{"id":1741,"date":"2017-09-19T09:33:10","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T13:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/?p=1741"},"modified":"2017-09-19T09:36:01","modified_gmt":"2017-09-19T13:36:01","slug":"red-bats-future-and-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/19\/red-bats-future-and-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Bats, Future and Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here I sit, once again writing about coming out of a musical rut and referencing older recordings from my library<\/a>…<\/p>\n

I watched more TV this summer than I have in quite a while. Part of it was my gradually lifting music-making malaise<\/a>. Though, to be fair, it’s rare that I have “so many” new shows (i.e., more than one) I’m trying to stay current with at once. But over the last few months I juggled all of The Leftovers<\/em>, the second season of SENSE8<\/em> (a crime that it was canceled, even if a fig leaf of a finale film is to come), and the peerless Twin Peaks: The Return<\/em><\/a>. On top of the obligatory Game of Thrones<\/em>, of course, but, particularly in light of the latest season, it’s a cut below the others–entertaining but not compelling. Whereas I was utterly spellbound by The Leftovers<\/em> and Twin Peaks: The Return<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I know. Four shows, big whoop. In this era of Peak TV, there’s so much content to choose from and absorb. However, concerning TV, I’ve always been more the type to get really into a show and just watch and re-watch my favorites as opposed to watch many different shows. Depth versus breadth of intake. If I don’t like a show, I’ll quickly abandon it. If I do like it, I’ll give it my full attention and likely see it again. If I love it, look out. I’ll watch to the point of memorization and go quickly down the rabbit hole. If a show has a mythology, like Fringe<\/em> or Twin Peaks<\/em>, then clear my schedule.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, part of me is hesitant to glom onto a new show (new for me, even if not new itself), as I feel somewhat cursed in my tastes. In the last ten years, there’ve been two new shows that I started watching while they were actually new and was immediately attached to, John From Cincinnati<\/em>\u00a0and Sense8<\/em>. The former was critically panned and swiftly canceled. The latter received mixed reviews and was abruptly ended despite the last episode’s mid-mission cliffhanger. I admit that, even if a show is uneven, I give more weight to and prefer to watch something that takes a chance and is different, even if it may crash and burn in the process. (Hence my quibbling with The Force Awakens<\/em><\/a>, and my rolling my eyes why I saw that Abrams will return for Episode IX…yikes) For example, some of the performances on John From Cincinnati<\/em>\u00a0are downright abysmal. Yet JFC<\/em> contains some of my favorite characters, performances, and moments in any show. (Ed O’Neill’s Bill Jacks and Dayton Callie’s Steady Freddy are absolute gold.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, before I get too off track…<\/p>\n

(I could write an entry or three on John From Cincinnati<\/em>…that may come yet…but for now I’ll just enjoy being one of the few dozen folks who visit what old message boards remain. If you happen to be a fan that found this post vis the occasional search, feel free to drop a line…)<\/p>\n

Twin Peaks: The Return<\/em>\u00a0also deserves its own entry at some point. What an enchanting score and sound design (and I do love ambient sounds<\/a>…), both in and out of The Roadhouse–arguably more so outside of it, in my opinion. There’s been enough laudatory criticism recently, so I won’t go there. Such a triumph by David Lynch<\/a>. (But I will note that when re-watching Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me<\/em>\u00a0after seeing The Return<\/em>, it’s a revelation–almost like seeing it again for the first time.) Instead, I wanted to note a funny little indirect connection between another of Lynch’s works and my recent resurgence of musical productivity. In this case, it’s 1997’s Lost Highway<\/em><\/a>, shades of which can be seen in The Return<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I do love the original Twin Peaks<\/em>, though I came to it late much later. I recall coming across snippets in the past and it being in the ether when I was young (I was six when it debuted), but I didn’t fully dive into it and its prequel film until several years back. David Lynch, however, was certainly on my radar in my adolescence. I saw Lost Highway<\/em> in early 1998, and I went in mostly blind. I knew that it was supposed to have a good soundtrack<\/a> and be a little different, both of which were understatements. Lost Highway<\/em> was the first film I saw that left me utterly baffled at the end. Not yet fifteen, I liked it but couldn’t really articulate why. It was years before I saw it again and I remained bewildered by it, but I was just as spellbound as the first time.<\/p>\n

