Headline: Vatican Proves Itself Full Of Hypocrites (Subtitle: I read the news today, oh boy

Vatican: Beatles music better than today's songs
AP VATICAN CITY – Vatican media are praising the Beatles' musical legacy and sounding philosophical about John Lennon's boast that the British band was more popular than Jesus.

Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano recalls that Lennon's comment outraged many when he made it in 1966.

But it says in its Saturday edition that the remark can be written off now as the bragging of a young man wrestling with unexpected success.

The newspaper as well as Vatican Radio last week noted the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' "White Album
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That lil load of crap came out today....

It doesn't help the Vatican's case that so many of us were alive and listening when that first statement of popularity came tumbling out of John's mouth.

In fact, the Vatican didn't react nearly as vocally or violently as the evangelistic American South did. The Beatles probably made a mint off the records bought to just be burned. And I am certain a fair number of people then went out later trying to replace the music they had flung into "holy" fires on an ecstatical whim.

Wouldn't it be ironic to find out that the Beatles' hit # 1 with a few albums or 45s BECAUSE people had bought them to destroy or replace what had been destroyed.

And as for the statement, yes, John had a fair amount of arrogance as well as being confused a bit by the extremes of the fanatasism the band was exposed to, but he was also John Lennon. He never ever had a problem mouthing his opinion...just had a little trouble with discression. The Beatles were quite possibly bigger than any religion at the time. They might actually be looked upon as a new religion, one than people still follow to this day- I know of a few myself. There is no way I could possibly know as much as I do today about the Fab Four (or the Pre-Fab Four!) without having been the friend for more than 30 years of a Beatles fanatic.

I heard bootlegs of almost every live concert the band did, outtakes from recording sessions (in a studio in London I got to visit in 1980- no, not Abbey Road- the Decca studios where they recorded their first demos!), got to learn details about the lives of the Beatles that were never really anyone else's business, ...
And lastly on a trip to the UK that tested our friendship to the hilt, I stood at Strawberry Fields, Menlove Ave., "the roundabout where the nurse was selling poppies from a tray," ...and Crackerbox Palace gate. I stood in front of Paul's london house and walked across the street in front o Abbey Road Studios.....

If none of that means a thing to you, you are not a Beatles fanatic.

Trust me, the Vatican may be trying to be "cool" by kind of forgiving John for his forthright statement but I don't think anyone there quite understands how very much the Beatles changed the world. Recording techniques, live concert needs, songwriting approach.....the list is nearly endless. I must agree that much of the current "popular" music absolutely sucks, but I don't think for a minute that the Vatican has any business trying to "absolve" John or the other Beatles for being "confused young men." John Ono Lennon and the Beatles legacy have become "gods" of a sort, and will remain so a long as their music can reach ears.
It goes beyond rules and regulations. It goes beyond religion. It came from the heart, which is why it touched so many, and still does.

It is also why we miss John, and George, so very much. The world will be a colder place indeed, if the Beatles are allowed to fade away.

Something new!

I am JAZZ.
My nickname comes from my obsession with a music form that contains greater versatility, more demanding technique, than most other forms out there. Talent is a must, as well as pure adventurousness. I have found one of the most interesting bands I have heard in a long time quite by accident on Myspace: Local 518, out of Florida. It has been many years since someone(s) made me sit up and really notice a jazz group like these guys do.

I found them because of one of my heroes- Jaco Pastorius. Someone asked me to be a friend, who had Jaco on the top friends list (I always look for why someone is seeking me out.) To my shock, there was another Pastorius next to Jaco.I checked him out, and found Local 518, one of the two bands he plays in. David is Jaco's nephew, and apparently that family was made to play bass guitar. Most of Jaco's kids are musicians (big surprise)but frankly, Weather Report would have trouble keeping up with Local 518.

They have recently made a record deal of some kind in Japan (I'm not surprised- they resemble Kazumi Watanabe in the attack)but I am hopeful that this nation will sit up and take notice. It has been a real thorn in my side that so many innovative bands from the US can't get noticed here, but make it ig in Europe or elsewhere. My brother's band is definitely among those, until this latest CD. In the meantime, crap and pablum passed off by the industry as music gets thrown out to the public, who, knowing no better, swallow it whole.

Listen to these guys. Open your ears and mind to what talent really means. It doesn't hurt in my book that they count among their influences Miles Davis and Mr Bungle! With that wide a mix, one can't help but find something worth appreciating!

http://www.myspace.com/local518

RIP Rick Wright

Sad news indeed.

Pink Floyd member Richard Wright dies at age 65
Sept. 15, 2008, 11:47 AM EST
LONDON (AP) -- A Pink Floyd spokesman says founding member Richard Wright has died. He was 65.

