Flashback Friday: Perfect Songs - Joga

This was originally posted on my Tumblr on August 31, 2012.

Perfect Songs - Joga

Love songs are a dime a dozen. The ones that stand out are usually the more tragic ones, as evidenced by my last two Perfect Song posts. There’s just something about happiness that makes it hard to write about without going into cheese and cliche, I guess. I think it’s because, on the surface at least, happiness is a very simple emotion, where as sadness is accompanied by anger, loss and just about everything else. In order for a positive love song to shine, it has to go beyond the happiness angle and truly explore what love means, which can be complex and intense. The first example that pops into my mind is Bjork’s Joga, a perfect song.

What is love?* It’s a feeling, it’s accidents, it’s not something you can put your finger on. What stands out most to me in this song is that it is not a series of images. The metaphors, if they even are that, are more internalized. It’s about emotional landscapes, not about blue skies and birds singing in trees. I feel like the lack of images makes the song that much more universal. As a matter of fact, Bjork wrote the song for both her best friend and about Iceland, which is a pretty strange combination to put into one song. Interestingly, what comes through is just love, in a very pure and universal sense. 

Musically, the song is orchestrated in a way that makes it feel like a series of sighs, rising and rising and washing over you. Love puts you into a beautiful state of emergency, as your adrenaline flows, thinking about the other person and how they make you feel. It’s a cliche to say it’s like a drug, but it really is. When you’re in it, this is the most important thing in the world. All else melts away, leaving only these bizarre emotional landscapes for you to puzzle over because they only make sense when you’re together. You sigh, from your soul, and get caught up in this swirl of ecstasy. It’s not a complicated song, but it is intense and somehow manages to be felt more than heard. It’s perfect.

*Baby, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me, no more.

Flashback Friday - Perfect Songs - Que Bueno Baila Usted

I originally posted this on my Tumblr on September 13, 2012. It is still true. I recently posted something on FDRMX about five concerts I'd go back in time for and Benny was one of them. I have several albums of his vinyl and am always looking for more. Check it.

Perfect Songs - Que Bueno Baila Usted

Just because I don’t dance doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the power of good dance music. It all starts with the drum and the drum starts in Africa. The drum also is part of shamanistic rituals, so the rhythms and repetitions that come through the ages can all be traced back to primal rites and trance states that would either free the body from the mind or make them one, depending on how you look at it. The point is the best dance music has to tap into this. The infusion of African rhythm into a whole host of other traditions from Spain in Cuba, resulted in a rich palette of styles, pretty much unequalled anywhere else. To my mind, the best Cuban artist of all time is Benny More, and his best track not only brings to mind all these lofty ideas, but is a perfect song.

The complexity of this arrangement is amazing. Keeping it together is the repeating horn line that goes underneath it, over it, and through it, opposing the multi-layered percussion, and foreshadowing the filtered rave synth lines and beats in songs such as Wink’s Higher State of Consciousness. The intensity builds and builds but the whole time, Benny is in charge of this impending chaos like a mad shaman controlling the spirits. This is big band Afro Cuban Jazz, not so much being born, as it is breaking through from some other plain, bringing with it hints of everything that is to come from 70’s Salsa and funk to Hip Hop bragging and shout outs to looping electronic dance music and beyond. It’s big. It’s bold. It’s perfect.

Flashback to 2010

I originally posted this on my Facebook page back in 2010. Enjoy.

Arctic Monkeys: How Two Old Farts Survived

April 2, 2010 at 9:17am

Maybe the fact that they were originally not letting any more people into the general admission pit area should have been a sign. But when the crowd of young hipsters said fuck it and rushed over the barriers after the opening band had left, we were right there with them, jumping the rail and nearly breaking a hip in the process.

Pretty quickly we were shoulder-to-shoulder, nose-to-back of head, ass-to-crotch, with all the walking bags of hormones. I'm not sure if I felt more claustrophobic or old at this point. I told Carlos not to look back at the crushing ocean of youth behind us, because he'd likely shit himself with the realization that we might die tonight.

After some back and forth with the tides of the adjusting crowd, holding our heads up so we could breathe, the band came on and thankfully opened with a slower number. Short-lived calm before the storm is all it was. Next song was mosh time and I for one, left my age on the floor. I won't deny that after a few pogo jumps, I'd have to stop, catch my breath and fight back the heart attack. But, damn it, I soldiered on. And when the young hooligans showed up and were getting a little more rowdy, I was not afraid! Well, maybe a little. Who am I kidding, I was terrified, but it was kill or be killed so I had to match their level of moshitude, which was no easy feat.

The iPhone came out sporadically and I got some decent shots, but the faster songs were impossible to capture for fear of losing my precious. By the end of the show, I left whatever vestiges of my youth I had left on that floor. I knew for a fact that I'd be sore today. What I didn't expect was to be woken up at 5am by a fucking satanic Charlie horse in my right calf that had me screaming like a little girl and Lesley laughing like one.

Imagine if it had actually been a metal show! Good thing I have the day off.