1. Dolly Parton - "We Had It All"
2. Scott Walker - "Epizootics!"
3. Scott Walker - "Manhattan"
4. Scott Walker & Sunn O))) - "Brando"
5. David Bowie - "Nite Flights"
6. Scott Walker - "Black Sheep Boy"
7. The Walker Brothers - "I Will Wait For You (Theme From Les Parapluies De Cherbourg)"
8. Jacques Brel - "Ne Me Quitte Pas"
9. The Walker Brothers - "Just Say Goodbye"
10. Catherine Wheel - "30 Century Man"
11. Scott Walker - "Track Three"
12. The Walker Brothers - "Nite Flights"
13. The Walker Brothers - "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore"
LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Aside from watching live music, I spent this past weekend with friends talking about ghosts, spirits of the undead that walk the earth either of their own volition or by some other order, having a brief moment where I thought I had encountered a ghost (RIGHT BEFORE BED) which turned out to be one of my friends' friends showing up after hours, and finally, listening to the music of Scott Walker.
My friend Eric who introduced him to me did so in the same way he introduces me to any other artist: he puts on a record of theirs at low volume, talks about their story for a bit, raises the volume on the record and says nothing for a time, then lowers the volume once more and continues, only in more detail. This time, he began by playing The Walker Brothers' "Nite Flights", which I recognized as a song I had heard David Bowie play on his album, Black Tie White Noise. The production and playing style immediately let me know this version of the song was more than likely the original—Bowie's cover adapts the song into an electronic dance jam—and from there, Eric goes on to play me more Walkers Brothers tracks while telling me that Scott had gone on to have an extremely prolific solo career that ventured deep into strange, unknown territory. I would not know how strange until today, upon learning of Walker's passing, a day after learning of his existence in this world. Scott Walker's desire to feel creatively fulfilled was not open to compromise, and especially not open to the influence of the music industry. He refused to do interviews for a long period of time, releasing music on his own terms, whenever things felt ready to him, and while this did mean albums would take 10 years to come out (or 10 years of work), it meant that what we the listeners would be treated(?) to something that Walker considered an appropriate expression of his creativity at that point in time. That may chafe some, but as an artist I have deep respect that conviction, which is something that I find more and more artists in the world struggling with. That is, the ownership of their artistic process. I feel like more and more young artists (who would choose to err toward Walker's idealist creative behavior) find themselves struggling to own their process in a music world that demands artists play by it's own rules and not their own. I've seen this negatively shape their relationship to their own work, distort their self-image, and in some cases, sever the connection artists have to their creative spark.
Perhaps if we, like Walker, learn to disconnect from the social system of reward, and live on our terms as we did before we were introduced to social media, perhaps we could stand a chance of regaining our creative strength and possibly living more fulfilling (maybe even happier?) lives. Something to think about in the days moving foward.
Social links are in the sidebar now.
See y'all next week!
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