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Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

Jonathan Lethem–“The Ecstasy of Influence: a plagiarism” (Harper’s, February 2007)

Posted in Bob Dylan, Brian Eno, Charlie Parker, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dizzy Gillespie, Essays, Free Speech, Harold Bloom, Harper's, Heinz von Lichberg, Jonathan Lethem, Lewis Hyde, Mary Shelley, Michael Maar, Muddy Waters, Museum of Modern Art, Nazis, Negativland, Robert Boynton, Robert Johnson, Robert The, Saul Bellow, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Son House, The Beatles, The Monkees, The Simpsons, Thomas Jefferson, Vladimir Nabokov, William Gibson on May 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAVID BYRNE AND BRIAN ENO-My LIfe in the Bush of Ghosts [Remix website] (1981, 2006).

I’m stealing the bulk of these comments from a Pitchfork review of the album reissue because I have never actually listened to this album which I’ve known about for decades.

When Eno and Byrne released My Life in 1981 it seemed like a quirky side project.  But now, Nonesuch has repackaged it as a near-masterpiece, a milestone of sampled music, and a peace summit in the continual West-meets-rest struggle. So we’re supposed to see Bush of Ghosts as a tick on the timeline of important transgressive records.  Nonesuch made an interesting move that could help Bush of Ghosts make history all over again: they launched a “remix” website, at www.bush-of-ghosts.com, where any of us can download multitracked versions of two songs, load them up in the editor of our choice, and under a Creative Commons license, do whatever we want with them.

The only thing is, at the time this review was written, the site was not up yet.  And as I write this in 2019, there’s nothing on the site except for a post from 2014 about Virgin Media and Sky TV.  Alas.

[READ: May 1, 2019] “The Ecstasy of Influence”

Back in the day I was a vocal proponent of free speech.  It was my Cause and I was very Concerned about it.

It’s now some thirty years later and I don’t really have a Cause anymore.  It’s not that I care less about free speech, but I do care less about the Idea of free speech.

Had I read this article in the 1990s, I would have framed it.  Right now I’m just very glad that people are still keeping the torch alive.

Lethem begins this essay about plagiarism by discussing a novel in which a travelling salesman is blown away by the beauty of a preteen girl named Lolita  That story, Lolita, was written in 1916 by Heinz von Lichberg.  Lichberg later became a journalist for the Nazis and his fiction faded into history.  But Vladimir Nabokov lived in Berlin until 1937.  Was this unconscious borrowing or was it “higher cribbing.”

The original is evidently not very good and none of the admirable parts of Nabokov’s story are present in the original.

Or Bob Dylan.  He appropriated lines in many of his songs.  He borrowed liberally from films, paintings and books.  Perhaps that is why Dylan has never refused a request for a sample. (more…)

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Dinaw Mengestu–“Addis Ababa, 1977” (Harper’s, February 2007)

Posted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dinaw Mengestu, Ethiopia, Excerpt, Harper's, Kelsey Lu, Politicians, Skrillex, Violence on May 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KELSEY LU-“Due West” (2019).

I hadn’t intended to listen to so much of the Kelsey Lu album, but the third track was the one produced by Skrillex and I was curious what it would sound like.

I was expecting something very dancey and poppy.  It is nowhere near as over the top as I would have imagined.  Rather, it has a wonderful subtle hook in the bridge just because she sings a few words faster than the other.  Nearly everything else she sings is soft and slow, this little uptick is really cool.

Of the three songs, this is certainly the peppiest. It has some catchy electronic drums and definitive dance quality.  It’s still remarkably understate.

But i can see that the whole album could have sounded very different had she picked different producers.

The song ends with a surprisingly long guitar passage.  It is gentle and sweet with what sounds like crickets playing in the background.

I really don;t know all that much about Skrillex, but I think he’s a wild dancey EDM kinda guy.  The little I know leaves me astonished that he could produce something so subtle and pretty.

[READ: May 1, 2019] “Addis Ababa, 1977”

This is an excerpt from the novel The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears.

It is a horrifying example of what it was like to grow up in Ethiopia in 1977.

The bedroom is a wreck and letters are scattered all over.  He will forever be able to see the room, the house, like this.

