Some Came Running

"Corpse" love

Almost immediately (in historical time) after Robert Benayoun's citation of "authentic sadistic cinema" (in his 1960 essay "Zaroff; or, the prosperities of vice") and a good two decades before Nick Zedd's rather less eloquent "Cinema of Transgression" manifesto, the Brazilian writer-actor-director José Mojica Marins grew his fingernails long and whipped out the character Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe) for a few galvanic films in which his actors, plucked from the slums of Sao Paolo, were compelled to enact the tortures of the damned in circumstances that didn't involve green screens or squibs. "Authentic" indeed. I've ruminated on Coffin Joe in these parts before, so I won't reiterate my theses here but merely point out that one of the most galvanic of Marins' '60s films, This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (Este Noite Encarnerei No Teu Cadáver) will be screening this Thursday, August 14, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater at 9:30 p.m., with a live guitar score provided by my pal Gary Lucas, who recently worked sonic wonders with the Spanish-language version of Universal's Dracula. More info on the event here. The film's visit-to-hell sequence, the only color scene in this black-and-white film, is a particularly squirm-inducing highlight, an oozy bit of body-horror faux-psychedelia that expelled the entire aesthetic of such outfits as The Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black, from its pulsing brow. I imagine Gary's found some genuine inspiration in these images and I very much look forward to seeing and hearing. 

UPDATE: Because the film has an often prominent and pretty "far out" score of its own, composed by Herminio Gimenéz, Gary's accompaniment was even more of a high-wire act than usual, but the extra slathering of psych-rock and baroque motifs and carefully-carefree-with-that-axe sound effects the guitarist laid on over the film made it even more of a fantastic faux-nihilist trip on a pitch-black midnight ship. As usual, there was no shortage of wit to Lucas' musical commentary, but more often than not his music was a deliciously decadent directive not to beware of darkness but to surrender to it, at least for just a little while. Awesome. 

One for Danny

Did I ever tell you guys about the first screenplay I ever wrote, or, rather, co-wrote? No, I didn't think so. Among other things, I figured that doing so might foster the misconception that I went into criticism as a "frustrated" filmmaker, which is really not the case. But in any event, I'm gonna get into it now, not for any sake except to tell you about a great guy I came to know in that period, and about how you might be able to help him out right about now. 

In the very early '80s, when I was kind of poised between flunking out of college and figuring out what I was gonna do with my life after I flunked out of college, a pal I'll refer to as Stefan K. approached My Close Personal Friend (and once and future bandmate) Ron Goldberg and me with the request that we pen a screenplay. Stefan had been looking at the numbers, and doing prodigious market research. He had recently completed a stint working down south for Earl Owensby, understand who will. And he was convinced that with the right concept and $500,000, he could make a splash in the industry with an independent feature. Said feature would have to appeal to the youth market, so the three of us, under the influence, if I'm not mistaken, of a not insubstantial amount of marijuana and a television viewing of Beach Blanket Bingo, came up with the notion of a "New Wave" beach movie pastiche, to be called, in true postmodernist fashion, Beach Movie. 

As you may have already suspected, we were being a little to clever for our own good right off the bat. (And the hits just kept on coming; we dubbed the motel the protagonists would stay in the "Sun Ray," and specified that the neon "y" in its name would flash out sporadically, get it, huh, huh?) But that's neither here nor there. As we labored on the script we also went about setting up meetings and getting "letters of agreement" from various talent, local and otherwise. We signed Floyd "Uncle Floyd" Vivino to play the role of the beloved owner of the beach burger-and-beer joint, which, our scenario dictated, was in danger of being run off by a sharklike fast-food sushi entrepreneur (we really wanted Michael O'Donahue for that part but never got to him). Jane Modean and Russell Todd were to play our young protagonists Bud and Dina. And then there were the bands. Since we were doing a beach movie, it behooved us to seek out the band that was The Ventures, The Shadows, The Davie Allan and the Arrows, etc., of our time. Improbable as it seemed, there existed just such a band: The Raybeats.

