From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: pubwork@city.windsor.on.ca
hi.
i'm just wondering how stringent they are about "home owner". i'm living in a rental unit that isn't currently recycling. can i pick up a blue and red box myself or do i need to convince my landlord to do it?
j
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
washing machine
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
hi.
things are good in here. shower's working. heat's working. happy about things.
i'm just wondering what the deal with the washing machine is? i do laundry infrequently. i can wait a few weeks for it to come back up. but if it's going to be longer than that, i think i should hit a laundromat.
j
To: the initial landlord
hi.
things are good in here. shower's working. heat's working. happy about things.
i'm just wondering what the deal with the washing machine is? i do laundry infrequently. i can wait a few weeks for it to come back up. but if it's going to be longer than that, i think i should hit a laundromat.
j
Monday, December 2, 2013
thoughts on the new autechre ep
the ep has a lot of shape to it. always the best autechre. this is the climax/conclusion. it's really gorgeous as it is, in a way that only autechre is capable of, but it makes more sense if you listen to it in context.
this is sort of peripheral to the argument (which i think is not
existing in this reality; middle america is not in any way represented
by wall street), but why does the bourgeoisie get interesting music
while the rest of us are stuck with boring folk garbage? this is a
strain of thought that has long bothered me about leftists, this desire
to avoid any kind of art that might be engaged with intellectually.
instead, why can't we abolish folk as primitivist snoredom and embrace
serious music for all?
i mean, the whole point of reducing labour through socialism is to free up time for learning and art. without art, we'd might as well just throw ourselves into the machines as sacrifices to the production process...
http://jacobinmag.com/2013/11/the-end-of-classical-music/
i mean, the whole point of reducing labour through socialism is to free up time for learning and art. without art, we'd might as well just throw ourselves into the machines as sacrifices to the production process...
http://jacobinmag.com/2013/11/the-end-of-classical-music/
Sunday, December 1, 2013
are the arcade fire substantive artists?
Nor Easter
Arcade Fire are an embarrassment to art. They copy, they imitate, and they do it with disgusting pretension. They have NO new ideas. Hope they all die in a fire soon.
Futur Incertain UncertainFutur
The Beatles started up copying some of the american rythm & blues, the same with the Stones. Madonna ripped off some of Blondie'S stuff and most of the disco era. Gaga is stealing her (?) ideas from just about everyone.....Motown sound came from a blend of blues and rock, Jazz came from Blues and on and on.......so, tell me what in this is true original music without any influence at all?
deathtokoalas
+Parhasard57 the same criticism applies to all that crap, though. there's been heaps of original music released in the last 50 years (some of it by the beatles, after they grew out of their mop top phase) but it contradicts the logic of capitalism to try and sell an unfamiliar product so it gets virtually zero promotion. case in point: madonna actually came out of a really creative music scene. the second most popular band in that circle of people was sonic youth, who you've probably heard of. have you heard of swans? jim thirlwell? lydia lunch? glenn branca? john zorn? it was all there at the same time, it all could have been marketed, but one was an easy product that appeals to base desires and the rest challenged people to reconsider their preconceptions of what music even is.
but, the great composers all die penniless and unknown. so it's not like this is anything new.
Futur Incertain UncertainFutur
+deathtokoalas I agree with most of what you wrote; and I know and/or heard some of the bands and artists you mentioned, heck you could have included many more but the point being about Art. I never thought someone would get up one morning and say: hum, today, i will write music that is Art. All those musicians do what they feel and wish to play, with basically one goal in mind: go further as a musician, or explore the limits of what they like. It is not easy for me to explain my train of thoughts since I speak French usually. And let's keep i mind how Art is not objective but rather subjective, in music as well as in painting.
So, all this to say that, although there are forms of music that are tasteless and formated that will please some, but there is also some music that MAY not achieve the status of true or pure art but may contain a vast sum of qualities. You see, many are praying Warhol as a genius but to me, it's «meh».
The bottom line being: nobody will never come up with a bunch of songs that will please each and everyone because as i said, it is a subjective medium, what is art to you may be shit to someone else. It's an endless debate.
oh, as far as «the great composers all died penniless», yeah some did but I believe Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, RAchmaninoff, Liszt and a few more did not do so bad.....Or Zappa for that matter.
Robert DeCreon
+Parhasard57 It's interesting you say that, because I think Beatles and Floyd were actually pretty original, altough of course they had their inspirations, they took it all from LSD and their incredible mind. Why do you think Beatles is considered the best artist ever? Because of their inventions to the music.
deathtokoalas
that's right. the arcade fire do not belong to the same category as the beatles or floyd. their early material is better compared to something like the beegees, and they seem to have recently entered an abba phase.
you're allowed to enjoy the product, but it's not art. and it's not fair to artists to think of it as art.
Trevor Johnston
+deathtokoalas I am sick of the beatles as "the best band" Best band of their time but they were basically pop themselves with there melodies and simple playing. Its music, its what you like, every body has their favorites. I listen to Floyd but I find most of the beatles stuff simple, except there later experimental stuff.
deathtokoalas
+Trevor Johnston i pointed out a few posts back that i mean the material after and including revolver. early beatles up to that point is not creative and does not qualify as art. it qualifies as a successful product, but the reason it was a successful product is that it wasn't challenging.
but, no, it's not subjective, and i'm really fucking sick of fucking lazy capitalist idiots refusing to have the intellectual courage to acknowledge what is creative and what isn't. it's not interchangeable. it's not equivalent. it's not all fucking product designed to turn a dime to trickle it's way up the supply chain. it's not simply what butters your toast. there is a very clear, objective difference between producing for the sake of creativity and producing for the sake of profit.
again: if you want to listen to bland, cloned-over capitalist garbage then there's a million bands like arcade fire out there for you to explore. just don't call it art. please. it's not worthy.
