Tag: Music

Roominations – The Story of Nashville

On June 19, 2014

I went to see a showing of the film For the Love of Music: The Story of Nashville. Upon arriving we were all handed a ham biscuit. Which was a great treat for getting up for a 10:30am showing.

There was a Q&A Session with musicians Brett James and Amy Stroup hosted by Butch Spyron who also created the film. It was interesting to get a bit of insight into the film and the parts which weren’t included.

After watching it, I want to move to Nashville. So it must have worked! There were two lines I wrote down because they stood out to me.

My style’s a product of my limitation. – EmmyLou Harris

So true of any creative activity. We’re all products of our own limitations.

“I think genres are dead.” There’s good music. There’s bad music. And I think the cool thing about Nashville is it is at the epicenter of that kind of thinking. I’m a country music artist in Nashville, but Nashville is way, way, way bigger than country music.” – Eric Church

I would not normally have gone to this film, but one of the people I went to Bonnaroo with loves country music and used to live in Nashville so we all decided to go. An air-conditioned movie tent was an appealing start to a long, hot concert-going day. I am really glad I went.

I want to move to Nashville now. There’s so much music being made everywhere in the city, it seems like a magical place. Like Los Angeles for movies, Nashville is where music comes from.

When we first got into Nashville, we stopped for a gas, restroom, drink break. Going into the restroom, I was in there with a guy on his cell phone.

Overhearing the conversation, he was talking about recording vocals track and mixing down audio. I joked to my wife, we hadn’t been in Nashville even an hour and I’d already run into someone working in the music business.

The town seems to have music in its soul. If you enjoy tapping a toe, bobbing your head or getting up and dancing to a tune, For the Love of Music: The Story of Nashville is worth your time.

I’m not very musical but it made me want to dust off my vocals chords and try to learn an instrument. Then of course move to Nashville.

‘Roominations is a series of posts that came from my trip to Bonnaroo 2014. Four nomadic musical days in Tennessee where I was up before 9am and awake until 4am with random naps in between.

Bonnaroo 2014

By Carl

On June 18, 2014

In Observations

Today is Tuesday.

I sit at my desk.
I delete email.
I reply to a few.
I turn my fan on.
It’s hot in the office.
It’s always hot in the office.

I feel the exhaustion.
The weariness in my bones.
My eyes sag. My head bobs.

Everything is so fast.
The Internet is talking about a millions things at once.
Iraq. Soccer. Technology. TV. Movies. Comic books.
Who said what terrible thing and why I should hate something else.

Today is Tuesday.
Monday I was in a car for 12 hours.
Last Wednesday night into Thursday morning was the same.
Driving/riding/sleeping towards Tennessee for Bonnaroo.

Starting Thursday afternoon with The Preatures and ending Monday night with Elton John, I was a nomad.

After arriving at Bonnaroo, getting assigned to our patch of grass, erecting our tent (home for the next four days), it was time for music.

There were four of us. Myself, my wife, her sister and her husband. We setup and headed out to Centeroo. Where the music began.

Over the course of the weekend I saw all or some of the following bands.

Thursday
– The Preatures
– The Wild Feathers
– Foreign Fields

Friday
– Greensky Bluegrass
– Sam Smith
– Andrew Bird & The Hands of Glory
– The Head and the Heart
– Neutral Milk Hotel
– Kanye West
– Skrillex
– Die Antwoord

Saturday
– Seasick Steve
– Cake
– Drive-By Truckers
– Damon Albarn
– Lionel Richie
– Ms. Lauryn Hill
– Jack White
– Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
– Frank Ocean
– The Glitch Mob

Sunday
– Caroline Chocolate Drops
– Sarah Jarosz
– City and Colour
– The Avett Brothers
– Amos Lee
– The Bluegrass Situation Superjam
– Elton John

It was awesome! I had never heard of much of the music at the festival this year. But after having gone, I didn’t need to. My wife had her list of must-sees. I had my couple (unfortunately, most of them starting after 1am!) Her sister and husband had their lists.

So we stuck together as a foursome most of the weekend, roaming from stage to tent to food and back again. It was wonderful to be exposed to so much great music played live.

Not bad for having a list consisting of The Glitch Mob, Skrillex, Die Antwoord and a few others I didn’t make it to. Unfortunately, many of the bands we wanted to see played in the same time slot. At one point there were four bands playing offset by 15 minutes.

It was a wonderful experience. My first festival and I am glad I started in my 30s. Because older, wiser Carl has a smart well-prepared wife who did a ton of research. She scoured forums for tips and advice about what to bring and what not to.

We packed for everything from sweltering heat (which we melted under by day) to cold (hello night-time!) and even rain. We drove through torrential downpours but we weren’t ever threatened by more than a light sprinkle. But we were ready.

I would absolutely go again, but I’d want there to be more bands I really wanted to see play. It’s expensive for sure, and we spent another couple hundred dollars in gas driving the 1500 miles roundtrip.

But it was a blast. I returned home exhausted but happy. Not sunburned or overheated. Tired and happy to be back in my bed. With a list of new music to check out.

‘Roominations is a series of posts that came from my trip to Bonnaroo 2014. Four nomadic musical days in Tennessee where I was up before 9am and awake until 4am with random naps in between.

Dreamland

By Carl

On May 6, 2011

In Introspection

While reading Patrick Rhone’s excellent piece Listen to What You Love I took his advice to heart and adopted his playlists. In addition to Merlin Mann’s lists Revenge of the Smart Playlist and Music Only. In the process I rediscovered Robert Miles and his Dreamland album.

This album has always held a special place in my heart. It has not one but two version of Children. The 6:19 original and 7:05 minute Dream Version are both excellent. I was first introduced to Robert Miles by the first girl I ever dated. She had a tape of the Children single which I immediately fell in love with.

After hearing and falling deeply for the song, I went out to find the rest of his work. I picked up the Dreamland album and the follow-up 23am.

Robert Miles weaves a deep tapestry of “dream trance” that could easily be the whimsical soundtrack to my dreams and thoughts. The music far out lasted the relationship. Though, I had forgotten about the man and his moving, atmospheric soundtracks until today.

I fell into the world of Robert Miles and trance around the same time my interest in writing, specifically poetry was blossoming. It was also around this time a friend and I formed a band. It was an outlet more for my writing and singing than anything else as I lack any form of instrumental musical talent.

In the early days of my writing I would often use an instrumental piece as inspiration and a framework for what I wrote. This is the case with Children and Fable.

I penned a long, rambling, metaphor-riddled poem called Hip green valley censorship. (I have no idea where I got the name for it.)

Hip green valley censorship

Tell me a fable about a time when we were young
Tell me about all the battles in your mind we won
Because I sit here and my brain is working so hard
Trying to find a reason to keep going on
I see you trembling in the rain
I see the tear drops fall upon your page of pain
Poetical Girl locked in a TV world
I don’t know if I will ever make things the same
Poetical girl locked writing in the rain
Sitting out by the town fountain
As I look down from the mountain
As I sit silent serene
All of the raindrops fall upon the valley green
With jealousy they all want to be me
But I’ll never want to be them
They had you locked up in their boxes
They don’t even remember their names
All the girls all the boys are anything at all
They’re all too watered down
I’ve got some reason to come down for you
As I come down to the valley one day
I find a reason to stay
You were just a poetry girl
Writing in a TV world
Internet running through your head
I can’t believe that you’re not dead
You thought about it every night
Thought about how it would be so nice
To take the gun out back
Put the gun up to your head
Written letter explaining you’re dead

And now they wonder why
They never saw the tears you would cry
Never find the notebooks
Never find all the pained looks
They’ll never see all your pages written in agony
As you sit there in the rain
Rain Fountain Serene Mountain
I don’t know what is real
Poetry girl TV world
I just want to feel
I don’t know I don’t care I need your feelings
Plastic Mechanical Animals Everywhere
I know you need me silent serene
As you walk through the village screaming
Silent crowd Screaming crowd
Tanks patrol your thoughts now
Censorship Everyone’s hip Try to be a pretty one
I don’t know if you’d be free
Sitting up on the mountain with me
Sitting on the mountain in the rain
Better than being screaming in pain
I don’t know I think that I’m insane
I looked down into the valley one day
I saw the procession running away
I saw the place where you’d stay
Rest in Peace Poetry Girl Rest in Peace from all the world
Rest in Pieces Poetry Girl from that ferocious world
Now you’re safe in the ground today
They’ll never miss you
They’ll never need you
They’ll never realize
Who you were
What you are
What you wrote and how it justified your actions
But they never found the book
Never seen honor the dream
On the mountain where I sit silent serene
Tank patrolling silent dreaming crowd
Everyone knows that they’re dead down there
Running around with no head
Running around like they’re dead
Everyone knows that I’m insane
I sit there screaming in the rain

Music is and always has been the backdrop to my life. It has gotten me through the good times and the bad. It has been my only friend and my accomplice to artistic works. I have leaned on it when I needed the boost or to mask my emotions.

