What is it about...?

Down at The Old Vinyl Emporium™ →Go uptown A spin through the JC’s crappy record collection.Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Reviews Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

Music Podcast idea JC is no expert but he likes to twang on his guitar and he knows what he likes. This will be a series of deeply idiosyncratic investigations of unique songs — the type that stick in your head — to set up a story of why they stick in your head. Why are these ones different? Along the way it will looking at the the musical composition, instrumentation, technology, performance and recording techniques that made these songs unique.

1. Spaghetti western punk disco at the end of the world: Blondie’s Atomic
   1. The major and minor and the perfect fifth
   2. The saddest of all riffs

2. The saddest lick: Oxygène IV, “Heroes” and Brothers in Arms

   - synthesisers
3. 3. Hard rock boogie: how some Scottish Australians stumbled upon the the sacred laws of rock n roll
   1. The 1-4-5
   2. progressions and melodies
      1. major: country,
      2. minor: rock
      3. mixture: blues
   3. Syncopation
   4. Pan left and right
   5. EQ
   6. The golden rule; keep it simple

4. Everything is off-kilter: all-out transgression before it was fashionable: Ashes to Ashes as the genius of David Bowie condensed to 4 minutes.

   1. The “short progression” - a classic Bowie trick (see under pressure, compare with all you need is love, money
   2. Start and end on the root note? No sir
   3. Four on the floor? No sir.

5. Schwing! Why does a shuffle move us?

   1. how time signatures can give us a groove. Straight is white, syncopated is white (the indie drum riff, to swing is not white. It's gypsy, African.
   2. How they differ:
      1. Boogie
      2. Shuffle
      3. Swing