Mobius Shift

I
Screeching tires echoed through Jim Malone’s head as he struggled to open his eyes. The light stung his cornea as his eyelids peeled away from a thick mucus crust. Head pounding to an erratic rhythm, (1, 2, skip, 1, skip, 2, 1…) Jim felt his whole body lying on a hard warm surface. Sirens screamed and intermittent horn honks blasted from no where, gained intensity and began to fade in volume before Jim could gather his bearings. I can’t remember, he thought as his vision slipped into focus, how I got here at all. I’m lying on a sidewalk and I need to get up and figure out what’s going on.

Finally moving his arms, Jim pushed himself up to one knee. Rubbing his pounding head, he got up to his feet and scanned his surroundings, searching for something familiar. A broken analog bank clock stood directly above him, hands stopped around 10:15. He inspected the area further without making any steps. I’m in some downtown, he thought, there’s some palm trees, some closed up shops, some tall buildings down the road: I’ve never been here before! His head swam as it continued to pound its erratic beat. Two street signs indicated the corner of Central Avenue and 8th Street.

Head still pounding and confused, Jim felt a bulge in his back left pocket. I never keep anything in that pocket, he thought as he reached with his left hand. Jim gripped the contents tightly and pulled out a crumpled envelope. Hand shaking, he thought, I don’t remember putting that in there.

Jim uncrumpled the envelope and found an address scrawled hastily in his own penmanship:
Dr. Kathleen Morlock
246 West 17th Street
New York, New York 10031

A stamp was placed crookedly on the top right corner of the envelope but there was no return address. Jim ran his fingers over the surface of the paper. Absent mindedly, as if in a trance he said aloud in a scratchy voice, “A mailbox… I need to find a mailbox.” I don’t remember, he thought as he tried to access his defunct memory, writing any friggin’ letter.

Jim scoured the surrounding cityscape for a mailbox, but saw nothing. Nothing but closed down businesses and boarded up windows, he reflected. Finally, after standing in place since he arose from the sidewalk, Jim took steps toward what looked like the heart of downtown. Stumbling at first, the pounding in Jim’s head intensified sharply. Ignoring the pain and confusion, Jim pushed his body forward.

After five minutes of walking down Central Avenue, Jim spotted a business that looked open with a hand painted sign above the door. The building was noticeably narrow and long. As Jim approached the establishment, the sign came into focus and read, THE DROP CLOTH TAVERN. What a stupid name for a bar, Jim thought with amusement. He chuckled to himself and the pounding in his head subsided. I just needed to laugh, he mused to himself. Trying to relax and come to terms with reality and his lost memory, Jim walked up to the door, grabbed the handle, pulled the door open and walked through the threshold.


II
As Jim walked into the narrow building, he found himself in a huge, airy high school gymnasium. Jim stopped dead in his tracks, thoughts racing incoherently. Struggling to form cohesive ideas, he said aloud, “There is no way this is the inside of that building I just walked into.” Jim felt his body shaking with terror and confusion. Turning back to the door he just walked through, he pushed it open and stuck his head through the doorway while hanging on to the wooden frame. He saw a carpeted hallway with numbered doors that looked like a run down motel built in the 1950s and completely neglected since the owners cut the ribbon at the grand opening. Lime and mildew stains ran halfway up the stucco walls and cobwebs cluttered the medium height ceiling. Jim practically jumped back into the gymnasium and slammed the door shut.

Okay, okay, Jim thought, this is a dream, you trans-locate when you walk through doors: Don’t panic! He felt fresh sweat form on his forehead and it dripped down around his eyebrow onto his cheek before it fell off his face. Nope, not a dream, he concluded. Jim’s breathing intensified as he attempted to come to terms with his situation. Well, I have no memory of how I got on the sidewalk, I have a letter in my pocket I don’t remember writing, I was in a city I’ve never been to before and I wind up in completely different locations when I walk through doors like I’m in a damned Tardis from Doctor Who or something. These thoughts raced through his head in different orders and swirled into a mashed ball of reasoning, memory and speculation.

Jim heard a rustling that interrupted his thoughts and reasoning and he crooked his head to the right. On the bleachers of the gymnasium stood an extremely tall black bird headed man wearing a black suit and holding a large silver pocket watch connected by a chain to his vest. Jim gasped and fell backwards against the closed door, fumbling for the handle. Absolute terror gripped his body as his motor functions stuttered. The bird man stared ominously at Jim and made no sound. The bird man’s huge eyes devoured Jim’s fragile grip on reality and sent pangs of fear up and down his spine.

Shivering and unable to break the stare, Jim finally pushed the door open and practically jumped through the threshold. Looking through the door before it closed, Jim saw the bird man look down at his pocket watch. At least he didn’t follow me, Jim thought as he panted and tried to calm himself down. What the hell is going on with me?

Lost in thought, Jim found himself in a darkened meeting room lit by an old fashioned light bulb projector that whirred and hissed. A man stood beside the machine and 3 other men and one woman sat around a table. Jim kept himself crouched and hidden behind a filing cabinet. Presently, the standing man was in mid-sentenced and Jim heard him say, “…and so, we will be able to implant the ability to bend reality and trans-locate. By combining time travel technology with human perception, reality will become relative to our soldiers’ wishes. The sea change in ability will aid in assignation, espionage, the apprehension of terrorists and the propagation of misinformation, thus reestablishing the dominance of our currently flagging intelligence agencies. Through frontal lobe brain surgery, we have the ability to…”

“We don’t need to sit through your techno-babbly again,” a man seated to the right of the projector interrupted. “I want to examine the profitability and sustainability of this project. You remember profit, don’t you Steve?” The man stood up and placed a transparency on the projector. “Direct your attention to the screen lady and gentlemen. Sit down, Steve,” he ordered as Steve sat down grumbling to himself. “This is Kathleen Morlock. She invented a traditional Wellesian time machine while in our employ. Since we moved forward with the perception implants, Morlock disappeared with a working prototype of her time machine.”

