VOTD 11/06/2024

 Birchville Cat Motel: Cranes Are Sleeping (Ecstatic Peace)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

So here we are. 

Eight years ago when Donald Trump was first elected president, I made a comment to Facebook: "I guess America likes a bully." I've had more than my share of bullies. I know one when I see one. I'm certain every bully I knew in my school days probably voted for Trump.

It's still true, but this time I'd add, "I guess we have no collective memory." Are we better off then we were four years ago? You're goddamned right we are. But, there was inflation!

I'll leave it at that.

I don't imagine I'll be watching broadcast news any time soon, and I'll put podcasts on in the car and not the radio.

There's time for darkness, there's time for light. I'm splitting the difference this time.

I didn't know the name Birchville Cat Motel when I bought this. I probably tracked this on the Jerry's turntable and knew it was for me. I can't say what's the source of sounds much of the time, only that it's droney and ambient while being noisy and even annoying at times. Perfect! 

Track #2, "An Emperor's Second Acension" is largely feedback. Guitar? Synth? Mic? Don't know. It's layered but I can't distinguish each layer.

I'm trying to ball up the energy to keep writing, but I think i just want to go to sleep this afternoon.

Maybe more later.

VOTD 11/05/2024

 Akira Ifukube: Godzilla (Death Waltz)

Purchased new at Half Price Books

Well, it's election night. I'm neither completely ignoring the results nor paying close attention. I have to teach at 8am tomorrow morning, and I doubt things will be completely decided tonight or even at that time. 

I guess for my third blog posting in a row, I'm on the topic of comfort music.

I'll always love Japanese monster movies. Give me a man in a rubber suit stomping through downtown Kyoto, and that's entertainment as far as I'm concerned. 

Even before I might have been aware of such things, I'm certain that love in no small part stems from the soundtrack work of Akira Ifukube. He lends depth and resonance to films that at times could be seen as silly.

I will admit to a degree of....hypocrisy? I love Ifukube's soundtracks, even though they largely sound alike. He has some range, but even he admitted that he did two things well: marches and requiems. We are all permitted our own personal taste, and Ifukube just appeals to me. I say hypocrisy because I don't like the soundtrack work of Danny Elfman. I mean, I really don't like it. And part of my complaint is that he has written the same score to films over and over. So how is that different from Ifukube? It's fair to say, it isn't, I just happen to like one and not the other. 

In my defense, I went to see Hellboy II: The Golden Army in the theater. For a popcorn movie, I enjoyed the first Hellboy. It tied together some Lovecraftian themes and Rasputin, good casting and performances, and had a solid score thanks to Marco Beltrami. When I went to see the sequel, I could tell it wasn't the same composer despite the credits not appearing at the opening of the film. I wasn't digging it. I even thought at one point, "Oh, you better stop using those raised 4ths, or you're going to sound like Danny Elfman." Sure enough, I saw that Danny composed the music in the end credits. I felt vindicated that I didn't care for the music despite not knowing who had done it. I may not like his music, but I want to be fair too. 

It's significant that this film and score ends with an elegy, a requiem, sung for the monster. That seems non-Western to me. The people gathered on the boat, when the oxygen destroyer obliterates Godzilla on the ocean floor, sing a song of mourning to the creature. And Ifukube delivers. The monster couldn't help what it was, it was only acting on its impulses in a world where it didn't belong. 

That is, until the sequel happened. 

On this election night, I'm hoping there isn't another sequel, though I won't be singing a requiem. 

PS: Ifukube is responsible for the signature Godzilla roar. My understanding is that it's a glove covered in rosin, rubbed on the back of a bass, with the tape slowed down. Brilliant. 

VOTD 11/04/2024

 Ennio Morricone: Les Plus Belles Musiques d'Ennio Morricone Vol. 2 (GM France)

Purchased used at Half Price Books

Ah well, another day, another Ennio Morricone collection. I suppose this one falls under the same general category as The Residents' Commercial Album, that is to say, comfort music for me. 

It's somewhat unclear from the cover what is what at times. There is very familiar material on here, such as the "Man With a Harmonica" theme from Once Upon a Time in the West, the main title theme for The Sicilian Clan, and the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. 

I watched the second half of the latter a few weeks ago. I'm not a fan of Westerns but Sergio Leone films are another matter. Even at their most "normal" they're strange, gritty, bordering on surreal. It seems to me none of the leads are good, and they're all bad and ugly to varying degrees. 

Among his many scores, I didn't remember that he composed for La Cage Aux Folles. It's super-sweet and poppy, more than my taste, but that's fine for today. I have plenty of depressing music lined up should I need to rely on it. 

Thinking of La Cage brings back memories of the Pittsburgh Playhouse's film series. Anyone who was in Pittsburgh of a certain age will recall their monthly calendar. Sometimes they had two screens running simultaneously, all repertory or second-run films. It was well curated. Among the films I saw the first time there included: Harold and Maude, Eraserhead, Dawn of the Dead, 1984, Forbidden Planet, Glenn or Glenda?, Reefer Madness, Liquid Sky, Freaks, Mad Love, and that's just off the top of my head. Sell out showings were common. 

I remember seeing La Cage there with my wife and thinking it was hilariously funny, so much so that I had no desire to see the American remake years later with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. More recently I did see the end with Gene Hackman escaping the club in drag, and I admit it was okay. 

Maybe I'm feeling nostalgic as we head into this dreaded election, to say nothing about the frustrations of dealing with my car. Sorry. I look forward to Pennsylvania not being the center of the political universe again.

And here I sit listening to Morricone again, who's sounding alternately epic or weirdly saccharine on various turns. 

CDOTD 10/30/2024

 The Residents: The Residents' Commercial Album (pREServed Edition) (Cherry Red) disc one

Purchased new through mail order

Back to writing my thoughts, autobiographically and about music. 

On the plus side, I played an exciting program last night of Sam Rivers' big band music. I'm tired today. I felt on focused but on edge all night; the music was challenging to play correctly and I felt a responsibility to do well. The concert was a success and received with enthusiasm. 

On the other hand, this past weekend was the sixth anniversary of the Tree of Life shooting. It occurred to me that I'm going to be reminded every anniversary for the remainder of my life. I don't forget but also don't need a reminder.

Then there's the election. I'm sure it has put a substantial amount of the population in a state of anxiety, myself included. I think Harris is more likely than not to win the election, so part of me is cautiously optimistic. And yet, I know there's an excellent chance Trump could win again, which fills me with tremendous dread. Not just because he's who he is (use your choice of descriptor here, I don't need to do so), but many people have placed so much of their faith in this awful, awful man. My wife warned me, "You need to be prepared for what could happen" without saying what that was. I knew what she meant. I told, I know I do. 

When Trump won the election eight years ago, I shut myself off from all broadcast news for four weeks and listened to the most severe, downbeat music I could find. Music that would normally comfort or console me wasn't right; only music that was bleak and severe felt correct in the moment. I think this time it could be doubly true. I have physical copies of albums by Swans, Khanate, Gnaw Their Tongues, Abruptum on the ready.

And if luck should have it that Harris wins? Then I could still listen to those things, but because I choose to do so, not because I need to. 

