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"He had a word, too. Love he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack."
In the space of just six months in 1929-30, William Faulkner was married to his high school sweetheart, saw his breakthrough novel "The Sound and The Fury" published, and wrote its follow-up in just six weeks during his breaks while working the night shift at the University of Mississippi's Power House. (He says he did not change a word of it either). Two significant events shaped "As I Lay Dying." His marriage to Estelle Oldham, just two months after her divorce, likely made him an outsider. That point of view shapes the family life portrayed in the work. The second was the stock market crash of 1929. Not that it would openly affect the family here or many families in the rural South. However, as America plunged into poverty and starvation - families like those in "As I Lay Dying" and how they lived would be better understood.
Derived and inspired by Homer's Odyssey, "As I Lay Dying" follows Addie Bundren's death and her family's journey to bury her in her hometown of Jefferson, MS. Addie is the portrait of a strong mother. As she is getting ready to die, she remembers her father saying "the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead for a long time." She is waiting to - as Shakespeare would say "shuffle off this mortal coil" - and watching her most industrious child the firstborn Cash builds her a coffin. There in the July heat, Addie passes. Storms follow, swelling the rivers and leaving the bridges barely ready for normal travel - much less with a coffin in tow.
The journey is about the family, namely her husband Anse, and their five children: Cash, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman. Faulkner hands the storytelling to them. We hear from 15 different characters over 59 chapters. (Hence, questions about a reliable narrator like last week's "Absalom! Absalom!" will have to wait). This is Faulkner's stream of consciousness comprising a variety of different perspectives. The language here is everything. Different generations use different words. Different households communicate in coded output. Faulkner takes what looks to the outside as a simple life, and points out the maze of complications. (For example, Addie's friend Cora Tull describes several unwise decisions to make money without assignation of fault, instead only implying. "So I saved all the eggs and baked yesterday. The cakes turned out real well. We depend a lot on our chickens. They are good layers. What few we have left after the possums and such. Snakes too, in the summer. I had to be more careful than ever. Because it was on my final say-so we took them").
In Addie's chapter, she writes from beyond the grave ("Sometimes I would lie by him in the dark, hearing the land that was now of my blood and flesh"). While all her children and the Tulls remember her as a mother (except strangely Cora who would say she was not a "true mother"), Faulkner makes the case that she may be more like Mother Earth. Her memories are biblical. She is "planted" by her father, and then a switch to punish her children ("Now you are aware of me! Now I am something in your secret and selfish life, who have marked your blood with my own for ever and ever").
Each character in her memory ignites a distant, likely subconscious memory. She hears nature in the geese overhead. She struggles with words after the birth of Cash, ("I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at"), only to take them apart first out of doubt ("I knew that fear was invented by someone that never had the fear," and then mask her own identity ("I could think of myself as no longer unvirgin").
Addie's growth and comfort in the earth are reflected in her grasp of phrases. As she struggles with them, Faulkner turns them into a thing of beauty, "words like spiders dangling by their mouths from a beam, swinging and twisting and never touching." Before she identifies everyone more clearly. Her husband Anse and "love" are equal and synonymous with each other. Darl's birth is the genesis of her wish to go back to Jefferson when she dies. Then it is death (pending or in memory) that oddly teaches her to be "alive "as she hears "the dark land talking of God's love and His beauty and His sin."
Finally, bringing it all together as the cries of her people are just like those of the geese that once bothered her. The blood that brought her children to life, is now "a red bitter flood boiling through the land." Then it is over. She returns with "no beginning or ending to anything then." She is holding Anse. She found Jewel. She "negatives" Jewel with Dewey Dell, and uses Vardaman as "replacement." (NOTE: Vardaman has a completely different idea of what his mother is). Now with only "milk, warm and calm," "salvation is just words too."
Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
DEF LEPPARD - Diamond Star Halos
Like the classic relaunch of their longtime home Mercury Records, Def Leppard blast back into the past on their twelfth album. "Diamond Star Halos" actually recalls the Glam of their borrowed title from T.Rex. The band is, as "Fire It Up" urges, "bringing the big beat back." The songs are built like sleek automobiles, ready to dazzle with style and then speed away. Phil Collen, their longtime secret weapon on lead guitar, puts together some soaring solos and riffs that bite. "Take What You Want" is a chunky album lead-off in the tradition of "Rock! Rock (Til You Drop") and "Hello America." The whole package sounds like classic Mutt Lange productions (mainly the 12 million-seller "Hysteria," and even brings on Alison Krauss for a Country-ish spotlight on "This Guitar."
