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Truckload Of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen

For more than fifty years, Terry Allen has navigated an artistic path that bears little resemblance to the flat straightaways of his Lubbock youth. He’s traveled a winding and wandering highway that occasionally loops back on itself, switching lanes between songwriting, visual art, theater, sculpture, and other media, sometimes straddling two lanes at once. Prolific, profane, and voracious, he’s spent decades flourishing outside the mainstreams of the art world and the music world, save for occasional moments when the mainstream happens to intersect with his intuitive route. There’s a good chance he’s your favorite artist’s favorite country singer, or your favorite country singer’s favorite artist.

Allen has been a catalyst in fertile creative scenes from Los Angeles and Lubbock, he’s worked alongside everyone from Guy Clark to Dave Hickey to Bruce Nauman to David Byrne, and in the process, he’s created a massive and multivalent body of work that has no antecedents and very few points of comparison. In short, he’s long overdue for a thorough biography. Fortunately, Truckload Of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen, Brendan Greaves’ 500+ page epic released on Hachette Books on March 19th, is a worthy study of a more-than-worthy subject. Greaves, head of the North Carolina-based Paradise of Bachelors record label that has been reissuing Allen’s early albums and releasing his new work over the past decade, is a compassionate biographer with the perceptive eye of an art critic that allows him to map the aforementioned highway of Allen’s artistic practice.

The book is broken into the three distinct periods that characterize Allen’s life – a childhood in Lubbock, Texas, where he pushed against the constraints of the conservative and art-starved town, a post-high school escape to California, where he spent decades raising a family and making art with his wife and closest collaborator Jo Harvey, and a mid-life move to Santa Fe, where they’ve resided ever since. Much of Allen’s work revolves around the complicated mythologies we are born into – those of our family, those of the place we’re raised, and those of our time. Truckload of Art provides vital context to the way in which Allen’s life has been transmuted into his art. We sat down with Greaves to discuss this exhilarating investigation of a life spent in the act of constant creation. | w furgeson

Aquarium Drunkard: In the book you explain that you first met Terry through your work at a Philadelphia art gallery in the early two thousands. And much later you got him onto the roster at Paradise of Bachelors and you’ve been working on the reissues [Juarez, Lubbock (on everything), etc.]. So I have a pretty good sense of how y’all came to know each other and became close. But how did y’all decide that you were going to be the one doing the book? Did he approach you or did you approach him?

Brendan Greaves: It was fortuitous because it was really kind of a mutual request. In 2018, we were already in the thick of working on reissuing Terry’s back catalog and he was already working on new music that would become Just Like Moby Dick. By that point I’d already written a fair amount about him both for the reissue liner notes, and really dating back to when I was in grad school at UNC for Folklore, that was when I first started writing about Terry’s work. And when we first started talking in a way that was more than just chatting. That was 2006. I had been thinking about the fact that there was no book.  There’s a great art monograph on UT Press that is called Terry Allen that has incredible images of his work and some really great essays by people like Dave Hickey and Marcia Tucker, friends of his over the years. But it barely addresses the music and the music is kind of an afterthought. And that’s sort of it. All the other books on him were essentially art catalogs. There was nothing that really dealt with the music in a way that was equal to the artwork. And then when you look at journalism about him in recent years, it’s sort of the opposite. A lot of it is about the music and not as much about the artwork. That balance has always been a source of irritation to Terry, that folks see the work as different or segregated by medium. He doesn’t care if there are people who just like his music or just know his music or people that just like his art. That’s not it. It’s just that people don’t see the relationships between the two things, or are dismissive toward one or the other practices.  So that has been an ongoing concern for him. So I’d been thinking of this idea – this book doesn’t exist, could I write it? Would that be even feasible? Does he even want it to exist? And then at the same time Terry had been approached about a long form piece about his music, and he was anxious that it was just going to be about the music. So he was telling me about that, and at some point on the phone, I just blurted out, “Well, you know, I could just write the book.”  And he said, “Oh, well, I wish you’d do that. Let’s do that.”

AD: I could just write a 540 page book about you.

Brendan Greaves: Right. Well, I didn’t know it was going to be that long. And once I said that my heart sort of sank. I was like, what have I gotten myself into? So that’s how it started. And we took it from there and for well over a year we talked once or twice a week for an hour to three hours and all those conversations are recorded. There’s a lot I knew before then, but we went really deep, year by year pretty much throughout his entire life. And, obviously that, formed the kind of the core of the book as far as me using his own words and his own memories. And then weaving that with the actual historical evidence and other people’s accounts.

AD: The book is framed within these three sections that correspond to his life’s geographies (Lubbock, California, and Santa Fe). I of course wasn’t in California in the 1960s and 1970s and I’ve been to Santa Fe just a couple times. But I’ve spent a lot of time in Lubbock and I was impressed with your ability to capture what it’s like. How did you go about absorbing and understanding those places? Did you just camp out in each place for a few months?

Brendan Greaves: That’s a good question. The weird thing about this book is that my book deal with Hachette was finalized at the very beginning of the pandemic. I’d been working on some research before then and I’d written an extensive book proposal that itself was over 100 pages to pitch to potential publishers and editors. My agent sorted everything out right at the beginning of the pandemic. I knew I had a little bit of money as an advance to cover traveling around and researching, but suddenly I couldn’t go anywhere at all. I had this plan for extensive travel and lots of in-person interviews and that all had to pivot into Zoom world mostly. And then some phone work. At the time I was really anxious about that and disappointed. But it worked out, I ended up probably talking to more people than I would have just because it’s easier to get somebody on a computer than it is to find them in person. So it ended up being fine.

But as far as travel, before I started the book, I’d been to Lubbock a few times briefly. And I’d also been to Santa Fe to visit Terry and Jo Harvey. And I lived in Albuquerque for a short time many years ago. So I knew Santa Fe through that experience a bit. And during the lull in the pandemic, I took a long trip to Lubbock and Santa Fe. I was in Lubbock for a few weeks and I was embedded in the Allen archives at Texas Tech. It was an odd experience because it was during the pandemic. It was also during the summer. I was alone in this enormous reading room just poring through this stuff and photographing it. I have like hundreds of thousands of images of his notebook pages, because how else was I supposed to remember? I didn’t have enough time. So I photographed everything that seemed important. And that was another really central source to telling the story. Terry was there for part of my time in Lubbock. We’d been there before together but in the context of concerts and official appearances at Tech and this time we just kind of drove around and he gave me a tour of places, we ate at places he liked to eat, we went to places he hung out as a kid. So I got a sense of Lubbock then.

Los Angeles I know just from being there, you know, music stuff, art stuff, I have a lot of friends who live there. I still have not been to Fresno, so that part was sort of imaginary.  And then, you know, I did do a whole lot of historical research into those places.  Less so Santa Fe and Fresno, but a lot of LA – what LA in the sixties was, beyond the mythology, what it actually was. And then I did a ton of research on Lubbock because that seemed really important for framing it.

AD: There’s stuff you found that must have been deep in the archives of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.  You know, here’s an ad for [Terry’s father] Sled Allen’s venue, here’s the exact movie that was playing on this night, all that stuff.  I was amazed by the depth of research that went into figuring out exactly what was happening then.

Brendan Greaves: The Avalanche-Journal was kind of incredible. I’ve never looked that closely at the archives of a single paper. Papers back then, in the forties and fifties for sure, and even into the sixties, you know, they’re published twice a day and they reported on things like a five year old’s birthday party, it was like a real community bulletin board in a way that newspaper were not for very long after that. That was the only source people had so it covered absolutely everything, including gossip, like, who was dating who in high school. Really bizarre stuff that you would never see now, you know?

AD: I was recently reading the section of the book that details the recording of the Lubbock (on everything) album, and that’s the first mention of Lloyd Maines, Richard Bowden, all those guys who were involved in the recording. I was at the show at the Paramount the other week [Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band play an annual show at the Paramount Theater in Austin] and both of those guys are still in the band, and there are all these other friends that sort of run through the book.  People that he and Jo Harvey have had decades-long, mostly fruitful, occasionally contentious, friendships with. Were the interview subjects pretty cooperative and excited about the project?

Brendan Greaves: Yeah. I mean, that was a process. I assembled a long list of people that I thought I should speak to and then Terry kind of did the same and edited mine and said, oh, you don’t need to talk to this person or you need to talk to this other person. In some cases I listened to him and, and others, I didn’t. But then as I dug into the research, suddenly there were other characters who popped up who I thought, if they’re living, I really need to talk to this person. There were a few people who I regret not being able to get in touch with. You can’t speak with everyone. Some people died during the writing of the book which was gave it more urgency. There were a few folks who Terry had contentious relationships with that I couldn’t track down. But everybody else was pretty thrilled about it and saw the need for the book to exist.

Scheduling that many conversations was insane but once I actually got on the line with people the process was fairly simple and generally pretty fruitful. Some people are better talkers than others. But it was interesting the way that certain interviews you think are going to be important don’t yield what you need and you end up relying on other interviews with people that you didn’t think were going to be central to the story. Just because of how their memory works or how they express themselves or how chatty they are. It was fun. I feel like I got to know a lot of people. Some of those calls were pretty nerve-wracking for me but I got through them all. It was important to have all those voices, even though in the end, a lot of it ended up being background and I was not necessarily quoting those conversations.

