Palm’s Rock Island conjures an aura of summer, from the sharpest July light to the dimming of vacation’s last rays. The music is vibrant, partially because of the vocalists using higher registers and partially due to bright guitar tones. Despite being described as experimental or post-rock, there is a commitment on Rock Island to vocal melody, reminiscent of Lush’s floating, silvery vocals, and sometimes even Surf’s Up-era Beach Boys.
At odds with this melodic catchiness is Palm’s approach to rhythm. A recurring compositional element on the record is a battery of stuttering rhythms and syncopations, several so severe they sound like skips or loops. Because they are performed, they don’t register like electronic or mechanical repetition, but feel like an organic jab-and-stammer. One of the ways they achieve this sound is by using slow strums, sounding one string at a time, rather than playing full chords, an effect emphasized by a kind of hyper-chorus effect that frequently sounds like steel drum triggers to me. It’s like a steak knife in the honey. The bass sometimes shifts to upbeats, rather than the traditional downbeats in a rock band. While it’s a technique common in funk (Larry Graham is a master), Palm uses it to disrupt anticipations rather than groove.
Other rhythmic approaches include polyrhythms. I regularly hear parts in three played over rhythms in two or four. On some tracks, rather than lock in on a riff, the band will play a musical statement across multiple instruments. For example, in “Forced Hand,” a musical phrase starts on guitar, continues on drums, and ends on bass. Some first-time listeners may find these approaches jarring, but after a few listens, the songs are as hummable as any radio pop.
The lyrics, often about relationships or lost loves, are cryptic, but not wholly abstract.
The story in “Pearly” feels just outside of comprehension, but shimmers with vague dread. The song is about a love and a vow, but it’s unclear what kind of love and what kind of vow.
The first verse ends with “My own rules/Are always best when broken” and leads into the commitment or warning of the chorus: “I want nothing but the best for us.” The end of the song turns, and makes the direction of the danger ambiguous. Someone “enduring a vow” sounds unpleasant and recasts the “I want nothing but the best for us” line:
In a void You put a lock on the door But you endure A vow
A vow to stop at nothing I want nothing but the best for us
The lyrics are tinged with obsession, while the music ripples with bright elements like a vocal choir sample or trigger saying “Ahhh!,” chorus effeects, and handclaps. The song feels like horror in daylight as it bleeds away, slowing, then staggering to silence.
“Composite” features the aforementioned strumming effect, yet bounces in ways reminiscent of late-’60s Beach Boys or yacht rock. The “composite” in the lyrics–“Let me put the pieces back in place”–could be referring to a relationship or the world at large. Lyrics like “Fake a nap to breathe in for a while” capture that kind of peculiar dread about the unpeculiar, an amorphous doubt on a sunny Saturday.
“Composite” also describes the song’s structure. For example, the last “verse” is really a composite of various song elements. Many of the songs on Rock Island play with verse-chorus-verse structure, but bend and alter it, often by having one or two different bridges or alternate, sometimes intertwining, sections.
While “Dog Milk” and “Color Code” are two favorites, I keep coming back to “Heavy Lifting.” And though the songs may have little to do with each other, I keep pairing it in my mind with the Talking Heads’ track “The Book I Read.” Both songs take quotidian objects and events, but say so much with that simplicity. “The book I read was in your eyes” has been a line that has stayed with me since I first heard it. Similarly, “Heavy Lifting” has lines like “Go out and let the cat in/Work out a plan to retire” or “You want more/Well, so do I (conditioned?) / The last one / I’ll ask you for.” Half of the song is a gorgeous, hypnotic intertwining of mostly instrumental parts. It reminds me of the “Na na na na” part of “The Book I Read” or the last third of “Found a Job,” David Byrne’s short instrumental section written as a tribute to Steve Reich–or at least meant to emulate some of Reich’s compositional techniques. These are short, meditative musical gifts big enough to live in.
