Why did late 60's/early 70's rock singers have two mics taped together?

I've been enjoying "Guitar Heroes at the BBC" on BBC4 where they compile clips from Whistle Test, Rock goes to College, TOTP etc. I've always wondered why rock singers from a period of only a few years would have two mics taped together. By the time I was paying attention in the late 70's the practice seemed to have stopped so I suppose it was a technical development that made the change.
I asked the question on Twitter and Facebook and got great rock'n'roll answers; "...so they could take it to 11", "early form of stereo recording" etc. In fact when I went back over my old BBC notes I had been told why they did it but only a few weeks out of university I don't think I understood common mode rejection!

Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd c.1973 - two mics!

So - having re-read my notes and had a trawl around the web (my word, there is some awful rot spoken by people who know very little!) here are the two reasons (and I'll list them based on the technology that fixed the problem), they both rely on the fact that the two mics are wired anti-phase to each other and the assumption is the singer sings predominately into only one of them (doesn't matter which).

1. pre-compressor/limiters you needed a way of loosing some of the induced stage and line noise - this does it.

2. pre-parametric eq - you needed a way to reject howl-round and this does it.

So - you mix the anti-phase feeds in two channels on the desk and all noise/feedback etc gets canceled and the voice (predominantly coming down one feed) remains. Interestingly another technique to gate a mic is to have either an optical detector on the mic stand or a pressure mat in front of the mic which mutes the channel when nobody is near the microphone.

Going to see Martyn Joseph tomorrow night

It's been a couple of years but looking forward to seeing the "Welsh Springsteen/Dylan/Bragg"!

Quote from Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails fame)

"One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it, and then you own it?"

Also see Counting Crows do a RadioHead.

Counting Crows 'do a Radiohead'

I've liked the Crows since the early nineties - I've seen them a few times (most recently at the O2 Wireless Festival last summer). They are going label-free;

...the internet opens a world of limitless possibility, where the only boundaries are the boundaries of your own imagination. We want a chance to push those boundaries back as far as we can. Unfortunately, the directions we want to go and the opportunities we want to pursue are often things that our label is simply not allowed to do. We've been friends for a long time and we've worked together for a long time so they understand the direction we need to go in and we understand why they can't always go there with us. We all want what’s best for everyone which is why we've decided to part ways.

Flobots

I am so far behind what the kids are listening to but after hearing this blaring out of my eldest two's bedrooms and iPods I thought I'd check it out.
I'd had a vague interest in some of the more intelligent hip-hop from the early nineties - Jungle Brother, Tribe called Quest, De La Soul etc. but most modern hip-hop leaves me cold. It seems like all the things I ranted about as a teenager - materialism, violence, mysogyny, and hatred are all required elements for the modern rapper. I found this in a paper by Darren Rhym of The Department of English of The University of Georgia;

In the end, this whole argument boils down to the fact that misogyny is ingrained into our culture and we allow it. We buy CDs and go to concerts where gangsta rappers call black women "bitches" and "hos." It is not just black women who are victimized. Since gangsta rappers disrespect our mothers, sisters, and daughters, every black man is a victim.

Excuses -- "I like the beat," "I don't listen to the words," and "They are only referring to certain types of women" -- are not acceptable. When gangsta rappers disrespect men and women and preach violence and hate to us, we must reject their messages. We cannot buy their CDs, albums, or tapes, or attend their concerts, or appear in their videos, or even support record labels or radio or television stations that advocate gangsta rap in any way. Malcolm X used to preach about the ills of airing "dirty laundry," and that is what gangsta rappers do when they disrespect black women in rap songs.

Rap is not just music; it is our African-American culture. It is the way we blacks perceive ourselves, and the way we are perceived by the world. The content of gangsta rap music in its current form is unacceptable. It cannot and should not be tolerated by anyone.

He should check out Flobots album - not only is it intelligent non-hate-filled lyrics but they are musically an order of magnitude more interesting that Dr Dre et al. Real drums with guitars and even jazz-influenced arrangements. Currently what's on my MP3 player.

Seasick Steve

I've just downloaded his album (from 7Digital - all MP3!) and I'm loving it!