Another man chimed in, “She’s our biggest threat; running around time as she pleases!”

“This wild card will inhibit the stability of this investment and needs to be eliminated. I am certain that she will intervene and disrupt our experiments and implementation of this program. Now, to stop her, I suggest…,” he paused as he reached for another transparency. As he placed the slide down, his audience gasped in unison. Scrawled in red marker, the machine’s light bulb projected the message, “GET OUT OF HERE JIM!” and a quickly doodled picture of the bird man with an arrow pointing to the standing man. Jim’s eyes widened as he noticed for the first time that the standing man wore the same suit as the bird man he encountered moments earlier. “Aw, Christ,” the standing man said absently. Jim stared at the swinging silver chain of the pocket watch for a second and then dashed toward the door he came in, pulled it open and ran through.

Jim carefully left the door ajar. There’s no way, he thought, those suits can follow me. I think I’m getting the hang of this. Suddenly, Jim felt a presence behind him and turned 180 degrees away from the door and faced the apartment. Startled, Jim saw the bird man directly in the front him. Terror once again consumed Jim, but this time he stood his ground instead of stumbling and falling.

“What do you want from me!?” Jim screamed a little louder than he intended.

Saying nothing, the bird man pulled out his pocket watch and tapped the glass three times. Click, click, click. Calmly, he placed the watch back in his pocket. Jim could not resist the threatening and gripping stare of the bird man. The huge eyes, large round black pupils bordered by hazy yellow circles and bloodshot white seemed to pulsate and breathe. As the eyes lulled Jim off his guard, the bird man reached out menacingly with a feathered hand and took an aggressive step toward Jim. Above the bird man’s right shoulder, Jim saw the word “RUN” scrawled on the wall in dripping red. Jim broke the trance, his heart skipped a beat and he bolted out the open door.

Finding himself in a long hallway with numbered doors, Jim ran as fast as he could, not looking back. Maybe they can follow me, he thought as he ran, and maybe I can outsmart them. Who’s leaving me these messages? These clues? My first impulse is that I’ve been through this before and I’m leaving them for myself. That’s stupid. If I’ve been through this before, how would I go to the same locations every time? Is my path programmed? I assumed this doorway gimmick whipped me around completely randomly. One way to find out…

He saw a door open slightly to his left and a closed door to his right. He stopped running and looked back down the hallway. Nobody. Suddenly, he saw a young female maid with a cleaning cart working her way through the rooms. Jim ran up to her and stopped at her cart. Startled, she cringed but grabbed the cart firmly in defense.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m sorry to startle you. I stayed in room 613 last night”, he said, pointing to the adjacent door, “and I think I forgot my wallet. Can you open the door?”

She looked at him sheepishly, still angry from being startled a few moments earlier. “Is against company policy,” she mumbled in a thick Russian accent.

“Please, ma’am. I had a lot of money in there. I’ll give you fifty bucks from the wallet if you open the door.”

Her eyes lit up but she eyed him cautiously, “I no trust you. But this room next. Move.” As she opened the door, Jim ran through it and continued running down a city sidewalk. Damn, this is weird, he thought. I wonder what that maid saw as I ran through that door. He heard a maniacal chuckling echoing against the buildings coming from above. He looked over his right shoulder and saw a 6 or 7 story parking garage. Jim shuddered as he saw the outline of the bird man on the roof of the building. Jim thought furiously as he looked forward and continued to run: how did he find me? And why haven’t I found a damn mailbox yet?

III
Downtown once again, a frustrated Jim Malone stopped running and caught some breath. This is the same city, he thought, these guys must be fucking with me. Maybe they can see me right now. I can hear them laughing at me.

As Jim’s thoughts jumbled and mashed together, he passed a newspaper vendor. The vendor, at least 80, had no teeth and scabby skin all over his body. He held out a newspaper at Jim. Absently, Jim grabbed the paper, trying not the stare at the abject creature’s crusty arm. I need a distraction, he thought, something to ground my thoughts.

As Jim looked down at the newspaper, it looked like a collage of words and phrases. Headlines mashed together to form incoherent messages: “The Natural World Long Awaited Clash… Once the New Kid, Silver One Will Follow… Long-Awaited Flow Hero Lend Fish…” Blinking heavily, Jim stared at the paper again. The words seemed to fade and pulse intermittently on the page. Jim threw the paper on the ground and looked up at the ailing vendor. “What is this crap?” he asked harshly.

“I don’t control the headlines, mister,” he rasped.

“Never mind. I’ve wasted too much time here anyway. Is there a mailbox in this city or no?”

The old man did not reply but simply raised his rotting arm and extended a purple finger toward a building behind Jim. “Thanks,” Jim squawked curtly as he turned to run. Around the far corner of the building, Jim found a blue mailbox. “Finally!” he said aloud to no one. He took the crumpled envelope out of his back pocket and shoved it into the mailbox.

Immediately after dropping the letter, Jim sensed a presence to his right. He turned and felt riddled with fear because he expected the birdman. Instead a young woman stood there and she quickly moved to embrace him. Jim, it’s me, Morlock. I got your letter. I’m going to get you out of this.”

Baffled, he pushed her away and asked, “How did you get here in 2 seconds?”

“We’ll have time for answers later. We’ve gotta go; we’re being monitored. We’ve only got two minutes to make this work.”

