Friday has come around again. Spring is playing coy - the temperatures jumping around from day to day, hour to hour, all accompanied by rain. Had some snow at the beginning of the week, but before the day was out the sun was up and the snow all gone. March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb, all on the same day. It's like that almost every day! Fun stuff.
Baseball is coming - about another week. All is close to being well.
And some music, to round off the week:
1. Pylon - Very Right
2. Steve Almas & Ali Smith - The Lonely Sea
3. Pixies - No. 13 Baby
4. Richard Thompson - Little Blue Number
5. Grinderman - Go Tell the Women
6. Syd Barrett - No Good Trying
7. Rage Against the Machine - Settle for Nothing
8. The Kinks - She's Got Everything
9. OOIOO - Asozan
10. Sonny Sharrock - Fourteen
And some video? Always the Pixies, no?
Audio only, but this naturally suggests itself: Sonny Sharrock:
And a lottle more work on YouTube, and I found what I really wanted - Sonny Sharrock live, 14:
Friday, March 25, 2016
Friday, March 18, 2016
Marching Forward
Spring is almost here - it's looking and feeling like spring - but for how long? IS there a snow storm on the horizon this weekend? ha ha ha - who knows? On the other hand - only a couple more weeks to baseball - there is always that!
All right - I don't have much more to say. Politics? the usual grim litany of stupidity, and President Obama tramping straight ahead as if he were president, while the idiots around him flail and flounder... There will be plenty of chances to lament the stupidity of the Republican party, so I will let that pass for now. Let's just do some music today.
1. The White Stripes - In the Cold Cold Night
2. Prince and the Revolution - New Position
3. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Tigers
4. Beck - Milk & Honey
5. Sleater Kinny - Funeral Song
6. The Strokes - Trying Your Luck
7. John Martyn - Don't Think Twice It's All Right
8. Tim Burgess - A Case of Vinyl
9. Ghost - Hanmiyau
10. My Bloody Valentine - Only Tomorrow
Video? In honor of yesterday's holiday - The Irish Rover, from the Pogues and the Dubliners:
And also: how about Beck?
And some MBV:
All right - I don't have much more to say. Politics? the usual grim litany of stupidity, and President Obama tramping straight ahead as if he were president, while the idiots around him flail and flounder... There will be plenty of chances to lament the stupidity of the Republican party, so I will let that pass for now. Let's just do some music today.
1. The White Stripes - In the Cold Cold Night
2. Prince and the Revolution - New Position
3. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Tigers
4. Beck - Milk & Honey
5. Sleater Kinny - Funeral Song
6. The Strokes - Trying Your Luck
7. John Martyn - Don't Think Twice It's All Right
8. Tim Burgess - A Case of Vinyl
9. Ghost - Hanmiyau
10. My Bloody Valentine - Only Tomorrow
Video? In honor of yesterday's holiday - The Irish Rover, from the Pogues and the Dubliners:
And also: how about Beck?
And some MBV:
Friday, March 11, 2016
The Slyest Rhymes and the Sharpest Suits
[well - Comcast manged to stop me from posting this this mogrning - but it's still Friday! And Smokey can bring as much happiness in the evening as the morning, right? So here we are.]
I'm in a complicated stretch of my band of the month series - Bowie last month, and one of these days I am going to have to essay Dylan - big, complicated artists that I have a somewhat uneasy relationship with, people I have been avoiding because they deserve attention, but I haven't always had the emotional or biographical connections I have with most fo these people. What can I say?
This month is not like that. This month I am going to write about a much more direct pleasure - the man I think might be the best songwriter of the rock era, and possessor of one of the best voices as well - Mr. William "Smokey" Robinson Jr. Sometimes, Motown artists can be victims of their own success - all over the radio, and the silly, oldies stations (when I was growing up - now, oldies are Nirvana and Ice Cube), trotted out during fundraiser week for PBS to do smile and mime some dance moves from 1962, covered by everybody, from Mick and Keef and Bob and Jerry down to every wedding band ever, all this repetition reducing the songs to pretty melodies and clever turns of phrase, and memories of the perfection of the original harmonies... You take it for granted. The Motown songs seem to suffer a bit more from this than, say, Stax Volt, or funk artists - maybe because they were prettier, smoother, slicker - maybe because the artists weren't as confrontational. (Do you ever take James Brown for granted? maybe as a celebrity - but now matter how many times you hear it, doesn't Sex Machine or Cold Sweat just bowl you over? right?) Maybe - they are slicker, a bit safer, a bit easier to absorb into nostalgia and sentimentality. Maybe.
I have to fight this, sometimes; not with Smokey though. All the things that made Motown's music great, he has - and he has himself, as well. His songs are just a little bit better (whether he sang them or someone else did): the melodies a bit more surprising, a bit more beautiful - and his words, always, sharp as the sharpest steel. Stories, emotions, atmosphere, he gets with great precision - it's not just the famous lines (when it's cold outside, I have the month of May), it's the gems buried in the middle of songs, not quite throwaways - most every taxi that you flag.... He's worthy of Cole Porter: she may be cute, she's just a substitute, because you are the permanent one... if good looks was a minute, you know you coulda been an hour... sweetness was only heartache's camouflage... in order to shield my pride I try to cover this hurt with a show of gladness... I've got so much honey the bees envy me...
They're good. And he had a voice to match. I won't say his is the best - Motown didn't lack for great voices - but he had an almost perfect voice for his songs. His high sweet falsetto, his emotionalism, his intimate tone, inhabit the songs, make them live. They are miniature dramas, carefully crafted, deeply felt, and performed with total conviction. And given musical settings worthy of them. I don't want to underrate the music. The records themselves are glorious - first rate musicians, brilliant arrangements, the sharp, clean production. All Motown records were spectacular productions, but the Miracles songs certainly. They are as memorable for the musical parts - the guitars on Tracks of My Tears (and many others, but that one is particularly famous); drum intro on Going to a Go Go - as as the vocals and words. Marv Tarplin, especially, was an integral part of the band, his guitars shaping many of their songs. They are sonic masterpieces.
And so it is. I can listen to Smokey all day and all night. For a top 10 - it's tempting to work in some of the songs he wrote for other people, but I won't (in this list). I will include some solo work.
1. Tracks of My Tears [there's not much better, anywhere.]
2. I Second that Emotion
3. Tears of a Clown
4. The Love I saw in you was Just a Mirage
5. Going to a Go Go
6. Cuisin'
7. Oooh Baby Baby
8. You've Really Got a Hold On Me
9. More Love
10. Shop Around
Video? It's harder to find good live video of the Miracles - the technology is more primitive, and good live television frm the early 60s is rare. And besides that - they were very much a recording act. It's hard to match their production on stage, and their sound depends, an awful lot, on their sound. That's true of quite a lot of the 60s acts - the Beatles certainly, the Stones even for a while (though they shifted gears with Beggar's Banquet, went back to a more live sound.) So these tend to be pantomime performances - but I think they give a good idea of what the Miracles were actually like live. The sounds, the look, the subtle choreography.... Here is a very cool run through of Tracks of My Tears, black and white minimalism:
And what might be an even more minimalist, cusp of the 70s abstract color set, for Tears of a Clown:
Here, on the other hand, while we still have a cool, minimalist set, we get Smokey and the band performing Second That Emoption live - no slouches:
From the 70s, here's Smokey solo, with Cruisin':
Meanwhile - to get in some of the material he wrote for other people - here are the Temptations, doing both My Girl & The Way You Do the Things You Do:
And the first Smokey Robinson song I remember hearing - Linda Ronstadt singing Tracks of My Tears, and doing complete justice to it. She had a pretty magnificent set of pipes herself, and knew how to get inside a song:
And finally, the source of the title of this post, ABC and Martin Fry's tribute to the great man - a pretty nifty song itself:
I'm in a complicated stretch of my band of the month series - Bowie last month, and one of these days I am going to have to essay Dylan - big, complicated artists that I have a somewhat uneasy relationship with, people I have been avoiding because they deserve attention, but I haven't always had the emotional or biographical connections I have with most fo these people. What can I say?
This month is not like that. This month I am going to write about a much more direct pleasure - the man I think might be the best songwriter of the rock era, and possessor of one of the best voices as well - Mr. William "Smokey" Robinson Jr. Sometimes, Motown artists can be victims of their own success - all over the radio, and the silly, oldies stations (when I was growing up - now, oldies are Nirvana and Ice Cube), trotted out during fundraiser week for PBS to do smile and mime some dance moves from 1962, covered by everybody, from Mick and Keef and Bob and Jerry down to every wedding band ever, all this repetition reducing the songs to pretty melodies and clever turns of phrase, and memories of the perfection of the original harmonies... You take it for granted. The Motown songs seem to suffer a bit more from this than, say, Stax Volt, or funk artists - maybe because they were prettier, smoother, slicker - maybe because the artists weren't as confrontational. (Do you ever take James Brown for granted? maybe as a celebrity - but now matter how many times you hear it, doesn't Sex Machine or Cold Sweat just bowl you over? right?) Maybe - they are slicker, a bit safer, a bit easier to absorb into nostalgia and sentimentality. Maybe.
I have to fight this, sometimes; not with Smokey though. All the things that made Motown's music great, he has - and he has himself, as well. His songs are just a little bit better (whether he sang them or someone else did): the melodies a bit more surprising, a bit more beautiful - and his words, always, sharp as the sharpest steel. Stories, emotions, atmosphere, he gets with great precision - it's not just the famous lines (when it's cold outside, I have the month of May), it's the gems buried in the middle of songs, not quite throwaways - most every taxi that you flag.... He's worthy of Cole Porter: she may be cute, she's just a substitute, because you are the permanent one... if good looks was a minute, you know you coulda been an hour... sweetness was only heartache's camouflage... in order to shield my pride I try to cover this hurt with a show of gladness... I've got so much honey the bees envy me...
They're good. And he had a voice to match. I won't say his is the best - Motown didn't lack for great voices - but he had an almost perfect voice for his songs. His high sweet falsetto, his emotionalism, his intimate tone, inhabit the songs, make them live. They are miniature dramas, carefully crafted, deeply felt, and performed with total conviction. And given musical settings worthy of them. I don't want to underrate the music. The records themselves are glorious - first rate musicians, brilliant arrangements, the sharp, clean production. All Motown records were spectacular productions, but the Miracles songs certainly. They are as memorable for the musical parts - the guitars on Tracks of My Tears (and many others, but that one is particularly famous); drum intro on Going to a Go Go - as as the vocals and words. Marv Tarplin, especially, was an integral part of the band, his guitars shaping many of their songs. They are sonic masterpieces.
And so it is. I can listen to Smokey all day and all night. For a top 10 - it's tempting to work in some of the songs he wrote for other people, but I won't (in this list). I will include some solo work.