Robert DeCreon
I'm not saying that Arcade Fire shall belong to a category like Beatles and Floyd belong to, but they are not like the Beeges or ABBA. Do you even know the meaning of the whole album? It's art, specially in this awful time that songs have no emotion or lyrical meaning.
deathtokoalas
i think the beegees/abba comparison is pretty good, actually. these bands were massively popular in their time and are mostly forgotten today. that will be the legacy of the arcade fire.
but if you want a more precise comparison, i'm going to draw attention to two bands: u2 and my chemical romance.
a few years ago, mcr swung out of being a bon jovi cover band and released this awful thing that was some kind of attempt to merge sgt peppers with the smashing pumpkins. reflector draws heavily from the black parade in the sense of stealing it's concept from sgt peppers.
musically, though, they've pulled a sort of ultra-paradoxical phase on u2's post-modern 90s phase. when u2 did the zooropa tour, it was a tongue-in-cheek parody on popular culture, a satire of over-the-top consumerism. the arcade fire have taken that sound and stripped it of it's irony. on one hand, it sort of makes bono look brilliant, in hindsight. but it all draws together the conclusion that this is designed solely to move units, rather than to say anything worthwhile.
Futur Incertain UncertainFutur
+deathtokoalas Dear Koalas.....I have to say I've rarely read such self-indulging comments. According to you, only you and a few others are capable of real Art! Wow, talk about being full of yourself . If I follow your saying, anything that is not like what you do is shit! You sound more like a jealous musician envying anybody's success. Here's the thing: Art is not restrain to sheer creation...it is also a matter of perceptions, communication and expressions. Visual arts are so diversified, it would be prententious to point only one form as being THE one. Same goes with music. The very first goal of music is to communicate either a message, or a state of mind, or an opportunity to explore some personnal ideas. To negate anything not complying with your own taste, is a proof of a limited mind....the same applies to those pissing on anything they don't get. All you,ve been writing here is a total lack of respect for anything YOU don't like......no wonder your band is not doing much.......talking TO people will bring you more than talking DOWN to someone. Good luck, anyway.
Robert DeCreon
+deathtokoalas Please don't take this as rude, but I'm glad your opinion it's just minority. You're saying like it's fact but it's acutally just a selfish declaration that you try to convince other it's a fact. Again I have to ask you: Do you know the meaning of this or the whole album? ABBA, Beeges, MCR, Bon Jovi or whatever other band you cited there (no ofense to someone who likes them) aren't capable of doing such thing. You're only showing at every comment you say that you're wrong and that you have no idea what art really is. You're thinking that art is the same that POPULAR, and POP things these days are only shit. So if Arcade Fire made sucess these days I would be surprised, because people have no capacity to recognize this as art from so much shit they have in their minds. Please don't think i'm a cunt after all these things I have said, I'm trying to be lovely at best way possible. If Arcade Fire weren't popular in a past time then you could say they are equal as Beeges and ABBA.
You're seeing the music in a intelectual level. Don't do that, music isn't supposed to be seeing that way, yet feeling it with passion. AF doesn't need to a new Beatles to change people's life or something. I'm just happy that they have the courage to put something like that in market against all others pop artists and still being considered in the top 10 albums of 2013.
Futur Incertain UncertainFutur
+deathtokoalas One last thing: your self-indulging mind seems to confuse taste with critics.....Your point of view is one about taste not what is Art. I cannot beleive you pose yourself as a music «critic» on your post.....to do so, you need to be impartial and able to recognise qualities in most musics made. Anything else is a matter of personnal taste and yours seems rather limited.
deathtokoalas
+Parhasard57 you've misunderstood me. i can cite a lot of art i don't really like. early kraftwerk would be an example. stockhausen, to a lesser extent. schoenberg, for sure. i find this stuff prodding and boring, but i realize it was created to push boundaries and not to move units. it consequently qualifies as art; my reaction to it is secondary. your reaction is pretty standard, though: conscientiously or not, you've taken the capitalist perspective of leaving the value of art up to markets and then accused me of trying to restrict the market. no. i'm rejecting the concept of art as a product altogether by separating out that which is meant to make money from that which is meant to be creative.
in broad terms, my perspective is closer to the historical norm whereas you're conforming to the existing neo-liberal anomaly of reducing everything to a price tag. i don't want to really think in those terms, though. i want to think in terms of a post-capitalist paradigm where the exchange of currency for art is abolished. in this proposed future post-lefist understanding of art, collectives like the arcade fire would for the most part cease to exist because they'll have lost their profit motive.
deathtokoalas
+Robert DeCreon if i was criticizing a robert johnson track, i could see your reaction making sense. i could even see it making sense in reaction to something like nirvana. but, this is hardly gut-wrenching music that is going to move anybody on an emotional level. i mean, that's ultimately the basis of my criticism: this is a cold, emotionless product. it exists purely on an intellectual level in the first place, so that's the right way to deconstruct it.
Robert DeCreon
+ deathtokoalas Your comments are just... idiot. You keep citing Robert Johnsonn, Kraftwerk, Schoenberg, and many others things that it seens like you're trying to show that you're a badass intellectual who studied music and knows what you're talking about yet you are just playing fool here. If you were only saying "I didn't like this album" or "I don't like Arcade Fire" it would be okay, but you keep saying nonsense things instead of just speaking, let's say, casually. Youtube it's not a fucking professional critics...
Arcade Fire are an embarrassment to art. They copy, they imitate, and they do it with disgusting pretension. They have NO new ideas. Hope they all die in a fire soon.
