Category: music

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The Lure of the Hammered Dulcimer

I must make an admission.

Even though I’m a writer, even though I work in film and television, even though I take pretty photos with pretty cameras, there is nothing that seeps faster through my skin, as someone who feels for art, as wholly as music. For me it is the ethyl alcohol of expression.

All it takes is a well-played scale in the right key, on the right day, in the right mood, and I’m sold. Here I am, cash in hand! What band is that? Who is that? Some songs attack me unawares with their brilliance, ignobly leaking out of someone’s cheap computer speaker from some streaming internet radio station. It’s like one of Homer’s Sirens, and me without wax to plug my ears or spare hands on the ship’s deck to strap me down.

I remember music with succinct precision and stalk it down, if only for information to complete the missing pieces of the what/who/when puzzle I carry with me. I remember being sixteen and regularly hounding the employees at a large record store in Edmonton, asking if they knew of the existence to the soundtrack for the film Brazil (and each time my enthusiasm was met with a resounding “no”. It wasn’t released until over a decade later, by which time – while thankful for its eventual existence, for sake of people to experience – I was over it, like a scorned lover).

Sometimes there’s nothing worse than falling in love only to be separated without details of who or what it was that caught your passion. In the case of music, it’s doubly hard because you don’t even have the luxury of a face etched in your memory; you are left with something frustratingly abstract: what it sounds like, which by comparison makes paleontology seem straightforward. It’s the rootsy, gypsy-sounding piece with the theremin!

A recent example is the not-so-recent film Kafka, by Steven Soderbergh. As a film, it’s vivid and engaging, though it suffers from Soderbergh’s serial emotionlessness. It was the soundtrack, however, which caught me off-guard. A beautiful piece of work by Cliff Martinez which incorporated Eastern European (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say Western-interpreted flavours of Eastern European) motifs performed on a hammered dulcimer. As soon as I heard that instrument, in that evocative score, my attention was rapped. Done. Thank you. Unfortunately, and not unusually, there was no soundtrack issued (when you consider the type of film it was, released by a major Hollywood studio, and how miserably it must’ve performed in theatres, one can only imagine how the question of “Should we release a soundtrack?” was greeted). On this note, I feel bad for a lot of film and TV composers, or at least the ones whose work transcends the need to only be experienced whilst married to picture and sound effects. If you see a composer on the street, hug him or her. Then ask why the hell they’re not in their studios, holding up the mix, working as they should. I digress…

Yesterday I chanced to search for the Kafka soundtrack again, and to my surprise, on Cliff Martinez’ website, he has released his music cues for various soundtracks which were never commercially available before (for free, albeit with the proviso that they not be used professionally). I couldn’t believe it. I found myself downloading his cues for Kafka in a single Zip file (just under 60 megabytes), and within no time, I’d transferred them to my “portable digital music player”.

I ask what more fulfillment you need when you have a hammered dulcimer, its soft yet briskly percussive tones, reminiscent of a harp, in your headphones on the streetcar.

Bliss.

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Live In Toronto: update

For anyone in Toronto who didn’t check out Pas Chic Chic back in April, they are playing tomorrow (May 3rd) as part of Over The Top Fest 2008 (note: there isn’t a week in Toronto where there isn’t some sort of film/music festival happening). They’re at the WhipperSnapper Gallery (587a College St. 8PM. $8 @ the door).

Although I’m not likely to make it this time out due to other commitments, I enjoyed their previous show at The Drake, even though it was barely publicized. Mind you, neither is this one. I don’t know what the issue is, and where the finger should be pointed, but for some reason the only publicity Pas Chic Chic gets is from fans, which is unfortunate as you’d think their label (or someone) would have a vested interest in getting the word out.

By the way, I managed to pick up their CD, Au Contraire – it’s very good. I’m hoping (hint to anyone out there visiting who knows the band) they decide to share the lyrics with us someday soon, as my French isn’t good enough to understand what’s being sung half the time.

[May 8: Pas Chic Chic‘s label has provided feedback in the Comments to this post. Looks like the culprit is more complex than I’d guessed. Thanks for responding, guys!]

