Author Archives: lytspeed

Boston

By lytspeed Posted in Music, Opinion, Reviews Leave a reply

Boston

By: Boston

Type: Classic Rock

Hot Tracks:

  • More Than a Feeling
  • Smokin’
  • Rock and Roll Band
  • Foreplay/Long Time

No CD collection is complete without this classic album. Though it’s been out for over twenty years, it remains a staple of classic rock radio, and even the most technology-friendly bands of modern music are hard pressed to match the legendary Boston sound.

Tom Scholz is one of the best minds in the rock and roll world even today. We don’t hear a lot about him, but his musicianship, mixing skills and electronic wizardry are especially evident on this album, which came out well before electronic guitar effects processors were common. Scholz, more than any other musician out there, knows how to use equipment to get exactly the sounds he wants and often invents equipment to make the sounds that he can’t get. He has built a successful business, Scholz Research and Development, out of the manufacture and sale of guitar effects processors and pedals.

But all this talk about electronics has nothing to do with the music. On this album, you will find a strong commitment to melody and harmony, as well as plenty of straight-ahead rock and roll. Songs like “Smokin’,”Foreplay/Long Time” and “Rock and Roll Band” showcase the instruments while “More Than a Feeling” and “Something About You” put a little more emphasis on Brad Delp’s soaring vocals. All of the tracks are high-energy and the sounds fill the room (or your headphones) well when you crank up the volume. This album also makes good driving music, though it is too short for significantly long trips.

Boston’s productivity has been hampered by record contract problems, personnel changes and fairweather fan reception since the beginning of the eighties, but Still, Scholz occasionally finds the time to a new batch of guitar driven, synthesizer free (mostly) rock and roll with the same killer sound and songwriting style.

A friend of mine used to say, “Boston is the sound the electric guitar was born to make.” I tend to agree. The tone Scholz was able to pull from his Les Pauls back in 1976 was every bit as fat and good as today’s advanced equipment can produce; in fact, most guitarists have a very difficult time duplicating that sound without some of Scholz’ equipment. It just goes to show you where a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering can take you.

Rating (out of a possible five):

Beautiful World

By lytspeed Posted in Music, Opinion, Reviews Leave a reply

Beautiful World

By: Big Head Todd and the Monsters

Type: Rock

Hot Tracks:

  • Resignation Superman
  • Helpless
  • Please Don’t Tell Her
  • Beautiful World
  • Boom Boom

Todd Park Mohr teams up with producer Jerry Harrison to create a good, solid album inBeautiful World. Mohr has just begun to show his talents in songwriting and guitar, despite having been in the business for years. The commercial success the band is currently receiving is well-deserved and has been long in coming.

Mohr has the ability to get a full spectrum of different tones from his guitar and — here’s the key — unlike most guitarists, he knows when each tone is appropriate. For every song he writes, he seems able to find a tone that fits the exact message he is trying to convey, as in “Caroline” and the stunningly clear solo on “Please Don’t Tell Her.” It is this variety that makes the album very easy to listen to and memorable.

Mohr and the band get some help from John Lee Hooker in his classic “Boom Boom,” the song that inspired ZZ Top’s “La Grange.” (I read recently that Hooker’s associates had filed for copyright infringement against ZZ Top — nearly twenty years after they came out with “La Grange.” Go figure.) Perhaps Hooker and Mohr are just trying to let the general public in on the fact that Hooker had the idea first.

Throughout the rest of the album, Mohr and friends deliver a variety of rock and jangle pop originals that should appeal to a wide range of people around the world. If Big Head Todd’s path to this point is any indication, they could take the world by storm in the next few years. I could even see a grammy in the works if they keep up this level of variety and quality. For now, though, this album will serve as the introduction of a very talented band to those outside the Boulder, CO area, where the band is based. This is only the beginning for Big Head Todd and the Monsters.

Rating (out of a possible five):

Writing the Natural Way

By lytspeed Posted in Opinion, Reading, Reviews, Writing Leave a reply

Writing the Natural Way

By: Gabriella Lusser Rico

Type: Instructional

Setting: N/A

Description:

Ms. Rico presents to us a series of guidelines for producing focused, honest, improved writing. Written in an informal style, with emphasis on right-brain techniques and approaches to writing,WtNW teaches us not to worry about whether the final product is exceptional, or if this comma or that should be left out, but to produce on paper a cohesive, organized structure of ideas with which to work. According to Rico, if you start from a base like this, an exceptional product is likely to form anyway, especially the more you practice. Punctuation and readability can be taken care of in revisions; the most important part of writing is the idea, and Rico shows us how to pin that idea down. 

Comments:

Writing the Natural Way is one of the best writing manuals I have ever seen. Instead of inundating the reader (and student) with NOs and DO NOTs, it says, “Try it; see what the product is like. Perhaps it will lead to something new and even more worthwhile.” The book can be taken as a kind of Montessori course for beginning writers — provide them with the tools to teach themselves and let them go, with instructor intervention only when necessary. 

Recommendations:

I highly recommend this book to anyone embarking on a career in writing or just wanting to revitalize his or her current writing. The examples and exercises are non-threatening and the creativity methods introduced (particularly “clustering”) are indispensable.

Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer

By lytspeed Posted in Opinion, Reading, Reviews, Writing Leave a reply

Word Work:  Surviving and Thriving as a Writer

By:  Bruce Holland Rogers

Type:  Writing/Self-Help

Setting:  n/a

Description:

Word Work grew out of a column called “Staying Alive” that Bruce Holland Rogers writes forSpeculations magazine.  Though the Speculations readership is primarily a science fiction bunch, the articles and subsequent book are not geared to any genre in particular.  Writers in general can benefit from the book.

