Tuesday, April 29, 2003

When Paul Krugman first appeared before the public eye, he was a snotty smartass economist, and the main point of virtually everything he wrote was to prove how much smarter he was than everyone else. So it's been interesting to watch him mature over the years, especially since the Bush inaugural in 2001. Krugman quickly dashed off a book about Bush's tax cut called Fuzzy Math which is still a remarkably sane and succinct reposte (not that he couldn't think of a lot more to say about the subject since the book was published). Today I'm reading a NY Times column Krugman wrote called Matters of Emphasis, and his points are perfectly straightforward. For example:

First, why is our compassion so selective? In 2001 the World Health Organization -- the same organization we now count on to protect us from SARS -- called for a program to fight infectious diseases in poor countries, arguing that it would save the lives of millions of people every year. The U.S. share of the expenses would have been about $10 billion per year -- a small fraction of what we will spend on war and occupation. Yet the Bush administration contemptuously dismissed the proposal.

Or consider one of America's first major postwar acts of diplomacy: blocking a plan to send U.N. peacekeepers to Ivory Coast (a former French colony) to enforce a truce in a vicious civil war. The U.S. complains that it will cost too much. And that must be true -- we wouldn't let innocent people die just to spite the French, would we?

So it seems that our deep concern for the Iraqi people doesn't extend to suffering people elsewhere. I guess it's just a matter of emphasis. A cynic might point out, however, that saving lives peacefully doesn't offer any occasion to stage a victory parade.

For example, in September Mr. Bush cited an International Atomic Energy Agency report that he said showed that Saddam was only months from having nuclear weapons. "I don't know what more evidence we need," he said. In fact, the report said no such thing -- and for a few hours the lead story on MSNBC's Web site bore the headline "White House: Bush Misstated Report on Iraq." Then the story vanished -- not just from the top of the page, but from the site.

Monday, April 28, 2003

A while back I read George Scialabba's review of Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism. Berman's book had been getting a lot of hype in the semi-left press, so I was pleased to see that this is one of the most useful critiques that I've seen. (While I haven't read the book I've read more than my fill of Berman, including a book review in the N.Y. Times yesterday where he buttressed his pro-war, pro-imperialism stance by selectively applauding two recent tortured-logic pro-war books, by Jean Bethke Elshtain and Richard Falk.) However, I think that Scialabba's account is weaker than it ought to be on two accounts. The first is his casual acceptance of the anti-Soviet critique, which is not a matter of much immediate import. I want to write more about that later, but for now let me just note that when I was growing up the first encyclopedia that I looked at had three columns under "Politics," each contrasting a distinct political philosophy: democracy, fascism, and communism. The next edition reduced the discussion to two: democracy, totalitarianism. There are conceits in each approach -- the former makes democracy seem to be the rational alternative between two violently opposed extremisms, but the latter merges all extremism into an indistinct pot of evil. It should be noted that fascism per se had largely died out by then -- not that the world was freed from right-wing dictatorships, but most of the active ones were military-based, and most of them were card carrying members of the US's Cold War against Communism. On the other hand, the concept of totalitarianism was a clever way to tar the Communists with the sins of the Fascists. But more than that, it implied a form of absolute, totalistic government control over everyday life that has only ever been realized in fiction, such as Orwell's 1984 -- a prospect that ominously threatens to choke off all possible opposition, and as such is seen (especially by Berman) as justifying extreme means to prevent or dislodge it.

And that leads to the second issue: is totalitarianism even possible? I think not. And more importantly, I think that it is less and less possible over time -- that if there ever had been a prospect that such a system might be implemented, that prospects was in the past, is far less likely now, and is virtually inconceivable in the future. Sure, thinking this is one thing and proving it is another. I'm not sure how the best way to prove it might be. Historically we can look at real world examples of so-called totalitarian systems: Iraq is often trotted out as one of the most extreme, so it's interesting to look at how it fell apart (admittedly, with a little push from the US); and the Soviet Union is the classic example. One thing both regime had in common was their "minders" for foreign visitors. There's an obvious problem with that, which is that as the number of foreign visitors increases, the costs of minding them and processing the information increase as well, perhaps disproportionately. In a garrisoned state that may not be much of a problem, because hardly anyone gets in, but the more any state (regardless of its totalitarian impulses) also wants to benefit from the technological advances of the world at large, the more travel, the more interaction, etc., is involved. Similarly, the skills to run a modern state/economy, the education that is needed, etc., all detract from the ability of the powers to control things. And that is pretty much what we've seen in Iraq and in the Soviet Union, especially as power started to fall apart.

One can also approach this more theoretically. Power has always been based on the willingness of others to submit. In the simplest of scenarios this submission may simply be the result of fear, and there have certainly been instances of that, especially in small and contained societies. Still, even where fear is the determining factor, several things can diminish its effectiveness:

• Escape: this one's obvious.
• Scale and distance: the larger and more widely spread a state is, the harder it is for the tyrant to keep track of everything and everyone; the use of intermediaries reduces the effective presence of the tyrant, and redistributes the tyrant's power.
• Skills dependency: the more complex a society and its technology becomes, the more the tyrant is at the mercy of his servants.
• Resistance: this is the inefficiency that is added to every action where the actor is unable or unwilling to perform as directed; because resistance is normal it is hard to tell when it is deliberate, and indeed it tends to set new norms for behavior.
• Revolt: this is the rupture when the normal chain of command breaks down into disobedience; note that the threat of revolt is itself a limit to power.
• Rejection (probably not the right word): where outsiders refuse to deal with the tyrant because they disapprove of him.

I think that it's arguable that all of these factors are on the increase. This is especially true in nations where there is growing demand for and expectations of the benefits of modern technology and interactions with the rest of the world. This directly establishes skills dependencies, and further pushes regimes toward education, which makes one more aware of the rest of the world and makes that world more accessible. Population growth also undermines tyranny, at least by increasing the need for intermediaries. To the extent that the world community can effectively lobby for greater freedom within nations, this increases the strains that undermine tyranny. (On the other hand, the threat of forced regime change, with its attendant foreign occupation, is perhaps the single most effective way to keep tyrannies in power: compare, for example, the Soviet Union, which voluntarily disbanded, to Iraq, which was overthrown by a foreign power.)

So if the case has been made that totalitarianism is an impossibility in the modern world, what does that mean for political policy? For one thing, it means that there is never a need for war to prevent a "totalitarian" regime from establishing itself, since it can never really establish itself. It also means that the most effective weapons against tyrannies are those which broaden the distribution of power and knowledge and skill throughout the nation -- and again, this is not done by inflicting punishment but by doing whatever can be done to open the nation up.

Sunday, April 27, 2003

Music: Initial count 8204 rated (+39), 895 unrated (+21). The Rolling Stone Record Guide work is done, although I still have a pile of John McLaughlin CDs for an entry that got cut. So for the first time in weeks, I'm starting to listen to some stuff for the hell of it. Two little changes, below and henceforth, are that I'm now giving the release dates in brackets as well as the recording dates. The other is that since this is after all a notebook, and since that approach has worked reasonably well for the RS work, I'll open an entry here when I start to listen to a record; those entries start with no grade, then maybe add a tentative grade/range in brackets, then ultimately wind up with a settled grade.

• Uri Caine: Rio (2001, Winter & Winter). This has one of those tourist feels -- gringo pianist meets a lot of maraccas wielding natives. The gringo, of course, is one of our great pianists, and the opportunity to hear him at some length, as on "Akalanguiade" here, is to be relished. But the Brazillian ambiance itself doesn't do much more than the show for the tourists down at the resort. B
• Daniel Carter + Reuben Radding: Luminiscence (2003, Aum Fidelity). Alto sax and bass duet. Most of this is very subdued and rather pretty, with Carter etching out little solos in counterpoint to Radding's bass. The finale, "Occurrences, Places, Entities and the Sea," does turn back toward avant-garde territory -- the tone grates a bit, but even here it tends to slows down, devolving into long hums. Carter has been a continual source of amazement lately, and while I suspect that his lead credit here is alphabetical -- the bass seems to be the lead instrument in much of this -- this is the first item I've heard in his name. B+
• The Clean: Anthology (1981-96 [2003], Merge, 2 CD). A new wave band from New Zealand, their earliest work was collected on 1988's Compilation, where it sounded just fine. A 1990 album called Vehicle sounded just fine too. This recycles most of those two. On "Point That Thing Somewhere Else" they offer a long, simple instrumental, which is flat out stolen from the Velvet Underground. "Beatnik" has an organ pumping out something Doug Sahm would have approved of. "Getting Older" starts to put this together -- the VU guitars, some multitrack echo effects. By the time the first disc ends, with "At the Bottom," the instrumentals have beefed up to Feelies dimensions. "Psychedelic Ranger" is an outtake from Modern Rock, a lyric that sounds at first like Russian on top of a cartoonish melody -- reminds me a bit of Kevin Ayers, but both funkier and cornier. "Late Last Night" is another Velvets rip. "Ludwig" is just fake German with marching boots. The last album isn't well regarded, but the drop-off is minor here. Mostly because they never seemed to have much going for themselves, other than the Velvets groove, which makes them the prototype for alt-to-come. B+
• Al Green: The Love Songs Collection (1967-2002 [2003], The Right Stuff/Hi). Ten of these 17 songs are also on the 15-cut Greatest Hits -- the five songs from the latter that didn't make the cut are: "Tired of Being Alone," "I Can't Get Next to You," "Look What You Done for Me," "Full of Fire," "Belle." The seven new cuts are: "I'm Glad You're Mine" (I'm Still in Love With You), "Wait Here" (Truth n' Time), "For the Good Times" (I'm Still in Love With You), "What Is This Feeling" (Let's Stay Together), "Guilty" (1967, Back Up Train), "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" (Let's Stay Together), "Put It on Paper" (2002, duet on Ann Nesby's Put It on Paper). So only two of these cuts are things that I don't know. The first, "Guilty," was cut in 1967 and belatedly released as a single in 1972 by Bell. It is attributed to R. Williams, which doesn't nail it down for me. The other, "Put It on Paper," is sung by Ann Nesby (of Sounds of Blackness) in overbearing gospel style, with Green and other backing singers chipping in. It's not bad either, but the rationale for both songs is given in the booklet: "Culled from the breadth of Al Green's thirty-five-year recording career, these seventeen recordings . . . " OK, drop those two ringers and you're left with 15 cuts from 1972-1978, a six-year career. Drop "Wait Here" from Truth n' Time and you've got 14 cuts in four years max. A-
• Al Green: Green Is Blues (1970, Right Stuff/Hi). Raw talent, but the overdone covers (e.g., "My Girl," "Get Back") aren't handled with anything approaching his future aplomb, but their ornate hookiness dwarfs lesser known material, also not handled with future aplomb. Adding more Beatles/Berry is more the same. Minor at the time, but raw talent is still something to behold. B+
• Al Green: Gets Next to You (1970, Right Stuff/Hi). The bonuses: "Ride, Sally Ride" stomps like Wilson Pickett, "True Love" shows true Otis Redding grit, and "I'll Be Standing By" sounds a bit like, well, Al Green. Of the album proper, "Tired of Being Alone" is Green's first truly great song, and the album, even though it begs comparison to his peers (Cooke, Redding, Pickett) it's full of promise. A-
• Al Green: Let's Stay Together (1972 [2003], Right Stuff/Hi). This kicks off with the title cut, and what you really notice there is just how loose Green is, and how loose Willie Mitchell's groove is. And while nothing else matches that hit, the filler is mostly sublime. "Old Time Lovin" isn't much of a song, but Green makes it work. "It Ain't No Fun to Me" closes out strong. Two bonus tracks: "Eli's Game" (), "Listen" (). A
• Al Green: I'm Still in Love With You (1972 [2003], Right Stuff/Hi). This was the first Al Green album I ever heard -- I was curious, and a friend named Carol O'Halloran recommended this one as her favorite. So this is the one that I first fell in love with. The grit of Green's early albums is gone here -- he's just as smooth as can be, and the songs take their own good time to develop. Just a perfect album. Ah, first love. A+
• John Hardee: Hardee's Partee (1946-49 [2002], Ocium). Subtitled "The Forgotten Texas Tenor." I ran across Hardee name as the writer of one of the throwback pieces on James Carter's first album, which seemed like a reference worth pursuing. Hardee's work, at least under his own name, is concentrated in this 1946-49 period, which has just become accessible under European copyright laws. (You don't expect Americans to remember their own history, now do you?) This starts off with a balad, "Tired," with beautiful tone, then does something a little more upbeat, "Blue Skies." While most of the work here is measured -- late swing with little bebop influence but a little more honky tonk -- his "River Edge Rock" is a romp in the honking tenor tradition. The cuts with Tiny Grimes Swingtet are up-tempo jams ("C Jam Blues," "Flying Home," "Tiny's Boogie Woogie"). Two vocal cuts -- one sung by Trummy Young, the other by Hardee -- neither good nor bad. Hardee is prominent on all cuts, regardless of whose name they were recorded under (Tiny Grimnes, Billy Kyle, Billy Taylor). He sounds minor to me, more like Don Byas (tone) and Illinois Jacquet (phrasing) and Arnett Cobb (just about everything) than someone who really stands on his own, but this period is fascinating, not just for swing-to-bop but perhaps even more so for swing-to-r&b, and this is worth a listen in that context. And it's pretty enjoyable on its own. Good notes and discography. A-
• The Isley Brothers: 3 + 3 (1973 [2003], Epic/Legacy). Starts off with "That Lady" ("who's that lady?"), one of the great singles of the period -- quasi-latin beat, funky synth geared up for a lengthy instrumental in the middle. "Listen to the Music" is another first-rate piece. "Sunshine" is another bright one. "Summer Breeze" is muddled up in "the jasmine of my mind," but nobody else could lift such tripe (or be foolish enough to try), and Ernie's guitar solo carries you through. A-
• Medeski, Martin & Wood: Friday Night in the Universe (1994 [1995], Gramavision). They developed into a pretty good funk band, but this relatively early effort doesn't clearly resolve itself -- some organ funk, some piano, some things that might be worth salvaging (there's a best-of on the shelf here somewhere). B
• William Parker: Testimony (1994 [1995], Zero In). Weighing in over 78 minutes, this is bound to be too long -- I mean, the occasional bass solo can be nice, but anything approaching 10 minutes is likely to challenge our attention spans, and anything in excess of an hour is bound to be ridiculous. But here we go: "Sonic Animation" (22:58, mostly arco, it actually has a sort of hypnotic effect, gently sawing back and forth around an inscrutable melody; so far, so good); "Testimony" (11:22, dedicated to Beb Guerin, an unfamiliar French bassist who has worked with Dave Burrell, Grachan Moncur III, Sonny Sharrock, Archie Shepp, Clifford Thornton; carefully picked out, with some clicks for percussive contrast; the piece is well settled in the lower register, thoughtful, vibrant); "Light #3" (3:51, by contrast this piece is very high-pitched, so much so that the instrument can generate very little volume); "Dedication" (15:38, "for Charles Clark -- 1945-1969; for Albert Stinson -- 1945-1969"; again, mostly bowed, highly concentrated and thoughtful; toward the end this runs through several series of swaying, sawing sequences); "The 2nd Set" (24:09; gee, that slipped by fast). Not what I'd call difficult at all -- eminently listenable, often interesting, occasionally fascinating. B+
• William Parker: Compassion Seizes Bed-Stuy (1995 [1996], Homestead). Top of front cover, beside "William Parker", has the words "In Order to Survive." Explains inside: "The music on this CD is the third part of a sound trilogy. The first part 'In Order to Survive' is music for sextet. The second part 'Testimony' is music for solo bass. They all speak about embracing and making a commitment to life in its highest partial. . . . It is through poetry and vision that life is discovered; discovered, and then altered. The premise was to start a human revolution. To bring dreams closer to present day reality. The music called Jazz is less than 100 years old; too young to repeat itself. We as a society have only progressed technically during these years. There is a lack of respect for life that is called style. Driven by greed, selfishness, and arrogance. We still practice capitalism, imperialism, racism, and sexism. These concepts are the main reasons for the deterioration of America. What has trickled down is mass ignorance, lack of concern and severe blindness mixed with inflated egos. There is a total loss of memory as to how America was born. That is, by the genocide of the Native Americans. How can we ever make that one right?" Quartet: Parker (bass), Susie Ibarra (drums), Rob Brown (alto sax), Cooper Moore (piano). Songs (all credited to Parker): 1. "Compassion" (10:38, starts with bass, the other instruments -- Brown last -- inching into play); 2. "Malcolm's Smile" (8:44, notable effort from Moore on piano, along with smeared lines from Brown); 3. "For Robeson" (5:41); 4. "Holiday for Hypocrites" (8:10, excellent piano here); 5. "Testimony of the Last Flower" (0:37); 6. "Dejenos en Paz" (8:05, this is coming along nicely, much activity by all); 7. "Unrestricted (for Julius Hemphill)" (5:42); 8. "Goggles" (10:53, a much more orderly piece, with piano comping behind sax, at least until Parker takes a bass solo); 9. "The Eye of the Window" (9:59, Browns pulls out his Coltrane chops, which are slightly at odds with the more avant band). Verdict: I still have a lot more Parker to get to, but this relatively early set seems masterful to me. A-
• Rhythm Love and Soul (1958-81 [2003], Shout! Entertainment, 3 CD). Produced by Richard Foos -- an original founder of reissue giant Rhino Records -- along with Garson Foos and T.J. Lubinsky. Comes in an old-fashioned box, with three separate CD packages, the plastic insert, and the tall format booklet. Maybe half the songs are by giants capable of sustaining their own compilations (and at least one, James Brown, has managed to sustain a 4-CD box). But the other half are fluke hits by minor artists, and while they are all listed as singles, no effort has been made to justify them by chart position. It's possible that even I don't have 1/3 of them. Some go back to the late doo-wop era (Platters, Flamingos, Drifters), and a couple drift into the disco era, but most are 1963-74. A
• The Rough Guide to Global Dance ([2000], World Music Network). Smadj: "Isotropie" (Tunisia/France); Jazzanova: "Caravelle" (Germany); Tony Allen: "Get Together" (Nigeria); Frédéric Galliano presents the African Divas: "Kafo Fité" (France/Africa); Sidestepper: "Maine" (UK/Colombia); Suba: "Samba Do Gringo Paulista" (Brazil); TJ Rehmi: "The Fusionist" (UK/India); Tosca: "Boss on the Boat" (Austria); Idiot Savant: "Butter 6/4" (Denmark); Montefiori Cocktail: "Gypsy Woman" (Italy); Marcos Valle: "Bahia Blue" (Brazil); Jephté Guilllaume: "The Prayer/Acroostic Mix" (US/Haiti). B+
• The Rough Guide to Salsa ([2000], World Music Network). Yolando Rayo: "Salsa Con Sabor" (Colombia); La Misma Gente: "El Perfume de Paris" (Colombia); Ibrahim Ferrer: "Qué Bueno Baila Usted" (Cuba); Jimmy Bosch: "La Cacharra" (Puerto Rico); Africando: "Africando" (Senegal, Puerto Rico, Benin: latin rhythms have long played an important role in Senegal, so this afro-salsa conglomeration is a natural, and it flows almost indistinguishably from the preceding); Plena Libre: "Mañana por la Mañana" (Puerto Rico); Nava: "Cuando Se Ama" (Puerto Rico); Johnny Polanco y Su Conjunto Amistad: "La Receta" (New York/Puerto Rico); Orquesta Guayacán: "Vas a Llorar" (Colombia); Leo Vanelli: "Porque Duele" (Panama); Truco & Zaperoko: "Vamonos Pa'l Carnaval" (Puerto Rico); Septeto Nacional Ignacio Piñeiro: "La Chica de la Calle Madrid" (Cuba); Conjunto Casino: "Esta en Candela Mi Son" (Cuba); Jose Alberto "El Canario": "La Flor de la Canela" (Dominican). Hard to comment individually. This seems to be uniformly first rate, but salsa still strikes me as too compressed -- the rhythm is fast, the horns pound, it all just sort of pushes together. As samplers go, this is I'm sure first rate. But it's not compelling enough to put it over the top. B+
• Archie Shepp: Attica Blues (1972 [2003], Impulse). The title track is an urgent, furious piece of gospel -- his big band of jazz vanguardists (some of the more famous names are Clifford Thornton, Marion Brown, Leroy Jenkins, Lakshinarayana Shankar, and Beaver Harris) provides a vibrant undertow to the vocal fury. Then we get 18 seconds of William Kunstler, reading William G. Harris' "Invocation." "Steam Part 1" is more of a hymn. A second "Invocation to Mr. Parker" is narrated by Bartholomew Gray, with Marion Brown on flute and percussion and Jimmy Garrison on bass. A second part to "Steam" then wafts in, with Brown's vamboo flute, Shepp's sax, the violins, Cornell Dupree's guitar, and Jimmy Garrison on bass; then finally the vocal by Joe Lee Wilson resumes. Second side opens with "Blues for Brother George Jackson." Kunstler does another narration. "Quiet Dawn" closes on a slightly elegiac note -- the awkward vocals on top of a calm, rolling piece of considerable musical strength. Shepp's record represents an interesting juncture between the jazz avant-garde and populist soul music (presumably what Gil Scott-Heron was trying to do, although I've never bought into that). A-
• The Essential Sly & the Family Stone (1967-75 [2003], Epic/Legacy, 2 CD). The usual Rx here is Greatest Hits, which reduced four good albums to one great one, and There's a Riot Goin' On, which was both very different and needed no reduction. Optional was Fresh, another real good one. Later sets that tried to tie everything together, such as Anthology, inevitably wound up weaker than the sum of their parts. But with two discs to fill, this set comes close to following the traditional formula. The first disc has all 12 cuts from Greatest Hits, plus 2 from A Whole New Thing: "Underdog" (), "I Cannot Make It" (); 1 from Dance to the Music: "Are You Ready?" (); 1 from Life: "Love City" (); and 2 from Stand!: "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" (quid pro quo: "don't call me whitey, nigger," but dig that bass), "Somebody's Watching You" (ordinary). The second disc starts with Riot, omitting only three songs: "Africa Talks to You" (), "Time" (), "Spaced Cowboy" (). Then it includes about half of Fresh, omitting: "Let Me Have It All" (), "Thankful N' Thoughtful" (), "I Don't Know (Satisfaction)" (), "Keep on Dancin'" (), "Que Sera, Sera" (a major omission). Sly went to pot after that, so Finally, we get 2 cuts from Small Talk, 1 from High on You, and 0 from Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back. Nor did they go after either of the Warner Bros. albums. I still think the old standbys are the best way to go, but this lends greater unity to Sly's career, and that's worth thinking about. A-
• Lucinda Williams: World Without Tears (2003, Lost Highway). Her writing is as economical as ever, and the production is fastidious. Her singing is still rough and fractured (and it seems more so each time out), and her main squeezes these days are her guitars. But I'm not sure how much thought (as opposed to brains and talent, no problems there) has really gone into these bleak little short stories. For one thing, it's not true that "everything's wrong," and her examples are so stereotyped as to be dismissable. But most of this is fine, really. A-

Saturday, April 26, 2003

The following is an old (September 24, 1979) letter from the Village Voice, written by Laura Tillem in response to an essay by Ellen Willis (whose rejoinder follows). This came up because Laura will be giving a little speech at a town hall type meeting tomorrow, and even though some of the terminology here is a little old-fashioned, quite a bit of the substance is still germaine.

Dear Editor,

Ellen Willis implies that the only reason some Jews are ant-Zionist is that they feel sorrier for the Palestinians than for the Jews. ["The Myth of the Powerful Jew," Voice, September 3]. Well, a better reason is that it's a losing strategy, both for the Jews and for the Jewish tradition.

Sometimes I feel like Hitler did succeed in wiping out the Jews, because the ones he couldn't kill he turned into nationalist. What he really hated about the Jews was their internationalism, their lack of chauvinism. Their position made them almost immune to certain kinds of bullshit, particularly the complex of ideas bound up with "patriotism." Their internationalism was a beacon toward the future and a threat to all repressive society.

But now we have Zionism, the ultimate assimilationist trip. We have a country just like everybody else has a country. We have militaristic values, just like everybody else. We hope that no one will think us mysterious anymore. We are no longer the ones who identify with many places and are "loyal" to none. If we we're going to lay down our lives for something it will be for a country, like ordinary people.

You can argue that the role of the critical outsider was groovy but led to a lot of death for Jews. It wasn't safe. Well it ought to be clear by now that Zionism isn't safe either. As Willis shows, the Jews don't have shit for power. Anti-Semitism is on the rise everywhere it's ever existed. Israel's most powerful friends hate Jews. If things get so bad here that we have to flee, Israel is not going to be a safe haven. It isn't even a safe haven now.

The point is, bourgeois solutions are no good for the Jews. We have as much right as anybody, more right, to be wrong-headed and selfish, that's not the point. As Willis sees, as long as capitalism or other forms of hierarchical society are around, the contradictions of the class struggle will never leave the Jews alone. It's true that seeking a revolutionary solution is scary, but the bourgeois solution always looks easier, by definition. Part of the revolutionary solution is struggling against the anti-Semitism in the Arab world for the right o the Jews now in Israel to live in safety and respect in a secular (non-exclusive) state. Is that really a worse bet than struggling against the forces of socialism for the right of the Jews to have a theocratic republic in the middle of somebody else's home? Have the Jews traded in a unique tradition for some goyische concept that won't make us safe?

Laura Tillem Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

Ellen Willis replies: I agree that Jewish nationalism has done more to point up the ironies of the Jewish situation than to resolve them, and that Jewish oppression will end only with a radical transformation of the social order. But I feel that Tillem does not address political reality. The question is not whether to establish a Jewish state -- that question was overtaken by events -- but whether the state that exists should be allowed to survive. Israel is a living historical, social, cultural entity. Abolishing it against the will -- and the military resistance -- of its inhabitants would entail incalculable destruction and misery that a two-state settlement could avoid. And though Israel is not a safe haven, an unsafe haven is a lot better than none.

Tillem's laudable distaste for national chauvinism is, I think, beside the point. Israel's autonomy is not being challenged by internationalists but by nationalists who want exactly what the Israelis have -- a state of their own. Yasir Arafat has made clear that he envisions this state as distinctively Arab, which means that Jews would once again be a marginal minority. Nor do I know of any socialist state that is less chauvinistic or exclusive than its capitalist fellows. I believe that genuine internationalism will be possible only when there is some practical prospect of ending material scarcity. Under present conditions, for Israel to renounce nationalism might set a noble moral example, but its only practical effect would be to inflict still more suffering on Jews.

