And still more 1994

OK, here is the final installment of reviews from 1994. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I just did...

A Small, Good Thing - Slim Westerns (Soleilmoon)
Let's say you like ambient music. Let's say you like westerns. Look no further. Ambient westerns. A guitar twang here, an echoed "whoosh" over there. The perfect soundtrack for walking down a deserted highway.

Death Valley - Que Pasta! (Double Naught)
Ok, let's say you like Enio Morricone, Clint Eastwood's "spaghetti" westerns, and surf music. Yeah, I said surf music. Then don't miss this CD. These guys do instrumental surf/western music, and it works. Big time. They even cover Morricone ("For a Few Dollars More" and "Guns Don't Argue"). Their guitar work is excellent, and the songs are a lot of fun, perhaps even for fans of only one of the genres.

Guided by Voices - The Grand Hour CDS (Scat/Matador)
I've said lots about GBV before, so I won't reiterate. This single was recorded before the last album, and includes "Shocker in Gloomtown," which was covered by the Breeders on their "Head to Toe" 10". Also includes a track called "Bee Thousand," which was the title of their last LP (but not a song on it--go figure). If you like anything else they've done, then you should have no trouble with this. If you haven't heard them before, imagine The Beatles laying down weird improvisations and bizarre lyrics on a 4-track, and you're close. But still a long way away from capturing the magic of GBV.

Oasis - Live Forever CDS (Creation)
I've also said a bit about Oasis before. The album is out domestically, so if you liked either of the first 2 singles (Supersonic, Shakermaker), then go get it. This, their 3rd single, could be their finest. I was actually disappointed with Shakermaker, and was ready to consider them a one-hit wonder. Big mistake (as Arnold would say). They follow the same as the Supersonic CDS: Start off with a "single", follow that with an acoustic number that proves they can write songs, follow that with a rocker, and then close with a live track. They cheat a little here, as the closer is a live version of Supersonic, but just imagine it's a Suede single--they always got away with 3 songs. You don't even have to do that really, because it's a good version.

Jorge Reyes - The Flayed God (Staalplat)
You might be familiar with El Costumbre, another of Reyes' work on the Extreme label. Then again, maybe not. The Flayed God refers to the Aztec god Xipe Totec (pronounced "sheep-ay tow-tek" and means "Our Lord, the flayed one"--Ah, you didn't think you were going to learn anything from this review, did you?). In some sense this work is a tribute to pre-Columbian cultures, as was El Costumbre. It was recorded in Mexico and sounds very ritualistic, making use of drums, flutes, and so forth. Very low-key, though (ambient). In addition, the packaging is beautiful. It's a digipak with the Flayed God in red, green, and black on a predominantly blue "rainbow" background, and the inside and back of the digipak make use of many more colours.

Blueboy - Unisex (Widely Distributed)
You may have heard some of Blueboy's previous releases on Sarah. This too, is on Sarah, but the U.S. version is on Widely Distributed and is rumoured to contain extra tracks as compare to the import (how often does that happen). Anyway, it's very nice twee pop, making use of male and female vocals and the usual instrumentation. Nice music for sitting around and watching the rain come down, if that makes any sense (it does to me, but admittedly, that doesn't mean much). If you like light pop, this is your thing.

Cheers,
Dave

More from 1994

Another set of reviews I sent to the EAR/Rational email list in 1994...

Hope you have/had a happy 4th! I was all set to sit back and watch USA beat Brasil (I can dream, can't I?) when I heard that Andres Escobar was killed by some lunatics for losing the game to USA and getting Colombia knocked out of the cup. Unbelievable. What kind of world are we living in when a star player is gunned down by his countrymen for making a mistake? Anyway, let's hope Brasil loses but all of the players on their team get through it unscathed.

Moose - Honey Bee/Uptown CDS/Bang Bang CDS (Play it Again Sam)
Moose once did an unsolicited station ID for KCSB, where I worked, and it was ont of the strangest things I'd ever heard.

After Moose were unceremoniously dropped from Virgin, they released a 3-track single called "Liquid Makeup" on the their own label, Kool Badge. I'm glad to see that they're back on a label and getting some reasonable distribution (import only in the U.S, unfortunately).

I'd have to describe them as light, quirky pop. I've heard them described as having a country edge, but I think that's reaching. They are fond of acoustic ballady songs, so perhaps that explains that comment. Half the time I have no idea what they're singing about it, but that doesn't seem to detract one bit. In fact, the Bang Bang CDS has a song called "Welcome to the Mind of Mr. Breeders," which sounds as though it's sung in Italian, but I'm fairly sure it's just made-up Italian. It's wonderful, though. They also have a song called "Ramon" which I'd guess is made-up Spanish.

I can't for the life of me understand why they aren't on a US label, and why they aren't big on college stations, or even "alternative" radio. My only guess would be because they are too quirky and too intelligent...

The Sun and the Moon - Alive; Not Dead EP (Midnight)
I offered this as a cutout during the last cutout go-round, and all of a sudden, some 15 people ordered it. Wanting to know what the fuss was all about, I ordered 20 copies so I'd have one for myself. I guess these guys have something to do with the Chameleons, but I'll admit I know very little about the band itself.

Wonderful! Four tracks of nice, straight-ahead pop, which at times is reminiscent of The Cure, and the last track "Elected" sounds a heckuva lot like Johnny Lydon. Had PiL sounded like this, I'd probably still be listening to them.

