The black balloon
tied to her wrist again, thin hand
floating
an inch above the white
white sheet
The body
a word to be said
into death, one
word
which no one else knows
completely her own—
Night just the shadow of her hell
(franz wright)
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
my song.
I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
it was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture post card charms
Amelia it was just a false alarm
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
Oh, Amelia it was just a false alarm
I wish that he was here tonight
It's so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed
I tell Amelia it was just a false alarm
A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia it was just a false alarm
Maybe I've never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia it was just a false alarm
I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams Amelia - dreams and false alarms
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
it was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture post card charms
Amelia it was just a false alarm
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
Oh, Amelia it was just a false alarm
I wish that he was here tonight
It's so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed
I tell Amelia it was just a false alarm
A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia it was just a false alarm
Maybe I've never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia it was just a false alarm
I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams Amelia - dreams and false alarms
(joni mitchell)
Friday, November 20, 2009
sea legs.
i've been thinking a lot lately (what the fuck else do i have to do? nothing. effing nothing.) about addiction.
i've spent so much time pretty darn near isolated since i quit drinking...20 months ago, that i guess i've probably processed it differently.
i tend to believe that every disease, be it mental or physical is a result of something emotional. from pimples to cancer to depression to heroin addiction. certainly my worst years of drinking were my way of coping with a whole lot of pain and anger. but lucky for me, all of that pain and anger was right there waiting for me just as soon as i got sober. i drank because i really, really hated myself. and i was too much of a coward to just kill myself. so i took the coward's route: cheap beer and whiskey. long and slow. booze was the vehicle. i get that. a big reason that i've never been one for AA is that i didn't want to just trade in drinking for "the program". i think AA is amazing, and it saves people's lives, and a lot of it is really, really valid. but i saw my father, and this guy i briefly dated a couple of years back, using AA as a shield. they went from drinker to secretary of the cult. every single thing out of their mouths was this vacant jargon, and both of them turned it into this sort of medical, clinical condition. never looking at what was going on beneath it, never looking at themselves. maybe my bitterness towards them kept me from something that could have really helped me. but i decided to take matters into my own hands, i decided i was going to go inside myself and get to the bottom of the whole thing. and i don't regret it.
i suppose because of them, i tended to not buy the "it's just a disease" thing. but i must admit that from the very first time i got drunk, i knew something was different with me and with everybody else. i started blacking out when i was 15 years old. not because i drank that frequently, i was your typical white kid in your typical american small town. booze was hard to come by. there's just always been this thing that happens when i drink, i fucking lose my shit. it's always been that way. so yes, my name is jessica and i'm an alcoholic.
i think people just have no idea what it is like to be an alcoholic or addict. i mean, none. what's ironic is that alcoholics and addicts are control freaks. and when an alcoholic drinks, it's sort of a random bag of varying degrees of drunken debauchery that takes over. one never knows, night to night, drink to drink, what type of drunk will come out. and it does become a complete loss of control. the more one consumes, the more one fucks up, the more one is hung over, the more one is incapable of functioning. it's really incredible how far down one goes. how totally obliterated your self-esteem and confidence gets. it's a really dark place. i heard this woman once describe it like you are trying to go around things, take some other route, out run something, and it's as if the universe keeps saying, "oh yeah?" smack! "oh yeah?" smack! and keeps throwing you down and down and down until finally you're just at bottom. i think about it less and less, i think because i am very much isolated. but when i meet someone, or am faced with putting myself out there somehow, be it creatively or sexually or even professionally, i meet that lack of confidence. the stigma that follows is hard to shake. when i meet new people, i forget that they don't know that about me. i still tend to keep my head down, that unconscious worry and shame over what i may have said or done to somebody when i was blacked out is so ingrained. but the more distance i get from that old self, the less i carry that heaviness. hitting bottom, and being that spiritually bankrupt, it's truly a death. and it takes a LOT to rebuild your self-esteem and self-respect from nothing. a LOT. i think because i've not been in AA, around others in recovery, i almost forget that i'm dealing with it. there are times when i feel like some kind of freak, a social recluse or like no one could understand this.
