Practice Notes

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to the group on 8 May 2015.



This is first and foremost for little Joseph Lazarus III--some notes from today's practice.

Father suggested a little percussive wah-wah style guitar for the vamp at the end of "Hey Rome." Here's one of the all-time best uses of that ever: "Love's Theme" by Barry White.

I also think what J.J. was doing with "Hey Rome" today was cool--sounded a lot like the guitar work on Stevie Wonder's "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)" (Tone so dry you can hear the strings rattle! Cued up solos here and here). Don't necessarily want soloing, but those repeated climbing scale/pull-off figures he keeps throwing in. Also, from earlier in the song, those high, lilting octave chords.

Although this is quite different, Will and I are channeling Stereolab on the one-chord 5th-chord vamp between "Majesty" and "The Ladder." Like "Jenny Ondioline," it should gradually crescendo with each passing iteration, getting up to a high level of intensity by the end. Instead of this hammer-on, Russ was doing some Who-like sus4 stuff to give some texture/variety. Also, can take some inspiration from their "Three-Dee Melody."

On another topic, we pointed out that the verse for "The Ladder" uses the same basic progression as "Hold On" by Eddie Money, although mine always goes to the top of the progression. I think you can just hang out on a D while on the D-string you go D, F#, A, Bb. Give it a try. You can give the Jimmy Lyon driving strumming rhythm a try, otherwise, just need one hard down stroke on the one (While we're dreaming, I want "Tokyo Nights" to be the exact midpoint between "Two Tickets to Paradise" and "Hollywood Nights." Will you'll need to track down a percussionist!)

Max, can you send the video of "The Ladder" arrangement we recorded today?

Finally, Will, we wanted to know what everyone should wear next Friday. I am going for the all-white tennis/country club look (or mental hospital).

Listen to the whole playlist here.

Hate It or Love It

The following is an excerpt of a 17 February 2015 email exchange between Will and Art.

Will:

As much as I love how cerebral the project is, I still think the main entree for most people is going to be how amazing your songs are.

I love "Tokyo Nights." I think it illustrates your ideas about the personal leading to the universal. Somehow I feel like a Japanese girl took me to go see a shrine, so somehow in my past there is something that resonates with some version of Tokyo that is not Tokyo, some version of the strange girl who is probably not Japanese, and some version of a shrine that wasn't a shrine.

Art:

I'm glad you like it. My theory is that we like specifics because our own lives have specifics--not even specifics that are necessarily similar! A great example of this that comes to mind is "Hate It Or Love It" by 50 Cent and The Game. Please listen to this song! 

I'm from Compton, wear the wrong colors, be cautious
One phone call'll have your body dumped in Marcy 

Before Rap Genius, I didn't know where Marcy was, but it didn't matter. 50 Cent and The Game pile up the specifics in this song and you would think they were running the risk of creating a very narrow in-group for whom this song makes sense.

Paradoxically, the opposite happens: it was an international hit in 2000 and one of my favorite rap songs of all time. 

What an amazing first line: "Coming up I was confused, my momma kissing a girl." Thank you, 50 Cent! 

Never experienced that. But I have experienced things that are similarly particular, specific, painful memories--experiences that have separated me from my fellows, left me desolate and alone. 

These memories do not fit into a metaphor of a broken-winged bird, like Mr. Mister. I vibe much more 50 Cent and The Game way more than Mr. Mister, with whom I probably have a lot more in common. 

This phenomenon is counterintuitive and paradoxical. It shouldn't happen this way. Particulars should exclude, not include. Perhaps it's witnessing someone who has had their mundane, incoherent experiences transfigured in art. Perhaps it gives us hope that we can experience a similar transfiguration in our own life. 

Something that embraces us in all our contradictions and incoherence, that doesn't require us to "burn away" the human, that doesn't hold us up to that Manichean standard.

Canon of Influences: Tell Me Why (You Took Away My Children)

As I thought more and more about your "Canon of Influences Countdown" idea, I realized that I don't have any stand-alone albums that influenced the project. So I'm taking this different approach: explaining my influences on a song-by-song basis.

As you know, "Tell Me Why (You Took Away My Children)" is, first and foremost, influenced by Marvin Gaye's double album, Here, My Dear (1978).

After falling in love in Gaye's music the way most people do--through What's Going On--my college roommates and I soon turned our attention to this flawed gem of an album. The song partakes of the winter imagery of "Anna's Song" ("Dear, did you notice the snow started to fall"). Gaye's "I Want to Come Home for Christmas" (1972) and Stevie Wonder's "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)" (1972) also seem to have influenced my choice of winter as tragic backdrop for divorce. This setting is also utilized in my songs "Bird's Eye View," "Agnieszka's Song," and "After the Fall."

Additionally, Gerald Levert's "Taking Everything" (1998) was popular at the time I was writing the song and directly influenced some of the other content, including its title. Finally, the song's excesses partake of the kind of dark humor found in B.B. King's "How Blue Can You Get" (1964):

I gave you a brand new Ford, you said 'I want a Cadillac'
I bought you a ten dollar dinner, you said 'Thanks for the snack'
I let you live in my penthouse, you said it was just a shack
I gave you seven children, and now you want to give them back

Overall, when it comes to lyrics I agree with Henri Nouwen's statement, "That which is most personal is most universal." I love the mention of specific details in songs even if the world they describe seems completely alien to me. Specific details--as opposed to vague, general sentiments or hackneyed symbols--far from making me feel excluded, paradoxically give me my existential point of access.

The song also finds musical inspiration in Here, My Dear. I've always loved Gaye's juxtaposition of traditional, euphonic elements with strange, discordant, overwrought instrumentation (mostly on his albums Here, My Dear and In Our Lifetime?). Layered synthesizers are suggestive of disordered, unnatural psychological states brought on by the horror of divorce.

