Beefheart Live on Television, 1980

A hard-to-find video of Captain Beefheart on a certain famous weekend comedy show that featured musical guests (no names, please, don't want to make it easy for the bots who seek and destroy this video every time it surfaces).  If they would just release it already, I wouldn't post it.

Or if it's out, someone let me know please.

Crappy video quality, riveting performance.

John Cage is 100

Today would have been John Cage's 100th birthday.  He is, to my mind, one of the two most important American composers of "serious" music (what we call "classical" music to differentiate it from pop music).  Only Charles Ives is his peer.

Unlike Ives, essentially a romantic who took orchestral music and completely blew it up, Cage threw the rules out the window.  Or rather, he wrote his own rules to subvert (the results of) the rules already on the books.  Cage and Ives are polar opposites; one listen to the Sonatas and Interludes followed by Ives's Fourth Symphony tells you all you need to know.

Cage studied in Los Angeles under Arnold Schoenberg, whom he adored.  Schoenberg and Cage, however, did not exactly see music the same way:

After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, "In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony." I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, "In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall."

And beat his head against the wall he did.

Zen Buddhism is at the core of Cage's life as well as his music, and Buddhism's defining tension - the reality that it takes great discipline and practice to achieve the nothingness at the center of Buddhism - was also the defining tension of his music.  Years back I wrote a piece about the destruction of the common in music, contrasting the explosiveness of John Coltrane's free jazz with the discipline of Cage's compositional games:

 In the quest for music which eaches beyond the mundane, the tension [between "free" playing and composition] gets accelerated into an existential problem: Coltrane sought to reach other worlds by obliterating the ego, and he chose to obliterate the ego by exploding it (in a sense, maximizing it until it became something beyond ego). Cage sought to reach other worlds by obliterating the ego, and the method he chose was simply to erase the ego. Both would say their methods involved maximum amounts of freedom: for Coltrane, there were no rules. For Cage, there were no decisions.

This was written in the context of 80s and 90s "noise" music, when the stated aim of "noise" artists was to break down the current musics so something new could be built in its place.  The common way to do that was to move as far away from anything resembling music as possible, which quite often meant taking musical instruments (primarily guitars, due to the flexibility of electric guitar setups) and actively making them sound non- or anti-musical.  Breaking down music also meant ignoring pop song structures, and quite often those breakdowns were improvised.  Following the lead of noise artists from Borbetomagus and Derek Bailey to Z'ev and No Wavers like Mars and DNA, those retreating from music leaned more and more on improvisations, leading to a free improv movement that closely parallels, but is not necessarily the same as, free jazz.

But here, again, the specter of John Cage stood as a cautionary tale to improvisers:

the “free” player is one who doesn’t allow her/himself to be limited by commonly accepted laws of harmony, rhythm, melody, etc. But, post-Ornette, post-Coltrane, post-Cage, it seems to mean both more and less than that … more, because the logic of the allowable has exploded beyond the furthest reaches of even Ayler. Less, because the element of the random seeks, a la Cage, to remove the humanity of music altogether (perhaps therein lies the ultimate freedom: the freedom from ordering sound, the freedom from making music). In fact, as Cage has insisted, the common conception of freedom leads to music of habit, or music of the known … music which, more often than not, turns into a banal Grateful Dead orgy. 

Cage demonstrated that composition is essential in breaking down the plaque of centuries of rules, norms, and ideas about what good music is supposed to be.  Along the way, he made music from the abrasive Cartridge Music to the completely over the top HPSCHD (early computer music, back when computers were run with punch cards), to the sensitivity and beauty of the Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano.  Not to mention, of course, 4' 33", the "silent piece" . . . one of the most infamous works of music ever written.  And yes, I do mean written: I have the score for 4' 33" sitting on the music stand of my broken down piano upstairs.

On top of all that, he was a pretty good poet, as well as one of the world's foremost authorities on wild mushrooms.  Mushroom hunters worldwide knew exactly who John Cage was, though most of them didn't find out he was a composer until they read his obituary.

