laurie anderson musings

Looking at a few vids on youtube recently I discovered that some kind soul has upped the whole of Laurie Anderson's movie Home Of The Brave - the document of her 1985 tour, and a film that I’d never seen.

I have now. 
And it’s absolutely great – much better than the rather short soundtrack album (on which half the songs have been re-recorded in the studio anyway), and it’s brilliant to see Laurie being so very active, rather than the lecture-style she has adopted in more recent years. And Adrian Belew is so chirpy, as always, a great bonus to have him on stage.

The drum pads all over her body are cool, the dancing / choreography is cool, the songs are cool, the whole thing (in spite of a few dodgy 80s fashions / hair) is so very very cool. Hell, even William Burroughs crops up, being all decrepit and croaky. The projections and the backdrops are great, but I especially like the choreography – everything on stage is so perfectly placed, perfectly thought out. And there’s a really funny bit when Laurie phones her keyboard player, just across the stage to talk about what they’re going to do next.

You get the sense that had Laurie been that little bit more famous then Home Of The Brave could have been her Stop Making Sense and cemented her image in the minds of the general public. Then again, she’d probably have hated that. Apparently Home Of The Brave is unavailable on DVD which is a terrible shame.

With a nifty little ‘capture the sound off youtube vids’ gizmo that Lucy helped me find I have indeed captured the sound of the show and split it into individual tracks. Of the 18 or so songs, only four are the same recordings as on the soundtrack album, so the film versions are really worth having. "Smoke Rings" wins the prize as cracking rediscovery of the day. Laurie and the singers act out a game show - in Spanish. What a beautifully mad song!

"Que es mas macho - lightbulb o schoolbus?"
"….Uh… lightbulb?"
"No! Lo siento. Schoolbus es mas macho que lightbulb".

It’s brilliant. No idea why, but it just is.

Plus I’ve found a few more rare tracks on youtube – some very interesting pieces from the Homeland period. First up is “Mambo and Bling” which was available only at 2008 concerts and is kind of a dry run for “Another Day In America” – narrated by Fenway Bergamot, some of the lines actually crop up in the Homeland track. The b side of “Mambo” is called “Behind The Screen” and is an instrumental – all moody violins and spooky keyboards and it’s wonderful. Then there’s the b side of the “Only An Expert” single – “Pictures and Things” is again rather like “Another Day In America” and picks up many of the lines from “Mambo” that weren’t recycled into “ADIA”.  Together all three of these lengthy Fenway tracks have a few overlaps, but all have some fascinating lines of their own, and I just love the mood that’s generated by the combination of the Voice of Authority and those ever so sad violins and keys.

There’s also an amazing version of "Another Day In America" from the Jimmy Fallon talk show in the US. Laurie is dressed as Fenway, the voice of authority, just like on the cover of Homeland, and she looks really freaky. And she’s backed by a guy playing the biggest saxophone I’ve ever seen. It must be as tall as he is. It’s incredible.