Sometimes, pictures really are worth 1,000 words (more like 500, in my case). I’ve posted four times in the last two days, so I am going to let this snap of Nicole’s work as weekend selecter carry the weight. As is frequently true with her when she takes control, she left honky-tonk, south Louisiana, and Fat Possum footprints behind.
(Oops: those are my Marc Ribot and Psychedelic Furs choices in there!)
This playlist is an accurate record of a typical musical week in the Overeem residence and vehicles!
Plucked from History’s Dustbin (best recent purchase of an old record): No purchases of hoary artifacts this week–wah!
Grower, Not a Shower (old record I already owned that’s risen significantly in my esteem): Actually, a shrinker: I still like Joe Cocker! but no longer are the band and arrangements enough to balance the mannerisms and the somewhat whimsical interpretative choices.
Encore, Encore! (album I played at least twice this week): Roky Erickson’s You’re Gonna Miss Me–The Best of Roky Erickson. Undiluted, maniacal rock and roll. Also, the only R. L. Burnside record one truly needs: Burnside on Burnside.
Through the Cracks (sweet record I forgot to write about): Laurie Anderson and The Kronos Quartet–Landfall.
Coming Attractions (Sunday’s Children): Neil Young live, Zydeco Shootout at El Sid-O’s, The Fall, Etoile de Dakar.
A busy day: grocery shopping, a six-mile walk, and late lunch/early dinner at Murry’s, then some well-earned lazing about with some drinks. I needed to knock out my update of best albums of 2018, which required a trip to the basement desktop and some iTunes and YouTube clicking around to test my musical judgement. However, while I was down in the inner sanctum, Nicole took over the house stereo, and her selections, bleeding down through the ceiling, gave me more pleasure than anything I was examining. (She has a knack for this; not many spouses in the world will crank up a Lee Dorsey jam in the bathroom while in deep pedicure mode!)
DJ Nicole’s Platters That Mattered:
Few things are more insane and addictive and wonderful in American music than Fred and Rose Maddox whoopin’ and hollerin’ through a country and western tune! And the band (often with future Stranger Roy Nichols on guitar) flat moves! Both Arhoolie volumes of “America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band” are the cat’s ass and will break up any excessive solemnity in your abode.
This isn’t the actual slab she spun (that was the first volume of Rhino’s stingy two [separate] disk Owens comp), but it contains most of its great tracks. Sharp band (guitar and drummer leaning toward rock), instantly recognizable singer and writer (“Under Your Spell Again” a great example: spare, focused, catchy, soulful), lean sound.
The McCoury fam’s waxed many great songs but few undeniable albums. This one’s close. Usually it’s about the tunes, and here they range from Frank Sinatra to Richard Thompson, whose greatest composition they outright take from him (the way Aretha did Otis with “Respect”). The playing and singing are always on point with this bunch.
A man and his idol. George bawled like a baby on his military bunk when he heard Hank had died–through a New Year’s Eve hangover, surely–so you can rest assured he handles these Hillbilly Shakespeare classics with TLC. I wish I had a full album link, but both of the Possum’s Hank discs are stellar.
OH YEAH! She also played R. L. Burnside all morning in the jalopy!
Short-shrift Division:
Neil Young: Roxy–Tonight’s the Night Live. Yes, you do too need it.
I used to commandeer a website called The First Church of Rock and Roll (b. 1999ish, d. 2005ish). While doing so, I assumed the persona of The Reverend Wayne Coomers, a Pentecostally influenced rock and roll ranter who held all music he encountered up to a single important question: did this move me? As I do on this blog, I seldom wrote about things that didn’t move me, but, on this occasion, I couldn’t stop myself. Nicole and I, for less than a ten-spot, had watched the much-missed Illinois band Local H just blow the doors off The Blue Note in Columbia, Missouri–two folks in the band, multiple chips on those four shoulders, and ENERGY! Plus: 45 minutes, and they were out. The next night–and we were most excited–we went to see Springsteen live for the first time. He’d hung the moon for me from ’75-’88…then I read some things…then he stumbled a bit…then he kind of rounded into a staid institution…but we had no reason he wouldn’t raise the short hairs on our necks live, especially reunited with his musical family. Here’s the story, without adjustments; I’d send you to the original site, but even The Wayback Machine can’t help there. I thought nothing dies here (that’s a fact)–that everything that dies will always come back. Guess I was wrong.
