Oddly Moving

http://homepage.mac.com/razorbern/skate/iMovieTheater22.html

My friend Bernie made this skate video back in the day. I found myself strangely affected by it. I think there's a blog in here somewhere but I couldn't wait to post it so y'all can enjoy it right away.

K

I first got interested in Sanskrit when I was studying German. English and German both belong to the larger family of languages called Indo-European, sharing common roots in or with Sanskrit. I was really excited to find this out and even signed up for Urdu at one point.

Reading Rainer Maria Rilke's passionate and mystical Duino Elegies eventually led me to Rumi and Hafiz and other Sufi poets. Then I spent ten years in a band, devoted myself entirely to music, and the connection mostly languished until in January I stumbled onto a book by Inayat Khan, a Sufi musician and thinker who taught in the early 20th century.

Khan uses music as the basis for a whole cosmoglogy. And he refuses any dichotomy between material and intelligence, saying that spirit and matter are grosser or finer expressions of the same stuff--sound. Having been raised a deist and then spent my 20's as a philosophical materialist , I was fascinated to find a cosmology that didn't assume an unspannable gap between the two. And as a musician I already believed that music is capable of anything and at the center of everything anyway.

I mull over stuff like this in the background of my head most of the day. But there aren't often times when it seems appropriate to break it down with people. Most of the time I try to live out my questions and act on my hunches instead. Lately more so, that's definitely the case.

It all burbled up in that last post. I haven't fallen off the deep end. I was just kissing my own reflection on the water like Narcissus!--a little too in love with the sound of my own voice. Thus the quirky sudden Sanskrit/Hebrew/chant-y sign-off at the end of that blog post. Never fear, dear reader! For today we close quite simply

Cheers!
or just plain love
K
ps cousin Ashley just reminded me Siddhartha was the first book I ever read in German. heh

My completely incredible sister Jennifer is running a marathon in the Redwoods of California in September to mark her 30th birthday. In support of our work as peacemakers she has decided to raise money through her run for the Rebulding Alliance, which rebuilds homes in regions of war and occupation.

Spend five minutes with her blog "The Good Long Road," and then give five dollars in support of her work. You can take a couple of nice walks instead of riding the bus and donate the money you saved while enjoying your neighborhood.

www.jennifischer.blogspot.com

Until July 27th there are matching funds being donated for every gift.

Jenni taught me that peace exists in the Middle East even now - in the silence amidst the clamor, in the space in between the lines, and in the dark that follows every frame. When I quiet down and close my eyes, I hear it reverberating. It sounds like Om, Ah Um, I Am, Amen.

I've been recording an amazing banjo player named Andrew Vladeck. One part of our mission has been to further refine his signature amplified banjo sound. To this end I built a terrific fuzz pedal based on the Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face made famous by Jimi Hendrix. The Fuzz Face was a two-knob design (fuzz and output volume). Mine has four--those two and add'l knobs for "subtle" and "battery." The first allows you to indicate the degree of mellowness vs. harshness in the fuzz tone, the second allows you to make the battery starve or force feed the transistors in the pedal in order to further tweak the sound. It fairly versatile and definitely musical and lovely-sounding.

I boxed it in an enclosure I bought in Akihabara, in Tokyo, when Rainer Maria was touring in Japan. The red knobs you see were purchased there as well. The gold one is from my Waterstone tele-style guitar, I pulled them off and replaced them with gold Gibson knobs that had numbers on them bc that's my preference, damn you! Lastly the text is applied with stick-on letters from the art store over on Court Street. I love those things. Long live Helvetica, I guess . . .

Naming a pedal is always the best part of building. This one I named "The Kingdom" because my roommate Pascal and I just finished watching Lars von Trier's Twin Peaks-like TV miniseries of the same name. It's really good, y'all should check it out. Not for the easy-queasy though. At one point you see a woman give birth to creepy German actor Udo Kier (you may remember him as the creepy German trick who dances with a lamp in My Own Private Idaho. Then again that scene may not have resonated with all of you the way it did for me). Anyway it was super grody. But nonetheless a really interesting piece of television, filmed in accordance with those Dogma guidelines as far as I can tell.

