Because Everyone Should See Dead Can Dance

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Okay, this isn't quite as good as sitting under the stars with my beloveds for the concert of a lifetime but this I can post.

The KCRW copy is hilarious.

The Australian duo of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry made some of the creepiest beautiful music of the 1980s. Almost 30 years and two reunions later, the two are still at it. Watch Dead Can Dance bring its ancient ambiance to Santa Monica's Village Studios for a recording session with KCRW.

Looking through the Facebook thread, I notice that many people are very annoyed at the use of the word "creepy." The thing is... I can't agree. I read "creepiest beautiful music" and found myself nodding in agreement. Their new album is easily the most upbeat thing they've ever done. And I love it. I can play it while I'm driving and not worry about wrecking the car.

Their older stuff is indescribably dark. I love listening to it because it's like staring into the void. It strips flesh from bone. I feel that sense of awe that I imagine Rainer Maria Rilke felt when he encountered his angelic muse at Duino Castle.

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me
suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed
in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to
endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.

That's what it feels like to listen to Lisa Gerrard's piercing tones -- not words and yet we understand them. We somehow know what she is saying: the language of the birds.

No one can tell me that this is not a little creepy... or, at the very least, chilling:

Or this:

I think there's a reason Patton Oswalt specifically referenced This Mortal Coil's It'll End in Tears in his KFC's Famous Bowls bit.

Okay, stop right there. Can you pile all of those items into a single bowl, just kinda make 'em into a wet mound of starch that I can eat with a spoon like I'm a death row prisoner on suicide watch? Could I just have that instead?

"Um, yes, we can do that? We can also arrange those on a plate like you're an adult with dignity and self-respect. You don't have to actually eat your food out of a single bowl."

Fuck that, I'm done, I don't give a shit. Just pile all those things in a bowl. Is there a way that the bowl can play This Mortal Coil's "It'll End In Tears" album while I'm eating it at 2 in the morning in my darkened apartment, just kinda staring into the middle distance?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that reason is best summed up by this:

Patton Oswalt has a history of depression. Perhaps listening to a lot of Lisa Gerrard isn't the best plan in his case. But I love her. Not in spite of the penetrating darkness of her music but because of it. It's like going home.

Dead Can Dance Live -- Photo: Mixelle

Lisa Gerrard Live -- Photo: Mixelle

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Rest in Peace, Ravi Shankar... And Thank-you

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

“It is utter joy, uninhibited, that an artist experiences. The raga, the musician, the listeners, all become one.” ~ Ravi Shankar

I awoke this morning to the very sad news of Ravi Shankar's passing. I grew up listening to Shankar. And to the Beatles whose interest in his music introduced him to a much larger audience than he might otherwise have known. In my mother's massive record collection was the album Live at Monterey. Over the years, I practically wore the grooves off of it. Shankar taught me an entirely new way to experience music -- as deep meditation. I would come home from school, some days, and drift through time and space as I listened to Bhimpalasi, "one of the most beautiful raga of the late afternoon."

This was Shankar's incredible gift. He was able to school the West on the consciousness shifting capacity of music.

With an instrument perplexing to most Westerners, Ravi Shankar helped connect the world through music. The sitar virtuoso hobnobbed with the Beatles, became a hippie musical icon and spearheaded the first rock benefit concert as he introduced traditional Indian ragas to Western audiences over nearly a century.

. . .

Labeled "the godfather of world music" by [George] Harrison, Shankar helped millions of classical, jazz and rock lovers discover the centuries-old traditions of Indian music.

"He was legend of legends," Shivkumar Sharma, a noted santoor player who performed with Shankar, told Indian media. "Indian classical was not at all known in the Western world. He was the musician who had that training … the ability to communicate with the Western audience."

I could probably go on at some length about the man, his genius, and the incredible gift to the world that is his body of work, but compared to the incredible tapestry of sound he created, words fail.

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George Harrison's Quiet Legacy

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

George Harrison: Living in the Material World

"Who's George Harrison?" my daughter asked me this morning.

"Oh, that's easy," I answered. "My favorite Beatle."

"What's a Beatle?" Obviously, this conversation went on for a bit. How and why did it start? My daughter, being far more visual than I, had apparently noticed something on the news crawl that I hadn't.

I'm going to assume that what piqued her interest was coverage of a Scorcese documentary on the life of George Harrison that just released on DVD. At least that's what topped my news search. So now, of course, I will have to see that.

When I was my daughter's age, 10, I had a very solid grounding in The Beatles. It was an education that had started when I was much younger. When I was 3 and 4, Magical Mystery Tour was my favorite album and I played it over and over on my little record player. Now, if you'd asked me at 10 who my favorite Beatle was, I would have said Paul -- the cute one. But with age and wisdom has come a deeper appreciation for George -- the thinky one.



George Harrison is the Beatle to whom I can most easily relate. In part because of his well-known spiritual quest, which led him, amongst other things, to learn sitar and to study with the deeply sublime Ravi Shankar.

But also because -- and this is a less well-known aspect of his personality -- he would apparently do anything for a laugh. Anyone who knows me well knows of the depths I will sink to to crack myself up.

I only lately learned of Harrison's long relationship with members of Monty Python and his involvement with Rutland Weekend Television -- the show that was the genesis of the brilliantly funny Beatles parody The Rutles: All You Need is Cash. His appearance on the BBC series shows what an incredible sense of humor Harrison had about himself.

One of the revelations in Scorcese's documentary -- at least it was news to me -- is that Harrison mortgaged his house to help finance Monty Python's Life of Brian. Risky move, although I'm assuming it ultimately paid off. It was very controversial.

The film contains themes of religious satire that were controversial at the time of its release, drawing accusations of blasphemy and protests from some religious groups. Thirty-nine local authorities in the UK either imposed an outright ban, or imposed an X (18 years) certificate (effectively preventing the film from being shown, as the distributors said the film could not be shown unless it was unedited and carried the original AA (14) certificate). Some countries, including Ireland and Norway, banned its showing, with a few of these bans lasting decades. The film makers used such notoriety to benefit their marketing campaign, with posters stating "So funny it was banned in Norway!".

The film was a box-office success, grossing fourth-highest of any film in the UK in 1979 and highest of any British film in the United States that year. It has remained popular since then, receiving positive reviews and being named "greatest comedy film of all time" by several magazines and television networks. The film is the first Monty Python film to receive an R rating[3] in the United States.

Life of Brian is one of my all-time favorite movies but it was definitely provocative, raising hard questions about the origins of Christianity and about the nature of religion itself. One of the more insightful sequences demonstrates the sheeple effect when the growing mobs of Brian's followers remove a sandal simply because he's lost one. George Harrison was clearly one who was looking for a deeper experience of the divine than can be achieved by accepting dogmatic, rote teaching at face value.

I think the cultural legacy left by George Harrison is only beginning to be understood and appreciated. He was the "quiet" Beatle, seemingly content to live in the shadow of the power dyad that was Lennon and McCartney. But his was also a contemplative quiet. He explored the inner space and embraced the mysteries. It was evident in his music -- a surprising blend of pop sensibility and meditative resonance. His influence on both the Beatles and the culture was subtle but pervasive. But by following his own passions he helped to shape the psychedelic revolution and the proliferation of Eastern thought in the West. He may well have been the most complex of the fab four. The Beatles were a marvelous synergy and none of them approached as solo artists the same kind of musical alchemy. So it's hard to say how much his vision shaped their sound. But he deserves ample credit for their transformation from pop musicians to weavers of unforgettable sound tapestries.

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