“What’s happening to me? Every time I go through a door I end up somewhere different. But I seem to be following a predetermined path. And this crazy bird guy keeps following me around and staring at his damned watch,” Jim mumbled, pauses thoughtfully and continued, “I don’t think this is the first time I’ve been through all this…”

“Shut up for a second. I’ve got to concentrate,” she commanded as she pulled out a tube and large screwdriver from her coat. Suddenly, she noticed a man dressed in a black suit lurking in the shadows of an alley. She left Jim mumbling to himself and rushed toward the man. Jim recognized him from the meeting and definitely recognized that suit. Jim tried to speak but his lips were dry and his throat scratchy. “Don’t, that’s the…” he began, but she wasn’t listening.

Morlock pounced on the stranger and shoved the screwdriver up to his neck. “Still after me, Jenkins!? I got to him first! Tell your bosses they can’t steal a human soul and get away with it!”

Calmly, Jenkins spoke in a soft, menacing voice and said, “Your language paints progress in such a negative light.”

Morlock slapped him across the face. “That doesn’t even make sense! I’m getting Jim out of this circus act!”

Jenkins’ mouth curled up into an evil grin. “You’re too late! Look!” he said in a satisfied voice as he pointed to the street behind them. Morlock turned her head and saw that Jim was gone. Simultaneously, Jenkins pointed a gun to Morlock’s temple. As she turned her head back around, the blood rushed out of her face as she saw the huge bird man staring her directly in the eye with a gun pointed at her skull.

Jim opened his eyes and found himself under a highway overpass. The desolate landscape flooded Jim with loneliness and failure. He crumpled to the ground and slammed his fist on the pavement, screaming, “I can’t get away from this garbage! Release me from this nightmare,” he looks up and sees only the bottom of a highway. No clouds, no sky. “I can’t stand it anymore! I can feel my atoms separating and my brain is oozing out of my forehead! There’s no way out! I can’t breathe!” Jim’s vision faded and his thoughts violently clashed and jumbled inside his head.

A long black sedan rolled up to the corner of Central Avenue and 8th Street. A door opened and big arms threw Jim Malone out onto the sidewalk. The door slammed and the car squealed its tires and sped off recklessly. Screeching tires echoed through Jim Malone’s head as he struggled to open his eyes.

Contemplating the Engine Room

Revisiting an unappreciated classic, I contemplate my insatiable request for artists to produce meaningful work throughout their careers. There is no end to creativity- no excuse to fall back on past accomplishments. i.e.- John Doe's new album sounds really good.

Is there a difference in authenticity between the constant flow of artistic output by people like Mike Watt, John Doe or Sonic Youth and the recent flux of "comeback artists" like Mission of Burma, Bad Brains etc? The latter bands released amazing albums in 2006/7 respectively. I don't think everyone can be as prolific as Billy Childish, but there is a certain authenticity to maintaining a constant pouring of artistic expression. The statements by bands like Mission of Burma with the Obliterati, Bad Brains with Build a Nation or Mary Weiss (w/ the Reigning Sound) with Dangerous Game are complete and genuine, regardless of years between output. This absolutely baffles me, but also gives me hope.

No one needs to rely on nostalgia to continue contributing authenticity to the rock n roll trash landscape.

Is this a completely American phenomenon? The Jesus and Mary Chain is boring me to death and Gang of Four wasn't that exciting a couple years ago. But wait! Radio Birdman is australian and they still friggin rock... Deniz Tek is from Michigan though. hmm...

As this screaming thought jumbles into useless rambling, I can't help but think about the cliche American do or die spirit. Are we that stubborn? Do we really refuse defeat? Well, we are still murdering people in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shit.

simplicity versus minimalism

The Ramones give me a certain feeling that other bands cannot quite reach. I am overwhelmed by all that can be expressed by simple chords and beats. I wish phil spector and graham gould would have died before 1980. I am currently listening to the demos from the dated sounding "pleasant dreams" album of 1981 and um.... The Ramones were still writing amazing sounding songs. The demos are raw and uncontrolled by festering 60s icons trying to remain involved with the sound of the future. I don't think you understand. Without the Ramones we wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't be in any bands and America would still be trying to recover from the British Invasion. Their music was simple but textured perfectly in the context of the aesthetic tapped by the history of the Velvet Underground/Stooges/MC5/New York Dolls etc. John Lydon can run around all day and pretend the Ramones were just a joke. Ha. Between them and Richard Hell the sex pistols would not have had anyone to rip off anyway... but I digress. Minimalism remains an establishment of the American cop out art scene, but I think there needs to be a distinction between this movement and Simplicity. Basically, Simplicity towers over Minimalism in terms of authenticity because the same goals of technical production are still reached with an effective simple approach. The difference can best be expressed by the relationship between the art movement called Stuckism and Duchamp's legacy of "found art." A stuckist is equal to a found artist in training and "skill" (loaded word), but a stuckist painting expresses a whole narrative while conceptual art lacks any meaningful context unless it is supplied by the conceptual artist. Minimalism begs the important question of what qualities allow something to be considered art, but fails ultimately at answering.