Soon as I get something recorded with this thing I'll see if I can't post a clip.
cheers y'all -k

I love this song

http://profile.myspace.com/newbuffalomusic

My cousin Ashley and some of my other myspace friends sometimes post these questionnaires up on the Bulletin Board. I've become sort of fascinated with them so I thought I would fill one out for my blog.

W H O . W A S . T H E . L A S T . P E R S O N

1. You hung out with? Andrew Vladeck, banjo player, songwriter extraordinaire. We start in recording his album January 17th.

2. Rode in a car with? An unlicensed cab driver ("ghost cab") from Broadway and Houston in Manhattan to my apartment in Brooklyn. We drove for several minutes before we settled on the rate. It was the sketchiest New York experience I've had in awhile.

3. Went to the movies with? My girlfriend Lara - "Little Children." Solid. I could recommend it.

4. Went to the mall with? I can't remember the last time I went to the Mall, gratefully.

5. You talked on the phone to? Kevin. He'll be here in about 45 minutes.

6. Made you laugh? Chris Buckridge. I worked with him at the Fall Cafe this morning.

7. You told and/or they told you they loved you? My mom (on the phone).

8. To hug you? My next door neighbor Abbot.

9. To text you? Jess. She's leaving town and didn't get to say goodbye. "Good to see you!"

10. To IM you? Andrew. We were testing out iChat AV on his new Intel Mac. Nerd out! 36 hours to MacWorld, dude!


W O U L D . Y O U . R A T H E R.

1. Pierce your nose or tongue?: Had my tongue pierced once. Remember "Modern Primitives?" Those were the days . . .

2. Be serious or be funny?: Serious character, funny persona.

3. Drink whole or skim milk?: Soy. Unsweetened. But whole, if you insist.

4. Die in a fire or get shot?: Shot. I don't wanna melt like some Nazi on Raiders of the Lost Ark.

5. Spend time with your parents or enemies?: One and the same! Just kidding, mom. Bite me, dad! Just kidding, dad.

A N S W E R . T R U T H F U L L Y.

1. Do you like anyone? Far fewer people than you suspect.

2. Sun or moon? Sun.

3. Winter or Fall? Fall. Although there's little difference anymore as it was 71 degrees in Brooklyn yesterday.

4. Left or right? Left. Be back soon though.

5. 10 acquaintances or two best friends? Two best friends, if they live close enough.

6. Sunny or rainy? Sunny, scattered thundershowers.


A B O U T . Y O U.

1. Gender? Manly.

2. First Name? Thomas.

3. Where do you wanna live? In an incredible wood-floored multi-level combination home and studio (with at least two acoustically isolated studio suites) in a real nice area of Brooklyn. Or Berlin. Pref. one in each.

4. How many kids do you want? None. Max. one, if there was some sort of mishap.

5. Do you want to get married? I'm not above it.

6. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it? OK now you're reaching.

7. Favorite ice cream? Probably still chocolate chip cookie dough. Eat the ice cream out first, then binge all the cookie dough at the end after it's softened just a little.

8. How many kinds of cereal are in your cabinet? Zero.

9. Do you cook? Just three nights ago, amazing creamy potato leek soup. And then last night my roommate made DIY salad dressing and we had spinach salad.

10. Current mood?: Stabilized.


I N . T H E . L A S T . 4 8 . H O U R S . H A V E . Y O U.

1. Kissed someone? No. My girlfriend is in India.

2. Sang? Yes. Andrew and I were doing a microphone shootout and I was hollering in the background of his song snippet.

3. Been hugged? Yes.

4. Felt stupid? Yes. Opening the Fall Cafe always makes me feel special because my short term memory is so poor. "Soy? Skim. Medium? Right small. Large. OK. Mocha? Vanilla. OK, um . . . was there a food order with this?"