Sitting at a booth in a Bob Evans, the tension was ping-ponging between the four of us. Morning-after concert discussion–somebody finally asked the question I was fearing: “So what did you think of the show?” One might well wonder why it had taken nearly twelve post-show hours for someone to bring it up.
It had all started when, during a drunken evening, one of us had suggested a road trip to St. Lou to take in a Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band extravaganza. Nicole and I, long-time fans (perhaps an understatement in my case: Bruce was one of the reasons this music is my life), had never witnessed one of the great Rawk spectacles, and our two friends were among the benighted, but ready to dive in, in part as a birthday present for one of ’em.
I labored hours over a 3-cassette comp to prepare them, and, in the making, I found myself pretty damn re-amazed at the Mighty Greaser’s hard-fought hacking through lots of dark forests to keep his audience honest and his own bad self lean, mean and relevant. Not for him the fate of the protagonist of “Glory Days”; he’s long displayed a gift for getting inside beautiful losers to show us how to keep winning, or at least hold life to a draw. So I was primed to finally be there, and had every reason, given what his work had to say, to expect, well, more progress. Progress: a tangly concept any serious Rawk-lifer has to grapple with daily. Either it’s the end-all be-all in the face of rot, anathema to the Rawk ethic, or it’s the fucking hemlock that kills the basic feels-so-right urges that legions of garage rockers and die-hard rockabillies strive to strangle out of their axes. Where was Springsteen?
Motorheads don’t generally have ten guitars waiting in the wings, each on labelled stands with different tunings for different songs. On the other hand, Springsteen’s musical set-up–“big” horn, a willingness to use synthesizers and Spector-operatic piano, an odd aversion to expressing himself consistently, particularly through riffs, on guitar–doesn’t exactly lend itself to primitive noise (Wouldn’t it be fascinating, though, to hear him really strip his shit down, not like a Nebraska or The Ghost of Tom Joad, which were “folk” albums, but like, say, Pink Flag, or Ramones, or even New York? It’d certainly cut down on the pomp ‘n’ corn–if he’s reflective enough to notice, it’s, uh, shtick). That leaves writing. Surely he’d been writing. And there’s been no shortage of raw material for a working class hero to mold into an epater le bourgeousie for his increasingly comfortable, always snow-white audience, not in these here times.
So what’d we get? Sitting in the mezzanine, lined up straight-away center stage (a $45 ticket that would have been more than a third of his typical protagonist’s weekly salary–a very optimistic estimate, at that), we got:
1) Muddy sound: 4 guitars (it’s nice to get the gang together, but come on: platoon some o’ the bastards!) doing nothing much but strumming and grinding those plodding, unfunky-white-guy rhythms. Even Bruce’s and Miami Steve’s occasional solos were either arena-rocky or out-of-tune.
2) Umpteen VERY marginally-differentiated “Big Man” solos–the show/tour may be about loyalty and friendship, but my god, hasn’t the motherfucker grown a few chops? Maybe jazz and ’50s r&b has spoiled me (not to mention Randy Newman’s devastating parody on Trouble In Paradise’s “Life is Good”), maybe they are a bar band, but millionaires get paid to make some hard decisions.
