Chords for SWANS on Records In My Life (interview)

[Abm] My name is Michael Girard and [Db] this [Dm] is an enterprise called [N] Records In My [F] Life.
What's _
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_ _ _ _ _ your earliest memory, like one of the first records [C] you've ever heard that piqued your [Ab] interest?
[N] Well, I don't recall the name of it, but it would have been a Walt Disney record.
Something about Brer Rabbit, [Ab] you know?
And it was a very cinematic kind of record in that it had sound effects and music and a narrative.
And it was sort [Bb] of an audio film.
[Db] And [Eb] that's had a last_
I [E] don't have [Ab] the record now, but that and records like South Pacific that my parents had
[Bbm] kind of inspired me to [Eb] think about music as cinema [Ab] or as a sort of [Db] quasi-visual experience.
And I've attempted to approach [Gb] that on several records [Ab] as a [Bbm]
sort of producer.
But [C] the first record I think I purchased or had [Db] my parents purchase was probably Chubby Checkers' The Twist.
And I don't know what year that would have been, maybe 62 or something.
And then, of course, I bought all the Beatles records when they came out.
And I had Beatle boots and I even wore [Gb] a Beatle wig, [Ab] I recall.
But when things got a little darker, both in my life [Bbm] and culturally,
the first record that actually meant something [N] to me and still I find to be engaging is The Doors' first album.
The Doors' first two albums I think are absolutely wonderful to this day.
Is that a self-titled one?
Yeah, the first one is self-titled.
And the second one is Strange Days.
_ And they're just beautifully_
I mean, I can listen to them now from a person_
from the point [C] of view of a person with experience.
The production is incredible.
I'm sure they were in the studio for no more than a week or something,
but it's just really sensual and [N] expansive and beautiful.
And the performances are great.
The dynamics of the long songs are stunning, the musicianship.
His singing is unparalleled.
I heard one of those YouTube things people put up, where the voice sounds the music.
I heard that of Crystal Ship lately and it's just orgasmic.
It's so beautiful and dark and also sensual and kind of yearning.
It captures perfectly that time in Southern California where I grew up,
engaging in various substances, particularly LSD,
and the kind of expansive notion of the sun and the beach and the water,
but also with this dark [G] undercurrent that was flowing through that whole time,
and in me, certainly.
So, yeah, those two records have lasted the longest of any, really.
At that time, also, I would have been an aficionado of the first three
Mothers of Invention records.
[Fm] _
[Ab] Let's [B] see, it was Freak Out, Absolutely Free, and We're Only in It for the [Cm] Money.
Those were, in a way, punk rock [Bb] in attitude.
It was [G] pretty experimental for the time.
Yeah, but they were [Fm] also very caustic and sarcastic about American [G] society
and about the counterculture.
I thought they were [C] great.
So I guess those are sort of two series of pivotal records [F] from my childhood
that kind of have lingered.
[Dm] _
Sand, I'll [Am] say away
[Dm] On ships made [Am] of steel
_ [Dm] _
There was a whole series [Am] of events, more than just records,
that [C] I [D] [C] have to wind back.
In the early 70s, I used to rehearse with no goal in mind,
with a friend of mine.
He played guitar and I sang to The Rolling Stones
to what would have been the record at that time, Exile on Main Street,
and also _ Sticky Fingers.
And then I went to art school and I forgot about all that shit.
And then when I was in art school, punk rock happened,
and I [N] just seized on that as an absolutely amazing cultural _ vector
that was undeniable.
It was so powerful and emotional and just right for the times.
It was basically throwing consumer society back on itself
in its nihilistic fashion and saying, you know, unacceptable.
But it kind of took on the trappings of the shallowness
and the nihilism of consumer culture and threw it back at you.
But musically, too, it was just utterly immediate [C] and great.
And that made me want to start a band.
_ But [N] the records I would have been listening to then
would have been Suicide and Stooges
and probably uncharacteristically,
[C] Kraftwerk and Bowie's records of that time
_ [Eb] and Roxy Music and Brian Eno,
just the more kind [F] of forward-looking [Bb] stuff.
Somehow all that congealed in my mind and I [C] started Swans
and it ended up being what it is.
And is there any, today, is there a record which you're really digging?
You mean a contemporary record?
Yeah, [Gm] contemporary if possible.
No, [Eb] there are no contemporary [Fm] records that I'm digging.
That's only because, the caveat is that I have been touring incessantly,
either touring or in the studio incessantly for [A] 7 years now
with very little time off and my ears are exhausted.
And when I do listen to music, I listen to it quietly, as you might imagine,
[Em] and it's not contemporary music.
So what is the name of [C] someone who introduced you to that was made a while back
that you have learned [Ab] recently?
A contemporary [Cm] piece of music?
It can be from any time, something that you maybe discovered recently.
Something that's worth listening to.
Yeah, like a recommendation for us.
[F] _ [C]
Oh, well, it's definitely not contemporary.
It would be [Cm] Charlemagne Palestine's strumming music
[F] and [Cm] that's from the 60s, I believe, late 60s.
It's [Am] very obscure, unfortunately.
He's a composer, it's more like his performance is the composition,
but he's a minimalist, maximalist he calls himself, a minimalist maximalist.
But on this particular record, he is seated between two [F] grand pianos,
[D] I don't know if they're [Abm] Steinways, but something highfalutin,
and he's playing arpeggios with both hands.
I think it's just C, C minor or something.
And gradually he adds notes to the arpeggios
and plays more and more intensely.
And I guess he moves up and down the keyboard a little bit.
And it's just this gradual build of tones.
If you've ever sat down and played a piano,
even if you don't play it like I have,
you just become engaged with the sheer [Bb] sound of it.
So that's sort of what he's doing, but in a very tutored musical way.
And the thing just slowly builds and builds and builds,
and you realize about halfway through the one-hour piece of music
that more preponderant in the sound than the notes
is these waves of angels, which are the harmonics that he's created.
[Am] In fact, the arpeggiations sink and kind of disappear
in these rolling waves of beautiful harmonics.
It's a tremendous performance and recording.
Okay?
All right. _ _
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