5. Drank alcohol? No.

6. Danced like crazy? I so wish.

7. Made up a new word? There are so many good ones already.

8. Gotten your hair cut? That was 72 hours ago.

9. Cried? No.

10. Lied? Baby I would never lie to you.

S T U F F .

1. Have you ever been searched by the cops? Canadian border patrol. I had to pee so bad as we were approaching the border and our driver was like, "Just hang on, we'll be right across." They selected us for random (i.e. "you all look like a bunch of drug users") search and wouldn't let us go to the bathroom until they were done. Had to wait an hour. I thought I was going to drown.

2. Do you have a dog? No.

3. When's the last time you've been sledding? With Pascal and Caithlin in Connecticut, winter '99-'00. SO fun.

4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone? Someone else, of course.

5. Do you believe in ghosts? I never did before.

6. Do you consider yourself creative? Yes.

7. Who did you copy this from? My cousin Ashley.

8. Who was the last person who got mad at you? Got MAD at me . . ? "Angry" is different than "unhappy with" . . . hmm might have to get back to you on that one.

Gee-tar Tabs

Our friend Mike Kinsella played second guitar with us on the first two of our band's last three shows. Preparaing for that involved writing out guitar tabs for the songs we'd be playing together. Since people sometimes have asked me how to play this song or that, I thought the notes I sent over to Mike might be of interest to some folks here. Guitar nerds, play along!

For starters you should tune your guitar to standard a half step down

Eb Ab C# F# Bb Eb

If your guitar plays funny--say, kinda out of tune--or if the strings are all flappy you could try moving up a string gauge, like .11s instead of .10s. Probably you'll be totally fine. I also use those nice Shubb capos, or the crazy new magical G-Force ones I think they're called, to keep from being pulled sharp by a capo without manual tension adjustment that's too tight. But you're as capo-savvy as me, so . . .

Note I AM GOING TO REFER TO THE CHORD POSITIONS AS IF WE WEREN'T TUNED DOWN, i.e. what they look like, not what they are. So I'm going to call the third string a "G" not an F# string. And even though what looks like a G chord is actually an F# chord when you tune it down a half-step, I'm still gonna call it a G.

Similarly, if I say for instance "3rd fret" and there's a capo involved, I mean "3 frets up from the capo."

In no particular order -

CATASTROPHE
Starts as a B power chord (I just play it as the 1 and the 5, no octave) at the 14th fret on the A string. Actually I play it at the 9th fret on the D string. Whatever.
Slides down to an octave chord at the tenth fret on the A string. We're calling that a G. These two chords alternate through the intro and the verses, until on the last one before the change, during the build, I add the 5th to that octave chord.
"Catastrophe keep us together . . . ": D and G, back and forth. Except the G looks like this
2
3
0
0
x
3
with that F# hanging around up top until the last time through when it resolves to a Gsus5 chord
3
3
0
0
x
3
which is a chord I play in like every song and so will refer to again and again.
"I've got a plan": "A" power chord and Gsus5 chord, back and forth. Notice just before the big part of the song this section is twice as long.
"At the end . . . of the world . . . ": D chord where the F# up top pulls off to become an E, and then that dimish-y G chord up, similarly pulling the top F# away to become an E. Before the transition back to the verse I always do a little left-hand-mute percussion on beats 3 and 4 a la Fugazi.

ALREADY LOST
It's fine on this one to just focus on the choruses, which is a Gsus5 then D then C, with the top portion of the chord holding steady. Gsus5 we saw above. D looks like this
3
3
2
0
x
x
and C looks like this
3
3
0
x
2
x
I think you call those those D/G and C/G. We're going to see them a lot too.
Every other time through the chorus when Caithlin does the little descending line I do it too, keep the top part of that chord in place and walk down bottom: C B A F# G.
You're welcome to try to learn the verses or to improvise another part for it if you like. The two basic chords are
0
0
5
5
0
x
and then
0
0
5
5
3
x
It might be good to just play those chords and let them ring as we come out of the 2nd verse. The transition part is Gsus5 and the C form above, except the E string is mostly open on both.

