As I mentioned a few posts back (see: “On Repetition”), I am friendly with a writer from Santa Fe called Tim Ramick. I have never met him, but we correspond now and again on various subjects. I admire his uncompromising devotion to his aesthetic. Recently, I’ve been writing a long piece somewhat about the Velvet Underground, and in the course of that piece I stumbled on a recording I thought Ramick would like, and the following exchange ensued. Some points of information: Ramick’s wife is Laura, and his son is Reeve (who is in school in Glasgow, Scotland). My wife is Amy and my daughter is Hazel (who is 3-months old). Ramick (who is a compositional voice in which Tim Taylor, somewhat Pessoa-like, composes) has lately spawned a couple of additional voices and manners. Thus the opening of the exchange. And as it will be noted, Ramick agreed to let this correspondence be published on the condition that I change nothing. Basically, I swindled him into writing these lines (though it didn’t occur to me to post these lines until after I saw how good they were), and a doctrine on the acceptance of error was the pound of flesh exacted.
Dear He who is no longer Ramick,
I’m having a Metal Machine Music moment. Have you heard this cover of the whole thing by Zeitkratzer? I know nothing about it except that it’s on iTunes and I got myself one. Rather sublime, rather sublime. You should get one and we can compare notes.
R.
*
Still Taylor, still Ramick, but now the two other quadrants, too, for
survival or endurance, I don’t know, but that is of small substantive
worth. Fool’s play.
I’ve been thinking of you some today, oddly enough, not sure why,
perhaps residue from the fact of Hazel Jane, wondering how the world
is now different for you, how you move through your days (and your
nights) and your pages. Laura is in Mississippi with her sister and
brother for ten days and they’ll be attending the Delta Blues Festival
while I’m taking off equal time to find another job (I’ve given June
30 notice—I want to do more physical work while my body can still
withstand some abuse). But today I’ve spent the day trying to write.
Brutal. And l.o.n.e.l.y. Cearley’s not any better at this than Ramick.
Sayes has it easy, since his task is (in essence) prescribed. Why this
persistent pursuance (silliness)?
But not silly, from what I’ve heard tell anyway, is this Zeitkratzer
stuff. I can’t listen to it here at home because of our dial up, but I
have a $15 gift card for iTunes in my wallet that I’ve been wondering
what to do with—so I’ll use it on Saturday up at the Institute and
throw it on an iPod and let you know what happens to me. Perhaps
they’ll next transcribe Merzbow’s 50CD box set of noise
(http://www.discogs.com/release/100630). I wanted to buy that set and
find a stereo that could handle 50 CDs on shuffle and start it and
then leave it on shuffle—even when away from the house and while
sleeping (or trying to sleep!)—for an entire year.
“Rather sublime” said twice itself, is itself.
Do you know the Garfield minus Garfield comic?
(http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/)
I was thinking of what that would be like for moving images—perhaps
The Brady Bunch with only Marcia. All other characters and their
actions and their voices would be removed. Marcia would talk to
herself a lot (when she was present) and inhabit her own strange world
a la Markson’s (or Wittgenstein’s) Mistress—but there would mostly
just be lots of shots and reaction shots of the (now) mostly always
empty house. Not sure what to do with the laugh track. These musings
also for some reason made me think of you.
Well, enough. You can tell I’ve been alone for the past couple days
without much sleep or esteem. I’ll get my legs under me around day six
(of sans Laura).
Tim
*
Do you want to amplify the conceptual underpinnings re: Cearley, and the other guy (guy? or indeterminate?) Sayes? Spelling correct? I’m doing it from memory in case memory is somehow relevant?
I like the idea of Bradys with just Marcia. Or maybe just Alice’s boyfriend. Wandering around that house wondering. Or wondering around the house wandering.
Writing, yes, is brutal.
The Hazel situation is hard at the moment because she has hip issues (like the Wife, who has a rather bad case of dysplasia) and they are trying to enharness her in a way that feels very Victorian or Dickensian or something. There has been much tension surrounding Hazel. Who is mostly ignorant of all this, I think, and very happy on occasion. I really do adore her in a way I have adored nothing in my life. As for work, work is now something that has to be fitted around her. And it is strange trying to finish up this novel that feels very B.H. I can already feel the outline of A.H. Which is maybe what Cearley is: A.R.W.S. or After Reeve Went to Scotland. I think my manner is about to change again. I’m going to do music essays after this novel, and then stories, perhaps, and a novel that I feel listing toward me, but it has no jokes and much less plot. Back to an older more European model, or A.H., where the prose must save lives. I tried to be nice for a while, because I felt brutalized by The Black Veil, but now I want my daughter, one day, to be proud of me.
The shorter answer is: when am I going to write? I have no time to write.
R.
P.S. I’ll go check Garfield(less).
(later) Garfield(less) is most excellent.
*
Rick,
First of all, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’d heard
about it early last year and had absently failed to follow up. That
would have been my loss. So, primarily, despite any spew below, thanks
so much.
I’ve listened to Zeitkratzer’s MMM twice now. I liked it better the
first time, but I still liked it the second time, so I’m not sure what
subsequent listens will bring. I also listened to Ascension and
Crippled Symmetry and OV and Music for 18 Musicians today for sake of
comparison.
The textures are wondrous. It’s almost unimaginable that it’s all
acoustic and that it’s done live (more on this aspect later). And I
think it would have quickly jumped to my top shelf of favorite
compositions if not for the following problems (for me):
I don’t care about its history. I wish I didn’t know. I’ve only heard
Reed’s MMM once, long ago, and wasn’t that impressed (although it was
before I had much of an internal lexicon for these sorts of things).
So its “rock star” origins don’t do anything for me. The fact that
Krieger transcribed it in its entirety is such an astonishing fact
that it somewhat pollutes the experience for me. This knowledge will
become less problematic with future listens, I’m sure. I don’t like
the way it’s presented, live in three sections with applause
interruption (though it must be exhausting for the performers and they
probably couldn’t go 45 minutes without stopping). It’s very jarring
to suddenly hear the audience and realize I’m not alone in all that
glorious sound but am a voyeur to their experience. Why not a
definitive studio recording (sans crowd and sans Reed) so that it
could stand as a piece of music and not as a remarkable performance
event (stunt)? I don’t at all care for Reed’s guitar solo that nearly
finishes the work and it isn’t even up to the original’s standards (if
memory serves).
Do you have the original MMM? Is it worth purchasing for comparison?
