Lennon's test for echo.

What too much echo will do to you.

That John Lennon sure was a creative guy, wasn't he?  With and without his buddy Paul McCartney, he created some of the most creative and classic rock tunes known in the universe.  With Yoko Ono, he alienated and confounded a lot of folks, but he still remained true to his own artistic vision and did whatever the hell he wanted.

During his Beatles tenure, John found that he really liked the echo effect on his voice.  Apparently (according to whatever tale you read and/or choose to believe) Lennon was self conscious of his own singing voice and felt a little more bolstered with having a bit of echo thrown on top.  It wasn't as obvious in the beginning, but by the time 1965 and 1966 rolled around and the Fabs became more creative in the recording studio, John was all about the echo.

Under George Martin's tasteful guidance, the echo was pretty cool.  Once the Beatles disbanded, however, the effect turned into a different sort of beast.  Lennon was suddenly throwing it all over everything, and producer pals like Phil Spector were only too happy to indulge him.  It's right there on "Mother" on Plastic Ono Band.  It was ladled on in gallons on "Give Peace a Chance" and only held back slightly in a more compressed, gated effect on "Cold Turkey."

"Instant Karma," "Power to the People," "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" and even the old favorite "Imagine" are echo city, baby.  And if that wasn't enough, John also loved to throw in greasy saxophone solos that bogged down the tubes.  Hey, have you ever heard "Beef Jerky" or "Touch Me"?





I think the sound of the tree falling in the latter says it all, really. Hoo boy.

So how many compilations have The Who released, anyway?

Good question, kid.  Let me tell you.  I always knew the answer was "a lot," but I never knew just exactly how much that lot was until I was perusing The Who's web site just now and checked it out.  So, as of April 28, 2011, The Who have officially released the following number of compilations (including box sets, special limited editions, etc.):

TWENTY

That's not even including soundtracks like the one for Quadrophenia, Tommy, or The Kids Are Alright, which are basically old Who tunes you know and love regurgitated in new or different forms.  It's also not counting live albums, such as Join Together or Who's Last.  So, if you want to include those, feel free and inflate that total even more.  Note that this number does include the Magic Bus LP as it was the very first US compilation.

Amazing, isn't it?  That the band was already being compiled and resold right after their third LP (the UK got Direct Hits as their first comp).  But above and beyond that, how many freaking times can you sensibly compile the same tunes and expect people to buy them?  Why not just let new generations of Who fans sit through Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy or The Who's Greatest Hits and take it from there?  Those were both fine and solid collections that are still an enjoyable listen to this day.  In fact, the latter was my first Who purchase and did a pretty fine job of showing me the scope of what the band was all about, beyond "My Generation" or "Who Are You?"

But I guess once you get into that rut, you just have the tendency to do it.  Universal must think the kids are not all right and need a new Who compilation every few years to make sure no one forgets about the band.  Which leads me to wonder what the sales are for these various comps versus the actual albums of "new" material the band recorded from The Who Sing "My Generation" to ...well, I was going to say It's Hard, but go ahead and throw that boring Endless Wire one on the pile as well.  I'd say certain comps easily outsell those last two studio albums.

There must be a market for such a commodity, else why would Universal keep cranking them out?  Is the "regular" Who fan just someone who wants the hits and nothing more?  I suppose that makes some sort of sense, like owning Who's Next and Tommy and a greatest hits album, much like a casual Pink Floyd fan may only own Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here and/or The Wall and that's it.  Do casual fans want to hear nuggets like "Mary-Anne With the Shaky Hands" or "How Can You Do It Alone?"  Probably not.  For them, "My Generation" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" are probably good enough and the rest of the hits in between, maybe say "Pinball Wizard" will perk up the ears and make them feel like they spent their money decently.

But have there been other bands that have gone through a similar thing so obviously?  The Who's '70s output wasn't as regular as a band like The Rolling Stones.  And god knows the Stones have had their fair share of compilations, too.  Just looking at the Wikipedia entry for their count of compilations...it says they've had...

Thirty-One.

All right, so maybe this whole post is pointless.  Fuck you, Rolling Stones.  Fuck me sideways.

Reviews from the Spark Plug - Lou Reed's Mistrial

 Lou Reed

Mistrial

Rating: **

Lou originally wanted to call this one Lou Shits A Really Good One, but RCA wouldn't hear of it, especially after they let Lou jack off on the previous album cover.  So Reed bitched up and down and called it Mistrial instead.  No one bought it, even though Lou was clearly humping a drum machine on the tracks and trying to get into the dance clubs.  No one wants to dance to Lou Reed.

Reviews from the Spark Plug - Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door

Led Zeppelin

In Through the Out Door

Rating: ****

One year at a costume party, this really fat chick came dressed as Bette Midler and decided to sing "South Bound Saurez" on karaoke. Let me tell you, it was a real disaster. She air pianoed at the beginning, and then kept yelling, "Hey everyone, let's move those tushies!" at the rest of the crowd. She had chocolate smeared around her mouth and she smelled like bad marinara sauce. Some guy in his late 60s wound up making out with her on the sofa. She'd fart every now and then and he'd just keep going on about how much that was turning him on. It was one fucked up party.

New podcast episode is up!

...and we're finally back. And, there's Camel Ike podcast episode up, all shiny and new. So get hit that shit, won't you?

Pardon the absence.

Sorry, gang. I'm still here and intend to get back to regular posting schedule, but the past few days I've had a doozy of a cold that also managed to slap me with a low grade fever for a couple of days. So blogging and podcasting have not been at the top of my list of things to do. Rather, blowing my nose ad infinitum and trying to relocate my sense of taste have. But I'm here and we'll be all back to normal shortly. Danke.

Reloading your iPod is a bitch.

When you have a lot of music like I do, loading up all the shit you want on your iPod is a time-consuming activity. Doesn't matter how fast your transfer rate is, the simple fact is that it's insanely annoying. Well, I had the misfortune of having to reload my iPod Touch last week.

The problem was my videos. They weren't showing up on the screen when I pressed the video button. The screen would just go white for a few seconds and then crash to home screen. I looked up the problem online and it seemed a lot of other people had this exact same problem, yet Apple itself hasn't been able to figure it out.

Well, I figured it out.

It seems the more stuff you have on your iPod Touch, the longer it takes to access the list of videos and display said list on the screen. After I completely wiped my iPod, I added back my videos first just to see if they would load. They did without a hitch. However, once I started adding on more and more songs (in the thousands, people), it was taking longer and longer to cough up the videos until I was basically back to where I had been pre-wipe. Only difference was this time I didn't re-add the shitloads of apps I had also had on there so instead of always crashing back to the home screen, it now just took three or four attempts to get the video list to load.

It's still annoying as piss and shouldn't be a problem at all. Especially when I have the 64 gigger. There's tons of space left open and why the damn thing struggles to load 29 videos up and doesn't bat an eye at loading thousands of songs is perplexing.

But on top of that, the time it took me to put all those tunes back on was scattered across three frickin' days. I'm still tinkering with it, too, by putting back album art and the like that iTunes cannot seem to find, even though some of those things I bought straight from it. Go figure.