Hello. My name is Jonathan. Today I am guest-guest-writing for Kilian; Electramummy is busy refuting the pervasive myth of the sleepy small-town life. (We may be sleepy sometimes, but that’s because we’re awake so much the rest of the time.)
A word of warning and apology: this is a self-centered and verbose post because at the moment I am self-centered and verbose. The great advice to avoid beginning all sentences with “I”? I heed it not…
RISE UNSHACKLED TO THE DARK SERENE
Yes you, who must leave everything that you cannot control
It begins with your family, but soon it comes round to your soul
Well I’ve been where you’re hanging, I think I can see how you’re pinned
When you’re not feeling holy your loneliness says that you’ve sinned
I went to college. Why? In the end, I think I went to college as a way to gently extract myself from the college-going course of life pre-charted for me and most of the people I knew in high school. And I’ll cover just the points that make my point here: from a straightforward white-bread midwestern suburban high school of 1200, I moved on to a college of 450 steeped in a beautiful anti-establishment work-study self-contradiction, and (skip forward at least thirteen moves in as many years) I now find myself in a village of perhaps 45 in one of the most remote parts of the United States. And I am preparing to leave.
Why? To go back to school. To learn working-day things. It was a tough decision to leave, and it was a tough decision to leave for working-day things rather than a self-indulgent excuse for two years’ worth of immersion into music-making. In the end, I hope I made the right decision: to occupy my conscience with strenuous comfort and save music for myself. It’s the only thing that always brings me peace when I ask, so assigning impersonal obligations to it might be an awful idea.
THESE ARE THE RESULTS OF CONSTANT STRUGGLE
This is my escape plan and my love letter to the village and people that have become my home. Somehow, I always seem to leave my deepest loves. And it’s always for the same reason: I can’t stand not doing them justice. It’s a wonderful and worrisome Catch-22.
I’ve been singing the same song to myself for a long time now. I sing it every chance I get, and that means whenever no one is there to listen.
Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can’t go on
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song
Oh I hope you run into them, you who’ve been traveling so longYes you, who must leave everything that you cannot control
It begins with your family but soon it comes round to your soul
Well I’ve been where you’re hanging, I think I can see how you’re pinned
When you’re not feeling holy your loneliness says that you’ve sinnedWell they lay down beside me – I made my confession to them
They touched both my eyes, and I touched the dew on their hem
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stemWhen I left, they were sleeping – I hope you run into them soon
Don’t turn on the light, you can read their address by the moon
And you won’t make me jealous if I hear that they’ve sweetened your night
We weren’t lovers like that, and besides, it would still be alright
We weren’t lovers like that, and besides, it would still be alright
Leonard Cohen – “Sisters of Mercy” (Songs of Leonard Cohen)
I will miss many people here. Two (+1) of those people are musicians who have invited me into their home to join in a tiny collective movement unlike any other I have ever tried. I was in a couple of bands in high school, as well as the fairly coherent and highly competitive/ snooty/ mixed-meter marching band. I was in a couple of bands in college. I was part of a producers’ collective in San Francisco. But through all of those eventually abortive efforts, I never had the feeling that everyone involved wanted exactly the same thing.
STEADFAST AND MINDFUL
I have that feeling now. Denial is my friend and I will rely on her until she grows and blossoms into Truth; I tell myself that somehow, we can keep this momentum running through the great digital chasm of the Internet, the Post, and if we’re lucky add the channel from the extra terrestrial squad. This is the band I always wanted. Even with the interruptions, the prior commitments, and the fits and starts borne on our asynchronous moodiness… it’s the band I always wanted. It’s where I can express exactly what I want to express.
Wish I had some music to link in here for you all, but we haven’t gotten that far yet. Hopefully that will change within the next month. I need to drop anchor before I drift again.
BORBORYGMUS
Many of us reading and writing here are musicians and many of us create our own music (for every definition of “create” and “own” and “music”). I have read many viewpoints on music in these pages. They make me happy. I’ve also heard some of the music some of you have made – listening the music of people who really mean it always makes me happy.
