Square,
Precious and Beautiful
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I always write
record reviews without the benefit of the heaps of press materials that
come with the discs -- you know, those raves and analyses by Spin, Rolling Stone and
The New York Times, etc. that accompany the records by the time I
get them (often up to three months later, as if the record had been
test-marketed before release). I just don't want to be led astray. I don't
want to know what somebody feels that I need to know about what I'm about
to hear, or who feels qualified to guide me to the important stuff I need
to know about.
In fact,
I've long felt there's what I would call a mismatch of tone in much of the
gasp-inducing aggrandizement of the above-mentioned writing considering the
subject matter itself, which is music, which is not literature and which at
core is a physiologically based art form comprising an orchestration of
sensation-inducement only relative
to emotion, with a small bit of something only akin to intellect thrown in;
that is even true of the most serious, most highly conceptualized music of
our time. Music needs, in other words, a musical way of interpreting its
secrets. The writing itself requires rhythm, tone and dynamics, and a
symmetry of its own devising whose terms nevertheless should be made clear
enough for the reader within the first couple of paragraphs. That is the
supreme challenge for the modern music critic.
In any
case, nope, when it comes to understanding what I'm hearing, first I listen
to the records, then sometimes I read the press material afterward, just to
see how misguided the hype artists and hacks are, or possibly how right-on
they were. Sometimes the art on the cover of the disc will make me want to
listen to the music, I admit.
There is
so much music out now of such variety, fantastic juxtaposition and
following-its-own-path righteousness (you'll have to trust me on this, I
have the aid of a super-primo mailing list) that I can pretty much
guarantee you that you're better off following your own instincts when
deciding what to shell out your hard-earned bucks for, or to steal off the
Internet, because if you don't, all the words, words, words on these
mountains of new music are gonna send you reeling, and you'll find yourself
lost in the universe. Not just that, but the best thing to do is follow
your strongest instincts, which will
be your most cringingly embarrassing ones -- because it's your guilty
pleasures that are going to tell you the most about yourself, and that is
most likely what music is best used for, getting to know yourself a little
better.
I say
this because I sincerely want you to avoid the heartache and deep, deep
shame of privately feeling that you can't "keep up," aren't sufficiently
"with-it" or "down," or that your friends will abandon you when they find
out that you like the Moody Blues more than the White Stripes , or that if
you had to choose it'd be Bob Seger over Morrissey or even, well, Britney
Spears over Franz Ferdinand or... Your true friends shall reveal themselves
like wheat from chaff; they'll admire your integrity, your dogged
individualism, because you love Toto
and can stride boldly and confidently down the street proclaiming it in a
very loud voice. They won't want to be seen associating with you, but in
their hearts they'll hold you in high regard.
It's an
interesting phenomenon: The best way any fan can get deeply inside the
music is most likely with no inkling of the music's historical,
sociological or even musical context; often, the musicians themselves
aren't entirely sure what they meant to convey anyway -- it is a verifiable
fact that much or most of the great music of our time came about via some
strange confluence of inspiration and ineptitude. (I mean, musicians
usually say as much in the interviews you read.) The resulting ignorance
means that you've then got a musician's instincts rubbing up against yours
-- thus the listening part is a potentially resonant, collaborative act with
the artist.
And
isn't it interesting when you find yourself completely getting off on some
dumb song -- stomping your feet, doing the Muppet dance, shedding a tiny
tear -- then come to find out that that song was performed by someone you've
been informed you simply must despise? No, I say, shout it from the
rooftops, "I have no idea what's
going on!" You might consider taking your cool cues from the musicians
themselves, many of whom these days are confessing to and even bragging
about an increasingly uncool batch of "influences."
The
phenomenon of corruption, or mutability -- call it evolution -- infects the
best contemporary music, has since the dawn of time been the art's prime
instigator. The best music comes about when its makers have tried to
emulate their heroes and failed miserably, either through sheer
incompetence or, in most cases, just the sheerly human quality of
difference (of culture, more often than not). This is how new ways of
playing rhythms or new ways of perceiving harmony come about. And that of
course is the story of rock & roll, largely the sound of musicians
mishandling the blues and jazz roots of the material, or loving the blues
but not identifying too well with its slowness and gentility, or its misery
-- or feeling the freedom of jazz without a clue about how it works.
Sounds
strange, perhaps, but related to this, what bugged me a bit about punk rock
was its general tendency to imitate stupidity, so that everything ended one
very long, stale joke, not to mention its quick collapse into style.
Whereas I find that the music that has really stayed with me has been done
in earnest, for the most part -- with a genuine desire to use influences
correctly, invariably with an innocence that would throw a spanner in the
works. As if by magic, a new kind of sound seemed to reveal itself. Know
what I mean? Maybe not. But promise me you'll think about it.
When I was a
kid, my first career ambition was to be a conductor. That's because my
mother and big brother Greg played the works of Beethoven, Bach, Grieg,
Tchaikovsky, etc. very loud through our brand-new, 50-watts-per-channel
stereo system (thought to be quite massive at the time, and it was sufficiently massive). There was one piece in
particular by Grieg, called Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, that
thrilled me to the point of drenching my jodhpurs. That piece ebbs and
flows then rises and swells and explodes in a sort of orgy of blissful
sentimentality, and I'd find myself waving my arms and strutting about,
leading, cajoling and controlling these enormous surges of emotion. This
was a sensation of incredible power, and it was very similar to the one I'd
feel down the road later on when I'd play "Voodoo Chile" by
Jimi Hendrix
(the ultimate rock star playing the ultimate rock guitar solos) and mimic
his heroics in front of the mirror in my bedroom (which, of course, I
outgrew long ago, didn't I?). In retrospect, I must have been drawing on
the same impulse.
But it was when Mikey Casey, the white cholo across
the street, blasted his Chuck Berry and Righteous Bros. records even louder
that things got really interesting, because I could actually hear these two
musical extremes at the same time, and together they blended to form the
musical space I'm still seeking out today. Know what I mean?
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