"Dry Lightning" Bruce Springsteen-The Ghost of Tom Joad

I always wished I was the strong silent type, Gary Cooper, Lee Marvin, Duke Wayne. But I am not and I'm open about my feelings. I don't know if this is a weakness or the fact that men like the aforementioned don't really exist. I think they don't, they all had an ear that they spoke to and a shoulder to cry on. I have my own in my life, a few people who I bear all to when I need them.

I remember jogging in the hangar bay of the USS George Washington spilling everything, all the fears, concerns and doubts to a particular friend who was good enough to entertain my ramblings. He was the only one I let into that world, at the time if I didn't have that I didn't know what I would have done with myself. At the time I couldn't be alone, I couldn't be the person I was or the person the world knew without him.

So in this post, yet another Springsteen post, I want to write this for another friend who may be going through the same thing I was dealing with at the time aboard that ship, when I thought all was lost and couldn't see life beyond each left and right foot that came down on the hard steel of the hangar bay.

"Dry Lightning" reminds me of those times and the hopelessness that invaded my dreams every night when I set my head down. It is easy to talk about it now but at the time I couldn't face it, for the first time in my life I couldn't face something in my life and I had zero idea how to move forward.

I'd drive down to Alvarado street, where she danced to make ends meet,
I'd spent night over my gin, where she talk to her men,
Well a piss yellow sun comes bringing up the day,
She said ain't nobody gonna give nobody
What they really need anyway...
You get so sick of the fighting, lose your fear in the end.
I can't lose your memory,
The sweet memory of your skin.

It sure does take me back to those days of hopelessness, but like the desert of which the narrator inhabitates, he is resilient. Like the desert it is timeless, worn down by the wind and elements but standing before them in defiance. In the situation I was in, like my good friend, you have to stand before them and let it wear you down.

It wears you down until the only thing that is left is your character, the core of the person you are and always have been with or without the thing you have lost. For the only thing that is worse than the predicament you currently are in is to lose that bedrock of which you've based your whole life upon. And there's a beauty in that ideal. A beauty in the Randian, Emerson, Thoreauian way of living your life, the acceptance of what life has dealt you and your ability to rise above it all.

I remember spending a few days in the eastern California desert, a small town with two bars filled with modern day characters from some Steinbeck, Joadian screenplay shot with John Ford's eye. Playing pool smoking Marlboro Reds, drinking domestic beer with a few shots mixed in until we went to the strip club where our narrator spend nights over his gin...you realize that life doesn't work out for a vast many people in this world. Luckily most of those people don't have the knowledge of the outside world to compare their own lives to, sadly I did. In the end it was something to celebrate instead of mourn. Of people venturing through their daily lives with the steadfastness those in more sophisticated worlds could never possibly imagine.

But like my friend this is dedicated to, she called me one day and told me she was engaged. It was right before I was going out, before a work dinner in which I had to show a good face. A friend was driving and I took a full glass of gin in the car ride while I tried to catch my breath for right then and there it was all over. It was over before but I at least had the luxury of pretending that it was not. It was.

After the initial shock it was liberating and it set me free. I sit here now writing this thinking about that day while listening to this song of sorrow, of resigned hopelessness, I sit here now writing this a man with many disappointments and happinesses after her, finding in others what I never thought I would find again even though she still comes to me in the night at times when I least expect it. I write this thinking about another love of mine across an ocean, her brown hair that waits to accept me with open arms and loving skin.

He'll eventually get to that point, he simply needs to know that that point will come to fruition in the future once he lets her go to her new life and accept that he has a new one, to look at it as such and embrace it as a new beginning. I am not a fateist but I do believe that you can make the remainder of your life work, hopefully they'll be another, and certainly there will be, that will break his heart once again.

The Hit Lab

Obviously I'm into music and have been for a long time, and into it a lot more than most. However people always love to tell me that I need to broaden my horizons out beyond traditional Rock and Roll, Jazz, and all that standard kinda stuff. Of course I have a lot to say about that. The truth is that I know what I dig because I've been into it all, on top of that out of all of my close friends I'm pretty much the only one who likes what I like musically.

In September I spent the entire month in LA at a very good friends place working on a project in addition to just a basic visit to see a man I see only a few times a year. For him this project is a side one and not in the music realm. My friend's main project, or career rather is music. Back in his NYU days he founded a label and has always had his fingers in the business. The music, as I was alluding to before, is not my bread and butter.