1. Tracks of My Tears [there's not much better, anywhere.]
2. I Second that Emotion
3. Tears of a Clown
4. The Love I saw in you was Just a Mirage
5. Going to a Go Go
6. Cuisin'
7. Oooh Baby Baby
8. You've Really Got a Hold On Me
9. More Love
10. Shop Around
Video? It's harder to find good live video of the Miracles - the technology is more primitive, and good live television frm the early 60s is rare. And besides that - they were very much a recording act. It's hard to match their production on stage, and their sound depends, an awful lot, on their sound. That's true of quite a lot of the 60s acts - the Beatles certainly, the Stones even for a while (though they shifted gears with Beggar's Banquet, went back to a more live sound.) So these tend to be pantomime performances - but I think they give a good idea of what the Miracles were actually like live. The sounds, the look, the subtle choreography.... Here is a very cool run through of Tracks of My Tears, black and white minimalism:
And what might be an even more minimalist, cusp of the 70s abstract color set, for Tears of a Clown:
Here, on the other hand, while we still have a cool, minimalist set, we get Smokey and the band performing Second That Emoption live - no slouches:
From the 70s, here's Smokey solo, with Cruisin':
Meanwhile - to get in some of the material he wrote for other people - here are the Temptations, doing both My Girl & The Way You Do the Things You Do:
And the first Smokey Robinson song I remember hearing - Linda Ronstadt singing Tracks of My Tears, and doing complete justice to it. She had a pretty magnificent set of pipes herself, and knew how to get inside a song:
And finally, the source of the title of this post, ABC and Martin Fry's tribute to the great man - a pretty nifty song itself:
Friday, March 04, 2016
Such a Disgrace
Happy Friday, world. Super Tuesday is done, and Hillary Clinton seems a lot closer to nomination, and Donald "The Donald" Trump seems a bit closer to his, and both seem to bring out the stupid and the venal. I see people calling themselves "progressives" saying they will never vote for Clinton - I see memes pretending that Clinton won Super Tuesday back in 2008, and Obama came back (claims easily debunked: Wikipedia). And of courese the GOP has it almost as bad - serial losers are run out to call Donald Trump names, Donald Trump responds with his usual class and grace. On your knees boy! The Republicans are certainly mounting an entertaining, if ridiculous spectacle, though I wonder if presidential election is the best forum for that kind of thing.
Stil: bad as Trump is, and ridiculous as the rest of the GOP is, I don't fear them as much as I fear the Democratic response to this election. Trump makes a big noise, but in the end he's a Republican politician running to a shrinking slice of the American public - they don't really have the votes to win. which is why what really worries me are the "progressives" and such who insist they won't vote for Hillary under any circumstances. That, right there, is the problem in this country. If Democrats vote for Democrats, Democrats will win. If Democrats (or liberals, progressives, leftists, socialists, whatever they want to call themselves) see Donald Trump's name next to the R (or, really, anyone's name next to the R) and don't vote for the D - it is their fault. If people vote, the Democrats will win; if they don't, the Republicans win. There are more of us, but we don't always vote. It is that simple. It is our fault.
Enough: music...
1. X - Real Child of Hell
2. The Red Krayola - Farewell to Arms
3. Melvins - Bride of Crankenstein
4. Thompson Family - Careful
5. Rocket from the Tombs (Redux) - Ain't it Fun
6. Tool - Viganti Tres
7. The Dictators - The Next Big Thing
8. Interpol - Anything
9. Outkast - Stankonia
10. John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey - Is That All There Is?
Video: If we must have a Dictator from New York, can't it be Handsome Dick?
Should a theme be discerned? Real Child of Hell...
Take it away Cheetah:
Stil: bad as Trump is, and ridiculous as the rest of the GOP is, I don't fear them as much as I fear the Democratic response to this election. Trump makes a big noise, but in the end he's a Republican politician running to a shrinking slice of the American public - they don't really have the votes to win. which is why what really worries me are the "progressives" and such who insist they won't vote for Hillary under any circumstances. That, right there, is the problem in this country. If Democrats vote for Democrats, Democrats will win. If Democrats (or liberals, progressives, leftists, socialists, whatever they want to call themselves) see Donald Trump's name next to the R (or, really, anyone's name next to the R) and don't vote for the D - it is their fault. If people vote, the Democrats will win; if they don't, the Republicans win. There are more of us, but we don't always vote. It is that simple. It is our fault.
Enough: music...
1. X - Real Child of Hell
2. The Red Krayola - Farewell to Arms
3. Melvins - Bride of Crankenstein
4. Thompson Family - Careful
5. Rocket from the Tombs (Redux) - Ain't it Fun
6. Tool - Viganti Tres
7. The Dictators - The Next Big Thing
8. Interpol - Anything
9. Outkast - Stankonia
10. John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey - Is That All There Is?
Video: If we must have a Dictator from New York, can't it be Handsome Dick?
Should a theme be discerned? Real Child of Hell...
Take it away Cheetah:
Monday, February 29, 2016
Bernie Sanders for President
I have been writing some about politics, off and on, but now I want to be more plain. The Massachusetts primary is tomorrow, part of Super Tuesday - and the race is still open - not as open as it was in 2008, but still open. Another reason to be glad I'm a Democrat - the GOP nomination looks pretty well sealed up, and a horrifying nightmare it looks to be too! Donald Trump! Though truth is, it's hard to see anything about Trump that's any worse, or any different, than the rest of them. Maybe he says the racist stuff out loud - maybe he shrugs off the KKK rather than pretend to disavow them (and conjure up poor Robert Byrd, ex-klansman and Democrat - did you know he was a Democrat?) - but the policies and rhetoric is pretty much all the same over there. If anything, Trump seems to have some traits that are less horrible than the rest of them - not being willing to let people die in the streets, that kind of thing... Though his main characteristic is that he is a con man all the way down. Does he believe anything he says? does it matter? will he do any of the things he says he will, if he were somehow to get elected president? I don't know. I don't want to risk finding out. And he won't be running unopposed - we still get to vote against him!
So - I am a Democrat, and glad of it. And tomorrow I am going to vote for Bernie Sanders. I know Hillary Clinton is probably going to win in the end, and when she does, I will vote for her, with nary a complaint. And given what she's going to run against - I will vote for her with a good deal of enthusiasm. But that is still to come. For now, I still have a choice on the Democratic side, and I am taking Sanders. Why?
1. He is closer to the policies I want to see enacted. I know Clinton has moved to the left - but Sanders still has her beat there. The things I care about, he supports, and is more aggressive about: higher corporate taxes and higher top marginal income tax rates; more spending, on infrastructure and other job-creating projects. I want a better health care system, And he is more likely to push that farther. I want something done about sky-rocketing tuitions and student debt - he pushes that. something he talks about. He is less likely to support things like TPP - he is likely to be stronger on labor. He will push harder for minimum wage hikes - he will work to break up big banks and restore the kind of regulation that kept us from having these economic collapses every 10 years or so. He will work to improve Civil rights - for women, Blacks, gays - though I think Clinton will be just about as good on this. Truth is, Clinton won't be bad on most of these issues - he's just usually a bit better. And much better on some things (TPP, say.)
2. I can't deny there is some negativity to this. Hillary Clinton is maddening. I know that most of the things people attack her for are bullshit - Benghazi? no! shut up! But it's also hard to ignore what she has done. The money she's made - and who she's taken it from. And more than one of her political choices - supporting the Iraq war - there was no excuse for that in 2003, and no reason for Democrats to forget it now. we may have to forgive, move on - but we don't have to reward, or accept, the ones who voted for it. I also find the dynastic politics she's part of depressing. The Clintons are not fools - this is not the Bush family, getting dumber and more venal as you go down the years, but it's still annoying. And though she is smart and accomplished, in her own right, she is where she is because of Bill Clinton. And Bill? looking at his presidency now is a bit depressing - it was depressing then, and comparing him to Obama, it looks even worse. Health care, gays in the military, gay marriage - things Obama got and Clinton gave away. Welfare reform, deregulation of financial institutions - those are Clinton policies, and look what they got us. I know it isn't fair to blame Hillary for Bill's policies - but she was there too... All this - I said she was maddening: she is; Bill was. Because they are both so smart, such skilled politicians - and because they can talk as good a game as anyone. But they have always tended to tack to the center - tack to the machine. She still can't seem to understand that there are values outside of Washington and Wall Street - or maybe, that there are values outside the machine that are, in fact,opposed to the machine. It drives me crazy.
3. So what about electibility? It's a big topic this winter - will Americans vote for someone who calls himself a Socialist? It's a bugaboo word for the Republicans - they will run against it with all their might. But there are two things about that - the first is - they hate socialists, but they aren't too fussy about who they accuse of being a socialist. They've been calling Obama a socialist since day one - Obama? they'll call Hillary a socialist as soon as they will Bernie. Socialism is an insult - it doesn't mean anything. They have emptied it of meaning, and it's quite possible that no one cares about it any more. I don't know if it will be such a drawback.
The second point, and this is the big one - the GOP may hate reds - but they really hate Hillary Clinton. I can see it, in my crazy tea bagger cousins and moron friends, they are just itching to go after Clinton. They are doing it now - attacking her relentlessly, to the point that they half endorse Sanders sometimes. I am not sure if they don't hate her more than they hate Obama - at least, they have been practicing hating her since 1992. Obama, in the end, is just a black guy - Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton.
And one more point on this subject: I think this election will be determined by turnout. Get 60% of the voters to vote and the Democrat will win. Get under 50% - and look into the job market in Toronto. And there - Clinton will be able to control the party machinery more, and their GOTV efforts. But the Democrats are horrible at getting people to vote - that's the biggest single reason for the trouble this country is in now. Those 40% mid-terms. Here - I think Sanders inspires people - they will come out; Clinton - might get people out, but I think there is more danger of Democrats shrugging the election off if she is there. I hope not - but I suspect it will be more of a challenge to get people out...
So - those are my reasons for voting Sanders. I wish he could win, I suppose - I don't expect him to be able to. I can live with Clinton. I think, in the end, whichever of them wins the Democratic nomination will, in fact, win the presidency: Trump might do more to get out the Democratic vote than anything any Democrat can do. But I think even Trump is overrated as an electoral force - parties matter more than people. We are in an age of extreme party discipline - a fact the Republicans seem to have figured out, and the Democrats have been slower to adopt. Of course it serves the Republican's interests more than it serves the Dems' - deadlock is easy in the American system, with all its checks and balances. And deadlock helps the GOP - they can make government ineffective if they refuse to govern. They make government ineffective, then run on government's ineffectiveness. They work to make people cynical about government, about elections - so they don't vote. Because - they do not want people to vote. The fewer votes the better for them.
Look at the controversy over replacing Scalia: the GOP is counting on the idea that by making the system not work people will give up on the system. Now - that could backfire - there's a pretty good chance it will - the Democrats might be able to use this issue, if they try. But the GOP plan is clear enough. (Of course, if Obama were to take them up on it, and not nominate anyone - they would run against that, right? Sometimes, they seem to be daring him to rule by fiat - they've come pretty close the last couple years: doing nothing - forcing him to govern by executive action for the country to continue to function - and of course, running against his attempts to keep things going.)
