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Chicago
Live Report, early edition
There's a common belief about improvised music, that the concert
is more important than the record. If this is true, then why is
it that when I go see a duo performance between Peter Brotzmann
and Ken Vandermark, all I can think about is how much I'd rather
be back home, listening to Machine Gun or Nipples (or
for that matter, the Revolutionary Ensemble LP I was listening
to when I left) than seeing Brotzmann perform right in front of
me...Okay, so maybe the reason is Vandermark...I'll admit, that
anti-Vandermark essay by Stanley Zappa in Bananafish #14 rang
fairly true. Still, the single greatest musical moment of the
evening, I think, was during one piece when Brotzmann stopped
playing (a rare occurrence) and Vandermark made his monstrous
baritone (bass?) sax sound like a goddamned rubber band. A particularly
quiet rubber-band at that.
The second (or perhaps first,
by a hair) greatest moment was the entire opening piece, when
Brotzmann played a regular ole clarinet and made it sound, yes,
like a "shenai" or a "muezzin." I don't even
know exactly what those things are, but there was a heavy Arabic
influence on what Brotz was doing...winding snake-charmer scales
and off-the-hook vibrato. At times during the latter part of the
piece, he stopped fretting notes altogether and just started rubbing
the clarinet really quickly. You could say he was making the phrase
'masturbatory clarinet playing' ring truer than ever before, but
it still sounded really good.
Speaking of the Revolutionary
Ensemble LP, I'm back home spinning it again, and DAMN...this
is a good album! Not as heavy metal as the ESP-Disk "Vietnam
1/Vietnam 2" release, it takes more of a Sea Ensemble approach.
On the Inner City label, released in 1978, and appears to be self-titled.
I declare it a lost classic and think 4 Men With Beards should
reissue it. I didn't know about it, just bumped into it at the
Sulzer Regional Library up in Chicago's Lincoln Square, so I have
to give it back. I have a feeling it hasn't been reissued on CD
yet. Oh wait, this is supposed to be a column about live music...back
to the Vandermark/Brotzmann show...
Yeah, don't get me wrong,
it was cool to see 'Herr Brotzmann' play live, and, to refer back
to last issue's harangue, worth the (standard) $10 admission.
However...it wasn't SUPER cool. The $10 Derek Bailey show I saw
WAS super cool...I left feeling like I had been privy to an EVENT.
I knew I could've seen a 'greater' Derek Bailey show...but it
was still intense. As for Brotzmann, it was something to see his
multiphonic, muezzin-like, and really quite altogether LOUD techniques
happening in the same room, but I still felt like their approach
was just soft vs. loud or fast vs. slow or 'demure' vs.'blowing
guts out.' There's a VAST amount of territory in between (or beyond)
these two poles -- ask the Revolutionary Ensemble or Anthony
Braxton and his solo alto) -- but these guys are falling for
the same one-or-the-other dynamics that made (makes?) emocore
so tedious.
Cecil,
did you hear about this one?
The other day I watched two different videos. One was part ten
of that Ken Burns Jazz documentary and the other was the
Andy Kaufman-hosted episode of Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special.
(1981.) During that, while videotaped sitting on the couch in
his home, Kaufman explained various things about his life and
his art. He related the anecdote (well-known to Kaufman scholars)
about how when he was a kid he would perform to an imaginary camera
in the wall of his bedroom, revealing that every day he would
perform "four hours of programming." This was a fascinating
parallel to an anecdote told in the jazz documentary, about Cecil
Taylor; at some point, in the early Sixties perhaps, Taylor would
perform a full concert every night in his apartment. He never
had an audience, but it kept his music sharp and developed. Andy
Kaufman and Cecil Taylor...two poles of a particular axis in the
Blastitude universe.......
Sung to
the tune of that Buggles tune...
The biggest threat to a good record store used to be its employees:
used record stores with a large staff sucked because all of them
bought (and stole) the very best records that came in. Used record
stores run by a lone proprietor often had a better selection,
because once the lone proprietor had his/her home copy of any
one 'very best' title, he/she could put all the rest that came
through into the regular stock. Now ebay.com has totally killed
the record store, because the lone proprietors and the large staffs
alike all just hold back every desirable record that might otherwise
make it into stock so they can sell it on e-bay for potentially
inflated auction prices. A longtime friend of mine co-owned the
best used (and new) record store in Nebraska (and a couple other
states in the area), Omaha's Antiquarium, but he quit a couple
years ago when he realized he could make more money selling records
exclusively on ebay.com, which he's done ever since. Then again,
I've only bought one record from ebay (Carnival in Babylon
by Amon Duul 2), and I felt ripped off because it was a cut-out
(the seller forgot to mention there was an entire corner of the
cover completely missing), and that the shipping cost another
$3. That's why I'd still prefer to find stuff at record stores...if
they didn't all suck now.
