8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

Expand the Bubble

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In January, I started compiling my Bandcamp discoveries in a monthly playlist. I utilize BNDCMPR technology, allowing songs from everyone’s favorite music platform assembled into an online playlist. BNDCMPR isn’t just a useful alternative to Spotify playlists for turning people on to cool tunes but these compilations also help me remember favorites I’ve run across on Bandcamp.

I just published April’s playlist. It features a mix of brand new music, a few great songs from friends, and a couple of meaningful rediscoveries (R.I.P. David Freel). As always, I put care into the sequencing so listen to the playlist from beginning to end if you’re able. And please check out the full albums and purchase any music that you’re particularly digging.

Need more? Here are my previous playlists from January, February, and March.

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I spent a good part of the weekend cleaning out my RSS feed subscriptions. There are a lot of feeds in there and I don’t think I’m even a third of the way done. I subscribe to a lot of feeds. I like to open my RSS reader (I use Inoreader) and start flipping from the most recent thing that comes up. This gives the experience a random feel to it (and you know how much I like random things) and I’m often finding inspiration from articles and posts I wouldn’t have run across otherwise.

That said, as I audit my RSS subscriptions, I’m saddened but not surprised at how many blogs are dead or inactive. Granted, many of these bloggers have moved on to newsletters (you can follow many of those with RSS, too) but — come on — let’s get back to the beat of the blog!

Subscribing to RSS feeds is the most important part of my gathering and researching process. It’s also how I keep up with my favorite blogs and sites, especially those of friends of mine. Until recently, I kept up with ‘what’s going on’ and potential writing topics through Twitter and social media. Now, with RSS, I get to finely curate the info flow to my interests while keeping things broad enough to expand the bubble, all without the overwhelming noise. And — bonus! — there aren’t any algorithms getting in the way. The web is pleasant again.

Interested? Here’s a great page that explains all you need to know.

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I’m considering posting the week’s media diet here every Sunday. I worry revealing this information will make it seem like I read, watch, and listen to way too much. Please know that I compartmentalize my intake — I have specific times of day for it all and I rarely finish anything in one sitting — so rest assured it’s not like I’m staring at a TV all day.

WATCHING

Shoot the Piano Player (1960) – François Truffaut’s second film is excellent and surprisingly hard-boiled, but also comes off as a little slight. That’s probably because, in Truffaut’s filmography, it’s sandwiched between The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim, two of the best films of the 20th century. I like that the two gangsters in Shoot the Piano Player apparently got into their line of work because they really enjoy meeting new people.

A Separation (2011) – I first saw A Separation a decade ago and can’t believe how hard it still hits in a rewatch. Masterful in every. Single. Way. Here’s a fantastic review of the film on Letterboxd that helps explain why it’s so great.

King Richard (2021) – I’m still getting through last year’s Oscar-nominated films. I spent a small chunk of this thinking Rick Macci was played by Bob Odenkirk under a wig and a bit of makeup. Despite that disorienting delusion, I found this to be standard but enjoyable Hollywood fare. The kids are great as is Smith, even in light of the post-Oscar elephant stomping around the room.

Tokyo Vice – Caroline and I are enjoying this. It’s stylish and fast-paced, and Ken Watanabe is always a joy to watch in action. There are more than a few moments of insufferable expository dialogue (usually my TV-watching kryptonite). And a few of the plot points require putting logic on hold, which is no biggie as the source material might not be that logical either. But it is a lot of fun and who doesn’t enjoy cruising around late-90s Tokyo for an hour each week?

LISTENING

You already know what I’m listening to music-wise if you check out the BNDCMPR playlist that started this post. Other than that, two podcasts caught my ears this week and made my brain whirl.

I really got into this conversation between the author Robert Greene and Pete Holmes on the latter’s You Made It Weird podcast. Holmes is a little hard to take at times (especially if you’re a new listener and aren’t used to his overbearing bedside manner as a podcast host), but Greene and his fascinating interests make everything good. He gets a little into his process and also goes into how a follower of Zen Buddhism could comfortably write books about power and seduction. There’s some life-after-death and ‘time is a flat circle’ type talk, too, so hold on to your hats.

