More time-travelogue: The late '70s and early '80s was a time when intensely artistic young men would work themselves into a yelping froth over...well, something abstract and vaguely artistic, but one was never quite sure. This became nearly a genre-unto-itself, in fact.
If you wanted someone to blame, you could do worse than blame David Byrne. Talking Heads' second album More Songs About Buildings and Food contained the track "Artists Only," which finds Byrne in a frenzied snit about his artwork. (Yes, I know: writing in character blah-blah-blah. But c'mon: isn't it much more fun to envision David Byrne himself pissily muttering "you can't see it till it's finished!"?) At this point, the intense-yelping-artist genre was still rooted, musically, in the sort of tensely-strung rockage typified by the first two Talking Heads records, but that would change.
A year or so later, in 1979, another David, David Thomas of Pere Ubu, addresses what appears to be a similar sort of project of some sort of other. Thomas, though, begins in something like a calm state - if his muttering warnings ("here it goes...") can be called calm - and only gradually works himself into a lathering state of IYAity. That he's enthusiastically barking "this one is alright!" rather than maniacally worrying about something or other is, somehow, more disturbing. (This despite the track being called "One Less Worry.") Ubu here works within a musical framework fairly close to early Talking Heads, in that sort of "James Brown as played by 90-pound white guys in plastic-framed glasses" style so popular in that era.
Finally, two years later, a guy named not David but Adrian yelped forth his vagueness in the form of King Crimson's "Indiscipline." And you know, despite the musical abstraction of this track, which alternates between stark, fat bass notes (okay, "Stick" notes, if you insist) and Robert Fripp's trying-to-start-a-fire strumming, Adrian Belew just seems like such a nice, normal guy that you can't really get too bothered by his ranting here. I think he's just frustrated over being unable to solve a Rubik's Cube, and will shortly give up and curl up in a chair, stroking his cat and studying a National Geographic coffee table book on macaws or something.
Talking Heads "Artists Only"
Pere Ubu "One Less Worry"*
King Crimson "Indiscipline"*
* These tracks will be up for only a very brief period, since I know both Thomas and Fripp deliver stern frowns about digital distribution of their music. The idea, you know, is to hear this, think it's way cool, and run out and spend money on the actual CDs, which will sound way better than these crappy little mp3s. Unless, of course, you play them through your cheesy computer speakers at work anyway. I'm pretty sure Thomas, at least, would (if he could) insist personally that you listen to his music only through sound systems calibrated to his specifications. (And those of you who invested wisely in buying anxious young artists in the late '70s can use your wealth to buy that new Talking Heads box, Brick.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
By all means go out and buy the TH Brick set. If you have the proper equipment, the 5.1 version of Artists Only will expand your mind as it did mine. That's a song that was made for surround if there ever was one. It might also help to experience it in the kind of state that you did back in the college days, if you know what I mean and I think that you do.
Supposedly, there's a 5.1 version of Pere Ubu's Modern Dance out also, though I've been unable to locate a copy for sale. I know that One Less Worry isn't from that album, but wouldn't it be great if the whole Pere Ubu catalog got that treatment, like the TH catalog?
And needless to say, the entire King Crimson catalog deserves that upgrade as well. I assume it's only a matter of time.
Always preaching the surround-a-gospel...
Well, Rog, I'm wary: first, the 5.1 doowah isn't useful to me at this point (no equip. to hear it), but more important, I've been hearing a lot of problems about the Dual-Disk format in terms of compatibility, etc. The customer reviews at amazon are full of complaints on these issues - any feedback on those problems? (FWIW, when we remodel the upstairs in a couple years, what's currently the bedroom is likely to become a media room, at which point getting a good surround setup would make sense. Doesn't work in our living room, though.)
My opinion on DualDisc compatibility (more detail in my blog, probably) is that it's not a problem at all if you don't care about what's on the CD side. I have had no problems with the DVD side playing in any DVD (Video/Audio) player. I have not even had a problem with the CD side playing in most CD players. YMMV. I have one player (an old Aiwa portable, which I use at work) that has trouble with many (not all) DualDiscs. But it will eventually play any of them if I knock it around a bit. The problem with that player seems to be that the heaviness of the disc prevents it from spinning up without help - once the disk spins up, it's fine. All my other players (including car and PC drive) have played all my DDs just fine. I have a ton of DualDiscs. Most of the time I don't even care about the CD side, since most are catalog titles and I already own the CD content on another disc. Yes, I prefer it when they release the CD and DVD as separate discs (like with the R.E.M. reissues), especially if it's new and not catalog, but I'll take DualDisc if that's all there is. I'm primarily getting them for the Surround or HiRez content (DVD side) anyway.
Some people say that the weight of the discs may damage some players over time, but I don't care. Even if it is true (I have doubts), players are a dime a dozen these days. My money's all in the software. I suspect if it is a problem, you have to play an awful lot of DDs before it appears.
I'm far more leery of the new Sony copy protection scheme on newer Sony CDs and what it does to computers than I am of DualDiscs. I refuse to buy any of those, especially since I can't transfer the music to my iPod.
Post a Comment