March 2004 Archives

Q: But didn't hobnobbing with the glitterati and playing before the royal families of Europe feel uncomfortable? Even John Entwistle commented in 1970 that The Who had become "snob rock," and "the kind of band that Jackie Onassis would come and see"?

Townshend: "I don't know if I was uncomfortable with it or comfortable with it. I don't remember Jackie Onassis coming to one of our gigs. I never really quite got what John's grief was. I think John was in the wrong band. John wanted to be in, I dunno, Whitesnake. Really. But he loved me and he loved my writing and he loved playing the music, but I think he wanted there to be lines of coke in the dressing room and groupies on the end of his knob all the time. And when he was left to his own devices, that's what he did and that's how he died."

Key word in quote above: "Really."

Eliza Gilkyson LAND OF MILK AND HONEY (Red House Records)

Topical songs from white folk are even more rare than they are successful, especially in a day and age when outrage is so commonplace. But rolling through a stack of CDs today in the car as I took my kids to school, I came across the lead track, "Hiway 9," and pretty much creamed my boots:

So the little man gathered all his chicken hawks in
and the neoo-cons and his daddy's kin
They had their own clear channel and a hell of a spin
And a white man hidden in a black man's skin

If you were Howard Stern or Don Imus, wouldn't you just want to play that verse over and over? One thing to take aim at such a wide target, another to hit it so poetically with such blunt force. Let's define poetic as: conveying meaning on more than one level. Listen to the song again and ponder that play on the concept of "holy" war. The sticker boasts a rediscovered Woody Guthrie song, "Peace Call,"sung with Iris Dement, Patti Griffin and Mary Chapin Carpenter, which should do the job of catching people's attention. My own sticker for this record would read: "Put down that Norah Jones and BUY THIS INSTEAD you IGNORAMUS!"

Pick it up here, here, or here, read and stream here.

This was easily the best thing I read all week, and easily the best thing ever on Joan Didion (don't think the AJ "access" password works, though):

She has admitted coming of age in the time of male novels - 'big fish, Africa, Paris, no second acts' - and of feeling disconcerted at the scant space allowed for women. 'I dealt with it the same way I deal with everything. I just tended my own garden, didn't pay much attention, behaved - I suppose - deviously. I mean I didn't actually let too many people know what I was doing.' There's that obliqueness again, and some hint of the difficulties it may face whenever it opts to handle 'sincerity'. Didion does not like to be taken by such approaches. I think one reason so many people find Maria Wyeth anything from a slut to a zombie is her dedicated commitment not to fall into earnestness and candour. She does a back-talk act with herself to flatten out lofty moments and insights: 'What makes Iago evil? Some people ask. I never ask.' Indeed not, but only on the innate and even elitist assumption that we ought to know what is evil and what is true. Maria's life is a mess but she does not suffer from inner muddle - she knows the inside stuff.

Here is something that goes back to the best in Hemingway. That while he sought a style as cold and clear and shriven as the river water coming down from the Pyrenees where you could see a trout and its loveliness as if it were the fish of fishes, and while he and Didion aspire to that fuss-free prose, still they remain stricken by feelings - the very object of their exercise. And they therefore developed writing as a code and a cult in which all the feeling was to be kept between the lines (in the white zone - or The White Album). Thus the serene spaciness in dialogue, and Didion's steadfast devotion to blankness. It is a tricky way to go. Shyness can seem like snobbery or aloofness, or even poker-faced intimidation. The constant struggle between courage and fear can make you daft. After all, snakes are not truly biblical serpents - not if you can't credit Jesus as the Son of God. For forty years her attempt has been the most absorbing modern reading I know. Where I Was From is one of her best and is like that fine trout - pristine and clear, yet flickering with movement and the uncertainty you can see in a snake's eye. It's never been caught yet. Let alone eaten...

--David Thomson in the current issue of the London Review of Books.

Edo de Waarta, conductor
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano

DVORAK Piano Concerto
IVES Thanksgiving and Forefathers' Day
JANACEK Sinfonietta

In person, de Waart reminds me of Bernard Haitink, a fellow Dutchman, although his conducting manner is less stodgy. This came out a lot in the Dvorak, which had more orchestral than piano flair. Aimard was so good, however, that it made you wonder why he'd bothered. A lot of the passagework was tedious, and many of the flourishes worked better as ideas than as actual climaxes. It made me think that Dvorak had a much better handle on orchestration and arrangements than he ever did on pure thematic material.

The Ives was one of the more beautiful and humorous things I've ever heard, a real orchestral showcase complete with offstage horns. What a character: shilling insurance all day and wreaking havoc at night with his scores. The Janacek is glorious, a lot of red faces in the wind section, and after a few bars I realized something that made me feel weirdly stupid: this was what ELP ripped off on their first album on a track called "Knife-Edge," I believe without any credit. Janacek's original is, or course, far more colorful, charged, and resounding without Greg Lake's baleful lyrics -- and delivery.

NPR Story aired: Monday, March 15, 2004
Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Dolly Parton, and the Grand Ol' Opry: names that evoke men in black coats and women in sequins, gleaming leather boots, and scruffy cowboy hats. It's the look of the sound of Nashville, Tennessee, an all-American country and western, which is by far the music most associated with Nashville. This month, a new compilation CD highlights other genres that ring in Music City: rhythm and blues, soul, gospel, and even jazz.

Click here to listen (RA).
Click here to see WBUR's page.

·· Taylor Haskins, Trumpet
·· Alex “Sasha” Sipiagin, Trumpet
·· Duane Eubanks, Trumpet
·· Chris Potter, Tenor Saxophone
·· Antonio Hart, Alto Saxophone
·· Mark Gross, Alto Saxophone
·· Gary Smulyan, Baritone
·· Robin Eubanks, Trombone
·· Jon Arns, Trombone
·· Douglas Purviance, Tromone
·· Steve Nelson, Vibraphone and Marimba
·· Dave Holland, Bass
·· Nate Smith, Drums

Holland is legendary, and with good reason, but it's only in the past five years he's been writing and arranging for this big band -- a revelation. The horns are all tightly written, yet played with verve and color, you never got the feeling this format "hemmed" anybody "in." The horns section shifted blends almost as often as the rhythm section shifted meters, and rarely just for virtuoso effect. Sometimes they sounded like nine different players grooving on a surge of feeling; other times they sounded as one, and it would be hard to say which was more exhilerating. Holland himself is capable enough, but here he carried a sprawling ensemble playing with the assurance of a master -- the only thing you could want more of were his cushioned low parts. The cellist I was sitting with was more stunned by his right hand (the rhythm) than his outrageously high-flown left.

Those dazzling meters, by the way, were nothing compared to the way the players lunged across bar lines, teasing and cajoling each other to catch up, get lost, and play fetch; the smiles would burst open and you'd realize you were lost again. As one critic put it: "Don't try and count bars, you'll end up in tears." Or giggles. Halfway through I noticed everybody had charts except Holland, who anchored everything from his head. Even if you're the composer, such steerage is formidable. What a kingsize, generous evening this was. (Look for the "Monterey Suite" played here on a forthcoming ECM disc this fall. Also, see Holland's new compilation, "Rarum," which spans his career, mostly small ensembles.)

The Elizabeth Wurtzel of Motherhood, and the latest barometer of the New Yorker's decline.

Matos posted this just in time, as I've just booked passage to London for next month. I'll be blogging from Liddypool. And Keith had this, which has bottomless charms. And I'm here to tell you about Bloglines, which I now much prefer to my netnewswire rss setup, to the point where I think it might become a philosophy.