Interlude: Life During Wartime...

...Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Blog

Hi everyone.

As I’m sure many of my international friends are well aware of — although some, as reality shows, are already beginning to forget, in the face of far more pressing everyday worries — for the past six-plus months, my own country has been living with war, and if the most rational predictions are to come true, will go on living with war for quite some time (months? years? decades? no rational prediction can go as far as to narrow down that scope). In the material plane of things, life has not been too hard: it is my country, after all, that has been bombing another country’s cities, not vice versa, and even in Nazi Germany quite a few people had managed to live their lives without too many worries until around 1943. Psychologically, however, the situation has been challenging, to say the least.

Since the primary purpose of this blog is to transmit my analyses of and opinions of musical albums and video games, I have no intention of seriously boring you, dear readers, with any of the so-called "geopolitical" talk, or of whether or not World War III is really on the horizon. But on the smaller, personal scale of things I do feel the need to explain why this blog had, once again, fallen completely silent after a period of renewed activity, and then why I am now once again trying to reanimate it, for better or worse.

The simple fact is that after February 24, 2023 I temporarily lost all desire / incentive to listen to music — not just music for reviewing purposes; any music as an art form. For a while, it felt useless and hollow, a fancy artificial add-on to life, enticing one with visions of fake idealistic beauty and spirituality in a world where none of that really mattered or made any difference. Just like a million Woodstocks couldn’t stop the Vietnam War, no matter how hard they tried, my sitting here and nostalgizing over old James Brown and Jimmy Reed records will have no impact on current events — any events — not to mention seeming so utterly silly and petty next to the dramatic events taking place in the real world. Wait, stop! I’m making the mistake of trying to rationalize those feels as I’m writing this, but this just isn’t right — it was not any sort of intentional decision on my part. It just happened. Like when you have your regular sense of smell, then you catch Covid and you lose it. Simple as that. It may return some day. With a really bad case of the illness, it might not.

• My favorite song for about five months. I could listen to it 24/7.

Hilariously, the one type of entertainment I did not lose my appetite for in those days were video games — I actually kept replaying my old favorites like crazy, trying to keep my sanity by allowing myself to go slightly insane. It’s no secret that I am just a good old escapist at heart, and the only form of escapism that felt acceptable at the moment was to dissolve my personality in Commander Shepard’s or Geralt of Rivia’s. It’s like... if you can’t do anything to save the real world, at least clear your conscience by saving a virtual one or two. Whatever helps you get through the day.

• Also, while we’re at it, Syberia: The World Before is beautiful and heartbreaking.

After the original shock had (inevitably) dulled down and some of the capacity for energizing myself on music had returned, I first found myself naturally confined to a small, punchy, and very grim playlist — the only tracks that seemed to work were those that offered as little hope and optimism as possible, though pompously aggrandizing oneself to Big Drama à la Robert Smith was also out of the question. (Don’t get me wrong — Robert can tell you a lot about tragedy, but he is so totally self-centered that listening to The Cure in times of war makes you feel as if all that war were really taking place within yourself, which is just embarrassing in such a context).

Admittedly, there’s not a whole lot of such music floating around — a few Pink Floyd tracks such as ‘Sorrow’ might qualify, a bit of old school King Crimson (‘Starless’ works real good), and, of course, the person par excellence to whom you should probably turn for satisfaction of your demand is Leonard Cohen (‘The Future’, ‘First We Take Manhattan’, ‘You Want It Darker’ — the older he gets, the better he becomes at writing realistic downers). For moments that demanded a bit more aggressive spirit, Metallica’s ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ or U2’s ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’ did some good as well. At least this was music that provided meaningful company without lulling you with false hope. Come to think of it, I probably just don’t care too much for other people to supply my optimism for me — on the contrary, I prefer it to self-ignite, if at all possible, as a response to the challenge. When Leonard prophesies "I’ve seen the future, baby, it is murder", it’s like an open invitation, a dare for you to try and prove him wrong. It works better than when you get all the work done for you by the artists themselves.

• Ever seen Leonard’s Live In London? It’s simply one of the greatest concert films ever made.

