January 9, 2021 by Tosh Berman

 

January 9, 2021

It seems throughout my life I have heard of Scott Walker but never actually heard his solo albums until the 1990s. I was aware of The Walker Brothers' "The Sun Ain't Going To Shine Anymore" because it was on the AM radio in my youth. Also, decades later, I heard that was the song being played on the juke box at the Blind Beggar when Ronnie Kray shot and killed George Cornell. Legend has it that the record got stuck with the word "Anymore" played repeatedly. Beyond that, I knew nothing of Scott. It wasn't until the musician Julian Cope put out a compilation of solo Scott music, "Fire Escape in the Sky: The Godlike Genius of Scott Walker," which focused on the music he wrote. At the time, Scott was a memory for mostly those who know him for his middle-of-the-road cover songs. The post-punk world was finally introduced to this magnificent artist, thanks to Cope. 

I never owned this compilation, and as far as I know, his original solo albums were out of print at the time. Scott was very much a mysterious figure at the time, and some say in retirement. It wasn't until 1984 that I purchased my first Scott album, "Climate Of Hunter." Strangely poetic, with a beautiful voice, and a strange sensibility. Eight songs on the album, including a piece by Tennessee Williams, "Blanket Roll Blues, "I believe was from the film "The Fugitive Kind, based on Tennessee's play "Orpheus Descending." The song is sung by Marlon Brando in the film, and oddly enough, Walker used the imagery of Brando in future songs. Like Bowie, Scott never loses influences; he just kept them as a collection and went into that closet to take out what he needed for inspiration and doing his art, the songs. It's interesting that as one of the great lyricists in the 20th-century, he named four of the songs on this album as "Track Three," "Track Five," "Track Six," and "Track Seven." An artist who wrote such passionate music to name songs in such a dry manner has always been a head-scratcher for me. 

Eleven years of silence from Scott until he released "Tilt." I bought it as a CD at the Virgin Mega Store on Sunset Bouvard. I came to that store to find that specific album. I had to look in the "w" section of British imports to find the damn album. They only had one copy, and they ordered just one copy for their inventory. When I took it home and played "Tilt," I was emotionally taken away by the words' density, but they were minimal as well. Every silence and space became part of the music. I never heard anything like this before in my entire life. 

Six other Scott Walker albums came after "Tilt," including the all-instrumental "And Who Shall Go to The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball?" and his two soundtrack albums "Pola X," and "The Childhood Of A Leader." Scott Walker's birthday was only a day apart from David Bowie's. It's interesting to note that Scott shares birthdays with Karl Čapek, Simone de Beauvoir, Heiner Müller, German filmmaker Harun Farock, and Richard Nixon. All of them could have easily been a subject matter for a Scott Walker song. 

Scott Walker Playlist on Spotify and Apple Music (Book Musik)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6V1dtjIf1N2bAAV07EJ9PF…

https://music.apple.com/…/book-musik-scott…/pl.u-r20kCjDggL7

For our BOOK MUSIK Scott Walker special episode we (Kimley Maretzo & Tosh Berman)put together the ultimate Scott playlist. 

You can listen to either Spotify or Apple Music.

"Scott Walker: Man of Mystery" by Tosh Berman (Please Kill Me )

My appreciation and a little essay on one of the great figures in music.  The late and always fantastic Scott Walker.  

Tosh Berman on Scott Walker (Please Kill Me)

Scott Walker Sundog Selected Lyrics on Tosh Talks

Tosh Talks special!  I give a lecture (Tosh Style) on Scott Walker's music, image, and his new book of selected Lyrics: "Sundog."  (Faber & Faber).  I even do a bit of Scott, of course, in my own style. - Tosh Berman

"The History of Rock: 1966" by the Editors of UNCUT Magazine

"The History Of Rock: 1966" by the Editors of Uncut Magazine

For sure something happened in 1964, and maybe it was the year when I turned 10, and really became aware of music pop culture around me.  To my ears, '64 was full of bouncy music made by people with odd accents.  It was the first time in my life that I realized that there was music being made that appealed to me, and not only that, and perhaps even more important, it came from another culture.  By 1966, I was introduced to the word and aesthetic of "sophistication." 

