Make An Album In A Month: The RPM Challenge

by Bob Boilen

There's nothing like a deadline to get me motivated. That's what the RPM Challenge is all about. The challenge: write and record an entire album in the month of February and submit it.

That's it, no winners, no losers, just the satisfaction of creating.

I did it last year with my old band Tiny Desk Unit and it was about the most fun I had all year.

So now it's time to mount the hard drives, fire up the guitar, the Adrenalinn and all my software. This year will be another long distance collaboration with my friend Michael Barron. We each start writing, then exchange the files over the net and add to each other's ideas.

You too can join the fun and make your own album by going here

Write and let me know how you're doing. I'll start a blog of my musical progress soon and I'll post a link. You do the same if you wish.

Happy music making!

Here's more on the RPM Challenge from NPR's All Things Considered:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7120210

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7670018

4:11 PM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink

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all a twitter

by Bob Boilen

For those that use Twitter; you can follow All Songs Considered on twitter @allsongs

follow you, follow me/us

4:07 PM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink

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Old Music Tuesday: Beck's 'Odelay' at 10 (Okay, 12)

by Robin Hilton

Geffen Records is re-releasing Beck's phenomenal masterpiece Odelay today with a bonus disc featuring 16 previously unreleased rarities, remixes and b-sides. Odelay has never sounded better and the bonus tracks are worthy of their own release. Together they'd make up one of Beck's best albums ever. The label had planned on dropping this glorious little package on Odelay's tenth birthday in 2006, but ended up postponing the project.

I can count a handful of moments in my life that made my eyes pop -- moments that made me think, "this changes everything!" Hearing Odelay for the first time was one of those moments. (Discovering Tivo, the iPhone and my memory foam bed all had this effect, too).

I was living in Japan, teaching English to middle school students when Odelay first hit stores in 1996. I can very vividly remember browsing the stacks at a local CD shop in Nagoya when the opening notes of "Devil's Haircut" leapt from the overhead speakers. I froze and thought, "What the hell is that!?"

I knew Beck from his monster-hit "Loser" released a couple of years earlier, which definitely hinted at greater things to come. But Odelay took everyone by surprise. It was an orgy of sound, bursting with ideas. But it wasn't a mess to hear, it was melodic. The sudden instrumental and rhythmic shifts, coupled with Beck's curiously odd lyrics ("Driving my pig while the bear's taking pictures in the grass") made it impossible to ever be bored listening.

I decided to play it for my students in Japan. The teachers gathered the entire student body together in the gymnasium to hear it. About 15-hundred students sat on the floor in their uniforms while I blasted "The New Pollution" from the PA system. Afterward I asked them to write a few sentences in English explaining what they thought it all meant. The responses were utter nonsense, with most of them simply saying "Nice to meet you!"

I decided that's about as good an explanation as anyone could give.

Watch a video for "New Pollution"

10:00 AM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink

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VHS, MTV OMG

by Robin Hilton

My head is sloshing with a thick glop of sentimentality.

This past weekend I was visiting my brother who still lives in the small town where we grew up. It's always a bit of a nostalgia trip going home again, but on this visit he produced an old VHS tape with a video we'd made when we were in high school in the early 1980s. It was just a bunch of dumb kids goofing off, but it made me a little dizzy seeing all the mullets and how young we were.

Then this morning I come in to work and Bob drops me a link for this remarkable and hilarious video of a 1983 MTV broadcast. It's three hours long, complete with commercials from the time. The news updates are particularly priceless, like "Loverboy tour dates announced."

I wonder if this resonates at all with anyone under the age of say, 25.

3:48 PM ET | 01-28-2008 | permalink

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Mansard Roof

by Bob Boilen

I was playing The Vampire Weekend CD for my family on a ride to the National Gallery of Art. We were going to see the Edward Hopper exhibit before it moves on to Chicago.

The opening cut to the Vampire Weekend CD is called Mansard Roof.

As it turns out one of the first paintings in the extraordinary Hopper exhibit is called The Mansard Roof.

