When Wall Street's in freefall, the housing market's a mess and economic uncertainty makes cranky bastards of us all, the band for the moment is the Drive-By Truckers. Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley specialize in the Battle Hymn of the Working Class, nowhere more precisely and powerfully than in last night's "People on the Moon," which benefitted from an arrangement that racheted up the tension during the verse.
Even before John Neff sat down at his pedal steel, the Truckers struck me as 21st Century Honky-Tonk band, playing the guitar rock that people drink, fight and fall in love to, and that was certainly the vibe last night at the Varsity, where three guys brawled like a wrecking ball through the crowd to my right, and one couple took every occasion to slow dance that they could find.
The set focused on Brighter Than Creation's Dark , and the fragmentary nature of the songs made them feel less like Big Rock and more short story-like - not what I always want from the Truckers, but it's a nice step away from precipice of Bigness for Bigness' Sake that they flirted with in song styles, song lengths, show lengths, and raw sonic poundage.
The oddity in the set was a cover of Tom Petty's "Rebels." At first, it seemed superfluous. Every song Hood and Cooley write is obviously southern, and there's no escaping the south in their voices. But in the set and in the Varsity, it was something smarter than that - it the interior monologue of the people in the songs and the people in the room. It was people finding a simple, fixed identity to claim and hang on to when everything else in their lives was unstable and complicated. It's a semi-truth that will do when you're not quite sure how rich assholes can fuck up on such a large scale that they get bailed out to the tune of billions while you can't get out of doghouse for getting drunk tailgating before the LSU game and puking in the window of your girlfriend's father's car.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Michael P. Smith
Photographer Michael P. Smith passed away Wednesday [Sorry - Friday]. Smith documented in black and white photography New Orleans music-based cultural practices in pictures that accorded dignity and vitality to Mardi Gras Indians, second line paraders, jazz funeral marchers, gospel singers and musicians. His photos record the early days of Jazz Fest, and they've presented some of the lasting images of artists such as James Booker, Professor Longhair and George Porter, Jr. Smith's photographs did what Jazz Fest has done - suggest that the music that came from New Orleans street/neighborhood culture was more than a Sunday afternoon racket, and popularized it by helping it reach beyond the city limits.
There's a good sample of Smith's work at his Web site.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Rock 'n' Roll is Hard to Do
Recently, Shout! Factory put out yet another repackaging of Mott the Hoople, Old Records Never Die: The Mott the Hoople/Ian Hunter Anthology. The twist in this two-disc set is that the second disc draws from Ian Hunter's post-Mott solo career, though many of the songs might as well have been Mott songs.
By coincidence, I finally found a cheap copy of Hunter's Diary of a Rock and Roll Star, which chronicles Mott's American tour after the release of All the Young Dudes. The book's a throwback to the days when rock had yet to become an industry of its own, and because like so many British glam bands from the early 1970s, Mott had a hard time making an impact in the States. Once the band gets away from the coasts, it's out of place and struggled through shows where soundcheck and billing issues along with their own nerves meant the shows were often disappointing by Hunter's standards.
The common theme between Hunter's song and book writing is his dark take on the rock 'n' roll myth. "Rock 'n' roll's a loser's game," he sings in "Ballad of Mott the Hoople," The good days were always some point in the past, and Hunter always found himself looking back with disappointment, so much so that John Lydon's "Ever have the feeling you've been cheated?" would have suited him well. At the same time, the songs' riffs are so big and melodies so memorable that there's no resignation in the songs.
Today Mott sounds a little quaint because so few bands aspire visibly toward bigness, and because it's so unlikely for most bands to reach for a mass audience. There are surely rock 'n' roll queens still out there looking to bed members of bands, but "groupies" seems like a part of a bygone era. But the rock 'n' roll mythology still has power and Mott captures the mixed feelings we all have toward it as engagingly as anybody does.
By coincidence, I finally found a cheap copy of Hunter's Diary of a Rock and Roll Star, which chronicles Mott's American tour after the release of All the Young Dudes. The book's a throwback to the days when rock had yet to become an industry of its own, and because like so many British glam bands from the early 1970s, Mott had a hard time making an impact in the States. Once the band gets away from the coasts, it's out of place and struggled through shows where soundcheck and billing issues along with their own nerves meant the shows were often disappointing by Hunter's standards.
The common theme between Hunter's song and book writing is his dark take on the rock 'n' roll myth. "Rock 'n' roll's a loser's game," he sings in "Ballad of Mott the Hoople," The good days were always some point in the past, and Hunter always found himself looking back with disappointment, so much so that John Lydon's "Ever have the feeling you've been cheated?" would have suited him well. At the same time, the songs' riffs are so big and melodies so memorable that there's no resignation in the songs.
Today Mott sounds a little quaint because so few bands aspire visibly toward bigness, and because it's so unlikely for most bands to reach for a mass audience. There are surely rock 'n' roll queens still out there looking to bed members of bands, but "groupies" seems like a part of a bygone era. But the rock 'n' roll mythology still has power and Mott captures the mixed feelings we all have toward it as engagingly as anybody does.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Inside Baseball
Get music writers together and eventually, they'll mope about the towers of promo CDs that threaten to swamp their desks and consume all the available space in their cubicles/offices/bedrooms/apartments. The stacks become emotionally taxing as they represent people's hopes, and each stack represents a dream ignored.
