I'm (Not) New Here

turns out the revolution wasn't televised, it was more like facebooked

let me see if I can untangle this beautiful mess

Gil Scott Heron, most famous for his proto-rap funk diatribe

"the revolution will not be televised"

released a great, minimalist blues/electronica album in 2010 called

"I'm New Here"

(the title track was a cover of a song by Smog)

last month, Jamie Smith from xx released a remix version of the album

albeit with different tracks, different vibe altogether, something like the sunny day version of its predecessor's cloudy day, called

"We're New Here"

on both albums, is a blues written by Heron called

"New York Is Killing Me"

well, I've worn both recordings out, love them both, and I decided to give reproducing one of the songs myself a try...

(also, the artwork for both albums is stellar, probably my favorite covers to come out in the last five years so I also tried to pay "hommage" to them as well)

be sure to check out the amazing website promoting the remix album

here's my version of -

"New York Is Killing Me"

Snow Day

Giant snow flakes.

"Unrest" in Egypt.

Groundhog Day.

(notice I did not call it "groundhog's day"....)

February.

Black History Month.

Keiji Haino.

Rammellzee.

Alvin Curran.

Brice Marden.

Alan Licht.

Weather reminds us we are not in control.

Blizzartsongs (or, music to count tiles & watch icicles grow)

Drips, Fripp, and Skips

"I don't use the accident...'cause I deny the accident"

-Jackson Pollock

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none"

-Miles Davis

I was listening to this compilation from Antilles on vinyl...

This track by Robert Fripp & Brian Eno called "Evensong" started playing...

Then it started skipping...

I started to feel frustrated, frustrated with my turntable, frustrated with the situation...

Then I started to reject my own frustration...

I simply listened to the skipping record...

I started recording it & playing along on my Wurlitzer...

Using some of the same ideas that Eno & Fripp were messing with, I copied the recorded skip...

did some minor editing, let it pulse against itself & recorded a second Wurlitzer track...

all in about 15 minutes, done quick & with almost no contemplation

(working fast is something else that Miles & Pollock have in common)

now, of course, I don't delude myself into thinking what I came up with is really all that special but...

it was satisfying to know that it really is all about making lemonade with lemons, taking a perceivably negative situation & denying that it is an accident, be it a skip....or some paint that goes drip....... drip....... drip....................

frippenoskip

The Spike Band - It Is What (EP)

So, how can a band that hasn't played together, even been in the same room together for the past two years, make a new EP?

taking fragments (the band itself being fragmented across the country...)

fragments from live recordings, melodies, small moments of real-time music,

mostly forgotten

cut, rounded, re-colored like pieces of fabric, scraps, clips, laid out to craft collages

it was always a "live" band, moving, different songs, different sounds, in motion

these brief miniatures, as I imagined, could relate to one another like

ever changing shadows cast by a mobile

& this is by no means an original epiphany

the cut-ups of Gysin & Burroughs, the splice jobs of Teo Macero & Miles Davis

especially "In A Silent Way" & "He Loved Him Madly"

the drifting patterns of Terry Riley, Steve Reich

"Music For Airports" by Brian Eno

(this could be called "Music For Sushi Bars")

Jon Hassell's Fourth World music, his effected trumpet landscapes

ultimately, I missed making music with my friends,

dudes whose own artistry was & continues to be something...

I feel blessed to have been a part of....a fragment

so, no this ain't the band the way we sounded

it is what...it is

**a few notes**

the voices (the incredible voices) heard on the last track are from the member's of

Rev. Crenshaw's Memphis congregation, a recording made by Alan Lomax,

available on a collection (where I first heard it) called "Roots of the Blues"

everything else was by The Spike Band...

if you want to hear our more conventional stuff, you can get it here

Download our new (& free) EP here-

"It Is What"

Dear Mr. Fantasy

when Phil Brown was asked about his favorite memory of recording/engineering, he replied -

"Recording Dear Mr Fantasy, one o'clock in the morning, November 1967."

Yeah, no kidding.

Here's my humble rendition, something to make us all happy...

Dear Mr. Fantasy

Marion Brown

have you heard Marion Brown?

Why Not?

Over the past few months, I've been engrossed in digging the sounds of the fife and drum blues groups from the South, places like Panola County, folks like Napolian Strickland, Ed Young, Sid Hemphill, and Otha Turner, even Otha's granddaughter Sharde Thomas and the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band. It's incredible music. In the course of studying it, I came across some examples that hail from the Georgia Sea Island culture. Digging a little deeper, I started finding out that several of my favorite jazz artists come from that region (James Blood Ulmer & ....Marion Brown). Turns out that Marion Brown taught at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine which is about thirty miles from where I live. That was a long time ago, like early '70s. Brown went on to make plenty of incredible music, some employing ideas and sounds from his native Georgia, "Afternoon of a Georgia Faun," "Geechee Recollections," and an album with pianist Stanley Cowell called "Regeneration." On that record, Brown contributes a piece entitled "Shimmy Shewobble," which is a kind of catch-all title for some of the fife and drum blues jams. Incredible.

I got in touch with musicologist David Evans, one of the people who has done the most documenting and research about the fife and drum blues tradition, and he indicated that it was noted music writer/clarinetist Robert Palmer (whose film "Deep Blues" is a must-see for anyone interested in the blues) who hipped Marion Brown to the fife and drum music. Brown's interest in the style was so great that he took it upon himself to learn to make the fifes and even wrote a piece dedicated to Otha Turner (which I can't find anywhere but I'm looking...).

Brown's discography is chock full of really unique choices. He played on "Ascension" with Coltrane, with Archie Shepp on "Fire Music," with Harold Budd on "Pavillion of Dreams," did free improvisations with Wadada Leo Smith, recorded a version of "Visions" by Stevie Wonder, did unaccompanied solo saxophone improvisations, and simply never sounded anything less than utterly himself.

Ornette let him borrow his white plastic alto when he got to New York 'cause he was so broke he couldn't afford his own horn. When health problems prevented him from playing, he turned his artistic gifts to the visual mediums, painting and drawing and building instruments with the same deep imagination and craft he brought to music.

There are tributes to Marion Brown, His Name Is Alive, an "indie band," (whatever that means...) did a fantastic album entitled "Sweet Earth Flower," which hopefully, has the effect of drawing more listeners to his original music.

The following two pieces are meant as a token of my appreciation for his brilliant saxophone playing and his interest in the fife and drum music, respectively. He was always a student of the music who taught how to be an artist through his example. He is missed.

When Angels Sing (for Marion Brown)

Shortenin' Bread

Albert

seems like every year, 'round this time

when the leaves go rollin' in waves down the street

something about that sound

sends me back to Albert Ayler

for all the chatter 'bout "free jazz"

what it has always been about (for me)

is an other-wordly saxophone sound

straight from the church

and beauty

melodies that will live forever

maybe the melancholy of the Fall is too beautiful

maybe Albert knew all about too much beauty

New Ghosts