My friend and his partner, a Grammy winner who comes from a traditional music background and is basically a virtuoso of every instrument imaginable are working together and their new creation is "The Hit Lab". From their website:

First and foremost, The Hit Lab are a camp – a group of like-minded people who have devoted their lives to music and art, all working together to make a perfect product each and every time. We are a Los Angeles based production company, which owns and operates a full service studio in North Hollywood. The Hit Lab works with and develops artists in order to achieve their personal and creative dreams while setting in motion a career path with the major and independent labels. The Hit Lab are experts at web development and social networking along with photography, video content, songwriting and production. Our commitment to our artists is total and complete and we don’t succeed unless they do. We only allow professional, courteous, and generous people through our doors and believe we are only as strong as our weakest link – we fight for personal, professional, and creative integrity each and every day.

I've been out there a few times and seen it go down, my first interaction with his partner was hoping in my buddy's car to "help a friend move" last summer. We showed up at this tiny little room in North Hollywood filled with more gear than I have ever seen in one small place. There was a Grammy on a shelf next to a McDonald's cup, crap everywhere; that's where I met ND. That day we moved him into this gorgeous studio that he built by hand, it was a serious space, a few thousand square feet, hyper professional and no joke. I remember in the 90s I was lucky enough to end up in a studio in NY and watched the Allman Brothers lay down a few tracks, and this place was comparable if not better.

I was surprised by all this to say the least, hell man I thought I was just going to help move a couch and while my buddy spoke of his new project I didn't know it was this big or legit. Since those days they have signed some serious talent that I am confident will become household names in the Pop world.

One thing I also know is that when James starts something, it is done right. Whether is was the vacations we've taken around this world, the road trip we recently finished throughout the Southwest or even our own personal side project, the commitment is always there. Full disclosure on my part, yea man this is pure pop music I'm talking about here, but I will say you can tell these boys are onto something with their tracks.

Right now they are running a promotion, if you are in the first 1000 people to like them on facebook you are entered into a drawing to have your or a friend's music mastered by them professionally. Check out their site at: http://thehitlab.com/ And check out my buddy's other work from Billboard Magazine: http://blog.headliner.fm/tag/billboard-magazine/

"Born Under a Bad Sign" Cream-Wheels of Fire

In an earlier post wrote of Clapton's "Old Love" and then my brother wrote a guest post on a Clapton concert in Seattle, both of these posts fall under later day Clapton works of which, like almost everyone, I adore. However many times people forget that before becoming a solo artist EC played with some of the most epic bands in Rock and Roll history: The Yardbirds, Bluesbreakers, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos, Bonnie and Friends, and the epic Psychedelic Rock band: Cream.

While my brother, who is by far the biggest Clapton aficionado in history, digs the later works, I personally engage the rougher, harder sound of these earlier years. Possibly this comes from my experiences with the psychedelic side of things from my college years that I am sure my brother never experienced while in ROTC. I think that's a large part of it, but maybe it just comes down to different flavors of musical palettes and they was we digest such feasts. This song, much like Peter Green's "Seven Stars" brings me back to another time and place, and while I despise most of the social movement in the 60's, it certainly was a time of the most fantastic music ever made. Ever.

The song itself comes from Albert King whom Clapton claimed as his biggest influence in his guitar playing. While the straight blues version is raw, encompassing a timeless sound that today remains new, Cream's version is a time capsule into another era that while dated still sticks to the insides of the brain making passage of other melodies almost impossible without wearing off on the transient sounds.

Often times I am hooked on a mere second or two of a song, those details are what bring it from banality into genius. Here the phrasing of one particular line in multiple verses continually drives a smile on my face, closing of the eyes followed by leaning back in an orgasmic bliss of heightened musical awareness.

A big bad woman gonnacarrymeto my grave.

The tempo and short staccato phrasing that so easily rolls off of his tongue rivals the greatest words uttered in music. Coupled with piercing, moderately fuzzed out guitar (I think he used a Gibson in much of his work back then) and the line leaves one chasing the dragon for the remainder of their listening lives.

It is hard. It is raw and it is the type of music that is simply not made anymore. Possibly one could draw parallels between this sound and The Black Keys but while the Keys are truly fantastic it would be a tragedy to compare the two. Cream, in all their songs are operating on a different level of music genius. I challenge one to listen to Hendrix, Paul Rogers and even the original Albert King and derive the emotions generated in this short three minute song. It is akin to watching Gretzky, Picasso or Pollack paint, or Sophia Loren...simply just be. This is the pinnacle of professional and craftsmanship in their particular field. At times I believe Clapton thanks God he doesn't remember making any of it because if he did, well how could he continue to make new music. He wouldn't, he would have spent the remainder of his life trying to replicate such incredible heights.

