I was listening to BBC6 Music, a mainstay of mine, and found myself nodding along to the playlist by DJ/performer John Cooper Clarke (who was standing-in for Iggy Pop on his Iggy Confidential program) when this came on. An obscurity, even for Link Wray fans, from a 1989 album recorded in Germany, this track immediately grabbed my interest and I was surprised to see that it was by him because it felt so much more like a post-modern Rockabilly track the likes of which you’d more likely hear from Alan Vega (and/or his wonderful collaboration with Alex Chilton). The slimmed down instrumentation, consisting of just Wray crooning, along with balladeering guitar accompaniment (complete with a clip-clopping effect — also done on guitar? — creating a sense of someone on horseback, which wonderfully fits with the atmosphere of the piece), reminded me of the latter works of more recent bands, in particular The Walkmen’s later works. I just love this, even though the album itself ain’t much of a keeper.
Lou Reed: The King of New York, by Will Hermes
Lou Reed is like a magic uncle to me. His voice was there in my teens when I was very alone, feeling vulnerable and misunderstood. My real entry point was a best-of cassette, Rock and Roll Diary: 1967-1980 . It was there that I not only discovered his solo material (uneven a collection though this release was), but discovered his seminal early band, The Velvet Underground (with John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Moe Tucker). His voice managed to cut through the bullshit and yet was supernaturally intimate. It was through this intimacy–the inherent heartbreak in his poetically-charged lyrics and his speak-sing voice, the lurid provocation of (what we would now call) his queerness–that I fell under Lou Reed’s spell, and I count myself among many. Another best-of (I was a teenager, forgive me) was Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed, which was a more even introduction to his 70s solo material. I told myself, there was no way you could listen to his live version of Coney Island Baby and not feel an elemental longing combined with a stubborn conviction in the idea of salvation by love.
Lou’s work was uneven, perhaps not by his stated standards, but with each album (and each decade) you just didn’t know what you were going to get. And yet, even that was cool. He was the coolest person on this earth. Go ahead, Lou, release the Bob Ezrin-produced Berlin, and album of fantastically depressing yet inspired songwriting. Put out Metal Machine Music, the sonic equivalent of a root canal. If you were looking for iterations on his most well-known album, Transformer, he was already onto something else, and often something polarizingly different. Perhaps solipsistic, perhaps self-intoxicated, perhaps self-annihilating. Perhaps lost in the mid-80s, writing MTV pop songs with production standards that don’t age well.
The height of my appreciation for Lou Reed came as he released New York in ’89, when the quality of his output (and production standards) levelled up while I was turning nineteen. It combined his assured poetic chops with acidic social critique and a fuck-tonne of guitar. This was followed by Songs for Drella, to this day one of my standalone favourite albums. Brimming with empathy but with a Velvet-y stripped-down sonic aesthetic (that I wished the acoustic-driven “Unplugged” trend at the time embraced), it was a collaboration with his former collaborator, John Cale; an ode to their mentor (and one-time producer) Andy Warhol, who had recently passed.
I should probably talk about Will Hermes biography of Reed. And, in a way, I am. It’s a weird feeling, reading the intimate (and finely rendered) details about someone who was a spiritual role model in so many years of my life, especially under so many situations that seemed beyond my control.
I knew he could be, to put it lightly, difficult. He didn’t suffer fools. And yet as someone now in their 50s, with a lot of life experience and self-reflection, I’m inherently prone to interrogate phrases like this. Basically: isn’t that another way of saying “asshole?” They weren’t always “fools,” but people he knew, people he had a history with. Hermes’ accounts of Reed severing ties indirectly, through third parties, with figures no less important to his life (save career) than Warhol and Cale–even his wife, Sylvia Morales–are difficult to read. Difficult because, and perhaps I’m doing him too much a service in saying this, but in many ways he represents the sort of insecure artist that many have inside of us. The part of us that is more comfortable sending a witty indirect riposte than having the balls to actually sit down and speak with someone face-to-face, consequences be what they may.
