six times nine

the experience of nicotine withdrawal

2012-01-25T14:56:00.001+08:00

listen up,

on the 3rd day the shaking starts and it goes away when you finally wheeze out, fifty years later.

and in between then and then,

who can say what happens? the great auroric transition from boy to corpse,

punctuated with

palpitations and long aching dreams of short cigarette breaks

Give Thanks, 2011

2011-11-24T09:13:00.005+08:00

1. Juliana is half a head shorter than me. In the rain I'm looking down anyway to keep it out of my face; she says something like 'that's why socialism is international, because one country can be socialist but it's gonna get screwed by other countries that want its resources.' The rain continues to pour, but in the clear plastic awning of the Tribeca Tavern we are sheltered from the brutal gusts of wind that send droplets down my collar.

2. 'I'm sorry you were waiting out in the cold,' or something to that effect, says Jean-michel. I say 'look at the trees. The leaves are beautiful.' 'You are enjoying it? I'm sorry for taking so long, I didn't realise you were out here.' I say 'We don't have autumn in Singapore.' He says 'Come in.'

3. Steve steps over to us, he might have said something but my ears are ringing and Chris and I share a look that says 'what just happened? Why did we stop playing' until I notice one of the strings on Nick's guitar is dangling, flapping about like a broken limb. Oh. Nick says that the new string isn't gonna stay in tune through a song like 'Power of Soul.' I say 'Nick, you wanna rap?'

4. In Singapore, I'm in a taxi crying my brains out. I thought you'd be better at this. What have you been doing? If you say that, it's never coming together. I will practice harder. I don't ever want to be a musician, it's too hard I've given it everything and here I am curled up like a stillborn foetus, covered in tears and afterbirth.

5. I am behind the cargo containers in the center of Taiwan. I can't remember my name, or what just happened; I know I failed in some way and that I shouldn't care but the rain and the gravel press into my feet and hands and nothing is escapable.

6. Can we do just one more quick one? Stella by starlight, around here (Gilbert counts it off fast)

hey man, I'm glad you came by--Sorry about the amp--Yeah man, Ray Brown is such a boss--I think that's pretty swingin'--Do you wanna learn this Ron Carter blues I've been working on--Sound good guys, that's just like the record. Are you reading from scores or something?

7. 'I think music is an inherently political act. That's why Darlene Clark Hine talks about 'sexual politics' when she discusses the blues singers. I mean - yeah, it's not political music as in it's not really a social critique, but just by, um, putting your experiences out there... I mean, what I'm saying is, it really kind of affirms that you're a human being, with real concerns and real experiences and I think once people accept that through music then there's the possibility for social change.'

8. 'So what I've really been meaning to tell you--and I only say this because you're my friend and I feel like I can trust you with this information--is that I'm basically Jesus.' 'Oh yeah, I think I've known for awhile, I mean we suspected that was the case.' 'Yeah. it's not really all that. People bitch a lot about stupid things. Am I walking too fast?' 'Yeah, I'm still getting the hang of these...' 'I'm sorry you broke your feet. I made those, you know.'

9. 山 is my friend. She has red hair and she’s a little bit less tall than I am. Usually she floats about five to ten centimetres over the ground, though, so we’re at eye level. She says my right profile is more flattering and refuses to walk on the other side of me. I say, ‘山, god fucking damn it.’ She says, glowing a little, ‘yeah. It’s shit. But look at the trees!’

10. The lights had been turned out and there was the feeling of hands and faces and teeth and some shared laughter, and some shared apologies. I say some things, I was drunk at the time, but I remember the words ‘yeah, it’s alright. Freely given, you know? And freely received.’

11. It was a disappointing sundown at the Hudson. I tramped four blocks there through the cold, I had Keith Jarrett or Grant Green or the Duke, something which I consider Proper Sunset Music on the headphones. It was too cloudy to see anything but the gradual fading of the day from orange-tinted grey to dark-blue-grey. The lights on the cliffs of New Jersey came on one by one.

12. Nick and Kim are a kind of conglomerate entity on the couch. I am on the armchair. I say 'Jesus the weather is fucking awful.' 'Yeah, it's been ridiculous.' It keeps raining, somewhat.

A few weeks later, it’s still raining and it’s going to be Thanksgiving in a few hours and the trees are dripping. Freely given and freely received. God fucking damn it, Christmas is coming. Jesus mother fucking Christ. I hate the weather.

13. Keith Jarrett is moaning. Jack is swirling like a blizzard and Gary is thundering like a tropical storm and Keith is moaning and screaming and playing and playing and playing.

Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Gary Peacock

2011-10-31T12:34:00.002+08:00

are some kind of celestial triumvirate. Listening their 'Standards Live' recording, little pockets of light push up between the spaces, illuminating everything they play in a weightless glow. On this record at least his achievement is not gravitas, but a kind of transcendent ease that is buoyant to the earth-bound.

The Old Religion

2011-10-20T04:03:00.004+08:00

I have a bad habit, which is a kind of a Catholic retention, which happens when someone asks, or I ask what do I think about music, or what is my place in this as a south-east asian, as a guitar player, as an immigrant, as an American, what do I think about the great living tradition of African-American improvised music, or European classical music, and what is my place in them? And how am I a part of the contemporary society of professionals and journeymen who have dedicated themselves to this music, as a Chinese person, as an educated person, as an atheist, as a human being who loves human beings?

At this point all I can think of is to get down on my knees and say 'what kind of fucking question is that, I am incapable of asking let alone knowing. I am not worthy.' I shouldn't; professing not to know is as absurd as professing to know, like asking 'What are we?' where the what and the are and the we are equally incomprehensible. I have a kind of provisional answer consisting mostly of notes and sketches on manuscript paper. Music contains many elements of living, but only really answers the one question 'Are we?' The answer is yes.

budpowellbudpowellbudpowell

2011-08-11T15:27:00.001+08:00

Today I re-read Kurt Vonnegut's 'a Man without a Country' and listened to Bud Powell play 'Cherokee' and my heart broke in two.

swimming in Monk covers

2011-08-01T17:26:00.004+08:00

Kurt Rosenwinkel - Reflections, Ask Me Now

Bobby Broom - Rhythm-a-ning

Jean-Michel Pilc - I've Got it Bad and it Ain't Good, Solitude, Rhythm-a-ning

Couple of fantastic Monk covers here - just when I thought it couldn't be done. Rosenwinkel brings a special kind of poise to Reflections, and he channels the crazy in a way that appropriates no Monk-isms, yet is definitively loopy. Broom's Rhythm-a-ning in a guitar trio setting lets him cut loose with some crazy harmonies, and he gets to play the blues. It's the most straight-ahead of all the cuts mentioned here. Which brings me to Pilc. The first two of those aren't strictly Monk covers (they're Ellington tunes) but the way he plays them is so strongly reminiscent of the Monk Plays Ellington album - he even does that Monk 'cat running down the keyboard in suspiciously good time' lick once - that I consider these covers of Monk's versions. Pilc is actually insane, though. Sometimes I can't make head or tail of his music, but when it's good, it's really good, and he gets it right here.

swimming in Monk covers

2011-08-01T17:26:00.003+08:00

Kurt Rosenwinkel - Reflections, Ask Me Now

Bobby Broom - Rhythm-a-ning

Jean-Michel Pilc - I've Got it Bad and it Ain't Good, Solitude, Rhythm-a-ning

Couple of fantastic Monk covers here - just when I thought it couldn't be done. Rosenwinkel brings a special kind of poise to Reflections, and he channels the crazy in a way that appropriates no Monk-isms, yet is definitively loopy. Broom's Rhythm-a-ning in a guitar trio setting lets him cut loose with some crazy harmonies, and he gets to play the blues. It's the most straight-ahead of all the cuts mentioned here. Which brings me to Pilc. The first two of those aren't strictly Monk covers (they're Ellington tunes) but the way he plays them is so strongly reminiscent of the Monk Plays Ellington album - he even does that Monk 'cat running down the keyboard in suspiciously good time' lick once. Pilc is actually insane, though. Sometimes I can't make head or tail of his music, but when it's good, it's really good, and he gets it right here.

Michael Ondaatje - The Cinnamon Peeler

2011-07-26T06:10:00.002+08:00

If I were a cinnamon peeler

I would ride your bed

and leave the yellow bark dust

on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek

you could never walk through markets

without the profession of my fingers

floating over you. The blind would

stumble certain of whom they approached

though you might bathe

under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh

at this smooth pasture

neighbour to your hair

or the crease

that cuts your back. This ankle.

You will be known among strangers

as the cinammon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you

before marriage

never touch you

- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.

I burried my hands

in saffron, disguised them

over smoking tar,

helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once

I touched you in water

and our bodies remained free,

you could hold me and be blind of smell.

You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women

the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.

And you searched your arms

for the missing perfume

and knew

what good is it

to be the lime burner's daughter

left with no trace

as if not spoken to in the act of love

as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched

your belly to my hands

in the dry air and said

I am the cinnamon

peeler's wife. Smell me.

good jazz

2011-04-16T09:05:00.004+08:00

you feel in your feet - you need to move, to tap, even though bebop isn't particularly danceable; but it possesses an energy of the body.

Great jazz you feel in your hands because it washes down from the top of your head to fill your entire body; it fills you. That's the feeling I get when I hear Sonny Rollins's The Bridge, which you'll know that I've been listening heavily to this week.

The assuredness that characterises the playing on this album is hard to pin down but takes particular forms. Sonny's solos here are the mature culmination of his thematic explorations earlier on in his career, but they seem different in a way - compared to 1957's Night at the Village Vanguard or even Saxophone Colossus he plays less notes, more blues, and is unafraid of medium tempos and ballads. You could almost say this album is mellower in many ways than prior speed-fests, but that's a useless distinction. His gravitation toward the 'normal' or the 'mainstream' is not a mellowing-out of style but a movement downward toward the content of the music.

For example, the motivic solo that opens the album on 'Without a Song' is a paragon of grace. Of course to talk about the programmatic content of any jazz solo is complete garbage, but, as a way of understanding it, I could describe what he plays here as the return to self. Bird's freewheeling, catastrophic solos are slyly symbolic of the kamikaze consciousness of the 40s and 50s and concomitantly the terror and the exhilaration of life in the big city; it starts from a point then changes so rapidly as to become ecstatically mutilated. Sonny's solo is, on the other hand, a cry of understanding and acceptance, and a return to self. I enjoy listening to it for a different reason from Bird. Bird was crazy: Sonny Rollins is wise. There is a pleasure and a kind of hope in hearing that he had arrived at that place even in this place.

Psychological speculation aside, this is also music possessed of excellent technical mastery. The motif in the tenor solo is a simple repetition of the tonic note surrounded by the major pentatonic on the tonic (say that ten times). Sonny starts with pretty much just that, and then takes the line through the changes for awhile, but always with an incredibly detailed ear for when the line passes back through the tonic note. Every time he plays the Eb, even if it's buried in the midst of a line flying through the changes, it pops out at the listener and grounds even his wildest improvisations with the colour of the motif. I'm pretty sure that that particular musical awareness of the motif is part of the perception of assuredness that I get from this. It feels strong and stable.

I'd go on, but as it is I'm not being paid to come up with this shit. The rest of the album is more of the same; that is to say, powerful stuff. Hits : 'John S.' 'God Bless the Child' 'The Bridge' but everything's gravy, really. Highly recommended.

Bridges

2011-04-10T04:09:00.007+08:00

I am assured by the gurus of social media that blogging at an irregular pace will cause me to lose all of my readers. That seems to contain some truth, but I dislike the notion that my readers will lose their erections if not repeatedly stroked at regular intervals. I'll blog whenever I damn well feel like. That said, please don't leave me. I'm all alone here.

I spent the last few weeks catching up with the developments in music of all sorts and trying to put my life back together. So: in that vein: Gogol Bordello. After the guy out on the street who shouted after a taxi cab 'What are you, fucking retahded?' they were probably the best thing that happened to me in Boston. I only wish I'd been down in the mosh pit instead of slowly developing a neckache from headbanging while turning my head to the right to try and follow Eugene Hutz's ridiculous stage antics. They are an an explosive band that has made their brand of gypsy punk-polka into a great party and an even greater philosophical triumph. Ask me again sometime how that happens - I'll figure it out eventually. I think that dancing like a fool is only enjoyable with the subtle realisation that it could be necessary for the health of the soul. Otherwise it's pointless and embarrassing. Or maybe I just don't know how to party. Anyway, Gogol Bordello tickled me well and good and at the end of the night I had a neckache, which is always a good indicator of fun being had. Those crazy immigrants.

