7 posts tagged “music”

GuitPicken61 posted an intriguing question: "Is there music which really makes you feel strong as a man...makes you think big thoughts...makes you dream big dreams...centers you...makes you want to leap over tall buildings..."

• Although they have so many powerful songs, sometimes I think that "Where the Streets Have No Name" is U2's greatest. It's a song about hope, but a strenuous hope you have to work toward, travel toward. And you have to take someone with you. "When I go there, I go there with you."
• "Gift Shop" might not be as well-know as other Tragically Hip songs, but it inspires me. It is about those moments when you have to do something that scares the daylights out of you. But when you do it, "the rest of the world becomes a gift shop." The world opens to you.
  
• "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" was written by Bruce Cockburn. The Bare Naked Ladies cover of this song is really good, but you have to hear Bruce Cockburn's original version. It starts out with this cool bass line that fits perfectly with his melancholy voice. "Gotto kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight."
  
• To me, "Torn" is all about Natalie Imbruglia pleading with someone (me?) to be a strong and loving man. The song talks about the pain and loss she has experienced because the strong, loving man disappeared when she most needed him.
  
• "Green Eyes" is a Coldplay song in which the singer thanks someone for being there for him. "Honey, you are a rock on which I stand." Someday I'll meet a woman who makes me feel like that. "I came here with a load, and it feels so much lighter now I've met you." No way I can resist that.
  
• "Control" by MuteMath talks about surrendering completely to God. "Take control of the atmosphere. You can take my world, You can fill the air." The paradox is that surrender is a powerful thing. Surrendering to God gives you purpose.
  
• Moby's "Extreme Ways" is one of the songs I strongly associate with a movie. I enjoyed the Bourne movies, and this song was featured at the end of all three. This is the song of a survivor, the person who has made it through, somehow.

Hey, GuitPicken61, thanks for the opportunity to write this post! I love writing about music!

I've been listening to the U2 song "New Year's Day".
Bono probably wrote that song out of grief.
He lost a mother.

There are a few Easily Distracted fans reading my blog, so here is a review of the band's long-awaited Priceton show!

For those of you who don't know about the band, Easily Distracted consists of Ciaran Modley (lead vocals, acoustic guitar) Matt Prando (lead guitar),  Alicia Smith (bass, vocals) and Ethan Luther (drums, vocals).  They've been playing together for about three years, and have finally gained mainstream attention in the last year.  Fans have been afraid that they would stop playing the small venues, but tonight's show certainly put that fear to rest.  Easily Distracted played at the Brawling Badger, a smallish club in downtown Priceton.  Tickets were only $15.  The organizers later told me that there were one hundred thirty-onw people at the show.  The Badger is not a large place; the place was crowded.

The band appeared really pumped up, probably because this was the first show of their first North American tour.  Ethan appeared on stage first, all alone, and soloed for two or three minutes.  It was funny because he pretended that everyone was there to see only him.    He took a few deep bows (while still drumming!), and blew kisses to the audience.  Then Alicia walked onstage, picked up her bass, and started dueling with Ethan!  She played his rhythm, then syncopated it, as if daring him to echo her.  They played back and forth like this until Ciaran and Matt walked onstage.  Ciaran greeted the audience, while Matt looked around for his guitar.  Matt asked Ciaran where his electric guitar was, but Matt only shrugged and said that Matt could borrow his acoustic guitar for a while. (I don't think Matt knew that his guitar was going to be stolen like that.  He seemed genuinely surprised.)  The audience loved it, because Matt is such an electric guitar guy.  Matt didn't have time to look for his guitar because Alicia was already playing the bass line for "What a Way to Go."  He grabbed Ciaran's acoustic, but said that he had better have his electric back before the second song.

I wouldn't have thought it would have worked, but the song sounded great with the acoustic guitar!  It was different, but it worked.  I guess that just shows how flexible a guitar player Matt is.  The song rocked.  Ciaran really knows how to work an audience.  He taught us the lyrics of the chorus and had everyone singing along.

After the song, someone offstage handed Matt his guitar. Ciaran teased Matt a bit about losing his guitar in the first place.  Something really cool about this show was the banter among the band members.  For instance, at one point Alicia asked the audience what you called a guy who hangs out with musicians.  The answer was . . . a drummer!   After that, Ethan pretended that he couldn't remember how to hold drumsticks.

