D's Journal
inspiration
right on cue there have been 3 albums that have all come into my posession on the same day, and they are all pretty lucid and incredible pieces of work...
1)David Mead: Tangerine- long-time hero of mine who has slowly over the years worked for and gained a much deserved reputation as a genius compositionalist.. most songwriters who delve into the craft at all have pretty much found him somewhere or other along the way and loved his output. This new record is such a far-reaching and masterful working of so many different things. This guy has so damn much to give to the world...
2)Chili Peps' newest- for a band who is at the point in their career when they could just as easily put their feet up and crank out half-assed attempts to pay for new sportscars, these guys actually have flabbergasted me by putting their all into a two-disc collection of marvelous fresh well-thought funky-ass shistola. I really love this disc, and it's simply a must buy ..for the summer, in the car, bustin it to the heat.
3)Regina Spektor: Begin To Hope- maybe I shouldn't even mention this, because I acquired a leaked version of her new album due june 16, but I don't really feel bad because when it comes out I will happily be buying the real deal so that she can have her dollar fifty from the big boy league out of my purchase. But she has so done it again.. she just keeps stretching herself and really running the gamut of big bad things that a piano gal could do, and even stretching beyond into things you never even thought possible for her to do. This album does it all- kicks the beat, busts the singles, blows classical musicality mind, and sheds tears by the end. My awe continues. (Thank you so very much Dave the Mave, you are the main hoss.)
delusion angel
my head is buzzing today. i think somewhere in the hanging moist atmosphere blanketing the slowly submerging sun, i realized that this is going to be a fan-f&*%$ng-tastic summer that is gonna change me pretty much any way i slice it. it's not that i'd had the wrong attitude but it is just that i wasn't fully aware of the possibility before me, and everything that i can do. i'm weighing out a few really big options, but tom waits is singing in his beautifully hushed voice "time, time, time" in the background.
time to go
when the wonder years ended, i was in such disbelief. i couldn't imagine that the whole leadup, the whole implication had been wrong. and that someone could live that long with such a false belief in what was being given by this world, and then still only want to remember what was good.
but those screenwriters knew a hell of a lot more than me.
like the wind, aunt gladys
anyone ever notice how the guys our media suggests are the most desired require girlfriends with action hero status? think about it.. ben affleck is with jennifer garner who has an entire series dedicated to her ass-kicking, a.k.a. 'alias.' brad pitt is walking around with the tomb raider herself, and even freddie prinze junior is married to miss vampire slayer. i think that if you are of the prime male contingent for people magazine real-estate, you have to have a gal who at least has the skills to kick someone unconscious while standing on a moving motorcycle. and why not? nowadays it is most definitely not domestic skills we're after- we need more out of a woman. so i think in my arena the girl for me should have at least taken some swings at a police officer, or something like that..
today was so very much a sunday. everything from the recovery to the neighborhood fun to the indian food to the hearing from or seein those whom i never hear from was exemplary of a sunday.
which brings me to.. yes it is true- i am one of those. i've been keeping it a little hush hush to try it on for size, but i am now an over 80 miles to the gallon person, a less streamlined traveller at times, and someone who loves the open air. here are pictures of that and my new friend:
www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=198
www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=199
and also i dunno if i said, but the strathmore collaboration sessions were really something special. the concert was such a broad spectrum of sound and style. there is one with the other artists-in-residence that is happening on the 17th. here are some shots o that:
www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=200
www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=201
www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=202
there are also ones from ashland, the vance gilbert show. i have some work to do so i'm off but i hope everyone is drinking coronas left over from the cinco.
i'll see the light tonight
the questions: who am i going to see tonight? why am i kicking the black t-shirt and leather? who is going to make my ears pulsate with the fastest 80s guitar riffing cranked thru marshall stacks like they have never been exposed to?
today i was passing through falls church on a beautiful saturday, and when i glanced in complete narmalcy out at the marquis at the state theatre, i had to do a doubletake and rub my eyes to make sure i was really seeing what i was seeing. that's right... YNGWIE MALMSTEEN.
the very guitar-shredding maestro whom i completely idolized all through high school. the guy who could make 4572 notes in a minute-long sequence all seem not only neccesary but skull-wrenchingly, heatwave-defyingly, ear-blisteringly
essential..
this guy sold so many magazines off his pompously cocky countenance and the ever-stretching debate over who was faster/better- yngwie or eddie van halen...
and it is pretty much the very coolest when a girl actually knows who he is. that's like, huge bonus points.
i will try to take pictures for the remaining few that we are. beavis and butthead would have tired necks from tonight.
spaghetti ways home
yesterday i dropped mad coin at the CDepot in college park. it always makes me feel good to not only support the arts i love in the most basic way, but also add to my life so substantially by doing so. and all this shist has come out, in dvd formats and disc, and so i can act like it is still the days of vinyl where something came out and you sat and enjoyed it as an event, like someone i know would say.
the lil spinny things are coming down from the trees again, and i think this time they mean with them something much different.
i wonder what i will recollect when it has been a decade and a half and it is time for the onslaught of the tons o cicadas again. it is amazing how nature has a way of signaling things to us, in much more complex cycles than years.
today i was at a cafe in old town, and i was in the bathroom when i heard this booming diatribe from someone who was so infatuated with his knowledge that his cup runneth over and he couldn't fit any more in. i sometimes get so repulsed by people who need podiums in front of them in normal life situations where sometimes all people want to do is to be able to relax. i made some sarcastic remark that drew attention to his volume like verbal battery acid, and i was proud of myself.
at some point j and i were in wendy's talking about how the big chain feedhouses that ingratiate us so well with their fabulous nutrition have silently while we weren't even looking disposed of the newspaper theme. for instance- the old cool wendys' used to have newspaper articles built into their tables like some thick crazy gel coat that would keep a prehistoric trilobite in perfect suspension forever. i loved those tables. they made me feel like i was about to eat good barbeque or something at a place that had been there since 'nam. now it is just boring strip mall tan. bullshit. next speciman. the walls of subway. used to be alllllll the cool newspaper articles from forever ago depicting anything referring to the use of a subway. now it's just bland yellow stale plodding drudgery. what gives? do you think it is a markedly dated amenity like the glass bricks or the flowered trim and companies want to give the impression of a hospital room or do you think there was a lawsuit somewhere where some lameass paper decided their paper needed money or wasn't being represented properly? because i would suspend my disbelief in either act of stupidity. i miss the newspaper theme. i'm gonna open a big ole chain that serves lambchops wrapped in glorious crispy flourfat, and the entire place is going to be decorated in newspaper that will have a 2 inch coat of protection.
a strathmore show is tomorrows, wherein andypianomaestro will play all the finger gymnastics i wrote out on the staff for him, and laura will play some rhodes and such. should be a hoot. crazy giddy pleasures for the kids.