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LA Times: Prius Is Put on Fast Track

Facts divulged:

• In Los Angeles there is a 7-month wait for the new Prius.
• Dealers obviously aren’t willing to negotiate; they charge full sticker: $22,274 - $26,239.
• Toyota will increase production by 50% in 2005.

(Read about my Prius test drive.)

Low Morale is a series of animations portraying one man’s struggle to cope with the soul-sapping, will-to-live draining, life-force mugging, morale crushing experiences of work. Any correlation between events shown and real-life have been personally researched.

It’s sort of like Dilbert, without the laughs.

There are eight animations in all, including a full-length music video for “Creep” by Radiohead, which looks as if it could have been an official collaboration, because the tone of the song so perfectly matches the tone of the video. Warning: it’s a 9mb download, complete with ‘breakout’ game so you have something to do during the half-hour you’re waiting for the song to begin.

(Thanks to Aaron L. for the link!)

Chuck forwarded a pointer to a neat article on the recording of Synchronicity:
The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”

Synchronicity was engineered and produced by the legendary Hugh Padgham, who was interviewed for the article. So was Stewart Copeland, who recalled the peculiar approach they took when recording the drums for the mega-hit:

The kick drum is from a drum box — an Oberheim — and I overdubbed the snare drum, which is actually a snare drum and a Tama gong drum played together, one in one hand, one in the other so you get a really heavy, but cracking, backbeat. Then the hi-hat was overdubbed as a separate track. For the swooshes into the choruses, I overdubbed the gong drum with a cymbal swell played with soft mallets. The drum part was completely assembled with overdubs.

There’s a lot of technical recording jargon in the article, because it was written for MIX magazine — not a magazine you’d be able to find at the airport bookstore. But there are some great anecdotes too:

Recording the bass could be frustrating, Padgham says, when Sting wanted to play while jumping on a mini trampoline. “It sounds mad — and I have trouble recalling whether it was during Ghost in the Machine or Synchronicity, because we recorded them 18 months apart at the same place 20 years ago — but what was really annoying was, even at the best of times, with all due respect to Sting, who is a fantastic bass player, he’s quite sloppy. If you solo his bass track, there’s all sorts of fret noise and bits of dodgy playing. When he was bouncing on the trampoline, it made it even worse.”

In a sense, it’s reassuring that “dodgy” players have a shot at rock stardom. But in another sense, it’s rarely the playing that makes anyone a star — it’s the ability to write songs that sell 30 million copies.

There are some great lines in Steve Sande’s article on the high prices of geezer rock tours:

I mean, 20 bucks to see Todd Rundgren at Slim’s is one thing, but can anyone justify $194 to see Old Man Townsend windmill his way through “Baba O’Riley” on a Shoreline stage full of MGD ads? Hey, Daltrey, the nursing home called — the last person who thought you could still rock just died.

Upcoming geezer tours are listed, with ticket prices. Getting in to see what’s left of the Who will cost you between $44 and $194.

$44 might sound reasonable, but this show is at the Shoreline, a huge outdoor venue. Those cheap tickets are for general-admission lawn space in the next county: no seat, no view, and a constant stream of people picking their way around and across your space. As a bonus, the music fans on the blanket to your left haven’t bathed yet this week.

I saw the Who on tour in 1982 — billed, ironically, as their final tour. Entwistle was still alive. Townshend wasn’t deaf yet. The ticket cost me $15.

(Here’s the set list.)

According to Robert Redford,

Last year, Governor Schwarzenegger got the attention of the environmental community by campaigning on a promise to help solve the state’s energy problems by ensuring that 50% of all new homes are built with solar energy systems. Now that California’s budget has been resolved, the Governor is expected to make a major decision this week whether or not to move forward with a comprehensive, ambitious solar agenda.

Read more at the Vote Solar Initiative, and also in this LA Times article: State Seeking to Boost Use of Solar Energy; Incentives would be funded by surcharge on electricity users.

Hat tip: Solar E-Clips