There remains a concern that rock n roll should not be considered art anyway. It is a very interesting place to draw the snob line, but I do not think that it fits. More is said about the state of the world in a Ramones song about sniffing glue than in 30 or 35 Rothko paintings. Now, compare Kandinsky with Rothko and realize how unnecessary the latter seems. Kandinsky, through simple shapes and colors, created beautiful landscapes and textures concerning the post World War I feelings about the wasteful loss of life. Once again, Minimalism remains a redundant buzz word from the 1950s while simplicity in art continues to inspire generations toward authenticity through entirely new works and actions within the art world and beyond.

abandoned

Wooden nickles flow toward me while I attempt an honest assessment of my current situation. Bygone songs with stubborn backbeats and howling vocal chords ooze through my stereo speakers. All at once, I secretly pray for the return to normalcy and carrying on. The speakers jangle with poignant but devestating music about decay and loneliness. Unable to continue within the confines of these walls, I revert to memories of nervous breakdowns and escape. If there were a way out, I would take it without hesitation. Unfortunately, my only option remains fleeing the familiar and running away from my desperation. I choose the easy way out; escape confinement and hit the road. I feel unworthy of sympathy because my problems are trite and personal, and without guidance I follow my path alone. I am exhausted and tingling with fear about shoddy plans and procrastination. The time reads both early and late, for I have committed to believe in the natural progression of time and an immutable reality. This existence passes by regardless of perception in the Grand Scheme of Things, and I refuse the assistance of bollocks support of failed instincts.

I continue along a path that leads to a life of no salvation. I seek such inane hope wherever I can find it. Love, Rock n' Roll, Literature and Art have all done their part to create a false sense of security and arrogance toward the meaning of life. I feel enlightened because I suffer and, more importantly, because I exist.

Hippie Bongos of Conformity

Guitar strapped across my back, downtown belched aspirations of success and conformity. Music and sound ripped across the breeze like a seagull after a fish, and no one could snuff the flame of performance. Bar bands squeeled popular tunes while a black man strummed his guitar to death. Authenticity defied the cover bands and I bestowed its title on the sphere of energy emminating from the man skrunched up in fetal position, rocking back and forth, and singing a beautiful song at breakneck speed. I admired him as I walked by with my own guitar stagnant and across my back. My path brushed by some women singing in an alcove of an oyster bar and finally to a hippie with a bongo and a crusty old man with a saxophone. The hippie asked me to play and I reluctantly agreed, throwing out warnings of my lack of ability and differing aesthetic. Persistently, the hippie requested that I strum him some music, and so I abliged him. My out of tune guitar sang in the evening breeze and skronked across the downtown landscape.

The hippie cringed and offered, "Hey, I can fix your guitar for you."
As if the deer in the headlights expression was not enough, I explained, "Please don't touch it. This tuning is very important to me."
He skoffed, "Well it's all wrong," as he took the guitar from me and attempted to drag some eric clapton blues out of the awkward tuning. Failing at this he seethed, "These strings aren't even tuned to notes. This is terrible and wrong." Vanquished, he returned the guitar to me and I started debating aesthetics and skronk and bla bla bla. The crusty old man chimed in, "You're never going to make it, playing like that."
I stared at the hat on the ground containing two dollars and fifty three cents and thought... Firstly, I don't want to "make it," and if you represent "making it," I am definitely not interested...

Just then another, more political hippie bounded down the sidewalk brandishing a bob dylan shirt. This imagery really excited hippie number one, and he began relating to me on the merits of dylan. I explained, "I have a gripe against bob dylan because he always wanted to have the appearance of cutting edge without doing any of the work. All he did was change genres when it wasn't what people expected."

The hippie, completely abstracted with anger, clenched his teeth and threatened, "You'd better watch what you say about bob."
I tried to explain my thoughts on celebrity and how I thought no one was safe from criticism bla bla bla but it fell on deaf ears. The hippie was now ignoring me so I said something snotty like, "Well, thanks for ignoring me, talk to you later," and walked across the street. I started strumming some chords (not the correct ones) and began singing
come gather round people, wherever you roam/
and admit that the water around you has grown/
bla bla bla
the times they are a changin

I belted these forgotten yet familiar lyrics across the downtown st. petersburg landscape, and I felt vaguely satisfied. Complacency and acceptance of tradition guts our generation and makes our corpses ripe for maggot infestation. Maggots of corporate homogenization and settling for what is presented to us as art and culture will surely continue with or without my resistence. Just like pissing in the wind, I spit in the face of violent, conformist hippies, just as I breathe the polluted air and pretend I acheived something.

Velvets part 5- White Light Blistering and Live

White Light/White Heat was released in 1968, after the zenith of the “psychedelic” recordings of the Beatles and Rolling Stones. While the first record was played in real time in the studio through the motherboard with low volume in the studio itself, the second record cut out the middle man. They decided to try to capture the intensity of their live set by recording everything as loud as humanly possible. Naturally, according to guitarist Sterling Morrison:

[t]here was fantastic leakage because everyone was playing so loud and we had so much electronic junk with us in the studio – all these fuzzers and compressors. Gary Kellgran the engineer, who is ultra-competent, told us repeatedly: ‘You can’t do it – all the needles are on red.’ And we reacted as we always reacted: ‘Look, we don’t know what goes on in there and we don’t want to hear about it. Just do the best you can.’ And so the album is all fuzzy, there’s all that white noise… We wanted to do something electronic and energetic. We had the energy and the electronics, but we didn’t know that it couldn’t be recorded… What we were trying to do was really fry the tracks, (Heylin, “Velvets to the Voidoids” 25).