More Blueprints!
Every now and then I write a nostalgic essay of some long-gone
era of taste in my record-listening history. In an earlier issue,
there was a story about listening to the band Newcleus while I
would breakdance. Well, a few years before that, when I was around
8, 9, or 10, I was really into spaceships. This was in the years
right after Star Wars, with the original Star Trek
still shown on syndicated TV. Me and a couple other nerdy elementary
school cohorts fell for spaceships hook, line, and sinker, and
we got in deep. So deep, we would beg our moms to special-order
us expensive (like, over $10!) 'technical manuals' that featured
'blueprints' of the spaceships and gadgets that were invented
for these entertainments. A series of books authorized by Star
Trek was especially good, with pages and pages of straight-faced,
realistic blueprints of the Enterprise. My Mom didn't give in
to my begging, but my blueprint buddy Trevor 'got his way' a little
more often, and we used to pore over his copy for hours.
We were also into good
ole rock music. Boston's comic-booky AOR hit "Don't Look
Back" was a favorite of ours. We wanted the album anyway,
just so we could own a piece of the radio, but when Trevor brought
his brand-new copy to school one day, I could tell it was special
before he got it out. He described what it was in an awestruck
tone: "The front cover shows a giant spaceship shaped like
a guitar! And on the inside....there's blueprints of the spaceship!!!"
He had said it! The magic word! Blueprints! I had to have
my own copy, and saved up $6.98 (plus sales tax) of allowance
money and accompanied my Mom on the twenty-mile trek to the Pamida's
store in Shenandoah, Iowa, the nearest place that I knew would
have it. At the store I broke out the velcro wallet and did the
deed. Back in the car, I tore off the plastic shrinkwrap and,
enveloped in new album smell, breathtakingly pulled the inner
sleeve out. The blueprints! (I'll admit I remember being slightly
disappointed with my own copy. It was cool, but just a view from
the top and a view from the side, with none of the detail of the
Star Trek Technical Manual. When I got home I blasted "Don't
Look Back" and swooned to "A Man I'll Never Be"
but even then I didn't think the other songs were all that hot
-- for example, "Party" was a lame rewrite of their
previous album's token 'party' cut, "Smokin'.")
That was 1978;
a year earlier I had a somewhat less fulfilling experience with
a rock album with a spaceship theme. The record was the Electric
Light Orchestra's Out of the Blue, a double LP. I had to
have it because of the radio hit "Mr. Blue Sky," which
I adored. It also had the rocking "Turn to Stone." While
spending the summer at my grandma and grandpa's house, things
came to a head. They lived in very rural Chase County, Kansas,
a beautiful, almost mystical place but not especially entertaining
to an 8-year-old sci-fi nerd. In one spare room, Grandma had an
antique looking but presumably functional record player. She seemed
to think it would work just fine if there was a record I wanted
to buy "in town" (Emporia, 18 miles away) with my "savings."
There certainly was! At the Flinthills Mall Musicland, Out
of the Blue had its own display right in the doorway. I grabbed
a copy and bought it, declining to even browse the rest of the
store.
Back at Grandma's,
I rushed to spin "Mr. Blue Sky" first, even though it
wasn't the first song on the album. Its first few bars offered
the expected rush of pop bliss, but then...the skips began. An
almost constant barrage of skips, making it impossible to listen
to my dream song. I tried other tracks on the album, but to no
avail -- this record sounded ruined. My grandparents recommended
that I take it back and exchange it for another copy. It was a
long few days before another trip to town was scheduled, but we
got the album exchanged. There was no doubt in my mind that this
one would be perfect...but it was just as skip-ridden. Worse,
in fact. I was fully ready to make yet another exchange...third
time's a charm, right? I had to hear "Mr. Blue Sky"
unsullied. But Grandma recommended that I just get the cash back.
If it had happened twice, it might not be a fluke, and Emporia
was just too far away to keep traipsing back and forth exchanging
albums. She was right, but the cash was a small consolation for
the loss of "Mr. Blue Sky" and what I assumed to be
several other ELO classics.
But time really does
heal all wounds, and I pretty much completely forgot about Out
of the Blue. Until recently, when J. Hischke of the Flying
Luttenbachers mentioned that Weasel Walter's secret all-time favorite
band was ELO, like he's got his free jazz/death metal/brutal prog
thing goin' on, but when someone puts on Out of the Blue,
he goes weak in the knees and a tear of joy comes to his eye.
