Gerd Zacher – Mauricio Kagel / Juan Allende-Blin / György Ligeti – “Phantasie Für Orgel Mit Obbligati” / “Sonorités” / “Volumina” and “Étude Nr.1 (‘Harmonies’)”

It’s vacation time and once again I’m staying in a remote cabin in the “North Woods,” far from the heat of the city and the oppression of the internet. No sports scores, no race results. There’s a deck of cards, which can function as a prayer book, or a deck of cards, and there’s a bottle opener screwed into the wood above the sink. There’s an old record player which is probably the most newfangled thing there, and there are a few LPs. First, I get hung up on Patsy Cline and my memories (of Patsy Cline), but then I see this old, odd album I know nothing about stuck in with the all-too-familiar Mitch Millers and Herb Alperts. Its cover has seen better days and the liner notes are entirely in German! Yet it plays great—it seems to be some really sturdy German pressed vinyl—or maybe it was only played once—that’s what it looks like, and it’s been protected in a high quality, Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (that’s the label) paper and plastic sleeve.

The glossy orange cover is topped by four bands of increasingly lighter, yellow orange. It’s nice. There’s a blue dot that I, at first, think is part of the design (it’s quite pleasing, compositionally), but then I see it’s a hand-marked price sticker (1.50—not sure if that’s dollars, euros, or Deutschemarks). There’s what looks like a “coffee cup ring,” also nice compositionally, clever—yet, I think it’s “real”—someone used this cover as a coaster. Under the label logo, upper righthand corner, in heavy black letters it says: avant garde—its placement leads me to think it’s a series. Though… there’s no indication of that on the label, itself—where it does say GEMA—which should be a word, in English, but is not. Then, as a “title,” there are six lines of text, all lower case, some of it names, and some in German, and what seems to me far more punctuation than could possibly be necessary. The only real clue to what’s here comes from the label itself. Side A is: Mauricio Kagel performing “Phantasie für Orgel mit obbligati,” and Juan Allende-Blin doin’ “Sonorités.” It also says, “Gerd Zacher, Orgel,” but in smaller letters, like it’s an afterthought. Side B, then, has György Ligeti “Volumina,” and “Étude Nr. 1 (‘Harmonies’).” Once again, Gerd Zacher, Orgel, so maybe it is important. Mulling this over… for some reason I remember to take one of my prescription antacids (one a day). Isn’t Zacher a kind of pastry? Now I’m hungry.

So, now, for the record. It’s primarily organ, but scary organ, horror movie stuff, though more scary than that—like the scariest movie ever? Could “Orgel” be a mashup of organ and ogre? And might Gerd Zacher be the German Zacherley? There are other sounds, too, like sound effects, occasionally, somewhat disturbing. A lot of silence, too—really quiet parts, along with some stretches of near silence, which I find quite effective. I make the mistake of checking out the back cover again and to my dismay, I notice that the liner notes have been translated! Could this have happened since I looked at it last, or did I just think it was German, at first? I haven’t been drinking. Oh, maybe it’s both—the problem is, the font is so miniscule, in the low light in this cabin (drafty oil lamp, and so forth) it’s really hard to read. It’s a smaller font than some of my early zines, which everyone complained about. But I have to do my duty and try to make sense of this. The text is by Dieter Schnebel, and the first thing I see mentioned is musique concrète, so now it’s beginning to make more sense, as there are some tape-recorded things—it sounds like some voices (can’t make out what they’re saying), and now it sounds like we’re on a transit system. Then back to the organ. One organ note, held for a really, really, really long time. The second side, then, more of the same. Some really loud organ, like one chord held until it hurts. I don’t want to say something dumb like, “I could play that,” well, because I couldn’t. I have neighbors. I mean, they’re like a mile down the road, but I’m going to take a wild guess that they have guns. Now dude’s rockin’ out (I’m assuming it’s a dude). I’m thinking about those rock stars in the Seventies who would pretend to “fuck” their organ, which got old. Or, like Keith Emerson—I remember him pulling that big, old Hammond organ over on himself, like it was crushing him. Am I misremembering that?—because that would crush you. Now we’re to the point where it sounds like nothing so much as that part in 2001: A Space Odyssey when it gets all psychedelic—deep space, I guess. I miss the recorded sounds from the first side. I want to listen to that over again—Schnebel mentioned a toilet flushing (I probably thought it was mine, except there isn’t one here) and an egg timer—which is what, exactly?

Bob Dylan “Bringing It All Back Home”

I would have been too young to appreciate this record when it came out, I suppose, though I kind of wish my parents were Dylan fans and I would have heard all this. Or maybe not. This has to be a lot of people’s favorite Dylan record, it’s got some of his best songs and maybe a better overall early rock’n’roll sound than any of them. I’ve always just kind of ignored it, I don’t know why. Just read the liner notes on back, written by Bob with minimal caps and punctuation—surreal and cryptic but pretty good. The cover photo is BD and a woman in a red dress holding a cigarette, sitting with a bunch of records and magazines in front of a fireplace. BD is holding a grey kitten. They’re all staring right at the photographer with remarkably similar expressions. I wonder whatever happened to that cat. Or that woman. Or that fireplace.

I wouldn’t want to have to say what my favorite Dylan songs are (or maybe I would like to, and I should make one of those favorite 100 songs lists—but I’ll have to listen to them all, some rainy day)—but “Maggie’s Farm” has to be one of my favorites. Is this the record that marked Dylan’s shift to electric rock’n’roll and rejection of the folk scene? It does have “Mr. Tambourine Man” on it, but then ends with “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” Who is playing on this record, anyway? There is no listing of musicians.

There is, folded up inside, a huge poster of that classic BD drawing (is it by Milton Glaser?—that’s the name in the upper corner)—it’s his head in profile, with big multicolored hair. The colors are lovely pastel shades. Did this come with this record, or just happen to get stuck in here? It’s never been hung up—there are no holes or tape-damaged corners. I bet I could sell this for some serious bread on eBay, and the people who own this cabin would never notice. (I’d just have to remember to edit this before publishing it.) Does some cafe around here have wifi where I could run my sale? Could I make enough for gas money back to civilization? So many questions, today, and so few satisfactory answers.