Sunday, July 27, 2008

The All-Nighter

Whenever I get a few days in a row off from work, I tell myself that somewhere in the middle of it, I’ll pull an all-nighter. This is a hell of a thing to pull off at fifty. So why do it, you ask? I don’t know. To pretend that my body and mind still work independent of normal waking hours when I feel like it? I already know it’s not true, and it makes me pretty useless for the next several days. Whatever my motivation, I know I’ll need a soundtrack for it.

Going out drinking with buddies doesn’t count. It involves too much fun and comradery, giving the night it’s own momentum. And that’s what the jukebox is for, anyway.

I’m referring to the nights that are sugar or caffeine inspired, “dark night of the soul” or at least “I need to be alone” time. So what can you put on at those times that won’t be too up and cheerful, but also have enough musical interest to make your all-nighter unique? And which records risk a consistency of tone that might not be immediately inviting, but that will sustain you through literally dark times?

The answer has been different, depending on the medium. Back when we had vinyl and used record changers, you could stack up six sides on top of each other and just let them rip for a couple of hours. Of course, when we all became more responsible about our records (as opposed to our bodies) we used turntables, which only allowed you to play one record - and one side for that matter - at a time. Whatever it was you were doing, you had to stop every twenty minutes or so, and change the side.

But one advantage LPs had over CDs was that when you were dealing with a schizophrenic record – one whose first and second sides are drastically different - you could put on just the side that fit the mood. Some examples are:

  • “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” by Bob Dylan, which comprises side 4 of “Blonde on Blonde”.
  • “Dark Star” by the Grateful Dead, which is Side 1 of “Live/Dead.” There are probably a dozen other Dead sides that would do the trick, but this one’s my favorite.
  • “On the Beach” (Side 2) by Neil Young
  • “Before and After Science” (Side 2), Brian Eno
  • “Low” (Side 2), David Bowie
  • “Heroes” (Side 2), David Bowie

On the other hand, CDs with a consistency of tone throughout can get you ten times the depression for your effort if you’ve got a multi-disc player. Try records like:

  • “There’s a Riot Going On” by Sly and the Family Stone
  • “Third” by Big Star
  • “Tonight’s the Night” by Neil Young
  • “Second Edition” by Public Image, Ltd.
  • “Communique” by Dire Straits
  • “Closer” Joy Division

And if you haven’t slit your wrists by now, these next records can be quite nice for traveling through interstellar space:

  • “Another Green World” by Brian Eno
  • “Ambient Works, Vol. II” by Aphex Twin (also good for depressions)
  • “The Koln Concert” by Keith Jarrett
  • “In a Silent Way” by Miles Davis
  • “Adventure” by Television

And if the caffeine hasn’t worn off yet, go to your Morning Music list. Otherwise, get some sleep, ya crazy nut!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Sex, Drugs, Rock, Roll, etc.

Hi. My name’s Joe Friday-on-My-Mind. I’m with the ACLU, Rock Music Division. We defend the indefensible. Here’s my story:

R&R

If your upbringing was anything like mine, your parents hated rock and roll music. Some lucky kids had parents who could at least stomach the Beatles. Not us. I’ll never forget my dad’s pronouncement, made sometime in 1964 I think, that There would never be a Beatles record in this house! Man, that sounded pretty final at the time, and even though we eventually wore him down, it took until 1966, and a double birthday combo (my brother’s and mine were three weeks apart) to get our first album ever – “Revolver”. And even that was Plan B, after the single (“Yellow Submarine”/”Eleanor Rigby”) they bought us kept skipping on our old Victrola. The pennies weighing down the tone arm didn’t work. They did eventually wear a groove into “She Said She Said” that was so deep that I was an adult before I heard the song all the way through uninterrupted.

After some time, the Monkees were permitted, too, but we knew there were limits. No one with facial or female-length hair need apply. We probably could have gotten away with the odd subtle drug reference here or there. After all, my dad missed what Country Joe was spelling out on “Woodstock”. But then my mom figured out what John Prine’s “Illegal Smile” was about.