Tonight's selection falls under the category of comfort music. I've written about The Residents on this blog several times in the past, so I don't feel a need to fill in the complete story. They were something I discovered in high school. I've never lost my love of their early work, and in my opinion this is their last "great" album. In recent years I spun my copy of their subsequent album, Mark of the Mole, and I found myself enjoying it more than I had remembered. Nonetheless, I'm not a big fan of "storytelling through sound." That's even more true of their album Eskimo, an album I admire more than I enjoy. I'd draw a distinction between those albums and Not Available, which comes across more like chamber opera or cantata. 

Is there a more preposterous concept album than this? An LP of forty exactly one minute songs? There's probably some ridiculous heavy metal rock opera that's a silly take on, oh I don't know, the story of Gilgamesh or such that's...stupid. But forty songs on an album?

What's amazing is how much of it I find memorable. It's true that I spent a lot of time listening to it in my youth. I'm not willing to say that every piece on it is amazing, there are a fair number of quaint instrumentals that could have probably been excised if length was at issue. No doubt many of the pieces could have expanded into more traditional length songs. Despite these things, in the words of my friend Jason (who's probably reading this now), "It works."

There's some more serious musical muscle added to these sessions compared to other albums. The name Don Jackovich came up on previous Residents recordings prior to this; he's a percussionist who faded into obscurity after this time. (He died in 2019 at 66.) Fred Frith is the "extra hard-working guest musician" and his fingerprints are all over these recordings: bass, guitar (clearly the soloist on "Moisture"), violin. Fellow Henry Cow and Art Bears bandmate to Fred, Chris Cutler, adds some percussion, almost certainly on "Moisture" as well. Frequent collaborator Snakefinger plays some and sings one song. "Sandy Sandwich" was revealed to be Andy Partridge of XTC, who sings "Margaret Freeman". It's been known for years that Lene Lovich sang "Picnic Boy". (It's not hard to tell when you hear it.) "Mud's Sis" is now known to have been Nessie Lessons, one time wife of Hardy Fox, before he came out as gay. Hardy (who outed himself as the musical director of The Residents shortly before his death) clearly sings several songs. One of those songs is "Suburban Bathers" which it's more recently been revealed that David Byrne sang the accompanying vocals. The one I didn't know until just now is the Brian Eno played synth on "The Coming of the Crow". 

Brian and David don't add significantly to the album, but only adds to The Residents mystique. I guess it's their inside joke among those involved. "We had a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee on our album, and nobody knows it." Until recently. 

I have some of the pREServed edition reissues of Residents albums, and only occasionally do the bonus cuts add much the quality of original issues, other than seeing some of what the band left on the cutting room floor. Some of the pieces probably could have made the cut if worked on more, but there's nothing that's a bonus that I would substitute for anything on the original issue. The last listed cut on disc one was a contribution to the Miniatures compilation, The Residents' take on The Ramones' "We're a Happy Family" interpolated "Bali Ha'i" from the musical South Pacific (the latter not acknowledged on the original issue). It's classic Residents but also not appropriate for Commercial Album.

The funniest bonus is the secret cut at the end of this disc. As a publicity stunt to promote this album, Ralph Records bought forty one minute commercial spots on the biggest rock station in San Francisco and had each of the original songs played once. The cut here is the radio announcer introducing each song, by number. While The Residents were selling well for an obscure, self-released independent band at the time, I can't imagine this paid for itself in sales. 

Listening to it, I feel happy. 

CDOTD 10/16/2024

 Oskar Sala: My Fascinating Instrument (Erdenklang)

Purchased used at a Jerry's Records off-site sale

To again go autobiographical for a moment: I've just finished grading for the quarter. It doesn't put me in the mood to have the most faith in humanity. I know I shouldn't take these things personally, but I failed more students than usual this time. I have credible evidence of plagiarism in one case, who failed anyway. And even for some of the better submissions, too many of them don't follow simple instructions to submit work correctly. 

When sitting to listen and do my meditation of writing here, I could have either gone bleak, loud, and sever, or long, ambient, and less obtrusive. I realized as I looked over my collection of CDs how few things I have at hand that fall into the latter category. I guess I tend to like music with a lot of motion and tension. I've written about William Basinski and Maurizio Bianchi on here before, didn't want to go that route. Then I came across this and thought, yeah okay, not exactly the ambient album I was seeking but it will do.

When I attended Duquesne as a graduate student 2008-2010, I had to take a class in the history of electronic music. Each quarter we had to write a paper, more-or-less the topic being  pre-war the first quarter, post-war the second. I chose two German topics: the first paper was about the Trautonium, the second concerned the use and influence of the short wave radio in the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. The latter came closer to being an actual academic paper, with a point of view and defendable positions. I doubt I have a working hard drive from that time to retrieve that paper, though I could sum it up if asked. The former was closer to being like a newspaper article. I earned my A. 

The Trautonium, an interesting side note in electronic instrument history more than anything I suppose. The instrument was first developed in 1930 Friedrich Trautwein. It's basically an electronic monochord; depending on where you pushed a wire into a metal rod would determine the pitch. Short leather straps were placed over the rod so the player could get a sense of where to land the pitches. The tone production was created by neon tubes, rather than the difference tone in the manner of the Theremin or Ondes Martenot. It produced a richer sound. Paul Hindemith wrote a work for three Trautoniums, played by him, the inventor, and Oskar Sala.

Sala was a student of both Hindemith and Trautwein, equal parts technician and composer. He took up the development of the instrument with a passion, creating many innovations such as the foot pedal for volume, and subharmonic synthesis. Rather than multiply the frequency of the signal, it's divided and provides a deep richness to the sound.

There is this matter of Germany in the 1930s. Hindemith's work was labelled Entartete Musik by the Nazi Party, and the composer went into exile. Not so with Sala. He was a bit of a nazi sympathizer. To write that now sounds awful, but it should be understood that there was a LOT of that going on at the time. Painter Emil Nolde believed in the Nazi's populist message, the appeal to the common man, until his work was deemed "degenerate" by the Nazis as well. He continued to paint in secret during those years, only working in watercolor for fear that the odor of oil paints would attract unwanted attention. It's also well known that Stockhausen was part of the Hitler Youth, but he wasn't given a choice. 

Sala lost many friends due to his decision to stay in Germany. He continued to work on his instrument, developing a version that was played on the radio. The final version of his instrument, the MixturTrautonium, is what's heard on this disc. It has a rod for each hand, and a large bank of dials and toggles for sound synthesis. The album itself is a studio production and therefor not completely a live demonstration of what one single MixturTrautonium can do. Delays, modulations, autoharmonizations, they all seem to be part of the instrument's package.

"Fascinating" is as reasonble descriptor. Its range of sounds is impressive, and it's clearly not locked into a strict twelve-tone tuning system. One of the pieces on this disc includes vocals, which are at times processed and modulated. Was this done through the MixturTrautonium? If so, it made an impressive audio processor as well as instrument.

I have to wonder: would Sala's technical work have been more recognized had he not chosen to remain in Nazi-era Germany? The instrument's unique interface inherently limits its use; a keyboard-based instrument would have been instantly playable by anyone. His synthesis techniques were decades ahead of what we'd come to know from Donald Buchla. 

