...Just kidding, IRS, really.
(The Blogger "Stats" Xperiment continues.... So far there's absolutely no evidence that my "ANGELINA JOLIE NAKED!!!" headline led 2 a massive upsurge in page views. So far. Dammit. ... It's so great 2 B out here in the blogosphere where you can write almost ANYTHING & it doesn't really matter because hardly NE1 actually notices....)
Meanwhile, in Btween Xhausting nites at work & occasional torrential downpours, here's what KTAD's "More Music Friday" playlist looked like:
Wigwam: Do or Die/Simple Human Kindness/Bless Your Lucky Stars.
Camel: Unevensong/Wait/Eye of the Storm/Who We Are.
Weather Report: Badia/Boogie Woogie Waltz (live).
ELO: Ma-Ma-Ma Belle/Can't Get it Out of My Head/Boy Blue.
Monkees: Tapioca Tundra.
Joan Armatrading: Persona Grata/Temptation.
Caravan: Place of My Own/Where But for Caravan Would I?
Fairport Convention: A Sailor's Life.
Genesis: Counting Out Time/Firth of Fifth (studio version).
Nektar: Fidgety Queen/Unendless Imaginations.
Jethro Tull: Dun Ringill/Jack-A-Lynn/Farm on the Freeway/Steel Monkey.
Strawbs: On Growing Older/Keep the Devil Outside.
Ciggy Barlust and the Tits from Venus: Backside.
Clannad: Second Nature/Closer to Your Heart.
Procol Harum: Repent, Walpurgis/Shine On Brightly/A Salty Dog.
Notes: Wigwam's "Do or Die" is bouncy, fairly straightforward rock w/ Xcellent guitar, "Simple Human Kindness" is full of silly advice, & "Bless Your Lucky Stars" is a rolling, rumbling, ominous, faintly menacing masterpiece -- the ultimate vocoder song. All are from Wigwam's Xcellent 1975 album NUCLEAR NIGHTCLUB.
Camel's "Unevensong" & "Wait" R fairly similar -- both start out kinda pushy & impatient & then settle in2 Andy Latimer's soaring gtr lines. "Unevensong" also has a long, gorgeous gtr/keyboard finale. "Eye of the Storm" is a beautiful flowing keyboard piece written by Kit Watkins & previously recorded by his prior band, Happy the Man. "Who We Are" is a superb moody lovesong w/ more great gtr from Latimer. "Unevensong" is from 1977's RAIN DANCES, the other 3 R from 1979's underrated I CAN SEE YOUR HOUSE FROM HERE.
Weather Report's "Badia/Boogie Woogie Waltz" is the best thing I've ever heard by them, from their 1980 2-record "live" album 8:30. In it, we follow an NYC commuter from his apartment in Chinatown -- leaving 4 work as his wife chatters honey-do's out the window at him -- & follow him as he catches the subway downtown, the music speeding up as he nears his destination.
This thing shifts gears & speeds up at least 3x, & each time U think it can't get NE faster it DOES, until the commuter arrives breathlessly at his destination -- & the subway train barrels across the stage and sprawls across the tracks in a steaming heap of wreckage. It's brilliant. Bassist Jaco Pastorius & drummer Pete Erskine hammer away thruout the whole last 1/2, & saxophonist Wayne Shorter screeches as the subway train thunders downtown out of control. Composer/keybsguy Joe Zawinul is a friggin genius.
ELO's "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" is of course the 1st of Jeff Lynne's songs of praise 2 the telephone co. His other 1 was "Telephone Line," of course. Rumor or legend has it that Marc Bolan of T. Rex played gtr on "Ma Belle" -- I only hear 1 gtr but LOTS of strings. I couldn't finish "Boy Blue." These trax R from the OLE best-of.
Joan Armatrading's pretty brilliant at times. Both "Persona Grata" & "Temptation" gain lotsa dramatic impact from Mike Howlett's huge, booming production. These R from her 1985 album SECRET SECRETS.
Caravan's "Place of My Own" features great singalong choruses & a marvelously shrill organ solo from Dave Sinclair. "Where But for Caravan Would I?" is a sorta dirge about good times, but 1nce it gets rolling it rocks rather harder than they usually did, making 4 a VERY short 9 mins. I'll B playing it again. Both these R from Caravan's 1968 1st album & also from their recent THE WORLD IS YOURS best-of.
Fairport's "A Sailor's Life" was a disappointment. It started off very stark & dramatic, & there is a tragedy in the tale -- but I was hoping 4 a repeat of the opening w/ more drama, & instead there was just a long dull instrumental fade. MayB I missed something. From their MEET ON THE LEDGE best-of.
"Counting Out Time" is the only Peter Gabriel-era Genesis song I've ever been able 2 get into, mayB Bcos of the funny lyrics about sex. "Firth of Fifth" opens w/ some nice keyboards from Tony Banks, but Gabriel's declaiming voice stopped me -- I'm 2 used 2 hearing these old non-hits as sung by Phil Collins on later Genesis live albums like SECONDS OUT & THREE SIDES LIVE.
Nektar's "Fidgety Queen" is a rockin' classic, w/ great loopy gtr choruses from Roye Albrighton. "Unendless Imaginations" opens HUGE w/ a choir & a whole lot more -- but then thins down 2 a long, dull instrumental fade. Both these R from their DREAM NEBULA best-of.
Tull's "Dun Ringill" is a brief, ghostly classic from 1979's STORMWATCH. I couldn't finish the other 3, & I LIKE Tull. They won a Grammy 4 the CREST OF A KNAVE album w/ "Farm on the Freeway" & "Steel Monkey"? These trax R all from the 1993 2-CD BEST OF.
"Keep the Devil Outside" is a classic B-side from Strawbs' HALCYON DAYS best-of. "Backside" is the Strawbs in disguise, poking fun at David Bowie & his Spiders from Mars, w/ some hilarious, paranoid lyrics: "The spiders from Uranus/Climbing up the wall...."
Clannad's "Second Nature" is a flashy, modern, California-ized shoulda-bn-hit from SIRIUS. The rather more natural & moody "Closer to Your Heart" is from MACALLA. Both R included on ROGHA/THE BEST OF.
Procol's "Repent, Walpurgis" is a sorta bluesy instrumental workout 4 piano, organ & gtr. "Shine On Brightly" features some wacko Keith Reid lyrics, great piercing gtr work by Robin Trower, shoulda bn a hit & is 1 of my fave Procol songs, right up there w/ "Wreck of the Hesperus."
"A Salty Dog" is an amazing vocal performance from Gary Brooker, & tho I know it's 4 dramatic purposes I think the pace is 2 slow -- but the sense of resolution at the Nd is pretty great NEway. I'm reminded of Richard McKenna's short-story "Fiddler's Green," in which a group of sailors in a lifeboat create an island paradise out of their group fantasy longings. Keith Reid's lyrics & the gorgeous music paint a vivid picture. All 3 trax R from Procol's 1996 GREATEST HITS.
COMING SOON: In R continuing search 4 new sounds, we here at KTAD plan 2 hold at least 1 complete session in which we play NOTHING BUT ALL-NEW-2-us previously-ear-unheard music, w/ nothing but the artist's reputation 2 go on B4 listening. This should lead 2 some small suprises & possibly big disappointments, + help us tackle some music that's bn lying around the house unheard 4 awhile now. Coming late next wk. Hope U'll tune-in. (Hey, if we could do this "live," we would....)
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
ANGELINA JOLIE NAKED!!!
Ha! Made ya look.
Hope this doesn't sound 2 silly or self-centered, but how bout Blogger's new "Stats" function, eh?
(I mean, it IS new, isn't it? I haven't been using this system 4 a year & just didn't SEE it up til last week, right? Have my eyes really gotten THAT bad?)
Anyway, something NEW 2 play with, Ghod help me. & what AMAZING (frankly unbelievable) statistical information is available right at my fingertips! (No, this is not going to be a commercial 4 Blogger/Google/whoever. Tho I'm sure they must B nice folks....)
4 instance: I'm finding it pretty hard 2 Blieve that a dozen people viewed my last post within the 1st 24 hrs after I posted it. Or that 20 people viewed this blog on the same day last week. C'mon -- there's only about 12 people in the world who know I write a blog ... sometimes. I don't even KNOW 20 people.
I'm also having a hard time Blieving that people in Ghana & Bolivia R viewing this blog. (& Ghod knows what they must think of it.)
& as 4 those folks who stumbled over the Back-Up Plan by doing a blog search -- what the Hell were they looking for?
& if all these people R allegedly out there viewing this stuff -- why the hell Rn't they commenting?
C'mon, don't B shy, I don't bite. If you're in Bolivia & you wondered who else in the world had actually heard the Raiders' 1972 non-hit "Country Wine," go ahead & drop me a line. It would actually be really cool 2 hear from you. If you're really out there. Which I'm not totally convinced about....
Maybe these visits & views R just a random thing -- Do people really do nothing but sit at home & surf the Net 24/7? & do they get PAID 4 it? & how would I go about getting a job like that? Anybody out there who can give me details -- & if there's actual $$$ involved -- fill me in & I'll split the proceeds with you (90/10, of course)....
Wow, maybe I can start attracting more attention by posting stuff with outrageous titles like the 1 above ... or how about "500 Nymphos and a Mule"! That should grab a lotta viewers. Or maybe "Make your penis 6 times bigger -- RIGHT NOW!" ... No, that 1's 2 common already.... Oh, I know -- "Never pay taxes again!!!" That's it.
All I gotta do then is sit back & C how many "hits" I get. (That IS what they're called, isn't it?) Can't wait....
But don't think this means the Back-Up Plan is gonna "go commercial." Oh no, absolutely not. I don't wanna B like every other blog out there, writing about Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers, or whether Lindsay Lohan's back in jail again. Hell no. I'd rather talk about music I was too stupid 2 appreciate 40 years ago -- or last week.
Besides, if I really wanted 2 max-out my readership, I'd probly havta start writing in Real English....
(This post brought to you by Blogger, dedicated to letting idiots express themselves worldwide -- whether anybody reads them or not....)
Hope this doesn't sound 2 silly or self-centered, but how bout Blogger's new "Stats" function, eh?
(I mean, it IS new, isn't it? I haven't been using this system 4 a year & just didn't SEE it up til last week, right? Have my eyes really gotten THAT bad?)
Anyway, something NEW 2 play with, Ghod help me. & what AMAZING (frankly unbelievable) statistical information is available right at my fingertips! (No, this is not going to be a commercial 4 Blogger/Google/whoever. Tho I'm sure they must B nice folks....)
4 instance: I'm finding it pretty hard 2 Blieve that a dozen people viewed my last post within the 1st 24 hrs after I posted it. Or that 20 people viewed this blog on the same day last week. C'mon -- there's only about 12 people in the world who know I write a blog ... sometimes. I don't even KNOW 20 people.
I'm also having a hard time Blieving that people in Ghana & Bolivia R viewing this blog. (& Ghod knows what they must think of it.)
& as 4 those folks who stumbled over the Back-Up Plan by doing a blog search -- what the Hell were they looking for?
& if all these people R allegedly out there viewing this stuff -- why the hell Rn't they commenting?
C'mon, don't B shy, I don't bite. If you're in Bolivia & you wondered who else in the world had actually heard the Raiders' 1972 non-hit "Country Wine," go ahead & drop me a line. It would actually be really cool 2 hear from you. If you're really out there. Which I'm not totally convinced about....
Maybe these visits & views R just a random thing -- Do people really do nothing but sit at home & surf the Net 24/7? & do they get PAID 4 it? & how would I go about getting a job like that? Anybody out there who can give me details -- & if there's actual $$$ involved -- fill me in & I'll split the proceeds with you (90/10, of course)....
Wow, maybe I can start attracting more attention by posting stuff with outrageous titles like the 1 above ... or how about "500 Nymphos and a Mule"! That should grab a lotta viewers. Or maybe "Make your penis 6 times bigger -- RIGHT NOW!" ... No, that 1's 2 common already.... Oh, I know -- "Never pay taxes again!!!" That's it.
All I gotta do then is sit back & C how many "hits" I get. (That IS what they're called, isn't it?) Can't wait....
But don't think this means the Back-Up Plan is gonna "go commercial." Oh no, absolutely not. I don't wanna B like every other blog out there, writing about Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers, or whether Lindsay Lohan's back in jail again. Hell no. I'd rather talk about music I was too stupid 2 appreciate 40 years ago -- or last week.
Besides, if I really wanted 2 max-out my readership, I'd probly havta start writing in Real English....
(This post brought to you by Blogger, dedicated to letting idiots express themselves worldwide -- whether anybody reads them or not....)
Monday, October 11, 2010
Back to vinyl! (mostly)
While I SERIOUSLY think-over whether I've heard enuf off-the-wall stuff 2 try 2 write an average schmuck's guide 2 Progressive Rock, here's what I've bn listening-2 over the past few days:
Gong: Master Builder/A Sprinkling of Clouds.
Nick Drake: Sunday.
Jethro Tull: A Passion Play edit #8 ("Overseer").
Hatfield and the North: The Stubbs Effect, etc.
New Order: Regret.
Squeeze: In Quintessence.
