High fidelity

Internet, if I may be so bold? STOP YOUR WHINING. Seriously. (If you absolutely must whine, make it charming. By which I mean, “Be Oscar Wilde.” There, you see? Easier just to avoid it all.) This means you. And me. Whining’s ugly. It makes you look lazy and ungrateful. If you’ve got nothing nice or real, or real nice, to say, then say nothing. I’ve managed to do it once or twice. Gonna go try it some more now.

Bless his everloving heart

It hardly seems possible that someone else could be as nerdily obsessive about Nick Cave as I am, but apparently it’s true. Holy..!

Since when were you so generously inarticulate?

[This is a reprint from my previous blog, Old Soul Ink.]

I am inexpressably happy, typing away and listening to my Lastfm station, which is playing a gorgeous moody mix of…er, mostly 1970s and early 80s punk and post-punk from Australia. I feel alive!

But suddenly I am crestfallen. Nay, distraught.

“Why do I have the musical taste of a fifty-year-old man?” I say to Mr Gibson. He has been working at the kitchen table, creating a sort of lightsaber thingie for his bike out of a cold cathode light (yes, he is a genius; I agree).

For a moment I think maybe he hasn’t heard me. Then he nods.

“A bitter fifty-year-old man,” he says, patiently and without looking up.

Reminder

Clint has been ready and willing to kick your ass since 1930.

2:45 Dismissal

You were not expecting
me: you blinked
and looked again
as though perhaps
my image
had only flitted through
your mind
for an instant.

Then you came
stumbling into that half-light,
words tumbling,
uncensored still,
awkward still,
like no time
had passed. Fearful,
because time had passed.

A man your age should know
you don’t just let things die.
A man your age should know.

The changeling knows
it will never belong. It knows
it is far from home. It knows
at any moment, the ground
could swallow it whole.
It does not expect
a welcome. But
you took its terror
without being asked.

You took a step
toward me. I backed away,
hands flat against metal lockers.
Eyes confirmed then:
the conversation was finished

(though we kept talking,
though you recited my last letter
like you were being graded,
though you came back out
to stare after me
when you thought I had gone).

2003

(I’m gathering all my writing into one place.  You’ll be seeing more stuff that’s been published elsewhere, as I get to it.)

The thing is

This may come across as a maudlin choice for the first day of the new year. But’s it’s a hallelujah for the times when we feel we don’t have it in us to “praise the mutilated world.”* It’s for my friends and family who may be in the midst of a great struggle, who may be tempted to sink into despair, who may be feeling lost “in the crutch-hungry dark”** even as they are surrounded by people with whom they once felt at ease. This is the thing.

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

- Ellen Bass

* Adam Zagajewski, “Try to praise the mutilated world”
** David Bowie, “The Bewlay Brothers”

Gig Review: Grinderman at The Music Box (11.30.10)*

Of all the inane questions to ask Nick Cave, this one tops the list lately: “Is Grinderman a return to The Birthday Party?” Who could blame the man if it wears on him? (For the uninitiated, The Birthday Party predated the Bad Seeds as a vehicle for onstage and vinyl angst and mayhem, with Cave at the wheel.) Sure, Grinderman is a return to The Birthday Party, in the sense that today is a return to yesterday by virtue of being another day.

No, in other words. It’s not. Let’s move on, shall we?

Grinderman is a band of four growling (or at least mysteriously snarly-looking), grown-ass men whose musical chops are as strong as the trust they have for one another, creatively speaking, and at least as strong as their love of performance. November 30th found them at The Music Box in Hollywood, in a fittingly gritty part of town. The crowd, mostly aging post-punk hipsters, was subdued in that I-may-wet-my-pants-from-excitement way that a certain segment of music lovers employ. For once, it was faintly touching, rather than pretentious: the love and reverence for the main attraction was palpable.

After a ragingly irritating opening act, comprised of a very beautiful man who played theremin solos for the better part of an hour — hilarious for about thirty seconds; not so much once into the second stanza of Ave Maria and/or the theme from The Godfather – the lights went down and Grinderman took the stage. Kicking off with Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man, the poundingest, most visceral blues song ever to be played on electric guitars, they started the show cranked up to 11, and just never let up. Each man was utterly relentless. Martyn Casey, in his white suit, never appeared to move more than two feet in any direction, and certainly he didn’t appear to work up any kind of a sweat, but his bass kept going, going, going. That, and Jim Sclavunos’s pounding, masterful drumming (sometimes with maracas, rather than drumsticks) created the backbone for the Grinderman monster.

Warren Ellis, who amazes simply by not sounding anything at all like Charles Manson when he speaks, is one of the most talented and fascinating musicians around today. Playing heartbreaking violin pieces (and sticking the bow, broken strings a-flapping, into the back of his shirt for no particular reason), beating the living daylights out of a snare drum with a maraca, or doing modified sit-ups and shouting “EVIL!” into a very low microphone with each execution, his performances are equal parts whirling dervish, military drills, Salvador Dali and Iggy Pop.

Then, of course, there’s Nick Cave. One reviewer referred to his ability to make the tambourine seem like an extension of his virility — an apt observation. Cave was not born a golden-throated singer, but his charisma is nothing short of commanding, and his ability to manipulate a crowd is masterful, to say nothing of his absurdist sense of humor. One minute he crooned a love song written for his wife [Palaces of Montezuma]; the next, he bent down and went nose-to-nose with members of the audience to plead, “I’m just tryin’ to relax! I’M JUST TRYIN’ TO RELAX!” [Kitchenette]. In between songs, he addressed the audience in a very polite and courteous manner. With his gaunt frame, bobbed and thinning hair, and exquisitely tailored shirt open nearly to his navel, revealing a gold chain, nothing about Cave’s appearance, as my companion that night noted, should work. But it does.

The show closed with a slowly-building rendition of Grinderman, during which the band’s considerable talents were more obvious than ever. In a way I’ve yet to sort out, they began the song as four separate entities, none of them doing anything that seemed to sync directly with any of the others. But where there should have been a cacophony, there was instead a syncopation, an almost visual representation of each instrument, each individual. Gradually, the song grew recognizable as the instruments made their way onto the same path. And then Cave turned up the charm, turned up the command, turned up the performance. If the show began at 11, it closed at 25. Ad-libbing parts of the song, he sang, I wanna be your man/I wanna hold your hand in that way of his, evocative of a little-boy-lost-cum-Crawling Kingsnake.

Particularly in this age of bands made up of nothing more than a couple of schoolmates armed with an angsty diary, it’s a rare treat to see real musicians giving it their all, totally cognizant of the strange alchemy that music is, a blend of mathematics and magic. Grinderman have it all. And so they should. It’s good to know that there’s still something to be said for years of hard work and dedication.

*Previously published on Beardrock.co.uk. Also: that’s my own photo, dude. Please do not use without my written (emailed) permission. Thanks!

Cross the borderlands

A tweet from Marianne led me to read this post from Hiro. From which I’ve copied the following passage, for myself and for anyone else who might need it.

As you leave the country of your old story, say goodbye to it with love. It has made you who you are today.

Cross the borderlands, into the new story you’re crafting now. The one that will make you who you are going to be.

Say No to those beseeching, wheedling, seductive voices that call to you from the Land of the Old Story.

Listen closely for the whisper of your new story. Let it take you by the hand. Follow it into its heartland.

Thank you, Marianne and Hiro.