The Raybeats almost literally rose from the ashes of the very frenetic and confrontational "no-wave" band The Contortions. That band's drummer Don Christensen, guitarist Jody Harris, and bassist George Scott teamed with comporser and multi-instrumentalits Pat Irwin and set about very consciously concocted a distinct alternative form of musical entertainment than was common at the time. That is, they were fun. Unabashed fun. They played a very infectious blend of surf and twang music with various progressive and spacey and jazzy inflections. They offered a combination of originals and extremely knowing covers (their version of The Shadows' "The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt" is very nearly the equal of the near-untouchable original) and they worked their asses off; a typical show for them consisted of two one-hours sets and a generous batch of encores. Their inception was alas marked and marred by tragedy, when Scott died of a heroin overdose in the summer of 1980. The fellows, who'd formed a pretty tight bond by that time, decided to keep on, and they were lucky to find the slightly younger Danny Amis, who had recently blown in from Minneapolis (hence his composition "The Calhoun Surf," which he originated with the Overtones back in Minnesota). When you're in your 20s, an age difference of five or six years seems a lot bigger than it does when you're older, and Danny's relative youth—born in 1959, he was pretty much my age—and the circumstances under which he joined the fraternity kind of gave him the permanent status of "the new kid," with many of the drawbacks that designation almost invariably confers.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Beach Movie team tracked down the Raybeats, set up a meeting, explained our scenario and ambitions, and to our grand surprise, they loved the idea and were incredibly enthusiastic about it. Also to our surprise was the fact that they were among the most approachable, funny, and nice guys we'd had the privilege of meeting in show business, as it were. You have to remember, as fun as the Raybeats really were, if you'd first encountered them as Contortions, they came off as pretty intimidating. Look at the back cover of No New York, the compilation album Eno produced in the late '70s, and check out the blurry individual portraits of all the musicians involved. They look like mug shots at best. But the Raybeats in real life went very much against that impression: they were loose, funny, smart, literate, accessible and not only ready but entirely willing to work with a trio of schmucks from New Jersey who hadn't much of a fucking clue as to what they were on about. The band really got a kick out of the eccentricities of our storyline; in this particular beach movie, the motorcycle gang turned out to be a troupe of performance artists doing a "piece," and Donny Christensen, who knew and worked with Phillip Glass a bit, actually had a notion that Glass might have an interest in playing the "gang" "leader." That didn't pan out. But the 'Beats put us in touch with The Waitresses, the one-time Chris Butler solo lark that transmogrified into a real band after his song "Wait Here, I'll Be Right Back," retitled "I Know What Boys Like," became a sleeper hit. The Waitresses, too, were eager to come on board, as was its saxist Mars Williams' weird side combo Swollen Monkeys, which were led by the great Ralph Carney. 

As you can imagine, we were in clover as we began to hang out and become friends with these people we were such huge fans of. As Ron and I worked on drafts of the script, we expanded the participation of the Raybeats so that they actually had speaking parts, and we based their dialogue on their actual interaction, in what we took to be true A Hard Day's Night style; Donny was the sage with the dry sense of observation (I remember in real life how he once referred to sometime collaborator Lydia Lunch as "not exactly what you'd call a team player"), Pat the laid-back quiet one who was also the most studious worker; Jody the skewed mordant wit (Ron and I have never forgotten the particular way in which he said, remembering a particularly bad musical experience, "I just about lost the will to live"), and Danny the sweet, slightly shy goof who was quick with bad puns. And Danny was the guy we wound up hanging out with the most. He was living in Hoboken, in a big multi-floor brownstone apartment with Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, who at the time were collaborating on amusing comic-strip style record reviews for New York Rocker and who would soon form Yo La Tengo. Danny had this amazing vinyl collection of records by celebrities not known for their singing—what Rhino would later designate the "Golden Throats of Hollywood." Ron and I knew about Shatner's Transformed Man, and Nimoy's Bilbo Baggins song, but on various afternoons at Danny's place he introduced us to many wonders: Telly Savalas' monstrous long players, Chad Everett's near-comatose blandness, and of course the epic aural spectacle of Sebastian Cabot, actor, reading the words of Bob Dylan, poet. He was just an absolute sweetheart and great to hang out with.

