Doom & Gloom Dispatch #30: The Usual Laws Of Momentum
En Attendant Ana, Yo La Tengo, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Sonic Youth
It’s always a great feeling when a band hits its stride — and that is the feeling you’ll get when you spin En Attendant Ana’s third LP. Principia makes good on the promise of the Parisian quintet’s earlier work while expanding and enhancing their overall sound, centered on Margaux Bouchaudo’s terrific vocals. There’s a pleasing swagger to the album’s 10 tracks, a confidence mixed with playfulness, whether the band is approximating mid-period Stereolab on “Same Old Story,” getting beautifully wistful on “Fools & Kings,” or — best of all — crafting a towering motorik anthem on “Wonder.” Principia might be the best indie rock record you’ll hear in 2023!
Yo La Tengo - Deeper Into Deep Cuts
In case I don’t mention it enough here — I do a “radio” show on Dublab every month as part of the Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard rock block. Every third Sunday night of every damn month! It’s always a good time — me, Chad DePasquale, Jason Woodbury and a revolving door of special guests. The archives are here for your listening pleasure.
For May, I put together an hour’s worth of Yo La Tengo deep cuts — b-sides, outtakes, live cuts, guest appearances, film scores, rarities, rejected Coca-Cola jingles. Good stuff, obviously, and the whole thing has been added to the main Aquarium Drunkard site now. (However, you probably want to listen to the entire four-hour RFAD on Dublab, since this month’s special guest is Prairiewolf/Heat Warps dude Jeremy Erwin, who put together a monstrous mix of 1973-74 Electric Miles, all taped from the bandstand.)
This isn’t really the big Yo La Tengo news this week, however. The BIG news is that Ira Kaplan is throwing the first pitch at a Mets’ game next week. Kaplan has done many cool things in his lifetime, but I can only imagine that this is some kind of dream come true for him. Hopefully he said hi to Mr. Met for all of us.
Bob Dylan - So Damn Nonchalant | 1976 Pristine Soundboard Recordings
It was Bob Dylan’s birthday this week! Thank you for everything, Bob Dylan! The guy is still out there, praise the lord — a European tour kicks off early next month in Portugal. Maravilhoso! I’m celebrating Bob by listening to Bob … this thoughtful compilation of 1976 soundboard highlights was a recent discovery. The second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue is a little bit underrepresented (relatively to other eras at least) … an official set a la the 1975 box would be nice, no? The vibe is so different, even though the musicians are more or less the same.
Here’s Paul Williams, writing eloquently about the spirit of ‘76: “There is an elasticity in this music, a new and liberating approach to time, to rhythm, to the relationship between voice and melodic instrument and rhythmic instrument. Somehow, the normal elements of song, of rock and roll, of singer/guitar/bass/drums performance , have been put together differently here, with one of of the more-easily-pointed-to results being a transcending of the usual laws of momentum. This music pauses, halts, falls apart, starts again, and nothing is lost — it has a pulse that is internal rather than external, and it continues even when the musicians are silent … It’s like they’re playing the space around the music rather than the music itself.”
Sounds about right to me! What else? Well, I’m currently checking out Jesse Jarnow’s bobsday eve 82 spectacular which aired this week on WFMU. It’s going to get weird, it’s going to get wild.
I’ll also take a sec to plug Pledging My Time, Ray Padgett’s upcoming collection of interviews with a host of Dylan collaborators. Over the past several years, Ray has been posting many these on his indispensable newsletter Flagging Down the Double E’s and they are truly fascinating for Dylan nuts. Like you, like me!
Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia - The Record Plant, Sausalito, California, July 8, 1973
I’ve been catching up with the latest season of the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, which hones in on the annus mirabilis of 1973. In 1973, Jerry Garcia was, arguably, reaching his peak, not only musically, but personally as well. Ensconced comfortably in Stinson Beach, he was eagerly exploring new avenues, getting jazzier and funkier with Merl Saunders and getting deeply rootsy with Old & In The Way. Oh yeah, he was also playing numerous outrageously amazing shows with the Grateful Dead (in bigger and bigger venues). Life was good for Garcia — at least that’s the overwhelming impression you get from the remembrances collected in this great Deadcast episode.
