The Nature of Sound

I’m not obsessed with sound. By that I mean I’m not a DJ in the pickity sense; I don’t stretch sound to a point of oblivion and I don’t like to distort my favourite records. I am a fan in the traditional sense. I like to hear every note, be it drowned in something unfamiliar or a fingersnapped string from a dead Martin acoustic. Fuck man, I’m not a difficult person. I love lots of different wonderful sounds. Weird ones, loving ones, fucked up ones. Even on occasion, popular ones. But not that often.

Today’s one-on-one belongs to the nature of sound. What CD’s have you listened to that have made you smile? And I’m not talking about lyrical content, or technique; I’m talking about sssssound. Fuck. OK so, the pyschadelic-ness of last year, and the harshness of last year pushed me over to Black Sabbath. WHO NEEDS ANYTHING MORE THAN PYSCH RAWK. I dunno. So yeah, that happened; and you gotta dig the wave man. I suppose that leads to the inevitable usage of hard rock in pop i.e. grunge and 90s alt. Stuff. So: Mudhoney, Pixies, Pavement...this shit is all important. The future of rock n roll is currently in balance. I hope you don’t fucking forget it. I’ll tell you why. It’s because in the 60’s; shit was happening man...and the 70s. There was doom in some places but fuck, man, people still dug the music. Everytime I think about how awesome the reverb drenched distortion of my Marshall amp is I smile. Not much else has that effect, surely. And let’s not forget about surf either. And I’m talking Dick Dale/Link Wray shit. Don’t fuck with me.

Ok, so that’s all good news, but why am I writing bullshit about my amp and whatnot, but I dunno. I listened to the new Blood Red Shoes record and I SAW IT MAN...I saw the past, present of future and IT WASN’T DEAD. Although listening to the most recent Demons LP “Contact High” and you’d think that too. Damn man. DJ’s man, fucking take what you want but you can’t take my rock and roll. Not without a fucking fight. Anyway, this intrigue into sound has also boosted my respect of Neil Young and not just the well respected stuff like the first ten years which has recently took a lot of praise mainly due to the release of the Archives boxed set and a whole bunch of live LP’s from that time. No, anyway, I do really fuckin like that stuff but Weld...man...that’s an LP right there. Live and pulverising to the max. Love it. Death pounding on the face of existence. Who doesn’t need that.

So yeah. The reasoning behind this comes from something deep inside. Like a call inside my broken messed up drugged out mind SCREAMING SHOUTING HOLERING at me with the slogan DON’T FUCK WITH MY ROCK N ROLL. And i say that cos I see these skinny kids, with their sub-culture approved hairstyles and the thick rimmed Elvis Costello throwback glasses and the shitty checked shirts and I’m like...fuck...what happened? Rock n roll has always been about style, drugs ...whatnot...but it’s always been ‘cool’? I don’t know what’s happened now. All these kids. I’m worried they don’t know what rock n roll is. Fuck, they don’t even call it rock n roll anymore. They call it something like rockcore. Shit, I don’t care.

Part 2 on Sound tomorrow.