Jim Alfredson

I stick by my original assessment. Pistons will win tomorrow and finish up at home on Saturday.

Man, The Suns are a joke. How did they get this far? Do they know what "defense" is? Tim Duncan moves like he's 70 years old. The Pistons are going to cream San Antonio.

And I knew you wouldn't! I don't believe any spontaneity is lost because two different takes are edited together. And it's not like we're going in and changing things note by note, assembling the music as if by machine. If we farge the ending on a tune, we'd back up, listen to the playback, get back into the groove, and go at it again. The spontaneity is still there because we're all playing together, at the same time.

Chuck, you've seen us play live. You know that we can play the tunes that are on our last record and this coming record. I don't see what the big deal is if you do a whole take and the head has a little mistake in it, so you go and fix that part. Or if you do two or three takes, and the organ solo is better in the third take, so you put that on the first one. What does it matter? When you made records, did you just turn on the tape machine, tell the cats "Hit it!" and then put everything that happened on the finished album? False starts? Too bad. It's on the record. Flubbed endings? Too bad, it's on the record. Blown solos? Too bad, can't do another take, that's on the record. That would be reality, woulnd't it? One shot, and you're done. Afterall, in a live situation, is it proper ettiquette to play the same tune over and over until you get it right? "Sorry folks, we blew the out head on that last tune, so we're going to play it again." Of course not. You edited. One could say you edited reality. But I guess if it matters to people, ya'll better not buy the last organissimo record or the next one, because yes we did do some editing. If we played a great take all the way through, but flubbed the ending... well, we re-did the ending and tagged it on. Sorry. If a solo was better in take 3 but over-all take 1 was better, then we edited those two together. Sorry. Is it reality? Does it matter? If you really want to be strict about it, never use backspace on your keyboard again. Don't spellcheck. Forget about correcting yourself at all. And if everyone does that, the next organissimo record will be 60 minutes of un-edited footage for all to hear.

But the net result is the same. I don't see the difference. Records are not reality anyway... they never have been, never will be. They are an aproximation of reality. Some are more "real" then others, but none are truly real. It isn't real unless you're sitting in the club or the hall and taking in the performance live (and with pop music these days, sometimes that's not even a "real" experience, but that's a whole nuther topic!)

But what's the difference, when you get down to it, between Miles or Coltrane or whomever doing multiple takes until they get it just right (in their own minds) and just fixing a few flubs here and there on an otherwise good take?

Nah, it's all good.

This is the other aspect of recording that I've been thinking about. The author of that article mentioned "the authenticity debate". Sometimes we refer to recordings as "documents", as in documenting the work, but that doesn't seem right if you're fixing things. If two takes are combined into one, what is that a document of? Not "the moment" obviously. A live recording with no edits would be closer to being a document, I would think. So are edits dishonest in a way? ← How authentic is it to release something the artist does not think is representative of what he wants to portray? In other words, if there are all these mistakes in there that make the artist cringe every time he/she hears them, the recording is obviously not representing the artist in the way that he/she thinks is right. It's my record, dammit, it should sound like what I want it to sound like, right? A novelist never releases a book without editing, re-writing, etc. Why should music be any different? On the other hand, live recordings tend to have an energy and vibe that you can't achieve in the studio exactly because the musicians know that it's all on the line. But even live recordings can splice together two different takes (they've been doing multiple takes of tunes in a live situation for a long time... just look at Wes' "Full House").

I have "Doin' What We Wanna" and it's super-greazy! I don't know much more about them. They are relatively obscure and in the same bag as Funk, Inc.

