I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: NEGATIVLAND-Escape From Noise (1987).

This was my introduction to Negativland.  And I loved it.  I loved everything about his album.  I used to play songs from it on my college radio show all the time.

I loved that the first track, “Announcement” opens with this ponderous statement

This announcement from the producers of this record contains important information for radio program directors, and is not for broadcast. The first cut on this record has been cross-format-focused for airplay success. As you well know, a record must break on radio in order to actually provide a living for the artists involved. Up until now, you’ve had to make these record-breaking decisions on your own, relying only on perplexing intangibilities like taste and intuition. But now, there’s a better way.  The cut that follows is the product of newly-developed compositional techniques, based on state-of-the-art marketing analysis technology. This cut has been analytically designed to break on radio. And it will, sooner or later.

After a count down comes the “radio hit” they call “Quiet Please” which opens with a cacophony of noise–smashing cymbals jagged guitars and bizarre sound effects with a man yelling “Quiet Please!”  It’s insane and really quite catchy–at least by 2019 standards.

After we hear David say, “I’m going to record all the noise,”, his mom talks about how much noise they don’t have there before a Girl says Michael Jackson and then a loud voice lists a whole bunch of 1980s bands indulging Weird Al and David…Booie (Bowie).

AND WE ESPECIALLY CALL FOR THE JUDGMENT IN THIS HOUR AND THE DESTROYING OF ROCK MUSIC DIRECTED SPECIFICALLY AGAINST CHILDREN AND WORKING SPECIFICALLY THROUGH THESE INDIVIDUALS FOR WHOM WE CALL FOR THE JUDGMENT IN THE SACRED FIRE IN THIS HOUR BEFORE THE THRONE OF ALMIGHTY GOD

This rant is followed by a catchy bouncy synth riff which opens the next song “Escape from Noise.”  It continues the premise of breaking music on the radio.  But then a man starts shouting about the noise all around us.  “Is there any escape from noise?”  This line always made me chuckle: IT’S NO WONDER YOU’RE EXHAUSTED AFTER A DAY OF SHOPPING.

Then David states in his inimitable voice:

Supposing you’re watching the Playboy Channel, (“Ooooh yes! Oh….”) and it’s just about time for them to have an orgasm(“….Oh! Oh! Harder! Oh! Oh! I think I’m gonna explode! Oh! Oh!”) When all of a sudden: Wham! The horrible noise comes in, and completely destroys your orgasm on the Playboy Channel. (“Oh yes-“).

“The Playboy Channel” also features Jello Biafra, flushing a toilet.

The bouncy riff returns for “Stress in Marriage.”  Along with other various song snippets, the announcer tells us, there’s enough built-in stress in marriage without noise contributing.

“Nesbitt’s Lime Soda Song” is a straight up folk song (and very catchy too.  But there’s a surprisingly dramatic temp throughout as a bee gets into the last bottle of the previous lime soda.

I brought a case of Nehi, and Double Cola, too
A half a dozen Upper 10’s, and good old Mountain Dew
I bought a quart of Cola-Up, to get me through the day
But just one bottle of Nesbitt’s Lime Soda
And we had to throw it away

“Over the Hiccups” features a little girl (Louisa Michaels) singing “Over the Rainbow” while suffering from the hiccups  It’s cute and bizarre.

“Sycamore” is a fascinating song that splices spoken clips about guns and a planned community.

“Car Bomb” is two minutes of thumping drums and screaming vocals.  Each “verse” ends in a shout of CAR BOMB! and a humongous explosion.  It’s awesome.

“Methods of Torture” has various synth sounds and then describes how sound was used as methods of torture: “put someone’s head in side a bell and ring it.  And eventually they’ll go insane.

“Yellow Black and Rectangular” is a pretty song–various bell-like sounds looping while a man and woman talk about a sign that’s yellow and black with wedge shapes inside.  The splicing is exquisite.

“Backstage Pass” has samples of presumably Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart (see below) with a sitar, I guess?  Not the best song on the record, for sure (and an homophobic slur).  But it leads into the masterpiece that is “Christianity Is Stupid.”

“Christianity Is Stupid” is a four-minute track that samples the propaganda movie If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, with primarily the narrator saying over and over “Christianity is Stupid, Communism is Good.  Give up!”    It’s awesome.

Shop as usual and avoid panic buying.

You can only follow that up with something more ridiculous and sublime: “Time Zones.”  I’m not sure why, but this track was a personal favorite among myself and my friends.  After a musical interlude, a narrator talks about the Soviet Union before a transistor radio begins talking about how many time zones there are in the Soviet Union.  Eleven.  Eleven.

“You Don’t Even Live Here” is a great recording of a hearing in which a woman yells about a nuclear reactor being built in their community.  It’s pretty inspiring, actually (even if it is rather distorted).  The music is pretty cool, too.

“The Way of It” ends the disc in a kind of recap–”this is not the way of it…all that shouting, all that noise.”  Followed by “Endscape” a little cheering section to close the record.

I haven’t listened to this is many years, but it sounded even better this time through.  This album is so far ahead of it’s time it’s ridiculous.  Its not even funny.

