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Sun Ra’s Holy Whisper
“I’m gonna unmask the Batman
And lookout Robin, ain’t nothing you can do.
If you don’t lookout, I’m gonna unmask you too.
Can’t you see the expression on my face?
I’m gonna do what the joker couldn’t do…
I’m gonna unmask the Batman”
- Sun Ra
Reading that quote without any background, it appears that Sun Ra was some sort of braggart proto-rapper (it reminds me of Wesley Willis’ brilliant song, “I Whupped Batman’s Ass”). Really though, his notion of Batman is just another scattered piece in the eternal puzzle of Sun Ra (walking, talking pyramid), everlasting prankster and avowed shatterer of the space time continuum, proving death is nothing as he works his magic outside of time.
Do you ever get that unsettling feeling that things are thrown at you from the cosmos in order that you might dig further into a topic that has grabbed you? I get this true, deep-down feeling only occasionally, so when it does occur, I revel in it. It can be a bit frightening and, at the least, sends a chill down my spine that makes me wonder about consciousness at its core and what it means to be here. It often sends me reeling outside of place and time. Really, what does it mean to be a part of this planet? How powerful are our thoughts? What meaning is to be found in meaninglessness?
J Mascis and the Fog: Free So Free
J Mascis and the Fog
Free So Free
(Artemis Classics, 2002)
I want to sing the praises of this record from the metaphorical mountaintop! I always believe in the ability of true greats to get their shit together after a few missteps. Hell, I even buy projects named after defunct projects even though everybody knows it’s not that project. Like the Meat Puppets. I keep praying for another II but would gladly settle for a No Joke. I bought Golden Lies even though it was only one Kirkwood bro. Then I bought Rise to Your Knees, which was both brothers but missing the drummer. I gotta be honest… those records are pretty bad. But still, I think the next one may be good… I’ll probably buy it. I’m a sucker!
Onto the subject: J Mascis, guitar overlord (my guitar teacher told me back in the day “too sloppy!” likely because he couldn’t touch that technique of no technique). I own more late period Mascis records than early ones (who else here has Hand It Over?). Even though they were really mediocre, I kept buying them up because my love was so deep for his ripping solos and girly voice. I always remembered Martin and Me, that brilliant live acoustic album that got me through. Eventually, though, he dropped the fraudulent Dinosaur Jr moniker and became J Mascis and the Fog (even though there was no fog). 2000’s More Light album was pretty good, not too shabby… baby steps. But the unsung hero of the Fog canon is Free So Free, on which he returned to his acoustic feel and simultaneously exploded electric guitar vengeance.
A lot has been made over the full Dino reunion record Beyond, which is a good album. Critics seemed particularly amazed that it was good. But honestly, I’m not so surprised because Free So Free was even better. I’m stoked to see Lou and Murph up there with him again (are they stoked?), but I think I still prefer Free So Free to Beyond. Beyond is good, don’t get me wrong, but it kind of has that reunion vibe to it. I guess it’s just that I can see the rest of the dudes twiddling their thumbs while Mascis overdubs another guitar track.
Jimmy Webb: Words and Music
Jimmy Webb
Words and Music
(Reprise, 1970)
This album reeks of songwriters of the 1970s with their pensive moods and their clever word plays. Deal with it. It is the premier of Jimmy Webb (known for his hit behind-the-scenes songsmith work via Glen Campbell and the Fifth Dimension) stepping out on his own. It straddles the line between songs that don’t quite go and ones that really shine. This was to be a pattern for all his solo albums as far as I can tell… sort of spotty yet there is always one song that is a total classic revelation, followed by a couple missteps. But hey, nobody is perfect. The fact is, if you created a mix of Jimmy Webb music with only the choicest of cuts he’d stand tall, shoulder to shoulder with any songwriter out there. One only has to listen to him nail the “Witchita Lineman” solo on piano to hear the holy touches he places on small notes and moments, not to mention the imagination of his lyrical perspective.
The first track of this album, “Sleeping in the Daytime”, is my favorite, because within it is contained all the successful elements of a great song: Wailing guitar over a funky bassline plus lyrics about being really lazy and wanting to be awake only at night. Also, it helps that the instrumental break at the end of this song reminds me quite a bit of Television’s “Marquee Moon”… the guitar soars and hits similar melodic themes. Amazing session players on this one, no doubt.
