appreciating the noise / sharing music
i love weekends that feel like a whole week. friday, i went to another show at my friend's space, greenhouse gallery, a small garage space tucked under a carriage house apartment somewhere in richmond's oregon hill neighborhood. bill nace was performing with drew davis, erin demaster, and tim gick. experimental shows are some of my favorite to listen to, i think because its so free. here are these grown people completely losing themselves to the exploration of sound and creating compositions with found objects, field recordings, and just noises that sometimes sound good, and sometimes sound disconcerting, eerie, and harsh. this kind of sound art helps you to live with the uncomfortable parts of life, as well as the polished, "nice" parts. i watch them performing, and i'm also reminded of being a kid, and just making noises. i remember hearing the sound of a stick being dragged across the dirt of the ground we used to play on, leaving a circle arcing from one tree to another, and thinking oh, i'm not sure why, but this sounded cool. it stirred something in me, and experimental music stirs something in me just the same as those noises did when i was a kid. time is irrelevant. practice helps, but is irrelevant. its all just sketches with sounds, piling onto each other and making elaborate sound collages that somehow remind me of dreams i had so many decades ago. it also reminds that it is okay to be weird. it is okay to be weird. the noises i enjoy making with my guitar, the times i accidentally move a jar of dried beans in the kitchen and hear a schhh schhh schhh and delegate that jar to the music room, saving it for a special recording. the generator that goes off at work that makes an aggressive grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr arrrrrrrrrrr that we joke is the heart of the whole museum. i hear these and am not disturbed by the harsh noises anymore, because i lose myself in the disharmonious drones taking place. there is art all around me. there is art in the discomfort, the pain, the silence, the shadows.
dylan found someone's cds abandoned in a park, and rescued them. we don't know who's they are, but after checking with community resources, asking at local record stores, and doing his due diligence to at least attempt to find someone who knows the original owner, we just shared them amongst ourselves. whoever this person was, i hope they're okay, and having a good day, and knows that people out there are enjoying these cds. i grabbed a few cds myself, 2 jesus and mary chain albums, a nick cave album, and a couple tom waits albums, and a mix. i'll share the mix below, as listening to it was honestly one of the highlights of my night.
mystery mix (greenhouse gallery ground score 02272026)
- no home - the blue sky boys
- every breath you take - the police
- hold us down (feat. the congos) - rae & christian
- figment - michael penn
- ba ba boom - the jamaicans
- my girlfriend's dead - the vandals
- walkin' on sunshine - roger miller
- she will be loved - maroon 5
- duke of earl - gene chandler
- look for me (i'll be around) - neko case
- seven deadly sins - the dubliners
- pop medley - terra folk
- sacred darling - gogol bordello
- another pot o' tea - emmylou harris
- solamente una vez - roberto carlos
- minute by minute - the doobie brothers
- go away little girl - donny osmond
- grace (rare acoustic version) - jeff buckley
- ain't that just like a woman - louis jordan & his tympany five
- headache - frank black
- my 1st song - jay-z
- mr rizzside - jelly house
- no myth (2 meter session) - michael penn
whoever you are, i appreciate your taste, and hope our paths will cross soon, because you seem like a pretty rad person.
saturday i don't exactly remember what i did. we stayed out late friday. cobra cabana burgers at 1:00 am take out back to dylan's, chatting and rambling about nothing and something all at once. i got home and slept until noon, got up, made a late coffee, and that is probably why i had so much trouble sleeping last night, other than the fact that i was brainstorming potential documentary ideas in bed until 4am.
today i cleaned a bit, hung around the house for the entire day. read a little of life, the universe, and everything. tristan came over and i fed him leftover chicken, spinach, and mushrooms, smoked a little, and biked down to carytown to get ice cream. one scoop of mint chocolate chip. the streets were crowded with people, a nice 60 degree day not a cloud in sight. we ran into a crowd of people doing a peace demonstration, singing together, we will abolish ice/this is for the families who are locked inside xrepeat. we sang with them on the sidewalk in front of a west elm with a credenza on sale for $600. i wish i could sing louder with people like that, i still struggle with making my voice heard. even though i know i can be weird, myself, and the people i'm around will accept me, and i know i like my voice, i still struggle. it still felt good though, to be in that crowd today, to randomly run into them.
kept on thinking about the show at greenhouse tonight and how i meant to go, but also felt strongly that i needed a night to myself, quiet, spent writing and listening to music. met up with bella after hanging with tristan. she came over and we caught up, then grabbed a drink down the street. i'm glad we're still in each other's lives. it makes me happier, it really does, even though in a lot of ways i feel we're opposites, it feels better having her there than not there.
got home, made the other 3 chicken thighs on a sheet pan with some potatoes and peppers. finished off the wine. i put on kind of blue, because i was beginning to wind down for the night, and remembered being 15 and having my first ever turn table set up, with mostly just my mom's old stereo that she let me set up in my room, listening to this same kind of blue record every single night to end the day. it was one of my first routines, and it still hits the spot.