Things didn't work out with Beach Movie. Modean and Todd, oddly enough, wound up starring in actual movies Spring Break and Where The Boys Are '84, respectively. Our own concept found its way into the lap of David Sonenberg, then-manager of Meat Loaf, or something—there seemed to be some litigation going on at the time—who was very eager to break into film, but somewhat skeptical about our ideas and our choices of bands. He wanted us to take apart the script, which we had specifically engineered to a PG proposition, and add copious amounts of nudity, averring "There's nothing wrong with getting a hard-on in a movie theater." God, I love that line. But that's another story. As the project imploded, the Raybeats went through their own changes, and Danny left the group; their subsequent record, It's Only A Movie, recorded with David Hofstra, showed the group moving in a somewhat more abstract direction kind of at odds with Danny's more grounded rock-and-twang sensibilities. Danny moved to Nashville, an environment that seemed to suit those sensibilities, and subsequently formed Los Straitjackets, a combo that reflected his multiple eccentric and kicky enthusiasms. Among other things, they play wearing Mexican wrestling masks, which has to be pretty uncomfortable. In subsequent years Jody worked with the Golden Palominos before backing out of a full-time music career; Pat enjoyed a stint with the B-52s; and Donny, who was kind enough in '82 to produce a demo for my band Artificial Intelligence, went on to work pretty extensively in a recording capacity with Philip Glass. I haven't really been in touch; Jody and I pointed at each other when he took the stage at a Golden Palominos re-convening at Le Poisson Rouge last year but didn't get a chance to talk. But the Raybeats are reforming next week, Wednesday, June 29, at Hoboken's Maxwell's, playing a benefit for a very good cause. Danny was diagnosed with multiple myolema last year and is undergoing treatment for the condition, which is both dire and, thank God, manageable (that's not really the right word, but bear with me) with the right medical attention. Which costs. Danny himself explains the situation here; the page also has a Paypal widget that I don't need to tell you what to do with.

Now based on the West Coast, Danny won't be attending the Maxwell's show, and Steve Almaas, late of Beat Rodeo (and later still of Suicide Commandos) will be occupying the bassist chair. Jody, who I've been corresponding with via e-mail, promises an exceptional Raybeats set, and he'll also be playing with Ira and Georgia, who are also contributing their substantial musical talents, as will be Glenn Morrow's The Individuals, The Schramms, The Tall Lonesome Pines, Purple Knif and others. I'm happy to report tickets are going fast, but hell, you should buy one or two as well, because it's gonna be a fun night of great music and catching up with old friends. The Facebook page for the benefit is here, and here is where you can pre-purchase tickets. 

Hope to see you there. And Danny, if by chance you're reading this, I'm thinking of you, buddy; God bless and keep getting better. Hope to see you soon. 

Work in progress

Extracts from provisional Artificial Intelligence rehearsal, 5/21/11. The personnel for this iteration of A.I. was G.K., vcl and noise guitar, Ron Goldberg, keyboards and laptop, Doug Harvey, bass and vcl, and Daniel Burwasser, drums. 

Jam 1

Jam 2

Why "Slow Ride" is my own private "Niagara Falls"/"Susquehanna Hat Company"

Grooving to the "Ride" in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, 1993

The comments thread on my post concerning my "The Tree of Life" review for MSN Movies has taken an intriguing turn, now concerning itself with the ways various directors incorporate previously recorded music into their films. Malick and Woody Allen are cited, of course, as is Richard Linklater, who Kent Jones calls "the most underestimated American filmmaker." Looking back on the director's 1993 Dazed and Confused, Kent affectionately cites the film's closing song, Foghat's "Slow Ride," calling it within the film's context "an ode to freedom."