Futur Incertain UncertainFutur
The Beatles started up copying some of the american rythm & blues, the same with the Stones. Madonna ripped off some of Blondie'S stuff and most of the disco era. Gaga is stealing her (?) ideas from just about everyone.....Motown sound came from a blend of blues and rock, Jazz came from Blues and on and on.......so, tell me what in this is true original music without any influence at all?
deathtokoalas
+Parhasard57 the same criticism applies to all that crap, though. there's been heaps of original music released in the last 50 years (some of it by the beatles, after they grew out of their mop top phase) but it contradicts the logic of capitalism to try and sell an unfamiliar product so it gets virtually zero promotion. case in point: madonna actually came out of a really creative music scene. the second most popular band in that circle of people was sonic youth, who you've probably heard of. have you heard of swans? jim thirlwell? lydia lunch? glenn branca? john zorn? it was all there at the same time, it all could have been marketed, but one was an easy product that appeals to base desires and the rest challenged people to reconsider their preconceptions of what music even is.
but, the great composers all die penniless and unknown. so it's not like this is anything new.
Futur Incertain UncertainFutur
+deathtokoalas I agree with most of what you wrote; and I know and/or heard some of the bands and artists you mentioned, heck you could have included many more but the point being about Art. I never thought someone would get up one morning and say: hum, today, i will write music that is Art. All those musicians do what they feel and wish to play, with basically one goal in mind: go further as a musician, or explore the limits of what they like. It is not easy for me to explain my train of thoughts since I speak French usually. And let's keep i mind how Art is not objective but rather subjective, in music as well as in painting.
So, all this to say that, although there are forms of music that are tasteless and formated that will please some, but there is also some music that MAY not achieve the status of true or pure art but may contain a vast sum of qualities. You see, many are praying Warhol as a genius but to me, it's «meh».
The bottom line being: nobody will never come up with a bunch of songs that will please each and everyone because as i said, it is a subjective medium, what is art to you may be shit to someone else. It's an endless debate.
oh, as far as «the great composers all died penniless», yeah some did but I believe Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, RAchmaninoff, Liszt and a few more did not do so bad.....Or Zappa for that matter.
Robert DeCreon
+Parhasard57 It's interesting you say that, because I think Beatles and Floyd were actually pretty original, altough of course they had their inspirations, they took it all from LSD and their incredible mind. Why do you think Beatles is considered the best artist ever? Because of their inventions to the music.
deathtokoalas
that's right. the arcade fire do not belong to the same category as the beatles or floyd. their early material is better compared to something like the beegees, and they seem to have recently entered an abba phase.
you're allowed to enjoy the product, but it's not art. and it's not fair to artists to think of it as art.
Trevor Johnston
+deathtokoalas I am sick of the beatles as "the best band" Best band of their time but they were basically pop themselves with there melodies and simple playing. Its music, its what you like, every body has their favorites. I listen to Floyd but I find most of the beatles stuff simple, except there later experimental stuff.
deathtokoalas
+Trevor Johnston i pointed out a few posts back that i mean the material after and including revolver. early beatles up to that point is not creative and does not qualify as art. it qualifies as a successful product, but the reason it was a successful product is that it wasn't challenging.
but, no, it's not subjective, and i'm really fucking sick of fucking lazy capitalist idiots refusing to have the intellectual courage to acknowledge what is creative and what isn't. it's not interchangeable. it's not equivalent. it's not all fucking product designed to turn a dime to trickle it's way up the supply chain. it's not simply what butters your toast. there is a very clear, objective difference between producing for the sake of creativity and producing for the sake of profit.
again: if you want to listen to bland, cloned-over capitalist garbage then there's a million bands like arcade fire out there for you to explore. just don't call it art. please. it's not worthy.
Robert DeCreon
I'm not saying that Arcade Fire shall belong to a category like Beatles and Floyd belong to, but they are not like the Beeges or ABBA. Do you even know the meaning of the whole album? It's art, specially in this awful time that songs have no emotion or lyrical meaning.
deathtokoalas
i think the beegees/abba comparison is pretty good, actually. these bands were massively popular in their time and are mostly forgotten today. that will be the legacy of the arcade fire.
but if you want a more precise comparison, i'm going to draw attention to two bands: u2 and my chemical romance.
a few years ago, mcr swung out of being a bon jovi cover band and released this awful thing that was some kind of attempt to merge sgt peppers with the smashing pumpkins. reflector draws heavily from the black parade in the sense of stealing it's concept from sgt peppers.
musically, though, they've pulled a sort of ultra-paradoxical phase on u2's post-modern 90s phase. when u2 did the zooropa tour, it was a tongue-in-cheek parody on popular culture, a satire of over-the-top consumerism. the arcade fire have taken that sound and stripped it of it's irony. on one hand, it sort of makes bono look brilliant, in hindsight. but it all draws together the conclusion that this is designed solely to move units, rather than to say anything worthwhile.
Futur Incertain UncertainFutur
+deathtokoalas Dear Koalas.....I have to say I've rarely read such self-indulging comments. According to you, only you and a few others are capable of real Art! Wow, talk about being full of yourself . If I follow your saying, anything that is not like what you do is shit! You sound more like a jealous musician envying anybody's success. Here's the thing: Art is not restrain to sheer creation...it is also a matter of perceptions, communication and expressions. Visual arts are so diversified, it would be prententious to point only one form as being THE one. Same goes with music. The very first goal of music is to communicate either a message, or a state of mind, or an opportunity to explore some personnal ideas. To negate anything not complying with your own taste, is a proof of a limited mind....the same applies to those pissing on anything they don't get. All you,ve been writing here is a total lack of respect for anything YOU don't like......no wonder your band is not doing much.......talking TO people will bring you more than talking DOWN to someone. Good luck, anyway.
