I hadn’t heard SUN SHIP (specifically the title track, tho the whole album is pleasing as I recall) since borrowing the CD from genius guitar player Aaron when we were in the band called BRUCE together, about ten years ago (gasp). Then I found the album for sale, a vinyl copy, new, price was right, so I picked it up and had a listen.
I used to listen to “Sun Ship” and think Coltrane must have had robins outside his house, the way I did, and woke up to their chirruping triplets every morning, the way I did. I knew he took his inspiration from, well, everywhere! and I knew that Eric Dolphy, for example, a good friend of Coltrane’s, had been specifically influenced by birds. And when do robins most notably sing? At sunrise! So “Sun Ship” didn’t (and doesn’t) seem like that unlikely a title for a piece based on singing robins.
On more recent listen, my ears somewhat more precise in their ability to measure increments of pitch and rhythm than they were ten years ago, I’m finding that they are not so much triplets that JC is playing as quadruplets for the most part … but the feel remains. I still can’t rule out the influence.
Tho the sound is in some ways muted relative to the CD issue I once had (which could also I guess be partly the stereo, or deterioration in my hearing at the treble end), I’m finding that the individual tunes speak out much more clearly to me now (either due to the medium or due to something that has evolved in my brain) and that playing even just one side at a time is too much … I am having to take it song by song, something I rarely do with CDs (which I tend to take as a whole) and perhaps rarer still with records (which I tend to take side by side).
As far as “side by side” goes, the other night I listened to “Reward” by The Teardrop Explodes on a 45rpm, then followed it up with side one of EARTH 2 by Seattle’s power-drone then-duo, Earth. Side one contains only the winding, meandering, detuned riff known as “Seven Angels”. It’s quite nice. It took me several minutes to realize I hadn’t set the record player back to 33&1/3. While I do prefer this record at the proper speed, it is not unpleasant when played too fast. Certainly not frantic or hurried. Just higher-pitched and thus physiologically different in its effect.
Tonight we listened to side four, “Like Gold And Faceted (part 2),” which consists of a reasonably consistent drone (it stutters a bit but never breaks or halts; it even fades in and out for continuity) and some distant bashing about on (what I assume is) cymbals.
It occurred to me that in the utterly un-sine-like droning of EARTH 2, side 4, most likely were contained or implied all the freaky free harmonic sounds of SUN SHIP. As if the one could reveal the other if rotated properly under certain kinds of light or behind a series of prisms.
Today is back to the studio with Rough Church. We have four more songs to record, plus a soundscape. It’s raining, so I’m feeling Seattle, which ought to be right for these tunes … one is a punky cover from New Zealand, two are moody electric guitar grooves slid back behind the beat, one is (sort of) in the style of a 1950s-r&b throwback, there’s a little acoustic guitar duo tune (it’s part A of one of the grooves) and then the soundscape, which will be noise and found sound, so all in all a Seattle-y batch of material. I’ve even got plans involving droning open tunings.
Which reminds me, my earlier report that spring had arrived on January 30th has borne fruit … almost a month later we have flowers blooming and birds singing (and it’s raining for the 2nd time this month) … and I ran into a Southern California native who agrees (volunteers, even) that Los Angeles has distinct weather, you just have to know where to look … she hipped me to a day to watch for in the fall, weather-wise, and I will report on that when it comes around.
Yesterday was a hair on the chilly side, tho not unpleasant… like Seattle in the spring. Like there’s a mild, debatably damp bite in the air. But not overtly damp. And not a nip. No teeth to it. Just a chill. And besides, it was sunny. I was outside mainly in the late afternoon, just before sunset, attempting to contend with what turns out to be a double-filament bulb in our 1999 Nissan Altima’s tail/brake-lights. Hassle upon hassle - but pleasant enough to deal with until you get a fix-it ticket. Which we haven’t got, so rite on it is.
Was also out briefly driving to Greg’s for Rough Church rehearsal. It was nice enough up his way, but not spectacularly so (measured by that I didn’t notice, and I usually do). I mean, it was clear and the air and temperature were pleasant. I just didn’t get any sense of the cosmic ambience. Which could in itself be telling.
Previous afternoon I was rehearsing on Simon’s Drum Satellite with Cricket & The 2:19. I brought an extra shirt thinking I’d need one. Didn’t really, though it wasn’t too much either. Also pleasant and cool, but a little drier in the air. Like, micro-clicks drier. Notably unnotable, also, except in relations to the days surrounding.
Micro-clicks of individuation are, I suspect, what I am after.
Today it is raining again. I haven’t been out yet. I will soon be on my way back to Greg’s, but I don’t see much to sample today in the way of meteorological micro-clicks. It is wet, and probably a bit chilly. I don’t mind.
OK, so in terms of my thesis re: the subtleties of Los Angeles weather I could not have picked a worse time to begin. The weather here this past week+ has been nothing if not DRAMATIC. One 40-something Los Angeles native and lifelong resident told me this was the wildest set of storms he’s ever encountered here - before embarking on a rant about the misnomer that is “global warming” … hence, I advised, the increasing usage of the more accurate term, “global climate change” … and there we are.
The last few days have been cool, mellow, round, pleasant, the sun not showing it’s face until late morning but then coming out in strength … but a benign strength, and the air has been very clear, tasty and breathable. We’ve been up in the canyon a part of the time, where it’s just bound to be nice … but it’s been nice down below, too. I was there.