While the lyrical content is more in line with the rest of the album, “Swimmer” sounds like the Residents covering “Kokomo.” It combines lyrics like “They’ll bend your eye’s ‘til all you can see is the sunshine” with electronic horn and percussion sounds that echo Residential soundscapes.
Sometimes instrumentals feel out of place on rock/pop records, like unfinished songs. On Rock Island, the instrumentals contribute to the whole. The instrumental track “20664” opens with Eno-esque buzzing and synth before uneven hip hop electronic drums or drum triggers–that echo the opening of the album– take over the track. “Theme from Rock Island” features jangly guitars under a theme built on melodica or keyboard violin–or possibly triggers meant to sound like that. Either way, they have a breathy quality and the melodic sense of other vocal songs on the record.
Rock Island approaches at slants and angles that make it evocative, but hard to classify. Palm satisfyingly sounds like a coherent, unique whole, and not a solo project in waiting. It will be interesting to hear where they go next.
You can listen to and order Rock Island on Palm’s Bandcamp page.
Stephen McClurg (Episode 24) writes and teaches in Birmingham, Alabama. He co-hosts The Outrider Podcast, writes at Eunoia Solstice, and infrequently blogs. He has contributed music as a solo artist and with the group Necronomikids to past episodes of The Drunken Odyssey.
Lost Chords & Serenades Divine #12 by Stephen McClurg and John King
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band: Safe as Milk (1967)
STEPHEN: Unlike Machine Head, Safe as Milk has been a favorite album for about two decades, though I felt late to the Beefheart party.
After college, I played music regularly and met several Zappa fans. I knew Zappa as a pop culture reference, a guest on The Monkees. These guys discussed how Zappa and Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) went to high school and played in bands together and I thought that was interesting.
Most of my friends were not into Top 40 music. Everyone had a few overlapping tastes, but I had a friend into noise, a friend who played fingerstyle blues, friends playing jazz, etc. I had unknowingly played a few Beefheart songs in one band. I played to the chords, since I hadn’t heard the songs, but they stood out to me and I wanted to hear more. When I found out it was The Magic Band, I asked what I should hear next.
Mistakenly, I was told Trout Mask Replica.
While it’s not my favorite Beefheart record, I do like Trout Mask now, but upon first hearing it, I felt cheated. Initially, I thought, “They’re playing two or three songs at once. Ok….” I had heard so much about this record over the years and I just didn’t get it. I know I’m not the only one who has had or will have that experience. It’s not an easy record to digest.
I gave up on Beefheart until I heard “Electricity” on a documentary. I immediately responded to that song and we started covering it. That made me want to check out Safe as Milk.
The album opens with “Sure ‘Nuff ‘n’ Yes, I Do,” a variation on the blues standard “Rollin’ ‘n’ Tumblin’.” It’s funny to think of this band–known for being challenging–whose first song (on an album, I think they did some previous singles) is essentially a “girls-and-cars” song.
That first verse has a mysterious quality. The desert part happens to be true for Van Vliet and it seems to place it out of the traditional Delta blues, but it’s a quote from “Minglewood Blues” that the Grateful Dead eventually popularized–after this record. Mentioning New Orleans brings in the hoodoo, voodoo, gris-gris, and all that which is accompanied by the slide guitar, something more akin to the devil’s instrument–the fiddle–than to traditional European guitar. The “tornado” piece reminds me of American tall tales, Pecos Bill, in particular, and finally, I love “the moon stickin’ in m’eye,” but I feel like that comes from somewhere, too.
The rest of the lyrics are mostly about pursuing love or sex, which just gets old to me and probably why I listen to a lot of instrumental music. Sometimes I just find that stuff boring, particularly men singing about “girls.”
During the third verse they play a two-measure break. That rhythmic sense in that verse, moving from something relatively smooth and pulsing to more stuttering parts becomes a method that the band will use throughout its existence. It’s one of the ways that they build contrasts.
