Greybeard Paroli de Malnova Objekto

If you’re wondering what to get me for Christmas, I’ll save you a trip to my Amazon Wishlist and tell you that I’d like just about anything from here. You may know the Lester Bangs piece on the Godz or maybe, like me, a part of your mind requires Spiritual Unity and Heliocentric Worlds. But you may not know the extent of this remarkable experiment in good vibrations. Is there anything that more perfectly exemplifies the excitement and excesses of the 1960s than this? Scorsese’s Dylan feature, though rather interesting in its middle-aged way, doesn’t come close.

I was reminded of the improbable, beautiful story of ESP Records by this interview with ESP’s founder, Bernard Stollman, and I’ve already spent too much time looking at the artwork, reading the descriptions, and playing the samples. If nothing else, be sure to read the story of Lowell Davidson, composer of “Dunce” and just cool looking dude. And it’s not just jazz, either. Try some Pearls Before Swine if you’re more of a songs person.

Yesterday, I gave away my four-track to a student with big ideas about his songwriting future (if only small ideas about things like how to play a C chord). I can only hope that he’ll accomplish as much as Mij, the yodeling astrologer. All we can do is offer words of encouragement and hope that the tape is running when the inspiration comes.

From the interview:

I didn’t have the education or the preparation to take on being a patron in the arts. I didn’t have the money and wasn’t affluent. But I did go to my mother at just about that point [1964] and I said “I’ve found what I want to do (I was 34, so you can imagine I wasn’t a kid), I’ve found my calling. I’m going to document this whole community of desperate composers of improvisational music.” When I went to her I had an idea to start a record label, and I wanted my inheritance. She gave me $105,000 which in those days was a fortune—now, you multiply that by ten. So in eighteen months, I produced 45 records. I wasn’t what you’d describe as an aficionado of the music; it was something I could do that was meaningful. I could document it, and the choices I made—well, in most cases I didn’t know what they sounded like [before recording them]. Marion was playing with Burton Greene; I liked Marion’s music, and so by this process I captured a whole community.

To Valbert: my dyslexia continues, as I meant to say that the Withholders first podcast sounds like “EXP,” not “ESP.” Forgive me. Mi fari ne paroli Esperanto.