How Do You Like Those Glow Sticks?

Craig and I played a yoga class again on Friday. If you haven’t heard or read about the project Craig and I are trying to bring to yoga classes, check out my first post here. Craig and I are becoming more comfortable playing during the classes and we’re starting to bring more instruments and just all-around having more fun. This week I brought a very tiny drumset (and carried it on my back!) and Craig, along with his guitar, brought his lap steel (all on his back, too!). After the class we grabbed a bite to eat and discussed what we played. It was very apparent, and this may not come as a shock, that the more simple we played, and the more we kept the music in a major tonality, the easier the class flowed.

Now, there’s a few factors that may contribute to why this is true. One being that we are background music, kind of like Brian Eno’s Discreet Music, we’re meant to be there and meant to be heard, but not neccessarily meant to be listened to. The other main factor that while it is a yoga class, the practitioners usually want to rid themselves of all their shit for a while and major tonality (usually) best suits this purpose for most of the public.

But maybe it’s because music that we are creating, within the structure of a yoga class, by definition, shouldn’t be within a larger, complex theme of art and creation. It should be simply packaged, easy to swallow, and with no instruction on how to assemble it, thereby removing the need to decipher and find personal meaning. What we are trying to say needs to be laid bare, within as simple terms as possible, not because our listeners can’t/don’t want to understand (as we find in today’s pop music) but because of the common language we are using within the structure of the class.

There’s a claim in philosophy (one of the most recent to endure these claims is Derrida) that a philosopher can purposefully obscure the information he’s trying to convey in a bunch of jargon and pretentious rhetoric. They call this obscurantism and most of them don’t like it. The argument is that by darkening and blurring lines of your argument you’re pretty much just pushing people farther away from (your views of) truth and by being the guy who’s hardest to understand, you’re creating a structure in which people either A. just don’t get you (and in return fear you! jk…kind of), or B. are allowed to make their own ideas about your work, thereby being more universal without actually having a set of ideas that you stick to.

I thought this was interesting because this is the kind of shit we really like to see (and create) in our art. The more the more deliberately difficult a piece is, the more blurred the lines are, the more we have to look at the subject from different angles, the more we have to translate the product into our personal structure, the more we (usually) find it beautiful and long-standing.  Or, regardless of whether you like it or not, it’s more acceptable for a piece of art to be confusing than a piece of philosophy. It’s ok to be difficult to understand as an artist (some philosopher’s think it’s ok, too. Lancan said “The less you understand, the better you listen”). But sometimes, and I am truly guilty of this, we lose track and just get difficult to understand because we want someone to listen, which I’m pretty sure is not the point.

I think the times are changing, though. Maybe it’s because myself and my friends are growing out of our college shit, or maybe its the way the world is moving right now? I’m not sure. But I’m starting to see more music that is being more laid bare and less tangled. Maybe it’s because I left Berklee? Or maybe it’s because I was really pretentious before? I have no idea.

On a fun side note, obscurantism has also been applied to religion– the act of shrouding truth in mystification can be seen as a way to actually separate people “who know” from people who don’t, which flies in the face of what most religions preach. I’m not sure I totally agree with that statement. But, is that what some of our music is doing? And if that is your point to creating (being deliberately difficult), is it valid? When we have an honest artist whose vocabulary is naturally difficult to understand are we commiting a crime to the art by asking her to NOT be an obscurant? You may say “who gives a shit” but I think asking these questions can better help us understand, accept, acknowledge, and respect things that maybe we wouldn’t have before, regardless of what side of the fence you are on.

In other news, I have a gig with the awesome Lucas Madrazzo this Wednesday night and one with Adam Shenk on Saturday night. Next week I have a few gigs with April Smith for CMJ and one with Austin Bats with all of our friends at a place called Ibeem. That should be really fun.

In roommate news, Craig is at college and Adam Tressler just had a birthday!

Talking Heads, Cities, Bruce Chatwin, Royal Guards, Rothko, Kierkegaard.

I’ve been on a huge Talking Heads kick lately. I know it’s probably because I just bought the David Byrne book (post on that to come), but who cares? that shit rocks.

