Elliott Smith - Can’t Make a Sound: youtube.com/watch?v=2tsLfPsYOXQ
I’m concerned with mystery. I like not knowing too much about it all, only letting so much out. For myself it’s a way of finding different forms of expression; as soon as it comes in one form, it tends to remain so. Maybe not the best way but it’s a form of living.
And I’m having a problem with this blog endeavor of mine. I will continue, but under which pretense I’m unsure. Hopefully this all evolves into something kind.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
July 30, 2010: Nick Drake - Horn
Nick Drake - Horn: youtube.com/watch?v=9qhAt1h4H4s
Some days I just don’t have it in me. Uninspired, moving but no new steps and no great steps and only stepping just to step. I’d prefer to stay quiet and let it pass as it can.
Some days I’m defined most by my quiet.
Some days I just don’t have it in me. Uninspired, moving but no new steps and no great steps and only stepping just to step. I’d prefer to stay quiet and let it pass as it can.
Some days I’m defined most by my quiet.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
July 29, 2010: Dan Bern - Tiger Woods
Dan Bern - Tiger Woods: youtube.com/watch?v=U9i9njY1Vh0&feature=related
I wish I could just be the type who can be content with the every day, just getting through. No ambition beyond that, no drive, no striving to do good or better, just a contentedness in the daily life and moving.
I’m not talking about ignorance. It’s important to read and have some idea as to your environment, as to other peoples agendas, to point out the flaws in the systems to which you take part. But, with that knowledge, there are those who simply pass through the day into the next, living within their means and content. I guess I’d prefer to be a passive participant than an active participant.
Granted, I do what I love, mostly. There are always, though, aspects of those things you love which will cause you grief. I love playing shows, organizing shows brings immeasurable stress. I love writing, I sometimes lament the solitude of the act. I’d rather be sitting in a bar or a coffee shop reading and engaging in the occasional conversation. But then when I do those things I get a nagging itch that I should be home writing or organizing a show.
One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever received was from Dan Bern. Someone asked him if he ever experiences writers block to which he said, “No. Sometimes I’m writing, sometimes I’m not writing.” I’ve tried to take this to heart, but my body aches to be creating when I go through periods of not creating. I get this kick that maybe I’m fooling myself and everyone around me when I label myself a writer or an artist or a musician. I don’t write songs every day, I barely even pick up an instrument. It’s still exiting to me but it becomes such a slow and agonizing process for my periods of inactivity and the fact that I am a slow and methodical writer. Every word has to fit just right before it’s complete and some songs have taken 5 years or more for this. And 9 out of 10 songs I write are either for myself only or an exercise or are just plain no good. As an artist with little output, how much of an artist can I call myself?
And that’s why I can’t be content with the every day. I know it’s something I can change but I don’t know that I truly want to. I married these ideas when I was young and I owe myself to see them to their death (which will likely be my own death).
There is a piece by Leonard Cohen where he states that he is not a real poet, that the real poet has poetry coursing through his entire being and cannot do but to be a poet, that he himself does not possess this quality and is therefore not a real poet but prefers this stance. Music and words run through my blood but I am not a real musician nor am I a real writer. I could live without them, a piece of me would die but I could turn my back if I wanted.
I wish I could just be the type who can be content with the every day, just getting through. No ambition beyond that, no drive, no striving to do good or better, just a contentedness in the daily life and moving.
I’m not talking about ignorance. It’s important to read and have some idea as to your environment, as to other peoples agendas, to point out the flaws in the systems to which you take part. But, with that knowledge, there are those who simply pass through the day into the next, living within their means and content. I guess I’d prefer to be a passive participant than an active participant.
Granted, I do what I love, mostly. There are always, though, aspects of those things you love which will cause you grief. I love playing shows, organizing shows brings immeasurable stress. I love writing, I sometimes lament the solitude of the act. I’d rather be sitting in a bar or a coffee shop reading and engaging in the occasional conversation. But then when I do those things I get a nagging itch that I should be home writing or organizing a show.
One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever received was from Dan Bern. Someone asked him if he ever experiences writers block to which he said, “No. Sometimes I’m writing, sometimes I’m not writing.” I’ve tried to take this to heart, but my body aches to be creating when I go through periods of not creating. I get this kick that maybe I’m fooling myself and everyone around me when I label myself a writer or an artist or a musician. I don’t write songs every day, I barely even pick up an instrument. It’s still exiting to me but it becomes such a slow and agonizing process for my periods of inactivity and the fact that I am a slow and methodical writer. Every word has to fit just right before it’s complete and some songs have taken 5 years or more for this. And 9 out of 10 songs I write are either for myself only or an exercise or are just plain no good. As an artist with little output, how much of an artist can I call myself?
And that’s why I can’t be content with the every day. I know it’s something I can change but I don’t know that I truly want to. I married these ideas when I was young and I owe myself to see them to their death (which will likely be my own death).
There is a piece by Leonard Cohen where he states that he is not a real poet, that the real poet has poetry coursing through his entire being and cannot do but to be a poet, that he himself does not possess this quality and is therefore not a real poet but prefers this stance. Music and words run through my blood but I am not a real musician nor am I a real writer. I could live without them, a piece of me would die but I could turn my back if I wanted.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
July 28, 2010: John Cage - 4’33
John Cage - 4’33: youtube.com/watch?v=3fYvfEMUJl8
I like music. I was asked the other day what kind of music I listen to. Music. There are no genres, really. You might as well ask a person what kind of colours they look at. The answer will always be all of them.
I had a conversation with a friend of mine from Halifax. He said he once went to a show where a noise band hooked two nintendos up to TVs and played video games, miked the TV speakers and ran them through distortion, reverb and delay pedals. And this went on for a 45 minute set. Then a standard 4 piece rock band got up and played pop songs. His reaction to the noise band was “Hmm, that was alright,” and his reaction to the rock band was “This is shit.” He found these reactions to be funny, set next to each other.
The first time I heard of John Cage’s “4’33” I hated it. It sounds like the ultimate in pretentiousness; a classical orchestra sits completely still, doesn’t play a note, people get dressed up and pay to hear it and critics rave about this piece that exists through its non-existence. And people credit a man for silence.
But then when I thought about it, when I heard John Cage talk about the piece, when I watched a video of this experience, I changed my mind. Granted, I do think some take it a little too seriously, especially in the dissection of it all, but how funny is the whole thing? The fact that people refer to it as a “performance,” a “concert”?
Silence is music, though. As far as I can perceive the universe is made up of two things: 1 and 0. Existence and non-existence. Everything and nothing, simultaneously. The part of this that I cannot fully grasp is that as both existence and non-existence exist simultaneously there is no differentiation. Life cannot exist without death, death cannot exist without life. So does that mean that nothingness doesn’t exist? as it is all 1? Silence cannot exist without music, so doesn’t that make silence a form of music?
I like music. I was asked the other day what kind of music I listen to. Music. There are no genres, really. You might as well ask a person what kind of colours they look at. The answer will always be all of them.
I had a conversation with a friend of mine from Halifax. He said he once went to a show where a noise band hooked two nintendos up to TVs and played video games, miked the TV speakers and ran them through distortion, reverb and delay pedals. And this went on for a 45 minute set. Then a standard 4 piece rock band got up and played pop songs. His reaction to the noise band was “Hmm, that was alright,” and his reaction to the rock band was “This is shit.” He found these reactions to be funny, set next to each other.
The first time I heard of John Cage’s “4’33” I hated it. It sounds like the ultimate in pretentiousness; a classical orchestra sits completely still, doesn’t play a note, people get dressed up and pay to hear it and critics rave about this piece that exists through its non-existence. And people credit a man for silence.
But then when I thought about it, when I heard John Cage talk about the piece, when I watched a video of this experience, I changed my mind. Granted, I do think some take it a little too seriously, especially in the dissection of it all, but how funny is the whole thing? The fact that people refer to it as a “performance,” a “concert”?
Silence is music, though. As far as I can perceive the universe is made up of two things: 1 and 0. Existence and non-existence. Everything and nothing, simultaneously. The part of this that I cannot fully grasp is that as both existence and non-existence exist simultaneously there is no differentiation. Life cannot exist without death, death cannot exist without life. So does that mean that nothingness doesn’t exist? as it is all 1? Silence cannot exist without music, so doesn’t that make silence a form of music?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
July 27, 2010: Japandroids - Heart Sweats
Japandroids - Heart Sweats: youtube.com/watch?v=WPuS2VHvXmU&feature=related
I wish I'd written this song.
I wish I'd written this song.
Monday, July 26, 2010
July 26th, 2010: Jeff Buckley - I Know We Could Be So Happy (If We Wanted to Be)
Note: My apologies for missing a day, I had not been home long enough to touch a computer. This project will move from being a years worth of blog posts to 365 blog posts total, as daily as is possible. There will be days I miss. And I continue...
Jeff Buckley - I Know We Could Be So Happy (If We Wanted to Be): youtube.com/watch?v=9fJDp9vFoTY
Have you ever considered: When I die, will they play a song at my funeral? What will that song be? Will I have any say in this decision?
First, it doesn’t matter. You’re dead. If your body is lying in a room filled with your loved ones and the sonic experience they decide to share with everyone to encapsulate your life happens to be “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion, it won’t really matter because you’re dead. You won’t really care. Others will be pissed (please, everyone), but not you.
Second, I don’t want a song played at my funeral. There is no one song that captures my life. There is no compilation of songs that captures my life. If anything, I hope all my musical friends get together and play their own songs, put on a big show after the fact just to get together and celebrate the community, each others contribution to musical history.
Third, dismissing everything said above, if there was a compilation of songs to play to capture my life and death, this song would be among them. “Morning Bell” by Radiohead would be there. So would “Fish Heads” by Barnes and Barnes. Strongly, “Story of an Artist” by Daniel Johnston. Even stronger, and probably the ultimate, would be “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone.
But none of that matters, really. I wouldn’t expect anyone to understand why I love these songs so much and their massive significance in understanding me as an individual. But I love these songs and they have a massive significance in understanding me as an individual.
But I guess this project continues to vainly represent that fleeting beauty that all art and life will capture.
Jeff Buckley - I Know We Could Be So Happy (If We Wanted to Be): youtube.com/watch?v=9fJDp9vFoTY
Have you ever considered: When I die, will they play a song at my funeral? What will that song be? Will I have any say in this decision?
First, it doesn’t matter. You’re dead. If your body is lying in a room filled with your loved ones and the sonic experience they decide to share with everyone to encapsulate your life happens to be “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion, it won’t really matter because you’re dead. You won’t really care. Others will be pissed (please, everyone), but not you.
Second, I don’t want a song played at my funeral. There is no one song that captures my life. There is no compilation of songs that captures my life. If anything, I hope all my musical friends get together and play their own songs, put on a big show after the fact just to get together and celebrate the community, each others contribution to musical history.
Third, dismissing everything said above, if there was a compilation of songs to play to capture my life and death, this song would be among them. “Morning Bell” by Radiohead would be there. So would “Fish Heads” by Barnes and Barnes. Strongly, “Story of an Artist” by Daniel Johnston. Even stronger, and probably the ultimate, would be “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone.
But none of that matters, really. I wouldn’t expect anyone to understand why I love these songs so much and their massive significance in understanding me as an individual. But I love these songs and they have a massive significance in understanding me as an individual.
But I guess this project continues to vainly represent that fleeting beauty that all art and life will capture.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
July 24, 2010: Ace of Base - The Sign
Ace of Base - The Sign: youtube.com/watch?v=FwatjHcV1ZM
Remember this song? Of course you do. Even if it’s before your generation's time I promise you know this song. When "The Sign" by Ace of Base came out it was played everywhere by everybody all the time. How is it that a song, so meaningless and simple, among so many other catchy and well produced songs, can reach into your body and never let you not remember it? Why was this song played so much while others went neglected?
Every generation has a song like this. I don’t know what the generation that preceded me would say is their song but we all seem to have one. It was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for one, “Hey Ya!” for another, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” for one long before. There doesn’t seem to be any common thread between them that I can decipher but they somehow speak to our collective psyches at one point and form a history.
Stories are our way of creating our environment. They can be, from my experience, very 2-dimensional, everything becomes fiction; there is a beginning, middle, end format from one perspective, generally. And stories tend to move in 3 acts with the action and the tension in the second act. So if we tell a story from one perspective we’re missing all the other perspectives around us and how they created the story. If we move from beginning to middle and end there is so much more that came before and after that we are neglecting. If we focus on the 3 act format we’re stuck telling the same story over and over. And it’s all fiction because in telling stories within the confines of all these systems we’re taking the entirety of an event and boiling it down into a concentrated form that no longer represents the entirety of the event.
