Wearing my Foghat, Dreaming of Clouds

I like the whirling of the dervishes

The air is thinner here.

And colder.

The car sputters, climbing slowly up the long, steep hill.

There's no fog in the valley, the valley is clear.

But it lingers in the mountains.

And the little car, underpowered, struggles in the climbing lane. Bigger cars whiz be. Trucks strain to pass, pushing 30 mph, faster than us.

"When we get into the fog," I say, "it'll be all right."

She nods. Uncertain. Afraid of the little car. And the big load. And the fog.

Still we climb.


Kate Bush seemed to arrive fully formed. She was discovered by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour (who'd produce her first album, the hauntingly beautiful The Kick Inside) when she was 16. Her first single "Wuthering Heights" was written in a single evening. And her style, vocal abilities, and sensibilities were nothing like any singer or songwriter who'd come before.

Bush would go on to rack up massive chart success and inspire a devoted following that worshipped her every move and obsessed over the Meaning of It All. She drew inspiration from novels, movies, and the fine arts.

She seemed like she was from another planet. But she'd brought an important message with her to Earth. All we had to do was listen. And understand.


The fog closes around the car, bringing with it an eerie near-silence. Broken only by the cars that pass, unseen but heard.

The car slows from 25 to 20.

I glance in the rear-view, looking at the backseat for ballast we can throw overboard.

Instead, we start singing songs about the sea. Songs to guide sailors home in the harshest storms.

And the car sputters again. The gas gauge seems to drop second by second.

I wonder what will stop us first -- running out of steam or running out of gas.

The car slows to 15.

And I look up at the mountain.

There's sunlight. And snow.

For a few seconds we break through the fog.

The car seems energized, speeding back up to 20.

On the side of the road, a pair of eyes emerges through the fog. A wolf, watching us slowly move forward. Wondering what we're doing in his house.

Water crystals. Suspended in air. That's all it is.

"There's a magic in the fog," she says.

A magic.

In the fog.

And the car speeds up to 25 again.

Then coughs, sputters, and catches itself.

"We're in the fog now," I say. "Deep in the fog."

"So it will be all right."

And we say nothing for a moment. Until the little car pulls us up to the summit. Far above the valley.

The bigger mountains seem to smile at us from on high.

She smiles at me from the passenger seat. "And it will be all right."

The little car, overloaded, overpacked, crammed full, starts the long, slow, slide downhill.

And we know that we, like the raindrops suspended in the air, have crossed an important dividing line. And we will flow out to the ocean.

And every mile of the way there, we'll bring our own magic. And we'll bring our own fog.

One From Column John & One From Column Paul

Back to the Beatles.

With a major hat-tip to the amazing Beatle-obsessed Hey Dullblog, here are two Beatle-related items:

A 1999 interview with Jack Douglas, producer of John & Yoko's Double Fantasy album. Among the amazing facts -- Paul McCartney called the studio during the recording sessions; he and John were planning to get together to write songs together, but Yoko made sure John didn't get the message. (This is interesting in light of another report that John was supposed to come to New Orleans to work with Paul on the Venus & Mars album in 1975, but Yoko became pregnant and vetoed the idea.)

Speaking of Paul McCartney, Geoff Geis, has put together something he calls "Fast RAM" or "Ram on 45." The concept is simple as Geis explains: "My buddy Dan C proposed that people in the era of Ram were so drugged-out that slow music appealed to them more." So he recorded McCartney's Ram album at 45rpm instead of 33 1/3. And the results are surprisingly fun and entertaining. Check it out here.

Surely this is why the Internet was invented!

Updated: Commenter David pointed out that, in the comments to Geoff Geis' blog entry, commenter Alan Benard pitch-corrected the Fast RAM to be less chipmunky. You can hear (or download) the pitch-corrected first side here.

The Moment of Inception

A brief aside... back to the music tomorrow

No major spoilers... but this will probably make more sense if you've already seen Inception.

Now Inception is not the best movie ever made. Not by a long shot. But it may be the best movie ever made for a mass audience.

Even if you haven't seen the movie, you probably know something about it. You may have seen the trailers or heard your friends talking about it. You've probably seen the couple sitting outside the cafe as their physical world literally explodes around them. You've heard that it's about dreams. And dreams within dreams. And the dreams within dreams within them.

You may even think the movie is about lucid dreaming, going into other people's dreams, and creating dreamscapes. Hell, you might have heard that the plot involves manipulating a man who's inheriting a huge corporate empire to make him sell off certain key assets.

You may know that the movie deals with the nature of reality and the dangers tof not being able to distinguish between reality and dreaming (or, worse still, when deciding you'd rather live in a dream world than in the real world).

And the movie touches on all those things.

But that's not what it's about.

Sure, Leonardo Dicaprio lays out all sorts of rules about how this process works. (But then he breaks most of them.)

And there's something about Leo's wife and a dark secret in his past. And Ellen Page. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who has to be Timothy Hutton's son, no matter what anyone tells you).

But that's not the core of this movie.

