David Lynch Signing 'The Big Dream' At Amoeba, Tuesday, July 16th 2013
Nothing really strange happened during David Lynch’s signing at Amoeba, just the usual CDs, vinyl, giant posters, DVDs parade, just the long series of warm hand shakes between Lynch and his adoring public. I expected weirdness because of the nature of Lynch’s work, but the strangest thing I saw was a guy dressed up as a sparking gold cowboy! The event was of course sold out, as Amoeba put on sale a limited amount of albums for sale (200), restricting the signing to a reasonable time. David Lynch was at Amoeba on Tuesday night to celebrate his new album ‘The Big Dream’, released the very same day. I bet David Lynch loves Amoeba, as it was not his first visit.
As I was watching people lining up, I was wondering whether they were there for Lynch the director or Lynch the musician,… because he seems to have a new career these days, ‘The Big Dream’ being his second album, and a follow-up to his debut album ‘Crazy Clown Time’, meaning he is getting very serious about music. I even read he is not sure he will ever make another movie again. No matter what, people were making him sign giant ‘Mulholland Drive’ or ‘Dune’ posters, ‘Eraser’ t-shirt and other movie paraphernalia, beside the album. A very determined girl was wearing a ‘I killed Laura Palmer’ red shirt (smart) and another one made him sign a large coffee cup, an equally smart move, as Lynch is into coffee too, beside his numerous occupations.
People were taking lots of pictures, there were a lot of big smiles on their faces when they were leaving the signing table, some managed to stay with Lynch a tiny bit longer, and there were a few prolonged handshakes. David Lynch is certainly loved! Even better, three young guys who hadn’t been able to get a ticket for the signing, jumped and took a Speedy Gonzales start when they heard, toward the end of the signing, that Amoeba was releasing a few extra tickets,… they were so happy!
Surrounded by two young assistants, Lynch looked serene during the whole time, talking to people, probably happy to see that so many people are buying him as a blues star. I am joking, I am not sure he wants to be recognized as a music star at 67, but he made his musical ambition clear, he has described his album as ‘modern blues’, declaring ‘Most of the songs start out as a type of blues jam and then we go sideways from there. What comes out is a hybrid, modernized form of low-down blues.’ This is the best part about David Lynch, he writes an album and does the review too!
‘The Big Dream’ could be streamed on Pitchfork and YouTube, and this is a very atmospheric slow bluesy weirdness, it’s like being trapped in a circular Twin-Peaks-dream haunted by Lynch’s nasal half-sung vocals bathing in reverb for 55 minutes. The songs don’t sound very distinct from each other (with a few exceptions), and the album streams like one continuous uniform bluesy mood with a Dylan flare – there is even one Bob Dylan cover, ‘The Ballad of Hollis Brown’ – except when you reach the bonus track sung by Lykke Li. At least this is what I got at the first listening and I doubt the album is very accessible for a non-fan, but who cares, Lynch has a lot of them. Would all these people have lined up for this album if it hadn’t been made by David Lynch, a guy who is venerated as a moviegod? Hey, two guys screamed ‘here’s god’ when he made his entrance at Amoeba! I guess this crowd would have bought anything by Lynch, and would have paid to watch him read the yellow pages.
David Lynch is into meditation a lot, he has even a foundation whose goal is to bring the practice of transcendental meditation to a broader public, and this could explain a lot the dream-effect of ‘The Big Dream’. Music is just another media which allows him to give an art form to his daydream creativity, as he is already a director and a painter. But his genius may well be his ability to reach such a large audience with an art so weirdly abstract.
