Peter Oren, Anthropocene (2017)

By SoDak

Going to the record store on Fridays is one of my great pleasures each week. I am able to talk with my friends who work there, search for music with Five-Inch Taint, and hear new artists. A couple Fridays back, I was sitting on the floor of the shop, flipping through recently acquired used country records. Overhead, I heard the opening notes of a song, which started with a simple acoustic guitar. It caught my attention and gave me chills—similar to the first time I heard Richard Buckner’s “Blue and Wonder” in 1994. Then this rich, warm voice started singing about sleeping in the bed of a pick-up truck, while in Missouri. I asked PaulySure what CD was playing. He said it was Peter Oren; I simply responded that I would buy it, not knowing anything else about this musician. My attention was captured by the story about how diesel trucks interrupted the singer’s sleep, so he continued on with his travels, commenting on what he sees and hears, such as trite songs on the radio, bullshit religious talk shows, and markers along the road where folks have died.

Several other folks in the store liked what they heard and bought copies of the record. I stood transfixed by the songs, trying to absorb the stories, pleased to hear critical reflections regarding the state of the world. The title track, “Anthropocene,” is a perfect song for this moment in time, given the ongoing transgressions of planetary boundaries. Climatologists indicate that in order to maintain a relatively stable climate system, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should be not more than 350 parts per million (ppm). As of November 2017, the concentration is over 403 ppm. The tipping point, ushering in runaway climate change, is 450 ppm. It is now estimated that given current rates of carbon emissions, we will hit this mark in nineteen years. In other words, we are racing to this point. Peter Oren opens this song with the question, “Where will I go, when I don’t want to be with ideal hands waiting catastrophe, here, here, here, in the Anthropocene?... How will we escape this hell we’ve made?” He comments that change is not coming from above, as new pipelines and refineries are built. “How will we escape this hell we’ve made?” We must pick our fights, because “soon there will be nowhere left to hide?” The pursuit of endless profits undermines the larger dynamics that support life—“We need bees for more than their honey.” He repeats, “How will we will escape this hell we’ve made?” as the strings enter the song, creating more and more tension, as time runs out to respond to these issues. This is a brilliant song, mourning a world that is passing.

My heart was heavy, as stayed in the shop, just to listen to the whole record. Every song is filled with recognition of deep history, scars, sorrow, and love. There are moments in the songs where Peter Oren searches for hope and stands in defiance to the current trends. Our general isolation and passivity as a public is addressed in “Chain of Command,” as the powers that be feast upon our lives. The song, “Throw Down,” demands confrontation with the “power, money, and lies” that dominate the world. He even suggests that it may well be through a “Molotov.” He asks, “How long, how long, how long will we wait for change? How long, how long, how long will we wait in vain?” By stretching out these questions, Peter Oren adds weight to the situation. “Make your grandkids proud. It’s time to throw down. Tell me are you with we. It’s time to get busy. Tonight.” In “New Gardens,” he celebrates collective action through community gardens, in order to ground us, against the new dust bowls that are in creation. The main point is that we should not act alone in these struggles.

After I left the record store, I went home to listen to Anthropocene several more times, trying to take in this beautiful, heartfelt collection of songs. The record is sparse and quite mellow—mostly centered around the acoustic guitar, while being accompanied by bass and drums, with the occasional violin, pedal steel, and keys. It is a contemplative record, asking serious questions and searching for connections and actions. These songs create space for grieving—as he notes in the closing number, “shit’s fucked up…. Welcome to this record, goodbye to this world, may a new one be unfurled.”

Hugo Montenegro and His Orchestra, Music From ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ & ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ & ‘For a Few Dollars More’

By SoDak

My father hated John Wayne films. But he loved Clint Eastwood westerns, especially those directed by Sergio Leone. When he was in his twenties, he even looked like Eastwood did in these movies. We regularly watched A Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. My father, who generally did not pay too much attention to music, really liked Ennio Morricone’s compositions for these films. These scores were an integral component, woven into the landscapes and the characters, creating an emotional connection to the scenes. The main title song of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is permanently etched in my brain. I can repeatedly listen to just this song. I have a visceral reaction. I get chills and excited when I hear it; I wish I was riding a horse through the desert while this song emanated from the earth itself. “La Missione San Antonio” and “La Storia di un Soldato” are absolutely beautiful and moving compositions. I can clearly see the scenes from the film, every time I hear these songs.

