Improvise.

Sometimes you just have to improvise when you buy a new paddle but forget what car you’re in.

My Musical Renaissance.

Apparently I’ve been living in a hole. The last few months I feel like I’ve rediscovered music in a deeper way. Perhaps it’s better quality. Perhaps its my new love of vinyl. Perhaps its me wanting to have something worthwhile to give to my son. Either way I’m discovering new things everyday and am loving it.

It all started about 3 months ago when I started trying to read 2 Wikipedia articles a day on something or someone I had no clue about. I know Wikipedia isn’t always 100% accurate, but I figured if I got a big overview of certain things I’d be smarter for it. So when I’m taking a dump. Or just bored, I pull out my iPhone and using my trusted Wikipanion App and I’m off to the races.

I guess it really began about 6 months ago with The Who.

But this whole thing really started snowballing when I began developing a fascination with the Talking Heads. I was lead to them by being hooked on David Byrne’s later solo work. Byrne has an excellent blog that I’ve been following for a year. So I went back and started listening to Talking Heads. Psycho Killer has pretty much my favorite bass line ever. It’s short. Poppy. And damn near perfect music for 3 minutes. I started with 77 and haven’t stopped since.

Next I finally sat down and listened to Pet Sounds all the way through. Are you freaking kidding me? Why I haven’t listened to it sooner or spent more time with it I still don’t know. What I wouldn’t do to trade in my Chris Carrabba phase for Brian Wilson. It’s no exaggeration to say that I think the quality and direction of my life would be substantially different. It’s that good. I guess I just always assumed the Beach Boys were some surfing posers who topped out with Barbara Ann. Pet Sounds exploding that myth for me.

Finally, I’ve discovered the blues. The good, dirty, heavy fuzz, Delta Blues. I started with John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters about a year ago. But that’s like starting rock and roll with Zeppelin or U2. It’s a travesty to all those who went before them and laid the ground work.

So in my “Wiki Research” I came across “Son” House. Stop what you are doing and listen to John the Revelator right now. It’s amazing to think that this guy was wearing it out in the 1920s. House was a Baptist preacher who ended up shooting a man, spending time in prison, and then discovered how to play the blues in prison. That’s the shit. And it’s heavy.

House ended up as the main influence on Robert Johnson, ho only lived to the age of 27. Most credit Johnson as being the Grandfather of Rock & Roll and a heavy influence on Dylan, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Beck, Clapton, and The Stones. Not bad for somebody that I hadn’t even heard of 2 weeks ago. The last few days I’ve been doing nothing but listening to his stuff that the Library of Congress decided should be preserved for all posterity.

Johnson went on to influence Mississippi John Hurt, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, & Howling Wolf. The two latter who went on to create the Chicago Blues scene which undoubtedly influenced the trajectory of “rock & roll” perhaps more than any other musical genre that preceded it.

All this to say is that I’ve been listening to the blues non stop for about 2 weeks. And I don’t plan on stopping. There is something beyond words and music when you listen to House or Johnson sing from so deep within that the music does not come from a man or an instrument but comes from some “other” place.

Listen to Johnson and you would think that there are 3 people playing with him but it’s just him and 1 slide guitar. Listen to House who existed in musical obscurity outside of the Mississippi Delta until he was close to 50 years old. Listen to Brian Wilson move beyond a “single” and create an entire album.  Listen to Byrne blend multiple styles into 1 and create something that was neither pop nor rock.

Not really sure why I’m writing all of this. Hopefully just finding other kindred spirits who are discovering new art that they are willing to share.

Morning Art Project.

Our morning art project and appropriate clean up.

Cuatro De Mayo.

Its that time of year again when I make my political stance to what used to by my favorite holiday of all time . . . Cinco De Mayo. Last year Anna and I started celebrating Quatro De Mayo in an attempt to remind subvert the neo-colonialism and imperialistic implications of Cinco De Mayo. No need to get into the history of the holiday itself. Nor what it has balooned into. And I know it’s not the “real” Independence Day of Mexico. But still, something feels wrong about celebrating a holiday in a Mexican restaurant pounding Magaritas while those who the holiday “are for” have to work to bring the white man his fajitas and Corona. I know it’s a major pay day for the Mexican restaurant scene. But still, something feels strangely odd about the whole enterprise.

Imagine that if on the Fourth of July, every burger joint and milkshake stand all across America had to stay open and all the “Americans” had to serve a bunch of Hispanic folk who had co-opted our holiday. We would be irate to say the least. Or down here in the South we would for sure.

I guess all I’m saying is that we should think about the practices that we partake in. I love margaritas on the rock with a dash of salt just as much as the next Coach wearing, botox injected soccer mom in the suburbs of the ATL. But I for one will not be buying anything with lime on it tomorrow. Instead I will lime it up tonight.

Bottoms up kids.

My Newly Designed Wallpaper.

I was bored in the wee hours of the morning last night unable tos leep so I hacked up a Google image of one Sir Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Marky Mark Twain. I was up reading Twain and Thoureau’s thoughts on non-violence. It really is insane how much was built off of their thought by people who followed . . . Gandhi, MLK, etc.

While those who followed are the ones who are typically receive “credit” for these movements. I find it interesting uncovering some of the more seminal thoughts that were being laid as a foundation 50 years before. While even they did not exist in a vacuum without predecessors and influences, I have tremendous respect for those who are as close to the ground floor as you can get. This is not to discredit those who came later. Just that it takes a different kind of intelligence to form substance out of nothing. And a different kind of intelligence to take that small seed of something and turn it into a revolution. Two different thought processes at work and both coming together in perfect interplay.

It makes me wonder who is creating out of nothing right now new ideas and thoughts. And who is coming along that is going to remix and develop these seeds.