part one | part two
part three | part four
part five | september 1996
A Letter to the Editor:
The 90's movement of free improv populated by ex-punk/hc/industrual/noise freaks burnt out on indie rock is a pretty darn intriguing one, and has found its most eloquent exponent to date in the girlish figure of Bruce Russell (and its AESTHETICS OF ROCK in "What is Free Noise?"). As both indie rocker(Love Child, Run On) and noise guy (Blue Humans, solo) I've maintained a dual interest in/ambivalence toward rock and improv/experimental for the past ten years. I've slept on Julianna Hatfield's floor and Donald Miller's couch, stayed up all night with Bikini Kill and Sebadoh, recorded with Rashied Ali and Keiji Haino (not at the same time!), toured with Arthur Lee. The first two Logpandocy's and this CD release have served as a catalyst to put my take on all of this in print--hence, this letter.
You disparage the 'songwriting' musician's method of "repeating a very limited repetoire of musical 'moves'" and that you wish to free music of "deadening forms." First of all, most so-called free-improv consists of repeating a repetoire of musical moves--drawn from an expanded musical vocabulary but limited nonetheless. The whole 80's NYC/Knitting Factory scene of nerds doing bad approximations of Company/FMP is no more palatable than the latest batch of Pavement clones. In free jazz, just think of any pianists who don't sound anything like Cecil Taylor or saxists who don't resemble Coltrane or Ayler or Ornette somewhere along the line--it's kinda hard. And even free-improv masters like Bailey, Parker, or Brotzmann go back to their own standard "licks" like any other "musician." As for deadening forms, I think "formulas" would be more accurate. After all, you mention "Map of 49's Dream", which is rigidly structured in that the intervals that can and cannot be played are determined beforehand. La Monte told me that he decided in the 60's never to use a major 3rd or a major 7th in his music--believe me, he's into form. But through this severe constraint comes freedom--the improvisational possibilities of "49's Dream" are limitless, much like a raga (which also has a fixed scale). Glenn Branca has said that when he could only afford one string for his guitar he discovered he could actually do much more than he could with all six--it really opened up possibilities. "Formulaic" music (e.g. Philip Glass, AC/DC) is usually tiresome, predictable, and cheap...yet I marvel at Chris Knox's ability to write multiple great songs using the exact same chord progression and enjoy many Blue Note jazz albums which are all identically programmed (i.e. uptempo, mid-tempo, ballad, latin, uptempo). To produce an oeuvre that is basically the same song over and over again but never redundant (e.g. the Velvets, Dead C. [natch], La Monte, Spacemen 3, BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME, A WEB OF SOUND, EASTER EVERYWHERE, , etc.) is the musical skill I most admire.
You characterize 'song-oriented material" as 'so specific, so particular, that it can't help but seem banal, certainly the second time you hear it." During the production of "Short Cuts" Robert Altman was quoted as saying "There are no absolute stories, only versions." This should be kept in mind when writing and performing "song-oriented material." There is no need for songs to become "banal" if you take a fresh approach to them every time they are performed (although composer Ned Rorem has celebrated popular song as "expressivity through banality"). In his excellent book Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Paul Williams compares Zimmy to Picasso: "Here was Picasso painting the same painting [Guitar] over and over again, over the course of years, having it come out different each time, just as (in my view) Dylan has sung "It Ain't Me Babe" and so many others through the years, not as the same song again and again, but as a hundred different songs that happen to have the same name and similar lyrics." It has been well-documented that Dylan rarely rehearses his bands (even during recording sessions), drastically rearranges songs sometimes on a nightly basis (one bassist recalls doing reggae, funk, waltz, and metal versions of "Isis" during the 1976 Rolling Thunder tour), and rewrites lyrics constantly (to the point of singing different lines during each vocal take in the studio). Williams notes that, c. 1963, "one of his strengths was that he didn't seem to have a fixed idea of what a song should be, toying with different structures or making up his own." He also defines Dylan's creative philosophy as "don't plan it, don't control it, do it and make room for the unexpected, respond to it and create with it as it's happening."