3) 90% 1985-and-earlier catalog, arranged exactly the way they were played 1985-and-earlier. Even a bottlenecked “Born in the USA” was a by-the-numbers recreation of the demo version on Tracks. The only faintly new song was a Weavers-esque Guthrie-rewrite called “This Train,” which might be described as Springsteen’s “Forever Young,” one of the worst things in Dylan’s ouevre. And since I’ve mentioned the grouchy old fart, who spent years in limbo squeezing dollars from his back catalogue only to come roaring back again–heard “Things Have Changed,” from the Wonder Boys soundtrack yet, or Time Out of Mind? Nicole and I took a smoke break with a suspiciously large segment of the upstairs concertgoers and came to a mutual appeciation of Uncle Bawb, who, with the previously mentioned exception, hasn’t really ever given a shit about giving the public what it wants. OK, he’s disgusted, but, hey, who isn’t? And with about 10 years on Bruce, he sure isn’t showing signs of taking a fall-back position.
4) A dearth of spontanaeity. The only two moments that raised my short hairs to half-mast were the only radical rearrangement, of Tunnel of Love’s “If I Should Fall Behind,” where 3 E-Streeters got a verse, including Mrs. Bruce, who sounded a lot like Ronnie Spector–the chick should definitely sing more–and a weird Springsteen somersault in the middle of the third encore, as if to say, “OK, can I go now?” Actually, the old man didn’t really move too much throughout the 3-hour show–yep, he still does ’em, and he did sing pretty well, I admit. But a rock and roll show must be alive. Working hard ain’t enough. I’m sure Phil Collins sweats.
So, to crystallize it, he had nothing to say, other than, “These are my boys” (and they definitely got more props than the woman) and “I’m still here, but the Muse is all gone.” Where can he go from here? Hell, lots of places. How about a four-piece, or even a trio? How about taking on the WTO? How about collaborating with Patti, his wife (ala Double Fantasy)? Can his kids play yet (remember Old Skull)? He could get back to his roots–amazingly, he’s never done that before (perhaps to his credit, but it sure worked for McCartney). Or duet with Ed Hamell. The possibilities are much more open than he may think.
Back to Bob Evans. I said my piece (see above). One of our guests turned to the other and said, “I don’t feel like sharing right now…we’ll talk when we get home.” Pissed my ass off–nobody can disagree anymore, and they don’t know what they’re missing. True argument is the road to enlightenment. Perhaps Bruce won a new fan–albiet a 25-year-old that wasn’t familiar with him in 2000. Where’s she been? Is it unfair to expect the former “future of rock and roll” to at least function in the present, even if he is still donating major proceeds to our country’s food banks? Doesn’t he look in the mirror and sometimes realize that he’s fallen victim to Blue Oyster Cult Syndrome–becoming what he used to shake by the lapels? He used to hope he wouldn’t sit around thinking about ’em, but all he seemed to be beseiging his audience with at this show was boring stories from his glory days.
Damn–50 solid records already and we ain’t half finished? I’d say that’s a solid rebuke to the sourpusses who are ever pronouncing our music a corpse. And I’d go a mite further and say the list also incorporates a rebuke to those knicker-twisted souls who are wondering when our music is gonna take on, you know, the thing–several of the slabs listed below do so and how, without spoiling their sounds (politics can do that, you know). Take a dive into something below that’s mysterious, I invite you.
OLD MUSIC NICELY REPACKAGED
A Playlist of the Top 30 or So
Oh…and fuck Kanye West.
I believe today was the third time I’ve listened to to this record in 2018. I’ve worn it out over the years, and 36 years since I first was able to lay my hands on it–it was out of print during my formative years–my enthusiasm for it is undimmed. For a time, it was my least favorite of the four regular-issue “true Velvets” studio albums (plus the deep, deep desert-island-pick 1969 Velvet Underground Live): I used to feel Nico’s presence and the last two tracks really marred it, as well as that Lou’s writing was far improved by The Velvet Underground and Loaded. In fact, I wondered why it seemed to be the most famous VU album of them all–they clearly got better, right?
