Taking stock and 7" roundup

I was counting through all of my blog postings, that is since I wrote about every disc in the 32-CD brick of Messiaen recordings from DG, all the Morricone vinyl I wrote about since his death, and a few of the discs in the Pierre Henry set I started but never finished. 

Here goes: A Certain Ratio, Michael Abels, Louis Andriessen, George Antheil, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Jean Barraqué(2), William Basinski (3), Bobby Beausoleil, Niels Viggo Bentzon, Alban Berg, Harry Bertoia, Beyoncé, Maurizio Bianchi/MB(4), Ran Blake, A. Blonksteiner, Boredoms, Henry Brant, Anthony Braxton, Thomas Brinkmann, John Cage, Can, John Carpenter, Frederick Chopin, Chris & Cosey, John Corigliano, Cut hands, Peter Maxwell Davies, Betty Davis, Miles Davis, Dawn of Midi, Joe Delia, Aaron Dilloway, Thomas Dimuzio, Roberto Donati, John Duncan, Anton Dvorák, Charles Eakin, John Eaton, Richard Einhorn, Emerson Lake and Palmer (2), Etron Fou Leloublan, Faust, Morton Feldman (2), Forbidden Overture!, Hardy Fox, James Francis (Lackey), Robert Fripp (2), Fuzzhead, Don Carlo Gesualdo, Jimmy Giuffre, Gnaw Their Tongues, Goblin, Godflesh, Karel Goeyvaerts, The Golden Palominos, Billy Graham, Beppe Grifeo, Henry Grimes Trio, Guitar Roberts, Herbie Hancock, Jonathan Harvey, Franz Joseph Haydn, Gerry Hemingway Quintet, Pierre Henry, Han Werner Henze, Hieroglyphic Being, Arthur Honegger, Jon the Postman’s Puerile, Kansas, Khanate, King Crimson, Spider John Koerner with Willie and the Bumblebees, Jo Kondo, Rold Kühn, Kay Lawrence, Henry Lazarof, Led Zeppelin (2), Edvard Lieber, Mike Mantler, Frank Martin (2), Miya Masaoka/Tom Nunn/Gino Robair, Mayhem, The Medieval Jazz Quartet, Mere Phantoms, Olivier Messiaen (4), Microwaves, Minutemen, Thelonious Monk, Rudy Ray Moore, Ennio Morricone (3), Mourner, Fred Myrow/Malcome Seagrave, Neu!, Bruno Nicolai, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nisi Quieris, Nurse With Wound (2), Orchid Spangiafora, Leo Ornstein, Tony Oxley, Kryzysztof Penderecki (2) The Penn Shambles, Pharmakon, the Pyramids, Radiohead, Steve Reich, Aribert Reimann, The Residents (2), Marc Ribot, The Ridiculous Trio, George Russell, Erik Satie, Arnold Schoenberg (2), Alexander Scriaban, Sonny Sharrock, Wayne Shorter, Alden Shuman, Claudio Simonetti, Sinoia Caves, Snakefinger, Spine Scavenger, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Stormy Six, Igor Stravinsky, Sun Ra(4), Toru Takemitsu, Talking Heads, Tape Loop Orchestra, Cecil Taylor, Simeon Ten Holt, Throbbing Gristle, Thumbscrew, Andrea True Connection, Eduard Tubin, Twilight Sleep, Werkbund, Wolf Eyes, Stevie Wonder, Iannis Xenakis, Thom Yorke, Neil Young, Frank Zappa (4), Bernd Alois Zimmermann (3) 

Collections: The Chevrolet Experience, Gunner Berg/Finn Høffding/Tage Nielsen/Jørgen Bentzon: various works (Odeon); Tallin 67 (Melodya); Herbie Hancock, The Yardbirds (Blow U OST), Musique Concrète (Candide), Ecstatic Music of the Jemaa El Fna (Sublime Frequencies), Robert Floyd: Plays New Music by Hans Werner Henze - Larry Austin (Advance Recordings); Haydn, etc: Musical Clocks (Candide); American Wind Symphony: Bicentennial Odyssey Vol. 2 (AWS); American Composers Orchestra with Dennis Russell Davies: Cage/Wuorinen; (CRI); Paul Zukofsky/Gilbert Kalish: Music for a 20th Century Violinist (Desto); The ESP Sampler (ESP); VA: The Rough Guide to Psychedelic Bollywood (Rough Guide) disc one; SF特撮映画音楽全集 14 (特撮スペクタクルの世界2) (Starchild); SF特撮映画音楽全集 4 (Starchild); Zappa: Original Soundtrack Album (Zappa Records); Jacob Druckman: Animus II/Nicolas Roussakis: Night Speech, Sonata for Harpsicord (CRI) 

