Skip All the Lou's: Part II, The Mask of Blue

Which is what brought me to The Blue Mask- often regarded as one of Lou Reed’s best solo albums, what he should have made in 1972, instead of Transformer (which isn’t terrible). It seems like taking Lou Reed solo albums as whole entities is a disappointing and embarrassing endeavor, so let’s go song by song and see if we can find more Lou Reed Greatness.

The Blue Mask: A quest for Greatness
1. My House-
a. Arrangement: Bass is a little cheesy, but the build at the end is cool.
b. Worst Lyric: “I've really got a lucky life
my writing, my motorcycle and my wife
And to top it all off a spirit of pure poetry
is living in this stone and wood house with me” Ugh. Wow. That first part of the verse sounds like someone’s overly earnest dad, which would be bad, but becomes unforgivable with his spirit of pure poetry shit.
c. Overall: Well, the build and repetition of “Our house is very beautiful at night” is pretty good. Can it overlook Lou Reed getting out the ouiji board and letting a spirit soar across the room? Maybe. And maybe this album isn’t so bad...

2. Women
a. Arrangement: These guitars are dripping in some lame effect, but their minimalism and chiming conversation is nice. The bass moans like it belongs in the background of the Little Mermaid’s Kiss the Girl though.
b. Worst Lyric: “A woman's love can lift you up,
and women can inspire
I feel like buying flowers and
hiring a celestial choir”
c. Overall: That worst lyric only won by a hair. The whole thing is embarrassing and terrible. A stanza about how Lou Reed used to look at women in magazines when he was in his teens. Maybe the worst Lou Reed song. Maybe the world’s worst song. My opitimisim takes a hit.

3. Under the Bottle
a. Arrangement: Kind of a bar band-lite. Does he need to borrow a distortion pedal?
b. Worst Lyric: Ooh woo weee son of a b.
c. Overall: Something about the concise quality of this song (and being next to the black hole of “Women”) make it seem okay. It’s forgettable, like bad radio rock. And it’s neatly composed if a little lazy. Not about to join “Heroin” in the substance abuse pantheon of rock and roll.

4. The Gun
a. Arrangement: Cool. The guitars are reminiscent of Galaxie 500, the bass is out of the way. Good groove all the way through.
b. Worst Lyric: This one’s got some of Lou’s good economical writing. I won’t pick out a lyric. I love when he says “I wouldn’t want you to miss a second.”
c. Overall: Yeah, alright. It doesn’t really go anywhere, but hey, neither do debates about the right to bear arms. Let’s keep going, with hope.

5. The Blue Mask
a. Arrangement: Sweet! It’s a little cheesy, but there’s a whole minute and a half of guitars squealing and stuff at beginning.
b. Worst Lyric: I’m not going to nit-pick. The delivery of muscle-rock isn’t the cool I go to Lou for, but this song is sweet and at this point I’m not complaining.
c. Overall: Yes! Yes! This has a sick ending. I’m on board, taking from the Station to Station playbook never paid off so well.

6. Average Guy
a. Arrangement: The distortion pedals are glowing, and even though this progression is nothing new (most of Coney Island Baby comes to mind), it’s still got a Bowie sheen that keeps it from veering into forgetablitly.
b. Worst Lyric: Um. So the whole thing is a little... inconsequential. Let’s go with “I worry about my health and bowels”
c. Overall: Things are taking a turn. This is about on par with Under the Bottle, in that it’s traditional grounding keeps it from being too hateful or likeable.

7. The Heroine
a. Arrangement: Just a great sounding electric guitar and vocals.
b. Interpretation: Um, so the love of a good woman will keep you together?
c. Overall: Another in the catalog of forgettable attempts at love songs I think. Something about the plaintive melody gets undercut by the repetition and overt self-seriousness.

