Friday, March 29th

March 29, 2019 by 2 Comments

Once a giant date of political upheaval, now its proximity to April Fool’s Day just looks prescient. Even Uri Geller was powerless to guide us. Here’s Five Things with tariff-free content, a warm embrace and no backstop.

{ONE} GOODBYE SCOTT WALKER (NOT WALKER)
I first listened to Scott Walker properly when my wife was doing interview transcriptions for documentary filmmakers. She was working on Stephen Kijak’s 2006 film about Walker, 30 Century Man, and we had piles of DVDs of interviews and studio footage. Transferring the sound onto cassette tape while watching the unedited reels became a fascinating experience – Stephen was allowed to film the studio sessions for The Drift, resulting in long takes of discussions between his co-producer Peter Walsh and a variety of musicians. This included a carpenter building a plywood box in the studio to deliver a certain sound and resonance when hit, the now-notorious percussion (a side of pork played by Alasdair Malloy), and the brilliant guitarist Hugh Burns, being pushed into chords that were almost physically impossible to play, his hand stretched to its limits on the fretboard. Scott’s instructions to Evan Parker, that he wanted “clouds of saxophones”, gives a hint of the textures and sonics that he was after.

Stephen, collaborating with his director of photography, Grant Gee, filmed each of the contributors listening to a Scott track of their choice on a portable record player, a lovely invention that pulls you both into the world of Walker, and of his acolytes. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

As film director Atom Egoyan said, “I have rarely seen a biographical documentary that is able to make the viewer experience the perspective of a devoted fan, a concerned friend, and a complete stranger at the same time.” And I like singer Barb Jungr’s take on it: “In a rare moment Walker talks of the seductive quality, the power, of the baritone voice. Clearly, the gift he was given has been a double-edged sword. But this film reveals that he’s learned to wield that sword in a unique manner, and out there on the edges of music, where he walks alone, he’s leaving a magical, fairy tale trail that many may wish to follow, but few can.”

{TWO} SCOTT, ALMOST IN CONCERT
In 2012 I wrote about The Barbican putting on an astonishing show, Drifting and Tilting – The Songs of Scott Walker, a few years earlier. “It was more opera than rock. Scott, eyes hidden beneath a baseball cap, stood at the mixing desk conducting his collaborator Peter Walsh. It was all I could do to drag my eyes away and back to the stage, which teemed with extraordinary visions. The most arresting image? Possibly a boxer using a pig’s carcass as a percussion instrument. Or maybe Gavin Friday as Elvis (“It casts its ruins in shadows/Under Memphis moonlight”), perched on a stool, singing to his stillborn twin Jesse, while a bequiffed and backlit figure strode from the back of the stage until he assumed gigantic proportions, looming over the whole theatre. Whichever, it was an evening that lives on in the memory. Long may Scott run.”

{THREE} AS DAVID BAILEY DOES THE ROUNDS…
publicising his giant new Taschen book, I find this (below, right) in a book that I found, bizarrely, in a basement. Fashion students take note – and ignore Bailey’s cynicism.

{FOUR} HILARIOUS
Messy Nessy is a rather fabulous guide to Paris. This is from her always interesting weekly post, 13 Things I Found on the Internet Today.

Number 2. A Reminder that Barbra Streisand has a Mall (above, left) in her Basement. “Instead of just storing my things in the basement, I can make a street of shops and display them,” Streisand says. The mall at her Malibu home includes a doll shop, a costume shop and candy store where she serves guests ice cream. Ryan Murphy spoke of the time he had dinner with Lady Gaga at Streisand’s home. “We had dinner with Barbra and Jim, and Kelly [Preston] and John [Travolta], and Gaga and I. That’s all the people who were invited. And after dinner, she said, ‘Do you want to see the mall?’ And Gaga and I were out of that chair so fast… We went down to the mall and spent an hour down there. She pulled out her collection of gowns from Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly! And then she said, ‘Do you want frozen yoghurt?’ I could write a whole book about that night.”

What’s sad is how generic ye olde worlde mall looks, like it’s been lifted from a rather poor theme parks…

{FIVE} TWO BENCHES
… walked past this week, one in Hackney marshes, where a saxophonist sat blowing, lost in the notes and impervious to the thumbs-up from passers-by. The other in Knutsford, Cheshire, while walking the dog around a lake, with a quote worthy of Miles Davis, although it is, in fact, from American Composer Truman Fisher, a man who adored Count Basie, accompanied The Ink Spots in Hollywood nightclubs in the 80s, and whose works inlude Pocahontas in London and Requiem for Wyatt Earp.

{EXTRA} RBP PODCAST, EPISODE 19
Listen to this excellent episode for the stunning interview with Minnie Riperton by Cliff White. Minnie was an amazing person with an extraordinary voice, who died way too young. Guest James Medd also has great stuff on Hal Blaine, Charlie McCoy and Joanna Newsom.

{BUY} FIVE THINGS THE BOOK, HERE

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Tuesday, 15th March, updated 30th March

March 30, 2016 by Leave a Comment

I failed to post a Five Things before leaving on a trip to the States, so here it is, slightly amended, on our return. Extras to follow on Woodstock & Detroit, people…

MARINA HYDE ON FIRE!
“In the meantime, we must turn our attentions to Kanye, who places his personal debt at $53m, explaining to the world: “If I spent my money on my ideas, I could not afford to take care of my family. I am in a place that so many artists end up.” Like various notables before him, Kanye declares: “I wanted the world to know my struggle.” (Then how about writing a $10 book entitled My Struggle? There must be at least 5.3 million ironists who would buy a copy of the German edition.)

