Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet - They Don't Call Them Chihuahuas Anymore: youtube.com/watch?v=C8DDiIwaK4w
I just suddenly remembered this song. Not much to say about this except that it's such a great band name and song title and I don't hear enough instrumental surf-punk.
And I saw this video on Muchmusic. I know I've gone on a rant before as to the downfall of that once great station, so I'll save you from that. It is funny, though, how this song came out at a time when "Canadian music" had to involve place names and "Canadian" references in order to be considered valid (or, so I perceive it). We were in the landscape stages of Canadian music and this song came out and got played nationally, along with several other strange anomalous songs (Barnes and Barnes' "Fish Heads", for example).
I think I was born in the wrong time.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
September 14, 2010: The Langley School Music Project - Space Oddity
The Langley School Music Project - Space Oddity: youtube.com/watch?v=GRZBvJx4XEE&feature=related
Interpretation is as valid a skill as composition. Or, so I would deem it.
In composition you are dealing with several base elements. You begin with nothing, take one idea or note or concept and you manipulate it, add and retract until you come up with an idea, note or concept which is brighter and more vivid than the original. Then, as the most basic element is formed, one must then decide whether it is complete in its entirety or else complimentary elements must be added in order to flesh it out and make it whole. This stage begins and ends and continues until the composition is complete. One could add compliment for an eternity (like a Brian Wilson).
Interpretation is none too different. The only difference lies in the beginning; you are not beginning with nothing, the most basic element has been handed to you. This is not to say, even, that the interpretation of a work lies in the piece itself. One could conceivably make an interpretation of a piece which diverges so drastically that the interpretation is indecipherable from the original. These, I find, can be the best of interpretation. Otherwise one can drift closely to the realm of imitation.
That said, I think I'm more an interpreter than a composer.
Interpretation is as valid a skill as composition. Or, so I would deem it.
In composition you are dealing with several base elements. You begin with nothing, take one idea or note or concept and you manipulate it, add and retract until you come up with an idea, note or concept which is brighter and more vivid than the original. Then, as the most basic element is formed, one must then decide whether it is complete in its entirety or else complimentary elements must be added in order to flesh it out and make it whole. This stage begins and ends and continues until the composition is complete. One could add compliment for an eternity (like a Brian Wilson).
Interpretation is none too different. The only difference lies in the beginning; you are not beginning with nothing, the most basic element has been handed to you. This is not to say, even, that the interpretation of a work lies in the piece itself. One could conceivably make an interpretation of a piece which diverges so drastically that the interpretation is indecipherable from the original. These, I find, can be the best of interpretation. Otherwise one can drift closely to the realm of imitation.
That said, I think I'm more an interpreter than a composer.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
September 12, 2010: Ani DiFranco - Grand Canyon
Ani DiFranco - Grand Canyon: youtube.com/watch?v=P9SXvbKrvXw
I finished, this morning, reading Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens. It's not the most brilliant memoir but compelling and full of love of a secular, atheist sort. Full of love. Part of that love as born in some great frustration at watching us, as a people, destroy all our potential with tyranny, blind prejudice, hatred and killing, following any dark figure who promises eternal joy and delivers death. It's a love of humanity and out infinite potential.
I remember listening to Ani DiFranco's album Educated Guess for the first time as I drove through Fredericton in my brothers car, wanting to throw it out the window because it was so full of beauty I couldn't face it. And still, when I hear this particular song, it makes me come near to weeping.
I'm not a political body, neither am I patriotic. I'm fortunate to live in Canada and be part of it's history, I know, and know we still are full of problem and are not truly free but I move as best I can in my independence, free to think and act though my thoughts and acts will likely keep me in a certain sort of poverty through my life. And I respect deeply those who stand against the political system, the societal system, and fight to make things right, better, for everyone who requires that certain form of right for I rarely have the fire in me to do such a thing though I know it must be done. Simply put: I'm quite naive. I love and respect men and women of any form who wake and move among us and expect that the rest feel that same reverence.
But we all don't. It's upsetting, walking home from work between 3-5 in the morning and hearing the occasional drunk talk about some "bitch who wouldn't fuck" him. Or stopping quickly at the only 24 hour restaurant in the neighborhood, a Chinese food restaurant, and hearing them mock the accents of those that work there. Or on the streetcar where they yell at the homeless, the schizophrenics and the sex workers. And I only use those drunk assholes as an example of everything bad around me because they are the most obvious. Again, I'm quite naive and have trouble, often, to tell when things are wrong around me, in my community, among my people, and why.
But this song makes some sense to me. The sense it makes changes as I get older, but it makes some sort.
I am thankful I don't live in Baghdad, Israel or Darfur. Though, perhaps strangely, I do see some form of revolution among the people of Iran and wish to be among it.