Part of the lyrics at the end make me laugh: “Stick with me and I’ll stick with me and you.”
The most exciting aspects of this track for me are Ry Cooder’s slide playing and John French’s drums.
JOHN: If memory serves, I first started listening to the good Captain while recovering from a hernia operation deep in Interzone, quadrant 9.7. The bat couriers were disrupted by the sulfur hurricanes, and on a really bad TV set with sandpaper reception I probably saw the same documentary that you did: The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart.
“Electricity” drew me into its web, too, in part because the song is an ecstatic hoedown with swooping and galloping slide guitars and a theremin and the Captain is yowling like the ghost of Wolfman Jack who wasn’t even dead yet. It almost sounds like a 1950s novelty record. Those tinkling high notes on the guitar recall the Indian whooping of young David Lynch indicating something about the passage to the Black Lodge. One thing I find strange is that this never made it onto the classic psychedelic songs featured on the radio.
STEPHEN: In one of the Black Lodge or dream sequences, there’s a close-up of a mouth saying “electricity.” And almost every film uses flickering lights or sparks as some sort of sign of evil or danger.
The original idea before theremin was to use a saw, but supposedly they couldn’t get a good recording of one. Saws on metal making music and sparks (metal machine music?) which oddly links with the future Lynch work. I’ve always imagined that they would have sounded similar to the various metallic sounds Peter Thomas was able to conjure in the 1971 Fists of Fury soundtrack.
JOHN: Safe as Milk might be the safest Beefheart record, but it sure punched a big psychic hole in 1967 and marked a major psychedelic turn, but it’s also a trippy march through so many classic genres of songs. On a first listen, Safe as Milk is both weird and very familiar.
STEPHEN: One of the interesting things about the record is the mixture of genres you mention. They do garage rock. They do soul/R&B, blues, and whatever “Electricity” is.
“Zig Zag Wanderer,” again, in some ways is a rock-and-roll cliche: the drug song. Most of the time that’s also boring to me. Zig Zag is a type of rolling paper.
I do like the fairy tale imagery. I feel like “the wanderer” here isn’t going to lose his house because he is in some ways his house and is always traveling with it. “You can dance, you can prance. / These old timbers got strong beams.” The house is well-built: he’s got strong legs.
Again, like that “stick with me” line, I love “Heaven’s free, ‘cept for a dollar.”
JOHN: The lyrics get so specific for Beefheart, even if I don’t really follow what he is saying. Maybe I am not listening hard enough, or maybe I am listening exactly as lucidly as can be without going crazy. This was the same year The Doors released Strange Days, The Grateful Dead released The Grateful Dead and Anthem of the Sun, and The Beatles released Sergeant Pepper and The Magical Mystery Tour, though “I am the Walrus” certainly reaches Beefheartian levels of lyrical disjointedness.
STEPHEN: I love the bass and vocals section of “Zig Zag Wanderer.” The bass sounds like a tuba. There are a lot of complaints about the way this recording sounds, especially from the musicians involved, but I’ve always liked it. It’s not clean, but it is full of character. I know there were quite a few overdubs, but it captures a band playing together in a room really well.
JOHN: Compared to the Beatles, the good Captain seems to be recording in a tin outhouse somewhere in Albuquerque. “Zig Zag Wanderer” is a bit repetitive to me, and a bit too on the nose–the song doesn’t zigzag as much as the lyrics would suggest. Not a bad vamp, and wow that bass is fat, but not a lot of surprises outside of the general crusty texture. Honestly, the strength of this record is its profoundly crusty texture and the odd arrangements.
STEPHEN: The only record I know well on that list you mentioned is Strange Days and it has marvelous production, but I agree, the texture and arrangements here help make the character of the record. I’ll take odd and crusty as much as marvelous.
“Call on Me” always makes me think of the intro to The Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!” It’s partially because the guitar effect sounds somewhat like a 12-string. The lyrics don’t do much for me on this one.
JOHN: “Call on Me” is rhythmically interesting. The jangly guitars bouncing with the harpsichord bits make this a seasick adventure in the best possible way. The lyrics are vapid, instructing the listener that the singer can help appease her (his?) loneliness while the music is a bit batshit, suggesting that the singer is lonely and weird and maybe not the most reliable antidote to loneliness, but then again if you are lonely you probably need someone weird to identify with. But frankly when listening to Beefheart, I often ignore the lyrics, except when he speak-sings poetry.
STEPHEN: I’d never thought of that, but Beefheart’s narrators come off as unreliable as Poe’s.
I like the horn parts on this and that they fade into the riff from “Then He Kissed Me,” which turns up in a lot of places.
JOHN: “Dropout Boogie” is the first great song on Safe as Milk.
STEPHEN: Yeah, even though the voice is stylized after Howlin’ Wolf, this one feels like the first “Beefheart” tune on the record. He sounds menacing even though the lyrics, again, aren’t much to me, though I love this section:
You told her you loved her, So bring her the butter. You love her adapt her.
You love her adapt her.
Adapt her adapter.
Something about “Adapt her adapter” reminds me of early domestic relationships in Cronenberg films.
And then there’s a great pseudo-waltz section with marimba that transitions to solo guitar that builds the phrase higher and then when the main riff slithers back in it just sounds even dirtier. The rhythmic sense of this track has nice off-kilter moments like the “What about after that?” phrase.
JOHN: The feel is if The Trashmen had a cold and were covering The Kinks and forgot the lyrics, with the odd dainty flourishes of the marimbas.
STEPHEN: “I’m Glad” is fine as a soul track, but it’s not my favorite thing that the Magic Band does.
JOHN: It’s a cross between The Philly sound and Van Morrison. What’s weird is how not weird it is.
STEPHEN: It does serve as a kind of palate cleanser for “Electricity,” which we’ve discussed a little. But, yeah, imagine being in a crowd and seeing them play “Electricity” and then “I’m Glad.” I would be energized hearing “Electricity” last, but confused if “I’m Glad” were last.
“Electricity” reminds me of Blue Velvet, “Now it’s dark,” “In Dreams,” the lipstick scene, etc.:
High-voltage man kisses night to bring the light to those who need t’ hide their shadow-deed hide their shadow-deed Seek electricity………..
“Yellow Brick Road” is one that I normally wouldn’t like. Too positive, but besides “Electricity” it is one of the tracks that oddly defines the record for me. Lynch also uses Wizard of Oz imagery in several films. There’s a simple bell or xylophone that plays a simple, happy melodic line, and I’ve always liked the kind of bouncy, fairy tale, “peppermint kite” aspect of this track.
These works are all Americanizations of the European fairy tale tradition. Similarly, Lynch mines The Hardy Boys and ‘50s Big Boy culture in a way that Beefheart mines these American musical traditions.
“Plastic Factory,” for me, is like “I’m Glad”: It’s fine for what it is, I’m just not as interested in it. I like some images in the lyrics, the vocal whoops that Beefheart does so well, I’m not sure what they’re called, but it’s almost like an octave shift on a syllable, and the primal nature of the bridge that shifts into a three-feel.
“Where’s There’s Woman” has some cool echo or delay effects and creates a dangerous, sexy–maybe noirish?–mood. I think Zappa is on the backing vocals, but that’s about all I think about the track. I like what it evokes, but the details aren’t necessarily interesting to me.
JOHN: The tempo of “Where’s There’s Woman” is so fucking creepy, like insectile smoke unfurling into the mind of a city, and the lyrics seem to match:
Where there’s truth, the green valley steals cottonwood
Where there’s peace, a little cloud of music gleams brotherhood
STEPHEN: One of my favorite drum tracks is on “Grown So Ugly,” especially what French does with the high-hat accents on the verse. The guitar intro has that off-kilter blues sound the band could do well. Also, there’s a magnificent use of tension before the band shifts into what I guess is a pre-chorus of fantastic howls in a two-measure guitar and drum phrase that builds to those wolfman sounds (Oooohhhhh Baay–Bay!”).
There’s a sense of the wolfman’s story or something like a doppelganger, though it’s explained through the line about being in Angola prison for 20 years. Unlike “Where’s There’s Woman,” there are a lot of details in this one I find more interesting. The bass part is traditional, but perfect in this song.
JOHN: When white people appropriate the blues, it helps for them to find a gimmick that lets them in. Jack White used avant garde style with the costumes and color schemes of The White Stripes. But weirdos like Tom Waits and Beefheart seem to transcend the question of race, which is to say their blues are reconfigured into their own weirdness.
STEPHEN: For me, the weakest part of “Autumn’s Child” is the vocal lines with Zappa and the theremin that then become the chorus. They sound boringly psych-rock to me, but the rest of the track is spectacular. The song has a range of parts and maybe my favorite lyrics on the album. There are several spots I like, but I might as well quote the first verse:
Autumn’s child got a loophole ‘round her finger. Halo rings her head. Cornhusk hair makes me linger. Her cat’s stare meets my dare. A man’s chair greets my stare.
I’ve always heard that second line as “Halo razorhead,” but I guess the pronunciation is something like “Halo rangs’er head.” I’ll still probably always hear the former.
JOHN: You’ve skipped over the absolute best song on the album: “Abba Zaba”! The rumbling percussion with those madenning lyrics sung with such confidence:
Song before song before song blues Babbette baboon Babbette baboon
STEPHEN: Yeah! I don’t know why I skipped it. I feel the same way–everything works here, which is maybe why it was supposed to be the title track. The company who owns the candy of the same name had issues with it. The back of the record has the pattern that’s on the wrapper! I’ve heard the Babbette baboon reference is to the artwork or some kind of artwork associated with the candy, but I may be confused about that.
Of course, as a bassist I was intrigued that there was a bass solo. I should relearn it. I love how French, as usual, drives the song. I just find the lead guitar parts on this one beautiful: crackly, birdlike, sometimes insectile, but still beautiful.
The “song before song” lyric you mention is one of my favorites, along with “two shadows at noon” and “tobacco sky.” Pungently evocative imagery. It gives the listener a lot of room for interpretation and discovery.
JOHN: That dominant bass and noodling guitar reminds me of how gorgeously off-kilter Primus is. That is a fine bass solo, and the song is this rhythmic chant of joyous nonsense. Hopefully that description can be put on my tombstone.
Marc Maron bought the LP and a stranger who saw him asked, “Catching Up?” Aren’t we all?
Stephen McClurg (Episode 24) writes and teaches in Birmingham, Alabama. He co-hosts The Outrider Podcast, writes at Eunoia Solstice, and infrequently blogs. He has contributed music as a solo artist and with the group Necronomikids to past episodes of The Drunken Odyssey.
Episode 375 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
In this week’s episode, I talk with Chet Weise, the publisher of Third Man Books.
Photo by Jamie Goodsell.
TEXTS DISCUSSED
NOTES
This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.
TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.
Check out my debut novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.
Episode 375 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
Episode 366 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
In this week’s episode, I share my first mixtape in almost 2 years.
Episode 366 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
Episode 359 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
In this week’s episode, I talk to Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman about classical music, social class, memoir, and authenticity.
Photo by Vanessa Borer.
TEXT DISCUSSED
NOTES
TDO will be sharing a table with Black Fox Literary Magazine at AWP at table T14104, plus I am moderating a panel on life-balance, which I clearly know nothing about.
Also, my novel has a release date of April 16, 2019.
Episode 359 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
Episode 358 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
In this week’s episode, I talk to Mark Blake, biographer of Peter Grant, about what happened to Led Zeppelin after Led Zeppelin.
