Nearly eight years have passed since the last Simpsons CD compilation hit the stores. "It's hard to believe it's been that long," says composer Alf Clausen. "We figured the time is right for a new one. And as you might guess, we've collected of a lot of material to choose from." The Simpsons: Testify, which went on sale in late September, should satisfy even the most ardent fans. It features 41 previously unreleased tracks from the series, including four unaired bonus tracks. Yes, you can finally hear The B-52s signing "Glove Slap," Ricky Gervais singing "Lady," and Kelsey Grammer (as Sideshow Bob) singing the "Hullaba Lula" song--all in the privacy of your own home. Propeller's Stephen Head recently spoke with Clausen about the creation of Testify, what it takes to produce weekly orchestrations, and the upcoming season's most challenging musical episode.

Propeller: In putting together this new CD, what were the main things you took into consideration?

Alf Clausen: First of all, input from the fans. I like to read Internet bulletin board postings and stuff like that, to see what the fans really like and what they don't like.

Propeller: Which tracks in particular made the cut due to fan input?

Clausen: Oh, a lot of them. Everybody really loved the "My Fair Laddy" episode, a homage to My Fair Lady. They really liked "Glove Slap" with the B-52s and the "Everybody Hates Ned Flanders" medley with David Byrne. But the other fifty percent of it is that the songs have to have a certain length. There were some impressive bits that were deleted only because they were very, very short and they didn't hold up as cohesive songs.

Propeller: With these shorter pieces, did you feel that perhaps there was something extend? Or would you even consider composing a piece specifically for the CD?

Clausen: In many cases, the shorter bits included guest artists. And if we were to extend or rerecord something or do something new--well, it's difficult enough to get the artists to come in and do the recordings in the first place. It would require a lot of scheduling. But I'm happy with the choices we made for this.

Propeller: Do you have a particular favorite, something you're very excited about?

Clausen: One of my favorite pieces is "The Very Reason That I Live," where Kelsey Grammer is singing as Sideshow Bob. It's really impressive. I think he did such a perfect job capturing that "arch villain" aspect of the song. I love the sensitivity of it, and Kelsey sings it so beautifully, in a way I couldn't imagine it could be done.

Propeller: I assume you've worked with him many times in the past.

Clausen: He's been on the show for a while, but believe it or not, I've never had the chance to work directly with him. When he comes in to record his vocals, I'm busy composing the score for another episode and can't get away to the recording session. Most of the time, my music editor Chris Ledesma comes in and conducts the vocal sessions for me.

Propeller: Do you telecommute, or do you work in an office?

Clausen: I go in to record the score, but apart from that, I basically work at home. I have a detached studio at my house which I use as my office and my writing space. It's very private and quiet, and that's very helpful.

Propeller: The tracks by Ricky Gervais are fantastic. Can you discuss how they came about?

Clausen: This was one of those cases where the scriptwriters worked with Ricky and they came up with a set of lyrics. They had the framework, and then they gave Ricky carte blanche to do what he does. In the end, he came up with his own song and his own guitar playing--his own performance.

Propeller: Do you work closely with the lyricists? Are you working for them, or are they working for you?

Clausen: They lyrics are written by the scriptwriters. I know almost all of them personally, and work very closely with them. Sometimes I'll get to a point where, for example, I'll find that one phrase in stanza number one doesn't match up with the phrase in stanza number four. Or I'll call them and say, "You've got three syllables here and I need five." Then they'll do a little rewrite to match my phrasings. It's a very nice, collaborative process.


Propeller: Can you connect with them any time of day? Or do you have some non-Simpsons time set aside?

Clausen: [Laughs] Oh yes. I try to leave a little bit of time for myself, but it's very difficult. Normally when I'm composing, I start at about 9:00 in the morning and work until 10:00 at night, and I do that five days a week. On the sixth day I go to music spotting in the afternoon and record the music I've just composed in a 3-to-4-hour session, with a 35-piece orchestra. Sundays are off. Crash and burn time. And then on Mondays I start all over again.

Propeller: Do you have a regular group of musicians that you work with?

Clausen: The musicians are pretty much the same every week. And I'm so blessed to be able to work with the Los Angeles studio musicians because they're the best in the world. The depth of the talent pool is remarkable.

Propeller: What makes you happy about composing for The Simpsons?