The not-so-secret secret of promo CDs is that they often end up in secondhand stores or being resold on the Internet. The L.A. Weekly's Randall Roberts gets as into the issue as his sources will permit, revealing his own standing in the story and the sort of personal ethics you only face if you have a box of CDs that you can't imagine listening to serving as an end table:
Normally I use any money I receive to buy more music, and in this way I feel that I’m funding an arts grant writ small. Each dollar gained from swapping out mediocre music goes into a pool that I disperse to worthy musical geniuses. (These days, South American and African reissues, and black metal.) Also, I have a few hard-and-fast rules. First, I never sell a promo sent to me by an L.A. band. I don’t sell promos sent to me by small, interesting L.A.-based labels. There is also a list of artists and record labels with which I’m so philosophically attuned, that it would feel like a betrayal to sell one of their CDs. And I never sell a CD before its official release date, because I think leaking music on to the Web is lame, and does way more damage than selling a measly promo.
There are parts of the story that you have to be a music writer to care about - I think - but as the story pertains to the major labels, particularly Universal, things get more complex. He examines the disclaimer attached to Universal promos, which claim the label still owns them, even though they sent them to reviewers, frequently unrequested. In answer to a suit, on reseller of promo CDs found a legal analogy in the pages of Harry Potter:
In Roast Beast Music’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed against it by Universal Music Group for auctioning promos, lawyers introduced their argument with a dialogue from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
Bill Weasley: To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is the maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs.
Harry Potter: But if it was bought—
Bill Weasley: Then they would consider it rented by the one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard.... They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft.
The not-so-secret secret of promo CDs is that they often end up in secondhand stores or being resold on the Internet. The L.A. Weekly's Randall Roberts gets as into the issue as his sources will permit, revealing his own standing in the story and the sort of personal ethics you only face if you have a box of CDs that you can't imagine listening to serving as an end table:
Normally I use any money I receive to buy more music, and in this way I feel that I’m funding an arts grant writ small. Each dollar gained from swapping out mediocre music goes into a pool that I disperse to worthy musical geniuses. (These days, South American and African reissues, and black metal.) Also, I have a few hard-and-fast rules. First, I never sell a promo sent to me by an L.A. band. I don’t sell promos sent to me by small, interesting L.A.-based labels. There is also a list of artists and record labels with which I’m so philosophically attuned, that it would feel like a betrayal to sell one of their CDs. And I never sell a CD before its official release date, because I think leaking music on to the Web is lame, and does way more damage than selling a measly promo.
There are parts of the story that you have to be a music writer to care about - I think - but as the story pertains to the major labels, particularly Universal, things get more complex. He examines the disclaimer attached to Universal promos, which claim the label still owns them, even though they sent them to reviewers, frequently unrequested. In answer to a suit, on reseller of promo CDs found a legal analogy in the pages of Harry Potter:
In Roast Beast Music’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed against it by Universal Music Group for auctioning promos, lawyers introduced their argument with a dialogue from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
Bill Weasley: To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is the maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs.
Harry Potter: But if it was bought—
Bill Weasley: Then they would consider it rented by the one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard.... They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Theresa Andersson
Preparing for an upcoming television show appearance (WLAE Wednesday 7 and 9:30 p.m. in New Orleans)reminded me that I never got around to writing about a recent Theresa Andersson show at the Republic. Andersson's new Hummingbird, Go! is her most idiosyncratic album, speaking in a more personal, less genre-oriented voice than she has in the past, and it's more interesting for it. The songs are small, in some cases fragments, and they're firmly rooted in indie rock though, as her show made clearer, they embraced where she's been as well. She opened with "Mary Don't You Weep," a song consistent with her self-titled roots rock EP, and her version stands solidly beside Springsteen's Seeger Session recording. For the album and tour, she developed a circle of instruments and pedals to allow her to loop parts so she can accompany herself, the version of "Mary" grew in power and richness, while Springsteen's is unquestionably powerful, but is the case of so much Springsteen, his recordings hit one level of intensity and stay there.
One measure of success of the show is how quickly people stopped pointing at the pedals and whispering about them - how quickly the method of production became secondary to the music - and how effectively she used the looping technology. Too often, the live process of building and layering parts is inefficient, and good three minute ideas become slack five minute songs as the first minute or so is spent laying down parts. In Andersson's case, she builds the layers as quickly as possible, and the parts she adds were almost always musically interesting at the moment she added them. They felt like more of the performance, not the capturing of a part.
In fact, the show became a form of performance art, a sort of dance she performed as she moved from drums to guitar to pedals to pedals to microphone to her violin, and so on. It became hard to see which movements were expressions of the joy of playing and which were purpose-driven. It all came together for the set's most ecstatic moment, "Birds Fly Away," the album's highlight. She reminded us she's a New Orleans musician when she snapped on a sample of a drum loop of Smokey Johnson playing a portion of "It Ain't My Fault," but like Stereolab, she immediately adds parts that recontextualize the beat, in this case making it sound more Motown than New Orleans. Like Stereolab, there's a cool, mechanical precision to the sound, but her vocal in the chorus is anything but remote. The natural vision obviously reassures her ("Birds fly away / they seek shelter. / Trees stand tall / they don't falter."), so much so that she extends the song to repeat the chorus a few more times, singing it like a spiritual revelation. She returned to the song for an encore, but the magic was spent the first time around.
