I have not forgotten about this blog, I assure you, or about my New Year's-ish resolution to post something on some blog of mine somewhere every single day. Got a bit distracted from that mission, though, several months ago when my father died, a simple fact of life that has haunted my summer. In fact, I just got back from a return trip to my hometown to clear out his house--which, in the process, meant clearing out the last traces of myself from it, too. And that meant one final glimpse at the slowly decaying 8 track tapes that accompanied me (and the rest of the St. Louis High debate team) on many a car trip in the mid70s:
The last Ehmke family Oldsmobile with an 8-track deck died a decade and a half ago, but I can still tell you the contents of each and every one of these: America's Holiday album, Volume TWO of Gordon Lightfoot's pre-"Sundown" hits, Volume TWO of Walter/Wendy Carlos's pioneering Switched-On Bach, Don McLean's version of the obligatory contract-fulfilling covers album, the soundtrack album to the Robert Redford/Mia Farrow Great Gatsby, and so on. (All of these except Holiday and the Oldsmobile demonstration tape were purchased from the dollar bin at my local Musicland, which explains the high percentage of sequels and releases by artists rising up from or heading back to obscurity.) I don't see the live Jonathan Richman album here, which is a pity, for it is the one of which I have the fondest memories, since there was a problem with it and it kept playing the same "program" over and over again, making his epic eight-minute "Ice Cream Man" even longer than he intended. This is what the 1970s sounded like to me before Joe Strummer changed the game. I regret none of it.
More musical memories to come, plus several months' worth of postponed observations. I'm just trying to get back in the blogging groove again with an easy one.
Thoughts immediately after leaving tonight's Morrissey concert at UB's Center for the Arts, which I've decided is one of my favorite places to see events in town:
1. In keeping with its stated theme, I try to focus this blog on music/musicians I'm currently or formerly obsessed with, and I've actually managed to escape the siren song of Mr. Suedehead for the length of his career. Oh, sure, I loved the Smiths in their day, but you'd have to be an idiot not to appreciate that band, would you not? I'm just saying I always took the oh-lonesome-me lyrics with a major chunk of salt (easy, since many of the best are so salty to begin with) and never once contemplated hurling gladiolas at the Heir of Oscar Wilde's feet.
2. That said, I realized the minute he walked out on stage that the guy is a World Class Rock Star, with a pretty brilliant sense of how to make a concert into a highly theatrical event. He is very big on whipping the mic cord around (this explains the immense space between his mic stand and the rest of the band) and pressing the flesh with fans (this does not explain the bizarre passive-aggressive vibe, in which he seems to encourage audience members to jump onstage and touch him, only to see them dragged away by very large security guards).
3. As for the solo songs? All perfectly fine, mostly interchangeable. I'm one of those people who won't give up the feeling that he really needed Johnny Marr as a songwriting foil.
4. LIghting: great. Big cut-out backdrop of sailor: loved it. Backing band: excellent. Band outfitted in matching t-shirts of entire band naked: genius. (Sadly, the adorable looking keyboard player does not seem to be on the shirt. It must feel odd for him to be obliged to wear a photo of his predecessor night after night, naked or not.)
5. Speaking of shirts, I imagine they are a line item in the tour budget, as two of the Rock Star's were tossed out into the audience during the show, each soaked with sweat. I actually prayed they would not be thrown anywhere near me, for I am Just Not Into That.
6. Speaking of sweat, I was quite impressed with the fact that it formed a heart shape on the back of shirt #2. This made me wonder if perhaps he has had his sweat glands sculpted to create this effect.
7. Morrissey the man: Boy, does he look old! And yet, he is my age, I think. My neck looks better than his. And yet, he is in far better shape than me, and can pull off that shirt without embarrassment. Also, he always looked old. And I find old people very handsome. Well, some old people. He qualifies.
8. A gong?! Awesome! Having messed the chance to see Led Zep or any number of 70s bands in their prime, I am happy to see them making a comeback.
