Feel 2

Over several years, Feel 2 is the most popular track I've placed on hearthis.at. 

If Only (Beyond Dolorem mix)

 Speck tackles the creepy side of things, in this Opera Bufa carrying opus.

Feel (I saw) remix: The Labyrinth Continues

Continuing to map the Eris Temple: at the top of the stairs from the studio/DIY performance space, where Feel was recorded, turn due left and this large front room space is what you will see, which can also be used as a performance space, and where the two Apparition Poems videos were shot, in 2010 and 2011, respectively. The window facade at the end faces out into 52nd Street. The neighborhood is a racy, or spicy one, giving the whole enterprise of the Temple a sort of rogue, maverick tinge. As you will see, turn due right from the studio and more steps lead up to a living room space, followed by a kitchen.   

P.S. Something worth saying about Acid Dropping, Mixter Riders, and the singles.

Portrait with guitar

 photograph by Mary Evelyn Harju, Clark Park, West Philadelphia, 2002

Curiosities

Feel (from the Feel (I saw) Remixes), Ode On Jazz, The Ballad of Robert Johnson, and On the Schuylkill are all featured in the manuscript-in-progress Curiosities. 

Crossroads

The Robert Johnson myth is a well-known, well-worn one. Within that familiarity, I find it amusing that between this and The Ballad of Robert Johnson, I see two spins on the same ball. The Eric Clapton who sings Crossroads is acting out a showboating, still solvent version of Robert. The famous Clapton solos which animate the song tell the same tale. Standing at the crossroads in the middle of the night, Johnson still has a way out. The hell-hounds are kept at bay somehow, and the tight curves are finessed so that his life might continue. In my Ballad, no such luck. What I am narrating is Robert at the end of his road, at which time too many lines have been crossed and there is no way out. The jury is out, and others will have to answer for us, what it is and is not worth when white artists work with black materials. But, to the extent that the two deeds are done, the two Roberts, the one still dancing and the one about to drop, form a whole about an individual, and a myth, which still has the power to startle, intrigue, and frighten those who know it. The Ballad is heavy on form; as are the Crossroads solos, if you listen to them carefully. The form of Johnson's own songs is mysterious, whether or not he made a deal with the Devil to unearth them. The whole thing feels right to me in the mid-Twenties, while, as could be taken as ominous or not, some are still dancing, finessing tight curves, some really have come to the end of their road. Peace.  

September Gurls

Abby Heller-Burnham's birthday: September 18, 1980. A Virgo and a Monkey. Now, Abby's mid-Aughts musical heritage has been well-documented. Those who need to know, know: Abby played keyboards and sang for the all-girls rock band The Bad News Bats, led by Liz McDermott. The Bats were quite popular on the East Coast for a while, and Abs managed to move in rarified company. The scandal about Abby and music is this: though a dab hand at playing rock, Abs own peccadillo was that what she actually felt most musically attached to was show tunes. Les Mis, for example. I could embed something from Les Mis, but I have my reasons for refusing to do so. I did play Big Star endlessly for Abs in the early Aughts, but her response was never that enthusiastic. What Abs would have enthusiasm for is the very marked hinge from Big Star to painting, photography, and visual art in general. The legendary Mrs. Chilton might've shown Abby very much, as one suspects some of her professors at PAFA were shown by Mrs. Chilton. Alex stands there with his guitar and serenades Ms. Heller-Burnham. And makes no mockery at all, because the seamlessness in Big Star between music and images is something that distinguishes them in a positive light. The glossy, musical theater version of Manhattan being the musical world she was most attached to, I'm glad that Abs got drawn into the rock matrix willy-nilly to strut her stuff as a rock and roll animal. It takes all the masterpieces she produced in the mid-Aughts and transcendentalizes the idea that here's an artist who went the whole nine yards to cover all bases.