The ramifications of The Pirate Bay go way beyond the music industry. For one, DVD piracy has an even more serious impact on independent filmmakers who aren’t protected by the legal clout of the studio system, because they have fewer alternative streams of revenue such as merchandising or live shows (which may be why David Lynch now does nixers as a public speaker and meditation guru).
Then there’s publishing. Until now, downloadable texts, even pdfs of entire books, were of little threat to the physical incarnation because they were too unwieldy and hard on the eyes. But as e-reader designers strive to make books more viable in the digital realm, their products become more vulnerable to bootlegging (as it stands, audiobooks are every bit as steal-able as albums.)
But what if the exposure helps your cause? Best-selling author of new-agey fables Paulo Coelho has come out in support of The Pirate Bay, testifying that leakage of The Alchemist through the website has only helped its sales. But then, the publishing industry has co-existed with its own legitimate version of The Pirate Bay for decades, one that can still be found in almost any town: the public library.
The wider issue is that of 21st century human consumerist behaviour. Do any of us really need to acquire and hoard 10,000 tracks or 1,000 movies? Does increased choice equal decreased appreciation of art? Maybe there was something in the process whereby we digested one artefact at a time through a period of intense listening, concentrated viewing or immersive reading. What if the key is not necessarily how much you are entertained by or even like a piece of work, but how deeply you experience it? Many’s the movie I found hard going, but couldn’t get out of my head for days afterwards (pretty much anything by Cassavetes or Tarkovsky).
I know, I know, hardly a fashionable idea. But infinite consumer choice can result in a sort of fitful syndrome that tempts a soul to switch off Paris, Texas after the first 15 minutes ‘cos there aren’t any car-crashes, or toss Moby Dick after 50 pages ‘cos of all that stuff about, y’know, whaling. Some of the most enduring art is a hard sell at first. Consider how many now-canonical films first tanked at the box office: Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, Raging Bull, Zombie Strippers…
Those of us who watched late night Channel 4 or Alex Cox’s Moviedrome series on BBC2 or rented from the arty international section of Xtravision (God bless the mark) back in the pre-internet days did so mostly because that was the only alternative to Top Gun or Beverley Hills Cop or any other unholy alliance of Jerry Bruckheimer and Kenny Loggins. I’d argue that such exposure instilled in us hicks and heathens a reasonably sophisticated reflex response, set of criteria and frame of reference. In other words, it was good for us. Get that cod liver oil into you.
This is not to dismiss snap-crackle-and-pop entertainment value, but, y’know, too much of that stuff will rot your teeth. ‘These days a man’s gotta have choices,’ said Mickey Knox in Natural Born Killers, parodying the kind of dial-up deli mentality that results in a jaded, ADD-addled relationship with the world.
Maybe sometimes the thing you need the most is to not get what you want.
One of the coolest ways to find out that your book hasn’t made the Booker longlist is to discover that the Guardian bloggers have multiple nominated it as one of the books that should’ve. Many thanks! For those who reckon J the R deserves a look-in, feel free to vote:
The other week your correspondent purchased a copy of the much-acclaimed 2005 Werner Herzog documentary Grizzly Man, the story of Timothy Treadwell, a guy who spent 13 summers in Katmai National Park and Preserve on the Alaskan peninsula studying and filming wild bears before he and his girlfriend were killed by one.
The subject was obviously a seriously disturbed individual (and, to be honest, an insufferably irritating one). Treadwell was a recovered alcoholic, failed actor and wannabe TV star who found meaning in his life through communing with these awesome creatures. Except as the years went by, he became more and more deluded, fancying himself a latter day Grizzly Adams and lone crusader beyond the petty mores of park rangers. (One of the soberest voices in the documentary came from a Native American gent who observed simply that Treadwell’s untimely end came about because he had transgressed on Grizzly turf and paid the price for it. The tragedy is his girlfriend also lost her life in the process.)
Herzog’s film undertook the feat of bestowing upon this man’s life a sort of dignity, venerating his filming skills and eulogizing the admittedly beautiful footage he shot. The German director has always loved these driven madmen figures, as mythologised in films like Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre – Wrath Of God. There’s a documentary film about the relationship between him and the late Klaus Kinski – My Best Friend – that would turn your hair white.
