The little dude is helping me become more prolific. I got a little sketch-pad for quick recordings so i don’t forget these things. This needs more words and I need to try and remember the words I have. But, all that being said, I kind of like this little thing.
There are numerous ways in which I’m concerned with this music that a listener just wouldn’t be. So I think that kind of assessment is really public domain. I don’t know what I can offer in that respect. I can certainly say the idea of trying to replicate something I’ve done in the past is quite offensive to me. Trying to recapture something I was doing 15 years ago, that’s certainly a long way from my intentions.
So far, I am very pleased with the new Squarepusher record. I’m also enjoying how some critics can’t get a handle on it. That means he’s doing his job properly. As the artist predicted, it is both melodic and aggressive. The grooves devolve to an almost unrecognizable digital mash, but are buoyed by the composer’s sense of melodic narrative. The destructive decoration is the point, but it is anchored to very human sounding notes.
66 years young today, the old duffer.
Prog supergroup Flying Colors out now:
Squarepusher on his new project:
I’ve started thinking about pure electronic music again. Something very melodic, very aggressive
Just my got my tickets to what is, so far, the only US date. Based on the taste of Ufabulum that was released today, I think it will be quite a night.
This is a longshot for me, but it may be one of those deals where you buy tickets first and ask questions later. So, it’s Webster Hall on Thursday, March 15. Yes, I’ve gotten to see Squarepusher twice, and that’s pretty special for me, blah blah blah, but this is a special artist with unique skills and a very bad attitude. I mean, he’s not even on Twitter. What the fuck, right? So every opportunity in this country is to be treasured and seized upon.
Borrowed Tune, by Neil Young:
Listening to this song on the way to work this morning, and listening to a couple other tracks from the same album (Tonight’s The Night) during the overnight shift while feeding my newborn son has made me realize that a big Neil Young thing is starting. This happens from time to time and it’s always good news. I don’t seek it out or plan for it, and there’s no trigger, like a new album or a concert experience, but I know what I want to do with this now that it’s happening.
Since the last time I wrote on this blog, my life has fundamentally changed. I am the father of a one-month-old baby boy. I am filled with such indescribable joy. And in those late night hours, when I want to calm this boy and get him back to his peaceful rest, I try to sing him something. Most of the time, it ends up being Neil Young songs.
I like to say that shaky Neil (along with Pink Floyd) are the reason I love music so much. These are the sounds that got it all started, that made me the mad collector and fueled my love of guitar. But I’m so different than I was twenty years ago, in my room upstairs at my parents’ house, playing along and trying to learn everything on ‘Live Rust’ by ear, and then by heart. So much has happened since those days when I didn’t know who I was or where I was going – just an embarrassed teenager with guitar the only thing to set me apart from my friends.
And so, I like the idea of going back here with my own child. I like that this music has been in my DNA for so long, and I want to share that elemental thing with him, even though he’s too young to have any idea what these songs are about.
Neil represents so much of the ecstasy and pure emotion of music. He’s the ultimate no-bullshit, punch-you-in-the-gut artist who doesn’t give a shit about making his audience happy, yet somehow always does. That’s a pretty neat flavor of genius, if you ask me.
And then you come across a track like this – “Borrowed Tune”, one man alone in a room with a piano, consumed with doubt and thoughts of grief, but unable to contain the power of beauty that propels him up the ladder.
Should have been 71 years old today. Here’s the quote:
Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…
He was a pioneer, making his name as the beloved sideman/guitarist for Howlin’ Wolf. His riffs on Killing Floor, Smokestack Lightning and Spoonful became an essential part of the electric blues canon, just as elemental as Elmore James’ Dust My Broom and Muddy Waters’ Hoochie Coochie Man.
Here’s Hubert in London with the Wolf in 1964: