Twittering Machines

There’s not one word in any of the usual places. Nothing on the cover, spine, sleeve or labels. No song titles, either. Nothing. Just some business scratched into the dead wax. Not even a funky message.

You are left with the music and to your devices as with the cover art which is so hard to photograph because it is so empty – no matter what I tried, my point of view, mainly light, imprinted itself on the image.

Why would anyone buy a record that doesn’t even hint at its contents? How do you know what to expect? How do I know if I’ll like it, if it’s any good? The obvious answer is I didn’t. I’d read a full-page review in September’s The Wire by Joseph Stannard (p.54) and that review sold me. You should read it too.

Everything sounds at once familiar yet remembered as if through a glass darkly. Samples of sounds, music, human voices, crying, smashing and noise all driven to a driving beat, sometimes tribal sometimes disco but always driving. Overall I’d say Hype Williams‘ sound lovely and forlorn but that’s just the light I’m shining on their music today. I may feel differently later. The Innerworld of the Outerworld of the Innerworld to quote another lovely Peter Handke title.

Released in a limited edition of 300 on Carnivals.

Bendable Wilbur Kookmeyer Toy

Evan Eisenberg
The Recording Angel

It started innocently enough – I’d responded to an odious email from an angry and obnoxious reader who was responding to my Stereophile AWSI but asked JA and Stephen to give it quick read-through before I hit send to make sure I was being clear. I have a tendency toward brevity especially when returning odious emails (and responding to like forum posts) but I didn’t want to sacrifice my point for the sake of a quip.

JA responded in part ‘A good response, and a subject that was covered by Evan Eisenberg in his “The Recording Angel”’.  Covered?

I immediately ordered from Amazon — Only 1 left in stock–order soon (more on the way) — and devoured it whole in two days. As I said to Stephen reading The Recording Angel felt like someone took a cold, clean sponge and wiped my brain clear of all the forum muddled nonsense. If you are so inclined and interested in this topic of why records are not concerts, I highly recommend this book.

Of course I’m kidding in my summary and not only does Evan Eisenberg dig so very much deeper, he unearths a few earth shattering thoughts (relatively of course). I don’t want to give them all away but he suggests – “And so the ten-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc gave birth to the classic blues.” Eisenberg’s point was the format with it’s necessarily limited time forced blues performers to tighten up their lines and licks.

And here’s another tiny tasty morsel “And in general, motoric music, music with a steady, mechanical beat, works better on record than any other kind. When there is no live performer to fasten on, the mind tends to wander from recitative and wispy impressionism. A beat rivets it, rock steady. This helps explain why American popular songs have sloughed off the Broadway-style slow introduction. It helps explain the success of recorded jazz and rock (as Chuck Berry says, ‘It’s got a back beat, you can’t lose it’) and the rolling over of Beethoven in the LP era to make way for the concerti grossi.”

Evan Eisenberg “studied philosophy and classics at Harvard and Princeton and biology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He lives in Manhattan.” He’s also very funny when he wants to be and heavy when he needs to be:

“[Schopenhauer] manages to explain how it is that when we listen to music most deeply we seem to trace with one hand the furrows of the mind, with the other the folds of the universe. In other words, music is not just about people. It is bigger than that.”

Grinderman
Grinderman 2

Is it an earthquake or simply a shock?
Is it the good turtle soup or merely a mock?
Is it a cocktail, this feeling of joy?
Or is what I feel the real McCoy?
from “At Long Last Love”, Cole Porter

Can a mock still be the real McCoy? That is a question and Grinderman 2 answers with a resounding fuck yea. Of course I’m enjoying Grinderman 2 all badass, hairy, hoary, lumpy and hard with its pounding, grinding and good ol time blues rudeness.

From “Worm Tamer”

Well my baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster
Two great humps and I’m gone

Do you remember Nick and The Bad Seeds version of “Stagger Lee” from 1996′s Murder Ballads? Do you remember any Birthday Party tunes? Then Grinderman should come as no surprise but most of that vehemence is now directed at…aging. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise.

