Mr Trick's Posterous Silo

Shuggie Otis: If You'd Be Mine. Click to hear the "new" version on Spotify.

New material from Shuggie? Could it be?!

Well... maybe, maybe not. Here's where the mystery starts; the Spotify track is apparently dated 2010, and it certainly sounds like a new track. However, I also found a version of the track on the Dustygroove comp "Watts Funky", compiling a bunch of Johnny Otis tracks together. Listen to that version here:

So, the only conclusion I can draw (and god knows I've been hunting around for info on this one) is that Shuggie has re-recorded a generally fairly slept-on track.

Either way, this song is just sublime. Catchy, glorious guitar work, laid-back funk not a million miles from the vibe of Inspiration Information... I can't stop playing it. Beautiful.

Play it, then play it again. If it doesn't lift your spirits and make you feel happier, nothing will. Now, when do we get more from the great man Mr Otis?!

Last week I found myself in a whole new situation: I was admitted to hospital. I've not been in hospital as a patient since I was a child - an experience I can barely remember if I'm honest. Frankly, my views of UK hospitals was also pretty poor, as my son contracted an MRSA-style infection at birth, and wound up on a drip at 9 days old fighting for his life. The press love to tell us how dirty and grotty our hospitals are, and as ever people tend to focus on the negatives, ignoring that in fact there are plenty of positive experiences being had every second of every day.

My reasons for being admitted were, in the grand scheme of things, very mild indeed. A throat infection I'd developed wasn't just a seasonal sore throat but Quinsy, a particularly nasty and painful infection involving ulcers, swelling and (being honest) more pain than I've ever been in in my life. I was sent to A&E, where a canula was inserted into my arm so intensive treatment could begin to reduce the infection.

Now, as I've stated, I've had a pretty dim view of hospitals to date, viewing them in the main as poor-hygiene germ-farms that nobody in their right minds would be thankful for being in. However, having spent time at West Middlesex Hospital last weekend, I'm more than happy to say that my entire view of hospitals has been changed completely. The hospital as a whole was spotless; modern, clean and frankly rather impressive. My ward - Richmond Ward, for it should be named in thanks - was also spotless, and staffed by amazing nurses with a permanently upbeat demeanour. Real rays of sunshine in a place where no doubt a lot of people were in more dire circumstances than me. My bed was comfy, the food was good. They even had a regular round of tea, coffee, hot chocolate and all that. I'll be honest: I've stayed in worse hotels!

So, I guess my reason for this post is a simple one: I want to thank the wonderful staff of West Mid and in particular the Richmond Ward for being amazing. In the UK we're quick to criticise and far slower to compliment, and I wanted to post this up purely to redress that. Quietly I'm hoping that someone - be it staff or another patient - googles "West Middlesex Hospital" or even "Richmond Ward" and winds up here, so they can read this. My stay there couldn't have been better. And you know what? They fixed me up quick too! Within 24 hours I was capable of taking meds myself and well on the road to recovery.

Thank you West Mid - you've changed my view of hospitals completely. God bless you all!

p.s. as a footnote to this, I had another positive thing to combat my cyncisim of our lovely NHS: my Doctor called me to apologise for not correctly spotting that I had Quinsy (thinking instead that it was a regular sore throat that would pass soon enough). She didn't have to do that, and I really appreciated the gesture. Small things like that mean a lot, and I'm grateful to have that kind of local health care.

The effects have been marvellous for startups – they now have postcode information, mapping data from the Ordnance Survey and reams of government data that they can use freely to build their sites.

There's a lesson here: Berners-Lee spurned the idea of commercialising his invention of the web, in favour of giving it away; and everyone, including government, has benefited enormously. Maybe the next person to go through the doors of No 10 should be Linus Torvalds, the architect of the free Linux operating system; or Monty Widenius, a key inventor of the free MySQL database; or John Powell, the Briton behind the open-source Alfresco, an enterprise content management system you can download for free.

Quite apart from anything, they could probably tell him precisely how the copyright laws could be improved – and what they think of software patents. It would, I think, be very different from what Google says. Particularly as Google runs on Linux."

