from
the Critical List, July 10, 1987
Silos: Cuba (Record Collect). There's a theory, or a
tenet, or whatever it is, that holds that Real Art's a function of Pain and
Neuroses and Psychic Derangement, and that all Real Artists are Miserable --
50,000 famous examples are at this point in the argument paraded by in support
-- and that the Truths they express are (at best, at worst, it's all the same) a
sort of Wallowing in Shit. Because, of course, the World Is Shit, and not to
admit it -- nay, to embrace it! -- is either cowardly or naive, or both. Many of
the record albums I receive in the mail, especially those of the more
alternative variety (the mainstream being mostly and truly content to
just have a good time and make a lot of money), sound to be founded upon just
such a principle. I have, from time to time (especially when attempting
something "artistic" myself), wondered if there might not be something to this
view, wondered whether my basic contentedness might not be what stands
between me and all my Great Works Unrealized. Must one abandon oneself to the
demimonde in order to penetrate the eternal verities? Well, I'm skeptical. I
mean, what's wrong with domestic bliss? Why is that any more boring than,
say, drug addiction? Why do some people who love to hear Lou Reed sing about
heroin leave the room when he pays tribute to his wife and home? What's so great
(or revolutionary, or brave) about being fucked up? Can't one be in the vanguard
without having a lot of stuff to work through? Can't happiness be
interesting?
Questions,
questions, questions! All of them occasioned by Cuba, the second
excellent LP by New York's Silos, wherein are offered (as effective if not
necessarily intentional refutation of the gloomy postulates recounted above)
several songs that, in a manner as straightforward, physically affecting and
musically uncompromising as can be found anywhere else in the American pop
underground, unsanctimoniously celebrate not the Darkness but the acts and
conditions that stave it off -- family, fellowship, commitment, love. That, for
example, "Mary's Getting Married" ("On March 15th/Up in Vermont/At her family's
house"), and not even to the singer, is made to sound terribly adventurous and
profound -- which, of course, it is. There's nothing so difficult, after all,
about letting one's life go to hell. I see it everywhere I go, and,
frankly, I'm not impressed. It's the nature of the physical universe and the
business world, as well as of the human heart, that it's easier to shut down
than it is to stay open. To live, to love, to work, is to spit in the face of
entropy. I go for that, and the Silos seem to, too. That's one (of more than
one) reason(s) I dig this record to the max, baby. There's a current of
tenderness running the course of the LP, through ballad and rave-up alike, the
expression of which (both in words and music) is so clear and direct and
matter-of-fact that the most potentially mawkish sentiments ring only
true. "Every day I see my wife/Her words cut through every defense/I ask for
advice/When she speaks it's from the heart/And she knows I'm hers for always,"
states most-of-the-time leader Walter Salas-Humara, and you simply cannot
not believe him; you hear it as an accurate report. Such deadpan details
as "Margaret goes to bed around eight/I go to bed around 1/Margaret gets up at
six/I get up at six" speak volumes about the workings of real-world affection
and sacrifice; it's through these little things that we may approach the
Big....
» also from The Critical List
» Words
Copyright Robert Lloyd © 1987 and 2000