Zeitkratzer’s version certainly holds up to Orthrelm’s OV (or anything
I’ve heard from Merzbow or Earth or Sun O))) or Dead C for sustained
noise-throb). But it doesn’t match Ascension’s palpability, Feldman’s
endless tension-weaves, or Reich’s pulses and flows.
The best parts of it all make me think a little of Xenakis’ plateau-like slabs.
In the end, I’d say it lacks the resonances of intention (a private
inner life). Still, I’m quite grateful to have made its acquaintance.
And will seek out more like it, if such exists. Please let me know if
you get wind of anything.
Tim
*
Tim, you are, as always, a remarkable hard ass. This is, I expect, one of your adorable qualities. I agree that any participation of Lou in the piece is problematic. I also agree that Lou cannot play very well anymore. Lou remains a challenging character. (I’m writing about New York underground music right now, and that’s what led me in this direction in the first place. And he certainly doesn’t come off too well in those accounts, the accounts of the Velvets.) Part of the problem IS the sort of “authorized” quality of the Metal Machine Music recording we have at hand. Maybe they couldn’t get the rights unless Lou got his grimy fingers all over it. And I recommend not believing everything he has to say on the subject. In a way, for me, the best analogue for this recording is the Bang on a Can All-Stars recording of Music For Airports, which was one of the very first of these “classical” covers of popular music (there are many others: Alarm Will Sound covering Aphex Twin (great in spots); that jazz pianist Brad Mehldau (sp) covering Radiohead (not terribly interesting to me, as Radiohead is only fleetingly compelling, I think); Ensemble Moderne doing Frank Zappa (quite spectacular on the first disc)). In the Music For Airports performance the balancing act is just as intense, because it too is really loop-oriented. On the original MMM, the piece is recorded in loops, but it’s really hard to tell where the loops begin and end, as the piece has no melodic center. It would be easy to duplicate this piece, in a way, by saying: okay the drone lasts for 48 minutes, or however long the original LP would have lasted. With Music For Airports, the loops are melodic, so you have to score out the whole thing for the exact number of repetitions that you have on the original. What was great about the Bang on a Can recording is that as the album wears on, they take greater liberties with the original, so that by the final piece (“2/2”) they have a clarinet adding these filigrees of new melody expanding on what was, originally, a piece for analogue synthesizer. This is a hallmark of the sub-genre (serious music renderings of pop), and I think, as with Proust’s description of metaphor (in Proust on Ruskin, I think), serious music achieves best when the rendering is at the greatest possible distance from the original. Clarinet and analogue synthesizer, e.g. Anyway, for me, this recording of MMM has a similar feel, and the transcription must have been arduous, yes, and the performance was probably arduous, yes, but remember that the original piece was four sides of an LP, and thus had breaks in it too. So there’s a rationale for pauses. And as far as doing it before a live audience goes, there’s the issue of how “classical” ensembles get paid. Usually, a piece is a commissioned for a specific venue (the Berlin Opera House, e.g.), and it’s possible that Zeitkratzer didn’t record the piece first because they had the arrangement with Berlin Opera House to perform it. One of my very favorite recent albums, A Crimson Grail by Rhys Chatham, is scored for 400 electric guitars, and that piece was performed first (in fact, I don’t think it would be possible to do it in a studio setting, unless you rented out an entire concert hall), in a church (can’t remember which right now) in Paris. I think Zeitkratzer sort of had that piece in mind when doing this one, or that’s my guess.
If you can set aside the contextual issues, which I agree are genuine issues, is it possible to enjoy the piece? I admit that I love drones, and I don’t experience drones as difficult listening at all. They calm me down. In the same way that we have both agreed that “extreme” repetition works on the limbic system. I’m thinking for example of La Monte Young’s tamboura-only piece, which lasts for an hour. Or many of his other pieces, or the very long Feldman pieces (which I don’t think count, really, because they actually have melodic development, if extremely slow and repetitious melodic development). The original recording of MMM was actually, however, slightly irritating. I think there was some kind of tritone or minor-second harmonic thing therein that was designed to impede your ability to “enjoy” the drone. My tolerance for dissonance has increased dramatically since I was a young person, since first hearing the piece, and I confess that there’s a lot that I like about MMM now. The original that is. I still find it challenging for some reason (I think it really screeches), but I like it in some ways. I don’t have a deep abiding desire to listen to it all the way through. And I think listening to drones all the way through is sort of being completist about it, and slightly anal. Coming in and out of the piece is just as reasonable an approach, and listener-centered to boot. There WERE contextual issues for me, with respect to the initial recording of MMM. Lou was in the midst of his solo career, having made recently, I think, the very lackluster Sally Can’t Dance, or the very commercial Transformer, and then he released this helping of fuck off to the fans, and it was never quite clear if it was a deliberate fuck off, or if he thought he was actually making art. There’s some very good Lester Bangs writing on the subject (in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung), and it’s in there that Lou says that there are all kinds of serious music “samples” (though this was the era before samples) buried in the mix of MMM. I resist this boast. I bet Lou recorded the piece quickly, probably not in a state that was free of intoxicants, and he wasn’t thinking at all about the long term ramifications of the piece. The Velvets were just in the process of becoming recognized for their legitimate greatness, though a lot of the reputation of that greatness was being lofted upon the shoulders of John Cale, who DID come from the La Monte Young school of drones, and maybe Lou wanted to serve some of the big fuck you in the direction of that high art stuff. He wanted to indicate that he could think “avant-garde” and that he thought it was all pretentious nonsense at the same time.
The Zeitkratzer recording pries the music loose from its earlier reputation. Or more exactly it represents an interpretation of the meaning of MMM. A very different interpretation. For me, the meaning of Zeitkratzer is in the realm of “serious” music. And partly that’s because of the textures. Lou’s piece is scored for electric guitar (feedback) and nothing but. The Zeitkratzer piece is scored for chamber orchestra, with lots of amplified strings and brass, and so on. That is “virtuosic,” which is a hallmark of serious music, especially serious music played in concert halls, and it is also performed live, which again signifies its seriousness. But if you can set that stuff aside, for me it’s actually the better and more interesting rendering off MMM, because everyone knows the guitar feeds back at certain intervals and with certain frequencies. And because the string textures are richer and more powerful than just guitar timbres. In away, Zeitkratzer interprets MMM as though it’s a Velvet Underground piece, instead of a Lou Reed piece, and in particular, a Velvet Underground piece from the Cale period. It leaves out the fuck off portion of the thing (even when Lou plays with them on the third part).