Finally, I must (again) protest the labeling of Israel as "theocratic." Despite the political power of the religious bloc, Israeli law and the Israeli government are basically secular.

Laura suggested that I should omit Willis' reply, but while it is historically dated -- would Willis deny today that Israel is a theocracy? -- it shows some instincts that are worthy of note. First, Willis' assertion that the issue of a Jewish state was "overtaken by events" makes two assumptions that we might not really want to make: that any state where the majority of citizens are Jewish must be a Jewish state, and that once there a Jewish state has been established it cannot be changed without destruction of its Jewish citizenry. The obvious alternative would be a secular democratic state with guarantees for the personal rights of all citizens. That Israel failed to establish such a state after the UK abandoned their mandate hardly means that there is no reason for them to do so at any time in the future.

Friday, April 25, 2003

This from an article in the Guardian by George Monbiot:

Only one means of containing the US remains. It is deadly and, if correctly deployed, insuperable. It rests within the hands of the people of the United Kingdom.

Were it not for a monumental economic distortion, the US economy would, by now, have all but collapsed. It is not quite a West African basket case, but the size of the deficits and debts incurred by its profligacy would, by any conventional measure, suggest that it was in serious trouble. It survives only because conventional measures do not apply: the rest of the world has granted it an unnatural lease of life.

Almost 70% of the world's currency reserves -- the money that nations use to finance international trade and protect themselves against financial speculators -- takes the form of US dollars. The dollar is used for this purpose because it is relatively stable, it is produced by a nation with a major share of world trade, and certain commodities, in particular oil, are denominated in it, which means that dollars are required to buy them.

The US does very well from this arrangement. In order to earn dollars, other nations must provide goods and services to the US. When commodities are valued in dollars, the US needs do no more than print pieces of green paper to obtain them: it acquires them, in effect, for free. Once earned, other nations' dollar reserves must be invested back into the American economy. This inflow helps the US to finance its massive deficit.

The only serious threat to the dollar's international dominance at the moment is the euro. Next year, when the European Union acquires 10 new members, its gross domestic product will be roughly the same as that of the US, and its population 60% bigger. If the euro is adopted by all the members of the union, which suffers from none of the major underlying crises afflicting the US economy, it will begin to look like a more stable and more attractive investment than the dollar. Only one further development would then be required to unseat the dollar as the pre-eminent global currency: nations would need to start trading oil in euros.

Until last week, this was already beginning to happen. In November 2000, Saddam Hussein insisted that Iraq's oil be bought in euros. When the value of the euro rose, the country's revenues increased accordingly. As the analyst William Clark has suggested, the economic threat this represented might have been one of the reasons why the US government was so anxious to evict Saddam. But it may be unable to resist the greater danger.

It's hard to say just how vulnerable this system really is. It has long been perpetuated because it's been convenient for the international capitalist class to keep the US in business. That's only likely to change if capitalists find that it would be advantageous to themselves to change. But clearly, the new round of tax cuts, defense build-ups, economic fears, and booming deficits in the US make the dollar a less attractive investment. But it's also certainly true that if the dollar cracks investor panic will break it, and nobody's really going to see that coming until it hits us broadside. As it stands, Bush's economic policy is somewhere between extremely risky and suicidal.

Sunday, April 20, 2003

Music: Initial count 8165 rated (+17), 874 unrated (+10). I've started this entry a bit early: this will, I swear, be the last week of the Rolling Stone Record Guide work, with only five entries left -- Ani DiFranco, George Jones, Pet Shop Boys, Lou Reed, Loudon Wainwright III -- but between them them have over 100 CDs (my modest Jones collection, at 33, is obviously far from complete). Anyhow, I wanted to keep these together rather than have them wrap across two weeks, so here it is. Hopefully, this will go so fast that I'll be able to finally get to some new stuff, not to mention the new old stuff that's been piling up lately.

