Brian Eno: 1971-1977 - The Man Who Fell to Earth

Copied from my Tumblr of course

I am only just now beginning to recover from a weeklong Eno bacchanal brought on by the viewing of this 2-1/2 hour film. During this last week, I:

• Listened to Here Come The Warm Jets straight through at least ten times
• Purchased the 33-1/3 on Another Green World and read it over two successive nights
• Purchased the Harmonia '76 reissue, and listened to it in full at least four times
• Downloaded Cluster & Eno, ripped it to disc, and listened to it all the way through at least three times
• Downloaded After the Heat, ripped it, and listened to it in its entirety at least six times
• Used that YouTube to mp3 tool to make files of both sides of that "Once Away My Son" 12-inch with Kevin Shields from Record Store Day last year, then listened to 'em
• Did the same thing with the files you can find on YouTube of the 1974 John Peel Sessions with The Winkies, listened to them, "Baby's on Fire," "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch," "Totalled," and "Fever."
• Broke out the copy of More Dark Than Shark and especially pondered the lyrics to "Needles in the Camel's Eye" and "Tzima N'arki"

My conclusions other than Brian Peter George St John etc etc is a fricking genius?

1. "Needles in the Camel's Eye" is the first shoegazer song, a realization which certainly reinforced my listening of that joint with Shields
2. None of it was truly ambient as I define the term, although Cluster & Eno sure is by God soft
3. After the Heat is damn well underappreciated.

The funny thing about it all, the funny thing about my characteristically over-the-top reaction to seeing the film, is that the documentary itself is not itself perfect. Eno was not interviewed for the film, and even archived footage is used only two or three times. I'm not really surprised Eno didn't cooperate with the making of the film, but he has led a fairly public life, even if you limit yourself to the time since he for the most part quit making vocal based rock and roll.

It's surprising to me that more footage could not be dredged up. The film instead relies on still photos, and really, the ones you've already seen, that bounced around the screen while critics of more or less considerable credentials talked over them.

They interviewed the gal who wrote the 33-1/3 book, name of Geeta Dayal, and they interviewed David Shepherd, who wrote The Life and Times of Brian Eno, and they interviewed Eric Tamm, who wrote Brian Eno and the Vertical Color of Sound. And they interviewed Johnny Rogan, who wrote a bio of Roxy. These four plus this other annoying bloke whose name I didn't bother to notice were the meat of the movie, although I loved it the couple times they showed Christgau and Simon Reynolds, rock critics ftw!

Brian Turrington of The Winkies--and three of the four vocal albums--told the best stories (and the ones I didn't already know) while Jon Hassell was gone so fast you weren't sure he was there.

So lots of observations, lots of theorizing, and lots of headshaking at the oblique methods from observers and theorists and method actors. But not that much from the man himself, and that's what would have really capped off this properly-directed tribute most effectively.

Text to Cerveza from the other day

In addition to the promo videos for Helmet's "Give It" and Adrian Belew's "Big Electric Cat," and a bunch of live stuff from the Soft Machine, I watched King Crimson's version of "The Sheltering Sky" from Live at Frejus last night.

Watching Fripp play these nearly inhuman runs defines for you a dichotomy between extremely limited expressed emotion and a very very blistering action in sound.

Music-Related Comments Elsewhere: At the Audiophle Man, on Vocalists

It began like this: I was following an image search to chase down the truly remarkable Roger Dean album cover for Topographic Drama - Live Across America, the recent Yes live album.

And I came across a review which when boiled down basically said that, even if it opened up the possibility of playing material from Drama, firing Jon Anderson had probably been a mistake.

Nice cover or no, I'll probably never listen to the album, but it *is* a sentiment I probably agree with. Jon Anderson is pretty irreplaceable if you're the band Yes.

But the blog host (who seems like a good bloke) went on to suggest that in pretty much all cases it's the vocalist who is irreplaceable if somebody splits.

And Jim Morrison & Layne Staley, or no, this I could not abide:

The list of bands who have had commercial or artistic success after changing their singers is a long one, and only begins with Genesis. I think of Van Halen, who did it *at least* once. No disrespect to Michael Anthony,, but that band is Eddie and Alex and whoever they want to play with.

I think of Anthrax, who fired an iconic lead singer in Joey Belladonna, hired a reasonable but hardly exemplary replacement in John Bush, and went on to make one of their best albums.

I think of Black Flag. Some people think that the band was best before it hired their longest serving vocalist.

Or if you want me to get back to prog, how about Can? Their recorded output is just about split in half when you file either by vocalist Marvin Mooney, or vocalist Damo Suzuki.