In the end, I don't think he really did end up beating his head against Shoenberg's wall.  I think he turned that wall into nothing.

     John Cage 

     back in Kentucky, 3 am

     Cheap Imitation

     John Cage is the desert

     a sip of bourbon

     dim light by an open window

     cars up on 64 outside

     the notes flower

     as the desert, after a shower

Sailing Away on a Sinking Boat

Humongous - Miniature Pinschers
Adept Recordings/Black Velvet Fuckere/Chinstrap Productions/Consanguineous Records

Jess Myers - Voice, Cornet
Jamie Pickerill - Drums, Voice
Matt Pickerill - Guitar, Voice
Erin Reed - Keyboard, Voice

Recorded and Mixed by Dan Willems

listen to "Hook Up the Keyboard":



Ever driven the back roads at ridiculous speeds in a rickety-ass old heap?  You go grinding across gravel roads, like the ones that wind through backwoods everywhere, wheels on the ground but never quite locked up, rocks flying everywhere, always a degree or two off straight ahead, trailing a dust cloud as big as a storm front . . . there's that wingless & wide open feel you get driving on dirt, where precision is belied by response lag, where power and velocity are compressed into the great mean, and the edge is only visible in your rear view mirror . . .

Leave that Ferrari in the garage, Ruben.  Better light 'em up & kick down that Crown Vic, Clem, 'cause once I get off pavement that 4.6 Liter 8 in your Police Interceptor don't mean shit.  All y'all are gonna see out of me is a cloud of dust, & you'll know I'm gone when I stop bouncing gravel off your windshield . . . see, because on dirt & gravel, aerodynamics are worthless, traction is gone, horsepower is worthless: all you need is a stick shift and the nerve to push that rustbucket all the way to the edge and beyond.  A redneck in a rusted-out S-10 can outrun a city slicker in a Dodge Viper; the gal or guy with the most nerve wins.

Good rock -n- roll bands understand this.  Ever since Keith Richards plugged in his first Harmony, the good ones understood that playing rock -n- roll wasn't about precision.  Rock -n- roll is like driving on dirt: whatever boat you're piloting, the point is to get it going as fast and crazy as possible without losing it into the ravine.

*          *          *          *          *

Not that Humongous has exactly peeled off the fenders and uncapped the headers.  Their rockism isn't a stance, it's a compulsion, unlike the new macho rock ethos of the tattoo boys & girls.  Humongous has nothing to do with the narcissistic pose:  they only have one self-identifying raver, "Hook Up the Keyboard"; but it's all about nerd swagger, and it doesn't even show up until almost the end of the record, after which it is immediately smoothed out/undercut by the epic "Intervention".  No, they flail away like a bootlegger's Mercury because, as far as they know, that's the way it's done.

Humongous started as a bluegrass band (if you've ever listened to much real bluegrass, you know that the whole dirt driving thing has as much to do with bluegrass as rock), and there's a part of that which still sticks, in spite of the adrenalin-fueled twitch-rock they play now ("twitchcore", if you will).  The nervous energy, the speed ("always play just a little bit faster than you can actually play"), the keening vocals, the off-kilter feel of much of the music, all owe a debt to bluegrass . . . as does a lyrical viewpoint that tells the stories of the locale (though now, of course, the "locale" has been electronically expanded).

Miniature Pinschers starts out with some twitchcore jazz: a nice little cluster of barre chord, & then the guitar sprints off in a jerky scat, followed by the wheezing coronet.  The saga of  "Panty Boy" starts ragged and funky, hits a bridge, and then plunges into darkness and death (that, again, is a touchpoint with bluegrass), with oozing synth and repetitive guitar figure as Jess haltingly tells us precisely how Panty Boy fucked up . . . and so, the blueprint of the album: immediate songs with stereoptic images set to rock that is fast, crazy, and loose, with a ton of insane changes that are like prog rock without the math.  The musical vocabulary ranges far and wide; from almost obsessive lapses into funk, to the C & W of "If P had W" (one of the more charmingly direct statements of female lust you're ever likely to hear), from the straight rave-up of the aforementioned "Hook Up the Keyboard", to the almost Brechtian "Intervention".  There are songs about murder, incest, Czech girl illegals and healthcare, drinking, sex, the cops . . . all the biggies.  And through it all, Humongous sprints along at breathless pace, barely slowing down enough to land the punches.

