We are all of us held together by words, and when words go - nothing much remains.
As the son of legendary British writer Kingsley Amis, Martin may have been born into the craft, but he only maintained his success over four decades because he found his own voice. The New York Times once called his prose "the new unpleasantness." Unlike Kingsley, Martin possessed a dark, mordant wit that presaged the so-called "mean" comedy of programs like "The Office" and others.
While Amis was not a fan of television, his adapted works always seemed to bring him more readers who could now translate their fascination with his comic-tragic plots better through the anti-heroes Amis vividly colored through words. As a child, Amis was more transfixed by comics than novels. However, once his stepmother Elizabeth Jane Howard (also a writer) gave him the works of Jane Austen, Amis was ready to join the family business.
As "Henry Tilney," Amis quickly made a name for himself as a reviewer of Science Fiction novels. Amis hailed the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and J.G.Ballard, while secretly digesting the canon of Cervantes, Nabokov, and Bellow. In 1973, Amis' first novel "The Rachel Papers" was released to wide acclaim, earning him the Somerset Maugham Award for young writers. The mostly autobiographical work quickly established Amis, but subsequent works only hinted at his potential. For example, 1978's "Success" was his first effort at making "moral disgust" into comedy. As witty and honest as it is, throwing grenades into the landscape of the hoi polloi takes a certain amount of grace. However, its continuing manipulations of roles, preferences, and facades could make it live on as a "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" for the post-colonial British upper middle class. It was the experience of being hired to write the screenplay for 1980's "Saturn 3" that led to his true breakthrough.
His 1981 appearance on the BBC's "Paperbacks" shows Amis describing Nabokov as "fast, callous, disdainfully witty" and "investing the most ordinary landscapes with weird and furtive life." Amis might as well have been characterizing his next work, 1984's savage "Money." A brutally funny work, "Money" tells the sordid story (both inner and outer) of John Self, a raging hedonist interested in only fast women, faster food, and the fastest way possible to make a buck. Rattled after a transatlantic flight by both a toothache and tinnitus, Self begins his investigation and mass consumption of the Eighties (lack of) culture in New York City as he has been hired to write a screenplay. The false idol of the writer's dream of film as acceptance is only one razor-sharp facet of a decade about to slip into a coma of junk TV, junk bonds, and junk food.
Self is not a likable character at all. While he may be boorish but human, his gift is that he seems to bring out the worst in everyone that is around him. Nonetheless, "Money" is a hilarious and painfully grotesque examination of the lack of culture in those who claim to be purveyors of it. When Self returns to his home in London, his lifestyle and complete nihilism lead to a near-psychotic breakdown that Amis writes himself in the role of watching. Subtitled "A Suicide Note," Amis' final nail of commentary in the coffin of John Self is that he completely loses himself and all his money - but somehow maintains his sly sense of humor.
With "Money," Amis dared to write an entire novel in his own voice (he once told an interviewer that normally, he could put the final edits on his novels in just one day. "Money" took him three arduous days and he still had second thoughts upon turning it in.) The gamble paid off handsomely as it was a huge smash and continues to be hailed as one of the best novels of the 20th Century. Next up for Amis, investing in the "unreliable narrators" and creating a future London that would leave readers both fascinated and able to draw their own conclusions. 1989's "London Fields" (after "Money," the second of his "London Trilogy") Anti-Thatcher rhetoric aside, this degradation of all society's tenets against the backdrop of ever-present nuclear war and environmental catastrophe could be as dystopic as one of the novels he admired from J.G. Ballard. Like the previous novels of Amis, it also uses this end-of-the-world scenario as a tableau for studies in lust, deception, and culture only existing as a buzz word for corruptive mass media.
His fame made Amis a much sought-after voice in matters of politics and culture. In addition to his fiction, Amis was also a brilliant essayist and observer of trends. No matter how hard anyone tried to make him appear as a curmudgeon who thought "TV rots your brain and this is yet another time where they declare literature to be dead," Amis' sharp-witted analysis was typically rooted in some sense of logic. With that public standing, Amis was also (of course) the subject of numerous controversies. However, he often displayed great skill in navigating the painful questions with a mixture of bleak answers that never bordered on his defensiveness or even being uncooperative. While you may not have agreed with his observation and its biting presentation, in the end, one could only admire Amis for explaining his belief or disbelief in a manner that was both diplomatic and uncompromising. It was always as if Amis could write a character or even about himself as one possessing all the necessary knowledge, but in the end always realize "If we can't understand it, then it's formidable. And we understand very little."
