The New Canon of Great Guitar Solos

This is a list I officially cannot admit wanting to make, because it's a little bit stupid. But given the amount of literature about which doesn't take into account the fact that Satriani, Vai, and Slash are wankers, I thought I'd at least present an alternative list of the most important guitar solos in rock history - solos which should be studied by any prospective student for their poise, construction and effect.

1. Jimi Hendrix - Little Wing

This one's beyond question. It's one of the shortest on the list, and almost painful to listen to for that fact. One wishes it went on.

2. Eric Clapton - Crossroads

This one's textbook. It goes up, and it keeps going up. Going up is a good thing for solos to do in rock music.

3. Kurt Cobain - In Bloom

Oh yes, I did. Listen to it over and over and over again. This is the culmination of three decades of noise-guitar technique from Iggy and the Stooges and the VU down through Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo.

4. Neil Young - Down By the River

Neil's idiosyncracies carry this one. The one-note motif at the start is really nice.

5. Eric Clapton - Sunshine of Your Love

6. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Little Wing

It's many many times longer than the original. This is how a solo should develop and how it should maintain interest.

I should note that I missed out many important instrumental tracks simply because they don't count as guitar solos and I wish to examine the solo as an institution in rock music, because that's what it is. No doubt other aspects of playing are important - but as I said before, setting the record straight on this issue, especially for beginners needing someone to look up to, is something I consider important.

Garfunkel and Oates

'Things White People Like' had some informative comments on the subject of musical comedy - that you can combine not-very-good jokes and not-very-good music and get something that's a little bit entertaining. A justified viewpoint I think, considering how much crap out there gets passed for comedy. That said, I have a recommendation to make, and in the full knowledge that premature recommendations are like premature ejaculations in that they're always embarrassing afterward, let me just put in a plug for Garfunkel and Oates.

The folk-comedy duo (are there any other sort? besides Primus, the occasionally likeable funk-metal comedy band) consisting of Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome (of Million Dollar Baby fame) plumb the depths of domestic agony ('Present Face') and the ins and outs (well mostly outs) of working-class love with tunes that are much more than send-ups of some well-hated musical cliche. The vocal style invokes Blink-182, and the lyrical style is pure punk in its considered, rhythmic pedantry. These are pretty good jokes framed with actually-very-good music, making it a comedy band that's listenable as a bona-fide band, and to prove it they've written some serious tunes which are impressive in their scope and lyricism ('Silver Lining').

How about that, a comedy band transcends the tired send-ups of pop music with some actual skill. Props - and tell the Flight of the Conchords that their loser schtick is getting old - write some tunes, yo?

Also - that Kate Micucci is a real talent. One to watch.

adam

six sentences

My feet are unsurprisingly a little cracked after the month in the field.

There are two crickets mating on the wall above my bookshelf.

Outside the construction workers banter and play their loud music on an outdated radio.

Doorknobs, which stabilise our plane of existence like cosmic anchors, stretch across dimensions and yet are confined to a single quasi-spherical region with a keyhole.

What is the whiskey bottle but a third empty and trembling with the key-strokes like the portent of something dire, is it even a whiskey bottle at all or just a figment of my senses like the dream of an alcoholic butterfly?

Take me away from here, take me away, even if it kills, even if there's nothing left to take but take that anyway, there are tissues on the left if you need them but the door is on the right and keep walking once you're out and pretend that nothing happened, nonchalant.

faith in a manner of speaking

This is an issue which I for very long had no intention whatsoever of dealing with, because it is so complicated and (more importantly) because it is represented by people on either side who love to spend their precious time shin-kicking and name-calling. (Christopher Hitchens, you are guilty of this.)

What does faith in God require? I would say : the burden of proof is on the theists because they assert the larger number of required entities. I believe Occam's razor applies here because it is the only reasonable attitude an entity in our bewildering position can take - an existence we have no explanation for. We understand aspects of this existence, but know nothing of causes or explanations. Hence, it is one thing to assert that there must be a creator (which can reasonably be supposed to be the simplest explanation) and totally another to assert that it is a specific Creator who was specifically involved in our history. Christians especially have a lot to prove - specifically, they must prove that belief in their God is an attitude compatible with being a rational human being.

The clarifications for this discussion: First, that any theistic argument must prove that faith is compatible with rationality, because this is a rational discussion. If the discussion leads to the conclusion that faith and rationality are incompatible, then it shall follow that faith necessitates a non-rational world view and hence is outside the realm of discussion.

Second, that the argument here is specifically about the Christian God and not a creator-figure in general and hence to prove that a belief in a God that is all-powerful, all-good, and who came down to Earth as Jesus Christ is not incompatible with a rational world view i.e. principles for action derived from logical deduction and induction.

The first subject of discussion is the problem of pain. There is an agreed-upon standard for good (1)- including but not limited to health, absence of needless pain, presence of pleasure, and the presence of such conditions for as many people as possible. This view is utilitarian but seems to be the underlying assumption many people make when discussing the problem of pain. It means that actions which cause pain without ensuing benefit are to be judged as not Good, and any situation in which people are in needless suffering is to be judged as not Good. There is another standard for Good often propounded by Christians which is to be defined as spiritual well-being - closeness to God, absence of sin, presence of virtue, and perhaps importantly in theology, the presence of free will which chooses the above mentioned qualities. (2) Evil is to be defined as the lack of these characteristics. (3)

The problem of pain goes as such: The hypothesis of a benevolent creator who is all-powerful cannot be accepted due to the prevalence of pain and suffering in the world. A creator who is benevolent would do all in his power to alleviate suffering and hence cause Good by definition (1). Hence, the existence of suffering (not Good) means the creator cannot be all-powerful or cannot be benevolent.

The rebuttal to this argument takes a few forms. First, that suffering in the present may be justified by future Good that we are unaware of or incapable of understanding. Hence, the supposed Evil in the world does not exist.

Second, that Good cannot be experienced without the possibility for the opposite, and that the possibility of evil was created along with Good. Third, that suffering (not Good by definition (1)) exists to create Good by definition (2), which is to lead people to repent and to lead virtuous lives.

My first point is that accepting definition (2) of Good invalidates the premise, or at least compromises it. If we accept that only definiton (2) of Good is true, then the Evil accepted in the premise does not exist because disasters, starvation and suffering are not considered Evil - a person may be starving but still be close to God, for example. Which is not to say that the lack of Good does not exist at all, for there are surely plenty of spiritually poor people. A quibble - on to the argument.

My second point is is that the second rebuttal is incompatible with an all-powerful God. It supposes constraint on his Creation - that he had to create the possibility for evil in order to accomodate Good, even if he did not create evil. I actually agree that it is logical for a creator to have done this if what he wanted was human beings capable of Good. But this creates difficulty with the Christian God because it supposes Him subordinate to logic. The Christian God must be all-powerful and unknowable by human reason - and if He is subordinate to our logic then we must know, by virtue of knowing His constraints, Him.