Edward Hopper "The Mansard Roof"

So what is a Mansard roof?
As you can see in the Hopper painting, and according to the Wiki it is "characterized by two slopes on each of its four sides with the lower slope being much steeper, almost a vertical wall, while the upper slope, usually not visible from the ground, is pitched at the minimum needed to shed water."
It is a common feature of late 19th century buildings in Europe. It also became popular around Boston and by Victorian style buildings back then. It also made its way to the Gloucester, Massachusetts where Hopper did his painting.
Gloucester is not terribly far from Cape Cod the subject of Vampire Weekend songs.

I figured that Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend must have been inspired by all that Northeastern architecture.

I wrote to Ezra and asked him.
I was wrong.

He didn't know the Hopper painting. He knows of a painting his mom likes; a French painting with Mansard roofs. The roof that inspired the song however is in Bloomfield, NJ.

I love the stories behind songs.
It's something we should explore.
I'm not sure of the best way.
Any ideas?

8:48 PM ET | 01-26-2008 | permalink

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Old Music Tuesdays: Pearls Before Swine

by Bob Boilen

It was a random pull from my LP collection that has me writing about a much overlooked band from the '60s and '70s, Pearls Before Swine.
It's been reported that this record, One Nation Underground sold 100,000 copies; a fact that I have trouble believing. They were good, but not popular.

This was a band capable of gentle psychedelic folk music and then Farfisa organ driven angst. Tom Rapp was the main songwriter for the band and the only singer I know of to sing such deeply heartfelt tunes with a pronounced lisp. The poetry was so good that it never mattered.

This is the opening track from their 1967 debut. I've always thought Another Time was a song about escaping death; I've recently read an article that said it was about a car crash in which Tom Rapp walked away from.

The link between poetry and popular music is inextricable. With so many lousy lyricists it is easy to forget this.

Rapp does remind me of some of our quieter 21st century musical poets. Damien Rice would be one and Sam Beam another, maybe also Devendra Banhart.

Find some music by Tom Rapp and Pearls Before Swine. Let me know if there is a wordsmith these days that is as poignant.
I know there are, and I'd love to add to the list.

You can hear a story about Tom Rapp's life as a civil rights lawyer and his more recent music by going here.

2:23 PM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink

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Try, Try Again

by Robin Hilton

I just finished reading Steve Martin's short memoir Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life. It's a great (and very fast) read that traces the path he took from his childhood in California (a hard family life, extreme anxiety and loneliness, his love of magic) to becoming a mega-star.

The book offers an intriguing inside look at Martin's creative thought process, his efforts to become not just a standup comic but to completely reinvent comedy, and the remarkable tenacity it took to succeed. Martin also shares the many missteps he made along the way and the moments of dumb luck that helped propel him to the top of a crowded field.

I was most struck by how much Martin developed over the years and how deliberate and calculated it was. In the earliest days of his career he worked at a magic shop in Disneyland and, later, as an actor in hammy stage shows at Knott's Berry Farm. He played banjo. Comedy wasn't always easy for him and he cribbed a lot from old joke books. But at the peak of his standup career in the late '70s he was filling stadiums with tens of thousands of people who could barely even see him on stage, and he was credited with creating a whole new comedic form free of the standard punchline formulas.

Usually, by the time we find out about an artist/actor/musician, they've honed their craft and we see only the best of the best. We forget that they probably stunk at one point. So you listen to Steve Martin's album A Wild and Crazy Guy or see The Jerk and it's a bit deceptive. Is it the work of a genius or someone who just tried really, really hard, produced way more than he needed and shared only the best parts?

It's a question you can ask of any of your favorite artists. For me I'm thinking of the Beatles. (That'll be the only reference to music in this post).

Anyway, it all leaves me wondering this: can anyone who's willing to work hard enough have moments of brilliance like our greatest artistic heroes and succeed (assuming they also have the same dumb luck and are at the right place at the right time), or are they fundamentally different from the rest of us the moment they leave the womb?

4:27 PM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink

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Old Music Tuesdays: The Lust for Life Beat

by Bob Boilen
Thirty years ago, Iggy Pop put out Lust for Life, the second of two albums released in 1977 with David Bowie acting as producer. Lust for Life opens with one of the most infectious drum beats in rock.