ARTIFICIAL LIGHT
capo 2nd
Opening chord--"No one defies"--is Csus5
3
1
0
x
3
x
then let go your index finger
3
0
0
x
3
x
then kind of an A minor
3
0
x
2
0
x
and finally a G, which in this case I play like this
3
0
0
0
x
x
but you can play any way you like.
"Simultaneous sitting": Csus5, walk that A string down one fret from C to B and hold tight up top, then that A minor chord above, then back to the B.
"Why is this technology . . ?" Csus5, climb to open D string and hold the top, fret 2nd fret or D and hold the top, back down to D.
"If I could just breathe" is the normal verse descending bit again, with that little twinkly riff up top. You're welcome to just frame the chords or play it with me, it's just 5-3-1 on that C chord, starting at the third fret or the E string.
"Always breathe back in." You could sit out the first half of this if you want, but should definitely be in for the back half when it picks up. The chords are like this:
3
1
2
x
3
x
(kinda of a C kinda of an F), then Csus5, then A minor with the 3rd fret on E string fretted, then G with 1st fret on B string added (call that G/C?), and back up again. Until the last time through the last chord is the same as the 2nd chord of the verse
3
1
0
x
2
x
to set up the tension for that resolve to C.

LIFE OF LEISURE
capo 3rd
I might have you play along on the verses, or it might be really cool for you to play a big E minor chord and let it hold over 'til halfway through. Then put your left hand across the strings to mute them all (don't press down too much) and use your middle finger on the low E string so when you strum across them all you get a harmonic at the 12th fret [relative to the capo, i.e. first dot at the top of the neck] and everything else just goes chuck-a-chuck. This is the whole verse except when I take my hand off the top strings to make more noise at transition points (like after 4 bars at the upbeat of 4), etc.
Transition to chorus is regular old G chord, then low E string moves down 1 fret to F# while B string is fretted at 3rd fret (optional).
"When will it all fall through . . .": Gsus5, D/G, E minor with top two strings still fretted as with previous chords (you can play this with the low E string or with just the top 4 strings, whichever you like), then C/G.
"On and off": the chord shapes turn into big generic cowboy-chord G, C and D.
"At first you . . . " this is an F bar chord but not fretted on the high or low E. The third (G string) pulls away open, that's the movement you hear. The second chord is a C, likewise the third (in this case D string) pulls away. Then on the third time through a high G is added to both chords, third fret on the high E string. On the last time through the C chord changes to G instead, then the low string descends to an F#.
BREAK--> big E minor chord. I solo on the high E (can't hear it very well on the recording). Welcome to make something up here or else just follow along with 8th notes on the high E. Coming out there are descending 12th fret (relative to the capo) harmonics, E B G - E B G - E B G - E B G and triplet palm mutes out.

ATLANTIC
tune high E string down to C#. Or don't and just ignore and mute that string.
The opening riff/chorus part is a Csus5 (D string is muted) chord that slides around, with the high E (now a C#) ringing out as a drone. It starts at the 10th fret (use pinky to move B string up two frets for opening riff), slides to 5th fret and then 2nd (B string open). Wait out intro and come in with the rest of the band.
Verse "Oh beautiful": C chord. Don't strum high E string. Then right away strum again but with B string open, plus the high C#.
Short break in verse after singing. Strum C chord but leave out low C (it's kind of an A minor at the same time, so . . . ) and with the B string frettted at the 3rd fret. Pulls away to open B, then strums at first fret (C), open to B quick and fretted again at 3rd. Way easier than it looks written down.
When the guitar opens up and drops out as we swing into the end part, and bass takes over, I just take my hand off and let it float for those four bars. Then it's a C chord, but all the action is on the B string. All pull-aways/hammer-ons: D C B C B C D C B C B C D C B C . . . repeat. You could maybe play this sometimes and goof around part of the time. When it kicks in it's Csus5, but the B string goes B C B C B C B C B C over and over til the drums double up and then that tricky riff above plays over the chord for the second half. Back and forth. Ends on Csus5.

