good monday morning to you
today im goin in to edit the footage
of the cchhru at the basement
ive already seen it
and its gonna be a real silk purse from a sows ear job
believe me
not cos i look like ive thoroughly lived
every one of them 51 years (baybee)
tho i do
not cos of bad sound and mistakes
tho it has these
but for the indefinable magic
that has been lost
the thing that held it all aloft
the glue that held it all in place
you know when people say
you hadda be there
theres some sense in that
i can think of so very very few live performances
that have not withered reproduced
in the sunny confines of yer living room
able to control the volume
ff and rewind
light n dark
pause
stop
the band have lost the hegemony
the audiences clappin n screamin
have receded to a polite smatter
the expressions of exstacy
pain abandonment
the grimacing that a guitar seems to wanna
make ya do
those crowsfoot inducing loud roars
instead of singing it proply
the impossible closeups
that no one would ever see
ah..
no one has ever really filmed us live
and captured it
cos it aint possible
the closest thing
believe it or not
is a single shot
of the whole band
from halfway up the middle
of the audience
thats who the bands playin’ to
not to a camera
six inches above and away from
yer left temple
so ya gotta see the whole band at once
its nonsensical to focus on the singer
thats why theyre a band, right?
i dunno
anyway
ive never felt the magic in live recordings neither
you gotta be there
thats it really
if you aint there
you cant get the feeling
on a cd or dvd at home
youve isolated one alkaloid
out of a whole drug
dont be surprised if the results
are disappointing
now ive realised this my whole life
im trying to think now
of a record that i like thats live
get your ya yas out
is the only one i can think of
and that cos it possibly snuck in
before mah critical faculties
sharpened up to todays
fever pitch
(nothin’ can get over the bar)
but as for anythin else
theyre all disappointin
(yeah dylan bootlegs too)
(and the dead, i cant understand
the dead AT ALL)
and all those tedious bowies double
live bore a thons
its like filming a play
it doesnt work
its wooden
its pedestrian
the cchhru live is a conceit
that needs an audience
it plays to the audience
it cannot play to a camera
the cchhru n cameras
do not intersect
its a one off thing
for that night
on dvd
on cd
the jokes dont make ya laugh
the music dont make ya love
the performance dont make ya live
so whats , uh, the deal…?
i dunno
its filmed now
i must only hope for amelioration
i must placate the inexorable gods
expressed in pixels n blanks
shadow n light
flicker
flicker
persistence of vision
you see muddy
i’ll steal from anywhere

ha!

sk