Cat Power-- Moon Pix

(Matador)

Some scenes where the new Cat Power album has been playing as background music in the movie of my life (as directed, hopefully, by David Mamet)

* ... at the bar, I have convinced the bartender to put it on. He's into Nick Drake and that kinda thing, he'll probably like this. He does, and keeps it on (this in a three-star restaurant, during dinner, mind you... the movers and shakers are listening to, y'know, "our music" and liking it, whether they know it or not...fr' example, I was playing Lambchop there during lunch and a blue-hair pulled over Kadugan the waitress and asked with trepidation, "Is this alternative music?" Friend Kadugan replied in the affirmative and the lady sat back in her seat and said, "I like it!").

A friend who keeps up with things and Iagree Moonpix is a fine album.

In a perfect world, this one rides the bullet to number one. Which it is, sort of, says my friend. He says that this album is selling a thousand copies a week, which, in indie circles, is double platinum. This piece of news makes me feel good, because it means that the cretinization of America we all worry about so much (or should do so, anyway, say the pundits) is not happening,or at least has been put on hold. This is an album that is going to hit the mainstream. Your mother is going to like this album. Which is great. Because now you and moms have the language of music to bridge your generational gaps. Maybe next year, she'll be asking you which Thrill Jockey releases are really "out there," and you can meet over your respective Thanksgiving turkey giblets 'n' gravy and have a dialogue about whether Lydia Lunch was at her best in Teenage Jesus and the Jerks or during the years she was shrieking with, and at, Jim Thirlwell.

Just a thought.

* ... at work, the lunch chef looks up after I hand him a cold coke. "Man, I like this Cat Power," he offers, causing me to engage in a mental spit-take. The lunch chef listens to nothing but Kornand Primus.

I handed him the CD and I asked him what he liked about it.

"Well, it's a real step sideways from her previous outings. Let's face it her last album was kinda hysterical, in the classical not funny-ha-ha sense. It's not a value judgement, I'm just telling the truth. This one, there's a sort of elegance to it. And these Dirty Three guys backing her up... man! These songs are tight, there ain't one note out of place or held too long! They's all...," he sipped his soda, "close, maybe a little bit constrictive, but there's air flowing through 'em all and that's what we're supposed to going towards in those underground situations, right? I guess what I'm saying is that, sure, edgy and ugly and brittle is great. It's a like a shot of JŠger...clears the palate, gives ya the JŠger face and allows yez to get on with whatever you're doing. But who wants to scarf down bitter herbs alla the time? What kind of diet is that? Moon Pix is more like... p‰tŽ de fois gras. Smooth. Heavy. Put a couple of cornichons on the side, maybe a little smear on coarse-grain mustard (which in this album's case, would be the occasional feedback wail or mama-deer moan)... and it's an experience worth cleansing your palate for."

That scene was cut from my movie for being too unbelievable, and the following, more true-to-life scene was inserted instead I asked him what he liked about it.

"I like the backwards drum loop on that song. Sounds like scratching."

He told me later that he liked the rest of the album, too. Good.

(By the way, my movie is going to be called The Greatest Story Ever Told. Unless that's already been taken.)

* . . . at a friend's house, right after I called Centel and promised them a pound of flesh so they'd turn my damn phone back on, we climbed out onto the roof. It was one of the last perfect days,and I, wearing a tastefully all-black ensemble of denim and trucker cotton, was determined to soak up every ray of sunshine. You know, for those cold grey months we're supposed to find ourselves in now.

Conversation started and eventually he steered me into one of those deep conversations that high-functioning autistics (or Episcopalians) like myself get jumpy around. We talked about the town we lived in, the need to escape it, maybe. We talked about how everyone was burrowing into themselves. I maintained that the situation was endemic to the type of high-flying under-acheivers that populate the Hook, and that, what's more, most of us were currently barely able to survive, much less thrive, hence no-one has the psychological energy to help anybody else, shitty situation sure, but not all bad.

We're all friends. That's something.

Then he did something tough and told me I was dorking my life away by drinking too much, and if that was the situation in this town then he wanted little to do with it because he needed something a little more. I let the conversation trail off and looked at my feet, my cheap-as-possible multi-purpose shoes.

This is playing like a violent denunciation of myself and the

culture I find myself (willingly or unwillingly) in, and it was, I guess. I think its violence was based in friendship. And if this CD is a little bit sad or bugged, it's 'cause it has to be to speak a lingua franca. So it was perfect that this CD was playing in the background, as we do the difficult things it is beautiful and fragile, spare and lonely and hurt but above all, reaching out.

---T.Magill