And songs are a form of storytelling.
So, what does “The Sign” by Ace of Base say about my generation? What did it say that it spoke so strongly to my neighbor in grade one, my cousin in high school, myself and near everyone I knew, to the point where we accepted it as a representative of an ongoing creation of our entire history? I doubt anyone over 25 at the time it came out would realize the enormity of this song on my generation or even care, and good. They had their own songs at the time that I didn’t know of, that I wouldn’t care for. But “The Sign” was there for my generation, everywhere, and I don’t know what it means. I could come up with all sorts of theories but I feel they would all be so pointless and pretentious when there has to be an easy answer. Maybe it was just super catchy and people really wanted to dance and not think about the enormity of life? I don’t remember any significant news stories from 1993/1994 that were concerning to our way of life (no war, no economic trouble, no domestic epidemics); maybe it was a celebration of a life somewhat unanalyzed and therefore growing pointless? Maybe it spoke to our want of seeing the sign?
I don’t know what the generation that is coming after me has as an equivalent, as their song. I hope it’s something by Interpol or The Constantines or The National. Actually, maybe it’s “1,2,3,4” by Feist? Shit, I hope so.
Remember this song? Of course you do. Even if it’s before your generation's time I promise you know this song. When "The Sign" by Ace of Base came out it was played everywhere by everybody all the time. How is it that a song, so meaningless and simple, among so many other catchy and well produced songs, can reach into your body and never let you not remember it? Why was this song played so much while others went neglected?
Every generation has a song like this. I don’t know what the generation that preceded me would say is their song but we all seem to have one. It was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for one, “Hey Ya!” for another, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” for one long before. There doesn’t seem to be any common thread between them that I can decipher but they somehow speak to our collective psyches at one point and form a history.
Stories are our way of creating our environment. They can be, from my experience, very 2-dimensional, everything becomes fiction; there is a beginning, middle, end format from one perspective, generally. And stories tend to move in 3 acts with the action and the tension in the second act. So if we tell a story from one perspective we’re missing all the other perspectives around us and how they created the story. If we move from beginning to middle and end there is so much more that came before and after that we are neglecting. If we focus on the 3 act format we’re stuck telling the same story over and over. And it’s all fiction because in telling stories within the confines of all these systems we’re taking the entirety of an event and boiling it down into a concentrated form that no longer represents the entirety of the event.
And songs are a form of storytelling.
So, what does “The Sign” by Ace of Base say about my generation? What did it say that it spoke so strongly to my neighbor in grade one, my cousin in high school, myself and near everyone I knew, to the point where we accepted it as a representative of an ongoing creation of our entire history? I doubt anyone over 25 at the time it came out would realize the enormity of this song on my generation or even care, and good. They had their own songs at the time that I didn’t know of, that I wouldn’t care for. But “The Sign” was there for my generation, everywhere, and I don’t know what it means. I could come up with all sorts of theories but I feel they would all be so pointless and pretentious when there has to be an easy answer. Maybe it was just super catchy and people really wanted to dance and not think about the enormity of life? I don’t remember any significant news stories from 1993/1994 that were concerning to our way of life (no war, no economic trouble, no domestic epidemics); maybe it was a celebration of a life somewhat unanalyzed and therefore growing pointless? Maybe it spoke to our want of seeing the sign?
I don’t know what the generation that is coming after me has as an equivalent, as their song. I hope it’s something by Interpol or The Constantines or The National. Actually, maybe it’s “1,2,3,4” by Feist? Shit, I hope so.
Friday, July 23, 2010
July 23, 2010: Queen - Bicycle Race
Queen - Bicycle Race: youtube.com/watch?v=2CTPLUcQAjk
My bike got stolen the other day.
Have you ever seen the movie Bicycle Thieves? It’s an Italian neo-realist film. It’s about a man who lives in a small, poverty stricken Italian village. He works in the city putting up posters and billboards and needs his bike to get from the village to the city, to move around and put up posters; he needs his bike to work. One day his bike gets stolen. He spends the rest of the movie desperately trying to track down his bike and the thief and in the end becomes so desperate that he steals a bike, himself. There is a bicycle thief in all of us.
I had my bike stolen once before. I was on my way to work at that time. Luckily I had enough time to walk there because I was working as a dish washer and couldn’t afford a cab. And I had to pick up 3 extra shifts to get a new bike from Igor, the man who last year was arrested for operating a massive bike theft ring, had thousands of bikes locked away in storage and who probably stole my bike in the first place.
This time I was on my way home from work. I had to take the street car, at 4am, because I live a good 30 minute bike ride away. And the bike didn’t even belong to me, it belongs to my friend Sarah who lent it to me for the summer. Luckily, though, I had left a broken down bike at another friends house last year who recently told me I should come get it. So I will compensate Sarah and get my old bike back, fix it. It’ll all cost me the same price as buying a new bike. Meanwhile I’m a couple thousand dollars in debt which will accumulate by the end of the year.
I understand that bicycle thieves have to eat too. I know there is a bicycle thief in me. My bike got stolen.
My bike got stolen the other day.
Have you ever seen the movie Bicycle Thieves? It’s an Italian neo-realist film. It’s about a man who lives in a small, poverty stricken Italian village. He works in the city putting up posters and billboards and needs his bike to get from the village to the city, to move around and put up posters; he needs his bike to work. One day his bike gets stolen. He spends the rest of the movie desperately trying to track down his bike and the thief and in the end becomes so desperate that he steals a bike, himself. There is a bicycle thief in all of us.
I had my bike stolen once before. I was on my way to work at that time. Luckily I had enough time to walk there because I was working as a dish washer and couldn’t afford a cab. And I had to pick up 3 extra shifts to get a new bike from Igor, the man who last year was arrested for operating a massive bike theft ring, had thousands of bikes locked away in storage and who probably stole my bike in the first place.
This time I was on my way home from work. I had to take the street car, at 4am, because I live a good 30 minute bike ride away. And the bike didn’t even belong to me, it belongs to my friend Sarah who lent it to me for the summer. Luckily, though, I had left a broken down bike at another friends house last year who recently told me I should come get it. So I will compensate Sarah and get my old bike back, fix it. It’ll all cost me the same price as buying a new bike. Meanwhile I’m a couple thousand dollars in debt which will accumulate by the end of the year.
I understand that bicycle thieves have to eat too. I know there is a bicycle thief in me. My bike got stolen.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
July 22, 2010: Was (Not Was) - Hello Dad, I’m in Jail
Was (Not Was) - Hello Dad, I’m in Jail: youtube.com/watch?v=vJEwo_gwO9M
I first heard this song on Muchmusic. They used to play its video periodically. Isn’t that weird? I still can’t believe some of the things I used to see on there when I was a kid. I thought it was weird and a bit scary, but it stayed with me, has helped form my musical tastes to a degree. I could likely draw a direct line from my interest in this song to my love of The Bad Plus. And I first heard this song on Muchmusic.
It would be easy to lament the downfall of Muchmusic, but it’s changed and who cares? Other forms have filled the space it left. Let Muchmusic die if it has to, I’ll still be listening to Bon Iver or Land of Talk even if they’ve never been mentioned on the Muchmusic airwaves. I’ll also still be interested in Drake and Lady Gaga, for that matter. But I wonder if kids are still presented with the weirdness they used to allow?
And my brother and I used to exchange lines from this song to each other, mimicking the voice. How old would I have been then?
I first heard this song on Muchmusic. They used to play its video periodically. Isn’t that weird? I still can’t believe some of the things I used to see on there when I was a kid. I thought it was weird and a bit scary, but it stayed with me, has helped form my musical tastes to a degree. I could likely draw a direct line from my interest in this song to my love of The Bad Plus. And I first heard this song on Muchmusic.
It would be easy to lament the downfall of Muchmusic, but it’s changed and who cares? Other forms have filled the space it left. Let Muchmusic die if it has to, I’ll still be listening to Bon Iver or Land of Talk even if they’ve never been mentioned on the Muchmusic airwaves. I’ll also still be interested in Drake and Lady Gaga, for that matter. But I wonder if kids are still presented with the weirdness they used to allow?
And my brother and I used to exchange lines from this song to each other, mimicking the voice. How old would I have been then?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
July 21, 2010: At The Drive-In - One Armed Scissor
At The Drive-In - One Armed Scissor: youtube.com/watch?v=7NYbojdoAQE
I’m all for the propagation of degeneracy. I’m barely a degenerate but I do hold certain tendencies; I do like to drink, I do find people throwing up to be funny, I do hold a certain amount of violence in my actions, at times. I am though, mostly, of the romantic tendencies, consider myself more a pacifist, and I help people when they need helping, as much as I can. However, I’m all for the propagation of degeneracy.
There is a difference between being a degenerate and being corrupt. Charles Bukowski was a degenerate, Charles Manson was corrupt. Those who hold the characteristics of a degenerate will do things that hurt themselves, can hurt others through their actions, but are not malicious. Degenerates prefer the despised forms of life for the joy of challenging systems and preconceived ways of life, it’s not an act of ill will or hatred to choose these forms of living but it can be difficult, challenging.
I grew up in a very Roman Catholic town where sex was a topic barely mentioned, mostly repressed and generally regarded as a great act of ones ruin. We had sex-ed in grades 7 and 8 where we watched laughable educational videos from the 80s that were worthy of parody, where we learned biology of the body but little if anything about homosexuality, sado-masochism, anal penetration or anything else non-hetero normal. Following this, until I graduated from public school, I remember a general assembly on the virtues of celibacy, given by over-enthusiastic, white Christian teens that were so out of touch they performed an insulting rap song (insulting, I mean, to the rap genre in general), as well as an afternoon assembly for my class given by a “sexpert.” This woman came in and talked about genital biology, sexually transmitted diseases and infections and pretty much everything else I had learned about sex when I was 14 years old. The whole thing was a joke. Does one expect a 16 year old to go to one assembly on sexual education in a years worth of school and take it seriously? Had it been a semester-long course then yes, it would be something ongoing and daily touched upon bringing about a certain amount of understanding. But one assembly was something we could go to and walk out of and never think about again. It was a joke. And so, at the end of the assembly, I raised my hand and asked, “If a man and a woman are having anal sex and the woman farts, does the man’s penis explode?” This “sexpert” then threatened to walk out on the whole thing, despite the previous question to mine being, “Can a man’s penis be too big?” Of course, the proper answer to my question should have been, “No, but her strap-on might fall off.” And I got in a lot of trouble for this but so what? It was worth pointing out the ridiculousness of it all.
If one is not respected by a person, a system, a society, why not act against it? However, I think it important to approach degeneracy from some kind of intellectual stand point. Degeneracy for the sake of degeneracy can be stupid and pointless and destructive. There was lately a protest against the G20 in this city where a lot of destructive people ruined my neighborhoods, black-bloc window smashers and authoritative head smashers. This is a form of degeneracy I cannot stand behind. There was a guy, though, who climbed onto the head of a statue and balanced on one foot, danced and made a spectacle of himself during all of this. He was shirtless and ragged and I was behind him.
And in music I’ve always felt that the same sort of recklessness is under-represented in my tastes. I was turned onto At The Drive-In when I was 17 and they resonated with me heavy. They were a force I’d never seen, almost destroying themselves every performance, challenging the audience to implode and approaching it all from an intellectual level. And it was a form of degeneracy I respected and admired.
I’m all for the propagation of degeneracy. I’m barely a degenerate but I do hold certain tendencies; I do like to drink, I do find people throwing up to be funny, I do hold a certain amount of violence in my actions, at times. I am though, mostly, of the romantic tendencies, consider myself more a pacifist, and I help people when they need helping, as much as I can. However, I’m all for the propagation of degeneracy.
There is a difference between being a degenerate and being corrupt. Charles Bukowski was a degenerate, Charles Manson was corrupt. Those who hold the characteristics of a degenerate will do things that hurt themselves, can hurt others through their actions, but are not malicious. Degenerates prefer the despised forms of life for the joy of challenging systems and preconceived ways of life, it’s not an act of ill will or hatred to choose these forms of living but it can be difficult, challenging.