Soldiers have arrived. The house guards had already left (begging forgiveness as they fled).  There are three soldiers in the house and at least four waiting in the truck,

The lead solider pushes his father in to the room, considering him weak and vulnerable.  The soldiers can’t be more than a year or two older than the narrator. (more…)

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Miranda July–“The Swim Team” (Harper’s January 2007)

Posted in Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, Kelsey Lu, Miranda July, Romance, Short Story, Skrillex, Swimming on May 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KELSEY LU-“Pushin Against the Wind” (2019).

The Kelsey Lu album has a song produced by Skrillex, and I was really surpirsed at how gentle the first song on the album was.  I was listening on Spotify and the second song started.

I was astonished how much the song sounded like a 70’s (British) folk song.

“Pushin Against the Wind” opens with a quiet, simple guitar melody.  Kelsey sings softly over the top.  The thing that sets it apart happens about a minute in when the tone changes.  She sings slightly faster and this bridge is punctuated by chunky percussion accents.  But those modern sounds are sparingly used, and this song feels delightfully timeless.

The song never gets all that big, but the end pulls the sound back even further to a simple cello and xylophone melody as she sings over the top.

This song is quite enchanting.

[READ: May 1, 2019] “The Swim Team”

This is a very short story (two pages) about the narrator living in a small town called Belvedere when she was twenty-two. The town was so small it wasn’t even a town–just houses near a gas station.

The citizens of the town thought her name was Maria and she was overwhelmed by the task of correcting people.

She knew three people: Elizabeth, Kelda and Jack Jack. (“I am not completely sure about the name Kelda, but that’s what it sounded like and that’s the sound I made when I called her name”).  They were all in their eighties at least.

There are no bodies of water or pools in Belvedere, but “Maria” gave the three of them swimming lessons.  None of the three of them could swim, and when Maria said she used to swim on her high school team, they asked her to be their coach. (more…)

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Pamela Lu–“Ambient Parking Lot” (Harper’s, January 2007)

Posted in Excerpt, Harper's, Huh?, Kelsey Lu, Music, Pamela Lu, Skrillex, The Flaming Lips, Theater on May 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KELSEY LU-“Rebel” (2019).

I saw that Kelsey Lu was playing NonCOMM this year.  I had never heard of her, but her record was getting some high praise.  Then as I was going through some older Harper’s things, I saw this story by Pamela Lu.  I quickly thought it might be the same person.  Then I double checked and of course they are different, they just have the same last name.

Kelsey Lu is a classically trained cellist and has become one of many classical performers who have migrated into the pop world.  She is certainly underplaying her chops on the record, going more for melody than virtuosity.

This piece opens with a pizzicato cello (looped I assume).  It is overlaid with a mournful melody before Kelsey sings in her quiet but affecting voice.

The song is just over three and a half minutes and it slowly builds with more and more organic sounds–strings and voices.  By the half way point, there’s echo and by the three minute mark, this quiet, almost chamber pop song has built into a full-sounding piece which just as quickly drops nearly all the music as two cellos fade the song to the end.

It’s an astonishingly pretty and subtle song to start an album that has production credits from Skrillex (on a different song).

[READ: April 24, 2019] “Ambient Parking Lot”

I started reading this excerpt and thought it might have had something to do withe The Flaming Lips’ Parking Lot Experiments:

During 1996 and 1997, The Flaming Lips ran a series of events known as “The Parking Lot Experiments”. The concept was inspired by an incident in Coyne’s youth, where he noticed that car radios in the parking lot at a concert were playing the same songs at the same time, Wayne Coyne created 40 cassette tapes to be played in synchronization. The band invited people to bring their cars to parking lots, where they would be given one of the tapes and then instructed when to start them. The music was “a strange, fluid 20 minute sound composition.”  [from Wikipedia]

I’ll assume there is some kernel of something, maybe, that inspired this, frankly, disappointing piece.

It begins by talking about the recording of “Ambient Parking #25.”

With just a little filtering, the empty landscape managed to express its industrially generated solipsism and came to overshadow even the engine gunning and trunk popping of SUVs.

