A Design For Life

How do you respond to personal tragedy? That is a question we all will have to face in life, and likely more than once. What do we do? Where do we go?

For Manic Street Preachers, that personal tragedy happend on February 1, 1995. At 7:00 AM, Richey Edwards checked out of the Embassy Hotel in London. He was scheduled to meet up with singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield to fly to the US. He never showed up - and he was never heard from again. To this day, there is no certainty as to what happened, but he was declared presumed dead on November 23, 2008. 

Initially, Richey Edwards was the Manics' driver and photographer, as he was another close friend - the only friend who could drive... But he eventually joined the band on rhythm guitar despite barely knowing how to play - and it wasn't a skill that developed much during his time in the Manics. But he had style and public relations skills - and he wrote lyrics along with Nicky Wire. And what lyrics they were... The Manics' third album, The Holy Bible, which was released at the end of August, 1994, was filled with Richey's harrowing lyrics about depression, anorexia and the state of the world. Reading the lyrics to 4st 7lb is particularly painful, as it clearly depicts anorexia and a weight sliding down to the lower tolerance limit of the title, which is about 63 punds. 

Richey had his demons. Suffering from depression and anorexia, and finding solace in cutting and other self harm, he had been receiving in-patient treatment on several occasions. And then he vanished, leaving his three very good friends behind to try to pick up the pieces. Like I said yesterday, these were good friends who decided to play music together, and three of them are still doing that. But in 1995 they were faced with the very existential question: What do we do now?

So how do you respond to personal tragedy? I must admit that I greatly admire the ones who turn it into something constructive, and that was what Manic Street Preachers did. After a six month hiatus, and with the blessing of Richey Edwards' family, they regrouped and eventually recorded Everything Must Go, which in some instances at least to me seemed to deal with Edwards' disappearance head on.

        We don't talk about love
        We only want to get drunk

These two lines are from the song of the day today, A Design For Life, the first single from the fantastic Everything Must Go. I could go on playing music by the Manic Street Preachers for a long time following my much delayed awakening, but I will take a little bit of a break from them now. But please explore them. It is quite the treasure trove. 

Motorcycle Emptiness

Some songs just stay with you. I hadn't listened to Motorcycle Emptiness from the Manic Street Preachers' first album Generation Terrorists in years when I for some reason started looking at the Manics again this summer. I can't remember what compelled me to do so, but oftentimes it is something I read or see on tv that triggers a memory or a desire to explore some music further. And this summer, Manic Street Preachers became yet another rabbithole for me to fall down into. I remember getting Generation Terrorists way back when it first was released in 1992. I liked it. I liked it a lot. But to me, my interest in the Manics was relatively short lived at that point. 

After rediscovering them, I will say that watching the documentary No Manifesto really changed the way I looked at them. I have a soft spot for friends deciding to get together to play music - and even more so when the same friends are still together making music 34 years after they start and 28 years after they released their first album. It  hasn't been without issues, but I will save that for a later post. To me, the fact that James Dean Bradfield (guitar and vocals), Nicky Wire (bass), and Sean Moore (drums) still play together - and still sound damned good - is really what every band aspire to. On their first three albums, Richey Edwards played rhythm guitar and wrote lyrics with Nicky Wire, so that is the fourth member seen in this video. 

I still won't pretend that I fully understand the lyrics to Motorcycle Emptiness and all the imagry it contains - although I get the theme of consumerism and the hollow pleasures it brings. And I am a huge fan of the final switch from "motorcycle emptiness" to "everlasting nothingness". "Under neon loneliness" indeed. 

 

Liar

There isn’t much to say about this song except that it describes DJT perfectly. But Rollins band is well worth exploring if you haven’t yet. The musicianship is stellar - on the album Weight, the lineup featured Melvin Gibbs on bass and Sim Cain on drums, both of whom had played with one of my favorite jazz guitarists, Marc Ribot, but in Rollins Band, they played with Chris Haskett on guitar, and the sound they created was the perfect foil to Henry Rollins’ uncompromising and at times brutal delivery. And Liar has a perfect description of a narcissistic con man of the type that currently occupies the White House.

