That’s Just Like, Your Opinion, Man

The Dude abides in the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski, and he also has something to say about opinions. Namely, that opinions are just that – opinions – and not all of them are valid.

Case in point. Last week I had drinks with a few friends, and one of them who’s not really into music said, “Rap isn’t music.”  In my usual diplomatic and courteous way, I went on to lambaste this absurdity before he retorted with “It’s just my opinion.” But I took issue with this comeback for two reasons:

1) He made his statement as if were fact, not an opinion.
2) His opinion isn’t credible because it can be proven false.

On the first point, his utterance sure didn’t sound like an opinion to me. If he had instead said something like “To me, rap isn’t musical,” then that would have been a statement of opinion and entirely legitimate, if not sadly limited. But of course, we all make statements that are meant to be taken as opinions. In my podcast, I’ll often say something like “that guitar solo has no place in this song” or “this song goes on too long.” I don’t preface these statements with “It’s my opinion that…” or “I didn’t like that…” Instead, it’s tacitly implied that what I’m offering is an opinion – it’s one of the premises of the podcast. Now, perhaps I should have been more gracious to my friend and recognized the spirit with which he made his claim, but to me he had crossed a line and was speaking with a level of authority on the matter, as if determining what music is and what music isn’t fell under his jurisdiction.

Here’s what it is, according to one definition:

music (myoo͞′zĭk) noun

1.   The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.

Sounds like a definition that includes rap to me.

Which brings me to my second point: the “opinion” that rap isn’t music isn’t credible because it can be completely invalidated based on facts. Rap music does in fact arrange sounds in time to produce a composition, and furthermore, rap ­is a genre now well into its fifth decade that has sold countless records and CDs in music stores, is played on music stations and is viewed live at music venues. If not music, then what would you call it? Poetry with a beat? Come on!

If you’re going to make a controversial claim, you should be able to back it up in some way. Hell, even flat-earthers do this, albeit with ridiculous “facts,” but I’ve never heard a flat-earther say, “It’s just my opinion,” because saying the earth is flat isn’t a statement of opinion; it’s a statement of fact based on faulty data that can be proven false, just as my friend’s “opinion” that rap isn’t music is based on faulty data – probably having to do with a narrow definition that music must contain identifiable melodies that can be reproduced on a tonal instrument like a piano or trumpet. But saying rap isn’t music is like me saying Beethoven’s works aren’t music. I may not like his Eroica Symphony (except I do), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t music. 

And although you can form an opinion about the above, one conclusion can be made unequivocally: The Dude abides.

Build Your Own Record Rack - repost

(NOTE: this is a repost from June 15, 2023, but I wanted to reintroduce this topic as a companion to a discussion from this week’s episode of 1000 Greatest Misses, a podcast I host with Christopher Grey. If you own vinyl, this may be right up your alley).

I’m not a naturally handy guy, but over the years I’ve managed to take on some modest home improvement projects with a degree of success, mostly the result of YouTube videos and frantic emails to my exceptionally handy friend, Rick.  Last March when it became apparent that the pandemic would result in a lot of unwanted time at home, I decided to overcome my typical trepidation and take on a new project, one I’d been grappling with for some time:  building a few shelving units to store my growing collection of vinyl records.  I’d been searching for a replacement of my plastic-bins-scattered-around-the-basement approach for quite some time, but nothing on the market satisfied my three criteria:  forward facing, attractive and inexpensive. 

Enter, the Google search.  Actually enter dozens of Google searches. And lo and behold, several pages deep into one of my explorations, I came upon a marvelous blog post called “I Built a DIY Vinyl Record Shelf, And you Can Too!”  This sounded right up my alley.  The post was over seven years old, but the concept was timeless:  build a great-looking unit that holds around 500 records with one sheet of 8x4 plywood.  Fantastic.

The author of the blog got his idea from what is now a decade-long thread on AudioKarma, a website I’d never heard before but whose entry is a treasure trove of information from dozens of helpful contributors.  It all started with a great concept and has since evolved to include every possible variation you can imagine, with multiple draft designs that accommodate different needs.  If you’re interested in building your own rack, I strongly encourage you to read the entire thread before you begin.  I did not, and wish I had.  It may take you several hours, but it’ll help you determine in advance which features are important to you and which design works best.  Had I read these comments in full I would have avoided a few mistakes along the way.  As it is, I built two identical racks, and then a third of my own design that includes record storage on the bottom and bays for a receiver and turntable on top.  None of my three projects went perfectly, and my lack of craftsmanship certainly reared its ugly head from time to time, but I learned a lot about woodworking and ultimately made decent-looking alternatives to the plastic bins I’d been using for years.

Along with screws, glue, casters, sandpaper, and polyurethane, lights, etc., I figure each unite costs somewhere around $100.   Not too shabby!

Above: records will fill the bottom eventually. Far left: speaker stands that I built to practice using a pocket hole jig. Left: extra support for the bottom shelf.