Clausen: Well, it's a different kind of show. It's like no other, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not a household name, I'm not a household face. But there are those times when I go to the grocery store, and I hand the clerk my credit card, and he'll say very quietly, "I love the music you do on The Simpsons." Or I'll go to a pizza joint and hear the same thing. And I think, "Wow! What are the chances that this happens in life?"

Propeller: That's a nice way to connect. It might even happen if you're getting carded at a bar.

Clausen: [Laughs] Right!

Propeller: What can we look forward to musically in this coming season of The Simpsons?

Clausen: It's very hush-hush because we love the element of surprise. But I'll say there is one episode coming up where Homer injures his back. And while he's on the table at the hospital, they discover that Homer can sing opera. He becomes an opera singer. Placido Domingo is in the episode and it's pretty funny.

Propeller: You must have been excited when the writers sprang that story line on you.

Clausen: Well, opera is really not my world. I had to do some very quick research on the pieces that Homer sings, which I have to rerecord with my orchestra. So I was excited, but also a little panic-stricken.

Born and bred in Los Angeles, the 51-year-old Nels Cline is probably the best guitarist you've never heard of. In musical circles, he's been steadily building a reputation since the 1980s, when he began recording with Julius Hemphill, Vinny Golia, and Tim Berne. Like these bushwhacking artists, Cline has tended to dwell in the jazz hinterlands, where harmonic complexity meets pure noise. Yet he has also consorted with such diverse figures as Charlie Haden, Willie Nelson, and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. And all along, Cline has released a string of solo projects, of which the latest is Draw Breath.

Issued on Cryptogramophone earlier this summer, the disc brings back the leader's sparring partners from such earlier recordings as Instrumentals and The Giant Pin: Devin Hoff on bass and Scott Amendola on drums. By now they're a remarkably cohesive unit, equal parts dash and thrash. They're also adept at negotiating the mercurial textures of Cline's music, which defies easy description.

"Caved-In Heart Blues," for example, is not a blues. It begins with a ritualistic, thudding figure from Hoff and Amendola. The leader spells out a minimalist scrap of melody--like John Lee Hooker in a wistful mood--and we do seem to be moving toward the blues. Just then, however, the piece morphs into a cloud of acoustic guitar and processed noise. "Attempted" follows a similar flight plan, swerving from metallic jazz to out-of-tempo atmospherics in the blink of an eye (just to keep us on our toes, Cline makes his guitar sound like a Farfisa organ near the end). The only predictable thing about this music is its unpredictability.

Not that it always works. "An Evening At Pop's" is as varied as the rest of the pack, ladling out feedback, crazed looping, and a refreshingly humane arco solo from Hoff, but the noise-to-music ratio here may be too high for many a listener. The same thing goes for "Mixed Messages," where even Amendola's percussive bombardments fail to sustain nearly fifteen minutes of headbanging and whispery, wind-in-the-branches noodling.

To his credit, though, Cline knows how to vary the program. "Angel of Angels" and "Recognize I" find him in gentler territory, reminiscent of Bill Frisell (a comparison that must drive him crazy by now). "Squirrel of God" beefs up the ensemble--yep, they've added a glockenspiel--and the leader expands his own sonic palette, with some sawing noises that suggest he may be building a tree house.

For Cline, clearly, less is not always more: he thrives on excess. Yet Draw Breath is most effective when he stuffs his protean treats into smaller packages. In that sense, he might take a leaf from his current tenure with Wilco. Jeff Tweedy invited him to join the band in 2004, when they were touring behind A Ghost Is Born, and Cline has added a jolt to that great eclectic's musical universe. (As he told one interviewer, "I've kind of ramped up the noise factor on some of the older rock songs.") But it's also edifying to hear how the concision of traditional song form keeps Cline at the top of his game. Just check out his work on Sky Blue Sky--or this recent Wilco show taped at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. On a piece like "Impossible Germany," Cline retains much of his solo from the studio version, but adds pizzazz, ornament, extra raunch; on "Jesus, Etc." his pedal-steel fills float buoyantly in the background. Draw Breath is pure, undiluted Cline, and I'm grateful for it, yet the concentrated version is just as thrilling. A little dab will do you.

In May 1976, South African activist Steve Biko testified at the trial of nine of his colleagues, who were being charged with violating apartheid laws. At one point, the defense sought to clarify the origin of Biko's "Black Consciousness" movement, thinking this might help the accused. Like the American Black Power movement, Black Consciousness had been designed to combat demoralizing negative stereotypes.