I got the soundtrack around the time of that first viewing. Nearly twenty years later, I still regularly listen to it. (Fittingly, it’s a good driving album.) One piece, a selection from Angelo\u00a0Badalamenti’s<\/a>\u00a0original score, in particular often stuck out above the rest, both then and now, especially in light of my recent trifecta of productive practice, heavy listening, and wallowing in The Return.<\/em>\u00a0That is Badalamenti<\/a>‘s “Red Bats With Teeth.” It’s probably a throwaway piece for many, considering the soundtrack features Trent Reznor (with and without Nine Inch Nails), David Bowie, Marilyn Manson<\/a>, Smashing Pumpkins<\/a>, Rammstein, and more. Reznor produced the soundtrack, and it’s worth noting that 1997’s Lost Highway<\/em> shares some similarities, in terms of overall sound, with 1999’s The Fragile<\/em><\/a>, my favorite Nine Inch Nails album.<\/p>\n

Considering my fondness for the the album and the fact that it’d be years before seeing another David Lynch work, it’d be accurate to say that Angelo Badalamenti was seared into my consciousness long before his filmmaking colleague.<\/p>\n

\"lost<\/p>\n

Initially “Red Bats with Teeth,” a jazz tune, stuck out to me because it featured the saxophone, and it was around 1998 that I started developing a strong interest in the horn. (Bill Pullman’s character, the protagonist for the film’s first half, is a saxophonist and “plays” this in an early scene. The tenor saxophone part was played by Bob Sheppard<\/a>.) I was listening to a little jazz by this time, but it was pretty sporadic. Pretty much all of it was straight ahead though. “Red Bats…” was one of my first tastes of something even approaching atonal or avant-garde, with the use of extended techniques and noise toward the end of the piece. In just under three minutes, the band goes from a smoky and laid back quasi-West Coast cool vibe to screeching over a frenzied groove. It sounded odd to me at first, but something about it drew me in. A young me recognized that it was intentional even if it sounded foreign. (A couple years later I threw myself down the jazz rabbit hole, but at that time it was still largely new.) The only thing I could really square it with was LeRoi Moore<\/a>‘s playing on some early live DMB<\/a> recordings, as he would occasionally get noise-y in the early years. But because one was jazz and the horn was the focus (“Bats”), and the other was rock and the horn was but just one element (DMB), they were different enough to be in separate categories for me.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YDMC2kNnIls<\/p>\n

These days, of course, I hear it in its various contexts. And it’s certainly Badalamentian–almost as if The Black Lodge had a jazz night.<\/p>\n

I won’t get hyperbolic and say that “Red Bats” itself led me down the path to eventually purchasing Evan Parker recordings. The line isn’t so direct. But it did open a door for me, and when I really think about it now, it was my patient zero in a way, at least when it comes to a very particular sort of saxophone vocabulary. But even with that loaded sentimental history, I still enjoy just throwing it on for a good jam. Especially these days, now that I’m starting to get back into a groove, and with Lynch again in the air.<\/p>\n

Those Red Room inhabitants are right to ask: “Is it future, or is it past?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here I sit, once again writing about coming out of a musical rut and referencing older recordings from my library… I watched more TV this summer than I have in quite a while. Part of it was my gradually lifting music-making malaise. Though, to be fair, it’s rare that I have “so many” new shows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1108,1106,1107,1109,1110],"class_list":["post-1741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","tag-angelo-badalamenti","tag-david-lynch","tag-lost-highway","tag-red-bats-with-teeth","tag-twin-peaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1741"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1749,"href":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1741\/revisions\/1749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}