My love for The Velvet Underground and Nico has evolved. Though my musical tastes are very wide-ranging, and though I have a hunger for any work of art about unexplored and taboo territory– epater la bourgeoisie, bring it on!–I am honestly one of the squarest, straightest dudes on the planet. The mere existence of BDSM culture makes me giggle; I’d never shoot anything into my arm (gimme a beer!); I’ve never encountered a dealer except for a few brief seconds up the street from Poe’s old walk-up in Baltimore (I giggled and waved him away); my gender and sexual identities might as well be birthmarks (for the record, sometimes I think they actually are for us, but sometimes most definitely not). I guess what I’m saying is, though I love Lou’s writing in general, and on this album appreciate its expressions of remorse, compassion, insecurity, desperation, catharsis, and epiphany, I’m definitely not as stimulated by the subject matter he presents on this album as I used to be. I also used to think his artistic persona was the pinnacle of cool, and that the personae he created for his songs were pure genius; just engaging with those inventive illusions was extremely exciting, since I had a slim chance of meeting such folks in reality. I am not demeaning these past enthusiasms–they are the output of genius, a genius I still think had more amazing creations ahead.
What I go to The Velvet Underground and Nico for these days is the noise, from Cale’s celeste on “Sunday Morning” to Nico’s three drones (I don’t hear them as singing, I hear them as pure sound) to my favorite rhythm guitars in music history (true for me throughout this group’s recordings) to the breaking glass and vacuum cleaner-like sounds in “The Black Angel’s Death Song.” Threaded throughout: that ominous Cale viola–on “Venus in Furs,” it sounds as if it’s advance fanfare for Yeats “rough beast” slouching toward Bethlehem. It’s the sound that’s most exciting, and most original, especially since its abrasions, distortions, and explosions are integrated into palatable pop structures (for the most part), including a Motown rip. I usually get up to turn up the stereo when “Death Song” and “European Son” approach; I admit I used to skip that pair fairly frequently, and now they’re fave raves.
More than anything else on this immortal record, the noises are what meaningfully jolt me out of myself these days. Pure pleasure might be counterrevolutionary; does that mean impure pleasure is revolutionary? In this case, the impurities are those committed against euphony, an artistic crime I’ve come to treasure that reminds me of the limits of a square and straight ear.
I also spent some time with Restless Records’ You’re Gonna Miss Me: The Best of Roky Erickson. Though it does not include Roky’s groundbreaking work with The 13th Floor Elevators, it’s a neat, well-selected single-disc tour of the man’s demented but often moving solo work. I’ve said it before, and I know I’ll say it again: Erickson is in the top strata of history’s white rock and roll singers–yep, he belongs with Jerry Lee, Elvis…name your own top four and just add this Austinian. His range extended from blood-curdling screams to sweet, lullabye-like Hollyisms; in the spaces between, he could drive an uptempo number to a Little Richard-level intensity, and always present was a hint of his Texas drawl–don’t you like to hear place in a singer’s attack? None of those qualities would have mattered much if he didn’t also write indelible, dream-invading songs that would have occurred to no one else. I imagine most folks would chalk up their unique strangeness to mental illness; I have no research to support this, but I’d like to believe that, at least on some level, Erickson was engaged in a conscious, intentional creative process that had nothing to do with his psychological state or the drugs that might have been in his system (at the time of creation, or prior). I might have actually reached for this compilation because its contents tend to make better sense in Trump’s America:
Hmmm…maybe not so loony after all, eh?
Short-shrift Division:
Called upon on my Facebook wall to “explain” Wayne Cochran, I got caught up in some clips of the mightily-coiffed Sixties stage-shaker, who mos def was James Brown-influenced (to say the least, perhaps) but definitely had his own kind of thing. Enjoy this quick Cochran playlist, and pass the hairspray:
Bob Dorough, Arkansas native, agile pianist, crafty songwriter, wry and affecting singer, passed away at 94.