On a different beat, I hit up Sonny Rollins and two albums from opposite sides of the Williamsburg Bridge - 'Saxophone Colossus' and the expertly named 'The Bridge'. Sometime in the middle of his career he stopped performing altogether and was often seen practicing alone on the Williamsburg bridge, the crazy hairy man. One expects strange things to have happened to his music after that hiatus - so it was confounding to most critics when 'The Bridge' came out and it seemed to sound pretty much like what he'd been doing all along, which is just gravy as far as I'm concerned because he's Sonny Rollins.

But anyway, what happened? He did swap out his pianist for guitarist Jim Hall, who as an accompanist is far stranger than anybody save Monk could have been - listen to the A sections of the title-track rhythm changes. The electric guitar changes up the soundscape, too. The pounding, effervescent swing of his earlier records is still there, but no more the grounding presence of a piano. Guitars play less notes at once, and with less range in terms of pitch, and Jim Hall as a particular guitarist is also very fond of counterpoint rather than continuo-style block chords. The result is an emptier, freer sounding record where the interplay between Hall's deadpan counterpoint and Rollin's bubbling energy often becomes delightful. I was a little depressed with the ballads, to be honest, where they both seem to become trapped in idioms that signify more than they deliver in terms of musical interest. I rarely like jazz ballads anyway, unless Coltrane's playing them. But those uptempo numbers! I couldn't tell you what he found up there on the Williamsburg bridge, but it must have been some kind of awesome.

In contrast to that album is the earlier Saxophone Colossus - a fairly universally well-regarded one. The piano's there, so the swing is a little more focused and hard-rocking. Which is not to say normal, Sonny's anything but, but he's a genius in a slightly more (to our accustomed ears) expected way. The calypso opener St. Thomas, now a well-deserved standard, set the precedent for his later calypso albums, in which he all but plays the same tune with a series of different titles (Don't Stop the Carnival, for example, with who I think is Bobby Broom on guitar). Me, I don't care. The careless happiness of the calypso underneath the colorful urgency of the saxophone is a winning move. And, as if to point out that they haven't gone completely native, he turns up the swing for a second solo.

For an interesting comparison, you might look up his later recordings of St. Thomas with Jim Hall, or Jim Hall's solo versions of that tune.

2011-03-09T12:21:00.002+08:00

In America you get food to eat

won't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet

you just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day

it's great to be an American

Ain't no lion or tiger, ain't no mamba snake

just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake

everybody is as happy as a man can be

climb aboard, little wog, sail away with me

sail away

we will cross the mighty ocean into charleston bay

sail away

we will cross the mighty ocean into charleston bay

in America every man is free

to take care of his home and his family

you'll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree

you're all gonna be an American

sail away

we will cross the mighty ocean into charleston bay

sail away

we will cross the mighty ocean into charleston bay

- randy newman

1988, the Pixies

2011-03-05T00:43:00.002+08:00

Frank Black (or is it Black Francis in this year? I think it's Black Francis) is sweating. So is Kim Deal, who is the most beautiful person ever to grace the electric bass with her presence. She radiates a smile at the audience as she begins to play. 'And this I know...' the smile vanishes. She giggles out the bridge, tightropewalking between exuberance and incoherence. She's wearing a huge raggedy grey smock and black francis has a dark collar of soaked shirt and they're both nodding and singing and spit is flying everwhere.

Freeze the action for a sec -

we are at a juncture in history where lovering and santiago and francis and deal weave wide streams of logic around the heads of bewildered college students. They never coalesce. They are playing four different songs. And kim deal is almost crying with the labor of the moment - she is all lips and teeth and the relentless charging of six bass notes with centuries of womanhood

nodding and singing and spit is flying everwhere, and Lovering and Santiago are suddenly there as well, and it is transfigurative. Rock and roll shining on stage, emanating from the unwashed and sweat-soaked underwear.

HOW TO BE HAPPY

2011-01-29T11:46:00.001+08:00

Lie.

adam constructs an elaborate rationalisation of his constant inebriation

2011-01-29T01:16:00.003+08:00

There is a reason for the College Experience. For College Experience, read : excessive drinking, smoking, recreational drug use and free sex (or at any rate, frequent pre-marital copulation. It most certainly is not free). The reason has something to do with generations of stratified pre-conceptions aided and abetted by movies like American Pie and Eurotrip and Harold and Kumar. But really - the marketing basilisk bites its own tail. These movies wouldn't have been able to sell their brand of ridiculous college-hijinks schtick if there weren't an audience that was (if not actively participating in it) appreciative of such a lifestyle.

Part of it is the experience of being away from home. That's what happens in college, usually - in NYU, anyway, most small towns in America are less well represented than a tiny country like Singapore (kudos to Terence for pointing this out), and aside from the odd Brooklyn/Queens/Bronx and the even odder Manhattan native, almost everybody from NYU is hours if not days away from home. The concomitant relaxation of restrictions undoubtedly fuels the drugs-and-free-sex ethos that permeates the residential halls.

I would like to believe however that pointless rebellion only constitutes part of our lifestyle. Part of it is also the experience of becoming an adult in an increasingly bewildering world. Part of it is the slow realisation that the ideals of our childhood cannot apply to the Real World, or better yet, must be paid for in the things we hold most dear. Perhaps the drugs and the drink are our way of cushioning our way into the stupor of adulthood. Pete Townshend was right - I never want to grow up, if growing up means getting comfortable, if growing up means losing my rage (what use is your virtue otherwise, Nietzsche says - I agree), if growing up means settling down and becoming part of the Civil Society I loathe. It is more of a conflict than teenage hormones and piercings and leather jackets imply. It is the fundamental disease of youth without which progress is impossible. Ray Bradbury wrote that all 17 year olds are all fundamentally insane. I am 18. I wasted two and a half years in the army becoming angrier but not older, more efficient but not more mature, wiser but not more self-assured.

The drink and the drugs are cushioning against the horrors of adulthood. They are also a vindication of youth. Adults are afraid of alcohol and of marijuana and LSD because they have conditioned themselves against reality. But I want to be high not because it makes me passive and comfortable; I want to be high because it makes me more truthful. The adults are comfortable and any touch of the truth rankles. I say for this generation that we are not afraid of the truth. That is our war cry. We are not afraid of experiences and of conflict and of violence because they are the path to a better world, and we have dreamed of a better world. We are now bringing this dream to war with reality, with the aid of some drugs and some drinks but mostly with the aid of the untainted innocence that is our birthright.

I say : let us embrace the conflict. Let us embrace the violence. We are warring against corporations. We are warring against liars. We are warring against the appropriation of pleasure for reasons outside the self. We are warring against God. Let there be rage and let there be violence - change and goodness know no other name.

music is an affirmation of consciousness

2011-01-14T05:33:00.002+08:00

Music is an affirmation of consciousness. Its structures belie a primary joy: the joy of existing and perceiving. The act of music-making is the fundamental act of triumph over existential angst.

The improviser chases the sacred. Scales and rhythms and pitches and sounds are our tools; by the exercise of what is inherently sacred (mind) we seek to elevate the physical.

The act of performing is an affirmation of love. Music itself expresses consciousness and joy; performance expresses the desire for communion with other consciousnesses. The appreciation of music by an audience is the moment of communion with the performer, where his subjectivity transcends its logical status as an unprovable hypothesis into an experiential reality. This is love. Hence performance seeks the same status as love, in a primary acknowledgement that both performer and audience exist in joy and consciousness.

2011

2011-01-01T12:24:00.003+08:00

It has been a great year. Coming to New York has been the best thing that has ever happened. Yet I've been sad and lonely and broken more times than I can count this year, and happy and full of life even more than that. I guess I'm thankful that I'm still breathing - we all should be.

This year has been a year of learning. I've learned that it's more important to be a good person than to be smart or clever or funny - not that those things aren't important. But they are secondary. The only thing we have in this short existence is the presence of other people to help us on our little way. It is the mystery of our lives, a nonsensical proposition we accept in order not to feel so alone - and we are accepted in order for others not to feel so alone. We have no reason to believe that anybody else exists, but the assumption is necessary - it defies logic. Yet it is not merely comforting but necessary.

I am glad for the presence of other people in my small, dark and terrifying world. It makes the nights bearable and the days joyful. My dad was right - and Zarathustra was right - you can live on the mountaintop as long as you want, but out of love you must descend into the valley to share and be shared. I miss my old friends and I cherish my new ones. I accept them unreservedly.

Every new year is bittersweet - I treasure the accumulation of the detritus of thought, of work, of love and friendships, and yet I know that I am one year closer to not existing anymore. At this age I rail against the thought. I am too much in love. But barring any bus accidents, it will get easier. Death is a slow process, and I hope by then to have accumulated the presence of the people I treasure the most to make my passing pleasant.

For 2010 I give thanks for the presence of people. For 2011 I resolve to be peaceful, to give thanks for kindness, and to be kind.

Sonic Youth - The Eternal

2010-12-30T11:20:00.006+08:00

Despite Pete Townshend's famously-reneged-on promise, rockers get old - usually with informative, if not interesting results. The increasingly inappropriately-named Sonic Youth's latest album The Eternal is a thudding collage of times and places that paints us a compelling picture of a group of aging hipsters who've internalised tragedy for no loss of rage.

What struck me about the sound of this album, with respect to the few before that, is how much more stable this sounds. It's not that they've lost their penchant for the two-guitar-noisebox-freakout (they haven't) - but where these were inchoate screeches of rage on Daydream Nation, lovestruck soundscapes on NYC Ghosts, and structural punctuation on Rather Ripped, here they are the self-assured sonic statements of a bunch of musicians past their age but not past their time. It's as if Thurston and Lee's wild noise generations have ceased to become acts of rebellion but instead have become a fully-fledged language that the whole band speaks with the ease and looseness of long-time native speakers. Where a younger Sonic Youth might have delved into more extravagant textural fuckery, this older and wiser band seems content at times to sit back, make noises, and revel quietly in the chaos.

The effect of this is perhaps more in keeping with the general feeling of the album - less personal than Rather Ripped, less political than Daydream, more focused and more song-y than NYC. In many ways it is a retrospective - 'It's been quite a ride/with you my sweet, here by my side' Thurston sings on 'What We Know'. And the creepy Kim Gordon tour-de-force that is 'Massage the History' is a powerful lament of past grief. It's no surprise that they're looking back somewhat - Kim and Thurston are what, 50? and no serious philosophy would refuse to look back and make sense of a past that must have been wilder than anything I can imagine.

Lyrically, Sonic Youth have always been dodgy - the half-written jive-verse served to signify a rebellion against the very foundations of language at its best ('Teenage Riot') and a somewhat misplaced grandeur at its worst ('Rats' - also, 'werewolf commando poison tongue?' Really, Thurston?). Here they've perhaps given up on the idea of ever writing traditionally good lyrics. Instead, they've written several highly functional songs that eschew irony purposefully. It's refreshing in some ways that they've given up posturing, and where the lyrics grate they at least make you think about what they mean, and they never mean nothing (I wish I could be/music on a tree). It could be the fan in me being charitable, but of all the strange barely-coherent inhabitants of the alternative universe, I find that these guys are probably part of the few who've transcended the need for songform and parse-able lyrics. They're still pretty terrible at it sometimes. At its best though, the lyrics hint darkly at meaning the way the music hints at structure and beauty, and never fail to bubble up from the texture at the right moments.

And that's important because primarily the Youth are a music band rather than a lyrics band, and the lyrics are fundamentally un-divorceable from the music, unlike say Paul Simon. I for one am glad that they've decided to stick to song form after the brilliant-but-almost-horrible sprawl of NYC Ghosts. As in all of their work, the actual music is the (very) necessary counterpoint to their lyrics. Now that they seem to be content with what lyrics they can muster, they can relax and let the music carry the lyrics to wherever the hell they want it to with the assuredness of master inventors. When Kim Gordon whispers grief in 'Massage the History', Thurston's wide-eyed guitar reveals a persona not broken by grief but coming out of grief looking at the world with new hope and old anger. That's a hell of an achievement for anybody, never mind a 50-year old rocker who's led the charge himself on several occasions.

I'm sure Pete Townshend is sorry that he wanted to die before he got old. Now nobody will let him live it down. He should also be sorry for missing the best thing that could happen to a rock and roller - growing old, facing down your demons and shouting your triumph and your grief to the sky. That will be the legacy of our generation, and that's what Sonic Youth have done here. Kim Gordon sums it up herself at the end of 'Massage the History' - 'Come with me to the other side/Not everyone makes it out alive'.

xmas 2010

2010-12-25T13:31:00.004+08:00

It annoys me that I should have to talk about my feelings up here where I have made the altar of reason. But I suppose I disposed with the sacrosanct along with the sacred... so what the hell.

