the Men in White Suits . . .

TelegramIntro -
Expect this to be even less writerly than usual stop many crisis erupting stop Am exhausted now stopArms hurt - put 26 plants in, and that's only 1/3 space to cover stop Am raising Carrots also stop Planted them close to the window, so I can throw an apple or whatever at any too-adventuresome rabbits stop Don't call PETA -it's a metaphor for Dick Cheney stop Don't they teach you anything in school these days? stop Smoked rabbit? stop Not sure now if I'm raising carrots or rabbits stop worried Fudd syndrome may strike stop Floorwine and headphones stop all music issue stop

I.
Dharma: 'Who are more numerous -the living or the dead?'

Yudhishthira [who wears the white of his caste] : 'The living, for the dead are no longer.'

-from the Mahabharata
a "tool".
It's a mephistophlean week. Sarah and I have taken the next step, and it's very weird. In a good way, but there is a big difference now. I hold the collaborative process in great contempt to begin with, but there is great need to act now. I am now the Princess Leia of rock - the 19 year old- cinnabun-haired 20lbsoverweightsodon'tcomplainaboutthehairdoorthey'llgetJodieFoster, episode 4 princess. I have a rebellion to manage.
The Detroit area is now surrounded with black and white billboards of sir Paul and Bob Seeger [if you missed the 'Bob Seeger is a tool' story, write me and I will smuggle you the essentials]
'-this, uhhhh, aggression will not stand. ' -JL

We all need to blow up the Death-by-nostalgia- Star. This is our most desperate hour. Read the Real Detroit at 7Bros. against George's advice, and it filled me with a creamy white rage - The trendy club here in the Hamptons - Red Wings, Kid Rock and Pam drop in -packed every night - FRIDAY is 80's night. SATURDAY is 70's night. Prime time is all oldies now.
I think God hasn't struck the club with lightning 'cos it's just a symptom.
And I'm angry all the time - everyone's getting fed shit, and they are licking the spoon and going 'mmmmmmmm- that's pretty good' and this is the issue behind everything -war, global warming, everything. . .whateve YOU think is wrong with the world, that is it.

Related - While it is the 40 somethings who think their 80's and 'alternative' music is still cool or even relevant [ha ha haaa! -point and laugh!] that are the bane of my existence right now, I wanted to warn you all about the baby boomers. Like Ike warning america about the military industrial complex. They grew up in constant fear of the end of the world, via nuclear war or environmental disaster, and many of them are sad that it didn't. Alot of them are so narcissistic it seems fitting to them that it should all end when their generation does. . . .


So there it is. Like Kurz, I'm out there doing what needs to be done. Me and Samurai -Barbie against the world.
'Always outnumbered,Never outgunned'
A weird side effect of this is that all our processes now are trade secrets, but I did want to talk about songwriting somewhat. . . .

II.
' - And that's another whole problem, Because writers aren't very good judges of their own material. They'll think one thing is good because it works, whereas other people might like the thing that didn't really work, but was way more interesting. Writers opt more for songs that will work well than they opt for songs that represent personal growth. And that poor choice often slows writing down alot. . . alot of people say Picasso was the greatest painter of the 20th century, but I was told he had more terrible paintings than anyone else too. . .
You can write a million more songs word-wise than note wise. Unfortunately there have only been a few people who have been really interested in words . . . it would be cool if there was a Sonic Youth of Words' because they did so much for the musical and rythmic side of things.'

- Elliot Smith [who wore a white suit to perform at the Academy Awards] back in1998, tackling the question of volume.

Getting there
It's a tricky thing, the world of music theory. If you don't know a whole lot, it seems mysterious. If you learn past a certain point, it's very boring. I want to demystify a little, so read with caution -

All progressions, whether in a phrase or song, are just that - a journey between two tonics. Ascending, or descending. Once this is understood, it's a matter of creating tension, [via the way it ascends, descends, of travels back and forth] and [if you're not Nick Cave] sometimes release.

I'm not terribly interested in that within the song itself -I don't want to play some kind of Roy Buchannan lines where that eats up the whole song. I'm interested in creating tension in the performance -breaking the 6th and 7th walls. One of the best tensions to create is the revelation, or threat of revelation, of secrets of the audience to do this. To provoke that 'oh mannn -that guy KNOWS ' response.

There are Yogic tricks to pull things out of the audience musically, and it works great -musically, live, in the moment. Lyrically, that's not practical.
Sometimes we're like assasins - observing the target ahead of time, setting up the kill. . .
This is all part of what Ray Davies would call the dramatization of the songs . . .
Also from Uncle Ray - he remarked that art was about TRANSLATION, and I have been struck by that on many levels.
Here is just one, cos it could cover this whole post.
I've heard you language guys speak derisively of translation Vs. fluency - so be sure you're not translating into writing, i guess.


