Tell A Vision- Standing Under the Marquee Moon

1977 was a momentous year in music by any estimation, and this is thanks in no small part to one of the greatest debut albums and one of the most essential documents of a band ever. Television's seminal "Marquee Moon" is not just a classic of punk or art rock, but indeed all rock music, and even a fan of stale and mainstream classic rock should enjoy it as much as the eggheaded art-punkers who to this day slaver over Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd's unmatched guitar virtuosity. Its appeal is so immediate, its power and technical achievement so palpable and undeniable that only the most staid and cynical of human beings can deny its brilliance. If you hate Television, I hope you hate all music. You could be forgiven for not liking music in general, but Television? No. That would be blasphemy toward our God of Guitar Noodling, Tom Verlaine.

The first time I heard Television, I was in high school. I had been to the local hipster record store (in St. Louis, the only record store of note is the awesome Vintage Vinyl), and had purchased Television's debut album Marquee Moon after a heavy round of internet buzz lauding it as one of the best 70s albums. My initial reaction was of great surprise; the music was much more traditional than I expected, at least in its basic setup. Two guitars, bass, drums, and tasty riffz. But "See No Evil", the opener, got a lot more interesting in the pre-chorus. Billy Ficca turned out this inspired, complex cymbal rush the likes of which I'd not heard anywhere before; Tom and Richard traded cosmic, glinting notes and crunching chords; Fred Smith held it all together with an upbeat and energetic bassline. The chorus itself perfectly encapsulated the song with moral relativism laid out with a start-stop vocal and a dragged out screech from Tom Verlaine's dry, reedy voice- I see, I see no... eviiiiiiiiiiiillllll! Richard Lloyd laid down an absolutely jaw-dropping solo after the second chorus, a non-stop flow of incredible playing that read like prose and sounded like poetry. Tom always said that Richard played solos that sounded like stories or scripts, and it's easy to understand what he meant. From that moment of brilliance, I knew I was hooked, and would never go back. Since then, Television has become one of the most reliable listens in my library. If I ever need a lift, ever need a just sublime moment, I turn on the TV with Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd.

Structurally, there are some touchstones of normal music, some hints of familiarity. It's from this basic framework of classicist rock music that Television's songs spiral into their trademark heady, cerebral jams. Their flow is unmistakable. No other band would be able to pull off a song like Marquee Moon. It takes the tension between traditional rock music and punk and art rock and extracts brilliance from a tightwire rope walk between the familiar and the utterly alien sounds that can emanate from a cleanly picked, undistorted guitar. Spontaneous jams and scripted solos blend seamlessly. Take a listen for yourself to their amazing "Venus" and hear for yourself.



What's amazing is that no part is uninteresting, or merely filler. Everything is in its right place, and even if one guitar is playing just chords, no note progressions, the harmonic relationships are still as interesting as the drum line, as the bass. Though Tom Verlaine dominated Television musically in a lot of ways, it's heartening to know that the band was egalitarian in emphasis on musicality and structure. No instrument really overpowers the mix, and there are few holding patterns, just killer parts, the interlocking teeth of gears that inexorably turn to power the fantastic machine that is Television.

After one more album, 1978's Adventure, Television split. Solo projects followed, of course. Bassist Fred Smith and drummer Billy Ficca worked amicably on and off with Richard and Tom, but the two guitarists would not reconcile until a reunion in 1992. An eponymous album followed, but for the most part was not as brilliant as the debut, though it may be on the level of Adventure. The best track on 1992's Television is, undoubtedly, the epic "Call Mr. Lee". It's got a killer hook, dark and impenetrable lyrics, and a dramatic, powerful solo.

The Chameleons

Damn, May was a dry month. Sorry that I didn't have much to say.

Sit down, kids, and let's take a trip to another world. This is a world of lovely sounds, gorgeous sweeping melodies, lush and vibrant sonic textures. This is the world of the Chameleons, one of the finest post-psychedelic British rock bands.

The Chams formed in Middleton in Greater Manchester in England in 1981. Leader Mark Burgess plays bass and sings lead vocals, and while he's no Clint Conley or Dave Allen, his bass work is driving and buoyant. John Lever plays drums, and though the Chams are mostly known as a guitar band, Lever's their secret weapon; his playing is consistently great and often jaw-dropping. Adept at speedy rhythms, off-kilter time signatures, and punishing pounding, he's all that a rock band can ask for. The signature element of the Chams' sound is the sensational guitar playing of Reg Smithies and David Fielding- their biting guitar riffs are polished to a pretty sheen, managing never to end up brittle or wispy even when soaked in reverb and delay effects. Their playing is superbly rich and textured, and their repertoire ranges from the melancholy to the epic, from the biting and scorching guitar riffs of "Return Of The Roughnecks" to the majestic bombast of the incredible "Swamp Thing", one of my favorite guitar tracks. Have a listen to Swamp Thing as performed by Mark Burgess and the Sons of God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ6zVlIxnrQ

Sorry I can't embed, but it's been disabled.

