smog – Audiofemme

ONLY NOISE: Like A Summer Thursday

One of my favorite descriptions of summer, particularly its languid, melancholy months, comes from Don DeLillo’s first novel, Americana: “Summer unfolds slowly,” DeLillo writes, “a carpeted silence rolling out across expanding steel, and the days begin to rhyme, distance swelling with the bridges, heat bending the air, small breaks in the pavement, those days when nothing seems to live on the earth but butterflies, the tranquilized mantis, the spider scaling the length of the mudcaked broken rake inside the dark garage.”

This of course is not the summer of your childhood, spent racing to the river, camping out on the trampoline, and picking salmon berries in the woods. It’s a slower summer; the passage of time stifled by heat and concrete, and the knowledge that as an adult, the only distinguishing aspect of the season is its boiling sun and—if you’re lucky—an abbreviated Friday at the office. During these months I tend to favor tunes that match the heat in grime and delirium, rather than turn up to the tempo of summer jamz (who really needs to cue those up anyway, when they’re blaring from every idling car come August?). For me, summer is a season of slower music, mimicking the sluggish pace of trudging through the sweltering city, and dreaming of a place with more trees—or at least cheaper booze. For all the like-minded, hot weather sloths, here are five records to get lost in this summer.

Van Morrison, Astral Weeks, 1968

For me this record is synonymous with waking early up in a sun-filled room and shaping a slow and quiet day; making a pot of coffee, scrambling some eggs, and lazing about. Van Morrison’s 1968 freeform masterpiece blooms with verdant imagery so beautiful it is agonizing, and while I’ve probably listened to it in full more than any other record, its transportative nature always manages to take me to a place I’ve never been before. The meandering phrases of flute, saxophone, guitar, and bass make you feel like you’ve wandered an unknown region of the world without so much as stirring from your couch. Perfect for the days when it’s too hot to venture outside.

Astral Weeks feels as much a part of the sky as and stars as it does the earth. On its centerpiece “Cyprus Avenue,” spare bass roots the song into the dirt, while plinks of harpsichord and fluttering woodwind lift it skyward. It is an aching portrayal of love so painful that its narrator endures multiple bouts of complete paralysis: “And I’m conquered in a car seat/Not a thing that I can do,” Morrison sings. “Cyprus Avenue” is one of the most precise depictions of new love—something that summer can rot just as easily as ripen. The title track, which opens the eight-song cycle, is a (slightly) less heartbreaking soundscape, arranging strings, celestial flute, and brushes of guitar into a solar system of sound, at the center of which is Morrison’s voice, beaming like the sun.

Townes Van Zandt, Our Mother the Mountain, 1969

Maybe I’m so drawn to this record in the sunny months because that’s when it first came to me. Townes Van Zandt’s second album Our Mother the Mountain is filled with tales of gambling saints, witchy women, and enough booze to power a dam. Van Zandt’s lyrical mysticism made his songs sound as if they were born in an era when folklore was taken at face value—and yet his interpretation of country music was completely original. Perhaps he was so ahead of his time that he sounded ancient.

Our Mother dances between deep, undeniable melancholy, and slightly sad songs that merely sound chipper. Opening ditty “Be Here to Love Me,” falls into the latter category, in which a drunkard entreats his woman to stay. Van Zandt paints summertime depictions of a small town with his distinct twang: “The children are dancing, the gamblers are chancin’ their all/The window’s accusin’ the door of abusin’ the wall,” he drawls, depicting a bawdy saloon scene. Cowboy ballad “Like a Summer Thursday,” meanwhile, is a sombre tale of love lost, in which Van Zandt recounts the stunning traits of a long gone lady. “Her face was crystal, fair and fine,” he sings, before revealing her cold disposition. “If only she could feel my pain,” he continues. “But feeling is a burden she can’t sustain/So like a summer Thursday, I cry for rain/To come and turn the ground to green again.” It is one of the most aching summer love songs, Van Zandt blaming the heat as much as the heart for all of his grief. If anything, Townes Van Zandt might just be the best summer companion for the sweaty and miserable.

Smog, A River Ain’t Too Much to Love, 2005

Bill Callahan’s final offering under his Smog moniker turned out to be his masterpiece. A River Ain’t Too Much to Love is an hour of slow simmering folk songs brimming with naturalistic poetry. It’s hard not to associate this album with summertime, simply for the fact that its descriptions of woods and rivers and horses and valleys are so colorful and numerous. “Drinking at the Dam” recalls a particular kind of smalltown summer, where adults are absent and the brambles are the place to hang out and flip through “skin backs.” The sun is as much a part of this record as broken hearts and booze are to Our Mother the Mountain, and its rays fall upon rivers, bedrooms, and forests of pine, adding a waking melancholy to Callahan’s pensive lyrics. It is a record so stifled by heat, all there is to do within it is lie around and think. “It’s summer now, and it’s hot/And the sweat pours out,” Callahan sings on “Running the Loping.” “And the air is the same as my body/And I breathe my body inside out.” A River is replete with this kind of imagery, and that’s exactly what makes it a pleasant companion for the sweltering season.

Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline, 1969

Along with Astral Weeks, I’ve listened to Dylan’s country delight Nashville Skyline so many times in my life, it automatically qualifies as a “Desert Island Disc,” god forbid I ever have to pack that suitcase. Aside from its beatific album cover, featuring Dylan tilting is hat like a southern gentleman against a blushing sunset, Nashville Skyline is bursting with the stuff of rural summer: Bluegrass fingerpicking, lazy lovers, and backwoods euphemisms involving every type of pie you can name. Opener “Girl From the North Country” (a duet with Johnny Cash that reimagines the original version from 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan) features the lone mention of cold weather and winter coats before the record bursts into the jubilant guitar duel, “Nashville Skyline Rag.” This album is a lively companion for cooking summer meals and drinking beer on the front porch. Heck, it’s so homey and warm, it can even make you feel like you have a porch.

Amen Dunes, Freedom, 2018

Damon McMahon’s fifth studio album as Amen Dunes may have been released in the dead of winter, but the 11-song suite is radiant and lush—far more suited to aimless summer strolls than March hibernation. The entirety of Freedom is rendered with production details that place you seaside, on a boardwalk in shirt-wilting temperatures. The bright riffs of guitar, the breezy reverb, and McMahon’s languid delivery all move with the pace of light waves bending on hot air. While the previous albums I’ve mentioned might lend themselves best to lounging around light-filled rooms or dank taverns, Freedom begs you to walk around town and project its sun-faded imagery before you. Whether it’s the nostalgic twang of “Skipping School” or the beachy bent of “Miki Dora,” this is a record that can weave silvery summer blues into tapestries of hope.

ONLY NOISE: When You Walk

There is certain music that you share with close friends and family. Music that scores the first dance at your wedding, albums you recommend to your sister, and songs that make your dinner party mix. There is music that feels inherently a part of a communal experience, and necessitates sharing immediately. And then, there is the music you hold close to your chest like a winning hand. The work of Bill Callahan and Smog has always felt like the latter to me, and maybe I haven’t so much held it close as I have ingested it completely.

I initially associated Callahan’s work with the friend who introduced me to it, but over time it’s started to feel like my own discovery. That friend and I have only ever communed with Callahan’s music together once, and that was nearly two years ago. We saw him in concert in the summer of 2016, during the little residency of gigs he did at Baby’s All Right. Theoretically the live performance is the most intimate and collective way to experience music, but even then it felt as if we were alone in crowd, together.

Despite my attempts to share Callahan’s music with other people (none of whom have latched on as ferociously as I did), I have spent the most time with his music in my bedroom, or alone in the kitchen doing dishes. This is very similar to the way I enjoyed music as a teenager, and it begets a certain kind of isolation—though at times I can’t tell if I’m responding to the alienation of Callahan’s characters, or projecting my own sense of it onto his songs. Either way, his music has reached me alone for the better part of two years, in moments of stillness and domestic routine: folding laundry, writing, cooking dinner. For me, his records exist in a permanent state of solitude, which is a state that suits me pretty well. But in light of a recent news break, my relationship with his music is taking a new, more public turn.

On Sunday, Callahan’s longtime record label Drag City dumped the majority of their collection on Spotify, Tidal, and Google Play. The label had already released a portion of its catalog—including the discographies of Bill Callahan and Smog—on Apple Music last year, but due to my distaste for the platform’s user interface (and general distaste for change), I stuck with Spotify, figuring that physically purchasing Callahan’s records on vinyl and listening to that 2001 Smog Peel Session on YouTube for a 408th time would do just fine. But downloading the entirety of Callahan’s output moments after it appeared on Spotify allowed me to do something I’d never really done before: take it outside and walk with it.

I was walking when I got the news, actually—heading down Dekalb avenue to meet with Audiofemme’s Annie White and Lindsey Rhoades. I don’t typically listen to music when I walk for a number of reasons, but every single one of those reasons flew out the window when this piece of information fluttered into my Twitter feed. As it turned out, Bill Callahan’s enormous, three decade-deep body of work had been in the palm of my hand for over an hour, and I hadn’t even realized. In a snap of instinct, I located Smog’s 1999 album Knock Knock, and cued up “Held,” a song I’ve always felt sounds like a heavy trod. I’ve listened to this track countless times, but hearing it in a state of motion, chugging down the sidewalk on Easter Sunday, I could pick out crisp details that had been muddied by my indoor multitasking for years. The song’s screeching stretches of guitar and the rumbling percussion seemed to propel me forward with amplified force, and I was surprised by the thudding impact of piano late in the track.