Looking back to the previous decade, Biko recalled how he and his colleagues had decided that "they would no longer use the term Non-Whites, nor allow it to be used as a description of them, because they saw it as a negation of their being. They were being stated as 'non-something,' which implied that the standard was something and they were not that particular standard. They felt that a positive view to life, which is commensurate with the build-up of one's dignity and confidence, would be contained in a description which you accept, and they sought to replace the term Non-White with the term Black."

This simple tactic was remarkably effective in restoring some measure of personal dignity. It was the beginning of a process that led first to resistance, then to the Soweto uprising, and which eventually broke the back of apartheid in 1991.

On July 8, 2007, the opening day of the 98th annual NAACP convention, Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick presided over a mock funeral for the "N word." In the course of this ceremony, which included a horse-drawn casket, that controversial epithet was symbolically buried. The previous day, an identical ceremony took place in Houston. And back in April, on the heels of the Michael Richards and Imus fiascos, rap guru Russell Simmons called for a moratorium on the words "nigger," "bitch," and "ho" in songs played on the radio.

Even here at Netscape, we have software mechanisms to censor certain words. We've seen our users use them negatively toward others, and we want to do everything we can to ensure a consistently positive experience on our site.

The thing is: it isn't working. Not on our site, and not in society at large. Inappropriate verbal abuse continues to run rampant. Polemics abound, as we can see in the clip below from the 2007 Milken Institute Global Conference, and the NAACP and Russell Simmons weigh in, but nobody addresses the root of the problem: that we are all adults acting like spoiled, ill-mannered children. We need to stop. We need to reverse the tide.

Originally I had no plans to write about Richard Thompson's performance last night in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. I was attending the show as a civilian, with neither pen nor paper nor even a cell phone for a few handy, low-resolution photos. What's more, the heavens opened about five minutes into the show, driving much of the audience to seek shelter under trees, awnings, and about one thousand umbrellas. Surely this would be enough to dampen the spirits of any performer, let alone one like Thompson, who has spent the last four decades trying to expand his reach beyond an admittedly fanatic cult.

Instead, the 58-year-old singer, songwriter, and guitar virtuoso seemed eager to defy the elements. With the rain still sprinkling down and bolts of lighting going off like apocalyptic flashbulbs, he led his four-piece band through a consistently brilliant set. There were songs from Thompson's newest disc, Sweet Warrior, including a hypnotic take on "Sunset Song" and his rambunctious anti-war rocker, "Dad's Gonna Kill Me." But he also favored the audience with several gems from Shoot Out The Lights, the 1982 magnum opus he and Linda Thompson recorded as a husband-and-wife team. And toward the end of the show, Teddy Thompson clambered onstage for a ravishing duet performance of "Persuasion," which Thompson originally composed as an instrumental for soundtrack of the 1990 film Sweet Talker.

As usual, Thompson had a superb band in tow. A bassist whose name I didn't catch locked into one Olde English groove after another with drummer Michael Jerome. Peter Zorn, another Thompson mainstay, has turned into one of the great utility players in pop music, juggling acoustic guitar, mandolin, three saxophones (soprano, alto, baritone), and baritone flute--as well as supplying harmony vocals in a style I can only call lusty.

Still, it was during Thompson's solo performance of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" that I decided to write something about the concert after all. I've heard him play this showpiece--perhaps the only medieval motorcycle ballad in existence--many times, and his live versions invariably put the original recording (on the 1991 Rumor and Sigh) in the shade. But this version now made the other ones sound a little half-hearted. Thompson growled out the verses, ending each one on shivery low note. During the instrumental passages, he layered all sorts of polyrhythmic magic on top of his Merle-Travis-goes-Celtic bass line, and generally made it hard to believe there was only a single person playing. My ear, at least, was thoroughly fooled: there had to be a little orchestra up there, going through its silver-and-bronze routines. (Curious readers can download the performance, and indeed the entire show, here.)

Thompson is hardly the sole remnant of modern pop's Pleistocene era. There are many others, including Paul McCartney and Ray Davies, who have retained at least a shred of their ancient ambitions. But a Rolling Stones concert, for example, is largely a novelty act at this point--it's like seeing the last remaining Tasmanian Devil in captivity. Whereas Thompson, even as he approaches eligibility for Social Security and Medicare, is actually getting better. Is there another Sixties survivor, another wheezing titan, of whom this can be said?