AD: One of the things that comes through at numerous points during the book is this kind of like Zelig-like quality that Terry had, because of the people he ran around with and the places he was and the times he was there. Were there particular people that you were surprised had a Terry Allen connection? Realizing that he was like one degree away from Charles Manson was a surprise.

Brendan Greaves: I know. That’s the big one. I don’t think I had heard those stories until they came out during the interview process. I had heard a lot of stories before then but that was one that I don’t think I had been aware of. I didn’t know that they had met Andy Warhol, that was kind of interesting. And then there’s connections to the cinema world – Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson makes an appearance.  It’s interesting the folks that thread through that story, especially in the LA section, it was such an electric time and so many things were happening in such a concentrated way and so quickly and tumultuously in that city. People were rubbing shoulders in ways that are maybe less common now. Intersections of people and scenes were maybe at a different frequency.  And you know, Terry and Jo Harvey are also very social beings. They really put themselves out there and they were involved in radio, music industry, the art world. They like having parties, they like having people over dinner, they like going over to people’s places for dinner. They were in the mix in a really active way. The story of Peter Duel, I knew only tangentially.  He had been mentioned to me before. But that story became much deeper during the interviews for the book and realizing how close they were. And after that LA period, Fresno becomes so different because suddenly other than the university scene, they become much more isolated.

AD: Although it seems like that’s the point when they start going all over the place, showing art in galleries across the world, staging different shows.

Brendan Greaves: Yeah, at that point, it doesn’t matter as much where home is, because home is a place that they chose because it’s a stable job, a paycheck, health insurance and a good place for the kids to grow up and go to school. By the time they’re in Fresno, both their careers are becoming much more viable and they were constantly on the road.

AD: The book really centers his relationship with Jo Harvey and gave me a much greater appreciation for what has been a nearly lifelong collaboration. How did your working relationship with her evolve as opposed to the relationship with Terry?

Brendan Greaves: I did a number of interviews just with Jo Harvey. Not as many as with Terry, but probably at least a dozen. I’d become close to her anyway just from being in Santa Fe and being at their anniversary parties in Marfa. They tend to travel pretty much everywhere together these days, they’re kind of a unit. And she’s very different from Terry, as you probably see in the book, just as far as personality and presence.  She’s like totally wide open in a way that he isn’t quite.  And her memory also works differently, too. So it was interesting trying to reconcile their sometimes contrasting memories of things. Before I really started writing I knew that that relationship, that marriage, had to be central to the book. And also that it was singular as far as a story in its own right, that these two artists have been together for so long and collaborated for so long. It’s extremely unusual. It’s hard to think of anybody else that has lasted that long, romantically and artistically.

So at one point, I told Terry, one way to frame this book is not necessarily as a biography, but more as just an account of your marriage. And he very unequivocally said, no, thank you. (Laughs.) So that was the end of that. I think it speaks to the nature of their marriage, which is incredibly warm and loving but also very intense and complicated like anybody’s is. The idea that they would have to negotiate and share the narrative of a book together, I think just seemed insane to him. But it ended up happening anyway.

AD: Most of the people I know who are Terry Allen fans know him first and foremost as a musician. But you first came into contact with him through his visual art.  And now through the reissues and the years of research you did for the book, you’ve seen it all. In your opinion, what is the essential piece of Terry Allen art, the work that epitomizes his entire output?

Brendan Greaves: I mean the easy answer would be to consider a body of work and then the obvious one would be Juarez. That’s sort of a cop out because that’s fifty or fifty-five years of art work in various media. But it is all of a piece, and it’s certainly the body of work that is most central to his career and practice as an artist in every medium. And I think it’s arguable that it’s the primary engine of his identity as an artist. It’s been something that’s preoccupied him, not always, but often, and off and on, since about 1968. I think that story, that simple story and all the kind of mythology and heraldry and iconography and language and numerology and history that surrounds it, is both deeply personal and also political in a way that isn’t often touched on.  Just as far as thinking about the southwest of the United States and the porous border with Mexico, both geographically and culturally, that has always existed, and border violence. It’s very much about those issues without being explicitly about them.

AD: What’s next for you in the world of Terry Allen?  Is there more stuff planned for Paradise of Bachelors? And I’m also curious, now that you’ve got this one under your belt, what’s next for you as an author?  Are you already working on the next book?

Brendan Greaves: On the immediate horizon, as far as more projects with Terry, we’re releasing his first ever professional recordings, the “Gonna California”/ “Color Book” single. That’ll come out just a few days before the book. Those songs have been heard by very few people.  Most of the records were lost in a warehouse fire shortly after the record was pressed. So that’s exciting. And we’re finally making available a digital version of Cowboy and the Stranger, which is an EP of his early songs from the same period. He’s working on a lot of new music with his family in a family band called Blood Sucking Maniacs. And then also his own Panhandle Mystery Band material too.

And there’s still stuff from the back catalog that we haven’t gotten to, but would like to. I’m not sure in what form that will manifest. But at the moment I’m slammed with book promotion stuff and he’s slammed with some of the same, moving around with me to various places for events and readings.

As far as writing, I don’t know, I’ve been messing around with some things but I don’t have anything coherent. It’s funny, it’s like you think the book is done when it’s done, but then there’s trying to schedule readings and concerts and there’s a ton of coordination, getting it out into the world. I wasn’t quite prepared for that. But I’d like the next thing to not be a biography. Maybe fiction.

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Rosali :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Rosali Middleman has one of rock and roll’s loveliest voices, a clear, carrying soprano, vibrating with emotion, delicate and folk-like one minute, roused to rock crescendo the next. And beyond the voice, her songs have a classic shape and heft to them, sounding familiar but unplaceable the first time and still fresh 20 plays later. Her partnership with Mowed Sound, an Omaha-based roots rocking outfit that has backed her on the last two albums, has enlarged and intensified her work, bringing out the Crazy Horse-like abandon in her music. 

In early February, we spoke with Rosali about her fourth full-length, Bite Down, an album that began during the isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic but that took shape in Omaha in a series of collaborative and freewheeling sessions that approximated the live experience. Starting in doubt and ending in triumph, it’s her best record yet and it embodies the healing power of art. Says Rosali, “Music and songwriting have always been a spiritual healing practices for me. I think it’s trying to help people feel something, to have a connectedness in our humanity. And maybe provoke some thoughts that can create positive change.” | j kelly

Aquarium Drunkard: Just so you know, this is my favorite album of 2024 so far.

Rosali: Thank you.

AD: The album title is so visceral. What does Bite Down mean to you? 

Rosali: It came out of the song “Bite Down.” I started to write that song a couple of years ago. It was right after No Medium came out. I was starting on these new songs and going through a rough time. Everybody was.

AD: This was during COVID.

Rosali: Yeah, it would have been 2020 or 2021. I was feeling kind of lost and just walking around hearing that phrase, “Help me, love, I can’t seem to bite down on it.” It was about getting a grip. Getting a grasp on life. 

I never fully understand where lyrics come from when they do come to you and hit you. But that one became a centerpiece to my feelings and my thoughts. So the song came first. We finished the record and I wasn’t really sure what to call it. I had a couple of ideas floating around. It was really Mac at Merge. We were talking about it. And he was like, “I think Bite Down would be a great name for it.” 

And then I was thinking, “You know, you’re right.” That was what I was feeling, the central theme and that whole feeling of biting down in life and the concept of leaning in, though it’s more extreme than that. I really want to have that energy and that sense of going for it in all the experiences I have in life. 

AD: I think life got very fuzzy for almost everyone during that period, but it must have been especially difficult for someone whose livelihood and passion is bound up in performing live and being around people. How did you do during the pandemic?

Rosali: It was a big transition period for me. In the beginning of it, there was the uncertainty. How long is this going to last? I was living with my housemate Eva Killinger at that time, and I was like, “I think this is the end of things as we’ve known them and this way of being able to do music.” We were quarantining. We’d just hang out on our stoop. We were washing our groceries. I was feeling that big uncertainty that you already have when you’re in the arts. I wasn’t sure if that would ever pick up again. That’s kind of how it started and then I ended up moving back to my home state of Michigan. 

AD: I didn’t realize you were from Michigan.

Rosali: Oh yeah, I grew up in a small town north of Grand Rapids.

AD: I grew up in Indiana.

Rosali: Oh wow, Midwesterners. 

AD: It’s changed, though. It’s gotten very mean out there.

Rosali: It has. You used to talk about Midwestern nice, but…

AD: People have gotten very agitated.

Rosali: Michigan has always been kind of strange. There are the back to the land hippies and then the Michigan militia which is super conservative.

AD: Right but then you’ve got all of these engineers because of the auto industry. It’s one of the most highly educated states, and you wouldn’t think of that. It’s an interesting state and there are some beautiful parts of it, but I do feel like the whole Midwest has gotten very weird.

Rosali: I have an older sister and I was living with her for a bit because my nephew has autism, and I thought maybe I could help. I don’t have anything going on. I think I’ll do this. So it was like this big transitional situation of “What am I doing with my life? Maybe I’ll go back home.” My parents are getting older. But then being there, it’s really beautiful and I love the lakes, but it just didn’t feel like my place. 