The seven inch vinyl was released two weeks later on an indie label.

It was a huge success compared to attempts 1-24 and inspired them to make a full album. (more…)

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James Ellis Thomas–“The Saturday Morning Car Wash Club” (New Yorker, July 10, 2000)

Posted in Car Wash, Cars, Funny (ha ha), James Ellis Thomas, Selfish Cunt, Short Story on April 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DARLINGSIDE-XPN Fest (June 29, 2018).

There’s no bad way to see Darlingside, although perhaps the worst way is at an outdoor festival.  The band is all about closeness–harmonies, quiet instruments, with them all gathered around one microphone.

The first time I saw them was at XPN Fest in 2016.  And they were amazing.  When we saw them in a small club later, they were doubly amazing.

 Darlingside opened their set with their song “Singularity.” The song perfectly showcases their harmonies, as they all sing around one shared mic. Their soothing vocals are accompanied by an acoustic guitar, and the addition of other instruments throughout the song creates drama, especially the banjo, which adds a new feeling. No voice is ever hidden when they sing together, and they all sound great singing solo.

These four guys can harmonize like no one I’ve heard before.  The song segues via violin into the synth box device that they added for the Extra Life album.  “Eschaton” features just bass and the synth box until the bridge when the violin comes in.

Harris Paseltiner says Hi in his excited way and tells everyone how they were “things got a little loopy on our way down the New Jersey Turnpike today. We got stuck in line waiting for gas at the Molly Pitcher Plaza.  Which is a lovely plaza, I must say.”  Then turning to the festival: “I was discombobulated when I arrived, but they’re giving away shots of mango jalapeno coconut water over there.  I took a good five of those to the face.  I’m still a but discombobulated but in a better way.

“We were here to the first time two years ago, it was 100 degrees.”  [I was there and it was!] “So today is like a nice brisk autumn day.”

“Go Back” is the first older song and it sounds amazing.  After a violin melody while the mandolin tunes up, they launch into a gorgeous “White Horse.”  This song is so delicate, so lovely, that it’s hard to imagine it at a festival (especially when the truck behind the stage starts honking midway through the song–the band doesn’t flinch).

Then Auyon introduces the band:

  • Dave Senft plays kick drum and bass and guitar and Dave enjoys caffeinated coffee.
  • Don Mitchell plays banjo and guitar enjoyed caffeinated coffee however he enjoyed it too much and is now on decaf.
  • Harris Paseltiner play cello and guitar enjoyed caffeine a lot but he became concerned about his health and switched to decaf but decided to re-prioritize and is now now back on caffeine.
  • Auyon Mukharji plays violin and mandolin and I drink decaf.

Harris: I think we all might have had jalapeno coconut water.
Don: I followed it up with a chocolate coconut milk.
Dave: I didn’t see any of this, I don’t know what’s happening.

They then play the wonderful “My Gal, My Guy” which might just be my favorite Darlingside song.  The melody is just dynamite.  And their harmonies are, of course, outstanding.

 “Extralife” brings the the synthy thing back.  It’s interesting to me that their general music style doesn’t change at all–nice melodies and gorgeous harmonies.  This new instrument simply adds a new, modern sound to their setup.

“Blow the House Down” is an older song (on their first album).  Its’ quite different from the others because it has a loud kick drum, mandolin and is mostly sung only by Dave.  It’s neat that the low notes mostly come from the other guys going “bah bah bah.”  One doesn’t really expect Darlingside to rock out but they certainly do here with a ripping guitar solo that segues into a ripping violin solo.

“The God of Loss” returns to the beautiful slower songs.  With harmonies galore.

They end the set with a song from the new album, “Best of the Best of Times.”  It is not a happy song, despite the melody.  But the melody makes it feel happy as the sing us out.

Darlingside always sound great, but must be seen live to fully appreciate them.

[READ: June 15, 2019] “The Saturday Morning Car Wash Club”

This story is set around a car wash.

When you were sixteen, a July Saturday was the best.  You got up early even though you didn’t have to.  Even the unemployed got up early because the unemployment office was closed so no one could tell you to get your ass to it.

