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I’ve spent the better part of the past half hour being fascinated by this 11 second video.

The clip is of a tall thin man storming through a crowd of people supposedly in a 70’s folk festival. He’s alone, wearing a short sleeved crimson velvet jacket and long brown wavy hair. Could it be?

From the end of the Pink Moon sessions in 1972 to his untimely death in 1974, Nick Drake frequently left his home for days, drive around purposelessly until his car would run out of fuel and call his parents. No one knew much of the things he did, and it appeared to those around him that he didn’t have a better clue either. If the allegations are true, and it is in fact Nick Drake walking in the video, I would guess that it was from this period. From the descriptions in the documentary A Skin Too Few, it seems that no other person would have been capable of being as depressed and hopeless as he was, and I somehow find that aura in this footage of the back of a walking man.

It is very unlikely though, that this really is Nick Drake. Drake was tall at 6′4″, but I don’t think a person his height is capable of standing out so much in a crowd, unless all of the hippies around him are around 5′3″.

But the idea that there exists a moving picture of adult Nick Drake in the world is too eerie to ignore. I was born after the debunking of Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster, but this video makes me feel like a 6 year old being captured by a snippet of Big Foot on his Black & White television.

I don’t care what anybody says; Neil Young is bad ass.

Rock & Roll doesn’t get more passionate and sincere then Rust Never Sleeps, and I always thought he pulled off the hippy singer-songwriter deal better then anyone not named Joni Mitchell. Some of his wilder experiments (particularly in the 80’s) aren’t too appealing to me but I find his loyalty to his own artistic pursuit, rather than an audience very admirable. (Also, without Young there may not be a Sonic Youth. Without Sonic Youth, there is no Daydream Nation. Is that a world anyone wants to live in?)

So when I found out that there is to be a Woodstock-esque event held in front of the DMZ, I knew I was going. However, I think this concert will fail to achieve the Woodstock spirit for two resons:

1. Rod Stewart

2.Location .

Sure, the most appropriate way to bring attention to the divided peninsula is in Seoul but these accomplished musicians in the concert (Donovan and Young, rest I either have never heard of, or don’t care about) have not a clue about Korean culture.

http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/03/27/neil-young-rod-stewart-don-mclean-donovan-it-cant-be/

And Korea might not be the absolute worst place in the world to have a Woodstock (after all, there is fascist China - who would think about holding a worldly event there?), but I think it’s definitely top 5.

From my perspective, Korea is way ahead of America in it’s consumerism. Here, trends happen as fast as Firefox can refresh, and the education system takes unhealthy, senseless conformity to a whole new level. A walk on the street makes George Carlin’s metaphor of America-as-a-strip-mall look like the farmer’s market. Hell, even the churches shamelessly advertise themselves in Korea.

Give a Korean kid a Genie and he’ll name you colleges; ask him “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” and he just might give you a list (bonus points if you catch the Nick Lowe/Elvis Costello reference). Play for him Joni Mitchell’s “In France They Kiss On Main Street” and it’ll spark no interest - but some Nike sneakers with 5% charity benefit might.

Passionate art doesn’t work in Korea, products do. Woodstock bands like Ten Years After and Jefferson Airplane wouldn’t have been given a chance at this point- these guys weren’t good looking television personalities, and that’s really the only kind of people that matter here.

Businessmen are much better marketers than musicians, and they train us to be moved by them a lot more. The worst part is that really works.

I hope that Neil Young doesn’t get involved in an embarrassing Rod Stewart led pop fest or a sincere performance on deaf ears (although I would definitely prefer the latter) but I think I’ll manage to sit through a Stewart set (especially if he for some reason decides to sing his Jeff Beck era stuff) to get to the good stuff; there are worse ways to get a glimpse of a “Heart of Gold”.

photo credit hubarts.com

Photo Credit Walmart

Like all male pre-teen suburban kids from the greater Los Angeles area, I too once had a Led Zeppelin phase. During this phase, I learned to always find a way to wear one of my two Led Zeppelin t-shirts at least every other day of the week, and Houses of the Holy seldom saw light outside of my CD player. I even read a biography on the band, and watching Jimmy Page wield his Telecaster encouraged me to by one of my own.