Music has shaped much of who I am today. Looking back through my collected discs, downloads, and scrobbles speaks volumes about my mood and mental state through different parts of my life.

I deeply identify with certain albums based on where I was and what was happening.

Papa Roach’s Infest will always be the soundtrack to my first stepfather’s death.

Wumpscut’s Die in Winter was the backdrop to my grandmother’s passing.

TLC’s CrazySexyCool was the trip to Arizona.

The Offspring’s Ignition will always be my first foray into my own musical choices.

Presidents of the United States of America’s Self-titled album goes together with The Offspring as they were sides A and B to a cassette tape a high school friend made me for a long bus ride on a field trip.

Nine Inch Nails will always be the backdrop to my life. I took to Trent Reznor’s music and have never let go. The beauty in the pain and the release in the anger. His vicious screams that melt away into the sweetest of melodic journeys. NIN will always be part of my musical genome and my life.

Marilyn Manson was revolution and rebellious teen years and the quest to look deeper and find meaning behind shock.

Robert Miles is love and artistry and emotion.

Third Eye Blind, Smashmouth and FAT will always be my first concert.

Saul Williams is poetry and intelligence wrapped in ferocity and power.

Godhead was the first (and only) CD released show I’ve ever seen and the only band I’ve been a street team member for.

Matchbox Twenty managed to weave themselves into my life in ways I never understood until years later. While attending a show with my then-girlfriend my wife was also there, though we had no idea our paths would cross again.

The Start of Something Good

By Carl

On February 9, 2011

In Observations

Art Versus Industry. They made me excited about music again.

After being turned on to them by an online friend, and all around good person, Alex Morse who incidentally does their video and photo work, I’m hooked. They make me remember a time of Stabbing Westward and Nine Inch Nails, from The Fragile era. The darkness and melodic noise make me smile. They put me into that happy place where the warm synth washes around me and makes me happy all over. There’s something about the “darker” music that makes me happier than any bubble gum pop song.

I love the melodies and harmonies woven into the drum beats, guitar riffs and droning oceans of noise. It’s like Nine Inch Nails’ A Warm Place which is one of my favorite songs of all time. The safety and happiness in those notes are the security blanket for the 21st Century. The warm hum of sound and emotion cradles me and tell me everything will be all right. And most of all, it makes me feel just a little less alone and alien.

I remember listening to Nine Inch Nails growing up and really feeling like someone understood me and the pain I was feeling. I was going through the divorce of my parents. I was an artist in a world of farmers and hunters. I was a huge guy towering well over six feet tall which makes me stand out no matter where I went. I was a huge dude who had his own ideas about art and style and comfort and expression. I was a freak and I let that flag fly freely.

But I also hurt. I had a lot of nights of depression and anger and sadness and loneliness. I’d talk for hours to friends online or the phone. We’d talk about a lot of things. Sometimes it was my metaphorically talking them off a ledge sometimes the other way around. It was always two worlds growing up. The world of insiders, the Berryville natives. The families who had seemingly been there since the founding by Benjamin Berry centuries ago. Then there were us outsiders. Anyone who had moved to the area for one reason or another. To escape the poor school systems, violence, and congestion of Washington DC in the case of my parents.

I never felt like I fit in. I’ve always felt very alien wherever I was. I never felt like I saw the world like other people did. I never felt like what worked for others worked for me. How did they get through life so effortlessly? How did things seem to be so easy for them and work out so well? How did they show that cool exterior? Weren’t they a bubbling inferno just beneath the skin? I sure was.

I don’t know how “normal” people got through life. Did they have the same crippling, self-doubt and question their own intelligence and abilities? Was that a trait of an artist?

I’ve always been very empathetic. I feel what other people feel. I read people. I get inside their heads to the pain there. Growing up I had a lot of friends that shared a lot of the pain I did and in some cases had things must worse. I wanted to be there for them. I wanted to help them the best I could. I often wonder how things turned out for them…

I was always the guy my friends would turn to for help. I was a little older, a little wiser and had my head on pretty straight. I was also much to good to do anything truly wrong. Sure I bent a few rules growing up and I paid for it. But I’ve never done anything illegal or been arrested. I didn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, or attend the wild parties I knew went on in and around school on farms on the weekends. That just wasn’t me.

I was, and still am a devout introvert.

I keep to myself. I prefer the company of computers to people. I prefer the quiet, pre-dawn hours where the world sleeps to be awake and productive.

“It’s not Introversion. Just really good spam filtering.”