Action Painting - Mustard Gas EP (Sarah)
I suppose you either love Sarah (Records, that is), or you hate them. They put out loads of twee pop--the likes of Field Mice and Heavenly immediately spring to mind--which has earned them a reputation for it. Just like the Sub Pop sound, or the K sound (Heavenly being licenced to K in the US contributes to it), there is the Sarah sound. I would be extremely flabbergasted to pick up a Sarah release and find it to be grating, hard-edged, metal, or any of that.

I was pleasantly surprised to pick up this EP (for $1!) and find it more than the usual twee stuff (e.g., Blueboy). The first track, Mustard Gas (I can't for the life of my figure out why it's called that) is a nice little power pop ditty and the singer sounds like Johnny Lydon (again!). The second track, Art Student, is probably the weakest of the three, and reminds me of early Cure (think It's Not You or stuff from Three Imaginary Boys), but perhaps more musically advanced. The last track, Collapsing Cloud, is a slower number, pure 3-chord pop, but wonderfully catchy. Again the singer reminds me of a young Robert Smith, and this is meant as a compliment, to be sure.

The kicker is that I doubt this is going to readily available. If you see anything by Action Painting in the used bins, give it a whirl. I don't think you'll be disappointed. And if you are, you can always sell it to me.

Various Artists - 15 Minutes: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground (Imaginary)
A very limited item, which is probably not readily available, but worth mentioning. Stupid thing is, it's billed as a picture CD, which is pretty much a crock, as the picture is rather assinine.

But I didn't buy this CD for pictures. VU covers, that's what I bought it for. I'm a huge VU fan, and it's always great to see them get the nod from newer bands. This CD opens with Here She Comes Now by Nirvana. This is one of the best tracks on the disc, and Kurt really belts it out. I suppose fans should have this just for that track, as it's unavailable anywhere else to my knowledge.

Other notable tracks include Swervedriver's rendition of Jesus (also on the Satansville CDS), the New Fast Automatic Daffodils (another love them or hate them situation, seems to me) version of I'm Set Free, Echo and the Bunnymen (sans Ian, I'm afraid) doing Foggy Notion, and the Wedding Present performing an almost note for note version of She's My Best Friend. Also includes Ride, Lee Ranaldo, Buffalo Tom, Fatima Mansions, James, Eleventh Dream Day, Screaming Trees, Half Japanese, and the Mock Turtles.

Oasis - Supersonic EP (Creation)
Customers were asking about this even before it was released, so I figured I'd better check it out. I'm glad I did. Yer basic pop, made more memorable by Noel Gallagher's whiny (but not annoying) vocals and campy lyrics (I'm feeling supersonic/give me gin and tonic...can I ride with you in your BMW/ you can sail with me in my yellow submarine).

So much for the opener, Supersonic. I think the real gem is the second track, Take Me Away. An acoustic ballad, and Noel shows us he can actually sing well, and write reasonable lyrics, although the line "I'd like to be under the sea" trips the Beatles-reference meter with a dangerous two in as many songs.

The third track is live (who knows where--in studio, maybe?) and is a nice pop number which could easily be a college radio hit, as could Supersonic. (Locked up in chains for the rest of my life/there's no one else to blame but me/.../Cuz I can find you, living in my world/Dragging me 'round just like your dog on a leash/But when I find my own piece of mind/I will believe...)

The EP closes with Columbia, which is listed a "white label demo", so I'll assume it's an early version of something which will appear on their album. A bit on the psychedelic trip perhaps, it does remind me of some 60s stuff, but would be right at home in the stable of many an "alternative" band.

I suspect these guys will be big.

Guided by Voices - Clown Prince of the Menthol Trailer (???)
Guided by Voices - Fast Japanese Spin Cycle (Engine)
Guided by Voices - Vampire on Titus (Scat)
Guided by Voices - Bee Thousand (Scat/Matador)
These guys seem to have been vaulted from anonymity to the big time in a matter of months, although apparently they've been around for some time now. I've listed the releases in the order I acquired them, although the newest, Bee Thousand will no doubt be the easiest to obtain.

I'd never heard of GBV before I saw Clown Prince on a fax with a 2-line description that made me curious, so I bought it. One of the best "impulse" buys I've ever made. Extremely quirky, bizarre, low-fi stuff, which at times is reminiscent of They Might be Giants crossed with Pavement, or some such marriage. But I hate TMBG, can tolerate Pavement, and I love these guys. And finally, with regards to sound, I can probably be labeled a heretic for saying this, but at times they sound exactly like The Beatles, no doubt on purpose. The vocalist (Rob Pollard, I believe) sound a heckuva lot like Paul when he wants to, and his harmonies (with himself, I believe) remind me so much of the Fab Four, it's uncanny. But rest assured, these guys have no designs of being the next Fab Four.

Let's say the lyrics are reminiscent of TMBG due to their weirdness, but music is more like Pavement with more variety: straight-ahead, sloppy, low-talent (seemingly) sometimes grungey pop, mixed with the occasional piano/organ accompaniment and weird harmonies. The are 6 or so tracks on Clown Price (I've lent it out, much to the dismay of my wife, so I can't say for sure), and some are 30 seconds, others are as long as say, 120.