I didn’t exactly get what I expected from the author Emily St. John Mandel on The Ezra Klein Show besides a couple of passages read from her books. Instead, most of this discussion is about time travel and what it would mean if we are indeed living in a simulation. I ate this up, especially the conclusion that we’re already living in a simulation because of the stories we agree upon that control our lives. Heady stuff!

READING

I’m working my way through Salman Rushdie’s Shame. It’s not an easy read! But I’m continuing on as every time I pick it up there’s some gem of magical realism or a gorgeous series of sentences that keeps me moving toward the end.

Let Nico Drive the Bus

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The Velvet Underground

Todd Haynes’ documentary The Velvet Underground is the kind of thing I only dreamed about as a VU-obsessed teenager in the late ’80s. The way I learned about the band was akin to a game of telephone, relying on fanzines and tall tales from older acquaintances. Someone mentioned a girl in my high school was also “into that Velvet Underground you listen to,” so I tried to talk to her, not so much because I wanted to talk to a girl but also because I wanted to talk to someone about VU. There was no one to talk to about them. (She ended up completely ignoring me.)

That’s why, from that perspective, I find it hard to believe this documentary exists, especially with a logo from the largest corporation in the world displayed at its start. And with such reverence — there’s no condescension, no attempts to invite those who don’t care in the first place, no Dave Grohls or Henry Rollinses strategically placed to tell us that “they were great, take my word for it.” 

There’s a lot of talk about the visual style — the split screens, the use of Warhol’s screen tests, etc. — which is refreshingly distinctive. But what really sets the tone for a new type of music documentary is this immediate immersion into the subject at hand and the culture that spawned it. Most striking is the section in the first half covering 56 Ludlow Street, La Monte Young, and Tony Conrad. It’s heady and perhaps difficult if you don’t expect something like this in a rock n’ roll story. And most music docs would have spent just a few minutes on the happenings on Ludlow Street. But Todd Haynes understands how vital that mini-scene was to VU and modern music/art in general, and he doesn’t shy away. It sets the context, something lacking in most other docs (music and otherwise).

I have heaps of bias here, but my love for VU also makes me protective. I procrastinated on seeing this film until recently for that reason. It’s easy to dismiss when the things you treasure aren’t portrayed in a way you find deserving. But I’m overjoyed by this treatment. And all this footage I’d never seen before and all the new things I learned about VU — in my music snob smugness, I didn’t think there was anything left.

This film significantly recharged my fandom — no small feat — and has astonished the 17-year-old in me.

Stray thoughts:

  • I am so curious to hear from those who knew little about The Velvet Underground going in — how convincing is Haynes’ testimonial? Please comment if you’re in that camp.
  • I can’t be the only one who got major chills as the opening title crawl kicked in. The sequence leading up to it was an editing and sonic masterclass intricately designed for maximum chill-deployment in longtime VU fans.
  • I wish Doug Yule had participated (anyone know why he didn’t?). He’s a bit of an enigma, and his contributions to the Velvets’ third album are sadly underrated.
  • I’m now itching for a biopic/road movie centered around Nico driving the band bus.
  • Here’s a fascinating Twitter thread about how The Velvet Underground weren’t as unpopular as the myth tells us to believe.
  • I walked up to Jonathan Richman after he played a show here in Orlando in 1990. Others were talking to him, and he was being friendly (as he is) but also in that “nice to meet you now move along” kind of way that’s understandable. So when it was my turn, I asked, “Jonathan — what was it like to experience the Exploding Plastic Inevitable?” He beamed just like he does when he talks about The Velvet Underground in this documentary. “Oh, man,” he said. “You have NO IDEA.”

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Kenny G

I worked at the Camelot Music in Alexandria, Louisiana, when Duotones and its ubiquitous “Songbird” were released. So, yes, I can remember when I first heard ‘The G-Man’ (a question posed in the unexpectedly fascinating documentary Listening to Kenny G). 