And it's not a perfect movie. The balance between over-explaining things and creating an incomprehensible Vanilla Sky mush is off. And (aside from Dicaprio) none of the characters has enough depth. And the team's skills and character flaws don't come into play as strongly in the dreamworlds as they could. And some of the setups aren't paid off very well.

But...

None of that matters.

Because that's not what the movie's about.

This is a movie about making movies. Or, to put it another way, it's a movie about what storytelling is and what it means.

The key moment in the movie might be when Page asks how someone can design a dreamscape that's realistic enough to draw the dreamer in. Dicaprio tells her (and I'm paraphrasing here) that details aren't important -- what matters is to set up the general framework and then make the dream emotionally powerful. After that, the dreamer will fill in the details and bring his own take to the dreamscape.

The plot plays out in a series of twists and turns in the movie, punctuated by breathtaking visuals. Like Dicaptrio, writer/director Christopher Nolan sets up a series of rules for his worlds and then gleefully and purposefully breaks most of them.

Because it doesn't matter.

In the very last scene of the movie, something extraordinary happens.

After the roller-coaster ride of the plot has mostly played out, there's one last thread that Nolan has to tie up. And that thread is far more important than any of the chase scenes or the exploding worlds, or the struggles with the bad guys. I promised no major spoilers, so I won't give away what the scene is (or what it may or may not mean).

And anyway, what exactly happens is not what the scene is about. And ultimately, not what the movie is about.

Everyone who watches that final scene will overlay it with his or her experiences, triumphs, disappointments, and desires.

And that's what matters.

Forget what the final scene is or isn't showing you.

Take care of the emotional response and the dreamers will fill in the details themselves.

The brilliance of Inception is that, in that final scene, the audience has an amazing, strong, shared emotional response that is palpable. The details can fade away (and you can leave the theater and over-analyze and over-intellectualize what specifically that final scene means), but what's left is a powerful emotion. The yearning. The wanting.

The emotional response that's more important than minor flaws in the plot or the characters.

And isn't creating that powerful emotional response what great storytelling is all about?

A Lot Like You and An Awful Lot Like Me

The Strike No One Knew About

After 15 years of a bad deal with Virgin Records (which the band didn't renegotiate when they had songs on the charts), XTC delivered Nonsuch in 1991.

The album was gorgeous -- combining their love of lush, nearly orchestral pop with catchy hook-driven rock songs. Like Mummer, it was reflective. Like Oranges and Lemons it had twitchy psychedelic songs. Like Skylarking, it had dense, sweet moments. And like every album they ever made, it had lyrics that would melt the heart of English Majors all over America.

Fans loved it. Critics compared it to Revolver and Pet Sounds.

And the album even had a few great videos -- like this one (which I literally saw for the first time four days ago).


Another terrific album that should have made XTC superstars.

And another terrific album that didn't make XTC superstars.

Frustrated by Virgin's inability to bring the band to the next level, XTC asked to be released from their contract. Virgin refused.

And then the band did something that was either very smart or very stupid. They went on strike.

But it was the 1990s... and there was an internet, but not like today's internet.

So almost no one knew they were on strike.

And, since the band hadn't toured since Andy Partridge's onstage meltdown a decade earlier, there was no way for fans to stay connected to the band.

Andy Partridge and company were stubborn -- so they waited out the record company (even reportedly taking day jobs at a car rental agency for a while), recorded a series of amazing demos and plotted their next move -- a double album with one record that rocked out and a second record that was mellower and featured an orchestra.

It took nearly a decade to get released from Virgin. By that time, relationships within the band were severely strained. To generate revenue to pay to finish recording, the band decided to break up the double album -- releasing one record first and the second a year or so later. Guitarist/keyboardist Dave Gregory wanted to thunder back with a rocking electric album that would thrill longtime fans. But Andy insisted the orchestral disc should come out first; Andy won the argument and Apple Venus was released in 1999. But in the process, he lost Gregory, who quit the band shortly before the electric album was finished. Andy and bassist Colin Moulding finished the second album themselves (Gregory had already recorded guitar parts for most but not all of the songs) and Wasp Star came out in 2000.

Both were great, but the band (if you could call Andy and Colin a band) couldn't build on the momentum. Andy announced plans to release a series of XTC demos, calling the project Fuzzy Warbles, but Colin moved and didn't give Andy his new address or phone number. So Fuzzy Warbles instead became a series of Andy Partridge demos (with a few songs featuring the whole band).

And XTC just faded away. A few years later, Andy admitted what every XTC fan had long feared: the band was defunct.

Maybe the strike went on too long. Maybe the group had just run its course.

All I know is that XTC should have been superstars. Many times over.

Need some proof? Let's begin...

Never Say Hello

Familiar, but a bit off

The phone rang and I grabbed it. No hello, no introductory small talk. Just "So I accidentally lit my underwear on fire."

Because she never said hello. And she never bothered introducing anything. Everything was now, everything was tumbled up together, everything was a continuation at 100 miles per hour.

And you had your choice: jump on and keep up or jump off and escape.

There was always a reason to whatever crazy thing she said. If you stuck around. If you unpacked it.