I could go on. I will stop. I will end though by saying - the odds are good nothing much is going to happen until the 2020s. The GOP will hold the house - it would be almost impossible to get it away from them (they won a strong majority in 2012, despite getting several million fewer votes, for House seats, than the Democrats) - and they can continue to paralyze the government. It makes the election a strange one: Sanders and Clinton can talk a good game, but how much will they be able to do? Not a lot - how will they operate in that environment? I suppose it's another reason to vote for Bernie - he seems less likely to compromise and make deals with people who won't compromise or make deals. Clinton might try - which will end up being nothing but unilateral giveaways, because until the GOP breaks in half - which might well be coming, sooner or later - they will not pass anything.
And what happens if Trump wins? I am not sure - the GOP is organized around refusing to govern - they have had it easy the last 7 years. If they controlled government - they might try to finish the place off once and for all (that is, steal everything left over from the last time the fools ran the place), or get involved in a land war somewhere (invade Mexico? you know - wars certainly stimulate the economy). Or - they might collapse into posturing and incompetence and - god knows what could happen. Nothing good. Let's not do that, right?
So - I am a Democrat, and glad of it. And tomorrow I am going to vote for Bernie Sanders. I know Hillary Clinton is probably going to win in the end, and when she does, I will vote for her, with nary a complaint. And given what she's going to run against - I will vote for her with a good deal of enthusiasm. But that is still to come. For now, I still have a choice on the Democratic side, and I am taking Sanders. Why?
1. He is closer to the policies I want to see enacted. I know Clinton has moved to the left - but Sanders still has her beat there. The things I care about, he supports, and is more aggressive about: higher corporate taxes and higher top marginal income tax rates; more spending, on infrastructure and other job-creating projects. I want a better health care system, And he is more likely to push that farther. I want something done about sky-rocketing tuitions and student debt - he pushes that. something he talks about. He is less likely to support things like TPP - he is likely to be stronger on labor. He will push harder for minimum wage hikes - he will work to break up big banks and restore the kind of regulation that kept us from having these economic collapses every 10 years or so. He will work to improve Civil rights - for women, Blacks, gays - though I think Clinton will be just about as good on this. Truth is, Clinton won't be bad on most of these issues - he's just usually a bit better. And much better on some things (TPP, say.)
2. I can't deny there is some negativity to this. Hillary Clinton is maddening. I know that most of the things people attack her for are bullshit - Benghazi? no! shut up! But it's also hard to ignore what she has done. The money she's made - and who she's taken it from. And more than one of her political choices - supporting the Iraq war - there was no excuse for that in 2003, and no reason for Democrats to forget it now. we may have to forgive, move on - but we don't have to reward, or accept, the ones who voted for it. I also find the dynastic politics she's part of depressing. The Clintons are not fools - this is not the Bush family, getting dumber and more venal as you go down the years, but it's still annoying. And though she is smart and accomplished, in her own right, she is where she is because of Bill Clinton. And Bill? looking at his presidency now is a bit depressing - it was depressing then, and comparing him to Obama, it looks even worse. Health care, gays in the military, gay marriage - things Obama got and Clinton gave away. Welfare reform, deregulation of financial institutions - those are Clinton policies, and look what they got us. I know it isn't fair to blame Hillary for Bill's policies - but she was there too... All this - I said she was maddening: she is; Bill was. Because they are both so smart, such skilled politicians - and because they can talk as good a game as anyone. But they have always tended to tack to the center - tack to the machine. She still can't seem to understand that there are values outside of Washington and Wall Street - or maybe, that there are values outside the machine that are, in fact,opposed to the machine. It drives me crazy.
3. So what about electibility? It's a big topic this winter - will Americans vote for someone who calls himself a Socialist? It's a bugaboo word for the Republicans - they will run against it with all their might. But there are two things about that - the first is - they hate socialists, but they aren't too fussy about who they accuse of being a socialist. They've been calling Obama a socialist since day one - Obama? they'll call Hillary a socialist as soon as they will Bernie. Socialism is an insult - it doesn't mean anything. They have emptied it of meaning, and it's quite possible that no one cares about it any more. I don't know if it will be such a drawback.
The second point, and this is the big one - the GOP may hate reds - but they really hate Hillary Clinton. I can see it, in my crazy tea bagger cousins and moron friends, they are just itching to go after Clinton. They are doing it now - attacking her relentlessly, to the point that they half endorse Sanders sometimes. I am not sure if they don't hate her more than they hate Obama - at least, they have been practicing hating her since 1992. Obama, in the end, is just a black guy - Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton.
And one more point on this subject: I think this election will be determined by turnout. Get 60% of the voters to vote and the Democrat will win. Get under 50% - and look into the job market in Toronto. And there - Clinton will be able to control the party machinery more, and their GOTV efforts. But the Democrats are horrible at getting people to vote - that's the biggest single reason for the trouble this country is in now. Those 40% mid-terms. Here - I think Sanders inspires people - they will come out; Clinton - might get people out, but I think there is more danger of Democrats shrugging the election off if she is there. I hope not - but I suspect it will be more of a challenge to get people out...
So - those are my reasons for voting Sanders. I wish he could win, I suppose - I don't expect him to be able to. I can live with Clinton. I think, in the end, whichever of them wins the Democratic nomination will, in fact, win the presidency: Trump might do more to get out the Democratic vote than anything any Democrat can do. But I think even Trump is overrated as an electoral force - parties matter more than people. We are in an age of extreme party discipline - a fact the Republicans seem to have figured out, and the Democrats have been slower to adopt. Of course it serves the Republican's interests more than it serves the Dems' - deadlock is easy in the American system, with all its checks and balances. And deadlock helps the GOP - they can make government ineffective if they refuse to govern. They make government ineffective, then run on government's ineffectiveness. They work to make people cynical about government, about elections - so they don't vote. Because - they do not want people to vote. The fewer votes the better for them.
Look at the controversy over replacing Scalia: the GOP is counting on the idea that by making the system not work people will give up on the system. Now - that could backfire - there's a pretty good chance it will - the Democrats might be able to use this issue, if they try. But the GOP plan is clear enough. (Of course, if Obama were to take them up on it, and not nominate anyone - they would run against that, right? Sometimes, they seem to be daring him to rule by fiat - they've come pretty close the last couple years: doing nothing - forcing him to govern by executive action for the country to continue to function - and of course, running against his attempts to keep things going.)
I could go on. I will stop. I will end though by saying - the odds are good nothing much is going to happen until the 2020s. The GOP will hold the house - it would be almost impossible to get it away from them (they won a strong majority in 2012, despite getting several million fewer votes, for House seats, than the Democrats) - and they can continue to paralyze the government. It makes the election a strange one: Sanders and Clinton can talk a good game, but how much will they be able to do? Not a lot - how will they operate in that environment? I suppose it's another reason to vote for Bernie - he seems less likely to compromise and make deals with people who won't compromise or make deals. Clinton might try - which will end up being nothing but unilateral giveaways, because until the GOP breaks in half - which might well be coming, sooner or later - they will not pass anything.
And what happens if Trump wins? I am not sure - the GOP is organized around refusing to govern - they have had it easy the last 7 years. If they controlled government - they might try to finish the place off once and for all (that is, steal everything left over from the last time the fools ran the place), or get involved in a land war somewhere (invade Mexico? you know - wars certainly stimulate the economy). Or - they might collapse into posturing and incompetence and - god knows what could happen. Nothing good. Let's not do that, right?
Friday, February 26, 2016
Friday Music and Miscellany
Friday, time for some songs before we start the last day of the week. Work and all that. Yuck.
No politics this week, not here - because I hope to get up a more substantial post before Tuesday, when my state gets to vote. More to come there.
How about the weather? an odd winter - last week was the champion here, going from -7 or so Sunday morning to 55 Tuesday, but this week has continued. Nights in the 20s sometimes, one day getting up to low 30s, the next to the 60s, with a big noisy overnight thunderstorm Wednesday night. Didn't seem to do much harm near me, but raised hell other places. Up in Vermont, say, where quite a few of my family live - rains, floods, mud. No fun.
Let us take comfort. Spring is coming - spring training is coming, which is even better! Pablo Sandoval does not appear to have gone hungry over the winter; Yoenis Cespedes was able to find round waffles! Spring is coming...
And now, music.
1. The Byrds - I Come and Stand at Every Door
2. Pixies - Blue Eyed Hexe
3. Bill Frisell 858 Quartet - All the People, All the Time
4. Neil Diamond - Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon
5. Rolling Stones - The Lantern
6. At the Drive In - Raschuache
7. REM - Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
8. Consonant - Little Murders
9. Meat Puppets - Fly Like the Wind
10. Violent Femmes - Prove my Love
Video? That's a nice set of tunes - too many choices, right? Violent Femmes don't come up enough on these lists so here you go:
And maybe some latter day Pixies?
And finally - Brother Neil, in 1967:
No politics this week, not here - because I hope to get up a more substantial post before Tuesday, when my state gets to vote. More to come there.
How about the weather? an odd winter - last week was the champion here, going from -7 or so Sunday morning to 55 Tuesday, but this week has continued. Nights in the 20s sometimes, one day getting up to low 30s, the next to the 60s, with a big noisy overnight thunderstorm Wednesday night. Didn't seem to do much harm near me, but raised hell other places. Up in Vermont, say, where quite a few of my family live - rains, floods, mud. No fun.
Let us take comfort. Spring is coming - spring training is coming, which is even better! Pablo Sandoval does not appear to have gone hungry over the winter; Yoenis Cespedes was able to find round waffles! Spring is coming...
And now, music.
1. The Byrds - I Come and Stand at Every Door
2. Pixies - Blue Eyed Hexe
3. Bill Frisell 858 Quartet - All the People, All the Time
4. Neil Diamond - Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon
5. Rolling Stones - The Lantern
6. At the Drive In - Raschuache
7. REM - Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
8. Consonant - Little Murders
9. Meat Puppets - Fly Like the Wind
10. Violent Femmes - Prove my Love
Video? That's a nice set of tunes - too many choices, right? Violent Femmes don't come up enough on these lists so here you go:
And maybe some latter day Pixies?
And finally - Brother Neil, in 1967:
Monday, February 22, 2016
Verdun
100 years ago, yesterday as it happened, the Battle of Verdun began. It began with 10 hours of artillery, followed by infantry attacks by the Germans, and it continued for the rest of the year. (And in some form, for most of the rest of the war.) The German's hope was that they could inflict great damage on the French through artillery, and by making modest attacks, that threatened Verdun itself (or more accurately, the ring of forts around Verdun), could draw the French into counterattacks that would exhaust the French reserves. It didn't quite work - the French held up better than the German's hoped, so the Germans were forced to attack more than they wanted, so took more casualties than they'd expected. Casualties ended up being relatively close between the two armies. (About 5 to 4, not 2 to 1 that the Germans had hoped for.) Still, it was a bloodbath, though not the worst of the war - the Somme, the Brusilov offensive on the Eastern front, were both bloodier, as was the fighting in 1914, when both sides were fighting on open ground. Verdun was a battle of forts and artillery - and endless grinding down of both sides. The French army survived, thwarting the Germans' hope that they would collapse; but by the end of 1916, the French army had been ground down fearfully (they lost more men in both 1914 and 1915 than they did in 1916), and were in danger - when another pointless attack failed in 1917, they started to come apart. The Germans, meanwhile, were still strong - though after this, they turned their strategy on the Western Front to pure defense, and set out to win the war in the east first.
