a.k.a. (desperation + noise): SPECIAL VIDEO EDITION. Um.
Necessary context: I have yet to retrieve the music from the failed heart of my external hard drive. Thus, it is difficult for me to write about how the entire Converge discography details The Plague and the ways in which it spreads through the body and blackens the bones, as their discography is currently unavailable to me. This would have been explained in the following video had I not edited it beyond comprehension.
The idea (of my parading in front of a camera and pointing at music that ignites me) originates in the brilliant mind of my friend Erin; my execution may have botched the original brilliance. In lieu of my traditional music library gone on blackout vacation, I talk about a really odd record in my vinyl collection and a really odd record in The Beach Boys catalog. It is not the kind of talk that is necessarily coherent.
I shall not front: There are many foolish moments in this thing. This is okay; I bear my foolishness with enthusiastic pride. I do not bear my desperate need for a haircut with the same.
Two things:
1) maybe it’s the result of editing but when I was watching this I kept thinking “No way could I speak extemporaneously in this way and come out sounding this coherent and pretty much like I was speaking something I’d normally write.” I’d probably jump from topic to topic constantly and forget what I’d started with and have to edit in resolutions to the points I originally tried to make and then forgot about. Also, I’d be way less sedate. I’d probably come off like Denis Leary in those old commercials he did for MTV.
2) As for that Beach Boys record, a great deal of what you had to say about the lyrical content, the sound, and what it all added up to express reminded me strongly of Daniel Johnston’s work. It makes me wonder what the results would have been if Daniel Johnston had had stage parents the way Brian Wilson did. I dunno, do you see the comparison between the two?
The reason there are three different takes of everything (which is the reason why editing was stupid as fuck) is because there are long pauses in each take that are best filled by abrupt cutting to another. There was also a lot of jumping from topic to topic: Two takes meant to be on the same subject achieved very different ends (neither made it into the final video). The sedate quality is a result of this being filmed at 3 a.m. In other words, I think you could totally pull this off Andrew and I think it would be completely awesome.
The Daniel Johnston comparison is spot-on, even down to the sound of the record, except Johnston would be a return to childhood as a way of expelling the devil from his body. Also, just an aside, but what I failed to mention here is that despite my painting of this record as distinct in the Beach Boys discography, there’s clear antecedents in stuff like “Vegetables.” This is just a further extreme down the line.