My barber has one eye.
Okay, strictly speaking, that's not true. He has two eyes, but one of them is made of glass and therefore I hardly think it can be counted.
And, to be perfectly honest, he's not the world's best barber. For instance, I got my hair cut yesterday and this morning I was in the shower eliminating the annoying sideburnlets he'd left with my razor. I hate sideburns, but somehow "no sideburns at all" becomes "little sideburn-like patches in front of the ear" when you're pushing seventy and can't quite recall what you'd done on the other side of the head.
But then, I'm not a very discerning customer when it comes to haircuts. I go to a barber because I want shorter hair. I am perfectly happy to touch it up myself later. What I want out of a barber is a haircutting environment that makes me feel like I have stepped into the Andy Griffith show. I want it cheap, I want them to use electric razors, and I don't want any damn women around with their shampoo and their "stylists" and their magazines with creepy-looking painted faces. I want a copy of Life with Eisenhower on the cover. Give me that, and the fact that my hair comes out looking different each time I go doesn't bother me so much.
Anyhow, despite my predilection for short hair, recently I have been looking into new music. (You didn't see that segue coming, did you?) The songs on my iPod are beginning to feel a bit stale, and I know that there are oodles of bands out there who are under my radar, on account of their not getting radio play. So I figured I'd try out a few of them.
I based my foray into unheard music around Jeph Jacques' list of recommended albums. It seems like a good window to music I've never heard, plus I have met Jeph and he's a really good guy. Plus his recommendations are clear, concise, and fun to read.
So I used iTunes and dug up snippets from various of the listed albums. And, to be honest, I wasn't wildly enamored of anything. I certainly did not give it enough time - my free time is somewhat constrained, mostly by a severe World of Warcraft addiction, and new music isn't all that important to me - but I did spend a few hours and wound up buying only two songs. And one of those - 'Oh La La' by Goldfrapp - was from a different recommendation source altogether.
I listened to the Decemberists, who have a fantastic band name, but wasn't terribly impressed. A little too 'whiny college student' for me. That was one group for which I had high hopes - most of the rest I enjoyed listening to, once, but certainly not enough to buy. (There were one or two I did not enjoy listening to at all, but I don't remember which ones.)
Now, two of the bands I was interested in were 'album' bands, by which I mean that their songs weren't meant to be singles, they were meant to be heard in succession, and were generally too long for radio play. So iTunes wasn't the best venue to obtain their music from, although I did get Mogwai's 'Auto Rock' from the Mr. Beast album, and liked it. It was clearly a song meant to lead to other songs, but was rather good.
Anyhow, both Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor were also touchstone bands - reviews for other bands consistently refer back to them for comparison. Whenever something is constantly being compared to, odds are that it's worth investigating. So I went out on a limb and picked up the full Mr. Beast and F#A# albums down at a local Borders.
The twenty minute tracks did not deter me, no, rather the converse. I listen to real opera - Carmina Burana springs to mind, for which I have several different performances - and thus rock opera sounded like a very promising fusion. I have a long commute, and would be quite happy to listen to an entire rock opera during it.
Well, was I ever disappointed. Particularly in Godspeed You! Black Emperor, which has an awesome name and a highly touted 'rock orchestra' reputation. I was all geared up for an experience in musical power.
But this wasn't it. In fact, it's barely music. Not that it's shrill or cacophonic - I like cacophonic - it's just... not there. It's long minutes of a single source of sound, playing a single tone. It's long periods of silence inside the track. At no point does F#A# actually approach anything as musically complicated as 'Land of 1,000 Dances'. Yes, the song that has 'Na, na na na na' as actual lyrics.
Now, some time ago we had the 'art' discussion here on Cant, and I came down firmly on the side of "No, not everything is art, suck it you bullshit artists." And I feel the same way about music. What Godspeed You! Black Emperor produced on F#A# was a collection of interesting sounds. And silences. But it really did not approach music.
For those of you who feel that a vibrating car antenna, for instance, is music, you can take your all-inclusive definition and use it to polish my balls.
Anyhow, F#A# simply lacked any sort of complexity. It was more akin to those 'nature sounds' CDs than it was to, say, the White Album. Or to Substance. Or to any album of actual music.
And I was also highly grumpy about paying good money for long periods of silence. During the tracks. It's one thing to record 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and make it far too long for radio play. It's quite another to record a single string instrument, playing one or two notes and holding them for two minutes, then twenty seconds of silence, then a single horn for a minute, and to call that a single track. No. Any time you have more than ten seconds of silence during a song and then you cut to something else entirely, it's a goddamn different song.
So, with some regret for dashed hopes, I bid adieu to Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Mogwai... Mogwai I just wasn't impressed by. Oh, sure, it was music, and I do like 'Auto Rock', but the rest of Mr. Beast was just sort of 'bleah'. There was nothing exciting there. Yes, each song sort of led to the next, sort of, and they were all somewhat different in emotional content. But I'd trade the whole album for Velvet Revolver's 'Slither', and Velvet Revolver is a bunch of rockers whose days of being fresh and new are behind them. At least they know how to make a song engaging.
Sadly, my two choices for albums both turned out to be busts.
So, dear readers - got anything to recommend? I'm happy to listen to anything once. I may shoot it down, but I will give it a whirl.
Oh, and if you like synthpop, Goldfrapp is actually rather good.
- Sun Ra