The Friends Theme but it's Clapping Music by Steve Reich

Putin at the photocopier

Profligate Vinyl: London Calling

Welcome to the second edition of Profligate Vinyl; you can find the first one here.

In the last post, we went deep on the White Album, partly because it existed as a vast fog in my head, and I really had to go track by track to get a handle on it. In the end, we addressed (but did not answer) a few questions: was the White Album self-indulgent? Clearly yes; it perhaps stands as the monument to pop music indulgence. Would it have been better as a single album? Well, yes and no: a 45 minute edit of the album is definitely tighter, and (to my mind at least) an absolutely superb album. BUT: there is a certain charm to the loose indulgence of the whole thing, and while a single album would be better in most respects, the shaggy dog double has a flair that goes beyond the hits.

So, I suppose you could say that is was a split decision on the White Album. Today, we will have no such split decision: London Calling is tight as a drum to the very end, and any cut will be to meat, not fat. Unlike the White Album, I can sing (sort of?) London Calling in order from the beginning to the end. Part of that is due to the fact that I have listened to it so often, but beyond that, the whole album rolls with a certain tension and inexorable logic all the way through. It is The Clash at the height of their powers.

London Calling is a legendary record, certainly in the class of the White Album. It is a major transformation for The Clash, who move from being a straight up punk band to being a pretty versatile rock band, from being a sloppier left-wing version of the Buzzcocks to being a younger, more politically astute version of the Rolling Stones (but with decent lyrics, which the Stones only sporadically indulged). Like any career transformation, London Calling left some of The Clash's older, more purist punk fans behind; but the record is probably more remarkable for how many punks actually followed them through the transition. Those who wanted their punk rage more left-wing, noisy, and pure moved on to bands like Crass and The Ex, but even those who followed a less commercial route often still had a soft spot for The Clash.

Without further ado, here's the 45 minute edit:

Let's start of with a list of the songs left off of the edit:

• Brand New Cadillac
• Jimmy Jazz
• The Right Profile
• Lost in the Supermarket
• Wrong 'Em Boyo
• Train in Vain

Can you quibble with this list? HELL YES you can, and I almost want to reconsider it myself, except that I know it would be an endless process. "Train in Vain" was the only easy decision, and it is a fine song, but a bit of a throwaway, which gets it cut. Other than that, we loose two of the three covers (including a blistering version of "Brand New Cadillac"), "Lost in the Supermarket", which is one of the most famous songs on the record, "The Right Profile", which I wanna put back on the list right now! . . . and, well, you get the idea. This is one goddamn lean record as is, and any cuts are to the detriment of the whole.

Verdict: NOT indulgent, EDITS BAD!

Now, Sandinista, on the other hand . . . 

Ranked: Star Trek Engineers

Star Trek's "alien races", like the famous horror monsters of American imagination (Frankenstein, Dracula, the wolfman, zombies, etc.) tend to be ciphers for archetypes . . . specifically in this case, archetypal societies: so you have the Vulcans, the cerebral, enlightened society ruled by intellect; the Klingons, the tragic Shakespearean warrior society; the Ferengi, the embodiment of the most base of bourgeois capitalist instincts*; the Cardassians, who are the military industrial complex raised to ordering principle; the Bajorans, who are essentially space Irish; etc. . . . The exception, of course, are earthling humans themselves, who generally are defined by the arc of the series. So: in the original ST, humans are explorers/adventurers, in TNG they are diplomats. Enterprise, which predates the original in the timeline, splits the difference between explorer and diplomat. DS9 and Voyager are less clear: DS9 more from an intentional ambiguity and complexity built in to the series, Voyager more from lack of vision.

If there is any coherent view of humans seen through the eyes of other alien races, it is probably the recurring theme from DS9 that the Federation produces elite engineers ("I'm willing to bet that you've brought one of those famed Starfleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators" Keevan the Vorta, DS9 episode "Rocks and Shoals"). Humans in Starfleet are not typically marked by intellect, warrior skills, advanced technology, or any extraordinary physical attributes. The one trait that Star Trek writers have consistently allowed Earthlings is a general knack for problem solving, which, on DS9, is explicitly tied to the Starfleet Engineering Corps.

So, without further ado, Star Trek engineers, ranked:

6. Torres (Voyager)
5. Tucker (Enterprise)
4.  Scott (original)
3.  Scott (reboot)
2.  O'Brien (DS9 & TNG)
1.  La Forge (TNG)

A few notes:

• Scotty obviously set the tone for Star Trek engineers right from the jump as a cracker jack applied scientist who could do anything. He didn't really dabble in theory, but he knew all the theory he needed to get done what needed to be done. Scotty in the reboot gets the slightest of nods because there is the intimation that he did dabble in theory, as evidenced by the equation that the elder Spock showed him that he would write in the future to enable beaming between ships at warp speed. I think you would have a legit argument for either Scott, O'Brien, or La Forge as the top engineer.
• O'Brien also seems more versed in abstract theory than other Star Trek engineers, as evidenced by the fact that he and Jadzia Dax were able to move Deep Space 9 out of Bajor's orbit and closer to the wormhole.
• Of all the engineers, it is perhaps Geordi La Forge who demonstrates the widest grasp of theory. That spells badass in my book.
• While Voyager got around to getting a female engineer, B'Elanna Torres wasn't often important to the story as an engineer. It is unfortunate that the only female engineer is almost incidentally an engineer.
• Colm Meany is a really good actor.

That's it for this one!

__________
*  Has anybody ever mentioned how casually anti-capitalist Star Trek can be? Beyond the Ferengi, who never appear without being stooges (at least on some level), there is common reference to the humans of Star Trek living in a post-capitalist culture, with the implicit claim that moving beyond capitalism was an evolutionary step. It seems to me that this vision of a society evolved beyond capitalism is a foundational subtext of virtually the entire franchise.

No Parade - Minutemen (1981)

Gentrification Blues

You move into a working class neighborhood
hipster, you open yr fuckin’ coffee shop
at 6 am. The krauts need their coffee
& they’re on site by seven, bones aching
in the cold or wilting in the heat that is
already saturating the day even by then.
You open at seven, that’s too goddamn late.
I walk into somebody’s beardy bar for lunch
and a fuckin’ fried bologna cost eight bucks,
are you fucking kidding me? I go to the Subway
over by the Krogers for some of that shit on
plastic coated bread, at least it’s better than
the saran wrap shit they got inside the Kroger,
turkey with fuckin’ sprouts on it, whose goddamn
idea was that? Graham next door finally
had to move out a month ago, couldn’t really
make it on his own anymore, the folk at
St. Elizabeth found him a place, and I guess
it’s paid for, I don’t know how, don’t want
to think about it. How you gonna pay somebody
to wipe yr ass when you have to panhandle
yr kin just to make rent? I don’t know how
that works. I don’t know how any of this works
anymore. It’s not like anybody gives a fuck,
no matter what they say, and believe me,
they talk plenty. Nobody gives a single fuck.
Nobody who could make a difference, anyway.