So that’s how I ended up here. I’m in North Carolina in the Durham area. I knew a lot of people down here through music. But it was two big moves. 

We finished No Medium just before the pandemic started. I needed it to be out there, but I didn’t expect anything from it. But then it resonated with people, and so I was doing a lot more than I had beforehand. It was definitely a mixed bag of the uncertainty but also some really great things happening. I think maybe it was because of the pandemic and what people were feeling that those songs resonated. 

AD: I saw you guys on the No Medium tour in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and it was really great. I wondered if you could tell me a little bit about how you hooked up with Mowed Sound. They seem like they’re a big part of what you’re doing now.

Rosali: Yeah, they definitely have become that. They’re like family now. I had met them—I think I met Kevin [Donahue] first. He’s the one who plays the drums. He was playing with the Renderers. I played a show with them in Philly. This was back in 2017. Then I met them again when Dave [Nance] played in Philly. There’s a musicians’ community, you know, these are our people in all these different towns. He’s definitely one of them in our Omaha satellite, a kindred scene. 

I met them a bunch of times and then Long Hots had a 7” come out on Third Man the same time they had one. So we just decided to do a tour together. So we all got in a van together for two weeks. That was the summer of 2019. And it was just so much fun. We all became great friends. We’d play songs together. We had some really magical times on the road together, and mid-way through, they said, we want to be your backing band for your next record. And I said, okay, I take you up on your offer. 

I went out to Omaha that fall. We spent ten days. It was a very—I won’t say effortless—but it was an immediate thing. I think the midwestern connection helped. We’re all kind of scrappy players, and we all have a similar approach. It’s very intuitive. It really fell into place. 

I knew at the time we recorded the album, and this was pre-pandemic, that this is going to be so much fun to play live. Then when the pandemic happened, I thought, we’ll maybe we’re not going to play live. Before this record I’d always worked with different musicians for each record because I like to mix it up. But we ended up touring. We did a month with Destroyer in that spring of 2022. It elevated our relationship and this way of having onstage telepathy and breaking open the songs. They’re just incredible players. It’s so much fun.

AD: Yeah it’s just a great band, and I feel like when you started working with them it really transformed what you were doing. From a singer-songwriter, chanteuse, woman-with-a-pretty-voice into something really visceral and loud and rock and cool.

Rosali: Yeah. There are elements of that in things I’ve done before. They helped me bring it all together, to bring that energy out. I feel very lucky that they recognized that in me. It’s helpful to pull that out of me.

AD: I remember when you were playing Goner Fest, and I was like “what?” But a bunch of people were telling me you were one of their favorite things all weekend. And that’s kind of a rough, rock-and-roll crowd, you know. 

Rosali: This whole…the labeling of what I do. It’s something that I’m still struggling to overcome. People think that I’m delicate, and yeah, I can write sensitive music, but there’s definitely an edge behind it. In our live show, we go full force. 

AD: What can you tell me about recording this album? You’ve talked a little bit about where it came from in terms of being in this liminal pandemic state. What was it like going into the studio and doing it?

Rosali: Well, we approached it in a similar way to the last one. We recorded it in Jim’s basement again. In Omaha. But this time, we brought in Ted Bois from Destroyer, who is playing keys. We did it a lot more as a band. For the last record, it was mostly Jim and I orchestrating the arrangements. The rhythm section was recorded mostly live for No Medium

For Bite Down, we were all there for all of the foundations of the record. So in that way, I think it’s more collaborative as a band. In some ways, that can complicate things, but it also has a potent energy to it. The songs weren’t as finished for me when I went in, which was partly intentional and partly just not having as much time to sit and live in them as I normally do. Getting the vibe of the song, the rhythm, the tempo, a lot of it came out of all of us just playing and solidifying the song as a five-piece.

AD: Did that make it take longer?

Rosali: Yeah, for sure. We did the last record in ten days. This one I was there for three weeks and then went back again for a week. It definitely took longer, just because there was a lot of …okay, this is it. You think you’ve got something and then you listen to it again and it isn’t right. Let’s redo it. But I think in the end it made it feel like a band record. 

AD: It definitely is. My favorite on the record is not a single. It’s “Changes the Form,” which is the wildest, most overdriven, Crazy Horse-est song on the disc. What can you tell me about that one?

Rosali: That’s the oldest song on that record. I started writing that song for my second record, so that would have been 2016 maybe? And I just couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t have the lyrics all together. I had the refrain part. I couldn’t figure out the vibe and then I didn’t demo it for the last record, but I demo’d it for this one. And I was kind of like, you know, let’s just try this one again. 

We almost didn’t record it. We were all kind of like, yeah, I don’t know what to do with this song. Our friend J.J. [Idt], who engineered the record, he was like, “this is my favorite demo.” He was like, “Just do it for me.” So we ended up playing it for a while. It kind of came together when Ted got there as well. 

We did the version on the record on the second take. Everything is live except for vocals and the second guitar part in the middle. But we tracked the whole thing live as a band. It broke it open. I’m not sure exactly how that happened. I’m just thankful that it did. And I’m happy that J.J. pushed us to do it. 

AD: I was talking to a friend of mine who has also been a fan of yours for a while. We were saying how it would make us happy if you did an album that was all like that. Just let it rip. Ever think about that?

Rosali: (laughs) I guess. I’d be happy to. It’s sometimes hard because I write a lot of different kinds of songs. It might be fun to do a live record, too. But yeah, I’d be into that.

AD: It almost has a Heron Oblivion feel to it, just really going to the edge and then right over it.

Rosali: Thank you. I love Heron Oblivion. I hope they make another record. 

AD: “Rewind” is the first single and it’s really a lot more contained and well-behaved than that other song we were talking about. It’s got almost a classic country feel to it. I was wondering if you have any touchstones in country, either cosmic or otherwise, that have inspired you or shaped your work.

Rosali: Not really so much. I grew up in a traditional music household.

AD: What do you mean by that?

Rosali: Ballads. The American Songbook. Folk songs. My parents are musicians. When I was a teenager, I was in an all-women’s bluegrass band with my friends. We were both teenagers and then there were three older women. I played mandolin and sang, but I wasn’t very good at mandolin. But it was fun. And I learned a lot of old bluegrass songs and harmonies. 

As far as country goes, I like Allison Krauss. She was always on the line of not full commercial country. But yeah its interesting to me that people would say that it sounds like a country song. It kind of baffles me. Because it wasn’t at all my intention. It felt more anthemic to me. More like Rod Stewart or the Faces. But I don’t know. I like outlaw country and Emmylou Harris and all of that, but it’s never been a specific influence.

AD: I also really like “Hills on Fire,” which has that beautiful blues guitar at the beginning. Is that you?

Rosali: No, that’s Jim. We played that one live also, so those are all live guitar parts. It’s pretty unreal. 

AD: But you yourself are quite a good and pretty wild guitar player. I was listening last year to that Edsel Axle record and that opened up how I thought of you as a guitarist.

Rosali: Yes, and I’ve been struggling to come to a point where, in the Rosali project, I do play guitar like that. It’s something where live I really struggle to split my brain between singing, being able to sing freely and playing guitar.

AD: You almost never have the lead guitarist singing, any band, it’s just too hard. 

Rosali: It is too hard and it occupies the same space in my head. I’ve started to play guitar when I play solo. To have interstitial parts where I play guitar freely and then go into a song. That’s a fresh approach for me. I do have the language and the understanding of what I want from a guitar sound, and so I can express that. And Jim is just…

AD: A really good guitar player. 

Rosali: Incredible. And he can do that live and in the moment. Whereas I can play, but sometimes it might take me some time to get to that point to be able to do it. So I’m just trying to utilize the tools that I have and the people that I’m fortunate enough to play with. 

AD: Which guitarists and which records have some of your favorite guitar sounds on them. 

Rosali: Well, early on Neil Young, obviously. Tonally, he was a huge influence. 

AD: He’s so many things. 

Rosali: Yes, and just an important figure for me musically in so many ways. But also I’m a huge Ira Kaplan fan. Yo La Tengo is influential to me. 

AD: I love that record they made last year. I’m glad they made another rock record.

Rosali Yeah, and they played down here at the Cat’s Cradle and I went to the show. I love how he can flow from a sweet pop riff to total noised out sound. That whole vibe impacted me growing up. Eddie Hazel from Funkadelic.

AD: Oh my god, yeah.

Rosali: I keep joking that “Hills on Fire,” I was pushing for a while to have that be the opener. Because I was like “It’s like ‘Maggot Brain.’” Where it’s a minute and a half passionate guitar solo. 

Richard Thompson. I’m a big fan of his playing. I think it’s really delicate and emotional. I really like Marisa Anderson’s playing and Bill Orcutt.

AD: It sounds like there are two threads in the music you like, noise and folk. I was wondering how they meet or are they two separate things without much connection. How do you see that?

Rosali: I do listen to music from every genre, and I’ve always been drawn to sounds that are exploratory, free and emotional. I don’t really identify with simply being a folk musician. I draw from a lot of places for inspiration and I also grew up with a heavy dose of 1990s top 40 RnB as well as punk music thanks to an older sister. I love pop music, ambient and jazz. 

