NURSE WITH WOUND - TO THE QUIET MEN FROM A TINY GIRLS & MERZBILD SCHWET @ 40

Though there is no definitive information on their actual release dates, I'm commemorating the release of both the 2nd and 3rd Nurse With Wound albums today as an arbitrary approximation for their 40th anniversary. Recorded in January and June of 1980, respectively, To the Quiet Men from a Tiny Girl and Merzbild Schwet represent critical stages in the initial development of this project.

Initiated the year before with the release of Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella, Nurse With Wound was founded by the trio of Heman Pathak, John Fothergill and Steven Stapleton. They would remain in this configuration for the 2nd LP, but creative differences would leave the project in the sole proprietorship of Stapleton by the recording of the 3rd. Going forward, NWW would evolve into an ever shifting conglomerate of collaborations with a huge variety of artists. Though some would become somewhat regular contributors, Stapleton would always remain its central instigator.

Whereas the first LP was essentially little more than a bit of a studio lark for the trio, being recorded with little forethought and little time (I believe it was a one day affair), they started to take things a bit more seriously with the 2nd LP and, by the time the third was manifest, the basic essence of the central concepts were well in place. The references to Dada and Surrealism were firmly fixed and the production values started to reflect a desire to offer some kind of high fidelity while simultaneously sabotaging it with the use of inexplicable distortions and glitches. United Dairies, the self-run label releasing the albums, even relied on a pressing plant specializing in classical recordings for their releases as the technicians there were more adept at dealing with extremes in audio dynamics inherent in the genre as opposed to other plants who were more used to the heavily compressed recordings common within the rock & roll arena. The results were records of uncommon clarity and precision within the scope of the material being presented.

The compositions themselves offered up a more interesting progression than the improvised cacophony of the depute from the previous year. Certainly, there was still a lot of clutter in the sound at times, but there was a much greater expansion in the appreciation of strategic silences. The principals of "cut-ups" were starting to manifest in the use of found voice elements, though the editing sophistication was still lacking and would not manifest into its full flower until the following year with the release of the pivotal Homotopy to Marie LP. However, the course and the evolution are clearly audible on these two albums and the progression is unmistakable.

Personally, I didn't managed to track these down until the early 2000s on CD, once online ordering became practical for me. I'd picked up an LP in 1989, The Sisters Of Pataphysics, which offered extracts from the first three LPs, but the presence of the Chance Meeting components put me off the album due to their rudimentary nature. Once I got a chance to hear these two albums in their entirety, I was much better able to appreciate the evolution which had occurred and the development of Stapleton's ability to surprise and misdirect. Merzbild Schwet, in particular, stands out as one of the few recordings I've ever heard which caused me to think my stereo system was broken. The opening few minutes had me rushing to my equipment, in a panic, thinking it was about to implode. I give kudos for that any time someone manages to pull it off.

Though they are albums which represent a "work in progress", I still find them very listenable, overall, at least as far as Nurse With Wound is considered. There's a certain ambience to them that sinks into the environment and allows you to absorb it all without too many instances of things jarring you out of your comfort zone. Of course, that's assuming your comfort zone is a bed of nails.

IT'S NOT THE APPLE, IT'S THE BARREL

I keep seeing this image shared online and there's something about it that doesn't sit right with me. I understand the intent of it, that it's trying to get people to think beyond stereotypes, but it also plays into a narrative which I think is at the crux of the problems we're dealing with at the moment in terms of understanding the insidiousness of the racism which is rampant in our civil institutions. I've touched on this a few times in the last several days and it is generally referred to as the "rotten apple" argument. Simply put, it posits that the problem is that a few "bad apples" shouldn't cause you to misjudge an entire group or system within which these individuals operate. It exists based on the premise that the culture or the system is not faulty, only a few individuals who misrepresent and appropriate it. This is the lie that sustains the injustice.

This particular image is doubly stealthy because it features a woman of color, someone who is accepted as a representative of the victims being subjugated. But it's a co-opted image. The message is still that the system is not at fault and that it's only the "bad apples" that are creating the problem. "Not all cops are bad". That's the most relevant component of this sign in the current context, but it completely disregards the corruption of the system within which ALL police must function. That system is intricately structured to place people of color at a disproportionate disadvantage. The only evidence you need to consider of that is the vast disparity between the numbers of people of color vs Caucasians currently occupying prisons in the west. Policing, the courts and the justice system as a whole, from the ground floor to the top, are designed as a way to subjugate the non-white population and keep them in a perpetual state of fear and repression.

