Flesh Guitar

THE RECORD LIBRARY OF BABEL

(A true fan’s account)

The universe (which others call the ‘Record Library’) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal listening booths. (The term ‘Record Library’ may seem both archaic and anachronistic, given that vinyl has long since been abandoned and superseded by the compact disc. However the word ‘record’ remains the most appropriate, since the Library undoubtedly still contains recordings, and since it is also an agency of record.)

The layout of the booths is invariable. There is salmon-pink carpet, a leather couch and state-of-the-art listening equipment. The walls are soundproofed and in two of them, as well as in the floor and ceiling, there is a hatchway that leads into a sort of airlock which interconnects with other hexagonal listening booths, like a honeycomb. Within the booths are toilet facilities, and listeners can sleep comfortably enough on the sofas.

In each listening booth four walls have floor to ceiling storage units consisting of ten shelves. Each shelf then contains sixty single CDs and each CD lasts approximately seventy minutes. There is a letter or number on the spine of each CD case, but there is no packaging, no cover art, no liner notes and no track listings. These letters and numbers bear no apparent relation to the content of each disc, which consists solely and entirely of guitar solos.

Like all men of the Record Library, I have travelled in my youth. I wandered in search of inspiration, in search of a brand new, totally original guitar sound which would say and do it all. I visited listening booths at the far extremities of the system, pushed and exhausted myself. It was a long, hard struggle but worth it, since in the process I discovered the music of Jenny Slade.

Theories have always circulated about the nature, the extent and the ‘meaning’ of the Record Library. It has been much admired, much praised. People have dedicated far more of their lives to exploring its treasures than I have. The most fanatical have asserted that it is proof of the existence of God since (they argue) such a neat, vast and methodical library could only be created by a supreme being, and one who, incidentally, likes to rock. Man, the imperfect listener, the music enthusiast, the obsessive fan, is compelled to feel awe in the face of such a magnificent creation. He must also be content to realize that he will never fully know or comprehend it.

However, some generations ago, a Ph.D. student and part-time disc jockey called Lenny Detroit came across a set of compact discs, more challenging and abstract than most. He listened to them repeatedly and claimed to have discovered the secret of the Record Library.

He observed, reasonably enough, that all the recordings, that is all the guitar solos, in the Record Library were comprehensible in terms of the same elements: notes, intervals, rhythms, duration, harmonies, counterpoint and so on. However unusual or different the solos sounded, and even if they consciously avoided or excluded some of those elements, they could still be analysed and described in terms of them.

He also postulated that in the vastness of the library there were no two identical guitar solos. Since nobody had ever heard every disc in the library, not even visited every listening booth, this could not be proved, and yet there was something about the postulation that made sense and appealed.

From these two premises Detroit then deduced that the Record Library is total and that the compact discs within it contain all possible combinations of guitar-playing elements. In other words, the discs in the library contain everything that it is possible for the guitar to express. Everything.

Somewhere on disc in the infinite vastness of the Record Library is every guitar solo that ever has been or ever will be played: all the blues solos, all the jazz solos, all the country and western solos, all the rock and roll, all the mainstream and all the avant-garde, all the technically brilliant and all the totally incompetent. The library must contain all the great, pithy solos and all the tedious rambling ones, the self-indulgent as well as the finely honed, the deeply flawed as well as the nearly perfect, all the absolutely right notes and all the totally bum notes. Everything.

(Fandom is full of talk about solos being ‘unbelievable’, or ‘incredible’ or ‘impossibly good’, but the literally impossible is obviously excluded from the Record Library. On the other hand, it suffices only that a solo be possible for it to exist and be present.)

When the Detroit theory was proclaimed, the first reaction was one of extravagant happiness. All guitarists felt themselves to be masters of a secret treasure. They belonged to a great tradition. Their guitar solos, even the most modest of them, were part of the vital fabric of the universe. It felt good.

But, as was perhaps inevitable, this happiness was followed by a general, universal depression. The certitude that some compact disc in some far distant listening booth already held every solo the guitarist was ever going to play seemed intolerable. What was the point in trying to be original or inventive or experimental, if the result was already foregone and foreknown? What was the point of perfecting new techniques or of trying to experiment?