"Neptune" Doc and Lena Selyanina-Cosmic Lullabies

It is possible to listen to the first one hundred and seventy seconds of this seventeen minute song for three weeks and never tire of it.

My knowledge of classical music is thin at best, while my knowledge of modern classical music is even more questionable, however putting ego aside it is truthful to state that I know significantly more than the average person and while I would feel ignorant to speak with full fledged affectionados I see no problem throwing my hat into the ring in this matter. (That was the disclaimer paragraph so I do not have fifty emails tomorrow from people criticizing my observations)

In the end though, fuck them. Music is art and just as in other types of art the creator may have had intentions or cornerstones of which their creations are set upon it is the one taking in their work who can make the final judgement. Do I elevate Springsteen to a higher level because his background mirrors my own, my families? Of course, but does it subjugate my observations and feelings? No.

There is little on the web about Lena except that she began her craft from a very young age. Her work is more of a biography than anything written on the web and her work is a combination of ambient and neoclassical pieces played with strict technical precision. Doc is a Finnish producer of Electronica, Ambient and Experimental music. That exhausts my biographical knowledge of the two.

Their music is far removed from a Philip Glass and Terry Riley, and terribly distant from most of Karlheinz Stockhausen's work as well. It is more banal, though I say that as a compliment much like "Kind of Blue" is more banal to "Sketches of Spain". Both are epic jazz pieces but I have to be engaged to take on Sketches while Blue doesn't require any proactive engagement, rather absorption. If I had to compare this piece and their work to anyone it would be Arvo Pärt, the great Estonian minimalist.

However the above is just a feeble attempt to put this work into context historically. In real life when I hear this piece I am reminded of the possibility of connectivity that exists in the universe. My first real experience with this came five years ago in the middle of the Arabian Gulf. Before this I had touched the realm of possible Brahman, though Hindu philosophers and Upanishad scholars would scoff at my example, while surfing.

When I was 13 there was a storm rolling in out of the east and I was at the peak bowl in Manasquan, long before the dredging broke up the structure of the wave. It began to rain and lightning struck far offshore in the distance. I stayed in as the wind shifted to the west creating perfect five foot hollow sections refracting off of the jetty. I was the only one in the water with all the waves to myself. I could hear each individual drop of water breaking the tension of the surface and when I rode I could hear the slicing-chop-swish-riiiiipwhosh coming off the rails, see individual particles of foam floating in the west wind and feel the wind rustling the hair on my toes. There were dolphins just out of the line up, when I would duck dive a wave I could hear them talk to each other in their high pitched squeaks.

Fifteen years later I resolved to volunteer to go to sea in an attempt to escape my shore based life which was bordering or surpassing the boarder depending on who you ask, of alcoholism and depression. Overweight, my blood pressure had shot up more than thirty points in one year and my breath had turned into wheezing. It seemed like the logical thing to do as so many before me had lost and the found themselves once again in the middle of such savagery.

On a weather deck every night around two in the morning I would commence with an hour of cardio in the 110 degree heat and then cool down and begin a practice of Ashtanga Vinyasa. Though a bastardized version of it which began in the vigorous style of the modern genre, it evolved into the kind mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita and the classic Four Yogas of the late 19 century. In these times, when my breath became one with my movements, when my movements became one with my mind I experienced full connection to the environment while blocking it out at the same time. The typical noises of a large ship passed by, noises which were so loud those on the weather decks were required to wear hearing protection. The heat was relegated to a normal room temperature bearable to the average human and whatever feelings of remorse, dread and regret passed through and out of my veins into the ether.

I returned from that trip with many new experiences, I visited Asia and took in all of the pleasures of the natives, visited the deserts of the Middle East, crossed the Pacific, lost forty pounds, kicked drinking into blackout states and stopped smoking. But in retrospect those nights on the weather decks, fully engaged and connected made me realize that there are levels of consciousness in this life that are rarely touched upon. As a short cut one could take a few tabs and tap into this realm but the dangers are too high and the benefits not as astounding. Acid is Diet Coke to the real thing, the hand to the vagina and the groomed trails to the pure powder. The work involved to reach that realm must be pure and earned.

And with that when I put this song on that is what comes to mind. Total connection out of something that appear chaotic to the uninitiated. It digresses into thoughts of space, String Theory, Rare Earth Hypothesis, Abiogenesis and the Unified Universe. All ideas that make little sense to most, some of which do not to the brightest minds on the planet. But neither does Atonality or Aleatoricism until you hear it.