 I don't remember some of these. Generally it's the more neo-classical modern composers I don't especially remember, such as Frank Martin, Eduard Tubin, or Neils Viggo Bentzen. I thought I'd plow through a few 7" singles and EPs I own, significantly adding to the number of artists listed above. 

 #1: Kaffe Matthews: This Many Planes 7" EP (SSS) 

 Kaffe was brought to CMU last year by Freida Abtan. It was a loud, noisy event, neither of which I have a problem with Manny Theiner was there, still selling a few copies of this EP, despite its release in 1998. Kaffe expressed tremendous gratitude for Manny, saying how the release of that record opened many doors for her. This was (somehow) performed on violin, but I can't imagine how. It's layered and noisy, and nothing in it suggests violin at all. She now uses laptop and iPad. She said something about how the record was performed on violin, but she doesn't do that any more. I had her autograph my copy. she wrote, "Hey Ben- Many thanks for listening! Kaffe." Indeed. 

 #2 Jerry King: Auctioneer (Third Man) 

 Half the reason I bought this was the concentric grooves on side two. Pretty sure I bought this at Mind Cure Records. Plus, you know, a 7" 33rpm of an auctioneer is odd enough I'll buy in. First side is about not only the musicality of his auction calls, but slows down and explains how he fills the time. By the way....if you ever release an EP, don't make one side 33.3 RPM and the other 45. Nobody wants that.

#3 Black Bear Combo: Big Life/Dangerhouse (self released)

Here we go, my friends from Chicago, again with Rob Pleshar. They were floating the idea of how to record this band, and I was pretty adamant in my opinion: don't close mic anything, get a general room sound, and let the band blow as they blow. I don't know if it meant anything. 

Two original works here from this mutant Balkan dance band. I know something about that topic. Saxophone squeaks intact. (I'm one to speak.) "Big Life" in 9 (2+2+2+3) goes by quickly. More, please! "Dangerhouse", after a slow intro, is in the more standard 7 (2+2+3). 

I guess saxophonist and (I suppose) bandleader Doug Abram wanted to release a 7". Rob said, why? So we can sit on them? For as much as I like this little slice of vinyl, it does seem like it's not the right format for then.

#4: MX-80 Sound: Big Hits (Hard Pop From the Hoosiers) (Gulcher Records)

I have sometimes thought that DEVO only existed due to the fact that they were in Akron, Ohio and that being nearer to one of the major musical metropolitan areas like San Francisco, NYC, Chicago, would have radically altered what they were. 

So what do we make of of this strange band from Indiana? They've clearly ingested the full Beefheart program, to speak nothing of whatever was happening in Detroit at the time.

Seven songs on this one. Maybe not the best format for this group, a 7" 33.3 RPM record, but it all fits in. Longest song is 3:10, and it's a full minute longer than any other.

The lineup is guitar (the star, Bruce Anderson), voice & alto sax, bass, and two drummers. I can't say what it was like to see them in their heyday, maybe it was an impressive assault on the senses. By the time their first Ralph Records LP came out (their second album overall, the first released on Island Records[?????]) they had pared down to a single drummer. I don't feel like we missed anything.

All songs are co-credited to Anderson/(Rich) Stim, the band's vocalist. Rich doesn't make much of an attempt to actually sing. Sometimes it's great, sometimes not so much. 

Not only was MX-80 the closest thing to punk that Ralph approached, they were the closest to a traditional rock band generally. The single "Someday You'll Be King" is one of the great punk rock singles ever released, even if it could be described in those terms. 

I'll have to do another 7" roundup soon. 

VOTD 9/15/2024

Sun Ra & His Arkestra: Live at Montreux (Inner City)

Bought from Chris Koenigsberg before he left Pittsburgh to attend graduate school at Mills College

Convergences.

Do you remember not just the song or recording, but the setting of when you heard an important recording to you? I'm sure that's true. 

Circa 1982-3. I'm lying tired on my girlfriend's apartment floor (we're now married for nearly forty years). I had on WYEP, the WYEP that some people will remember from back in the day. Not the Adult Alternative playlist-based garbage they play now, but each person on air played what was passionate to them. 

Peter Fadde was on the air. Peter had great taste in jazz, playing excellent-quality straight forward recordings, but also something like the Anthony Braxton/Joseph Jarman duet LP. 

And this. He announced that this was Sun Ra and his Arkestra playing "Take the A Train." I knew a little about Sun Ra, and not necessarily favorable: I saw him play on Saturday Night Live in the 70s, in a highly condensed performance. I've seen it since, and it's not especially good. 

But this time....his solo piano rings out. Sunny was always a bit of clunky pianist, but this was as good a performance I've heard from him. Fluid, interesting. He sets up "A Train", and wow. It's scorchingly fast. So fast that not everyone in the band can keep up. Sloppy? Maybe. Intriguing, exciting? Hell yeah. The band and bandleader are pushing themselves. I was, to use a cliche, blown away.

It's the third side of this double LP.

My old friend, percussionist and synthesist Gino Robair, recalled a similar story. In his case, he was on his college radio show, came across the same version, and being amazed when he played it on air. As he put it, "it was '1234 GO' and they were off!" Great minds, etc. 

I am currently in rehearsals playing the big band music fo Sam Rivers. Sam's archive (extensive) was donated to the University of Pittsburgh collection, which was a large factor that led to that ensemble. There are guest soloists and conductors rehearsing the band, the first of which came today: trombonist Craig Harris. Craig, on one of his first professional gigs, was the sole trombonist in this group. 

I often site this as my favorite Sun Ra album. Maybe it is, I have so many it's difficult to choose. But it's more indicative of his overall output than any other single release I know. Some (relatively) straight forward jazz, some space chants, a few Ra favorites ("El is the Sound of Joy", "Lights on a Satellite"), lots of improvisation, and a Moog/organ solo on side one abrasive enough to put most industrial noise records to shame. 

I told Craig what an important record this was to me, but of course he didn't remember it specifically. We talked a little about Marshall Allen, who turned 100 a few months ago. He said he was close to Marshall, staying with him when initially joining the Arkestra. He said his nickname for Marshall was Deputy, as in Deputy Marshall. 

I saw Marshall and the current Arkestra play at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, OR the summer before last. The show was great, certainly the best I've seen the Arkestra since Sun Ra's death, and even possibly before. I've just read that the group will be returning this November for three consecutive nights. The timing isn't good for me, but I haven't 100% ruled out traveling to see them. 

And to top it all off, my acquaintance Chris Hemingway played with the Arkestra last time, and is likely to be with them this time.

When I saw the Arkestra in Portland in 2022, I was looking at the second alto player and thought, is that Chris Hemingway? Chris comes from Pittsburgh (a Duquesne grad I think), and had sat in Thoth Trio just four weeks earlier. I kept looking, "Is that Chris?" then he played a solo and I said, "THAT'S CHRIS."

The ensemble left the hall chanting and playing along the aisle. Chris was no more than three feet away from me. I pulled my facemask back and said aloud, "CHRIS HEMINGWAY." No reaction. 

Later I looked him up on Facebook to see that he had been gigging with the Arkestra. I DMed him to say, "I think I just saw you play at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland." He responded: "That WAS you!" Yeah, no kidding. I guess he couldn't handle someone he knew from Pittsburgh being in that venue.

Here I am, having talked to Craig Harris about this album, talking about Marshall Allen, knowing a current member of the ensemble. Six degrees of...? Not even. But I guess that's our world. Thoth Trio opened for Marshall Allen and Henry Grimes years ago, and I had a short interaction with Marshall, friendly I'm happy to say. 

Convergences. 

The record rocks, by the way. Sun Ra's boldest and most original works might have been in the 1960s, but my favorites are from the 1970s. This is on the latter end of his most creative period, in my opinion. 

I think the complete concert of this album is now posted to Youtube as videos. The venue seems smaller than I imagined. This band sounds huge. 

So I don't know, in this age where you can find pretty much anything on Youtube or some other streaming site, this is one to check out. Buy a physical copy given the opportunity.