And in my own cowardly and roundabout way, I struck a blow for justice when I accidentally (?) dropped a stack of Irish LPs on the floor. Back then the vinyl was thick and brittle. All I remember now is being up to my ankles in jagged black shards, feeling like I’d just slain Goliath (or Dorothy after she unknowingly dropped a house on the witch, but I’m a little uncomfortable with that analogy).

A lot of us spent our childhoods being told that what we loved was crap and that our heroes were bums. How did you deal with that? Did you ignore the criticisms or try to prove them wrong? If you did the former, weren’t you implicitly accepting the criticism? (Not really, but I thought so at the time. Unlike most other kids, I never learned to totally ignore adults.) And if you accepted it, then didn’t that mean that you yourself would eventually choose to stop listening to it, judging it to be juvenile? And even though I was confusing a simple change of taste with a conscious decision to reject something on philosophical grounds, I still think that the early seventies represented my generation’s first reaction against rock and roll. Many of us, in an effort to feel more mature, began listening to more “serious” music.

I did it too, by getting into “progressive” music, singer-songwriters and other such genres. I was looking for Artists who were making music that was more defensible. After all, I had adults I needed to be to arguing with. Other kids played stickball.

And what defenses did I use, you ask?

First, there was the Virtuosity, or, Ginger Baker is the best drummer in the world” defense. At around the age of twelve, musicianship became very important to me. Simply judging music by the amount of enjoyment it provided was too subjective for me. And it left me open to the criticism that my taste was immature. But if someone was a great musician, it meant that they had an inherent quality that could be measured, which validated the music. Alas, this is where music “appreciation” begins. Remember how much fun it was to listen to ten minute drum solos?

Then there was the Sounds Like Classical Music defense. You had to buy Emerson, Lake and Palmer records for this one. Some high school music teachers even pretended to buy into it. But it usually entailed listening to long “suite”s on side two. Rock operas could fall into this category, too, unless, like “Tommy”, they used actual rock and roll music. Imagine.

And finally, there was the Sounds Like Music Older People Would Like defense. I would play “Celluloid Heroes” by the Kinks for my mom, hoping that she would one day say “What a beautiful song. Well, rock music is actually very good! How’s about putting on some Hot f-ing Tuna?” Instead, she mistook the drum beat for a scratch on the record. Much later, to her credit, she very unexpectedly said that she liked “Ripple” by the Grateful Dead. And dad noted that David Lindley could play a mean violin, wild hair and all. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Even on its own, independent of adult disapproval, rock music felt the need to get serious. I suppose we could blame Sgt. Pepper for this, but this hasn’t been an entirely bad thing. Let’s face it, for a lot of people, rock and roll music was just an excuse to act like an asshole. For every Woodstock, there’s at least one Altamont. So those of us who were not assholes – both listeners and musicians - were given a false choice between Significance or utter Stupidity. Choosing the former meant you were - and had - no fun; the latter meant that you were an ignorant clod. Foghat to the right of me, Genesis to the left of me - what’s a fellow to do? I wouldn’t resolve this dilemma satisfactorily until years later when I could absorb some punk rock.

And as I got older, I began to get the cosmic joke a little more. I could see how rock and roll would always be in danger of looking stupid when it took itself too seriously. Some of us get more serious over time, but those of us who are too serious to begin with sometimes learn to just lighten up. You can be unserious and smart at the same time.

It took time to appreciate rock and roll music that could be both, even when it was right in front of me. You can have your cake and eat it too, it said, by immersing yourself in the joy of the sound, having a good time with the theoretical stupidity (“Louie, Louie”), and totally rejecting the actual stupidity (see my posting “Most Awful Bands”). This is not easy for a teen-ager who takes himself way too seriously. I can barely manage it now.

But after a while, you realize that a good TV show is better than a bad book. And in the same way, good rock and roll is better than bad opera. Sometimes good rock and roll is an opera.

Sex (Not Really) and Drugs:

But I mustn’t ignore the second front of this particular war, which was a debate over lifestyle, by which I mean sex and drugs. Well drugs anyway. Sex (defined more or less as the seeing anyone else’s underwear, in any context whatsoever) wasn’t discussed. So let’s just check that one off right away.

