Comments on: A new DNA

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:19:37 +0000

To be fair, it’s got to be a Herculean task to learn anything directly from those two guys, given extreme language and behavioral barriers.

But yeah, I hate that kind of pizza.

By: specialagentdalecooper

specialagentdalecooper — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:05:17 +0000

This new technology only tells me that we learned absolutely nothing from Bob Dylan or Lee “Scratch” Perry at all. Here’s my smug-ass take on it:

“Hi, welcome to Pop Music Pizza. What can I get for you?”

“Yeah, gimme a medium. A perfectly ordinary medium. I can’t tolerate size abnormality. I want it light on the sauce, heavy on the cheese.”

“Do you want any toppings on that?”

“Only if they are flavorless and mathematically evenly distributed across the entire surface of the pizza.”

“Hmm, I’m not sure if we -”

“Forget it then. Oh hey, are there any seasonings in your sauce?”

“No sir! Our patented Flavor Remover strips them out of the tomato paste before we start mixing it up. It may still contain trace amounts of oregano…”

“Trace amounts? A pox on your pizza! I’ll be taking my business elsewhere, thank you.” *leaves in a snit*

…and SCENE.

By: Gabriel Harley

Gabriel Harley — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 01:55:20 +0000

As an engineer, I know that sometimes things need to be “corrected.” Maybe hot lights or a player’s body heat bent a guitar out of shape mid-performance so that a brilliant performance wasn’t quite as in tune as it should have been. Maybe new strings or a recent setup job made the instrument less stable than it should have been. These things happen, and sometimes they’re worth fixing.

Sometimes, though, they’re not. Call me crazy, but sometimes I like a little warble or catch in a singer’s voice, as if emotion (gasp!) got the better of them. Sometimes, a not-quite-in-tune guitar part actually creates a bit of a natural chorus effect while adding to the character of a performance. Sometimes, it’s nice to remember that human beings are the ones making the music, and that recordings can be snapshots and not belabored, deathless sonic masterpieces.