Keith Jarrett: Country.
Pat Metheny Group: The First Circle.
Kansas: Journey from MariaBronn.
Camel: Summer Lightning.
Clannad: Indoor/Blackstairs.
Amazing Blondel: Three Seasons Almaine/Toye/Safety in God Alone.
Golden Earring: Snot Love in Spain/Save Your Skin/Need Her.
Kraftwerk: CometMelody 2.
Pentangle: Sweet Child/Light Flight/Sally Go 'Round the Roses.
ELP: The Great Gates of Kiev/The End/Nutrocker.
Dixie Dregs: Hereafter/I'm Freaking Out/Old World/The Great Spectacular/Night Meets Light.
Gentle Giant: Dog's Life/Think of Me With Kindness/The Boys in the Band/Funny Ways (live)/Experience (live).
Sally Oldfield: Fire and Honey/Land of the Sun.
Steve Tibbetts: Ur.
Bruce Cockburn: Silver Wheels.
Raiders: Country Wine.
Loudon Wainwright III: Dead Skunk.
Notes: I'd like New Order's "Regret" played at my funeral -- along with Gryphon's "Lament" & Group 87's "One Night Away From Day" ... not that I'm planning on GOING anywhere anytime soon....
I'm no Xpert, but has Keith Jarrett ever done anything else as pretty as "Country"? Would love 2 hear more stuff like that....
I think "Journey from MariaBronn" is THE great forgotten Kansas song, right up there w/ "Song for America" & "Miracles Out of Nowhere." It's on their 1st album & their 2-disc best-of box -- you should give it a listen. It gets a little operatic in places, but that just adds 2 it, 4 me. Lotsa great keyboards, guitar & melodrama....
Camel's "Summer Lightning" veers perilously close 2 ... *GASP!* ... disco, but it still has a great vocal by Richard Sinclair & some nice gtr & atmospherics -- it's on BREATHLESS, along w/ a lotta other great overlooked stuff....
Clannad's "Indoor" nails 1 critic's Dscription of them as "a windswept Fleetwood Mac." It & "Blackstairs" R from the Xcellent MACALLA.
Golden Earring's "Snot Love in Spain" & "Need Her" R 2 hilarious trax from their 1979 album NO PROMISES, NO DEBTS. "Snot Love" features singer Barry Hay as a drunken layabout getting in trouble w/ German tourists during a holiday in Spain. "Need Her" is about how Hay's girlfriend makes him so crazy that he wants 2 kill her -- these 2 songs woulda made a killer single back in the day. Hay has a wild singing style -- it sounds like his face is gonna Xplode B4 he can get the words out. "Save Your Skin," unfortunately, was not as good as I remembered....
Kraftwerk's "CometMelody 2" wasn't as good as I remembered, either -- it's really just the same sorta-sparkly musical phrase repeated over & over w/ only minor variations -- 4 almost 6 mins.... From AUTOBAHN.
Still learning about Pentangle -- "Sweet Child" is worth it just 4 the way the band kicks in at the end of the choruses; "Light Flight" is a little disturbing & spooky, tho Jacquie McShee's double-tracked vocals R gorgeous; "Sally" was a touch disappointing, tho -- I Xpected them 2 do something more w/ it.... From SWEET CHILD and BASKET OF LIGHT.
ELP's "Kiev" has some GREAT NOISE in it; the vocal parts of "The End" R kinda boring; & "Nutrocker" is really silly.... From PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION.
"Hereafter" is the best thing the Dregs ever did, near as I can tell -- it's pretty haunting. They obviously had talent, but they only had about 4 diffrent tunes. "Old World" is a very rustic/folkie violin/gtr/lute instrumental -- could almost B Tull, Gentle Giant, Gryphon or Amazing Blondel. Both trax R from their 1980 album DREGS OF THE EARTH.
Gentle Giant's "Think of Me With Kindness" is just a step or 2 away from Bing perfect -- only a kinda lame acapella midsection lets it down.... & then there's the Xtremely creepy "Funny Ways".... From OCTOPUS and PLAYING THE FOOL/LIVE.
Sally Oldfield's "Fire and Honey" sounds like a musical sex metaphor. & "Land of the Sun" is brief but gorgeous. Both R from her superb 1978 album WATER BEARER. Sally woulda bn perfect 2 do soundtrack music 4 the LORD OF THE RINGS movies -- tho I imagine her Middle Eastern imagery mighta raised some eyebrows....
Steve Tibbetts' "Ur" is a gorgeous, stunning gtr-meltdown instrumental from his Xcellent '80 album YR. If you play it loud enuf, it'll move the foundation of yr house. He shoulda done more stuff like this....
I hadn't heard the Raiders' "Country Wine" since 1972. It's not really the lost gem I remembered. Very pleasant, but not suprising that as a single it only peaked at about #90 nationwide....
BTW, 6 of the above R songs I'd never heard B4. Can you guess which 1's? 1st person 2 get all 6 wins a free copy of Animal Collective's MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILLION. Or the Television Personalities' MY DARK PLACES. Or Group 87's A CAREER IN DADA PROCESSING. Or something else I have lying around the house....
Gong: Master Builder/A Sprinkling of Clouds.
Nick Drake: Sunday.
Jethro Tull: A Passion Play edit #8 ("Overseer").
Hatfield and the North: The Stubbs Effect, etc.
New Order: Regret.
Squeeze: In Quintessence.
Keith Jarrett: Country.
Pat Metheny Group: The First Circle.
Kansas: Journey from MariaBronn.
Camel: Summer Lightning.
Clannad: Indoor/Blackstairs.
Amazing Blondel: Three Seasons Almaine/Toye/Safety in God Alone.
Golden Earring: Snot Love in Spain/Save Your Skin/Need Her.
Kraftwerk: CometMelody 2.
Pentangle: Sweet Child/Light Flight/Sally Go 'Round the Roses.
ELP: The Great Gates of Kiev/The End/Nutrocker.
Dixie Dregs: Hereafter/I'm Freaking Out/Old World/The Great Spectacular/Night Meets Light.
Gentle Giant: Dog's Life/Think of Me With Kindness/The Boys in the Band/Funny Ways (live)/Experience (live).
Sally Oldfield: Fire and Honey/Land of the Sun.
Steve Tibbetts: Ur.
Bruce Cockburn: Silver Wheels.
Raiders: Country Wine.
Loudon Wainwright III: Dead Skunk.
Notes: I'd like New Order's "Regret" played at my funeral -- along with Gryphon's "Lament" & Group 87's "One Night Away From Day" ... not that I'm planning on GOING anywhere anytime soon....
I'm no Xpert, but has Keith Jarrett ever done anything else as pretty as "Country"? Would love 2 hear more stuff like that....
I think "Journey from MariaBronn" is THE great forgotten Kansas song, right up there w/ "Song for America" & "Miracles Out of Nowhere." It's on their 1st album & their 2-disc best-of box -- you should give it a listen. It gets a little operatic in places, but that just adds 2 it, 4 me. Lotsa great keyboards, guitar & melodrama....
Camel's "Summer Lightning" veers perilously close 2 ... *GASP!* ... disco, but it still has a great vocal by Richard Sinclair & some nice gtr & atmospherics -- it's on BREATHLESS, along w/ a lotta other great overlooked stuff....
Clannad's "Indoor" nails 1 critic's Dscription of them as "a windswept Fleetwood Mac." It & "Blackstairs" R from the Xcellent MACALLA.
Golden Earring's "Snot Love in Spain" & "Need Her" R 2 hilarious trax from their 1979 album NO PROMISES, NO DEBTS. "Snot Love" features singer Barry Hay as a drunken layabout getting in trouble w/ German tourists during a holiday in Spain. "Need Her" is about how Hay's girlfriend makes him so crazy that he wants 2 kill her -- these 2 songs woulda made a killer single back in the day. Hay has a wild singing style -- it sounds like his face is gonna Xplode B4 he can get the words out. "Save Your Skin," unfortunately, was not as good as I remembered....
Kraftwerk's "CometMelody 2" wasn't as good as I remembered, either -- it's really just the same sorta-sparkly musical phrase repeated over & over w/ only minor variations -- 4 almost 6 mins.... From AUTOBAHN.
Still learning about Pentangle -- "Sweet Child" is worth it just 4 the way the band kicks in at the end of the choruses; "Light Flight" is a little disturbing & spooky, tho Jacquie McShee's double-tracked vocals R gorgeous; "Sally" was a touch disappointing, tho -- I Xpected them 2 do something more w/ it.... From SWEET CHILD and BASKET OF LIGHT.
ELP's "Kiev" has some GREAT NOISE in it; the vocal parts of "The End" R kinda boring; & "Nutrocker" is really silly.... From PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION.
"Hereafter" is the best thing the Dregs ever did, near as I can tell -- it's pretty haunting. They obviously had talent, but they only had about 4 diffrent tunes. "Old World" is a very rustic/folkie violin/gtr/lute instrumental -- could almost B Tull, Gentle Giant, Gryphon or Amazing Blondel. Both trax R from their 1980 album DREGS OF THE EARTH.
Gentle Giant's "Think of Me With Kindness" is just a step or 2 away from Bing perfect -- only a kinda lame acapella midsection lets it down.... & then there's the Xtremely creepy "Funny Ways".... From OCTOPUS and PLAYING THE FOOL/LIVE.
Sally Oldfield's "Fire and Honey" sounds like a musical sex metaphor. & "Land of the Sun" is brief but gorgeous. Both R from her superb 1978 album WATER BEARER. Sally woulda bn perfect 2 do soundtrack music 4 the LORD OF THE RINGS movies -- tho I imagine her Middle Eastern imagery mighta raised some eyebrows....
Steve Tibbetts' "Ur" is a gorgeous, stunning gtr-meltdown instrumental from his Xcellent '80 album YR. If you play it loud enuf, it'll move the foundation of yr house. He shoulda done more stuff like this....
I hadn't heard the Raiders' "Country Wine" since 1972. It's not really the lost gem I remembered. Very pleasant, but not suprising that as a single it only peaked at about #90 nationwide....
BTW, 6 of the above R songs I'd never heard B4. Can you guess which 1's? 1st person 2 get all 6 wins a free copy of Animal Collective's MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILLION. Or the Television Personalities' MY DARK PLACES. Or Group 87's A CAREER IN DADA PROCESSING. Or something else I have lying around the house....
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Still alive and ... well....
Greetings. I'm still here. Been listening 2 music a lot more than usual lately, been reading a lot as usual, & hava lotta stuff I wanna tell you about. Briefly.
MUSIC: The past few Fridays have been sunny as Western Wash TRIES 2 have an Indian Summer, & I've been awakened early by our next-door-neighbors' sawing, hammering & nail-gunning as they try 2 turn their old garage in2 a church dormitory or something. 2 keep my mood up I've musicked-out a lot more than NEtime since last April or May. Fighting my cheap & cranky CD player all the way, the playlist has included:
Van Morrison: Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)/Wild Night/Into the Mystic.
Jade Warrior: A Winter's Tale.
Happy the Man: On Time as a Helix of Precious Laughs.
Fleet Foxes: Blue Ridge Mountains.
Doobie Bros.: Neal's Fandango.
Rush: Time Stand Still.
Norah Jones: Shoot the Moon/The Long Day is Over.
Vertical Horizon: Everything You Want.
Fairport Convention: Stranger to Himself.
Badfinger: In the Meantime/Some Other Time.
Caravan: Memory Lain/Hugh/Headloss.
U2: Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own.
Coldplay: Clocks.
Kenny Loggins: Conviction of the Heart.
Mary Chapin Carpenter: Passionate Kisses/The Hard Way/The Long Way Home.
Fleetwood Mac: Say You Will.
Strawbs: Down by the Sea.
Keane: Somewhere Only We Know/This is the Last Time/Bend and Break.
King Crimson: Sleepless/Three of a Perfect Pair/The King Crimson Barber Shop/Frame by Frame/Happy With What You Have to be Happy With/The Sailor's Tale/Bolero.
Pam Tillis: Whenever You Walk in the Room/Homeward Looking Angel.
Hatfield and the North: Share It/Fitter Stoke Has a Bath/Mumps.
Soft Machine: Why Are We Sleeping?/Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin'/Love Makes Sweet Music/Hope for Happiness/Hibou Anenome and Bear/Out-Bloody-Rageous/etc....
A few notes: On these musicking-out Fridays I start out w/ lite, breezy stuff & then tend 2 search out music that performs open-heart surgery on my emotions, 4 whatever reason. In this lineup, Happy the Man, U2, Fairport & even Kenny Loggins(!) all had me in tears (the latter with the line "To forgive and be forgiven"), so obviously there R still a few issues I have yet 2 work out.
As 4 the others, the Jade Warrior still has a gorgeous guitar-fanfare close, as great as it was when I 1st heard it in 1977; the Doobies shoulda gone on 4 about 6 or 8 mins; Fairport's "Stranger" is a stark, lonely funeral march; MC Carpenter's "Long Way Home" is an (eventually) winning lecture about not forgetting 2 stop & smell the roses; KC's "Barber Shop" is only about the 3rd on-purpose joke in their entire career ("Cat Food" & "Happy With".... R the other 2 I know of -- tho Belew's line in "Sleepless" about submarines lurking in his ceiling gets me every time). "Happy With" was a lot more fun when I saw them do it in concert in Seattle in 2003.... (& how bout going from KC 2 Pam Tillis? Whatta segue! Who else woulda dared....)
