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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Category Archives: Music

Episode 556: Lynn Melnick!

24 Saturday Dec 2022

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Memoir, Music, Poetry

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Episode 556 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

_______

The poet and memoirist Lynn Melnick talks with me about the cleverness and heart of Dolly Parton, who can serve as more than a cultural icon as we try to discover how to make our unique ways in the world.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

Scribophile, the online writing group for serious writers


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.

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Episode 556 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Episode 527: Mixtape #16: Sobering Up the Muses

11 Saturday Jun 2022

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Episode 527 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Chic drunk woman hanging off couch by Darya Sannikova (Creative Commons).

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

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.


Episode 488 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

The Perfect Life #26: Out of Time

01 Monday Nov 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Music, The Perfect Life

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Tags

Charlie Watts, The Rolling Stones

The Perfect Life # 26 by Dr. Perfect

Out of Time

Since Charlie Watts passed away last month, I have really struggled to live my life. I realize this sounds crazy. The Stones are already on tour without him, and while that’s not right, the show must go on. The music must go on.

Charlie Watts was the best Stone. He was certainly the most English of them all. He kept maybe the least disciplined musicians in show business for 50 years.

What if his beat wasn’t just keeping the Stones together? What if he was keeping our universe together? What if there is only wrongness left for us all?

What can restart me, Dr. Perfect?

—————

I’ve long suspected Watts of tying the universe together through his drumming. Like the earth spinning on its axis, it’s one of those things we don’t entirely acknowledge or appreciate.

We can’t very well shunt the burden of our existence on a drummer of a rock band, but a post-Charlie Watts world is an undeniably scary place. I don’t know where we’ll be in the next few years.

If I could have only seen them one more time as a complete ensemble. I saw the Stones play Central Park in 1975, blitzed out of my mind on Italian ice. Brain freezes were all the rage.

Years later, I caught a Tampa show in the early 2000s. They sounded sharper than ever. Watts was on stage, smiling n the jumbotron, effortlessly drumming. They ended their set with “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” amid fireworks and an explosion of confetti. I never met the man, but at that moment, everything was right in the world.

Charlie is somewhere in a higher dimension, still keeping the beat, still letting all of us spend the night together. We’ll all just have to listen a little harder.


Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.

Episode 488: Mixtape #15 (Sailing an Ocean of Violets in Bloom)!

05 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Mixtape, Music

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Episode 488 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

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.


Episode 488 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Lost Chords & Serenades Divine #21: An Interview with Jad Fair

08 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Lost Chords & Serenades Divine, Music

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Lost Chords & Serenades Divine #21 by Stephen McClurg

An Interview with Jad Fair

Jad Fair has had anything but a conventional music career. Known for collaborations with everyone from Daniel Johnston to Moe Tucker to John Zorn, he made a recent album with songwriter and puppeteer David Liebe Hart. Also a visual artist, Fair is probably most well-known for Half Japanese, a band featured in many books and documentaries about outsider music.

He is currently releasing at least two albums every week this year. I was lucky enough for Fair to spare some time to talk about this series of albums. Since New Year’s Eve, he has (as of the time of this writing) released thirty-six albums using his own art as the covers.

After the interview, I offer some listening suggestions.


TDO: When we first chatted, you said you were trying to get a new album out every two weeks. You seemed to have made that goal and then some.

Jad Fair: It’s not an album every two weeks. What I’m trying to do is add two new albums every week. I have twenty-four albums so far. I think I should be able to easily have 100 new albums this year.

TDO: Wow! I misunderstood that! Even though you mentioned these were about 50% archive and 50% new material, I can’t imagine getting that many albums together. The covers, gorgeous on their own, also seem to visually unite the work as a singular project, though that may not be in mind at all, given the range of song and music material.

Jad Fair: I’m glad that you like my art. Thanks.

TDO: I’ve seen mention of your influences being some of the great bands that were around Detroit as you were coming up: The Stooges, MC5, and Destroy All Monsters. Some of the current songs have a vocal cadence and structure that reminds me of poetry readings, almost like the Beats collaborating with DEVO or the Residents. I hear Martin Denny in certain musical elements. I was curious about your influences beyond those great Detroit rock bands.

Jad Fair: I grew up in Michigan and some of my favorite bands were from Michigan. I was also a big fan of The Velvet Underground, T Rex, The Shaggs, NRBQ, Captain Beefheart, and The Modern Lovers.

TDO: You mention movies and many characters, particularly monsters, in your lyrics. I grew up in Michigan and my grandparents lived in Coldwater, where you were born. Did you ever watch Channel 50 out of Detroit? Channel 50 was the first station where I saw monster and horror movies.