And like so much of the fighting of WWI, it was a horrific experience - constant artillery pounding, living underground and in trenches, the whole world turned to churned up mud, full of dead bodies (human and animal), everything else - plants, trees, buildings, leveled and gone - for months at a time. It probably comes closest to our conception of the Great War - endless pounding trench warfare, a constant grind, with no end in sight, and little purpose to be seen. And, like most of WWI, looking back on it, it's hard to figure out what possessed the generals to try it. They really thought that would work? or accomplish anything? I suppose in the long run, this kind of war did accomplish what it hoped to - wore down the combatants to the point where they lacked the men and material to withstand attacks, assuming the other side got a fresh injection of men and material. That happened in both directions in 1918 - the Germans brought men from Russia and launched a very successful attack on the Allies, that wasn't strong enough to win the war. Then the Allies added Americans and their machines to their side and launched an even more successful attack on the even more exhausted Germans. Killing millions of people is a pretty bad way ot getting to that point, though.
And like so much of the fighting of WWI, it was a horrific experience - constant artillery pounding, living underground and in trenches, the whole world turned to churned up mud, full of dead bodies (human and animal), everything else - plants, trees, buildings, leveled and gone - for months at a time. It probably comes closest to our conception of the Great War - endless pounding trench warfare, a constant grind, with no end in sight, and little purpose to be seen. And, like most of WWI, looking back on it, it's hard to figure out what possessed the generals to try it. They really thought that would work? or accomplish anything? I suppose in the long run, this kind of war did accomplish what it hoped to - wore down the combatants to the point where they lacked the men and material to withstand attacks, assuming the other side got a fresh injection of men and material. That happened in both directions in 1918 - the Germans brought men from Russia and launched a very successful attack on the Allies, that wasn't strong enough to win the war. Then the Allies added Americans and their machines to their side and launched an even more successful attack on the even more exhausted Germans. Killing millions of people is a pretty bad way ot getting to that point, though.
Friday, February 19, 2016
Friday Music, Honey dripping Beehive Edition
Slow to get to this - Friday music time! I am happy to announce that Ringo and I have made it all the way through Out 1 - the cat might not have been quite as attentive as I was...
But here we are. And now? Randomly selected songs, listed for no particular reason except perhaps to remind me of things I like:
1. Son Volt - Cocaine and Ashes
2. John Coltrane - Greensleeves
3. Cibo Matto - Beef Jerky
4. Bob Dylan - Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
5. Warlocks - Thursday's Radiation
6. Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey
7. Mission of Burma - Man in Decline
8. Jimi Hendrix - Little Miss Strange
9. Arcade Fire - Modern Man
10. Meat Puppets - Liquified
Video: it's so good, so good...
Maybe Cibo Matto - a horse's ass is better than yours!
But here we are. And now? Randomly selected songs, listed for no particular reason except perhaps to remind me of things I like:
1. Son Volt - Cocaine and Ashes
2. John Coltrane - Greensleeves
3. Cibo Matto - Beef Jerky
4. Bob Dylan - Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
5. Warlocks - Thursday's Radiation
6. Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey
7. Mission of Burma - Man in Decline
8. Jimi Hendrix - Little Miss Strange
9. Arcade Fire - Modern Man
10. Meat Puppets - Liquified
Video: it's so good, so good...
Maybe Cibo Matto - a horse's ass is better than yours!
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Best Films of 2015
I am much later getting this posted than usual. I usually try to force myself to do it right at the beginning of the year - but there are always films coming out in January that should be under consideration, so it's always tempting to wait a bit. And when you wait a couple days to get Carol in, it's easier to wait another week for Revenant, and another for Son of Saul - and before you know it, it's February. And then your copy of Out 1 arrives, and that is what you do for a week or two. And yes, I know, I'm lazy. But here we are.
Was it a good year for film? Not bad. Lots of good films - maybe not so much obviously magnificent. I've felt that way the last couple years - no lack of enjoyable, intelligent films - but not as many that jump out to grab you. Maybe it's me - maybe it's the industry, turning into television, where even the good stuff gets flattened out somehow. Changes in technology and distribution and viewing habits and the critical environment all might be leading to a world of smaller feeling, more modest films. It feels like it's been that way for a while - I'm not sure there are any films from the 2010s that would make a top 10 of the 2000s. I don't know. This is the kind of thing that can shift very quickly - something can click, and a host of films I thought were nice and accomplished could look like masterpieces. I can't separate perception from what I am perceiving here. And I know this can follow my viewing habits - and I have become rather complaisant about seeing films, not chasing down titles in every special series the way I have. That can change too. So leave it. It's not like it's a bad thing - a world of reliably enjoyable and moving films is not a world to complain about.
And so? the films, cut a couple ways. First - things released in 2015, whatever their age:
1. Winter Sleep
2. The Look of Silence
3. The Forbidden Room
4. The Assassin
5. Phoenix
6. Adieu au Langage
7. Tangerine
8. The Clouds of Sils Maria
9. About Elly
10. The Wolfpack
11. Taxi
12. Jauju
13. Youth
14. Carol
15. The Big Short
16. Diary of a Teenaged Girl
17. Son of Saul
18. The Tribe
19. The Revenant
20. Bridge of Spies
21. Mustang
22. What We Do In the Shadows
23. The Hateful 8
24. Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll
25. Grandma
Made in 2015 - a first cut:
1. The Look of Silence
2. The Forbidden Room
3. The Assassin
4. Tangerine
5. The Wolfpack
6. Taxi
7. Youth
8. Carol
9. The Big Short
10. Diary of a Teenaged Girl
And to take the chance to look back a year - what about 2014? This is what I posted at the end of the year:
1. Boyhood
2. Grand Budapest Hotel
3. The Babadook
4. Inherent Vice
5. The Rover
6. Love is Strange
7. Mr. Turner
8. Citizenfour
9. Force Majeure
10. Cavalry
And this is the tally now:
1. Boyhood
2. Winter Sleep
3. Grand Budapest Hotel
4. Phoenix
5. Babadook
6. Adieu au Langage
7. Inherent Vice
8. Clouds of Sils Maria
9. Leviathan
10. The Rover
11. Mr. Turner
12. Love is Strange
13. Juaju
14. Two Days, One Night
15. Citizen Four
16. Actress
17. Force Majeure
18. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
19. The Tribe
20. What We Do In the Shadows
21. Don't think I've Forgotten
22. Cavalry
23. Selma
24. 20,000 Days on Earth
25. 99 Homes
Was it a good year for film? Not bad. Lots of good films - maybe not so much obviously magnificent. I've felt that way the last couple years - no lack of enjoyable, intelligent films - but not as many that jump out to grab you. Maybe it's me - maybe it's the industry, turning into television, where even the good stuff gets flattened out somehow. Changes in technology and distribution and viewing habits and the critical environment all might be leading to a world of smaller feeling, more modest films. It feels like it's been that way for a while - I'm not sure there are any films from the 2010s that would make a top 10 of the 2000s. I don't know. This is the kind of thing that can shift very quickly - something can click, and a host of films I thought were nice and accomplished could look like masterpieces. I can't separate perception from what I am perceiving here. And I know this can follow my viewing habits - and I have become rather complaisant about seeing films, not chasing down titles in every special series the way I have. That can change too. So leave it. It's not like it's a bad thing - a world of reliably enjoyable and moving films is not a world to complain about.
And so? the films, cut a couple ways. First - things released in 2015, whatever their age:
1. Winter Sleep
2. The Look of Silence
3. The Forbidden Room
4. The Assassin
5. Phoenix
6. Adieu au Langage
7. Tangerine
8. The Clouds of Sils Maria
9. About Elly
10. The Wolfpack
11. Taxi
12. Jauju
13. Youth
14. Carol
15. The Big Short
16. Diary of a Teenaged Girl
17. Son of Saul
18. The Tribe
19. The Revenant
20. Bridge of Spies
21. Mustang
22. What We Do In the Shadows
23. The Hateful 8
24. Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll
25. Grandma
Made in 2015 - a first cut:
1. The Look of Silence
2. The Forbidden Room
3. The Assassin
4. Tangerine
5. The Wolfpack
6. Taxi
7. Youth
8. Carol
9. The Big Short
10. Diary of a Teenaged Girl
And to take the chance to look back a year - what about 2014? This is what I posted at the end of the year:
1. Boyhood
2. Grand Budapest Hotel
3. The Babadook
4. Inherent Vice
5. The Rover
6. Love is Strange
7. Mr. Turner
8. Citizenfour
9. Force Majeure
10. Cavalry
And this is the tally now:
1. Boyhood
2. Winter Sleep
3. Grand Budapest Hotel
4. Phoenix
5. Babadook
6. Adieu au Langage
7. Inherent Vice
8. Clouds of Sils Maria
9. Leviathan
10. The Rover
11. Mr. Turner
12. Love is Strange
13. Juaju
14. Two Days, One Night
15. Citizen Four
16. Actress
17. Force Majeure
18. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
19. The Tribe
20. What We Do In the Shadows
21. Don't think I've Forgotten
22. Cavalry
23. Selma
24. 20,000 Days on Earth
25. 99 Homes
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Scalia Dead
Been a year of obituaries this year, and here's another big one - Justice Antonin Scalia, dead at 79. It is a big deal - both because of the political situation, and because of who and what he was. It's harder to write about him than it might be about some others in a similar place - you have to respect the human being, with their families and friends, and we are all mortal, etc. - but he was a towering political figure, and how do you not acknowledge that? And politically, he has done as much harm to this country as any single human being in the last 30 years. And did it while being a pretty vile human being - letting his freak flag fly more than once... Yet - he was also a towering figure: the defining figure for modern conservatism, really - I can consider him a villain, and I do, but he was a remarkable villain. He was more Nixon or Andrew Jackson than Reagan or Little George Bush. Alito and Thomas are probably worse - Alito particularly might be the real heart of darkness on that court, the one whoever seems to have a flash of decency, the way Roberts and Scalia, and even Thomas, occasionally come across with. But Alito is invisible, compared to Scalia... In latter years, he seemed to start enjoying that rather much - like I say, letting his freak flag fly. Making himself the story - reveling in playing the villain (for the left), the hero for the right. He was interesting, even if he was infuriating.