It’s hard to articulate where the threads connecting noise and folk seem to run and tangle up with all the other influences. I’ve always loved the way traditional folk songs and stories are passed down and break off into alternate versions throughout time. My flavor of experimental music follows this same kind of principle, tracing lines and each time they bend to something that shifts until it becomes another thing. I think my heart is just attuned to recognizing the stories people tell by sending signals into the void of existence. 

AD: On this album, do you have any favorite sounds or bits or lines or moments?

Rosali: “Hills on Fire” is definitely one of my favorite songs. The way that the singing and the guitar weave together feels really potent to me. Some of those lines mean a lot to me as well. The self-reflection, talking to somebody, slightly apologetic. “Slow Pain” is one of my favorite songs. 

AD: What about that one?

Rosali: I love the energy of it, and the pacing of it feels really good to me. There’s an underlying cello line in it that you don’t really hear until the end. It’s like a breath that’s happening. I feel like it’s in your face a little bit, the song itself. The chord progression. I was really stoked about that one. 

“May It Be On Offer,” the last song, it feels really special to me as well. I was doing the first attempt at vocals for that song and I started crying, which has never happened to me. That line, “There is hope upon me/there is reason to try.” I think that all the emotions that come to the surface in making an album and getting it out there, they just felt very electrified around me. The words came out of my mouth and I just started bawling. “Jim, we’ve got to stop. I’ve got to stop.”

AD: So are you crying on the take that’s on the album?

Rosali: No. We had to stop. Because you could hear it in my voice. But now every time that line comes up I think about it. 

AD: I assume you’re probably getting ready to tour with this album. What’s next for you?

Rosali: Yeah. Our tour starts in Denver on March 19, which is a few days before the record comes out. So right now, I’m just trying to get in shape as far as my voice and my hands. We’ll go to Omaha and practice for a little bit and leave from there. We’re doing a whole loop of the country. It’s a bunch of shows. It’s a month. 

AD: During the pandemic, and right after, a lot of artists were doing this quick jaunts, where they’d do five shows and then go home and then do another set. Now you’re doing one of these grand national tours.

Rosali: Yeah. It just started snowballing. In the beginning we were going to do a week with Mary Timony, which we’re still doing. 

AD: That’s another really good album. Mary Timony’s record.

Rosali: It is. And she’s so lovely and so sweet. I’m excited. I was a big Helium fan growing up. I think she’s great. It’s going to be super fun. But then we’re just continuing on, looping back to Omaha. 

AD: Are you working on any side projects or collaborations or soundtracks or do you do any other arts besides music?

Rosali: Yeah. I’m writing again. Hopefully I’ll make another Rosali record and working on more guitar stuff with Edsel Axel and then I have a project with Jason Gerycz called Monocot. We have two albums. There’s nothing specifically new. Long Hots might have a record.

AD: I love Long Hots. They’re so fun.

Rosali: Thank you. I love playing with them. We have a live record that we recorded on a tour. We all think it’s good. We’re just not sure what we’re doing with any of it. But it’s kind of nice to have a band like that, maybe similar to Heron Oblivion, like we’ll always be a band but we’re not on any kind of timeline or pressure to put something out. 

AD: Your drummer is just mesmerizing in that band. It’s so simple and primitive what she does, but really powerful. 

Rosali: Yeah, she is incredible. One of my best friends in life, too. I feel like I get to play music with a lot of people who are very close to me. 

AD: With good people, it seems like. And a lot of musicians are really wonderful people, but not all of them. 

Rosali: Yeah, some of the biggest hearted people that I know, which is very fortunate. For me, music has never been a solo endeavor. I play solo but I think growing up in a musical family and living in musical communities, collaboration has always been a big part of it.

I am also a visual artist. I studied art in college and I work as a freelance graphic designer. Currently I am working in pastels, mostly drawing awkward nudes. 

AD: When you say growing up in a musical family, did you play together?

Rosali: We did. We sang a lot together. That’s how I learned harmonies. I have five sisters and one brother. 

AD: Did your brother do it, too?

Rosali: He does. He’s an incredible bass player and a guitarist but he has young kids and a job so he used to do it more often. But he’s a shredder and played bass and was incredible. So we all played and my parents played. 

AD: What did you play when you were with your family?

Rosali: I started off just singing and then I started playing guitar when I was 12 or 13. 

AD: Are you reading anything interesting these days? 

Rosali: I’ve been listening to audiobooks in lieu of reading because I can often do other stuff I have to do. I’ve recently enjoyed The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, Kindred by Ocatavia Butler, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, and right now I’m in the middle of Barabra Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead which is incredible but it’s also a little emotionally brutal so I had to take a pause. 

AD: If you were able to communicate just one thing about what you’re doing and what it means and why it’s important, what would that one thing be?

Rosali: Music and songwriting have always been a spiritual healing practices for me. It’s also something that I’d like people to connect to. I’d like it to help them in some sort of way to get through something that they’re dealing with. I think it’s trying to help people feel something, to have a connectedness in our humanity. And maybe provoke some thoughts that can create positive change. 

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Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard :: March 2024

Freeform transmissions from Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard on dublab. Airing every third Sunday of the month, RFAD on dublab features the pairing of Tyler Wilcox’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb and Chad DePasquale’s New Happy Gathering. This month, Chad offers up a misty portal into spring — orchestral pop, psychedelic folk & earthy jazz; then, Tyler delivers some Stereolab-ish situations, from solo efforts and side projects to similarly styled space age bachelor pad music. 4-6pm PT.

New Happy Gathering with Chad DePasquale: Charif Megarbane, “Pas de Dialogue” ++ Hiroshi Kamayatsu, “Have you smoked Gauloise?” ++ Wendy & Bonnie, “You Keep Hanging Up on My Mind” ++ Margo Guryan, “Kiss and Tell” ++ Dion, “Only You Know” ++ Jessica Pratt, “Life Is” ++ Blossom Dearie, “That’s Just the Way I Want to Be” ++ Amen Dunes, “White Child” ++ Bill Fay, “Cosmic Boxer” (Alternate) ++ J.J. Cale, “Starbound” ++ Catherine Howe, “Up North” ++ Jenny Sorrenti, “Tristessa” ++ Agustín Pereyra Lucena, “Canto De Ossanha” ++ Piero Umiliani, “Stream” ++ Codona, “Malinye”

Doom & Gloom From The Tomb with Tyler Wilcox: Laetitia Sadier, “New Moon” ++ Vanishing Twin, “Afternoon X” ++ Cavern of Anti-Matter, “Echolalia” +++ En Attendant Ana, “Same Old Story” ++ somesurprises, “Be Reasonable” ++ Dummy, “Fissured Ceramics” ++ Modern Cosmology, “A Time To Blossom” ++ Imitation Electric Piano, “Day of the Dinge” ++ Death and Vanilla, “Let’s Never Leave Here” ++ High Llamas, “Cookie Bay” ++ Broadcast, “Sixty Forty” ++ Stereolab, “Golden Ball”

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Morris Belknap :: My Lost Friends

Morris Belknap was born in 1947 in San Carlos, a small town in the southeastern corner of Arizona on the Apache Reservation. Raised among his siblings in the dusty town, he was shipped off to a Los Angeles boarding school in his teenage years. There, he began to play guitar and writing songs. More schooling followed, then years of mechanic work and manual labor—including a stint in the copper mines of Superior, Arizona.

By the mid-’70s, he was tired, weighed down by addiction, and at his wits end. Something had to change, and upon finding a Gideon’s bible in a Superior hotel room, Belknap discovered his path. Dedicating himself to singing the gospel, he began writing songs that spoke to his new convictions, stories about sinners rescued from wrath, the power of salvation, and the meek inheriting the earth.

Those songs make up Jesus Saves, his lone 1976 LP. Reissued last year by the dedicated crate diggers at cult Arizona label Skull Valley Records, the album oozes honesty and earnest, faithful fervor—albeit with a few detours into moralistic scolding (apparently, you wouldn’t want to get Belknap started on long-hairs). Though the album is informed predominately by the sounds of blues, country, and folk, when I tilt my head sideways, I can almost hear shades of The Velvet Underground in “My Lost Friends,” an ode to those who never managed to find the straight and narrow path. Driven by Shara Engles’ flooding organ, David Drury’s spritely guitars, and Carl Smiths’ ramshackle drums, Belknap sings with gentle longing, “If I could only open/some of my lost friends’ eyes.” The gut level hymn typifies the album’s spirit and persuasive charm. | j woodbury

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Ryan Power :: World of Wonder

Four years after the brilliant Mind the Neighbors and seven after the highly-praised They Sell Doomsday, World of Wonder brings back Ryan Power’s multi-genre kaleidoscope of kosmische sensibility, toy aesthetics, and chamber pop sublime. It closely follows Fievel is Glauque’s now-famed brand of indie jazz psychedelia, with broken and demented (and yet perfectly refined) melodies going through unexpected harmonic progressions, modulating right before the phrases can find a conclusive stage. The overall feel is of a deconstructed bossa nova, clean but dicey, supported by lush beds of MIDI space synth and analog bass. At the center of this circulation, behind the vortex, there are smooth and sensual tracks of delicate pop songcraft — albeit a feral, minoritarian pop, that evokes sophisti-weirdos like Gary Wilson and Jerry Paper. Playing humorous tricks in his (bottom-line mellow) lyrics, Power manages to maintain through all of these songs, almost accidentally, an esoteric happiness and hazardous levels of chill. | r moraes

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Oisin Leech :: Cold Sea

Oisin Leech is an Irish singer-songwriter who had his brush with commerce with the 1990s band 747s and a more ruminative sort of acclaim with the Lost Brothers, his folk duo with Mark McCausland “October Sun.” Cold Sea is his first solo album, and while you might miss the Lost Brothers’ shadowy harmonies on it, he is not exactly alone.

