Sinister: philly redux, nick drake, (real) noise, mbv, record player advice

[Goon Koch]

damn, it’s been long since i posted.  i think i was on some different 
cloud for the philly show, the new york show and the week in between.  
after the korova milk bar party, my appetite having been whetted for a 
little of the old ultraviolence, i took a quick nap in my car and then 
dieseled back down to parts pennsylvanian.  but i think that all that 
ecstatic peacing out together caught up with me a little bit and several 
days of miserable illness ensued.

on Monday i was at the trocadero/balcony bar for movie night.  i spoke 
to one of the managers there (name eludes me) and she expressed great 
disappointment that they did not play but was not bitter.  she didn’t 
say anything about any of the other band members being at the hospital, 
or otherwise unavailable.  i traded in my ticket stubs for the refund.  
god, that was sad.  at least i was able to get my money back.  i know a 
lot of other people weren’t as lucky.

jessica g., i’m glad your shirt fits.  after all my whining about belle 
and sebastian providing inadequate coverage to their healthy adorers, my 
XL is almost too big.  at least this way i can wear it over a sweater 
and whatnot, so i can show my colors even in driving sleet . . .

nick drake has spent a lot of time in my cd player lately.  i’ve had 
“pink moon” for a couple of years (had to have it after i heard 
sebadoh’s cover of the title track).  it’s very bleak and makes me feel 
like i’m being drawn into a tiny little box, but it really really really 
grew on me.  nick had booked some studio time with a sound engineer and 
recorded a few songs with his acoustic guitar over the course of two 
days.  the sound engineer was under the impression that these were to be 
rough demos, but a few days later nick walked, unannounced, into the 
record company’s office, plunked down the tapes on some receptionist’s 
desk, and walked back out.  that’s “pink moon.”  nick never recorded 
another minute of music and later commented to a friend that he felt he 
had no songs left to record.

when i finally borrowed a friend’s box set and heard the first two 
albums, i was totally blown away.  compared to the rock garden of “pink 
moon” they are like flowers in full bloom.  “bryter later” is a gem.  
very polished, it is also very balanced.  it starts out with a short 
instrumental and then launches into “hazy jane II” which reminds me of 
the way every belle and sebastian album starts with stuart singing very 
softly by himself and then hits its melodic stride very quickly.  also, 
“if you’re feeling sinister” owes a LOT to “hazy jane II,” specifically 
the quick, tight phrasing in the verses while moving through an entire 
octave with the instrumentation is marching in place.  listen to it.  i 
think it’s uncanny.

so anyway, “pink moon” is the definitive nick drake album for you if you 
prefer slow, dirgelike joy division over new order circa “age of 
consent.”

if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense that nobody paid a lot of 
attention to nick in his day.  in 1969/70 everybody’s eyes and ears 
where focused sharply on the other side of the pond, and compared to 
jimi hendrix and janis joplin, sweet nick, with his string sections and 
delicate phrasings, must have seemed terribly naive and old-fashioned.

when i was flying to canada and the little muffled gong sounded and i 
was told i could now operate “approved electronic devices” (are belle 
and sebastian approved by USAir?) i listened to “if you’re feeling 
sinister” and it sounded totally different.  in an airplane, there is a 
tremendous amount of noise, but almost all of it is concentrated in a 
relatively narrow band of the frequency spectrum.  (i am told that 
flight crews eventually lose their hearing in that spectrum)  this noise 
filters out certain aspects of the music so that on “get me away from 
here, i’m dying” all i could hear was the bottom end of the guitar, the 
top end of stuart’s voice, a little bit of percussion and a what sounded 
like fifty fingers constantly sliding along fret boards.  it’s great 
hearing music you love and listen to obsessively for the first time all 
over again.

the all time greatest album for combining with noise is, obviously, 
mbv’s “loveless.”  all in all i’d have to say that creation’s money was 
put to good use because mad kevin sure crammed an awful lot of sound in 
there.  i spent a summer in alaska, doing commercial fishery and marine 
maintenance, and i always made a point of blasting “loveless” on the 
portable stereo whenever i was working with a new power tool or noise 
environment.  whether combined with a power sander, air drill, 
industrial vacuum, circulation pumps, the sea driving against the hull 
of the ship, the churning of different engine rooms, the music always 
sounded fresh and different and enhanced somehow.  damn, i’m still 
kicking myself for not seeing them live, but, y’know, i would have had 
to take the train to frankfurt . . .

oh, to whoever said they were going to burn their mbv cd’s:  don’t do 
that.  send them to me and i’ll make sure they find a good home.

can anyone recommend a good turntable to me?  where in the u.s. east 
coast do i have to go to find a nice record player?  does anybody have a 
decent used one they want to sell me?

okloveyoubyebye,

-goon k.-


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