From “When My Baby Comes”

Thank God we don’t get all our olds at one time
(Listen to me talking in my hospital gown)

…

Is there anyone out there wasted their lives?
On booze drugs husbands wives and making money?

I’m happy to have Grinderman 2 at 49 predating prescriptions for a daily dose. I’m happy to hear Grinderman 2s rage against age grasping (comically) at the last straws of a receding rube-boy posture. I’m especially enjoying their sound, which reminds me of bits and pieces of things old and new yet remains utterly Grinderman. “Well, my brother, he starts raging! Watch him rising! See him howling!“

I can understand how some might not like Grinderman 2 and how others might find it offensive. Imagine, music that’s not universally loved and adored by everyone and music that can still offend. Who’da thunk.

Grinderman 2 comes with a poster, CD and this lovely booklet illustrated by Ilinca Höpfner

I would just point out that when a record is meant to be offensive and you are offended, is what you feel the real turtle soup or merely a mock?

(warning more offensiveness next)

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Werner Herzog
Of Walking in Ice
Munich – Paris
11/23 to 12/14, 1974

The notebook. There are so many, too many to name what would amount to even a few but I do have some that have stood out more than others over time. One is André Gide’s The White Notebook which was recommended by a friend, a good friend even though I only knew Julia for a few short months while she figured out where next. Julia had a map of the world on the wall of her painting studio stuck with colorful push pins in places under consideration. Each time I came into her studio she’d ask or I’d ask where next.

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Mal Waldron
Breaking New Ground

You know how famous Hollywood actors make commercials that only air in Japan? This record was recorded in Tokyo on June 28 & 29, 1983 and was a Japan-only release on Baybridge Records. Featuring Ed Blackwell on drums and Reggie Workman on bass Breaking New Ground breaks into some pop standards to find new ground including “Suicide Is Painless” (yes the M*A*S*H theme), “After The Love Has Gone” (yes the Earth, Wind and Fire hit), “Beat It” (yes), “You Are The Sunshine of My Life” (that one), and “Everything Must Change” (et al).

If you’re thinking ‘hmm, that’s odd’  I’d have to agree but odder still is the inclusion of Mal’s arrangement of Eric Satie’s “Gymnopedie #2″ (Mal Waldron Plays Eric Satie was also released in Japan-only in 1983 by Baybridge). There are also 2 Mal-penned tunes “Dans La Cuisine D’Alba” and “Thy Freedom Come” (pop-free palette cleansers).

If you’re also thinking ‘those Japanese releases usually sound good, if a bit thin’ I’d have to agree again and the close mic’d approach makes for a gynecological view into the performance. It all sounds potentially tasteless, no? While I prefer the ground Mal breaks on records like The Quest, Mal 1/2 and Up Popped The Devil, I’ve known about and been looking for Waldron Plays Satie for some time so I couldn’t pass this single Gymnopodie by. And it sounds just like you’d imagine it would, like Mal Waldron playing Eric Satie; darker and much less sprightly than Aldo Ciccolini, Satie deconstructed into a two-chord jazz meditation making room for Reggie Workman’s slippery solo amid Mal’s sadness.

And while Mal plays pop is rather shocking, similar to what I’d imagine walking into some smoky Kobe karaoke bar at 5am already hungover, head pounding hungry throat sore from too many cigars only to hear Bob Dylan belting out the Barney theme-song, if you ever wondered what it would have been like to hire Mal Waldron, Ed Blackwell and Reggie Workman to play at your wedding, requests and all, grab this LP.