Their first single, "In Shreds", is absolutely ace as well. Please enjoy.



Each of their albums is a fantastic listen, but most fans tend to cling to one or another for various reasons. For me, the atmospheric production of "What Does Anything Mean? Basically" and the wonderful drumming throughout propels it past even 1986's epic "Strange Times". It doesn't hurt that "What Does" also includes some of their loveliest guitar work and the hard-charging power of their debut single, the aforementioned "In Shreds" backed with "Nostalgia", a song whose title is a recurring theme in the discography of the Chameleons. Combine those great tunes with chiming, achingly beautiful tracks like "Perfume Garden" and the acoustic-prefaced but crunching "Intrigue In Tangiers" and its awesome vocals, and you've got a sure winner, "Swamp Thing" be damned.

For further proof, check out "Return of the Roughnecks", and dig that marvelous guitar interplay during the intro break. Solo rocks too.



The Chams disbanded after their manager took his own life in 1987, but reunited in 2000 and released one new studio album before disbanding again.If you have the chance, don't hesitate to check out Mark Burgess' solo projects and post-Chameleons work. He even performed a tribute to the Sound's Adrian Borland, mentioned here previously, in a concert series dedicated to the deceased musician's memory. Here's the Chams' Mark Burgess performing Borland's awesome ode to self-reliance, "Possession".



Dave Fielding and Reg Smithies, guitar virtuosos extraordinaire, also played in the Reegs, and any band with such a great guitar team is surely worth a listen. Hope that now that the Chameleons' work is available in deluxe editions, more of the public can enjoy their fine brand of lush and atmospheric rock and roll.

Thanks for reading.

Let's talk about the charge of deicide. Oh, goody...

I recently had this conversation for the second time at work. Strange origins it may have, but it is interesting to note how it relates to Important Things.

A manager of mine has an interesting way of settling contests amongst workers who desire to be cut from work and clock out early. When more than one person is scheduled to leave at 3 o'clock, for instance, an equal amount of labor would be saved by not having to pay the wage of either one of the employees. Therefore, because neither side has any tactical advantage, a game of "rock, paper, scissors" rules the day. However, this particular permutation of the familiar game is, though harmless, emblematic of distorted perceptions of history common, it seems, in working-class America. This game is called "Jesus, Hitler, Jew".

Let me explain the rules, as they are a wonderful melange of nonsense. Jesus beats Hitler, Hitler beats Jew, Jew beats Jesus. Now, the question is, why? In the traditional game, rock covers paper, (which makes no sense, I must admit) but scissors cutting paper and rock smashing scissors do sort of make sense. (Perhaps rock is supposed to need to breathe or something, and suffocates when paper covers it?) Well, I guess that in the logic of JHJ, Jesus beats Hitler because Hitler is dead, and in Christian theology, God, of whom Jesus is one manifestation, decides when humans are to die, and so, by this logic, Jesus 'took' Hitler. The rule that Hitler beats Jews is as sound as scissors cutting paper, because, historically, his anti-Semitic views and the policies of his government carried out the Holocaust.

The biggest thorn in my side, however, is the charge of deicide levied by the rule of Jews beating Jesus because they are responsible for his death. The game's rules, because they are more morbid than the traditional game and substitute death for dysfunction or destruction in the case of the titular objects, concern responsibility for the death of the archetypes represented in the game. The charge that all Jews share blame for the death of Jesus as a result of the actions of the Pharisees is no longer an official position of the Catholic church, but I have no idea how many Christians do still hold this view. This excuse for anti-Semitism has been levied throughout history as justification for a variety of prejudices and serves in part as the cornerstone of historical European suspicion and xenophobia of Jews.

Now, all this arises, not only out of my problems with some silly game, but because this semi-intelligent manager of mine who proposed the game actually defended the charge of deicide. This is unacceptable.

It is wrong for many reasons, but some are more theological in nature, some, more moral or historical. Let's go through the list and have a look at this issue.

The reason that the charge of deicide can be levied in the first place is because the Bible claims that the Pharisees, who were Jewish leaders, turned Jesus over to the Romans. The Pharisees believed Jesus preached heresy, and the Romans found his views inconvenient for their political power.

