the importance of music

"We exchanged a lot," says Roedelius, his face gently creasing into a grin. "The main thing we exchanged was don't take music too serious. Life is more serious."

Roedelius of Cluster, from here.

A true-ism if there ever was one. And being a counter-dominant-culture type in West Berlin in the late-60’s/early-70’s there were definitely other things to worry about. You were in the shit w/ the Baader-Meinhof, in the shadow of the Berlin Wall and the iron curtain, a generation removed from yr parent’s Nazi-ism and you're around post Paris '68 and various other 'revolutionary' 60's things. A tru-ism but also against the grain of the general 60’s ethos that Rock and Roll was the revolution (or at least part of it).

And if making music is relatively un-serious fare, how less serious should writing about music be considered relative to Life? It seems almost silly to sit here in ’07 as I still waste too much of my resources (time, money, brain-space) on knowing as much about, or thinking about music as much, as I do. And mostly music that was recorded before I was born. Granted there are other things that I worry about and other things that I do with my time, but really why worry about music at all. Why try to construct taxonomies and rankings and connections for music that had borderline revolutionary credentials at the time and even less now? Erg.

In the end this is a fret over the what & the where for; the why I am doing this. But on the other hand, why not?

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One benefit of rolling back on serious-ness when worrying about music it brings down the rigid walls 'twix genres that are un-neccessarily contructed by the too-serious. From earlier posts: Led Zeppelin & the Grateful Dead. Today: Fusion.

Almost as taboo as jam-band music, fusion is slightly redeemed by association w/ bonafide genious Miles Davis as well as others. But like the fellow evil step sister of Prog it stinks of trying to herald unwarranted and unsuccessful pretension into rock. But being a Punk champion and snubbing your nose at the middle-class upittiness of 70's musicians to take the Rock as art pretension brought in by the 60's deeper is unfairly revisionist. As much as Punks like to disdain artiness in rock, or ring in a back-to-basics (back-to-stupid) rock ethic they are conceptually closer to the heady early 70's art-rock paradigm than to that of any early rock rockabilly or jump music thumper. Not that punk's aspire to a Elvis rock purity (leave that to rockabilly stoopids), but Punk's do hold up 60's grungy garage rockers as the true rock flame holders through the 60's, cause they were simple and stupid. But 60's garage rockers weren't trying to be Big Joe Turner but trying to ape the Byrds and the Beatles who were arty middle-class climbers themselves. Just we don't see it that way now.

Whatever, I really wanted to talk about Fusion (and how Serious music fans build walls; walls that are unneccessary and artificial, having nothing really to with the music (or how music is really made or heard) but everything about being serious about something that is resistant to seriousness) so I'll get back to that.

Not only is fusion a post-facto impercise genre category but it is also unfairly broad. Even different late era Miles Davis' bands sound completely different. And one degree farther removed the bands that late era Davis alumni moved on to cover even a broader breadth of musical ground (not a lot of it good); Mahvishnu Orchestra, Weather Report & Herbie Hancock being three that I can think of off the top of my head that cover a lot of sonic ground but all "Fusion". Coming from the other direction in American jazz-rock fusion are folks like Zappa, Paul Butterfield & Santana; also relatively diverse sampling. And when you get out of the US the fusion map gets even broader and somehow more hipster credible: Soft Machine, Henry Cow, King Crimson & (ick) Chicago. And then onto Germany, and my current musical fascination, with nominal Krautrockers Xhol Caravan, Embryo and Anima. All "fusion" but not in the end fusion at all.

And so here the Fusion descriptor is revealed to be the hole-y beast it is. Anima is random -ish noises in a free mess of "untrained" music making. Xhol Caravan sprung out of a motown-style soul band (then known as Soul Caravan - german soul, wha?), took some drugs and started playing extended psychadelic jazz-rock jams. Embryo includes some Amon Duul hangers-on and is the most conventional fusion-sounding band of them all, but listening them next to Guru Guru & Can & Amon Duul (I & II) & on to Soft Machine & King Crimson & Roxy Music & Hawkwind & Miles Davis & the Red Krayola & the 13th Floor Elevators & whoever else you want -- the effect is not of constricting music into genres and styles but instead the effect is of unfolding the musical map so everything is fair game. And why shouldn't it be? Not that styles and genres don't have a function but they're not the end, they are a beginning, or better said a tool, and not even the only beginning/tool, but one of many. The only "beginning" beginning is making sound.

Not suprisingly open-ness comes back in (in 70's Germany) where figurative walls serve less function (not much culture industry $$ pie to be shared) and literals walls are more apparent. Too bad they made a little money (Tangerine Dream, Amon Duul II, Jane, Kraan) and it's like the walls build themselves. Kosmiche, Berlin-School, Krautrock? Funk dat.

chance and not-chance

Recently it has felt (although this isn't a recent manifestation) that I spend too little time cultivating interest in a genre before I flit off to a new genre to be obsessed over. From DIY to Disco to Electro to Early Hip-Hop to Hardcore Punk to the Dead to 70's funk to Reggae to Psych to Prog to Techno to Krautrock to my most recent fixation, 20th century classical or in my case Minimalism specifically. I don't know if this is a problem per-say but it seems problematic or at least symptomatic of a problem in the general way I go about things. Like how it seemed that every week on the bus on the way to work I'd fall in love with a different girl. A girl who'd I'd never meet, but for the course of time that our bus (or bart or muni) trip coincided I'd be transfixed. This doesn't seem to happen much anymore but I suspect this is more a side-effect of having more typical commute hours. Maybe during typical commuter hours there aren't fewer beautiful women but definitely more mid-30 and up women; that is a density problem. Or maybe typical office hour wage slaves like me are just resistant to being fashionable/good-looking and are just too oppressed/bored to be otherwise (or maybe I am.) And this isn't even a proper analogy as I don't really expend any effort on the bus ride crushes, but I'm not gonna sacrifice truth for sake of logical elegance.