It is with the spirit of inspiration and community that I challenge you to a duel… trial… quadrille? No. I think we should try an exquisite corpse. With music (rather than paper and pen) the process is both less straightforward and more open to interpretation.
The easiest way is to choose a “seed” piece or person and select a chaining order (by chance?), then pass songs or parts thereof along the chain. Anything can happen at any stage, but you only hear the stage immediately before your own. The format of the passed pieces should depend on what the receiver can handle. Anything from a snippet played a few times into an answering machine to a complete DAW file can work; it’s up to you to decide what you need and want. At the end, we gather together the disparate parts and see what we can do – individually or otherwise. Then we share the potentially awful genius of it all!
If you’re interested, please let me know in the comments. Variations of the basic collaborative idea are certainly welcome, so please share those too.
Jonathan…
Thanks for covering me since I couldn’t cover for Kilian.
It’s good that you agree with me that you are a complete bastard for leaving False Pass… so I won’t ruddy your post with expletives… I’ll just call you at 4 in the morning and play you some “Birds of Death”.
As for the Exquisite Corpse… (It’s funny you should ask and remind me to show you “the boxed set”) Mr. Anaconda had propsed this idea a while back and I think Kilian mentioned interest. I’ll buy in, but we have to work up an outline for what types of sound files are going to be workable and benefit the project. I know what I have. That’s it. Where do we go from here? A roster sign up?
Tomorrow, bring your throat to practice and let’s cut it.
I’m in.
thanks for the post Jonathan. I’ve also moved many times in my life, so i can relate to your feelings. One lady once told me, don’t stray so far that you can’t find your way back. I dont know if it was already too late at that point, it might have been, but I do say that I’ve almost always felt at home whereever i was, but never more than I do here in the unlikely state of North Carolina.
As for the corpse, thanks EM for reminding me that i had indeed suggested this previously. I’m still up for it, as i am up for anything with music. It seems the way to do it is to establish a line up and then each person is encharge of figuring out how to connect, technically, with the person that goes next. One person at random gets to start, and one person at random gets to end it, and provide the final version. thats my 2 cents.
Yes, since the active participant should only hear the piece in front of her, we should keep the pieces separate as wav files or something. Then attach later. My two sense and I’m definitely in.
Thanks Jonathan. Really enjoyed this piece. And as Roberto Cofresi once sung me “where did you go that you came back so fast? Not far enuff and not long enough to last.” Don’t lose your way but make sure you get it all out of your system too.
I think the whole idea of not hearing what hte other people have done posses an interesting problem here. that idea was used for writing which happens linearly in time. the way i was looking at this was that the participants would be able to add tracks on top of tracks already recorded, and not just in a linear sequence. So that for example, Kilian could add a guitar part to whatever he gets. This could be done in many ways, regardless of the media that one gets the piece on (mp3, cassette, CD, etc). And i think it would be more interesting to see one piece where we all contribute, rather than a “various artists” type collection of songs by each of us, lined up in some kind of sequence. This way no one has to feel like they have to write and record a whole piece, but only add a part to the existing piece. i hpoe that made sense.
Oh yeah it makes sense Carlos and that’s what you were talking about several months ago but that’s different than an exquisite corpse which is a body created by different people, each knows roughly where they are on the body (e.g. head, abdomen, feet) but they don’t know what the rest of the body looks like. So in song it might be like this: intro, verse, chorus, verse, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, outro.
The number of verses, chorus, etc would depend on the number of contributors.
That’s the way I pictured it anyway.
Here’s an exquisite corpse THE LATEST did in the van on tour.
I understand that kilian, i just think musically that poses some different problems that are not found in writing, and to a certain extent in drawing. I guess the bottom line is that i’d prefer a more three dimensional approach, than just a linear collage of sounds or bits of pieces of songs tacked together end to end. but i’m game either way.
Well I like both and suggest we work on them simultaneously.
I think the best way to proceed may be.
1. make a list of participants.
2. draw to see who starts.
3. let the person who starts do whatever they want and pass it on to someone else on the list.
