FEATURE:WHAT DID LOU REED EVER DO FOR YOU?A EULOGY FROM SEAN BW PARKER
TICKLING MY FANCY:ALASDAIR ROBERTS AND ROBIN ROBERTSON,EAT LIGHTS BECOME LIGHTS.
PLAYLISTS:MONOLITH COCKTAIL'S 'CHOICE' TRACKS OF 2013 PART II.
'WITHOUT THE VELVET UNDERGROUND'S EUROPEAN SON NO CAN MONSTER MOVIE; WITHOUT MONSTER MOVIE FORGET IT!' GOD BLESS YOU LOU REED FOR BRINGING THE SEEDY UNDERCURRENT OF HUMANITY INTO ROCK MUSIC. A TRIBUTE '
It's not like the Monolith Cocktail can claim to be some kind of worshipping convert or torchbearer for LOU REED. I mean you'll hardly ever see his name mentioned on the site, let alone his albums. However, you'd have to be some kind of ignorant primordial jerk to dismiss Reed's towering influence and effect on Western music: both as the forlorn, stalker, lone gunman or as part of the VELVET UNDERGROUND, the dyes been cast.
Progenitor of 'spunk rock and 'debauched glam', Reed's electro shock charged postcards from life's edge, provided a hard cold dose of reality. Infamous for channeling the great unwashed, triple X-rated and heaving drug-y pus-riddled underbelly of New York, Reed could also cast a contumacious gaze to the Gothic horror of EDGAR ALLEN POE (basing an album on Poe's The Raven in 2005) and collude with a broad range of musicians and artists, including 'heavy mental' overlords, METALLICA (collaborating together on 2011's Lulu LP).Of course he made a load of shit records too, and often languidly gave away too much of his own soul - as famously harangued to the point of abuse by Lester Bangs, who raged that BOWIE (and his peers) lurked in the shadows, Bela Lugosi style, ready to drain every ounce of Reed's creativity for their own ends - though he would himself dispute every criticism and praise Ziggy Stardust.
In a nutshell, Reed mixed and lived with the transvestite, transsexual and amorphous sex-shifters of his paeans and laments, so we didn't have to. The listener, the fan, could feel dirty, touched by an authentic sleazy world without stepping outside his or her own comfort zone.
And so I return to my opening line, the Monolith though conscious (and giving a hell of a lot of space to someone we've never previously bothered to feature) of Reed's contribution, isn't what you call a diehard fan or champion. But we do know someone who is more than qualified. 'Our man on the Bosphorus', inimitable music critic, teacher and saloon philosopher, SEAN BW PARKER - who eagle-eyed observers will know has already contributed to the Monolith ().
Imbued with more than just a touch of the Lou Reed prose and disjointed swagger on his own music, Sean pays tribute with a personal homage below (Originally featured on - what we like to believe is the Monolith Cocktail's congruous sister zine - God Is In The TV this week), followed by a 'choice' selection of Reed's most sublime, ponderous and stellar moments.
WHAT DID LOU REED EVER DO FOR YOU?
SEAN BW PARKER
I've just heard the news that LOU REED is dead, at 71. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but he underwent a liver transplant in May.
The wires will be abuzz with obituaries, praise, sadness, tales of his adventures with BOWIE, WARHOL, Metal Machine Music
Amidst the tears, never forget Lou Reed's real legacy: an enemy of clich , predictability, and any kind of trite sentimentality. For this very valuable contribution to the music world, he should take his place alongside the other 'Great American Writers' (in the sky).
Never mind the 'difficult' albums (MMM, Berlin, Lulu (with METALLICA)), how about those songs and early trio of perfect VELVET UNDERGROUND albums? 'Candy Says', 'Venus in Furs', 'All Tomorrow's Parties', 'Walk On The Wild Side', 'Satellite Of Love', 'Perfect Day', 'White Light/White Heat'
Lou Reed was easily as influential as JOHN LENNON, and positively trumped him in the knowing, cool, wise-man-of-rock stakes. The disarming honesty of everything he wrote can still give you the shivers, especially when delivered in his craggy, deadpan drawl: 'It was great what we did yesterday, and I'd do it all again. The fact that you're married just makes you my best friend. But it's truly, truly a sin '
Along with his peers, Reed was responsible for elevating rock music's cerebral quota, for bringing contexts, storytelling, multi-narratives to song - in short for making rock not only worthy of dancing to, but also thinking deeply about and analysing. Lou Reed was glam before glam, punk before punk, but finally epitomised New York like no other singer/songwriter.
No bullshitting or fawning necessary. Great work - thank you and goodbye, Lou Reed.
1. Candy Says
2. Venus In Furs
3. Rockriffing and then locking down into the pulsing rhythm of an idealised Dusseldorf, Berlin and Cologne landscape of the early to late 70s. Though many thousands have trodden this pathway already, the Lights manage to navigate a subtler passage of veneration for the likes of KLAUS DINGER, MICHAEL ROTHAR and ROEDELIUS; honing the halcyon dappled structures and beatific synth-textured symphonies of CLUSTER, HARMONIA and KRAFTWERK to produce something quite majestic.'
Vapourously drifting over glacier plains, the latest EP to drop from the self-proclaimed 'neo-krautrock' outfit, takes the trans-alpine express across a stirring, nee celestial, landscape. Split into two eponymous train rides of discovery, and a bonus track, entitled I believe after the Austrian town of Selesen, Dead Format pays homage to Cluster, Eno, Rothar and co. again.
'Dead Format' chimes, stirs and slowly surveys the lie of the land, building towards and opening out with a tightened Dinger style drum roll and flailing guitar noise. 'Dead Format 2 (Live)' is a more transcendent vibe, recalling the TANGERINE DREAM and palatial, church like soundtracks of POPOL VUH - a deft, haunting but ethereal piano is struck in the background as sighing synths gently caress an ambient melody.