• Ani DiFranco (1990, Righteous Babe). This is very primitive, and she's nowhere near ready for prime time, but she's got a way with words that will server her well. Her guitar, though, is barely a prop, and the most striking piece here is the one where she puts it down and just spits out her poetry. "Lost Woman Song" is about crossing picket lines to enter an abortion clinic. "Rush Hour" is a striking song, the minimal guitar for once adding to it. B+
• Ani DiFranco: Not So Soft (1991, Righteous Babe). The first thing I'm noticing is that she's singing better, although maybe that just means that she's more used to the microphone. "Not So Soft" is just poetry -- no guitar. On the other hand, she picks up a drum on "Roll With It," to good effect ("she says my ass hurts/when i sit down/she says my feet hurt/when i'm standing around/i think my body/is as restless as my mind/and i'm not gonna roll with it this time"). "Gratitude" ("but i don't come and go/like a pop song/you can play incessantly/and then forget once it's gone/you can't write me off/and can't write me off/and you don't/turn me on"). "The Whole Night" ("we can touch/touch our girl cheeks/and we can old hands/like paper dolls/we can try/try each other on/in the privacy/within new york city's walls/we can kiss/kiss goodnight/and we can go home wondering/what would it be like if/if i did not have a boyfriend/and we could spend/the whole night/i am waking up/in her bed/i sing 1st avenue/the open window said/ . . . /i am/headed for the kitchen/i am/thinking of her fingers/as i walk"). Moves forward a bit musically, although the singing seems a little more forced/mannered. Lyrically, it's more out. Not quite there, but she's got something. B+
• Ani DiFranco: Imperfectly (1992, Righteous Babe). Starts with a great song, "What If No One's Watching" ("but what/what if no one's watching/what if when we're dead/we are just dead/what if there's no time to lose/what if there's things we gotta do/things that need to be said"), and the sound jumps up several quantum levels, with drums and bass and Ani's fiercest guitar attack to date. "Fixing Her Hair" starts with a guitar instrumental, and has a little mandolin in the background as she sings. "In or Out" ("it's Mr. DiFranco to you"; "i've got spots/i've got stripes too"; "to me what's mor eimportant/is the person that i bring/not just getting to the same restaurant/and eating the same thing") -- oft cited as her out-bisexual sound. "Every State Line" ("every state line/there's a new set of laws/and every police man/comes equipped with extended claws/there's a thousand shades of white/and a thousand shades of black/but the same rule always applies/smile pretty and watch your back"; "he said baby do you like to fool around/baby do you like to be touched/i said maybe some other time/fuck you very much") -- this is sung acapella, with some vocal overdubs; reminds me of Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz" -- very different song, but same presence. "Circle of Light" picks up a little trumpet. "If It Isn't Her" (just guitar, quirky, "i have been playing/too many of them boy-girl games/she says honey you are safe here/this is a girl-girl thing"). "Good Bad Ugly." "I'm No Heroine" ("i just hope somewhere/some woman hears my music/and it helps her through her day"). "Coming Up" (multitracked voice, "this country is too large/and whoever's in charge up there/had better take the elevator down/and put more than change/in our cup or else we/are coming/up"). "Make Them Apologize" (guitar and drums). A-
• Ani DiFranco: Puddle Dive (1993, Righteous Babe). Cover is tinted yellow, fake-colored; Ani is head-shaved, at least up to a scarf/band with disordered hair behind it. The effect is to look racially ambiguous. Booklet has lyrics, but hand-lettered, harder to read, so I'll probably quote less. "Names and Dates and Times" kicks off hard, with Andy Stochansky on drums, others on harmonica, bass, accordion. "Willing to Fight" ("you got to look outside your eyes/you got to think outside your brain/you got to walk outside your life/to where the neighborhood changes"). "Egos Like Hairdos" ("we've got egos like hairdos/they're diferent every day/depending on how we slept the night before/depending on the demons that are at our door"). "Back Around" is if anything a jazz piece. "My IQ" has a little background organ, which Ani ad libs over ("i've got highways for stretch marks/see where i've grown"; "for every lie i unlearn/i learn something new"). "Used to You" (lyric refers to "take a puddle dive", what does that mean?). "Pick Your Nose" ("all these plastic people/got plastic surgery"; "how come i can pick my ears/but not my nose/who made up that rule anyway/how can you say that's the way it is"). "God's Country" picks up a little harmonica. A-
• Ani DiFranco: Like I Said (Songs 1990-91) (1993, Righteous Babe). Her first two albums were so lo-fi, her guitar barely a prop, it's not surprising that she figured she could do them better now that she's learned a bit about the studio and can afford a little help. "Not So Soft," which was just recited on the second album, is now sung over percussion. "Roll With It" has, uh, horns, or maybe a synth doing horns, or maybe a sample. B+
• Ani DiFranco: Out of Range (1994, Righteous Babe). Booklets are getting harder to ready. Looks like this is almost all done with three-piece band (drums, bass, Ani). "Letter to a John" has to do with lap-dancing. "Face Up and Sing" is one that really jumps out. (Yes, not paying enough attention as I'm playing this -- got, like, other work to do too.) Haven't been getting a real strong feel on this record. One thing is that the music is much more complex and subtle than ever before, which has the effect of toning down the raw attack. The finale, "The Diner," is good. Christgau comments that he thinks she's "distracted by piano, accordion, even horns from her lithe sound." Could be, or could just be that I haven't paid enough attention in this rush round. But I previously had this at B+, and haven't heard anything to suggest that that's not right. B+
• Ani DiFranco: Not a Pretty Girl (1995, Righteous Babe). Again, with time limited this has been slipping by while I've been doing other things. The songs tend to be slower, but the music is still distinctive. A-
• Ani DiFranco: Dilate (1996, Righteous Babe). First song is a ballad, "Untouchable Face," which goes "so fuck you/and your untouchable face/fuck you/for existing in the first place/and who am i/that i should be vying for your touch/who am i/bet you can't even tell me that much." Ah, love. The next prominent use of "fuck" is in "Napoleon," as in "you're a fucking Napoleon." "Shameless" works up a hard funk groove; fierce words, too, but the music is the most striking. "Going Down" is mostly a drum piece, and I think they're synthetic. A-
• Ani DiFranco: More Joy, Less Shame (1996, Righteous Babe, EP). Four remixes of "Joyful Girl" (from Dilate), one of "Shameless" (also from Dilate), and a live take of "Both Hands" (from Ani DiFranco). Cover picture shows her in a dress (a first, I think), looking dark and fuzzy. The first "danger and uncertainty mix" is yer basic trip hop track. The other mixes are less distinct, and none are distinctly Ani. The "bathtub mix" of "Shameless" is done with a little girl voice and a beat that I'm only guessing qualifies as drum & bass. It loses all of the immediacy of the original, without quite elevating itself to pure confection. B
• Ani DiFranco: Living in Clip (1997, Righteous Babe, 2 CD). The three-piece band: bass and drums and chick singer/guitarist. She won her crowd over with almost constant touring, and she brings enough extra to the stage to put the whole package over. Some of these songs are old enough that she's learned some new tricks on them; others are merely familiar. Big cheer on the line from "I'm No Heroine." Big reinterpretation on "Amazing Grace." Is "Out of Range" just guitar, or is she playing so loud that you can't hear the drums? The booklet is a photo album. A-
• Ani DiFranco: Little Plastic Castle (1998, Righteous Babe). The title cut starts off with horns -- a sort of Mexican riff, sounds great, actually -- and when she sings "you are by far the cutest" the intonation isn't what you expect from Ani; it sounds, well, carefully measured, drawn just right, like she's becoming a chanteuse. "Fuel" is full of wondrous things, "now that lynching is frowned upon/and we've moved on to the electric chair," "i wonder who's gonna be president, tweedle dum or tweedle dummer?" "Gravel" is more typical. "Deep Dish" brings the horns back, in something that sounds a wee bit like a cha-cha -- whatever, it's a hoot. "Pulse," a long piece with its trance drums and Jon Hassell's subdued trumpet, closes the affair elegantly. She's been moving toward fancier music for years, but such music always runs the risk of losing what made her distinctive in the first place -- above all, her attack. Still, this works remarkably well. A-
• Ani DiFranco: Up Up Up Up Up Up (1999, Righteous Babe). "'Tis of Thee" is a pointed ballad, about class. B+
• Ani DiFranco: To the Teeth (1999, Righteous Babe). "Freakshow" may make me recant and concede that she's a punk -- "you need a lot of love and compliance." The bass is jazzy, but the rhythm has a dash of hardcore ska, and the vocals are, well, punk. "Going Once" is a jazz ballad -- at first she sounds like a coy interpreter, but that straightens out quickly enough. Even get a rap on "Swing" (Corey Parker does the rap, while Maceo Parker blows). B+
• Ani DiFranco: Swing Set (2000, Righteous Babe, EP). The "Swing" remixes are good. The cover of "Do Re Mi" is a revelation; Dylan's "Hurricane" is more of a mess, and I've already forgotten about the Phil Ochs song. B+
• Ani DiFranco: Revelling / Reckoning (2001, Righteous Babe, 2 CD). This is a sprawling mess, but at first blush it has some music of interest; harder to tell about the lyrics, none of which really jump out. The first disc, Revelling, uses a lot of horns and tends to be funky, but that's only part of it. To my mind, the most attractive thing is the instrumental at the end, "Beautiful Night." It would take a lot more effort to sort it all out, and it's not immediately clear that it would be worthwhile to do so. Which isn't the same as saying that she's washed up or anything like that -- it's just too damn obscure, and that has never been her problem before. Reckoning is a long, slow side of ballads. "Your Next Bold Move" is anticapitalist critique ("what a waste of thumbs that are opposable/to make machines that are disposable/and sell them to seagulls flying in circles/around one big right wing"), but the counterstrategizing isn't necessarily up to snuff ("yes, the left wing was broken long ago/by the slingshot of cointelpro/and now it's so hard to have faith in/anything"). In "Sick of Me" she sings, "how sick of me/must you be/by now . . . i took to the stage/with my outrage/in the bad old days/when you were the make-me-mad guy/but the songs/they come out more slowly/now that i am the bad guy/and i say, i'm sorry i'm so crazy/i am astounded by your patience/and you say, believe it or not, baby/the joy you bring me/still outweighs it." B
• Ani DiFranco: Evolve (2003, Righteous Babe). With its die-cut slipcase and generous booklet, this is a nice piece of packaging. When I read the lyrics to the first song I'm duly impressed, but then I recall that I just heard the song and didn't recognize any of them. What does that mean? "Here for Now" is the first thing I've heard that really jumps out for me, but the best thing about it is the horn line, then the jumpy rhythm. The guitar instrumental on "Second Intermission" is very nicely figured. (Is this a pattern, that her best pieces will henceforth be instrumentals?) "Serpentine" is a long political diatribe -- actually, it a protest song. B
• Utah Phillips & Ani DiFranco: The Past Didn't Go Anywhere (1996, Righteous Babe). The music here is mechanical sounding drums and strummed guitar, on top of which Phillips tells his stories. Although he also gets taped and looped to generate a little forced repetition. "Folk songs are boring . . . we're going to sing this damn song together, boring or not." "Nevada City, California" -- "I'm now the ostensible owner of a new age bookstore in Nevada City, California . . . no matter how new age you get, old age is gonna kick your ass." Mesmerizing story in "Korea," about deserting and watching Marian Anderson sing for Koreans in a bombed out theatre. "Anarchy" (). "Candidacy" (no music, just words, announcing that he's running for President as an anarchist candidate on the Sloth and Indolence Party ticket). "Bum on the Rod" (just a little piano, vs. the bum on the plush). "Enormously Wealthy" ("that's dumb"); "Mess With People" (drums, stories about daughter and cockroaches). A-
• Ani DiFranco & Utah Phillips: Fellow Workers (1999, Righteous Babe). Less techno-folk fusion, more war stories. Or rather, labor stories, but that's tough enough. Mother Jones, Joe Hill, "America was built on the backs of draft dodgers." Some singalongs. B+
• The Best of George Jones (The Millennium Collection) (1955-62 [2000], Mercury). This 12-cut cheapo weighs out at 30:51, which would normally be criminal, but with the marginal exception of "Family Bible" everything else here is so archetypally magnificent that only the most gluttonous of experts will fail to be satisifed. Consider his first hit, "Why Baby Why" -- poor cuckolded George, complaining, "you're running wild/kicking up your heels/leaving me at home/with a handful of bills"; then he screws up his pride and plots revenge (of sorts), "I'm going honky tonkin'/get as tight as i can/and maybe then/you'll appreciate a good man"; not that he does, nor that it works, for "I caught you honky tonkin' with my best friend/the thing to do was leave you/but I should have left then/now I'm too old to leave you but I still get sore/when you come home a feeling for the knob on the door." Of course, anyone who knows anything about Jones knows this isn't just irony working here, it's stupendous bullshit, but has anyone ever managed to sing with more sheer conviction than Jones? And then it's one astonishing song after another: "Just One More," "Don't Stop the Music," "Too Much Water," "Color of the Blues," "Treasure of Love," "White Lightning," "Who Shot Sam," "Window Up Above," "Tender Years," "Achin' Breakin' Heart." Wow. A
• George Jones: Cup of Loneliness: The Classic Mercury Years (1955-59 [1994], Mercury, 2 CD). The first disc is outstanding, starting with "No Money in This Deal" and "Why Baby Why" and closing with the J.P. Richardson classics, "White Lightning" and "Who Shot Sam"; things like "Too Much Water," "Tall Tall Trees," "Cup of Loneliness," and "I'm Gonna Burn Your Playhouse Down" are still etched in my mind, but it would be great to hear them again. The second disc is less chock full of hits, but is full of beautiful country fare, like "Out of Control" ("a life ain't worth living, when it's out of control"). A
• George Jones: Hank, Bob & Me: The Songs of Hank Williams, Sr. & Bob Wills (1962 [2003], Fuel 2000). Fourteen cuts from Jones' two 1962 tribute albums -- not at many cuts as would fit, but I never was all that impressed with Jones' take on Bob Wills (the breakdown is 8-6 in favor of Williams). Hank Williams, of course, is a closer fit -- Jones is one of the few guys who can challenge Williams' command of high, lonesome misery, although it always seems like more of an act with Jones: he's just too robust to really be so pathetic. "Take These Chains From My Heart" certainly could've been written for Jones. B+
• George Jones & Melba Montgomery: Vintage Collections (1963-64 [1995], Capitol). "We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds" was a #3 hit, a classic duet. "Let's Invite Them Over" went #17, and that's another story: about mate-swapping, in fact. "What's in Our Heart" went to #20; "Please Be My Love" to #31; "Multiply the Heartaches" to #25. Montgomery was a raw singer, with a deep country accent, and a relatively deep voice, which Jones could sing over, under, or all around. Pappy Daily produced, and there's a lot of bluegrass here -- "Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms," "Blue Moon of Kentucky." "Flame in My Heart" is a real good Jones song. A-
• The Best of George Jones (1955-1967) (1955-67 [1991], Rhino). A
• George Jones: A Picture of Me / Nothing Ever Hurt Me (1972-73 [1998], Koch). Two Epic albums, produced by Billy Sherrill. A Picture of Me is wall-to-wall ballads. Nothing Ever Hurt Me starts to pick up the pace a bit, with the title cut and "You're Looking at a Happy Man" classic up-tempo Jones fare, but it too settles into a long string of ballads. Jones is, of course, a great balladeer, and most of this is impeccably solid work. A-