This year has been the best and the worst at the same time, the highest and the lowest of conditions. Just 11 months back I was still 3rd Sergeant Adam, waiting for my release into the civilian world. And then it was a storm of music and friends and preparations and saying goodbyes. And then it was a storm of newness, and those were days of ecstatic freedom and then it ended.

Now it's christmastime and I'm carrying a grief heavier than my heart. It is in part a grief for the past and the familiar that I have left behind and the unfamiliar that is in my lungs and forces a new death with every passing day. But it is mostly a grief for the futures that will never happen. These days are the fulcra about which the rest of our lives revolve. Every lost opportunity is met with its echo - a wave of grief propagating ceaselessly into the future. I grieve for one particular future that is lost, in which I prophesied happiness that is now lost to me.

There are other things: the bittersweet feeling of letting the old year die and welcoming the new one. There are songs and fireplaces, and family and the sounds of children. There are the voices of old friends and the faces of the new. All of these things are the messengers of happiness. I am grateful for them, but I still grieve, and when it passes it will not be a restoration to life but the first step in preparation for death. In the meantime, I mean to live, and that may require tears.

2010-12-20T21:51:00.001+08:00

I'm a long long way from home

and I miss my lover so

In the early morning run

when the cold wind blows

- Singapore army song

2010-12-16T18:59:00.001+08:00

I did not anticipate being this far away. I did not anticipate being this alone.

On Rage

2010-12-12T10:33:00.005+08:00

There is much cause for anger for an atheist. Everyday I am confronted with new evidence of the unbelievable stupidity and ignorance (not to say violence) that religion causes. People around the world are suffering from the effects of religion, not just because religion is misappropriated by Bad People, which it is, but because religion and its texts are engines of extremism, in the words of Sam Harris. No religion that professes a text that supports slavery and capital punishment to be the Word of God will ever be free of extremism. It is not Bad People that are solely to blame: religion is inherently to blame.

The causes for rage are many - not always a personal rage, I must admit. These are things that are to some degree removed from my personal experiences. But isn't the idea of sociopolitical and humanistic awareness basically the expansion of one's own experience to include the happenings of wider society? The concern (and indignance) is valid, I feel.

Yet there is, from another point of view, little cause for rage for one such as myself. I have religious friends who are as much human beings as anybody I know. The ideological hatefulness of religion shouldn't negate my mostly-positive personal experience of religious people and religion in general.

What I'm saying I guess is that as an atheist I should be on my guard against the sort of dogmatic hate-mongering that is the mark of extremism. Which is not to say that I should not be highly outraged whenever a human being's dignity is compromised over some laughable point of theology. However, the quality of outrage is not personal, if it doesn't happen to me. It is a specific outrage directed at injustice, not a spiteful and personal vengeance. It is too easy to be monolithic about morality and blindly apply narratives across the spectrum of my experiences.

I think that the acceptance of reason as a guide to living necessitates accepting the plurality of experience. No One Thing is true - if it is we are incapable of understanding. This might mean that I find religion reprehensible on one hand and deeply love my religious friends on the other. It doesn't make much sense, but at times the reality of feelings and experience don't make sense. It is only human to make the best we can of it.

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

-Walt Whitman, 'Song of Myself'

Leo Igwe at the 2nd Annual Conference for the Free Society Institute of South Africa

2010-12-12T10:28:00.002+08:00

'To the question that brought us here today – is a secular viewpoint our best guide to moral clarity? – my answer is yes. The secular, not religious, outlook provides us a reliable framework for the expression and realization of moral excellence. The secular viewpoint is based on evidence, reason, science, common sense and human beneficence. The secular outlook is open to revision and improvement. Secular morality is a morality for this world and of this world, not for the next; it is a morality for our happiness and well being in the here and now, not in the hereafter. It is a morality for this temporary life not for an eternal afterlife in an imaginary paradise. Secular morality is a morality by us, from us and for us, not a moral decree of God from God and for us ‘wretched’ humans. Secular morality is informed by the quest to be good and to do good for goodness’ sake, not the quest to be good and to do good for God’s sake or for heaven’s sake or to avoid going to Hell.'

There is nothing more to life than chasing down every temporary high

2010-12-09T20:01:00.007+08:00

For a unbeliever,

life is a rush from peak to peak

backpacking up the steps and slopes

then a wild toboggan ride through the valleys and up some ways

I beg you not to think that that's so sad

as you daughters of the faith are wont to do

one climbs and falls

(one climbs, at any rate)

and, ascending to each peak one isn't concerned with

breathlessness and aching legs

but the sun reflecting off the lakes and the trees.

it will pass, as you say.

after the last ascent I will ride alone into the valley of death,

that cold and windy place -

but There is nothing more to life than chasing down every temporary high,

I am happy to say.

I get stronger with each ascent,

and looking out from the hilltops I know that the sun is rising

and say to myself 'It is good.'

for abigail

2010-12-07T02:54:00.001+08:00

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all gone to look for America

Give Thanks

2010-11-25T07:33:00.004+08:00

1. A man sat across me on the crowded train out of the city, carrying a bouquet of roses. The two college girls sitting with us were eyeing it. 'It's for my wife. We've been married for 25 years.' 'Oh,' I said, 'That's wonderful.' 'It's a long time. Too long. I told her that.' 'Is that why you bought the flowers?' 'Nah. I got them... just cause. We're past all that apologising and stuff.'

2. 'You know, I swear I'm gonna end up playing funk banjo or something. I'll be playing in the park and someone will come up and be all 'You know any Seeger?' and I'll be like 'I don't, but I know Tower of Power'. 'You high? I asked. 'I'm pretty high' said Dylan.

3. Kim came into the room with a bag of M&Ms. Normally she'd buy me a bag for every week I quit smoking, but I'd fallen off the bandwagon recently. 'What's this for? I've been smoking, Kim.' 'I felt bad not bringing you anything.' 'Um, okay. Tell you what, I'll only eat them after I've quit again.' I ate them anyway, feeling a little guilty.

4. '...and in every generation of musicians, there's somebody who's the Ramblin' Man. He does a deal with the devil in exchange for being really good at music. And he always sings the blues. It was B.B for awhile. Then Dylan. and then Hendrix. Are we forgetting anybody?'
'You missed Robert Johnson.'
'Jim Morrison'
'Cobain, man. He was a saint.'
'What about now, who's it now? I think it's gotta be a rapper.'
'Mos Def. Definitely Mos Def.'

5. It's alright, it's alright - you can't be forever blessed. Still, tomorrow's gonna be another working day, and I'm trying to get some rest.

6.oh dear. sato's whining
aw
i go check on him okay
one sec
idk what's wrong with him?
could it be the rash?
i don't think so
he wldn't whine
he'd just scratch
could be something internal
he's a afraid of smthing
maybe he has a stomachache
its not a whine that's sick
its an anxious whine
oh
dunno then :(
and he keeps pacing
idk
i gave him a blanket
to cover with
so he'd feel safer.
:)
well you can't talk to him so there isn't much you can do
i did talk to him
but he's not really listening
do you want to go down to be with him for awhile?

7. Don’t know a soul that’s not been battered,
don’t have a friend who feels at ease
Don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered,
or driven to its knees

8. And now, Let the weak say "I am strong"
Let the poor say "I am rich"
Because of what the Lord has done for us,

Give thanks

9. her lymph node test results are out. all 27 are negative from any signs of the cancer spreading!

10. ‘You know, it’s my first thanksgiving.’
‘Is that so? Prepare to get fat, then’
‘Turkey coma. Watch out.’

2010-11-24T06:57:00.000+08:00

Spiritual Dimensions preliminary

2010-11-22T09:44:00.003+08:00

So I'm one and a half times through this album, and still deciding what to think.

On the one hand - when they get going (both bands) they are powerful and persuasively energetic. Check out the Golden Quartet version of 'South Central L.A. Kulture' for a great example of the band searing on a post-electric Miles sort of tune, which breaks down, then breaks up for no loss of effect.

For the Organic band, 'Angela Davis' is a driving statement where the 4 guitar format gets to unleash its inherent chaos to great effect.

On the other hand - Vijay Iyer's avant-gardisms sound a little trite to me at times. I don't think he completely lives up to the role. But where he's allowed flashes of tonality he demonstrates the same power heard on his solo albums.

The 4 guitar band works on the loud songs where chaos is rewarded, but every slow section quickly loses its erection and turns to mush. It seems like they're avoiding each other so much that no music happens - and the prog-rock-y sections just annoy me to no end because they're devoid of the dirtiness and grit that's the saving characteristic of Miles-ean funk, just like much of modern jazz (and indeed most of prog-rock. I mean you, Thom Yorke.)

Commentary on Harris vs Sullivan

2010-11-18T12:39:00.002+08:00

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Secular-Philosophies/Is-Religion-Built-Upon-Lies.aspx

This is a really good debate on the issues of religion. And Sullivan makes probably the most convincing argument about religion that I've ever seen, and he's greatly increased my understanding of people of faith.

On the other hand, Sam Harris pretty much demolishes him in the reason department, and Sullivan basically concedes the debate in his last post, saying that he is unequal to the arguments presented (or somesuch). I shan't make this another self-righteous atheist post crowing about some victory or other, though. I'm more interested in Sullivan than I am in Harris, although Harris is making clearer and better arguments.

Sullivan's argument cuts to the chase of a religious person's faith. He writes of the serenity of knowing that a benign power guides our lives, and that the keystone of that belief is that such a power demonstrated its concern by becoming human. If nothing, that is a beautiful, comforting belief. I can and do admit that much.

Let me offer my alternative though: I believe in the fundamental goodness of human beings. I believe that that goodness reveals itself when we submit ourselves with humility to the truth that we discern with our reason. We have never experienced a better way to do things. Sullivan argues that the point of our existence cannot be reduced to a quest for truth: ultimately, in the moment of death, we must have made peace with existence. Or, to put it another way, that the need for happiness, not the need for truth, is the most fundamental human need. Sullivan uses that to justify religion, which I don't agree with, but I agree with the principle. However, I think, as does Harris, that you can't untangle happiness from the truth. I have lived by this principle and it has never failed me.

Adam

2010-11-18T03:04:00.001+08:00

everything is broken.

reassembling

2010-11-17T14:51:00.002+08:00

I've had a pretty bad week. Still, when you pick the pieces up off the floor sometimes you find things you've never known were there.

I wish things could have been different. And I demand the right to could've and should've myself into whatever corner pleases me, leave me that much.

The quality of affection is not strained, however. I guess I can say that things will be alright, and that there will be smiles to come.

That is all.

2010-11-16T22:02:00.001+08:00

I woke up sobbing again. I am running out of patience.

You can't be forever blessed.

2010-11-15T09:39:00.004+08:00

Many's the time I've been mistaken, and many times confused
And I've often felt forsaken, and certainly misused.
But it's all right, it's all right, I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be bright and Bon Vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home.
I don't know a soul who's not been battered
Don't have a friend who feels at ease
Don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to its knees.
But it's all right, all right, We've lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on,
I wonder what went wrong, I can't help it
I wonder what went wrong.
And I dreamed I was flying. I dreamed my soul rose
unexpectedly, and looking back down on me, smiled
reassuringly, and I dreamed I was dying.

And far above, my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty, drifting away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying.
We come on a ship we call the Mayflower,
We come on a ship that sailed the moon
We come at the age's most uncertain hour
And sing an American tune

But it's all right, its all right
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's gonna be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest,
That's all, I'm trying to get some rest.

The Good News

2010-11-14T13:13:00.003+08:00

is that there is no judgement other than our own

that we are free, as we have always been,

to love and be loved

to create and be created

and in every second that goes by

rings the joyous tumble of fears.

A statement of purpose

2010-11-10T09:39:00.004+08:00

So a very very good friend of mind exhorted me recently to re-consider my religious beliefs. I felt it would be doing her and myself a dishonour not to do so sincerely and honestly.

I read the Bible (parts of it anyway - I AM in college.) I familiarised myself with apologetics. I revisited philosophy. Mostly, I spent a good amount of time thinking.

