"Howland Owl:
You two stay here at Churchy's place while I snook home
an' pick up some foundling clothes. Hoo boy! When I thinks of what a big, fat
opportunity we is givin' this boy . . workin' our heads to the bone so's to
leave him a foundling . . . Sis Boombah will find him an' rear him with
tender, lovin' care . . an' give him a good education . . . whilst me, what
thunk of it, stands silent, unknown, behind the scenes . . . the mysterious,
unselfish, self-sacrificin' philanthropist.
Well, here I is at home to find some foundling clothes for the chick so's we can leave him on Miss Sis Boombah's doorstep . . . However, none of these duds fit him . . and they do fit me! Anyways, why let a new-comer in on a good thing? that chick just arrived . . . whereas, me, I'm here on duty since I was a tad . . . an' nobody never taught me! Well, why not first come, first served? Let the world know we don't need no foreign ignoramusses . . we got local ones just as good as anybody!"
Walt Kelly - "Pockets Full of Pie, The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, Volume 7"
Texts
Live
September 21, 2022
Star Anna and The Oracles
Growler Guys, Seattle
Much to our delight, Star Anna and her newly assembled band played a show practically in our back yard, and at a reasonable time for old folks to attend. As we sat there enjoying our beers and the music I was asking myself what it was exactly that made this tick for me. There is not a huge variety in the style of her vocal delivery - which is bluesy, or blues derived, with a rootsy dirt-road roughness to it - but the particulars of that delivery disappear behind or within the complete identification or embodiment of the act of singing the song at hand within her person. When she sings there is nothing else within her or that is her or that ever could be her but the song being sung.
Her new band - drums, bass, and electric guitar - ably focuses the effect.
Recorded
The Ghost, Fvb. 162 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
falling down the pane in drips
new drops renew falling
gravitational metaphor
coming to rest as a still image
or
getting somewhere with effort
same underlying metaphor
Sonata in C Major, Kk. 199 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
a candle plume in 6/8 time
lifts
as cross wafts
divide
its sixness horizontally
into different registral groupings
Sonata in A-flat Major, D. 557 - Franz Schubert - Paul Badura-Skoda
1
historical:
increasing figurational group complexity of phrases
in the first phrase
the answer might echo the first of those
but
the rest of the answer might have new figurations
occurring in merely
corresponding positions
to those of the first phrase
and thus
along the garden path we wend
oops back here again
2
sticky fingers
nothing lets go shake
like a wet
puppy
3
tussle and pillow fight
strenuous battle
over nothing
Boot to Boot - Jesse Stone [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
tuba bass line outlines the phrase structure with simple figures
occasionally jumping up and joining in corporate rhythmaculation
between phrases
A Sailboat in the Moonlight - Billie Holiday [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]
paints a pretty picture
but sailing at night
with just two aboard
may not be as peacefully romantic
as is advertised
Embraceable You - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]
the soloists keep it cozy and close
music for an intimate venue
Easy Living - Bill Evans [from New Jazz Conceptions]
jazz of this ilk draws listeners in
establishes no distance
speaks
directly
Hippy Hippy Shake - The Beatles [from First Live Recordings, Volume 2]
this party pushes back
to be there is to withstand it
holding fast
in a current
Intruder - Big Brother and The Holding Company [from Big Brother & The Holding Company]
talking back to the heart of their troubles
this music doesn't push back
quite so constantly
there is room within it
for it
to
discuss it
with it
Come Down Easy - Carole King [from Rhymes & Reasons]
back to music that draws in
embracing not pushing
The Book I Read - Talking Heads [from Talking Heads: 77]
this music is at a palpable ironic remove
it isn't in the same room
that it is in
Bricklayer - Hüsker Dü
firehose at you
Assembly Rechoired 26 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [May 24, 1987]
at the beach
harmonica and ocarina
but which beach
could be
Holmes Harbor
could be Teronda West
no
they hadn't finished
that house yet
this music just hangs out like folks at a quiet beach
the water breathes upon the shore gently
{when imagining the
pulsating line between water and land
we imagine it
so that
the water moves in and out
but
get in a row boat
trying to land
and
it is quickly apparent
that the
situation is more complex than one had imagined}
Holmes Harbor
huffs and puffs
potato bug
amazing grace
toils and
snares
toucan tango
Whatever You Are - Young Fresh Fellows [from It's Low Beat Time]
establishes a social distance aggressively
Suddenly It's Evening - Donald Erb - Jeffrey Krieger
digging down into that bass resonant woodbox sound
the particular
resonance is the whole matter of it
these are not movements
as
they move not at all
they emerge like vegetation
||
the stability of the relations among a set of open strings and a sound chamber
is not affected by electronic manipulation of pitch in the way one might
imagine
it is pulled or stretched elastically
but
that only
amends the potential energy of return
elasticity
elastipolis
elastipole
the rubber city
a sound's crud is its crud
Oh! - Sleater-Kinney [from One Beat]
alternating sets of vocal articulations
each particularized individually
where it begins
or where it ends
within the cycle
doesn't matter
to what it is
September 20, 2022
Sputnik Love 01 Stretched - Keith Eisenbrey [February 20, 2007]
I was experimenting with
(where experimenting means
trying out)
a
method of producing a texture of similar rhythmic complexity
as in
Consider the Birds
