MUSICIAN AUTHORS: STEPHEN KING

Musician? Yeah, I know, but the problem with this theme is a need to have read the books in question, and the reading of a book requires a hell more of an investment than does engaging with the, give or take, 40 minutes of an album. Which sounds as if I don’t (can’t?!) read, which isn’t true, but the books by rockstars I have read are either autobiographical or ghost written, often both, neither of which I necessarily equate with the spirit of this assignment. (For the record, there are two I rate, each written by the writer, these being Footnote, by Chumbawamba’s Boff Whalley and Things the Grandchildren Should Know, by Mark Oliver Everett, but they are not fictional, or shouldn’t be. An honourable mention also for Mark Lanegan’s Sing Backwards and Weep.)

So, Stephen King, then, the uber prolific writer of lengthy horror yarns, usually set in New England and perennials for holiday reading. In the 1980’s I could rely on his putting out a fat doorstep that would see me through each fortnight in the sun, as the family set off to warmer continental climes for r&r. I confess it all slightly fizzled out as I became a little weary of his run on writers with mental block, and the ill begat upon them, preferring the bigger and fatter phantastic tales, each clearly written as he was going along, where, frankly, the somewhat rushed and weak endings were immaterial to the enjoyment of the jaunt along the way. The Stand was probably my favourite, with If a close second. Of course, the other constant with King was the rule that the films, Carrie the honourable exception, were invariably shoddy and shite.

But, hey, I sort of like the guy, and respect his right to have carried on pumping out his pulp fiction long after I deemed necessary. His massive worldwide market and sales certainly, as does his accountant, beg to differ. 

I guess I was aware he was a music fan fairly early on, and so, as I strayed across Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. On a big John Mellencamp bender of completism at the time, it looked interesting. A play, written by Mellencamp and King, together wirth the usually reliable T Bone Burnett, it seemingly premiered in 2012, with a subsequent short run in the Deep South. Southern gothic, they called it and, ever the sucker, I fell for the lavishly made soundtrack, featuring, alongside the three writers, Neko Case, Roseanne Cash and Elvis Costello, together with other then big name draws. Any good? Um, not really. Maybe I need to give it another go, to see if the intervening decade has gifted it any gravitas.

He didn’t play on Darkland County, with all the songs, nominally, Mellencamp originals. But he did play guitar with the fabled collective band, Rock Bottom Remainders, each member a published author and not otherwise known for any musical chops. Live was more their thing, but there is one album, a somewhat extraordinarily hotch  potch  of styles and  influences. King spears on several of the tracks, confirming the old adage about not giving up the day job.

He has also dabbled with a number of artists and the making of videos. Michael Jackson’s Ghosts, a 40 minute collaborative video made with King, came out in 1996. Thriller it wasn’t. 

Over the years he has often professed his love of guitar rock, but, when he appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, he was able to display a (slightly) broader range of taste. Here is quite a decent article that bring both that, and other favoured choices to bear.

I am uncertain whether I have given him sufficient space to allow credibility as a true renaissance author and musician. I suspect I haven’t, but, hey, I can’t write book or play guitar, so he is at least one up on me!

Happy reading!!!

Masks: Girl Behind The Mask

Purchase, Screaming Trees, Girl Behind the Mask

So, apparently Gloria Estefan (I'm not sure if she brought the Miami Sound Machine with her on this) has re-recorded "Get on Your Feet" as "Put On Your Mask."

That's good to hear. Even if it's a silly pop song and wedding reception staple, if it gets people to stop politicizing a virus and actually act as if they care about others, I applaud the effort.

I'm not a fan of the MSS (those in the know, know...), but I'm grateful to anyone with a platform who is willing to advocate for good practice, common sense, and most of all, admonishing others to show concern and care for others. And to take responsibility and do their part. There will be a time in our future where we look back on these days, and we will be asked what we did to help, what our role was. And for those who can't answer that question without concrete evidence of contributing to the cause of the cure, or worse, can show nothing more than a few social media posts that help them brag about their strident political hobbyism, I do hope you can get it together and start being part of the solution. If nothing else, listen to Ms. Estefan, and Put on your Mask!

Perhaps the real problem is selfishness and our fetisization of individual freedoms, which is really just giving into our narcissism and indulging our worst instincts of self-satisfaction. Or self-satisfaction. We're a civilization of self-pleasers bent on achieving our individual mandates, regardless of the presence, needs/desires, or hopes of others. Don't believe me: drive a little too slowly in the fast lane.

I know not everyone is awful, but the world sure does seem to be full of assholes who equate happiness to achieving their individual happiness at the expense of others. Or those who believe in conspiracy theories because the bullshit is more interesting, or rather more easy to understand, than the reasoned out and rational truth.

I know I'm generalizing, and most of us are good people, all suffering from the same anxieties and pursuing the same satisfaction of the same basic needs, namely to be happy, safe, loved, and that our default mode is not really selfishness. But, it's really hard to believe in the best of us when I see so much of the worst of us in almost everything we do.

