New Scott Walker album: 'The Drift'

WALKER: I've fuckin' spent it, ain't I?

ALBA: I don't know, have you?

WALKER: Yeah, it's all gone.

ALBA: Really?

WALKER: Down the boozer.

ALBA: Really? Good Lord! Now I want to know one thing...

WALKER: What?

ALBA: Are you serious or are you just making me, trying to make me laugh?

WALKER: No, it's all gone. Gone.

ALBA: Really?

WALKER: Yeah.

ALBA: No, but I mean about what you're doing.

WALKER: Oh yeah.

ALBA: You are serious?

WALKER: Mmm.

ALBA: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Brahms have all died...

WALKER: They're all heroes of mine, ain't they?

ALBA: Really... what? What were you saying, sir?

WALKER: They're wonderful people.

ALBA: Are they?

WALKER: Oh yes! They really turn me on.

ALBA: Well suppose they turn other people on?

WALKER: (Under his breath) That's just their tough shit.

ALBA: It's what?

WALKER: Nothing. A rude word. Next question.

ALBA: No, no, what was the rude word?

WALKER: Shit.

ALBA: Was it really? Good heavens, you frighten me to death.

WALKER: Oh alright, Siegfried...

"Riding a deliciously scratchy guitar riff, DRIFT explodes onto the scene, power chords blazing and choruses erupting. Scott Walker cruising his way through the song, voice soaring in all the right places and easing back to a quieter croon when the occasion calls."

Yes, yes, it's the new Scott Walker.

It's called "The Drift".

Ten tracks (last one acoustic just like Tilt and Climate of Hunter).
Like Tilt only more so - darker, stranger, further out, further in.
Astonishing stuff. Three or four of the tracks (at least) career highlights: so powerful I had to listen to it in two or three track bursts. Tracks two and three actually disabled me for about 45 minutes after (the way "The Electrician" and "Farmer In The City" did when I first heard them, only more so).
If you got Tilt, you'll love this. "Haunting" doesn't begin to do justice to its emotional complexity.
Inspirational: a 63 year old who makes musicians - artists - a third his age seem like cop outs; and makes 53 or 63 (or 46) seem like a good age to really start living...
Worth the wait - and then some.

{Out March-ish, I think, on 4AD.

posted by Ian 1/17/2006 08:37:00 PM

http://apawboy.blogspot.com/2006/01/yes-yes-its-new-scott-walker.html

i remember the wire interview circa Tilt when they asked him what he had been doing for 11 years and he just said something like "i was waiting. waiting and waiting"

http://www.thewire.co.uk/archive/interviews/scott_walker.html

Is Climate of Hunter good?

And Billy Ocean.

I don't recall the 21-gun salute.

i'm looking forward to the doc almost as much as the album.

Don't be ridiculous. They taped over those with a recording of their Morris dancing.

-- Dom iNut (do...), January 20th, 2006.

Drive

-- do knut (do...), November 17th, 2005.

close, but no prize.

http://bedazzled.blogs.com/bedazzled/2005/11/man_from_reno.html

I may be wrong, but I think only the words are Scott's, the music by someone else.

http://apawboy.blogspot.com/2006/01/yes-yes-its-new-scott-walker.html

Er, ok.

replace "scott walker" with "dan bejar"?

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=7828767

Working title The Drift

Completed tracks:

Cossacks are
Clara
Jesse
Hands Me Up
Buzzers
Psoriatic
A Lover Loves.

Interview.
Heading IT'S ALWAYS DIFFICULT

World exclusive: The return of Scott Walker

Scott Walker isn't a man to be rushed. The notoriously reclusive
singer's new album, The Drift, is his first record since 1999's
soundtrack to French arthouse movie Pola X, and only his 4th solo
effort in 30 years.

"It was written on and off over the last seven years," he says
speaking exclusively to Q. "It's always a difficult process,
although by my standards a few came running this time."
Anyone still hankering after a rturn to the orchestral pop of hi
s '60's hey day will be disappointed. Recorded at London's Air
studios with producer Peter Walsh between June 2004 and November
2005, The Drift follows the same Avant garde path as 1995's
magnificently unhinged Tilt.

Once again, the emphasis is on experimentation. New track Psoriatic
begins with the sound of a giant pea rolling on a table and features
percussion on a wooden box covered with dustbins. Another Hands Me
Up ("Written around the fulcrum of celebrity television")includes a
bizarre instrument called a tubax. "It's a giant saxophone, even
larger than a tuba", says Walker. "There are only two in the
country".

The album's most potentially controversial track is Jesse. Written a
month after 9/11, it brings together the attacks on the World Trade
Centre with Elvis Presley's still-born twin brother,
and "deconstructs" Presley's Jailhouse Rock along the way.
"It starts with the basses sounding like planes coming in," he
says, "while substituting the Jailhouse Rock drum riff with
whispered 'pows' for planes hitting the towers".
With Radiohead and Franz Ferdinand contributing to a forthcoming
Walker Documentary, 30th Century Man, interest in the singer is
greater than it's been in years. Predictably Walker is nonplussed
by the attention.

"I've lived with this too closely and for too long", he says. "My
only hope is that others will find the record engaging on some level."

"Clara: Scott Walker

Flesh crawling 12-minute allegory of death and guilt centred around the grizzly fate of Clara Petacci, mistress of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Insane and extaordinary."

That sounds really silly.

New track Psoriatic
begins with the sound of a giant pea rolling on a table and features
percussion on a wooden box covered with dustbins

you can't hear him. he's made of string.

I don't see how this is possible, but I'll take your word for it.

Cossacks are charging in
Charging into fields of white roses

Cossacks are charging in
Charging into fields of white roses.

That's a nice suit!
That's a swanky suit!

Been a pope like no other.
I'm looking for a good cowboy.
A rare outcry makes you lead a larger life.
Youl could easily picture this in the current top ten.

It's hard to pick the worst moment.
It's hard to pick the worst moment.

More please.

Now embark for the Ivory Coast
Chiming like mouse bells
BAM BAM
BAM BAM

at the birth of a vermin Holy Ghost

it
looks
like
this

the packet is around 50 pages long.

and I must hear it

More lyrics!

Bones closing -- too soon at the tips
Won't feed on the bodies
From the fat black crocodile on the sand bar

Can't swallow it.
Then bury it.