I grew up in a very Roman Catholic town where sex was a topic barely mentioned, mostly repressed and generally regarded as a great act of ones ruin. We had sex-ed in grades 7 and 8 where we watched laughable educational videos from the 80s that were worthy of parody, where we learned biology of the body but little if anything about homosexuality, sado-masochism, anal penetration or anything else non-hetero normal. Following this, until I graduated from public school, I remember a general assembly on the virtues of celibacy, given by over-enthusiastic, white Christian teens that were so out of touch they performed an insulting rap song (insulting, I mean, to the rap genre in general), as well as an afternoon assembly for my class given by a “sexpert.” This woman came in and talked about genital biology, sexually transmitted diseases and infections and pretty much everything else I had learned about sex when I was 14 years old. The whole thing was a joke. Does one expect a 16 year old to go to one assembly on sexual education in a years worth of school and take it seriously? Had it been a semester-long course then yes, it would be something ongoing and daily touched upon bringing about a certain amount of understanding. But one assembly was something we could go to and walk out of and never think about again. It was a joke. And so, at the end of the assembly, I raised my hand and asked, “If a man and a woman are having anal sex and the woman farts, does the man’s penis explode?” This “sexpert” then threatened to walk out on the whole thing, despite the previous question to mine being, “Can a man’s penis be too big?” Of course, the proper answer to my question should have been, “No, but her strap-on might fall off.” And I got in a lot of trouble for this but so what? It was worth pointing out the ridiculousness of it all.
If one is not respected by a person, a system, a society, why not act against it? However, I think it important to approach degeneracy from some kind of intellectual stand point. Degeneracy for the sake of degeneracy can be stupid and pointless and destructive. There was lately a protest against the G20 in this city where a lot of destructive people ruined my neighborhoods, black-bloc window smashers and authoritative head smashers. This is a form of degeneracy I cannot stand behind. There was a guy, though, who climbed onto the head of a statue and balanced on one foot, danced and made a spectacle of himself during all of this. He was shirtless and ragged and I was behind him.
And in music I’ve always felt that the same sort of recklessness is under-represented in my tastes. I was turned onto At The Drive-In when I was 17 and they resonated with me heavy. They were a force I’d never seen, almost destroying themselves every performance, challenging the audience to implode and approaching it all from an intellectual level. And it was a form of degeneracy I respected and admired.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
July 20, 2010: The Everly Brothers - Bird Dog
The Everly Brothers - Bird Dog: youtube.com/watch?v=HQKlO0GFxjo
My parents used to put this song on when they had friends over and they would make me sing and dance to it while they drank and laughed. It was all very genteel and innocent but it’s a bit embarrassing too. Parents: If your kid does something cute don’t pull your kid out in front of your friends and make them do that cute thing. It becomes something completely different. It’s not so much cute anymore as much as it is mildly exploitative.
That statement might sound a bit extreme. Okay, it might not be exploitative, I guess it’s just a little embarrassing; I feel I’ve always been entertainment for drunks and bored people. I was pulled out to dance like I was a trained dog or a monkey. Though, granted, I don’t remember not enjoying this. And I still wantonly seek out situations where I’m pulled out in front of drunk people and bored people and serve as entertainment; performing music, serving in bars, etc.
I guess this plays somewhat: A child's thought patterns can be monumentally interesting. I had a conversation with my 5 year old cousin Mila some weeks ago where she asked me if I could see germs. I asked her if she could see germs and she pointed up and down her arms, in between her eyes, and explained to me what germs looked like as if they were actually fully in view and colouring her skin. I didn’t feel this was something to pull attention to, to bring out for the rest of my family to hear, to exploit this wonderful idea for everyone's amusement. I thought that view was wonderful though, that this girl could see peoples germs in full colour when she looked at them. And she wasn’t wrong, I’m sure. Granted, the science of it would dictate that no, she can’t actually decipher a full germ colour spectrum, her eyes weren’t evolved to see differently from any other ordinary person. But that’s not to say that she doesn’t perceive in ways that are beyond my comprehension.
As our brains develop they make sense out of things that don’t necessarily make sense. We’re made to think quite logically; if A and B then C. Consider that the universe was made from nothing and has been expanding for billions of years, though the term “years” isn’t an accurate term at all because there is no real concept of time in a universal sense. There is an infinitude of knowledge we will never be able to comprehend because our brains are not built to understand them. And a child comes into this world with some basic and ancestral knowledge but has to make sense of things like mirrors and iphones and deciphering ages of individuals. They create and piece together and make sense as best they can.
And we still do that as adults, to a degree, however vainly. I do like to imagine, though, that our brains and our bodies are fully aware of everything, that we carry the knowledge of the universe and all that has been discovered and will be discovered in time. I base this on my modest understanding of quantum physics, that we were created by the universe and are a part of it. But we don’t access even a fraction of what we hold because to access it would ruin the point of living. We would be crippled in the complete senselessness of living 100 years in a crux of infinity and experiencing basically what a countless number of others have experienced before, all over again and again. And isn’t it quite pointless to not experience everything when we’re here to experience life fully? Why dig yourself in a hole and to hide when someday nothing you or anyone has ever done will really matter? Our species will die out and our history won’t matter. So do what you love.
I think what I liked most about this song is the guy who goes, “He’s a bird...he’s a dog...” The voice just sounds so strange and attractive.
My parents used to put this song on when they had friends over and they would make me sing and dance to it while they drank and laughed. It was all very genteel and innocent but it’s a bit embarrassing too. Parents: If your kid does something cute don’t pull your kid out in front of your friends and make them do that cute thing. It becomes something completely different. It’s not so much cute anymore as much as it is mildly exploitative.
That statement might sound a bit extreme. Okay, it might not be exploitative, I guess it’s just a little embarrassing; I feel I’ve always been entertainment for drunks and bored people. I was pulled out to dance like I was a trained dog or a monkey. Though, granted, I don’t remember not enjoying this. And I still wantonly seek out situations where I’m pulled out in front of drunk people and bored people and serve as entertainment; performing music, serving in bars, etc.
I guess this plays somewhat: A child's thought patterns can be monumentally interesting. I had a conversation with my 5 year old cousin Mila some weeks ago where she asked me if I could see germs. I asked her if she could see germs and she pointed up and down her arms, in between her eyes, and explained to me what germs looked like as if they were actually fully in view and colouring her skin. I didn’t feel this was something to pull attention to, to bring out for the rest of my family to hear, to exploit this wonderful idea for everyone's amusement. I thought that view was wonderful though, that this girl could see peoples germs in full colour when she looked at them. And she wasn’t wrong, I’m sure. Granted, the science of it would dictate that no, she can’t actually decipher a full germ colour spectrum, her eyes weren’t evolved to see differently from any other ordinary person. But that’s not to say that she doesn’t perceive in ways that are beyond my comprehension.
As our brains develop they make sense out of things that don’t necessarily make sense. We’re made to think quite logically; if A and B then C. Consider that the universe was made from nothing and has been expanding for billions of years, though the term “years” isn’t an accurate term at all because there is no real concept of time in a universal sense. There is an infinitude of knowledge we will never be able to comprehend because our brains are not built to understand them. And a child comes into this world with some basic and ancestral knowledge but has to make sense of things like mirrors and iphones and deciphering ages of individuals. They create and piece together and make sense as best they can.
And we still do that as adults, to a degree, however vainly. I do like to imagine, though, that our brains and our bodies are fully aware of everything, that we carry the knowledge of the universe and all that has been discovered and will be discovered in time. I base this on my modest understanding of quantum physics, that we were created by the universe and are a part of it. But we don’t access even a fraction of what we hold because to access it would ruin the point of living. We would be crippled in the complete senselessness of living 100 years in a crux of infinity and experiencing basically what a countless number of others have experienced before, all over again and again. And isn’t it quite pointless to not experience everything when we’re here to experience life fully? Why dig yourself in a hole and to hide when someday nothing you or anyone has ever done will really matter? Our species will die out and our history won’t matter. So do what you love.
I think what I liked most about this song is the guy who goes, “He’s a bird...he’s a dog...” The voice just sounds so strange and attractive.
Monday, July 19, 2010
July 19, 2010: Foo Fighters - Big Me
Foo Fighters - Big Me: youtube.com/watch?v=pLdJQFTnZfA
I sang this song in a school talent show. I was 12 years old. Jonathan Kenny played guitar and I sang and he was great and I’m sure I wasn’t. I don’t remember being nervous before and I don’t remember being elated after but I’m sure I was both.
This has always been a strange song to me, in a way. When The Colour and The Shape came out I listened to it every day, learned every song on it, went back to the self-titled Foo Fighters album and learned to appreciate it. And “Big Me” has these thin guitars, very safe sound and structure, no challenge to the listener at all. Most the other songs on that album are harder (and better) but this one stood out to my young taste. It was fun.
Sometimes friends are surprised by my taste in music. I love, what some deem, sad bastard music. One of my favorite albums right now is The National’s High Violet. But sometimes I hear something really fun like CSS’s “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” and it kills me. It’s just so much fun and it’s something I can’t make; I have a high appreciation for pop music in all its forms.
And music should be fun. It is, in its most idealistic form for the artist, an expression greater than the form of the individual. One is expressing, through sound, an aspect of the human condition. One is painting portraits, landscapes, capturing form in empty space. But it doesn’t always have to be so heavy, the lightness is important as well; it’s something simple that makes you feel something simple. Or move. Or laugh. This is as important to the human condition as any.
This all goes back to an argument of high art vs. low art. But it doesn’t have to be viewed that way; John Cage’s “In a Landscape” is just as important to me as The Ramones “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.” It’s a great expression of the human condition. It’s not about high art or low art, it’s about good art. And it’s about art.
I sang this song in a school talent show. I was 12 years old. Jonathan Kenny played guitar and I sang and he was great and I’m sure I wasn’t. I don’t remember being nervous before and I don’t remember being elated after but I’m sure I was both.
This has always been a strange song to me, in a way. When The Colour and The Shape came out I listened to it every day, learned every song on it, went back to the self-titled Foo Fighters album and learned to appreciate it. And “Big Me” has these thin guitars, very safe sound and structure, no challenge to the listener at all. Most the other songs on that album are harder (and better) but this one stood out to my young taste. It was fun.
Sometimes friends are surprised by my taste in music. I love, what some deem, sad bastard music. One of my favorite albums right now is The National’s High Violet. But sometimes I hear something really fun like CSS’s “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” and it kills me. It’s just so much fun and it’s something I can’t make; I have a high appreciation for pop music in all its forms.
And music should be fun. It is, in its most idealistic form for the artist, an expression greater than the form of the individual. One is expressing, through sound, an aspect of the human condition. One is painting portraits, landscapes, capturing form in empty space. But it doesn’t always have to be so heavy, the lightness is important as well; it’s something simple that makes you feel something simple. Or move. Or laugh. This is as important to the human condition as any.
This all goes back to an argument of high art vs. low art. But it doesn’t have to be viewed that way; John Cage’s “In a Landscape” is just as important to me as The Ramones “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.” It’s a great expression of the human condition. It’s not about high art or low art, it’s about good art. And it’s about art.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
July 18, 2010: Leonard Cohen - Closing Time
Leonard Cohen - Closing Time: youtube.com/watch?v=vVt6vhRAu3k
There are some songs that will always remind me of my Dad. “Closing Time” is one of them, strongly.
My father worked (and still does, at 58 years) every day but Sunday, 8am - 5pm then back in to do paperwork for about an hour after supper. Saturdays he would be done earlier, at around noon. He worked (works) hard, owns his own business and helps provide not just for his wife and 3 boys but also his mother and 9 brothers and sisters. The only rest the man had all week was Sunday mornings, when he’d sleep in until 9am, go to the basement and listen to music on the speakers that he built. And he’d listen to it loud. Loud enough that it would shake the floor and wake me up. I hated Sunday mornings.
But this is where I developed my base taste in music. I found out, years after moving away from my hometown, that there are a lot of songs to which I know every word by Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty, The Band, Roy Orbison. Songs I otherwise could have sworn I didn’t know, but they come on and every word is familiar. Of course I have other influences who guided my musical tastes but this one was the strongest, and earliest. My father’s music developed in me a sense that musicians are songwriters, and songwriters are poets. This brought me from Bob Dylan to Allen Ginsberg. From Van Morrison to William Blake. I grew thinking there was a higher ideal to music.
I think this is why I’ve pursued music the way I have.
My friend Jane told me that she was at work one day and a song came on the radio and she stopped and started crying uncontrollably. She didn’t know why then, but it came to her later that the song had been one her late father had listened to often when she was young. I get the impression this will someday happen to me. I know the songs that remind me most of my father, so it probably won’t be them. But it’s coming and it frightens me a little.
