Flurries of Bliss

“…if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” -Joseph Campbell

I just opened an Amazon card and bought a bunch of music-related stuff…a melodica, glockenspiel, books on global music marketing and “amping” my Myspace page…I feel good about that totally impulsive investment.

“Following your bliss” might seem abstract to me sometimes but today it’s not…just doing something small like what I just did, even though it took money, makes me feel like I’m still feeding my spirit despite all of the setbacks, anxieties, and self-destruction of recent years, and I’m still following a blissful path that includes commitment to my creativity–and more so, to close relationships. I think “following” can be misinterpreted as “well if you’re not doing it the EXACT way you had planned then it’s not bliss.” Can bliss be planned? I think only choices within this moment can turn you towards bliss. And that’s where patience, openness and strength is so important and can be maddening to the me-me-me-now-now-now side of the artist (i.e. me)

I think small bouts of bliss can create the right path for yourself, but you have to fully savor those moments instead of wondering why can’t I have more of these?, and keep angling for them to happen even when that voice tells you it’s stupid, grow up.

I am spending the next few days with family away from frost-fixated Chicago, in the balmy climes of Florida, and I’m clearing my head of all music-related things, bringing only my slightly frustrating book on Zen (the author says to go on a walking meditation and uses her recent retreat in the Australian rainforest as an example…yes, I’d love to recreate that experience on the concrete streets of Chicago!) that I lost under my couch for a week (purposefully?) and East of Eden which I will finally finish, hopefully. A very intense, beautiful but demanding book that requires me to be in a certain mind space in order to fully arrive at its words.

Mini-bliss moment of the day #1: Standing in front of the puppet cart on Michigan Avenue–the only one in the audience, and when I turned to leave and looked back, the little dog puppet waved at me. Thank you charming puppet man.

Mini-bliss moment of the day #2: Today the background music of a sushi takeout place I go to was a music box version of Beatles songs–all tinkly, spare and demure.

Image by Grainne Finn

War and Music

On the train I looked over someone’s shoulder, reading a Red-Eye—one of those daily papers they hand out at stations only to be tossed into the trash once your destination is reached. The paper starts out with palatable snippets of hard news, then segues into your standard pop-culture fare—Britney’s breakdowns, American Idol triumphs. The headline “4,000 Dead” made me flinch as usual, and the guy reading it flipped to the next page quickly. Can I say I blame him? I myself have only read what’s going on with Barack and Hillary lately, having given up on any immediate withdrawal of troops or end to the suicide bombings, at least until a new presidency is instilled. I guess that’s my way of keeping hope alive—knowing that something of a fresh start (even Hillary would be fresh at this point, I think) could eventually make this madness cease. But is such a claim of patience (or is it more helplessness) a cop-out? Is a dependency on one figure to reverse our missteps just one more misstep?

I admire those who aren’t as emotionally fragile as me (as weak as it sounds, I can sometimes lose a whole day to sadness if I think too deeply on what’s going on in our world) who can face the ugliness and even stand up to it, in concrete or symbolic action, in expression. A group of protestors who call themselves “Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War” recently entered an Easter Sunday church service in Chicago to perform a “die-in,” squirting fake blood on themselves to elicit empathy for Iraqi citizens who have seen their holiest days marred by violence. While I agree with the cardinal that mass wasn’t the place to do this—parishioners were truly frightened and upset by the intrusion—the protestors in a statement announced they took the gamble “to reach both Holy Name’s large Easter audience—including Chicago’s most prominent Catholic citizens, who commonly attend Easter mass at the church—and the many more viewers and readers of the local press, which usually extensively covers their services.” Their goal was to remind the churchgoers that cardinal George and Daley met two months ago with the president, described as the “principal public figure responsible for initiating the carnage in Iraq.” It’s all so messy, heartbreaking, but fascinating too. One one side you have the protestors who took an extreme symbolic action to its end, which rouses complicated feelings of admiration and irritation, and then the parishioners and their children who just wanted to have a simple, peaceful Easter mass, but whose American bubble of false safety was pierced by the action. There is no black and white here, really.  

What of musicians who address the war? They don’t have to storm into a church to relay their feelings of rage, disappointment and frustration. Lyrics can suffice. But many critics and musicians look down on those artists who take it upon themselves to be political artists, as if art has no place in that realm. I greatly disagree. I think politically charged art is one of the most peaceful tools towards creating a global consciousness against war and for peace. When done right, it can not only rouse the listener to want something better for this world, but also completely rock. That’s why albums like “Hail to the Thief” by Radiohead and “In Our Bedroom After the War” by the Stars are underrated masterpieces.