My third point deals with the third rebuttal. In this case I believe the Christians are guilty of inexcusable definition-switching. Either Good exists or it doesn't, and either definition (1) or definition (2) are true, but not both, since it is a logical impossibility for a starving person who is nonetheless devout to be in a state of both Good and Evil. Either his devoutness and closeness to God confirms his situation is Good, or his suffering confirms his situation is Evil by our definition (3).

Their argument goes like this: If Evil exists to ensure Good (2) then the overall situation is Good because it results in Good and hence our God can be all-good and all-powerful and yet allow Evil.

Yet the premise 'Evil exists' is predicated on definition (1), which I have proven is incompatible with definition (2). So either we take definition (2) consistently, which raises the issue 'why are there un-devout, unholy people?' and also makes the argument sound like this:

'Un-devout, sinful people exist to make other people repent and become closer to God'. Which may be logical in some way but is hardly what the Christians seem to be arguing since all people, by their doctrine, exist to be close to God.

If we take definition (1) consistently, which means there is no Good done by suffering and hence the Christian God is rendered yet again incompatible.

Another thing which is problematic is that accepting rebuttal (3) in any form means that we no longer have any moral impetus to alleviate physical suffering, as it is no longer considered an Evil by definition (2). As most Christians accept the view that it is Good to help the suffering, this is an inconsistency that must be addressed.

Not finished but maybe i'll continue this sometime!

in a startling change of direction

Blogging in the daytime! Which shall be this week's adventure. I'm off exxon mobil duty for now (the crushing despair posts will ensue next week, for those awaiting the latest instalment)

Things:

1. Firefly. I watched 'Train Job' and 'Bushwhacked' and turns out the series only gets better after that. Am now judiciously pirating it.

2. Apps. Need to get the forms to my teachers. NYU submitted - must finish Stanford and Columbia.

Fingers crossed for Brown!

3. Borderlands. Good fun. It's like diablo with guns, which always make things better, except maybe Lebanon.

4. Two months to ORD. My disgust with the army has transcended complaint.

adam

Two Thoughts

1. Songwriting - it's only so difficult because we insist it should be easy.

2. I need a new bike. I borrowed JX's to make a trip to Serene Centre. On the way, a motorist honked at me and drove past - I caught up to him, gave him the finger and shouted something rude before pulling away. Best bike ride ever.

Joni Mitchell - Chelsea Morning

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I heard
Was a song outside my window, and the traffic wrote the words
It came ringing up like Christmas bells, and rapping up like pipes and drums

Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll wear it till the night comes

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I saw
Was the sun through yellow curtain, and a rainbow on the wall
Blue, red, green and gold to welcome you, crimson crystal beads to beckon

Oh, won't you stay,
We'll put on the day
There's a sun show every second

Now the curtain opens on a portrait of today
And the streets are paved with passers-by
And pigeons fly
And papers lie
Waiting to blow away

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I knew
there was milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges, too
And the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses

Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses

When the curtain closes and the rainbow runs away
I will bring you incense owls by night, by candlelight
By jewel-light
If only you will stay
Pretty baby, won't you wake up, it's a Chelsea morning!

Nirvana - Nevermind

I think something that the music world needs to know is the reason why Nirvana was a great band. Not just a good band, or even a talented band. A great band - and after hearing this album there is no doubt that Cobain, Grohl and Novoselic belong in the company of the Beatles.

Part of the reason is Pop, because Nirvana is a pop band. Their appeal is firstly melodic, then visceral, then formal, and it is satisfying on all three levels.

Part of the reason must be cultural, because the subject matter was groundbreaking. Not that Kurt was much of a lyricist in the formal sense - but he had a knack for refrains that were revealing if not technically facile. But nobody had written music about how little they cared before. If anything, the history of rock n' roll was a series of ever-more-violent ways of caring. And of course the mere novelty of Cobain's lyrics wouldn't have carried if it didn't signify to a generation of jaded youths.

Part of the reason is Cobain himself, who was a personality as well as a frontman, like any proper rock star. He especially reminds us of John Lennon, whose life was submitted to the media as the ultimate art project. And Cobain the man greatly informs the music, which is self-deprecating, often darkly funny, and never cares as little as it claims because it always sounds so good.

Cobain's myth was compelling, and Nirvana's myth was compelling because it gave the new generation an ideal free of self-importance. But perhaps his cultural importance is overstated.

The main thing here is the music, which is pop at its best - tuneful, uncultured, uncluttered, and playful.

EDIT: shall I presume to define pop? Let me put forward a hypothesis. Pop is non-idiomatic, audience-oriented music. Non idiomatic as in free of a unifying aesthetic (radiohead, for example, is Not Pop. )

adam

The key to poaching an egg is to keep the water at the correct temperature throughout the cooking process - a light simmer but never too hot. Then the egg, cooked for slightly over a minute and a half, should get the right consistency. I will practice!

adam

Plastic Ono Band Redux

Our dear John has lost something and needs to spend an album screaming in order to find out - the premise of his first post-Beatles album. What's he lost? Paul McCartney (and his insipid talent for cuteness). George Harrison (and his parse-able guitar parts). Cynthia Lennon (and any remaining semblance of normalcy). What's he found? Yoko Ono. Rage.

The rage is important. This is an album in which John gets naked, gets rid of the multi part harmonies, the multi-part songs and the intricate arrangements of the late Beatles albums. Track one is telling - There are three instruments on it (four if you count the gong at the start). But where the tunes are stripped of filigree they are still tuneful, still solid where Paul was fluffy, serious where Ringo was playful, real where George was trippy.

Plastic Ono band is an album in which John stops hiding behind his wit (and McCartney's wit) and his irrepressible talent and writes an album with Songs about Things. The result? We like John less now that we know him. But we love him more because he bothered.

Also of merit : the two bonus tracks in the remastered edition. 'Power to the People' - meh, socialist claptrap by a well meaning talent. 'Do the Oz' - the creepiest invitation to dance I've ever heard. And is that Yoko howling in the background?

adam

Plastic Ono Band

I bought 5 albums while on R&R in Australia. Let's check them out:

1. Plastic Ono Band - John Lennon

2. Imagine - John Lennon

3. Greatest Hits - Neil Young

4. Greatest Hits - Joni Mitchell

5. Nevermind - Nirvana

I've only had the time for 1. and 2., but 3-5 will come soon enough.

Plastic Ono Band is as good as everyone seems to say it is. Good case for John Lennon as the father of punk rock, if you ask me. It's scary that he doesn't need motherloads of distortion or screechy feedback noises to be scarily primal about music.

adam

Journal Entries : Australia

20th Oct

Last night was freezing. The sleeping bag was ok - but my colleagues are worried as I am how we'll survive in the field. We manage in our fashion, I think. Cigarettes and sheer bull-headedness. Am Looking forward to going home - but the training stretches out like a desolate track ahead of me with no end in sight. I guess I'll have to wait.

So far things have been pretty relaxed which is great for settling in - I've never lived in a place like this before. The roof of my tent is letting through ominous spots of sunlight - that won't be good when it rains.

Tonight's the 8km 'prep' march. The first of many sufferings. I'm as ready as I've ever been to eat shit but good intentions never make it into the field. By tonight I'll be collapsed somewhere wishing I'd had the good sense to report sick.

So yeah - hope is on the horizon. Until tonight at least I can stay strong, and then it's up to my body and the weather god.

25th Oct

Came back from the first mission last night. I was right about the weather - once you stop moving it's freezing. Oh well. I managed not to cock anything up for once.

I also finished Haruki Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood' while I was at Sam Hill with the planning team. I think it's a great story - a love story, but it has all the quiet subtlety a love story deserves. I think the best part is at the end where Reiko and Toru hold an impromptu funeral by getting drunk and playing every Beatles song they know. I want that done when I die.

Surprisingly, my spirits are pretty up now, despite living in this hole of a camp. I'm thriving on little happinesses, cool air at night, a hot bath, a good book and the Beatles.

Sweet Loretta Martin, thought she was a woman, but she was another man. Eat your heart out, Lou Reed! I guess now we just wait for the end. The final mission will suck but we're expecting it.

When I get back I'll buy a good bottle of whisky and drink it with my friends and sing some songs. Nobody else here appreciates the 60s like I do. Nobody back there does, but at least they play along.

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner, but he knew it couldn't last.

Get back

Get back

Get back to where you once belonged!

Rock and roll.

26th Oct

There was an attack of boredom in the morning. I had breakfast, brushed my teeth, had two smokes and decided it wasn't working. I wish I had a guitar here. Or, for that matter, someone to talk to about anything other than cars, boobs and cigarettes.

I decided to tackle the spell of ennui with a calculated dose of music.

Here's my playlist of 4 songs:

1. Desafinado - Ana Caram

2. Free City Rhymes - Sonic Youth

3. Move - Miles Davis

4. Help! - The Beatles

1. didn't quite work. Bossa doesn't do it for me all the time.

2. Did. It's the most beautiful musical construction ever created under the banner of Rock. But SY always left a strange aftertaste, as if in reaching for the cosmic their feet had left the ground.

3. From 'Birth of the Cool'. Skin-tight arrangements, solos tumbling through the changes perfect in pitch and poise. There can be no formal complaints - but in my distracted state I couldn't summon the concentration.

4. 60s rock and roll in the middle of a dusty army camp reminded me of FMJ. And if anything is the antidote to SY's 90s cosmic freakout, it's the earthy simplicity of a Beatles song.

I feel much better. Gonna have a smoke, then see what's up.

27th Oct

There's been a stunning array of cock-ups. I'm almost beyond caring. It's so pathetic that I can barely bring myself to think about it. I'm just waiting for the end.

That was from the morning. I was too pissed for words - the men really push me over the edge some days.

Every day's pretty much the same otherwise - eating, sleeping, training, smoking. The routine grates but it has its own advantages, like enough time to write this entry. I still miss my guitar, but I'm dealing with it. My bunk mates are gambling or blackjack but I've declined to play - I suspect that makes me unforgivably antisocial but oh well.

I listen to music when the urge strikes me. It's not always easy to enjoy in this dusty little hole, but it's a welcome relief.

Speaking of relief, there was a drizzle last night - first rain in a week. I seriously thought of getting out in it and bathing - but it didn't get heavy enough. The clouds are filling up the sky though - there may be hope yet. As long as it doesn't rain while I'm on exercise! Nothing like being miserable -and- wet.

In all honesty, this is a beautiful country. The bare trees, the lone kangaroos, the dust, the endless expanse of dried foliage. It's austere in a way no rainforest is. And at night it's so quiet! I could never find a place like that in Singapore.

It's just a pity I have to do all this abominable army stuff here.

Whoops. Spoke to soon - there's a storm coming.

7th Nov

The heat is murderous at 1 o'clock. I'm writing this just to keep things off my mind. Let the night come I say! I am now officially tired of this country, trees and all, stars and sunsets and all, and the whole of Oz can jolly well fuck off and let me go home to my air conditioning.

Sinatra is doing his part to take my mind off the crippling heat rash and the sand. Good ol' Blue Eyes. I've meanwhile written a few more songs of dubious import (I don't know if I'll ever get good at it) and I hope to put them to music when I get back. Meanwhile (I've said this twice now) the sound of trumpets and piano is edifying. It occurs to me that music nowadays may require less leftist hippiedom (and I mean as an approach, not as a politic) and more rightist formalism. It is becoming dangerously neither here nor there.

I'm afraid no amount of 'inspiration' will excuse terrible lyrics and noodly melodies. Even those icons of hippiedom, the Beatles, wrote with a terrifying mastery of the fundamentals, passed off as simple good-naturedness.

Choon Ping was right. Academic rigour is needed. And not Wynton Marsalis and gang's backward-facing history worship. I mean genuine intellectual commitment, and not just warm fuzzy feelings, however the two may be related.

I am doing my best to live up to this standard but like in any art rules without that special confluence of mental states known as inspiration produces no results. I will try harder.

Frustrating that my entries always end up about music. I swear I have other interests! Aloy has taken my book now though, so I am temporarily deprived of them. I'll write another song, here:

Sing a song to let me know

you'll never go anywhere

or do anything to make me sad

and live in this house of bricks and clay

Sing a song to let me know

that you won't die to-morrow

or the day after, or the rest of my life

and you'll never fly away

Sing a song to show me

that you'll never leave the ground

that you'll fold your wings around me

and never spread them wide

Sing a song while you hold me

So I know that you are there

So I know that I'm not tying you

but you've chosen not to fly

-adam

I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass

Yo La Tengo - I am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

Sorry about the last post - that was for WB. I picked this album up at HMV - I'd wanted to get I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One but they only had this one and Popular Songs and faced with the decision I went for the one with the (infinitely) cooler title. It was also the last copy, so those hypothetical readers who hypothetically listen to my recommendations may face trouble if there isn't a restock.

And that's exactly what this is: a recommendation. This is rock for people who don't need leather and a ten foot tall haircut; it's happy, and full of Georgia and Ira whisper-singing their little melodies all over and their left-of-centre lyrics. It certainly comes across as an album by a long married (and 20 years is a long time) couple, full of affectionate humour and reminiscence.

Yo La Tengo don't have a style per se - they have a number of set pieces that appear in every album with new lyrics and new variations. There's always the long noise jam - that's the first track here ("Pass the Hatchet..."). There's the speedy punk number with the whispered melody. There's always the trance-y electro tune. There's always a clever ballad. There's always some stripped-down rock and roll.

And considering how great every one of the songs appears, it's stunning to note how modest the arrangements are. What they are is settled, stable, confident, and they need no flash-and-bang to impress - they have enough songwriting chops to cover that and hopefully many albums in the years to come.

adam

A letter to Joni Mitchell Re: Tree Museum

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/popsong/17moe18.html

Terror

I was paid a visit by an old friend tonight. I call him terror who used to visit me at night when I was barely a teenager. He brought pictures with him, many of death and disease and old age, but one fascinated me like no other. He showed me a picture of an eternity of oblivion. I remember because for many weeks I was like a shell but for that thought, that I would die forever. I was not even sure then, because I had my faith.

