rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

Status Report: Byrnes & Buster's Notes From the Road

     Hey everybody! Sorry it's been a while. Check didn't come in until today (4/28/05) and, as such have been landlocked and away from computers. Me and Buster are fine, stayying w/Kenny from the legendary band Flashback and looking for work. Blockbuster laid me off before I got started and a friend offerrede and then withdrew a landscaping gig. Looks like I'll be telemarketing again soon and will have my own digs within a month. Miss talking to everybody and don't have much time but wanted to touch base. Will be back soon w/more news as the universe further unfolds. Love you all,'tb

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:31 | link | comments (3)

Punk Rock Blues Sighting Alert

     Gotta write this quick, I'm at the Library in my new (old) hometown and Jervis the Goat has to check his email. Punk Rock Blues is back in action and will be blathering on about bands you haven't thought of in years as soon as it (I) can. Made it home safe and sound and wanted to give a shout out to all the cyber friends who helped me get through the whole Denver Debacle halfway sane.

     To moonglow, thanks for being my muse and allowing me a window into yr world. To Leigh, thanks for being a laughing voice in a dark night of an old soul, To Limine, thanks for being as crazy as me and so very, very fearless. Howard, thanks for giving hope and tech support. To Carl, thanks for being my manager and almost conscience. To Dorf, Woggy, Steve, Dennis, Bereal, MF, Tim, Elle etc.and anyone who I forgot at the DAmb, thanks for a great time and I hope to see you all at Dorf's after the big game. To Jim Muglia, thanks for being my dark side (and if you only knew how much trouble that means yr in). To the audiorri - thanks for absolutely nothing.

     Got work to do but will be back soon. Thanks to everyone who reads and writes and became the motime community, friends in deed. Thanks for letting me in.

     Oh yeah.... punk rock.... uh, uh . 'Flowers of Romance' by Pil. Buy it today.

tb

Posted by: timbyrnes at 18:55 | link | comments (6)

 I Feel Like I’m in a Burning Building: Laurie Anderson’s Prayer for Peace

    Back in the 80’s, amidst the hurley burley  flash of the hair bands and the spiffy fey postures of the New Romantics, there stood an artist of quiet un-definability. Laurie Anderson was called, in an effort to pigeon hole the vastness of her work, a performance artist. She described herself as ‘a girl who plays violin and tells stories’, which as good an overall description of this woman’s amazing catalog of art. A body of work that spans the last 25 years and continues to this day. I first became aware of the phenomenon known as Laurie Anderson in 1981 while half watching a late night video show at my sister’s house in the small mountain town of Idaho Springs, Colorado. Me and my sister and a few friends were playing spades and drinking beer when I suddenly heard a strange chant coming from the television…

"ha", it said, "ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...."
    It was ‘O Superman’, of course, Laurie’s breakthrough single that brought the New York City avant garde into the homes of America. A vocoded, spoken word lament over the timeless theme of humanity’s love/hate relationship with technology, along with vague references to mom, dad and American planes (made in America). A cunning pastiche of Mark Twain hominess and Huxleyan futurism, ‘O Superman’ became the strangest single to ever reach #2 on the British pop charts. Prophets being without honor in their own country, the single never made it here. But Anderson then enjoyed, as she still does, a very devoted cult following and one well deserved. Laurie’s work has the NYC hipness ( and Laurie’s the voice of NYC, literally: she wrote the NYC entry in the Encyclopedia Brittanica)  that all cool cats and kittens aspire to, with none of the cloying, nihilistic reverie that sent Richard (to) Hell.
     ‘O Superman’ was originally part of a larger piece called ‘United States I-IV’, a monumental performance piece spread over 4 nights at the Academy of Music in Manhattan (and released as a 5 record set in 1983, later re-released on a 2 CD set) that established Anderson as a force to be reckoned with, if not categorized. Her 1982 album ‘Big Science’ (which included the single ‘O Superman’) is a record of peaceful, meditative pieces that, at close listening reveal an artist trying to explain the world to herself and, by extension, to all of us. Most pieces are based on 2 chord, midterm changes, played on string section sounding synthesizers or Anderson’s violin. Loops of handclaps and, of course, ‘ha’, serve as a rhythm section that approaches the beating of a human heart. I’ve always thought that was Anderson’s greatest strength: making the most human of music with the most electronic of equipment.
    Far from the sterile, one could say soulless  throb of electronica then and now, Anderson’s work, all drum machines and MIDI sequences (combined with musicians as varied as percussionist David Van Tiegham, guitarist Adrian Belew and jazz bagpiper Rufus Harley) never lost the human element. There’s always a person searching for something amongst the twists and turns and robotic sweeps of this woman’s work. After ‘Big Science’ came ‘Mr. Heartbreak’, a more band oriented record than ‘Science’. Of course this band had a vocal cameo by William S Burrough’s so we’re not exactly talking Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band here.
    Which brings me to the present. Well, almost. There’s been a great deal of music by Laurie Anderson released between then and now and I urge you all to check it out, but the record I want to speak of was released in May of 2003 but recorded on September 19-21, 2001. ‘Laurie Anderson Live in New York’ was recorded at New York’s Town Hall just a week after 9/11. Dedicated, by Anderson, to peace, it contains songs from her, at the time, most recent record ‘Life on a String’ but also includes re-arranged versions of songs from ‘Big Science’. Songs like ‘O Superman’ which sings lines like ‘…here come the planes. They’re American planes. Made in America.’ and ‘Let X=X’ which contains the line “I feel like I’m in a burning building and I’ve got to go’. Both lines, among others, I’m sure, absorbed a new resonance in those early days after the WTC tragedy and I’m not going to burden you with mine. It’s just that I feel that Laurie Anderson’s bravery in not canceling the show so soon after 9/11 and not censoring her music in order to ‘spare’ anyone the experience of thinking about airplanes and burning buildings showed a respect for her art and her audience’s intelligence that, to my mind, far surpasses the feel good jingoism of Springs teen’s ‘The Rising’, released over a year after the fact and offering such platitudes as ‘It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright.’
    In 2003, Laurie Anderson was named NASA’s 1st ‘artist in residence’. I can think of no better person to represent art in the 21st century. Recent works have included a stage showe based on ‘Moby Dick’ and an installation about imprisonment where she sent the image of an actual prisoner, holographic ally to wander in a garden in Montreal. Words cannot describe the depth and breadth of Laurie Anderson’s work so I urge you to find out for yrself, so words can fail you, too.

To find more info go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Anderson
                                                                                                                                                  
                                 And     http://www.laurieanderson.com

        For more info/video          http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/anderson/ 

Posted by: timbyrnes at 01:34 | link | comments (2)

