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Erykah Badu Pushing Buttons

March 30, 2010 By 2 Comments

Oh no she didn’t…

Oh yes she did.

This one is going to generate some serious discussion, methinks. (Click that link, above, or go directly to  Badu’s official site: http://www.erykahbadu.com/; it’s her new video, about which you may have already heard some noise.)

Shameless self-promotion or audacious creative experiment? A bit of both? It is undeniably bold. The simple act of a woman (much less a black woman) slowly stripping as she strolls through Daley Plaza is political. And provocative. My first take is that this video is neither as visionary as some will claim, nor is it as outlandish (or offensive) as many of the predictable suspects will insist. Badu is about to get a bunch of people talking, and it’s hard to argue that’s ever a bad thing.

Thoughts?

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A View To A Kill or, It’s The End of the World As We Knew It (And I Feel Fine)

March 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

  

Here’s how bad it’s gotten: David Frum, the dude who used to write speeches for the worst president we’ve ever endured, has written the most lacerating epitaph for The (Tea) Party of No, here. The entire thing is a must-read, and the closing paragraph demands to be quoted in full:

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

Here is the really ugly part: Frum is not Monday morning quarterbacking. He was practically pleading with anyone who would listen how (self) destructive this unified and unyielding obstruction would be in both the short and long term. In fairness, the G.O.P. had deluded itself into thinking that the fantasy they were spinning was gold, not shit. And there were plenty of cowards and co-opted folks in the media and inside the Democratic party who still hadn’t figured out how to stand up to bullies. (Instant update and mid-post edit: holy shit, look who just got “terminated” by AEI. You really can’t script this stuff better, and how made-to-order this full-scale Republican implosion is unfolding. Can you say MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? Holy shit.)

Of course this problem was exacerbated in no small measure by Obama himself being way too cool and detached on the sidelines as the Fox News and RNC fear factories spewed out their garbage and took control of the narrative (and I’ll never forget, or forgive the cynical and craven Rahm Emanuel for folding like a shanty house in a hurricane the second Scott Brown pulled off his big upset in Massachussetts). Finally, at almost the last possible second, Obama joined the fray, inspired more by the need for survival than anything else. But to his eternal credit, he rolled up his sleeves and went to work. As we saw, the results were immediately apparent and quite positive.

Can we now, at long last, acknowledge what many of us suspected all along: the bill was never “wildly unpopular” with the general public. Or, to put a finer point on it, more than a little of that disenchantment was actually coming from Democrats who (correctly) felt the bill was not strong enough. But, as many of us suspected all along, when push came to shove of course they would endorse even a rather weak and watered down bill for two primary reasons. One, virtually any bill was better than the alternative the G.O.P. was offering, which was nothing (well, more tax cuts). And two, the Republicans absolutely meant it when they bragged that killing health reform would kill Obama’s presidency. In hindsight, if only a handful of Republicans had crossed the aisle, it’s likely the bill would have failed. By doubling down on the obstinance they have practically patented at this point the Republicans essentially dared the Democrats to pull together and see this through. Without that total, and arrogant, defiance, I’m not at all certain the Dems, famous for their inability to do anything, would have gotten the ball across the goal line.

As always, the so-called Liberal Media was about as useless as usual (and their general incompetence increases in direct proportion to the overall degeneracy of our political discourse). Obsessed with the trivial horse-race aspects of who won the most recent news cycle, and handicapping the odds and chances of whether some bill (any bill) might pass, they did less than a little to help dispel the truly hysterical talking points and outright falsehoods the right wing noise machine was expelling into the air.

And here is what I said to a friend last week: “If/when this bill actually passes you are going to quickly see the shameless media transition from the Obama’s presidency is doomed! meme to the Obama back on track! and all of a sudden we would begin to once again hear the t-word (transformative) associated with his presidency. In fairness, both of those assumptions are more or less accurate: if the bill had failed, it would have emboldened the Republicans and further intimidated the feckless Democrats (and we likely would have seen increased –and detrimental– influence from that paper tiger Rahm Emanuel); on the other hand, with the bill passing, it allows Obama and his party to regain (and more importantly, articulate) the narrative. Both parties knew what was at stake, although it (typically) took the Dems about eight months too long to feel the necessary urgency. For this alone, the oft-ridiculed Harry Reid should get his moment in the sun and be properly lauded for hanging in there and doing a ton of heavy, often thankless lifting. Likewise, Nancy Pelosi has gone from being a controversial figure to an instant legend: she, like Obama, was overlooked and underestimated, and it came back to bite her opponents in a big way. And man must that bite sting.

Lo and behold, look what happened to those opinion polls, literally overnight. Kind of hard to say the “majority” of Americans hated this bill, huh? And more importantly, that was always a bogus formulation. It was pretty obvious to anyone not at a tea party or on the NRCC payroll that more than a little of that antipathy was coming from the left. These folks (quite understandably) believed the bill was not strong enough: they (we) knew that this same bill was arguably to the right of what Nixon advocated in the early ’70s (!) and it was certainly close, if not a tad milder than what Bob Dole endorsed less than two decades ago (!!). Regardless, we understood that when putsch came to shove, (something made infinitely easier courtesy of the Republicans’ very vocal and uninhibited declaration that their sole intention was to stand as one in obstruction to the bill, and Obama) many of them would unite in support of this initiative. And that’s pretty much what happened.

So what about the independent voters?

Well, this coveted and often capricious demographic generally makes or breaks a sitting president and his legislation. How bad will the mid-terms be for the Dems? I felt they never would have been nearly as bad as many were predicting last month (or last week for that matter); I feel the prospects are much better now. In part because today, as much as ever, perception is reality: Obama (and this bill) is a winner. Equally important, people do tend to appreciate a leader who can get things accomplished. That he hung in there and did something presidents have been attempting to achieve for almost a century is also a self-fulfilling historical narrative. Obama has injected life, meaning and import into his first term.

