Lynch for Your Ears

David Lynch - The Darkened Room (remix)

It's pretty crazy here as I/we wind down one month and living space, and prepare to inaugurate new ones here.

With the close of one era and the start of another, there are always transitions. In the next few days we'll document two recent departures from our plane of existence, who both left indelible marks upon culture in their time with us.

We'll end January with something unusual for me, as I am not sure whether I've ever done a film director on here before, albeit one who dabbled significantly in music.

This little project started a few weeks ago, when I began to consider the possibilities in using the AI stem tools to remove/rearrange dialogue from movies and so forth, and to create what some people have come to refer to as Isolated Scores for films that don't have proper soundtracks.

When today's memorial honoree passed a couple of weeks ago just days shy of 79 -- probably the most visible person claimed by the catastrophic LA wildfires of early January, having succumbed to the emphysema the smoke and his evacuation had flared up -- I started to think about paying him homage in this way, and happened upon a bootleg DVD -- or maybe it was released legitimately, in a very limited way, long ago, I really am not sure -- of some of his short films that had been posted for subscribers to his website back at the turn of the 21st century.

Suddenly, the opportunity came into focus to strip down and reassemble the sounds he made for these pieces into what might, disbelief necessarily suspended, pass for a soundtrack album.

In the spirit of creativity which he so aptly represented, I spent the last two weeks molding and shaping the thing into a CD's worth of sounds.

In case you wanna see the films -- most of which I could find nowhere online, amidst many pleas, in many locations, for the DVD of them -- I stashed them in the folder alongside the OST I created.

Obviously I need offer no substantiation of who David Lynch -- easily in the discussion for Cinematic Auteur of Our Lifetimes -- was, or what he means to the continuum of the art of the moving image, or what kind of unfillable void in Art in general his passing creates.

In putting this opus on its feet, I made sure to get all the building blocks and industrial soundscape noises he loved to pepper into his work, showcasing them alone and in various strange combinations that (almost occasionally) work as music.

As far as I know, the only one of these that he ever commercially released was the actual Industrial Soundscape song, which came out as an mp3 file on his old site 20-something years ago.

Anyway I had a stone blast doing this thing, and I hope it's taken in the intended spirit of illuminated, always-challenging creative juice that David Lynch himself featured so unapologetically and naturally.

All right, get your goggles on and let's build us a lamp, shall we?

David Lynch

Dynamic:01

original soundtracks

2000-2001

01 Lamp In a Darkened Room

02 Out Yonder - Neighbor Boy

03 Steps

04 Dynamic 01 (title music)

05 The Darkened Room II

06 Sunset #1

07 The Darkened Room I

08 Industrial Soundscape

09 Boat

10 Interior Dining Room

11 Dynamic 01 (suite incl. Bug Crawls)

12 The Darkened Room (remix)

Total time: 1:16:00

PCM Audio, from a 2007 DVD, of David Lynch short films posted to his website in 2001

extracted, demuxed, edited, denoised, processed, remuxed and remastered by EN, January 2025
370 MB FLAC/direct link

That is gonna finish out January on a pretty interesting note, and get me started on frontloading February to hit whilst I move my shit and flit from the pit to something more sunlit.

I will get started on putting together a nice sequence for the other dearly departed January star -- who somehow also left us at the age of 78 -- and I may even mess with the acoustic segment of it in the AI stem tool again to make it as great as it can be.

Don't you dare bypass the filter on this delicious Lynch special -- may he rest in peace -- though.... I don't wanna have to call in Frank Booth and his case of Pabst Blue Ribbon (!!!!!) to set you straight, now do I?!--J.

1.20.1946 - 1.15.2025

Ain't Nuthin' Like the Rael Thing

Genesis - The Lamia

I'm gonna keep it Rael as the underbelly of Manhattan Island with some uncooked Lamb, celebrating its 50th anniversary today as part of one of Rock's most legendary albums and tours.

The Best Concept Albums debate thread is as long as the internet is worldwide, and everyone has their preferences like with anything else.

You can rank the Top 10 any way you like, but most if not all I have seen always contain this one, with more than half lamenting why the tour -- surely one of the most theatrically and visually advanced ever seen up to then -- was never filmed professionally.