I hear the prices goin’ up in this neighborhood,
but I don’t know the people sellin’, and I don’t
know the people buyin’. Nice enough, I suppose.
Graham’s house ain’t got no new renters yet.
There ain’t no sign up out front. I see people
in and out, I suppose they’re working on the place,
I see some new paint going up through naked
windows, I see a Lowes truck out front with new
stainless steel appliances. Maybe they’re fancying
it up to get a higher class of people, a class of
people who want a condo up the street at the
converted mill, but have to settle with a shotgun
down the street and live in what I suppose they
think is old world glamor until they cash in the
stock portfolio somebody left to them in a will,
then they could move on, and they don’t even
have to sell the shotgun, they just turn it into
one of those temporary rental places, hang some
fancy art on the wall, keep flowers in the fancy
vases, and they charge people ninety dollars a night
to stay there when they come down to do whatever
the fuck it is they do when they come down here, of
course everyone knows about the derby, but that’s
like one week in May, what else do they do? Do they take
the bourbon tours, do they tour the interminable glut
of overpriced beer and hamburgers that fill Goss and
Burnett and Breckenridge like the weedy lawns that took
over this place in the 80s? I don’t fuckin’ know. I do know
that some kids bought Harriet’s place across the street
a couple years ago, and Harriet moved out with nary a
word, not that she had much to say anyway, but now she’s
gone, and I didn’t know ‘til after she left. Then they
painted the place, the Lowes truck came and went,
and after that, there was different people in all the time.
Sometimes it was kids, and they drank too much, and
got too loud, but that’s okay, that’s what kids do, they
drink too much and get too loud, and old people like me
yell at them and tell them to shut the fuck up or we call
the cops, and then they apologize and get quiet for a
little bit, but then get loud again, because they’re drinking
and that’s what kids do when they drink. Other times it
was quiet folk, not kids, that drove four year old Toyotas
and carried maps. Or brochures that looked like maps.

I think Graham’s old place is gonna be like that. They
call them bed and breakfast, I think, but then I thought
that shit was all in Vermont, and had gingham curtains.
The folk that landlorded Graham’s place, they about the
same age as the kids that bought my house last year. Old
Carol was a bitch, and getting her to fix something simple
as a water heater took a resolution from the governor, but
things was always the same. These kids are nice, too nice,
maybe, asking me if I need an extension if I’m a week late,
or asking me if I would like to paint for some cash off the top
of my monthly. I take it, of course, and the house is in better
shape than it ever was. Can’t say the same about myself,
sad to say. I’m 65, and the owner kids are asking me when
I’m going to retire, what my plans are, like they want to
see me basking in the sun, or some such shit. I always
tell them the same thing, that I’m gonna work ‘til I fuckin’ die,
and they fake like they admire it, but I correct ‘em. I tell them
I would quit tomorrow, but I ain’t got a fuckin’ choice. Time was,
a man could move on to the later part of his life when he had the
notion, I suppose, but that time is gone. Graham didn’t stop
until one day, when he couldn’t get out of fucking bed.
Couldn’t even guide his feet to the floor. Now he’s god
knows where, and I can only hope he’s too far gone to worry
about who’s paying for those girls who fluff his pillows and
roll him over so he don’t get bed sores. But anyway, last
week they whitewashed the siding, even though it really
didn’t need it. I think they got plans. I doubt those plans
include me any further than politeness dictates.

If I had to find a new place tomorrow, I don’t know where
I’d go. Not here, anymore, most likely. Not the place
I grew up. Nobody rents here anymore. They turn their
places into little motels.

Last night I stopped at a place on Lydia, ordered a Falls City.
I used to drink Falls City all the time. I tasted it, it tasted
different. “This is good” I tell the beardo behind the bar,
“not like the piss water I grew up on”. New stuff, he says,
the brewery has been revived, local this, local that, blah
blah blah. But it was good beer. Then I get the tab, it’s six
fucking dollars for one beer, and I’m like “for six dollars,
this should be some fucking Don Perignon champagne”.
He gives me a Pabst for three dollars, and the first thing
I’m like this isn’t tasting like it used to either, this tastes
like piss, but it’s a different kind of piss than it used to be.
And three dollars, so okay. I look at the menu, the only thing
I even recognize, besides the fifteen dollar burger, is humus.
I left and got some turkey breast at Subway.

It’s midnight. I don’t want to go to bed, I want another beer.
My legs hurt, my shoulder hurts, my feet hurt, my back hurts,
I can’t sleep for the pain. I don’t want to get up in the morning.
But if I don’t, then they’ll have to find another place for me to
retire to, and I’m not far enough gone to rest in ignorant peace yet.

They planted trees on Goss in front of the Kroger. Time was,
there was plenty of green life in that median, what with the
grass and weeds poking up through the busted concrete. Now,
the concrete is gone, there’s a planter there. What the hell,
the world turns in circles, history repeats itself, someday
the weeds will take over the median again, and no one will care.
Only thing for sure is that I will be long gone by then.
In the meantime, dear sir or madam, is it too much to ask
you to open your goddamn coffee house at six instead of seven?

Profligate Vinyl: The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album)

This will be the first of what I hope to be a continuing series on double albums. The double album was a big deal in the pop era pre-compact disc: it was considered an epic and extravagant artistic statement, especially since the pop album itself was a relatively recent evolution from singles when double albums started showing up. 

In this series, I will consider a double album in depth, and opine whether or not it would have been better as a single album. To that end, I will present an edited version of the album (in the form of a Spotify playlist). The edited version will be limited to just around 45 minutes, which is the approximate length of the average LP (or, at least, one side of a C-90 cassette). 

In this inaugural edition, I will consider the White Album. 

*          *          *          *          *

"Well I hope I'm smart / But I know I'm not clever / Because deep down inside / I've got a rock -n- roll liver"  -- Tony Woollard/TBW!, "Wicker Park Hyena"

My favorite Beatles-related record is Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band record. My second favorite is probably a George Harrison record, but I wouldn't know, because I've never listened to one all the way through. There are many, many pop artists who consider themselves Beatles acolytes; a short list of those bands who actually ended up achieving beyond their masters include Big Star, The Flamin' Groovies, Badfinger, Elton John, and Cheap Trick. The most facile observations on pop music have always been related to the transcendence of the music hall saccharine of the "mop tops".

All this is a mildly exaggerated way of saying that I am not a Beatles fan (though I am dead serious about Big Star and the Yoko Ono record). Some of the first pop albums I listened to as a kid were copies of the red and blue Beatles greatest hits records, but they never really stuck with me. I don't dislike the band, but apparently not acknowledging them as the pinnacle of rock music is akin to being a hater. I have always been surrounded by The Beatles, but I have only ever owned one Beatles album: The Beatles (a.k.a. the White Album).