I finished, this morning, reading Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens. It's not the most brilliant memoir but compelling and full of love of a secular, atheist sort. Full of love. Part of that love as born in some great frustration at watching us, as a people, destroy all our potential with tyranny, blind prejudice, hatred and killing, following any dark figure who promises eternal joy and delivers death. It's a love of humanity and out infinite potential.
I remember listening to Ani DiFranco's album Educated Guess for the first time as I drove through Fredericton in my brothers car, wanting to throw it out the window because it was so full of beauty I couldn't face it. And still, when I hear this particular song, it makes me come near to weeping.
I'm not a political body, neither am I patriotic. I'm fortunate to live in Canada and be part of it's history, I know, and know we still are full of problem and are not truly free but I move as best I can in my independence, free to think and act though my thoughts and acts will likely keep me in a certain sort of poverty through my life. And I respect deeply those who stand against the political system, the societal system, and fight to make things right, better, for everyone who requires that certain form of right for I rarely have the fire in me to do such a thing though I know it must be done. Simply put: I'm quite naive. I love and respect men and women of any form who wake and move among us and expect that the rest feel that same reverence.
But we all don't. It's upsetting, walking home from work between 3-5 in the morning and hearing the occasional drunk talk about some "bitch who wouldn't fuck" him. Or stopping quickly at the only 24 hour restaurant in the neighborhood, a Chinese food restaurant, and hearing them mock the accents of those that work there. Or on the streetcar where they yell at the homeless, the schizophrenics and the sex workers. And I only use those drunk assholes as an example of everything bad around me because they are the most obvious. Again, I'm quite naive and have trouble, often, to tell when things are wrong around me, in my community, among my people, and why.
But this song makes some sense to me. The sense it makes changes as I get older, but it makes some sort.
I am thankful I don't live in Baghdad, Israel or Darfur. Though, perhaps strangely, I do see some form of revolution among the people of Iran and wish to be among it.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
September 11, 2010: Bob Marley - Redemption Song
Bob Marley - Redemption Song: youtube.com/watch?v=OFGgbT_VasI
Last night I was biking home and this guy started biking behind me. He started singing "Redemption Song" as he biked, passing me just as he got to the chorus and I joined in, we sang together briefly before he smiled and kept on. We got to a light that he made and I stopped. There were 4 high school kids on the corner who heard him singing and started singing "Redemption Song" themselves. They crossed the street singing it. When they got to the other side I noticed another couple on the opposite side joining along too.
It was a strange and wonderful moment as I stood there waiting for the light to change.
Last night I was biking home and this guy started biking behind me. He started singing "Redemption Song" as he biked, passing me just as he got to the chorus and I joined in, we sang together briefly before he smiled and kept on. We got to a light that he made and I stopped. There were 4 high school kids on the corner who heard him singing and started singing "Redemption Song" themselves. They crossed the street singing it. When they got to the other side I noticed another couple on the opposite side joining along too.
It was a strange and wonderful moment as I stood there waiting for the light to change.
Friday, September 10, 2010
September 10, 2010: The Presidents of the United States of America - Lump
The Presidents of the United States of America - Lump: youtube.com/watch?v=_sj_U6vObUA
Rock and roll was really something terrible in the 90s. I think maybe it was always a certain kind of terrible, but the 90s really did something uniquely bad that it deserves mentioning. Remember The Tea Party? And Econoline Crush? Spin Doctors? U2 went to shit in the 90s. Pearl Jam were a certain sort of bad when they started out. Even Radiohead could not be impervious to the awful that stained everyone; remember "Creep"? It's near unlistenable. And listening back to The Smashing Pumpkins makes me angry that Billy Corgan fooled me as long and hard as he did. Long and hard.
Granted, not all was bad; there is the exception to every rule. The 90s brought us Bjork and Beck. At least in the B's.
One band that sticks in my mind as embodying everything 90s rock is The Presidents of the United States of America. But not necessarily in a bad way. They did follow the typical 90s bands in that they came out with one good album then went to a certain obscurity (probably due to a lack of sonic growth that comes from being in a stringent rock 3-piece), their singer had an angsty, annoying voice and they used a lot of distortion on their guitars. However, they had a good sense of humour, something their counterparts did not have. And it was all quite self-conscious. You don't write a song about peaches and expect people to call you a poet or a prodigy.
Anyway, not much else to say about that. 90s rock sucked and I hate it for nurturing my young, impressionable brain.
And I want to start a Presidents of the United States of America cover band.
