BarryTaylorBlog

Good Friday

 

Posted with Blogsy

good friday

Crucifixion According to Radiohead | All I Need from scott erickson on Vimeo.

 http://createvisualculture.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/cruciformity-stations-on-skin-the-designs-and-invite/

MAUNDY THURSDAY

HOLI

Whilst I am in the midst of Holy Week, moving toward the crucifxion and resurrection--around the world some Hindus are celebrating the end of winter with what can only be described as the most colourful of festivals ever. Dousing themselves and each other in colour, Holi, is not the most reverential or perhaps even 'religious' religious festival--but it seems like a blast.

lace-like skull

The alien is the best company...

Bowie Is just opened at the V&A in London, and Tilda Swinton, who features in the latest Bowie video from his new album The Next Day, gave an opening speech that is both creative and tender--here it is, it says so much about the power of musical icons, both their look and their sound.

Dear Dave

When I asked you if you wanted me to say anything here tonight

You said 'Only three words, one of them testicular..'

So i'll pass that on

Here I am at surely the most eclectic of all the London branches of Bowie Anonymous
All the nicest possible freaks are here

We're in the Victoria and Albert Museum preparing to rifle through your drawers
It's truly an amazing thing

This was my favourite playground as a child
Medieval armour : my fantasy space wear

And, alongside, when I was 12 - and a square sort of kid in a Round Pond sort of childhood, not far from here - I carried a copy of Aladdin Sane around with me - a full 2 years before i had the wherewithal to play it

The image of that gingery boney pinky whitey person on the cover with the liquid mercury collar bone was - for one particular young moonage daydreamer - the image of planetary kin, of a close imaginary cousin and companion of choice

It's taken me a long time to admit, even to myself, let alone you, that it was the vision and not yet the sound that
hooked me up - but if i can't confess that here and now, then when and where?

We all have our own roots
And routes
To this room

Some of us - the enviable - found the fellowship early in the funfests of Billy's Bowie Nights
or equivalent lodges from San Francisco to Aukland to Heidelberg and all points in between

For others, it was a more lonesome affair, paced out in a sort of private morse code like following bread crumbs through a forest

I'm not saying that if you hadn't pitched up I would have worn a pie crust collar and pearls like some of those I went to school with
I'm not saying that if you hadn't weighed in, Princess Julia would have been less inventive with the pink blusher
Simply that, you provided the sideways like us with such rare and out-there company
Such fellowship
You pulled us in and left your arm dangling over our necks
And kept us warm - as you have for - isn't it ? - centuries now
You were
You are
One of us

And you have remained the reliable mortal in amongst all the immortal shapes you have thrown

Nothing more certain than changes

Always with a weather eye out
Always awake and clocking the fallout

Those Mayans must have known something when they set their calendar down before
January 2013

Because, of course, now all bets are off

I know, because you told me, how tickled you were to knock Elvis - for once! - out of the headlines on your shared birthday this year

There's so much for all of us to be happy about since then

Yet, I think the thing I'm loving the most about the last few weeks
is how clear it now is - how undeniable - that the freak becomes the great unifier
The alien is the best company after all
For so many more than the few

They wanted a Bowie fan to speak tonight. They could have thrown a paper napkin and hit a hundred.
I'm the lucky one, standing up to speak for all my fellow freaks anxious to win the pub quiz and
claim their number one most super-fan tshirt

I want to give thanks to the Victoria and Albert Museum for indulging us so
For laying on our dream show

For showing us - look at their advance ticket sales - that , as is
written along the bottom of this months Q magazine,
'why we all live in David's world now'

To Gucci and Sennheiser for putting up the cash, laying on the sound and vision
To Geoffrey and Victoria for curating an entire universe so beautifully, on behalf of us all

When I think of what it used to feel like once
To be a freak who liked you
To feel like a freak like you
- a freak who even looked a little like you

And then I think of the countless people of every size and feather who are going to walk through this trace of your journey here and pick up the breadcrumbs
in the great hub of this mothership over these Spring and Summer months..

And how familiar and stamped you are into ALL of our our collective DNA

I'm just plain proud

So

Where are we now?

Well
I know you aren't here tonight, but
Somehow, no matter

We are -
And you brought us out of the wainscotting like so many
Freaky old bastards
Like so many fan boys and girls
Like so many loners and pretty things and dandies and dudes and dukes and duckies and testicular types
And pulled us together

Together
By you
Dave Jones
Our not so absent, not so invisible, friend

Every alien's favourite cousin
Certainly mine

We have a nice life

Yours aye

Tilly

(FROM HERE)

There is theology to be had here--the freak becomes the great unifier...the alien is the best company...lessons to be learned from fraternising with those who are not like us, finding oneself in the pecualirites and uniquenesses of the other. I agree with Swinton that it was the look of Bowie, perhaps even before the sound, that made the difference--I remember trying to find my way as a young man and being brought up short and gob-smacked by Bowie's sartorial transitions--the questions raised, the answers offered--about sexuality, about authroirity, about society, about life.