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The Death of the Guitar Solo

I was walking to the bank today, toting my “portable digital music player” [note: I’m not putting that in quotes to be trite, it’s just that I neither want to use the ubiquitous i-word, nor do I want to suggest that the mp3 format is the best as regards quality], listening to the song “Shoot Out The Lights” from Richard and Linda Thompson’s same-titled album. Critically hailed when it came out in ’82, it has since faded into obscurity, not helped by the fact that they divorced shortly after its release. I remember seeing it listed in a Rolling Stone magazine (again with the magazines, Cahill, you hypocrite), in a Best Albums of All Time issue in the mid-to-late-80’s. I’d never heard of them, but for some reason, when I see something I’ve never heard of before listed so plainly amongst the likes of The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, I just have to take notice.

When I got around to picking it up on a whim – about 20 years later – I liked it, though the production on it is terribly dated [note: I can’t hold this against them or their producer since it was done on a shoe-string budget in a decade of much more heinously, shittily produced albums. And yes, “shittily” is a word I’m making up on the spot. I’m prepared to stand my ground on its use.]. The stand-out of the album is the previously mentioned title-track. It has a pair of guitar solos that remind me of what guitar solos were meant to do: attach themselves to the spirit of the song as an extension of the musician’s soul. The song and the solo are one; the solo extends the reach of the song, articulating something akin to a dialogue with the larger body of the piece.

When I listen to the likes of Link Wray, Tom Verlaine, and other great guitarists, I’m reminded that – as opposed to what took root in the 80’s, which was the Top40-EZ-Radio-Softcore-Metal wankfest we still have today – guitar solos weren’t necessarily about razzle dazzle. Yes, since the Classical period when soloing took root, one of the reasons for a solo was to display the technical proficiency of the player – this cannot be denied. However, technical proficiency and artistic discipline are not mutually inclusive – one does not necessarily carry both traits by developing one.

I suppose I’m writing this because North American mass media is only interested in easily-digestible razzle dazzle. This is why a band such as Green Day was successful; they’re entirely about “lite punk” attitude, the inoffensive appearance of rebellion. Soul is neither required nor condoned. Neither is subtlety. This is why even the “classic rock” radio stations clip off the best parts of songs such as Television’s “Marquee Moon” – it’s simply too long for them. They’ll take shitty and short, thank you very much.

This is not to say that, musically speaking, I’m living in the 70’s, or that I’m some sort of acetic. I honestly don’t have a favourite genre of music – picking one has always seemed futile. I just like what I like. But one thing is clear: with few exceptions, my playlist contains musicians, groups, and styles that will never see the light of day on current FM radio. I was raised in rural areas where, waaaay pre-internet, the radio was the only escape for a confused kid. All I know is that I feel sorry for kids exposed to most of the crap currently out there, and I only hope that the proliferation of independently controlled internet radio stations succeed. For sake of variety. For sake of exposure.

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Live In Toronto: Pas Chic Chic

Right. I was just tipped-off to a concert happening this Thursday (April 10) @ The Drake Hotel. It’s a band called Pas Chic Chic. What excites me, other than listening to clips of their songs on Facebook, is that it’s a collaboration of members from Montreal’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Fly Pan Am, Et Sans, Silver Mt. Zion, and Cobra Noir.

In other words, I’m going.

I’m not going to go into a whole “fan” thing, but…well…I’m prepared to be a big fan of this band. Just saying.

By the clips I listened to, I’m hoping for a revival of the sound that Fly Pan Am abruptly left us with before breaking up (on their seminal album N’Ecoutez Pas) – a sort of sonic, 60’s psychedelic, prog synth, rock-out sorta thing.

More info here

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Dispatch – 02/15/08

An eclectic stew for you today, the reader.

Last night’s show at Mitzi’s Sister (see previous entry) went very well. The band was tight, though I found myself slightly disappointed overall in the experience. Part of it has to do with the fact that, when you step onto a stage to perform (whether it be reading, acting, or drumming), particularly when you don’t have the opportunity to very often, time passes like a buttered bullet. You find yourself walking off the stage, seemingly five minutes after you got up there when in fact it’s been more like forty. As the glare of the stage lights leave your eyes and you join the ranks of the audience, ending your turn as it were, you feel as if you could’ve done more – either in your performance or in your enjoyment of the experience.

The last time we played (same place, nearly the same date), the situation was reversed. I had a blast and thought we did a great job (also the crowd was bigger and they defied the typical “Toronto audience” behaviour, with one or two actually dancing), but when I talked to the band they were less than thrilled.