From the voice flooded
Semen clotting to paste.

Can't swallow it.
Then bury it.

christ, i wish i could make shit like this up.

the packet is around 50 pages long.

I actually thought this was one of the lyrics! Thanks for posting this stuff by the way PFB.

Cossacks (4:38)
Clara (12:49)
Jesse (6:34)
Jolson and Jones (7:51)
Cue (10:33)
Audience (5:56)
Buzzers (6:45)
Psoriatic (5:57)
The Escape (5:24)
A Lover Loves (3:11)

also, this is officially the fan-dorkiest thread on ILX right now.

That reminds me, I must do a big shop this weekend.

I spent most of the morning repeating this to myself and sniggering.

This is going to be great. I can't wait.

The puddle beneath the cork
Bobbing on a mild chop
That rolled in off the river Dix
And the open water beyond

Brogue says:
"I'LL PUNCH A DONKEY IN THE STREETS OF GALWAY!"

Then me:

"I'LL PUNCH A DONKEY IN THE STREETS OF GALWAY!"
"I'LL PUNCH A DONKEY IN THE STREETS OF GALWAY!"

Sonny boy.
Such a sonny boy.

But I have to hear it. Soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKlsnDjv-EM&search=Scott%20walker

Or how about JAMES JOYCE!? I think our boy Scott'o is a bit more of an intellectual abotu his references and would first reach to Joyce than a sad old drunk cunt like me!

also, i missed this upthread:

the 9/11-Elvis's dead brother thing sounds very silly.

it def. sounds silly conceptually, but the track is totally skin-crawling.

sorry. on a Walker kick and need more fannish ranting.

also, don't ask for leaks, dude.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/cultureshow

i hope Muriel Gray does the Culture Show interview ;)

That definitely warrants a :( or even a :`(

Site for said film here:

http://www.scottwalkerfilm.com/blog/

I do like this one comment on it:

Have been living with The Drift for a few weeks now - feeling like one of the first human explorers to make it to Mars.� The album itself should be nominated for Best Foreign Film� - it defies “album” - it is more like a continent.� Will take five documentaries to work through it.

Meantime, they posted this today:

Scott interview & film clips on The Culture Show
March 26th, 2006

The Culture Show BBC2, Thursday March 30 features Scott’s first televised interview in over 10 years and will include clips from our upcoming film - including a rare peek at him at work on his new album. The segement is only goingt to be about 10 min. long but if you’re in the UK, try to look out for it!

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000EZMPEU.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_V56248911_.jpg

That...that's a 4AD album there, yessir.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/?id=culture_show

they update the site on the day of the new show's broadcast (thursday).

The still at the top of the site is amazing. Is this Scott in the recording booth? Looks like some nightmarish medical experiment.

I ended up getting some quite funny - in both senses - replies from Scott to my email interview. Both they and my review will be in the Uncut out end of April...

Geri

Anything to do with Nietzche's horse-hugging?

I'm vicariously disappointed by JtN's non-meeting.

I will buy this LP the day it comes out (whatever day that is), just like 4AD records of old.

I wasn't going to say this, but it did occur to me that I found it equally creepy. More verbose, natch.

Anyone one likely to read the piece probably agrees that Scott is a genius, but after a paragraph or two, I just found it all a bit embarrassing. Didn't leave much impression of the music either. But I then didn't understand Penman even in the 80's.

His explanation of his dwindling popularity after Scott 3 as being partially as a result of "too many songs in 3/4 time" was quite funny.

on the charge that Drift was inaccessible, "ah well, there's plenty of accessible music out there already"

If you missed it watch out for the repeat at 11.20pm.

i thought it was interesting and worth watching... but i do not hate the bbc as much as you do.

bit like that muriel gray the tube interview on youtube but not as bad

scott still good, despite

goldfrapp was the worst: "this is proper music". did she say anything else? cocker said something that was OTT, too, but I forget

great, to see scott, though, and hear, a bit

3 crossposts

sitting through people you don't want to hear talking abt this, talking abt this, to get to see the scott bits

But I dunno, I thought it was ok. SW seemed funny and gracious and thoughtful. It's a 7pm show aimed at a general audience, you know - not ILM nerds.

When I heard I was going to be interviewing SW a couple of weeks ago, I expressed my surprise/joy/nervousness to my cow-workers. They are a pretty bright bunch, but none of them had even heard of him! Which baffled me, but means I don't think you can forgo this kind of general, basic kind of introductory piece.

3 crossposts

IT'S '30 CENTURY MAN' NO TH BLOODY HELL

The only thing that's different is Sky TV, etc., but where's the intellectual challenge in that? And what business has a station like BBC2, whose remit is supposedly arts and culture, to be putting out programmes like Eating With Cilla Black? If it's about audiences and they want to compete with Channel 4, then the security blanket of the licence fee should be withdrawn and they should compete in the marketplace, like everybody else.

They should have got JtN on to interview Scott, too. At The Donkey Sanctuary, Salcombe Regis.

xpost: Eating with... is culture to, isn't it?

As for the Trellick Tower, five minutes' walk from White City - cheap to do innit?

Scott is the most unpretentious "serious" artist I can think of. He just does it, without pontification, pseudo theorizing (sorry, Brian) or smugness. Scott has influenced bands like Xiu Xiu, by working outside "time" and " fashion" as a real artist should. He's doing something that is equally audacious and idealized like a musical Michelangalo running against the trend of other high Renaissance classicists - reshaping the song form in a way that nobody has yet caught up with, as if those "blocks of sound" were blocks of marble. Mr Penman just has to keep it concise and simple as snare drum clipped on the exact beat.

Scott looks bloody great for 62, it must be said.

A lot of people get hung up on the " abstraction" of the post- nite flites work, don't you think?. But sadly forget the emotional simplicity of what he does, as he always states he's "pairing" the text down to a feeling.. Just as they do in the French chanson or German leider tradition, were words and enunciation articulate unsaid expeiences. Walker sings through the feelings of others as if they were inside him, exorcising all the horrors he's watched and read. He conveys the souls of the unspoken victims through his compositions ... people who are victims of poltical/state control. Take for example the ironically titled Patriot 91...