It’s weird. I’d just been thinking recently about him, wondering how he was doing. The world loves him mostly as the mastermind behind Schoolhouse Rock; legions of teachers, I assure you, envy the economical yet specific effectiveness with which he educated a generation about grammar, math, civics, and more. Some know he teamed, rather unaccountably but very successfully, with Miles Davis, particularly on a timeless Christmas original. Jazz buffs know him as, among other things, a bit of a Hoagy Carmichael 2.0, for “Baltimore Oriole,” “Johnny One-Note,” and “Devil May Care.” He’s famous with me personally for his witty and true “Love (Webster’s Dictionary Definition)” and his torch-carrying for the regular white guy vocal tradition begun by such humble and soulful folks as Tommy Duncan, Jack Teagarden, and Carmichael, and extended radically forward by Peter Stampfel and other eccentrics.
YouTube does not have Dorough well-covered, nor does Spotify. Do me and yourself and Bob’s memory a kindness and seek out the zingy, delightful Too Much Coffee Man, the rare and revelatory This is a Collection of Pop Art Songs (with the definitive “Love”), and the surprising early ’70s 45rpm EP Rainy Day Garden, under the 44th Portable Flower Factory moniker, featuring Dylan, Tempts, and Youngbloods covers.
Please honor his life and career by sampling this playlist. That is all.
Have you heard of the Mexican psych-metal band Apolo? Well, neither had I, until I received my most recent installment in Joyful Noise Recordings‘ so far very fruitful White Label Series. Each month, a different established artist, in April’s case Teri Gender Bender, of Le Butcherettes and Bosnian Rainbows fame, selects a recording they personally endorse. I am someone who’s very selective about where I send my music money–even though it may seem like I must go broke–but I felt this series was a great gamble. In a fantasy sense, I almost feel like an A&R rep is reporting to me with a fabulous find about which I know absolutely nothing, and that the rep’s expertise guarantees that at least I’m going to be interested. I’ve enjoyed the first three entries in the series–February’s release, Berry’s Everything, Compromised is even in my top 10 for the year–and Apolo’s Live in Stockholm is no exception. If you’re in the mood for some heavy but movin’-movin’-movin’ music, I’d give this album I try. What little psych-metal / -rock / -punk I’ve heard has tended to get mired in rather dated trippy-dippiness, bald-faced derivitiveness, and corny posing; if you consider the original inspirations for such bands, they themselves were the cream skimmed off the top of a mostly sour batch. Apolo plays with a difference. With a bite and intensity. Perhaps I should let Teri’s liner notes refine my own commentary (especially since the singing’s en Español, and she’s fluent and I’m not):
“Their music and lyricism is a representation of Mexico’s fiery youth, of an unsettled fight against corruption imposed by the brutal government that forever tries to attenuate hopelessness as a normality. The eerie, indigenous, mythical storytelling captured in the native tongue of our historically rich country expresses the various forms that light and love can morph into. Their growth has become undeniable because they persisted and turned their surroundings into metaphorical bullets loaded within their music”
Here’s a track from 2011 that might hammer the argument all the way home (note: they’ve gotten tougher in seven years):
The Joyful Noise Series is supposed to be subscription-only, but looks like you can buy it here. If you need some heaviness to make you happy, I’d prescribe it, because it worked for me.
In more heavy developments, Apolo’s assault led me to crave more riffage and fury, so I reached back into my past. There’s nothing like teaching middle school and discovering you have a musical jones in common with your kids, and in those days, the jones was Local H. “Bound for the Floor” and “Copacetic” had lit our fuses, but unlike me, they didn’t seem to obsessively follow folks’ careers–singles kids, pretty strictly. When Here Comes the Zoo came out in ’02, they were none the wiser, so I brought it with me one morning, and before long, we were all chanting, “We’re all defanged and declawed! / Creature-comforted!” We even had a running joke about Chinese pugs, and were a whisker away from being official arms of the band’s street team (Midwest rock and roller unity) before policy interfered. Anyway…those were the days, and I always thought this record was underrated:
At my age, I can only handle so much heavy, so after those two burners, I turned to another new recording I was tipped to by the mercurial jazz and metal scribe Phil Freemah of Burning Ambulance. After an hour of listening trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer improvising impressionistically over the grooves of none other than Sly & Robbie, I was not only in a perfect contemplative state for reading, but also I’d moved a new slab into my pantheon for this trip around the sun. Dig:
Just a day of mostly disparate listening.