Methinks this disconnectedness is a drummer-thing. Or a writer-posing-as-drummer-thing. Someday I’ll know what I want to do when I grow up.

– – –

Yesterday there was school shooting in Illinois at a university. Five dead and fifteen wounded. While this left me numbed – what really can I or anyone else do about it after the fact? – what I found staggering was that this was the fourth shooting at a U.S. school in the last week.

In the (normally poisonous) comment section on the Globe & Mail, someone noted how this phenomena (of which we are certainly not immune in Canada) seems to be applicable only to wealthier Western societies. In other words, for no apparent logical reason, given the superficial socio-economic circumstances of the communities in which these acts occur.

Earlier this week, my wife and I finally got around to watching Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. I’d avoided seeing it because, although I was sure it was going to be well done, I didn’t want to see something that articulated such a heavy-hitting subject – the Columbine massacre of April 1999. The film surprised me, in that rather than meditating on the after-effects (ie. 2 video-hours of grief), it dealt with the event as it happened, mostly in real-time, from the perspective of several characters who are students in the high school, including the two killers. Neither glorifying the horror nor practising intellectual avoidance, I thought the film was very strong, though ironically I thought it could’ve been more meditative in the end – perhaps a more hands-on narrative was necessary. This is not to say that it was Peckinpah via Linklater.

Aside from the coincidental nature of seeing Elephant amidst a surge of related killings across the U.S., I cannot help but wonder what lies at the heart of this. I can tell you what doesn’t, as far as I’m concerned: guns, videogames, and violent films. Each, in their own way, are massively influential on youths, but I refuse to believe that they are in any way a cause.

It’s as if, more and more, there is a proportion of our society that acts as if it’s had a frontal lobotomy, thus removing a moral imperative that, for most, would stop us from taking enjoyment from the random killing of others around us. I find myself looking for answers: is this a bio-medical condition (say, exposure to heavy metals), a psychological illness, or strictly speaking is this something that can be explained sociologically? All of the above?

But another part of me often wonders: when we removed Christianity from public spaces like schools (and I don’t argue with the need to do so), did we replace it with anything substantial? I sometimes wonder if, in the removal of a code of behaviour (as corrupted, hypocritical, or out-of-touch as it may have been) are we thoughtful of what should be put in its place – something substantial and not generic, p0litically-correct lip service which ends up inspiring no one? Or, am I kidding myself, in that we are all really indiscriminate savages on the inside, holding on desperately to illusions of civilization?

– – –

I remember, as a kid and avid comic-reader at the time, reading a story called The Realists. A handsome high school hunk-type is lured by the “new girl”, a beauty, back to her house after school one day. She tempts him with a special drink. When he drinks it, it’s like he’s under the influence of a drug – everyone around him is ugly and fat, food is rotten, he stares at his reflection in the mirror and sees that he’s hideous. She tells him that what he drank is real water, and that what he and the rest of society consumes is laced with a drug which provides the illusion of a beautiful “normalcy”. He runs out of her house, screaming, and as the “drug” wears off, he decides to treat the experience like a bad dream and forget the fact that what he thinks is reality is actually an engineered apparition.

– – –

These are fleeting thoughts, sufficiently scattered. Enjoy your weekend.

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Requiems Not Required: Jazz and Classical

Just today, I was sitting in the kitchen of a post production audio house – my current temporary office – and found myself inexplicably tuning in to what was playing on the radio: Schubert’s Symphony No.5. It’s a dreadfully beautiful piece of music. I say dreadfully, because it’s so evocative as to remove my mind from the mountain of very important things I have to tend to.

Thing is, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in the building who could either name what was being played, or who would allow themself to be affected (nay swoon). But it’s not like I set out one day in my youth, predetermined to “learn” classical music. I don’t think anyone does, regardless of what it is we end up liking. Often we come across these things circumstantially. If it hadn’t been for my watching A Death in Venice on TV one night long ago, I probably wouldn’t have sought Schubert’s symphony, nor the original story by Thomas Mann. I should also thank the old Warner Brothers cartoons, in particular the Bugs Bunny classic The Rabbit of Seville (riffing brilliantly and faithfully on Rossini’s Barber of Seville).