To the victor go the spoils, history is written by the winners, etc. But it’s more (and less) than that: just as the fairly hysterical media coverage post-Brown did not paint an accurate portrayal of what was really going on, or what was likely to happen, the surprise passage of HCR is not going to transform moderates into liberals. It doesn’t need to. Unless the bill begins rescinding peoples’ coverage because of pre-existing conditions or bankrupting families who can’t pay their bills (oh wait, that’s what is already happening), it stands to reason that HCR will never be more unpopular than it was last Saturday. After Sunday, the bill can only get more popular in direct proportion to the number of people who realize it’s not only not the end of the world, but actually a pretty swell thing. This transformation is already underway(not just the big shift in public opinion in recent polls); each day that goes by without any of the more outrageous Republican predictions coming true is another opportunity for T&R (Truth and Reality) to vanquish the hysteria.

There was a good reason Karl Rove lost his shit on Sunday while David Plouffe toyed with him (and showed, about ten years too late, the most effective way to defuse this braying rodeo clown). Rove knew what everyone else on his team was figuring out: they threw everything they had, and everything they could possibly fabricate, in the monomaniacal pursuit of defeating HCR. And they still lost. The reason they wanted to beat it so badly was not because The Party Of No has the best interests of anyone at heart; it’s because they knew this would be political gold for Obama, and Dems for decades. Think about it for a second: if they even half-believed a fraction of the dire repercussions they were robotically shrieking about, they would have happily gotten out of the way and let Obama have his way. Because, if it was going to be so awful, and it was so clearly against the will of most Americans, the Dems would pay a very dear price for their assumptions. Of course, what is becoming increasingly clear, from the stimulus to HCR, is that during one of the worst years Americans have endured since The Big D, Democrats have scrambled and strategized to make things better while The Party Of No has held their breath, sucked their thumbs and egged on the worst elements of the lunatic fringe that now bolsters their base.

It’s a loaded term, particularly in light of the very recent outbreaks of violence, threats and manufactured outrage, but a day of reckoning is imminent. And it’s not for the party being targeted by this illiterate mob of mouth-breathing imbeciles; it will be for the party that has cynically, and eagerly, stoked the flames of this tea party silliness. These idiots were useful for the farcical “town hall meetings” (speaking of manufactured outrage, and an unhealthy dose of straight-up racism), and to provide flesh to bolster the dubious proclamations about how unpopular health care reform was/is. Now that the battle is over, and now that so many of these “real Americans” have exposed themselves for who they really are, it’s going to be difficult for the G.O.P. to disown them at the very moment that their association may finally be unwelcome.

But, as the song goes, breaking up is hard to do. It was truly disgusting to see the contemptible Eric Cantor go from expressing tepid disapproval at reports of violence and paranoid hostility to shifting the blame to Democrats. Look, one need only read this blog (filed under “Politics”) to see that I have few qualms calling out my own side for its inanity, incompetence and self-absorption whenever it’s warranted. But at this particular moment in time, there is no getting around the fact that one party alone is associated with this ugliness. That violence is being encouraged is a repugnant enough thing; that it’s underscored by explicit racist, homophobic, nationalistic rhetoric is another. That this racist, homophobic, nationalistic rhetoric is funneled out ’round the clock by a major propaganda machine disguised as a “news” network is yet another. That a major political party is applauding and abetting this sewage is still another. That it has been kicked up a notch by that party’s recent VP candidate finally begs the question: is there a bottom here? At what point does a semblance of shame or propriety or, when all else fails, the impetus for political survival override this insanity?

As always, only time will tell. In the meantime, it’s equal parts encouraging and appalling to see what’s left of the Republican Party doubling down on denial and the fake fury that is born out of fear. For the sake of all our moral and responsible citizens, let’s hope they continue racing furiously in the other direction while Democrats –and the future of progress they represent –leave them in this moribund fantasy land of their own making.

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Tasting China The Way Peter Chang Intended

March 23, 2010 By 4 Comments

And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Well, it felt that way as I drove alone, into the deep country dark of 29 North, heading for the place I used to call home. But I knew, as I put distance between where I was going and where I had been, the fulcrum that balanced my appetites, my bearings and possibly my sanity had been permanently put asunder. That a destination had been forever elevated to a point of depature, a siren song that would assail my ears and lure me back again and…

Well, not necessarily.

But having drunk deeply from the broth of the gods, and, filled with that savory and soul-affirming stuff, I could never possibly look at the world the same…

Okay, not exactly.

But I had eaten a meal from a menu designed by a man that some seem to worship, and others have treated like a holy pilgrimage, travelling great distances not unlike those three sojourners followed the brightest star, which guided them through the desert to a manger on that cold night over two centuries…

Well, you get the picture.

I had come to Charlottesville to visit my boy Jamey, the genius behind Barlow Brewing (and I don’t throw that word around lightly: this guy makes homebrews like nobody’s business; so much so that I want it to become his business and I can buy his beers, all the time, in support of his eventual, inevitable empire), and, in his blessed company, eat, drink and be merry. There was some drinking and merriment, but after we got around to eating, that was all she wrote. All that was left, after that meal, was surviving.

I’ve heard, and been guilty of using, the banal expression “food coma” before, and while I’ve stuffed myself beyond what I figured was a reasonable capacity on a couple of occasions, I’d never really had any firsthand experience with what some people must be talking about when they talk about food comas. For starters, I ate more than my fill; we all did. I ate the way an indulged golden retriever will scarf down snausages so long as an irresponsible owner continues making them available. (I don’t want to shoehorn, or belabor the implicit Pavlovian metaphor, but there is no question that, after only one meal, I am confident Chef Chang could make me salivate on command as soon as I smelled whatever he was tossing inside his magic wok.) You think I’m kidding? Get a load of this appetizer:

Oh, did I mention that I was eating at Taste of China?