I gather the process of recording and looping was designed to make traveling cost-efficient; what's impressive is how successfully she took a challenge and made something personal and rewarding out of it.
One measure of success of the show is how quickly people stopped pointing at the pedals and whispering about them - how quickly the method of production became secondary to the music - and how effectively she used the looping technology. Too often, the live process of building and layering parts is inefficient, and good three minute ideas become slack five minute songs as the first minute or so is spent laying down parts. In Andersson's case, she builds the layers as quickly as possible, and the parts she adds were almost always musically interesting at the moment she added them. They felt like more of the performance, not the capturing of a part.
In fact, the show became a form of performance art, a sort of dance she performed as she moved from drums to guitar to pedals to pedals to microphone to her violin, and so on. It became hard to see which movements were expressions of the joy of playing and which were purpose-driven. It all came together for the set's most ecstatic moment, "Birds Fly Away," the album's highlight. She reminded us she's a New Orleans musician when she snapped on a sample of a drum loop of Smokey Johnson playing a portion of "It Ain't My Fault," but like Stereolab, she immediately adds parts that recontextualize the beat, in this case making it sound more Motown than New Orleans. Like Stereolab, there's a cool, mechanical precision to the sound, but her vocal in the chorus is anything but remote. The natural vision obviously reassures her ("Birds fly away / they seek shelter. / Trees stand tall / they don't falter."), so much so that she extends the song to repeat the chorus a few more times, singing it like a spiritual revelation. She returned to the song for an encore, but the magic was spent the first time around.
I gather the process of recording and looping was designed to make traveling cost-efficient; what's impressive is how successfully she took a challenge and made something personal and rewarding out of it.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Earl Palmer
The obituaries for drummer Earl Palmer are flocking in - I've linked to a few interesting ones here - but most simply recount his resume, rhyming off the number of hits and hitmakers her was connected with. Backbeat, his memoir, addresses the central question in Palmer's life for music fans: Why leave New Orleans where he was making groundbreaking records to become a session drummer in Los Angeles, where he was faceless? Having a white girlfriend certainly played a part, but Palmer's takes on playing provides some insight:
Palmer on Ornette Coleman: "Ornette was a drag to play with, man, he sounded terrible. Whether he knew the right changes or not, he didn't play them. Played the bridge in the wrong places; sometimes he didn't eve play the bridge."
Palmer on Ray Charles: "We avoided Ray Charles too. There was a time when Ray and Big Joe Turner and Al Hibbler was all hanging around the Dew Drop doing nothing. ... When we come in after a gig, Ray would be waiting to jam with us. I thought he was good and played a hell of a lot of piano; it's just that all he wanted to do was his Nat Cole imitation and we'd played Nat Cole all night long. Came to the Drop, we were ready to play some bebop."
Palmer on Lee Allen: "Lee Allen ... was a honking tenor player. Lee was from Denver, he came to New Orleans to play football and basketball at Xavier. He played the shit out of the blues; any other tunes, he had trouble with the chords. He didn't have the knowledge of the chords to be a first-rate bebop player. He didn't read music very good."
Palmer on Shirley and Lee: "When Shirley sang, you felt around to see if you was cut - that girl sang sharp! Lee always sounded like he was trying to compensate by singing flat."
Palmer on Fats Domino and rock 'n' roll: "What was rock 'n' roll to me? I lived in a jazz world. ... It's something that we did that was not important to us musically."
Palmer on cartoons: "When it dawned on me that I could do this was when I had to play cartoon music, the hardest music I ever had to play. ... Tom and Jerry fucking cartoons. I'd think to myself, 'Here I am playing music I used to be scared to listen to, let along play!' At one time I was doing damn near all the cartoons Warners made. That music looked like fly shit, notes all over. ... I took pride in trying to do it as fast and good as I could."
The common thread in all of that is the level of challenge from a musical perspective - what's hard, what isn't. It's a way we're not used to valuing music, but it was more important to Palmer than anyone would imagine.
Palmer on Ornette Coleman: "Ornette was a drag to play with, man, he sounded terrible. Whether he knew the right changes or not, he didn't play them. Played the bridge in the wrong places; sometimes he didn't eve play the bridge."
Palmer on Ray Charles: "We avoided Ray Charles too. There was a time when Ray and Big Joe Turner and Al Hibbler was all hanging around the Dew Drop doing nothing. ... When we come in after a gig, Ray would be waiting to jam with us. I thought he was good and played a hell of a lot of piano; it's just that all he wanted to do was his Nat Cole imitation and we'd played Nat Cole all night long. Came to the Drop, we were ready to play some bebop."
Palmer on Lee Allen: "Lee Allen ... was a honking tenor player. Lee was from Denver, he came to New Orleans to play football and basketball at Xavier. He played the shit out of the blues; any other tunes, he had trouble with the chords. He didn't have the knowledge of the chords to be a first-rate bebop player. He didn't read music very good."
