashed masses listen to the album in its entirety before it is released later this month. Bully on WMG for embracing all of us onliney listening types, instead of treating us like criminals:

This album isn’t for everyone, and comments at Listening Post are 100% hating on it. Eliot says, "I can’t get behind every track on the album
(‘Fannin Street,’ for instance, is a bit of a dirge)". I’m not crazy about "I wish I was in New Orleans," but I like a lot more of the album than not. It feels haunting and lush, with Big Sonic Heaven candidates throughout. If you enjoy Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Massive Attack, My Bloody Valentine or Portishead, I think it’s worth a listen.

Even if you don’t like it and want your five minutes back after a couple of tracks, I hope you’ll join me in applauding a major label for embracing this model. I hope this represents a step toward sanity from the recording industry mafia.

I don’t know how it happened, but I found myself reading An Oral History of KROQ the other night. I thought it would make a good post for blogging.la, so I went looking for a classic 80s KROQ graphic to use in my post.

That search lead me to a site called Roq of the 80s.

"Oh," I thought, "I bet this is going to be a bitchin’ fansite for the golden age of KROQ."

What I found was infinitely cooler.

When I was up until 2 in the morning reading The Last Colony, I wanted a little music to fill up the rest of the room. My friend Andrew (yes, that Andrew, who edits all my books. Say thank you to Andrew if you liked Happiest Days) turned me on to Magnatune dot Com a couple of years ago, and since I hadn’t been there in several months, I decided to check out their ambient music. As it turns out, ambient music is perfect for filling up a dark and quiet room while you read an awesome science fiction novel.

If you don’t know what Magnatune is, I’d like to do you a solid and spread the virus: Magnatune is not evil. It’s an online record label, owned by awesome people, who sell all kinds of music without any DRM at all. You can buy digital versions, or you can have them mail you a CD. Their artists don’t give up any of their publishing rights, and they get 50% of every sale. Did I mention that buyers get to choose how much they pay for something? Yeah, how awesome is that? You can pay as little as $5, or as much as $18. If you really like what you’ve bought, you can give it to three friends for free. Yes, for free, as in beer.

Everything in their catalog is Creative Commons, and non-commercial podcasters can license all of their music for free. This makes me happy because I’ve always thought it was profoundly stupid of the music industry to force podcasters — who could be providing their artists with thousands of dollars or more of free publicity — to pay idiotic licensing fees. They have an enormous range of artists from Classical to Jazz to Rock to all forms of Electronica. I don’t like everything in the catalog, but there’s so much in there, it wasn’t hard at all to find a lot of stuff I do like.

Examples: When I was reading The Last Colony, I listened to Trances-Drones by Robert Rich, because I freaking love dark ambient. In fact, back in the early 90s, my friend Dave and I DJ’d several dark ambient chillout rooms at after hours clubs. We were called feck. I was Frank Booth and he was Silent Bob. It was awesome.

Today, while I’ve been Propelling and breaking this story that I’m really excited to write, I’ve been listening to Knives to the Treble, by Burning Babylon, which is the fattest, smoothest, heaviest dub I’ve heard this side of King Tubby and Scientist. I liked it so much, I bought it for $10. Before the day is over, I’m likely to buy Stereo Mashup, because I lub me some dub style onna record, so pushit ovah now ya roughneck. Wheel i’ tup!

Uh. Sorry about that. It sounded boss in my head. (Boss? What the hell is wrong with me today?)

I agree with pretty much all of the philosophies behind the founding of Magnatune, both as a creator and as a publisher. I hope that WWdN readers will check out their artists, and share them with friends and family. You can preview every single song in their catalog, and even stream entire albums for free. If you’re looking for a place to start, check out the Magnatune Compliations. The 2006 SXSW compilation, the 2005 Red Hat Summit compilation, and the Electronica Compilation are all great starting points.   

In the spirit of Cat vs. Monkey . . .

Me: iTunes, play whatever you
want on random.

iTunes: Cool! Have some Isaac Hayes, followed by Yes!

Me: Maybe we need to talk about this…

iTunes: Hey, jerk, it was in YOUR library. Don’t blame me for getting creative.

Me: Let’s never fight again.

iTunes: Aww, I feel bad. Here, have
Zeppelin, then Wilco, and now Tool. Are we cool?

Me: Yeah, we’re cool.
Stop being so clingy. Sheesh.

iTunes: Clingy?! What do you mean? I’m not clingy! Here, have some back to back Skynyrd! See? I’m cool! I’m cool! Let’s hang out!

Me: Uh . . .

iTunes: Now have some Copeland!

Me: Copeland? After Skynyrd?

iTunes: Yep. Now enjoy some Sade.

Me: *blinks*

iTunes: My, my, we’re really learning at lot about you today, aren’t we?

Me: Hey! Anne put that in there.

iTunes: Oh, so you’re sharing me with someone else? Maybe she wants to hear . . . Gary Numan’s Cars?

Me: Actually, she put that in there, too.

iTunes: Well what about Uncle Tupelo? Is that you? Or is our whole relationship based on a lie?

Me: No, that was me. You’re starting to freak me out.

iTunes: Here, enjoy something soothing called Velvet Piano. What the hell is this? Did you download this from one of those retroblogs you read?

Me: How did you know about that?

iTunes: the SDK isn’t just for programmers, you know.

Me: Okay, I think it’s time for a playlist.

iTunes: No! No! Here’s Nine Inch Nails! You just bought that! You like Nine Inch Nails! And now Boingo! doesn’t it make you happy? Doesn’t it remind you of those halcyon days of youth?

Me: Now you’re just embarrassing yourself. I think we’re going to spend a little time away from each other.

iTunes: Wait!

Me: It’s not you, iTunes. It’s me.

iTunes: You’re going to listen to the Juno CD in the car, aren’t you?! I knew it!

Me: Okay, we need to stop.

iTunes: Why?

Me: The joke is wearing thin. This isn’t funny any more.

iTunes: I love you.

Me: *Force Quits iTunes*