There are several important points within this recollection of the White Light/White Heat sessions. Firstly, the band knew what they wanted regardless of knowledge of the process regarding how to make it reality. This sense of experimentation carries through to the record itself with the sound described by Morrison. The recording is much muddier than the first album, although the band maintains its sense of boundaries regarding instruments and pitch. The aesthetic of electronics in Rock n’ Roll music was nowhere to be found in 1968. This sound of instruments drenched with distortion was something completely new. The execution of these ideas is best expressed by the title track and the last song, “Sister Ray.”
“White Light/White Heat” starts the album of the same name with a very rapid tempo and fuzzy instruments. The pulsing guitars are juxtaposed by a Jerry Lewis hammered out piano line. The bass is interesting because it is more prevalent than in other bands. In fact, “[m]ost bass players play two-dimensional notes, but john plays three-dimensional granit slabs (it’s a question of intonation and density, not volume; it’s like the difference between Rauschenberg’s two-dimensional Coke bottles and Warhol’s three-dimensional Campbell soup cans) which reveal an absolute mastery of his instruments and a penetrating awareness of the most minute details of his music,” (Heylin, “In Print” 75). Besides texture, these bass lines are very simple and inspired by minimalism’s repetition. At the end of the track, the bass cuts through the fuzz and hits a series of high notes that oscillate until it ends. This relationship results from the live interplay of the studio pushed to its limits as far as volume is concerned. The fuzz of these recordings makes the music very textured so that it seems that there is something new to hear every time the record is played. This is especially true with the Velvet Underground’s magnum opus, “Sister Ray.”

When I Say I'm in Luv, You Best Believe I'm in Luv L-U-V

I know three bands that have prefaced a song with the line that titles this article: The Nation of Ulysses, The New York Dolls and The Shangri Las. The importance and influence of the latter on American rock n roll perpetuates to this day. Most importantly, their aesthetic informed the Ramones directly as an example of the alternative to the bloated mid 70s rock acts that dominated the scene. Mary Weiss was only 14 when the Shangri Las started recording around 1963, which puts her about the same age and generation as Fred Cole (who recorded the single "Poverty Shack" that year as Deep Soul Cole when he was 14). This trend of young performers resulted from the growing marketability of the teenagers with disposable incomes. After all, the teenager had only been invented as an age group about a decade before. Relatable icons gave consumers a direct relationship with the performers, and once the Beatles exploded in 1963, promoters grasped at the chance to exploit these trends.

The Shangri Las oozed with the sexuality of the young Mary Weiss's voice. Regardless of age, those recordings captured her powerful yet sultry voice while allowing the instrumentation to fully manifest the atmosphere behind the tunes. Leaving behind the seeds of influence and legend, The Shangri Las broke up in the mid 60s and Mary Weiss disappeared off the face of the planet. I accepted the recordings I found and assumed that nothing new would spew from this lineage. The news of a Mary Weiss album forty years later blindsided anyone the least bit interested in the history of rock n roll. With the deaths of Arthur Lee and Syd Barrett still lodged in recent memory, a new record from an infamous legend of the 1960s poured down our throats to welcoming bellies.

Norton Records released Dangerous Game by Mary Weiss earlier this year. Greg Cartwright, a garage rock legend in his own right, and his band the Reigning Sound provided the penmanship and backing of this album and subsequent tour. Overall, the recordings once again capture the essence of Mary Weiss on wax while not attempting to emulate the Shangri Las style of music. This album completes the circle of influence as some of the songs reiterate the legacy of the Ramones with Mary's powerful voice filling in perfectly. Joey Ramone wet dream aside, this album succeeds as a complete expression and return of a legend. Mary Weiss's voice remains drenched in mature vs childish sexual energy that defies age as it did when she was 14. We expect art created by our elders to be safe and cleaned up because they somehow lose the vulgarity of youth somewhere along the path to adulthood. Alternatively, this album is called Dangerous Game for a reason. Mary Weiss maintains an aura of danger regardless of how many years have passed since she was born. She is still dangerous and still sings with conviction and power that will convert any strays back to the flock of rock n roll.

The First Two Velvet Underground Records-part 4: European Son and Live Improvisation

While “Heroin” exemplifies all this about the aesthetics of The Velvet Underground and Nico, “European Son” explains the direction of the band in terms of loose song structure and lack of precise mimicry between performances.

This track serves as a culmination of all the ideas throughout the record. There is plenty of interplay between instruments, primitive drums, etc. “European Son” also addresses the question about the relationship between music as live performance and a recorded document. It is a departure from the notions of pop music found in the other songs on the album, and has avant-garde leanings. For example, “there’s a chair being scraped across the room by Cale, at which point he stops in front of Lou, who drops a glass… The engineer, he’s saying, ‘My God, What are you doing?’… It was tremendous, because it is in time, and the music starts right up. I don’t know how we timed it like that… [but ‘European Son’] was just different every time. There was no structure, we just did it,” (Heylin, “Velvets to the Voidoids” 20). The choice to abandon pop sensibilities and structure was very ambitious in 1966. Even the Beatles would throw in their versions of John Cage in their pop records in a few years. On the other hand, the Beatles did their avant-garde leaning work in the studio exclusively. They never presented it in live concert for whatever reason. The Velvet Underground not only played “European Son” live, but did not value the aesthetic of perfect reproduction. Instead, they decided to embrace how different they could make their songs, avoiding the jukebox feeling of playing the same songs over and over ad nauseam until something snapped. The Velvets allowed for songs to be interpreted differently every time and made their sets more interesting for them and more engaging for the audience. At the same time, they captured only one possible performance of a song like “European Son” on record. Instead of just mass reproduction, they recorded a unique version of their song that could not be reproduced by the band note for note. This addresses the theory of aura put forward by Benjamin. This song maintains its aura and authenticity even though it has been mass reproduced because it was a unique performance. If Benjamin was worried about classical music being mass produced instead of being seen live, he might be comforted by music that was not notated or written down to be preserved, but just recorded one time. This song also helps to push the record past the point of music as entertainment and moves it toward the world of art. This is another statement against pure mass production for the sake of mass consumption. It does not pander to the audience but rather speaks for itself in terms of artistic quality. This trend would not disappear during the second album, but instead was explored in a different way.