We're moving once again. The reason the forums were "forbidden" there for awhile (I do not know how long... I am sick with the flu and have been in bed all day) is because if a site is hogging resources from a shared server (which is what we're on... a shared server is one that hosts many websites) than the admin's just shut it down. This is what tech support told me. I almost had a heart attack before I got that explanation. I tried to log into the forums, got the forbidden message, so I ftp'd to my site to see what the problem was. I see the "forum" directory, and it's empty. I thought we got hacked. Anyway, I'm demanding that I be moved to a dedicated server, that I get a couple months free service because of all the headaches we've had (outages, outages, and outages... and oh yeah, outages) even after I made explicitly clear with the salesperson before buying their services that this forum was the most important thing and that I had to have complete assurance that it would function fine on a shared server. The salesperson said it would. Tech support just now said "no way". Anyway... I'm so sorry for all this. What a pain in the ass.

Yeah, the "two tries and then move on" technique seems to work the best. On the first day of recording for the new record, we started out with a tune that we know backwards and forwards. We did two takes, but it just wasn't happening. So we moved on to another tune, and nailed that one in one take. Then we went back to the first tune, and nailed that one. Sometimes it's good just to get away from it. Another good technique is to try and convince yourself that this is a live situation. There is no stopping, no going back. So you have to be both focused and loose. That's what I try to do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't! Back to what Joe was saying, too... we've been recording ourselves a lot so that we'd get used to being recorded which is great when you actually go into the studio. But it's also bad, because as Joe says, you start to think about these great solos you've already laid down on a track and you're trying not to repeat yourself or you're trying to do something similair. Basically, you're trying. And as Yoda says, "There is no try. Only do."

I think the author may be attributing a little too much power to recordings, especially when he talks about Elgar conducting his symphonies vs. modern recordings of those symphonies. Is it really that surprising that the overall feel and sound of the symphony is going to be radically different when the actual composer is conducting than when someone else conducts? Standard western notation is very limited in conveying anything more than an outline of music. We all know Brahms was very meticulous about dynamic markings, but he's the exception. It doesn't surprise me that Elgar's recordings of his own symphonies are a little more "raw" than modern interpretations. Concerning Joe's point, one of the hardest things to balance when recording (and I'm speaking specifically to my own experience) is mistakes and perfection. Obviously with today's technology, you have an unprecedented amount of control over every aspect of recording. You can go in and not only fix single notes, but even the attack of single notes, the timing of those notes (is it too far behind the beat or too far ahead? Just move it!), the pitch, the dynamic, etc. etc. It's really easy to go too far. What I try to do is place feel over perfection... yeah, I messed up that bass line right there, but the it feels good, so I won't worry about it. And sure enough, there are some errors on our latest recording, but will anyone outside of us notice them? Probably not.

Pistons are taking it to Miami. But oh man... will this game ever end? I think the refs have called a foul on almost every possession in the fourth quarter. Criminey. LET 'EM PLAY!!!

Dang. Larry just laid into the reporters. Did you see that? That's the kind of shit he should've done DAYS ago.

Great article from the ever-insightful Marc Stein on ESPN: Marc Stein on Brown I don't believe that's true. I think Rasheed Wallace coming to Detroit had more of an impact on the Pistons winning the title than Brown did. Brown is a good coach, but Carlisle is just as good and HUNGRY and focused. If Carlisle had the same team that Brown did last year, he'd have the same ring.

Yes, I've seen the Zak Wilde one. That is a close second to the Danzig one. Sounds like season 3 DVDs are the ones to get.

I haven't seen this show in ages but one of the funniest episodes I remember is the one with Danzig in it and the twisted ape Santa Claus.

He is very popular, that's for sure.

One of my favorite pizzas here in Lansing is from Emil's, a family owned restuarant that has been here since the 1920s. Their sauce is really yummy!

sigh

C'mon, who comes here for the beautiful pastel color scheme?

Have you tried "My Assistant" located in the upper right corner?

He's my brother from another mother!!! Is that what they call gray hairs? -_-

Yes, but those free throws were not from the play that caused the cut. Even the announcers said, "He got fouled at least three times there and no call!!" That was total bullshit. Pistons will win the next one. And then they'll come down to Miami and win that one. And then finish up at home.