Jad Fair: I’m a huge fan of the early monster movies. I remember watching Sargent Sacto on Channel 50.

TDO: “An Evil Wind” mentions the movie Demon Wind, which is a wonderful mess of a film. A couple of the lyrics I particularly liked could be referencing the movie as well as relating to daily life.

I like that these films—and by extension your songs—could have grains of deeper truths in them. I particularly liked, “Teens don’t think about eternity, not on a Saturday night” and “Fool following fool following fool.” Were you just riffing on the film or mixing ideas about it with lyrical concepts you already had?

Jad Fair: A lot of the songs I write are written very quickly. A lot of it is just off the top of my head.

TDO: Some songs reuse lyrics or references (Nosferatu, zombies), some reuse musical settings, and a few seem like the same tracks. Cultural phrases also appear: for whom the bell tolls, all fall down, time waits for no man, etc. How much of that intentional and how much is your process open to the moment? For example, most writers I know would have edited those phrases out. Maybe they would mention Nosferatu in only one song. Is it in any way related to the repetition that goes into making the visual art? The recurring figures of monsters, stars, and hearts?

Jad Fair: I’ve written hundreds of songs. Repetition is fine with me. It’s not something I aim for, but I’m not bothered if it happens.

TDO: I’ve read that you don’t tune your guitar and never really have. Do you try to pitch the strings at all to something you like?

Jad Fair: I sometimes will tune up, but usually not. The guitar sounds more like a percussion instrument to me if it’s untuned.

TDO: I saw a video of you playing a very interesting guitar. I assume it was built for you, but at one moment there was a slow-motion clip and you were rocking like a classic guitar god, but then the neck starting bending forward at a strange angle off the guitar and was almost folding up–the clip didn’t have audio, but it struck me how it bordered on punk rock or those Detroit bands you grew up listening to and something like The Muppets. Then it showed you later folding the guitar up in order to get ready for another gig. I just think of the anger and catharsis of most footage of destroying instruments and how whimsical this was in comparison though so many elements were similar. Ultimately, it appeared that it wasn’t destruction at all. It was an image that reminded me of the phrase on your website: “Enjoy Your Life.”

Jad Fair: While touring I grew tired of having to carry around a suitcase and also a guitar case. I wanted to have a way to fit my guitar into my suitcase. I shortened the neck and have the neck attachable with rubber bands. The rubber bands make it easier to bend notes.

TDO: Is that a particular guitar that was made for you?

Jad Fair: The body of the guitar is one I bought in Glasgow in 1987. I’ve replaced the neck with a shorter one so it’ll fit better in my suitcase.


Here are ten songs to check out from the ever-increasing Bandcamp collection currently being released by Jad Fair.

 

  1. It’s Go Time: “234-B”

The most recent record (as I’m typing this) is loop-based. The robot on the cover may allude to this. The whispered syllables and almost constant looping had me envisioning the consciousness of a dying robot. Strange and beautiful.

  1. Wonderland: “MMMMM”

One of Fair’s cut-out art pieces representing the White Rabbit and Alice graces the cover. He has similar art available at his website. I picked this one because I like it as an album opener setting the mood for the record. There’s a whistled almost-melody that comes in and out, like the whistler is getting your attention and disappearing like a ghost. Echoey, dub-like drum sounds, and keyboard strings fill out the rest of the track that feels like entering a sound world and descending with it.

  1. We Win: “Invaders from Mars”

This one mixes several strains of Fair’s music that I like. One, it’s one of his sci-fi/monster songs. He writes more songs featuring movie monsters than maybe Danzig has seen, much less wrote about in the Misfits. The other strain I like is that the aliens are invading in order to get things like peppermint twists, Daisy Dukes, and strawberry cake.

  1. Nature: “You Know What They Say”

I thought I should include a more traditional song in this group, at least as traditional as Fair gets. You get gongs, four-on-the-floor-beats, and some guitar strums to go along with some understated vocals. “My love’s a tiger, Tiger. My love’s a darling, Darling.”

  1. Beautiful Music: “Three” and “Four”

There is a certain streak of Fair’s output that seems influenced by exotica. “Three” is a mix of Yma Sumac and Martin Denny in a dark carnival ride. “Four” is an anthemic, reverby acoustic jaunt.

  1. Midnight Eyes: “Vampire Doll”

Swinging drums, barking dogs, and rumbling thunder weave throughout a story of a vampire/devil/voodoo doll in New Orleans.

