Sunday, January 24, 2016

And nothing has changed/Everything has changed





"Sunday?"

Because it's a prayer. Hear the key change at 2:19. "As on wings." Straight-up, old-school church hymn.

I'll call it a chant for peace in the middle of uncertainty.

If anything, he has captured the anxiety of entering the 21st century, before we separated from each other and became cynical.

Monday, January 18, 2016

I'm already standing on the ground.

Here we are again.

Another who constructed sonic wallpaper of my growing up is gone.

This is my first true love -



But this is Glenn in his earliest glory. Not his song, but he took it and made it, gently, his own.


Sunday, January 17, 2016

I can see where I am goin’.

I didn't cry again all week until I watched this. Unexpected.



And this--conceived, created, costumed, not a rote revival, not a wink-and-give-'em-the-hits. A creation for this moment. Theatre. Life.



TRANSMISSION

December 15, 1979.

I have listened to this song at least 35 times this week alone.

And last December, only "The Man Who Sold the World" performance was screened within David Bowie Is at the MCA Now, straight from the poodle's mouth:




Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Sail over heartaches.

Because this is when I really, really liked him, but he was not vital. And because I can't even touch Ziggy Stardust or Heroes yet...

Seemed like pop fluff at the time, but it resonated with me more a little less than 30 years later on Saturday (January 9, 2016) as I listened to my handmade Bowie playlist whilst cleaning the bathtub. And it apparently was a very thoughtfully-crafted song, too, not a trifle churned out to add to a film soundtrack aimed at getting 80s summer airplay, and one that marked a turning of a corner for Bowie's craft.



If our love song
Could fly over mountains
Could laugh at the ocean
Just like the films
There's no reason
To feel all the hard times
To lay down the hard lines
It's absolutely true

Monday, January 11, 2016

Just like that bluebird.



This changes everything.

These words mean nothing, but: move. brave. death. art. death. create.



"Just go with me"

"Just turn on with me/And you're not alone"

Saturday, January 09, 2016

Careful where you tread

Saturday Cheeze (that I actually heard yesterday):



This has it all: headbands, keytar, rock duck lips, a first verse sung sotto voce and wide-eyed, a wind machine, sunglasses inside, a wall of amps indicating ROCK and awkwardly choreographed movements amid columns.

This was the beginning of the end for Jefferson Starship--during the recording of the follow-up album to Winds of Change, Paul Kanter kidnapped the master tapes for a few days to protest the band's changing sound. I like the single off of Nuclear Furniture, but when I watch the video, I can't say I blame Kanter for his shit-fit.

And it just keeps getting better. Until we reach the second single from Knee Deep in the Hoopla, "Sara," which is a synth-pop ballad that reeks of '85--right up my alley.

By this album, though, they aren't even writing their own songs, with newcomers like these--hence Kantner's departure, probably. And Peter Wolf (not that one) arranged/played on other 1984-86 singles that, come to think of it, sound a lot like "Sara."

And now we've come full circle: more duck lips, sotto voce first verse, band playing amid columns, and wind machines.

I'm going to have to revisit my copies of memoirs by Slick and the Wilson sisters. I know for a fact that Slick had quite pretty stream of sarcasm for (Jefferson) Starship after 1980. Funny how the raw and authentic sound and personalities of the 70s got swept up in the hairspray-and-electronic-drums turbine of the 80s.

Monday, January 04, 2016

And I'm wondering what I'm doing in a room like this

Some brittle music for the start of the brittle time. The world is white and the wind is unforgiving.

Still, there's some life under the ice glaze, and away from it, inside.