It occurred to me that I’d been missing out on an entire conversation with some of my favorite music, and though I don’t love the lack of spatial awareness that comes with walking around New York with headphones on, it seemed necessary to investigate this exchange further. At least if I got hit by a car, I’d die listening to something I love. On a morning trek to Jackson Heights, Queens, I played my favorite Smog LP, 2005’s A River Ain’t Too Much to Love in its entirety. This record is bursting with naturalistic imagery; there are forests of pine, sleeping horses, and rushing streams. These may not be the kind of visuals that spring to mind when you think of Jackson Heights, but the contrast only seemed to beautify the songs and setting. I walked along Junction Boulevard to the tune of “Rock Bottom Riser.” It was a bright day, and I was surprised that I’d never fully absorbed the painterly imagery of the sunlight Callahan conjures with only a few words: “And from the bottom of the river/I looked up for the sun/Which had shattered in the water/And the pieces were raining down/Like gold rings/That passed through my hands.” The sun in my part of the world was passing through windows of the 7 train and bare branched trees, but it wasn’t any less glorious that day.

This new context of listening has allowed me to reach into different corners of Callahan’s songs, inspecting them from all new angles. But the funny thing about hearing his music while walking among other humans is that it kind of reaffirms that original feeling of isolation. Songs like “Teenage Spaceship” and “Ex-Con” comment on this sense of public seclusion. Callahan wrote the former during a period of nocturnal restlessness; he would go for walks around his parents’ neighborhood late at night, noting his sole presence among the stars and the house lights. Listening to it now, having walked at night with it pulsing at top volume, the image of someone strolling in the dark is undeniable. “Ex-Con,” from 1997’s Red Apple Falls touches on this subject more directly. It is notably more upbeat than “Teenage Spaceship,” and its staggered bleats of horn and synth beckon a brisk gait—but its lyrics act as proverbs for the Outsider. “Alone in my room, I feel like such a part of the community,” sings Callahan. “But out on the streets, I feel like a robot by the river.” Then again, that’s a pretty good summation of New York City sidewalks: millions of people, alone, together.

ONLY NOISE: Welcome to the Workless Week

Rihanna is doing everything I am not.

“Work, work, work, work, work, work/You see me I be work, work, work, work, work, work,” she barks through the café sound system – as if she knows.

Another sunny day in the neighborhood. It is loping along at a drowsy pace. Parks are barren – full of empty benches. There is no line at the post office, and my favorite corner in the local coffee shop is dutifully awaiting me. I’m not dreaming. I’m not lucky. I am unemployed. And it’s just a weekday.

As luck would have it, I’ve been laid off three times in the past three years. Downsizing, outsourcing, budget cuts, project fulfillment – I’ve seen it all, and yet each time it hits me like an uppercut…like getting dumped when you thought everything was going awesome. And everything was going awesome…until it wasn’t anymore.

Another song comes on: Elvis Costello’s embittered “Welcome To The Working Week” off 1977’s My Aim Is True. I envision Costello back in the early ‘70s, working as a data entry clerk for Elizabeth Arden and hating every minute of it. “Welcome to the working week,” he sneers. “Oh, I know it don’t thrill you, I hope it don’t kill you/Welcome to the working week/You gotta do it till you’re through it, so you better get to it.” The irony of course being that it is the workless week(s) I have to get through now.

But this time ‘round I am not alone. It wasn’t long ago when I told my friend M that everything was “going to be ok!” M had recently been laid off from her job of five years, and I assured her that she needn’t self-flagellate for collecting unemployment.

“The idea that going through a period of unemployment is being lazy or counterproductive to society is bullshit,” I argued. “That’s just a false, capitalistic construct that a lot of developed countries don’t abide by. Look at Sweden! They get artist grants on the regular! Paternity leave! No one calls the Swedish lazy!” I consoled M with fervor, hoping to empower my hardworking pal who’d fallen on hard times. “You’re going to LOVE unemployment! Hell, I wish I had been on it longer!”

Somewhere in the distance, Riri sang and wagged a finger, “When you a gon’ learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn”? Before I could answer, I was plunged into joblessness. Again. I turned to find that ardent part of myself, the one that I’d dispatched to boost M’s confidence. She was nowhere to be found.

On Monday, in broad daylight, M and I sat on her couch; updating resumes, drafting emails, and calling the New York State Department of Unemployment Services, which has constructed a densely layered multiverse of automated menu options, dead-end key commands, and spontaneous call terminations. Dante himself could not have imagined this many circles of hell. The Specials’ bristling cover of “Maggie’s Farm” bleated from M’s tablet. I repeatedly punched zero in the hopes of being delivered to a real-time human, but was escorted back to the beginning of the menu options instead.