7empest

So Fiona Apple might have this year's best album - at least in my book (and certainly so far, I have no doubt) - but last year was all about Tool for me. I discovered Tool through the song Sober a long, long time ago and have been following them since. They had released the EP Opiate in 1990, and then they released their first official full length album (Opiate almost has a full album playing time, but it's still an EP) Undertow in 1991, which is where Sober was found. Then, like clockwork, every 5 years they released a new album. Aenema in 1996, Lateralus (in my opinion still their masterpiece) in 2001, and 10,000 Days in 2006. And then it was quiet. Until last fall, when they released Fear Innoculum. After waiting 13 years, the expectations were insanely high, and I am really happy to say that they delivered. Fear Innoculum was a great album, with great musicianship throughout - but then again, you know that's what you will get when you talk about Tool. 

The song I have selected is 7empest, but I could easily have selected just about any song on the album. It is that even. It really goes from highlight to highlight, and it feels like one cohesive artistic statement. 7empest is the last proper song on the album, and if you have the physical copy (cd), it is the closing number. It is well worth listening to - it is long, but it is spectacular...

Under The Table

I know, I am a couple of days off with this song, but I had other things I wanted to get off my chest, so I put it off. But I have a feeling that Fiona Apple crushed the competition for best album of the year as early as April 17... Fetch The Bolt Cutters is a spectacular record, and every time I listen to it, I discover something new. I love the production - it is a very percussive album - and I really think she is the link between Tori Amos and Tom Waits that I didn't know that I needed, but now don't quite know what I would do without. 

Fiona Apple has been nothing but consistent in the quality of music that she has released. Starting with Tidal, which was nothing short of a spectacular debut album - one of the best debut albums I have ever heard. She takes her time between albums to make this happen, and this time it had been 8 years since The Idler Wheel... But Fetch The Bolt Cutters was well worth the wait. It sounds like she is in your living room performing - and that is probably because she did record it at home. That is one of the awesome consequences of the technological advances of the last few years - high quality equipment is both affordable and portable enough that just about anybody wanting to record decent quality music can do so. And for someone as reclusive as Fiona Apple, that does mean that she can record where she is comfortable - which shows in the music as well. 

In short, I love this album. The title track stood out right away, as well as the song Shameika, where the chorus, "Shameika told me I had potential" sounds haunting to me. There is something about that line that really touched me. However, the song I am playing is Under The Table, which I take the liberty of dedicating to all the women who didn't shut up, who didn't conform. It's been 100 years of women's suffrage in the US (I know, I am off by a couple of days), and that is something I think Fiona Apple can help us celebrate.

Depp

 Last week I was bemoaning the way I currently discover music - but one positive in all of this available music is that it is possible to find long forgotten songs as well, and that is what today is all about - before I take a few days to talk a little bit more about music that has been released a little more recently, which is my plan for the next few entries...

But today, I want to go back in time. Back to 1988 or thereabouts, when I was about 16 years old. My friend Jan Are played rhythm guitar in the band Ceptic Tank, and they had secured a gig opening for (somewhat unknown) Ræva Rockers at UFFA (Ungdom For Fri Aktivitet - Youth For Free Expression, more or less), a notorious underground venue in Trondheim where several of the Norwegian great bands got their start (it was a place where bands like Wannskrækk, who turned to Norwegian rock's most popular band DumDum Boys, Motorpsycho, and Israelvis played early and often) - and the audience was always enthusiastic. 

Anyway, on the day of the gig, I think I was asked to push the buttons for the stage lights for Ceptic Tank. I had no clue what I was doing, but somehow ended up doing a decent enough job with it, so the people in Ræva Rockers asked me if I could do it for them as well. My 16 year old self was probably beaming with pride as I accepted, and I was getting very excited. I was going to do something for a touring rock band. Pretty cool, huh? 

