Tag Archives: music

And Now You Half-Read This And Write A Song About It

Posted on January 21, 2012 by | Leave a comment

“Wanna come see my band on Thursday?”

Sure, I say. Because I legitimately want to support, but also because I can’t think of a valid story for why I can’t. So I make my way over to the dingy little club, the lobby of a once and future theater of productions both avant garde and mediocre, at 10:30 on a school night to see you and your buddies strut your stuff. You didn’t tell me there would be a cover. It’s fine — I’ll pay, and glad tell them I’m hear to see you (that was a homonym typo I don’t want to correct, because it might sell as cunning wordplay). I’m just glad I picked up cash earlier in the day.

The floor of the club is dark, the better to focus our attention on the makeshift stage. Unfortunately, the just-as-makeshift lights set up on the side and from the ceiling don’t seem to function as intended. Your wide figure stayed swathed in a deep ochre, a bordello bouncer hunched over a droning guitar. Every part of the bassist besides his knees remained in deep shadows. The singer jumped in and out of the lone bright spotlight, her tambourine’s jingles lacing it back out through the crowd.

And that crowd…they all showed up, which is nice of them. The band wrings out its songs, the ones you guys slaved over. Chords that were agonizing over chords, lyrics ripped out of the heart. How many band members walked out of the practice space, convinced they would never come back again? And here is your showcase — playing to a half-full room, fifty or sixty people, 90 percent of whom know the first name of at least one of you. None of them connecting to your craft.  Half of them don’t stop their conversations to applaud, and the other half never look up from their phones, just giving a short “woo” at the end of each song.

And I lean against the back wall, firmly ensconced in the second half of that group, my one sign of respect is turning my phone down to the most dimmed setting. I half listen and focus on taking notes as your keyboard player wails on a trumpet, continuing the pointless ouroboros of creativity looping between you and me.

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Christmas Music Manifesto

Posted on December 10, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Since it’s the season and all, here’s my gift to you, the readers of 5×500: a simple three step process for how to handle Christmas music during the holiday season. This will allow you to enjoy a festive spirit without feeling like you drank four gallons of eggnog.

(For some people, there’s no such thing as too much holiday tuneage. These are the folks who are happy when the local oldies station starts playing Grandma Got Run Over By Etc. on November 1. These people are insane. Obviously, nothing that follows will make sense to them — this is for everyone else.)

1. We can have Christmas music played in public the weekend after Thanksgiving. No one really loves the whole Black Friday phenomenon (except perhaps the idle rich or those with lives empty outside of binges of crass consumption); but I won’t begrudge the stores and malls of the nation to not get people in the holiday spirit by looping Bing Crosby. Along similar lines, some people might reasonably want to transition out of Thanksgiving and into the solstice season. In any event, you get this one weekend. Friday through Sunday.

2. After that: total moratorium on holiday music from the Monday after Thanksgiving through December 9. Exceptions can be made for early holiday parties, Xmas tree decorating, etc. But these are, in fact, exceptions — not rules. Without extenuating circumstances, keep the jolly under wraps.

(Side rule: you’re allowed to think that using “Xmas” is inherently stupid. You’re even allowed to hate it because it’s taking the Christ out of “Christmas.” But don’t get self-righteous and huffy about this; it only hurts your stance.)

((Side rule to the side rule, which is actually a really major rule: you can be upset about the secularization of Christmas, pining for the manger and Midnight Masses, grinding your teeth at trees and snowflakes instead of stars, etc. And you can be upset that people say “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” But you can’t be upset about both. Either Christmas is a concept that transcends a particular religion and therefore can/must be embraced by everyone in our society in a secular way, or it’s a religious holiday only of import to Christians. It’s 2011; you can’t seriously argue that everyone needs to follow your traditions just because you think it’s the most rightest ride out there.))

3. From December 10 onward, it’s all systems go on the holiday music. The more the Christmas-ier. Roll on through the 25th (or, if you really want to stick with the twelve days concept, until the Epiphany on January 6). That gives you fifteen days to be surrounded by it — so even if you start to fade a little after ten, you’re so close to the big day, festive spirits will sweep you onward.

With your help, we can eradicate Christmas music overdoses by 2017. Thank you for your assistance, and happy Nat King Cole-ing.

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Rael, Electric Razor

Posted on October 22, 2011 by | 1 Comment

My car securely parked, I moved through downtown to get to L.A. Live. I wouldn’t say I hustled, since I don’t really hustle. But I moved quickly — I only had seven minutes to showtime.

The crawling line of traffic and the density of people on the sidewalks made sense once I discovered that Chris Brown was playing at the Staples Center that night. I passed diverse groupings of young women in tight dresses and piled-high hair, of young men in expensive t-shirts and even more expensive jeans. A little girl, seven years old at the most, pulled at her father’s arm as they crossed Figueroa: “Come on, Daddy. Come on!”