Everyone gathered at the semi-automated car wash in Cedar Heights.  The first car arrived at 8 and the drivers got to work, vacuuming wrappers and french fries.  Then more cars would arrive, some driven by girls (they would allow the boys to clean their cars for them).

But this story is about outsiders of the (unofficial) Saturday Morning Car Wash Club.  Chester had a beat up hooptie.  It was an ugly brown rustmobile that the kids at the car wash called “Doo-Doo Brown.”

Chester is proud of his hooptie and believes that he would score a woman with it because, hell, it beat taking the bus. (more…)

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Greg Jackson–“Poetry” (New Yorker, April 29, 2019)

Posted in Charles Baudelaire, Foot and Coles, Greg Jackson, LCD Soundsystem, Manchineel, New Yorker, Poetry, Poets, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Toro Y Moi, Volcanoes on April 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TORO Y MOI-Tiny Desk Concert #845 (April 29, 2019).

I have been hearing about Toro Y Moi for quite some time and yet I never got a sense what he (they) were like.  I also always assumed it was a duo (which apparently it is not).

Chaz Bear, who performs as Toro y Moi, is going to do what he feels. In preparation for his Tiny Desk concert, we were given two possible sound scenarios: aim to recreate the heavily electronic and lustrous aura that birthed his latest LP, Outer Peace or strip away the bells and whistles for an acoustic performance. The game-time decision was the latter and fans were treated to brand new iterations of these songs.

I had assumed that the music was dancey, so this acoustic rendition was a surprise.  Reading that blurb makes more sense.

Toro y Moi’s discography conveys that same unpredictability and showcases his affinity for a wide span of genres. While largely known as an early pioneer of chillwave, Outer Peace is anything but. It’s hard-hitting, funky and directly to the point, as is this Tiny Desk concert.

It’s true.  “Laws of the Universe” is as funky as anything (that bass!–Patrick Jeffords) with the stabs of piano (Tony Ferraro) really bring the melody home.  The drums (Andy Woodward) snap and pop and bring the song to life.  And I love the nod to LCD Soundsystem: “James Murphy is playing in My house.” (we should have all replied “my house”).

Stripping down such heavily produced songs could risk revealing weaknesses. In this case, the rhythms move just the same. Removing the Auto-Tune, synths and effects make way for some insightful songwriting that’s often hard to hear in the recorded version.

Like in “New House” which is “about wanting that gold.”  It comes across as such a simple song with simple but relatable lyrics.

I want a brand new house
Something I can not buy, something I can afford
I ain’t even make it off the jetway now
Phone’s been on blast like all day (Ring)
Why you gotta do this? Try to test me now
Right when I touchdown got anxiety (Fuck)
Follow signs out of the terminal now
JFK is a different animal now
Damn baggage claim is like a warzone now
Glad I packed light clothes, I’m on my own

He has a simple, quite vocal delivery here in this mellow song.

“Freelance” returns that funk in the bass with more nice piano punctuation of melody.  I love this verse:

No more shoes and socks, I only rock sandals
I can’t tell if I’m hip or getting old
I can’t hear you, maybe you could change your tone

For the final song they brought out a special guest (who I didn’t know).

With shaker in tow, Bear sat front and center at a stool to deliver four of my favorites from Outer Peace, including “Ordinary Pleasure,” with bongo assistance from Foots of Foot and Coles.

There is definitely a sameness to the set (are they all in the same chord?)  His quiet delivery and the spare piano are all there.  But each song has a moment that lets it stand out.

Like the funky bass and the insanely catchy chorus of “Ordinary Pleasure.”  The bass and ooohs have a very disco feel to it as you dance along to “Maximize all the pleasure, even with all this weather, nothing can make it better, maximize all the pleasure.”

I have since listened to all four songs and I found the Tiny Desk versions to be more enjoyable each time–except for “Ordinary Pleasure” because the disco is ramped up on the album and it’s impossible not to shake to it.

[READ: April 29, 2019] “Poetry”

There is so much going on in this story, that it’s amazing it keeps its coherence.

