All Posts Tagged With: "music"
The Joy Pianist & The Charango Gal
A new-found friend of mine created the videos below. Kate Hathaway is a local musician who has mastered the Peruvian charango. Kate and her brother create music under the band name Hathaways. The first video features Kate the musician and the second features Kate the documentarist.
The documentary is about Charles Joseph Smith. I have met and spoken to Charles before about his music, but I did not have the intuition to investigate his life and his thoughts. Kate did. Champaign-Urbana is teeming with unique, interesting, beautiful people and I am happy that she noticed one of them. I think a good writer or filmmaker could make a career out of attempting to understand and describe the people in Champaign-Urbana who live with spark.
Both pieces are thoughtful, intelligent and intimate. Both deserve at least one viewing.
The Black Nerd King
The following is my final product from Prof. Leon Dash’s Immersion Journalism class. Prof. Dash is a two time Pulitzer Prize winner, author of Rosa Lee and a great professor. Immersion Journalism allows journalists to conduct extensive, personal, in-depth interviews with a single person over multiple weeks, months, or years. Read more…
Another Brilliant Champaign-Urbana Death
My buddy Mike, who lives in Milwaukee and is a devout Wilco follower, told me on the phone today about the death of former Wilco multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett. The Sun-Times and other newspapers report that the cause of death is unknown. Mike and I once watched I am Trying to Break Your Heart, which is a documentary about Wilco’s making of their fourth album: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The documentary also examines Bennett’s tumultuous relationship with the other Wilco band members, especially lead singer Jeff Tweedy. Wilco pressured Bennett out of the band. In cold February, Mike and I attended, alongside two beautiful gals, Tweedy’s solo concert at Foellinger Auditorium. I wonder whether Bennett attended that show.
On April 24, 2009, Bennett posted on his MySpace page an honest, sad, and warm explanation of his whereabouts and his need for hip replacement surgery. In early May, Bennett sued Tweedy for $50,000 in unpaid royalties he felt were owed to him for his role in the documentary I am Trying to Break Your Heart. He may have been desperate for money, as he explains in his MySpace post that he feared his lack of health insurance would prevent him from being able to pay for the hip replacement surgery.
Bennett is the most recent death among notable artists who have strong childhood or educational ties to Champaign-Urbana. David Foster Wallace, who has been discussed multiple times on this blog, hung himself in September 2008. I remember many years ago being in a Walden Books store with my Grandfather Bill Mills when he insisted that I should read a book called, The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. It was a bestselling book in 1997. She grew up in Champaign-Urbana and studied journalism at the University. She seems to have been overwhelmed by bloody horrors of the subjects she wrote about. She shot herself in 2004. I’m sure there are others unknown to me.
There is something weird about Champaign-Urbana, something eerie and mystical. I don’t know what it is. I cannot describe it beyond claiming that it exists. I see it snaking by in the thick night while standing outside of Cafe Kopi talking to Jen, the old Zen poet. I can only say that I believe this shadow causes brilliant people from Champaign-Urbana to leave before they have shared the panoply of their ideas and wonder . . . But, I probably exaggerate.
A local blogger gave an excellent account of his friendship and collaboration with Bennett, “Jay was a genius and quite likely the greatest guitarist of our generation.”
Sleep well, Jay. I hope God cheerfully replaces your broken hip with one of your many instruments. Perhaps the concave corner of an acoustic guitar. I recognize that as a bizarre thought, but it is fitting in my mind.
Goofy Days of Youth and Without Fame. Jay Bennett (Left), Gaper's Blog Author (Center) and Jeff Tweedy (Right). Photo Courtesy of Gaper's Blog: http://gapersblog.typepad.com/photos/2005_holidays/jaykenjeff0002.html
Charlie Rose, Great Musicians & Politics
Meet Joe Pug
Joe Pug is a fantastic songwriter/musician from Chicago, and he’s only 23. He reminds many people, including me, of a young Bob Dylan. Here’s the video of the first track from his debut album.
Thanks to One Jones Brother for telling me to check him out.
The Faces of Lonely Saints
Below I have pasted the lyrics to a song I’ve been working on for a couple of months. I recorded an embarrassingly rough version of it that features my sub-par voice and amateur acoustic guitar work. Eventually, I will post a recorded version of this song that I have more confidence in. The music is written in the key of Aminor. I use a I-IV-V progression until the words, “Running through the fields of your scattered daylight.” I-IV-V in Aminor is Aminor-Dminor-Eminor. Minor chords have a somber, melancholy tone. I transition to the major chords within the key of Aminor (ii-iii-vi) at the end in order to musically communicate the happy ending. Aminor and Cmajor share many of the same notes, so it allows for a smooth transition.
Anyway, as with past lyrics I’ve posted, I’m sure few will enjoy these :)
The Faces of Lonely Saints
Running through the woods of Wisconsin
I stumbled upon seven sad grins
Dining on the carcass of an angel
Her wings spread across the table
Her story in the child’s fable
A smile of calm widens her face
As the Mother welcomes her slumber to grace
The faces of lonely saints
The faces of lonely saints
The faces of lonely saints
Of romantics and dreamers, poets and healers
Of writers and readers, peasants and believers
Ride wild ride
Ride wild ride
Ride wild ride
I galloped to the East
A journalist of this war
A girl rides beside me
She’s Faith in pink ribbons
Running through the woods of Salem
I stumbled upon seven smiling saints
Dining on the carcass of a devil
His chest cut open,
His blood splashes and trembles
Hollow sadness narrows his face
As the Mother rejects his slumber to grace
The face of a lonely sinner
The face of a lonely sinner
The face of a lonely sinner
Of killers and cowards, kings and connivers,
Of rapers and dealers, rich and deniers
Ride wild ride
Ride wild ride
Ride wild ride
Running through the fields of your scattered daylight
I stumbled upon a child who smiled to me:
“I am the new dawn
I am the new dawn
I am the new dawn”
And all is calm
And all is calm
And all is calm
The faces of lonely saints
The faces of lonely saints
The faces of lonely saints
Special thanks to longtime pal and aspiring writer Mike Madden for help and encouragement with writing this song.
Top 5 Musicians From London
…in honor of my first 24 hours in my new home, from best to worst (note that this is London-exclusive, not all of the UK):
- David Bowie
- The Rolling Stones
- The Sex Pistols
- The Clash
- Queen
Honorable mentions: Elvis Costello, the Kinks, Bloc Party, the Who
Happy Halloween (From Bruce Springsteen and Dante)
Happy Halloween everyone. I recently attended a talk at Krannert by W.S. Merwin, Richard Powers, & Robert Pinsky. They are all well regarded authors and poets. Powers has an interesting biography that includes the University of Illinois and being a computer programmer “until an encounter with the 1914 photograph “Young Farmers” by August Sander, at the Museum of Fine Arts, inspired him to quit his job and spend the next two years writing his first novel, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, which was published in 1985.” They discussed the vivid and dark imagination of Dante’s Divine Comedy. In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s translation, Dante’s first canto describes feverishly wandering through his dark forest.
Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
One Jones Brother
One afternoon a few months back I clicked on a link on the gchat profile of a friend of mine who usually has links to funny or at least novel political commentary. I was multitasking, so I didn’t take a close look right away, but I heard some fantastic original music, that I assumed was by a famous recording office that I wasn’t cool enough to know about.
"Valerie Plame"
New song from the Decemberists:
Good stuff.