It's a weird story -- somewhere between David Lynch (we'll get to him in a few days, worry not) and The Pilgrim's Progress -- but The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway does what it does as unapologetically as any LP of the Rock epoch, and against all sanity manages to put across the most abstract drug-dream of a tale in an almost straightforward, linear way.

And that, as they say, is no easy feat.

I recently watched an interview with Mike Rutherford from now, where he was describing the experience of filming Genesis' first US TV appearance, on The Midnight Special at the end of 1973.

He was saying how only the lighting guys got what they were trying to do, and were eager to pull all the UV makeup, costumes and lighting and so forth off for TV.

As for the other artists, when they came offstage Steve Miller -- who was hosting the episode and had introduced them as "a new kind of rock: Theater Rock!" -- had a look on his face that Mike described as "9 kinds of what the fuck?!?!?"

Of course The Lamb -- my personal favorite concept record of ever, Prog Rock or otherwise -- is definitely in the realm of that reaction for some -- but it really dates pretty well if you ask me and stands the proverbial timetest with room to spare.

As for the tour and this concert, well.... I'd need three more posts to explain what happened when the G Men decided to issue the professional, mobile unit recording of it -- the only one of the tour taped to multitrack -- and proceeded to overdub a whole bunch of Peter Gabriel's vocals and Steve Hackett's guitars 20 years after the event.

Needless to say, they should have left it like it happened and not -- ok, this pun sucks gratuitously so I apologize in advance -- um, grandfathered in singing that sounded like Rael went looking for The Lamia and instead found Grampa Rael floating, face down, in the pool. And someone tell Steve Hackett (he'll be 75, as will Gabes, in February, so now they are legit grandfathers) he's allowed to make a guitar-flubbing, superclamalicious mistake once in a while, there's no need to cook The Lamb once it's done and on the table.

So yeah, they are issuing a big box set (in March I think) to celebrate the album in all its newly-remastered glory, and it will have the overdubbed-to-oblivion version of this show. But not the original, unaltered King Biscuit Flower Hour mix of it... you'll have to keep reading this to turn over that card, and luckily no one will force you to carpet crawl to The Chamber of 32 Doors to get there.

Genesis

Shrine Auditorium

Los Angeles, CA

1.24.1975

01 introduction to The Story of Rael

02 The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

03 Fly On a Windshield

04 Broadway Melody of 1974

05 Cuckoo Cocoon

06 In the Cage

07 The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging

08 The Story of Rael continued

09 Back In N.Y.C.

10 Hairless Heart

11 Counting Out Time

12 The Carpet Crawlers

13 The Chamber of 32 Doors

14 The Story of Rael continued

15 Lilywhite Lilith

16 The Waiting Room

17 Anyway

18 The Story of Rael continued

19 The Supernatural Anaesthetist

20 The Lamia

21 Silent Sorrow In Empty Boats

22 The Colony of Slippermen

23 Ravine

24 The Light Dies Down On Broadway

25 Riding the Scree

26 In the Rapids

27 IT

28 Watcher of the Skies

29 The Musical Box

Total time: 2:07:33

disc break goes after Track 13

Peter Gabriel - vocals, flute & percussion

Phil Collins - drums, percussion & vocals

Tony Banks - keyboards & vocals 

Steve Hackett - guitars 

Mike Rutherford - bass, bass pedals, guitars & vocals

320/48K audio of the King Biscuit Flower Hour unoverdubbed mix, streamed from Wolfgang's Vault

spectral analysis goes lossless to 20 kHz, making this essentially equivalent to a preFM source

the beginning of the introductory announcement is patched from the first "Genesis Archive" box set from the 1990s

stream converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, repaired, tracked & remastered by EN, January 2025
790 MB FLAC/direct link

I shouldn't have to say that this show is deeply flawed and they nearly go off the rails a number of times, with Phil Collins in particular occasionally seeming like he visited the wrong Weed Guy in LA before soundcheck that day 50 years ago. But overall it doesn't deserve the less-than-stellar reputation it has from being redone in the studio two decades on, and there are firebreathing moments from all five dudes as they play an album probably less than half of the packed Shrine has heard in its total, 95-minute entirety before hitting a few chestnuts the crowd can feel more familiarly.