I was still in high school, so I always took the evening shifts. That meant I would be working under one of two assistant managers. One of those managers was obsessed with Duotones and incessantly played our in-store LP copy. Sometimes two or three times in a row. Often even after the store closed while I was mopping or whatever as she counted out the register. That album drove me crazy.

One day, after a few months, the album disappeared. This assistant manager was distraught. She looked everywhere for it. She asked if anyone in the store had any idea where it went. She even made some mild accusations, though there was nothing to back up any suspicion. The album was gone — poof, no trace at all. And as we could only play promotional in-store LPs sent by the home office, there was no more Kenny G at Alexandria’s Camelot.

To that assistant manager: 36 years later, I have a confession. One night when you weren’t working, as I was taking the day’s trash out to the dumpster, I shoved Duotones in the plastic trash bag. The other assistant manager knew — he goaded me into doing it. Nothing personal. I just couldn’t bear to hear that album one more time.

Oh, as far as this documentary goes, I thought it was good. Kenny’s got chops and seems like a nice guy, so I have no issue with what he does. It seems to me that the problem is a combination of other people (and record executives) labeling him as ‘jazz’ (when even he seems to admit that’s a stretch) and Kenny’s love of the spotlight alongside a bit of light trolling (c’mon, he totally gets a kick out of irritating his anti-fans). And this is a documentary where I actually liked the inclusion of critics and academic talking heads who have nothing to do with the subject. Their carefully chosen words of disdain provide the film’s biggest LOLs.

This documentary, and Kenny G’s career, is just a bit of harmless, goofy fun. But I still don’t want ever to hear Duotones again.

Stray thoughts:

  • Kenny’s apparently all for defunding the ‘jazz police.’
  • I love how he hangs out a little bit with Kanye, and now Kenny thinks he will win all the film-scoring Oscars. I guess kooky bravado is contagious.

Come and See

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Come and See film still

Come and See is a Boschian vision of war falling out of a maddening nightmare. It’s a horror movie made all the more terrifying and tragic in that its lessons remain unlearned, its warnings unheeded, its trauma unresolved. Last night, as I watched the film unfold from the safety of my living room, the people of Kyiv experienced their third night of terror. No lessons learned. Devastating.

Here’s a good essay from author Steve Huggins on Come and See which contains this summation of the film’s plot and theme:

The central character of Come and See is Flor, the 14-year-old boy who represents the Russian people. He joins the partisans, loses his family to the Nazis, and then witnesses first-hand the annihilation of an entire peasant village. At the end-credits he disappears into the Russian forest with the partisans. Nothing in the film takes place outside Flor’s immediate experience. We see all the action through his eyes. But is he fully innocent of his own village’s destruction? A dying villager appears to blame him, saying “I told you not to get the gun.” Is Flor willingly complicit; can we read his survival as a form of collaboration? At one point Flor sleeps on the carcass of a dying cow whose eyes roll helplessly in their sockets. Like Flor himself, the bewildered cow takes in everything, but comprehends nothing but the terror.

In his essay, Huggins notes that the film marked a sea change in Soviet/Russian culture and attitudes, foreshadowing the approaching Glasnost era. The piece also shows parallels with present attempts by the Russian state to rewrite history in order to manipulate public sentiment. Again, from the essay:

Aleksandr Shpagin judged Come and See “…the apogee of war as religion.” He is most certainly wrong. To interpret war as religion, it must be imbued with mystical qualities and heroic – if not superhuman – characters. Indeed, Soviet war films of the 1940s through 1960s did just this. Self-sacrifice and fevered patriotism ennobled its participants and legitimized the Soviet experiment. Come and See is the antithesis of these goals.