All right. Supreme Court Justices serve for life - and in a tightly contested and fractious time such as ours, they are unlikely to resign - the odds are good the only ones to leave will be the ones to die. I don't want to root for people to die, or celebrate when people die - I would much prefer they find a better way of rotating through the court than waiting for old men and women to die... But the fact is, having him off the court makes the country a better place. There will be a terrible fight over his replacement - the Republican candidates are already suggesting that Obama leave the place empty - a comically absurd idea, though I suppose they have to say something like that... Still - while we are unlikely to get my first choice as a replacement, we are likely to get someone who will slide the country back to the left, some, a bit, enough. So - let's not kid ourselves: this isn't an obit I particularly mind posting. Yeah, it would be nice if he decided to retire to spend his dotage writing memoirs and making the talk show rounds - but getting him off the court is all good.
And - you know: when you die, all you have left is the legacy of what you did while you were alive. And he did evil. So - there you go.
All right. Supreme Court Justices serve for life - and in a tightly contested and fractious time such as ours, they are unlikely to resign - the odds are good the only ones to leave will be the ones to die. I don't want to root for people to die, or celebrate when people die - I would much prefer they find a better way of rotating through the court than waiting for old men and women to die... But the fact is, having him off the court makes the country a better place. There will be a terrible fight over his replacement - the Republican candidates are already suggesting that Obama leave the place empty - a comically absurd idea, though I suppose they have to say something like that... Still - while we are unlikely to get my first choice as a replacement, we are likely to get someone who will slide the country back to the left, some, a bit, enough. So - let's not kid ourselves: this isn't an obit I particularly mind posting. Yeah, it would be nice if he decided to retire to spend his dotage writing memoirs and making the talk show rounds - but getting him off the court is all good.
And - you know: when you die, all you have left is the legacy of what you did while you were alive. And he did evil. So - there you go.
Friday, February 12, 2016
I Never Wave Bye Bye
This month's band of the month has to be David Bowie.
It's hard to know what to write. Truth is, David Bowie has always been a bit of a Problem for me. (You have to pronounce it - Problem.) I like Bowie - I always liked Bowie. As long as I listened to music and thought about who was singing it, Bowie was there, and I liked him - Fame and Golden Years were on the charts when I started listening to the top 40, some of the first songs I took special notice of. But when I was young, he was always just a singer on the radio; when I got older - he didn't seem to translate as well into my new tastes. That is strange - in the 80s, I was listening to the Velvets and U2 and Joy Division - inspirations for or inspired by Bowie - you would think he would have been more part of my obsessions. Maybe he was too much a pop star - and in the 80s, that's definitely part of it. I was into punk, and he embraced a much more mainstream kind of pop just then. Maybe I just took him for granted for a while. In any case it changed - I started to listen to the things I liked in high school, and then I dug into his back catalogue a bit, and then I really re-embraced Bowie - but always in a way I found hard to explain.
I think some of it was his his image - the calculation, the imagery, the way the imagery could obscure the music. I was young - maybe I was more impressed by "authenticity" back then. There's irony here - I reacted against musicians who asked you to hear with your eyes, like Bowie and Nick Cave, someone I probably should have liked when I first heard him - and so listened with my eyes, and discounted music I should have loved. That changed, later - maybe I became less puritanical, or maybe I started appreciating their attention to image. It all looks rather silly now. Last month I went on about AC/DC's simplicity and directness, AC/DC and their allies in unpretentiousness, the Ramones, Motorhead, The Feelies, the Stooges. But really: all of those bands (even the Feelies, who come the closest to seeming to be a bunch of people playing what they want to hear) are almost as calculated as Bowie. Obviously, The Ramones and the Stooges - and almost as obviously AC/DC (a show business family, who worked through glam and other styles to arrive at what are essentially Chuck Berry tunes played in a modern style) - all of them calculated, all of them with their costumes and personae, costumes sometimes only arrived at after some experimentation.... None of them are much more natural than the Thin White Duke. The main difference between Joey Ramone or Lemmy and Ziggy Stardust is that The Ramones found something good to do, and perfected it, purified it, used the persona to make beautiful music, and Bowie made up something new a year or so later (Halloween Jack, right?), and off he went. What Bowie perfected was change itself. Or performance itself: the act of inventing a self, a persona through which to sing.
The truth is, I can probably trace the change to my full on adoration of films that began for real in the 90s - and there's no doubt that my appreciation for Bowie the musician has been encouraged by my appreciation for Bowie the actor. Film certainly helps reveal any kind of art as a complete art - music as music, performance, appearance, and so on. I like the imagery around people like Bowie and Cave - maybe not as much as I love their music - but I find their look, their attention to the look, their way of presenting themselves, the act of performing, very compelling. I could get into something about presentational vs. representational art here - though that's going to take us down another rabbit hole. (But it's a rabbit hole I can't help think about, with Jacques Rivette's death, and the arrival of that Out 1 box...) We can say this: David Bowie is the king of the Presentational Rock Star - he's not just performing the songs, he's performing the performance of the songs. Using the performance, and the personae, to shape the meaning of the music as well. And to keep you attentive to the intelligence shaping the songs - creating their meaning. Nothing is pure; everything is art.
That's fine with me. And here is the thing: it has been hard for me to think about how to write about Bowie - hard for me sometimes to say to myself exactly how much I liked him, as a musician, as a artist, as a persona. But when he died there was no doubt. It was shocking, almost, what a sense of loss I felt. His death left a hole in the world, larger than I imagined. It's as though he was too elusive to pin down when he was alive, too many different things to get a clear idea of what he was - but taking him out of the world, you can suddenly see all the things he touched. What didn't he touch?
I don't want writing about his image to take away from the power of his music. With any musician, sooner or later it comes down to the songs - and he wrote extraordinary songs. He was an extraordinary singer. He made extraordinary music. And his music was as protean as his image. Record after record, once he hit his stride, he rolled them out for ages - great songs, great performances, impeccable productions, records designed carefully, with a sound, a look, a style, complete packages - and record after record reinvents his sound, his style, the songs, the words, the tone, the emphasis. And the performances of the music changed as well - in this age of YouTube you can pick a song, and trace his performances through the years, and see how flexible he could be. Everything can change - the music, the arrangements, the style, the instrumentation - his voice, his inflections, his performance. He didn't just change his look, constantly - he changed the sound, the style, everything. He reinvented everything, over and over, and all of it brilliant. He had help - he worked with musicians as inventive and brilliant as himself, from Tony Visconti to Mick Ronson to Carlos Alomar to Adrian Belew and Robert Fripp to Stevie Ray Vaughan - and on and on. The music always warped around his collaborators, who steered Bowie through all those changes. Which brings us to another of his virtues, and the virtues of his constant evolution - he was always open to his surroundings, always absorbing other influences, other people's ideas, always finding ways to bring those things out through his music. His partnerships with other musicians, his interest in other arts - books, films, other music, his interest in the world. He absorbed everything and gave it back to us.
All right then - the songs. A top 10 - not an easy set of choices, but it never is.
1. Heroes - which is, by the way, one of the Best of Them All. That's probably a fairly common opinion, but it's still true - one of the Great Songs.
2. Panic in Detroit
3. Fame
4. Modern Love
5. Rebel, Rebel
6. Ziggy Stardust
7. Golden Years
8. Suffragette City
9. Lazarus
10. The Man Who Sold the World
I have to post this - with Adrian Belew on guitar. I've posted it before, and will again.
Panic in Detroit, live, with imperfectly matched live footage:
Golden Years, mid 80s performance:
Not on my list, but here's Belew wailing on Stay, ca 1990:
A rocky version fo Modern Love:
And finally, Lazarus, from his last record - a devastating goodbye, this:
It's hard to know what to write. Truth is, David Bowie has always been a bit of a Problem for me. (You have to pronounce it - Problem.) I like Bowie - I always liked Bowie. As long as I listened to music and thought about who was singing it, Bowie was there, and I liked him - Fame and Golden Years were on the charts when I started listening to the top 40, some of the first songs I took special notice of. But when I was young, he was always just a singer on the radio; when I got older - he didn't seem to translate as well into my new tastes. That is strange - in the 80s, I was listening to the Velvets and U2 and Joy Division - inspirations for or inspired by Bowie - you would think he would have been more part of my obsessions. Maybe he was too much a pop star - and in the 80s, that's definitely part of it. I was into punk, and he embraced a much more mainstream kind of pop just then. Maybe I just took him for granted for a while. In any case it changed - I started to listen to the things I liked in high school, and then I dug into his back catalogue a bit, and then I really re-embraced Bowie - but always in a way I found hard to explain.
I think some of it was his his image - the calculation, the imagery, the way the imagery could obscure the music. I was young - maybe I was more impressed by "authenticity" back then. There's irony here - I reacted against musicians who asked you to hear with your eyes, like Bowie and Nick Cave, someone I probably should have liked when I first heard him - and so listened with my eyes, and discounted music I should have loved. That changed, later - maybe I became less puritanical, or maybe I started appreciating their attention to image. It all looks rather silly now. Last month I went on about AC/DC's simplicity and directness, AC/DC and their allies in unpretentiousness, the Ramones, Motorhead, The Feelies, the Stooges. But really: all of those bands (even the Feelies, who come the closest to seeming to be a bunch of people playing what they want to hear) are almost as calculated as Bowie. Obviously, The Ramones and the Stooges - and almost as obviously AC/DC (a show business family, who worked through glam and other styles to arrive at what are essentially Chuck Berry tunes played in a modern style) - all of them calculated, all of them with their costumes and personae, costumes sometimes only arrived at after some experimentation.... None of them are much more natural than the Thin White Duke. The main difference between Joey Ramone or Lemmy and Ziggy Stardust is that The Ramones found something good to do, and perfected it, purified it, used the persona to make beautiful music, and Bowie made up something new a year or so later (Halloween Jack, right?), and off he went. What Bowie perfected was change itself. Or performance itself: the act of inventing a self, a persona through which to sing.
The truth is, I can probably trace the change to my full on adoration of films that began for real in the 90s - and there's no doubt that my appreciation for Bowie the musician has been encouraged by my appreciation for Bowie the actor. Film certainly helps reveal any kind of art as a complete art - music as music, performance, appearance, and so on. I like the imagery around people like Bowie and Cave - maybe not as much as I love their music - but I find their look, their attention to the look, their way of presenting themselves, the act of performing, very compelling. I could get into something about presentational vs. representational art here - though that's going to take us down another rabbit hole. (But it's a rabbit hole I can't help think about, with Jacques Rivette's death, and the arrival of that Out 1 box...) We can say this: David Bowie is the king of the Presentational Rock Star - he's not just performing the songs, he's performing the performance of the songs. Using the performance, and the personae, to shape the meaning of the music as well. And to keep you attentive to the intelligence shaping the songs - creating their meaning. Nothing is pure; everything is art.
That's fine with me. And here is the thing: it has been hard for me to think about how to write about Bowie - hard for me sometimes to say to myself exactly how much I liked him, as a musician, as a artist, as a persona. But when he died there was no doubt. It was shocking, almost, what a sense of loss I felt. His death left a hole in the world, larger than I imagined. It's as though he was too elusive to pin down when he was alive, too many different things to get a clear idea of what he was - but taking him out of the world, you can suddenly see all the things he touched. What didn't he touch?