Indeed, on the translucent opener “Cold Sea,” both producer Steve Gunn and long-time collaborator M. Ward (check out his work on the 2020 Lost Brothers’ song, “After the Fire”) lend a hand, and later, Dylan bassist Tony Garnier turns up for some lovely acoustic low-end.

And yet, these lilting, wafting bits of melancholy sound solitary, like a man with his thoughts in the late hours. Leech sings as if he’s thinking out loud, the phrases dropped casually, with just a leavening of melody. The production sheathes him in echo, a hothouse atmosphere that brings his pensive tenor to bloom. He strums his guitar in steady time, picking out a flourish at the ends of phrases. It’s all rather plain but gorgeous, haunted by regret and memory. Even when you can hear his guests in “October Sun,” in the eerie slide (or maybe e-bowed?) tones that float through the chorus—Gunn probably—and in a blues-y tangle that must be M. Ward signing in from Oregon, they don’t disturb his reverie. This is one guy’s fragile vision; everyone else is just visiting. 

Leech’s writes about love in metaphors borrowed from nature. The weak sunshine of the late fall in “October Sun” stands in for fading romance. Blues-picked “Malin Gales” brings the force of unruly weather to its narrative about saying goodbye. His poetry is made of workman-like words, and yet it haunts and intimates. When he ditches verse entirely, as on the title track’s luminous tone poem, his music still conveys sharp feeling. “Maritime Radio” with its murmured weather reporting submerged in layers of tremulous guitar, is also rather beautiful in a muted, half-heard, nostalgia-infused way.

Cold Sea is a picker’s record, filled with fine lattice-work play, but also a singer and storyteller’s work. The best reference is maybe Bert Jansch. Leech has the Pentangle player’s still simplicity, combined with skill and agility on the fret boards, and his work is lovely if a little bit lonesome. | j kelly

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Waxahatchee :: Tigers Blood

Katie Crutchfield hit an artistic and commercial high water mark in 2020 with the full-throttle country rocking St. Cloud, an album which doubled her audience and established her as a significant force in Americana music. Tigers Blood comes four years later, past a global music industry shutdown, a world health crisis and Crutchfield’s own battle to get sober. If anything, it’s a bigger, brighter album, its rough, confessional poetry charged with triumph, its instrumental sound bolstered by a full complement of collaborators.

Crutchfield’s voice — with its rich country vibrato, its confiding just-us-talking hiccup and twitch, its bursts of punk rock agitation — is in full bloom here, as sure and vibrant as she’s ever sounded. The opening lines of “3 Sisters,” for instance, are spiky and unfussed, a crack in the joints of the melody as she limbers up. But soon she’s crooning tight harmonies with herself, letting the sound surge and evolve in long shape-shifting notes. And then the band comes in, slow but rowdy, anchored by Spencer Tweedy’s rollicking drums. It’s a personal meditation that swells to epic size and solidity, an idiosyncratic scrap of observation that picks at the scabs of life’s deepest existential questions. Keens Crutchfield, near the end, “if you’re not living then you’re dying/just a raw nerve satisfying/some futile bottom line,” and yes, exactly, amen.

In addition to Spencer Tweedy, Crutchfield works again with the Cook brothers, Brad and Phil, and for the first time with MJ Lenderman of Wednesday. This latter collaboration is a particularly fruitful pairing. His voice strengthens and supplements hers in the harmonies of “Burns Out at Midnight” while his electric guitar fires up the energy of the exhilarating “Bored.” The two of them share the belief that complicated, lyrically intricate songs can rock like a motherfucker, that you don’t have to sand off the edges to get the people up and dancing.

I find myself returning to “Lone Star Lake” with its plain spoken rural geographies (“the only lake in Kansas”), its steady plunk of banjo, its precise unpacking of a difficult relationship (“but I’ll sit down at your table/I’ll stand arm in arm with anyone who’s able/to let me/be the object of their misery”). It’s maybe the most purely country sounding song on the album and the most unadorned, but when Crutchfield spits these compressed and imagistic lines in her unaffected twang, it’s like T.S. Eliot at the juke joint, twitchy and difficult and beautiful. | j kelly

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The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PDT, Channel 35)

Come down easy. Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.

SIRIUS 794: Intro ++ Felt – Something Sends Me To Sleep ++ Loving – On My Way To You ++ Destroyer – Your Blues ++ Mojave 3 – Who Do You Love (Demo) ++ Frog – RIP To The Empire State Flea Market ++ MJ Lenderman – Perfect ++ Felt – Ferdinand Magellan ++ Parsley Sound – Ease Yourself And Glide ++ Water From Your Eyes – This Is Slow ++ Sean Nicholas Savage – Days Go By ++ Helvetia – Junk Shop ++ Black Tamborine – I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend ++ Deerhunter – Fluorescent Grey ++ Peel Dream Magazine – Qi Velocity ++ The Clean – Franz Kafka At The Zoo ++ April Magazine – Brighter ++ Deerhunter – Dr. Glass ++ Women – Black Rice ++ Stereolab – Come And Play In The Milky Night (Demo) ++ Atlas Sound – It Rained ++ The Art Museums – So Your Baby Doesn’t Love You Anymore ++ White Fence – Breathe Again ++ Exploded View – Summer Came Early ++ Lower Dens – Tea Lights ++ Linda Smith – I So Liked Spring ++ En Attendant Ana – Red Sleeping Beauty (Aquarium Drunkard Session) ++ En Attendant Ana – Just a Girl She Said (Aquarium Drunkard Session) ++ En Attendant Ana – Ces Mots Stupides (Aquarium Drunkard Session) ++ Yellow Fever – Culver City ++ Kamikaze Palm Tree – Flamingo ++ Fat White Family – Kim’s Sunsets ++ Mayflowers – Feelin’ Blue ++ Children Maybe Later – West MacArthur ++ The Sheeps – Proof Of Concept ++ Lewsberg – An Ear To The Chest ++ Krano – See ++ Spacemen 3 – Come Down Easy (Demo)

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Corey Madden :: Taste The Hour

Reeling off the success of Color Green’s last few years, guitarist Corey Madden has set aside the time to assemble a record that embodies the freewheelin’ ethos of the former while propagating a singer-songwriter persona of his own design. Released on the peripatetic Worried Songs, Taste the Hour finds camaraderie in the label’s ever-expanding ilk of freaks, heady rockers, and ardent songcrafters. Sure to stand above the fray in a growing world of blissed-out jammers, Madden has founded a realm where folk-rock grit is further refined in fuzz and adorned with sparks of power-pop benediction.

Delivered deadpan with a dirtbag sweet-heartedness, one can’t help but find an endearing and veritable songwriter in Madden over the course of Taste the Hour’s eight tunes. And lest not one ignore the ace of the project—Madden as architect. “Tumor” begins in ringing 12-string melancholy before building to a false crescendo of feedback, orchestrated layered guitars, and bravado. The whole thing has an air of Dennis Wilson diving a bit too deep into the medicine cabinet—sentimental, pining, yet emboldened by a too-far-gone lack of inhibition. Without a chance to recover, the circuital fuzz of “Free Again” comes knocking like a blow to the sternum. You’re winded but just before incoherence sets in, Madden props you up in locktight groove, taking the wheel for a breakneck drive along a coastal highway. And though the guitarist clearly masters low-key bliss, moments like this and the locomotive brute of “Yellow Rose” demonstrate that there’s serious power left in the reserves when its necessary to get a little further out there. 

The subdued moments are equally rewarding. The faux-cowboy novelty of “Two Strangers” provokes serious downer-folk energy. And by bleeding into the slide-induced lullaby “Cig,” listeners are lulled into a false sense of security before a quick reality check by “Gun.” Not quite the heaviest piece on Taste the Hour, it is the most menacing by a long shot. And while an extended guitar workout would be appropriate following the repeated refrain of “Won’t you let me help you load your gun,” Madden shows restraint. Realizing that his work in Color Green offers plenty of time for matters of six-string pyrotechnics, the focus here remains on songcraft. The abrupt crescendo only heightens the righteous lethargy of the closing “Treading”—sending the affair adrift once more to languidly strummed nylon string and hazy slide guitar.

It can be difficult to pin down some moments of this tape. Glimmers of Harry Hosono drift up from the glacial psych of “Color.” John Frusciante’s early drug-addled solo projects are brought to mind at times, through both tone control and instrumental mastery. And to the deep-divers, Andy Zwerling’s bedroom psych-pop might even be recalled in the more solemn moments Madden puts forth. In as much, we’re left with a deeply original project that manages to extrude familiarity in its nuance. A fine introduction to Madden as a sonic pioneer and likely not the last glimpse of a fervidly inventive artist. | j rooney

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Transmissions :: John Lurie

This week on the show, we’re so pleased to present a conversation with John Lurie. Perhaps you know him from his work in films like Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law, Paris Texas, or The Last Temptation of Christ; or maybe you know him better for his music—groups like The Lounge Lizards, his trailblazing avant-garde jazz unit, or his fictional bluesman persona Marvin Pontiac, or the John Lurie National Orchestra. Or maybe you know him from his pioneering and singular television shows, 1991’s surreal nature program Fishing With John, or the more recent Painting With John, which ran on HBO from 2021-2023. 