Rock and roll was really something terrible in the 90s. I think maybe it was always a certain kind of terrible, but the 90s really did something uniquely bad that it deserves mentioning. Remember The Tea Party? And Econoline Crush? Spin Doctors? U2 went to shit in the 90s. Pearl Jam were a certain sort of bad when they started out. Even Radiohead could not be impervious to the awful that stained everyone; remember "Creep"? It's near unlistenable. And listening back to The Smashing Pumpkins makes me angry that Billy Corgan fooled me as long and hard as he did. Long and hard.
Granted, not all was bad; there is the exception to every rule. The 90s brought us Bjork and Beck. At least in the B's.
One band that sticks in my mind as embodying everything 90s rock is The Presidents of the United States of America. But not necessarily in a bad way. They did follow the typical 90s bands in that they came out with one good album then went to a certain obscurity (probably due to a lack of sonic growth that comes from being in a stringent rock 3-piece), their singer had an angsty, annoying voice and they used a lot of distortion on their guitars. However, they had a good sense of humour, something their counterparts did not have. And it was all quite self-conscious. You don't write a song about peaches and expect people to call you a poet or a prodigy.
Anyway, not much else to say about that. 90s rock sucked and I hate it for nurturing my young, impressionable brain.
And I want to start a Presidents of the United States of America cover band.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
September 8, 2010: Nina Nastasia & Jim White - Odd Said the Doe
Nina Nastasia & Jim White - Odd Said the Doe: youtube.com/watch?v=1oj_TmfHBYQ
It was a little over a year ago. I remember Eli was there that night, it was the first time he'd met Duffield and they got along pretty well. We were, the three of us, sitting on the patio at Nirvana. And Duffield got to talking about Nina Nastasia.
The work that Nina Nastasia has done with Jim White, he said, was more like a duet between songwriter and drummer than it was a song with instrumentation. Most pop songs are based around the words, follow the chord patterns of the guitar and the rest follows. It can be a very easy pattern to comprehend and mimic if you really wish. But these songs are quite different in that the drums don't necessarily follow the guitar nor the voice; both instruments work independently of each other along a common ground. Neither player is more important than the other. It is a duet.
I've never, as far as I can tell, come across anything else quite like this. No, wait, that's a bit of a lie. On Joni Mitchell's Hejira there is a similar technique applied but with Jaco Pastorius on bass. Regardless, it is a form of playing I've not completely overlooked before but have never quite put into the proper words.
I used to play in a band where the lead singer wrote all the music and taught us our parts. This wasn't unfulfilling; we had a lot of fun together and the songs were good. But I doubt this is the way.
It was a little over a year ago. I remember Eli was there that night, it was the first time he'd met Duffield and they got along pretty well. We were, the three of us, sitting on the patio at Nirvana. And Duffield got to talking about Nina Nastasia.
The work that Nina Nastasia has done with Jim White, he said, was more like a duet between songwriter and drummer than it was a song with instrumentation. Most pop songs are based around the words, follow the chord patterns of the guitar and the rest follows. It can be a very easy pattern to comprehend and mimic if you really wish. But these songs are quite different in that the drums don't necessarily follow the guitar nor the voice; both instruments work independently of each other along a common ground. Neither player is more important than the other. It is a duet.
I've never, as far as I can tell, come across anything else quite like this. No, wait, that's a bit of a lie. On Joni Mitchell's Hejira there is a similar technique applied but with Jaco Pastorius on bass. Regardless, it is a form of playing I've not completely overlooked before but have never quite put into the proper words.
I used to play in a band where the lead singer wrote all the music and taught us our parts. This wasn't unfulfilling; we had a lot of fun together and the songs were good. But I doubt this is the way.
Monday, September 6, 2010
September 6, 2010: Joni Mitchell - Amelia
Joni Mitchell - Amelia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzjxIIhHYRA
I'm sitting in a hotel room in Reno. I'm showered and full of food from a hotel buffet. I'm drinking a coffee. I thought these things would make me feel refreshed and "normal" but they've done the reciprocal; I feel less like myself than I did 2 days ago as I feigned sleep on a desert playa, my body full of dust. I'm suddenly a stranger.
It's odd that we have built such structures as prudence, wealth, fear of authority, dictatorship. It's odd that we sometimes feel generosity should be repaid, that anothers love or success should be envied or condemned. It says something of us that we shun those in need and give to those who prosper. I'm not saying these things are necessarily wrong or right, just strange that we've moved in this direction considering the miriad of possibility we've been offered. And when I say "we" and "us" I suppose I mean "I" and "me."