If only I could hear it that way. Instead, whenever I get a taste of the chugging slide-guitar riff that fuels the song, it's like ashes in my mouth. It's not an ode to freedom; it's a reminder of my youth being taken away. 

Back in the early '70s, my uncle Jack, the head of the household known as "the Brooklyn Kennys," had this really delightful spread on remote Long Island, a converted farm complete with a barn. The occasional horse resided therein, but the barn was mostly notable for the swimming pool Jack had installed next to it. Summers of my early teens were spent there, in utter bliss. Jack's youngest boy, my cousin Justin, and Britt E., a cousin from Santa Monica (his dad had founded the Oar House, the hangout for the motorcycle gang in Corman's The Wild Angels, and, get this, was an early real-estate business partner of Arnold Schwarzenegger's) and I were all the same age, more or less, and we would camp out at that house for a month or so each summer, getting in to more and more "trouble" each year. Down the road lived one Kristin [sp.?] Gifford, reputedly a niece of Frank's, who was very cute and sweet and whom Justin had an enormous crush on. Britt would ostentatiously make as if to moon her whenever she was swimming underwater, which made poor Justin very nervous and agitated. We were all like 12 at the time. Our only adult supervision most of the time was our our aged grandmother and a couple of her equally elderly friends' they'd get up at the crack of dawn, put their tootsies in the pool for ten minutes, and then disappear until dinner, where we dutifully showed up and peppered the oldsters with questions as to what herbert Hoover was really like. When country life got a bit too quiet, we'd hop on the LIRR into the city and hang a bit at Uncle Jack's brownstone in the Heights, and go into Manhattan and get into Central Park Wollman Rink rock concerts for free by bribing a security guard at the perimeter gate with a single can of Schaefer beer from the six pack we had somehow procured before making our way there. We saw Poco and the Charlie Daniels Band, as I recall. Why, I don't know. Then, once we'd annoyed our older cousins sufficiently with our pizza and beer and loud rock music, we'd go back to the farm house, and the pool, and give Justin shit about getting nowhere with Kristin, and make dandelion wine, and maybe get a little reading done. It was heaven.

And then it was gone. Around the time I was 13 going on 14, Jack announced that he had sold the spread. Rather bemused, he related that he had sold it to, of all conglomerates, a rock and roll group. Scottish, he believed. "Have you heard of Foghat?" Jack asked. I had. "Undistinguished blues-rockers from the ashes of Savoy Brown," I did not say. I'd heard some of their stuff on WNEW FM. Whatever. "Normally I don't think too highly of the rock people," Jack said, "but I have to say these fellows were complete gentlemen." Like I cared.

And years later I read in MOJO magazine, I think it was, about Foghat's move from Great Britain to Long Island, and the terrific converted farm they communally bought, and how they converted the barn into a studio, which was brilliant, really, you see, because there was a swimming pool right next to it, so if you ran out of inspiration or just needed refreshing you could just nip out and have a little dip. The resultant atmosphere was so relaxing that it resulted in a new creative high for the band, resulting in the 1975 album Fool For The City, which also yielded the group's sole hit single. 

Yup. It was "Slow Ride." Fuckers. Slowly I turn...

"Right as usual, sir," music division

"There is an earnestness and a delicacy to playing the saxophone, an irreducible musicality that was out of step at a time when shrugged-off riffs alternated with bashed-out power chords on the rock airwaves. It's laughable to imagine someone smashing a saxophone into a stack of amps, like Kurt Cobain did with his guitar—the instrument seems too refined for the gesture, like trying to talk dirty in Latin. And while '80s metal holdouts like Metallica unleashed elaborate barrages of guitar notes well into the '90s, they framed their virtuosity as viciousness, a trick that's much harder, if not impossible, to pull off with the sax."—Contrarian wunderkind Jonah Weiner, "Bringing Saxy Back," (Christ), Slate, (where else do you go for this particular kind of brilliantly informed cultural criticism?), May 23, 2011.