Palmer on Shirley and Lee: "When Shirley sang, you felt around to see if you was cut - that girl sang sharp! Lee always sounded like he was trying to compensate by singing flat."
Palmer on Fats Domino and rock 'n' roll: "What was rock 'n' roll to me? I lived in a jazz world. ... It's something that we did that was not important to us musically."
Palmer on cartoons: "When it dawned on me that I could do this was when I had to play cartoon music, the hardest music I ever had to play. ... Tom and Jerry fucking cartoons. I'd think to myself, 'Here I am playing music I used to be scared to listen to, let along play!' At one time I was doing damn near all the cartoons Warners made. That music looked like fly shit, notes all over. ... I took pride in trying to do it as fast and good as I could."
The common thread in all of that is the level of challenge from a musical perspective - what's hard, what isn't. It's a way we're not used to valuing music, but it was more important to Palmer than anyone would imagine.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A Belated Gustav Thought
The national media has understandably moved on to Hurricane Ike's devastation, but overlooking Hurricane Gustav because there was minimal physical damage is wrong. Its economic impact on New Orleans has been brutal. Think of it this way - the entire city was forced to go on vacation at the same time whether people had money to go or not. That forced many people to spend money they didn't have, which meant they came back needy and in danger of missing bill, mortgage and loan payments. That also meant the city's businesses for the most part lost a week of business, and because people were financially strapped after the storm and evacuation, no one did good business after opening with the exception of places like Sam's Club and Wal-Mart. That sort of financial blackout at the end of the worst time of year for New Orleans - the summer - may not be devastating on the order of Katrina, but it has been much harder on the city than anyone who isn't living here realizes.
What to Do, What to Do?
A friend and I have often half-joked that the last person who can tell what's happening in a piece of art is the artist. Right now, I'm facing the question of what to do with the memoir-like liner notes for Carla Bley's new Appearing Nightly, her version of a big band album. Typically, such notes make writing about an album easier, but what if she's not being entirely truthful? I saw her twice in Toronto a year apart, and she played one piece that she hadn't recorded at the time - I think she introduced it as "Battleship" - and when she played it the second time at an outdoor venue on the shores of Lake Ontario, she announced that she composed the piece the night before after seeing a nearby ship. Since that sort of sly humor and riffs on genres and tropes are central to her work, I didn't - and still don't - find her lie anything but entertaining, and it played on the notion that somehow something said in introduction to a piece helps us get any closer to it. Even if she were telling the truth, would the idea that a song was inspired by a ship tell us anything about the song?
In Bley's case, she makes her art - and by extension, her career - sound like a prolonged adventure in stumbling from right move to right move through luck and intuition. There's probably as much truth in that as there is for most musicians, but there's also a defense mechanism in that similar to one I encountered when I interviewed her with a friend who introduced me to her work. After 10 or so minutes, she decided she was more interested in him and interviewed him about his research - he is a scientist - instead of talking about herself. I asked the question in the recent Dylan piece that I wrote: Who really wants to explain themselves? At least in her case, she deals with the issue entertainingly ... which Dylan still does too in his post-modern way. Can any of it be taken seriously? Is there anything real in her discussion of her days as a bad lounge pianist? Probably. Enough to hang a review on? Maybe, but there are better ways to go.
By the way, I'm dabbling in Jonathan Cott's anthology of Dylan interviews, and what's interesting is how Dylan's mechanisms of avoidance changed over the years, but also how some voices have hung on. He seems more friendly and open when he talks to Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner after the release of John Wesley Harding, but he deflects Wenner's questions at every turn, seeming "Aw shucks" about everything, as if the world's a crazy place that's confusing for a country boy. A variation on that voice turns up in Chronicles.
In Bley's case, she makes her art - and by extension, her career - sound like a prolonged adventure in stumbling from right move to right move through luck and intuition. There's probably as much truth in that as there is for most musicians, but there's also a defense mechanism in that similar to one I encountered when I interviewed her with a friend who introduced me to her work. After 10 or so minutes, she decided she was more interested in him and interviewed him about his research - he is a scientist - instead of talking about herself. I asked the question in the recent Dylan piece that I wrote: Who really wants to explain themselves? At least in her case, she deals with the issue entertainingly ... which Dylan still does too in his post-modern way. Can any of it be taken seriously? Is there anything real in her discussion of her days as a bad lounge pianist? Probably. Enough to hang a review on? Maybe, but there are better ways to go.
By the way, I'm dabbling in Jonathan Cott's anthology of Dylan interviews, and what's interesting is how Dylan's mechanisms of avoidance changed over the years, but also how some voices have hung on. He seems more friendly and open when he talks to Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner after the release of John Wesley Harding, but he deflects Wenner's questions at every turn, seeming "Aw shucks" about everything, as if the world's a crazy place that's confusing for a country boy. A variation on that voice turns up in Chronicles.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Maybe We're Wrong on Sarah Palin and Foreign Policy
Maybe she is the part of the ticket with the foreign policy moxy. Maybe the ability to see Russia from your shore gives you insight. Evidently John McCain's years in politics haven't done him much good. Here's the transcript of his interview with a reporter from Spain's El Pais newspaper. In it, he's either not sure who Spain's president is, or where Spain is, or he's prepared to screw Spain as an ally.