My boys and their music

Joe and Dan have been doing some music at the EC1 project here in Islington. Our local council paper ran a feature on them here.

Use right-click & save to grab the PDF

Bill Mallonee: Lower Case

This is our first full-band, studio recording in two years! A joy to make. We're proud to offer this mini-EP, "lower case!"
These songs have been in my head for a few months. String of Pearls, Sober Up and Sad Parade all felt like a bit of a long-lost dialogue with my British-pop twin brother. Only they aren't so "pop." Melody is in the forefront. The lyrics run the gamut from intentional "trippiness" to the heart-break and plaintive. The arrangements, while on the surface sounding simple, are both economical and complex. No note is wasted, no strum superfluous. Multi-layered guitars and string arrangements abound; Muriah's keyboards and harmony vocals are precise and engaging. It felt good to finally see a few new songs "realized" after two years of no formal studio recording, a rarity for me.
These sorts of songs contain the elements that drew me into the harmonic richness of the later-era Beatles and their American offspring such as the Byrds, Big Star with a salute to Robyn Hitchcock on Sad Parade. Enjoy!

It seems like ages since we had some new studio songs from Bill and Muriah but this little collection makes it worth the wait. The standout track for me is String of Pearls but all three are excellent. Hopefully this is a pointer to a new long-player? Is that a real Mellotron?

Live from Abbey Road

What with Later with Jools Holland being off the air now it's good to see that there is one live music show that values musicianship over style.
Muse, Radiohead & Paul Simon are the acts I'll be watching for in this series - here are the songs I captured from Muse's performance on that show in 2007.

Jean Genie

This evening was my eldest two's school music evening - here they are playing sax (Joe, oldest) and drums (Dan, middle boy).
It was a good evening - they did a few numbers culminating in Messing with the Kid - a Rory Gallagher number. I'm very proud.

The Frames and 7digital

For ages I've been waiting for Amazon to launch their MP3 store here in the UK. Now iTunes is ultimately easy to use but I don't buy DRM-crippled music. Anyhow - Brian put me onto 7digital and then (after hearing me listen to BellX1) he recommended that I check out The Frames. I scored their album 'The Cost' for seven quid and have been enjoying it ever since.

Video of Radiohead doing "Bangers and Mash"

You love it!
(Well, I do!)

I'm very proud!

On Saturday we went to Evesham for the day to celebrate Sarah's Auntie and Uncle 50th Anniversary. Joe, Dan and James played - they did Lean on Me.

I wish I was this funky!

I'm too white.

My Friend the Chocolate Cake

My Friend The Chocolate Cake's music can be seen to straddle the worlds of ambient and world music, with an emphasis on piano and violin-led acoustic music. My chum Keith Gibbons got me into them sometime in the mid-nineties and I've enjoyed picking up CDs ever since - a good starting point would be 2002's album Curious. Anyhow - I bought his (their debut) online last night and have been enjoying it since. The version of A Midlife's Tale I had on a sampler CD is totally different and this whole album (origionally from 1991) sounds as fresh as anything released in the last year.

Jack Johnson on BBC Radio 2's Music Club

Radio stations taking space on the tele! Whatever next? I culled this from the BBC Freeview interactive service a few weeks ago.

Pirated by iTunes, Artist Turns to BitTorrent

The Flashbulb, aka Benn Jordan, became so outraged when he discovered that iTunes was effectively pirating his music, that he uploaded copies of his latest album to BitTorrent. TorrentFreak caught up with Benn to learn more about the decision to stop distributors and ‘coked-up label reps’ from getting all the cash.

Martyn Jospeh at the Union Chapel

I've been a fan of Martyn Joseph since the late eighties and have enjoyed both his recorded and live output. He's a bit Billy Bragg meets Bruce Springsteen - a thinking man's protest singer if you will. Last night I saw him at the Union Chapel in Islington. It's the first time I'd been there and it is one of the best venues I've ever had the pleasure of spending an evening at. I was also joined by my gigging pals Andy and Keith (who used to be the ops manager at Oasis TV) and a splendid evening was had. If you're looking for something a bit thought-provoking and firmly in the Woody Guthrie tradition then let me know and I'll recommend some starter material.
It's been half-term week and I managed to take some time off from what has been the most hectic four months of my life! That is why I've not been blogging so much recently - not because I don't have the odd ten minutes here or there but because I don't have the time to think or investigate interesting technologies/websites/music etc. etc. I've had Radiohead's new album ready to listen to since it came out but as yet I've not had the chance - I suspect the same will be true of Martyn's new CD as well. Ho hum - it has to get quieter eventually!

