Q: Do you feel a connection to new folk artists like Devendra Banhart?
Donovan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to see him when he came to Ireland. And it was very cool. There’s very much a lot of gypsy stuff in Devendra, just like me. I walk out there, the light comes up, and then I play guitar (makes guitar noise), and then when I sing, I’m actually looking at the audience going, “I’m in town. I’ve just arrived.” Devendra does it, too.
The most powerful moment in music is when one voice walks to the microphone and picks up one instrument and the whole audience centers in. It’s in our blood, to want to listen to this one voice and one instrument because we know it’s going to be personal.
“Things weren’t that organized in those days, everything was very spontaneous. When it came time to record this stuff, we went in the studio, relatively sober (at least Pete was), sang the songs, and then hit the road for California.” – Millard Lampell
Forget Dylan’s postmodern Woodie Guthrie charlatanism. The Almanacs were the real thing. In 1940, the folk revival began with the plunk of a banjo and a soaring three-part harmony. Pete Seeger, Millard Lampell, and Lee Hays were close friends who shared leftist political views and had a bone to pick with the American government whose corporate leanings were shortchanging the working man (some things never change). They played at rallies, union halls, streetcorners, and anywhere where folks would stop and listen to three young songsters. Despite their urbane upbringing, the trio instantly struck a chord with contemporary rural audiences of the day. Seeger’s poignantly topical lyrics, grafted onto traditional folk melodies, validated the earth shaking potential of folk music and introduced the form to an entire generation of new listeners. The role of folk music in society would never be the same.
It wasn’t until 1941 that the great hobo troubadour Woody Guthrie rolled into New York city with a beat six-string on his shoulder, a knapsack on his back, and a wealth of music in his heart. Guthrie immediately recognized both the musical prowess of the Almanacs as well as their politics. If anything, Guthrie was more leftist than even Seeger. Over the course of the next few years the Almanacs lived fast, played countless shows, and just as quickly disbanded – but not before the likes of Leadbelly and Burl Ives joined their ranks for impromptu Greenwich Village hootenannies.
Their output was certainly limited, but their impact is impossible to ignore. They ignited the fuse…folk would never be the same.
Q: How do you think your present image as world traveller, bawdy singer, etc. combine with your image as a writer of children’s books? Shel: I don’t think about my image. Q: But if you are a spokesman and leader of your generation with millions of followers, don’t you care what they think? Shel: I don’t speak for anybody but me; I am not a leader. I just want them to let me alone so I can do my thing. Q: What is your thing? Shel: I don’t know. That depends on the day, the time of day, and what I did yesterday.
Shel Silverstein is cherished as a writer of children’s books, most notably The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and The Missing Piece. Unfortunately, there’s a lot about Silverstein that flies under the radar. For instance, he’s actually a very accomplished singer and songwriter. His style is mercurial. His musical influences seem to be based firmly in folk and country traditions, but often meander into the realm of big band jazz. At his core, though, Silverstein is a sardonically biting satirist who, at the end of the day, uses the power of music as a springboard for comedic personal and social commentary. That’s not to say that his songs are not well crafted; quite the contrary, actually. While some tunes are novelty ballads, others are serious and contemplative. In short, Silverstein is a free spirit who does what he wants to when he wants to, with diverse – albeit challenging – results.
Alright. I realize that this isn’t TMZ. I also realize that coverage of the Heath Ledger tragedy is ubiquitous and gratuitous. Bear with me.
When I stepped into LA’s Egyptian Theatre on one night this past October, I felt like I was amongst family. I had the pleasure of attending a special one-night engagement of a Nick Drake film festival of sorts, aptly titled A Place To Be. The word ‘special’ is thrown around far too liberally in our society of consumption, but this event truly was special – or at least unique. For, you see, Nick Drake’s close friend and producer Joe Boyd (the man that first had faith in Nick’s potential), his sister Gabrielle, and another close friend Robyn Frederick (Nick covered her song ‘Been Smokin’ Too Long’) were in attendance. After the screening of the feature-length documentary A Skin Too Few, the three Drake compatriots offered a brief but informative Q&A with the audience – topics ranged from the woefully superficial (“how many girlfriends did Nick have?”) to the insightfully investigative (“what time signature did Nick use in River Man?”). After they finished answering questions, the programme moved onto a series of short, Drake-inspired “music videos.” These were original video pieces created by a roster of Nick’s more notable acolytes. One of the videos – a stark, moody, black-and-white study of a man’s depression and eventual suicide – was set to Nick’s delicately macabre final recording, Black Eyed Dog. This was Heath Ledger’s contribution.
