I'm a big fan of Steve Massey's Pro Tools plug-ins, but he's truly outdone himself this time.

Listen is part of his new Massey Tools suite. From a UI perspective it is virtually unparalleled in its simplicity. As promised on the website, it will "dramatically improve your mixes"! His new TD5 Tape Echo is also pretty boss, I've been having a lot of fun with it this week.

I listened to [Townshend's->http://www.petetownshend-whohe.blogspot.com/] Empty Glass for the first time in about 15 years tonight. I'd picked up the remastered CD something like a year ago but had never gotten to it. The record is good, better than I remembered it and probably better than I currently understand. But the thing that struck me immediately was the organization of the mixes. The first track "Rough Boys" blows right out of the old grammophone, and I was trying to put my finger on exactly what that sonic environment reminded me of. Then it occurred to me: Libertines! I'm talking mostly about the way the mixes are organized, but also about the way the aggressive, neurotic vibe of the artist is translated in a hi-fi yet ragged way. The way the vocal is presented, clear but with lots of plate verb, the band stabbing out behind fairly aggressive master compression. 

Now, I've gone on record in the past about my love of those two Libertines albums and the attendant singles. And I've maintained that a lot of the resonance of those records comes from the way the production/engineering team of Mick Jones and Bill Price caught that fantastically flawed band in mid-flight. The Libertines expressed a scrappy, ramshackle rock and roll genius that to me as a Minneapolitan was the closest thing to a British Replacements we're likely to ever see. Jones and Price, coming from two different previous generations of British rock, helped the Libertines step right into the line of Great British Bands. I also like the Babyshambles record by the way, but that's another entry in the blog.

 I suppose one of the odd consequences of surviving the rock life for a period of time is having a modern band's work remind you of the things you loved about one of your teenage influneces. In this case it also illustrates that the work of an engineer can cut through decades and be as exciting as ever.

Bill Price is one of the true unsung heroes of recording. He worked on so many landmark records, best known to many people for the classic Clash and Pretenders recordings he worked on. To me the Sex Pistols album that Price did with Chris Thomas is alone justification for sainthood. But the man has been active since the mid-60's when he was an engineer at Decca studios in Hempstead (NW London), recording the Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdinck hits my mom was humming while she changed my diapers. He was also the chief engineer/manager at Wessex studio in London, incubator of future mega-engineers like Mike Shipley and Mark Freegard. He's also worked on records by Elton John, Guns and Roses, and other people that I can't be bothered about. But the bottom line is, the man does great stuff and I identified his sound completely out of context from a record he did in 1979.

Cheers to ya, Bill Price! Looking forward to what you have coming up next.

The amazing singer from Dutch band Shocking Blue died this last weekend. I've been totally immersed listening to records by Shocking Blue and precursor band The Motions for the last 2-3 weeks, so the news is particularly sad. Mariska and songwriter/guitarist Robbie van Leeuwen are both very underappreciated outside of the Netherlands, mostly known for a couple of radio hits. They had many many fine tracks across many albums, however, and the catalog is something to be proud of. I wish Mariska could've heard the version of "Send Me a Postcard" the Mood Swings have been working up.

I've always been a big fan of [Propellerhead->http://www.propellerheads.se]'s Rebirth RB-338 software. I remember how amazing it felt back in '96-'97 cranking out legit-sounding beats and blips on my Powerbook 5300 in the van while on tour with Polara. Rebirth was certainly the first useful virtual instrument I ever ran on a portable computer; Rebirth plus the late-lamented Studio Vision Pro were the very height of "in the box" tech in those days. Propellerheads have now discontinued development of Rebirth, but in consideration of the historical importance of the program they've launched a [Rebirth Museum website->http://www.rebirthmuseum.com]. It seems a bit absurd to have a "museum" dedicated to a piece of software, but the site does a great job of explaining the roots of the instrument (it was modeled on Roland's TR808 and TR303 drum machine and bass synth) and putting some perspective on just how much a breakthrough it was. There really had never been such an efficiently-performing software instrument that sounded like the real thing yet was affordable to normal people. And Rebirth also looked very cool, adopting the look and UI functionality of those familiar Roland devices. These days every [Apple->http://www.apple.com] computer ships with Garageband, an incredibly flexible sound-generating application. It's humbling to think where computer music was at a scant ten years ago.

[The Alarmists ->http://myspace.com/thealarmists] and [The Mood Swings->http://myspace.com/themoodswings] totally rocked the [7th St. Entry->http://www.first-avenue.com] last night, further rejuvenating my belief that Minneapolis is in the midst of a low-key pop renaissance. Both of those bands just keep getting better and better.