It began, they say, in the back room of a bar, a modern equivalent of a speakeasy, in nightly sessions of poker. Hazy cigarettes smoke, a few six packs and half empty bottles of beers lying around, busy shuffling sounds and the beginning of a dream - let's start a band. We've got the means, we've got that rebel spirit, we've got that itch to make it happen.
Most would have stopped at that point, either too drunk or too sober, but not the members of Tony the Bookie. Something was burning inside (and it wasn't just the extra cheese topping). The album The Tony the Bookie Orchestra is a product of that burning, still exploring itself, improving with practice and experience. There may be others, bringing to mind freer, perhaps a little more naive times. The spirit is there.
Do you still have that spirit? Take a ride with Tony the Bookie (website, MySpace, facebook) and try out the album.
Tony the Bookie - True Love {MP3} (from The Tony the Bookie Orchestra)
It seems I'm about to lose my job, again. There will be no semi-divine intervention putting me back this time. In fact, it's likely that I will be joined by most of the rest of the company soon after. Mind numbing as it was in the recent years, this job did provide a shelter through the ongoing recession, almost surviving it. But not quite.
The mood here has an eerily cheerful facade, fueled by a mix of denial, a sense of fatality and the budding realization that C'est la vie, the time to change has come. I will certainly miss my friends and some of my co-workers, but in a way I've been both waiting and dreading it for quite some time. Will this be the push I need to finally get a grip? Or is (my) life merely a series of such moments of realization after which I sink into the usual comfortable routine of the ordinary and boring?
I don't know what tomorrow will bring; I just need to find the exciting part of it, not just the scary one.
To all job seekers, future and present, I dedicate this beautiful and immensely moving song by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush; don't give up.
Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush - Don't Give Up {Video}, from So
Relationships... where do I start? The complexity of interacting with other people over time and context seems to rise in rate equaling that of entropy filling the universe. The results of both processes, gaping holes of pain, may be similar as well on some cases. In other cases, the serene stars littered skies, each in its own place, seem to present a working unified system. But humans defy the cosmos and its mathematical laws; friend is sometimes foe, kin betrays kin, love is found in the most unlikely places.
But I should let indie singer-songwriter Eric Sarmiento (mentioned here before) present this post's track, part of a duo of new released songs, with his own words: "they both deal with relationships and how they tend to be interwoven with the spaces of our lives, changing those spaces and being shaped by them. As the name suggests, 'strange power' is about the odd and often surprising ways in which we connect with people, and how those connections can seem to change even the most familiar places into something exotic and new. The coda section of the song delves a bit more into the ways that these connections, however powerful they might be, require work and practice to come to fruition... perhaps to really allow them to bloom to their fullest extent requires quite a bit of courage and ambition, I think."
The song itself hit me as inspired by new wave meets early-mid 2000s styles, but I'm no music expert. I just love the stuff. And it comes in a time relationships complexities come from all sides.
Keep tabs on Eric Sarmiento on MySpace and his label, Alchemist Records, as he releases his latest series of new songs, available soon on iTunes, emusic and more.
"The band, not being a real band, consequently never formed. And so, there is little to tell about its history."
With this brilliant short intro on his last.fm page (and a lucky email nudge) I was introduced to the beautifully warm and reassuring music of Ben Romvari. A talented Canadian web designer-turned recording engineer and even more so indie singer-songwriter, he has released two records thus far: Nocturnal Fables and Illusionsand the TrustEP.
What can you expect from an imaginary band? Is it like an imaginary friend, only with a larger echoing chorus? Should we expect a fallout between the non existent bassist and the almost-there-but-not-quite drummer? Perhaps, one can simply give Ben a listen and fill in the supporting characters themselves. The potential for a "real" band, and more, is there.
Check out Ben's Imaginary Band to become a true fan on his website, MySpace and last.fm. His recordings are available for stream and download.
The pain of losing someone, at least for me, is deeply personal; not only in its obvious meaning but in some odd and not completely out of place egotistical way. It is losing, not gaining; it is the end of a potential, not the beginning. Regrets, sometimes overlooked, surface with a violent vengeance and guilt strikes to the core.
It is the end of the world, the inner world, as we know it. But endings and beginnings come and go every day; death is final.
And what do we really know of our loved ones, our feelings towards them and even ourselves? More and more I agree with Joni Mitchell that it is "life's illusions I recall; I really don't know life at all". It is the shattering of those illusions, our conceptions, misguided hopes, that hurts the most.