For music that has the coherence and velocity of a sawed-off shotgun blast, it comes as a bit of a surprise just how unified the dramatic arc of the album is.  It doesn't sound exactly operatic, but you almost get the feel of Miniature Pinschers as a song cycle, where ideas pop up only to quickly disappear, then resurface again mutated & re-contextualized.  Images come in jabs and starts, stark photos with ragged tendons connecting them together . . . the mutant surf spank of guitar chords built from the ground up (how does he keep that low E in tune?) anchors the proceedings . . . the tootling of the coronet bounces between the guitar line and the vocal line . . . the keyboard's bass runs & sparkling chime makes the New Wave argument . . . the chugging splatter of the drums bring the funk  . . . the roiling vocal dialogues between Jess and Matt dislocate the center . . . Humongous manages to take simplicity, throw it on the floor, and smash it to bits; then they rearrange the fragments for maximum nervous overload.  More, they manage to make the schiziod chunks a broken mirror for our schizophrenic culture.

While never repetitive, the songs are all of a piece, with the exception of "Intervention", which is nothing if not operatic.  It's here that the schizo voice of the band shows to the full effect, with Matt and the rest of the band turning on Jess, demanding an intervention ("We've decided we know what's best for you" repetitively delivered in an impossibly hooky sing-song line), while Jess resists, eventually drifting off into nothing ("I'm sailing away, on a sinking boat, I'm getting away, to Miami FLA").  It's as if the twitchy immediacy of the album finally straightens out on "Hook Up the Keyboard", goes all big brother with the voice of "Intervention",  only to dissolve into a hazy abyss of Mai Tais with little umbrellas by the end.  It's Humongous's best song, even if it's the most atypical.  But here, as everywhere else, sparkling pop hooks and chugging punk/funk alike are chopped and twisted, to the same dislocating effect.  And yes, it does drift off in a way that no other Humongous song does, but only because there is nothing left to do.

*          *          *          *          *

Humongous does have a sonic connection to the infamous Louisville sound, but by way of the lesser-discussed Ethan Buckler/King Kong branch of the scene . . . indeed, Humongous sounds like you imagine King Kong would if you locked King Kong into a dark room, kept them alive with coffee, Captain Crunch, and benzedrine inhalers, then cut them loose on stage with a bank of strobe lights all going at different speeds . . . and as outsiders, they tend to circulate in crowds that run from experimental (Sapat, The Belgian Waffles!, Sick City Four) to outsider punk songwriters (Brian Barbee/Janitors of the Apocalypse, Furlong).  Ten years from now, Miniature Pinschers will be considered one of the local classics, and the scenesters will be writing a new history to incorporate Humongous.  Why not beat the rush?

Humongous's Miniature Pinschers will be released October 13th at an album release party somewhere or other (update when I get it) at Astro Black/Quills Coffeehouse.  Pick it up at Astro Black Records (in Louisville) and other discerning media dealers.

Guns Redux

At this point, I am neither a proponent nor opponent of gun control.  I generally think the federal government should stay away from gun control, but I don't have any problems with municipalities, counties, or even states limiting access to firearms.  Colorado, for example, should probably think about gun control.


Every time we are faced with mass murder, the whole discussion becomes soured.  Extreme events lead to extreme reactions, the visceral replaces the reasonable.  There are equivocations on both sides.