8. Waves of Fear
a. Arrangement: Awesome. The ending is sweet. Two stallions trading leads and rhythm. Thundering along. Well done everyone. The bass is given something constructive to do as opposed to just ruining everything like it did for the first half of the album.
b. Best Lyric: “I curse at my tremors I jump at my own step!” The mic is maxing out and stuff. The whole part is awesome. And bizarre. Also “What’s that on the floor?”
c. Overall: This song is the most triumphant tribute to freaking out I’ve ever heard. I love it, and it makes no sense. Why is this song about being afraid of everything around you? Drugs, I would assume. Anyway, for what it is, with a skidding shuddering left channel guitar making the case, it’s more than passable. It’s funny though.

9. The Day John Kennedy Died
a. Arrangement: Ugh, the world’s most annoying bass sound is back to rule the middle of your mind. And who’s the lady back-up singer in here. Like these little cymbals clipping along though.
b. Baby Boomer Unbearablitiy: Big Time. I understand this was a monumental event, but this song is more insult than homage.
c. Overall: If we’re to believe this moment meant that much to LR, then we’re allowed to wonder if there’s a better way to phrase it than “I dreamed that I could somehow comprehend that someone
shot him in the face.”

10. Heavenly Arms
a. Arrangement: Big and broad. Great melody. Perhaps the only Lou Reed song that could use more instrumentation.
b. Does the delivery live up to its ambition: Well, he says “Heavenly Arms” a lot. But the melody holds up where the writing’s weak. It’s a really pretty song.
c. Overall: A fitting send off to an album of songs with narrow and specific concepts, that, if broadened, could’ve been a lot better.

So, it’s not Loaded Part II, but it was unfair to expect that. Safe to say Mr. Reed doesn’t really know what he does best, and at this point thought furrow-brow seriousness and earnesty was the way to go. And for... like 3, maybe 4 songs the instruments do what his writing does erratically at best, and we’re with him. For the rest, it kind of feels like someone’s cleaned up former biker-dad bashing it out on a Friday in Rockford. And I guess that has a place.

Skip All the Lou's: A Quest for a Decent Solo Album pt. 1

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Lou Reed to our musical landscape, and larger culture. Those Velvet Underground albums are the bedrock upon which the ideals of avant-garde rock were lovingly placed, and it would be hard to think of a worthwhile band (from, say, 1970 onward) that isn’t largely indebted to them. Just as Jonathan Richman predicted in 1970, in a way the Velvets have become as important as The Beatles. I have a simple test to prove this to be true: Name a year both bands released an album: Go ahead. 1967? Okay The Beatles- Sgt. Pepper’s. Whoa, hard to top right? Bam! Velvet Underground and Nico! How do you like them bananas? To even argue their importance seems redundant. Let’s move on.

The only real problem is that there are only those 4 VU albums (let’s disregard the Lou-Reedless and unavailable fifth album, as I haven’t heard it, and this is mostly about Lou Reed). Where does one go after she or he has shredded with the Black Angel, eagerly waited with Waldo in the box, closed the door, and watched that train go ‘round the bend? I, myself, will still have periods where I’ll listen to one of these albums, and even though I’ve heard it many times, I’m still impressed, I still enjoy it. But there’s less than 40 songs.

Here is the interesting thing about both the VU and The Beatles. After you’ve really listened to their canons, and really made them something you know, you should probably switch to listening to Bowie. He’ll safely get you through to the 80’s and then it’s time for American Indie to come and save your bloated soul. I know there are solo albums from all of these songwriters (hell, both Moe Tucker and Ringo Starr have albums. God help us all), but I’m increasingly convinced that try as you may, the solo albums merely tarnish the image of the songwriter, especially the further you get from their seminal band.

And for no one is this more true than Lou Reed (well maybe George, certainly Paul, and of course John...well Lou Reed for now). Listening to his solo work turns him from brilliant writer, to likely idiot savant, who merely was around an era we now think is awesome, and happened to write shit down, probably on accident. The arrangements, which seemed so sweet as dark and shrill, all turn into Las Vegas schmaltz with such a swiftness and consistency you can’t help but wonder if maybe Sterling Morrison doesn’t get enough credit (this suspicion is confirmed if you ever hear John Cale’s Paris 1919).

