The Perfection Principal
Posted by: zac | From: May 05, 2004
regarding perfection: it's a quality that's difficult to place one's finger on... this idea that the stars and the seasons and the clocks and harmonies all stumble over the pavement at the same time--to form, in perfect discord, in a torn jean of providence. a skinned knee of serendipity.
excuse me for a moment. that all sounds awfully lofty. deep breath, collect.
in this vastly imperfect world, perfection in something found only in transitions--clock tectonics that rub together in some way or another (astrally, pastorally, or otherwise), and out comes a rumble. and if you blink, you've missed it. and if you blink, it was never there at all. cherry blossoms. light refractions. sweating pavement. the opening verse of "good vibrations." Perfection: It's a Feeling!
Wait, maybe not. maybe Perfection, the ultimate impossibility, is something that can only really exist internally. in the heads of the chaste. in misconceptions and projections. in forgetting.
but this is all a bit silly, isn't it? what i am so carelessly stumbling toward is something altogether different from rational understandings of perfection. rather, a skewed understanding of perfection as it relates to musics (or anything else, i suppose): that of the Perfection Principle. This is a tough one to articulate. Please bear with me.
the Perfection Principle might be best described as something of a fantasy baseball team: the succinct combination of factors that culminate to produce a teetering equilibrium--it might not be something you can verbalize, but you know it when you see it.
that's nothing like a fantasy baseball team. what's with all of these failed sports analogies, anyway?
Take for example, the Talking Heads. in my singular understanding of what composes an ideal, few bands come quite as close as David Byrne and Co. First, there's their lineage: Art-school conception and pretensions (Rhode Island School of Design, no less), immediate association with East-Coast proto punk's most important school (via Jerry Harrison's Modern Lovers term), come-upens through the early New York punk scene (CBGBs, Blank Generation, ad infinitum). Like a thoroughbred horse or something. Mixed-gendered, internally conflicted, commercially viable, artistically single-minded. This, married with the very notion of the band: a group rooted almost entirely on the urge of unease. not a single emotion perceptible but tension. perfect, right? then why aren't they my favorite band? why am I so rarely motivated to listen to them?
enter the greatest anomaly of the Perfection Principle: for whatever reason, "perfect" isn't necessarily "favorite." though it may (or may not) be a formulaic strategy, the outcome of the principle is entirely unpredictable--and rarely are my perfects also favorites.
a perfect example of this glitch (and, in my singular case, the principle itself) comes in the form of my personal definition of conceptual perfection: a band called The Birthday Party. though mythology no doubt bloats the sheer ridiculousness of the groups junk-sick vision, the Birthday Party typifies a sort of perfection of a moment that is in essence impossible recreate, to honestly document, or to comfortably listen to.
skin a translucent blue, emaciated and track-marked, angry, violent, and brilliant. Nick Cave's deadpan misogynistic obsessions--his gold blades, bleeding strings, and sprouting wings; his southern gothic trashcan jesus, free-firing hamlets. All shouted, moaned and squealed in an unintelligible rhythm. a band human spectres--death incarnate, death impending. if the stooges were the very definition of adolescent id, the birthday party were their reform school cousins--and what they lacked in tact, they made up for in pure nihilism. but unlike their Detroit brethren, the birthday party's intrinsic lunacy was matched only by their dry acumen--and if there's anything more terrifying that a dope-sick lunatic with an audience hanging on his every convulsion, its that same dope-sick lunatic with a genius streak. simply put: the Birthday Party is the Greatest Band of All Time. and for some reason, I cant bare to listen to them.
Perhaps perfection is just too overwhelming. perhaps favorite is an admission of some inherent flaw. perhaps the product just can't live up to the perception. perhaps there is such a thing as too perfect. I dont really get it, either. and it doesn't really matter, i suppose. contemplation only serves to taint majesty. and there is nothing quite as regal as the Birthday Party.
(for more information on the Birthday Party, please see the many self-congratulatory writings of Everett True on the subject.)
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Right on. I saw The Birthday Party in 83 at The Lyceum in London town backed by E.N. That gig changed me forever. I have never seen a double bill produce music like this and i dont think i ever will again. Live no one could touch them. It was almost painful watching them.
Posted by: ash at October 12, 2005 10:05 PM