Needless to say, not being a Beatles fan, I have had no involvement with THE BEATLES INDUSTRY, so any information imparted here comes solely from the Wikipedia page. You may feel free to correct or add to any observations in the comments, put please be advised that I don't give a shit. Below is a track-by-track consideration, with each song rated on a 1-5 scale:

Side One
Back in the USSR -- This is good Paul! A cheeky little Chuck Berry/Beach Boys pastiche that manages to avoid excessive tinkering and lives in exactly the space it needs to. 4/5
Dear Prudence -- One of the absolute best Beatles songs, one of the best pop songs period. Simple, direct, evocative, dreamy. And good work on the skins by Paul. 5/5
Glass Onion -- The music on this is pretty tight, but the lyrics are self-indulgent bullshit. Who cares, John. 3/5
Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da -- This is bad Paul! Or, per John, Paul's "granny shit"! Such a horrible, glib, facile song, overworked to within inches of its life. This is quintessential Paul, which is not good. Only a little bit better than "We Built This City (On Rock and Roll)".  1/5
Wild Honey Pie -- Seriously, WTF. Inoffensive, but definitely a waste of time. 2/5
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill -- A musical cock-and-bull story. A waste of time. What's the point? Who cares, John. 2/5
While My Guitar Gently Weeps -- Good George! The execution really makes it, because it is only an OK song in abstract, but it ends up being one of the best songs on the album. Clapton does a reasonable job on this . . . but, if you really want to hear someone shred it, listen to Prince tear it up on the Rock -n- Roll Hall of Fame Harrison tribute.  5/5
Happiness is a Warm Gun -- Bad John! There is reference to a lot of self-satisfied yammering about this song, about how John did some really fancy composing, and how the band worked through complicated music to make it work. All I hear is three good songs squashed into one okay song that is definitely less than the sum of its parts. Stitching three random parts together with no connective tissue or unifying themes doesn't work unless you are John Fucking Cage and randomness is the point. One of my pet peeves, b'god. 3.5/5

INTERLUDE

You might see a theme creeping up already: I am not a Paul McCartney fan. It seems to me that Paul personifies (is the source of?) the glibness and facility that is the worst trait of The Beatles; the degree to which this glibness identifies The Beatles is the degree to which I abhor the band. It's not necessarily that I expect all rock music to be raw and lacerating, or penetrating and wise, or sparkling and revelatory. Simple pop music is just fine, not everything has to be GREAT ART. Beatles proteges Badfinger come immediately to mind: simple, direct, well-crafted songs that are not overly wrought or clever, that live where they should live (see "Back in the USSR" v. "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" above). Perhaps it is wrong to make Paul the focus of this problem, but in my (admittedly limited) experience, he seems to be the main culprit.

Side Two

Martha My Dear -- On the tail of the above Paul McCartney rant, we have another good Paul song. "Martha My Dear" is heavily wrought, but all the cleverness is in service of the song, instead of being the reason for the song . . . that is as close as I can come to explaining what "living where it should live" means. 4/5 

I'm So Tired -- Simplicity! The somnambulant pace of the song sets the atmosphere with the lyrics riding along - "I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink" - instead of upstaging the song, as is sometimes the case with these over-clever popsters. When John sings "You know I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind", you feel it. 4/5 

Blackbird -- How did Paul not fuck this song up? 4/5

Piggies -- Hard to figure out just how this thing went so totally off the rails. How does this end up on the record? 2/5
Rocky Raccoon -- Another major WTF moment. I mean, sometimes shit just goes bad, but how does it keep going after it goes bad? AND HOW DOES IT END UP ON THE RECORD? 1/5
Don't Pass Me By -- A fairly inoffensive little shuffle. Kinda sums up Ringo, don't you think? 2.5/5
Why Don't We Do It in the Road? -- Cheeky. And only a minute and 42 seconds long, which is perhaps its major attribute. 2.5/5
I Will -- Again, brevity is its major attribute, but it is perhaps the most forgettable song ever written. I'm desperately trying to ignore the fact that this little locus of amnesia required 67 FREAKING TAKES to come into being.  2.5/5
Julia -- Find a way to convert the word "Julia" into music. Use the music to provide a vehicle for images to support the word Julia. Don't overthink it. It is what it is, and it is beautiful. 4/5

INTERLUDE

"Clever" is the fulcrum here . . . "clever" is the last thing you want to be as an artist, "clever" explicitly implies artifice, artifice undermines authenticity, and, above all, an artist wants to be "real". BUT: all art involves artifice, so really it's not a matter of ditching artifice, it's a matter of hiding artifice. So, in essence, to be "real", you must cleverly avoid seeming clever. The TBW! lyric quoted above is a case in point: it explicitly derides "clever" music, but itself is clever - the dichotomy between "smart" and "clever",  the resulting comment on the authenticity of "art bands", the Lou Reed reference most of the band's fans surely would have caught, the reference to the band's drinking habits - so seemingly takes on an ironic existence on several different levels. 

As convoluted as this seems, it is not: clever for the sake of clever is a problem. Clever for the sake of the art is required. If it's not in service of the song, it's just showing off. That is why, for all its specific facility, for all its overt cleverness, "Martha My Dear" is still a wonderful song: all of Paul's hysteria serves the purpose of the song.

Side Three

Birthday -- Just a fun little ripper. Fun! Written and recorded in one night! Could have been about 55 seconds shorter, though. 3.5/5

Yer Blues -- This is probably the place to confess I might be giving John the benefit of the doubt on these blues songs. If not on "I'm So Tired", then definitely here. On the other hand, I think this thing rocks. 3.5/5

Mother Nature's Son -- I mean, whatever.  3/5

Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey -- Another raver, the velocity of the song keeping the lyrics from becoming too ponderous. What's it about? Who cares? One of those pop songs that sprays disconnected images, and does so with joy. That's worth something.  4/5

Sexy Sadie -- John is MAD! The fact that he lets the lyrics lie there naked helps the song . . . again, hide the artifice, only this time in plain sight.  3.5/5

Helter Skelter -- Apparently, Paul's answer to The Who's "I Can See For Miles", which Townshend claimed was the nastiest, dirtiest song recorded at the time. As always, when Paul keeps it simple, good things happen: all he wanted was loud and psychotic, and that's what he got. Glorious was simply a byproduct.  5/5

Long, Long, Long -- Paul's organ and Ringo's drums-as-a-melodic-instrument lend a great in-between feel to this song: tending to the ethereal, but keeping the song earthbound. It also gives an indeterminate cast to the lyrics - is it about God? or a woman? - that positions it tensely between the immanent and transcendent, a tension which makes it even better than if you go with Harrison's simple explanation that it's about God. Kids, never trust the artist.  5/5

INTERLUDE

I perhaps do give John a benefit of the doubt that I do not give Paul. I do not consider him infallible by any stretch of the imagination, but without his contributions, there would be little of The Beatles for me to hold on to. "Yer Blues" is the point where that comes to a head: I really can't find any concrete reason that the song song stands out over, say, "Don't Pass Me By", or "Why Don't We Do It in the Road", but to me it clearly does. Heretofore I have spent a lot of time talking about songs and artifice, without really talking much about performance . . . and so it is with The Beatles overall. Other than Paul's bass chops, we really don't talk about The Beatles as musicians: we think of Ringo as a competent drummer in spite of his limitations, we think of George as a competent guitarist, we think of all of them as effective, if unspectacular, singers.