Although the band is clearly crazy, they’re clearly very sane, and I like that. (Kierkegaard says “take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor”, I’m no professor.) The idea of portraying ordinary things (including where you’re sitting right now, metaphorically speaking) as extraordinary is revolutionary. But it’s not really that revolutionary, right? I mean, we’re familiar with Cezanne, we’re use to Rodin’s humanism, but it’s different for a band that came out in the late 70′s and stayed popular through the 80′s. Even nowadays, to find a band so willing to write and sing about being normal while being completely insane while performing is almost opposite to what we’re conditioned to. It’s suppose to be bands singing about idealized, overdramatic feelings while acting uber cool onstage. Talking Heads had the opposite.

There’s something hip with singing about cities, which they did often, and I’m starting to see is a major home base of sorts for Byrne. It symbolizes the concrete, the empirical; things you can see and feel as opposed to those idealized emotions. It’s also laden with culture, highly modern ideas, and forward thinking politics. It’s also, also, the greatest symbol of the spirit of man with it’s imbedded notion of community and soaring skyscrapers. For the Heads it was a statement to stay here, and to stay present, and to replay the ordinary until it becomes liberatory. It’s like Philip Glass for me. Or a mantra. But instead of actually repeating a set of tones, The Talking Heads repeat images, ideas, and notions that you are already so familiar with that it starts to reveal a depth you didn’t notice before. Kind of like a Rothko painting. It brings art home, into your living room.

Talking about cities reminds me of a great book by Bruce Chatwin titled The Songlines. It’s about Australian Aboriginals and their Dreaming-tracks that were huge, season long walks that they’d go on describing their lives and the surrounding nature through songs. Halfway through the book Chatwin’s narrative falls into a dream-like rumination on staying and leaving. Traveling or setting up shop where you are. He talks about cultures that were based on travel, like nomads, as opposed to more technologically advanced cultures that showed that advancement through the creation of citites and governments, etc. The argument is that living the nomadic lifestyle is more akin to our primordial nature as humans, and therefore less prone to illness (the spread of disease and plague ran/runs rampant in cities), wars, and all the other shit we deal with in modern times.  It’s an interesting view and he never quite says where his heart truly lies (although we know he was an ardent traveler).

Here’s an interesting passage- “Among the military farternities of Ancient Germany, a young man, as part of his training to stifle inhibitions against killing, was required to strip naked; to dress himself in the hot, freshly flayed skin of a bear; to work himself into a ‘bestial’ rage: in other words, to go, quite leterally, beserk.

‘Bearskin’ and ‘beserk’ are the same word. The helmets of the Royal Guards, on duty outside Buckingham Palace, are the descendents of this primitive battle costume.”

OK, so maybe that doesn’t completely drive home my point (it says a lot about culture and ritual, though!). Let’s try this one instead, here he quotes Kierkergaard: “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it…but by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill…Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”

Oddly enough, I feel that the only people who actually do any walking to get places these days are people who live in cities. But, we can’t discredit the modern traveler. I currently have two good friends who travel as much as possible, almost willing to sell anything they own for the funds to do it. And coincidentally they’re two of the people I respect most in my life. Maybe  Chatwin would say it’s not so coincidental. He/the book raises a good question though; Are we impaired by our desire to stay and build and to communitize? Are we missing out on a basic human need for change of scenery and travel? 

Kiergergaard also said, “To defend is to disparage.”

Maybe David Byrne knew this all along.

The Russians Love Their Children Too

Jeff and Evan Marien on Bass

Last night was a bit of a nut job. I checked out a bunch of old friends play a gig at Rockwood Music Hall that started around 1:00am. These guys were killin it! It’s my good buddy Iakov Kremenskiy’s group (he and half the band are from Russia, got to get my UN on) and the name of the band is Mass Ave Project (whaddup, Boston?) and they’re really killin that whole Yellow Jackets, groove your face off shit. I have to give special praise to my buddy Jeff Villanueva who held it DOWN on the kit! It was great to see him last night (we haven’t seen eachother in 2 years!) and man he’s a beast. He’s also the sweetest dude and he practices yoga for an hour every day! Namaste to Jeff!