All that is a long-winded introduction to a couple of minimalist (and not minimalist) records I've picked up recently. primarily a Philip glass' first collection with Music in a Similar Motion & Music in fifths, Terry Riley's In C and a collection of John Cage piano works.

The early Glass is if anything to me oppressive. With the exuberance and cocksureness of youth both compositions are a simple idea repeated over and over w/ little or no concession to any pleasure derived by the listener, something that Glass can be accused of doing too much later in his career(conceding to the pleasure principle) . It's an idea about music executed in broad forthright form. Already by Northstar, his rock-star debut on Virgin, his composition is no longer as stringent and puritan, but again it is more experienced than enjoyed. More talked about than listened too. The defrost is even more in effect on his first opera Einstein on the Beach but more than makes up for any lack of minimalistic rigueur by it's more than obtuse "plot", settings, costuming and choreography (or at least what I can derive from the book that comes with the disk). Whatever, the chances of me seeing Einstein performed are slim. Not that I would avoid it, but that I'm not gonna pursue it. One culprit being the before mentioned reasons, but the tide always comes back in, no?

Terry Riley, who was in league with Philip Glass (I think he performed in some of Glass' ensembles or vice-versa) and the other early minimalist that I've heard Steve Reich, seems less systematically rigourous than Glass and to In C's benefit. Maybe it has to do with Riley being based in 60's San Francisco where he was known to give all-night solo harmonium concerts (I *would* go hear that if I had a chance) or his more firm rock bonafides (a collab w/ John Cale - which is very good from i've heard & you know BABA O'REILLY). Whatever, instead of feeling oppressive the minimalism of Riley feels organic and inviting. Within the simple compositional rules, handily explained on the inner sleeve of the record, there is a great opportunity for chance and unexpected occurrence with in a set of constricted rules. A variable envelope of tonal color opening up from a simple theme, ever shifting in unexpected directions or better said surprising directions. But even that is unfair description as it doesn't have the feeling of being unexpected as each part builds on the previous and themes are repeated on different instruments it feels like growth. The final state and character of a stalk of corn is hardly unexpected but none-the-less surprising. Maybe something to do with the sublime or the seemingly unspeakable/ ununderstandable.

But maybe I'm blowing smoke up yr ass w/ all this mumbo-jumbo talk. It's on the page, it's not inscrutable. But can't it be both? Truth & Fiction, Fantasy & the all-to-real? Don't ask me.

Cage, another Californian but not a minimalist, also through/threw the I-Ching realized some chance to open the doors of modern composition (an oriental conceit shared w/ Riley & Glass & Reich). And more, much much more, can be said about him and I had planned and ruminating on his connections to Merce Cunningham and Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg but that'll have to wait for another time. Wouldn't want to out my (lack-of) art theory bonafides just yet. And frankly I have to get on to thinking about the next genre to pillage. No more of this art-music crap on to Rolling Stones bootlegs or Baile Funk or dubstep or peace-punk or music made by inmates or whaaaaaatttttttteeeeeevvvvvvvveeeeeerrrr.

double deckers of delicious

double decker tacos .

The double decker taco was added to the Taco Bell menu at some point in the early-to-mid 90's (at least I think it was pre-high school for me). And in the line of many things that I latched on to in my pre-HS and HS years double decker tacos were something that my older brother also had professed love. whatever, show me a younger sibling who was not extremely affected by their older sibling's tastes (to the positive or the negative). it's jus' not gonna happen. It be interesting to interrogate my brother on how much he realized that i was biting his style AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. (this changed when i entered college, but more as an evolution than a new track.)

again, i'm getting sidetracked. double decker tacos. really the pinnacle of taco bell culinary achievement. i like other things at taco bell (classics like simple tacos, bean burritos and 2nd in line tostadas) but nothing as much as the double decker taco. the primary appeal is the textural interface between the soft taco & beans and the hard shell topped w/ lots and lots of TB hot sauce and meat/cheese/lettuce interior. as stated by others (above links) it is crucial to eat the double decker taco within 5 minutes of purchase as the beans begin to soften the shell and render the appeal moot (no longer crunchy). other things TB menu item favorites follow from the same appeal hierarchy (crunchy tacos, same ingredients minus flour tortilla tostada, beans & hot sauce bean burrito). there is also the double decker supreme but the uptick in flavor, sour cream/tomatoes, is lost in the tradeoff in increased structural damage, soggier crunchy tacos, and is therefore not worth the extra 30 cents.

further other taco bell culinary inventions have not done it for me. grilled stuffed burritos = no good. they've added some new funky sauce that DOESN'T DO ANYTHING AT ALL BUT BAD THINGS. any of the things w/ funky shells (gorditas et al) = bad idea. they also introduced some tostada spin-off that had similar architecture as the double decker, tostada wrapped in flour tortilla and grilled stuff, and it is no more successful than their other creations. whenever something new at TB comes on the menu i end up intrigued and venture in to try it hoping for another double decker revelation but TB always fails me. the double decker taco was one of their first deviations from traditional TB menu and the only one to stand the test of time.

the other key to taco bell appeal is the hot sauce. (i'm known to eat hot sauce packets by themselves) and remember reading in the phx new times about some one trying to unsuccessfully ween themselves of TB bean burritos and coming to the conclusion that the key was the hot sauce. i'm not gonna disagree. okay it's probably loaded w/ sugar but that doesn't bother me. i eat taco bell at most once every couple of months, but it will always have a place in my heart. (even with the recent e. coli scare which affects me NOT ONE BIT)