QUESTION: Senator, finally, let's talk about Spain. If you're elected president, would you be willing to invite President Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero to the White House to meet with you?
MCCAIN: I would be willing meet, uh, with those leaders who our friends [sic] and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion, and by the way, President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very very tough fight against the drug cartels. I'm glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan. I intend to move forward with relations, and invite as many of them as I can, those leaders, to the White House.
QUESTION: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government, to the president itself?
MCCAIN: I don't, you know, honestly I have to look at relations and the situations and the priorities, but I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.
QUESTION: So you have to wait and see if he's willing to meet with you, or you'll be able to do it in the White House?
MCCAIN: Well again I don't, all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us, and standing up to those who are not, and that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America, and the entire region.
QUESTION: Okay... what about you, I'm talking about the President of Spain?
MCCAIN: What about me what?
QUESTION: Okay... are you willing to meet with him if you are elected president?
MCCAIN: I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom, and I will stand up to those that do not.
Much has already been made of that gaffe, but the other disturbing part of this is this quote:
I would be willing meet, uh, with those leaders who our friends [sic] and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion
The idea that we only meet with allies is insane. It has been the Bush way, and look where that got us.
QUESTION: Senator, finally, let's talk about Spain. If you're elected president, would you be willing to invite President Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero to the White House to meet with you?
MCCAIN: I would be willing meet, uh, with those leaders who our friends [sic] and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion, and by the way, President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very very tough fight against the drug cartels. I'm glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan. I intend to move forward with relations, and invite as many of them as I can, those leaders, to the White House.
QUESTION: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government, to the president itself?
MCCAIN: I don't, you know, honestly I have to look at relations and the situations and the priorities, but I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.
QUESTION: So you have to wait and see if he's willing to meet with you, or you'll be able to do it in the White House?
MCCAIN: Well again I don't, all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us, and standing up to those who are not, and that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America, and the entire region.
QUESTION: Okay... what about you, I'm talking about the President of Spain?
MCCAIN: What about me what?
QUESTION: Okay... are you willing to meet with him if you are elected president?
MCCAIN: I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom, and I will stand up to those that do not.
Much has already been made of that gaffe, but the other disturbing part of this is this quote:
I would be willing meet, uh, with those leaders who our friends [sic] and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion
The idea that we only meet with allies is insane. It has been the Bush way, and look where that got us.
Wearing Out a Point
Today, NPR's "Morning Edition" included tape from a McCain/Palin appearance, and during it, a woman gave Palin a chance to explain her foreign policy bona fides. I'm paraphrasing the answer - but not that much - and said she's ready because she believes you have to be ready and we have that readiness. If I, a writer by trade who last took science classes in Grade 11, argued that I'm ready to remove your appendix because I believe I am and I have to be ready when I put scalpel to skin, would you let me cut?
One of the more insidious ways that the Bush White House has injected spirituality into public policy is to reduce everything to a matter of belief - the central tenet of Christianity. Facts are the things he believes; the things he doesn't believe are subject to debate, and Palin is more of the same in so many ways. Thankfully, every time Palin opens her mouth on foreign policy, the emptiness of that approach becomes evident.
One of the more insidious ways that the Bush White House has injected spirituality into public policy is to reduce everything to a matter of belief - the central tenet of Christianity. Facts are the things he believes; the things he doesn't believe are subject to debate, and Palin is more of the same in so many ways. Thankfully, every time Palin opens her mouth on foreign policy, the emptiness of that approach becomes evident.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Bobby Charles
My story on Louisiana songwriter/legend/man about music Bobby Charles ("Walking to New Orleans," "See You Later, Alligator") is in the new Blurt digi-zine. I've interviewed him twice now, and he's one of those guys who seems to know everybody - Dylan took a break from the Rolling Thunder Revue to party at his house in Abbeville, he helped Neil Young pick out a beach house, he's known Willie Nelson since forever - and has a million stories. Getting him to connect all the dots and tell you how he knows them all is tougher.
Monday, September 15, 2008
The First Casualty of Elections
As I finish my morning blog-reading, I'm naturally depressed by the possibility that the country really doesn't give a shit about the truth. At The Nation, Ari Berman refers to a Ron Suskind piece from 2004 in which a Bush aide said:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Also at The Nation, Adam Howard celebrated the tough-ish questioning John McCain received on The View, which emphasizes the point that the way to reach voters is not through CNN or traditional news outlets, and the voters people are after aren't reached or appealed to through traditional means.
I hope the Obama campaign is shifting out of Sarah Palin mode, and rather than catching her in lies - which obviously isn't working - use her to illustrate John McCain's shaky judgment. With all the Republican talent available to him - male and female - he chose one of the least known and least prepared to assume the presidency should something happen.
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Also at The Nation, Adam Howard celebrated the tough-ish questioning John McCain received on The View, which emphasizes the point that the way to reach voters is not through CNN or traditional news outlets, and the voters people are after aren't reached or appealed to through traditional means.
I hope the Obama campaign is shifting out of Sarah Palin mode, and rather than catching her in lies - which obviously isn't working - use her to illustrate John McCain's shaky judgment. With all the Republican talent available to him - male and female - he chose one of the least known and least prepared to assume the presidency should something happen.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Don't Stop Believin'
I've attributed Bush's election and re-election to the fact that no voter feels stupid next to him - a variation on the idea that people voted for the guy they'd most like to have a beer with. I understand comfort and how it's a more driving force than anybody would like to admit, but seriously - are you qualified to run the country? Are any of the people you drink with at the bar? At the coffee shop?
Today's transcripts of Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin show the shortcomings your buddy, the candidate. The news today is that she doesn't know the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive defense, and how she inadvertently put America's foreign policy in the Middle East in the hands of Israel, and by admitting Georgia and the Ukraine to NATO drawn America into war with Russia. But let's go beyond such trivialities as details. Joan Walsh at Salon.com made this connection:
Talking to Charles Gibson tonight, Palin sometimes reminded me of poor Miss South Carolina, who, asked why many Americans can't find the U.S. on a map, famously said: "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps. And I believe that our education, like, such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere, like such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our children."
This statement from Palin about Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is better, but not hugely: "I believe that under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, nucular weapons in the hands of his government are extremely dangerous to everyone on this globe, yes. We have got to make sure these weapons of mass destruction, that nucular weapons are not given to those hands of Ahmadinejad, not that he would use them, but that he would allow terrorists to be able to use them. So we have got to put the pressure on Iran."
I thought more of another, more generic sad sack when I read this transcript:
GIBSON: Governor, let me start by asking you a question that I asked John McCain about you, and it is really the central question. Can you look the country in the eye and say "I have the experience and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?"
PALIN: I do, Charlie, and on January 20, when John McCain and I are sworn in, if we are so privileged to be elected to serve this country, will be ready. I'm ready.
GIBSON: And you didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I -- will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?"
PALIN: I didn't hesitate, no.
GIBSON: (INAUDIBLE -- Didn't that take some hubris?)
PALIN: I -- I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink.
The gobbledygook logic of that last statement - her rationale for believing she's ready to be vice-president and if necessary president - boils down to, "I believe in me because I believe, and I have to believe." Usually we hear some variation on that logic from a teenager talking to Ryan Seacrest just before he or she walks into the American Idol tryout room to be crushed and sent to therapy by Simon, Randy and Paula. Or on the tryout show for America's Next Top Model, where the poor underfed dears explain that they're going to be America's next top model because they really want to be America's next top model. Not surprisingly, the women who actually win have more reliable attributes like good bone structure, a consciousness of their bodies and a sense of how they present themselves for photos.
We've just spent eight years with a president who reduced every issue to a matter of belief; another candidate who believes because she believes really isn't change.
Here's the interview.
Today's transcripts of Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin show the shortcomings your buddy, the candidate. The news today is that she doesn't know the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive defense, and how she inadvertently put America's foreign policy in the Middle East in the hands of Israel, and by admitting Georgia and the Ukraine to NATO drawn America into war with Russia. But let's go beyond such trivialities as details. Joan Walsh at Salon.com made this connection:
Talking to Charles Gibson tonight, Palin sometimes reminded me of poor Miss South Carolina, who, asked why many Americans can't find the U.S. on a map, famously said: "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps. And I believe that our education, like, such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere, like such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our children."
This statement from Palin about Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is better, but not hugely: "I believe that under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, nucular weapons in the hands of his government are extremely dangerous to everyone on this globe, yes. We have got to make sure these weapons of mass destruction, that nucular weapons are not given to those hands of Ahmadinejad, not that he would use them, but that he would allow terrorists to be able to use them. So we have got to put the pressure on Iran."
I thought more of another, more generic sad sack when I read this transcript:
GIBSON: Governor, let me start by asking you a question that I asked John McCain about you, and it is really the central question. Can you look the country in the eye and say "I have the experience and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?"
PALIN: I do, Charlie, and on January 20, when John McCain and I are sworn in, if we are so privileged to be elected to serve this country, will be ready. I'm ready.
GIBSON: And you didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I -- will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?"
PALIN: I didn't hesitate, no.
GIBSON: (INAUDIBLE -- Didn't that take some hubris?)
PALIN: I -- I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink.
The gobbledygook logic of that last statement - her rationale for believing she's ready to be vice-president and if necessary president - boils down to, "I believe in me because I believe, and I have to believe." Usually we hear some variation on that logic from a teenager talking to Ryan Seacrest just before he or she walks into the American Idol tryout room to be crushed and sent to therapy by Simon, Randy and Paula. Or on the tryout show for America's Next Top Model, where the poor underfed dears explain that they're going to be America's next top model because they really want to be America's next top model. Not surprisingly, the women who actually win have more reliable attributes like good bone structure, a consciousness of their bodies and a sense of how they present themselves for photos.
We've just spent eight years with a president who reduced every issue to a matter of belief; another candidate who believes because she believes really isn't change.
Here's the interview.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Obama Art
A friend who was in Denver for the Democratic National Convention sent me photos of Obama-inspired art from a Manifest Hope show that was surprisingly good. Much of it riffs off of established graphics and styles, and it embraces the cultures that have come together to support Obama. I'm trying to decide what speaks to me more: the Warholesque Obama-as-Lincoln, or the pair of Air Obamas.
Go here for photos, and an account of organizer Shepard Fairey's arrest for postering to hype the show.
