Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, artist/musician/author/record producer/music theorist/ designer/inventor of ambient music etc. etc. turns 62 today.
Below, Roxy Music tear it up, performing Ladytron on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972. Eno’s VSC3 solo comes in at 4:10, but you’ll want to watch the entire thing. The band is in fine form here, especially Phil Manzanera. Bottom: Editions of You on German television, 1972.
An amazing Eno-era live version of the For Your Pleasure LP classic that I’d never seen before. And our man Brian is a delight here, heavily treating Manzanera‘s epic guitar solo by rhythmically altering the VSO on the tape decks he’s running the guitar through. Good shit ! Ferry is also in ultra-fine form, though he seriously muffs the lyric at 3:16, it’s kind of endearing. Jah bless a You-tube !
gracias Jeff Copas !
Found myself watching last week Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. Without wanting to comment too much on it beyond saying it’s no Heavenly Creatures or LOTR, I can say its Brian Eno score was a definite highlight.
A soundtrack for Bones has never been released, a fact that drove me nuts because I’ve been playing non-stop the above, suspiciously Eno-esque track, “The Moon’s Lament,” attributed to the apparently Google-proof band “Cindy D’lequez-Sage.”
Buried no less in the closing credits, it’s a gorgeous, haunting piece of music with some seriously spooky lyrics. Is it Eno himself? Will the real Cindy D’lequez-Sage please stand up?!
Hear the upcoming—due out April 13—MGMT album, Congratulations, streaming from their website. Apparently there is a poor-sounding version already making the bot torrent rounds and the band would prefer that their fans hear a version with higher fidelity. I’ve had a promo copy of this for a few weeks now, and I must say that I think it’s absolutely magnificent. At first I didn’t hear anything that grabbed me like Kids and The Youth did. But allow this one some time and it will indeed grab you. It’s more subtle than Oracular Spectacular, but it’s a fine follow-up to that classic debut. With songs titles like Song For Dan Treacy and the playful Brian Eno, you can see where their heads are at. These guys are on fire. Highly, highly recommended. So far it’s my favorite album of the year.
Below a rare video of the Television Personalities featuring Dan Treacy (Grant Morrison loves him also). It’s obvious to hear his influence on the MGMT sound. Let’s hope they start a Dan Treacy revival. About time!
Wonderful interview with Brian Eno in yesterday’s Guardian. It starts off by reminding us that of the 100-Greatest-All-Time-70’s-Albums-According-To-Pitchfork, Eno’s had his hand in 25 of them. The discussion goes from Abba to Zappa, and addresses, intriguingly, the very industry that made him famous:
I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn’t last, and now it’s running out. I don’t particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you’d be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate ?
Coming soon to some not so far away beach, Brian Eno. If you happen to be in Long Beach this fall (Sept. 12—Dec. 13), try to catch, in its SoCal debut, Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings:
Using sophisticated computer software and audio boom boxes, 77 Million Paintings features constantly changing images and musical compositions, which challenge the notion that the artist must be in control. Eno?