Doom & Gloom Dispatch #58: A Very Unusual Ingredient
Bruce Brubaker, Robert Wyatt, Aquarium Drunkard Year In Review, Hayden Pedigo, Tom Verlaine, Sonic Youth
There have been various interpretations of Eno’s Music For Airports over the years — Psychic Temple’s beauteous rendition, Bang On A Can’s sweet version. Here, Bruce Brubaker strips the ambient masterpiece down to the studs in (mostly) solo piano form, alongside a few other similarly styled Eno tunes. And the whole thing is absolutely gorgeous. I could listen to that iconic Airports piano line for at least 24 hours, and in Brubaker’s hands, it is appropriately luminous and enchanting. Eno Piano has a wide-open sound, aided by some groovy (but subtle) electro-magnetic devices that add rich resonance to the proceedings. Settle down by this river and float away.
To follow up the new piano interpretation of Music For Airports, here’s that album’s pianist — the mighty Robert Wyatt. This sweet little doc from the mid-70s takes us to Paris, where we get to see Wyatt chatting with an interviewer, being wheeled happily around a park by his wife/collaborator Alfie (pictured above with the butcher’s knife) and — best of all — performing heartrending solo piano renditions of “Sea Song” and “Alifib.” The only bad news is that the interview is completely in French, so unless you’re fluent, you’ll just have to enjoy Robert’s groovy caftan.
Eno Says: Apart from the fact that I really like [Robert] as a person, and I liked his company, part of my experiment in those records was to see what happens if you mix this, with this, with this. It was being a little bit like a chemist. Can you get an interesting reaction out of that? I knew Robert was a very unusual ingredient. But I also know he has no ego in the studio at all. It’s very easy to work with him. He always seems enormously grateful that you would think of asking him, which is funny because I always felt it should be the other way around: enormously grateful that he’d think of accepting.
Aquarium Drunkard :: 2023 Year in Review
It’s that time of year… Once again, I joined forces with the crew at Aquarium Drunkard to help put together the sprawling Year In Review for 2023. What a list! What sounds! What a website! What the fuck! As always, there’s plenty of stuff that even I’m not familiar with — but you can trust that longtime AD motto: “Only the good shit.” Dive in, splash around.
AD PSA: Aquarium Drunkard exists because of the passion of its contributors (learn more about them here) and the support of its generous Patreon community, so consider pledging your support as we ring in the new year. If Aquarium Drunkard improves your listening life, the Patreon is the best way to reciprocate.
Hayden Pedigo - Tiny Desk Concert
Had to dig deep into the Aquarium Drunkard archives to unearth the first time I wrote about Hayden Pedigo. But here it is, my late 2014 review of the Amarillo-based guitarist’s Five Steps album. It’s been cool to see his trajectory since then — awesome LPs, of course, but also a run for political office (and a subsequent documentary), fashion modeling and more!
One thing Hayden hasn’t done a ton of over the last nine-ish years is play live — until now! He spent a good deal of 2023 on the road, both solo and opening for such heavyweights as Jenny Lewis and Devendra Banhart. And, praise the lord, he’s wrapping up his current tour at the Lost Lake in Denver next week. I’ll be there — will you??? (To sweeten the deal, my buddy/Prairiewolf bandmate Stefan “Golden Brown” Beck is opening the show. It’s going to be a great night on Colfax.)
To get in the mood, here’s Pedigo’s recent Tiny Desk Concert, featuring some gorgeous solo guitar music, delivered patiently/perfectly.
This one appeared in print earlier this year, but Uncut has posted my little Verlaine roundup online (with a little help from Steve Wynn and Dean Wareham). But the intro is missing! Here it is, a special treat for you:
Marquee Moon loomed large over everything Tom Verlaine did in the decades that followed — and, it could be argued, rightly so. Television’s epochal 1977 LP is that rare and precious thing: a perfect debut. But Marquee Moon’s undeniable perfection meant that Verlaine’s subsequent work, both with Television and on his own, was often overlooked and undervalued. As we mourn the guitarist/songwriter’s death in January 2023, it’s a good time to celebrate his entire career, one that is filled with untold gems.
