Running late but wanted to share this little bit. On this date, August 5, back in 1966, a favorite album of mine, the groundbreaking Revolver from the Beatles, was released. With its daring technical innovations, it set the tone for pop and rock music then, bringing the psychedelic era to the wider audience of pop music. It was like they kicked their machine into a higher gear that challenged every other musician to follow them.
It’s good stuff.
I have quite a few favorites on this album but the two that jump out at me are Tomorrow Never Knows and Love You To, both heavily influenced by George Harrison‘s affinity for the music and rhythms of India. I’ve never played Love You To here and thought today would be appropriate.
You don’t have to be a psychic to see that this was coming.
No, any thinking, feeling person with a lick of sense and their eyes open could see this.
Let’s see, we have:
A nation that was built on immigration based on the lure of opportunity, religious and political freedom for all.
An almost unlimited access to every known type of firearm, protected by a wealthy lobby ( propped up in recent years by an influx of foreign money) that seeks to sell more and more weapons with even fewer restrictions. They have bought the silence of lawmakers for decades.
A growing white supremacy movement that, according to the FBI in a report from over a decade ago, has infiltrated local law enforcement agencies throughout the nation. The vast majority of acts of domestic terrorism in this country come from white supremacists.
An economy that is becoming more and more unbalanced. Wage growth for the lower and middle classes has been sluggish at best while there has been tremendous increase in wealth for the the higher end. The poor are getting poorer and the rich getting richer.
An online social media culture that allows people to live in insular bubbles that allow their worst inclination to fester unabated. It is a world often filled with paranoia, conspiracy and unfettered hatred.
A president** who uses the rhetoric of racism on a level never seen in this nation. I believe, based on thirty plus years of evidence, that he is racist but it doesn’t matter at this point. Either he is a racist or he isn’t and is using racism as a divisive political tool to maintain power. Both are equally repugnant and evil as well as being disqualifying for him as the leader of this nation.
He uses racism that plays to the sense of grievance that resides in much of the less affluent, less educated white population of his base, putting the blame for the shortcomings in these people’s lives squarely on the shoulders of “the others.” The way they see it, they are poor because every job that should be their’s is being stolen by an immigrant. They’re afraid because they believe black people want to rob and assault them while murderous latino gangs run wild on every street. They see every person of Middle Eastern descent as seeking to destroy the white nation they love so that sharia law can be established here. White opioid abusers in poor states are victims in their eyes who need help while black drug users in cities are criminals who deserve severe legal punishment.
I am going to leave it right there. I could go on but what does it do? Yesterday, we had 29 dead in two separate shootings in El Paso and Dayton within 13 hours. Unsurprisingly, the El Paso shooter is linked with white supremacy. Don’t know about the Dayton assailant yet. Though in body armor, he was killed by the police within a minute of the beginning of his killing spree. Yet, with a military style weapon, he still managed to kill 9 people in that short time.
I’d like to be optimistic here but I am afraid that we’re in for a lot more of this, folks. These young white males who feel they are somehow being screwed over by “the others” and are entitled to lash out at the world with violence are not going away anytime soon. They have the weapons, they have someone to blame, they have a community online that endorses their hatred, and they have a person at the helm of the most powerful country in the world who will never speak out against them, someone who will actually seek to rationalize away their deadly actions so that the blood doesn’t show on his tiny, spray tanned hands.
I wish I had answers. I do know that there are none on the horizon so long as we keep electing spineless, amoral slugs who only seek to help their biggest donors and themselves. We want courage and boldness in our leaders but when it is shown, we often seek to destroy those people because if they succeed, we might have to actually address the problems we face. So we settle for the mindless twats we have and the downward spiral they have enabled.
At some point, it has to come to a reckoning. What will it take before we rise up and demand a different outcome?
So, here’s my song for this Sunday. Fitting the day, it is I See a Darkness from Bonnie “Prince” Billy. I have played Johnny Cash’s cover of this song here before but the original feels right today.