When I saw the clip, despite its aesthetic beauty, I wasn’t moved. The narrative seemed too convenient. The subject matter…cliche. Clearly, the situation has changed. Heath Ledger is dead. The cause: an apparent overdose of sleeping pills, almost exactly mirroring the circumstances of Nick’s demise. The correlations between the two men are impossible to ignore. Pondering my opinion of the video now, sentamentalism seems a convenient crutch to lean on. Was I missing the point on my first viewing? Was it, in fact, genius?
No. But that’s not the point.
Heath Ledger was a troubled man who found a heroes in role-martyrs. The video was an honest expression of his state of mind and Nick’s song was the soundtrack to his suffering. There’s nothing more I could ask for.
It was 1968. The mythos of American pop-culture holds this to be a golden age -- a time when the youth were invested in society and when artists metamorphosed from mere entertainers to become spiritual -- practically divine -- entities. The “Summer of Love” had just happened. The blood of Altamont had yet to spill, and Charles Manson had yet to sully the rosy veneer of communal idealism. It was also around this time that advertisers began to realize the market cache of the hippie aesthetic and, without a moment’s hesitation to the thought of commodifying a genuinely positive social movement, sell sell sell.
The now-fabled confluence of Donovan, The Beatles, and Mike Love (of the Beach Boys) in Risikesh, India also occurred in 1968. They had journeyed to the subcontinent to meet with transcendental meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and gain some insights into the lucid dream we call reality. It was here that Donovan taught George Harrison and Paul McCartney his unique fingerpicking style that couples the structural consistency of British Isles folk with American blues chord progressions. It’s worth noting that McCartney wrote Blackbird during this time, and Donovan’s influence is never more clear.
But most importantly, this is where Donovan was first introduced to the concepts of Eastern religion -- a watershed moment in both his personal and professional lives. He said, “As a young man, I was very prepared by my father because he read me poetry … and I had felt a sort of search awaken in me. I come from a Celtic background who believes in reincarnation, the bards and the troubadours of ancient Ireland that I was well aware of from a very early age, and when I read [about] Zen Buddhism it turned me on to the word meditation.”
Forty years have passed. If American society escaped from the cave in the sixties, it’s certainly now come a’scamperin back -- tail firmly tucked between legs -- to watch shadow puppets dance on the wall once more. Thus, Donovan: Live in Los Angeles. The concert was a double bill: film director David Lynch sponsored the eventto support his new book on the healing powers of Transcendental Meditation. The pairing of Donovan and Lynch was long overdue: meditation has been a shared passion for decades and this was their chance to get the message out. Personally -- and I emphasize personally -- the feel the set was lacking (lacking what I wanted to hear, anyway). Donovan was playing for a worthy cause, yes. He also clearly aimed to please rather than challenge. He stuck to his guns: the set consists almost entirely of top 40 hits from the Mellow Yellow and Sunshine Superman era. His setlist panders to the tie-dyed nostalgia of the baby boomers who bought the tickets (which makes sense) but, sadly, he completely skips over the raw folkiness of his Fairy Tale-era recordings or the sublimely surreal children’s songs of For Little Ones and HMS Donovan.
As a caveat, I will say that it’s completely selfish of me to impose my beliefs on what Donovan should or shouldn’t do. He is an amazingly talented songwriter who has created beautiful music -- music that I’ll always cherish. And I think, at least in this case, the “ends” were greater than the means. If it meant playing Hurdy Gurdy Man and Mellow Yellow (again, songs that I don’t particularly enjoy, but others do, so their value is by no means diminished) to raise awareness and support for a cause so profoundly important as spirituality in society, Donovan made the right choice.
This February, Devendra Banhart and Chloe Sevigny will be appearing in a series of vid-nettes from up-and-coming independent filmmaker Alia Raza at New York’s Greene Naftali Gallery. Raza describes the pieces as “one-take, real-time based diptychs dealing with grooming rituals, luxury consumerism, and decay.”
| The Greene Naftali Gallery | 508 W 26th St. | NY, NY | 212.463.7770 |
Yup, it’s true. Aside from impeccable melodies, a revolutionary right hand technique, and an otherworldly singing voice, Nick Drake also has the uncanny ability to alleviate the discomfort of a stubborn cough. They don’t talk much about that in the history books, but boy, was he a healer. That’s why it makes sense that Vicks has chosen (or, rather, Gabrielle Drake has allowed profited from) the song ‘From the Morning’ to be featured in a new commercial. Yeah, that song: the last track off Pink Moon, the lyrics of which are inscribed on his headstone. Now, I firmly believe that there is no shame in an artist choosing to allow companies to use their songs in ads – it is their choice after all, and besides, making a living in the world of music is getting harder and harder these days. But Nick Drake didn’t have a choice. In case anyone reading this is unaware, Nick Drake is dead. Has been for a while now. When the song Pink Moon was used in the somehow now-legendary VW advert, there were the inevitable skeptics and purists crying for blood. To that commercial’s credit, though, I did feel that it’s tone, imagery, and theme somewhat – somewhat – echoed the sentiments of the song. The Vicks commercial does not. At all. Click the Vicks bottle to see for yourself!