This observation from Will Stone of 3:AM Magazine rings eerily familiar to the present conflict/invasion:

In terms of the viewer’s emotional upheaval after watching it, Come and See has little to do with what people consider a conventional war film. It is a film about internecine human atrocity, the sudden and brutal loss of innocence, the impotence of the guileless, the appalling rupture of benign rural communities by technologically enabled destructive forces spewing from a poisonous ideology. It is about how men are capable of committing the most heinous acts at the frayed end of a psychopath’s ideological whip and how the stain of unhinged reasoning spreads into a destructively motivated crowd, but also how the determined victim collective produces an equally powerful will to resist the occupier and bring justice or at least survival to the subjected.

YouTube essayist Josh Matthews also inadvertently relates Come and See to the invasion of Ukraine — inadvertently because he recorded these thoughts in August 2020:

This movie is called all over the internet an anti-war movie. I very strongly disagree with that label. Anti-war generally means pacifist or near-pacifist. That is, someone who won’t fight in a war or refuses to take part in a war because war is just too devastating … but I think this movie is actually an anti-invader movie instead of an anti-war movie.

Eli Friedberg of Film Stage describes Come and See in an accurate and lyrical description, noting that nature plays a major role as an innocent but unflinching bystander:

Klimov’s technique, and thus the film’s sense and layering of realities, is intentionally chameleonic, shifting back and forth between cold-eyed realist war memoir and surreal impressionist nightmare–a reverie in which dreams, myths and visions meld seamlessly into the dispassionate facts of history and the conscious artifice of the cinema. In these mesmerizing stretches ambient sound surges and plummets; characters gaze eerily into the camera with shimmering ghostly eyes, uttering anguished cries and otherworldly portents. While not invoked by name, the spirits and customs of East European folklore hang heavy over the film–in sets, in incidental dialogue, in the persistent presence of animals as symbols and messengers. Like Terrence Malick, Klimov presents the natural world and folk culture as a space of prime and savage spiritual order, a transcendental flow violently interrupted by the intrusion of the twentieth century’s industrial war machine with its industrial secular ideologies, a shapeless but terrible behemoth which permits no spirit, faith or love to exist in its wake.

Director Ari Aster notes in Film Comment how Elem Klimov never made another film:

He would never make another film after Come and See, which is just as well. It has a way of making most other films feel utterly superfluous. Has any work ever reflected the adage “war is madness” more powerfully? … As a travelogue of hell, a catalog of horrors, and a single-minded transference of never-to-be-resolved historical traumas, Come and See has not, to my knowledge, been topped. If it ever should be, the result would be unendurable.

Finally, the use of sound and perspective in Come and See are both amazing and you can understand why by watching this video essay from The Cinema Cartography:

Come and See is harrowing but you should absolutely watch it. It’s streaming now on The Criterion Channel, rentable from other digital outlets, and also floating around on YouTube if you do a search (though the video quality there won’t do it justice).

Equal Parts Confusion and Admiration

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Tyler Mahan Coe has finally launched the long-awaited second season of his podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones. If you’re not aware, Tyler’s show digs into 20th-century country music through his sharp lens — as historic and important, but often sordid and contentious. As he says in each episode’s intro, “I’ve heard these stories my whole life. As far as I can tell, here’s the truth about this one.” Tyler’s the son of controversial country star David Allen Coe, as well as a (now former) member of his dad’s touring band since the age of 14, so he’s undoubtedly heard his fair share of stories.

I’m a fan of Cocaine & Rhinestones and have gone from tolerating to embracing Tyler’s snarky tone. And I wouldn’t say I’m a country music fan — though there’s plenty of country music I like — but I’m a sucker for detailed accounts of music history. Cocaine & Rhinestones is foremost about the history, and, man, does Tyler get deep into it. 

Cocaine & Rhinestones is dense. The first two episodes of Season 2, respectively focused on pioneering indie label Starday Records and the beginnings of Nashville’s music studio scene, contain so much information that I found myself repeatedly getting lost and tapping the ‘back 30 seconds’ button. The names and dates and places come fast and furious, and it’s challenging — but fun! — to keep up. 