Yesterday it rained a bunch more. I took a couple of mid-length walks in it, to the library and to the rekkid store (more on that later I magine). A pleasant woman working as security on a media shoot of some description (I mean, they were filming something … not that they were shooting at the media, fortunately or un-) asked me where my umbrella was, and I replied that I am from Seattle … which is true, although more by inclination than by birth. It felt good to say it, and not at all dishonest, and it is in fact probably why I don’t use an umbrella.
But as I explained to my climate-concerned friend, although it does rain most days in Seattle, it does not DELUGE or DOWNPOUR so very often, and it almost never rains ALL DAY.
OK, and as for the effects of the aberrant weather on the Los Angeles population:
There was a woman pacing up and down on the sidewalk across the street from my apartment. It was not an even pace. She tended to cover ten to fifteen feet at a circuit, but not always the same ten to fifteen feet, meandering up and down over thirty yards on a five minute cycle (yeah, I paid way too much attention to this). She was blonde, pudgily proportioned in a lump and unhealthy way as if she had been stuffed badly, wearing mainly a shapeless black dress and little white heels, carrying an umbrella and talking on a cellular phone into which she was hollering:
“WEEAUUGGGGHHHH! WHOA! YEEOWW!”
Each exclamation punctuated with a wobbly marionette-like dip of one knee.
“God is ANGRY!!! Get thee behind me, Satan! YAAAUUGHH!!”
… And on and on, some of it less intelligible than other.
From time to time, either she lost her phone connection or she got hung up on. When this happened she would calmly and quietly, picture of normalcy, stop her pacing, examine the phone, re-dial, and then pick up right where she’d left off, pacing and kicking and glossolating.
Several days of rain - putting the lie for sure to my assertion that there is no weather here. I am as happy as a pig in the rain.
The day before yesterday, Z felt that it was a bit cooler than is normal for this time of year. And maybe a bit on the clear side. I did not notice anything.
Yesterday (really only yesterday?) we began the day with a hike up above Mandeville Canyon. Beautiful day, cool and clear (both of which are the case with pleasing frequency in that part of town and at that elevation but which were accentuated on this occasion). We spoke with many ravens and observed a red-tailed hawk. The crows don’t talk - they tick!
We felt the first drops at the top of the hill, and it was sprinkling softly but without urgency by the time we reached the car. This became a more certain rain, but that did not prevent us from taking lunch on a vaguely-roofed patio by a koi pond. “Beatific” comes to mind.
Later in the evening it became a solid downpour and has continued as such. On the street we’re seeing umbrellas, last year’s shoes, refugees from mudslides, inexplicable traffic accidents, nasty moods and terrible driving. But we are not on the street today. We are inside, drinking tea and talking to the cat. I haven’t had a day like this since Seattle (two years).
Had the pleasure of a few days visit from Team Evan & Woody, roving Seattle musical tag-team.
In between playing a ridiculous amount of music with everyone we met, we stopped into Origami Vinyl and made some financially-ill-advised-but-aesthetically-sound purchases.
(Woody abstained from purchasing. Way to buck the culture!)
We started with Mr Bishop, whose tones are thick and mystic chops formidable. The first track is a lengthy unaccompanied rumination for middle-east-inflected electric guitar, featuring round, warm, diamond-edged tone that is just about everything I could want in a recorded guitar sound.
The band kicks on track 2, and from there on the songs are long and they groove mightily. Think about something between Medeski Martin & Wood’s “Shack-Man” and Marc Ribot’s 2nd Los Cubanos Postizos, “Muy Divertido” … but it is nothing like either of those, really. They are the closest reference points I can think of just now.
It was a brain-cleansing listen, from the beginning of side A straight to the droning, Joujouka-escent closing track on side B.
Then we threw the Tortoise platter on the table and basked in a whole big pile of oddly electronic sounding instrumental grooves for bass, drums, keys, and occasional sips of guitar, all of which was recorded PERFECTLY, the tones so big and round and warm that it could perhaps have been done on a 4-track. You could call that kind of sound “hi-fi lo-fi”. Totally amazing record.
We capped it with a listen to the “West Coast Post-Asiatic Sampler” record, vinyl edition. We were so caught up with examining the truly lovely multi-colored record itself that we failed to navigate the side-selection issue properly and listened to side 2 first. (Not that sides are anything like plainly marked on this release). But I think it was OK, and supplied a properly weird vibe to the end of the evening.
BTW:
A few nights later I stayed up with Woody listening to Tim Buckley’s “Blue Afternoon” and “Happy/Sad” records. I esteem “Blue Afternoon” highly in a wide array of ways, and although I have been intensely fond of “Happy/Sad” for years, I have generally thought of it as a gem made perfect by its very flaws.
Opinion revised. “Happy/Sad” is a perfect album. Period.
Paul Johnson showed up at my doorstep, banjo in hand … He lives in Austin anymore so I don’t see a lot of him, but we used to play together a bunch when we both lived in Seattle. I introduced him to Amanda Jo while I was at her house trying to remember how to play the guitar so we could do a show (been out of town, minor lapse in personality integrity) … It was a solid connection and the sounds were great, so Amanda invited Paul to sit in for the duration of the next night’s show. He did, and it was a mad blast. Here’s a representative highlight:
Also well worth your time, and also available at archive.org, possibly the best performance ever by the Seattle-based improv-collective known as Snoose Junction:
This set was recorded at the Rendezvous / Jewelbox Theater in Belltown, Seattle - a bit outside of our usual stomping grounds. Personnel include myself on bass, John Leighton Beezer (electric guitar), Gerry Amandes (electric guitar), Vince Amandes (drums) and John Foss (singing) among many others. Songs include “We Gotta Get Man Back Into Space,” “D Boon Died Too Young,” and a whole lot of other. Almost two hours long. Very, very solid.
