The Wheel's Still In Spin

As Smart As They Are: The Author Project

This site was created to present a platform for music reviews in a creative writing format. Music and literature. One is the muse for the other. Hence the short story reviews of albums. It was this relationship between writings and music that piqued my interest in the documentary As Smart As They Are: The Author Project.

Natty Man Blues (mp3) by One Ring Zero, lyrics by Paul Auster

The band One Ring Zero created an exceptional and novel (pardon the pun) album entitled As Smart As They Are. They became the house band for the nonpareil publishing house McSweeney's. Hosting weekly literary readings, McSweeney's invited One Ring Zero to perform and create a unique experience in the unmarked storefront full of unusual knick-knacks.

Composing mostly instrumental music with accordion, claviola, thermin, and a diverse array of instruments, Joshua Camp and Michael Hearst decided to solicit lyrics from a scattering of authors. After receiving lyrics from Paul Auster, Dave Eggers, Neil Gaiman, Myla Goldberg, Denis Johnson, Jonathon Lethem, Darin Strauss, and many others, the band set out to create The Author Project. The end result is an album of unequaled and varying musical landscapes set to non-typical lyrics. The subjects include a song from the point of view of a cockroach (Lethem's "Water") to an ode to vegetation (Amy Fusselman's "All About House Plants") to the narrative of a hermaphodite (Clay McLeod Chapman's "Half And Half").

I'm Not There

Lester Bangs once wrote, "I have always believed that rock 'n' roll comes down to myth. There are no 'facts.'" While rock 'n' roll is full of numerous facts, the best rock stories equally rely on the myths. I'm Not There does just this by intertwining the legends of Bob Dylan's life with the authentic details. It does not stick to the typical biopic narrative style. To cinematically display the life of Bob Dylan, the movie cuts between 6 actors portraying its subject in 7 different significant cross-sections of life. Motivated by both the life and music of Dylan, the outcome is a biopic that focuses on creating the aesthetic or semblance of Dylan's persona.

Director and co-writer Todd Haynes is not a newcomer to artistic, musical biopics. One of his earliest films was the now discontinued and recalled Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. The film illegally used songs from The Carpenters' catalog but told Karen Carpenter's story by almost entirely using Barbie dolls. In Velvet Goldmine, he created a pictorial impression of 70's glam rock. The two main characters, Brian Slade and Curt Wild, represented culminations of David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop. By contrast, with I'm Not There Haynes dissects one musician into 7 facets of his career.

Once

It’s been awhile since I truly got lost in a movie. You know that feeling where you forget that you’re watching a film flashing before you. You think you’re getting to know some new friends and getting sucked in to their story as though you were a part of it.

Once does that.

This movie captures a time, not in a historical respect, but in a very personal sense. It deals with a few days in Dublin, when two characters meet. It’s a classic guy meets girl film (quite literally – the credits role the characters names as “guy” and “girl”). The force drawing the two together is music. The guy is a vacuum repairman who plays his acoustic guitar at night on the street. The girl is from the Czech Republic and was taught to play the piano by her father.

The true power of this movie is felt in its presentation. It feels very realistic without dipping into a voyeuristic style. There are a few key elements that give this movie which feeling that few movies capture.

Before The Music Dies

Before The Music Dies looked at the current state of the music industry. Once there were hundreds of record labels and radio stations operated by local owners. Now there are four major record labels and some conglomerated businesses owning a large portion of radio stations. At the same time, there are more musicians with more avenues of distribution available. The movie reflected on these shifts and how they affect the music being released to the ordinary listener.

One strength of this movie was the composite of interviews shown. The producers equally voiced the opinions of musicians, industry insiders, critics, and average music fans. The musicians were from differing genres and varying levels of popularity. ?uestlove bluntly explained the disparity between commodity and art. As commodity gains control, art disappears. Erykah Badu explained that there are 3 types of artists: the one who is in pain to express themselves, the one who knows how to imitate that, and the one who does what they are told. She continued to say that the first one will be more popular than rich, the second will be richer than admiration entitles, and the third is ever replaceable.