Back when “I hate math class” meant “I hate Algebra 1″, Robert Plant’s vain and over-the-top fantasy sequence in The Song Remains the Same wasn’t so corny, and I could tolerate listening to a 4 minute drum solo just for the sake of listening to Led Zeppelin II from beginning to end. But as time went on, I eventually migrated to another rite of passage, The Velvet Underground phase (I’ll tell you when it’s over).

So it was on a whim that I decided to listen to Houses of the Holy again today, and it comes apparent to me my old obsession wasn’t completely unjustified. And while I’m not much of a fan of the opening track, “The Song Remains the Same” because it reminds me too much of that old Hansen song where the little sisters sing ” DOO DADA DO DA DOO DADA DOO DA DOO DA DA”, I absolutely adore “Rain Song” which follows as track 2. “Rain Song” to me is what “Stairway to Heaven” should have sounded like: a guitar riff that you don’t grow weary of in the 6 minutes it is played, and an exciting vocal delivery at the end that doesn’t suck. No guitar solo needed.

The album does have it’s very tacky moments (like when Plant sings “When I read the letter you wrote me it made me sad sad sad” in “Dyer Makr”) and I have been known to unintentionally fall asleep listening to “No Quarter”, but at least I wasn’t listening to pop-punk.

I have a like-hate relationship with Pitchfork Media; I like reading it sometimes, but I hate the idea of being the guy who reads Pitchfork Media.

I think the reviews are almost always well written and I often agree with them (and presumably this one too. But how could it be anything else?). I have even swayed away from buying certain records upon hearing negative reviews (but not always).

It’s just that every time I see the ads on the side bar, I cringe at the thought of being the market for American Apparel.

Well anyways, I found a wonderful Youtube video on Pitchfork the other day of John Cale in a television game show. There is close to no money on the line, even with inflation adjusted, and the game show is called “I’ve Got A Secret” and it predates the release of The Velvet Underground and Nico by a couple of years. It’s not saying too much that I liked this video because I would watch John Cale eat a sandwich if such a video was available, but I just thought it was great. That’s all.

John Cale’s experimental nature and his overall badassness makes me guilty for always saying that The Velvet Underground is my favorite Velvets album. Next time I’m confronted with the tough question, I’ll say White Light/White Heat. I think picking a favorite of the first three VU albums is like picking a favorite child; you don’t pick everyone else’s favorite because it makes the others get jealous, and so you have to toss a coin between the other two.

_{China Photos/Getty Images}

Björk’s chanting of “Tibet! Tibet!” at the end of her “Declare Independence” performance in Shanghai has been well documented in the past couple of weeks. What was never really adequately addressed to me, however, was the history of Tibet and the arguments for and against it’s sovereignty (or more precisely, the lack thereof).

Sure, I have always seen “Free Tibet” merchandise and known that Tibet was a territory of China. Having taken AP World History, I also knew a little bit about the Dali Lama and his reincarnation cycle. I had also seen that BradPitt movie for which the actor got a life time ban for China for, but that was in fifth grade and I only remember the part where a white person (presumably Pitt) trick some native Asian people (presumably Tibetans) into thinking that the instruction sheet on his first aid kit was a legal document (presumably to do something he wasn’t supposed to). But when addressed with the issue at hand, I was a little bit disappointed at myself for not having an opinion on the subject matter, when in fact it might be thousand of human deaths that I am being apathetic for.

I was wrong. It is estimated that Tibetan 1.2 million Tibetan deaths have been related to violence since the Great Leap Forward in the 1950’s. Knowing this, I could see it was a big issue, but I wasn’t quite satisfied.