"The History of Rock" is a monthly publication published and edited by Uncut Magazine, where they use the archives of New Musical Express and Melody Maker regarding contemporary music at that time.   It started off with "1965," and now I just finished reading the entire issue of "1966."   I have read so many books and articles dealing with the British invasion, that in this late stage of my life, it is totally refreshing to read archival material as when things were happening or in proper english, as it happened. 

The Rolling Stones and The Beatles were at their dizzy heights of making incredible recordings as well as being the prince (Stones) and King (Beatles) of the pop world at the time.  The beauty of this magazine is obtaining the role of the journalist at this time.  Most I think were mostly press relations, and not only worked for the music papers, but also for the artists as well.  So, one does not get critical attacks, but mostly acknowledgment and of course, praises.   It is ironic that at this moment in time in the U.K. great music was being produced by all sorts of bands and artists:  Donovan was making great recordings with Mickie Most, The Small Faces were getting more sophisticated as they entered the Andrew Loog Oldham world, and the Fab Four was spending more time in the recording studio, where one gets the amazing "Revolver" album.   Due to the times, Brian Jones was adding more exotic instrumentation to the Stones recordings, which made their masterpiece "Aftermath" such a classic and brilliant album.   Even shit records produced in England were at the very least, good constructed pop.  

Also UK readers and listeners were fully accepting the genius of Roy Orbison, early Simon & Garfunkel, and the beautiful Beach Boys.  It seemed for once, that the UK and the U.S. were in-tuned at the same time and place.   A pop utopia taking place, and ears was stretched out to the West Coast to India.    "The History of Rock" 1966" captures that series of moments as it happened.   Also great photographs and this is a perfectly designed magazine. 

- Tosh Berman

"The History of Rock" 1965 (UNCUT Magazine)

The History of Rock: 1965  (Uncut Magazine)

One of the great joys in my life, if sometimes not the only joy, is my introduction to the world of pop music.  My parents were consistently into music, and they have brought many recordings into the household that I eventually adopted as my own.   Early Beatle and Stones albums were for sure introduced by my parents, but in 1965,  at the age of 10 or 11, I became a consumer, by buying a 45 rpm single of the Yardbirds' "I'm a Man"/"Still I'm Sad."   How I got the money is something that is lost in history, but the memory of going to a record store in Westwood Village to purchase that single stayed glued to my brain or DNA to this very day.  By my nature I'm not a nostalgic person, but I would be lying to myself if I didn't admit that the year 1965 was an important one on many levels.   That December, we lost our home to a mudslide in Beverly Glen, and that included every possession I had at that time.   For sure, it did a number on my head, that even 50 years later, continues to exist in my DNA.

It pains me that I'm not into the current music world.  I would like to think of myself as being totally devoted to whatever is happening outside my home at this time and age.  But the truth is I kind of hate the world as it is right now.    The sounds I hear at the moment always reminds me of the past, and not in a good way.   On the other hand, the year 1965 was both rich in variety as well as being "new."   Oddly enough when I re-visit the recordings of that year, I'm still hearing new things.   There is a textural aspect of the records at that time, and when you pull back and look at 1965, one is struck how fast everything is.   What the Beatles were doing in January of that year is so different from what they recorded in December.  The same goes for the Stones and the Kinks.

Which brings up the fact that I was totally devoted to the sounds that were coming from the United Kingdom.   For one, I could understand the language, but still, it was from another world.   A fantasy world for me, due to the Beatles "Hard Days' Night" as well as the fashions that was coming out of that culture.   Pure teenage pop music, but for sure, with a tough jagged edge attached to the images.    For inspiration, I often go back to the 1960s to re-discover who I'm through my childhood years, but also for the unreal look of that era through its literature and especially the press at that time.  Which comes to UNCUT's special series of publications called "The History of Rock."

The first issue magazine is "1965," with others are being released on a monthly basis.  So far it is up to 1968.  I will get back to those as soon as I read them.   But now, I want to focus on the 1965 issue.    What it is exactly is re-prints of articles that were published in Melody Maker and New Musical Express in 1965.   Uncut Magazine editors did a beautiful job in making this glossy magazine into a visual treat, by selecting wonderful photographs of that era as well as choosing the right or correct articles of the time.   Besides the original interviews and articles, one also gets letters to the editor, the original advertisements that ran through the publication, and people like Dylan, Lennon and Harrison commenting on the newly released singles at the time.   So, one is getting a great snapshot of England's take on the new music that was being produced and distributed in 1965.