So I'm happy to report that no conclusion has been reached other than the current affirmation of my previously-unproclaimed atheism. I wish to put this out for the world to see today - I am coming out of the closet, so to speak. I am an atheist. I believe in no God, no creator, and I do not accept Jesus as my lord and saviour. This is not a fully-considered belief. I have not familiarised myself with all the arguments at hand; I have not read all the books on the subjects or spoken to all the experts. However, I have reflected and found that no observation of mine or knowledge that I claim to have in any way supports the doctrines of any religion.

I believe in the supremacy of reason. I believe that it will be mankind's salvation. I believe that life has a purpose and a meaning, and that every human being deserves to be treated with love, compassion and respect. I have not lived up to this always, but I believe in it. I believe that science is the highest discipline man can aspire to, and that logical reasoning is the key to a life well-lived. These beliefs have borne me through the most difficult of times.

I believe in the intrinsic value of all human beings, which derives from no God and no external power other than the happiness we are miraculously able to experience and the principles we derive for ourselves, through the exercise of our intellect.

This is by no means the end of any discussion - I look forward to a life fraught with doubt, the daily challenge, and the soaring joy of finding my own way.

Adam

2010-11-10T08:59:00.001+08:00

My heart has broken many times for the plight of humanity, but perhaps never as badly as for the Christians, who suffer and only become weaker. If there is one thing mankind deserves it is the fruit of his suffering.

2010-11-01T20:23:00.001+08:00

am being punished by millions of years of evolution right now. FML.

The Trees 2

2010-10-29T21:36:00.003+08:00

The Trees

2010-10-29T00:30:00.001+08:00

are turning yellow one by one. I've seen snows but not falls, so this is a new experience for me. Pretty.

for bo and me courtesy of Ira Kaplan. (punctuation by me)

2010-10-25T09:20:00.004+08:00

Hey Mr. Tough, don't you think we've suffered enough? Why don't you meet me on the dancefloor when it's Tiny Tom time? And if you need to tell me something once you won't have to say it twice. And if you ask for a nickel I'm gonna hand you a dime. And we'll forget about our problems, if only for a little while, and leave our worries in the corner - leave them in a big, big pile. Pretend! Everything can be alright.

Hey Mrs. Blue, time to think of something new. The Possum's spinning our hips, the old soft shoe. And if you wanna lose the rest of the night there's nothing better I have to do. And if I tell you something you won't have to ask if it's true. And we'll forget about our problems, if only for a little while, and leave our worries in the corner - leave them in a big, big pile.

Pretend everything can be alright.

thoughts on jazz

2010-10-22T21:33:00.002+08:00

1. without a new intellectual leader a la bird, coltrane, ornette, ayler, jazz will die. Rand was right. There are no immediately observable consequences of having a solid intellectual foundation, but without it the music will die. Wynton Marsalis may be a great trumpet player but he's a hack and has done nothing to underpin the intellectual foundations of this music. That is why we don't rally behind him anymore.

2. it was said of Rene Chateaubriand that he was 'incapable of writing any character other than himself', and that he was a 'poet rather than a novelist', even though he wrote novels. This distinction is useful in thinking about jazz. Jazz is poetry rather than prose: this is not to suggest that other music is prosaic. Rather, a jazz musician is incapable of writing a song other than himself - in some sense, jazz songs are not independent works at all but templates applied to personality. In this sense, all jazz songs are the same because they express exactly the same thing, which is the totality of the performer. B.B. King's autobiography includes a quote from Bird to the effect that jazz music was essentially the blues. This is what I think he probably meant - that the musical relationship of performer to sound remains rooted in that tradition of personal expression that originates in the blues.

This is not to suggest that programmatic jazz is impossible. It has definitely been done - Night in Tunisia comes to mind, as well as Syeeda's Song Flute, just to cite two of the most overt examples. Jazz that aims to represent rather than express inevitably fails, however - which is my pet peeve with a lot of modern jazz. When Charlie Parker played Night in Tunisia, the exotica was of secondary concern to his soloing, which was exactly what it had always been - a torrent of (i hesitate to say emotion) intensity of experience.

This situates jazz firmly in the modernist tradition. There have been many comparisons between baroque improvisation and jazz; certainly the forms and techniques are very similar, but my argument is that the purposes differ. The sense of self that jazz requires is very much a modern construct that did not exist in the form it does today pre-20th century.

This idea also helps us unite the disparity of post-1960s jazz, which is a major concern today. There are few ideas today which can reconcile the 'historical' movement (wynton et al) and the free movement (ornette). My argument is that the essence of jazz is not a system of blues and altered harmony and syncopation like Wynton says - nor is it the endless pursuit of the new like some of the freedom players espouse. The essence of jazz really is this particular relationship of performer to improvised music which comes from the blues, and I believe that anything that claims to be jazz but strays from this principle immediately calls into question the necessity and quality of the performance.

There have been a few musicians recently (or not so - Duke Ellington said the same thing) who are for discarding the term 'jazz' entirely. I can see why this is an attractive concept. Calling it simply 'music' invokes a kind of universal quality of the performance and gives it the importance of a primary idea. I think there is probably some merit in this - but like it or not a certain idiom of expression is going to continue to exist, and the only reason why this is important is because this idiom contains the elements that are necessary for jazz to be compelling. Genre labelling is largely superfluous, but to call something jazz is perhaps to give an idea to the listener of what is happening. That has merit.

3. Jason Moran is the fucking bomb. He totally deserved that Macarthur.

2010-10-22T18:41:00.001+08:00

Some reassembly required.

brooklyn 1

2010-10-10T21:29:00.001+08:00

brooklyn is much more spacious than manhattan. It sits just to the east, across the harlem river, joined by the williamsburg and brooklyn bridges. the distance is deceptive, needless to say. a 40 minute train ride isn't too long but stepping off i felt like Neil Armstrong; a month in Manhattan doesn't prepare you for this. what struck me was the emptiness. i don't mean that there is a surfeit of space but that the city in brooklyn does not acknowledge you the way it does in Manhattan. it carries on its way of life as if you weren't there. manhattan is for consumers: walking down broadway you notice that every sign was written for you, but in brooklyn the signs signify nothing but the life you aren't privy to.
Hence I felt a sense of tranquility, knowing that as I walked down the streets of brooklyn I only existed in my mind.

2010-09-28T04:45:00.001+08:00

smiles we gave to one another/for the way we were

david s.ware's version of this song is heartbreaking. also, the original = yes.

adam

2010-08-23T18:35:00.002+08:00

I know you're hurting and so am I. It seems ridiculous that we should punish ourselves for doing what comes naturally, but there it is. Anyway, know that I'm with you through all this, and that letting go is probably the hardest and the best thing we could do for each other. Peace.

2010-08-16T02:17:00.002+08:00

I can't asleep again so I'll drag up the old remedy : writing. I think it's time that I recap the last few months, bag them up and put them aside so I can move on.

These have not been easy months. While my friends have been busy getting on with their lives I've been stuck in a kind of limbo, practicing and wondering if I should be doing something more. I haven't figured this out yet. These have also been lonely months, partly because I've isolated myself and partly because I haven't sought out what little company was available. I haven't really figured this out either. I don't know if my decisions have made me an irrevocably unlikable person, or if i'm just bad at it. And after all this time of trying to decide what to do with my life the only conclusion I can come to is a resounding I don't know.

I am excited to leave, but the reason I haven't been sleeping is that I know I'm going to lose my last few precious connections with the human world. I don't know why this is so unsettling, but it is keeping me up. On the other hand, I have much to be grateful for - my friends, my work, and the musicians who were magnanimous enough to help me on my way. I suppose it isn't a plan, but it's something.

Maybe I needed this slow dissolution. It's helped me sort out some priorities. Maybe I'll be able to really start afresh in New York.

I haven't figured this out yet.

Still, there are people who deserve a little recognition - friends (quek, lee, anna, d, and wang; bo and abby; rayner and zh; jon, ben and yizhe, nick) and musicians (andrew lim, andrew klein, weixiang, rick, aya, wen and nicky) - i really want out of this country, but I wish i didn't have you leave you all behind.

2010-07-14T19:46:00.002+08:00

I need to write this all down so I don't forget it sometime. Artists i need to check out -

Black Star (Mos Def and Talib Kweli)

A Tribe Called Quest

David S. Ware

Roscoe Mitchell

Lee Konitz

James 'Blood' Ulmer

The Stooges

Jackie McLean

birthday girl

2010-07-04T00:12:00.002+08:00

One of the saddest songs I've ever heard, by the Roots. Is this all we have to look forward to when we turn 18? Poor girl.

What is it we wanna do?
Now that I'm allowed to be alone with you
Birthday Girl its your birthday
Wherever you wanna go
Now you are old enough to go and see the R-rated show now
R-rated show

Yo, She said she was a magazine editor named Janine
Backstage in high heels and painted on jeans
Probably had the most devious eyes I'd ever seen
Told me she was twenty-two she was only seventeen
She had sumthin' to hide she snuck in from outside
And got everybody gassed like the car I drive
With all that grown lady ass and my far out vibe
She said she came to see them roots boys fallout live
But listen,

What is it we wanna do?
Now that I'm allowed to be alone with you
Birthday Girl its your birthday
Wherever you wanna go
Now you are old enough to go and see the R-rated show now
R-rated show

You see them girls look good but they brains not ready
I talk to a woman, her mind is more steady
Probably something in the way they designed that's more steady
I just let you inside cause the line so heavy
But I shoulda known better cause now I feel like America's underbelly
R. Kelly gutter smut peddlers, internet predators, chat-room irregulars
This not my twist you trying to send me to the therapist, miss

What is it we wanna do?
Now that I'm allowed to be alone with you
Birthday Girl its your birthday
Wherever you wanna go
Now you are old enough to go and see the R-rated show now
R-rated show

Now she told me cheddar cheese grits
Two tomato fried fish
Cause she heard its my dish
Tryna be my sidekick
All the people all around thinking she was my chick
Saying DAMN the girl thick
But she aint no twenty-six
Looking at me like I'm up to sumthin' on the funny tip
Like I ever been the one to honey jib
Its your birthday so let me know the gift you wanna get
In fact blow out the candles on the cake and make a wish for me

They can't really seem to look away
So they tried asking her to stay
Fake I.D. you won't get turned away
You look lovely tonight
Now you'e old enough to buy a gun
So many better ways of having fun
Right now I can only think of one
You look lovely tonight.

What is it we wanna do?
Now that I'm allowed to be alone with you
Birthday Girl its your birthday
Wherever you wanna go
Now you are old enough to go and see the R-rated show now
R-rated show

2010-06-27T05:23:00.002+08:00

Oh, I needed to dance so badly. When you dance, your soul becomes free. We should all dance more often.

2010-06-06T03:39:00.002+08:00

I took a trip on a train and I thought about you.
I passed a shadowy lane and I thought about you.
Two or three cars parked under the stars a winding stream.
Moon shining down on some little town
And with each beam the same old dream.
And every stop that we made I thought about you.
And when I pulled down the shade then I really felt blue.
I peaked through the crack and looked at the track,
The one going back to you and what did I do?
I thought about you.
There were two or three cars parked under the stars...
a windin' stream.
Moon shining down on some little town
And with each beam the same old dream.
And then I peaked through the crack and I looked at that track,
The one going back to you, and what did I do...
I thought about you.

jazz for punks

2010-05-31T02:19:00.003+08:00

So I blew 28 bucks on a 5-cd Miles collection, this time of his earlier work - 'Round about Midnight, Milestones, Porgy and Bess et cetera.

For me that first Columbia record, 'Round about Midnight', has quickly become one of my favourite albums to listen to. This is jazz that a punk rocker can get behind - it's never afraid to usurp a couple of pop tunes, never afraid to play a simple progression, and it's driven by the sheer rhythmic energy of the chambers-philly jo rhythm section, who are the hardest swinging cats I've ever heard. The bare-bones aesthetic that Miles had here is the sort of thing I wish I heard more often. For an interesting comparison, put on Patti Smith's 'Horses' after this one.

adam

Keith Jarrett

2010-05-26T23:17:00.008+08:00

ok first off, go here:

http://yourmusiceducation.blogspot.com

cos Yizhe's put up a little weekly music appreciation series of articles there and i think he's done a damn fine job and you'd be doing yourself a favour if you went over there and started reading from article 1.

