Monday, November 09, 2009

Treble's Best Tracks of the 00s: No. 18 - "I See Monsters" by Ryan Adams

My Ryan Adams song review can be found (click here) on treblezine.com

Ryan Adams
"I See Monsters"
from Love is Hell (2203)
and Loft Sessions (2005)

I've recently discovered that the most terrifying images we experience are not found in any horror movie but what we see on the inside--our own personal demons. It's the voices and flashes of fear that stir inside of us until the moment it takes us over and paralyzes us with the kind of dread only our own minds can imagine.

This has happened to me three times in my life, once as an overindulgence of excess in New Orleans. Another time when I was in Paris, sirens brought back flashbacks of a near death experience with a hold up in the Garden District that I tried to bury inside of me. And, most recently, an experience in our apartment last week. I had gone through weeks of illness, depression, self-doubt and so many tests by doctors, aches and pains that I wouldn't want my worst enemy to experience. I thought it was all over but I was wrong.
Imagine for a minute you're trying to fall asleep so you can some prescription medicine to help you get drowsy. But instead of relaxing, you experience a panic attack. And not just any panic attack but the kind where, for a few hours, you're trying to not lose your place in your own mental universe. Your own existence is being questioned by your mind. All the memories, good and bad, that you have experienced are vanishing by the second. And all that's left are the flashes and whispering monsters in your head trying to take you away from the life and love that you have been cherishing for over three years.

When I hear the "I See Monsters" by Ryan Adams, it brings back and makes sense of that terrifying night that I experienced. What I recall most is towards the end of my ordeal having all those memories that I thought were gone come back to me at a fast pace in the middle of the night. Imagine reliving all the pain and agony of lost love, break-ups, betrayal, hurt all coming back at once. All of those emotions of hurt going through you in the matter of minutes. Horrifying is not even the word. I don't think there is one for what I experienced. But Ryan's incredible freaked-out guitar solo at the end of the Loft Sessions in his awe-inspiring version of Love is Hell's "I See Monsters" comes close. "And then after the song is over, you hear handclaps in the studio and one of Ryan's Cardinals says it best when trying to describe Ryan's solo, "It sounds like Monsters."

The incredible thing about Ryan's song is that he's lived through similar events in his life. In the song, Ryan's in bed with the one that he loves and in his mind, the demons are coming to life in the middle of the night. And these aren't the CGI creatures from your overindulgent horror films that we've all seen. No, these are monsters that live inside of us. They hold our fears and come out in the dark trying to paralyze us with our own personal fears. Something that no film or ghost story could ever emulate, Adams brings to life in the climax of "I See Monsters."

I do feel stronger having gone through this harrowing time. And "I See Monsters" has now become one of my favorite Ryan Adams songs. I used to think that "I See Monsters" was a beautiful song, but the Loft version is more than that. He understands. He almost whispers the vocal as if he's trying to ease himself to sleep. And then at the end he brings out his electric axe and slays his monsters for another night. After it's over, they will be back, but we're all a little stronger for living through these moments of trepidation.

Loft Session

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda
11.03.2009

Review: Leonard Cohen: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970

My review of Leonard Cohen's Isle of Wight 1970 can be found (click here) on treblezine.com

Leonard Cohen
Isle of Wight 1970
Columbia/ Legacy
2009

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be one of the wasted wordsmiths like Jim Morrison and Hunter S. Thompson. Before moving towards a life of overindulgences in the French Quarters of New Orleans, I grew up a confused soul in the suburbs of Ann Arbor and San Antonio. I knew I wanted to take the road less traveled, so I followed the adventures excess of Thompson. But instead of Vegas, I went to New Orleans. I attempted to be like Hunter, but failed miserably. I was no drinker or aficionado of drugs. All it did was made me hung-over, sick and feel even more alone in the city of myths. Some of my favorite moments in New Orleans were when I was locked away in my room, writing all hours of the day. Even my neighbors knew my routine. When I would leave they would snicker, "there goes the poet to lock himself in his house for days. See you in a couple of weeks, dude." At the time, I was hurt by the snide comments. I didn't want to be a recluse. I lived to be the life of the party. I never was.

In reality, my life mirrored the romantic frustration of one Leonard Cohen. I wouldn't want to compare my writing with Cohen. If I could one day equal one of his eternal lyrics, just one line from one of his songs I would be grateful. Looking back, without the greatness, my life as a loner writer was like Cohen's. I experienced the lows and loneliness of bachelorhood and desperately searched for love in every siren I longed to be with. Most of the times those sparks faded to blue after a first kiss but still searched for her. It would take ten years to find my true love but all those years on my own taught me to keep writing and never give up.