Fight for Every Losing Cause

Memory fades and blurs but the past remains as events that transpire before the moment we currently find ourselves experiencing. Regardless of what we can remember, something has happened. I was born in an area of northern Maine called Aroostook County. The climate taunts the citizenry to stay warm and sane with nine months of harsh winter and enough snow/ice to keep anyone down. The Air Force base closed before I was halfway through grade school and the economy imploded without a forced citizenry. Businesses closed, schools were shut down and the population simply decreased. My father was a chiropractor, and he fought against public opinion/stereotypes, insurance companies and the standard medical profession for 25 years. Aroostook County continued to limp on without a lifeline, but growth and stability were fading memories. I grew up thinking that I could make a difference because so many people around me were appreciative of my patronage. Born to support lost causes and failing ideas, I naturally thought my experience represented the status quo. As everything around me crumbled and began to deteriorate, I remained defiant by maintaining faith in the natural course of events, and optimism guided my decisions to support local business and independent thought.

As I write this, Aroostook County is dead. My hometown, Presque Isle, was once the artery of a vast logging and potato industry. Now, boarded up cinemas and businesses fester while jobs scamper away like fleeing mice from a flaming building. Amazingly, I refuse discouragement. I still fight for lost causes everyday and attempt conversions to my point of view. Post modernism sucked this fight out of most of the populace and entertainment keeps the rest occupied, but I suffered Aroostook County salvation. Nothing discourages me to the point of quitting because I personally witnessed the destruction of an entire community. I will not be the savior by any means, but nor will I relent in my discourse against the apathetic quicksand that demoralizes our youth and justifies our elders. Impossibilities inherent in the words "lost cause" construct mentalities that destroy confidence in dramatic change and support apathy in every way. If hope means naivete and conviction means pipe dream, then we are lost. Dreaming about a future free from boundaries on thought and discussion should not be seen as dangerous or taboo, but embraced as a treasure to the collective human experience.

The First Two Velvet Underground Records-part 3: Heroin

Leaving behind all shock value and taboo of the title, “Heroin” is a very infamous song. It has been regarded as one of the best Rock n’ Roll songs ever written by some and frivolous garbage by others. Basically, two guitar chords alternate with a droning viola and some primitive, Bo Diddley inspired out of time drums filling out the track. There is a gradual build up of the music and tension until a release of noisy improvisation. The repetition of the two chord song is destroyed by this departure because the guitars start playing really fast, sloppy lead and the viola turns from a drone to a screeching wail. This interaction is possible through the live instruments and the build up and release adds an immediacy that could not be replicated by separate studio recordings. By the time of the crescendo, the tempo is very fast. The aesthetic of speed supports the immediacy of the live performance as well. The droning and belching of the electric viola do not fit the aesthetic of catchy pop music. It encompasses the backdrop of the melody and remains stubborn and not catchy for the whole track. The live interplay creates competition between the droning electric viola and the biting two chords of the clean guitar, but the separate tones do not clash or overpower one another. Instead, the instruments spar and create some very interesting sonic connections. This relationship makes the music sound like a complete statement because there is nothing that has been left out, and every note, whether it’s in key, strummed properly or not, is necessary to the overall picture.

The drumming on “Heroin” is the best example of favoring mistakes rather than vying for perfection. The three other instruments were “plugged directly into the board,” (Hamelman, 79). Since Maureen Tucker (the drummer) could not hear the output of the instruments and could not see Lou Reed’s lips as he sang, “throughout the original track, Tucker’s drums [were] out of synch with the other instruments. She [battered] her two tom-toms at a tempo either behind or ahead of the guitars and vocals… at one point she stopped thumping altogether,” (Hamelman, 79). The funniest part of the recording was that for Tucker “They didn’t have their amps up loud in the studio, so of course I couldn’t hear anything… And when we got to the part where you speed up... it just became this mountain of drum noise in front of me. I couldn’t hear shit… So I stopped, and being a little wacky, they just kept going, and that’s the one we took,” (Heylin, “Velvets to the Voidoids” 23). This incident exemplifies the recording style of the first Velvet Underground record. On first listening to “Heroin”, it could be inferred that the drumming inequalities could have been done on purpose, for the sake of art. It could also be conjectured that the drummer could have been completely inept and possessed no skills of timing at all. In fact, neither of these myths is true. Since the recording was live and the choices were made to keep the take with the most glaring mistake on it, i.e. the entire drumming track, the song represents the Velvets desire to take the music as it came.

Sound Collage and Fighter Jets

Tampa drowns itself out with noise from highways, fighter jets, construction equipment and motor vehicles. It is not different from any other city in that regard, but it seemed very concentrated last night while I was sitting on the trunk of my car outside of Transitions Art Gallery. Bands came and went (as did huge trucks careening over us on the interstate) but Hal Mcgee and Ironing referenced and destroyed these tendencies of collaged sound throughout the evening. Textual noise ripped apart shards of prerecorded spoken word while two men dressed in black hovered over electronic apparatus and tape machines. Sound filled the room and attacked my ears with an ocean of textures and waves of frequencies not common to the human register. All at once, tapes began twirling through the air at break neck speed, while the music continued to howl and a voice was caught between screeches and repeated "the song...the song...the song." The tapes vacated into the audience and the sound began to fade... the means of creation had been dispersed and broken up so that the collage could never be duplicated in the same way ever again.

The First Two Velvet Underground Records-part 2: Banana Banana

The Velvet Underground recorded as live as they could in the studio, while favoring influences from the American minimalist and avant-garde movements rather than just ordinary Rock n’ Roll or Blues. This also challenged conventional notions concerning the relationship between entertainment and art in Rock records and performance. Their decision to record live rather than embrace the tendency of contemporaries was a statement about the authenticity of recording values. The Velvet’s aesthetic favored creating sounds on record that were produced by four people in a room together. The most interesting point of this scenario is that the first two Velvet Underground records sound much more freakish and experimental than anything done by the Beatles.