But the DVD also came with a special feature that I thought was even better than the main attraction: a 50-minute film about the recording of the Grizzly Man soundtrack. This was built around fly on the wall footage of the scoring ensemble, led by Richard Thompson and including Jim O’Rourke, none of whom had met before the session, all improvising to very strict cues, Herzog sitting right there among them as the tapes rolled, listening more intensely than anyone I’ve ever seen. Listening, the great underrated art.
I only have one or two Richard Thompson records, but I really love what he does. No persona or star nonsense, a real craftsman, you feel the music come through him like running water. My old housemate Fiachra alerted me to the a live album and TV series he made, 1000 Years of Popular Music, that traced the evolution of the pop song from medieval balladry right up to Britney’s ‘Oops I Did It Again’. The version of ‘Shenandoah’ would wring tears from an Easter Island statue.
Art wears two faces, inhabits two identities. One capers and cavorts and throws tantrums and gets eaten in the wilderness. The other goes about its work, secure in its place in the larger tradition, serving its chosen form with no small humility and grace.
I know which one I’d prefer to go for a drink with.
“Watchfulness is the path of immortality: unwatchfulness is the path of death. Those who are watchful never die: those who do not watch are already as dead.”
Dunno bout you, but if someone’s gonna almost name their debut after a Cramps classic, they’d better have their chops together.
And The Dead Weather most assuredly do. This foursome comes to the party dripping pedigree: Jack White (little intro needed), Alison Mosshart from The Kills, Dean Fertita from QOTSA and Raconteur Jack Lawrence.
Horehound may have been recorded in three weeks in Nashville, but we’re not letting the Motor City thing go, for although McKinley Morganfield and Chester Burnett traipsed the songlines from the Delta up the Mississippi to Chicago whereupon they were transformed through the Tesla coil magic of electric blues into Muddy and Wolf, John Lee Hooker took another route: from Clarksdale to Memphis to Dee-troit.
That holy trinity of psycho-geographical hotpoints gives you Horehound’s main musical co-ordinates. The record fairly oozes industrial black snake moan, while also mating garage fractiousness with late 60s blues explosioneers such as the Cream, the Yardbirds and Led Zep. Yep, plenty of hot and sweaty Zeppelinesque action here. The opening ‘60 Feet Tall’ comes on like a cross between ‘Dazed And Confused’, ‘Crawling King Snake’ and a slowed down, dirtied up version of Nick & the Bad Seeds’ ‘Jack The Ripper’, while tracks like ‘Treat Me Like Your Mother’ investigate the relationship between Bonzo-powered Physical Graffiti funk and the kind of big beat promulgated by, I dunno, the Chemical Brothers?
If this all sounds suspiciously like the kind of lurid voodoo PJ trafficked circa To Bring You My Love, well, you wouldn’t be far wrong. Their reworking of Dylan’s ‘New Pony’ (swear to god I didn’t recognise it) could’ve been tossed into Harvey’s lurid pink catsuit set at Glastonbury ’95 and no one would’ve noticed the difference.
Horehound definitely cleaves to rhythm rather than melody – you won’t catch your friendly neighbourhood mailman whistling any of these numbers, although they might just approximate the sound of his skillet-sizzling brain as the silicon chip inside his head switches to overload and he goes postal.
The main thing is, the quartet can play the bejesus out of this stuff. The rhythm section is samurai standard, and while White mightn’t have stretched his songwriting instincts too far this time out, his production and performance skills are pretty much beyond reproach. Plus, he always has a ball when he’s got a foil to play off, particularly one as Morticia-magnetic as Mosshart. Listen to the way they trade licks, nips and bites on ‘I Cut Like A Buffalo’. Fun, and not a million miles away from this year’s wonderful debut by Joe Gideon and the Shark.
They’re good with mood too. ‘Rocking Horse’ is a Mexarcana Calexico mambo with shimmery guitar, demonic day of the dead vocal and blistering Spanish solo. Here, and on the spooky ‘3 Birds’, the band name makes total sense. The air is malevolent, oppressive, thick with suppressed violence, a boiler about to explode.
… and found El Cohen at the O2, and were not disappointed.
Dance Me to the End of Love, In My Secret Life, A Thousand Kisses Deep, The Partisan, Who By Fire, Take This Waltz, If It Be Your Will… need we go on?
Review soonest.
Meanwhile, a recent NY Times profile.
