All along the watchtower

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

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This song just exploded in my head. A combination of Bob Dylan's inspired songwriting and Jimi Hendrix's furious guitar playing, it manages to be cacophonous without being heavy, and Jimi manages to capture the quiet melancholy even while playing loud and fast.

A dead simple 3-note riff behind the entire song really drives the song but never gets boring because Jimi keeps the lead part interesting with constant changes in rhythm, register and texture, jumping from a spacey, echoing phrase to a dramatic fuzz-wah and many other changes which manage not to be gimmicky.

In today's scene, with many musicians doing the hundred and two-hundred beats per minute, and many other effects made available to technology, it's easy to discount simple lyricism and musical sense. But while he may not be as fast as modern players, the genius of Jimi Hendrix is timeless.

adam

one more member

The call must go out again.
I'm looking for a vocalist for my band, tentatively referred to as No Thesis Statement. Contact me personally for samples of the kind of stuff we'll be playing.
Also, I'm looking for a keyboardist/saxophonist or blues harp (that's harmonica to the rest of you). Improvisation is necessary, and preferably you should be able to sing, especially if you're a keyboardist. [because keyboardists are cumbersome and you must be able to do something if there is a) no keyboard part or b) no keyboard]

Respond please. If you know anybody who can do the above, even if they can only sing, please tell them i'm looking for a vocalist, even a temporary one.

Current band members are Huang Lu and Jian Wei.

adam

The rest of the mosaic festival was predictably amazing. After the Blues event, it started on wednesday with the Pat Metheny concert. The man is a genius.
After starting with some light acoustic pieces, he quickly melded into serious, avant-garde jazz. Admittedly I didn't really understand the more experimental pieces, but the rest of his set list was... brilliant, to put it one way, and enlightening, to put it another way. I didn't know so much sound (and so many sounds) could come out of 3 instrumentalists. Also, the double bassist is scary. At the end of the concert he received a standing ovation and performed 2 encores - I believe the second one was entirely made up on the spot - check for a guitar lead-in, check for 12-bar-blues progression. Amazingly, by the end of the piece, the whole band was marvellously synchronised.

I am awed, impressed, and determined.

adam

(more on the other events later)

Thanks Chermaine for arising new feelings of self-doubt in me. I stopped writing because writing is a silly, facetious, sel f-indulgent thing to do and I only ever did it to impress people not because I actually enjoyed it and even if I became good at impressing people I gained nothing from it except other people's adoration which I don't need currently because my ego is swollen enough as it is and I'm trying to focus on more important things.

I needed to get that out of my system. Who the hell am I kidding?

Haiku 03

watching from my window
the quietness
of the leaves

-adam

wish list!

I'm looking for the following albums, if anyone would like to buy/lend me, that would be really, really amazing.

John Mayall's Bluesbreakers - the 'beano' album. i don't know what else it's called. it's got Eric Clapton reading a copy of 'beano' on the front.
Cream - Wheels of Fire
Cream - Disraeli Gears
Derek and the Dominoes - Layla and other assorted love songs
Miles Davis - In a Silent Way
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (both of these are VERY difficult to find, according to mark)
Eric Johnson - Bloom
Eric Johnson - Tones
Anything by the following artists:
B.B king
Pat metheny
Chick Corea/Thelonious Monk/John Coltrane
Yes
Pink Floyd
Stevie Ray Vaughan (anything but the 'Texas Flood' album, i have that.)
Louis Armstrong
The Electromagnets (that's Eric Johnson's band... apparently quite difficult to find too)
Alien Love Child (also Eric Johnson's band)
Wes Montgomery

the blues is a feeling

Paul Ponnudorai has restored my faith in the Singapore music scene. I went to watch the "Blues Men' event at the Mosaic Music festival yesterday. Quite stunning. He possesses a huge, fantastic stage presence that i've never before seen in an actual Singaporean, not even Winston Hodge (sorry Mr. Hodge); the audience was quite helpless other than to stand around and scream and clap. Performing is about more than good music, evidently.
All 3 performances (Tania, Paul Ponnudorai, ublues) had something to offer, musically- all excellent singers, guitarists, bassists, keyboardists, and yes, harmonicas and saxophones. These are no laid-back musicians, there's plenty of screaming, hopping, just dancing about, and silly theatrical tricks. In the end though, i was very impressed, and thoroughly satisfied. Paul puts it right - 'the Blues is a feeling. It's an attitude'

adam

The RJ band concert and jazz performance at Suntec are looming. Sometimes (when it's really quiet) I think that I've really gone in the deep end and I'm going to drown in my stupidstupidstupid commitments. NO! I'm sick of being useless. I'm going to get something done, even if it kills me.

In other news, jazz today didn't happen, because the J2s had some surprise GP common test (just how do you achieve that?) but I showed up anyway with my guitar and jammed a bit with huang lu and kelly. I think (despite what he says) huanglu's picking up the bass pretty quickly - I've asked him to join my band already since terence is giving up. So far the lineup is
Jian Wei - drums
Huang lu - bass
Myself - guitar
- making for a nice power trio. Now we just need to round off with a vocalist... i'm not necessarily looking for quality of voice here. RJC has plenty of good singers, but scarce few frontmen. I need a frontman. Charisma, personality, and if you can scream like Kurt Cobain, that's a bonus too. We're playing mostly blues, maybe a bit of early rock, but I want music to stay focused on one thing at a time.
All of the above is subject to change. If anyone is interested in fronting for my band, you can tag here or email me.

adam