Alan Watts & Friends - This Is It
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Artist: Alan Watts & FriendsEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2004-02-17
Music Label: Locust
Soundtracks:
- Side I: Love You
- Side I: Onion Chant
- Side I: Gagaku-Ku
- Side I: Fingernail Poem
- Side I: Umdagumsubudu
- Side II: Metamatic Ritual
- Side II: The End
Music reviews of This Is It
Music Review: Of historical interest
Rating: 3 Stars
I read Alan Watts' "The Book" in college (for fun - not for a class) and recall someone derisively referring to it as "dime-store philosophy." Watts isn't in the same league as Kant or Wittgenstein, but then, he isn't really working the same territory or writing for the same audience. What is telling is the title; basically, "The Bible." Watts is nothing if not utterly convinced of his own importance and profound significance.
The CD in hand displays the same attitude. What are we to make of "This Is It"? Does he mean "Here is the secret of existence;" or, "This is all you will ever need;" or, more likely, "Here is that great album you have heard so much about, and have been searching for so long."
Watts decries the rigidity of our daily routines, lamenting that there is no place for "nonsense," that is, activity undertaken with no goal in mind, not even the goal of release or a break from the endless grind of production. He is after simple, pure, spontaneous enjoyment, and the album is the product of someone turning on a tape recorder while this was ostensibly going on.
Although the popular image of the 1950s is that of an American golden age of innocence and abundance, where all pleasurable activity was tightly controlled and limited, anyone who actually lived through the period may recall otherwise. Just because more men had short hair and wore suits to work than in the supposedly more permissive late 1960s does not by itself indicate a severely repressed, machine-like society. Perhaps Watts was confusing the West with the Soviet Union.
As a young child, I had a tape recorder, and could amuse myself for hours making recordings of my own babbling, sound effects, and free-association. I don't recall ever actually listening to these recordings; it was enough simply to know that I was being recorded. I certainly never considered sending those tapes to a music industry agent.
What you will not find on this CD is any hint of planning, preparation, or musical talent. Anyone who has sung in more than a few different church choirs can attest to two schools of thought in the area of "practicing." One view is that the performance should be a spontaneous outpouring of religious feeling, and any rehearsal is seen as a lack of faith. The other view is that if one is a vessel of worship for the diety, this should be taken seriously and given the preparation and attention it deserves. Or at least, those with talent may perform, those without should stay in the audience. One of the participating musicians, William Loughborough, had played with Harry Partch, and should have known better. Partch not only conceived his own microtonal scale for his compositions, he invented an orchestra of unique instruments to play them.
Watts was trying to communicate zen-like concepts which by their nature cannot be explained without limiting them. His ideas are convincing only to those who have previously absorbed them elsewhere.
To be fair, this album was recorded around 1960, not even 1970 by which time it would not have been seen as unusual. Nevertheless, a building which appears tall when one is nearby, may prove to be no taller than those around it when one has gained a little distance. Taken on its own, this album is barely listenable. As a document of early psychedelia, it may be of historical interest, and for fans of Alan Watts it's probably indispensable.
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