I then bought Fast Japanese Spin Cycle, and almost gort rid of it until my wife put it on and what seemed to me to be a ridiculously childish piano piece for the opener, turned into a wonderfully catchy off-kilter pop tune.

Lyrics such as

...in the age of transfusion
busting out for a fast game of motorcycles
he finds a tag reading "fast japanese spin cycle"
and that's the code for go...

make it clear we're not exactly listening to a lyricist who's playing with a full deck. Which is partly why they're so wonderful.

But they have no problem just busting out into a "regular" pop song that makes you wonder what the fuss was all about. There's at least one of these on every release, and several on Vampire on Titus, which is two albums on one CD comprising 33 songs.

FJSC closes with Kisses to the Crying Cooks which is absolutely brill:

Onion lady blows
her precious prose
And so it goes
Kisses to the crying cooks
their beaks in books
with baited hooks

(I'd write more, but I can't figure out what the next couple of lines are!)

Anyway, if that doesn't convince you, just check out the song titles:

Superior Sector Janitor X
Cool Off Kid Kilowatt
Unleashed! The Large-Hearted Boy
14 Cheerleader Coldfront
Back to Saturn X Radio Report
Ergo Space Pig
Some Drilling Implied
The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Kicker of Elves
3rd World Birdwatching (the Fast Japanese Spin Cycle song)

Anyway, this has gone on long enough. Buy everything you can. Help them get the recognition they so deserve.

Cheers,

Dave

Here is something I wrote in 1994

April 20th, 1994. No www to speak of. I had been running EAR/Rational for a year and a half at that point. Here are some reviews I sent out to my mailing list on that day. Below is a verbatim copy of what I sent...

Some things I've been groovin' on lately. These aren't particularly new, just stuff that's been spending a lot of time in my CD player. I figure that EAR/Rational isn't just a business; I have a relationship with my customers and they might be interested in what makes me tick. On the other hand, you might not give a crap. If so, let me know. Well, let me know either way.

Andreas Ammer/F.M. Einheit - Radio Inferno (Rough Trade/Ego)
I have no idea who Ammer is, but Einheit, in case you don't know, is one of the percussionists for Einstürzende Neubauten. I already have EN doing Hamlet (Die Hamletmaschine), and everything else in the Ego series is good, so I figured this would be. It's way cool. All sorts of weird percussion, occasional guitar and other instruments, but mainly the story of Dante's Inferno, brought up to date with John Peel (!) doing "Radio Inferno," an ersatz radio show cum spoken word/musical collage. If you're into concrete, EN, or general weirdenss, I'd say this would appeal.

The Reegs - Rock the Magic Rock (Imaginary)
I think these guys were born from the ashes of the Chameleons. Nice guitar-driven pop, perhaps a bit on the psychedelic tip. I just can't get some of the riffs out of my head, which tells me it's good.

Touch of Oliver - Touch of Oliver (Bar/None)
Light pop, but thoughtful and well-written if you ask me. I believe these guys are from Ireland. Interesting vocals, as I guess is par for the course for Bar/None.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Shahen Shah (Real World)
I first heard Nusrat on the Passion Sources compilation, and I decided to get more. It was good decision. I know very little about this, but I guess it is called Qawwali, or Islamic spiritual music. If you like the track on Passion Sources, you'll like this album. He also has a new album out that I haven't heard.

Roger Miller - Golden Hits (Polygram)
The only country CD I own, honest! I'm sure you've all heard "King of the Road," which opens this album, but probably haven't heard the rest of the tracks. Miller's a great songwriter, and this fact is evident when you listen to this CD. Tracks like "Dang Me", "Kansas City Star", and "You Can't Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd" are catchy little ditties, fun to sing along to, and just plain good.

Etant Donnes - Aurore (Touch)
As far as I can tell, you either love Etant Donnes, or you hate them. Every album is the same kind of stuff, but not the same, if you ask me. Whispered vocals (in French) over atmospheric sounds like water gurgling, food frying, helicopters, thunderstorms, bells, etc. Very nicely crafted. If you're into the musique conrete thing at all, I suggest checking these guys out. They have a new CD called Bleu which is great, too.

Ok, that's all I have for the moment. I don't plan to do this very often, and will completely refrain if people find it annoying. I often have customers asking for my recommendations, and I figure that they're meaningless (my recommendations, not my customers) if they don't know where I'm coming from. I'm no Siskel or even Ebert, so take what I say cum grano salis...

Cheers,
Dave

Gonna party like it's 1999

I feel like the old guy who doesn't understand new technology. Wait, I AM the old guy who doesn't understand new technology!

To be fair, I'm chomping at the bit to get an iPhone, and I told the yellow pages people to NEVER, ever leave me phonebooks because it's a waste of resources since I always look things up online. And I have Wikipedia open in my browser all the time as I'm always looking things up, trying to learn about all sorts of things from rock bands to Caravaggio. And I pay my bills online and never carry any cash. And I'm learning Italian online (Buongiorno, mi chiamo Dave!)

But myspace I never really understood. Don kept saying I should set up a myspace account, and given the utter lack of time I have, I thought "what's the point?" Well I finally caved in and set it up. Nothing much up there yet, just some blog postings mirrored from our blog. But I'll try to add more, or have Don do it.

That said, it seems that EVERY band is on myspace, and having a myspace page is the de facto standard now, just as having a website was in 1999. So, since everyone else is doing it, I figured we'd better do it too.

