THE PUDDING’S PROOF

Whatever you might think of U2, they do give good interview. And I’m not just talking about Bono, the dreamer with a fistful of facts. Drummer Larry Mullen Jr. often sheds light on the inner workings of a group of people who like to pretend that they’re still the four muckers who started out together some 33 years ago. I recently remembered a U2 interview from 1997 when they were making the distinction between records that are truly great and ones that con you into thinking they’re great because they remind you of another great record. These words have been resonating with me while listening to Japanese composer Ryuchi Sakamoto’s aptly titled new release “Playing The Piano”.
Although Sakamoto’s slightly lackadaisical attack and ponderous rhythm jarred with me from the get-go, there was something familiar about the album I liked, and it wasn’t just the Spartan re-workings of Sakamoto favourites like his theme
to “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence”, the 1983 war film in which he starred alongside David Bowie. The general atmosphere reminded me of one of my favourite jazz records, Bill Evans’ “Conversations With Myself” from 1963, an early experiment with multi-track recording that had the pianist layering his own playing track-by-track and revelling in his virtual interactions. What makes Evans’ musical shadow-boxing great and Sakamoto’s solo performances less so is the fact that “Conversations With Myself” was at the cutting edge of the then available recording technology and knew it while “Playing The Piano” surfs on a wave of nostalgic melancholy not supported by the playing.
It is a prime example of a record that only reminds you of a great record
rather than being one itself.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

For a change, this post has nothing to do with music, as Swedish crime author Stieg Larsson doesn’t go in for the rock ’n’ roll name-dropping that so endears me to his Scottish colleague Ian Rankin. I’ve just finished reading Larsson’s book “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”, the first part of his “Millennium Trilogy” and I found myself strangely moved by the book – despite my reservations both about the time Larsson takes to tell his story and the plethora of characters that inhabit it.
What got me about the novel besides the author’s strong stance against violence towards women (the Swedish title in fact means “Men Who Hate Women”) and his intricate depiction of a dysfunctional family of industrialists was the way that Larsson, himself a journalist, handles the media side of the story. “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” might turn out to be one of the last major crime novels written before the background of an intact newspaper industry, as many daily publications have either ceased to exist entirely or have retreated from the news-stand since the book came out in 2005.
What also moved me about the book was the camaraderie among the characters who work on the “Millennium” magazine that gives Larsson’s trilogy its name: as a freelance writer, I sorely miss the regular and friendly repartee with other colleagues in the field. But Larsson is in no way painting a rose-coloured picture of the press milieu. He also warns how easily journalists can be corrupted when personal matters infringe upon their work, and also demonstrates how people who might be crucial to a particular project often find themselves high and dry when a piece has been written up and published. Lisbeth Salander, the character who gives the novel its English title certainly discovers that to be true - at least at the end of “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”. There are, after all, two other books in the trilogy that I have yet to read. By the way, I lied about this post not having anything to do with music: Mikael Blomkvist, the central figure in “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” is a big Elvis fan.

NOTHING’S NEW

Some time ago I promised to write more about musical discoveries I’d made. But at the time of that pledge, I’d temporarily forgotten how difficult it is to find bands that haven’t already been uncovered and written about by other media. Take for example Tinariwen, a Tuareg band from the Southern Sahara whose music sounds like a mixture of Ali Farka Touré's Mali blues crossed with the Wu-Tang Clan’s broken hip-Hop beats, albeit played on electric guitars and assorted percussion.
Their 2007 album “Aman Iman: Water Is Life” was nothing less than a revelation to me when I first heard it, and now that Tinariwen have released the follow-up “Imidiwan: Companions”, I’ve been quick to review it in glowing terms. In the course of my research, I discovered that the world music scene has been fawning over the band since a WOMAD appearance in 2001 and that Tinariwen have a history that spans more than two decades. So in fact I’m a late-comer to the fold. Still, that hasn’t deterred me from lauding Tinariwen for their virtues as instrumentalists and singers, as their music only gains in power and beauty on repeated listens. One can’t praise these records enough, even though many journalists have tried before me.