The Hatfields' "Share It" is pretty neat -- I like Richard Sinclair's direct-comedy #'s. Late drummer Pip Pyle's "Fitter Stoke" is more of a lonely, forlorn piece, tho still amusingly sung by Sinclair. & "Mumps," the Hatfields' supposed magnum opus, is pretty good, w/ a nice repeating theme that's a real treat when it turns up again toward the end of the piece. Still think Dave Stewart's organ sounds R a little weedy, & the band's twiddly gtr/organ bits w/ female-soprano vocals soaring over the top is pretty much their trademarked sound ... but I'm 2 the point now where I sorta like it.
& Soft Machine. Well, "Why Are We Sleeping?" is pretty great. Nice 2 hear Kevin Ayers' low&mellow vocals again, since I rather stupidly traded-off his ODD DITTIES best-of album a coupla yrs back -- how'm I ever gonna live without hearing "Connie on a Rubber Band" 1 more time?
Mike Ratledge's organ tones sound a lot like early Caravan, which is fine, tho I prefer Dave Sinclair. But hearing early Caravan & the Hatfields mayB gave me a door in2 the Softs, finally. Some of this stuff may strike me as thin or dated or silly, but I'm not giving up -- & I was suprised I remembered the theme 2 "Out-Bloody-Rageous." Haven't tried "Moon in June" again yet, tho....
More soon.
BOOKS: Currently finishing Sid Smith's IN THE COURT OF KING CRIMSON, the best bio on KC I ever Xpect 2 read until Bob Fripp writes his -- which he SHOULD. Smith not only provides a thorough history of the band, he also looks at each album track by track, talks about where each song came from, analyzes musical content, & covers how the band feels about the work in hindsight. Smith also isn't afraid 2 say if something sucks. My only real complaint w/ his book is that it's 2 short -- w/ everything that's here there's still more I'd like 2 know. + I'd like 2 know what kinda gyrations the band went thru while recording THE POWER TO BELIEVE.
Intresting that 4 all the great music that was produced by this band, it still wasn't enuf 2 make the folks in it happy -- Adrian Belew never felt he got enuf credit 4 his great lyrics & wild guitar; Bill Bruford apparently took 25 yrs of abuse. Smith's book also shows-up Bob Fripp 4 the controlling, perverse weirdo he's always been, & puts a different spin on summa the events also mentioned in....
Bill Bruford's THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY, a sorta 400-pg retirement speech from the drummer, who gave up public performance in Jan 2009. There R LOTS of great stories here, tho of course I woulda loved 2 hear more -- Xactly the kinda stuff that Bruford sez in the book bores him 2 tears. Ah well. My only REAL complaint is that his book isn't 600 pgs. You might also B amused by summa the rather icy things Bruford sez about summa the people he's worked with -- How Yes hadta hold a committee meeting 2 Dcide what day it was; the reason why bassist Chris Squire's nickname is "The Fish" -- Bruford calls him "torpid." There's a whole CHAPTER on what it's like 2 work w/ Fripp. There R also chapters about touring w/ Yes, KC, Genesis, UK, Gong, National Health, Bruford, Earthworks, & more. If you like any of these acts, you'll wanna read this book. Sheez, I'm thinkin bout readin Keith Emerson's autobio, now....
Still looking 4 the ultimate prog-rock history book, haven't found it yet. Charles Snider's STRAWBERRY BRICKS GUIDE TO PROGRESSIVE ROCK reviews 250+ prog-related albums from SGT. PEPPER to THE WALL, including a LOT of German & Italian stuff I've never heard -- there's a lot of real good info in it. But. Snider's timeline cuts off a little 2 early -- I think he coulda at least gone on thru 1982 or so. Snider has no idea what 2 do with apostrophes or commas, & he occasionally gets musicians' names, album titles & record labels wrong. Despite that, the info in Snider's book is MILES ahead of say, Jerry Lucky's PROGRESSIVE ROCK FILES. But somebody shoulda proofread it 4 him....
Edward Macan's ROCKING THE CLASSICS is about on the same level as Paul Stump's prog-history THE MUSIC'S ALL THAT MATTERS -- but Macan looks at prog as almost entirely a British creation -- American proggers such as Kansas, Dixie Dregs, Happy the Man, Starcastle, etc. R mentioned, but that's all. Macan is strong on the sociological & economic forces that led 2 the rise & fall of progressive rock, & he is VERY strong on technical analysis. He also analyzes 4 prog pieces in-depth (TARKUS, "Close to the Edge," WISH YOU WERE HERE, "Firth of Fifth"). His book at least mentions Camel, Caravan, Gentle Giant, Soft Machine, Hatfield and the North, etc. I wished his range was wider, but he knows his stuff.
Some of the best things in Macan's book R footnotes -- how Atlantic Records Prez Ahmet Ertegun asked ELP to make LOVE BEACH "as commercial as possible;" Dave Stewart's frustration when Virgin Records turned National Health down for a contract after they'd previously been home 2 Stewart's Hatfields....
Intresting that Bruford quotes from both Macan & Stump on their theories about the decline of prog -- BB was there, I thot he might have his own theories on what happened & why. & he does, but you havta read Btween the lines about his experiences w/ UK 2 find out how he feels about the whole commercialization issue....
DO NOT be sucked in by UNCLE JOE'S GUIDE TO PROGRESSIVE ROCK. Joe Benson is an LA DJ who thinks he knows a few things just because he's read the backs of a few album covers. Unless you're looking 4 VERY basic song-title/composer/album/release-date info, you're not going to find much of intrest here. If you're a fan of the bands you probly know more than Uncle Joe does already -- maybe you should write a book? Example from Uncle Joe's chapter on the Moody Blues: Mike Pinder's song "Simple Game" could NOT have been an outtake from the Moodies' 1972 album SEVENTH SOJOURN, because it was recorded in 1968 & issued as the B-side of "Ride My See-Saw" -- after that I gave up.
I've had 2 take a break from music-related fiction 4 awhile, I was burning out. As a result I've gotta lotta novels on the shelf that're gonna havta wait -- Harlan Ellison's SPIDER KISS, Norman Spinrad's LITTLE HEROES, Bradley Denton's WRACK AND ROLL, Don DeLillo's gloomy GREAT JONES STREET, Laurence Gonzales's JAMBEAUX (6 chapters in, still not sure where it's going).
I AM trying 2 finish Rafi Zabor's THE BEAR COMES HOME, about a jazz-saxophone-playing bear in search of the meaning of music & his own destiny. It's funny, & in places it's beautifully written -- Zabor useta write some wild jazz & pop reviews 4 the old MUSICIAN magazine -- but it's not gripping. I set it down a couple yrs ago 3/4 of the way thru, when the Bear was at the start of a nationwide tour in support of his 1st album. Recently I made it another 75 pgs & it's bn worth the trip, but.... THE BEAR won Zabor the PEN/Faulkner Award 4 best 1st-novel -- you can now get a copy from Amazon.com 4 6 cents. (This is not an ad.)
Fiction just isn't grabbing me NEmore like nonfiction can. Lately if I get bored w/ a novel I'll take a break w/ Paul Theroux's travel writing, like the marvelous THE KINGDOM BY THE SEA (about his walk around the shoreline of the British Isles), or the shorter pieces in his FRESH AIR FIEND. I'd still B willing 2 try a good rock novel, if I could find NE. There R a few others out there I'm aware of -- John Shirley's TRANSMANIACON and ECLIPSE, rocker Mick Farren's THE TEXTS OF FESTIVAL....
...Sorry I've been gone 4 so long. Haven't either felt much like posting or had much 2 write about. & sometimes The World's Smallest Laptop has trouble finding enuf signals 2 transmit. But I'm still functioning. Sorta....
MUSIC: The past few Fridays have been sunny as Western Wash TRIES 2 have an Indian Summer, & I've been awakened early by our next-door-neighbors' sawing, hammering & nail-gunning as they try 2 turn their old garage in2 a church dormitory or something. 2 keep my mood up I've musicked-out a lot more than NEtime since last April or May. Fighting my cheap & cranky CD player all the way, the playlist has included:
Van Morrison: Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)/Wild Night/Into the Mystic.
Jade Warrior: A Winter's Tale.
Happy the Man: On Time as a Helix of Precious Laughs.
Fleet Foxes: Blue Ridge Mountains.
Doobie Bros.: Neal's Fandango.
Rush: Time Stand Still.
Norah Jones: Shoot the Moon/The Long Day is Over.
Vertical Horizon: Everything You Want.
Fairport Convention: Stranger to Himself.
Badfinger: In the Meantime/Some Other Time.
Caravan: Memory Lain/Hugh/Headloss.
U2: Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own.
Coldplay: Clocks.
Kenny Loggins: Conviction of the Heart.
Mary Chapin Carpenter: Passionate Kisses/The Hard Way/The Long Way Home.
Fleetwood Mac: Say You Will.
Strawbs: Down by the Sea.
Keane: Somewhere Only We Know/This is the Last Time/Bend and Break.
King Crimson: Sleepless/Three of a Perfect Pair/The King Crimson Barber Shop/Frame by Frame/Happy With What You Have to be Happy With/The Sailor's Tale/Bolero.
Pam Tillis: Whenever You Walk in the Room/Homeward Looking Angel.
Hatfield and the North: Share It/Fitter Stoke Has a Bath/Mumps.
Soft Machine: Why Are We Sleeping?/Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin'/Love Makes Sweet Music/Hope for Happiness/Hibou Anenome and Bear/Out-Bloody-Rageous/etc....
A few notes: On these musicking-out Fridays I start out w/ lite, breezy stuff & then tend 2 search out music that performs open-heart surgery on my emotions, 4 whatever reason. In this lineup, Happy the Man, U2, Fairport & even Kenny Loggins(!) all had me in tears (the latter with the line "To forgive and be forgiven"), so obviously there R still a few issues I have yet 2 work out.
As 4 the others, the Jade Warrior still has a gorgeous guitar-fanfare close, as great as it was when I 1st heard it in 1977; the Doobies shoulda gone on 4 about 6 or 8 mins; Fairport's "Stranger" is a stark, lonely funeral march; MC Carpenter's "Long Way Home" is an (eventually) winning lecture about not forgetting 2 stop & smell the roses; KC's "Barber Shop" is only about the 3rd on-purpose joke in their entire career ("Cat Food" & "Happy With".... R the other 2 I know of -- tho Belew's line in "Sleepless" about submarines lurking in his ceiling gets me every time). "Happy With" was a lot more fun when I saw them do it in concert in Seattle in 2003.... (& how bout going from KC 2 Pam Tillis? Whatta segue! Who else woulda dared....)
The Hatfields' "Share It" is pretty neat -- I like Richard Sinclair's direct-comedy #'s. Late drummer Pip Pyle's "Fitter Stoke" is more of a lonely, forlorn piece, tho still amusingly sung by Sinclair. & "Mumps," the Hatfields' supposed magnum opus, is pretty good, w/ a nice repeating theme that's a real treat when it turns up again toward the end of the piece. Still think Dave Stewart's organ sounds R a little weedy, & the band's twiddly gtr/organ bits w/ female-soprano vocals soaring over the top is pretty much their trademarked sound ... but I'm 2 the point now where I sorta like it.
& Soft Machine. Well, "Why Are We Sleeping?" is pretty great. Nice 2 hear Kevin Ayers' low&mellow vocals again, since I rather stupidly traded-off his ODD DITTIES best-of album a coupla yrs back -- how'm I ever gonna live without hearing "Connie on a Rubber Band" 1 more time?
Mike Ratledge's organ tones sound a lot like early Caravan, which is fine, tho I prefer Dave Sinclair. But hearing early Caravan & the Hatfields mayB gave me a door in2 the Softs, finally. Some of this stuff may strike me as thin or dated or silly, but I'm not giving up -- & I was suprised I remembered the theme 2 "Out-Bloody-Rageous." Haven't tried "Moon in June" again yet, tho....
More soon.
BOOKS: Currently finishing Sid Smith's IN THE COURT OF KING CRIMSON, the best bio on KC I ever Xpect 2 read until Bob Fripp writes his -- which he SHOULD. Smith not only provides a thorough history of the band, he also looks at each album track by track, talks about where each song came from, analyzes musical content, & covers how the band feels about the work in hindsight. Smith also isn't afraid 2 say if something sucks. My only real complaint w/ his book is that it's 2 short -- w/ everything that's here there's still more I'd like 2 know. + I'd like 2 know what kinda gyrations the band went thru while recording THE POWER TO BELIEVE.
Intresting that 4 all the great music that was produced by this band, it still wasn't enuf 2 make the folks in it happy -- Adrian Belew never felt he got enuf credit 4 his great lyrics & wild guitar; Bill Bruford apparently took 25 yrs of abuse. Smith's book also shows-up Bob Fripp 4 the controlling, perverse weirdo he's always been, & puts a different spin on summa the events also mentioned in....
