Showing posts with label Henry music2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry music2. Show all posts
4.22.2007
1.22.2007
1.19.2007
10.24.2005
6.24.2005
Likeable post from Robert Archambeau today, via John Peck, on Pound's & Olson's differing syntax. Daniel Albright (in Quantum Poetics) also covers the way ol' Ez would sideline the subject of his sentences & promote the verb (in a letter to someone, EP re-did the opening of the Gospel of John as "In the beginning was the Verb"). (Mandelstam wrote once that he'd like to live in the "future perfect conditional case" [hope I've got that right]. Probably means something completely different in Russian.)
I practice the harmonica walking to work these days. Learning from Sonny Terry again : less is more. You focus on the tiny shifts here & there. This is what such attention to the texture of a poet's diction does - leads to new possibilities, new pleasures too.
[huh. synchronicity. Hotel man wrote about harmonica-playing today too.]
I practice the harmonica walking to work these days. Learning from Sonny Terry again : less is more. You focus on the tiny shifts here & there. This is what such attention to the texture of a poet's diction does - leads to new possibilities, new pleasures too.
[huh. synchronicity. Hotel man wrote about harmonica-playing today too.]
3.31.2005
3.13.2005
I'm prouder of my rendition of "On Top of Old Smoky", over at GLS, than anything else (it's my own piano arrangement!). Please, get yourself some headphones or an mp3 player, for the full treatment. The other piano pieces are pretty good too ("Far-off Bird on the Evening Prairie"; "I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger"; "Can It Be"... see Feb. archive).
Went to RI Philharmonic tonight. Ravel's Piano Concerto in G. Nice! Slow middle section starts with the same arpeggio (a 10th? C-G-E).
Ravel is a nice french genius. (They did Bolero too.)
Went to RI Philharmonic tonight. Ravel's Piano Concerto in G. Nice! Slow middle section starts with the same arpeggio (a 10th? C-G-E).
Ravel is a nice french genius. (They did Bolero too.)
10.25.2004
10.06.2004
other Famous Rock Stars I've met:
Mick Taylor (bar in Kensington. friendly, very cool. told me how to contact the Stones about the lead guitar job).
Jerry Garcia (backstage at that famous club in SF. friendly. Apologetic, unable to help me get my cheap guitar back from the Hell's Angel who had swiped it, after his 300-lb. tattooed bald colleague from NYC whacked me upside the head with his ring-spiked arm).
Duke Robillard (famous around here, anyway). (took some guitar lessons with him. friendly, very nice.)
Mick Taylor (bar in Kensington. friendly, very cool. told me how to contact the Stones about the lead guitar job).
Jerry Garcia (backstage at that famous club in SF. friendly. Apologetic, unable to help me get my cheap guitar back from the Hell's Angel who had swiped it, after his 300-lb. tattooed bald colleague from NYC whacked me upside the head with his ring-spiked arm).
Duke Robillard (famous around here, anyway). (took some guitar lessons with him. friendly, very nice.)
10.05.2004
But I haven't done a thing. I'm the cautious elder brother. My redhead younger siblings rode the rails, jumped off bridges, started a chicken farm in Texas, put out forest fires.
They had their music bands, too. Bill & Mike had a band called Rendered Useless. They opened once for Prince in Mpls. Bill's band later, Run Like A Girl, had songs on the radio in Colorado.
They can't play harmonica like me, though, ha ha. I'm the oldest.
They had their music bands, too. Bill & Mike had a band called Rendered Useless. They opened once for Prince in Mpls. Bill's band later, Run Like A Girl, had songs on the radio in Colorado.
They can't play harmonica like me, though, ha ha. I'm the oldest.
I hitchiked once from Denver to NYC with 35 cents in my pocket. I had been living there for a few weeks with an old high school friend (keyboard player in our little band of those days), & working in a Taco Bell. But I left one day because he was drunk all the time, the music was going nowhere.
In the mountains I got picked up by a couple of tough guys, who had just stolen the car we were in. I talked to them about Jesus, it was all right. They didn't take my guitar.
In London I lived in a closet in Earl's Court. I worked for some royalty types who ran a flower-rental & ex-import hobby business. I told them I had grown up on a farm, & they hired me under the table. They were friends with the Who, & offered to introduce me to them. They liked the Who, didn't understand why I wanted to join the Rolling Stones. "Oh the Stones - they're only in it for the money." I told them the Who weren't hiring. I did odd jobs for them, they were very kind. Once I mowed their neighbor Cat Stevens' lawn. While I was there, some very portly fellows in colorful dashikis or turbans & robes dropped by. Hugs all around. Cat Stevens hated his other neighbors, the orphanage. The little Caribbean girls would climb up on the brick wall & call out, "Cat Steeeevens! Cat Steeeevens!" all day long. I believe his home recording studio was soundproofed, though.
