last night, with one of my dearest friends in the world, i got to experience the force that is massive attack. i've spent a bit of time writing here about music -- going to shows and having some pretty incredible experiences. music is and always has been my life. i mean really. i collect it, i seek it out, i relish in the feeling of that song or that riff that transports me to some other place, some other memory. i've been listening to the new massive attack album pretty obsessively for the past however many months, starting with the Heliogland EP. the first time i heard 'pray for rain' i got that rush --a transporting, transforming, what-the-hell-am-i-hearing rush. now, i know this isn't their best song, or nearly their best album. i get a lot of 'they were better long ago' opinions. but for me, there's something deep that this album reaches. and, really, i cannot resist hope sandoval. i melt every time i hear her.
last night, the very talented songstress, martina topley-bird, performed with the band, and she was fantastic. they all were. i didn't have many expectations for the show. just an opportunity to get in front of huge sound and lose myself for a while. i got that...and quite a bit more. the stage set up was comprised of a huge backdrop of LED ticker display screens a few inches apart, creating a canvas for words and digital images that cascaded behind the band throughout the show. it was so simple. and so amazingly powerful. every word, every image, politically provocative, triggering, highly charged. snippets of descriptions of torture from gitmo, quotes about freedom followed at the end by a simple question: "What the fuck, Arizona?" In case you didn't know, Massive Attack has something to say.
other images included silhouettes of people migrating, perhaps across borders, perhaps to refugee camps followed by running headlines from the tabloids. stats and facts from around the world -- number of days someone can be detained without cause in a dozen countries (7 days in Ireland, 43 days in the UK, indefinitely in the US). the encore came off huge with a hard hitting version of 'Atlas Air' that began with the creation of a flight departure board listing domestic flights and then extradition flights, morphing into simple red, white and black graphic representations of flags that slowly transformed into a barrage of corporate logos rotating faster and faster until they all just blurred together. there was no question of the message: our priorities are fucked. our world is too. do something about it, for fuck sake.
say what you will about art and politics. last night inspired me, got me fired up, reminded me of why i live my life the way i do. i believe in art. i believe in its power to transform the way we think and feel and see and hear. music has been doing this for me my whole life. so has art. i've been working with the flaming lotus girls for about a year now, building huge, interactive, metal fire art. right now, i'm spending nearly 30 hours a week building a huge piece of art with a community of people who have vision and passion and brilliant ideas and who also believe that we can change something with what we do (http://www.temple2010.org). it may not be everything, but it is always something.
we've all got the opportunity to make something in the world. and despite how definitely dismal it all is, we are not the first to experience a moment in time that feels desolate and depressing and devoid of any hope for change. we are also not the first to find our voice and say something about how and what needs to change. and we are certainly not the first to try to inspire change in whatever way it's possible. i'll keep making art and teaching people how amazingly capable they are of doing the same, just as people have taught me. i hope you will, too.
(Image above via Flick user Umbar)
(Video below from YouTube User Fourad)
workin it out in america. read on for tall tales from adventures in the east and west.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
riding the uke wave
ok, so here's the deal. the uke. it makes me smile unlike anything else i've ever really experienced. i was turned on to the uke by two fantastic people. and last month, i went to see the The Mighty Uke with them, a documentary about the ukulele and all its glory. now, i'm aware that i'm a wee bit behind the uke revolution of late. people all over the world heart this little endearing instrument. it's what keeps the amazing ms. amanda palmer up late writing songs about madonna and lady gaga. even the Canadians love it and use it as a gateway to musical education for kids. and in our fair city, in this bay we know and love, there are so very many hilariously wonderful people strumming along together just for the love of the uke.
on pi (pie) day this year (you know, 3/14), i was privy to one of those fabulous groups at a great party in west oakland. replete with literally scores of pies--sweet and savory, of course--the lovely and talented ukaladies performed a variety of pie-inspired tunes, many of their own creation. my favorite by far, aside from the rockin' rendition of warrant's 'cherry pie' they did while sexy pie ladies in red fishnets danced through the crowd offering teeny individual cherry pies--was '3.14159' sung to the tune of '867-5309.' who knew the uke could be so fun?
well, i'll tell ya. it is. i dare you to not smile when you hear someone sweetly strummin on this lil thing. it's pure joy. life hasn't been so easy this winter, and watching 'the mighty uke' may have been the first time in months that i had smiled and laughed quite that much.
tomorrow i've got my first strumming date. today, on a gorgeous, sunny spring san francisco day, i bought my first uke at Noe Valley Music. it's a makala concert uke. i spent the afternoon on pineapple pete's uke school site. i mean, really? it's just awesomely silly and fun. got myself 3 chords and some strummin done. looking forward to tomorrow. yay to making music.
Labels:
amanda palmer,
cherry pie,
noe valley music,
pi day,
silly,
the mighty uke,
ukaladies,
ukulele,
warrant
"That's a damn fine cup of coffee."
at 13, twin peaks blew my mind. and i am certain it made me who i am without a doubt. this article from the guardian about the show's 20th anniversary shares the thoughts of 6 veterans of the show and points out that, really, this show broke the mold. http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/mar/21/twin-peaks-twenty-years-on
this show set in stone the kind of weird freak i was soon to become. my love for film -- strange, confusing, arresting, beautiful films -- came directly from my obsession with Twin Peaks (and, to be fair, my obsession with 'Rear Window' which definitely predates Twin Peaks for me. I first saw it at age 8, i think...). I can remember being on the phone with my best friend, Cotter, at a commercial break and having to cut that conversation off so I could go back to Agent Cooper and Donna. i remember my parent's friends having these parties every week where everyone would drink cocktails and swap theories about who killed Laura Palmer. and i remember feeling so cool that i knew and loved the show as much as they did. i *got* it. it made sense to me in all its complete nonsense and 'elliptical plot' ness.
takashi miike, almodovar, park chan wook, godard, truffaut, fellini, lynch, john waters, tood haynes, todd solondz, francois ozon. strange spanish films, strange french films, bizarro japanese and korean and chinese films. and of course, the strange and disturbing sensibilities of american film. these are what i love. worlds that make no sense, where nothing is as it seems, where every idea crushes what you thought was truth or reality. i have never truly loved movies with happy endings. never liked films where everything makes sense. they're entertaining. they're good for distraction but not for the kind of deep-down-in-your-soul transformation that comes from the likes of what david lynch created with Twin Peaks. that's what film, and tv for that matter, should be at their best.
it just may be time to watch the mystery of laura palmer unravel all over again.
Labels:
almodovar,
fellini,
film,
francois ozon,
godard,
john waters,
lynch,
park chan wook,
takashi miike,
todd solondz,
tood haynes,
truffaut,
twin peaks
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