Random Rants:

1. Roller Disco Returns? PLEASE, GOD NO!!!!

I am sure by now you have seen the commercials for Roll Bounce, a period piece movie about a group of young black youths who enter some sort of roller disco contest. Why someone in Hollywood thought THIS was a good idea is beyond me. It's got to be better than the Honeymooners movie, or a remake of Thank God It's Friday or Roller Boogie. All I ask is this does not start a disco revival. Anyone else remember the Roto-Disco at Six Flags, that indoor, backwards moving wave/hump roller coaster [sort of] with all the mirrors and disco lights that was back in the corner by the bumper cars and the parachute ride on the midway?

You know what's ready for a return? Rock and Roll, dammit!

2. Follow Up: Me vs the Ghost in the Machine

I put the Coral [The Invisible Invasion] in the CD player, very cool British psychedelic pop, kind of like what the Kinks MIGHT have done if they'd attempted a Sgt Pepper answer album. Still, the most under-rated album of that period has got to be The Who Sell Out. But the Coral is very nice.

3. Channel 13 Playing to Baby Boomers... AGAIN

On KERA in Dallas [if you're not in the area] they're doing something called Talkin' 'Bout My Generation Week, which is of course when they're going to run Marty Scorcese's thing on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home, on American Masters and something on the history of protest songs and probably show Woodstock AGAIN and a bunch of things so BLATANTLY geared for Baby Boomers it's going to make me throw up. How can this garnered be so egotistical to keep declaring themselves 'The Greatest Generation?' They act as if nothing has happened in the world since 1972 and all the music that was made back then was the Be All-End All. Now they plunk down $200 to see Elton John [who couldn't GIVE away concert tickets to between 1977 and 1987] and Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones and pretend that those artists still matter and that they're 16 or 21 again.

Part 1 of the Dylan last night was interesting, sort of. I read today that this only goes up to the 1966 tour, which is short in Dylan's career, but about the last time he was relevant in the 60s. Hearing Dylan actually TALK about that time is kind of cool... some radio interviews and bios he wrote at that time also showed his penchant for just bullshitting the unwary.

Part 2 is a sometimes un-nerving look at how people turned on Dylan for doing what HE wanted to do, how people can turn their backs on you when you don't fit into their 'little box' anymore. Some of the press conference footage is just priceless, the same stupid things the Beatles were going through and finally they cut to modern Dylan and he says 'Why did people think that an Entertainer (or Singer,or whatever he said) is going to have answers to all these questions?' And he's right, of course! Just because someone will go up on the stage and sing or act in a motion picture or play a game in front of 10 or 30 or 50 thousand people, does that ALSO automatically give them Magical Powers of Insight and/or Wisdom?

The show only covered Dylan's career from 1959 - 1966, his best known period, i.e. the Folk years and then the Electric Years, to the 1966 English tour and the motorcycle crash that took him out of the picture for a year or so. Personally, I prefer the electric years, even though I am sometimes fascinated by his use of words in the early years. Highway 61 Revisited is an all time classic album, Blonde on Blonde and Bringing It All Back Home have their moments.

4. Sweet!

Anybody else know the song on that damn Chevy commercial "Come join the revolution NOWWWWW!!!!" ? It's Sweet's Teenage Rampage! Ah, but me and Deb are probably the only two to name that one. I hope it brings a remastered Sweet Greatest comparable to the British Sweet 16. Heard Ballroom Blitz on the way home tonight, still a classic.

5. Snail Mail Dread

Is it just me or has everyone been getting PILES of charity solicitation by mail? I only have two groups I donate to [Cancer Society and USA Hockey], but I am getting something every other day! Yesterday was Leukemia Society Local Drive, the National Resources Defense [Tree Hugging Environmentalist Whacko] Council [with PERSONAL LETTER from Robert F Kennedy Jr!] and the US Olympic Committee...

I guess this is the inevitable fall out from all the No-Call list stuff, but I find it kind of IRONIC the National Resources Defense Fund sends out a two page flyer, my personal letter and pre-typed 'Petition' to President and the US Senate [but NOT Representatives], complete with my name and address needing only MY Charles A Galupi, to protest 'the Bush Administration's plans to weaken our environmental safeguards.' Here's a clue: SAVE A TREE!

RECORD COMPANY PRICKS! Alert

EW YORK (Reuters) - The love affair between record labels and Apple Computer Inc. could be headed for the rocks as they bicker over prices ahead of licensing renegotiations set for early next year.

The licensing agreements between Apple, maker of the wildly popular iPod digital music player and operator of the most widely used music download service, and the record labels are set to expire next spring.

Both sides, which have benefited enormously from music sales created by the iPod phenomenon, are jockeying for position.

Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs, believed by some to be the savior of the music industry, insists that prices should be uniform at 99 cents a song and $9.99 an album, saying that the buying experience for consumers should be simple.

Record executives, however, are seeking some flexibility in prices, including the ability to charge more for some songs and less for others, the way they do in the traditional retail world.

