How Music Works

How Music Works by David Byrne (Canongate)

Not unintentionally I suspect, the cover of David Byrne's recent book How Music Works, with its padded front and back cover, stark white and black design and hefty feel resembles nothing so much as a bible. Which for anyone involved in making or listening to music (all of us?) it pretty much is. To my knowledge there's never been a more wide-ranging, stimulating and readable book on how music is listened to and heard, what its place is and has been in our lives, and most importantly what its future could be. Not surprisingly its scope means that there are aspects of music that Byrne covers which beg for more detail and substance but in this case that is a strength rather than a weakness. He opens up interesting avenues of thought about how technology has impacted on music, and what the dominant influences are on shaping an artist's music are for instance and then subtly encourages you to explore and evaluate these ideas yourself. Of course as an innovative and consummate artist himself there is a good deal in the book that is autobiographical and written from personal experience. But if you are expecting the low-down on the turmoil that broke up The Talking Heads you'll be disappointed. Byrne comes across as an affable, modest personality, non-judgmental and non-confrontational for the most part. This is more manual than memoir, but perhaps more than anything though it's an affirmation of just how important music is to our lives. Whether you are making it, listening to it, buying it, selling it, promoting it or in any way using it, and have ever stopped for a moment to ask yourself why and how, this book could answer a lot of your questions.

(Previously published in The Music Book Reader Bulletin at www.caughtbytheriver.net)

THE TWANG DYNASTY

Too many good books and not enough time to read them all so occasionally I will be posting reviews by kindred spirits whose taste and judgement can be relied upon implicitly. This week Pete Frame reviews :

The Twang Dynasty by Deke Leonard (Northdown Publishing)

A cornerstone of the Man band, Deke Leonard toured himself to exhaustion but had an amazing time doing it – as the first two hilarious chunks of his autobiography attest. This, his third book, is thinly disguised as a treatise on guitarists – but as they are all seen through Deke’s finely focused prismatics, we get new slants and perspectives, and tons of insight.

   “Let me tell you about guitar players,” he starts. “We are driven by ego and vanity. We are shot through with avarice and cupidity. We have butterfly minds and vagabond hearts. We are petrified adolescents with insatiable appetites and unquenchable thirsts.”

   He explores Burton, Berry, Clapton, Zappa, Beck, Cooder, etc, but more interesting to me (being a jaded old git) are his fascinating memoirs on eccentric mates like Dave Edmunds, Micky Gee, Richard Treece and Trevor Burton. His account of recording an album with Larry Wallis, Pete Thomas and Big George Webley had me hooting – as did his recollection of seeing the worshipful Quicksilver Messenger Service captured and brought down by Dino Valenti.  “At centre stage stood a stocky man with dyed blue-black hair, wearing what appeared to be a black leather Babygro. He looked like a lady’s handbag.”

   Deke is living proof that lavish pot consumption doesn’t always impair the memory or the ability to write incisively. He’s something of an acquired taste, of course, but he’s passionate, entertaining, perceptive, knowledgeable, irreverent, quirky – a natural born writer in the way that he was a natural born guitarist.

   “I’ve heard it said by people who set great store by such things,” he writes, “that those born within the ambit of Sagittarius are predisposed toward playing the guitar. Jimi Hendrix was a Sagitarrian. So is Keith Richard. So am I. Do you think, maybe there’s something in the horoscopic mumbo-jumbo after all? Nah, I think the time of birth is determined by sperm counts, menstrual cycles, units of alcohol consumed, and bra-size. But that’s just the romantic in me.”

   Get his first two books as well . . . they’re indispensable: ‘Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics’ and ‘Maybe I Should’ve Stayed In Bed’.  

WAGING HEAVY PEACE

Since I wrote a review of Neil Young's book for Caught By The River - http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2012/10/the-music-book-reader-bulletin-8/ I have been listening to the album - Psychedelic Pill - that he intimates throughout the book that he is about to make with Crazy Horse. Dope and alcohol-free for medical reasons, Young can't help but to betray a degree of paranoia about the fact that he hasn't written a song for over a year and can't really feel inspired to. Well I have to say that, sadly, he still hasn't written a proper song - not one that stands up to the best of his past work anyway. Most of Psychedelic Pill consists of rambling phrases that reference subjects he talks about in the book padded out with long, aimless, mostly unmemorable guitar passages. It pains me to say it but it's a horrible disappointment and I can't for the life of me understand how it's got such favourable reviews. I would never advocate a return to weed and wine if it meant endangering his life of course but it does fill me with trepidation that he might carry on making pointless records like this when he really doesn't have anything to say. Another take on the curious nature of the book is provided by Alec Wilkinson of The New Yorker - http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/10/the-vexing-simplicity-of-neil-young.html.