I'm battling this eye shit and trying to move into a new space, but I have one more I am brewing up for the end of the month so stay tuned. And enjoy today's anniversary special, a delectable cut of Lamb to tickle the palate with a stickleback if ever there was one.--J.

True Colours: Eberhard Weber 85

Eberhard Weber & Colours - T. On a White Horse

Vic Vitreous here, with a sweet b'day tribute to a legend of the low end.

I've posted shows that feature him on the bass, but I've never covered him specifically so today is the day.

Probably the most respected bassist ever to be born in Germany, he began recording in Stuttgart in the mid 1960s.

By 1973 he had released his first album under his own name, and eventually formed a band, called Colours, of rotating compatriots to play his unique and evocative compositions.

As the 1970s progressed into the 1980s, he became one of the stalwarts -- and best selling artists -- aboard Manfred Eicher's incredibly seminal ECM label.

Known for his liquid, elastically phrased and melancholic tone on his instrument, his tunes straddle a territory somewhere between Chamber Jazz and funky Jazz-Rock, with most of his songs featuring prominent elements of both across a tapestry of sometime spare, sometimes lush accompaniment.

Is there such a thing as soothing Fusion? If there is, then Eberhard Weber -- born this day in 1940 -- is one of its most satisfying practitioners.

He's played with a whole galaxy of stars in a whole host of musical contexts, from Barbara Thompson's tremendous electric ensemble Paraphernalia to guesting on some of Kate Bush's most beloved LPs, such as The Dreaming.

He unfortunately suffered a debilitating stroke -- are there strokes that aren't? -- in 2007 and had to retire from active duty.

In 2021, a composition dedicated to him by one of his most frequent collaborators -- the late Lyle Mays, whom I'll get on here someday because I have shows of his on his own, out of his usual Pat Metheny Group context and playing his own stuff, and they are amazing -- was released and won the Grammy for Best Instrumental, if you can believe that.

So yes, Eberhard Weber -- still alive and 85 today -- is a Grammy winner.

Being able to count the other Grammy winners I've covered on here in 11 years of doing it on one hand, if not two fingers, there's something surprising weird about that.

I wonder how many ECM artists have won Grammys. Or is it Grammies? Or Grannies? Never mind, here are some excellent concerts to celebrate the great Eberhard Weber's big day.

Eberhard Weber & Colours

Nachtmusik im WDR

WDR Studios

Köln, Germany

2.5.1977

01 Eyes That Can See In the Dark/band introductions

02 Sandglass

03 Chicken Chicane

04 T. On a White Horse

05 Yellow Fields

06 Touch

Total time: 1:13:57

Eberhard Weber - bass 

Charlie Mariano - soprano saxophone, flute & nagaswaram 

Rainer Brüninghaus - keyboards

Danny Gottlieb - drums

sounds like a master reel of the pre-broadcast tape, from the WDR archives, of the complete concert

spectral analysis goes lossless past 22 kHz

edited, retracked & remastered by EN, January 2025
440 MB FLAC/link below

Eberhard Weber & Old Friends

33rd Internationale Jazzwoche 

Wackerhalle 

Burghausen, Germany

4.19.2002

01 Suggestion

02 Crosstalk

03 Wendekreis des Steinbocks

04 Horizons

05 Yellow Cab

06 Transtanz 

07 Und so weiter (And So On)

Total time: 1:38:21

disc break goes after Track 03

Eberhard Weber - bass

Wolfgang Haffner - drums

Jiggs Whigham - trombone

Klaus Doldinger - tenor saxophone

Manfred Schoof - trumpet & flugelhorn

Wolfgang Dauner - piano

384/48k audio from a PAL DVD of a German satellite TV broadcast

extracted, converted to 16/44 CD Audio, repaired, tracked, edited & remastered by EN, January 2025

601 MB FLAC/direct link to both shows

I shall return in 48 with more magisterial mayhem -- there may or may not be Prog Rock -- but don't miss out on bass brahmin Eberhard Weber here, or you'll fail your final exam in Low End Theory, and we can't have that!--J.