Now I have no faith. I am sure that I will die forever. But I met my old friend with open arms tonight, because I know why I was afraid. I was not afraid of oblivion - death is not fearful, the greek philosopher once said. I was afraid that an eternity of oblivion would devalue everything in my pitifully finite life.

I am no longer afraid. Eternity will not drain the meaning of my life, because I have created it, and as a creator I am greater than all fear. Do you hear that, old friend? I have friends. I have work. I have music. I have hope. You cannot rob them from me.

adam

New York Dolls

I've had a cd sitting unopened on my shelf for almost a year now - Private Worlds, a double album of demo tapes by the New York Dolls. I like these guys a lot.

adam

Laughter

is an evolutionary mechanism developed to rid ourselves of that most deadly of vices - significance.

Late night

Sleepless. I don't think I'll ever renounce feeling confessional at 2am, even if it's only my blog that will listen to my insomniac ravings. I had a good jam session today. I haven't felt this alive for awhile - maybe it's that feeling alive requires copious amounts of amplified noise. At least I can make some on my own. I wonder how people without guitars get by.

I've got 'someday my prince will come' on. It's a nice tune - and to have Miles put his inchoate siren over the changes is almost too much of a good thing.

I'm flying to australia in a week. I need to get my strength together. Goal here is not to come back in a box.

I wonder where all my friends are.

Maybe I need to stop practicing and get out of my room once in awhile. I am starting to feel the effects of social awkwardness acutely. It will be too late soon.

:(

adam

Twilight

It's not the Absolutely Terrible Novel I was hoping it'd be.

Yes, I must note - I have read it. And it's not that I've gone over to the dark side or anything - I accredit the reading to boredom, which shall become the excuse for all evil deeds great and petty.

And this will no doubt void my membership of the Singapore chapter of Auteurs Anonymous. But for what it tries to be, which isn't much, it's not a bad novel at all. It's not Ishiguro for sure, but nobody wants it to be - and Meyer manages somehow to make a vampire story that's well sort of interesting and skips lightly past all the unnecessary emo that the genre's often burdened with.

So there, all you Writers and Poets and Critics and people who Know About Literature, poo on you all. I liked Twilight.

adam

Yo La Tengo!

They've been a bit hit-or-miss with my tastes but the hits are solid ones, and certainly rank pretty high up there in my pantheon of Great Songs. Of slightly more import : They're married. And they're good enough to wield that singularly un-hip social institution like the great electrified warhammer of Rock, smashing aside assiduously, snidely single doubters.

Read: Sugarcube ("Whatever you want from me, that's what I wanna do for you, sweeter than a drop of blood on a sugarcube") What's more married than that? And what is more rock and roll?

Read: Mr. Tough (Hey Mr. Tough, don't you think we've suffered enough?) ("We'll leave our worries in the corner, leave them in a big big pile")

Really, the pile doesn't go away for people living together. But the way they deal with it is rock and roll in every way that matters.

Georgia and Ira Kaplan seem to have incorporated a uniquely scathing form of domestic bliss in their personal myth, and I find it extremely compelling. If I ever get married, my kids are going to be named after them.

adam

Revolver

The Beatles - Revolver

I will not make pronouncements or judgements because I am not worthy. I am less than the dust on the soles of his sandals, I am not fit even to listen and I am only allowed because of his magnanimous grace. In times to come they will say he was only human but in the glory of the spectacle I can only see majesty, purity and perfection.

adam

ONCE AND FOR ALL: THE SECRET TO WRITING

Distance, indifference, dispassion. Writing and music may portray emotions but may not contain: emotions in the writing process should only be accessible as a product not as an ingredient because they shut down the multi level process that art requires. To give way to emotions is to lose coherence, structure, and above all true appreciation - it is the mind that stores the details, not the heart, and the mind must recreate the details to recreate the response in the heart.

adam

Horehound

The Dead Weather - Horehound

Yes, I did actually go out and buy it and I don't regret it at all. The first thing I thought was 'I've never heard anything like this before' and the second thing I thought was 'I've heard this all before, somewhere'. I think the truth probably lies somewhere in between - Horehound is a kind of recombinant album, country/western meets blues meets hard rock meets rap metal. Individually the parts don't sound particularly new - blues licks, banjo sounds, feedback noise, Led Zep, reggae-style delay. But we've never really heard them put together like this, with such facility and with such attitude.

'Treat me like your mother' is probably the best (and cleverest) song on the album, and sounds a bit like Rage Against the Machine grown a sense of humour. 'I Cut Like a Buffalo' has Jack White singing some of the evilest reggae ever made by human beings. 'So far from your weapon' - a sort of far out blues written by Alison Mosshart, but it hits home, which is more than can be said for Frank Black and his parade of weirdness. So Jack White and co have a bit more of a handle on weirdness than perhaps any band that capitalises on the aesthetic have had. And it's good. The rest of the album is just gravy - Bob Dylan cover, instrumental which wouldn't sound out of place on the soundtrack to starcraft 2 (which is a compliment), 12 bar blues, the works.

The truth is the re-tread nature of this album may cause non-discerning individuals to dismiss it as 'jock-rock', or a bunch of over the hill rockers trying to be Limp Bizkit (which it certainly -may- sound like). But give them credit for a sense of irony, which is draped over the album like a good sauce. Jack White never falls victim to his macho constructions - although he never distances himself to the point of outright tongue-in-cheek. There is a sense of revelry in the over-the-top riffs and aggression and macho posture (especially on Mosshart's part) - and this ironic distance gives the album the depth it needs, proving once again that white is a genius and that it is possible to make some headbangin' hard rock without being stupid. Applause.

adam

all the bloody time

http://xkcd.com/642

all the bloody time.

I am in love with Alison Mossheart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Goi2YcW2To

Not many vocalists can actually send chills down my spine.

adam

Dear Friend

I've seen the way she looks at you

very ugly - that comingling of familiarity

and expectation

very unbecoming (like something out of a movie scene)

as if her eyes could wrench

your sordid emotions from your chest

still throbbing; bleeding.

I've seen your smile (ecstatic/bovine)

your little jokes (asinine)

and a thousand little sins against Man

Please.

I know they are masks for happiness.

