musings by
If punk is the music of rebellion, Brian Eno is the ultimate punk. His music rebels against form itself. Having debuted on the glam side of the rock scene playing keyboards on Roxy Music's first two albums, then moved on to establish the proto - template for alternative music in his first four solo albums Here Come The Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy, Another Green World, and Before And After Science, all of which expanded the parameters of rock, punk, new wave, and progressive, with a sort of hybrid neo-jazz avante-garde ambient dynamic of sound which clearly identifies Eno as potentially being the ultimate crossover artist of all time. His work with luminaries across the field including collaborating on David Bowie's integral 70s electronic period albums (Heroes, Low, Lodger) as well as 1995's overlooked audial serial killer masterpiece OUTSIDE in addition to influencing more extreme artists such as Bahaus, Eno produced both Devo and the Talking Heads before attaching himself to the mid-career phase of U2's sonic development (and yes U2 started out much more of a punk band than anyone today may care to realize). Nevermind what people think has always been about as punk as you can get. Today I bring you music off Eno's 2012 ambient installation album LUX, which I've been listening to this afternoon reflected off the lovely black grooves of my LP vinyl edition, hoping for a lullaby.
If it weren't for the artistry of Brian Eno, I honestly couldn't tell you where my mental state would be today, nor even if I were to have survived this long. That last bit may be a bit of hyperbole but after all, who would want to live in this world without music, and furthermore, who out here alive today that loves music would want to do without the luminary work of Brian Eno such as Music For Airports or Discreet Music, or any and all of it, for that matter? There are some things best not imagined. All of his music has been cathartic for my soul along this road I've been traveling since discovering the power and beauty of modern rock music, to whom I owe Aerosmith a tip of the hat for having introduced me. LUX is so punk it doesn't give a fuck what you think of it. And neither do I. And that is much more precisely in the bull's eye territory of what the original American rock and punk movements were all about, real people expressing their true selves in an original manner they could call their very own, with rock and roll instruments, or whatever they could get their hands on. In Eno's case it was a four-track recorder, the rest is history. Whether it's Iggy and the Stooges, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, the Velvet Underground, Bad Brains, Harold Budd, Black Sabbath, Boogie Down Productions, Crime, N.W.A, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Mystifier, the Accused, Patti Smith Group, Jim Carroll band, The Sugar Hill Gang, Parliament Funkadelic, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Judas Priest, Peter Murphy, Suicidal Tendencies, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Merzbow, the Melvins, Mogwai, Metallica, Exodus, Possessed, Kreator, Kraftwerk, the Avengers, the Nuns, Sex Pistols, Fear, Germs, Dead Kennedys, Cryptopsy, the Violent Femmes, X, the Buzzcocks, Joy Division, Rudimentary Peni, X-ray Spex, Venom, Negative Trend, Flipper, Motorhead, Sado-Nation, Bauhaus, Siouxsie & the Banshees, the Pretenders, the Distillers, the Screaming Abdabs, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa, the Misfits, Samhain, the Plasmatics, the Pretty Things, New York Dolls, Blue Cheer, Snot, the Crumbsuckers, Cancerslug, Nausea, Acid Bath, Korn, Dax Riggs, Nine Inch Nails, Alice In Chains, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Tom Waits, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Bob Dylan, Rage Against The Machine, Hank III, Tomahawk, Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Leviathan, Ibex Throne, Terra Noir, The Obliterate Plague, Moon of Delirium, Gravecode Nebula, Odium Totus, Iconoclast Contra, TSOL, Tool, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer, Pigmy Love Circus, King Crimson, Primus, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, System Of A Down, Scissorfight, the 13th Elevators, 45 Grave, Wurm, Voivod, Monster Magnet, At The Drive In, Jane's Addiction, the Mars Volta, Antemasque, Mono—it's all punk rock to me. \m/
