If you locked Ryan Adams, the Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse in a room together who do you think would write the strangest song and/or live through the experience?
Kyle
I am writing this in response to the question as originally posed, but under the assumption that by The Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse you meant Wayne Coyne and Isaac Brock, each band’s respective leader / songwriter / chief lunatic. Further, I move that the scenario be altered, striking Adams in favor of the White Stripes’ Jack White. * I know he and Wayne have some history together, what with the fiber optic Jesus thing and all, but ultimately this would not change the end result of Isaac Brock attempting to murder and, in one possible permutation, partially eat the other artists while Wayne Coyne would consistently turn in the strangest songs in spite of or perhaps because of the bloody ordeal of becoming almost dead. Still, I’ll stick to the original format of Adams, Coyne and Brock in a room.
Here’s how I see it going down.
After introductions and a brief exchange of pleasantries it becomes apparent that Adams is drunk and or high and or asleep. He falls onto the room’s only couch and begins strumming a guitar and absently mumbling the words to Duran Duran’s “Rio.” Brock is visibly upset because he believed he was attending to a cookbook signing with free finger food and, so thinking, didn’t take his meds - they dull the appetite. Disappointed, chemically unstable and hungry he quickly downs the Hostess Donettes and an Amstel lite found in the room’s mini fridge. He paces and issues stage-whispered expletives at someone named Nicky.
Coyne sits on a wooden chair near the table, relaxed.
Adams never writes a note. He sleeps for a solid eight hours, in the course of which he has dreams about (1) unsuccessfully wooing Mrs. Brady from the Brady Bunch as portrayed by George Wendt who sits behind the stove drinking a mug of beer with a fish in it while wearing a bathing cap, making no attempt to disguise his voice, (2) being trapped in the body of a cartoon mole with a hard hat, thick glasses and a pick who has been hired by the MTA to widen Boston’s Ted Williams tunnel by two inches on either side, only then he changes into a woman with an umbrella but no shoes, and (3) Doritos. He wakes up, pisses in the corner and has his arms summarily removed by Isaac Brock, who uses them to beat Wayne Coyne to within inches of his life.
A lot happened during the eight hours Adams slept. Let me back up.
Once the donuts and beer have had a chance to take the edge off, Brock takes a guitar from beside the couch, detunes it, retunes it, shuffles into a corner and stands there facing the wall picking the same two notes on the fifth and sixth strings over and over again. He pauses from time to time - mumbles, shouts, paces – always returning to the corner. This goes on for about three hours. He takes a break and drinks two more Amstels, offers one to Wayne and tries to engage him in a conversation about hockey. Wayne smiles but remains silent save polite one word answers. He looks like a young, bearded Tom Wolfe in a white suit, neatly pressed shirt and spats. Brock shrugs it off, trades up to a blonde 1968 telecaster and heads back to the corner. He gets a little louder, looser, jamming at length and eventually hammering out a solid chorus. After an hour of work on the bridge Coyne interjects that he likes that part right there, yeah that. Maybe it could use full choral accompaniment or a descending cascade of chimes at the end, but I’m just spit-ballin’ here, sorry. I’ll leave you alone. Brock pretends not to have heard, switching now to air-drumming and air-bass, filling in the rhythm parts and banging his head until drenched in sweat. Words come quickly, sketched hard into a yellow legal pad, crossed out, moved with jabbing arrows and arced lines. He finishes the six-pack in between pages and ends sitting on the floor, shoulders pressed into the corner, exhausted and droopy eyed. He stares at Wayne. “Chimes” is all he says, then he just sits.
When Adams wakes up and moves to relieve himself it is to the absolute core-shaking terror of Brock who honestly had no idea there was another person in the room besides Wayne and him. His terrified state quickly turns to rage when Adams chooses to piss in the corner where Isaac is still sitting. Unfortunately for him, Wayne cannot hide his amusement at the absurdity of the situation and an irrepressible laugh cancels out his plea of “oh no, no, that’s so horrible.” Brock looses it, blacks out and when he comes to he is in jail. As the fog lifts he wonders anew when the cookbook signing will be.
As for who would write the strangest song, The Flaming Lips “Nearly Killed By The Hand Of Ryan Adams, Not By Ryan Himself But By His Severed Arm” nearly wrote itself. It is memorable for its understated use of avian imagery, choral swells, sixty-three minute run time and, of course, chimes. Modest Mouse was able to turn in “Mexican Air Travel” which sounds pretty much like anything else they’ve made over the past five years, ending in a two-minute wall of keening feedback followed by the plaintive refrain “I can not read… you can not read… I can not read… anything… anymore.”
Ryan Adams will be missed, but plans to release several albums of new material, B-sides, covers and rarities over the next few months, most of which could qualify as a little sad but hardly strange.
* Jack White would also have taken over the couch but stayed awake, composed the first act of his opera “Safe” about the 1937-38 governor of Ohio, split the Amstel with Brock and shared in a lively conversation with both artists about hockey. He would, however, stumble over Brock on his way to the mini fridge, insult the significantly shorter man for somehow managing to get his stubby little legs in the way even though they’re barely long enough to qualify him as an adult. Brock would initiate hand-to-hand violence and, after taking a few solid shots, overwhelm White with insane ferocity and rabbit punches. No charges would be pressed but the White Stripes would have to cancel appearances at several summer festivals to avoid Brock. Musically, The White Stripes “Safe” is a flop and its marquee aria “We Will Build a Park for Lovers Here” follows pretty established lines. “Mexican Air Travel” would again finish second to The Flaming Lips “Remembering A Conversation About Hockey Before The Ugliness Between Jack And Isaac Began.”
