From the interview I linked to in the last post:

From the long informative and quite personal interview Lester Bangs did in 1979/80 with Brian Eno: A Sandbox in Alphaville which just got published in Perfect Sound Forever (via eyes that can see in the dark):

Jon from Worlds of Possibility with a tour de force through the œuvre of one of the most fascinating and challenging rock bands of all-time: Sonic Youth. And I thought I was the only one who loved the three underdogs which are Bad Moon Rising, Made in USA and Dirty. I got curious about NYC Ghosts and Flowers again. The only SY album (not counting the Madonna cover record) I don't even have on tape.

There is also a classic/dud thread on ILM going on.

There is an interesting thread on Warsaw on ILM going on. You know this punk group named after a Bowie/Eno song on Low which would become one of the darkest and most powerful bands of all-time: Joy Division. Tastelessly named after the nazi concentration camp brothels. I wish I had seen them live but I was busy listening to my album of 1976 at the time which will be reviewed soon...

(Translation: In the past I believed that one needs Neil Young all the time but now I think that one can survive the first couple of days without him.)

I just saw the excellent DVD The Miles Davis Story, one of the best films on music I've ever seen. Many interviews with his wives, his children, his musicians, his biographer and the record company guys. Miles in between music, women, drugs, fast cars, boxing, drawing and music. Always moving forward, never standing still. Very well illustrating his lifelong fight against his illnesses and against the prejudices of white people against his skin colour. His rudeness and bad way of treating women. And his niceness when he apologised etc. The almost complete liberty he left to his musicians which made the phantastic collective music possible he and his bands created.

Finally his raspy whispering voice which seemed to have been the price he had to pay for his amazing, magic, pure and crystal-clear trumpet sound. A jazz musician in the film said that Miles' trumpet sounded like a human voice. I think it actually was his voice.

At one point he said:

And I thought YES. That is so bloody true and so bloody sad at the same time. The love songs are just an ersatz for not being able to fall in love again after the first time.

She is going to play tonight at the Mousonturm (thank you, Andreas for the tip) in Frankfurt. Probably she will play mostly her new very good album You Are Free. But I wouldn't mind seeing her perform my two favourites of hers which almost made me cry when I listened to them today. The terrific Nude as the News and the hypnotic Cross-Bones Style.

Somehow in her purity and other-worldiness she reminds me of Nick Drake. I had Northern Sky in my waking ear this morning and had to listen to it together with the whole of Bryter Layter. Northern Sky is almost a lush song in Nick Drake's œuvre. I don't mean that in terms of production. Maybe the piano which is played by John Cale makes the difference. There is a lucidity and serenity in this song I absolutely adore. Nick Drake seems to have found the joy in his melancholy. Just the first lines:

radiate an inner beauty I can't resist.

I also noted that on Hazey Jane II, another perfect song from this album, Richard Thompson played the lead guitar. Untypically for Drake the feel of this song is very American, very Western. The characteristic lead guitar play to me sounds a lot like a guitar heroe who was going to emerge about eight years later: Mark Knopfler. Richard Thompson must have been a very strong influence for him.

The three instrumentals on Bryter Layter are also grand cru. My faves are the title track (a mystification of Brighter Later, I suppose) and especially the closer Sunday with the wonderful and wise impressionist flute theme. The strings fit in there perfectly.

In the end I was surprised how much I liked the record as in my memory it was the least appealing of his due to the over-production with strings and stuff. But even the women background choir on the self-mocking Poor Boy somehow made sense though I really hate these kind of choirs. One of these Things First was another stand-out in the simplicity of the tune and the almost surreal lyrics:

reminding me a little of the incarnation of a chanson d'amour which is Jacques Brel's Ne Me Quitte Pas.

It is really sad that there are no albums made like that anymore today. And the jazzy Bryter Later from 1970 is even Nick Drake's weakest album.

Yo La Tengo seem like a profane Low. A bassist and a couple. She is on drums and he is on guitars. Both of them sing. Her singing is better. Nowadays their songs are usually slow and tuneful (Yo La Tengo used to do noisy rock). Two of the best and most intense live bands in the world. Last but not least both band leaders have a lot of humour though Alan Spearhawk's is drier.

And now I understand better why Tom Liwa announced Low as the best band in the world. Liwa is a practising Christian and they are definitely the best Mormon band in the universe.

My theory about the band name Low goes like this: they wanted to call themselves "Slow" but when they stuck the letter magnets on the iron board the "S" sank down as it was too heavy and they had to call themselves the remaining word. But they had to keep to playing very slow music. It was destiny.

By the way Low can also rock hard and loud. They are heavy metal fans I think.

It is a strange phenomenon but I tend to change my appreciation of high, close to falsetto male voices in pop music over time. There are voices I used to dislike or even hate like Neil Young or Thom Yorke which I love now.

When I first heard Neil Young around 1975 (I was 12) I felt that he was a puff, a wimp. His voice is probably the least masculine in rock. I rediscovered him around 1987 when my first girl-friend left me. And I instantly fell in love with him on second sights on After the Goldrush. A consolation by someone who had experienced a similar loss.

I am not sure if Radiohead's Thom Yorke did change his voice from Amnesiac on. Before I could not take his whining which made me think of a squealing mouse. Abominable. But now I have really come to appreciate the intensity and purity in it. There is a despair in his voice which touches me and makes me shiver.

On the other hand there are voices I used to like or even love which I cannot take anymore. Which I have got allergic to. The only one I can think of right now is Damon Albarn from Blur. I liked the cheekiness and Britishness in his singing on the first two albums. But now I find his style stilted. His voice has not evolved or it evolved in a direction I dislike. Maybe it is just that my ears were overexposed to his singing whereas in comparison I still have listened to much less Radiohead than Blur. I don't know. But I doubt that I will get Think Tank after the excerpts I listened to. And this is not because of the missing guitar, I swear.

I Love Music thread of the day: TS: The Fall vs. Pavement. A quote: