Aesthetic Properties: An Essay On Why I Hate mp3’s

Last night, after everyone and everything around me had retired for the evening, I did the same. I decided to fall asleep listening to music, a pastime I’ve been regretfully neglecting, as I tend to stay awake as long as possible – having found that these late hours are my most productive, and then crash swiftly and thoroughly.
Instead, tonight, I turned off all the lights, closed my curtains, turned on my phono preamp before I brushed my teeth to let the tubes warm up, and listened to a record as I fell asleep.

I was immediately taken with how much I enjoyed such a simple act: I loved everything about it. I loved the way my dusty old receiver’s bright pale yellow backlighting illuminated the furthest corner of my room, and the way that it’s glow caught a small edge of the record as it rotated. I loved the way the sound filled the room after I found the perfect volume and tone settings for the record I listened to. I listened to George Winston’s December; a record which is often overlooked, by an artist who is sometimes though of as elevator music – completely unfairly. That record is not earning me any Indie cred, but it did afford a very enjoyable listening experience. December was recorded directly to a 2-Track Studer tape machine. No digital process was used in any stage of it’s recording, mixing, or mastering phase: true analog, and I had forgotten how good it sounded on vinyl. The bass notes rang so clearly when George played them, reverberating through each corner of my room free to move as they pleased – no other noise but the occasional car passing on the street to compete with.

I was amazed at how easily I had forgotten why I love listening to music on this medium so much. Listening to a record is an aesthetic experience : feeling the vinyl, placing it perfectly on the mat, cueing the tone arm, dropping the needle, seeing the record spin, watching the meters on your reciever dance. It’s an experience that is completely lost in the cold and robotic act of playing an mp3. Find data, select data, click data twice, adjust speakers to an audible volume, and listen to degraded and compressed audio – so far from how the original recording was intended to be heard, as a series of 1’s and 0’s are decoded by a calculating machine that is protected safely inside a pretty plastic casing, so human eyes don’t have to watch it work.

Over time, music has been packaged more and more conveniently for consumption with little regard to the contents the packaging or the format held. The 8-track, the cassette, the compact disc, and finally the mp3: invisible, completely lifeless, taking up no matter, weightless, and without a physical appearance. I hate the mp3. I hate what it has done to music in that sense – not in the piracy killed the radio star sense, which I am completely on the other side of, as evidenced by my writing of an mp3 blog, but let us keep the discussion of how the RIAA would like to destroy the community music creates for another day – in the sense that there’s no soul to a series of invisible data which creates a soundwave. There’s no experience, just instant results. It got me thinking, if we don’t even have time to listen to music – an art comprised almost entirely of soul regardless of genre – why do we even listen?

Hard to Find a Friend will observe radio silence for the rest of the day in observance of this personal revelation. You’ll find no mp3’s at the end of this post, as that would completely defeat the purpose of my little essay. Perhaps the blog itself does, but I can’t send thousands of you pieces of vinyl a day, though I could if I would. I hope you listen to the music I post here on a day to day basis with the deepest attention you can muster. That’s why it’s there – for you to experience, and decide to love or hate. My hope is, and has always been, that this site would provide an opportunity for others to experience music which has moved me at some stage of my life, and subsequently support the artists who gave us both that exhilarating feeling. If I’m simply adding to the noise of your day with a series of weightless and matterless words (we’ll get to books later) then I sincerely apologize.

I encourage you to go buy some vinyl tonight at your local record store, and duplicate my experiment when you have the time. Your senses will thank you. Also, for more explanation of why I love records, read this post from a long time ago and the comments it brought (especially “Tyler”). I don’t hear people get that excited about how great their 256 kbps mp3’s sound.

Scratch n’ Dent : An Essay on Indie Rock Guitars

Over the past few years I’ve noticed an increasing trend towards uniformity in the gear of Indie bands across the nation. One would assume, given the understood indifferent disposition of those who claim the scene as their own, that this trend was by mistake, but whose to say.