In short, Dylan's "song-oriented material" is largely free-improvised. It's also clear that Dylan himself has a sophisticated understanding of improvisation beyond his own music--his film Renaldo and Clara is almost entirely improvised. When asked about this approach by Allen Ginsberg, Dylan replied, "How else? Life itself is improvised. We don't live life as a scripted thing. Two boxers go into the ring and imporvise. You go make love with someone and you improvise. Go to sports car races, total improvisation." Indeed, consciousness of life-as-improvisation is, I think, essential to playing any kind of music--a pre-requisite, maybe. There should be no definitive versions of songs (Rorem: "once we've defined a thing, the thing is frozen, breathes no longer. To 'know' is to be sterile. To 'look for is to be young'), no perfect albums (Altman: "I don't like perfection"). Definition is death. People who define their lives have "careers" and probobly bought the new Eagles album. Music is not like sculpture--carved in stone. Songs should be thought of not as finished "masterworks" but evolutionary and amorphous.
It is this pursuit of definition that renders songs banal--the same version, heard often enough, inevitably becomes tiresome. That's why I never buy records by bands I go to see live often. The "official" versions of songs I've heard many different live versions of are invariably disappointing--usually a "composite" performance based on the band's memories of playing it over and over, or worse, a transmorgification of the material into something "we could never do live." All in the name of historical documentation (at best, but usually "merely" towards career advancement). I regard my own recordings as tombstones or business cards. But I purposely leave mistakes in them just to make sure nobody ever confuses the released version with the "best" version--a futile concept anyway. To me, the greatest moment on Funhouse arrives when Dave Alexander totally fucks up his two-note bass riff during Ron Asheton's guitar solo in "1970." That's what keeps it fresh after dozens of plays--you can imagine the song without that mistake, you can imagine other versions (the second verse of "Frances Farmer Will have Her Revenge On Seattle", where Kurt Cobain plays a wrong chord and then just stops playing and feedsback is another inspirational moment). Which you can't say about any pop masterpeices (even ones I like such as Pet Sounds--and consider that PS was followed by Smile, that Rumors was followed by Tusk, that Sgt. Pepper was followed by the White Album, that Radio City was followed by Sister Lovers and Like Flies on Sherbert--the self-conscious "masterpiece" followed by the spontaneous, sprawling, messed up "anti-masterpiece", which is really a progression from the "masterpiece"--whether or not the group regards it as such).
On the other hand, some recordings are so fully realized that a live version is bound to be disappointing (for instance, the Radio City songs on Big Star's live CD). Halo of Flies and Bill Direen are two examples of acts I loved on record and didn't like live (and I saw both more than once). One of my idols, though, Bobby Fuller, made a point of recording his songs so they could be duplicated live -- and they're incredible recordings that seem impossible to recreate live (especially "Let Her Dance" one of my favorite songs ever). This is intriguing, and an obvious exception to my penchant for improvisation.
Another thing that renders pop banal is remembering what comes next when you hear a song. To use yet another (probably pointless) film analogy, in a recent interview, film critic Roger Ebert remarked that despite viewing Citizen Kane dozens and dozens of times, even frame by frame, he still can't remember which scene comes next as he's watching. What makes familiarizing yourself with a record special is NOT remembering what comes next in each song in the first few listenings--once you've assimilated the song structure and sonic events within the song, the compulsion to listen lessens. In improv recordings, it is much less likely (though not impossible) to remember what happens next in a particular recording, therefore they never become tiresome in the same way. However, improv records also do not inspire fanatic listening the way some songs or albums do (consider Lester Bangs' story of a biker acquaintance locking himself in his room and playing the Music Machine's "Talk Talk" over and over for eight hours straight), so maybe it's unfair to compare. And the 13th Floor Elevators' "Slip Inside This House" is one example of a pop song where I can never remember which part comes next (Big Star's "Ooh Mah Soul" too).