From the October 2010 The Wire “Invisible Jukebox” featuring Mike Watt (The Minutemen, fIREHOSE…)

“I went to the Louvre. By accident I got first in line at a gate and I got to stand in front of the Mona Lisa and after a while start talkin’ away at her face, to just her eyes. And they were John Coltrane’s eyes.” Mike Watt

(you want to read the rest…)

from the garden: Habanero

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Lightnin’ Hopkins
The Roots of Lightnin’ Hopkins

Did you know that Sam Lightnin’ Hopkins recorded about 1,000 songs for 20 labels on nearly 100 LPs and 78s that bear his name? Crazy, no? Makes it hard to pick. The Roots of Lightnin’ Hopkins* was recorded on January 16, 1959 by Samuel Charters who drove to Houston, Texas and slept on his friend Robert ‘Mack’ McCormick’s floor while they tried to find Lightnin’ who’d dropped out of site and away from the recording studio since he cut his last single-song side.

Sam found Lightnin’ after a few days of looking and asking around. Actually Lightnin’ found him – “I had an old green Chevrolet coupe that was easy to identify. Mack had to go to work the next morning, but I went on down to Dowling Street, and at the first red light a car pulled up beside mine and Lightnin’ rolled down his window and asked me if I was looking for him.”

They picked up an acoustic guitar in a pawnshop, bought some new strings, a bottle of gin and went to Lightnin’s apartment at 803 Hadley Street where Sam held a mic (an Electrovoice 636 microphone and Ampex equipment) while Lightnin’ played and sang. “Of all Lightnin’s recordings, I still find this one,  his first long-playing record**, his most exciting.”  — Sam Charters from the liner notes. I’d say that makes this one highly recommended LP.

*The Roots of Lightnin’ Hopkins was originally released in 1959 on Folkways Records and it looked like this:

** I’ve also read – “McCormick found and recorded him [Hopkins] in 1959 for Autobiography in Blues and brought him back”…I think it’s safe to say that both men, Charters and McCormick played an important role in the ‘re-discovery’ of an important artist and we should be thankful that Sam ‘Lightnin’ Hopkins found them.

But this Mack McCormick story isn’t over…

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Robert Wilkins
Complete Recordings (1928-1935)

Robert Wilkins recorded his “Rolling Stone” on September 7, 1928 in Memphis, TN and “That’s No Way To Get Along” at the Peabody Hotel also in Memphis on September 23, 1929 which was later rewritten to clean up the lyrics to match his new-found reverential ways and renamed “Prodigal Son” which the Rolling Stones (after the Muddy Waters song from 1948) recorded and included on Beggar’s Banquet. Born in Hernando, Mississippi in 1896 Robert Wilkins was the original rolling stone.

Wilkins was another blues player ‘re-discovered’ in the 1960s by Piedmont label owner Dick Spottswood but by that time Robert had attached “Reverend” to the beginning of his name and it wasn’t to sell records. He’d also quit playing the blues after witnessing a brutal fight break out at a gig. But he didn’t quit playing altogether which makes this LP title misleading. The Reverend Robert Wilkins went on to record again in 1964 on Rev. Robert Wilkins: Memphis Gospel Singer [Piedmont] and he also appeared on a number of live records from the ’60s including the Vanguard release The Blues at Newport /1964 / Vol 2. Mississippi Records fans may also know Robert’s “I’ll Go With Her” from the collection I Woke Up One Morning In May.

So let’s call these the complete “Blues” recordings but that also falls short since Robert played and sang the blues, ragtime and country folk music as naturally as most people sneeze. These songs were originally released on Victor and Brunswick 78s, then on an LP from Spokane in 1971, then Yazoo in 1980 and finally this collection on Wolf Records in 1983 transcribed from the original 78s from the collection of Teddy Doerning and Johnny Parth. Wolf Records began life as the Vienna Blues Fan Club…

There’s something oddly nice about listening to recordings originally made in the 1920s and ’30s in Memphis, Tennessee and Jackson, Mississippi by way of Vienna, Austria. I guess that makes this world music.

