41020 [2021)

A silver mt. zion.

Montreal.

Hotel tango.

Sighing synths.

Leonard Cohen.

Getting cold.

Lee Hazlewood.

Arizona into the Rockies.

Wyoming.

Road music.

Music of wide open spaces.

Charles Mingus checks in.

Bob Dylan.

Tumbleweeds.

Was QAnon bullshit?

WFMU seems to think so.

And all their hipster listeners.

Missing the Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

Chris Isaak.

My Bloody Valentine.

R.E.M.

Automatic for the people.

Rightly asking if this guy, Pauly Deathwish, is Borat.

Elvis working at the truck stop.

Nevada.

New Mexico.

Into French philosophy at a Barnes & Noble.

Film criticism.

Cinematic music.

The great philosophers.

Taking on Philip Glass.

Rachmaninoff.

Swedish version.

Poor girl with grey teeth.

Dirty bra.

Addicted to Kardashians.

And meth.

Smoking candy cigarettes.

Brutal, cold world.

No fall back.

Withdrawal back.

Wanna lock me for blood pressure.

It ain’t no cakewalk.

Ripoff.

Tech moves fast.

Write anything.

Better than nothing.

Bad press.

No press.

You have a printing press.

The Innocence Mission.

Miles.

Porgy and Bess.

A thousand planes.

Two ambient instrumentals to start this album.

Setting an amber tone.

Pensive.

Ex-pensive.

Time is a luxury.

And Miles comes in.

Bending notes.

Sighing again.

Like music from Big Pink.

John Simon.

Leonard Cohen.

Very much of the Deserter’s Songs type.

Song cycle.

Van Dyke.

And Coltrane leaps in.

No bends.

Solid sax.

Honky.

Low mids.

Leaping up.

Transposition.

A little noodling.

And WHAT THE FUCK.

Now we are in Blue Hawaii.

On a jukebox in Nashville.

Sawdust on the floor.

Just spit that tabaccy anywheres.

It really is Elvis.

Loaded.

Lou Reed.

Doo-wop.

We’re in east Texas with George Jones.

Straight country.

Classic country.

Bona fide redneck interpolation.

“Daisies on Your Doorstep”.

Troubled relationship.

Robert Altman.

Nashville.

Hitchcock.

Traut.

Birds.

Grandaddy invades!

Modesto!!

And back to EXPANSIVE verb.

Cathedral.

Serious shit.

Country gothic.

Phil Spector would have loved this.

The plandemic that killed Phil Spector.

Biggest celebrity to buy the farm.

Buy the farm?

Or sell the farm?

During this whole plandemic.

Write copy.

Boilerplate.

You have no publicity.

I block all reposts.

I wanna EARN it.

Organic.

Diminished 7th.

Dissolve into what?

More Mercury Rev homage.

Drums from “Desperado”.

Another lonely bloke ended by “Holes”.

Favorite song ever.

Happy end.

Drunk room.

Tom Waits.

The chord.

Spring.

Le Sacre.

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

Knife in the Water.

Austin.

R.E.M. again.

Big Star.

John Cale droning away on the viola.

No tremolo.

Swing it.

Ragged time.

Texarkana.

Arkansas.

And Texas.

Definite Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci nod.

Nick Drake.

Again The Innocence Mission.

Birds.

Pink Floyd.

Fairport Convention.

Psych barn.

The Byrds.

Gram Parsons.

Neil Young big time.

Stooges meet Beach Boys meet Messiaen.

But the Bowie knife is orange.

Made in Germany.

Kanye West and Wayne Coyne drop in.

An anti-hit.

When you can sing, but you get raped by auto-tune.

Loosen that shit up.

Going all Arabic on me.

Raga.

Spinal Tap.

Clouds of sound on almost every track.

A very ambient album.

Mood set.

Mood retained.

Mature.

Duran Duran.

Peaches DJ Berlin.

Where’s Warhol?

Nigel Godrich.

Jonny Greenwood.

Thom Yorke.

Grinderman.

Roger Waters again.

Microtonal blues.

Straight into Bjork.

Does she umlaut?

Sounds of a Mac.

Swan.

Alarm clock.

Gentle waking.

Paganini.

Rachmaninoff.

Elton John.

Stevie Wonder.

Sly Stone.

James Bond in Rio.

Drax.

Os Mutantes.

Jobim.

Korean frogs.

Shinto.

Spy guitar for reprise.

Tom Verlaine.

Richard Lloyd.

Paul Simon.

Rhythm of the saints.

Graceland.

Beethoven emperor concerto.

Slow.

Beloved.

Tokyo.

Press roll.

Sushi.

Kill bounce.

Phil Selway.

Colin Greenwood?

A masterful track.

“Icelandic Pastiche”.

NOW WE’RE TALKING.

Papa Trump back in the house.

For the apocalypse.

Rocky Balboa.