On a dark day, I have no more thoughts and prayers to share. I used them up long ago.
and i had a cold one at the dragon with some filipino floor show and talked baseball with a lieutenant over a singapore sling and i wondered how the same moon outside over this chinatown fair could look down on illinois and find you there
–Tom Waits, Shore Leave
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I have things to do today so I will keep this short. I just wanted to share the painting above, Navigator, that is part of my show, Moments and Color, that is hanging at the West End Gallery, along with an old favorite of mine, Shore Leave, from Tom Waits. They seem to go together well. I think the moon in the painting could very well be the same moon in the song. Okay, I know that it obviously would be the same moon since we only know our one moon. But I am talking metaphorically here, about it being in a particular moment in time and space.
Oh, forget it. I am off to work and wish you a good day.
Fallin’ into your passing hands Please don’t destroy these lands Don’t make them desert sands
Come tomorrow, will I be older? Come tomorrow, may be a soldier Come tomorrow, may I be bolder than today?
–Yardbirds, Shapes of Things
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Running late this morning and feeling a little gauzy. Is that a thing? It’s kind of like hazy but not that far. Distracted? Just plain tired? I don’t know. I searched for a while and couldn’t find anything for this week’s Sunday morning musical interlude until I came across this classic track from the Yardbirds back in 1966.
It’s Shapes of Things with some great guitar work from Jeff Beck. It helped me burn off a layer of gauze and I feel a little more fleshy. Is that a thing?
The painting at the top, Tangled Light, hangs in my studio. It’s what I consider a personal piece and it hangs with another similarly done piece. Together they make up one of my favorite pairings. They make me feel fleshier, I guess?
Got up late this morning and thought I’d save some time by rerunning an older post that has a piece of music.
I grew up in a time without computer screens, smartphones, video games or much of anything else in the way of distraction. I’m not saying that we used to go down to the quarry to throw rocks at the dinosaurs but, compared to the multitude of options available to a kid today, it was relatively spartan. We lived in the country where for years we only had two TV channels and FM radio was in its infancy, at least in our area. I’m not sure we even had an FM radio. So, the local AM radio stations filled the bill.
At that time, our local AM channels were one-size-fits-all affairs, playing every genre of music in a grand mishmosh. You might go from hearing the Rolling Stones or the Doors to Nat King Cole to the Temptations to Patsy Cline and back to Chuck Berry in a matter of twenty minutes. It made for very eclectic listening.
The one I usually listened to was WENY and at the time my favorite DJ was a guy named Paul Leigh, who also hosted a late Saturday night movie on WENY’s sister TV channel. On that, Leigh played his alter ego, the Undertaker, and played schlocky monster movies. He was entertaining for a 12 or 13 year old kid and had a pretty sharp wit for a DJ in a small market. He was always running call-in contests and on one night I was lucky (and persistent) enough to be the 20th or whatever caller. I won a stack of 25 albums and picking them up at the station, I thought I was in pig heaven.
Of course, they were just getting rid of all the promos albums from record companies that had come their way. Almost all of them never made it on the air, most being pretty bad while some were just not the taste for a teenager. I remember there was an Ornette Coleman LP that was a very conceptual jazz thing that sounded like squawks and buzzes to my ears at the time. Actually, it still sounded that way to me every time I’ve pulled it out over the years. But there were a few gems in there.
One was this self-titled first album from David Bromberg. It was produced by George Harrison who appears on the very enjoyable song below,The Holdup. Several of the songs are Bromberg’s interpretation of blues and traditional classics mixed in with some wonderful originals, including the strange and haunting Sammy’s Song. I still listen to it on a regular basis and it has always held up through the many years.
Bromberg’s an interesting guy, a folk guitar wiz who basically quit the business for several years in the 1990’s to learn the art of violin making. He returned to playing and touring but still maintains a violin shop in Wilmington, Delaware. He seems like a man who lives life on his own terms. A rare and wonderful thing.
Give a listen to The Holdup and have a good day.
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I woke up tired this morning. So tired. Stumbled over here in the already blooming heat which did nothing to revive me. Plunked down in front of my laptop with a cup of coffee and just wanted to close my eyes.
