Tonight I listened to one of my favourite Bob Dylan records - Another Side of Bob Dylan. Released in 1964 it's his fourth album and the last of his acoustic records before he went electric. Apparently it was recorded in one night with just him on a stool in the studio with his guitar, cigarettes and a couple of bottles of red wine.
There's still a thread of the social consciousness of his earlier records present in Chimes of Freedom, but more dominant was the beginnings of his free association style of writing which really took hold in the records that followed like Blonde on Blonde. There's also a love song or two. While musically still 'folk' he seems to have decided to leave the protest songs behind. Woody Guthrie was no more. Needless to say this upset many of his fans at the time.
There are many outstanding songs on this record and one of my favourites is My Back Pages. The song is widely interpreted as his rejection of his political music with the line:
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now
No-one really knows what Dylan is on about most of the time and I for one am not about to start to try and work him out. I just dig the song and I hope you do too.
I don't know much about Robert Fripp, the guitarist from King Crimson and Bowie / Eno collaborator and anyone else whoever mattered. So I was interested to read this reprint of an interview with Fripp from 1974 where he announced the end of King Crimson. As many people know the band continued on for a few decades after this, but that's beside the point.
It's a fascinating interview of a very unique person. There's quite a bit of young man's intellectual arrogance on display here, but it gives an insight into his singular way of thinking. His predictions for the USA and the world haven't transpired, although it feels like the end of times for America right now.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did. You can read it here .
Recently I had the misfortune to receive two shipments from Australia Post containing lp records. Aside from being expensive and appallingly slow to deliver anything, even across town, Australia Post shows a complete indifference, or perhaps malicious intent, for the welfare of the parcels in its care. In both cases the records have arrived bent like bananas after having been squashed by other parcels.
The first lp was a record by The Fall which was warped, but still just playable. I contacted the seller and they gave me a partial refund. The second lp arrived completely warped out of shape to the point it would not play at all. Needless to say I was most displeased to have this happen again. I consulted the AustPost website to see what was ahead of me in terms of making a claim. It was possible, but it barely seemed the trouble. The seller offered to send me through another copy, but I didn't think it fair that a small record shop should have to cover the cost of AustPost's negligence. I therefore thought I would try and straighten the record before making a claim.
As one does, I consulted the internets to see what methodology I ought to employ. It comes down to about three:
Heat the record between two sheets of glass at about a temperature of 80 degrees for 10 minutes or so
Press the record down with some heavy books
Don't warp the record in the first place.
I immediately ruled out option three as I had passed that point. There were conflicting opinions on option one and it looked risky. The videos I watched seemed to work okay, but others cautioned against this approach. I thought I would adopt a cautious approach and try option 2 - weigh the record down with some heavy books.
From the picture above you can see there was nothing scientific about my approach. I looked about the house for some weighty tomes and placed them on the record. All up the books weighed 11.4 kgs. After about three days I started to see some results and the record was noticeably straightening. Encouraged by these early results I persevered with the method and left it another week.
After another check things were looking good, however there was still a noticeable bend. I decided to try a variation on the methodology as can be seen in the next photo.
A variation on option 2
I positioned the record in between two books and above the desk. I then placed a single book on top of the record against the "warp" in the record. I did this in one day intervals and checked my progress. This was quite successful and after a few days most of the warp was gone. A test on the turntable showed the record was now playable. It's not perfect and the record's value is nothing, but I don't care about that sort of thing. As long as I can play the record I'm happy.
So what is that record you say? It's the self-titled Purple Mountains album from 2019 and to these ears it is one of the best releases of recent years. A certifiable classic. Unfortunately there is a lot of tragedy associated with this record with the early passing of its creator David C. Berman - one of the finest lyricists of any generation. I highly recommend this album. Until next time - peace and love.
To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish. Arthur Schopenhauer
I've been forced to watch my foes enjoy ceaseless feasts of schadenfreude. David C Berman
I have mixed feelings about the notion of schadenfreude. It's the underlying premise of celebrity gossip magazines where the proletariat laughs at the misfortunes of Hollywood stars. Their cellulite, their divorces and their drug addled spouses. It's a nasty business.
My love for the word schadenfreude is different and twofold. One is simply the sound of it. It's so fabulously German! All those syllables, the sssccchhhh sound; rounded off with that marvelous freude at the end. What's not to love about that?
Second, I really like how there is no equivalent word in the English language. Even if we had one it would never be as good as schadenfreude. It would probably be some dull, mangled term taken from psychology. English speakers have no option but to use the German word: schadenfreude!
SCHADENFREUDE! SCHADENFREUDE!
And that my dear reader is why the greatest word in the English language is German.
This morning from about 4.00 am it started to rain here at the Lounge. This is early for my part of the world and hopefully a good sign of the wet season to come.
The rain was heavy for close to an hour. And as I sit here on my balcony writing this some two hours later, it's still lightly falling. After months of dry weather the rain is sweeter than it will ever be.
As I could not sleep any longer I shuffled out to the kitchen and made a cup of tea. I made my way out to the balcony to watch the dawn and listen to the rain before the neighbourhood sprung to life so people could go off to servitude and pay their debts.
