Sisters of Mercy
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
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.
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.
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 controlI 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.
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
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 goneI 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.
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 long
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
Well 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 stem
When 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)
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.
Labels: creation, destruction, exquisite corpse, Leonard Cohen