Veterans of creative industries get it. Writers, actors, magicians, poets, clowns, and yes, musicians; it’s a hard life making a living. Like Rihanna and Elvis Costello, Dolly Parton knew all about werk when she wrote “9 to 5,” singing the sour truth in that sweet, sweet voice: “Workin’ 9 to 5, whoa what a way to make a livin’/Barely gettin’ by, it’s all takin’ and no givin’/They just use your mind and they never give you credit/It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.”

In this time of uncertainty, I tell myself that it’s important to have historical perspective. It’s crucial to remember that bitching about work (or lack thereof), is as human as bipedalism, and has likely occurred since the dawn of occupation. While Rihanna today sings, “You see me do me dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt,” a 12^th century blacksmith has surely larked, “You see me do me smelt, smelt, smelt, smelt, smelt, smelt,” and so on and so forth. Throughout history, where there has been work, there has been animosity; where there has been unemployment, there has been languor.

Hating your job is a time-honored tradition. So too is fearing eternal joblessness, and, as Bill Callahan sang in the ‘90s, longing “to be of use.” But why are we reduced to this? Why is our identity plastered slapdash around a core of employment? They don’t live like this is in Italy, right?

Perhaps philosopher Henri Lefebvre explained it best in his 1968 page-turner, The Sociology of Marx: “– man loses himself in his works. He loses his way among the products of his own effort, which turn against him and weight him down, become a burden.” Or, as Morrissey sang, “Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this position I’ve held/It pays my way, and it corrodes my soul/I want to leave, you will not miss me/I want to go down in musical history.”

I think about how Morrissey once worked as a hospital porter, and, perhaps annoyed that everyone around him was more miserable than he, quit and went on the dole. The Smiths frontman then used the bulk of his unemployment benefits to buy concert tickets. Morrissey sings about jobs more than most pop stars, and has certainly had them, making his claim in 1984’s “You’ve Got Everything Now” that he’s “Never had a job/Because I’ve never wanted one,” only half true.

Jeff Buckley was a Hotel Receptionist. Alanis Morissette was an Envelope Stuffer. Looking through a list of “51 Jobs Musicians Had Before They Were Famous” makes me feel better for some reason. Ian Curtis worked as a Welfare Officer. Chuck Berry (RIP), a Beautician. Rod Stewart dug graves. Henry Rollins managed a Häagen-Dazs ice cream shop in DC.

I wonder if, while scooping equal portions of Rocky Road and Butter Pecan into a waffle cone, Henry Rollins was thinking of a passage from The Communist Manifesto: “…labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce…” “Much like this sugary, frozen treat,” mumbled the pre-Black Flag muscle man. While dipping the high-piled scoops into a vat of rainbow sprinkles, Häagen-Dazs Rollins must have pondered Marx and Engels further, noting that, “…the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine…”

But let’s face it, ice cream Henry – we’re all appendages of the machine with or without those pesky day jobs – no matter how you scoop, sprinkle, or dip it. If you look to The Jam’s lay-off-themed “Smithers-Jones,” you’ll hear the tale of an obedient, white-collar worker who gets the axe. The suit-wearing title character arrives at his long-term office job one Monday only to be told, “There’s no longer a position for you/Sorry Smithers-Jones.”

And then there’s good ‘ol Morrissey again, who famously sang, “I was looking for a job, and then I found a job/And heaven knows I’m miserable now.”

Oh, c’mon Moz, it ain’t alllll that bad. When talking to my sister about my recent loafer status, she assures me that things could be much worse. At least I don’t have to dig graves like Rod Stewart. At least I don’t have to work in a slaughterhouse like Ozzy Ozborne. I have friends and family who love me, an awesome part-time writing gig, and, unlike my sister’s new puppy, Darwin: at least I don’t have eczema on my butthole.

So I got that going for me, which is nice.

PLAYING DETROIT: Bonny Doon “I See You”

What do you get when you mix emoji-filled birthday texts from mom, a drunken journey through liquor store shelves and conflicted selves, plastic cup inebriation, and happy-to-be-alive appreciation? Well, you might just find yourself wrapped up in the warm and quiet crisis of “I See You” the latest from Bonny Doon and the first taste from their upcoming self-titled record due out in March.

As far as first tastes go, “I See You” presents a homesick perspective on getting older and the relatable desperate need to piece together mundane imagery in hopes of finding some grand meaning to the grand scheme. Though the song is melancholically fixed with little swell or progression the across the board vulnerability is dutiful and unassuming in its observational self-cruelty. Following a similar cadence of the Smog track “Hit The Ground Running” lyricist and vocalist Bill Lennox achingly croons “I saw my reflection in a bottle of wine/like a neon sign/flickering my name like a drunken call to an old flame.” Troubled and honest “I See You” is a shrugging of the shoulders at the thought of the future and flat beer sipping of the past.

