I'm just enjoying BBC4's excellent evening of Brian Eno documentaries when who should turn up on the doorstep at Swipe Towers but the very man himself. He's hotfooted it over from the Long Now Foundation where they've been having a spot of bother with their 10,000 year clock, apparently. Do I have any spare AAA batteries? Well, obviously, I know it's an emergency and the clock is a very sensitive piece of equipment - I mean, the last time Brian forgot to wind it over the weekend, he came back in on Monday to find it was running 300 years slow; could play havoc with your video recorder could that - but does it *have* to be done right now? I ask him. I mean, what's a few decades here and there in the grand scheme of things? Besides, it's just got to the good bit where you're pouring Paul Morley a beaker of tepid ribena and telling him how you got the sound of a badly damaged crow on "An Index of Metals".
Brian stroppily wafts his feather boa about a bit before sulkily saying he supposes not and then goes all withdrawn and begins to sketch a protoype for a new Humber bridge made out of milk bottle tops and half full sanatogen bottles in his notebook - I must say, it does look like an exciting project; especially if he can get it to make an ambient beeping noise every 30 minutes. That should go down well in Grimsby. Oh well, I suppose if it's that important to you I can always take a couple out of the large vibrating egg - although Olga will *kill* me if they're not back in by tomorrow evening. It's her turn to sit on it you see and they don't have them in the former Soviet Republics. Well, not ones that aren't radioactive that is.
Brian's face lights up as I hand it to him and he promises to work *extra* hard on the ambient link pieces he's been putting together for the new album. And with that, he's off into the night clutching a large vibrating egg before I've even had a chance to tell him how much I like his new palm leaf head-dress...
L.U.V. on ya,
Bob
Showing posts with label Eno. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eno. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Saturday, 24 May 2008
Eno...
I'm just finishing a monitor mix of one of the tracks from the next album when there's a knock at the door. It's Eno. My God, it's hard to believe he's sixty, isn't it? I mean, he looked about 50 in 1975, so Christ knows how ancient he'll look if he ever reaches seventy! I offer silent thanks to the Gods of Glam for allowing time to be as kind as it has with me. Why only the other day, a young Emo lass stopped me in the street and asked me how old I was. Amazing what a bit of Revitalise and a face covering, Sigue Sigue Sputnik style face mask can do, isn't it? They take years off a person. She might have tried to cover it up by saying "well, that's far too old to be mincing around in a pair of badly laddered panthyose and a sequined bodysuit you addled old poof bucket", but I know by now when I've made the old lady sex wee start to course around - putty in my hand she was - or would have been if I hadn't run slap bang into a lamppost as I was chasing after her. Bloody face masks...
'Come on in then, you wily old reprobate!' I tell Brian, only there's a bit of a comedy of errors as we negotiate the rather tight hallway, and I get one of my curtain hoop loon pants entangled with one of the cables spewing out the back of his Moog synthesizer and we end up spending half an hour trying to pick out a particularly intractable knot so as to free me so I can put the kettle on and make a cup of tea for my old genius of Progressive Art-Rock buddy. It gets worse as we ascend the little ladder that leads up into my attic-cum-studio-cum-boudoir. One of Brian's Ostrich feathers gets caught in my fishnets and there's a sharp shriek of pain as his elaborate headgear rips out two or three of the remaining follicles he has left. Such language - *far* from ambient, I can tell you!
'So, what can I do for you, oh rigorously scholarly enfant terrible of the challenging sonic soundscape?', I ask as we sip Darjeeling and munch our way through half a plate of custard creams and a p-p-packet of penguins. Do I know anything about economics? he asks. I tell him that I might just be able to cough up a vaguely coherent two sides of A4 along the lines of a 'Classical and Keynsian models: compare and contrast'-type essay, but I wouldn't have high hopes of doing more than muddling through the exam. He looks slightly crestfallen - although, of course, that might just have been the after effects of the incident with the ostrich feathers, which are by now looking decidedly dejected and in need of some readjustment - although the elastoplast has definitely helped staunch the flow a little. My fishnets aren't too clever either for that matter, but that's by the by. I'll have to see if Boots are still doing their three-for-two offer...
Anyway, seems Brian's been asked by David Cameron to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequor. They did ask Carole Vorderman, but she's too busy with the Benecol ads - and John Redwood can only do long division, which is going to slow matters down a bit if there's another run on the pound; so Eno seemed the obvious choice. You'll be fine! I tell him - just *improvise*!! But he seems to be quite care worn by all of this - must be the thought of being weighed down by all that responsibility in Number 11, I guess, having to live with the thought that the slightest error of judgement or sign of indecision could lead to a field day for the stock market traders as, sensing the blood of a weak Chancellor, they engage in a high stakes game of brinksmanship with the custodian of the public purse. The pound takes a hammering on the international exchanges as the embattled Treasury raises interest rates, paniced into a last gasp attempt to save the pound by raising interest rates to terrifying levels and, before you know it, millions of homes being repossessed, consumer confidence is at an all time low and the heart is slowly being ripped out of the British economy by Corporate jackals intent on asset stripping a once proud nation's manufacturing base. Still, if they will vote Tory...
'Come on Brian', I tell him, 'this isn't like you! Just imagine you're in the studio grappling with a particularly difficult U2 vocal track....what would you do then...?' And it's almost as if someone's flicked a switch...."That's it! That's it! Of *course!!*', he screams as he leaps around the studio in triumphant delight "Oblique strategies!!" he bellows, punching the air with a fist. I suppose there are worse ways of running an economy than basing your every action on the esoteric and inpeneterable commands of a randomly selected, i-Ching-like instruction card.
George Osbourne, for one...
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
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'Come on in then, you wily old reprobate!' I tell Brian, only there's a bit of a comedy of errors as we negotiate the rather tight hallway, and I get one of my curtain hoop loon pants entangled with one of the cables spewing out the back of his Moog synthesizer and we end up spending half an hour trying to pick out a particularly intractable knot so as to free me so I can put the kettle on and make a cup of tea for my old genius of Progressive Art-Rock buddy. It gets worse as we ascend the little ladder that leads up into my attic-cum-studio-cum-boudoir. One of Brian's Ostrich feathers gets caught in my fishnets and there's a sharp shriek of pain as his elaborate headgear rips out two or three of the remaining follicles he has left. Such language - *far* from ambient, I can tell you!
'So, what can I do for you, oh rigorously scholarly enfant terrible of the challenging sonic soundscape?', I ask as we sip Darjeeling and munch our way through half a plate of custard creams and a p-p-packet of penguins. Do I know anything about economics? he asks. I tell him that I might just be able to cough up a vaguely coherent two sides of A4 along the lines of a 'Classical and Keynsian models: compare and contrast'-type essay, but I wouldn't have high hopes of doing more than muddling through the exam. He looks slightly crestfallen - although, of course, that might just have been the after effects of the incident with the ostrich feathers, which are by now looking decidedly dejected and in need of some readjustment - although the elastoplast has definitely helped staunch the flow a little. My fishnets aren't too clever either for that matter, but that's by the by. I'll have to see if Boots are still doing their three-for-two offer...
Anyway, seems Brian's been asked by David Cameron to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequor. They did ask Carole Vorderman, but she's too busy with the Benecol ads - and John Redwood can only do long division, which is going to slow matters down a bit if there's another run on the pound; so Eno seemed the obvious choice. You'll be fine! I tell him - just *improvise*!! But he seems to be quite care worn by all of this - must be the thought of being weighed down by all that responsibility in Number 11, I guess, having to live with the thought that the slightest error of judgement or sign of indecision could lead to a field day for the stock market traders as, sensing the blood of a weak Chancellor, they engage in a high stakes game of brinksmanship with the custodian of the public purse. The pound takes a hammering on the international exchanges as the embattled Treasury raises interest rates, paniced into a last gasp attempt to save the pound by raising interest rates to terrifying levels and, before you know it, millions of homes being repossessed, consumer confidence is at an all time low and the heart is slowly being ripped out of the British economy by Corporate jackals intent on asset stripping a once proud nation's manufacturing base. Still, if they will vote Tory...