Freedom shouldn't be about making yourself happy or indulging in your own needs without regard for the rest; it's about coexisting with others and doing right by others so they do right by you. That's the golden rule, in so many words. It's a simple concept--do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. I've been hearing it since I was a kid, and it's the one lesson I'm thankful for having been subjected to an awful 10+plus years of Catholic school. I wish I knew how to teach it to everyone...

OK, moralizing--DONE.

Music?
Masks?
Cool.
Gives me a reason to write about Seattle's original grunge pioneers, the progenitors of the scene and the sound, far better than Mudhoney and some of the other noise/scratch rock outfits that get bigger billing.

Screaming Trees--a blues outfit that knew how to channel the metal gods that smiled down upon Seattle in those glorious days of the late 80's into the early 90's and gave us the blessed new anvil pounding symphony from Vulcan's blacksmithery, otherwise known as Grunge. I argue they were the inventors of what became most indicative of what the grunge sound is: metal and classic rock, with a healthy dose of the blues. These sounds are most evident on anything by Screaming Trees, and they are at their best when the sound it somehow comfortable  slipping into multiple timelines.

Screaming Trees hit a major radio blast with their single "Nearly Lost You" and their biggest commercial success, Sweet Oblivion. But Screaming Trees are a band that were a small blip on a big screen that deserve a much deeper listen. Led by Mark Lanegan, who in other times might have been a sage meant to be rediscovered and worshiped long after he was done, Screaming Trees were, to me, quintessential grunge: heavy, heavy rock, played in homage to the giants of blues and doom that came before them, channeling a vibe that spoke of darkness, but resounded with downtuned guitars and what might have been the real and true heavy metal thunder. But, they had pop sensibilities, too, and the sweetness filtered through heavy doses of drugs and getting lost in the woods gave them a sound that was unique. Screaming Trees had potential to grow into something a lot more interesting, had they given themselves the room and time to explore and hadn't been sidetracked by extra-curricular activities. Like so many of the Seattle bands, they were potential cut down well before their prime, ruined and dissipated and finished long before they had reached their potential. There is a good catalog here, full of promise and a lot of sonic what-might-have-been. Screaming Trees deserve a serious and enthusiastic listen. Too bad it didn't get past the excess.
Say no to drugs.
Be kind to your neighbor.
Wear your mask.

Oh, yeah: the song..."Girl Behind the Mask" is from 1987's Even If And Especially When, on the venerable SST label. It's a silly bit of pseudo-psychedelic rock. A love song about a mysterious girl.

I wonder how we might end up thinking about masks, given the metaphorical weight they've carried for so long, compared to essential importance we now give to donning one. Masks used to be something to hide behind on nights and times given over to wanton fun and celebrations. Or when robbing a bank. Or doing some downhill skiing. Now, it's all about saving a life, yours or your neighbors.

The girl behind the mask? The world behind the mask. I hope. Until we get through this. Look out for your neighbor; be responsible; take care of your fellow human being. Let's get through this. We are all responsible.

LEFTOVERS: REMEDIES: PILL HILL SERENADE/MARK LANEGAN

I knew this guy had to get a mention ahead of year end, having briefly invoked his spirit in an earlier post. But once again I fear I may be accused of subverting this theme, supposedly around ways to, if not to get well, to at least get better, so here I go, dredging up yet another allegedly drug-addled troubadour and his lullaby to papaver somniferum or some such. Of course you'd be wrong as, try as I might, I can't squeeze a narcotic reference out of the ethereally vague lovelorn lyric. And there are apparently many Pill Hills, notably in Chicago, areas of town with a hospital at the peak, surrounded by the houses of the support staff. So there.

Lanegan presents quite a contrast. His somewhat daunting appearance and edgy reputation seems to hide a real pussy cat, capable of producing beguilingly beautiful songs like this, certainly more often and reliably than the grungy thrashfests he looks as if he should be performing. And was, at the start of his career. I probably missed out on that part, he first coming to my attention in his duo with Isobel Campbell, herself fresh from a stint with sensitive Glasgow pastoral-pop vendors Belle and Sebastian. Whilst no great fan of theirs, I had picked up Campbells solo offering Milk White Sheets, her record of traditional songs and airs, enjoying it enormously. I hadn't appreciated then that she had already one album out with Lanegan, and would soon produce another. But I heard her, and nominally he, interviewed on a folk radio show. She could and did speak volubly about their music together, interspersed with a session from them, he nearly monosyllabic. However, as he sang, his sandpaper and stubble baritone gave a formidable weight to the songs, underpinning her delicate higher tones in ways that entranced me.

As is my wont, this was my hint to explore the back catalogue. Not all to my taste, his work with the Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age prove a little challenging to my genteel ears, if simultaneously reinforcing my realisation that his voice is a rare gift. And he has been always busy and/or restless, with always another collaboration simmering on one side, another direction pursued on another. So as well as those already mentioned, he has worked with Greg Dulli as the Gutter Twins (or, as well, in the Twilight Singers), Soulsavers, Moby and even Massive Attack, legendary Bristol trip-hop collective. In between time(!), there have been at least 9 solo albums, gradually incorporating ever more hues of electronica, fusing it with his old testament gravel and guts vocal. A good place to start would be either with last years Gargoyle, or Blues Funeral from 2012. (Links go to a song from each.) A more recent revisited collaboration is with protege and band member, Duke Garwood, a guitarist who uses the instrument, heavily processed and fed-back, to produce atmospheric soundscapes. While his own vocals provide suitably spare melody to these shimmers, guess whose makes them sound even better? With Animals came out earlier this year, but this, Pentecostal, is from Black Pudding in 2013.