So, yes, I'll take a defendable position. I think Oskar Sala would be better remembered for his technical innovations had he chosen to leave Germany. At least we are left with some evidence of his work. 

VOTD 10/14/2024

Stevie Wonder: Innervisions (Tamla)

Purchased at Dave Kuzy's yard sale

I'm back to thinking about the purpose of this blog. I guess it's partly autobiographical, so there's a certain "me me me" content that I push against in general. Maybe it's legacy, leaving behind more documentation of my life and thoughts. There's also the discipline of sitting and writing. 

I think I'm touching more on the autobiographical today.

Enough of obscurities like Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson and Henk Badings for now, onto music nearly everyone knows at least a little. 

Last week I saw Stevie Wonder at the PPG Paints Arena. My daughter Jeannine bought three tickets as a big "thank you" gift. We were up in the nosebleed seats, very stage left. Not close but it gave us a good birds-eye view of the stage.

The band: in addition to Stevie, there were two keyboardists, two guitarists, bass (who played synth bass on "Living for the City"), drums, congas, percussion, six background vocalists (five women, one man), and a five piece horn section (alt, tenor, bari, trumpet, trombone). My wife pointed out that we saw a band last year that had more people on stage, Parliament Funkadelic when everyone was on stage at the end. That is, until Stevie added a twelve piece string section and a conductor. Cred for keeping a lot of musicians employed. 

The tour theme (eleven cities at last count) was "Sing Your Song! As We Fix Our Nation's Broken Heart." He opened, solo, playing "Can We Fix Our Nation's Broken Heart?" It was....okay. I thought going in, this is a man who could do a long concert of excellent non-hit album cuts and have it be great.

Jeannine said there was a Simpsons segment (we frequently quote the Simpsons in this family) in which Homer goes to see Bachman Turner Overdrive at the county fair. They announce they're going to play something from their new album, and Homer yells, "TCB! No new crap!"*

Yeah. 

The concert was good, Stevie was in largely good voice. He struggled a little near the end on "Isn't She Lovely", fluffed a few lyrics here and there. I can easily forgive that, given his age, and how much music he'd have to play in a night. Strangely, he came on forty minutes late, played for forty minutes, and took a half hour break. Strange for an arena show, which are usually tightly constructed. It was announced he was feeling a bit sick and needed an emergency bathroom trip. It was still over two hours of music, mostly hits.

He brought on a guest singer, Sheléa, who sang a song that Stevie wrote for Aretha Franklin. I have to say, it was almost as if I was hearing Aretha sing it. Very strong. But then they played a song from her forthcoming album, and it just seemed to go on and on and on and...

TCB! No new crap!

While I was looking forward to "I Wish", it was "Higher Ground" and "As" (from Songs in the Key of Life) that were really the highlights to my ears. I found it moving, seeing and hearing the guy who created those pieces doing them in person, even in an arena setting. For as good as the concert generally was, I'm also simply happy we got to see him play at least once. It's the reason I paid $$$ to see Herbie Hancock last year.

After the concert, Jeannine reminded me that I had once checked out a Stevie Wonder collection CD from the library. She was asking about it, and I handed it over and told her, "You should listen to this. Return it to the library whenever."

You know, I've been a pretty good Dad sometimes, if I may say so. She remember "As" from that collection was also really happy he played it. 

This particular album was Stevie's first Album of the Year from the Grammys, and in the era of incredible creativity for him: Music of my Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life. All were hit albums, most had hit singles, and were consistently creative. Quite a hell of a run, I'd say equal to any other artist in popular music. And for the first four, Stevie plays the great majority of the instruments in addition to composing and singing. 

One thought I had during the concert was, "Stevie sure likes his chord progressions." His songs often have dramatic chord changes and chromatic shifts. Still, "Higher Ground" is relatively simple harmonically and packs the biggest punch on this program in my opinion. While there's the clear influence of gospel on his songs, I guess I just like it best when he gets funky. 

Prince did something similar to Stevie, sometimes playing most of the instruments on an album. It's very impressive (and he was a great lead guitarist) but Stevie wins out in my opinion. 

VOTD 10/13/2024

Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson: La Jolla Good Friday I-II (CP )

Pretty certain I bought this at Jerry's Records

Let's see: it's on Paul Zukofsky's CP label. I'll pretty much buy anything on that label, price permitting. The releases are easy to spot, all (with one exception I know) have a silver cover with a colored rectangle somewhere in the middle. The single exception was a reissue of an Aki Takahashi triple LP set, which still maintained the rectangle.

Point two: an LP of electronic music realized in 1975. There's no indication in the liner notes what the composer used to create his work, but it's more than likely analog rather than digital. That's not critical but preferable. 

And finally...Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson? That name? Wouldn't you at least look?  Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson! 

So how was this made? There's really no information in that respect, only that the work was created at the Center for Music Experiment, UC San Diego. He cites a name, Warren Burt, who is someone I met some years ago through my friend tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE. Thorkell said Warren was "untiring in revealing some 'secret' patches..." (Warren, who I believe still lives in Australia, was one of the people who checked in with me by email after the Tree of Life shooting.) "Patches" suggests analog synthesis techniques. I'm thinking there's some combination of sequencer hardware and self-playing synth patching. 

As Victor Gauer told me, in the old electronic music studio at Pitt, one of the goals was to create autonomous, self-playing patches on the modular synths they had. He also told me he got Robert Moog mad with him when Victor told him the Moog wouldn't stay in tune.

As for Sigurbjörnsson's work, it's more or less one long continuous sound, though the tones fade in and out at the beginning, similar to breathing. It's imperfect as an LP and would have been better on CD format, and what's the likelihood that will ever happen? While new ideas, no musical lines pop up now and then, the work is in a constant state of transformation. Whatever might be happening, it's not fixed and will change into something else. As I observed about a Morton Feldman composition last week, it's not Minimalism, but it's not entirely removed from the ideas of Minimalism either. The piece isn't strictly a "process piece" such as Steve Reich's phasing works. Everything is in a state of flux until the end, which comes back around to the original tones. 

I'm reading on Wikipedia that Thorkell was a prolific composer and recognized both in his native country of Iceland, and also abroad. He also died in 2013. Hm. yet another composer who I wonder, does anyone perform Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson's music now? Maybe there's a bar somewhere in Iceland with a picture of Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson in it. 

VOTD 10/9/2024

 Henk Badings: Capriccio, Genese, Evolutions/Dick Raaijmakers: Contrasts (Limelight)

Purchased used at Jerry's Records

Once again, I find an old LP of early electronic music and I had to buy it. One of the two names is familiar, Henk Badings. I have other records with his works, and both if I'm recalling correctly have some sort of electronic component to them. Perhaps most strangely, he had several works premiered and recorded by the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, which was a Pittsburgh-based ensemble that would perform on a barge on the rivers. One work, Armageddon, is set for soprano, wind symphony orchestra, and tape. The 1970s were a wild time. The barge was like a big concert shell. When the group was discontinued, the barge sat moored on the bank of the Monongahela for years, rusting. What a shame. I would have loved to have a floating concert stage! 

