Diamond girl

For a lot of people, blogging seems to be primarily about making wildly inappropriate revelations of key aspects of their personal lives to total strangers who could care less. I'm not really into that, but I hate to disappoint, so I think it is time for me to come out, right here and now, as a Seals and Crofts lover. Not in that way, mind you (I prefer my men a bit less ... rustic), and not since the mid-70s when punk rock changed my life just like it changed yours--but back in the day, I unashamedly owned an S&C album or two. Or three or four. And hearing their hits on an oldies station or grocery store P.A. still takes me back to a less kind, less gentle period in my life. I'm pretty sure I currently have "Summer Breeze" on my iPod, and I dream of adding more of their soft rock favorites.

So naturally I was thrilled to find this image in a tribute to Charlton romance comics on the always-brilliant comics blog, Beaucoup Kevin:



I have no words.

Oh, actually I do, come to think of it. But not about Dash or Jimmy. I've been meaning to write here that:
1. I saw the newly reconstituted, Mercuryless Queen a couple of weekends back, and rather than rehash what I've already written about that surprisingly enjoyable evening, I will simply direct you to the place where I originally posted my recap.

2. The following night, I saw Jonathan Demme's Neil Young concert film, Heart of Gold, which I truly loved and highly recommend to Neilophiles. Not only am I a longtime fan of 80% of his music, I also happen to love his earlier, self-directed concert movie, Rust Never Sleeps and I even enjoyed (if not quite as fondly) his much quirkier recent cinematic experiment, Greendale. (Clicking on that last link will take you to the incredibly detailed official website that is more of a supplement to the film, CD, book, and tour than a mere promotional tool for them.)

3. This seems as good a place as any to plug next week's annual Bob Dylan Imitators' Contest at Nietzsche's here in Buffalo, which I am judging for the umpteenth time. I always find it troublesome that Dylan, like Young, is a true master of irony, one of the most eccentric, enigmatic, shape-shifting musicians/multi-media artists of the pop era, and yet this contest seems to consist largely of one earnest, faithful rendition of a familiar song after another. Lordy, Bob himself has always made a point of transforming/subverting his own songs in all sorts of diabolical ways, sometimes to the point of utter unrecognizability--but give a local folksinger an acoustic guitar and he or she will treat the song like it's sacred. (Though not, usually, doing an actual imitation of Bob--just playing his song in the most straightforward way imaginable.) I am exaggerating, of course; I have seen some truly amazing reinventions of the material, along with some ingenious impersonations, at this event over the years, and there are worse ways to spend a night than listening to some of the most perfect songs of the last five decades. Plus, you can drink. In fact, as a judge, I can even drink for free--and that makes it all the better. If by any chance you read this in time and come up with some clever way to deconstruct Dylan, by all means please please enter the contest--there are several truly fabulous prizes, including cold, hard cash--and you are almost guaranteed to win one if you think outside the box even a teensy bit. Details follow in this latest lovely poster by Diane Meldrum (BTW, happy 10th, Diane and Mike!):




So there's been a lot of classic rock in the air around here lately. And other things, too, but that should hold you for now.

Head Games

So there I was, a few days ago, raking leaves and listening on my Walkman to Gal Costa's 1969 album (one of two eponymous releases from that year, confusingly enough). Now, if you're not familiar with Ms. Costa, you need to know that she was one of the major forces in the Tropicalia movement (and has continued to release music of varying styles and quality ever since--as always, Joe Sixpack's Slipcue site has a great intro/discography). I've heard her described as the Janis Joplin of Brazil, which is only useful, as far as I can tell, as an indicator of her energy level and perhaps her standing in her home country during the sixties. But trust me, Janis never recorded anything anywhere near as wild as this album. I doubt that many people on any continent have: the songs shift from pop-py Burt Bacharach-style arrangements to ear-shattering screaming, guitar feedback, distortion, reverb, you name it, usually in midsong. I'd say the album art does a fairly good job of conveying the general atmosphere:



Take Zeppelin, Hendrix, and Yoko Ono, lock them in a room with a large amount of hallucinogens, and then soak the resulting master tapes in acid, and you've got the basic idea. You sort of have to be in the right mood to listen to this thing (and when you are, it's the perfect thing). Needless to say, I haven't been in that mood very often lately, but leaf-raking--a task I hate--felt like a good time to listen again. Plus I've been on a real Brazilian psychedelia kick, spurred on by my recent discovery of Secos & Molhados (more on them later), which also led to a closer listen to Os Mutantes (ditto), and Gal seemed like just the ticket.

I got to song three on the album, "Meu Nome É Gal" ("My Name is Gal"), and witnessed the moment where she starts wailing in this totally gutteral, Diamandas Galas-style voice over a fairly accessible pop-funk string and horn section; from there, it was on to track four, "Com Médo, Com Pedro," which brings in the echo chamber and more crazy shrieks. Then things started to get really bizarre--even farther out there than I remembered. Dear lord, I thought, she's doing all this amazing stuff with dub effects and changing the speed of the tape, even slowing it down to total inaudibility--it's incredible! And it just kept going and going and going, getting more metallic, almost painful even, as time went on.

After about fifteen minutes of this, it dawned on me that maybe there was something wrong with the Walkman. Lo and behold, that was exactly the case; even a Debbie Boone album would have sounded like Lee "Scratch" Perry had gotten his corrosive mitts on it under these conditions.

The scenario reminded me of the night I played a new Radiohead 45 (a bonus with my copy of Hail to the Thief) for the first time and marvelled at the utterly outrageous experimentation those boys were up to: the melody buried under layers of sonic fuzz, the pitch distorted wildly, and so on. A brilliant assault on bourgeois convention! It took me at least five minutes to realize that
a) there really was a layer of actual fuzz on the needle, and
b) I was playing the 45 at 33 rpm.
When I heard it the way it was recorded, it was a real letdown. I mean, how conventional can you get?

On another occasion, I walked into a hipster coworker's office to find out what cool underground noise band he was playing, only to find out he was vacuuming the carpet. (Even so, I would love to have a copy of that sound--it was fantastic!)

So, yes, it is possible that I have been ever so slightly damaged by art, and maybe I take John Cage just a wee bit too literally with that whole anything-goes aesthetic. If it's any consolation, I get misty when I think about Seals & Crofts and Loggins & Messina, and even though we all know John was the best Beatle, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Wings. So please, please, do not write me off as a total avant-garde aesthete. I just appreciate a well-tuned vacuum cleaner and/or broken tape player every now and then; what right-thinking person doesn't?