Here's the final score: Krupp 17, Whitman 0
That's the number of relatives on each side of the family who attended Emily's graduation party. I really wasn't trying to keep score. I may have the number wrong on the Krupp side. I have no doubt that I got the Whitman side correct.
We mailed out invitations weeks in advance. We talked to people on the phone. A bunch of Krupp's and a handful of Whitman's said that they would be there. The Krupp's who said they would be there were there. The Whitman's who said they would be there weren't there. To put it in perspective, I have a father, a sister, and an adult niece and nephew who live within a half-hour drive of our house. Each Krupp traveled anywhere from 2.5 to 7 hours to reach our
house. One of them just had major cancer surgery, but he was there.
It reveals nothing I haven't known for a long, long time. But it saddens me. And I realize that this is nothing more than my own private pity party, but humor me for a moment. We give and give and give. We're the ones who host the Christmas family times, such as they are. We're the ones who give the presents. We're the ones who call. And it gets old, and it leaves a hole in the soul. I suppose I was hoping against hope that they could at least acknowledge that this was an important milestone for my daughter, that they could make some feeble attempt to relate to her before she leaves and those opportunities are gone forever. But why start now?
It really was a wonderful party. It made me realize how truly surrounded we are by people who love us and care about us. But for whatever reasons, I have a hard time not focusing on who wasn't there. You live with the hole, but it doesn't go away, and every so often the curtain is pulled back to reveal ... nothing.
I don't always know how to respond. What do I say to my family? Do I say anything? Do I just continue to play the game, invite them over for Christmas, pass out the presents knowing that there won't be any presents handed back to us? Do I explain to them that my wife, one of the kindest, most compassionate people I've ever known, wants to plant a boot solidly up their individual arses? And that I don't blame her, and that I'd be shopping for especially pointy boots if I got the chance?
"Where's your family?," Kate's 88-year-old mom asked me at one point on Sunday. "I never see them." She moves slowly these days, but she wouldn't have missed Emily's graduation party for anything. 'I don't know," I told her. "Maybe they forgot."
Or maybe they never stored it in the ol' memory banks in the first place, which is the more likely explanation. Maybe it didn't register, in the same way that my daughter's life has never registered for them, in the same way that my life doesn't register for them. I'm not even on the radar.
My life is blessed in so many ways. I know it, and I'm thankful for it. But sometimes I miss having parents and siblings. Sunday was one of those days, and so was Monday. Now that I've written about it and prayed about it and processed it a bit more, maybe Tuesday will be better.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Graduation and Upper-Middle-Class Guilt
My daughter Emily is graduating from high school in a couple days, and I’m reading about the future plans of her classmates, as published by The Westerville North Warrior Memories Book, circa the class of 2005. Alicia is planning to double major in biology and chemistry, on her way to becoming a doctor. Neil wants to pursue a career in theater, and will study at NYU prior to his Broadway debut. Sarah will continue her studies in cello at Oberlin College. She’s been playing the cello since she was three, and has been a member of the Columbus Youth Orchestra for the past six years, with whom she has toured China and Europe.
It’s like that for page after page. I know these kids, and many others like them. I’ve watched them grow up, have seen them at countless elementary school and middle school and high school orchestra and band concerts, and now they’re ready to fly their respective upper-middle-class nests and strike out on their own. They are the children of relative wealth and undisputed privilege. They are bright, high-achieving students, and they have the means, thanks to mom and dad, to pursue esoteric, highly impractical careers in acting and symphonic music. God bless them.
Reality will slap some of them down, as it has a way of doing. Some of them will end up selling insurance in much more prosaic lives than they can now imagine. But for right now they are on top of the world, dreaming big dreams, ready to go out and take their rightful places among the elite of our society. And Emily is right there with them.
I live in that world, but I see glimpses of other worlds. Twelve miles from my house, where we go to church, there is some kid named D’Juan or Chantelle who looks at the future and sees a bright career as a crack dealer or an unwed mother. And half a world away, in Thailand, there are kids named Nongrat or Kitipong who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, who own no more than the tattered clothes on their backs.
Emily’s good friend Sunny is the youngest of her family. She is headed off to the University of Dayton. That will leave her parents as empty nesters in one hell of a nest – a 5,000+ square foot house with six bedrooms overlooking Hoover Reservoir. Sunny’s family moved there a couple years ago. Everybody leaves, then it’s time to upsize. And I’ve seen that pattern again and again here in my corner of suburbia. There are always reasons, and they always sound good for all of about three seconds. It’s an investment. You want to make sure there’s plenty of room for the grandkids. My friend John is already preparing boats for his grandkids. He now owns nine of them, collects them in the same way that he collected Matchbox cars when he was a little kid, apparently expecting a big multi-generational sailing brood.
My judgmental side is easily roused. I want to shake them out of their lethargy, tell them to wake up, realize that there is a big world out there that they can help to change in positive ways. But in truth, I can’t hold on to that attitude for long. Sunny’s parents and my friend John are good people – kind, friendly, often generous. They write their checks, often big ones, to their favorite charities. Just like me. And there are days when I wonder just how the hell I got here.
I lived in the ghetto -- or at least what passes for one in Columbus, Ohio – for eight years. I did it with my eyes wide open, quite intentionally, committed to the silly, romantic, idealistic notion that a bunch of highly educated white Christian kids from the suburbs could help transform a neighborhood rife with crime and drugs and dead-end lives. We organized neighborhood tutoring programs for the kids. We sponsored neighborhood cleanups and beautification projects. We held neighborhood cookouts, and gave away free food in the hopes that a bunch of isolated people could experience some sense of interconnectedness. And the crime went on. And the women were raped. And the silly, romantic white kids got married and had kids, and figured out that they didn’t want to raise their families in the middle of a war zone. And so they moved away, often to the suburbs, and I was right there with them. Why did I move? Because I could. And I did.
But to this day I live uneasily with that choice. There are tradeoffs everywhere. I’ve gained a stable, safe, well-manicured environment where my kids have more than a fighting chance to do something worthwhile with their lives. And I’ve also raised my kids in an environment of entitlement, where they assume that 5,000+ square foot houses and nine boats are the norm, where the limo ride to the prom is a given, and where kids like D’Juan and Chantelle are nowhere in sight. Nobody smokes cocaine in the northern reaches of Westerville, Ohio. How gauche. They strictly snort it.
Come what may, Emily is graduating at 10:15 Saturday morning. She’ll receive her diploma, and I’ll be right there in the midst of the camcorders, preserving the magic moment for posterity. At some point this weekend I’ll probably mow the lawn. I won’t mow it in neat, diagonal swaths. I’ll do freeform mowing, my own little act of rebellion. Strike a blow for freedom and creativity, and all that. It’s as dangerous and subversive as I get these days. But I’ll hope and I’ll pray, all evidence to the contrary, that something of D’Juan and Chantelle and Nongrat and Kitipong will resonate deep inside, will remind her, and remind me, that it’s a big ol’ world, full of hurting people. I can never seem to graduate from the School of Me, but I’d at least like to keep showing up for class, and look around at the other people in the room.
It’s like that for page after page. I know these kids, and many others like them. I’ve watched them grow up, have seen them at countless elementary school and middle school and high school orchestra and band concerts, and now they’re ready to fly their respective upper-middle-class nests and strike out on their own. They are the children of relative wealth and undisputed privilege. They are bright, high-achieving students, and they have the means, thanks to mom and dad, to pursue esoteric, highly impractical careers in acting and symphonic music. God bless them.
Reality will slap some of them down, as it has a way of doing. Some of them will end up selling insurance in much more prosaic lives than they can now imagine. But for right now they are on top of the world, dreaming big dreams, ready to go out and take their rightful places among the elite of our society. And Emily is right there with them.
I live in that world, but I see glimpses of other worlds. Twelve miles from my house, where we go to church, there is some kid named D’Juan or Chantelle who looks at the future and sees a bright career as a crack dealer or an unwed mother. And half a world away, in Thailand, there are kids named Nongrat or Kitipong who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, who own no more than the tattered clothes on their backs.
Emily’s good friend Sunny is the youngest of her family. She is headed off to the University of Dayton. That will leave her parents as empty nesters in one hell of a nest – a 5,000+ square foot house with six bedrooms overlooking Hoover Reservoir. Sunny’s family moved there a couple years ago. Everybody leaves, then it’s time to upsize. And I’ve seen that pattern again and again here in my corner of suburbia. There are always reasons, and they always sound good for all of about three seconds. It’s an investment. You want to make sure there’s plenty of room for the grandkids. My friend John is already preparing boats for his grandkids. He now owns nine of them, collects them in the same way that he collected Matchbox cars when he was a little kid, apparently expecting a big multi-generational sailing brood.
My judgmental side is easily roused. I want to shake them out of their lethargy, tell them to wake up, realize that there is a big world out there that they can help to change in positive ways. But in truth, I can’t hold on to that attitude for long. Sunny’s parents and my friend John are good people – kind, friendly, often generous. They write their checks, often big ones, to their favorite charities. Just like me. And there are days when I wonder just how the hell I got here.
I lived in the ghetto -- or at least what passes for one in Columbus, Ohio – for eight years. I did it with my eyes wide open, quite intentionally, committed to the silly, romantic, idealistic notion that a bunch of highly educated white Christian kids from the suburbs could help transform a neighborhood rife with crime and drugs and dead-end lives. We organized neighborhood tutoring programs for the kids. We sponsored neighborhood cleanups and beautification projects. We held neighborhood cookouts, and gave away free food in the hopes that a bunch of isolated people could experience some sense of interconnectedness. And the crime went on. And the women were raped. And the silly, romantic white kids got married and had kids, and figured out that they didn’t want to raise their families in the middle of a war zone. And so they moved away, often to the suburbs, and I was right there with them. Why did I move? Because I could. And I did.
But to this day I live uneasily with that choice. There are tradeoffs everywhere. I’ve gained a stable, safe, well-manicured environment where my kids have more than a fighting chance to do something worthwhile with their lives. And I’ve also raised my kids in an environment of entitlement, where they assume that 5,000+ square foot houses and nine boats are the norm, where the limo ride to the prom is a given, and where kids like D’Juan and Chantelle are nowhere in sight. Nobody smokes cocaine in the northern reaches of Westerville, Ohio. How gauche. They strictly snort it.
Come what may, Emily is graduating at 10:15 Saturday morning. She’ll receive her diploma, and I’ll be right there in the midst of the camcorders, preserving the magic moment for posterity. At some point this weekend I’ll probably mow the lawn. I won’t mow it in neat, diagonal swaths. I’ll do freeform mowing, my own little act of rebellion. Strike a blow for freedom and creativity, and all that. It’s as dangerous and subversive as I get these days. But I’ll hope and I’ll pray, all evidence to the contrary, that something of D’Juan and Chantelle and Nongrat and Kitipong will resonate deep inside, will remind her, and remind me, that it’s a big ol’ world, full of hurting people. I can never seem to graduate from the School of Me, but I’d at least like to keep showing up for class, and look around at the other people in the room.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Don't Play on the Molten Lava
Episode III. Nightmare IV. Really, it's all been downhill since those cute, cuddly Ewoks/Koalas made their appearance in Return of the Jedi.
Revenge of the Sith, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways. One, Anakin was a whiny brat before he transformed into the Asthmatic Machine. I didn't buy the whole Anakin transformation, partly because Hayden Christensen is such a wooden actor. But also because the script simply didn't set it up credibly. For all its Greek Tragedy trappings, ROTS ignores one of the primary elements of tragedy: the tragic hero has to be somewhat likeable. This is why you'll never see Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddly Squat starring as Othello. And although George Lucas throws a few lines at Hayden to make him look ostensibly human and sympathetic, the lines are so laughably bad ("No, baby, I love you") that it's hard not to cheer on his downfall and fervently hope that he'll never utter sweet nothings again. It's a wonder that this guy wasn't cruising the intergalactic bars, asking nubile starwomen their astrological signs.
Two, the little green furball. Annoying he is, as always, particularly in his blithering eastern pop psychology. Baba Ram Yoda. We find that once again the beliefs of the Jedi are as fuzzy as the top of the little furball's head. Emotional attachments are bad, but Obi Wan tries one last time to rescue Anakin because he loves him like a brother. Only a Sith deals in absolutes, but the Jedi believe that the Emperor is pure evil. Huh? Let's take up a collection and send the little guy to Logic 101 class, shall we? Here's the first syllogism: 1) All Jedi are lobotomized, babbling buffoons. 2) Yoda is a Jedi. 3) ?
And although I like to see a green puppet kick butt as much as the next guy, spare me the backflips. This is a puppet who hobbles along with a cane. Then turns into Bruce Lee he suddenly does.
Three, the light sabers ad nauseum. I didn't think it was possible, but I was actually bored by all the light saber sequences. Enough already. And the "climactic" light saber duel between Obi Wan and Darthboy? Please. Most evil dark lords know better than to play on the molten lava. Somebody can get hurt that way.
Four, the writing. Oh my God, the writing. Let’s start with the character names. Mace Windu? It’s a glass cleaner. It’s a rapist repellant. It’s both. General Grievous? Hmm, you think he might be a bad guy? Then there is the aforementioned romantic dialogue, in which George Lucas proves that he’s never encountered a genuinely human emotion in his life. Poor Natalie Portman is forced to utter perhaps the most inane lines ever committed to film. "Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo," I said to Kate after we went to bed last night. She laughed, which was the same reaction we both had when we first heard the line in the movie. Then she held me like ... well, never mind. At least the day ended well. On the upside, the previews for War of the Worlds looked great, so there is a new hope.
Revenge of the Sith, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways. One, Anakin was a whiny brat before he transformed into the Asthmatic Machine. I didn't buy the whole Anakin transformation, partly because Hayden Christensen is such a wooden actor. But also because the script simply didn't set it up credibly. For all its Greek Tragedy trappings, ROTS ignores one of the primary elements of tragedy: the tragic hero has to be somewhat likeable. This is why you'll never see Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddly Squat starring as Othello. And although George Lucas throws a few lines at Hayden to make him look ostensibly human and sympathetic, the lines are so laughably bad ("No, baby, I love you") that it's hard not to cheer on his downfall and fervently hope that he'll never utter sweet nothings again. It's a wonder that this guy wasn't cruising the intergalactic bars, asking nubile starwomen their astrological signs.
Two, the little green furball. Annoying he is, as always, particularly in his blithering eastern pop psychology. Baba Ram Yoda. We find that once again the beliefs of the Jedi are as fuzzy as the top of the little furball's head. Emotional attachments are bad, but Obi Wan tries one last time to rescue Anakin because he loves him like a brother. Only a Sith deals in absolutes, but the Jedi believe that the Emperor is pure evil. Huh? Let's take up a collection and send the little guy to Logic 101 class, shall we? Here's the first syllogism: 1) All Jedi are lobotomized, babbling buffoons. 2) Yoda is a Jedi. 3) ?
And although I like to see a green puppet kick butt as much as the next guy, spare me the backflips. This is a puppet who hobbles along with a cane. Then turns into Bruce Lee he suddenly does.
Three, the light sabers ad nauseum. I didn't think it was possible, but I was actually bored by all the light saber sequences. Enough already. And the "climactic" light saber duel between Obi Wan and Darthboy? Please. Most evil dark lords know better than to play on the molten lava. Somebody can get hurt that way.
Four, the writing. Oh my God, the writing. Let’s start with the character names. Mace Windu? It’s a glass cleaner. It’s a rapist repellant. It’s both. General Grievous? Hmm, you think he might be a bad guy? Then there is the aforementioned romantic dialogue, in which George Lucas proves that he’s never encountered a genuinely human emotion in his life. Poor Natalie Portman is forced to utter perhaps the most inane lines ever committed to film. "Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo," I said to Kate after we went to bed last night. She laughed, which was the same reaction we both had when we first heard the line in the movie. Then she held me like ... well, never mind. At least the day ended well. On the upside, the previews for War of the Worlds looked great, so there is a new hope.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
The Soundtrack to Greed
We are running out of space for music at my house. This is a frightening thing in a 3,000+ square foot house with lots of closet space, but there you go. The den is crammed solid -- two floor-to-ceiling bookcases full of CDs, and two freestanding bookcases that take up the width of the room crammed full of LPs. Which still doesn't leave any room for the tapes and the other half of the LPs, which are stashed in various closets and cabinets throughout the house. And music publicists keep sending me more and more new music, to the tune of one or two new CDs per day.
Kate, being Kate, has suggested a music purge. I, being me, have rejected the idea out of hand, in the same way that I would reject a suggestion to amputate my nose. But something has to be done, and not only because of the space. I really do read my Bible, and I know the solution is not to build bigger and better storage bins. And, in truth, about half of what shows up in my mailbox isn't very good, and it wouldn't kill me to just throw a lot of it away. Or, even better, to sell it and use the money to help people. But it's still painful to contemplate.