Capriccio on this record is set for solo violin with stereo tape. The tape element is entirely synthesized sounds. I find it curious in that Badings' writing for violin seems very rooted in late Romanticiscm. It's described as a mini-concerto, with the tape clearly acting as accompaniment. Despite the sounds, the violin writing itself wouldn't be out of place in a turn of the (20th) century work.

The other two pieces find Badings working entirely electronically. There are pitches, identifiable notes, but these mostly sound less 19th century. I write "mostly" because there are passages in Evolutions with chord progressions that wouldn't sound out of place in Romantic composing, or even arranged for jazz orchestra. One movement (it's six short movements created as a ballet) sounds specifically jazzy and even silly in the way that Raymond Scott's electronic music could at times, years before Scott started building his custom electronic instruments. My guess is some of the passages were scored traditionally in advance of their electronic realization.

Dick Raaijmakers' is unfamiliar to me. I know that it is probably more difficult to establish a unique voice for oneself, but the work wouldn't have felt out of place being credited to Badings. (Maybe it's a Dutch thing?) The opening of his Contrasts sounds a shade silly the way that some of Badings' ballet does. Among the contrasts of the title is some of the time taken up by percussion, up-front noise bursts, with quiet, extended, slowly shifting tones underneath. 

What a time, that era of the 1950s into the 60s. Like I've asked in previous posts, who pays attention to Henk Badings' or Dick Raaijmakers' music anymore, other than vinyl fanatics like me? Does Badings receive any performances any longer? And indeed, is there a need to play his music?

VOTD 10/6/2024

 Negativland: Points (Seeland)

I can't remember where I bought this, possibly at Eide's used.

I went to see Negativland last night. I took my wife. She wasn't happy. 

I won't go into details. Negativland was here with a documentary film, Stand By For Failure. She had a complaint that the film was too indirect, didn't really explain what Negativland was/is. And I can see that if you didn't know anything about them, the film could be frustrating. It's no less collage-style than their music, maybe even moreso.

I liked the film. Won't go as far as saying I loved it. It drew a tremendous amount of footage based on all of them filming or videotaping many parts of their lives, particularly "The Weatherman" David Wills and his family. David has the distinctively nasally voice heard on Negativland records. The film itself to me looked like a document of shifting media, from 8mm home movies to VHS, reel-to-reel analog tape, to Pro Tools, then Youtube, TikTok. During Q&A, I couldn't quite form the question but had it in my mind, did the look of these different media sources influence the film itself? But I think that's tautological, of course it did. 

The first Negativland LP came out in 1980 with entirely handmade covers. I admire that. Consistent band member Mark Hossler was in high school at the time. He and David, who does not tour but appears via tape or Facetime, are the consistent through-line of the band. Mark said that Ralph Records was interested in reissuing the first LP, but that they refused. The original artifact with its hand-rendered covers, needed to stay just that. (It's been reissued on CD.)

And this, their second LP? I hear what would make them interesting on later albums. EZ listening (with Reagan samples), David's mother playing the accordion, tape loops and general weirdness. I feel like they're still finding their direction. They're playing around with tapes, seeing what they can create. 

It seems to me that David's voice, The Weatherman, is one of the most distinctive characteristics of what they do. He'd be far more prominently featured on their 1983 LP, A Big 10-8 Place. That LP was a huge hit at WRCT at the time, to the point where some staff would turn the monitors to WDVE rather than listen to anything on that record another time. I was there, I saw it.

Points is okay but far from essential. 2/3 of them are college-aged kids (plus The Weatherman) fucking around with tapes and seeing what they come up with. I don't remember this record being mentioned in the film. It's more finely honed than the first Nurse With Wound LP, but not that far removed: people who couldn't actually play instruments going into the studio and messing around to see what comes out of it.

I think it might want to track down an original copy of A Big 10-8 Place, with all its materials included.

VOTD 10/4/2024

Various: Happy Days original motion picture soundtrack (Funky)

I bought this mail order, I think through discogs.com

Happy Days! Those happy days, Richie Cunningham, the Fonz, right?

Nope.

In far less litigious days, somehow there was a not only the TV series Happy Days, but also an XXX adult feature with the same title, also dating to 1974.

I am aware of some porn-related lawsuits, such as the XXX-rated Superwoman becoming Ms. Magnificent on release. How did this movie happen, to say nothing of a physical LP copy of the soundtrack? No idea. Maybe someone in a position of power decided it just wasn't worth it. Or was it so low-end that they didn't know until the movie had come and gone? That seems more likely. 

I pulled out this LP because I have a not-so-secret love of soundtracks of disreputable movies. Italian cannibal movies, porn soundtracks, and...I fail to think of anything lower. The former might be lower on the rung than the latter.

Have I seen the porn Happy Days? Nope. I'll admit to being intrigued, but let's be honest: we know what's going to happen. There surely must be at least one scene of backseat sex. And I'm not just saying that; if I'd seen it, I'd admit to it. I recognize the name Georgina Spelvin on the back cover credits, that's as far as I go. 

The music is clearly 1970s recreated 50s rock-n-roll. This was surely all recorded quickly, probably in an afternoon. If you slipped a track from this onto a lo-fi 50s r'n'r compilation, little of it would be too much out of place.

The front cover is an image you'd expect, of body parts emerging from the backseat of a 50s boat of a car. The back cover is is as plain as could be, like a vanity pressing or song poem collection. 

The meta-narrative is surely more interesting than the original narrative. I mean, how interesting could the XXX-Happy Days be?

The final track, "Let Me Breathe" (credited to Marcus Anthony) sounds about is contemporary to the 50s as the Bee Gee's "Grease" is to that film's version of the 50s. That is, not in the least.

VOTD 10/2/2024

 June Chikuma: Les Archives (Freedom to Spend)

Purchased used at Jerry's Records

Oooh here I go again, blogging, blogging about listening to music, spending money on records. I can afford this and more but I have so much stuff, so many things, I am concerned with what will become of it all. The records are very resellable for the most part, with a few being particularly valuable. Even if it's just a few things at a time, I'm trying to move some objects out of the house so someone else (my daughter) doesn't have to deal with them later. I felt proud of myself for dropping off a dozen books and CDs at little libraries around the neighborhood, and plan to do more. 

Yet there I was at Jerry's yesterday, and decided to blow a few bucks on three albums, this being one. I didn't know the name, but the first thing that caught my eye was the track title "Pataphysique" and I knew this wasn't another indie-rock band that populates that section where I found this in the store. Okay, they got my money.

My first impression: I'm reminded of Raymond Scott, but grungier. There's a twitchy energy similar to his Soothing Sounds for Babies (or as I call them, Annoying Sounds for Parents). June's music isn't as clean or leanly minimalistic as the Scott albums, there's more composition involved. But similar to Scott, it's highly sequenced, driving. 

The other comparisons I'd make are to early 80s-era The Residents without the vocals (June's music has a sort of wackiness to it) and the Liquid Sky soundtrack, credited to Slava Tsukerman, Brenda I. Hutcherson, and Clive Smith. Don't ask me who's most responsible for that work. 

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm trying to avoid the lazy music critic reference of "Raymond Scott meets The Residents meets Liquid Sky" but damned if that doesn't at least put you in the neighborhood. And I'm not a serious music critic or journalist now, am I?