He was artistically uncompromising and yet simultaneously his best enemy, hindered in no small way by spending the better part of a decade-and-a-half deeply entwined with chronic substance use (heroin, yes, but mostly alcohol with amphetamines). His songs came from deep injury and his MO was deeply insecure, lashing out, burning bridges, yet consistently championing the works of those around him he admired with the fire of a thousand teenagers (The Ramones, Talking Heads and most recently, Anohni).
This isn’t a book for a casual fan (if that’s possible to be). And yet, for those of us who are–in whatever way–beholden to Lou Reed’s music, no matter how inconsistent (note, my favourite solo album is Street Hassle, which is a deeply fucked fin de 70s meltdown, capped by the brilliant title track), no matter how maddening yet believable a depiction, what Hermes is able to show of Reed’s character is consistently inconsistent. A collection of contradictions almost built to self-destruct. A middle-class Jewish kid from Long Island who became known for the seedy NYC underground, a queer role model uncomfortable with his self-promoted ownership of that attribute. Someone who wanted it both ways: to be a provocateur, but without an instinct to reflect on the consequences.
Despite his self-destructive instincts, despite his sometimes terrible treatment of the people closest to him–including allegations of occasional physical assault of partners–I wept while reading Hermes’ deeply tender account of Reed’s passing by liver failure, accompanied by his longtime partner and soulmate Laurie Anderson, alongside local Toronto musician Kevin Hearn. It served as a sort of closure for me, a decade after the fact, helped by the unparalleled intimacy of the source material and the author’s judiciously light touch with prose when others would have opted for the sort of ham-fisted poetry Reed himself would’ve sneered at.
I’d like to mention that Lou Reed: The King of New York is not only a thorough document of a vital force in 20th century popular and alternative music, but an intimate glimpse of the 60s and 70s New York zeitgeist, as well as a compelling portrayal of the inherently dangerous world that those who belonged to the LGBTQ+ community faced (such as shock therapy for those young men institutionalized for being gay).
A brief note to Hermes, should he come across this: in the future please refrain from making the all-too-common mistake–particularly among American writers–of name-checking cities like Prague and New York City, only to refer to a concert in the same paragraph as happening “in Canada.” Um, we have cities, too.
[Update: I’ve been meaning to write this review for a while, and of course it turns out the day I pressed “publish” just happened to be Lou Reed’s birthday. Go figure.]
Carl’s Dream, by Carl Didur
I honestly don’t know how it came to be that I was following Carl Didur, or rather, signed up for his Bandcamp page, but one day I received a notification that he had a new album out. I don’t even regularly check out new releases from accounts I knowingly follow, but nonetheless I found myself giving his new album, Carl’s Dream, a listen and was enraptured by it.
I don’t know anything about him and there’s little to find out there on the Internet, other than that he hails from Toronto…and someone I know also knows one of the guest guitarists on the album (?!). That’s it. However, Carl’s Dream is a lush, warm and textured, largely wordless album that has an elemental simplicity to it, not unlike early Brian Eno. Fans of Atlas Sound/Bradford Cox will also like this, along with those who might be looking for a more grounded Boards of Canada sound.
- (apologies for the spelling mistake on Carl Didur’s name when this was first published!)
Slift at Lee’s Palace
Earlier this year, when I received a notification that the band Slift was playing at Lee’s Palace in October, I immediately bought tickets. I had happened upon their music on a random afternoon, sitting in The Embassy, a music-forward community bar in Kensington Market. It’s a place where the staff play whatever music they like, who are also–crucially–young and have good taste.* I asked the bartender what band he was playing, because it was this wall of psych-rock with virtuosic flourishes of metal and prog. He told me the name of the band, who were from Toulouse, and went to pains to focus on the album in question, the one we were listening to. The album, from 2021, was called Levitation Sessions. According to its Bandcamp page it was recorded “inside the ultra-high voltage electron microscope at the National Institute of Applied Sciences’ CEMES Laboratory in Toulouse.” It’s one 70 minute live-off-the-floor set, based on their studio album, Ummon.