It's the age-old struggle to let go of stuff. I am a good American consumer, or at least I was until people started sending me music for free. I don't know what you call that, but the same dynamic and the same heart attitudes are still at work, even if I'm not making the cash registers of the capitalists at Capitol Records go cha-ching. But there's a kind of sickness there that I need to repent of, and from which I desire to be healed. Some days. Other days I zealously guard the music collection, find the holes in the alphabetized stacks, immediately calculate what isn't there, notice when one disk from the four-disk Frank Sinatra Reprise Years boxed set is missing, and play Spanish Inquisitor with my daughters to find out which one of them has done the dastardly deed. Look, that was the disk that had "Fly Me to the Moon" on it. I can't just calmly accept that it's gone, even though I could take solace in the other 5,000 or so albums that are still there (who knows, really? I stopped counting at 3,000, when it dawned on me that it probably wasn't a very good idea to count). And so, in some twisted way, I choose to do damage to relationships because of a missing piece of plastic. As I said, it's a kind of sickness.
Sell all that you have, and give the money to the poor. And he went away sad, for lo, he had one righteous music collection. I read the letters my friend John McCollum receives from orphans in Thailand. They are heartbreaking. I look at the stacks and stacks of albums, many of which I've played once, and have no great desire to ever play again. These kids have no clothes, no food. I, on the other hand, have a CD by a band called I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the Place that is godawful, and that I have no desire to ever listen to again. Once was more than enough. And I have many CDs like that one. It is a measure of my weakness and obstinancy that I still hesitate. Maybe it's time to lose the nose. Or at least a batch of worthless music that might actually, incredibly, help to make a difference in peoples' lives.
Kate, being Kate, has suggested a music purge. I, being me, have rejected the idea out of hand, in the same way that I would reject a suggestion to amputate my nose. But something has to be done, and not only because of the space. I really do read my Bible, and I know the solution is not to build bigger and better storage bins. And, in truth, about half of what shows up in my mailbox isn't very good, and it wouldn't kill me to just throw a lot of it away. Or, even better, to sell it and use the money to help people. But it's still painful to contemplate.
It's the age-old struggle to let go of stuff. I am a good American consumer, or at least I was until people started sending me music for free. I don't know what you call that, but the same dynamic and the same heart attitudes are still at work, even if I'm not making the cash registers of the capitalists at Capitol Records go cha-ching. But there's a kind of sickness there that I need to repent of, and from which I desire to be healed. Some days. Other days I zealously guard the music collection, find the holes in the alphabetized stacks, immediately calculate what isn't there, notice when one disk from the four-disk Frank Sinatra Reprise Years boxed set is missing, and play Spanish Inquisitor with my daughters to find out which one of them has done the dastardly deed. Look, that was the disk that had "Fly Me to the Moon" on it. I can't just calmly accept that it's gone, even though I could take solace in the other 5,000 or so albums that are still there (who knows, really? I stopped counting at 3,000, when it dawned on me that it probably wasn't a very good idea to count). And so, in some twisted way, I choose to do damage to relationships because of a missing piece of plastic. As I said, it's a kind of sickness.
Sell all that you have, and give the money to the poor. And he went away sad, for lo, he had one righteous music collection. I read the letters my friend John McCollum receives from orphans in Thailand. They are heartbreaking. I look at the stacks and stacks of albums, many of which I've played once, and have no great desire to ever play again. These kids have no clothes, no food. I, on the other hand, have a CD by a band called I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the Place that is godawful, and that I have no desire to ever listen to again. Once was more than enough. And I have many CDs like that one. It is a measure of my weakness and obstinancy that I still hesitate. Maybe it's time to lose the nose. Or at least a batch of worthless music that might actually, incredibly, help to make a difference in peoples' lives.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Paste Issue #16
Paste Issue #16 is out. Billy Corgan (ex-Smashing Pumpkins) is on the cover, and there are long feature articles on Beck, The Wallflowers, Oasis, John Prine, Michelle Shocked, and The Pernice Brothers, a bunch of movie reviews, and 100+ album reviews. Plus the 21-track CD of songs from artists featured in the magazine, and a DVD containing more than 3 hours of music videos, concert footage, and short films.
Josh Jackson, the editor, has unofficially dubbed this one the "Andy Whitman Tribute Issue." And indeed I am well represented, with feature articles on Dwight Yoakam, John Prine, and Steve Goodman, my meditation on "Chasing the Blues," and reviews of albums from Amos Lee, Long-View, The Deathray Davies, and Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez. The main illustration for "Chasing the Blues" is simply astounding.
This is now the sixteenth time I've experienced this reaction, but it never gets old. I am so amazed and so thankful that I can be a part of this. Paste is a wonderful magazine, and I would be a big fan if I had absolutely no involvement with the publication. The fact that they actually allow me to write for them is gravy. Very nice, God-given gravy, for which I am very, very grateful.
If you're interested, you can go to http://www.pastemusic.com/mag to subscribe, or find individual copies at Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc.
Josh Jackson, the editor, has unofficially dubbed this one the "Andy Whitman Tribute Issue." And indeed I am well represented, with feature articles on Dwight Yoakam, John Prine, and Steve Goodman, my meditation on "Chasing the Blues," and reviews of albums from Amos Lee, Long-View, The Deathray Davies, and Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez. The main illustration for "Chasing the Blues" is simply astounding.
This is now the sixteenth time I've experienced this reaction, but it never gets old. I am so amazed and so thankful that I can be a part of this. Paste is a wonderful magazine, and I would be a big fan if I had absolutely no involvement with the publication. The fact that they actually allow me to write for them is gravy. Very nice, God-given gravy, for which I am very, very grateful.
If you're interested, you can go to http://www.pastemusic.com/mag to subscribe, or find individual copies at Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Desert Island Albums
This is the oldest musical thread in the world. But I’m curious to know which ten albums you would take with you to that mythical desert island.
Part of the fun, and part of the challenge, of course, is narrowing it down to ten albums. So here are mine, today. The list would probably change tomorrow. I hope it goes without saying that these are my choices, and they may not be, and probably won’t be, yours. So what are yours?
(In no implied order other than alphabetical)
The Byrds – Sweetheart of the Rodeo – This album was my introduction to the real deal – truckstop jukebox, cry-in-yer-beer country music -- and from here it was an easy step to The Flying Burrito Brothers (essentially this version of The Byrds minus Roger McGuinn), then the solo Gram Parsons albums, then Emmylou Harris, who introduced me to the music of the Louvin Brothers and the Stanley Brothers, etc. In short, I was off and running. I hated country music before this album, thought it was the exclusive domain of rednecks and inbred cretins. But something changed in my freshman year of college, off in a town I did not know, when I first heard “It’s a hard way to find out that trouble is real/In a faraway city with a faraway feel.” This music started to connect in deep ways. Here’s the secret: country music – the real thing, not the swill made by Nashville popsters in cowboy hats – is pure soul music. And Sweetheart of the Rodeo has incredible soul, and it was made by a bunch of hippies who made it palatable for my generation.
Bruce Cockburn – Humans – Bruce Cockburn has been a musical hero to me for thirty years, Exhibit A in how to express complex Christian truths poetically and movingly. He’s also an astoundingly gifted guitarist and a ceaseless synthesizer of virtually every musical genre imaginable. Ironically, in later albums he abandons his poetic sensibilities when he addresses political issues, and he is guilty of the worst kind of dogma and polemical ranting. But Humans finds him in perfect musical and lyrical form – that is, if working through the devastating effects of a divorce can ever be said to be perfect. In any event, he is bloody, damaged goods here, and these jazz-tinged folk songs are raw, open wounds full of sorrow, pain, and ultimately, astonishingly, hope.
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue – It’s the obvious choice, but it’s obvious for good reasons. This was, unfortunately, the second Miles Davis album I encountered. The first, Bitches Brew, struck me as a meandering, noodling, aimless mess, and I avoided jazz for years afterwards. But Kind of Blue finally connected the dots for me. It was structured enough to follow, and it was loose and improvisational enough to showcase the astonishing creative powers of the three primary soloists – trumpeter Davis, tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, and pianist Bill Evans. Evans’ composition “Blue in Green,” (and the trumpet solo Miles takes on that song) is as close as I’ve ever gotten to a religious experience listening to music. It is simultaneously exhilarating, relaxing, and supremely, beautifully lyrical.
Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited – It could just as easily have been Blonde on Blonde or Blood on the Tracks. But I’ll go with Highway 61 … because it contains the single greatest song ever recorded (“Like a Rolling Stone”), because it contains the universe’s only thirteen-minute song that leaves you hanging on every word (“Desolation Row”), and because, contrary to popular belief, Bob Dylan is one of popular music’s greatest singers, pouring unbridled passion and sneering contempt into every song.
Al Green – Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 – I’m cheating, I know. But there is no way I can limit my love for Al Green to one album, and this greatest hits collection, culled from his early ‘70s albums on Motown, offers one stunning example after another of the last pure soul singer, tossing off gritty sexual asides and gliding into that impossibly great falsetto. The genius of Al Green is that he is obsessed with love, sexual and divine, and it’s often impossible to tell the difference. He brings a whole new meaning to incarnational theology.
Brad Mehldau – Elegiac Cycle – Most “third stream” music -- music that strives to incorporate both classical and jazz elements – fails miserably. Most solo piano albums are snoozefests. So why is it that this classical/jazz hybrid succeeds so well? Partly because Brad Mehldau is a towering pianist, someone who has mastered both the classical and jazz repertoires and can move effortlessly between them, tossing stabbing Keith-Jarrett like improvisational runs into the Rachmaninoff sturm and drang. But mostly because Mehldau is an incurable romantic, and finds the heart of melancholy and loss again and again in these nine original songs. He spins impossibly knotty lines, twisting and cavorting, slicing and dicing these heartbreaking melodies before he brings it all back to the lovely place from which he started.
Joni Mitchell – Blue – Navel gazing elevated to high art. Joni Mitchell has the uncanny ability to lay bare the most intimate details of her personal life and make them universal. Like Bob Dylan, who once turned a snub from a hotel clerk into the apocalyptic nightmare of “When The Ship Comes In,” Joni Mitchell works her magical alchemy, transforming the slightest of personal incidents into works of poetic insight and grandeur. For my money, outside of anyone named Zimmerman, she’s the greatest popular songwriter of the last half of the twentieth century. On Blue she is running from and toward love – a familiar Joni theme – simultaneously scared of commitment and drawn like a moth to the flame of human connection, of needing to matter to someone. As usual, she is poetically ambivalent, celebrating the joys of new love in “All I Want,” and ruefully lamenting the wreckage of failed relationships in “River” and “The Last Time I Saw Richard.” “I’m gonna blow this damn candle out,” she sings at the end of the album. “I don’t want nobody comin’ over to my table/I got nothin’ to talk to anybody about.” I’ve been happily married for twenty-three years. But I remember that feeling. And Joni conjures it better than anyone else, and reminds me of the high stakes in the human poker game.
Van Morrison – St. Dominic’s Preview – Van Morrison is the greatest singer of the rock ‘n roll era. Period. He can also be a great songwriter, effortlessly turning out great R&B/soul rave-ups like “Jackie Wilson Said” and “I Will Be There,” as he does on this album. But he’s at his best when he plays the spiritual poet/sorcerer, following his Muse into spaces extremely weird, extremely mystical, and extremely great. “Listen to the Lion,” the tour de force of this album, is eleven minutes of humming, moaning, roaring and scatting, Van breaking free of the limitations of language, off into the mystic and in pursuit of the ineffable. It will raise the hairs on the back of your neck.
Vigilantes of Love – Killing Floor – If Flannery O’Connor was a man and manic-depressive, she/he would be Bill Mallonee. Which is kind of scary, if you think about it. But Bill’s songs remind me of Flannery for many reasons, not the least of which is the way that grace breaks through, often unlooked for, in the darkest and most despairing of circumstances. I also greatly appreciate the fact that Bill writes songs from the perspective of a Christian who does not have his life together. He has questions, he has doubts, he sins. Kind of like an actual human being. Of course, it helps that he has great folk-punk energy, nowhere better evidenced than on this album, and that he comes up with some astoundingly wonderful metaphors.
Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel Road – You can smell the Louisiana dirt in Lucinda Williams’ music. No songwriter captures a sense of place as well as Lucinda, and on Car Wheels on a Gravel Road she explores the American Deep South with finely detailed geographical and personal reflections. Like Jack Kerouac’s "On the Road," this album is a travelogue in which much more is revealed than can ever be found on a roadmap. These songs are explorations of charred expanses, bleak vistas, deep holes, but they’re as often found within as they are in the surrounding landscape. Williams has always been a great songwriter; here she hitches her great songs to a tougher, rootsier, more organic sound that matches her raspy vocals perfectly. She howls her poetry into the southern wind. And it comes out of my speakers sounding like universal truth.
I can’t believe I couldn’t find room on this island for Aretha Franklin, Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, Duke Ellington, Dick Dale, The Beatles, John Coltrane, Bruce Springsteen, Thelonious Monk, The Ramones, The Carter Family, Bill Evans, Muddy Waters, Arvo Part, Norman Blake, Richard Thompson, The Louvin Brothers, Tom Waits, The Rolling Stones, Sam Phillips, American Music Club, Victoria Williams, Sonny Rollins, Nick Drake, The Blasters, Talk Talk, The Who, Billie Holiday, Elvis Costello, Derek and the Dominoes, Chuck Berry, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Bill Monroe, The Sex Pistols, The Blue Nile, Sufjan Stevens, Otis Redding, Big Star, Paul Simon, James Brown, Peter Gabriel, solo John Lennon, Sandy Denny, The Innocence Mission, Steve Earle, The Replacements, Mavis Staples, The Band, Frank Sinatra, Mark Heard, Henryk Gorecki, Joe Henry, Charlie Parker, X, Ralph and Carter Stanley, Jackson Browne, Kate Rusby, Howlin’ Wolf, Uncle Tupelo, Tonio K., Red House Painters, Buddy and Julie Miller, The Beach Boys, Los Lobos, The Pixies, Leo Kottke, The Clash, Johnny Cash, Matthew Sweet, Elvis Presley, The Pogues, Merle Haggard, Graham Parker, John Tavener, U2, or Radiohead. You’ll find them crowded together on the next island over.
Part of the fun, and part of the challenge, of course, is narrowing it down to ten albums. So here are mine, today. The list would probably change tomorrow. I hope it goes without saying that these are my choices, and they may not be, and probably won’t be, yours. So what are yours?
(In no implied order other than alphabetical)
The Byrds – Sweetheart of the Rodeo – This album was my introduction to the real deal – truckstop jukebox, cry-in-yer-beer country music -- and from here it was an easy step to The Flying Burrito Brothers (essentially this version of The Byrds minus Roger McGuinn), then the solo Gram Parsons albums, then Emmylou Harris, who introduced me to the music of the Louvin Brothers and the Stanley Brothers, etc. In short, I was off and running. I hated country music before this album, thought it was the exclusive domain of rednecks and inbred cretins. But something changed in my freshman year of college, off in a town I did not know, when I first heard “It’s a hard way to find out that trouble is real/In a faraway city with a faraway feel.” This music started to connect in deep ways. Here’s the secret: country music – the real thing, not the swill made by Nashville popsters in cowboy hats – is pure soul music. And Sweetheart of the Rodeo has incredible soul, and it was made by a bunch of hippies who made it palatable for my generation.
Bruce Cockburn – Humans – Bruce Cockburn has been a musical hero to me for thirty years, Exhibit A in how to express complex Christian truths poetically and movingly. He’s also an astoundingly gifted guitarist and a ceaseless synthesizer of virtually every musical genre imaginable. Ironically, in later albums he abandons his poetic sensibilities when he addresses political issues, and he is guilty of the worst kind of dogma and polemical ranting. But Humans finds him in perfect musical and lyrical form – that is, if working through the devastating effects of a divorce can ever be said to be perfect. In any event, he is bloody, damaged goods here, and these jazz-tinged folk songs are raw, open wounds full of sorrow, pain, and ultimately, astonishingly, hope.
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue – It’s the obvious choice, but it’s obvious for good reasons. This was, unfortunately, the second Miles Davis album I encountered. The first, Bitches Brew, struck me as a meandering, noodling, aimless mess, and I avoided jazz for years afterwards. But Kind of Blue finally connected the dots for me. It was structured enough to follow, and it was loose and improvisational enough to showcase the astonishing creative powers of the three primary soloists – trumpeter Davis, tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, and pianist Bill Evans. Evans’ composition “Blue in Green,” (and the trumpet solo Miles takes on that song) is as close as I’ve ever gotten to a religious experience listening to music. It is simultaneously exhilarating, relaxing, and supremely, beautifully lyrical.
Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited – It could just as easily have been Blonde on Blonde or Blood on the Tracks. But I’ll go with Highway 61 … because it contains the single greatest song ever recorded (“Like a Rolling Stone”), because it contains the universe’s only thirteen-minute song that leaves you hanging on every word (“Desolation Row”), and because, contrary to popular belief, Bob Dylan is one of popular music’s greatest singers, pouring unbridled passion and sneering contempt into every song.
Al Green – Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 – I’m cheating, I know. But there is no way I can limit my love for Al Green to one album, and this greatest hits collection, culled from his early ‘70s albums on Motown, offers one stunning example after another of the last pure soul singer, tossing off gritty sexual asides and gliding into that impossibly great falsetto. The genius of Al Green is that he is obsessed with love, sexual and divine, and it’s often impossible to tell the difference. He brings a whole new meaning to incarnational theology.
Brad Mehldau – Elegiac Cycle – Most “third stream” music -- music that strives to incorporate both classical and jazz elements – fails miserably. Most solo piano albums are snoozefests. So why is it that this classical/jazz hybrid succeeds so well? Partly because Brad Mehldau is a towering pianist, someone who has mastered both the classical and jazz repertoires and can move effortlessly between them, tossing stabbing Keith-Jarrett like improvisational runs into the Rachmaninoff sturm and drang. But mostly because Mehldau is an incurable romantic, and finds the heart of melancholy and loss again and again in these nine original songs. He spins impossibly knotty lines, twisting and cavorting, slicing and dicing these heartbreaking melodies before he brings it all back to the lovely place from which he started.
Joni Mitchell – Blue – Navel gazing elevated to high art. Joni Mitchell has the uncanny ability to lay bare the most intimate details of her personal life and make them universal. Like Bob Dylan, who once turned a snub from a hotel clerk into the apocalyptic nightmare of “When The Ship Comes In,” Joni Mitchell works her magical alchemy, transforming the slightest of personal incidents into works of poetic insight and grandeur. For my money, outside of anyone named Zimmerman, she’s the greatest popular songwriter of the last half of the twentieth century. On Blue she is running from and toward love – a familiar Joni theme – simultaneously scared of commitment and drawn like a moth to the flame of human connection, of needing to matter to someone. As usual, she is poetically ambivalent, celebrating the joys of new love in “All I Want,” and ruefully lamenting the wreckage of failed relationships in “River” and “The Last Time I Saw Richard.” “I’m gonna blow this damn candle out,” she sings at the end of the album. “I don’t want nobody comin’ over to my table/I got nothin’ to talk to anybody about.” I’ve been happily married for twenty-three years. But I remember that feeling. And Joni conjures it better than anyone else, and reminds me of the high stakes in the human poker game.
Van Morrison – St. Dominic’s Preview – Van Morrison is the greatest singer of the rock ‘n roll era. Period. He can also be a great songwriter, effortlessly turning out great R&B/soul rave-ups like “Jackie Wilson Said” and “I Will Be There,” as he does on this album. But he’s at his best when he plays the spiritual poet/sorcerer, following his Muse into spaces extremely weird, extremely mystical, and extremely great. “Listen to the Lion,” the tour de force of this album, is eleven minutes of humming, moaning, roaring and scatting, Van breaking free of the limitations of language, off into the mystic and in pursuit of the ineffable. It will raise the hairs on the back of your neck.
Vigilantes of Love – Killing Floor – If Flannery O’Connor was a man and manic-depressive, she/he would be Bill Mallonee. Which is kind of scary, if you think about it. But Bill’s songs remind me of Flannery for many reasons, not the least of which is the way that grace breaks through, often unlooked for, in the darkest and most despairing of circumstances. I also greatly appreciate the fact that Bill writes songs from the perspective of a Christian who does not have his life together. He has questions, he has doubts, he sins. Kind of like an actual human being. Of course, it helps that he has great folk-punk energy, nowhere better evidenced than on this album, and that he comes up with some astoundingly wonderful metaphors.
Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel Road – You can smell the Louisiana dirt in Lucinda Williams’ music. No songwriter captures a sense of place as well as Lucinda, and on Car Wheels on a Gravel Road she explores the American Deep South with finely detailed geographical and personal reflections. Like Jack Kerouac’s "On the Road," this album is a travelogue in which much more is revealed than can ever be found on a roadmap. These songs are explorations of charred expanses, bleak vistas, deep holes, but they’re as often found within as they are in the surrounding landscape. Williams has always been a great songwriter; here she hitches her great songs to a tougher, rootsier, more organic sound that matches her raspy vocals perfectly. She howls her poetry into the southern wind. And it comes out of my speakers sounding like universal truth.
I can’t believe I couldn’t find room on this island for Aretha Franklin, Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, Duke Ellington, Dick Dale, The Beatles, John Coltrane, Bruce Springsteen, Thelonious Monk, The Ramones, The Carter Family, Bill Evans, Muddy Waters, Arvo Part, Norman Blake, Richard Thompson, The Louvin Brothers, Tom Waits, The Rolling Stones, Sam Phillips, American Music Club, Victoria Williams, Sonny Rollins, Nick Drake, The Blasters, Talk Talk, The Who, Billie Holiday, Elvis Costello, Derek and the Dominoes, Chuck Berry, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Bill Monroe, The Sex Pistols, The Blue Nile, Sufjan Stevens, Otis Redding, Big Star, Paul Simon, James Brown, Peter Gabriel, solo John Lennon, Sandy Denny, The Innocence Mission, Steve Earle, The Replacements, Mavis Staples, The Band, Frank Sinatra, Mark Heard, Henryk Gorecki, Joe Henry, Charlie Parker, X, Ralph and Carter Stanley, Jackson Browne, Kate Rusby, Howlin’ Wolf, Uncle Tupelo, Tonio K., Red House Painters, Buddy and Julie Miller, The Beach Boys, Los Lobos, The Pixies, Leo Kottke, The Clash, Johnny Cash, Matthew Sweet, Elvis Presley, The Pogues, Merle Haggard, Graham Parker, John Tavener, U2, or Radiohead. You’ll find them crowded together on the next island over.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Hear Ye, Hear Ye
I have fairly significant hearing loss in my left ear, and a moderate amount of hearing loss in my right ear. This is not good for someone who tries to play rock ‘n roll critic. It turns out that it’s not good for family dynamics, either.
Right now both of my ears are blocked. I’m going to the ENT doctor later this week, and that will help restore me to my normal significant/moderate hearing loss levels, and will allow me to use everyone’s favorite symbol of rock ‘n roll rebellion – the hearing aid – to hear almost normally. But for now you might as well try to communicate with me using ASL. Unfortunately, I don’t know ASL, and the only sign I feel like making involves extending my middle finger to just about everyone. If I encounter you during these times, please know that it’s not your fault. But I am frustrated and angry, and apt to be in a foul mood. The good news is that you can say all kinds of nasty things to me in return, and I won’t hear you.
Sunday mornings tend to bring these kinds of issues into focus, in both good and bad ways. We headed for church, and I popped one of my favorite CDs into the car’s CD player. The protests began, as they usually do, almost immediately, ranging from “Turn that off!” to “Turn that down!” Variety, the spice of life. I switched CDs, opting for a more crowd-pleasing mix. No matter. It was still too loud. So I turned it down. And then I couldn’t hear it, although everyone else could apparently hear it just fine. So I turned off the music, sulked, pouted, and generally went out of my way to let everyone else know how unhappy I was. And they’ll know we are Christians by our sullenness.
Then we strolled into church, late as usual, and the worship band was playing some rockin’, upbeat tune about the transformative power of Jesus. Yee haw. Here is your New Creation, O God, pissed at the world, probably pissed at You, most certainly pissed at the three people I love the most. Lift up those holy hands.
I didn’t want to worship. I wanted to sulk. But I figured that I might as well at least level with God and tell Him that. So I did. And I don’t normally hear from God, but I think I distinctly heard God tell me, “Whatever.” That was it. “Whatever.” God as Valley Girl. A little later the band played a song whose chorus is “Break these chains, set me free,” and that one seemed to make some sense, so I prayed that, too. I didn’t feel any different afterwards. I didn’t feel particularly spiritually renewed and cleansed. But at least I could sing that one and mean it. I am tired of being led by the nose by my ears. I am tired of being held captive by my circumstances and my emotions. I’m tired of not being able to hear. Break these chains. Set me free.
On the way home we stopped by Best Buy and I bought some headphones. Now I can blast away and not shake the walls and alarm the neighbors and drown out every other sound in the house. “Be careful not to play the music too loud,” Kate told me. “You can damage your ears.” It was a bit like telling Darth Vader not to breathe too loudly. You work with what you’ve got.
And maybe it’s worthwhile to take inventory of what you’ve got. I thought about that later, after some time and some distance had allowed me to gain some perspective. I’ve got lousy ears and people who are willing to pay me to tell them what I hear. I have a wife and kids who love me in spite of my sullenness and pouting. I’m a part of a wonderful church I dearly love, surrounded by new friends, and I’m growing slowly, painfully more in love with a God who speaks in Valley Girl aphorisms. It is that still small voice that is barely discernible for those who have ears to hear, and sometimes even for those who don’t.
Right now both of my ears are blocked. I’m going to the ENT doctor later this week, and that will help restore me to my normal significant/moderate hearing loss levels, and will allow me to use everyone’s favorite symbol of rock ‘n roll rebellion – the hearing aid – to hear almost normally. But for now you might as well try to communicate with me using ASL. Unfortunately, I don’t know ASL, and the only sign I feel like making involves extending my middle finger to just about everyone. If I encounter you during these times, please know that it’s not your fault. But I am frustrated and angry, and apt to be in a foul mood. The good news is that you can say all kinds of nasty things to me in return, and I won’t hear you.
Sunday mornings tend to bring these kinds of issues into focus, in both good and bad ways. We headed for church, and I popped one of my favorite CDs into the car’s CD player. The protests began, as they usually do, almost immediately, ranging from “Turn that off!” to “Turn that down!” Variety, the spice of life. I switched CDs, opting for a more crowd-pleasing mix. No matter. It was still too loud. So I turned it down. And then I couldn’t hear it, although everyone else could apparently hear it just fine. So I turned off the music, sulked, pouted, and generally went out of my way to let everyone else know how unhappy I was. And they’ll know we are Christians by our sullenness.
Then we strolled into church, late as usual, and the worship band was playing some rockin’, upbeat tune about the transformative power of Jesus. Yee haw. Here is your New Creation, O God, pissed at the world, probably pissed at You, most certainly pissed at the three people I love the most. Lift up those holy hands.
I didn’t want to worship. I wanted to sulk. But I figured that I might as well at least level with God and tell Him that. So I did. And I don’t normally hear from God, but I think I distinctly heard God tell me, “Whatever.” That was it. “Whatever.” God as Valley Girl. A little later the band played a song whose chorus is “Break these chains, set me free,” and that one seemed to make some sense, so I prayed that, too. I didn’t feel any different afterwards. I didn’t feel particularly spiritually renewed and cleansed. But at least I could sing that one and mean it. I am tired of being led by the nose by my ears. I am tired of being held captive by my circumstances and my emotions. I’m tired of not being able to hear. Break these chains. Set me free.
On the way home we stopped by Best Buy and I bought some headphones. Now I can blast away and not shake the walls and alarm the neighbors and drown out every other sound in the house. “Be careful not to play the music too loud,” Kate told me. “You can damage your ears.” It was a bit like telling Darth Vader not to breathe too loudly. You work with what you’ve got.
And maybe it’s worthwhile to take inventory of what you’ve got. I thought about that later, after some time and some distance had allowed me to gain some perspective. I’ve got lousy ears and people who are willing to pay me to tell them what I hear. I have a wife and kids who love me in spite of my sullenness and pouting. I’m a part of a wonderful church I dearly love, surrounded by new friends, and I’m growing slowly, painfully more in love with a God who speaks in Valley Girl aphorisms. It is that still small voice that is barely discernible for those who have ears to hear, and sometimes even for those who don’t.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Mr. Darcy Rides to Tattooine
Ever wonder what would happen if Darth Vader appeared in a Jane Austen novel? No? I did. Some people have way too much time on their hands.
Scene 1 (Outside the Skywalker Estate)
Darcy: (hurriedly dismounts, hair disheveled) My fair horse is fully lathered. She must be bedded for the night.
Elizabeth: (disconsolately, under her breath) Aye, would that it were true for me! Alas!
Vader: (emerging from nearby galactic ballroom) Seize him!
Elizabeth: Come, sir, your jesting makes you tiresome. Mr. Darcy has just arrived. He must have refreshments.
Vader: (brandishes light saber, which hums ominously) I said seize him! (Storm troopers emerge from front parlor)
Elizabeth: (steps in front of storm troopers) Stop, shiny white metallic men! Come, let us partake of tea and biscuits that taste like chalk. Surely our differences can be resolved through arcane English rituals.
Vader: (begrudingly) Oh, okay. (To stormtroopers) No more than two scones apiece, or you will feel my wrath!
Scene 2 (In the Tea Garden)
Elizabeth: Don't eat too much, my dearest companions. We don't want to spoil the roast pheasant.
Pad Thai: (somnambulantly) With noodles? Where is my tiara? Where is my prescription?
Yoda: Good this tea is, yes. What call it, do you?
Elizabeth: Constant Comment, my green friend. It is the English way.
Yoda: Like it I do, very much. (Squints eyes, makes furrowed Yoda face, wiggles fingers and levitates teacup in the air). Very light it is, yes.
Elizabeth: (aside) Such a noble, pointy-eared countenance. (To Yoda): Indeed, kind sir. Have you met Mr. Darcy's dear sister, Georgianna ?
Yoda: Met her I have, yes. Most beautiful. She could be Jedi, yes?
Elizabeth: You darling, silly man. Puppet. Whatever. Is that short for Jedediah?
Yoda: Short, yes. Short I am. Green, too. But Jedediah I know not.
Vader: (upturns tea table) Enough of this inane prattle. Seize them all!
Darcy: (rises, incensed, and throws down his glove in front of Vader). How dare you, sir! You make a mockery of human decency and manners! I challenge you to a duel, sabers tomorrow at noon!
Vader: (brandishes light saber, annihilates glove, then cleaves Darcy down the middle). You lose. (Elizabeth shrieks, then faints. General pandemonium ensues.)
Pad Thai: Oh, wow. Has anyone seen my Xanax?
(Curtain falls. Pompous John Williams music signals end of play.)
Scene 1 (Outside the Skywalker Estate)
Darcy: (hurriedly dismounts, hair disheveled) My fair horse is fully lathered. She must be bedded for the night.
Elizabeth: (disconsolately, under her breath) Aye, would that it were true for me! Alas!
Vader: (emerging from nearby galactic ballroom) Seize him!
Elizabeth: Come, sir, your jesting makes you tiresome. Mr. Darcy has just arrived. He must have refreshments.
Vader: (brandishes light saber, which hums ominously) I said seize him! (Storm troopers emerge from front parlor)
Elizabeth: (steps in front of storm troopers) Stop, shiny white metallic men! Come, let us partake of tea and biscuits that taste like chalk. Surely our differences can be resolved through arcane English rituals.
Vader: (begrudingly) Oh, okay. (To stormtroopers) No more than two scones apiece, or you will feel my wrath!
Scene 2 (In the Tea Garden)
Elizabeth: Don't eat too much, my dearest companions. We don't want to spoil the roast pheasant.
Pad Thai: (somnambulantly) With noodles? Where is my tiara? Where is my prescription?
Yoda: Good this tea is, yes. What call it, do you?
Elizabeth: Constant Comment, my green friend. It is the English way.
Yoda: Like it I do, very much. (Squints eyes, makes furrowed Yoda face, wiggles fingers and levitates teacup in the air). Very light it is, yes.
Elizabeth: (aside) Such a noble, pointy-eared countenance. (To Yoda): Indeed, kind sir. Have you met Mr. Darcy's dear sister, Georgianna ?
Yoda: Met her I have, yes. Most beautiful. She could be Jedi, yes?
Elizabeth: You darling, silly man. Puppet. Whatever. Is that short for Jedediah?
Yoda: Short, yes. Short I am. Green, too. But Jedediah I know not.
Vader: (upturns tea table) Enough of this inane prattle. Seize them all!
Darcy: (rises, incensed, and throws down his glove in front of Vader). How dare you, sir! You make a mockery of human decency and manners! I challenge you to a duel, sabers tomorrow at noon!