 

Or from a jauntier viewpoint, but equally articulate, the amazing Nelly McKay. These artists are able to address global concerns through the universal connector of music, with passion and eloquence. And to connect others in consciousness against corruption, in hope for peace, is an act not to be disdained. It’s something I myself haven’t attempted on a grand scale with my music–relationships and human connection remain my greatest fuel– but I edge towards it in my writing, at least in thinking about the broken world’s effect on our psyches, our lives’ and love’s effect on the broken world.

Gem in the Piles

I recorded this weekend, which I’ll write about later, but I wanted to mention an album I pulled out from the incriminating piles of junk in my house, and that I subsequently rocked out to: Loneliness Knows my Name by Patrick Park (2003). It’s one of those albums that I overplayed so much, I didn’t touch for a year or so, but now it sounds sweeter than ever. It passed the “Don’t Touch Me for a While then Pick Me Up and Either Still Love Me or Wonder Why You Ever Did” test!

PP sounds a bit like Elliott Smith but with more muscle and growl, and the album is an intoxicating blend of Beatlesesque sunshiney harmonies, some countrified, dilapidated folkiness, and literate, heartfelt grandson-of-Bacharach songwriting. Every song is a masterpiece, incredibly catchy and rousing, and the album listened through in one sitting will pierce and buoy you.

 

Hope he puts out another album soon. I think it’s cool he hasn’t yet (he’s probably digging even deeper for those amazing songs to come forth while straddling this rooftop.)

Spiderlings

Reading something like this both inspires and depresses me. I think that simultaneous mood helix is what keeps me from reading “Eat Pray Love.”

 http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/sharpdarts/080214/

And then I read my horoscope…
“Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, columnist Jon Carroll described the behavior of certain young spiders in the Sacramento Delta. When one of these “spiderlings” is ready to leave its birthplace and go in search of adventure, it spins out a long gossamer strand, climbs aboard, and leaps into the unknown. Floating in mid-air, it’s carried by the wind to who-knows-where, eventually landing in its new homeland. While I’m normally a big advocate of having goals and making plans, this is one of those rare times when I advise you to act more like the spiderlings.”

Yeah I know, I should be doing work not living in my dangerous daydreams.

I Will Possess Your Blahg

I recently discovered the music blog Stereogum. I like this blog because it’s a bit more interactive and conversational than other music sites; they allow you to hear the music they write about, and even have an ongoing “mix” of new artists. The writing is laidback, funny, and informal. They recently gave a heads up to the first single from Death Cab for Cutie’s new album, “Narrow Stairs.”

A good friend of mine introduced me to DCFC. I think it was a few months after “Plans” had been released, and we danced around to “Soul Meets Body” one day in her apartment (I think a requirement to be my friend is an ability to dance goofily together at any given moment.) She had given me a copy of the CD, and I found it a bit too earnest/maudlin/emo. But gradually I fell for the song and most of the album. Unabashedly romantic and unembarrassed about it, that song especially seems to me an ecstatic embrace of two people coming together, and the thrilling power of music to represent that. The moods of the album, contrary to my first listen, are varied–romantic ecstasy, mourning/acceptance of death, nostalgia for childhood. You can tell that Ben Gibbard labors over making his lyrics clean, direct, and precise, like the best poet (although he recently denounced calling songwriting “poetry” in a recent interview with American Songwriter, saying that they are two totally separate things, which I have come to agree with more and more.) I went on to see the band live, and while I was annoyed with the crowd of under-20 O.C. fans and the cavernous Riviera was probably not the best venue for them, there were moments of supreme musical transcendence from the band.

In the American Songwriter article, Gibbard reveals that the new album is totally different from Plans, which was meticulously..uh…planned, with overdubs from each member of the band–at one point Gibbard says he was playing video games in another room while his bassist tracked, and he felt uncomfortable about that. I can see his point, but I think that’s what gave Plans its signature sound–it was elegantly coherent rather than passionately spilled. The new record was recorded all live, with minimal overdubs and few takes. I admire their balls-out new approach, and I can understand as artists they wanted to go in an entirely new direction to elude stagnancy or pigeonholing. But I have to say I was mildly disappointed by the plodding new track. The bass line is sexy, the guitars trickling and throbbing gradually into the song are sexy, but the sexiness goes on for way way way too long! When Gibbard finally starts singing, it’s beautiful and catchy of course, but I felt let down by the slightness of his lyrics and the puny bridge. Then the song sort of ends abruptly, making the whole interminable prelude seem like a dumbbell to the feathery conclusion. Still, maybe this is just another example of how I initially don’t get what Gibbard and co. are trying to do, and eventually I’ll see the light. Maybe I just need to dance around to this track too and I’ll fall for it equally as hard. Regardless, I’m excited to hear the album in its entirety.

