2005-08-12 - 10:08 a.m.
In a fit of extreme "I have not heard Grace Jones' Slave to the Rhythm for ages", I ran upstairs.
I turned on the Sound card, the computer, the amp, the mixer and the CD player - as usual. Then, as I had not the patience to wait for my computer to get itself ready, I ran to the cupboard and fished out the old fashioned CD and "whacked it in".
Anyone familiar with this piece will remember the beginning narrative on the album version (John Hurt I believe) As he recites...
"rhythm is both the songs manical and its demoinc charge.
It is the original breath , it is the whisper of unremitting demand.
What do you still want to be said of the singer?
What do you think you can still draw from my lips?
Exact presence that no fantasy can represent.
Purveyor of the old secret, alive with the blood that boils again,
And is pulsing where the rhythm is torn apart.
How your singers blood is incensed at the depth of sound.
Lacerations echo in the mouths open erotic sky where dance together,
The lost trenches of rhythm and an imploring immobility...
Ladies and gentlemen...miss grace jones...jones the rhythm."
As I slowly cranked up my sliders on the mixing desk to blast it out of my Event 2020's, I heard a disgusting crackling sound. "Eew" came to mind immediately and a further deep seated irritation of all cheap and nasty musical equipment (the stuff I can afford) began to flood my veins quicker than the THC. I traced the crackling back from the speakers all the way back to my 2 CD Neumark Mixer (4 channel) and was STILL at a loss.
Then I realized it may have been the CD?!?!?! Using my cunning I put the CD into the computer as the computer does a better job of extracting the data so that scratches are SOMETIMES less likely to be physically heard. Not the case with Grace Jones.
The upshot is that some of my older CDs are now beginning to fail.
So I resigned myself to listening to it like it is playing on a friggin gramophone.
I thought I might be able to recoup my loss by using the local bars internet connected Duke box and, excited that I had found it, was instantly deflated by a terrible version of it I had never heard - and will be at great pains to never again hear. The final irritation being the fact that this tune pierced a somewhat quiet and music-less bar, causing all and sundry to turn to said Juke Box where your hero still had to enter more songs and own up to being the chooser of such a vile piece of music.
Ugh.
Im just about to go to BUY.com and get it on CD AGAIN.
p
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