I don't want writing about his image to take away from the power of his music. With any musician, sooner or later it comes down to the songs - and he wrote extraordinary songs. He was an extraordinary singer. He made extraordinary music. And his music was as protean as his image. Record after record, once he hit his stride, he rolled them out for ages - great songs, great performances, impeccable productions, records designed carefully, with a sound, a look, a style, complete packages - and record after record reinvents his sound, his style, the songs, the words, the tone, the emphasis. And the performances of the music changed as well - in this age of YouTube you can pick a song, and trace his performances through the years, and see how flexible he could be. Everything can change - the music, the arrangements, the style, the instrumentation - his voice, his inflections, his performance. He didn't just change his look, constantly - he changed the sound, the style, everything. He reinvented everything, over and over, and all of it brilliant. He had help - he worked with musicians as inventive and brilliant as himself, from Tony Visconti to Mick Ronson to Carlos Alomar to Adrian Belew and Robert Fripp to Stevie Ray Vaughan - and on and on. The music always warped around his collaborators, who steered Bowie through all those changes. Which brings us to another of his virtues, and the virtues of his constant evolution - he was always open to his surroundings, always absorbing other influences, other people's ideas, always finding ways to bring those things out through his music. His partnerships with other musicians, his interest in other arts - books, films, other music, his interest in the world. He absorbed everything and gave it back to us.
All right then - the songs. A top 10 - not an easy set of choices, but it never is.
1. Heroes - which is, by the way, one of the Best of Them All. That's probably a fairly common opinion, but it's still true - one of the Great Songs.
2. Panic in Detroit
3. Fame
4. Modern Love
5. Rebel, Rebel
6. Ziggy Stardust
7. Golden Years
8. Suffragette City
9. Lazarus
10. The Man Who Sold the World
I have to post this - with Adrian Belew on guitar. I've posted it before, and will again.
Panic in Detroit, live, with imperfectly matched live footage:
Golden Years, mid 80s performance:
Not on my list, but here's Belew wailing on Stay, ca 1990:
A rocky version fo Modern Love:
And finally, Lazarus, from his last record - a devastating goodbye, this:
Friday, February 05, 2016
Snowy Friday Random Ten
Another week in the books. One without any famous artists dying - which counts as a triumph this year. It is looking like a good weekend to be on the earth - snow! normal snow, it seems - 5-8 inches, wet and sloppy sure - but after last year, there's almost relief in getting just a regular winter snow storm. And - really, it's not supposed to be crowding 60 this time of year in Boston... Even better, the Coen brothers are back - Hail Caesar on the big screens! Always good. Sooner or later, the mails will bring me that big Rivette set - soon! soon!
I may even finally get around to writing my 2015 end of the year post. The way films come out, it's very tempting to wait a bit longer, until one more thing comes out - but I guess it's time. Expect it soon.
And, of course, the primary season is now officially underway. The Iowa caucuses are in the books, with the usual scramble to turn whatever happens there into a useful narrative. So - Trump falters! Little Marco Rubio surges! Hillary and Bernie tie and - what does that mean? Sanders on the rise? Clinton on the wane? or Clinton still winning, even in the places where Sanders can concentrate all his efforts? they all say all of that. Twitter is ugly - but we should take a deep breath and remember (as Matt Yglesias, cited here on Balloon Juice, says): "most Democrats like both Clinton and Sanders." Even the candidates seem aware of this, as their remarks (cited on another Balloon Juice post) about picking VPs attest. This is the time to try to get your favorite in - as long as everyone unites and votes in the fall for one of those two.
And so? Music:
1. The Feelies - Raised Eyebrows (live)
2. The Byrds - Pretty Boy Floyd (live)
3. Lou Reed - White Light/White Heat (live)
4. Six Organs of Admittance - Attar
5. Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box
6. Flaming Lips - Aquarius Sabotage
7. Highrise - Sadame [turning into a very feedback heavy Friday]
8. Bloc Party - Letter to my Son
9. White Stripes - Passive Manipulation
10. PJ Harvey - Man Sized
And video? got some find options today, huh? Feelies are always a good place to start:
Here's Lou, with some old English guy singing along...
And Roger McGuinn and Marty Stuart playing Pretty Boy Floyd; this is not a Bernie Sanders campaign ad, though maybe it should be:
I may even finally get around to writing my 2015 end of the year post. The way films come out, it's very tempting to wait a bit longer, until one more thing comes out - but I guess it's time. Expect it soon.
And, of course, the primary season is now officially underway. The Iowa caucuses are in the books, with the usual scramble to turn whatever happens there into a useful narrative. So - Trump falters! Little Marco Rubio surges! Hillary and Bernie tie and - what does that mean? Sanders on the rise? Clinton on the wane? or Clinton still winning, even in the places where Sanders can concentrate all his efforts? they all say all of that. Twitter is ugly - but we should take a deep breath and remember (as Matt Yglesias, cited here on Balloon Juice, says): "most Democrats like both Clinton and Sanders." Even the candidates seem aware of this, as their remarks (cited on another Balloon Juice post) about picking VPs attest. This is the time to try to get your favorite in - as long as everyone unites and votes in the fall for one of those two.
And so? Music:
1. The Feelies - Raised Eyebrows (live)
2. The Byrds - Pretty Boy Floyd (live)
3. Lou Reed - White Light/White Heat (live)
4. Six Organs of Admittance - Attar
5. Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box
6. Flaming Lips - Aquarius Sabotage
7. Highrise - Sadame [turning into a very feedback heavy Friday]
8. Bloc Party - Letter to my Son
9. White Stripes - Passive Manipulation
10. PJ Harvey - Man Sized
And video? got some find options today, huh? Feelies are always a good place to start:
Here's Lou, with some old English guy singing along...
And Roger McGuinn and Marty Stuart playing Pretty Boy Floyd; this is not a Bernie Sanders campaign ad, though maybe it should be:
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette has died. He was 87, and apparently has been suffering from Alzheimers disease for the past few years - I had heard he was ill, and so am not surprised. Still; saddened. The news come the day after I finally finished paying my 88 pounds for the new Out 1 collection - unfortunately, before this object crossed the ocean to my front door, so I can't spend the next week watching it... But it is coming...
He is One of the Great Ones. I haven't posted any kind of list of favorite directors lately, but if I did, he would be up there - top 10 somewhere. I came to him late - most of my favorites I discovered in the mid and late 90s, when I started watching films obsessively. I saw some Rivette in that period, but didn't see enough until 2007, when I saw a whole series - that immediately elevated him to his place among the greats. I do remember when I first heard about him - when La Belle Noiseuse came out - that was before I was an obsessive filmgoer, and the main thing I remember about it is that it was a very French film about a painter that had some actress naked for 3 hours. Some time after that, probably around 1998 or 99, I finally saw a Rivette - Haut Bas Fragile - by that time I had become an obsessive filmgoer, I knew who Jacques Rivette was, in a general sense (historically), and had seen some films obviously influenced by him - Pascal Bonitzer's Encore, possibly, or some of the Assayas or Desplechins films that call Rivette to mind... I liked it - quite a bit in fact, though I don't know if I could have explained it at the time. Later, Va Savoir got a bit of an American release, and I saw that in the theaters. And I tried renting the Story of Marie and Julian, though the DVD copy I got was damaged and I missed the opening 15 minutes or so of the film - which made it even more incomprehensible... Though still enjoyable. I liked Va Savoir very much - liked The Story of Marie and Julian well enough. It meant that Rivette had gone into that pile of directors whose films are just too hard to see - so you have to wait for your chance and take it.
That's what happened: the HFA booked a whole run of his films, and I went to see them, starting with Paris Belongs to Us, the Nun and Celine and Julie Go Boating - and those three were enough to put him in the pantheon, and then I saw Out 1: Spectre and L'Amour Fou and Jeanne la Poucelle and La Belle Noiseuse - and that settled it. They all hit me hard - you can see the comments from back when I wrote about films I saw, at the Rivette link - his films, once I saw them clean like that, really hit the sweet spot. All those doubles and old houses and games and plays and lost manuscripts - that stuff fascinates me; the structural games - but also the sense of play, invention, imagination in his films. Their playful postmodernism - if I had been able to see Paris Belongs to Us in 1993 or so, I would have saved a lot of time. Back when I was reading Pynchon and Barth and Gaddis and McElroy and Queneau and DeLillo, and reading about them - it struck me when I saw the film how well it matched them. Like Lookout Cartridge or V, with its mystery plot, lack of resolution, the lost artists and artifacts, the shadiness of the whole thing, the way it comes apart and gels into something sinister at the same time. Seeing it, it felt like something I had been waiting to see - and then I saw Celine and Julie and the short Out 1, and those were even more perfect. They bring in the other great thread in his work - the making of art, of theater, or sometimes music, painting, etc. But especially theater, since it is art as collaboration, as invention and exploration, and as acting things out. Maybe most of all, he gave us a view of art as play. That convinced me. That series, and his films, changed how I saw films, and probably how I saw the world.
It is sad that there will be no more Rivette films - though given what I still haven't seen (the three titles in the Arrow set I just bought, mainly - Out 1: Noli Me Tangere, Duelle and Pont Du Nord), I have plenty to look forward to - and more, his films have a kind of inexhaustibility that makes rewatching them as surprising as watching them. The ones Ive managed to buy never disappoint, and I keep noticing more to them, more twists and ideas and details. And more - his films have been immensely satisfying, intellectually - but they are also, always, exceptionally entertaining. They are full of pleasures, like early Godard, as well as depth and thought. He was one of my favorites, and will be missed.
Work, pleasures and mysteries:
He is One of the Great Ones. I haven't posted any kind of list of favorite directors lately, but if I did, he would be up there - top 10 somewhere. I came to him late - most of my favorites I discovered in the mid and late 90s, when I started watching films obsessively. I saw some Rivette in that period, but didn't see enough until 2007, when I saw a whole series - that immediately elevated him to his place among the greats. I do remember when I first heard about him - when La Belle Noiseuse came out - that was before I was an obsessive filmgoer, and the main thing I remember about it is that it was a very French film about a painter that had some actress naked for 3 hours. Some time after that, probably around 1998 or 99, I finally saw a Rivette - Haut Bas Fragile - by that time I had become an obsessive filmgoer, I knew who Jacques Rivette was, in a general sense (historically), and had seen some films obviously influenced by him - Pascal Bonitzer's Encore, possibly, or some of the Assayas or Desplechins films that call Rivette to mind... I liked it - quite a bit in fact, though I don't know if I could have explained it at the time. Later, Va Savoir got a bit of an American release, and I saw that in the theaters. And I tried renting the Story of Marie and Julian, though the DVD copy I got was damaged and I missed the opening 15 minutes or so of the film - which made it even more incomprehensible... Though still enjoyable. I liked Va Savoir very much - liked The Story of Marie and Julian well enough. It meant that Rivette had gone into that pile of directors whose films are just too hard to see - so you have to wait for your chance and take it.
