New Monday #77
Happy Monday and Happy August -
I have written that cheery greeting in some form or another 77 times. Have I thanked you all yet for the privilege of being read by all of you? Probably not.
Thank you for reading my weekly musings (as Bobby Owsinski likes to call them).
No lesson this week—I need a few weeks to come up with some new stuff for you guys. And some videos. But there’s a great thing to listen to, and I’ll take you through it. There’s always something to learn.
Helicopter
This is better on headphones, but, at the least, stick your head between the speakers.
I made a list of things to listen for. Follow along, squint into the mix, and hear all this cool stuff:
- 0:00 - Claps? echoed and pitch shifted.
- 0:00 - Main riff. Played through an Eventide PitchFactor pedal. Again, delayed and pitch-shifted, you’ll hear it’s slightly out of time.
- 0:19 - The stereo field opens up.
- 0:30 - Drums in, down the middle in mono.
- 0:53 - A shot of echo but only on the sibilant S—the last letter of the word “serious."
- 1:00 - Another little guitar part, again echoed and pitch-shifted.
- 1:10 - The vocal doubles, and then it goes from single voice to doubles for emphasis.
- 2:00 - The choruses are thick with guitar pads and perhaps keyboards, but then things thin out to just the riff through the PitchFactor. But as this simple break continues, the harmonizing of the riff builds up—a guitar part comes in, bending to the second note rather than fretting. There’s a continuing evolution.
- 2:51 - An instrumental bridge. We finally get relief from the riff, and we move into the emotional centerpiece of the production. Listen for someone banging a spring reverb unit in here.
- 3:12 - A peak of emotion, a peak of loudness, and then a release as the lyrics tell us, “Now they are free of me,” the music precisely matching the lyrical sentiment.
- 3:20 - The whole song is starting to saturate, like an overloaded tape deck added in parallel. Especially noticeable on drums and vocals. Contrast the early parts of the song and its cleanliness to the ragged mess it has become.
- 3:40 - Listen for someone slamming a spring reverb—really clear right here.
- 3:50 - More and more stuff adds in, bangs, little guitar parts, little noises.
- 4:10 - The song apparently doubles in time, as it sweeps away like nervous smoke into the sky. The song fades out for almost a minute!
- 4:30 - Something on the right suddenly drops out, a guitar or keyboard or whatever it might be. Additional parts come in that sound a whole step down.
Hear Helicopter here:
Masterful work by Deerhunter and Ben Allen.
I’ve written before about a concept, “Unified in its diversity, diverse in its unity." The idea that while everything is different, it is also the same. That, with a good production, one sort of knows exactly where they are at any given moment in the song by slight differences in the parts. This idea is a hallmark of The Beatles, anything produced or mixed by Tchad Blake, and certainly at the center of Halcyon Digest, the 2010 Deerhunter album that contains Helicopter.
Helicopter is built around an Eventide PitchFactor pedal. The crunch at the beginning is perhaps a clap, pitched down and delayed, which is what a Pitchfactor does. The main riff is a Fender Jazzmaster or some such through a Pitchfactor, as are the chords. The result is evocative and ethereal, and moodily emotional. Parts expand and contract, like the whole recording is breathing. When in doubt, they throw yet another thing in, usually through the PitchFactor. Sonically, there is never a dull moment, and emotionally, the production supports mood and theme of the lyrics. While the song is repetitive, sonically, there's never a dull moment.
Back to those mono drums for a moment. Why not stereo? Because the mono drums and the mono vocals provide contrast for the wide, swirling guitar parts.
If everything is wide, then nothing is wide, right?
Think contrast. Always.
If you’re new to production, this is how you do it.
Bradford Cox
Deerhunter is the brainchild of Bradford Cox, who formed the group with friends in Atlanta, Georgia. They were indie darlings in the 2010s but haven't released anything new since 2019.