So of course, I went to Youtube and searched “Tibet”. What I found was a 55 minute video called Tibet The Story of a Tragedy and I decided to watch it. The Documentary was no Ken Burns production nor was it anything that could be called the Loose Change of Tibet documentaries. It has extremely slow moments and it’s poor quality footage is worsened by Youtube. It also restricts itself to history fairly well, which in the era of Loose Change, This Film is Not Yet Rated, and Who Killed the Electric Car? left me thinking “when are the experts going to come in and tell me my future opinions?”*. The documentary manages to be semi-compelling in the least expected of ways: by simply telling a story. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It’s boring as hell and as I later found out, all of the information is better presented in text.

*note sarcasm. I also want to say that unlike Charlie Sheen, I do not believe the theories in Loose Change.

I am still confused on how I would have it. It seems apparent to me that the situation is a direct violation of human rights and oppression, but I am also skeptic on Tibet’s ability to function by itself without being the next Israel because as I learned from the Björk incident, a lot of people are strongly against the independence movement.But although I would not call myself an expert on the topic (I only looked into it on Sunday), I feel my confusion is better informed than before.

EDIT: After looking into it and thinking about it a little more, I think that Tibet’s independence is both achievable and neccesary. I don’t think people react the way they do to Israel unless an ancient religous text indirectly instructs them to do so, and the human rights issues were more severe than I thought. I wish they would publish more statements from the other side of the argument, but all I find on the internet is random hacks going “fuck you, why doesn’t America give it’s land back to the Indians first?”. I’m sure there is more to it than that, but I guess there is no need to argue when you have it your way.

And they say our false idols should never bring up their political views.

This is long overdue, but Teo Macero died last month following a long battle with illness at the age of 82.

Teo Macero produced many Miles Davis records including In a Silent Way, Kind Of Blue, and A Tribute to Jack Johnson as well as other work for Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus. Macero was also the genius behind the production of the groundbreaking Miles Davis masterpiece, Bitches Brew.

I always have a hard time actively buying jazz albums because I never grow sick of the ones I already have. With pop albums I can only take so much of the same songs at a given time, but a jazz album is a gift that keeps on giving. There is always an aspect of the music that is fresh, and it’s wordless melodies often leave the mood to different interpretations at different times. Seeing that I have yet to buy a jazz record I don’t adore, and because I love jazz inspired music like Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Tim Buckley’s Happy Sad, and Frank Zappa’s Roxy and Elsewhere. Macerero’s death has reminded me that I don’t own nearly as many jazz albums as I should (I own only a few Miles Davis Albums, Grant Green’s Idle Moments, a Django Reinhardt compilation, two Herbie Hancock albums* and Weather Report’s Heavy Weather*)

* very funky albums that barely qualify as jazz.

I’m ashamed to admit this, but I had no idea who Teo Macero was before his death even though he produced some of my favorite jazz albums. Now I know what name to look for in the back next time I’m in the market for some new music.

I’ve always been pretty good with analyzing literature, because I always treated it only as a way to exercise writing really boring essays. I have just figured my making stuff up was just as legitimate as anyone else doing the same thing, and that that’s all analyzing really is anyways. And I am excellent at making stuff up.

So it was an unusual moment in my life when I decided late at night, while simultaneously studying for my Psychology test and listening to Jeff Buckley’s Grace, that I thought about what the Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is all about. And Cohen must’ve been trying to say something, having written 15 verses for the song.

“After I saw [Cohen] perform at the Beacon I asked if I could have the lyrics to “Hallelujah”. When I got home one night there were fax paper rolls everywhere because Leonard had insisted on supplying all 15 verses.” - John Cale

Sometimes it comes to me as an extremely cynical view at fundamentalist religion ( Maybe there’s a God above, but all I ever learned from love/Was how to shoot at someone who out drew you) and at times I just appreciate the beautiful Biblical metaphors (Your faith was strong but you needed proof/You saw her bathing on the roof/ Her Beauty in the moonlight overthrew you). But most of the time, I have no idea what he is talking about (But I’ve seen your flag on the Marble Arch/ And love is not a victory march). Looking at the lyrics separately make him seem like a cluster of unrelated thoughts, but the song somehow manages to flow through extremely well.