Vader: (brandishes light saber, annihilates glove, then cleaves Darcy down the middle). You lose. (Elizabeth shrieks, then faints. General pandemonium ensues.)
Pad Thai: Oh, wow. Has anyone seen my Xanax?
(Curtain falls. Pompous John Williams music signals end of play.)
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
A Miserable Experience/iPod Envy
I have been reading the unabridged version of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables for what seems like forever, although in reality it has only been three weeks or so. I have just passed the halfway point. Only 700 pages of tiny print to go.
They sure don’t write ‘em like this anymore, which is both a good and a bad thing. The book is ridiculously long, and riddled with tangents, some of which go on for fifty or more pages. In the middle of the story Hugo drops in an excruciatingly detailed 60-page account of the Battle of Waterloo. Why? Dieu only knows, because the battle has only the tiniest of connections with the plot. I’ve also encountered page after page of description of the beliefs and practices of an obscure Parisian convent, and a lengthy treatise on the
That said, the novel is amazing, and everything I had hoped it would be. The story is moving, beautiful, and full of grace, in both the literary and theological senses. I know that a very famous musical is based on this book. I know people who normally hate musicals tend to love this particular one. And I am tempted to check it out. But only tempted. Eventually I come to my senses and remember that I hate musicals, no matter the source material. Now a Les Miserables Thick as a Notre Dame Brick progressive rock suite I could handle.
In other musical musings, I am experiencing iPod envy. My daughter Rachel bravely entered the iPod world last week. And I want my own iPod. I think. But what I really want doesn’t exist. I want the iPod that will hold 5,000 albums, not 5,000 songs, and I want it to automatically include all of the songs in my vinyl collection after I magically wave it in front of the stacks.
Mostly I fear the death of the glorious Album. I don’t care about the format. The album can come on vinyl, it can come on CD, it can come on 8-track tape for that matter. But I like the idea of buying a collection of songs. Sure, it’s a rare album where every song works. But there are many, many albums where the whole adds up to more than the sum of the parts, even if some of the parts are better than others. Now with the ascension of iTunes and the resurrection of Napster I fear that the idea of a collection of songs will go the way of the dodo, the Edsel, and the gatefold album cover. Now it’s all about the song, at 99 cents a shot.
And this is simple Old Fart grousing, but when it comes right down to it I like the physicality, the massed thereness, of good, old-fashioned albums. I like the Space Age Bachelor Pad feel of walking into a room that is filled with vinyl and CDs. Enter the shrine if you dare. Yes, it’s idolatry. Damn it, I admit it. But where’s the fun in having eight gazillion songs in something smaller than your wallet? They should make an iPod the size of a Buick for something like that. Yeah, I know, it probably wouldn’t be portable (but think about this: Buicks have wheels; why not the iPod?).
So maybe I don’t want an iPod after all. But I’m glad Rachel has hers. Rachel is a great fan of musicals. And now she has little earphones.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Shawn Phillips: Arias for the Common Man
A new article for Paste Magazine ...
--------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
Bruce Springsteen once remarked that Roy Orbison was the only truly operatic singer in rock music. With no disrespect intended toward the great Mr. Orbison, it is apparent that Bruce never heard Shawn Phillips.
Shawn Phillips was and is the original cosmic contra-tenor – a hippie Pavarotti with a waist-length ponytail and a buckskin jacket, a sometimes gifted songwriter with a mastery of several stringed instruments, a prodigious vocal range, and, by most accounts, a formidably drug-shrouded mind. He stopped making albums in the late 1970s, and I had pictured him as the quintessential hippie burnout, the slacker/stoner who flamed out in his mid-thirties and disappeared from the public eye. As usual, the truth is something far different and far more complex, driven more by the vagaries of the music industry than by personal demons or tragedy. In any event, Shawn Phillips may be the greatest singer you’ve never heard. And even if you’ve paid close attention to the music of the past twenty-five years, there’s a good chance you’ve not heard him. Thirty-five years after he played in front of 600,000 people at the Isle of Wight Festival, Shawn Phillips is a nearly forgotten man.
I distinctly remember the first time I heard The Voice. Phillips’ “Song for Mr. C.,” from his 1971 album Second Contribution, was played fairly frequently on Chicago FM radio stations in the early 1970s, and the greasy R&B of that song reminded me of the grit of Leon Russell and Lee Michaels, blue-eyed soul men who were popular at the time. I snatched up the album, thinking that I was in for more of the same. What I got was something altogether different and altogether less prone to easy categorization: tender love ballads that sounded like Johnny Mathis with testosterone, sweeping, romantic strings, strutting R&B horns, sitars, progressive jazz, hushed acoustic folk music with exquisite six-string fingerpicking, and, on “The Ballad of Casey Deiss,” the sound of the human voice soaring into the heavens. A conventional folk ballad for its first four minutes, it suddenly took a turn for the celestial when Phillips’ pure falsetto spiraled upward, more upward, impossibly upward until I could not believe the notes I was hearing. It was my introduction to the most remarkable voice of the singer/songwriter era.
If that voice borrowed influences from almost everywhere it is perhaps because Phillips lived almost everywhere. A military brat who grew up in Texas, Mexico, and Tahiti, he traveled in his young adulthood to California, London (where he befriended Donovan in his Flower Power phase and spent time with Lennon and McCartney), and Paris before finally settling down in the picturesque Italian fishing village of Positano, where he lived throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Phillips absorbed the music around him, from
Unfortunately, much of Phillips’ music sounds hopelessly dated now, the product of the patchouli-scented times in which it was made. It has not aged well, and the sitar drones and “love your brother, man” sentiments only serve to highlight the naiveté and excesses of the Age of Aquarius. The voice still sounds exquisite – soulful, passionate, and gritty on one song, light as a feather and soaring the next. But the song titles tell another story: “Spaceman,” “What’s Happenin’, Jim!” and the ridiculously named, impossibly lovely “She Was Waiting For Her Mother At The Station in Torino And You Know I Love You Baby But It’s Getting Too Heavy To Laugh.” Far out. And therein lies the problem. To listen to Shawn Phillips is to be confronted with stark contrasts. With the possible exception of Al Green, never has a human voice combined such earthy soul with such a soaring, angelic falsetto. And never has such an otherworldly, gorgeous human voice been placed in the service of such hazily muddled hippie tripe.
What renders the tripe palatable, even highly listenable, is The Voice. Possessing a three-octave range that could move effortlessly between a natural baritone and the most astonishing falsetto I’ve ever heard, Phillips sang not so much songs as hippie arias, impossibly dramatic mini-operas that showcased his evocative passion and startling vocal range. If the words have not always aged well, the good news is that the falsetto is often wordless. And it is singing of the highest order; of an unearthly order, for that matter.
Today, Phillips is 62 years old and lives outside
Friday, April 29, 2005
Darth Vader, Blogger
Yes, the Dark Lord has entered the blog-o-sphere: http://darthside.blogspot.com/
This is truly wonderful stuff. Some of the comments on the Dark Lord's postings are equally great. Here are two of my favorites:
----------------------------------------
Mojobo Unfufu said...
Dear Sir,
My name is Mojobo Unfufu, and I am an exiled leader from the planet Smogo. When the Empire took complete control of the planet, I was forced to flee with my family.
We did not have time to take our money and the treasure of Smogo out with us. However, secret operatives on the planet have kept it safe from Imperial eyes.
As the treasure is being liquidated and moved off of Smogo, we need people to help us launder the money. If you would help us out, that would be great. You pay a one time transaction fee of $4000 and we will wire you ten million credits. You get to keep one million for your troubles.
Please send all your personal information to unfufu704@holo.net. We will arrange a meeting on an outer rim world.
----------------------------------------------
Joseph said...
Darth Vader,
Sith Lord Flagship Executor
c/o Imperial Navy
Lord Vader,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback on our latest capital assault line, the AT-AT walkers. Although we try to consider every combat scenario, our design team must admit that low-altitude aerobatics with tow cables really caught us off-guard. You bring up a more substantive point, though: the legs. Mechanical legs are a weakness in any design. We blast-shielded them, reinforced them, and made them very stable, but in the end, legs can get tangled, stuck, or Vorm Rat-tied, as you put it.
As a result of your brilliant suggestions, we are redesigning the new AT-AT capital assault systems based on hover technology, subsequent to some recent corporate acquisitions from the Trade Federation. In an effort to foster goodwill between us, we humbly offer the first production run to you, gratis.
As promised, the original design team for the AT-AT present-day have been transported to your command ship, along with their next of kin. They are all very pleased to be considered worthy of your personal audience, and look forward to working on that "personal project" you mentioned.
Keep in touch,
Movii Ykesso
AT Industries & Design
Coulomb's Drift
This is truly wonderful stuff. Some of the comments on the Dark Lord's postings are equally great. Here are two of my favorites:
----------------------------------------
Mojobo Unfufu said...
Dear Sir,
My name is Mojobo Unfufu, and I am an exiled leader from the planet Smogo. When the Empire took complete control of the planet, I was forced to flee with my family.
We did not have time to take our money and the treasure of Smogo out with us. However, secret operatives on the planet have kept it safe from Imperial eyes.
As the treasure is being liquidated and moved off of Smogo, we need people to help us launder the money. If you would help us out, that would be great. You pay a one time transaction fee of $4000 and we will wire you ten million credits. You get to keep one million for your troubles.
Please send all your personal information to unfufu704@holo.net. We will arrange a meeting on an outer rim world.
----------------------------------------------
Joseph said...
Darth Vader,
Sith Lord Flagship Executor
c/o Imperial Navy
Lord Vader,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback on our latest capital assault line, the AT-AT walkers. Although we try to consider every combat scenario, our design team must admit that low-altitude aerobatics with tow cables really caught us off-guard. You bring up a more substantive point, though: the legs. Mechanical legs are a weakness in any design. We blast-shielded them, reinforced them, and made them very stable, but in the end, legs can get tangled, stuck, or Vorm Rat-tied, as you put it.
As a result of your brilliant suggestions, we are redesigning the new AT-AT capital assault systems based on hover technology, subsequent to some recent corporate acquisitions from the Trade Federation. In an effort to foster goodwill between us, we humbly offer the first production run to you, gratis.
As promised, the original design team for the AT-AT present-day have been transported to your command ship, along with their next of kin. They are all very pleased to be considered worthy of your personal audience, and look forward to working on that "personal project" you mentioned.
Keep in touch,
Movii Ykesso
AT Industries & Design
Coulomb's Drift
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Father of the Braid, Pt. 1
Mornings at our house pretty much revolve around hair. Mine has mostly fallen out now, so I don’t get to join in on much on the morning mayhem. Nevertheless, there are still three women who jockey for position in front of the bathroom mirrors, the sink counters filled with an assortment of brushes, combs, gels, sprays, dyes (maroon, blonde, and black for Emily), clasps, barrettes, and various geegaws of unknown origin or purpose.
The Sunday morning hair drying ritual usually starts about 45 minutes before church. One hair dryer starts, and then another, and soon the house sounds like a 747 ready for takeoff. Our overloaded electrical circuits struggle to keep up under these circumstances. One running hair dryer is fine. Two running hair dryers are fine. However, two running hair dryers and a running microwave oven are enough to overload the poor circuits. The whirring stops. The house goes suddenly dark. And so I make routine runs to the basement to flip various switches to ensure that the Whitman family is neatly coiffed and infused with hot coffee. I grumble, or worse, every time I do this. We are late for church every single week, and it drives me crazy that in twenty-three years of marriage and almost nineteen years of parenthood we have not been able to get it together sufficiently to make it to church on time. “How tough can this be?,” I ask every week, fuming as we speed down the freeway, in no mood to worship God.
Tough enough, apparently. Lately we have adopted a compromise. I drive to church alone, and make it in time for the opening worship song. The little remaining furze on top of my head sticks out all over, but I don’t care. Kate and Emily and Rachel follow at some indeterminate later time, looking good. Everybody’s happy. Almost. Because for a few minutes there at church I look around and feel horrible, like something’s missing. Like my family.
Now we are entering upon the Great Prom Season, a time in which vast sums of hard-earned cash are spent on dresses, shoes, hair styles (of course) and makeup. Kate and Emily informed me a couple days ago that someone will be showing up at our house on Great Prom Afternoon to personally do Emily’s makeup. He is, apparently, an award-winning makeup dude. And he is coming to our house to personally apply the makeup on my daughter’s face. Cool. To my knowledge I have never met an award-winning makeup dude, and I quiver with excitement and anticipation.
During the past couple of weeks the three women have been engaged in glorious, marathon shopping sprees, while I sit home and watch baseball with the sound turned off and listen to rock ‘n roll. There are worse fates. They come home with bags full of dresses and shoes and purses, then model the clothes for me, agonizing over whether the black purse or the green purse goes best with a particular gown. “What do you think?,” they ask me.
This is the unanswerable question. You might as well ask Britney Spears to explain the notion of One God in Three Persons.
“Looks good,” I offer cautiously.
“But do you think the black purse or the green purse goes better with the gown?”
“You know,” I say, struggling to find my inner Gucci, “they both look great.”
I am no help. I know it. In twenty-three years I have never adapted to this whole confusing, bewildering world. And it goes far beyond fashion. Just when I start to think that I’m getting the hang of this husband and father business, it changes on me.
On Monday evening Rachel’s boyfriend Matt stops over. He informs us that he has ordered his tux for the prom. No word on whether he will have a matching purse. Matt is a good kid. He is sixteen, a big, easygoing, bright, articulate young man whose world seems to revolve around school, band, and video games. And my daughter.
“So,” I say to him nonchalantly, “any thoughts about what you might like to do for a living?”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth I regret them. I cannot believe that I have asked the question. The kid is sixteen years old. When I was sixteen years old my principle concerns in life were scoring some weed and getting rid of acne. And Matt appears to be farther along the path of social development than I was.
He takes it as a joke. Good. “Oh,” he says, “you know, I was thinking that maybe I’d start out as a small-time drug dealer and work my way up. Or join the Mafia.”
Heh. Smart ass. Not with my daughter, Don Guccione.
Emily is a seasoned veteran of the coded, heavily layered world of high school relationships. She finds a way to navigate the intricate maze of popular and unpopular kids, in groups and out groups, preps and skaters and punks and Goths. She has friends in every camp. She has a boyfriend – one Jordan, whose career aspirations are even more inscrutable than Matt’s – and a posse of girlfriends who finish each others’ sentences. Lately she has been coaching Rachel on the fine arts of fashion, makeup, and musical coolness. She is the funniest person I know; quick witted, sharp-tongued, exasperating and loveable. If she manages to live through her twenties, she will be one hell-raising, unconventional, delightfully self-assured adult. She also graduates from high school in five weeks. In four months she’ll be gone, off to college in another city. Welcome to parenthood. Just when I’m starting to get the hang of it, they leave.
This is what is supposed to happen, I remind myself. It’s good. Leave your father and mother and go off to college and study fashion merchandising and find some heterosexual makeup dude, if he exists, and become one flesh. But it doesn’t feel good. I will look over at church and see an empty chair that is missing a well-coiffed young woman. I will miss the stereophonic sounds of dueling hair dryers. I won’t have to run down to the basement to flip the breaker switch. We may get to church on time. But I will look around and feel like something’s missing, and this time it will not arrive fashionably late.
We are coming down to those days. I pray that I will be alive enough and awake enough to cherish every Braidy Bunch moment.
The Sunday morning hair drying ritual usually starts about 45 minutes before church. One hair dryer starts, and then another, and soon the house sounds like a 747 ready for takeoff. Our overloaded electrical circuits struggle to keep up under these circumstances. One running hair dryer is fine. Two running hair dryers are fine. However, two running hair dryers and a running microwave oven are enough to overload the poor circuits. The whirring stops. The house goes suddenly dark. And so I make routine runs to the basement to flip various switches to ensure that the Whitman family is neatly coiffed and infused with hot coffee. I grumble, or worse, every time I do this. We are late for church every single week, and it drives me crazy that in twenty-three years of marriage and almost nineteen years of parenthood we have not been able to get it together sufficiently to make it to church on time. “How tough can this be?,” I ask every week, fuming as we speed down the freeway, in no mood to worship God.
Tough enough, apparently. Lately we have adopted a compromise. I drive to church alone, and make it in time for the opening worship song. The little remaining furze on top of my head sticks out all over, but I don’t care. Kate and Emily and Rachel follow at some indeterminate later time, looking good. Everybody’s happy. Almost. Because for a few minutes there at church I look around and feel horrible, like something’s missing. Like my family.