This may be a good time to opine that Lou Reed’s last two albums now, are a) an ambient electronic album for meditators (or so he says) called Hudson River Wind Meditations, and b) a trio recording called Metal Machine Trio. The latter is a clear attempt to capitalize on what was learned from the ZeitKratzer recording and for Reed to return to his roots as a droning primitivist. I think the Hudson River Wind Meditations piece is only fleetingly interesting, and I don’t find New Age electronic music relaxing. It makes me nervous (in a way that MMM, in either rendering, does not). The Metal Machine Trio album, however, is occasionally interesting. But there’s also an element of exhaustion about it, as if the idea no longer has the provocative aspect it once had (there are much more provocative players of drones, these days, than a Lou Reed in his late sixties). With the result that is sounds almost refined, kind of the way, say, that Robert Fripp sounds now, improvised, sure, virtuosic, sure, but kind of polite, too. As if what Lou Reed learned from Zeitkratzer was how to be a concert musician. Of the serious sort. That said, I like Metal Machine Trio. It’s not hard to listen to.
Maybe part of the issue is that history has passed the minimalist idea by, now, and it’s no longer possible to make a truly minimalist recording, by which I mean a recording in the style of La Monte Young, or In C, without sounding like you are quaintly associating yourself with a historical notion of counterculture and all its ancient trappings. This would depress me, if true. I still love La Monte Young and think of a performance I saw of his Second Dream brass piece as one of the great listening moments of my life. Maybe, therefore, I’m arguing for MMM, because I want to believe that you can still make music like this.
Peace,
r.
*
Rick,
I enjoy reading your thoughts on music (and look forward to the future
essays and more blog posts, both because of your insights around music
and your skills with language, but also because of some wide-field or
even freckle-level affinity). And I accept all of your clarifications
and adjustments of my granite-reared position on Zeitkratzer’s version
of Metal Machine Music, except one: I very much appreciate various
Peel Sessions because they were generally done live with some
spontaneity, but without an audience (a crowd of clappers and hooters
and whistlers),* so I assume Rhys Chatham and his four hundred
guitarists could have recorded a live performance in the Sacré-Coeur
without an audience (or at least not a significant or audible one).
Same with the Zeitkratzer ensemble. But, as usual, I’m leaving out the
economic portion (a paying crowd offsets the costs of the production),
not to mention the energy an audience provides for the performers (as
if the piece of music and one’s fellow performers aren’t sufficient
energy in and of themselves). And my bias is such that I’d always
prefer to listen to an ensemble or band practicing in the next room
(or even just listen to a recording of the session, or just feel the
resonance of the sound through the wall with my hand) than ever have
to deal with the social milieu of a live concert setting.
I still have some iTunes credit so I’ll see if any of the works you
mention (A Crimson Grail, the Ensemble Moderne’s Zappa covers, Bang on
a Can’s Eno-ing) are available next time I’m up at SFI. I agree with
your feelings regarding New Age Music (about it making you nervous),
but I would recommend one work: Steve Roach’s Structures From Silence
(not the whole album, just the title track). It’s sublime when
listened to alone in bed in the middle of the night. It’s not La Monte
Young, but it’s singular nevertheless.
Your email was stunningly generous (humbling to receive). I assume you
can/will modify/amplify it for a blog entry or music essay.
I’m listening to Dirty Three’s entire career output on shuffle today
(in all its shadow-soar and shambolic lumber).
Cheer and time,
Tim
*
perhaps someone could transcribe (for orchestra) the sounds of
various massive audience appreciation moments (encore appeals) and
make an hour long drone of that…
PS No one has tried to sneak the word “adorable” on to my property
before, not even Laura, so I found your deployment of it amusing
(although I still had the thing shot before it got ten yards past the
hedge).
*
Can I run the exchange as is on the blog? Or would that violate the Ramick code?
r.
*
Um. Okay. I’m happy to help you out, provided (as long as it wouldn’t
break your code) you mention in some sort of quick (even
parenthetical) intro that I wasn’t aware this exhange would go public
while I was writing my half, but agreed to let it appear AS IS after
the fact. That said, I trust you to do what seems true and fair to
you, as I approve of your notion of running it exactly as is (our
modest little version of an impromptu and unrehearshed Peel Session).
However, if you’re able to tidy matters for readers by italicizing (or
standardizing in some way) all titles, that strikes me as a reasonable
non-violation of the “as is” declaration. – Tim
*
Tim, I was listening to the demos of the pre-Velvets (the Warlocks?), just Reed, Cale, Morrison, rehearsing the early songs. Disc one of the box set. And it seems to be just what you want: like a John Peel session before there was John Peel. Lots of stops and starts. And beautifully skewed renderings of songs that later became classics, like “All Tomorrow’s Parties” with a Johnny Cash feel.
45 responses
It’s probably poor form to be the first to comment on a blog entry in which one participates, but I can’t resist an addendum (now that I have pre-knowledge of my words going out into a public forum).
I’ve been the assistant librarian at the Santa Fe Institute for almost a decade. The iconoclastic novelist, Cormac McCarthy, has been my “office mate” across most of those years. I’m about to leave for browner pastures, and I’ll somewhat miss my anecdotal chats with Cormac about death and science and everything not-Literature, but he has given me perhaps a final one-liner. He (self-admittedly) doesn’t think there has been any serious music since Beethoven. When I played him a snippet of Zeitkratzer’s Metal Machine Music, he screwed up his face and said: “Good God! That sounds about like sticking your head in a hornet’s nest while standing in the middle of Times Square. Why would anybody choose to listen to that?”
Zeitkratzer has also released an album in homage to the Greek composer, Iannis Xenakis. I’ve only listened to a sampling, but it sounds quite intriguing, and as Jenni Cole said at musikOMH.com:
“The result has a lot in common with Reed’s Metal Machine Music. Deliberately of course – it is no coincidence that they released their performance of Reed’s re-evaluated masterpiece and this album on the same day – and there are thematic links between them beyond the simple existence of feedback and loops. Of the two, this is the gentler, more chilled option, so laid back that it has gone beyond the horizontal.”
And Zeikratzer’s MMM also reminds me of a track from John Zorn’s Kristallnacht album entitled “Never Again.” This track is twelve minutes of glass shattering and footsteps running and comes with the warning that its high frequency noises can cause permanent hearing loss with repeated listening.