First let’s start with guitars: The foundation of any respectable Indie Rock band.
Before we do anything we must chose a model! Acceptable models include Fender’s Telecaster, Stratocaster (sometimes), Jaguar, and Jazzmaster models; the older the better, Epiphone or Gibson Hollowbodies, SG’s, and some Les Paul’s (note: some!). Older models like Fender’s Starcaster, the Fender XII or Gibson’ Melody Maker are welcome and encouraged, not to mention sure to earn bonus points for vintage irony with their oddly shaped headstocks and light body weights. Old department store models from the 60’s are the Holy Grail of Scene points: these include, but are not limited to, Kay, Airline, Harmony, and Danelectro guitars.

Next, we move to the finish: this is important! Have you ever noticed the only finishes considered acceptable in Indie rock are Black, an occasional Sunburst, and members of the Natural/Blonde family (Blonde, Honey Blonde, Natural, Vintage Blonde, and Fender’s Arctic and Olympic White are included here). Do you know what separates you from being praised or mocked for your guitar in the Indie world? The finish.

If I come on stage with an Arctic White Telecaster (72’s are especially sought-after in the Indie realm) I am assumed to be a skilled and tasteful guitarist. If I come on stage with an Electron Blue model, I am assumed to be a talentless wanker. If I come out with, say, a vintage Black Les Paul with a startlingly large tremelo, ala Neil Young’s, I’m considered to be a guitar expert, waiting to bust out big 60’s psych rock solos. If I come out with the same guitar in Gibson’s “Pour some sugar on me flamed bourbon maple swirl mahogany-top?” Total wanker. Perhaps I bought a black Gretsch Tennessee Rose? I am now an alt-country God, making Whiskeytown look like a talentless bar band & Uncle Tupelo seem like a bunch of kids in a basement. If I buy that same guitar in Gretsch’s “Banner sample Acryclic Gold Sparkle?” Talentless and tasteless.

What am I supposed to play my guitar through? I’m glad you asked! Orange amps are okay for some, other boutique models such as Dr. Z are largely acceptable. However, your best first investment would be a Fender Blues JR. or Deville. If you can find the blonde tweed models, you’re in luck! Bonus points! Even better than these starter kit models though, are old Gibson’s, Silvertone’s, and vintage Fender Amps. Vox’s tube models are also a good choice, though a bit pricier (good for those of you on a trust fund). All amps are to be “distressed,” (fig. A) that is; the grille is tearing, a speaker as a hum, someone else’s name painted and subsequently scratched off the side, and generally anything else which can be done to make your amp look like you found it in a Williamsburg alley.

On to the clincher: effects pedal: if it’s not hanging on to dear life don’t bother. You’ll need something like a vinatge Tubescreamer, Rat (especially good: used by everyone from Thom Yorke to Sonic Youth), Turbodistortion (japanese only please), or Big Muff. If you cannot find a used model, please use the same method of “distressing” found in figure A). For delay (you’ll need lots of it for those noise solos): analog is king. Ibanez’s Ad9, or any vintage DOD delay (preferably with a ground problem, which will create an awful hum) are best. If these cannot be found, a very old and discolored Boss DD6 will suffice. For Compression/Sustain the name of the game is awful. Anything old and bad, preferably a bright color and with a goofy name. These are not so much to compress and/or sustain your signal as much as they are to make people think you’re a tone expert and this obscure and impossible to find pedal is the only thing that you’ll let touch your tone.

Below are some examples of perfect Indie Rock set-ups for you to study:
J. Mascis (Dinosaur JR)
Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead)
Sonic Youth
Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo)
Stephen Malkmus (Pavement, Solo)
Damon Gough (Badly Drawn Boy)
Dave Van Boehlen (The Promise Ring)
Bryan Maryansky (Jets to Brazil)
Frank Black (Pixies)

[mp3] Yo La Tengo – We’re an American Band
[mp3] Dinosaur JR. – Little Fury Things
[mp3] MGMT – Indie Rokkers