The Peppermint Lounge amateur radio station - VK8MC
Yes friends it has been a long time since your keyboard worrier has graced the Lounge. 2020 has been quite a year for everyone. I am one of the privileged ones, living in a safe place and not affected economically by the virus. Not everyone is as lucky as me and we have several family members who have been enduring lock-down in Melbourne for months. Some of them seem exhausted by the whole experience. Friends overseas are in some countries where the virus has killed many thousands. Anyway, everyone blabs on about the virus so I shall share a bit of what I have been up to in the months since the I last fired up the engines here in the Lounge.
First, after studying on and off for about 18 months, very half heartedly I must admit for most of that time, I sat and obtained my advanced amateur radio operator licence in March just before the whole shebang. Wassat you say? Does this mean Lounge has a radio show playing all his favourite music? I wish! No, it does not and if you look at earlier posts you might have noticed a few technically nerdy oriented radio themed posts talking about aircaraft signals and other bits and bobs. It just means that I am able to transmit on the radio frequency spectrum legally and communicate with other amateur radio operators around the world.
I won't attempt to explain amateur radio to you. Just go to Wikipedia and look it up. It's just a hobby like any other hobby where people pursue different aspects as they like. Some people are into the technical side, some like to compete in contests, some collect awards for speaking to rare and distant stations. I like to do a little of all those things, but I have to admit, I am at the lower end of the amateur spectrum. Not very good at any of it. But it is fun learning new stuff and it keeps the brain active (kind of).
Okay, that's my first installment in the back in the Lounge phase of my life. Let's see how long it lasts before I wander off again. Until next time, peace and love.
As I type I am listening to John Prine's record Bruised Orange. Today Mr Prine died from Covid-19. He was one of the great singer songwriters of the last 50 years and admired by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash among many millions.
I was very lucky to attend a concert of Mr Prine's in March 2019. It is for me one of the great shows I have ever attended. His songs are truly wonderful. Sad, funny, and often like no other song you've ever heard. He emerged as a fully formed songwriter. There was no apprenticeship records at the beginning. His first record is as good as anything anyone released by the veterans at that time in 1969.
One of the most beautiful songs he wrote is called Hello in There. It's about how old people can become isolated and lonely and it's important for the rest us to look in and say hello. Here it is.
Mr Prine wasn't always an old bloke. Here's a picture of him in his younger days.
Goodbye and thank you Mr Prine. Enjoy the Tree of Forgiveness. Until next time - peace and love.
The Miles Davis septet in 1971 - note Miles on the wah wah pedal
Here in the lounge lately I have been digging an artist who I have dipped into from time to time over the years, but never in a serious way: Miles Davis.
Among certain people I expect Miles Davis, or Miles as most people seem to refer to him as, is revered like Bob Dylan as being almost saint-like. I've never been much for the cult of personality thing around certain artists, but there are some who stand out as true geniuses. For me Bob Dylan is one and I think also Miles Davis, although I am much more familiar with Dylan's music.
I would also count Alice Coltrane in this group, even though she, because she was a woman I expect, did not receive the recognition of her husband John Coltrane. I think I will write about Alice Coltrane at another time as I consider her music to be truly transcendental.
So what of Miles? Well he had his periods ranging from the be-bop era to cool, orchestral jazz and his later electronic stuff from the late 60's to the mid 70's. I've got albums from the 50's and sixties which cover some of the early periods and I've owned the seminal fusion album Bitches Brew for many years. Yet, other than the latter album, I've never really explored his electronic period in any great deal. Some years ago I picked up a copy of Bill Laswell's album Panthalassa which is a remix of tracks from this period and I always enjoyed it.
So I had started, for no particular reason, to stream the 1969 album In a Silent Way a few months ago. Oh, this album is truly a work of beauty. It is Miles' first foray into electronic music, touching on funk, rock and ambient (not yet invented of course). Just two tracks each of 20 minutes or so long, it is music in which to lose yourself.
When in Melbourne recently I visited one of my favourite record shops and they had just landed a shipment of Miles lp's and I went straight to the rack and grabbed a copy of Silent Way and Down on the Corner, which help create the template for drum and bass which emerged later in the 90's (although there's a lot more to that story).
While riffing with the bloke in the shop he was very excited I was purchasing two Miles records and he said to me that his favourite Miles lp was Get Up With It from 1974. He explained that his all time favourite track by any artist was off this album and that my life was incomplete if I did not own a copy. The song he loves by the way is Rated X.
Now I can see a sales pitch, but he had me intrigued. Yet I resisted buying the record for a full 10 minutes before I finally gave in. I'm glad I surrendered. It is a master work. It's not for the faint of heart though. This is no cool jazzy tunes, but rather it is an at times difficult and challenging work which demands a lot of the listener. I like that in music. I don't mind a saccharine pop tune, but the records that stick with me are the ones which are hard to crack.
The opening track is called He Loved Him Madly. Over 30 minutes of ambient jazz, we don't hear Miles on the trumpet until about the 16 minute mark. Miles was digging playing the organ at this time.
The title of the track is taken from something Duke Ellington said when he closed his concerts "I love you all madly!". Duke had died a few months before this album was released and Miles was deeply affected by his death, dedicating the album to the Duke's memory.
So I give you the opening track to Get Up With It: He Loved Him Madly. Until next time - peace and love.