• George Jones: The Battle / Memories of Us (1975-76 [1998], Koch). Two more Epic albums. "The Battle" is the occasion for some fancy producing, the lament of a thug who melts when faced with his enemies tears. More ballads, but "The Nightime (And My Baby)" is faster, as is the excellent "I'll Come Back." From "Billy Ray Wrote a Song": "well we did a lot of thinking/most of my thoughts were wrong." "I Still Sing the Old Songs" is a prayerful "south will rise again" song, heavy chorus, rather perversely touching. "Touch of Wildnerness" is string-laden, a little heavy. "What I Do Best" is one of his best pathetic songs: "they say every man has given talents/but if hurtin' is a talent then I know that I've been blessed/oh, missing you just seems to come so natural/and I guess I finally found what I do best." After another real slow one, "Have You Seen My Chicken" is an oddball barnyard piece, albeit not a great one, although the production touches are clever. Overall, lots of ballads, a few others. The Battle is pretty good; Memories of Us less so. B+
• George Jones: All-Time Greatest Hits, Volume 1 (1977, Epic). "Produced by Billy Sherrill" is your first clue -- these are remakes. Chronologically, the original singles were: "Why Baby Why" (1955-10-29, Starday), "White Lightnin'" (1959-03-09, Mercury), "The Window Up Above" (1960-11-07, Mercury), "Tender Years" (1961-06-10, ), "She Thinks I Still Care" (1962-04-14), "The Race Is On" (1964-09-26), "Walk Through This World With Me" (1967-01-21), "I'll Share My World With You" (1969-03-29), "She's Mine" (1969-11-15). That leaves "My Favorite Lies" unaccounted for (appeared on a Hollywood album, reissued by Rounder, also on a King compilation). Great songs, of course, but if you want a rule of thumb, the further the song goes back, the weaker these versions are compared to the originals (cf. "Why Baby Why"). On the other hand, they're not without interest: Sherrill's arrangements are relatively spare, and Jones has developed even further as a singer. This "The Window Up Above," in particular, is definitive. This was a quickie back then, and at ten cuts it seems real cheap right now. B+
• George Jones & Tammy Wynette: Greatest Hits (1972-77 [1989], Epic). Both of them were world class singers, and being married, one assumed the sex appeal. This has three #1 singles ("We're Gonna Hold On," "Golden Ring," and "Near You") -- side note: from 1971-75, Jones had two #1 and 10 top-ten singles in his own name, vs. three #1 and 8 top-ten with Tammy -- but the most interesting things are a pair of novelties, "(We're Not) The Jet Set" (later on John Prine's duets album) and "God's Gonna Get'Cha," both funny, the latter riotous. On the other hand, "Southern California" is pretty fake-tearjerky, and "Let's Build a World Together" is just icky. I rather doubt that any of Jones' female duets worked all that well, perhaps because he never seemed like the sort of guy who'd care enough about being a husband to bring any commitment to it (that line about loving her like a child loves his mother is perhaps a little too revealing). The Melba Montgomery duets sort of worked because she could be as corny and comical as he was. The only reason these work as well as they do is because Tammy's as full of shit as George is. It wasn't a match made in heaven, but it sold a lot of records for Epic. Note that all 10 cuts are repeated on 16 Biggest Hits. B+
• George Jones & Tammy Wynette: Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (1972-80 [1992], Epic). The hits were mostly disposed of in Vol. 1; of what's left only two were singles, and those were released well after the fact, in 1980 ("Two Story House" hit #2, "A Pair of Old Sneakers" one of Jones' transcendent ballads. "Something to Brag About" is another funny little Bobby Braddock song. "Someone I Used to Know" is a recycled classic. Braddock's "Did You Ever" is another one, one innuendo after another. Only the finale, "The World Needs a Memory," seems spurious. A-
• George Jones & Tammy Wynette: Super Hits (1971-80 [1995], Epic). Five cuts from Vol. 1, five from Vol. 2; not the best five in either case, but far from the worst five. Which overall makes it better than Vol. 1 and pretty even with Vol. 2. Which means that to be at all consistent the grade pretty much has to be the same. A-
• George Jones & Tammy Wynette: 16 Biggest Hits (1971-80 [1999], Epic/Legacy). With the two volumes of Greatest Hits weighing in at 10 short cuts each, this is almost a bargain. This has all 10 cuts from the first, but just three from the second, plus three more cuts: "There's Power in Our Love" (so-so), "Keep the Change" (troubled, skillful), "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms" (well, sure). So while it obviates the first, the (imho superior) second still has a lot to offer. A-
• George Jones: My Very Special Guests (1978-79, Epic). A quickie duets album, barely 30 minutes including recycled "Bartender's Blues," a James Taylor song/duet that was a hit the year before. I've never viewed Jones much as an interpretive singer, but "Nite Life" (with Waylon Jennings) is pretty sharp work. "I Gotta Get Drunk" (with Willie Nelson) is less interesting, perhaps because it's easier to knock off. Johnny Paycheck on "Proud Mary" is similarly lightweight. But "Stranger in the House," with promising country neophyte Elvis Costello, is impressive, not least for the guest's contrastingly simple voice. More fun with Dr. Hook and the Staples. B+
• George Jones: I Am What I Am (1980 [2000], Epic/Legacy). One of his best, led off with "He Stopped Loving Her Today," with 3-4 other first-rate songs ("I've Aged Twenty Years in Five," "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)," "His Lovin' Her Is Gettin' in My Way," "I'm the One She Missed Him With Today." In this company, "Good Hearted Woman" and "Bone Dry" are just quallity filler. Four bonus cuts. Pretty good ones. A-
• George Jones: Anniversary: Ten Years of Hits (1972-82 [1982], Epic). This originally came out in 1982 as a 2-LP set, and as such this is where I got to know George Jones first. It is, of course, all Billy Sherrill-produced, but with Sherrill the earlier the better. This is actually rather samey -- lots of ballads, strings, mopey songs. But its evenness is elevated by Jones singing, which is always superb. A line from "Good Ones and Bad Ones": "a good one will love you till death you do part/and a bad one will make sure you go first." No yabba-dabba-do, but this hardly needs it. A
• George Jones: First Time Live! (1987, Epic). Claimed to be the first live country LP ever, not that that's much of a claim in its own right. (Ernest Tubb's great Live 1965 came out much later, and of course more older shows have been uncovered.) This of course is fairly lightweight -- a pretty short set (although Jones has been known to make shorter appearances), leading off with a thing called "No Show Jones," and cutting through familiar material. "The Window Up Above" has never sounded better, and the closing "She's My Rock" is quite solid. Sound is good. Some patter and crowd noise. B
• George Jones: Super Hits (1972-85 [1987], Epic). Ten cut cheapie: the 1977 remakes of "White Lightnin'," "Why Baby Why," and "The Window Up Above," plus seven Epic hits that are so obvious I won't bother listing them. It's all great, but he hardly needs such concision. A-
• George Jones: Super Hits, Vol. 2 (1972-88 [1993], Epic). Another ten cut cheapie. One more remake, "She Thinks I Still Care." The other cuts are less obvious, but "Still Doin' Time" is one of his best, and "Radio Lover" is another. A-
• George Jones: 16 Biggest Hits (1972-88 [1998], Epic/Legacy). First two are good, from good albums, but there's a whole lot of Billy Sherrill in what follows -- "The Door" is one of his most overwrought productions. On the other hand, "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is every bit as overwrought, and it's magnificent, so go figure. The strings keep coming until "She's My Rock." The Elvis/Fred Flintstone thing, "The King Is Dead," is pretty good. "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes," is, like, not really George's problem, now is it? There's a lot of junk here. I suspect that a random number generator could pick a better set of Epic-era Jones, but I'm less sure that Billy Sherrill could. [Postscript: played it again, and this time I recognized everything; and while I still think that "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes" is beneath him -- a clever little piece that should belong to someone not capable of filling those shoes -- Jones' singing on all this Sherrill dreck is magnificent, indeed that seems to be the point of dreck and all.] A-
• George Jones: Love Songs (1972-86 [2003], Epic/Legacy). The Willie Nelson entry in this ill-conceived series is downright awful. However, anything that starts with "A Picture of Me (Without You)" and ends with "He Stopped Loving Her Today" has to be a good deal better than that. But note that neither of those are happy-ever-afters. But while heartbreak, futility, and resignation are most of what Jones has to say about love, he's usually willing to try harder, and he can wax eloquent. "I Always Get Lucky With You" is a terrific song here. "Loving You Could Never Be Better" has a tiny bass and bare drums, the song carried by Jones' voice until it picks up in a crescendo: an astonishing piece. Nothing here really disappoints, and while the music and arrangements are rarely notable, Jones sings through them with majestic conviction. And in the finale the music finally rises to his level, and he tops it anyway. B+
• George Jones: One Man Woman (1989, Epic). Title song is well known/good; so is the Elvis Presley/Fred Flintstone one. Even better is "Radio Lover" -- sounds rather familiar, but it originated here. "Just Out of Reach" is classic. "Writing on the Wall" is quite good. Solid all around album. B+
• The Spirit of Country: The Essential George Jones (1955-88 [1994], Epic/Legacy, 2 CD). Career-spanning, at least until that career up and left Epic. Two singles from Starday, five from Mercury, three from United Artists, five from Musicor -- those fifteen, which overlaps Rhino's The Best of George Jones quite a bit, were all produced by Pappy Daily. The rest of the cuts come from Epic, and were produced by Billy Sherrill. The usual breakdown between the two is that Daily let Jones be his honky tonk self, while Sherrill tried to turn him countrypolitan. The facts are a little messier. Daily cuts like "The Window Up Above" and "Tender Years" are flooded with backing choruses, but Jones simply blows them away. And on "A Good Year for the Roses," Daily adds strings to the choruses, but Jones had by then developed into a phenomenal baladeer. Two cuts with Tammy on the first disc, "The Ceremony," perfunctory, and "We're Gonna Hold On" (already?), but also some good ballads. The second disc starts with "The Door" -- not my favorite, but an ambitious piece. Three more songs with Tammy, from "Golden Ring" to "Two Story House." James Taylor's help on "Bartender's Blues" just steadies Jones, who brings it home. "Her Name Is" has a clever little guitar frill to signify blanks to be filled in later. "He Stopped Loving Her Today," not merely magnificent, but perhaps the best use of strings ever in country music. Nothing special with Johnny Paycheck, but reminds me that I liked Double Trouble more than my B rating might suggest -- while the album was mostly routine rockers, I would've picked "When You're Ugly Like Us" (or maybe "Along Came Jones"). "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)" is perhaps an overdone drinking trope, but "Still Doin' Time" ("in a honky tonk prison") comes from the same vein, and it's one of his great ones. The Merle Haggard duet on a Willie Nelson song is good, of course. But "I Always Get Lucky With You" is flat-out beautiful, even if you feel like beating the strings down with a stick. Who's bright idea was it to get Ray Charles to sing "I Didn't See a Thing"? Cute novelty piece -- seems to me that there should be more like that. First disc is near-definitive; second is typical. A
• George Jones: Walls Can Fall (1992, MCA). Sez Robert Christgau: "His problem wasn't authenticity -- it was Billy Sherrill." This one's produced by Emory Gordy Jr. Kicks off with the uppity "I Don't Need Your Rocking Chair." "Walls Can Fall" is a good ballad; "Don't Send Me No Angels" ("cause I got my own") is even better. "Drive Me to Drink" is equally good. "Wrong's What I Do Best" may be the best thing on the album. The last four songs are all good. Clearly one thing here is that someone (Jones credits Renee Bell) took some time to find much better than average songs. (And the only real familiar ones are "There's the Door" and "The Bottle Let Me Down.") Secondly, there's two fiddles but no orchestra here. Closes with "Finally Friday" ("it's finally Friday/I'm out of control/ . . . /let the good times roll"). A-
• George Jones: High-Tech Redneck (1993, MCA). Produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. Title cut is an OK upbeat number. Following are a few of those ballads, of which "The Love in Your Eyes" is pretty good. "Silent Partners" is good. More ballads. The Sammy Kershaw duet "Never Bit a Bullet Like This" is a slightly annoying rocker. B
• George Jones & Tammy Wynette: One (1995, MCA). "One" is an overorchestrated ballad, but "It's an Old Love Thing" is a kick once you get past its fictions, and Jones gets in a little growl that'll catch you aback. "What Ever Happened to Us" is another slow one. More ballads, then "If Got Met You" ("she wouldn't like you . . . five minutes of your bull/and she'd unleash her wrath"). Merle Haggard's "Solid as a Rock" is another solid one: "we built our love to last/like ol' Henry Ford builds cars." At this stage there's no real chemistry here, but they're such pros that they make this look easy. The ballads are artful, and the novelties blow them away. And this is about as unmistakbaly country-sounding a record as was released in the '90s. B+
• George Jones: It Don't Get Any Better Than This (1998, MCA). Produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. Starts off with another good ballad, "Wild Irish Rose," with a spoken bit. "Small Y'all" uses Jones' jokester drawl for some clever moralizing. "Over You" is a Bobby Braddock ballad, worked heavily, milked for all it's worth. "It Don't Get Any Better Than This" has brief vocal turns from Cash, Nelson, Hag, Waylon, and Bobby Bare, on top of hoedown fiddle. "Smack Dab"'s protagonist has better things to do than answer the President's call. "Don't Touch Me" is an average ballad. "Got to Get to Louisiana" adds some spice, with a T. Graham Brown vocal. "When Did You Stop Lovin' Me" is a better ballad. "No Future for Me in Our Past" is another pretty good ballad. Too bad the last cut, "I Can Live Forever," goes to heaven -- swatched in eternal strings. Probably his best since Walls Can Fall. Close call. B+
• The Best of George Jones Volume 2: The '90s (The Millennium Collection) (1991-98 [2002], MCA Nashville). These twelve cuts only run 36:35, not much longer than Vol. 1, which picked twelve from 1955-62. Three cuts from Walls Can Fall -- his best from the period. Three from High Tech Redneck -- probably the worst, but I can't complain about "The Love in Your Eyes." This leans a bit on guest vocalists -- Sammy Kershaw on "Never Bit a Bullet Like This," Tammy Wynette on "One," everyone who's anyone on "It Don't Get Any Better Than This," and a whole generation still trying to get there on "I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair." "Love Bug" is a bright remake from The Bradley Barn Sessions. "Honky Tonk Song" reprises a few good lines from "She Drives Me to Drink." I would've picked this a bit differently, but the reconstructed, sobered-up and dried-out Jones of the '90s has been at least as consistent as, oh, Alan Jackson in his prime. The competing The George Jones Collection (which I haven't heard) also has just 12 songs, including eight duplicates with this one, and at least one of the missing ("Wild Irish Rose") is missed here. B+
• George Jones: Cold Hard Truth (1999, Asylum). Consider a couple of lines from "Choices": I've had choices since the day I was born/there were voices that told me right from wrong/if I had listened i wouldn't be here today/living and dying with the choices that I've made." Sounds like George's key to longevity was a lifetime of booze and battery and cocaine and crap, doesn't it? I mean, those are the choices that he made. And consider the moral relativism of "Sinners & Saints": "the only thing different in sinners and saints/one is forgiven and the other one ain't." He pitches woo in "The Real Deal," ("he ain't nothing but a cheap thrill/he can't love you like I will"), and you scratch your head. Of course, he sounds utterly sincere -- he's not merely a good liar, he reveals truth as unselfconsciously as a monarch who always finds the red carpet magically appear with every step. "You Never Know Just How Good You've Got It": what a great song, and did you notice that little growl that he slips in like it was nothing, when you know damn good and well that no one else could do it? A-