A self evident axiom at the time was that Everybody who played rock music took drugs. My parents certainly thought so. “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” had a great line about it: “In a recent experiment, scientists gave LSD to lab rats. There were few side affects, but the rats now have an album in the Top 40.” Even I laughed at that one.

Drug addicts (i.e., anyone who ever tried an illegal drug in their lives) were bad people, and bad people couldn’t do things like make great music. So I had to defend my favorite artists from this charge. I told my parents that they were being unfair, and that they shouldn’t assume this about anyone, blah, blah, blah…. I really believed this; hence my need at the time to find “clean cut” groups (i.e. those adhering to my dad’s facial hair dictum, which I’d apparently internalized by this time. Sgt. Pepper, again, caused a crisis, with the Beatles now sporting mustaches.) I can now admit that I was being a bit naive, but only because my mom probably won’t read this.

One of the low points of this period was the day my mom marched into our bedroom one morning to announce, with relish, that one of our heroes – Mickey Dolenz of the clean cut Monkees – had been arrested for drug possession. (Pot? LSD? Heroin? What difference did it make? It was drugs!) I felt so betrayed that I went through my copy of “Sixteen” (wait, that can’t be right. I was only ten!) magazine and decided to spit on his picture. Since these magazines had LOTS of pictures, there were a bunch to choose from. I decided that I would spit on the 30th one I found, which I got to about a third of the way through.

I made my way down to the kitchen, and heard on the news that it was Mick JAGGER who got arrested, not Mickey Dolenz! Of course he took drugs, mom! He was in the Rolling Stones! He practically had to. One perfectly good magazine ruined. I would find out later that Mick Jagger was a relative tea-totler, compared to everyone else around him. So I was wrong every which way from Sunday on this one.

Have Mouth, Will Defend:

Both personal experience and a perusal of Blender magazine force me to confront the fact that musicians may, in fact, be the most miserable excuses for human beings on the planet. (Oh wait, that’s Bill O’Reilly.) And when they interact with other humans, it’s the latter who usually get the worst of it. These friends and family members must endure them and thus pay a steep price for our joy. I hope there’s a special place in heaven for them because I will continue to require this joy until the day I die.

I think my problem was that I was trying to defend what can’t be defended. Once you try to fit music, or worse yet, the musicians themselves, into a set of philosophical preconditions, you’re going to run into trouble. The minute that irresistible hook comes around, you’ll be singing along with those lyrics about drowning puppies in a well. (What, you don’t remember that one?) Okay, may not. After all, we all draw our own personal line in the sand for when something is officially “offensive” to us, but it’s usually because the riff (or the punch line) isn’t good enough. I would call it my Guns n Roses line. And we all have a duty to encourage the good and discourage the bad. We should deny sex (yeah, this situation is always coming up) to those who profess an admiration for Hitler or John Tesh, both as punishment, and to clean up the gene pool.

But otherwise, if I may paraphrase some very unsound advice, if it sounds good, maybe you should just sit back and enjoy. And yes, I’ll admit that we’ll all draw the line at drowning puppies, but I wonder what I’ll be willing to sing along to before I get to that point? Hopefully not “Deutschland über Alles”.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

When Listening is Work

One factor that may have encouraged me to run screaming from respectable music was the time I spent working in a large office in my early twenties. We had the misfortune of having an office manager who insisted that, instead of the glorious cacophony of fifty radios all tuned to different stations playing at the same time, only one radio station should be allowed. She chose the one with the format which at the time was known as Easy-listening.

Back then, the purveyors of Easy Listening music were people like Percy Faith and Mantovani, whose job it was to do lame versions of the recent hits of the day. They could always be counted on to re-make a good record in the worst possible way. Anything that had a beat was rendered beatless (that extra “s” makes all the difference, doesn’t it?), anything with a brain was lobotomized. Forget about anything with genitals.

It was painful to listen to, but it was only when I heard their version of John Lennon’s “Love” (from “Plastic Ono Band”) that I knew that I was my own customized circle of hell. You’d think that such a song would be right up their alley, but alas it’s so fragile and beautiful that it must be handled with care. They, of all people should have known this, but what did they do? They sped it up and made it…snappy. In other words, they tarted it up. It was like finding out that the lovely, shy girl you had a crush on snapped her gum and loved “Three’s Company”.

