“If you don’t think this is music, you can get the fuck out of here.” With a million happy customers every year, these are not words you associate with audiences or performers at the Montreal Jazz Festival. But John Zorn’s F-bomb from the stage was aimed at one of many agitated audience members who expressed their displeasure over the evening’s all-star trio of himself, Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. No doubt a large part of the audience was expecting “Sweet Jane,” “Walk on the Wild Side,” or even Anderson’s “O Superman.” Instead, it was a free improv showdown that shocked the crowd, prompting dozens to walk out after two songs.

Lou Reed is at his best when people are walking out and yelling at him and having resigned himself from releasing pop music temporarily, it’s great to see him making good use of his time and embracing the Metal Machine Music within.

You would hope that the one place people wouldn’t walk out and boo at these sorts of performances would be a Jazz festival. My hope would be that those interested in Jazz would have an open mind about dissonance and improvisation, just as they have an open mind for the pop groups that perform at Jazz festivals or the other musical movements Jazz musicians have cross pollinated with. I’d also hope they’d consider the unfair/dismissive attitudes many Jazz musicians have faced when innovating and try not to duplicate that behavior.

But, you ask, “Does it meet a definition of Jazz?”

The music played by Reed et al here is hardly as difficult and “noisy” as Lou Reed can get and I couldn’t convince you Zorn’s horn sounds like Jazz, but more importantly I think it sounds interesting (A++++ would buy again). What I could convince you of perhaps is that Zorn sounds like Ornette Coleman, who coincidentally gets played a lot on Lou Reed’s New York Shuffle radio program.

In 1989, Zorn recorded Spy vs Spy: The Music of Ornette Coleman, a hardcore punk collection of Ornette Coleman compositions that sounded like this… well it’s not on youtube, so forget it. Maybe I’ll find it later.

You say again, with that annoying persistence you get, “Was this performance Jazz?” To me that’s a boring question and echoes the ever-present “is this art?” question you’d likely hear in a freshman seminar. Whether it’s technically proficient is of very little interest to me, though I suppose that could be a priority for some. Personally, I can think of few things less exciting than virtuosity. Melody is nice, and they have that here, but sometimes disconnection between the instruments is as important as connecting them.

I prefer to ask the following when faced with a work:

So here’s the Thing:

From the Guardian:

Eric Clapton once described Johnson as, “the most important blues singer that ever lived”…[but] nearly 50 years after Columbia first packaged his work as King of the Delta Blues, we discover that we’ve been listening to these immortal songs at the wrong speed all along. Either the recordings were accidentally speeded up when first committed to 78, or else they were deliberately speeded up to make them sound more exciting. Whatever, the common consensus among musicologists is that we’ve been listening to Johnson at least 20% too fast. Numerous bloggers have helpfully slowed down Johnson’s best-known work and provided samples so that, for the first time, we can hear Johnson as he intended to be heard.

I, like many people, only know of Robert Johnson through Eric Clapton; I know Cream’s Crossroads a lot better than Johnson’s, and like it more too. But I love the fact that the figure of origin, used to authenticate electric blues by so many white electric bluesmen like Clapton, cannot now be disentangled from studio gimmickry. Part of the Clapton thing was that he was supposed to be taking the acoustic, rural, old, and black song of the Robert Johnson figure and making it young and white and modern and urban and electric. Rock and Roll as the electrified blues is every hack music journalist’s favorite cliche. And now it turns out that Johnson was himself playing games in the studio, that the authentic backdrop which your white bluesbreakers were trying to modernize was already always a function of industrial reproduction. Lovely. And yet, your music writers still can’t get over the desire to return to the original rural black acoustic singer — the completely unsupported sense that “he intended to be heard” as slow rather than fast — because of course, Johnson himself couldn’t have been the one who speeded up his playing on tape to make it sound more awesome. Only white people get to speed up and electrify his songs…

This is still under debate and the consensus is closer to the standard recordings than the slowed down ones. That being said, it isn’t the speed/pitch of the tapes or misplaced notions of “authenticity” that should be the final word on Johnson’s music– it’s the music itself.