That's what happened: the HFA booked a whole run of his films, and I went to see them, starting with Paris Belongs to Us, the Nun and Celine and Julie Go Boating - and those three were enough to put him in the pantheon, and then I saw Out 1: Spectre and L'Amour Fou and Jeanne la Poucelle and La Belle Noiseuse - and that settled it. They all hit me hard - you can see the comments from back when I wrote about films I saw, at the Rivette link - his films, once I saw them clean like that, really hit the sweet spot. All those doubles and old houses and games and plays and lost manuscripts - that stuff fascinates me; the structural games - but also the sense of play, invention, imagination in his films. Their playful postmodernism - if I had been able to see Paris Belongs to Us in 1993 or so, I would have saved a lot of time. Back when I was reading Pynchon and Barth and Gaddis and McElroy and Queneau and DeLillo, and reading about them - it struck me when I saw the film how well it matched them. Like Lookout Cartridge or V, with its mystery plot, lack of resolution, the lost artists and artifacts, the shadiness of the whole thing, the way it comes apart and gels into something sinister at the same time. Seeing it, it felt like something I had been waiting to see - and then I saw Celine and Julie and the short Out 1, and those were even more perfect. They bring in the other great thread in his work - the making of art, of theater, or sometimes music, painting, etc. But especially theater, since it is art as collaboration, as invention and exploration, and as acting things out. Maybe most of all, he gave us a view of art as play. That convinced me. That series, and his films, changed how I saw films, and probably how I saw the world.
It is sad that there will be no more Rivette films - though given what I still haven't seen (the three titles in the Arrow set I just bought, mainly - Out 1: Noli Me Tangere, Duelle and Pont Du Nord), I have plenty to look forward to - and more, his films have a kind of inexhaustibility that makes rewatching them as surprising as watching them. The ones Ive managed to buy never disappoint, and I keep noticing more to them, more twists and ideas and details. And more - his films have been immensely satisfying, intellectually - but they are also, always, exceptionally entertaining. They are full of pleasures, like early Godard, as well as depth and thought. He was one of my favorites, and will be missed.
Work, pleasures and mysteries:
Friday, January 29, 2016
Volunteers of America
Friday again - here I was about to write that we'd finally made it through a week without any famous musicians dying, when I read that Paul Kantner has died. I suppose he is less iconic than the others who've passed this year, but not that much less iconic - or maybe, more indissociable from his band. I can't deny that the Jefferson Starship became something horrible in the 80s, but how many bands didn't? (And I suppose the worst of it came after Kantner took Jefferson away from them.) Still - the Jeffersons weren't necessarily the first rank of rock bands, but they were big - they were important - and at their best, they were damned good. Airplane or Starship. Though I have to admit - Marty Balin is my favorite...)
Up against the wall, motherfuckers! Ah, for the days when politics was serious and people wrote interesting songs about them... Now? we get dimwit moochers occupying bird sanctuaries, for some reason... And a presidential race between the sensible party and the extremely silly party. Though the sensible party has been misbehaving more and more as we close in on the actual voting. I see more and more from both Bernie and Hillary supporters abusing the other - to hear their opponents talk, only hacks support Clinton, and only bros support Sanders. Bernie's a dreamer! Hillary's a Republican! Bernie's a communiss! Hillary's rich! I guess it's normal. I worry about the few - mostly on the Sanders side, I am sorry to say - who say they will never vote for Clinton - that is an attitude I can't accept. Whatever you think of Clinton, or either one of them - the Democrats have to win the White House for the sake of the country. Go listen to Donald Trump a while. No. Parties matter, more than the people probably. In officem there probably isn't a dime's worth of difference between Sanders and Clonton: there's a Goldman Sachs bonus check's difference between either one of them and the sanest Republican.
Speaking of Republicans - I will outsource commentary to Edroso I think.
Enough. Music it is! Random Ten!
1. Mahavishnu Orchestra - You Know, You Know
2. The Velvet Underground - What Goes On (live)
3. The Kills - Gypsy Death and You
4. Madonna - Beautiful Stranger
5. Little Feat - Crazy Captain Gunboat Willie
6. Sex Pistols - No Feelings
7. REM - Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)
8. Spirit - Morning Will Come
9. Fairport Convention - Doctor of Physick
10. Blood Brothers - Burn, Piano Island Burn
And again, for Paul Kantner - by favorite Airplane song, written by Kantner and Balin:
Something soothing from the Blood Brothers:
And the Kills:
Up against the wall, motherfuckers! Ah, for the days when politics was serious and people wrote interesting songs about them... Now? we get dimwit moochers occupying bird sanctuaries, for some reason... And a presidential race between the sensible party and the extremely silly party. Though the sensible party has been misbehaving more and more as we close in on the actual voting. I see more and more from both Bernie and Hillary supporters abusing the other - to hear their opponents talk, only hacks support Clinton, and only bros support Sanders. Bernie's a dreamer! Hillary's a Republican! Bernie's a communiss! Hillary's rich! I guess it's normal. I worry about the few - mostly on the Sanders side, I am sorry to say - who say they will never vote for Clinton - that is an attitude I can't accept. Whatever you think of Clinton, or either one of them - the Democrats have to win the White House for the sake of the country. Go listen to Donald Trump a while. No. Parties matter, more than the people probably. In officem there probably isn't a dime's worth of difference between Sanders and Clonton: there's a Goldman Sachs bonus check's difference between either one of them and the sanest Republican.
Speaking of Republicans - I will outsource commentary to Edroso I think.
Enough. Music it is! Random Ten!
1. Mahavishnu Orchestra - You Know, You Know
2. The Velvet Underground - What Goes On (live)
3. The Kills - Gypsy Death and You
4. Madonna - Beautiful Stranger
5. Little Feat - Crazy Captain Gunboat Willie
6. Sex Pistols - No Feelings
7. REM - Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)
8. Spirit - Morning Will Come
9. Fairport Convention - Doctor of Physick
10. Blood Brothers - Burn, Piano Island Burn
And again, for Paul Kantner - by favorite Airplane song, written by Kantner and Balin:
Something soothing from the Blood Brothers:
And the Kills:
Friday, January 22, 2016
Already Gone
Another Friday, another 70s era rock star gone. I can't pretend that Glenn Frey compared to Lemmy or David Bowie, but I would also be lying if I denied his importance in my life. The Eagles were the first records I ever bought - Life in the Fast Lane single (not Glenn Frey, though - Joe Walsh), then Hotel California itself. Not long after, I added their greatest hits - and for a year or so, listened to them, quite a lot. And then? my friends and relations were more Kiss or Aerosmith fans, so that's who I listened to more - then I discovered Styx, and though that's hardly a huge step forward, for me, it served as an invitation to more - what? AOR rock? I guess. Better anyway: it wasn't long before I was listening to Led Zeppelin and the Who - real music...
The Eagles went on their way, and I laughed at them with everyone else. But still - they weren't half bad. That isn't high praise - and if you want an honest critical opinion of them, at this late date - sure: they come off like a third or fifth generation copy of Untitled era Byrds - mushy country inflected rock-pop, catchy enough, but without a lot of character, smug and professional to a fault.... But they still aren't half bad. Even watered down Byrds is pretty good, and they were undeniably talented - they could play, they could sing, they wrote some songs that get in your head and don't come out - songs that come close enough to being great song as not to matter. So - no: I can't love the Eagles, or ever not snicker a bit at them - but I also can't help but like more of their songs that I care to admit. They aren't half bad.
And finally - whatever else the Eagles did, they were inspiration for the best TV show I saw last year. That might not sound so impressive if I admit I only watched 2 new TV series all year (Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange, and Documentary Now!) - but still. The Blue Jean Committee episode of Documentary Now was really fantastic - parodying that California soft rock sound, but gentle and soft - parody that doesn't deny its pleasures, and gets all the little details - the look, the sound, the gaps between the musicians' roots and their ultimate sound, or their on and off stage personalities - all that stuff. It's fantastic. Playing around with all the sources - The Eagles and the Band, the Byrds (the singers being named Gene and Clark might be a hint), all the west coast bands (no matter where they might actually be from), from CCR to America to Poco, to Martin Scorsese, VH-1, Spinal Tap - all in an hour of television. And it's mix of mockery and affection - well - that's not far from how I feel about the Eagles now. They're a bit of a joke - but they're also pretty damned good.
And so? we need a list - so here's what Genius gives me from the only Eagles song I have on iTunes:
1. Eagles - Hotel California
2. CCR - Up Around the Bend
3. Steve Miller Band - Fly Like an Eagle
4. Beatles - The Long and Winding Road
5. Bruce Springsteen - Hungry Heart
6. Beach Boys - Good Vibrations
7. Pink Floyd - Us and THem
8. Rolling Stones - Ruby Tuesday
9. Led Zeppelin - Good Times, Bad Times
10. Neil Young - The Needle and the Damage Done
Here they are trying to rock out - actually, no - this is a heck of a song:
And from 74 - James Dean - a low down bad refrigerator... I'm not sure what James Dean ever did to deserve this, but still...
And Mojo Nixon's thoughts on the Eagles' legacy:
And here's America with Gene Allen (Fred Armisen) from the Blue Jean Committee...
The Eagles went on their way, and I laughed at them with everyone else. But still - they weren't half bad. That isn't high praise - and if you want an honest critical opinion of them, at this late date - sure: they come off like a third or fifth generation copy of Untitled era Byrds - mushy country inflected rock-pop, catchy enough, but without a lot of character, smug and professional to a fault.... But they still aren't half bad. Even watered down Byrds is pretty good, and they were undeniably talented - they could play, they could sing, they wrote some songs that get in your head and don't come out - songs that come close enough to being great song as not to matter. So - no: I can't love the Eagles, or ever not snicker a bit at them - but I also can't help but like more of their songs that I care to admit. They aren't half bad.
And finally - whatever else the Eagles did, they were inspiration for the best TV show I saw last year. That might not sound so impressive if I admit I only watched 2 new TV series all year (Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange, and Documentary Now!) - but still. The Blue Jean Committee episode of Documentary Now was really fantastic - parodying that California soft rock sound, but gentle and soft - parody that doesn't deny its pleasures, and gets all the little details - the look, the sound, the gaps between the musicians' roots and their ultimate sound, or their on and off stage personalities - all that stuff. It's fantastic. Playing around with all the sources - The Eagles and the Band, the Byrds (the singers being named Gene and Clark might be a hint), all the west coast bands (no matter where they might actually be from), from CCR to America to Poco, to Martin Scorsese, VH-1, Spinal Tap - all in an hour of television. And it's mix of mockery and affection - well - that's not far from how I feel about the Eagles now. They're a bit of a joke - but they're also pretty damned good.
And so? we need a list - so here's what Genius gives me from the only Eagles song I have on iTunes:
1. Eagles - Hotel California
2. CCR - Up Around the Bend
3. Steve Miller Band - Fly Like an Eagle
4. Beatles - The Long and Winding Road
5. Bruce Springsteen - Hungry Heart
6. Beach Boys - Good Vibrations
7. Pink Floyd - Us and THem
8. Rolling Stones - Ruby Tuesday
9. Led Zeppelin - Good Times, Bad Times
10. Neil Young - The Needle and the Damage Done
Here they are trying to rock out - actually, no - this is a heck of a song:
And from 74 - James Dean - a low down bad refrigerator... I'm not sure what James Dean ever did to deserve this, but still...