So I bought the album and really adored it; how skilled the playing was and how their sound didn’t seem to veer into the sort of unintentional self-parody that can accompany metal and prog (let alone psych-rock). Every form of music has its tropes, the things that make it necessarily stereotypical, even if the “music” is chaos. And their tone! My god, this album bled tone. To be able to pull something like this off, and do it in such a serious and committed way, was something I admired. I didn’t want ironic detachment or self-knowing winks to the audience. That said, it’s a very specific type of music, and largely because of its bombastic intensity doesn’t exactly make for, um, ¿stable? music to play in the background or on my walks to work.
Here’s the thing: no matter that after a dedicated month I ended up only listening to them intermittently, I was desperate to know what they were like live. I wanted to see/hear/absorb them in-person and how they performed, curious how they could replicate their blistering recorded sound. Obvs, when I received the notification it was a no-brainer.
Months passed (aka the summer), and as the date of the concert approached, especially as I was coming off a hard week at the office, I found myself equivocating. The show was on a Sunday night after all. I was facing a brutal week ahead of me as I prepared–mentally and emotionally–not only for an upcoming four-hour Case Based Assessment I was randomly chosen to complete for the College of Registered Psychotherapists, but also for my upcoming hand surgery 😬 in just over a week. When the Sunday arrived, I received an update from the ticket vendor informing me that, due to issues at the border, the bands (the opener was Meatbodies) would be going on an hour later than scheduled. This meant that, optimistically, Slift weren’t going to take the stage until sometime after 10pm.
As exhausted as I felt, I was determined to go. I took an inventory of the least number of things I needed to bring with me (phone, ID, keys, etc.), because I wanted to be able to shove it all in my pockets. If you’re thinking that this was a preventative step for potential pickpockets, you’d be wrong…
(Side story: around two-and-a-half years ago, when the neglect of human-to-human contact became felt in my bones, along with other necessary disappointments and indignities–among them feeling robbed I didn’t have the opportunity to have a blow-out with friends on my 50th–one of the things I told myself I would do when things Got Better would be to get into a mosh pit. Somewhere. Sometime. Was it a declaration? I don’t know, but wishing for a mosh pit certainly kept my focus afloat sometimes.)
In any case, I proceeded to plan my outfit: old jeans with holes, basic black T-shirt, and a hoodie which would keep me warm outside but could be tied around my waste when it got hot during the concert.
It’s easy to misremember the interior dimensions of Lee’s Palace. It’s a medium-sized venue that can seem cavernous if you’re at the back, leaning against the bar (this was me during Meatbodies) or conversely more intimate down in the pit near the stage. There isn’t a bad sightline at Lee’s. When the opener thanked the audience and started packing their gear, I went against traffic and secured a spot at the back of the pit, knowing that the turnover wouldn’t be that long. Even as the three members of Slift proceeded to set-up their equipment on stage I still wasn’t sure what I was expecting, whether it would be Worth It, and another part of me was reminding me that it was a work night .
From the start it was clear they were there to deliver the goods: a full-on sonic assault, beginning with Ummon, from the self-titled album. It was clear why Slift is a headliner; guitarist, drummer and bass player performing as an organic entity, whose intense focus on rendering each song as passionately as they could was balanced by the fact that they seemed to be plugged-in as a band. No formulaic crowd chatter, no shout-outs except for a single note of thanks to the audience. Gradually, in front of me like a brewing storm, between those pressed against the stage and those of us at the back, I could see a mosh pit forming. Kids bopping…then kids bopping into each other…then kids pushing…and then the bopping kids crowd starts growing. THERE ARE PEOPLE MY AGE IN THE PIT! I make my way to the perimeter, and take on the role of pushing moshers back into the mass of bodies to prevent them from colliding into those at the back who only want to watch the show (please see this handy page for mosh context). It was while they were playing Citadel on a Satellite that I got so close to the whorl of bodies in the centre that I ended up being thrust into the chaos. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve been in a mosh pit (I crowd surfed in my thirties, I remember that), but I wasn’t prepared for it…which I think is the whole point. It wasn’t like I was doing this because I felt immune to danger. Strange hands pushing me about from different angles, me crashing into other moshers; at one point I was pushed backwards, hard, and almost lost my balance but someone was there to push me back in. You can’t control this. You can’t prevent this. You can’t analyze this. You can’t think this. And as soon as I was part of it, I stepped back and returned to guarding the perimeter, soaking in the music and the adrenaline (and yes, the sweat).
