The year of being 27.
The age that Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Robert Johnson, Kurt Cobain, Dave Alexander, Pete Ham, Chris Bell, D. Boon, Jacob Miller, and Basquiat all bit the big one.
And I felt it - breath on my neck.
It was the terrifying din of chaos gaining on me. A more potent force than I’ve ever experienced. The winds took me horizontal and I was clinging to the last telephone pole.
The choice was always there. Let go and allow yourself to depart with everything you’ve known. Or hold on and be sure of your existence after the storm.
I don’t want to exaggerate the drama too much, but it’s far more engaging this way. Like a Roland Emmerich joint.
But so as the wheel sinks down, so must it come back up.
Surrounded by wreckage I can now feel the sky draw back a breath to silence. The moment after it happens, anything happens, when you can start to get your head back. The loudest nothingness you’ve ever heard. You start to look around and measure the damage. But before you feel anything, all that’s recognizable is the vast flatness of everything.
Henry Miller says in “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch” that:
“Man builds on the ruins of his former selves. When we are reduced to nothingness, we come alive again. To season one’s destiny with the dust of one’s folly, that is the trick.”
So that’s where we’re at coming into 2010.
Thus ends the craziest year of my life.
A new life, born of the ashes of those before it, begins here in Los Angeles.
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So as you might guess from the over-the-top-ness of that little story, the musical year was also a turbulent one. Music has most certainly served as a salve but also as lighter fluid. I found solace in words, sounds and imagery but I also found choked throats, watery eyes and frustration.
The compulsive research continued through it all and I’ve pulled together a taste of 2009’s discoveries. Some reflective of the ups, downs and what-have-yous of the year and some not. Best idea is not to read into any of it and just enjoy the music of itself. That’s why it’s here.
I’m hoping this effort marks my return to this blog. As a good friend warned me, “The Lunchmeat is getting kinda smelly.”
Well here I am to refridge' the shit. As Paul Newman said so poignantly at the end of The Color of Money…
“I’m back.”
I’d have thrown in a “bitches” at the end, but I’m no Scorsese.
1. Serge Gainsbourg – Le Deuxieme Homme
2. Frankie & The Butlers Beverly – Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)
3. Bell + Arc – Let Your Love Run Free
4. Aphrodite’s Child – Babylon
5. Leaf Hound – Freelance Fiend
6. Shocking Blue – Send Me A Postcard Darling
7. Mindless Boogie – El Toro (Prins Thomas Edit)
8. Blair – Nightlife
9. Oneohtrix Point Never – Behind The Bank
10. Eno/Moebius/Roedelius/Plank – Johanneslust
11. Popol Vuh – Kleiner Krieger
12. John Fahey – Desperate Man Blues
13. Six Organs of Admittance – The Desert Is A Circle
14. Arthur Russel – Nobody Wants A Lonely Heart
15. Graham Nash – Better Days
16. Moby Grape – Lazy Me
17. The Flamin’ Groovies – Slow Death
18. Stray – All In Your Mind
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