Robert DeCreon
+deathtokoalas Please don't take this as rude, but I'm glad your opinion it's just minority. You're saying like it's fact but it's acutally just a selfish declaration that you try to convince other it's a fact. Again I have to ask you: Do you know the meaning of this or the whole album? ABBA, Beeges, MCR, Bon Jovi or whatever other band you cited there (no ofense to someone who likes them) aren't capable of doing such thing. You're only showing at every comment you say that you're wrong and that you have no idea what art really is. You're thinking that art is the same that POPULAR, and POP things these days are only shit. So if Arcade Fire made sucess these days I would be surprised, because people have no capacity to recognize this as art from so much shit they have in their minds. Please don't think i'm a cunt after all these things I have said, I'm trying to be lovely at best way possible. If Arcade Fire weren't popular in a past time then you could say they are equal as Beeges and ABBA.
You're seeing the music in a intelectual level. Don't do that, music isn't supposed to be seeing that way, yet feeling it with passion. AF doesn't need to a new Beatles to change people's life or something. I'm just happy that they have the courage to put something like that in market against all others pop artists and still being considered in the top 10 albums of 2013.
Futur Incertain UncertainFutur
+deathtokoalas One last thing: your self-indulging mind seems to confuse taste with critics.....Your point of view is one about taste not what is Art. I cannot beleive you pose yourself as a music «critic» on your post.....to do so, you need to be impartial and able to recognise qualities in most musics made. Anything else is a matter of personnal taste and yours seems rather limited.
deathtokoalas
+Parhasard57 you've misunderstood me. i can cite a lot of art i don't really like. early kraftwerk would be an example. stockhausen, to a lesser extent. schoenberg, for sure. i find this stuff prodding and boring, but i realize it was created to push boundaries and not to move units. it consequently qualifies as art; my reaction to it is secondary. your reaction is pretty standard, though: conscientiously or not, you've taken the capitalist perspective of leaving the value of art up to markets and then accused me of trying to restrict the market. no. i'm rejecting the concept of art as a product altogether by separating out that which is meant to make money from that which is meant to be creative.
in broad terms, my perspective is closer to the historical norm whereas you're conforming to the existing neo-liberal anomaly of reducing everything to a price tag. i don't want to really think in those terms, though. i want to think in terms of a post-capitalist paradigm where the exchange of currency for art is abolished. in this proposed future post-lefist understanding of art, collectives like the arcade fire would for the most part cease to exist because they'll have lost their profit motive.
deathtokoalas
+Robert DeCreon if i was criticizing a robert johnson track, i could see your reaction making sense. i could even see it making sense in reaction to something like nirvana. but, this is hardly gut-wrenching music that is going to move anybody on an emotional level. i mean, that's ultimately the basis of my criticism: this is a cold, emotionless product. it exists purely on an intellectual level in the first place, so that's the right way to deconstruct it.
Robert DeCreon
+ deathtokoalas Your comments are just... idiot. You keep citing Robert Johnsonn, Kraftwerk, Schoenberg, and many others things that it seens like you're trying to show that you're a badass intellectual who studied music and knows what you're talking about yet you are just playing fool here. If you were only saying "I didn't like this album" or "I don't like Arcade Fire" it would be okay, but you keep saying nonsense things instead of just speaking, let's say, casually. Youtube it's not a fucking professional critics...
on the question of srv’s actual talent level
Panglos
You can close your eyes, and as soon as you hear this, you know who's playing. (You might think it could be Albert King, but not if you're sharp-eared.)
What that tells you is that this isn't the "best guitar player." It's a very one-dimensional guitar player, one who has basically one style, and one style only. A guitar player who's very overrated, by people who apparently don't know too much about guitars or guitar players.
Joris van Dijk
I don't think you know very much about guitars if you don't consider him as one of the best ever. He just liked one style most and mastered it like nobody could. If you watch his performances you'll see why people consider him as one of the best. I'm not saying that he is the best, but he sure is one of the best ever.
And further more I can also easily recognise Hendrix, B.B. King, Clapton, Guy, etc. with my eyes closed. And those weren't one-dimensional guitar players.
Panglos
Being limited and being recognizable aren't mutually exclusive. In your list, some of those artists are unidimensional (I love the guy, but exactly how many styles does B.B. have?), and some are multidimensional. Having worked with some of them, I have a pretty good handle on that.
deathtokoalas
your error is trying to rank guitarists in the first place. there is no total ordering on the set of all guitarists. how does one compare srv to al di meola? one was a self-taught prodigy working entirely on intuition, the other was a berklee academic. the guitar is a completely different instrument to these people.
rather, the question - in this case the definition of the set - needs to be restricted to something more specific. srv was a self-taught, "feel" guitarist that focused purely on raw emotion. the question you need to ask is not "how diverse was srv in comparison to other players"; that would be as silly as asking "how punk rock was al di meola?". the question you need to ask is "how real, powerful and fucking gut-wrenchingly emotional was srv in comparison to other players?".
i hesitate to place him at the top. i think dislodging hendrix from his acknowledged place of righteousness is very difficult. i'll throw the curve ball of a young billy corgan (90-95) in there that most people would probably think is pretty left field, but i'll argue the point. check out 'starla' or 'drown'. yet, the number of 'feel' players that can overpower srv is very small indeed. no more than can be counted on one hand.
....even if he'd tell you that you're speaking greek if you brought up the concept of modes.
Joris van Dijk
+Panglos You can't say that when somebody prefers one style above the others he's an unidmimensional guitarist. The thing is that he was a blues man and didn't feel like doing another style. His blues are unparalleled by anyone else. I'm sure Stevie could have mastered Rock or something like that, but why should he? He is one of the best blues men ever. Stevie is not unidimensional, but he had his own style he prefered. Those are two different things.
Panglos
+deathtokoalas It wasn't me who said "best guitar player;" I responded to the claim, and denied it. So "my error" is your error. I agree that it's ridiculous to rank artists as if art is competitive. The great thing about art is that, unlike sports, it's all positive and not a zero-sum game: you get A and B, not A or B.