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/300777939″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

ONLY NOISE: Cover to Cover

“What a drug this little book is; to imbibe it is to find oneself presuming his process.” In her latest memoir M Train, Patti Smith speaks of W.G. Sebald’s After Nature with bibliophilic hunger. She is seeking inspiration and therefore turns to a favorite work. Smith continues:

“I read and feel the same compulsion; the desire to possess what he has written, which can only be subdued by writing something myself. It is not mere envy but a delusional quickening in the blood.”

As I read her book with a similar hunger, I realize that I’ve felt this way before, in the precise way she has described it – when I listen to the music I love. “The desire to possess” what has been written, played, and sung. This desire is so strong that it ventures upon wish fulfillment; I often feel as though I am taking communion with the music…eating it, so to speak. For a split second, I near convince myself that I have written it. That it is mine.

I often wonder if this is a personal quirk (a hallucination) or if others experience the same phenomenon. I wonder if it is perhaps the subconscious impetus to cover songs, even. What if instead of mere flattery, or tribute, possession also informed Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah” or Jimi Hendrix’s take on “All Along the Watchtower?” They certainly made both songs their own. I do not mean a jealous possession, necessarily, but an attempt to be “one with” the song, at the risk of sounding faux-metaphysical.

Cover songs as a genre get a bad rep, it seems. Covers = karaoke, or worse, Covers = Cover Bands. It was after all a throng of home-recorded cover songs that launched Justin Bieber’s career. But cover songs lead a double life. In their pop/rock identity, it is often considered a lowbrow, unoriginal form – sometimes even an attempt at latching onto the search engine optimization of the artists being covered. But in a cover song’s blues/folk/country life it goes by another name: a traditional. Throughout countless genres that could be filed under the umbrella of “folk” or “roots” music, artists recorded their own versions of songs passed down by performers before them.

Much like the poems and fables of oral history, it was common for the original authors of traditional songs to remain unknown. Take for instance the trad number “Goodnight, Irene,” which was first recorded by Lead Belly in 1933, and by many others thereafter. But the original songwriter has been obscured from music history. There are allusions to the song dating back to 1892, but no specifics on who penned the version Lead Belly recorded.

Lead Belly claimed to have learned the song from his uncles in 1908, who presumably heard it elsewhere. “Goodnight, Irene” was subsequently covered by The Weavers (1950), Frank Sinatra (1950, one month after The Weavers’ version), Ernest Tubb & Red Foley (1950 again), Jimmy Reed (1962) and Tom Waits (2006) to name but a few.

The reason so many artists (I only listed a couple) covered “Goodnight, Irene” in 1950 was because that was the way of the music biz back then. If someone had a hit record – like The Weavers, who went to #1 on the Billboard Best Seller chart – it was in the best interest of other musicians to cash in on the trend while it was hot by recording their version of the single. Not as common today of course, but in a time when session musicians were rarely credited and hits were penned by paid teams instead of performers, it made sense.

The history of traditional folk songs or “standards” is a fascinating one because it is like a musical game of telephone. The songs’ arrangement and lyrics change with the times, the performer, and the context. And that same model of change can be applied to both the artist’s motive for covering certain music, and the listener’s reaction to it.

For years I quickly dismissed cover songs, finding them boring at best and unbearable at worst. But in my recent quest to become more open-minded, I have revisited many covers…and become a bit obsessed in the process. The first cover song to move me was The Slits’ version of “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” which in itself is a pop traditional as it has been covered by everyone from Marvin Gaye, to Creedence Clearwater Revival, to The Miracles. Gaye’s version is the most widely recognized, however, making The Slits’ rendition all the more fascinating. Their 1979 stab at the Motown classic was what taught me that a cover song could be more than just a karaoke version of something. It can become a completely new medium of expression when the artist tears the original apart and stitches the pieces into a new form. The Slits did this so effectively, to the point that theirs and Gaye’s versions are incomparable.

The Stranglers achieved a similar result by reconfiguring the Dionne Warwick classic “Walk On By” in 1978, morphing the lounge-y original into a six-minute swirl of organ-infused punk. Another master of pop modification was the one-and-only Nina Simone, who somehow took the already perfect “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen and managed to make it…perfecter. I remember a friend playing this cut for me three and a half years ago, and I haven’t gone so much as a week without putting it on since. Nina’s phrasing can make Dylan’s seem predictable, and she dances through Cohen’s poetry in a way that astonishes me to this day, no matter how many times I’ve heard it. I feel that her version is, dare I say, better than the original, though I love both dearly.

But of course, not all covers exist for the purpose of possession. Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one: that a cover is an opportunity to pay tribute, not ironically, but with reverence. Of course, even artists performing the best reverent covers make the songs their own. Take Smog’s version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Beautiful Child,” which is such a gorgeous recording that I was heartbroken to learn it was a cover, and disappointed upon hearing the original. Ditto Bill Callahan’s more recent take on Kath Bloom’s “The Breeze/My Baby Cries.” Bloom’s take isn’t short on oddball, winsome charm, but Callahan brings a barge full of sorrow, which always wins in my book.