Calgon, take me away.

The Compact Disc is 25 Years Old!

I haven't written anything for quite a while, and when I saw this article, I thought it would be a good one to link in.

EAR/Rational Music started on August 17, 1992, when the CD was exactly 10 years old!

Dave

Bali Hai! Tea for Tutu!

Don met and interviewed Bishop Tutu in Bali, and he wore his EAR/Rational t-shirt for the occasion!

I remember being at SIGGRAPH in 1985 and seeing a demonstration of a newfangled piece of software called Photoshop. They used it to change genders (well, in pictures, that is) and also to take a photo of someone and make it look like she was smoking a cigarette. I remember thinking that the days of "photographic proof" were over. I do assure you, however, that the photo below is original.

More t-shirt sightings...

Kevin Wehner sent us this photo of himself proudly wearing his EAR/Rational t-shirt at White Sands National Monument.




(Click image to enlarge.)

Whack-a-mole

You might think this is an April Fool's Day joke. But I assure you it's not.

A few days ago I received the following email:

Hello, I need to talk to Dave at ear-rational.com
He is a googlewhack!
please let him know to reply to this address if he has any questions,
also can he please find two googlewhacks
thanks very much
Dave

Upon reading it, I had no idea what a googlewhack was. So I looked it up and emailed the guy back asking him what the query was. Turns out it was "s-p-a-s-t-i-c-a-t-e-d   u-n-u-n-b-i-u-m" (without the dashes and quotes). Curious, I went to google and entered those words, but unfortunately, something had changed so that it no longer returned anything (I put the dashes in so that this page would not be a match and disturb the results).

Unfortunately I don't really have time to type two random words into google until I get a single result, but I sure am curious how that query ended up pointing to me...

(Update: I re-entered those words into Google today--April 6th--and did get a match here.)

(Thunderbolt and) Gordon Lightfoot

Did I really not post anything at all in January? Well, it's hard to imagine anyone chomping at the bit to read what I have to say...I still maintain that I'm writing this stuff for my kids to read after I'm gone or something like that.

In October I posted my audioscrobbler link so you can eavesdrop on what I listen to at EAR/Rational world headquarters. I just checked it and sure enough it's tallying the songs I'm listening to by The Lime Spiders as I write this. Why The Lime Spiders never took over the world is beyond me...

Anyhoo, there's a commercial on TV for BMW, where a guy is driving alone and singing along to his stereo which is playing "The Wheels on the Bus" (if you have kids then you know this song for sure). All of a sudden the music stops and a woman starts talking to him, telling him that his car is due for service. He says something like "How did you know that?" and she says "Your car told me." He looks at his stereo, then says "Did the car tell you anything else?" (That's from memory, but it's close enough...oh, I found the ad, it's here).

A rather long-winded way of saying my car does not transmit to audioscrobbler, and that's no doubt a good thing. But I'll let the cat out of the bag and admit that I know all the words to "Carefree Highway" and was listening to it several times in my car today. And if you got the "Thunderbolt" reference, then you're probably not a spring chicken...

The Beginning of the End

Aron's Records, an L.A. institution for 40 years, is closing its doors. This is distressing to me for two reasons.

First off, I grew up in L.A, and consequently, I spent a great deal of time (and money!) at Aron's, and they are certainly responsible for fomenting my love of music. In the old days, I bought lots of vinyl there and fondly recall flipping through the LP bins to become acquainted with Cabaret Voltaire, Eyeless in Gaza, The Birthday Party, Bauhaus, New Order, OMD, and many others. As CDs became more popular, I picked up many gems at Aron's including the ulra-rare "Happily Every After" by The Cure, the "lowdown" low-priced Bauhaus reissues and hundreds more. It was literally impossible to leave there empty-handed.

But more important that the nostalgia, however, the closing of Aron's brings home the fact that CDs won't be around forever. Digital downloads continue to gain popularity, and buying music digitally avoids the bloated distribution infrastructure which goes hand in hand with the compact disc. Yes, I think the writing is on the wall--barring accidents or illness, I will outlive the compact disc.

I do believe that the music we sell is bringing up the rear in the death march of the CD, whereas major label pablum has no doubt got the pole position. So I hope that I am correct when I predict that stores like EAR/Rational will be the last to go. But they will go...

Right on Target

Last week one of my distributors emailed me and told me my order had arrived safely in Michigan. Which was great except for the fact that I'm not in Michigan.

Seems that a woman from Michigan ordered a Christmas wreath from Target.com, and somehow, the sealed box of CDs which was to be sent to me was inside of her box.

Yes, you read that right. Somehow, a sealed package which was picked up by UPS on the west coast, and supposed to be delivered to Colorado, ended up inside a shipment from Target. The recipient called the distributor and essentially said, "Guess what? A package you sent to EAR/Rational Music ended inside the package I just received from Target."

I've had some strange things happen with shipping over the years, but this one beats all.

What am I listening to?

People often ask me what I listen to or to make recommendations as to what they should listen to. For a number of reasons I generally try to avoid answering, but I found a great plugin that compiles what you are listening to into a music profile. It's called Audioscrobbler, which is "a database that tracks listening habits and does wonderful things with statistics." (If you are concerned about privacy, "the Audioscrobbler Plugins do not know the source of any of your music and the Last.fm database cannot tell if you played songs from an original CD or from an MP3 file.") It works with all the popular audio players (and even some of the not-so-popular ones), and best of all, it feeds into Last.fm which uses the Audioscrobbler-generated profiles "to make personalized recommendations, match you up with people who like similar music, and generate custom radio stations for each person."