He conflates the narratives of the Nazis third Reich and the fourth reich of the good old USA. The " highway of Death" with incinerated bodies ... "shock and awe"... christ you can hear him close to tears when hes sings "Aryanuary"... Scott Walker knows the score of what is politically going on right now on in front of our very eyes. How our planet is being turned into a global corporate fascist state, and how this very state is trying to destroy the human spirit.

Walker is fighting against that horror with this music, and reflects the mirror of our cruelty back to our faces whether in Treblinka or in Iraq. He is touch with the violence and the 'sublime' just as Goya or Picasso were, or in cinematic terms as Passolini, who was exploring the same idea of corporations/fascism in Salo.

He is one of the most vital as well as humble artists working today and should not be ignored.

Christ, I went on rant there. But it would nice if people focussed on the work, rather than lazily quip it's "Inacessible".

Ciao for now

I agree. But in fairness, it is often these very attributes (save the latter) that make for a dud interview.

what i could make out of "Jesse" sounded magnificent.

(nb: this is actually what Freddie Garrity was doing in 1974)

People funny boy, I liked your comment it made me chuckle... you are right. It's sad but patently true.

Anyway, maybe I was too harsh on Eno. What the hell do I know? and Jarvis and his hairdo, yeah he really needs to stop hanging on to that Kistch, retro-grade phoneyness. It's dull. Iam worried about this documentary, because it will contain a plethora of stupidity. Although my hands will be rubbing to see how Ute Lemper eulogizes Scott. I have a feeling she will come out with some intellectual meat in her interpretations of Scope J and Lullaby.

i can't verify because i dont live in UK...

The use of all these middling musos tho is irritating... Eno's fair enough, and Bowie (if he's in the proper documentary...) cos Eno's worked with him (abortively) and Bowie/Scott have had clear influence on each other (see Post Berlin Bowie's inluence on Walker from Nightflites onwards...)...... but the rest of them are lightweights... seemingly there to justify Scott and convince those who don't know anything about him that he's worth investing time and energy in....

But this is audience-be-damned stuff - Scott Walker's audience

Question is would it be better to have noting at all on highbrow stuff if the media is not going to treat it with the time and seriousness it merits?

def. not. that just breeds a kind of ugly elitism, feeding real quickly into repugnant ideas like "you wouldn't understand it anyway!" &etc.

scott's work has a lot of layers, but i don't think it's a crime to neglect those layers for a general-purpose interview that might get his name back in the brains of people who haven't thought about him in a while. i appreciate the frustration, the idea of excluding a complex artist from general-forum coverage because that coverage is necessarily limited gets into a kind of scary walling-off that i don't think scott himself would be keen on.

fact is, walker-philes are going to root out the layered stuff anyway. and in truth, scott has made it abundantly clear that he generally recoils from discussing his songs in any kind of incredible detail anyway.

"i appreciate the frustration, but the idea of excluding a complex artist from general-forum coverage because that coverage is necessarily limited gets into a kind of scary walling-off that i don't think scott himself would be keen on."

Why is it necessarily limited?

And to be honest the other thing I weirdly noted whilst watchig the interiew with Walker was how whilst I identify with his music, the man is completely seperate, almost like there's little relation. This is almost certainly as a result of knowing very little about him, and him being basically unwilling to discuss in depth the minutiae of his lyrics. This means that his work is not so contextualised, and leaves more room for your own thoughts... I almost think mystery is a good thing... so the less we hear the better: who wouldn't agree that records wer more "magical" and evocative back in the day whe you couldn't simply google all the information you could ever want about them, or visit their myspace account???

This means that his work is not so contextualised, and leaves more room for your own thoughts...

insanely OTM. my thoughts about his music exactly.

You can choose to follow the " Cue" or not.

I have read more intelligent discussion here than the babble I have witnessed on the Culture show.

Geri

You'd think it would be an obvious question, and might give some insight as to where he's coming from but . .

(My guess would be Harrison Birtwhistle, but I could be way off.)

Anyone???

Geri

Certain questions are raised via this observation.

Fuck, another nightmare surprise! A screaming orchestra! It's terrifying!

There was an interview, way back in 95 when TilT was out, where he said he was listening to Nine Inch Nails and PH Harvey at that time.
I think the interview was in WIRE, but I am not sure.

oh really? hm.

am excited abt it, to see more of scott and in the studio, but not terribly looking forward to people who I don't, necessarily, dislike but saying a lof of v uninsightful stuff, etc

Well of course you have. As people keep reiterating, the Culture Show is intended as a topical "sampler" of what's going on across the board in the midbrow arts world. If you want specifics, go elsewhere. Or come here.
As for Scott: yeah, he came across as a witty, approachable fellow. But the new music sounded bloody awful.

Please share, will buy the original on the day of release.

-- Momus (nic...) (webmail), Today 4:32 AM. (Momus) (later)

(X-post to Marcello)

That's actually the tubax, a saxophone the size of a tuba. But yes, fucking amazing sound.

put it this way: after listening to The Drift for a long time and then going back to Tilt, i was surprised at how melodic Tilt was.

also, almost everyone associated with scott is referring to this as "rockin" or "his rock record". it's a silly bit of spin, but be prepared.

*cries of joy*

Seth, that seems to me the key problem with Tilt and the little of Drift I've heard. The vocal lines seem all but arbitary, floating around in that ghostly register he seems to use

I agree, Lee. However, as someone else stated......TILT seems downright melodic compared to THE DRIFT.

Not released for another month, and yet the backlash has already begun!

The Drift is incredible.

The vocal lines in Tilt and Drift are about as far from "arbitrary" as you can get. EVERY word and EVERY sound on this album has a place.

And for those hankering after more melody, give it up! There is plenty melody – however brutal some of it may be. Anyway, why is melody so important? Do you only watch films with a clearly defined plot or a happy ending?
These songs work within the medium of music better than almost anything else I can think of. For decades now, Scott Walker's music has been about context and appearance but once you go deeper you find that it is also dealing with how it achieves that appearance [Thanks Jim]

It's not the lack of a melody, it's the fact that the melodies are frustratingly narrow in compass, and don't sound written (to me at least). The analogue with films is misleading. Films that work always seem to have an interior logic that make them work (Lynch, Bergman, Tarkovsky) even if that logic remains hidden to the viewer.

In other words, I never felt on Tilt that one day I was just going to 'get' the tunes. I just thought they were weak (and I don't mean 'not poppy'...), although often the music compensated. But not always. That said, I've heard ONE track from Drift, so I really ought to be quiet now.