Still, the glaring problem with such a playlist — as good as it was to sharpen and strengthen those feelings that, with routine slowly kicking in, could get a little dulled and mouldy over time — is that it had no pragmatic use whatsoever. In the peace and quiet of your own room, it can briefly energize and inspire you, only to realize that there is about as much you can actually do with all this energy and inspiration as one can do with a pile of gold found in the middle of a desert island. In a more social environment, it’s even worse — you can hardly hope to get a crowd of warmongers repent and exchange their swords for ploughs by terrifying them with a performance of ʽThe Future’ (or even something less verbally sophisticated like Judas Priest’s ʽBloodstone’, which, by the way, is also a very appropriate tune for modern times). Ultimately, you still end up feeling like the great pretender — restricting yourself to this kind of musical material is really nothing but a subtle way to express your inner pride ("well, I can’t really do anything to stop the horror, but at least I am ensuring to myself that I am constantly thinking of it — which is the closest I can actually come to being a hero!")

• Believe it or not, sometimes I just sit and yell BLOODSTONE BLOODSTONE. It helps! (Helps save on anti-depressants, that is.)

Brief, but necessary, detour into modern history: for those of you, dear readers, who do not know much about the overall state of affairs in Russia and may presume that rationally thinking human beings over here experience more or less the same feelings as, for instance, their similarly wired American brothers in times of the Vietnam War (or, perhaps, the Iraq War, if we want a slightly more «rememberable» period) — lamenting over a senseless, poorly justified imperialist invasion that comes at a great cost and brings no useful results — I should try and correct that perspective. In reality, what this country is going through at present is merely the final and, probably, inevitable result of more than twenty years of a slow, steady, unstoppable process of total and absolute moral degradation on pretty much every level of social existence; a degradation that, in its overall scope, can only be compared to a similar (though, admittedly, much quicker and much more overwhelming) process that took place in Nazi Germany a little less than a century ago.

This is not an emotional hyperbole; rather, it is a cold-blooded statement of objective fact that can be very easily supported by tons of evidence (not the least piece of which are innumerable direct parallels, linguistic and stylistic, that can be traced between the public statements of our political leaders over these years with those of Hitler and Goebbels). The fact that this type of fascism is comparatively «lite» and often plays out as a self-parody, a mock imitation of the ultra-nationalist, «revanchist» ideologies of the 1930s, makes things even worse from a certain angle, because living in a permanent state of disgust is, in a sense, just as awful, if not more so, than living in a permanent state of fear for one’s life. Even so, nowadays, with hundreds of people dying on the battle lines every day — and with the numbers of political prisoners in Russia steadily growing on a daily basis — one begins to realize more and more clearly just how thin the line is that separates «mock-fascism» from its authentic implication, and it can hardly be surprising that with each new wave of escalation, the desire to just sit back and entertain yourself with pop music gets fainter and fainter.

• For culturological reasons, here’s a typical example of how Western shitpop patterns are used today to produce Russian fascist anthems. Our patriotic brethren love this guy, even if there’s absolutely nothing “Russian” about this other than the language.

To put it simplest of all — suppose it all gets to the point when, tomorrow or a year from now (more probably the latter, but who can really know?), we all go down in nuclear flames, what’s the point of uploading a bunch of reviews from the faraway year of 1959 to some equally faraway server in California? It’ll probably be one of the first ones to melt down into the sea, anyway. It’s sort of a Woody Allen vibe here, except that we’re talking of much quicker and much more impending ways of humanity exterminating itself than the threat of an expanding universe. The counterargument of "Brooklyn is not expanding and probably won’t be in a million years" does not really apply to this kind of situation. Personally, I don’t even really believe in an impending nuclear catastrophe; what seems far more likely is the indeterminate prolongation of this conflict between an obsolete old world and an uncertain new world that has already, at least in one part of the world, led to a terrifying moral and humanitarian catastrophe and whose outcome, as of now, remains completely unpredictable.

• Too bad Jonathan Munk never played any other role. I’ve always identified with him.

Bizarrely enough, the human spirit is a wonderfully resilient little bitch, as I have begun to experience myself over the past couple months or so. It has a really impressive tendency to suck up, «normalize» even the shittiest of situations — something that is already well-known to people with serious chronic diseases or, for that matter, people accustomed to living for decades under dictatorial regimes. Admittedly, some of them do get fully dominated by the "life is meaningless" idea and end up going mad or committing suicide, but this is hardly the norm; most of us, sooner or later, still embrace the "life goes on" option and go on being productive — to some extent, at least, as much as the current conditions permit us. Antidepressants (whose consumption has seen a staggering rise in Russia as of late, and in other countries just as well, I’m sure) can certainly help, but that feels a bit like cheating to me; my own experiment has me keeping clean of any extra chemicals, particularly those whose side effects can never be predicted beforehand.