Where? You may have heard of it. No, really. This place, and especially its enigmatic rock star chef Peter Chang, have been the subject of recent features in The Oxford American (by brilliant food critic Todd Kliman) as well as a slightly popular publication called The New Yorker (by Calvin Trillin).

I wish I could say I discerned an awkward tension in the air, a sense of urgency muted by ambivalence: a sort of preemptive resignation that the chef, the great man who had made these crowds flock to an unassuming strip mall on the first warm Saturday of the year (following the longest and most brutal winter most folks can recall ever having suffered through and who would, under any other circumstances, be grilling out or sunbathing or washing their cars or scooping dog shit in their backyards –anything so long as they were outside soaking in this sublime air) was about to do what he always does. Leave.

But the reality was that it looked like exactly what it was: an extremely busy restaurant during dinner service. No more and no less. But there was an electricity in the air; the type of heat that is generated when a particular event is lit by the combined buzz of hope and expectation. Everyone in the restaurant was aware of it: looking at each other, looking at the plates in front of them and especially on other tables, looking at the wait staff gliding and humming through the maze of tables like tuxedoed worker bees, looking toward the kitchen door at the back of the room to see if perhaps he would make an appearance. This was the kind of vibe that people in urban hot spots crave and people who can only read about them covet. This must be what it’s like to secure a reservation at a hot new club in New York City, except for the refreshing lack of hipsters, posers and the fat-walleted fuckwads who cash in their souls for cachet, all out of a sybaritic impulse to separate themselves from the hoi polloi.

Well, let’s keep it real: how many people (like myself) were here because they read about it and knew they had to come here? Certainly, there were more than a fair share of folks who just reckoned this was the hip (but not hipster!) place in which to add a notch to their culinary belts. But any venue, in any town, is going to inexorably attract the remoras who want to latch on to cultural shark. Bottom line: Taste of China is located in a fucking strip mall! That’s called keeping it real ’til it flatlines.

Back to that food coma. We ate, and ate, and we ate some more. If they had kept bringing food, we would have packed it in until we crumbled out of our chairs. And then we would have fallen on all fours and lapped it up like the aforementioned golden retriever. You’ll notice I’m not talking about the actual dishes or what they tasted like. For a sense of how good the food is, and the types of flavors and surprises it combines, check out the Kliman article: it’s a fantastic piece of journalism and Kliman is a more than capable food critic. I will say that while I’m unabashed about going deep as often as I can afford to (financially and gastronomically), most of my previous experiences ill-prepared me for the explosion of competing and, at first, discordant sensations this meal contained. That appetizer, pictured above, had a heat that numbed the lips, setting the tone for the spices to fight it out with the sweetly flavored slices of chicken: it was like lighting a match under an icicle. Suffice it to say, it was the type of (exceedingly rare) meal where you are already mentally recalling which items from the menu you will need to try next time, and the time after. But mostly you are transfixed by what is happening around you and inside you.

And then it’s over. You don’t linger; in part because you are able to see the line extending out the door, and mostly because once it looks like you’re done, the wait staff lets you know you’re done. They may have filled my water glass three times in an hour but they came back to see if we’d eaten our last bites five or six times. “We get the picture,” we would have said if our insensate tongues could form the words. Getting to the front door was a combination of concentrated effort (it was difficult to walk) and amusement (looking at all the eager faces of imminent diners who could read their futures in the strands of sweat dropping from my steaming dome). Getting to the car was a commitment. Thinking about following this meal with the beers we intended to drink was, inconceivably, inconceivable. And, being in a college town, we gave it the old college try. It wasn’t happening. Barlow The Brewer and I could barely finish our post-meal pints, and that has to be a first in our collective life stories. The only thing left was to call it a night and make the long, lonely drive back to the Chang-less city I call home.

Even as I sent the obligatory message, ruminating about available weekends for subsequent road trips, I had a feeling (based mostly on Chang’s notorious history, detailed in Kliman’s article) that he could not be long for C’Ville. A line out the door at 5:20 P.M. at an establishment without a bouncer means it has reached a tipping point. How long before Chang, compelled by his own internal mechanisms, or genuinely burnt out from a ceaseless crowd of insatiable clients, packed up his proverbial knives and went? How many more meals can I squeeze in, I wondered. Can we carry this dream through the end of summer?

Any questions?

Turns out my sense of urgency was well-warranted: Chang has left the building. We were there for his last shift.

This hurts. And, if you live in or around Charlottesville, it hurts you more than it does me. You missed your chance.

Or are you the lucky ones who will never have to wonder and worry if you’ll get another opportunity to have a meal that looks like this?

I am confident Chang and I will meet again.

Until then, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to taste China the way he intended.

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Waterloo This

March 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I love the smell of health care reform in the morning. Smells like victory.

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Get Your Ghana On

March 18, 2010 By 1 Comment

You had me at Kyenkyen bi adi m’awu (which means “come back my love”). And the reason I know that is because I read the liner notes to the succinctly titled compilation Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Ghanaian Blues 1968-81.

Ghanaian Blues? Exactly.

This is definitely one of the best CDs I’ve purchased in a long time. (Yes, I still purchase CDs. I sometimes feel like I’m keeping the entire music industry afloat; it’s a lonely job –and an expensive one– but somebody’s gotta do it).

Anyway, if you have the heart, and funds, for one impulse purchase this month, get this into your world at the earliest opportunity. Don’t take my word for it, listen to “Alhaji” K. Frimpong, below.

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Alex Chilton, R.I.P.

March 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Man, the American rock and roll scene just got discernibly smaller.

I’ll defer to the bigger Big Star fans (of whom there are many) to properly eulogize this American rock icon.

I’ll simply say, for now, that while many people (understandably) associate Chilton’s best work with the ’70s, he was still making serious noise in the ’90s. Quite by chance, as we eased past Y2K, I stumbled upon the truly bizarre, and beautiful, album he made with Alan Vega and Ben Vaughn, 1996′s Cubist Blues.