III.
'By the time people began to recognize me at all, I had already gone for being an adult. I wasn't trying to look like I was still 22. But some people get caught up in that. We were just in Brazil with Sonic Youth. I swear, Lee Ranaldo was wearing the same shoes he had on when he stayed at my house 18 years ago. I didn't say anything, but I knew.'

-the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, answering why he wears a white suit instead of ripped jeans

Spirit of '77
Well, we're only months away from the orgy of '77 -isms coming our way. I still see kids dressed like their grandparents yelling out " '77! " at suburban 'punk' shows. If you bother to look through the 'rock encyclopedias' -and let me put in a plug for actual PRINT here -no one can go back and edit this stuff. [wikipedia announced that in one 6 month period over 1,000 changes were made into the entries on the members of Congress [ - to enhance or cover up say, how tight the [AL ] Gores were with the [Strom] Thurmans] by their staffers.
[ It's like if mick Jones could go back and erase 'The New Clash ' and his claiming it was improved by kicking Strummer out, then shamefully giving us B.A.D. II. So, AS IT TURNS OUT, hardcopy print media is MORE relevant now than ever. ]

What they all attribute the significance of to '77 is not a good year for punk rock - rather it was
a time when pressing questions about it needed answering. After the Pistols detonation, it had to be asked - is there anywhere to go from here?

That's an interesting way to look at the musical 'Statements' in the following three years, and what happened to music in the 80's. I think it's the Rolling Stone encyclopedia of Rock that predicts that there are two directions the music could follow - the Police, or Gary Numan. The article laments that it would probably go the Gary Numan route . . .

And it went the Police route. [ And I lament that -all those police-esque bands like men at work and mental as anything . . . Having to hear 'every breath you take' on every radio station 49 times a day -oh wait, just like today . . . ] A decade later Uncle Gar would get his own back.

I bring this up, because instead of the Sex Pistols explosion of rock, it's now undergone a crisis of implosion, via the sick pervasiveness of oldies. And there are once again two acts that seem to indicate directions out of this mess. That would be the overhyped yet strangely underrated Arctic Monkeys, and the laughably perfect She Wants Revenge. Rather than go into an extensive review of each group, let me just say that the Arctic Monkeys have a very personal approach to songwriting, While SWR are more escapist/expressionist. It's a question of how necessary, or possible is it for the audience to relate to your art. I don't know that I'm favoring one approach or the other, Though of the groups, I'm sad that the rock stations like wrif have ignored the Arctic Monkeys driving working-class rock. They should be worshipped in Indianna like Mellencamp. Or ME, for that matter.

IV.

" I Wasn't at all surprised 'Ziggy Stardust' made my career. I packaged a totally credible plastic rock star, much better than any sort of monkees fabrication. My plastic rocker was much more plastic than everybody elses"

-David Bowie, the Thin White Duke

History gets shady.
Some of you who are still in the acedemic world -I need some help. I am trying to get a precise dating of the Astavakra Ghita. The closest anyone has given me is '8,000 years older than the Bhagavad Ghita'. (!)

A quick background - there are movements and disputes in these areas far more than seem tolerable to me - Indic Dates are as often political as academic. For example, most of the early europeans would adjust the dates so as not to conflict with the Bible's story on how old the earth is. Also, Indian schoalars have been known to stretch the other way, using means that seem really thin - until you find out that the guy who wrote the textbook for the guy who wrote your textbook used the same methods. Very little is reliable past 600 B.C.E. and to be honest, I learned this year that we can't keep just 100 years of american music straight with dated recordings to back it up. [by the way -to whoever asked, (I forgot) Robert Johnson was 4 years old when Marion Harris' first record came out. ]

- Scholars are trying to pull the Buddha's life closer to 0 c.e. , and Patanjali's Closer to the Buddha's. The current range is 8ooB.C.E. to 200B.C.E. for either of them.

The Astavakra Ghita is a political minefield -much moreso than, say, the Magdelene papyrus. Part of a 3 way dance between the Hindu, Buddhist, and Vedantic Hindu -So it's difficult to trust
casual attribution. But it would mean alot to me if someone could say 'yes, there is a manuscript going back at least to 500 B.C.E. even B.C.E. at all would be very significant.
All that aside, it is a profoundly uneasy text, and in a sense, could be looked at as a more proactive religous text than narrative. Even Nathan finds it disturbing, so you know it's good stuff.
So that is all. For now.
See everyone in New York.
Rob, I loved the squrrel briefing. And I played with a plectrum this week - I needed one for a very specific bass sound, and - IVORY -that is the stuff! ! ! Nothing else sounds like it.

Peace out -
- El Pirata