I CATCHER

Ironic as it may seem, it’s actually quite difficult to get music journalists to go out and see new bands or listen to albums by as-yet unknown artists. There’s a reason for that glaring contradiction, and that’s the fact that people who listen to music for a living would rather indulge their passion for artists they know and love than fill their already cramped cognitive space with sound they can neither digest comfortably nor derive fee-paying prose from.
I know we’re not the only professionals guilty of conservative crimes against the performing arts: In “Prick Up Your Ears”, his biography of Sixties playwright Joe Orton, John Lahr remarks that getting critics to attend premieres is a headache New York theatre producers have always had to contend with. The joy is all the greater when you encounter new music that instead of cluttering up your mind makes you feel richer for having stumbled upon it.
Such was the Case With “Balance Instars”, the debut album by London-based prog-metal band Of The I, who not only have a penchant for Californian avant-rock masters Tool, but also have the chops to match said band’s most complex work – plus the imagination to go beyond it, adding ambient and classical inflections to Tool’s intricate guitar lines, angular rhythms and darkly plaintive vocals.
That’s no mean feat, as Tool themselves did a near-revelatory reworking of the in itself virtuoso music of latter-day King Crimson in the Nineties. I really look forward to hearing what Of The I will do next, but it might be some time before I get to see them live. True to form and much to my shame, I managed to miss their gig in Zurich a month or two back.

CELEBRITY-PROOF

It can be funny to be partially sighted at times. Quite apart from the fact that life regularly treats you to both legal and free psychedelic flashbacks, it also makes you immune to celebrity. I was reminded of this last week when I interviewed British band Muse, whose upcoming album “The Resistance” incidentally contains three of the best songs they’ve ever written as well as a three part symphony. After the final interview (the band insists that journalists meet all three members to take the media focus off front man and songwriter Matthew Bellamy), I checked my recordings and set off across the outdoor terrace of the Dolder hotel perched above Zurich. On my way to the exit I encountered a man with garish sunglasses and a light blue top who seemed to be circling me with a quizzical expression on his face. I’d almost passed him by the time I realised that he was Matthew Bellamy who I’d interviewed only ten minutes before, so I proffered my hand to redress my fauxpas. It must have been quite unusual for Mr. Bellamy to be so unmemorable as to have his face forgotten so quickly, but as I’d told him about my poor eyesight at the beginning of our conversation, he reacted with grace and humour. I then managed to get lost in the dimly light corridors of the Dolder, and that’s the down-side of being partially sighted: You might be celebrity-proof, but any alien architecture is likely to make you question your sense of direction and reality in general.

ISLAND OF REASON

Quite some time has passed since my last post, and there are many reasons or excuses for my silence. Oodles of work for daily papers here in Switzerland, a move to a new home as well as recording sessions with Gretel in Ireland. Posts should follow more regularly from now on, as befits a blog, but please accept my pre-emptive apologies for any future interruptions in communication.
The professional highlight of the past few months was an interview with Chris Blackwell, famed founder of Island Records, the label responsible for launching Bob Marley and U2 as well as giving the world such wonderful anomalies as Roxy Music, Grace Jones and the B-52’s and saving Marianne Faithfull and Tom Waits from descents into obscurity. It was an honour to meet Mr. Blackwell, but also a sharp reminder of my job as a journalist. “I was always much more focused on press than on radio,” he told me, back in London for Island’s 50th birthday bash. “Because the roles of radio and press are vastly different: Radio always wants you to stay tuned to a station and not switch channels while it’s the press’s role to introduce you to new things.”
In the last few years, even the broadsheets have fallen prey to the allure of mainly reporting on the renowned and respected, and I myself plead guilty to that particular crime. Mr. Blackwell’s reminder of my journalistic duty seems even more poignant two months after our meeting as the Swiss album and singles charts are currently clogged up with Michael Jackson re-issues. So much so, in fact, that they make up about 60% percent of the respective Top Tens – and that’s not even counting USA For Africa’s “We Are The World”. Not that I’m averse to Jackson’s music, it’s just that I think the true proof of his pop prowess remains hidden from the general public. If you can still get your hands on the Special Editions of the “Off The Wall” and “Thriller” albums released back in 2003, you’ll find the demo versions of “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and “Billie Jean” Jackson recorded at home with members of his family. Listening to these first captures of future hits, you realise that contrary to popular belief, he had these songs down well before taking them to producer Quincy Jones. But now I’m falling into the same trap of writing about a major star rather than uncovering the obscure or forgotten. I promise to mend my ways.

CONCEPT? WHAT CONCEPT?