When enough of us got fed up with this (I’ll admit it’s not a major chapter in labor history), management took the bold step of changing the station to the one with the then-new “Lite” format. Although the decision was universally applauded, it proved to be of only momentary relief to me. The main difference between Easy Listening and Lite was that the former was comprised of lousy versions of decent songs, while the latter was made up of the original versions of awful songs.

It’s hard to remember now, but besides the power ballads and dance music of the day, there existed another genre of which most dare not speak. Remember “Mellow”? Oh, sure you do. It was the early eighties version of Easy Listening. Melissa Manchester, Peabo Bryson, Heinrich Himmler. Okay, maybe not him, but you get the idea. In a way, it was even worse than Easy Listening, which you could at least share a good laugh over. When I ridiculed Lite FM, everyone looked at me like I was nuts. For once, unjustly.

Now, there were an awful lot of middle aged ladies who would sing along wistfully to “Sailing” by Christopher Cross, that is, when they weren’t cursing you out for misfiling something. So there was obviously an audience for this stuff. Middle aged ladies in offices, I guess (which begs the question what the hell was I doing there? That’s a whole other blog.) But to this day there are songs for which I have nothing but revulsion – most of the Lionel Ritchie catalog, Air Supply and others who shall not be named.

And to be fair, this kind of experience isn’t confined to the business setting. Around this time, I was in a wedding party and on the way to the reception when Dan Fogelberg came on the radio. Now I will admit to going through brief non gay (I guess) Dan Fogelberg phase, but his song “Longer” was like a bucket of ice water thrown in my face, and I shipped him off to James Taylor Island where sensitive male singer songwriters have no females to feel sorry for them, and eventually cannibalize each other. (Did I hear someone say reality show?) So on comes “Leader of the Band”, one of his more shameless tear-jerkers, and the female members of the wedding party sang along in unison. Thinking I’d just stumbled onto some kind of cult, I looked to my fey fellow ushers for assistance. They could only shrug and shake their heads.

And then there was the time back before we had a car and had to get a ride home from a weekend at the beach. The driver was the friend of a friend, and although my girlfriend and I appreciated the ride, the two hours it took seemed much longer because of the radio station he had on. He seemed to prefer ‘70s top-40 to 60s. There was an awful, late-period Grass Roots song he sang along with to his girlfriend. For her part, she liked, and felt she needed to explain the moral of the ditty about the woman who had a wild life and then settled down. This seemed like the normal order of events to me, so I didn't know what the big deal was. I think the singer was trying to persuade the listener to skip the wild part. Not bloody likely. (Some basic survival instinct has blocked out the memory of the song titles. Please don’t feel obligated to remind me.) My girlfriend and I spent most of the drive with our eyes thoroughly rolled, which made me almost lose a contact lens. If I wasn’t such a cheapskate, on top of the gas money, I would have given him a few extra bucks to change the station.

And now I find there’s a new format called “Fresh”, which is essentially Easy Listening for the new millennium. I guess it’s what I’m hearing when I go into the local Walgreen’s. And you know, it could be a lot worse. They sometimes even find songs that I like. However, I rarely get to fully enjoy them. They always seem to get interrupted at the best part. (“Hey, Jude…DON’T MISS TODAY’S SPECIAL ON THE EXTRA LARGE TUBE OF PREPARATION H FOR $6.99. …And make it better”, and in a totally different key to boot.) If I were more conspiracy minded, I’d say that they were consciously replacing the hooks with the promos, just so that we get conditioned to enjoy them.

All of these formats are based on the mistaken notion that there is music we all like. Not! And while I can always hang up when I'm on hold, drive my own damned car and listen to what I want in private, workplace music has a captive audience, and is thus a form of musical Fascism. Now you may feel that the use of such a term trivializes the deaths of millions of people, especially when compared to one person’s urge to change a channel. But please bear in mind that I’m that one person.

But seriously, those poor people who work in a place where they are forced to listen to the same music all day long must surely go mad. Whenever there’s a workplace massacre, we re-run our debates about gun control and a culture of violence. But my first question is always What was playing on the radio?

