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Sunday, October 7th, 2001
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2:30p - Two Things to Consider:
Two quotes I’ve been thinking about this past week:
“Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Why is it that the things we consider ‘important’ for our lives – the entertainments, the necessities, even, always become such constraining weights, limiting of movement? How can you pare down, and still keep from going insane?” – Cris
current music: Sheila Chandra: The Zen Kiss (share your thoughts)
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3:20p - A Recommendation:
I like the United States of America. It’s funny – even though I’m somewhat familiar with a lot of their contemporaries, I totally missed this band, and was referred back to them by the groups they’ve influenced, mostly avant-pop acts like Broadcast and Stereolab. If you’re familiar with those acts, you can listen to the USA and think, Huh, this sounds like Broadcast, when of course it’s really Broadcast, etc. that sounds like the USA; their music predates the sound of the emergent synth / keyboard-driven indie pop rock by roughly thirty years. The United States of America only released one album, an eponymous record that came out in 1968, but despite a very small catalogue, they were an important band, and the record is well worth picking up, especially as it’s been remastered and released on CD. Strong vocal melodies, quirky electronica, and strings come together on standout songs like “Love Song for the Dead Che,” “Coming Down,” and “I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife for You, Sugar.” I’ve been listening to a fair number of bands of this sort, lately; psychedelic avant-garde. Nearly all of it sounds contemporary, and vastly different from what most people think of when they hear the term ‘psychedelic rock’; it’s certainly a much broader sound than was / is portrayed by the press. I’d known of, and liked, The 13th Floor Elevators and The Red Krayola; new finds, aside from the USA, have been Pearls Before Swine and Silver Apples. One of the musicians in Silver Apples, Simeon, played a self-constructed instrument which he named after himself. This instrument, to quote the liner notes of the band’s debut (also released in 1968), consisted of "nine audio oscillators and eighty-six manual manual controls...The lead and rhythm oscillators are played with the hands, elbows and knees and the bass oscillators are played with the feet."
current music: Neotropic: “Mr. Brubaker’s Strawberry Alarm Clock” (share your thoughts)
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3:23p - Side-Project Bands I’d Like to Play in:
• A Police cover band. Alternately, a Led Zeppelin cover band might be a lot of fun, too.
• A cock-rock heavy metal glam rock hair band. I recently got an agreement from a friend and fellow musician (who I’ll not name, as I’m not sure how widely-known this person would want such a thing) that if we’re ever again involved together in a serious musical endevour, that sometime along the way, between albums, we will surreptitiously assemble a roster of fellow musicians and release a record of ballsy original metal tunes (even if only a 4-song EP). This release, of course, would be under a different name. On a similar tack, and possibly inspired by having heard Red House Painters play a startlingly adept cover of Kiss’s “Shock Me,” I think it would be great fun to release a compilation album featuring space-rock, slo-core and acoustic acts playing covers of favourite metal tunes. Heh heh.
• A deep house, funk-influenced trip-hop band. Emphasis on band - I’m thinking all analog instruments, even a fair bit of acoustic instrumentation. Classic analog synths, live drums (ideally by two or more percussionists), maybe a well-amplified upright bass, some unusual drones and sound textures. Sort of an ambient groove project, but real ambient music. Here’s an important distinction that I came up with whilst talking with a friend recently: a lot of ambient music is in my opinion breathtakingly boring and utterly uninspiring, because it is (and perhaps deliberately so) background music. Personally, I don’t want uninteresting background music. Even if I put on a CD while I’m cleaning my house or falling asleep or reading something, I want it to be interesting; dull music drives me to distraction. In my opinion, good ambient music brings the background to the foreground; it can be very stable or repetitious or hypnotic or even lulling, but if it’s boring, then that’s all it is. With the right folks and some spare time, a project like this could be a lot of fun. I briefly talked about putting something like this together with a guy I used to play in a band with, but it never panned out, unfortunately. Maybe next time.
• Similar to that, a rap act with live instruments. Kind of like what The Roots have done.
• A group with four or more regular singers. Sometimes one, sometimes two, quite often all four at once. I have no clear conception of the sound, and I’m not sure how something like that would work, but I think it would interesting to try.
• A jazz ensemble. Because I miss playing jazz, and jazz kicks my arse and makes me practice more than anything else so far.
• An Old Time, folkcore band, but one that wouldn’t be relegated to solely American notions of the folk idiom, and would be equally comfortable and adept in playing Ukrainian folk songs, or traditional Persian music, or singing in Gaelic, and could somehow find a way to cohesively integrate all these sounds, and more, without turning the sound into an amalgamated multicultural mass where none of the elements were distinguishable from one another any longer.
And as for my “main” band, my full-time musical endevour?
I’m still working on that one…
current music: Jalal Zolfonun: Kord Bayat (share your thoughts)
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3:29p - Obra Maestra: another recommendation.
I’m listening to Eddie Palmieri’s “Obra Maestra” now. It’s a great piece of music, a glad-sounding invocation to Olodumare. Gotta love that clave. And that moment at around two minutes, where the vocals and and drums enter and change up – choice.
current music: What did I just say? (share your thoughts)
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