I'm not sure what Tarkovsky has said about hidden logic but both He and Lynch seem to deal in dream language and metaphors for the human condition.
I agree with Lee Ward about the interior logic (Tarkovsky talked about Rhetoric and Haiku) but I hear this same integrity in Tilt and The Drift.
On a side note, didn't Tarkovsky aslo struggle with his spirituality – something Scott Walker described in a 1995 interview for The Wire.

I am curious how a melody can "sound written", I don't mean to provoke, I would really like to know.

k

If people thought Tilt was hard stuff, this is built out of the same ideas(vast expanses of abyss with just that voice to guide you through then short bursts of bellowing rupture) but far more offensive and aggressive and absurd than before.
On Tilt and Climate of Hunter and the Niteflites tracks there was at least some hint of the easy listening merchant of before, but twisted in a Lynchian way so that it became subverted in its new terrain, but here there is basically none of that, all transformed into noise rock, Penderaki like queasy stasis, and insane tableaux. Even on Tilt there was "The Patriot" and "Farmer in the City" lush songlike songs, albeit of a bizzaro hue.

Differences from Tilt--- less songy, more operatic, less heterogenous from song to song, the vocabulary remains the same across the album--- baritone guitars/atonal acoustic guitars, string dischords and Iannis Xenakis like glissandi, with lots of musique concrete/improv like disturbing sound effects- is that really a donkey braying or some kind of brass instrument on "Jolson and Jones"...? On Psioratic is that a giant pee rolling around?
Is that sawing of wood in the middle 8? There's far less tonal and chordal segments as well, rather stretches of effects and obscure instruments beating out regular rhythms...

Singing remarkably for a 63 yr old as effortlessly as ever- genuinely
impressive...sounds just as good vocally as 11 years ago...

The comments that it was his rockingest album are accurate, not to the extent that he uses lots of guitars or verse/chorus structures... rather that its aggressive and pounding in parts in a way that his stuff hasn't been in the past... but really it sounds like a single piece in movements, almost a diseased cabaret or an ultra-avant garde opera of modern cruelty. It immediately renders all Goth/Industrial as frightening as a care-bears
annual sing-along...

Its immense and incredibly truculent- a libretto/lyric sheet really feels ESSENTIAL in order to make any headway with some of the pieces... makes even plainer the idea that he's often singing in different characters within the same song, different angles on the thing described..some lyrics already stick out .... "anthrax Jesus, sack of feet", "nose holes caked in black cocaine..." "don't think it hasn't been fun, cos it hasn't..." "polish the fork and stick the fork in him", "waddles into the afternoon, look into its eyes, it will look into your eyes......", "and everything within reach."
And the little tv news sample at the beginning of Buzzers... "Caligula proclaimed his horse senator, but his horse never took his seat"

Some questions- what the fuck is that ducknoise thing on "The Escape" all about? Its completely obscene and absurd....
And on "A Lover Loves" what are the hissing noises for? What does it all mean? The end of the album leaves me completely puzzled and confused... it ends in a kind of terrifying absurdity. Actually the entirety of those last two songs is so jarring and fucked up. Can anyone help me along here??? This seems like properly new terrain for Walker, twisted absurdity as the last place to go after the cavalcade of horrors before or what exactly? It feels like one of the few albums I've heard where it requires serious discussion just to work out what the hell is going on! Just some basic thematics would be helpful (ie "Clara" and "Jesse" make a lot of sense
given that we know the former is about the death of Mussolini's mistress and the latter perhaps Elvis in conversation with his dead twin about the fall of American myth as represented by 9/11)

I think I agree. I'm getting tired of thinking about what it might be like. I don't want to ruin it for myself.

it's definitely a donkey, taken from a sound effects record. i have it on very good authority. ahem.

"Caligula proclaimed his horse senator, but his horse never took his seat"

i've listened to this 50 - 60 times, and i still have no idea what it means. the song is meant to juxtapose the reign of milosevic with the evolution of the horse. that's fine as a guiding principle, but i have no clue how to apply it. yet.

Some questions- what the fuck is that ducknoise thing on "The Escape" all about? Its completely obscene and absurd....

the song opens with a slide guitar, which is meant to call to mind the Warner Bros/Loony Tunes theme song. again, no idea how these fragments contributue to the overall meaning of the song. been working on it for a whiiiile now.

the last song might be my favorite on the record. it's definitely the most melodic, but also weird and halting because of all the "psst! psst!"

I liked it better pre-Internet, when albums just appeared...(like "Tilt", for instance)...very few things just come out of the blue anymore, and nothing ever lives up to the hype...

Agreed on the donkey business...

In context of the quote itself Milosevic is basically saying that a declaration means nothing, its the taking (the horse to the senate, bosnians taking control etc). Hmm... a difficult one.... and the evolution of the horse....?

The further the album goes on the more opaque its lyrical matter becomes...

all - sorry for spoiling the fun, i've just been dying to discuss some of this...

Ha ha, maybe he just thought, "That's a funny line, I'll just stick that one in there for big yuks"

I know it may not be a reference but what intrigues me is how both examples decided to use such a ridiculous sound in such a frightening way.

What with the sexual interpretation of donkey punching and the content of The New York Ripper, the album could be heard rather differently. THIS FILTH MUST BE BANNED.

But yes, when I heard that Caligula line, I burst out laughing cos its the most twisted and weird sentence. But I'm sure using it as a frame must mean something in the context of the rest of the song.

but also rude to be left off promo lists.

Can we not just start a new thread to discuss it, or will that irk the multitude?

Oh lord.

i'll cop. i didnt pick up on this at all.

I've yet to come across a link that's still working in any of the blogs/forums I've just visited.

(I am agreeing with you hstencil, not mocking you)

Christ.

Hand Me Up also ends on him feeling like christ... the nails going into his feet and hands... so yes, mocking himself and the way he is perceived, (the tortured artist is all an audience wants) or just the way no-brow sleb-culture in the end wants only to crucify those it once celebrated, it wants them dead (see Pedro Doherty et al...)

Psoriatic refers in part to "the silver people" (the term for people who suffered with psoriasis in medieval times) which I read elsewhere as being a subject Scott has written about before (a piece for his Meltdown Festival back in 2000 was it?)- but I don't know what all the blanket stuff is about...

