So much energy is put into wondering what a band will present at a live gathering. What if they don't play my favorite songs off my favorite records? What if the guitars are overpowered by the monitors? Will I still enjoy their music tomorrow?
When the common individual goes to a show they want to hear their bands play the songs they love the same way they hear them on the radio -- see if they can really sound that good in person, if they can really be as attractive as on record. There's such redundancy in this expectation: hearing a band play their same ol' studio track is the same as putting the record on at home, the only added difference is the visual experience with unfamiliar acoustics. If one craves this added sense, is it inviable to just look their act up on youtube instead of spending more bones than you should have on the ticket, having your anatomy studied at security, buying a $9 beer, and rubbing your feet the next day?
All I want to see when I experience a band live for the first time is complete and utter indifference from their records. I'll want the guitars to be muddier or cleaner. I'll crave hearing them play a cover of an old country tune. What? Surprise 10 minute jam on a 3 minute song? I'll take it. It'd be great if the musicians switched around their positions and played each others' parts. I want their performance to sound like anything but what I hear at home.
Improvisation is a thing of beauty in the music world. There are only a select few in history who could really display such a feature of understanding within their instrumentation. If I knew a guy who claimed to be able to recite the Heartbreaker solo note for note, it would be an achievement, sure. What if I knew another guy who created his own solo with his own actions? This would hold an immense amount of originality and talent -- no one would have ever heard his version before. All that I could give the note-for-note guy is a high five, "good job." I'm sure he'd be aware that approximately five thousand people can also perform his exact showcase. The latter guy's approximation would be closer to zero. This is the element of beauty within improvisation; there never has or will be anything that sounds quite like it again.
Here are a few examples of great live acts:
Johnny Cash... uptempo... electric?
Oh, wait, they had to have planned this one out backstage.
Is this musical legitimacy a thing of the past? Are trios from Sweden who plug their banjos into raspy amps and distort the fretboard for hours and Allman Brothers look-alikes the only acts left for modern improvisation lovers like me?
Friday, July 9, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Imagined Monologues
...of people, places and things.
TODAY'S
AA SPEAKER:
MR. TOM WAITS
(IF MR. WAITS IS
ACTUALLY LIKE
THE PEOPLE HE
WRITES SONGS
ABOUT).
BY RUSSELL BRADBURY-CARLIN
- - - -
Hello, I'm Tom. I am a partial alcoholic—partial to the whiskey Mickey Nickels concocted in his basement still. I did most of my hard drinking while living with Mickey in Reno, a dusty place full of loose cash, loose criminals, and loose women—my kind of town. I should have known not to mix whiskey and hookers. Her name was Rosie. She found me at Harvey's Late-Night Diner, where the eggs are greasy enough to lube the carburetor of your father's Lincoln. Rosie leaned toward me at the counter and said, "I prefer my bacon as crispy as a brand-new $20 bill and my eggs over easy like I want you." I was out of my seat before the heat came off my coffee.
This began a long alcoholic romance. Each day, I'd play three-card monte in the alley, rolling suckers for extra cash. Then Rosie would roll me over at her place. The day she lost those pasties and that G-string in her grimy apartment was the day I found religion. Then I found cheap bourbon. Then Rosie found me in the alley, necktie around my head, talking to the trash cans. She stomped on my heart like a barrel full of grapes, and then left me and a bottle of cheap wine to find our way home.
I tried to quit on my own after that. I smoked a lot of Camels—so many it made my throat hoarse. I soothed it with a bottle of tequila—14 bottles, actually, and a 14-day bender. I barely remember that last Saturday night. I cruised the streets in my old Oldsmobile, watching the streetlights gleam like diamonds on the windshield (tequila makes you hallucinate). I came to, parked on someone's lawn, my head pounding like a ham-fisted piano player.
I went to find Rosie. I found her with her new boyfriend, Mickey Nickels, who had pockets full of cash from whiskey sales. He and my sweet Rosie tossed out dollar bills to the vagrants like he was the King of Sixth Avenue. Sure, my porkpie hat was dusty and my coat had more patches than the tires on my uncle's old Coupe de Ville, but I knew I'd hit bottom when Rosie tossed me a fiver like I was some kind of gin-eyed hobo. It was then that I realized that I was a gin-eyed hobo. I didn't drink again.