I know you are only hateful because

you hate how joyful

how unnecessary

how sublime your happiness is

You can't take it

but if you give it away it'll break my heart fuck you

Premature

I will not fall into the trap of making Pronouncements this time. As far as I'm concerned, the greatness or lack thereof, and the success or lack thereof, of this new band called the Dead Weather can be bloody well left to fate, or market forces, or Jeebus or whoever's miserable job it is to decide these things. But for now, I kind of like them. Normally I'd be a bit suspicious of the new, almost painfully hip indie posturing of which Jack White is almost certainly guilty of. But the music is redeeming - loud, difficult but firmy attached to the ground via the blues, which is one of Jack's few redeeming qualities. Alison Mossheart is charming, the other two kind of blend in but the organ is wicked, all in all it's a good time and I sincerely hope they go somewhere rather than become another White Stripes side project.

adam

I believe in the market

I consider it a (partial) vindication of the modern audience's taste that a band as abrasive, avant-garde, noisy and melody-less as the White Stripes can make it big. Of course after shout-fests like 'seven nation army' they shored up the leaky bits with plenty of melodies on 'Get Behind me Satan' but the fact is that they are in no way a feel good pop band, and Jack White as a frontman is antiquely unhip, what with his strange tricolor fixation, blues playing and fascination with electronic noise and Bob Dylan (who's to say which is less marketable?). Still, they sell. There is hope for humanity after all.

adam

Albums pt 2

With less hype this time -

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle

Sonny Rollins - A Night at the Village Vanguard

I did go to the shop one of my main purposes being leaving with some country rock (because I've been into this country phase) - probably the Allman Brothers, but instead my mum wanted CCR and I figured it was worth a try. It's not totally off the wall Redneck Rock 'n Roll like the Allman Brothers, complete with hat and moustache, but it's pretty Southern, and John Fogerty ain't half bad.

adam

Albums!

Cream - Disraeli Gears

The Beatles - Revolver

The Classic Albums, Best of '67, whatever. I wanted to see what the hype was. So far I've only put Disraeli Gears on - it's as psychedelic as the cover suggests, plenty of high falsetto shrieking and reverb guitars riffing on middle eastern modes - the works. Also, fairly playfully put together (see mother's lament O.o what? psychedelic rock album plus cockney filler music?), fairly well written, Eric Clapton's guitar like a liquid orgasm laid on top of the rest of the music. Graphic.

adam

Waterloo Sunset - the Kinks

Robert Christgau: 'The most beautiful song in the english language'

Personally I wanted to give that to 'Sunday Girl' by blondie but to each his own I guess - and Christgau deserves props for being the Critic With a Brain, and stunningly astute on many things unrelated to music, which informs and credibilises his criticism. I do actually read his reviews for sheer entertainment value and informativeness.

Also, I love this tune.

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night
People so busy, makes me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright
But I dont need no friends
As long as I gaze on waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunsets fine

Terry meets julie, waterloo station
Every friday night
But I am so lazy, dont want to wander
I stay at home at night
But I dont feel afraid
As long as I gaze on waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunsets fine

Millions of people swarming like flies round waterloo underground
But terry and julie cross over the river
Where they feel safe and sound
And the dont need no friends
As long as they gaze on waterloo sunset
They are in paradise

Waterloo sunsets fine

Kim

At the suggestion of my dear friend, I have christened my new guitar Kimberley, after my heroes Kim Deal, Kim Gordon, and the Pink Ranger.

adam

Kudos

go out to Lady Gaga, whose aesthetic coherence is nothing short of stunning. I can't say I'm a huge fan of electro-pop et cetera, but this woman will be something big, just you wait and see.

adam

Robert Christgau:

"...it ought to demonstrate once and for all that the function of avant-garde art is to inspire other artists, not the public."


adam

Led Zeppelin - the stupidest band ever to make Great Music.

Let's face it - Plant was no Lennon, Page was no Hendrix and JPJ sure as hell wasn't McCartney. Hendrix's medievalism was at least more colourful. McCartney's love songs were playful, not creepy. Simon and Garfunkel managed real folk by leaving out the machismo, something which Plant shamefully neglected to do on tracks like 'Going to California' which really reads like a mid life crisis for guys who like both Bob Dylan and shooting things.

No, Led was not a lyrics band at all. They failed in the lyrics department - and the closest they got to greatness in that department was a sophomoric dance track 'Rock and Roll' which unfortunately predates our modern club music in its subject matter. 'Stairway to Heaven' is another great failure of lyrics - it's pseudo medievalistic pagan claptrap that doesn't have the sense to be clever. In many ways they predated the regrettable trends in what was later called 'prog' and then 'neo-classical whatever' - medievalism, paganism, classism (all the isms, they're causing schisms).

And despite all the bashing I've been doing, I truly feel that they were one of the seminal acts in rock and roll after the 60s. No band today is without a deeply fundamental debt to everything they did - and though they didn't do many things well, what they did they did bloody well. And what they did well was this: a ham-fisted talent for making noise in the lower frequencies, and an clumsy (but entirely accurate) understanding of the blues. In fact, 'clumsy' is probably the best word to describe their style of ponderously repeating riffs and thundering drum beats. It was clumsy, but shockingly effective, and for this I credit that second thing, the blues, which gave Jimmy Page all the songwriting chops he needed. The blues gave them the simplicity needed to deliver the heaviness, and the result is satisfying in the gut the way the blues should be.

As the case study I pick 'When the Levee Breaks', a track in which Plant abandons his medievalism, Page abandons his progressive tendencies, and John Bonham abandons any remaining vestiges of subtlety. He opens the track here with what would become (I think) an iconic beat with the anticipated first beat of the second bar on the bass drum. As with all Led Zeppelin music, the key to heaviness (which I define as the 'insistence' that we so prize in rock music) is repetition. He does not vary the hi hat pattern, and plays sparsely so the reverb is audible. He sets a slow moving but unshakeable tempo for the song to begin, and it begins on a note of steadiness, steadiness that soon develops into inevitability. Inevitability is the real theme here - 'If it keeps on raining, the levee's gonna break/ If it keeps on raining, the levee's gonna break/ If the levee breaks, I'll have no place to stay'. Notice how even after the the first line is repeated a la traditional blues, the words 'levee breaks' happen one more time in the third line, as if the first two times didn't make it clear enough. This slow build of paranoia is one of the rare successes of their songwriting. The guitar intro is played with a slide, like the real bluesmen did - only he plays the same thing over and again, only three notes - the root (and harmonised fifth, making it the 'heaviest' chord playable on a guitar at any pitch), the flattened major third or 'blue note', again harmonised, and the fifth. Aside from the blue note, these notes are colourless, being the fundamentals of the harmony. The nature of the notes is not lost on the listener - he only hears the blue note, the 'colour', the root which is the resolution, and the fifth which is tension. The slow ululation of tension-resolution over the steady drum beat, always with exactly the same notes, is another element that adds to the growing paranoia prevalent in the intro.