Source: The Economist

Damien Hirst “For the Love of God”, 2007
asking price £50 million (believed to be unsold)
platinum cast of the skull of an unknown 18th-century European, encrusted with 8,601 pavé set diamonds (original teeth)

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt Character Head, 1771-83

From the 10.19.2010 Sunday NY Times feature on 18th-C Bavarian-born Austrian sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (February 6, 1736 – August 19, 1783) -

“In 1781 the staid but dauntless journalist Friedrich Nicolai visited Messerschmidt and asked him what had inspired the sculptures. The artist explained that he was periodically tormented by malign spirits, the most frightful of which he called the spirit of proportion. But if he greeted them with sculptural expressions of extreme emotions, the spirits could be kept at bay.”

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt Character Head, 1771-83

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt Character Head, 1771-83

“Franz Xaver Messerschmidt 1736-1783: From Neoclassicism to Expressionism” through Jan. 10 at the Neue Galerie New York, 1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street; neuegalerie.org.

Karen Dalton
In My Own Time

“She was a tall white blues singer and guitar player, funky, lanky and sultry. Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday and played guitar like Jimmy Reed and went all the way with it.” Bob Dylan

Karen Dalton released two LPs during her life (1937 – 1993) – her first It’s So Hard To Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best (1969) and In My Own Time (1971). Light In The Attic Records has reissued both. Megaphone, a French label,  and Delmare Recordings in the US released the previously unreleased Green Rocky Road – Pine Street Recordings (2008, home recordings from 1963) and Cotton Eyed Joe (The Loop Tapes) (2007, recorded live in Bolder, CO 1962).

Like all Light In The Attic records I’ve heard and seen, this one is beautifully done with a 12 x 12 4-page booklet that includes lots of pictures and essays by Lenny Kaye, Nick Cave – “She’s a blues singer to me. It’s full of idiosyncrasies that you can’t repeat — it’s her voice and it’s just extraordinary. She is my absolute favorite [female] blues singer”, and Devendra Banhart – “My friends and I have In My Own Time on vinyl”.

What else can I say? I especially like when Karen Dalton sings the blues and traditional songs like “Katie Cruel” but mostly I just like to hear her sing and play anything.

Richard Tucker and Karen Dalton at Gerde’s Folk City, Sept. 1963
Morris Warman/Courtesy of Delmore Recordings

There’s a deep, deep sadness or maybe world-weariness coupled and an aching beauty that you want to embrace…

Not cup size, size matters in hi-fi according to Rolling Stone.

Not the size of the article about hi-fi, the size of the hi-fi. These small systems “rock hard” and as far as the $299 Geneva Sound System goes, “the sound quality is truly excellent”. The Onkyo CS-325 for $279 has “a small, punchy pair of speakers that push out 20W per channel, plenty of power to fill a room.” And finally the Sonos Speaker Bundle 250 for $1,299 comes with “one of the smallest, most powerful digital amplifiers around – and the Klipsch speakers kick hard.”

Lots of punching and kicking in hi-fi in Rolling Stone. I didn’t realize hi-fi was so aerobic! I wonder if the audiophile world is ready for some cleavage, kung-fu and truly excellent sound quality for $299?

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various
Ecstatic Music of the Jemaa El Fna

The Jemaa El Fna is the main market in Marrakesh, Morocco. This ecstatic music is a nighttime occurrence played for crowds by street musicians on amplified banjos, mandolins, ouds, powered by car batteries, relentless percussion and mad vocals over-driven till distortion rattles your mind if not your nerves (and/or your soul).  You want to rock while you listen, maybe twirl and whirl, you definitely want to sweat and forget everything except the sensation of – now.

Ecstasy:

1 : a state of being beyond reason and self-control
2 : a state of overwhelming emotion; especially : rapturous delight
3 : trance; especially : a mystic or prophetic trance

Released by Sublime Frequencies recorded live on the street and no attempt was made at prettying up the rapturous delight. Thank you.

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