If I were to have to choose a limited selection of songs for my 'Deserted Island Listening', a 20 minute piece called, 'Bel Air' by the German group CAN would be high on my list.
In my Art School days I enjoyed listening to music while I painted, preferably instrumental. Music with lyrics tended to distract me, but this piece with vocals didn't. Foreign languages, inaudible lyrics were fine, not pulling me into a story while I worked.
The singer, Damo Suzuki (a Japanese artist the band discovered), sang with the sound of words rather than coherently.
'Bel-Air' took me wherever I wanted to go.
'73
I found a shallow, grassy burrow on the rocky cliffside at Shoreline Park in Santa Barbara, there I'd sit and draw. I'd pack food, drink, cassettes, cigarettes and pencils and hang out up there drawing and listening to my music undisturbed.
I had the cassette of Can's 'Future Days' looping in my player, one side, click, the other side, click... I fell asleep.
I awoke to a big, bright moon and down below the tide had rose too high to get back.
I slept up there for the night, letting the cassette continue 'til the batteries ran dry.
