Month: June 2014

SHAME WEEK! Termagant Tuesday: “Tapestry,” Michael Jones

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Wood varnish, modern dance, and New York City.  Those are the three things that come to mind when I hear this.

Wood varnish: I am seven.  My mom refinished…man. I lost count of the number of things she refinished in the house I grew up in.  Our beautiful old upright piano, tables, chairs.  Not to mention all of the other home improvement projects she had going on.  A Michael Jones cassette was part of the music rotation she would put on the paint-splattered radio-tape player that kept her company when the fumes were too strong for a kid to deal with.  Michael Jones was soon supplanted by Paul Simon’s “Graceland,” and I took “Pianoscapes” for myself.  It heavily influenced my own early compositions.  Don’t get me wrong – this music isn’t that great.  But what it did do for a little kid writing her own stuff was make it okay to experiment with melodic changes, time signature changes, and rhythmic changes.  It also made it okay to write “songs” that were more than ten minutes long.  You’re welcome, neighbors.

Modern dance: I am ten.  I took a bunch of different styles of dance when I was a kid but modern dance was the only one that I really got into because – surprise! – there aren’t a whole lot of rules.  Perfect.  One homework assignment was to create our own dance and set it to music.  The person who came up with the most popular dance (decided by a very public vote) would choreograph a whole group routine.  I used “Tapestry.”  I did not win.

New York City: I am thirteen.  For my thirteenth birthday, I got to go to New York City and visit my godmother.  She lived by the courthouse in Manhattan and worked in the fashion industry.  She was (and still is), very tall and very glamorous.  She took me shopping to buy my very first make-up (Clinique – what’s up).  She bought me my first pair of black cigarette pants.  We ate escargot and went to the theater.  It was incredible.  We also went to a bookstore that had a CD section and I bought the CD version of the now six-year-old cassette tape.  I put it on her CD player when we got back to her enormous apartment and I remember walking around her very modernist two-bedroom, looking at the city lights glowing in the dark, with this piece pouring out of the speakers.  That’s a very happy memory.

SHAME WEEK! Modernism Monday: “Life in a Northern Town,” The Dream Academy

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I recently got a few boxes delivered from a storage unit I had more or less forgotten I had.  One of them had photos in it.  It was marked, “Photos.”  Another had scratch-and-sniff stickers in a jewelry box, an orange stopwatch in a plastic bag with some loose Euro coins, and approximately seven different guidebooks of Washington, D.C.  It was marked, “Random.”  The third box was marked “DO NOT PUT ANYTHING ON TOP OF THIS BOX” and was filled with all of my old CD binders dating back to senior year of high school.  Oh man.  This was going to take some time.

Leafing through page after page of CDs was way more intense that looking at old snapshots of myself and my degenerate college friends.  It was a tour of my innermost thoughts and – worst – tastes and preferences.  “Oh Christ” was a common thought that sprang to mind every three or four page-turns.  Talking about this with some friends over beers last week, it became clear that they – and therefore the entire universe of still-alive humans – have music that they still love but are too ashamed to tell people about.

I am not ashamed.  I am going to air my dirty musical laundry for all to see.  Welcome, dear readers, to Shame Week.  We begin our tour with the odd little British group The Dream Academy, whose song “Life In A Northern Town” is a nice pre-chewed bite of moodiness, punctuated by a howlingly out of place “African”-style chant in the chorus.  Oh, and there’s an oboe.  Okay.

Sacred Sunday: “Gloria,” from Leonard Bernstein’s Mass

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC3kiya2GaM

 

This is such a bonkers piece in a way and I just love it.  It’s so very Broadway, with some serious “West Side Story” throwbacks from around 1:55 to 2:15; it’s got a very Latin vibe to it; and its various rhythms give it a colorful brightness that other stolid versions just don’t have.  It’s a good piece for today – Pentecost Sunday, the day that (according to the Bible) Jesus’s disciples received the Holy Spirit through wind and fire and baptized thousands of people.  In effect, it’s the day the Christian church was born.

Salubrious Saturday: “Shattered,” The Rolling Stones

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Look at me!  I’m in tatters!  So I’m going to go play kickball in the park today.  And then?  I might take a nap.  And after that?  I might go dancing.  Success success success!  Does it matter?  Pride and joy and dirty dreams – that’s what makes our town the best.  Also: kickball in the park.  That’s my reasoned opinion.

Throwback Thursday: “La Canarie,” Michael Praetorius

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I’m sorry, Tune-Up fans – this week is bananas so I don’t have an inspiring (or even amusing) write-up for you today.  But I wanted to at least give you something cheerful to listen to.  I love Praetorius, as you’ve probably picked up, and the man who does these recordings, Eduardo Antonello, is a just amazing.  Hey, Folger Consort: call him.  From what I can tell, he is self-taught and a complete early music instrument savant.  I am so grateful to musicians like him who are keeping gorgeous pieces like this alive and well.

Worldly Wednesday: “Ghost Trains,” Erlend Øye

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The beat of the first few seconds of this song just kills me.  It’s like a very Euro-flavored disco version of Dr. Who.  Erlend Øye is a great pop artist from Norway who has been part of a number of other bands (remember Royksopp?  Remember their song “Poor Leno?”  Yep, that was Erlend.  Ever hear of The Whitest Boy Alive?  Erlend.).  His voice is like soy milk – very smooth, pretty devoid of flavor, but surprisingly tasty.

Termagant Tuesday: “5 Steps,” Radiohead vs. Dave Brubeck

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PQQPUb8Rl0

 

It can take a long, long, long time to figure things out.  The sermon in church this Sunday*, preached by the absolutely marvelous Stan Fornea, talked about this at length.  Specifically the idea of mystery, and how we as Christians, and American Christians to boot, are problem-solvers: we don’t like dealing with the unknown.  We like certainty and facts.  We apply this to the religious sphere by attributing things to God that aren’t really God’s problem.  As hard as it is to swallow, some stuff might just be completely random.

I think this is absolutely maddening and also delightfully freeing.  To not have to ascribe meaning to a screw-up, a bad day, a good day, a human interaction, any of it – to not have to dig around in the dirt for some ultimate purpose – means we can throw up our hands, say “aw the hell with it,” and try again.  Or not!  Devoid of the suffocatingly cloying “everything happens for a reason” maxim, a fluke is just a fluke.  You’re not destined for anything.  We aren’t forced to give a damn.  It’s kind of great.

“How come I end up where I’ve started?  How come I end up where I went wrong?”

Who knows.  But you get to decide whether, and how, you want to figure it out.

*Yeah, it says Luis Leon; it’s Rev. Fornea.  Trust me.  Also – you’ll have to trust me on this too – Rev. Fornea preached without notes.  He’s amazing.

Sacred Sunday: “Jesus Gonna Be Here,” The Blind Boys of Alabama

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Here is a real American spiritual for the weekend – calm, confident, and full of swagger. Good for a long walk in the sun, an afternoon in a hammock, and an evening sitting on the front porch. Nothing ground the spirit like the blues. “I’m gonna leave this place better than the way I found it was.” Amen, brother.