OPE! Mixtape #52: David Lynch, Music Man

Read the original David Lynch newsletter post here.

Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber. This is where I share the top music industry news of the week, my favorite (and new-to-me) songs and links, and various musings on life. All typos are intentional.

Thanksgiving

Well, hello there. How are you?

It’s still been a crazy week, but thankfully the fires around Los Angeles have calmed down. We’re back safe in our home. We’re still on alert in case any bad winds come back. I’m starting to wrap my head around all the reports of damage and loss around us.

Another loss from the past week that had nothing to do with the fires yet still made me quite sad: the passing of David Lynch.

In a way, Lynch’s death is another loss specific to Los Angeles. Born in Montana and living in many cities before settling in LA in the early ‘70s, Lynch grew into an eccentric local icon, even outside his many notable films about LA. He even did the weather reports for one of the local public stations. I miss him.

I’m more sad than I thought I would be. I’ve always been a consistently casual Lynch fan, always appreciating the effort and his commitment to himself as a Capital A Artist, even if the output was hit or miss. I didn’t realize how much I loved most of his work until he left us.

The Mulholland Drive in my mind is perfect, includes one of the scariest jump scares I’ve ever seen, and has a top five favorite movie scene; I find half of the actual movie aimless and boring, though maybe those scenes help Lynch conjure the feeling of walking through a dream.

Lost Highway genuinely unsettled me and made me feel gross. The more I think about it, the more I believe it to be Lynch’s most successful execution of his artistic vision.

Twin Peaks remains charming and rewatchable.

Twin Peaks: The Return is the only new Lynch work I got to experience in real time. It’s as good as everyone says it is.

I hate Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. I understand why he made it, and I don’t care.

I still haven’t seen Inland Empire and probably won’t.

The Straight Story, maybe.

Eraserhead is like a great debut album: an excellent t-shirt, fun to talk about where you were when you first watched it, and reveals all its cards on the first watch.

I think Blue Velvet is fine but I believe people who say this is their favorite.

Now that we have another Dune, the pressure is off Lynch’s original Dune, and it’s easier to appreciate its weird charm.

I regret not tuning into Lynch’s LA weather reports.

I am also not the only David Lynch fan who has caught his unique relationship with music. Lynch was a true artist in the sense that he was always making stuff even beyond the films and TV shows that made him famous. I won’t pretend I paid much attention to his solo albums. I’m excited to now check them out.

I tried and failed to write an earlier draft of this essay trying to convey Lynch’s wonderful use of sound and music in his art. Instead, I am more inspired by all the wonderful tributes that are still coming out. I feel better this morning sharing some of the more thoughtful tributes I’ve seen. If you’ve never seen a Lynch film, hopefully, one of these tributes will convince you to at least give him a shot.

Alastair Shuttleworth did a lovely breakdown in The Guardian about Lynch’s relationship to music.

So did Glenn Fosbraey and Daniel Ash in this Conversation breakdown.

Madison Bloom in Pitchfork, too.

As well as Hazel Cills in NPR.

And the following Thomas Flight videos are great.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/NB8XOZzOoA4?start=5s&rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/v0T2aE7QQSs?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

This might be my favorite:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Uvkqr-S-1Ac?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Rest in strange, David.

With love and all the other good things,

-b

Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional. Here’s my website and LinkedIn.