So Ceptic Tank finished their set, and Ræva Rockers were getting ready to go on stage when tragedy struck: A fuse had blown in the mixer. It was late at night, and getting a new fuse meant going to a gas station, but most gas stations had already closed. However, there was one pretty close by exception: A Shell station. Problem solved, right? Not so fast... This was back in 1988, and South Africa was still in the throes of apartheid (this was right around Little Steven's Sun City project). What I neglected to say about UFFA was how radical it was - very, VERY left leaning, closing in on anarchism (some called themselves anarchosocialists), and Shell was doing business in South Africa, hence they were on the list of companies good leftists would boycott. So faced with the choice of spending a minimal amount of money at a Shell gas station or simply not playing the gig, Ræva Rockers held true to their principles and did not play - and thus my light contributions were limited to Ceptic Tank. But I still think the story is worth telling... And I did go back to UFFA to buy the Ræva Rockers EP, where today's song is from. It is called Depp, and the lyrics don't make much sense to me today either... But I like the song...

City Swine

So where do you go when you look for new music that sounds interesting? What direction can you go that doesn't sound like it's been done before? That is really what I struggle with these days. So much music sound like rehashes - and often in styles I am tired of (or genres where there are some bands that simply are so good that anyone else sound like pale immitations). As music stores became less important, I started trawling the internet for sources - and year end lists of music have been a great inspiration - although sometimes I even look at "top ten..." genre lists to find new music.

So what does it take for me to find music interesting? That is a good question. Sometimes I am a sucker for a good melody, a good pop song. Now, granted, what I consider a good pop song is rarely found on the top 40 charts, and my definition of what a pop song is might deviate from the norms, but a melody and a hook without too much ornamentation can be very good. And sometimes, the arrangement has to be changed for me to realize it (or maybe I simply am a music snob - how else can I explain how I detested Britney Spears' Oops I Did It Again while I love Richard Thompson's acoustic version of it - oh, that's right, I will stick to the arrangement argument). 

But what I love the most is when a song is unpredictably moving forward in a way that makes sense when you look back at it. I like dissonance giving way to a harmonic resolution. I like odd time signatures that roll along in a way that they sound "normal". I like chaos that have splashes of order. I like the push and pull between extremes. I like tension. I think this is why I am drawn to bands with strong opposing personalities: The Beatles with John Lennon's edge and Paul McCartney's pop polish. Pink Floyd with Roger Waters' edge and David Gilmours pop polish. The tension inherent in these two bands really brought out the best in everyone involved. Even solo artists like Nick Cave, who has foils in his Bad Seeds (Blixa Bargeld for a long time, then Warren Ellis), and David Bowie with his Mike Garson on keyboards or Reeves Gabrels on guitar - the different strong personalities push and pull and creates tension. 

And this tension is really apparent in Imperial Triumphant, a New York trio that claims to play rock music. The most commonly seen category - or genre - I have seen is avant garde black metal. They do use some of the black metal tropes: blastbeats and cookie monster vocals are very prominent. But then there is everything else... The clear jazz elements, the very angular riffs, the occasional freewheeling bass runs... I don't care what anyone wants to call it, I simply call it great music. Their latest album, Alphaville, was released on July 31, and it is a masterpiece. This is not music for everybody - sometimes it takes time to cut through the dense layers of sound to find the nuances that truly makes Imperial Triumphant worth listening to. Today's track has a drum section with Japanese Taiko drums where they got Thomas Haake from Meshuggah to help out. It was recorded in a dojo in New York City, and it provides another contrast in a great song. City Swine is it for today. And Imperial Triumphant is really a band worth checking out...

Hunted Down

I have been thinking a lot lately about how things used to be - and how things are now - when it comes to music. I should start this off with a disclaimer: I don't collect records as much as I collect music. I am not one to be looking for specific pressings of vinyl albums, first editions, misprints or anything like that (at least not for most artists), but I am a sucker for finding new music to explore. And today, that is easier than ever. I can get most music on Amazon - and what I can't get there, I can at least check out at YouTube first. There are long articles with detailed discographies available online, so I can always find out what just about any artist has released. And it is great! There is no doubt about that.