It’s important to note that the subtitle is not How to Write in the Style of Bruce Holland Rogers.  In fact, there is little about the actual nuts and bolts of grammar or mechanics in the book.  This is a book about being a writer.  It’s about the daily mental and emotional struggles that underlie the false glamour of the writing profession.  It’s about the shiny metal — and the rust patches — under the paint.

Comments:

Rogers writes in a very personal, conversational style.  Having participated in a Rogers workshop, I can say with confidence that his written voice in this book is very much like his teaching voice in person.  Rogers doesn’t come across as a writer resting on his laurels and disseminating advice to the writing rabble; his conversational writing voice establishes a level of trust and equality early on.  The book is written more on the level of peer teaching than mentor teaching, though it will likely spawn more than a few Rogers protégés.

The book is arranged in sections, with further breakdowns by chapter within the sections.  (This organization is a good example of atomizing, Rogers’ recommended procedure for breaking large projects down into manageable chunks.)  The table of contents includes one-line summaries of the topics covered in each chapter, so it is easy to find and re-read specific pieces.  I think this will be a very handy feature for future review.  On first reading, several sections seemed more applicable to my situation than others, but I can see how others could come to the forefront later.

The introduction is one of my favorite parts of the book.  In it, Rogers introduces the concepts of Hunter and Farmer as personality types for writers.  The Hunters are the writers who are always full of ideas and start many projects.  They also tend to have trouble bringing most of these projects to fruition.  Farmers, on the other hand, are able to stick with a project until it is done, but they are sometimes frustrated by the lack of ideas or the flatness with which their ideas hit the page.  These personality type descriptions come from Thom Hartmann, a psychotherapist and writer from Vermont who has written several books about Attention Deficit Disorder, identifying ADD patients as “Hunters in a Farmer’s world.”  Rogers, it turns out, has ADD, and makes it clear that he is writing from the perspective of a Hunter, but that writers need to create a balance between the Hunter and Farmer personality types to succeed in their work.  His goal in the book is to give Hunters the tools to be better Farmers and vice versa.

To that end, the Hunters win out.  Rogers has much more experience with being a Hunter, and is able to give more suggestions on how to deal with Hunter-type problems than Farmer problems.  For me, this is good.  I tend much more toward Hunter than Farmer in my life, and I was able to pick up some excellent motivational nuggets.  Rogers doesn’t leave the Farmers completely out, though.  He makes what suggestions he can, and defers to others with more experience in those matters when necessary.

For me, the most insightful and useful chapters of the book dealt with discipline, procrastination, rejection/acceptance (two edges of the same sword), success, and writing in a family environment.  Down the road, other sections may appeal to me more, and each reader will find that different topics will appeal more to him than others.  This is where Rogers’ wide range of writing experience comes into play; if you are experiencing it, chances are good that he has too, and he may have some valuable insights for you.

Recommendations:

I found this book to be very easy to slip into.  It dealt directly with some of my writing difficulties and aspirations.  I also found the style to be refreshing, and less of a “this is how it should be done” manual than some of the other writing texts that I have read.  For me, it worked, and I suspect that my copy will become well worn over time.

The book contains quite a lot of modern psychology, and some people will be tempted to dismiss it out of hand because of that.  If you are resistant to the ideas of affirmation, neurolinguistic programming, and dream analysis, you would do well to take a deep, centering breath and overcome some of those prejudices before reading the book.  If, after reading it, you still don’t want any part of the squishy science, that’s fine.  Chances are good that you will have found something worthwhile in the book anyway. 

The Tomorrow Makers

By lytspeed Posted in Computers, Opinion, Reading, Reviews, Science Leave a reply

The Tomorrow Makers

By: Grant Fjermedal

Type: Non-fiction survey with touches of biography

Setting: N/A

Description:

Based on interviews with some of the most notable cognitive science researchers in the country and their students, Fjermedal’s book walks the line between non-fiction and biography. Without going into the messy details, he shows that many people in the world believe in the possibility (probability?) of building robots and computers “smart” enough to hold carbon copies of a human mind and continue its thinking processes after the download. 

Comments:

Fjermedal realizes something that not many other survey interviewers do: in an institutional setting, the big names aren’t necessarily the ones who do the most work. Fjermedal not only concentrates on the big fish in the AI pond, such as Marvin Minsky, Joseph Weizenbaum, John McCarthy, Allen Newell, Gerald Jay Sussman and Danny Hillis. He also focuses on the students. Many of them stay up for days at a time working on projects with the kind of dedication that most people don’t give to their careers. They deserve a round of applause, and Fjermedal gives it to them. The student viewpoint is also interestingly fresh because they are accomplished dreamers. They are not afraid to speak of what they think will happen twenty or thirty years down the road. Whereas some university professors will pad their opinions and say, “Well, that might happen someday,” the students respond with, “That will happen. And I’ll do it.” This approach may not be entirely realistic, but reality is not necessarily a good culture for new ideas. 

Recommendations:

This book, combined with Machinery of the Mind, by George Johnson, works well as a non-technical survey of the directions of artificial intelligence and the people driving there. Fjermedal goes a little more into the personalities and the distance possibilities than Johnson does, but the two books give a consistent view of the field. Specifically, Fjermedal tries to show why the researchers are trying to create intelligent computers and shows the energy with which they are working.