The Velvet Underground and Nico was released in 1966. This record changed the boundaries of Rock n’ Roll records by creating exciting new sounds through live interaction, repetition and the electric viola. The aesthetic that was exemplified by this record was not one of precise replication, but rather just playing the songs the way they came out. Further, they chose not to fix mistakes or discrepancies in the recordings in any way. These notions can be best explained through two tracks, "Heroin" and "European Son."

When playing live directly the motherboard of a recording studio, it is very difficult to distinguish between different sounds. The Velvets consciously set up each instrument to fill a different pitch of music. There is a twangy, “ostrich guitar” (Hamelman, 79), droning or screeching electric viola, bass and drums. The drums are focused on tribal thumps and use very few symbol or crash noises. This dynamic separated the music and recorded every sound in a very specific realm.

Indie Rock and other Marketing Terms

Indie rock dwindles and staggers without moving forward. I am becoming more and more ashamed of liking bands donning this title at one time or another. I'm tired of gimmicks and full to the brim of this moderate rock nonsense without any conviction or soul. Amazingly, the term indie now applies to a barrage of major label music, not just independent. I am not against bands with record contracts with major labels as a whole or anything so one sided, I am just confused concerning our use of the English language. Maybe I'm just naive, but I always thought that indie meant independent. Corporations have stolen this word to splash their Wilcos and Modest Mouses with the authenticity of Fugazi. That does not make one better or the other, but it is essential for survival in this post-modern culture to define our terms accurately. Isn't it important that Fugazi worked really hard to manage a record label and charge reasonable prices for their shows without corporate sponsorship? Bands like the Killers are cashing in on this sentiment by writing songs about "Indie Rock n Roll"- and we are letting it happen! Let's start with sacred ground: Sonic Youth is not an indie band, and they haven't been since before 1990. They were independent before they signed to Geffen Records, but now they are not. That does not diminish from what they have accomplished, but they are not allowed to keep that label. The musicians still involve themselves with their own labels and projects that are independent, but that does not transfer to the band. Does anyone call Pearl Jam indie because Eddie Vedder played a few shows with Mike Watt? I hope not. This may sound like inconsequential drivel, but think about it... there are "independent" movies being distributed by Warner Brothers as we speak! Doesn't anyone see a problem with this!? If we let them have this label like we allowed them to steal punk and shit out new wave on us, then we gained nothing since Nevermind. Major label albums can be moving and relevant and punk rock can sell albums and still retain vitality. It is very important to understand that independent is to indie as punk is to new wave. The powers in control are so quick to figure out how our counterculture works and exploit it that we do not stand a chance; especially if we allow them to steal the fervor for resistance.

Complaining will not get me anywhere, so allow me to address the positives of this debacle. More and more, the enemy is revealing itself to us. We do not need to fear bands that are on major labels- that is a business decision. If they are making music that is thought provoking or challenging the lowest common denominator in any way, then the manufacturer is irrelevant. I fear bands that sign major record contracts and still label themselves indie. This music is just another clique that stubbornly retains the high school herd mentality into early to late 20 something culture. Increasingly, understanding whether a band is honest or full of beans can be measured by emphasis on labels like indie, punk or whatever in a corporate setting. The battle is not independent versus major anymore- rather, the line rips between us at the point of real or fake.

The First Two Velvet Underground Records-part 1: The Psychedelic Recording Trends of the Late 1960s

Music production values in the rock and pop world of the 1960s were increasingly based on fidelity and clarity of reproduction. Multiple track recording allowed these intense layers of music to be piled on top of each other. Also, the instruments and sounds could be recorded at different times or places. This pushed the music toward the aesthetic of being more layered and combining sounds that could not necessarily be reproduced by a group in real time. The recording history of the Beatles is the best measure of aesthetic value during this period. In the beginning of their career, the Beatles’ records were representations of their live sets. As the decade continued, their production became more complicated and disjointed. The albums Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour were the pinnacle of this path. These recordings emphasized a big sound created by studio production and new recording techniques bred out of the use of multiple tracks to record. However, this aesthetic did not occur in a vacuum. Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Rolling Stones is another record that manifests this trend. The myth surrounding this album is that the band recorded everything in separate rooms and put it together afterwards because they were not getting along at the time. These albums came to be titled psychedelic, but more appropriately represented the attitudes and practices of late ‘60s recording techniques. While these efforts to become trickier in the studio were culminating in 1967, the trend had already been addressed and completely ignored by the Velvet Underground in 1966.

