Rock n' Roll

"Cinema verite? I got into audio verite..... Hey, I’ve made records where you analyze everything you do 3,000 times and it’s perfect. I’m sick of it. I want to make a record that’s totally stark naked. Raw. I don’t wanna fix any of it. I don’t care if it’s totally out of tune, man, let’s play. Fuck it.... I like the idea of capturing something. Record something that happened. I’m a musician. I don’t wanna sit there and build a record. I built a couple of records. "
-Neil Young

About a year ago I was walking down around Ludlow Street Guitars in New York city looking at Phaser pedals when I overheard some 20 something with a highly vertical haircut talking on his cell phone : “So he tells me he’s getting married and that he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to spend so much time on the road… So I told him… Listen Man If you can’t spend time on the road then you can’t be in the band.”

This really struck me. Oh John wants to get married to Yoko?… screw it… then he can’t be in the band!

“You jackass!!!” I wanted to tell this nimrod with Vertical hair. “Bands aren’t lego sets. You can’t just mix and match people and pretend it’s the same Band!” How is it everyone has gotten so caught up in the delusionary fantasy of becoming stars on some inhuman mass marketing scale that no one understands the timeless rewards and tribal level human intimacy that comes from... you know... an actual band…

No one seems to understand the importance of *THE BAND* anymore. I’m not speaking specifically of Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson here… I’m thinking more of a band of brothers, a group of people who have lived, grown and suffered with each other. A group not only with their own individual memories, but collective memories to draw from and share.

In the quote above Neil Young notes wanting to record “something that happened”. What happens when a great band gets together to play is a lowering of defenses… a dropping of barriers… a collective opening of imaginations and blossoming of ideas which conventional egos and the constant competitions of our daily lives normally make impossible. Its something that can only really and truly occur among people with history, trust and friendship.



Neil Young & Crazy Horse

In fact the principle purpose of improvisational musical art forms such as jazz and rock may have less to do with their stylistic elements than with the perpetuation of social congregations where *spontaneity* is possible. Our litigious society is constantly working to mitigate risk... but in the process it also mitigates the capacity of people to engage spontaneously. This is why Mr. Young has elsewhere exhorted us to “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” and noted of Rock and Roll “There’s more to the picture than meets the eye.” The essence of rock and jazz is not what meets the eye.. or ear… the music per se… but a form of free spontaneous human interaction. Freedom is where the Rock is. If you ain’t rockin’ you ain’t free. Short of an orgy… Rock and jazz are the most socially acceptable ways for people to get together and *let something happen*...

Rock n’ Roll is a collection of things that happened. It’s a collection of magical moments that ‘arrived’ in the middle of jam sessions taking place over the course of 2008 and 2009 at a rehearsal space in Greenpoint Brooklyn. Most of these jams center around Ben Moran on Drums, Peter Kwon on bass and Osonics on guitar and vox. On a few occasions Ben and Osonics also brought in musicians they have both known for over a decade since college. Liam Wood appears on Guitar and Bass on some tracks, and Paul Griffith sits in on kit occasionally to let Ben create on other instruments.

These are not just “songs” but events where we managed to “record something that happened.” What happened were moments of rarity and beauty which only could have taken place by gathering together people who have been friends and musicians for years. While dropping our guards and abandoning all self consciousness, we created music together we never would have come up with if we’d been thinking or trying. Fortunately this all took place while we had some mics up and a hard drive spinning.

Here are some brief notes about each track:

Before our love hurts anyone

I remember this jam clearly. Ebay was ticking down the minutes in an auction for a tape delay unit I wanted to purchase. Was there enough time for one more jam before I headed out to a local bar with wifi access to place my final bid? This was the subtext for the opening throw away lines “What do you say? / Should we continue to play? / Or answer the gratification today?”

Then out of that… out of nowhere… came the most succinct, direct, and to my mind heart breaking encapsulation of a seven year on again off again relationship I had been in with a single mother helping to raise her daughter. “I know its true / that you love me too / but this love must be done / before it hurts anyone” specifically someone “innocent / yet to become”. The child who was being torn apart by the selfish yo-yo dramatics of the relationship itself. Amazing. In just over seven minutes without really thinking about it everything was said that needed to be said about seven of the most harrowing years of my life. That’s art.

Side Take

This is the first of two tunes where the lyrics are almost directly about the process of playing music together. While the tune begins with some lines that summon to mind the lullaby feel of Ben Moran’s brilliant guitar part, pretty fast the offer is being made by the singer to surrender himself completely to the band, and the moment, if everyone will just let go and surrender as well. “No more me / no more mine” I will take your side.

Satellite

The spoken dialog at the start of this track sets the stage pretty clearly. Of all the tunes in this collection this makes the case for spontaneity and unguarded moments most clearly. “Something happened” here, in keeping with the spirit of the Neil Young quote above.

Between the Wars

This track speaks for itself. There are a few vocal overdubs on this take… but the lions share took place in its moment. Where the guitar parts sound layered its because of live use of a Boomerang looper pedal in the original jam.

Bewheare

This is the second tune where the lyrics are being sung directly by singer to band. “We’re going to finally find ourselves a way / find ourselves a way to play” with each other. The dislocated observations about where the singer may or may not be are a logical extension of the surrendering of self which takes place throughout Rock n’ Roll in songs like “Side take” and “Satellite”. There are some early overdubed harmonies for the word “I”, which help add to the David Byrne feel, and the Boomerang gets a work out during the outro to allow for layering a solo on top of a blistering riff.

Exit

A dithyrambic stream of consciousness narration about a night out at Club Exit, a dance club in Greenpoint Brooklyn, well known to the players on this tune for all night trance parties. “I want to break it into two / drop it down with you”. As in the song “Satellite” above, once again a special shout out to our co-author.