Now we are entering upon the Great Prom Season, a time in which vast sums of hard-earned cash are spent on dresses, shoes, hair styles (of course) and makeup. Kate and Emily informed me a couple days ago that someone will be showing up at our house on Great Prom Afternoon to personally do Emily’s makeup. He is, apparently, an award-winning makeup dude. And he is coming to our house to personally apply the makeup on my daughter’s face. Cool. To my knowledge I have never met an award-winning makeup dude, and I quiver with excitement and anticipation.
During the past couple of weeks the three women have been engaged in glorious, marathon shopping sprees, while I sit home and watch baseball with the sound turned off and listen to rock ‘n roll. There are worse fates. They come home with bags full of dresses and shoes and purses, then model the clothes for me, agonizing over whether the black purse or the green purse goes best with a particular gown. “What do you think?,” they ask me.
This is the unanswerable question. You might as well ask Britney Spears to explain the notion of One God in Three Persons.
“Looks good,” I offer cautiously.
“But do you think the black purse or the green purse goes better with the gown?”
“You know,” I say, struggling to find my inner Gucci, “they both look great.”
I am no help. I know it. In twenty-three years I have never adapted to this whole confusing, bewildering world. And it goes far beyond fashion. Just when I start to think that I’m getting the hang of this husband and father business, it changes on me.
On Monday evening Rachel’s boyfriend Matt stops over. He informs us that he has ordered his tux for the prom. No word on whether he will have a matching purse. Matt is a good kid. He is sixteen, a big, easygoing, bright, articulate young man whose world seems to revolve around school, band, and video games. And my daughter.
“So,” I say to him nonchalantly, “any thoughts about what you might like to do for a living?”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth I regret them. I cannot believe that I have asked the question. The kid is sixteen years old. When I was sixteen years old my principle concerns in life were scoring some weed and getting rid of acne. And Matt appears to be farther along the path of social development than I was.
He takes it as a joke. Good. “Oh,” he says, “you know, I was thinking that maybe I’d start out as a small-time drug dealer and work my way up. Or join the Mafia.”
Heh. Smart ass. Not with my daughter, Don Guccione.
Emily is a seasoned veteran of the coded, heavily layered world of high school relationships. She finds a way to navigate the intricate maze of popular and unpopular kids, in groups and out groups, preps and skaters and punks and Goths. She has friends in every camp. She has a boyfriend – one Jordan, whose career aspirations are even more inscrutable than Matt’s – and a posse of girlfriends who finish each others’ sentences. Lately she has been coaching Rachel on the fine arts of fashion, makeup, and musical coolness. She is the funniest person I know; quick witted, sharp-tongued, exasperating and loveable. If she manages to live through her twenties, she will be one hell-raising, unconventional, delightfully self-assured adult. She also graduates from high school in five weeks. In four months she’ll be gone, off to college in another city. Welcome to parenthood. Just when I’m starting to get the hang of it, they leave.
This is what is supposed to happen, I remind myself. It’s good. Leave your father and mother and go off to college and study fashion merchandising and find some heterosexual makeup dude, if he exists, and become one flesh. But it doesn’t feel good. I will look over at church and see an empty chair that is missing a well-coiffed young woman. I will miss the stereophonic sounds of dueling hair dryers. I won’t have to run down to the basement to flip the breaker switch. We may get to church on time. But I will look around and feel like something’s missing, and this time it will not arrive fashionably late.
We are coming down to those days. I pray that I will be alive enough and awake enough to cherish every Braidy Bunch moment.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Power Pop Goodness
The mix CD swap is happening again. Since others have posted the contents of their mix CDs, I thought I'd share, too. Anybody is welcome to one of these, although it would be even better if you could compile a mix of your favorite music and pass it along to me as well. That's the real purpose here: music says a lot about who we are. So put together the music that means the most to you, and let me understand you better.
Here's what's on my Power Pop Goodness CD. It's loud, crunchy, and melodic. I love The Who and The Kinks, and the bands/artists on this CD, although they've recorded most of these songs within the past year or two, clearly love them too.
1. Plan to Stay Awake -- The Deathray Davies
2. Creation Myth – Dear John Letters
3. Freakin’ Out – Graham Coxon
4. Solar Sister – The Posies
5. Sparky’s Dream – Teenage Fanclub
6. Hold Me Up – Velvet Crush
7. Four-Eyed Girl – Rhett Miller
8. Department Store Girl – The Rosenbergs
9. Sort It Out – Caesars
10. Speed Racer – The Redwalls
11. Don’t Let Me Go – Michael Penn
12. Hi-Fi Killer – American Hi-Fi
13. Denise – Fountains ofWayne
14.
15. Secretarial – A.C. Newman
16. Season is Over – Matthew Sweet
17. Louie Louie – Fastball
18. Fingerpops – Garageland
19. Box Full of Letters – Wilco
20. When Everything Was Alright – Sam Roberts
Here's what's on my Power Pop Goodness CD. It's loud, crunchy, and melodic. I love The Who and The Kinks, and the bands/artists on this CD, although they've recorded most of these songs within the past year or two, clearly love them too.
1. Plan to Stay Awake -- The Deathray Davies
2. Creation Myth – Dear John Letters
3. Freakin’ Out – Graham Coxon
4. Solar Sister – The Posies
5. Sparky’s Dream – Teenage Fanclub
6. Hold Me Up – Velvet Crush
7. Four-Eyed Girl – Rhett Miller
8. Department Store Girl – The Rosenbergs
9. Sort It Out – Caesars
10. Speed Racer – The Redwalls
11. Don’t Let Me Go – Michael Penn
12. Hi-Fi Killer – American Hi-Fi
13. Denise – Fountains of
15. Secretarial – A.C. Newman
16. Season is Over – Matthew Sweet
17. Louie Louie – Fastball
18. Fingerpops – Garageland
19. Box Full of Letters – Wilco
20. When Everything Was Alright – Sam Roberts
Friday, April 22, 2005
Radiohead and the Unwashed Masses
I have been struck of late by the dichotomy between the public perception of Radiohead (who?) and the almost godlike status they claim among rock critics and mavens of popular culture. Here is a band that has had one certifiable hit ("Creep," from the 1993 debut album Pablo Honey), and yet is semi-widely acclaimed (or maybe I just keep strange company) as the most important band on the planet, a band that is creating hugely important music, both from the standpoint of influencing other musicians and in providing trenchant cultural commentary.
A case in point: David Dark's very good book _Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons_ argues that Thom Yorke is creating genuinely apocalyptic works -- apocalyptic not in the sense of addressing the end of the world, but in the sense of the future pushing into the present, "cracking the pavement of the status quo ... announcing a new world of unrealized possibility," as Dark puts it. Heady stuff, particularly for guys with guitars and synthesizers. Now David Dark is a very smart man, and when I could follow his meandering trail I genuinely enjoyed his comments at the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College. But I wonder if he's overstating the case. It's the old conundrum: If an apocalypse falls in the middle of the forest, does anybody hear it?
Radiohead, of course, does have a fairly sizable and fanatical base of followers. I'd probably number myself in those ranks. But the music simply does not reach the unwashed masses. It is not played on the radio, at least in Columbus, Ohio, it is not featured on the non-musical cable TV music channels, and therefore it does not register for most people, even those who would consider themselves music fans. For Billy Ray and Wanda, watching Hollywood Access and Entertainment Tonight from their farmhouse outside Bucyrus, Ohio, Radiohead does not exist. This isn't exactly Beatlemania we're talking about here. The revolution came, and somebody forgot to notify 95% of the western world.
But ... there is that fanatical base, and they tend to be a proselytizing bunch. I've recently encountered two new albums that do their best to pass the word. Brad Mehldau's Anything Goes contains a fine jazz interpretation of Thom Yorke's "Everything In Its Right Place." And upping the ante, classical pianist Christopher O'Riley has released an entire 15-song cycle of Yorke's songs entitled True Love Waits: O'Riley Plays Radiohead.
Those who have followed Mehldau's career will know that the Radiohead cover is nothing new. Slowly making his way through the Yorke back catalogue, one song per album, Mehldau should be set well into the 22nd century. His earlier covers of "Exit Music (for a Film)" (available on both studio and live albums) and "Paranoid Android" (from his 2003 album Largo) are well worth seeking out. On "Everything In Its Right Place," he works his usual magic. The song is recognizably Radiohead, but Mehldau's left hand dispenses plenty of dissonant block chords, filling in for the schizoid nature of the lyrics, while the right hand elongates the melody here, chops it into staccato machine gun fire there, and generally deconstructs a song that is already heavily deconstructed in its original incarnation. It's a tour de force, and it's what makes Mehldau great. I don't know of a finer jazz pianist working today.
O'Riley's musical preaching is, impossibly, even better. I'm not a classically trained pianist, but I do know that this music is enormously complex and enormously moving. Regardless of the apocalypse, O'Riley has figured out that behind all the dire warnings, the existential despair, and the technological dystopia is the undeniable fact that Thom Yorke writes beautiful melodies. I had feared a sort of New Age arpeggio fest when I bought this album, but O'Riley strikes just the right balance between exuberant, flashy romanticism and difficult, knotty lines. He has prodigious technique, as befitting a classical dweeb who cut his teeth on Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3, but he also has an inherent feel for the subtle undercurrents in Radiohead's music, effectively mimicking the uneasy, fractured nature of many of these songs through chordings that are always just a little off, a little dissonant, as if the romantic facade cannot quite cover the ugliness peeking through the artificial beauty. And that, of course, is very, very Radiohead. True Love Waits is a wonderful album, one that non-Radiohead fans could fully enjoy as well. But the music is all the more impressive when one fills in the missing lyrics as one listens, and marvels at how O'Riley communicates in finely nuanced ways through only a box with eighty-eight keys.
True love may wait, but I see that O'Riley has a newly released album of Radiohead songs. I'm impatiently ordering it today.
A case in point: David Dark's very good book _Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons_ argues that Thom Yorke is creating genuinely apocalyptic works -- apocalyptic not in the sense of addressing the end of the world, but in the sense of the future pushing into the present, "cracking the pavement of the status quo ... announcing a new world of unrealized possibility," as Dark puts it. Heady stuff, particularly for guys with guitars and synthesizers. Now David Dark is a very smart man, and when I could follow his meandering trail I genuinely enjoyed his comments at the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College. But I wonder if he's overstating the case. It's the old conundrum: If an apocalypse falls in the middle of the forest, does anybody hear it?
Radiohead, of course, does have a fairly sizable and fanatical base of followers. I'd probably number myself in those ranks. But the music simply does not reach the unwashed masses. It is not played on the radio, at least in Columbus, Ohio, it is not featured on the non-musical cable TV music channels, and therefore it does not register for most people, even those who would consider themselves music fans. For Billy Ray and Wanda, watching Hollywood Access and Entertainment Tonight from their farmhouse outside Bucyrus, Ohio, Radiohead does not exist. This isn't exactly Beatlemania we're talking about here. The revolution came, and somebody forgot to notify 95% of the western world.
But ... there is that fanatical base, and they tend to be a proselytizing bunch. I've recently encountered two new albums that do their best to pass the word. Brad Mehldau's Anything Goes contains a fine jazz interpretation of Thom Yorke's "Everything In Its Right Place." And upping the ante, classical pianist Christopher O'Riley has released an entire 15-song cycle of Yorke's songs entitled True Love Waits: O'Riley Plays Radiohead.
Those who have followed Mehldau's career will know that the Radiohead cover is nothing new. Slowly making his way through the Yorke back catalogue, one song per album, Mehldau should be set well into the 22nd century. His earlier covers of "Exit Music (for a Film)" (available on both studio and live albums) and "Paranoid Android" (from his 2003 album Largo) are well worth seeking out. On "Everything In Its Right Place," he works his usual magic. The song is recognizably Radiohead, but Mehldau's left hand dispenses plenty of dissonant block chords, filling in for the schizoid nature of the lyrics, while the right hand elongates the melody here, chops it into staccato machine gun fire there, and generally deconstructs a song that is already heavily deconstructed in its original incarnation. It's a tour de force, and it's what makes Mehldau great. I don't know of a finer jazz pianist working today.
O'Riley's musical preaching is, impossibly, even better. I'm not a classically trained pianist, but I do know that this music is enormously complex and enormously moving. Regardless of the apocalypse, O'Riley has figured out that behind all the dire warnings, the existential despair, and the technological dystopia is the undeniable fact that Thom Yorke writes beautiful melodies. I had feared a sort of New Age arpeggio fest when I bought this album, but O'Riley strikes just the right balance between exuberant, flashy romanticism and difficult, knotty lines. He has prodigious technique, as befitting a classical dweeb who cut his teeth on Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3, but he also has an inherent feel for the subtle undercurrents in Radiohead's music, effectively mimicking the uneasy, fractured nature of many of these songs through chordings that are always just a little off, a little dissonant, as if the romantic facade cannot quite cover the ugliness peeking through the artificial beauty. And that, of course, is very, very Radiohead. True Love Waits is a wonderful album, one that non-Radiohead fans could fully enjoy as well. But the music is all the more impressive when one fills in the missing lyrics as one listens, and marvels at how O'Riley communicates in finely nuanced ways through only a box with eighty-eight keys.
True love may wait, but I see that O'Riley has a newly released album of Radiohead songs. I'm impatiently ordering it today.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Jesus, Bastards, and Bad Burritos
When a friend read my story about musician John Davis, he commented, "That doesn't sound like a conversion to me. It sounds like he ate a bad burrito."
I can sympathize. I'm wary of sensational, emotional conversion stories, and my first inclination is to assume that they've been, well, if not fabricated, then at least substantially embellished. As a young Christian, I used to see this weird sort of "top this testimony" dynamic at work all the time. So you were a drug-abusing transvestite before you came to Christ, huh? Well, I was a drug-abusing transvestite in a motorcyle gang of drug abusing transvestites, and Jesus spoke to me when I was on acid and told me to put away the drugs and the bikes and the dresses and to follow Him. Etc. Etc.
The thing is, I really do know people whose lives have been instantly transformed by an encounter with Jesus. That encounter may or may not have been an emotional one. And so, I suspect that what we really struggle with is the radical inbreaking of God into human lives. In some ways we prefer the slow grind of infinitesimal transformation, because that makes more sense to us. It's a lot like going on a diet or studying for another degree. Just keep plugging away at it and eventually you'll see some progress. What doesn't make sense to us is the kind of testimony of John Davis -- one day I was a raging, out-of-control alcoholic, and the next day I had been delivered of the need to drink. That somehow seems unfair -- at least to me. It's the spiritual equivalent of stomach stapling to a perpetual dieter. What! You mean you didn't have to work at it, when my own story involves successes and failures, slipping back into an old way of life, pain and trauma, slowly being changed into someone who, by nature, I am not. It's not fair!
We're also (rightly) suspicious of sensational conversion stories that often turn out, in the long run, to be little more than a temporary reprieve from the usual self-centered life. And so we prefer to wait and see, and that's a reasonable approach in the case of John Davis.
All I know is that human beings are extraordinarily complex creatures. What seems like a legitimate encounter with God may turn out to be a passing fancy, driven by guilt or short-lived willpower, or even a bad burrito, for all I know. But I don't want to rule out the possibility that God still breaks into human lives radically and powerfully. And I want to pray for those situations to occur, because although they may not always be fair, they are always glorious. I know so many people who ought to be dead, and who are not, and who are living reasonably healthy, whole lives, people whose stories of addiction go back generation after generation, and who sincerely believe that the chain of madness can be broken in their generation. I am one of them. This is miraculous, and I don't use that word lightly. For some people the chain has been snapped in two instantaneously. For most people it's been a slow, grinding process where the chain has been weakened little by little. In all cases, though, it's miraculous.
This doesn't happen by willpower. I don't know any addicts who believe that they can will themselves into sobriety. They've all tried it, because that's the easiest solution, and it doesn't work. It happens by the power of God.
I am afflicted with the disease of cynicism, and I can very easily slip into a mindset where I doubt and mock anything and everything. And I suspect that the little bastard on my shoulder who is whispering derogatory things about (melo)dramatic Christian conversions is, in the end, more concerned with my vanity and my feelings of superiority than he is about Christian charity. Lamentably, I often choose to listen to him when I should really be saying, “Get thee behind me, you little bastard."
I think about a friend, or perhaps ex-friend now, I've met recently. He had some issues in his life, as we all do, but I genuinely liked him, wanted to help him. Kate and I personally lent him a fair amount of money so that he could get back on an even footing. Life was improving for him until he split, with our money, for parts unknown.
Now he's gone. Part of me wants to kick myself for being so naive and so stupid. I knew this could happen. But part of me -- the better part of me, I'd like to think -- would do it all over again. He talked a good game. He had me convinced of the legitimacy of his faith and his dedication to following Christ. And maybe he is legitimate on one level. I understand that kind of moral schizophrenia. And maybe he'll be back. But I'm betting against it. In spite of that, I'd still like to silence that smug little bastard on my shoulder who cynically points out that God can't *really* change people easily and that quickly. As usual, I was wrong. But so is the smug little bastard.