But there are still green shoots. One gives up on Lou Reed only to hear “Walk on the Wild Side,” “Street Hassle” and “Berlin” and wonder if maybe there’s still more Reed-brilliance out there. And you want to believe! You want your mind blown again! You want a brilliant beat-poet-avant-garde-leather-rock-hero! Of course you do! We all do!

Coming Soon! A track by track break down of The Blue Mask, an album that is known as the heir to the Velvet's sound!

Hello Internet, long time...

Jobs right? Either you can't get one, you hate the one you have and can't get anything else, or maybe you like your job but it isn't paying you shit. Or maybe it's just a control thing, the work's not that bad, they pay is more than enough but damn, will I ever have a say in how shit get's done around here?
So, I have several 'jobs.' I have my day job at the MCA. It's great, really can't complain. I love the museum, I really like my coworkers, the day to day responsibilities aren't very taxing, and I usually feel pretty good about life at work. The rub: it's three days a week and I make let's just call it not-a-whole-lot an hour. Then there's a paid gig with my alma matter doing sound design work for theatrical shows. Again, wow, what a great gig. I can work mostly off my laptop using some of my more technical and creative skills, I get paid, get to help put together a piece of collaborative art every semester. The rub: it's emotionally draining, and I don't know why. I get throw-shit-against-a-wall temperamental during the last two weeks of rehearsal no matter the show (usually not at rehearsal, although I'm afraid that one day I will just snap). And a career in sound design would probably mean a career in theatre, which is for better or worse, a world that still feels foreign to me. Long story.
Then there are two internships, one with Gallery 400 and one with Thrill Jockey. Again, wow, what the fuck right? Both are fantastic. At the Gallery, I'm learning and developing a skill set, I'm meeting so many incredibly talented people, I get to be intellectually engaged with work. Fucking fantastic, not getting paid. And Thrill Jockey, let's put it this way, if I was independently wealthy and never had to work again I would still come in on Monday to put records together at the office. The rub: neither pays, and at this point anything resembling a personal life has been obliterated. This has lead to some awkward over sharing, TMI, and just dicking around at my jobs because, well, I barely have any personal time.
Now, don't get me wrong, the last six months of my life have been incredible. I took on more than I could handle and I've handled it. Maybe not A+ handled it, but much better than my usual average. I feel much more capable than before, much more aware of myself and my limitations. But my schizophrenic schedule has left me with the same question, what do I actually want to do with my life. And my answer is still, well, everything.
Or be a musician. That's always the real answer, be a musician. I'm not going to get into the bloody details of why I am one but don't really consider myself one although I've always kinda been one no matter how hard I try to be one or not. It's really like saying to myself, I want to be a Christian. I am one, but I'm not really one you know, don't go to church enough, am too critical of the church at large, feel uneasy with how it makes others feel, etc. But like, I am one, sorta kinda. I just really don't feel good about calling myself one and then having to take on all the responsibilities of being one. With music, it's more like, I don't thing I'll ever be able to pull it off, like I'm staring down a series of failures and panic attacks and puzzled looks and yeah, not a whole lotta bread.
You know that slow moaning thing some people can do with their voice where it almost sounds like they're purring. Like a square wave slowed down so much that all you hear is clicks. I've caught myself making that sound a lot without realizing how long I've been at it. It's like the sound of an old hard drive when it was processing too fast. But I'm processing nothing, just making sound to soothe my own brain. I've started dancing and head bobbing a little too emphatically when listening to music in public lately. I'm doing that half assed literary speak thing where I pick up little idioms and poetic expressions that don't fit me at all and carelessly toss them around until they lose their intended effect. I wonder how far off I am from catching myself singing "Turtle Island" in a broken falsetto at work while staring blankly off into space. It's then when I think, man, I'm never gonna make it. Adults with responsibilities don't do that shit. Who am I trying to fool?

Songs:
Beach House-Gila


Gives me the shivers, that little two note guitar line just kills me. My Beach House obsession is not waning.