Bill Bruford's THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY, a sorta 400-pg retirement speech from the drummer, who gave up public performance in Jan 2009. There R LOTS of great stories here, tho of course I woulda loved 2 hear more -- Xactly the kinda stuff that Bruford sez in the book bores him 2 tears. Ah well. My only REAL complaint is that his book isn't 600 pgs. You might also B amused by summa the rather icy things Bruford sez about summa the people he's worked with -- How Yes hadta hold a committee meeting 2 Dcide what day it was; the reason why bassist Chris Squire's nickname is "The Fish" -- Bruford calls him "torpid." There's a whole CHAPTER on what it's like 2 work w/ Fripp. There R also chapters about touring w/ Yes, KC, Genesis, UK, Gong, National Health, Bruford, Earthworks, & more. If you like any of these acts, you'll wanna read this book. Sheez, I'm thinkin bout readin Keith Emerson's autobio, now....
Still looking 4 the ultimate prog-rock history book, haven't found it yet. Charles Snider's STRAWBERRY BRICKS GUIDE TO PROGRESSIVE ROCK reviews 250+ prog-related albums from SGT. PEPPER to THE WALL, including a LOT of German & Italian stuff I've never heard -- there's a lot of real good info in it. But. Snider's timeline cuts off a little 2 early -- I think he coulda at least gone on thru 1982 or so. Snider has no idea what 2 do with apostrophes or commas, & he occasionally gets musicians' names, album titles & record labels wrong. Despite that, the info in Snider's book is MILES ahead of say, Jerry Lucky's PROGRESSIVE ROCK FILES. But somebody shoulda proofread it 4 him....
Edward Macan's ROCKING THE CLASSICS is about on the same level as Paul Stump's prog-history THE MUSIC'S ALL THAT MATTERS -- but Macan looks at prog as almost entirely a British creation -- American proggers such as Kansas, Dixie Dregs, Happy the Man, Starcastle, etc. R mentioned, but that's all. Macan is strong on the sociological & economic forces that led 2 the rise & fall of progressive rock, & he is VERY strong on technical analysis. He also analyzes 4 prog pieces in-depth (TARKUS, "Close to the Edge," WISH YOU WERE HERE, "Firth of Fifth"). His book at least mentions Camel, Caravan, Gentle Giant, Soft Machine, Hatfield and the North, etc. I wished his range was wider, but he knows his stuff.
Some of the best things in Macan's book R footnotes -- how Atlantic Records Prez Ahmet Ertegun asked ELP to make LOVE BEACH "as commercial as possible;" Dave Stewart's frustration when Virgin Records turned National Health down for a contract after they'd previously been home 2 Stewart's Hatfields....
Intresting that Bruford quotes from both Macan & Stump on their theories about the decline of prog -- BB was there, I thot he might have his own theories on what happened & why. & he does, but you havta read Btween the lines about his experiences w/ UK 2 find out how he feels about the whole commercialization issue....
DO NOT be sucked in by UNCLE JOE'S GUIDE TO PROGRESSIVE ROCK. Joe Benson is an LA DJ who thinks he knows a few things just because he's read the backs of a few album covers. Unless you're looking 4 VERY basic song-title/composer/album/release-date info, you're not going to find much of intrest here. If you're a fan of the bands you probly know more than Uncle Joe does already -- maybe you should write a book? Example from Uncle Joe's chapter on the Moody Blues: Mike Pinder's song "Simple Game" could NOT have been an outtake from the Moodies' 1972 album SEVENTH SOJOURN, because it was recorded in 1968 & issued as the B-side of "Ride My See-Saw" -- after that I gave up.
I've had 2 take a break from music-related fiction 4 awhile, I was burning out. As a result I've gotta lotta novels on the shelf that're gonna havta wait -- Harlan Ellison's SPIDER KISS, Norman Spinrad's LITTLE HEROES, Bradley Denton's WRACK AND ROLL, Don DeLillo's gloomy GREAT JONES STREET, Laurence Gonzales's JAMBEAUX (6 chapters in, still not sure where it's going).
I AM trying 2 finish Rafi Zabor's THE BEAR COMES HOME, about a jazz-saxophone-playing bear in search of the meaning of music & his own destiny. It's funny, & in places it's beautifully written -- Zabor useta write some wild jazz & pop reviews 4 the old MUSICIAN magazine -- but it's not gripping. I set it down a couple yrs ago 3/4 of the way thru, when the Bear was at the start of a nationwide tour in support of his 1st album. Recently I made it another 75 pgs & it's bn worth the trip, but.... THE BEAR won Zabor the PEN/Faulkner Award 4 best 1st-novel -- you can now get a copy from Amazon.com 4 6 cents. (This is not an ad.)
Fiction just isn't grabbing me NEmore like nonfiction can. Lately if I get bored w/ a novel I'll take a break w/ Paul Theroux's travel writing, like the marvelous THE KINGDOM BY THE SEA (about his walk around the shoreline of the British Isles), or the shorter pieces in his FRESH AIR FIEND. I'd still B willing 2 try a good rock novel, if I could find NE. There R a few others out there I'm aware of -- John Shirley's TRANSMANIACON and ECLIPSE, rocker Mick Farren's THE TEXTS OF FESTIVAL....
...Sorry I've been gone 4 so long. Haven't either felt much like posting or had much 2 write about. & sometimes The World's Smallest Laptop has trouble finding enuf signals 2 transmit. But I'm still functioning. Sorta....
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Still timely after all these years....
After this week's news reports about HOT summer temps in the U.S. & heavy, choking smog in Moscow, & other long-term smog issues in places like LA, Beijing, Mexico City, London, Ankara, Istanbul, Athens, Denver, Boise & other places, it's intresting how timely John Brunner's 1972 science-fiction pollution-death novel THE SHEEP LOOK UP still is.
The past week's thick smog in Moscow could be straight outta the pages of this book, with its filtermasks 4 the air you can't breathe, purifiers 4 the water you can't drink, heavy clouds that block out the sun 4 weeks or months at a time, insect pests that are immune to every known kind of insecticide, waves of ongoing nagging diseases that EVERYBODY gets sooner or later, etc. etc. etc.
I remember being outraged & moved by this book when I 1st read it back in 1975 when I was 15 years old -- & again when I re-read it in the mid-'80s. Even then, tho the book is fiction, I KNEW there were things LIKE THIS happening out there in the Real World. & tho we've become a LOT more environmentally conscious since then, even tho more & more people R "goin Green" than ever before, we're still in Bad Shape. Tho not as bad as the folks in this novel.
Brunner was pretty brilliant, at times. His earlier epic SF novel STAND ON ZANZIBAR (1968, 650 pgs) showed the Earth being brot 2 the brink of disaster due to overpopulation. Brunner juggled a fairly simple plot focusing on a handful of characters, slammed in a massive amount of background detail thru isolated scenes, newspaper clippings, TV commercials & etc., & made it all work brilliantly almost all the way up to the end ... when the melodrama & plottiness got kinda obvious. Still, among my Top 10 fave SF novels ever.
Brunner followed it up with THE JAGGED ORBIT (1969, about 1/2 as long), another disaster novel about race-relations crises -- I read it 1nce years ago & barely remember a word -- it's waiting on my shelf 4 re-reading. He later wrote another epic, THE SHOCKWAVE RIDER (1975), which is sposta B a precursor of cyberpunk. I got about 50 pgs in2 it a coupla yrs back & wasn't gripped.
All these big novels didn't make Brunner rich. He was always very open about how ZANZIBAR did not make a fortune & how he still hadta crank-out a coupla potboiler SF novels each yr 2 pay the bills. When he died a decade ago he reportedly had less than $1,000 in his bank account. Which maybe shows that you won't get rich by predicting the future frighteningly -- even if you're pretty accurate.
If you're a big fan of Irony & Poetic Justice, you'll probably like SHEEP. In some ways it's probly on Al Gore's 10 Best list. At the most basic level it follows how 1 unforeseen disaster can mushroom & impact millions. But it's also obvious that the disaster that kicks-off the story is just more fuel 4 a fire that's already out of control.
SHEEP flows more smoothly than ZANZIBAR -- the approach is almost streamlined. Brunner has a lot 2 cover in 430 pgs. But its tough 2 read a novel in which almost all the characters you meet & are encouraged to identify-with get blown-away 1 by 1 as the story proceeds.
In ZANZIBAR & ORBIT there was hope left at the end, a little optimism, no matter how bad things were. There is no happy ending 4 anyone in this story. Ecologist Austin Train's final speech isn't long enuf or moving enuf -- the whole book leads up to it & it coulda gone on MUCH longer. & when a scientist reveals that a computer program he's been working on 4 the entire book has concluded that the human race CAN be saved -- IF we exterminate the 200 million most wasteful & greedy of our species ... then that's exactly what happens.
Not exactly lite, EZ reading. But I thot I would be carried away by the story, could admire Brunner's technique & get outraged again. Instead, it took me almost a month 2 get thru it (with interruptions, including a vacation). Worth reading, but not the acidic, outrageous, painful explosion that I remembered....
CURRENTLY TRYING TO DIGEST: Colin Greenland's THE ENTROPY EXHIBITION, about SF's "New Wave" of the late '60s & specifically about the fiction published in Michael Moorcock's NEW WORLDS magazine. Some of this is very heavy going, very dry -- not suprising; the book was originally Greenland's college master's thesis.
There is good stuff here on the writings of Moorcock, J.G. Ballard & Brian W. Aldiss. But there isn't enuf about the history or day-to-day workings of the magazine (Charles Platt has some great stories about working on NW included in his DREAM MAKERS books of interviews w/ SF writers). I grabbed this thinking it was going to B a HISTORY of NW -- which woulda been right up my alley, & I love reading writing ABOUT writing.
Greenland nailed 1 item tho, which made me laff out loud: At 1 point he describes some of the work of late-'60s British SF writer Langdon Jones as "sick." & I laffed because Greenland's RIGHT -- Jones's work does come across as feverish, diseased, lurid -- something very twisted that hadta explode out 4 the author's own good. You can read Jones's "The Coming of the Sun" in Damon Knight's THE BEST FROM ORBIT....
The past week's thick smog in Moscow could be straight outta the pages of this book, with its filtermasks 4 the air you can't breathe, purifiers 4 the water you can't drink, heavy clouds that block out the sun 4 weeks or months at a time, insect pests that are immune to every known kind of insecticide, waves of ongoing nagging diseases that EVERYBODY gets sooner or later, etc. etc. etc.
I remember being outraged & moved by this book when I 1st read it back in 1975 when I was 15 years old -- & again when I re-read it in the mid-'80s. Even then, tho the book is fiction, I KNEW there were things LIKE THIS happening out there in the Real World. & tho we've become a LOT more environmentally conscious since then, even tho more & more people R "goin Green" than ever before, we're still in Bad Shape. Tho not as bad as the folks in this novel.
Brunner was pretty brilliant, at times. His earlier epic SF novel STAND ON ZANZIBAR (1968, 650 pgs) showed the Earth being brot 2 the brink of disaster due to overpopulation. Brunner juggled a fairly simple plot focusing on a handful of characters, slammed in a massive amount of background detail thru isolated scenes, newspaper clippings, TV commercials & etc., & made it all work brilliantly almost all the way up to the end ... when the melodrama & plottiness got kinda obvious. Still, among my Top 10 fave SF novels ever.
Brunner followed it up with THE JAGGED ORBIT (1969, about 1/2 as long), another disaster novel about race-relations crises -- I read it 1nce years ago & barely remember a word -- it's waiting on my shelf 4 re-reading. He later wrote another epic, THE SHOCKWAVE RIDER (1975), which is sposta B a precursor of cyberpunk. I got about 50 pgs in2 it a coupla yrs back & wasn't gripped.
All these big novels didn't make Brunner rich. He was always very open about how ZANZIBAR did not make a fortune & how he still hadta crank-out a coupla potboiler SF novels each yr 2 pay the bills. When he died a decade ago he reportedly had less than $1,000 in his bank account. Which maybe shows that you won't get rich by predicting the future frighteningly -- even if you're pretty accurate.
If you're a big fan of Irony & Poetic Justice, you'll probably like SHEEP. In some ways it's probly on Al Gore's 10 Best list. At the most basic level it follows how 1 unforeseen disaster can mushroom & impact millions. But it's also obvious that the disaster that kicks-off the story is just more fuel 4 a fire that's already out of control.
SHEEP flows more smoothly than ZANZIBAR -- the approach is almost streamlined. Brunner has a lot 2 cover in 430 pgs. But its tough 2 read a novel in which almost all the characters you meet & are encouraged to identify-with get blown-away 1 by 1 as the story proceeds.
In ZANZIBAR & ORBIT there was hope left at the end, a little optimism, no matter how bad things were. There is no happy ending 4 anyone in this story. Ecologist Austin Train's final speech isn't long enuf or moving enuf -- the whole book leads up to it & it coulda gone on MUCH longer. & when a scientist reveals that a computer program he's been working on 4 the entire book has concluded that the human race CAN be saved -- IF we exterminate the 200 million most wasteful & greedy of our species ... then that's exactly what happens.