• George Jones: Live With the Possum (1999, Asylum). Pretty much a rerun of the 1987 First Time Live, starting with "No Show Jones," featuring a medley, etc. Jones is as confused as ever intersong, and the crowd is more hepped than ever. The instrumental "Orange Blossom Special" is the sort of filler live albums often skip over. The finale "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is gorgeous, but the crowd interferes. In fact, the adulatory crowd is the dominant presence here. In a courtroom we'd just stipulate that fact and move on to real matters. B-
• George Jones: The Rock: Stone Cold Country 2001 (2001, Bandit/BNA). New label, and two new producers as well as Emory Gordy Jr. "The Rock" is prototypical Jones fare -- beleaguered long-supportive husband ("your rock") finally gives up and rolls on. "Beer Run" is a duet with Garth Brooks. "50,000 Names" a slobbery war dead memoir, beautiful, of course. Nothing great here, but Jones can elevate even average trash, so as long as he can keep the rotten meat at bay it seems like he'll be able to do this forever. B+
• Pet Shop Boys: Please (1986, EMI America). Album: #3 UK, #7 US. "Two Divided by Zero" (good concept, unexceptional music); "West End Girls" (their big hit); "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" (a single, supposedly an anti-Thatcher satire, but you could turn it into a Reagan campaign commercial); "Love Comes Quickly" (another single); "Suburbia" (another single); "Tonight Is Forever" (); "Violence" (); "I Want a Lover" (); "Later Tonight" (); "Why Don't We Live Together" (). A-
• Pet Shop Boys: Disco (1986, EMI America). Album: #15 UK, #95 US. "In the Night" (Arthur Baker remix, first appeared here; this sounds pretty indistinct to me); "Suburbia" (Julian Mendelsohn remix of early single); "Opportunities" (Ron Dean Miller and the Latin Rascals remix); "Paninaro" (Pet Shop Boys and David Jacob remix, first appeared here; something about Versace); "Love Comes Quickly" (Shep Pettibone remix); "West End Girls" (Shep Pettibone remix). The good songs are still good. But the whole series is kind of dubious, and it has to get better than this to matter. B
• Pet Shop Boys: Actually (1987, EMI America). Album: #2 UK, #25 US. "One More Chance" (); "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" (Dusty Springfield); "Shopping" (); "Rent" (); "Hit Music" (); "It Couldn't Happen Here" (music by Ennio Morricone, beautiful, clever piece); "It's a Sin" (); "I Want to Wake Up" (); "Heart" (); "King's Cross" (). A
• Pet Shop Boys: Actually / Further Listening 1987-1988 (1987-88 [2001], Parlophone, 2 CD). In the further listening, "You Know Where You Went Wrong" is a very good one -- lots of things happening there. Great disco mix of "It's a Sin" -- the thunderclaps and swoops and all. The later cuts include two mixes of "Always on My Mind," from Introspective. A-
• Pet Shop Boys: Introspective (1988, EMI America). Album: #2 UK, #34 US. Songs: "Left to My Own Devices" (one of their major songs; disco beat, with synths climbing and falling; ends in a little thunderstorm; "I was faced with a choice at a difficult age/would I write a book? or should I take to the stage?/but in the back of my head I heard distant feet/Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat"); "I Want a Dog" (nice piano figure on synth beat); "Domino Dancing" (seems like an extended piece); "I'm Not Scared" (sounds like live crowd noise at end); "Always on My Mind/In My House" (Elvis Presley hit, recorded for 10th anniversary of death tribute, although not necessarily meant as a tribute; "In My House" is a little rap over beats; this version is very extended); "It's Alright" (another superb single). Only six cuts (ranging from 6:15 to 9:24), four of which were singles. A
• Pet Shop Boys: Introspective / Further Listening 1988-1989 (1988-89 [2001], Parlophone, 2 CD). See above for first disc. The rough demo for "Domino Dancing" is interesting. The piece caled "The Sound of the Atom Splitting" is a little short on melody, with some complex synth background, lots of rhythm and a little noise. Then comes "What Keeps Mankind Alive?" -- the Weill/Brecht classic. This cover, at least, is not a savage deconstruction. "Losing My Mind (Disco Mix)" kicks off with some very good synth music. "Nothing Has Been Proved (Demo for Dusty)" has some nice synth experiments. Alternates to "Left to My Own Devices" and "It's Alright" are superb. A-
• Pet Shop Boys: Behavior (1990, EMI America). Album: #2 UK, #45 US. Studer: It is a very serious album in which, for one thing, AIDS weighs more heavily over the proceedings than ever before." Songs: "Being Boring" ("we were always hoping that/looking back/we could always rely on friends"); "This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave" (much going on in the rhythm track here, but none of the string synths); "To Face the Truth" (again, the rhythm dominates, the pace measured, the vocal exceptionally pretty; "it hurts too much to face the truth"); "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" (a bit faster, a little guitar wrapped around "seriously"); "Only the Wind" ("the storm blows itself out"); "My October Symphony" (starts with some "ooh-ooh-ooh" highlights); "So Hard" (starts off with a keyb figure; "why/don't we try/not to break our hearts/and make it so hard for ourselves?"); "Nervously" (a little warbly synth as Tennant tiptoes into the song; one of their most beautiful intros; second verse adds a little thicker synth, with a little guitar; keeps building, in small increments, with some drum shots toward the end, and a trailing dabble of synth); "The End of the World" ("it's just a boy or a girl/it's not the end of the world"); "Jealousy" (some swoosh in the background, a modest rhythm track, picks up a melodic hook with "where've you been/who've you seen"; it then gradually adds layers of music and drama). Lots of people have knocked this album -- see it as a letdown after the first three (plus whatever), but I pegged it as their best to date, and the best of the year. And I still swear that anyone who thinks "Being Boring" is boring is in fact the boring one. What this album does do is to cut down on the disco glitz; I think that means that they're moving on from being dancemeisters to becoming songwriters. But they also make some real progress rhythmically, relying more on the syndrums and getting more mileage out of them. Sure, my grade here is idiosyncratic -- this is neither perfect nor overwhelming. But I find it totally persuasive. A+
• Pet Shop Boys: Behavior / Further Listening 1990-1991 (1990-91 [2001], Parlophone, 2 CD). See above for first disc. The extended versions of first side classics are the easiest to get, and I suspect that I could listen to "Being Boring" extended to any length. The remix to "Where the Streets Have No Name" is powerfully hepped up. The intro to "Jealousy" has horns and crap, then backs off and starts to retool. Two versions of "DJ Culture": I think I like the second ("seven-inch mix") better. A-
• Pet Shop Boys: Discography: The Complete Singles Collection (1985-91 [1991], EMI America).
  1. "West End Girls" (1985-10, UK #1): "in a western town/in a dead end world/the east end boys/and west end girls."
  2. "Love comes quickly" (1986-03, #19): "love comes quickly/whatever you do/you can't stop falling." Slower, elegiac, guitar, falsetto.
  3. "Opportunities (let's make lots of money)" (1986-05, #11): "I've got the brains/you've got the looks/let's make lots of money." "If you've got the inclination/I have got the crime." Some metallic percussion. Wayne Studer: "Interestingly, it's the only PSB single that turned out to be a bigger hit in the U.S. than in the U.K."
  4. "Suburbia" (1986-09, #8): "let's take a ride/with the dogs tonight/in suburbia." More metallic percussion, tire skids, crashing sounds.
  5. "It's a sin" (1987-06, #1): instantly recognizable synth riffs, crashing sound effects.
  6. "What have I done to deserve this?" (1987-08, #2): Dusty Springfield
  7. "Rent" (1987-10, #8): "I love you/you pay my rent."
  8. "Always on my mind" (1987-11, #1): Elvis cover, done as anti-Elvis as possible.
  9. "Heart" (1988-03, #1):
  10. "Domino dancing" (1988-09, #7): "watch them all fall down."
  11. "Left to my own devices" (1988-11, #4): "Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat."
  12. "It's alright" (1989-06, #5): "I hope it's going to be alright/I hope the music plays forever." Sounds exceptionally disco as it kicks off.
  13. "So hard" (1990-09, #4):
  14. "Being boring" (1990-11, #20):
  15. "Where the streets have no name (I can't take my eyes off you)" (1991-03, #4): a U2 song, but the "I can't take my eyes off you" line, is that in U2? Sounds like Frankie Valli, to me.
  16. "Jealousy" (1991-05, #12): one of the prettiest, most elegant things they've ever done.
  17. "DJ Culture" (1991-10, #13): written about Gulf War. Quote from Tennant: "The essence of the song is in the first place insincerity -- about George Bush who acted like he was Winston Churchill. He referred to World War II and, as a matter of fact, he sampled things Churchill said, just like artists do with records from the past. That is why it is called 'DJ Culture'."
  18. "Was it worth it?" (released after album, #24): "yes, it's worth living for." Sometimes viewed as Tennant's "coming out" song.
  A+
• Pet Shop Boys: Very (1993, Capitol). Album #1 UK, #20 US. Actually, my copy is the UK release on Parlophone. I bought this while I was working in the UK, and it really defines that period for me. My favorite record of 1993, but a big margin. "Can You Forgive Her" ("then you wake up and remember that you can't forget/she's made you some kind of laughing stock/because you dance to disco and you don't like rock"); "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" (a love song, surprising in its straightforwardness); "Liberation" (another love song); "A Different Point of View" (the music jumps right out here; "if I'd say black was white, you'd say it was grey/but in spit eof being treated this way/I still dream of you all night and day"; this makes three straight love songs which are essential gender-neutral); "Dreaming of the Queen" (it's impossible not to think of AIDS here, even with negligible awareness of Princess Diana, who as I recall was very concerned about the disease; Diana's line "that there are no more lovers left alive" can be read a couple of ways; relatively dense, slow music for this album, underlying the dreaminess of the scenario); "Yesterday, When I Was Mad" (a real fast one); "The Theatre" ("it's another world here/the streets are gleaming/I was even dreaming/that they're paved with gold . . . "while you pretend not to notice/all the years we've been here/we're the bums you step over/as you leave the theatre."); "One and One Make Five" (); "To Speak Is a Sin" (); "Young Offender" (); "One in a Million" (); "Go West" () "Postscript" (brief hidden track, appears a minute after the nominal end). A+
• Pet Shop Boys: Disco 2 (1994, EMI). Album: #6 UK, #75 US.
• Pet Shop Boys: Alternative (1995). Album: #2 UK, #103 US.
• Pet Shop Boys: Bilingual (1996) Album: #4 UK, #39 US. "Discoteca" (); "Single" (the mix moves straight into this, which is set off with a heavy shuffle drum track; "single/bilingual," not much more to the lyrics); "Metamorphosis" (works off some horns, with a disco chick vocal -- "I wanna know ya/I wanna know" -- before Tennant comes in; details of coming of gay age); "Electricity" ("discotheque/sexolettes"); "Se A Vida E (That's the Way Life Is)" (a bright love song, with a big smile; "throw those skeletons out of your closet/and come outside"); "It Always Comes as a Surprise" (); "A Red Letter Day" (starts off a bit like "Go West"); "Up Against It" (); "The Survivors" (); "Before" (a fairly ordinary piece); "To Step Aside" (); "Saturday Night Forever" ().
• Pet Shop Boys: Nightlife (1999). Album: #7 UK, #84 US. "For Your Own Good" (); "Closer to Heaven" (); "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More" (a single; their basic easy dance beat, synth orchestration, long rhythmic title coda); "Happiness Is an Option" (whispered vocal, sampled female backgrounds, "it is not easy," "happiness is not an option," "talk it over"; George Clinton shares writing credit); "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk" (); "Vampires" (); "Radiophonic" (); "The Only One" (); "Boy Strange" (); "In Denial" (sort of a choral effect); "New York City Boy" (another single, they bring out the grade A beat; "New York city boy" is done Village People style); "Footsteps" (good lyric, big choral effects). B+
• Pet Shop Boys: Release (2002, Sanctuary). Album: #7 UK, #73 US. This has more of a guitar sound, with Johnny Marr guesting, Tennant playing more guitar, and Lowe deploying guitar samples. "Home and Dry" (the lead single); "I Get Along" ("without you very well"); "Birthday Boy" (); "London" (); "E-mail" ("send me an email that says i love you"); "The Samurai in Autumn" (one of the better ones, mostly because of the synth buzzing in and out); "Love Is a Catastrophe" (); "Here" (); "The Night I Fell in Love" (this is the Eminem/Stan song, a great one, in part because the beat is an easy one); "You Choose" (). B+
• Pet Shop Boys: Disco 3 (2003, Sanctuary). Album: #36 UK, #188 US. "Time on My Hands" (); "Positive Role Model" (seems like a better song than most of Release); "Try It (I'm in Love With a Married Man" (cover of a 1983 dance-club hit written by Bobby O., but with Tennant singing takes on a gay air); "Somebody Else's Business" (); "If Looks Could Kill" (); "Sexy Northemer" (). A-
• Lou Reed: Transformer (1972 [2002], RCA/BMG Heritage). This was controversial at the time, especially among critics who still remembered the Velvets. Sez Christgau: "All that's left of this great singer and songwriter is his sly intelligence, and sometimes I'm not sure about that." I came to this record working my way backwards from Rock n Roll Animal and Berlin, and hadn't gotten to the Velvets yet, so I didn't have much in the way of preconceptions. So while it is true that Reed had by 1972 lost most of his Velvets' voice, he actually hasn't lost that much more of it in the 30 years since, so this is basically his solo career voice. It's also, on average, a better set of songs than put together into any single album until, I dunno, Street Hassle or The Bells or no later than The Blue Mask. "Hangin' 'Round" is very good; "Perfect Day" and "Satellite of Love" and "Wagon Wheel" and "New York Telephone Conservation" are pretty decent, and "Goodnight Ladies" is a nice way to end. And "Walk on the Wild Side," his first (and probably only) hit, is something unique, all the way down to David Bowie's sax outro. The two bonus cuts are rough demos to "Hangin' 'Round" and "Perfect Day": they don't amount to much, but are nice to have. A-
• Lou Reed: Berlin (1973, RCA). This was my favorite record for a couple of years in the mid-'70s, so while I haven't played it in 10-15 years, maybe longer, it is deeply embedded in my head. In fact, when Between Thought and Consciousness (the box set) came out, I thought that the Berlin pieces sounded terrific. On the other hand, many Velvets-aware critics hated this when it came out. For one thing, Reed's voice is very coarse here, especially at the start. For another, Bob Ezrin's production is rather heavy handed -- for that you can start with the drums, but there's also the piano, the strings, the choruses, all sorts of studio shit that Reed never used before and almost never has since. Still, "Men of Good Fortune" sounds really awesome here.
• Lou Reed: Rock n Roll Animal (1974 [2000], RCA). This live set opens with a long guitar intro by Steve Hunter or Dick Wagner, before resolving into "Sweet Jane." Four of the original five cuts were Velvets pieces; the exception was "Lady Day," from Berlin. This edition adds two more Berlin songs: "How Do You Think It Feels" and "Caroline Says I." The heavy guitars are the biggest change, but the Velvets material holds up well under such arena treatment. Note, however, that Reed now sings "other people, like us, we gotta work." The two added cuts don't add much, although "Lady Day" is strong work. But the main attraction is the revved up Velvets pieces -- the long, worked-out drama of "Heroin," the frentic "White Light / White Heat," the rousing "Rock and Roll." A-