The final track on the LP finds her ideas translated to string quartet. It's pretty, but something is missing. The drive? The slow development I might associate with Reich or Glass? I posted a similar question when blogging about Simeon Ten Holt: is it really Minimalism if it's basically Classicism simply repeated over and over?

I think it I DJed, I would find this album useful, but nobody will every ask me to do that. At least the more electronic-type works. 

CDOTD 10/1/2024

 Morton Feldman: Triadic Memories (Mode)

I don't remember where I bought this

There are so may composers I admire whose music sounds nothing like mine, that I wish I could compose like them. Messiaen, Xenakis, at times Frank Zappa and Charles Mingus. I've accepted that I have my voice, modest as it may be. I'm comfortable composing largely in a jazz idiom, working with melodies and sometimes chord changes. If I try to write something that sounds like those composers, I will sound like an imitator at best, or more likely a lame, limp version of what they do.

Morton Feldman definitely fits that category, maybe more than any of them. I couldn't possibly compose something like his music and feel confident that it's anything but a bad version of what he does. I listen to the music, sometimes follow the score, and don't know how he pulls off what he does at times. 

In my more youthful days, I was fanatically enthusiastic about John Cage's work. I loved much of the music (still do) but I was really interested in the idea of creating systems for music making. There are of course many systematic methods in composition. I mean in the sense that the composition would have methods, have commonalities from performance to performance, but could also be very different in each performance and still maintain that sense of its composition. (I feel like I'm not explaining that well.) I loved the philosophy of Cage's music. His book Silence is absolutely essentially reading in my opinion, even if you don't agree with anything he writes in it. 

In my more advanced years I've been listening to far more Feldman, particularly the later works. He doesn't make is easy, considering their sometimes extreme length. I've had on this particular work streamed over Youtube several times now, with the score synchronized. I don't remember who the performer was; in the case of this CD edition, it's Marilyn Nonken. I'm not one to generally compare different performances of the same piece, but I hear subtle differences. It's probably the rhythm.

I also happen to have checked out the score from the library. It's there, you know? I hope a subsequent edition of this score has been corrected, because this one doesn't include the number of repetitions on repeated passages. I can see I've followed along in the past, because I wrote in pencil for a few pages the number of repeats, to give up at a certain point after writing "3X?". (I think it was two, actually.) An important detail to have been left off from the original manuscript! I understand John Tilbury recorded this work too, but used this edition of the score and only played each repetition twice. Oh well. 

One thing that has definitely been retained from the original is Feldman's strange chord voicings. Not the chords themselves, that can be anything in this chromatic world, but that he'll write F-sharp and A-flat into the same chord, next to one another. I'm no expert in writing for the piano, but I take issue with that in general.

Another curious thing: for majority of the work, the meter is 3/8 time, but the notes are expressed as dotted rhythms, or 4/3 polyrhythms. You have to go more than twenty pages into this edition to find a straight eighth note rhythm. What purpose does that serve? Couldn't it have been expressed another way? Is it to give the score a certain appearance? I know that's a factor with Feldman, the way the score actually looks. Feldman generally favors 3/8 or even 3/16 time signatures. But if it's in largely four, why not write it in four? The work would be difficult enough to play accurately without having to sort through that extra information on the page.

I've spent a great deal of time with other Feldman scores, quite a few of them now that I think about it. Most significantly, I listened and followed the score to his notorious String Quartet II with the running time of +/- five hours. I discovered something very unusual about the work. Every page has exactly three systems on it, with nine measures in each system. (Again, with the threes.) The meter in any measure could be anything ranging from 5/32 to 3/2 time. From one system to another, there might be a noticeable change; there's usually a more noticeable change from one page to the next if they're facing; with one exception, there's a dramatic shift in the music at each page turn.

It seems to me that Feldman creates a grid on which he places the music. The grid of one page could be anywhere from twenty seconds to thirty minutes (more or less, I'm doing this from memory), depending on what he places into it. You can't hear it, but it's lurking in the background. Whatever sketches he might have created leading into the creation of the final score, the page itself influences the outcome. It suggests to me that the music wasn't in a fixed state until the score's final rendering. It's possible you might notice this in a performance, if you heard a big change in the music as the page was turned. Just listening to a recording? There would be no way to tell. 

I've noticed this structure in other late Feldman scores, with perhaps greater variation and not so strictly staying with that form. Nonetheless, you can still see these things in the score for other pieces. Which leads me to think, if I studied the original manuscript of Triadic Memories, some of those same elements would also be present. 

I was thinking as I checked out the score from the library today, Feldman probably would have preferred that the listener not have access to the score and instead just listen. Then I thought, maybe most composers would prefer it that way. 

None of this actually speaks to the music. Without studying the notes on paper, I can hear much of his general intention with this work: taking passages with patterns and rearranging those patterns in subtle but clearly different ways. It's not so-called Minimalism as we have come to know it, but it's also not entirely removed from the ideas of Minimalism either. The first several minutes see the same six notes (four in one hand, two in the other) played in a strict order, but with the rhythms varied slightly with each measure. I think of this as almost being like a Calder mobile, with its shapes moving around one another, slowly changing the relationship while maintaining their shapes. Feldman himself was influenced by the patterns he noticed in the Oriental rugs* he had begun to collect, with patterns present but the shapes and distances subtly different from one to another. 

I think the title, unlike his more "still life"-like titles (Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello for example) is significant. It's not triadic at all, but does evoke a feeling of memory. He wrote, "This way of working was a conscious attempt at formalizing a disorientation of memory. Chords are heard without a discernable pattern." (I found that on the Universal Edition page for this piece.) Even when the piece shifts, changes, introduces a new idea, there's always the sense of working over the same materials within a section, of reorganizing the notes in ways that we can discern but never settle. You can hear the working over of similar materials within a time span, rhythmically it never "grooves." (I'm imagining Feldman bristling over the very description.)

The length at ninety minutes does not fit onto a single CD. There is a DVD audio edition of this. The String Quartet II on Mode had a CD release of five discs, or again one DVD. Feldman himself commented that he had heard many twenty minute pieces from other composers, so much of the music was twenty minutes. Does that suggest the length of a long playing record? I guess you'd need more empirical proof to conclusively make a firm connection.

Triadic Memories....memory is fleeting and not always accurate...events come and go through the lens of our memories...perhaps it's not the composer's intentions, but is the work imbued with a certain sadness? Sometimes I think so, sometimes not. It is beautiful and I will be spending more time in its world.

*I think the term is still considered to be Oriental rugs. My Uncle Jim was a noted dealer who authored several books on the patterns used by different nomadic tribes. 

VOTD 9/28/2024

Creation Is Crucifixion: Antenna Builder | The Soldering Iron Gives Us Control (Robotic Empire)  

Record two: Live in Geneva, Switzerland May 28, 2000

Purchased through mail order

How do you react to a recording or performance in which the intention of the artists is to be unlistenable? "Good job"? "Sorry, but I totally listened to this"?

Last week I got to hang with Adam MacGregor. I will admit to being flattered by Adam in the past, who cites me as an inspiration for his more extreme musical aspirations. It's not that this recording suggests any direct influence, but that seeing Water Shed 5tet in the 90s gave him the confidence to follow his unusual musical interests.