My Current Reading List

A long time between postings I'm afraid and I'm blaming it on moving house and coping with the gargantuan task of relocating three tons of records and books. Inevitably my reading time has suffered and the list of books to read lengthened considerably. I will catch up though. Promise. In the meantime here's a list of current and forthcoming recommendations (in no particular order) :

My Cross To Bear by Gregg Allman (William Morrow & Co)

The Ellington Century by David Schiff (University of California Press)

Fug You : An Informal History of The Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture in the Lower East Side by Ed Sanders (Da Capo Press)

Everything Is An Afterthought : The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery (Fantagraphics Books)

Kraftwerk Publikation by David Buckley (Omnibus Press)

The Fan Who Knew Too Much : Aretha Franklin, the Rise of the Soap Opera, Children of the Gospel Church and Other Meditations by Anthony Heilbut (Knopf Publishing Group)

How Music Works by David Byrne (Canongate)

Fairport by Fairport by Nigel Schofield (Rocket 88)

Black By Design : A 2-Tone Memoir by Pauline Black (Profile)

From The Back of the Bookcase

Michael Lydon - Rock Folk (Citadel Underground) pbk, 200pp, 1990.

Michael Lydon was the writer who explained The Grateful Dead to me in a sublime piece he wrote in Rolling Stone in August 1969. I'll never forget the thrill I felt after reading it - the feeling that I'd discovered something so life-changing and important, and also that I'd read an article about music that set new standards and gave would-be writers like myself something to aspire to. I read as much of Lydon's work as I could and he hardly ever disappointed. The only regrettable thing is that he didn't write more. Some of the best of what he did write is here in this collection - articles from Rolling Stone (including the aforementioned Dead piece), The New York Times, and Ramparts. His report on the Rolling Stones' 1969 U.S. tour that culminated in Altamont is here and is a valuable companion piece to Stanley Booth's sprawling, gonzo-like account of the same tour that was The True Adventures of The Rolling Stones (reviewed in my next Caught By The River column). Other subjects for Lydon's perceptive analysis include Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, B.B.King, Smokey Robinson, and Janis Joplin. All essential reading. As I write there are several used copies available via Amazon at well under £5. Snap them up. I have moved Rock Folk to the front of the bookcase where it belongs.

NEW & FORTHCOMING

Here's a list of new and forthcoming titles that should be of interest :

The True Adventures of The Rolling Stones by Stanley Booth (Canongate) Re-issue.

My Cross To Bear by Gregg Allman (William Morrow & Co)

The Ellington Century by David Schiff (University of California Press)

Who Is That Man : In Search of the Real Bob Dylan by David Dalton (Omnibus Press)

Everything Is An Afterthought : The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery (Fantagraphics)

Too High To Die : Meet the Meat Puppets by Greg Prato (Greg Prato)

Arcade Fire : Behind The Black Mirror by Mick Middles (Omnibus Press)

Black By Design : A 2-Tone Memoir by Pauline Black (Profile) 

Patti Smith : A Biography by Nick Johnstone (Omnibus Press)

The Life & Music of James Brown by R.J.Smith

Listen Whitey : The Sights & Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 by Pat Thomas (Fantagraphics)

Looking Back At Me by Wilko Johnson with Zoe Howe

True North : A Life In the Music Business by Bernie Finkelstein (McClelland & Stewart) 

The Fan Who Knew Too Much : Aretha Franklin, the Rise of the Soap Opera, Children of the Gospel Church and Other Meditations by Anthony Heilbut (Knopf Publishing Group) 

Stone Free by Andrew Loog Oldham

My Song : A Memoir of Art, Race and Defiance by Harry Belafonte (Canongate)

Fug You : An Informal History of The Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture in the Lower East Side by Ed Sanders (Da Capo Press)

Woolgathering by Patti Smith (Bloomsbury)

Big Day Coming : Yo La Tengo and The Rise of Indie Rock by Jesse Jarnow (Gotham Books)

THE MUSIC BOOK READER BULLETIN Revisited

In case anyone's interested here's the first Music Book Reader Bulletin I wrote for Caught By The River. New column up soon (I hope).

FIRE AND RAIN :
The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY and the Lost Story of 1970
by David Browne
Da Capo Press 384pp hdbk.