There’s a great biography about Johnson, his peers and their myth called Escaping the Delta by Elijah Wald. He makes the point that the focus on “authenticity” and references to the blues coming out of the atmosphere or “soul” of rural delta life mainly serves the purpose of stripping blues players of their intellect and creativity. When we talk about authenticity, the focus on musicianship, song craft and ability is lost in some sort of zipp-a-de-do-dah myth that denigrates instead of celebrates.

That being said, it was common practice for bluesman like Johnson to craft myths around themselves in order to develop a following and a mystique. Think of it as a means of marketing before the era of music marketing. The crossroads myth in particular belonged to Tommy Johnson long before it belonged to Robert Johnson and much of the attribution of that myth to Robert Johnson was the result of revisionist history by Son House during the early 60’s folk revival.

Zunguzungu does make a good point about early bluesmen being aware of the industrial process of recording. Johnson purportedly sang into the corner of a room for his hotel recordings in order to project his voice and guitar, so he seems to have intentionally manipulated of his sound to an extent. He certainly didn’t live in an isolation chamber of Delta authenticity. Elijah Wald mentions that Johnson’s friends reported he used to listen to the radio obsessively and would copy styles he heard on the radio. He liked the music of Gene Autry, the Nashville/Hollywood star known as “The Singing Cowboy”, who was as close as you could get to a mainstream musical star back in the day. (EVEN WHITE MUSIC! OH NO! OUR NOTION OF AUTHENTICITY IS SLIPPING AWAY! )

Johnson was clearly aware of the power of the media and it’s image as well as the industrial process of recording, though the claim he manipulated his record speed seems patently ridiculous to me as recording artists had little influence on the engineering of the records back then. They just sang. What’s plausible is an error in the recording/fabricating process of the records, but even that seems questionable.

I’d like to call Clapton a wang. Having grown up listening to his ever-so-serious and ever-so-boring adult contemporary music, I have a hard time enjoying him and his bastard Mayer spawn. “He’s a wang!” I say, but… I don’t really think that’s relevant.

Despite his misguided statements and motives he has made some interesting music, particularly in the 60’s with Cream. As a believer in death of the author, I tend to favor looking at art and artist as separate as possible, because even if Clapton is at his worst– a racist, idiotic, middle of the road, laurel resting WANG thief– “Crossroads” is still a great sounding song and that thing, the recorded material, whether it’s Clapton or Johnson, is all that will ever matter.

See Cluster on Wikipedia.

EDIT: I’m proud to say that I anticipated the importance of Cluster today. After I posted this The Quietus posted an interview with Cluster. Coincidence? I think not.

I’m making my way through Krautrocksampler, the out of print Julian Cope book about the first German rock movement, and I happened across a this helicopter string quartet. Stockhausen decided to record and film a string quartet traveling in separate helicopters performing an original composition. The blades cutting the air make trance-like percussion supporting the gliding strings.

Part1: Part 2:

Musically, I’m not sure if the piece is that interesting with the conceit of the helicopters removed, but the point of the piece is surely the removal of conceit itself. It was no coincidence, in fact it seems barely an insight, that Stockhausen and Cage achieved prominence at the same time as American Pop Art.

In Cope’s Krautrocksampler, he writes of the outrage in response to a Stockhausen composition that was based on ideas taken from the American Pop Art movement. At certain points, the composition Hymnen takes national anthems and toys with them. What caused a great deal of distress in West Germany was the use of their national anthem in the composition. Cope writes, “The German public ALL furry-freaked. The left-wing didn’t see the funny side at all and accused him of appealing to the basest German feelings, whilst the right-wing hated him for vilifying their pride and joy, and letting the Europeans laugh at them.”