Not that I ever need any excuse, but listening to the ep sent me back to those Saunders / Garcia / Kahn/ Vitt tapes, including this deliciously stoney summer evening in Sausalito, broadcast on KSAN-FM a half-century ago. The quartet sounds supremely laid-back but still exploratory, finding the confluence between rich R&B and “My Funny Valentine,” digging into the Meters-esque groove of “Finders Keepers” and easing their way through a sweet/sad “Positively 4th Street.” So very nice!
Of course, we should also check out some Old & In The Way from this period, too (Peter Rowan’s Deadcast contributions are especially illuminating) … so here’s the group also at the Record Plant in March of ‘73, also broadcast on KSAN-FM. Down where the river bends!
Sonic Youth - The Loft, Berlin, Germany, June 28, 1983
We've spent our #SonicSummer in NYC thus far ... but now we’re heading to Europe! Following a tour with Glenn Branca, Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore set up their own Euro jaunt for the summer of 1983. Always interesting to me how free-flowing and chaotic a DIY tour like this must have been back in the pre-cell phone days, just figuring out a new country virtually every day. An adventure, no doubt.
At this point, Bob Bert had been convinced to rejoin the band (Jim Sclavunos had come and gone) and he’d stay in the drummer's chair for the next few years. This Berlin audience tape, recorded towards the end of the tour, is a great example of Sonic Youth’s raw power during the era — confrontational, revved-up, relentless. Moving away, perhaps, from the starkness of the No Wave world and into something more darkly psychedelic and unnameable. True to their name, SY — or at least Moore — was also looking to the kids for inspiration.
Thurston Says: Confusion is Sex was certainly referencing the burgeoning hardcore scene, especially the energy of it. I liked the sound and delivery of what was going on with those bands. A lot of the first generation of punk bands were people in their 20s, and suddenly you had teenagers who discovered this world and started creating their own bands and really stripping it down and playing the only four chords they knew.
Sonic Youth don’t really sound like Minor Threat in Berlin, but you can understand what he means — it's not “hardcore” but it is definitely hardcore. And the audience (which sounds pretty decent-sized) certainly seems to dig it, even as they're getting the full Sonic Death attack. The band would be back in Europe before the year was done. “In Europe, people were throwing bottles at us because we wouldn’t play more,” Kim Gordon remembered. “So we started stretching things out because of that.”
Bandcamp | Merch | Concert Chronology
From The Doom & Gloom Archives
As you probably know, Bob Dylan turns 80 years old today — and the internet is abuzz with countless think pieces about the songwriter’s importance. They’re trying to figure Bob Dylan out. Good luck with that. “I’d like to interview people who died leaving a great unsolved mess behind, who left people for ages to do nothing but speculate,” Bob once told an interviewer. And even as more pieces of the puzzle are filled in — the opening of the Tulsa Archive next year will provide even more data — Dylan will likely leave a great unsolved mess behind.
That’s not frustrating. It’s fun. Bob’s greatest skill may be in leaving things unfinished. It’s a lifelong strategy. “He not busy being born is busy dying,” he sang in 1965. In 1983: “Shedding off one more layer of skin / Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within.” Last year: “I ain’t no false prophet – I’m nobody’s bride / Can’t remember when I was born and I forgot when I died.”
Incompleteness is Dylan’s forte. For proof, take a look at his ongoing Bootleg Series, which kicked off 30 years ago now. Across multiple expansive boxed sets, these archival releases have provided a rich, alternate timeline of the man’s career, every disc rife with possibilities, with paths not taken, with stolen moments never to be repeated again. Incomplete, but perfect somehow. Abandoned Love, to borrow one of Bob’s castoff masterpieces.
Amazingly, The Bootleg Series isn’t even close to done yet — there are rumors that an Infidels-focused set will be released later this year. Until we know more, here’s a mix (approximately 80 minutes for Bob’s 80 years) of unreleased gems, stretching from 1973 to 2019, including studio outtakes, rehearsals, live performances and television appearances. It’s a mess. It’s beautiful.
Currently Reading: On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement by Kerry O’Brien and William Robin