And it should be Sunn O))) — with a second “n”— of course, but still just pronounced like our own dearest star.
Okay, truth be told, I’ll miss them, not just somewhat miss them…
I enjoyed your MMM etc. exchange, but McCarthy’s reaction unleashed cackles of delight:
When I played him a snippet of Zeitkratzer’s Metal Machine Music, he screwed up his face and said: “Good God! That sounds about like sticking your head in a hornet’s nest while standing in the middle of Times Square. Why would anybody choose to listen to that?â€
Somehow this reminds me that John Cale actually studied under Xenakis, I think, when he was at Tanglewood.
Maybe Cormac would get it if he’d listened to any of the intermediate steps between Beethoven and the Velvets.
You know, I’m still thinking about this McCarthy comment, and the interesting part of it is the Times Square part. I’m curious what he thought he meant by saying a “a hornet’s nest while standing in the middle of Times Square.” I mean, leaving aside that there are no hornets in Times Square (because only three kinds of life manage to thrive there: homo sapiens, rattus norvegicus, and perplaneta Americana). Is his comment to indicate that Times Square is especially noisy? Though it is not? (Flatbush Ave. at the intersection with Atlantic, maybe, or Canal Street at Sixth Avenue.) Or is he somehow noting that this piece is in a New York City dialect, even though transcribed and performed in Berlin? Or he is somehow implying a judgment about New York City? Or saying that only a person from New York City could take this seriously? Or am I being unnecessarily sensitive as a New York City native?
On first read, I took it to mean something like: it’s very, very noisy. But the image of a hornet’s nest in the middle of Times Square is, really, unsettling and fantastic. It’s just not right. Maybe uncanny? It’s a violent image in a sort of the Judge in Blood Meridian-way.
RE this:
“Maybe Cormac would get it if he’d listened to any of the intermediate steps between Beethoven and the Velvets.”
Or maybe it’s the difference between getting it intellectually and wanting it emotionally (yes, false dichotomy, oh well). Maybe it’s jarring stimuli in general he’s imagining when referring to Times Square–a visual assault rather than an audible one. (Maybe he’s synesthetic?) Maybe he’s remembering an older Times Square or projecting a future one. Probably he doesn’t like the music and is making a funny.
Would you mind mentioning some intermediate steps? I’m curious. Thank you.
I’m not perfect on music history! At all! But let’s say that what is amazing about Beethoven is that he destroyed the notion of home key, and made it possible for the music to wander where it needed to go. Well, after him, in terms of revolutionaries, you might have Liszt or Chopin, and then maybe Wagner, all of them pushing the envelope out a little further, and then Stravinsky, of course, who caused riots, and, differently, Satie, Debussy,who impressionism took great liberties with melody and time signature, and then not long after those guys, you have the 12-tone composers, which, at least to my ears, sound more like hornets’ nests to me than MMM does. I’m thinking of Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, et al. Which is still an approach in high repute in academic circles, and which heavily influenced contemporary composers like Milton Babbitt and Elliot Carter. We’re leaving out Charles Ives, who certainly IS like a Hornet’s Nest sometimes. And we’re leaving out Stockhausen, who was a key influence on La Monte Young, who was John Cale’s collaborator (as shown above), and a singular touchstone for a lot of experimental music in the 1960s. We’re also leaving out the drone in non-Western music. In Indian classical music, in Tibetan music, in Tuvan throat singing. And so on. If Cormac has heard nothing since Beethoven, he has missed out on this kind of a progression (here’s a short version Beethoven to Wagner to Schoenberg to Stockhausen to Young to Cale to Reed), one in which Metal Machine Music might not seem so fanciful.
Perfection undesired and, beyond the point, impossible, especially where history’s concerned. However knowledge, detail and finely tuned passion are welcome. Thank you very much for this. I’ve got some listening to do–if only I could pry this damned hornet’s nest from my head.
Um, guys. . . much as I enjoyed the riffing (and the bite-sized music history lesson), it seems pretty obvious to me that Mr. McCarthy was just making a joke. (One which makes me even more interested in giving Zeikratzer’s MMM a listen . . .)
Pertinent to the Beethoven/Velvets gap: It’s been circulated (check the early 1990s interview with the NYT) that Cormac is a big country music fan. That seems as intuitive as, dude prolly doesn’t much like hanging out in Manhattan.
At the risk of squelching more entertaining speculation: I gave Cormac no context with which to work. It was a Saturday. Cormac had come to the Institute to fetch his mail and go through some papers and was surprised to see me at my desk. He asked me what was up. I told him I was downloading a piece of music. I played him 15 seconds of it before he made his comment. He was being funny, but in that particular Cormac way, like his famous statement that he doesn’t get the writings of Henry James or Proust, that it’s just not literature to him. Kidding, and not kidding. Like his declaration that the semicolon is a worthless piece of punctuation. Like the Beethoven assertion. [He was a professional crooner in his younger days and toured the Eastern Seaboard with an accompanist. He knows a lot about obscure jazz and pop music from that era.] And when asked by a researcher if he had ever read Gertrude Stein’s Making of Americans, he responded: “Good God no, are you kidding?” [“Good God!” seems to indicate mock horror for Cormac] Researcher: “Well, Tim just finished the entire thing.” Cormac: “That’s because Tim cares about literature and I don’t.” Kidding, and not kidding.
Cormac is a precision writer. And, typically, a precision speaker, despite his repetition of various anecdotes. If he had known the context for Zeitkratzer’s MMM, who knows, he might have said “…wasp’s nest on Alexanderplatz during rush hour…” or something more clever. It was an off-handed remark to an audience of one, just to say, as Nick suggests, something akin to: I hear some buzzing and some other noises. This just isn’t music to me.
And since I have the stage, let me say that Cormac has always been kind, respectful, and generous to me over the years. He’s a proverbial good guy. But his aesthetics and mine don’t often align, as yours and mine tend to do, Rick.
I understand where Tim is coming from. A strange anecdote: while not Cormac McCarthy, Elmore Leonard once said something very similar. To condense a Very Long Story into a Very Short One: Elmore (Dutch!) is an English major graduate of the University of Detroit Mercy, where I have been privileged to teach for 15 years (and the past 4 as Chair of the English Dept. –a not-glamorous job.) Elmore is a tremendously (at 84 years old) kind, humble, and funny man. He is genuine. There is absolutely no pretense with him. He has visited my film classes on several occasions, for no reason other than he was asked. No fee. No fanciness. No superstar-writer requests. Just Elmore, his constant cigarette, his trench coat, his Greek fisherman’s cap.