For all of us of a certain age – cultural historians, economists, academics, old hippies, revolutionaries and music fans alike, the hoary old debate about exactly when the ‘Sixties’ actually began depends entirely of course on what your take on the sixties is and as such renders the question completely pointless. There is however, as this well-researched and perceptive book asserts, a good case for stating that any meaningful concept of the sixties well and truly ended in 1970. In retrospect the hippie/Woodstock idyll ended when the last person shut the gate on Max Yasgur’s farm in August of the previous year and the notion that a new generation of young idealists could change the world (and specifically the U.S.) was drastically revised in the wake of the Kent State University shootings in Ohio, the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the violence and mayhem perpetrated by the anti-government/capitalist Weathermen movement which contributed to the hardening of mainstream public opinion against any kind of revolutionary cause. Add to that an increasingly downbeat global economy, the Apollo 13 crisis which spelt the beginning of the end of the Apollo space programme, the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and the trial of Charles Manson, and the perception was that the world was becoming more troubled, unstable and difficult to predict and make sense of.
One of the ideas that David Browne suggests, but understandably doesn’t fully explore, in ‘Fire And Rain’ is that people generally had finally come to terms with the death of sixties idealism and, with their senses bludgeoned by a succession of turbulent and disturbing social and political events sought refuge in the music of artists who could provide an aural balm for the times. Hence the phenomenal success of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by Simon & Garfunkel, CSNY’s ‘Deja Vu’ , and James Taylor’s ‘Sweet Baby James’. This book plainly isn’t meant to be an overview of the state of popular music in 1970 as there was so much more going on that doesn’t get a mention here, but as a way of symbolising what was happening in the big picture then a snapshot view of the crisis-torn, insecure, tempestuous and self-centred careers of these particular artists, plus the break-up of The Beatles (perhaps the most momentous musical event of 1970) is both revealing and entertaining.
Very few of the protagonists emerge from Browne’s descriptions of this stage in their lives as being particularly likeable. James Taylor is depicted as chronically introverted, morose and drug-addled for most of the time, Paul Simon appears to have been an aloof, paranoid control freak and something of a martinet, CS&N (but not perhaps Young) had (and might still well have) egos, tempers, drug dependencies and sexual appetites of literally mind-numbing proportions, and The Beatles by then were just obviously completely fed up with being ‘loveable’ Beatles and were determined, individually, on being anything but. Even the saintly George Harrison was said by a Beatles associate to have “had a distinct way of making ‘Hare Krishna’ sound like ‘fuck you’”. If 1970 wasn’t exactly the year when these artists’ careers fell apart it was definitely a watershed and Browne weaves a lively, anecdotal, interconnecting tale of rampant egos, pathetic, juvenile behaviour and of course life-changing success.
Simon & Garfunkel released ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ which sold 1.7 millions copies within three weeks, topped the charts in the U.S. and was at No.1 in the album chart here for nearly half the year. That didn’t stop them breaking up acrimoniously though, Garfunkel to pursue the acting career that irritated Simon so much, and Simon himself, to his great credit, forging ahead with a solo career that has been both prolific and artistically rewarding. CS&N had seemingly lost the cosy, hippie vibe that smothered their debut album and with the addition of Neil Young had become embroiled in a near-comical war of egos and one-upmanship that had its origins in drugs, status and women. ‘Deja Vu’ was hardly a group effort but it cemented their reputation as a supergroup and sold accordingly. The in-fighting, cancelled shows and solo projects didn’t auger well for a long-term future for CSN&Y though. The fact that James Taylor actually managed to make a record, play shows, retain a coterie of friends and cultivate a huge following of (mostly female) admirers is a minor miracle if everything Browne relates here is true. His temperament, looks and general demeanour were obviously perfect for the time though and his album ‘Sweet Baby James’ and his subsequent career flourished. The Beatles’ tale of 1970 is messier and sadder. Their break-up was something of an inevitability after well-publicised spats between Lennon and McCartney and much political in-fighting, but their final album, ‘Let It Be’ spent three weeks at No.1 in the UK chart. McCartney has the final say on the year when, on Dec 31st he sues the other Beatles to dissolve their legal partnership.
Browne, author of highly-recommended books on Tim & Jeff Buckley and Sonic Youth, relates all of this in some detail without ever becoming bogged down in the potential tedium of it all. What emerges from his narrative is the realisation that, apart from the astounding fact that all of these artists save Lennon and Harrison are around today and seemingly thriving, their lives in 1970 had now become careers, the music business was fast becoming an industry, and artists’ egos had become too big to be reigned in by the conventional band format. 1970 was the year when solo albums became almost an artistic necessity – if you didn’t make one you couldn’t be taken seriously. Even Ringo Starr made solo albums. These safer, blander, more introspective artists were obviously hugely popular but they of course don’t tell the whole story. 1970 also saw the release of the MC5′s ‘Back In The USA’, Miles Davis’ ‘Bitches Brew’, ‘Loaded’ by The Velvet Underground, Spirit’s ’12 Dreams of Dr.Sardonicus’ and at least another twenty or so brilliant albums that were subsequently judged to be both influential and indespensible.
The most sobering fact that emerged from the book for me personally concerned the ongoing Vietnam War which was that “on June 24 1970 changes in the Selective Service System brought both good and damaging news. Instead of drawing from the large pool of eighteen-to twenty-six year-olds, the draft would limit its intake to nineteen-year-olds, those born in 1951”. The year I was born.