Was he a man or was he a Maus?

UPDATE: This post was re-uploaded 10/05/2013. Enjoy, NØ

Carl Gustav Jung put forth the theory of "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events."

In my years on this planet, I have observed that the more deeply in-tuned one is with this so-called life, the more often these "occurrences"...well...occur.

Recent case in point that spawned this rant.

I was watching 30th Century Man the other night (the 2006 film about singer & musickian Scott Walker né Noel Scott Engel, once a part of the Walker Brothers...the fact that they were not brothers & were not Walkers was very kool).


The movie made me think of the Walker Brothers third & final album, Nite Flights, & that I had not heard it for a long while, which I soon remedied. As I was listening to it, I was thinking...what a perfect piece of musick. I know that the Brothers, especially Scott, had become increasingly less enthralled by the bands TeenScene image & that rather than being a unified effort, Nite Flights was in fact separate showcases for where each Brother was at at that juncture in time. However, I am greatly at odds with most reviews of this work.

(example - "Actually the first four tracks are the only ones worth mentioning - the 6 after were composed by the other two members, the whole a very disjointed reunion album. Considering, the last tracks might have made for a decent album on its own, but Mr. Scott's compositions cast a very large shadow on everything around him..." )

Most heap on the praise, justifiably, for the first four tracks by Scott, & more often than not relegate the remainder of the songs to the cut-out bin. I personally believe that all the songs are best when viewed as whole cloth. While no cuts here come close to the power of Scott's "The Electrician",

(another critic - "But the real darkness descends with The Electrician. A nightmare evocation of US-backed torture squads in South America, this dialogue between torturer and tortured is part intense humming of evil, part south American getaway holiday theme - and if you want to gauge how far the group had come from the clean-cut romance of their '60s glory years, this is the song to go to [in the face of this uniqueness, it's probably unfair to compare the six songs included here by other two Brothers John and Gary]")

I have always appreciated every song. I am particularly partial to the last four songs, penned by John (Joseph Maus) Walker. The darkness of the titles juxtaposed with the emotion of the contents always worked for me.


This ruminating reminded me of Phallus Dei’s last release, A Day in the Life of Brian Wilson, which featured the vocals of John Walker on two of the best tracks. I had been wanting to post it up since it came out last year (in fact I had a copy of the cd in 2009)(I had done a post about it & put up one song)(it is in such limited release that I hardly see it available to purchase or otherwise).

I decided that I would post both titles using the Walker connection as my jumping off point. I went on the Phallus Dei site to check on the availability of ADITLOBW (I know the South Park punks say “Phallus Dei Sucks!”). On the site was an announcement, as follows:

"John Walker, one of the founders of the famous The Walker Brothers, lost his fight with liver cancer and passed away on Saturday, May 7th in his house in San Franciso. The music world has lost a great talent, a fantastic musician and a good friend. It was such a great honour to have worked with this great musician. We will sadly miss him. Rest in Peace, John. "


So here to change your lives, kiddies, are two aural orgasms. Don’t tell your parents I give you this stuff.

The Walker Brothers - Nite Flights, GTO (UK) GTLP 033, 1978.
decryption code in comments

Side One -

Shutout
Fat Mama Kick
Nite Flights
The Electrician
[tracks A1 - A4 by Scott (Engel) Walker]
Death of Romance

Side Two -

Den Haague
[tracks A5 + B1 by Gary (Leeds) Walker]
Rythyms of Vision
Disciples of Death
Fury & the Fire
Child of Flames
[tracks B2 - B5 by John (Maus) Walker]

Enjoy & never forget,
NØ