You might be wondering why I don’t write about Swiss music much considering the fact that I’m a music journalist living and working in Switzerland. I think this blind spot has something to do with the fact that although I appreciate the high level of musicianship abundant in the scene, I miss the grand ideas behind the hard graft: Only very rarely do I sense the bands’ artistic, political or absurdist reasons for doing what they do. The glaring exception to the rule is The Bianca Story from Basel, a self-proclaimed art collective in best Roxy Music/Pulp/Franz Ferdinand tradition that not only plays angular pop songs but also directs and produces its own videos and installations. My beef with the band is that I think The Bianca Story should put more time and effort into the music and less into the extra- curricular activities and generally show more conceptual consistency. Consider the following: After having been assigned to write a concert preview I ordered the new mini-album “Unique copy” from the band’s agent. Only after reading the relevant press release did I realise that the album could not in fact be ordered as the unique copy of the title would be mounted in a multi-media artefact that weighed half a ton an was due to be auctioned off with a starting price of 10 000 francs. Apparently, the idea was to raise the question of the value of music in a time of digital over-availability – a little like Radiohead with their name-your-own-price download album “In Rainbows” back in 2007. I then wrote an embarrassed e-mail to the agent apologizing for demanding the conceptually impossible. A day later I received a call from The Bianca Story’s publicist, asking whether I needed any additional information about the project, pointing out that all five tracks off the album were available via the band’s Myspace page. He also offered to send me the music on CD if I liked – which to my mind defeated the object of the enterprise. The album arrived the very next day and since then I’ve been wondering how many other people have unique copies of “Unique Copy” sitting on their shelves.

LOST HORIZON

„No Line On The Horizon“ arrived in the post yesterday. It’s by far not the worst album in U2’s catalogue, but it’s not their best, either. The problems with “No Line On The Horizon” concern the slowness of most of the material (one of the reasons the jubilantly playful “Get On Your Boots” is such a stand-out), the presence of bridges and intros that detract from the general thrust of some songs and the fact that Bono’s vocals and lyrics seem more ad hoc than is good for the music. There are exceptions: “Magnificent” is an instant U2 classic with something approaching a disco beat, and “Cedars Of Lebanon” has an understated precision that perfectly couches Bono’s thumbnail sketch of a war correspondent’s view of the tragedies that surround him. The stunning song ends (as does the album) with the lines “(Enemies) gonna last with you longer/Than your friends”, and these words resonate even more deeply if you have ever met writer, music connoisseur and publicist extraordinaire Rob Partridge, to whose memory “No Line On The Horizon” is dedicated. Until reading the dedication, I hadn’t known that the man who brought U2 to Island Records’ attention almost thirty years ago passed away last November, and I was stunned by the sad news. I’d only met Rob three times in his capacity as Tom Waits’ publicist, but like many others before me appreciated his fierce intelligence, hovering wit and compassionate professionalism. Even though I was thousands of miles from home on the few occasions I med Rob, I always felt in the best of hands. I last spoke to him in 2006: I had just returned from California and called to say thank you for setting up yet another interview with Tom waits. "Are you still here?” he joked from across the Atlantic when he heard who was calling and why. “Well, see you again in two years’ time” were his parting words, and I very much regret that there won’t be another opportunity to discuss the varying merits of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”, Rob’s self-proclaimed definitive article on Allen Toussaint or his many dealings with Bob Marley. There are many artists and associates who knew Rob far better through his work at Island and after 1991 at his own PR and management company Coalition, but despite only having had the pleasure of a few encounters, I too feel poorer for the loss of the force and personality that was Rob Partridge, a man who made me feel part of a bigger and more interesting world.

HISTORY REPEATING

The name caught my eye immediately. A Nirvana tribute band called Courtney & The Shotguns will be playing the Abart Club in Zurich on April 10 to “celebrate the 15th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death”, as the unfortunately-worded announcement puts it. Quite apart from the fact I find the name tasteless in the light of Cobain’s suicide, the advertisement made me remember how quickly personal experience passes into ancient history without you noticing. It seems only yesterday that Nirvana were playing one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen in Neuchatel, but since that memorable evening in early 1994 the world has changed beyond recognition: The Internet has revolutionised the way we communicate with one another, we are involved in wars raging in parts of the world we could previously ignore, and the first black president has taken residence in the White House. The first inkling of how the planet can change beneath your very feet overtook me when I went to see the film “Enigma” with my father back in 2002. The thriller starring Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet is set in England in 1943, more accurately in Bletchley Park, the British code-breaking headquarters where my father worked during World War II. Watching the film, I realised how much the planet had changed since he was a young man deciphering Japanese military dispatches – so much so that the world he knew back then has become a thing of fiction only remembered to varying degrees of accuracy by historians, journalists and scriptwriters. And now I’m having similar feelings about my own life. Last Wednesday I attended the launch of the Swiss arm of the Nokia Music Store in Zurich, and although the event under-impressed me with its lack of PR punch, it none the less sent me on a reverie. Nokia’s music platform might only be one of many such sites currently in operation, but it is another step away from a world where browsing dingy record shops like Virgin Records in Coventry was the highest of pleasures for prepubescent males like me. Now that you can access any piece of music you like and transfer it to your favourite piece of tech within seconds, the independently owned record store will at some point become a thing of the past. And with it will go that heady atmosphere of danger and disdain that once added to rock, reggae and rap music’s particular tang: I wonder what Kurt Cobain would have made of such developments.