Jazz came to me later, introduced by my flipping around the radio, looking for something other than Top-40 pap. And like everything I love, once I get hooked I find myself wanting to know more, filling in the holes illuminated by the light of my curiosity. I’m prone to infatuation and, not entirely unlike the tragic protagonist of Mann’s Venice, find myself obsessed to learn as much as possible about these things.

The problem is that both Classical and Jazz, while not dead, are held in a stasis by so-called Classical and Jazz “lovers” who seek, paternalistically, to coddle them like glass-boned children, halting their growth (intentionally or not) and – as a dire result – their acceptance to new generations.

To some, this statement is nothing short of heresy. In Reflections of a Siamese Twin, John Ralston Saul – writing about the aggressive protectionism of French language in Quebec – made two valuable insights which also reflect on the state of Classical and Jazz music. First, that culture is not something which society should attempt to create, control, or destroy to meet our fashionable needs – it’s a living organism which follows its own path. Second, that the only languages which need protection are dead languages. That is to say, he was criticising those who strove to legally protect and manipulate something which didn’t require it in the first place.

The problem isn’t that most of us don’t tune-in to Classical or Jazz radio. The problem is that most everything programmed on these stations (with varying degrees, depending upon where you’re located) is safe, old, and terribly predictable. Say what you will about the soulless depths of corporate-run, computer-programmed Top 40 radio, but one thing you can’t deny is that they play songs written during this century (already nearly 8 years old). Jazz and Classical radio suffers from a predilection: only play the standards. Their philosophy: who cares if you play three different interpretations of Lullaby of Birdland seven times a day – it’s a standard. Who cares if the daily playlist is the same tired variation of Mozart, Brahms, and Beethoven – they’re popular.

They’re partially correct: Lullaby of Birdland is a standard, and those three dead white German guys are popular. For both genres, deservedly so. But, in a contemporary sense, it’s only to the extent of pleasing people who have no desire to see either Classical or Jazz develop in different directions. When was the last time you heard anything from Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew on the radio? That album was released almost 40 years ago – when was the last time you heard a single Classical composition written within this time?

We can’t rely on movie soundtracks and cartoons to bring notice to the brilliance of older forms of music – if we do, they will always remain “older forms of music” rather than the living, breathing spirits which they are. We do both Classical and Jazz a disservice by sneering at contemporary innovation – I contend that it’s the snobs who have done the most damage. We can’t rely solely on the likes of Wynton Marsalis as appointed sentinels to tell us what is or what is not jazz music. We can’t forsake contemporary composers, like Alexina Louie, to keep programming the same tiresome Mozart/Brahms/Beethoven lineup for our orchestras.

People should be freely exposed to different forms of music. Often. However, it should be neither prescriptive nor mandated. Assuming we are only as developed as the environment we are exposed to, it makes critical sense to see, hear, and experience as many things as possible. It is for this reason that protectionism makes no sense.

[author’s note: when using the terms “Classical” and “Jazz”, I’m using popular terminology. Technically, within both (admittedly very broad) genres, there are countless sub-categories (Baroque, Be-Bop, Fusion, Romantic…).]

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Waters of March

(Yes…I know it’s May. Don’t take me so literally.)

One of the most captivating songs – a song that seems destined to have an everlasting power, despite a gaggle of jazz performers hanging their hat on it to fill out an album or hope upon hope for a Billboard spot – is a bossa nova piece, originally written by Antonio Carlos Jobim in 1972, called Waters of March (or Águas de Março in its native Portuguese). Remarkably, one of the definitive versions (although there are so many beautiful renditions) is captured on YouTube here, performed by Elis Regina. [sidenote: watch this side-by-side with the early 80’s video for Every Breath You Take by The Police – the similarities in the look, style, direction, and editing are uncanny]

What I love about the song, ever since I first became aware of it long, long ago (and still, it took me years to find the name of the song – I was convinced that Astrud “The Girl From Ipanema” Gilberto had done it originally, which turned out to be a red herring…as so many things I’d naively attributed to her – but that’s another story) is its flow and stream of consciousness; considering it was written during Rio de Janeiro’s downpours in late March – the end of summer in the Southern Hemisphere – it’s a stunning bit of onomatopoeia.

Though originally written in Portuguese – the language of Brazil, for all you junior ranchers out there – Jobim eventually re-worked the lyrics into an English translation which is actually longer (which was necessary to keep the feel/structure of the original). For more information on this song, please see this entry in Wikipedia.