I don't know how successful Lanegan is at home. Certainly he seems to spend a lot of time in Europe and seems to tour the UK at least once a year. I was lucky enough to catch him last year.

For the record, the song featured for this piece comes from his 5th album, Field Songs, dating from 2001, but helpfully came also as part of a thoroughly decent retrospective, Has God Seen My Shadow: An Anthology 1989 - 2011.

As a covers lover, I also want to give a nod to his many and varied appearances on tribute projects and soundtracks, for artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, the Kinks and the Velvet Underground. He also has a couple of records devoted to cover versions, with songs not always as expected. For 2015's Record Store Day he produced, again with Garwood, a terrific version of Needle of Death, written by the late great Bert Jansch, which just happens to be yet another druggy song, anti, as it happens, for this Remedies theme redux.) It isn't on YouTube so don't look. Have this instead, a reminder of what happens when the remedies don't work.......

If you have watched and listened to these featured clips, and via the links, you will have noticed a distinct trend, that of dissolution and the need for redemption, with the Massive Attack video being an especially galling view. I feel Lanegan knows and faces all these demons, or their reminders, on a daily basis, with the born again vigour yet stony blankness of a old west preacher with a gun.

Praise be!

HOMECOMING: TAKE ME BACK HOME/SOULSAVERS

OK, so it was only when the facebook link to my last post alerted me that I realised Homecoming to be peculiarly and specifically an american concept, relating to (high) schools inviting back past alumni, for a dance to celebrate the existence of the institution in question. And football?! Who knew? Certainly not me, although I suddenly get a whole lot of references from "Romy and Micheles High School Reunion" to the Monkees. Anyway, this piece too, like those of my colleagues, is nothing at all to do with that. (Except, arguably, on a metaphysical level.........)

Soulsavers are a remarkable concept, the idea of Rich Machin and Ian Glover, two british producers who somehow have conjured a knack of getting some of the most distinctive vocalists around to sing on their electronica take on what I would broadly categorise as gospel music, possibly not (but probably) including in any religious sense. Perhaps if a little veiled as to any particular divinity. Sorry, sprawling intro, but it is tricky for modern musicians to overtly ally themselves to any accepted spirituality beyond the vague. Or maybe difficult for me and my generation, avowedly secular, to accept such. I can find little back story as to how these two honed their craft. 2003 saw their first record, 'Tough Guys Don't Dance', the template immediately set out with sombre and dark sounds, sombre and dark imagery and sombre, dark, often lugubrious vocals. Here's 'Love' from that record, a style remaining and in no need of change. The singer is Josh Haden, son of Charlie, and erstwhile lead singer of the short lived 'Spain', well worthy of recommendation in their own right.

Second album, 'It's Not How You Fall, It's How You Land', saw them bring in Mark Lanegan, whose gothic tones have increasingly added a little black, or is it white, magic to any number of artists, as well as building up quite a catalogue of his own. With his back story of gaol and addiction, who better to sing of a curiously old testament redemption and revival?

Third album, 'Broken', again included Lanegan, amongst others including Jason Pierce, whose 'Spiritualised' had been mining, and still do, a similar vein. This took deeper still the atmospheric, exemplified by this version of this Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) track, he also appearing on this and the last record. (And here's Billy's version.)

The song featured in this article comes from number 4, 'The Light the Dead See', which, on the back of the critical breakthrough achieved by 'Broken', had the genius of recruiting Dave Gahan in the Lanegan role. Perhaps as famous for his overdosing near-death experiences as for his fronting of electro-band Depeche Mode, interviews had already revealed his deep melancholic beliefs. When Soulsavers were chosen to support Depeche Mode on a 2012 tour, it was perhaps inevitable he would end up writing and singing with/for them. Not for nothing was the title of his main bands 1993 album 'Songs of Love and Devotion'.

'Take Me Back Home' is one of many highlights from this remarkable album, the references aplenty as to where that home may be. It can move me to impossible places, to states akin to a mystical reverie, almost damascene in intensity. It is only my hard fought for cynicism that enables me to pretend I hear not the beseechments to (a) god. Or to God? As intensity goes it can go little further. And it can't get more overt than the song below.

Gahan has stayed on board a while longer, to the extent of the next release coming under the Dave Gahan & Soulsavers soubriquet, a step backwards for me, experientially, even if the songs, on 'Angels & Ghosts', were nearly as powerful. Strangely, the giving of a name extruded a taste of Mammon. Some of the magic was gone. Perhaps indicatively, the next release was back to the core duo, and instrumental, a film soundtrack, 'Kubrick', no clues in the lyrics, and fewer from the subject matter of the film. But no mistaking the music.

I remain an atheist. I think.

I could just point you toward the named track. Hell, or is that heck, hit the main page.