Yuk Bon

I just stumbled on a site about Set Theory Primer as it relates to music theory. Which reminds me of my favorite story about music I wrote that no one ever heard.

Bunny called me up, “hey there’s a gallery opening, we’re doing a music/performance/installation — the theme of the gallery is Summerian/Babylonian art, they’re showing some pieces etc etc”

I dig Sumer, cradle of civilization etc etc and I’ve read through Snow Crash so I know just a bit more than nothing about their language construction (atonal glosolalia? or some shit. doesn’t matter, i’m not writing poetry). So I look up Summerian music. Turns out it uses a 60-tone scale. Because I am S-M-R-T smart, I figure OK, I can make music akin to atonal 12-tone theory pieces, but I have to use 1/2 and 1/4 microtones (ie, bends and half-bends) and viola, 12-tone automagically becomes 60-tone. So I write this long droning piece in an open D tuning and because it would be a bitch to be bending whole chords (although you get some really awesome dissonances, some sonic youth/glenn branca shit going on where the notes beat against each other in the air) I go and get me a slide. So it’s like this blues hawaiian indian drone monster thing. It’s made of pure, concentrated awesome.

And then the day of the show, come to find out they go on an hour before they said they would and also that the music has been relegated to the alley behind the gallery. Which is OK, since that’s where the party people’s at anyway. Ran into solo and other people from the wayback.

Earth's Hum

awesome sound is awesome.

maybe remaking stagger lee to be about delia day? the grateful dead’s version names delia as billy’s woman….hmmmm….

capo II:
Em11 -> E shuffle, B7, G

Em11 000000


switch to

E – E7 / E7b5 – Bb13
xx2100 – xx2103 / xx0100 – xx0103

G / / / Cm / / / G / / / Cm / / /
oh don’t you go oh won’t you oh

Dsus4 D Dsus2 G / / / Cm9/x33543
look at me when you say goodbye

i almost called today. how’s that for breaking news, eh?

moving on, people. man, whenever i say that i miss mr jones. but no man’s dead while his name is still spoken.

Low. Mormons from Minnesota — home of Garrison Keillor and other very white folks — write glacially slow minimalist music. Except lately they haven’t. It’s strange, but the last few albums have had a decidedly wider sound to them. Which is good, but strange — more instruments, more complex songs, but they still sound harrowingly bare, austere and distant. Even the painful songs are just…far away. Removed.

So but see their video for “Breaker”: QuickTime, from their website (or here if you prefer YouTube). It’s homey, but creepy.

I saw them live with Dr Robert, professional guitarist/lawyer person thing, and they are just as chill-inducing in person. (aside: Mimi Parker is achingly pretty in person. Very tall and with a kind face, but with that way that really nice people have about them that you just know if you actually manage to piss ‘em off you might as well just kill yourself then and there.)

Here’s more Low for you:
Dinosaur Act: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kTGghNXgxnk
Because You Stood Still: http://youtube.com/watch?v=QPFDix37UZw
Whore: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ArPQvYGrM_w (live)
(That’s How You Sing) Amazing Grace: http://youtube.com/watch?v=y2Res0JMuI4 (live but such excellent quality. Very spacey.)

The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove, Live in DC. Well over a year later, this song still reminds me of all that misery. On the bright side, that bass line is fucking wicked.

This is amazing: an audience sing-along with the Mountain Goats’ “No Children”

Courtesy of Largehearted Boy, whose music blog is one of the few that doesn’t suck on a variety of levels. Seriously, check out the blog — full concerts by bands that don’t suck etc etc.

Lyrics here in case you want to sing along yourself.

different poerformance:

The Stagger Lee Files, about the different versions of the song.

The Annotated “Stagger Lee”, about the Grateful Dead version specifically but also includes some history. …and the actual Stag Lee story that inspired the song(s).

I really love how it’s this one mutating story that moves from musician to musician and it’s the same thing, but always a bit different, for example, check out the lyrics to Nick Cave’s surprisingly filthy version and then compare Dylan’s.

Versions:
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Album version, and live.
Grateful Dead, live.
Isley Brothers.
Lloyd Price.
RL Burnside.
Samuel L. Jackson.
Mississippi John Hurt.
Tony Furtado.

I’m still looking for the James Brown and Bob Dylan versions.