Now, one of the great mistakes of the Christian faith in the view of the non-religious is its distorted view of personal responsibility. At the core of its theology is the doctrine of scapegoating, the belief that the sins of a person or group can be absolved by transferring them to another person or animal and punishing or driving away the object that has received sin. The core doctrine holds that no person is good enough for Heaven; only Jesus' sacrifice and belief in him are enough to merit an eternity in Heaven. The convoluted logic states that Jesus' atonement is for Original Sin, which is in this day and age is completely given the lie by all modern genetic study and even passing knowledge of evolution. However, ignoring the issues surrounding Original Sin itself, of which there are many, the doctrine is clear that all humanity bears responsibility for the death of Jesus. It is sin, the sin of all humankind, that necessitates the sacrifice. Therefore, fault for Jesus' death should lie with all people equally (for sinning), or God (who decided to incarnate himself) in this view.

Logically, there is little ground for the charge of deicide to stand. Even taking the events described in the New Testament as accurate (a large leap, I assure you), there is no grounds to accuse the Jews as a whole of killing Jesus. Now, if we posit the Christian system as true, then granted, the Jews do deny on theological grounds the messianic state of Jesus. The Pharisees (if we grant the narrative as truth) did offer Jesus to the Romans. However, this at worst only makes Jews deniers of Christian divinity and the Pharisees guilty by association. No Jew alive today spat on or attacked Jesus, nor drove nails into his flesh, nor flagellated him. No accusation can stand against the man who is not party to the crime. No guilt can be assigned to the blood, no curse to a race. If my brother kills a man, am I tried for his crime? If a white man defrauds a large swath of the population, does that make all white men guilty? There is simply no justifying punishing those who do nothing wrong.

Morally, the charge of deicide has much to answer for in the history of anti-Semitic thought. The charge has historically been levied by Christians either to excuse or to justify their xenophobia and hatred of the Jews. Deicide has been used in troubled times as a matter of convenient scapegoating when the Jews are needed as targets. Now, anti-Semitic thought does not begin and end with such claims, but it does underlie much ugly history of antagonism. This does not make a strong logical argument against deicide, but it does not make it an attractive position to hold.

Please, don't let this line of thought pollute you as well. Don't fall prey to judgement of others for the crimes of their ancestors, their parents, their class, or any other group you can shoehorn them into. Just let man stand and fall on merit alone.

New Sonic Youth album on the way, and more

Sonic Youth's "The Eternal" comes out next week. I've already got a preorder, here's hoping it's as good as the rest of their post-2000 works. The band is back to a five-piece for this one, with touring bassist and former Pavement member Mark Ibold joining the band officially to supplement our core Fab Four. I'll let you guys know what's up whenever "The Eternal" gets here.

Mission of Burma is putting the finishing touches on their album, I don't have a deadline yet, but rest assured, it's gonna rock. Expect it within a few months, and my own examination of the as-yet-untitled disc soon after.

I've been completely immersed in a role-playing game recently, a little older than most of what I play. Now, I appreciate gameplay over graphics, this is true, but no one likes looking at a butt-ugly game, am I right? To be fair, though, one must account for when a game was made. So I was pleasantly surprised by Troika's Vampire: The Masquerade- Bloodlines. When it came out in 2004, it didn't sell too well, mostly because it was based on Half-Life 2's engine and came out on the same day. Piss-poor timing, that. The game was buggy, as even its ardent supporters admit, but underneath the grit was an unpolished diamond. It's one of the few games I know of that really transcends its technical issues by telling a superb story and having great gameplay at its core. If one can overlook some framerate issues and graphical problems, the core game is fantastic.

Lately, my most-played album has been Lou Reed's "The Blue Mask". Recorded with a superb band consisting of ex-Voidoid Robert Quine, bassist Ferando Saunders, and Doane Perry on drums, it's by turns an evocative and poetic work that isn't afraid to run ragged into an inferno of guitar immolation. There's pastoral beauty in "My House", an aching melancholy in the chiming guitars and emotionally fraught bass riffs. There are penetrating character studies in "The Gun" and "Underneath the Bottle". However, what is perhaps the most inspiring song on the album is the raging, spittle-flecked title track. After a minute of feedback, "The Blue Mask" explodes into rampaging drum fills and a roiling, violent bass riff that anchors down Lou's delivery and carefully pens in the screaming guitars. Reed's lyrics are some of the most perverse and deliriously misanthropic I've had the pleasure of singing along with- check this out.