Wright died Monday after a battle with cancer at his home in Britain. His family did not want to give more details about his death. The spokesman is Doug Wright, who is not related to the artist.

Richard Wright met Pink Floyd members Roger Waters and Nick Mason at college and joined their early band Sigma 6.

Sigma 6 eventually became Pink Floyd and Wright wrote and sang some of the band's key songs. He wrote "The Great Gig In The Sky" and "Us And Them" from Pink Floyd's 1973 "The Dark Side of the Moon."

He left the group in the early 1980s to form his own band but rejoined Pink Floyd for their 1987 album "A Momentary Lapse of Reason."

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Family Matters

There's been some musical stuff going on in my life lately, but I just haven't felt compelled to write, ya know? This, on the other hand, I had to share.

My step brother Dave is in Machine Head, heaviest of the heavy metal out there, as far as I am concerned. I have seen Dave play since he was 14 years old, here in San Antonio with SA Slayer, thru his time with Sacred Reich, and for the last 13 years, with MH. To my memory, this year was the first time my father- Dave's step dad- has EVER gone to see what it is Dave does, where he does it.
Mary, Dave's mom, my step mom, recently left this world, and left a big dent when she did. Her face was almost as well known in MH circles as Dave's. I even watched people on the streets recognise her, ask for autographs and to take pictures with her. I don't think though that dad will ever get quite the recognition Mary did, but at least now he knows why she came out. Dave's band mates, their crew, and the whole general bunch at the amphitheatre where they were playing this last Saturday were so cool with dad. He was very frustrated by how long it took us to get to the band's bus, but understood once he saw what it was like on the Jagermeister side of the tour
(Rockstar Mayhew tour.)

As we were leaving, dad called the whole thing a huge circus- I told him it was more like three all at once- two stages where we were, one more over the hill, and all the crew, techs, vendors, security and go-fers, the tents, the sideshows, and after a few hours, somewhere around 15000 fans.
Nuts.

It was a blast to get dad out there finally, and good for all of us to spend a little time together again. Mary WAS there, even if her body is gone. She lives in our heads and hearts, and inspires her son at every gig he plays, just like she did standing back by the sound booth every gig she could.

Birthday Wish

Happy Birthday, Robbie Robertson. Songwriter, movie score artist, sometimes actour, the everyman scholar. What a unique life you've lived. I am glad to have been privy to some of what you are.

Some Del Castillo Days

It's been a good long while since I sat down and wrote about these guys, and it's too bloody hot outside to be doing much else. On the desk in front of me are nine CDs of pictures from the Whitewater gig and about 8 or 9 rolls need to go in for developing from the gig at Sam's here in town ;ast weekend. The spirit within the band has just been so high lately it is difficult to catch in words. There is a level of happiness among the guys that is contagious. One of the reasons if Rick's pending marriage; I've hestitated writing about it, as it is no one else's business, and he himself has not chosen to annouce it. Rick is a very friendly guy off stage, but intensely private. Let me just say that I have seen these two together for about two years now, and this is a good thing for both of them. It can be a hard wait for the right one, but the near constant smile on his face these days tells me the wwait was worth it for him. Congratulations, my brother.

The first gig was at a lovely place out near Canyon Lake, north of San Antonio. I wasn't sure about the gig, but looked up the place and figured it would be worth the trip. I am really glad I went- it ended up not being quite as hot as I expected, the crowd was mostly newbies and a wide range of ages, and Melo was back! I was surprised to hear Melo was sitting in for the evening- it is apparently not a permanant thing, but Mike likes the interplay with a percussionist, and he and Melo just fit together. http://www.whitewaterrocks.com/

Whitewater has a stage area that can hold Lyle Lovett and his big band, with about 3000 capacity for the audience. DC however played the smaller stage, which was behind the "skybox" seating. It was an advantage in my book as we got more shade more quickly, making the whole event more tolerable to me. I was sorry that more people hadn't bought tickets, so the guys could play the big place, but the intimate setting ended up being a great thing. Lots of new fans by the end of the evening!

(figured nearly a year later it was time to publish this! ;p )

The Black Cab Sessions

www.blackcabsessions.com

The advent of smaller and more portable technology has given birth to a fun, wild, offbeat method of listening to new music: the Black Cab Sessions. For those who haven't been to London, the black cab is as common, or nearly so anyway, as pigeons in Trafalgar Square. Some unique thinking people in the UK have decided to do something unusual in one- record a single song by as many or as few musicians and in one case, poet, as they can stuff in the cab and still have room for driver and sound and camera person.