Cut and Paste Abstraction

Empire is still a word we are very afraid of in America, but the spread of western influence to the four corners of the globe was a long, forceful process that has been the focus of many nations and empires. It seems that since American aggression is more subtle and patient during this time period, it is fitting that the fruits of these conquests are so long lasting and relevant even today. The victims do not “die” immediately like in traditional battle, but rather whole cultures are taken over and modeled to be profitable for investors and overlords. These trends exemplify the movement as one of ongoing strikes from labor unions, a loss of public trust in the incumbent government, fear over terrorism and international entanglements and a general breakdown of a seemingly comfortable new world order. You are probably pretty aware that the biggest revolutions come out of the most depressed areas culturally, but this created an atmosphere where censorship was not very necessary because the artists were too afraid to do anything radical or had fled the country. Let’s start learning about the protest of the Chicago Democratic convention in 1968, when the MC5 started playing and were supposed to be backed up by their brothers and sisters in rebellion, and find themselves all alone with the police moving in. The Northeast was very frightened of losing their political control with more territories added to the Union, so the FRC allocated stations different bandwidths in order to eliminate the chaos that had characterized early radio. Basically, these white people thought that their dark skinned fellow humans were of a completely different history and completely incompatible with white values and traditions. I was particularly surprised that the loyalists of Napoleon were looking for a place to put their fallen leader in Eastern Texas. We go to great lengths trying to convince ourselves that everything we do as a nation is done as selflessly as possible. Obviously, this country did not want to support any art that digressed with their world view or criticized them in any way. If I was molded during the same time these educated representatives of American interests were, I would most likely be one of the oppressors. The popular opinion is that American interference in other countries is for the good of the invaded, not for empire building. I just wrote this song called, “Tampa Tried to Kill Patti Smith,” because she fell off a stage in Tampa and broke her neck or something here in about ’78 or so. Overall this was an uncertain time, filled with many obstacles for everyday life. Do you think this area of suburban Florida or maybe faux city environment has shaped your music or personality in any way or ways? The natives could not defeat the invaders because they could never completely unify against their oppressors. It is only foreign because today every single thing in the world seems state sanctioned, especially the happenings on the continental United States. They did this to capture a raw sound, but there are times when the music was so loud that members of the band couldn’t hear what was going on. Stations would come and go on specific tunings, making the listening experience a kind of experimental practice. It is also unfamiliar that all these people were raising arms and armies and attacking places practically independent of state support. Governments around the world spent trillions of dollars over the next month beefing up their police forces to keep the revolutions down. These characteristics simply lose some of their importance when they are mass produced, especially the texture and size.

They're at it again... or My Letter to My Congress People 4-22-07

None of us can afford our own radio station. We spent many years stuck in the gutter of broadcasting hell. Corporate rule over the airwaves has completely homogenized them and their power castrated our every attempt to take them back. The fees that have kept broadcasting in the hands of the elite have completely sucked the life out of FM radio. There is no reason to support Clear Channel stations because they play only lowest common denominator music that is not challenging or interesting in any way. If we are to survive this cultural wasteland we have created for ourselves, we need a way to find new sources of art and and music.

Internet Radio gave us such a choice. We can listen to radio stations or podcasts without the hampering of corporate control and the horror of premeditated playlists. Also, these internet radio stations that are completely virgin to corporate domination actually play music that would not be heard otherwise. It might be that the music is too advanced or follows no marketing trend, but these artists deserve a chance to get heard. I can see no reason to homogenize everything that has a chance to be free in this country and this is definitely a question of freedom. Don't forget- corporations are not citizens. They should not have more rights than voters do, regardless of how much money they contribute to whom. The people of this country deserve better than to be pandered to by music trends that meander and linger on until we all want to put a bullet through our radio sets.

All in all, these fees against the internet radio community is a crime against American cultural development. I'm sure everyone in Washington is tired of having citizens bring up the First Amendment, but we just can't help it. What is free about corporate owned opinions and music? What is free about squeezing the life out of something that makes so many people feel better about their existence? Finally, what is free about letting corporations rule this country instead of the people?

Notes on Microwave Windows- 4-20-2007 or Tarpon Springs Strikes Back

Screaming, pulsing waves of electronic frequencies sliced through my every molecule for the sake of cultural experience. I'm not one to mince words, and Microwave Windows' set at Bridie Gannons on 4-20 kicked the snot right out of Tarpon Springs. She didn't see it coming. The sonic onslaught began with textured analog synth manipulated through a table-full of junk processors and effects. The sound echoed off every corner of the irish bar and shook up the complacent crowd. The guitar pulsed repeating ooze out into the windy Tarpon Springs night and chimed with ecstasy at every face turned to delight or retching. All of a sudden, this hip old lady, drunk, at the bar starts yelling "It sounds like fucking Star Wars!" while textured samples of American dialogue began shitting out of the speakers. "Kill-Kill-Kill-K-Kill Iraq Iraq Kill Iraq" stumbled over the other sounds flowing throughout the room. Apparently, all of this cacophony caused the bartender to shit his pants. The frequencies removed the control of his bowels and he had no faculty over his normal excretive functions. He motioned to turn it down-and it was turned down a little... but like a good Ravi Shankar mind fuck, the momentum builds upon itself organically until someone either gets it or tells him to turn it off. Sadly, the bartender with shit in his pants pulled the plug on Microwave Windows. This set exists only in the memories of the few who attended and the nightmares of the shit-stained bartender, but it was worth every second. Windows of perception opened for me over a Rolling Rock in a nice little bar with the sound of the apocalypse pounding and chiming while the textures ebbed and flowed through each and every one of our beings... whether we welcomed it or not.

www.myspace.com/themicrowavewindows

To begin...

Society-Consumerism-Capitalism-Corporations-Art-Rock n' Roll-Conviction

Words grow thin as we fail to see the connections or relevance in our own lives. We remain complacent and hope to move forward without speaking out or standing up. Are these words on top of the page really that taboo? Are we allowed to address these issues of conformity and mediocrity that plague our very being? I don't think that a blog is going to help change anything, but maybe I can explore some themes that America is afraid of through records and opinion in order to help myself transcend this cultural wasteland. There are precious few voices in the wilderness, and most of them are mocked for taking themselves too seriously. Screeching suburban landscapes cram my head full of doubt while I desire optimism. Most importantly, the words independent and generation have become marketing tools in order to trap us within our own convictions. I'm not treading new ground or bringing up points that haven't been around for decades. In fact, I believe that time began to stop around 1974 and hasn't progressed since about 1980. Accepting or ignoring, the only two attitudes expressed so far regarding this phenomenon, perpetuate the stoppage of time indefinitely. I resolve to stop letting it get me down and use these words of conflict to create debate and stir up confusion and fear... or at least allow these feelings to be addressed.