Not exactly lite, EZ reading. But I thot I would be carried away by the story, could admire Brunner's technique & get outraged again. Instead, it took me almost a month 2 get thru it (with interruptions, including a vacation). Worth reading, but not the acidic, outrageous, painful explosion that I remembered....
CURRENTLY TRYING TO DIGEST: Colin Greenland's THE ENTROPY EXHIBITION, about SF's "New Wave" of the late '60s & specifically about the fiction published in Michael Moorcock's NEW WORLDS magazine. Some of this is very heavy going, very dry -- not suprising; the book was originally Greenland's college master's thesis.
There is good stuff here on the writings of Moorcock, J.G. Ballard & Brian W. Aldiss. But there isn't enuf about the history or day-to-day workings of the magazine (Charles Platt has some great stories about working on NW included in his DREAM MAKERS books of interviews w/ SF writers). I grabbed this thinking it was going to B a HISTORY of NW -- which woulda been right up my alley, & I love reading writing ABOUT writing.
Greenland nailed 1 item tho, which made me laff out loud: At 1 point he describes some of the work of late-'60s British SF writer Langdon Jones as "sick." & I laffed because Greenland's RIGHT -- Jones's work does come across as feverish, diseased, lurid -- something very twisted that hadta explode out 4 the author's own good. You can read Jones's "The Coming of the Sun" in Damon Knight's THE BEST FROM ORBIT....
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Back to the Roots!
When all else fails, try Nostalgia....
My earliest musical memories go back to 1962-63, when my Mom & I shared an apartment in Boise, Idaho's "Hills Village" apartment complex with my Uncle Loren. My Uncle was a big jazz fan -- 1 of the record albums my Mom inherited from him was a copy of COLTRANE TIME on Columbia, with a gritty monochromatic cover painting showing a giant saxophone hanging down between some apartment buildings, & 1 harassed-looking tenant poking his head out the window with his hands clamped over his ears.
I don't think I ever heard THAT album, but there was almost always SOME kind of music playing in the house. My Mom liked the symphonic stuff -- Beethoven's 5th, Franz Liszt, Rachmaninoff -- I'm sure I must've heard Aaron Copland 1st back in those days. She was also a big fan of Christmas music; lots of Christmas albums in the house.
The first 45-rpm single I remember ever having was Mitch Miller's "March from the River Kwai" on Columbia -- on gold vinyl! Don't remember for sure how I got ahold of it. I seem to remember something about my Mom winning it in some radio-station contest on Boise's KBOI-AM.
In '64 we moved to a duplex on 27th Street in Boise, which we shared with my Cousin Carol & her son Ritchie -- who always useta beat me up; I musta been about 5 years old. Cousin Carol was a BIG Elvis fan. Eventually, before we moved again, I nagged her enuf that she let me take away a handful of 45's to my new home, where I was told I'd be allowed to have a record player. I musta nagged her to DEATH. (Sorry, Carol.) Tho I remember her telling me to keep my grubby hands off the Elvis, I actually got away with 2: "You're the Devil in Disguise" (not bad I guess) & "Kiss Me Quick." 1 of these was backed with the moody ballad "Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello" (also not bad). Can't remember what the other song was. Overall, I remember Elvis didn't do much 4 me then -- seemed kinda show-bizzy & not 2 exciting to my 5-year-old musical tastes.
The others I picked out were mostly WAY better: Freddy Cannon's GREAT "Palisades Park" (written by Chuck Barris!), backed with the screamer "June, July and August" -- whenever I hear either 1 now I think of summer & they cheer me up. Up until I was about 10 years old I thot "Palisades Park" was the greatest song ever.
Also: The Everly Brothers' "Walk Right Back" -- great stuff! Great harmonies! & so sad....
And: Johnny Rivers' "Memphis," b/w "It Wouldn't Happen With Me." "Memphis" is of course 1 of Chuck Berry's classics with an extra kick in the punchline at the end; "It Wouldn't Happen With Me" is 1 of the great forgotten comedy songs of the rock era.
And: Nino Tempo & April Stevens' "Deep Purple," b/w "I've Been Carrying a Torch for You So Long That I've Burned a Great Big Hole in My Heart." (I'm NOT making this up!) "Deep Purple" is weird enuf, w/ its foggy-nite ambience & its foghorn harmonica followed by April's pure-whitebread voiceover near the end -- but "Hole in My Heart" is like some unimaginable, raving field holler from some other planet....
There was Floyd Cramer's kinda weepy piano instrumental "Last Date" -- which had a WAY better B-side, almost a rocker, but I've forgotten its title over the years....
There were others I've mostly forgotten (like the Four Preps' silly "Susie Cockroach," b/w the even-more-silly "Big Draft" medley of outrageous military songs), some that DESERVE to be forgotten (Terry Stafford's "I'll Touch a Star") -- as I remember my choices had nothing to do with the SONGS. The records I picked out were based ENTIRELY on how cool the record-labels looked.... Obviously Elvis wasn't gonna intrest me much w/ that dull RCA label: Nipper the Dog staring at a gramophone against a black background....
It took about 6 years before I started buying 45-rpm singles on my own, & almost as long to figure out that there was such a thing as a RADIO, & it had STATIONS on it that played MUSIC, sometimes around the clock....
It took even longer before I started buying record albums, tho I was aware of them soon after I'd discovered 45's. Problem was, I didn't have the attention-span 4 albums -- I couldn't even get thru a 15-minute side of music unless it was something really great. Example: My favorite part of my Mom's album of Beethoven's 5th was the discussion by conductor Leonard Bernstein at the end. I could get thru the symphony's 1st movement OK ("Dit-dit-dit-DAH"), but after that I'd just drift off & ask "to hear the guy talk at the end."
But I latched-onto some of my Mom's albums, when she allowed me to. Like The Kingston Trio's COLLEGE CONCERT (1963) -- great stuff! Great songs, some jokes I'm STILL trying to figure out, & MAN could they SING! Both sides were full of classics: "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," "Ballad of the Shapes of Things," "Coplas Revisited," "MTA," "Little Light," & a blowout called "Going Away for to Leave You" -- just add their hit "Greenback Dollar" & you'd have everything I'd ever wanna hear by these guys.
Or there was Peter, Paul and Mary's MOVING (1963). Loved it at 1st 4 "Puff the Magic Dragon," of course, but it's also got the greatest version of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" that you'll ever hear, plus killers like "Settle Down," "Gone the Rainbow," "Man Come Into Egypt," and a wondrous little closing Halloween/Christmas # called "A'Soulin'"....
Or how bout the Rip Chords' HEY LITTLE COBRA (1964)? Great watered-down Beach Boys-style car songs by future BBoy Bruce Johnston & future Byrds & Raiders producer Terry Melcher. GREAT soaring harmonies & some AMAZING songs: "Here I Stand" is a forgotten acapella classic, & "Gone," "The Queen" & "Ding Dong" are nearly as great. Even the average stuff (like the title hit) is still pretty good -- no wonder I was a sucker for the Beach Boys a few years later....
Or there was the soundtrack from THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965), about the 2nd movie I ever saw. Sure, there's some mush, but how can you say no to "I Have Confidence" or "Do-Re-Mi" or "Maria" or "Climb Every Mountain" or "Sixteen Going on Seventeen"? & "So Long, Farewell" coulda been a huge hit! "Edelweiss" rips me up every time. & how bout the real sleeper: "Something Good"...? & how could you forget "The Lonely Goatherd"...?
Or how 'bout Henry Mancini's soundtrack from THE PINK PANTHER (1964)? This was probly my Mom's influence -- lotsa orchestrated stuff. But the title track's a classic, "It Had Better be Tonight" sounds just as great w/ a vocal as it does as an instrumental, & "The Village Inn" sounds like your basic Parisian background music until an evil, ominous chorus interrupts with all kinds of shakers & rattles & bizaare percussion....
Or Bill Justis's PLAYS ALLEY CAT, GREEN ONIONS & OTHER BIG INSTRUMENTAL HITS (1963)? Freakin amazing -- who knew Lawrence Welk's "Calcutta" was so freakin great?! + great forgotten instrumentals like "Rinky Dink," "A Swingin' Safari," "Theme from 'A Summer Place'," etc. Last time I saw a copy of this album a year or so ago they wanted $8 for it. I shoulda grabbed it....
Or if you haven't given up yet, how 'bout Ray Conniff's INVISIBLE TEARS (1963)? DEFinitely not rock&roll -- but Ray & his gang do a KILLER version of the old Weavers' folk chestnut "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," a marvelous version of the '50s hit "Singin' the Blues," some rather nice MOR stuff like "Far Away Places" & "Waitin' for the Evening Train," a spirited workout on Jimmie Rodgers' old hit "Honeycomb" ... & a closing fantasy about being stranded on a desert island with a girl named "Marianne" that any GILLIGAN'S ISLAND fan would love.
The 1st album I remember being bought for me was THE CHIPMUNKS SING THE BEATLES HITS (1964) -- a classic! Back then I thot Alvin, Simon & Theodore did a better job on "Please Please Me" & "All My Loving" than even the Fab 4 did....
Despite my exposure to all this music when I was around 5 or 6, it took me a LONG time to realize what a radio was for, & that you could make music come out of it. It's strange -- at my Cousin Jim's house he & his brother David woke up to an alarm clock that greeted them every morning with the latest hits from the local #1 rock&roll station (KFXD-AM 580). Jim & Dave had lotsa albums in the house -- including the Moody Blues' DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED & The Monkees' 1st 3, not to mention stuff by the Turtles, Mamas & Papas, Count Five's PSYCHOTIC REACTION & MUCH more -- but it took YEARS for me to notice this stuff.
While the grownups were listening to the Smothers Brothers & the Lamplighters, my Cousin Anna was a big Neil Young fan (slightly later). I also seem to remember my Uncle Cliff (Anna, Jim & Dave's dad) announcing that there would be NO Bob Dylan music played in his house -- & who can blame him? -- tho I may be misremembering this....
Took me years to catch on. Guess I was too busy growing up. I remember singing along with Jim & Anna when the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" came on the radio, & I remember seeing copies of the HELP! album lying around in neighbors' houses in the summer of '65, so I musta known who the Beatles were, & I remember seeing their Saturday morning cartoon show, but....
Mosta the above-listed albums I've been able to track down over the years & I've got them in the house now, if I ever wanna hear them again. But not all of them. Got a copy of Bill Justis or HEY LITTLE COBRA out there? I'm sure unexpectedly stumbling over either of them would turn me back into that 6-year-old kid again....
My earliest musical memories go back to 1962-63, when my Mom & I shared an apartment in Boise, Idaho's "Hills Village" apartment complex with my Uncle Loren. My Uncle was a big jazz fan -- 1 of the record albums my Mom inherited from him was a copy of COLTRANE TIME on Columbia, with a gritty monochromatic cover painting showing a giant saxophone hanging down between some apartment buildings, & 1 harassed-looking tenant poking his head out the window with his hands clamped over his ears.
I don't think I ever heard THAT album, but there was almost always SOME kind of music playing in the house. My Mom liked the symphonic stuff -- Beethoven's 5th, Franz Liszt, Rachmaninoff -- I'm sure I must've heard Aaron Copland 1st back in those days. She was also a big fan of Christmas music; lots of Christmas albums in the house.
The first 45-rpm single I remember ever having was Mitch Miller's "March from the River Kwai" on Columbia -- on gold vinyl! Don't remember for sure how I got ahold of it. I seem to remember something about my Mom winning it in some radio-station contest on Boise's KBOI-AM.
In '64 we moved to a duplex on 27th Street in Boise, which we shared with my Cousin Carol & her son Ritchie -- who always useta beat me up; I musta been about 5 years old. Cousin Carol was a BIG Elvis fan. Eventually, before we moved again, I nagged her enuf that she let me take away a handful of 45's to my new home, where I was told I'd be allowed to have a record player. I musta nagged her to DEATH. (Sorry, Carol.) Tho I remember her telling me to keep my grubby hands off the Elvis, I actually got away with 2: "You're the Devil in Disguise" (not bad I guess) & "Kiss Me Quick." 1 of these was backed with the moody ballad "Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello" (also not bad). Can't remember what the other song was. Overall, I remember Elvis didn't do much 4 me then -- seemed kinda show-bizzy & not 2 exciting to my 5-year-old musical tastes.
The others I picked out were mostly WAY better: Freddy Cannon's GREAT "Palisades Park" (written by Chuck Barris!), backed with the screamer "June, July and August" -- whenever I hear either 1 now I think of summer & they cheer me up. Up until I was about 10 years old I thot "Palisades Park" was the greatest song ever.
Also: The Everly Brothers' "Walk Right Back" -- great stuff! Great harmonies! & so sad....
And: Johnny Rivers' "Memphis," b/w "It Wouldn't Happen With Me." "Memphis" is of course 1 of Chuck Berry's classics with an extra kick in the punchline at the end; "It Wouldn't Happen With Me" is 1 of the great forgotten comedy songs of the rock era.
And: Nino Tempo & April Stevens' "Deep Purple," b/w "I've Been Carrying a Torch for You So Long That I've Burned a Great Big Hole in My Heart." (I'm NOT making this up!) "Deep Purple" is weird enuf, w/ its foggy-nite ambience & its foghorn harmonica followed by April's pure-whitebread voiceover near the end -- but "Hole in My Heart" is like some unimaginable, raving field holler from some other planet....
