So the thing is, I'm part of a recently formed CD club (a club that I affectionately know as The Fighting Sea Tigers - and yes, I believe I am alone in that affection). The idea is that each month a different member of our clandestine group will craft a CD for the listening pleasure and education of the others. A digital mixtape as it were. Next month is my month.
So over the last five or six months, I've had the opportunity to listen to a lot of music from a lot of different bands (as our tastes are fairly divergent). Most of it has been great. Or at least above average. And because I thought, Hey. Why not? I have been writing up my thoughts on each offering. I will share those now with you.
For those of you who wish to play at home, here is the song list for volume one:
The Fighting Sea Tigers: Volume I
Diseases
Compiled by Johnny T
1. "Right Thing" by DJ Shadow
2. "Bjork" by Bjork
3. "I'm So Glad" by Cream
4. "Make It Funky" by James Brown
5. "Le Sarce du Printemps" by Stravinsky
6. "Whatever Happened to Gus (Word to the Drums Mix)" by Medeski, Martin & Wood
7. "Diamonds on My Windshield" by Tom Waits
8. "Stan" by Eminem
9. "Subterranean Homesick Blues" by Bob Dylan
10. "Release Part 1, 2, and 3" by Blackalicious
11. "Watermelon Man" by Herbie Hancock
12. "Ease Up, You Fundamentalist!" by Solex
13. "Sathington Wiloby" by Primus
14. "The Struggle" by Minutemen
15. "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Donovan
16. "Astronomy Domine" by Pink Floyd
17. "Positive Force" by Nightmares on Wax
18. "Carousel" by Mr. Bungle
[I realize that most of you won't have all these songs available, but if you're worth your salt, you will seek them out :D]
And now, my comments:
So Diseases, huh?
Johnny's disc was, I think, at the greatest risk amongst the four we've seen so far. As his theme, diseases, was more cerebral than musical, there was little in the way of auditory cohesion to the collection of songs. Whereas the songs on Mikey's disc feel like they are coming from roughly the same place (Nolan's does this as well), Johnny's doesn't musically come from any one particular point of origin.
I'll be up front and say that I found things to like and loathe about Diseases.
I thought that Diseases did a great job of giving me music to sample that I might not have otherwise taken the time to get to know. I was pretty familiar with seven of the bands/songs on the disc (Cream, Stravinsky, MMW, Dylan, Hancock, Primus, and Mr. Bungle), but was happy to make the acquaintance of several previously untasted fruits (mixaphorically speaking). DJ Shadow and Donovan were special joys to hear.
On the other hand, there were a couple pieces that really distract from my enjoyment of the disc as a listenable whole. Bjork is almost always a weak link for me. Despite enjoying some of her stuff with the Sugar Cubes, she's generally a bit too far off my beaten track to find pleasant. The selection particular to Diseases is almost cool, but in the end the electronic warbling distracts to much from what could have been something I could play while drawing or writing; in the end, I imagine if I don't skip it in future plays of Diseases, I may get a headache. The other big deficit towards the discs listenability is the Eminem track. It's amusing and good storytelling, but I don't think I could listen to it more than once in a very occasional while; essentially, I heard it the once, absorbed it, and don't really have any need or desire to do so again.
All in all, two or three songs disrupt my enjoyment of what would be, in my view, an entirely Sweet and Rockin' album (with iTunes, I simply uncheck those selections and proceed with the disc unimpeded). My other thing is that I am unclear on the title's meaning. I gather that something is diseased. But what? The songs? The artists? The world? Of course, I don't need to be in the know on that count - but I wouldn't mind either.
All my love,
The Dane
p.s. I think Blackalicious is swiping the melody from one of the later Zelda games on part two of their selection. And that ain't bad.
In response to some of my confusion about the disc, Johnny explains the theme of the collection:
The idea of a song with a disease is an artistically positive trait, in my book. This may not be shared by all, but as far as I am concerned, good art isn't produced by sane people. Mild insanity has an artistic insight that can't be reproduced by a formula, a school or training. It is the innate artistic ability that someone has or they don't have, they can improve and perfect, but they can't learn. I'm sure we don't all see eye to eye on this, but I'm just trying to give you an idea of where I'm coming from. My disk was an attempt to select a variety of sick music. Sickness manifests itself in a variety of ways. One of the main manifestations of sickness in these songs is incoherent ramblings: MMW, Tom Waits, Dylan, Blackalicious (primarily part II), Pink Floyd. Another form is excessive repetitions: Bjork, Cream, James Brown. Another manifestation is a vivid and/or surrealistic verbal painting or story telling: Eminem, Primus, Mr. Bungle.
But sickness isn't just verbal, so I included a number of instrumental pieces: Stravinsky, Hancock, Nightmares on Wax. How do I explain their sickness? It is difficult to verbalize. For me, it is felt. Like in the Rite of Spring (Stravinsky) it is in the strange and macabre irregularities of the piano. I should work on expressing this, but right now I'm at a loss for words.
Most of the music in the list is instrumentally sick as well as verbally. The more manifestations of a disease the better. Usually, the basic requirement is that the song is somehow messed up. The art is when the mess is beautiful. A disease enables the artist to construct the world with a configuration of shapes and colors and textures that sanity never could. We all sort of know when we are talking to someone who is kind of crazy --we don't need to see their doctor's diagnosis. That same sort of intuition latches on to artistic sickness as well.
The cohesion is lose; the disk is like a sampler pack of sick music in a few of its forms. But it is also more than that, it is like a "Best Of Sickness" mix, selecting only the finest forms of sick music. It is also more personal than that: these are some of my favorite music makers, with a few exceptions. I tried to select sick music from a variety of genres and decades to exemplify the ubiquity of artistic diseases.
