folketspark or bust

By Robbie on February 27, 2010

Well, it's off to Sweden for a solo trek through the inhospitable tundra, on which I will file my usual report upon returning. Some ladies I was having a pint with last night who hadn't been were asking me what Sweden was like. I answered with the usual array of cliches, which are accurate enough: cold, civilized, placid, homogeneous. In short, just like Wilmette! A civilized Wilmette.

I am bringing about 130 pounds with me to Sweden.

2 Suitcases, 10 lbs.

1 Dreadnought rosewood guitar by Roy McAlister, w/ K&K pickup, 22 lbs. 

36 Articles of clothing, 30 lbs.

20 Sets of John Pearse strings, 2 lbs.

30 "Countrier Than Thou" brown T's, 20 lbs.

115 R Fulks CDs (jewel cases, digipacks), 30 lbs.

1 Boss tuner pedal (+ short & long cords ), 2 lbs.

1 Set toiletries, 3 lbs.

3 Books (Bernard Malamud, Bill Streever, & H. Murakami), 5 lbs.

1 Ipod, .05 lbs.

1 Cell phone, .3 lbs.

Sundries: passport, 7" wirecutters, headstock-clip tuner, feedback buster, batteries, calendar, "How To Play Celtic Guitar" DVD, notebook, bridgepins, capo, etc., 4 lbs.

(Most weights approximate. Please don't write with outraged corrections, unless I'm off by 20% or something.)

For 15 days in a foreign country this pack leans toward the minimal, I'd say. No maps, guides, or phrasebooks; no itineraries; no audiodiscs for entertainment or education; no laptop; no Maker's Mark. My host, Micke Finell, takes care of everything -- driving, hotel, contracts and settling, sound system when needed -- and all I have to do is sleep, practice, eat, sit in a truck, play guitar, sell records, and stay out of trouble. (Although I hear that this time I may be recording some guitar on Linda Gail Lewis's forthcoming record, which I'm excited to try my hand at, since she's a lovely person and I like being on other people's records. Depending on how this goes it may subtract a point or two from "stay out of trouble"!)

It can actually get a little lonely and vacuum-like, and when I started lamenting on this to the ladies in the bar, I had to cut myself short, saying, "I really shouldn't complain, because it's not as if I'm digging trenches or office temping, after all." I say this a lot; it's a good self-reminder, even if the fact that one needs the reminding on an ongoing basis may weaken the sentiment. One of the ladies replied reassuringly, "No, dear, you can complain a little -- it's your job, and you've earned the right." There's a sentiment I like!

Thanks for your replies so far on film artistry: reality or illusion. Thanks indeed for all your thoughts posted here. I look forward to getting home and replying back to some of these. Until then...be seeing you.

Can film be art?

By Robbie on February 24, 2010

One runs into smart people these days who scoff at the suggestion. This is quite a sea change from two generations ago when people sat in coffeeshops poisoning their lungs and discerning meanings in The Seventh Seal. When the maker of that somber meditation died, Mr. A.O. Scott, in his New York Times obituary, had to remind younger readers that in recent times Bergman was widely regarded by the discerning set as a keeper of the flame, an Important Figure. The contents of his mind mattered to educated people. There was a strong elite consensus on the artistic potential of movies by the late 1950s -- and before 1950, had anyone asked, the same kind of Ivy Leaguers and coffee quaffers would likely have dismissed the idea out of hand.

There are certainly grounds for skepticism when it comes to film. Today, what it exactly is that constitutes an artistic experience is cloudier than ever, and heady claims are made for all sorts of dubious exertions, like drawing superheroes with crayons and putting cowshit on pedestals. Moving pictures with sound make a response of quiet, glass-eyed stupefaction easy -- often they demand nothing more. And to claim that special works in the medium that made Chevy Chase a global force should be cherished and preserved for the benefit of unborn generations takes some resourcefulness, no doubt.