My mother told me that when my father was a child he used to play air guitar to Elvis songs. Apparently he wanted to be Elvis. I wonder if he had been given the opportunity, would he have pursued this? He grew up in a large family, not much money, in a small town, ended up taking over his fathers business because his father was growing ill and someone had to do it. He stepped in, proudly. But what if someone bought him a guitar when he was young enough to really excite him? I got mine at 11 years old. What if no one had bought me a guitar then? Would I be a novelist? Or would I have taken over my father’s business?
I recorded an album in Halifax a few years back. It was a financial mistake, in retrospect, as I didn’t know what I was doing in that area. But I’m still proud of the songs. My mother liked it because it was something her son did but she didn’t get it. I remember talking to my Dad a couple weeks after giving him a copy, asking him what he thought. He said, “There’s a heavy Leonard Cohen influence.” And I made it that far.
There are some songs that will always remind me of my Dad. “Closing Time” is one of them, strongly.
My father worked (and still does, at 58 years) every day but Sunday, 8am - 5pm then back in to do paperwork for about an hour after supper. Saturdays he would be done earlier, at around noon. He worked (works) hard, owns his own business and helps provide not just for his wife and 3 boys but also his mother and 9 brothers and sisters. The only rest the man had all week was Sunday mornings, when he’d sleep in until 9am, go to the basement and listen to music on the speakers that he built. And he’d listen to it loud. Loud enough that it would shake the floor and wake me up. I hated Sunday mornings.
But this is where I developed my base taste in music. I found out, years after moving away from my hometown, that there are a lot of songs to which I know every word by Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty, The Band, Roy Orbison. Songs I otherwise could have sworn I didn’t know, but they come on and every word is familiar. Of course I have other influences who guided my musical tastes but this one was the strongest, and earliest. My father’s music developed in me a sense that musicians are songwriters, and songwriters are poets. This brought me from Bob Dylan to Allen Ginsberg. From Van Morrison to William Blake. I grew thinking there was a higher ideal to music.
I think this is why I’ve pursued music the way I have.
My friend Jane told me that she was at work one day and a song came on the radio and she stopped and started crying uncontrollably. She didn’t know why then, but it came to her later that the song had been one her late father had listened to often when she was young. I get the impression this will someday happen to me. I know the songs that remind me most of my father, so it probably won’t be them. But it’s coming and it frightens me a little.
My mother told me that when my father was a child he used to play air guitar to Elvis songs. Apparently he wanted to be Elvis. I wonder if he had been given the opportunity, would he have pursued this? He grew up in a large family, not much money, in a small town, ended up taking over his fathers business because his father was growing ill and someone had to do it. He stepped in, proudly. But what if someone bought him a guitar when he was young enough to really excite him? I got mine at 11 years old. What if no one had bought me a guitar then? Would I be a novelist? Or would I have taken over my father’s business?
I recorded an album in Halifax a few years back. It was a financial mistake, in retrospect, as I didn’t know what I was doing in that area. But I’m still proud of the songs. My mother liked it because it was something her son did but she didn’t get it. I remember talking to my Dad a couple weeks after giving him a copy, asking him what he thought. He said, “There’s a heavy Leonard Cohen influence.” And I made it that far.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
July 17, 2010: Sophie B. Hawkins - Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover
Sophie B. Hawkins - Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover: youtube.com/watch?v=RQQpbRN1FrE
I remember seeing the video for "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" on The Hit List with Tarzan Dan, on YTV. I’m pretty sure I saw this video alongside PJ Harvey’s “Down By the Water” and the premier of the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe.” That seems strange to me, now. I must have been about 7 years old. I thought Sophie B. Hawkins looked weird and was a bit scared that I was listening to a song about sex with a swear. I liked it but hated it at the same time because I wasn’t supposed to like it. At 7 years old, for me, Sophie B. Hawkins defined subversive.
In time, in listening to this song again, it’s pretty bad. The over-production, the adding of vocal lines in dead spots to fill out the song, the vague and disjointed lyrics (“I give you something sweet each time / You come inside my jungle book”), the synths. It’s pretty typical (though not the prime example) of what was bad in music from the time in which it came out.
But at the time it came out it resonated with my 7 old year old body. I grew up in a town where the biggest building is the church, where we recited the lord’s prayer in kindergarten, everyday. Roman Catholic and proud. And I was told, of course, that sexuality is something to repress and be ashamed of. I may never have been told this outright, but one doesn’t need everything explained to them in basic terms to know what they’re being guided toward and away from. And I recall my mother turning the channel when this song came on TV. And I remember feeling like I’d get in trouble if I was caught listening to this song. The “Damn!” at the start of the chorus is bracing when you’re not supposed to hear that word and here it is said proud and standing out from all other words spoken.
Again, I realize now that this isn’t so subversive. It’s more pandering than anything. The song didn’t need the word “Damn!” at all, but if it wasn’t there there wouldn’t be anything to hold onto lyrically; the whole song hinges on that one word. I remember hearing Kathleen Edwards say that when she was first writing songs she used the word “fuck” a lot in her lyrics. Then someone told her that she only used the word “fuck” because she wasn’t smart enough to use anything else. And she found this true. And it’s true that to use a word like “damn” or “fuck” or any kind of “forbidden” word can be tricky. If you use it in the wrong place then the whole piece will rely on it as a crutch; it has to be subtle or absolutely necessary. Despite the fact that these are just words that ultimately mean nothing, there are certain that hold a terrible strength and require careful use for it.
Jean-Luc Godard said once that to make a movie all you need is a gun and a girl. I suppose that’s true. Danger and sex will always be exciting. I’m not sure if this applies to my line of thought just now, at all. It just came to mind, seemed to apply. Oh well.
I remember seeing the video for "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" on The Hit List with Tarzan Dan, on YTV. I’m pretty sure I saw this video alongside PJ Harvey’s “Down By the Water” and the premier of the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe.” That seems strange to me, now. I must have been about 7 years old. I thought Sophie B. Hawkins looked weird and was a bit scared that I was listening to a song about sex with a swear. I liked it but hated it at the same time because I wasn’t supposed to like it. At 7 years old, for me, Sophie B. Hawkins defined subversive.
In time, in listening to this song again, it’s pretty bad. The over-production, the adding of vocal lines in dead spots to fill out the song, the vague and disjointed lyrics (“I give you something sweet each time / You come inside my jungle book”), the synths. It’s pretty typical (though not the prime example) of what was bad in music from the time in which it came out.
But at the time it came out it resonated with my 7 old year old body. I grew up in a town where the biggest building is the church, where we recited the lord’s prayer in kindergarten, everyday. Roman Catholic and proud. And I was told, of course, that sexuality is something to repress and be ashamed of. I may never have been told this outright, but one doesn’t need everything explained to them in basic terms to know what they’re being guided toward and away from. And I recall my mother turning the channel when this song came on TV. And I remember feeling like I’d get in trouble if I was caught listening to this song. The “Damn!” at the start of the chorus is bracing when you’re not supposed to hear that word and here it is said proud and standing out from all other words spoken.
Again, I realize now that this isn’t so subversive. It’s more pandering than anything. The song didn’t need the word “Damn!” at all, but if it wasn’t there there wouldn’t be anything to hold onto lyrically; the whole song hinges on that one word. I remember hearing Kathleen Edwards say that when she was first writing songs she used the word “fuck” a lot in her lyrics. Then someone told her that she only used the word “fuck” because she wasn’t smart enough to use anything else. And she found this true. And it’s true that to use a word like “damn” or “fuck” or any kind of “forbidden” word can be tricky. If you use it in the wrong place then the whole piece will rely on it as a crutch; it has to be subtle or absolutely necessary. Despite the fact that these are just words that ultimately mean nothing, there are certain that hold a terrible strength and require careful use for it.
Jean-Luc Godard said once that to make a movie all you need is a gun and a girl. I suppose that’s true. Danger and sex will always be exciting. I’m not sure if this applies to my line of thought just now, at all. It just came to mind, seemed to apply. Oh well.
Friday, July 16, 2010
July 16, 2010: Wilco - Via Chicago
Wilco - Via Chicago: youtube.com/watch?v=vEFN_14aElU
I knew who Wilco were before going to see them in Halifax, one summer. I had heard Mermaid Avenue and liked it but wasn’t entirely won over. I had been working at a record store when Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out and my manager praised it but I didn’t get it. It wasn’t exciting to me.
My friend Tim had an extra ticket to see Wilco in Halifax and was making a big deal about it, insisted I go with him. “Oh, and can you drive me?” Of course, I said. “And can you drive my girlfriend, and her sister?” Sure. So I drove to Moncton to pick them all up and go. Tim I knew pretty well, I had met his girlfriend, Amy, only once but liked her; she was a singer who drove a motorcycle and drank like a madman. Amy’s sister scared me at first. She was thin, wore tiny, pink shorts, a white tank top and bounced when she walked, could barely stop talking to take a breath. She was pretty and she scared me.
Before we left Moncton, Tim’s Dad said to me, “Is that your car? I used to have one just like it. Be careful, it’s a shitty car.” And he was right. As we drove through Nova Scotia the car just stopped on the highway. The engine blew. We didn’t know it then but the engine blew and we were stranded on the highway. Amy’s sister got out and flagged down a transport pretty quickly (thin, pretty girl in skimpy clothes hitching a ride on the side of the highway really works), he called a tow truck for us and we got towed into Truro. We called a friend who lived in Halifax to come pick us up, we sat outside a Burger King drinking vodka and met some kid hitching to Mount Uniacke. He had an 8-inch hunting knife and he showed it to us a couple times. Amy’s sister and I had a nice moment where we got to talk alone and she told me she wanted to go to school and be a nurse. I fell for her, quickly, but that ended when we got to Halifax and she leaned her affections toward a mutual friend.
But aside from all the recalling of events; I was won over at the Wilco show by “Via Chicago.” I wasn’t at the show for the music but to spend time with some friends, drink and adventure. But despite my growing drunkenness and capacity for the inattentive, there was a moment when the drums went wild in “Via Chicago” and I stopped. It has stayed with me since. I love chaos (or, controlled chaos, I suppose). I somehow loved when the car broke down and we were potentially stuck in this nowhere town with nothing to do. Granted, it wasn’t quite chaotic exactly, but that divergence from what was expected made every moment seem new and heightened the excitement of it all. The same applies for “Via Chicago.” When the drums became chaotic and I paid attention, they had me for the rest of the show. I was won over. In the weeks following I found more of their songs and listened, trying to find more of what I’d earlier found.
I haven’t seen Tim, Amy or her sister in a long time.
I knew who Wilco were before going to see them in Halifax, one summer. I had heard Mermaid Avenue and liked it but wasn’t entirely won over. I had been working at a record store when Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out and my manager praised it but I didn’t get it. It wasn’t exciting to me.
My friend Tim had an extra ticket to see Wilco in Halifax and was making a big deal about it, insisted I go with him. “Oh, and can you drive me?” Of course, I said. “And can you drive my girlfriend, and her sister?” Sure. So I drove to Moncton to pick them all up and go. Tim I knew pretty well, I had met his girlfriend, Amy, only once but liked her; she was a singer who drove a motorcycle and drank like a madman. Amy’s sister scared me at first. She was thin, wore tiny, pink shorts, a white tank top and bounced when she walked, could barely stop talking to take a breath. She was pretty and she scared me.
Before we left Moncton, Tim’s Dad said to me, “Is that your car? I used to have one just like it. Be careful, it’s a shitty car.” And he was right. As we drove through Nova Scotia the car just stopped on the highway. The engine blew. We didn’t know it then but the engine blew and we were stranded on the highway. Amy’s sister got out and flagged down a transport pretty quickly (thin, pretty girl in skimpy clothes hitching a ride on the side of the highway really works), he called a tow truck for us and we got towed into Truro. We called a friend who lived in Halifax to come pick us up, we sat outside a Burger King drinking vodka and met some kid hitching to Mount Uniacke. He had an 8-inch hunting knife and he showed it to us a couple times. Amy’s sister and I had a nice moment where we got to talk alone and she told me she wanted to go to school and be a nurse. I fell for her, quickly, but that ended when we got to Halifax and she leaned her affections toward a mutual friend.