Here are a few things you may find helpful:

1)     Beware cutting your plywood at the store.  The guys at Home Depot were well-meaning, but their cuts of my red oak plywood (around $53) with a dull an imprecise cutting tool ended up shredding my wood something fierce.  It took a lot of energy and frustration to work around the most dreadful-looking cuts.  If you have a friend with a truck or a van, consider doing this at home.

2)     Buy or build a square jig to hold your plywood together at right angles.  I built one very similar to the one in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPA8FDTcfcE

3)     Get a table saw or borrow one.  I did not and it showed, because even though I used a guide with my circular saw, I was never able to make my cuts absolutely perfect, resulting in slight gaps and mismeasurements that affected the final project.  I’m still happy with my units, but they could have been a bit better. 

4)     Since being able to move your record rack once it’s filled with records is key, definitely include casters in your design.  I purchased reasonably-priced 90-pound casters from Home Depot and they work fine.  Don’t forget to include a few that swivel and lock.

5)     Use a counter sink to hide your screws or use a pocket hole jig.  I did the former from the first two racks I built and pocket holes for the third unit along with a set of speaker stands I built (these actually turned out the best of all of my work).  I loved using my Kreg Pocket Hold Jig 320 and will find new uses for it in upcoming projects I’m sure.

6)     Use wood glue for all of your wood joints.

7)     Buy a bunch of clamps, including a few trigger clamps for ease of use and a few clamps that are long enough to accommodate your record bin.  I think mine are 48 inches, and they were hugely helpful.

8)     Consider adding supports for the shelves.  Records weight a lot, and though it might not have been necessary, I did add a cross-bar support for the lower shelf and perimeter supports for the top shelf.   If nothing else, they give me peace of mind.

9)     Be especially careful with the top shelf as this is the most visible.  On the last rack I made that’s housing a turntable on top, I ended up with gaps along the edges that required the use of wood putty, and it looks pretty bad.  So bad, in fact, that I decided to purchase a bunch of rock band stickers from RedBubble to hide my work!  I love the stickers, but they were not part of the original design.

10)  Which reminds me, consider decorating your racks with stickers!  This was a helluva lot of fun, and it requires no carpentry skills.

11)  If you don’t want to stain, don’t.  I personally hate using stain because I never like the way it turns out – just another one of those handyman skills I haven’t yet mastered.  I kept my red oak plywood bare and used three coats of polyurethane to protect it and give it a bit of a sheen.  Looks great.

12)  Don’t fret so much about how to best apply polyurethane.  I stressed out about this because everyone had an opinion and almost none of them were consistent.  Put a few coats on, sand lightly, put another coat on, and you’re good to go.  It’s just polyurethane.  It’s not life and death.

13)  Consider using real wood iron-on veneer.  I had no idea this product existed, but it’s another one of those great tidbits offered by the AudioKarma gang.  It’s an absolute bitch to work with in my opinion because it’s wider than the edge of the plywood and therefore needs to be trimmed.  Nothing I used – a trimmer designed specifically for this task or just good old sandpaper – worked well.  It either just folded the veneer or disrupted it enough to lift it off the plywood despite the adhesive.  I eventually got the job done and it looks great, but it was an unpleasant process. 

14)  Install LED lights for the bottom racks or your records are going to be hard to see.  This part of the project was easy!  I purchased these stick-on lights from Amazon and they work great. 

15)  Use record dividers for a professional look.  There are a bunch of options out there, mostly overpriced or formatted incorrectly, but I like the option I found at Amazon along with a white ink Sharpie.

I’m probably missing a few additional pieces of advice, but by scanning the AudioKarma thread you will have a lot of great ideas that people of shared over the years.  Happy building!

Music vs Lyrics

In episode 10 of our podcast 1000 Greatest Misses, Christopher Grey and I discuss music and lyrics, and whether one is more important when falling in love with a composition.  I concluded that with some exceptions, music is most important to me, and that as long as a lyric isn’t overtly lame (“Hey baby let’s go out tonight, Hey baby, I’m feeling alright”) a good melody will carry the tune to the finish line for me.  But a lyric that’s embarrassingly bad will often ruin an otherwise good song.

A few weeks ago, John McWhorter of the New York Times reviewed an upcoming book called Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers and Other Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan, and concluded that the book “is a reminder that one can be massively fulfilled by language one doesn’t fully comprehend.”  I love this summation because it perfectly captures my sentiment for a band like Yes, whose lyrics are complete nonsense to me, but that still manage to be profoundly evocative.

Consider a song most everyone knows: “Roundabout.”  The lyric of the chorus is:

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky
And they stand there

Nothing crazy there. Kind of poetic, maybe.  But nothing overtly comprehensible.  Now imagine if singer Jon Anderson had instead leaned on rock and roll’s worst lyrical instincts and composed the following over the same melody:

I’ve got to see you, babe
You know you’re all I crave
In the evening

Not exactly what I’m looking for in a song! And surely “Roundabout” wouldn’t be a classic if its lyrics were such garbage. It’s the same reason why a band like The Babys are hard for me to listen to. An otherwise competent song like “Every Time I Think of You” isn’t helped when John Waite sings:

People say a love like ours will surely pass
But I know a love like ours will last and last

Ugh, who farted, right? And the Babys actually outsourced this tune, written by Jack Conrad and Ray Kennedy. You’d think someone could have come up with a better lyric. Terrible.

But then you’ll get words that are kind of lame but are backed up by such a terrific groove, that it hardly matters what’s being said. I think of a song like “New Sensation” by INXS.  I dig this song despite its lyrics:

Live, baby, live
Now that the day is over
I got a new sensation
Mm, perfect moments
That's so impossible to refuse

Somehow, this works for me. I can’t explain it, and I certainly can’t defend it. But I really like the song.

Of course, the best result is the perfect marriage of music and lyrics, an alchemy that’s rarely achieved, but when it happens it can move me to my core, and it’s why I admire artists like Jackson Brown, Randy Newman, Bruce Springsteen, Rickie Lee Jones, Paul Simon, etc. When Jones sings “And I can hear him
In every footstep's passing sigh/He goes crazy these nights/Watching heartbeats go by” or when Springsteen sings “There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away/They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets”…well, damn. I’m all in. Tears, every time.

For my own compositions, just as I try to avoid musical clichés, I try to avoid pedestrian lyrics. Occasionally, I hit the mark, combining melody, harmony, groove and words that convey an emotion together that could never be achieved by their separate parts.

The beauty of song.

When Musicians Don't Want You To Like Their Songs

Last week on the podcast 1000 Greatest Misses, my co-host and I praised a song by Mike Viola called “She’s the One” from his very first EP back in 1985. Viola has had an impressive career as a songwriter and producer, but he doesn’t think much of that early release. He caught wind of our episode and wrote a response about his “crappy EP” and how he threw away about fifty copies of it years ago.

And look, I can totally get how he might not be proud of that first effort anymore. 1985 is a long time ago, and he may not even recognize the person he was at the time and probably thinks the songs pale in comparison to what he’s written since. Fair enough. Hell, I’ve done thirteen albums over the past 31 years, and I don’t believe my 1992 album is all that good. I get it.

But I have been approached after a show I’ve performed in and been told how good my keyboard playing was, and even when I don’t agree with that person’s comment – even if I think I kind of flubbed up my performance – my response is always the same: “Thanks for much. I’m glad you enjoyed the show.” It would be foolish and rude of me to say, “This concert was for shit and I played like crap.”

Viola could have just responded, “Wow, that was a long time ago and I hardly remember the song, but I’m glad you dig it,” but he instead basically told us that we were idiots for liking his song. To which I say, “Hey, you’re the one who wrote it. Don’t blame us.”

A similar thing happened to an entire audience back in 2002. Anyone who was in attendance to see Elvis Costello at the Chicago Theatre that year will remember that he was in a surly mood that evening. After a couple of songs, he snarled at the audience and announced, “Anyone who wants to hear ‘Veronica’ can fuck off right now.”

Few artists resort to such buffoonery, but many accidentally achieve the same results in a more subtle way by dismissing a song or an album. Paul McCartney has dismissed the Wings album Back to the Egg (which is silly, because the album rules), Phil Collins has dismissed the Genesis album …And Then There Were Three (also good), and Rush has dismissed the song ”Tai Shan” explicitly, and the album Presto a little less explicitly. And I get it: those may be songs or works that the artists no longer identify with. But they have fans who identify with those works, and when a musicians says – in effect – that a song is crap, it’s a dig at any fan who happens to like it.

I think artists everywhere should be careful about how they approach their past efforts and recognize the love that fans send their way. Look back on missteps not with regret but with mild amusement, and for goodness sakes, when someone praises you for a composition you wrote, just say “thank you” and move on.

A New Rock and Roll Podcast

A little late to the podcast game, but what the hell! My music-obsessed friend and I are starting a podcast called 1000 Greatest Misses, shining a light on 1000 undiscovered, obscure, and underappreciated songs that hit all the marks but failed to chart. On each episode and Christopher Grey and I will feature five power pop, AOR, heavy metal and new wave songs from the seventies and eighties, most of it curated from radio compilation vinyl records that aren’t available on any streaming service.

I met Chris as I began buying records in the 00s after a twenty year hiatus. He and his business partner Pete owned a record store called Platterpuss and they would host warehouse sales from time to time. I dipped my toes back into vinyl, making purchases every six months or so. My, how times have changed! Just yesterday I perused by record purchases in 2022, and…well…my habit has grown exponentially. Don’t tell my wife.

But hey, if anyone has a serious problem with vinyl, it’s my podcast partner Christopher Grey. I’m not going to get into numbers here, but let's just say his basement is currently unavailable for a makeover.

Chris and Pete’s record store is now called Cheap Kiss Records, a regular stop on my record shopping rotation in nearby Villa Park, Illinois (as well as online). After accumulating many radio station compilation records over the years - most of which have that one “gem” of a tune that never got properly recognized - Chris decided that it was high time to share his fruits of his labor with the rock and roll world. I hopped on the bandwagon and here we are, ready to rock the planet with forgotten music.

Our introductory episode is complete (and should be available shortly on your favorite podcast app), and in short order we’ll record our first proper episode. More soon…