And Mojo Nixon's thoughts on the Eagles' legacy:
And here's America with Gene Allen (Fred Armisen) from the Blue Jean Committee...
Friday, January 15, 2016
Ain't No Need of Crying
Happy Friday. Not very happy, is it? Somehow, the bad new from the entertainment world keeps coming - before people got over the shock of David Bowie's death, we're faced with Alan Rickman's. I wish he'd played Sherlock Holmes somewhere - he was this generations Basil Rathbone, and ought to have gotten a shot at Rathbone's most famous role. Alas. He was mind-bogglingly good in a lot of film - too few of which had anything else going for them. He stole most of them, even the good ones, without seeming ruffled in it - what can you say. He'll be missed.
Well - miserable news that is, but the world goes on. It's a Friday, and we need some music. So - randomize! time to randomize!
1. Warren Zevon - Accidentally Like a Martyr
2. Gomez - Song in My Heart
3. Kings of Leon - Dusty
4. Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Hammer Song
5. Sleater Kinney - Not What You Want
6. The Bards - My Generation
7. Rance Allen - Ain't No Need of Crying
8. PJ Harvey - Happy and Bleeding
9. PJ Harvey - Working for the Man (where did the randomizer go wrong? though Polly Jean is a welcome place to stick, I suppose)
10. Red Krayola - The Story So Far
And some Video? How about Rickman as Rathbone in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves? These seem to be deleted scenes - though it makes you wonder why they didn't delete all the scenes with Costner and just make a Sheriff of Nottingham movie. Rickman's all I remember from it...
Such as - Call off Christmas!
And some music - here's Warren Zevon:
And how about Rance Allen, because there ain't no need of crying when it's raining:
Well - miserable news that is, but the world goes on. It's a Friday, and we need some music. So - randomize! time to randomize!
1. Warren Zevon - Accidentally Like a Martyr
2. Gomez - Song in My Heart
3. Kings of Leon - Dusty
4. Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Hammer Song
5. Sleater Kinney - Not What You Want
6. The Bards - My Generation
7. Rance Allen - Ain't No Need of Crying
8. PJ Harvey - Happy and Bleeding
9. PJ Harvey - Working for the Man (where did the randomizer go wrong? though Polly Jean is a welcome place to stick, I suppose)
10. Red Krayola - The Story So Far
And some Video? How about Rickman as Rathbone in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves? These seem to be deleted scenes - though it makes you wonder why they didn't delete all the scenes with Costner and just make a Sheriff of Nottingham movie. Rickman's all I remember from it...
Such as - Call off Christmas!
And some music - here's Warren Zevon:
And how about Rance Allen, because there ain't no need of crying when it's raining:
Monday, January 11, 2016
David Bowie
This year is starting with too much death. Today I hear that David Bowie has died. It is hard to know what to say - his importance is obvious; he was one of the great ones. I haven't gotten to him in my band of the month series, largely because he is hard to sum up - too protean by half, a master of everything he turned his hand to. A very fine actor, when he tried it - in Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence - in the Man Who Fell to Earth, his star power, his beauty and his skill create powerful characters, unique characters. Though even as a musician, he was maybe first an actor - building new characters, in the songs and to sing the songs - songs always as performances, in every sense. Look through a bunch of performances of a single song - how they change, music, attitude, pose, character - it's wonderful.
I will miss him.
Here is Heroes, on Marc Bolan's show - a glorious performance:
And a neat video to Space Oddity, 1969:
And finally, playing Waiting for the Man with Lou Reed:
I will miss him.
Here is Heroes, on Marc Bolan's show - a glorious performance:
And a neat video to Space Oddity, 1969:
And finally, playing Waiting for the Man with Lou Reed:
Friday, January 08, 2016
Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
God heavens, we're a week into 2016 already! Second Friday - band of the month time - and I think I want to start with a pretty straightforward band of the month - AC/DC, the pride of Australia. They're easy to write about, their appeal is obvious and direct and, as far as I am concerned, undeniable. I don't have to say a lot: they are what they are - straight and hard and direct and utterly reliable, from the beginning to the end. They are one of those bands whose music sounds inevitable to me - bands like Motorhead, like the Ramones - and the Feelies, in a slightly different vein. They have found a style, a sound, a groove, and they work it, pretty much just the one, and they have perfected it - and more than that - made it sound like it has always been there, always will be, and is just as it should be. They play a type of music that thousands of bands play - and somehow, sound completely unique - no one else sounds like them.
I know there is a lot more to it than that, for any of those groups - but it is a place to start. And then you can talk about their virtues - the guitars, first - those sharp, precise rhythm tracks (Malcolm Young is just about as good a rhythm guitarist as it gets), the clean, precise (that again) solos from Angus, the propulsive rhythm section, the charismatic squall of either singer (though Brian Johnson never comes close to the glories of Bon Scott), and the first rate song-writing. Simple songs, built on basic chords and obvious structures, but every riff well chosen, every melody memorable... And lyrics as efficient as anything, and usually funny as hell as well - Scott's especially. Lots of stoopid there, and more stupid, probably, that Lemmy or Iggy or the Ramones gave out - but Scott, especially, could turn (and deliver) a phrase (concrete shoes, cyanide, TNT), and build an attitude, and turn the attitude on its head... they are a funny band, as well as fun, deliberately funny - the songs, the act (Angus and his strip tease), Scott's voice - what can I say? What more can you ask?
Top 10 Songs:
1. Back in Black
2. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
3. Ride On
4. TNT
5. It's a Long Way to the Top If You Want to Rock and Roll
6. Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
7. Big Balls
8. Jailbreak
9. Highway to Hell
10. You Shook Me All Night Long
Video: Bon singing Jailbreak,
Though first - YouTube offers this - pre-Bon Scott AC/DC - that doesn't sound a bit like them...
This is more like it, complete with Scott pretending to play the bagpipes and OWNING the camera:
TNT, 1976:
Highway to Hell:
Back in Black:
I know there is a lot more to it than that, for any of those groups - but it is a place to start. And then you can talk about their virtues - the guitars, first - those sharp, precise rhythm tracks (Malcolm Young is just about as good a rhythm guitarist as it gets), the clean, precise (that again) solos from Angus, the propulsive rhythm section, the charismatic squall of either singer (though Brian Johnson never comes close to the glories of Bon Scott), and the first rate song-writing. Simple songs, built on basic chords and obvious structures, but every riff well chosen, every melody memorable... And lyrics as efficient as anything, and usually funny as hell as well - Scott's especially. Lots of stoopid there, and more stupid, probably, that Lemmy or Iggy or the Ramones gave out - but Scott, especially, could turn (and deliver) a phrase (concrete shoes, cyanide, TNT), and build an attitude, and turn the attitude on its head... they are a funny band, as well as fun, deliberately funny - the songs, the act (Angus and his strip tease), Scott's voice - what can I say? What more can you ask?
Top 10 Songs:
1. Back in Black
2. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
3. Ride On
4. TNT
5. It's a Long Way to the Top If You Want to Rock and Roll
6. Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
7. Big Balls
8. Jailbreak
9. Highway to Hell
10. You Shook Me All Night Long
Video: Bon singing Jailbreak,
Though first - YouTube offers this - pre-Bon Scott AC/DC - that doesn't sound a bit like them...
This is more like it, complete with Scott pretending to play the bagpipes and OWNING the camera:
TNT, 1976:
Highway to Hell:
Back in Black:
Monday, January 04, 2016
Edward Copeland
I have mentioned before the strange way the internet can expand the number of people you will come to mourn. This week, I read, from Matt Zoller Seitz, that Edward Copeland has died. Edward Copeland was the pen name of a man named Scott Schuldt, who ran a blog, mostly devoted to movies, but with some TV and politics and personal posts as well. His blog was one of my touchstones, back in the late 00s - a source of great writing; and for his occasional surveys and list posts - Oscar rundowns; or elaborate multi-voter projects like the foreign film poll he hosted, the Ray Memorial 100. The blog had some of the flavor that Wonders in the Dark has now - multiple writers (though Edward himself tended to dominate), broad interests, a sense of community - lively comment section, plenty of back and forth among blogs - strong opinions, expressed forcefully, but with the expectation of debate... I liked his blog, and his writing, very much, and have missed him, as his health took him off the net. He suffered from multiple sclerosis - and for some years, has been bedridden, and for some time now, struggling even to write. He wrote about his illness, on the blog and on facebook - those posts made wrenching reading, but in the past year or so, they have become very rare - which I suppose is more wrenching still. I miss seeing his posts come up, on facebook or in my blog feeds - I did not know him, beyond the kind of correspondence and interactions we have on blogs and facebook and such, but I will miss him.
(And I can't fail to note that he was the one who got me on Facebook in the first place. Back in 2007, around the time of the foreign film poll, I think, he sent me an invite - probably along with the other participants in the poll, or in his email address book... either way, I did it, and that was that.)
(And I can't fail to note that he was the one who got me on Facebook in the first place. Back in 2007, around the time of the foreign film poll, I think, he sent me an invite - probably along with the other participants in the poll, or in his email address book... either way, I did it, and that was that.)
Friday, January 01, 2016
Lemmy
Happy New Year! somewhat. Today is Friday, a day for a music post - and this week, one music story stood above them all - the death of Lemmy Kilmister died earlier this week - one of the great ones. He's been at it a long time - playing in Hawkwind first, then forming Motorhead, stripping his music down to something that roared like an express train. He is one of those musicians, like the Ramones, AC/DC and a few others, who are both infinitely influential, but no one else quite sounds like them. Lots of bands have a lot of Motorhead in them - not very many get it all. He will be missed - it as a comfort knowing he was in the world.
And now - let's see what Genius conjures up from Ace of Spades, shall we?
1. Black Sabbath - Lord of this World
2. Sex Pistols - Problems
3. The Ramones - 53rd and 3rd
4. Iggy Pop - Some Weird Sin
5. Pantera - Message in Bood
6. Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - Chinese Rocks
7. Black Flag - Rise Above
8. AC/DC - Love at First Feel
9. Bad Brains - Banned in DC
10. Dead Boys - Sonic Reducer
Video? Start back in the day - Lemmy in Hawkwind:
Ace of Spades Promo:
Killed by Death, live:
And now - let's see what Genius conjures up from Ace of Spades, shall we?
1. Black Sabbath - Lord of this World
2. Sex Pistols - Problems
3. The Ramones - 53rd and 3rd
4. Iggy Pop - Some Weird Sin
5. Pantera - Message in Bood
6. Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - Chinese Rocks
7. Black Flag - Rise Above
8. AC/DC - Love at First Feel
9. Bad Brains - Banned in DC
10. Dead Boys - Sonic Reducer
Video? Start back in the day - Lemmy in Hawkwind:
Ace of Spades Promo:
Killed by Death, live:
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