But aside from all the recalling of events; I was won over at the Wilco show by “Via Chicago.” I wasn’t at the show for the music but to spend time with some friends, drink and adventure. But despite my growing drunkenness and capacity for the inattentive, there was a moment when the drums went wild in “Via Chicago” and I stopped. It has stayed with me since. I love chaos (or, controlled chaos, I suppose). I somehow loved when the car broke down and we were potentially stuck in this nowhere town with nothing to do. Granted, it wasn’t quite chaotic exactly, but that divergence from what was expected made every moment seem new and heightened the excitement of it all. The same applies for “Via Chicago.” When the drums became chaotic and I paid attention, they had me for the rest of the show. I was won over. In the weeks following I found more of their songs and listened, trying to find more of what I’d earlier found.
I haven’t seen Tim, Amy or her sister in a long time.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
July 15, 2010: Archie Bell & The Drells - The Tighten Up
Archie Bell & The Drells - The Tighten Up: youtube.com/watch?v=Wro3bqi4Eb8
This is my go to good time song. I first heard it at Laura Merrimen’s. We drank and listened to this and laughed. I bought it years later at a record store in Toronto despite the clerk’s reluctance to sell it to me for she wanted it for herself.
I still put this on when I have people over. I remember putting it on at an after-work party at my Kensington apartment at 5am when we were all quiet and sleepy and it kept us alive for a few more hours. I didn’t know it then but I was nearing the end of something good, would very soon become disillusioned with that place. But it was good night, all loving and tired people listening to “The Tighten Up.” We slept 3 hours that morning and all went out for breakfast, as if we had something to celebrate beyond us.
And I remember, about a year after all that, working in a new place and Warren was DJing. He put this on and I went out to the open dance floor and danced to it by myself.
I don’t know what else to say about this song except that it is track 1 on the album and track 2 is the exact same song, different take. It’s that good.
This is my go to good time song. I first heard it at Laura Merrimen’s. We drank and listened to this and laughed. I bought it years later at a record store in Toronto despite the clerk’s reluctance to sell it to me for she wanted it for herself.
I still put this on when I have people over. I remember putting it on at an after-work party at my Kensington apartment at 5am when we were all quiet and sleepy and it kept us alive for a few more hours. I didn’t know it then but I was nearing the end of something good, would very soon become disillusioned with that place. But it was good night, all loving and tired people listening to “The Tighten Up.” We slept 3 hours that morning and all went out for breakfast, as if we had something to celebrate beyond us.
And I remember, about a year after all that, working in a new place and Warren was DJing. He put this on and I went out to the open dance floor and danced to it by myself.
I don’t know what else to say about this song except that it is track 1 on the album and track 2 is the exact same song, different take. It’s that good.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
July 14, 2010: Jeff Buckley - So Real
Jeff Buckley - So Real: youtube.com/watch?v=EcaxrqhUJ4c
The first time I heard Jeff Buckley I was on my way to Shawn Prestons grad party. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, Tim was sitting behind me and Claudia was there too. My friend who was driving us put on Grace and said, “I heard this last night when I was high on mushrooms, just as the sun was coming up.” It was framed, right from the start, as some ecstatic experience.
For most who talk about Jeff Buckley (especially first time songwriters, people who are full of themselves and super-sensitive men) he is an ecstatic experience. I can understand this to a degree as I went through a Jeff Buckley phase; I learned how to play a lot of songs off Grace and tried to emulate his falsetto vocal style (which, admittedly, probably has a lot to do with my stronger upper and middle range as it currently stands. Oops!). I bought into the canonization of this man, his apparent untouchable sainthood. It’s almost embarrassing to admit that I still love Jeff Buckley’s music, can still listen to it gratefully, though I’ve become more critical of music and art in general and am generally turned off by his fans.
The first time I knew it was okay to listen to Jeff Buckley was when Tim’s Dad was driving us to a cottage one day and Tim put in a mixed tape. It had Sonic Youth, ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Radiohead and Jeff Buckley’s “So Real.” When that song came on Tim went on a diatribe on the chaotic and discordant elements that always were underneath his songs and wanting to come out, as happens after the second chorus of this particular song.
I realize it’s uncool to like Jeff Buckley now, even for me and the rest of us who defend his songs. If I was at a show and an artist did a cover of a Jeff Buckley song I would almost certainly walk out. If someone put Grace on at a party I would probably spend a few minutes complaining about it to whoever was unfortunate enough to be talking to me at the time (though I couldn’t say the same about (Sketches For) My Sweetheart the Drunk, if it came on). Despite this I will gladly listen to him by myself. There are elements of study that are important to what was contributed. It is no ecstatic experience (and I question whether it ever was) but it is appealing to my senses; darkness, humour, chaos, longing, the whole bit.
It’s very unfortunate that Jeff Buckley died when he did. Aside from the obvious human tragedy I think he was going somewhere musically that his immediate fans would have hated. He was progressing to an interesting place as an artist, as can be heard in his demos for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Listen to “Your Flesh is Nice.” It’s difficult to listen to at first, all fuzzy guitars, graphic lyrics, death and sex. If he had continued this way people would not perceive the tortured, romantic artist they make him out to be. I guess this goes into how we’re all perceived after we die; will people create you into a martyr or the embodiment of some casue? Do you want that? Does it even matter?
I’m currently reading God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. In it, he describes a microcosm of religion as seen in a documentary called Mondo Cane where islanders who have never experienced anything outside their island have American GIs come and visit. Their first ever visitors, they are surprised anything exists outside of their island. They take one GI in particular, canonize his name, create an annual celebration for him, claim his return to their island to be the signal of great future prosperity. This man, though, is simply an American GI who happened to be there and probably went back home afterward to return to a state of normalcy. Does it matter that they mistakenly made this man super-human? That he has become some invisible guide for a whole culture? Does he want that? How would his attempts at clearing his name be received? (Note: Read this book. My second hand account is nothing compared to his analysis.)
I heard Bono say once that when he dies he wants a lot of people to cry at his funeral. Isn’t that ridiculously stupid? I hope people are joyful on my death.
I remember the first time I thought that listening to Jeff Buckley was uncool. My dorm roommate and I had to share a sleeping space. I couldn’t sleep so I put on some music to focus my scattered thoughts. I put on Grace. My roommate sighed, tossed and turned in his bed frantically until I turned it off.
The first time I heard Jeff Buckley I was on my way to Shawn Prestons grad party. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, Tim was sitting behind me and Claudia was there too. My friend who was driving us put on Grace and said, “I heard this last night when I was high on mushrooms, just as the sun was coming up.” It was framed, right from the start, as some ecstatic experience.
For most who talk about Jeff Buckley (especially first time songwriters, people who are full of themselves and super-sensitive men) he is an ecstatic experience. I can understand this to a degree as I went through a Jeff Buckley phase; I learned how to play a lot of songs off Grace and tried to emulate his falsetto vocal style (which, admittedly, probably has a lot to do with my stronger upper and middle range as it currently stands. Oops!). I bought into the canonization of this man, his apparent untouchable sainthood. It’s almost embarrassing to admit that I still love Jeff Buckley’s music, can still listen to it gratefully, though I’ve become more critical of music and art in general and am generally turned off by his fans.
The first time I knew it was okay to listen to Jeff Buckley was when Tim’s Dad was driving us to a cottage one day and Tim put in a mixed tape. It had Sonic Youth, ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Radiohead and Jeff Buckley’s “So Real.” When that song came on Tim went on a diatribe on the chaotic and discordant elements that always were underneath his songs and wanting to come out, as happens after the second chorus of this particular song.
I realize it’s uncool to like Jeff Buckley now, even for me and the rest of us who defend his songs. If I was at a show and an artist did a cover of a Jeff Buckley song I would almost certainly walk out. If someone put Grace on at a party I would probably spend a few minutes complaining about it to whoever was unfortunate enough to be talking to me at the time (though I couldn’t say the same about (Sketches For) My Sweetheart the Drunk, if it came on). Despite this I will gladly listen to him by myself. There are elements of study that are important to what was contributed. It is no ecstatic experience (and I question whether it ever was) but it is appealing to my senses; darkness, humour, chaos, longing, the whole bit.
It’s very unfortunate that Jeff Buckley died when he did. Aside from the obvious human tragedy I think he was going somewhere musically that his immediate fans would have hated. He was progressing to an interesting place as an artist, as can be heard in his demos for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Listen to “Your Flesh is Nice.” It’s difficult to listen to at first, all fuzzy guitars, graphic lyrics, death and sex. If he had continued this way people would not perceive the tortured, romantic artist they make him out to be. I guess this goes into how we’re all perceived after we die; will people create you into a martyr or the embodiment of some casue? Do you want that? Does it even matter?
I’m currently reading God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. In it, he describes a microcosm of religion as seen in a documentary called Mondo Cane where islanders who have never experienced anything outside their island have American GIs come and visit. Their first ever visitors, they are surprised anything exists outside of their island. They take one GI in particular, canonize his name, create an annual celebration for him, claim his return to their island to be the signal of great future prosperity. This man, though, is simply an American GI who happened to be there and probably went back home afterward to return to a state of normalcy. Does it matter that they mistakenly made this man super-human? That he has become some invisible guide for a whole culture? Does he want that? How would his attempts at clearing his name be received? (Note: Read this book. My second hand account is nothing compared to his analysis.)
I heard Bono say once that when he dies he wants a lot of people to cry at his funeral. Isn’t that ridiculously stupid? I hope people are joyful on my death.
I remember the first time I thought that listening to Jeff Buckley was uncool. My dorm roommate and I had to share a sleeping space. I couldn’t sleep so I put on some music to focus my scattered thoughts. I put on Grace. My roommate sighed, tossed and turned in his bed frantically until I turned it off.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
July 13 2010: Bright Eyes - Lua
Bright Eyes - Lua: youtube.com/watch?v=5aZh261KZWI
This is just about how I imagined how my young manhood would play out. I dreamt of the city when I was younger, of beautiful and sorrowful girls and parties at vain and beautiful peoples homes, of mornings alone with coffee and outside sounds, of movement and suspicious activity and softness.
I think I’ve achieved this to a degree. Granted, I stay in writing most days, I organize events that are beyond my capabilities, bringing stress, I worry about my successes and lament my failures, my present often seems to be in a constant state of building and reaching for what is not yet there, if it will come at all. And my time drinking is sometimes lamented, as well, as it brings less time writing, less money, more things said than I sometimes want said.
However, this is the worst of it. At the best I’m alive and creating even if I’m out all day meeting with friends, haunting the same four walls of the same four buildings that accept me. I’ve met the sorrowful ones who share in my state and who wish me well, who bring me moments of heavy and paralyzing gratitude. There are so many grand ventures I’m yet to bring but I think that I’m not yet ready for them. I’m on the verge of these things, but time will be my provider for now.
And this city has brought me so much of this. One moment, recently, makes me eternally grateful. An actor/musician friend of mine invited me to play some songs at his house party. I did so and the night progressed with the finding of a dear sister in another, briefly, with a sharing of dear history with another, with the possibility of and turning from tenderness. It came together near sunrise, though, when the small group left went to the basement and hid in the dark, small space filled with thin red sheets lining the walls and we listened cross legged to a friend play light songs forever. Amelia sat next to me and we leaned into each other. It was quiet but for the light music and each breath. We all seemed overtired and in love then. And I look back on it with fondness and sorrow, with love for Amelia and the rest.
And I thank this city and its many dark and wonder brought beauties.
This is just about how I imagined how my young manhood would play out. I dreamt of the city when I was younger, of beautiful and sorrowful girls and parties at vain and beautiful peoples homes, of mornings alone with coffee and outside sounds, of movement and suspicious activity and softness.
I think I’ve achieved this to a degree. Granted, I stay in writing most days, I organize events that are beyond my capabilities, bringing stress, I worry about my successes and lament my failures, my present often seems to be in a constant state of building and reaching for what is not yet there, if it will come at all. And my time drinking is sometimes lamented, as well, as it brings less time writing, less money, more things said than I sometimes want said.
However, this is the worst of it. At the best I’m alive and creating even if I’m out all day meeting with friends, haunting the same four walls of the same four buildings that accept me. I’ve met the sorrowful ones who share in my state and who wish me well, who bring me moments of heavy and paralyzing gratitude. There are so many grand ventures I’m yet to bring but I think that I’m not yet ready for them. I’m on the verge of these things, but time will be my provider for now.
