#Terry Adams

[musicmags]

[fredseibertdotcom]

THE WATT WORKS FAMILY [1990 catalog]

Download THE WATT WORKS FAMILY at Scribd

This WATT catalog is 35 years old, maybe in the age of the internet, their last one. 

Working with Carla Bley and Michael Mantler was one of the great inspirations of my young work life. Which is probably why I’ve posted a number times of some of their work, from the time I worked with them and afterwards too. 

Why am I so interested? Carla and Mike were perfect models of talent, sure, but also resilience, perseverance, determination, and blind, stupid, confidence. We first became acquainted after I crashed a recording session for Carla’s ‘operatic’ Escalator Over the Hill, which they financed themselves, and out of frustration, released and distributed themselves on JCOA Records. which eventually spawned the self determination of the New Music Distribution Service and WATT Works, a label for their continuing works. 

When I bumped into this 1990 catalog from THE WATT WORKS FAMILY (by then with bass/composer stalwart Steve Swallow, daughter/composer Karen Mantler [and her cat Arnold], and distributed internationally by ECM Records) I was struck, not only by the sheer volume of personal, completely –can I emphasize completely?– independent work, but also the sheer value of creating this work self sufficiently. It made me suddenly aware of why I felt they were so influential to me. 

Are there any other musical composers who’ve succeeded in getting their music recorded with no outside creative interference? Who, because of that complete independence, were able to experiment –often successfully, quite a few, not so much*– across such a wide range of the possibilities of their music? And think about it, what composers have you ever listened to who were completely unafraid of reaching beyond the box they were put in (’jazz’ in their cases) to artists that had the unique talents, and not for nothing, commercial possibilities? (Their records have spanned the Western world of contemporary music... from the jazz world, Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor, Pharaoh Sanders, Charlie Haden, Larry Coryell, Roswell Rudd, but also Linda Ronstadt, Jack Bruce, Robert Wyatt, Don Preston, Terry Adams, and of course, I’ve left out dozens of others.) 

Let me stress, it was unbelievably hard for them to hit those accomplishments,  no one can say that success is easy. But, it is their very independence that gave them room to try. You know what they say... “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

.....

From the introduction: 

Now the truth can be told. The WATT recording label is not the idealistic, uncompromising, visionary creation of two young revolutionaries. No, Michael Mantler and Carla Bley started WATT, almost 20 years ago, to make money. 

Like all musicians, they assumed that once the world got to hear their unique individual styles, fame and riches would follow. So they slaved over each new release, always sure that the latest one would sell millions.

Carla went through many phases. After realizing that no one was interested in hearing her zany capricious fantastic amazingly intricate concoctions for large assortments of weird and wonderful musicians, she tried to write simple little songs for small, boring groups of anonymous hacks. Mike, on the other hand, stuck firmly to his grandiose style, turning out gaunt tragic forlorn bleak emotionally distraught masterpieces, certain that someday his music would pay off. 

Finally giving up all thoughts of ever cashing in on their own efforts, they formed an·auxiliary company, XtraWATT, and started looking for young talent to exploit. The first sucker that they stumbled upon was Steve Weisberg. He was definitely young, and ready to work for nothing. It wasn't difficult to recruit 20 other desperate musicians to play on his album, I CAN'T STAND ANOTHER NIGHT ALONE (IN BED WITH YOU), by promising to pay them lots of money when it came out. 

Next to fall for the XtraWATT scam was young veteran jazz bassist Steve Swallow, who, desirous of getting his collection of overkeening faux-negre soul ballads recorded, handed over his life savings to Mantler·to cover "expenses", and even agreed to call the album CARLA.

But word of the racket got out, and no one else could be found who was willing to record for XtraWATT. In desparation, Mantler and Bley forced their own child, Karen, to learn a few chords and simple melodies. They even tried to train their cat to sing the resulting ditties. (Most of those efforts had to be replaced by unsuspecting teenaged humans, but the album was still called MY CAT ARNOLD, to avoid paying royalties.)  

In spite of Mantler's greedy misdoings (word has it that Bley is just a pawn in his game), his victims still adore him, having nothing to compare their music business experiences to. Even Weisberg, who has confessed that he has ambitions of someday graduating into the clutches of a big-time criminal at a real record company, is embarrassingly grateful.  

Naturally, the entire WATT/XtraWATT family was honored to go along with his latest plot. Hopefullly, some nice journalist or salesperson will notice how interesting and valuable the music is, and persuade the public to finally fork over those dollars! 

.....

*Some reviews, taken from the catalog: 

“…the finest examples of progressive large ensemble work written and recorded in America in 1975.” –Downbeat 

“This record is a real dog.”  