Now, to business. This is a bit strange coming from me, because I'm right up there (or down there) in the noise-as-art camp as far as my preferred timbre goes, which means Hendrix over Clapton, Thurston Moore and Ira Kaplan and Kurt Cobain over Slash, and Coltrane's late 60s output over... well, just about anything at all. So it's a bit uncharacteristic to be plugging here somebody who puts out so much... well, pleasant music. His short stint with Miles aside, Jarrett is the sort of sensitive pianist I'd love to hate, and as you could expect I was pretty stunned to find out that I don't. But the Noise-as-art thing is pretty maligned anyway. I don't think just any noise qualifies as just any art. My underlying point (i say presumptuously) has been that I expect a player to play not just the pitches but the sonorities of the instrument at hand. All the great musicians of this century have. Think. Where would jazz be if Louis Armstrong hadn't reached for those ear-splitting high notes? They were great notes, better than if a piano player had merely reached his right arm a little and played the high G, because they strained the timbre of his instrument. In that moment, the urgency and the stress of holding that impossible embouchure became the urgency of the music. What about Monk? Nobody else in the world could make the piano sound like what it really looks like - an impossible, plinky contraption with far too many corners. And the great modern pianist Vijay Iyer says in this interview that each of his voicings was a sound rather than a collection of notes :

A close study of Monk’s playing reveals this spectral quality of his chords, this clear perception of higher harmonics in the sound of the piano. In order to activate these higher partials, he had to play with a little more force than the average pianist, to get the instrument ringing and shaking. In this sense harmony and tone were integrated concepts. This is why I call them “sounds” rather than “chords”; they are not theoretical constructs but vibratory experiences—actual, specific sensations—and they feel good.

And if we reach a little further into the late 60s, saxophonists like Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Albert Ayler were establishing something that should've stayed with us to this date but sadly hasn't - the primacy of sound as the first fundamental of music. Taking a historical perspective, it makes sense - before the advent of tuned instruments, we must still have had music. Even in tonal music today, it irks me horribly to see a guitarist playing Bird licks. I mean, they're fine as harmonic studies, sure, but rarely on the stage. They worked for Charlie Parker partly because he was Charlie Parker and he wrote them, but also because he was playing a goddamn alto saxophone. The sort of things that work for an altoist don't work for a guitarist because the instruments are different! This is what Ornette was getting at when he talked for ages about how a Bb on the alto was different from a Bb on the piano.

Anyway, having taken the grand detour through the history of jazz, let's get back to Jarrett, and this clip. 'I loves you, Porgy' (spelt with the s!) is one of my favourite ballads of all time, and this is hands down my favourite version of it. It beats the Bill Evans and the Miles version. And you might be thinking that Keith Jarrett plays it awful straight for someone who's supposed to be a top notch jazz musician, aren't they supposed to make everything weird and substitute all the chords? (Here's Vijay Iyer playing a certain John Lennon song.) He doesn't. What he does do though is play it using the sonorities of the piano. That crystal clear, bell-tone he gets out of his fingers makes the joy of the melody a palpable feeling, like floating on air. And it's a sad song! That's the blues right there, the approach that makes joy out of sadness ... and in one act Jarrett has covered almost every historical aspect of jazz. The joy of listening to Jarrett isn't just the joy of hearing a wonderful tune interpreted well, it's the joy of listening to the sound of a piano. I think we're missing some of that today. In any case, you oughta check him out.

adam

p.s.

Check this out if you want to hear him getting seriously freaky. Nope, he's not all tame at all.

twenty one

2010-05-15T03:57:00.002+08:00

i didn't want to have a party, initially, because this is such a terrifying year.

thanks to everybody who came.

and as much as it feels good to appreciated, i know this is going to be a lonely one, because I've chosen loneliness out of all the possibilities of turning 21.

I know that I'll never forgive myself should I give in to loneliness, and that I'll suffer if I don't give in. Sweet damnation I've chosen. But I think that choice is too much of an illusion here.

adam

2010-05-09T23:00:00.002+08:00

' You know, sometimes we're not prepared for adversity. When it happens sometimes we're caught short. We don't know exactly how to handle it when it comes up. Sometimes we don't know just what to do when adversity takes over. And I have advice for all of us. I got it from my pianist Joe Zawinul, who wrote this tune, and it sounds like what you're supposed to say when you have that kind of problem. It's called 'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy'. '

- Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley

2010-04-21T22:24:00.001+08:00

Ami oh, le monde est ma maison
Et le ciel est mon toit
Viens avec moi
Ami oh, l'amour est ma raison
Et le bonheur ma loi
Viens avec moi

Ami oh, l'amour est ma raison
Et le bonheur ma loi
Viens avec moi
Ami oh, le monde est ma maison
Et le ciel est mon toit
Viens avec moi

Bizarrely, I could only get the french version.

2010-04-20T23:21:00.002+08:00

Whatever you want from me

is what I wanna do for you

sweeter than a drop of blood on a sugarcube

Yo La Tengo makes a great case for songwriting: the lyric doesn't seem like much on the page, but it gains life when it's sung by Ira and James in half-whispered harmony. It gains a certain amount of conflictedness that isn't apparent just reading the text. Plus, Ira just knows how to rock out.

adam

Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

2010-04-16T00:00:00.002+08:00

This one took awhile. I ordered the album from Memphis Music sometime around last year and pretty much left it to rot on my mp3 player until just about recently. Sometimes developments in jazz just don't hit you until you've absorbed the prerequisite - in my case it was Mingus's language of gospel and spirituals. But don't mistake this for a spiritual music - in many ways it sounds to me like a sober but sympathetic take on the ins and outs of faith. The star of the album I'd say is 'Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul', some kind of speedy gospel rampage in 3/4, like a 30s shout chorus sans arrangements, and so much more exuberant for it. Mingus locks up with Walter Perkins like some terrifying lopsided locomotive and lets the saxophonists burn the upper registers.

When I say 'language of gospel and spirituals' I really do mean a whole paradigm that Mingus absorbed into the language of jazz - the call-and-response, first seen in the New Orleans bands but gradually lost to swing and bebop, and the open, improvised, multi-participatory nature of a church spiritual. The rest of the album trundles along, and I'm probably not doing it enough justice by just talking about this one fascinating aspect, because in every other facet Mingus is a composer of astounding sensitivity. 'Theme for Lester Young' or 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat' is one of his enduring classics, and Eric Dolphy himself lets rip on the cunningly titled 'Hora Decubitus'. It's a bit too late to tell you it's an album worth listening to - that's been established by musicians and writers alike years ago. I'll tell you, however, that it's an album that could open your ears the way it did mine.

adam

polemic time

2010-03-27T23:33:00.004+08:00

I've been feeling crappy for a whole day so now it's time to take it out on the internet.

This is something I've been getting for awhile. You see, I'm a bit of a guitarist, and I try to play jazz, and I like to think I can play the blues with some measure of ability. And I listen to this stuff, and I love it dearly - you know, Stevie Ray and Miles Davis and John Coltrane and the Marsalis Brothers and whatnot. It's the great music of our century. So when I tell people, usually musicians, that I kind of like Lady Gaga they usually give me a look of disbelief. Naturally most of my musician friends don't like that all her songs sound the same and have silly lyrics and they pretty much assume I'm rationalising some kind of primitive connection to the music that's beneath my intellectual heritage. I mean, having listened to the Coltrane, how can you - to take a line from Christgau - continue to push that second-rate shit?

And there goes pretty much all of the great pop music that's being released today, at this very moment. The Black Eyed Peas. Lady Gaga. Outkast (good god, Outkast. I love them). Make no mistake - I do not rationalise the irrational. My attraction to pop music is not a guilty pleasure. Sure it's not a Love Supreme - but why need it be? Pop has sociological complexity which comes of the form rather than of the music. It's like how Yoko Ono's room full of sawn furniture pretty much lacked any classical beauty, but still managed to say something. Good pop today transcends phoniness the same way the experimentalism of the no wave and noise movements transcended ugliness. We miss that, us Serious Musicians with our 20th-century theory and our heads full of Schoenberg and African music.

And them come the accusations that I'm over-analysing. Bullshit! My material comes from the artists themselves. Elton John : The best pop is disposable. Andy Warhol. Madonna. Michael Jackson. Sure nobody can accuse Britney or Hilary Duff (neither of which I really like) of having an intellectual justification, but the beauty of it is that (as Yizhe rightly pointed out) modern pop is a collaborative effort more than any music in the past. It's producer, artist, song-writer, marketing team, record label. They sell an image. Phony, yeah - but definitely self-aware. And we who spend all our time listening to so much great music have made the mistake of only hearing music. That's the prejudice John Cage talked about when he said we discriminate against non-musical sounds - only now our concept of 'musical' is loftier. But we've missed the forest for the trees. Art is the overarching aim, not music. Music exists in the service of art. Pop is a sociological construct and I think it qualifies for any definition of Art anybody cares to challenge me with. We listen to Poker Face's 4 chords and silly lyric and we think 'oh, that can't be good. it has no musical value'. And that's a damn shame.

EDIT: Here's a great one. 'Fire Burnin' on the Dance Floor' - Sean Kingston. Haven't been able to get it out of my head since last year.

mental note

2010-03-25T20:20:00.002+08:00

i'm sure this proves somehow that I'm slowly losing it, but I need to write this down.

I have chased the ghost of the moment down the byroads of rationality. I know them like the lines on my palm now and he cannot hide there anymore.

adam

hypothesis #2

2010-03-22T23:13:00.004+08:00

That Pirsig book is a good one.

Here's another one: art is a product of personhood, which means it's a product of genuine understanding. Pirsig writes : to paint a perfect painting - make yourself perfect, then just paint naturally. That's an interesting thought. And I doubt he means personhood in the wishy washy, let's donate to charity sort of sense, but personhood as in the genuine commitment to quality in all aspects and in understanding foremost. I don't mean just the nuts and bolts business - scales and harmony and structure and all that (which is important) but I'm really trying to get at that Nietzche thing, the assigning of value. That defines a person - the willingness and ability to assign value based on experience.

Additionally, a deficiency in art is not a deficiency in skill, although that is a factor. It's also a deficiency in understanding that nobody is exempt from. In that sense our modern worldview is a bit twisted in its arbitrary division of art from everything else. Life and Art are just two sides of the same coin, and living itself is an art. That's just something I should write down before I forget it.

hypothesis

2010-03-22T22:39:00.002+08:00

Here's a thought, brought on by Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -

We always think of musicians as performers. A musician's work is validated by his performance on stage. It's a widely held opinion that the defining act of musicianship is the stage performance (in the case of jazz players, the improvisation) and that practice is just a necessary preparation for that one act.

I think though, hypothetically, that the defining act of musicianship includes practice and the act of searching for what Pirsig calls 'Quality'. In fact, it could just be more important than the performance itself. In that sense, practice is as much a component of the art as performance. I think the musician should be distinguished from the performer - a musician is a performer but a performer is not necessarily a musician.

Just musing, what do you all think?

adam

2010-03-22T01:08:00.002+08:00

I only had hopes for achieving some sort of necessity with music. Or maybe i just want to play the fucking guitar. That's the best sort of guitar, you know? but why is it so difficult.

adam

Lionel Loueke

2010-03-19T10:11:00.003+08:00

That was probably the best concert I've watched this Mosaic season. I don't really want to compare him to Branford, who's almost an institution in the intellectual landscape of today's jazz scene, but I enjoyed the concert thoroughly. The spirit displayed was something rarely seen nowadays - a sort of urgency - i think necessity is the word, of the music. The best music sounds inevitable rather than contrived - it sounds like it's been around forever and all the musician had to do was discover it.

It brought to mind something Ornette Coleman said in an interview (and this is the smartest man ever to be completely unable to explain himself, mind) - that a B flat on a saxophone or a trumpet is not the same as a B flat on a piano or a guitar. What he meant is that pitch is only one aspect of the note, and that sound must be considered in its entirety - timbre, rhythm and placement being equally important and (in his own music) equivalent. Jazz is notorious for putting emphasis on the pitch of the notes. The more modern jazz gets, the more interchangeable its instruments get. I've heard the Coltrane solo from 'Giant Steps' played on steel pans, of all things. So last night it was a new thing and indeed a relief to hear Lionel Loueke not just play jazz on the guitar but play the timbre of the guitar as well as the pitch of the strings. Everything fit into his sonic conception, which had the joy of the African pop musics (a language I must learn) as well as the sophistication of jazz.

A night to remember.

adam

branford

2010-03-17T22:31:00.002+08:00

I'm listening to him do 'A Love Supreme' now - and naturally, to compare anything to the original is futile. I think he sounds much more...vernacular than Trane. I think he's probably incapable of the spirituality of the original (who IS?) but he's an excellent saxophonist nonetheless.