My parents had a few 8-tracks and a dozen records when I was very young. The main record that was ever played in the house was Hugo Montenegro and His Orchestra, Music From ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ & ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ & ‘For a Few Dollars More.’ My mother knew how much my father loved the music in the Eastwood westerns, so when she was at Woolworths and saw this record she bought it, not knowing that it was not the original soundtrack. Regardless, this particular record was extremely popular within the United States when it was released in 1968. The cover of the theme song (for The Good) was a hit, reaching number 2 on the Billboard Charts, just behind “Mrs. Robinson” by Simon and Garfunkel. Hugo Montenegro, after hearing the music from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, decided he had to record a cover version of the theme, and then proceeded to record an additional ten songs selected from Leone’s Spaghetti Western trilogy. These versions of the songs are more lush and smooth, than those in the films. Nevertheless, they evoke similar feelings in me. Plus, this record is satisfying given that it includes the theme songs for all three of the movies. In many ways, I have two versions of these songs in my head, from the films and this record.

Many years later, I made a copy of the Montenegro record on cassette for my father. Every road trip, he would request that we listened to this tape, and then he would let it play over and over. While we thought it was funny, none of us ever got sick of hearing it. Every time the opening notes of the theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly started we got goosebumps and settled into the ride, enjoying looking out over the open plains of South Dakota. It was the only tape he ever listened to. When my father died, there was only one choice for the music to be played at the funeral, and this record provided a bit of solace.

Dream Sequence, Vol. 1

By SoDak and Null

We have spent countless hours discussing musicians, records, rock documentaries, and songs. Our lives have become intertwined in countless ways. From time to time, we have similar dreams. What follows is an account of our dream. It is an essay of “fiction.”

Hollywood is a fantasy. It is for the delusional. In one of the mansions, on this day, many celebrity musicians congregated to engage in their customary activities. In the grand room, in front of a giant mirror, James Taylor and Carly Simon are awkwardly entangled, fucking each other. Each of them stares into their own eyes, while singing “You’re So Vain,” thinking they have achieved immortality. In the corner, sitting in a gold chair, David Crosby wipes away the remnants of cocaine from his nostrils. With his other hand, he drops a turkey thigh on the floor. He then uses the grease from the cooked bird as lubrication, while he tries to achieve an erection. Splotches of dry cum cover his abdomen. After he climaxes, he runs his hands through his stringy hair, where the jizz acts as gel. Every now and then Crosby yells out, “I am a rebel—just look at my long hair. I am the counterculture.” Bob Dylan is propped up at a piano, mumbling old blues songs, deciding which lyrics he should steal for a new song. All the while, Roger McGuinn is hiding under the piano, hoping some of Dylan’s scraps will fall into his hands. Scattered around him are photos of Ben Carson, along with receipts for the donations he gave to this Republican assclown. In one of the corners of the room, where a giant television is mounded on a wall, is a stack of videotapes, including Chuck Berry’s collection of videos—from his hidden camera—of women peeing and pooping in the restroom in his restaurant/bar. Since Berry died, the videos are collecting dust, as no one else wants to watch them.

In one of the bedrooms, there are boxes stacked from the floor to the ceiling, filled with papers related to U2’s tax havens. In the corner are copies of Harry Browne’s book, The Frontman: Bono (in the Name of Power), torn to shreds. Some of the pages are in the fireplace. Bono paces the room, thinking that if he burns these books, the world will not discover all the ways that he actively avoids paying taxes in Ireland, in order to increase his wealth, while pleading that other people should give their wages over to his “causes.” He stops for a moment, in front of a picture of him posing with George W. Bush. Both of them are smiling, knowing that they executing a slick PR move. “I am the world’s greatest agent of change. Fuck Browne for suggesting that I advocate ineffective solutions, amplify elite discourses, kiss the asses of the rich, and do not truly care for the poor. I pay more than enough in taxes and am just being smart at business.” Out of the corner of his eye, he spots his cowboy hat, hanging on a hook on the wall. He smiles thinking of the time he had the hat flown first class after he forgot it at home. If he did not have all this wealth, the hat could not have travelled safely for him to wear at a concert. “Fuck Boff Whalley [from Chumbawamba] for writing that poem ‘The Twat in the Hat’ about me.” Bono runs over to the computer, googles himself, wishing he could delete any reference to this poem. All the while, The Edge has been sitting at a desk, working on papers related to his decade-long fight to construct luxury mansions on Sweetwater Mesa, an undeveloped part of Malibu. A loud noise, from the outdoors, interrupts their self-absorption. Both of them pause, look at each other and then toward the window. The unsettling disturbance continues, creating confusion, given that it sounds like a dying goat. They walk to the window, witnessing a spectacle.