I'm happy he would tell me so. But as with students I've taught in class who have gone on to success, I do not wish to take credit in any way. It is their work, maybe I helped push it along the way a little.

I know that in writing that, I might be slightly hypocritical and self-referential. Okay, I'll give myself a little credit.

Whatever else Creation Is Crucifixion was (an Adam project from this era), they were a tight unit. They absolutely charge through everything. The language in general is hard-hitting thrash metal with a kind of mathy-quality of fast changes, sudden tempo alterations, intense exchanges of ideas. They sound like they spent months out in a shed in the woods doing nothing by practicing, smoking, drinking Cokes and eating ramen noodles. (I know that's not actually true.) Nothing sits in your head as being catchy, nor is it meant to. They hit you hard, and by the time you feel it, they're on to the next idea. 

I think I've always been to some extent attracted to the extremes in music. Test the limits of expression. How far can you take things? Longer, shorter, quieter, louder, harder, softer, etc etc? Then reflect on those extremes or limits and learn from them.

The band is simultaneously a scalpel and a bludgeon. Cutting sharp, while at the same time knocking you over the head. I'm feeling pulverized at times. What was it like to see this band at its best? Probably overwhelming at times by the sheer density and intensity of it all. 

Permit me to share a song title or two: "School Steals the Capacity for Autonomous Action AKA Micro-Consuming Machines" or "The Allegory of the Algorithm (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Mimesis)". I don't understand how they remember the titles, let alone all of the music. But I do get a sense of humor from the titles not necessarily obvious from the songs. ("Songs" being loosely defined in this case.) Or anger? Both I imagine. 

And as if they didn't want to frustrate you enough, there are times when someone (possibly Adam) speaks quietly in a near-monotone for several minutes between songs, longer than some of the pieces themselves. No musician credits are provided. Based on looking over discogs.com, this was their practice. An anonymous collective, perhaps. No faces, no names, all confrontation.

And wouldn't you know it? The final track ends on a lock groove. It sounded like they stuck to a groove more than usual. 

VOTD 9/27/2024

 Roberto Opalio: Chants From Isolated Ghosts (Opax)

Purchased used at Jerry's Records

I posted yesterday that I wanted to find something in my collection so obscure, I didn't remember it myself. I do remember buying this, a few years ago, but knew nothing about the artist or his group My Cat Is An Alien. Good band name.

Why would I buy this without tracking through it first? Probably the comment written by the Jerry's staff on the plastic outer sleeve: "Rare noise - lathe cut - clear vinyl - edition of 50". 

Yup. I know they don't sell things like this to only me, but definitely I could have been one of the customers in mind when that was written.

I will look over anything at Jerry's that looks like something's been done by hand. Hell, I put out a small edition LP myself, 300 pressed, 269 publicly available copies (the highest prime number under 300), and I affixed a label to every copy, and did collage art for all public copies. 

So yes, I got hooked in. I don't recall how much I paid but it couldn't have been that much. The cover image is printed on translucent stock, with some custom scribbling in silver pen over the front image. The information indicated this is copy #42 of 50. So exclusive! (There have been several CD editions of this recording, so I should feel too special about myself.) 

The notes read, "Recorded at home Nov. 2004 no overdubs" (his emphasis). Maybe so, but it sounds as though some tape is playing in the background, or the rhythmic humming of a machine of some sort. There's distorted banging on a glockenspiel maybe? Distant-sounding quietly sung vocals, and some sort of open guitar tuning banged out. At least that's what I'm guessing. That's side one.

Side two...more of the same sound sources, more droney electronics.

I don't know, the further I continue with this narrative, the less point it seems to write about this. Not as eerily insane as Jandek, not a particularly interesting improvisor. But hey, only 50 copies!

VOTD 9/26/2024 #2

 Stock, Hausen, and Walkman: Stock, Hausen, and Walkman Present Organ Transplants Vol. 1 (Hot Air)

Purchased used at Jerry's Records

I'm looking back on the narrative of this blog post, and maybe it's too much, too self-important, too over-sharing, but I'm doing it anyway. 

My wife's out for the evening, and I thought I'd put on something else and write. There's probably work I should be doing. There IS work I should be doing. But here I am.

Sometimes I'll put something on when she's out in which I don't have to explain myself. Harsh power electronics for example. I mean, I can put those things on, but it's easier not to have to explain myself. 

I was digging through my collection after listening to the Solaris soundtrack, hoping to find something so obscure I had forgotten I had a copy myself. (I thought of the "Theory of Obscurity" as I thumbed through my LPs and noticed my copy of The Residents' Not Available.)

I came across this record and it doesn't qualify, as I referenced it to a student just today. But I thought, yeah that's what I'll put on. I will mention that student in due time. 

So let me back up: when I accepted my job at Carnegie Mellon, the wisest piece of observation I was given was: "Remember, difference between a high school student and a college student is three months."

And that's fine for first year students. ("First year student" is the recent CMU substitute for "freshman", and I prefer it.) What sometimes surprises me is music composition students, juniors (sophomore-junior-senior is still used) who know nothing of the 20th/21st century avant-garde. Graduate students, even. My litmus test of composition majors is often: do you know who Harry Partch or Conlon Nancarrow is? I get a few more hits on the latter, but the only students who know the former have generally studied some place other than CMU. Which I think is ridiculous. 

Forgive a small autobiographical story, which I have surely shared on my blog before. The early recordings of Frank Zappa were every important to me, and he was always going on about Edgard Varése. So, as a college freshman (ahem, excuse me, first year student) I walked to the library and asked them to put on a Varése album. I hadn't heard anything quite like it, but I fundamentally got it. Sound composition, sounds over melody. 

In my students' defense, they are barraged with information in a way I was not. To criticize my students, especially the composition majors: show some intellectual curiosity for fuck's sake. I don't remember ever being taught about Messiaen in my college music history courses (a travesty), but his name came up with reference to Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, and others, so yes I was going to check into him. Some (some) of these student composers know Stockhausen's name, but have never listened to a single work. Really? I insist they listen to "Gesang der Jünglinge" if nobody else will. 

A topic of discussion in my class today was, can you find more modern examples of French musique concrète (sampled sounds) or German elektronische musik (all-synthesized sound world). We had a really nice discussion, ranging from Pink Floyd's "Money" (musique concrète)  "Gangnam Style" (a purely elektronische musik sound world outside the vocals). I cited the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" for its use of a tape loop for the drums. 

Before the end of class, there had been an example I had posted prior to class: John Oswald/Plunderphonic's "Net", a take on Metallica. Plunderphonics, as a category, music made of mostly or entirely of sampled sounds from our media landscape. I told Nick, the student I alluded to before, that there was a Plunderphonics group named Stock, Hausen, and Walkman, which gave him a good laugh. 

Nick Fagnilli is a returning student earning is master's in education. I recommend looking up his Facebook page, where regularly posts his "Doom Scrolls", miniature works for piano. 

