Kerouac & Burroughs, on writing

From Wikipedia:

He [Kerouac] would go on for hours, often drunk, to friends and strangers about his method. Allen Ginsberg, initially unimpressed, would later be one of its great proponents, and indeed, he was apparently influenced by Kerouac's free flowing prose method of writing in the composition of his masterpiece "Howl". It was at about the time that Kerouac wrote The Subterraneans that he was approached by Ginsberg and others to formally explicate exactly how he wrote it; how he did Spontaneous Prose. Among the writings he set down specifically about his Spontaneous Prose method, the most concise would be Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, a list of thirty "essentials":

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house
4. Be in love with your life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

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From Burroughs' Naked Lunch:

There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing ... I am a recording instrument ... I do not presume to impose "story" "plot" "continuity" ...Insofar as I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have limited function ... I am not an entertainer.

A little further on:

The title was suggested by Jack Kerouac. I did not understand what the title meant until my recent recovery. The title means exactly what the words say: NAKED Lunch - a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork.

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Michael Jackson // Cage - "Depart From Me" // Jack DeJohnette (w/ Danilo Perez and John Pattitucci) - "Music We Are"

Michael Jackson, 1958-2009.

A couple of my roommates and I were discussing the unfortunate (and, by all accounts, strange) demise of Jacko. Nate Chinen began to draw an interesting comparison between the death of Jackson and the death of Charlie Parker, though who knows how this will play out; similarly, Ethan Iversen provided a forum for a varieties of obits for the pop superstar.

As for me - I don't have much to say about Jackson himself, except that I never really cared for his music. Of course, the truth behind this is that I was never exposed to much of his music as more than a curiousity - in an where "pop music" is synonymous with "commercial music," the title carries little weight with me (and probably most people of my generation, as well). So it's unfortunate that I, jaded by hundreds of Jackson's musical descendents, have never really understood or appreciated an artist so widely hailed.

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Cage - Depart From Me (7/7/09)

I like Cage. I like Cage a lot. I like El-P a lot as well. I like Aesop Rock; I like Yak-Ballz; I like Camu Tao (R.I.P.). I like the whole Weathermen outfit. They're tight, they're funny, they're exactly the group of guys I wish I had fallen in with during high school.

But this new record - a copy of which I, after trekking through the swamps of New York's finest inter-webx0rz threads, have tracked down - is a lot different from the Cage I know and loved - first on the excellent Hell's Winter, and then on his earlier singles, including "Radiohead" and "Agent Orange."

On Hell's, he's bitter, sarcastic, tragic, funny, and clever; on the earlier tracks, he's a banger, a shock-rapper, way more edgy. Allow me to illustrate my point:





Ya see? These are great. He's in your face, the production (though it couldn't be different from era to era) is right on track with him. Bam.

On the other hand, this is the first single of his new record (video directed by Shia LaBeouf):



Let it be known that I like this song. I like the video well enough. And I like the new album enough to listen to it a few times. But there's something amiss here: why the fuck is he sneering like that? And what's with the pearl-fly, bro? Where's the cigar and Yankees hat? And who the fuck hired ex-Hatebreed guitarist Sean Martin?

I don't really know what else to say. Cage still hits the emotional nail on the head, covering all sorts of fucked-up stories from his days as Stony Lodge Hospital, his fucked-up mom, his sincerely fucked-up dad, and so forth. And the songs that on any other record would have been horrifically cutesy ("Kick Rocks" and moments on "Teenage Hands") are here actually pretty damn funny. His delivery on tracks like "Dr. Strong" and "I Found My Mind in Connecticut" is somehow both hilarious and really, really depressing. And the only truly disappointing parts are "Beat Kids" and "Depart From Me".

But there's no cohesion. The album lacks major handholds or anything real solid to take away from it. It's like a Cage appetizer. End of review.

(And God, fire Sean Martin.)

***

Jack DeJohnette - Music We Are

It's hard to listen to Jack DeJohnette without wanting to go practice drums. (For me at least. Go figure.) Danilo is similarly exciting - inventive, melodic, tasteful. To me, both of these players have always seemed to be absolutely the definition of organic: flowing; emotive; and intelligent. (Forgive me: John Pattitucci I have never dug as hard. This is my fault, not his - I simply haven't listened to many of his records.)