At left: Peter fucking Brotzmann. Unbelievable, these people. 

Arthur Russell, too fast for Vin Diesel

My friend Gary Lucas has posted an archival tape of an abortive recording session featuring the future Vin Diesel and the beats of the late latter-day cult figure (and all-the-time genius) Arthur Russell. Yes, my friends, it really happened, and you can now hear over three minutes of the session going down. As Gary notes, Russell's tricky beat keeps dropping out, as it were, from under Diesel, and the fledgling rapper has a bit of a hard time with it. In fairness to Diesel, it's a construction that would provide all but the most rhythmically sophisticated emcees a challenge. In further fairness to Diesel, as far as his timbre and delivery are concerned, I, and probably you, have heard a lot worse. Still in all it's probably better for everyone (excepting Jeffrey Wells), that Le Dieseldorf ended up where he did. Have a listen here.

Now for something relatively different

I was privileged to be asked by Spin.com to cover the Steve Reich 75th Birthday Concert at Carnegie Hall on Saturday night. It was splendid, really. (That's the group So Percussion performing the first piece on the program, Mallet Quartet.) My writeup of the event is here. 

Recommendation

I've been listening to a lot of music, both old and new, lately, and wanting to write about a bunch of it, even, but I haven't been as completely delighted by anything as I have by this new compilation from the ever-inventive and enlightening Soul Jazz label, a wonderful two-CD set with a nice booklet. Brazilian music is a bit of an enthusiasm of mine, but I can't say I'm really particularly knowledgeable about it in anything but a dilettantish fashion, so I can't speak from a completely informed perspective as to how "really" well-chosen its 34 songs are, or how historically even-handed or accurate the portrait of Brazilian music of the era it presents. Although given Soul Jazz's track record, I'd imagine it rates pretty high in both areas. What I can attest with almost complete confidence is that the compilation is an absolute joy to listen to from stem to stern and if you're not smiling broadly by the time you hit track nine on CD 1, Tamba Trio's version of "Mas, Que Nada!", you may not actually be a human being. I can also state with assurance that Jorge Ben, the composer of "Mas, Que Nada!" and composer and/or singer of a couple of other tunes here, is a motherfucker and one of the greatest songwriters of any time or place in the universe, but then I had already kind of suspected that before I got this. I don't know just why that's hitting me this way just now. Anyway, you should get the thing, really. You can get the CD, whose sonics I find quite pleasing, here. Vinyl people here. 

Steely Dan's "Aja" makes the National Recording Registry twice in the same list, sort of

I can't be the only one who noticed this, but I thought I'd mention this unusual circumstance: the announcement today of the 25 recordings selected for the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress contains not just our beloved Captain Beefheart's beloved Trout Mask Replica (a text from which I shall be reading Friday night; see personal appearance alert below), but our beloved Steely Dan's beloved Aja. AND it also contains our beloved De La Soul's beloved Three Feet High And Rising, a prominent song from which, "Eye Know," actually samples a song from Aja, specifically "Peg." I do believe this is the first time such intertextuality has manifested itself in the National Recording Registry list, no?

More music more music, or, cool is dead, but baby don't you cry, it was time for cool to die.

Some rock and roll bands can get by on sheer bloody attitude, but it's worth noting in the case of Max Frost and the Troopers, seen above in the 1968 Wild in the Streets, a sheaf of Mann/Weill tunes also helps. In the case of a more recent attitude-heavy combo, The Strokes, well, for my money the attitude is merely poor, not charismatic. And the songs ain't so great either. Over at MSN Music, I take that "anti" position in a "Fight Club" feature on the Strokes' new long-player, Angles, with the insouciant (I won't say "credulous") Jonathan Zwickel standing up for that schmuck Casablancas and his lame cohorts. The debate starts here.