So: what Tim said about Cormac being a precision writer and a precision speaker. Yes. And Elmore, too. Is it men of that generation? So compact in thought and action, as opposed to the Dispersed Attention of Our Time?
All this to say: the hornet’s nest in Times Square is perfect, because it lodges in the brain. It is Memorable, just as Elmore Leonard, leaving the Commerce and Finance Building on the McNichols Campus of the University of Detroit Mercy, after speaking to my English 255: Studies in Film class, lighting up his cigarette as soon as he can, turning to me, impossibly, to say, “thanks Nick,” as if I (I!!!!) had done him a favor.
All this to say: there is a telling honesty in the generation of Cormac and Elmore. Times Square and hornets nests. The precision of nightmares,
Naturally, I don’t dispute the sweetness and charm and comedy of McCarthy and Leonard. I am in the state of luxury of knowing neither, however, and so I can subject the comment (“hornet’s nest in Times Square”)to a maximum of scrutiny, and since we are all familiar with the extremes of analytic interpretation, I can claim some approximation of those extremes as my method. This is the age just after Deconstruction, after all. Doesn’t matter if it was a joke, doesn’t matter if it was offhand, doesn’t matter if he dislikes Proust (I, myself, dislike Henry James to some degree), the comment reveals something in addition to its manifest content. Might be it reveals him, might be it reveals history, etc. etc.
Also: I like when great writers lay open their gaps. McCarthy is drenched in Faulkner, so he knows that moment of modernism, but maybe that’s the only moment of modernism he knows?
And also I’m leaving out the political here, but there’s also a lot to say about McCarthy and politics (see, e.g., NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, the book, not the movie).
I have gaps, too, of course. I just am not interested in George Eliot.
We’ve strayed a long way from Zeitkratzer’s Metal Machine Music (lay the blame for the detour at my feet for ushering Cormac into the mix).
Still, perhaps foolishly, I’ll press on. When asked what I think of McCarthy’s writing, I sometimes respond: “Mesquite-flavored Faulkner.” It’s not a very insightful remark, considering it leaves out Melville’s and Hemingway’s influences upon his body of work. And despite my fondness for Cormac as a straight-talking down-to-earth gentleman, I’d say, as a whole, McCarthy’s writings are not so maverick when considered against the expansive skies of the Western Canon. But I fall outside the majority in this opinion—from Harold Bloom to Oprah, from legions of well-read critics to a couple of my closest friends, his position in the pantheon is currently secure.
But, I must say, with fierce criticism and some personal bitterness in my voice, that McCarthy is simply not interested in the new (in the arts, that is—he’s very curious about what’s new in science). I think this is his most significant blind spot as a writer. But it could be argued that such artistic in-the-moment isolation and obstinacy is what makes his work unique in the eyes of so many.
Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, no matter one’s own reaction to it (then or now), was groundbreaking. Zeitkratzer’s version probably won’t be deemed groundbreaking over time, but a good deal of its appeal to me is that it doesn’t quite sound like anything else, not even the original from which it was derived (this line of reasoning, of course, could also be used by fans of McCarthy against the Faulkner derivation charge). Even though I can’t claim to know you, Rick, since we’ve never met, I know enough about your aesthetics to feel confident in saying you’re always thirsty for what is new—fresh, envelope-pushing, groundbreaking, sui generis, rarified, outside the box, authentic to the moment and to tomorrow and to the universal (whatever words or descriptions we might be able to agree upon)—as long as that newness isn’t new just to be new, isn’t merely a flick-of-the-wrist contrivance of circumstances. But I know you also value much of what has come before, the standards that anything new must be measured against. This blend of what got us here and what nobody else has yet seen coming always leads me back to the thought that tradition is the history of innovation.
Some fun, reading Rick, Tim (Tim I know), and Melissa…on and about Cormac.
And what a great run on music history–brief–by Rick, June 13.
I had a professor once, at UNC, who said he didn’t read novels until at least ten years after they were first published. Saved him a lot of wasted time, he felt. There’s some truth in that, no? Will anyone know or care, re Zeitkratzer, in 10 years? In 5? And, aren’t Schoenberg and Webern becoming tamer, kinder to half-century older ears…as, ‘Good God!’ Debussy and Satie have become foundations. And then creep back…listening to Schuman this a.m., with my father-in-law, who was First Oboe at Chicago for 40 years. Wish I could get him on this blog!
Not sure I had much to say here, did I. When I first read Cormac, eons back, I actually felt I was slumming…insuperable snob that I can be (Elmore, Hiassen… some secret vices), and I devoured him all, and finally confessed, and discovered so many others…same thing. I’m teaching his last two books to my Freshman lit class this fall, plus the movies (Oct 16 is latest release, on The Road, by the bye). Well , hi to Tim.
Rick, have we met? Guess I’ve read you somewhere… blank. Not as old as Cormac, me, but closing in.
“…tradition is the history of innovation” … we’re not so un-old as not to have read Tradition and Individual Talent, are we? But don’t you love to imagine how it might have gone if ____ and ___ and ___ hadn’t lived and published and endured, no matter the medium. Guyatri Spivak said in a class once, that someone would have done it, if Dryden, Faulkner, Proust, Zola..whoever…hadn’t. (Mallarme, h Tim?) I never could understand how she believed that. Sort of aesthetic evolution toward some ideal end. I wonder if I misquote her; (!)(the semicolon) I do remember arguing it with her.
Finally, Tim…. got something to send you..reading a book called The Alphabet and the Brain…Lumsden and unpronounceable….really interesting, and something about hemispheres and ‘lateralization’ leaped out at me, remembering your work on the page. Will send. So for now, xxx Kent
Yes, that other Eliot, not the one that Rick isn’t interested in (Rick’s fascinating gap). There is a decent summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradition_and_the_Individual_Talent — including this: “Harold Bloom presents a conception of tradition that differs from that of Eliot. Whereas Eliot believes that the great poet is faithful to his predecessors and evolves in a concordant manner, Bloom (according to his theory of “anxiety of influence”) envisions the “strong poet” to engage in a much more aggressive and tumultuous rebellion against tradition.”
Your blogpost, Kent, is quintessential you, intelligent and affectionate with all three elbows akimbo.
