Apocalypse Pod (The last few songs before the whole sh*t-house goes down in flames)
Stand alone and greet the coming night/in the last remaining light…
A couple of years back, I was featured in Pulp’s “The Hour That Changed My Life” section through Joey Dizon. If I were to make a mixed tape (or, in this case, an iPod playlist) for planet Earth’s final hour, what were the songs that I’d record (or, or in these curiouser days, download) for uneasy listening purposes. A nifty idea. Imagine, as all collapsing cities go up in sinister black smoke, or as the Whore of Babylon slouches across Bethlehem, you’d hear Gram Parsons sing hallelujah for that mysterious she, or hear Leonard Cohen croon about dancing to the end of love, and think this: It has been a hell of a ride, see you on the next trip, so long and thanks for all the fish.
Joey asked me to answer this: What is my definition of a great song?
Here’s my answer: “Well, what makes a great song, anyway? Great songs (like great poems, great novels or great paintings) communicate themselves first before they are understood. We don’t have an idea what Bob Dylan means when he sings, “The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face,” but we dig it because it evokes nameless, ineffable feelings. Try pondering upon the lyrics of Tom Waits or early REM. Baffling, yes, but you can detect the thread of sadness that links singers and listeners, links everyone on this fake plastic planet.” All is one and one is all.
Looking at the list now, I can’t believe how much of it has changed, and how much of it hasn’t. These days, very few relatively new bands scream of genius and originality that would make you run to the record stores to get your hands on freshly-minted releases. (Except of course for the Mars Volta, Field Music and Elbow, which are astonishingly inventive in their musical and lyrical approaches. Radioactive Sago Project from our own shores.) I have the latest Kings of Leon somewhere in my apartment. Sealed as the day I bought it.
Bands, there are simply too damn many. Every band and their mothers, it would seem, have uploaded entire albums on MySpace or on other networking sites. Record labels have been rendered inutile. Listeners have to suffer The Revenge of the Eighties (the sound, the vibe, the hair!). Throwbacks sell. Tribute bands flourish. The likes of Lady Gaga lord it over as the new rock royalty. Iggy Pop killed rock ‘n’ roll by appearing on American Idol. (If they manage to get Johnny Rotten, we’re clearly f*cked.) And no — whomever this observation came from — Taylor Swift is not the new Morrissey.
“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”
There is no joy in Mudville.
But some days, when you’re flicking through the Internet radio, or just randomly clicking on YouTube posts, or watching a slew of bands at B-Side in Malugay, and hear an unknown band rip through their set with aplomb, it reminds you of the day you first heard a song that would stay with you for the rest of your life — to keep the Blues away, leave your Soul intact, make your world go Pop, and all that Jazz.
Love is short. Forgetting is long. A great song will last forever and ever and resonate until we see and hear the closing credits of our world: It may be a fat opera singer singing a Morbid Angel song turned into a sad, sad Italian aria. Or it maybe Bob Dylan-gone-electric. Or anything, anything, by The Boredoms.
Here are a couple of great songs that are ghosted with that strange electricity:
1
Three Days
Jane’s Addiction
‘Ritual de lo Habitual’
This is Jane’s Addiction’s trippy and twisted Stairway to Heaven. It begins with a Greyhound bus ride in the morning — meeting Erotic Jesus and his Marys along the way — and ends up in an orgy of wings, shadows and three lovers in three ways.
2
Just Like Suicide
Soundgarden
‘Superunknown’
“She lived like a murder but she died just like suicide.” Makes perfect sense. I love the existential dread in Soundgarden songs such as this and The Day I Tried To Live. Another favorite is Chris Cornell’s Preaching the End of the World, where you could imagine the guy in front of a computer, going into an online chat room, and posting his view on the Apocalypse.
3
Om
John Coltrane
‘Om’
John Coltane’s Om is a sprawling track that is 28 minutes and 58 seconds long (which use up a good chunk of my allotted hour… oh well) and occupies two sides of a long-playing record. Just a single track filled with litanies, crackles, cries, foreboding beats and sobering saxophone truths.
4
Miles Runs the Voodoo Down
Miles Davis
‘Bitches Brew’
In which Miles Davis blows melodic fire, regurgitating the music of Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and Sly Stone into an epic track with evil, evil rhythms. When you listen to Miles or Coltrane, you get the urge to do something. Either smash things up or start a fire — metaphorically, of course.
5
Happy?
Public Image Ltd.
I’m a big fan of punk and the Pistols, but I love PIL to death if only for the “Happy?” single and the incredible musicians (would you believe Tony Williams, Ginger Baker and Steve Vai?) who did sessions for PIL albums. Johnny Rotten once claimed that Miles Davis told him, “You sing the way I play the trumpet.” Probably bollocks, but that’s why Rotten’s king and he’s not forgotten.
6
Free Jazz
Ornette Coleman
‘Free Jazz (A Collective Improvisation)’
It is the sonic equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting — spontaneous, transcendent, wild, free, shapeless, stubborn and proud. Made me realize music can be abstract and difficult, yet remain evocative and moving. Ornette prepared me for John Cage and Stockhausen later on.
7
So Long, Mickey Mouse
Return to Forever
‘RTF Live’
Stanley Clarke’s bass, Chick Corea’s Moog and Rhodes, and blistering chord changes. More Mickey Mouse acid drops than Disney Mickey.
8
Aja
Steely Dan
‘Aja’
Steely Dan made me realize that songs can be as literary as any short story by Charles Bukowski or any other author with hallucinogenic writings about everyday life. The songs of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are infested with gentlemen losers, midnight cruisers and Babylon sisters. Rich in irony. Aja is essential. Dig Larry Carlton’s Zen guitar, Wayne Shorter’s transcendent sax, and angular banjoes somewhere.
9
Ribcage
Elbow
‘Cast of Thousands’
This band is a thousand times better than Coldplay, yet isn’t as celebrated. Elbow’s lyrics are as morose and melancholy as Pink Floyd’s. Quiet desperation is also Elbow’s way. When I first heard Ribcage I got inspired to paint a guy “pulling his ribs apart to let the sunshine inside.” Still creeps people out.
10
Vertical Invader / T. H. / Dr. Honoris Causa
Weather Report
‘I Sing the Body Electric’
Howard Moon of The Mighty Boosh loves Weather Report. So do a lot of jazz geeks such as me. Although my favorite Weather Report phase is when bassist Jaco Pastorius joined Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter and recorded the seminal “Black Market” and “Heavy Weather,” I always go back to this track recorded live with an intro by a Japanese announcer.
11
Refuge of the Roads
Joni Mitchell
‘Hejira’
This is Joni’s finest travelogue counterpointed by Jaco’s bass.
12
Innocent When You Dream
Tom Waits
‘Frank’s Wild Years’
Tom Waits proves that you can have a voice that seems to be coming out of the belly of a dead, dried-up land yet still sing the best ballad in the world.
13
Did I Ever Tell You About The Man That Taught His Asshole To Talk
William S. Burroughs
‘Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales’
Recorded with the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, this spoken-word album literally changed my life. I was thinking of going into Law after college, but after reading Burroughs’ books and listening to this CD I was convinced I wanted to be, not a manager of sewers, but a writer and to write my way out of the emptiest of feelings. After all these years I still suck at writing, though. Maybe, I thought, I could get into another field. Even so Naked Lunch and Spare Ass Annie would still be my guiding light. Got drunk one night, played the Burroughs CD, and started to paint.
The rest is mystery.
* * *
Special thanks to Pulp and Joey Dizon.