Go here for photos, and an account of organizer Shepard Fairey's arrest for postering to hype the show.
What's Wrong with Me?
Am I falling down on the job because I haven't yet typed a few thousand words of love for the new TV on the Radio album? All the cool kids seem to be doing it.
Monday, September 8, 2008
New, Free Raveonettes EP
Here's some press release:
FIRST EP AVAILABLE TODAY FOR FREE
Following the success of this year's critically adored album Lust Lust Lust, Danish noir-rock duo The Raveonettes today announce plans to release a series of digital only EPs on Vice Music. Not content to let time lapse between releases, the group is breaking the mold by dropping a series of four short form releases over the course of the next three months, leading off with a free remix EP today.
Though known primarily for their signature blend of lush melodies and over-the-top guitar noise, the EPs show off new, heretofore unknown creative angles of the group. Following today's remix EP will be Sometimes They Drop By on September 23, with electronics that indulge a deeper investment into the sampled beats and textures that have always lurked underneath their sound.
Two more EPs will follow on October 21 and November 25, the first further twisting the familiar Raveonettes' sound, and the last being an EP of Christmas songs done in a modern nostalgic way.
Today's free Remixed EP centers around three standout tracks from Lust Lust Lust, presented in radically different new versions. Hypnotic Japanese electro producer 80KIDZ, Alec Empire-conspirator Nic Endo, and Danish DJ superstar Trentemøeller reconstruct these now familiar songs into new shapes.
I'm amused by these, all of which do what they can to take the Jesus and Mary Chain out of the band. One reduces them Sharin Foo's coo to chopped stutters, one focuses on her deeply echoed voice, and one is all about Sune Rose Wagner's guitar. Now if only one track were beats and feedback. Then we'd be getting somewhere.
Tracklisting for today's three song free remix EP:
1. Dead Sound (80KIDZ remix)
2. Aly, Walk With Me (Nic Endo remix)
3. Lust (Trentemøeller Remix)
FIRST EP AVAILABLE TODAY FOR FREE
Following the success of this year's critically adored album Lust Lust Lust, Danish noir-rock duo The Raveonettes today announce plans to release a series of digital only EPs on Vice Music. Not content to let time lapse between releases, the group is breaking the mold by dropping a series of four short form releases over the course of the next three months, leading off with a free remix EP today.
Though known primarily for their signature blend of lush melodies and over-the-top guitar noise, the EPs show off new, heretofore unknown creative angles of the group. Following today's remix EP will be Sometimes They Drop By on September 23, with electronics that indulge a deeper investment into the sampled beats and textures that have always lurked underneath their sound.
Two more EPs will follow on October 21 and November 25, the first further twisting the familiar Raveonettes' sound, and the last being an EP of Christmas songs done in a modern nostalgic way.
Today's free Remixed EP centers around three standout tracks from Lust Lust Lust, presented in radically different new versions. Hypnotic Japanese electro producer 80KIDZ, Alec Empire-conspirator Nic Endo, and Danish DJ superstar Trentemøeller reconstruct these now familiar songs into new shapes.
I'm amused by these, all of which do what they can to take the Jesus and Mary Chain out of the band. One reduces them Sharin Foo's coo to chopped stutters, one focuses on her deeply echoed voice, and one is all about Sune Rose Wagner's guitar. Now if only one track were beats and feedback. Then we'd be getting somewhere.
Tracklisting for today's three song free remix EP:
1. Dead Sound (80KIDZ remix)
2. Aly, Walk With Me (Nic Endo remix)
3. Lust (Trentemøeller Remix)
Friday, September 5, 2008
Dylanology
My feature on Bob Dylan as America's leading Dylanologist ran yesterday in the San Diego Union-Tribune. Here's the story, and here are two sidebars - a downloader's guide to I'm Not There and a list of necessary reading - lumped together into one list.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Hurricane Gustav Notes
Some semi-organized thoughts now that I'm home:
-Prince gouging is illegal, but that didn't stop a Tobacco Road-like family gas station from charging $4.84 a gallon in Hammond, LA Tuesday with a cop helping to make sure the line of cars didn't get too restless. Pappy walked around with a pistol in his belt, sis pumped gas in a tight T-shirt, two older African-American men pumped gas and a backwoods Elizabeth Ashley sat in a resin lawn chair fanning herself with a file folder and overseeing the cage of chicks for sale.
-At one point, Mayor Nagin announced that Gustav was "the mother of all storms." At a literal level, what does that mean? It sounded like more of the same faux-hip nonsense that Nagin seems to think is one of his strengths, as if New Orleanians like being led by a guy who doesn't think before he speaks, then speaks in slang at its most banal.
-This time, the story was the evacuation and re-vacuation (if such a word exists). We tracked a friend's 10-plus hour trip from New Orleans to Tuscaloosa in a crawl across I-59. Others reported similarly hellish stories:
I am livid with the information we are receiving from the authorities and the media about traffic on I-59. We left our home at 3:45am and didn’t get to Hattiesburg until 1:00pm. The contraflow, which we took, was a joke. It only lasted about 10 miles or so, and was bumper-to-bumper from start to finish.