Background checking is no help in this either. Cohen claims to be Jewish and is still credited with conflicting quotes like:

“Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered”

And Jeff Buckley claimed it’s about the “hallelujah of having an orgasm”, but seeing that he is not the author, him saying this is no more valid to me than if I just made something up.

I understand why Cohen will not go out of his way to explain what he feels it says. On a touchy subject like this, either religious or not, it will probably turn off a lot of people who interpreted differently. Besides, it’s much more interesting when it’s up to interpretation. It’s like Eraserhead; I never want to know what that movie is supposed to be about.

And in my opinion, it’s not even close to being his best song. What an amazing poet Cohen is.

I first joined Youtube in May of 2006 and have since watched thousands of videos, favorite-ed about 150 of them, and seen everything from a robot playing John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” to The Goofy Movie re-imagined in the style of David Lynch. Even with all these things in mind, I have no problem saying that my Youtube experience reached it’s climax when I stumbled into links for downloading two Nick Drake Bootlegs on the website.

One of them is titled Second Grace, which to me sounds like home recordings of the artist before visiting the studio. Since Drake probably couldn’t afford to spend a lot of time in a “real” studio, it makes sense that he had so many takes of the same songs before recording it professionally. The album presents many tunes from Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter in a stripped-down, minimalist arrangement reminiscent of Pink Moon which allows for Drake’s supersonic finger picking to shine through the mix. I liked this because I have always thought the horns and strings suppressed Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter from being in the same league as Pink Moon. A highlight on this album is a track titled “Early Morning Dialog”, 3:15 of spoken word from Drake in the wee hours of the morning. It’s quite a novelty to hear Nick Drake - who was never captured on video in his adult life, let alone on television- do something that almost resembles an interview.

The other is a home recording called Tanworth-In-Arden 1967/1968, which I prefer over Second Grace. Unless the title of the album is misleading, this was recorded before Nick Drake ever stepped foot in a studio and during his brief stint at Cambridge University. On this album he plays cover songs of blues songs by artists like Blind Boy Fuller (I don’t recognize most of the songs) and contains a cover of the Bob Dylan classic “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright”. Although not the prototypical Blues musician, Nick Drake does deliver sadness in his voice as well as anybody else and he compliments the songs very well.

But these two albums are not without their faults. Second Grace has several repeats of the same songs and both albums have poor quality sound. Good listens they are, but not necessarily on the same level of necessity as Drake’s 3 studio albums. And worst of all, the links are no more.

The original provider has stated :

Since out of over 100 people I generously shared these bootleg albums with not one has posted a thankyou, yet instead I get idiots saying things like “If this was unreleased how have you got it!”, I have removed all mediafire links.

I guess some people will go out of their way to punish ungrateful people. I’m planning on putting them up myself soon, but not today because I’m busy.

I always wondered how amazing it would have been to have grown up with David Bowie’s music career. Hearing “Space Oddity” on the radio for the first time, seeing Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust in theaters, being introduced to Iggy Pop and Lou Reed when Bowie collaborated with these then-obscure artists, wearing out the entire Berlin Trilogy on a record player, and then seeing him on Television again with hits from Scary Monsters(And Super Creeps) are all memories I would love to have.

After seeing Björk in concert yesterday, I decided that I have something very similiar with Björk.

I love Björk. I think Debut and Post are amazing pop albums, and that Vespertine has some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. Her videos are always interesting and the ones directed by Michel Gondry are nothing short of amazing. In Dancer in the Dark, she puts on one of the most charming performances I have ever seen from an actress. In fact, as far as I know, Björk hasn’t missed yet.

Björk is Bowie-esque. They avoid typecasting themselves with a recurring sound, and maintain a great balance between mainstream and experimental. When Björk got sick of the techno/dance music she had perfected, she put out Homogenic and Vespertine (her most interesting albums) the same way Bowie changed the course of electronic music with the Berlin Trilogy when he became weary of his Ziggy Stardust and Thin White Duke personas.

It’s all really exciting, and if she’s anything like Bowie, she’s not anywhere near the end at 42 years young.

I just hope she doesn’t pull a Let’s Dance.