BOWL OF CHEVYS

The Superbowl XLIII is going down in Tampa, FL, tonight. Although most musically-inclined people will think of U2’s rousing yet much-criticised mid-game performance in 2002 or Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” in 2004, I always associate the NFL final with Tom Waits, an artist who for commercial and artistic reasons will certainly never perform at the event.
Almost exactly ten years ago, I was riding a bus down to San Francisco airport after an interview with Waits and was surprised by the fact that the entire population of California seemed to have been abducted by aliens. The bus driver assured me, his only passenger, that the Superbowl was keeping people indoors, and it was only then that I realised what a phenomenon American Football is in the US. To Europeans, it’s an outlandish pastime played by men wearing pirated Star Wars merchandise.
This year, Bruce Springsteen will be providing the mid-game entertainment, and the time somehow seems right for his first musical appearance at the event. His latest album “Working On A Dream” might not be a masterpiece, but to me it showcases an artist wisely side-stepping the pressure to come up with the soundtrack to Obama’s first term in office (apart from the title track) while doing exactly what he wants to be doing (i.e. veering madly between Howlin’ Wolf’s fuzzy blues shouting, Ennio Morricone western pastiches and Brian Wilson sunny orchestrations). One should, of course, never underestimate the breadth of Springsteen’s taste. It might be easy to typecast him as a blue-collar traditionalist, but try listening to his haunting “State Trooper” after Suicide’s heart-rending „Frankie Teardrop”. Not only is Springsteen uncovering Suicide’s secret blues roots, his also honouring the original synth duo’s narrative powers, whose song predates “Mr. State Trooper” by about five years. And of course, Springsteen was quick to pick up Tom Wait’s “jersey Girl”, a fact Waits reputedly commented with the following words: “I’ve done all I can for his (Springsteen’s) carrier. He’s on his own now.” Although I’m not a Springsteen fan, I’m glad to say he’s doing just fine.

BACK TO NOAM

I’ve never been good with other people’s birthdays, so don’t be surprised that I’m only now getting around to honouring Noam Chomsky’s 80th birthday which was in fact on December 7. When I was at college, our lecturer in sociolinguistics told us Chomsky’s ideas about deep grammar were so complex that we shouldn’t bother with them, but since the Eighties, Chomsky has obviously made his way into the mainstream, as quite a few musicians have name-checked the veteran intellectual and peace activist in recent months. In a conversation I had with British multi-instrumentalist and film composer Nitin Sawhney about his thought-provoking new album “London Undersound”, we soon got on to the subject of the ever-expanding surveillance state in England and Chomsky’s Orwellian conviction that governments encourages fear as a means of controlling the populace. Swiss rapper Gimma referenced Chomsky in a rhyme about potentially inspiring people on the album “Iisziit” by Bucher & Schmid, and German singer and song-writer extraordinaire Farin Urlaub also mentioned the great man when we met up to discuss his latest solo album “Die Wahrheit übers Lügen”.Urlaub, ever an avid reader and thinker, brought up Chomsky’s point that any Presidential candidate who makes it through to the campaign proper would have to have made so many promises and endured so many humiliations along the way as to be unable to pursue policies vastly different to those of his predecessors. I quipped that I was impressed that Urlaub could understand Chomsky’s prose and then felt rather silly, not having read any of it myself. Luckily for me, an essay by Chomsky appeared in the December 6 issue of the “Tages-Anzeiger”, one of the Swiss news-papers I write for, and through reading the text I found my old prejudices confirmed. Although I agreed with everything that I read in the interesting and well-researched article outlining Chomsky’s reservations about Obama and his choice of staff, I found his writing to be rather convoluted. If I wrote like that, my editor at the same paper would have a fit. So happy birthday, Noam, but please watch your syntax. More people would benefit from your deep and varied insights into the fabric of American politics if you’d only avoid the parentheses and sub-clauses.