Not Quite Friday Random Ten


 


1. The Benedictine Monks Of Santo Domingo De Silos - Jesu,nostra redemptio-Hymnus, modus IV
2. Metallica - ...And Justice For All
3. Procol Harum - The Truth Won't Fade Away
4. Vivaldi - The Four Seasons: Summer III, Presto
5. The Beatles - I Want To Tell You
6. Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks - Lullaby
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack- Lothlórien
8. Firesign Theatre - Ralph Spoilsport's Going Out Of Body Sale
9. Steve Vai - Greasy Kid's Stuff
10. Robert Johnson - Love In Vain Blues

And the bonus 11th track - Vertical Horizon - Best I Ever Had.
I'll herewith make the musical confession that there was a time in my youth that had firm and abiding faith in a record label. Not just a record label, but a big time commercial record lsbel. Warner Brothers/Reprise.
Not in keeping with my fervent hippie ethic at the time--but there was a time , before it became Warner/Elektra/Asylum, and long before it was Time/Warner/Turner/AOL--when (though I didn't know it at the time) this guy named Lenny Waronker was in charge--well, Jebus, not only did they have Zappa's label (which also included Captain Beefheart, the transvestite era Alice Cooper, and the sui generis Wild Man Fischer), but they had Van Morrison, Little Feat, Jimmy Webb's post-stardom albums, Pentangle, John Cale, and three guys that they presented as something of their favorite sons: Randy Newman, Ry Cooder, and Van Dyke Parks.
And the greatest of these was Van Dyke Parks.
Especially considering the music industry in general, and the label's own behavior before and after that period, it was strange that, in their loss leader albums and Rolling Stone ads, they could just say, conversationally, look, we think you'll really like this guy, and I'd go 'sure," and buy it. Because, honestly, they were almost always right. And they started musical friendships that have lasted a lifetime.
And when they said "Oh but you're really going to like Van Dyke Parks," they were right again. It was more than a friendship.
To be sure, Van was already famous for his lyrics for Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains, by the still completely unhip Beach Boys. (Despite the psychedelic delectability of those songs, there was still too much Little Deuce Coupe in their background for us to take them seriously.) But while the guy was clearly on acid, his stuff, instead of falling apart like most people's, instead fell in on itself, becoming denser and more complicated. This was his brain on drugs--but it was a really interesting and intelligent brain on drugs.
Parks's Song Cycle was really really hard to find, but I managed (scavenging every cutout bin in New York and Chicago) and it was everything Waronker & Co. said it was: dense, complex, shimmering orchestrations, oracular lyrics, a trip you could immerse yourself in. I damn near played it to death.
He only released four (or five) of his own albums, each wildly and completely different, each nearly unclassifiable (except for Discover America, which is just the strangest calypso record ever recorded.)

(One side note: Windham Hill, in one of those brief weird eructations of the industry, released a bunch of really amazing children's discs under the Rabbit Ears imprint . There's Pecos Bill, narrated by Robin Williams in top form, with music by Ry Cooder; Paul Bunyan, narrated by Jonathan Winters, with music by Leo Kottke; The Lion & the Lamb, by Christopher Reeve and Lyle Mays; The Emperor's New Clothes by John Gielgud & Mark Isham; Mose the Fireman by Michael Keaton and Walter Becker; The Tailor of Gloucester, by Maryl Streep & the Chieftains; Follow the Drinking Gourd by Morgan Freeman & Taj Mahal--and The Fisherman and His Wife by Jodie Foster and Mr. Parks. Far better than they had to be.)

It's not that Parks is unappreciated--he produces and arranges all over the place. I, for one, find it a pretty good guide (hearkening back to that WB of a distant era) by picking up anything Van Dyke Parks had anything to do with--like the strange and wonderful Popeye soundtrack: Harry Nilsson songs and Parks arrangements! or Carly Simon's Film Noir , produced by Jimmy Webb with orchestrations by mr. P. Indeed, it seems that the folks of good will in the music biz do a mitzvah by getting Parks's stuff out there--like the Orange Crate Art album, which is actually a VDP album with the by-now-infinitely-hip Brian Wilson along for the ride.

It's a measure of the decline of Western Civilization that there isn't a reviewer, let alone a record company executive, that I would let say simply 'trust me' in re a new artist. As Gandalf said passing the gates of Moria, those were simpler times.

Doom.

Posted: Saturday - January 20, 2007 at 04:37 AM        

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