Bonus, 'Selesen 11', is an expansive shivering tribal space vista that moves like liquid in its search beyond the summits of Earth.
Hardly a giant leap into the unknown or untethered from the ELBL moorings, this diaphanous, and unheralded, released on the sly, EP does take the group's sound into more ambient territory; relying more upon synth textures and nuanced changes, and cutting back on the guitar and drums.
ALASDAIR ROBERTS AND ROBIN ROBERTSON'HIRTA SONGS'(STONE TAPE RECORDINGS) -11TH NOVEMBER 2013
Hewed and beaten into topographical shape by the tumultuous rage of the crosswinds and driving Atlantic seas, the secluded, almost recondite, St Kilda archipelago is the most remote spot in the British Isles. A thriving sanctuary - and the life force of the islands - for seabird colonies (from Puffins to Gannets) the series of exposed islands and the determined, earnest people that once inhabited them, prove fertile material for both romantic myth and serious study.
The largest of these hostile environments, Hirta, is brought to life in song and poetry by the collaborative Scottish duo of folk musician ALASDAIR ROBERTS and poet ROBIN ROBERTSON.
A loose conceptual peregrination based around the atavistic lyrical prose of Robertson and the meditative, pondered soundtrack of Roberts, Hirta Songs attentively follows the fortunes of an isolated people whose daily toil for survival remained unchanged for centuries - inhabited for at least two thousand years (though there are Neolithic sites also to be found) by various visitors, including the Normans.
Originally visiting the long abandoned islands in 2007, Robertson on his return penned the inspired eulogies, 'Leaving St Kilda' and 'The Well Of Youth'. Both poems would of course inform and act as the backbone for the eventual Hirta Songs collection, six years later.
That uninterrupted travail through the imposing landmarks, Leaving St Kilda, seats the listener in the weather-battered boat, handing over the oars, as the narrator's gripping burr describes an, "Atlantic flat as steel", and the foreboding cliffs (with names as grand and opaque as the White Summit), clefts (Cleft Of The Seal), stacks (Stack of Doom!) and nature-formed monuments (the Lovers Stone) that have been shaped by it. Inhospitable to nearly all but the most hardened, Hirta's main food staple, the local abundance of Manx, Fulmar and Petrels, lie perched in the most precarious of places. The men unable to fish in the treacherous seas have had to adapt to scaling the coastline in search of their prey or starve; all rituals adhered to in a poised and mournfully respectful manner by Robertson.
Its concomitant partner, The Well Of Youth, uses only a few expressive verses to convey tragedy; plaintively addressing the death of a young girl - every passing a seismic-event I would have thought in such a small community, where everyone has their integral part to play, and as this song alludes, a future betrothed partner. Sparse and raw, even though the backing is minimal and delicate, Robertson's tone and words are forlorn: "She came to me, her eyes were on me/ And her eyes were dead."
The lion's share of this gentle, articulate set is made-up of Robert's Gaelic permeated folk and INCREDIBLE STRING BAND-esque (no coincidence that the group's ROBIN WILLIAMSON makes a guest appearance) wordplay. The scene is set by 'A Fall Of Sleet' and continues to drift through the dulcet harp (played majestically by Corrina Hewat) bookended vignettes, 'Laoidh Fhionnlaigh Oig' and 'Tuireadh nan Hiortach', before reaching a natural conclusion with 'Exodus' - the final abandonment at the request of the people of Hirta; evacuated to Morvern on the Scottish mainland in 1930.
Casting a longing gaze, the sagacious pairing of Roberts and Robertson produces a fitting testament to the heritage of a time and place since forgotten.
PLAYLISTS -
MONOLITH COCKTAIL'S 'CHOICE' TRACKS FROM 2013, PART II.
A polygenesis mix if twisted one at times of inane wilderness dwelling loons (THE CHEWERS), epic Spanish psychedelic dance music (THE SUICIDE OF WESTERN CULTURE), Mali desert bluesmen (SAMBA TOUR , BASSEKOU KOUYATE), awkward jerking snot rock'n'roll (YUPPIES, PARQUET COURTS) and plaintive Canadian anthems (THE BESNARD LAKES). All genres, sexes, generations, and a hell of a lot of countries, are included, from BOWIE to the CYCLOPEAN.
Coppe 'Only U!'
//Fiocz 'Subtyping'
The Gaslamp Killer 'In The Dark'
Here Is Your Temple 'So High'
Letters To Fiesta 'Stay Young'
Malkovich 'Lies'
Irmin Schmidt 'Villa Wunderbar'
FINALLY .OCTOBER RECAP:
OUR DAILY BREAD 017: THE KINKS, THE VAN ALLEN BELT AND FIRST PART OF THE MONOLITH COCKTAIL'S 'CHOICE' TRACKS OF 2013 PLAYLIST.
ODB 018: NEW MUSIC FROM ANNA CALVI, BEASTMILK, BIRDS EAT BABY, QUIET MARAUDER AND ROSS MCHENERY, PLUS THE SECOND GOLDEN AGE OF HIP HOP PART I PLAYLIST.
ODB 019: SPARKS' CURATED BOX SET, JILK AND THE SECOND GOLDEN AGE OF HIP HOP PART II AND THE CAFREVUES PLAYLIST SERIES.
ODB 020: THE MONOLITH COCKTAIL HALLOWEEN PLAYLIST, EDAN 'SHIT' RADIOSHOW AND ALBUMS FROM SUPER ADVENTURE CLUB AND THE QUIET MARAUDER.
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