And then there was the music--from singer of a novelty hit to a spaced-out-gender-bender-ziggy plays guitar-thin-white-duke--music borne of the moment--sounds and visions of life as it was at that moment in time-yet-forward looking, theatrical-experimental-genre-defying, genre-defining. It was Bowie who expanded my musical horizons, gave me eyes to see, what I hadn't been able to see, in those earlier pop incarnations (yes, and I do mean the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Stones and the rest!!--I've always been a Joshua man rather than a Moses--you work it out!)

The Next Day--the latest piece--remarkable--no greatest hits retread for Mr. B--it's always time for new music--yes, it has a 'Bowie' sound now, we recognize the voice, we look for the rules he plays by, the permutations of melody and sound--and here it is--not retro-not a retread, music that stands up to his best works---it's like Richard Rohr says about religion, "our last experience (of god) is usually the obstacle to our next experience," that is not the case for Bowie--the last experience was the last experience--there is always a new angle, always a new sound, always a new vision.

palm sunday

Patty Smith on Palm Sunday--just watch, listen and enjoy.

Sigur Rós - Brennisteinn

I watched Sigur Ros perform live on Jimmy Fallon last night--magical. This is a video for a song from the forthcoming full-length, Kveikur, due to released on June 17/18. I think they have to be one of the most inventive bands around--they have their sound and their own loose boundaries for what they do, but within that spectrum they keep finding new expressions of their sound--gorgeous. There seems to be a certain menace and intense feel to their new stuff--not in a violent sense, but in terms of musical colour and energy. Can't wait for the full-length.

SXSW

I was in Austin last week for SXSW. I went to explore the feasibility of doing a theology and popular music intensive on site next year. I have taught a couple of classes on music, religion and theology for a while now and always wanted to expand the 'live' component, and this event might just be up the alley. SXSW is expensive, prohibitively so if one is thinking of inviting students to pay an already exorbitant class fee, so we went to see if one could experience the conference on the ground floor as it were, and have it be a viable experience. 

I actually think that the lo-fi route might be the best way to experience what I have in mind. 2200 bands of all stripes descend upon Austin for SXSW and the city is alive with music from early morn to well into the wee hours--the whole thing is like a cross between Mardi Gras-Spring Break-Coachella and Burning Man--people out and about everywhere-some in states of decay(alcoholic or otherwise), but the mood is upbeat and celebratory.

People are there because they love music and there is a lot of music to love. We managed to see a bunch of free music and I was more than happy with 99% of the experience--there is some great music out there, and it will probably never make the radio, and that is unfortunate--because being somewhere like SXSW reminds you how narrow, predictable and boring most radio music is these days--insert artist/add beats/market the shit out of it, rinse, repeat. Austin reminded of how much I love music.

A few observations after SXSW:

1. Radio stations-held captive to corporate profit margins are essentially creating background noise for consumer capitalism and little more--that's not to say there aren't some good radio stations, there are and LA has a few, but overall, the music we are exposed to via mass media has about 20% of the breadth of those same mediums when I was growing up.

2. Drummers rule. Everybody loves drummers and drumming. Not only were there drummers setting up their kits and playing in the streets and drawing crowds and participants--the bands we saw, which covered a wide variety of musical styles, had amazing, lyrical and creative drummers, who often played classic rock kits amended with technology of all kinds-from digital samplers, to electronic drums and keyboard triggers.

3. It would seem that for most bands and much of their audience--the old rules of rock music no longer apply--I have never experienced so much genre mixing in my life--hip-hop-rock-latin-metal-nu-sol-old-soul-folk-electronic bands were everywhere--any instrumentation, any permutation to get the job down--no pretension, no limits and it worked. That said-there was an obvious and huge indebtedness to punk music as a whole--the Red Hot Chili Peppers--for bringing back the idea of groove-music with a serious edge, and David Bowie--perhaps it is because I was obsessivley listening to Bowie's new album, which was released the day I left LA--but his influence was undeniable in much of the music I heard.

4. LA produces great bands--I heard a few of them--didn't know where they were from, but the line, "we are...from LA" was ubiquitous, and they were always good--maybe I was lucky, but I don't think so.

5. Two bands I really liked NO and Semi-Precious Weapons.

 

 

 

crooked trees and twisted theology

I've been travelling a bit and busy when I havent been and the blogging has suffered because of it. ots to write about, but I need to carve out a bit of time to catch up on some thoughts and ideas. But I thought i'd share this little piece of Tom Waits. I've spent a bit of time with Mr. Waits lately as I am thinking of using some of his ideas for a conference talk or two. I am particiapting in Subverting the Norm II in a couple of weeks and my main talk is taken from a Waits quote-his quote: 'there ain't no devil, just god when he's drunk.,' mine is an inversion, 'there ain't no god just the devil when he's drunk.' We'll have to see how close I stay with Waitisms, but for now I'm enjoying exploring his thinking.

“My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day. I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.”

Sometimes being straight gets you into trouble:)