Radiohead ditches iTunes to keep album complete

I can only applaud Thom Yorke and the boys for taking this stance - I've often thought that one of the worst aspects of the iTunes music store is the commoditisation of music and the severing of the link between listener and artist - I like engaging with bands and getting into the songs that didn't make it onto the radio. The songs you know when you buy an album are (for me) rarely the ones you wind up loving in the long term. If you only ever cherry-pick the radio friendly cuts from an album you miss out so much.

Julie Lee - Stillhouse Road

I saw Julie supporting the Vigilantes of Love a few years ago and really enjoyed her self-financed CD "Made from Scratch" - however, it wasn't until I had a few record tokens burning a hole in pocket a few weeks ago that I bought her first label-recorded album. It is splendid with much better versions of "Jesus, he's my man", "Many Waters" and "Your Love" on it as well as ten other songs that I'm quickly falling in love with. Kenny Hutson (who played on and off with the Vigilantes) plays pedal-steel. If you like the alt-country/Americana sound them you'll be good with this.

Korg M1 battery replacement and patch re-load

My middle boy Daniel plays keyboard and drums (though not at the same time - that would be clever!) - his keyboard is an inherited Korg M1 - back in the late eighties/early nineties it was the multi-timbrel keyboard of choice for many bands but is now a bit long in the tooth. Still the keyboard is nice with good touch-sensitivity and after-touch. The AI synthesis that it employs is great for piano and organ patches and you strings are pretty lush.
Recently it started flagging up that the internal battery was going flat and of course we ignored it - eventually it lost all it's patches, combination sounds and sequences and without spending half an hour trying to program a better sound it produced a plinky-plonky piano that nobody wanted to hear! So - I scored me a £10 USB-MIDI cable off eBay and set about finding the SysEX files to re-load. Terry Little's Korg site is fantastic - he has a walk-through with photos for replacing the CR2032 button cell and links to the original Korg factory settings. I use BankEditor (which is a MIDI librarian specifically for Korg M1 & K3s) - it even comes with the factory Combi, Programmes and Drum kits.
For some reason MidiOX - my MIDI utility of choice - failed to write anything back to the M1 even though it could extract SysEX dumps. Anyhow - Dan is back is the land of the Hammond B3......!

Bill Mallonee has a new record out

If you know me you'll have heard me bang on about Bill Mallonee (and before that his band - the Vigilantes of Love). Bill (and his lovely wife Muriah Rose) played an intimate gig at my house last October for about thirty friends and he is never less than superb. The human spirit and bleak experience that drips from every song is unique and you could do a lot worse than to download Circa - the new album. You can also catch any of his old CDs - some as a two-for-one deal if you download.

Here is a posting I noticed via MySpace - it sums my thoughts up perfectly;

About twelve years ago, I discovered the music of Bill Mallonee and the Vigilantes of Love through word of mouth. Starting in Athens, Georgia in the early 90's, the music has had overwhelming roots in americana with dabbles in brit-pop, and mass, critical acclaim without much commercial success at all. Mallonee himself - now in his early 50's - has said that record executives have told him, "This is what I listen to when I'm off the clock", and "I love the stuff, but I can't sell it."

These days, the "Vigilantes of Love" moniker has been dropped in favor of the simple and solo, "Bill Mallonee", which is truer to what the music is as Mallonee has been the sole, stable member and songwriter since the beginning. I've had the pleasure of seeing him live about ten times (and even sharing a beer or two) over the years - sometimes with a full band, sometimes with just a second guitarist, and most recently with an accompanying piano player. Each setting has brought out different aspects of the performance while being consistently phenomenal in it's intimacy.