In similar form, Robert Wyatt somehow out-Costello’d Elvis Costello when he covered “Shipbuilding” in 1982, which reaches another dimension of despair with Wyatt’s wavering vocal performance. Another favorite is Morrissey’s interpretation of “Redondo Beach,” an oddly bouncy rendition by the King of Sad.

Though I once turned my nose up at cover songs, I seem to fanatically collect them now. I often dream up cover song commissions that will likely never come to fruition: Cat Power singing Bob Dylan’s “Most of the Time” or King Krule doing “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes. I’d pay them to do it myself if I could damn well afford to. Until then, let the covers of others stoke your desire to possess.

ONLY NOISE: Sex Music

Some might say that sex without love is like music without soul…but what is sex without music?

It seems natural enough that someone who obsesses about aural pleasure and its many applications on the daily, would also wonder which sounds best suit oral pleasu– you get the idea. But all puns aside: if I am to write about the personal, idiosyncratic links we have with specific music, how can I respectfully gloss over musica sexus? Which is fake Latin for “sex music.”

It is a worthy genre, and not only for those of us who live our lives thinking up Top 10 lists for every possible occasion. I’ve heard many say that they don’t like to have sex to music; perhaps they don’t think of it, find it distracting, or can’t take the DJing pressure in such a moment. Others like my good friend Fletcher* say it “feels cheesy” and that it was something he “did more in high school.”

And I hear that. High school was when you were still figuring out how to navigate the difficult, terrifying and oft-taboo world of sex. You had little to no prior experience, and most likely based your moves off of those you saw in movies. So you stood outside your love’s window, goliath boom box foisted above your head blaring “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. It worked so well for John Cusack in Say Anything! Or perhaps you put on “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers after watching Ghost. Maybe you even got out some clay and a pottery wheel. You didn’t know any better!

At the unromantic end of the spectrum, sex music was just practical back then. You needed something to mask the coital cacophony you and Kateigh were making from your unsuspecting mother down the hall. Sadly few New Yorkers have escaped this sound barrier reality, as playing music while boning is a frequent necessity when living with roommates. It doesn’t actually work though.

But I refuse to accept that shagging to a soundtrack is only for teens and broke city-dwellers. Despite how “cheesy” and juvenile some might find it, I’m always down for some rock n’ roll in the hay…provided it’s awesome.

The foreplaylists (sorry!) that have intrigued me the most came when I least expected them to. A personal favorite was when a nerdy, socially inept and tame lover put on “Girl” by Suicide right before he pounced on me. The sounds of “ding!” abounded in my head as his points accrued for a) liking Suicide and b) knowing this particular song would light my fire. It’s not the kind of ditty you would think to diddle to immediately, given its eerie, ominous tenor and bouts of murderous screaming – one might wait at least until the second Tinder date – but I loved it. That was probably the only good thing he did in the relationship, and I commend him for it.

Another beau had the genius idea to screw while the entirety of Loveless by My Bloody Valentine played in the background. A song is great, sure, but if you can find an entire record to listen to instead, you’re golden. An LP ensures adequate length and a consistent atmosphere. Loveless is perfect because it is gritty and romantic all at once, and you can’t understand a damn word anyone is singing, which is even better (you’ll find out why later).

Another record I have a fond, sensual affection for is Television’s Marquee Moon, especially the title track itself. I can’t point out any specific factors as to why other than the back catalogue of my personal spank bank, but that’s good enough for me. All of these songs, paired with their role in my sex life have so swayed me behaviorally, that when I hear them I get turned on. Which is kind of kickass.

Though despite these triumphs, partners have not always been victorious in the erotic disc jockey department. The same man who was wise enough to put on “Girl” later selected a track to lesser applause. It was 1991’s “Bitch Betta Have My Money” by rapper AMG. A song bursting with such poetic lyrics as “there ain’t nothin’ like black pussy on my dick” and “you can suck the dickity-dick but I’m gonna charge you a nut.” I bear no issue with this cut musically, but no one ever got a woman into bed by telling her to “suck the dickity-dick.” Sorry, AMG. You can kiss my assity-ass.

Another snafu occurred when the most loathsome person I ever dated put his iTunes on shuffle pre-coitus. There we were, rolling about on his poly-blend sheets, when Tegan and Sara’s “Back In Your Head” boomed out of his speakers. I jerked away from him, so very confused by his Tegan and Sara fandom, and thoroughly enjoying how mortified he was. He scrambled to his desktop and switched his “uncool guy” music to his “cool guy” music, which was “Uncontrollable Urge” by Devo.

I learned many things that day, namely that denying your love of Tegan and Sara does not make you manlier. But I also learned that no moment hinges more upon mood than the moment before sex. One should be ever so careful to ensure the music is not on shuffle.