James and Celeste are on vacation near a volcano.  Possible rain suggested that Celeste would not enjoy the hike but, “so, frankly, did Celeste’s dislike of hikes.”  But the volcano was there and so they had to climb it.  Celeste could sit out out, of course, but “there was the looming question of marriage and children, after all and of the deeper compatibility of our interests.”

She had once told an acquaintance that he needed harrowing ordeals to prove he’s not on the road to death.

The hike was tough–straight up, it felt–and it did rain.  He hoped they would both hold on to the idea that suffering underwrote a deeper pleasure.  He promised it would be over soon and they would enjoy the taste of prune de Cythère.  (Even though neither one knew what it actually was). (more…)

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Robert Stone–“Dominion” (New Yorker, December 27, 1999 & January 3, 2000)

Posted in Charly Bliss, Guns, Hospitals, Humiliation, Hunting, New Yorker, Parenting, PUP, Religion, Robert Stone, Short Story on April 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PUP-“Free at Last” (2019).

PUP has been on my radar for a while now–I’ve heard amazing things about their live shows, although I always seem to miss them. I was really surprised to find out that this year’s Morbid Stuff was only their 3rd album (for about 100 minutes of total music released), because they’ve been touring forever.

I was very amused to see that at the beginning of the video for this first single they wrote

Prior to its release we wanted to see if anyone would cover our song “Free at last” without hearing it first.  We posted the lyrics and a basic chord chart.  The rest was up to interpretation.

253 people tried.

The beginning of the video shows many of these interpretations (wonderful variety) before the song properly starts.

The song is a wonderful punk blast of fast chords and a big chanted chorus of “Just ’cause you’re sad again, doesn’t make you special at all.”

What I particularly like is the slow heavy metal sounding opening guitar riff (it seems like it should be a very different song from the way it starts).  I also love that Eva Hendricks from Charly Bliss gets a cameo line “Have you been drinking?” although I wish she was a little louder in the song, because it goes by so fast.

I will keep an eye out for the next time PUP comes around.  I hope to catch them.

[READ: April 20, 2019] “Dominion”

I really enjoyed this story, the way it unfolded and the way it was broken into relatively discreet sections.  I found the ending to be really unsatisfying, though.

The story opens with Michael and his wife talking to their son Paul.  Paul is 12 and wants to go hunting with his father.  Michael thinks that when he’s 14 he’ll be old enough to go on this annual trip, but that right now he’s still too young.

Paul gives the unexpected argument that in Christian Ethics class, he debated that man has dominion over the animals and that hunting them is okay.

His parents are on the fence about sending him to Catholic school–they both had horror stories about their own upbringing.

The ironic thing is that Michael himself doesn’t really like hunting.  He often walked the woods with the dog ostensibly hunting for pheasants.  But that was mostly because he liked walking in the woods and fields.  The locals though there was something suspicious about you if you didn’t have a gun in your arms doing it.  So he carried a shot gun and planned on shooting nothing.  Of course, if the dog spooked a bird he would try for it.  If he did hit it, it was just more work because he felt compelled to eat it. (more…)

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Woody Allen–“Attention Geniuses: Cash Only” (New Yorker, February 21 & 28, 2000)

Posted in Camille Pissarro, Cars, Cigarettes, Death, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Huh?, Humiliation, Murder, Negativland, New Yorker, Paul Cézanne, Sex, Short Story, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Therapy, Vincent van Gogh, Violence, Woody Allen on April 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NEGATIVLAND-No Other Possibility (1989).

In the year that Helter Stupid came out, Negativland released this one hour video.  It is a visual approximation of a Negativland album.  Lots of cuts, lots of snippets of ads and songs and news broadcasts.  It’s mostly nonsense with some reality and some things that may or may not be reality.  Who knows?

It opens with a critical diatribe that scrolls over a test pattern.  The diatribe by Crosley Bendix criticizes everything that is (correctly) poor about the video and making up other things–the death of a stuntman.

After the opening credits, the video opens with David Willis’ mother watching TV.  On the screen is a clip from Dick Vaughn and his Jack-O-Lantern (more below).  Then she asks David for her cigarettes and the song from A Big Ten 8 Place is acted out hilariously.