In the DVD that accompanies this CD, DeJohnette emphasizes just this - the naturalness of their work together. Reminds me a bit of Keith Jarrett and his whole standards thing, actually (go figure, right) - being liberated by a structure instead of tied down by it. This kind of model seems to draw a lot on Coltrane's middle-late period stuff (Crescent, A Love Supreme, etc.) for its formal inspiration: loose guidelines. More a drawing than a diagram.

This organization must feel great to play, but I fear it transfers less well to tape. There isn't a bad idea on the whole record - not one - but rather, there are too many good ideas, too many cooks in the kitchen. There isn't ever a misstep...but there are way too many steps.

Perhaps I am being opaque. What I mean to say is: there is simply too much going on here, at least for my ears. Jack plays so many great rhythmic ideas that it seems a shame for them to drift off undeveloped as they seem to do so frequently. It's as if they can't decide between James-Brown-groove and Ali/Coltrane-free-improv.

I am, of course, painting with absurdly wide strokes. (It's almost midnight. Gimme a break.) There are some great moments: the quietly ponderous "Earth Prayer" is a wonderfully colorful meditation, featuring some great textures by DeJohnette and Perez (and perhaps a touch too much arco from Pattitucci); "Panama Viejo" is similarly well-drawn and surprisingly spare. This is the trio I want to hear more of - for this, I would happily sacrifice some of the overpoweringly rhythmic Pattitucci/DeJohnette grooves of "Cobilla" and "Seventh D" (1 and 2).

It's not a bad listen, but...frankly I've heard better ensemble playing from all these players.

***

Reviews coming up:
Eyedea & Abilities - By The Throat
Vijay Iyer - Tragicomic

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It's hot in Berkeley. I keep seeing the same homeless guy everywhere. Sir, if you read this, please stop following me, it's giving me nerves.

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One of the most blessed things about moving away for the summer has been the lack of distractions for me. Something about the emptiness of the day drives me away from wasting time: you can only check your email so many times a day before your eyes begin to bleed, I guess, and for the first time I feel completely enveloped in the things that I am doing here.

Which, I will agree, are not the most strenuous of pastimes. Today, for example, I spent eight hours sawing out parts of an old metal cart and hammering nails into the cover of a rusty wok. Then I read a good chunk out of Ekkehard Jost's Free Jazz (nearly done now). Maybe what I mean to say is, in facing a vacuum I have become much, much more productive than I was expecting.

So that's good.

***

After high school, my taste for quality "songwriting" has really waned. Of course I listen to a lot of non-improvised music - some of my favorite music of all time is "pop" music - but...something about composed popular music turns me off. I always find it a little kitschy, a little cartoonish, a little cliche.

With that in mind, there's two great indie rock bands out and around right now that I highly recommend: AlasNoAxis, featuring great jazz drummer Jim Black, and Champagne Downtown, with a roster of punk, jazz and indie greats from present and past.

The AlasNoAxis record that's been spinning here is "Dogs of Great Indifference." Saxophonist Chris Speed opens the record with a long, gentle sax solo on the slow Oddfelt; Black, on brushes, Hilmar Jennson (guitar), and bassist Skuli Sverissen slowly join him for a drawn out (but decidedly engaging) meditation. Subtle group counterpoint continues throughout the album: the track Tars and Varnish is one of my favorites, as well as the long jam Everybody Says the Same.

Halloween, Alaska is James Diers (voice, keys, guitar), Matthew Friesen (electric bass), Jacob Hanson (guitar, keys, voice) and David King (acoustic + electronic drums). (King is a veteran of many a Minneapolis band, including, notably, the Bad Plus, Happy Apple and the Gang Font.) Their album Champagne Downtown is much more traditionally rooted than the ANA record, but somehow more compelling than your typical faux-poetic indie fare. I dunno, maybe it's just my Dave King fetish, but this has been on a lot.

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A guide to the SFL blogroll.

The blogs on the right side of this window are all pretty great; admittedly I read some of them more than others, but this is mostly due to my lack of serious credentials rather than any deficiency in the material. Short reviews:

About Last Night is a good blog partly run by music critic Terry Teachout. I am just beginning to read this.

Alex Ross is the author of a wonderful book on 20th century music called The Rest Is Noise and a blog of the same name.

Thom Yorke and the rest of Radiohead blog at dead air space.

destination: OUT has good contemporary/experimental jazz criticism as well as long lists of resources (radio stations, musicians/ensembles, record labels, and so forth) for the aspiring jazzhead.

DO THE MATH is the blog of the Bad Plus (usually in the person of Ethan Iverson). An excellent critic and generally a really funny fellow.