And Mallarme (damn, can’t get the diacritic aigu to stick), yes, he won’t stay swept under my rug and I don’t own a vacuum.
I look forward to receiving Alphabet and Brain —— wish I could get a new one of the latter so I could do more with the former…
But hey, bring us back on track: what’s your opinion of Reed’s MMM? And what did Rick leave out of his Concise History of Western Music other than the non-Young minimalists, who have already been covered in our earlier conversations? I’ve been trying to find something, but I’m no music scholar, and it looks like I’m going to have to admit that he nailed it, and perhaps just go off quietly and listen to my favorite Arvo Pärt compositions.
Or could you get from Homer to Coover (or Sappho to McCarthy if you prefer) in under twelve steps?
It’s strange, but also sort of right, that Cormac McCarthy has somehow entered into the whole thing. Without even knowing it, he has cast some sort of harsh Judgment. Assuming it’s true (or even sort of true) that he’s heard nothing since Beethoven (or even if that’s just another way of saying he’s not really interested in post-modern music, art, culture), then I think that makes his judgment all the more valid. And isn’t his own work strangely poised between modernism and post-modernism, with its innumerable border crossings (sounds like a parody of an MLA panel discussion), ethnic mash-ups, prose poem prose style, and violence so baroque that it verges on irony? Maybe it’s precisely because of the possible fact–not despite–that McCarthy hasn’t listened to much music since Beethoven that makes his “good God!” dismissal of Zeitkratzer’s Metal Machine Music so valuable.
Tim, I’m not going to pursue a new thread here, but I will merely note that I did know your feelings on this subject, and by and large I agree with them. I do feel that if the form isn’t growing, it’s dead. A good analogy, for me, can be found in contemporary jazz. One argument about contemporary jazz, the Crouch/Marsalis argument, is entirely canonical. It’s such an air-tight argument that even the instrumentation is fixed. The other argument about jazz (Ornette/Ayler/Thurston Moore)is so open (so “free”) that it’s hard to say what jazz even is. Apparently, it’s improvised, unless you are Anthony Braxton. I see fiction as locked in a similar death struggle, and the protagonists are obvious (not including McCarthy here, because he makes few public statements about the form, and is already canonical, whether we want him to be or not), and I side with the “free” and open axis of the debate.
Metal Machine Music has been rehabilitated by time, yes, and I suppose you’re right that the Zeitkratzer recording will be less so, since it’s sort of a Pierre Menard idea of MMM. Of course, I revere Pierre Menard’s work, for it’s high-wire anachronism, and I probably feel the same about Zeitkratzer. I happened to listen to BOTH versions of the composition this afternoon (I was trying to finish entering correx into the manuscript of my novel), and in a way the German version seemed more lyrical to me. Lou’s version, so harsh, at the time, just felt mechanical.
Have to say I just gave a first listen to the zeitkratzer version and
1. I heard hornets and Times Square. (Yes.)
and
2. I’m quite moved by the undaunted (despite the absurd ridiculousness of it) effort that went into the replication (transcription, orchestration, arrangement, rehearsal) of a “work” which Lou Reed put very, very little work into. (Did he even stick around to listen after propping the guitars against the amps?) Injecting rigor and heart into Reed’s easy trick, elevating this potential fuckoff . . .
And, Rick, your bringing in Borges’s Pierre Menard was a lovely touch, perhaps a handy summation of this entire thread. . .
As a generally creative type living in SF, feeling pretty deafened by shrieking indifference to one’s worth as such, I got a much relieving belly laugh from reading the bit about Cormac McCarthy’s exposure to MMM.
I love Cormac and Lou, and Moody, and the RUMPUS…can’t we all just get along, dogies?
This has got to be one of the coolest conversations I’ve ever had the good luck to stumble across. McCarthy’s definitely a country music fan, and enough of one that lines show up from time to time in his books. One of my favorites is in Blood Meridian when Captain White says “Hell, there’s no god in Mexicoâ€. Seems to me a straight lift from Billy Joe Shaver’s outlaw country classic “There Ain’t no God in Mexico.†The chorus runs, “There ain’t no God in Mexico, ain’t no way to understand, how that border-crossing feeling makes a fool out of a man,†which has all kinds of great implications. Then there’s The Road, where he drops the Kris Kristofferson line “please don’t tell me how the story endsâ€. Again, a pretty funny and evocative line in a book about the post-apocalypse.
Tim Ramick,
I’m hoping you check back in here, because I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your insights on working with Mr. McCarthy. I feel bad that a couple of flatulent jerks from the McCarthy website responded so rudely to your insightful posts. As you probably noticed, one of those guys couldn’t even put together a coherent sentence so you have to consider the source.
You McCarthy kids play nice, okay? We aren’t having any flame war on my blog. It’s one hundred percent respectful around here. That’s the Rumpus spirit of the thing.
I’ve really enjoyed reading these sets of posts and exploring some of The Rumpus. What a great place! I alsolanded up checking out some of the music listed here and that was a lot of fun.
Ben, wow, those sure do seem to be lines from those very songs. Thanks so much for pointing them out within The Road and Blood Meridian. Cool!
Sorry ’bout that Mr. Moody. My intent was not to transfer the flame war to your blog, but to communicate to Mr. Ramick through your blog. I got the distinct impression that he would no longer be participating at the McCarthy site. In retrospect “flatulent jerks” was a poor choice of words and I’d like to replace that with “misguided gentlemen”.
Mr Ramick’s observations were a rare look into a private man, although I was not surprised at McCarthy’s reaction to MMM. I had much the same reaction to the original (haven’t listened to the Zeitkratzer version). My favorite (post VU)Reed are “Rock & Roll Animal” and “Berlin”. McCarthy might actually like Berlin, given the subject matter.
As far as your quest to find music “unreleased, self-released, and unsigned”, check out Salt Lake City’s “Band of Annuals” (bandofannuals.com).