VOTD 9/12/2024

 Frank Zappa: London Symphony Orchestra Vol. 1 (Barking Pumpkin)

This was a dupe copy sent to WRCT that I claimed on its original release

I've just read Moon Unit Zappa's memoir, Earth to Moon. I'm not a fast reader, but I checked it out on Sunday and finished it on Wednesday, to give you an idea of how fast a read it is.

The book is presented as a series of vignettes from Moon's life, either essential events (the birth of each of her younger siblings, the death of her father, the harrowing and long hospitalization of her daughter) or "slices of life" from her overall life's story (her mother Gail taking her to a psychic/reader as a young child and being told she was a "star child"). If what you're looking for is a narrative of the Zappa household timeline, you get pieces of it but not a through-line. Each chapter paints a picture of her mindset at the time, which in part was based on her parents giving her a beautifully bound journal every Christmas. 

Takeaways? 1. Gail and Frank probably should have never had children. I know that's cruel to say, and without them we wouldn't have Moon or Dweezil (or Ahmet or Diva, for whom I have less respect). In The Real Frank Zappa Book, there's a picture of Frank reading the constitution to his assembled children. He liked to project the image of being the family man, head of the household. Truth is, he spent very little time with any of them. That, I guess, was Gail's job. Frank was a largely absent father who would routinely house groupies in the family home, and Gail was a frustrated but devoted housewife. Moon, outside of the book, described her mother as her "first bully." That comes through. Yet through it all, she describes her father as her favorite person in the world. 

2. There's a lot of talk these days of "nepo babies", the children of famous people launched into careers based on the family name and connections. To read Moon's account of things, her early acting career was based more on being the voice on "Valley Girl." The song wouldn't have launched as it did without her dad's name attached, but it was her val voice that carried it. This might have caused some tensions down the line with Gail and possibly even Frank, their biggest money earner being a novelty song. The earnings bought Moon a house, which she later agreed to sign over to Gail to assist with the family debt. It got messy.

3. There's a lot of unloading on Moon's part, especially later in the book. She's earned the right to do so. Outside of Zappa fandom, the book might not be of much interest. Even within, I know there's some blowback about writing essentially a self-therapy book. Through it all, she's a survivor of an extraordinarily unhealthy family situation. Respect. Part of me wishes I could be Moon's friend. 

4. Gail is quoted multiple times in the narrative: "Earth to Moon, the world does not revolve around you." Sometimes, any child needs to be told this. Yet, maybe sometimes a child deserves to know that the world does indeed revolve around them. 

The record.

There's passing reference to this session in Moon's book, how cool it was that he could hire a symphony orchestra just so he could hear his orchestral music played.

The truth is probably more complicated. Yes, some of Frank's through-composed music is at times impossibly difficult to play. But wouldn't putting the Zappa name on an orchestral program bring people out? The opening work on this LP, "Sad Jane", sounds like a thoroughly playable post-Debussy tone poem. I haven't gone to see the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in many years, mostly because they largely don't play music that interests me. If I knew Frank's name was on the program, even for an under-five minute piece, I might want to come out for that.

Listening to LP, I have a thought in the back of my mind constantly: "If this wasn't Frank Zappa, would you enjoy it?" 

By and large, I think the answer is yes. I enjoy that he puts some much needed humor and even absurdity into the "new music" world: "Mo N' Herb's Vacation" for example, which is also a ridiculously difficult-sounding clarinet concerto more-or-less. 

I don't like the production on this LP, and I blame Frank in this case. I know enough about this session to know he placed PZM mics on the floor all around the orchestra. Bad idea. Let the orchestra be the orchestra, and close-mic the soloists when necessary. Maybe part of the sound I don't like it relatively early digital recording, transferred to analog LP medium. There are times on his so-called rock albums, the later ones, where I definitely don't like the sound even if it was state of the art at the time. But then, I can't say I'm completely enthusiastic about any albums of his after One Size Fits All from 1975, not even ten years after Freak Out! and with many albums ahead of him. 

I previously listened to Frank's The Yellow Shark, a CD of performances by Ensemble Modern. Tom Waits described it as his favorite Zappa album. It's thorny in general.

