Fun House

There’s a scene in a post-apocalyptic movie in which a solitary survivor watches a film of a rock concert in an abandoned theater.  The document of carefree hedonism makes his stark reality seem even bleaker.  That’s how I feel when I listen to Live at Goose Lake: August 8, 1970  The recently released lo-fi document of an infamous set by the Stooges at a Michigan rock festival may as well emanate from a different universe.  

The correlation between the fictional end of the world and today’s pandemic is all-too obvious.  As in the movie, the prospect of another massive music festival seems remote.  But it's not just the coronavirus.  The idea of 200,000 people congregating to hear bands with guitars play rock and roll is ludicrous.  That’s probably never going to happen again in North America.

The Stooges’ outmoded style is made even more obsolete by the honking of Steve Mackay’s saxophone.  The unconventional instrumentation makes Iggy Pop’s berserk interjections even funnier.  The backstory of the essential- albeit superannuated- release on Third Man Records is fascinating.

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I review Brian Scarborough’s fine new album Sunflower Song at Plastic Sax.

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Opera update: I’m up to 143 operas in 142 days.  Danielle de Niese’s breakout performance in Glyndebourne’s 2005 production of Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” provided four of the most entertaining hours of my quarantine.  The free stream is available for three more days.  And all self-respecting Kansas Citians- as well as history-minded feminists- should want to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art's imaginative staging of Virgil Thomson’s “The Mother of Us All."

(Horrifying original image of Detroit Rock City by There Stands the Glass.)