the other day i picked up a copy of james frey's "a million little pieces" at the thrift store. about two pages in, i felt like my heart had been ripped out. listen oprah: i don't care if he lied about being arrested or something, that book is the truth. that is really, truly what it is like. if you've ever experienced addiction, that book is a big fat mirror. lined with coke. i had to stop reading it because it was so upsetting to me. it brought up so many feelings from that time, and i felt really, really upset for a few days, feeling all of those feelings again. just glimpsing that again, i realize how lucky i am to have had such a brief period of that kind of blackness. and to have finished it by the time that i turned 30. because every day since i quit that i've been depressed or heartbroken or pissed off, none of it comes close to the feeling of waking up and not knowing where i am, what i did, who i screwed or who i screwed over. waking up and just wishing that i was dead. being so physically ill and disconnected from my body and mindlessly droning on through the days to get to the next drink. and it may be because of those years, the ones spent not in my body, in some black void, that my life is so amazing to me now. i have days where i feel as if i have just gotten the gift of sight. where i can not believe my eyes. my senses, my experience in my body is incredible to me.
i can remember this nearly 2 year period where i was living in the tenderloin district in san francisco, and i was really out of control. i remember every day sort of stumbling down polk street surrounded by all of these fucked up bums and junkies and hookers, and just keeping my head down to get through that awful section of the neighborhood that i lived in. and i think that was such a reflection of my life at that time. i would go through my days so brain dead hungover, and every day was telling myself, i just gotta get through the day. until i'd go home and start drinking. i think about all of those wasted days, and it really was running, going through life with my eyes shut. now, i can not wait to get out of bed in the morning. i can not wait to see what unfolds every day. i can't wait to see the sunrise, what the weather will be like, i can't wait for little things like morning coffee, doing yoga, taking a walk, cooking dinner at night, making tea. little things like that, i love them, every day. i don't want to miss any of it. and i think if i hadn't missed those years, maybe i wouldn't feel this way. maybe i wouldn't feel this alive. so i'm grateful, i'm so grateful for that experience.
i have also experienced a depth in my relationships that i don't think most people ever do. i saw a lot of people bail when my drinking got out of hand. and at the other end of things, a lot of "friends" vanished into the void when i gave it up. but the ones who stayed...i have really experienced true unconditional love. people who have seen me at my literal worst. people who have seen me crawling have patiently waited as i learned to walk again. people who have seen me treat them and myself like shit have stood by and cheered me on. i feel lucky to have been shown what my friendships are really made of. solid fucking gold.
quitting drinking is the best thing i ever did for myself. and absolutely the most challenging, scary, painful, cathartic, beautiful, lonely thing i've ever experienced. sometimes i lose sight of that. books like a million little pieces, as painful as they are to look at, they remind me of how far i've come, and what it is i am doing. starting over. year zero. year one. stone cold sober. cheers to that.
i've spent so much time pretty darn near isolated since i quit drinking...20 months ago, that i guess i've probably processed it differently.
i tend to believe that every disease, be it mental or physical is a result of something emotional. from pimples to cancer to depression to heroin addiction. certainly my worst years of drinking were my way of coping with a whole lot of pain and anger. but lucky for me, all of that pain and anger was right there waiting for me just as soon as i got sober. i drank because i really, really hated myself. and i was too much of a coward to just kill myself. so i took the coward's route: cheap beer and whiskey. long and slow. booze was the vehicle. i get that. a big reason that i've never been one for AA is that i didn't want to just trade in drinking for "the program". i think AA is amazing, and it saves people's lives, and a lot of it is really, really valid. but i saw my father, and this guy i briefly dated a couple of years back, using AA as a shield. they went from drinker to secretary of the cult. every single thing out of their mouths was this vacant jargon, and both of them turned it into this sort of medical, clinical condition. never looking at what was going on beneath it, never looking at themselves. maybe my bitterness towards them kept me from something that could have really helped me. but i decided to take matters into my own hands, i decided i was going to go inside myself and get to the bottom of the whole thing. and i don't regret it.