Keith Richard bounced on the balls of his feet the whole time we talked. He was very pale & thin. I suggested he read the Bible; he said I should read William Blake. Carl Perkins was there; he said he & his brother had seen a UFO in Arizona once. (Carl didn't get the job either.)
In the mountains I got picked up by a couple of tough guys, who had just stolen the car we were in. I talked to them about Jesus, it was all right. They didn't take my guitar.
In London I lived in a closet in Earl's Court. I worked for some royalty types who ran a flower-rental & ex-import hobby business. I told them I had grown up on a farm, & they hired me under the table. They were friends with the Who, & offered to introduce me to them. They liked the Who, didn't understand why I wanted to join the Rolling Stones. "Oh the Stones - they're only in it for the money." I told them the Who weren't hiring. I did odd jobs for them, they were very kind. Once I mowed their neighbor Cat Stevens' lawn. While I was there, some very portly fellows in colorful dashikis or turbans & robes dropped by. Hugs all around. Cat Stevens hated his other neighbors, the orphanage. The little Caribbean girls would climb up on the brick wall & call out, "Cat Steeeevens! Cat Steeeevens!" all day long. I believe his home recording studio was soundproofed, though.
Keith Richard bounced on the balls of his feet the whole time we talked. He was very pale & thin. I suggested he read the Bible; he said I should read William Blake. Carl Perkins was there; he said he & his brother had seen a UFO in Arizona once. (Carl didn't get the job either.)
8.30.2004
There is no connection between Stone & the Rolling Stones, as far as I know. Stone was published in 1979, some years after I spoke with Keith Richards (at his rehearsal studio in Richmond, outside London) about the Mick Taylor replacement job. To my knowledge I have never been a member of that band. If you see me on any of their albums, consider it some kind of pirated edition.
Come to think of it, considering the fact that I have walked talked & diddled in near proximity to this library ("the Rock") for nigh on 30 years, with only a few interruptions, you might say that the essentialist core of my identity consists in being a non-rolling stone.
I'm on a roll today.
Come to think of it, considering the fact that I have walked talked & diddled in near proximity to this library ("the Rock") for nigh on 30 years, with only a few interruptions, you might say that the essentialist core of my identity consists in being a non-rolling stone.
I'm on a roll today.
I was in Hahvahd Squirrel Saturday night, after the reading. There was a 4-pc street band playing 60s music. I had me E harp with me, which is not as useful as you might think, but they started playing "Sympathy for the Devil" so I went up to the mike & joined right in. Of course they were a bit miffed to have the devil actually join them (but what's confusing you, is the nature of my game. . .). We had something of a mini-Altamont moment, though no limbs or instruments were broken. How could they know I was just coming down from a poetry reading. . .
5.03.2004
In a black mood lately. Trying to think positively about this: maybe it's the sign of a new direction. This has happened before.
The poems written in the last month, for the most part, are well-meaning & workmanlike, but also quite stuffy, stodgy, giving the impression of forced effort. With a couple weeks' distance they feel alien & clunky.
Seems like I've lived several lives in poetry already. Sometimes the mountain seems too large & cold to move.
When I'm in this mood it's better for me not to observe the "scene" at all.
It's a good thing I can play some music. Five of us now: piano, guitar, fiddle, accordion, harmonica, jaw harp, saw (yes, saw), kazoo, jug, washboard, bass (have started playing bass, finding it fun). We're sounding very jug-zydeco-afro-pop.
Though this too is just a distraction... "nobody knows the trouble I've been."
The poems written in the last month, for the most part, are well-meaning & workmanlike, but also quite stuffy, stodgy, giving the impression of forced effort. With a couple weeks' distance they feel alien & clunky.
Seems like I've lived several lives in poetry already. Sometimes the mountain seems too large & cold to move.
When I'm in this mood it's better for me not to observe the "scene" at all.
It's a good thing I can play some music. Five of us now: piano, guitar, fiddle, accordion, harmonica, jaw harp, saw (yes, saw), kazoo, jug, washboard, bass (have started playing bass, finding it fun). We're sounding very jug-zydeco-afro-pop.
Though this too is just a distraction... "nobody knows the trouble I've been."
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