Bradford Cox... this is a genuinely unique fellow. He suffers from Marfan Syndrome, a genetic condition that leads to abnormally loose joints, long thin limbs and fingers, and in some cases, heart trouble. Abe Lincoln had it, and Mr. Cox looks a bit like Mr. Lincoln, rangy tall with a similar big nose and craggy, thin face.
Having a genetic condition doesn't make for friends in high school; Mr. Cox dropped out. His family was divorced; he grew up often alone in a big old house. There's a sadness to all of his music, from Deerhunter to his various solo projects, and all of his work features experimentation, noise, and a heavy-duty analog vibe. Music from a big old house.
Mr. Cox is a total artist. In addition to the music, he co-designs the album covers, has a huge hand in their videos, and has started acting. There's something terrifically inspiring about him. An outcast, a truly odd person, who has managed to transcend himself to add a thoughtful beauty to the world. He reminds me of Vincent Van Gogh in that regard.
Here's a video of them recording at Rare Book Room Studios in Brooklyn back in 2012. Rare Book Room is now in the Mojave Desert.
If you want to hear more Deerhunter, their high water mark so far is the album Halcyon Digest. This is a fantastically noisy album. They must have had so much fun in the studio making it!
If you want to get depressed, Google what Helicopter is about. Painful.
Tom Lehrer
Thomas Lehrer died last week at 97. I wasn’t going to write about him, but then I found out he invented the Jello Shot.
How could I not write about the inventor of the Jello Shot and the man who wrote Poisoning Pigeons in the Park?
Lehrer was best known as a writer of incredibly clever, satirical songs, that he performed himself on the piano. But that wasn’t his gig: he was a math professor at Harvard University. He earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees there by the time he was nineteen. And he was an atomic energy researcher. Tom was a genius.
For being a Harvard prof., many of his songs describe a pretty kinky world. But he manages to describe it in a classy way, with music that evokes the best of Broadway. He wrote great music and lyrics.
Tom on Pornography.
Tom on Masochism.
He also had a political side, heavily informed by the arms race of the 50s and 60s. We forget how scary that time was.
Tom on Atomic Weapons Proliferation.
Tom on Pollution and Tourism.
Tom on Death by Thermonuclear Destruction.
Want more? Here is a channel. This stuff is brilliant.
Flaco Jimenez
Another death. Flaco Jimenez was a virtuoso accordionist, playing country rock, as well as Tejano—a hybrid that can be described as “Tex-Mex" He was a major player with the genres he worked, winning six Grammy awards. He worked with Freddy Fender, Dwight Yoakam, Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Los Lobos, Linda Ronstadt... the list goes on and on.
He was part of two very niche “supergroups,” the Texas Tornados and Los Super Seven. Killer groups comprised of killer players.
The Tornados live, with TWO accordionists. I cued it up to Flaco’s solo, which is not what you expect at all.
This link is to Los Super Seven’s debut album. This is a great recording, with beautiful clarity and space around every instrument. It’s like you're standing in the middle of the group in the studio. Which makes sense, because that’s basically how it was recorded, knocked out in a week at Cedar Studios in Austin, Texas (gear porn pics here...) The album mixes are the rough mixes the group and producer Steve Berlin took home to make mixing notes. They booked time to remix in LA, but ended up not being able to beat the roughs.
I love this album. So worth a listen. Worth a Grammy.
One of the great things about writing New Monday for you all is that I learn. Of course, I know the name Flaco Jimenez, and heard him on a few things, but was far more familiar with his compadres in the Tornados and the Seven—Doug Sahm, Freddy Fender, the guys from Los Lobos. To research his life, watch videos, and hear this wonderful, interesting music is such a delight for me.
Goodbye, Mr. Jimenez. This one is for you: In Heaven There is No Beer.
And goodbye to all of you ’til next week. No more obituary New Mondays for a while, I hope.
Back to Los Super Seven.
Un cordial saludo,
Luke