  1. Entertainment: “Come On”

A track built on various vocal effects and beat boxing. “I want more romance. / I want to see eye-to-eye. / I want to be belly-to-belly / Just you and I.”

  1. Sunshine: “You’ve Got Me In A Spin”

A Fair love song featuring an array of unexpected dub and panning effects, the latter possibly representing the spin of the title.

  1. Monster: “One Way Ticket”

A strummed drone of an acoustic guitar reminiscent of the Velvet Underground forms the basis of this track that lyrically becomes a celebration of shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, fears, and small-town life. “Oh, we can’t have the barbecue without you.”

  1. Oh No: “Bad Seed”

I love Fair’s spoken word songs. This one has one of my favorite lyrics: “Shrunken head in a cigar box listening to Steely Dan.”


Stephen McClurg (Episode 24 and Episode 374) 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 473: A Discussion of Tom Waits’s Swordfishtrombones with Stephen McClurg!

22 Saturday May 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Lost Chords & Serenades Divine, Music

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Episode 473 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s show, I bring music blogger Stephen McClurg aboard as we talk about one of the most transformative, dramatic, atmospheric, strange, American pastoral phantasmagorical musical albums of all time, Tom Waits’s Swordfishtrombones (1983).

TEXTS DISCUSSED


Episode 473 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Episode 470: Mixtape #14: I Don’t Know How to Talk to You Outside of a Poem

02 Sunday May 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Mixtape, Music

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Episode 470 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

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 literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.


Episode 470 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

The Perfect Life #9: Love Thy Neighbor if You Can, and If You Can’t…

15 Monday Mar 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Music, The Perfect Life

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The Perfect Life #9

Dear Dr. Perfect,

My neighbor blasts his music too loud. I try not to dim anyone’s fun, but after three weeks of polka at 80 decibels, I am at wit’s end. I’ve asked him to stop. While he seems really nice, I don’t know if his English is strong enough to understand my request. The police won’t do anything, as they seem to be polka fans. Should I hire a hitman? My scarred eardrums need solace right about now.

Signed,

In Search of the Sound of Silence

——————————————–

Dear Searcher,

Simon and Garfunkel sang about the fractured void of communication in their hit song “The Sound of Silence.” Uou just need to revisit the smooth folk-rock of one of America’s great duos. Transport yourself to simpler times of mass casualties in Vietnam and a new season of Gilligan’s Island on TV. Your neighbor is inconsiderate, but that doesn’t mean you can’t work things out. It might just involve a carefully layered strategy.

We’ve all been in similar situations, leaving some to live off the grid completely in log cabins deep in the woods. Alas, the survivalist lifestyle isn’t for me. I enjoy my morning coffee and heated foot bath massager far too much. I got a great deal on one too, using my Brookstone elite member gold card. You don’t want to know how many various types of massagers I own.

I once had an upstairs neighbor in my old apartment complex who practiced interpretive dance, day and night. Next door to me lived a family of five who regularly blasted Ingmar Bergman films. I didn’t get it either. The couple on the other side just yelled a lot about everything. One of their arguments involved the proper way to eat a baked potato.

In all circumstances, I wore headphones, for it was far too tiring to confront every lunatic in my building. My advice columns during this period bore the brunt of my irritation and were noticeably angry in tone. I responded to a woman from Seattle who asked the proper time to put down her ailing feline. I told her to abandon him in a park and get a new cat. The tremendous fallout that followed elicited an apology from yours truly, and I never let my emotions get the best of me again.

I’m now fortunate enough to own a house, far removed from the shackles of condensed dwelling. I still have neighbors, but none have crossed me yet, which is good, because I do hold grudges. On to your issue, polka music at such decibels is problematic. If I had to wager the amount of Golden Gate Bridge suicides from polka music alone, I’d say at least half.

Confrontation in these situations is usually the right answer but not necessarily the easiest. You’ve already spoken to your neighbor and tried to build a rapport, seemingly crippled by a language barrier. Like our former First Lady, I speak seven languages. I don’t like to boast, but I spent a lot of time and money on those Rosetta Stone CDs. Most of us in this country, however, are doomed to knowing one singular boring language just in time for the latest trashy prime time reality show. Don’t let my erudite, snobbish tone fool you. I’m still in touch with the common folk and here to advise you.

You tried talking to your neighbor and seem to think that your pleas of lowering the volume were misconstrued. I would argue that the polka fiend in question heard you just fine. He’s simply being obtuse. He knows the police will side with him, naturally, because law enforcement tends to favor polka. Where do you think their uniforms derived from?