He seems to be highly original within the context of that vernacular though. I watched his concert a few days back and was very impressed. He and his brother are capable of wielding the entire history of jazz as intellectual material. For example - listen to his treatment of the standard 'Cheek to Cheek' on the Contemporary Jazz album, where he dices the melody. It might sound like another bebop workout, but I prefer to see it as a reimagining of the concept of 'dancing' in the new era of music, and I think that intent was not lost on him when he was playing it.

I think my frustration with his 'A Love Supreme' is that it copies entirely the form of the original but misses the intent. Taken for what it is though, rather than what it tries to be - it's still by any form of reckoning a fine example of modern jazz. I'll listen to it any day.

adam

good ol' Neil

2010-03-16T19:53:00.002+08:00

Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life,
Twenty four
and there's so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two.

Love lost, such a cost,
Give me things
that don't get lost.
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true.

Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town.
Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you.

I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I'm all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true.

Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even as I've dedicated the next few months to Jazz, it does me good to dust off some of the other records and have a listen. I love Neil Young dearly.

adam

Dear Joel

2010-03-10T06:24:00.002+08:00

I just met you the night before you had to go, so it isn't up to me to put you at peace or to set the record straight or anything. But anyway epitaphs are written for the living. There is a kinship among musicians - I hope I don't presume too much - and any death in this tiny little community is a big one: It saddens me to think that now I'll never know you or hear you play.

Please give my love to Trane and Miles and the Duke. I don't really believe in the afterlife but who knows? For what it's worth, I hope you're somewhere jamming with them.

Rest in peace man.

adam

things i have learned from my friends

2010-03-04T20:33:00.002+08:00

1. It is possible to listen to shitty music and still be in a loving, committed relationship.

2. people may, on occasion, when the season is due, in the fullness of time, have their uses.

adam

poker and evolutionary biology

2010-02-25T04:25:00.002+08:00

Props to Mr. Dawkins here.

Behavioral evolution dictates that males invest less in offspring (males of this species, at any rate) because the creation of offspring costs them less than the female.

It's like a poker hand - the female is the big blind, and no matter what the cards are there is an investment of time and energy into the child, in the form of the pregnancy term. The male is the dealer - he may fold at any point for no loss in terms of resources expended. This dictates classic behaviour - men seek physical relationships because it is expedient to invest as little and spread the genes as wide as possible. Females seek commitment because they stand to lose in abandoning offspring, and they stand to lose if a partner should abandon them. Men invest nothing from a purely reproductive standpoint (or almost nothing beyond the energy used to create the sperm, which is nothing compared to the burden of carrying the child).

This might dictate societal standards, which are largely females' play at evening the playing field - males are expected to invest in relationships more so than females, from a societal standpoint. Time and resources are expected from men. They are expected to make the move. This is a form of investment demanded by society, and the penalty for disobedience is ostracism.

just a little thought. I'm sure any real biologists could put me right on any salient points I misrepresented.

4.03 am, acerbic

2010-02-25T04:02:00.002+08:00

I hope this isn't construed as an attack, but it probably will be by people too timid to formulate a response. So what's there to lose?

I am always provoked to philosophising whenever I go clubbing (which is maybe why I do it). It is one of the most pointless and empty activities available to my generation, which in a world thatincludes WoW and Facebook, is saying a lot. It's a meaningless parade of skin and glitter and the stench of a hundred frustrated guys crowding the dance floor trying to get some action.

Yet I go back. Some days for the music (because I dearly love hip-hop) and some days just to engage in the games that are played. There is an energy at work that's bigger than the crowd. It's the aura of consensual (and sensual) futility, at once frustrated with the pointlessness of the world at large and society's fulfilment-seeking subtext. It says - if the world of work and study is empty and the world of relationships is doomed to caricatured gestures signifying meaning but devoid of weight - then let us play. We embrace futility, but it must be fun. I think this is the rallying cry of my generation. It is nihilistic but not solipsistic - it rejects meaning but embraces the masses, the popular, the social animal. It accepts that the give and take of relationships is little more than a game played for one's own profit, but denies that two players may not both gain in the struggle.

I think modern religion places too high a premium on fulfilment. It places too high a premium on peace, which is another word for wretched contentment. Why not live empty? I need no cosmic justification for my own pleasure, and in every moment wasted I revel in the struggle.

adam

Wayne Shorter

2010-02-24T21:52:00.002+08:00

I blew my $30 bucks of HMV vouchers on two Wayne Shorter albums -

'Speak No Evil' from the (I believe) post-messengers-pre-miles period, and 'Beyond the Sound Barrier' with the excellent Footprints Live! quartet.

I've heard more of 'Beyond the Sound Barrier', and it is proving to be highly enjoyable. Modern jazz at its best - challenging yet eminently enjoyable. This album is a good starting place for anyone looking to get into jazz after the 80s (we're all trying to forget about that decade - Dave Weckl's band and Chick Corea's shirts).

adam

music

2010-02-22T02:42:00.002+08:00

><. The amount of work ahead of me boggles the mind. I'll have to get to it.

miles davis '80s

2010-02-15T09:16:00.002+08:00

Two conceptually important recordings here - his two pop covers, one of Michael Jackson's 'Human Nature' and one of Cyndi Lauper's 'Time after Time'.

These recordings are by no means jazz in the traditional sense, but it's good to note that by this point Miles had pretty much given up on jazz. 'Let the white boys have it,' he said. I am one of those Miles-for-lifers though, and I don't reject his fusion, funk and later pop oeuvre. I personally think he stuck to his musical guns until the day he died, and these records are only proof of his all-encompassing vision.

There are naysayers who complain that Miles abandoned jazz for commercial music of disputable quality. I believe no such thing occured - if anything, the sheer quality that he imparts to the commercial music he performed in the 80s is a testament to his musical imagination. 'Human Nature' is played with a joie de vivre that is almost infectious, and his talent for understated romanticism takes him places on 'Time after Time'. Sure, it ain't jazz, but who cares? It is a pop record of rare poise and sensibility. And I'm glad he made it.

2010-02-10T13:53:00.001+08:00

I've come down with some kind of sickness, and I'm not referring to the metaphorical sort. Yuck.

adam

ORD

2010-02-09T10:57:00.003+08:00

what's there to say. So many things I could've been doing, yet I feel little regret. The most important thing I learned is to wear suffering like a crown - not to be bitter or hateful but to seek it out, and as Nietzsche said, to exult in your strength.

I don't feel any regret, but there's a good deal of anger left which I hope will help me catch up with what I've missed - my music, my friends and my studies. Yes, it was a time of anger. I've learned to hate efficiently, a life skill no doubt.

whatever. there's no use pontificating anymore - I have a life to get on with.

adam

the joys of chameleon

2010-02-06T10:43:00.002+08:00

I had another go at 'Head Hunters' recently. I think I can pretty safely reaffirm my appreciation of this album - the Herbie's first go at getting funky, and what a go.

I'd like to use a phrase Robert Christgau used to describe Joni Mitchell's 'Both Sides Now' - 'beguiling logic'. That's what comes to mind listening to Chameleon, which sounds as modern as any of the electronic dance tracks you hear in clubs, only twice as kicking, and with that something special - that logical progression. At first I only heard the repetition, and it does go on - it's probably the longest iteration of AABA songform in the history of popular music (the A goes on for 4 minutes) - then I heard the slow, incremental, but fabulously satisfying development. Herbie plays the band like a keyboard here, never varying the drum beat or the two-note Clavinet melody (that IS the melody. not the horns!) or the envelope-filtered bassline. He just adds and subtracts layers at will. It's the horns sometimes, playing riffs, or its his keyboards howling.

There's something fundamental that Herbie grasped about funk here that I think could be missing in the music scene in Singapore. Nothing here (save the keyboard solo) is any kind of showboating. In fact, it's the exact opposite - five musicians in service of the groove. Personalities are laid aside (find me a drummer who'll play the exact same beat for 12 minutes at a go and I'll show you Moe Tucker, who didn't play funk unfortunately). Even Herbie's solo tinkles along at a relaxed pace, almost gloating in its relaxation. And that's the point. This is music for dancing, not for blowing or beating or getting faster. And Herbie shows his mastery of composition with a piece that never devolves into histrionics but slowly unfolds like origami over 16 minutes. I want to see that live.

adam

all the things that made me happy today (5th Feb)

2010-02-05T12:25:00.002+08:00

1. Joy Spring (With Clifford Brown and Max Roach)

2. Having an actual conversation. That makes two in two days, a new record for these two years. Thanks Nick and Bo.

3. Realising that the cute Westlifer is the gay one. Aww. I used to have a boy-crush on him.

4. Looking up girl names to amuse myself. I think i'll name my daughter Karen.

5. Discovering Aaron Goldberg and realising he's coming here this saturday.

6. Writing, even if I'm not very good at it. Look at this, I wrote it a few weeks back.

7. The mind-numbingly hot girl at the club with the same name as my mother.

what is the name of the rose?

something sad and something still

motionless until the day it dies

and then fodder for the flies.

what is the name of the sun?

a bonfire slowly burning out

the last refuge of virgin light

and then gone in the night.

what is the name of the city?

shadows and light in etched patterns

it is bright with the morning's breath

it is a dance and a death.

what is my name?

I am a coffin, wide but not so long

filled with empires and desires

and sealed with a song

all the things that made me happy today

2010-01-30T09:48:00.004+08:00

1. 'Oh My Love' (John Lennon) in the car on the way to camp.

2. The receptionist's face at NUH when I told her my trooper was crazy and needed a brain scan.

3. The really pretty malay girl in the full-length kebaya on the mrt.

4. The really cute (and REALLY underaged. fml) girl on the bus. It is NOT pervy to appreciate a thing of beauty.

5. Finding zul's guitar in the mess during my COS duty.

6. Singing really loudly in the office.

7. Singing 'Blowin' in the Wind' to the empty battalion square in the middle of the night.

8. The conversation with Nick.

9. Talking to Bo.

2010-01-27T21:42:00.002+08:00

wind down, buckle down, sit down, stay down, get down, feeling down, going down, fell down, look down, throw down.

In other news, it hasn't been a good week but it is looking up!

2010-01-21T22:32:00.002+08:00

More times than I know I've wished for the end of the day and the sunset and the moon and the quiet and it's not weakness, this - it's not anxiety. I just need to be alone for awhile and not let my feelings get the better of me.

It's not a punk that said it, it's not a poet, not a working man or upper-class like a prize poodle with my hair done up. Just trying to be myself, people talk like it's so easy, like you just let go of all the layers and there You Are. I tried that once and I disappeared.

Maybe I don't exist. That would be a conundrum.

Conundrum. Hmm. That would be problematic. For instance, who's writing this?

And - I wish I were Joni Mitchell, but for reasons of physics it seems that I'm not. That's a bummer but I'll live... I guess.

adam

agitation

2010-01-14T23:13:00.002+08:00

mental static is parsed as punctuation by the word processor

. - ! ?

( . , , !)

and now that I've pressed the 'zen' button on the neural interface things seem a lot cleaner. If only they found a more comfortable way, cos everytime I turn my head to look at the door the 3.5 on my left temple threatens to fall out. And we all know what happens when that happens.

So the update today. Still waiting for army to finish, though that isn't a surprise, it is getting unbearable though, all these things I could be doing yet I need to sit around in the office and answer calls. I could be getting drunk! I could be playing! And the world will not spin backward, not for me.

I have made a commitment, and if there's one thing history has taught us it's that commitment is the instrument of suffering. (Or is suffering the instrument of commitment? Chicken and egg...) but seeing that woman was made before man, I'd say suffering came first. For the next few months I'll make a living as a musician, until I go to uni. I owe this much to myself.

brb. Jacking out.

Smiles!?

2010-01-07T22:06:00.002+08:00

This is one of those posts in which I admit my utter despair at ever knowing anything at all about music.

1. Miles Smiles

I returned to the album after the almost two-year hiatus from any jazz that needed brainwork and found it almost as confounding as I did then. The liner note essayist (who's definitely on somebody's payroll) seems to think it was the jazz album of the 1960s, well poo on that. I don't understand it at all. The only reason I can think Miles would inexplicably be smiling is that he just shafted the remaining few of his loyal listeners (no left hand for herbie!) and just when you hear the familiar progression of the blues on the last track 'Gingerbread Boy' he pulls an awful stunt where he gets Ron Carter to make funny noises on his double bass for four additional bars, just to screw over those of you who dared to hope they could follow a 12 bar blues.

No, I'm sure it's great but what gives !? Why did he have to take away Herbie's left hand? Back on E.S.P. it was the tenuous thread connecting the band into a harmonic structure and without it it's just noise and strings. Maybe I'll get it someday.

