FT
30 September 2002
Towards an essay on John Cage.
Reading a book on American Avant Garde music, i finally saw a picture of the inside of a prepared piano. There were the nuts and bolts I expected, but also near the bass end of the instrument-some where between the B and F Keys were two Dairy Queen parfait spoons standing like sentries.
I have a friend who studies music at the University, and he always tells me that Cage was a better theorist then he was a musician. He Introduced me to Cage- so I thought he was right.
I have seen a few scores, and their squiggles, lines, patterns and maps disagree with the standard staff notation- but they are more beautiful, like the aesthics of scores are important.
Listening to Sonatas for Prepared Piano and the Summer Works again, I am mystified. They are not noise- they are too careful and elegant to be noise.
Randomness appeals to me-in that a butterfly waving its wings in thailand causes typhoons in Florida way-its a nice way to think that you are making change.
I hate Metal Machine Music but admire it, because it makes me think. I love Cage, as a writer, as a musician and as a person. More Importantly the music is lovely, it seduces me..
Another friend once taught me the word aleatory, and told me it meant chance and some of Cages work is like that, I mean playing along to a fish , or four radios or the infamous 4:33
I used to go through life being annoyed by sounds. But now I find myself saying- oh i like that, oh thats a nice sound.
When I was a kid I loved the sound of Scratching Records or Cassette Tapes Starting.
Most of Cages work seems instinctual, going back to the place where any sound is comforting.
For a long time I thought of getting Noise is Music; Music Noise tattooed on my arm, i am still thinking about it.
Anthony Easton in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
26 September 2002
Neko Case-Bonus Track on Blacklisted
The album is over and you almost take it out of the player, and then static, crickets, the rushing of water are all heard, so you listen. A guitar starts in, then Nekos voice, then a Wurlitzer playing an old fashioned waltz. The sound cuts in and out though and static interupts the flow, every so often you hear spanish ballads or southern preachers. She has made an experimental country song, where found sound and noise are more important then her voice. It’s a drama, one that features a place in Southern Texas where the signal is rarely found and you settle for what you got.
Anthony Easton in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
‘You can do anything you set your mind to, man’: positivity, from the man who brought you ‘Kim’? As curious a concept as emotional maturity from the man who bought you ‘Drips’, but this is Eminem in filmland and normal service doesn’t apply. Of course Shady’s negativity and immaturity are part of what makes Em as infuriating, compelling, tiresome and exciting as he all-at-once is, so ‘Lose Yourself’s more wholesome stylings are mildly disappointing as well as mildly heartwarming.
All he’s doing, though, is playing by genre rules. The poor-kid-redeemed-through-music trope is one Hollywood has long welcomed with open wallet, and it’s attractive to musicians too for the opportunity it gives them to remythologise themselves. Audiences are a different matter, though Eminem’s picked a better career point for his autobiopic than Mariah Carey did — so there’s nothing to say 8 Mile won’t be a Flashdance sized hit for grittier times. On ‘Lose Yourself’ Eminem swaps a steel-and-stone world for the trailer park, and he’s typically upfront about the money-motive for losing himself in the music. But he’s believable enough — the almost-him kid protagonist starts off with vomit dried on his jumper from nerves and a rap half-forgotten. The trailer park is par for the rags-to-riches course, blah blah, but the vomit sticks with you.
The Flashdance connection got mostly set up in my mind by the music, though — ‘Lose Yourself’ continues The Eminem Show‘s fascination with the sound and dynamics of rock music, building an ultra-simple beat around a tightly coiled guitar riff which hums with the same hi-gloss tension as ‘Eye Of The Tiger’. It’s effective and it doesn’t sound like anyone else but it’s bombastic too, and the track constantly runs the risk of exhausting you (like its cousin, ‘Sing For The Moment’).
The music and the flow set up an expectation problem, too. Eminem’s such an efficient rapper now that he can build up the drama in a verse from almost nothing and the big chorus-release ends up a letdown, because he’s not very good at ‘serious’ choruses (eg ‘Cleaning Out My Closet’). He’s like one of those toy clockwork cars which you pull back and pull back and pull back until the revs are going mad and then you let it go and it hits a table-leg and just stops. This almost ruined ‘Square Dance’ but it didn’t quite because the end-of-verse payoffs were so good. But there’s no intense serious ass-fucking in ‘Lose Yourself’, just a big head-of-steam build-up and then a chorus which says you’ve got to lose yourself in the music and take your chance man. It’s motivational, but in a business-lunch way not in a jump-out-your-seat way. Such, perhaps, is Hollywood.
Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
25 September 2002
The Dedbeat Festival – more backpacker and IDM names than you can possibly imagine playing live and sets over 5 days but from our perspective this is mostly interesting for hosting the debut live performance of MC PITMAN!
Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
23 September 2002
grave robbing never sounded so profitable: i read this news – about another round of tape and EP raking by jeff buckley’s label (is it right to call it a “former label” when they’re still pumping out the product long after he’s cold in the ground?) – wanting to write some scathing attack on the sorry state of major labels, cultural/capital necrophilia, and the risible notion of bending the man’s fans over and dicking them for all they’re worth. but…it’s just exhausting, even to think about. jeff buckley’s one studio album (and previous collections of mixing desk farts and live tapes) had a far more sizeable impact than one would have expected back in 1993, appearing a coffeehouse-step too far out of the kick-time routines of alt-rock proper. he blossomed, darkly after his death, on the other side of the atlantic where his falsetto, garbled emoting, and a penchant for non-verbal frippery that would make robert plant blush made him a star to people like coldplay and travis. in america, he spawned a cult amongst those who idolize tossers like nick drake (who at least had the dignity to off himself rather than drown like a rat.) unlike his father, his gift was never some presupposed supernatural endowment (far too studied, too faux-masculine in an attempt to run from his old man), nor did he tweak it or his music (a vaguely pleasant alt-AOR concoction of folk-pop, Television-like jangle & chime, and strangely emasculated blues) in any way that might upend it into areas of disquiet or unease or revelation.
no, buckley made his album, and was about to make another before he died. if he had continued, obviously his star would be markedly different, perhaps with a large, stable fan base, but certainly less of the Worship he enjoys now. to say that this 5 CD boxed set, not one of which contains more than 4 songs, many of which are either live or alternate takes of songs already released, all of which are available as highly collectable EPs is anything other than a fast cash move on a waning property — well, you’d have to be a LOT less cynical than I. (I say — a bit more sloppily — what I wanted to say here, just replace the notion of indie labels with majors. not hard, these days!)
Jess in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
josh blog is back, hurrah. It seems to have been back for ages, hurrah. My ISP wasn’t picking it up though, boo. As casually insightful as ever. He quotes me about Dexy’s and yes Josh I remember saying that and no I don’t know where either but it sounds smarter this time round.
Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
22 September 2002
21 September 2002
Carter USM: yeah, I said it: Carter USM. I confront my past and somewhere else on Freaky Trigger Dr. C confronts a past and Pete confronts some giant spiders.
Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
19 September 2002
POP-EYE GUEST STAR SPECIAL
ilxor.com programming master Graham P takes the Pop-Eye baton for this weeks trek to the summit of Mt.Pop (thanks Graham!):
“”The Tide Is High (Get The Feeling)” is still at number one for a third week. Well obviously. Who’s gonna argue with me now? Loads of new entries this week, and none can beat My Kittens. Proof I’m right. And the Get The Feeling bit is especially fabulous, thank you Natasha. But on to her casualties:
Liberty X are at number two. A pointless boring pleasant cover version with a rubbish stuck on bassline, everything that “The Tide Is High” is meant to be rubbish for (but isn’t, obv, unlike this). If “Got To Have Your Love” is the best the chart lizards can do than tt’s an insult to the kitten and despite having surely been in the same room as Noel from Hear’say, all involved should be killed.
Kelly Kelly Kelly. In at number three with “DO YOU SEE??!?!”, probably missing out on a higher position because The Osbournes hasn’t started on Channel 4 yet. She has a dandy go at making Madonna sound like Daisy Chainsaw, and for that I can only praise her. And CB radio vocals are very, very much the way forward, (cf. Puretone). Well done.
Number four, Bombfunk MC’s ft. Orville the Duck. Or Scooter as you might know them. It has a shouty Euro-cockney, and what he shouts rhymes. And it’s sweet and lonely and heartbreaking too. And somewhere in here there’s a KLF cover too. “I am a junglist soldier!” It’s a mess, a total mess. But fantastic. (Alright, it’s not all that good, but Christ are they trying).
I think the Ronan Keating record has a vocoder on it. In fact when I switched the radio on I remember wondering if it was a real record at all. But I’m sure it appeals to the elderly somehow, and I have no right to hate him for that.
Then Sarah Whatmore is at number six with a Kylie-style dance-pop record with a lovely hummy bassline, and an intro taken from Anastacia’s “I’m Outta Love”. She has a great name. Plus the song reminds me of Summer, everyone’s favourite precocious granddaughter from Neighbours (It does!!). And wasn’t Sarah on P-P-Pop Idol? Right? So wouldn’t she have been in THE SAME ROOM as G-G-Gareth and W-W-Will? Record of the week.
I haven’t heard the Milk Inc. record and know nothing about it. But it’s got to be something to do with the Milky record that’s also in the charts? And that’s good, so (6/10). Oh no, I heard someone apologising for its existence (8/10).”
Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • 2 Comments
Tom’s Top Ten!
SINEAD O’CONNOR – “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina”
MISSY ELLIOTT – “Work It”
ABASS ABASS – “Urgence”
BHUNDU BOYS – “Jit Jive”
DR.DRE – “The Day The Niggaz Took Over”
CARTER USM – “Lean On Me I Won’t Fall Over”
KATE BUSH – “Hammer Horror”
WIRE – “99.9″
AMERIE – “Why Don’t We Fall In Love?”
ABS – “What You Got”
Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
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