The only real fault I can find in Florida's Greenland is Melting is how much their moniker is actually based in fact. Greenland is indeed melting, though it may be the result of more than just the usual human pollution. The warmth and vibrant energies projected by this three-some should be enough to melt any ice cap.
A folk/bluegrass trio with obvious punk roots, sometimes reminiscent of the Avett Brothers, GIM has just released its new album, Our Hearts Are Gold, Our Grass Is Blue. So watch out for those extra rising sea levels.
Check out Greenland is Melting on MySpace and Bandcamp for tracks and info (and other than GIM help stop global warming).
Greenland is Melting - From City to Town {MP3} (from Our Hearts Are Gold, Our Grass Is Blue) Greenland is Melting - No More Sorry Songs {MP3} (from Our Hearts Are Gold, Our Grass Is Blue)
I don't know why it has taken me so long to emerge from this long, mind numbed slumber. I'm not sure I have in fact fully emerged, to be honest.
But even if this is just taking a small peek at the world to be followed by a return to hibernation, I feel I got an odd mixture of icy-warm wake up shower that can only do good.
Winter is still a little while longer, but some of its essence, the chilly white snow, misty morning breath and a blazing fireplace, is present here already. Made manifest by White Pines, the moniker of Joseph Scott, upon listening to the music I could have sworn I saw a couple of grey-white wolves peeking curiously at me through a screen door. Sniffing around and disappearing, they leave me with a feeling of wonder, hope and rejuvenation that transcends any particular season, much like the music itself.
The ever busy White Pines has a full schedule working the west coast of the US these days, performing with some might call his summer parallel, Cotton Jones.
Check out White Pines on MySpace and on his label, where you'll be able to stream (and stream again) his new EP, A Face Made of Wood and follow him on his tour.
I admit, my initial response was shock. Shock and dismay. I mean, how would you respond if the places you left long ago but still look upon fondly in nostalgia were being torn apart, destroyed forever? I was also surprised by the relatively mild opposition to this brutal act. But perhaps I shouldn't really be all that surprised. After all, it's not real.
Oh yeah, I'm still stuck in my virtual world, now facing annihilation brought on by the most dangerous of beasts - its creators. Those who for the sake of the chance of bringing back old players would destroy the "old and familiar". What kind of people would be attracted by the utter destruction promised by the next expansion pack and do we really want such people, whose sole attraction point to the game is death and fire, to be running around in our midst?
Sure, the game needs to undergo changes from time to time, keeping players wanting more and challenged and attracting new ones. But the price of these changes may be too high to pay. If the apocalypse promised by the trailer is of any indication, much of the most beautiful and tranquil areas would be forever gone, all for the momentary thrill of the pouring lava and flight over churning chasms.
It's not good enough, Blizzard. You're not one of the many teenagers playing the game, taking delight in senseless killing for instant gratification. You're supposed to know better than that.
I saw death today; Ever present, it was missing from The dying man's eyes; Nor was it noticed upon the wild Creases of his face.
Paralysis gripped him And me.
I saw death today, But it wasn't the wheelchair That betrayed it; Nor the argent splinters still clinging to The forgetful scalp. It was in me, Remembering, seeing, hearing, feeling -- Naught.
I sit by an enormous network switch with a huge fan that constantly streams torrents of chilled air straight into my right ear. Besides the occasional blue ear, this situation allows me the experience the arctic freeze on a daily basis, possibly in balance to the actual arctic rapidly melting away.
It also enables me to connect to some types of music in a pseudo-physical sense, feeling the chill and images they project on my own body. The story of northerner Arran Arctic, as you can read and listen to on his MySpace, is one such example. Through it I see bleak and forlorn coasts, green-grey forests and a fire blazing in welcoming hearths. It looks like a hard life, but one worth living.
Venture on to his MySpace and Facebook for your own experience; just don't forget the ear muffs (on top of your headphones). His latest LP, The Boy in Brown, is available here.
Arran Arctic - Lonely Accordion {Video} (from The Boy in Brown)
I don't know any good songs about unicorns (or hippogryphs, for that matter). I do know a lot of great songs of religious and spiritual meaning, of personal and what sometimes seems like collective significance. Why am I writing about that now? Where have I been all this time? These questions are somewhat related.
These past few days I've been reading Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion", a rather blunt and forceful attack on religion. Already agnostic before I began, I admit the book has carried me over a bit towards atheism. Yet shaking the shackles of the past can take time and I find that even my very way of thought is fraught with the irrational. And a significant part of me doesn't want to abandon it.