It's interesting to read articles and reviews as it happened, instead of people commenting on these records now in 2015.   Also you pick up trends such as bands making films.   The Beatles of course at this time did "Help" and "Hard Days Night," so it seems to be some pressure for groups such as The Stones making their feature-length film.    As well as others, but none of these films ever got made.   Most I think came from the Public Relations department of the management offices of both publications as well as the band's management.   The other is the "Dylan vs. Donovan" thread that went on in the press for that whole year.  One wonder if the Dylan and Donovan camp decided to promote this aspect of their careers at the time.  The beauty of reading these articles is seeing the genius at work with respect to Brian Epstein and Andrew Loog Oldham.   Both orchestrated the media to their liking, as if they had their own orchestras.

One has to presume that NME and Melody Maker had large teenage readership, yet the articles are not dumb down, and very intelligent in its own right.   Oddly enough, when I read celebrity news or magazines like People, it's really dumb.  NME or Melody Maker never took that route.  In fact, it's a world that is in love with the pop music world.  The charts, releases, the bands, the artists, and the managers are all authors in this particular era in England.   There is even a thoughtful interview with Bill Evans, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, so the magazine was willing to branch out to other forms or types of music, besides the teenager's world of music.

This is truly a superb piece of history as it happened, but edited and produced for today.   I recommend it highly.

- Tosh Berman

November 12, 2014

November 12, 2014

For someone who is always on the front line of utter disaster, I’m pretty much in a good mood.  There is no question that I will one day die, and I find that comforting for some odd reason.   No matter what I will do, or say, I’ll still end up dead.  I’m not big on doubt or “why.” I pretty much take what is out there and ride it into the storm, or if I’m lucky into the calm.  Nevertheless I never could understand why people grumble about this and that, when in fact, there’s a beginning, the strange and sometimes wonderful middle, and then of course the end.  I’m hoping that someone will write a biography of me, after I am dead called “The Beginning, the Middle, and The End.” My only regret is that I’m not floating above people as they read the book - but alas, I think death is really nothing.  Nothing, like being blank.

On the other hand, I have a great deal of desire.  Mostly for the girls who are employed in banks, shops, and on the bus.  The more I don’t know about them, the more I plunge into love.   When I see a beautiful girl, contained in a shop, I feel like a visitor to a zoo.  They can’t go anywhere, but I, on the other hand, can come and go as wherever my desires lead me.  I often find myself humming the melody to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” as I walk from one shop to another - not for the merchandise, but for the woman who sells the goods.  I like to think of myself as a piece of merchandise, and these ladies are handling me with the care, because eventually the goal is to sell, and damaged goods are not good for retail.   Or the customer.   Salesgirls boredom is a turn-on for me, and I’m not sure why?  I suspect that I trust indifference over passion, because after a while it becomes a narrative that one can read miles away.  “indifference” is an empty canvas where one can fulfill their desires on the blankness.  “Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other.  It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words.  My language trembles with desire.”

Knowing that death is ahead of me, I fetishize the living, as a theater piece.   I get high just thinking that I’m the driver and it doesn’t matter how fast or slow I go, I can throw myself at the mercy of fate, and let the wind behind take me to where ever the desires are.  “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore), ” a song I remember hearing in a pub in East London called “The Blind Begger, ” and thinking how that could be the last song I’ll ever hear.   More likely it will be “My Death” by Jacques Brel (translated into English by Mort Shuman), but then, who knows?

So today, after writing this essay, I’ll go outside and wander through the town, perhaps to see the pretty girls who work in bookstores and imagine my life as a best-selling biography.   The map was made some time ago, yet I don’t feel compelled to follow that destination, or why not draw up a new map?  …”I am withdrawn from all finality, I live according to chance…”

My Favorite Albums of 2012 (on vinyl)

Part 2:

Also keep in mind this is what I listened to in 2012.  I rarely listen to brand new releases.