There was Floyd Cramer's kinda weepy piano instrumental "Last Date" -- which had a WAY better B-side, almost a rocker, but I've forgotten its title over the years....
There were others I've mostly forgotten (like the Four Preps' silly "Susie Cockroach," b/w the even-more-silly "Big Draft" medley of outrageous military songs), some that DESERVE to be forgotten (Terry Stafford's "I'll Touch a Star") -- as I remember my choices had nothing to do with the SONGS. The records I picked out were based ENTIRELY on how cool the record-labels looked.... Obviously Elvis wasn't gonna intrest me much w/ that dull RCA label: Nipper the Dog staring at a gramophone against a black background....
It took about 6 years before I started buying 45-rpm singles on my own, & almost as long to figure out that there was such a thing as a RADIO, & it had STATIONS on it that played MUSIC, sometimes around the clock....
It took even longer before I started buying record albums, tho I was aware of them soon after I'd discovered 45's. Problem was, I didn't have the attention-span 4 albums -- I couldn't even get thru a 15-minute side of music unless it was something really great. Example: My favorite part of my Mom's album of Beethoven's 5th was the discussion by conductor Leonard Bernstein at the end. I could get thru the symphony's 1st movement OK ("Dit-dit-dit-DAH"), but after that I'd just drift off & ask "to hear the guy talk at the end."
But I latched-onto some of my Mom's albums, when she allowed me to. Like The Kingston Trio's COLLEGE CONCERT (1963) -- great stuff! Great songs, some jokes I'm STILL trying to figure out, & MAN could they SING! Both sides were full of classics: "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," "Ballad of the Shapes of Things," "Coplas Revisited," "MTA," "Little Light," & a blowout called "Going Away for to Leave You" -- just add their hit "Greenback Dollar" & you'd have everything I'd ever wanna hear by these guys.
Or there was Peter, Paul and Mary's MOVING (1963). Loved it at 1st 4 "Puff the Magic Dragon," of course, but it's also got the greatest version of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" that you'll ever hear, plus killers like "Settle Down," "Gone the Rainbow," "Man Come Into Egypt," and a wondrous little closing Halloween/Christmas # called "A'Soulin'"....
Or how bout the Rip Chords' HEY LITTLE COBRA (1964)? Great watered-down Beach Boys-style car songs by future BBoy Bruce Johnston & future Byrds & Raiders producer Terry Melcher. GREAT soaring harmonies & some AMAZING songs: "Here I Stand" is a forgotten acapella classic, & "Gone," "The Queen" & "Ding Dong" are nearly as great. Even the average stuff (like the title hit) is still pretty good -- no wonder I was a sucker for the Beach Boys a few years later....
Or there was the soundtrack from THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965), about the 2nd movie I ever saw. Sure, there's some mush, but how can you say no to "I Have Confidence" or "Do-Re-Mi" or "Maria" or "Climb Every Mountain" or "Sixteen Going on Seventeen"? & "So Long, Farewell" coulda been a huge hit! "Edelweiss" rips me up every time. & how bout the real sleeper: "Something Good"...? & how could you forget "The Lonely Goatherd"...?
Or how 'bout Henry Mancini's soundtrack from THE PINK PANTHER (1964)? This was probly my Mom's influence -- lotsa orchestrated stuff. But the title track's a classic, "It Had Better be Tonight" sounds just as great w/ a vocal as it does as an instrumental, & "The Village Inn" sounds like your basic Parisian background music until an evil, ominous chorus interrupts with all kinds of shakers & rattles & bizaare percussion....
Or Bill Justis's PLAYS ALLEY CAT, GREEN ONIONS & OTHER BIG INSTRUMENTAL HITS (1963)? Freakin amazing -- who knew Lawrence Welk's "Calcutta" was so freakin great?! + great forgotten instrumentals like "Rinky Dink," "A Swingin' Safari," "Theme from 'A Summer Place'," etc. Last time I saw a copy of this album a year or so ago they wanted $8 for it. I shoulda grabbed it....
Or if you haven't given up yet, how 'bout Ray Conniff's INVISIBLE TEARS (1963)? DEFinitely not rock&roll -- but Ray & his gang do a KILLER version of the old Weavers' folk chestnut "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," a marvelous version of the '50s hit "Singin' the Blues," some rather nice MOR stuff like "Far Away Places" & "Waitin' for the Evening Train," a spirited workout on Jimmie Rodgers' old hit "Honeycomb" ... & a closing fantasy about being stranded on a desert island with a girl named "Marianne" that any GILLIGAN'S ISLAND fan would love.
The 1st album I remember being bought for me was THE CHIPMUNKS SING THE BEATLES HITS (1964) -- a classic! Back then I thot Alvin, Simon & Theodore did a better job on "Please Please Me" & "All My Loving" than even the Fab 4 did....
Despite my exposure to all this music when I was around 5 or 6, it took me a LONG time to realize what a radio was for, & that you could make music come out of it. It's strange -- at my Cousin Jim's house he & his brother David woke up to an alarm clock that greeted them every morning with the latest hits from the local #1 rock&roll station (KFXD-AM 580). Jim & Dave had lotsa albums in the house -- including the Moody Blues' DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED & The Monkees' 1st 3, not to mention stuff by the Turtles, Mamas & Papas, Count Five's PSYCHOTIC REACTION & MUCH more -- but it took YEARS for me to notice this stuff.
While the grownups were listening to the Smothers Brothers & the Lamplighters, my Cousin Anna was a big Neil Young fan (slightly later). I also seem to remember my Uncle Cliff (Anna, Jim & Dave's dad) announcing that there would be NO Bob Dylan music played in his house -- & who can blame him? -- tho I may be misremembering this....
Took me years to catch on. Guess I was too busy growing up. I remember singing along with Jim & Anna when the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" came on the radio, & I remember seeing copies of the HELP! album lying around in neighbors' houses in the summer of '65, so I musta known who the Beatles were, & I remember seeing their Saturday morning cartoon show, but....
Mosta the above-listed albums I've been able to track down over the years & I've got them in the house now, if I ever wanna hear them again. But not all of them. Got a copy of Bill Justis or HEY LITTLE COBRA out there? I'm sure unexpectedly stumbling over either of them would turn me back into that 6-year-old kid again....
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Vacation, all I ever wanted....
Greetings. Took a week-long vacation back home to Idaho. Went to see my Dad and Sister. Tracked-down 1 old friend & tried to find more; at 1 point I wished I'd kept in touch with more old friends from highschool so I'd have more folks to track down....
But I went mainly to see my Dad & get a break from work, maybe get back in touch with myself again. I've been way too grumpy & sad for way too long.
Idaho was very different. The pace there was MUCH slower. For a week I didn't hear people yelling, didn't see folks stressing-out, nobody tried to run over me on the road, nobody yelled obscenities at me for driving too slow -- nobody seemed to be in too much of a hurry. & I didn't see any weirdos freaking-out in public.
It was ... pretty great.
Coupla minor drawbacks: I was so far out in the sticks that I couldn't get cellphone service -- so far out the World's Smallest Laptop couldn't suck-up enuf signals to receive or transmit, tho I tried.
I was a little different, too. I didn't drink as much coffee. Didn't need it. I woke up before noon, regularly -- as early as 7 am, some days -- got up just because the sun was out & it was a beautiful morning. Of course on vacation you can do stuff like that.
The air was different there too -- way lighter & less humid than here in Western Washington. Tho it got hot -- up into the mid-90's -- the dryness of the air made it feel maybe 10 degrees cooler than the same temps here. Course when it got over 100, that was hot enuf for anyone....
It was nice to see the family, & my 1st day back I got a little reminder of what I've missed in my nearly 30 years away from home -- I was introduced to an adorable little 4-year-old girl who is 1 of my nieces, & I was intro'd to her as her "Great Uncle." I still can't keep track of who my sister's kids are married to. I've missed out on a LOT.
Spent a lotta time just driving around the Boise area -- there's a lot of nostalgia there for me. Wish I'd had time to do more. Didn't find a single decent used bookstore that was open -- tho I drove by several that had closed. Didn't even bother trying used record stores -- was afraid of what I might find. But neither of those things were why I went.
Can't comment on Idaho radio because I hardly listened to any: When I was driving thru my old hometown I wanted to be IN IT, not distracted. Can talk a little about radio on the drive there & back: There's a rather good oldies station around Stanfield & Hermiston, Oregon, that specializes in '60s & '70s hits -- I hadn't heard Paul Revere & the Raiders' "Him or Me -- What's it Gonna Be?" in awhile. But the station faded out as soon as I got into Oregon's Blue Mountains.
The only other thing I can tell you is that Eastern Oregon has a few too many radio stations broadcasting about the wonders of Jeezus & Ghod 24/7 -- I remember making the same trip back in '79 & coming over a hill near Baker, Ore., only to be suddenly blasted by the Voice Of Ghod announcing the adventures of "God's Own Agriculturalist -- George Washington Carver!!!!" Their programming hasn't changed much....
Perhaps this weirdness is because there's a lotta wide-open spaces in Eastern Oregon, Eastern Washington & lots of Idaho & Wyoming -- there's a stark beauty there, but there's also MILES of Nothing. That's why many people fly over that part of the country rather than drive it. But I hate to fly....
I took tons of CDs with me for the trip, then ended up not playing most of them. Played most of Camel's ECHOES best-of ("Never Let Go," "Rhayader," "Unevensong," "Breathless," "Echoes," "Drafted," "Sasquatch," "West Berlin," "Mother Road"), & started on Caravan's CANTERBURY TALES best-of ("Place of My Own," "And I Wish I Were Stoned," "Golf Girl," "Nine Feet Underground," "The World is Yours," "Songs and Signs") -- but when I narrowly avoided wrecking the rental car by trying to dodge around a shredded tire in the middle of the freeway, I decided 2 put the CDs away & focus on what was in front of me ... at least for the next hundred miles or so. & I never got back to them....
I didn't take anything to read with me. While there I wanted to DO & BE -- experience, not try to get away.
The only thing wrong with the break -- of course -- was that it wasn't any longer. Nothing here changed while I was gone.
There are a FEW jobs in Idaho, if you want to work for $7.52/hour, which I don't. But I liked the slower pace, after years of stressing out. & the sunshine & clear skies, long as it didn't get TOO hot. & the closeness of family, even if I haven't seen most of them in years. & being surrounded by a place I know very well. & I have a few friends there.
I needed the break, tho coming back home felt pretty good too. Tho mosta those good feelings were gone by 11 pm on my 1st nite back to work. Since then I've shredded the fanbelt on my truck, so I'm now walking the mile to & from work -- which actually hasn't been that bad. Sort of a nice break, & the exercise is probably better for me than I wanna admit. Long as no passing cars try to run over me during my walk home at 1 am....
...I'd like to get back to blogging here. There are lots of things I'd still like to write about, lotsa great music & books I'd like to turn y'all on to. But I needed the break. Most of my reading experiences lately have been disappointing. & except for the little bit of music I listened to during the trip, I don't think I've played any music in the house since about April -- which shoulda been a sign to me that something was wrong....
I hope to get back to this, I hope to write more in general, perhaps even try to push on with that rock-group novel. As I was reminded while on vacation, I'm 50 ... so I'd better get on with it. Even if my health was perfect I couldn't expect to have 50 more years left. Maybe 20? So I've wasted too much time already. But I already knew that.
Can't promise I'm gonna be back to my old productive self, but I am feeling a LITTLE better. If anyone has an idea about how I can take a year off & still get paid, please let me know....
But I went mainly to see my Dad & get a break from work, maybe get back in touch with myself again. I've been way too grumpy & sad for way too long.
Idaho was very different. The pace there was MUCH slower. For a week I didn't hear people yelling, didn't see folks stressing-out, nobody tried to run over me on the road, nobody yelled obscenities at me for driving too slow -- nobody seemed to be in too much of a hurry. & I didn't see any weirdos freaking-out in public.
It was ... pretty great.
Coupla minor drawbacks: I was so far out in the sticks that I couldn't get cellphone service -- so far out the World's Smallest Laptop couldn't suck-up enuf signals to receive or transmit, tho I tried.
I was a little different, too. I didn't drink as much coffee. Didn't need it. I woke up before noon, regularly -- as early as 7 am, some days -- got up just because the sun was out & it was a beautiful morning. Of course on vacation you can do stuff like that.
The air was different there too -- way lighter & less humid than here in Western Washington. Tho it got hot -- up into the mid-90's -- the dryness of the air made it feel maybe 10 degrees cooler than the same temps here. Course when it got over 100, that was hot enuf for anyone....
It was nice to see the family, & my 1st day back I got a little reminder of what I've missed in my nearly 30 years away from home -- I was introduced to an adorable little 4-year-old girl who is 1 of my nieces, & I was intro'd to her as her "Great Uncle." I still can't keep track of who my sister's kids are married to. I've missed out on a LOT.
Spent a lotta time just driving around the Boise area -- there's a lot of nostalgia there for me. Wish I'd had time to do more. Didn't find a single decent used bookstore that was open -- tho I drove by several that had closed. Didn't even bother trying used record stores -- was afraid of what I might find. But neither of those things were why I went.
