Wax That Waned
Claude Monet’s Impressions of Funque, Verve, 1906 This rare but rewarding 78 of Claude Monet’s piano stylings features accompaniment on cello and unnamed percussion (by some reports a wooden crate containing an agitated cat). Though hindered somewhat by Monet’s insistence on playing his “impression” of 4/4-time rather than adhering to a more rigid meter, compositions such as “Givenchy” bear striking resemblance to Sketches of Spain-era Miles Davis. Also notable for Monet’s coining of the word “funque”—recovered by later musicians—which he shouts throughout most of the recording. Set to wax in a unnamed tavern, studious listeners will note a drunken disturbance in the background; this is Berthe Morisot and Edouard Manet daring each other to paint the face of an unconscious Camille Pissarro. On our first date, you asked three bites in that I change this record to something else because it was making you sick—“like a barnyard in my stomach,” you called it. I changed the music to make a good impression on you, but you still became sick and so did I. My pork loin tartar—invented for the occasion—was to blame, however, not the music. You never had the stomach for this album again, or for my cooking, or to acknowledge our first date had actually happened.
Lawrence Welk, Horns and Holes, Ryko, 1997 A surprising display of self-awareness from a man not prone to reflection, this 1956 recording was for decades available only as a hand-to-hand bootleg. Offering four instrumental tracks, Horns and Holes presents the bandleader’s accordion more racously than his variety show revealed he could play it, and accompanied only by the bellowing of a bull moose (some claim it is in fact a moosecall in front of an electric fan, but witnesses to the session confirm the presence of a live animal). The opening cut, “That side of Euclid, this side of rich,” teeters on the edge of chaos like the best of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, while “A3ANA4” shows Welk leaping across time signatures while his cervine bandmate grunts and passes loud gas. The astounding “Bismarck Boogie” presages the surf style that would emerge later in the decade, as Welk wrestles from his squeezebox a sound that could pass as Link Wray’s guitar. The summer we rented a beach house in order to “reconnect,” I tried during the drive to the shore to explain Welk’s sacrifice and the courage of a man who could take his own worst traits by the horns (so to speak) and make something beautiful of them. I suggested a listening session that evening, but you insisted we go downtown to meet some old friends of yours who were vacationing nearby that week.
Brian Wilson, Stop Fucking Smiling, Rhino, 2005 Musically unremarkable for the most part, this double album was only discovered in the late 1990s when Wilson cleaned his living room sandbox and found the masters buried beneath his piano (hence the occasionally overwhelming scratchiness of the recording). The result of a single overnight session on June 2, 1967—the day of Sgt. Pepper’s U.S. release—Stop Fucking Smiling provides a troubling glimpse into Wilson’s genius and his symbiotic relationship with Van Dyke Parks. For nearly three hours, Wilson plays with the frenzied abandon of Glenn Gould as Parks whispers free-associative lyrics to the broken Beach Boy. Wilson mishears or distorts every line his collaborator offers and sings a rambling, graphic narrative about doing physical harm to the Beatles (Ringo excluded). For the most dedicated Beach Boys fans only, which you turned out not to be and which I should have known; I know I wouldn’t confess to it at the time, but yes, the fight and the fire were both my fault.
Music to Wash Dishes By, Bob Crewe Generation, DynoVoice, 1968 After the unexpected success of 1967’s Music to Watch Girls By and Music to Watch Birds By, Crewe recorded this more daring but far less successful followup. Clearly the BCG thought they had something good going after the first two installments, but pushed it too far on this outing— as one critic wrote, “watching girls is romantic, and watching birds is a nice way to relax, but who the hell wants to wash dishes?” You didn’t, because I found myself dining and dishwashing alone during your months-long stretch of late nights at work. Rumors persist of a fourth album in the series, shelved upon the failure of Dishes, with the working title Music to Hang Yourself By, and devoted fans still spend their days with one ear expecting a copy to surface.
Lou Reed’s Neighbor’s Air Conditioner presents: The Best of Doowop, RCA, 1976 Following the success of Metal Machine Music, Lou Reed produced this album under the conceit that it was, in fact, a found-audio recording of his neighbor’s air conditioner “singing” doowop songs on afternoons with the right atmospheric conditions. While a honed ear is required to pick out the familiar elements of these unique arrangements, the earnest listener will be rewarded—particularly by the lush, droning harmonies on “Speedoo,” and by the contrapuntal marvel of “16 Candles” including percussion provided by a bird perched on the air conditioner’s ventilation grate). Long a cult favorite, Reed’s inability to recall the model and make of the air conditioner sparked thousands of letters to appliance manufacturers from fans in search of their own singing units. Reed’s actual instrument was knocked from the window during a party, supposedly by an intoxicated Frank Zappa. So I wish you had believed me -- not for my own sake, but for art’s—that the air conditioner fell beside you on the sidewalk, yes, because I was drunk, but also because I was trying to express something so much more than myself. I won’t try to claim that I said it well, but sometimes the truth speaks itself best in the rattle and clank of the background noise we take for granted. It takes a rare ear to listen, the kind of ear I’d hoped we had for each other.
Umberto Eco sings holiday favorites, Nonesuch, 1981 Better known as a scholar and author than as an interpreter of song, Eco brings startling freshness and hard-won clarity to chestnuts like “White Christmas” and “Jingle Bells” on this criminally overlooked collection. Making the most of his unique tenor range, Eco boldly abandons the smooth, Burl Ives tone listeners have been taught to expect from classic carols. Instead, these renditions highlight unexpected parallels of musical form—particularly his Tuvan throatsong rendition of “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer,” arranged by Harry Partch. With the puzzling (and not a little disturbing) exception of his duet with Diamanda Galas on “Frosty the Snowman,” the Italian semiologist hardly takes a false aesthetic step. The liner notes also feature Eco’s now-classic essay on the traditional holiday sweater as a locus of commodity resistance, and a gatefold of photographs in which he models some of his own hand-knitted examples. They aren’t all to my own taste, or even wearable on human bodies, but you can tell he means every stitch and you know I can’t resist earnest failures, and brave approaches to the rim of disaster. If I knew where you were, I would call you and hold the phone up to the speaker and let Umberto Eco say all that on my behalf. To remind you that when two sounds don’t belong together by any rational logic, there’s musical magic in that. You knew that once—we both did—and if I can play you right record I’m sure you’ll remember. I know it’s in our old apartment here somewhere.