That’s why I’m starting to think Tyler Mahan Coe might be podcasting’s Adam Curtis. Cocaine & Rhinestones can be as dizzying as Curtis’s recent Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. With Coe, it’s pinball and ice cream, and with Curtis, it’s Tupac Shakur and doomed cosmonauts. You can agonize over how the dots connect, or you can just roll with it in wonder.

But if it sounds like I’m downplaying Cocaine & Rhinestones, I’m not. Tyler’s put together a phenomenal podcast, heavily researched, and a mesmerizing listen.1And he generously provides full transcripts for each episode on his site if you prefer to read rather than listen. I’ve not only learned tons about 20th-century country music but also about the larger music business in the context of American history. The first season is a thrill, too (this is my favorite episode), but you’re welcome to start with the currently-in-progress second season. Supposedly this season is all about George Jones, but I feel like, so far, I’ve only heard about him a smattering of times. There’s been just as much talk about the history of refrigeration. 

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Rams wears its heart on its sleeve, encapsulated by the quote near the end: “Design only works when it really seeks to achieve something for humanity.” I’m a fan of documentaries about creative people doing creative things, making the world better and more interesting. No doubt, this film checks that box.

I wasn’t too familiar with Dieter Rams, but then, of course, I was, having seen his aesthetic throughout a world of products, including many in the home office where I’m writing this. It’s one of those “you can’t unsee it” situations — after watching, you’ll pick out his influence everywhere.

The vintage transistor radio — with its prominent touch dial — as the precursor of the iPod really is something to behold. I also enjoyed the scene in the design museum, where Dieter delivers equal parts confusion and admiration for the design choices of his contemporaries. The highlight, though, is the section in the middle explaining Rams’ 10 Principles of Good Design. It’s a beautiful sequence, both in how it’s directed as well as in the expression of the overall philosophy itself. Inspirational stuff, no matter your practice — you don’t have to be in commercial product design to draw from this well.

Oh, and yes — Brian Eno contributed the soundtrack. The music is lovely and fits perfectly with the visuals it accompanies. Eno pulled just the right selections from his 6790 options. 

Rams is streaming on Kanopy in the US. Check here to see where it’s available in your country.

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Today the wind outside is roaring (a common occurrence here at the lakeside office), and the sound is merging seamlessly with those found on David Newlyn’s new album, Tapes and Ghosts. The UK-based producer has released a healthy number of musical pieces over the past decade-plus and commandeers the cult-status CD and tape imprint Cathedral Transmissions. Newlyn’s sound on Tapes and Ghosts is an earthy flavor of ambient, at times resembling the Eno-y vintage of floaty music, as on “Surfacing“, where pianos meet string pads on the edge of discordance. “Sunset” follows suit, with a gentle guitar lightly overtaken by shimmering synths once daylight gives way to the spectral. There are hints of nature and memory through the titles of these pieces and others like “Radiance” and “Ceremony.” The music conveys these hints, too, often twinkling while pulling at something inner and emotional. The ghosts really come out on “Years“, featuring, as the liner notes reveal, an “unknown voice” from “a bought charity shop cassette.” This muffled spirit-speech accompanies Newlyn’s sheets of overlapping strings and melodic snatches. The effect is lonely and heartfelt and, coupled with the gusts outside my window, feels like wandering far from home. 

David Newlyn’s Tapes and Ghosts is available now on the prolific ambient/dream-pop label Somewherecold Records.

intimidation (1960)

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Intimidation is a masterclass in tautness. Though a mere 65 minutes in length, the film never feels rushed nor does it lack Hitchcockian plot developments or compelling characters. In addition, its gritty potboiler noir exterior — enjoyable on its own merit — contains pointed subtext on social mobility and status roles. The cinematography is imaginative with stark black and white contrasts and the performances are solid (especially the always great Kô Nishimura). The bank heist scene is particularly well-executed and is as tense as any others I’ve seen. 