And this city has brought me so much of this. One moment, recently, makes me eternally grateful. An actor/musician friend of mine invited me to play some songs at his house party. I did so and the night progressed with the finding of a dear sister in another, briefly, with a sharing of dear history with another, with the possibility of and turning from tenderness. It came together near sunrise, though, when the small group left went to the basement and hid in the dark, small space filled with thin red sheets lining the walls and we listened cross legged to a friend play light songs forever. Amelia sat next to me and we leaned into each other. It was quiet but for the light music and each breath. We all seemed overtired and in love then. And I look back on it with fondness and sorrow, with love for Amelia and the rest.
And I thank this city and its many dark and wonder brought beauties.
Monday, July 12, 2010
July 12, 2010: Kaki King - Doing the Wrong Thing
Kaki King - Doing the Wrong Thing: youtube.com/watch?v=4PaWKB1ubqc
This song is a driving song.
I love movement; the intensity of change that occurs when you’re traveling is wonderful. You wake up in one city, meet new people in another, wake up there and move. You experience lifetimes, sometimes, in a matter of hours, days pass and they seem like they happened weeks before. You see newness every minute.
I don’t know where this wanderlust occurred in my life. I had a conversation with a friend once who told me that he spent his whole development moving from country to country, having to learn new languages and meet new friends and settle just to move away. He said he hated it. I envied him a little. I spent my development in a small town, never seeing much of what is outside but to go to Disney World, once, or my Aunts house in Ottawa. I knew the same few hundred people for 18 years, never really diverging from them. That’s not to say that my development was bad, far from it, but it made me want for change stronger and stronger as I grew.
I once went on a cruise with my parents, when I was 13. We flew down to Florida and got on a boat that brought us to Nassau and back within 4 days. At 13 I was, admittedly, in a pretty bad state. I had little to no self-confidence, I was kind and that was seen as weakness by my peers so I was an easy target. Going on this cruise, to me, felt like an opportunity to meet those my age and find real friends. And I met those my age but it was all in retrospect a bit of a lie.
There was a small group from the American mid-west who tolerated me enough to let me be with them for those 4 days. I don’t remember any of their names but there were 2 guys who were about 16 or so and 3 girls who were between 14 and 16. In retrospect they were all pretty shitty people who were vain and self-destructive, had horrible taste in everything but I didn’t much care because these were my new friends and I was being taken in. I remember they all loved that song “Pony” by Ginuine.
On this same boat were 2 girls, whose names I also can’t remember, who befriended me briefly. One was a beautiful girl of 13 who had long straight, brown hair and a very sweet smile and she made me nervous. She had an older sister, maybe 16 years old, with very curly black hair and a round face. They were very kind to me. On the second night they invited me to their room, which I obliged of course, and we sat talking for hours. I don’t remember of what though I’m sure we exchanged histories, talked about common teenage things like where we lived, where we went to school and the things we liked. There was a moment in the conversation, though, that I still remember very vividly. The older sister told me that where they came from they were teased and people called them kikes. She explained to me that they were Jewish and what kike meant and said that sometimes they would just get home from school and cry from it all. The beautiful young sister, I remember, just looked down at her feet and stayed quiet, nodding her head every so often.
This stayed with me for one reason in particular: The group that had befriended me hated the two Jewish girls. I don’t know why but I was told not to be seen with them. And I remember being with this group on our third night, passing the two Jewish sisters in the hall and avoiding eye contact. I don’t think I saw them again after that.
What holds me about this is that aside from turning away from beauty at that moment I also turned on myself. I was being dragged into this group of terrible people because, back home, I wanted to be part of that group of terrible people. Maybe because they tortured me. Those two girls were closer to kin that anyone at that time and I turned against them because I hated myself so why shouldn’t I hate them too? But I loved them and should have been at their side. They were sorrowful and beautiful and I miss them.
But aside from all that, this is part of the nature of traveling that I revel in; because you may never see these people again you are given just one chance so you God damn better make sure you do right by it. It makes for an intensely honest and good human being. When one is given a day to get to know another and fully for this is it, you make it right. Or at least I try to now, in movement.
This song is a driving song.
I love movement; the intensity of change that occurs when you’re traveling is wonderful. You wake up in one city, meet new people in another, wake up there and move. You experience lifetimes, sometimes, in a matter of hours, days pass and they seem like they happened weeks before. You see newness every minute.
I don’t know where this wanderlust occurred in my life. I had a conversation with a friend once who told me that he spent his whole development moving from country to country, having to learn new languages and meet new friends and settle just to move away. He said he hated it. I envied him a little. I spent my development in a small town, never seeing much of what is outside but to go to Disney World, once, or my Aunts house in Ottawa. I knew the same few hundred people for 18 years, never really diverging from them. That’s not to say that my development was bad, far from it, but it made me want for change stronger and stronger as I grew.
I once went on a cruise with my parents, when I was 13. We flew down to Florida and got on a boat that brought us to Nassau and back within 4 days. At 13 I was, admittedly, in a pretty bad state. I had little to no self-confidence, I was kind and that was seen as weakness by my peers so I was an easy target. Going on this cruise, to me, felt like an opportunity to meet those my age and find real friends. And I met those my age but it was all in retrospect a bit of a lie.
There was a small group from the American mid-west who tolerated me enough to let me be with them for those 4 days. I don’t remember any of their names but there were 2 guys who were about 16 or so and 3 girls who were between 14 and 16. In retrospect they were all pretty shitty people who were vain and self-destructive, had horrible taste in everything but I didn’t much care because these were my new friends and I was being taken in. I remember they all loved that song “Pony” by Ginuine.
On this same boat were 2 girls, whose names I also can’t remember, who befriended me briefly. One was a beautiful girl of 13 who had long straight, brown hair and a very sweet smile and she made me nervous. She had an older sister, maybe 16 years old, with very curly black hair and a round face. They were very kind to me. On the second night they invited me to their room, which I obliged of course, and we sat talking for hours. I don’t remember of what though I’m sure we exchanged histories, talked about common teenage things like where we lived, where we went to school and the things we liked. There was a moment in the conversation, though, that I still remember very vividly. The older sister told me that where they came from they were teased and people called them kikes. She explained to me that they were Jewish and what kike meant and said that sometimes they would just get home from school and cry from it all. The beautiful young sister, I remember, just looked down at her feet and stayed quiet, nodding her head every so often.
This stayed with me for one reason in particular: The group that had befriended me hated the two Jewish girls. I don’t know why but I was told not to be seen with them. And I remember being with this group on our third night, passing the two Jewish sisters in the hall and avoiding eye contact. I don’t think I saw them again after that.
What holds me about this is that aside from turning away from beauty at that moment I also turned on myself. I was being dragged into this group of terrible people because, back home, I wanted to be part of that group of terrible people. Maybe because they tortured me. Those two girls were closer to kin that anyone at that time and I turned against them because I hated myself so why shouldn’t I hate them too? But I loved them and should have been at their side. They were sorrowful and beautiful and I miss them.
But aside from all that, this is part of the nature of traveling that I revel in; because you may never see these people again you are given just one chance so you God damn better make sure you do right by it. It makes for an intensely honest and good human being. When one is given a day to get to know another and fully for this is it, you make it right. Or at least I try to now, in movement.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
July 11, 2010: Khia - My Neck My Back
Khia - My Neck, My Back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMCMlNyySvo
I’ve never understood the popularity of Britney Spears in the late 1990s. I suppose it’s because I’m not American. I’ve read a lot of arguments as to why she was so appealing during that time, it seems to me that she embodied an aspect of American life that people in the US could understand and associate with during that time, being a high level of outward aesthetic surrounding a mess of contradictions and vanity. That’s not to say that I personally think that America is a country with a high level of outward aesthetic surrounding a mess of contradictions and vanity. I haven’t been to the US in 13 years, I like the idea of America and certain areas of the country seem full of life and vital, appealing and full of wonder. New York, for example. Or Austin, Texas. The Grand Canyon. However, America in the late 1990s (and up to today, I think) has little to no self-awareness.
America prides itself on being a bastion of freedom and possibility though it was an apartheid state until about 50 years ago (and, in ways, still is today). America is the wealthiest country in the world yet it has the highest deficit. America considers itself a Christian society, largely, based on high morals yet it has no problem invading other countries, destroying populations and suppressing rights. And Britney Spears claims herself an untouched, pure being while wearing a school girls uniform and singing thinly veiled songs about sex. There is a strong divide, it seems, between the face and what is behind it. I think this is why people there understood. Despite the dissection on my part, though, all the theory, I will never truly understand because I've not been there.
I had a conversation with a friend the other night. We had gone out to a show where this terrible band got on stage, played out countless cliches both in their music and performance; they were such a bad, terrible band they hurt me inside. On our walk away from that ridiculousness my friend said that had the band had funny lyrics he might have actually liked them. We got into a conversation about art and how low art can become high art if only it is self aware.
And that is why I love “My Neck My Back” by Khia. So much. It is the most up front, honest and self aware song I know. Khia knew what she was doing when she made this song; she didn’t bother with thinly veiled innuendo, she just went straight to the point and so masterfully so. And there is a humour to it all. I imagine when they made this song in the studio they laughed at the disbelief that they actually made this song. I still can’t believe this song was made. It’s glorious. It takes those things that are considered low by conservative societal standards (dance music, ghetto glamourization, dirty sex) and heightens them to celebratory and unapologetic. It's rebelliousness in the best way. And so good.
Later in that same night that my friend and I left the terrible, terrible show, we walked past an art gallery, very small in size, that had on each wall a drawing of a dick and balls, not unlike something I’d see in a shitty bathroom stall. It made me laugh and I loved it.
I’ve never understood the popularity of Britney Spears in the late 1990s. I suppose it’s because I’m not American. I’ve read a lot of arguments as to why she was so appealing during that time, it seems to me that she embodied an aspect of American life that people in the US could understand and associate with during that time, being a high level of outward aesthetic surrounding a mess of contradictions and vanity. That’s not to say that I personally think that America is a country with a high level of outward aesthetic surrounding a mess of contradictions and vanity. I haven’t been to the US in 13 years, I like the idea of America and certain areas of the country seem full of life and vital, appealing and full of wonder. New York, for example. Or Austin, Texas. The Grand Canyon. However, America in the late 1990s (and up to today, I think) has little to no self-awareness.
America prides itself on being a bastion of freedom and possibility though it was an apartheid state until about 50 years ago (and, in ways, still is today). America is the wealthiest country in the world yet it has the highest deficit. America considers itself a Christian society, largely, based on high morals yet it has no problem invading other countries, destroying populations and suppressing rights. And Britney Spears claims herself an untouched, pure being while wearing a school girls uniform and singing thinly veiled songs about sex. There is a strong divide, it seems, between the face and what is behind it. I think this is why people there understood. Despite the dissection on my part, though, all the theory, I will never truly understand because I've not been there.
I had a conversation with a friend the other night. We had gone out to a show where this terrible band got on stage, played out countless cliches both in their music and performance; they were such a bad, terrible band they hurt me inside. On our walk away from that ridiculousness my friend said that had the band had funny lyrics he might have actually liked them. We got into a conversation about art and how low art can become high art if only it is self aware.
And that is why I love “My Neck My Back” by Khia. So much. It is the most up front, honest and self aware song I know. Khia knew what she was doing when she made this song; she didn’t bother with thinly veiled innuendo, she just went straight to the point and so masterfully so. And there is a humour to it all. I imagine when they made this song in the studio they laughed at the disbelief that they actually made this song. I still can’t believe this song was made. It’s glorious. It takes those things that are considered low by conservative societal standards (dance music, ghetto glamourization, dirty sex) and heightens them to celebratory and unapologetic. It's rebelliousness in the best way. And so good.
Later in that same night that my friend and I left the terrible, terrible show, we walked past an art gallery, very small in size, that had on each wall a drawing of a dick and balls, not unlike something I’d see in a shitty bathroom stall. It made me laugh and I loved it.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
July 10, 2010: Feist - One Evening
Feist - One Evening http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTKu-CDz30w
Yesterday I saw the only girl I’ve ever considered I could marry. She was in town and called me, we met. She’s currently with someone she will probably marry and be with for the rest of her life and they’ll be happy. And I’m happy for her.
We met in a bar the night the Rolling Stones played Halifax. I sat on the edge of her chair, she made conversation with me. She was Italian. She rolled her own cigarettes. She came to my apartment later and we sat up all night talking and listening to Feist’s Let It Die. It was more beauty than I could handle and circumstance dictated that nothing more would come from it all. We parted. I left Halifax and since we’ve found each other many times, all under auspicious and similar circumstance.
Regardless. This song captures that one night when we met.