i suppose because of them, i tended to not buy the "it's just a disease" thing. but i must admit that from the very first time i got drunk, i knew something was different with me and with everybody else. i started blacking out when i was 15 years old. not because i drank that frequently, i was your typical white kid in your typical american small town. booze was hard to come by. there's just always been this thing that happens when i drink, i fucking lose my shit. it's always been that way. so yes, my name is jessica and i'm an alcoholic.
i think people just have no idea what it is like to be an alcoholic or addict. i mean, none. what's ironic is that alcoholics and addicts are control freaks. and when an alcoholic drinks, it's sort of a random bag of varying degrees of drunken debauchery that takes over. one never knows, night to night, drink to drink, what type of drunk will come out. and it does become a complete loss of control. the more one consumes, the more one fucks up, the more one is hung over, the more one is incapable of functioning. it's really incredible how far down one goes. how totally obliterated your self-esteem and confidence gets. it's a really dark place. i heard this woman once describe it like you are trying to go around things, take some other route, out run something, and it's as if the universe keeps saying, "oh yeah?" smack! "oh yeah?" smack! and keeps throwing you down and down and down until finally you're just at bottom. i think about it less and less, i think because i am very much isolated. but when i meet someone, or am faced with putting myself out there somehow, be it creatively or sexually or even professionally, i meet that lack of confidence. the stigma that follows is hard to shake. when i meet new people, i forget that they don't know that about me. i still tend to keep my head down, that unconscious worry and shame over what i may have said or done to somebody when i was blacked out is so ingrained. but the more distance i get from that old self, the less i carry that heaviness. hitting bottom, and being that spiritually bankrupt, it's truly a death. and it takes a LOT to rebuild your self-esteem and self-respect from nothing. a LOT. i think because i've not been in AA, around others in recovery, i almost forget that i'm dealing with it. there are times when i feel like some kind of freak, a social recluse or like no one could understand this.
the other day i picked up a copy of james frey's "a million little pieces" at the thrift store. about two pages in, i felt like my heart had been ripped out. listen oprah: i don't care if he lied about being arrested or something, that book is the truth. that is really, truly what it is like. if you've ever experienced addiction, that book is a big fat mirror. lined with coke. i had to stop reading it because it was so upsetting to me. it brought up so many feelings from that time, and i felt really, really upset for a few days, feeling all of those feelings again. just glimpsing that again, i realize how lucky i am to have had such a brief period of that kind of blackness. and to have finished it by the time that i turned 30. because every day since i quit that i've been depressed or heartbroken or pissed off, none of it comes close to the feeling of waking up and not knowing where i am, what i did, who i screwed or who i screwed over. waking up and just wishing that i was dead. being so physically ill and disconnected from my body and mindlessly droning on through the days to get to the next drink. and it may be because of those years, the ones spent not in my body, in some black void, that my life is so amazing to me now. i have days where i feel as if i have just gotten the gift of sight. where i can not believe my eyes. my senses, my experience in my body is incredible to me.
i can remember this nearly 2 year period where i was living in the tenderloin district in san francisco, and i was really out of control. i remember every day sort of stumbling down polk street surrounded by all of these fucked up bums and junkies and hookers, and just keeping my head down to get through that awful section of the neighborhood that i lived in. and i think that was such a reflection of my life at that time. i would go through my days so brain dead hungover, and every day was telling myself, i just gotta get through the day. until i'd go home and start drinking. i think about all of those wasted days, and it really was running, going through life with my eyes shut. now, i can not wait to get out of bed in the morning. i can not wait to see what unfolds every day. i can't wait to see the sunrise, what the weather will be like, i can't wait for little things like morning coffee, doing yoga, taking a walk, cooking dinner at night, making tea. little things like that, i love them, every day. i don't want to miss any of it. and i think if i hadn't missed those years, maybe i wouldn't feel this way. maybe i wouldn't feel this alive. so i'm grateful, i'm so grateful for that experience.
i have also experienced a depth in my relationships that i don't think most people ever do. i saw a lot of people bail when my drinking got out of hand. and at the other end of things, a lot of "friends" vanished into the void when i gave it up. but the ones who stayed...i have really experienced true unconditional love. people who have seen me at my literal worst. people who have seen me crawling have patiently waited as i learned to walk again. people who have seen me treat them and myself like shit have stood by and cheered me on. i feel lucky to have been shown what my friendships are really made of. solid fucking gold.
