4:05 PM
This observation really deserves to be part of the long-ignored blogging
manifesto that Tom has mentioned (I, too, have thought about it and
gotten almost nowhere), but what the hell.
Greil Marcus is a blogger.
Well, almost.
One difference is that he updates infrequently, by comparison to
actual bloggers. I don't know, maybe he has trouble turning up items
for his "real life top 10". It doesn't seem like he should, so it's
probably just a publishing thing - salon schedules him regularly so
they always have a new Marcus "piece" every two weeks.
Another difference is that he seems to try much harder to have a point.
Not that bloggers write pointless things, but... it seems to be less
forced with, say, Tom.
Simon Reynolds is a blogger, too - or at least, he really should be.
Check out his best of the 90s.
His year-end reviews look pretty similar - and by the ends of them,
even the single/album-specific comment format disintegrates, and he
just throws out comments on everything and everything. A man whose
writing is crying out for a visit to blogger.com.
And, hey, it's the internet. Something a big techno pundit should
be cozy with, no?
I think these two should commit wholeheartedly to blogging their
musical observations. I don't want to read more Reynolds bullshit
about the festering corpse of rock and roll. Well, that's wrong - I
do want to read it. But the structure of and expectations brought to
longer-length music writing sometimes bogs down people like Marcus
and Reynolds, I think - people with strong opinions about music.
They think they're obligated to present more substantial, coherent
arguments. And so forth. I like thinkpieces, but it seems like
there's a lot more some people could be saying. Blogging seems to,
when done properly, allow for less self-censorship, more open assessments.
Admittedly there's an economic factor here, since these two are
both paid to turn out words for bucks. Surely there's a little more
to give, though?
October 20, 2000
11:25 PM
Hmm. So I guess what I'm saying is what they really needed was Tricky
in the production chair. Which would, I suppose, be much better than
him being left to make Angels with Dirty Faces.
11:15 PM
Though it was my first Massive Attack album, and for some time after
getting the first two I still liked it more, I've always had an ambivalent
relationship with Mezzanine.
Perhaps this is why: the sounds on the album are too clear, too precise.
The music seems as if it should sound more noisy, dirty, druggy,
damaged. But everything is so precise, that part of the effect is
lost.
9:58 PM
Does Steven's
dad own the company or something? The songs on Blue Lines,
indistinguishable from one another? WTF?
2:28 PM
One of my favorite things of Otis' to read is from his list of
"The 111 (or thereabouts) Greatest Albums of the Decade":
32. Nirvana: In Utero
Notable because "Scentless Apprentice" and "Milk It" are the two best
songs in the collections of countless teenagers. And also because it was
the album that made me realize I could like music for the drum sound
alone, presumably paving the way for my love of the Dead C.
The drum sound - the drum sound! Jesus christ, I cannot believe how
much I am loving the drum sound on Mogwai's Come On Die Young
right now. Somehow, despite sounding like the drummer actually played
with sticks, it's got something of the sound of brushes, only played
really loud, which given that I love brushed drumming
makes it EVEN BETTER. And the hi-hat - the HI-HAT! Oh boy. I must
be crazy.
Drum sound on Rid of Me also outstanding.
2:27 PM
"I dreamed about killing you again last night
and it felt alright to me."
2:09 AM
"Alone", Low, from Long Division
Tom's review of
their Christmas album has changed how I listen to Low, because
ever since reading it, I've thought explicitly about the religious
content in their music, whenever I listen. In particular, how to
reconcile the ease with which Tom drew the Low / "Christian rock"
parallel, with the usual attitude displayed on the Low mailing
list, where the religious aspects of their music come up rarely -
and then usually with respect to the more overt statements like
"If You Were Born Today" or "Lion / Lamb".
Something I often overlook, probably because I'm so used to it,
is that Low's Midwesternness (whew, what an ugly word)
plays a big role in their sound. In fact, a few times in the past
I've seen that terms used in reviews, and been confused - what could
they mean? Alan Sparhawk has a "Midwestern" voice? For me it's not
just the voice, though - their entire attitude is reminiscent of,
I don't know, my basic environment as a Midwesterner. Tom referred
to post-Reformation Christianity, and certainly that has something
to do with it: Protestant work ethic and all that. In fact, that's
why so many people can listen to and love Low, I think, be enthralled
by them and speak glowingly of the spiritual sense they get from
their music - without thinking directly of religion. Protestantism
has left its mark on the US, to be sure, but it's always seemed
to lay heavier on the Midwest than elsewhere. We take starker attitudes
toward most things, and that disposition is everywhere, not just in
things religious. It's just that, in combination with slow, "sad"
songs like Low's, the "Midwestern" contribution gets overlooked.
Normally I don't like to speak in such broad generalities without
qualifying things a lot, so suffice it to say that I'm just thinking
about some tendencies in Low's music, and in my fellow Midwesterners.
And I really should have saved Low until V, for "Violence," but
oh well. You take 'em where you can get 'em.
1:37 AM
I've got a big backlog of music, so I think it's time to go for
a little discipline and do an
alphabet thing again. So, hopefully it will begin shortly,
and who knows when it will end. Don't think I can do it all with
just recently-acquired music, though; 'Q' and 'X', e.g., are rare
enough as is.
1:19 AM
Another Oui
review.
October 19, 2000
11:58 PM
Initial verdict on the quality of the newly remastered, 30th anniversary
edition of King Crimson's Larks' Tongues in Aspic -
The sound is better, but subtly so. I haven't been very exacting
in A-Bing the older CD release with the 30th ann. edition, but it sounds
as if the biggest improvements have been made in the quieter sounds.