The next part of interest is the sudden instrumental refrain, which modulates to the major key. The tone here is almost triumphant - I say almost because the blues is never triumphant, and Page proves his facility with the idiom here - but the resolution from the 7th chord makes it uneasy, almost terrifying in a Gothic sort of way rather than satisfying. The chorus of multi-tracked guitar parts adds to this cathedral-like atmosphere, hinting infinitesimally at the sound of a wind orchestra, and the associated grandeur. It is a terrifying grandeur.
The second half of the refrain is a motif played distorted with slide guitar. Again, the three phrases are variations of the same melodic motif, and the repetition serves to create a feeling of insistence and intensity. It should be noted that this part of the refrain is not played in the intro, only after the first verse. Again, Page plays only simple chords. The accompaniment plays a root and a fifth, which reminds us of the band's perennial medieval obsession - certainly, it sounds like a drone note music, tonally resembling bagpipes or violin, both of which are often used to play drone notes in traditional scottish, irish, and indian musics. The medievalism here is subtle at least, and they get away with it - it only adds a not unwelcome colour to their straight-ahead blues.

TBC soon!

adam

I know you, you know me

One thing I can tell you is you got to be free!

A bit late for Beatlemania

This would've been so much cooler if I could've done it 40 years ago when the whole world was doing it too. Now I just get ridiculous looks on the MRT because i'm headbanging to 'Drive my Car' instead of oh, Akon or something. At least, I think they're ridiculous looks because I feel silly inside. But the music will not let go!

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun

and I say it's alright.

adam

New Guitar

On track with the New Things trend we've been seeing, I finally caved and bought another guitar - partly cos my crappy cheap strat is starting to fall apart, and partly just for the heck of it. I managed to find a red Gibson '61 reissue SG at guitar connection, and immediately fell in love.

I won't gush about it here because only two people probably in my entirely hypothetical readership (i'm not quite convinced any of you exist anymore - my blog is an exercise in solipsism) would understand what I mean by 'the pickups are just the right temperature' and I DON'T mean they were toasted for eight and a half minutes before installation.

So - quite a bit poorer now, have to figure out how to use this thing (it's NOT the same...) and I'm accepting bids for names. Although I'll probably ignore all suggestions anyway. Hypothetical names are okay too.

adam

I'm (mostly) back from my temporary brush with insanity, with the help of a few friends and four englishmen who happened to be called the Beatles. I guess this is a bit (very) late to be realising, but having listened to some(not enough) of the canon of popular music in this century, this must be the most sacred music ever to grace the realms of human creation. It isn't perfect music, but it is hallowed in every sense of the word that means anything to human beings.

adam

Sparrow

Desdemona brought me a dead sparrow this morning - at some level I deeply enjoy being the recipient of these animal sacrifices.

adam

Stupidity

I have become the connoisseur of stupidity. I have seen it in every possible form, and naked in its Platonic manifestation. The stupidity of others has confounded, frustrated, awed and bewildered me. But no stupidity is ever as all-encompassing, as immense, as brilliant and diaphanous and unstained as my own. This particular time I have outdone myself by leagues by the simplicity, the humility, the selflessness... the sheer purity of the act. For a few minutes there I was a man transmogrified like Jesus on the hilltop into the very incarnation of stupidity, made beautiful by surrendering my entire soul to its all-consuming force.

adam

Loneliness

is not a philosophical problem - it's a biological reaction. I feel like my responses have been hijacked by chemicals - but that's an illusion - my responses aren't much more than chemicals. I just wish there was something I could do about it.

adam

Sanctuary

After the week of non-commitments and half-eaten fantasies, it's nice to be back in the real world. I put on 'Sanctuary' from Miles's Bitches Brew album, and realiset that that was what I'd been needing all week.

adam

Hey ho, let's go.

This is going to be one of those intractable posts about my continuing inability to be at peace with the world. Incidentally, I'm at the mess computer in camp and it's been a long week.

My capacity for responsibility has worn thin. I've pretty much stopped caring about anything that happens in the army, for the good reason that it's mind-crushingly pointless. But I used to be able to do my job... and I consider that one of the attributes a non-useless person must have in this world. I am slowly losing my grip on non-uselessness. Don't get me wrong, I love my men, but it's a different sort of relationship with them, mostly based on trading insults and comparing penis sizes - not all in all a fulfilling existence. I miss having a real conversation. I miss talking for hours about pointless (but interesting) philosophical quibbles. I miss not having to walk around in a protective shell made out of belligerence. And I've resorted to more and more outlandish (and often destructive) ways of coping with this.

I mean, this is truly pathetic, that I can't seem to handle a little thing like this without becoming self-destructive. It was alright when I was just content with destroying my body. But that barely seems like enough now - I fear I've started to play games with my mind and my heart that no sane person would attempt. It is worrying.

On the dubious upside, I know I should make it through alive. My family is composed some of the most arrogant, stubborn people on this planet. And I won't give up even if (and especially if) it kills me. I just hope I don't drag too many people down on the way.

So - bring it on, motherfuckers.

adam

Test

Cool... Blog by email, by handphone.

New Phone

With the plan renewal comes new handset time (it's about time, I say - my k800i is now 3 years old and starting to grey around the temples). I could have opted for the really sexy HTC model, or god forbid an iPhone, but for budget and perhaps camp security reasons I went for the archaic (and indeed, arcane) nokia e71 - a model that, while clunky and quite hideous (I got mine in a manhood-approving shade of red), appeals to me in its sheer, almost medieval brute force approach to design. I like that there is no touch-screen, there are no stylish symbols, just a don't-fuck-around-with-me qwerty keyboard on the front, an i-don't-give-a-fuck tiny LCD display, and a why-am-i-even-bothering 3.2 camera, which used to be huge but now isn't. This is a phone for people who get the job done the messy way. I love the features, too, which it sure doesn't fall short on.

adam

OC SAY ADAM! I WANT BULLET FLY OVER THERE
I SAY HOW MANY?
OC SAY MANY MANY!
I SAY YES SIR.

adam

Odd

I just re-discovered a blog that I started two(!) years ago and promptly left to die. It's RTVOODOO, my music blog - and I've gone and updated it just to keep up with the general spirit of necromancy that seems to be prevalent.

rtvoodoo.blogspot.com

adam

Are and Gee

I'd just like to take a moment to plug a play which I won't before because I'm in the army, but which my friends are producing/acting in, and which I think is a fantastic endeavour. Tom Stoppard's 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' will be on 17th-19th of July. You can contact me, Terence Lee, Ryan D or Chengyi for info.

adam

Further Impressions

Okay, I've not had much time with Closer, but I have spent many ecstatic hours listening to Rising Down, and it is definitely worth the critics' hype. I can't say I know much about hip hop, but I know a little about music - and this album shows a band (and a crew, let's not forget) at its prime, basking in the sheer joy of inventiveness, whether it be ?uestlove's manic drum beats or Black Thought's flow (eat shit, Kanye!). Mos Def opens the lyrics with an apocalyptic tableaux. Dice Raw carries on with the protest song 'Get Busy' before Black Thought commits vocal murder with freestyle @15 and burns his competitors hard on '75 bars (Black's Reconstruction)'.

They break out the gangsta rap for 'Criminal'.