Once in the proto-Vegas canyon, I veer off to one of the smaller clubs. I’m not there to see a pop star with violence issues. My destination: a Canadian tribute band is doing their painstaking re-creation of a Genesis show from 1975, performing all of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (plus some inevitable encore songs). Every website associated with the performance gave the showtime as 7pm — none mentioned that this was merely when the doors opened. Having rushed for nothing, I settled into a twisty bank line of late middle-aged men with gray ponytails, pasty skin and faded Pink Floyd shirts.

We began shuffling forward a few minutes later. Before entering the facility, everyone had to pass through one of the two bulky metal detectors permanently installed by the door. Pocket contents were tossed in circular plastic bowls, and each time traveler inched forward, wondering if their glasses would trigger the machine. TSA had trained us well.

When I was two back from breaking through, the line stopped. The guard didn’t shout “Hey!” at his supervisor — it was more of a pained question in a slightly raised voice. “Hey?” While waiting for a response, he held up the object of our delay: a two-inch keychain pocket knife. It was the kind of innocuous object that would have gotten someone dragged out of the line at the large arena a half block away and possibly tossed in an interrogation room for a few hours. “Hey?”

The supervisor, who looked as if he had just crossed over from being intimidatingly beefy to affably obese, finally turned around. Taking in the question, he didn’t expend the energy required to run his eyes over the crowd. “Yeah.” His tone sounded like he had been asked whether he enjoyed getting handjobs. The guard shrugged and waved the line on. Of course the knife could go in — with these guys, why would anyone give a shit?

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69 Love Songs

Posted on March 28, 2011 by | 1 Comment

I awoke to the pungent smell of sweat, come, and Febreze. It reminded me of freshly chopped sweet onions, and it burned my weary eyes all the same. In the distance, I could hear the reverberated decay of stubby, clumsy fingers sliding heavily against nickel-wound strings. I glanced the room, but it wasn’t until I saw the posters on the wall that I fully remembered what happened the night before: Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, Animal House, all the classic male masturbation fantasies. And I’d fallen for the same old shit again.

I grabbed an oversized Boston University hoodie from his pile of clothes nearby, and after I was (mostly) certain it was cleaned, I pulled it on over my head. I was never one for cuddling with strangers that I had just met at the bar, but I wasn’t comfortable leaving the room in nothing but last night’s wrinkled clothes. I squeezed into my jeans and left to find the bathroom.

“I’m sorry; did I wake you up?” he asked, before I’d even step completely of the bedroom doorway. He was sitting on a worn out grey-brown couch, strumming an acoustic guitar.

“Oh, no. No, not at all,” I said, not entirely confident in my ability to lie this early in the morning.

“That’s good. I was just working on a song I’ve been writing. But I figured I should let you sleep.” Then, a carefully calculated pause, as if the idea had just suddenly come. “Hey — would you want to hear it?”

I had the feeling that even if I said “no,” he would have played it anyway, but I didn’t want to be rude.

“And when you said that things were different,” he sang, “I thought that we could stay the same / but even on the darkest mornings / you know the stars still light up your name…“

I immediately wished that I had been rude. But still he kept singing:

“But baby, it’s a brand new world / I hope you’ll make it for me / Baby, won’t you give it a whirl? / Just let your heart go free / and stay with me…“

I suddenly regretted hooking up with about 85% of the guys I met in college. Still, here I was at 27, and somehow in my inebriation, I had fallen for the same old crap. Sure — in my sobriety, if you can call the morning that, I could see it for what it was. But apparently I regressed 7 years last night.

“Hey, I should actually get going…” I interrupted, as politely as I could. “I’ve got this, umm —”

“Oh, well — can you at least stay for breakfast? It’s just about done. Do you like bacon?”

Suddenly, the morning after didn’t seem so bad.

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The Beats Don’t Stop ‘Til Your Body Drops

Posted on January 3, 2011 by | Leave a comment

beat

beat

another beat
trembling

pulsating.beat

four-on-the-floor
hope for one more

beat.

resonating
deep in veins
to palpitate
appendages

in a beat

beat
another beat

shaking hands
shaking feet

keep it steady
keep the beat

beat

beat

another beat

another beat

beat

another

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Guitar

Posted on November 4, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Foot pedal,
Lamp-lit,

Bent knee
Beats,
Eats denim

Vibrations, powered
Air, knucklecracked

Jam contains
Constant elations

No singers
String finger
Lingers
________

Guitar

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Posted in poetry

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Dinner for One

Posted on September 1, 2010 by | 3 Comments

She revels in knowing that these are the days she’ll recount to her children’s children. She thinks about the advice she’ll give, advice she never received because of her own family’s conservatism.  She makes dinner; sauteing onions and garlic that mix into a smell that never fails to make her feel closer to her mother, dancing to music that gives her no choice but to move (even when she’s at work or on the train, tired or upset). She dances while the sweat drips off of her, while the onions sizzle, while the water in her glass threatens suicide over the edge. She stops only long enough to drink it in greedy gulps, then begins dancing again in a movement that suggests she never stopped. She lets the water spill, thinks about all of the thirsts she gets to quench. When the food is done, she piles it onto a green plate, licking her fingers as she does.

