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Back to basics

Laurie Anderson drops the pictures and focuses on the music
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By James Scanlon
For The Prague Post
June 13th, 2007 issue

Laurie Anderson

When: Thursday, June 14, at 8
Where: Congress Center
Tickets: 200–1,350 Kč, available through Ticketpro

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The world of music and art would be a much duller place if it weren’t for the likes of postmodern experimentalists like Laurie Anderson. As an author, musician, performance artist and filmmaker, she has been shifting the boundaries of all acceptable norms for more than 30 years.
Earlier this month, Anderson celebrated her 60th birthday with some friends in Venice. Now she’s touring Europe in support of her new album, Homeland, which has yet to be recorded.
Based on strings rather than keyboards, the album will include Anderson’s usual quotient of stories. “Whether it’s music or a movie or a piece of sculpture, it’s always about a story,” she says over the phone from her Canal Street studio in New York City.
But Homeland won’t be short on witty sociopolitical personal musings, either. “One of the plots is technology and how people work with it,” Anderson reveals. “These stories are dedicated to the work of George Trow. He’s a writer who writes incredibly fascinating things about technology, media and contemporary cultures. So I’m trying, as I often do, to look at how people live with technology and how it changes. Now it’s up to the technology of wars — so that’s a big part of the story as well.”
The U.S. war machine is a theme that heralds back to 1981, when Anderson enjoyed her biggest hit with “O Superman (For Massenet).” As part of her Big Science album, it opened the way for a new generation of electronic experimentation. And its re-release couldn’t be more timely, considering the current state of the world.
“It was a song about war, and it was written during the Iran hostage affair in 1980,” Anderson says. “American helicopters going into Iran to rescue hostages and the helicopters crashing — it was this real moment of humiliation for technology and the superpowers.”
Asked if she ever felt her words or music could change the way people think and behave, she responds, “Sometimes music has changed the way I think, but mostly not. One of my grandmothers was a missionary, and it always made me very curious, the fact that she went to Japan without bothering to learn Japanese. And trying to convince Buddhists to become Southern Baptists — you can imagine it was a lost cause.
“I think it’s very difficult to tell people what to think or how to think. I really resent it when people tell me that. I don’t do this primarily to change people’s minds. I don’t do this to make the world a better place. I feel that’s just a 19th-century way of looking at art. I try to be as open as possible in the images I use.”
Anderson has always done things differently. With performances ranging from spoken word to full-on multi-media extravaganzas, such as her provocative interpretation of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, she’s always been one step ahead. When record company executives suggested that she do some videos for her new album, she cringed at the idea, suggesting instead some public-service announcements.
“I really didn’t want to do the videos because I was sick of the format,” she says. “You sit with a dress and a costume and kind of act out your music, and I thought, ‘Aghh, this is dreadful!’ So I said, ‘How about I do some public-service announcements instead? I could talk about how much women make versus men in terms of salaries, or the national debt.’ It’s surprising how if you suggest it in a certain way, they’ll go for it.”
For a long time, Anderson, like Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground before her, has been a true believer in bringing music and art together as a multimedia experience. But, despite having been Lou Reed’s partner for the past 16 years, she’s now of the opinion that multimedia is passé.
“I’m just not interested in it at the moment,” she says. “Maybe it’s because everything in the world seems to be a multimedia show right now.”
On this tour, Anderson says she’ll be concentrating solely on the music. “The show I’m doing is no pictures — it’s music in a way I haven’t done in a while. I’m going to be working with different people. The core group will be keyboards, bass and me on violin, but I’ll also have other instruments, like cellos that fit at various points along the way.”
As for what to expect in Prague, Anderson says, “We’re going to try and do the tour in a very loose and improvised way. Each night is going to be different. Sometimes in the past I’ve been working on things that are just, you know, you play exactly the same thing every night. But this way, we’re sort of re-inventing it all the time.”

James Scanlon can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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