Permission to play

I notice as I get older that the weekend just ain't what it used to be. I'm more inclined to stooge around the house doing nothing much. Or I'm more likely to let work flow over into the once-sacrosanct space of recreation. I find I need a little encouragement to leave the week behind, to disengage from the opinion machine driven by downbeat talking heads. I need permission to relax, kick back, and do something fun.

Which has me a little excited about our new Friday night music line-up. A good weekend needs a good warm-up act and a high-energy soundtrack. If you've had a chance to hear Jonathan Brown sitting in for other music hosts, you should enjoy his new rootsy smorgasbord, Cutaway. Then two hours of the program that has been telling you the news is done for the day--it's time to come out and play--World Café. Then an hour of The Latin Alternative, to remind you that even though you may be bundled up in your parka, you could still be doing the rumba. And then taking you up to midnight, some of the most joyful noise anywhere, Afropop Worldwide with Georges Collinet.

After midnight? Well--I'll probably be in bed. But I won't be grinding my teeth in my sleep, and I expect to get up Saturday ready for a proper weekend.

Breathing the same air

Listening to the radio while doing chores, or playing a CD while driving a lonely stretch of road, it's easy to fall into the habit of thinking about music as a solitary experience. Cafes are full of people, each hearing their own soundtrack to life through earbuds. If we sing at all, it's to ourselves in the shower. Music is a commodity, served at a table for one.

What a change, then, to experience the real thing, the way humans have practiced the art for 20,000 years or so--as a community. Last Saturday I attended the spring concert of The Orchestra of Northern New York. While I haven't the ear to judge the quality of the performance--a program of Haydn and Beethoven--the quality of the experience was remarkable. Dozens of performers, many of them known to me, and hundreds of listeners, many also known to me, gathered in one room at one time, breathing the same air. The orchestra gave the gift of their practice and talent. The audience gave the gift of their attention and appreciation. They dressed up, put aside their other business, and traveled to be together for a single purpose. It happened in real time, from the opening theme to the final fall of the baton, becoming what it was moment by moment. If you weren't there, you missed it, and no recording can replace what you missed.

I will never forego the solitary pleasures of recorded music, and would never discourage anyone from listening to the radio--preferably to NCPR for hours each day. Just bear in mind that what you hear is only a synthetic echo of a moment, not the moment itself. For that, you need to go to where the music is being played.

Nominees: The best LP album art ever

To make your own nomination, comment on this post, or email to dale@ncpr.org.

Mary Abramson of Minerva says:

I enjoy the free spirit image of Bob Seger’s Against the Wind, and the outrageous spirit on Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell.

Varick Chittenden of Canton says:

What a good idea...and excuse to search through the cupboard full of vinyl LP's and see some long-ago favorites again. Here's my choice, (Talking Heads: Little Creatures) tho' I must say I like the cover more than the music! Heresy!!

I got to know about [the cover artist, Howard] Finster from an old and close friend, Bert Hemphill, a major collector of 20th century American folk art.

Jonathan Brown of Canton says:

Even though they're so familiar to me now, these are still two of the most arresting images I've ever seen.

Above: Relayer, Yes

Right: Brain Salad Surgery, Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Keith Freeman of Bloomingdale says:
My favorite that I gazed at for hours was Queen’s News of the World. Thanks for the fond memories.

Tom Boothe of Saranac Lake says:

That Santana album with the black and white lion face has gotta be up there. That’s all I’m sayin’.











Jodi Tosti of Potsdam says:

I lived for liner notes that seem to have fallen by the wayside in today's recording industry. I guess there's not too much to say about the musical accomplishments of so many artists whose only qualifications are that they look good on stage. Anywho, the first album cover to come mind is one of Boston's with the flying ufo/guitar, I believe. I also always liked the Rolling Stones cover with the cake on it.

Small is not so beautiful

It's time for spring cleaning in the NCPR music library again, and there is a takeaway table outside the studio door stacked with LPs and CDs. While I don't miss the inconvenience of vinyl, I must say that the LP art drew me to the table from all the way down the hall. Something went out of music appreciation when the foot-square album cover shrank to a few inches on CD, then vanished altogether in the age of downloads.

I turned a lot of hard-earned cash into so-so music just on the strength of cover art back in the '60s and '70s. I can't say that I ever bought a CD just because of the cover. Nor have I ever memorized the lyrics of a song from the CD insert, where the type is as tiny as the fine print on a subprime mortgage.

The best album covers had enough going on to keep you occupied through both the A and B sides--front cover, back cover, overleaf, sleeve, insert, label--all crawling with images and text. The best graphic artists in the world dined out on the copious real estate. Album covers performed the job of fan newsletter and band website. The object was the promotion. I could hardly wait to tear away the plastic wrap, and I can't think of a "shopping experience" that has been so satisfying since. Send me your nominations for the best LP art of all time. Tell us why they rock, and provide an image, if you can. Email to dale@ncpr.org. We'll post the results (with disappointingly tiny thumbnails) next week.

The thirty-threes of sixty-eight

Radio Bob wandered in this morning with his latest $5 CD treasure, a compendium of Vanilla Fudge and Iron Butterfly--tasty. The music of 1968 was special for a lot of reasons, but most special because I was then 15 years old--an age when musical passion runs an inch wide but a mile deep, when there are only 3 or 4 decent bands in the world and the rest of everything is chopped liver, when you can listen to the same cut 15 times in a row, just because that screaming guitar lick is so freaking amazing.

My early adopter friend David stopped me on the street in the summer of '68 to pass along a brand new copy of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Iron Butterfly's side-long rock extravaganza. I was about to hustle it home to fire it up on my crunchy portable, the one with the tone arm weighted down with a penny to grind the needle over the skips. David said, "No man--you gotta do this with headphones." I trekked up to the college library's listening booth and jacked in. And the world changed, or so it seemed.

But the world changes, and then it keeps on changing. Iron Butterfly just doesn't sound the same. I listen to '60s music still, but different music, and with a different ear. Less naïve perhaps, but also less engaged, less willing to be transported. I have the benefit of experience, and the deficit.

All in

No one imagined, when it was just an invitation to apply for funding, just how all-consuming the UpNorth Music project would become. 38 full days of recording in eleven communities, more than a hundred individual sessions, at least a thousand hours mixing and producing songs, interviews, broadcast features, podcasts. Designing and rebuilding the production studio, identifying, recruiting and paying artists, finding studio venues, planning a concert tour, mastering a compendium CD set, clearing performance and publication rights--a million details from remote broadcast setup to getting our new logo printed in frosting on a concert reception cake. Enormous big "ups" to production manager Joel Hurd and to project coordinator Jill Breit for all the sweat and blood.

It's all coming to a head tomorrow with the opening concert in the UpNorth Music Series at St. Lawrence University's Gulick Theater, and with the release of the project highlights in the 3-CD set Music Heard UpNorth. I've been working my way through the set with great delight. It sounds like the North Country--talented, inventive, diverse, quirky. The biggest surprise for me was that I thought I knew the musicians of the region, or at least the best of them. But on each CD in the set, there are at least half a dozen artists I had no idea were out there. Fantastic songwriters, monster instrumentalists, voices to make you cry. When NCPR takes on a project, I'm proud to say we go "all in." And the North Country, I'm proud to say, is full of artists who do the same.

If you can't pick up a copy at the concert tomorrow, Music Heard UpNorth will be available within a few days in stores around the region, and online via cdbaby.com. Or you can contact the station to place orders.