I was in the Lower East Side and for the gig, and somewhere around 2:30am, I ended up at a full-blown hipster dance party (with flashing lights and all) held in what looked like an old church. The party was kind of lame but there were DJ’s spinning some really awesome dance techo stuff. The bartender charged me $5 for a PBR (ridiculous! but that’s what I get for ordering PBR at a hipster dance-off).

I danced my face off.

From there I ended up in a car with people I’m not very familiar with on my way to a bar in the West Village. On the radio in the car was an old school earth wind and fire song that I haven’t heard in quite some time that brought me back. On the wall at the bar there was a HUGE poster describing some crazy-haired man’s music and how it relates to Dogen’s Zen Buddhism. I shit you not. And this was a real dive, Southern looking place with deer antlers on the wall. And there for all to see is Dogen’s Shobogenzo literally in the middle of nowhere. Righteous.

I stepped outside of the bar and into some random pizza shop in the West Village and as I sat down to eat my chicken and broccoli slice, staring me in the face is a sticker of my buddy Alexis Babini who I haven’t seen in almost 2 years but who also just contacted me that day to get together and play some music. He just moved here so I’m not even sure how that sticker got there. Righteous part d’eux.

This city has this awesome self-reflexive thing that can happen sometimes. It will project the image you have of yourself back onto you, kind of proving to you that you are inextricable from your surroundings. The city is you, and since you know you, the city knows you but better than (you think) you know yourself. And if you keep your eyes open it can teach you yourself better than you could have imagined (but it really is what you, yourself, imagined).

Tomorrow I will write a blog on Marxism as Humanism.

Roommate update: Apparently Craig fell off his bike last night.

Gig Update: I’m upstairs at Pianos tonight with my buddy Adam Shenk. We’re doing a Mariah Carey cover. 9pm sharp!

Gandhi, Value, Lyotard, Craig’s Lost Addiction

Today is Mahatma Gandhi’s 140th birthday. Gandhi is an amazing man who changed the lives of many people and single handedly spearheaded the Indian Independence Movement. He did this by pioneering a social revolution he named Satyagraha which is a resistance against tyranny using civil disobedience in a non-violent way; as an emodiment of compassion. This is amazing if you think about it. He rallied a nation to disobey what they’ve been told was the right way to live thereby giving them better rights and more freedom, and to top it off, he convinced them to do it nonviolently, sometimes staring directly in the face of violence.

Civil disobedience is awesome. It’s done a ton of good for nations (like India) and civil rights movements (MLK used it extensively) and it was even recommended by Al Gore for environmental issues. Just the thought of disobeying to make your situation better sounds like a good time.

Although Gandhi didn’t create the theory behind traditional civil disobedience he’s one of the most widely known activists to employ it. This is a man who was of tremendous value to his country and the world. He started small and got huge. Crazy huge…like Obama huge, but he didn’t have any money, and he didn’t have any primetime spots before the primaries. It was the definitive grass-movement movement. So of course I have to ask myself, can I be that valuable? Where the hell is my value? Can I make more of it?

Value is just as important today as it was 100 years ago, and once you have your ears open to it, it pops up more and more. How can we bring value to our lives? How can we be valuable to communities? How do companies create and distribute value and at what costs? Marx worried about value for almost his entire career.

But here’s the point, will our own personal civil-disobedience movement, personal as in the one happening inside you, give you more value? Will disobeying social norms in regards to what you have to do with your life (how you’re suppose to live, who you’re suppose to work for, how you’re suppose to earn your money, etc.)make you more valuable? I would argue it does.

I like to view value as possessing and being able to give something that is in short supply. Sure, there’s a ton of drummers in NYC, but I doubt any of them are exactly like me, just like I’m not exactly like them. My product is incredibly personal and by definition, one of a kind. When I was a bank teller there were hundreds of others just like me and most were probably better at the job than I was. Now that I have more time (a lot more time) to devote to this, I like to think that I, my product, my life, am/is more valuable. It may sound weird to call my music and passion a product, but if I want to do this professionally, it’s what it has to be. People don’t buy passions, they buy products, and I’m trying to get paid.

By breaking away from or breaking down certain ideologies that have perpetuated in our culture we can better free ourselves to speak more clearly what we wish to say. Becuase nobody can be us, nobody can put it just the way we can. That makes us valuable.