I bought this record blind from Jerry's, used. I knew from the appearance it was weird enough for my tastes without knowing exactly what it might be. Hamster eating a strawberry on the back cover. "ADD" mastering, which generally meant "analog-digital-digital" but here means, well, the medical version. Even the UPC code is slanted and unreadable, so I knew I had something

Is it entirely sampled material? Maybe. The general material is clearing easy-listening style organ albums. There are some cartoon FX. There's some noise and screaming at the end.

In the case of John Oswald's Plunderphonics, he is generally making a musical or even political point by sampling the materials and reassembling them. In the case of Nurse With Wound's Sylvie and Babs Hi Fi Companion, the point is Surrealism, Dadaism, and absurdism. Reassemble the materials, yes, both to make a point but also to scramble your brain. 

S,H,&W unquestionable comes closer to the latter over the former. At times it's actually catchy, but there's always an underpinning of weirdness, of, "what will come next?"

To quote my friend Victor Grauer, how do you legislate sound? That will be a topic for next week's classes. 

VOTD 9/26/2024

 Eduard Artmiev: Solaris OST (Superior Viaduct)

I think I bought this used at Mind Cure Records

I went through a soundtrack-buying jag a few years back, and continue to look for interesting examples. Buying as many as I did, well, they're not all winners. Labels like Mondo/Death Waltz and Waxworks have made available obscure or even otherwise unavailable works, and usually packaged beautifully. The problem is, they're often pretty expensive too. 

It's not that I can't afford it, but even I hesitate to spend $30 (and often far more) for a beautifully packaged piece of vinyl that I'll spin once or twice. As such, I've tried to edit myself a bit, be more particular, choose composers or films that interest me, or if something just strikes me as being especially interesting. 

But then second market vinyl, used, sweetens the deal. And even so I try to be particular, not spend the money just because I have it in hand.

It's fortunate this turned up used. I don't know if this is the case here, but Mike at Mind Cure would sometimes open a new LP he'd bought, put it on in the store so he could listen to it, then would knock a few bucks off the price and sell it as used. I know he did this for the Dawn of Midi album, he told me so. And he got a sale out of me too. Still, not the best business model. 

It was fortunate in this case. I might have noticed this album anyway. If I had noticed the credit on the back: " Music and noise recorded on the photoelectron synthesizer ANS", I might have snagged it anyway (depending on the price).

Solaris for me is unique: I've seen the original film, read the novel on which it's based, bought and listened to the original soundtrack album, and watched the Soderbergh remake. I suppose if I was to complete the set, I should see if the remake soundtrack is available. 

The premise is tantalizing, in part it can only exist in a sci-fi world. There's a distant planet, Solaris, which has been determined to be one giant living organism, a planet-sized brain. When an investigator travels to the planet due to problems, he wakes up next to his dead wife. Clearly Solaris is responsible; but what does the wife simulacrum think?

I will apologize in that in some version it's possible it was a divorced wife and not one who committed suicide, I am blanking on some details. 

But what a concept to explore! It's deeply disturbing.

Andrei Takovsky's original film moves slowly. Very slowly. There's been a descriptor "Slow Films"? Tarkovsky defines the term in many ways. I find it fascinating why some films move very slowly and iIfind them fascinating, and others move faster and I couldn't be more bored. I find myself involved in the empty spaces in conversation in Jim Jarmusch's best films, for example. I didn't care so much for Tarkvosky's Stalker, despite it being lauded by many film fans. But I was on board for this one, maybe because the tenseness of the very situation kept me engaged. 

After seeing the film, I read the book. I preferred the film. The author, Stanislaw Lem, I'm told did not like the film at all. But then, how often does the author like the film adaption? (JG Ballard thought Cronenberg's adaption of Crash was more extreme than his book! And I don't think he meant it as a put-down.) I found Lem's narrative got too bogged down in trying to create (pseudo-)scientific explanations for how this being could occur. I'm not interested in that, to be honest. I wanted to see the exploration of the psychic trauma that would occur under those circumstances. 

The music. There's an organ theme opening, not at all this obscure electronic instrument noted on the cover. It's a lovely, slow theme, sounding like Bach (if not the genuine article). This is then followed by the sound of this ANS synth. It's analog, noisy, obscured, textural and ambient. All the things I'd expect from a period-synth playing to a disturbing sci-fi feature. 

I'm completely unfamiliar with the ANS, and I have a pretty reasonable base of knowledge on the topic of early electronic instruments. The 120years.net site (highly recommended!) has a page devoted to the instrument. It dates to 1957 and is indeed Russian, like Tarkovsky and Artemiev. I can't tell you what distinguishes it from other analog instruments of the time, but it does its job.

The organ theme resurfaces on the second side of the album, and there are a few moments of acoustical instruments and even someone singing "Oh, Susanna!" in Russian! I assume that's part of the narrative, I don't remember. the side is still dominated with the electronically generated sounds, which demonstrate timbral variety. 

Both sides are broken up into shorter "movements." The slowly progressing noisy ambient pieces could have gone on longer for me, but I assume it's either the cues as they fit with the timing of the film, or the limitations of LP sides, or both. 

I find noisy ambient, dark ambient, attractive. Sounds that aren't necessarily sweet, have a noise profile, yet aren't harsh and exist in a slowly-moving state. it's why I continue to listen to MB/Maurizio Bianchi, even if his methods are almost ridiculously primitive, and certain of his recordings abysmally bad.

Final note: I'm going to go out on a limb here. Steven Soderbergh was not asking for an easy route by remaking this film. I would have been shocked if it was successful. I liked the film, liked. There was an important plot point I didn't like at all. 

But I will say this: the very conclusion of the film was the best of the three, in my opinion. I'd bet some people would have an issue with that, but I'd defend that opinion. 

My Benny Golson experience

I read that Benny Golson died today. Benny will probably be best remembered for writing the tune "Killer Joe." He was a tenor saxophonist in the hard bop mode, having played with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. 

My story:

It was early on in my time at CAPA High School, my second or third year there. We were still occupying the old Baxter High School in Homewood, and were going to the new facility downtown a year or two later.

Benny was appearing at the University of Pittsburgh Jazz Seminar that year. They would send one player every year in those days; some from other years included Larry Coryell, Abraham Leboriel (twice), Lew Soloff (the best of all of them), and British saxophonist Peter King, a real bebopper. 

Having a period free and due to unreasonable pressure on the part of a student saxophonist at the time, I was assigned one year to run a jazz quartet ensemble. I'm not mentioning a name because this student, who I think is a high school music teacher now, was to put it bluntly, an asshole.

We found out in advance that Benny Golson was coming to visit from the seminar. In the promotional material sent to us in advance, it was claimed that Benny was the "only living composer" to have written ten jazz standards. I thought, hold on there! Ten? There aren't ten that could possibly be considered standards. Three, four on the outside. Then I thought, what about Sonny Rollins? Wayne Shorter?

The saxophonist in the student quartet said, "I want to play 'Along Came Betty.'" If you don't know, that's a pretty difficult tune. I said, okay, I'll give you the chart for that, on the condition that you learn to play one of Benny's tunes by memory for him.

At the time I had a copy of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers' Moanin' on CD, which I mistakenly lent to the drummer in that group. Mistakenly, because he never returned it, AND he said he already had a copy. Years later he was shot to death in Aces and Deuces Lounge in the Hill District. To be sardonic, I guess I'm not getting my copy back. 

