scene but not herd

Innocence and despair is what today brings me. I found a used copy of the Langley Schools Music Project today and it is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard. I've heard some of it before and I really don't know why I never bought this earlier. In the mid-seventies a teacher recorded some music students at an elementary school and released some private pressings of them to the students and their families. More than twenty years later those recordings were released on cd to the general public. I've tried to tell some friends about this in the past and as soon as I start I just well up with emotion and tears just start filling my eyes. In the liner notes there is a quote from John Zorn, "This is beauty. This is truth. This is music that touches the heart in a way no other music ever has, or ever could." For whatever reason it really hits me hard everytime I listen to it. Maybe it is because there is no noticeable ego involved or there is no crass commercialism at play. It is just pure. The musicianship and vocals are primitive, but there is something incredibly haunting about it which moves me to no end. On the cd the song "Good Vibrations" is followed by "God Only Knows" and the originals by the Beach Boys already have the power to make me an emotional wreck. The versions by these kids literally had me trembling with tears flowing out of my eyes. If you saw me you would have thought a family member had died. There's no logic to it and I'm sure other people upon listening to this record will feel absolutely nothing, but it just hits me like a ton of bricks. A few years ago VH1 showed a documentary about this and I hope they show it again sometime because I have to have a copy of this. Unfortunately they are usually too busy showing documentaries about how musicians spend all their millions of dollars. The program showed the teacher who started the project and some of the students that had been involved and it reunited them years after they had made those recordings. The students, now adults, telling the teacher what that had meant to them was just emotionally overpowering for me. Music just means so much to me and it truly overwhelms my heart at times. I often feel that it is all I have in life. If you read this do whatever you can to hear this and I hope you have as wonderful of a reaction as I did.

Now it is time for despair. I also found a used copy of the Whitehouse album called Bird Seed. I don't know too much about them, but I believe they are a duo who has been around since the early eighties(?) and they put out some primitive noise with keyboards. The music on this album is like being a child and having a very abusive parent yelling at you. I usually have my doubts about bands that seem to revel in negativity, but I really like this stuff. One of the songs is called "Wriggle Like a Fucking Eel" and it is just an amazing combination of yelling and monotone keyboard squeels. I love pure, unadulterated beauty as noted earlier, but this stuff is just a very different form of beauty for me.