'Come on Brian', I tell him, 'this isn't like you! Just imagine you're in the studio grappling with a particularly difficult U2 vocal track....what would you do then...?' And it's almost as if someone's flicked a switch...."That's it! That's it! Of *course!!*', he screams as he leaps around the studio in triumphant delight "Oblique strategies!!" he bellows, punching the air with a fist. I suppose there are worse ways of running an economy than basing your every action on the esoteric and inpeneterable commands of a randomly selected, i-Ching-like instruction card.
George Osbourne, for one...
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
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Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Berlin, with Fripp & Eno...
"...I think what this section needs is a bathtub half-filled with kedgeree to liven it up a bit...", muses Brian, pulling thoughtfully on a duty-free Camel light. "What do you reckon Bob?" But Fripp's miles away, mumbling away tartly to himself, when he isn't singing The Wurzels then current hit, "Oi am a Zyder Drinker" that is. "Beck? Oi'll shittim! Page? Oi'll shittim! Weedon? Oi'll shittim! Ooo arr-ooo-arr-ay, Ooo-arr-ooooh-arr-ayyyyy!!!" and so he rambles on like an Alzheimered cretin until Eno tugs at his beard with a tuning fork and yells "Eh? Eh? Kedgeree Bob? Kedgeree!!??
The initial sessions have been a bit of a washout - not helped by my having been completely off my face on Harpic since the middle of 1975. They really shouldn't be allowed to sell it to 12 year olds, should they? Eno's been grappling with the white noise introduction to "I Left Some Kippers at the Nuremburg Rally" while Fripp's supposed to be working out a tortuous guitar figure for the, as yet, untitled instrumental ("Greasy Plinth") that will open the sequence of lengthy mood pieces that make up side two of "Heron Pickling in the Weimar Republic". It's not easy being seminal.
I stroll outside with Visconti for a crafty joint and leave the two giants of progressive rock arguing over guitar parts. "For the billionth and the last time Brian, it's called the fecking *bridge*...." I ask after Tony's then-wife, the singer Mary Hopkin. "Oh she's alright, I suppose..." he shrugs. "Still Welsh...." He tails off with a helpless sigh and I give him an apologetic pat on the shoulder. "Maybe we could get her in to do some Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doos on the the middle eight of "My Teutonic Espadrille"? Or has that incontinence of hers cleared up?"...
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
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The initial sessions have been a bit of a washout - not helped by my having been completely off my face on Harpic since the middle of 1975. They really shouldn't be allowed to sell it to 12 year olds, should they? Eno's been grappling with the white noise introduction to "I Left Some Kippers at the Nuremburg Rally" while Fripp's supposed to be working out a tortuous guitar figure for the, as yet, untitled instrumental ("Greasy Plinth") that will open the sequence of lengthy mood pieces that make up side two of "Heron Pickling in the Weimar Republic". It's not easy being seminal.
I stroll outside with Visconti for a crafty joint and leave the two giants of progressive rock arguing over guitar parts. "For the billionth and the last time Brian, it's called the fecking *bridge*...." I ask after Tony's then-wife, the singer Mary Hopkin. "Oh she's alright, I suppose..." he shrugs. "Still Welsh...." He tails off with a helpless sigh and I give him an apologetic pat on the shoulder. "Maybe we could get her in to do some Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doos on the the middle eight of "My Teutonic Espadrille"? Or has that incontinence of hers cleared up?"...
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
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