I would make a stronger case for John. One of my favorite (top 5!) Beatles songs has always been the B-side of "Get Back", "Don't Let Me Down". Listening to it again, the arrangement and songcraft are superb, but it is John's vocals (along with Billy Preston's electric piano!) that really make the song. I think John's performances are frequently like that: combined with the direct simplicity of most of his compositions, his vocals and attack are more than effective, they are raw, emotional, and vital.

Side Four

Revolution 1 -- First, I like the single version better, though this is not bad. Second, I'm not real comfortable about the lyrics, which (à la The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again") sound like bourgeois retrenchment for a bunch of newly rich white English boys. Could be wrong about that, but I don't think so.  3/5

Honey Pie -- What is it with this half-assed music hall bullshit? 1.5/5

Savoy Truffle -- Like cheap American chocolate, an overly sweet confection that ends up being empty calories.  3/5

Cry Baby Cry -- A toss off with a catchy chorus. Meh. 3/5

Revolution 9 -- Is it any good? Who knows? Who cares? IT'S AN 8+ MINUTE TAPE COLLAGE IN THE MIDDLE OF A BEATLES RECORD! THIS ISN'T SOME HALF-ASSED BULLSHIT, THIS IS WHOLE-ASSED FUCKERY! 5/5! For what it's worth, I listen to a lot of stuff like this, and it's OK at best: an uncomfortable middle ground between Cage's randomness and Stockhausen's conceptual approach, it ends up falling short on both counts. On its own, I would give it a 2/5. In the context of a Beatles record, I will stick with 5/5. Let's go with 3/5.

Good Night -- A lullaby. Nothing more, nothing less. Gets a little bump for Ringo's vocals.  3/5

AN ACCOUNTING

I've already alluded to the fact that the White Album is the only Beatles record I've ever owned. Even then, I didn't own it when I listened to it in high school (I listened to it with my good friend John), finally buying a used cassette copy in the early 80s when I was in college. By the late 80s I had sold it off to buy some new records, and lived without it until just a couple weeks ago. I have always kept an eye open for a used copy, but with the recent vinyl boom, used copies run around $45, so I just ponied up for a new pressing at $35. After the time I've spent with the album for the purposes of this discussion, I will likely file it into my record stacks, and who knows when I will pull it out again.

Also alluded to is the idea that pop/rock double studio albums were generally considered to be indulgences, and frequently had to account for their extravagance. The Beatles clearly was indulgent by anybody's standards: by my accounting, the average rating is 3.18 out of 5 . . . this, for a record that is generally considered to be one of the greatest of the rock era, in spite of the fact that virtually everyone who discusses it acknowledges it to be full of filler (though, tellingly, there is a lot of disagreement about exactly what songs on the album constitute filler).

Is it better as a single album? Below is my edit of the album. I have not consulted any lists or ratings for this edit, it is based purely on my own accounting. It has been slightly re-sequenced, but generally follows the sequence of the original. So, you tell me: is this better? 

It's hard to deny the edit slams. It goes from being a rambling, chaotic mess to being tight as hell. Still, for my part, I'm rather fond of big sloppy messes (I am, perhaps, one of the very few who will defend The Clash's Sandinista to the bitter end). As chaotic as this is, it still seems of a piece, and it doesn't pay to hack it down. Too clever by at least half, there is still enough here to overcome the almost Olympian self-indulgence. Just don't ask me to spend this much time with any other Beatles albums, OK?

Atari Teenage Riot - Destroy 2000 years of culture (1997)

from Eleven Portraits of John McCain Rendered in the Manner of Still Lifes of Vegetables and Sides of Beef

II.

(rustling of umbrellas and expensive overcoats)

(occasional coughs and sniffles)

(leather soles clicking up to the lectern)

(cough, throat clears)

“He wasn’t as bad as others”

(a stifled sob from the gallery)

In Rotation, Late Summer 2018

Not that anybody asked.

Iannis Xenakis (Edition RZ)
Various - Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music (1948-1980)
Scarcity of Tanks - No Endowments; Vulgar Defender
J Dilla - Donuts
The Roots - Rising Down
Godflesh - Streetcleaner
John Coltrane - Both Directions at Once
Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontakte
Alfred Schnittke - Faust Cantatas
John Zorn - Aporias (Requia for Piano and Orchestra)
Mott the Hoople - Mad Shadows; Brain Capers
Lester Bowie - The Great Pretender
Wombo - Staring at Trees
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer
Bela Bartok - Complete String Quartets (Takács Quartet)
Allen Toussaint - Southern Nights
Andrew Hill - Point of Departure
Beethoven - Late String Quartets (Alban Berg Quartet)
Leif Ove Andsnes - Sibelius

Playlist: Black Kaspar Scrapbook 08/2018

Ah, another damn playlist!

This one is a sound palette for the revival of Black Kaspar - bound to be big news for two or three of you - and bears a lot of resemblance to the Drone Wars Scrapbook from late last year. As a matter of fact, there is overlap: Drone Wars Scrapbook has Movement #3 from Górecki's Third, and this one has the entire Third. They also shared Throbbing Gristle's "Wall of Sound" until I replaced it with an Earth cut.

Speaking of Górecki, this version of the Third is different than the one in the earlier playlist. This one is an earlier version (perhaps the premiere recording?) than the famous Elektra/Nonesuch 1992 recording which actually managed to chart. If you are a devotee of the Third, you will hear a difference: there is more space, more air, the playing is more understated and at the same time more dynamic within the slow, minimalist scope of the composition. The nearest analog I can think of for the rockers out there would be that this version is like The Kinks' "You Really Got Me", and the Zinman/Upshaw/LSO version is like Van Halen's cover of "You Really Got Me" . . . Van Halen's version is melodramatic, overdriven, (over)polished version of the original which no doubt has its charms, but loses some of the subtlety and nuance of the original. You can find a very brief discussion of Górecki 3 versions here, as well as an mp3 for this version.

As for Black Kaspar, we will be going forward as a duo. The plan now is to rely heavily on electronics to accompany the two guitars (I briefly considered recruiting another guitarist so that I could move to electronics full time, but decided against it for the time being). As always, plans can change, but for now we are two, and we likely will not be back on stage for a few months yet.

