My Worst Gig Ever - Ian Anderson Of Jethro Tull

Every musician who has ever played in public has played some great gigs and some horrible ones, but it seems like the horrible ones are what we remember most. Usually the memories are of an extremely small crowd, or a hostile one, or circumstances either before or after the gig, but those of us who grew up playing in clubs always thought that once we graduated to touring then all of those terrible gigs would be left behind. That's certainly not how things work, as bigger gigs usually come with bigger problems.

In an article for The Guardian, Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson described a number of really bad scenarios that happened, surprisingly when they were one of the biggest acts in the world. He describes one especially unpleasant incident playing at New York's Shea Stadium in 1976.
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"I stood with the rest of the band at the top of the ramp leading down to the field of Shea Stadium. As with The Beatles' Shea show 10 years earlier, this was not to be an artistic success, to say the least. Commercial jets on final approach to the adjacent La Guardia airport drowned out the sound, when it wasn't being drowned out by the firecrackers, whistles, hoots and hollers of the crowd.

In those final moments before walking out on to the field, I was suddenly drenched with warm, sticky liquid from high above, where some of the rowdy, 50,000-strong audience looked down on to the players' access ramp. Only as I began the inaudible first verse of "Thick as a Brick" on acoustic guitar, did I realise with resigned horror that the liquid I assumed to be beer, was not, in fact, beer at all. It was urine. The unmistakable pong wafting from my then-ample head of damp hair and freshly laundered stage-clothing would remain for the duration of the show. An unholy baptism from above.

I could have picked the gig at Denver's Red Rocks Amphitheatre in 1971, when riots and police tear gas threatened to stop the show.
Or being hit hard in the larynx by a baseball at Philadelphia's Spectrum arena.
Or anointment by the freshly plucked but seriously used tampon hurled with uncanny accuracy at another enormodome.
Or the 10in steel spike impaled in the stage next to me at soundcheck when "fans" climbed into a roof gantry over the stage at soundcheck.
Or the live rounds of automatic pistol ammunition thrown on to the stage during a show. But no – the bucket of piss, delivered with loving precision, wins out every time. You have to laugh. And count the money."

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The Hooters "All You Zombies" Song Analysis

My homie Tim Donmoyer requested a song analysis of "All You Zombies" by The Hooters, a song that was unusually on both the band's first and second albums. The version below is from their second album Nervous Night, which was produced by Rick Chertoff and recorded at the Record Plant in New York City. As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song form, the arrangement, the sound and the production.

The Song
"All You Zombies" has a highly unusual song form in that except for the solo section, all other sections are the same and use the same chord progression. The only difference between the verse and chorus is the lyrics and a slight arrangement change. The form looks like this:

  Intro, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Intro, Solo, Verse, Chorus, Chorus, Outro

The Arrangement
This is a rather long song and it takes a bit of skill to keep interesting since it's virtually the same chord pattern repeating over and over.


  The Foundation: Kick, hi-hat, bass

  The Pad: Synth/organ

  The Rhythm: Reggae-style guitar

  The Lead: High and low unison/harmony vocals

  The Fills: Lead guitar

The arrangement changes from the verse to the chorus by adding a strummed guitar, doubling the vocals, and adding an additional synth pad. The second intro also features a synth solo, which makes it different from the first intro.

The Sound
The song is swimming in effects, which is totally appropriate and very much a product of the 80's. Everything (especially the vocals) has a lot of delay, which doesn't seem to be timed to the track so it sticks out. The drums have a lot of short room reverb when they enter in the guitar solo, which makes the part stand out from the rest of the song. The song isn't all that loud by today's standards, but remember that it was recorded during a time gentle compression during recording and mastering, rather than take-no-prisoners crushing that we hear today.

The Production
The only way this type of a song doesn't get boring is with great production. Producer Rick Chertoff got great performances from the players, and they have to be special in a song like this. I especially like the tom fills at the end of the sections, which are both played well and sound great. Having the low unison vocal change to a harmony at the end of the lines is an inspired idea, and having the arrangement change enough to separate the song sections is a must, and it's done well.

Send me your ideas for song analysis.

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Paul McCartney On Songwriting

I went to a Paul McCartney concert a few years ago, and just like most people, I was totally blown away. As a Grammy winning producer/songwriter friend explained, "It's like watching Beethoven!" The funny thing was that a while later I ran into Brian Ray, one of Macca's guitar players, and when I told him how much I loved the show, he said, "You've got to come hear us now. We're so much better!" Sounded very much like a club band player, but it made me realize that musicians are still musicians and bands are still bands no matter what level you're on.

Here's a great video from the Michael Parkinson talk show of Paul talking about songwriting in general, writing a song for Sinatra, and playing a few of his lesser-known songs. Note a rather bored looking David Gilmour in the background, which is understandable since he wasn't doing much.

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The Next Step In Soundproofing Technology

Soundproofing a room has always been a rather simple, brute force process - the more mass you add, the more isolation you get. There are some newer materials like mass loaded vinyl and Green Glue that make the soundproofing process slightly more efficient, but they can increase the cost considerably and still aren't any magic acoustic bullet for everyone that wants to stop bothering the neighbors.

That said, there may actually be a new technology that can change all of that. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created a tunable acoustic diode, a device that allows acoustic information to travel only in one direction at controllable frequencies, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Materials.

The acoustic diode acts very much like an electronic one and allows sound to pass in only one direction, while blocking it in the opposite direction. This new technology would enable someone in room A to hear sound coming from room B, but would block the same sound in room A from being heard in room B. The other possibility is that any sound that was transmitted could be directed to a transducer that could convert the sound into electric energy, while keeping it away from the listener.

It doesn't seem like this is something that will be hitting your local Guitar Center anytime soon, but it's exciting to hear of a new class of acoustic devices that might be a major answer to the prayers of many home studio owners.

A paper on the subject is titled "Bifurcation-based acoustic switching and rectification," and was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and the A. S. Onassis Benefit Foundation.

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The Who "Who Are You" Isolated Vocals

We all love to hear inside of a hit, regardless of whether it's on the charts now or from 50 years ago. Here's a look at the vocal track from The Who's hit "Who Are You" that shows us just how good Roger Daltry and crowd sang together as a band.

What's interesting is that the first half of the harmony vocal phrase isn't there except for the beginning of the song. That suggests that either it's on another track or whoever was doing this mix wasn't putting it on purpose so we could hear the lead vocal clearly.

Also it's interesting to hear the distortion on the lead vocal, especially towards the end, and the fact that a the three part harmony breaks down to two on the outro.

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