Round and Round-Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti


So, I never was really into Ariel Pink. I saw a disastrous set at U of C years ago where we dubbed his band Tears for Suck. But hey, he's still going isn't he, and apparently improving. I guess it's a sin to diss his earlier material now that his aesthetic has taken off in certain circles, but fuck that aesthetic. I like the self assured production values Arthur Russel cribbing way more.

Flying Lotus-Robo Tussin/A Milli Remix


This has been around for a while, but I felt like posting after seeing Flylo at the Double Door, which was absolutely amazing. He's a consumate performer who knows how to get a crowd moving with sheer enthusiasm. He dropped this one and everyone went crazy.

Sorry for the mixed up embed formats, the internet is being a pain in my ass, and I'm too lazy to find a solution.

Your Sound Design Questions Answered

    I haven't been writing much lately as I've been busy with sound design, band, day jobs, etc.  However, I did write a little something during some rehearsal downtime.  It started out as something like "letters to a young sound designer" but I thought it might be interesting to those who don't really know what I mean when I say sound designer.
    A sound designer finds, creates, or otherwise wrangles sound effects and music together for a performance, and makes sure those sounds are played at the right time for the right length of time and at the right volume.  Beyond that, the definition get's sticky.  In a larger theater you might have a music director, a composer, a sound designer, a sound technician, and a sound board operator.  In smaller "store front" theaters, a sound designer might (frequently) have to do all the above jobs.  Sound Design doesn't require a standardized technical knowledge, just enough proficiency to justify getting paid for it.  The vague job requirements and varying job description will lead to a lot of ass busting to learn to do something you have no previous experience doing or (more likely) lead to a lot of embarrassing moments where you have to tell a director that either his expectations are unreasonable or totally reasonable but he hired the wrong guy, so, sorry about that.
    What the job always requires is the ability to think and learn quickly, to be articulate and specific about a very abstract and temporal phenomenon in more or less plain language, and of course, the ability to be creative in a collaborative setting, all of which require trial and error.
    If I could offer some on the job advice to anyone starting out in Sound Design, it would go something like this:

Equipment matters more than you ever want it to.  This pretty much runs against every bit of punk ethos left in me but it's unavoidable.  The purpose of a sound design is to help transport the audience into the world of the play, either the physical (diegetic) world or the emotional/psychological (non-diegetic) world, and to do that, you don't want a shitty lofi system coloring and distorting that sound unless the play is in a shitty lofi world.  Those plays sadly don't exist.  Learn what equipment is meant to do, what it can do, and what it will never do. 

Yes you can do it, but do you have time?  The quicker you learn this lesson, the better.  It's always tempting to say yes to complex and time consuming design choices during the beginning stages of a production when you have weeks to get everything done.  But when you run out of time and fall short of your grand promises, you're going to look like a lazy flake.  On that note, be organized, save everything twice and create more than one draft for each big moment.

You can say no to the director, and you definitely should learn when and how, which is never in front of actors and extremely delicately.  Also, never use the word "no."

Music is universal, musical tastes aren't.  This is without a doubt the most frustrating aspect of the job. 

Listen to hip hop.  Reason 1, hip hop producers largely use the same tools as you.  Reason 2, hip hop producers (and sample based musicians in general) tend to think of what a sound as a mutable material, they listen for what it can be rather than what it is.  Being able to make completely new music out of say, two or three records requires a clever ear and deft technical proficiency, both of which are paramount to sound design.  Reason 3, nothing sounds better after being stuck inside a theater all fucking day.

Be a geek, or at least be comfortable being called a geek.  You're working in theater after all. 
If you think you're too cool for the job, you're right, so don't do it.

Have a personal creative outlet, realize that this job is not that.  Remember that scene in Charlie Brown Christmas where Lucy asks Schroeder to play Jingle Bells over and over again until he frustrated plunks it out note by note?  It's gonna be like that sometimes.

Think about how the sound feels.  If the design is good, no one will be paying attention to it but they'll be subtly affected by it.  One director said it best, "With gunshots, it's not about how real they sound, it's about the emotional impact of the shot."