• Lou Reed: Live (1975, RCA). Leftovers from Rock n Roll Animal, long on Transformer material, short on Velvets (just "I'm Waiting for the Man"). Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner wield the guitars again. Again, most of the interest is how the Velvets pieces scale up to arena rock, and a big part of that is that they do. The Transformer material is smaller by almost any standard, which makes this album smaller too. B
• Lou Reed: Sally Can't Dance (1974 [2001], RCA/Buddha). After "Walk on the Wild Side" and Rock n Roll Animal, Reed had gained his first serious measure of fame (tinged with infamy, of course), and as such he was pointed to crack a bestselling album. This was it, more or less. The bad-mouthing of Reed's solo career caught up with me this time, and I this was the Lou Reed album I hated. Still, this time around I have to credit it with brightness. The themes are recycled -- "ooh isn't it nice/when you find your heart's made out of ice." Steve Katz produced, and the obvious thing is the horns -- great gobs of horns. "Animal Language" and "Kill Your Sons" aren't half-bad, and "Ennui" is actually quite becoming. But nothing else is particularly memorable -- neither the opening, horn-laden "Ride Sally Ride" nor the closing, horn-laced single "Sally Can't Dance," both so sketchy they make Berlin seem fully realized. Three bonus cuts: "Billy" (gently strummed with some nice sax, a plus); "Good Taste" (and slick guitars); and the single of "Sally Can't Dance" (funky on the way out). Maybe it's not so bad afterall. B
• Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed (1972-76 [1977], RCA). Songs: "Satellite of Love" (in the early going this sounds much like a late Velvets song, worthy, then it transmutes with the choruses, which were probably David Bowie's idea); "Wild Child" (from the first album, which explains the Velvets form and sound); "I Love You" (also from first album); "How Do You Think It Feels" (heavy hitter from Berlin); "Walk on the Wild Side" (of course); "Sweet Jane" (live with Hunter/Wagner); "White Light/White Heat" (ditto); "Sally Can't Dance" (not the hornsiest track); "Nowhere at All" (minor cut from Coney Island Baby); "Coney Island Baby" (major cut from Coney Island Baby). B+
• Different Times: Lou Reed in the '70s (1972-76 [1996], RCA). Songs (= also in Walk on the Wild Side, the 1977 comp; + not in the predecessor): "I Can't Stand It" (+); "Love Makes You Feel" (+); "Lisa Says" (+, from 1st album); "Walk on the Wild Side" (=); "Perfect Day" (+); "Vicious" (+); "Berlin" (+); "Satellite of Love" (=); "Caroline Says I" (+); "Sad Song" (+); "Caroline Says II" (+); "Sweet Jane" (=, with intro); "Kill Your Sons" (+); "Sally Can't Dance" (=); "A Gift" (+); "She's My Best Friend" (+); "Coney Island Baby" (=). That makes 5 repeats, 12 different songs. Still leans heavily on Transformer (4 cuts) and Berlin (4 cuts). A-
• Lou Reed: Street Hassle (1978, Arista). This was much touted as a comeback album at the time. Indeed, it has a distinct sound, hard and dark and choppy. The title sequences runs 11:00, starting with a long violin vamp, and ending with a nice bit of "Slipaway." "I Wanna Be Black" is more chutzpah than jive. "Shooting Star" is good trashy. B
• Lou Reed: The Bells (1979 (2000), Buddha). "Stupid Man" isn't stupid enough, and "Disco Mystic" is neither disco nor mystic enough. And the one thing that "I Want to Boogie With You" isn't is a boogie. What all three share is densely plodding music, capped by Don Cherry's trumpet. "Looking for Love" races on Marty Fogel's sax, another dense one, a bit faster. And it just sort of keeps running on like that. The much-bruited jazziness of the music isn't very jazzy -- the instrumental density works against it, and Don Cherry isn't the sort of player who can overcome all that noise on his own. B
• Lou Reed: Growing Up in Public (1980, Arista). Michael Fonfara not only gets co-producer credit, he gets co-writer credit on all songs. "My Old Man" sounds like truth -- "I didn't even want to look like my old man/I didn't want to seem like my old man." "Smiles" is about his mother's imparted advice, which is never to smile. "Think It Over" is a guarded marriage proposal. "Teach the Gifted Children" is a riff on "Take Me to the River." None of these are really great, and some are clumsy, it's certainly his most engaging album in quite a while. B
• Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Diary 1967-1980 (1967-80 [1993], Arista). The dates mean that this starts with purloined ancient sides from the Velvet Underground -- eight of them, in fact, although "White Light/White Heat" comes in short at 2:44, but we get all 9:44 of "Heroin." That covers 4 of 14 years. The other decade is good for seven cuts, starting with yet another "Walk on the Wild Side" and ending with the 11:00 "Street Hassle." In between are one cut from Berlin, one from Rock and Roll Heart ("Temporary Thing"), one from The Bells ("All Through the Night"), and two from Growing Up in Public ("So Alone" and "Keep Away") -- none exceptional. B
• Lou Reed: The Blue Mask (1982, RCA). Reed had been coming back since Street Hassle, but this was the one that actually worked. The songs were a bit better than Growing Up in Public, but the real difference was in the music, especially in the guitars. For one thing, this is the first album where Reed is really in love with his axe; for another, he brought in Robert Quine to help out and keep him inspired. "The Blue Mask" and "Waves of Fear" and "Heavenly Arms" are guitar romps that rival anything that Tom Verlaine ever put on disc. "Average Man" is a terrific song, and "The Day John Kennedy Died" is another. A
• Lou Reed: Legendary Hearts (1983, RCA). Same group, less pyrotechnical on guitar, but even better songs. "Don't Talk to Me About Work," for instance. A+
• Loudon Wainwright III: Album III (1972, Columbia). Two earlier albums on Atlantic are out of print -- for a while they were combined on Rhino Handmade, but that seems to be gone too, or at least they were too cheap to send me a copy. They were called Loudon Wainwright III and Album II, so when he moved to Columbia they thought about it for 30 seconds or so and came up with this title. This also had a hit single (#12), "Dead Skunk," which is the last hit single I'm aware of. "Red Guitar" laments a red guitar that he destroyed ("Kate, she said, you are a fool"; "I bought myself a blond guitar/I had it for just three days/some junkie stole my blond guitar/God works in mysterious ways"). "East Indian Princess" steals liberally from Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" ("safe as a cow/in a Calcutta street"). "B Side" ("this hive of mine/I call it home/there is no place/like comb sweet comb"). He does "Smokey Joe's Cafe" straight enough. "Say That You Love Me" is a pretty good closer. B+
• Loudon Wainwright III: Attempted Mustache (1973 [1998], Columbia/Legacy). Starts with "The Swimming Song," best known in the McGarrigles version. Sounds like he can afford a band this time. "A.M. World" ("it's calculated and it's cold/they love my ass I go first class/who needs a heart of gold"). "Bell Bottom Pants" is a slow one. "Liza" was written to Minnelli, who LWIII claims to have had a crush on in 2nd grade, when he was briefly living in Beverly Hills ("some chips grow to be great blocks"). "I Am the Way" retools a Woody Guthrie tune, done live with crowd laughs, just the way Jesus would have done it ("I can walk on the water and I can raise the dead/it's easy, I'm the way . . . don't tell nobody but I kissed Magdalene/I said 'Mary it's O.K., I'm the way"). "Down Drinking in the Bar" is a future standard; it's his stock-in-trade, but not exceptionally interesting here. "The Man Who Couldn't Cry" is another good song. "Come a Long Way" is Kate's song -- too good for Loudon, but the change of voice is nice. The differences between the songwriters are that Loudon not only goes for the cheap laugh, he goes for the cheap riff which sets it off. "Dilated to Meet You" welcomes his son into the world ("even though there's trouble/even though there's fuss/we really think you'll like it here/we hope that you'll like us"). A-
• Loudon Wainwright III: Unrequited (1975 [1998], Columbia/Legacy). One side of studio cuts, the other culled from a live gig at the Bottom Line. He was separated from Kate, embattled with his manager and label. The studio side has solid songs with growing studio command: "Sweet Nothings" (), "The Lowly Tourist" (), "Kings and Queens" (), "Kick in the Head" (), "Whatever Happened to Us" ("you told me that I came too soon/but it was you who came too late"), "Crime of Passion" (music stretches out, with horns even), "Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder" (with Kate & Anna backing; "I always knew you were important to me/but now I know that you were a necessity/otherwise I start to go insane"; "the joke's on me/I found out the hard way/you were my better half"). The live cuts were looser and funnier: "On the Rocks" ("on Park Avenue South/I punched my baby on the mouth/in the back of a checkered taxi cab/our love is on the rocks"), "Guru" ("down in southern California/there's a guru that's a guruing there"; "they're proselytizing and it's mesmerizing and they're making moolah every day"), "Mr. Guilty" ("I'm the one/the no good bum/who did it all to you"), "The Untitled" (aka "The Hardy Boys at the Y," the original title dropped for fear of lawsuit from the F.W. Dixon estate; this is the required love song), "Unrequited to the Nth Degree" ("for all you hootenany freaks"), "Old Friend" (), "Rufus Is a Tit Man" ("come on momma/come on and open up your shirt/yeah, you got the goods momma/give the boy a squirt"). From Wainwright's 1998 notes, "Please note how at the end of that I graciously thank my audience only to be rewarded with screams for 'Dead Skunk'." The bonus cuts include a boogie-woogie, fiddle-laced version of "Rufus," a song co-written by Kate A
• Loudon Wainwright III: A Live One (1976-68 [1979], Rounder). Two dull songs at the start, then "Whatever Happened to Us," which he mangles and mocks in the end. "Natural Disaster" is another of his love/hate songs. "Suicide Song" is duller than that. He does a Van Morrison aside on "Kings and Queens," then tackles "Down Drinking at the Bar." How come the only song that he really sounds excited by is "Clockwork's Chartreuse"? ("I'll kill your mother/you kill my wife . . . let's burn down McDonalds/let's go whole hog.") B Loudon Wainwright III: Fame and Wealth (1983, Rounder). He's been busted down to the folk circuit -- that's what he gets for not taking another 15 minutes to write another "Dead Skunk." The songs seem solid enough -- "Five Years Old" is about his daughter getting older. "Westchester County" is a terrific song -- oh, to be young and rich again! ("We were richer than most/I don't mean to boast/but I swam in a country club pool.") B
• Loudon Wainwright III: I'm Alright (1984, Rounder). Cut in England with some first rate musicians (Richard Thompson, the great unrelated bassist Danny Thompson, Tony Coe on clarinet). "I'm Alright" ("without you") is a good, incorrigible song. "Screaming Issue," cowritten by Terre Roche, sounds like another baby being born. "Animal Song" -- references to Orwell. "Daddy Take a Nap" ("daddy gets grumpy, gotta take a nap"; with jazz horns). "Career Moves" ("I must have broken a million G strings"; "again and again/ about unhappy love/over and over/unhappy love"). B+
• Loudon Wainwright III: More Love Songs (1986, Rounder). "Hard Day on the Planet" ("I want to go on vacation/till the pressure lets up/but they keep hijacking airplanes and blowing them up"). "Synchronicity" is about a couple of women Wainwright hit on, who turned out to be lesbians. "Your Mother and I" is quite lovely ("your mother and I are living apart/I know that sounds stupid, but we weren't very smart"). "The Home Stretch" ("full of male models/not all of them are gay"). "The Acid Song" ("think twice before dropping acid/hold out for mushrooms instead"). "Unhappy Anniversary" ("we fell in love and we fell out/both times there was no net"; note horns and fiddles). B+
• Loudon Wainwright III: Therapy (1989, Silvertone). Didn't catch the title song. "T.S.D.H.A.V." ("this song don't have a video"). B
• Loudon Wainwright III: History (1992, Charisma). "Hitting You" (doesn't work). "I'd Rather Be Lonely" ("you're still living with me/but I'd rather be lonely"; nice fiddle). "Talkin New Bob Dylan" ("songs from the Westchester county delta country"). "So Many Songs" ("my songs about you are all about me"). B+
• Loudon Wainwright III: Career Moves (1993, Virgin). A live album, which both functions as a retrospective and showcases his often-comedic performance -- all those acting lessons must be good for something. Twenty-four cuts, 73 minutes. A
• Loudon Wainwright III: Grown Man (1995, Virgin). The booklet only gives you some of the lyrics, the choices hard to figure. "IWIWAL" is one that's missing -- easily the funniest thing on the album. One that's printed is "Just a John," which starts, "I'm like my daddy I'm much the same/he loved to play that cheatin' game/takin my mother for a ride/always having' something on the side." I guess that counts for introspection in Westchester. "Father Daughter Dialogue" was written by him, but dueted with daughter Martha: "dearest daddy with your songs/do you hope to right your wrongs?" A-
• Loudon Wainwright III: Little Ship (1998, Charisma). Without checking closely, it looks like Loudon's been building up a fairly steady coterie of sessionfolk -- John Leventhal, Tony Garnier, Shawn Pelton, Rick DePofi, Brian Mitchell, none of these names mean anything to me, but they can make quite a bit of noise, which turns Wainwright's ultrapersonal songs into power anthems or something like that, and I don't find the excess attractive. If he's got something to say, why hide it behind walls of sound? "Breakfast in Bed" has banks of strings, including one name I do recognize (John Patitucci on bass). Other songs have horns, including trumpeter Chris Botti. "Mr. Ambivalent" ("you'll wind up with nothing/because you want it all"). "OGM" is a pained ballad. "Our Own War" is a painful ballad, with Shawn Colvin adding illusion. "So Damn Happy" is a simple song ("the sad thing is that I'm so damn happy"), with little more than percussion -- best thing I've heard so far. "Primrose Hill" is an easygoing ballad, gently strumming guitar, rather contentless. "Underwear" is a cappella. "The World" ("is a terrible place . . . the world is a crappy hole . . . the world is a sandwich of shite . . . wooo!"). "What Are Families For?" ("but dad is dead he's off the hook", slowish, sparse, sarcastic). "Bein' a Dad" ("isn't so bad"). "Little Ship" ("our relationship is just a little ship"). "A Song" (). The instrumental excess that I initially complained of faded subsided, ut I still find these songs rather uninteresting. B
• Loudon Wainwright III: Social Studies (1999, Hannibal). These are relatively topical songs that Wainwright wrote on commission during the '90s, mostly for NPR. "Tonya's Twists" is about figure skater Harding. "O.J." is about the Juice, although it has more to say about Johnnie Cochran. "Y2K" ("if you want to blame some one/blame Bill Gates"). "Bad Man" ("hey everybody we're having a war . . . still some folks don't understand/why we kill good people just to get a bad man . . . now we're knocking on Saddam's door/let's get one thing understood/that Saddam is no damn good"). "Our Boy Bill" attacks Clinton, and "Jesse Don't Like It" attacks (or makes fun of) Helms. I'm finding these more than a little annoying. B-
• Loudon Wainwright III: Last Man on Earth (2001, Red House). In general, the songs are more detailed, much of which comes from the death of his mother. "Missing You" is about his mother. "Living Alone" is about himself. "White Winos" is about both of them, conversing over white wine, their struggles with the man who was husband and father a bond. "Fresh Fossils" takes note of sandprints. "I'm Not Gonna Cry" comes close. "Surviving Twin" is about his father and how he became him. "Donations" considers his own mortality, and what to do with the remains. "Graveyard" is a place of contemplation. "Last Man on Earth" takes reckoning of his own age (53 now), talking about how old fashioned he's become, how he don't have a cell phone or a computer, how he don't drive a SUV, how he's just a grumpy, middle aged crazy. A-
• Loudon Wainwright III: BBC Sessions (1971-93 [1998], Fuel 2000). Recorded over a long stretch, mostly familiar songs, all done simply, which is usually for the best with Wainwright. B+