But when I say irrational I mean feelings and emotions, not superstitions (which should be left far behind). Religion, like any human creation, has its ups and downs, and while I don't share the belief that the supposed focus of most religions (i.e. god) actually exists as usually described, I can appreciate some of the feelings of wonder, hope and admiration some people of faith seem to share. To believe means to trust completely without question or doubt in something that isn't proven to be so (or perhaps can never be proven), and it's something, though I tried very hard as a child, I could never really accomplish. But to share the ecstasy in Aretha Franklin's rendition of "Amazing Grace", even as a non-Christian, that I can do. Listening to it and similar songs brings me to a point where I feel compelled to get on my knees and start praying (score one for mass media and televangelists), but then I remember there isn't really much of a point (knock out in favor of science and rational thought).
I need my irrational self. I know it's immature, a Peter Pan flying around Outland (Northrend coming soon), living in fancies and dreams. But without his imagination and vision I would be reduced to an empty shell of an automaton. And though there's no outright contradiction between science and the sense of wonder the universe seems to generate, without irrationality, without the presumption, without the fancy of a lost child, there would be no science or wonder as well.
I've found out I'm on a journey; I don't know where I'm going or where I started. The present surrounds and tempts me, the past is foggy almost as the future is murky; the sense of movement itself could be an illusion. And yet, I'm finally beginning to be thrilled about it, to discover between the bouts of storms and thunders, that I am still alive.
I'm sure this song can be interpreted in many ways; mine is taken with a sense of love towards the human race with all its faults, hoping it is on its continuous, never-ending journey in life.
Perhaps the summer isn't such a bad thing after all. Yesterday I wrote a guest post at Music is Art that expressed my longing for winter and summer's end. I complained about the heat and incessant bugs flying around when all I wanted was a breath of fresh, cool air.
Well, I got it in the form of Kym Campbell, a US expatriate who now lives in Australia. Kym writes and performs warm surf/folk songs that may be reminiscent of Jack Johnson or Xavier Rudd with her own personal touch and flavor. The result, other than a little more relaxed smiles around the office, is that suddenly I feel summer may not be all bad, especially when you enjoy the breeze down the beach with good music filling the air.
Treat yourselves to Kym Campbell on her website and MySpace.
I've had a small revelation today which soothed me and quailed my growing impatience quite rapidly. I'm sure most people have had it and even I had some prior notions of it, but I, as my usual way about things, forgot. It's very simple, really: I'm not perfect and am not likely to meet or encounter anyone or anything that is. Some say that god is perfect, but even if such a "thing" exists, I doubt our poor and limited human comprehension could ever truly fathom "it".
This brought about a small degree of peace, not because now I don't need to bother working to do the best I can (because perfection is unattainable), but because I could accept that the driving feelings and anxieties about not reaching some (fantastic) goals come from within, and it is, first and foremost, my own perception of myself I have to contend with. As I said, not the most original observation, but one that may make life a little more bearable in this prison of flesh.
What has all this to do with this post's music? Not a great deal. But this net mystery, recording under the moniker of Never Been Julia, has caught my attention and imagination with stormy seas ("Along the Sea") and broken memories ("When I Breath"). Also, as far as I can tell, I've never been Julia either. It's not a bad place to start (even if your name is Julia).
Check out Never Been Julia on last.fm for more tracks. If you've never been Julia too, tell me about it.
I've somehow managed to survive nature's latest assassination attempt (using microorganisms in the food to try and poison me was clever, better luck next time). As I slowly recover my strength and will to live, I realize how quiet it has been around me. This is not just due to the recently canceled TV cables, but mainly because I didn't really feel the drive to listen and write about anything. Obviously, that has changed.
And with good timing too. By a lucky happenstance Brighton's indie singer-songwriter Julius has released his LP Shepherdess only a few days earlier and I've ran across it. Julius claims the LP, recorded in the mountains of France, pretty much sums up his life in the past 2 years. Well, it's a beautiful life. Calming and inspiring with remnants of happy traveling days memories and friends intertwined, the sound is clear and fresh in my ears.
Check out Julius on MySpace and last.fm for awesome tracks and downloadable EPs and LP. Shepherdess is available on MySpace.
Julius - A Man Alive {MP3} (from Shepherdess) Julius - Dark Days {MP3} (from Shepherdess) Julius - My Lovely Boy {MP3} (from Shepherdess) Julius - Separate {MP3} (from Shepherdess)
Cherbourg, one of my currently most listened to bands, has unveiled its official clip for the first single out of their new EP, Into the Dark. Well produced and laden with symbolism of all sorts, it is up for the viewers to get whatever meaning they can out of it. That is, except for the obvious risk in being in a rock band...