His perseverance has cost him over the years, as spending time away form his family to tour for most of the year, and financing new albums on credit cards (and now, pre-orders by loyal fans) often does. Through all this, though, he's still the type of artist willing to give away his music for free to those willing to listen.

Tonite I received a message on my myspace bulletin board stating that through Mallonee's myspace page (www.myspace/billmallonee) you could download four tracks for free, as well as go to his online store (www.volsounds.com) and get two full albums for free (one needs to be downloaded track by track, the other is free with purchase of another album - a two for one deal.)

It's great news for those of us living in an age where a CD of new music costs anywhere from twelve to twenty dollars a pop, yet for an artist who has been putting out records year after year with little or no commercial success for near twenty years, one has to wonder what the repercussions for such a bold move may be.

Some of you who know me well know that I've worked in customer service for over ten years now, but through it all, one thing I was never good at was feeding a bullshit line to make a sale and Im not about to start now.

I'm posting this to you, my friends, to tell you about the music of Bill Mallonee - a man I've met, corresponded, bonded, and shared drinks with. He's a good man witha kind heart who I hope to one day get the chance to perform alongside. If you enjoy music with roots in americana (i.e. - country, bluegrass and folk) with dabbles in brit-pop, and have ten bucks to spare, I implore you to go to his online store and pick up a copy of any of his records (I recommend 1998's To The Roof of The Sky, 1999's Audible Sigh, or 2004's Dear Life...). You'll get The Peter Buck (guitarist for R.E.M.) produced Killing Floor for free, and be able to download the brit-pop influenced album Summershine for free to hold you over until your two discs arrive.

That's three CD's of music you've probably never heard, and that has more soul and diligence than a lot of what's being pushed to the masses today, for ten bucks that goes directly to the artist.

Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads

They Might Be Giants - accept no substitutes!

More4 - Live from Abbey Road

Having vented my spleen a couple of days ago against Channel Four I thought I'd give credit where it's due to their music show 'Live from Abbey Road' - it's superb. Each hour long programme features three acts performing and speaking. As well as some superb performances the show looks great from a production pount of view. The recent Wynton Marsalis set was graded to look just like the late sixties and suited the music exactly. I've also been enjoying Muse's set - so much so I stuck all three numbers on YouTube (link in the right hand bar).

MP3 for podcasts

Rupert asked me about hosting a podcast for a chum of his who is involved in the Pandora music project. In fact he made me a Vigilantes of Love station on there - very cool!
Anyhow with all this in mind I thought I'd summerise some of the steps I use for the perfect sounding speech podcast!

• Record straight to hard disk - don't go via analogue tape or any compressed system. Pay attention to levels - you can't recover clipped levels after the event so it's better to record low rather than high - try and aim for peaks at -10dBfs.
  
• Once in Audition or Audacity you need to remove any DC bias and normalise the signal.
  
• Save it back to disk (keeping it uncompressed) but convert it to mono - stereo does chew up twice as much space/bandwidth - and you don't need it.
  
• The Levelator is a superb post-process compressor for speech.
  
• Re-import the Levelat'ed(!) file back into your DAW software and save the file out as an MP3 with the following specs; 48kBits, CBR, mono. Why CBR Phil? Well, this MP3 might be played on one of hundreds of ancient and new devices. My first MP3 player was a Diamond Rio500 which definately didn't support variable bit rate! For mono speech the difference in quality is not great.
  
• ID3 tags - get them right - for both ID3 v.1 and v.2 flavours. I prefer Tag & Rename for getting that stuff done - it supports all the standard as well as custom frames. It's very cool to imbed an image with your podcast as well as notes, URLs etc. That MP3 file will have a life of it's own once it's running out via an RSS feed and you want to have the best chance of folks being able to find you. You'll be suprised how many aggregator sites scrap your file.
  
• FeedBurner is the best way to make compliant XML for the RSS feed with a multi-media enclosure.
  
• Finally, make sure you subscribe to your own feed (in Juice or iTunes etc.) - you should be the first to know if your feed gets broken.

That's it - go forth and podcast!