I believe Frank liked to project an image of being the divinely-inspired (though atheist) genius. I've learned that his music has serious theoretical underpinnings, even if those theories were never written down. I would have enjoyed reading his music theory ideas, though I guess it was never in his nature to create a book about such things. 

CDOTD 9/11/2024

 Hieroglyphic Being: The Red Notes (Soul Jazz)

Borrowed from the library

Hello, dear reader. 

Yes, here I am bobbing my head above ground like a game of Whack-A-Mole, appearing once in a while to write my little missives for 3-9 readers.

When I started writing to this blog regularly, it was mostly for two purposes: to make useful purpose of the rather large collection of CDs and LPs I have amassed, and for the discipline of writing regularly for its own sake. 

In the time since, I've gone back and forth as to whether this serves any real purpose otherwise. I will see an item on Facebook or Reddit and start to type a response, and sometimes I stop myself to say, "Nobody cares. Nobody cares about your opinion, and you're just adding to the immensely vast digital garbage heap."

Okay, that's a little harsh. But it's also largely true. 

So again without oversharing, I'm considering what my life is going to look like in the next several years. I've been teaching at Carnegie Mellon since 2005, always part time without the possibility of advancing to even partial full-time (there is a distinction). I'm considering my options, how long I want to stay at it. In many respects it's a great job, but I'm also tired of it. While I've made changes to the syllabi over the years, I'm still teaching the same three courses I taught nineteen years ago. Even at least one family member has asked me, "How long are you going to do that job?"

One of the things I fear for myself is staying disciplined. If I should leave the job, I know I need to develop other routines that take the place of having a regular job. That could mean writing regularly to my blog, regardless of whether it amounts to anything or not.

That's partially where my head's at. 

-----------------

As I have in the past, I will extoll the virtues of having a good public library system. I've recently checked out DVD documentaries about David Lynch (The Art Life, worth seeing particularly if you're a fan), Stan Brackage (haven't gotten to it yet), the Criterion DVD of the crazy Japanese movie House (mostly to watch the extras). A book of 500 covers to 7" singles, of which I own about five or six. I've also just read Moon Unit Zappa's Earth to Moon, and I might post some thoughts on it in a future posting. 

This CD stood out, how could I not check it out? Egyptian-style graphics, the name Hieroglyphic Being, first song title: "Youth Brainwashing and the Extremist Cults." Maybe not too subtle, but I'm on board. And I know the label a bit, Soul Jazz, mostly for its collections: New York Noise: Dance Music from the New York Underground 1977-1982; Punk 45: I'm a Mess!; Freedom Rhythm and Sound; and especially Can You Dig It? The Music and Politics of Black Action Films 1968-75. The latter, a two-CD set, has received a lot of play in this house and especially in the car.

And what of this? How can it not evoke Sun Ra? And I suppose it does while being very little like his work. The album is entirely instrumental, and relies pretty heavily on looped materials. There's a long list of instruments. Organic flutes, piano, guitar, alto sax, Hammond organ, Linn Drum, Korg Triton, etc etc. I believe in documentation, but sometimes maybe I don't need that many details. 

I don't know. There's an obsessiveness to this I like and appreciate. Every track builds up loops and is very busy, active, jittery even. But never builds in emotional intensity. Somehow, even with all of the current technology available, it sounds lo-fi in a way. 

I find one way of looking at music, that a high calling is to make music for yourself. If you don't like what anyone is doing, or feel you have something original to contribute to the world, make it. Do it. 

Yet, that doesn't mean I have to like it. I don't hate this (faint praise indeed) but I don't hear a lot of variety to it either.

Ah well. At least I didn't spend money on it. Thanks, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh!

VOTD 8/25/2024

 A Certain Ratio: To Each... (Factory) 

Purchased used decades ago, I can't remember where

In my college radio days, I was playing a different A Certain Ratio record on the air, a 12" EP on Factory Records. Someone called in to tell me he was a Pitt student who had all of ACR's records. I suggested he come by the station. 

That person was Jason Gibbs. Yes, hello Jason. We became friends, and formed an improvisation group together with Chris Koenigsberg, Morphic Resonance. It was an exciting time. Jason and I also played together in the rock band Carsickness, and were also dismissed from that band around the same time.

History. 

I saw this just now LP and wondered how it held up. I loved the atmosphere of Joy Division, the signature band on Factory. An evocative singer who couldn't really sing, instruments draped in delay and reverb, primitivism.