[LP/CD](Fat Possum/The Orchard)
MJ LENDERMAN - Boat Songs
[LP/CD](Dear Life/Redeye)
Chicago's Dehd made a real sonic breakthrough on "Flower of Devotion," Their lovelorn surfy indie rock songs (2019's "Water") took on new dimension and shading. The rhythms stayed so consistent that you never noticed they were quite minimal to begin with. Emily Kempf's vocals became the brassy hook. Jason Balla's lyrics and vocals acted as both counterpoint and a need to push the band harder. "Blue Skies" picks up there as the trio branch out into danceable songs ("Stars" and its B-52's guitar twang) as Kempf unleashes a true "Bop." Their lyrics and melodies are finally intertwined as much as their voices. If they were in love and breaking up on "Water," then they are finally at least in love with the music they make on "Blue Skies."
MJ Lenderman does his time in the band Wednesday. However, on his solo album "Boat Songs," he makes Slackerdom sound like the most fun it has been since the Nineties. His washy rasp and punk/twang guitar twist and bend Southern Rock into modern American Indie Rock. With hints of Pavement, X, and Dinosaur Jr, "Boat Songs" is a blistering array of clever songs that toe the line between bleak humor and self-parody. "Hangover Game" examines the famous Michael Jordan game where he had a "fever" but only for your sense of personal disbelief that if this did happen to lead to what else is not to be believed. "Boat Songs" is all swagger and attitude. "Toontown" comes on like classic Built to Spill. Lenderman rages against some kind of light on the Neil Young-ian "Tastes Just Like it Costs." With the steel guitar and its Southern strut, "You Have Bought Yourself A Boat" could easily make him a Drive-By Trucker (if he wanted.) "Boat Songs" is all hooks and as raw as ever. Lenderman sounds at times like he is trying to tame his guitar and then plays a lick so masterful that it should be front-and-center in the mix. Alt. Country, AAA, Americana, and Alternative all have a new star on the horizon.
[8LP+7" SUPER DELUXE](Geffen/UME)
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the groundbreaking "Nevermind," the classic album has been given multiple additions that help illuminate its impact. Signed to DGC on the heels (and insistence of tour mates Sonic Youth), Nirvana came into 1991 with a significant head of steam for a bratty yet melodic punk-ish band. Signed to upstart Seattle label SubPop in 1988, Nirvana was the first band to have a multi-album deal. Their initial single 1988's "Love Buzz" (a darker cover version of the Shocking Blue track) was a College Radio hit. 1989's "Bleach" (made for $606) became a substantial College Radio hit and sold nearly 40,000 copies. Nirvana suddenly became a live band in demand, and their crowds were getting larger and more chaotic. However, they were changing dramatically. Using drummer Dan Peters of Mudhoney, they cut "Sliver/Dive" in 1990 and found that even a 7" single was making waves.
In September 1990, the final piece fell into place - drummer Dave Grohl. Signed to DGC and working with their dream producer Butch Vig, they sculpted the songs of "Nevermind," which ran the gamut from older tracks ("In Bloom") to half-written cuts finished in the studio ("On A Plain.") Sampling from such a wide palette with major-label money resulted in the refinement of "Nevermind." Still, the fledgling band ran out of time to mix and had to turn it over to Andy Wallace. DGC hoped to sell 250,000 (selling under 200k like Babes In Toyland was seen as a failure - a whole different time than now where Kendrick, Bad Bunny, and Future all move that many units to much applause.) However, in September 1991, the lead single (not meant to be the hit - just their introduction to the world at large) "Smells Like Teen Spirit" made Heavy Rotation on MTV and College Radio. The dam was breaking. The single was so popular it crossed over to Album Rock radio first and then Top 40. So the first 150,000 copies are released on September 24th and they literally go to the majority of record stores in their home of the Pacific Northwest. They sell out immediately. Shows are oversold. Tour dates are added and everywhere they play, the press follows and mayhem ensues.
The box set adds furious shows from Amsterdam (11.25.91,) California (12.28.91,) Melbourne AUS (2.1.92), and Tokyo (2.19.92.) These never-before-released complete performances capture Nirvana at their most brutal as well as the crowd's rabid energy. While the band is on tour, "Nevermind" is selling 400k copies a week at Christmas and starts 1992 by displacing Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" on top of the Billboard charts. "Nevermind" will continue to sell at such an alarming rate it eventually sells 10 million in the US and 30 million worldwide. It continues to chart to this day.
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