After some clips from video games and a commercial for Marlboro, there’s a video for “Nesbitt’s Lime Soda Song.”  When the bee comes into the song, it turns into clips of David filming his family talking about bees and more (like his grandma looking in the fridge for potato chips which makes David laugh).

Change channels until The Dick Vaughn Show comes on and he brings out David Willis to light up a Jack-O-Lantern with 700 volts.

After a commercial from ZOTOS and Nation Hairdressers and Cosmetologists Association that tells women they have to look their best in order to get a job.  “Appearance and good grooming are essential.”

Then it’s time for Trick or Treat with David Willis who is dressed as E.T.

He talks about Halloween safety with 5 hand drawn posters.

  1. no fresh fruit–nails razors
  2. looks for holes or tears in wrappers–inject chemicals
  3. avoid homemade treats
  4. avoid weird, strange-looking people.
  5. if you bob for apples make sure your partners are not sick

Then some explosions with cars flipping.  A small video slowly evolves revealing a live performance of David singing the “Very Stupid” song from 10-8.   It is noisier and rocks pretty hard while David yells the lyrics: “1, 2, stupid ; 3, 4 dumb.”  The version slowly comes into focus as David roams the audience.  he even adds new lyrics: “1,2 urinate ; 3, 4 defecate ; 5, 6 fornicate ; 7, 8  seat be sate!”

After a text: “Earlier that same evening,” a car drives into the building under a scroll from Dick Goodbody raving about this beauty, “her name is Monarch Mercury Monarch.”

Followed by a commercial for the Monarch.

Then there’s a video clip of the fire in the Negativland recording building (which I think is true?).  They interview Mark Hosler who grabbed master tapes and studio equipment.  He tours the burned out building.

Then there’s interstitial questions of what people think about TV.

  • An old man complaining about sex on TV.
  • Teenage girls saying they like soap operas because of the sex.
  • A guy saying TV would be improved if they quit showing so many commercials.

Up next is Crosley Bendix (“Director, Stylistic Premonitions” played by Don Joyce) of the Universal Media Netweb has an insane piece about numerology, at the end of which he cries, “Thanks a million!

  • MTV has fine guys on it

Then comes Negativland “Fire Song” with Mark singing in the burnt house.

A series of ads for canned foods: tomatoes, grapes, yams, dog food over a muzak version of “Age of Aquarius.”

Then comes the religion portion of the show.  Another diatribe by Crosley Bendix complains of people always searching for more intense entertainment.  Since Jesus’s time.  In fact, The Last Supper is the crucial link-up of food and show business.

Then comes more live scenes of some crazy music and kids walking around in costumes who start shouting about ice cream and other food.

  • I don’t watch religious TV because I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Clips of preachers and then Pastor Dick comes out,

He tells some dad jokes like asking for coffee without cream and the waitress saying “you’ll have to have coffee without milk because we are out of cream.”

He brings out a racist ventriloquist dummy Enrico Gomez.  Then has everyone sing along with the Christian Youth Fellowship song from the album How Do You Spell Joy?

He has a Stop sign and asks everyone to clap along. Stop! [clap clap] And let me tell you what the Lord has done do me.  When he turns around the sign is a hand written note “fuck you pastor dick.”

Then comes the 5 eyewitness news team featuring Hal Eisner, with the video of the audio used in side one of the album Helter Stupid.  Don Joyce is interviewed.

As the video ends, there’s one more guy that they interview.  He says

TV is gonna make me famous one day.  When the interviewer asks how, the guy says

“you gotta know how to exploit the media.”

Was he a plant?  Who knows.  There is no other possibility, godammit.

Watch the whole video here.

[READ: April 25, 2019] “Attention Geniuses: Cash Only”

Woody Allen doesn’t seem to write much for the New Yorker these days.  I’ve found over the years that I rather like some of his New Yorker jokes and then others are just ho-hum.  Of all of the short “funny” pieces in the New Yorker, Woody tends to be able to pull off three pages better than others.

Although this one drags and often come across as an excuse to throw out pretentious references.