Cue and Jolson and Jolson evade my grasp at present, but the fat black crocodile on the sandbar is a nice image...

see, i got that in Psoriatic ("anthrax, jesus.../ pulling out won't be slow") but didnt get it in The Escape.

In comparison to "Tilt" this is way more claustrophobic, and unremittingly dark. I'll be honest and say it did frighten me listening to it the first time after I smoked up last night, and definitely is one of the most uneasy listens to a cd I've had in ages.

However, I don't mean this in a necessarily negative fashion -- "The Drift" is uncompromisingly brave, but with very few moments of relief like "Tilt" had -- Scott is always engaging through his perfofrmance on here (I think his vocal on "Clara" is one of his best in years) but he plays such a perfect straight-man to his frightening soundscapes -- the 1st listen on headphones real loud found me just as uncomfortable at times with his vocal presence than with the music itself.

While he toiled with the themes of alienation in earlier records, the deeper he goes the more interesting and beguiling it gets- To be honest some of the skewed ambience reminded me of "Silent Hill" the game at times, which did take cues soundwise from "Jacob's Ladder" -- a kind of industrial stomp that is very unsettling.

It's probably going to be my album of the year.

"Walker sings through the feelings of others as if they were inside him, exorcising all the horrors he's watched and read. He conveys the souls of the unspoken victims through his compositions ... people who are victims of poltical/state control"

OTM.

Having heard it a few times I can get a clearer handle on the contrast of textures. He is adept at mixing the acoustic qualities of naturual instruments with the processed electro-accoustic ones. Again, referencing " Clara ", he uses a medieval flute tone (A nod to Ennio Morricone's medieval library music for Pasolini's Life trilogy). The flute tones are narrow in the Pythagorean Scale in D, but Scott works against this limited scale admirably.

He repeats the tactic throughout the album. On " Buzzers" it's the Guitar, and insistent tapped glass, as well as the looped tone generator (or what sounds like one). Working against the sparest of musical materials, so that the lyric is illuminated above all other textural considerations.

No it isn't — it's actually rather typical.

To describe socio-political angst in a way which isn't balls-achingly obvious and gauche is pretty decent too, given that many many artists of late have tried and succeeded only in producing music thats embarrassing.

That's more like it.

There's an unending stream of self-possessed instrumental music... to be sure.

Bah

PaulBaran: The hissing on a lover loves is a distancing technique for definite, to prevent the song from being pleasant, to undercut the relative ease of the melody in comparison with whats gone before...

yes, your observation is spot on and wholly consistent with the procedures he uses in pyschic disruption, as well as that hissing, you can also hear the guitar veer of atonally as well on that song. Most great music, manipulates different emotions; Here Mr Engel opts to manipulate our fear, just as global governments and corporations do.

like jesse. ok, when i listen to it now i know that it's somehow about elvis' dead brother and the twin towers, and there's a guitar reference to jailhouse rock, and the pow pows are the planes hitting the towers...

but damned if i know what elvis' dead brother has to do with the twin towers, or how they fit together in the song, other than that they lyrics seem to morph back and forth between the two subjects, or what all these references actually communicate in the end

which doesn't make the song any less powerful, i'm quite happy to listen to it without figuring it out as if it were a code. but i'm also not convinced there really is anything to figure out at the end of the day.

like hand me ups. ok, its about reality tv/global celebrity culture etc. and sw's commentary on that is to bring in the old artist-as-jesus, crucified for the spectacle of the masses, allegory.

not exactly subtle, or original.

Isn't that what defines great art. A work which simultaneously allows you to stand back as a spectator and take in the whole effect of it, while it merits enough elusivness to elcit a range of critical responses, ranging from " Fuck me to the socio-political undercurrents of this are infinite X,Y,and mr Zebedee". You can enjoy it on multiple levels, no matter which way you are mentally and emotionally orientated towards it. Your response isn't less valid than mine, it's just as unique.

Boychild " Go seek the Lady" ;)

Paul.

but if someone has a good explanation of what, say, jesse is supposed to actually mean, beyond listing all the reference points, i'd like to hear it!

words

Well, to be precise, it's one of his only vocals in years!

I listened to "Tilt" recently for the first time in ages, it's an album that gets less impressive the more you listen to it. Still looking forward to the new 'un tho, of course!

Do tell — I've been listening to it the last few days myself...

Geri

Seeing that "Jesse" has a visual element all prepared for the upcoming doc, who would direct the video for "Cossacks Are" aside from SW himself?

http://www.4ad.com/releases/

for those interested in analysis found this disection of the lyrics for "Tilt" in an old ILM discussion....

'A moving aria
for a vanishing
style of mind'

'A noble debut
tackling vertiginous
demands'

'Has absence ever
sounded so eloquent
so sad
I doubt it?'

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the nails

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the pale
monkey
nails

'Touching in the
shattered lives
it unearths'

'A nocturne
filled with
glorious ideas'

'A chilling
exploration
of erotic
consumption'

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the nails

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the pale
monkey
nails

Cossacks are
charging in

Charging into
fields of
white roses

Cossacks are
charging in

Charging into
fields of
white roses

"That's a
nice suit"
"That's a
swanky suit"

"Been a pope
like no other"

"I'm looking
for a good
cowboy"

'A rare outcry
makes you lead
a larger life'

'You could easily
picture this in
the current top
ten'

'Medieval savagery
calculated cruelty'

'Its hard to pick
the worst moment'

'Its hard to pick
the worst moment'

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the nails

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the pale
monkey
nails

i totally agree with this assessment, though sw himself denied it.

having read the lyrics and the notes now, i'm even less inclined to believe there is a meaning to be extracted from most of these songs now. he may say, or have once said, that every

that every moment--music, lyrics--of each song is intended to convey a specific meaning. but if that's really the case, that meaning is so hidden/recessive that it will never be available to anyone other than scott himself

(Reuters Tuesday, February 22, 2005)
Bush was asked by a French reporter if relations were now good enough for Bush to invite Chirac to his Crawford, Texas, and ranch, an honour bestowed by Bush on his closest allies.

"I'm looking for a good cowboy," Bush responded.