I found a Mono copy of this album at Brand Bookstore in Glendale.  $4 and I play it at least once a day.    Glenn Gould is such a remarkable player, and when he has Bach in front of him it is sort of like watching a great dance between the minds and fingers of these guys.   Gould always struck me as a jazz player for some reason, because he teases and pulls on the melody, its very sexy and what he leaves is a form of perfection.  Fantastic album.

On Charles Mingus' record label, this album captures a brilliant series of moments in a recording studio in 1955.  Moody, textural bliss.  It also features one of my all-time favorite songs "Nature Boy."  Teddy Charles plays vibes on this album, and it really adds a smokey existence that you can still feel after the needle leaves the vinyl.  Sort of the ultimate soundtrack for the first drink in the evening, but it is also very reflective and goes beyond the surface or one may say 'under the skin.'  All I know is when I play "Blue Moods" I get lost in my thoughts.   Elvin Jones on drums.

The Walker Brothers Live in Japan.  Recorded at Osaka Festival Hall January 2nd - 4th  and yeah, a wow.  This album was originally issued only in Japan.  What I have is a British re-issue that came out sometime in the 1980's and was given to me by my friend Stuart sometime in that era.  I sort of lost it among the books and other records, but discovered it recently and I put it on, and was taken to another world.  Loud audience noise of course, but the music and more important the voices come out ringing.  They do all their hits, as well as "Land of 1000 Dances" and "Ooh Poo Pah Doo."  A great snapshot of a time where Scott soon afterwards follows his instincts to a very different area of his mind or world.  A very rare record, and a very fantastic one as well.

Scott Walker's "Bish Bosch" on Vinyl

It has been a long time since i have heard an album that says '21st Century' to me.  Scott Walker is an artist that is very much part of the world.  Unlike my other favorite obsession, Sparks, who are contained in a very private world surrounded by their obsessions, Walker is very much in tuned with the environment that is out there.

Sitting down in front of a pair of speakers and having the vinyl on the turntable is very much of a beautiful series of moments.  The moment lasts over a hour and within that time-frame one goes into the world according to Scott Walker.  The complex sounds that comes out of the speaker is multi-textured to the extreme.  Off-hand it reminds me of Public Image Ltd's "Flowers of Romance,' which is a terrific album, but Walker takes it on another level that is more humorous but in a very sick way.  I think of Lenny Bruce as being the the head concept man for 'sick humor,' and I think Scott is taking it on a musical level.

The album is brutal, funny, and in your face.  But it also has incredible moments of absolute beauty, but its mixed in with the horror.  There is nothing surface about this record, its a blues album that tears into a culture that needs to bleed or to cry out its blues.  Without a doubt its a masterpiece, and its amazing how artists like Sparks as well as Scott Walker just seems to get better and better as they get older.

And like Sparks, its kind of important to acknowledge their entire career.  Because a lot of people go on about old Scott material vs. the new Scott - and basically its the same road or highway.  The early material of the Walker Brothers and the iconic Scott solo albums clearly leads to "Bish Bosch."  Listen to this album on vinyl or on a good set-up - computer speakers don't give this record the proper setting - it needs to be in front of you and it needs your full attention.  Incredible work!

The Walker Brothers "After The Lights Go Out" the best of 1965-1967" (Vinyl)

The roots of the avant-garde art pop songwriter Scott Walker.  And probably the greatest living figure in contemporary music.  A strong statement, but he's still a consistently remarkable figure who is still doing music.  But first let's go back a bit... into the Myst that's time.

A really good collection to get is "After The Lights Go Out" because it covers all the great Walker Brothers hits.  They came back in the 70's, but that's another narrative.  My favorite (among favorites) is "Deadlier Than The Male" which sounds so much like a James Bond song, but it belongs to another film with that title.   But its classy, and so classic and the orchestration just cuts with the silky melody.  And if you do close your eyes while listening to this song, one does see a Saul Bass title being projected in your brain.

Also I would argue that Walker Brothers clearly leads to the 'new' Scott.  This is pop that's majestic,  with overtures to the great Phil Spector (Jack Nitzsche arranged "Love Her") but there is a hint that The Walker Brothers will go beyond this type of music.  The great thing about Scott, John, and Gary is that they really didn't look back.  It is no coincidence that there is a song called "Orpheus" on this collection.  Don't look back and go ahead.  And basically Scott Walker just did that.