So don't tell me that there's some "good cops". There were, I'm sure, some lovely Nazis in WWII, fine folk with whom you could have a drink and a chat with about the football game, but here's the thing - THEY'RE FUCKING NAZIS! When der Führer gave the orders, they still fell in line and did their jobs. The same thing applies to cops. Trying to bury this truth in the guise of liberal fairness is a dangerous game in this climate. It de-fangs the opposition and the protests of what's been happening. It pulls the rug out from under every viable argument that needs to be made now.

This principal applies to ALL forms of prejudice and bigotry. It's the same when people say "not all men are sexist". No, they're not, but all men must exist within a culture which has enshrined sexism into its very fabric. There's no escaping it on a daily basis. All men must live in the world where women are second class citizens. All of us are, in some way, complicit in maintaining it. We all stand by while the injustices occur and are repeated, over and over, ad nauseam. We have got to stop making exceptions for ourselves when it comes to dealing with the pervasiveness of prejudice and bigotry.

To get where we need to go, we all have to do something no one wants to do. We all have to admit to our own prejudices. There are simply no angels among any of us. We're all guilty as sin and simply pointing the finger at others will never solve the problem. We have to solve the problem from within ourselves first. I know I have bigotry and bias built right into my social DNA. It's been there from childhood, carefully indoctrinated into me by every social influence which could play a part in shaping my identity. It's so deeply ingrained, I don't even realize it's presence most of the time. It's only occasionally, like when the world starts to burn like it has this week, that I catch myself in the mirror and realize that I'm part of the problem too. Like an alcoholic who's just reached the point where they're willing to admit they have a problem, I'm standing up and saying, this is me and I'm guilty too.

So stop trying to pretend there's not enough guilt to go around. There's more than enough and it's only going to be when you start to own it that there's going to be any hope of change in this horrible, corrupted world.

THE MONKEES - CHANGES @ 50

50 years ago this month, in June of 1970, The Monkees, or what was left of them, released what would become the final album of their original era of their existence, Changes. After a mere 5 years, they had gone from the staggering heights of screaming teen heart-throb superstars to plunging to the level of "red-headed stepchild" of pop culture. Dismissed, reviled and ridiculed, they'd fizzle out like a dud firework. Or did they?

After the wild success of their first 4 LPs and two seasons of the TV show, things started to take a turn in 1968 with the double whammy of a feature film box office disaster, HEAD, followed up with an ill conceived and somewhat nightmarish variety special, 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee. It was all too much for Peter Tork, who split after the TV special was filmed, but they soldiered on as a trio through a couple more LPs and a smattering of TV guest appearances on things like Hollywood Squares and the Johnny Cash show. By the end of 1969. however, it was enough for Michael Nesmith, who was the next to depart and move on to a more creatively fulfilling solo career.

With the proper "musicians" (and control freaks) out of the picture, the two "actors" of the group, Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones, were looking to rekindle their chart success and, not being driven by the need to have that full say in their material, reverted to the format of the group prior to the creative "revolt" and musical director, Don Kirshner's dismissal. They went back to the record label's stable of pop song-smiths and Wrecking Crew studio musicians and put together another "pre-fab" style LP, the kind they'd been so successful with on their first two LPs. But the bloom was too far off the rose by this point to score any chart success and the commercial failure of the album put the final nail in the Monkees coffin. Jones and Dolenz went their separate ways, thus ending the initial lifespan of the group.

But what kind of album do we actually have in this swansong? It took me a long time to give it any attention or consideration. I'd always dismissed it as the last gasp of a dying concept. It was the last album from the original era that I bothered to add to my library and I only initially did so out of my obsessive-compulsive habit of wanting "completeness". When I collect a band, I like to get EVERYTHING they did, good, bad and ugly, and I assumed this album pretty much tagging only two out of three of those attributes and you can guess which ones.

When I finally got around to giving it a proper, objective listen, what I discovered was that it is actually a rather nicely crafted bit of bubblegum pop music. Firstly, you've got the vocal talents of Micky Dolenz. I don't care what anyone says, but I consider him one of the great vocal talents to emerge from the 1960s. And then there's still good songwriting talent coming to bare on the record. Andy Kim and Jeff Barry contributed most of the songs to the album and there are some great tunes in the bunch. Ticket on a Ferry Ride is a sublimely beautiful bit of pop confectionery. Even Dolenz contributes a spry tune in the form of Midnight Train, though I must say that the album version pales in comparison to the a-cappella demo version he did with sister Coco. She was Dolenz's secret weapon throughout his career and it's no wonder she's still a critical part of his touring entourage to this day, solo or with The Monkees. With a similar vocal tone, but slightly higher range, she was often the vocal "flying buttress" that helped lift Micky up to the heights he might not have fully scaled on his own.