Sometimes there's no need for lengthy introductions or colorful metaphors. Sometimes, you just need to listen, to delve the silence into which the sound is poured only gently, because too harsh a stare would dissipate it.
And sometimes, it's the simple and charming songs that will win you over. Even if you thought you heard it before, think again. A topic covered as much as love could never really be boring anyway. Not if there's even a fraction of a memory left in your mind.
Check out Zach Bronow on MySpace and last.fm for additional tracks and info.
Night falls and you're still at the Faire, marveling at the wonders and sounds around you. A soft laughter echoes in the distance as you notice a quiet spot around the burning open hearth. Around it a people sitting, listening, there and far away, distant in thought and memory. They travel by the sound of the singer accompanied by his lone guitar.
That singer could be the enigmatic man who works under the moniker of Like a Fire in Nebraska. You've never been to Nebraska yourself, but somehow you get it, or think you do. Originally from Berlin and now based in Wellington, New Zealand, Like a Fire has a way of producing a warm sense of solace, much needed at day's end. And perhaps, for you, it also sounds like home.
Check out Like a Fire in Nebraska in MySpace and last.fm for a downloadable EP and a few more streamable tracks.
I'm officially dedicating this week to the unofficial Faire week. The overall theme of wonder and strange coupled with the underlying passion of wanderlust of these artists leave me little other choice (other than to pack my bag and join the road).
The road is long and arduous, fraught with many dangers and delights, good company, some drinking, an accident here and there and a few broken hearts. It is the tale of the wanderer fewer people nowadays want to listen to or remember, instead preferring to fantasize about lying idly in the sand while eagerly checking the cell phone for news and gossip. Not here.
A genuine article personified in the sometimes NYC based singer-songwriter James Apollo will make you pick up that 40's styled hat, hop on a freight train or just drive away. A drifter himself since 16, he's toured extensively officially and unofficially for years across the US and Europe, and somehow it all gets reflected in that weary, knowing voice. I'm glad to have found him. Just let me grab my hat and a bottle and I'll be on my way. Where to? Beyond the idle sand.
Track Jame Apollo on his website, MySpace and last.fm for tour updates and music. His latest EP, Angels We Have Grown Apart, is available on Amazon and iTunes.
The traveling Darkmoon Faire, starting today, provides an arena for the worlds' strange and wonderful. That is, if it actually existed (it's virtual). If it did exist though, I'm sure NYC's Electric Black, covered here before, would have its own specially adorned and red smoke shrouded performance stage.
With their self titled debut LP fast approaching its release date (June 16th), the band has its own traveling to do, along dividing lines of the weird and the profane, the chasms of the soul and the fiery mountain ranges of the broken hearts. Where the journey will take them I cannot say, but I'm sure it will be wonderful.
Check out Electric Black on MySpace and their site for streamable tracks and updates. A second pair of singles is being released before the expected LP release of June 16th.
Electric Black - Reign The Night {MP3} (from Electric Black)
You'll never know what treasures will find their way into your mailbox. Granted, my junk mail folder is overwhelmed by all sorts of people soliciting for cheap drugs, heirlooms of devout Christians in faraway countries just waiting to be picked up and inquiries into my anatomy and if I'm pleased with it. Thankfully, my inbox is spared of all this and I can find myself lucky enough to be introduced into some really unique works of art.
With my newly acquired (virtual) horse (still looking for a name, I'd appreciate some suggestions), I can finally dedicate the time needed to go through it all. And I mean all - sampling songs is just not enough sometimes. This was the case with My Gold Mask, an indie-alternative-art band from Chicago. Their debut self titled work is available for free streaming on Bandcamp, with a few songs available for download.
So I took my time listening, starting with one of the downladable tracks and then just kept going. Gretta Rochelle and Jack Armondo, the band's members, started out with home recording of what they call "extrinsic pop songs" but I think they're much more than that. It was actually one of the streamable tracks, "Like Eli", that jerked my ears into action (as it were). A dark, haunting and wondrous sound, building itself from calm to wild shamanic ecstasy of some ancient cave dwellers. Hey, that's the image I got from it. Try it out for yourselves.
Explore My Gold Mask on their website, MySpace and Bandcamp. Their self titled LP is available on the band's website.
It began, they say, in the back room of a bar, a modern equivalent of a speakeasy, in nightly sessions of poker. Hazy cigarettes smoke, a few six packs and half empty bottles of beers lying around, busy shuffling sounds and the beginning of a dream - let's start a band. We've got the means, we've got that rebel spirit, we've got that itch to make it happen.
Stumble It!
Posts