And what about sex for a vinyl lover, such as myself? If you think putting a condom on is “awkward,” try committing coitus interruptus when the first half of Daydream Nation finishes up, or worse, skips. Out of bed, to the turntable to flip sides or frantically dig through records in search of something else. Who knew high fidelity audio could be such a cock block?

Despite certain studies on the matter of sex music, some of which claim that classical tunes are the best thing to get freaky to, what I’ve learned is that one can’t rationally explain why some songs work and others don’t. It’s like the mystery of attraction and fetishes; there isn’t always a 1+2=3 answer. “Love songs” are rarely what get me in the mood. Songs about sex are often laughable and cringe worthy when you’re about to actually have sex. And I’m sure some people would be horrified if I scored their sexcapades with what I prefer. Nick Cave anyone? The Cramps? Or what about “Cold Discovery” by Smog (the Peel Session please!)? Not for everyone I’m sure.

I was finally able to get an answer from Fletcher about what he used to put on for “a romp sesh” in high school:

“’A Punch Up At a Wedding by Radiohead’ was my favorite,” he admitted.

I give it a listen for the first time in years and realize that this song will never be the same for me again. I cannot unlearn what I have been told. Just as my own intimate history augments the songs I love, so now has his. Images form, and I don’t necessarily want them to.

I guess that you can have sex without music. But I am now near convinced you cannot have music without sex.

*Name changed for privacy.

LIVE REVIEW: Bill Callahan @ Baby’s All Right

This is the closest we will ever get to Bill Callahan’s living room, or…porch. The stage at Baby’s All Right has been set with a sturdy wooden chair and four handsome plants, two flanking each side to make up some kind of homey throne. A long-haired gentleman places ashtrays smoking with incense behind the stage monitors. “I want to be the incense roadie,” chirps a nearby voice, just before Callahan takes his seat in a blue button-up and well-worn boots. He does so without a word, easing into a simplified rendition of “Feather By Feather,” a song from his Smog days.

You could say that all of the evening’s songs were simplified, seeing as they were born of only six strings, a foot tambourine, and occasional harmonica. But one thing to learn from stripping a song to bare-bones is: how well does it hold up that naked? We were given the substructure of Callahan’s melodies throughout the set, and found they can still support the heft of his baritone beautifully; maybe this is no surprise. By force of habit, my ears still cued in the synth strings on “Jim Cain” and the distortion on “Dress Sexy At My Funeral,” but I didn’t want for any of it. The truth at the core of Bill’s sparse delivery is that his songs are bulletproof. They’d be as memorable tinkling out of a hurdy gurdy as they would set to a 30-piece orchestra.

Callahan has said in many interviews, perhaps weary of the ever-present question regarding his retreat from “the Smog moniker,” that he sees Smog and Bill Callahan as one and the same, merely on different points of a continuum. True to that philosophy, he doled out generous helpings of his catalogue old and new, playing everything from “Prince Alone In The Studio,” to “Too Many Birds” and his cover of Kath Bloom’s “The Breeze.” Upon strumming the first chord of “Riding For The Feeling” the crowd nearly fainted with excitement.

“You recognize that song from the first chord?” he said, looking bemused. “That’s the coolest thing. I never thought I’d get there.”

The audience continues to go wild with anticipation.

“I hope it’s the song you think it is.”

There is an austerity about Bill Callahan that I haven’t seen in too many performers…a kind of steely fortitude that makes me wonder if he’s not a man, but maybe a mountain, or a barquentine. He was there to do one thing, and it sure as hell wasn’t chitchat. Callahan doesn’t pander, just delivers. And yet despite the weight of his music, despite this being a rare moment to be earnest, and split open, and to feel something…there will always be a drunken idiot shouting safely from the back of the room.

“I fucking hate you Bill!” barks a fool who has been yelling quite the opposite up until now.

Callahan, who seems as though he could win any argument with the sting of his silence, looks up at the ceiling, a smirk slowly spreading across his lips. “I’m used to it,” he quips.

Anyone who has read a handful of interviews with Bill will pick up on his bone-dry sense of humor, but on the page you won’t get a sense of his comedic timing – the deadly delay he administers between minimal remarks. It’s a joy to see a few soft-spoken words slay a drunken monologue. Perhaps that speaks to the power in Callahan’s lyrics as well: nothing superfluous, everything purposeful, quality over quantity.

It would have been easy for Callahan to call it an early night, but he played a real stew of a set, clocking in at around an hour and a half, and giving us the chance to choose his last song.

“Well, that’s about all I got time for, goodnight,” he says after closing with “Say Valley Maker.”

The drunken fans persist: “To Be Of Use!” they scream.

“Goodnight. Sleep Well. And dream…”

“To Be Of Use!”

“…Dream of…’To Be Of Use.’”