I will allow myself a confession, of sorts, to maybe elucidate any point I might be moving towards: As some friends and I moved together through the desert, an overarching feeling of celebration moving between us, we had not truly accomplished anything and there was a forced love that was warm and not untrue but we were together and loving and that was our celebration, we found a gathering where some sat and some danced. Then there was a bad moment. A friend became hurt and despondent. She stood darkly staring into some form of nothing in front of her face. I tried to comfort her but there was nothing I could do, tried to understand but didn't know how to communicate with her. I didn't know what was wrong and there was no way to figure it out; she became a menacing black hole that grew deeper as I touched it. I became distracted and, overall, helpless. Another friend, holding some form of wild through his body all night, went to her and they parted together as he tried to calm her sorrows. As they were gone we had drank our whole supply of water and the dust was rising from the ground, permeating our bodies, drying up our bones to more dust, our skin was dust, our lips. Some wanted to move on but we had to wait among the dust for the return of our departed friends. We waited desperate and impatient. Then our wild eyed friend came from the shadows, running through us all with a gallon of water hoisted over his head like some kind of hero, rekindling our celebratory bodies, returning our sorrowed friend who was ready to move.
And I felt a sort of jealousy. Why, with all the love for my sorrowed friend, couldn't I calm and comfort her? Why, with all these dry mouths, couldn't I have found us water? Why couldn't I have been the friend and the hero? But then how naive, stupid and selfish is all of that? These are certain elements of myself that have grown from the buildings that have risen around me, from the teachers I've accumulated, from the experiences I've shared. I love my sorrowed friend but I could only comfort so much, I love my wild eyed friend and he brought us celebration and a form of salvation, and those are the most beautiful things I could ask, aren't they? They're nothing to lament. Though I have. It's difficult but not impossible to shake these terrible aspects of myself that I hold.
And I walked into the desert with some form of alone, faced aspects of beauty, sat next to magic. Some loved ones told me I would walk out with a different life, which I doubted, which I pushed aside from my expectations. Even on the drive out, dirty and burned, did I still see myself as before. But as I sit among all of this, something does seem different within me, which I'll fight to hold.
I'm sitting in a hotel room in Reno. I'm showered and full of food from a hotel buffet. I'm drinking a coffee. I thought these things would make me feel refreshed and "normal" but they've done the reciprocal; I feel less like myself than I did 2 days ago as I feigned sleep on a desert playa, my body full of dust. I'm suddenly a stranger.
It's odd that we have built such structures as prudence, wealth, fear of authority, dictatorship. It's odd that we sometimes feel generosity should be repaid, that anothers love or success should be envied or condemned. It says something of us that we shun those in need and give to those who prosper. I'm not saying these things are necessarily wrong or right, just strange that we've moved in this direction considering the miriad of possibility we've been offered. And when I say "we" and "us" I suppose I mean "I" and "me."
I will allow myself a confession, of sorts, to maybe elucidate any point I might be moving towards: As some friends and I moved together through the desert, an overarching feeling of celebration moving between us, we had not truly accomplished anything and there was a forced love that was warm and not untrue but we were together and loving and that was our celebration, we found a gathering where some sat and some danced. Then there was a bad moment. A friend became hurt and despondent. She stood darkly staring into some form of nothing in front of her face. I tried to comfort her but there was nothing I could do, tried to understand but didn't know how to communicate with her. I didn't know what was wrong and there was no way to figure it out; she became a menacing black hole that grew deeper as I touched it. I became distracted and, overall, helpless. Another friend, holding some form of wild through his body all night, went to her and they parted together as he tried to calm her sorrows. As they were gone we had drank our whole supply of water and the dust was rising from the ground, permeating our bodies, drying up our bones to more dust, our skin was dust, our lips. Some wanted to move on but we had to wait among the dust for the return of our departed friends. We waited desperate and impatient. Then our wild eyed friend came from the shadows, running through us all with a gallon of water hoisted over his head like some kind of hero, rekindling our celebratory bodies, returning our sorrowed friend who was ready to move.
And I felt a sort of jealousy. Why, with all the love for my sorrowed friend, couldn't I calm and comfort her? Why, with all these dry mouths, couldn't I have found us water? Why couldn't I have been the friend and the hero? But then how naive, stupid and selfish is all of that? These are certain elements of myself that have grown from the buildings that have risen around me, from the teachers I've accumulated, from the experiences I've shared. I love my sorrowed friend but I could only comfort so much, I love my wild eyed friend and he brought us celebration and a form of salvation, and those are the most beautiful things I could ask, aren't they? They're nothing to lament. Though I have. It's difficult but not impossible to shake these terrible aspects of myself that I hold.
And I walked into the desert with some form of alone, faced aspects of beauty, sat next to magic. Some loved ones told me I would walk out with a different life, which I doubted, which I pushed aside from my expectations. Even on the drive out, dirty and burned, did I still see myself as before. But as I sit among all of this, something does seem different within me, which I'll fight to hold.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)