The Beach Boys Love You
Beach Boys
Love You
(Reprise, 1977)
Love You is for those who’ve familiarized themselves with the Beach Boys saga. It’s for that exceptional soul who sits for hours pondering the impact of Smile’s non-release. Eventually they’ll pick up this record right before they hit bottom. And they’ll wonder: Why? Why, Brian, did you fuck up your legacy? What audience did you intend this for? What sick pleasure could be derived by them staring at a photograph of your shirtless, hairy, 300-pound ass grinning dumbly under the influence of ice cream and cocaine? This is the end of the road… hearing this reclusive whale of a man (as depicted on the back cover) sing gruffly about making love with roller skating children (“when mama’s not around”), Johnny Carson, and dinner time—all of this over the ’50s rock hum of a synth blast? Where can the Beach Boys go after all of this?
Oh silly, silly Wilson, waking up each morning to obsess over Phil Spector’s “Be My Baby”, bumming cigarettes from his daughter’s school bus driver, blowing his angelic girl/boy voice, freebasing cocaine, and smoking pack upon pack of Marlboros. Oh, haunted Brian Wilson of the bedroom where shades are drawn and no one is home. The maid makes up another sandwich for Surf Elvis.
Charles Manson: When I Get to the Bottom
The late ’69 Manson Family murders destroyed the groundwork of the hippies and the mystics and the rock ‘n’ rollers alike. After the blood was spilled all over LA mansions, driveways, and walls there was no turning back. Though Manson intended for these killings to strike fear into the heart of the establishment or incite a race war (which his family would ride out safe somewhere in the desert, in the yet undiscovered Bottomless Pit of Revelations), the more lasting and all too real effect of his actions was convincing a lot of free love/intellectual types to cut their hair and abandon whole ideas or lifestyles over the harassment they encountered from the collective horror the ensuing images inspired. Splashed across TV sets and front pages was the crazy-eyed, long-haired, murderous Manson and his satanic femme fatales who wielded butcher knives and could threaten the American way of life with just one look. Human blood scrawled on walls with Beatles lyrics! Pregnant and beautiful blonde actress Sharon Tate with her womb half cut out! The peacenik kids were now cast as would-be murderers as a new conformity set in. Free love was no longer safe. It should actually be no surprise that so many hippies became accountants.
Manson used the White Album as an oracle. He felt the songs were written for him as a map of sorts. He was to be the fifth Beatle and change the world before the revolution went down. The prosecution in the Manson trial used his Beatles obsession as the backbone on which they built their entire case. So it’s more than a little surprising to read John Lennon’s level-headed, almost empathetic reaction to Manson in a 1970 Rolling Stone interview:
Rolling Stone: What did you think of Manson and that thing?
Ride the Dead Low Tide
I was a huge fan of Murder City Devils, like a lot of people (I still see their t-shirts on emo kids way too young to have seen them, and I get all nostalgic). I saw them play live a bunch of times. My favorite gig was probably in this little shitty bar in Nowhere, Ohio. This local “punk” band opened for them, and their lead singer pretended he was bad by affecting an accent and never washing his hair whilst spitting beer. It was him babbling and posing with some dude in a stocking cap on meathead rhythm guitar… hilarious. So they stopped playing (finally), and Murder City set up. The Devils were wearing all black, sporting chain wallets and trucker gear before all this became way cliché and dorky. (When I saw them open for At the Drive In later on, I remember some hipster mocking their outfits with “Do I have to wear black to join the band?” etc.)
Their whole onstage shtick was that they mostly looked like rock ‘n’ roll bad asses that could give a fuck and were all tatted up and drunk, but their singer Spencer appeared to be a lost nerd, definitely not in the band. I first saw them opening for Lonesome Crowded West-era Modest Mouse, and I recall Spencer coming out in a jean jacket looking confused and nervous (playing into this completely, a la Andy Kaufman’s Foreign Man), but then seeing a change occur and hearing this Danzig-ish howl coming out of nowhere. (At this gig they further shocked the crowd, and promoter, by lighting the drums and stage on fire. My skin was singed and I became a total fan.)
Gong: Angel’s Egg
Gong
Angel’s Egg
(Virgin Records, 1973)
First let me admit… I haven’t been able to wrap my head around all the myriad dimensions of this album. It’s like an archetypal journey that I’m still experiencing. But, if I were to sum up its sound, I’d tell you that it is fusion mixed with Syd Barrett-styled vocals mixed with the earthy mysticism of woodland creatures on mushrooms. The instruments are both whimsical and driving. The vocals are alternately off-kilter, off-key, or off-base. Solos abound as do sporadic tribal chants that culminate in “Hari Hari Lady’s Lavatory!” (Begging the question: Is this band mystical or are they poking holes in mysticism itself? Or, are they using its tools for their own madcap means?)