If you are a fan, or if you are curious (check out the clip below and I dare you to not be hooked) it comes highly recommended. This is midnight of the soul mixed with ’50s Beat energy and what Elvis would sound like if he had ever tried to channel Jerry Lee Lewis, drunk. Only one million times deeper and darker and, for my money, more satisfying. This is at once deliberate, narcotic and wonderfully disorienting. It’s like you walked into the wrong bar and stumbled onto a one-off jam session featuring a bunch of bruised and wily underground legends, laying it all on the line for nobody but themselves. Which is exactly what this album is.

Back in September 2003 the east coast was about to get rocked by a hurricane named Isabel. We knew it was coming, and this was one even the TV weathermen couldn’t get wrong. We didn’t know how bad it was going to be and fortunately, for D.C. denizens, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It got darker and later, and once the wind really started blowing and the rain began pounding down, I knew exactly what album I needed to have playing. Cubist Blues came through for me before, and has come through since, but I’ll always consider this an ideal soundtrack for a hurricane.

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Happy Drunken Stereotype Day!

March 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Green beer is for amateurs.

The Pogues, on the other hand, are strictly professional. Pint-wise, and otherwise.

Cheers to the Irish, the carnassial challenged and non-light beer drinking brethren (and sistren) across the globe.

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NOMAH! or, A Welcome Return for the Beantown Prometheus

March 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Nomah.

No mas.

It’s fantastic to see Garciaparra, and the Red Sox brass, both burying the sharpened Louisville Slugger and letting No. 5 retire as a Red Sox. Hard to believe it now, but there was a time (about a decade ago) when two things seemed certain: Nomar was never leaving Boston and he was headed to the Hall of Fame. As we now know, injuries, declined production (with the bat and the glove) and a prolonged and excessively bitter break-up (first with the front office, then the team, then the town) made him merely a once-great player who put together a career most pros would kill to copy.

Here’s the thing that a lot of people, even some Red Sox fans (so of course I’m not counting the pink-hatted posers who decided it was cool to be a Sox fan circa 2004: it was cool, especially if you’d spent your previous life –and everything prior to 10/27/2004 was a previous life for any real Red Sox fan– on that peculiar rollercoaster, the one that took years and sometimes decades to get to the top and then, like Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff, would drop down into a fresh new Hell) may not recall: with the exception of Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez, Nomar didn’t just play for the Red Sox; he was not merely the star of the Red Sox; Nomar was the Red Sox.

In between the late ’80s and the early ’00s, the Sox sucked. Even teams that went to the playoffs weren’t really going anywhere. And everyone knew it (especially the other teams). Seriously. After 1986, there was not a single playoff run (if you can call one-and-done series runs) where I actually believed, much less hoped, that the Sox actually had a chance to win the World Series. Nevermind the whole “curse” thing; the teams were just never deep enough to scare anyone. Of course that changed in a big way in 2003 (that team could and should have won it all, but if they had not failed they very possibly would not have set themselves up to be such a solid team going forward, which seems more true than ever in hindsight, and is easier to swallow now that the team has claimed two world championships).

But before 2003, Nomar was it.

Don’t get me wrong, Pedro was GOD, but even Petey only played once every five days. In terms of the one steady presence that bridged the bad old days and the glorious postscript that is still unfolding, Nomar was the guy. (And real fans should realize the debt we owe these two, as well as Manny, can never be repaid or properly appreciated: these three players made the Red Sox a half-way respectable franchise for the first time, arguably, since the 1986 season, and never forget there were some ugly years in between the late ’70s and that season-that-almost-was.) These guys unified the fans and sold merchandise in the slowly, but steadily growing Red Sox Nation.

And here’s the thing: it wasn’t just that Nomar was our all-star. Certainly, that was great and he was a blessing that any franchise could covet. He was the real deal: he played hard and he played hurt, and nobody who knows anything about the game would argue that Nomah did not give 100% every single outing. Of course it’s a cliche, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that those players are increasingly rare (outside of the NHL, anyway) and will elevate a franchise just like a team cancer can kill one.

He was, to use another inevitable cliche, discernibly old school. But he was also contemporary, and he had his signature quirk that endeared him for the ages. You remember the ritual. The whole OCD thing with the batting gloves. Needless to say, that compulsion became less cute once he stopped producing (but fortunately, he was already playing for other teams at that point!).

Yes, he was wary with the media, but trust me, if you had to deal with this douchebag every day, you’d be wary. And quite possibly violent. (And speaking of that shit-stirring punk, suffice it to say he lowered himself to the occasion and managed to be both petty and graceless regarding Nomar’s return.) Yes, he burned his bridges to get out of town, and that blew up in his face when he ended up having to watch the team he helped create make it to the promised land without him. Stop and think about that for a moment: we’re talking real Promethean type shit here. Every time he had to watch a replay of that final out on 10/27/2004, it was like that cosmic eagle taking another bite out of his liver. Just like every replay of Bucky Dent, or Bill Buckner, or Aaron Boone sent a psychic shock down the spine of every Sox fan…up until 10/27/2004. Can you say full circle?

The moral of the story? We are, of course, playthings of the Gods, and always have been. Batter up!

But all’s well that ends well. I’m not entirely sure what that even means, or is meant to mean. But I think it can safely be applied to situations like this. Nomar, having already been embraced by Boston (see video clip above), got to give hugs and smiles and transition into his new life as a broadcaster (yes, the same dude who once put red tape around his locker area to keep pesky reporters away; some might see hypocrisy, I choose to see irony –and a little irony never hurt anyone). I used to genuinely wonder, and worry, if Nomar had found (or could ever find) peace considering the way things ended. Fortunately, they had not yet ended. Now they have, and everyone can be happy.

And so I want to celebrate one of the best, most beloved and –in many ways– unappreciated players who patrolled the sacred grounds at Fenway.

Welcome home Nomah.