I like racket, especially black racket, right now, when (as is unfortunately usual) it’s needed:
Because I am curious on principle, I am frequently taken by surprise:
Sometimes, I stick with things, perhaps, beyond their shelf-life (fuck, man, the band and arrangements are sharp):
Though I don’t like to report it, I have high hopes that are occasionally disappointed:
That is all. Apologies.
Nicole, our great friend Janet, and I journeyed to St. Louis’ Fabulous Fox Theater (our view pictured above) to take in the musical Hamilton. I’d gotten tickets for us in August–by a slim margin–and at times we’d forgotten, however temporarily, that we were even going.
We have a history with the Fox. Nicole and I had seen Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard and The Strangers, and Tom Waits there; Nicole, her late mother Lynda, and I had seen The Book of Mormon there; and Nicole, Janet, and I had previously witnessed an incandescent Leonard Cohen show there (part of his first “comeback from financial disaster” tour). It’s a magnificent venue that you can stare at fruitfully for almost as long as you can the acts that play there.
We have a history with oblivious fellow showgoers. The closest I have come to getting into fights as an adult have been at “big shows.” I once challenged a blaring chatterbox to step outside during a sit-down Robert Cray show in the ’90s. I once almost had to back up my best friend when he threatened to kick the ass of a couple of obnoxious frat boys at a Chuck Berry show, same decade. In New Orleans recently, we once had an entire, intimate, mostly acoustic John Boutte performance blotted out by two morons discussing their cars while standing a foot in front of us. We have even had two-count-’em-two jazz performances nearly ruined for us by local school district brass who a) clearly had been comped their tickets; b) clearly didn’t give a shit about jazz; and c) thought they were the show (in the words of Albert Ayler: “They thought it was about them.”) We are asshole magnets.
I have a history with musicals. Across four decades, almost every student I’ve ever taught who’s been involved in theater has been a delightful student of English and citizen of the classroom. In return, I have treated them to my less-than-complimentary view of musical theater. I just don’t like it. The general view of humanity it traffics in is in great conflict with my own. Though I am very white, I am not a fan of whitebread, and there is considerable whitebread in this world. Indeed, I love music–that doesn’t need to be proved–but I like grit with my grease, and, though it may be through lack of deep exposure, I have found grit sorely lacking in the musicals I have forced myself to attend (usually to support my students). I will admit to enjoying Mary Poppins when I saw it in New York City as the New Amsterdam Theater, but I was mostly impressed by the theater technology that was in play, and I often found my mind wandering to the space’s past on 42nd Street. I deeply enjoyed The Book of Mormon, but nine-tenths of that enjoyment was the humor, and the other tenth the audacity of the show’s very existence.
Well, The Fox delivered the goods on this day. I’ll get to that in a minute, but suffice it to say that historical trend continues unabated. I/we sat next to a friendly older lady and her fellow older ladies who unfortunately proceeded to hum the tail end of most of the songs’ lines very loudly, cluck and sigh during “powerful moments,” take forever unwrapping snacks during the few hushed scenes (why must one EAT during a performance like this?), and engage in living-room-volume discussions with her cronies. We tolerated it during the first half of the show, Nicole, who’d been so friendly to her prior to its beginning, sitting next to her; I swapped seats with Nicole, and, at Janet’s urging and after one lady dove right in with the clatter three minutes into the second half’s resumption, I tersely said between gritted teeth, “Do you mind not talking during the show?” That fixed that; however, she was also marinated in a foul perfume, and I was distracted by the whole episode, so I took me awhile to regain my focus. Consider that history however coincidentally continued.
