On The Job: A Double Inquiry

The ideas that prompted me to start this blog came all at once; surely they’d been bubbling under for quite sometime, but all in a chain, instances and ideas began to knot themselves together. In a matter of weeks, I had jotted down some beautiful moments that occurred in my life relating to or dependent upon music in one way or another. I took my scribblings and prettied them up for the internet (added hyperlinks and retrospective musings). And then I felt a lull: a sort of ‘Huh… What now?’. I became worried that I’d have nothing to write about. I really wanted to focus on moments of uncontrolled serendipity and avoid writing about a  self-indulgent scenario. I wanted to avoid posting the equivalent of ‘Last night, I put on the perfect song. It’s the best. I’m the best. I get it.’ or a similar fit of narcissism. Well, skeptics beware, I’m afraid I can avoid it no longer. This post flirts with that sentiment:

Today was a beautiful, crisp, blue winter’s day. The sun shone and the air was cold enough to feel like winter, but warm enough to warrant smiles from a handful of strangers as I strolled to work this morning (for those unawares, I wait tables at a restaurant). The positive vibrations carried on through the day, into the lunch rush and swiftly followed me back home. I think everyone felt grateful for such bliss in early February.

Book Soundtracking: Coming Through Slaughter

I’ve been home sick for the last few days, reading fiendishly. Right now, I’m plowing through Herzog On Herzog which is one of three Herzog books on my ‘To Read’ stack currently. The straight interview format is perfect for my less-than-sparkling mindstate: I don’t feel well enough to dig deeply into poetry and feel like starting a new novel in this state would be akin to trying to make fists upon waking.

As a big fan of his work, having the director himself meditate on the details surrounding his films (often having to set the story straight against the plethora of myths surrounding them) make it a compelling read. It’s offered great insight into where his films come from, as well as totally changed how I see Herzog. I’ve always imagined him, at least in some part, as an artful prankster purposely playing with people’s perceptions of reality and their sense of what films should be. It turns out he is just a totally earnest individual with a strange way of perceiving the world. He comes across as entirely refined in a very specific, unique manner.

Previously, I was completely enthralled in Michael Ondaatje‘s Coming Through Slaughter (In fact, it was one of three Ondaatje books I’ve read and adored recently). Coming Through Slaughter is a re-imagining of the life of jazz legend Buddy Bolden:

Pony Rides Again

Yesterday was my first day of work after a week of repose and relaxation. My shifted ended at 3:30pm. The sky was blue and the sun was bright. On my walk home, I stopped to pick up some beets to add to a less-than-satisfying borscht I had made the night before. I was determined to make that soup a deep purple, rather than a fleshy, dark pink. Determined to make it ooze with beet sweetness, rather than subtly remind one of what beets tasted like (I made it with golden and candystripe beets, which just aren’t strong enough to make a serious borscht), I stopped at the grocery store and picked up some extras to add to it.

Purple beetroot in my fist, I arrived home. Marching up the stairs, I met my roommate, D, at the landing in our front hallway.

“I’ve come to make things right” I said triumphantly, hoisting the beets above my head.

“I’m going for a skate” said D.

“Ooh, maybe I’ll go for a skate” I replied, immediately letting slip away any resolve regarding my soup.

I left the beets laid across the kitchen table, grabbed my sunglasses and toque and headed for The Oval.

Triple Threat: Three Distincly Different Memories Connected To Arthur Russell

The first time I heard Arthur Rusell was in 2008 when Rough Trade issued the posthumous compilation Love Is Overtaking Me. B, my close friend and musical confidant of many years, was listening to the rather soft folk-rock found on the first half of the record. I teased him (as is my way) and mistook it for something akin to James Taylor. Little did I realize, Russell’s diverse musical output and humble persona would have a profound affect on the way I understand artistic identity in the coming years. Here are three distinct instances to which Arthur Russell’s songs have served as the perfect accompaniment:

The Year As It Was #4

Seeing as last year is now last year, I think this will be my final post about it. As a nice final thought on the year, I was asked to submit my favorite Canadian songs from 2011 to Southern Souls. Looking at the list, it’s leaning pretty heavy towards Halifax.

Fair enough: it’s where I live and there is so much good music coming from Halifax right now that it’s hard enough keeping up with it, let alone the rest of the country. That being said, I’m sure if I’d spent less time watching John Maus interviews, I might be more up on what was happening elsewhere in Canada.

But really, the album title We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves alone is enough to inspire a certain curiosity, non?

The Year As It Was #3

April brought my empty wallet and I back to the North End of Halifax. I moved into a dreamy home of lovely ladies. I worked my first contract job for the Halifax Jazz Festival, writing program blurbs and eating sweets from the cafe downstairs. It gave me enough money to coast through the summer unemployed (I did work a few odd jobs, including unloading a massive transport truck full of dusty, gawdy, ‘sexy’, Halloween gear into one of those heinous pop-up shops).

I spent most of my early afternoons alone, cooking myself elaborate breakfasts, listening to a lot of reggae. I took up smoking again, and would spend afternoons on my back deck drinking black tea with a cigarette , or, if I felt ambitious enough, I’d bike to the lake.

The Year As It Was #2

In late February/early March, I was passing through Toronto; watching Deadwood (the greatest television show ever made) with my pal J, swigging whiskey backstage with Makeout Videotape at CMW, visiting beautiful bookstores with A.C., spending some quality time with D (listening to the mighty Orchestre Poly-Rythmo) and telling no one it was my birthday.

The Year As It Was #1

How to understand a whole year?

Piece by piece.

If you’d like to see what albums I thought were really great this year, click here. Otherwise, stayed tuned for a smattering of short-winded posts about things that excited me this year. Firstly…

Wenders, Rilke And A Dead Fish

Last night, I went to my friend S’s to watch a film. We hadn’t spent much time together in the last month, so before we got to watching, we played catch up. As usual, this means talking as much about listening habits as it does personal life (what other form of life is there?).

We’d been corresponding via e-mail and S had expressed a concern for a stagnation in his musical interests, particularly for 2011, with year-end lists looming on the annual horizon. For him, nothing was ‘new’. Understandably; he was listening to The Fall and  This Heat when I was in tiny trousers. I sent him some links to records that I thought sounded new and exciting this year (which I’ll get to in my year-end round up) and a really enthusiastic message about Nap Eyes, a four-piece from Halifax that just put their first recordings up on Bandcamp. I’d asked S if he’d listened to them yet, but he said he hadn’t gotten around to it.

Recollections: At The Record Store

Not so long ago, I got (what was, at the time) my dream job: I was hired at a record store. I assume it’s every music geek’s dream to work at a record store. It certainly was mine from the time I paid upwards of $20 for a cassette copy of Me First And The Gimme Gimme’s Have A Ball at the Moncton Radioland in my early teens, through to when I was 17 and saw High Fidelity for the first time, and up to when I was 22 and I started working at this shop, where I scored a mint condition 7” copy of one of my all-time favorite songs when some fool sold it to me for $3.

I have so many fond memories of my two-year stint there: I met all kinds of wonderful music lovers, was hassled by plenty of downtown crazies, worked with some of the coolest people (who turned out to be geeks just like me) and even had a jam space that we all shared above the shop.

Here are some things I learned at the record store: