Following the Heard - 2010

Put it all out on 8tracks for you to enjoy: the music heard in 2010 I found most worth listening to again. The cover's above and the links are below:

Part A
Part B

The Black Cat

"This is a tricky house," says the honeymooning husband, Peter, no apostle, but a mystery writer (or should I say "writer of mysteries"?) hunkered down in Hungary in the house redesigned, rebuilt, upon the remains of a fortress lost in great battle and the thousands of bodies given up their lives in the loss -- a stage manufactured in all senses by the Bauhausian engineer Hjalmar Poelzig. Peter comes to his tricky conclusion without having yet experienced the lower levels of the tower. Before the aforementioned battle the tower served as gun turret, now it holds the strange scene you see at the top of this posting.

What for the huge piece of graph paper attached to the wall – used in guiding the missiles? How floats the woman? Why does Bela (call him here “Dr. Vitus Wedergast” though you could never pronounce it in just the same perfect way the former count can when first we meet him in this film) Lugosi recoil in horror? Is it the woman? The shadow of the cat? Or, is the reaction no acting but a real revulsion toward Karloff, who plays Poelzig, who gets top billing though he’s only the heavy. (“Here comes the heavy,” he reportedly would say during the filming before he made each entrance.)


The scene always lingers somewhere in my mind, in the place reserved for favorites: My favorite Bela Lugosi vs. Boris Karloff film, possibly because it was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer -- who had a scary story of his own, which I will relate some time soon. To view the entire film above in a larger frame, go to the Internet Archive where this admittedly-murky print is housed.

Nothing really here to see of Edgar Allen Poe's original story, except perhaps for the spirit of perverseness... or in honor of Poe and this particular story I should most definitely type PERVERSENESS.

"Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart -- one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself -- to offer violence to its own nature -- to do wrong for the wrong's sake only -- that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree -- hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart -- hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence -- hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin -- a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it -- if such a thing were possible -- even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God."

Click this here underlined phrase to hear "The Raven" album by Lou Reed -- a peculiar and sometimes-difficult piece of work, Reed putting to music his interpretations and sometimes rewritings of Poe. Much of the blocked quote above is used in "I Wanna Know (The Pit and the Pendulum)" and the spirit of PERVERSENESS made more convincing with backing vocals by the Blind Boys of Alabama. Listen to it at the link above and come back when you can.

While you are gone: What you've seen so far in this posting remains rough and I will keep coming back in your absence with additions, with new thoughts to smooth out the inconsistencies. A new way of doing things here, but perhaps just another example of what we call PERVERSENESS.

Following the Heard - 2009 continues

Blink of an Eye

It's been much longer than I thought. You've been patient about the recent sparse postings, so how about a nice reward -- a free and legal show of the Waco Brothers at The Hideout in Chicago? It's courtesy of the band themselves and the Internet Archive ...

The Wacos are a so-called "alternative country" group created by The Mekons' Jon Langford. This may help some people: think of how The Clash would sound if they explored country music instead of dub or rap in 1980. Or, how about just taking a listen by clicking the 'play' arrow on the bar below? Once you've enjoyed the show (and you will) you can get more of their stuff here...

Harmony out of Memory Land

Woke up to the refrain of Ted Lewis singing his hit from the 1920s, "Walking Around In A Dream", and though I can't yet find a legally-shareable clip of the song itself, I ran across a 1929 clip of Lewis and his band which you may view below.

Yes, that's Noah Beery as the Big Pirate in the scene. It was part of Warner Brothers 1929 revue "The Show of Shows" reportedly largely lost, except for clips like this. I'll have to see what else I can find of it on the YouTube.

Following the Heard - 2009 so far

We're rapidly approaching the half-way mark of another year, and musically the tone feels kind of 1969, kind of 1979. Will 1989 and 1999 also make an appearance before we're through? Time of course may tell, but may not fully reveal itself until we're further down the road. Just glad we've got another Marianne Faithfull disc. Dylan's on sale again too, and sounds like he's continuing the fine form of his other 21st century discs, and will undoubtedly appear here in another few months.

Here's the rundown:

1) What's In the Middle - The Bird And The Bee
2) Lucid Dreams - Franz Ferdinand
3) Keep The Streets Empty For Me - Fever Ray
4) The Brave and The Snake - P.O.S.
5) Bang Bang - K'naan
6) Cost of Living - Living Things
7) Straight to Hell - Lily Allen (featuring Mick Jones)
8) Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
9) Heartbroken, in Disrepair - Dan Auerbach
10) Hold On Hold On - Marianne Faithfull
11) Bozos - Amadou & Mariam
12) Middle Cyclone - Neko Case
13) Nothing Seems The Same - Heartless Bastards
14) Gasoline and Matches - Buddy & Julie Miller
15) Right Side Of My Brain - The-Dream
16) Happy House - The Juan MacLean
17) The Loneliness of Magnets - The Handsome Family

If you'd rather hear the songs, than just read about them, check out a version of this mix on my 8tracks.com site here...

Listen To Me!

The Neko Case posting below exposed me to some different ways of presenting music files to the blog -- legal ways, of course.

The link below will bring up an experiment I ran a couple of years ago with the Electroplankton music software for the Nintendo DS.

CAUTION: Laurie Anderson talked about "difficult listening music" in reference to tuneful works which might make you think. The thoughts engendered by listening to the following are probably less beneficial to the world at large.

Click this to hear my Electroplankton Experiment

More sophisticated use of the DS and Electroplankton can be found in the video below:



Or how about this use of the new Korg synthesizer software for the DS? Some might say it sucks...



...But not me!

BTW, both videos are the work of musician Jetdaisuke. More info here.

Their Dreams They Dreamed Awake

If I'm doing this right, by posting the following link to a free MP3, five dollars will be donated to the Best Friends Animal Society. That's the deal for all bloggers.

Download at... http://www.anti.com/media/download/708

The MP3 would be worth -your- while, regardless of the charity, as it's Neko Case's new single -- People Got A Lotta Nerve -- from her upcoming album "Middle Cyclone" which you can pre-order here. Very glad to literally hear she's got something new in the works as it's been a long time since the New Pornographers (their New Challengers came out two years ago?) or her solo stuff (Fox Confessor Brings the Flood was almost three years ago?). Hopefully she'll also make her way here for a show...!

What Have You Done?

Twenty-eight years ago, when I heard a voice on the radio say "John Lennon is dead" ...

Instinctively I steered directly to my old job, to the student newspaper office at Illinois State, to see what I could find on the UPI wire machine and to help with whatever the staff was planning to run. There I met another friend who had the same idea. We were both townies, both still lived near after our respective college "careers," still kept in touch with the newspaper staff. Both of us puzzled at the emptiness of the front offices and the lack of activity in the production room, until the new editor came in. He guessed what we were there for, saying, "Yeah, we heard the news, but wanted to meet the printer's deadline."

1980 and things had changed before our eyes, those who came after had already chosen a new and unexpected path from our own. We would have run a special issue, "deadlines be damned," but these "kids" (three or four years our junior) were too young by birth to carry any unconditional love for Beatles. That's how it was in the those days: you were either old enough to remember seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan's show or you thought Paul McCartney was just the guy who had a band called Wings.

1980: To most of the disaffected youth we knew, Jimmy Carter gave peace a bad name in his failure to deal with pretty much everything, while Reagan picked up enough of those who still felt they had to care about something, coloring the campus world in hues far different from the post 60s era we tried fruitlessly to keep flowering. Hindsight shows a view of us being too busy with a culture we were too young for, that we never got around to making one pure of the past and unquestionably our own. What kind of youth movement revels in the past, instead of rejecting it? Or, is that the way it always appears to be from the outside?

Whatever the past, our future would be one without Lennon the man. His works, his words, his thoughts would continue and we could use whatever time was left to make some sense, something good with them.

So this is Christmas and what have you done?

Not done yet, John...

Leave your own memories here.


WAR IS OVER! (If You Want It) from Yoko Ono on Vimeo.

Following the Heard 2008 - the Finale

Let's see how this finale to the year stands up with the two previous parts...

1) Angry*The Bug
2) The World Is Gone Wrong*BB King
3) You Only Live Twice*The Postmarks
4) I-Tunes Song*Homeboy Sandman
5) Kyotei Daiski (Favorite Games Mix)*Omodaka
6) Transformer*Marnie Stern
7) Clampdown*The Clash
8) Limbo*KatJonBand
9) Parisian Goldfish*Flying Lotus
10) Cobrastyle*Robyn
11) Never Give You Up*Raphael Saadiq
12) Sandcastle Disco*Solange
13) Riddle Me This*Aaron Parks
14) Official*Q-Tip
15) Live Your Life*T.I.
16) Folks*Mighty Underdogs
17) Harps & Angels*Randy Newman
18) That's Not My Name*The Ting Tings
19) Golden Age*TV on the Radio
20) Stop This World*Ne-Yo

Following the Heard - 2008 continues

Finally, enough new music for another mythical mix of notable ear-pieces heard by me in 2008. While waiting on the new stuff I've been moving my lists for the old stuff, the previous 50 years, to another blog: followingtheheard.blogspot.com.

Really trying hard to give one track per artist this year, though if like Lil Wayne they come out with more than one album in a year they can qualify for more than one spot.

Double Dee and Steinski are the exception. They get two for their one album, mainly because ten years ago I never thought they would team up again, nor that their club date in Manhattan would be so easily available.

I also never thought there'd ever be a collection like What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective -- collecting 42 pieces of Steinski's work, solo and with partners like Double Dee. Without access to his work, I was unable to add him to previous annual mixes. We can thank the small-press called Illegal Art -- based, strangely to some, in the wilds of central Illinois -- for the long-overdue release, and you can read about others like it here in a 1986 article by Robert Christgau.

Steinski also just finished off a 12-minute mix of Sinatra tracks, mashing the Chairman of the Board's music with dialogue from several of his films, including The Manchurian Candidate. "Candidate" gave mind to a title for the new concoction: What Was Raymond Doing With His Hands?

You can download Raymond from the 'Raymond' link above (it's at the Village Voice site) along with a pretty good retrospect interview with Steven.

Anyhow, the "winners" of this 2008 round are, in order of their appearance here:

1) We're In A Lot of Trouble - Double Dee and Steinski
2) Get Up! - Earthworms
3) A-Punk - Vampire Weekend
4) Love No - The Teenagers
5) La La La - Lil Wayne
6) Ragged Wood - Fleet Foxes
7) The Ditch - Blood on the Wall
8) Joke About Jamaica - The Hold Steady
9) Caravan - Cassandra Wilson
10) Tape Song - The Kills
11) Brain Burner - No Age
12) In Step - Girl Talk
13) I'm Wild About You - Al Green
14) Little Toy Gun - honeyhoney
15) I Feel Like Dying - Lil Wayne
16) Lights Out - Santogold
17) The Kelly Affair - Be Your Own Pet
18) America - Nas
19) Strange Overtones - David Byrne & Brian Eno
20) Who Owns Culture? #2 - Double Dee and Steinski

Congratulations to all!

Royal Reflections

Elvis surrounded by adoring autograph-seeking fans and glossy still-unadorned photos of his own pensively smiling head shot makes for a good general picture of his life, as if he finds himself trapped in a hall of mirrors, in a place where reflections can be questions. Which Elvis is the real Elvis? Is Elvis all of these Elvises?

Of the fans, themselves: all we see are hands, all kinds of hands undoubtedly – hands to shake in fellowship, clawing greedy hands, hands to wipe a tired brow -- no faces to call their own here either, except the face on the photos of Elvis about which they can say in many ways “This face belongs to us.”

How many faceless, faceful fans will leave him if he stops being the Elvis they want him to be? Is that the only way out of his hall of mirrors: to disappoint enough fans, to make enough of them disappear to allow him an opening and new path to exit himself?

Thirty-one years ago, he accidentally found an exit from the hall, leaving even more Elvises behind, casting new reflections and asking new questions still unanswered.