I will likely be producing more audio scrapbooks. They will be here if/when I do.

Bernadette Mayer

from Poetry State Forest

Bill Orcutt Solo - Festival Météo, Mulhouse, 2017

Playlist: Acoustic Blues

Summer is in full swing now, the heat and humidity a blanket over the Ohio Valley. The oppression of the weather is likely weighing down on you where you are as well. Nothing like a big tumbler of iced tea (spiked with bourbon, if it's more than just your thirst that needs work) and some low down dirty blues to pass the time until sundown and beyond. Settle down with this playlist at about 8 pm and it will take you into the midnight hour when, hopefully, it will finally be cool enough to sleep.

Fragment: Swimming to the Moon with Jesus

the moon, the children, the transcendent ineffable

          frozen like a statue of Apollo

          and dead, dead, dead

          dead as the dream of a crystal city on a hill    

          dead as the consolation of order by law

          dead as founder’s intent

          dead as white dreams of America

              that you have been sold like subway tokens to a better world

          dead as a heaven that exists only in books

Sorrow III - Colin Stetson (2016)

Picked up a copy of Colin Stetson's Sorrow: a reimagining of Górecki's 3rd Symphony, based on a long obsession with that piece. I don't know that it's completely successful - I don't know if I'm troubled because the decisions are bad, or because they aren't decisions I would make - but it's worth listening to, and thinking about. I tend to like it best when it strays furthest from the source material, as it does above. I also like the way it doesn't sound quite "right" somehow, like a doom metal version but oddly voiced.

HBD Lydia Lunch

BLACK JUJU - Lydia Lunch - Retrovirus from Dominika M on Vimeo.

Happy 59th, Lydia!

Napalm Death '88 recording, remixed 2011.

This kills.

01. From the Ashes....
02. Changing Colours
03. Re-Adress the Problem
04. Retreat to Nowhere
05. Scum
06. Stalemate
07. Understanding
08. Multinational Corporations Pt. 2
09. Life

Credits from the split flexi :
Recorded at Birdsong studios, Worcester 19/12/88
Mixed 20/12/88
Engineered by Steve Bird
Produced by Napalm Death

Remixed 2011 by Steve Bird (it seems).

HBD Tom T. Hall!

Holy crap! We almost forgot Tom T Hall's birthday (a day late as this posts)! Mr. Hall, a relentless humanist voice in country music, was born in Olive Hill, KY, on May 25th, 1936.

I much prefer the studio version of "I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew", but I just had to share the cheese of that live appearance on the Del Reeves show. Special bonus features: Nashville super studio pickin' and grinnin', Del Reeves doing a yeoman's job on the high harmony until Tom throws the key change at him and he just gives up, and, of course, the real stars of the show, Del's cigarette and lime green suit! 

Enjoy!

Djinji's Corner - Marion Brown (1970)

one yr bitches!

Thanx for tuning in. More on the way.

A Todd Rundgren Playlist? Why the Hell Not?

Things have slowed to a crawl here temporarily due to computer issues, as well as various projects requiring extra attention. It is only a matter of time before things get ramped back up - I figure the end of July at the absolute latest - but things will be a bit sporadic until then. Those who have been following the blog for the last year (we are 5 days away from the year anniversary of the inaugural post!) know that I moved away from the photo-heavy post-a-day gig I was running last September, and though I could go back to that, seeing that I could do the heavy lifting for photo reblogging on my phone, I don't see the point. So, accept my apologies, and understand that I do plan to get back to work once I get my laptop back and healthy.

Recently a friend put out the call for Todd Rundgren recommendations on facebook. It was good timing for me: I have been sifting through classical records for months now, almost at the exclusion of other types of music, and Rundgren sounded like a decent antidote. I started by recommending a few albums that I lived with from back in the day . . . but of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I had to put together a Spotify playlist. This one I managed to keep in the neighborhood of a very reasonable three hours, the same timing as most of my old WQAX shifts.

I think Todd Rundgren is a genius on the level of an Alex Chilton - different, but equally brilliant - but he doesn't have the same hipster cred as Chilton because he was a relentlessly professional musician . . . sometimes "professional" to the point of being a hack. I remember seeing a Rundgren show at some Dave & Busters prototype bar in Indianapolis back in the early 90s: there he was on stage with a white electrified baby grand piano playing to backing tapes while local news anchors and polyester suburbanites aging out of young adulthood circulated the room and the pop-a-shot machines jangled through between song breaks. Rundgren himself was even tempered, gracious in a subdued way, and collected his paycheck with the quiet dignity of a road-weary pro on his way back to the motel to rest up before hitting Cincinnati the next night. More recently, he has shown up as a professor of rock at both my post-secondary education stops (Notre Dame and Indiana University). And, as far as I know, he has never stopped putting out records, even if the last one I bothered listening to more than once was released all the way back in 1982.

Putting together a playlist involves a vision of sorts: I wanted to fairly represent Rundgren, but since his career is swimming in cheese that I don't necessarily want to listen to, it is obviously weighted to the early part of his career, and to music which veers a little bit more toward his "eccentric" side. I included some verging-on-treacly pop like "Can We Still Be Friends?", "Set Me Free", and even (gulp) "Bang the Drum All Day", alongside some of the most sublime pop ever written ("Hello, It's Me" - even with its vaguely creepy 70s vibe - "I Saw The Light", "Couldn't I Just Tell You", "We Gotta Get You a Woman", etc.), totally legit Philly soul ("Sometimes I Don't Know What to Feel"), and more glam/psychedelia than you can shake a stick at. Though Rundgren can be the most uneven of rockers - anyone as prolific as him is going to have everything out on display, good and bad - at his best, though he may have a few equals, there is no one better at 70s white-boy pop . . . and that includes Chilton.

So, here's the playlist. Enjoy!

RIP Glenn Branca (10/6/1948 - 5/13/2018)

Glenn Branca passed away from throat cancer four days ago. Since he passed, there have been plenty of impressive tributes, so let me simply repeat what I posted on my facebook page: I've always had a complex relationship to the terms "guitarist", "musician", and "composer"; but to the degree that I am any of those things, Glenn Branca is the air that I breathe.

Rip Tony Kinman

Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion - Béla Bartók (1937)

RIP Cecil Taylor (March 25, 1929-April 5, 2018)

Cecil Taylor has left us. He was perhaps the thorniest, fiercest, and most complex of the free jazz pioneers. Rest in peace, Mr. Taylor.

Happy Birthday D

O Vos Omnes - Tomás Luis de Victoria (1585)

Passio - Arvo Pärt (1989)

Music of the season . . . liturgical minimalism via Arvo Pärt.

In Rotation: Spring is Coming!