quitting drinking is the best thing i ever did for myself. and absolutely the most challenging, scary, painful, cathartic, beautiful, lonely thing i've ever experienced. sometimes i lose sight of that. books like a million little pieces, as painful as they are to look at, they remind me of how far i've come, and what it is i am doing. starting over. year zero. year one. stone cold sober. cheers to that.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
youch!
i think i felt a lil' guilty for talking trash on lou reed. so, i decided to give him his due.
i hope nobody got the impression that i don't love lou reed. because i do. i love lou reed. i think lou reed is a spectacular, enigmatic artist.
i'm really into it when writers revisit characters, revisit verses from other songs in new songs, weave things together. at times i feel like i rewrite the same story over and over, using the same language over and over. and most of the time it's because i'm so haunted by a theme, and once i spit it out it still follows and comes back to me in a slightly different form. but it's the same ghost. i wonder if it just reads repeititive. when i hear musicians doing it, i get it. i get it and i love it.
i've been listening to the lou reed record "berlin." i bought this record on vinyl when i was 17 at the now de-funct vinyl only shop "the last record store" on 4th street in downtown santa rosa california. i had just moved away from my little tiny home town and i moved into this moldy basement across from a big cemetery. might have been the mold, might have been the fact that the only heat in the place was from the gas oven. but i went a bit mad in that basement. i wrote a shit ton of bad poetry and plowed through as many records as i could. i worked at the now defunct wolf coffee on 4th street in downtown santa rosa california, and i spent all of my paychecks on my musical education. those fantastic mid-80's tom waits records. firehose. agent orange. elvis costello; start to early 90's. billie holiday. MC5. richard hell. talking heads. and a minor stack of lou reed records, that i never really got around to. i have been waiting for "berlin" to catch my ear for all these years. it finally has.
i really know very little about lou reed, except for what john cale said about him in that book. so i always sorta got the impression that lou reed was kind of a little bitch. john cale described him as this guy who would show up just when you'd gotten your shit together, somehow talk you into shooting heroin, and then he'd just disappear in his limo and leave you strung out somewhere. lou reed is clearly a drug person. "berlin" is clearly a drug record. this record followed "transformer" and after that record was the surprise hit of 1972, the ol' record company let lou reed make the totally over the top "berlin." lou reed said that he had set out to make the most depressing record in the world with this one. it's supposed to be a "rock opera" about a couple. there's this kind of jerk cabaret vibe to the record. it's all centered around the piano, quite a departure, reed doesn't play the electric guitar a'tall on this record.
i really love "berlin." with this record you get the sense that lou reed's spent all these years watching people lose their shit on dope around him, and him, he just don't care at all. what's tricky about lou reed is i can listen to him, even to really beautiful, heartbreaking songs like "pale blue eyes" and "perfect day" and "bed" (which is such a staggering portrait of my last major relationship that it physically hurts) and get no real sense of him. and it's not that he's this fantastic storyteller that disappears into the material like polly harvey or johnny cash or springsteen. he's definitely got a gift for sarcasm, but even the gods of rancor like bob dylan and elvis costello, or the masters of stoicism like nick cave and leonard cohen have this layer of pain and sadness that fills in around the sarcasm. lou reed, he's just ice cold. he's telling stories about all of these people, but it's like he doesn't give a shit about them. on occasion he sounds mildly annoyed. but mostly it's like he's just humming to himself to pass the time.
my take on lou reed's re-occuring characters is that it's another insanely brilliant, cold thing that he does. my take is that it is not that they are re-occuring characters, but that he just uses the same name for his female characters. and not in the springsteen all-women-are-biblical-mothers-mary/ every-woman kind of way. in a sort of, all women are fucking idiots kind of way. like that's just how much he doesn't care about these bitches. i could be totally wrong. but in my head, that's how it reads.
the thing about "berlin" is that if you just read the lyrics on paper, you'd feel a lot from the words. it is indeed an incredibly depressing record. it's all about a really bad drug situation, domestic violence, kids being taken away, suicide attempts (or successes, mr. ambiguous doesn't let us in on the ending). but the way it is performed, the way he sings the songs, at times stoic to almost chiding, there-in lies the brilliance. that iciness against the backdrop of the broomy production and these cheeky, almost sardonic melodies. wow.