I can sympathize. I'm wary of sensational, emotional conversion stories, and my first inclination is to assume that they've been, well, if not fabricated, then at least substantially embellished. As a young Christian, I used to see this weird sort of "top this testimony" dynamic at work all the time. So you were a drug-abusing transvestite before you came to Christ, huh? Well, I was a drug-abusing transvestite in a motorcyle gang of drug abusing transvestites, and Jesus spoke to me when I was on acid and told me to put away the drugs and the bikes and the dresses and to follow Him. Etc. Etc.
The thing is, I really do know people whose lives have been instantly transformed by an encounter with Jesus. That encounter may or may not have been an emotional one. And so, I suspect that what we really struggle with is the radical inbreaking of God into human lives. In some ways we prefer the slow grind of infinitesimal transformation, because that makes more sense to us. It's a lot like going on a diet or studying for another degree. Just keep plugging away at it and eventually you'll see some progress. What doesn't make sense to us is the kind of testimony of John Davis -- one day I was a raging, out-of-control alcoholic, and the next day I had been delivered of the need to drink. That somehow seems unfair -- at least to me. It's the spiritual equivalent of stomach stapling to a perpetual dieter. What! You mean you didn't have to work at it, when my own story involves successes and failures, slipping back into an old way of life, pain and trauma, slowly being changed into someone who, by nature, I am not. It's not fair!
We're also (rightly) suspicious of sensational conversion stories that often turn out, in the long run, to be little more than a temporary reprieve from the usual self-centered life. And so we prefer to wait and see, and that's a reasonable approach in the case of John Davis.
All I know is that human beings are extraordinarily complex creatures. What seems like a legitimate encounter with God may turn out to be a passing fancy, driven by guilt or short-lived willpower, or even a bad burrito, for all I know. But I don't want to rule out the possibility that God still breaks into human lives radically and powerfully. And I want to pray for those situations to occur, because although they may not always be fair, they are always glorious. I know so many people who ought to be dead, and who are not, and who are living reasonably healthy, whole lives, people whose stories of addiction go back generation after generation, and who sincerely believe that the chain of madness can be broken in their generation. I am one of them. This is miraculous, and I don't use that word lightly. For some people the chain has been snapped in two instantaneously. For most people it's been a slow, grinding process where the chain has been weakened little by little. In all cases, though, it's miraculous.
This doesn't happen by willpower. I don't know any addicts who believe that they can will themselves into sobriety. They've all tried it, because that's the easiest solution, and it doesn't work. It happens by the power of God.
I am afflicted with the disease of cynicism, and I can very easily slip into a mindset where I doubt and mock anything and everything. And I suspect that the little bastard on my shoulder who is whispering derogatory things about (melo)dramatic Christian conversions is, in the end, more concerned with my vanity and my feelings of superiority than he is about Christian charity. Lamentably, I often choose to listen to him when I should really be saying, “Get thee behind me, you little bastard."
I think about a friend, or perhaps ex-friend now, I've met recently. He had some issues in his life, as we all do, but I genuinely liked him, wanted to help him. Kate and I personally lent him a fair amount of money so that he could get back on an even footing. Life was improving for him until he split, with our money, for parts unknown.
Now he's gone. Part of me wants to kick myself for being so naive and so stupid. I knew this could happen. But part of me -- the better part of me, I'd like to think -- would do it all over again. He talked a good game. He had me convinced of the legitimacy of his faith and his dedication to following Christ. And maybe he is legitimate on one level. I understand that kind of moral schizophrenia. And maybe he'll be back. But I'm betting against it. In spite of that, I'd still like to silence that smug little bastard on my shoulder who cynically points out that God can't *really* change people easily and that quickly. As usual, I was wrong. But so is the smug little bastard.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Dwight Yoakam: The Fine Art of Re-Invention
Another new article for Paste Magazine ...
--------------------------------------------------------
Dwight’s Yoakam’s 2000 album Tomorrow’s Sounds Today features a title that has to be one of the greatest musical in-jokes of all time. Yoakam has made a 20+ year career out of brushing the cobwebs from yesterday’s sounds (in particular, rockabilly and the classic mid ‘60s Bakersfield loping swagger of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard) and transforming them into something fresh and relevant. So one suspects that beneath the cowboy hat that perpetually covers his face, Dwight had his tongue firmly in his cheek. He apparently still does, in fact, given a couple of the Monty-Pythonesque interludes on his new album.
Between filming the final takes of Bandidas, his latest movie, where he chases Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek around the dusty streets of Durango, Mexico (it’s a rough job, but somebody has to do it), Yoakam found the time to record a new record. Blame the Vain, Dwight’s eighteenth album (not counting the numerous compilations and tribute albums on which he appears), represents something of a departure for the veteran singer and songwriter. It’s his first musical foray without longtime producer and guitarist Pete Anderson, his first stab at production, and his fist recorded output with a new band that features players as varied as former George Jones guitar slinger Keith Gattis and seminal Motown percussionist Bobbye Hall. Why the change?
“Well, I think it’s incumbent on any songwriter to find new inspiration throughout his or her life,” Yoakam says. “And in the last couple of years I’ve been rethinking just how to go about this process. This time I wanted to go for a more stripped down, austere sound, and I’d been playing with the Sin City All Stars in L.A., sitting in with this loose collective of folks who love to play country and country-rock music. It just seemed like the logical place to begin when I started recording the new album.”
Blame the Vain’s twelve songs will still sound reassuringly familiar to Yoakam’s longtime fans. It’s not like the man has gone and recorded a hip-hop album, although the two spoken-word rants here (with a British accent, no less) at least leave that door open for the future. The album’s songs are equally split between the rockabilly rave-ups and Bakersfield honky tonkers for which Yoakam is best known and the sadsack ballads that have always characterized the best country music. As always, Dwight’s singing and songwriting are first-rate.
“The best songs tend to write themselves,“ Yoakam says. “I just try to be still long enough so I don’t interfere with the process. The songs on this album just led me along for the ride. On “Intentional Heartache” I started out with just the first two lines: “She drove south I-95 straight through Carolina/She didn’t use no damn map to find her way.” I really had no idea where that song was taking me. But I lived with it for a while, let the music drive the lyrics and the lyrics drive the music, lived with that symbiotic relationship, you know, and I let the song take me where it wanted to take me. Pretty soon there was a story there, a whole history there, that I could have never envisioned when I started.”
The process is nowhere better realized than on “I Wanna Love Again,” an update of the classic Bakersfield sound that is part cornball romantic lament and part existential angst that could have come from nowhere but the deepest recesses of the heart.
“It’s funny in a way,” Dwight says. “You start off with a stereotypical love song, and eventually you realize that you’re writing about middle age, and a loss of joy in your life, and a desire to recapture that sense of reckless spontaneity and abandon. This whole album is like that. It took me places I didn’t expect to go. And I hope that sense of fun and pure joy in making music comes through. Almost everything else has changed, and yet it all comes back to the joy of making music.”
In the end, that’s the conundrum with which Blame the Vain confronts the longtime Dwight Yoakam listener. The man has managed to re-invent himself, find new wellsprings of creativity, and still sound like no one but Dwight Yoakam. And he’s done it while still sounding consistently good. In twenty years, Dwight Yoakam never made a bad or even mediocre album with Pete Anderson. He hasn’t made one without him, either. – Andy Whitman
--------------------------------------------------------
Dwight’s Yoakam’s 2000 album Tomorrow’s Sounds Today features a title that has to be one of the greatest musical in-jokes of all time. Yoakam has made a 20+ year career out of brushing the cobwebs from yesterday’s sounds (in particular, rockabilly and the classic mid ‘60s Bakersfield loping swagger of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard) and transforming them into something fresh and relevant. So one suspects that beneath the cowboy hat that perpetually covers his face, Dwight had his tongue firmly in his cheek. He apparently still does, in fact, given a couple of the Monty-Pythonesque interludes on his new album.
Between filming the final takes of Bandidas, his latest movie, where he chases Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek around the dusty streets of Durango, Mexico (it’s a rough job, but somebody has to do it), Yoakam found the time to record a new record. Blame the Vain, Dwight’s eighteenth album (not counting the numerous compilations and tribute albums on which he appears), represents something of a departure for the veteran singer and songwriter. It’s his first musical foray without longtime producer and guitarist Pete Anderson, his first stab at production, and his fist recorded output with a new band that features players as varied as former George Jones guitar slinger Keith Gattis and seminal Motown percussionist Bobbye Hall. Why the change?
“Well, I think it’s incumbent on any songwriter to find new inspiration throughout his or her life,” Yoakam says. “And in the last couple of years I’ve been rethinking just how to go about this process. This time I wanted to go for a more stripped down, austere sound, and I’d been playing with the Sin City All Stars in L.A., sitting in with this loose collective of folks who love to play country and country-rock music. It just seemed like the logical place to begin when I started recording the new album.”
Blame the Vain’s twelve songs will still sound reassuringly familiar to Yoakam’s longtime fans. It’s not like the man has gone and recorded a hip-hop album, although the two spoken-word rants here (with a British accent, no less) at least leave that door open for the future. The album’s songs are equally split between the rockabilly rave-ups and Bakersfield honky tonkers for which Yoakam is best known and the sadsack ballads that have always characterized the best country music. As always, Dwight’s singing and songwriting are first-rate.
“The best songs tend to write themselves,“ Yoakam says. “I just try to be still long enough so I don’t interfere with the process. The songs on this album just led me along for the ride. On “Intentional Heartache” I started out with just the first two lines: “She drove south I-95 straight through Carolina/She didn’t use no damn map to find her way.” I really had no idea where that song was taking me. But I lived with it for a while, let the music drive the lyrics and the lyrics drive the music, lived with that symbiotic relationship, you know, and I let the song take me where it wanted to take me. Pretty soon there was a story there, a whole history there, that I could have never envisioned when I started.”
The process is nowhere better realized than on “I Wanna Love Again,” an update of the classic Bakersfield sound that is part cornball romantic lament and part existential angst that could have come from nowhere but the deepest recesses of the heart.
“It’s funny in a way,” Dwight says. “You start off with a stereotypical love song, and eventually you realize that you’re writing about middle age, and a loss of joy in your life, and a desire to recapture that sense of reckless spontaneity and abandon. This whole album is like that. It took me places I didn’t expect to go. And I hope that sense of fun and pure joy in making music comes through. Almost everything else has changed, and yet it all comes back to the joy of making music.”
In the end, that’s the conundrum with which Blame the Vain confronts the longtime Dwight Yoakam listener. The man has managed to re-invent himself, find new wellsprings of creativity, and still sound like no one but Dwight Yoakam. And he’s done it while still sounding consistently good. In twenty years, Dwight Yoakam never made a bad or even mediocre album with Pete Anderson. He hasn’t made one without him, either. – Andy Whitman
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
John Davis: A New Suit for the Man in Superdrag
This is a new article for The Mars Hill Review (http://www.marshillreview.com)
-----------------------------------------------------------
His earliest musical memories involve automobiles -- little Deuce Coupes, classic Chevy 409 engines, and, of course, daddy’s T-Bird, which provided the wheels to never-ending fun, fun, fun. Those early Beach Boys songs are embedded deep in John Davis’s memory, and profoundly influenced the music Davis made with his former band Superdrag. And so it is only fitting that Davis would experience his spiritual epiphany, his “road to Damascus” blinding light, when he was behind the wheel of a car.
“I was barreling down the Interstate at 80 miles per hour,” Davis says. “I was on my way to buy a new suit for my wedding. And believe me, Jesus was the furthest thing from my mind. I had absolutely no intention of changing anything about my life. I can’t explain it rationally. How do you ever explain this stuff in a way that makes sense? But I started feeling uncomfortable. And then I broke out into a cold sweat. It was terrible. And it was terrible in ways that went way beyond the physical. It was like I was staring at my life, and all I saw was a yawning black hole. So I started praying, crying out for help. I mean, I was literally cruising down the highway, yelling at the top of my lungs, just telling God that I was tired and sick, that I couldn’t live like this. And then it was like a cool breeze washed over me. I just knew. I can’t explain it in any way other than that. But sometimes you just know that you know. And it was like God was telling me, ‘I’m here now, so what are you going to do with me?’”
“That was it,” John Davis says. “God gave me a new set of clothes, new heavenly robes before I ever made it to that store for my tuxedo. That was a little more than three years ago. I was a raging, out-of-control alcoholic up until that moment. And I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since that day. God delivered me from the crushing need to kill myself.”
And now he wants to sing about it. Davis’s self-titled debut solo album, recently released on Rambler Records, is a musical chronicle of a changed life. The music will sound instantly familiar and striking to anyone who followed Davis’s career with Superdrag, and the basic building blocks – Beatlesque power pop (particularly as filtered through the loose raggedness of Big Star and The Replacements), intricately layered Brian Wilson song structures and Beach Boys chorales, indelible choruses and hooks – will sound reassuringly the same. But the message is something altogether different.
In a world where many Christian rock artists long to cross over to the world of MTV and Top 40 singles on Clear Channel radio stations, John Davis did a U-turn on the highway of life. After years of mainstream success and MTV airplay, now all he wants to do is sing about Jesus.
-----------------------------------------------------------
“I don’t feel any sense of entitlement for anybody to listen to anything I have to say,” Davis states matter-of-factly. “I’m not trying to shove anything down anybody’s throats. I’m just telling my story. And if it resonates with some people, then great.”
The story dates back to a childhood spent in Knoxville, Tennessee, and to a conservative Christian upbringing that found John Davis in church three nights a week.
“The church was literally in our back yard,” he says. “We walked out behind my house, and we were there. My dad was a deacon, and held other offices in the church at various times. We were very, very involved. And I heard the gospel message clearly. It wasn’t like this was new to me.” But adolescence ushered in the usual period of rebellion and questioning. Rock ‘n roll only accelerated the process.
Davis fronted a number of local bands before forming Superdrag in the early 1990s. The band’s 1995 debut album Regretfully Yours was the stuff of rock ‘n roll legends. The first single “Sucked Out” was a major hit, a jolt of pure power pop adrenaline that crossed over from alternative stations to mainstream radio and garnered airplay on MTV. The non-album track “Alright” had the good fortune to end up on the soundtrack to the wildly popular Clueless, and hundreds of thousands of music fans were exposed to a new band thanks to the breakout success of the movie. In an era when grunge-still ruled the airwaves and dominated the musical landscape, Davis’s tightly constructed songs and sure pop sensibilities marked Superdrag as the Next Big Thing. Along with like-minded musicians such as Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, Weezer, and The Posies, they had rediscovered melody and welded it to a sturdy foundation of raw, punkish power chords and a backbeat. The future seemed limitless.
But Regretfully Yours turned out to be the commercial high point. Subsequent albums were well received critically, but suffered from a lack of label support. Months of constant touring sapped the energy and patience of the band, but that didn’t stop John Davis from continued experimentation, musical and otherwise. “I’m Expanding My Mind,” a track from 1998’s Head Trip In Every Key, showed off both a late-sixties Brian Wilson obsession and a preoccupation with psychedelia in all its manifestations.
“It’s part of the rock ‘n roll lifestyle,” Davis explains. “It’s that whole ridiculous, romantic notion that self-destruction is part of the job description. Hank Williams did it. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin did it. So you have to do it, too. And it’s easy to fall into it. But it sucks the life out of you. Eventually you lose hope.”
It’s a theme that is readily apparent in Superdrag’s music. It is easy to brand it as fashionable cynicism, but in truth it goes much deeper and darker. On “Annetichrist” John Davis sang:
Nothing's cool Nothing matters
I'm jumping off the bridge
It is the sound of the yawning black hole.
“I had talked myself out of the notion of a loving God who cared about individuals,” John Davis says. “And life just got seriously crazy. I’m not saying that there weren’t fun times along the way. I have nothing but love for the guys in Superdrag. I know they care about me, too. And the drugs and the drinking actually work on a certain level, you know? But it got horrible, and it got horrible fairly quickly.”
“The truth is I had no hope; none at all. My grandfather was the greatest guy; one of our biggest fans. He’d come to the shows and he actually liked what we were doing. And when he died a few years ago, it sent me into the worst tailspin. That’s when the drinking really got ugly. By that time I was going through a fifth or more of sour mash whiskey every day. And the drinking got stupider and stupider, and I got more and more depressed. During our last tour, when we were promoting our album Last Call for Vitriol, I would just sit in the van before shows and listen to the saddest country music I could find and guzzle whiskey. I spent a lot of time crying, or wanting to punch somebody, or both. Then I’d go out on stage, hammered out of my mind, and pretend like I was having a wonderful rock ‘n roll time.”