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
NEW MUSIC This Week
ARLO PARKS - My Soft Machine [LP/CD](Transgressive/PIAS)
After her brief introduction to the world at large was cut short by the lockdown, Arlo Parks still managed to push the unique melodies and textures of her debut "Collapsed in Sunbeams" to single success ("Hurt") and a Grammy nomination. Her second effort, "My Soft Machine" digs deeper into Electronic music and R&B beats. "Weightless" is less about Parks as a singer and more about her voice (and its ongoing refrain of "don't wanna wake me up") fulfilling the dreaminess of being here. "Blades" is written about what it is like to be in love and the immediate feeling of everything growing in leaps and bounds. "My Soft Machine" sounds like Parks' first real venture onto the dancefloor as well.
WATER FROM YOUR EYES - Everyone's Crushed [LP/CS](Matador/Redeye)
Brooklyn's Rachel Brown and Nate Amos are creating some of the most entrancing music that at times can really challenge listeners with hints of neo-classicism. "14" is a lengthy emotional string-driven set of confessions ("How many is 14?") spelled out in mantra form over a consistent drone. "True Life" spins its Indie Rock guitars and lo-fi drum machines in an almost No Wave rhythm before a slinky and drastic bass line ushers in its wild Sonic Youth-ness. However, it is the beautiful "Barley" (one of the best singles of the year) that indeed hints at their potential greatness. Like Sonic Youth playing with My Bloody Valentine, "Barley" arrives with its weird Madchester beats and snakey guitar fills while overlaying them with a panoply of sounds then punctuated by the vocal lines of Brown. Its secret weapon is both the ongoing rhythmic count and refrain of "I count mountains" from Brown while a hypnotic array of ring modulator parts are moved in and out of the mix to alarming effect. Like nothing else you have heard this year.
THEY ARE GUTTING A BODY OF WATER/A COUNTRY WESTERN - An Insult To The Sport EP [LP](Topshelf)
These two Philadelphia artists put a lot of original ideas on the table and almost refuse to fit them into any genre/subgenre specification. They Are Gutting … is probably closest to Shoegaze (those guitars sound like a revelation at times - “The Brazil” before it comes unhinged - in a good way) but really harken back to the Nineties cut-and-paste style of Swirlies or Swell. Their patience with writing their songs to never quite peak means they can spin them into spider’s webs.
A Country Western kicks things off with a Fire-Toolz-ian psychedelic/glitch loop in “Lung” that is quite like one band handing off the baton to the other. “Keeping Up With The Joneses” lets them show their ability to layer their guitars-on-stun sound around a hooky song. The Sonic Youth-meets-Pavement-ish “Crossing Out My Lines” is like a Pop song played upside down. Yet it never feels like anything but the most natural music.
Both groups show big potential either together or apart. “Insult” goes by so fast and blends together so well with each artist cramming all their parts into one song. The whole thing could be one song as it is. However, you will not want it to be - as it also plays just as well when excerpted or cut in half.
MANDY, INDIANA - I’ve Seen A Way [LP](Fire Talk/Redeye)
French/Manchester synth punks Mandy, Indiana drill you in the skull with a booming, reckless, thrilling Young Gods-like minimalist album (looking at you 1992’s “TV Sky.”) Every sound needs to slam into you like it was from the great unknown. On “Drag [Crashed]” the string stabs, oozing gated foghorns, and the This Heat-ish primal drums sound immediate and visceral. In addition, the normally tiring four-on-the-floor beat that plagues most Electronic is so obscured in places, you think that your heart is beating with it. Mandy’s heated beats (with unreal natural reverb - maybe the best drum sound of the year) are often broken up by coaxing very upfront House (“Injury Detail”) and Hip-Hop (“The Driving Rain (18)”) rhythms from their drum machines. The effect is typically jarring as their minimalist textures sound massive and bleed into the corners of your room (when you listen LOUD - as you should.) Even in its more quiet moments (the opening of “2 Stripe” and the Tangerine Dream-ish cuts “Love Theme (4K VHS)” and the final two songs,) there is no loss of energy. These are more like changes in color than “pauses” between the savage attack of their other tracks. Finally, there are Valentine Caulfield’s vocals that are in French but communicate a world of confusion and disorientation (the “airport” sound of her on “Drag [Crashed]” drowns in effects that use her wordless gurgles to delay the shock of its Throbbing Gristle-style ending.) With careful attention to detailed production, crystallizing their ideas, and reinventing the noisy past in higher fidelity, Mandy, Indiana has laid the seeds for their own Industrial sound - one that you are going to be hearing everywhere very soon.