But back to me making money; that’s short-term value. If I’m hired for a gig and paid $100, once the gig is over that value is gone. To keep getting paid I need to create more value on other gigs. Gandhi had long-term value. That’s what I’m looking for. Not just the value you see in monetary returns (I’m looking for that too), but the value you can create in other people’s lives. It’s good to note that Gandhi started out as a lawyer, he got paid for cases, and he had a hard time finding rates he felt comfortable charging (something my friends and I are having to deal with a lot lately).

Of course, value judgements are sticky judgements. They’re like views on truth and beauty; all we know these days is that they are pretty much completely relative. (But the fun doesn’t stop there—poststructural critical theorist Jean Lyotard said that if all truth is relative than in return doesn’t that make the statement itself become relative? hmmmmmm.) But what we do know is that we’re in need of thinkers and creators; not just artists, but people who can create their own lives, people who aren’t afraid to go on their own to make and create their own long-term value.

Roommate update! Craig is now completely addicted to LOST.

GIG UPDATE! I’m playing upstairs at Pianos tomorrow night with Adam Shenk at 9pm!

Craig’s Karma and David Byrne’s Book

Craig IS David Byrne

Last week, my roommate Craig bought a stolen bike in front of a restaurant here in Bushwick. He bought the bike for $40 and upon his return home, after doing some research, discovered that the bike was worth somewhere around $1100. That’s bad Karma. Craig felt bad and decided to put the bike on craigslist (no relation) to try and find the rightful owner. That should be good Karma.

Lo and behold the rightful owner was found and he came to pick up the bike. Apparently he was rude and short with Craig. That seems like typical Karma. Also noteworthy, he gave Craig the 40 smackeroos back (that may be bad Karma?). But, nevertheless, Craig went to bed with a clear conscience.

Now, Karma is a sticky subject. So sticky that many modern Buddhist teachers fail to mention it at all. Traditional Buddhist teachings use Karma to explain why you are in the shitty situation you’re in right now and how you may be able to get into a better one with a joyful rebirth. It pins the Karmic cycle upon the victim, and rarely gives praise to the person trying to perpetuate good Karma. For instance, David R. Loy speaks of a memory he has of a Buddhist teacher speaking about the Holocaust and replying “What terrible Karma all those Jews must have had…” Clearly this type of understanding is unacceptable (I’d like to note that Loy also found the reasoning unacceptable). But it raises a good point: Who inherits all of the bad Karma and how do we reap its effects, or, why do good people suffer horrible shit? And is there any merrit in doing a good act and looking for a good act in return?

So fast-forward the next week and Craig is out at a bar celebrating his 24th birthday. He steps outside for a phone call, comes back, and his wallet is stolen. That night, with what im sure was a hefty buzz, he cancelled all his credit cards and made plans to go to the NYC DMV and get a new license.

Shitty things happen to good people. Buddhism says that to do a good act to get a good thing in return doesn’t earn you as many points as doing a good act and forgetting about it (selflessness). But what about when something you don’t deserve happens to you? Who do you blame? Is it your Karma or somebody else’s? Do these questions matter at all when your faced with a shitty problem? Even if you had the answers, could you get the wallet back?

Buddhism works for me because it makes the most sense to me, but it doesn’t make complete sense. It usually causes more problems than it answers, but it asks some good questions.

So the day after the bar, Craig was on his way out to the bank to take out his cash and order a new ATM card, and wouldn’t you have guessed it, the bar called and said someone dropped his wallet off. I SHIT YOU NOT!!

Good things also happen to good people. One thing is for sure, while you may not be able to see around corners to ease your own situation there’s a shit ton you can do to help somebody else’s. It’s amazing how it works that way. I know people who can’t get rid of any of their own problems but they do wonders talking to me about mine. Being responsible for Karma doesn’t mean it’s yours, but that you can help alleviate somebody else’s. What’s good for you is probably good for me, and the greater good is best. And you know what? The more you push others ahead of you, the more the whole line moves forward. That’s the point, right?

In other news, I bought David Byrne’s “Bicycle Diaries” book. I talked a lot about bikes today! I don’t even own one! I’d like to have a review of it up here soon. The man is a highly influential musician, composer, and designer of sounds, technologies, and other materials…I really don’t want to be disappointed. He’s too cool to suck.