“But even the good book says he’s coming
like a thief in the night.
Place your belief upon a thief and I’m thinking
you’re off one cross to the right.
But they say if war is at your door and the moon is high,
you might as well leave on the light.”
“Some take the road to Damascus
Some take the road to hell
I’ll take highway 1 to the evergreens
And everything will turn out well”
“I remember when we were gambling to win
Everybody else said better luck next time
I don’t wanna bend, let the bad girls bend
I just wanna be your friend
Is it ever gonna be enough”
“Help, I’m alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammer”
It’s been ages since I’ve really listened to this song (or any of Croce’s work, really). But I used to listen to it all the time, when I made the drive from Indianapolis to Bloomington and back.
At work, a group of us are using Music League to create weekly, collaborative playlists, built around various themes. The most recent theme was titled “We’ve Since Broken Up, But I Still Love This Song,” and my submission for it was Billy Bragg’s “The Only One.”
I really do enjoy seeing experiments on the web. With the advent of social media, these types of projects are nice reminders that there can still be wonder online. That we can still explore and marvel at possibilities and combinations that don’t have anything to do with commerce. They feel like reminders not of the page or the site being viewed, but of the creators and the viewers. The people behind all those many screens.
It’s pretentious at times. But I still have a fond memory of it. I don’t know whether this qualifies as an art film or not, but it’s definitely not your typical film.
The thing that I remember most fondly is that there were a few moments – a few select segments/scenes… that caught me off guard, and made me rethink how I listened to the world. One of those moments from the film was called “Truck Stop”:
Happened across this video describing the happy accident of gated reverb, and how this particular sound shaped the 1980’s (and seems to be experiencing a bit of a comeback).
“… Pump is out there living his best life, as evidenced in his song ‘Drug Addicts,’ where he raps, ‘I’m a drug addict, I’m richer than my professor (man, fuck school).’
If you are an old person like me — I am a full decade older than Pump so he sort of treats me like a matronly aunt bothering him with questions about his grades — your first question about Pump is likely: Where is your mother?“
I spent a lot of time surfing the Internet yesterday, as a kind of relaxing day. It’s been some time since I’ve done this, as the house work has kept us pretty occupied. I remember first seeing a visualization of Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” a long while ago, back in 2005. This was before YouTube was around, so I’m not sure…
Created by musicians Ólafur Arnalds & Halldór Eldjárn, Stratus is a piano installation project that allows people from all over the world to influence the music produced.
I found the bass line to be an incredibly curious and unusual opener. And as Marling’s vocals came in… the two seemed to do this really interesting thing where they were in sync and at odds with one another, at the same time.
I’m introducing things in a kind of non-linear way here. Mostly because I want you to experience the same process I experienced, earlier today. So first up, I’d say watch the video below. It’ll give you a bit of context about the song, and after it dives into the specifics… give a pause. And then keep on reading.
It’s a rainy, gloomy kind of day today. Thunderstorms this morning, with a lot of clouds and fog this afternoon. Paris 12 seems like an appropriate soundtrack for the day.