tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56713622009-02-20T22:33:12.140-08:00Damaged in Transit"Where words fail, music speaks."David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1066957947837545852003-10-23T18:06:00.000-07:002003-10-23T18:13:35.000-07:00Sometimes, it's like this: just when you're ready to haul yourself back onto the horse, you get another kick in the head. Elliott Smith is dead, of course, and (hell) I know this isn't about me... but it is about all of us, perhaps.
Anyway, here's an article that kind of does the whole thing justice, since it was written well before his death. I'm in no mood, quite honestly, to read -- or to David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1065907180064082352003-10-11T14:12:00.000-07:002003-10-11T14:23:49.920-07:00Such a long gap is unforgivable.
In my (weak) defence, I recently spent time in the two places most of us wish to avoid: first hospital, then jail.
I knew I'd named this blog well.
New updates very soon (annoying cryptic hints notwithstanding), and apologies to any readers who had assumed I'd pulled a Marcello or something (I am genuinely in mourning over the logically understandable, David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1063922158661239862003-09-18T14:48:00.000-07:002003-09-18T14:55:58.030-07:00No updates lately. Damn life getting in the way of blogging.
Of course, I didn't miss the passing from our crazy world of Mister John R. Cash. PopMatters ran a number of tributes, one of which was mine. Nothing elaborate or over-polished, or even particularly well-written, just a straightforward personal tribute to the man.
Note to self: must lighten up on all the death references here.
David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1063004018443710562003-09-07T23:53:00.000-07:002003-09-08T00:07:40.600-07:00Never completely convinced by Is This It? yet how could I -- or anyone -- not love this ("12:51" from the upcoming much-anticipated album)?
David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1063004711495442612003-09-08T00:05:00.000-07:002003-09-08T00:05:36.816-07:00Sorry, one more MP3. This makes me feel like cutting off my legs and using them to bludgeon everyone who hates love and fun, even madness.
(That was the Constantines "Nighttime Anytime it's Alright", by the way.)
David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1062980894669809692003-09-07T17:28:00.000-07:002003-09-07T17:39:46.370-07:00After that last admittedly sombre entry, here's some antidotal fun: first, a video (Real Audio, sorry) for "House of Jealous Lovers" by the Rapture (for some reason, it's really hard not to type Ratpure instead). This video is so cool that Canadian winters are jealous.
And, apparently randomly, to return to the Liz Phair -- or should I say Liz Phair -- shitstorm (sigh, I know it's old news, but David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1062896984811748842003-09-06T18:09:00.000-07:002003-09-06T18:53:22.593-07:00I've been contemplating suicide lately.
Uh, I mean the topic, not the act itself.
Why now? After all, I worked with distressed children and youth for many years, some of whom attempted suicide, a tiny yet tragic number succeeding. I've known other people, acquaintances far removed from the work that I did, who took their own lives. I loved the music of Joy Division and Nirvana before Curtis andDavid A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1062365070394311092003-08-31T14:24:00.000-07:002003-08-31T14:49:12.920-07:00I'm all over the shop here. Words are back; words spilled over other wordsmiths who in turn spilled them over the music that almost made them come apart at the tendons, the heartstrings, with emotion. The tension between the micro-personal-intense and the macro-universal-analytical. Feelings (heart) versus ideas (head). And how to connect them.
This, from Sasha Frere Jones, on Lester Bangs, in David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1062230106919849372003-08-30T00:55:00.000-07:002003-08-30T01:06:56.796-07:00Words have definitely failed this week. That happens. But music still speaks, and here are a few ways in which it spoke to me lately:
1. The Stairs are from Dedham, Massachussetts. They got a grant to make a record. They used some elementary schoolkids to help design their CD cover art, and they utilized choirs and marching bands from local high schools, the ultimate community outreach. Oh, and David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1061861653170050072003-08-25T18:34:00.000-07:002003-08-25T20:13:37.673-07:00"Can it be that the materialist worldview, in which there is no intrinsic meaning, is slowly murdering our souls?"
-- Ian MacDonald (in The People's Music – Selected Journalism [Pimlico]), who died three days ago.
A truly terrifying question. He answered it himself in two conflicting ways: his writings, with their clarity and intelligence and heart, say "no"; his death, by his own hand, says "David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1061597148946470442003-08-22T17:05:00.000-07:002003-08-22T17:14:53.103-07:00PopMatters put up their Top 100 Songs from 1977 - 2003 today.
It's not bad at all, for one of those consensus type things. Every writer got to send in 25 songs, listed in order, and somehow, -- I have no idea how, as I'm a disorganized clown, really, when it comes to this kind of thing -- Sarah Zupko compiled the above list. It was given impetus by some similar VH1 "Best Songs of the last 25 David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1061499318659939212003-08-21T13:55:00.000-07:002003-08-21T14:42:42.396-07:00A really interesting story has been running on Plastic these last few days. Revolving around a Guardian article, which in turn is based on a new book entitled Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin And The Lust For Real Life by David Boyle, the poster ("holgate") has pulled in an enormous wealth of links that, taken together, strongly suggest that modern humans and "reality" have long since parted David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1061362707586959742003-08-19T23:58:00.000-07:002003-08-20T00:00:08.533-07:00Oh, since I've been asked, the "Description" under the main banner -- Where words fail, music speaks -- is a quote by Hans Christian Andersson, which is fairly appropriate, and especially pertinent to anyone wondering where the childhood trauma stuff comes in.
Believe me, it does come in. Although, all in good time.
But back to Anderson. For this:
When fairy tales at his time were didactic, heDavid A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1060998476200584472003-08-15T18:47:00.000-07:002003-08-15T18:53:28.946-07:00So, lyricism. As a music writer, I have to learn to inject fresh ideas, I have to back up positions with a wider knowledge. There are so many gaps. But lyricism I think I have.
Here, this is a blog. I'm supposed to sound my own horn. So, here's a fairly lengthy post I made on ILM a while back that I enjoyed in itself. It's not polished, or over-written in any way, but in that respect it more David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1060997504904349752003-08-15T18:31:00.000-07:002003-08-15T18:37:32.806-07:00I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm as much in awe of words as I am of music. Sure, music stands alone. Words, too. But combined, something alchemical happens. I love to listen to music, but do I love to write about music more (or, failing that, express it verbally to a friend, say)? Or, is the experience somehow not complete if -- having heard something that grabbed me, shook me, David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1060741793808228362003-08-12T19:29:00.000-07:002003-08-12T19:58:28.463-07:00A review at Pitchforkmedia got me thinking, something I've been trying to do more of lately. Here is the line that sparked me. It is basically about the terror of blinking and (consequently) missing the presence of genius among us:
as Rene Ricard succinctly put it in a 1981 Artforum essay called The Radiant Child, "No one wants to be part of a generation that ignores another van Gogh."
A good David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5671362.post-1060665413156586612003-08-11T22:16:00.000-07:002003-08-11T22:31:06.843-07:00There really is no justification for yet another music blog, so I won't even try. But I'm doing it anyway.
If there are is to be any theme at all, it is the loosely braided rope of childhood, trauma and music. A rope can get you out of a bad spot. Or it can hang you 'til you're dead.
(Y)our choice.
David A.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04435312084516923755noreply@blogger.com0