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Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Jump Into the Fire

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2013| 7 Comments »

GC Myers 2001One of my favorite songwriters is the late,  enigmatic Harry Nilsson, who passed away in 1994.  While he is somewhat still well known, it is probably not the same level of fame that his work deserves even though he achieved great fame and earned many accolades during his life.  He recorded and wrote many hits, earned Grammy Awards, and cavorted with the biggest names in music. Lennon and McCartney named him as their favorite songwriter  ( he also recorded an album and more with John Lennon) and Keith Moon and Mama Cass both died in his London flat.  Yet how many twenty or thirty year-olds even recognize the name?

But there is still a great deal of interest in his music and life and there are those out there trying to let the world about the talent of this flawed man.  This past month there was a release of a  large box set spanning his career at RCA as well as a biography, Nilsson: The Life of a Singer-Songwriter,  from author Alyn Shipton.  Not to mention, a celebrated documentary from several years back, Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?  So, hopefully his work will stick around in the public eye a bit longer.

If you don’t know his name, you probably know the music.  It is used extensively by filmmakers including this song, Jump Into the Fire, that was used in a pivotal scene in Goodfellas by Martin Scorsese.  It’s a good song to pump up a dreary morning.

FYI, the painting at the top is an older piece of mine from back in 2001.

 

 

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A Little Indorock

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2013| 2 Comments »

Crazy Rockers- Indorock Band circa 1962One of my favorite movies is The Third Man, which was filmed in post-World War II Vienna and stars Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles and Trevor Howard— three of my favorite actors.  With a screenplay by Graham Greene and great black and white cinematography, it’s just a great film.  But the thing that holds it all together and makes it memorable is the theme song that runs through the whole film, a haunting yet lively tune played on a zither by Anton Karas, who wrote and performed the song.  It was so catchy that it topped music charts around the world in 1950.

A number of people have recorded the song over the years but one of my favorites was from a group called the The Crazy Rockers from the early 60’s.  They were part of the Indorock scene in Holland at the time which was guitar-driven rock music played by Indonesians who were living in Holland.  It’s not a genre that many of us here in the states are familiar with but it was pretty big in that part of the world.   Still is from what I understand– the Crazy Rockers and the Tielman Brothers, who are the best known Indorock band, are still performing with over 50 years in the business.

I loved their version of The Third Man Theme with their choreographed movements and gyrations and matching sparkly costumes.  It was sort of kitschy but in a very authentic way.  I featured it here in a post back in 2008 but unfortunately can  no longer locate that version online.  So I will show a song from the same time frame, Carioca.  I’m also showing the original The Third Man credits  with the theme from Anton Karas playing over it  just to give those who aren’t familiar with it a chance to hear it.  If you get a chance, definitely catch the whole film.

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The Wolves Inside

Posted in Influences, Music, Video, tagged , , , on August 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Spirits Within - Artwork from Charles Frizzel

A Native American grandfather talking to his young grandson tells the boy he has two wolves inside of him struggling with each other. The first is the wolf of peace, love and kindness. The other wolf is fear, greed and hatred. Which wolf will win, grandfather? asks the young boy. Whichever one I feed, is the reply.

I came across the above, a short and often told story along with an illustration from artist Charles Frizzell,  on the Facebook page called Hippie Peace Freaks.   So simply put, it speaks of the dual natures  that reside in each of us, that polarity that I often try to capture in my work.  Our actions and choices form who we are and, hopefully, we opt to feed our peaceful wolves.

Here’s a video featuring the music of the great early bluesman Robert Johnson that also illustrates the point in a slightly different manner.  In Me and the Devil  Blues, his inner demon, his bad wolf, has taken a place beside him at all times.

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Speed of the Sound of Loneliness

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , on July 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Dawn Serenade smIn the aftermath of this latest show at the West End Gallery, I have been taking a small break from painting, instead trying to get some things done around my home and studio that have been put off while I was working.  I have a real knack for putting off things that need to be done and there is a real backlog now of small projects waiting to be faced.  Nothing big and nothing too testing, just normal maintenance things like cleaning up fallen trees around the property and the such.

I thought, while I was finishing up the show work, that puttering around with this maintenance work would be a relaxing break but I forget how ingrained my painting routine has become in me.  Instead of relaxing, I find myself gathering anxiety about not having a brush in my hand, not working towards something.   I don’t know how to feel about this and find myself conflicted.

In one moment, I view this inability to find relaxation beyond my work as a flaw, a symptom of a shallow or hollow nature.  But in the next moment I am thankful for having found the ultimate soother in my work, to spend the greater part of my time doing that thing that gives me peace and brings me a sense of deep relaxation.  Not to mention the meaning and joy  it brings.  I guess it comes down to me working to relax where most folks must leave work behind to feel at ease.  This inversion of the norm is obviously the conflict, one that I am still struggling to reconcile even after fifteen years of doing this on a full-time basis.  Maybe I will have it straightened out in my head in fifteen more.

Okay, enough of that.  Here’s a little music, from around 1990, by one of my favorites, John Prine, singing his Speed of the Sound of Loneliness with Nanci Griffith.

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The Song We Carry

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , , , on July 17, 2013| 4 Comments »

GCMyers 2013- The Song We Carry smWe all carry a lot of baggage with us on our journey through this life.  It’s a rare moment when we find ourselves free from all the  traces from the past that we lug along– all the snippets of conversations, faces, song melodies and lyrics, pictures, smells, film clips and everything else we have input into the hard drive of our mind is always whirring around.  I know that I will sometimes pull up some fragment from the past and wonder how I was still holding on to this piece of information.  It might be the name of someone that I barely knew forty or fifty years before.  Somehow it hangs on and occasionally pops out, confounding me with the idea that this seemingly useless bit of data is taking up space that could be occupied by truly meaningful information.

Like old Popeye cartoons. ( The one with Olive Oyl singing  What We All Need is Brotherly Love runs on a loop in my head)

Or the year that Humphrey Bogart died.(1957)

Or the name of the book that influenced the original Superman comic. ( It was Philip Wylie‘s Gladiator— an interesting read, by the way.)

But somehow,  despite and because of all this detritus, we  emerge in some individual form.

A single distilled version of everything that we take in.

A single voice.  One song.

I guess that is how I would characterize the thought behind the painting at the top, The Song We Carry.  It’s 7″ by 11″  on paper and is going to the West End Gallery for my upcoming show.

Now here’s a little Popeye along with Wilco.  It’s a video for Wilco’s  Dawned on Me from last year and it features the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon in over 30 years.  I can’t remember if Olive Oyl danced like this in my memory but now I will.  The data has been entered.

 

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Every Time We say Goodbye

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , on July 15, 2013| 3 Comments »

Chet BakerMaybe it’s the morning here.  Dark and somber sky with an unyielding flatness in its gray.  Very quiet morning as though nothing really wants to stir and begin this sultry summer week.  A fans hums, trying to move a little cooler air through the studio and I am sitting with my coffee.  Chet Baker‘s Every Time We Say Goodbye is  playing above it all, accentuating the gray mood with its deeply spaced tones.  I’m not the biggest jazz guy but there I do like what I like and for certain moods, like this morning’s, nothing fills the bill like Chet Baker.

I think it’s one of those instances of pure expression, where the art and the individual meld.  It’s not put on, not contrived.  It’s real and felt deeply, his own truth– all that you can ask from any artist.  I think we all aspire to a true expression of ourselves, to create something that we can say genuinely represents who we really were during our time here.

I know that has been a driving force for me.  Sometimes, it seems close to telling my truth and sometimes it feels just a bit shaded or slanted away from reality.  Maybe it’s a case of hoping that the motivation, the goal,  becomes the reality.

I don’t know.  Maybe, that’s just a bit too much thinking for any Monday morning, especially a sleepy gray July one.  Here’s Chet.

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Michael Mattice Live at the Principle

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , on July 10, 2013| 1 Comment »

Michael Mattice bw 2013I just wanted to remind any readers in or near the DC area  that there is a free show in support of his new CD , Comin’ Home, from singer/songwriter Michael Mattice tomorrow night, Thursday July 11th, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.  It is a great chance to catch a rising talent in a really intimate setting and I urge you to come on out if you can make it.  If not, pick up a copy of his CD — you won’t be disappointed.  It is gaining steam and has been sitting at the top of the Hot New Releases on Amazon for some time now.

His acoustic  guitar work on it is impeccable, creating rich, complex  textures for his songs.  I was expecting that, having watched his guitar prowess  through his years at Berklee.    The guy can outright play.  But it’s the songwriting that caught me off guard.  I wasn’t expecting such a cohesive set of songs with choruses that I find myself singing along to and melodies and rhythms  that hang with you long after you stop listening.

