music – Page 7 – WrittenCasey

Textuality

Metatext (analogue ; tape ; printed to paper)

Light falls upon pages.

Back light shines from digital pages.

Watch “David Bowie – The Width of a Circle” on YouTube

Eternal fascinations.

Measuring circles & David Bowie.

I wanna high kick like that. Geez.

Watch “Neil Young Inducts Paul McCartney into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions 1999” on YouTube

“Well, maybe I could do this too.” Neil Young after hearing the Beatles.

Wittgenstein is proud. No doubt.

“Neil Young Inducts Paul McCartney into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions 1999” on YouTube

In this six minute clip, he shares early experiences as a musician, as a musician going solo and the impact of The Beatles, particularly (along with many other musicians) his appreciation for Paul McCartney’s bass playing (“He played it left hand,” says Young. Just like Ziggy!).

As a Southerener (Deep South, to be clear) for over thirty years, The Rolling Stones album, Exile on Mainstreet, Neil Young’s Harvest most closely express the energy of the Dirty South, US. Amusing given neither outfit is American. Whatever an American is. <We were founded on philosophy, not history.>

I still remember the silly outrage I felt, when my father explained Neil Young was from Canada.

Canada?! They already have Joni Mitchell, though! I was so jealous. And disappointed that Young was no longer like me in this sense. Typical adolescent stuff, right? Giggle.

Southern Man and Alabama were outsider views?! Impossible. These had been Songs of Lament I could share in. This owed to me imaging that Neil Young’s perspective arose from living in the gothic American South. Whatever that is.

Suddenly (and without warning. Giggle), they were Songs of Condemnation.

Akin to the this sentiment:

As an older sister, I relentlessly hassle my little sister, but if anyone else so much as looks at her with crossed eyes s/he will be destroyed. That’s my effing sister!

Now I’m older and see the error in my thinking

He still sang the Song of the South.

Genius transcends and understands without experience. He’s in my pantheon of geniuses.

ROLL THE TAPE!

Young understands Wittgenstein’s concept of “the duty of genius,” which, as I read it, boils down to two things:

1. To believe there is no true or real difference between you and the great minds we celebrate (e.g. Abraham Lincoln, M.C. Escher, Johann Sebastian Bach, Umberto Eco, St. Augustine, etc).

2. To try to do your best at persuing a more robust mastery of abilities. Should you find a great passion, engage it and enjoy, but do not be discouraged by the heights others achieved.

It is not that you’ll never be that good. It is that everyone has the potential to be that good.

You just gotta try.

Watch “I’m Only Sleeping (Remastered 2009)” on YouTube

It is a sunny day in the Pacific NW.

I watch it through windows while I work.

I day dream about dreams from last night.

Watch “The Isley Brothers-Ohio Machine Gun” on YouTube

Back to back hits from The Isley Brothers.
For decades, white rock acts covered the most famed material of The Isley Brothers, particularly, “Shout” and “Twist and Shout“.

The Isleys decided turn about was more than fair play and decided to do the same to music made famous by white artists such as Stephen Stills, Eric Burdon and Neil Young.
The artists they chose to cover were not musicians that were apt to cover a song by the The Isley Brothers. In fact they were contemporary artists with unique voices and sounds they developed themselves. I like that these were the artists covered on Givin it Back. So many ways to interpret Giving it Back as an album title.

Slyly, titling this album Givin It Back, the Isleys prove they can re-enliven the music of others, thoughtfully. Distinguishing “a cover” and “a reinterpretation”.

Ohio/Machine Gun is my favorite gem.

CSNY might as well have written Ohio for the The Isley Brothers to perform.

And, I like CSNY’s version but when it is stood aside The Isley’s version, a certain, subtle social commentary forms. The songs speak to one another. The Isley’s version casts a subtle irony on the earnestly enthusiastic tradition of white protest music. Now, a naïveté tints the original.

The original release of Ohio, topical to the very hostile American political climate of the time, intended to make a statement, to shine light on injustice in order to produce change. It purports righteousness that slides toward self-righteousness when considered with The Isley Brothers rendition.

Among the songs they covered were “Spill the Wine”, “Love the One You’re With”, the social commentary medley of “Ohio” and “Machine Gun” (from Jimi Hendrix), “Fire and Rain” by James Taylor and Bob Dylan‘s “Lay Lady Lay“.

Their covers of “Love the One You’re With”, “Lay Lady Lay” and “Spill the Wine” became charted hits. Bill Withers plays guitar on the Isleys’ version of his “Cold Bologna”.

In 2015, Givin It Back was remastered and expanded for inclusion in the 2015 CD box set The RCA Victor & T-Neck Album Masters 1959-1983.

Watch “The Isley Brothers – I Turned You On” on YouTube

A good man first introduced me to this jam, and I wanna pass on the soul power!

Turned you on now I cant turn you off.

What a good, good feeling

A great sensation.

Oh you and me, baby, a good combination.

Watch “America- Tin Man (w/ lyrics)” on YouTube

From the album In the Country, please find 3:30 of loveliness.

Cause never was the reason for the evening.

Drop you cynicism and dig it.

…..when I say I’m spinning round, round.

Watch “Neil Young – On The Beach” on YouTube

https://youtu.be/CKgj1FNToWY

Take in those yellow shades.

Toledo Bend, Texas yellow.

Water sheened in some smog, moist smoke.

Neil Young abeach.

Boots(?!) off, full leisure sans big lapelled (no doubt) jacket.

Mustard yellow

And, oh hey, what is buried in the sand?

Do you think a cowgirl is somewhere in that sand.

Giggles.

Cinnamon wafts in the íther.

Watch “Badly Drawn Boy – Everybody’s Stalking” on YouTube

https://youtu.be/D15NOlKyh-A

Watch “Kevin Morby – Harlem River” on YouTube

Kevin Morby.

A freaking gem.

This song recalls a sound you know you’ve heard before. If only you could remember.

Diabolically hypnotic like the gloaming.

Jeff Buckley and Tom Waits nostalgia rises.

But like great music masters. Kevin Morby conjures a sound immediately recognisable as his own yet somehow leaving me hard pressed to describe in any words except: Impeccable in Simplicity and Timing.

High Praise.

Consider “R.E.M. Crush with Eyeliner”: Southern punk

Keep in mind these boys was outta Georgia (pronounced gee-or-ja).

Slick ass song. Knowledge of the band’s backstory qualifies this song for punk status.

Impressively apt, sardonic, and nonchalantly bold given the socio-cultural setting from which they emerged.

The Dirty South (american) ain’t so famously hospitable to its own if they don’t act right.

REM helped begin to open minds.

In areas with strong currents of cultural homogeneity…

(places where like-minded people have political control, religious influence, and both the financial and social currency to back these up), places like all places, places were regular, good people generally try and think that they are doing their best. like you. and me.)

…outliers are not well-tolerated.

Much like the way statistics may choose to formulate its treatment of those non-standard members of any given data set (sic. matrix).

If you record the result of the same experiment being repeated over and over a statistically significant number of times (iteration/Law of Large Numbers), and then note that on one occasion the result the experiment yielded was way, way dissimilar to the other results, you may then designate it as a statistical anmoly.

Termed an outlier: A member of the set that qualitatively and quantitatively appears alien when viewed in contrast to the uniformity of the character (standard distributions about a bell curve) of all other set members.

It is not uncommon to simply dismiss outliers from your analysis of the data. Just pretend their correlative relationship to the other data points insignicant.

Not affective. Like not even there. Incapable of producing change. To Unaffect.

To alienate the affection/loyalty of ; to fill with discontent & unrest. To Disaffect.

Unaffected.

Disaffected.

Perhaps the issue is that the mathematical formulae chosen and applied to the data set (in order to yield analysis and enable analyization of that object we study) are improper.

e.g. trying to explain a nonlinear system using linear mathematics: results will (always) be yielded when math is applied, but how useful are they and what do they ignore?

The phrase is “the outlier’s effect on our object of inquiry is statistically insignificant (aka mathematically negligable) so we will not include it when we analyze our data with math formulas.”

Statistical Insignificance.