But I have to differ about the point about SRV being self taught (as if that makes him unique) and a "feel" guitarist. The ability to emote is IMO the best attribute of a guitarist. I think we agree on that. But there gets to be a point at which it's too much, where the player represents the out-of-control sort. The type of trailer-dwelling person who loses his cool and beats his wife/girlfriend--sure he's unusually expressive, but we don't count that as being expressive in a way that we admire. And that's the kind of person SRV and his music remind me of.
There are lots of guitarists who have so much "feel" they can--and do--bring tears to my eyes. For the right reasons. I can do without SRV.
Joris van Dijk
+Panglos But even if you keep the "feel" (From which I think SRV has the best blues feeling, but that's an opinion matter) aspect out of sight and just take a pure look at his technics, you can't deny that SRV was technically one of the best, he always hit the right notes at the right time, he has extremely quick hands and the songs are greatly constructed. Even if you put the "feel" away you can say is one of the best.
Panglos
+Joris van Dijk Using the video here as an example (and it's one of many), it sounds really sloppy to me. Not tight at all, hardly "hitting the right notes at the right time."
There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. I love Albert Collins' style, for example, even as I refer to his playing as "bad hair day guitar." Mistakes—and recovery from them—are sometimes my absolute favorite parts of blues solos (witness Johnny Winter at about 4:44 in Third Degree). It's like the charred bits in a plate of barbecue.
But somehow SRV just doesn't do it for me. It's more like meat that's not cooked exactly to my liking, and prepared much the same way every time.
I'm going to have to get off this topic. It's not my purpose to denigrate someone on a site/video dedicated to him. I only wanted to offer a differing opinion to a specific post. I'm happy for you that you get enjoyment from SRV that I don't get. Fortunately for me (and all of us), there are plenty of other places to get pleasure from blues players, and music in general!
Joris van Dijk
+Panglos Well after all music is all about opinions, so I respect yours, evenhough I don't agree with you. And just as you say there a plenty of other nice blues players and some of them we probably like both, was a nice discussion and enjoy the blues!
deathtokoalas
yeah. srv was not a technically gifted guitar player. that's why i brought in the di meola example. if you want to judge guitarists on that scale, you need to be looking into jazz and prog (and, to a much lesser extent, metal). srv sounds like an amateur in comparison to zappa, keneally, mclaughlin, holdsworth, etc. but it's a meaningless comparison to make because they're not playing the same instrument.
that being said, i don't understand how somebody could deny the raw emotional power of his playing and still manage to breathe on a regular basis.
Joris van Dijk
+deathtokoalas I don't entirely agree with you, SRV was also technically a good musician.
deathtokoalas
+Joris van Dijk stevie only really knew how to play pentatonic blues. he then got really good at it by practicing playing the same patterns over and over. so, he sounds fast, but there's no technical understanding of music underlying the sound. if you take him out of that context, he's entirely lost. he made the most of it, though - in the same way that a one-note solo can often be more powerful than a barrage of notes. really, i'd argue that it's his slower pieces where he really wails.
You can close your eyes, and as soon as you hear this, you know who's playing. (You might think it could be Albert King, but not if you're sharp-eared.)
What that tells you is that this isn't the "best guitar player." It's a very one-dimensional guitar player, one who has basically one style, and one style only. A guitar player who's very overrated, by people who apparently don't know too much about guitars or guitar players.
Joris van Dijk
I don't think you know very much about guitars if you don't consider him as one of the best ever. He just liked one style most and mastered it like nobody could. If you watch his performances you'll see why people consider him as one of the best. I'm not saying that he is the best, but he sure is one of the best ever.
And further more I can also easily recognise Hendrix, B.B. King, Clapton, Guy, etc. with my eyes closed. And those weren't one-dimensional guitar players.
Panglos
Being limited and being recognizable aren't mutually exclusive. In your list, some of those artists are unidimensional (I love the guy, but exactly how many styles does B.B. have?), and some are multidimensional. Having worked with some of them, I have a pretty good handle on that.
deathtokoalas
your error is trying to rank guitarists in the first place. there is no total ordering on the set of all guitarists. how does one compare srv to al di meola? one was a self-taught prodigy working entirely on intuition, the other was a berklee academic. the guitar is a completely different instrument to these people.
rather, the question - in this case the definition of the set - needs to be restricted to something more specific. srv was a self-taught, "feel" guitarist that focused purely on raw emotion. the question you need to ask is not "how diverse was srv in comparison to other players"; that would be as silly as asking "how punk rock was al di meola?". the question you need to ask is "how real, powerful and fucking gut-wrenchingly emotional was srv in comparison to other players?".
i hesitate to place him at the top. i think dislodging hendrix from his acknowledged place of righteousness is very difficult. i'll throw the curve ball of a young billy corgan (90-95) in there that most people would probably think is pretty left field, but i'll argue the point. check out 'starla' or 'drown'. yet, the number of 'feel' players that can overpower srv is very small indeed. no more than can be counted on one hand.
....even if he'd tell you that you're speaking greek if you brought up the concept of modes.
Joris van Dijk
+Panglos You can't say that when somebody prefers one style above the others he's an unidmimensional guitarist. The thing is that he was a blues man and didn't feel like doing another style. His blues are unparalleled by anyone else. I'm sure Stevie could have mastered Rock or something like that, but why should he? He is one of the best blues men ever. Stevie is not unidimensional, but he had his own style he prefered. Those are two different things.
Panglos
+deathtokoalas It wasn't me who said "best guitar player;" I responded to the claim, and denied it. So "my error" is your error. I agree that it's ridiculous to rank artists as if art is competitive. The great thing about art is that, unlike sports, it's all positive and not a zero-sum game: you get A and B, not A or B.