(Guardian Unlimited book review/The Pope in Winter: The Dark Face of John Paul II's Papacy
Saturday February 12, 2005)
John Paul II, the Polish pope, born Karol Wojtyla 84 years ago in Wadowice, is perhaps the most extraordinary and influential Christian of modern times. He has "been a pope like no other": not just because of his longevity; not just for supplanting the centuries-old tradition that popes must be Italian;....

(Sunday Times book review /Slavenka Drakuliæ :The Taste of a Man
Abacus March 1998)
'Astonishingly sensuous... a chilling exploration of erotic consumption... engrossing' -- Sunday Times

An easy google search will back up these results.

(BBC news /Tuesday, 12 February, 2002/ "Milosevic accused of 'medieval savagery")
Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte:
"Some of the incidents revealed an almost medieval savagery and a calculated cruelty that went far beyond the bounds of legitimate warfare"

As we are for every other song ever as well.

The Drift (1989). Directed by John Aes-Nihil, based on the Tennessee Williams novel.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183015/fullcredits

His website Archives of Aesthetic Nihilism looks interesting
http://www.aes-nihil.com/

dadmomsis
driving in
the black car

dadmomsis
sighting on
the white line

long come something
in a blinding
light

long gone something
in a blinding
light

dead all dead
ooh all dead

dead all dead
ooh all dead

bloody foot
bloody head

eat the nose
for christmas

eat the toes
for lent

eat the car
for eat-a-car

send the bones
to kent

Robert Nedelkoff did an incredible interpretation of Tilt's lyrics in the zine Nestful of Ninnies I believe, I hope he posts his readings on this album somewhere. Hearing Scott Walker croon "pee-pee my pants" has to be one of the most bizarre musical moments of the year.

Been listening to this a whole lot over the last week. On first listen it sounded kind of flat and, well, slightly disappointing. As noted upthread, very monotonous melody lines. Took me about 6 plays to really warm up to it - but, I am now LOVING this record.

Put 'Tilt' on this evening, and it sounded lush and wondrous like a Burt Bacharach album.

blank mumble
blat babble
song babble

song foaming
at the mouth

won ton
soupie

spit gargle
retch easter
bunny juke

puke

family zoo
me and
you moo

moo moo

the beast
is loose
least
is best

pee pee maw maw

It is very funny how pretty and accessible Tilt sounds next to this!

Tilt is still his best album for me. But this is close.

I thought he might be using the slabs of pork on " Clara" to simulate the crowd's beating of the strung up corpses of Clara Pettaci and Mussollini. Can anyone hear the African/Arabic wailing on " Hands me Up", it adds a nice touch of chaos to the sonic clash and clang. There are more " external" vocal elements (very subtle) on The Drift... as is in the case of " Buzzers".. that sound " Gidda, Gidda, Gidda" after the " stick the fork in him line".

He repeats a lot of animal imagery here as he did on Tilt... with sparrows (Another Pasolini reference), Donkey's, Horses, Crocodiles, and of course ducks. The sexual imagery is more overt with references in " Cue" to clit and Hepatitus... that fine line between animalistic savagery/auto erotic restraint.

"Er, well, you know. I haven't done it in so long and I've been trying to work up to it. I'm trying to make an album now which I should go back on the road with. I never loved performing, you know. It's so daunting. I work with such large forces that it's daunting and very expensive. Because it's such a large organisation it's too nerve-wracking for me I'm afraid." The Guardian 2000.

Maybe a one-off show at a special location for later dvd release? I'd love to hear this music live.

He seems to be creating a general image of disease and decay on "Cue"... the theme of genocide might be popping up again as well as with the allusion to the Ivory Coast and a " Crocodile on the black sandbar" ... maybe Charles Taylor. In similar way to Burroughs and addiction, he presents a narrtative that is linear through disjunction

If you want to discuss The Drift more

my e-mail is paulbaran@hotmail.com.

crashing thunder and lightning and helicopters and planes and other...wild stuff

like, as an arranged event, maybe. I didn't do anything too funny, yesterday, even

after hearing 'the drift' and then going back to 'tilt' i found the latter, despite having the shorter tracks to be a bit more...flabby. maybe the link wd be 'pola x' soundtrack - its that impulse to concentrate paticular sounds to particular types of scenes etc but i've not seen the movie.

(disagree on the 'glissandos' = must be listening to X, far too composers use aggressive string sounds to be tied-in to any particular classical source - and where is the Ligeti? the links with classical music aren't as strong as w/ Diamanda Galas, her "plague mass" might be a comparison, in the limited-at-times instrumentation/un-wavering vocals, but its way more bleak as she actually has a clear theme she wants to put across)

*i'm a bit sceptical of this but i'll go along for now..

I hear Ligeti in the offkilter strings, in the privileging of textures and in the general horror show feel that is similar to stuff like Ramifications (I think this is the name of the piece I'm reminded of)

Also, Cossacks Are seems to interleave found quotes from world politics with ones from book/music reviews, including one about Ligeti, compare

"A noble debut tackling vertiginous demands" (Cossacks Are)

with

"An impressive debut on disc tackles Ligeti's vertiginous demands"

From a review of an album of Ligeti etudes

Walker has namechecked Ligeti in interviews as well

"priveleging of textures" isn't something that's exclusively Ligeti. I know there is a Dada-esque horror dimension to his work (Aventures, Poeme Symphonique..) but again its not something that just Ligeti.

i think what chuck says re "unvarying pace" gives it a classical dimension - its easier to think of it as a 70 minute song with 12 movements (or 11 + 1 extra track - which isn't as classical a number as 12).

You're right, but in a rather truistic way, in that you're never going to pin down one trope to one artist. Of the contemporary composers who do privilege textures, evoke horror atmospheres etc., Ligeti is probably the best known. And Walker adapting a quote from a Ligeti review can hardly be random, he must be seeing some connection himself...

I will say that thus far, Tilt seems like a more immediately appealing record to me. The sameyness that Julio mentions above also applies to Walker's vocal range, and when the songs are formed from pretty broad sections, it emphasizes the sameyness I think. Tilt to me, though it also used similar forms, seems a little more compact to me, and the sounds themselves a little more varied.