I suffer from what the kids are calling Seasonal Affective Disorder. Or maybe I just hate the holiday season that much. Yeah, actually it's not SAD at all, it's just a hatred of the season of hysterical commerce. By February, hoops are peaking at all levels, commerce is coming under control, and my anniversary rolls around at the end of the month. By March, spring's promise is within reach, even if we get slapped once or twice with snow just to keep us grounded. As I sit now, Texas Tech has eliminated North Carolina, and all is getting better with the world.

Wombo: Staring at Trees
Dirtbag: Voided
Earth: Earth 2
Iannis Xenakis: Iannis Xenakis (Editions RZ)
Robert Ashley: Automatic Writing
Shostakovich: The Complete String Quartets (Emerson String Quartet)
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 (Stokowski/Houston Symphony)
Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (Sanderling/St. Petersburg Philharmonic)
John Coltrane: Meditations
Todd Rundgren: A Wizard, A True Star
Obnox: Boogalou Reed
Webern, Haubenstock-Ramati, Urbanner: String Quartets (Alban Berg Quartet)
Debussy, Ravel: String Quartets (Quartetto Italiano)
Debussy, Ravel: String Quartets (Kodaly Quartet)
Stockhausen: Telemusic, Mixtur
Protomartyr: Relatives in Descent
Pallbearer: Sorrow and Extinction
Dream Syndicate: Days of Wine and Roses
Maria McKee: You've Got to Sin to Be Saved
Paul Sturm: Collateral Effect

Ranked: Star Trek Doctors

7. Pulaski (The Next Generation)
6. Emergency Medical Hologram (Voyager)
5. McCoy (Star Trek reboot)
4. Bashir (Deep Space Nine)
3. Crusher (The Next Generation)
2. Phlox (Enterprise)
1. McCoy (Original)

My Bookshelf - Wombo (2018)

New Louisville sound on Sophmore Lounge.

Persepolis - Iannis Xenakis (1971)

From the YouTube description by user Polyphonie X:

 Persepolis  

Iannis Xenakis Persepolis GRM Mix

Mixed By, Engineer – Daniel Teruggi 

A re-issue of the "polytope" (composed in 1971, first performed for the 2500th anniversary of Iran's founding by Cyrus) on CD1 with remixes on CD2. 

Original recording mixed at INA-GRM (Paris, France) and engineered in Studio 116A by Daniel Teruggi, under the consultation of Iannis Xenakis. Radu Stan of Editions Salabert provided the original tapes and scores for the mix, as well as attended the mixing.

My Favorite Things (The Olatunji Concert: Last Live Recording) - John Coltrane (1967)

All the Coltrane I’ve heard in my life, how did I miss this one? Saying something is “deconstructed” is usually lazy and stupid, but it applies here. You can trace back shards of melody and interval to all the previous versions he’s done over the years, but they’re all smashed up and shrieking. An actual chunk of the head shows up for the first time 25 minutes into the 35 minute version. This was his second-to-last show ever, and features Jimmy Garrison (who starts the proceedings with his bass solo, as was the group’s wont during the period), Alice, Pharoah Sanders, and Rashied Ali leading a drum battery that likely has at least two more members.

This is amazing. Virtually all Coltrane is amazing, of course, but this is overpowering.

Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band - Yoko Ono (1970)

Happy Birthday, Yoko! (b. 2/18/1933)

Robert Ashley Mega Post

Moving Into Lent

the wind sweeps in from out
crow’s wing brushes whisper across the forehead
they’re falling now
                                    a couple more
            funneled into sluice gates and caught
            before a finality is realized –
every so often you feel the wing brushing close
like a scythe whistling through the air
you wonder what gets harvested
            what blackness
            or searing light
            who the dark becomes
            blinding whiteout   
            and why

is it time
and is all this collateral
or is this a target

a morning is cruel, or it is not
a night is harrowing, or it is not
the world is pain, or it is not
the is and is not of wildly intersecting planes
flashing crazed like the eye blinks

Spacecraft - M.E.V. (1967)

Oraison - Olivier Messiaen (1937)

From the liner notes to Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music 1948-1980: "Oraison was not the first all electric work for the concert stage. It did, however, represent the first time a composer of this stature had devoted the whole piece to electrically produced sounds." The ondes martenot, an early primitive synthesizer that was a cross between an organ and a theremin, is the instrument in use here . . . and while, as noted, Messiaen was not the first to feature it, he was probably the first to use it as a centerpiece instead of part of an ensemble, and he was certainly the highest profile composer to do so.

La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura - Luigi Nono (1988-1989)

String Quartet No.3 - George Rochberg (1972)

America's first high-profile serialist composer goes tonal to the consternation of the serious music establishment. Rochberg created some well respected serial work (most notably his second symphony from 1955-56), but abandoned it in the mid sixties because he thought serial music lacked the capacity to express emotion. Rochberg challenged the modernist concept of stylistic obsolescence & "requisite nowness", instead championing “all human gestures available to all human beings at any time” prefiguring an attitude which would later come to be called "Postmodern". This storm crested with the Mahleresque gestures of his String Quartet No. 3, though the modern ear from the twenty teens hears a foreshadowing of the sampler in the repeated pizzicato backgrounding that appears in the first and third parts.

When the "avant garde" is the establishment, what truly is avant garde?

Convincing People - Peaches (2018)

The Western Lands Mixtapes Interlude: min im al izm

I have a long and somewhat complicated relationship with minimalism. I remember running across Koyaanisqatsi in '84 or '85, through a room mate who worked with a guy who had worked on the film. I remember being okay with the film . . . but boy, did 24-year-old punk rock me fucking hate Philip Glass. That opinion didn't change much as I moved (roughly) through punk to noise to free jazz to experimental free improv to modern classical. By the time I started really getting into John Cage, I started to appreciate space and silence in music much more than I had previously; but still, John Cage is not a minimalist, and chance operation is not the same repetition and decay, nor is spaciousness in music the same as ambiance. Glass's chirpy repetition bugs me, as does (to a lesser degree) Terry Riley's.

There is, of course, a lot of cross breeding between Minimalist "serious" music and experimental rock music, from the Velvet Underground - Cale shows up here with his Theater of Eternal Music crew, and you can see/hear a direct link between this and a song like "Venus in Furs" from the first album - through Mark E. Smith's three R's ("repetition, repetition, repetition"), to the druggy drones of Spacemen 3's Dreamweapon (which is heavily influenced by La Monte Young and Angus MacLise, and would fit in perfectly with this collection), to the high volume doom drones of Earth and Sunn O))). For me, always the 15-year-old metal head at heart, the heavier the drone, the better . . . but probably what really got me back into minimalism, as far as my own music is concerned, is the Buddha Machine.