“I had no time for God,” John Davis says. “I never even really thought about God. I figured that the next time my body would enter a church would be when it was inside my coffin. And I figured it wouldn’t take me that long to get there, either.”
Those were the basic ingredients: John Davis, one life out of control, all hope sucked out. And it remained that way until that fateful night on the Interstate.
-----------------------------------------------------------
John Davis, the album, opens with the hushed piano chords and soaring, plaintive vocals that could only come from one person: Brian Wilson. Okay, two people. But it is genuinely startling to hear how painstakingly and lovingly John Davis has captured the Pet Sounds sonic landscape. “I Hear Your Voice,” the opening track, sounds like a long-lost track from that Beach Boys masterpiece. With echoes of “God Only Knows” and “You Still Believe in Me,” the song is a soul-searching prayer that finds Davis confessing his own spiritual poverty before it builds to a wordless multi-tracked chorale wherein Davis proves that he can imitate Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Carl Wilson equally well. It’s gorgeous and thrilling, and a whole different kind of fun, fun, fun. The Beach Boys homage continues on “Salvation,” the second track, which captures the upbeat, poppier side of Brian Wilson, and recalls mid-sixties Beach Boys hits such as “California Girls” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”
Although there are echoes of sixties and early-seventies musical icons throughout the album (the early Beatles on the impossibly infectious “Me and My Girl,” John Lennon’s more raw and anguished solo work on the bluesy, growling “Have Mercy” and “Tear Me Apart,” Bob Dylan and The Band on “Jesus Gonna Build Me a Home”), Davis still finds room for his own musical imprint. Superdrag fans will recognize the familiar power chords and fuzzed out guitars on the album’s first single “Nothing Gets Me Down” and the cautionary “Too Far Out.” It all sounds fresh and uncalculated. Only on the ballads “The Kind of Heart” and “Lay Your Burden Down” does Davis succumb to the dreaded CCM disease and let the Christian sloganeering overpower the music. It’s the conundrum of every Christian musical artist, and Davis struggles to find the balance.
“It’s hard,” he admits. “On one hand, you want to tell people about Jesus. Jesus changes lives. He changed my life. But there is so much already out there, so many preconceptions that people bring to the table, that it’s impossible to do what I do without offending somebody. I’m going to be perceived as too preachy. Or I’m going to be perceived as watering down the truth. So I try not to worry about it. I’m focused on telling my story. This is what Jesus did for me. Listen, when I was downing a fifth of whiskey a day I could rationalize and make excuses with the best of them. I was doing all right by some standards. They weren’t very high standards, but there you go. But still, I was out there, making rock ‘n roll, and people were paying money to hear me do it. So I understand how the defensive walls can be up. But all I’m here to do is tell people that they matter and that it can be better, and entertain them in the process. It can be a lot better.”
That generosity of spirit is readily apparent on the album’s twelve songs. “Do You Know How Much You’ve Been Loved?,” the concluding track, throws a musical life preserver to those who are drowning in their own self-sufficiency. It shows a John Davis who is characterized by compassion, sensitivity, and understanding. And something else – clear-eyed honesty and vulnerability. Maybe John Davis doesn’t know any better yet; maybe he’s naïve enough to think that he can actually continue to be himself and to abstain from the feel-good slogans, but one hopes that the CCM industry doesn’t latch onto him and smooth over the searching and the questions. On “The Kind of Heart,” an otherwise standard-issue Christian ballad, Davis sings, “Sometimes I find myself at a loss for words/When taken at face value, it seems so absurd/To believe in a love that comes on like that.” It’s refreshing in its candor, and unlike so many of the write-by-the-numbers musical Hallmark Cards one hears in CCM, it bears the imprint of a real human being with a beating heart.
-----------------------------------------------------------
On a bright April afternoon John Davis is on a tour bus, on his way from Pittsburgh to Manhattan, where he will perform at an East Village club called Mercury Lounge later that night. He’s running late, and nothing so far has gone according to plan. The bus has been making suspicious grinding noises that threaten a breakdown, and there is unexpected construction on the highway. It’s the same arduous schedule he’s known for years, the same routine of sheer boredom punctuated by two hours of musical intensity, the same interminable road trip with its trials and temptations. And it’s the kind of moment that would have pushed him over the edge three years ago. But this time everything is different.
“It’s like switching careers without really switching careers,” Davis explains. “Outwardly I’m doing the same things I’ve always done, at least from a musical standpoint. We roll into some town and up to some bar, we set up, and we play rock ‘n roll. At this point we’re not doing the church circuit. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you usually don’t have the same kinds of conversations that I’m able to have right now. I love it when somebody comes up to me after a show and says, ‘Hey man, you’re not drunk. What’s your problem?’ Because that’s when I can tell them my story, and tell them about Jesus.”
The journey is a big part of that story, the long, circuitous sojourn that has taken him from church to rebellion to church, with a thousand detours and side trips along the way. It is a journey that has taken him through the blaring clamor of stardom, or something very much like it, and left him empty. And it is a journey that promises something better in the hushed piano chords that accompany a prayer of repentance and confession.
“Look,” he says. “This is a blessing. To compose songs, to sing them, is the best thing I can do as a human being. If I wasn’t doing this, I honestly have no idea what I would be doing with my life. This is what I do best. So I don’t take any of it for granted. Sure, it’s hard sometimes. It’s hard to be away from my family. But I’m playing with guys who are not only great musically, but who are believers, who are there to support me. I’m doing what I love. And this time I’m doing it for somebody other than me.”
He’s thankful for the opportunity to sing his new songs before an appreciative audience. And he’s thankful for the newfound serenity that is centered on serving God, his wife Wendy, and his infant son Paul.
“He’s named after the apostle,” Davis explains. “And McCartney and Westerberg. And Les Paul, the great guitarist and guitar designer. It all fits together.”
It certainly does; like a puzzle where the missing piece has finally snapped into place. It’s all part of a new life characterized by hope. It has to do with highways that open up to new vistas of the heart. It has to do with old-fashioned rock ‘n roll and a new suit of clothes. And it fits just fine.
-----------------------------------------------------------
His earliest musical memories involve automobiles -- little Deuce Coupes, classic Chevy 409 engines, and, of course, daddy’s T-Bird, which provided the wheels to never-ending fun, fun, fun. Those early Beach Boys songs are embedded deep in John Davis’s memory, and profoundly influenced the music Davis made with his former band Superdrag. And so it is only fitting that Davis would experience his spiritual epiphany, his “road to Damascus” blinding light, when he was behind the wheel of a car.
“I was barreling down the Interstate at 80 miles per hour,” Davis says. “I was on my way to buy a new suit for my wedding. And believe me, Jesus was the furthest thing from my mind. I had absolutely no intention of changing anything about my life. I can’t explain it rationally. How do you ever explain this stuff in a way that makes sense? But I started feeling uncomfortable. And then I broke out into a cold sweat. It was terrible. And it was terrible in ways that went way beyond the physical. It was like I was staring at my life, and all I saw was a yawning black hole. So I started praying, crying out for help. I mean, I was literally cruising down the highway, yelling at the top of my lungs, just telling God that I was tired and sick, that I couldn’t live like this. And then it was like a cool breeze washed over me. I just knew. I can’t explain it in any way other than that. But sometimes you just know that you know. And it was like God was telling me, ‘I’m here now, so what are you going to do with me?’”
“That was it,” John Davis says. “God gave me a new set of clothes, new heavenly robes before I ever made it to that store for my tuxedo. That was a little more than three years ago. I was a raging, out-of-control alcoholic up until that moment. And I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since that day. God delivered me from the crushing need to kill myself.”
And now he wants to sing about it. Davis’s self-titled debut solo album, recently released on Rambler Records, is a musical chronicle of a changed life. The music will sound instantly familiar and striking to anyone who followed Davis’s career with Superdrag, and the basic building blocks – Beatlesque power pop (particularly as filtered through the loose raggedness of Big Star and The Replacements), intricately layered Brian Wilson song structures and Beach Boys chorales, indelible choruses and hooks – will sound reassuringly the same. But the message is something altogether different.
In a world where many Christian rock artists long to cross over to the world of MTV and Top 40 singles on Clear Channel radio stations, John Davis did a U-turn on the highway of life. After years of mainstream success and MTV airplay, now all he wants to do is sing about Jesus.
-----------------------------------------------------------
“I don’t feel any sense of entitlement for anybody to listen to anything I have to say,” Davis states matter-of-factly. “I’m not trying to shove anything down anybody’s throats. I’m just telling my story. And if it resonates with some people, then great.”
The story dates back to a childhood spent in Knoxville, Tennessee, and to a conservative Christian upbringing that found John Davis in church three nights a week.
“The church was literally in our back yard,” he says. “We walked out behind my house, and we were there. My dad was a deacon, and held other offices in the church at various times. We were very, very involved. And I heard the gospel message clearly. It wasn’t like this was new to me.” But adolescence ushered in the usual period of rebellion and questioning. Rock ‘n roll only accelerated the process.
Davis fronted a number of local bands before forming Superdrag in the early 1990s. The band’s 1995 debut album Regretfully Yours was the stuff of rock ‘n roll legends. The first single “Sucked Out” was a major hit, a jolt of pure power pop adrenaline that crossed over from alternative stations to mainstream radio and garnered airplay on MTV. The non-album track “Alright” had the good fortune to end up on the soundtrack to the wildly popular Clueless, and hundreds of thousands of music fans were exposed to a new band thanks to the breakout success of the movie. In an era when grunge-still ruled the airwaves and dominated the musical landscape, Davis’s tightly constructed songs and sure pop sensibilities marked Superdrag as the Next Big Thing. Along with like-minded musicians such as Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, Weezer, and The Posies, they had rediscovered melody and welded it to a sturdy foundation of raw, punkish power chords and a backbeat. The future seemed limitless.
But Regretfully Yours turned out to be the commercial high point. Subsequent albums were well received critically, but suffered from a lack of label support. Months of constant touring sapped the energy and patience of the band, but that didn’t stop John Davis from continued experimentation, musical and otherwise. “I’m Expanding My Mind,” a track from 1998’s Head Trip In Every Key, showed off both a late-sixties Brian Wilson obsession and a preoccupation with psychedelia in all its manifestations.
“It’s part of the rock ‘n roll lifestyle,” Davis explains. “It’s that whole ridiculous, romantic notion that self-destruction is part of the job description. Hank Williams did it. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin did it. So you have to do it, too. And it’s easy to fall into it. But it sucks the life out of you. Eventually you lose hope.”
It’s a theme that is readily apparent in Superdrag’s music. It is easy to brand it as fashionable cynicism, but in truth it goes much deeper and darker. On “Annetichrist” John Davis sang:
Nothing's cool Nothing matters
I'm jumping off the bridge
It is the sound of the yawning black hole.
“I had talked myself out of the notion of a loving God who cared about individuals,” John Davis says. “And life just got seriously crazy. I’m not saying that there weren’t fun times along the way. I have nothing but love for the guys in Superdrag. I know they care about me, too. And the drugs and the drinking actually work on a certain level, you know? But it got horrible, and it got horrible fairly quickly.”
“The truth is I had no hope; none at all. My grandfather was the greatest guy; one of our biggest fans. He’d come to the shows and he actually liked what we were doing. And when he died a few years ago, it sent me into the worst tailspin. That’s when the drinking really got ugly. By that time I was going through a fifth or more of sour mash whiskey every day. And the drinking got stupider and stupider, and I got more and more depressed. During our last tour, when we were promoting our album Last Call for Vitriol, I would just sit in the van before shows and listen to the saddest country music I could find and guzzle whiskey. I spent a lot of time crying, or wanting to punch somebody, or both. Then I’d go out on stage, hammered out of my mind, and pretend like I was having a wonderful rock ‘n roll time.”
“I had no time for God,” John Davis says. “I never even really thought about God. I figured that the next time my body would enter a church would be when it was inside my coffin. And I figured it wouldn’t take me that long to get there, either.”
Those were the basic ingredients: John Davis, one life out of control, all hope sucked out. And it remained that way until that fateful night on the Interstate.
-----------------------------------------------------------
John Davis, the album, opens with the hushed piano chords and soaring, plaintive vocals that could only come from one person: Brian Wilson. Okay, two people. But it is genuinely startling to hear how painstakingly and lovingly John Davis has captured the Pet Sounds sonic landscape. “I Hear Your Voice,” the opening track, sounds like a long-lost track from that Beach Boys masterpiece. With echoes of “God Only Knows” and “You Still Believe in Me,” the song is a soul-searching prayer that finds Davis confessing his own spiritual poverty before it builds to a wordless multi-tracked chorale wherein Davis proves that he can imitate Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Carl Wilson equally well. It’s gorgeous and thrilling, and a whole different kind of fun, fun, fun. The Beach Boys homage continues on “Salvation,” the second track, which captures the upbeat, poppier side of Brian Wilson, and recalls mid-sixties Beach Boys hits such as “California Girls” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”
Although there are echoes of sixties and early-seventies musical icons throughout the album (the early Beatles on the impossibly infectious “Me and My Girl,” John Lennon’s more raw and anguished solo work on the bluesy, growling “Have Mercy” and “Tear Me Apart,” Bob Dylan and The Band on “Jesus Gonna Build Me a Home”), Davis still finds room for his own musical imprint. Superdrag fans will recognize the familiar power chords and fuzzed out guitars on the album’s first single “Nothing Gets Me Down” and the cautionary “Too Far Out.” It all sounds fresh and uncalculated. Only on the ballads “The Kind of Heart” and “Lay Your Burden Down” does Davis succumb to the dreaded CCM disease and let the Christian sloganeering overpower the music. It’s the conundrum of every Christian musical artist, and Davis struggles to find the balance.
“It’s hard,” he admits. “On one hand, you want to tell people about Jesus. Jesus changes lives. He changed my life. But there is so much already out there, so many preconceptions that people bring to the table, that it’s impossible to do what I do without offending somebody. I’m going to be perceived as too preachy. Or I’m going to be perceived as watering down the truth. So I try not to worry about it. I’m focused on telling my story. This is what Jesus did for me. Listen, when I was downing a fifth of whiskey a day I could rationalize and make excuses with the best of them. I was doing all right by some standards. They weren’t very high standards, but there you go. But still, I was out there, making rock ‘n roll, and people were paying money to hear me do it. So I understand how the defensive walls can be up. But all I’m here to do is tell people that they matter and that it can be better, and entertain them in the process. It can be a lot better.”
That generosity of spirit is readily apparent on the album’s twelve songs. “Do You Know How Much You’ve Been Loved?,” the concluding track, throws a musical life preserver to those who are drowning in their own self-sufficiency. It shows a John Davis who is characterized by compassion, sensitivity, and understanding. And something else – clear-eyed honesty and vulnerability. Maybe John Davis doesn’t know any better yet; maybe he’s naïve enough to think that he can actually continue to be himself and to abstain from the feel-good slogans, but one hopes that the CCM industry doesn’t latch onto him and smooth over the searching and the questions. On “The Kind of Heart,” an otherwise standard-issue Christian ballad, Davis sings, “Sometimes I find myself at a loss for words/When taken at face value, it seems so absurd/To believe in a love that comes on like that.” It’s refreshing in its candor, and unlike so many of the write-by-the-numbers musical Hallmark Cards one hears in CCM, it bears the imprint of a real human being with a beating heart.
-----------------------------------------------------------
On a bright April afternoon John Davis is on a tour bus, on his way from Pittsburgh to Manhattan, where he will perform at an East Village club called Mercury Lounge later that night. He’s running late, and nothing so far has gone according to plan. The bus has been making suspicious grinding noises that threaten a breakdown, and there is unexpected construction on the highway. It’s the same arduous schedule he’s known for years, the same routine of sheer boredom punctuated by two hours of musical intensity, the same interminable road trip with its trials and temptations. And it’s the kind of moment that would have pushed him over the edge three years ago. But this time everything is different.
“It’s like switching careers without really switching careers,” Davis explains. “Outwardly I’m doing the same things I’ve always done, at least from a musical standpoint. We roll into some town and up to some bar, we set up, and we play rock ‘n roll. At this point we’re not doing the church circuit. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you usually don’t have the same kinds of conversations that I’m able to have right now. I love it when somebody comes up to me after a show and says, ‘Hey man, you’re not drunk. What’s your problem?’ Because that’s when I can tell them my story, and tell them about Jesus.”