If you’ve been reading Naturalismo for awhile you most likely will have noticed two things; the first being my unrelenting pursuit to convince and convert as many people as possible to turn on to what I think is the most important and interesting music movement in decades, the second being my large affinity for the man who personally restored my faith in contemporary music. Forgive me if I sound personal in this review but in actuality the experience of seeing Devendra Banhart live at the MoMA in San Francisco last night was largely so. Like a Velvet to the image of what New York City was in the 60′s, the mythos of the recent folk artists from San Francisco had a similar appeal to me for years. It took me a few years before I realistically could move up to San Francisco. A triumphant homecoming for Devendra and a new beginning for me. Sold out in what couldn’t have been more than a day, Devendra Live at MoMA quickly turned into Devendra SOLD OUT – no chance of getting in. Press passes all passed out and fleeting notions of standing in the cold outside with a sign for a ticket all fell by the wayside with a chance encounter of meeting the man himself a few nights before the concert. We’d met briefly before, but I’ve sometimes found myself more tied into the idea of the mystery than to the unpredictable reality of meeting someone whose creative output you admire. In person the same as his song. A feeling of familiarity and comfort, a great conversation had about his music and others-a pair of passes given to the sold out show. As much as it was a personal experience for me-it couldn’t have been more so for Devendra. It wasn’t long ago that Devendra resided in San Francisco, a student at the SF Art Institute only to leave in the wandering pursuit of what would eventually become his thriving musical career. All of these thoughts were surely cycling through his mind as he took the stage last night at the MoMA.
One floor above the stage, Devendra’s art on display alongside Paul Klee’s in an exhibition titled Abstract Rhythms- served also as the perfect description for the first Brazilian influenced lead-in song of the night. Most noticeable was the new sound direction ventured into on his most recent album Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon. While Devendra’s carved from wood vocal chords rattled and punctuated the songs-it was the increased harmonization with the rest of the band that was most noticeably different from any previous concert I have seen of his. With the soaring and tidal choruses of songs such as Seaside, alternating ooh’s washing over the audience, I remembered reading that several of the songs were recorded while out at sea and remarked at just how well they were able to recreate that feeling through song. From the creaky bellows of Noah Georgeson’s cavernous voice, to Luckey Remington’s swaying bass lines, all set in motion through the tide of Andy Cabic’s breathy vocals- their combined sound swelling into a much larger wave of sound than capable of one alone. Samba Vexillographica got the audience moving with its moments of “equatorial pop”- the title of which translates to the study of flags – Devendra assuring the audience that the song was meant to evoke much more than that. What really made the night a unique experience was hearing Devendra and the rest of his band reminiscing about their earlier life and friendship in San Francisco. Devendra, proudly describing his position as head of the popcorn department at the Castro theater, meeting up with Andy at his job at Aardvarks. Later on it was Noah begrudgingly mentioning that Devendra never gave him popcorn-despite being head of the popcorn department. Andy then recalling the time after the earthquake visiting Devendra at the theater, taking a seat directly below the imposing downward facing ornate and imposing spire, immediately feeling that it was the worst place and feeling to be sitting below it, “Aftershocks, man.” Of course Devendra drew reference to Paul Klee during the night, reading his epitaph that went as follows:
I cannot be grasped in the here and now. For I reside just as much with the dead as with the unborn. Somewhat closer to the heart of creation than usual. But not nearly close enough.
The infamous Castro theatre spire
I got the impression that Devendra was extremely humbled by the experience, his stories and banter often serving to lighten the mood for what had been billed as a very special night. “Oh no, that wasn’t artsy enough of a story,” Devendra quipped at one point-humorously drawing attention to the idea that he had to somehow steer the nights stories towards the art realm while at the MoMA. All in all, the concert was quite a special experience. I feel fortunate enough to have been able to attend it and truly believe that the show will be remembered for much longer from now. For those who have not had the chance to see Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon material performed live yet, I cannot recommend going out to see it enough. The songs simply became alive last night.
I know I posted about Arthur’s Sunday Nights at McCabes before, but this event poster was just released, and it’s too cool to let go. C’mon people, it has a wizard holding a mushroom! Wizard! Mushroom!
Akron/Family drummer Dana Janssen describes his band’s sound as “Between Justin Timberlake, King Sunny Ade, and the Grateful Dead” in a great article published on Gigwise.com this week. Everything from the band’s humble beginnings, live philosophy, current album (the amazing ‘Love is Simple‘), the departure of guitarist Ryan Vanderhoof, and the band’s lofty future ambitions (“I don’t know about world domination…Maybe world experimentation”) are discussed at length.
