How things rattle about in the brain

[pecunium]

matociquala has a piece up about what it means to be honest in a piece of work.

Certainly John Denver pales when compared to Gordon Lightfoot for honesty in content, and they both lose compared to Zevon.

But the way things bump into other things got me to thinking about musicians, and how I've seen some of them in concert.

Zevon, Boiled in Lead, Gordon Lightfoot. Great concerts. Stunning music, raised to another plane before an audience.

The Untouchables, and any number of small bands, who were great on albums, but stank live. Usually because they couldn't get the balance of vocals and instruments right.

A couple dozen bar bands who did get it right. Kick ass stomp your feet and sing along stuff. Yeah, the tapes/CDs were expensive, but they gotta eat, and if they don't, they won't be able to play.

The LA Philharmonic, The Armadillo Quartet, a talented soprano; at the start of her career, singing for the owner of an almost empty restarurant.

Sing-alongs and filk-sessions, crowded hallways in hotels, firelight and folksongs. Old favorites and things I'd never heard before, caroling at Christmas time; performing in the choir at the Army Birthday Ball in 1993, while I was at DLI.

Music is, for all the joy there is in being able to pop a tape in the deck, a record on the turntable, or a CD in the player; and hear some, anytime I want, a social thing.

It is better when there are people to share it. Not just the appreciation, but the making.

Like life, it's best when it's interactive.

Comments

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree. Listening to the blues on the radio pales in comparison when listening in a crowded bar on Beale Street in Memphis.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Regarding music as a shared experience, Great Big Sea in concert, at least when I've seen them in SF, have not been a sing along, but sort of a dance along to the music. And I've always found the Indigo Girls honest in their music.

But nothing quite compares with a car full of kids where everybody is singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" at full volume. It's one of my favorite parenting memories.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

An ex-girlfriend of mine, and her sister, are quite good singers.

We were travelling someplace, with their father, when they started singing along to (IIRC) a Queen song on the radio.

My girlfriend took a descantive line, and her sister went under for supporting harmony.

Their father asked why the younger one had moved to the harmony, "Well she was going to go up."

It was wonderful to be around them.

TK

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

For interactive, I'm not sure anything could compare to a Pete Seeger concert in a fairly small theater in the early '70s.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Peter, Paul and Mary at the Universal Amphitheatre (smallish house, maybe 5,000). Everybody knew ALL the words, and had no shame in joining in.

Despite that, you could plainly hear them.

I suspect it was the same sort of vibe.

But Boiled in Lead, at McCabes; a stage not much bigger than a billiard table. Adnan had no room for a drum kit, and did most of his work on a bass drum (the sort one sees in marching bands) and doumbek. He also played the mike stands, the necks of fiddles and mandolins (while they were being played) and the top of Todd's head.

When they did their version of "Stop, Stop, Stop" by the Hollies (as interpreted through the Turkish melody, Ma Ali), there were some belly dnacers; Adnan, doumbek in hand, hopped off the stage and slid around in the crowd, adjusting his rythmns to the sway of the people dancing; giving braided counterpoint to the song, and the steps.

That's why I was willing to drive 120 miles on a Saturday night, to drive 40 miles home, and then get up three hours later to drive the 80 miles back to another day at the fair, strung out from lack of sleep and with legs of rubber from dancing all night.

TK

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

Heh. Lightfoot is honest. Zevon is brutally honest.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Sometimes.

He can also be whimsical and gloss over things (Reconsider Me just says, remember all that shit that happened, I'm better than that now).

Poor, poor, pitiful me, doesn't address the question of why he has all those strange women in his life.

But what I see, as the difference in those two (Denver/Zevon) is that Zevon's songs, even when being less than honest, are sincere.

Denver's are facile; unless one looks at them with critical eye, and then sings them for the irony.

(thanks Bear, I'd not really looked at them that deeply before, I think I understand more of Hunter Thompson's antipathy. "Uncle Duke" may have been strung out, but he hated falsity)

TK

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Zevon can really get it right sometimes.

Accidentally Like A Martyr still rips me up.

There's something to it... the hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder.

For another sad, honest fellow, how about Billy Bragg? He still tours and one of these days he's gonna be back in the Bay Area and I'll be there. Listening to lines like - it's never the same after the first time, doesn't stop them coming round for more.

Honesty is valuable stuff. I'm for it.

[pecunium]

Marna has (since this was written) introduced me to Billy Bragg.

Yes.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Marna (since this was posted) has introduced me to Billy Bragg (though I may have heard some before, I didn't really listen).

Yes.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

why hello there!

thanks for the comment.

cheers,

J

[tenderberry.livejournal.com]

It is better when there are people to share it. Not just the appreciation, but the making.

and live is always magic - especially when other musicians join those onstage or the audience sings along - food for the soul