Slift probably played for the better part of an hour-and-a-half, maintaining their concentration throughout. My fifty-something body felt like it had been transported to my twenties, only the irony was that my body was in better shape (hello, gym) to be able to keep going for the entire set. When the house lights went up and we began to mill out of Lee’s, I felt lighter. The heaviness I’d been feeling was abated. I felt less scared of adult things. I was also proud that I stuck to my resolution and let myself lose control and fall into the pit.
* If you ever wonder where I find music, this is a great tip (cafés are good, too)
Live With the Moon, by Chayns
I honestly don’t know much about this band, but I heard this track playing in a local bar and I was really taken with it. I’m an aficionado of guitar instrumentals, and I looooove what the lead guitarist does with his fills. It’s very delicate and quite beautiful, even if the track carries the markers of its era (60s).
Guitar Theory
For the last while, as I’ve carved out time to learn more guitar here and there (believe me, this is tough as it is), I’ve felt drawn to the need to learn more about theory. By theory, I mean musical theory specific to navigating guitar, which is quite concrete and not as “theoretical” as it may sound to anyone unaccustomed to the term. In other words, from a structural perspective, how might a guitarist understand the greater relationship between strings, frets, notes, chords and modes? The hope, not unlike consulting a grimoire, was that this might allow me a key to understanding music, structurally and compositionally, and that it might make my relationship with guitar easier.
The reality is that learning theory, for me at least, is a slog. My guitar teacher used to avoid getting into the weeds of teaching theory because he felt that it was too easy for the student to lose interest — and he’s not wrong! Not unlike mathematics, it’s dry, with rules that are seemingly arbitrary. And an entire lexicon (“Here’s a Lydian riff in F”) that, unless you are truly dedicated to learning, so easily leaks from your ears the minute you put your guitar down. And yet, while my teacher would say this in one breath it wouldn’t stop him from commenting on the arcane ways in which whatever song we were playing was structured. Why, I thought, are you dangling this thing in front of me while informing me that it was hard to teach? I thought “feel” was hard to teach.
And to make my frustration solidified, this year in particular I happened to have at least two people — both of them musicians and one of them a guitar instructor — upon hearing that I was studying theory, simply ask: why? They seemed sort of dumbfounded, to be honest. Why not, was the implication, just learn [song] and have a good time? Theory was useful if I was hoping to do arrangements, a friend told me, but otherwise wouldn’t have many practical applications for the average musician who simply wanted to play.
I took this to heart, and put my theory-driven interests aside. The book I’d bought and was woodsheding my way through, Lee Nichols’ Music Theory for Guitarists, was left untouched on my desk, as I sought to learn guitar from an organic perspective — that is, by figuring out songs on the fretboard and generally relying on my curiosity. But when I went back to a YouTube video spotlighting the work of blues guitarist Willie Johnson recently, specifically his work on the Howlin’ Wolf track Mr. Highway Man (which is honestly one of the best guitar solos ever), I was once again confronted with theory-talk. “If you can play the G9th chords and the G6th chords…”and I’m like SHUT UP! I DON’T KNOW WHAT THOSE EVEN ARE!