“It’s delightful.” –Melody Maker 

“…the least listenable record I have ever heard.” –Melody Maker 

“Everything Jesus Christ Superstar should have been and isn’t.” –Changes 

“This is a record which all rock musicians as well as general audiences should listen to with care.” –Rolling Stone 

[jt1674]

[julio-viernes]

La banda de Louisville, Kentucky, incluyó en su álbum debut de 1969 "NRBQ" una preciosa canción compuesta por Carla Bley y Terry Adams, "Ida", dedicada a la actriz y cantante Ida Lupino.

Era un momento en el que Bley era casi una total desconocida, pero ya se sabe del gusto del Nuevo Quinteto / Cuarteto de Ritmo y Blues , aparte de su siempre brillante y celebrada "good time music", por extrañas criaturas como Albert Ayler, Sun Ra (en ese mismo primer LP NRBQ hicieron su "Rocket Number 9"), Thelonious Monk o la propia Bley.

En 1979, Carla Bley compuso y produjo las canciones del primer álbum en solitario de Nick Mason, baterista de Pink Floyd, "Fictitious Sports", aunque el disco no fue publicado hasta 1981.

Es un elepé en el que cualquier parecido con Pink Floyd es fortuito. En realidad es un disco de Carla con el gran Robert Wyatt de cantante en el que también toca Mason, pero se agradece, para sonidos Floyd en solitario ya están los de Waters, Gilmour y Wright.

[astralbondpro]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine // S05E03: Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places

[diioonysus]

red + art

[tampire]

Aziraphale and Crowley with Adam Young in Good Omens / The Corinthian and Morpheus with Rose Walker in Sandman

[captainfantasticalright]

Scenes that left me pondering for a while in Good Omens:

The parallel here of just standing in front of a figure that’s supposed to represent you, to mirror you, but it couldn’t be farther away from the real being looking back at it. It’s not a reflection of them in an image, it’s a deeper reflection of the soul. They both look at it with a set of understanding, but coming from other foreign eyes who have never lived or embodied these figures; that have been molded by stories and hearsay.

It’s got a taint of truth in it, but it’s never an accurate representation. And I love that.

[spaceshiprocket]

Wolverine by Arthur Adams and Terry Austin

[bluberryfields]

Had a silly idea of combining Crowley gifs with Zaphod Beeblebrox quotes because they're my two favorite characters and I'm very weird. I think it weirdly works, though

[atomic-raunch]

Terry Higgins on the cover of Adam Vol. 3 No. 11, 1959

[cloud-based-and-rainpilled]

Good Omens is just Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for bisexuals who were forced to go to Sunday school

[julio-viernes]

Como me sigue picando no haber podido ver ayer a los NRBQ, me consuelo viendo algunos de los vídeos que ha subido J.F. León que dan una idea aproximada (menos por el sonido) de lo que ayer se vivió en Funhouse. "Me and The Boys" la versionó Dave Edmunds en su excelente "7Th" (1982), el primero que no tenía en nómina a Rockpile después de varios años tocando con ellos. Fue un LP muy satisfactorio con cosas como "From Smalls Things (Big Things One Day Come)", que le regaló el Jefe, fan suyo, y una estupenda versión de "Louisiana Man". No estuvieron Lowe, Bremner y Williams, pero sí John David, Geraint Watkins, Dave Peacock, John Earle, Mickey Gee y Albert Lee, y, claro, el LP suena como un tiro. En su siguiente "Information" (1983) versionó otra de las más recordadas de NRBQ, "I Want You Bad".

[sinceisawviennaa]

this woman was out here committing literal war crimes and it was just? chill?

[spikes-got-anger-issues]

Happy 12 years of Lab Rats ❤️🐀🎂

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] 🎊 15 🎊 [16] [17] [18]

[outmakingmoonshine]

The conversation Syd has with Shapiro in 3x10 is of course about the job he offered her but the main questions of the conversation are: Has Syd told Carmy yet? Why hasn't she told Carmy yet? Does she still want to tell Carmy? When is she going to tell Carmy? Then a noncommittal agreement that she will tell Carmy "soon". As much as it's about the job offer, all these questions are about Carmy too. The questions are forcing Syd to think about why she can't just tell him, and deep down she knows why. (S1 Syd wouldn't have hesitated this long to tell Carmy and take the offer, especially since the way he's been treating her in S3 is worse than what made her leave in 1x07. Syd, unlike Carmy, is more aware of the kind of treatment she does and doesn't deserve.)