Unlike other design elements (staging, scenic, lighting), when you make a mistake it will be big and obvious and it will piss people off.  Don't take it personally.

Always shroud your techniques in secrecy.  So you spent a whole week figuring out how to power a remote speaker in the back of the house so that marching band effect can sound like it's slowly coming closer and filling the space?  No one fucking cares.  Not to say it wasn't a good choice, but no one is going to pat you on the back for an effect that could have been adequately accomplished by clever fading and panning.  But when a director wants something to sound like it's underwater and all you do is put a tremolo and reverb on it (which takes 15 seconds) and she looks at you like your a wizard, just let her be mystified.  

Have a huge collection of music, listen to it all the time.  Always good to have jazz, classical, and ambient on hand (anything "moody" or textural and or rhythmic, without words). 

Have the cast send you their favorite party jams and play them during preshow warmups.  You will be their hero forever.

Pitch in to help someone else when you have some downtime.  Again, everyone will love you.

Avoid Tom Waits, run, fly, flee.  Delete it from your hard drive.  When directors mention his name (trust me, this happens with staggering frequency) feign ignorance and change the subject.

At the end of the day, realize that you're working behind the scenes and there's not a lot of credit or awards being handed out.  Sometimes the only way to tell you've done a good job is when no one complains and you get asked to do it again.

White/Light @ MCA=Totally Sick

Everywhere that I work is cooler than everywhere that you work.  Don't believe me?
Do you wanna see John McEntire, Steve Shelley or Lucky Dragons play at the MCA?  Of course you do. I could not be more chuffed.

Take off those clothes, you're one of them.

    I'm excited to see that the Nitsuh Abebe has his own column over at p4k.  I've been following his excellent and always thoughtful blog, A Grammar for a couple weeks now so I'm excited to see  his missives in a more well trafficked site. (Although, are p4k columns really read that often?)  On his first outing he compares Lady Gaga and Joanna Newsome while taking on the neurotic self conscious politics of cool in the indiesphere.  Definitely worth a read if you even remotely care about any of the above topics.  I'm still very interested in this debate about the politics of who we find clever or innovative and who we find trite or escapist, but it's personally losing it's relevancy in my day to day life.  Maybe my circles have changed but it's not often I find myself in a place where I'm actually embarassed to admit my fondness for something because of hip politics.  Interning at Thrill Jockey certainly presents those moments, but the mocking tone there is more like dudes at a bar talking about basketball players than some deleted scene from High Fidelity.

    It's hard to really spot a time or place in my life where I ever really felt threatened by other people's tastes.  High School had it's moments, but the cool-indie-rock-kid crowd was small and pretty self consciously not very hip and most of them were my friends and bandmates.  I felt the war for what's cool was always being fought online or in New York or some other place where I had no voice.  Even if I really cared (and I did) about the micro trends of New York, it was  so beyond my control or influence, a world that only meant something because I decided it did.  And in small ways it still does, but the ground level arguments about what's hot and what's not never seemed to be as crucial or as mean spirited as they did online.  Actually watching people get riled up and pissy with each other over personal tastes is not usually all that fun or productive.  As much as I like a good spirited debate, once someone get's smug or self important or just plain condescending, I'm usually out.  And living in a place as fractured and contentious as Chicago, I feel like it's more beneficial to be open minded and curious than to have an entrenched viewpoint.  If there's something dilettantish about that, I don't see why that's a particular problem, what's a scene without enough people who are willing or naive enough to try to walk in as many circles as they can?  As long as your interest is genuine, what do you have to worry about?
    I'm not saying this just because I want everyone to be friendly and pat each other on the back.  No, if anything we need to expect more from performers than to just pick a sound and stick to it.  If bands want to narrow their focus and dig deep into a sound (The Walkmen) that's totally credible, enjoyable and rewarding.  But bands who tap into more material, who are taking more risks and seeking out different ways of making music are essential to "the fringe" or whatever you want to call it.  This is why very good bands who make very enjoyable and impressive albums (Surfer Blood, Real Estate, Smith Westerns) can ultimately be a letdown when compared to their influences.  They don't seem to mean much?  I'm on the fence here.  Not every band should straddle themselves with the expectations of recreating music or being utter visionaries and I'm willing to look for originality and fresh ideas from bands who don't tout themselves as THE NEXT THING.  But I agree with Abebe, if you're going to wear your tastes as a merit badge of adventurousness, then I don't see the point in mocking bands for their misadventures. 
    If that makes a lick of sense.  There's also a refreshing Liars interview up and it's good to hear these guys in in top form once again.  A HL review is in the pipeline.