In this regard, Stockhausen is again borrowing from Pop Art, particularly its infuriating lack of orientation from the artist. This is the same lack that allows Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans and Brillo boxes to work as capitalist critique and capitalist capitulation. Keeping this in mind, let’s look at a video by a YouTube uploader who seems to take offense at the avant-garde of half a century ago.

Before we get to the inflammatory statement, let’s follow the logic of the video. We are presented with a history of composition and then asked to evaluate two groups. The first group is supposed to consist of bad composers who make bad sounds and the second of beautiful composers who make beautiful music. Here are the groups:

Group A
Karlheiz Stockhausen
Luigi Nono
John Cage
Alfred Schnittke
Iannis Xenakis
Lucianio Berio
Georgy Ligeti

Group B
Igor Stravinsky
Dmitri Shostakovich
Benjamin Britten
Samuel Barber
Carl Orff
Aaron Copland
Joaquin Rodrigo

Is there a logical scheme that defines these groups outside of the uploader’s subjective judgements? It seems as though the groups are separated based on their willingness to accept dissonance and chance operations. In other words, Group A is composed of followers of Schoenberg and to a lesser extent Debussy.

What the uploader can’t seem to stand, that sound created with a disregard for tradition, harmony and order, created with a disregard for human connection is precisely the same lack that we see in Pop Art and that these composers seek in their work. It is the lack of fate, a curve of history that serves no conceivable purpose. In one word: Indeterminacy.

“The greatest work of art, ever!”

It’s a stupid thing to say out loud, but it may be true. Obviously, Stockhausen can explain himself and I feel no need to defend him as I am not a regular listener. I do feel a need to understand what is being said.

Shortly after 9/11, I remember making a patriotic mix CD using tracks from KaZaa for my dad and his future wife to distribute to friends and family. I remember we picked tracks like Ray Charles’ America the Beautiful and Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner and also included some more traditional patriotic music. Marching band music. The goal was to distribute the CD to friends and family to bring comfort, but why was this comfort necessary? The point of this exercise was to reassure listeners that we have a strong moral meta-narrative to believe in and we can somehow fit the recent event into that narrative if we only remember how potent it once was before the attack.

When Stockhausen says 9/11 is the “greatest work of art, ever!” this statement must be viewed in the context of art as a means to produce indeterminacy where there once was order. The true meaning of 9/11 as an “art work” could only be appreciated before a narrative had been constructed that explained the event.

We see a fire in a World Trade Center tower, it is unexplained on television, but total coverage is not devoted to it though live updates continue on CNN. A second plane hits the other tower. Suddenly it becomes apparent on television that an intentional violent act is taking place. Each network devotes more of it’s broadcasting time to the event. Commercials stop. All channels focus this violent act and televisions around the nation broadcast it live to every age and social group. As the coverage builds to a cacophony as volumes increase and every station broadcasts the same message. We are being attacked, we do not have an explanation. As this cacophony becomes unbearable, there is a horrible purgation of tension as both World Trade Center towers are destroyed.

In this moment, there is no explanation, we do not understand the narrative, many staggering possibilities arise that before seemed impossible. If we pause here, we understand the lack of meaning and direction that modern composers attempt to create. If there is an aesthetic to be found in trauma, it is here that it exists.

Marching music, Ray Charles and Hendrix are fine for a post-9/11 playlist when we are trying to reconcile our narratives, but a playlist that approached the event of 9/11, the event as an awesome/horrible catharsis, could only be made out of music with an appreciation of indeterminacy.

Download audio file (WaterproofJacket.mp3)

I’ve been working on this for a while, but I think it’s where I want it to be now. Made mainly from loop manipulations, most of which originally standard garageband loops if I remember correctly. It is contrived, but at least I mean what I’m saying.

Gonna Gay Marry You

Download audio file (GonnaGayMarryYou.mp3)

If you’re looking for something a little more down to earth, I also finished this song titled “Gonna Gay Marry You”. It features an extended section with sequence manipulated tone potentiometer accompaniment.