If you find yourself doubtful where you stand on these questions and answers, refresh yourself with a listen to what he left behind, and then make up your own mind.

Following the Heard - 2008

Above is the cover image for the first part of this year's musical mix.

See if you can figure out who's on it by the image alone. I'll update later with the rundown....

And the answers are:

1) Strange Times – The Black Keys
2) Do U Buy It? - Lyrics Born
3) Voices - Madonna
4) We Call Upon the Author to Explain - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
5) Puppets - Atmosphere
6) The Rip - Portishead
7) This is How You Spell HAHAHA - Los Campesinos!
8) Can't Be Beat - Quiet Village
9) Old Enough - The Raconteurs
10) Fatalist Palmistry - Why?
11) 3 Dimes Down - Drive-By Truckers
12) Out at the Pictures - Hot Chip
13) Alice - Moby
14) That Hump -Erykah Badu
15) Sober Driver - Dengue Fever
16) Surprise - Gnarls Barkley
17) Blind - Hercules and Love Affair
18) Faulkner Street - Hayes Carll

Now, how many of these artists can you recognize? What images from the cover above can you associate with these artists and their 2008 work?

You can hear many of these songs randomly streamed from my 2008 radio 'station' on last.fm.

Put Your Lips Together

Take a deep breath. Some thoughts following not yet fully formed...

Looking into the concept of breathing, I found a link to meanings of the word psyche.

psyche

1. Breath, to breathe, to blow, (later) to cool; hence, life (identified with or indicated by the breath); the animating principle in man and other living beings, the source of all vital activities, rational or irrational, the soul or spirit, in distinction from its material vehicle, the body; sometimes considered as capable of persisting in a disembodied state after separation from the body at death.

2. In Mythology, personified by Plato and other philosophers, it was extended to the anima mundi, conceived to animate the general system of the universe, as the soul animates the individual organism. St. Paul (developing a current Jewish distinction between spirit or breath, and nephesh, soul) used the lower or merely natural life of man, shared with other animals, in contrast with the spirit.

3. The soul, or spirit, as distinguished from the body; the mind.

4. The conscious and unconscious mind and emotions; especially, as influencing and affecting the whole person.

5. All that constitutes the mind and what it processes.

6. Term for the subjective aspects of the mind, self, soul; the psychological or spiritual as distinct from the bodily nature of humans.

This takes my thoughts to where they still too-often go these days, even after almost four months of not smoking. Apart from the occasional lava-lamp bubbling beneath my brain, without thought or warning will come a sudden in and out of a sharp breath from my mouth. Someone else noticed this, thinking I was practicing some kind of meditative zen technique. What actually went on: my body tries to smoke, even without a cigarette in hand. Breathe in and puff out. Therefore, by the definitions above, the mere act of breathing constitutes expelling our life force, our animating spirit.

When I get the chance, I put these exhalations to work as I finally found something, like smoking, involving breathing in and out and annoying people at the same time: playing the harmonica.

To play all the notes in the scale you alternate breathing in and out like in the image below.

And once again mixing some of the definitions above together the spirit, the unconscious mind get translated into the vibrations created by the ‘blows’ and ‘draws’ – in this act they become something else.

Following the Heard

My own end-of-the-year compilation of a mythical musical mix... cutting things down to fit on two CDs.

CD One:
1) Grip Like A Vice*Go! Team (from Proof of Youth)
2) Umbrella*Rihanna (from Good Girl Gone Bad)
3) Friday Night*Girl Talk (from Night Ripper)
4) Make A Plan To Love Me*Bright Eyes (from Cassadaga)
5) You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told)* White Stripes(from Icky Thump)
6) To The East*Electrelane (from No Shouts No Calls)
7) Secrets*The Pierces (from Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge)
8) Us vs. Them*LCD Soundsystem (from Sound of Silver)
9) The People*Common (from Finding Forever)
10) Dickie, Chalkie and Knobby*The Mekons (from Natural)
11) Cat Brain Land*Melt-Banana (from Bambi’s Dilemma)
12) D is for Dangerous*Arctic Monkeys (from Favourite Worst Nightmare)
13) 20 Dollar*MIA (from Kala)
14) Stay on the Ride*Patty Griffin (from Children Running Through)
15) Double-Up*Lifesavas (from Gutterfly)
16) One Minute to Midnight*Justice (from Justice)
17) Gotta Work*Amerie (from The Internet)
18) Rehab*Amy Winehouse (from Back to Black)
19) Go To Sleep*The Avett Brothers (from Emotionalism)