Transmissions :: John Lurie

This week, he joins host Jason P. Woodbury for a freewheeling chat, his book, The History of Bones: A Memoir, his Hollywood adventures, and Music From Painting With John, which drops via Royal Potato Family on March 15th.

Transmissions is written, produced, and hosted by Jason P. Woodbury, edited by Andrew Horton, and executive produced by Justin Gage. Our music comes from Frank Maston. Art for this episode was created by Ian Everett. Transmissions is part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Join us next week for a conversation with Elizabeth Nelson of The Paranoid Style.

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Harold Land Quintet :: The Peace-Maker

Like many great collaborations, Harold Land joining forces with Bobby Hutcherson was the fruitful artistic spark needed to elevate his career. From the late fifties onward, the tenor saxophonist worked with Max Roach and became a stalwart in the West Coast jazz scene (like Don Cherry’s Brown Rice and others, Land’s hard bop debut Harold in the Land of Jazz features the musician playing saxophone in front of the Watts Towers in Los Angeles). Yet much of the musician’s output remains understated, if not downright obscured: recorded in 1960, his lone solo Blue Note session was shelved and only quietly released two decades later.

Beginning in late 1967, The Peace-Maker was recorded in two sessions and offers the perfect, lively synergy of Land’s collaboration with Hutcherson. Inspired by pioneering vibraphonist Milt Jackson (who had a similar work with his Bags & Trane effort with Coltrane), the mammoth Penguin Guide to Jazz compendium opines that Hutcherson’s eccentric choice of instrument likely prevented him from reaching his deserved reputation as a major jazz icon. Transcending the tradition of hard bop standards, Land had also taken a five year hiatus as a bandleader, making this offering all the more dazzling (he would go on to play on a stellar run of Hutcherson albums, including the mutation to jagged jazz-funk on the early seventies LP San Francisco). Dynamic on percussion throughout, longtime Jimmy Smith drummer Donald Bailey even adds harmonica on the smoothly vibrant “Stylin'”. Rounding out the quintet is a pair of members from prolific collective the Jazz Crusaders: bassist Buster Williams and Joe Sample on piano.

The fluidity of the record teems with a graceful, joyful expression: on the buoyant “40 Love”, Hutcherson’s distinguishably warm, rhythmic touch takes over the mid-track crescendo from Land’s saxophone like an orchestrated passing of a torch, the swinging rhythm section in peak form. Lauding Bobby’s vibes, New York jazz radio veteran Mort Fega colorfully describes the session in the liner notes: “it would be like carrying coals to Newcastle to dwell on the level of musicianship here, it’s that self-evident”. Ten projects in total, there is a trove of innovative fragments to pull from the Land/Hutcherson partnership that are worthy of celebration. Aptly titled The Peace-Maker, though,remains uniquely ambitious. With both musicians producing a balmy framework, original Land pieces comprise the majority of the compositions here. It’s the perfect introduction to the vision of a truly unsung giant. | m neeley

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: Jeffrey Silverstein

Lagniappe (la ·gniappe) noun ‘lan-ˌyap,’ — 1. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. 2. Something given or obtained as a gratuity or bonus.

Jeffrey Silverstein is a multi-hyphenate. Not only does he play music, crafting a signature blend of country, folk, and drowsy rhythms; he’s also a teacher, and a writer (often at The Creative Independent, where his missives with artists about their creative practices are instructive and inspiring). His most recent album, Western Sky Music, features “ruminative speech-song and drifting instrumentals,” a feature that carries over to his first-ever Lagniappe Session, dedicated a batch of tunes that show off his crate digging approach and playful sense of humor.

Jeffrey Silverstein :: (I Want)The Real Thing (Chip Taylor)

I found Chip Taylor’s Last Chance in a bargain bin in 2022. It was an instant purchase given Pete Drake is on steel and Chet Atkins refers to him as “one of the few New York writers that can turn out a good country tune.” Chip wrote for Bobby Bare, Waylon, The Troggs, etc. An incredible recording with a chorus that will get lodged in your head. We put some boogie into our version and had my close friend and producer/engineer Ryan Oxford lay down some backup vocals.

Jeffrey Silverstein :: Do It Again (Steely Dan)

What we’re doing here is a cover of a cover. Had somehow never heard Waylon’s version from Music Man (1980) until last year. Could immediately hear pedal-steel taking the lead and Waylon’s vocal was more approachable for my range. A seriously fun song to play. Hoping to work it into the live set for upcoming shows. 

Jeffrey Silverstein :: I’m Ahead If I Can Quit While I’m Behind (Jim Ford)

I sing this song during soundcheck/as my vocal warm up before every show. Jim Ford’s Harlan County (1968) was my introduction to country-funk. Incredible singer and songwriter. I love turning people onto that album. I’m Ahead is off of Point of No Return, a b-sides and demos release from 2008. We almost went full Brinsley-Schwarz on this one but ultimately decided to go with something more stripped-down and laid back like Jim does it. 

Jeffrey Silverstein :: That’s How I Got to Memphis (Tom T. Hall)

We’ve been covering “Memphis” for the past year and change. Figured it was time to have a go at recording it. Natural Child put me onto this song around 2012 via For Love of The Game. Been obsessed ever since. Lots of great memories associated with one. A damn near perfect song and one I never tire of hearing or playing. 

Lagniappe Sessions Archives / layout via Ian Everett

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Michael Naura Quartett :: Call

By a strange coincidence, two electric jazz masterpieces were produced in West Germany in 1971. Both were named Call. Both were led by middle-aged, post-bop pianists navigating their way through the first currents of fusion. Both featured a young Eberhard Weber on electric bass. Neither of them has any horns. And both are unassailable underrated classics. The first was, of course, Mal Waldron’s The Call, whichplaced the former Billie Holiday accompanist behind an electric piano amidst a cohort of young krautrock-adjacent jazz cats, and issued forth in a swirling, multi-colored maelstrom of psychedelic grooves. Its doppelgänger is Michael Naura’s Call, a moody, shimmering wash of jeweled tones. Waldron’s The Call is a radiation storm in outer space. Naura’s Call is sunlight playing on the surface of deep water.

Like Waldron, Naura had made his reputation as a capable jazz pianist in the post-bop mid-1950s. Based in Berlin (and, later, Hamburg), Naura’s original quintet, with vibraphonist Wolfgang Schlüter, became one of the most popular jazz groups in Germany. (Naura would later look back pitilessly on this group’s pale imitations of hard bop and cool jazz from the United States, “Wir putzten uns die Nase, wenn ein amerikanischer Musiker erkältet war,” he said. We blew our noses when an American musician had a cold.)  And again, like Waldron, Naura’s promising career was put on hold in the mid-sixties. For Waldron, it was a physical breakdown following a heroin overdose in 1963, which prompted, after a slow recovery, his permanent relocation to Munich. Naura’s performing career was cut short in 1964, when the inflammatory condition polyserositis required an extended stay at a sanitorium in Lower Saxony. Upon his release and recovery, he found work as a journalist. Naura became a sound engineer for the state radio station Norddeutsche Rundfunk (NDR) in 1967. And in 1971, he took over editorial management of NDR’s jazz programming. These positions placed Naura at a forward post in the revolution occurring in West German music at the time. 

The televised NDR Jazz Workshop in Hamburg had become one of the epicenters of progressive jazz in Europe at this time. Clips and archival releases now abound; you could make an entire weekend of them. Here’s John Surman at NDR in 1969. Here’s Weather Report in 1971. This is Return to Forever at NDR in 1972. An especially brilliant CTI-era Freddie Hubbard in March 1973. Soft Machine in May of that same year. The list goes on. In other words, Michael Naura had perhaps the most prominent perch in continental Europe from which to witness the coming of fusion.

Perhaps this is why Naura returned to recording in 1971 with the assembly of an electric quartet. The new Michael Naura Quartett featured Naura on electric piano, Schlüter on vibes, Weber on electric bass, and Joe Nay on drums. (Here’s another fun fact: in 1973, Nay would play drums on the Amon Düül-adjacent one-off album Utopia, featuring keyboarist Jimmy Jackson, who played organ on Waldron’s The Call.) The quartet’s first album, Call, began a brief, but stellar, three-album run in the early 1970s.