But I have to differ about the point about SRV being self taught (as if that makes him unique) and a "feel" guitarist. The ability to emote is IMO the best attribute of a guitarist. I think we agree on that. But there gets to be a point at which it's too much, where the player represents the out-of-control sort. The type of trailer-dwelling person who loses his cool and beats his wife/girlfriend--sure he's unusually expressive, but we don't count that as being expressive in a way that we admire. And that's the kind of person SRV and his music remind me of.
There are lots of guitarists who have so much "feel" they can--and do--bring tears to my eyes. For the right reasons. I can do without SRV.
Joris van Dijk
+Panglos But even if you keep the "feel" (From which I think SRV has the best blues feeling, but that's an opinion matter) aspect out of sight and just take a pure look at his technics, you can't deny that SRV was technically one of the best, he always hit the right notes at the right time, he has extremely quick hands and the songs are greatly constructed. Even if you put the "feel" away you can say is one of the best.
Panglos
+Joris van Dijk Using the video here as an example (and it's one of many), it sounds really sloppy to me. Not tight at all, hardly "hitting the right notes at the right time."
There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. I love Albert Collins' style, for example, even as I refer to his playing as "bad hair day guitar." Mistakes—and recovery from them—are sometimes my absolute favorite parts of blues solos (witness Johnny Winter at about 4:44 in Third Degree). It's like the charred bits in a plate of barbecue.
But somehow SRV just doesn't do it for me. It's more like meat that's not cooked exactly to my liking, and prepared much the same way every time.
I'm going to have to get off this topic. It's not my purpose to denigrate someone on a site/video dedicated to him. I only wanted to offer a differing opinion to a specific post. I'm happy for you that you get enjoyment from SRV that I don't get. Fortunately for me (and all of us), there are plenty of other places to get pleasure from blues players, and music in general!
Joris van Dijk
+Panglos Well after all music is all about opinions, so I respect yours, evenhough I don't agree with you. And just as you say there a plenty of other nice blues players and some of them we probably like both, was a nice discussion and enjoy the blues!
deathtokoalas
yeah. srv was not a technically gifted guitar player. that's why i brought in the di meola example. if you want to judge guitarists on that scale, you need to be looking into jazz and prog (and, to a much lesser extent, metal). srv sounds like an amateur in comparison to zappa, keneally, mclaughlin, holdsworth, etc. but it's a meaningless comparison to make because they're not playing the same instrument.
that being said, i don't understand how somebody could deny the raw emotional power of his playing and still manage to breathe on a regular basis.
Joris van Dijk
+deathtokoalas I don't entirely agree with you, SRV was also technically a good musician.
deathtokoalas
+Joris van Dijk stevie only really knew how to play pentatonic blues. he then got really good at it by practicing playing the same patterns over and over. so, he sounds fast, but there's no technical understanding of music underlying the sound. if you take him out of that context, he's entirely lost. he made the most of it, though - in the same way that a one-note solo can often be more powerful than a barrage of notes. really, i'd argue that it's his slower pieces where he really wails.
yeah, these things are freaky.
my grade 5/6 teacher (i went to a very small elementary school that had one split 5/6 class with the same teacher both years) had a thing for playing old time radio. we got to listen to the original war of the worlds and a bunch of other things. one of them was a story of fire ants advancing on a village in south america from a first person perspective, and the carnage that ensued when they ravaged it. that's something i won't forget....it was both educational and scary as fuck....
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bizarre-fire-ants-create-rafts-survive
my grade 5/6 teacher (i went to a very small elementary school that had one split 5/6 class with the same teacher both years) had a thing for playing old time radio. we got to listen to the original war of the worlds and a bunch of other things. one of them was a story of fire ants advancing on a village in south america from a first person perspective, and the carnage that ensued when they ravaged it. that's something i won't forget....it was both educational and scary as fuck....
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bizarre-fire-ants-create-rafts-survive
Saturday, November 30, 2013
i'm just looking at listening stats for some of the stuff i've been posting recently and, god, people have short attention spans nowadays. a desire for instant gratification.
pro-tip: when a song is five, ten, fifteen minutes long, it's hard to get an understanding of it from listening to the first 10-20% of it. that's just the introduction. i mean, we don't usually judge books by covers do we? with a large piece of music like this, there's usually a process in listening to it. the music has a shape: a start, a middle and an end. often, the song shifts dramatically through those ten minutes, incorporating radically different genres throughout it's length. sometimes the climax comes halfway through, and sometimes you've actually gotta even listen to the whole thing to get to the high point.
and, no, a solution is not to cut out the atmospherics and just focus on the intense sections. music that is meant to be digested as an art form cannot be reduced to an advertisement jingle. a cat is not a dog. when music is written with a process, the climax often *doesn't make sense* without the process that leads up to it.
i mean, if somebody wants to accuse me of not being an exciting rock artist, or a viable pop musician, i'll plead guilty to that. i'm not trying to be that, and never have been (except maybe for a few delusional moments around '97/'98). people that are looking for that kind of thing are going to be disappointed. but, that's why i'm not tagging any of this stuff with 'miley cyrus'. i'm tagging it with 'kosmische', 'post rock', 'glitch' - genres that generally attract people with longer listening spans.
i guess what i don't understand is why people bother pressing play at all if they don't intend to actually listen to it. i mean, what are they really doing? looking for something they've already heard? rejecting it the moment they don't recognize it?
grargh.
the flip side is that it seems to be that when somebody actually does listen to a full song, they listen to several. i'll go two or three days with nothing but partials, then get 30 full listens in a row - clearly all by the same person. that's encouraging...
i just wish i understood the psychology behind the partials. it doesn't make sense to me.
i mean, i sort of get that some people are going to grow bored of a four minute ambient intro. fine. they're not going to enjoy my music. that's ok.
what i don't get is why they'd click through the progressive rock tag to get there, notice the song is seventeen minutes long and then expect to understand what's going to happen at 12:37 after listening to the first four minutes.
am i being presumptuous to think that clicking on the prog tag, noticing the lengthy track length and then pressing play anyways pre-supposes an understanding that one needs to let the track finish before judging it?
i'm hoping this might help.
the music here has shifted dramatically over many years, from roots in punk/grunge through to experimental synth pop and into a type of kitchen sink post-rock with heavy electronics. the only consistency throughout is a lack of consistency, guitars and an impressionist aesthetic. "blender rock"
blender rock is what i've been calling myself for a while (check page description). no google hits except me. i like that.
