“Money Is Also a Kind of Music” by Jason Guriel

By Ernest Hilbert • November 17, 2011 • Feature

The Wrecking Crew was just the cream of the “you pay — we’ll play” LA session pool, that crack squad of 50 or 60 musicians…who played on Pet Sounds and Smile and probably half the records in your collection. They didn’t just play the chops. They invented them. — Rob Chapman, MOJO

Money is also a kind of music.
I don’t mean the slight sleigh bell
of a pocketed change purse
or an old-time till’s single tap
of triangle, ringing
up sale, or even the percussion
of post-pillage coffers filling
up, plink by plink. I think
I mean that current
of classically trained breath
certain amounts of currency
can call forth
and blow through brass.
I mean the mean
current of electricity
Carol Kaye’s bass drew
from Capitol Records in the sixties,
the timesheets that took their toll
and exchanged it for
four / four time
kept without fail by the brain
of drummer Hal Blaine,
worth its weight in scale.