Monday, January 29, 2007

THE MASK AND THE MIRROR l.mckinnet

I have owed ya'll the last several posts for some time. My story can't be told without the telling of Arnold's story, and my story may be my confession; if my story is not unique, my confession certainly is. So I shall consider the last 3 posts to be the first of the tag titled ""Share five off the wall, strange, unusual or just little known facts about yourself.” My mask removed.

I think the music I listen to would qualify here. Take a look at my profile to start. Even the ones that are World Famous somehow manage to fly underneath the Radar of Popular Music. Lets add on to that list with Bob Mould, Jack Johnson and Ben Harper, the Oyster Band, Three men and a Dog, Hopskip&wobble, Jimmie laFave, Christine Lavin, Cheryl Wheeler, and Sonia Dada.
While you may have heard of some of these, most of my freinds had not, and really don't care for what I have found. They are too into either "Classic Rock" or the Commercial Songs of the week as performed by Cellebrity Artists of the week...
There is some Classic Rock I can enjoy...the cuts from an album that are forgotten while we hear the same 'hit" time after time as though we have never heard it before. 'Stairway to Heaven" may be a great song, but I have heard it... enough to hold me for many years. right now I would like to hear ' Battle for Evermore" from that Album.

I like a Middle-Eastern sound...from what I understand Middle Eastern music has many other scales besides major and minor... whatever that means.
Music creates a sense of Truth and Beauty through Aesthetic expression.
I know what I like.
There are some songs that just aren't supposed to be popular, that are not to be measured, that are just to be enjoyed for depth and texture. They are beyond the BOOM-BOOM-CHUCK that seems to be the order of the day. Possibly they were not written for anything but for the pleasure and experience by the Artist. I think it is this type of artist, the one that does not write with the listener in mind, but seems to write for the Art itself, that I am drawn to.
Loreena McKinnet has probably made the biggest impression on me the last 12 years.

I love looking through the throwback shelves at the Half Price bookstore.
I love listening to something I have never heard before.
I have great admiration for those that may never achieve fame, but continue to produce their Art, their way.
I don't have XFM Radio, but I hope that it will continue to promote the lesser known Musicians and educate the listener.

DEAD MAN DREAMING
Once I had a name,
forgotten now
I breathed the air in a century of wonder

I can hear it now
in the darkness of the earth
Gorgeous machines, the sound they made like thunder

Great gardens drip honey-
jewels and bright birds
The pageants pass down avenues of splendor

Ah, long afternoons
by enchanted lakes
Upon elephants, so well I do remember

Lords and priests and talking beasts
Golden calves and telepaths
Crystal skulls and screaming gulls

Women glowed tattooed with woad
Colored mists and amethysts
Men were strong and days were long

Dragons glide on mountainside
Mandrake root and angel fruit
Sighing winds on silver skin

Creation transubstantiation
Unicorns, electric storms
Tunes and runes, we laughed till noon

Sweet release, eternal peace

The Church from "Sometime Anywhere"

This is a very strange band. I looked up one day and I had more of their stuff than anything else. They always seem to finish their album with a very beautiful song, usually an instrumental and this is the last tune on "Sometime Anywhere".

Don't run out and buy this Album; get "Preist= Aura" instead.

9 comments:

Annelisa said...

I don't know about their music, but the lyrics of this one really grabbed me! So beautifully written, and how easily they rolled off the tongue - wonderful stuff!

Me? I'm a total music clutz! I don't know one song from another - can't remember a song or artist name from one minute to the next - but I can tell you most definately whether or not I like a song... from whatever genre of music it comes....

I like the idea of you going through all the rejected albums and finding little gems...

Mother of Invention said...

Have never heard of most of these except of course, our Loreena, and Jack Johnson. I like the internal rhyme of the guy here.

Last night, in Toronto, Joni Mitchell was inducted into the hall of Fame. James Taylor sang Woodstock! She is one of the few artists who did what she wanted to and didn't care if she paid the price...she refused to write for commercial purposes. Yah, Joni!

Mother of Invention said...

Annelisa! Sure you can't remember a song artist by name or what they did? Okay, hint: Maybe what....!!)LOL!

Anonymous said...

I'm envious of the man who dreamt up these lines......Dead Man Dreaming..........the images, the words.......make me float.

I've picked up Jack Johnson (before Curious George fame..) and L. McKinnet........the rest are a stretch for me.

MoI : YEAH JONI!!!!!! She's my heroine........

GrizzBabe said...

Definitely an interesting taste in music you have, Steve, and that's a good thing. It's good to not always go with the flow; it makes you a more intersting person.

Old Lady said...

How about Jerry Jeff Walker? I miss hearing him.

I like little known arts as well. I love to see how the mind of a person can form a thought or emotion into songs, prose, poetry and art. Amazing the collective creativity.

bulletholes said...

I am hard pressed to think of an artist, male or female, as unique, as stylized as Joni Mitchell. Truly elegant. She definitely is one that went her own way and wrote for the Art and herself.
I don’t think there is another artist that showed up drunk for as many shows as Jerry Jeff...God Bless Jerry Jeff... I saw him with Blue Oyster Cult in ’74; the music scene around here was a real mixed bag back then...I hum ‘L.A. Freeway” to myself a lot.
Having said all that I am still the first one out there when they strike up ‘Play that Funky Music”!

kissyface said...

Steve -

Middle Eastern music is a genre I LOVE, also. If you have access to internet radio, check out Radio Darvish, as they play old Persian music. It's quite beautiful. The music's so sensuous. I'm not a big fan of 'mood music' for the Lovemaking (not that it's not nice to have it on, but sometimes it just seems cheesy or like you're substituting some feeling that should already exist between you and your partner), but this stuff fits the bill, as it's sexy, emotional and spiritual.

Here's how wikipedia defines the differences with Western scales:

"The Arabic scale is very different from the Western (from the U.S. and Europe) scale. On a Western piano, for example, there are 8 "white keys" and 5 "black keys". This octave (from middle C to high C, for example) then has 13 notes. In Arabic classical music, music can be played with 17 notes, 19 notes, or 24 notes in an octave! Therefore, the human voice and stringed instruments can more easily get these notes that are "halfway between" the notes on the piano's octave. They are called "quarter tones" and are not even a part of Western music."

You already know how I feel about the modern deity, Joni.

And I do love that old sot, Jerry Jeff. Up against the wall, redneck Mother...

More soberly, do you like Steve Earle?

bulletholes said...

oh yeah Steve Earles is like Waylon jennings and David allen Coe all wrapped up in one...more soberly, he has become very big in the burgeoning folk rock genre that has built some steam down here...