I’m working my way, in order, through The Criterion Channel’s Japanese Noir selection and Intimidation is one of my favorites so far. My only gripe: though already a short film, I’d like it 20 seconds shorter. In my opinion, the very last thing that happens dulls a potentially devious finish.

the last angel of history

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The Last Angel of History starts by introducing a musical trio of cosmic influencers — George Clinton, Sun Ra, and Lee Perry — as an extension of Robert Johnson, who received the “black technology” of the blues in exchange for his soul. Or does this legend refer to a sort of visitation? We then move forward (or backward, as these interviews date from 1995) to techno and breakbeat jungle as recent applications of this technology. Science fiction is posited as an accurate reflection of the African diaspora, and we hear from the likes of Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany. This all serves as an Afrofuturism manifesto, aided in tone by the enigmatic pronouncements of a “data thief” and director John Akomfrah’s mind-melting edits and shadowy stagings of the interview segments. A fascinating artifact with lingering contemporary significance.

desolation center

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Loose observations:

  • I’ve loved all these bands since around the time these shows were happening in the distance and this film somehow made me love them all a little bit more.
  • Bruce Licher’s been on fire for such a long time with his screenprinting and design. I’d love to have one of those tickets in a small frame.
  • Funny that the SRL guys come off here as some pre-Jackass bros with explosives.
  • I didn’t expect that the Minutemen were the heart and soul of Desolation Center (the organization and this movie). I knew the final part about D. Boon was coming but it still hit me like a ton of bricks.
  • The ‘festivals are huge nowadays’ montage at the end seemed unnecessarily tacked-on, but, overall, this movie is a really important document of the crafty independent music scenius in the US that grew out of Reagan’s ’80s.

Desolation Center is streaming now via Kanopy and available as a digital rental in the usual places.

David Lynch Gives a Lesson in Sound Design

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David Lynch is relieving his lockdown boredom by posting videos. He gives weather reports (nothing new for him), baffles fans with what he’s working on, and declares a daily magic number. If only I could get a couple of hundred YouTube views from pulling numbers out of a jar.

In addition to documenting these quaint activities, Lynch’s team is also posting a series of short films under the David Lynch Theater series. I don’t think many, if any, of these are new, but most are new to me.

So far, my favorite is the deceptively simple one-shot video, The Spider and the Bee. The mini-movie consists of a close-up shot of an unfortunate bee caught in a web as a spider enacts its fate. There’s no semblance of Hollywood production here, and it’s a solid guess we’re looking at an undusted window sill in Lynch’s house. It’s Lynch, not Attenborough, after all.

The scene lasts for eight minutes, a challenging length for a real-time display of a struggling insect. But I found the video transfixing, my attention aided by the remarkable sound design. Evocative use of sound is a Lynch trademark, dating back to the hisses, hums, and whirrs found in the Eraserhead score. Sound is dramatically and innovatively used to accent images and nestle implications through Lynch’s entire oeuvre, right to the recent Twin Peaks series. If you pay attention to final credits, you’ll notice Lynch is always partly or solely responsible for the sound design on his projects. And The Spider and the Bee is an experiment in sound design.

With only natural sound (or no sound at all), the video’s nothing special, a ‘circle of life’ home movie shot on a lazy day. Add the sound — the bee’s hapless buzzing, the spider’s cartoonish clicking, the swoops as the spider slides — and the story becomes compelling. The viewer is brought into this, too, as the camera thunders as it quickly changes angles. I jumped out of my seat the first time that happened.

Sound is an effective contextualizer, and inventive sound design, even when subtle, can transform a visual storyline into something heightened and unreal. It’s a fun trick played on our brains.

Bonus points: check out the documentary Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound.

Generous Expertise

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The terrific documentary about Other Music popped up on Prime Video last month. I’ve wanted to see this for a while — the NYC store, much mythologized, really was the ideal of an indie record shop. It had it all: a niche selection curated by the owners and staff, records filed under sometimes-baffling genre section names, cards with reviews filled to the edges with jumbled handwriting affixed to releases, store layout and organization to the point of disorganization, and so on.

The documentary made me miss New York City (I’m so happy I got to visit a few months before The Strange Times) and, of course, browsing in record stores. But, most of all, I miss the communities and interactions that revolve around great shops. This aspect of music culture was fading, along with independent retail stores, with or without COVID interference.