 I am ok with MP3 files - if the bitrate is 256 kbps or higher, I don't hear the loss so many complain about (especially vinyl fanatics), and so I have all my CDs converted to MP3 files and while Amazon still allowed it, I uploaded every CD I owned so that I can access it from the cloud, knowing it is music I paid for (I actually believe in doing my small part for musicians to be paid). I have the same relationship with music as I do with books: I have a nostalgic relationship to physical copies (I loved peering over vinyl albums while playing them for the first time just as much as I loved the smell of a new book as I cracked it open), but ultimately, it is the content that matters. The music on albums and the text in books. And If I can have all of them at my fingertips on my phone, tablet, and computer, that just makes it that much easier to always access this content.

However, I also think that something has been lost in all of this, at least for me. I miss the discovery of stumbling over something I didn't know existed as I explored record stores - or the hunting down of releases I knew were out there that I had to convince record stores to get. I remember waiting for Tori Amos' second album, Under The Pink, having to ask the record store to order it, because it wasn't really on their radar. I remember stumbling over Primus' Miscellaneous Debris getting excited that they covered Peter Gabriel on a release I didn't know excisted. I remember going to a late night record shop in Philadelphia in 1995 on my first visit to the US, finding out that aforementioned Tori Amos had released an album under the moniker Y Kant Tori Read, and purchasing it despite the dubious version of that particular release (it was technically out of print, but someone decided to print it anyway...). 

And I remember the sense of awe I felt when I on the same USA trip, this time in Baltimore, browsed through an outdoors record display for a tiny hole in the wall record shop - or maybe it was just one salesman sitting outside with some CDs to peddle - and I stumbled across a Soundgarden release called Screaming Life/Fopp. I was a huge Soundgarden fan, but I don't remember ever having heard about this. I picked it up, held it in my hands, and just looked at it. Was this legit? It sure looked like Chris Cornell... The names were right... Yup, I had to have it. So I bought it. I believe it was on heavy rotation on my DiscMan (remember those?) - and I truly enjoyed it. It might not be their finest moment, but Chris Cornell showed he could wail on the song I have chosen today... And Hunted Down fits, because that's what I used to have to do for albums. But not so much anymore. The only times it happens now is when I go against my interest in the music itself and also want to find a physical copy (such as it was with Tool's Fear Inoculum). But for the most part, the days of surprising finds are over. And while I do miss them, I still will have to say that having access to all this music isn't a bad thing either... Just sayin'. 

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

So Douglas Adams and A Perfect Circle join hands in this little beauty from A Perfect Circle's album Eat The Elephant. "So long, and thanks for all the fish" was the last thing the dolphins said when they left earth just before it was demolished - and the title of the fourth book in the five-book trilogy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If you haven't read it yet, you should. (And yes, I know there is a sixth volume, but since it wasn't written by Douglas Adams, I refuse to formally acknowledge its existence.

But A Perfect Circle. I didn't really click with their music until they released Emotive in 2004. I had their first two albums, Mer de Noms (2000) and Thirteenth Step (2003) as well, and I liked them, but I was more into them because Maynard James Keenan of Tool was the singer. Then Emotive was released, consisting mainly of political cover versions, and their sound was dark on otherwise brighter songs, such as Imagine and (What's So Funny) 'Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding. The way they transformed songs to their own universe really spoke to me. Then it got quiet. For 14 years. Until Eat The Elephant dropped last Friday. And man, is it good. I am completely smitten with this album - and So Long and Thanks for All the Fish is one of the reasons why.

The Ghost Of Tom Joad

This is a treat. I used to be a peripheral fan of Bruce Springsteen. I had the live box on vinyl thanks to a friend who was a huge fan, but not necessarily of the box - and for the longest time I was convinced that was the only thing you really needed of him. But I have gradually built my collection - and my conviction that I needed more came with the album The Ghost of Tom Joad from 1995. It was a great collection of folk song, and to me it was more than just a return to form, as I really saw it as a great artistic statement.

The title track was an early favorite of mine, and it was later covered by Rage Against The Machine - but not in a way that I really cared all that much for. However, in 2009, during the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts, Springsteen included the guitarist of RATM, Tom Morello, who also has done a lot of folk music under the moniker The Nightwatchman, and while the original had been interesting, Morello's lead guitar work takes the song to new heights for me. Shivers and goosebumps all over - here is The Ghost of Tom Joad.