The journey is a big part of that story, the long, circuitous sojourn that has taken him from church to rebellion to church, with a thousand detours and side trips along the way. It is a journey that has taken him through the blaring clamor of stardom, or something very much like it, and left him empty. And it is a journey that promises something better in the hushed piano chords that accompany a prayer of repentance and confession.
“Look,” he says. “This is a blessing. To compose songs, to sing them, is the best thing I can do as a human being. If I wasn’t doing this, I honestly have no idea what I would be doing with my life. This is what I do best. So I don’t take any of it for granted. Sure, it’s hard sometimes. It’s hard to be away from my family. But I’m playing with guys who are not only great musically, but who are believers, who are there to support me. I’m doing what I love. And this time I’m doing it for somebody other than me.”
He’s thankful for the opportunity to sing his new songs before an appreciative audience. And he’s thankful for the newfound serenity that is centered on serving God, his wife Wendy, and his infant son Paul.
“He’s named after the apostle,” Davis explains. “And McCartney and Westerberg. And Les Paul, the great guitarist and guitar designer. It all fits together.”
It certainly does; like a puzzle where the missing piece has finally snapped into place. It’s all part of a new life characterized by hope. It has to do with highways that open up to new vistas of the heart. It has to do with old-fashioned rock ‘n roll and a new suit of clothes. And it fits just fine.
Friday, April 08, 2005
John Prine: On the Outskirts of Paradise
A new article for Paste Magazine ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
-- John Prine, “
The new, domesticated John Prine is in sharp contrast to the man who spent his twenties in an alcoholic haze. Now 59, his hair is short, hardly longer than the crewcut he must sported back in his Army days, and shot through with grey. The lines on his face reveal the years of hard living. The voice, always a rough and rugged instrument, has been made even coarser by the throat cancer surgery that derailed him at the end of the last millennium. But don’t be deceived. John Prine’s body may have been to hell and back, but this is the man who wrote “Please Don’t Bury Me” and bequeathed his stomach to
“I’d like to think I’m still relevant,” Prine says, thinking back on the musical detonation that was his first album. There are no worries on that front. As long as men and women struggle through loveless marriages, and jingoistic patriots still invoke the glory of the flag (hmm, could such a thing happen in 2005?) and old people still grow lonesome and need someone else to give them a voice, John Prine will remain relevant.
But the question remains. After you deliver a masterpiece at the ripe old age of 24, what do you do for an encore?
In John Prine’s case, you do just fine. You keep making music, you deliver a few more masterpieces along the way, and you string together a thirty-five year career with numerous musical highlights and no real musical low points.
Fair and Square arrived in late April, Prine’s seventeenth album, and his first album of original material in nine years. It’s the kind of album that Prine fans will instantly recognize and love – raucous, tender, funny, wise, and compassionate; the pointed political barbs tempered by the plain-spoken, aw-shucks demeanor that finds Prine more in the company of Will Rogers than Michael Moore.
“I’m kind of dug in by now,” Prine admits. “I’m not really going for a new sound. But I’d like to think I’m dug in about twenty different ways. I do like to mix it up; electric guitars and mandolins on the same song, Hammond B3 organ and pedal steel, bluegrass and rockabilly tossed in there, torch songs, country songs, a little Irish music, all thrown together.” Fair and Square is the typical eclectic Prine jambalaya, and it features the stellar fiddle playing and harmonies of Alison Krauss and the alt-country sass of Mindy Smith. It’s also the first Prine album produced by John Prine. “It’s a really hard job,” Prine says. “I wanted to do it, and I’m glad I did it. But I’m also glad Gary (Paczosa, who has engineered albums for Krauss and Smith) was around to help me out.”
There were a couple new releases between 1995’s Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings, Prine’s last album of original material, and Fair and Square. A live album drew primarily from Prine’s 1990s work, while a superb collection of classic country duets featured Prine’s trademark ragged, soulful vocals paired with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, and Iris Dement. But nine years is still a long time between stretches of new material. What took so long?
“Well, there was a little thing called throat cancer,” Prine says wryly. Amazingly, he laughs about it. “And what can I say? The writing just goes a lot slower these days. I don’t know why exactly, but it probably has something to do with my two boys, and how busy my life is. With Fair and Square I’d write two or three songs, then head to the studio to lay down some demos, and then six or nine months would go by, and then we’d do it again. Eventually we had an album. I used to just sit around and wait for lightning to strike, for the inspiration to fall on me. Now I actually have to work at it, and I get up in the morning and walk around with a yellow legal pad and jot down ideas as they come to me. I actually schedule time to work on songwriting, and that’s something I never used to do. But it’s still hard to schedule inspiration.”
Whatever it takes, John. Fair and Square has the classic Prine sound and the classic Prine biting wit. The tongue is firmly in cheek on “I Hate It When That Happens to Me” and the self-deprecating “Crazy as a Loon,” but bruised hearts and melancholy are never far from the surface, either, and “The Moon is Down” will surely be recognized as one of Prine’s saddest and most desolate songs. “Yeah, I’m kinda proud of this record,” he finally concedes after some prodding. “It’ll hold up, I think.”
You get the impression that he actually believes it. In an age of relentless self-promotion and raging egos, it’s hard to escape the notion that John Prine might be that rarest of musical creatures– someone who’s endured enough sorrow and experienced enough joy to figure out that there might be more to life than the latest CD promotion.
“I like the album a lot,” he tells me, trying to explain his relatively low-key reaction. “But look, I went through throat cancer surgery in 1998. It was a big deal. It was life threatening. I took a 14- or 15-month break from the music business and had radiation on my throat and vocal chords. And after that I had to drop the key down to sing a lot of my old songs. And it’s funny. They came out as something different than they’d been, almost something new. It’s weird, but I find that I’m enjoying them all over again. They’re like old friends who have changed, but who are still old friends. I travel around, play my songs, and I’m constantly amazed by the people who come to see me. They know all the words and sing along with me. They tell me later how much this or that song or album meant to them. That’s better than any CD release. That’s better than any Grammy award, for that matter. That’s why I do what I do.”
In March, Prine traveled to the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. to share the stage with Ted Kooser, the Poet Laureate of the United States. Before an appreciative audience he talked about the songwriting process, played several of those old friends, and soaked up the atmosphere. “I was really honored,” Prine says. “I brought my kids, and we had a great time. It was this old, very formal room, wooden pews, kind of like a church. And then I found out later that it was the same room where Alan Lomax recorded so many of the great artists; Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, Honeyboy Edwards. It’s the room where Woody Guthrie recorded his Dust Bowl ballads. How cools is that?”
Characteristically, Prine didn’t include himself in the list of the greats. But there are those who know. For In Spite of Ourselves, his 1999 country duets album, Prine simply picked up the phone and started dialing. “I started calling my favorite female singers,” he said, “all the people I’d ever wanted to sing with. It was a crazy idea, but I just went for it. It didn’t matter what genre. I called Emmylou and Lucinda and Iris. I called Melba Montgomery, who used to sing with George Jones and Charlie Louvin and Gene Pitney. I called Delores Keane, the great Irish singer. And the first nine people I called said ‘Yes.’”
Prine sounds genuinely amazed, but it’s not hard to figure out. Some of the most talented women in music work with him for the same reason that his fans still show up at the concerts. The man knows how to write great songs. He’s been doing it for thirty-five years, and I’m curious to know how the process has changed, how he sees himself now in light of the precociously wise smart-ass who wrote that 1971 masterpiece.
“I barely know that guy anymore,” Prine answers, pondering his words to find just the right tone. “I’m about as far away from that person as I can be, and I can never go back to that place. And you know, I don’t really want to go back to that place. I was twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two years old when I was writing those songs. I was innocent in some ways, and full of myself in some ways, and I was headed for some trouble and some wild times. Now I go to bed at 10:00 or 10:30 and get up and drive my kids to school. The emotions are mostly the same, because that’s where the songs come from. The politics are probably about the same. But everything else is different.”
“Better different or worse different?” I ask him. He laughs, this cancer survivor, this musical poet laureate, and I know what his answer is going to be.
“Better different,” he says. “There’s no question. Better different.”
It’s not Paradise, but it’s something very, very good all the same. He apologizes, thanks me for the conversation, and tells me that he has to go now. It’s time to pick up the kids from school.
Monday, April 04, 2005
Thoughts on the Calvin College Festival of Faith and Music
“I’m not a beatnik, I’m a Catholic.” – Jack Kerouac
Kate and I attended the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan this weekend. It was a gathering of musicians, academics, producers, writers, and fans, all discussing music from a Christian standpoint, and it was a whole lot of fun.
The music I heard was beautiful, disturbing, otherworldly, earthy, rooted in tradition, avant-garde, childlike, wise. It was all of the above, and more. The highlights for me were Sufjan Stevens’ lovely and ethereal set Friday evening and Pierce Pettis’s and Bill Mallonee’s folk sets Saturday evening. Two acts – The Danielson Famile and Half Handed Cloud -- plied their Captain-Beefheart-meets-Syd-Barrett-and-Mr.-Rogers-in Sunday-School songs before an appreciative audience. You either like this sort of inspired performance art or you don’t. I don’t. It’s the same hipper-than-thou weirdness that turns me off to a lot of indie rock, as if greatness is found in willful amateurism and atonal shrieking. But I have to say that it is comforting and inspiring to know that there are Christians out there who are, in fact, really, really out there. I like the theory, even if I don’t always like the execution. And with some of this music, execution should have been a viable alternative. It was God honoring and godawful.
There were many, many highlights , and a couple lowlights. Let’s dispense with the bad news first. David Dark, a very bright man, and author of Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons, delivered two keynote lectures that were as dense and convoluted as the title of his book. It may be evidence of my feeble mind, but for someone who purports to find meaning in “lowbrow” entertainment, his lectures struck me as heavily academic, surprisingly meandering, and devoid of a point. Or maybe it’s that there were several dozen points, and I was missing the Big Point that was meant to serve as a unifying factor. In short, he had a lot of interesting and good things to say about many things that vaguely had to do with God and culture. Maybe it was an aural collage or something, and I again missed the avant-garde nature of the presentation. The undergraduate take: he used a lot of big words and rambled. Grade: C.
Okay, on to the good stuff. It was great to finally meet Josh and Nick from Paste, after many phone and e-mail conversations. They did a wonderful job of explaining the Paste “worldview” and the guiding principles behind the web site and the magazine. I met Phil Christman and Matt Fink, who write for Paste. It was great to hang out with Bill and Brenda Mallonee. I loved hanging out with Steve Stockman, author of Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2, a warm and gentle Irish bloke with good things to say. I ate dinner across from Pierce Pettis, and told him how much his music has meant to me. And I talked to his 17-year-old daughter Grace, a delightful spitfire, about Charles Darwin of all things, surely the most intense discussion with a 17-year-old I’ve ever had. I talked about music criticism with Sufjan Stevens, and puzzled with him over how to resolve the conundrum of using words to explain what cannot be adequately captured in words. And I met Dan and Amy Fox from Columbus, whose words I have read with interest, but whose faces were unknown until Friday. That was a pleasure. I met many other delightful fans of music -- guys in their thirties in Led Zeppelin cover bands, aspiring musicians who have just moved to NYC, lots and lots of folks with fire in their belliles and a burning desire to ramble on about how rock 'n roll saved their lives, just like me.
I think my workshop on music criticism went well. I enjoyed it. It seemed to flow fairly well. I babbled for a while, showed some slides, and played some music. People asked good questions. And before I knew it, it was over. Then I was inundated with kids wanting to drop off their band’s CD so that I could, you know, maybe listen to it and review it. And kids who were aspiring music critics who wanted to know how to get into the business (my advice: luck out and get on a mailing list with guys who want to start a music magazine). And assorted hangers-on and well wishers who just wanted to talk about music. It was a blast.
I was also struck by how difficult and how lonely this way of life is. We talked with some old friends until the wee hours of Sunday morning. Their marriage is crumbling. It may not survive. And it may not survive because of the damned artistic ego; the ego that is absolutely necessary to sustain an artist in the midst of indifference and apathy; and the ego that is hungry and thirsty for affirmation from others, even when that affirmation comes from a place of brokenness and dysfunction. I understand it. I am not immune to those temptations, and I fully appreciate how easy it would be to head down a path that leads to destruction. I intend no judgment here. But I do hate it. I hate the damage it does to human beings, the pain it causes, the emotional wreckage that results. God have mercy on us, artistic bastards that we are.
And so it was bittersweet; much joy, but also a fair amount of sorrow, wondrously affirming and deeply disturbing. It beat the hell out of sitting around the house watching basketball. It was a holy mess.
Kate and I attended the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan this weekend. It was a gathering of musicians, academics, producers, writers, and fans, all discussing music from a Christian standpoint, and it was a whole lot of fun.
The music I heard was beautiful, disturbing, otherworldly, earthy, rooted in tradition, avant-garde, childlike, wise. It was all of the above, and more. The highlights for me were Sufjan Stevens’ lovely and ethereal set Friday evening and Pierce Pettis’s and Bill Mallonee’s folk sets Saturday evening. Two acts – The Danielson Famile and Half Handed Cloud -- plied their Captain-Beefheart-meets-Syd-Barrett-and-Mr.-Rogers-in Sunday-School songs before an appreciative audience. You either like this sort of inspired performance art or you don’t. I don’t. It’s the same hipper-than-thou weirdness that turns me off to a lot of indie rock, as if greatness is found in willful amateurism and atonal shrieking. But I have to say that it is comforting and inspiring to know that there are Christians out there who are, in fact, really, really out there. I like the theory, even if I don’t always like the execution. And with some of this music, execution should have been a viable alternative. It was God honoring and godawful.
There were many, many highlights , and a couple lowlights. Let’s dispense with the bad news first. David Dark, a very bright man, and author of Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons, delivered two keynote lectures that were as dense and convoluted as the title of his book. It may be evidence of my feeble mind, but for someone who purports to find meaning in “lowbrow” entertainment, his lectures struck me as heavily academic, surprisingly meandering, and devoid of a point. Or maybe it’s that there were several dozen points, and I was missing the Big Point that was meant to serve as a unifying factor. In short, he had a lot of interesting and good things to say about many things that vaguely had to do with God and culture. Maybe it was an aural collage or something, and I again missed the avant-garde nature of the presentation. The undergraduate take: he used a lot of big words and rambled. Grade: C.
Okay, on to the good stuff. It was great to finally meet Josh and Nick from Paste, after many phone and e-mail conversations. They did a wonderful job of explaining the Paste “worldview” and the guiding principles behind the web site and the magazine. I met Phil Christman and Matt Fink, who write for Paste. It was great to hang out with Bill and Brenda Mallonee. I loved hanging out with Steve Stockman, author of Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2, a warm and gentle Irish bloke with good things to say. I ate dinner across from Pierce Pettis, and told him how much his music has meant to me. And I talked to his 17-year-old daughter Grace, a delightful spitfire, about Charles Darwin of all things, surely the most intense discussion with a 17-year-old I’ve ever had. I talked about music criticism with Sufjan Stevens, and puzzled with him over how to resolve the conundrum of using words to explain what cannot be adequately captured in words. And I met Dan and Amy Fox from Columbus, whose words I have read with interest, but whose faces were unknown until Friday. That was a pleasure. I met many other delightful fans of music -- guys in their thirties in Led Zeppelin cover bands, aspiring musicians who have just moved to NYC, lots and lots of folks with fire in their belliles and a burning desire to ramble on about how rock 'n roll saved their lives, just like me.
I think my workshop on music criticism went well. I enjoyed it. It seemed to flow fairly well. I babbled for a while, showed some slides, and played some music. People asked good questions. And before I knew it, it was over. Then I was inundated with kids wanting to drop off their band’s CD so that I could, you know, maybe listen to it and review it. And kids who were aspiring music critics who wanted to know how to get into the business (my advice: luck out and get on a mailing list with guys who want to start a music magazine). And assorted hangers-on and well wishers who just wanted to talk about music. It was a blast.
I was also struck by how difficult and how lonely this way of life is. We talked with some old friends until the wee hours of Sunday morning. Their marriage is crumbling. It may not survive. And it may not survive because of the damned artistic ego; the ego that is absolutely necessary to sustain an artist in the midst of indifference and apathy; and the ego that is hungry and thirsty for affirmation from others, even when that affirmation comes from a place of brokenness and dysfunction. I understand it. I am not immune to those temptations, and I fully appreciate how easy it would be to head down a path that leads to destruction. I intend no judgment here. But I do hate it. I hate the damage it does to human beings, the pain it causes, the emotional wreckage that results. God have mercy on us, artistic bastards that we are.
And so it was bittersweet; much joy, but also a fair amount of sorrow, wondrously affirming and deeply disturbing. It beat the hell out of sitting around the house watching basketball. It was a holy mess.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)