Photobomb: Labor Day 2015

In many sectors, the relationship between management and workers is strained. In thinking about the importance of Labor Day in the United States, I searched for images that help describe-- visually-- something about the history of organized labor.

A member of my family was an employee of Crozer-Chester Medical Center (now Crozer-Keystone) for over four decades. My first understanding of organized labor came when my family member went to the picket line, over compensation and working conditions. Crozer-Keystone has been widely criticized for chronically overcharging its patients.

The history of the labor movement in Vermont is a fascinating subject: Italian immigrants settled in Barre, working the quarries and granite sheds. Anarchists Saco and Vanzetti spent time in Barre. 

Primo Maggio, at the Labor Hall in Barre, Vermont. 

Pownal, Vermont-- -1910. 

The Superhero Sandbox Playlist 9/3/15

The Superhero Sandbox is a weekly program, heard on WFVR.org 96.5FM. 

Waitin' For A Train-- Beck

With A Little Help From My Friends-- Sergio Mendes

Here Comes the Night-- Them featuring Van Morrison

Ziggy Stardust-- David Bowie

Lord Only Knows-- Beck 

This Wheel's On Fire-- The Band

Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You-- Bob Dylan

Loser-- Beck

Theme From "Summer Place"-- Percy Faith

Painted Eyelids-- Snyder/Turner/Smith

Blue Moon-- Beck

Burnt Orange Peel-- Snyder/Turner/Smith

I've Seen The Land Beyond-- Beck

Cyanide Breath Mint-- Snyder/Turner/Smith

One Foot In the Grave-- Beck

Fire and Rain-- Richie Havens

It's the End of the World As We Know It-- REM

Come On Up To The House-- Tom Waits

What Is His Name?-- 

Thank You Lord-- Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens

If I Had My Way-- Golden Gate Quartet

Music In the Air-- Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Remaking Beck's "One Foot In the Grave" (1994)

Three Feet In The Grave (2015) is a remake of Beck Hansen’s 1994 album One Foot in the Grave, a collection of musically simplistic, yet lyrically complex songs, performed, produced, and recorded by Jacob Snyder, Adam Turner, and Chris Smith during the first half of 2015. The remake is available on YouTube. Its worldwide premiere takes place on “The Superhero Sandbox,” on Royalton Community Radio WFVR-LP 96.5FM, on September 3, 2015. The album was simultaneously released on YouTube and Bandcamp on September 4, 2015.   

Beck Hansen, circa 1994. 

In November of 1993, Beck Hansen was about to make it big: after 500 copies of his single, “Loser” were distributed by California’s Bong Load Records, radio airplay led to a bidding war for Beck’s recording contract, as it was clear the folky/bluesy songwriter was about to ‘go big.’ Meanwhile Beck had been working in a video rental store, playing his original material to whoever would listen. Geffen, Warner Brothers, and Capitol got in a war over the rights to publish and distribute “Loser,” as well as Beck’s future material. To avoid the fray completely, Beck left the negotiations to a representative and headed to Olympia, Washington and the home studio of Calvin Johnson, to produce tracks for what would become the album One Foot In the Grave. Unlike the recordings major labels were fighting for, One Foot was a low-fidelity collection of unique and folksy anthems, mostly performed on acoustic guitar. Following the production of One Foot, Beck returned to California and a lucrative contract with Geffen; within months, his song “Loser” would become a top 40 hit and be featured in MTV’s “Buzz Bin,” making the song as well as Beck himself a valuable pop music commodity, even before the release of his first major studio album, Mellow Gold (Geffen; March 1, 1994).1 After recording One Foot In the Grave, Beck’s life would never be the same—not specifically because of what he had recorded in Calvin’s basement, but for how the music industry was ready to cast Beck as being another in a canon of “slackers,” alongside Nirvana, Radiohead, and others.  

In April of 1994, Beck told Rolling Stone interviewer David Wild: “Slacker my ass. I mean, I never had any slack. I was working a $4-an-hour job trying to stay alive. That slacker stuff is for people who have the time to be depressed about everything.” Two months later, thanks to clauses in the Geffen contract allowing for Beck’s artistic freedom, Calvin Johnson released One Foot In the Grave on his independent label. The album never charted; there was no hit single to be had. The work did represent Beck’s natural talent for solo performance, as well as his deceptively-intricate songwriting skills. In interviews, Beck would come to downplay the production and songwriting found on Mellow Gold, his first major release (songs like “Soul Sucking Jerk” and “Truck Drivin’ Neighbors Downstairs” were, he’s admitted, rushed productions to fill remaining space on the release). One Foot In the Grave, however, represents a collection of original, ‘easy’ folk songs, whose lyrics discuss themes more accessible to people who work “$4-an-hour job[s] trying to stay alive.” Like the works of Kris Kristofferson and many recordings by Willie Nelson, One Foot shows Beck’s proficiency at solo performance, not needing a full band’s accompaniment (or studio trickery) to make a durable record.  

