Mario Zecca was playing tonight at Cat's Art MusikCircus and we were encouraging him, trying to draw out whatever he wants to throw out to the world. It's a bit unnerving at first getting it that it's ok to play anything I want, anything at all?
You could tell elephant jokes at the Circus and, so long as you keep some kind of rhythm, it might even work. Everything is about the freedom to make music in whatever way you can, want, like, love, however it goes.
Cat Boucher, Mario Zecca, Mikita from Japan, and I were talking after the set about how all of us 'make stuff' in one way or another and what an extraordinary compulsion. Mario still had the stream running and I think it was Cat who requested a poetic reading as he likes to do that too. He spoke of "The Unknown Physics" and that being all the things physics cannot explain (i.e. a huge pile of things). After that he played a bit more as he was getting into letting it flow. He played "Happiness is a Warm Gun" for the immense irony of it and I believe that segued into "I Will," also from The Beatles. This came as a flowing stream and you could feel him feeling it as he went along.
We talked a little more about how you always get better but you will never get as good as you want to be. It's impossible but that makes the challenge all the more fascinating.
Then I thought, hmmm, let's light up the audio stream and do "Noah" to find if anyone can hear it. The object was to do the Carnegie Hall joke as it's a joke but it lives because of the wisdom of it. My telling dresses it up a little to make it pretty but the point is the same. My segue is also the same as that goes to dragon riding which is deliberately about coming out hard and making sparks.
My concern in doing it is the appearance of competitiveness but then I figured it's only competitive if you make it that way and that kind of thinking doesn't even really mean that much to me. Something's good or it sucks. You can be good going fast or slow and you can suck going fast or slow. That variable isn't important as the only thing important is vibe. Speed comes from practice, practice, practice so there's a bit of a lesson in it but mostly it was to surprise the hell out of Cat.
I can cheerfully report it did.
"Ride the Dragon" is straight-up tribute to the Dragonriders of Pern as they were ultra bad-ass Thread-fighting dragon riders. There is a conflict with pacifism in advocating such things and my cop is the Thread is not an animate thing. Nevertheless, deliberately sustaining violence, even though necessary, embeds a mindset which is not productive except insofar as it reduces or eliminates a threat.
So the tune goes all ripshit. The phrases are two variations on three simple chords but simplicity is what permits ripshit. If the foundation is complex then you have to stay within that structure as, wtf, you made it. However, with ultra-simple as in Am-G-F, you're free to blast all over the neck as fast as your demented fingers can do it. Firing all of your guns at once isn't necessarily that cool.
Holy shit. I just heard gunshots. It sounded like four rounds.
Yah, just confirmed with Yevette.
There were four more. Agreed with Yevette cops won't be called. Getting in the middle of a gunfight is an exceptionally bad idea. She heard them at the other end of the house. They were definitely gunshots and from a handgun, probably not high-caliber.
About five minutes of silence now.
Will pick this back up shortly. No-one's going outside and we will wait. Turning out the lights could make the place look attractive as a possible place to hide so we won't change anything. So, this is exciting, isn't it. Might as well smoke a bowl.
It's now about ten minutes so whatever was happening seems to have happened. Whatever drama was live seems to have played out. Fark. People are crazy.
You could tell elephant jokes at the Circus and, so long as you keep some kind of rhythm, it might even work. Everything is about the freedom to make music in whatever way you can, want, like, love, however it goes.
Cat Boucher, Mario Zecca, Mikita from Japan, and I were talking after the set about how all of us 'make stuff' in one way or another and what an extraordinary compulsion. Mario still had the stream running and I think it was Cat who requested a poetic reading as he likes to do that too. He spoke of "The Unknown Physics" and that being all the things physics cannot explain (i.e. a huge pile of things). After that he played a bit more as he was getting into letting it flow. He played "Happiness is a Warm Gun" for the immense irony of it and I believe that segued into "I Will," also from The Beatles. This came as a flowing stream and you could feel him feeling it as he went along.
We talked a little more about how you always get better but you will never get as good as you want to be. It's impossible but that makes the challenge all the more fascinating.
Then I thought, hmmm, let's light up the audio stream and do "Noah" to find if anyone can hear it. The object was to do the Carnegie Hall joke as it's a joke but it lives because of the wisdom of it. My telling dresses it up a little to make it pretty but the point is the same. My segue is also the same as that goes to dragon riding which is deliberately about coming out hard and making sparks.
My concern in doing it is the appearance of competitiveness but then I figured it's only competitive if you make it that way and that kind of thinking doesn't even really mean that much to me. Something's good or it sucks. You can be good going fast or slow and you can suck going fast or slow. That variable isn't important as the only thing important is vibe. Speed comes from practice, practice, practice so there's a bit of a lesson in it but mostly it was to surprise the hell out of Cat.
I can cheerfully report it did.
"Ride the Dragon" is straight-up tribute to the Dragonriders of Pern as they were ultra bad-ass Thread-fighting dragon riders. There is a conflict with pacifism in advocating such things and my cop is the Thread is not an animate thing. Nevertheless, deliberately sustaining violence, even though necessary, embeds a mindset which is not productive except insofar as it reduces or eliminates a threat.
So the tune goes all ripshit. The phrases are two variations on three simple chords but simplicity is what permits ripshit. If the foundation is complex then you have to stay within that structure as, wtf, you made it. However, with ultra-simple as in Am-G-F, you're free to blast all over the neck as fast as your demented fingers can do it. Firing all of your guns at once isn't necessarily that cool.
Holy shit. I just heard gunshots. It sounded like four rounds.
Yah, just confirmed with Yevette.
There were four more. Agreed with Yevette cops won't be called. Getting in the middle of a gunfight is an exceptionally bad idea. She heard them at the other end of the house. They were definitely gunshots and from a handgun, probably not high-caliber.
About five minutes of silence now.
Will pick this back up shortly. No-one's going outside and we will wait. Turning out the lights could make the place look attractive as a possible place to hide so we won't change anything. So, this is exciting, isn't it. Might as well smoke a bowl.
It's now about ten minutes so whatever was happening seems to have happened. Whatever drama was live seems to have played out. Fark. People are crazy.
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