• How are gun deaths qualitatively different than, say, stabbings?  Or, to point to a more recent trend, bombings?  A long time acquaintance of mine was recently beaten to death in a fight in Los Angeles: is his death somehow cataloged differently because he was beaten?  Why do we fixate on gun deaths as opposed to violent deaths in general?
• Obviously guns make killing easier, but (especially in light of the above) is that really the metric we care about?  The numbers* show that the US sports over 88 guns per 100 people (not that 88% of Americans own guns, just to be clear).  Only Serbia gets within 30 of that number.  A quick look at homicide rates from 2000 puts the US at 4.55 per 100,000, 65% of which are committed with guns.  Countries that have a higher death rate but do not allow legal gun ownership: Zimbabwe (7.24 per 100,000, 66% by gun), Latvia (10.03, 13%), Estonia (10.45, 15%), Belarus (10.13, 33%), Barbados (7.49, 40%), Costa Rica (6.57, 51%).  Countries that allow gun ownership, with higher death rates, and lower gun death percentages: Lithuania (10.01, 22%), Ukraine (8.93, 4%), Moldovia (8.13, 6%), Poland (5.61, 8%), Uruguay (4.61, 55%).  Countries that make the US look like Mayberry: Columbia (62.74, 83%), Guatemala (25.47, 73%), Mexico (14.11, 25% . . . wait, 25%?!  Apparently, they hadn't fully made the changeover from machetes to AKs by 2000**), Paraguay (12.05, 61%).  What does all this tell us, other than the fact that those Baltics/Eastern Europeans WILL KILL YOU WITH THEIR BARE FUCKING HANDS?  It's not clear what all this means . . . and that, friends, is the point.  There are no easy answers.  I dare say that one of the ideas that starts to surface from all these numbers is the old saw that "guns don't kill people; people kill people".  Those wacky Former Soviet Republics sure don't need guns to kill people; do we believe the US would be radically different?
• If guns disappeared tomorrow, we would see less bloodshed in the streets (turf wars wouldn't have the same body counts), but would other types of homicides be dramatically changed?  Would the jealous, enraged lover be hindered by the switch from gun to knife?  This especially holds true for mass murder, the very event that always triggers our national hand-wringing over gun laws: guns are ridiculously easy to get in the US right now, but if they were gone, do we think for a minute that James Holmes wouldn't have just walked in to that theater and tossed around some pipe bombs?  He did, after all, rig his apartment with explosives.  Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris used several pipe bombs, though most of them didn't go off (Holmes likely would not have made that mistake).  In the Arab and Persian states, bombs are now the weapon of choice, and there's really very little a government can legislate to keep people from building bombs.

On the other hand . . . 

• That meme with the rock being the first weapon used by one human to kill another, so maybe we should have rock control?  Yeah, shut the fuck up.  Maybe 15% of the population could kill me with a rock, and that number goes down to 5% if I get my hands on a baseball bat or tire iron first (and to that five percent: PACK A FUCKING LUNCH).  On the other hand, any idiot with a gun can kill me.
• Can we please (please please please please) finally be done with the redneck fantasy that an AK in the hands of a patriot keeps the government from taking over?  One word: DRONES.  They always have a bigger gun.  And, while we're on the topic, who do you think the government fears more: A) a 17-year-old computer geek with a MacBook Pro and bad intentions, or B) a thousand knuckleheads with automatics?  If you guessed "B", you are living in a fantasy world.  You know those drones I mentioned earlier?  They get plenty of al-Qaeda, and they can get you.  And you can't shoot them down.  But you know who can bring down drones?  Computer geeks, like the students from the University of Texas who spoofed the GPS signals for a drone and put it on a crash course before rescuing it themselves.  And what did they have?  Guns, no.  Computers, yes.  Now, are there any questions?  Maybe if you used your computers for more than porn and Neo-Nazi websites . . .
• I don't even really buy the self-defense angle.  Guns are good against knives, ball bats, clubs, etc., but against other guns?  The thug is 1) gonna have the drop on you, and 2) has probably drawn on someone before, which means there isn't going to be any hesitation on that trigger.  Whereas you, unless you are military trained and battle tested, probably are going to have a split second of indecision before killing a man.  The thug, not so much - that is, after all, what makes them thugs.  And yeah, I know you say you're a badass and wouldn't hesitate, but I don't believe you.

The narrative always goes bad whenever we have an extreme event like the latest Colorado shootings.  Everyone misses the point . . . on purpose, it seems.