Photo by Ross Halfin.
TEXT DISCUSSED
Episode 358 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
Episode 357 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
In this week’s episode, I talk to music writer Mark Blake about his new biography of Peter Grant, the man who empowered Led Zeppelin to become the most popular rock band of all time.
Photo by Ross Halfin.
TEXT DISCUSSED
NOTES
I will be at AWP. Leave a comment if you are attending and would like a TDO meet and greet.
Episode 357 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #6 by Drew Barth
Get Loud
Influence is a two-way street. While comics have always worn many of their influences proudly, it gets a little more complicated with music. Musicians will always be fans, but at times it’s a bit more tricky to add that to their work. Legal issues over using characters and being labeled as a novelty act for writing songs about comics typically makes a lot of artists shy away from immersing themselves fully into what they love the most. But with the occasional nod, wink, and reference, many musicians were able to let their fan flag fly.
As always, things start around the 60s. We’ve all heard bits and piece of “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan with its references to Green Lantern and Superman. It’s become such a popular song that DC themselves went and created an actual Sunshine Superman to exist in same universe as Prez and some of their other hippie influenced comics at the time. Couple that with his mention of power rings in “Museum” cements Donovan as one of the first popular acts to really start bringing in silver age comic influences to his music.
But a lot of those are kind of superficial references. Even a band like XTC and their own music referencing Sgt. Rock and Supergirl takes influence from comics, but only as a reference here or there. Other artists are much more intentional when it comes to showing their comic influences. Let’s talk about MF DOOM and Ghostface Killah.
It’s not all that difficult to see where a musician like DOOM receives some of his influences. From the metal mask to the name itself—and the name Viktor Vaughn that he’s used to release music under—we can see Reed Richard’s eternal adversary Doctor Doom integrating itself into DOOM’s musical DNA. Many of his songs include references to the metal-faced villain, lines about himself being that same villain, and copious usage of audio from the old Fantastic Four television show.
Likewise, Wu-Tang member Ghostface Killah goes in the same direction with his first solo album titled Ironman and frequently referring to himself as Tony Stark. But they go a step beyond in their love for these characters. It isn’t just using names and audio clips, they want to try to personify these characters in the real world by becoming the villain or hero themselves. Ghostface himself is actually present in the 2008 Iron Man film in a couple deleted scenes.
Another artist was able to take their love and influence and turn it into something more in comics as well. When we look at My Chemical Romance’s song “”It’s Not a Fashion Statement, It’s a Deathwish” and their reference to a line from Neil Gaiman’s character, Death,we’re not just seeing a one-off thing. The band’s singer, Gerard Way, had been training to work in comics for years before that song took him further into rock fame. Sandman, Doom Patrol, and others were fundamental parts of his life and those are the things that would eventually carry him into both The Umbrella Academy as well as his own imprint at DC, Young Animals.
All of these influences, from music to comics and comics to music, finally blend together into this synthesis of what makes each medium completely unique in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It’s not just that Gwen Stacy is a drummer in a band or that Miles Morales is frequently seen with his headphones singing along to whatever is playing, but rather how the music better informs the comic storytelling. A moment like the juxtaposing of Miles taking his leap of faith whilst “What’s Up Danger” plays around us isn’t just a good match for the moment, it is the moment.
Like much of the soundtrack to the film, “What’s Up Danger” was written specifically with the Spiderverse in mind. Without the abiding influence of Spider-Man in any permutation, the song simply wouldn’t exist. And that’s one of the ways the song is so interesting in both this moment and in terms of how music and comics intersect.
Fans can create works and personas inspired by these characters, but it isn’t often that they’re embraced by the companies that own those characters. Fox, Marvel, and Disney protect their copyrights thoroughly—it’s one of the reasons why Ghostface Killah had to drop his Tony Stark persona. This is why Spider-Verse feels like something new and significant in terms of its treatment of music throughout. A lot of these artists are fans, they grew up either with the comics, the cartoons, or the early 2000s films, and so to see that love on display is incredibly heartening. A moment like the one mentioned above feels like a weird kind of culmination. It is the love of comics, the love of music, and the love of seeing all of them together that made this synthesis of comics and music come together in such a brilliant way.
