the beatles and my muse status.

first off, what the eff is wrong with you people? i know at least 3 of you are huge beatles fans. i finally sit down, contemplate for hours and bare my soul, and not one comment on my top ten beatles songs list? i even told 2 of you in person about the list, and yet nothing. thanks.

secondly, how flippin cool is this? when i was on moe. tour out in california, i finally had the chance to make one of my obscure dreams come true. i had al. in my car, and for some reason i've always fantasized about playing some britney for him. so, i put on "toxic", and he said it was amazing. i wasn't sure if i should believe him. then, jefferson interviewed him last weekend, and this came out of the interview:

JW: Are there any specific albums that have been particularly influential over the years, strictly from a production standpoint of blending different sonic textures and recording locations.

AS: There are so many. Sonically, Dark Side of Moon, it goes without saying. Also, [The Flaming Lips'] Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, [Radiohead's] OK Computer, [Bjork's] Vespertine. I mean, there have been so many fantastic albums sonically that have really made an impact like [The Beatles'] The White Album. I love the sounds on some of those recordings.

It's funny. I frequent a lot of like audio recording geek user groups. There are these threads that are like three pages long about Ringo's snare drum sound on "Back in the USSR". Everybody talks about the pictures they've seen from the era and tries to triangulate the information and figure out how to get that sound. Everybody's offering tips on what gear to use and how to get that exact sound. I love stuff like that. It's cool to sit at home and try to recreate that stuff.

In terms of the energy, honestly, I love Workingman's Dead. I think there's such a great vibe to that album. It's a pretty introspective album for the Dead yet it has that loose, organic quality that I love so much about that band. The same is true of many Zeppelin albums. Like Zeppelin III I think is sort of the best of all worlds of Zeppelin on one album. It's got the acoustic stuff, the electric stuff. It's sort of in between the blues and the really psychedelic stuff they were doing. There are just so many. We could talk about this for days.

JW: Well, looking forward...

AS: Oh, you know what? You were actually with me at this point, when we were in Tahoe. We were in the car driving home from dinner that night and someone put in the Britney Spears album.

JW: The one with "Toxic".

AS: Oh my god, I was floored. I've never listened to Britney Spears seriously and it was kind of a joke when somebody put it on and they were gonna turn it off and I was like ‘No no no, don't touch this!' It was amazing. I couldn't believe it. Sonically, it was just disgusting how good it was. I mean, I have no idea what she was singing about, probably about being innocent and shy. But I was completely blown away and I'm not ashamed to admit it. They must have this crack team of scientists and engineers to determine what exactly you need to do to tweak the mind of fourteen-year-old girls and sixteen-year-old boys...and thirty-seven-year-old men. I was just blown away.