Other Music, New York City

Record store clerks get a bad rap for being smug jerks, judging customers’ musical tastes from behind the counter. Sure, I know a few of those —perhaps on a bad day, I’ve been one of those — but I think the cliché is overblown. As the Other Music doc shows, record store employees are often helpful experts in their chosen fields. As Caroline said as we watched the movie, “I could listen to them talk about records all day.” They know a lot about music, they listen to a lot of music, and their favorite thrill is turning someone else on to great music. People who work in record shops live for that.

There’s a moment in the documentary when a customer says to the clerk, “I’m looking for something like Lou Reed that’s not Lou Reed.” We wait for the side-glance, or a snarky response, or the indignant huff. The legends and depictions of pretentious record shops train us to believe this might be a terrible thing to ask. The customer is brave even to bring it up. 

But record store staff enjoy questions like this. The request is open-ended but has a launchpad. It’s an invitation to explore, and, most of all, it’s the customer saying, “I trust you to turn me on to something I haven’t heard yet. And I’m inclined to love it.” Maybe that’s just my own experience (I owned a record store once, remember), but I think I’m right. 

I can’t imagine the response if that person asked for “something like Lou Reed but not Lou Reed” on Facebook or Twitter. Maybe he’d get a handful of helpful replies in the spirit of a record shop clerk, but the snark would cover those over like a storm cloud. I don’t know of an internet equivalent of a space where one stranger can ask another for an open-ended recommendation without fear of trolls or insults or intimidation. 

Record stores are places of generous expertise. It’s sad that the concept almost seems quaint in this volatile age. And that’s what I miss the most about stores like Other Music. Hopefully, these stores — Other Music not included, unfortunately — will be around once we get out of this mess. In the meantime, watch the documentary. If you ever had — or have! — a favorite record store, this movie will move you.

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A couple of weekends ago, 1200 record stores participated in Record Store Day. I don’t need to tell you that this was a weird edition of the annual tradition. Record store day occurs typically in April but, this time was pushed to June, as there was a thing called “wishful thinking” back then. As that plan fizzled out, we’re now celebrating RSD 2020 through three ‘RSD drops’ on the last Saturdays of August, September, and October.1One wonders if this monthly schedule was inspired by ‘Bandcamp Days.’ In part, the idea is that spreading it out will thin the crowds showing up at actual record stores. This schedule, in theory, will also help space out the releases, so they’re not all hitting on a single day. I’m not so sure.

The decision exists in our current retail paradox of ‘less physical customers, more physical sales.’ The dramatic lines in front of record stores (which you can see in photos from a year-old blog post of mine) are no longer welcome. Elbow-to-elbow bin browsing is not allowed. That’s a shame as peeking at the person’s selections next to you is how vinyl junkies make friends. 

Most record stores won’t open their doors to the record-collecting masses. The RSD organizers frowned on online orders of exclusive releases, but this year it’s acceptable. Stores are trying to restrict orders of these limited items to local addresses, which sounds like a losing battle. Some stores are using a lottery to determine which customer snags a rare vinyl release or who gets to step in the store for an allotted time. Others are using platforms like Instagram, posting a photo of the record. Then it’s ‘first come first serve’ among the commenters. And, appropriate for this year of live-streaming, Zoom-led RSD tours from stores are happening.

In Variety, Mick Pratt of the Northeastern US indie chain Bull Moose says of the challenges, “I choose to be optimistic about it and hope that it will be great and it will not result in too much stress, either for staff or for customers who are like, ‘Damn, what I really needed to get through 2020 was this record.'”

How did it go? It seems like it went okay, but shifting vinyl fans from crowding the stores to crowding the internet had foreseeable problems. Here’s a tweet from Damon Krukowski, whose old band Galaxie 500 released the live album Copenhagen for RSD:

Regardless, the point is to support these stores (among all the other independent businesses you’re supporting) during this difficult time. You don’t need to wait for the next Record Store Day to do so. We can’t lose these places of generous expertise: the record stores, the bookshops, the locally-owned restaurants, the farmer’s markets, etc. I have the feeling once we get out of this, we’ll need these places more than ever. I don’t know how we’ll manage if they’re gone.

