In Memory of LeRoi Moore - Benefit CONCERT TO END AMERICAN APARTHEID - CAROLINE KENNEDY/AOL/DMB Give to NYC Children

"I can't believe that we would lie in graves dreaming of things that might have been" - David J. Matthews. 'Lie In Our Graves'

Caroline Kennedy and AOL benefit for NYC: GREY STREET, Dave Matthews Band, Live in Central Park, September 2002, mean-emotion=natural, average standard tempo/meanspeed=104.1

In September 2002, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and the Dave Matthews Band coordinated efforts to bring about: a benefit concert by the band, all revenue going to New York City public schools.

An outstanding effort all around: If any institution deserves all the extra help,
especially one that reflects the improving urban race relations, it is the inner-city public school. Remember To Sir With Love and Blackboard Jungle? Well, here in good old New York City the Spence or Regis School have a set of standards, and so do anonymous public schools all over the "five boroughs" of New York City: Staten Island, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan. I call it—Unintentionally--the last form of American apartheid. The radical difference in the cost and quality of the schools as viewed black and white. Quite simply, though everyone is just too darned polite to say it, “white” people largely “send” their children to private, expensive schools in New York City, while the poor and most immigrants are treated to a different education experience entirely. This concert helped close that gap, and all were commended at the time, and deservedly so.



Dave Matthews is South African and emigrated here [in his late teens]. The Dave Matthews Band is is 3/5 “black”--Carter Beauford, drums, the late Leroi Moore, woodwinds and reed instruments of all types, Boyd Tinsley, electric violin, 2/5 “white”-Dave Matthews, vocals and guitar and Stefan Lessard, bass guitar. Sometimes, though, he audience looks, like a football stadium or basketball arena: I see al the black athletes and their wives, families and friends, but where are the decent white players? They are all Eastern European men who have a way of making that which black players have fun into acts worthy of painful grimaces, especially when they have not shaved for a couple of days. I would, personally, not scare myself by going Google on images of some of the Croatians in violent physical or mental torture - you can't really tell. Just like a tuxedo can look one way one a waiter in a diner and another on Alec Baldwin at a wedding, scrubs can look like there is an invisible sign upon them reading: I am human trash - I cannot follow the most elemental rules of society. So after you have visited Scott Peterson go get a series of x-rays from a world-class radiologist who is a medical doctor *and* an attorney to find out of your leg is broken - and what is she wearing? Same uniform as Scott, same company makes both, actually, the only difference that for reasons beyond my level of researched understanding that in one context, you are looking at a man as evil as anyone who has ever lived most as Peterson where are the black fans? Might it be the ticket prices? I don't think so. I think it is not "cool" in some circles to even admit that you might like the Dave Matthews Band. I remember being laughed at and flamed to death in the Genesis newsgroup for suggesting that Carter Beauford was the first player, to my ears, who could clearly outplay Phil yeah in a musical sense that has to do with groove within tempo. In other words, Carter is the anti-Neil Peart? No - he has respect for everyone from Bonham to DeJohnette. The thing is he could imitate any of them, and still add his own style - many times with a less is more approach with a strong "ONE!" - which matter how silent at times keeps the band together. Before the Dave Matthews Band recorded with Steve Lillywhite and RCA, their recordings were not in time in that a metronome was never used during recording and by inclusion he guessed: never. Going back to 1988, U2 released the album The Joshua Tree with Steve. To my knowledge, which I stress is NOT first hand, what Steve does is the simple yet really hard thing: teach teh band to play in time on a metronomic device. make that playing become so natural that the listener cannot tell whether the tempo is being set in the drummer's head or by a machine. Why do you think that Brian Eno had U2 locked away in the castle in the movie that stands as one of the best rock concert films ever recorded in both audio and video? He had to say: guys, you are on the tipping point, if you learn to play on a metronome, you will be considered great by the masses, one of you will be knighted and awarded a Nobel, if you continue to play "live" you will wind up in the Men at Work file - which is not a file in which you want to find your name. If "the Work" does a north-eastern United States wing of a tour may I suggest you call it the : Where The Hell Did *They* Go Tour 2008-2009. Self-deprecation is in. And guys: the hottest in both the abstract and in concert hall temperature (so I am told) in all of Canada is The Village People, including with the full band - the construction worker, the cowboy, the soldier, the biker and the native American. And, yes, the man with the unaccompanied baritone solo during "In The Navy," the motorcycle cop. But I digress. The lesson is: learn to *make friends with the metronome* - use the power to play live. Glenn Ballard is a producer from Canada with much the same philosophy: never let a click track or a metronome limit your creativity as a musician. Rather, use it during practice and rehearsal and listen to your playing to from amateurish to "that sounds like the record." And they even set the record straight (figuratively) - it was the *biker* who had the conception and idea for the melody of "Macho Man," the construction worker wrote all the bass and harmony sections. Lot of things to be learned in Canada.


Meanspeed-Carlton Summary
song title=Grey Street
special event=live from Central Park, September 2002
average standard/mean speed=104.1 beats per minute
mean-emotion according to the meanspeed music conjecture=comfort
beat frequency/mean-beat=1.735 beats per second
average beat/mean space=576 milliseconds per beat
mean slow phase=1.735 cycles per second
mean-pitch=444.160 Hertz, 17 cents above G#4/Ab4=415.305 Hertz, 83 cents below A4=440.000 Hertz



Ian Andrew Schneider
Meanspeed Music Company
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
August 20, 2008

(revised August 31, 2008)