Can't comment on Idaho radio because I hardly listened to any: When I was driving thru my old hometown I wanted to be IN IT, not distracted. Can talk a little about radio on the drive there & back: There's a rather good oldies station around Stanfield & Hermiston, Oregon, that specializes in '60s & '70s hits -- I hadn't heard Paul Revere & the Raiders' "Him or Me -- What's it Gonna Be?" in awhile. But the station faded out as soon as I got into Oregon's Blue Mountains.
The only other thing I can tell you is that Eastern Oregon has a few too many radio stations broadcasting about the wonders of Jeezus & Ghod 24/7 -- I remember making the same trip back in '79 & coming over a hill near Baker, Ore., only to be suddenly blasted by the Voice Of Ghod announcing the adventures of "God's Own Agriculturalist -- George Washington Carver!!!!" Their programming hasn't changed much....
Perhaps this weirdness is because there's a lotta wide-open spaces in Eastern Oregon, Eastern Washington & lots of Idaho & Wyoming -- there's a stark beauty there, but there's also MILES of Nothing. That's why many people fly over that part of the country rather than drive it. But I hate to fly....
I took tons of CDs with me for the trip, then ended up not playing most of them. Played most of Camel's ECHOES best-of ("Never Let Go," "Rhayader," "Unevensong," "Breathless," "Echoes," "Drafted," "Sasquatch," "West Berlin," "Mother Road"), & started on Caravan's CANTERBURY TALES best-of ("Place of My Own," "And I Wish I Were Stoned," "Golf Girl," "Nine Feet Underground," "The World is Yours," "Songs and Signs") -- but when I narrowly avoided wrecking the rental car by trying to dodge around a shredded tire in the middle of the freeway, I decided 2 put the CDs away & focus on what was in front of me ... at least for the next hundred miles or so. & I never got back to them....
I didn't take anything to read with me. While there I wanted to DO & BE -- experience, not try to get away.
The only thing wrong with the break -- of course -- was that it wasn't any longer. Nothing here changed while I was gone.
There are a FEW jobs in Idaho, if you want to work for $7.52/hour, which I don't. But I liked the slower pace, after years of stressing out. & the sunshine & clear skies, long as it didn't get TOO hot. & the closeness of family, even if I haven't seen most of them in years. & being surrounded by a place I know very well. & I have a few friends there.
I needed the break, tho coming back home felt pretty good too. Tho mosta those good feelings were gone by 11 pm on my 1st nite back to work. Since then I've shredded the fanbelt on my truck, so I'm now walking the mile to & from work -- which actually hasn't been that bad. Sort of a nice break, & the exercise is probably better for me than I wanna admit. Long as no passing cars try to run over me during my walk home at 1 am....
...I'd like to get back to blogging here. There are lots of things I'd still like to write about, lotsa great music & books I'd like to turn y'all on to. But I needed the break. Most of my reading experiences lately have been disappointing. & except for the little bit of music I listened to during the trip, I don't think I've played any music in the house since about April -- which shoulda been a sign to me that something was wrong....
I hope to get back to this, I hope to write more in general, perhaps even try to push on with that rock-group novel. As I was reminded while on vacation, I'm 50 ... so I'd better get on with it. Even if my health was perfect I couldn't expect to have 50 more years left. Maybe 20? So I've wasted too much time already. But I already knew that.
Can't promise I'm gonna be back to my old productive self, but I am feeling a LITTLE better. If anyone has an idea about how I can take a year off & still get paid, please let me know....
Sunday, July 4, 2010
It is what it is (Or: It's just bizness III)
Iain Banks's ESPEDAIR STREET (1987) isn't a bad rock&roll novel. It's a pretty solid 250-pg character sketch of a guy who turns his back on the music bizness at the peak of his success, because of the guilt he feels over the deaths of 2 of his friends & fellow band-members. Their deaths were absolutely NOT his fault. But the incidents were triggered by his ideas.
The book is the reminiscences & misadventures of Daniel Weir, better known by his stage-name -- Weird. He's the main songwriter & leader of the Fleetwood-Mac-meets-Yes-style '70s/'80s band Frozen Gold. FG is phenomenally popular -- poppy yet arty, they can cover the musical spectrum without losing their audience. Weird's the mastermind behind it all.
There's some great stuff here -- Weird's 1st time seeing the band play at a local hall, his 1st meeting w/ them -- when they look at his songs & agree to polish them up a bit, & fame & riches follow soon after -- discussions of album projects & tours. Some of this is very vivid & well-done.
But. It's a bit of a jumble. There's a lot of flashbacks, & some of the "present-day" narration seems a little cluttered. There are a lotta loose ends in the reminiscences. For me, there was too much looning about in local pubs or drinking aimlessly inside the fake-church that Weird lives in, looking out over the city of Glasgow.
I can see why that looning around in pubs is in the book -- because what happens in those incidents forces Weird to reveal his true identity & past to the new friends he's found in Glasgow -- who don't realize he was once a world-famous rock star. And that revelation leads Weird on to the steps he must take to reach what he hopes is happiness at end of the book.
But. I don't understand why he feels so guilty. He says he felt guilty as a child, long before his music career. Bad parenting? We meet his mother, she's not so bad, & he tells us his father's a brute, but we never meet him.
This is also the 3rd book I've read in a row where the message is that achieving artistic success doesn't lead anywhere. At the end, Weird's desperate search for peace of mind leads him to an old love & a new instant family.
I can understand the importance of that, of the need for friends & love in your life. But. This embrace of middle-class values is what he'd been trying to get AWAY from since before the start of his music career.
Just once I'd like to read a rock&roll novel in which it's affirmed that artistic success (& the financial comfort that can go with it) DOES lead somewhere -- that creating art can transcend life's more mundane worries. That it DOES lead somewhere good all by itself -- that artistic achievement & success doesn't just open the door to drug abuse & alcoholism & other stupid pointless pursuits. Otherwise, why bother? If drinking & drugs & enough leisure time to truly screw-up your life is all people really want, why does anybody try to do anything creative? There must be easier ways to make a living....
Certainly if I had Weird's money I'd find something better to do with it than drinking too much & sitting in my fake-church, looking out over Glasgow, feeling sorry for myself. (Not the drinking too much part, anyway.)
This is an above-average novel that never gets near what creating MEANS or how those songs that so badly needed to come out ended-up changing Weird's life. Or if they did. He might've gone on the same way even without success. But what did those songs MEAN to him? We never find out.
It's no wonder songwriters have trouble explaining what a song's "about" or where it "came from" -- it HAD to come out. There it is. What more can you say? It's beyond explanation -- you'll havta settle for The Thing Itself. & if it affects you, if it somehow changes your life, that's between You and It.
I held off reviewing this book for a few days, & thought about it instead, trying to get a handle on what dissatisfied me about it. I'm also aware that Rastro, who often comments here, is a fan of ESPEDAIR STREET, & I didn't want to miss or misunderstand anything that he might call me out for.
I think what dissatisfies me is that I always want to know more. I want to think that people with talent would do something WITH it once they've hit the jackpot -- that they wouldn't just piss it away thru drinking & drugging & bed-hopping & shopping.
I'd like to think that songs mean something to their creators -- that they aren't just a means to obtain another high. I'd like to think that a creative person would be true to their muse, that there's a REASON why someone has been given a gift, & that an artist's job is to explore that gift until they can't use it anymore. I don't know of any higher calling.
But artists havta live in the Real World, too.
...OK, so I'm starry-eyed & idealistic. I don't drink or smoke or drug, so I can't relate to any of that. But I can relate to the creating. Very much. & I want to know MORE -- How? Why? What does it mean? Where did it come from? How did expressing this help make sense out of your world?
Or did you just wanna jot down some simple words to go with a catchy tune?
Coming eventually: Don DeLillo's GREAT JONES STREET, Laurence Gonzales's JAMBEAUX, & more music.
The book is the reminiscences & misadventures of Daniel Weir, better known by his stage-name -- Weird. He's the main songwriter & leader of the Fleetwood-Mac-meets-Yes-style '70s/'80s band Frozen Gold. FG is phenomenally popular -- poppy yet arty, they can cover the musical spectrum without losing their audience. Weird's the mastermind behind it all.
There's some great stuff here -- Weird's 1st time seeing the band play at a local hall, his 1st meeting w/ them -- when they look at his songs & agree to polish them up a bit, & fame & riches follow soon after -- discussions of album projects & tours. Some of this is very vivid & well-done.
But. It's a bit of a jumble. There's a lot of flashbacks, & some of the "present-day" narration seems a little cluttered. There are a lotta loose ends in the reminiscences. For me, there was too much looning about in local pubs or drinking aimlessly inside the fake-church that Weird lives in, looking out over the city of Glasgow.
I can see why that looning around in pubs is in the book -- because what happens in those incidents forces Weird to reveal his true identity & past to the new friends he's found in Glasgow -- who don't realize he was once a world-famous rock star. And that revelation leads Weird on to the steps he must take to reach what he hopes is happiness at end of the book.
But. I don't understand why he feels so guilty. He says he felt guilty as a child, long before his music career. Bad parenting? We meet his mother, she's not so bad, & he tells us his father's a brute, but we never meet him.
This is also the 3rd book I've read in a row where the message is that achieving artistic success doesn't lead anywhere. At the end, Weird's desperate search for peace of mind leads him to an old love & a new instant family.
I can understand the importance of that, of the need for friends & love in your life. But. This embrace of middle-class values is what he'd been trying to get AWAY from since before the start of his music career.
Just once I'd like to read a rock&roll novel in which it's affirmed that artistic success (& the financial comfort that can go with it) DOES lead somewhere -- that creating art can transcend life's more mundane worries. That it DOES lead somewhere good all by itself -- that artistic achievement & success doesn't just open the door to drug abuse & alcoholism & other stupid pointless pursuits. Otherwise, why bother? If drinking & drugs & enough leisure time to truly screw-up your life is all people really want, why does anybody try to do anything creative? There must be easier ways to make a living....
Certainly if I had Weird's money I'd find something better to do with it than drinking too much & sitting in my fake-church, looking out over Glasgow, feeling sorry for myself. (Not the drinking too much part, anyway.)
This is an above-average novel that never gets near what creating MEANS or how those songs that so badly needed to come out ended-up changing Weird's life. Or if they did. He might've gone on the same way even without success. But what did those songs MEAN to him? We never find out.
It's no wonder songwriters have trouble explaining what a song's "about" or where it "came from" -- it HAD to come out. There it is. What more can you say? It's beyond explanation -- you'll havta settle for The Thing Itself. & if it affects you, if it somehow changes your life, that's between You and It.
I held off reviewing this book for a few days, & thought about it instead, trying to get a handle on what dissatisfied me about it. I'm also aware that Rastro, who often comments here, is a fan of ESPEDAIR STREET, & I didn't want to miss or misunderstand anything that he might call me out for.
I think what dissatisfies me is that I always want to know more. I want to think that people with talent would do something WITH it once they've hit the jackpot -- that they wouldn't just piss it away thru drinking & drugging & bed-hopping & shopping.
I'd like to think that songs mean something to their creators -- that they aren't just a means to obtain another high. I'd like to think that a creative person would be true to their muse, that there's a REASON why someone has been given a gift, & that an artist's job is to explore that gift until they can't use it anymore. I don't know of any higher calling.
But artists havta live in the Real World, too.
...OK, so I'm starry-eyed & idealistic. I don't drink or smoke or drug, so I can't relate to any of that. But I can relate to the creating. Very much. & I want to know MORE -- How? Why? What does it mean? Where did it come from? How did expressing this help make sense out of your world?
Or did you just wanna jot down some simple words to go with a catchy tune?
Coming eventually: Don DeLillo's GREAT JONES STREET, Laurence Gonzales's JAMBEAUX, & more music.
Monday, June 21, 2010
It's just bizness II
Here's the 2nd consecutive book I've read in which the Message is that your Dream Job or Dream Career may ultimately not B worth the effort U put in2 it. I hava hard time arguing w/ this.
Philip Norman's EVERYONE'S GONE TO THE MOON (1995) follows the misadventures of young newspaper reporter Louis Brennan as he moves from a nothing job on an undistinguished daily paper somewhere in the North of England in the mid-1960s 2 his Dream Job on the LONDON SUNDAY DISPATCH MAGAZINE (apparently modeled on the real-life LONDON SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE).
Getting his Dream Job is unbelievably EZ 4 Louis. The real challenge comes when he hasta adapt 2 the Reality that Xists at his Dream Job. Bcos even tho Louis gets a chance 2 interview J.R.R. Tolkien, Yoko Ono, Jagger & Richards, Marianne Faithfull, Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton & more, that doesn't necessarily mean all his work gets published. Or that Louis gets even happier when it does.
Turns out his fellow staffers at the SUNDAY DISPATCH MAG are almost all lazy, stuck-up, backstabbing prima donnas, who do suprisingly little work 4 a mag that hasta come out each wk.