i hope nobody got the impression that i don't love lou reed. because i do. i love lou reed. i think lou reed is a spectacular, enigmatic artist.
i'm really into it when writers revisit characters, revisit verses from other songs in new songs, weave things together. at times i feel like i rewrite the same story over and over, using the same language over and over. and most of the time it's because i'm so haunted by a theme, and once i spit it out it still follows and comes back to me in a slightly different form. but it's the same ghost. i wonder if it just reads repeititive. when i hear musicians doing it, i get it. i get it and i love it.
i've been listening to the lou reed record "berlin." i bought this record on vinyl when i was 17 at the now de-funct vinyl only shop "the last record store" on 4th street in downtown santa rosa california. i had just moved away from my little tiny home town and i moved into this moldy basement across from a big cemetery. might have been the mold, might have been the fact that the only heat in the place was from the gas oven. but i went a bit mad in that basement. i wrote a shit ton of bad poetry and plowed through as many records as i could. i worked at the now defunct wolf coffee on 4th street in downtown santa rosa california, and i spent all of my paychecks on my musical education. those fantastic mid-80's tom waits records. firehose. agent orange. elvis costello; start to early 90's. billie holiday. MC5. richard hell. talking heads. and a minor stack of lou reed records, that i never really got around to. i have been waiting for "berlin" to catch my ear for all these years. it finally has.
i really know very little about lou reed, except for what john cale said about him in that book. so i always sorta got the impression that lou reed was kind of a little bitch. john cale described him as this guy who would show up just when you'd gotten your shit together, somehow talk you into shooting heroin, and then he'd just disappear in his limo and leave you strung out somewhere. lou reed is clearly a drug person. "berlin" is clearly a drug record. this record followed "transformer" and after that record was the surprise hit of 1972, the ol' record company let lou reed make the totally over the top "berlin." lou reed said that he had set out to make the most depressing record in the world with this one. it's supposed to be a "rock opera" about a couple. there's this kind of jerk cabaret vibe to the record. it's all centered around the piano, quite a departure, reed doesn't play the electric guitar a'tall on this record.
i really love "berlin." with this record you get the sense that lou reed's spent all these years watching people lose their shit on dope around him, and him, he just don't care at all. what's tricky about lou reed is i can listen to him, even to really beautiful, heartbreaking songs like "pale blue eyes" and "perfect day" and "bed" (which is such a staggering portrait of my last major relationship that it physically hurts) and get no real sense of him. and it's not that he's this fantastic storyteller that disappears into the material like polly harvey or johnny cash or springsteen. he's definitely got a gift for sarcasm, but even the gods of rancor like bob dylan and elvis costello, or the masters of stoicism like nick cave and leonard cohen have this layer of pain and sadness that fills in around the sarcasm. lou reed, he's just ice cold. he's telling stories about all of these people, but it's like he doesn't give a shit about them. on occasion he sounds mildly annoyed. but mostly it's like he's just humming to himself to pass the time.
my take on lou reed's re-occuring characters is that it's another insanely brilliant, cold thing that he does. my take is that it is not that they are re-occuring characters, but that he just uses the same name for his female characters. and not in the springsteen all-women-are-biblical-mothers-mary/ every-woman kind of way. in a sort of, all women are fucking idiots kind of way. like that's just how much he doesn't care about these bitches. i could be totally wrong. but in my head, that's how it reads.
the thing about "berlin" is that if you just read the lyrics on paper, you'd feel a lot from the words. it is indeed an incredibly depressing record. it's all about a really bad drug situation, domestic violence, kids being taken away, suicide attempts (or successes, mr. ambiguous doesn't let us in on the ending). but the way it is performed, the way he sings the songs, at times stoic to almost chiding, there-in lies the brilliance. that iciness against the backdrop of the broomy production and these cheeky, almost sardonic melodies. wow.
what's welsh for rad.
i've been listening to a lot of john cale lately.