There's a tune on that album by Benny: "Blues March." It didn't seem too difficult to transcribe. So we spent a class or two writing it down. I probably did at least half of the work to get it down, but the students did help and they learned to play it by memory.

When Benny came to CAPA, he sat and listened to the quartet play the tune we transcribed. He then talked about growing up in Philadelphia with John Coltrane. He and the quartet then played "Betty", commenting that I had given them the correct changes (thanks to John Wilson's student fake book). 

And...that was it. Frankly he was a bore and played very little. 

I was given tickets to the Jazz Seminar concert that night. They kicked into "Killer Joe" and my wife, having heard that song several hundred times on the radio and in concert, groaned in disbelief. "No, not that song!" I told her, "He wrote it. He has the right to play it." Nonetheless, the concert was pretty boring and we left mid-way through. 

I guess there's little point to this blog post other than to document my experience. But maybe also to say, don't be too much into yourself, and don't be boring. 

PS: I left out a detail from the CAPA afternoon. We were on the bottom floor, where the auditorium was. Some student, not for the first time, had urinated on a hot radiator downstairs. The entire bottom floor hallways absolutely reeked of urine. I had a suspicion who was responsible but nothing more. 

So please...don't be too much into yourself, don't be boring, and don't pee on hot radiators. That last piece of advice might be the best but most obvious.

Stream OTD 9/22/2024

 David Bowie: Station to Station (RCA)

Streamed over the Hoopla app. Get it! It's great!

I was never much of a Bowie guy. In high school I had my yard sale copy of Diamond Dogs based in large part to the single "Suffragette City" which is pretty catchy. But I largely didn't like the album.

Much later, he had a huge hit with Let's Dance, a MTV-era danceable record that cleaned up his image. He may have been slender and even a shade effeminate, but that bisexual stuff, no way. To me, he seemed like someone who was hopping on one trend after another with little originality.

I can't still consider myself a big fan, but my opinions have softened over the years. (Age? Am I right?) I checked out the CD box set from the library that included the original mix of this album, and a 2016 remastering. The latter version might not be perfect, but the mix is arguably superior. 

I still wasn't 100% sold, though I was warming up to it. I'll add my daughter is a huge Bowie fan. We bought her tickets for what turned out to be his final appearance in Pittsburgh. Later my wife said, why didn't we go too?

Two weeks ago I went to the dollar sale downstairs at Jerry's Records. One thing I spent one whole dollar on was a bootleg DVD of a practice session of this band on stage. I watched it before turning it over to my daughter.

Jerry's didn't have a used CD copy of this album There was a vinyl copy, but I didn't feel like paying $30. 

Impressions?

I like the melodica on "Station to Station" and "Golden Years", a sound later echoed on the first two Gang of Four records, which I really enjoy. 

The opening of the title track has some of the best several minutes on any Bowie record I imagine, and he doesn't sing on them. It's great even when he begins singing: "The return of the thin white duke, throwing darts in lovers' eyes". What does it mean? Is it a reference to his heavy cocaine habit at the time? I don't know, but it's a poetic line. But then the song keeps going and becomes a different song. Not into at first, but it builds well and okay, it's worth ten minutes. 

Because I can't speak with authority on Bowie records, I can't say it this is any more influenced by African-American funk and soul records than any other. But it's pretty obvious. "Golden Years" is straight up white soul. 

For all his emoting, "Word on a Wing" bores me. Sorry. Sappy, overplayed/oversung. 

"TVC15" however, is one of David's best moments to me. It starts modestly enough, with an "oh oh oh oh oh" blues voice that seems like old-school r'n'b.  Leading into the chorus, "Transition, transmission" is a great line. Then the chorus his hard. Almost frightening. "Oh my TVC-15!" Is it reference to the radio? I don't know. I could take the effort to look, but won't. 

That brings me back to "Stay." Clearly African-American influenced. In a different setting, different arrangement/singer/instrumentalists, wouldn't be too far out of place on a Funkadelic album. It rocks as hard as anything on this album. For as great as "TVC15" and "Golden Years" might be, this is the highlight of the album. It's played with verve by his backing band. 

While that song is the album's apex, "Wild is the Wind" is the closer. I was surprised to find that Dmitri Tiomkin is credited as that composer. I Dmitri as a film composer, one of the many composers to work with Hitchcock (Dial "M" for Murder). I'm finding it was a song written for the film of the same title, and recorded by Nina Simone years before this album. So once again I'll assume it's the influence of African-American musicians that places this song on this record. 

VOTD 9/21/2024

 John Coltrane: Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album (Impulse)

Don't remember where I bought this, possibly at The Attic used

Do I listen to something from my collection just to write about it? Maybe, sometimes. Based on my previous posting, where I listed all of the artists I've written about here, there are some significant names missing. It's not that I haven't listened to them in the past two or three years, only that I didn't write something.

A few names: Charles Mingus (probably most significantly), Duke Ellington, György Ligeti, John Coltrane, among others. 

Who is the greatest saxophonist of all time? It's a flawed question by its very nature. Greatest? This isn't baseball, and even then there can be factors. Shohei Ohtani just set a major record for baseball, 50/50 (fifty home runs, fifty stolen bases). He alone has achieved this. But can this be considered fair, considering the current use of the designated hitter, not having to play a fielding position? 

Don't get me wrong, he's amazing. But it's not fair to compare him to, say, Barry Bonds in 1991. Bonds (pre-juicing) fielded and hit, risked getting hit by pitches and probably did now and then. 

None of this has to do with playing the saxophone or composing. The larger point being, even in circumstances of cold and hard stats, not everything is so easily defined. 

But few, if any, saxophonists were in Coltrane's league. John Gilmore comes to mind. Gilmore said he sounded like Trane before Trane did, and he's not wrong.

John Coltrane does stand apart in general as a musical figure, a saxophonist of staggering ability, while at the same time composing most of his repertoire.

What of this session? It's not the only relatively recent Coltrane discovery, but the last(?) full studio unreleased album?

It's very good but admittedly very similar to other early-to-mid era Impulse sessions for Trane. Pre-Ascension, pre-Pharoah, Alice. 

Over its four sides, there are some familiar titles: "Nature Boy", "Vilia" (a favorite of mine), "Impressions", "One Up, One Down". More significant are untitled originals, which was only given some sort of index number "Untitled original 11383" for example). These lean heavily into minor blues. 

Worth a listen? Hell yes it is. Essential? Hmm...that would mean putting it nearly at the same level as with A Love Supreme, Coltrane, Ballads, John Coltrane and Duke Ellington, and I just can't do that. It is absolutely worthy of your time, but my suspicion is that if arrangements had been made to release this during his life, much of the material would have been cut.

While there are many LPs of outtake material (i.e Ornette Coleman's Art of the Improvisors and Twins) they wouldn't know the CD format to come in the future and how many unreleased tracks would see public consideration.

All I can say is that I am grateful some of my outtakes are not available.  Yeesh, I feel unsatisfied with enough of my recordings I have seen released. 

Coltrane, even the outtakes, is always worth the time. 

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.