I happened across this while doing a little research. I’m trying to get to the root of what separates the labels New Wave and Post Punk. Obviously they’re useless as a means to segregate music, but I think the way the labels are used and by who is significant.

In this interview, it’s hard to get past Iggy Pop’s intentional, passionate naivety, but I think the point he’s trying to express is strong, if cloudy and overtly confrontational. Which could also be said of the new popular music of that (and possibly this) era. More on this later.

Chris Frantz thought of the titular chorus after seeing a Parliament-Funkadelic show where the crowd chanted “Burn down the house.” The initial lyrics were considerably different, however. In an interview on NPR’s “All Things Considered” aired on December 2, 1984, David Byrne played excerpts of early worktapes showing how the song had evolved from an instrumental jam by Tina Weymouth (bass) and Chris Frantz (drums). Once the whole band had reworked the groove into something resembling the final recording, Byrne began chanting and singing nonsense syllables over the music until he had arrived at phrasing that fit with the rhythms— a technique influenced by former Talking Heads producer Brian Eno— “and then I [would] just write words to fit that phrasing… I’d have loads and loads of phrases collected that I thought thematically had something to do with one another, and I’d pick from those.”

According to Byrne in the NPR interview, phrases he tried but ultimately didn’t use in the song’s recorded “verses” included “I have another body,” “Pick it up by the handle,” “You travel with a double,” and “I’m still under construction.” As for the title phrase in the chorus, one early attempt (as heard on a worktape) had him singing a different line, “What are we gonna do?”, and at another point in the process, “instead of chanting ‘Burning Down the House,’ I was chanting ‘Foam Rubber, USA.’”

He just did a battery commercial and this Pepsi product tie-in. I have no objections because I think he rightfully deserves to be the most famous and well paid man in the American ecosystem.

Download audio file (titanic.mp3)

He’s in his birthday suit. He’s in his birthday suit. He’s in his birthday suit. He’s in his birthday suit.

The band’s frontman and primary songwriter was ?. Though the singer has never confirmed it, Library of Congress copyright registrations indicate that his birth name is Rudy Martinez. His eccentric behavior helped to briefly establish the group in the national consciousness. He claimed (and still claims) to be a Martian who lived with dinosaurs in a past life, and he never appears in public without sunglasses.

There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. For certain engineering purposes, it is desirable to have as silent a situation as possible. Such a room is called an anechoic chamber […] a room without echoes. I entered one at Harvard University several years ago and heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation. Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death.

—John Cage

We say first visibly, as of course Sioux was one of the Sex Pistols’ entourage who rocked up on Bill Grundy’s Today programme and was the source of the “dirty fucker”’s lusty comments. But this is the problem with laying into so-called hipsters. If Sioux ended her teens as a hipster, she started her adulthood as one of the best rock stars of the late 70s, the80s and beyond.In most cases the accusation of hipsterism smacks of jealousy and a tiresome obsession with authenticity or has come from a quasi-self aware ‘hipster’ journalist.

Every generation plays dress up. Though the recovery from the cyclical ironic self-awareness of the punk, or in our time hipster, culture would surely be a valuable process. Unless you never recovered and ended up doing butter advertisements. Still, you’d be in good company.

†: Of course I forgot about Wax Poetics.

The records Paul McCartney made in the first ten years after leaving The Beatles are eight parts ego-tripping superstar schlock to two parts outsider art. They have all the slickness of Seventies AOR, but at second glance they’re as disassociated as Wesley Willis. No other major rock star would make an album quite like Ram, so cosy and so conflicted. No other major rock star would think to write a song about his Land Rover, or Fungus The Bogeyman. While his peers were mining Robert Johnson’s ‘Crossroads’, McCartney was covering the theme from Crossroads. The man was in a world of his own.