john cale is a guy i got into several years ago. john frusciante had this fantastic little period of putting out lists of records he was listening to while he was making certain records, and he'd listed cale's "fear" as a favorite. i of course went out and bought every john cale record i could find. "fear" came later, as it was only an import from the u.k., but it was instantly and remains my favorite of cale's records.
i've been thinking lately about music that i perhaps got into when i was too young. as a true music geek, i consumed music as a teenager and considered myself a student collecting records to make myself smarter. as a result, there are certain bands or musicians that i feel like i sort of burned through, perhaps before i could really appreciate them. tom waits and elvis costello particularly are two artists i listened to incessantly as a teenager and kind of burned myself out on. i decided a few years ago to put the both of them aside completely, and i've been excitedly awaiting the day that i can dive back into their respective discographies with fresh, and wiser ears.
as for john cale, i think i missed the point.
a guy i used to know called brandon brown gave me john cale's semi-biography, "what's welsh for zen" several years back and i absolutely adored it. it's full of good old fashioned shit talking, on lou reed especially. stories of knocking out women's teeth during coke binges. tales of what a prick brian eno is. brief asides about producing a couple of little acts like...uh...iggy and the stooges and patti smith. and some sad accounts of nico's self destructive junkydom. also some really incredible illustrations and photographs. thanks to this book, i think i fell in love with john cale before i really fell in love with his music.
i plowed through his records when i was about 26, but really only casually. i don't think i absorbed much. i knew it was good music, and important music, and i knew i liked it, but i think i had some sort of instinct to save it. i'm so glad i did. now that i'm old and...bored i can really take it all in.
lately i've been hearing the record "paris 1919" and going back to hear it again and again. such a funny yet elegant record. i've often listened to nick cave piano ballads like "the ship song" and wished for more. "paris 1919" feels like the ocean from whence nick cave's ship sprang. the cover of the record kills me, so white polyester 70's. it reminds me of the movie "emanuelle." you see that shit? best soft porn ever, man. it's this hot red headed french chick (sylvia kristel) who slightly resembles ziggy stardust era david bowie, doing a bunch of humping on beautiful white wicker furniture and in giant mosquito nets in thailand. there's a scene where she humps this random other passenger on a plane, holy cow, i think they might have actually been having actual sex instead of just dry humping. that scene gave me my taste for white garter belts with nude colored stockings. looks good. anywho, that movie was very french, 1970's, soft-focusy. and god damn it, so is "paris 1919." the title track to "paris 1919" is great. every time i hear the chorus "you're a ghost, la di da la da de da." i can just hear it sampled in the chorus of some ruling hip hop song. hey kanye, get into it! my favorite song on the record is "the endless plain of fortune." i never get tired of that song.
john cale is a composer, a fantastic producer and a master arranger. john cale obviously loves phil spector, and he is really good at the wall of sound thing. only cale's is this odd, very european, 70's rock wall of sound. what's smart is the contrast. there are elements of ennio morricone there, a sort of spaghetti western groove, with this very english voice and elegant strings, and then a totally coked out 70's electric guitar. the best of that is on cale's first record (after being booted from the velvet underground)"vintage violence", a record filled with bluesy barroom piano and layers of acoustic guitars. there's this particular john cale sound, he does something sonically that i really dig. listening to his records, it's like every instrument is sort of suspended in the air on separate tracks. everything is very loud, the same volume, but somehow there is this space between everything; the bass, the guitar, percussion, drums, and then it's like on one track is a HUGE mix of strings, backup singers, wind instruments, pedal steel, but it's all driving together to this beat, this build, lead by the piano. and his voice, what a voice. he's got such a strong voice, but it's just flawless and so fucking sweet. and of course it's all heavily saturated in reverb. lyrically, i have no idea what he's talking about. which i like a lot. he's got such a velvety croon that the words just kind of melt into the songs. they slide into the melody like a stream of really expensive scotch. he has such a gift for the weaving, seductive melody.
i hope that everyone goes out and illegally downloads "fear" and "vintage violence" and feels mightily stoked. and then, if you're still stoked, illegally download "paris 1919". just for yukks.
finally i'd just like to say to john cale (john cale blog searches himself, right?) that i like his solo records more than i like lou reed's.
the end.