2. Leonard Cohen

is some kind of awesome

but what kind I don't think I'll ever know.

adam

The New Canon of Great Guitar Solos

2009-12-30T18:45:00.002+08:00

This is a list I officially cannot admit wanting to make, because it's a little bit stupid. But given the amount of literature about which doesn't take into account the fact that Satriani, Vai, and Slash are wankers, I thought I'd at least present an alternative list of the most important guitar solos in rock history - solos which should be studied by any prospective student for their poise, construction and effect.

1. Jimi Hendrix - Little Wing

This one's beyond question. It's one of the shortest on the list, and almost painful to listen to for that fact. One wishes it went on.

2. Eric Clapton - Crossroads

This one's textbook. It goes up, and it keeps going up. Going up is a good thing for solos to do in rock music.

3. Kurt Cobain - In Bloom

Oh yes, I did. Listen to it over and over and over again. This is the culmination of three decades of noise-guitar technique from Iggy and the Stooges and the VU down through Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo.

4. Neil Young - Down By the River

Neil's idiosyncracies carry this one. The one-note motif at the start is really nice.

5. Eric Clapton - Sunshine of Your Love

6. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Little Wing

It's many many times longer than the original. This is how a solo should develop and how it should maintain interest.

I should note that I missed out many important instrumental tracks simply because they don't count as guitar solos and I wish to examine the solo as an institution in rock music, because that's what it is. No doubt other aspects of playing are important - but as I said before, setting the record straight on this issue, especially for beginners needing someone to look up to, is something I consider important.

Garfunkel and Oates

2009-12-29T13:19:00.002+08:00

'Things White People Like' had some informative comments on the subject of musical comedy - that you can combine not-very-good jokes and not-very-good music and get something that's a little bit entertaining. A justified viewpoint I think, considering how much crap out there gets passed for comedy. That said, I have a recommendation to make, and in the full knowledge that premature recommendations are like premature ejaculations in that they're always embarrassing afterward, let me just put in a plug for Garfunkel and Oates.

The folk-comedy duo (are there any other sort? besides Primus, the occasionally likeable funk-metal comedy band) consisting of Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome (of Million Dollar Baby fame) plumb the depths of domestic agony ('Present Face') and the ins and outs (well mostly outs) of working-class love with tunes that are much more than send-ups of some well-hated musical cliche. The vocal style invokes Blink-182, and the lyrical style is pure punk in its considered, rhythmic pedantry. These are pretty good jokes framed with actually-very-good music, making it a comedy band that's listenable as a bona-fide band, and to prove it they've written some serious tunes which are impressive in their scope and lyricism ('Silver Lining').

How about that, a comedy band transcends the tired send-ups of pop music with some actual skill. Props - and tell the Flight of the Conchords that their loser schtick is getting old - write some tunes, yo?

Also - that Kate Micucci is a real talent. One to watch.

adam

six sentences

2009-12-18T21:44:00.003+08:00

My feet are unsurprisingly a little cracked after the month in the field.

There are two crickets mating on the wall above my bookshelf.

Outside the construction workers banter and play their loud music on an outdated radio.

Doorknobs, which stabilise our plane of existence like cosmic anchors, stretch across dimensions and yet are confined to a single quasi-spherical region with a keyhole.

What is the whiskey bottle but a third empty and trembling with the key-strokes like the portent of something dire, is it even a whiskey bottle at all or just a figment of my senses like the dream of an alcoholic butterfly?

Take me away from here, take me away, even if it kills, even if there's nothing left to take but take that anyway, there are tissues on the left if you need them but the door is on the right and keep walking once you're out and pretend that nothing happened, nonchalant.

faith in a manner of speaking

2009-12-09T19:11:00.006+08:00

This is an issue which I for very long had no intention whatsoever of dealing with, because it is so complicated and (more importantly) because it is represented by people on either side who love to spend their precious time shin-kicking and name-calling. (Christopher Hitchens, you are guilty of this.)

What does faith in God require? I would say : the burden of proof is on the theists because they assert the larger number of required entities. I believe Occam's razor applies here because it is the only reasonable attitude an entity in our bewildering position can take - an existence we have no explanation for. We understand aspects of this existence, but know nothing of causes or explanations. Hence, it is one thing to assert that there must be a creator (which can reasonably be supposed to be the simplest explanation) and totally another to assert that it is a specific Creator who was specifically involved in our history. Christians especially have a lot to prove - specifically, they must prove that belief in their God is an attitude compatible with being a rational human being.

The clarifications for this discussion: First, that any theistic argument must prove that faith is compatible with rationality, because this is a rational discussion. If the discussion leads to the conclusion that faith and rationality are incompatible, then it shall follow that faith necessitates a non-rational world view and hence is outside the realm of discussion.

Second, that the argument here is specifically about the Christian God and not a creator-figure in general and hence to prove that a belief in a God that is all-powerful, all-good, and who came down to Earth as Jesus Christ is not incompatible with a rational world view i.e. principles for action derived from logical deduction and induction.

The first subject of discussion is the problem of pain. There is an agreed-upon standard for good (1)- including but not limited to health, absence of needless pain, presence of pleasure, and the presence of such conditions for as many people as possible. This view is utilitarian but seems to be the underlying assumption many people make when discussing the problem of pain. It means that actions which cause pain without ensuing benefit are to be judged as not Good, and any situation in which people are in needless suffering is to be judged as not Good. There is another standard for Good often propounded by Christians which is to be defined as spiritual well-being - closeness to God, absence of sin, presence of virtue, and perhaps importantly in theology, the presence of free will which chooses the above mentioned qualities. (2) Evil is to be defined as the lack of these characteristics. (3)

The problem of pain goes as such: The hypothesis of a benevolent creator who is all-powerful cannot be accepted due to the prevalence of pain and suffering in the world. A creator who is benevolent would do all in his power to alleviate suffering and hence cause Good by definition (1). Hence, the existence of suffering (not Good) means the creator cannot be all-powerful or cannot be benevolent.

The rebuttal to this argument takes a few forms. First, that suffering in the present may be justified by future Good that we are unaware of or incapable of understanding. Hence, the supposed Evil in the world does not exist.

Second, that Good cannot be experienced without the possibility for the opposite, and that the possibility of evil was created along with Good. Third, that suffering (not Good by definition (1)) exists to create Good by definition (2), which is to lead people to repent and to lead virtuous lives.

My first point is that accepting definition (2) of Good invalidates the premise, or at least compromises it. If we accept that only definiton (2) of Good is true, then the Evil accepted in the premise does not exist because disasters, starvation and suffering are not considered Evil - a person may be starving but still be close to God, for example. Which is not to say that the lack of Good does not exist at all, for there are surely plenty of spiritually poor people. A quibble - on to the argument.

My second point is is that the second rebuttal is incompatible with an all-powerful God. It supposes constraint on his Creation - that he had to create the possibility for evil in order to accomodate Good, even if he did not create evil. I actually agree that it is logical for a creator to have done this if what he wanted was human beings capable of Good. But this creates difficulty with the Christian God because it supposes Him subordinate to logic. The Christian God must be all-powerful and unknowable by human reason - and if He is subordinate to our logic then we must know, by virtue of knowing His constraints, Him.

My third point deals with the third rebuttal. In this case I believe the Christians are guilty of inexcusable definition-switching. Either Good exists or it doesn't, and either definition (1) or definition (2) are true, but not both, since it is a logical impossibility for a starving person who is nonetheless devout to be in a state of both Good and Evil. Either his devoutness and closeness to God confirms his situation is Good, or his suffering confirms his situation is Evil by our definition (3).

Their argument goes like this: If Evil exists to ensure Good (2) then the overall situation is Good because it results in Good and hence our God can be all-good and all-powerful and yet allow Evil.

Yet the premise 'Evil exists' is predicated on definition (1), which I have proven is incompatible with definition (2). So either we take definition (2) consistently, which raises the issue 'why are there un-devout, unholy people?' and also makes the argument sound like this:

'Un-devout, sinful people exist to make other people repent and become closer to God'. Which may be logical in some way but is hardly what the Christians seem to be arguing since all people, by their doctrine, exist to be close to God.

If we take definition (1) consistently, which means there is no Good done by suffering and hence the Christian God is rendered yet again incompatible.

Another thing which is problematic is that accepting rebuttal (3) in any form means that we no longer have any moral impetus to alleviate physical suffering, as it is no longer considered an Evil by definition (2). As most Christians accept the view that it is Good to help the suffering, this is an inconsistency that must be addressed.

Not finished but maybe i'll continue this sometime!

in a startling change of direction

2009-12-09T17:59:00.002+08:00

Blogging in the daytime! Which shall be this week's adventure. I'm off exxon mobil duty for now (the crushing despair posts will ensue next week, for those awaiting the latest instalment)

Things:

1. Firefly. I watched 'Train Job' and 'Bushwhacked' and turns out the series only gets better after that. Am now judiciously pirating it.

2. Apps. Need to get the forms to my teachers. NYU submitted - must finish Stanford and Columbia.

Fingers crossed for Brown!

3. Borderlands. Good fun. It's like diablo with guns, which always make things better, except maybe Lebanon.

4. Two months to ORD. My disgust with the army has transcended complaint.

adam

Two Thoughts

2009-12-06T20:21:00.002+08:00

1. Songwriting - it's only so difficult because we insist it should be easy.

2. I need a new bike. I borrowed JX's to make a trip to Serene Centre. On the way, a motorist honked at me and drove past - I caught up to him, gave him the finger and shouted something rude before pulling away. Best bike ride ever.

Joni Mitchell - Chelsea Morning

2009-12-04T23:05:00.002+08:00

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I heard
Was a song outside my window, and the traffic wrote the words
It came ringing up like Christmas bells, and rapping up like pipes and drums

Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll wear it till the night comes

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I saw
Was the sun through yellow curtain, and a rainbow on the wall
Blue, red, green and gold to welcome you, crimson crystal beads to beckon

Oh, won't you stay,
We'll put on the day
There's a sun show every second

Now the curtain opens on a portrait of today
And the streets are paved with passers-by
And pigeons fly
And papers lie
Waiting to blow away

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I knew
there was milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges, too
And the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses

Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses

When the curtain closes and the rainbow runs away
I will bring you incense owls by night, by candlelight
By jewel-light
If only you will stay
Pretty baby, won't you wake up, it's a Chelsea morning!

2009-12-02T22:06:00.004+08:00

Nirvana - Nevermind

I think something that the music world needs to know is the reason why Nirvana was a great band. Not just a good band, or even a talented band. A great band - and after hearing this album there is no doubt that Cobain, Grohl and Novoselic belong in the company of the Beatles.

Part of the reason is Pop, because Nirvana is a pop band. Their appeal is firstly melodic, then visceral, then formal, and it is satisfying on all three levels.

Part of the reason must be cultural, because the subject matter was groundbreaking. Not that Kurt was much of a lyricist in the formal sense - but he had a knack for refrains that were revealing if not technically facile. But nobody had written music about how little they cared before. If anything, the history of rock n' roll was a series of ever-more-violent ways of caring. And of course the mere novelty of Cobain's lyrics wouldn't have carried if it didn't signify to a generation of jaded youths.

Part of the reason is Cobain himself, who was a personality as well as a frontman, like any proper rock star. He especially reminds us of John Lennon, whose life was submitted to the media as the ultimate art project. And Cobain the man greatly informs the music, which is self-deprecating, often darkly funny, and never cares as little as it claims because it always sounds so good.

Cobain's myth was compelling, and Nirvana's myth was compelling because it gave the new generation an ideal free of self-importance. But perhaps his cultural importance is overstated.

The main thing here is the music, which is pop at its best - tuneful, uncultured, uncluttered, and playful.

EDIT: shall I presume to define pop? Let me put forward a hypothesis. Pop is non-idiomatic, audience-oriented music. Non idiomatic as in free of a unifying aesthetic (radiohead, for example, is Not Pop. )

adam

2009-11-26T06:15:00.000+08:00

The key to poaching an egg is to keep the water at the correct temperature throughout the cooking process - a light simmer but never too hot. Then the egg, cooked for slightly over a minute and a half, should get the right consistency. I will practice!

adam

Plastic Ono Band Redux

2009-11-22T11:11:00.002+08:00

Our dear John has lost something and needs to spend an album screaming in order to find out - the premise of his first post-Beatles album. What's he lost? Paul McCartney (and his insipid talent for cuteness). George Harrison (and his parse-able guitar parts). Cynthia Lennon (and any remaining semblance of normalcy). What's he found? Yoko Ono. Rage.