Ultimately, while this may not be The Monkees best, it is definitely not their worst (Pool It takes that "honor"). What it is, is a beautifully crafted, neglected pop album with more good to it than bad and worthy of a second look for fans of the group who want to dig a bit deeper than the obvious hits. It was the last chapter in the first part of their story, but it wasn't a tragic one.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO

It was sometime in 1984 when The Velvet Underground first made a notable impression upon me. I had probably heard the odd song here and there before, but was mostly familiar with Lou Reed as a solo artist for his song, Walk On the Wild Side, which had featured in the "punk" movie soundtrack of the film, Times Square (1980). Other than that, I didn't know a hell of a lot about the group. I just recall one summer Sunday morning, after a long night of warehouse partying when the last dregs of us were lounging around the space that the song, Sunday Morning, came on and it was such a perfect expression of the moment that it burned the groups essence into my mind and I started to look more closely at them and what they had achieved.

I didn't actually get a copy of The Velvet Underground and Nico album (on CD) until sometime in the early 1990s, but I would become very familiar with it from copies owned by various friends and acquaintances. I'd also become well aware of the scene around the group at the time of its creation; the Factory crowd, Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia live extravaganzas and the auteur of the scene, Andy Warhol. It was all a big influence on us in the mid 1980s as we were looking to create our own little version of it in Vancouver, occupying disused warehouse spaces and filling them with mind altered denizens of the night, dancing to strange electronic sounds amid whatever setting we could manage to concoct with no money and scraps of whatever.

It was another case where I understood that the revolution in music and art we were seeing in our times was inspired and influenced by something from the past and that it wasn't all happening in a vacuum. The sounds the VU managed to create became massively influential to the most extreme examples of new music we were seeing from our generation. When you understood the connections and heard the linkages, you could appreciate the continuity of culture being expressed through the decades that separated these artists.

Learning about the VU also put their era in a completely new light. Having lived through it, albeit as a child who was only impressed upon by virtue of the media of the day, namely the TV, my biggest sense of culture for the late 1960s was often the caricature of hippies which had managed to permeate the popular shows of the day. Even at that, the hippies were much more subversive in their core, and I'm talking about the Merry Prankster branch here, than what was seen on the small screen. But there was another, much darker tangent to those years which remained hidden and obscured until you took the time to brush away the detritus of popular representations and explore below the surface.

In this regard, The Velvet Underground represented the ultimate "hard core" of the most significant artistic influence to emerge from the decade. While groups like The Beatles would have admittedly massive influence on popular culture in the decades to follow, The Velvets would prove to be far more insidious, perverse and persistent in terms of providing a foothold for subversive evolution within the arts. Personally, I continue to consider them "ground zero" for the most original and alienating strands of artistic expression within the realm of experimental and alternative music.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - MILES DAVIS, KIND OF BLUE

It was the summer of 1992 when my partner and I began cohabiting in my modest one bedroom West End apartment in Vancouver. When he moved in, one of his main contributions to our home was his expansive CD collection, accumulated by virtue of working for a major music retailer. This also facilitated numerous CD gifts thanks to his staff discounts. One of my favorites being the landmark 1959 Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue.

My partner's musical tastes are quite significantly different from mine, but I always appreciated that divergence as it allowed me to discover some music that I'd never have ventured into on my own. The world of jazz is someplace I'd been hesitant to explore, mostly because my conception of it was primarily based on the kinds of flashy, technique driven big band stuff that was often featured on programs like The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. That sort of thing simply never appealed to me as it only felt like it was about cramming as many notes into a performance as possible.

I'd seen Miles perform on TV several years earlier when he appeared on an episode of Saturday Night Live. It was a rather baffling performance as he spent most of the time shuffling around the stage like Tim Conway's old man, not playing anything. Occasionally he'd blap out a few notes and then back to the shuffling. I didn't really get it. Listening to Kind of Blue was an eye opener, however, as it clued me into the aesthetic of proper "cool jazz". This was something I could dig because it didn't try to beat me over the head with virtuoso musicianship. It was more focused on creating mood and ambiance. It was an album I could put on and chill with and let it sink in around me. It was elegant and lingered like cigarette smoke in a Film Noir.

It was examples like this that opened my mind up to the reality that jazz was a much larger arena than I had considered and that there were examples within it which jived with my own musical sensibilities, and that they had a lot in common with the improvisational techniques of experimental performers like Throbbing Gristle. When TG used the term "jazz" in their album title, yes, part of it was ironic and tongue-in-cheek, but it was also a very serious statement at the same time that there was common ground here, but in a different form.

