On Blitzen

It's happened again

I've fallen in love with 6 men

One sings 'when will the keys to the kingdom be mine again'

Then others fall in step beside him

listen

You are you are

I teach singing and I'm struck by how many students show up and tell me they're not real singers. A real singer, they say, does it professionally. I wish I could quash this belief with one giant fist. When I visited India years ago singing was ubiquitous. The poor, the sick, the young the old all sang. It's a part of being human. It's a right.

~ Mia Sheard

If suddenly I couldn’t function as an actual percussion player, I’d never ever stop being a musician just because I couldn’t communicate through the percussion instruments...I’d always be a musician, because that’s something so internal... and noone can take that away.

Noone.

~ Evelyn Glennie

Do the Concept: The Antler's and Rodrigo & Gabriela

I think a couple of points I tried to get across were ideas about emotionally manipulative or abusive relationships. I know a lot of people who've ended up in them and were aware of that and how it was affecting their lives and their relationships with other people, and I think it's an important thing to be aware of. A part of it is what happens during that relationship and how it can change the life you're living, but also how you come out of that relationship, if you come out. It makes you weary to get involved with certain kinds of people. In a way it's a break-up album, but it’s not about missing the relationship or the person you were with but how those relationships can damage you and affect you in ways that are stronger than you expected. It’s not about nostalgia but about the result of bad experiences that you're not really capable of handling.

~ Peter Silberman, The Antlers


The Antler's tune Shiva comes rolling off the break as one of the loveliest songs I've heard in a long, long, long time (Kettering is a killer too). It is only one of the beauties among many on their epic sweeper (and weeper) Hospice. Hospice has been written about in a hundred different ways by a hundred different far more talented writers than myself, so I won't bore you with my opinion(it's downright magical composing/recording and Peter Silberman's voice is positively unreal). What I will make a point of telling you is that according to Pete himself, Hospice is a concept album with a very specific feel, location, time, circumstances, and myriad emotional dimensions.

Kind of like: life.

The concept album isn't a new thing. There's Pink Floyd, The Wall, Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Iron Maiden, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son etcetera etcetera etcetera...What's kinda fresh to me is the concept album simply as an homage to a diverse set of musicians (a much more direct, simpler venture imho), which is what Rodrigo and Gabriela have done on their latest whack-an-axe special, 11:11. Thank you! What a relief, I don't have to learn Sanskrit, read Greek mythology, or have a near-death experience to decipher the meaning/significance of the music I'm listening to. Not that I have a problem with that.

Rodrigo and Gabriela, now sporting glowing white veneers no doubt afforded by their newfound success, have crafted tunes inspired by a few cats you may recognize:

Dimebag Darrell, Atman (Alex Skolnick of Testament guests on this track)
John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain, Savitri
Al di Meola, Logos
Pink Floyd, 11:11

And that's not all of them. Sadly, I have yet to actually listen to the entire album so you'll have to let me know if it's any good. Hanuman inspired by Carlos Santana is on their MySpace. For those of you who bow at the throne of Pantera/Damageplan/Dimebag Darrell, Atman is available for streaming here. The official website offers a handful more to sample.

Here's a peek at how the album came to be and the artists that inspired it...

ironic post-pub. note: Atman is Sanskrit for 'the only deathless part of the human being'

A Plea, 5 Reasons My Blog Sucks, and Miike Snow

Goddamn, my blog sucks. It's not the worst "music" blog but, by god, it's pretty bad.

Here's why...

# 1, 2, 3 can be summed up in two words. NO T I M E. You see, I'm not a singleton with no kids...I've gotta sing for my supper like every other Tom, Dick and Regina. My J-O-B takes up the majority of my time. After that it's cooking, cleaning and tending to my most precious gift - my child. So, no time to write great copy, surf for eyecatching imagery or listen to the glut of music available on the internet and elsewhere. That's why I often end up posting on an artist or band that is, ahem, o l d...at least in terms of "relevance" in this rapidly evolving (devolving?) technoculture.

Well I declare: FUCK RELEVANCE

# 4 There's a lot of very poor music out there, and it's a lot to sift through at the best of times. It's hard to be inspired when you're faced with finite time and energy. Bright side...There's also a whole lot of fantastic, innovative, fresh and truly gifted musicians out there swinging their dicks like light sabres in hopes that we, the people, will sit up and take notice. I've featured one of them after this.

#5 Nobody reads my blog. According to my last stats Now I See You (more like, I Don't See Anyone) has had z e r o traffic in months. If you are reading this, if you care - even a little - for the love of music post a comment. I'm drowning out here in the ocean of noise.

Alone.

It's lonely out here and I'm cold.

Despite it all, I'm going to keep on writing about music and sharing it whenever I can.

I hope you'll show some love. Everybody needs love.

Patrick Watson - The Great Escape

This song is perfect for today's grey Sunday.


4 D <3

http://www.patrickwatson.net/

Boxed into intention: Jenny Lewis

Because, I think people’s perceptions
of what you do, they always box you into intention. And sometimes you don’t know why you do what you do, you just write songs and record them, and, there it is. Sometimes, songs just appear like a vision.
~ Jenny Lewis