CD Two:
1) Radio Nowhere*Bruce Springsteen (from Magic)
2) The Mountain*PJ Harvey (from White Chalk)
3) The Real Thing*Jill Scott (from The Real Thing: Words and Sounds, Vol. 3)
4) (I Don't Need You To) Set Me Free*Grinderman (from Grinderman)
5) Japanese Slippers*Fiery Furnaces (from Widow City)
6) Three to Get Ready*Dave Brubeck Quartet (from the soundtrack to Inland Empire)
7) Can't Tell Me Nothing*Kanye West (from Graduation)
8) Way Back When*Buck 65 (from Situation)
9) Killing the Blues*Robert Plant & Alison Kraus (from Raising Sand)
10) Paper Planes*MIA (from Kala)
11) Turn Me Around*Mavis Staples (from We'll Never Turn Back)
12) Smoke Detector*Rilo Kiley (from Under the Blacklight)
13) Spider Pig*Hans Zimmer (from the soundtrack to The Simpsons Movie)
14) J Dillalude*Robert Glasper (from In My Element)
15) I'm Not There*Sonic Youth (from the soundtrack to I'm Not There)
16) Challengers*New Pornographers (from Challengers)
17) Jigsaw*Radiohead (from In Rainbows)
18) Flashlight Fight*Go! Team (from Proof of Youth)
19) D.A.N.C.E.*Justice (from Cross)
20) Hello/Goodbye (Uncool)*Lupe Fiasco (from The Cool)

Justification later...

Happy New Year...!

Everyday You Meet Quite A Few...

Critic Wilfrid Sheed’s latest book, “The House That George Built,” carries us through the golden years of Tin Pan Alley, with each chapter concentrating (more or less) on an individual composer like Gershwin, Berlin, Carmichael and the best of the rest. In his better moments, the prose brings each mentioned song to mind and I kept stopping the read so I could give a listen to the tunes about which he was talking.

However, it’s not for the music that I put these words down. In his chapter “Jimmy Van Heusen: On the Radio with Bing and Frank” Sheed describes how tunesmith Van Heusen ("Swinging on a Star," "Moonlight Becomes You," "All the Way," "Call Me Irresponsible" to name a few) spent his war years:

"Four days in a row, up at four A.M. to test-fly new Lockheed warplanes until noon, under the name of Chester Babcock; then off to Paramount to write songs for the rest of the day as his other self, Jimmy Van Heusen; then a two-and-a-half-day break, during which he only had to get up whenever the studio did, to write songs all day this time. Then back to Go, and you can sleep as long as you like when the war is over, buddy."

"What twenty-first-century sensibilities might find harder to grasp is not the deed but the cover-up. Imagine the glory at the Lockheed base if he ever so much as let one colleague know that he had recently written that song they were all humming, "Sunday, Monday, or Always"; and imagine the megaglory of tipping off Louella Parsons, the gossip queen, that you were not just another Hollywood draft dodger, the kind people hooted and whistled at in the street, but a hero on two fronts, the entertainment one as well as the real one, in which he was entrusting his life again and again to the skills of Rosie the Riveter between songs. Ronald Reagan would have told Ms. Parsons even if he hadn't done it, as an inspirational story. But the hell with it. Jimmy was not the inspirational type, and besides, he was only a great songwriter, not a minor movie star, so he mightn't even have inspired anyone that much. And finally, of course, there was his job at Paramount to worry about. No doubt his bosses would have crooned his praises in public -- but who wants to make movies with a guy who might go down in flames any minute, and hold up your next picture? Who did this guy think he was anyway? Joan of Arc?"