This was not the only revelation I'd find in my partner's music collection. There were many other artists I learned to appreciate who I'd never have bothered with if I hadn't had access to this "alternate universe" music collection. Miles Davis was the one that had the most impact in the end. He put in place a principal which guided my musical journeys going forward, that being that musical styles are irrelevant to enjoyment and that any style can hold artists of depth and imagination, regardless of how many other practitioners may seem only superficial and unoriginal.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - JEAN MICHEL JARRE, EQUINOXE

From 1974 until 1981, legendary singer and actress, Dinah Shore, had a daytime variety talk show called Dinah! One afternoon in1978, while I was home for one reason or another, my mom was watching the show and the musical guest that day was this dashing young Frenchman by the name of Jean Michel Jarre. He was discussing his music and how he made it using all these electronic instruments and then they played a promotional video for one of his compositions from his most recent album, Equinoxe. The piece was Equinoxe Part 5 and was a sweeping instrumental with a driving, pulsing rhythm underpinning some majestic synthesizer swells. The video features various shots of Jarre wandering around while this odd looking graphic character featured on the cover of his album kept popping up. These binocular viewing blue men were positioned in various odd locations and the resulting effect for the video was something rather humorous, though also a bit unsettling.

At the time, I was just starting to get into electronic music and I think I'd just picked up my first Kraftwerk LP. Jarre was a bit different, however, because there was something of a classical leaning to his music. Not too surprising, I suppose, given his father was famous film score composer, Maurice Jarre. There was a more romantic and picturesque quality to Jean Michel's music over the overtly mechanical, robotic vision of Kraftwerk. Equinoxe plays out very much like a film score, seamlessly shifting through each movement, only interrupted by the separation of sides on the album. Otherwise, every piece segues into the next with remarkable precision and fluidity. The album is a journey through an alien electronic landscape, brimming with dynamics which completely belie the assumption that electronic music was incapable of expressing such emotion and dexterity.

Unlike a lot of the music I'm prone to enjoy, this work represents something meticulously crafted and composed rather than the more spontaneous and improvised genres that normally dominate my musical preferences. The proof of this is in the fact that Jarre has replicated it, note for note, in live settings, utilizing the exact equipment employed during its original creation. It's a bit of indulgence which is very familiar to Jarre and to fans of his work. He can be, at times, rather overtly a "showman" with his live presentations, and while this often is a bit much for me, there have been times when his excesses have been constrained enough for me to find certain works endearing and enduring far beyond their genesis. This is one of his best, for my money.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - MARTIN DENNY, EXOTICA

As a child of the 1960s, I was privy to sampling the golden age of easy listening music, courtesy of my parent's record collection. My mom was the primary collector in the house, but my dad had his favorites too and while mom favored the likes of Elvis and Johnny Cash, my dad was more drawn to the exotica realm, sometimes with Polynesian influences, but more often with Latin & Mexican flair. Though this music was well represented in our home, I don't recall any Martin Denny albums on the shelf.

It wasn't until 1984 that I was finally turned on to Denny and his "Exotica" albums. This happened squarely because of my interest in Industrial music, principally that of Throbbing Gristle. TG had been proponents of the work of Denny for some time, playing his music after their live shows and dedicating albums to him as well as doing stunningly convincing parodies of his infamous LP covers. This was a long time before the 1990s revival of the whole genre of "bachelor pad, space-age, exotic & easy listening" music.

Back then, collecting Denny recordings was only doable when you could find them in second hand bins in record shops and thrift stores. Mostly they were in pretty rough shape, so you'd be lucky to find one that wasn't beat up too badly. At first, putting them on was a bit of hipster irony to some extent, but we soon dropped the pretense when we noticed how much we were legitimately enjoying this music. There was real innovation going on here and it turned out Genesis was right about there being a kinship in Denny's approach to arrangements with that being pursued by the modern experimental musicians. You could definitely hear the attention to detail in the creation of "ambiance" between the two. Using odd vocal effects was just an early precursor to some of the more extreme sounds eventually used to create atmosphere in the contemporary arena.

This music remained something of a cult among the underground for several years until RE/Search publications started putting out their Incredibly Strange Music volumes in the early 1990s. The two books in this series became touchstones as they ventured into the record collections of the artists who were influenced by music on the fringes. The books were directly inspired by the alternative music underground's obsession with the strange. The dissemination of this information then kicked off a massive revival of retro music throughout the remainder of the decade. By the mid 1990s, there were special club nights and nightclubs entirely dedicated to the old "swing" music or exotica or space-age pop. People were dressing up in retro clothes and record companies were reissuing everything they could dig up from their vaults on CD, usually wonderfully remastered from the original tapes.

While the mainstream has moved on from its nostalgia fads of that decade, enough of a support base has remained that we continue to have access to this music in the modern forms of streaming media and digital distribution. The music has returned to its cult status, somewhat, but at least it still survives in our modern media landscape for new generations to discover its charms.