 The Flaming Lips: Laughing in the Face of Depth

     I was flipping through channels on the old tv last night and stopped suddenly on PBS (again). What stopped me was the sight of Wayne Coyne, face splattered w/stage blood, wearing an American flag like a cape, duetting w/Cat Power on a letter perfect version of Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’.
     Is it just me or has Austin City Limits gotten a LOT hipper recently?
    Anyway, I brought that remote control to a screeching halt and caught the last 15 minutes of a gloriously manic set by America’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band, The Flaming Lips. Bringing out a sax player, the boys played an achingly beautiful rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, Coyne singing in that altar boy soprano, stage blood still on his face and now trademark white suit jacket. As  Steven Drodz played counter melody on his cheapo Casio and Michael Ivins thrummed bass and  Kliph Scurlock pounded drums (letter perfect, btw, on the aforementioned ‘War Pigs’) and Dave Fridman banged all Sonic Youth-like on Coyne’s old Jazzmaster, Coyne himself melded his wild theremin  with the sax player and brought the house down. Confetti flew as they then tore into their ‘hit’ ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’. With bunny suited (complete w/heads) roadies dancing on stage , huge balloons being bounced about the stage and audience, the Lips created a high mass of merriment rarely seen on a rock stage where lately all the rage is all the rage.
    The Flaming Lips have never been a band to do the currently hip thing, though. Over the course of 20 years and 11 records (and one compilation) the Lips have morphed, regrouped and reinvented themselves more times than a busload of David Bowies. Starting off as a self-proclaimed ‘Death Rock’ band. Coyne and company have evolved into a Merry Prankster roadshow part circus part live anime fever dream. Singing matter of factly about matters of fiction, although always coming from a loving heart, this band confounds any, let alone easy, categorization.
    Starting with their self-titled, self-released 1985 debut, the Flaming Lips were a fairly standard punk band, although the follow up, 1986’s ‘Hear It Is’ (Restless) showed the boys edging into the noisy symphonies that would characterize their mid period. Finally ‘hitting it big’ with 1993’s ‘Transmission From the Satellite Heart’, with the single ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’ the Lips came into their own. Quirky, rocking and sounding like nothing but themselves.
    It was, however, in 1997 w/’Zaireeka’ that the Flaming Lips staked their claim to rock and roll legend. ‘Zaireeka’ is a 4 CD set. Sure, lots of band have 4 CD sets, but how many of them were designed to be played simultaneously on 4 separate CD players? You guessed it. Just his one. A monumental undertaking,, and not just a publicity stunt ala ‘Metal Machine Music’ (a great, great record, but something of a stunt none the less), ‘Zaireeka’s charms are many and otherworldly. Perhaps the most intriguing record ever made, certainly the most interactive (play just Disc One. Play Disc One and Three. Four and Two. Two, Three and Four. Start simultaneously -each track has a spoken announcement to help cueing- let the time lag. The possibilities are almost endless) ‘Zaireeka’ stuns and smokes and glows and damn near levitates.
    If only for this record, the Flaming Lips deserve to be carried around in sedan chairs for the rest of their lives (Not really, rock and roll being a populist artform and all, but you get my drift ). This is the kind of outside the box (set) thinking that will save rock and roll from the slag heap of dead arts. This type of sonic bravery/foolishness will mark the rock and roller as more than a bad haircut making strange noises. Since the release of that record, the Flaming Lips have put out a compilation of their early music, the beguiling ‘The Soft Bulletin’, (a kinder, gentler ‘Zaireeka’ to my ears) and the magnificent ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots’ a sweet geek fest of science fiction doo wop anthems and my pick for 1st masterpiece of the 21st century so far.
    Death songs w/confetti and mirror balls, animal costumes and theremin shrieks. Welcome to the Blade Runner Happy Birthday House.
    

For more info, concise history and just a ton of cool stuff go to: http://www.flaminglips.com/main.php

Posted by: timbyrnes at 09:42 | link | comments (2)

