10. In a Drawing Room with Tasteful Goatse Wallpaper

Goatse has lost its ability to shock, and I for one pour out my forty of scat leftover on the curb, here at the corner of Jaded Street and Saturation Lane.

I'm not gonna link to it, cause little children read this (it was named a "required blog" for passing the Virginia SOLs), and because chances are you see it about 300 times a day. It's no longer shocking. It has become shorthand for shocking, but the image has lost its power, or whatever power we allowed it to have, anyway.

And while we're discussing totemic images that have lost their magic, let's talk about the sixth most interesting member of the Velvet Underground, the estimable Lou Reed. Here was a man who tried way too hard in his solo career, and subsequently, never really did much of interest to me. His batting average was way below the Mendoza line, way below those of Cale (Paris 1919 wiped the floor with him), Tucker (the 50 Skidillion Watts releases are hella fun), Pfafgen (an ACTUAL degenerate), Morrison (tugboat captain!) and Yule (probably now known as "Doug Yule of Doug Yule Ford", and who I am placing above Reed just to be an asshole).

The one thing he DID do that I unreservedly like is, yes, the popular Goatse of its time, Metal Machine Music. Which when heard today in our landscape of Kevin Drumms and John Wieses and Tom Smiths is really not all that extreme. And which, it could be argued, Reed probably doesn't even remember making. You can read all the Bangs stuff about how it enraged every man-jack and child; I'll assume you know what went on back there. But by the time I got to it, sometime in the mid- to late-90's, it was just another noise record. And a damn good one to boot.

Reed, to this day, still doesn't know how to spin this thing, which can be considered as the one piece of music he did which wasn't slathered in layers of pose; he'll describe it as a continuation of his drone work in the Velvet Underground (oh yeah, "his" drone work, right) and then a couple of sentences later pass it off as some sort of Warholian joke. He doesn't know how to relate to the one thing he did that is just a piece of music. And that's sad, but shed few tears; he's shacked up with Laurie Anderson now, and the two of them wax post-epistemological over blintzes and Sanka.

So what becomes a Goatse? How about a classical re-interpretation thereof? An ensemble called Zeitkratzer somehow transcribed Metal Machine Music, arranged it for classical instruments, and played it, no doubt, at maximum valume in front of an audience who have Goatse t-shirts. The amazing thing is how well it works. Well, maybe not so amazing: they wouldn't have put in on CD if it didn't. Avant-garde classical ensembles have to justify their recorded releases, as opposed to yer more common noise yodels, who can shit out a CD-R at will.

Look for the Goatse version of the Flying Toaster screensaver in yer new Vista service pack. And stare deep into the ruby sun twixt that old man's cheeks, and enjoy the feeling of ironic peace it brings.

8. Organized Disorganzed Noise

Just found a very cool site here (it's also in the links to the side), which got me whooped up on field recordings again. Field recordings are tricky things, and fall into that hideous little experimental cul-de-sac wherein, as in yer garden-variety avant garde, it's usually a hell of a lot more to do it than to listen to it. (Reminiscent of when I tried to get one of my bands a gig at the Velvet Lounge in DC: "You people only come out for your own bands." Now, five years later, the amplified-hairnet underground is rampant, and the VL is booking any schmuck with a no-input minxing board; nevertheless, the guy was right.)

I'll just let the site speak for itself:

Folk Songs for the Five Points is a celebration of cultural diversity and change, using “folk songs” as a metaphor to explore immigration and the formation of identity in New York’s Lower East Side.

The project isn’t about absolute answers or clear definitions. We are celebrating the unexpected richness that confronts you at every turn – from the many languages of Canal St to the endless complexity contained in words like “immigrant” and “folk song”.

The interface raises some interesting points about intent. Obviously, there is no such thing as a completely unmediated field recording. The very act of choosing the spot and action (or process) to record constitutes a narrowing of options. Eventually, field recording will reach its apotheosis when Chris Watson (or some post-industrial maniac like Mark Pauline or Genesis P-Orridge) gets a Marantz installed in his sinuses and leaves the tape rolling 24/7. But do people who enjoy field recordings buy them for what is recorded rather than who is recording it? I don't know, I'm ust riffing. I suspect the latter, and I also suspect that a philosophical point can be made but I just woke up.

I think this site makes a great point regarding field recording: intent and organization are super-natural, and necessary. I think kids could have a lot of fun with it, mixing and matching the sounds; you can pan them, eq them, make your own b-boy bouillabaise from the exceptionally rich sonic palette of the Five Corners, organize the disorganized noise.

I think my favorite field recording probably wouldn't be considered such by purists, but I imagine field recording purists are people who have five-digit sound systems and no subscription to cable television. Sublime Frequencies have a slew of releases where people just went out into the country, deep in SE Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa, pointed their mics and hit record. They also have a series of recordings of radio broadcasts from these countries, edited and chopped (or not), which I think are as much field recordings as made by any pud with a raincoat and a bag of Fisherman's Friends out on the shore in Maine during a nor'easter. It's a sort of punk take on field recording, all in shit-fi, that I like, cause I love to hear evidence of the medium (tape distortion, bad edits, etc.) but that's a whole other pile of aesthetic philosophy and I'm gonna go smoke now.