"kitchen sink post-rock" brings up an article about trans am, who were a pretty neat 90s act. could have worse company.
pro-tip: when a song is five, ten, fifteen minutes long, it's hard to get an understanding of it from listening to the first 10-20% of it. that's just the introduction. i mean, we don't usually judge books by covers do we? with a large piece of music like this, there's usually a process in listening to it. the music has a shape: a start, a middle and an end. often, the song shifts dramatically through those ten minutes, incorporating radically different genres throughout it's length. sometimes the climax comes halfway through, and sometimes you've actually gotta even listen to the whole thing to get to the high point.
and, no, a solution is not to cut out the atmospherics and just focus on the intense sections. music that is meant to be digested as an art form cannot be reduced to an advertisement jingle. a cat is not a dog. when music is written with a process, the climax often *doesn't make sense* without the process that leads up to it.
i mean, if somebody wants to accuse me of not being an exciting rock artist, or a viable pop musician, i'll plead guilty to that. i'm not trying to be that, and never have been (except maybe for a few delusional moments around '97/'98). people that are looking for that kind of thing are going to be disappointed. but, that's why i'm not tagging any of this stuff with 'miley cyrus'. i'm tagging it with 'kosmische', 'post rock', 'glitch' - genres that generally attract people with longer listening spans.
i guess what i don't understand is why people bother pressing play at all if they don't intend to actually listen to it. i mean, what are they really doing? looking for something they've already heard? rejecting it the moment they don't recognize it?
grargh.
the flip side is that it seems to be that when somebody actually does listen to a full song, they listen to several. i'll go two or three days with nothing but partials, then get 30 full listens in a row - clearly all by the same person. that's encouraging...
i just wish i understood the psychology behind the partials. it doesn't make sense to me.
i mean, i sort of get that some people are going to grow bored of a four minute ambient intro. fine. they're not going to enjoy my music. that's ok.
what i don't get is why they'd click through the progressive rock tag to get there, notice the song is seventeen minutes long and then expect to understand what's going to happen at 12:37 after listening to the first four minutes.
am i being presumptuous to think that clicking on the prog tag, noticing the lengthy track length and then pressing play anyways pre-supposes an understanding that one needs to let the track finish before judging it?
i'm hoping this might help.
the music here has shifted dramatically over many years, from roots in punk/grunge through to experimental synth pop and into a type of kitchen sink post-rock with heavy electronics. the only consistency throughout is a lack of consistency, guitars and an impressionist aesthetic. "blender rock"
blender rock is what i've been calling myself for a while (check page description). no google hits except me. i like that.
"kitchen sink post-rock" brings up an article about trans am, who were a pretty neat 90s act. could have worse company.
publishing warning (inri029)
this was my grade 12 final project in electronic music design. the assignment was something along the lines of creating a piece of music with a social message.
the message is part dystopian, but focuses more on the idea of identifying certain threats that would become a problem in the upcoming century. remember that this was the end of 1999. how close was i?
1) intro
2) war
3) noise pollution, or pollution in general
4) conformity (or the collapse of individualism)*
5) chemical warfare
6) global warming
7) outro
*i was thinking in terms of personality/uniqueness, rather than something political. and i think the extreme conformity underlying gen y social attitudes have played this out frighteningly well, actually. it's a reaction to the radical mindset of anti-conformity that dominated gen x, but it's still a very real thing that will have very real ramifications in the upcoming decades. if you thought the 50s were creepy, wait until you see what these kids grow up into!
i should have included something about inequality. i also removed a vegan track, partly due to time restraints. besides that, i think i got all of the broad ideas right.
most of the tracks are slightly remixed/resequenced versions of tracks from inri or inriched. track 5 is brand new, and recorded on the school's synthesizer (part of the project requirements).
noting that this contains a section i've title "symphony #0", i'm going to label this piece of music my zeroth symphony.
recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. as always, please use headphones.
credits
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum programming, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, tapes, production, found sounds, strategies
released june 20, 1999
1) this is track 1 from the original inri cd demo.
2) this is a combination of tracks 5 & 11 from the original inri cd demo.
3) this is a combination of tracks 3 & 7 from the original inriched cd demo.
4) this is track 19 from the original inriched cd demo.
5) this was an original track recorded on the school's synthesizer to fulfill the requirements of the project, but becomes track 7 on the original inridiculous cd demo.
6) this is track 19 from the original inri cd demo.
7) this is track 1 from the original inriched cd demo.
the message is part dystopian, but focuses more on the idea of identifying certain threats that would become a problem in the upcoming century. remember that this was the end of 1999. how close was i?
1) intro
2) war
3) noise pollution, or pollution in general
4) conformity (or the collapse of individualism)*
5) chemical warfare
6) global warming
7) outro
*i was thinking in terms of personality/uniqueness, rather than something political. and i think the extreme conformity underlying gen y social attitudes have played this out frighteningly well, actually. it's a reaction to the radical mindset of anti-conformity that dominated gen x, but it's still a very real thing that will have very real ramifications in the upcoming decades. if you thought the 50s were creepy, wait until you see what these kids grow up into!
i should have included something about inequality. i also removed a vegan track, partly due to time restraints. besides that, i think i got all of the broad ideas right.
most of the tracks are slightly remixed/resequenced versions of tracks from inri or inriched. track 5 is brand new, and recorded on the school's synthesizer (part of the project requirements).
noting that this contains a section i've title "symphony #0", i'm going to label this piece of music my zeroth symphony.
recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. as always, please use headphones.
credits
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum programming, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, tapes, production, found sounds, strategies
released june 20, 1999
1) this is track 1 from the original inri cd demo.