And authorities and media keep saying how wonderful contraflow is and keep downplaying the reports by drivers that there is serious traffic problems on I-59. It is irresponsible and potentially fatal to families to continue to tell them to evacuate at this time and to tell them that it is safe to go down I-59. People will run out of gas. People will not even be able to outrun the storm at this point.
It is a travesty. They are lying. And I’m tired and angry.
Mississippi also closed I-10 traffic eastbound into Alabama:
The Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) has announced that hurricane evacuees will be unable to enter Alabama on I-10 eastbound due to major delays from the Biloxi-Ocean Springs area to the Mobile Tunnel. Drivers will be diverted north on Mississippi 63 at exit 69.
Evidently, Mississippi was more concerned with preserving traffic in Mobile, Alabama than getting people safely out of Louisiana.
Here's a contraflow evacuation story, and here's its official rebuttal. You'll notice nobody in that story can account for why contraflow efforts - both lanes of the freeway going away from the Gulf - ended just 10 miles into Mississippi, when four lanes had to merge back to two before cars reached points when they could disperse.
-After the storm, someone in rural Louisiana slashed my wife's tires. Country folk can complain about how lawless we city folk are - this sort of talk really goes on in Louisiana - but mean people in New Orleans have reasons for their meanness. Usually bad reasons, but reasons.
-Nagin's obstinacy when it came to re-vacuation really sounded needlessly imperial, doing things his way regardless of what other parish presidents were doing. When everybody opened around Orleans Parish, he had no choice but to let people come into the city because they couldn't be kept out if they could get into Metairie, but he shouldn't have wanted to. The underlying premise of keeping them out was to save the city from its people - that they'd come home and be pissed off at the lack of power or food and go nuts. The fact is, people help each other. They can do more to bring about the reopening of the city because they can open their stores and restaurants, they can help each other clean up, and by occupying their houses, they deter crime. Punishing people who followed the plan and left by not letting them return as quickly as is safely possible makes it less likely that they'll evacuate next time, and it treats everybody who evacuated as under suspicion, someone who'd most likely act out if allowed back in the city.
-Prince gouging is illegal, but that didn't stop a Tobacco Road-like family gas station from charging $4.84 a gallon in Hammond, LA Tuesday with a cop helping to make sure the line of cars didn't get too restless. Pappy walked around with a pistol in his belt, sis pumped gas in a tight T-shirt, two older African-American men pumped gas and a backwoods Elizabeth Ashley sat in a resin lawn chair fanning herself with a file folder and overseeing the cage of chicks for sale.
-At one point, Mayor Nagin announced that Gustav was "the mother of all storms." At a literal level, what does that mean? It sounded like more of the same faux-hip nonsense that Nagin seems to think is one of his strengths, as if New Orleanians like being led by a guy who doesn't think before he speaks, then speaks in slang at its most banal.
-This time, the story was the evacuation and re-vacuation (if such a word exists). We tracked a friend's 10-plus hour trip from New Orleans to Tuscaloosa in a crawl across I-59. Others reported similarly hellish stories:
I am livid with the information we are receiving from the authorities and the media about traffic on I-59. We left our home at 3:45am and didn’t get to Hattiesburg until 1:00pm. The contraflow, which we took, was a joke. It only lasted about 10 miles or so, and was bumper-to-bumper from start to finish.
And authorities and media keep saying how wonderful contraflow is and keep downplaying the reports by drivers that there is serious traffic problems on I-59. It is irresponsible and potentially fatal to families to continue to tell them to evacuate at this time and to tell them that it is safe to go down I-59. People will run out of gas. People will not even be able to outrun the storm at this point.
It is a travesty. They are lying. And I’m tired and angry.
Mississippi also closed I-10 traffic eastbound into Alabama:
The Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) has announced that hurricane evacuees will be unable to enter Alabama on I-10 eastbound due to major delays from the Biloxi-Ocean Springs area to the Mobile Tunnel. Drivers will be diverted north on Mississippi 63 at exit 69.
Evidently, Mississippi was more concerned with preserving traffic in Mobile, Alabama than getting people safely out of Louisiana.
Here's a contraflow evacuation story, and here's its official rebuttal. You'll notice nobody in that story can account for why contraflow efforts - both lanes of the freeway going away from the Gulf - ended just 10 miles into Mississippi, when four lanes had to merge back to two before cars reached points when they could disperse.
-After the storm, someone in rural Louisiana slashed my wife's tires. Country folk can complain about how lawless we city folk are - this sort of talk really goes on in Louisiana - but mean people in New Orleans have reasons for their meanness. Usually bad reasons, but reasons.
-Nagin's obstinacy when it came to re-vacuation really sounded needlessly imperial, doing things his way regardless of what other parish presidents were doing. When everybody opened around Orleans Parish, he had no choice but to let people come into the city because they couldn't be kept out if they could get into Metairie, but he shouldn't have wanted to. The underlying premise of keeping them out was to save the city from its people - that they'd come home and be pissed off at the lack of power or food and go nuts. The fact is, people help each other. They can do more to bring about the reopening of the city because they can open their stores and restaurants, they can help each other clean up, and by occupying their houses, they deter crime. Punishing people who followed the plan and left by not letting them return as quickly as is safely possible makes it less likely that they'll evacuate next time, and it treats everybody who evacuated as under suspicion, someone who'd most likely act out if allowed back in the city.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