Live music at Phil's house

I just sent this email to lots of friends;

On Friday 13th October I'll be hosting an acoustic gig in my house! Bill Mallonee who used to be the singer/songwriter with my long-time favourites The Vigilantes of Love is currently touring the UK promoting his new album ¨Permafrost¨ and because he's not got a gig every night he's keeping it real(!) by playing in fans' houses for friends and family and the chance of selling some CDs (and saving a few dollars on hotel bills!).

If you've paid any attention to my rantings about the state of music over the last few years you'll know I hold him in the highest regard and if you appreciate live acoustic music in an intimate setting then come and join us and we'll have a ball - we'll do some snacks and it'll be a nice evening. I'm inviting friends from work, the street, church,and further a field!

So - Sarah and I would love you to come - stylistically Bill is very much in the Americana vein - think Neil Young with a bit more melody or maybe what REM might sound like as a solo act. If you'd like to borrow a CD just tell me. He's turned out fifteen or so albums in the past couple of decades and so has an impressive body to work to draw on - you have my word that it will be an enjoyable performance. He's never made it as big as he deserves and is a jobbing musician. I can't over emphasise that music this good doesn't come your way every day - plus, the snacks and company will be good!

So if you want to come send me an email!

Nobody's Cool

It's a bit emo for my tastes, but this tune has been running around my head since I saw one of the students at my eldest boy's school do this at their last music evening.

nobody's cool, we're all the same, you're not a player, life's not a game
don't you think it's time we left high school behind
you're not a stud, you're not the man, you're not a pimp, and i'm not a fan
your misogyny is just a plea for l-u-v

the only thing i've seen that's cool in my life is a mom who loves her child and a man who loves his wife

your two tattoos don't make you tough, please quit the act i've seen enough
you say you're different but you all end up the same
just be yourself, don't fake the geek, don't say you're random or a freak
dude you're not punk rock, we're all just human beings

the only thing i've seen that's cool in my life is a dad who loves his kids and a man loved by his wife

nobody's cool, put down your nose, i don't care where you bought your clothes
can't you see it's time we left high school behind
cause it's plain to see we're all just human beings

My favourite band in my living room!

Be near my house in the first week in October and enjoy an acoustic set by Bill Mallonee, ex front-man of The Vigilantes of Love;

We've become increasingly displeased and discouraged with the politics and dynamics of club oriented shows and tours over the last two years. I played that scene for 14 years, so i know of what i speak. And while we still do club and rock club gigs, we find the cooler places diminishing. With no label, formal distribution or booking, the "bottom line" all too quickly kicks much good music (we believe) to the curb. It is not without notice that the whole "House Show" industry has exponentially grown over the last few years as artists will always be driven to "take their music to the people," and give expression to their vision that isn't cluttered by beer sale quotas and late night dynamics that tax the ability of many folks (who'd like to hear good music) to attend. The fact that many artists who played the club circuits in the 90's are now playing more and more hosue shows testifys to something of what i think is a revolution in this area of the music business.

hope this finds all well...thanks for gracious support.

peace,
bill mallonee

Bill Mallonee's new record "Permafrost"

This arrived in the post yesterday - all the way from Athens, Georgia in the US of A - very exciting! It's the new CD by my longtime favourite (and ex-frontman of The Vigilantes of Love) Bill Mallonee. I saw him earlier in the year where he has playing some of these tunes live.
So, slammed this new disk into the CDRom tray and have been enjoying it since - Flowers has been tugging at my ears and Bank has the makings of a classic.
Bill isn't a wealthy musician but his ilk are well worth supporting - if you want a great introduction to his music then his fan website BillTunes.com is a good starting point.
"Why has Phil blogged a picture of the jiffy bag?" you ask - well look closely at the customs form - it's signed by Bill himself! You don't get that level of attention to details and care for the fans with Robbie Williams....

School music evening

I'm quite proud - my eldest (Joseph) was playing at his school concert last night - he normally plays sax but was doing percussion for a Santana number Oye Como Va (which I believe was in fact written by Tito Puente) and it did indeed rock! He also did a poetry reading (Spike Milligan's Ning Nang Nong).
Here is a video clip (in the DivX format) but it's bad quality (shot on my PDA).