9. Opening act = The Courteeners = first I'd ever heard of them = their first-ever show in the States = most pleasant surprise in this thankless slot since the Magic Numbers opened for Bright Eyes at the same venue. HIgh 80s revivalism; lotsa echoes of the Jam and, you guessed it, the Smiths. We even bought the CD; a cursory listen to the first four songs confirms that they are catchy, although I'm not sure the recorded versions capture what is so delightful about the band in performance. (Value added: Song 4, aka "What Took You So Long?," actually includes the lines "Sometimes I am bad and sometimes I am rotten / Sometimes I say things that probably should have been forgotten / about people and things, but do you know who I am? I'm like a Morrissey with some strings." Did not catch this during the show.)
10. Between the Courteeners and Moz, vintage music videos, dancehall novelty songs, nightclub routines, and snippets of British films were projected on a large screen. These were clearly curated by the Rock Star himself, as every single one was a perfect gem. Biggest surprise: Who knew he was such a fan of Shocking Blue? Three songs--and who knew they did anything besides "Venus"? (The other two were "Inkpot," which sounds like some sort of raunchy Dutch double entendre, and "Mighty Joe.") Suddenly I find myself wanting to know more about them.
In fact, what say we wrap this up with (a different but similar clip of) "Inkpot"? Note the band's groovy/shimmery black-metallic outfits, and how much the song resembles Abba doing glam:
That Steve Reich box I picked up a few weeks ago has provided many hours of enjoyment; there's nothing like driving around at night with one of his marimba-driven compositions providing an ambiguous soundtrack of anticipation. Still, I'm a little sad the box houses only one of Reich's two landmark found-audio loops from the 1960s, namely this one:
Because, as trippy as that one is, I've always preferred the gospel-sermon energy of the other one (not on the box):
a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. The Freesound Project provides new and interesting ways of accessing these samples, allowing users to ... •browse the sounds in new ways using keywords, a "sounds-like" type of browsing and more •up and download sounds to and from the database, under the same creative commons license •interact with fellow sound-artists!
A virtuous goal, to be sure, but to hell with virtue. Let's get to the juicy stuff:
So there we are, the husband and I, enjoying a lovely walk alongside the mighty Niagara on a sunny St. Patrick's Day, preparing for our collective future as an elderly suburban couple, when suddenly both of us think the same thing:
The bad news is, it's been discontinued by its manufacturer. The good news is, you can pick up a copy via Amazon for as low as 80 cents and enjoy some lovely and rare covers of traditional Irish tunes by the likes of Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, Sinead O'Connor, and Vince Gill for under a buck. That beats a green beer any day in my book.
The current financial crisis is the best opportunity we have had in a very long time for a bloodless revolution against the faceless fascism under which we have been living, unaware, for much too long. Let us seize the day.
Wish there was some way to hear the album itself, unlistenable though I suspect it probably is . Maybe I'll just have to wander into a store where some enterprising audio anarchist has installed one of those specially modified lamp/CD players. Rock on, hackers! Hack on, rockers!
PS. Thanks to Arthur for bringing P21 to my attention.
Like a lot of people my age--easing from high school to college as Pistols-era punk rock evolved into post-punk--I first became aware of Ubu Roi through the legendary avant-noise rock of Pere Ubu. The band is still around, more than 30 years later, albeit with an ever-changing lineup, and it's kinda surprising that it took them until 2008 to get around to actually staging Jarry's play.
The production, described here, sounds pretty interesting--and quite far from our own handling of the same material. Visual elements are by the Brothers Quay, and lead singer/songwriter/play adapter David Thomas performs as Pa Ubu himself--the role he was obviously born to play. Here's a sample:
40something writer, performer, transplanted Southerner, inconsistent blogger, lapsed activist, budding plant geek, non-observant Lutheran, reluctant neo-Pagan (according to Belief.net), pop culture maven, etc. I blog when I damn well feel like it.
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