but using fewer steps
relying on the
rhythmic complexity of the source signal
to persist into the final
product
the source signal is a 10 minutes stretch of
Banned Rehbearsal 714
Hard Way Home - Brandi Carlile [from Bear Creek]
train whistle singers
honestly I'm getting tired of hooks
a sure
sign of industrial hegemony
they're so important to the corporate
interest
that without one it doesn't count as music anymore
Half a Bus Closer to Home - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at the Victory Lounge, Seattle, April 27, 2017]
Ex-C1 - Sascia Pellegrini [from Ex-C]
regularities persistently interrupted
and perpetually grasped
consistently slithery
brought to a lucid and coherent simmer
no particular regularity can be relied on for long
Alman, Galliard, Fvb 163 and 164 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
it forks at its latter ends
it plays a gentle game of shells
its
gentility obscures the game
Starvation Blues - Jesse Stone [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]
the blues as it arose
was devoid of hooks
those may have been
devised by Irving Berlin and Company
as a way to both identify and sell
songs
and also
more creatively
as a focus of language play
When The Bloom Is On The Sage - Wright and McNew [from Evans 78s]
a more sentimental view of round-up time in Texas
the good old days
something about the coffee
Aintcha Got Music - James P. Johnson [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
now that there's a tempo shift Art Tatum missed
subito boogie woogie
My Old Flame - Peggy Lee [from Dream Street]
engineering in the age of hi fi
here the title serves as a rhyme
center
starting and ending the first two stanzas
then
as the
end goal of the long flameless segment
the additional end tag was
unnecessary perhaps
his voice hits a focus wheresoever it goes
in whichsoever register it
alights at
Odorono - The Who [from The Who Sell Out]
relies far too much on clever lyrics
nothing is left to enjoy if you
have tired of your own cleverness
Absolutely Curtains - Pink Floyd [from Obscured By Clouds]
sketch book for the sounds of Dark Side of the Moon and
Wish You Were Here
at least there's no hook
Ethnic Music Connections - Conlon Nancarrow, Charles Amirkhanian [from Conlon Nancarrow Speaks with Charles Amirkhanian]
this question confuses rhythmic complexity with polyrhythms and their surface
complexity
discounting the multilayered complexity involved
metrically
in much Western music
This was a typical
attitude
the notion that
the purpose of the music of the other
is to influence ours
and thereby raise or improve that other music
Straight To Hell - The Clash [from Combat Rock]
selling dystopia
in a crumbling colonialism
Maibataraki II - Joji Yuasa - Michiko Akao
every long tone is articulated
at beginning and end and being
flute music
shakuhachi here I think
it is sensitive to
breath at every moment
so that
we attend the thought
in
pitch
and articulation
and dynamic
but also
as all
that is mediated
in the body of an actual human person
 |
| Star Anna with one of the Oracles |
Where Life Begins - Madonna [from Erotica]
I guess the idea is to be not quite explicit
breathily euphemizing
a rather trite list of references to cunilingus
sadly devoid of
Rabelaisian humor or rhythm
The Last Thing You Should Do - David Bowie [from Earthling]
three sets of particularly repeating word scheme stanzas
followed by
guitar roar chorus
back to the repeating stanzas
in the same order
the surface meaning of the words
fades into their patterning
mechanically
cuts it off with a fart
Gradus 18 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 18, 2002]
the odd notion that there might be a more correct playing that can be learned
rather
it is not learning how to
but inventing how to
exploring how to
testing
assessing
||
as dampers are applied
the sound pulls back from immediate presence
accelerating a process that occurs anyway
long held tones permeate
the perceived image of space
orienting us within its remit
a
different picture of our environment
echo-location at a remove
except for the perpetrator
to the extent
they imagine the
sound
as emanating from their person
shining sound into a
potential field
what's out there
the sound explores the physical space
and creates a virtual space
so that
the image of a musical space
is a synthesis
as
Kierkegaard explains about us
Your Own Worst Enemy - Bruce Springsteen [from Magic]
he sounds distant and tired
stuffed with old ideas
I Just Cried - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Comet Tavern, Seattle, July 29, 2012]
energetic delivery
evacuation
spit it out
and a scholarly
reference
Tarantula Man - Mud On My Bra [from Demo #1]
what they want for Christmas
Banned Telepath 87 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 6, 2022]
first time on our new patio
which is Anarcadia
the air is full of
late Spring tweety birds
our own sounds only rise above the ambient
locally
jets and engines drum the sky and streets
we are the size
of the small foragers that properly inhabit these backyard spaces
we
hang out here
on a plot in a land of streets and sky
our sounds
need not carry past our immediates
peaceful and slumbrous
the evening breezes move through our pipes
Pavana, Galliarda, Fvb. 165 and 166 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
each iteration has its matter and its finish
each new iteration works
within its matter and finish
to seem a unique time
in extent and
height
Grand Siècle: the Antiennes ‘O’ de l’Aven - Marc-Antoine Charpentier - Ensemble Correspondances, Sébastien Daucé
fully filled at all moments
we are indoors
lit by windows
there is no world worth considering
the light shines through icons
for our replete edification
long taffy sighs
as what begins
moves
a new beginning reveals itself
from when the first was
as it began
a time
from which
strands of time are spun
Postscripts
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
some listening journal doodles from 1990
