I drove the ChryslerWatched from the darkness while they danced
― flappy bird, Saturday, 31 March 2018 00:20 (six years ago) link
"these guys sound like they've never heard jazz and just had it described to them."
would probably check out a new band described this way
― Paul Ponzi, Saturday, 31 March 2018 00:25 (six years ago) link
Sounds like a description of King Krule
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Saturday, 31 March 2018 00:32 (six years ago) link
accurate
― flappy bird, Saturday, 31 March 2018 01:07 (six years ago) link
Stevie, regarding that Yaffe biog, does it go into detail about the Morgellons disease?
― niels, Saturday, 31 March 2018 17:52 (six years ago) link
Not huge detail, but there is some stuff on it
― papa don't take no meth (stevie), Saturday, 31 March 2018 22:04 (six years ago) link
ok
is it... disconcerting?
― niels, Sunday, 1 April 2018 11:48 (six years ago) link
It should be.
― dow, Sunday, 1 April 2018 15:44 (six years ago) link
I’m most interested in the weird period after Hejira, eg Don Juan.
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Sunday, 1 April 2018 17:08 (six years ago) link
I love the way she sings “false alarm” in Amelia. Had that bit stuck in my head for days now.
― that's not my post, Monday, 23 April 2018 05:30 (six years ago) link
me too!
― flappy bird, Monday, 23 April 2018 05:45 (six years ago) link
more excited than I should be about Hejira coming in the post today. one of those records i've been meaning to buy for avout 20 years
― thomasintrouble, Monday, 23 April 2018 09:22 (six years ago) link
There is a nice anecdote from Joni in a Jaco documentary currently on Netflix. She was instructing a different bassist to play a G, and the bassist refused, saying "that's not even in the chord," and she replied, "well it WILL be, once you PLAY it."
― ad homineminem (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 23 April 2018 10:16 (six years ago) link
lol
― calstars, Monday, 23 April 2018 13:30 (six years ago) link
Song for Sharon has got to be my favorite
― calstars, Saturday, 28 April 2018 03:51 (six years ago) link
me too, or hejira
― flappy bird, Saturday, 28 April 2018 03:55 (six years ago) link
Don Juan's is now my favourite album by her and I'll believe anything I want to.
― brand new universal harvester (dog latin), Saturday, 28 April 2018 15:34 (six years ago) link
Would love to read about that period.
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Saturday, 28 April 2018 16:43 (six years ago) link
I've been listening to Joni for a long time--these days I like Hejira. The most travel-burned record she did. Jaco was beyond great and this record may be his single finest performance overall (in the service of the greater good, of course the shit he plays on "Teen Town" and some of his solo stuff is amazing). I haven't listened to Court and Spark in many years, nor have I to For the Roses or any of her earlier records. I suspect I'd hear Court the way I view some Altman film now, Long Goodbye or California Split (or Ashby), as this kind of dated "very modern pop but with realist touches" sort of thing, the good old '70s that now seems a bit, a lot, too self-involved and mod-ish to really appreciate. Altman's plotting is for shit, Joni's "stretched out and mutated" song forms aren't as interesting as I once thought. Dunno. "Car on the Hill" always seemed great and "Same Situation" also. Hissing also seems problematic in a different way--once I was sooo impressed by her jazz chords, and watching some live footage of this material recently, wow, it's good, actually, but again, I don't think she does it as well as Becker and Fagen, and I prefer Joy of Cooking's more modest, homespun, but jazzy, music these days to Joni's, seems more direct and less hung up by its celebrity. "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow" is great, though, and Hissing does have some great ideas. But is it also somewhat dated in the peculiar '70s manner of so many records, from Jon Lucien's to Caroline Peyton's to Phoebe Snow's to a zillion jazz-rock ensembles? I have no doubt she was great, but I'm partially responding to her celebrity, her beauty (Joni Mitchell, are you kidding, she is so beautiful), her fucking ego for that matter. Very impressive. Hejira is so influential--I'm listening to some acoustic Lee Ranaldo right now, and you know he loves that record, and it's so moving.
― eddhurt, Saturday, 28 April 2018 16:44 (six years ago) link
I never thought she was beautiful but i always found her voice so pure and clear and touching at the same time. When she sings i have to listen to what she sings, there are only very few singers where this happens to me. Usually i do not care for the words. She radiates an incredible authority and truthfulness for me. Does this make any sense?
― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan), Saturday, 28 April 2018 17:47 (six years ago) link
I suspect I'd hear Court the way I view some Altman film now, Long Goodbye or California Split (or Ashby), as this kind of dated "very modern pop but with realist touches" sort of thing, the good old '70s that now seems a bit, a lot, too self-involved and mod-ish to really appreciate
????? ok man, imo it's a good record when you listen to it
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, 28 April 2018 17:55 (six years ago) link
her and becker & fagen were using similar ensembles toward entirely different ends, it's pretty apparent in the albums you haven't heard in many years
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, 28 April 2018 17:57 (six years ago) link
idek how to deal with sentences like "i never thought she was beautiful but i always found her voice so pure etc."
