The book Velvet Elvis opens with a discussion of the titular item- an overwrought painting, oil on velvet, of the King of Rock and Roll. I am reluctant to actually crown him as such a king, alluding to Public Enemy, but cultural capital is cultural capital.
If I were to write a book titled like this site (an initial goal, now supplanted by the desire to write about Phish and birth control), I would have to open with the first time I heard the phrase "listen through the fuzz". In 2010, I was a naive twenty-two year old, new to Columbus, and in strange circumstances had found myself at the glorious Lost Weekend Records just before closing on a Friday night.
With nerves buttressed against fears of High Fidelity-esque mockery, I whispered to the clerk whether he could recommend some local stuff. The mighty Kyle maintained his zen calm behind his glasses, and began speaking of a band called Times New Viking. He pulled out their latest single. He set the needle on the 45 and I was greeted by an atomic assault of distortion, organ, drum thunder, and pitchy yelling.
"It's fuzzy," was the first thing I could say.
"You kind of have to listen through the fuzz."
I wish I could say, "I boldly went home and started writing this project." But that would be creative fiction. After making other purchases not by Times New Viking, I probably surfed the Internet until I passed out.
Yet they stayed with me. I'd occasionally pull them up on Youtube, asking the cinder block walls of my student apartment, "Walls, how can folks find this band listenable?" Yet the line between confusion and intrigue is even blurrier than that between love and hate. Before long, I'd identified their guitarist's amazing sensibility I've described as "two Strokes in one". Before long, through forays into twee, artrock, and the Velvet Underground, I identified passion as just as important as pitch. Before long (precisely June), a burned CD of Times New Viking accompanied my journey north to Lakeside, OH for a youth retreat.
Lakeside, OH is full of fuzz. Well, at the time it was more full of mayflies. But Lakeside, OH happens to be located along Lake Erie in a beautiful gated community, shut off from the rest of the world. The titular lakeside is undeniably beautiful. It's also behind that gate. This little Methodist hideaway is built on money, and even if youth can retreat there on scholarship, it carries that sense of Cameron's house from Ferris Bueller.
The community is built around following The Guy who dined with "sinners" and welcomed lepers into places that kept them out - but this community exists behind literal and metaphorical walls. As one of my colleagues related, "Is there anything less Christian than a place that says you don't have enough money to be here?"
I never really explored this tension at the time. I was just more angsty over the difficulty in getting a stiff drink and the fact that the only women around were either fifteen or forty-five. But listening to Times New Viking thrash about what they'd do with their summer- that made enough sense to get me through.
The idea behind "listening through the fuzz" is manifold. From a rally-the-troops standpoint, it means not letting a little mess discourage you. From a Jesus standpoint, it's exploring whether the things you want to shut out as being disagreeable are ultimately the things that will set you free. (My inner deconstructionist jumps for joy- if something outside of the system comes in and wrecks the neat-and-tidy order of things, it reveals not the flaw of the outsider, but the flaw of the neat and tidy order.) From a personal standpoint, it means struggling through the things that are uncomfortable and often finding redeeming qualities - or finding that the struggle is just as much a part of the whole as the glory of reaching the goal.
May you have a fuzzy weekend!
Love,
Nick
If I were to write a book titled like this site (an initial goal, now supplanted by the desire to write about Phish and birth control), I would have to open with the first time I heard the phrase "listen through the fuzz". In 2010, I was a naive twenty-two year old, new to Columbus, and in strange circumstances had found myself at the glorious Lost Weekend Records just before closing on a Friday night.
With nerves buttressed against fears of High Fidelity-esque mockery, I whispered to the clerk whether he could recommend some local stuff. The mighty Kyle maintained his zen calm behind his glasses, and began speaking of a band called Times New Viking. He pulled out their latest single. He set the needle on the 45 and I was greeted by an atomic assault of distortion, organ, drum thunder, and pitchy yelling.
"It's fuzzy," was the first thing I could say.
"You kind of have to listen through the fuzz."
I wish I could say, "I boldly went home and started writing this project." But that would be creative fiction. After making other purchases not by Times New Viking, I probably surfed the Internet until I passed out.
Yet they stayed with me. I'd occasionally pull them up on Youtube, asking the cinder block walls of my student apartment, "Walls, how can folks find this band listenable?" Yet the line between confusion and intrigue is even blurrier than that between love and hate. Before long, I'd identified their guitarist's amazing sensibility I've described as "two Strokes in one". Before long, through forays into twee, artrock, and the Velvet Underground, I identified passion as just as important as pitch. Before long (precisely June), a burned CD of Times New Viking accompanied my journey north to Lakeside, OH for a youth retreat.
Lakeside, OH is full of fuzz. Well, at the time it was more full of mayflies. But Lakeside, OH happens to be located along Lake Erie in a beautiful gated community, shut off from the rest of the world. The titular lakeside is undeniably beautiful. It's also behind that gate. This little Methodist hideaway is built on money, and even if youth can retreat there on scholarship, it carries that sense of Cameron's house from Ferris Bueller.
The community is built around following The Guy who dined with "sinners" and welcomed lepers into places that kept them out - but this community exists behind literal and metaphorical walls. As one of my colleagues related, "Is there anything less Christian than a place that says you don't have enough money to be here?"
I never really explored this tension at the time. I was just more angsty over the difficulty in getting a stiff drink and the fact that the only women around were either fifteen or forty-five. But listening to Times New Viking thrash about what they'd do with their summer- that made enough sense to get me through.
The idea behind "listening through the fuzz" is manifold. From a rally-the-troops standpoint, it means not letting a little mess discourage you. From a Jesus standpoint, it's exploring whether the things you want to shut out as being disagreeable are ultimately the things that will set you free. (My inner deconstructionist jumps for joy- if something outside of the system comes in and wrecks the neat-and-tidy order of things, it reveals not the flaw of the outsider, but the flaw of the neat and tidy order.) From a personal standpoint, it means struggling through the things that are uncomfortable and often finding redeeming qualities - or finding that the struggle is just as much a part of the whole as the glory of reaching the goal.
The goal of this project is to explore messy theological and cultural topics- guided by a commitment, as with lo-fi garage rock, to enduring and eventually embracing the noise in the quest to hear the harmony.
May you have a fuzzy weekend!
Love,
Nick