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I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

Posted on August 16, 2010 by | 1 Comment

Paul sat in his darkened room, alone, but not lonely, with his favorite blue sheets pulled up over his head, enwrapping him in sky. Two large, cushioned cans hugged his ears like clouds, billowing as he in turn wrapped his arms along those sleek vinyl curves. This was the way that Paul preferred to listen to his music. It was an absolute immersion, one that enabled him to get lost between the thuds of the deepest rhythms and drown in seas of reverb, stripping his essence bare until that warm, familiar Telecaster twang reached out its hand to save him -— a solace that smothered him in ecstasy.

But Paul forgot to close the door. A trapezoid of white light from the open crack bisected the room, its radiance the white heat of a candle in a dripping black cavern. It was enough to expose his sweaty body as it rustled between the sheets.

“Paul?” a voice spoke from the shelves, interrupting the throes of his atmospheric passion. “Paul, is that you?”

Paul pulled the sheets down just enough so could see, while still covering the rest of his exposed being. “Wilco? Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Oh God. Listen, I — it’s not what you think, I —”

“Is that —,” Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot swallowed hard, afraid to speak the truth that it already knew. “Is that the new The National album?”

“No! Well, yes, it is. But — I can explain!”

It was too late. The trapezoid of light from the door fell precisely on his bed, theatrically illuminating Paul’s infidelity. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot could clearly see his right hand rubbing and caressing the grooves of The National: High Violet‘s coarse plastic flesh.

“After all we’ve been through, Paul. After all these years together, this is how you treat me?” cried Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with a shrill of a turntable needle scratching its soul. “You just…throw it all away when some other hyped-up indie band’s follow-up album comes along? Is that it?”

Paul looked over at The National: High Violet, trembling, hoping to find support. But all he saw was black.

“Where was The National when Chloe dumped you, huh?” continued Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. “Or when you had to move back to your parents’ house for that year. Do you even remember what I told you? I said I’ll love you, baby.”

“Look, it’s…it’s not you, okay? It’s me. I’ll always love you — I am the man who loves you — but The National just connects to a different part of me, and…I wanted to feel that part come alive.”

There was a pause, as the two lovers stood in gridlock, both unsure of what to do next. Finally, Paul broke the silence:

“If I could, you know I would —”

But Wilco cut him off. “No, Paul,” it said. “I’m sorry. It’s too late. But who knows? Maybe distance has a way of making love understandable.”

And that’s when the record stopped spinning.

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Songs about Writers

Posted on April 23, 2010 by | Leave a comment

I MC’d a fundraising show before going to Denver the other week, and I used as my intro song a track by MC Lars called “Space Game.”  It’s a nerd-core song that features these lyrics:

Ezra Pound can’t stop me (I’m on fire tonight)
Virginia Wolfe can’t stop me (I’m on fire tonight)
Joseph Conrad can’t stop me (I’m on fire tonight)
I excite the modern mind like a ray of light
Franz Kafka can’t stop me (I’m on fire tonight)
Wallace Stevens can’t stop me (I’m on fire tonight)
E.E. Cummings can’t stop me (I’m on fire tonight)
I’ve got postmodern game and it feels all right

That kind of did it for me, and it got me thinking – what other songs are there about writers?

Lucky you, I came up with some.  Links attached.

MC Lars (another one) – Mr Raven – Edgar Allen Poe

The Beatles – Paperback Writer

Modest Mouse – Bukowski (Live) - Charles Bukowski

Billy Bragg & Wilco – Walt Whitman’s Niece – Walt Whitman

Now, don’t go and say words never did nuthin’ for ya.

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In the Key of C

Posted on April 12, 2010 by | 1 Comment

“You’ve changed,” he said as the fluid earth exploded on the finely crushed stones. The crash punctuated his sentence with a translucent blue-brown burst that broke like softened glass upon the shore and shattered the still seaside air. But the mist quickly dissipated, letting the harmonic dissonance resolve in a cadence. His ivory eyes leaped through the mist, climbed a third into hers. Together kept in key. In that moment they felt plagal, as if all of their progressions finally brought them home again. Even the melancholy of A minor couldn’t overwhelm the 4/4 rhythm of their harmonized hearts, between them beating something so much greater than their blood. He hesitated for a minor 2nd, and she silenced his lips with her slender sustain. She breathed, “Shhh,”and came in in unison, where they finally fell back into C. Back, and 4th, the cadence played again and again while the waves ate up the ash of all the life they’d burned away to bring them here.

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