music

frank zappa famously said "jazz isn't dead it just smells funny" he also asked his band to 'make a jazz noise here' which just goes to show that even the great man was sometimes confused or contradictory.
just like the rest of us.

i quite like jazz.
i know nothing about it.
what i do like is jazz noise.
the jazz noise of john zorn - well it just doesn't get much better.

it was the painkiller album that first introduced me to john zorn. a blast of screaming rawness that cleared the sinuses and opened the way for a sonic attack.
jrn was the one who lent me the painkiller album. from then on we would swap zorn lps back and forth.
i became a collector of zorn's label, tzadik. through that i discovered all sorts of music from the contemplative to the ear melting; from the serious to the silly.

on my last trip to new york i had intended to drop by zorn's club and hoped to catch the great man in action - if he wasn't there then someone else would be blistering up the place and i would be able to get some cheap tzakik cds all the while doing the chinstrokey thing of a visiting boho. yeah daddio.

life rarely works the way you plan it.
that night i happened to end up dining with a couple of work associates. i persuaded them that it might be an interesting end to the night. we set out in the direction of the club. somehow even though we appeared to have walked in a straight line we had ended up where we had started.
yup. freaky. but true.

so i didn't get to see zorn play at his club.
i didn't get to see his club.
i did get to buy a load of tzadik cds from the wonderful 'other music' store (and for a few years after that i would get regular packages of cds from them - all full of tzadik goodness).

one day i will catch zorn playing at the barbican and he can blast my ears while i do the chinstrokey thing as a mature pretentious wannabe.

enjoy mike patton speaking in tongues while wearing a really ugly pair of nike trainers (though that said mos nike trainers are pretty ugly).



and in a more contemplative mood. check the beard out on the keyboard player. my kind of beard.