THERE WILL BE NO NIGHT
I didn't send you a copy of this but I can
Basically in A (G# that is). I tune all crazy for it. Basically an open G# drone with movement underneath on the A string - 9th fret, 7th, 5th. Some harmonics, chords at end. Very simple. If you have time you can make something up. We're going to play the Atlantic EP in its entirety and in order.

CT CATHOLIC
capo 1st. This one is going to be so cool.
Intro and "Maybe now . . .": C4 shape at 11th fret, turning into a regular ol' C.
"Hottest summer ever": Gsus5, guess what--hold that top in place!--E minor, D, C. Then when it gets quiet, same progression but in normal cowboy-chord form.
The progression for the build is Gsus5, Em, D/G, and then "need any words" is a big regular C, then bigger D which I've started just letting ring out because it sounds more crazy. The explosion part is the same as the normal ig part, but the D and C are flipped--very important--so it's Gsus5, Em, C/G, D/G. You could keep chording through there while I play my dumb solo, or whatever. Same build at end.

SOUL SINGER
The entire verse is basically a big E drone:
0
0
9
9
7
0
all the way through, until that chord shape descends to the 4th and then 2nd fret. The top strings ring out all the way through. Mute the low E when the shape moves, or fret on the E string in the same place, whichever.
When it climbs it goes to the 12th fret, and then the top octave part (G string) drops down one fret to become what I think is called a sus7. It holds on the sus7 when it opens up. If you want to play that diddly stuff at the end or something like it, be my guest. It's just 13th, 14th, 15th, 13th over and over, basically.

HELL AND HIGH WATER
tune high E string down to C#, drones through whole song really
This one is a slightly more complicated. Don't kill yourself if it doesn't come quick.
Starts on Csus5 with B string open, adds one fret to C, then D. Open again, repeat until last time through climbs on B string to 5th fret and back down to 3rd.
"I've seen the girl . . . ": Csus5 form at 5th fret, B string opens up. Back down to intro riff, back up.
Transition to chorus riff slides just B string w/drones to 5fret, then 8th. Chorus: Csus5 at 10th fret, pinky frets up 2 on B string, slides in that shape down to 5 then to a normal Csus5, then Am, then G (with high E fretted up 2 frets extra to compensate for tuning), finally Fsus2 thing (might say C4), looks like this:
0
1
0
3
x
x
End thing enters on upbeat of 4, it's the Fsus2 (aka C4) to C to G (with E string up two frets).

MYSTERY AND MISERY
I'm going to have you do this in the cleaner, inverted 2nd guitar form from the record.
Opens with a Gsus5, but mute the B string. Add the 3rd fret on the B string on the upbeat of 1 in the second bar. The second chord is a Csus5, adding the third (2nd fret D string) at the same place I mention above.
"But now I am acquainted . . ": That Fsus2 aka C4 form from Hell and High Water
0
1
0
3
x
x
then C. Repeat all this. Right before the change it goes Fsus2 C Fsus2 G instead.
Chorus - "You've got a . . .": C without the D string, adding the 3rd fret on the E string halfway through, then Fsus2 like this
0 then 3
1
0 . . . . . and then add 2
3
x
x
"Oh, you're wicked . . . ": Am, G.
"I can something your eyes" break: G, G4 (1st fret B string), Gsus5 (3rd fret B string), back down to G4, G hammers on to G4, G, G4 to C ("aren't I?").
And repeat.

BOTTLE
This one I haven't sent over either.
Very simple. Starts as E power chord (7th fret), then octave chord
x
x
x
9
x
7
then
x
x
7
0
x
5
then
x
x
9
7
7
x
then repeats except last chord is
x
x
6-7-6
7
7
x
and finally before transition is as above but G string holds at 6th fret.
"It's like a bottle to the head": E and E4, back and forth, only on the top 4 strings--
0
0
1-2
2
x
x
Break: B power chords, A (no third), D, E.
Repeats, etc. That's the song.