Invasion

I treated myself to a copy of the Grateful Dead's Cornell show from the spring of 1977 a few birthdays back.  I spent some time in Barton Hall over the years when working at the UC and saw Bob Dylan there when in college.  Considered by some to be one of the best shows the Dead ever performed, the center piece of  the show is an epic Fire On The Mountain that I have been flirting with the last few years.  I could jam on those two chords for hours and recently decided to put my spin on it.  More shoegaze than anything, brought to you here with nothing but love.

Music and words by Hunter and Hart/The Grateful Dead.

Fire On The Mountain (Grateful Dead Cover)

This is a song written about my childhood friend Paul Bailey. Between the ages of about 8 till 12 he was my best friend and we were inseparable. Then his family moved away and I never saw him again. That was almost 60 years ago. I still remember him and the times that we had, though I am sometimes amazed that we survived, they were very different times......

I am joined by two Soundcloud friends
On stupendous saxophones - wonderful Georg Böhme https://soundcloud.com/georg-boehme
On gorgeous guitar - brilliant Dairv Dubbleyew https://soundcloud.com/dairv-dubbleyew
I am grateful to them both for sharing their time and talent and they really illuminate the song. I recommend going to listen to them, if you have not already : )

Me and Paul 

Me and Paul , down at the waters edge
Throwing clodges* to block up the stream 
We'll make a pond to swim in all summer long
Making a pond the size of a dream
Me and Paul, cowboys and indians
Up on the mountain all day long
Building shanties** and lighting fires
10 years old and going headlong

and ohh, we were wild and free
we did what we wanted
just him and me
Oh we did what we wanted
we were kings of our country

Me and Paul , building gambos*** from old pram wheels
rolling stones at the gates like a hammer blow
climbing the rocks in the quarry behind our homes
and breaking into busses in the park below
Me and Paul, collecting bottles for the money back
spending the pennies on bangers**** and cigarettes
making cannons out of old lead pipes
10 years old and we were going headlong

and ohh, we were dangerous
and most of all we were wild and free
10 years old and going headlong
the wildest desperados, in the Rhondda Valley


I have used Rhondda Valleys terminology
*clodges - a rough turf pulled by hand
**shanties – little hideaways or huts built with anything to hand, stones, earth, branches, rubbish
*** gambos – box carts, built with any old wood or wheels that could be found
****bangers - fireworks

Me And Paul (with Georg Böhme and Dairv Dubbleyew)

I've been trying to make Jazz music by electronic means for a while now. It's been pretty hard.

So much about the ethos of Jazz is dependent on the traditional notion of musicianship: a group of people in a room, trading improvised passages. So much of its tradition is shaped by virtuosos. The thing is, even though I play 'real' instruments, I don't play them well enough and also (and this might be strange to admit) I don't even like playing them that much. I started playing the saxophone when I was 15 and then went for 20 years without playing, I got back into it last year, but I don't really enjoy the process. So I sold it. Now I have a clarinet (because it's quieter, cheaper and sweeter), but I also got a wind synth.

Yeah, the wind synth is not the same, but it's close enough for what I want, it allows me to literally breath some emotion into what I play without it being loud or overly hard to intonate and I have a lot more fun this way. This track features me playing the wind synth.

But another part of Jazz is the collaboration. So I invited the amazing producer and guitarist @ubo-music to contribute some jazz guitar improvisation and that changed everything. It brought a totally new life to the piece.

Overall, the process was: write a very repetitive pattern for the keys and the bass, then use that to play the virtual sax. I sent that to ubo, who send back this guitar part. Based on his part, I then re-recorded a big chunk of the sax parts. After that, I went back and played the keys again to add flourishes and variations, same for the bass. For the drums, I used Superior Drummer and made a bit of a collage of midi parts (I love doing this, it's like sampling, but for midi.)

In the end, even though nobody played together, I hope it still feels organic and if it does, it's because we did collaborate and traded passages, only they didn't happen in realtime.

Honestly, it's strange calling it Jazz. I have so much respect for the roots and traditions of the genre, but it has also evolved so much since the early days in New Orleans that I think I'm entitled, just like everybody else, to bastardize it in whatever way I see fit.

Jazz III (feat. ubo)

Seein' My Father In Me

Lamaom Slantedole

Fetthenne

Project 5

The Ambient Saxophone

Please enjoy, and wherever these sounds find you -- peace.

Lineage of the Lost

Ascension (Until We Meet Again)

Caveat: I explicitly prohibit the use of any material I post for purposes of torture, brainwashing, hypnosis, bedazzlement or any other nefarious activity. This prohibition applies to all governments, corporations, institutions, agencies and individuals. 

“The avant garde is dead. That is its triumph. Let it lie.” - Chris Cutler in “Not As We Choose: Music, Memory and Technology”. (Highly recommended!)

“… there is increasingly less call to exercise an already too rare generosity of aesthetic hospitality.” - Chris Cutler

" Music is one of the great Mysteries. It gives life. It is not a career, nor a business, nor a craft. It is a gift... and a great responsibility. Because one can never know where the creative spark comes from or why it exists, it must be treasured as a Mystery. For the most part I believe creativity chooses you, not the other way around." - John Zorn (excerpt from the liner notes to 'Magick')

“Listen as if you were being told a secret” - Federico Fellini

“Experimental and electronic music was once not-so-benignly tolerated at the margins of western art music, but it has over the last decade or so moved toward a central position as something of the soundtrack of our digital culture. Where it once was merely tolerated it is now more engaged and doesn’t have to apologize to anyone”.  - Douglas Kahn 

"Through technology, voices are amplified and silence is broken. Spaces are shared." – Laurie Anderson

"I frequently hear music in the heart of noise." - George Gershwin

"'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds." - 
Malaclypse the Younger in 'Principia Discordia'

“Let us cross a great modern capital with our ears more alert than our eyes and we will get enjoyment from distinguishing the eddying of water, air and gas in metal pipes, the grumbling noises that breathe and pulse with indisputable animility, the palpitation of waves, the coming and going of pistons, the howl of mechanical saws, the jolting of the tram on its rails, the cracking of whips, the flapping of curtains and flags. We enjoy creating mental orchestrations of crashing down of metal shop blinds, slamming doors, the hubbub and shuffle of crowds, the variety of din from the stations, railways, iron foundries, spinning mills, printing works, electric power stations and underground railways.” — Luigi Russolo in 'The Art of Noises' (L'arte dei Rumori)

Urban Dictionary (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mesmo)
(New Norberian English)

1. lit. in a state of mesmerism, hypnotism; in a trance
2. in a state of bewilderment or confusion, daydreaming; 'out of it'
3. mind bogglingly awesome, spellbinding, captivating

(1) "He swung that watch in front of her face and she got all mesmo"
(2) "When the teacher called me to the board I had just woken up and was still pretty mesmo"
(3) "The new N64 cartridge is totally mesmo, bro”

Banner: The Hearing Trumpet_Leonora Carrington (detail)

Lamaom Slantedole

Mesmo

Recent comments

Limited Bob

henry koek

Related tracks