Tilt has already been described as a cantata, with some commentators claiming it is more of a neo-classical choral work than a pop alum. “It might be, to a degree” mused Scott. “But people who ultimately describe it in those terms obviously have a limited knowledge of classical music. Because, if they heard the real thing they’d realise it isn’t like that at all. It’s more of a hybrid. And many people have said that if you really listen to all my records, going back to the beginning, there always is a sense of a rock musician there. My work really does, as I say, very much reflect a rock sensibility, as shaped in the 50s then developed in the 60s, 70s right up to the 09s. All that stuff is in my blood.”

Geri

I guess this must've been before XFM got fucked over by Capital...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/The-Drift-Scott-Walker_W0QQitemZ4865079780QQcategoryZ91486QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Eight pounds is rather reasonable. I was expecting to see it for $250 or something.

Just Kidding.

Dominique i never thought of Feldman but now you mention it and w/the general slow-ness at which this rec moves at...although i get the impression that its more like an engagement w/modern classical that allowed him to 'move on' in certain ways.

Have you heard much Mauricio Kagel? What is your opnion of his work. Iam curious as Iam just approaching it for the first time.

(search the archives and you'll find threads on all composers mentioned so far.)

Scott brought his own records..... played:

Johnny Ace Pledging My Love
He told how Johnny Ace comitted suicide on the road, while playing Russian Roulette before going onstage.

Played the first record he ever bought and the reason why he wanted to be a singer..Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers Why do Fools Fall In Love

Bought a lot of Doo wop records, thought the best of the bands was The Flamingos, but forgot to bring the record along

Loved the young Elvis in the Sun/RCA days everything he did before going into the army.

Played PJ Harvey To Bring You My Love, said he had seen her on tv and really liked this album.. "This one really appealed to me" "I like it, its got a thing running through it, its consistent and its got enough space in it".

Went on to discuss blues/doowop bands namechecked John Lee Hooker, BB King, Robert Johnston, Howling Wolf.

Played Gyorgy Ligeti's violin concerto next saying it was almost in the style of John Tavener, which he didn't always like, but to listen for the occarinas.. went on to say they were "magical" , and "what an idea!"

Next discussed classical music of course loves Beethoven, "an obsession of mine" Boulez, Stockhausen, mentioned Frank Zappa and the French composer he had been influenced by.
Like John Cage, but was not influenced by him as much.

Said he usually works to a blueprint, but the musicians have to come up with sounds too, and it could change everything. Said his lyrics are not like poetry as much as Lou Reed's are. He said "I'm going for the lyric" "There's a basic blueprint, but when you're working with musicians, I like to work with them live.... things change .......sometimes it will be radically altered by a sound someone comes up with that says it better" Said " we are all struggling for lyric now there's not a lot left to say with language now".

Next played The Drifters, Let The Music Play... stressed this was the original Drifters, not one of the touring bands. The "interesting Drifters with singers like Rudy Lewis and Ben E. King".

Discussed the songwriters like Bacharach/David and Pomus/Schuman, said "it worked fantastically well." Touched on Brel's connection/translations by Schuman knew him through his management, with Eric Blau the French composer.

Talked about Phil Spector, said he "had been through that period, liked "barer records" now. but loved the Spector stuff.

Was asked about touring, and talked about the Walker Bros tour with Jimi Hendrix/Engelbert/Cat Stevens.......( I saw that one!)...and about the 60's saying "it was really really bizarre,........it it was so crazy, and we were all a bit out of and I don't remember so much of the 60's like .. people often say , its a cliche.. if you remember it you weren't really there.. I really wasn't!"

Played The Long Hot Summer, Jimmie Rodgers.

The djs tried to get him to talk about his album,,, and the length of some of the tracks, said he tries to get "space" and to let things "breathe" Compared it to European movies ie Three Colours Red,, said it just unfolds.

Said he is "always changing my mind" about what movies/music he likes, When he lived in Scandinavia, he couldn't understand that the people over there "didn't give a damn about Bergman".

Last track played was 9 Inch Nails,,, end of the interview tape failed so no track name.

its a 50 minute interview, just picked out the relevant bits of interest.

Geri

First time I listened to this record was in the pitch dark with a double scotch. It seemed fitting for the mood, somehow.

It then goes on to talk about how the editorial staff had problems with this stance until many of them confessed a similar dislije of having their pictures taken.

It's a good article; six pages (three text, three full page grainy b&w images from the recording studio – one appeared in the last issue of Q) including an interview and brief track run through with some explanations by Scott Walker.
Also includes quotes from Peter Walsh.

There is a full page advert for The Drift on page 5 and "The Office Ambience" – the current favourites on The Wire office stereo – features The Drift at number one.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/current/images/267cover.jpg

hehe

"Hand Me Ups" enters the psyche of a conflicted television 'personality'. [Scott Walker] "He takes it too far, he's jealous of his children. And he wants to be the child himself, and a celebrity. I wrote it during the first Big Brother, one of those awful things. He'll stop at nothing, including sacrificing his children on whatever altar, because they steal his youth and the focus of his attention, preventing him from living his dreams. That's why you hear the children's screams. And there's some quotes in there from The Iliad. So ... there we are." [end Scott Walker quote]

I chose to extract the "Hold Me Ups" paragraph because I don't recall it being discussed that much in this forum.

Apologies in advance if there are any errors in my transcription the [in brackets bits] are mine.

There are also some insights to the recording sessions and instruments – the big wooden box etc.

I think I preferred it when he refused to discuss the lyrics.

Scott Walker - The Drift
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/10bestcds/story/0,,1756929,00.html
5 Stars *****

i'd rather read pretentious analyses than wankers incessantly telling other people to shut up

Petridish tries it with Scott in today's Grauniad.

Oh.

Funny story in the Guardian interview about someone sitting next to him on the tube.

On the Wire website there's a transcript of their Scott interview, with lots of stuff that got left out of the article. The best read of the lot.

I predict a glut of second hand copies available within the week.

I wonder about this. I would imagine most reviews would at least make a passing mention about how the music is a long way from your average singer songwriter or pop artist fare, and given how much we're likely to read bizarre lyric interpretations, I'd hope that anyone buying the CD would have an inkling of what they were in for. Who knows though, I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of used copies of this soon.

Dilemma of whether to rip it and strain to listen to it on my evening commute solved by just-remembered responsibility of taking Ava home tonight on the bus. Maybe I'll let her play with the slipcase.

I bought it in fopp, too

this is incredible.

ha.

sorry about lawyer ron : (

The weather down here is foggy so there is that.

