going for the one

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080603/PEOPLE/868926055

bravo! spent years selling out, then blew it all on the one. it's a great film, go out and support him. while you're at it, buy "eye of the beholder," he blew all his money financing that one too.

everybody should see their bob dylan

everybody should see their bob dylan.

fancy strumming is useless. the secret to guitar is that you keep moving your arm up and down and up and down and up and down.

the currency of artists is secrets.

a good song works just as well backwards as forward.

the raw material of the singer is breath. to sing is to harness the breath. to hear the hushed, whispered voice is to truly listen. therein lies melody, harmony, euphony. lean your ear in.

i don't dig radiohead's last album.

an illegal number

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

ain't no use jivin'/ain't no use jokin'/everything is broken

i've been groovin' to dylan's 3 worst albums lately. idk.

fools rush in where angels fear to tread

i know, i never posted the post-dylan blurb. the truth is i had written a lengthy essay on the plane ride about the experience and then i lost my notebook! i'm hoping i still have it around somewhere, and i'll find it one day. suffice it to say, the concert was better than i hoped it would be. i guess that's just me being pessimistic, i prepared myself for the worst. and the truth is dylan can be pretty bad on occasion. but he was one fire. highlights were an emotionally touching "the times they are a-changin'" (i got all choked up), an incendiary "it's alright, ma (i'm only bleeding)" and the most inspired performance of the night, "highway 61 revisited". dylan was fun and free, dancing with his knees as he played his keyboards and leaned in to croak into his microphone while the band was sloppy and perfect.

i didn't know exactly why i was going to see him, i just knew it was something i had to. but now i know why i had to go, as i am not the same anymore. it was like i took part in a ritual. sure, there were some people who didn't like what was going on, including two guys right behind me and kirk who were mocking his singing and muttering to each other how they wanted to walk out. but most of the affluent, well-dressed santa barbara audience were the educated (by which i mean, well-versed in dylanology), the fervent, the devoted, the dylanheads. i don't even know another person as knowledgeable about dylan as myself, so to be among several thousand others was exhilirating. but the real thrill was to finally experience dylan in his true element; i felt like i had never experienced his music before. like all my music-listening, my last.fm scrobbling, my live dylan bootleg mixtape making, my esoteric dylan essay composing, had only been homework, preparation for the real deal.

and what did i experience? his irreverence towards his own legend (beginning with the concert's spoken introduction). towards his own work, even. it wasn't so much his genius, though i would say that was present as well, as i saw an adventurer explore new territory with his musical cohorts. there was a carelessness and looseness to his and his band's playing that wasn't even there four years ago, when he tore up his catalog with freddy koella and larry campbell. the result of was that the songs were given true freedom, they were allowed to breath, allowed to meander, allowed to go wherever whimsy would take them. and although an element of this has surely been in all of his live work, from the early '60s until the most recent years of the neverending tour, it struck me in a new way to be there in the audience, experiencing the music as it unfolded, realizing how the music was unfolding at the same instant as dylan himself, as the band members themselves.

in his recordings i've found dylan the pioneer, dylan the iconoclast, dylan the inimitable, dylan the incorrigible. but the dylan i saw that night was more of an indiana jones character. drawn by the past, yet irreverent towards it. going where others fear to tread, face to face with disaster, always with a cheeky, cavalier grin. i know where i have to go.

goin' to to acapulco, goin' on the run.....

so last night i finally learned what college life is all about: wii and beer-pong. me and kirk visited josh on this street that seemed to be full of USC students. no, i didn't drink, and good thing to, cos i ended up having to drive back. driving in california kinda sucks.

anyway, before we got nuts at josh's apartment, me and kirk went to this cool record store called amoeba and i got to pick up bob dylan's "bootleg series 1-3: rare & unreleased" boxset, so me and kirk are listening to it now, getting into the mood. this was gonna be a pre-concert blog, but i don't have much to say. right now my attitude is to just be open for whatever dylan's gonna do.

see you soon.

the next meth + red?

ghost & rae

man, i'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's hard. (oh boy!!)

p.s. i know, next time i have to post about something other than rappers....

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4p4w6_mos-def-talks-steroids_shortfilms

ok, i take it back, mos def is an idiot. i mean, i think what he's saying is related to nation of islam teachings, and i don't want to say anyone's religious beliefs are stupid. but i'm keeping it real here: that shit is wack.

edit: to clarify, when i said "that shit is wack," i was referring to mos def's stand on the use of steroids (i.e. that if you want to use steroids, which are illegal, whether or not you're a professional athlete, that's your business) is wack. i didn't mean to infer that 5 percenters believe you should use steroids. or that five percenters are wack. i meant mos def is stoned out of his mind in that interview.

http://www.elvisinfonet.com/spotlight_racist.html

i like mos def, but that quote troubles me. a lot. not just that quote, but what seems to me to be the common mindset in hip-hop, an "us vs. them", "black vs. white" mentality.

what i want for christmas...

is it because i'm black?

lay down the song you strum

lay down, lay down, your weary tune
lay down the song you strum
and rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
no voice can hope to hum

struck by the sounds before the sun
i knew the night had gone
the morning breeze like a bugle blew
against the drums of dawn

lay down your weary tune, lay down
lay down the song you strum
and rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
no voice can hope to hum

the ocean wild like an organ played
the seaweed wove its strands
the crashing waves like cymbals clashed
against the rocks and the sands

lay down your weary tune, lay down
lay down the song you strum
and rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
no voice can hope to hum

i stood unwound beneath the sky
and clouds unbound by laws
the cryin' rain like a trumpet sang
and asked for no applause

lay down your weary tune, lay down
lay down the song you strum
and rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
no voice can hope to hum

the last of leaves fell from the trees
and clung to a new love's breast
the branches bare like a banjo moan
hear the winds that listen the best
i gazed down into the river's mirror
and watched its winding strum
the water smooth, ran like a hymn
and like a harp did hum

lay down your weary tune, lay down
lay down the song you strum
and rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
no voice can hope to hum

- "lay down your weary tune"
bob dylan

hi, i'm christopher. on this blog i'll be sharing words. but if you listen, you may catch strains of a tune no voice can hope to hum.