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God Is Not Dead: The Jimi Hendrix Re-Issues

March 12, 2010 By 1 Comment

Get excited. There is a new Jimi Hendrix album fully comprised of previously unreleased material.

I know I was excited when I first heard the news of Valleys of Neptune, which takes the name of one of Hendrix’s most widely bootlegged tunes. I was, in fact, so excited, I caught myself reconsidering the concept of Intelligent Design and felt the existence of Santa Claus was, all of a sudden, conceivable. Then I actually heard the album and am now here to tell you about it.

Get excited, but don’t get too excited. Here’s the deal: Valleys of Neptune is not, as some of the early buzz is incorrectly reporting, the last material Hendrix was working on before his death in September, 1970. Nor is it a collection of polished or even complete studio sessions; rather, it is a smattering of assorted jams, sketches and works-in-progress—some of which would be repurposed on Hendrix’s posthumous album, the one he was working on just before his death (of which more later). On the other hand, this is new, previously unreleased music by Jimi Hendrix! That alone is cause for unrestrained celebration, and the arrival of this album is—and will remain—one of the significant musical stories of 2010. And there’s more: in order to properly commemorate the occasion (and the fortieth anniversary of Hendrix’s passing), all of the original studio albums are being reissued with the deluxe remaster treatment, including bonus DVDS (of which more later).

It would be understandable to assume that Valleys of Neptune represents Hendrix’s final recordings, and, again, it’s disconcerting to see this release erroneously being described as such. In fact, the songs are mostly culled from a series of sessions in early ’69, more than a year before Hendrix laid down his final tracks. Fans will recall that the double-album Hendrix was unable to complete before his premature departure from this planet was released posthumously in as faithful a fashion as possible (first as the single album The Cry of Love and much later, and more satisfactorily, as the double-album length CD First Rays of the New Rising Sun).

These sessions do represent the last occasions that the original Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded together, and bassist Billy Cox, who would replace Noel Redding, can be heard for the first time on several songs. The press materials describe Valleys of Neptune as “12 fully realized studio recordings”. That is not exactly a misnomer, but it’s misleading. Again, this is Jimi Hendrix material recorded in the studio which means, by definition, it is serious stuff. But in the interest of accuracy, these are mostly rough, unfinished and occasionally unfocused cuts. If that sounds like semantic nitpicking, it is offered out of deference to Hendrix: not for nothing, but these recordings were all in the can many months before Hendrix died, and there are good reasons none of them, in their existing form, made it onto an album before now.

While listening to the new songs repeatedly over the course of a week, I kept thinking how revelatory they would be to watch as much as hear. If this studio footage had been caught on video, it would offer a fortuitous chance to see Hendrix (and his band mates) testing out material and taking the creative process for a test drive. As they exist, these tracks should best be received, and appraised, as the interesting and often quite worthwhile results of typically inspired jam sessions. Also interesting, if not especially illuminating, is the opportunity to enjoy Hendrix revisiting some of his famous songs. The set kicks off with “Stone Free”, a significant song that was the B-side of Hendrix’s first single, “Hey Joe”. As is the case on all 12 tracks, the guitar playing is, unsurprisingly, astonishing. It will be interesting to see how many aficionados feel this, or any of the other new versions improve upon the originals. For my money, they do not come close (“Stone Free” lacks the dangerous and almost desperate vocals, while “Fire”, incredibly, sounds almost tame and misses the machine gun ferocity Mitch Mitchell employed so indelibly on the debut album).

The results are more compelling when Hendrix updates two songs that were (and, based on his live performances, remained) crucial stepping stones for his rapid development, “Red House” and “Hear My Train a Comin’”. The former gets slowed down and dragged out for more than eight minutes, featuring the full spectrum of Hendrix’s dexterity and imagination. The latter, heretofore best represented as an acoustic blues, gets the plugged in and amped up live-in-the-studio treatment. Both songs are triumphant and illuminate the ways Hendrix continued to utilize traditional blues in the service of his ambitious but sophisticated acumen. Another concert staple, the band’s aggressive interpretation of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” is a launching pad for Hendrix: for almost seven minutes he employs many of his favorite tricks, toying with tempo that at one instant echoes the original, stops on a dime, and veers off into entirely other places. The other cover is a spirited update of the great Elmore James’s “Bleeding Heart” that splits the difference between sloppy and inspired, just as one would expect (and hope) for from a jam session.

 

The highlight of the album has to be the title track which, of all the songs, comes closest to standing alongside Hendrix’s better material. It is immediately evident that the close-but-not-quite version we hear is the result of considerable work, and the liner notes confirm that it had evolved over time from a solo demo. The ethereal drone and cymbal wash that introduce the track recalls “Angel”, but the gears shift and the guitar soars into the main melody, full of the clean, crisp pyrotechnics we associate with vintage Hendrix. The lyrics are a tad half-baked (this was, after all, 1969) and it’s intriguing to imagine how this song would (should?) have worked as in instrumental.

The rest of the songs feature sounds and motifs that would resurface on subsequent work. For instance, “Ships Passing Through The Night” is an early run at “Night Bird Flying” and “Lullaby for the Summer” would eventually coalesce as the superior “Ezy Ryder”. “Lover Man” is based on B.B. King’s “Rock Me Baby” and “Mr. Bad Luck”, which would mutate into “Look Over Yonder” is in fact a holdover from Axis: Bold As Love. The set closes with the instrumental “Crying Blue Rain” which leaves the proceedings on a tentative, softly hopeful note. And that seems just about right, aesthetically and historically. As we know, Hendrix would continue to work with Billy Cox (and Buddy Miles, captured for posterity on the seminal Band of Gypsys set), and he would revisit some of this material to great effect in the final months of his life. Valleys of Nepune, then, is not the Holy Grail, and it doesn’t need to be. That already exists anyway, and it is celebrated in spectacular fashion with the deluxe CD/DVD reissues of the four proper alums that preceded and followed these ’69 sessions.

It is exceedingly refreshing to see that Sony’s Legacy Recordings is making the most of this opportunity and reissuing the official Hendrix catalog, with bonus (DVD) material at incredibly—bordering on unbelievably—reasonable price points. Ten bucks for remastered sound and a mini-documentary DVD? This is no brainer, redefined. Which brings us to the crucial question: what more can possibly be said, at this point, about Jimi Hendrix? Actually, it is entirely fair to propose that we have not yet said enough about him. As it has long since been established that he is the Alpha and the Omega of electric guitar, conversation tends to stop there: what more needs to be said, we say, when we don’t say anything more. As a result, the actual scope of his virtuosity tends to, however unintentionally, get reduced to stock phrases (see above) and the sorts of encomiums that preempt elaboration. So how do we explain the truly singular genius that is Jimi Hendrix? Aside from the innovation (he did it first), apart from the obvious (he did it best), what sets him apart?

When it comes to Hendrix, there is really no conjecture. The growth he displayed in only a couple of years is unlike anything we’ve witnessed from just about any other musician or composer, ever. We’re talking light years, the universe expanding; real quantum type shit. Put it this way: Miles Davis, who didn’t have many good things to say about even the best jazz musicians, made no bones about his desire to get Hendrix in the studio to collaborate. That’s like Michael Jordan saying he’d like to play some pick-up, or Sugar Ray Robinson asking you to spar with him.

1967: there are the immutable opening salvos, those hit singles that remain radio-friendly four decades on (“Purple Haze”, “Hey Joe”, “Fire”, “Foxey Lady”) and the moodier harbingers of what lay ahead (“Manic Depression”, “I Don’t Live Today”, “Love or Confusion”) and then there are the outright masterpieces. Consider “The Wind Cries Mary”: written the night before, brought to the studio the next day and captured in one take. An example like this underscores the seismic shift that blasted an unsuspecting world when Are You Experienced hit the streets, the unambiguous arrival of a major, scary talent. But (as the companion DVD details in a series of interviews with engineer—and unsung hero—Eddie Kramer) it is the subsequent embellishment, courtesy of five overdubbed guitar parts, that move this track from mere classic to one-of-a-kind epic: the mood and feeling of melancholy Hendrix conveys calls to mind Poe’s edict about the totality of effect.

Then there is the psychedelic space jazz of “Third Stone From the Sun”: the ways Hendrix navigates an almost surf-rock elegance with proto-thrash distortion and makes it sound not just natural but inevitable, is part of why the first album continues to merit consideration as the most fully realized debut album in rock history. Finally there is the title track, which truly is one of those instances that defy time and description on so many levels. This song could only have been released in ’67, but it still sounds unsettling and slightly ungraspable in 2010. Perhaps more than any of the other tracks, this one signified the summation of Hendrix’s strategy at that stage: backwards solos, restless feedback and subtly effective piano plinks build up the tension like the song was programmed to detonate. And by the time anybody knew what had hit them; Hendrix was already back in the studio.

Axis: Bold As Love did not have as many instantly accessible singles, but in spite (or because) of that, the second album is unquestionably a major step forward in several regards. This is the disc to slip into any discussion regarding Hendrix’s indisputable, but underappreciated compositional acumen. The guitar is consistently front and center (while Redding and especially Mitchell remain impeccable, as always, in the pocket), but the emphasis on Jimi’s vocals turns purposeful attention on some of the best lyrics he ever penned. While Are You Experienced remains the sonic boom that cleared away all competition, even the best moments on that effort could never in a thousand years have anticipated songs like “Little Wing”, “Castles Made of Sand”, “One Rainy Wish” and “Bold As Love”. (Even an ostensibly throwaway tune like “She’s So Fine” is instructive: Jimi’s lightning leads and delectable falsetto choruses shine, but then there’s Mitch Fucking Mitchell. Only one drummer in rock was this fast and furious circa 1967 and his name was Keith Moon.)

The songs on Axis: Bold As Love, for the most part, are concise and unencumbered (the clarity of sound on these remasters more than justifies their acquisition), and this is in no small part due to producer (and then manager) Chas Chandler, who brought a strictly-business professionalism to the proceedings all through ’67. He explains his old school M.O. on the companion DVD: “If a band can’t get it in two or three takes they shouldn’t be in the studio.” How can you not love this guy? And watching Eddie Kramer at the console, isolating guitar tracks and vocals while recalling how the songs came together is a treat true Hendrix fans will lap up like voodoo soup. Indeed, the only gripe about the bonus DVDs is their brevity; I could easily listen to Kramer and Chandler tell war stories for hours on end without getting bored, and I’m certain I’m not alone.

There is also an air of adventure and daring that augments the sometimes disorienting edge of the debut. Hendrix is clearly pushing himself, each day coming up with new ideas and electrified with the air of possibility. That vision is convincingly and definitively realized, and we can only lament the comparatively primitive technology that prevented alternate takes from surviving the sessions. Imagine, for instance, where “Little Wing” continued to go after the tapes fade out. If there is one particular moment on any of these tracks that best illuminates Hendrix’s insatiable creativity and unerring instincts, it comes toward the end of the incendiary “If 6 Was 9”. After declaring, in one of the all-time great rock and roll F-offs (“I’m gonna’ wave my freak flag high!”), a sort of whinnying, high-pitched noise slips into the maelstrom. Kramer explains that there happened to be a recorder lying around the studio, and Hendrix simply picked it up and started wailing. Kramer then applied the appropriate effects and echo, and the rest is history. In the final analysis, there is no way to improve upon practically any part of Axis: Bold As Love: this is as good as music is capable of being.

By 1968 Hendrix has relocated from London to New York City and it was during the open-ended and generally unrestrained Electric Ladyland sessions that Chandler, ever the taskmaster, famously fled the scene. “Gypsy Eyes” alone allegedly required forty different takes before Hendrix was satisfied, an intensity surpassing obsession that literally drove Chandler out of the studio. This circumstance was inevitable, and frankly necessary. Hendrix absolutely needed and benefited from Chandler’s mentoring, but now he had more than come into his own and nobody could keep up with him (he could scarcely keep up with himself). The results scream for themselves and to say that Electric Ladyland is yet another major advancement (how do you improve upon perfection?) is of course a pallid understatement.

Just as little from Are You Experienced hinted at the next installment, Axis: Bold As Love seems almost pedestrian and conservative compared to the staggering triumph of style and sound that is Electric Ladyland.

This is Hendrix’s masterpiece, and it is on this double album that practically every trick in his oversized bag is employed to its fullest extent. The storytelling skills are displayed on tracks like “Crosstown Traffic”, “Long Hot Summer Night” and “House Burning Down”. The compositional prowess is evident in every note, most especially on the song suite that covers side three and spills over to side four. What Hendrix was able to achieve, despite the contemporary limitations of old-fashioned recording equipment is, on a song like “1983… (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)”, heroic. It also offers the best evidence we have of what he saw and heard inside his always-teeming imagination.

What remains vital, and compelling, all these years later is the way Hendrix appropriates blues music, creating a template that copycats are still trying, in vain, to emulate. “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” and the live-in-the-studio riot of “Voodoo Chile” are rock music touchstones, and nothing anyone has attempted has come particularly close to them. Hendrix himself puts it best when he boasts “Well I stand up next to a mountain/And chop it down with the edge of my hand.” That is exactly what he did, and he remains king of the mountain he scaled, and then razed.

From “Purple Haze” to “Rainy Day, Dream Away” in less than two years still seems inconceivable, even impossible. But it happened. And, of course, Hendrix continued to broaden his scope and incorporate more styles and sonic experiments (check out the full, funky brass accompaniment on the title track from South Saturn Delta), pushing past the boundaries he had already blown away. The material collected on First Rays of the New Rising Sun represent many of the songs Hendrix was assembling for another double album in the summer over 1970, just before his death. Noel Redding is gone and Billy Cox, having already worked with Mitchell and Hendrix during the Valley of Neptune sessions, is a liberating presence that allows the band to spread out and chase the guitarist as he soars above, around and beneath them. With all due respect to Noel Redding—and nevermind the rumors that Hendrix simply played all the bass parts himself—one of the tantalizing prospects remains what avenues would have continued to open with Cox freeing Mitchell to incorporate his jazz stylings into the mix.

Back to the genius thing and how to wrap our minds around the extent of Hendrix’s gifts: Eddie Kramer analyzes “Dolly Dagger” and uses the console to demonstrate the fastidious attention Hendrix devoted to every second of every song, down to his ability to multi-track his own vocals, knowing in advance exactly where each note and inflection was meant to go. When Kramer isolates the guitar tracks on “Night Bird Flying”, it’s not just a matter of how great each one sounds and the ways they complement each other; it’s more the uncanny way each one could easily and convincingly stand alone as a fully formed statement. Many of the songs, like “Izzabella”, “Stepping Stone”, “My Friend”, “Straight Ahead” and “Astro Man” are loose and as light as Hendrix had been since some of the tracks on Axis: Bold As Love. Then there are irrepressible gems like “Ezy Ryder”, “Dolly Dagger” and “Belly Button Window” that bring the band directly into a new decade. Most of the material has a fresh and unfettered sound: much less overdubbing and Hendrix’s infatuation with “phasing”—which he took to its logical limits on Electric Ladyland (think “Moon, Turn the Tides…Gently Gently Away”)—is now discarded in favor of a more straightforward assault. This direction is nicely encapsulated in the instrumental “Beginnings” where there are no frills or tricks, only a scorching a workout that showcases Hendrix’s ability to create fire with any smoke.

Of course, there are also a handful of tracks that elevate themselves above the rest and go to that other place. “Freedom”, the perfect album opener, is just a clinic of where rock and roll had gone, and where it might have continued to go; “Room Full of Mirrors” is a tour de force of multi-tracked guitar bliss (including cowbell!) and “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)” is, or will have to be, as suitable a farewell statement (“May I come along?”) as we could hope for. And finally, the one-two punch of “Drifting” and “Angel”, that, not that it’s necessary to quantify, might represent the most beautiful work Hendrix ever recorded. Inevitably, some measure of outright hyperbole is unavoidable: if there is such a thing as beyond perfection, it is achieved on “Angel” and “Drifting”.

And then he was gone. The magnitude of his loss remains unfathomable. There is no question, absolutely no doubt whatsoever, that he had years and years of untapped magic to explore and nourish. On the other hand, perhaps Hendrix did live and record for four decades; he just crammed it into four years. Hendrix and the gift of his music are subjects that can never be exhausted: the songs hold up, they should be studied and dissected, and above all they should be savored. They are, like the man who made them, incapable of ever being forgotten.

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A Serious Mess

March 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

First off, full disclosure.

I don’t exactly have a love/hate relationship with the Coen Brothers, because there is too much gray area. Some of their movies I love without reservation (Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski) and some I really find inspid (Miller’s Crossing, O Brother Where Art Thou and especially The Hudsucker Proxy). But, I guess, to their credit, they also have plenty of films I am largely indifferent about, or find simply okay (this includes near misses like Barton Fink and Blood Simple). I was underwhelmed with No Country For Old Men the first time I saw it, but liked it better the next time –always a good sign. Burn After Reading was what it was: a lark; a lightweight effort with a heavyweight cast, mostly salvaged by the never unimpressive George Clooney. And then there are the rest of them, of which the less said the better.

