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RE: (TV) "ballet mecanique" looks so medieval!/ a little weepy



I am still in the process of coming back to earth after TV's MFA show.  

I was not adequately prepared for what I heard (and saw on screen!) last night.  Although I had been given a bootleg recording of the  NYC St. Ann's Oct. 1999 Music for Films Show and liked it, the live music combined with the wonderful imagery had a synergistic impact that bowled me over.  The sound and acoustics were fantastic, and during several montages on screen, Verlaine and Rip[p] played very loud---"loud" as in I felt like I was in heaven.  We were sitting in the fifth row center and we could literally feel the music bouncing right off of us.  I will not make any attempt now to describe in detail Tom's playing---my feeble words would not do it justice.  I'll leave it that his playing still has that special mixture of poignancy and grandeur. 

For those interested in such minutiae, Tom was wearing a loose pale green cotton (flannel?) shirt, back dungaree Levis, and some sort of black footgear.  Rip was all in black and with a sort of porkpie hat (like the one Jude Law wore in "The Talented Mr. Ripley").  If he hadn't started playing guitar with Tom last night I wouldn't have recognized Jimmy Rip.  Gone was the Rip I remembered from Tom's solo tours and the Kid Creole and the Coconuts album cover---the skinny guy who had always looked to me like a cross between an oily 18th century pirate and a tall gaunt Richard Nixon with his perpetual 5 o'clock shadow.  Rip--now still tall, but filled out. 

Last saw Tom during the 1992 reunion shows and during fleeting images from the 1994/95 10-part PBS rockumentary. Last night, Tom looked like, like .......like Tom.  His hairline more receded, his hair a little darker, no longer the messanic and  startlingly handsome man I remembered from his tours.  He's (finally?) showing his age a little bit now (maybe his years and years of smoking have had their effect), his face wasn't wrinkled, but its skin no longer had that pale glow to it.  He looked like an older, slightly wizened version of the actor Keith Carridine.   He was his usual shy self letting Rip do what little bantering with the audience was deemed necessary. 

Seeing Tom again made me feel more than a little sad, and very nostalgic for the younger Tom and his glory days---I guess part of my feeling was the realization that , boy I must look old too(!), and the idea that one of the few things I have in common with this great artist is that we're both middle-aged men! Sorry for getting so personal and weepy on the list.

But we always will have his music, right?-----that will never fade. 

Joe could tell you a lot more about the equipment, but  Tom was playing a very nice unpainted, sanded-down-to-bare-wood-guitar whose neck was a Fender Jazzmaster but whose body was not a Fender according to Joe.  

	Leo

PS:  After last night's show and the emotions it dredged up, I am highly likely to make a pilgrimage to Camber Sands (I have this very strong feeling that this will be Television's only appearance anywhere).


PPS:  For the film buffs only:  One of the few things that I feel as passionately about as TV's music is my all-time favorite movie, "Lawrence of Arabia" [the 216 minute restored version].  One of the best films last night was a short film by Carl Dreyer (who in 1920's directed "Joan of Arc", "Sunrise"{?], "Nosferatu"[I think], and other silent greats).  The film was something he made for the Danish Bureau of Safety called" "Crossing on the Ferry"---anyways, there's this wonderful, long segment with a man and a woman riding a motor cycle, speeding and passing autos on a road in the countryside before crashing to avoid another vehicle.  (It also featured one of the most exciting musical exchanges between Verlaine and Rip all night.)  After seeing this film, I am now totally convinced that David Lean lifted the idea and montage of shots for Lean's opening motorcycle crash of T.E. Lawrence in "Lawrence of Arabia," from Dyer's earlier film.
    


-----Original Message-----
From: chelsea girl [mailto:pxe2000@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 11:47 PM
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: (TV) "ballet mecanique" looks so medieval!


hey all.  just got back from the museum of fine arts'
screening of _music for film_ with music by tom
verlaine and jimmy ripp.  <sigh>  what an utterly
amazing night.  for those of you who don't know or
haven't had to kill time at work by reading my
website, i am a film student and something of an
aspiring filmmaker.  the films i connect with most
right now (due to my own non-sync-sound setup) are
early silent films, particularly films that would be
considered experimental in this day and age -- soviet
montage, the lumieres, georges melies, that sort of
thing.  after seeing bad video dubs of "ballet
mechanique" in my experimental film class it was
brilliant to see a gorgeous, contrasty print show up,
and with such beautiful music!  i was also really
happy about "9413", which i'd never even heard of
before...the special effects, though they incited a
giggle from the audience, were amazing.  sure, it's
not _titanic_, but it had a beautiful effect and
someone with a super 8 camera (like, um, me) could
make a film like that in their kitchen.  

the music was amazing, also.  i've never heard any of
tom's solo work (most of the solo work by other bands
isn't as good as the real thing), but if it's all like
this i want me some.  he is one of the most diverse
guitarists ever.  not even just stylistically (though
it was great to hear him and ripp go from the surf-y
stuff in the dreyer film to the more traditional
silent film music in "9413" to the _marquee
moon_-esque squall of the "ballet mechanique" score),
but the sounds he got out of it -- the chattery noise
that the talky 9413 made in that film, the bell
pealing in the dreyer film...wow.  just incredible.  

and it was a real treat to meet two of the many
individuals who fill my mailbox on a daily basis. 
joe, leo: if you're ever in the area again, the
scorpion bowl is on me.  :)

will tom be releasing any of this?  cos i want to hear
it again...

=====
chelsea the mod pixie*tugboat@channel1.com
       http://www.pixievision.com
"i'm very happy.  it's the songs that are depressed."
--kristin hersh

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