Anyway, here is the rest of the first set:

• "Take That Back"
• "Flimsy Bridge Girl"
• "Running From Lightening"
• "Cities of Doom"
• "Remedy"
  

Easily Distracted went offstage for a while, like ten or fifteen minutes.  When they came back, they were wearing superhero things!  Ciaran had Batman's utility belt.  It was obviously homemade, but it looked pretty good!  Alicia was wearing that headband thing that Wonder Woman wears.  Matt had a pretty cool Superman logo duct-tape to his t-shirt!  And Ethan had Wolverine's adamantium claws!  He had to take them off to drum, though.  All the stuff was homemade, but reconizable as hero gear.  The geeks in the club loved it.  Epspecially when the band broke into a killer version of "Superhero to Me."

The rest of the set went like this:

• "End of Ages"
• "Nothing"
• "Wishing Well"
• "Line of Sight"
• "Godspeed"

After they went offstage, we screamed for a minute or two for them to come back.  They finally did, and played "Trillium" and "Just Paper Scraps."  I haven't had that much fun at a show in a long time.  If you get the chance to see them, do it!

Yesterday Brian lent me Audioslave's 2005 album, Out of Exile.  I'm not really familiar with Audioslave, except for hearing the songs "Original Fire" and "Show Me How to Live" on the radio.

The first thing that struck me about this album was that something strange had take up residence in the space usually reserved for guitar solos.  That is not necessarily a criticism.  Whatever has replaced the guitar solos is otherworldly and interesting.  I think it might be a guitar, but a guitar unlike any our species has encountered thus far. 

The second thing that struck me was that the song "Out of Exile" is not a simple alternative rock song.  It seems to me that the melody is a lot older than Audioslave.  Give it a listen and tell me what you think.  This might be a bizarre suggestion, but I cannot shake the feeling that the melody is related to some traditional song such as "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean."  I'm getting an old-fashined vibe from the song.  Listen to how the vocalist's voice gently swoops up and sinks down during the verses.

Almost every day, I come home from work with scraps of paper in my pocket.  As I work, I often think of things that I don't want to forget.  For instance, today I was listening to episodes of The Writing Show on my MP3 player.  I wrote down website addresses and book titles that were mentioned in the podcast.  I also had an idea for a poem, several ideas for blog topics, and a word to look up. (The word was outrider.  Very cool word.)

Paper scraps in my pocket are a great omen.  They mean that I am not going brain dead at work.  For me, nothing makes time drag by like the same old thoughts circling my brain like patient sharks.  Podcasts help a lot.  When I first got my MP3 player, I only had music on it.  Music is great, but you can only listen to your favourite songs so many times.  When I discovered podcasts, everything changed!  Now I listen to shows about my favourite topics.  I'm really blessed to be spending three-quarters of my workday sorting novelty product in my bookstore's warehouse.  I can listen to stuff without getting into trouble.

I suppose I should get a notebook, but I've lost one or two small notebooks before.  Plus, I tend not to look through my notebooks much.  Paper scraps are better, because they just sit here next to my computer staring at me until I deal with them.  Well, in my books, the staring paper scraps are better than the circling brain sharks any day!

Today I was listening to U2's Achtung Baby.  The first song on the album is called "Zoo Station," and I have never understood it.  I have always assumed that the song referred to some fictional TV station the band invented. As the song played today, I remembered how Prof. Cox had taught us to explore songs through careful listening.  I decided to do that with "Zoo Station."

Partway through the song, Bono sings, "Time is a train/Makes the future the past/Leaves you standing in the station."  So I thought, what if the station referred to in the title is a train station?  I listened to the song again with that in mind, and low and behold, a train appeared in my ears.

The song is brilliant, actually. Larry's drumming provides the chugga-chugga sound of a train, Bono's vocals provide the sounds of escaping steam and the whistle, Adam's bass provides the feel of scenery flying by, and whatever the Edge is doing provides the sound of the train's wheels on steel rails.  At least to my ears.  Sometimes music overstimulates my imagination.  In any case, a very fun song to listen to. The crazy part of it is that the beginning of the song really sounds as if a heavy train is having difficulty gaining momentum.