This Week's Frustration

My car's "check engine" light came on again this week. It doesn't actually say "check engine," instead it shows a stylized picture of an engine and I'm supposed to infer that a picture of an engine lit up in yellow means the engine needs attention. What this has meant the last several times something like this has happened is that I would to have to drive the car to a mechanic and then walk back home. It's only about a mile and a half away, so it's not a huge inconvenience--I mean, if you don't count the hundreds of dollars I keep having to spend to make these repairs.

I had just installed Simplify Media on my iPhone just before I went to pick my car up Thursday. This little software wonder lets you access and play your computer's library of music from any other device, so long as you are running their IM-like client on said computer. So I set off to test how well it worked over AT&T's 3G network. I walked out to the street listening to a recording I made at ktru of Houston's own Dead Roses. I noticed a little bit of digital compression when listening to the cymbals (this is where you always hear digital compression) and then I remembered that I had originally recorded that show onto a MiniDisc which could account for some of the bad sound.

This realization made me want to find something that was recorded scrupulously to really give the streaming a workout. Immediately I thought of Steely Dan--it's almost a cliché that Steely Dan is the point of reference when testing the fidelity of audio equipment. So I looked down at the phone and found that it hadn't quite gotten around to importing all the Steely Dan song titles from the computer and it only knew about the handful of Dan songs that were actually on the device. That was no good. I needed songs that were streaming from the computer.

I decided that if I couldn't use Steely Dan, I would listen to the next best thing: Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Whereas Steely Dan's seventies dead sound is stuffed and mounted on the wall of the lodge like some taxidermied moose, Fleetwood Mac's seventies dead sound is more like fresh roadkill--definitely dead, but at least still warm.

I can happily report that Rumours, streamed over 3G, sounds just fine, even if streaming audio is not so easy on the battery. It's definitely passable for a walk to the mechanic, though. And it's one step closer to my dream of portable internet radio. Once people can stream content of their choosing into their cars, traditional radio is dead, dead, dead. And not a moment too soon.

Anyway, while listening I remembered how much I like this album and I got a little lost in it. I started thinking about the Malcolm Gladwell piece that was rejected by The New Yorker that I read recently. In it, he compares the careers of The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, suggesting that each represents an example of a binary artist archetype; the former is the prodigy and the latter is the late bloomer.

Then I started thinking of flaws in his theory about Fleetwood Mac. First, there is his assertion that Fleetwood Mac's pre-Lindsey-and-Stevie albums were "quite frankly, terrible." I think Cramer covered this pretty well in a previous post, so I don't need to go into any more detail about how wrong Gladwell is about that. Next, there is the idea that all the members of Fleetwood Mac were the late bloomer type. This is an imperfect description because Lindsey and Stevie were the principle songwriters for Rumours, and they were young examples of Gladwell's other archetype. This muddies the waters a bit. Fortunately, I didn't have time to go down that particular rabbit hole since my walk was finished. Maybe some other time.

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In other news, Johnny Mac has run afoul of yet another reluctant songwriter. It seems Jackson Browne is not just upset, but has crossed all the way to litigious over McCain's use of "Running on Empty" in an attack ad. If I can make a suggestion, to McCain: Ted Nugent is waiting for your phone call. I'm sure The Nuge would be glad to endorse you the way he has endorsed other Replublicans in the past. And to sweeten the pot, I will contribute to your campaign if you use "Cat Scratch Fever" in one of your ads, particularly if you focus on that fourth verse.