Thinking about it, I’d say that often in a band there is an irreplaceable link, without whom the band loses its identity, no matter how much the remaining members might wish it were not so. Sometimes that band member is a vocalist. Sometimes it’s not.

Beyond that, I am a little surprised at the romanticization of Jon Anderson in the article and in the comments. Iconic voice, sure, and you can argue that he is the irreplaceable link–he might be. But the whole ‘I won’t sing Drama songs’ [thing] was childish and to the touring band’s detriment. I think that his firing was sort of poetic justice after he tried to run the band as an autocrat for so many years, after he fired so many keyboardists 🙂

David Bowie - "Ziggy Stardust"
From the album
  The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
and the Spiders From Mars
(June 6, 1972)

OK, first there was Jesus Christ the Nazarene. Then about 1950 years later there was a beatnik comedian named Lord Buckley, who shortened the epithet of that "coolest, grooviest, swingin'est, wailin'est, strongest, swingin'est cat" to "The Nazz."

Then The Yardbirds let Jeff Beck sing a song they'd written called "The Nazz are Blue." The Nazz here might be the British police, or they might be a group of hipsters who simply know the whereabouts of Jeff's girl (who was BTW named Mary Hughes).

And then there came Todd Rundgren who one day in 1968 Philadelphia started a psychedelic garage power pop band and called it "Nazz" surely after the Yardbird song, and just 'cause it rolled more smoothly off the tongue, Nazz got called The Nazz.

And then all of it culminated when David Bowie called Ziggy The Nazz, and somehow all the antecedent references are rolled into it as he sings. Ziggy Stardust was Jesus Messiah, and the coolest and the grooviest, and a guitar virtuoso, and most definitely a wizard, a true star.

And he had God-given ass, too, whatever that means.

Tom Petty 1950 - 2017

The only content here it seems anymore is copied from my tumblr.

"Mary Jane's Last Dance" ('cause it sounded like something off Harvest) and "Billy the Kid" ('cause it fit in with this 'People' theme CD I burned) were the only tunes of his in my iTunes, but when my girl told me as I walked in the door, I nearly fell over from shock.

What? Whether you really followed him or not, he was an icon.

"American Girl," all by itself, guarantees Petty entry into my pantheon. Fast Times at Ridgemont High is THE film for high school stoners of a certain time period (like me), and "American Girl" is basically the centerpiece of the movie, and then Jonathan Demme utilized the very same song to great and unsettling effect in Silence of the Lambs, which instantly became one of my ten greatest movies upon first viewing.

Beyond that, I remember taping Damn the Torpedoes when that came out in 1979, and if you can believe it, Petty seemed like the new guard then, taking down Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin and Black Oak Arkansas with his jangly Southern rock. And then I came across the "Listen to Her Heart" single in my old man's grocery bags of 45's from the radio stations he visited, and I was like, this guy is suddenly everywhere.

: Petty went from "new wave" to "classic rock" faster than anyone in music history, which only means that he drew on traditions without seeming like he did. It was a pretty neat trick. He was a little too MOR, a little too jangly, for me to stay with him, considering my forays into American hardcore, and speedmetal, but no matter: I understood and understand he was an icon, and it truly sucks he's no longer with us, whether I would have heard his next album or not.

RIP Keith Emerson

I posted this first at my Tumblr

.

Fuck. RIP Keith Emerson.
I was as shocked and as saddened as anyone else by David Bowie's death, but rock music, by its nature, will always have its David Bowies. The showman, the auteur, the chameleon. Bowie's career path is probably THE MOST likely one of those someone with his (undeniably great) talent might follow. And there will always be musicians of great talent.
But what do you say about first wave progressive artists? Say what you will about Neil Morse and Dream Theatre and very very worthy bands like Anglagard and White Willow, but the golden age of prog happened once, and it issued from a particular set of conditions that will likely never be duplicated.
And now the Earth in its repeated natural course about the sun has seen to it that the greatest practitioners of prog from its long-departed Golden Age are leaving this world.
What do you say about Chris Squire? Sure, I can imagine a bass player as good as he was, but I can't imagine a player like that with the inclination to play the way he did.
And now Keith Emerson. He wasn't just a performer in prog rock. He took risks that yielded revolutionary results that have been actively discouraged in the years since, and he was a fucking giant.
In a way I'm a member of the first unlucky generation. Not quite old enough to have seen the artists of first wave prog play at their peak, and therefore also not old enough to be spared the news of their deaths.
There were indeed giants in those days, and one of them just passed away.
It sucks.