Find of the Week
SCOTT SESKIND [LP](Ebalunga!/Light In The Attic)
Before there was Elliott Smith and the radio was clouded with the dull haze of the third wave of gloopy singer/songwriters, Scott Seskind took his acoustic guitar and 4-track to make an album in 1985 that even today sounds ahead of its time. Straddling a childhood love of the Partridge Family and the adolescent/early adult discovery of R.E.M. and Richard Thompson, Seskind simply sat down and wrote about how it felt to be left behind ("Walking") or even alone (the heartwrenching "Empty Arms.") Seskind's lyrivcs are more workmanlike than the poetry of others. He is fond of statement and re-statement (which honestly takes the place of choruses, like the Folk Music of the early Sixties.) With a little chorus effect to fill out his music, Seskind's rugged tunes hit a vein because they are so matter-of-fact. "Bobby Sands" is his Folk/protest song. Seskind tells the story of IRA leader Bobby Sands who starved himself to death in 1981. While the conflict around his involvement/advocation of the terrible activities around "The Troubles," Seskind does not pay tribute - only presents the facts. However, once he finishes the tale, Seskind turns to how it related to the world at large and in turn himself, "more bullets will fly through the clear spring sky, the pretty clear sky…at least Bobby will be gone and taken away, leaving me with nothing and with nothing to say."
AEROSMITH - Rocks/Toys In The Attic [LP](UME)
Boston's Aerosmith debuted with a pair of strong albums (1973's self-titled debut and 1974's "Get Your Wings") that spawned enough heat to land on both Top 40 ("Dream On") and AOR ("Same Old Song and Dance.") However, how was the Boston band to stand out from the rest of the pack? The first was to shed the "Blues Rock" ideas and think more sophisticated. Schooled by two years of constant touring, Tyler and Perry had whittled their songwriting ideas down to bare-knuckle riffs that were refined but somehow more lascivious. "Adam's Apple" could be any bar band's slinky crowd-pleaser. In Aerosmith's newly-skilled hands, the changes, the implications of Tyler and the horns from producer Jack Douglas - and it even transcends the Glam Rock that ruled the day. The Zeppelin-esque stomper "Round and Round" even works in that "Dream On" escalating pattern but in a new dark, druggy way. However, it is the singles, "Toys In The Attic," "Walk This Way," and "Sweet Emotion" that truly make "Toys In The Attic" a classic. All three are tough, muscular, and melodic. A blueprint for where the band was about to go.
The success of "Toys" gave the band the first real taste of the high life, and "Rocks" is the first frame of their ability to condense their live wonder into new music. While it may have cloudier subject matter, "Back In The Saddle" manages to outdo every previous song for both menace and the lure of sin. "Last Child" is the true mid-period ballad. A taste of sleek city groove and an almost War-like funky groove, "Last Child" wants to be "Walk This Way" continued. Instead, the elegance of its parts and the synthesis of blues idioms into inspired subtext is still dangerous today. Ah, but the writing is also on the wall. "Sick As A Dog" is a rumbler that soars on Tyler's double-tracked vocals and the punchy riffage. But beneath the shimmering chords and tight groove, Aerosmith was switching to reporting on their own extremes. "Lick and a Promise" and "Nobody's Fault" were stompers that could be filed easily with "Toys," but the band is flying just a little too far out on the wing. Joe Perry's "Combination" almost lays it all out on the table, but thankfully stops short. With the pair of go-for-broke, rock-at-all-costs albums, Aerosmith finally achieved massive stardom. In late 1975, after "Walk This Way" failed as a single, "Dream On" was reissued earning them their first Top 10 hit. When "Rocks" standout "Last Child" stalled at #21, Aerosmith repeated the trick, reissuing "Walk This Way" and earning their second Top 10 hit (then breathing enough life back into "Rocks" to lead to the #38 showing for "Back In The Saddle." Nine million records later, with touring turning everything into a blur, Aerosmith would try to replicate the success and instead grind to a halt.