Bit by bit, the past half year has manifested that, as terrifyingly romantic as it was to picture ourselves jumping straight into the Ninth Circle of Hell, we are nowhere near that spot yet — we did make some sort of jump to the depths below, but we really have very little idea of the rate at which this descent will continue, let alone the exact moment in time when we might begin our slow and painful way back up. To go on denying ourselves those things which we used to hold dear and which seemingly lost all meaning at one particular moment of time no longer feels like the right thing to do — not if we want to believe that, sooner or later — perhaps even much later — at least some form of reason and justice will prevail.

With those kinds of thoughts in my mind, some time around mid-summer I made the conscious effort to reintroduce a bit of music in my life, even if only as background entertainment. It didn’t exactly thrill me, but it was... passable. It actually even helped me to finally get a bit of real work done, since I’m normally so accustomed to listen to music in the background while working. Mostly jazz and classical at first — the fewer words, the better. Then somewhere around August I decided to try and experiment with a complete retrospective of all of Dylan’s albums, Bootleg Series included, and it went down pretty damn well. Turns out that in times like these, focusing on one particular «musical friend» can be a big help, and Dylan, with his lack of pathos and openness to interpretation, was as fine a candidate as could be.

• Don’t care much for this video, but the song is outstanding, and somehow I totally missed its unique sound first time around.

However, to go on reviewing music — particularly with my recent historical focus on the «lightweight» age of early rock’n’roll and friendly, simplistic R&B — still seemed like a stupid waste of time. At some point, I was seriously considering my duty as a Conscious Human Being to make up some sort of list of «100 Best Anti-War Records» or something, but fortunately I realized that I’d probably run out of steam prior to finishing writing about even a dozen of those, and would have to leave another — this time, very dramatic — initiative sitting out in the open like some half-built cathedral in a city whose citizens have all turned atheist over time, and now prefer to donate their money to YouTube reaction channels rather than God.

I do usually hate to leave things unfinished, though — a rather natural desire for somebody who has a habit of constantly leaving things unfinished — and after dozens of hours of Dylanotherapy and suchlike, suddenly the perspective of refreshing my mind with the musical situation circa 1959 did not feel as totally alien to the brain as it did in February 2022. Still, a return to such a seemingly trifling matter as musical reviews, particularly retro-oriented musical reviews, deserved some justification. What follows is the best justification my mind can offer. (Are you still with me or am I being too insufferable? Just skip to the reviews in the latter case – this text is the only one in which I allow myself to be 100% ego-centric).

In trying to look more or less objectively at what I’ve written over the past decades, I like to convince myself that the single strongest «selling point» of my musical writing is honesty. Everything else, ranging from English language skills (kinda passable) to understanding of music theory (kinda awful), is quite debatable, but the one thing that I’d always tried to impart with my writing is the need to express one’s opinion as directly and openly as possible. That way, your reader, when you apply the word ʽamazing’ to your description of an album, trusts you that you really hold the album in appropriately high esteem — not just because the band gave you free backstage access the other day, or because you simply use the word ʽamazing’ to describe everything you come in contact with. If there is one thing — other than world peace and sustainable energy — that the planet simply can’t get enough of today, it’s precisely that: honesty. I’m not sure exactly at which point we have managed to transform ʽeverybody lies’ from Dr. House’s cynical credo into our major leading principle for all types of public activity, but I do know that if John Lennon were still alive, he’d probably have to add a new verse for ʽGimme Some Truth’ every couple of years these days.

• I admit I never knew that ‘Gimme Some Truth’ actually started as a Beatles song until the Get Back documentary. That’s why those early solo Beatles albums are so great - most of the music there was conceived in 1968-69.

I do realize that in our world of «post-truth», just as some of the most vociferous advocates of peace, love, and understanding turn out to be hateful, intolerant warmongers, so should every single person claiming to be «honest» with his audience be first and foremost subjected to a meticulous lie detector check-up. (I can just picture myself, sitting there with electrodes poking out of my ears, answering questions like «is there really not a single Taylor Swift which you actually enjoy?», or «have you seriously never shed a tear to ʽDust In The Wind’?», or, for something different, «did you truly listen to every single Elvis movie soundtrack from the 1960s before writing those reviews?»). And I do realize that even in my own case, the need to be honest occasionally clashes — especially as I grow older — with the need to be more polite and mindful of other people’s feelings, which complicates things. Still, even if the wheels of time inevitably shift your hand from writing «KISS sucks ass» to writing «KISS’ music somewhat inadequately mixes tonal simplicity with arrogant pomp to accord with my musical taste», I wouldn’t say that such a shift represented «dishonesty». It’s just switching to a more parliamentary way of speech, that’s all. You do get to know that KISS sucks ass, either way. (I still love ʽDeuce’, and, actually, I think I like quite a few other KISS songs as well, but I still shudder at the concept of KISS).