By the pool, standing on a chair, is Stevie Nicks, singing one of her most recent songs. The lyrics center on Nicks being a mystical angel; there is nothing new here. Her handler looks exhausted, as he has spent the last twenty minutes blowing cocaine up Nicks’s ass. Gene Simmons swaggers around the pool, hoping that everyone is watching him. He removes his robe, bearing his family jewels. He sits down in the grass, bends over and proceeds to lick his taint and balls with his unusually long tongue. Once he gets hard, he starts to suck his own cock. He immediately makes plans to copyright oral sex. Eric Clapton stands by the side of the pool, staring at this display, while contemplating his increasing irrelevance. Given the election of Trump in the United States, he considers whether his own anti-immigration statements from the past several decades, in regard to the United Kingdom, could gain him some new fans. His thoughts are fleeting, as he desires something more sensational. For some unknown reason, he is carrying Courtney Love’s bastard love child, who was born addicted to opiates. Clapton holds the baby above the pool, wondering if he could write another hit song if he dropped the kid into the water. Instead of “Tears in Heaven” it could be “Tears in the Pool (The Drowning Baby).”

Fred Cole (1948-2017)

Null:

It would be exhausting to give even a brief account of Fred Cole’s long rock ‘n’ roll life. There would be a long list of bands. There would be examples of a father, husband, bandmate, and overall genuine guy. There would be a life-long love story with Toody. And all of this would be in mono. I direct those interested in Fred Cole’s life to the documentary Unknown Passage: The Dead Moon Story, which was released in 2006. I hate writing this. I actually wept when I heard the news of his death, even though I knew it was coming.

I loved Fred. I loved his music and his lyrics. I loved his bands. I loved how every time I met him, he greeted me like a long lost friend and gave me a big, long hug. I love that when I hung out with Pierced Arrows, after their show in Denver, he remembered me from when I stopped by Tombstone Records years earlier in Oregon. I met him several times and he was the heart of love, DIY, and rock ‘n’ roll. Dead Moon will always be the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band, and Fred will always be a great man in my memories. I cherish the few times I helped him and Toody load up gear into their van while we drank beer until 2 AM, waxing poetically about the romance of love and life and death. He was a good man. He was an old romantic; he admitted it to me personally. People don’t know. That’s OK—some of us do. Love to Toody and their kids. “It’s OK—we love you anyway.”  

Fred was the salt of the earth. He was punk rock. He was the old west. He was the embodiment of community. One could hear the history of the twentieth century in his songs—before everything became “virtual,” when a real world existed. It was a world of shitty production and worn out boots, containing both a beauty and history that is inexplicable to post-modernists. Fred’s history is in the dirt under your fingernails. He was an inspiration and will continue to be. He showed not only how independent rock ‘n’ roll was done, but more importantly, how integrity and comradery are done. Down here, we put our shoulder to the wheel. I’ll leave you with the closing lines from “Deadline”:

Yeah, my life’s a broken wire but I’m getting my kicks

Another night of chaos with Edwin on the mix

Time to load equipment, where the hell did Andrew go?

Weeden’s got the t-shirts, and records on the floor

Hans and Ruud are talking, man, I need a cigarette

They say we’re playing Vera, if we don’t get in a wreck

Toody holds the lighter, when someone has to ask

“So why’s the candle burning?” “Cause nothing ever lasts”

My head’s a little scattered ‘cause I'm working on the dead line.”

SoDak:

Fred Cole, from the bands Dead Moon and Pierced Arrows, was cool as hell. Every time I saw him, he was dressed in a western, snap shirt, had a Dead Moon belt buckle, and was—most importantly—super friendly. Many years ago, Null and his partner flew into Portland, where I picked them up. We thought it would be cool to stop by the convenient store and musical instrument shop that Fred and Toody ran, where all the buildings look like they could be sets used in a western movie. By chance, Fred and Toody happened to be there, loading up gear to play a house party that night. We helped them load the last of their amps, and then they gave us a tour of the buildings. We just spent time hanging out and sharing stories. They invited us to the house party. We already had other plans, but we should have gone.

Fortunately, I was able to see Dead Moon play once and then saw Pierced Arrows perform several times. I wish I could have seen them more times. Both bands were fun. They were simply a three-piece, who loved playing raw, fuzzed-out, garage-punk rock. There is nothing fancy here. I loved the songs with the back and forth vocals, between Fred and Toody. Fred’s vocals, sometimes a shrill, captured anguish, excitement, and love. They fit the style of music and the attitude of his bands. While these bands are an acquired taste for many, once they grabbed you, they were chilling. Like, Motorhead, they played rock ‘n’ roll, just not in a commercial way.

Fred was fiercely independent. Fred and Toody embodied the do-it-yourself ethos. The documentary Unknown Passage: The Dead Moon Story captures their approach and spirit, as they are building their own house and recording their music. Heck, they cut their own records. Fred was unbelievable kind. I am glad that our paths crossed several times, as he was an inspiration in many ways.