"There's no content in the world that has doesn't have some price flexibility," said Warner Music Group Corp. chief executive Edgar Bronfman at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia investor conference here. "Not all songs are created equal. Not all albums are created equal.

"That's not to say we want to raise prices across the board or that we don't believe in a 99-cent price point for most music," he said. "But there are some songs for which consumers would be willing to pay more. And some we'd be willing to sell for less."

Apple's Jobs blasted the record industry for mulling higher prices. "If they want to raise the prices, it means that they are getting greedy," he said at a press conference, adding that if the price goes up, the industry faces a higher risk of piracy.

See, give then an inch they want the whole yard. We take the hard part right out of the Record Conglomerate hands, marjeting, let the people pick and choose what they want, and now they want to jack you up for what you like. Take away the cost of making the little plastic and aluminium discs and paying for photo shots and rack space in Best Buy and they still want to find a way to stick you up....

Me Vs The Ghost In the Machine

I bought a CD by a band called the Corals on the recommendation of my CD guy Joey and I came home and I'm piddle-dicking around on the computer here so I decided to slide my CD in. BUT instead of my Musicmatch jukebox playing as normal, I got an End User License Agreement [a legal agreement between [me] and Sony BMG Music Entertainment... to agree to before I can listen to MY CD.

Basically buried in all the legalese, it says that I must agree to install 'a small propietary program' [now to be referred to as The Spy] ... intended to protect the audio files embodied on the CD.' Why I am not assured by the assurance that The Spy will not collect any personal information on me. It does not say that it will not review the contents of my hard drive nor not take notes when I burn a CD of the best of Superchunk or Uncle Tupelo or burn my box sets to CD for backup. Go ahead, call me a paranoid. Spider Jerusalem said 'A paranoid is just someone with all the facts.'

Further, it declares that I must use 'an approved media player program' to play MY CD on MY computer., and if I do not have 'an approved media player,' they will tell me where to get one.

What is this crap? Since when did a product provider get to declare a narrower band width of what I can and can't do with their product that I legally purchased? Even understanding this is an attempt to block the piracy and file sharing [' You may not distribute, share through any information network, transfer, sell, lease or rent any of the LICENSED MATERIALS to any other person, in whole or in part'] that I rant and rave about. Free music is not a RIGHT! [Still thorny on that used CD issue] On the other hand, I object entirely to giving the provider of said product any toehold into my devices. Who really knows what that piece of 'proprietary software' does? So I guess this only get payed in my home player. Assuming THAT is approved.

RNR Hall of Lame 2006 Edition: [From Yahoo Music News]

Apparently, 1980 just wasn't a rockin' year.

In the way of the music world, acts that have seen 25 years elapse since the release of their first record become eligible to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

However, the Rock Hall nominating committee snubbed the newly eligible class of 1980 entirely, seemingly unable to find a band worthy of putting on the ballot sent out to voters this week.

That left room for perennial nominees such as Black Sabbath (now on their eighth bid), Lynyd Skynyrd (seventh bid), the Sex Pistols and the Stooges (five bids apiece).

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, which last year became the first rap act nominated to the Rock Hall, has another chance this year to become the first rap act inducted.

Other holdovers from previous years include the J. Geils Band, John Mellencamp, the Patti Smith Group, Chic and Joe Tex.

First-time nominees to the eclectic ballot include Miles Davis, Cat Stevens, Blondie, the Paul Butterfield Band, the Dave Clark Five and the Sir Douglas Quintet.

First of all, I am having trouble remembering 1980 debuts, which is the criteria, but looking at the list of nominees just makes my stomach turn. Probably Sabbath, the Pistols and Skynyrd finally get in, but that should probably the only inductees. Those bands were the most influential of anybody. Geils, Mellencamp, Patti Smith had some successes and a couple great albums each, but they're not really what I call Hall of Fame, or even Hall of Lame worthy. Why do I even still care? Really, probably just to piss Jan Wenner off...

IPOD vs The Snob Revisited

I got some fine emails on the subject and I think the conclusion I have reached is this: The IPOD and the Hard Drive are replacing the CD and the album as the means for storing music.

I understand the logic, have a portable device you can load 300 of your favorites on and hit random and groove on for weeks at a time. You can load your music collection onto your hard drive and never have to pack boxes full of CDs ever again when you move! [Marty's friend Kendall suggests, having an external 40 or 60 Gig drive just for music]

But I am old fashioned. I still like album cover art and reading the booklets while I listen to the music, ingraining the minutiae of who played guitar on what song or that Lindsey Buckingham sang harmony vocals on Warren Zevon's Poor Poor Pitiful Me... that's just me.

My argument was supposed to be that people who just load up other people's collections and never get beyond the stuff they know are just wasting space on their hard drive. But it was pointed out that somewhere in there, that person may find that gem that puts them onto the road of their next love, like finding the Damned or Generation X on some punk collection or Love and Rockets or Minutemen on the 80s box and moving beyond what they were and finding something NEW and becoming a music snob themselves.