Cambridge Common Restaurant Website

[plumtreeblossom]

First, click and listen:

http://www.cambridgecommonrestaurant.com/main.html

Just e-mailed:

Dear Manager and Dear Webmaster,

I feel a need to tell you that the song that auto-plays on your website is hands-down the worst song I've ever heard in any musical genre in my entire life. I'm glad it's possible to mute it while trying to read your website, but I hesitate at the idea of actually going to your restaurant for fear that "music" similar to this is what plays in your dining room. Your website would be much more usable and inviting without this noise that sounds like a cat in grand mal seizure accompanied by a 2-year-old on guitar.

I hope this song isn't representative of your dining room's ambient music, as I'm sure I would otherwise like to try dining in your establishment. I just don't want to have to bring earplugs.

Thanks,
-Mare

Comments

[ron_newman]

When performed properly by someone who actually understands music, I think it's supposed to sound like this.

(If you get an e-mail reply back from the restaurant, I'd love to read it.)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

See, I never would have guessed the song itself was a John Lee Hooker classic if you hadn't linked it, given how horribly slaughtered it is in the cover version. I don't know why they don't put the John Lee Hooker original on the website instead, or if royalty issues prevent that, at least get a listenable cover from any hobby-level basement band.

[ron_newman]

I just fed some of the lyrics into Google and came up with that. Result sure surprised me!

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Blues can be fantastic dining music, as Jay and I know from our beloved Firefly's in Quincy. But that cover version is definitely not blues, and I can't call it punk because it has no emotive edge or drive. It's not music, as far as I can tell.

WRT electric guitar playing, I know from experience that it takes about 5 minutes to teach someone two basic chords, and then about 10 minutes practice to be able to shift back and forth between them. That's not "playing" the guitar, it's just using it in more or less a percussive capacity. I have, with my own ears and eyes, witnessed pre-schoolers play student guitars with much more mastery.

As for the singing, I can't tell if it's a woman or an adolescent boy, but it either case they sound remarkably drunk and devoid of talent.

Poor John Lee Hooker.

[beowabbit]

Thanks for the link! I just bought a John Lee Hooker album with this song on it. (Sure is a far cry from the cover on that web site.)

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Much better, but -- I like to converse while dining, so would like to see the volume set on way low.

[ron_newman]

I fully agree. Recorded music in a restaurant (as opposed to live music) should always be background. Unless it's a real old-fashioned place with a jukebox.

[beowabbit]

Wow, that’s pretty awful! But it’s not the worst thing about that web site.

(1) Whole thing in Flash. That means, for instance, that I can’t link to the appetizers menu in a text message suggesting it to a friend I’m making plans with. Also means that the entire web site will not work at all for a large number of people — iPad and iPhone users, people on certain kinds of netbooks, people who have Flash turned off because it’s almost exclusively used for animated ads, etc.

(2) Whole thing in Flash. This means that the browser can’t adjust the font sizes. This means that if you have a super-high-resolution monitor, the web site is a tiny illegible postage stamp in the middle of your screen, but if you try to browse it on your phone (assuming your phone supports flash) you can only see a tiny fraction of the content and the site is basically unusable.

(3) Whole thing in Flash. As mentioned above, this means that people with low vision can’t increase the font size or adjust the contrast. It also means that people with no vision can’t use screen readers.

(4) Throbbing bitmaps with no antialiasing. When you hover over the logo on the front “page” (or what would be the front page if Flash supported linkable pages), the bitmap logo throbs. But it’s a bitmap, and each size is a bitmap. This produces really weird effects. I suspect that this problem is a side effect of the fact that you’re tempted to do dumb, pointless things with animation if, you know, the whole thing is in Flash.

(5) Whole thing in Flash. This means that after the Revolution, their web developers will all have been guillotined, and they won’t have anybody to maintain their site. Also, it means that after the Revolution, their web server and all their computers will have been seized and crushed, and they won’t have anything to run their web site on.

(6) Have I mentioned that the whole thing is in Flash?

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

You should send them this, love. Their email is on their "Contact" page (in Flash, of course). Especially the bit about the site being inaccessible to people using screen readers.

thorbol, you should say something too. Email me if you can't get their addy off the site.

[thorbol.livejournal.com]

Yeah, please send me that addy if you can. I did go there to listen yesterday, and don't think I was able to actually *read* anything.

I was too amused to be as horrified as you were when I listened. I was going to write to you that I might prefer that screeching musical mutation squared to the dull repetitive bit on www.ashmontgrill.com: it used to go on and on and on. That part has changed there, however. What has not changed is my complete inability to read the menu, though the method of unavailability did change.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

although I will note that the 'can't adjust the font sizes' is not entirely true - you can right-click on a pc, squiggle-click on a mac, to get 'zoom in' on flash sites, which does indeed allow you to make the fonts and everything larger.

[ron_newman]

On my mac, using Safari, command-+ (actually, command-=) will embiggen the fonts.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Somebody who isn't web savvy, who just wants to get something to eat, might not know that, though.

[marius23.livejournal.com]

While your points are all entirely valid for this website, I do feel compelled to point out that it is possible to create a decent site in Flash, including linkable pages and screen reader accessibility. However, it requires using both the proper tools and actually putting some effort into the design of the site, clearly neither of which have been done here.

Bwahahaha!

[taura-g.livejournal.com]

this noise that sounds like a cat in grand mal seizure accompanied by a 2-year-old on guitar

That is GREAT!!

[spacechicken.livejournal.com]

That song may be one of the most butchered blues songs ever. John Lee Hooker's version is the only one that should exist. The version on that website is hands down the worst one I've heard yet though.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Ron found the culprit. It's Margaret Doll Rod from Detroit, turning up about 25 years late to the glam rock party. No wonder she's naked on her album covers. She has nothing else to offer!

[ron_newman]

I bet our friend othniel77 would like her.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, yes! :-)

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

You have stated the case so eloquently that I beg permission to plagiarize it and adapt it so that the language fits any organization that aggravates me to a fare-thee-well -- for example supermarket, CVS store, storefront that leaks loud tacky music onto sidewalk, etc.
We need lots more public input to these companies about the nasty loud and obnoxious "music" which we are required to hear whether we like it or not.
Just last week I walked out of a rather nice restaurant in the North End because the not-too-bad Italian pop music was WAY too loud -- and I told them so!

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Feel free!

If a restaurant has music, I want it to go well with the cuisine or it ruins it. I once marched out of a PF Chang's because they were blasting country western music. If I'm in a Chinese restaurant, I want Chinese music of some sort. If I'm in an Italian restaurant, I want Italian music. But in any case, it can't be blasting loud. My days of shouting in nightclubs are over!

[ron_newman]

A little more research identifies the butcher of this song as Margaret Doll Rod, whoever she is, from Detroit.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Ugh! Hello 1995 website! (actually I think it dates to 2003, but it's still awful for 2003).

Glad the band is broken up, at least! :-)

[spatch]

Well, now.

That was... something, all right.

(I can assure you that Cambridge Common isn't all that bad a place, I've enjoyed beer and food there on many occasions and never remember the music being like that.)