Here are the Portuguese lyrics and their English re-working:

Águas de Março

“É pau, é pedra,
é o fim do caminho
É um resto de toco,
é um pouco sozinho

É um caco de vidro,
é a vida, é o sol
É a noite, é a morte,
é o laço, é o anzol

É peroba do campo,
é o nó da madeira
Caingá candeia,
é o matita-pereira

É madeira de vento,
tombo da ribanceira
É o mistério profundo,
é o queira ou não queira

É o vento ventando,
é o fim da ladeira
É a viga, é o vão,
festa da cumeeira

É a chuva chovendo,
é conversa ribeira
Das águas de março,
é o fim da canseira

É o pé, é o chão,
é a marcha estradeira
Passarinho na mão,
pedra de atiradeira

É uma ave no céu,
é uma ave no chão
É um regato, é uma fonte,
é um pedaço de pão

É o fundo do poço,
é o fim do caminho
No rosto o desgosto,
é um pouco sozinho

É um estrepe, é um prego,
é uma ponta, é um ponto
É um pingo pingando,
é uma conta, é um conto

É um peixe, é um gesto,
é uma prata brilhando
É a luz da manhã,
é o tijolo chegando

É a lenha, é o dia,
é o fim da picada
É a garrafa de cana,
o estilhaço na estrada

É o projeto da casa,
é o corpo na cama
É o carro enguiçado,
é a lama, é a lama

É um passo, é uma ponte,
é um sapo, é uma rã
É um resto de mato,
na luz da manhã

São as águas de março
fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida
no teu coração

É uma cobra, é um pau,
é João, é José
É um espinho na mão,
é um corte no pé

São as águas de março
fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida
no teu coração

É pau, é pedra,
é o fim do caminho
É um resto de toco,
é um pouco sozinho

É um passo, é uma ponte,
é um sapo, é uma rã
É um belo horizonte,
é uma febre terçã

São as águas de março
fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida
no teu coração”

Waters of March

A stick, a stone,
It’s the end of the road,
It’s the rest of a stump,
It’s a little alone

It’s a sliver of glass,
It is life, it’s the sun,
It is night, it is death,
It’s a trap, it’s a gun

The oak when it blooms,
A fox in the brush,
A knot in the wood,
The song of a thrush

The wood of the wind,
A cliff, a fall,
A scratch, a lump,
It is nothing at all

It’s the wind blowing free,
It’s the end of the slope,
It’s a beam, it’s a void,
It’s a hunch, it’s a hope

And the river bank talks
of the waters of March,
It’s the end of the strain,
The joy in your heart

The foot, the ground,
The flesh and the bone,
The beat of the road,
A slingshot’s stone

A fish, a flash,
A silvery glow,
A fight, a bet,
The range of a bow

The bed of the well,
The end of the line,
The dismay in the face,
It’s a loss, it’s a find

A spear, a spike,
A point, a nail,
A drip, a drop,
The end of the tale

A truckload of bricks
in the soft morning light,
The shot of a gun
in the dead of the night

A mile, a must,
A thrust, a bump,
It’s a girl, it’s a rhyme,
It’s a cold, it’s the mumps

The plan of the house,
The body in bed,
And the car that got stuck,
It’s the mud, it’s the mud

Afloat, adrift,
A flight, a wing,
A hawk, a quail,
The promise of spring

And the riverbank talks
of the waters of March,
It’s the promise of life
It’s the joy in your heart

A stick, a stone,
It’s the end of the road
It’s the rest of a stump,
It’s a little alone

A snake, a stick,
It is John, it is Joe,
It’s a thorn in your hand
and a cut in your toe

A point, a grain,
A bee, a bite,
A blink, a buzzard,
A sudden stroke of night

A pin, a needle,
A sting, a pain,
A snail, a riddle,
A wasp, a stain

A pass in the mountains,
A horse and a mule,
In the distance the shelves
rode three shadows of blue

And the riverbank talks
of the waters of March,
It’s the promise of life
in your heart, in your heart

A stick, a stone,
The end of the road,
The rest of a stump,
A lonesome road

A sliver of glass,
A life, the sun,
A knife, a death,
The end of the run

And the riverbank talks
of the waters of March,
It’s the end of all strain,
It’s the joy in your heart.

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