Which brings us to A Serious Man. Their latest film garnered some, well, serious praise (including two perfect-10 ratings from colleagues from PopMatters whose taste and opinions I admire). If you have not seen it yet, be prepared for some spoilers: this is not a review; it’s a postmortem. The plot, presented as a pitch, sounds irresistible: college physics professor (and Jew) who seems a nice enough fellow is, without warning, suddenly made to suffer a series of unfortunate events; he is a present-day Job for our postmodern times. Add the Coen brethren’s patented black humor alongside their perverse sensibility, and hilarity shall ensue. Pretty good premise, right? (My first thought was, we’ve already seen this one, and it was called The Man Who Wasn’t There, which was less a movie and more a 90 minute exercise to see how many cigarettes Billy Bob Thornton could smoke.)

The leitmotif of the movie is provided (in a typical instance of when the Coen brothers’ goofy irreverance goes wrong) by the Jefferson Airplane chestnut “Somebody To Love”: When the truth is found to be lies/And all the joy within you dies. This is its first problem. Setting up the framework of this anti-morality play, however cheekily, with such a literal (and cornily shoehorned) statement of purpose begs two big questions which had better be answered in some fashion. One, what is the truth? Two, is there any evidence that there was ever any joy inside our hero?

Let’s look at the tale of the tape: decent man with annoyingly needy brother who has moved in. And a vulgar wife who asks for a divorce to facilitate the affair she is having. And two bratty kids. And a racist neighbor. And a health scare. In lesser artists’ hands, a protagonist with this sort of curriculum vitae is a guy we like and can relate to who has horrible things happen and just when it can’t get any worse, it gets better. You know, the types of movies usually starring Will Smith or Tom Hanks. The problem with A Serious Man is that Larry Gopnik, despite all the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune, never seems to lose much that he’d be better off without. And I’m quite certain that is not what the Coen Brothers are after, which is not the fault of the actor, but of the writing and direction.

O Brothers, Where Art Thou?

The film’s internal engine stalls on this irreconcilable conflict: if we can’t help thinking Larry has never been happy, or might be in a better place away from all of these miserable creatures all around him, it sort of sucks the air out of the movie’s momentum. And because the viewer (or, this viewer) became distracted by this…distraction, it…distracted from what must be the primary objective of any film, which is providing unfettered engagement without distraction. All of which is to say the Coens violate the operating principle of the storytelling process, and it isn’t “give us a character we care about” (that is something only unimaginative critics and untalented writing professors blather about); rather, it is: give us a character who does not strain credulity to an insulting degree. When minor characters, especially ones in Coen Brothers movies, are somewhat less than believable, it can be and often is in the service of delightful nuance. In other words, it does not grab attention or focus from the thrust of the proper narrative. On the other hand, if that character is the prime mover of the action (even in a movie where the prime mover is Fate with a capital Cliche and the protagonist is the dust this Mighty Wind blows about with biblical imperiousness), we are stuck in neutral, which in Coen Brothers projects is often (and generously) assumed to be black humor.

At this point one can sense the more defensive fans sighing in exasperation and patiently explaining how the monstrous math equation in the classroom illustrates everything, or the (very Coens-esque, or is that Coensian?) Asian student personifies the enigmatic fulcrum upon which action (or, in this case, inaction) prompts reaction, or the even simpler fact that it’s black humor, dummy; Gopnik is the pawn of an uncaring universe and the better he tries to be, the harder the universe bends him over. Well, okay. But then we’re failing on simple human as well as artistic levels: one need only look to the slums of Bombay or the killing fields of any third world country to see innocent people suffering terribly for crimes they never committed. Maybe the Coens should have named this one Slumdog Hundredaire.

Or try this: even though Gopnik’s suffering is over the top, even by Job’s standards (Job, mercifully, never had to deal with the petty foibles of a professor sweating tenure), one doesn’t feel pity for him in regards to his contemptible progeny. At what point is he himself at least partly culpable for the churlish punks he has reared?

Put yet another way: if this is tragedy, it calls to mind why contemporary audiences aren’t particularly fond of or familiar with the ancient-school shtick of some recondite curse invoked to explain how and why everything goes wrong. There’s a very good reason the Deux et machina act doesn’t resonate with folks these days. Or, the abiding genius of Shakespeare involves his ability to delineate the human element informing the big unraveling.

And if all this makes me sound like a prudish traditionalist, I would suggest that the film’s entire structure is slickly super-glued to resist critique: the person offering the criticism is simply not in on the joke; they don’t get it. And I’ll eagerly stand up and be counted as being all for any endeavor mocking the platitudes and sadism masquerading as morality that organized religion so often makes a killing (often literally) from. Pointing out, as the film does, the obtusity of the clerics and their incompetence in dealing with virtually any sort of human dilemma is something to be celebrated. Ditto the Coen brothers’ obvious disdain for lawyers: don’t hope for comfort or expertise from these dissembling shmucks. On these points, I’m picking up what they’re putting down.

Listen: I ain’t offended by misanthropy; I can handle the truth. And if The Truth is that the Coens loathe humanity, or the world, whatever. More power to them, but I felt the same way I do when I watch virtually every Woody Allen movie: please, for your sake, I hope you are in actuality a very happy person and merely a miserable artist. In the final analysis, it’s not the filmmakers’ view of the world I find offensive (or facile); it’s their hostility toward artistic engagement. What they successfully create in almost every film (except the great ones) is a bleak cinemascape that leaves a certain demographic (likely the same ones who worship Woody Allen movies) feeling smug and superior, and a clique of not-quite-as-intelligent-as-they-think-they-are critics rolling over and panting for more stale scraps.

The big punch line is more like a punch in the nuts. When the inscrutable rabbi finally speaks, his quote (bringing it all full circle!) of Jefferson Airplane is…can I get an Oy, man? And from an editorial standpoint, simply quoting the lyrics would have been tolerable, barely. But the too-cute-by-two-thirds naming of each individual band member is both unbelievable and profoundly unamusing. It is an archetypal bad Coen Brothers moment: one feels the intrustion of their arrogance, their self-love surpassing their other people-hate. At long last, one grows tired of the types of movies made by grown men who ultimately love nothing quite so much as the smell of their own farts.

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