And yet he’s got some great turns of phrase:

Jogging along Fifth Avenue last summer as part of a fitness program designed to reduce my life expectancy to that of a nineteenth century coal miner

(more…)

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Manil Suri–“The Seven Circles” (New Yorker, February 14, 2000)

Posted in AC/DC, Bebu Silvetti, Brick, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Cancer as plot device, Carol Douglas, Death, Eurhythmics, Funny (ha ha), Guinness Book of World Records, Joe Tex, King Floyd, Manil Suri, Michael Jackson, Minnie Riperton, Mungo Jerry, Natalie Cole, New Yorker, Ozzy Osbourne, Prince, Raat Hamare Milan Ki, Short Story, Talking Heads, Tavares, The Beatles, U2, Weddings, Zapp on April 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NEGATIVLAND-Helter Stupid (1989).

Helter Stupid was the follow-up to Negativland’s “smash hit” (maybe 10,000 copies sold?  I have no idea) Escape from Noise.

It is a concept album based on a hoax that they perpetrated.  Wikipedia summarizes:

In 1988, the group released a mock press release to suggest that the song “Christianity Is Stupid” was connected to murders by David Brom, and that the group was forced to cancel a planned tour in support of Escape from Noise. However, there were no connections with the murders, and the tour was cancelled only due to shortage of funds and free time. Their next album, Helter Stupid, made use of the event by sampling news reports of the controversy surrounding Negativland.

So they generated their own controversy and then made art from it.  Can you imagine the attention that would get in 2019 compared to the minor coverage they got in 1989?

The first half of the album is composed of the tracks “Prologue” and “Helter Stupid” which form an extended piece lasting over 22 minutes. The concept, and some of the sampled material, came from a San Francisco television news program that was taken in by the media hoax. Other samples used included those from Rev. Estus Pirkle (further samples from the same sermon used in “Christianity Is Stupid”), an interview with Charles Manson, and “Helter Skelter” by The Beatles.

The disc opens with a man reciting lewd(ish) rock lyrics.  Then comes clips of ads for murder movies–murder, mayhem, marauding!

The prologue continues with extended samples of the news reports that talks about them being connected to the murder case.  At the end of the track a phone rings.

Song 2 begins with a call from Rolling Stone asking if there is any backward masking on “Christianity is Stupid.”

The rest of the 18 or so minutes is a mashup of all kinds of samples, spliced and cut up.

we don’t have enough data ; S-I-M-P-L-O-T ; murder and music–this isn’t the first time controversial music has been linked to tragedy.  A lengthy quite from Charles Manson and one from John Lennon

There is section where engineers hear something on a tape when you run it backwards–play it backward and you hear (rather amusing) evil messages.

Then comes the riff of Helter Skelter with The Beatles singing Helter and then “Stupid” sampled over “Skelter.”  The middle of the track goes on to emphasize how stupid the controversy is by continuing to use the “stupid” sample in all places

It’s believed night stalker suspect Richard Ramirez was influenced by AC/DC’s Highway to Stupid album. Ozzy Osborne song “Stupid Solution” became the focal point of an actual stupid case involving a Southern California teenager

And then a clever splice to create: “Christianity is triggering the murders.”

It’s intense and thought provoking and sometimes funny.

Side Two is completely different.  There’s 7 tracks all called “The Perfect Cut” with different parenthetical names after each one.  It’s introduced as Dick Vaughn’s Canned Music Moribund Music of the 70s, brought to you in authentic 70s stereophonic format with music, news reports, contests, and more.  The tracks contain samples from “The Winning Score”, a 1977 presentation by TM Century, producers of radio jingles and imaging.

“The Perfect Cut (Canned Music)” talks about short IDs and promos for radio and loops the phrase “execute a perfect cut.”

“The Perfect Cut (Rooty Poops)” features someone talking about being the greatest radio personality in the world.  He then says he spins the dial and finds nothing good–what a bunch of rooty poops.  There’s lots of samples from 70s funk and the absurdly high note of “Loving You.”  There’s also a bit of Casey Casem.

“The Perfect Cut (Good as Gold)” is all about “staying power and the announcer wondering who will still be around 7 years from now in 1992.  Their list: Bruce Springsteen will not burn out’ Prince (unless he gets a whim and decides to drop out of music) ; Michael Jackson ; Lionel Ritchie ; U2 ; Bryan Adams ; Talking Heads; Eurhythmics.  [That list was about half right].   There are samples of : Fragmentation and standardization.