 
Punk’s Promise Kept: Green Day Swing For The Fences

    Ok, I’m coming late to this. Green Day’s  ‘American Idiot’ CD has already won the Best Rock Album Grammy award, and all the knee jerk cries of ‘sellout’ that that kind of mainstream success calls forth from the ‘my punk rock can beat up yr punk rock’ brigade. I don’t care. Just saw the band performing their ‘punk rock opera’ on VH1’s Storytellers (again, can’t get much more mainstream than that, again, I don’t care) and I was floored.
    A little history:
    About 10 years ago I was celebrating my 40th birthday by playing guitar in the punkiest punk band I could find in Greely, Colorado, Six Foot Savage. 3 20 year olds and me making loud, loud noise while our singer Plungerboy screamed about cutting peoples heads off, getting sick and dipping handkerchiefs in his own vomit etc etc, all the while tripping on acid and screaming like his balls were on fire. One night at rehearsal I, trying to seem hip (something of an avocation w/me, pathetic I know, so shoot me), I mentioned that I really liked this band Green Day, who’s ‘Longview video I had seen for the 1st time that morning.
    The guys all started hemming and hawing and eventually informed me that Green Day ‘used to be cool, but are kinda lame and not really punk rock’. Plungerboy made me a tape of there earlier records ‘Kerplunk’  and the one w/a number in it’s title that I forget. I liked the tape alright, but when I finally bought ‘Dookie’ (their million selling major label debut that apparently gave birth to ‘mall core’ and the whole neo-pop-punk movement which includes bands like Blink 182, Sum 41, Good Charlotte and all the bands one’s little sister likes and are not ‘REAL’ punk, whatever that is..) it didn’t leave my car’s tape player for months. I still think it’s one of the best records of the 1990’s. No, it’s Buzzcockian rhymes and rhythms didn’t break any new ground like My Bloody Valentine or anything, but it’s voice of suburban ennui and smart ass sense of humor spoke more accurately and benevolently to, and for, a generation of displaced, marginalized teenagers than that of Saint Cobain, he of the sacred shotgun and the failure flown like a flag. Dookie was/is just plain fun to listen to. OK?
    I missed their next record ‘Insomnia’ but picked up ‘Nimrod’ and found it’s auto-tune, pitch corrected production cold and uninteresting and basically wrote Green Day off as a one CD wonder, which is, to me, a badge of punk rock honor. Get in, do it right, get out (see: Pistols, Sex). I, of course heard ‘Good Riddance’ all over the radio and thought it was a nice single. Innocuously pleasant and there’s no worse curse for a punk record than that.
    The last 10 years flew by. Can it really be that Green Day are now ‘elder statesmen’ of punk? Wow, but yes. And with ‘American Idiot’, the boys shake off all accusations of innocuous pleasantry and have produced a throw down record that digs deeper than the boredom and apathetic will to entitlement that marks most punk records (and most punk writing) as little more than whining. Billy Joe Armstrong has written a record of strength and stylistic pastiche worth of some unholy cross of John Lydon and Brian Wilson. Touching on songs as disparate as Mott the Hoople’s  ( Sigh, now THERE was a band) ‘All the Young Dudes’, Peter Gabriel’s ‘Biko’ and the Sex Pistols’ ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ in it’s entirety, Green Day have carved out a monumental work of brute force with a melodic heart and an unflinching brain that is more than just a rant about living in a world one didn’t make. Billy Joe‘s songwriting has taken on a new stature w/this record by virtue of his daring to be great, a punk trait not seen since Billy Corgan shaved his head in Smashing Pumpkins, although he wound up continuing to whine, just with much, much bigger guitars (and when that failed, keyboards, and then guitars again and then… and then…).
    With  ‘American Idiot”, Armstrong takes on (among other things) the failure of our political system to address the children of America, who have been left to their own devices, armed only with the neglect of a consumer culture that sees them as little more than profit bases.  With songs like ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ and ‘Homecoming” punk grows up. Armstrong takes that giant and essential step past simply complaining into the realm of self responsibility. And it rocks. And rolls. And swings. And sways. And swoons. It can make you play air guitar w/tears in yr eyes.
    If you don’t already own it buy it today. I know I’m going to.
    Sid, you have been avenged. Sleep easy, old man.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 18:52 | link | comments (5)

 Here Comes A Regular: Sky Captain in the World of Tomorrow

    Karol Wojtyla sprang to his feet amidst mist and a big, big light. His mind was filled with the kind of immediate hyper awareness that comes when waking suddenly, knowing that yr late for an important appointment. His mind was clear. He had sprung to his feet. He looked down to see that he was dressed in the old clothes of youth, he felt maybe 17. He felt good. He looked around him, didn’t recognize the road he was on.
    The mists rose lightly at his feet and the big, big light shone down on him from what felt like the east, so he walked towards it. The  mists cleared some and buildings came into view. A small café with tables outside, two men sitting at one smiled and waved. It couldn’t be, but it was. He was back in Wadowice, young again and happy.
    He ran to the table, his long, strong and certain. The two men stood, arms outstretched in welcome. Karol ran into the arms of the taller of the two. Hugging the man hard, Karol gently wept w/happiness because he knew, he just somehow magically knew that this man was St Peter and that this café was indeed the gates of heaven. The other man, a colorfully dresses black man with wide, loving eyes, stood to the side with a beatific smile toking on the biggest spliff Karol had ever seen.
    Peter clasped Karol on the shoulders, silently bidding him to sit. The other man, Jimi Hendrix, passed the spliff to Karol who accepted and sat down, blissfully happy and hyper aware.
    The waiter, the same waiter from Karol’s youth came with a tray bearing bread and wine. The three men broke bread and drank wine but no one spoke of blood or body. No one spoke of  empire. No one spoke of mission or a holy see. They spoke of the theatre. They spoke of old friends.  As Karol was new to the ways of Heaven, Peter and Jimi told him where the best places were. Where his parents were. No one mentioned Jesus as he was in all their hearts and thus in everything .
    There was beer. There would be women. There was an abiding sense of love and peace. There were no vestments, bankers, lawyers or curia. There was nothing but 3 men enjoying each others company in a well deserved forever.

    Peace be to Karol Wyjtola, wherever he may roam.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:13 | link | comments