Certainly didn’t want to write this. But I felt a certain obligation to my routine to play a Sunday song here. I could at least say that I did something.
I at first thought that I’m So Tired from the Beatles would fit. It’s from their White Album released in late 1968. That made me think. I wondered what album was sitting at #1 on the charts back on this date in 1969, fifty years in the past. It was such an interesting time, one filled with monumental events and people who shaped the world we live in today.
We were still reeling from the murders of MLK and RFK, Nixon took office in January, the draft was still sending young men into battle in Viet Nam, protests and race riots raged in the streets, our astronauts walked in epic fashion on the moon, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered together on Yasgur’s Farm outside Woodstock for a concert that immediately entered into the mythic realm.
But going back to seeing what the #1 album was on this date in 1969, I found that it wasn’t the White Album. No, it was the self titled second album from Blood Sweat and Tears which knocked the Original Cast Recording of Hair from the top of the chart. Looking further, the chart that year was topped by iconic albums from several genres. The White Album held the top for 8 weeks early in the year. There was a week with a compilation album from a TV special featuring Diana Ross and the Supremes and the Temptations Then Wichita Lineman from Glen Campbell held the top for a month, the Johnny Cash at San Quentin album for another month, Blood Sweat and Tears for 7 weeks, and Hair for 13 weeks. The year finished with 2 weeks from the supergroup Blind Faith, a month of Green River from Creedence, 8 weeks of the Beatles’ Abbey Road until Led Zeppelin IIclosed out the final week.
That is an epic year of music on the charts. Probably at least a hundred songs on those albums alone that most people my age can sing along to. But when you consider that the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, the entire Motown roster and just about every other musical rock, pop and soul god was still alive and at the peak of their creative powers, it only seems fitting. I was just a kid then but I am so grateful to have been influenced by that time and its music.
Don’t feel quite so tired now.
Here’s I Got Life from Hair. That was an album that was ingrained in my mind from an early age and I can still listen to it over and over. I think this song speaks to people in any time. Have a good day.
Thought I’d take it easy this morning and just share a song, as I do every Sunday morning. The painting here is a favorite of mine, LeCirque from Georges Seurat, which is I believe is considered to be the last painting from the great French Pointillist.
I am not a big fan of circuses now but as child I had a slight fascination with them. I have distinct memories of watching lion tamers, acrobats and high wire walkers on a television show that used to be on Friday nights in the early and mid 1960’s. It was called International Showtime hosted by Don Ameche, featuring filmed performances from European circuses. I think my interest in the circus was mine alone in my family because I seem to remember watching this show alone.
It’s one of those things I moved past. I began to have a great dislike for animals (or children, for that matter) in cages and gained an understanding of the hardships and tragedies of the lives of many of the circus people. The glossy fascination of childhood dulled and the clowns that once made me smile now make me slightly sad.
But I still like this song very much. It has wonderful imagery that rekindles the lure of the circus a bit though it points out the seedier aspects that I didn’t notice as a 6 year old but which ultimately made the circus less appealing. This is a live performance of Wild Billy’s Circus Story from Bruce Springsteen from way back in 1973.
Stopped in at the West End Gallery yesterday to see how the work from my new show, Moments of Color, looked on the walls.
I was pleased.
You can only get a small sense of how the work for a show will hang together when it’s still in the studio. The paintings are scattered all over, some in different rooms and some obstructing others. Almost none of them are in frames. I never get to see them fully presented, hanging clearly in direct relationship to one another.
So it’s always interesting to see how the show comes together on the walls, to see if a unifying theme emanates, and to see what pieces jump forward. In this case, the color mentioned in the show’s title is made abundantly clear. It is a show filled with color.
I’ve written here before about coming to painting because I wasn’t seeing the paintings I wanted to see, wasn’t experiencing the colors I wanted to feel. This show comes close to meeting that desire for color, especially the fully saturated deep tones. They show themselves well on the gallery walls and actually serve as the unifying theme for the show. Even in the Multitudespieces that feature masses of faces, it is the color of those pieces that binds them to the other works in this show.