I actually had a sort of joke minimalist piece on side 2 of Pain Free Living, the first Black Kaspar tape, called "Bring Me the Head of Terry Riley". What happened was that I had about 45 minutes worth of material for the tape, so I just duped them myself onto Radio Shack 90s, and put everything on the first side. Rather than leaving side two blank, or repeating the same program on both sides, I took a three second sample of my guitar shorting out while I was recording a solo, and looped it for 53 minutes. This does not really function like classical minimalism, since the loop does not decay or, indeed, change in any way whatsoever over the course of the 45 minute tape side. I did the whole piece as a goof; but Dan Willems, after listening to it a couple times whilst doing the dishes, told me it had a sort of weird, hypnotic, almost hallucinogenic effect on him . . . so, I suppose at some level it was a successful composition. And hey, it beat the fuck out of Philip Glass.

I got a few of the Buddha Machines and used them frequently in the 2012-2013 time frame. The videos above are short, but only because of the limitations of recording on my phone and uploading long video to YouTube . . . I was interested in working longer, though not as long as the standard minimalist pieces tend to go, and certainly not hours or days, which is the preferred working time frame of La Monte Young. And even beyond using them in my music, I still occasionally set them up and just let them go for my own listening pleasure.

At the end of the day, however, I am not a committed minimalist. Though the machines often show up in the music from the time frame listed above, they are often mutated much more aggressively than a minimalist would tolerate:

So, I am not a minimalist, but the influence is there. 

*          *          *          *          *

I recently posted a killer Bo Diddley video on facebook, and in the comments, lamented the fact that my collection was woefully lean on Bo's recorded output. Old friend Dave Cruse offered to hook me up with some outside/rare Bo, and a week or so later two (killer!) 90 minute Maxells showed up in my mailbox. In return, he asked for some minimalism, so he's getting four tapes worth. Before I get into the notes, I should say that, per the sixties minimalism practices, these performances were meant to experience, not listen to on a recording, and it is not a genre that lends itself well to recordings, generally speaking. And, obviously, this is not a comprehensive study, since it leaves off two seminal figures (Glass and Steve Reich), more traditional minimalists like Arvo Pärt and John Adams, precursors and fellow travelers like Moondog, John Cage and Morton Feldman, rock/pop crossovers like Arthur Russell, Faust, and Spacemen 3, and whole genres of dance music (including EDM) which should be included in minimalism.

Tape One starts with Terry Riley, and I've already slandered him a couple times, so I will stop. In C gets performed in Louisville at least once a year.

Ryhs Chatham is a favorite of mine, and not just because he assembles huge guitar orchestras. He has an almost Romantic approach to music (I am a sucker for Romantic composers and romanticism, generally speaking). The undulating swell of the first movement of The Crimson Grail faintly echoes various Wagner overtures, to my somewhat warped ear. Chatham also has a phenomenal recording called Two Gongs, which is . . . you guessed it! . . . two gongs getting bashed for over an hour, which is much more aesthetically in line with classical minimalism.

La Monte Young, with his connection to the Velvet Underground and the New York sixties scene in general, is probably the most high profile minimalist to the average rock fan. Young is also well known for his dedication to making performances of his music into happenings. The Well Tuned Piano is a piece that runs roughly five hours.

If I can be said to have a favorite artist who falls roughly into the minimalist category, it would probably be Henry Flynt. Flynt is an extraordinarily interesting person in a general sense, and You Are My Everlovin' is unique in the way it sucks in so much of the cultural scrapheap of America and puts it back out in a way so raw and honest that it virtually erases artifice altogether. Even Flynt's musical failures (and he has a few) are fascinating.

More from the New York scene as the Theater of Eternal Music crew comes across with an excerpt. As mentioned above, you could draw a direct line between this and "Venus in Furs".

I wish I could speak intelligently about Pauline Oliveros. Her work is fascinating, but I frankly have yet to really wrap my head around it. Here her concept of "deep listening" is on display: a group improv, but rather than the lightning quick chatter of the jazz improviser, this is slow, graceful, and seamless.

We mentioned the Young-VU connection between minimalism and rock, but David Bowie (along with Brian Eno) is the one who brought it to pop with his Berlin trilogy, most notably Low. It should be mentioned that the Krautrock scene was also heavily influenced by minimalism.

Phill Niblock, who is still very active, is one of the later New York minimalists. His hurdy gurdy pieces are fabulous in the way they reference the ground zero of minimalism, the primal source of the drone - the Southern or Central Asian tambura, the Indian tanpura or sitar - and do it with a European instrument, albeit one that has origins in the Middle East. Oh, and he's from my hometown, so shout out to Anderson Indiana!

Tony Conrad, another key figure of the notorious New York scene and member of The Primitives with Lou Reed and John Cale, is largely responsible for making the minimalist/Krautrock connection by collaborating with Faust in 1973. This particular cut comes from a 1995 album recorded by Steve Albini and featuring post-rockers David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke. Conrad was also quite the raconteur; the movie about him is a must-see.

The four volumes of William Basinski's Disintegration Loops are legendary: consisting of tape loop experiments he had done over the years, the Disintegration Loops were the result of the disintegration of the tapes as he tried to transfer them over to hard drives after years in storage. The loops famously were finished on September 11th, 2001, and served as soundtrack to videos that Basinski shot that day from his Brooklyn loft. 

CC Hennix is yet another of the New Yorkers, though she was born in Sweden. Like Conrad (and others), she is a mathematician.

Charlemagne Palestine is, you guessed it, another New Yorker, but more toward the gentle hippy side of things than provocateurs like Flynt and Conrad. This long piano piece is not unlike Young's Well Tuned Piano, but Palestine is actually playing a standard piano.

No Spotify playlist on this one. Most of these pieces are up on YouTube. Tapes are on the way, Dave. Enjoy!

Tape One
Side One
Terry Riley - In C
Rhys Chatham - The Crimson Grail (for 400 Guitars): Part One

Side Two
La Monte Young - The Well-Tuned Piano (excerpt)

Tape Two
Side One
Henry Flynt - You Are My Everlovin'

Side Two
Henry Flynt - Celestial Power

Tape Three
Side One
Theater of Eternal Music (John Cale, Tony Conrad, Angus MacLise, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela) - Inside the Dream Syndicate Volume I: Day of Niagara
Pauline Oliveros - "Suiren" from Deep Listening
David Bowie - "Wailing Wall" from Low

Side Two
Phill Niblock - Four Arthurs Superimposed with Two Octaves and a Fifth
Tony Conrad - "The Heterophony Of The Avenging Democrats, Outside, Cheers The Incineration Of The Pythagorean Elite, Whose Shrill Harmonic Agonies Merge And Shimmer Inside Their Torched Meeting House" from Slapping Pythagoras 

Tape Four
Side One
William Basinski - "dlp 1.02" from Disintegration Loops IV
Catherine Christer Hennix - The Electric Harpsichord

Side Two
Charlemagne Palestine - Strumming Music (excerpt)

A Totally Unassailable and Correct Listing of the Ten Best Fall Albums

On this I will brook no dissent. Well, maybe a little.