The rage is important. This is an album in which John gets naked, gets rid of the multi part harmonies, the multi-part songs and the intricate arrangements of the late Beatles albums. Track one is telling - There are three instruments on it (four if you count the gong at the start). But where the tunes are stripped of filigree they are still tuneful, still solid where Paul was fluffy, serious where Ringo was playful, real where George was trippy.

Plastic Ono band is an album in which John stops hiding behind his wit (and McCartney's wit) and his irrepressible talent and writes an album with Songs about Things. The result? We like John less now that we know him. But we love him more because he bothered.

Also of merit : the two bonus tracks in the remastered edition. 'Power to the People' - meh, socialist claptrap by a well meaning talent. 'Do the Oz' - the creepiest invitation to dance I've ever heard. And is that Yoko howling in the background?

adam

Plastic Ono Band

2009-11-14T07:28:00.002+08:00

I bought 5 albums while on R&R in Australia. Let's check them out:

1. Plastic Ono Band - John Lennon

2. Imagine - John Lennon

3. Greatest Hits - Neil Young

4. Greatest Hits - Joni Mitchell

5. Nevermind - Nirvana

I've only had the time for 1. and 2., but 3-5 will come soon enough.

Plastic Ono Band is as good as everyone seems to say it is. Good case for John Lennon as the father of punk rock, if you ask me. It's scary that he doesn't need motherloads of distortion or screechy feedback noises to be scarily primal about music.

adam

Journal Entries : Australia

2009-11-13T14:24:00.002+08:00

20th Oct

Last night was freezing. The sleeping bag was ok - but my colleagues are worried as I am how we'll survive in the field. We manage in our fashion, I think. Cigarettes and sheer bull-headedness. Am Looking forward to going home - but the training stretches out like a desolate track ahead of me with no end in sight. I guess I'll have to wait.

So far things have been pretty relaxed which is great for settling in - I've never lived in a place like this before. The roof of my tent is letting through ominous spots of sunlight - that won't be good when it rains.

Tonight's the 8km 'prep' march. The first of many sufferings. I'm as ready as I've ever been to eat shit but good intentions never make it into the field. By tonight I'll be collapsed somewhere wishing I'd had the good sense to report sick.

So yeah - hope is on the horizon. Until tonight at least I can stay strong, and then it's up to my body and the weather god.

25th Oct

Came back from the first mission last night. I was right about the weather - once you stop moving it's freezing. Oh well. I managed not to cock anything up for once.

I also finished Haruki Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood' while I was at Sam Hill with the planning team. I think it's a great story - a love story, but it has all the quiet subtlety a love story deserves. I think the best part is at the end where Reiko and Toru hold an impromptu funeral by getting drunk and playing every Beatles song they know. I want that done when I die.

Surprisingly, my spirits are pretty up now, despite living in this hole of a camp. I'm thriving on little happinesses, cool air at night, a hot bath, a good book and the Beatles.

Sweet Loretta Martin, thought she was a woman, but she was another man. Eat your heart out, Lou Reed! I guess now we just wait for the end. The final mission will suck but we're expecting it.

When I get back I'll buy a good bottle of whisky and drink it with my friends and sing some songs. Nobody else here appreciates the 60s like I do. Nobody back there does, but at least they play along.

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner, but he knew it couldn't last.

Get back

Get back to where you once belonged!

Rock and roll.

26th Oct

There was an attack of boredom in the morning. I had breakfast, brushed my teeth, had two smokes and decided it wasn't working. I wish I had a guitar here. Or, for that matter, someone to talk to about anything other than cars, boobs and cigarettes.

I decided to tackle the spell of ennui with a calculated dose of music.

Here's my playlist of 4 songs:

1. Desafinado - Ana Caram

2. Free City Rhymes - Sonic Youth

3. Move - Miles Davis

4. Help! - The Beatles

1. didn't quite work. Bossa doesn't do it for me all the time.

2. Did. It's the most beautiful musical construction ever created under the banner of Rock. But SY always left a strange aftertaste, as if in reaching for the cosmic their feet had left the ground.

3. From 'Birth of the Cool'. Skin-tight arrangements, solos tumbling through the changes perfect in pitch and poise. There can be no formal complaints - but in my distracted state I couldn't summon the concentration.

4. 60s rock and roll in the middle of a dusty army camp reminded me of FMJ. And if anything is the antidote to SY's 90s cosmic freakout, it's the earthy simplicity of a Beatles song.

I feel much better. Gonna have a smoke, then see what's up.

27th Oct

There's been a stunning array of cock-ups. I'm almost beyond caring. It's so pathetic that I can barely bring myself to think about it. I'm just waiting for the end.

That was from the morning. I was too pissed for words - the men really push me over the edge some days.

Every day's pretty much the same otherwise - eating, sleeping, training, smoking. The routine grates but it has its own advantages, like enough time to write this entry. I still miss my guitar, but I'm dealing with it. My bunk mates are gambling or blackjack but I've declined to play - I suspect that makes me unforgivably antisocial but oh well.

I listen to music when the urge strikes me. It's not always easy to enjoy in this dusty little hole, but it's a welcome relief.

Speaking of relief, there was a drizzle last night - first rain in a week. I seriously thought of getting out in it and bathing - but it didn't get heavy enough. The clouds are filling up the sky though - there may be hope yet. As long as it doesn't rain while I'm on exercise! Nothing like being miserable -and- wet.

In all honesty, this is a beautiful country. The bare trees, the lone kangaroos, the dust, the endless expanse of dried foliage. It's austere in a way no rainforest is. And at night it's so quiet! I could never find a place like that in Singapore.

It's just a pity I have to do all this abominable army stuff here.

Whoops. Spoke to soon - there's a storm coming.

7th Nov

The heat is murderous at 1 o'clock. I'm writing this just to keep things off my mind. Let the night come I say! I am now officially tired of this country, trees and all, stars and sunsets and all, and the whole of Oz can jolly well fuck off and let me go home to my air conditioning.

Sinatra is doing his part to take my mind off the crippling heat rash and the sand. Good ol' Blue Eyes. I've meanwhile written a few more songs of dubious import (I don't know if I'll ever get good at it) and I hope to put them to music when I get back. Meanwhile (I've said this twice now) the sound of trumpets and piano is edifying. It occurs to me that music nowadays may require less leftist hippiedom (and I mean as an approach, not as a politic) and more rightist formalism. It is becoming dangerously neither here nor there.

I'm afraid no amount of 'inspiration' will excuse terrible lyrics and noodly melodies. Even those icons of hippiedom, the Beatles, wrote with a terrifying mastery of the fundamentals, passed off as simple good-naturedness.

Choon Ping was right. Academic rigour is needed. And not Wynton Marsalis and gang's backward-facing history worship. I mean genuine intellectual commitment, and not just warm fuzzy feelings, however the two may be related.

I am doing my best to live up to this standard but like in any art rules without that special confluence of mental states known as inspiration produces no results. I will try harder.

Frustrating that my entries always end up about music. I swear I have other interests! Aloy has taken my book now though, so I am temporarily deprived of them. I'll write another song, here:

Sing a song to let me know

you'll never go anywhere

or do anything to make me sad

and live in this house of bricks and clay

Sing a song to let me know

that you won't die to-morrow

or the day after, or the rest of my life

and you'll never fly away

Sing a song to show me

that you'll never leave the ground

that you'll fold your wings around me

and never spread them wide

Sing a song while you hold me

So I know that you are there

So I know that I'm not tying you

but you've chosen not to fly

-adam

I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass

2009-10-16T10:59:00.002+08:00

Yo La Tengo - I am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

Sorry about the last post - that was for WB. I picked this album up at HMV - I'd wanted to get I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One but they only had this one and Popular Songs and faced with the decision I went for the one with the (infinitely) cooler title. It was also the last copy, so those hypothetical readers who hypothetically listen to my recommendations may face trouble if there isn't a restock.

And that's exactly what this is: a recommendation. This is rock for people who don't need leather and a ten foot tall haircut; it's happy, and full of Georgia and Ira whisper-singing their little melodies all over and their left-of-centre lyrics. It certainly comes across as an album by a long married (and 20 years is a long time) couple, full of affectionate humour and reminiscence.

Yo La Tengo don't have a style per se - they have a number of set pieces that appear in every album with new lyrics and new variations. There's always the long noise jam - that's the first track here ("Pass the Hatchet..."). There's the speedy punk number with the whispered melody. There's always the trance-y electro tune. There's always a clever ballad. There's always some stripped-down rock and roll.

And considering how great every one of the songs appears, it's stunning to note how modest the arrangements are. What they are is settled, stable, confident, and they need no flash-and-bang to impress - they have enough songwriting chops to cover that and hopefully many albums in the years to come.

adam

A letter to Joni Mitchell Re: Tree Museum

2009-10-14T11:59:00.000+08:00

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/popsong/17moe18.html

Terror

2009-10-14T03:06:00.002+08:00

I was paid a visit by an old friend tonight. I call him terror who used to visit me at night when I was barely a teenager. He brought pictures with him, many of death and disease and old age, but one fascinated me like no other. He showed me a picture of an eternity of oblivion. I remember because for many weeks I was like a shell but for that thought, that I would die forever. I was not even sure then, because I had my faith.

Now I have no faith. I am sure that I will die forever. But I met my old friend with open arms tonight, because I know why I was afraid. I was not afraid of oblivion - death is not fearful, the greek philosopher once said. I was afraid that an eternity of oblivion would devalue everything in my pitifully finite life.

I am no longer afraid. Eternity will not drain the meaning of my life, because I have created it, and as a creator I am greater than all fear. Do you hear that, old friend? I have friends. I have work. I have music. I have hope. You cannot rob them from me.

adam

New York Dolls

2009-10-12T18:28:00.002+08:00

I've had a cd sitting unopened on my shelf for almost a year now - Private Worlds, a double album of demo tapes by the New York Dolls. I like these guys a lot.

adam

Laughter

2009-10-12T02:14:00.001+08:00

is an evolutionary mechanism developed to rid ourselves of that most deadly of vices - significance.

Late night

2009-10-12T01:58:00.003+08:00

Sleepless. I don't think I'll ever renounce feeling confessional at 2am, even if it's only my blog that will listen to my insomniac ravings. I had a good jam session today. I haven't felt this alive for awhile - maybe it's that feeling alive requires copious amounts of amplified noise. At least I can make some on my own. I wonder how people without guitars get by.

I've got 'someday my prince will come' on. It's a nice tune - and to have Miles put his inchoate siren over the changes is almost too much of a good thing.

I'm flying to australia in a week. I need to get my strength together. Goal here is not to come back in a box.

I wonder where all my friends are.

Maybe I need to stop practicing and get out of my room once in awhile. I am starting to feel the effects of social awkwardness acutely. It will be too late soon.

adam

Twilight

2009-10-09T22:29:00.002+08:00

It's not the Absolutely Terrible Novel I was hoping it'd be.

Yes, I must note - I have read it. And it's not that I've gone over to the dark side or anything - I accredit the reading to boredom, which shall become the excuse for all evil deeds great and petty.

And this will no doubt void my membership of the Singapore chapter of Auteurs Anonymous. But for what it tries to be, which isn't much, it's not a bad novel at all. It's not Ishiguro for sure, but nobody wants it to be - and Meyer manages somehow to make a vampire story that's well sort of interesting and skips lightly past all the unnecessary emo that the genre's often burdened with.

So there, all you Writers and Poets and Critics and people who Know About Literature, poo on you all. I liked Twilight.

adam

Yo La Tengo!

2009-10-03T18:12:00.002+08:00

They've been a bit hit-or-miss with my tastes but the hits are solid ones, and certainly rank pretty high up there in my pantheon of Great Songs. Of slightly more import : They're married. And they're good enough to wield that singularly un-hip social institution like the great electrified warhammer of Rock, smashing aside assiduously, snidely single doubters.

Read: Sugarcube ("Whatever you want from me, that's what I wanna do for you, sweeter than a drop of blood on a sugarcube") What's more married than that? And what is more rock and roll?

Read: Mr. Tough (Hey Mr. Tough, don't you think we've suffered enough?) ("We'll leave our worries in the corner, leave them in a big big pile")

Really, the pile doesn't go away for people living together. But the way they deal with it is rock and roll in every way that matters.

Georgia and Ira Kaplan seem to have incorporated a uniquely scathing form of domestic bliss in their personal myth, and I find it extremely compelling. If I ever get married, my kids are going to be named after them.

adam