The two closers on the international version ('Birthday Girl' was left out in the American release, sadly) function like the closers on 'London Calling'. 'Rising Up' is nothing short of apocalyptic, with a flaming fusion beat, choir and modulating chords banging on the electric piano. 'Birthday Girl' brings things to a personal level - this is the 'Train in Vain' of rap right here and it closes the album on a slightly sentimental note - but don't mistake this for mush. It's the cleverest song on the album. 'I just let you inside cos the line was so heavy/But i shoulda know better cos now I feel like america's underbelly/R. Kelly, gutter smut peddlers, internet predators, chat room irregulars', Black raps. It's also stunning for making actual musical use of Fallout Boy's singularly talent-less lead singer. I doubt if he wrote this himself, but the final chorus is (and I turn a little teary here) quite stirring, and quite witty

'They can't really seem to look away

so they tried asking her to stay

fake ID you won't get turned away

you look lovely tonight

Now you're old enough to buy a gun

so many better ways of having fun

right now I can only think of one

You look lovely tonight'

Some of the reviews blamed Black Thought for rapping too seriously on this album. It's not funny, says Rolling Stone - they're probably right. But just when you think he's starting to become Jesse Jackson, the band turns a hairpin and reminds you that they sure as fuck are having fun.

adam

Double album buy!

The Roots - Rising Down

Joy Division - Closer

Both of these stem from the arty side of rap and punk rock no doubt. First impressions will have to wait until I've had some alone time, but I do want to take this opportunity to officially forgive Fallout Boy for all their musical mistakes now that Patrick Stump has lent his dubiously necessary voice to that brilliant Roots track, 'Birthday Girl'. The reviews were right about it not fitting in with the album, but it is clever, catchy, clever, and you know what? Who gives a fuck about the world, if we had more songs like this we'd be alright.

adam

16 reasons why God would never get tenure

1. He had only one major publication.
2. And it was in Hebrew.
3. And it had no references.
4. And it was not published in a refereed journal.
5. And some even doubted that He wrote it Himself.
6. It may be true that He created the world, but what has He done since then?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a very rough time trying to replicate His results.
9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one experiment went awry, He tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.
11. When subjects did not behave as predicted, He often punished them, or just deleted them from the sample.
12. He rarely came to class: He just told students to read the book.
13. He has his son teach the class.
14. He expelled His first two students for learning too much.
15. Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed His tests.
16. His office hours were infrequent, and usually held on a mountain top.

-taken from http://komplexify.com/epsilon/

I think selfhood is overrated. When all's said and done we are victims, not champions, of who we are.

I want to be upbeat and aloof and above all the petty little troubles. But I keep feeling this miry misery bringing me down - it is a low, pathetic, animal emotion. There are 3 emotions that are worthy of homo superior - joy, wonder and anger.

adam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9RAbi2xEvo&feature=related

The thing that separates these girls from Simple Plan (cutesy hairstyle and drug-induced kitsch MVs notwithstanding) is nothing more profound than the musical tact to put their accents in the right places. The simple mastery of rhythm turns what would otherwise be a humdrum cover with nothing but four-on-the-floor and ye olde basicke punke beate into a sincere, intelligent and energetic tribute. 

adam

The power of Led Zeppelin IV to cause me to curl up in a foetal ball and whimper still astounds. A fairly powerful speaker system helps. 

The new anti-smoking campaign announces a 'Rockin' without Smokin' concert - and suddenly I am overcome by the threat of a congregation of terrible Straight Edge bands making music awful enough to wake the dead who sleep beneath the foundations of the Esplanade. 

Actually, no - there aren't actually any good bands in Singapore, although the Observatory comes close at times, as does ublues - but my real grief with this ridiculous business is that making rock squeaky clean is necessarily disingenuous, if you actually give a shit about the music. Now, don't get me wrong - I don't in any way promote smoking, although I have done my fair share of it. But to use rock (or the idea of rock, in this case - asking for actual rock in this country is asking for far too much) to push your own squeaky clean agenda is to disassociate it with everything that rock stands for - the great sacred chaos at the heart of human interactions. 

I'm not outraged at this point. The concert is well meaning, and given the quality of past such productions I'm not (and doubt if anyone is) shocked. But I'd like to add my voice to a debate that maybe will help this sodden little country grow up a bit.

adam

Last night was quite the disaster. Still making sense of what happened - but hey, I guess you don't get awesome unless you're prepared to accept epic failure. 

Sigh.

adam

Science: the God of Small Things (with apologies to Arundhati Roy)

From this moment on, I will be featuring a new sort of blog entry, one that celebrates the little observations that keep you on the thin and narrow ridge line of Sanity, the joyful little discoveries that make you sit up for a moment and go 'wow,' and thank your preferred deity that but for the whim of Science, we might all still be sitting in caves and scratching our armpits and watching the Simpsons.

1. 

Put a watermelon in the refrigerator for a few hours. Take it out, cut it into small chunks and eat it. 90%  of the pieces will be colder on one side. This happens because the outside of the watermelon is the first to lose heat to the cooling effect of the refrigerator - common sense really, but in the days of Phlogiston and liquid heat (scientists actually believed heat was a liquid until alarmingly recently) there would have been a considerable lot more confusion. I think it is actually beautiful that the same laws that govern the motion of the heavenly bodies and the rise and fall of the tides could actually make chilled watermelon pieces cold only on one side. If there is a God, he truly is a joker.

" And I really like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the whole world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. "

- Kurt Vonnegut

I am happy, for I have found my Kind of Blue. 

When I opened the Head Hunters cd to rip to to FLAC, imagine my surprise when two cds fell out - one of which was the Kind of Blue that I'd been mourning the loss of for months. 

Rejoice, for my brother was dead and now is alive!

adam

Back from Taiwan

Not something I really want to talk about. 

Did get the opportunity to shop for some clothes, though. 

I've got about a week off, sans wednesday, so I guess i'll try and get back to my old life for a quick while before it's torn away from me again. I will not succumb to army! 

In keeping with the general atmosphere of hope and all that, here's some Shonen Knife:

IT'S A NEW FIND

Feel in your pockets for something fun
Wash your socks and turn them inside out
Try to look hip in old ugly clothes
There'll be something different in your life

*It's a new find, It's a new find,
It's a new find, It's a new
It's a new find, It's a new find,
It's a new find, It's a new

Let's all get up and dance to a song
It gets you feelin' very nice
You can have a strange hair cut
There'll be something different in your life

*repeat x2

I can't find any more but you can find a new way

Sache down the street in platform shoes
You can find some new scenery
Make up with your friend and try again
There'll be something different in your life

Just a perfect day
Drink sangria in the park
And then later, when it gets dark, we'll go home
Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later a movie too, and then home

[Chorus:]
Oh it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on

You just keep me hanging on

Just a perfect day
Problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
It's such fun

Just a perfect day
You make me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
Someone good

[Chorus]

You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow

Went clubbing. It is aggressively pointless, but I guess that could be the idea. In our world, where everything is manufactured for fast, effective results; where we get straight to the point and discard the packaging; where we make pacts with the demons of efficiency to trade our souls for Extra Credit - it may be that pointlessness is the rallying cry of my generation.

adam

Kari Carpenter

is, I suspect, one of those people whose accent gets more Southern the more drunk she gets. Listen to the studio version of 'Top of the world' (sober) and the live version (considerably more Texan)

adam

Shonen Knife - Or, Music for Strangely Disillusioned 9-Year Olds - Or, Everything You Thought You Knew About Music is Wrong.