Original demo cassette, for One Foot In the Grave.

Following Mellow Gold, Beck consistently sought to reinvent his sound: he worked with noted producers the Dust Brothers on Odelay (1996), and later experiment with electronic music on Midnite Vultures (1999). A 1996 Rolling Stone article trying to keep up with Beck was titled “Beck: Resident Alien.”  While successful in terms of sales, Beck’s albums that were designed to more clearly display his songwriting abilities—namely 1998’s Mutations and 2002’s Sea Change—may be characterized as much by their high production values as by their songs’ lyrics. Last year, his release Morning Phase won multiple Grammys, including album-of-the-year.   

I’ll admit to not keeping up with Beck’s creative output during the last few years: I know the lyrics to the songs on Odelay and Mutations far better than I know the lyrics to songs from 2008’s Modern Guilt. Studying Beck’s 2012 Song Reader project in an academic context (to be discussed more fully in a different place than here), I wanted to understand better the creative process he envisioned, as he had original compositions transcribed, and released as sheet music in a collaboration with the innovative publishing house McSweeney’s. Beck's creative endeavors and Bowie-like reinvention of himself during the late 1990s and early 2000s make One Foot In the Grave all the more important: capturing the songwriter on the cliff of fame, strumming his acoustic as he had on so many sidewalks and in late-night dives around Los Angeles. One Foot would be the last Beck record of its kind, and remains one of his finest.    

Producer Calvin Johnson and Beck, as featured on the cover of One Foot In the Grave. 

While the 2012 Song Reader project created an intentional opportunity for non-professional musicians to engage with original Beck compositions, remaking an even earlier Beck album, without the assistance of transcribed sheet music, seemed a more welcome challenge. My longtime collaboration with Jacob Snyder includes live performances and tireless work in the (experimental) recording studio: as The Don Loans Project, we produced albums of original material, as well as covers of popular songs (including a complete remake of Steely Dan’s 1972 album Katy Lied). As non-professional musicians ever looking to foster fun times and new sounds through technology, the opportunity presented by remaking another’s song has often proven irresistible: relying on another’s composition seems at times a ‘permission slip’ to take risks in production and instrumentation. With the addition of Adam Turner, a fantastic percussionist and drummer from the Bennington (VT) area, we discovered a few new grooves, and in some informal jams experienced excellent instrumental chemistry.  

The decision was made to record new versions of each song featured on Beck's One Foot In the Grave. Often, sessions began with Adam on drums, Jacob on bass, and myself playing either a Hammond CV or Yamaha CP. Chords to many songs were terrifically easy, leading to some inspired improv while playing live in the studio. As the project wore on, we compiled in-studio performances, captured on multiple tracks (including almost another album's worth of bonus material). Overdubbing and mixing began sometime after the snow began to melt in the summer of 2015; the production and post-production processes were not distinct. Overdubs included additional drums and percussion, electric and acoustic guitars, synthesizers, and additional Hammond organ. In the spring of 2015-- prior to my relocation and partial liquidation of my recording studio-- I recorded a series of overdubs in Tunbridge, Vermont. These included more synthesizers, extensive use of a Baldwin Synth-A-Sound, and a Steinway upright piano. Seeking uniformity across all tracks, our mastering process utilized digital plug-ins, including compressors and equalization. Two sets of mastering monitors were used: a pair of large Sansui speakers, and a pair of Auratone Super Sound Cube 5Cs.   

Footnote 1: One might argue Mellow Gold, and its single, “Loser,” represent a model of sound recording production and distribution that is all but vanished from our digital soundscape: the album was pressed on vinyl, duplicated onto cassette tapes, and copied onto compact discs. Following a model established in the late 1950s, of releasing 45RPM singles prior to releasing a full-length album, Mellow Gold became one of the most lucrative releases of the 1990s. In the final years of the 20th century, both the physical forms of sound recording media, as well as the opportunity for the corporate recording industry to generate massive profits from a single artist, would start to disappear.

Click here to stream "Three Feet In the Grave" on YouTube. Click here to download high-resolution audio files from Bandcamp. To commission a recording project by Snyder/Turner/Smith, or to request a limited-edition analog master of this material, please drop me an email.