Angel’s Egg is the second album in their Radio Gnome trilogy. If you like Parliament, Weather Report, or Sun Ra, this band owns you. Their leader is Aussie Daevid Allen, who was a founding member of totally awesome psych originals, Soft Machine. After Soft Machine, Daevid bailed to France and surrounded himself with French hippies who also wore wizard costumes, and together they made outer space-styled music whilst espousing a philosophy of planetary travel with “pothead pixies,” all the while declaring “It’s a hassle, you know, to make rocket ships go to infinity / And I’m so sick of God and these bishops that speak of divinity / Now my head’s feeling strange and my codpiece is starting to tremble.”
Neil Diamond: Tap Root Manuscript
Neil Diamond
Tap Root Manuscript
(MCA, 1970)
Tap Root Manuscript draws new life from old forms. Here is what happened: one day, while rooting around in the soil with a shovel and a metal detector, Neil Diamond stumbled upon music’s taproot that was feasting on the nutrients of music’s past. Stunned by what he’d discovered, this elaborate root’s structure was then scribbled into a manic manuscript that eventually, after years of painstaking research, became this record. As it plays, we can hear intricate polyrhythmic patterns tapped out on tree roots and envision the wide expanse of African plains dotted with trees—the new growing in the shade of the ancient—creating scale to an otherwise immeasurable horizon. Children dance in our minds eye to the expressive root smacks, their arms are skywards and entwined in a circle around a flame. They cry out, “And you shall dance / And you shall come / To hear our song / And learn its tune / Before it fades away.” Eventually, Diamond hits the root so hard that water gushes out, forming a river that the children splash around in, laughing.
It is not for the lovelorn that Diamond cut this “African Trilogy: Folk Ballet,” as Rolling Stone put it. It is, instead, for the future or, more accurately, his childhood past. The child is Africa, cradle of civilization. Or, put in Diamond’s words, “When rhythm and blues lost its sensuality for me I fell in love with a woman named ‘gospel.’ We met secretly in the churches of Harlem, and made love at revival meetings in Mississippi. And loving her as I did, I found a great yearning to know of her roots… and I found them. And they were in Africa. And they left me breathless. The African Trilogy is an attempt to convey my passion for the folk music of that black continent.”
The Mexia State School Sunshine Group
In the midst of the World War II debacle, an ocean away, on the plains of Texas an immense compound was built to hold prisoners of war. After the war, when the last of the prisoners were sent elsewhere, a decision was made. The POW camp would be turned into a school for mentally disabled children. New jobs were created, the economy brightened, and money flowed once more as families from across Texas sent their difficult children there.
And to this day many families continue to do so. The Mexia State School of Texas is still a government funded project. The school reached its height of population, 2,750 residents, in 1964. Today its numbers have decreased as it shifts some of its focus to adult care and housing “developmentally disabled delinquents.” Located 40 miles from Waco, Mexia is the hometown of Anna Nicole Smith, a working class Texas town with ties to a once-booming oil business.
I would know nothing of any of this were it not for a bizarre thrift store find. One day while searching through a stack of dusty records I happened upon a strange cover with words that gave me chills: “THE MEXIA STATE SCHOOL SUNSHINE GROUP. EXTRAORDINARY UNUSUAL ORIGINAL DEDICATED TO THE GLORY OF GOD and to the WORK AND STUDY OF MENTAL RETARDATION. DIFFERENT: A First Unmatched Opportunity.” It was sealed. To find a sealed record is rare in itself, but to find a sealed record that chronicles the lives and feelings of abandoned children (prisoners?) is magic.
Popping Bass: The Otherworldly Jazz of Stanley Clarke
by: Brian Brown
Stanley Clarke
(Nemperor Records, 1974)
Ever since hearing this record, which I bought on a total whim (this method, by the way, rarely succeeds), I’ve been buying up everything Stanley Clarke plays on. However, I must say his self-titled album is still the champ.
Some of the ones I’ve snapped up have been, frankly, shitty. His first solo outing is titled Children of Forever—despite the amazing cheeseball cover (his head motif repeated into the star systems and beyond), it’s total crap, besides one “Bass Folk Song” where he gets it together. But this self-titled album is a total winner from the wailing get go. Despite librarian’s lessons to the contrary, I guess it was (again) the cover that won me over: Afro and goatee-laden Clarke with his scarf and little bass on and his face all lit up with the unanswerable question, “Where to next?” Besides, it was only a couple of bucks. That’s what I love about vinyl: You can take a chance, and if you lose (you almost always lose) you’re only out a few bucks, plus you learned a lesson.
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by: Brian Brown
published: November 26, 2008
in column: Crate Digger
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