My final words to you are: remember to Keep It Simple, live One Day at a Time, and, most importantly, to Let Go and Let God—but don't let your two-bit-loser bootlegging buddy anywhere near your dusty old hooker girlfriend.
Sound about right, Tom?
TODAY'S
AA SPEAKER:
MR. TOM WAITS
(IF MR. WAITS IS
ACTUALLY LIKE
THE PEOPLE HE
WRITES SONGS
ABOUT).
BY RUSSELL BRADBURY-CARLIN
- - - -
Hello, I'm Tom. I am a partial alcoholic—partial to the whiskey Mickey Nickels concocted in his basement still. I did most of my hard drinking while living with Mickey in Reno, a dusty place full of loose cash, loose criminals, and loose women—my kind of town. I should have known not to mix whiskey and hookers. Her name was Rosie. She found me at Harvey's Late-Night Diner, where the eggs are greasy enough to lube the carburetor of your father's Lincoln. Rosie leaned toward me at the counter and said, "I prefer my bacon as crispy as a brand-new $20 bill and my eggs over easy like I want you." I was out of my seat before the heat came off my coffee.
This began a long alcoholic romance. Each day, I'd play three-card monte in the alley, rolling suckers for extra cash. Then Rosie would roll me over at her place. The day she lost those pasties and that G-string in her grimy apartment was the day I found religion. Then I found cheap bourbon. Then Rosie found me in the alley, necktie around my head, talking to the trash cans. She stomped on my heart like a barrel full of grapes, and then left me and a bottle of cheap wine to find our way home.
I tried to quit on my own after that. I smoked a lot of Camels—so many it made my throat hoarse. I soothed it with a bottle of tequila—14 bottles, actually, and a 14-day bender. I barely remember that last Saturday night. I cruised the streets in my old Oldsmobile, watching the streetlights gleam like diamonds on the windshield (tequila makes you hallucinate). I came to, parked on someone's lawn, my head pounding like a ham-fisted piano player.
I went to find Rosie. I found her with her new boyfriend, Mickey Nickels, who had pockets full of cash from whiskey sales. He and my sweet Rosie tossed out dollar bills to the vagrants like he was the King of Sixth Avenue. Sure, my porkpie hat was dusty and my coat had more patches than the tires on my uncle's old Coupe de Ville, but I knew I'd hit bottom when Rosie tossed me a fiver like I was some kind of gin-eyed hobo. It was then that I realized that I was a gin-eyed hobo. I didn't drink again.
My final words to you are: remember to Keep It Simple, live One Day at a Time, and, most importantly, to Let Go and Let God—but don't let your two-bit-loser bootlegging buddy anywhere near your dusty old hooker girlfriend.
Sound about right, Tom?
Saturday, June 26, 2010
The Trade Off
It was 1972 -- The Velvet days were long behind Lou Reed. Abandoning one of the 60s most influential music groups may have been a terrible thing for the most of us... Reed being penniless and alone, his solo work falling short for the critical world and fan audience base in his first attempts. That is, until Ziggy Stardust himself offered to produce Lou's next album with Mick Ronson.
These tracks were mostly written and demoed with VU, but were never released. They were no where near the recording quality that Bowie and Ronson could later provide. Arrangements of strings beautifully done by Ronson, while Bowie displays his voice alongside Reed's. It's almost surreal; Bowie and Reed working together, creating timeless pieces.
Perfect Day
Satellite of Love
Walk on the Wild Side
Andy's Chest
Vicious
These songs would have never been released under Velvet Underground.
Does this change the way you feel about the end of their legacy?
These tracks were mostly written and demoed with VU, but were never released. They were no where near the recording quality that Bowie and Ronson could later provide. Arrangements of strings beautifully done by Ronson, while Bowie displays his voice alongside Reed's. It's almost surreal; Bowie and Reed working together, creating timeless pieces.
Perfect Day
Satellite of Love
Walk on the Wild Side
Andy's Chest
Vicious
These songs would have never been released under Velvet Underground.
Does this change the way you feel about the end of their legacy?
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