One of the pieces, along with so many others, that seemed to jump off the wall for me was the piece shown above, La Belle Vie. That translates from French as the good life or the beautiful life. Either works for me. With its clarity of line and color in its skies, hills and flowerbeds along with its size, 36″ high by 18″ wide, it is a piece that has a real presence on the wall for my eyes.
As an artist, sensing that presence in a piece is an extremely gratifying feeling. It’s a feeling of completeness, as though I have done as much as I am capable of in this piece at this point in time. And that makes it a statement of who and what I am as an artist– and a person– at this point. I guess that kind of sums up my feelings on this painting.
Jesse and Lin have done a tremendous job hanging this show. Hope you can make the opening reception at the West End Gallery this coming Friday. It begins at 5 and runs until 7:30 PM. If not, hope you can stop in and take a look.
For this Sunday morning music, I have chosen a song called Beautiful Tango sung by Hindi Zahara, a Morocco born singer that is based in Paris. Love the feel and pace of this song. It seems to jibe well with La Belle Vie above. I could see the Red Tree dancing a tango here. Give a listen and have a good day.
I want to live alone in the desert I want to be like Georgia O’Keeffe I want to live on the Upper East Side And never go down in the street
Splendid Isolation I don’t need no one Splendid Isolation
–Warren Zevon, Splendid Isolation
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Over the next several days I will be showing paintings from my upcoming show, Moments and Color, that opens Friday, July 12, at the West End Gallery. Today is a piece called Pondering Solitude, a 24″ by 24″ canvas, that was a favorite of mine during its time here in the studio.
Like much of my work, I can’t exactly put my finger on any one thing in this painting that makes it hit the mark for me. Maybe it’s something as simple as the color combinations or the way the light flows within the composition. Or just the simplicity of it as a whole. Or the feeling of warm solitude it emotes.
Again, I don’t know. That probably sounds strange to some of you. After all, I painted it so shouldn’t I know the entire what and why of a piece I have created? You would think so, wouldn’t you?
Oddly enough, in my best work–or at least what I feel is my best work– I have no answers. And that makes sense to me because the work is for me a way to get enough clarity to understand enough to be able to ask questions. Then, hopefully, answers emerge.
It’s hard to find answers when you don’t really know the questions.
And that is kind of the story of this piece. I see it as the Red Tree feeling a need for clarity and light, answers to questions that it can’t articulate, and finding solace in the light and warmth of its solitude.
There is more likely than not more to say here but I think I am leaving it at that for now.
I used some lyrics from the song Splendid Isolationfrom the late Warren Zevon above. Here is the song.
Well, the work for my upcoming show, Moments and Color, is out of the studio and at the West End Gallery. The show will be completely hung sometime today well in advance of next Friday’s July 12 opening.
It always feels a little weird the first morning back in the studio after delivering a large group of work for a solo show. While it’s a relief to have the work gone and the task met, it is a bittersweet sensation. The paintings that have surrounded me, that have called out at me, that have occupied my mind for months are suddenly gone. It feels hollow here even though the place is far from empty and the work that is gone seems to have left behind an echoing presence.
Some pieces definitely leave behind reverberating waves. Like the one above, a 16″ by 20″ painting from the Multitudes series that I call Soul Boat. It’s a piece that I miss now when I scan around the studio. There are faces in it that I had gotten used to locating and focusing on, like the one here on the right that reminds me of Henry Miller. Maybe he’s sailing out on the Tropic of Cancer or Capricorn.
Don’t know but I kind of miss having him staring out at me.
If you want to have this Henry Miller stare at you for a bit, Soul Boat is now at the West End Gallery for next week’s opening on Friday, July 12. Please stop in and get a sneak peek at the show.
Anyway, here’s an oldie from Grand Funk Railroad that might kind of line up with this piece– if you squint your eyes and try real hard. It’s I’m Your Captain/Closer to Home.
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Redtree Times 