This is going to be difficult to put into words - because the primary effect of the music of Shonen Knife is to shamanistically invoke the hyperactive nine-year old that secretly resides deep in our hearts. And nine-year olds are not historically very good at english. Nevertheless - I shall try - for the sake of science. 

Immediately I felt a huge discord within myself as if I had invoked some kind of jungian doppelganger. The grown up in me wanted to goggle in austere horror at the sheer travesty of it all. Shonen Knife does not sound well on cultured ears. The nine year old that I talked about earlier was, on the other hand, ecstatic like he'd been given a bag of lollipops - I can only attribute this mysterious reaction to the presence of some kind of mystical force. 

After awhile the initial shock was replaced with a grating feeling that I've done my growing up too fast. 

adam

life changing redux

Better put up a few more in case you got the idea that I was a music lover.

6. h2g2

7. the great gatsby

8. prufrock

9. eats, shoots & leaves

10. anarchy in the u.k.

11. Little Wing

life-changing

Name 5 events that have shaped who you are as a person.

1. A Love Supreme

2. E.S.P.

3. The Velvet Underground

4. Led Zeppelin IV

5. Preludes

adam

Ever proof that my poor damaged brain is slowly receding into childhood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epRWUbgw9V4

I can't get this song out of my head.

adam

I'm on the highway to burnout city, with an open mind and a song in my heart.

In other news, there is true joy in Wynton Marsalis and the Modern Jazz Quartet's rendition of 'Cherokee'. 

adam

Most incongruous bassist

This award needs to go to Krist Novoselic of Nirvana. See this link: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbHO0OFNC8w

Kurt Cobain looks like he's faced down the collected horrors of the 20th century and been found wanting. He looks wasted. Krist looks like he's just got back from the frat party and knows the reason Kurt is so bummed is cos he just stole his entire stash of pot and smoked it all at once. He looks like he wishes he was in the Beatles. Check out the stupid grin on his face at 1.54. Pat Smear also looks like he wishes he was Slash, but that's different - he's just a guest guitarist and gets to make an idiot of himself.

adam

The Boxer

One of the songs I really love is Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Boxer' not just because it's unusually intelligently and sensitively written but because it gets slowly, imperceptibly but insistently louder as it plays, growing from a quiet folksy ditty to a towering, reverb-drenched wall of multi-tracked orchestra. 

This usually allows me to use it to drown out people I don't want to talk to - 'Hey, do you listen to Simon & Garfunkel? This song's pretty cool, lemme put it on for me to hear...' 

'Yeah, I'm doing good, I'm in army now.... nope... don't believe I've heard of that movie... what's that? sorry I can't hear you LAI LA LAI. LAI LA LAI LAI LAI LAI LAI

adam

I guess I should update this every now and then. 

So.

Army is shit, that's about all I really have to say. 

adam

Devastated

Led Zeppelin IV. How I lived on for so long unaware of this, I don't know. 

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/

Hey - The Pixies

hey 
been trying to meet you
mmmmmm hmmmmm
hey
must be a devil between us
or whores in my head
whores at my door
whore in my bed
but hey
where 
have you
been 
if you go i will surely die
we're chained
we're chained
we're chained
we're chained
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)

uh said the man to the lady
mmmmmm hmmmm
uh said the lady to the man she adored
and the whores like a choir
go uh all night
and mary ain't you tired of this
uh
is 
the 
sound 
that THE MOTHER MAKES WHEN HER BABY breaks
we're chained
we're chained
we're chained
we're chained
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)
we're chained (chained)

When the new year depression starts to set in, when piles of money and gifts and new things start slowly to dissolve into the generic-brown shade of slushy Oh Bugger, sometimes I feel that the world has cheated me with its pretensions of significance. 

To cleanse my soul, I turn up Ornette Coleman and the late works of John Coltrane.

adam

The Pixies - Doolittle

Got this for an exorbitant price at Borders. Can't find it anywhere else (mean looks directed at Gramophone - you have been outdone by a bookstore, what the fuck.) 

This is the album Surfer Rosa should've been, I think. The aforementioned is a bit too infatuated with its own weirdness. Doolittle is slightly less weird (in pixies terms, this still means ridiculously loopy) but has more meat and gravy in terms of actual songs. And they've lost none of the manic energy. 

Notable mentions - Here Comes Your Man, a pop song with a melody worthy of the great punk bands of the 70s. 

Enough has been said about Debaser and Wave of Mutilation, so maybe i'll skip those here.

Dead is quite a corker, and quite the contrast with the punky, melodic side of Black Francis's writing. This is clearly where Cobain got his inspiration from. 

These guys are still one of my all time favourite bands. The weird schtick puts just the right light on what I love to call simple, solid songwriting, which must be the underpinning of any popular music. They have sonic chops too - 'articulate but not clean' arrangements which bring out the roar in their strange but compelling brand of rock n roll.

adam

Here's a thought

Here's a thought: what if, even if we DO believe in individuals and the integrity of the Person as the fundamental unit of being, our cultural advances only come when society is 'ready' for it? Ready not as in being willing to accept a new idea (God knows that never happens) but ready as in possessing the pre-requisite ideas (think of Alpha Centauri here if it helps) that somehow must logically build up to a new development? 

For example, many of the major scientific discoveries of our century, and indeed the last few, were made simultaneously, or within the span of a few years, and completely independently. Calculus springs to mind, certainly, as does relativity. Perhaps Newton and Leibniz only made the last logical leap from the precipice of the mountain of collected human mathematical wisdom. In fact, this is probably almost certainly true, but it does have some implications about culture. I believe it was Newton who said that he had only stood on the shoulders of giants (or was it Einstein? I forget). 

The implication : How can I create in a society so dead as ours? Scientific ideas are transferrable by hard and fast rules: papers and calculations. Cultural ideas are not. Certainly Rilo Kiley's excellent album Under The Blacklight would not have been possible 30 years ago. Neither would The Remains of the Day. Virginia Woolf's majestic oeuvre would have been without a foot to stand on without the works of Austen and the Bronte sisters. Cultural ideas need their prerequisites as much as science and math do, but science and math are universal languages and culture is not. Hence: am I limited to the primevial state of my country's culture? 

adam

What a stupid thing to say. Happy New Year. Say it twenty times in your head and see if you sound silly - I guarantee you will. Happy New Year. Are we hoping for the new year to be happy, or just stating the fact that as of 12.19 am it is still largely happy? Of all the semantically confused idioms we thoughtlessly pepper our speech with, this must be the most incoherent, the most semantically confused of them all. Maybe the incoherence is the only real way to describe the only real way a human being can approach the new year - worn, tired, terrified but perhaps just a little unable to shake off a terrible hope that things will maybe be better. 

adam