L.L. Cool J.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Second coming.

To save.

Vengeance is his.

Everyone given a chance.

A fair chance.

NASA.

I hear a single.

“Landslide”.

Wisconsin decertified.

Ramthun came through.

About fucking time.

There’s a riot goin’ on.

Paperclip Nazis.

Eric Carmen.

Smokey Robinson.

Tears of a motherfucking clown.

Oboe.

Michael Stipe.

Gil Evans.

Having the French horns get groovy.

Amelie.

Sketches of Spain.

Sunday morning.

Loveless.

Kevin Shields.

Belinda.

The Soft Bulletin.

Christ coming down from the clouds.

Like a ton of bricks.

Anvil.

Don’t call it a comeback.

Not all the way.

Staple Singers.

Rick Danko.

Rocket pans across stereo field.

Jesus talkin’.

Crucified.

Died.

Buried.

AND ROSE AGAIN, MOTHERFUCKERS.

Jesus more space than NASA.

Really a masterpiece of sample placement.

Crystal-clear mix.

Clouseau.

Peter Sellers.

Bass solo.

Absolute Mingus.

Bloody jaw-dropping.

This is like a fucking lost Roland Kirk album.

This track!

Concerto for Booty and Orchestra.

Montreux.

Can never spell.

System hacked.

No more spelling.

Adieu au langage.

Flute loops.

Cocteau Twins.

Ties together album.

Last track coming on like Faust.

Built to Spill.

Silver Apples.

In memory of a bloke who bit it.

End of Night on Earth.

Real recorder.

Charity.

You will live forever, my friend.

I never knew you.

You aren’t forgotten.

Thought of you put in this track.

Catharsis.

Yerself is steam.

Smashing Pumpkins.

Siamese.

Great album by Pauly Deathwish.

Spotify.

iTunes.

Solid.

-PD


SNL Season 1 Episode 2 [1975)

Leave it to the wacky crew of fledgling SNL to throw a curveball on pitch two.

No.  That’s not a good enough metaphor.

Rather.

It’s like a hard rock band which decides to “break it down” two songs into their set.

Yeah.  That’s a little better.

This one.

Really has an off-the-cuff feel of experimentation.

Like, “Hey…Garfunkel is in!  Garfunkel is in!”

Yes, this is really a musical special rather than a true Saturday Night Live episode.

I must be honest.

Paul Simon starts out pretty bland.

I was skeptical.

I mean, I like the guy, but the first couple of songs are a little clunky–a little underwhelming.

But then things pick up.  Big time!

I’ve always heard “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” as a magical song.  It is other.  And though the mellow duo of Simon & Garfunkel don’t play that particular tune on this show, they go to that magical other place for a string of songs.  “The Boxer”…”Scarborough Fair”…it is bloody jawdropping.

Just these two dudes.  No band.  Nothing to cover for flubs.  Paul with his fingerpicks on.  Never misses a note.  And Art with his delicate voice…as poised as his Bob Ross hair.

And the songs!  My God, the songs!  The lyrics about “the boxer”…this passage in particular:

And he carries the reminders
Of ev’ry glove that laid him down
And cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame,
“I am leaving, I am leaving.”
But the fighter still remains.

Goddamn.  Those last two lines.  I’m leaving, but the fighter still remains.

And then those opening fingerpicked notes of “Scarborough Fair” with the capo midway up the neck.  So delicate.  So many blurred harmonies.  Like a clavichord.

But hold your horses!

Randy Newman is here too.  At the piano.  Doing “Sail Away”…and those lazy, studied dissonances reminiscent of Charles Ives.  And the words…as delicate a political statement as Chuck Berry’s “Back in the USA”…

To break things up, Paul plays Connie Hawkins in a game of one-on-one basketball with Marv Albert getting the sideline interview.  What a bizarre and hilarious bit!!!

But the song that really got me was “Marie” by Paul Simon (actually a Randy Newman composition).  I’ve loved you since the moment I first saw you (or something like that).  Man…  This guy!  And that song…

I will admit that I never really “got” Simon & Garfunkel till I saw this episode.  And Paul Simon I knew mainly from the later stuff…the great albums like Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints.  Like I said:  some of Paul’s solo stuff falls flat, but on the whole the guy is one hell of a talent!!!

Phoebe Snow didn’t do as much for me here as Janis Ian did in the first episode, but hey:  the lady was seven-months pregnant.  There’s no doubt Snow had a truckload of talent.  The repertoire was a bit questionable, but that might not have been her fault.

Also, before I forget:  Art’s solo rendition here of “I Only Have Eyes for You” is otherworldly.  Nobody does it like that anymore!  Truly a fount of inspiration!!

And so there’s very little Chevy Chase, no Aykroyd, no Belushi…but it was kinda worth it for the musical happening which transpired.

A nice curveball 🙂

 

-PD