Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Musician best known as a founding member of the Velvet Underground, also an experimental rock and classical composer.
On the island
Eight records
She Belongs to MeFavourite
Well, everybody sort of was looking sideways at Bob because they were astonished at all his power that that was coming out of his lyrics. And we knew that Nico had just come down to uh to be a member of the band, and she used to hang out with Bob at in in Woodstock. So when this song came along, everybody looked at each other and said, Wait a minute, this is about somebody we know.
I th yeah, this I I chose this track because Sterling always talked to me about this song as being one of the better of Lour's lyrical efforts and and it was interesting to hear him talk, as he he was a PhD in Middle English and and his approach to lyrics was always a little skewed. But I I listened to him about this and it's there's a certain nondescript quality to these lyrics that's very affecting.
Yeah, this is Brian's version of of how protective he found his room in his upbringing.
This was one of the darker songs, um, I Know What It's Like to Be Dead, and it surprised me because it really I I think is more of a Lennon-esque than a than a McCartney um frame of mind.
This is a song by um one of my favorite bands, Albo, and this is kind of about Teenage Angst and switching off.
This is uh a Leonard Cohn song, and when I heard it, I thought it was about a a Maybe that Leonard had a daughter that he he'd lost. It was very sad. But then I read an interview with him where he he he described how he got to the subject matter, which is such a circuitous route, but also the the route of a poet.
But I just realized that when I listen to cathedral music, I'm really not so much listening to the music as I'm listening to the building. And uh I love this piece.
It just got really interesting to me how to try and figure out how this song was written. I think maybe the piano was done first and then the vocal was done, but the l the link between the two is really tenuous. It's an amorphous sort of mood that you're in, but it but it's very beautiful and uh very calming.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:10What effect does it have then, this Welshness, John?
Just about. I I can't really put my finger on it. I just recognize it every time I cross the border. As long as I I go across that Seven Bridge and I go down into Shandailo or Kamarthan and and The countryside, and it it definitely has an effect, and I don't know what it is, but. The the language also has has a lot of resonance.
Presenter asks
6:46How would you put [the Velvet Underground's sound] into words?
Painful. It was it was a I mean, an amplified viola will clear a room faster than than a stink bomb. … Yeah, definitely. It was to really throw people back on themselves, make them think.
Presenter asks
16:27How did [your mother's illness] affect you?
Well the worst part of it was that there was no explanation. It's just one day your mother's gotta go away … And she'll be back in a little while or whatever. So it was it was really pulling the rug. Yeah, and um my grandmother did make it clear to me that she thought that it was because I was born that this had happened … I didn't understand it. I beat myself up about it for a while.
The keepsakes
The book
Alain Robbe-Grillet
There's a n there's a new novel by uh Alan Rob Grie called Repetition. That is one of those books that you can just read a page over and over and over. And it's it's just endless. I mean, it's just you you read something else in it every time you hear.
The luxury
Espresso machine with beans and grinder
It's an espresso machine, yeah. And beans. And a grinder.
Presenter asks
18:24What did you do to earn that tag [of the most hateful student at Goldsmiths]?
Well, I d I didn't do what I should have been doing. I mean, I should have been writing a a treatise on Anton Weber, Nielsen Symphonies, and um history of the Polyphonic Mass. I did the Polyphonic Mass, but I didn't do any of any of the others. … I'd wandered off the reservation. I'd gone into John Cage and You know, avant-garde music, which which was like screaming at a potted plant until it dies, you know.
Presenter asks
27:40What made that happen? What was the catalyst [for stopping the drink and drugs]?
No, I my my daughter was born and I realized that I was gonna miss out on really some great times if I didn't clear my head. And I was I was starting to lose my sense of humor as well. I just wasn't having fun.
“I sort of discovered music which made things a lot easier to communicate with people. Didn't have to say anything, no verbs, no nouns.”
“What you're describing is somebody who's a little bit lost, trying to find their way in a maze of different musical opportunities that are around, and choosing the one most difficult to achieve, which is the avant-garde, which really finally just burnt itself out.”
“I just came out so breathing heavily and saying it couldn't be that easy.”