She was lighting a candle. In the bathroom. Where her underwear was drying. And the dog knocked the candle over. Knocked it to the floor. But it didn't go out. It lit things on fire.

Things like underwear. And magazines. And maybe her roommate's hash supply.

This was normal. This was how she lived. This was what you had to expect.

The other choice was exile. And you didn't want the exile.

Because it felt good to be part of the circle. One of the ones who'd get the phone calls. Rush to catch up to the insane stories that started in the middle and worked their way in all directions.

The outside was crowded. With exiles who'd never light their underwear on fire, either by accident or on purpose.


Long periods of silence would follow the calls. And then the next call, again starting in the middle as if no time had past.

"So the state trooper wanted me to crush grapes with my feet with him, but I said I'd rather take the ticket," she said. No warm-up, no windup, just the pitch.

And God help you if you weren't ready.

Why would the state trooper want you to join him in crushing grapes with his feet?

That question could never be asked. Or, more accurately, it could only be asked once. Then, immediate exile.

"I shot a bullet hole through my igloo and I need it fixed in the next 20 minutes before the temperature gets down past 40 below."

But how do you know you've been exiled?

"I dreamt you were haunting me after death. So I need you to do a pre-emptive exorcism of yourself."

What's the difference between exile and the long months of silences?

"I know I told you if I were an animal, I'd be a gazelle, but I just realized I'm really a limur."

And how long is her list anyway? How many people does she cycle through before she calls you back again?

"I was just at Starbucks in line behind Ben Vereen and I realized I'd always gotten him confused with Bette Midler."

And where does reality end and fantasy start with her? Certainly not at the same place as with normal people.

So, one day I got a voicemail. "I'm heading into the mountains and the mist is clinging to the peaks like a lovesick teenager. And it's so beautiful I want to cry. But I can't because the mountain goats are looking intently for any sign of weakness."

And I thought long and hard about what really counts as normal.

Then I called her back. But the number had been disconnected.

And the long period of silence began again. Familiar, but different.

Producers with Computers Fix All My Shitty Tracks

Eleanor had a weakness.

She loved guitar players.

It didn't matter what type of guitar or what style -- electric, acoustic, classical, jazz, fuzzed-out garage. She loved them all.

"Some girls like flowers and moonlit nights," she told me once. "All I need is the sound of strings being tuned."

And for years, she'd date guitarist after guitarist. Punk rockers, power poppers, jazzbos. Each and every one would break her heart.

And then one day, she met a guy who played piano. Poorly.

She said he made her laugh. Made her feel like she was the only woman in the world. And he'd tell her stories about far-away places. "This is progress," she told all her friends.

And we agreed -- it was progress.


I wish I could tell you that Eleanor stayed with the untalented piano player. But she didn't.

One night she dragged him with her to an Eric Clapton concert. He couldn't help but notice that Eleanor was transfixed by the solos.

She sighed as fingers moved up and down the fretboard. She moaned as whammy bars made the axe scream. And she screamed as notes came hot and heavy like they were being spit out of a Tommy Gun in a 1930s gangster movie.

It was like the guitar was calling out to her and her alone.

She and the bad piano player broke up a week later.

Eleanor flew to Chicago to see Clapton again. And then drove to Milwaukee.

And Eleanor wound up marrying a guy from the band that opened for Clapton.

Nope, not the lead guitarist. The piano player.

She didn't bother to tell us it was progress. But somehow we all knew.

PS: On the other hand, who knew that the producer with the power to turn down the "Suck" sliders and turn up the "Rock" sliders would turn out to be... Weird Al?

Grunge Kills Semantics

Or, why music in the 90s sucked, part 817

Hoping to follow in the footsteps of artists like Let's Active and Matthew Sweet (both of whom were inches away from superstardom), Will Owsley formed a powerpop band in Nashville with songwriter Millard Powers.

The band, who called themselves the Semantics, got signed to Geffen Records and spent years recording their first album with legendary producer Peter Asher. The band initially featured Ben Folds on drums, but he left to form his own band and was replaced by Zak Starkey, son of one Ringo Starr.

Power Pop nirvana, right? What could possibly go wrong? (Link for Gmail subscribers)


Well, Nirvana could go wrong. And did.

And the groundswell of grunge reared its head and crushed all the pop it could find.

Flannel and noise were in. Harmonies and jangly guitars were out.

By the time the band turned in their first (and only) album Powerbill, Geffen had lost interest. They dithered and eventually passed on the album.

So the band broke up. Amy Grant heard the album and hired Owsley to play in her touring band. He'd release a terrific solo album a few years later (coproduced by Millard Powers) and record and tour for years with Amy Grant and Shania Twain.

The Semantics record finally came out in 1996 in Japan, where it sold 20,000 copies with no promotion whatsoever.

Grunge would soon be over too -- but by then it was too late for the Semantics. The band was over and done with.

But at least they left behind some amazing music -- and an album that should've been a huge hit if record companies weren't tripping over themselves to chase the next big thing up to Seattle.


In a sad postscript, Owsley died a few months ago at age 44, an apparent suicide.

RIP.