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, 28 April 2018 18:00 (six years ago) link
I never understood what was so great about Steely Dan, I heard them on the radio in the 70s and it was ok but it was still mainstream and slick and kind of over-produced. Joni Mitchell on the other hand I discovered later in the 80s by chance and she spoke to me. Hejira is about a million times more intimate and warm than anything by Steely Dan. Jaco's bass plus her voice were a marriage in heaven.
― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan), Saturday, 28 April 2018 18:08 (six years ago) link
i would like to clarify that evaluating joni mitchell's looks in tandem with her music is some barely-coded misogyny (which eddhurt can't seem to get through a whole post without indulging in) and fuck off with that pls
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, 28 April 2018 18:16 (six years ago) link
Warmth and intimacy were never in steely dan's mission statement imo, but i love joni and the dan plenty for the different things they do
― Lou Grant, the Iranian cinema of late '70s TV (stevie), Saturday, 28 April 2018 21:06 (six years ago) link
Sure is a lot of Steely talk on this thread and several others, but to anyone who wonders wtf, I'd say check out everything through Aja(the title track and several others, though they lost me about half way through).As I said way upthread, always heard thee voice of experience delivering hope and foreboding, quest and unrest---didn't know about giving up the baby as a very young unwed (as we said then) with no money, or bust-up of the (subsequent) marriage, but she sounded like she'd been through stuff, plus the observational, unresolved stuff along the way, as she continued on (and this was the debut). Some romantic, even exotic phrases, with the tunings and all, but in that big dark space, which I pictured as an apartment without much furniture to absorb the sound, dark because utilities not included.Striking difference--in tone, tempo, spareness--between originals and some early hit covers, esp. "Both Sides Now" and omg "Woodstock." Chirpier later w more AM radio ambitions of her own, but basically mostly okay.Joy of Cooking! Right on.
― dow, Saturday, 28 April 2018 22:24 (six years ago) link
So what's Gaucho? Chopped liver?
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Saturday, 28 April 2018 22:25 (six years ago) link
Never made it through that one. xp And later on yeah the evidence of travel, and whatcha been reading Joni? "The Painted Word," prob some Didion.
― dow, Saturday, 28 April 2018 22:28 (six years ago) link
Holy hell, the first fistful of posts in this thread make ILM seem like the shittiest dude-bro place with no taste at all to exist on the internet, up there with Youtube comments.
Does the thread get any less ultra-dud?
Mitchell is a genius.
― Soundslike, Saturday, 28 April 2018 22:28 (six years ago) link
Thinking about "Hejira" (the song): the imagery is so dense, and is piled on so relentlessly, so thick and fast, that you could make a case for it being the ultimate Joni song, even though trying to choose the best is practically a fool's errand.
It's interesting to me that discussions of the developments and changes in Joni's music across the early-to-mid seventies tends to focus on some combination of the subject matter, the style of the musical arrangements and her voice, but not, generally, the changes to her lyrical style, which was the aspect that really struck me with the most force and intensity when I was first getting into her music as a 13/14 year old.
Hejira doesn't represent a break from Hissing in terms of lyrical style (subject matter, sure) - the key difference is that everything is faster, the interlocking metaphors and allusions so rapid that they resemble the ceaseless patterns of the guitar chords:
You know it never has been easyWhether you do or you do not resignWhether you travel the breadth of extremitiesOr stick to some straighter lineNow here's a man and a woman sitting on a rockThey're either going to thaw out or freezeListenStrains of Benny GoodmanComing through the snow and the pinewood treesI'm porous with travel feverBut you know I'm so glad to be on my ownStill somehow the slightest touch of a strangerCan set up trembling in my bonesI know no one's going to show me everythingWe all come and go unknownEach so deep and superficialBetween the forceps and the stone
Well I looked at the granite markersThose tribute to finality to eternityAnd then I looked at myself hereChicken scratching for my immortalityIn the church they light the candlesAnd the wax rolls down like tearsThere's the hope and the hopelessnessI've witnessed thirty yearsWe're only particles of change I know I knowOrbiting around the sunBut how can I have that point of viewWhen I'm always bound and tied to someoneWhite flags of winter chimneysWaving truce against the moonIn the mirrors of a modern bankFrom the window of a hotel room
― Tim F, Saturday, 28 April 2018 22:30 (six years ago) link
re the early posts: 2001 was a time when ILM was growing quite rapidly and the informal rules of engagement weren't particularly settled, so the nature and quality of threads was heavily contingent on which posters populated them first.