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Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.
Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #5 by Drew Barth
The Music Connection
There’s a deep and wide history interconnecting music and comics that goes back decades. For now I’m just going to focus on one aspect of it: the ways in which music has influenced comics. These influences go deep. Anything from Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello lyrics at the ends of issues of Watchmen to DC’s Young Animals imprint being headed by My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way. And even more of it goes further back with more of DC’s work in the sixties being directly influenced by the counter-culture and, by extension, the music of the era.
We would get these series like Angel and the Ape, Brother Power the Geek, and Prez that were such products of the late-sixties/early-seventies era that it’s hard to look at the imagery used for their titular characters and not see the ways in which that particular musical era inspired them. This ties even deeper into the Adam West Batman of the era doing the Batusi (referenced later in the greatest piece of Bat-media, Batman: The Brave and the Bold’s “Mayhem of the Music Meister”).
But it isn’t always just superheroes. In the eighties we first got to see Los Bros Hernandez bring us their wonderful comic Love and Rocketsthat was dripping with musical references and stories involving various characters connected to the LA punk scene. The series even has its own unofficial soundtrack compiled from songs referenced or sung throughout the series. Love and Rockets made that leap from having music influence series in a superficial sort of way into being a part of the DNA of the series.
When we get more into the modern age, we start to see this flourishing of music related comic series come into the mainstream, most notably with the creative team of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. Beginning with the first volume of their series Phonogram in 2006, they began to show how music could work in comics in a more fundamental way. And that isn’t even getting into the playlistsGillencreatesfordifferent series. But what Phonogram did as a series was tap into something that everyone experiences: the idea of music as magic. This, layered with copious Brit-Pop references that are nigh incomprehensible unless you wrote for NME in the 90s, created a series that treated music as inspiration and source material. Like Love and Rockets before it, Phonogram worked with this idea of how music makes an individual feel but took it a step further with how that feeling is tantamount to magic itself and how people utilize that magic for themselves.
And then The Wicked + The Divine happened with Gillen and McKelvie taking that music as magic idea even further with gods being reincarnated as pop stars. Because, from the floor of a show, that’s how the music feels. What WicDiv(as it’s typically stylized) does is tap into what it means to be a fan and everything that comes with that—and I do mean every soul-crushing moment that comes with it. Gillen and McKelvie created something both delightful and harrowing in equal measure. It’s a series I’ve been following since its debut and every page follows this inaudible beat as the story rips through your soul. But it is so imbued with this musical spirit that you can’t help but dance through the tears.
All of this brings us to a new series Image Comics released recently that wears its musical influences a bit more on its sleeve. Gunning for Hits is a series that is seeped a bit more in the business side of the music industry. And that makes perfect sense as the writer, Jeff Rougvie, is a music producer who’s worked on albums from David Bowie and Big Star.
When looking at the state of the music industry and how harrowing most media typically portrays it, it makes perfect sense for a comic from someone within the industry would revolve around a former hit man working as a talent scout. While previous series glorify the music as a piece of art and the emotional connection people develop, Rougvie and Moritat gives us a kind of unerring reality seeped in back-room rumors and healthy cynicism.
Gunning for Hits is a series that feels like a natural step in how music and comics have interacted for the past fifty years. We’ve gone from the fans to the people who had a hand in creating some of these albums that were influential to those original fans. But of course, that idea of influence is a two-way street. I wonder where an intrepid reader could learn more about that.
Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.
Episode 341 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
In this week’s episode, I talk to Brian Turner & Jared Silvia about making a beautiful, experimental poetic album of space ballads and duets.
Episode 341 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
Also, my novel has a release date of April 16, 2019.