Admittedly, his wife did claim this week to be “transferring 53m into our joint account”, but the suspicion must be that Kanye wishes to place himself on a more independent footing than one underwritten by the Bank of Kim. Not that he is against bailouts. In fact, the sense that Kanye is simply too big to fail was my takeout from a series of tweets he posted shortly after the debt ones, imploring Silicon Valley bigwigs to invest in his “ideas”. These ideas remain tantalisingly unspecified, though the past few days of tweeting alone have yielded such standouts as: “I don’t personally like suit jackets any more”, “I believe that Kim is our modern day everything”, and the peerless “super-inspired by my visit to Ikea today”.

But back to his plea for financial intervention. Lost in Showbiz would argue that what is taking shape is nothing less than a new theory of celebronomics: a theory that argues that an entirely free Kanye West market is not the most beneficial model for society. Yes, you can hope that the billionaire private sector plays a part. But governments have a responsibility to intervene at various stages in the cycle in order to provide the shared goal: full Kanye. Thus, far from encouraging thrift in a downturn, the state should actively encourage spending on Kanye West products. I hereby christen this theory Kanyesian economics, in honour of its leading thinker, and implore governments across the world to subscribe to its principles without delay.” – from The Guardian.

CALUM STORRIE’S EXCELLENT METHODOLOGY!
From Calum’s likeahammerinthesink blog, this excellence issues forth, complete with a how-to:

calum

  1. Locate obscure lounge album on vinyl…preferably with ‘erotic’ overtones (and in this case with rain effects and bells).
  2. Digitize Track 3, Side 2 (Il se fait tard).
  3. Copy track and reverse copy.
  4. Add echo.
  5. Slow the whole thing down by 50%.
  6. Fade to silence.

And the result? Beautiful. You could do an entire film soundtrack using this method.

JACO’S JOURNEY!
The DVD arrives in the post, directed by the excellent team of Stephen Kijak & Mr Paul Marchand. There is so much here, from Pastorious’ love for the guitar playing of Willie ‘Little Beaver’ Hale to his encyclopedic knowledge of big band jazz, learned from his father (a pro jazz singer – “there was no bad music played in our house!”). Loved this bit of Super 8 of an early Pastorious band in Miami, with Jaco on drums…

pastorious As a teenager, the only clothes he owned were two pairs of cords and three t-shirts – a wardrobe that would fit into his Fender bass case. When he joined Wayne Cochran (I’ve said it before, but you just have to check out Wayne Cochran on YouTube), the tuxedo (that all band members had to wear) was too big for his wiry frame, so he’d wear his compete wardrobe under it. Jerry Jemmott interviews him in 1984 for a bass lesson DVD and lists his accomplishments, telling him that a generation of bass players have been inspired by him, and ends up asking him, “How do you feel about that?”. He looks up, slightly lost in a mist and says, “Just gimme a gig!”

Jemmott – bassist on King Curtis (and Aretha) Live at Fillmore West, among a fairly awesome ton of credits – is an eloquent presence throughout: over Jaco duetting with himself on Coltrane’s “Naima”, he says… “that voice, it’s the voice of music, the singer in the horn. It’s not the rhythm section – the rhythm section is there doing the work to support it, we’re  the setting for the ring, to let the diamond shine brilliantly… so our job is to support that stone – but he was able to become a stone, also”. And, at the end of a story about prising the frets off his Fender after his upright bass fell foul of Florida’s humidity, Jemmott says… “And the rest is history!” Pastorious nods, but his eyes drop, and his expression tells the story.
And if, a little like Janis Joplin, his legacy is not quite the sum of its parts, there are still moments of swooning marvellousness. If you’re interested in the art of musicmaking it’s a must-see, despite its sorrowful arc. And I’m no fan of bass solos, but I’ll make an exception for this take on Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun” – along with sundry other Hendrix tunes. After a miasma of feedback he quotes “The Sound of Music” before putting the bass on the stage and spraying harmonics until he picks out a delicate melody and walks off, vulnerable in the midst of virtuosity. nb. Don’t miss some hilarious South Bank Show footage of Melvin Bragg introducing the programme’s documentary on Weather Report in the ’80s… Melvyn’s hair is, as always, a thing to behold.
 

INTERNET + DATA = GLORIOUS MADNESS!
I mean, really, this is some kind of voodoo. I know I have a penchant for this sort of stuff, but this is as good as the HipHop Billboard No 1s from a couple of weeks ago. Every Noise at Once – every genre, every tributary in that genre. Check out Geechy Wiley’s “Last Kind Word Blues”, one of the strangest, most naggingly mysterious blues ever written. You could, as Em would say, lose yourself in the music. Personally, I’m just off to negotiate my way around dark psytrance.*

musicmap

 

AND FINALLY…
… do yourself a favour and read this exceptional piece by David Remnick in The New Yorker, on the complex majesty that is Aretha. As the time draws nearer that we all may be able to see the Amazing Grace concerts – as filmed by Sidney Pollack – Remnick pays tribute to America’s greatest voice. As the Prez says, “American history wells up when Aretha sings. That’s why, when she sits down at a piano and sings “A Natural Woman,” she can move me to tears – the same way that Ray Charles’s version of “America the Beautiful” will always be in my view the most patriotic piece of music ever performed – because it captures the fullness of the American experience, the view from the bottom as well as the top, the good and the bad, and the possibility of synthesis, reconciliation, transcendence.”

* I did. But you’ll be pleased to know that I’m recovered now…

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