To this day, I follow the reflective wisdom of Leonard Cohen. To me Cohen is a truth-telling troubadour who was born a sonneteer, a poet whose words reflected the pain and longing that scar us all from within. But even through all the hurt, after all of these years, and even in those early days of the 1970s, Cohen never lost his hope. And just like Cohen, what I leaned most from Leonard was his unwritten creative creed. He loved, lost and learned to write through the scars and sing through the agony. The thing is that his results are international treasures such as "So Long, Marianne" and "Famous Blue Raincoat."

Cohen sang a plethora of what are now classics during his legendary performance at the Isle of Wight in 1970. Cohen was awakened from a nap at 2 a.m. and followed the explosive set of Jimi Hendrix with his transcendental lyrical journey in front of 600,000 friends. At the time Cohen took the stage, he had released two albums: Songs of Leonard Cohen and Songs from a Room. A few weeks after, he would record his third album Songs of Love and Hate, which would include "Sing Another Song, Boys" from this same event at the Isle of Wight.

What makes his performance unique was the stripped, honest nature of each song. It starts with Cohen's voice who sings like a lover sharing his tales of lost love, proud of his scar-like choruses as a choir of backing angels harmonizes behind him in such songs as "Lady Midnight." The choice of "Lady Midnight" is a curious selection for it contains some of his most powerful religious imagery, like future wordsmith singers like Johnny Cash and Nick Cave, whose conflict with their personal faith is something you can hear them struggle with in almost all of their songs. To me "Lady Midnight" has more kinship with the myth of Orpheus that Cave himself sang about 30 years later. In Cohen's song, you hear his fair maiden calling out "You won me, oh Lord."

One of my favorite aspects of the Isle of Wight show was the way Cohen changed some of the lyrics of songs like "Bird on the Wire" if only slightly. But just like a master poet, once you replace a word with another one it changes the meaning completely. Instead of saving the ribbons Cohen switches that line with "I have saved all my sorrow for thee." It matches the reflective mood of his desolate life of unrequited love.

But my favorite part of "Bird on the Wire" is at the end of the second verse when Leonard updated his lyric from "and if I have been untrue/ I hope you know it was never to you, " to "and if I have been untrue/ It's just that I thought a lover had to be some kind of liar too." His one lyric was a reflection of my own past lies and romantic failures. Who else can do this? With one line he encapsulates a lifetime of heartache. This is why, to me, just like Dylan and Shakespeare, Cohen is one of the eternal lyrical geniuses.

Other highlights are the acoustic solo version of "The Stranger Song." In this performance, Cohen's words come to life. He was the stranger and with every chord he has mesmerized the crowd with his poignant journey. And Cohen became something more, a lyrical laureate of truth and love. I loved the emotional version of "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" with Cohen playing what sounds like a flute-like instrument with his hands. You can see this on Murray Lerner's documentary of Cohen's concert. This version includes interviews with Joan Baez, Judy Collins and Kris Kristofferson as they recant their memories of Cohen's amazing performance. The film is remastered and looks beautiful, but not all the songs from the show are featured and for some reason Lerner edited them out of order. Seeing a young Cohen crooning to this conscientious crowd is a delight.

Comparing Cohen's Live in London live disc that was also released this year with this performance at the Isle of Wight, I prefer this one. This one is for the die hard Cohen fans. There were not many hits in this show and Cohen's young voice has yet to ripen to the lower register we have grown accustomed to. His emerging voice still sounds powerfully poetic as he sings the lyrical letter of "Famous Blue Raincoat." (Surprising this song was absent from the Live in London show.) To me this Isle of Wight rendition is my favorite and one of the best on this amazing performance. It has a flamenco guitar vibe that I still can hear delightfully in my head.

Leonard Cohen's Isle of Wight 1970 CD/DVD is an album that all music connoisseurs must own. There's something mythically inspiring by his performance during his magical show. Leonard Cohen has always transcended time and lyrical spaces with his songs. And this show is no different. Cohen may now be a middle aged crooner but looking back at this magnificent concert is like watching the master with new and unheard gems that he shares from his arsenal of artistic greatness.

Not only do you get the songs but you also hear reminiscences with poems and stories from his childhood. He tells a story about when his father would take him to the circus when he was younger. There was one part that the young Cohen always waited for, when a man at the circus would stand up and he would say "would everybody light a match, so we can locate one another…" Cohen then asks the crowd to light a match so "you can sparkle like fireflies at your different heights." He longed to see those matches flare.

Long after this performance, Cohen has been lighting the spark of inspiration in my life as a solitary writer and lover. Now on the cusp of my wedding, I can look back with the pride and glory of Leonard Cohen's young voice. Going back with his lyrics I have no regrets, just a lifetime full of memories that ring truth in the songs that have guided me throughout these years from the poet/singer that I still long to honor. Thank you, Leonard, for this beautiful and timeless lyrical gift. I will continue to reach for the moon. Your voice will guide me as my journey continues the same one that started in June, a year after your famous performance at the Isle of Wight. I am listening with matches that I light from within.

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda

11.03.2009