So, for better or worse, if you want to know what I'm listening to, you can surf on over to http://www.last.fm/user/EAR-Rational and see for yourself. There's always the possibility that when it says I'm listening to the new Boards of Canada it's only because I changed the MP3 tags on some really embarrassing music...

Don's work is never done...

Don and I were talking recently and I told him we should count up how many labels we deal with directly. Turns out it's nearly 200 (I probably would've guessed 50-60, but that's because Don does all the work and I just write these stupid blog entries)!

Here's the current list: (1.8)sec.records, 10KILO, 12 Apostles, 3D Vision, A Wave, Absolute Ambient, Absurd/Etidions_Zero, Afrogalatic, Ahornfelder, Ajana, Ajuca, Alchemy, Alpha Wave Movement, Ambivalent, Amboworld, Amoeba, and/OAR, Antboy, Arkadia, Asteroid Power Up!, Atak, AudioBulb, Auf Abwegen, Authorized Version, Automatic, Azra Records, Barraka, Binkcrush, Black Rose Recordings, Brocoli, C3R, Candyflip, Caroline, Celestial Drago, Circumvent (R.I.P.), Clearlight, Clearlight Music - CypherArts, Close Tolerance Music, Cocosol1dc1t1, Council of Nine, Cronica, Dakini, Databloem, dataObscura, Dead CEO, Demonosound, Deserted Factory, Digital Psionic, Disposable Thumb, Doof, Dorodine, Dragonfly/LSD, Dream, Dropout, Drosstik Records, DSP, e:i, Eastgate, Economy Records, Elejam, Elusive, em:t, Entracte, Erewhon, Esquilo Records, Etnicanet, Exogenic, Farfield, Fast Flange, Feedback, fitch, Flow, Flying Swimming, Forward Motion Theater, Fragile Planet, Hadra, Hammock Music, Headphone Dust, Highpoint Lowlife, Hit Mania, Holophonic Phan, Hommega, Hypnagogia, Indica, Indol, Infraction, Inkeys, Innersound, Interchill, Kagdila, Karate Joe, Ketuh, Kinetik Media, Koyote, Lapilli, Last Possible S, List, Livid Looking Glass, Macrophonies, Madskippers, Maia, Malsonus, Manic Dragon, Manifold, Manikin, Materia, Misanthropic Agenda, Mojave, MoonPop, N-Rec, Nano, Nervine, Neuronal, Nexus, Nihilist, Noh Poetry, Noisy Neighbor Studio, Non Visual Objects, Northern Echo, Obliq, Ochre, Octpia, Organic, Oscillatone, Oxygen, Panaxis Records, PaniCulture, Peak, Peripheral, Peripheral Conserve, Petit Sono, Phantasm, Pipkin, Poeta Negra, Proper Boy, Proton, Psi Phenomenon, Psychonavigation, Pukka, Purple Om, Quantum, Risc Records, Sakura, Sanskara, Satellite Symphonies, Scarcelight, Sending Orbs, Sijis, Solstice, Some Place Else, Somnambulant, Sonic Dragon, Soular, Space Tribe, Spirit Zone, Spun, SubVariant, Suilven, Suntrip, Surround Sounds, TB, TDI Music, The Sound Projector, Thisco, Timecode, Tip, Transient, Trishula, Turbo Trance, Twenty Hertz, Twisted, Ultra Mail Productions, Urckarm, Virtual World, Wax Audio-Metal Postcard, Waystyx, Wfc, Wikkid, Wild Things, Wordclock, Zeromoon, Zod, Zulu Lounge.

Don deserves the credit here! Several times a week we are contacted by a label wanting us to carry their stuff, and I dutifuly forward that email to Don and then delete it. One more thing off of my to-do list is the way I look at it. Don takes the emails seriously, and often reviews the CDs as well, which helps generate sales for the label. Don's also patient and diplomatic in his assessment of new music. I, on the other hand, throw up my hands in disgust and crank up the Led Zeppelin if I can't get into something new...

EAR/Rational Music recognizes Canada!

I'm honestly not sure if we'd be able to recognize Canada in a crowd, but the fact is, we've been shipping to Canada ever since we opened, but there has never been a Canadian shipping choice in our shopping cart. Well, now there is. The menu is getting a bit unwieldy because each choice also offers insurance. Soon I'll fix that so that Insurance is a separate line item which can be checked or unchecked and it will look much cleaner.

Smoke & Mirrors - Deities

I've decided I'll put together an Aural Fixation Records blog and I'll let you all know when that is up and running. I'll still post big important stuff about our label here, but you can rest assured that this blog will stay focused on EAR/Rational Music, not our label.

