I think that I saw the most incredible band this weekend. Nick and I were watching Austin City Limits and the artist was Femi Kuti. <...dramatic pause...> <...wait for it...> WOW! I can't remember seeing a tighter band of that size. There must have been at least fifteen people playing on stage. Fast tempos and complex melodies without a note missed, all while dancing on one foot! Absolutely amazing stuff!
On top of this, Nick went to Mad City Music Exchange for Record Store Day and came home with a bunch of CD samplers, a Ventures LP and a Toots & The Maytalls anthology. So Sunday I went music shopping. I'd hoped to find albums by Femi Kuti, his father Fela, and the new Marc Ribot album. I only found one Femi Kuti disc, but by luck I also found the first albums by Suicide and Gang of Four. Two albums I've always known I should have in my collection but never found when I was looking. All three albums are fantastic.
I also picked up tickets for the Tegan & Sarah show here in Madison on May 6th. Oh yeah, and next Monday I'm going to go see the band Prog. Man, music really is the best!
4.23.2008
4.14.2008
Last chance to dance
Had a mostly productive weekend. Aside from the Attack of the Drunken Roommate on Saturday night, everything pretty much went down as expected.
The Dorothies are going into the studio again tomorrow. We're going to try to track two new songs. I'm looking forward to getting them behind us. We also have some studio time booked in another two weeks. Hopefully we'll be able to get another song completed by then. If nothing else we should have five new songs for our trip out east next month.
I have to finish up my taxes tonight. Everything is going pretty well there. It looks like I'm going to owe less than last year, which makes me want to file an amended return as I think I may have missed some things.
I've also discovered, just this weekend, one of the best albums I may have ever heard. The Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. I'm really surprised that I hadn't heard this until now. But, more on that later...
The Dorothies are going into the studio again tomorrow. We're going to try to track two new songs. I'm looking forward to getting them behind us. We also have some studio time booked in another two weeks. Hopefully we'll be able to get another song completed by then. If nothing else we should have five new songs for our trip out east next month.
I have to finish up my taxes tonight. Everything is going pretty well there. It looks like I'm going to owe less than last year, which makes me want to file an amended return as I think I may have missed some things.
I've also discovered, just this weekend, one of the best albums I may have ever heard. The Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. I'm really surprised that I hadn't heard this until now. But, more on that later...
To be thankful
It's Saturday night, 9pm and I'm working right now on the Good-N-Loud website. I don't know if any of you have heard Arvo Part. He's a composer from Estonia. I'm listening to his music right now and I'm finding it hard to concentrate on the work I'm doing. I know, you're probably saying "Well, turn it off then! Why complain about it to me?". Well, I'm not complaining. The music is just so incredibly moving. Simple sounding in the way Erik Satie's music sounds simple.
I watched the German film, "The Lives of Others", last night and I'm reminded of a scene. The protagonist, who is a "borderline subversive" playwright living in early-80's East Berlin, is seen sitting at the piano. He's just discovered that a dear friend and collaborator has just hanged himself after being blacklisted by the GDR. A few nights previous this friend had given him the score to a piece of music entitled "Sonate vom Guten Mensch" as a gift on his birthday. The protagonist is playing the piece and speaks. "Do you know what Lenin said about hearing Beethoven's 'Apassionata'. He said that if he continued to listen to the music he would never be able to complete work on the revolution. Can a man hear this music and be entirely 'Evil'"? Much of the impact of this scene comes from the music, which was written for the film. However, what our protagonist doesn't realize is that he's under full surveillance by the Stasi. In the scene we see the officer listening to this event. This typically 'Evil' man is awestruck by what he hears and begins to weep. He weeps for his own life which has become that of a marionette, hollow and directed. He has bartered away his own humanity.
Arvo Part's music is like this. So achingly beautiful, so direct in it's connection to the 'soul'. An entire piece is derived from perhaps a single, simple major triad, the foundation of Western music. Simply arpeggiated by a piano, or sung in wordless harmony. All melody, motion and decoration is assembled from the overtones of these three notes. As if trying to reach the ear of God in a whisper. The cold, frightened, tired whispered prayer of a man lost in the darkness of his own life. An action, painfully sacred. I can hear my own self reflected in this pool of sound.
I am inspired by the lack of selfish ideas vying for attention. I am delivered to the place I imagine and hope someday will be my life . The delight of these dreams gilded with the heartache of wavering commitment. Why is the glorious simplicity I hear so heart-rendingingly difficult to achieve. This is why I will always choose art over religion, psychoanalysis, patriotism, sex, money, politics, meditation or any of these things humans trust to lend meaning to their lives. Art is all and none of these things.
I watched the German film, "The Lives of Others", last night and I'm reminded of a scene. The protagonist, who is a "borderline subversive" playwright living in early-80's East Berlin, is seen sitting at the piano. He's just discovered that a dear friend and collaborator has just hanged himself after being blacklisted by the GDR. A few nights previous this friend had given him the score to a piece of music entitled "Sonate vom Guten Mensch" as a gift on his birthday. The protagonist is playing the piece and speaks. "Do you know what Lenin said about hearing Beethoven's 'Apassionata'. He said that if he continued to listen to the music he would never be able to complete work on the revolution. Can a man hear this music and be entirely 'Evil'"? Much of the impact of this scene comes from the music, which was written for the film. However, what our protagonist doesn't realize is that he's under full surveillance by the Stasi. In the scene we see the officer listening to this event. This typically 'Evil' man is awestruck by what he hears and begins to weep. He weeps for his own life which has become that of a marionette, hollow and directed. He has bartered away his own humanity.
Arvo Part's music is like this. So achingly beautiful, so direct in it's connection to the 'soul'. An entire piece is derived from perhaps a single, simple major triad, the foundation of Western music. Simply arpeggiated by a piano, or sung in wordless harmony. All melody, motion and decoration is assembled from the overtones of these three notes. As if trying to reach the ear of God in a whisper. The cold, frightened, tired whispered prayer of a man lost in the darkness of his own life. An action, painfully sacred. I can hear my own self reflected in this pool of sound.
I am inspired by the lack of selfish ideas vying for attention. I am delivered to the place I imagine and hope someday will be my life . The delight of these dreams gilded with the heartache of wavering commitment. Why is the glorious simplicity I hear so heart-rendingingly difficult to achieve. This is why I will always choose art over religion, psychoanalysis, patriotism, sex, money, politics, meditation or any of these things humans trust to lend meaning to their lives. Art is all and none of these things.
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