Einsturzende Neubauten: “Alles”
The older he got, the more Jeremy had his own musical enthusiasms, which sometimes, but not always, synched with ours.
He came back from his post-high school year in France enamored of a German post-punk, industrial rock ambient music group called Einsturzende Neubaten. They reminded me of a cross between Tangerine Dream and the Clash, with a dose of Mouse on Mars (whom I don’t much like at all) thrown in. Also some of the modern experimental music using everyday implements and machines to make clashing clattering sounds. I liked them.
Sonic Youth and Joy Division I liked less. But then, though I appreciate what they were doing back then, I didn’t much like simplified chord punkers like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols either. I like tight rock, not fuzzed edges. An instance: as good as the band Radiohead is, the only cut of the group that I really love is one with P. J. Harvey, “This Mess We’re In.” It has the Radiohead feeling of music droning on but is so tight and well put together that it’s like a music-clock: all the parts work, shoving it forward to the end. I don’t have that feeling when I listen to Joy Division or Sonic Youth. I guess I’m still more of a Talking Heads kind of guy.
Jeremy gave us a Sleater Kinney album, also one by Iris DeMent, 
which has one song, “When My Morning Comes Around,” which Esther and I both love, and an album by Gillian Welch, also good.
That’s not all the pop music that Jeremy listens to or has promoted to us, but my brain is getting weary. He also seriously likes jazz –when he was in Europe, he went to a festival where he heard Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy and Han Bennink. I’m envious. Two years ago he went to a celebration in Toronto of Steve Reich’s 80th birthday.
ADDITIONAL LISTENING
Iris DeMent: “When My Morning Comes Around”
MUSIC & ME 