| SKULLDUGGERY / As
Printed In Rhythms Magazine
Words vs Music
I’ve been reading Clinton Heylin’s
new biography of Van Morrison “Can You Feel The Silence ?
” & yes, in case you were wondering, the Irish bard is
apparently every bit the ill tempered curmudgeon that rumour over
the years has suggested, virtually from page one Heylin piles on
anecdote, incident & statements to illustrate that point.
But the most surprising revelation is his examination
of Van’s 1968 album “Astral Weeks” his first major
label disc, a record that at the time & since was hailed as
a groundbreaking classic by people like Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone
magazine & even Lester Bangs who named it as his desert island
disc. Critics & fans have raved over the lyrical & musical
seamless song cycle, the unique jazz/folk instrumental mood conjured
by the musicians fusing perfectly with Morisson’s ambitious
eliptical lyricism as a timeless masterpiece that transcended category.
A magical musical moment.
So it comes as somewhat of a shock that Van did
not even meet the session musicians involved let alone give them
direction or feedback, that he remained ensconced in the vocal booth
for a couple of hours, leaving without giving the producer any instructions,
was not involved in the sequencing of the tracks & that 3 of
the songs were included for contractual reasons. The first time
Van heard the finished record was when it was released & typically
dismissed it out of hand. But it didn’t alter the high estimation
I have for the work, afterall how important is artist intent? But
maybe that’s discussion best left for another column. It did
make me think however, after looking at my shelf of music biogs,
autobiogs & critiques how powerful, profound, intimate &
intensely personal music is & how natural it is to be curious
about the the story behind the music, but how many recent books
are really about getting behind the mask of it’s creator,
the supposed real person behind the public persona, the actual music
almost a distraction. It’s a whole new industry.
Sure, in the early days there were a couple of
books about people like the Beatles & Elvis, but they were little
more than upmarket fanzines with the firm hands of Epstein &
the Colonel protecting their meal tickets. But mind you, of course
music itself has exploded expodentially, Lillian Roxon’s Rock
Encylopedia printed in 1975 & the first book of it’s kind
,was a small, large print book of only 500 pages, compare that to
the weighty tomes of today. I think the first book that I read that
was a portent of things to come was the shocking in it’s time
“Hammer Of The Gods” by Stephen Holden, the tacky tale
of Led Zeppelin’s notorious 1969 American tour, a fly on the
wall account of their almost Caligulan rampage that no doubt inspired
a thousand imitators, but as a reader certainly made it hard to
reconcile Robert Plant’s Tolkeinesque lyrics with his own
crass & barbaric behaviour.
Since then I’ve read books on people like
Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Kurt Cobain & Gram Parsons
etc.., tawdry tales of self obsessed, self destructive spoilt brats
in their supposed adulthood, their personal psycho dramas leaving
the reader wondering how any of them achieved anything worthwhile
let alone works of enduring inspiration & creative imagination.
Baffling. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, now there’s
an arena full of examples of the live fast die young & have
a commercial corpse school of rock journalism.
Albert Goldman made a career out of muck raking
books on people like Lenny Bruce, Elvis & John Lennon that made
the reader feel like burning the book & having a shower afterwards.
All of which makes the most examined , most analyzed, most interpreted
figure in modern music, Bob Dylan’s recent foray into print
with his “Chronicles 1 ” memoir an even more dignified
& welcome relief. Seen him spruiking the book in magazines,
TV talk shows or anywhere else lately? Of course not , he did more
publicity for Victoria’s Secret than he has for his own first
book! ( Please, let’s all forget about “Tarantula”!)
In spite of it’s title, it’s not chronological at all,
crossing time & space in a rambling style that makes us realise
that he is as much a master of rhythm as he is of language, he does
not blind us with revelations but nor does he hide, rather than
stunning the reader with grand statements you feel like he’s
taken you into his confidence, musing as much over the insignificant
as the portentous.You feel like you’ve met the man behind
all that amazing music for the first time, on his own ground, a
glimpse behind the music & the mask at the same time.
But as for the majority of “rock”
books perhaps it’s best left in Clinton Heylin’s words
,“ Print the legend.The truth is one curdled mess of memories”
And listen to the music.
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