I’ve been one to appreciate love, romantic connection. When love comes, if even but briefly, it’s most important to thank that love came at all, discard what is unimportant from what follows. It doesn’t matter if we can’t live up to that beauty, it matters that we once thought we could and moved accordingly. Still, with this one particular, though it’s hurtful that we never really had our time to know each other fully, it’s stronger that we loved once.
And today I saw her. And we talked about Feist, actually.
Yesterday I saw the only girl I’ve ever considered I could marry. She was in town and called me, we met. She’s currently with someone she will probably marry and be with for the rest of her life and they’ll be happy. And I’m happy for her.
We met in a bar the night the Rolling Stones played Halifax. I sat on the edge of her chair, she made conversation with me. She was Italian. She rolled her own cigarettes. She came to my apartment later and we sat up all night talking and listening to Feist’s Let It Die. It was more beauty than I could handle and circumstance dictated that nothing more would come from it all. We parted. I left Halifax and since we’ve found each other many times, all under auspicious and similar circumstance.
Regardless. This song captures that one night when we met.
I’ve been one to appreciate love, romantic connection. When love comes, if even but briefly, it’s most important to thank that love came at all, discard what is unimportant from what follows. It doesn’t matter if we can’t live up to that beauty, it matters that we once thought we could and moved accordingly. Still, with this one particular, though it’s hurtful that we never really had our time to know each other fully, it’s stronger that we loved once.
And today I saw her. And we talked about Feist, actually.
Friday, July 9, 2010
July 9, 2010: Buck 65 - Phil
Buck 65 - Phil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuBxKsKswI4
This song used to make me cry. It still does, but for different reasons.
My brother Colin used to drive me from our apartment to school even though we lived a 10 minute walk away. He always had a way of forcing music on me as long as he was driving and I was in the car; he introduced me to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon one night as we drove through the woods, through the black, and it remains one of the most terrifying and rewarding experiences of my life. And so during this time when he was driving me to school near every day he would put Buck 65’s Square on the CD player.
I hated it. It was dark and boring and foolish and I hated it. I would ask him to put something else on and he would tell me to give it a chance. Anyway, I suddenly realize this isn’t so much about my induction into Buck 65’s music - I at some point had a change and loved it. I find that with anything that wins me over to love I’m won over for life. Colin’s insistence on “giving it a chance,” a separate friend listening to Square at a party and seeing Buck 65 perform live combined to win me over.
So I learned to love. And then I heard “Phil” and it broke my heart.
I’m most always interested in the bildungsroman. And I use that term to denote all story forms, not just the novel. I tend to associate with characters whose existence always seems new and strange, who seem to be moving toward something great though they may not know what it is they’re moving toward, who are covered in flaw and wear it rightfully. This has to do, I’m sure, with growing up in a small town and having no interest in the factory. It comes from reading Beowulf at too young an age. It comes from meeting beautiful Jewish girls at 13 who cry because everyone at school calls them kikes. It comes from the CN Tower and the Atlantic Ocean. It's a constant state of dissatisfaction with everything around you while simultaneously seeing its beauty and purpose.
I feel my thoughts scatter in these statements. I might have explained why the particular idea of “Phil” touches me, but the fact still remains that the song “Phil,” in particular, still makes me cry. Focus. Put in context, Buck 65 should not have ever garnered any attention at all. He falls in with an artist like Leonard Cohen who, despite questionably little talent, possesses passion strongly and a firm grasp of sensual language. And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible despite the inherent insult. I, as one who associates himself as an artist, feel that I have access to small stores of talent but have focused intensely on language to make up for this lack. And so every word of this song rings true; I am small but full of fire. And the narrator speaks from the other side, saying it’s worth the struggle so beautifully.
And I don’t mean to make this song exclusively about the formation of myself as an artist, but as a person fully, as one who loves and desires love. I’ve tried to explain to others that I hold more sorrow than joy and that this is a good thing, that it propels me to love and forgiveness and understanding, but am often misunderstood. I’m no Lady of Shalott, I’m not “half sick of shadows.” The best I’ve been able to find to elucidate all of this is in the form of the duende. In my study of this phenomena I’ve come to this understanding: Duende is a joyful sorrow. Duende is a Spanish word that has no equal in English, is difficult to explain as it is not so much a concept as a feeling and a power; it is that moment when explosions in the sky overcome with quiet wonder, when everything stops and the world goes quiet and a wave of feeling fills you full. Duende is knowing that our universe contains a myriad of things beyond our comprehension, that it existed for billions of years before us and will continue so until it implodes upon itself, that we exist within it as simultaneously a speck of nothing and the culmination of everything. This is duende. It is, as Frederico Garcia Lorca aptly describes it (or, rather, as Manuel Torres apparently stated to him), “Whatever has black sounds has duende.”
So, I feel I’ve gone too far into the objective, into philosophising and abstract to explain why this song makes me cry, still. But maybe I can’t put into words exactly what it is. I once played this song for a friend who said, “I don’t get it. Because he’s alone?,” which has exactly nothing to do with anything. It has more to do with everything than with nothing.
This song used to make me cry. It still does, but for different reasons.
My brother Colin used to drive me from our apartment to school even though we lived a 10 minute walk away. He always had a way of forcing music on me as long as he was driving and I was in the car; he introduced me to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon one night as we drove through the woods, through the black, and it remains one of the most terrifying and rewarding experiences of my life. And so during this time when he was driving me to school near every day he would put Buck 65’s Square on the CD player.
I hated it. It was dark and boring and foolish and I hated it. I would ask him to put something else on and he would tell me to give it a chance. Anyway, I suddenly realize this isn’t so much about my induction into Buck 65’s music - I at some point had a change and loved it. I find that with anything that wins me over to love I’m won over for life. Colin’s insistence on “giving it a chance,” a separate friend listening to Square at a party and seeing Buck 65 perform live combined to win me over.
So I learned to love. And then I heard “Phil” and it broke my heart.
I’m most always interested in the bildungsroman. And I use that term to denote all story forms, not just the novel. I tend to associate with characters whose existence always seems new and strange, who seem to be moving toward something great though they may not know what it is they’re moving toward, who are covered in flaw and wear it rightfully. This has to do, I’m sure, with growing up in a small town and having no interest in the factory. It comes from reading Beowulf at too young an age. It comes from meeting beautiful Jewish girls at 13 who cry because everyone at school calls them kikes. It comes from the CN Tower and the Atlantic Ocean. It's a constant state of dissatisfaction with everything around you while simultaneously seeing its beauty and purpose.
I feel my thoughts scatter in these statements. I might have explained why the particular idea of “Phil” touches me, but the fact still remains that the song “Phil,” in particular, still makes me cry. Focus. Put in context, Buck 65 should not have ever garnered any attention at all. He falls in with an artist like Leonard Cohen who, despite questionably little talent, possesses passion strongly and a firm grasp of sensual language. And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible despite the inherent insult. I, as one who associates himself as an artist, feel that I have access to small stores of talent but have focused intensely on language to make up for this lack. And so every word of this song rings true; I am small but full of fire. And the narrator speaks from the other side, saying it’s worth the struggle so beautifully.
And I don’t mean to make this song exclusively about the formation of myself as an artist, but as a person fully, as one who loves and desires love. I’ve tried to explain to others that I hold more sorrow than joy and that this is a good thing, that it propels me to love and forgiveness and understanding, but am often misunderstood. I’m no Lady of Shalott, I’m not “half sick of shadows.” The best I’ve been able to find to elucidate all of this is in the form of the duende. In my study of this phenomena I’ve come to this understanding: Duende is a joyful sorrow. Duende is a Spanish word that has no equal in English, is difficult to explain as it is not so much a concept as a feeling and a power; it is that moment when explosions in the sky overcome with quiet wonder, when everything stops and the world goes quiet and a wave of feeling fills you full. Duende is knowing that our universe contains a myriad of things beyond our comprehension, that it existed for billions of years before us and will continue so until it implodes upon itself, that we exist within it as simultaneously a speck of nothing and the culmination of everything. This is duende. It is, as Frederico Garcia Lorca aptly describes it (or, rather, as Manuel Torres apparently stated to him), “Whatever has black sounds has duende.”
So, I feel I’ve gone too far into the objective, into philosophising and abstract to explain why this song makes me cry, still. But maybe I can’t put into words exactly what it is. I once played this song for a friend who said, “I don’t get it. Because he’s alone?,” which has exactly nothing to do with anything. It has more to do with everything than with nothing.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
July 8, 2010: Broken Social Scene - I'm Still Your Fag
Broken Social Scene - I’m Still Your Fag: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSV71HNsbb4
Sitting in my apartment, we were drinking. I was 20 years old. I put You Forgot It in People on the stereo. Adam turned to me at one point during “I’m Still Your Fag” and said, “What is he saying? I’m still your fag? What does that even mean?” So we switched the CD.
At 20 years I was living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, going to an arts school I resented and didn’t want to be in, living with two people I loved dearly but felt estranged from. I had started taking vocal coaching because I had recently got my hands on a 4-track tape recorder and found out that I was a terrible singer. I was writing but I knew I was no good. I had no women in my life and my weekend refuge was a dance bar. I didn’t have much. I was still transitioning from High School into University, still seeing my High School friends every day though I lived in a different city entirely. I wasn’t progressing, I had plateaued.
Through my teenage years I vainly regarded myself as the music friend. I didn’t know anyone else who played guitar until I was about 18 years old. I was the first of my friends to hear about bands like The Strokes and The White Stripes. I worked in a record store. No one cared about my music friend status, usually, because all my friends only wanted to listen to rave, do drugs and dance. I didn’t care for all that, I wasn’t so disaffected and the beats seemed vapid. There would be no Bob Dylan of rave and I knew that. I don’t know if I could put it into words then but I knew at that time that Canadian music was terrible. It didn’t speak to me, there was no soul. What did we have? Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth, Econoline Crush, Sarah MacLaughlin. (I make an exception for The Tragically Hip, who I still feel relevant.) I lived in a part of the country where what good Canadian bands existed rarely came and when they did we didn’t know. I didn’t much care for Canadian rock posturing, the references to hockey and the prairies, the niceness of it all. It was boring.
I bought You Forgot It in People at a record store in Fredericton in 2003. I don’t remember why, where I heard them, what compelled me, which song or whatever but for whatever reason I picked it up. And it changed my entire perspective. Suddenly my Matthew Good Band CDs became obsolete (though, in all fairness, The Audio of Being is a pretty great album). Within the year, all I listened to was Canadian music; I still have a mixed CD I made around that time with Metric, k-os, Death From Above 1979, The Stills, The Dears, Matt Mays, Arcade Fire, the only non-Canadian represented within 21 songs was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Briefly, here’s what turned me on to You Forgot It in People: It plays like a great mixed CD with different singers, instrumentals, songs that are fast and songs that are slow all paced well. The lyrics are subversive and desperate even when sung low. There are sounds in the background that I don’t know how they were made, and still some sounds surprise me. The production quality might be considered low-fi but to my Muchmusic trained ears it sounded different and better. They didn’t show their faces in the videos and I could barely find photos of these guys online; it didn’t matter what they looked like. It was the music.
And then, through that album, I found out about Feist and Apostle of Hustle, Metric, Do Make Say Think and the rest. I’ve moved deeper still since my induction into Timber Timbre, Parlovr, Jordaan Mason, The Sleepless Nights, Muskox, Maylee Todd and the rest. They talked about their friends bands in interviews, at shows; there was community and love. I remember watching Metric perform “Dead Disco” on TV one night and Emily Haines delivered a manifesto in the middle of the song, “When will we be ready for something to change? When?” Canadian music had become revolutionary for me. There was a revolution happening.
And my friend chided me for “I’m Still Your Fag.” I was ready to progress.
Sitting in my apartment, we were drinking. I was 20 years old. I put You Forgot It in People on the stereo. Adam turned to me at one point during “I’m Still Your Fag” and said, “What is he saying? I’m still your fag? What does that even mean?” So we switched the CD.
At 20 years I was living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, going to an arts school I resented and didn’t want to be in, living with two people I loved dearly but felt estranged from. I had started taking vocal coaching because I had recently got my hands on a 4-track tape recorder and found out that I was a terrible singer. I was writing but I knew I was no good. I had no women in my life and my weekend refuge was a dance bar. I didn’t have much. I was still transitioning from High School into University, still seeing my High School friends every day though I lived in a different city entirely. I wasn’t progressing, I had plateaued.