The allure of Call lies primarily in the timbral similarity of Naura’s Fender Rhodes and Schlüter’s vibraphone. As the two lead voices, their chiming, interplay lends the proceedings a warm, aquamarine glimmer. Each track is its own peculiar geode of layered crystalline formations and colors. And as longtime collaborators, the dialogue between Naura and Schlüter sound like conversations—sometimes, arguments—between old friends. The gorgeous opening track “Soledad de Murcia” gives Schlüter’s vibes the Spanish-tinged melodic line, ringing in the air against the humidity of Nauara’s chords. Nay’s drums alternate between crashing rock fury and decorous restraint.  Weber’s probing, exploratory bass-playing, frankly, steals the show (as he does throughout the album), anticipating the ghostly, ruminative work he would do later in the decade on his celebrated ECM titles. There’s the weepy, lovelorn “Forgotten Garden,” which is Naura’s attempt at writing in the vein of an old Miles Davis ballad. And then there are funky soul-jazz numbers here like “M.O.C” and “Take Us Down The River,” the latter of which sounds like the kind of downhome smokers Joe Zawinul used to write for Cannonball Adderley. The electrified samba of “Why Is Mary So Nervous” anticipates Chick Corea’s Latin fusion vibes on the first two Return to Forever albums by more than a year. “Don’t Stop” is a hard-grooving, rave-up. And the title track, with some deep keyboard playing by Naura, serves up an undulating psychedelic blues that comes within spitting distance of the heady stuff on Waldron’s Call.

The three records this outfit recorded together are all worthwhile, especially the terrific Vanessa on ECM, which adds Klaus Thunemann’s eerie bassoon to the mix. But Call on the legendary MPS label is my favorite. It is one of the all-time great comedown records, all the soft blues and pale yellows of early morning. No other electric jazz unit ever quite painted with the same palette. And unlike Waldron’s Call, this Call isn’t too difficult to acquire. Now is the time to do it. With the warmth of spring in the air, and everything just starting to bloom. | b sirota  

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Charles Moothart :: Black Holes Don’t Choke

My son has been trying on nicknames lately. He’s six, but already it seems like he wants to find some other way to be known than by the name my wife and I gave him. He doesn’t dislike his name, but you can tell that he feels cooler with some of the other options. Similarly, I’ve gone most of my life without being called by my full first name. My parents and late maternal grandmother are the only people who have ever called me by it. Even in most places online, I boiled it down to a single letter. It’s easier to inhabit a character that way and to live behind a curated version of myself.

Charles Moothart, on the other hand, is doing the opposite. After more than a decade playing as part of Ty Segall’s band, as part of a cohort with Segall and others in Fuzz and Goggs, and even three solo albums under the name CFM, he is now releasing an album credited to just Charles Moothart.

Black Holes Don’t Choke is Moothart’s fourth solo album, but the first under this moniker. Isn’t a person’s given name a moniker? By definition, sure. It’s a pasteboard mask of its own variety like anything else. But much like any time a band releases a self-titled record, that first venture out under your own name is indicative of something. The molded shape of something teases its shape through the mist.

In Moothart’s case, it’s the fulfillment of an exploration begun pre-pandemic. The last CFM album was in 2019, and his final solo shows before everything shut down involved him experimenting with samplers on stage. Here in 2024 those electronic sampler and sequencer tones are all over Black Holes Don’t Choke. There’s a righteous heft to the songs here, whether it’s the stuttering, metronomic stoner sway of “Anchored and Empty” or the jittery Grifters-esque “Clock Rats.”

Full of “love songs for the apocalypse,” it’s a record that finds its identity as both a collection of great stand-alone songs, but also intertwined in a way that makes it a proper album. And in that sense maybe there isn’t a better moment to actually record an album as yourself. With the way songs run together at times like the scattered throughline of our own daily thoughts, there’s something about Black Holes Don’t Choke that feels like the chaotic daily existence of 2024.

And that last point is important because it might make you think that this isn’t the album you need right now, but there’s a divine resolution at its core. Among the rhythmic heartbeat, between the om-like hum of Moothart’s vocals on the title track and the noise that crests like breaching leviathans on “Timelapse Choke,” there are the lived-in moments. The moments of clarity that emerge among the chaos of every day, the things that wind threads through the larger, less obvious moments giving a strange, hypnotic rhythm to life. Black Holes Don’t Choke straight up grooves and rocks, with all the cliché and still-pertinent meanings those words have.

And it’s in this sense that we come back to Charles Moothart, name above the title. As the late Reverend William Sloane Coffin once said in his Blessing of Grace, “the world is too dangerous for anything but truth, and too small for anything but love.” Maybe there’s only room for loving oneself and the truth of that existence at any given moment. Black holes don’t choke; they simply swallow everything into a singularity, to a new way of being. Black Holes Don’t Choke is a snapshot of the singularity; go with it awhile and see where it puts you down. | j neas

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Videodrome :: Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)

(Welcome to Videodrome. A recurring column plumbing the depths of vintage and contemporary cinema – from cult, exploitation, trash and grindhouse to sci-fi, horror, noir, documentary and beyond.)

Film history is filled with abandoned projects. Famous examples include Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, which struggled to break out of pre-production purgatory from 1979 till 1995, when Coppola ultimately put the film to rest after his plans to shoot it himself on 16mm black and white fell through. There’s Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon biopic, which MGM canned in 1969 right before production began. In 1998, Tim Burton walked away from Superman Lives, a superhero reboot starring Nicholas Cage that cost Warner Bros. over $30 million in pre-production costs. Orson Welles’ filmography is littered with unmade projects and films shut down during production (such as 1942’s It’s All True, which RKO canceled after Welles had been shooting for five months). The list of such forsaken films, half-realized or half-finished, goes on and on and on.

Before David Lynch and Denis Villeneuve tried their hand at bringing Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi novel Dune to the silver screen, the project was considered “unfilmable.” The sheer density and scope of Herbert’s book was too vast for the parameters of a feature-length film, and transferring the operatic tale into a visual medium was deemed impossible due to the technological limitations of the time. Nonetheless, Herbert’s book was selling like hotcakes, received by critics and audiences as the best science-fiction novel ever written. If book sales were any indication of ticket sales — come hell or high water — Hollywood would eventually find a way to bring Dune to theaters. 

The release of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969) presented a seismic shift in what was thought to be photographically possible at the time, giving hope for Dune’s cinematic debut. In 1971, the production company Apjac International (APJ) optioned the rights to Dune. Initially, APJ gave Dune to Lawrence of Arabia (1962) director David Lean based on his adeptness at shooting in the desert, but Lean turned it down. While the hunt for directors continued, APJ contracted several writers to begin work on the screenplay. From 1971 to 1974, APJ struggled to get Dune off the ground; a revolving door of directors and writers came and went as the project slowly fizzled out. In December of 1974, a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibson purchased the film rights from APJ, who happily let go of the troublesome project. 

Dune’s cinematic fate fell into the hands of French producer Michel Seydoux and director Alejandro Jodorowsky, who was riding high off the success of The Holy Mountain (1973). The enormity of Dune wasn’t lost on Jodorowsky, whose ambitions were as gigantic as the project he was undertaking. He specifically chose Dune as his follow-up to The Holy Mountain due to its colossal breadth, viewing it as a project that would transcend the medium of film and change the audience’s consciousness. To Jodorowsky, Dune would not only be his greatest film but quite possibly the greatest film of all time. But by 1976, Jodorowsky’s grand plans for Dune fell apart; the film was never made, and its rights were once again sold off. 

Frank Pavich’s documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013) examines the ill-fated project from its starry-eyed inception to its inevitable ruination. Although it’s a documentary rooted in artistic failure, Pavich isn’t interested in exploring why Jodorowsky’s Dune never came to fruition. He’s more curious about what Dune could’ve been had Jodorowsky made what he so desperately wanted to make. The greatest asset to Jodorowsky’s Dune is the inclusion of Jodorowsky himself, who excitedly talks about his vision for the doomed film more like an oracle than a filmmaker. “I wanted to make a film that would give people who took LSD the hallucinations that you get with that drug, but without hallucinating,” Jodorowsky says in the documentary. “I wanted to fabricate the drug’s effects. This film was going to change the public’s perceptions. My ambition with Dune was tremendous. I wanted to create a prophet to change the young minds of the world. For me, Dune was the coming of a god — an artistical, cinematographical god. It was not to make a picture. It was something deeper. I wanted to make something sacred and free with a new perspective. Open the mind!”

Jodorowsky’s Dune is packed with such zealous proclamations from Jodorowsky. He maintains the energy and passion of a young filmmaker championing their next film— not an eighty-four-year-old man reflecting on an aborted project from over forty years ago. It’s easy to see how compelling a forty-five-year-old Jodorowsky — fresh off of El Topo (1970) and The Holy Mountain, his career ascending — would’ve been in 1974. When asked how he rallied his team for Dune, Jodorowsky exclaims, “At that time, I was a prophet. I was enlightened. I gave them the feeling that they were not making a picture but something important for humanity. They had a mission. They were warriors!”

Armed only with his charisma and gargantuan vision for Dune — which straddles the fine line between artistic brilliance and egomaniacal delusion — Jodorowsky begins assembling his cast and crew, whom he repeatedly refers to as his “spiritual warriors.” The first person Jodorowsky brings on is Jean “Moebius” Giraud, a French artist contracted to transfer Jodorowsky’s sprawling screenplay into a shot-for-shot storyboard of over three thousand drawings. This storyboard would become the blueprint for Jodorowsky’s Dune and eventually include concept artwork from famed artists and illustrators such as Chris Foss and H.R. Giger, the latter of which would go on to be the visual designer for Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). 

The finished document is what would now most commonly be referred to in the film industry as a bible: a comprehensive dossier mapping out all production elements. “This approach was chosen precisely because I thought they [executives] might have a certain distrust of Jodorowsky,” producer Michel Seydoux explains“Since we were showing the camera angles and explaining each scene and how we would film it, they would be relieved.”

