Are there any popular acts you think you ought to
enjoy, but somehow, despite your most earnest efforts, just can't seem to?
Various weblinks this week have brought several to my
attention. I've spoken before about Stephen King. His advice on writing and teaching is spot-on. When he climbs on his soapbox, he usually wins me
over. Then he releases yet another door-stopper that sounds so promising
. . . and I pick it up, read the first few pages, keep going for another one-
or two-hundred, and . . . something happens that makes me feel like I've just watched
Bobby Flay drop the frying pan, only to retrieve it from the floor and keep
cooking. No, no — it's alright buddy, keep the pan to the heat. I've just lost my
appetite, is all.
Similarly, Elmore Leonard.
Also: James Ellroy — what a character. I love his
magazine work, and think the way he openly confesses to and revels in his
low-life impulses is a) almost admirable and b) entirely entertaining (I'm in the minority, apparently). The scope and vision and ambition of his fiction is
certainly impressive. But the novels leave me cold. It's not a matter of taking
offense, or being repulsed. It's just . . . meh, whatever.
“The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.”* So
said Paul Hewson, aka Bono Vox, or just plain Bono. Speaking of whom, if
there is a group that has nudged me out of indifference into a deep and abiding
loathing, it is his U2. And on Tuesday, when I opened the software platform to
my Infernal Device, I discovered an entire album in my library that I had no
desire whatsoever to encounter. In response, Mr. Hewson has said, “For people
out there who have no interest in checking us out, look at it this way . . .
the blood, sweat & tears of some irish guys are in your junk mail.”
Speaking as someone who's taken money for producing junk mail of his
own, let me inform you of a seldom appreciated fact: there isn't a single piece
of junk mail that doesn't contain the blood, sweat and tears of the
hacks who created it. The elements of BS&T don't make it any more welcome —
or even any good.
Anyway, I won't be listening to it, so don't expect a take-down review from me — except for the
title of the opening track: “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone).” Oh, sure: give all
the love to poor, sweet Joey. How's about The Miracle of Johnny Ramone, the
treacherous, irascible, venomous, right-of-Attila bastard who kept his baffled
and befuddled on-the-spectrum band-mate fed and clothed in Levis and leather
jackets throughout his entire adult life?
But I digress.
But I digress.
I actually used to be a fan, from way-way-back: Boy
days, in fact. If you can predate that, you're not from the prairie grasslands
of Canada, you're from Dublin. I remained steadfast right up until The
Joshua Tree, when I began to have my doubts about the project (which they
nevertheless reached past with the penultimate song on that album). Then came
their Ironic Phase, which, at the time, struck me as note-perfect for the age (both mine, and the one I was living in). Even
Pop was welcome — the fizzier songs, at least. The more serious songs, on
the other hand, made me nervous.
I don't know which track I heard from their next album, but I
can remember exactly where I was when I heard it: in the parking lot of a
Movieplex, where public speakers were broadcasting a tone of voice and guitar
I knew all-too-well. Oh, so now you're SINCERE again? I thought.
Well then, permit me to sincerely retort . . .
The more I meditated on it, the clearer the realization
became that with this complete about-face these guys had just driven a stake through the heart of rock-and-roll.
All that “best band in the world” shite: even their audience took it seriously.
Now every band in their wake would strain to sound like Bono and/or Edge, and
good luck trying to get any young audience roused if your drummer didn't photocopy Larry Clayton's band-class snare-bursts.
 |
| "...and the horse you rode in on!" |
Think I exaggerate? Then why don't you rouse yourself some
Sunday morning, and go attend worship service at your local Evangelical
Superstore . . . erm, church? Listen to the worship band, and tell me
you don't catch more than an echo of everything I've just slandered.
Can't get away from them in the mall, or church, or parking
lot or even my so-called personal computer
. . . yes, indeed: what a debt we all owe those hard-working Irish so-and-so's.
Alright, I've gotta sit down and catch my breath. Read this
or this or even Sasha Frere Jones if you need more.
*Quoting, with attribution I'm sure, Elie Wiesel.
17-ix-14: Old dogs, old tricks:
17-ix-14: Old dogs, old tricks:
Piss on U-2....I was excited to sse that Martha and The Muffins link on the right!! Any forthcoming review of that, Sir? I'm still spinning Ice Age down here.
ReplyDeleteYah! I quite like this recent MatM album. It nudged me back to Danceparc, which ... well, now I've got to write another blogpost.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about Stephen King. I read his book ''On Writing'' several years ago, and I thought it contained some very good advice. But I've never been able to get into his books.
ReplyDeleteI think Stephen King's problem is not writing, but plotting. His prose is good, and all of his advice about how to write prose is good. But is plots are a mess. And he makes it clear in his book ''On Writing'' that he doesn't believe in doing a lot of plotting. He prefers stories that are just made up as he goes along.
But I've never once gotten to the end of a Stephen King novel where I didn't think to myself, 'You know, i can totally tell that was completely made up as he went along'.
Yeah, there can definitely be a sense of "feeling my way forward" to his stuff. That could be why I generally prefer his short stories to his novels (Hearts In Atlantis was a good read, I thought). His dialogue can also clang, at times. That's a challenge for a lot of writers, actually. Paul Auster also comes to mind in that department.
ReplyDelete