That said, I wanted to mention we have been getting renewed interest in "Deities," the second Smoke & Mirrors CD we released. Andy Garibaldi of Dead Earnest sent us this review, and I think it accurately speaks to the wealth of influences and sounds on this great release:

Now if ever an electronic music CD could be said to be "something different" but immensely gripping on an epic listening scale, then this is it. If you had to liken their music to anyone, then imagine a cross between In The Nursery, early Orb, Makyo, Roach & Metcalf, Banco De Gaia and Clear Light and you're pretty close to this massive slice of exotic audio feasting. Across two CD's, nearly two and a half hours of music and 22 tracks, you'll witness mile-wide electronic music layers, soundscapes, melodies and tunes that stretch out in all directions, the aural equivalent of looking out onto a gorgeous blue sea surrounded by beautiful scenery. The percussive and electro-percussive rhythms are unashamedly rooted in the chilled-out glory days of mid-nineties ambience, while the deep, dubby and throbbing bass lines are kept strong but unobtrusive, so that they add to the overall soundscape while still propelling the sound to even greater heights. The extra presence of early seventies Pink Floyd-esque chiming laid-back electric guitar leads merely serves as icing on an already substantial cake. There is no way in the world that you can pin this thing down in terms of its style or content—it simply does not conform to any "pigeon-hole" and—like the Glimmer Room 'Grey Mirrors' album before it—simply transcends all that to become this immense example of filmic, flowing, huge-sounding, melodic, deep, multi-layered and strong-sounding musical opus from keys, synths, electronics, guitars and electronically-derived acoustic-sounding drums/percussion. Instrumental, themed around Hindu deities and with tracks from just under three minutes to over twelve, this is a truly mind-expanding sea of music of great vision and execution, one that you should waste no time in hearing.

We've made half of the tracks available as complete streaming MP3s, so you can listen to the whole track rather than a 30-second snippet which won't give you an accurate read on the music.

He Liked Shopping Here So Much He Became An Employee!

Our own Don Poe, proudly wearing his EAR/Rational t-shirt, posing with the Boulder Creek Festival duck, while an unidentified woman expresses her disapproval by refusing to look at them.


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Don has a day job as a video editor/videographer/DVD author, and does freelance video work on the side, but only really feels at home when he's working for us. When you end up purchasing something really obscure through us, thank Don because he's the one who goes out and finds this stuff!

Pay us in Euro or Pounds Sterling!

When we buy direct from labels and distributors in the Europe and the United Kingdom, we often pay in Euro or Pounds Sterling. PayPal lets you maintain separate balances for each currency, so we've modified our checkout page so that your order total is displayed in Euro and Pounds Sterling as well as US Dollars. If you are using PayPal you may pay for your order in either of these currencies if you wish. By paying in your native currency you avoid PayPal's exchange rate, and we avoid a conversion fee upon receipt.

Eventually, if we end up with a surplus of either currency, we'll have to pay to convert it to US Dollars or some other currency, but we'll shoulder that cost for now.

Where Have You Gone, Arthur Russell? (A nation turns its lonely eyes to you...)

Sometimes the best part of running this business involves no money or products changing hands. In early December I received an order for six copies of Arthur Russell's "World of Echo" DVD+CD. (If you don't know who Arthur Russell was--or even if you do--there is an excellent site dedicated to him here.)

We rarely receive orders for two copies of an item, let alone six, which is pretty much unheard of. So I looked closely at the order and there was a note which said "Arthur Russell is our son. We understand that this box set is scarce and would like some for our friends and ourself."

Upon reading the note I was quite saddened. As a parent myself I can't imagine outliving my children, and I was a bit dismayed that Arthur's folks didn't have copies of this limited reissue.

We had sold a number of these sets and I was pretty sure we could not get more copies. I contacted my sales rep who verified that they were indeed no longer available. I then contacted Audika Records, who released the reissue and told them that Arthur's folks were looking for copies. Thankfully, they took it from there, and were able to get copies to Arthur's folks. I received a nice email from Arthur's father thanking me for my help and it felt pretty darned good...

Drop Ship Your Trades

One of our customers orders FAX CDs and routinely has them shipped to different people/addresses. Turns out he is doing trades with these people, so I offered to send the orders without an invoice, and list his address as the return address instead of ours. This process is called "drop shipping," and it's quite common in this and other businesses. It's quite easy for us to do that as we are using a computer-based postage printing system, and I simply entered this customer as one of the possible return addresses. We exist to sell music, and we're more than willing to be creative about how we do it!

It's possibly of limited value to many of you because we don't tend to keep most things in stock and it will only work well for you to set up a trade for something we have in stock (e.g., FAX CDs), but I thought it was worth mentioning so you know you have that option.

If you're interested in having us do this for you, just indicate in the comments section of your order that you'd like it drop shipped and we'll take it from there.

Oído/Racional!

Ed Roda, a longtime customer of ours, sent me this picture of himself proudly wearing his EAR/Rational t-shirt at Parque Nacional Iguazú in Argentina. If anyone else has photos of EAR/Rational t-shirts in distant, interesting, or famous locations, please send them!



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Don's Corner becomes a blog!

Don's Corner is now a blog! (And the RSS/Atom Feed is here.) It used to be that he would pick out great music, review it, and then spend hours toiling over the HTML to get it just right. Now, he spends hours toiling over the Blogger settings. But one big advantage is that he can post information about a single release, rather than having to wait until he has "enough" to publish his corner.

For now, you can only access the new stuff on his blog, but I'll be importing all of his old reviews as time goes on so you'll be able to check out the older Don's Corners via the blog as well.

