The Fix

 
Here is What Is Trailer 

One day last September before things kicked into high gear, I snuck into an afternoon screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was partly out of duty that went to see the music documentary Here is What Is, thinking that I  should get to know more about Canadian musician and producer Daniel Lanois. 

From the stunning opening shot of Garth Hudson’s hands drifting across the piano keyboard, and the lyricism of his meandering solo, I was far more enthralled than I’d expected to be. The film is a rhapsodic look at Lanois’s life in music, ambling in and out of the studio and the private lives of Lanois and the musicians he works with as he records his latest album, Here Is what Is. 

Often the music is allowed to speak for itself, with full songs to play out in some cases, supported by thoughtful conversation. The visual style is equally creative, including dance sequences, shifts between black-and-white and psychedelic colour, lush framings (such as Lanois in the centre of the red spot, above), handheld and lo-fi video. We see Lanois visit with other musicians, including Brian Blade, Eno, U2, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Aaron Neville, Billy Bob Thornton and Sinead O’Connor. They muse on why they play music, and what is important to them, but some also show a refreshingly down-to-earth attitude. Brian Eno discusses his own lack of romanticism in a way which is somehow inspiring; pausing in the midst of his own project in Morocco, he says, 

“things come out of nothing… the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest… If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted, they have these wonderful things in their head but you’re not one of them, you’re just sort of a a normal person… then, you live a different kind of life. You could have another kind of life where you say, well I know that things come from nothing very much, and start from unpromising beginnings.. and I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something. ”

Lanois seems committed both to allowing things to take their natural path, and to shaping them into something better. At times the film turns almost evangelical as the musicians reflect on the blurring of lines between sacred and secular, with Lanois himself calling his guitar his “church in a suitcase. ” In these moments it comes as close to depicting the ecstasy of musical experience as any documentary I’ve ever seen.

Today I got my hands on the Here is What is CD, out on Red Floor records. Order the Here is what Is CD and DVD.   Link to the trailer, top of page.

Hold me. My favourite little music club in the world is closing. Let me explain, though– it’s not really closing, it’s moving to a new intimate location. Why the panic, then?

We all know that the magic of Largo is actually created by the musicians and audiences who congregate there, and orchestrated/facilitated by Flanagan, the owner and booker. We should all trust Flanny’s good taste, and feel safe in the knowledge that he will be at the helm of the new Largo-at-the-Coronet.

I look forward to the ease of booking tickets (tickets! imagine that) online; not waiting in endless queues outside the door;  not being forced to eat sometimes mediocre food or pick random strangers from the line to fill out my table for four, as amusing though that could be. I know there will be more than one toilet, and it might even be in good working order. And I feel secure that I will be able to find all of my favourite artists (Jon Brion, Fiona Apple, The Eels, Aimee Mann, Nickel Creek, Zach Galifianakis) on the new stage…

BUt how odd that there will be a real stage. It’s a concert hall, not a little cozy club with an almost private, in-ny feel. Will I still be close enough to reach out and touch Jon (not that I would)? Will we still always feel like he is looking at us while singing, like the “pursuant eye’ of old portraits? Will the doorman get to know us? will I make as many friends as I did at the old place?

We have no choice: let’s all take a deep breath, and jump. I’m confident that Largo will catch us.

News, clips, etc from the documentary/performance film  about Largo

A few years back I had the opportunity to interview composer, performer and artist Mark Mothersbaugh. He’s a founding member of Devo, and he’s also the composer of inventive movie scores. His music has become one of the signatures of the Wes Anderson style, and at the time we met, “The Life Aquatic” was about to be released.

We talked about how he first started working with Wes Anderson; the challenges posed by composing ‘art’ music or ‘popular’ music; the advantages of going back in time technologically; his visual art; and the development of the human brain.

I can’t play the whole interview here, but I can mete out a few excerpts. Here’s the first, in which we talk working with Wes Anderson, and also take a stroll through the studio to hear some of his distinctive instruments.

* This interview was produced for CBC Radio. All rights reserved *

 

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This week, I’ll spare you my further thoughts on freedom in performance, and instead point you to an excellent piece on billtron.org which touches on the issue as it existed in Bluegrass music.  It was inspired by the author’s stumbling upon a quote by Bill Monroe, grandfather of bluegrass music, who said of a fellow musician,  “How can Roscoe go out on stage without any idea of what he is going to do?”

Roscoe Holcomb, a self-taught musician, plays a unique variation of claw hammer banjo. Here we can begin to understand how the music of Bill Monroe and Roscoe Holcomb differ. While Monroe and all of his band members perform in a thoroughly-rehearsed and predetermined manner, with only the slightest room for spontaneous musical decisions and individual embellishments of their instrumental lines, Holcomb’s performance technique creates an expectation for and ease of spontaneous improvisation throughout the music, both at the structural and ornamental level.

-from  billtron.org