I couldn't agree more. Read the rest here

If you're a music fan of any kind, this book is simply a must-read: one of those works you can only be all the better for reading. Jarvis Cocker is quoted on the front cover stating that "very very few books will change the way you listen to music. This is one such book. Read it."

I heartily concur.

Whilst reading the book I put together a Spotify playlist of releases that represent for one reason or another key developments in the history of recorded music. I've re-ordered some of the tracks here if only to avoid jumping back and forth through time and confusing you, but only where absoutely necessary. Rather than just present you with the playlist here, I thought it might be worth annotating the tracks with the year of release and the reason for their inclusion. This won't play well in a sequential manner as the reason for the tracks' inclusion is based on technology rather than genre, but even so I hope it can provide a sonic companion piece to the book if you read it - which I highly recommend you do. Enjoy!

Perfecting Sound Forever - A Companion Playlist (click to open complete playlist in Spotify)

Part One: The Beginnings

Guillaume Ibos – Rigoletto: La Donna E Mobile
Year: circa 1920
Reason: recorded by Thomas Edison to the original wax cylinder phonograph.

Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) – Irene / Take A Whiff On Me / You Cain' Lose Me, Cholly / Irene
Year: 1933
Reason: on of the first field recording by Alan & John Lomax, cut directly to an aluminium disc.

Part Two: Analogue

Leadbelly – Black Betty
Year: 1948
Reason: recorded by Frederic Ramsay Jr. to Magnerecord magnetic tape, this demonstrates the jump in quality from the aluminium disc to the world of analogue recording.

Unspecified – Railroad Sounds
Year: 1950
Reason: one of the first High Fidelity albums to be released, created by Emory Cook - and one of the hit releases that started the Audiophile craze. These records were made to demonstrate "presence" - ie how lifelike sounds could be.

Les Paul & Mary Ford – Lover
Year: 1951
Reason: the first commercially available multitrack recording. It was recorded on an Ampex Model 300 gifted to Paul by Bing Crosby, who had invested in Ampex to try and find a means to pre-record his own radio shows to magnetic tape so he wouldn't have to do them live every time.

Terry Snyder – Misirlou
Year: 1959
Reason: the first stereo release, created by Enoch Light and cut using the Westrex system developed by a subsidiary of Western Electric.

Jackie Brenston – Rocket 88
Year: 1951
Reason: Claimed to be the first rock n' roll record, this was notable because Ike Turner's amp fell out the truck on the drive to the studio, causing it to sound grungey and harsh. Sam Phillips liked the sound and told him to leave it like that. In the story of recorded music, this is notable because it was the first time new music was developing that embraced a low fidelity aesthetic.

Elvis Presley – Blue Moon Of Kentucky - Original
Year: 1954
Reason: This song demonstrates perfectly the extreme slapback effect used at Sam Phillips' Sun studio. They were attempting to copy the huge natural reverb sound of Columbia's 30th Street Studio, which was a converted church. Phillips didn't have the space to create that space, so created it falsely by splitting the signal and sending it out and via another tape reel, delaying the signal before re-adding it into the mix.

The Crystals – Da Doo Ron Ron
Year: 1961
Reason: Spector epitomised an "anti-fidelity" approach where, rather than separate every instrument in a mix, he actively sought to make them sound indistinguishable from one another - his signature "Wall of Sound".

The Tornados – Telstar - Original Recording - 1962
Year: 1962
Reason: Joe Meek was the British equivalent of Spector in many ways, and like him he aggressively rejected the ideas of high fidelity in pursuit of maximum saleability - proven when this track when to #1 in the USA.

The Supremes – Where Did Our Love Go
Year: 1962
Reason: Motown's studio had a reverb sound that all the majors were trying to replicate. The claps on this track demonstrate it better than any other, and no other studio could get close. Tony Bongiovi used his sound and maths knowledge to work it out... and when he did, Motown hired him to work in the studio.

Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
Year: 1975
Reason: Over time the multitrack recording devices improved at least notionally, in that they could fit more tracks onto the same tape. This came at the sacrifice of quality, but also led to producers and artists looking to do more and more with the available tracks. This had its limited, and soon "bouncing" tracks - ie mixing them down onto one of the sixteen or twenty-four tracks to free up the others became a norm. Bohemian Rhapsody is, according to Roy Thomas Baker its producer, "one big track bounce". Apparently the drums (one of the first things to be recorded) had been bounced eight times by the final version, which is how they got the slightly distorted sound you hear here.

Steely Dan – Reelin' In The Years
Year: 1972
Reason: This track typifies the super-dry recording sound preferred by the band's of the seventies, with little or no reverb being used.

David Bowie – Let's Dance
Year: 1983
Reason: Recorded at The Power Station in NYC, this song typifies the huge ambient gated drum sounds produced by Bob Clearmountain - a sound that was significant as it moved away from the dry-sounding seventies recordings to something far more ostentatious.

Phil Collins – In The Air Tonight
Year: 1981
Reason: the legendary drums on this were recorded at The Townhouse, Richard Branson's new studio in London at the time which was very much the counterpart to The Power Station. It had two unique rooms, one of which featured a stone floor and wall to create a super-reverberating sound. That is where these drums were recorded. The studio also featured one of the first SSL consoles, which played a key role in the creation of this sound thanks to its in-built compression effects.

Ramones – Sheena Is A Punk Rocker - Remastered Album Version
Year: 1977
Reason: Tony Bongiovi claims to have done all kinds of things to this production to make it sound better, including having Johnny Ramone re-record various parts by "punching in" (ie recording select parts of the guitar track), rather than recording whole takes, and adding a timpani to the chorus to beef it up. Steve Albini's response to this? "If he thinks the reason the song is good is because he added some timpani to it, he can kiss my ass. What a load of shit."

Pixies – Bone Machine (Remastered)
Year: 1988
Reason: In the face of eighties over-production, Albini preferred a much more transparent approach as evidenced on this album. Compare this to the Pixies' Gil Norton-produced followup "Doolittle" and you will hear the indie/major production difference writ large.

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
Year: 1991
Reason: Produced by Butch Vig and mixed by Andy Wallace, this represents the perfect example of shiny, slickly-produced indie rock. Avoiding the huge, Bob Clearmountain sound of eighties pop releases, this sound ensured that Gen X-ers embraced it, representing as it did the "alternative" (in all senses) to what they'd heard as kids.

Silkworm – Give Me Some Skin
Year: 1997
Reason: This track typifies an attempt to kick against the very segmented, produced approach to eighties music (and arguably the overproduced gloss of Andy Wallace and co) and a return to more of the fifties'-style "presence" productions that didn't seek to do anything other than represent the sound of a band playing live as effectively as possible. Steve Albini remains a key practitioner in this approach, and this track is one he recorded (don't use the word "produced" unless you want an angry rebuke from Albini himself!)

Part Three: Digital

Augustus Pablo – King Tubby Meets Rocker Uptown
Year: 1976
Reason: Milner asserts that King Tubby was "a predigital Pro Tools prophet precisely because he had a preternatural ability to organise sound. The salient point about Tubby is not that he invented the remix (although he did). Its that the concept of the remix reinvented modern music."

Soft Cell – Tainted Love
Year: 1981
Reason: this was one of few tracks to use the Synclavier - arguably the world's first Digital Audio Workstation. Another legendary track to use the sounds the Synclavier created is Michael Jackson's "Beat It" - the opening notes are Synclavier, though only samples from the demonstration record - apparently the melody and tempo is identical!

Ricky Martin – Livin' La Vida Loca
Year: 1999
Reason: This was the first commercial hit made entirely "in the box" - ie created, recorded, mixed and mastered entirely on a Digital Audio Workstation - in this case Pro Tools.
 
Black Eyed Peas – Let's Get It Started - Spike Mix
Year: 2004
Reason: One of the most overcooked singles ever released, this is featured as an example of The Loudness Wars that dominated the 2000's. Mastering engineer Bob Katz described it as "one of the worst-sounding, most distorted, overcompressed... pop records ever made".