Credit on Lust for Life goes to Hunt Sales for the drums and Tony Sales for the bass. The two brothers were the children of Soupy Sales, a comedian and host of a very silly kids show in the '50s and '60s. Soupy even had a few records out, and was ever so briefly a Motown recording artist.

Now, we've all heard this beat before. But what hadn't occured to me (until a recent shuffle of songs on my iPod) was that the "Lust for Life" beat, with its accent on the 2nd and 4th beat and its bouncy swing, was heard 11 years earlier on a Motown recording by The Supremes.

This, of course, is the song "You Can't Hurry Love," the summer hit from 1966. Who played the drums? I'm not sure; my guess is either Benny Benjamin or Pistol Allen (somebody help me on this one, please). Jack Ashford, the only person I know who is famous for playing the tambourine, did just that on this song. James Jamerson played bass.

This "Lust for Life" beat reappeared in the drums and bass of this song by Jet.

I know this beat is on many more songs, but that is all my little brain cares to remember. Can you think of any other songs that use it?

10:05 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink

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Best Cover Tune Ever

by Robin Hilton

I love this.

A close second for the best cover tune ever would be this one by Andrew Paul Woodworth:

12:59 PM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink

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What is this Song?

by Robin Hilton

OneManSho is the performance name of a young student and comedian who's taken on some impressive and unusual projects. If you're in to wasting time on the Internet there's a pretty good chance you've already come across this video. But if you haven't... see if you can guess what song he's singing. I can't imagine the amount of time it took him to memorize it.

10:22 AM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink

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Old Music Tuesdays: Nick Lowe

by Bob Boilen

I was going through my 45s the other day and dusted off this Nick Lowe tune for consideration. That day, by coincidence, I received an email that Jesus of Cool, the LP this very song, "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" came from, was being reissued for a 30th anniversary edition.

A few fun things to listen for: This came out in 1977, the same year David Bowie put out an album called Low. Nick Lowe counters with an EP called Bowi.

This song, "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" was an obvious response to Bowie's "Sound and Vision."

Jesus of Cool, Nick Lowe's first solo album, was never released in the U.S. though the LP Pure ,Pop for Now People, released in the U.S. in 1978 was, and contained a lot of the same songs as Jesus of Cool. Was the industry afraid to use "Jesus" for an LP title? My guess is yes.

Nick Lowe is still a vibrant and charismatic teller of tales. You can hear a wonderfully engaging concert by Nick Lowe from 2007 and an interview by going to our concert series.

4:19 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink

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A Band to Call Your Own

by Bob Boilen

Is there a band you call your own? A band you love so much that on one hand, you want everyone to hear it, but on the other hand, you want to keep it to yourself?
Be honest: I don't want your girlfriend's/brother's band, or your band.

I want your most passionate music find. Give us a link to their music in your response and we'll put a show together with some of the best ones.

The music you love says so much about who you are. Having a band to call your own is one of the first ways of finding your identity. At least that's my theory.

My life changed with a local Washington, D.C., band called The Urban Verbs.
I saw them in 1977 at a club then called the Atlantis; later, it would be bought and called the 9:30 Club.

Listen to the Urban Verbs song Subways

The band had mystery; Eno heard that and recorded a demo for them in NYC.
They had the best drummer I'd ever heard (Danny Frankel), great guitar playing (Robert Goldstein, now an NPR music librarian), good poetry and singing (Roddy Frantz, whose brother drummed for the Talking Heads), and a synth player who understood the synthesizer as a texture instrument: Robin Rose. I saw almost every show this band did -- more than a hundred is my guess. The group changed my life. In fact, I'd probably not be writing this blog and working at NPR if it weren't for this band. You can now find their music for cheap on iTunes.

It was Robin Rose loaning me his synth that led me to quit my job and play music, and my music playing that got NPR to do a story on me; years later, that story was my entrance to getting a job here...

So tell us your band. We may let the secret out, but don't worry: You'll find another.

4:47 PM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink

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