 Here is the Stereogum feature, with the full track.

new nectar

At rehearsal this weekend I was increasingly flustered, banging my bassist’s beautiful Martin guitar against the ceiling (what is it with me and Martins? I dropped my first one down the stairs!) and tangling up the cords to the amp and the guitar pod, suddenly projecting all of my impending anxiety over the upcoming studio sessions on to my surroundings and inability to disengage said cords from their rats’ nest. I kept telling myself, be mindful, be mindful of what you’re doing, as I’ve been reading a book on Zen lately called “Untrain Your Parrot.” Sometimes I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about (“heartmind”?) but I like some of the tips she gives, like a phrase called “now vow how bow”. No, not Wow Bao. Now Vow.

But of course that internal prompt had the total opposite effect. Luckily my drummer is a true gentleman; he asked his wife who, when she’s not teaching world drumming with him, is a bartender. She sweetly brought me a delicate little tumbler of amber-colored liquid, comfort of the Southern kind, shaken and strained with Roses lime. Oh my goodness. Somewhere between a shot and a girly drink, I do believe I’ve found my new cocktail. I soon loosened up and even started doing my nerdy sway dance while playing the songs. But I didn’t feel totally sloshed either. It was the perfectly-sized tonic. Tipsiness prevails over forced mindfulness!

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I’m Glad I Bought That Ugly Crystal

Next week I enter the studio for the second time this year to continue work on my debut album.   Oh, that word “debut” makes one sound like such an ingenue! But I feel like I’ve been around the block a few times with music. Not exacly “rode hard and put in wet,” a phrase that’s trickled down through the women in the family, but still…I’ve seen my ups and downs with this music thing. Luckily these last few months have brought me back to a place of wonder towards music, with some distance from the ego’s crowing.

Many know I have struggled to shed the “coffeehouse ingenue singer/song writer” thing, like clothing whose style that I have gradually outgrown but still wear because I haven’t found the clothes that truly suit me. (I remember a roommate once told me I had the right pieces in my wardrobe, I just didn’t know how to put them together right.)

I think sometimes it’s just a matter of not wanting to be like everyone else, of thinking that the music you’re doing is somehow different, so you say “Oh no, I’m not a singer/songwriter.” Many women artists want to be seen as on par with the boys so they do electronic beeps and boops or take on weird monikers. It’s when that self-consciousness disappears that women can truly be artists, not worrying about impressing with their technically proficient but stiff guitar riffs (I have to say that’s the vibe I got from St. Vincent when I saw her perform…talented, but utterly self-conscious, making cold hipster banter in order to gain credence with her followers.) 

Everything is a bit derivative these days, unless you’re Joanna Newsom. And even she uses forms from way back when. So I am happy for now being a singer/songwriter.  Um…who else would wear that hat? I certainly couldn’t.

Anyway. I’ve spent the last four years gearing up for this album. Writing, tossing out songs, thinking songs are amazing, next day thinking songs are shit, recording melodies into my cell phone, losing cell phones, trying out a band, playing with band to less than stellar responses, disbanding rather quietly and guiltily because I like said band members, finding new players, buying crystal from kooky lady who tells me I’ll write better songs, rubbing crystal when I’m stressed out, new better songs start to come (maybe crystal’s doing, maybe not), learning piano again with fingers awkward as popsicle sticks slapping against water.

All the while worrying that this will be one huge effort that will amount in a thin line of haze, not the big bountiful white clouds that gallop across the sky. But I counter that with knowing at least I will have tried, and I can tell my children someday that I tried and did this thing and it was a lot of fun and beautiful for the most part. And they’ll be like, “No way, mom, you were in a band? Did you have groupies?” like that really dumb commercial for a brand that has totally escaped me, where the kids are berating/disbelieving the dad that he was in a band, because he seems so uncool now, and he and the mom blithely try to convince them. If I were that dad, I’d be like “Shut up! All of you! You’ll never know my dreams!” And then storm off to the basement to jam. Teehee!