This seemed rather anomalous to my friend, but then he wasn't
a 9-years-old radio addict when ELO was huge...[Weasel
responds via e-mail: "Just to clarify, I have no 'secret
love' for ELO. It's very public (to the point that they've been
on my
site's recommended listening list for years now). However,
I don't like Out of The Blue that much. There's a lot of filler
on those LPs. I prefer New World Record and Eldorado."]
And just earlier today,
my desire to own that elusive album came rushing back. I was in
a decent little Chicago record store called Planet of Sound. When
I entered, the clerk was playing Love it to Death by Alice
Cooper, very loudly. The track: "Long Way To Go," sounding
stellar. When the song ended, there were a few moments of silence
as a new record was cued. I heard one clerk say "Oh yeah,
gotta hear the fade-in!" The other, as he put needle to vinyl,
agreed, "The fade-in is hot!" As I dug through
the bins, my ears were piqued, and within seconds came the churning
synth-overdrive introduction to "Turn to Stone." And
yes, the fade-in was and is very hot. At the counter, while spending
three bucks on the Tar Babies' Honey Bubble, a better-than-you'd-think
underground white-funk LP on SST Records, I asked "Is Out
of the Blue for sale?" "No man, that's Bob's copy
from home!" No problem, no big deal...I'll find another one.
After leaving the store,
on the way down the sidewalk, I told Angelina the whole story
about how I was into albums with spaceships and how frustrating
my experience with Out of the Blue had been. I realized
that the problem almost certainly had to have been with my Grandma's
antique record player. It probably hadn't been used in months,
if not years, and it surely needed a new needle. Back then, I
was too young to question the fidelity of my Grandma's household
items.
POSTSCRIPT: In
researching this tale just an hour ago, I found an honest-to-goodness
punchline to the story from the ELO bio at allmusic.com:
"The platinum-selling double-LP, Out of the Blue,
appeared in 1977, although the record's success was tempered somewhat
by a lawsuit filed by Electric Light Orchestra against their former
distributor, United Artists, whom the band charged flooded the
market with defective copies of the album."
 
Celebrity
Blurring
Going through ancient unlabeled videotapes from the dusty recesses
of my shelves, I screen a few seconds of a lame-ass SNL skit in
which Dana Carvey plays a cowboy telling "Tall Tales of the
Recession." His small baby-faced stature and ludicrous redneck
accent make me think of David Spade playing the title character
in the recent Hollywood formula comedy Joe Dirt. Inevitably,
with all this redneckitude, Jeff Foxworthy comes to mind. And
here the celebrity blurring begins. It's not so much that you're
mistaking one for the other, it's that they're so interchangeable
as entertainers. Interchangability is something we take for granted
from any entertainer, thanks to Mr. TV Remote, but these guys
are eerily interchangeable. Their height, hair-color, and
complexion are all roughly similar. Though the accents differ,
they're all some variation of 'Middle North American', and their
voices all have the same basic pitch. Can you think of any other
incidents of celebrity blurring?
Short takes...
It's finally winter in Chicago, with a snowfall of 8 inches...keep
those shovels handy! I've finally witnessed first-hand the Chicago
winter phenomenon I'd previously only heard about, where people
put furniture on the street in order to 'reserve' their parallel-parking
spot...the idea being that if you had to dig your car out of snow
before you could drive it, then by golly that spot better be waiting
for you when you get back...understandable, but it hasn't snowed
for about five days, and people still have their ghetto-ass baby-chairs
and rickety card tables 'decorating' the streets...and if you
move somebody's shit and then park there, they'll slash your tires,
drag keys across you door, etc....I think it's kind of silly,
and if people have to do it there should be an unwritten rule
than any one car only gets one 'furniture-reserving' per blizzard....speaking
of Chicago customs, this guy I work carries around a camcorder
and likes to get footage of the freaky girls in his West Side
hood. Our job involves travel, and at this hotel room in Wisconsin
Dells he was showing me and the crew some of his cinematography.
There were scenes from his friend's brother's bachelor party where
the strippers were getting ALL the way nekkid. He said he had
footage of them doing some even freakier things to the guest of
honor, but we didn't get a chance to watch that part. I went to
take a pee, and when I came back more freaky shit was goin' on:
some dude was actually holding a girl up on his shoulder. She
was wearing little daisy duke shorts, and letting him more or
less just pose her in freaky porn-mag positions as my co-worker
got it all on tape. I said "So these are more strippers?"
He looked at me for a second. "Naw, man...this is McDonalds,
man..."
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5.
Angus McBean