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John Shepherd has a generous expertise. You’ve probably heard about the short documentary John Was Trying To Contact Aliens by now. So you know Shepherd’s expertise wasn’t only his musical selections. Though I’m not convinced all those knobs and wires and screens and machinery actually did anything, you know, scientific. You might also know that his generosity extended to alien life forms. He DJ’ed to the great unknown, an audience that may or may not be out there. I know the feeling — I used to have an overnight slot on college radio.

As evidence of my embarrassing music-nerdom, the most crucial part of the documentary, to me, is when, in vintage footage, Shepherd pulls Musik Von Harmonia out of his vinyl collection for a local TV crew. As obscure as that album is now, it was but a rare fossil when that television ‘human interest’ piece aired — sometime in the ’80s is my guess. Shepherd’s geek move was strategic. He knew this would go out on television, potentially to an audience in the hundreds of thousands. So what album does he choose to show? And then he plays some of the music, announcing “now here’s a song from Harmonia” into the microphone. Shepherd’s audience is now more than extraterrestrial, and he knows it. 

Like making friends with the person browsing next to you at the record store, John Shepherd aims for connection. He’s satisfied if that connection is with aliens or a TV viewer left dumbfounded at a Harmonia album on the evening news. The film’s director, Matthew Killip, speaks about these connections in The Guardian: 

Killip was interested in extraterrestrial life less as scientific inquiry than cultural phenomenon – “if you make a film about someone trying to contact aliens, there’s an in-built narrative problem, which is that they don’t contact aliens,” he said. But he found Shepherd’s lifelong interest in contacting someone, or something, in outer space to be “deeply romantic”, and more universal than a guy rigging thousands of dollars of radio and electrical equipment in his grandparents’ living room might seem. “We’re all sort of sending out a message hoping that someone else will pick it up and understand us and understand who we are,” Killip said. “We’re all trying to make contact.”

The compact but poignant documentary John Was Trying To Contact Aliens is streaming now on Netflix. And, John is right — Musik Von Harmonia is an album worth hearing.

This post was adapted from Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care, a weekly newsletter loosely about music-making, music-listening, and how technology changes the culture around those things. Click here to check out the latest issue and subscribe.

Isolation Is Their Preferred Place

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It might add comfort in our continuing isolation to watch the stories of people who are isolated by where they choose to live. ‘Choose’ is the key word here — these folks wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

I watched the documentary Children of the Arctic, described as “a portrait of five Native Alaskan teenagers growing up in Barrow – the northernmost community in the United States.” The town (since renamed Utqiagvik) has unique challenges, including the all-too-apparent effect of climate change on its way of life, a loosening of revered traditions, the months of total darkness, and the depression that overtakes its residents. A couple of the teenagers do leave for a bigger city — but then they come back. What we see as isolation is their preferred place, a home they won’t give up. [LINK]

The next night I watched Darwin, which profiles the 35-strong population of the dying town in Death Valley, California, that gives the film its title. It’s a place where people go to hide, though not necessarily from the law. The mines are long-closed, as is the Black Metal Saloon, but the residents love living in Darwin and sing its praises throughout the documentary’s run-time. [LINK]

The musical score in Children of the Arctic is remarkable — gorgeous and droning and fitting the views of northern lights and snowy vistas. I noticed, in the credits, that Michael Brook is responsible. Then Darwin‘s score also grabbed me, with lonely, far-away guitar riffing and desert-toned passages. I watched the credits and — again! — Michael Brook. What a coincidence, right? Not really, as I realized the same director is responsible for both films: Nick Brandestini. This double-feature was not intentional, and I wasn’t familiar with Brandestini beforehand. But now I’m looking forward to seeing his latest documentary, Sapelo. From the IMDb description — the film takes place on “a unique American island” — it appears to also involve isolation by choice.