“The Perfect Cut (Piece of Meat)” mostly features a sample of someone growling “I’d like a piece of meat.”  And the admission that the music industry suffered from denationalization but it became big business.  All of this over disco bass and strings.

“The Perfect Cut (White Rabbit And A Dog Named Gidget)” opens with a high school student saying “I’d like to become a lawyer and go to UCLA.   I hear it’s got nice weather and lots cute guys.  I’d like a white rabbit convertible a dog named Gidget.  The most important thing in my life is to go to heaven when i die.”  There’s more Casey Casem talking about learning to appreciate new music.

“The Perfect Cut (11 Minutes)”  A Top 40 listener’s average listening span is only 11 minutes.  Jingles need to be shorter and more frequent.  A shotgun intro with accents on each of your call letters.   I enjoyed hearing this promo.

LPs sale priced at $2.66. 8-track tape $4.44 including this Billboard toppers: The Jackson 5, The Carpenters, Elton John, Neil Young,Cat Stevens, Black Sabbath, James Taylor, Ike & Tina Turner.

There’s also this news headlines for Dec 1978–the average price of gas soars to 76 cents per gallon (!).

Dick Vaughn–From Jan 1, 1970 to Dec 31, 1979, we’ve got your moribund music.

“The Perfect Cut (48 Hours)” is inspired by an ad “You’ve got 48 hours to save a lot of money.”

Someone says it’s so annoying I used to shut the radio right off.  Then there’s silence for 10 seconds followed by, “just when you thought it was safe to turn on your radio.”  And the promise/threat: “Nothing happens until someone buys something.”

The Weatherman shows up to talk about “sewer mouth.”

And then there’s this gem: Take 2 high quality stereo LPs, put them in a full-color jacket, add a beautiful sexy gal on front and candid photos of the KQ jocks inside and you’ve got a bombshell [EXPLOSION].

This is a fun and interesting experiment.  Some tracks do actually bear repeated listening to hear just what they’re trying to do.

Personnel: Richard Lyons (credited as “Dick Vaughn”) ; David Wills (uncredited) ; Don Joyce (uncredited) ; Mark Hosler (uncredited) ; Chris Grigg (uncredited)
Musical Samples The Beatles – “Helter Skelter” ; King Floyd – “Groove Me” ; Carol Douglas – “Doctor’s Orders” ; Minnie Riperton – “Lovin’ You” ; Tavares – “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” & “It Only Takes a Minute” ; Zapp (unidentified) ; Brothers Johnson – “Strawberry Letter 23” ; Brick – “Dazz” ; Natalie Cole – “This Will Be” ; Joe Tex – “I Gotcha” ; Donna Summer – “Love to Love You Baby” ; Bebu Silvetti – “Spring Rain” ; Bill Summers & Summer Heat – “Jam the Box” ; Mungo Jerry – “In the Summertime”

[READ: April 20, 2019] “The Seven Circles”

This story started as one thing and then turned into something else very dramatically.

It begins with Vinod completing his B. Com and being told by his parents that he should get ready for marriage.  They had the girl picked out and since he had no objection to her, they went ahead with the plans.

He found himself at his future in-laws looking at the gifts that his bride-to-be, Sheetal, would bring with her.  He glanced at her during this surveying of the gifts and he was sure he saw her looking back at him with distaste.

He desperately tried to get her to look at him over the next few weeks, but even during the ceremony she would not look him in the eye.   He thought about running away during “the seven circles” of the ceremony, but he went through with it.

That first wedding night was awkward as they slowly got to know each other.  The had a little, but not much, in common.  And he didn’t even consider doing anything physical.  He did manage to get one kiss in before the night was over. (more…)

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Richard Ford–“Quality Time” (New Yorker, January 31, 2000)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Artists, David Bowie, Death, Fred Frith, Huh?, Humiliation, If Footmen Tire You, Jello Biafra, Marriage Trouble, Negativland, Noise, Richard Ford, Sex, Sexism, The Residents, What Will Horses Do? on April 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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. (more…)

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