Xmastime So Sayeth, So Sayeth Xmastime

People who believe aliens are secretly visiting us treat aliens the same as Christians treat God, as some mysterious being/non-being who surreptitiously gives us riddles & hints instead of just showing up & saying “hey everybody it's me, here’s what’s going on…”.

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Bass at 66

Paperback Writer b/w Rain was released 66 years ago today. It's the A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving of mid-period Beatles, sandwiched & somewhat overlooked between the much more heralded singles that came immediately before and after (We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper & Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever) but Paperback Writer/Rain kicked off an explosion of sound innovation that the band would continue to push until their final breaths together, changing the way rock & roll bass was both recorded & listened to ever since.

From legendary Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick's Here, There and Everywhere:

Fortunately, as Paul and John turned to George Harrison and began showing him the chords to "Paperback Writer," inspiration struck. It occurred to me that since microphones are in fact simply loudspeakers wired in reverse (in technical terms, both are transducers that convert sound waves to electrical signals, and vice versa), why not try using a loudspeaker as a microphone? Logically, it seemed that whatever can push bass signal out can also take it in—and that a large loudspeaker should be able to respond to low frequencies better than a small microphone.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I broached my plan, gingerly, to Phil McDonald. His response was somewhat predictable: "You're daft; you've completely gone around the twist." Ignoring him, I took a walk down the hall and talked it over with Ken Townsend, our maintenance engineer. He thought my idea had some merit. "Sounds plausible," he said. "Let's wire a speaker up that way and try it."

Over the next few hours, while the boys rehearsed with George Martin, Ken and I conducted a few experiments. To my delight, the idea of using a speaker as a microphone seemed to work pretty well. Even though it didn't deliver a lot of signal and was kind of muffled, I was able to achieve a good bass sound by placing it up against the grille of a bass amplifier, speaker to speaker, and then routing the signal through a complicated setup of compressors and filters—including one huge experimental unit that I secretly borrowed from the office of Mr. Cook, the manager of the maintenance department.

With renewed confidence, I returned to the studio to try it out for real. Paul wasn't as nontechnical as John, but this was pretty way out, even by Beatles standards. He looked at me in a funny way as I set up the big, bulky loudspeaker in front of his amp instead of the usual microphone, but he didn't say anything, and neither did George Martin, who by now was getting used to my Rube Goldberg approach to recording. They returned their attention to the rehearsals, giving me the opportunity to cautiously raise the fader carrying the bass signal. Paul's distinctively fluid bass line in "Paperback Writer" consisted mostly of notes played high up on the lowest string, which helped round out the tone further still. His playing was also more melodic and busy than on previous tracks. It sounded absolutely huge, so much so that I became somewhat concerned that it might actually make the needle jump out of the groove when it was finally cut to vinyl. But Paul loved the sound, and it was eventually left to my mate Tony Clark to cut the master lacquer. I was glad Tony had gotten the assignment, and he did a brilliant job. If it had been one of the older guys, they would have either slashed all the bass out of it, or sent it back and told us to mix it again.

Brilliant du Jour

Xmastime Films

DO YOU TRUST XMASTIME ENOUGH TO HANG IN HERE FOR 6 MINUTES?

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A Little Something About Myself

I've read two short stories recently from incredible authors and they both stunk.

The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov
Wakefield by Nathaniel Hawthorne

We Love Jack Black!

 Moi Say Moi a few years ago:

I've always thought the greatest example of an actor being matched with a character was Jack Black in School of Rock. I honestly don't know why he doesn't just put out a new one every year.

I'd also say that he may hold the same distinction when it comes to supporting characters; it's unfathomable to even try to imagine anybody else trying to be his character in High Fidelity (for which he also won a spot on the much unheralded XMASTIME MOVIE CAMEO HALL OF FAME!!!).

SPECIAL XMASTIME VIDEO SPECIAL: not one but TWO videos below!! You're welcome, Earth! 

 

Xmastime So Sayeth, So Sayeth Xmastime

It's kind of weird to think that even if I did meet my soulmate right now, she will never have known me for most of my life.

🤯 du Jour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SIDE NOTE! As I asked in 2009, is Matthew McConaughey's Wooderson the single greatest example of an actor who went on to have a long and very successful film career as a leading man, yet will never top his supporting role performance in his film debut?

This Magic Moment du Jour

I've posted this Steve Jones clip before but every time it pops up I'm reminded it's absolutely one of the all all-time Hall of Fame things I've ever gotten from the Internet. 🤗❤️🇬🇧🎸

Asked/Answered/So What

RANCID ….and Out Come the Wolves
TODD SNYDER Songs from the Daily Planet
DRIVIN & CRYIN Mystery Road

Tuning Out (In)

There’s a list of songs for which if I hear them being played at my Wegmans I will pull my headphones out so I can enjoy the song playing as I stroll throughout my Wegmans and apparently this is that list.

Ideas. I Have Them.

If Iran REALLY wanted to make Trump's empty head explode & humiliate him in front of the entire planet they'll announce that they're willing to work out a deal to end the war, but they'll only work on it with Obama.

In America

Think of the incredible morality-bending & twisted pretzels of logic it took for Trump to get elected a second time after a very public tryout that included breaking the world record for US Presidential impeachments and fomenting an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, and now here we are in the middle of a war with Iran during which Trump’s decisions have been bafflingly stupid in historic ways, both in execution and in the unfathomable consequences of which he apparently took a grand total of 0 minutes to consider, and what’s the general buzz from people about getting out of this war?

Nobody’s expecting Trump to actually win the war.
Nobody’s expecting anyone to ask him how he could be so stupid to have made it happen in the first place.
Nobody’s expecting him to have us come out of this fracas better than we were when we started it.
Nobody’s expecting him to give a shit about the 13 dead soldiers.

ALL anybody seems to want at this point, ALL anyone is demanding on the American side of things…

…is that we somehow make it so Trump can get out of it without being embarrassed; the #1 concern seems to be what we all need to do to make sure that Sir Lord FatBoy Baby Fuckwad has a soft landing without any of his easily bruised & tender feelings being hurt.

And when he runs in 2028, he will start with a baseline of 70M people eager to vote for him again.

That’s the single-most example of “white male privilege” I can even imagine, much less recall.

Line du Jour, from Somewhere

"World War I was industrial slaughter."

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), "isn’t this just a thinly-veiled excuse to remember how incredible Blackadder Goes Forth is?"

Sigh. Yes it is, faithful readers, YES it is. 🤗🇬🇧🤣🤣🤣🤣

What She's Found

In January of 2000, Op handed me a Maxell tape on which he’d put the V-Roys’ Just Add Ice album on Side A and Marah’s debut album Let’s Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later on Tonight on Side B; after about a month of listening to this one song below over & over I finally flipped the tape over to Marah, which changed my life in many ways, and while I can’t really remember listening to or caring about any other song on the V-Roys album ever since, I’ve always loved this song (even if after the second chorus it just kinda fizzles away into not much, really).

Parking Lot

Here's an all-time great moment from the Marah show I mentioned last week. 🤗🎸🥁🕺

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Xmastime Films

WINGSTOP: An Xmastime Musical Review

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In America

One way we don't even realize how horrific Trump's been is how desperate we are to "normalize" anything we can as fast as we can; I'm one of those people who finds themselves saying "hey I'm fine with ICE existing, I just want to go back to how it was before Trump came back into office", but then I see something like what I wrote 8 years ago today & realize that eagerly returning to what we incorrectly remember "normal" to be only serves to move us one step closer to the full-on authoritarian regime he thirsts for that waaaaaaaaaaay too many people are happy to give him.