This is a strong and consistent effort that excites me from a creative standpoint.  There’s a real purity in Mike’s work here, a genuine and confident voice that has evolved  as he has voraciously absorbed everything around him.  It’s what you want to see in any artist but it’s  a rare thing to find.

This is a wonderful CD but , moreover, it is portending a future- it is not a culmination.  It is a giant first step in what I see as  a creative arc that stretches high and far, a truly impressive debut that sets a really high baseline for his future work.  A baseline that I have no doubt he will exceed time and time again.

So, if you can, see Michael Mattice at the Principle Gallery Thursday.  The event starts at 6 PM and Mike is expected to begin around 7.

Check out his site for more info and to preview the CD.

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All Gone to Look For America

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Opinion, Video, tagged , , , , on July 4, 2013| 2 Comments »

Fourth of July Parade of ScoutsAnother Fourth of July.

Parades.  Picnics. Fireworks. Red, white and blue.  That’s the shorthand version of this day.  The actual meaning of this day is much harder to capture, probably more so for Americans than for those from other countries who view us from a distance.  I think we sometimes lose sight of the idea and ideal of America in our day to day struggle to maintain our own lives.  But even that struggle is symptomatic of the basis of our nation, reminding us that anything worth preserving requires work and maintenance.

For me,  America is not a static ideal, a credo written in granite that will always be there.  It is vaporous and ever changing, like a dense fog.  But it is an inviting fog, one that is warm on the skin and invites you in with hazy promises of possibility.  And maybe all America is– possibility.

Maybe it is the sheer potential of a better and safer life, the possibility of remaking one’s self, that defines our ideal America.  We are at our best when we are open and inviting,  offering our possibility and empathy to all .  We are a long way from our ideal when we close our doors and try to capture the vapor  that is  America all for ourselves.  It is not ours to hold– we are simply caretakers of an ideal, one that brought most of our ancestors here.

Maybe this doesn’t make any sense.  Since it is such a hazy ideal, we all see it in different ways.  This is just how I see it.

Here’s a video of the song America from Simon and Garfunkel, as performed by David Bowie during the Concert For New York City in the aftermath of 9/11.  This is not a flag waving , chest thumping anthem but it speaks as much to the ideal of  the American ideal in that simple chorus — all gone to look for America— as the very best Sousa march.

Have a great Fourth!

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She Slips Away

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , on July 3, 2013| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- Bluesunblues I was on the road yesterday, going out to Erie. The drive out there takes around three and a half hours, most of it on wide, empty highway going through some of the more sparsely populated parts of New York.  Many people don’t think of NY as having such emptiness and space.  It’s an easy drive, one that allows you to listen fully to music. I spent my drive listening to a lot of things, really taking them in. I listened a few times to Michael Mattice‘s new CD, Comin’ Home, that I have mentioned here recently.  It’s his debut effort and really showcases his special talents as a singer-songwriter  and a top flight guitarist wonderfully.  Mike creates an amazing full and deep sound with his playing on this CD  which has it gathering a lot attention as it’s #1 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases for Acoustic Blues.  I urge you to check it out.

I also listened to one of my favorites, guitarist Martin Simpson.  Like Michael, his work is marked by its full and rich texture.  Just great stuff.  Here’s She Slips Away, a song that I think really captures the essence of his playing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQELHWJTdRU

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Labyrinth

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Neat Stuff, tagged , , on July 2, 2013| 3 Comments »

labyrinth_sketchI am on the road today, visiting my good friends at the Kada Gallery in Erie.  One of the paintings that I am taking out to them has a distinct labyrinth-like pattern in it, a twisting maze that always captures my attention.  I love the idea of  it as an analogy for many of us for the journey through this life, seeking an unseen, and often unknown,  goal.  We travel ahead on a path that takes twists and turns and often we find ourselves feeling as though we are within reach of that central goal only to find that the next turn has taken us as far away as we can imagine.  And vice versa, we often feel adrift and lost only  to suddenly find that the goal is suddenly there before us.

There’s something very balancing in thinking of life in this way.  You become wary of the highs and lows, knowing that one’s fortune  can spin on a dime.

Here’s an interesting video showing the constructs of several different labyrinths, all accompanied by a chorus with a basso profundo that gives the whole thing some real weight. Enjoy and make  a labyrinth for yourself!

 

 

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