We've got a label and we're going to plug it (not even enough of a pun to require an apology to Fuzzbox)

NPR is featuring the Smoke & Mirrors track "Saraswati, the Wise" on the latest installment of All Songs Considered: Open Mic. Thank you NPR!

Mozilla Search Plugin

I made an EAR/Rational Music search plugin for Mozilla. It will eventually be submitted to them and available on their page, but if you want to be a beta tester for it, you can can install it by clicking here (thanks to an anonymous poster for letting me know how to do this with Javascript).

Please let me know what you think!

(If you're a Mac user, you might try Mozilla if you haven't already. I'm not ready to switch to Mozilla from Safari, but I must say Mozilla is quite nice. Given that the Mozilla search standard is based on Apple's Sherlock, I think it's probably reasonable to expect Apple to add configurable search engines to Safari.)

Earth Day

On Earth Day, I thought I'd post a little about our environmental philosophy. It was something I had intended to some day put on our website, but never got around to it. We've been around since 1992, and at that time I was a DJ at KCSB. At KCSB I would see tons of padded envelopes thrown out and figured I might as well use them to ship CDs for my business. In addition, I'd get the cardboard LP mailers that were headed for the recycle bin. In 1993, I moved to Colorado and hooked up with KGNU, and I've been cleaning them out of envelopes and mailers ever since.

In addition, I'm always on the lookout for boxes I can use for shipping. Of course I keep any boxes that were sent to me, but often they are too big to use for anything but wholesale orders. My local supermarket is the mother lode for cardboard boxes. My kids do the shopping with me and always get excited when they see someone stocking the shelves because they know we'll get some boxes "for daddy's business."

If you've bought anything from us, you've no doubt noticed that we print invoices on the back of used paper, anything from journal articles to my kids' scribbles. (Some folks have told us they get a kick out of reading the backs of the invoices.) I'm downright fanatical about not printing on a virgin piece of paper, even if it's recycled. Of course, there are times when I'm writing a letter and for those I will use blank (but recycled) paper.

I'm proud to say that with all the CDs/LPs/books/shirts/etc. we've shipped in 12+ years we've never used a new envelope (we did once have several boxes of new padded envelopes that were given to us by someone who had no use for them), almost never used a new box (I just remember that when we sold 85 copies of Damon Albarn's "Democrazy", we used flattened Priority Mail boxes that we got from the post office).

Happy Earth Day!

Shipping calculator now considers item formats!

It's been a long time in coming, but I finally modified the shipping calculator to pay attention to item formats when calculating the shipping cost. The biggest issue has always been a single LP/12", which was previously considered no different from a single CD. My regular customers know that we can't ship an LP for $1.50, but of course the shipping calculator said we could, and after a new customer rightfully complained that he was charged more than what had been calculated for him during checkout, I was moved to fix it once and for all.

I haven't tested all combinations, and I'm sure I'll be modifying it as time goes on, but at least it gets the single LP right!

We now offer label-based email notifications!

For a while we've had label subscriptions, whereby each new release on that label was automatically ordered for you. This was handy for FAX and other "collectible" labels, but it was woefully inadequate for those of you who wanted simply to be notified every time we added something new to the catalog from a given label. I received many an email from customers, understandably surprised because an item had been automatically ordered for them.

Well I'm happy to announce that we now have notifications as well as subscriptions. When you get search results or detailed information about a release, you'll see "Notify Me" next to the label name. If you click this link (and have created an account with us and are logged in), a notification will be set up so that any time we add an item to the catalog from that label, you'll receive an email message. If what you really wanted was a subscription, you need only go to the user interface (there is a link above the search box) and make this change. In the user interface you will see a list of all your subscriptions and notifications, if you have any. Next to each one are two links, "Del" and "Set to". These links allow you to delete a notification/subscription, or to convert a notification into a subscription (and vice versa).

In the future we plan to have a "saved searches" type of notification so that you will, for example, be able to choose to be notified when any new Bill Laswell releases are added to the catalog, or any new DVDs, or any releases whose description contains "ethereal", and so on.

Above all, gather no moss

On August 20th, I received an email from one of my sales reps asking me "Is it crazy there, or what?" I had no idea what she was talking about, so I emailed her back and she told me that Fluxblog had posted a Poto & Cabengo MP3 and linked to our site, and was wondering if we were getting lots of sales as a result.

Then, on August 24th, I return from lunch to see that I've received the following email:

Hi - My name is [name omitted], and I'm a journalist in NYC. I'm writing about MP3 blogs for Rolling Stone magazine, and was hoping to speak with someone at EAR/Rational.

I spoke to [name omitted], who told me that Fluxblog had written about a Poto & Cabengo record, posted the mp3, and linked to your site for those who wanted to buy. I was hoping someone at EAR/Rational might clue me in as to how this affected sales, if at all, and if you have seen other links from the blog realm affect sales in the past.

I'm at [phone number omitted], or, if you're up for a chat, just drop me an email with your number.

I'm working on a very tight deadline, and hope to hear from you.

In 12 years of running EAR/Rational Music, I can't say I ever thought about Rolling Stone magazine, and I surely never imagined I'd be interviewed by them. I used to read Spin long ago, and these days I might glance at The Wire, Grooves, e|i, or The Sound Projector, but Rolling Stone is as "off my radar" as Esquire.