Rather than argue resourcefully and long, I would point to some prominent examples of movies that, overwhelmingly for this spectator, do the Art thing: provoke disquiet, introduce unforgettable characters, trouble certitudes, evoke sympathy with alien consciousnesses and experiences, display an individual signature, and illuminate human life in a fresh way. Like:

The Eclipse

Smiles of a Summer Night

Night of the Hunter

Andrei Rublev

My Mother's Castle/My Father's Glory

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Vertigo

Kanal

Sullivan's Travels

The 400 Blows

Those are the first ten off my head. So, are movies like this just pretentious scraps of faded glitter in a junkheap of garish ephemera, or are they worthy of museums and bookshelves alongside Monet and Milton? I'm not aiming to make a country singer's website a venue for jackass dorm-room chatter, G-d forbid, but I would like to hear from any reflective person who disagrees with me about the potential of the movies to change and elevate our lives.

hideout this monday night

By Robbie on February 21, 2010

It's "me and the guys," Grant Tye, Mike Fredrickson and Gerald Dowd. Not sure what all we'll be playing, but it looks like I'll duet with all three guys, play a few new tunes and a bunch of older ones, and take a couple requests. Nothing too out-there. If this is the kind of thing you like then you'll really like this.

eddie lang and the youtube choristers

By Robbie on February 17, 2010

If you're ever curious about how Eddie Lang's hands worked and go to consult some clips of the masterful 1920s guitar pioneer online, as I was and did the other day, you will find yourself with a good seven minutes' not-too-edifying viewing before you. The technology of film-with-sound was two years older than Lang. Both were about thirty when he was in his musical prime and about to die. So seven minutes comes as a disappointment. Of the myriad ways we moderns eventually disgrace ourselves before the bar of eternity, the failure to document our notables properly won't be one. When the denizens of 2110 want to see what all the fuss was about Bill Frisell, they won't have to make do with a few short sequences of him sitting at an oblique angle behind a fern while Christina Aguilera sings a ballad in a lion costume. What the fuck were those Jazz Age cretins thinking? "This crude jungle-music vogue shall soon pass," probably.

Even turned sideways and coated thick with treacle, Mr. Lang's gift shines bright, and the youtubers' comments on a clip of him accompanying the Mafia moll Ruth Etting constitute an impressive and instructive testament on the human response to beauty. Delight, unaffectedly felt and simply expressed, is one such response. "Really GREAT!! Thanks!" says Parlophonman, kicking off the thread. "Unique" -- Heinbanjo 12; "Wow, amazing" -- Twobarbreak; "Marvelous! Thanks a lot" -- Wininboy; "Treasure, thanks!" -- Guitaress1; and a warm "Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you" with terminal ":)" from JeriLynnCarr.

These effusions are the "simple kiss" of John Cleese's Meaning of Life indignant sex education instructor: "How about a simple kiss, before we go stampeding to the clitoris?" The clitoris of amateur criticism begins to twitch into our sight with Merrihew's remark: "I have quite a few of her musical shorts but not this one. VERY special especially because of Eddie Lang." This fairly innocent contribution, not on its face so far from the spirit of "thank you thank you" et al., introduces the themes of valuation and irrelevant personal details, which are instantly deepened. "What a wonderful song! I had never heard it, and although I've heard of Ruth Etting, I had never seen her on film," offers Timboytx unabashedly. "Eddie was the best side man ever born," wheezes Robbourassguitarist; "he played so well, but always complemented the singer." I like that "but."

Now Mr. Christopher Rosato enters the discussion. "If not for Eddie Lang, who virtually invented jazz guitar, nobody would have heard of Django," he proclaims. "As for jazz singers, Ella Fitzgerald herself admitted she emulated the legendary Connee Boswell and Mildred Bailey..." I like the implication that Ella's influences were pried out of her. But I don't care for the invitation Mr. Rosato implicitly extends to every jazz nerd with a laptop to pile on with puffed-up pseudo-erudition, hierarchical pronouncements, what-if musings, spurious family trees, and cocky blather. "Eddy Lang," says Goatface 1000, who I'll presume in private life bothers to spell his own name right, "was a very good guitar player but no way as good a jazz player as Lester Young. Ruth Etting was a good singer but she was ot [sic] a jazz singer in the sense that Ella Fitzgerald Sarah Vaughan and indeed Billie Holiday was [sic]. Granted she had a poor range but her rythmn [sic] and phrasing and emotion made her a great singer." Manila Syndicate states, "Billie was a fine singer but not a great one...I consider Annette Hanshaw the best white female Jazz singer of her time." To Forsythia 77's meek interpolation ("To me, Ruth Etting has a lot of emotion in her voice"), the crotchety Jazzgirl1920s fires back, "Yes, Ruth Etting has a lot of emotion in her voice -- Billie Holiday has none in her voice and sounds like a boring monotone robot," putting the discussion back on the target range where it belongs.