Some suggested that all further attempts at inspiration or composition or improvisation should cease and that guitarists should simply juggle notes and chords at random, possibly using computers, until, by an improbable gift of chance, they created great guitar solos; although, of course, these solos too would already exist somewhere in the Record Library.

The belief that everything had already been played transformed some guitarists into phantoms. I know of listening booths where young men sit and listen to certain recordings over and over again, bow down before them, learn them note for note and say, ‘We are not worthy’. They get into arguments, into fights. There are warring factions and fan clubs. There are even attempts to form ‘tribute bands’.

Others said it was time to apply some quality control. What was the use, they insisted, of keeping solos that were hackneyed, repetitive or downright unlistenable? The Record Library, by definition, must contain much that was bad or second (indeed tenth) rate, and it therefore needed purifying. They started a secret campaign and managed to erase hundreds of hours of heavy metal guitar solos before their ruse was discovered. The damage they had done was, in the strictest sense, irreparable, but it could also be said that, given the size of the Record Library, the damage was infinitesimal. Certain solos had undoubtedly gone forever but, as is the way with heavy metal, there were plenty more where they’d come from.

So what are the consequences of this for someone like myself, a fanatical Jenny Slade enthusiast? I know that the Record Library must contain everything she ever has or ever will play. It must contain her greatest solos and her worst (although even at her worst I still find her guitar playing utterly compelling). I know it must also contain any number of variations on these solos; solos that in some cases must vary by just one note, or which are played at a minutely different tempo. The library must contain solos by other guitarists whose playing either accidentally or deliberately sounds like Jenny Slade. There will be imitations, parodies, pastiches of her work. Equally the library must contain solos that she would like to have played, that she might have played given enough time. It must also contain slightly improved and slightly worsened versions of each of her extant solos, although I would argue that much of her work is incapable of improvement.

There is another set of scholars I heard of recently who have begun a new enterprise within the listening booths. Somewhere in the Record Library, they reason, there must be one CD that contains better guitar solos than any of the other discs, a sort of greatest hits collection. Not only that, this disc would contain the essence and the heart of the whole Record Library and of the universe. They have searched for it for years, and they are still searching even now. They are supreme optimists, and their faith is touching.

Some say this is a foolish, even a dangerous enterprise. Some say the task is impossible because it relies too much on subjective matters; others say it is a sort of blasphemy, a challenge to God and infinity. I recognize these problems, but in the end I think they’re entirely solvable. I believe, indeed I would be prepared to say I know, that Jenny Slade is quite simply the best guitarist who’s ever lived, who’s ever going to live. The quintessential disc that these scholars seek would be identical to and synonymous with the best of Jenny Slade.

I realize I may be alone in this opinion but I have profound reasons for holding it and I truly believe that sooner or later the world will agree with me. My solitude is lightened by this elegant hope.

Reprinted from the Journal of Sladean Studies

Volume 2 Issue 6

‘So what is that exactly?’ Kate asks, when she’s read the article.

‘It’s a post-modern appreciation of Jenny Slade,’ says Bob humourlessly.

‘Is it indeed?’

‘Yes. It has to be. You see, Jenny Slade’s not only the best guitarist in the world, she’s also the most Po-Mo.’

Kate is a tad confused. Maybe Bob doesn’t quite share her feelings about Jenny Slade. That needn’t be so terrible, there are many different ways of appreciating something, yet she suspects that Bob would insist that his way is the only true path.

‘You don’t say,’ Kate replies.

‘I do,’ says Bob. ‘Really I do.’

The bar is all but empty. There’s one drunk sleeping contentedly by the jukebox and the manager has gone, telling Kate to lock up when she’s had enough of her new-found friend.

Kate says to Bob, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got the time to explain post-modernism have you?’

Bob looks at his watch and shakes his head sadly.

‘That’s what they all say,’ Kate complains.

‘But I’ve still got plenty to tell you about Jenny Slade.’

Kate cheers up at this news.

‘All right,’ she says, ‘you can tell me about post-modernism another time.’

The promise that she’s prepared to spend ‘another time’ with him soothes Bob’s wounded heart.

‘Now I think we should talk about instrumentation,’ he says.