If this song doesn't make you dry heave and bang your head simultaneously, nothing can be done for you. I can't resist letting this one get me all riled up.

The Sound- a tribute to Adrian Borland and his collaborators

Formed in 1979 from the ashes of the Outsiders, The Sound, hailing from London, are one of post-punk music's most criminally unsung bands. Bandleader and guitarist Adrian Borland crafted fantastic songs that overflowed with emotional power and perfect pop songwriting, and his band delivered tight, polished songs played with power and passion. Just one listen to the headlong charge of "Heartland" from 1979's "Jeopardy" is reason enough to marvel at their collective abilities as a band. For that icy, stabbing synth, that rumbling and bouncing bass that carries the melody, those fantastic guitar riffs and singing, there's little else like the Sound.



From the first, the distinctive sound of the Sound (get it?) put them firmly on the map as one of London's leading bands. They showed great promise and received much critical acclaim, but had little opportunity to break through to a wider audience. While bands like Joy Division and their progeny New Order scored fans and hits, many more obscure acts like the Sound or their contemporaries the Chameleons and Comsat Angels toiled in obscurity. Though they produced a substantial body of work, both pop and post-punk, the Sound never reached the audience they should have due to their refusal to pander to record label demands. They disbanded in 1988, three years after their last album,"Thunder Up". Despite their lack of success, they recorded quite a few classic tracks, and their albums "Jeopardy" and "From the Lion's Mouth" are both stone classics of underground British rock music. Adrian Borland, their lead singer and guitarist, went on to a very promising solo career. Unfortunately, his life was cut short by his losing battle with depression and other mental problems. He took his own life in 1999, throwing himself under a train at Wimbledon station. Tributes to Borland have been substantial, and can be viewed and contributed at his personal memorial website. Please visit http://www.brittleheaven.com if interested in merchandise, condolences, or discussion on the web forums. Thank you all for reading. Once more, I'll let the music speak for itself- the Sound, with "The Fire".

Lat den ratta komma in- a mesmerising vampire film

I just saw the Swedish romantic vampire movie "Let The Right One In". I watched about four movies in rapid succession over the past few days, and this is the one that stuck in my mind most prominently. The cinematography, score, and themes were all hauntingly and beautifully deployed. The spare musical gestures and interminably snowy and stark landscapes conjured a fragile, dark and lovely story of the friendship between a 12 year old boy and an androgynous vampire. Wonderful sound direction here; the sound effects captured countless ambient nuances of both atmosphere and self- the sound of dry and cold lips gently parting, a brittle crackle of toys moving in cold air, blood dripping languorously into a jar or open mouth. The musical score could be called spare were it not consistently wonderful and, while unobtrusive, utterly hypnotic. The lead children had a great chemistry as well, capturing the awkwardness of adolescent yearning and chaste friendship simultaneously. Thanks to the ambiguity of vampiric Eli's gender, the relationship between s/he and Oskar develops as both a platonic boy/boy interaction and a sweetly romantic childhood love. It's to the credit of the movie that Eli can announce "I'm not a girl" and still maintain his/her femininity and girlish form.

Eli (top) in a strangely sexual/ nonsexual situation with Oskar (bottom)

"Let The Right One In" takes a pretty unconventional approach to vampire movies. Eschewing ultraviolence and tacky stunt-filled fight scenes, it focuses instead upon the psychosexuality of vampire romance and especially that of childhood romance. There are smatterings of violence, but they are as likely to involve humans exclusively as they are vampire attacks. There are few vampires in the film as well, and the film succeeds largely because it can afford to focus on individuals and their relationships instead of vamp politics.

Striking at the heart of the vampire mythos, "Let The Right One In" presents the tragic nature of vampires alongside the ethereal and fragile nature of the humans in whose lives they prowl. Though snow and ice dominate the film, its character interactions lend it warmth and humanity. Truly, a great film.

Funking up your politics- the mind and body-shaking Gang of Four

Of a part with the willfully abrasive and obscure art-rock scene that encompassed fellow Brits Wire and American eggheads Pere Ubu and Mission of Burma, Gang of Four rocked as hard as any of them, but brought a slinky, groovy brand of forward-thinking dance and funk into their dark vision of capitalist society. Their impact reaches farther than many other post-punk or art rock bands because, simply put, they rocked, and rocked hard. They brought clear-eyed analysis and scathing rhetoric into their music, but before shouting slogans and between sneering at love songs and cheeseburgers, they had the good sense to bring a hard groove. Countless British and American bands who now bear the torch of twitchy, atonal dance rock music owe, either knowingly or not, a huge debt to their forefathers.

