Saturday, April 30, 2022

Godspeed You! Black Emperor at The Beacham, Orlando, FL April 28, 2022

Powerful show, if only an hour and 48 minutes long. Not a word was spoken by the band to the audience, speaking of pretense.

The finale was a half-hour version of "Blaise Bailey Finnegan III," of which I've written in these pages previously.

I guess they still haven't figured out they'd been punked. Or--and I should mention the possibility--they knew the guns and the poem was all bullshit.

Anyway, it was a fucking orchestral treat, eight part toccatas and fugues, people, and I was glad I didn't have to hear them ask me to support Hamas, or anything.

Jack White in Mojo, on Pretense

"People say That I can't do anything without pretense. No arguing with you there, but I would say everything we experience is pretentious. Some would say The Ramones are the most incredible authentic punk band there was. Some others would say they wore uniforms. They had clever stage names that weren't their real names. I love The Ramones to death. Just saying . . . 'Let's not pretend that's not a pretense.' But when [they] pick on something for being pretentious, they don't like it to begin with."

--- Jack White, interviewed in the May 2022 Mojo

Hear hear. It's not a big thing these days, because not as many music writers have a stick up their ass anymore, but back in the 70's or 80's when I'd see some mention in Rolling Stone of Yes, and it was tiresomely connected as it always was to the word 'pretentious,' I'd be thinking, 'OK. "The Gates of Delirium" is pretentious, but "The Murder Mystery" is not. Got it.'

File under: Power Speaks Truth