E.g. the drums (bongoes? or tabla? some kind of hand drum) at the
beginning of "The Talking Drum" - they seem to come through more
clearly, and I can hear more variations in tone, from where the
drummer (Muir, most likely, since Bruford comes in later with
a basic backbeat) is going for sort of a waver effect (don't
know what it's called, technically). This extra clarity comes in
all over the place, but it's easiest to notice when sounds like
Wetton's MONSTER BASS are absent.
As for the louder sounds, unsure. Aside from being mastered a bit
more loudly (typical for remasters), the bass seems to have about
the same force it did before, just slightly punchier because of
the clearer sound.
So, I'm interested to hear what the result of the remaster on Red
(on backorder, currently, doh) will be. Though it does have its
quiet moments to complement the loud ones - it is Crimson, after
all - I've always thought of Larks' Tongues as much quieter
and more delicate, and thus benefitting more from clearer sound.
The mini-LP carboard sleeve is nice. And though Fripp included a bunch
of his scrapbook clippings about the formation of the second (major)
Crimson, and reviews of the new album, from the music press of the
time, he didn't include all the typical DGM crap about how royally
screwed by EG he was. Which is an improvement, sort of.
8:46 PM
Just like Is This Desire?, PJ Harvey's Rid of Me
makes funny humming
noises in my CD player (machine's fault, not the CD's). Luckily
her cover of "Highway 61 Revisited" is late enough in the CD that
it plays OK. Beautiful.
Why didn't anyone ever tell me this album was so damn good?
Come to think of it, I'd pay good money to hear PJ cover all of
the album, Highway 61 Revisited. Or at least the
stuff like "Highway" and "Ballad of a Thin Man" (crazy drugged out
whitebody surrealistic blooz).
1:58 AM
From a footnote in Paul Berliner's already-excellent Thinking
in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation:
John Coltrane expresses exasperation at the initial response
of critics to his groups' creations. "I couldn't believe it...
It just seemed so preposterous... absolutely ridiculous, because
they made it appear that we didn't even know the first thing
about music - the first thing."
This, after Trane and his groups had already been well-praised
for earlier work. As if somehow they were simply lucky fools
who stumbled onto some good jazz initially, but then managed
to avoid it later.
1:12 AM
From the recording of Iggy Pop talking about punk rock at the
beginning to Mogwai's Come On Die Young -
"that music is so powerful... that it's... quite beyond my
control. and, uh... when I'm... in the grips of it, I don't feel pleasure
and I don't feel pain... either physically or emotionally--" (to
the crowd now) "do you understand what I'm talking about? have you
ever... have you ever felt like that? when you... when you couldn't
feel anything, and you don't want to, either. you know? like that.
do you understand what I'm saying, sir?"
Earlier in his speech / rant / monologue / response to The Man's
queries, Pop starts to sound, I don't know, more "extreme" --
talking about punk rock, decrying the use of the label as a negative
one, he praises how committed to music the "young men" who play
punk rock are. "I don't know Johnny Rotten... but... but I'm sure...
I'm sure he puts as much blood and sweat into what he does, as
Sigmund Freud did." Blood, sweat, extreme dedication: traditional
halmarks of rock music, as a base, primitive thing (or so we're
often led to believe). But Pop betrays that line of thought, or
even better, never commits himself solely to it, as he goes on.
He quips about his music being the brilliant work of a genius,
in what sounds to me like a moment of self-defense; he's feeling
caught up, trying to explain punk rock to whichever tool it is
that's interviewing him, so he uses a little humor as a tension-reliever.
But the brilliant moment comes, for me, in the bit first quoted
above: Pop here isn't talking just about how punk rock makes him
feel, but about how any music can make me feel, given
the right conditions - and possible many other people, as well
(though I wonder). It's brilliant, because Iggy the punk rocker
is so exposed, for that moment - and he indicates so, in his voice
and phrasing. He almost sounds irritated, maybe impatient, in the
way he breaks off and looks to the crowd for support. He doesn't
want to keep musing like this, especially when he feels he's not
being understood, but I think he also suddenly felt self-conscious
about what he was saying. Perhaps it's a very odd thing, to want
to be in that state - no pleasure, no pain. Myself, I'm not sure.
It's possible that Mogwai chose the sample more for the punk rock /
blood / sweat / genius bit, than the part above, but I don't think
so. The no pleasure / no pain idea is curiously appropriate for
much of their music.
Curiously, because I can't say that, listening to them, I'm
without emotion - or pleasure, or pain (leaving aside for the
moment whether those are emotions proper - it's complicated).
To the contrary, I experience very strong emotions. But sometimes
they feel so contradictory, that I don't know what to do with
myself. On a song like "Helps Both Ways," I feel calm,
peaceful, and thus happy, pleasurable - peace being something
uncommon enough to me that I enjoy having it. But I also feel
some kind of despair, melancholia. It's an odd kind, though,
because it feels unfocused, undirected. Not caused by anything in
particular. Or by everything. I can't say this is an altogether
good emotion to have, but I do seem to enjoy having it, because
I listen to this CD (and others that leave me feeling similarly)
quite often.
I still think this no pleasure / no pain thing is appropriate,
though, because there's something neutral about this state.
Probably most people would detect something stereotypically
"sad" in Mogwai's music, but I think that's not as important.
Or, not solely important.
Perhaps I could think of it as a widening of the middle; makes the
highs and lows seem more pronounced, because any sort of departure
can be taken as a high or low, and the big ones then seem really
big. Hmm.
12:19 AM
I was expecting more from MENSA. Silly me. [link stolen from
DJ Martian]