Some of the best at-home critics enliven their unbelievably stupid commentary with terms of art and a hint of sociological perspective. Thus TheCompleteGuitarist professorially states: 

"I think you'll find that Ms Etting's lack of syncopation, lack of jazz phrasing and her bel canto delivery are all very contrary to what most people consider make a good jazz musician. Aside from the fact that her delivery lacks any emotion whatsoever and it's pretty obvious that her voice carries little of what life was like for many people in that era."

He concludes with evenhandedness: "At best (and she has a good voice) Ms. Etting is a good entertainer."

OlyBluesGal delivers her own nuanced take on the Holiday controversy -- fine singer? great singer? robot? -- and spices up the brew with a few corking false facts:

"Billie Holliday was great on her earliest recordings. Strange Fruit was amazing, but she wrote that song, and it was extremely personal; her work in the '70s was off key and unmarketable....I started listening to jazz in the early '60s; now I teach it."

I bought a computer in the mid-1990s. Now I blog on it. But I don't call attention to this vapid chatter just to pillory the large community of pixilated, pseudonymous dodos out there. Actually, this pointless and perfervid discussion reminded me of comments I hear made by otherwise smart people all the time. It reminds me of many dumb things I've said myself in response to performances. Because -- what are you supposed to say? Most of us are vulnerable to good music. Many of us have access to high-flying words, and are too schooled in the protocols of civilized society to feel quite comfortable repeating, "Wow, great -- thank you, thank you!" like a groveling, grateful pauper. So we overreach, draping our naked impressions of music in billowing "bel canto" persiflage, sneakily cutting down opposing opinions with lofty digests of what we understand to be posterity's well-considered consensus (or paraphrases of half-remembered Nat Hentoff observations).

Wanting to say something about a good sound, a natural and unobjectionable desire, is tricky to do and come out with dignity intact. Words converge hungrily on meanings, music eludes them. Plato thought that music was the least of the fine arts because it was least imitative of nature. He was wrong, triply: in his premise of art-as-imitation, in his junk-bond rating of music, and in imagining it to be divorced from the natural world -- ask any passing bird, or string theorist.

In its imperviousness to imposed meanings music actually bears the most resemblance to a natural object of all the arts. Because a talent like Eddie Lang's (to get back to him) is like an orchid. You can respond to an orchid by saying that it appears a pleasing yellow because the wavelength of light reflecting off of it and on to your retinal cones is 580 millimeters, or to describe its shape as zygomorphic, all of which is accurate. But is this any way to respond to an orchid? And to say that an orchid is all right but a rose is better is meaningless, or insane. The sight of the flower might inspire you to dilate on all the other pretty flowers you've seen or haven't; the associative power of the word "orchid" could lead to a spirited discussion of Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief, whether or not you've read it. Indifferently, the orchid continues to bloom and be observed by happy passersby.

Let us take a tip from the noble tone of Forsythia 77. "To me, Ruth Etting has a lot of emotion in her voice." Isn't that sweet, and modest, and even, as far as it goes, perfectly accurate?

this monday at the hideout

By Robbie on February 11, 2010

A trio: John Abbey, Robbie Gjersoe, and myself. We'll be building the show on the possibilities suggested by upright bass, acoustic guitar, and whatever it is that Gjersoe will play, which isn't nailed down yet. Looks like a good night to swing (e.g. the Monk and Coltrane heads Robbie and I have been fooling with on our off-hours) and get a little abstract (Steve Reich joins the Carter Family?), and a fine occasion to, so to speak, folk this town. (The word "Indian" has also come up, which frankly distresses me, but we'll see; Messrs. Gjersoe and Abbey are worldly instrumentalists who have only one handicap, and its name is "Robbie Fulks.") As almost always, you can expect some of my originals and some fiddle tunes.

That's February 15, by the calendar of the goyim!