A hitman would be understandable, but then you’ve got a messy murder on your hand that could easily be traced back. Nothing says paper trail like a hitman. They always crack under pressure. You can’t reason with your neighbor, you can’t kill him, and the law has failed you. Where can you go from here? Allow me to make some suggestions.

Polka originated from the Czechs or the Swedes or the Polish or something. I don’t really know, and I don’t want to know. Despite my misgivings, it’s a rather lively musical form. Have you ever heard a depressing Polka song? I think not. Your neighbor is just having a good time. He most likely blasts the music to block out the negative voices that normally consume his diseased mind. You’re going to have to gaslight him, and it’s going to have to be big.

Stage a pagan ritual within an earshot of your neighbor’s property. Pull out all the stops: big bonfire, woodland or Venetian masks, and willing actors to sell the thing. Blast some Richard Wagner for good measure. By the time he looks out the window, good and drunk, he’ll know that you’re not someone to be toyed with. At the least, he’ll be too shaken to ever bring up the incident again. Part of him, however, will know, that you’re not the passive American bore he took you for.

This is but one suggestion in my esoteric catalogue. I’d need another column to suggest more. The complexities of living next to one another can be a precarious thing. The Bible urges us to “Love thy neighbor,” despite violations of personal space and affronts of sound. I had a neighbor with five or six dogs, small, loud creatures, whose collective cacophony of high-pitched wails grated on my soul. Short of building a soundproof dome over my house, there was little I could do. It is better to hear even the most irritating of sounds than to not hear at all. A wise man once taught me that. He, like most wise men, was named Hershel. There will come a time when the polka music stops. Until then, take a breath and embrace your plight. Zing boom tararrel!


Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.

Episode 463: Raphael Cormack!

13 Saturday Mar 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, History, Music, Theater

≈ Leave a comment

Episode 463 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s episode, theater scholar Raphael Cormack and I discuss the allure of Arabian music, the revolutionary times in Egypt between the world wars, and the women who dominated Cairo’s entertainment scene in the 1920s and 30s.

Photo by Nina Subin.

TEXT DISCUSSED

Women of Egypt

NOTES

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 this site for The Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research.

Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research

  • Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

Episode 463 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

28.538335
-81.379237

Lost Chords & Serenades Divine #19: Silica Gel’s May Day

03 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Lost Chords & Serenades Divine, Music

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Lost Chords & Serenades Divine #19 by Stephen McClurg

Silica Gel: May Day (2020)

Silica Gel’s May Day opens with the title track, a lilting version of an estampie by twelfth century troubadour de Vaqueras. The liner notes say, “We hope our rendition, with drums-a-pounding and whispering voices reminding you of all you love but cannot possess allows you to dance the heartsickness away.” Since the title at once references revelry and rebirth, International Workers’ Day, and a distress signal, the title serves the playful seriousness and layers of sometimes contradictory meanings of the music. Silica Gel’s approach on this tune is to take folk and classical vocal forms, harmonious and airy vocals, and meld them to brute percussion and jarringly contemporary electronics.

May Day features gorgeous artwork and engaging liner notes, sometimes historical, sometimes poetic. The lyrics range from a variety of early song texts, notably twelfth and fourteenth century folk songs, and originals. Silica Gel is not a period-specific revival band. Instead, they commit to having old songs speak to contemporary times, honoring traditions while commenting on contemporary life.

My first reaction to the album was that it was a kind of folk horror score written by Julia Holter. Silica Gel, and the label Sweet Wreath, often create with seasons and cycles in mind: sounds and songs become articulations of light and weather and water and thunder. Similarly, the songs here connect to the physical, emotional, and liminal: these are songs of art and thought and love and protest, topics that cycle through humanity’s collective life and creativity. “New Year’s Dream” evokes not only the larger seasons and cycles, but also the scene of an early morning, vaguely lightheaded walk after a party to watch the sun rise.

It’s difficult to balance these conceptual and thematic threads, but the album manages it well. One of the best examples is “Pan Pan Medico,” a title that itself was used as a former distress signal. The song seems obscure at first, but every listen brings in more clarity, but also other layers of ideas. Playful and dark themes combine with folk songs, children’s songs, codes, and a sequence from “Yankee Doodle.” The ending deconstructs “Sweet Home Alabama,” one of the most unexpected, eerie and sublime moments on the album.

This is a collection speaking toward similar themes and ideas rather than a straightforward narrative. Like much folk music, it can be at once abrasive and balming.

Silica Gel’s May Day is available on Bandcampthrough Sweet Wreath.


McClurgStephen 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.

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