Genius.
I check in on the ESPN cultural offshoot site Grantland on a regular basis. I don’t always agree with their writers’ points of view and I often find their pieces even more ponderous and self-involved than stuff I like to read and write, but I much prefer reading overwrought articles on subjects like sports and the arts than the short, publicist-driven blurbs that fill up too much of the media. Last week Grantland waived a tempting piece in my face:
Deconstructing Harry
I couldn’t help but be aware that some new Harry Nilsson box set was on the market. Some headlines and Facebook mentions had been flying around. I skipped clicking on any of the links. The Genius of Harry Nilsson is a topic that drives me to call my close, personal friend, E. Pluribus Gergely, once a year to find a sympathetic ear for a well-needed rant over how disappointing I find this artist’s genius status. I’ve been trying to catch up with EPG, and it was tempting to click on the link to the Grantland piece as fuel for our coming dinner plans. But I couldn’t make that click. I can’t stand reading another thing about The Genius of Harry Nilsson, not after watching a documentary on him a few months ago.
Maybe I complained about this after watching that doc. I spent 2 hours of my life learning about a bright kid from a screwed-up family who grew up to hold a real job before showing early promise as a songwriter, singing a smash movie soundtrack hit song that he didn’t write, and writing a couple of catchy songs and making a precious solo album that was pretty much overlooked thanks to the singer’s odd, high-pitched voice and Nordic, thoroughly non-rocking looks. Next he was befriended by members of The Beatles and The Who, at which point he would make his greatest impact on rock ‘n roll: dragging John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and Keith Moon through the early ’70s LA club scene. From this point the documentary explicitly kept the focus on Nilsson’s largely ignored, quirky solo albums, but the implied focus was that he could really party for a fairly “square” guy whose increasingly sporadic artistic efforts were focused on making an album of American pop standards, a precursor, it might be argued, to Rod Stewart’s groundbreaking, late-career works.
The final third of the movie involved an ever-expanding circle of cool music and movie friends celebrating and lamenting Harry’s ability to drink a fifth of vodka and wet the bed. I don’t mean to be too harsh on the guy and his fans, but a brief creative flare followed by decades of horrendous decline no longer stimulate my rock-doc appetites. I can’t stand it anymore.
Tormented or tormentor?
On a related note, I recently watched that Ginger Baker documentary. Have you seen it? I’m still not sure that I ever dig his drumming on Cream records, but he’s also considered a Tormented Genius. The documentary moves from his 18 minutes of fame drumming for Cream to a lifetime of misery and bad vibes. For being a complete prick who briefly drummed for an overrated psych band I am expected to watch a 2-hour documentary on Ginger Baker. As if I ever cared. No one ever called my prick of a dad a tormented genius.
Well, I watched the Ginger Baker documentary through the end. The joke was on me.
We seem to be on opposite sides of the Harry Nilsson genius status. I watched and enjoyed that documentary a few months ago on Netflix. I have the Grantland article bookmarked for reading later.
Maybe you don’t dig him because he doesn’t “rock”? He’s more of a “pop” guy. Plus he’s more piano than guitar?
I have yet to watch the Baker doc but am looking forward to it despite the fact that I hate Crapton and Cream.
Harry Nilsson: classic C-30 artist. I think about five or six of his songs are indispensible, but for the most part he just drives me crazy. Some artists just sound over-thought, overwrought and much too “meta” to me, and he’s one of them. He sings in a beautiful kind of way, but there’s too much sing-beauty, and it becomes grating to me. His songs are written in a tuneful kind of way, but I find the tunes too hopped up on hook/harmony steroids to be naturally appealing. Everything about that guy sounds forced to me — but a big part of his appeal was supposed to have been the EXTREME NATURAL-NESS of his songwriting and singing gift. I don’t hear it. He’s presented as an extremely “important” songwriter. An overlooked, insider’s secret kind of one to boot! I smell a Van Dyke Parks in here somewhere.
You’ve summarized much of my beef with Nilsson, HVB. Plus, I get increasingly annoyed by even supposedly supremely gifted artists who piss it away. Documentarians and arts fans should leave more time in their lives for appreciating artists who are trying to make the most of whatever gifts and ambitions they might have. I’m sounding a bit like my Mom the time, about 10 years ago, when she went on a rant about a full-page Catherine Zeta-Jones ad for some mobile phone company.
“Why does she have to do this ad? She doesn’t need the money! She’s got her own money and she’s married to that old prune, Michael Douglas!” my Mom suddenly exclaimed while reading the paper at our kitchen table.
My wife and I were puzzled by this outburst (NOT the fact that she had an outburst of this magnitude, however – that’s a family trait).
“Why shouldn’t she be the spokesperson for this company,” I asked. “She’s beautiful!”
“She is,” my Mom replied, “but she’s taking work she doesn’t need from some beautiful young woman who needs a break.”
Speaking of things I can’t stand anymore…’80s revivalism. I remember hearing music by this local band, Man Man, in the past that sounded cool. This sounds like Tears for Fears or something along those lines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI1PWcTe0W4
geo, I think I recall you being down with these guys from the start. What’s the deal with this song? Is it a natural progression or a blatant play for wider appeal?
I always thought halfhis songs were some woman singing them. What was with the word games with his name for his album titles? That just bugged me. I think Harry Nilsson was my grandmother’s idea of good Rock music.
I only read the Grantland article. I found his life story really interesting. But I’m just reading about him, not listening to him.
How bizarre is it that in the 70s he put an hour long cartoon on a major network based on an idea he had while tripping in the forest? He had the clout to do that?
And the partying stories are juicy fun.
They have been smoothing out over time, but I still dig ’em. Their material splits a little between frantic cartoony stuff and some Weill like slower piano balladry, much like Tom Waits can go from junkyard noise to a number like “innocent When you Dream”. They are pushing this album as a shify in direction, but I don’t think they’ll completely lose the wild edge.
Their doing two nights at Union Transfer at the end of October and you should get outta Jersey and see ’em. Jacob might enjoy it.
This nifty performance of a song from about 2006 shows the roots of the new sound were buried under there all along.
I have never understood the appeal of Nilsson. His voice just rubs me the wrong way, and so whatever else he has going on will never get through to me. There’s also a cuteness factor that is always a dealbreaker for me.
I am interested in the Ginger Baker movie, though not so much because of Cream. He lived in Africa in the 70s and played with Fela. In the 80s he was briefly part of Bill Laswell’s studio crew. That’s how he ended up on PiL’s Album, the one with Rise on it. He recorded a couple of very Laswellesque albums (Horses & Trees and Middle Passage) that I highly recommend, if you like that kind of stuff as I do.
He also briefly was a member of the hard rock group Masters of Reality, and the album he appeared on, Sunrise on the Sufferbus, is also recommended.
So I think one fascinating thing about him is that he’s managed to have a very long and varied musical career very much under the radar. He’s recorded a lot of stuff I have no interest in, but there are people who like some of that who wouldn’t like the parts of his discography that I like.
Also he’s very well known as Not A Nice Man, and he’s apparently pretty unapologetic about it. The documentary from what I hear doesn’t sugarcoat this, so I think it might be interesting.