a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

A couple of old guys just sittin' around, bein' relevant....

          After spending the first couple years changing the face of rock and roll, Ray Davies made a career out of sounding like an old man (see the Village Green review a ways down, for further details). Then came the second childhood of 1979-1986, producing a string of truly neat albums stretching from Low Budget to Word of Mouth. Duly followed by nearly 10 years of surprisingly mediocre material. Duly followed by another 10 years of... well, pretty much nothing, actually. And while it was great of VH1 to draw from Brother Ray's inspiration to create the Storyteller series in the late '90s (and the off-the-cuff version of "Harry Rag" done by Ray was priceless), the handful of new songs that came out of it suggested that the tank was, in fact, still dry. And given the catalogue that preceded it, who could really blame him for being creatively overextended?
         But, in the words that open Ray's first solo album in more than 40 years, things are gonna change. 
         Other People's Lives is a letter from an old friend, and while maybe the friend's not in his prime anymore, he's in a good place, has some good stuff to share, and definitely has some living left to do. If this album has a parallel to any previous Kinks album, it'd probably be Sleepwalker. No epic confessional "Life on the Road" or radio-affectionate "Juke Box Music" here, but nonetheless a similar sense of maturity -- only, nearly 30 years later, it's not a maturity cultivated and/or thrust prematurely upon the writer but one that's been lived in and learned over time. 
         A somewhat surprising wrinkle here is the swampy, Creedence-y feel the Muswell Hillbilly has given some of the tunes here - note "Creatures of Little Faith," "The Tourist," "The Getaway (Lonesome Train)"and the cream of the crop here, "Over My Head" -- no doubt due to much of the material being written in New Orleans. (On a related side note: Those who haven't read Brother Ray's "controversial" (how, pray tell???) commentary in The London Times concerning Katrina, and his own adventures in the Big Easy not long before, should immediately go here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-1768247,00.html.) 
         That's not to say what's here isn't recognizably Kinks-like. "Is There Life After Breakfast?" and the title song (which, now that I've heard it, really isn't about really the Internet but about the media, more or less picking up lyrically where "Word of Mouth" left off) would've fit well in their oft-maligned (some fair, some not) RCA period. The deliberately vaudeville-with-the-amps-cranked "Stand-Up Comic" probably would've fit well on the latter-day Kinks albums. Et cetera.
         There's no hit-it-out-of-the-park songs here, aside from possibly the taking-stock "Over My Head" (with its subtly clever declaration, "Right now I want some peace of mind, so let it go right over my head"). But it's solid all the way through. Aside from the aforementioned are the openers, "Things Are Gonna Change" (the considerable bravado of its title betrayed by its temporal context: "This is the morning after") and "After the Fall" (wherein Big Sky has become noticeably more terse over the last 40 years: "I cried to the heavens and the vision appeared / I said, 'Can you help?' It replied 'Not at all.'"); the driving "All She Wrote"; and the appropriately titled '80s-Kinks-pop of "Run Away from Time"- you can almost hear brother Dave at his rightful place in the back-ups on the chorus (but alas, it's not).
         And with repeatedly listens, the Davies charm is becoming more apparent. Nearly 30 years later, it remains difficult not to like anyone who offers such encouragement as the following:

Lift yourself out of the doldrums
Make yourself a cuppa tea
Drag your emotions out of the gutter
Don't wallow in self pity
When you wake up, all of a fluster
Thinking life has passed you by
Give yourself a kick up the backside
Jump out of bed and punch the sky

Is there life after breakfast
Full of possibilities
Is there life after breakfast?
Yes there is.

         Anyway, why should you break down for this? 'Cause it's Ray Faithin' Davies, that's why. End of story.
         And start of the next....