“The shadow of Marquee Moon is receding,” says the Clientele’s Alasdair MacLean. “We can forgive that he didn’t do the impossible twice and look at Verlaine’s other records without that filter. They’ve already begun to emerge, and they’re all interesting and often magnificent.”
Sonic Youth - Club GEBA (Personal Festival), Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 5, 2011
We began way back in 1981 in New York City. And we’re finishing up the #SonicSummer Sonic Youth live bootleg listening adventure in 2011 in ... Buenos Aires? Who could’ve guessed. For the ultimate Sonic Youth in 2011 experience, go straight to the truly awesome Brooklyn performance which got a deserved physical release via Silver Current this year. But it wasn’t all over for SY just yet, despite the crash-and-burn of Kim and Thurston’s marriage. The band had several South American festival commitments — and surprisingly, they all agreed to fulfill them. Hurray?
Steve Shelley: I thought we might cancel the South American shows, that it could go either way. Oh, boy, it was a difficult tour.
Kim Gordon: A lot of the crew had worked with us for years and were like family members. Thurston sat at one end of the table, with me at the other end. It was like dining out with the folks, except Mom and Dad were ignoring each other.
Doesn’t sound like fun, does it? And yet! This Buenos Aires performance — the beginning of the end — is extremely fun, with a go-for-broke madcap energy, perhaps fueled by the fact that everything was rapidly falling apart. It might also be fueled by that crazy Argentinian crowd, who manage to accomplish the unlikely task of turning several Sonic Youth songs into fútbol chants. Seriously! Listen to them hollering along with “The Sprawl,” a bizarre and kind of beautiful thing.
Whatever the state of their personal relationships, Sonic Youth could still generate plenty of heat together onstage, whether they’re floating through “Kotton Krown” or going deep for another “Death Valley ‘69.” Thirty years after they emerged, this band remained a force to be reckoned with. RIP Sonic Youth! Sonic Youth forever!
From the Doom & Gloom Archives
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Inn of the Beginning, Cotati, California, December 19, 1975
If you were lucky enough to be on the east coast in the fall of 1975, you’d have been able to catch the Rolling Thunder Revue in all its weird glory. If you were lucky enough to be on the west coast, you’d have been able to catch Neil Young & Crazy Horse in a few tiny northern California bars. It’s not likely we’ll be getting a massive Rolling Thunder-esque boxed set of this low-key tour, though – the only recorded evidence of it seems to be this not-particularly-great audience tape. But as always, let your ears adjust and get into it … this shit is historic!
The Inn of the Beginning gig is our first onstage glimpse of the Sampedro-era Crazy Horse, coming hot on the heels of Zuma’s release in November. As such, there are a ton of debut performances (or at least the first recorded performances we know of). “Country Home”! “Don’t Cry No Tears”! “Like A Hurricane”! “Drive Back”! A lot of these tunes would form the backbone of Crazy Horse’s standard set in 1976 – but there are also a handful of crucial rarities: “Lookin’ For A Love” is given a sparkling workout and “White Line” is brought onto the highway for a loose ramble. And there are a selection of throwaway boogies with Poncho and Billy Talbot taking over on lead vocals; not particularly fantastic songs, but fun nonetheless.
The main thing to enjoy here is Neil’s incredible guitar work – Old Black is back! Young seems to have really figured out his sound during his time off from touring, discovering that pure/piercing vibe we all know so well from Zuma. None other than Lou Reed summed it up when he spoke of that album’s “Danger Bird”: “It makes me cry, it is the best I have heard in my life. The guy is a spectacular guitarist, those melodies are so marvelous, so calculated, constructed note to note… he must have killed to get those notes. It puts my hairs on end!”
Currently Reading: The Cobra King by Oswell Blakeston
The owners of Substack have decided that they’re OK with monetizing Nazi content. They won’t allow sexual content but they will allow Nazis, so clearly there’s a line one can cross with them, and they’re ok with Nazis. I came here to suggest you might want to find another platform. I’ll be leaving Substack. I hear good things about Ghost and Wordpress, including simple tutorials to migrate your subscribers.