Through my teenage years I vainly regarded myself as the music friend. I didn’t know anyone else who played guitar until I was about 18 years old. I was the first of my friends to hear about bands like The Strokes and The White Stripes. I worked in a record store. No one cared about my music friend status, usually, because all my friends only wanted to listen to rave, do drugs and dance. I didn’t care for all that, I wasn’t so disaffected and the beats seemed vapid. There would be no Bob Dylan of rave and I knew that. I don’t know if I could put it into words then but I knew at that time that Canadian music was terrible. It didn’t speak to me, there was no soul. What did we have? Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth, Econoline Crush, Sarah MacLaughlin. (I make an exception for The Tragically Hip, who I still feel relevant.) I lived in a part of the country where what good Canadian bands existed rarely came and when they did we didn’t know. I didn’t much care for Canadian rock posturing, the references to hockey and the prairies, the niceness of it all. It was boring.
I bought You Forgot It in People at a record store in Fredericton in 2003. I don’t remember why, where I heard them, what compelled me, which song or whatever but for whatever reason I picked it up. And it changed my entire perspective. Suddenly my Matthew Good Band CDs became obsolete (though, in all fairness, The Audio of Being is a pretty great album). Within the year, all I listened to was Canadian music; I still have a mixed CD I made around that time with Metric, k-os, Death From Above 1979, The Stills, The Dears, Matt Mays, Arcade Fire, the only non-Canadian represented within 21 songs was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Briefly, here’s what turned me on to You Forgot It in People: It plays like a great mixed CD with different singers, instrumentals, songs that are fast and songs that are slow all paced well. The lyrics are subversive and desperate even when sung low. There are sounds in the background that I don’t know how they were made, and still some sounds surprise me. The production quality might be considered low-fi but to my Muchmusic trained ears it sounded different and better. They didn’t show their faces in the videos and I could barely find photos of these guys online; it didn’t matter what they looked like. It was the music.
And then, through that album, I found out about Feist and Apostle of Hustle, Metric, Do Make Say Think and the rest. I’ve moved deeper still since my induction into Timber Timbre, Parlovr, Jordaan Mason, The Sleepless Nights, Muskox, Maylee Todd and the rest. They talked about their friends bands in interviews, at shows; there was community and love. I remember watching Metric perform “Dead Disco” on TV one night and Emily Haines delivered a manifesto in the middle of the song, “When will we be ready for something to change? When?” Canadian music had become revolutionary for me. There was a revolution happening.
And my friend chided me for “I’m Still Your Fag.” I was ready to progress.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
July 7 2010: Herman's Hermits - No Milk Today
Herman’s Hermits - No Milk Today: youtube.com/watch?v=ClQepFF-Sr0
As far as I can tell, this is the song that began my love affair with pop music.
I used to listen to a lot of tapes when I was a kid. Fresh Prince, Metallica, Joey Lawrence, Johnny Rivers, The Tragically Hip, Public Enemy. I’d bring them to my babysitters house and listen to them on her stereo in the living room, headphones. I’d turn them up real loud. The living room was dark and no one ever came in, it had all the best furniture in the house so people usually didn’t spend much time in there. It was cool and safe. I would even hide behind the couch in the corner, the headphone wire giving me away as it stretched across the wall.
This song I listened to the most. I had a Herman’s Hermits tape that I would listen to obsessively. I think part of the appeal was the name; the “Herm--s Herm--s” absurd repetition spoke to my simple young quiet body. I’m pretty sure this song was the fourth song on Side B, and I would actually sit through all of Side A and whatever came before it on Side B just to prolong my anticipation of that bright and surprising intro. And I would rewind the song and listen to it over and over again. I remember sitting in my babysitters kitchen one day with a walkman, listening to it and studying the album artwork (a lot of yellow and a stuffy picture of young men in a field, though I could have created that memory) as my Mother and babysitter gossiped and I was ready to leave, wearing my shoes and coat, but they kept talking and I didn’t care because that song just played on repeat.
I’m not sure what captured me about this song. I could (and will, to a degree) dissect it and find reasons, make excuses, but I’ll never find what it was and still is that holds me. I find the greatest pieces of art, for me, are those that I love most and don’t know why. I still don’t know what it is about Radiohead’s Kid A that makes me shake. I don’t know why I’m so terrified of Jean Cocteau’s portraits of Luisa Casati. These things appeal to all my senses to a high degree, so much so that I stop thinking, moving. I stop. My body continues to feel but everything stops. I get excited and scared and I laugh at the absurdity of everything and I stop. I have to consciously move away from these things or else they would consume me.
On listening to this song now I still feel like I could listen to it on repeat and not tire of it and how many pop songs achieve that? I read Nina Simone say once that pop music almost drove her insane because she would perform a string of shows, go to her hotel and toss in her bed all night because her mind couldn’t rest from the songs that still played in her head. I’ve experienced this form of mania before. I once drove, alone, through a massive snow storm in Quebec. I didn’t have much to listen to on hand so I had been listening to The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan and The Band on a crappy, somewhat warped old tape my Dad had made decades ago. I had been driving for about 14 hours before I decided to pull into a gas station and rest (it was, luckily, 1 degree out, which meant I was just beating the freezing point) but as I sat upright with a sleeping bag hugging my body all I could hear, over and over in my head were the lines “This wheel’s on fire / Running down the road / So go and tell my next of kin / This wheel shall explode.” Over and over again. Warped and madness. It were dark hours as I held my eyes tight closed and tried to focus on the din of the highway but every quiet moment my mind found lead right back to those lines. There is a brilliant repetition in No Milk Today that achieves this madness in one listen.
Maybe pop music is a form of madness.
And I can still listen to this song and love it like I did.
As far as I can tell, this is the song that began my love affair with pop music.
I used to listen to a lot of tapes when I was a kid. Fresh Prince, Metallica, Joey Lawrence, Johnny Rivers, The Tragically Hip, Public Enemy. I’d bring them to my babysitters house and listen to them on her stereo in the living room, headphones. I’d turn them up real loud. The living room was dark and no one ever came in, it had all the best furniture in the house so people usually didn’t spend much time in there. It was cool and safe. I would even hide behind the couch in the corner, the headphone wire giving me away as it stretched across the wall.
This song I listened to the most. I had a Herman’s Hermits tape that I would listen to obsessively. I think part of the appeal was the name; the “Herm--s Herm--s” absurd repetition spoke to my simple young quiet body. I’m pretty sure this song was the fourth song on Side B, and I would actually sit through all of Side A and whatever came before it on Side B just to prolong my anticipation of that bright and surprising intro. And I would rewind the song and listen to it over and over again. I remember sitting in my babysitters kitchen one day with a walkman, listening to it and studying the album artwork (a lot of yellow and a stuffy picture of young men in a field, though I could have created that memory) as my Mother and babysitter gossiped and I was ready to leave, wearing my shoes and coat, but they kept talking and I didn’t care because that song just played on repeat.
I’m not sure what captured me about this song. I could (and will, to a degree) dissect it and find reasons, make excuses, but I’ll never find what it was and still is that holds me. I find the greatest pieces of art, for me, are those that I love most and don’t know why. I still don’t know what it is about Radiohead’s Kid A that makes me shake. I don’t know why I’m so terrified of Jean Cocteau’s portraits of Luisa Casati. These things appeal to all my senses to a high degree, so much so that I stop thinking, moving. I stop. My body continues to feel but everything stops. I get excited and scared and I laugh at the absurdity of everything and I stop. I have to consciously move away from these things or else they would consume me.
On listening to this song now I still feel like I could listen to it on repeat and not tire of it and how many pop songs achieve that? I read Nina Simone say once that pop music almost drove her insane because she would perform a string of shows, go to her hotel and toss in her bed all night because her mind couldn’t rest from the songs that still played in her head. I’ve experienced this form of mania before. I once drove, alone, through a massive snow storm in Quebec. I didn’t have much to listen to on hand so I had been listening to The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan and The Band on a crappy, somewhat warped old tape my Dad had made decades ago. I had been driving for about 14 hours before I decided to pull into a gas station and rest (it was, luckily, 1 degree out, which meant I was just beating the freezing point) but as I sat upright with a sleeping bag hugging my body all I could hear, over and over in my head were the lines “This wheel’s on fire / Running down the road / So go and tell my next of kin / This wheel shall explode.” Over and over again. Warped and madness. It were dark hours as I held my eyes tight closed and tried to focus on the din of the highway but every quiet moment my mind found lead right back to those lines. There is a brilliant repetition in No Milk Today that achieves this madness in one listen.
Maybe pop music is a form of madness.
And I can still listen to this song and love it like I did.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
July 6, 2010: Introduction
A series of recent events, mostly joyful, have led me to fear death. Or, not so much death, but the things that will die with me when I'm gone. Anyone involved in the creative process can tell you (or, rather, I assume so) that no matter how much one creates the form never seems to be enough; this obsessive act of creating the world around us in other forms can never fully encapsulate my entire being or the entire being of the world I perceive. I may paint a portrait of my friend and display her beauty, her ugliness and mortality all at once but this one thing will never display fully how wonderful it might be to be in her presence. It is a thing, it is not a universe. So we continue to create more and more in a vain attempt to fully capture ones entirety. It is an act that can never be accomplished but in its continual act.
I hold many stories in me that will never be shared. I feel love and hate for everyone I share space with that I will hold inside forever. Every day I create. These things that pass into me I want to share but am often too focused on the present to fully express them in the presence of those who matter. I, here, will paint these portraits for those to see and hold on to as they please. I expect some will hate me for my openness but some will love, but what does it matter? It is presented here for you to pull into yourselves and do what you please.
For me, personally, everything comes back to sound. Music is my way of making sense of chaos. Go into a subway station and listen to the voices, the feet, the rush of the train and the echoing noises in the air from tiles and open space. Go to a grocery store, a protest, an office building, listen to the sounds. It's chaos. Then listen to Hey Jude! by The Beatles (I use this as an example as it is arguably the penultimate song of the 20th century). The song is the same every time you listen to it. The people who created this song went into a series of rooms and constructed those notes, always different from one performance to the next, to compliment each other and just once and forever. They moved the air around them, the sound, and ordered it into one discernible piece, unchangeable. Order from chaos. When one hears that song, ideally, they place it into the chaos that surrounds them in their lives, in their perspectives, in their histories. That song is now connected to everything that happened every time it was heard, ordered and stored away. My personal histories are connected to every song I've ever heard and sometimes the question arises: Which is more important? The history? Or the song? The act? Or the music? The words? Or the notes?
Every day, for 1 year, I will daily update this blog with thoughts, reflections, histories and how they are connected to certain songs and pieces of music. I will try my best to add a link to the song or an upload or some such thing and I apologize in advance if some such thing is not possible. Should I miss a day for whatever reason I will update and keep up as soon as possible. They are portraits of myself, of everybody around me, of the world I create and order as best I can. Ultimately, though, they are for you, somehow.
I hold many stories in me that will never be shared. I feel love and hate for everyone I share space with that I will hold inside forever. Every day I create. These things that pass into me I want to share but am often too focused on the present to fully express them in the presence of those who matter. I, here, will paint these portraits for those to see and hold on to as they please. I expect some will hate me for my openness but some will love, but what does it matter? It is presented here for you to pull into yourselves and do what you please.
For me, personally, everything comes back to sound. Music is my way of making sense of chaos. Go into a subway station and listen to the voices, the feet, the rush of the train and the echoing noises in the air from tiles and open space. Go to a grocery store, a protest, an office building, listen to the sounds. It's chaos. Then listen to Hey Jude! by The Beatles (I use this as an example as it is arguably the penultimate song of the 20th century). The song is the same every time you listen to it. The people who created this song went into a series of rooms and constructed those notes, always different from one performance to the next, to compliment each other and just once and forever. They moved the air around them, the sound, and ordered it into one discernible piece, unchangeable. Order from chaos. When one hears that song, ideally, they place it into the chaos that surrounds them in their lives, in their perspectives, in their histories. That song is now connected to everything that happened every time it was heard, ordered and stored away. My personal histories are connected to every song I've ever heard and sometimes the question arises: Which is more important? The history? Or the song? The act? Or the music? The words? Or the notes?
Every day, for 1 year, I will daily update this blog with thoughts, reflections, histories and how they are connected to certain songs and pieces of music. I will try my best to add a link to the song or an upload or some such thing and I apologize in advance if some such thing is not possible. Should I miss a day for whatever reason I will update and keep up as soon as possible. They are portraits of myself, of everybody around me, of the world I create and order as best I can. Ultimately, though, they are for you, somehow.
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