Anyway, I call the guy back and we talked for maybe 10 minutes. I assumed he was writing from the angle that MP3 blogs are bad, because they allow lots of people to download songs for free, but it wasn't clear. As a label owner, I told him I'd love the exposure of having my releases in MP3 blogs, and he then asked me about my label and Smoke & Mirrors, and he seemed genuinely interested.

While I'm sure many people would kill to have their business mentioned in Rolling Stone, the thought of EAR/Rational being mentioned on their pages wasn't all that exciting. Let's face it, EAR/Rational does not cater to the average Rolling Stone reader, safe to say. If they did come to our site, they'd be unlikely to find anything they were looking for.

BUT, the thought of my label being mentioned in Rolling Stone really had my head spinning. Smoke & Mirrors would certainly appeal to many of their readers and this might be a way to get some real publicity with no effort. However, I had resigned myself to the fact that if I were mentioned at all, it would be something like:

One Internet retailer told us that links from MP3 blogs didn't really seem to affect his business.

The article came out several weeks later, and we weren't in there at all, not even anonymously. Oh well...

Nostalgia comes full circle

(Caution: This post is long and potentially boring to anyone who is not me.)

Music has always been an important part of my life. I owe a great deal to my 6th grade music teacher (sadly, whose name I have forgotten) who encouraged each of us to bring our LPs (no CDs back then!) and play them for the class. Cary Groman brought Led Zeppelin's "Zoso" LP (Led Zeppelin IV) and after hearing "Black Dog," I was stunned. Someone else brought Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Trilogy" and we listened to their electronic version of "Hoedown", the Aaron Copland classic that our teacher had already played for us. I was flabbergasted. I had to have more! Thus began an odyssey which is still going on to this day.

I really cut my teeth on music during the 80's. "80's Music" is seen by some as an oxymoron, but it was a magical period for me. The B-52's, The Go-Go's, The Smiths, OMD, New Order, Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran, Flesh for Lulu, Scritti Politti, Echo & the Bunnymen, Thomas Dolby, The (English) Beat, Kraftwerk, Heaven 17, The Cure, Prefab Sprout, Killing Joke, Gang of Four, XTC, Modern English, Jesus & Mary Chain, Cabaret Voltaire, Bauhaus, Love & Rockets, Skinny Puppy and countless others shaped my college experiences, and indeed, my life.

In 1987, I started grad school and took a course in Electronic Music Composition. At that time I was heavily into industrial music--Skinny Puppy, Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept., SPK, and the like. In those days we made real tape loops, with the tape threaded around mic stands, chairs, etc., and MIDI was just becoming popular. I stuck with the composition series for an entire year--even though I was working towards an M.S. in Computer Science--and ended up programming in CMusic, spending hours trying to emulate the sounds of bagpipes, as well as make up new sounds. In addition to being able to work some highly-talented individuals such as JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Ralph Russell, and Ashkelon Sain, that class exposed me to the music of Edgard Varése, Pierre Henry, Pierre Schaeffer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Morton Subotnick, and Mario Davidovsky, to name a few.

By 1990 I was a DJ on KCSB, first with an industrial show called "Club Angst!" and then soon settled in with a primarily Brit pop show called "In One Ear and Out the Other." My co-DJ Elisa and I were transfixed by British music, and pledged our allegiance to labels such as 4AD, Creation, Fontana, Hut, and One Little Indian. Shoegazer music was our savior, and My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, Ride, Moose, Throwing Muses, Jesus & Mary Chain, Chapterhouse, Verve, Lush, Ultra Vivid Scene, Blind Mr. Jones, and Pale Saints were the apostles. Also revered were Catherine Wheel, Kitchens of Distinction, Kingmaker, Swervedriver, The House of Love, The Wolfgang Press, and the like. British Pop could do no wrong, it seemed.

And now we come to the "full circle" part. I can remember buying The House of Love's self-titled CD on Creation and later their "A Spy in the House of Love" CD on Fontana (and of course in those days it was a big deal for me to get the Fontana version which actually had no title, as opposed to the domestic version which had "A Spy in the House of Love" on the spine). The two CDs that came after that didn't do much for me, and I pretty much forgot about them. About a week ago, I couldn't get "Love II" out of my head. So I grabbed their self-titled CD, listened to it in the car, and re-discovered all over again how great they were (and also realized that Love II isn't even on that CD). I decided to do some web research and lo and behold, The House of Love is back together and has a new album out! It's called "Days Run Away" and it's fantastic. (Hear 4 tracks from it here.) It's a big nostalgia trip for me to listen to because it picks up where the first CD left off now that Chadwick and Bickers have patched up their differences (for those who don't know, Guy Chadwick, the lead singer, booted Terry Bickers, the guitarist, while the band was on tour in 1989, and Bickers went on to form the band Levitation, which was actually quite good). I'd still argue that the self-titled CD on Creation is their best, but I'm eager to hear what they come up with next!

Off and running

I've never exactly been an "early adopter." EAR/Rational Music has been around since 1992, but didn't have a website until 1997, and the site didn't have a search engine until 2000, and we didn't accept credit cards until 2003 (although we did start accepting PayPal in 2002).

I'd often thought about creating an "Old Fart's Corner" to discuss "old" music and complement the excellent "Don's Corner" that appears on our site, but never got around to it. Perhaps it's better that I waited, as now I can just do it as a blog.

Say, maybe we should have Don do his corner as a blog...