1st track of Walker was surprisingly pleasant and rocking. I am playing computer games to it.

OK, I have listened to this now and it’s much less abstruse and hard to approach than the thread above had led me to believe... I thought maybe it'd be a chore to get through and after I'd managed I'd not like it and think that I was missing something or that it was my fault. It's comparatively POP compared to what I'd expected and an easier listen than Tilt.

It sounds to me like a horror film soundtrack (1976-1983) mixed with the more rocking end of post-rock and sometimes even bits of the first two Black Sabbath albums (I even thought I heard him mention black masses but I think that was wishful thinking as I can’t see it in the lyrics) (obv. horror soundtracks and this both draw on modernist string composition.) I could even imagine some band on Relapse Records or some of the black metallers that went ambient ending up sounding like this, just from a completely different direction. I mean Walker does like Nine Inch Nails and Mogwai.

It’s got a lot of forward motion and rock energy for a something titled “the Drift”.

I thought the lyric fragments in the thread above were pretty weak but they're much funnier on record and, I'm guessing, deliberately so—-no-one would really write a song about Elvis' twin or use "like what happened in America" as a refrain w/out tongue in cheek these days would they?

Also, “WHAT’S UP DOC?” And the donkey is FUCKING GREAT.

When Scott sings "A man came up toward the body/and poked it with a stick" I think of Crispin Glover in Rivers Edge.

There should be an instrumental version of this record.

I think that this might work as sex music. That’s probably why I’m getting none.

It’s really fucking good.

Ironically, the vocals seem almost inconsequential compared to the incredible depth of the production. The best recorded album I have ever heard.

Jonesey get your hi-fi out.

Blow me a birthday kiss when rewiring starts, remmeber!

My friend's dad had a flash hi-fi when we were kids and he told my friend's younger sibling that if they touched his speakers they'd get electric shocks, one time "demonstrating" this by touching them himself and twitching and screaming a bit and then falling to the floor. Surprisingly my friend's little sister isn't in care or anything.

I've still got a few bits and pieces to put in, but hopefully the article will be up on CoM by the end of this week.

To put it very, very mildly, the record has shaken me to my core.

xpost TIMING!

First thoughts: a lot of it feels like Opera! As in Benjamin Britten operas (first time i'd noticed that Scott's voice isn't a million miles away from Peter Pears').

The meat punching is really really unnerving. I think it's the arrhythmic nature of it - it sounds like beats but it's out of synch with the actual 'beat' of the music. The same goes, to a slightly lesser extent, for the looped walking down the stairs sound effect.

I liked the Eno-esque "inventing new instruments" aspects - could have done with even more of this actually. And a bit more variety in general too: some of the tracks in the second half appeared to repeat tricks I'd heard in the first. But this is only a minor quibble - it's probably better to listen to each song on its own rather than all in one go anyway.

Also he gets his facts wrong. There was no Walker Brothers reunion in 1970, Climate Of Hunter does not "remain out of print", Tilt does not feature "Walker chanting random numbers over the sound of a chain being pulled", the Drift doesn't feature an "ancient tuba", etc., etc.

http://www.citypaper.com/music/story.asp?id=11759

By "ancient tuba" maybe he means the tubax, which Scott talks about in interviews. Except it's not a tuba, ancient or otherwise, it's a type of saxophone.

x-post

Yeah, as for The Electrician "cruising down frozen autobahns of synthesizer", the most predominant thing about the song is that it's orchestral!

and much as i love scott, the whiff of pretension does hang round, though rarely envelops

i'd rather read something that acknowledges that than breathless hyperbole/if-you-don't-appreciate-the-genius-you're-stupid stuff

It's Raining Today: The Scott Walker Story (1967-1970) [Razor & Tie, 1996]
Nothing I'd read about this L.A. wannabe turned moody Brit teenthrob--going back to Nik Cohn's Rock From the Beginning, which pegged him as "top-heavy and maudlin" in 1968--prepared me for how purely godawful he'd be. We're talking Anthony Newley without the voice muscles, "MacArthur Park" as light-programme boilerplate, a male Vera Lynn for late bloomers who found Paul McCartney too r&b. Go ahead, believe Nick Cave, Oasis, Foetus, and, I cannot tell a lie, compiler Marshall Crenshaw. But I'm warning you--when I gave him the benefit of the doubt, all I got was this lousy review. C-

I think he's wrong, but he's hardly anti-intellectual. Ultimately Christgau's aesthetic is about directness, rhythm, communication with the audience. Pretty much the opposite of everything Scott Walker stands for.

The boilerplate comeback of the intellectual for, like, ever. Weak.

yes, jerry the nipper, i know that side of him and it's always been annoying... however, i don't think there's much to it in the end

and let's just say that, um, english/european critics are hardly immune to reductive stereotypes about america...

i like a good transatlantic mudfest, myself

on the flip side, these stereotypes are getting at something real, however clumsily

anyway

Not so, you stetson-wearing, loud-mouthed moron.

It just seems odd that Jess should pick on the records "pretensions" as being "European" - as if there aren't loads of avant-noise US composers.

But let's let it go :)

I have no idea he said, or what you're talking about. And immediately switching the debate over to personal gripes is dirty fighting.

Come on, you're just a couple of posts away from putting your first through the screen, aren't you?

Jerry, it probably relates to the fact that Scott Walker is an American who has lived in Europes for decades and been explicity influenced by Europe's high modernist art.

xpost yes

Most sad songs are sad over things that can be cured with a hug, a few kind words, or some chocolate.

Words fail!

(The review, meanwhile, strikes me as a perfectly sound way, both humorous and serious, to talk about The Drift for an audience that is interested in music but probably almost totally unfamiliar with his work -- in otherwards, exactly the expected audience of the City Paper readership.)

People need to chill the fuck out. Jess's review was rock solid.

this is a comeback? or a non sequitir?

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/scott-walker/the-drift.htm

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/w/walker_scott/drift.shtml

i dunno, i think the underlying assumption is that a majority of the regular readers of both the citypaper and pitchfork will not be overly-familiar with music that sounds like Scott's. which i think is a very safe starting point.

He didn't say that at all -- what he DID say was that if you had an online-only P&J comment, you wouldn't get paid for it, and if that was an issue, you should let him know ASAP so he could remove your comment from the webpages about to go live.