Er, Hey Wakka Wakka! is the less-updated portion of my friend Allen Hsieh's online presence.

Highway 41 Revisited is never edited by myself or the other two contributors. Fuck em.

Two of my favorite jazz mp3 blogs are inconstant sol and pharaoh's dance.

I should hope Jazz.com is self-evident.

Steve Coleman's M-Base Blog, while updated less than I would like, is a good inlet to the thoughts behind experimental jazz.

MUTANT SOUNDS is a blog of weird old mp3s.

A Blog Supreme is one of several NPR jazz blogs.

Jazz critic Nate Chinen edits @ THE GIG, an excellent source of new material for me. (Excellent article on Jim Black recently, 6.20.09.)

High school friend Josh Wismans used to write @ this is a movie blog.

We Walked on to look for America is home to the travel journal of friends Scott Smith and Sara Draper-Vizetz.

And, finally, You Are What You Hear is, well, a music blog.

***

electric kazoo crash

I swear I'm going to use this more.

I am the perfect drug.

Although I consider myself a fairly political person, I typically try and stay as far away from "the news" as possible. This is because I think it is entirely possible (and maybe easier) to involve oneself in the issues of the world without boiling oneself in global happenings morning, noon, and night. Also, I think it's kinda fucking creepy that so much information is available about EVERYTHING. Seriously, google me.

With that said - you'd have to be living in a hole not to tune in (at least to a degree) to what is going on in the West Bank right now. I'm not going to get into it, mostly because arguing on the internet is fucking stupid. But I will post some links:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/11-5 (thanks America!!)
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/12-5

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I'm getting ready to leave for Florida tomorrow night. Very exciting. I'll have plenty of time to relax and read (as if I haven't been doing that enough lately...sheesh) and just fart around by the pool or whatever. My only worry is the retirement community my grandmother lives in - take this conversation, for instance:

(It's the morning of November 5th; Obama was announced the victor in the presidential election late last night. We're eating breakfast in the cafe.)
MY MOM: (to an old woman in line next to us) Good morning.
OLD WOMAN: It was until that negro got elected. We're in for it now...
MY MOM: (astonished silence) ...
OLD WOMAN: I just hope the help around here doesn't riot...they're like him, you know. They might throw us out of our homes.

...so with that in mind, I'm off to scare the living hell out of everyone there. Got me my Palestinian flag and my hemp sweatshirt.

Ah fuck, another confusing post.

I'm back from the New Year's party at my grandparent's house... very pleasant. Nice to hang out with a few of my brother's friends that I don't see much. They're good kids, I like 'em. And maybe they keep Zack a little bit on his toes.

I was reading this book by Juliana Spahr, Response (PDF here), and found myself really enjoying it despite the obvious post-modern/avant-garde-y-ness of it. Her writing mirrors what Joshua Clover said somewhere about poetry - just like music or visual art, poetry/language deserves to be freed from the constrains of its history. (Or something like that.) In any case, her poems are very long - twenty-plus pages - and very conceptually thick, but still really captivating, particularly the first one in the book, Responding.

That approach is something that I find myself more and more drawn to these days. I'm less and less drawn to write poems or play music strictly within a tradition, at least for any period of time. I'm more interested in art where everything is permitted (oh Ivan Karamazov!), where what I doesn't have any limits, can encompass anything. A piece in which life and death are called into question, where the artist/audience thrusts the audience/artist out of the reverie of daily life. I'm tired of art about emotions, or art about beauty. Why bother?

That's why noise, as a genre, is interesting to me, or free jazz...it's that tie to Dada, the realization of every possibility and every choice one makes, the fulfillment of the freedom of the artist. Idiom-heavy artwork doesn't seem very interesting to me anymore.

And it's struck me more and more that really what I want out of artwork is not answers. I don't want an opinion, I don't want a point-of-view - what I want is questions and artwork that puts pressure on the discussion of those questions. I want to prod the shit out of people, I want an audience to REACT more than I want them to like what I do. My music, my poetry - they should get inside the heads of people, they should shift their consciousness, even if only a little bit.

Anyway. I'm listening to Nirvana right now - Nevermind - and along with the trip to my grandparents' house I feel like I'm in middle school again. This morning I was thinking about how weird it is to be walking up the path to our neighbor's house again...I used to always be hanging out in their kitchen but now I'm almost never there.

I feel weird about this post. Huh.