I am guessing that my regular readers, such as you are, are liable to miss this addendum to the above piece, but I’m not convinced it rises to the level of a new column, and, in discussing the subject with T. Ramick, I decided simply to post here, and to hope that a select few who are following these things closely will be interested. In short, I had a very interesting couple of nights last week having to do with the topic under discussion here. First, last Thursday I went to see the rescored METAL MACHINE MUSIC event at Columbia’s Miller Theatre. I think the ensemble is called Fireworks, local musicians, and in this instance they were conducted by Ulrich Krieger, the guy who scored out the Reed piece in the first place. There was a little article about the whole thing in the NY TIMES yesterday, and what was of interest to me was that Krieger and his collaborators had not finished the fourth part of the piece when Zeitkratzer, the German ensemble, first performed it, and that perhaps accounts for the big squawl of guitar feedback where part four was supposed to go on that recording. Well, the fourth part has now been finished, and at the Columbia gig there was no interruption of the wicked bowing of strings and the screeches and the thunderous (Wagnerian, as Jon Pareles says) chording of the whole. The ensemble consisted of two violins, two violas, three cellos, and one electric bass (or contrabass, maybe, electrified), accordion, tuba, two saxes (I think), percussion and piano, the latter two being bowed, alongside everything else, oh, and electric guitar, though the guitar was pretty tastefully integrated into the mix. It was, of course, fucking loud. You knew it was going to be loud when the first violinist, upon tuning everyone up, put in her own earplugs. They were handing out earplugs at the door, though without being too forceful about it, which was probably unwise. Luckily, I had planned ahead in that department. I have to say the whole thing was very thrilling, frequently sublime, like being walloped by a kind of minimalism that makes Philip Glass and John Adams look bad in its absolute understanding of and affinity for melodic purity. Whatever that one throbbing bass note was, they played it for all four movements. And you started to feel it like it was your own heartbeat, this root note, even though it didn’t pulse. It was seismic. There’s no other way to put it. A great number of people in my section of the audience left in movements two and three, and I assume that the majority were subscribers at Miller Theatre who had no idea what they were in for. Or else people were unprepared for the sheer bludgeoning loudness of the thing and were worried about their hearing(I think it’s the loudest show I ever saw outside of that Husker Du show on Halloween of 1986, and the David Johansen show in college where I actually ruptured an eardrum). But if you didn’t leave you really traveled someplace amazing. I think that La Monte Young’s kind of minimalism, the kind that motivated the Velvets in the first place, is so far out of the public eye now that you never get to hear it now, and you certainly never get to hear it live, but this was exactly that kind of minimalism: unapologetic, simple, vast, and intense. I loved it. And I was sitting just three rows behind Lou and Laurie. They seemed to like it too. Lou got up for the encore, and he looked like somebody’s dentist. But somebody’s dentist wearing a very stylish outfit.
The night following, by coincidence, I was going to see a studio gig played by the Brooklyn band Oneida, with whom I have lately become acquainted. Turned out that Kid Millions (I think that’s his stage name), the drummer of the band, had been to the Reed show too. What was interesting was how similar the phenomena were. While Oneida on its most recent recording (O RATED, which I really admire a lot, as I also love the one that preceded it, PRETEEN WEAPONRY) goes in for more mechanization, in the live setting, they reverted to the guise of a great post-hardcore punk band, but one with minimalist inclinations. In fact, their third set (there were three, separated by breaks) never settled into a real groove at all, and was more an exploration of feedback, and looped feedback (with effects) than anything else. Otherwise, the band, which does have one of the best drummers around, played rock and roll. And yet it seemed to me, in the days following, that the two shows had a great deal in common, despite the ways the rhythms sections worked in each, in that they were both summoning and recreating what minimalism was (sort of in the way that great Tony Conrad boxed set, the one called EARLY MINIMALISM, also does), through graceful updating, rather than through slavish imitation. The audiences, though, and the settings, couldn’t have been more different. The METAL MACHINE MUSIC gig was about the gentility of “classical” music gigs, while the Oneida gig was the very height of Williamsburg cool. It was by invitation only (and the invitation had nothing on it but a picture of an eye), and the clientele featured a lot of inadvisable facial hair. There was some dope smoking between sets. There were video projections of a very acid-drenched variety. Still, Oneida’s show was really moving, really ambitious, just as the Lou Reed show had been, and each ensemble, Oneida and Fireworks, seemed to make a case for the possibility that there is something out there for those of us who loved minimalism, and who don’t want to feel that the place for it in the musical landscape is gone. Especially a minimalism that is not entirely played by machines.
It was a really great couple of nights of concertgoing, although I am, again, concerned about my upper frequency hearing. My ears were ringing after METAL MACHINE MUSIC, and that was WITH earplugs.
Unadulterated envy, I suppose, is what I feel, but since I don’t want this thread to devolve into a private/public conversation between the two of us, I’ll simply quote several choice lines here as case-stating my envy (despite the ringing in your ears or the risks of hearing diminishment):
“It was seismic. There’s no other way to put it.”
“I think that La Monte Young’s kind of minimalism, the kind that motivated the Velvets in the first place, is so far out of the public eye that you never get to hear it now, and you certainly never get to hear it live, but this was exactly that kind of minimalism: unapologetic, simple, vast, and intense.”
“…each ensemble, Oneida and Fireworks, seemed to make a case for the possibility that there is something out there for those of us who loved minimalism, and who don’t want to feel that the place for it in the musical landscape is gone.”
For some odd reason, instead of this making me want to go put on Zeitkratzer’s MMM, or Reed’s original MMM, or Oneida’s Each One Teach One, or even Hüsker Dü’s New Day Rising, I’m now listening to Morton Feldman’s Patterns in a Chromatic Field.
Unapologetic, simple, vast, and intense.
“I never feel that my music is sparse or minimalist; the way fat people never really think they’re fat.” —Morton Feldman
Thanks for the update, Rick.
Lest anyone think Feldman knew not of what he spoke:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/10/17178727_9042cbeec0_o.jpg
(left to right: John Cage, Lejaren Hiller, Morton Feldman)
Sorry, Rick, but your mention of the Oneida show opens the door for me to rant here about What Oneida Means to Me. Or, to be more specific, how much I value one track of theirs, “Sheets of Easter.”
I accidentally discovered a few years ago (someone in the family put SOE on my iPod as a joke, thinking it would drive me crazy) that this one track can launch me into a focal zone unlike anything else. I listen to it on repeat, and when I’m forced to come out from under the music—have to hit pause or take off the headphones—the ensuing hush rarely fails to remind me of being at the top of a mountain, that high altitude silence of vastness and thin air.
SOE is at the same time reductionist—one note, one syllable, one vowel sound) for 14+ minutes—AND lush (layers and layers of instrumentation/vocal chant), and, with apologies here to Mssrs. Moody and Ramick, Oneida’s undaunted, sustained attack on this one track makes Orthrelm’s “OV” (yes, THAT “OV,” with its 45 minutes of repeated riffs) seem dodgey in comparison.