In their original line-up, Andy Gill, Jon King, Hugo Burnham, and Dave Allen recorded their highly regarded debut, "Entertainment!", and its follow-up, "Solid Gold". Both records put forth a blueprint that many bands were better able to commercially exploit- the politically-motivated funk rock of Rage Against the Machine and early Red Hot Chili Peppers in particular were successful at rounding out the many edges in the Gang's music and making a radio-friendly facsimile that would not threaten listeners of pop music. Today the same goes for indie-rock darlings of all stripes; to name just a few, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, Liars, and the Rapture. What set the Gang apart is that they questioned their audience without hectoring them, forming anthems and not puerile slogans. Their music demanded elemental movement, their lyrics fostered fierce cogitations.

"Entertainment!" stands as a debut of great note, powerful in the cogency of its ideas and breathless in its savage mauling of conventional punk, funk, and disco music. In any typical song, Burnham would set out a churning disco groove, throwing in just enough high-energy fills and breaks to remind listeners of his chops; bassist Allen reportedly restrained himself when playing Gang's songs, which is hard to believe considering the sheer technical ability of his lines and their overwhelming power. Guitarist Andy Gill never settled for conventional riffs or vanilla solos, chucking out technical wizardry for supremely effective volleys of twitchy, scratching, scabrous guitar gesticulations. Driven by pure rawk energy, he chopped out a mess of both rhythmic and arrhythmic feedback squalls, even opting for (gasp) silence when needed. Jon King ranted and chanted with the best of sardonic Brits, lamenting the state of the working classes, historical revisionism, any idea that would offend the sensibilities of a good leftist.

For a great prototypical GO4 song, look no further than 5.45, from "Entertainment!". A tiny drum and harmonica intro, sounding like some small still voice protesting tragedy to a martial beat. Jon King waxes piteous-
"How can I sit and eat my tea, With all that blood flowing from the television, At a quarter to six, I watch the news, Eating, eating all my food as I sit, Watching the red spot in the egg, Which looks like all the blood you don't see on the television..."
With just this short lyric, King takes to task the news media that glorifies war coverage, the apathetic citizens that can sit and eat whilst others die, and even manages to snipe the news media again for sanitizing reports while simultaneously venerating atrocity. Throughout all this rhetoric, ringing guitar lines cut through a thick and moody bass that cries of the helplessness and hopelessness of the oppressed.

"Down on the street, Assassinate!, All of them look so desperate, Declare blood war on the bourgeois state, ooooooh..." No other band could make such a chorus work; it is intensely politically incisive and revolutionary in nature, and yet perversely catchy.

The mid-song chant lends the album its title, a pronouncement on the sick state of voyeuristic cultural debasement that is the evening news fodder in wartime- "Guerrilla war struggle is the new entertainment!"- that rails angrily at those comfortable upper-to-middle class citizens that can stare at a war-torn country through the lens of a news program and, being desensitized to the suffering of those so many miles and class divisions away, can only shake their heads as they lament the world with a mouthful of microwaved food. The result is a powerful song that, while satiric, doesn't hector its audience, but urges them to think.

Some of their best tracks deal with interpersonal connections in much the same fashion, looking at love with a gimlet eye, rendering relationships into balances and handshake deals, commodities bought and sold, interest not shown by a seductive gaze, but accrued by debt. The commodification of sex and the role of the media in public life surface again and again throughout their discography, giving thematic strength to much of their work. Alienation and the wanderlust of man for interpersonal connection feature heavily as well.

The trajectory of their career fell sadly short of their ambitions, however. After "Solid Gold", bassist Allen left and was replaced by Sara Lee, and a shift in their sound occurred over the course of several albums, moving them decisively toward less edgy and more poppy disco and funk music. The music that followed wasn't necessarily bad, but did not sit well with their original fans, and won them few new ones. Drummer Hugo Burnham left after "Songs of the Free" in 1982, and after only Jon King and Andy Gill remained from the original line-up, they called it quits in after 1983's abysmal "Hard". They reformed twice in the nineties, once for the underwhelming "Mall" and again in 95 for their currently last full-length, "Shrinkwrapped".

In a near-miraculous move, the original line-up of GO4 re-united in 2004, recording an album of new versions of old songs. It's not absolutely essential, but is certainly good listening. Though Burnham and Allen have left again recently, there is still talk of a new album with a new line-up. Their newest single, "Second Life", is a classic. Please support this band and if they tour anywhere near you, make it a priority to see them live. Thanks for reading.