____________________

*  As always, I grabbed the first numbers at my disposal.  They are certainly not fresh numbers, and perhaps not even completely accurate.  And, as always, I welcome corrections from the statistical department.  I can't see that revised numbers would dramatically change my point.
**  Sure enough, 2010 numbers show Mexico up to 59% homicides by gun.

Aesthetics, Politics, and Hoop (2012 Finals Edition)

As I write this, the Heat are running the Thunder out of the gym late in the third quarter of game 5.  Doesn't look like the infamous & bizarre season of 2012 will be lasting much longer.  So, before I move on to the 2012 NBA postmortem, there is this:

The Heat got who they wanted for this series.  Going into the finals, it lined up like:  the Heat wanted the Thunder, because their big three was just a little bit badder than the Thunder's big three, and the Heat have been there before (experience at each level really does mean something in the NBA, whereas "playoff experience" in other sports is totally overrated).  The Heat didn't want the Spurs, because you know Popovich would have solved the Heat somehow (yeah, I know, he didn't solve the Thunder, but the match ups between the Heat and the Spurs would be much better for the Spurs . . . you'll have to take my word on that, else this post runs totally out of control).  Along the same lines, the Celtics would have preferred the Spurs over the Thunder, because those old tired bones couldn't keep up with the Heat, and the Thunder would have made it even worse.  After the semis, I plotted it pretty much like this: Celtics v. Spurs = Celtics (actually, that would be a pick 'em); Heat v. Spurs = Spurs; Celtics v. Thunder = Thunder; Heat v. Thunder = Heat (actually, I would have had that as a pick 'em as well, but obviously, I was wrong).  Point being: matchups really matter in the NBA.

But anyway, pretty much everyone I know wanted the Thunder to win this thing.  There's still a lot of ill will focused on the Heat for "The Decision", and rightfully so: it was a totally bullshit manufactured media event, and most of the participants deserve much of the ill will they have reaped . . . except, WHY HAS NOBODY EXCORIATED ESPN FOR THEIR ROLE IN AGITATING THAT WHOLE FIASCO?  EVERYONE WAS HATING THE HEAT FOR THIS MANUFACTURED MEDIA EVENT, BUT WHY IS NOBODY HATING ON THE MEDIA?  But anyway, here we are, LeBron and the Heat are a bunch of spoiled, privileged children, expecting a title ("not five, not six, not seven") practically as a right, and it just feels appropriate to hate on them.  And yeah, I feel that . . . I don't like the Heat.  No one really likes the elite kids when they get their way.  The Thunder, on the other hand, are a bunch of "good kids" who "do things the right way" and wear cute nerdy clothes and remain relatively (relatively!) humble in interviews . . . they are the good guys.


Is it really that simple?  Here comes the cognitive dissonance . . . 


In this era of the 1% v. the 99%, the Heat are (believe it or not) closer to the 99%.  It was the PLAYERS (a.k.a. the WORKERS) who dictated that team, not the owners (a.k.a. the FAT CATS).  Everyone bitches about LeBron and D (the typo) Wade and Bosh colluding to assemble this team; but when the workers get together and collude, it's called UNIONIZING.  Of course, the stakes are much different on the assembly lines and in the machine shops; but, at the core, it really is the same thing.  From the start, there was a part of me that said "I should be celebrating this . . . the workers are taking over."


On the other hand, everyone who follows the NBA is aware of the drama of Seattle.  For the uninitiated, there was once a team called the Seattle Supersonics, and, after holding the city of Seattle hostage (in the way many sports franchises do), the various big boys who owned the team moved it out of Seattle to Oklahoma City.  So, the Oklahoma City Thunder are the team of the callous 1% who don't give a shit what the riff raff (in this case, you, city of Seattle sports fan) think.


The workers v. the bosses.  A no brainer, in my house.  Or, maybe not: the wife screams profanities every time Bron is on the tube.  Score on for public relations: Bosses 1, Workers 0.