ACR is first of all far funkier than JD. They are also steeped in atmosphere, but I think the sound-world is more involved. The singer plays trumpet, with the treble turned up in the production. He can't sing much better than Ian Curtis, but lacks the punch Ian had. It's the rhythm section here that dominates: funky bass, grooving drums, a haze of guitar/amp-based noise. 

"Forced Laugh" will always be one of my favorite songs for all these elements. Third song first side, it seems a bit buried in the flow of the record. To me it's clearly their best single song. 

The production sounds thin to current ears. In this respect it's dated.

My wife was listening to the top 20 on the radio today, just to find out what's going on and who will appear on Saturday Night Live the upcoming season. I don't like the sound of any of it. It's so thoroughly compressed, the vocals Autotuned and processed to the point of no life, and backing instrumentals lacking any distinction.

There's a female vocalist on the last track of side one. Who? No information is provided on the album except recording and graphics. The other ACR EP I have also lacks personnel information. Like Joy Division, they choose group identity over personal credit.

I wondered if I would remember the music on this album. In large part I do. I guess I'll take the dated sound of this over whatever's happening now. 

VOTD 8/21/2024

 Snakefinger: Live in Melbourne (Secret)

Purchased through mail order, limited edition #232/300

As I probably have written before, in 1981 I was off to study at the conservatory at Carnegie Mellon as a first year student, but had also started to become a Ralph Record fanatic. I had ordered some of their records directly from the source, later fueled when I discovered Jim's Records in Bloomfield. I could buy most Ralph titles there for $4.99. 

There was something great and distinctive about each of the artists, united only by being original and...weird. Too easy a word, but it cuts to the point. 

Imagine my thrill that Snakefinger was to play the Electric Banana in April 17 1982, the weekend of Spring Carnival at CMU. Imagine my disappointment that I was only 19 at the time and had no assurance I could get in. Thanks to my friend Dustin, with who I played in the George Gee Make Believe Ballroom Orchestra, he helped me find a WRCT friend of his who had a New Jersey driver's license that was valid but without a photo. (Thanks Chris, wherever you are!) I emptied my walled of anything but that license and cash. I walked in behind Dustin, and....they didn't check. He shook my hand. The graduate student behind me, clearly older, was carded though. No problem for him. 

I missed the opener, The Cardboards. Dustin said they were missable, but thankfully I saw them several times later. In between bands a projector was set up (16mm?), and the Ralph Records music movies were projected on a white sheet. That was amazing: pre-music video videos by The Residents, Yello, MX80 Sound, Tuxedomoon, Snakefinger, and (best of all) Renaldo and the Loaf. They're all great. 

And the band was great. I saw the same group two additional times: on my honeymoon in San Francisco in 1986 at the I Beam, and a Ralph Records tour in Cleveland within a year of that. (Those two shows were almost note-for-note identical, including between song patter.) 

This three-sided LP comes from an earlier time, March 5 1981. It's a quartet on this performance, more-or-less 4/5 of the band I saw, and the band on the third Snakefinger album Manual of Errors. Phillip his real name) played Pittsburgh in 1981 with Carsickness opening, and Eric Drew Feldman was with them at that time. I have that from Chris Koenigsberg, who was playing with Carsickness at the time. Eric most famously played with Captain Beefheart, and is supposedly the music director of The Residents now, since Hardy Fox's departure. 

I like the first two Snakefinger albums, but the Residents' (hence Hardy's) fingerprints are all over them. It sounds like The Residents but more pop-rockish, and lead by Phil's guitar and voice. 

I enjoy how grungy this album is. Inside the cover it reads, "This is a live from 1981!" It's a very good bootleg, hardly studio quality but very listenable. And maybe it benefits from the grunginess. Unlike the first two Residents-produced LPs, this is Snakefinger's band sounding like a rock band. 

The program is largely what I remember his playing live, including a cover of Tuxedomoon's "Jinx", given a nasty ska groove here. It's faded out, and I would have preferred more. There's an uncredited version of Ennio Morricone's "Magic and Ecstacy" from the Exorcist II at the tail end of one song, and one piece I don't remember: the ska-flavored "Corrupted Man." 