***********
         I was never a big Brian Eno fan. Not by any deliberate choice, mind you -- just had never delved into his solo music. I'm starting to think I have a new and considerable backlog to discover now.
         Not that the odd but affable little bald guy's fingerprints haven't been all over countless albums that have crossed my ears over the years, and particularly at various bands' respective musical peaks: The first two albums by his old garage band Roxy Music (I just like that image.... roll with it...), Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Bowie's "Berlin trilogy" (Low/Heroes/Lodger), Talking Heads' More Songs About Buildings and Food through Remain in Light (and David Byrne's The Catherine Wheel, as well as their collaboration My Life in the Bush of Ghosts), U2's The Unforgettable Fire pretty much to the present (OK, this one's post-peak ad nauseam, but it still bears mentioning). Not to mention (at least at length) myriad collaborations with John Cale (Wrong Way Up still gets regular airplay on my car cassette), Robert Fripp and others.
          In recent months though, Eno's been on my radar quite a bit, and it's largely my wife's fault. I came across the extremely minimalistic ambience of Neroli (thank you again, Loveland Public Library), and took it out for Marion as potential good art background music. She loved it. Located Music for Airports. Also fared well. Noticed a new Eno album (with words and everything!), Another Day on Earth, and went for it. This one's getting some abuse from my daughters (Marion's still absorbing), but what do they know anyway? They thought The Killers weren't done by The Cure much better 20 years earlier (but now they know better ). 
          Anyway, the music: "This" is a gentle balm for anyone who thinks Byrne hasn't played a relevant note in 15 years. "And Then So Clear" isn't (clear, that is), but there's an icy beauty to it, despite the overly vocoded vocals. "A Long Way Down" and "Going Unconscious" up the disjointed ethereal creep factor even further, but it's a world y'r given safe passage through nonetheless.
          "Caught Between" starts off in the same eery downer vein, but works its way into this really lovely quiet piece. Before venturing back into Creepsville with "Passing Over," of course. (Not to say that this stuff isn't eminently listenable; you just need to be aware that this is very much a late-night kinda album.)
          "How Many Worlds" is probably my favorite cut on the album. Starting with a simple piano riff, our diminutive hero delivers some simple but touching lyrics...

Thinking of a world and the light of the sun
And all the many lives that were ever begun,
Ever begun.
Our little world turning in the blue
As each day goes there's another one new,
Another one new.
How many people will we feed today,
How many lips will we kiss today,
If we wake up?
How many worlds will we ever see,
And how people can we ever be,
If we wake up?

         ...before giving way to this gorgeous symphonic thing over the next two minutes, then at last reprising the opening verse. 
         Back to the vocoder for "Bottomliners"; that's really all I need to say 'bout that. It won't change your mind about the album in either direction at this point. The title song is a nice little soft-funk piece that engages well, the groove of which then picks up a couple steps and some dissonance for "Under."
         The closer, "Bone Bomb," is a suitably unsettling rumination on premature death (I've heard  famine and AIDS as possible contexts, but it sure sounds like war to me) featuring a persistent uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh riff that'd do Laurie Anderson proud and a sudden stop that brings the message home: It may be just another day on earth, but it's gonna be someone's last. Maybe even yrs.
         Truthfully, six months from now, if I'm still listening to either CD with some degree of regularity, it's probably this one. (But never rule out the power of Brother Ray.) The great thing about Eno's stuff, as discovered thus far, is that you can be as involved or uninvolved as you like (you know, him being Mr. Ambient and all), and it'll pay off at either level. 
         Excuse me now, I have a catalog to wade through.

Posted by: burninglight at 17:01 | link | comments (2)

Comments:

#1  03 April 2006 - 18:18

 

So yr the other guy who bought 'Wrong Way Up'! Tim here (ain't logged in ya know). Heard something from the new Uncle Ray record the other day, can't remember a word of it now but it made me smile and the way things have been going lately, that's a lot. Will have to hear new Eno I always loved his work, especially with that garage band.

Anonymous

#2  03 April 2006 - 19:08

 

Actually, I found WWU in a cutout bin at Dollar Discount in Franklin, NJ when I was unemployed in the early/mid-'90s. It's more than paid for itself. I remember hearing "The Turning" playing during an episode of Northern Exposure once, and just grinned like an idiot. :D

"Thanksgiving Day" is the single, I believe, but whatever they want to play is fine with me.

burninglight

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