"In retrospect, the myriad changes of sensibility that occur in this country seem like earthquakes that no one notices at the moment they occur. In the 1920s, a writer could genuinely think of himself, and be thought of, as a star. In the thirties and forties, he was just a working stiff to all concerned. From the 1990s until today, a guy with Van Heusen's war record would undoubtedly have sold the book and movie rights and established his own website as the Singing Test Pilot or the FlyingTroubador.com In the 1940s the worst thing that you could be was a hotshot or a big deal. "What are you?" as the kids used to say. "A wise guy or Boy Scout?" To this, there was no correct answer except to put up our dukes and pray."

Sheed occasionally falls prey to generalities and self-contradictions -- you can see a couple of them in the above-example. What all this brings up to my mind, to the background swing of Dean Martin leering "Ain't That A Kick In the Head" (another Van Heusen tune): Are there still those out there doing good because it is the right thing to do? Are there still those who do the right thing, not because the deed means some reward -- and by 'reward' I mean not just money, but also glory and an improved self-esteem -- for the do-gooder?

The Lone Ranger would ride off into the sunset without waiting for thanks; Superman would say no thanks were necessary because "it's what I'm here for." The more-common cliché for a mask these days, though is "if gangland crooks knew my real identity they would try for revenge against me through my friends and family." I like the more noble idea: if no one knows who you are when you do the good deed then it's a strictly-anonymous affair, without reward of any kind. Only good for goodness' sake.

"All the monkeys aren't at the zoo," goes Van Heusen's Swinging On A Star, "every day you meet quite a few..." Like the monkeys, perhaps there are heroes met every day as well -- subtly working their good through the world -- and we're just too slow or cynical to notice them until our thanks are too late to matter...

Ragtime Revisited

Jon Savage, the author of "England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond" -- one of the best books on the Punk Scene of the 70s and ... beyond -- sends his thoughts further back in time for another cultural epic, "Teenage -- The Creation of Youth Culture."

Hard to imagine there was a time when the term "teenager" did not even exist, but Savage here attempts to open our eyes to that period, beginning with the late 19th century, when the most-famous disaffected youths were either murderers or poets. It's still a little hard to imagine more than merely coldly intellectually as, unfortunately, Savage's text, a couple of hundred pages in, feels mighty dry. Perhaps "England's Dreaming" burned a little brighter with emotional context because those years chronicled were experienced first-hand by his younger self, whereas these years he could only dig up from some pretty old works. Savage reportedly steps up the emotional content later in this book along the way, but in the meantime, there's much to learn here for my original topic, ragtime.

Savage wrote (p. 56-57):

Staffed by recent immigrants and the children of the lower middle class, the popular music industry readily struck a chord with its core audience, being unafraid of raw emotion, sentimentality, and heart-wrenching scenarios.

However, for many young Americans, lachrymose weepies like "After the Ball" did not fit the bill. They wanted something that better accentuated their sizzling synapses, and they began to find it in the new music that was all around them, even if it was still ignored by the music industry. In "Maggie," Stephen Crane's heroine and her gangster lover enter a downtown saloon where an "orchestra played negro melodies and a versatile drummer pounded, whacked, clattered and scratched on a dozen machines to make noise." The drifting sound of the music "made the girl dream."

Stephen Crane's 1893 novel, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" (which can be read online here ) is a horrifyingly descriptive tale of growing up in the multi-cultured slums of the day. The seemingly-noisome pounding, whacking, clatter, and scratch of the music described above made a terrible and beautiful kind of sense: Terrible in its reflection of their everyday life, beautiful in that they were able to make something artistic and moving from its chaos. If you consider ragtime making a new beat out of old songs, putting a different kind of rhythm to the generic waltzes and marches, then it's not difficult to see the music as a reflection of the status quo as filtered off of a broken dirty mirror.

Savage continued:

Popular music provided one way that blacks could begin to enter American society. … life for most Negroes was grim. The lynching statistics – over one hundred a year during the 1890s—were only the tip of the iceberg. "Most had no future nor hope of acquiring any," writes Louis Armstrong's biographer James Lincoln Collier. "They could look forward to nothing but work, poverty, disease and death. A philosophy of carpe diem [was] the only sensible position in such circumstances."