“Show us how, Bill!”

“…Well, first, you lay-first you leave, and then you lay your head on your pillow, and dream. It’s better than the real thing, I promise.”

I doubt that it is better. But I’ll give it a shot anyway.

ARTIST INTERVIEW + SHOW PREVIEW: Bill Callahan

There are certain voices that stab straight through you and assert their place in your life immediately. Bill Callahan wields such a voice. From the first second it struck me I knew it would be with me forever-like a well-won scar. Admittedly, this scar isn’t very old-I only heard of Callahan on my 26^th birthday, which was not all that long ago. So wasn’t it just my luck when after months of pouring over his massive catalogue as both Bill Callahan and as Smog, I should find that the tall-drink-of-sorrow himself is playing six gigs over a three day residency at Baby’s All Right?

Hallelujah.

I had the pleasure of catching up with Bill over email to talk about joy, rap, and epitaphs.

AudioFemme: You’ve been doing this for quite some time now-at this point in your career, what aspect of your work brings you the most joy?

Bill Callahan: Probably starting a new song. It’s like morning full of promise. It’s like a guarantee of rich full days ahead of self-satisfaction, group interaction, performance, etc.

I understand you’re a big hip hop fan-any contemporary rappers lighting your fire these days?

I like some of the fucked up stuff like Young Thug, Future. Whoever does that song, “Baking Soda, I got Baking Soda.”

It seems that in the past, motion was very important to you; the idea of constantly moving forward and being on tour has surfaced lyrically as well as in interviews. How do you reconcile the contrast of perpetual motion and settling down now that you’ve found a home in Austin?

It’s more a state of mind and a perspective than necessarily physically moving great distances. There is a time of gathering experience, that was my youth — after that you can be a little more still and just live what you learned. It’s like Willie says, “Still is still moving to me.”

On the subject of home, what is something that makes you feel instantly at home, at peace?

My wife. My nylon string guitar if that’s all I got to hold on to. Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill.

We currently live in a culture where music is ubiquitous-people utilize it as background noise, to make people shop more, to pump themselves up at the gym, etc. In what setting, or at least, state of mind, do you hope people listen to your work?

Whenever they feel they need it, I guess. And I hope they feel they made the right choice. I recently re-recorded some songs from Apocalypse to be a 12” that goes along with the early copies of the Apocalypse Tour Film DVD that’s coming out on Factory 25. Listening to those mixes in my car, especially One Fine Morning just felt so, dare I say, perfect.

The two things seemed to need each other — the music and the scenery needed each other.

What have you been listening to lately, and in what setting do you like to listen?

I have a stereo set up and pointing at a particular chair at the kitchen table. I sit in that particular chair and listen to records. It’s kind of like a musical meal. Been listening to Carly Simon and the Bee Gee’s a lot lately.

Are you someone who feels at odds with your own era? Or in sync with it?

I believe I’m in sync with it. Because I am nothing special. I’m not an iconoclast or a freak. I’m a product of my era.

What moves you to write songs?

Knowing that humans need more good songs. I might as well try give some out.

I always like hearing established artists’ opinions on longevity. You’ve clearly withstood the test of time as a songwriter and performer, but do you feel that longevity is a viable goal for up-and-coming musicians? Is a steady career possible with such high turnover rates, saturated markets and the ease of piracy?

I can envision an awful future of corporate owned music production and distribution. Then maybe 70, 80 years down the line we’re going to break up into tribes again. And make great music again. And some of the tribes won’t make music at all. I’ve been oblivious to the music industry from day one. I always just do what makes sense to me. Mostly. Sometimes I’ll do something that doesn’t feel right if there’s someone I love and trust urging me to do it. I’ll do it for them as a concession. But I’m usually right in the end! I got into music to make a living, it’s the profession I chose or it chose me. These days I would say if you feel it’s not viable then you’re a fool to start up with it. If it doesn’t feel viable to you then do something else that feels viable. I’m not saying you should only do it if you’re immediately making money at it. Struggle is good. As long as there’s a light at the end. The longevity really comes from within. It’s not “the times” or “the state of things.” If you have the longevity in you then you’ll have longevity.

Words seem to hold high importance for you. At the risk of sounding too morbid, and assuming you would even bother with one, what words would grace your headstone? If that’s too heavy for a weekday-how ‘bout a vanity plate instead?

Loving Husband, Father and Three Pump Chump.

Be sure to catch one of Bill’s sets with Sunwatchers in the next couple of days. I’ll be there somewhere, slow dancing alone.

6/26 @ Baby’s All Right, 6pm

6/26 @ Baby’s All Right, 9pm

6/27 @ Baby’s All Right, 6pm

6/27 @ Baby’s All Right, 9pm

6/28 @ Baby’s All Right, 6pm

6/28 @ Baby’s All Right, 9pm

Tag: smog