January 30ths

1/30/1969

(Beatles Studio Diary)  

The 42-minute rooftop show, a lunchtime blast into the cold wind, imagine a high London rooftop in January. Little wonder Ringo borrowed wife Maureen’s red mac. John borrowed Yoko’s fur wrap—is preserved in its entirety onto 8-track audio tapes at EMI, engineered down below in the basement by Glyn Johns, sadly unable to be an eyewitness to the events...

Up to the rooftop
Rooftop show
Little wonder Ringo
Oh Yoko 

***

AI version:


 

1/30/1999

Stopped at Snukst Music, a tiny shop on South Pulaski, with tens of thousands of instruments. Everything was just sort of stacked randomly in “forests” of basses, guitars, dobros, nothing on stands or racks. They said, “Everything is new”...including the Orange bass amp circa 1969. 

1/30/2011 
            
Composer John Barry died at 77.
 

1/30/2022

 I’ve always thought the best way to write pop music is from the ground up from a beat, or even a ticking metronome, and scatting or rapping over the top of it in nonsense syllables as placeholders. If you rap a title idea it usually becomes the chorus as well as verses. This way you can perform them together as a counterpoint. (Another economical pop song trick) Sometimes a story emerges in the way the lines commingle, like the ingredients in a recipe blend together, combined with umami elements and from caramelizing, the corollary of playing with sound in a studio. It’s very alchemical. 
            
Syllabic mappings of isolated phrases set against a very basic beat can nicely demonstrate how language can drive rhythms. They could become one song even though there is no particular meaning. It’s the rhythmic framework that ties it all together. In some sense, the intended meaning of the words might not matter if the music is heard or felt more than the words. One could take a shopping list and sing the words rhythmically to get a sketch of something. (I think someone has done this but I can’t recall who). And you could sing it in such a way where people might not even make out what you’re saying, and it might not matter. 
            
[1/30/2025: AI Music seems to work bottom-up where it’s placing words and phrases to the riffs on the genre you’ve selected. The placement of words will be different in R&B/Funky than it is EDM/Melancholic. This is where machines will never do what musicians and lyricists have done historically. There will never be that kind of collaboration because you have two minds working together drawing from collective human knowledge instead of two collectives, one which is just a mechanical process. Not that it isn’t interesting, but AI is more of an interlocutor].
 

1/30/2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AI Music seems to work bottom-up where it’s placing words and phrases to the riffs on the genre you’ve selected. The placement of words will be different in R&B/Funky than it is EDM/Melancholic. This is where machines will never do what musicians and lyricists have done historically. There will never be that kind of collaboration because you have two minds working together drawing from collective human knowledge instead of two collectives, one which is just a mechanical process. Not that it isn’t interesting, but AI is more of an interlocutor.

1/30/2046

(Tony Townes Diary) 

Went to Club Anom-E. Just an AJ and guitar player. When guitarists play basic chords as accompaniment, it suggests other parts that you hear in your head, but the algorithms think faster than you, and sometimes you feel you have a telepathic connection.

What is Club Anom-E?

The Movie Poster circa 1946 (also referencing Bowie's Outside)