In short, it’s up to you to form your own opinion, but I still hold on to the old conviction that my reviews are honest — much more honest on the average than those of just about any professional music critic, actually, just about anybody who actually makes a living by writing about music: money, so they say, is the root of all critical bullshit today. Furthermore, I have always tried to keep that writing as independent as possible of trends and fads, particularly those of historical revisionism — which demands that music created in older times be judged according to changing moral standards and sociopolitical preferences of today, a narrow and intellectually detrimental stance if there ever was one. (Not that I’m really complaining that the Rolling Stones have removed ʽBrown Sugar’ from their setlist as a consequence — for what it’s worth, the Rolling Stones should have retired from touring long before Charlie Watts’ demise — but I do sometimes wonder how so many of these old guys, most of whom have absolutely nothing to lose, keep cowering before the changing times, as if they need to repent before it’s too late for them to save some of their legacy for future generations).

Thus, as I tentatively — for now — resume my writing about music from the good old days, there is a faint hope in my mind that, at the very least, it will do some good by throwing an extra pinch of honesty into a world that desperately needs every ounce, no matter which sphere it represents or from which direction it comes. This is my personal justification; whoever thinks I need none is wrong, but to whoever thinks I need much more than that I can only offer my apologies. (Nighttime guerrilla warfare on the streets of Moscow is really not my kind of thing). All it comes down to is the simple fact: in tough times, the least you can do is simply what you can do and what you usually do, without having to answer to your conscience about it. Un-sugarcoated estimations of the lasting value of an old Jimmy Reed record will contribute nowhere near as much to world peace as, say, David Gilmour’s public stand with Ukraine, but as long as you are aware that they are written by somebody who actually stands with David Gilmour (rather than, God forbid, Roger Waters), this — perhaps? — somewhat redeems their existence.

• Also, Gilmour plays his greatest ever solo right here. It’s so perfect I already know it by heart, and I never knew any of Gilmour’s solos by heart until this year.

Starting this week, I am tentatively returning to a modest schedule of reviewing old records, for now confining myself to the 1959–1964 period for US artists — in order to catch up with the British ones, which I have already surveyed all the way up to 1965, but also because that period is still relatively unsophisticated and the music rarely requires as much time and effort as the Beatles’ and post-Beatles’ era (time and effort I am not yet fully ready to spare). On an even slower scale, I shall also continue my video game reviews, if only out of gratitude for this particular «quasi-art form» that has kept me going in the tough spring months of 2022. It goes without saying that this return may be interrupted at any time — depending on what happens in this country in the upcoming months. There may be psychological shocks, there may be material losses, there may be a full blockage of the Internet, there may even arise a need to emigrate (something I absolutely hate to consider, but sometimes life leaves you no choice — like in the case of total wartime mobilization, for instance), so no promises.

If, upon reading this lengthy... declaration? confession? lament? — I’m not sure myself to which genre this text belongs — you decide to consider it unnecessarily long and dramatic, then I’m the first one to know what you mean; so many of my friends and acquaintances have spent these months filling up Facebook and other platforms with long and dramatic ramblings — most of them the obvious products of desperate people who’d love to change the world but can only attempt to do so through Facebook — that I’m pretty sick and tired of them myself. (One reason why I have largely stayed away from FB ­­— once again, keeping silent just seemed like the right thing to do, not out of fear, but rather out of respect for those brave people who were actually fighting to change the world, not incessantly rambling about it in virtual space).

But in this single case, it was something that felt right to do, because (a) it felt strange to simply resume writing about music as if nothing had happened, and (b) something did happen, something that, I feel, is still deeply underestimated and underrated by most of my European and particularly American friends: namely, the bloodiest-to-date manifestation of the struggle between the «old world» and the «new world», which simply had to happen, goddammit, so close to my own turf. Never ever a big fan of the «new world», I shudder to think of the consequences if it happens to lose this particular battle to the far more caricaturesque and contorted «old one», not just for myself but for everybody everywhere. This is, therefore, Only Solitaire’s meek attempt at raising awareness, finishing off with the best possible slogan for whatever is to follow here:

Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you…

• Some classic Kinks to you for conclusion. Ray never really looked classier than he does in this clip, or did he?