The musical? Well, obviously, I had good reason to believe that this musical would hold my attention. I’ve been retired from public school teaching for a bit, but I was talking to students about the potential of this production from the day I read about it–which was while I was still teaching public school. It’s been awhile, long enough for the furor to die down (somewhat), but I’ve not heard a jaundiced take on Hamilton yet. I’d also bought the recording of the show’s songs and listened to it in its entirety three absorbing and enjoyable times–that was enough, until I actually saw it, if I were ever able. So, again, I had very good reason to be thinking positively, but–it was a musical.
However–you do not need me to explain this to you–it wasn’t whitebread in the least (the closest it came was satirically, during King George’s songs–which had bite, too–and formally, during a few of Eliza Hamilton’s songs). It mostly vibrated with funk and rhythm and spine-straightening beats, and you probably already know Biggie and Mobb Deep get sampled (very meaningfully). The density of the lyrics (in their delivery and in their meaning) brought, ahem, Shakespeare to mind; they were challenging, and worth it, and probably what was forcing those older ladies into racket. And the worldview? Well, was it Varese or someone like that who said that pure pleasure was counterrevolutionary? I have always, in my darkest moments of thought, believed that, but Hamilton is as close as I have ever come to experiencing purely pleasurably art that could be argued to be pro-revolution. Yeah, maybe, if being forced to scope back to our beginnings from where we are now, consider the genius and flaws of this currently shaky experiment, and begin re-shaping it somehow can be called a kind of revolt. Maybe, maybe not. I was a little too stunned by the show to be thinking clearly.
Though the ensemble cast was very fine, Chris De’Sean Lee’s strutting, incorrigible, and scabrously brilliant Thomas Jefferson struck me as the standout performance; he was also delightful playing Lafayette in the first half. Lee was magnetic, exciting, unpredictable, and I’d love to see more of his work; in the Playbill, he “gives every bit of glory to his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” but his inspiration seemed to be coming from darker, more mischievous places. I suppose 2018 is too late to be listing my favorite songs. I don’t follow the flow of Hamiltonology, so I don’t know if these are incredibly obvious choices are not, but I was thrilled to hear “Ten Duel Commandments Twice,” I loved the layers of “My Shot,” I admired the way the idea of “Wait for It” was threaded through the entirety of the musical, and who doesn’t want to in “The Room Where It Happens”? The soundtrack CD is in my truck for the coming week.
I also was surprised to connect very personally to Hamilton. The conflict between contemplation and action, between hanging back and jumping in, has been an urgent one all my life–maybe it is for everyone. Also, the persistent questions Hamilton faces about why he writes like there’s no tomorrow? I am of the opinion that of that we are not guaranteed, and though I am no genius polymath like Hamilton was, I approach each day in much the same way. Most important, Miranda’s view of Hamilton as being much less calculating than his fellow revolutionaries and operators was very attractive to me. I’ll need to read Chernow’s book to confirm that that matches his reality, but that’s also, for various reasons, how I’ve chosen to roll, for better or worse. I received a bit of validation from this work of art.
Thus, my mottled history with musicals (if you consider my fairly recent experience with The Book of Mormon) seems to be clearing up, if you will. Hamilton will be back to the Gateway City in 2019, and I might just pony up again. I might be back, and so well might you.
Short-shrift Division:
Of course, we listened to music on the way over to St. Louis and back.
Tracey Thorn: big surprise, that. “Sister,” it was.
Jinx Lennon: another big surprise, that. “Grow A Pair,” it was.
Laurie Anderson: her Hurricane Sandy record with Kronos Quartet, and an old chestnut!
Lou Reed: no surprise after Laurie, and anyway I was craving a taste of New York after Hamilton–this seemed a natural choice…
Living To Listen 