1. Hex Enduction Hour
2. Live at the Witch Trials
3. This Nation's Saving Grace
4. The Wonderful and Frightening World of . . .
5. Perverted by Language
6. Dragnet
7. Grotesque (After the Gramme)
8. Room to Live
9. The Unutterable
10. I am Curious Oranj

And here is a Fall mix, just for you:

You are my Everlovin' - Henry Flynt (1981)

The mixing of "high" and "low" art . . . no, the erasure of the idea of "high" and "low" art, the erasure of ART altogether . . . Henry Flynt sawing away on his fiddle along with a taped tambura, referencing blues, raga, modal jazz, free jazz, hillbilly music . . . totally outside any of those references, just playing a life lived and heard . . . there is no art, there is no concept, there is only sound. 

RIP Mark E. Smith (3/5/1957 - 1/24/2018)

Best Rock Side Ever: Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys, Side One

"Who Knows" and "Machine Gun" live at the Fillmore, side one of Band of Gypsys

Somewhere - I think it was in It Might Get Loud - Jack White was expounding on the glory of cheap guitars, and how they made you a better guitar player, which . . . first of all, fuck you Jack White, 'cause most of the time I see you kicking it on a live video, you're doing it with a Gretsch White Falcon, which is more than half a year's rent for a two bedroom in my neighborhood . . . and second, speaking as a fellow primitive technique guitarist, after years of broke-ass guitars with shitty action, when I finally found my beloved transparent green 98 deluxe Telecaster, I immediately became a better player. . . .

BUT, our friend Jack does have a point, or a couple, actually. There is something rewarding about digging out the soul of idiosyncratic guitars, guitars that make you play on their terms, not your own. And also, that glib sort of pentatonic shredding crap is the worst.

Which brings us to Jimi Hendrix, who (of course!) easily transcended the whole shredder mystique . . . at once the ultimate shredder, and beyond shredding itself. Jimi could play guitar as easily and automatically as the normal person speaks, and with a massive vocabulary besides. However, after 45+ years of mining 4 years worth of recording, you find that Jimi's fluency on guitar could be a curse as well as a blessing. Sometimes, per Jack White, guitar came too easy to Hendrix. As a result, there's a whole lot of posthumous Hendrix with a lot of flash, but no substance. The average guitarist, or even a good-to-great guitarist, has to focus on his instrument to be even moderately coherent; but there is Jimi, just chatting away with his guitar. Problem was, he quite often was just talking shit.

There is a story (possibly apocryphal) that Bill Graham, famous Fillmore impresario, was approached by Hendrix after a (literally!) incendiary set during his holiday 69/70 run, and asked for his opinion. Graham told him, in effect, that he was clowning for the audience at the expense of his music. Angered, Hendrix went out and locked in on the next set without the pyrotechnics, at least until the encore, when he went absolutely apeshit as a big "fuck you" to Graham. The version of "Machine Gun" from Band of Gypsys is from that very set.

Hendrix's most popular music was created with Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. Billy Cox and Buddy Miles handled the bass and drums respectively for the Band of Gypsys. As brilliant as Mitchell was on drums, Cox and Miles gave Hendrix an open groove and plenty of room to run. At their best, the Band of Gypsys was the next level of rock music, and side one of Band of Gypsys is the band at their best. It is open and funky, an exploration after the soul of Coltrane, as nimble as Dolphy*, as passionate as Ayler or Etta James or Koko Taylor (see Taylor with Willie Dixon on "Insane Asylum"). It is Hendrix focused and at his absolute best.

In light of the revival of the vinyl LP, I think we can not only discuss the greatest rock album, but the greatest rock side. Side two of Band of Gypsys is not a dog by any stretch of the imagination, but it does not stand up to side one. Side one of Band of Gypsys is the best rock side ever . . . and that, friends, is indisputable scientific fact.

____________________

*  Hendrix is frequently compared to jazz saxophonists, especially Coltrane, but I believe the most accurate comparison to be Eric Dolphy. Dolphy and Hendrix share an athleticism and aggression that sets them apart.

Jerry "The Logo" West and "Pistol" Pete Maravich

Dragon Lady - The Geraldine Fibbers (1995)

Carla
& guitar tone 

Bloodroot - Kelly Moran (2017)

Highly Recommended

Bloodroot isn't a prepared piano record per se - the prepared piano sounds are sampled and loaded into MIDI controllers so Moran has access to them through her synthesizer - but unlike, say, Conlon Nancarrow, who wrote player piano rolls to execute piano compositions that humans couldn't play, Moran uses the samples to have her prepared piano vocabulary at her fingertips, and to extend that vocabulary (but always within the context of the composition!) by mixing the prepared piano sounds with straight piano sounds. It also allows her to do things that would require a second set of hands, like using an ebow whilst playing prepared/straight piano on some of the same notes.*

tl:dr; All of this is a way of saying that this is a prepared piano record, even if not technically a prepared piano record. As such, it is most obviously compared to John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano . . . and while that may seem too easy, it also happens to be fair & useful. Given the stature of Sonatas and Interludes, it is a tribute to Moran that she is produce an album that stands up to Cage's masterwork.

Circa 2017, prepared piano is not the novelty it was when Cage first started toying with it in the late 1930s, even if it is not exactly commonplace. The thing that makes Sonatas and Interludes transcendent is that, once you get past the technical innovation, it is composition itself that really makes it immortal. In the same way, above and beyond Moran's technical vision, the composition is what carries Bloodroot. 

The thing that really makes Sonatas and Interludes shine is the way that pianist Maro Ajemian (to whom Cage dedicates the work) finds the Satie at the core of Cage's compositions**: the archness, the asceticism, the playfulness, the obstinance, the longing . . . the soul, if you will indulge the cliché. In Moran's work to you can hear echoes of Satie - I also hear Messiaen, Cowell, and Ligeti, just off the top of my head - but manages to create a work that is informed by her predecessors, not dependent upon them. And while the simple fact that it is a prepared piano work links it closely to Sonatas and Interludes, that too informs it, but does not define it. The compositions are, after the first blush of sound wears off, beautiful, varied, and unique. While Bloodroot will perhaps never fully escape the orbit of Sonatas and Interludes, it will stand up as part of the canon.

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*  Something has been made of the hybrid nature of the technology, linking it to electronic music as well as prepared piano. I think this is misleading: while electronics do show up on the treatments of some sounds, the effect is subtle and not at all like what we understand as electronic music in the avant garde classical sense.  

** I've heard other versions; Ajemian's debut of the work on Dial Records is the best version of the work by far.

Midget Submarine - Swell Maps (1979)

S/T - Mazozma's Fatufairfe (2016)

It's the whole damn e.p., 'cause I couldn't figure out which song I like the best, and there's only four. You really should have this one on yr phone.

Happy New Year - Eugene Chadbourne (1984)