It's a shame Phillip died so young at 38. I know through friends that he had congenital heart disease, and had one heart attack prior to his fatal one. I was told that despite this, he'd still eat steak for breakfast, though he was always pretty trim. Ticking time bomb I guess. 

He was trying to branch out, his Snakefinger's History of the Blues, writing and recording a boppish jazz tune, playing with the Club Foot Orchstra, it's all a clear indication he had some higher ambitions than being a Residents satellite. I'm enjoying this album a lot for its rawness. This was a great playing band. 

CDOTD 8/19/2024

 King Crimson: THRAK (Virgin)

Purchased used at the Future Zone at Jerry's Records

On a visit with my parents this past June, my father posted the question of whether rock (and by extension pop) music achieved the level of great art. 

Now right away, the very idea of great or high art is a tricky one, one that I won't really untangle here. There can be an element of cultural superiority to such designations, something I want to avoid. 

Nonetheless, his point of the music being lasting or disposable is valid. He said something about hearing a song and thinking, no, that's not good. Nor this song. Then he'll hear something really good, and it will be followed by garbage. Previously he told me he thought Jimi Hendrix really rose to the top of that generation of musicians, and he also liked the "big band" version of Talking Heads, as seen in part in the feature film. Augmenting that band with great musicians, he said, turned out to be a really good idea. 

In yet another conversation, he and I were in agreement that nearly all of the musicians featured on NPR, specifically Weekend Edition, are almost always junk. 

Even before all of these conversations, I contemplated how Robert Fripp fit into this scheme. Did his work ascend to the level of great art? There's little question about his dedication. And I'd say, at least some of the time, he achieves a very high level of artistry. No Pussyfooting is a good example. 

King Crimson, which now is basically whatever collection of musicians he gathers around him (well, and the repertoire too, to be fair), has had a spotty record. An original and influential first album, an arguably equal or better second album, followed by a mixed bag of albums, and then that powerhouse quartet with John Wetton. They weren't above crass misogyny and sexism ("Ladies of the Road", "Easy Money"), but so great moments from every version of the group to that point, ending with Red in 1974.

And then (really, the point I'm trying to get to) the reinvented quartet in 1981, originally named Discipline. I bought the Discipline album in high school, and saw the band touring on it Halloween 1981. I know some who hated it for not being the Wetton band, some who practically worshipped the album. I fell in the middle but positive side. It was very informative to see them play all that material live, and demonstrated how little production there is on the studio session. Now when I hear those pieces, I know exactly who's playing what. Discipline is pretty much what that band sounded like in performance.

Fast forward several LPs later to 1994, we have this configuration. It's the same four, but augmented by a second drummer and second Stick player; the double trio lineup. Crimson has entered the digital age; the graphics are digital, the sounds are often digital.

I can appreciate the fact that the Mr. Fripp and the band have moved on. The second and third LPs by the Discipline lineup were a bit of a mixed bag. (It's been suggested that's why the third is titled Three of a Perfect Pair. I don't know that to be true.)

But...it's a word you won't often hear with respect to prog rock bands, this lacks the charm of the quartet. Maybe part of that is my generally attraction to doing more with fewer elements. I mean, I've had a saxophone/bass/drums trio for over twenty years now. I think I simply prefer the smaller outfit.

This band sounds more monsterous. And sometimes it works; the instrumental title track probably hits hardest and nastiest. I wouldn't say Adrian Belew's songs have improved since Discipline. Does anyone really listen to these albums for the songs? It's always the instrumentals that shine, and mostly the instrumentals that survive in the band's book since the 70s. The irony of Belew's "Dinosaur" is pretty much on the surface, clearly about critics who would accuse them of being just that. I'm okay with that. 

Just a side comment: prog rock as a genre is synonymous with the word pretentious. And often that is thoroughly deserved. That said, my contention is that true pretentiousness is having a shitty band, playing stale, unoriginal music. 

I think it was in an early posting to this blog that I wrote about a recent Steve Reich album. My comment was that it didn't sound like anything new to my ears from Mr. Reich, but then, doesn't Steve Reich have the right to sound like Steve Reich? Likewise, despite the juicing of this band by the additional players and digital technology, what did I expect this to sound like? Shouldn't it sound like some version of King Crimson?

So has this been worth the time for a full listening? Sure. Does this rise to the level of great art? Mmmm....not so sure about that.