A hard core concentrated on pleasure, on the heightened sensations of the moment, in the red-light areas to be found in cities all over America: Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas, New Orleans. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the spread of these districts provided regular employment for the large pool of traveling musicians. Playing in the saloons and clubs became a viable rite of passage for many young black men and women. The wider American public's taste for Negro music had already been whetted by the popularity of minstrelsy, and by the late 1890s, it was ready for something less ersatz.

Therefore, the black artists of the day (like the punks of the 70s) saw “No Future” written on their possibilities and said, “Nothing tomorrow? So let’s see what we can do -today-, then…” The spontaneity necessary to feel alive could not be bound by notes on a page, it could only be freed by the rampant rhythm of their hearts – by the never-before-heard melodies only hinted at by Sousa and Strauss.

The youth of the day, in looking for the Reality behind the masks they saw their parents wear and prepare for their own future, their years-ahead all planned out like more notes on a page, found ragtime.

More to come after I've finished the book, but in the meantime a tangent question:

If ragtime put new beats to old music, have hip-hop and sampling brought us full circle -- with old beats put to new music?

Ragged Time

Ragtime, created at the turn of the 20^th Century, has been touted the first true American style of music. Growing from more-traditional forms like the waltz and the march, its “rag-time” plays out stodgily in either a 2/4 or 4/4 beat. The left, sinister-hand keeps the steady rhythm while the right-hand syncopates, plays up and down and all-around with the melody.

Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” (1899) is perhaps the most famous piece of this type and Joplin himself ragtime’s most well-known composer. It helped his fame and resurgence in ragtime’s popularity that George Roy Hill’s Academy Award-winning 1973 film, “The Sting”, used Joplin’s rags for its soundtrack. This is where I came in...

If it hadn’t been for the film, and the Top Ten status for Marvin Hamlisch’s rendition of Joplin’s “The Entertainer,” I would probably have never heard of Joplin or ragtime. A teenage boy wanting to make an impression with friends could not exactly wow them with Beethoven’s Fur Elise, or a Clementi sonatina. But, “The Entertainer,” – now that’s entertainment. From there, it was to other pieces from “The Sting” like “The Pineapple Rag,” “The Ragtime Dance, “The Easy Winners,” and (what I later learned was only the last-half of) “Solace.” Then I was able to tackle the “Maple Leaf Rag.”

Life goes on, and after over twenty-five years of not having a keyboard and the ability to regularly practice, a piano finally rolled back into my life. Scott Joplin and ragtime came back, too. It wasn’t enough this time to simply relearn “The Entertainer” and “Maple Leaf Rag” – this time I started exploring the other pieces in the misnamed (as it’s not really complete) “Scott Joplin: The Complete Ragtime Piano Solos” I’d carried around since 1973.

I took on unfamiliar rags like “Weeping Willow,” “Cascades,” and “Palm Leaf Rag.” I finally even got around to bothering with the book’s introduction, which contained “School of Ragtime” by Scott Joplin – his tutorial written for the novice, amateur player.

He wrote: “What is scurrilously called ragtime is an invention that is here to stay. That is now conceded by all classes of musicians … That real ragtime of the higher class is rather difficult to play is a painful truth which most pianists have discovered. Syncopations are no indication of light or trashy music, and to shy bricks at ‘hateful ragtime’ no longer passes for musical culture.”

For his ‘Exercise No. 1’ he reiterates what appears at the beginning of most of his rags: “Play slowly until you catch the swing, and never play ragtime fast at any time.”

This is where my blog comes in.

It’s going to grow slowly and hopefully steadily, but always its aim will be to put out here “the best I can” at the time.

To stretch things out further than I should: Ragtime’s heart-sided hand with the beat, keeps time and holds onto the roundabout syncopation of the right-hand -- representing thoughts all-too-loose and ephemeral in my mind. With the help of this music and making sense of no-sense, perhaps I can begin to catch the swing of things -- and from there move along a little faster.