  

Perfecting Sound Forever

   So I just finished reading a fantastic little piece of nonfiction called Perfecting Sound Forever and I highly recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in recorded sound.  Greg Milner follows the history of recorded sound and the contentious debates that continue to surround it.  On the way he touches on critical theory, psychoacoustics, war profiteering, music criticism, media theory, a little bit of Adorno, and some old fashioned fanboy gushing (Pavement get's mentioned a couple times).  I think this book is actually every one of my geeky interests rolled up into one single serving.  Milner is not so secretly an analog enthusiast but he's quick to point out the wild eyed doomsdaying and magical thinking endemic to certain analog purists.  

    One of the most important things I've taken away from the book is the idea that the trajectory of musical technology was not preordained.  There has always been a push towards high fidelity, having the purest representation of a sonic event, as well as a push for innovation, for creating new sounds with new technology.  It's a classic example of a tool built for observation having irrevocable effects on what it observes.  It's also always been a contentious subject, every new technology having it's utopian boosters and dystopian naysayers.  This ongoing battle hit a fever pitch with the advent of CDs.  What's most depressing about the CD chapter of the book isn't that so many people thought digital audio sounded terrible (a lot of people still feel this way) but that it was spurred by an industry desire for a format change.  Neither artists/producers nor consumers were clamoring for a better format, and many of them thought it was a useless ploy.  I always assumed that analog purism was something that came later, an old guy nostalgia but also a punk rock fuck you to a once very expensive medium.  I didn't realize that digital audio was a contentious subject from day one.  Also, the technical standards of CDs (bit depth, sampling rate) were sort of rushed into use.  That is, CDs could have been more hi-def given a couple more months in development.  And of course the greatest irony of all, that digitizing music would eventually be the industry's undoing.

    This got me thinking about the current Tape/Vinyl revivalism.  I'll admit that the most annoying trait about format fetishism is the built in nostalgia.  You kinda wanna shake these people and scream "Get with it, things change, stop trying to escape into the past.  The future is..."  you get the point.  But, there's actually a foward looking element in all this nostalgia.  Becuase you don't have to listen to records and you don't have to put them out, doing either is a conscious act, a rebellion against the norm.  It can seem like a pointless rebellion but it's not just empty posturing.  It's also not an anti-social behavior.  It creates spaces of cultural exchange where there are alternatives to the convenient and disposable (or just fickle) nature of pop culture.  Although it smacks of a fad, I think it really stems from a desire for community, the very same same desire that fuels webforums and blogs.  

    The debate for me isn't just about sound quality.  Yes, I think records sound more musical and therefore better.  But it's also about having the artifact, the fetish object.  Yes, it's conspicuous consumption, no it's not very "green," it's more expensive/not free (This debate could go in circles though.  How much energy does it take to make an Ipod?  How much did that Ipod cost?  Who get's that money?).  But I buy a record, the band makes some money, the label that put out their album makes some money, the record store makes some money, I get something permanent and usually desirable in exchange.  It seems so quaint doesn't it?  Consumerism that doesn't feel like consumerism.

    Far be it from me to say this is the only way to listen or to be actively engaged with music.  But it is effective and actually quite rewarding.  And it's thriving, which is something the industry as a whole is certainly not doing.  Polemics aside, it's a continually interesting phenomenon, especially as it consistently confounds so many people who try to shrug it off.