The off-putting opening musical figure of the song sounds vaguely like something from Yes, but I haven't been able to place it. Suffice it to say anything weird is welcomed as denoting some kind of rarefied emotional state. Strangeness against the backdrop of tradition (say, of a traditional chord progression) is far better than strangeness alone, which has no backdrop against which to recognized as strangeness.

As for the end of the song, I've always loved the two-chord vamp. Favorites include Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage" (1965) and Kool and the Gang's "Summer Madness" (live version, 1976).

Spotify link: http://sptfy.com/ccy

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #1

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

1. Winter in America Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson

A lot of the lyrics that I've donated to the cause are influenced by Gil Scott-Heron.  My confirmation name is John after John the Baptist, and as weak as my faith was back in 8th grade, I at least already had a great love for voices in the desert. I see Arthur White as being a voice in the desert in similar ways to Gil Scott-Heron. They've both got that prophetic insight and a relentless will to say things people don't want to hear. I'm not sure Arthur can see himself as a revolutionary, though...he just feels compelled to share his visions. I almost went with the album Bridges for "We Almost Lost Detroit." At any rate, Gil Scott-Heron is probably the most important influence to me on that series of songs Arthur wrote in the 70's that prophesy the 2010's.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #2

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

2.  Curtis or Sweet Exorcist by Curtis Mayfield

It's a toss up for me.  Curtis is one of the most beautiful albums ever made by one of the greatest guitar players, singers, and songwriters ever. It captures the joy I hear in Arthur as well the defiance. When I imagine the legend of Arthur levitating during a Sweet World set, it's to a song like "Move on up." The Sweet World at its height would sound like the Curtis Mayfield Experience. Sweet Exorcist, on the other hand, is an album with a lot of great songs, but very little quality control. The production of the album is terrible--the drums sound like cardboard and everything sounds muted, but it doesn't really matter--the genius speaks louder than the technical issues. I could see Arthur putting out an album like this at a time when all resources are depleted and Will is forcing him to record. Music I Wrote for the Movie Street Heat probably has the tone of Sweet Exorcist.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #3

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

3. Tilt by Scott Walker

In all the music we have so far, Arthur is still very soulful and so is his music, but I'd love to hear him do an album as inaccessible and strange as Tilt.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #4

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

4.  Delay by Can, Monkey Pockie Boo by Sonny Sharrock, and Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music by Eddie Gale

I've got a three-way tie here for what I'd like Arthur White's Apotheosis to sound like. Before I realized that there is a long tradition of cults making strange music, I thought that Arthur might make some music like this with Carlton Farthington's people.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #5

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

5.  Illuminations by Alice Coltrane and Carlos Santana

I could see either Joe Lazarus and Arthur White making an album this beautiful, but with words as well and of course more Catholic, or I could see Rysty Kryystyylz making a terrible bizarro world version of this album with Arthur, full of just awful Night Ranger-ish guitar solos and completely stupid, uninspired stuff that is credited to Arthur but that mostly isn't his.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #6

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

6.  Greatest Hits by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels

This band is the greatest influence on Will Witkowski, who basically models his band The Five Wits after Mitch Ryder's group, then gives them the look of The Music Machine or The Lollipop Shoppe, sort of with some medieval imagery. Will basically gauges himself as a drummer against Johnny Bee, who he claims at alternating points throughout his life as a friend, mentor, and rival. It's unclear whether Johnny Bee even knows Will, of course. A good song to post would be "Sock It to Me." Will brings Arthur into the band to play organ, then Arthur overshadows everyone else in the group, like a young Steve Winwood.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #7

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

7.  What's Going On by Marvin Gaye

Of course this one has to go on here. Marvin Gaye is by far the greatest influence on Arthur White--not just on the project, but on Arthur the musician. I could see Arthur's "ministry" begin the day he hears Marvin Gaye. I imagine a storyline revolving around Arthur going catatonic when Marvin Gaye dies.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #8

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

8.  Innervisions by Stevie Wonder

Arthur White's Brand New Life at its best would sound like Stevie's writing on this album.  Or Talking Book, maybe.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #9

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

9.   Inspiration Information by Shuggie Otis

A lot of my initial thoughts about the story of Arthur White were based on the story of Shuggie Otis, who made albums that signal a million ways that music could have gone in the early 70's that nobody ever heard because he couldn't work on the timelines of record companies. Shortly after I pulled from Shuggie Otis, the Rodriguez documentary came out, then there was a flood of them--the one on The Monks, the one on Roky Erickson, the one on Death, the one on Big Star, even the one on Father Yod and the Source Family. Now we're working within an actual genre of alternative history rock and roll!

Thank you, Netflix.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #10

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten! Here's my start:

10.  War by War

I imagine the Sweet World being the Detroit version of War, which basically means more dysfunctional and less cooperative.  Arthur might be a little like Eric Burdon in that he would have had enough local stardom to front a band of real local pros, but he would probably be a bit more like Lonnie Jordan than Eric Burdon, since he would have been the main songwriter.

Honorable Mention goes to Forever Changes by Love.  The Sweet World of Arthur White's lost first album is probably Arthur's Forever Changes.

And another Honorable Mention goes to Live at the Sahara Tahoe by Isaac Hayes.  It would be awesome if Arthur at at least one point in his career could have pulled off a show like that.

This might be my favorite Burt Bacharach cover ever, and I love a million Bacharach covers.

How about some more Honorable Mentions?

Harvest for the World by The Isley Brothers

Pink Moon by Nick Drake

The Nick Drakishness in Arthur White is the paradox of the genius who writes songs everybody who hears them falls in love with, but who is terrified to play his songs in front of people.