In One of Those Abstract Trances :)

"My sKiRt is ShorT, mY HAir BIG,LauRie'S tIe is Hooked UP tO A SynClAvieR and The 5 Blind Boys ( of whom ThEre ARe Only 3) siNG LAAINGUIDGE, IS A VIRUS! fun to see this again."

(Joy Askew on the 'Language Is a Virus' video from 'Home of the Brave'

Facebook, 2011)

What about That Dress?

"Not a story my people tell."

"One of the things that people have remarked on having seen [the 'Home of the Brave' concert film] was "now what about that dress?" Well, it is a chain metal dress that weighed about 70 pounds - that I were in 'Langue d'amour' - I could hardly hoist myself up onto this platform to walk back and forth and tell the story, so I had to wear sneakers, too. Well, if I had worn heels - what you really should wear with a dress like that - I would have been pile driving the spikes into the beam and just completely destroying this thing.

The song 'Langue d'amour' is of course about a woman and a snake, so I tried to be both narrators in that song: the gloves were supposedly the head and tail of this long snake who keeps slithering around.

[...]

I felt that since this was a story about the Garden of Eden - and this was a woman's story if there ever was one, I mean she initiated this action, Adam really just kinda stood around - so I figured since she was the main person in that story, she should tell it, so that's why I departed from my usual - as they say, androgynous - look to something more appropriate to that story."

(Laurie Anderson, 'Home of the Brave' promo interview, 1986)

Metrópolis, 1986

"While I criticize technology I use several thousand Watts of power to say that."

(Laurie Anderson, 1986)

Caution: the following videos are recommended only for those who are inclined to bear overdubbing on the original (English) sound.

TVE's (Spanish national tv) cultural magazine Metrópolis has made this interview with Laurie Anderson around the time of the 'Home of the Brave' Tour. I originally found the video in the online archive of TVE but soon it proved to be simply crap - halfway into the video, vision and sound slip out of sync which gets really serious / annoying towards the end (cca. 15-20 secs). So I decided to synchronize the sound bit-by-bit back to the video. Sadly, the overall quality of the original video was quite poor (for example, at some points you can hear an opera aria seeping into the left channel, etc.), plus, I had to create a different sound intro as well. Now the result is on YouTube; you decide about its enjoyability.

In the interview Laurie discussed topics like American pop culture; being a social critic; Laurie's love-hate relationship with technology; the wide range of one-of-a-kind instruments used during the 'Home of the Brave' Tour (including, among others, the keyboard tie and the drum suit) and many more. She was also talking about the imagery of 'Blue Lagoon' and the Spanish lyrics of 'Smoke Rings'.

Teh Coolness.

Behold.

Robert Sabino?, Laurie Anderson
Home of the Brave, Hammersmith Apollo
Photo source: jacquemart / Flickr

(Hint: look for more in jacquemart's photo stream.)

Double Treat

"The time in 'Flow' is very odd - instead of bars, you'll wait seven beats until the next phrase and it's kind of, "Woah, what time signature is that in." It's in the time signature of regret or something, sort of flowing."

(Laurie Anderson on her Grammy-nominated violin piece 'Flow')

1. Listen to Mike Ragogna's interview with Laurie Anderson, recorded from KRUU-FM (broadcasting from Fairfield, Iowa):

• part one (audio length: 13 mins 57 secs, file size: 19.2 MB)

• part two (audio length: 14 mins 21 secs, file size: 19.7 MB)

[note: songs edited out]


2. Read the transcript in the Huffington Post.