The creators of this masterpiece were:

• Mark Hosler: Singing, synthesizers, guitars, voice tapes, percussions, rhythm loops, bomb parts, David manipulation, tiny metal banjo, recorder, lots of other noises, mix
• Don Joyce: Yelling, talking tapes, electric tympani, synthesizer, lyrics, singing, Booper bee, bomb parts and assembly, noises everywhere, mix
• Chris Grigg: Drums, synthesizer, singing, computer & software, field recordings, mix
• David Wills: Talking, shortwave, family tape, bomb parts, regular Booper
• Richard Lyons: Singing, lyrics, voice

With contributions from

• Ian Allen: Helicopter (on “Sycamore”), Rhythm Loop (on “Car Bomb”), Bell (on “Time Zones”)
• Jello Biafra c/o Dead Kennedys: Toilet Flushing (on “The Playboy Channel”)
• Das c/o Big City Orchestra: Voice Tapes (on “Quiet Please”)
• Dina Emerson: Wordless Vocals (on “You Don’t Even Live Here”)
• Steve Fisk: Optigan and Voice Tapes (on “Michael Jackson”)
• Tera Freedman: Voice Tape (on “Backstage Pass”)
• Phil Freihofner: Bomb Parts (on “Car Bomb”)
• Ray Briem: radio talk show host (on “Time Zones”)
• Ed Markmann: Paid Voice
• Fred Frith: Urban Drum and Halfspeed Violin (on “Michael Jackson”)
• Jerry Garcia c/o Grateful Dead: Mouth Sounds and Chimes (on “Backstage Pass”)
• Alexander Hacke c/o Einstürzende Neubauten: Metal Noises (on “Christianity Is Stupid”)
• Mickey Hart c/o Grateful Dead: Percussion and Processed Animals (on “Backstage Pass”)
• Tom Herman c/o Tripod Jimmie: Torture Guitars (on “Methods of Torture”)
• Henry Kaiser: Doublespeed Disco Guitars (on “Quiet Please”)
• Louisa Michaels c/o Step One Nursery School: Singing (on “Over the Hiccups”)
• Mark Mothersbaugh c/o Devo: Jazz Bass, Jimi Hendrix, E-cussion, Saxophone and Noises (on “The Playboy Channel”)
• The Residents Hoots and Clanging (on “You Don’t Even Live Here”)
• Rev. Ivan Stang c/o The Church of the SubGenius: Larynx (on “Christianity Is Stupid”)
• Rand Weatherwax c/o CBS: Orchestra Hits and E-cussion (on “Quiet Please”)
• Rob Wortman c/o Kingshouse: Leaf blower (on “You Don’t Even Live Here”)

[READ: April 20, 2019] “Quality Time”

This story was sitting on my kitchen table and my mother-in-law picked it up and wondered why I had a 19 year-old story from the New Yorker.  She bristled at the early sentence: “She had her husband’s permission.”

This shaped my view of the story before I read it and I looked at it with a 2019 viewpoint to see if the story was retrograde.

The fact that a woman is hit by a car and killed didn’t help very much.  Especially since, although her death affects him, it is never given a justification.  Nor is it even a plot point, per se.

The man who witnessed the woman’s death is named Wales.  He is a travelling reporter, focusing on Germany and London, most recently Princess Diana’s death.  He was currently in New York to work at a college.  To satisfy his stay he was to give a lecture about Princess Diana’s death called “A Failed Actuality.”

His attitude about her contradicts the maudlin London tabloids which say “WE GRIEVE” “GOODBYE.”  He feels the memorial “was an event made for TV–his reactions were the story.”  He hears a woman in the next room say, “This’ll never happen again, will it?  It’s completely unique, you know?  Not her, of course.  She wasn’t.  She was a whoor.  Well, right, maybe not a whoor.  But you know.”

The next day he found out hat his friend’s wife died in Oxford and there were no flowers left for her.  [So that is three women dead in this story].

Wales is on his way to The Drake hotel in New York City to meet the woman who has her husband’s permission to be there, Jena.  She is in her forties and rented the room in the hotel to paint.  And to meet Wales.

When he finally arrives (late), she is “dying for you to be here.”

Although the attitudes are somewhat retrograde, the characters are fully fleshed out and the story unfolds slowly with lots of nice details.

Jena “didn’t like weakness” and clearly controls this affair.  Normally they didn’t talk much, they just had passionate sex.  But tonight she wanted to talk.  He knew the sex would come, so he enjoyed the conversation first.

She wanted to talk about her family.  He bristles at the thought of talking about her husband and daughters, but she means her parents.

She briefly asked about his family but clearly wasn’t listening. Then she talks about hers.  She says they were poor and almost arrogant in their poorness.  When he asks if they like her, she says “Of course.  I’m rich.  They treat me like royalty.  But that’s why I’m a painter… They didn’t honor their duty to react to the world in a responsible way. So I have to say things with my painting because they didn’t.”

They are interrupted by a housekeeper, which I found surprising at such a late hour.  But it was for turn down service.  Is that a fancy hotel thing or a we-used -to-do-this thing.  They were both sure it was her husband, so there is some stress in the room.

Eventually she turns back to him–“she liked to think of him not as a journalist but as a spy”–and asked if he had ever killed anyone.  He says no.  She wonders if he ever would.  He says No.

After they make love the go our for dinner.  She talked about her husband and their therapy.  As she talked, he thought about him and thought that they might like each other–they were about the same age and probably had plenty to talk about.  While they were walking she asked him something important

“If I asked you to kill my husband, would you do it?”

The story isn’t going to go in that direction, of course, but it does shape the rest of the story some way.

He follows that important question with a very different one of his own, “Did this give you anything?  Did I give you anything you cared about?  It seemed like you wanted there to be an outcome.”