Saturday, April 19, 2003

James A. Hull, my father's "baby brother," wrote a monumentally stupid letter that The Eagle published today:

"Looting" is a term some use for what is happening in Iraq. In reality, what we are seeing is the dividing up of the "spoils of war." Throughout history, the spoils of war have gone to the victors. Because the pictures we see on TV clearly show that the spoils are going to the people of Iraq, we can safely say that the people of Iraq are the winners of this war!

Then again, instead of labeling these as acts of looting, we might say that the people simply are taking back what was theirs in the first place.

Thursday, April 17, 2003

Interesting piece in Salon interviewing three Gulf War Marine vets turned writers. Consider this quote from Gabe Hudson: "I think it's worth our time to consider John Allen Muhammad, the sniper who terrorized the Washington, D.C. area, and the guy who shot his three professors at the University of Arizona [Robert Stewart Flores], and Timothy McVeigh, when we consider the potential psychological toll of serving in modern war. Now it's not for me to say there's a direct correlation between their horrible acts and their service in Desert Storm, but I do think it's a connection that deserves serious consideration. There's a huge psychological toll that modern warfare takes on soldiers, despite the fact that the media and the White House try to gloss over these wars as sterile and 'clean.' There are many Gulf War vets who saw and participated in horrible acts, or witnessed their aftermath, and the lingering psychological effects have still not been addressed by the Veterans Administration."

From Joel Turnipseed, who founded and sold a software company between his Gulf War service and the present: "Anyone who's worked on a software project knows how hard it is to get everything right. Modeling human processes -- even the simplest of them -- is amazingly difficult. To think you're going to do anything as chaotic as fighting a war and having it follow your plans, it's idiotic."

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Reading in TomDispatch about the burning library in Baghdad, I finally felt I had two cents to offer, so dashed off the following:

The more I read about how archaeologists and other scholars warned the US military about the very real risks that invasion and occupation posed to the libraries and museums of Iraq, the more clear it is why those warnings were ignored: they came from people who disapproved of the war. One of the major problems with this war was that it wasn't something, like Pearl Harbor or even 9/11, that happened and panicked the US into action; it was a program that was concocted inside the government and hard-sold to the public. And one of the most telling effects of the hard-sell is that the people who were selling it, so convinced were they that it was the right thing to do, put blinders on themselves to any argument, no matter how reasoned, not to proceed with their program. And since warnings about dire consequences were reasons not to do it, they were ignored. This is, I think, what happens when someone falls so in love with their ideas that they are unwilling to subject them to critical analysis. And when they crack the whip so hard to force their dreams on a world that turned out to be very skeptical. It is worth noting that this simplistic hard-sell approach to what are often very complex problems has become endemic in US political discourse, and that it has largely driven open, consensus-building discussions underground. It has also led to a preoccupation with winning arguments over solving problems, and the especially insidious tactic of winning arguments by "creating facts on the ground." The libraries and museums of Baghdad are the tragic results of this deterioration of political discourse, and by no means the only ones. The Bush Administration seems to have realized that the only way they could proceed with their war would be to discount or ignore its probable consequences, just as they realized that they would have to lie about why they wanted this war. And now that they've succeeded, it will take all of the arrogance and blindness they can summon to deny what they have wrought. Unless we can manage to break out of their psychology, we're bound for a lot more tragedy.

Monday, April 14, 2003

Back on Saturday we had a little antiwar demonstration here in Wichita: a group of about 40 people met at the corner of Rock/13th, then marched a couple of blocks to a park, where a mike was set up and there were various speakers plus an open mike period and a few songs. One thing I was struck by was that virtually everyone had a sign, and that during the speeches most of the people lined up along the street to show off their signs. I don't mean to criticize the people who came, but I find this a bit unusual -- it suggests to me that people who like to hold signs were represented way disproportionately. There's nothing wrong with this -- indeed, it's good to remind passers by that support for this war is far from unanimous -- but it's a far cry from being a potentially effective movement.

I don't know what the real answer is. My own predilection is to try to do more things that are educational -- history, politics, economics, ethics. Another thing might be to take to political organization. For a while the environmental movement used to spotlight a set of congressmen dubbed the Dirty Dozen, and the ability to nail someone like Wayne Aspinall gave the movement some real impetus. Everyday media would be another project. I've seen signs that try to link up what's happening in the economy with Bush's war/terrorism obsession, but that needs to be spelled out, especially in terms that business can relate to. We're in for a long haul now, and just registering protest isn't going to stop anything.

Watching some Iraqi politicos on TV the other day, it occurs to me that one difference between Afghanistan and Iraq may be that the caliber of natives may be much higher in Iraq. By this, I mostly mean that the US will be dealing much more with people who know how to deal with Americans. It may be as simple as that they speak better English, but in general there's a big increase in sophistication and knowledge and understanding. It's impossible to say how much of a difference that will make, but it's clear that anything like Afghanistan would be even worse in Iraq, so this has the chance to be a bit different. The other advantage that Iraq has is that it has the raw and human resources to, theoretically, build a viable economy. On the other hand, between Iraq's wars against Iran and Kuwait, and the US wars against Iran, the long period of economic sanctions and other depredations by the Baath party leaders and their predecessors, an astonishing amount of improverishment has been inflicted on Iraq, and overcoming that will be a huge task. There is also the question of Iraq's debts, which with interest are large enough to be unmeetable. (It's been proposed that much or all of the debts incurred by Sadaam Hussein should be written off as "odious" debts -- the idea there is that anyone who loaned Saddam money deserves to lose it.) The question of whether the US is going to hand Iraq some sort of bill for the costs of destroying it, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't even been raised, but that's often been the case (e.g., for the US occupation of Japan).

On the other hand, watching Iraqi mobs looting, and hearing the reports of revenge killings and accidental killings and all that, it sure doesn't look good. I don't know what the extent of looting damage actually is, but it merely adds to the considerable damage inflicted by the warfare, primarily by the US military. And again, since the US has no business being there, this all goes on the US tab. The sacking of the museums is particularly appalling, but when you look at what has happened to government offices, the palaces, etc., it becomes clear that a vast amount of our ability to ever understand and eventually manage Iraq has vanished with it. It's already being admitted now that we will never get an accurate death toll -- among other things this means that there will always be disputes over numbers, which will make it all the harder to reconcile anything in the future, but it also means that we will never fully be able to map out this destruction in human terms. One thing I would dearly like to see is a systematic international (neutral) attempt to assess the physical and human damage that this war has inflicted.

Sunday, April 13, 2003

Music: Initial count 8148 rated (+38), 864 unrated (-19). Started this a bit early, since last week's entry is now deeply varied, the big Willie Nelson thing is done, and I'm starting out with more things, undecided just what to do next. Also moved the previously incomplete Buck 65 up from two weeks back.

• Quannum Spectrum (1999, Quannum Projects). A label comp, of interest at the moment because of two cuts from Blackalicious: "One of a Kind" (typical flash rap with counter-chorus, good piece), "Jada's Vengeance" (typical rhythm, with a little choral glitz). Good piece by Divine Styler and DJ Shadow. The Quannum propaganda is a bit distracting, and not much here is real distinctive, but it has the sort of solid anonymity that befits the communistic ethos of primo underground rap, and that's cool. B+
• Blackalicious: A2G (1999, Quannum Projects). An EP, six cuts. Hey, I've heard "A to G" before -- think it was on Quannum Spectrum, love it. This group has two guys: Chief Xcel (Xavier Mosley) and Gift of Gab (T.J. Parker), who got together in Sacramento.
  1. "A to G": Rollicking rhythm, for each letter they chart out a set of words starting with that letter. At "G" turns into a Gift of Gab-fest.
  2. "Clockwork": "my job description/a rap technician/from sunup to sundown/and it's clockwork"; "do you understand [can't make this out]". Beats, fast raps, scratches.
  3. "Rock the Spot": "the Gift of Gab don't stop"; the "we came to rock the spot" chorus sounds like P-Funk.
  4. "Back to the Essence":
  5. "Deception": this has a cadence out of (what?) some nursery rhyme or something (can't really place it), "his first single was an overnight success", it's really a moral story about fame and (self?)-deception; different voice than usual; really brilliant piece, wish I had the lyrics.
  6. "Making Progress": "can't receive a paycheck if you don't do work"; "by any means necessary we'll be free at last".
  7. "Alphabet Aerobics": with Cut Chemist. Another piece too fast to really catch what's going on.
  Short, fast; too fast in fact to really grab, but some real smart shit here. A-
• Blackalicious: Nia (2000, Quannum Projects). Title comes from Swahili word for "purpose" (i.e., it's not an acronym or something that would normally be all-caps). This repeats "A to G," "Deception," and "Making Progress" from A2G. Hard to write about this, so let's take some songs:
  1. "Searching"
  2. "The Fabulous Ones"
  3. "Do This My Way"
  4. "Deception"
  5. "A to G"
  6. "Cliff Hanger": more than 5 minutes, after a shout of "whole house freeze," this comes to a stop then breaks into a speech, "we must understand that for black people the question of community is not a question of geography, it is a question of color . . . wherever you go the first place you go is to your people . . . we got brothers in africa, we got brothers in cuba . . ."
  7. "Shallow Days": "but that won't sell because we got to keep it real";
  8. "Ego Trip by Nikki Giovanni"
  9. "You Didn't Know That Though"
  10. "If I May"
  11. "Dream Seasons"
  12. "Trouble (Eve of Destruction)": "MCs are in"
  13. "Smithzonian Institute of Rhyme": this is the one with the "by lateef and blackalicious we keep it fat, delicious" chant.
  14. "As the World Turns"
  15. "Reanimation"
  16. "Beyonder"
  17. "Making Progress"
  18. "Sleep": "The hazy days go to nights returning on and on/the eye in the sky that don't lie be watching all y'all."
  19. "Finding"
  A
• Blackalicious: Blazing Arrow (2002, MCA). "Blazing Arrow" is built around the Harry Nilsson ("Me and My Arrow") sample. "Sky Is Falling" has a choral hook which comes from some ultrafamous piece of classical music, Beethoven I think. "First in Flight" features Gil Scott-Heron. "Chemical Calisthenics," with Cut Chemist, digs into a lot of chemical formulations.
  1. "Introduction: Bow and Fire"
  2. "Blazing Arrow"
  3. "Sky Is Falling": which one of the B-boys (you know, Bach, Beethoven, . . . ) does that chorus come from?
  4. "First in Flight" (w/Gil Scott-Heron)
  5. "Green Light: Now Begin"
  6. "4000 Miles"
  7. "Nowhere Fast"
  8. "Paragraph President" (w/De La Soul): Includes a De La Soul sample. "It's Going Down" (w/Lateef the Truth Speaker)
  9. "Make You Feel That Way"
  10. "Brain Washers" (w/Ben Harper)
  11. "Chemical Calisthenics" (w/Cut Chemist)
  12. "Aural Pleasure" (w/Jaguar Wright)
  13. "Passion" (w/Rakaa/DJ Babu)
  14. "Purest Love"
  15. "Release Pt. 1, 2 and 3" (w/Saul Williams/Lyrics Born)
  16. "Day One"
  A-
• John Cale, Tony Conrad, Angus MacLise, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela: Inside the Dream Syndicate: Volume 1: Day of Niagara (1965, Table of the Elements). This is the shit that Cale was doing with La Monte Young before the Velvet Underground -- something we've heard about forever, but never actually heard. Cale plays viola, Conrad plays violin, MacLise is credited with percussion, Young and Zazeela with vocals. First few minutes don't give you any of the latter, just an electronic drone, then eventually a little tapping. C-
• John Cale: Vintage Violence (1970, Columbia/Legacy). Expanded edition 2001, with two bonus tracks, of which "The Wall" is a piece of warbly instrumental minimalism similar to his '60s avant-garde works. "Amsterdam" is the one song that always hooked me, probably because I had a crush on a Dutch girl at the time. It is also the odd song out -- a slow ballad, with lesser instrumentation. Cale's music is based on piano/guitar, where the piano sounds more like a clavichord. B+
• John Cale: The Island Years (1974-75, Island Chronicles, 2 CD). First disc has all of Fear, an extra track ("Sylvia Said") that appeared as the B-side to "The Man Who Couldn't Afford to Orgy," two previously unreleased tracks from the Slow Dazzle sessions, and the first five cuts from Slow Dazzle. The second disc finishes Slow Dazzle, has all of Helen of Troy (including the semi-suppressed "Leaving It Up to You" and "Coral Moon," the substitute track on later copies), and "Mary Lou" (which appeared first on Guts, a 1977 compilation that was released in the U.S. instead of Helen of Troy). This has the effect of splitting the best of the three albums, Slow Dazzle, but all three are good records. On Fear, the best pieces were the screaming start, "Fear Is a Man's Best Friend," and the 8:04 guitar-heavy "Gun" -- both threatening. "Sylvia Said" is much more in the vein of Cale's earlier albums, a ballad with piano and a lot of violin. Nice piece. The Slow Dazzle outtakes aren't lost gems, nor atrocities -- they're just outtakes. On Slow Dazzle, "Mr. Wilson" is the darkest Beach Boys tribute ever; "Taking It All Away" is just barely subviolent; same for "Dirtyass Rock 'n' Roll," which both increases the threat level and pulls punches