Step Aside
Buh Duh
Joe & Al Productions
2000
7 tracks
I spent my teens listening to rock and roll broadcast from Vancouver, B.C., Fort Wayne, Indiana, and points south as the music fell through the static-filled night skies of southern Alberta to my car radio. Less than perfect sound has not usually bothered me since. It does bother me when there are sound quality problems which could have been prevented or fixed. Step Aside has serious problems with sound quality. While the producers may be partially at fault, I suspect much or even most of the problems may be laid at the door of mp3.com.
Step Aside is a commercial release available exclusively through mp3.com's "DAM CD" program. The end product is manufactured and packaged by the folks at mp3.com rather than at a commercial house such as Cinram. Based on the sound quality of this release, artists may be better advised to take the more traditional approach to manufacturing their product.
Across the board, there seems to be too much low end in the mix, so much so that it tends to boom and distort. The mix is also fuzzy, losing much of the sharpness of the instruments and vocalists and blurring the distinction between the different instruments. This is apparent enough that it bothers even me. While these problems could easily be blamed on the original producer or recording studio, there are several reasons I believe they are down to the folks at mp3.com.
Step Aside was produced by David Bull at Joe & Al Productions' Albert Street Studio. Some time ago, I reviewed another release produced by the same team at the same studio. The production was tight and the sound clean. That release had none of the muddiness so endemic to Step Aside. This suggests to me that perhaps it was not the producer or the studio who had created the problem.
The mp3.com DAM CD releases have both standard format and mp3 versions of the songs on the disc. Here, there is a considerable difference in quality between the two formats. (I played both versions on my computer's CD-ROM player, so the difference can't be ascribed to different quality players.) The overall mugginess is much more apparent on the mp3 version of the songs, yet these mp3's would have been converted to create the others. This suggests that the problem originates not at the studio but at mp3.com.
Control of overall level is also a problem. To listen properly to the first track ("Step Aside"), I had to raise the volume on my equipment noticeably higher than usual. To hear the remainder of the tracks, I had to raise the volume substantially more. To have a release that is recorded at low levels over all is one thing, but to have one cut recorded at a level much higher than the rest is just bad production. Again, since mp3.com would have picked up these tracks one at a time and certainly been responsible for mastering of the final product, there is some question as to whether this is a fault of the original studio or of mp3.com.
Another big difference is that while the standard tracks play regardless of what else is happening in the computer, the mp3 tracks skip, stop, and modulate like Max Headroom on acid when anything else is being done on the computer.
While there is included a cute little Macromedia interface which features not just a player for the songs but pictures, lyrics, and information on the musicians and music, is this worth the contingent quality problems? After all, a release like this is first about the music.
And, believe it or not, so is this review.
Barb Wilson (Buh) and David Bull (Duh) are both seasoned musicians with a great deal of experience between them. It shows. Their writing and performance is clearly the work of consummate professionals.
There is, however, little on this release which really stands out, nothing destined to be a hit or even a cult favourite. What makes the music most interesting is that it is so eclectic. Here is a Sixties sound reminiscent of the Classics Four ("Step Aside"), funky disco ("Then Again"), retrobilly ("Rattlesnaked"), and four other songs with styles quite distinct from one another. Taken as a group, however, the songs are fairly run of the mill, lacking the necessary musical or lyrical hooks to distinguish them from the slough of similarly well written and produced songs filling the airwaves.
The lyrics are weak, technically well-written but tending toward cliche and lacking that indefinable something that will grab the listener's heart. In fact, the lyrics hew so to the standard that without credits it would be hard to determine which were written by Wilson, which by Bull, and which by both together.
Two songs rise slightly above the rest.As it begins, the words and music of "Just Someone" feel like "Eres Tu" [in my opinion one of the most beautiful popular love songs ever written]. This is a lovely song which could use an editor's touch on the lyrics. The song could also be more subtly orchestrated to give full expression to its romantic nature.
"Just Someone" is another song fraught with technical difficulties. Just before the song starts... the song starts. It sounds as though someone began to dub the song, stopped for a split second, then began again. If this were a tape, I would say the song had been copied then recorded over itself, but a split second later, leaving a bit of the original copy at the front end. This sort of flaw on the finished product again suggests the problem lies not with the studio but with the manufacturer.
Perhaps the best song on this release is also the simplest. "Rattlesnaked" is an uptempo rockabilly number with a solid retro edge to it. This is hard bopping dance music with the sort of quirky lyrics found on the dark edge of rock and roll inhabited by songs like Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love" and Gene Vincent's "Race with the Devil."
For readers who may not have guessed, knowing the talent involved in this project, I am quite disappointed in the resulting project. Much more can and should be expected from the team of Barb Wilson and David Bull.
Those wishing to learn more about Step Aside and Buh Duh or to hear the music before buying can visit their site at mp3.com
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