Secret Still

Painter Wilson McLean follows in the long line of artists who have been inspired by Jazz/Blues, my favorite of which is Ian Johnson. But McLean is coming up in a solid second place with his colorful renderings of all those musical legends that have revolutionized the original American musical styles. He plays around with some dischordant notes and abstractions, but that’s only to be expected. If you fall in love with musical experimentation, how can you not let that spill over into your other artistic endeavors? You can’t. My cooking is a testament to that.

Wilson McLean

Whet your appetite.

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Round and Round

The Hoof and Hell - Fireworks

The Full Package: Lem Villemin

Patton Oswalt

Seymour Bits - Put It Back Down

And for your listening pleasure (while you’re cooking/napping)

ISO50 Playlist#10

Dry Waves

Something I don’t really talk about, digitally or in person, is my love of jazz. I actually love most genres of music, and my collection is as diverse as it is stolen, but there is no form of music that I love as much or as philosophically as jazz. Well, maybe J.S. Bach’s fugues, but that’s different.

Jazz was America’s first real musical creation (yes, I know all about the Blues), in that some folks took instruments that had been around for a long time and did something that no one in history had ever done with them. They created a form of music that spoke directly to, and was created from, the world around them. But it was bigger than just their lives, and blossomed into a language, a philosophy, a mathematical realm, and a binding agent for cultures that had been fighting for ages. Jazz was like a lightning bolt of pure emotional expression that these men and women had somehow managed to grab hold of and pour through their instruments.

And during that time there was a man who was there to capture the beauty and heartbreak of jazz learning how to be itself. His name was Herman Leonard, he was a magical photographer, and a master of contrast. On August 14 he died at the age of 87, leaving behind a collection of beautiful moments in the history of jazz and those who created it.

Herman Leonard

I bought a small bag of Cheez-its from a vending machine today with a quarter from 1965, and in the time it took  me to walk from my desk to the vending machine, I thought about the small artifacts we ignore. That quarter, which has now become part of a pile of quarters, was minted the year my parents were married. That was the first real year of their lives; just graduated from high school and starting college,  fresh off an elopement and honeymoon to Mexico, loving each other more than could believe, living in a crappy apartment in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with almost no money to their name, and just being so happy about it. It’s possible that my dad put gas in his 1956 Olds Special with the quarter that I held in my hands today. He could’ve driven my mom to the woods and walked down some old dirt road while holding her hand, because of that quarter. And that quarter continued to make the same small things possible in people’s lives for the last 45 years.

The point is that, regardless of its given worth based on public opinion, an artifact itself can be worth more than the sum of its parts. So to speak. An artifact can have meaning instead of just worth, it represents everything that everyone has ever believed about it, and everything that has resulted because of its existence. All day today I’ve been listening to music at Left is Rain, and it’s all great, and there is so much of it, but I miss the artifacts. I’m definitely not the kind of person who hates digital music, very far from it. I just can’t help but remember how amazing it was when I found my parents stash of old, forgotten records, and played them for myself on our turntable. And those records must have meant so many things to my parents, too. Maybe they listened to Blood, Sweat, and Tears while they were sitting around their little trailer on the lake in Alabama, the sun was out,  it was Saturday, and everything was gonna be fine. The music is the most important part, but we also can’t forget that the record itself comes to represent those memories, and even more, that whole period of their lives.

The point of all of this was originally that you should go to Left is Rain and just let it play through all 700 -some-odd songs, and have yourself a fine time doing it. But that stupid quarter got me wistful, and a little sad that the digital age doesn’t offer much in the way of artifacts. Even these words are going to just vanish into nothing someday, because they were never really here. It makes things seem not only less permanent, but less meaningful. But hey, I’ve got a woman I love and my parent’s old Blood, Sweat and Tears record at home; I can make memories of my own.

Left as Rain

Sometimes an idea comes along, maybe you’ve seen permutations of it in the past, but this time someone did it better, made it greater than anything you’ve seen before. That’s definitely the case with Kutiman’s project ThruYou. The concept is fairly simple: cut YouTube videos together to make music, but the result is almost amazing beyond description. He’s created 7 tracks of visual and audio mastery through the sharing of information provided by a venue like YouTube. Of course this kind of video mashing has been done before, and DJ’s were doing it with sound since long before I was even an idea in my dad’s testes, but Kutiman has surpassed his forebears by creating an audiovisual experience that literally made me exclaim, “holy shit,” loud enough that I got some looks. My advice? Watch every, single video immediately. Thanks for the link, Matt.

Kutiman: ThruYou

Artist Stephen Tompkins (previously interviewed) tipped me this morning to a project that he’s been working on for a while that has come to fruition. He’s been hanging out with Daniel Johnston at Johnston’s home in Texas, making video and audio recordings of the musician/artist. Those of you who love, or even just like, Johnston’s music will get a thrill out of these recordings, and probably a little lo-fi inspiration of your own.

In other news, Stephen also mentioned that my interview with him is linked from his Wikipedia article. I’m all sorts of famous now. Top of the world, Ma!

Daniel Johnston: At Home Live

I love The Flaming Lips, always have and always will. My fandom is so devout that no matter how many times the release date was pushed back on their feature film Christmas on Mars, I always believed them. I never doubted their word. After each successive letdown I refused to give up hope. Tuesday, after seven years of shooting and re-shooting, the film has finally been released. Just in time for me to fold it into my ritual of watching A Christmas Story and A Charlie Brown Christmas once the December holidays have started. I’m not gonna tell you anything about the plot. The title pretty much says it all, and if you know The Flaming Lips, then it makes sense. If you don’t know The Flaming Lips then you should believe me when I say that your life is incomplete. Buying Christmas on Mars might be a good place to start getting your shit together.

Christmas on Mars

I’m sorry to cross-post with It’s Nice That, but they turned me on to Fleet Foxes this morning and I’ve been listening to the five songs on their MySpace page ever since. The songs are like backwoods baptismal hymns, similar to the bluegrassy style of Akron Family, but with a little less frenetic psychedelia. Fleet Foxes make me think that I’m laying on a dock, feet dangling into the clear, cool waters of a Summer lake, and a couple of small, fluffy clouds overhead are raining down a song onto my sun-pierced eyelids. This is music to listen to while napping in a birchbark canoe. It’s made for praying on a carpet of dead leaves in a cathedral of pine boughs. My imagery is weird but apt. APT.

Fleet Foxes found via It’s Nice That

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted about any new music, but this morning, thanks to a Fecal Face video I came across Santogold. The group is made up of singer Santi White and producer John Hill, and can best be described as “What MIA should sound like”. I never really caught on to the MIA sound, but then Santogold came along and changed all that. Her voice is better, less shrill, and the songs are a little more laidback. I don’t feel like someone is trying to give me a cocaine epidural by the middle of a track. My luck being what it is, Santogold is New York-based, meaning it will be a while before I get to see them in person, especially since I won’t shell out the cash to bake in the desert at Coachella. It’s just as well, I’d hate to have to break out my dance moves again. It’s impolite to arouse that many women at one time, and some of them probably have boyfriends. Damn my amazing hips to hell!

Santogold

One of my skate/music heroes, Tommy Guerrero, has a quick, but interesting interview over on SFGate. He covers a lot of ground in ten questions. If you get a chance you should check out his new album Return of the Bastard; there’s an online stream of some of the new tracks over here, or if you’re in the Bay Area you can drop by the release party at 12 Galaxies next Friday. I’m probably going to try and squeeze that one in. First Fridays are always busy.