john cale is a guy i got into several years ago. john frusciante had this fantastic little period of putting out lists of records he was listening to while he was making certain records, and he'd listed cale's "fear" as a favorite. i of course went out and bought every john cale record i could find. "fear" came later, as it was only an import from the u.k., but it was instantly and remains my favorite of cale's records.
i've been thinking lately about music that i perhaps got into when i was too young. as a true music geek, i consumed music as a teenager and considered myself a student collecting records to make myself smarter. as a result, there are certain bands or musicians that i feel like i sort of burned through, perhaps before i could really appreciate them. tom waits and elvis costello particularly are two artists i listened to incessantly as a teenager and kind of burned myself out on. i decided a few years ago to put the both of them aside completely, and i've been excitedly awaiting the day that i can dive back into their respective discographies with fresh, and wiser ears.
as for john cale, i think i missed the point.
a guy i used to know called brandon brown gave me john cale's semi-biography, "what's welsh for zen" several years back and i absolutely adored it. it's full of good old fashioned shit talking, on lou reed especially. stories of knocking out women's teeth during coke binges. tales of what a prick brian eno is. brief asides about producing a couple of little acts like...uh...iggy and the stooges and patti smith. and some sad accounts of nico's self destructive junkydom. also some really incredible illustrations and photographs. thanks to this book, i think i fell in love with john cale before i really fell in love with his music.
i plowed through his records when i was about 26, but really only casually. i don't think i absorbed much. i knew it was good music, and important music, and i knew i liked it, but i think i had some sort of instinct to save it. i'm so glad i did. now that i'm old and...bored i can really take it all in.
lately i've been hearing the record "paris 1919" and going back to hear it again and again. such a funny yet elegant record. i've often listened to nick cave piano ballads like "the ship song" and wished for more. "paris 1919" feels like the ocean from whence nick cave's ship sprang. the cover of the record kills me, so white polyester 70's. it reminds me of the movie "emanuelle." you see that shit? best soft porn ever, man. it's this hot red headed french chick (sylvia kristel) who slightly resembles ziggy stardust era david bowie, doing a bunch of humping on beautiful white wicker furniture and in giant mosquito nets in thailand. there's a scene where she humps this random other passenger on a plane, holy cow, i think they might have actually been having actual sex instead of just dry humping. that scene gave me my taste for white garter belts with nude colored stockings. looks good. anywho, that movie was very french, 1970's, soft-focusy. and god damn it, so is "paris 1919." the title track to "paris 1919" is great. every time i hear the chorus "you're a ghost, la di da la da de da." i can just hear it sampled in the chorus of some ruling hip hop song. hey kanye, get into it! my favorite song on the record is "the endless plain of fortune." i never get tired of that song.
john cale is a composer, a fantastic producer and a master arranger. john cale obviously loves phil spector, and he is really good at the wall of sound thing. only cale's is this odd, very european, 70's rock wall of sound. what's smart is the contrast. there are elements of ennio morricone there, a sort of spaghetti western groove, with this very english voice and elegant strings, and then a totally coked out 70's electric guitar. the best of that is on cale's first record (after being booted from the velvet underground)"vintage violence", a record filled with bluesy barroom piano and layers of acoustic guitars. there's this particular john cale sound, he does something sonically that i really dig. listening to his records, it's like every instrument is sort of suspended in the air on separate tracks. everything is very loud, the same volume, but somehow there is this space between everything; the bass, the guitar, percussion, drums, and then it's like on one track is a HUGE mix of strings, backup singers, wind instruments, pedal steel, but it's all driving together to this beat, this build, lead by the piano. and his voice, what a voice. he's got such a strong voice, but it's just flawless and so fucking sweet. and of course it's all heavily saturated in reverb. lyrically, i have no idea what he's talking about. which i like a lot. he's got such a velvety croon that the words just kind of melt into the songs. they slide into the melody like a stream of really expensive scotch. he has such a gift for the weaving, seductive melody.
i hope that everyone goes out and illegally downloads "fear" and "vintage violence" and feels mightily stoked. and then, if you're still stoked, illegally download "paris 1919". just for yukks.
finally i'd just like to say to john cale (john cale blog searches himself, right?) that i like his solo records more than i like lou reed's.
the end.
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