Thanks for the concert reports, Rick. Would have loved to have caught both shows. . .
Ms. L: I’d hesitate before calling anything by Orthrelm (or Ocrilim, or Octis) “dodgey”—but if you’re talking purity here (might you be talking purity here?), I wouldn’t argue against Oneida’s “Sheets of Easter” in the annals of non-ritualistic repetition. Though it appears as if you’re trying to take the brilliant pop confection that is indeed Oneida’s “Sheets of Easter” and turn it into THE shroud-of-sound holy grail* for the ADHD’ers of the world…
*sorry for stirring sacred relics into a mixed metaphor
Yes, Mr. R, I might very well be talking purity here. So there’s no argument. (Though I should probably ask what you mean by “non-ritualistic” repetition?)
I don’t mean to disparage Orthrelm (Ocrilim/Octis*) at all. I do understand that it takes artistry to sculpt the repeat as Orthrelm/Mick Barr has done, energetically and intuitively. I’m just saying that, regarding “Sheets of Easter,” I admire the way Oneida doesn’t flinch, keeps pushing the repetition past the point where most of us would think to go.
And, yes, the track provides a remarkable tunnel of focus for me. Focus, as anybody with attention issues will tell you, ain’t no piece of cake. So “pop confection,” no. “Shroud-of-sound holy grail,” absolutely.
Something that repeats for reasons other than the dictates of ritual.
I’m still waiting for the other asterisk to drop…
Oh, it’s fairly harmless: *Wonder what Mick Barr would name his children, if he had (does he have?) any
Harmless to us, maybe, but not to any potential Barr-kids. These are but some of his children:
http://www.discogs.com/Octis-Or12r3-Uppragn-Srilimia-Ixioor-Ocrilim-Nollfithes-Mrithixyl/release/779312
I just listened to “Sheets of Easter” for the first time in a while and it was, as always, even if only played once, sublime (where does your iTunes play count of “SoE” stand these days, by the way, and how will you celebrate the thousandth playing?)—but now I’m listening to Or:12r3 and it’s sublimer (as if it were etching valentines to you on every one of my molecules)…
I know, I know, someone ought to put a stop to this.
Why isn’t Lou Reed our dentist? Do we even have a dentist? Can we listen to Zeitkratzer’s MMM again tonight over supper (I’ve made leftover spaghetti)?
Whoa, Mick! I had no idea the extent of his linguistic stretching. Makes form-content sense for the music, though.
“SoE” play count: 1309 on my work computer. But that’s after a reinstall of iTunes where the count got lost and I had to start over. And that’s not counting the laptop or iPod. Or the times when the song’s on autopilot in my head.
OK, so I don’t know OR:12r3 but will check it out when I get home. And am headed there now. MMM and mmmmm . . .
Some thoughts from Alex V. Cook found here:
http://alexvcook.blogspot.com/2010/02/do-slayer-next.html
“Reed’s original is caustic and unyielding; the Zeitkratzer is more akin to a concerto for bagpipes and belt sanders – difficult and abrasive, erosive even, but not corrosive. Zeitkratzer chews you to bits with titanium razor teeth; the original coughs up acid on you and waits until you can be slurped up like cold soup.”
As Cook suggests, “destroy your brain” with Reed’s original MMM here:
http://www.lala.com/#album/504684633537608946/Lou_Reed/Metal_Machine_Music
I note herewith that the actual song by Oneida is called “Sheet of Easter,” and I wonder what the plural “s” is bringing you guys that the song does not already have. Please advise.
Rick,
I assume you went to iTunes for a listen. iTunes has it listed incorrectly, as a single sheet (perhaps throwing off the top sheet because matters had become TOO HOT). The CD itself (I’m looking at it now) has it as “Sheets of Easter”—as do the live YouTube versions (all are awful and partial and you shouldn’t think of them as anywhere near properly representing the experience of listening to the studio version).
Another online authority (also sometimes wrong, but not in this case): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_(band)
“The most striking and consistent aspect of Oneida’s music is their use of and fascination with repetition. Their 2002 LP, Each One Teach One, for instance, begins with two especially long tracks, Sheets of Easter and Antiobiotics, the former over fourteen minutes long, the latter more than sixteen. Both of these songs are composed of one repeated riff (with a few short interludes on Antiobiotics).”
I’ve all too often had to correct typos when downloading songs from iTunes.
Nonetheless, we don’t know what’s behind the title “Sheets of Easter”—and although it’s more or less composed of a single riff, it does feel like sheets of something, not just a sheet of something.
As L says above:
“SOE is at the same time reductionist—one note, one syllable, one vowel sound) for 14+ minutes—AND lush (layers and layers of instrumentation/vocal chant).”
PS The 2CD Each One Teach One is worth buying for “Sheets of Easter” alone, but “Antibiotics” is also of note (in its insistence on repetition), and the second disc is more “song” oriented, but still good, along the lines of the later albums you mention above.
By the way, that iTunes clip, as a 20-second teaser, gives only the vaguest notion of the richness of modulated sounds the CD version contains (when listened to on a good home or car stereo—or with headphones on an iPod or computer). Could one extrapolate from those 20 seconds what fourteen minutes of that enveloping sound would FEEL like? No, one couldn’t, and shouldn’t.
I just bought it! I didn’t have the album. I had only the later stuff. Going to ask Kid Millions what the title means. Maybe he will be forthcoming.
Tim, I have lodged an official request with Oneida about “Sheets of Easter” and Kid Millions has responded thus:
“Well I could tell you the source of the title but I don’t think it will illuminate the song at all . . . . There is no one dominant or proscribed meaning that we wish to convey.”
Which is probably sort of how I would answer the question myself were it asked of me.
Might be interesting to see what kind of lullabye mojo is interwoven there. (You could probably ask Fat Bobby Matador Rob — he may have already tried it out at home)
Ms. L, I finally listened to your beloved “Sheets of Easter,” and it sure is amazing. At first you think no please don’t make me do this, and then you settle in and the repetitions are full of variation (because the drumming is so excellent), and you sort of want it never to stop. I can only imagine that it made it hard to do anything else for the band, that recording. But it is really moving, beautiful, and persuasive. I could listen to it all day.
Thanks for the update, Rick. Am really glad you responded to the music like that — sounds like you get what I’ve been talking about.
And now I think my work here is done. . .
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