And here’s perhaps the crux of my frustration, where I feel ground down between those who casually attempt to explain/demonstrate what a musician is doing via theory (because, honestly, why not?) and those who downplay this approach in favour of, say, finding the tabs for whatever it is you’re trying to figure out and going from there. I think it’s also complicated by the fact that it’s easy (for some) to talk about a musician’s approach from a theory perspective, which ends up making it sound, from my perspective at least, as if everyone who has come before them (and me) MUST have known theory. Right? Willie Johnson OBVIOUSLY must’ve been a keen observer of music theory. As well as Link Wray. And Pat Hare. And hey, maybe they were. I don’t mean to suggest that they shouldn’t be afforded that benefit of the doubt, but I guess where I’m coming from is that it’s easy, after the fact, when someone is describing a musician’s playing through the lens of theory, to assume that the musician in question would’ve approached it the same way (theory-driven), as opposed to something more organic (“Hey, I like how this chord shape sounds when we’re playing an uptempo boogie.”).
Anyways, welcome to the way my brain works, and the crap I quietly wrestle with. I hope I’m not the only one who struggles with things like this.
Charmed, by Σtella
Psycho: Marion & Sam, by The Lord
So, yeah, typing in that title felt a little awkward, so let me unpack this. The artist in question (The Lord) is Greg Anderson, who’s better known for his monstrous doom metal outfit sunn O))). This is a solo project that takes inspiration from the works of film composer Bernard Herrmann. You might not be familiar with sunn 0))), but you’ve probably heard Herrmann’s scores for Taxi Driver, North by Northwest and Citizen Kane. Thus the title of the album “Worship,” as Anderson takes inspiration from Herrmann’s work. The piece I’ve shared is from a theme taken from the soundtrack to Psycho.
Not for all ears, yes, but I love the intensity of it!
February update
It’s been a busy time in these parts. Working on the short story I mentioned last post, working on a Canada Council grant (because why not), as well as working-working.
My day job has been affected by the economic downturn since about September of last year. September is typically a busier time for therapists — end of summer/vacation, anxiety about returning to school, etc — but for me it was the opposite. And it was more or less that way until January, where it continues to be patchy. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if it weren’t that I have an office lease and a number of other regular professional expenses. I’m getting by ok enough, but the lack of predictability can be stressful. The thing I also remind myself of is that psychotherapists are typically downstream from whatever’s happening in society, so it’s no surprise the economic crunch that so many are experiencing now should visit my doorstep.
February was…fun? Keeping the momentum going from seeing Quebec band La Sécurité in late January at The Monarch here in town, earlier this month my partner and I hopped on a train to Montreal, where I haven’t been in nearly a decade, in order to see one of my favourite current acts, Sweeping Promises, play at La Sala Rossa (note: they are not Quebecois but hail from Kansas). I was not let down. Super-impressed with their energy and their songs translated to a live venue easily. Strangely, having heard all my adult life about how tame Toronto audiences can be, I was surprised to see the Montreal crowd’s energy was so restrained…and here I was, in my early 50s and one of the more enthusiastic people in the audience. Needless to say, it was great to be in Montreal and I was struck by how little damage the pandemic lockdowns did to their bars, restaurants and live venues. Otherwise, I pushed myself to get out and socialize more this month, which I’m thankful for, even though I’m a little more introverted than others, as it was good to connect with old and new friends.
If I do get some grant money I’d like to see about booking a return to the artist’s retreat run by the Pouch Cove Foundation in Newfoundland. It really is a stunning place. If I have a burning frustration with the airline oligopoly in this country it’s that it’s cheaper for me to fly to Las Vegas (3,619km) or Vancouver (3,359.km) than St. John’s (2,686km), and believe me I would take St. John’s any day over those and many other destinations (okay, only between the months of May and October).
Dialogue, by Froth
Their album, Duress, is a cracker that sees them combining their love of shoegaze with some tuneful Wilco-inspired guitar licks. Whereas their previous work could lean a little too heavily towards a clear Swervedriver influence, this album stands on its own. Highly recommended.