Then there's the idea that the Thunder "share" the ball more than the Heat; but seriously, I don't know where that came from . . . if Russell Westbrook wore saggy jeans, he would be vilified from coast to coast.  But, since he wears print shirts and nerd glasses . . .

. . . while I'm here, I should note that LeBron and D Wade did the nerd look before Durant and Westbrook, but it only became cute when the Thunder did it . . . but, I gotta say I don't have a problem with that, because the "gifted" kids only piss me off when they do nerd wear (terratorializing mother______s!), so we'll move on . . .

. . . anyway, there's this idea that the Thunder share the ball more than the Heat, are more into team ball, but that's not quite true.  The Thunder do share the ball more than the Heat, but that's only because they have more people to share with, since the Heat's payroll only has room for the BIG THREE, Juwan Howard, and the janitor from last year.  Seriously though, the Thunder don't share the ball any more than the Heat do: people just like who touches the ball for OKC better than they do the players who touch the ball for the Heat.  Mario Chalmers v. Thabo Sefolosha?  That's easy!

Back to the point (and yes, there was one), if you are a (left-leaning) political animal, then the Heat should appeal to you more than the Thunder, since it's essentially a series of the collective of the workers v. the nastiest owners in recent memory (and yes, I know that Miami's owners are nasty too; but really, what is the identity of the club?).  So, screw the haters, it should be POPULIST LOVE for the Heat over the Thunder, right?

Not so fast.  There is also an aesthetic level to the game, and it's here that my love for the Thunder really takes shape: Kevin Durant is simply on of the most beautiful players in the game.  He moves with fluid quickness and grace, and every shot displays not only his athleticism but also his creativity: this skinny guy isn't going to force his will on anyone . . . no, he has to CREATE for his shot.  Westbrook too is breathtaking in his quickness and unpredictability, if not as creative as his teammate.  LeBron James, on the other hand, has a tendency to hurl himself at the basket like a missile, all arms and torso and brute strength.  D Wade is missile-like as well.  For Wade and James, there is a certain brutal inevitability when they score; for Westbrook and (especially) Durant, scoring is a thing of beauty.  As impressive as raw displays of power tend to be, the beauty of the Thunder's scorers (including James Harden) can be breathtaking.


The Western Conference, on average, is a much more beautiful conference than the East.  Steve Nash is one of the most beautiful players of all time.  Ricky Rubio will be the one that steals the title from Nash, and he's feeding a pretty sweet player as well (Kevin Love).  For all the brutality of Z-bo and the younger Gasol underneath, there's a lot that's pretty about Memphis.  NO's Eric Gordon can be breathtaking in a kamakazie way.  Chris Paul can find a crack in any defense. Tony Parker as just another missile, but the Spurs's aesthetics revolve around the classicism of Tim Duncan and the avant garde of Manu Ginobili. And, of course, we have the ultimate puzzle master, Kobe Bryant.

And the East?  Well, Rajon Rondo is perhaps the most creative genius in basketball right now, but beyond that . . . the Bulls?  Ugly.  The Pacers?  Ugly.  The Sixers?  Super ugly.  Atlanta?  Who the hell knows, day to day?  The Bucks?  Scott Skiles coaches them, 'nuff said.  The Heat?  Only ever-so-slightly-less-ugly.


And here we are at the crux of the issue: the beautiful v. the just.  Who wins?  Pretty good contest, if you ask me.  At the end of the day, my choices are going to be a combination of that, along with other things: I have to be committed to a team, aesthetically or intellectually.  For the NBA and its fans, a little dissonance is a good thing.

Fat Friday

Guesting again at History Lesson Pt. 2, this time with a little thing on Genesis P. Orridge & Throbbing Gristle.

Untitled

one single thing

like a fist held aloft

like a shriek to a thick empty sky

            gray over a cold green field

like hunger

like a hand grasping air

one single thing

I can hold a single thought in my head

            amongst all the noise

one single thought of everything

before it even slouches onto the event horizon

nascent humanity, long under

fear’s dark hand,

roiling forth

into one single thing –

the thing that can’t be spoken

  or even considered

lest the walls of the castle crumble

and we are alone