2) this is a combination of tracks 5 & 11 from the original inri cd demo.
3) this is a combination of tracks 3 & 7 from the original inriched cd demo.
4) this is track 19 from the original inriched cd demo.
5) this was an original track recorded on the school's synthesizer to fulfill the requirements of the project, but becomes track 7 on the original inridiculous cd demo.
6) this is track 19 from the original inri cd demo.
7) this is track 1 from the original inriched cd demo.
jack and the bean...
psyche.
life there is..........?
*crickets*
life's been weird here. haven't been drinking or smoking basically at all. that's been good for me; my head seems clear. but kind of empty.
i dunno. i'm swinging wildly between "life is perfect" and "life is meaningless".
perfectly meaningless. meaninglessly perfect. both, maybe, even.
still thinking of you. strangely. still a loose end. a splayed wire. a loose thread. a hair out of place.
a noodle hanging off the plate. yes, one of those long ones that just won't follow proper table etiquette. grrrrr.
i'm 10 hours away. in a different clime, even. consider this: there's no snow here yet. that's how far away i am. so it's safe to talk...
if you'd like.
j
life there is..........?
*crickets*
life's been weird here. haven't been drinking or smoking basically at all. that's been good for me; my head seems clear. but kind of empty.
i dunno. i'm swinging wildly between "life is perfect" and "life is meaningless".
perfectly meaningless. meaninglessly perfect. both, maybe, even.
still thinking of you. strangely. still a loose end. a splayed wire. a loose thread. a hair out of place.
a noodle hanging off the plate. yes, one of those long ones that just won't follow proper table etiquette. grrrrr.
i'm 10 hours away. in a different clime, even. consider this: there's no snow here yet. that's how far away i am. so it's safe to talk...
if you'd like.
j
Friday, November 29, 2013
Thursday, November 28, 2013
oxykitten as inspiration for chiptune project
i should point out that some of these chiptune things i'm cleaning up are from as far back as '97. i hit an apex in the style around '02, and then sort of faded out of it in favour of building a sort of guitar-driven electro sound, as explored in my 'tetris' project. i also had to x a bunch of the stuff under pressure from collaborators, as they thought it sounded 'too cheesy'.
the reason i'm doing this now is that i'm realizing i have enough material in the style to put together into an lp. it's a convenient way to order things.
that being said, here's a recent act in the style that's had an effect on me.
the reason i'm doing this now is that i'm realizing i have enough material in the style to put together into an lp. it's a convenient way to order things.
that being said, here's a recent act in the style that's had an effect on me.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
inridiculous (original album mix) (inri033) now fully uploaded
i've decided not to alter this in any way.
i was moving, conceptually, to more serious styles of music. i wanted to write these epic 20-minute trips that reached into every genre imaginable. you can hear that shift over the last few things i posted, and it really accelerates moving into the year 2000. this is my last kiddy recording...but it isn't really a kiddy recording.....
see, i had a bunch of noise tracks that i'd been putting aside for a third demo, trinri, that was meant to carry on with the same concept as the first two: "songs" and "collages" would alternate over 19 tracks. the problem i ran up against with trinri was that i was no longer interested in writing songs. what was coming out, instead, were these fifteen minute journeys. that's ultimately the driving reason that i switched things up: the format had worn itself thin.
so, i pulled the noise collages together (along with some older collages that i had pulled from various sources as far back as my first demo tape) into this thing. i became aware at some point, very suddenly, that the whole idea and product was sort of ridiculous. hence the title.
this recording is consequently void of actual songs. it isn't easy to listen to, and offers few reprieves, but if you're a fan of the genre that includes bands like coil, psychic tv, dvoa, nurse with wound and hafler trio (i hesitate to use the i word in context) then you may find something of enjoyment here.
cover art is from 1999. how the hell did the greeks think mesopotamia was an ocean, anyways? surely, they had contact with babylonians, if not indians. that's never made sense to me.
recorded from 1996-1999. this is my third record. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, keyboards, tapes, synthesizers, live drums, drum programming, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, loops, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
released dec 10, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous
i was moving, conceptually, to more serious styles of music. i wanted to write these epic 20-minute trips that reached into every genre imaginable. you can hear that shift over the last few things i posted, and it really accelerates moving into the year 2000. this is my last kiddy recording...but it isn't really a kiddy recording.....
see, i had a bunch of noise tracks that i'd been putting aside for a third demo, trinri, that was meant to carry on with the same concept as the first two: "songs" and "collages" would alternate over 19 tracks. the problem i ran up against with trinri was that i was no longer interested in writing songs. what was coming out, instead, were these fifteen minute journeys. that's ultimately the driving reason that i switched things up: the format had worn itself thin.
so, i pulled the noise collages together (along with some older collages that i had pulled from various sources as far back as my first demo tape) into this thing. i became aware at some point, very suddenly, that the whole idea and product was sort of ridiculous. hence the title.
this recording is consequently void of actual songs. it isn't easy to listen to, and offers few reprieves, but if you're a fan of the genre that includes bands like coil, psychic tv, dvoa, nurse with wound and hafler trio (i hesitate to use the i word in context) then you may find something of enjoyment here.
cover art is from 1999. how the hell did the greeks think mesopotamia was an ocean, anyways? surely, they had contact with babylonians, if not indians. that's never made sense to me.
recorded from 1996-1999. this is my third record. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, keyboards, tapes, synthesizers, live drums, drum programming, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, loops, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
released dec 10, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous
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