― Tim F, Saturday, 28 April 2018 22:33 (six years ago) link
And yes, they get better. Thanks for the lyrics, Tim! Reminds me that I hear this several times every Christmas (incl. on the local jazz station):
RiverJoni MitchellIt's coming on ChristmasThey're cutting down treesThey're putting up reindeerAnd singing songs of joy and peaceOh I wish I had a riverI could skate away onBut it don't snow hereIt stays pretty greenI'm going to make a lot of moneyThen I'm going to quit this crazy sceneI wish I had a riverI could skate away onI wish I had a river so longI would teach my feet to flyOh I wish I had a riverI could skate away onI made my baby cryHe tried hard to help meYou know, he put me at easeAnd he loved me so naughtyMade me weak in the kneesOh I wish I had a riverI could skate away onI'm so hard to handleI'm selfish and I'm sadNow I've gone and lost the best babyThat I ever hadOh I wish I had a riverI could skate away onI wish I had a river so longI would teach my feet to flyOh I wish I had a riverI made my baby say goodbyeIt's coming on ChristmasThey're cutting down treesThey're putting up reindeerAnd singing songs of joy and peaceI wish I had a riverI could skate away on
― dow, Saturday, 28 April 2018 23:06 (six years ago) link
Thinking about "Hejira" (the song): the imagery is so dense, and is piled on so relentlessly, so thick and fast, that you could make a case for it being the ultimate Joni song, even though trying to choose the best is practically a fool's errand.It's interesting to me that discussions of the developments and changes in Joni's music across the early-to-mid seventies tends to focus on some combination of the subject matter, the style of the musical arrangements and her voice, but not, generally, the changes to her lyrical style, which was the aspect that really struck me with the most force and intensity when I was first getting into her music as a 13/14 year old.Hejira doesn't represent a break from Hissing in terms of lyrical style (subject matter, sure) - the key difference is that everything is faster, the interlocking metaphors and allusions so rapid that they resemble the ceaseless patterns of the guitar chordsBeautiful, Tim F. This song has two "chords." C-sharp minor 9 and D9. This music has as much to do with Joao Gilberto as it does to "folk," seems to me. Excellent video explains the song's structure and her tuning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYWYb6_ET6U
― eddhurt, Saturday, 28 April 2018 23:49 (six years ago) link
tim, great post. was just listening to this this afternoon
― k3vin k., Saturday, 28 April 2018 23:57 (six years ago) link
Um, the chords in that video are from "Refuge of the Roads", not "Hejira". It also only covers the two-chord intro, so saying the song has only two chords is way off base.
― startled macropod (MatthewK), Sunday, 29 April 2018 00:18 (six years ago) link
― sleeve, Sunday, 29 April 2018 00:18 (six years ago) link
WTF, "Refuge of the Roads" and "Hejira" are cross-labelled in my music library. How on earth did that happen? Apologies for the "correction", altho the two chord error is still wrong for "Hejira".
― startled macropod (MatthewK), Sunday, 29 April 2018 00:21 (six years ago) link
5:28
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY7MBzjfIvI
― flappy bird, Sunday, 29 April 2018 06:41 (six years ago) link
Amazing. Those haunting chords
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Sunday, 29 April 2018 07:08 (six years ago) link
In the mirrors of a modern bankFrom the window of a hotel room
I love these vivid images of 70's sterile modernity that she conjures on Hissing and Hejira.
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Monday, 30 April 2018 15:29 (six years ago) link
^^^ Yes indeed, which is exactly what I love about certain songs on Hissing too.
Harry's House, for instance, which contains this bland, 70s airline magazine imagery, even the softness in the production makes me think of shag carpet in a Hockney painting or an avocado trim phone.
― MaresNest, Monday, 30 April 2018 17:16 (six years ago) link
Right---from the beginning of "The Circle Game" (though being a circle, can have no beginning or end--except it's a game)Yesterday a child came out to wonderCaught a dragonfly inside a jarFearful when the sky was full of thunderto "Harry's House":A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roofLike a dragonfly on a tombAnd business men in button downsPress into conference roomsBattalions of paper-minded malesTalking commodities and salesWhile at home their paper wivesAnd paper kidsPaper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid
yellow checkers for the kitchenclimbing ivy for the bath
Didn't mean to quote so much, but it's hard to stop with that one.
― dow, Monday, 30 April 2018 21:00 (six years ago) link
Cruel, bleak, bitter, reductive, impassive, unblinking, kinda punk---not Didion this time, more Vonnegut, that surly bastard, especially when he was whoring for GE's publicity dept in Schenectady, slaving for the wifenkids---but later on too, when he was a superstar like JM.
― dow, Monday, 30 April 2018 21:06 (six years ago) link
But she does it better, in part because she's got the music, not just the page.
― dow, Monday, 30 April 2018 21:08 (six years ago) link
I like “A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof / Like a dragonfly on a tomb,” but the rest seems a bit too much of a “Little Boxes”–style suburbia critique? I should go listen to the whole song...
― i’m still stanning (morrisp), Monday, 30 April 2018 21:09 (six years ago) link
Yes the judicious music helps judgmental words: more nuances/gradients of tone.
― dow, Monday, 30 April 2018 21:11 (six years ago) link
But yeah the words start at the top
― dow, Monday, 30 April 2018 21:12 (six years ago) link
(and not just the roof)
It's a very nice song (or some other, less inadequate, adjective)
― i’m still stanning (morrisp), Monday, 30 April 2018 21:39 (six years ago) link