Moondog

WHAT NYMITH SAYS

Moondog, full name Louis Thomas Hardin (1916 - 1999), is one of those people you can hardly believe existed, sounding more like an urban myth than a person. He lost his sight at 16, due to a farm accident involving a dynamite cap. He trained as a musician mostly by ear, with some help from braille books on music theory. He relocated from the midwest to New York in the 40s and set up as a street busker, supporting himself reasonably well in this manner. New York inhabitants called him "the Viking of 6th Avenue" as he would stand on the street in a cloak and horned helmet (the latter to keep people from comparing him to a monk as he had rejected Christianity in favour of the Norse Gods). How did he get albums out? Artur Rodzinski, conductor of the New York Philharmonic, took a shine to him and got him recording time with jazz labels, resulting in albums such as this one and its immediate sequel More Moondog. Eventually Mr. Hardin decided to relocate to Germany, where he lived out his days from 1974 to 1999.

The most astonishing thing about the album here reviewed (besides it getting released in the first place) is how easy it is on the ears. For those who live in fear of the word "avant-garde" this could be the perfect introduction - everything gentle, no atonal shrieks or dissonant ramblings encountered and few tracks lasting for more than two minutes. The record is a combination of what can only be called musical anthropology (found sounds and the like, exemplified by tracks like 'Dance Rehearsal,' where recorder and drum form the background for a dance instructor's voice and 'Tap Dance,' where Moondog's percussion joins forces with a tap dancer's feet), world music and a hint of modern classical. It is cerebral but soothing to the emotions as well.

Lowlights are few, due to the shortness of most tracks - only the final track, 'Street Scene,' counts as a disappointment as it departs from the more alluring fly-on-the-wall sound clips and features portentous poetry readings instead. Otherwise, it's all good, from the quirky frog percussion of 'Frog Bog' to the epic (six minute) 'Surf Session,' with a lovely violin melody played over the soothing sounds of the sea. A couple of other pieces also highlight quite expressive piano ('To a Sea Horse') or violin playing ('Tree Trail' with a background of chirping birds).

Then there's the well-nigh indescribable stuff - 'Big Cat' features a calm recorder melody and exited percussion interspersed with the snarls of some savannah predator and possibly an elephant's cry. 'Lullaby' and 'Death, When You Come To Me' both feature a Japanese woman's voice, the former soothing an infant with a mostly wordless lullaby, the latter providing weird incantations over a cascade of strange and mostly unidentifiable percussion glintings, scrapings, pops and gongs. At least when Tom Waits pulls that stuff, it's a good bet the weary reviewer can describe it as rattling bones and call it a day - I have NO clue how to convey what 'Death, When You Come To Me' sounds like. Another vocal piece, 'Trees Against the Sky,' (sadly not even a minute long) is what is called a "round," where singers create an organic delay effect by singing the exact same melody while starting at different times.

It doesn't all rise to this level of interest but the bottom line is that nothing else sounded like this at the time, and I rather doubt since (except for Moondog's other output, goes without saying). Unlike with Sun Ra's offering of the same year, Moondog lives up to its promise as something truly different but the most pleasant surprise is in how well this avant-garde minimalism holds up, never overstaying its welcome and providing a calming backdrop for any morning. A thoroughly satisfying discovery.

And if you haven't had enough and want more Moondog then you're in luck because that's what you get with More Moondog, a second release from 1956 with a similar title, cover, set of songs and mood. It puts more emphasis on pure percussion than its predecessor but is still so similar that I can't really justify putting it in a seperate review. I prefer Moondog because of the stronger eclecticism and the lack of the eight minute 'Moondog Monologue,' a poetry reading much too long to fit into the flow of the album. However, here are some highlights to look out for: haunting percussion can be found on 'Conversation and Music at 51st St. and 6th Ave. (New York City)' and the droning 'Oboe Round' is like Desertshore-era Nico. 'Chant' is a chant, full of vitality, but it cuts off abruptly at 44 seconds and should have had more development. 'Ostrich Feathers Played on a Drum' gives a straight answer to the question of what that would sound like.

Most notable of the pieces is probably 'All is Loneliness,' another of Moondog's rounds, which gained a little fame nine years after the fact through a cover on Big Brother and the Holding Company's début, where it got an extra couple of lines thrown in (just to give Janis Joplin something to do, I suspect) and substituted dark trippiness for the "tribal holy rites" that was a Moondog speciality. What's surprising is that it wasn't even looser an adaptation, given the San Francisco scene and all.

WHAT TICHARU SAYS

Moondog is an interesting record that I don't really care for, I suppose that's because it sounds like a field recording... it's a little like booking a holiday, expecting to sit by the seaside because you can see the ocean in the brochure but when you get to your room (put on the record) you find the only way you'll be sat by the seaside is after a very long walk down an enormous hill, along a dark path with bitey insects, blurping frogs, crying babies, lions and yes even somebody playing a piano which sounds oddly like Carmen... did I mention the ballet lesson? Next time I'll think to book a room right next to where I want to be.

Oh but Ticharu, you missed the point of this record! Well yeah, maybe I did, but getting back to the bed and breakfast analogy, staying up the hill well away from the pleasant sea front is just the thing if you've brought your mountain bike. I put in the effort to go on vacation, ie. listen to the record, I don't want to have to make an effort to enjoy it. Sure, it can be ten tons of weird and wonderful but so much of this record just sounds like a tape recorder at the zoo. An interesting artefact?