Louis latches-on 2 an editor/mentor who at 1st Cms like a really great guy -- supporting & inspiring Louis 2 do more than is required, 2 really shoot 4 the moon. Not that Louis needs much Ncouraging -- the writing is always blissfully EZ 4 him. It never lets him down.
It's PEOPLE who let him down, every time.
Turns out his editor/mentor is 2-faced & lies about almost EVERYTHING. & Louis hasa sorta-girlfriend who it turns out is even WORSE.
It helps that the book takes place during the era of "Swinging London," so it doesn't Cm like a stretch that Louis should Nd up attending a recording session 4 the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," or at a party where Jagger & Richards get arrested 4 drug possession. & Norman was a reporter 4 the LONDON SUNDAY TIMES at the Nd of the '60s, so I'm sure he knows whereof he speaks. The "superstar" guests all Cm like real down-2-Earth people, totally normal & Blievable.
The book is funny & suprising & will definitely carry U along -- & if U've ever quit a really bad, stressful job & remember how great U felt while walking away, the Happy Nding 4 Louis will ring true 4 U.
There R a couple minor problems. There is a LOT of writing about fashion in this book -- understandable, Bcos hip London fashion was a big deal back in the mid-'60s. Norman often Dscribes in great Dtail what a character is wearing -- 2 the point where U may not know what a character looks like, but U have no doubt about what they're dressed in.
Also: Louis has no real inner life. He doesn't Cm 2 think much about the various Btrayals that R inflicted on him. Up til the point at the Nd of the book when he quits his dream job, he just continues 2 B stabbed in the heart repeatedly by his so-called friends. Tho we can C that things upset him, he seldom XPRESSES it 2 NE1. & most of us woulda blown-up or told somebody off LONG B4 Louis does.
We also never get 2 READ NE of Louis's interviews/articles w/ famous folks.
Nevertheless, MOON is such a vivid picture of mid-'60s Swinging London that it's well worth reading -- especially if yr an Anglophile, music fan, frustrated writer... If U've ever worked on NE kind of publication, U'll probly getta kick out of it.
It was good enuf that I went ahead & skimmed thru Norman's Beatles biography, SHOUT! (1981) -- a pretty solid & Dtailed recounting of the Beatles' story, tho if U already know mosta the story (& who doesn't?) I don't think it has much that's new, tho mayB it did at the time....
Also, I learned something from MOON: Amy Johnson, who's referred-2 in Al Stewart's song "Flying Sorcery" (on his YEAR OF THE CAT album), was a real person -- a pioneering English flier who held records 4 solo flights from Britain 2 Australia, & who died in a plane crash in the Thames Estuary in 1941. I thot mayB Amy was just Amelia Earhart under another name, but not so. Guess I don't know my British history as well as I thot....
Philip Norman's EVERYONE'S GONE TO THE MOON (1995) follows the misadventures of young newspaper reporter Louis Brennan as he moves from a nothing job on an undistinguished daily paper somewhere in the North of England in the mid-1960s 2 his Dream Job on the LONDON SUNDAY DISPATCH MAGAZINE (apparently modeled on the real-life LONDON SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE).
Getting his Dream Job is unbelievably EZ 4 Louis. The real challenge comes when he hasta adapt 2 the Reality that Xists at his Dream Job. Bcos even tho Louis gets a chance 2 interview J.R.R. Tolkien, Yoko Ono, Jagger & Richards, Marianne Faithfull, Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton & more, that doesn't necessarily mean all his work gets published. Or that Louis gets even happier when it does.
Turns out his fellow staffers at the SUNDAY DISPATCH MAG are almost all lazy, stuck-up, backstabbing prima donnas, who do suprisingly little work 4 a mag that hasta come out each wk.
Louis latches-on 2 an editor/mentor who at 1st Cms like a really great guy -- supporting & inspiring Louis 2 do more than is required, 2 really shoot 4 the moon. Not that Louis needs much Ncouraging -- the writing is always blissfully EZ 4 him. It never lets him down.
It's PEOPLE who let him down, every time.
Turns out his editor/mentor is 2-faced & lies about almost EVERYTHING. & Louis hasa sorta-girlfriend who it turns out is even WORSE.
It helps that the book takes place during the era of "Swinging London," so it doesn't Cm like a stretch that Louis should Nd up attending a recording session 4 the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," or at a party where Jagger & Richards get arrested 4 drug possession. & Norman was a reporter 4 the LONDON SUNDAY TIMES at the Nd of the '60s, so I'm sure he knows whereof he speaks. The "superstar" guests all Cm like real down-2-Earth people, totally normal & Blievable.
The book is funny & suprising & will definitely carry U along -- & if U've ever quit a really bad, stressful job & remember how great U felt while walking away, the Happy Nding 4 Louis will ring true 4 U.
There R a couple minor problems. There is a LOT of writing about fashion in this book -- understandable, Bcos hip London fashion was a big deal back in the mid-'60s. Norman often Dscribes in great Dtail what a character is wearing -- 2 the point where U may not know what a character looks like, but U have no doubt about what they're dressed in.
Also: Louis has no real inner life. He doesn't Cm 2 think much about the various Btrayals that R inflicted on him. Up til the point at the Nd of the book when he quits his dream job, he just continues 2 B stabbed in the heart repeatedly by his so-called friends. Tho we can C that things upset him, he seldom XPRESSES it 2 NE1. & most of us woulda blown-up or told somebody off LONG B4 Louis does.
We also never get 2 READ NE of Louis's interviews/articles w/ famous folks.
Nevertheless, MOON is such a vivid picture of mid-'60s Swinging London that it's well worth reading -- especially if yr an Anglophile, music fan, frustrated writer... If U've ever worked on NE kind of publication, U'll probly getta kick out of it.
It was good enuf that I went ahead & skimmed thru Norman's Beatles biography, SHOUT! (1981) -- a pretty solid & Dtailed recounting of the Beatles' story, tho if U already know mosta the story (& who doesn't?) I don't think it has much that's new, tho mayB it did at the time....
Also, I learned something from MOON: Amy Johnson, who's referred-2 in Al Stewart's song "Flying Sorcery" (on his YEAR OF THE CAT album), was a real person -- a pioneering English flier who held records 4 solo flights from Britain 2 Australia, & who died in a plane crash in the Thames Estuary in 1941. I thot mayB Amy was just Amelia Earhart under another name, but not so. Guess I don't know my British history as well as I thot....
Monday, June 7, 2010
It's not personal, it's just bizness....
This is disappointing. 4 its 1st 2/3rd's, John Eskow's SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING (1980) is a solid, involving, very-well-written rock&roll novel, as good in its Dtail & Dscription of life in an up&coming R&B/bar band as the 1st 5 chapters of Jesse Sublett's ROCK CRITIC MURDERS.
But w/ the unXpected, un4shadowed murder of Ollie the Roadie -- who's bn protecting the band since pg. 1 of the book -- Eskow loses control of the story & never regains it. The last 3rd spirals down in2 cliches & plotlessness, & tho there's a bittersweet 1-nite reunion scene at the Nd, it's not enuf. Nothing has NE payoff.
Which is 2 bad, Bcos Eskow was on2 a very good thing.
Singer/lyricist Jimmy Caine & brilliant but ever-more-shaky lead guitarist Alan Landreaux head-up NYC bar band Cakewalk, who score a break & start attracting record-co attn just when they thot their ride was over. An oddball Col. Tom Parker-wannabe named Harry Seely offers 2 manage them & guarantees them a record contract within a yr. It happens even faster.
The early chapters, showing Cakewalk in their element, playing in smoky bars & dives around the NYC area, R by far the best part of the book. Eskow has a good eye 4 Dtail, moves his story along w/o straining, & has a way of closing off a good scene w/ a telling line of Dscription or dialogue.
Caine, Landreaux & wisecracking drummer Mikey Martelli R real, believable characters w/ their own odd quirks, bigger than the story they Nd up trapped in. Bassist Paul Baker is a quiet cipher, basically the same at the Nd of the book as he was at the Bginning. The women the band members get close 2 R fully-realized people w/ their own drives & goals, 2.
It's only at the mgmt & record-co Nd that things get a little unreal. Seely is clear as a "type," but he doesn't come across as a real person -- 2 many odd, stagey hangups that don't Cm real. & record-co Bad Guy Wayne Harmon is just a big shadowy-evil presence, clearly in the book Bcos the story needed a Bad Guy.
The story follows Cakewalk thru their last few NYC shows, thru their sessions 2 record their 1st album, & thru their 1st nationwide tour -- during which things go weird & Landreaux is eventually 4ced out of the band 4 what Cms like stupid reasons.
Landreaux goes steadily more nuts. Meanwhile, Caine holds Cakewalk 2gether, & the band records a 2nd, more-commercial album. But the band's growing success doesn't make Caine happy.
Landreaux Nds up heading another band, playing 1-nite gigs until sometime in the future when he won't B able 2 do it NEmore. Caine loses his soul reaching 4 fame & $$$. The only happy people at the Nd of the book R Martelli & his wife Carla, who have made enuf $$$ 2 live comfortably, settle down & raise a family.
& the murder-conspiracy plot that develops in the last 1/2 of the book doesn't help. Seely Nds up w/ a trashed career when 2 people R killed thru the conspiracy, & Harmon -- the Bad Guy -- Gets Away With It. But 4 WHAT? 2 protect a stash of world-class bootleg recordings -- that nothing's ever done with? Nothing has NE payoff.
MayB Eskow didn't have a big, dramatic, fireworks-filled way 2 Nd his novel. But the disappointment Xpressed by mosta the characters & the brief reunion at the very Nd Rn't enuf, either. MayB Real Life turns out this way when U discover yr career wasn't worth the effort U put in2 it, but a successful novel requires something more, something bigger. Thru the final 3rd of the book it's obvious Eskow didn't have it. & I can't figure out what he was aiming 4.
If U liked the portrait of bar-band life shown in Sublett's ROCK CRITIC MURDERS, there's a lot more of it here. The 1st 2/3rd's of the book is well worth tracking down.
But w/ the unXpected, un4shadowed murder of Ollie the Roadie -- who's bn protecting the band since pg. 1 of the book -- Eskow loses control of the story & never regains it. The last 3rd spirals down in2 cliches & plotlessness, & tho there's a bittersweet 1-nite reunion scene at the Nd, it's not enuf. Nothing has NE payoff.
Which is 2 bad, Bcos Eskow was on2 a very good thing.
Singer/lyricist Jimmy Caine & brilliant but ever-more-shaky lead guitarist Alan Landreaux head-up NYC bar band Cakewalk, who score a break & start attracting record-co attn just when they thot their ride was over. An oddball Col. Tom Parker-wannabe named Harry Seely offers 2 manage them & guarantees them a record contract within a yr. It happens even faster.
The early chapters, showing Cakewalk in their element, playing in smoky bars & dives around the NYC area, R by far the best part of the book. Eskow has a good eye 4 Dtail, moves his story along w/o straining, & has a way of closing off a good scene w/ a telling line of Dscription or dialogue.
Caine, Landreaux & wisecracking drummer Mikey Martelli R real, believable characters w/ their own odd quirks, bigger than the story they Nd up trapped in. Bassist Paul Baker is a quiet cipher, basically the same at the Nd of the book as he was at the Bginning. The women the band members get close 2 R fully-realized people w/ their own drives & goals, 2.
It's only at the mgmt & record-co Nd that things get a little unreal. Seely is clear as a "type," but he doesn't come across as a real person -- 2 many odd, stagey hangups that don't Cm real. & record-co Bad Guy Wayne Harmon is just a big shadowy-evil presence, clearly in the book Bcos the story needed a Bad Guy.
The story follows Cakewalk thru their last few NYC shows, thru their sessions 2 record their 1st album, & thru their 1st nationwide tour -- during which things go weird & Landreaux is eventually 4ced out of the band 4 what Cms like stupid reasons.
Landreaux goes steadily more nuts. Meanwhile, Caine holds Cakewalk 2gether, & the band records a 2nd, more-commercial album. But the band's growing success doesn't make Caine happy.
Landreaux Nds up heading another band, playing 1-nite gigs until sometime in the future when he won't B able 2 do it NEmore. Caine loses his soul reaching 4 fame & $$$. The only happy people at the Nd of the book R Martelli & his wife Carla, who have made enuf $$$ 2 live comfortably, settle down & raise a family.
& the murder-conspiracy plot that develops in the last 1/2 of the book doesn't help. Seely Nds up w/ a trashed career when 2 people R killed thru the conspiracy, & Harmon -- the Bad Guy -- Gets Away With It. But 4 WHAT? 2 protect a stash of world-class bootleg recordings -- that nothing's ever done with? Nothing has NE payoff.
MayB Eskow didn't have a big, dramatic, fireworks-filled way 2 Nd his novel. But the disappointment Xpressed by mosta the characters & the brief reunion at the very Nd Rn't enuf, either. MayB Real Life turns out this way when U discover yr career wasn't worth the effort U put in2 it, but a successful novel requires something more, something bigger. Thru the final 3rd of the book it's obvious Eskow didn't have it. & I can't figure out what he was aiming 4.
If U liked the portrait of bar-band life shown in Sublett's ROCK CRITIC MURDERS, there's a lot more of it here. The 1st 2/3rd's of the book is well worth tracking down.
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