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Homonym-phobia

With everything else you’ve got on your mind, you needn’t be losing sleep trying to keep your various pop singers straight. Not literally anyway. Throw in some other similar sounding words (Nico, Neko, Neitche, Nike, etc.), and it can get even more complicated. I’m here to help, but must warn you that there will be a test on this later.
Nietzche was a 19th century German philosopher.
Nike is the shoe company that exploits children in Asia
Nico is a long-gone, once-member of the ultra cool Velvet Underground.
Neko Case is a young Canadian singer-songwriter, and sometimes member of the New Pornographers.
Their musical achievements being less memorable, I’ve already lost interest in the first two.

Chelsea Girl 
Nico’s first solo album, Chelsea Girls, recorded right around when the Velvet Underground were getting their bearings, starts with two songs by a very young Jackson Browne. The first one – “The Fairest of the Seasons” – is relatively unknown, but beautiful in that early Jackson Browne/mid-sixties kind of way. The next – “These Days” – has been covered a lot. I don’t know if this is the best version, but it was striking enough to bring tears to my eyes when I first heard it. Although Jackson’s version sports a fabulous guitar solo and heartfelt harmony, it’s also got his trademark self pity.
Contrast their handling of the couplet whose first line is: Well, I had a lover
There’s JB’s whiny - But it’s so hard to risk another, these days.
And Nico’s cool and devastating - I don’t think I’ll risk another these days.
I took a cheap shot at Nico’s singing last year, but I was just pandering to those of you who might find it, in combination with her heavy Austrian accent, awkward or cold. But on “These Days’, she manages to convey all the emotion of the song with none of JB’s narcissism. Oddly enough both songs popped up in “The Royal Tannenbaums”, which I happened to catch while obsessing on this CD, making them even more affecting.
The rest of the record is excellent. She handles the great, early Lou Reed songs quite well, and does a fine job with Bob Dylan’s rare “I’ll Keep it with Mine”. The only lousy track is a whimsical – something Nico is definitely not - third song by Jackson Browne.
All in all, it’s an interesting mix of mid 60s musical cross-currents like folk, experimental and orchestral. And most importantly, the wife liked it.
Nico went on the make more music that I’m told veers into very stark, experimental territory. I’ll explore this more after I’ve refilled my meds.

Fox Confessor Brings the Flood 
Everything is so easy for Pauline begins Neko Case’s first song, “Margaret vs. Pauline”, from Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. It draws you right in because the rhythm of the melody perfectly matches that of the words. The song hints at sibling rivalry but turns out to be about class differences.
Her sound is a cross between country and David Lynch. (You know, with that echoey guitar, like that Chris Isaak song). I was a bit suspicious of this at first. Sometimes a distinctive sound is there to distract you from a distinct lack of something else.
Well it’s certainly not her voice. Neko’s voice is pretty but strong, occupying a middle range that wears well on you. She writes songs that suit her voice, too. This is less common than one would suppose. And every last one of those songs has a well thought out melody that gets you through the oblique lyrics and abrupt endings. It all holds up so well that we found ourselves listening to it repeatedly for months.
I should have realized how good it was when I copied it into my Windows Media Player library and, mixed in with everything else there, every song still stood out. And since I expect that a more or less steady clarification of the words will ensue, I’m in for the long haul.
So now here’s the quiz:
  1. What was the name of that Chris Isaak song?
    1. Don’t care.
  2. True or False, Neitche was a lousy tipper.
    1. True, but only if the waitress laughed when he ordered an “uber-burger”.
  3. In what movie does Nico the character appear?
    1. “The Doors”
  4. In what movie does Nico the actor appear?
    1. “La Dolce Vita”
  5. In what documentary is Nico the subject?
    1. “Nico Icon”
  6. I know I’ll love the Neko Case record, so what New Pornographers CD should I get?
    1. I’m currently listening to “Mass Romantic” (rhymes with frantic). I’ll let you know.
  7. Is Nike still exploiting kids in Asia?
    1. I still don’t buy their sneakers, so let me know.
And yes, Johnny, you are correct. None of this was covered in class.