So we can assume as their conversation comes to a close and Shapiro walks off giving her a minute alone to think, Syd's mind is on Carmy and the reason only she knows, why she hasn't told him.

Well just after Shapiro walks away and Syd has her moment to think Big White Cloud by John Cale plays through the next few shots

(Syd's in a room full of wine bottles, mind you. I don't wanna divert the topic too much but in the table scene, the wall of alcohol bottles is always behind, above and "weighing down" Carmy's side of the table for the entire 5 minute zoom in. The table they're both fixing "their side of" which represents their relationship and them "keeping their side of the street clean." <<Thank you to @yannaryartside for writing this incredible meta! I think the bottles represent Carmy and him being a type of addict, in repeating traumatic patterns, not necessarily an alcoholic.)

The chrous of the song repeats the same lyrics over and over again starting from the last shot of Sydney and ending at the first shot of Carmy, with a Chef Terry & Syd parallel transition scene connecting them.

The lyrics:

Oh I love it, yes I love it Oh I love it so Oh I love it, yes I love it Oh I love it so Oh I love it, yes I love it

I think the song is about more than just Carmy, but I think it's also strongly about Carmy. Especially based on all the questions Shapiro was asking right before it. It's also about the restaurant Syd's been building and everyone working there too, but I think this might be subliminally telling us why Syd hasn't told Carmy yet and why she doesn't want to. She loves the restaurant, she loves the family they've built there together and the most painful, frustrating part that's keeping her from jumping at Shapiro's offer is she loves Carmy.

The Syd and Shapiro scene ends with Syd walking out and if the camera was following her like it follows Chef Terry in the video, we would be seeing Syd's back walk away. Instead the next shot is CT's back walking away. She walks up to this hanging art thing, stops to admire it for a second, then sees Carmy pass behind her and goes to find him.

The Chef Terry transition scene makes it seem like these two scenes of Syd & Carmy aren't connected by this song but the CT scene is a mirror of this scene of Syd looking at the same art earlier in the episode:

In both scenes the art is in the shot first, Syd/Chef Terry walk into the shot, they stop to admire the artwork for a second, (they linger a bit longer in CT's scene to drag out the space between the shots of Syd & Carmy while this song is playing) then they both walk away to find Carmy.

They also walk in the same way. The CT scene is the perspective we would've seen if the camera follwed behind Syd like this when she walked up to the art when she arrived but the camera in Syd's scene is waiting where the scene ends in the hallway that Syd walks down. You can see the same plant in front of the grey wall on the left of CT that's on Syd's left as she walks past, the design on the white wall, the flower arrangement ahead that Syd walks towards etc

The scenes are almost identical, they're just shot from different angles so they look and feel completely different. But imagine if it was Syd in CT's scene, the resulting conversation Chef Terry had with Carmy outside is exactly the kind of open, honest conversation Syd & Carmy need to have.

Also notice Syd walks down the hallway into the restaurant to find Carmy but finds a very absent, unfocused version of him. Chef Terry turns back the way she came and goes out of the restaurant to find Carmy and she finds a more present, attentive version of him. Sydcarmy deperately need to connect outside of work. It was magical when they did in the apartment in 2x02 but then he didn't show up to Kasama and started dating Claire...which shouldn't have been an issue if their connection & story was just about work & friendship!

The song continues to play and as the third "oh I love it" comes in we go to a shot of Carmy with his back to us facing a bright artificial light. (Remember he left Syd behind in the restaurant? Syd is represented by natural light, not artificial light and we know it's likely Carmy goes back to Claire in S4, hence him looking into the artificial light here with his back to the restaurant where Syd is. And maybe coincidence, maybe not, the last line Syd said before the song started playing was "I'm right behind you". Chef Terry, who was just mirrored to Syd, walks up behind him.)

Also the clothes rail on the left looks very similar to the one we saw Sydney picking her chef's coat from in 3x09 while trying to figure out how to break the news to either Carmy or Shapiro and those look like Chef's coats, just like Sydney had on hers.

And I just left the start of the conversation between Carmy & Chef Terry in because it sounds so sydcarmy coded, further making the point that these scenes are connected to their story together.

Chef Terry tells Carmy later in their talk that she's closing the restaurant because she just wants to go out and live life and Carmy seems to think about that and wonder if he could have that too. Considering Carmy's willing to bend over backwards to keep Syd around and doesn't seem to give anywhere near the same energy to anyone else, I'd say he wants to be able to do that with Sydney but doesn't feel like it's possible because she wants a star and he's determined to make her happy, even if that means suffering in the darkest parts of his mind for months just to get it for her.