The bible for Jodorowsky Dune is a mammoth chronicle of what could’ve been the film. As Jodorowsky pages through the bible, it’s clear that the pages of artwork and script notations are as immediate to him as they were forty years ago, and he eagerly describes his ideas for costumes and set designs. In one such scene, Jodorowsky conveys his intended opening shot for Dune, modeled after the continuous long-take at the beginning of Touch Of Evil (1958). But instead of one long shot through a border town, Dune would traverse through the universe, weaving in and out of galaxies before eventually breaking through the atmosphere of the planet Arrakis, where a battle sequence commences over a spice raid. Pavich uses this as an opportunity to bring the storyboards to life, animating the drawings into a moving sequence. It’s one of many moments in Jodorowsky’s Dune where Pavich utilizes modern technology to provide a glimpse at what never was and what could’ve been; it’s the closest approximation to what Jodorowsky’s film would’ve looked like. 

Besides Moebius, Foss, and Giger, Jodorowsky’s Dune also investigates the other “spiritual warriors” Jodorowsky enlisted for Dune. It’s a “who’s who” of 1970s pop culture that includes bands such as Magma and Pink Floyd, musicians such as Mick Jagger, actors such as Udo Kier and David Carradine, special effects artists such as Dan O’Bannon, and film icons such as Gloria Swanson and Orson Welles (who agreed to appear in Dune based on Jodorowsky’s promise that he’d hire the chef at Welles favorite restaurant to cook for him on set). 

Of all these seminal names, Jodorowsky’s Dune spends the most time inspecting Jodorowsky’s correspondence with Salvador Dali. Jodorowsky was adamant about casting Dali as The Emperor, despite many people around him — including Amanda Lear, Dali’s enigmatic muse — warning Jodorowsky of Dali’s deleterious behavior. “I told him to be careful because Dali was destructive,” Lear says. “If he says yes, he’s going to do everything to destroy the film.” The documentary covers the artistic courtship between Jodorowsky and Dali as if it’s a game of cat and mouse, both artists fighting for the upper hand in a relationship wrapped up in respect, jealousy, admiration, and hostility. At one point, Jodorowsky relays, “Dali says to me, ‘I will work with you, but I want to be the best-paid actor in Hollywood. I want $100,000 per hour.'” On the advice of Seydoux, Jodorowsky counters Dali’s ridiculous request by offering him $100,000 for each minute he’s on screen, knowing The Emperor would only be in about five to six minutes of the film. 

When Jodorowsky’s Dune gets to 1976, it becomes increasingly clear that the already lofty adaptation has ballooned into a preposterous, unscalable film. Jodorowsky imagines the film to have a runtime of fourteen hours, and the estimated budget moves from $9.5 million to $15 million (adjusted for inflation, this would be closer to $83 million today, about half of Villeneuve’s budget for Dune: Part One). As Jodorowsky’s vanity escalates, the money decreases. By the time Herbert arrives in Europe to meet with the eccentric director in charge of adapting his novel, Jodorowsky has already spent $2 million of the $9.5 million in pre-production.

With their massive Dune bible in tow, Jodorowsky and Seydoux head to LA to pitch Dune to studios and secure financing. The reception is lukewarm: the studio executives are interested in the project but afraid it’ll go over budget. More so, they don’t like Jodorowsky, who — while notable in the avant-garde and independent film circuit — was far too esoteric for the studio system. “Everything was great, except for the director,” Seydoux recalls.

Unwilling to compromise his fourteen-hour film, Jodorowsky and the studios reach a stalemate, and Dune falls apart. “The movie has to be just like I dreamed it,” Jodorowsky declares in the documentary. “The picture needs to be exactly as I am dreaming the picture. It’s a dream. Don’t change my dream!” 

“I think the humiliation that Jodorowsky suffered in not having been chosen for Dune — in having been eliminated for being too original, too surrealistic — is a permanent injury,” Seydoux says while reflecting on Dune’s fallout. “I think Jodorowsky carries that in his heart for life.”

Jodorowsky’s Dune concludes on an optimistic note, focusing on Jodorowsky’s resilience in bringing his vision to life — however delirious it may be — in the face of setbacks and obstacles. The documentary makes the bold claim that without Jodorowsky’s vision for Dune, sci-fi films to come wouldn’t have been the same. To illustrate this, Jodorowsky’s Dune shows side-by-side scenes from other famous sci-fi films next to the storyboards and artwork from Jodorowsky’s Dune bible, presenting a convincing case that if these films didn’t blatantly rip off Jodorowsky’s vision for Dune, they were at least influenced by it. By the ending of Jodorowsky’s Dune, it’s hard to deny that some leftover residue from Jodorowsky’s fingerprints on Dune eventually made their way into Star Wars (1977), The Terminator (1984), Flash Gordon (1980), Raiders of The Lost Ark (1981), Masters of The Universe (1987), Contact (1997), and Prometheus (2012).

Jodorowsky’s Dune mainly concerns itself with the rise and fall of the project from an internal lens, tracing its trajectory through those attached to the film. But it’s important to zoom out a bit and consider the context of the time to further understand why Jodorowsky’s Dune never saw the light of a projector. In the seventies, sci-fi films were still largely considered “B-movie” fare, a far cry from the box-office juggernauts we know today. With the exception of 2001: A Space Odyssey — which brought forth groundbreaking visual effects and a transcendent philosophical scope previously unseen in genre films — sci-fi wasn’t to be taken too seriously. This was an era of films such as The Godfather (1972), The Last Detail (1973), and Taxi Driver (1976), or what studios used to refer to as “prestige pictures.” Genre films stood little chance of contending for awards, and studios purposefully kept budgets low in hopes of turning a profit from an audience they didn’t believe existed. Even 2001: A Space Odyssey — as innovative as it was — only made $2 million in its first nine weeks in theaters against a $10.5 million budget. It wouldn’t be until its theatrical re-release in 1971 that Kubrick’s film would break out of the red and begin making money. The film business is, after all, a business; it will go wherever the money goes, and there simply wasn’t enough money to be made in 1970s sci-fi. Or at least that’s what Hollywood thought until 1977. 

The whole industry would change after George Lucas released Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) — which debuted in fewer than thirty-two theaters due to 20th Century Fox’s lack of faith in it — and began breaking box-office records. The idea of a sci-fi film being successful enough to warrant a franchise was unheard of before Stars Wars. But afterward, it became par for the course. In retrospect, it’s easy to “Monday-morning-quarterback” the predicaments of Jodorowsky’s Dune and consider a franchise option as a solution to Dune’s behemoth span and protracted duration. Today, much of genre cinema is now the result of Star Wars’ episodic release model: Star TrekAvatarThe Hunger GamesThe Lord of the Rings, the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and even Villeneuve’s latest installments of Dune. But again, this is the mid-seventies, and such a model didn’t exist yet for genre cinema. Furthermore, this option would be predicated on the success of Jodorowsky’s first Dune installment, just as The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983) only saw the light of day due to the unexpected triumph of A New Hope

Between 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1969 and Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977, we have sci-fi films such as Silent Running (1972), Soylent Green (1973), Dark Star (1974), and Rollerball (1975). The common through-lines in these films are budgets below $5 million, runtimes below two hours, and mixed critical reviews. This is the environment that Jodorowsky’s Dune would’ve been released in — a film Jodorowsky wanted to be fourteen hours long with a predicted budget of $15 million. And based on the critical reception for Jodorowsky’s previous films (in his review of El Topo, Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune wrote, “It’s enough to make one yawn”), it’s unlikely that critics would’ve unanimously received Jodorowsky’s highly surrealist vision for Dune as “the coming of god” he imagined it to be. Compound this with Jodorowsky’s arcane authorship and unruly temperament, and it’s easier to understand why studio executives in LA would’ve been hesitant to green-light such a film. In many ways, Jodorowsky’s Dune is a classic case of “wrong time, wrong place,” something Pavich’s documentary touches upon but doesn’t fully explore. 

Outside of those attached to the film, Jodorowsky’s Dune also interviews a variety of critics and contemporary directors, all of whom, at one point or another, make mention of Jodorowsky’s Dune as being the most extraordinary film no one has ever seen. One of them is South African filmmaker Richard Stanley, who is best known for cult classics such as Hardware (1990) and Dust Devil (1992). “Dune is probably the greatest movie never made,” Stanley says. “It continues to influence us and will go on to influence us for generations to come despite the fact that it doesn’t exist. We cannot watch it.”

In so many words, Stanley sums up the enduring attraction to Jodorowsky’s Dune: it doesn’t exist; we cannot watch it. We can only prognosticate, imagining its potential and conceptualizing its shape. An unfinished thing always carries some level of seduction; its incompletion holds the potentiality for beauty and refinement. Once something is finished, there’s little more to do than critique it. But if it remains incomplete, it continues to entice us with the splendor of possibilities. 

It’s possible that Jodorowsky’s Dune would’ve been a total train wreck: a disorienting eight hundred-and-forty minute phantasmagorical journey through egomania run amok circa 1976, complete with drug-induced symbolism and metaphysical tangents held together by dated special effects and psychedelic sequences. Or it could’ve been the most fantastic film of all time. We’ll never know, and in the unknowing lies its greatest allure. | e hehr

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