Music: December 2007 Archives
I read this insightful little quote from eccentric “cosmic” musician Sun Ra in David Toop’s excellent Ocean of Sound at the weekend:
“Reality is too harsh. Imagination makes everything nice. Use youR imagination and get out of the most drab places by simply holding on to it and making it real.”
That’s fairly sensical from a man who, for the most part, made very little sense at all - at least to me he didn’t. There’s no doubting the furtiveness of his extraordinary imagination, though...
“I had a vision that I saw some materials that defy description. I saw some jewellery that’s like nothing you’ve got on this planet. It was like a big supermarket that was the supermarket of the Omniverse. Everything in the Omniverse was in the market. I didn’t see any walls. It was so big there were no walls.
“I stopped at one counter where they had some socks. These socks were like they were alive. They were glittering like diamonds. I wondered how that could be. It wasn’t like sequins. This was like they were alive. I wanted to know how much they cost. They said it was ninety dollars for one pair of socks. I said, “Well, I’ve never seen anything like this before. I better go and see about the pants.’ I went over to the pants and they were one hundred and eighty dollars. Finally they said, ‘Since you’re from another place, our tax here for everything is eighty dollars.’
“I was still standing there trying to figure out whether I wanted the pants or the socks. Then I came back here. I wondered, if I had paid for them, would they have been in bed with me?”
A guy I often see when I go out was in hospital last week. He suffered a collapsed lung. He’s 24 (I think), healthy and gave up smoking some time ago. So what happened?
Unbeknown to him, me or anyone else I know was this: spending large amounts of time absorbing huge quantities of bass can collapse a lung or two; and seeing as I almost always see said guy within metres of giant club rigs it seems likely this was the cause. So consider this not so much a warning, but more a little ‘heads up’ for all those who, like me, spend all their time soaking up what doctors now claim to be unhealthy levels of bass:
"I don't think we'll stop people going to clubs, but we may be able to advise them not to stand next to loud speakers or put a bass box into their car." (Dr. Harvey, of Southmead hospital in Bristol)
For more info from Doc Harvey and the BBC, check this.
For all you budding musicians, acoustic or electronic, for all those wishing to challenge people’s understanding of what constitutes music, for those at all interested in the history, influences and lineage of music today, Noise Music, by Paul Hegarty, is an absolute must. Its depth is remarkable. Indeed, it can be quite heavy going, each page requiring absolute concentration - a lighthearted trawl through avant-garde music this is not; a rewarding and fascinating examination of different musics, their place in cultural and historical context, and their use of ‘noise’ it is. But what is noise? This is the thread that binds 13 illuminating chapters, in particular the idea that what is one day deemed noise or unwanted sound the next day becomes acceptable as music. But around this thread dances Hegarty and his extraordinary knowledge of all strains of music, taking in everything from Satie to Cage, Russolo to the Sex Pistols, and Coil to Sonic Youth, all of them musicians unique in the singularity and imagination of their vision and their unerring commitment to their beliefs. Hegarty’s passion for his subject simmers and spits beneath every word as he takes you deeper and deeper into a world of dissonance, musique concrète, rarefied jazz, Japanese noise and contemporary electronic experimentalism.
The result, for me at least, was twofold: enlightenment and inspiration - no mean feat for any book.