4. the second person does whatever they want with it nad pass it on to someone else on the list that hasnt received it yet.
5. repeat step 4 until everyone on the list has had a chance with it.
6. last person does whatever they want with it.
hows that? too loose?
Hey Carlos – it’s the You & Me Show but that’s okay we’re just brainstorming here. Anyway I’ll have to drop off for the rest of the day after this comment.
I’d like to see them as separate pieces. They are different ideas to me.
I would say for the corpse that each segment be the same length and that they are numbered so that the active participant knows where in the piece he is although he only hears the piece ahead of him (this is essentially how a drawn EC works except the person doesn’t see the piece in front usually, only how to connect to it*). We do have to know the number of participants for this one (it’s important to seeing the whole at least abstractly).
Okay somebody would have to be designated the starter and he passes his piece to the next person and so on but each participant only receives the one ahead. When the final person is done each participant sends his piece (which is numbered) to the designated compiler.
The other idea doesn’t necessarily have to have the participants defined and could be thought of as an ongoing layering piece. Since it was your idea originally you might post a song and then let somebody have at it, layer it and put it back up for the next participant.
*with that in mind, we could limit what each participant hears to the last ten seconds of the connecting piece. I actually like that better.
format?
Ok, kilian, you seem to have a good plan and i’d be happy to follow that plan. I do think we should only do one plan, and depending on how it works out maybe try antoher one later. For now i’m only committing to one, and i dont care which one, but one is enough for me now. And i would say, lets let Jonathan define the paramaters (rules, format, etc) since it really was his idea (mine was similar but different).
Right now we have Jonathan, EM, Justin, Kilian and myself on the list.
There’s more than one way to do it, that’s for sure. This search turns up some examples of audio cadavres using a variety of rules.
We don’t need to be too strict in terms of software or in terms of what constitutes a section or contribution. My suggestion would be to work linearly through in the classic style, then at the end share all the pieces with everyone… and have at it. I think that way everyone has the opportunity to contribute at every stage of the process.
Thoughts? Would that work for the people interested so far?
Jonathan, I nomiate you as coordinator of the first NAPquisite Corpse.
“and I touched the dew on their hem”
siiiiiigh…
there i go again oo-ing over lyrics about ladies garments. though here not necessarily ladies garments. well i’m imagining it’s ladies garments and specifically my lilac corduroy skirt.
nice, nice johnathan. tanx.
Aha, I need to refresh more often. I like Kilian’s “last ten seconds” and “defined length” ideas. These are helpful.
So in the end, I’m leaning toward a combination of Kilian’s thinking for the first phase and a generalized version of Carlos’ thinking for the second phase.
Format? I don’t think it needs to be defined, but if particular people want to work in particular ways, then we should take that into account as we develop the order. If someone needs a tape passed to them, for example, I shouldn’t go before them – I no longer have a tape deck.
So I suppose that as we figure out who’s interested, we should also figure out whether they have any constraints on what they can accept to work with.
I’ll keep checking this page for new interest… but if no one has any objections, I will coordinate via email. If you’re interested in participating, no matter who you are, please send an email to napquisite MONKEYFIST phossie.com. (Replace MONKEYFIST with an @.) I’ll start up a little mailing list and a site so we can all check on status anytime.
Ok so,
If anyone reading this blog is interested in participating in the Napquisite, email Jonathan at the email he provided. I would like to see John Cramer, Charlie Naked, Clinton, Heidi, Ramon, Ms Rosa, Doug, Ramona, Clay, Matthew, Tom and all the regular commenters at least to take a stab at it. What can you lose? If you are lurking, it would be cool to have you too. Get your fingers out and sign up. It will be easy and Tres Cool.
I agree with EM. And dont forget about Ted, herzoggity, Jen Odell, and Son of Ravyn (where are you Son of Ravyn, you preety much startyd the byrd name trynd and thyn you fly from thy nyst?)
Thanks Carlos, I was using the top of my head, and there’s not much there. Yes please, ted, SoR, Jen and everybody else… get on the gravy train.
I’m up…