The result is a fascinating view not only of the music and musicians, but of London as well. Were it not that I understand where technology had to get to, I would be asking "Why didn't someone come up with this before?!"

They've become a non-profit hit on YouTube and at the above website, with performances from people like the Kooks, Spoon, and Death Cab for Cutie.

What a fun and unique perspective. Cheers, folks!

so Passes Another Legend

http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=317054>1=7702

Bo Diddley, one of the reknowned bluesmen of the world, has left us. More later, after I've had time to digest this saddening news.


sometime later:

I think I know why I haven't sat down and raved about this man's history in music.
I am tired of people dying. I remember my grandmother sitting in her home in Austin, looking about five years old, saying "All my friends are dead." Though I didn't understand then, she broke my heart in that moment. I would've given anything to take away that obvious loneliness.
Sadly now, I am starting to understand what she was talking about. I am tired of burying people, and I know as I age it will do nothing but get worse. I think what I have to try to remember is to celebrate that those people , especially to me, in the music world, got far enough out there that I got the chance to see and hear them. Their uniqueness was what has made this life so special that I should mourn a stranger so. Bo's music made him a friend, a familiar face and voice to my world.
I cannot thank him enough for all the hardship I know he faced to make that music.
I am sorry there will be no more new Bo Didley in my lifetime....but I will make SURE the next generations know about the roots of what they call their own.

Rest in Peace, Bo. I know you understand now.

I've Always Known This, Somehow.....

from www.livescience.com

Why Music Gives Us the Chills
By Corey Binns, Special to LiveScience

posted: 20 November 2006 02:30 pm ET

For a willing music audience, the art of drawing emotion from notes is classic.

Composers play with subtle, intricate changes and rates of change to try and elicit emotion. In recent studies, scientists found that people already familiar with the music are more likely to catch a chill at key moments:

When a symphony turns from loud to quiet
Upon entry of a solo voice or instrument
When two singers have contrasting voices
People covered in goose bumps also tend to be driven more by rewards, and less inclined to be thrill- and adventure-seekers, according to research conducted at the Institute for Music Physiology and Musicians’ Medicine in Hanover, Germany.

"Our results suggest that chills depend very much on our ability to interpret the music," said Oliver Grewe, a biologist and musicologist at the institute. "Music is a recreative activity. Even if it is relaxing to listen to, the listener has to recreate its meaning, the feelings it expresses. It is the listener who gives life to the emotions in music."

The researchers' latest findings are currently being reviewed for journal publication, while their previous research has been published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Music can do more than just give you goose bumps. A melody can:

Ease labor pain
Reduce the need for sedation during surgery
Evoke strong memories
Lessen depression
Listening to your favorite hits can shift your breathing pattern and speed up your heart rate.

Shivers down the spine even show up in brain scans, according to research at McGill University. As chills grow in intensity, bloodflow increases between areas of the brain associated with euphoria-inducing vices like food, sex, and drugs.

In the near future, the German research team plans to further study the central nervous system's reactions to music that gives fans the chills.

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I rarely mix my musical writing with my more esoteric beliefs, but if I have learned anything in this lifetime, it is that music is a special thing, to this planet, to this species.
Music is a form of mathematics, translated to sound. That same math rules colour- and thus hertz (vision) can become megahertz (sound). I refer the listener to a piece by Manneheim Steamroller on the album Seven. In it, the composer took the colours of the rainow, coverted each to a note, gave each note an instrument, and effectively played the rainbow. Don't tell me things are not interconnected-I know better. Crops circles translate to the diatonic scale- again: music. Who will finally play them, and what will the sound created do, to us and this world, and our horrid self-centered perception of this blue-green speck of solar dust?

It is said by the Hindus that to create the Universes, Bramha breathed out a single word- AUM. The cascade of that mighty combination of three sounds still tumbles thru the stars. We are not equipped to hear it, but we DO feel it, and react to it. It is no coincidence that the sounds made by tibetan singing bowls played well sound exactly like recordings made by NASA's Voyager probes of the vibrating rings of debris around planets in our own solar system. What further journeys await us as we reach further, both in and out of our known world.

I challenge the reader to listen with a more open ear, to all that is around her/him.
Here's a starting point.

http://neuroacoustic.com/nasa.html#Uranus

I believe in D.I.Y.

and I am lucky enough to have two bands in my world right now that exemplify why DIY should be done. For those who don't understand, DIY, to me, refers to a time in the
'80's when record companies wouldn't give a lot of people a chance, and bands learned how to go about producing their own records. It was a kind of challenge to the system back then, but now, it just makes sense. Cutting costs, not signing your life away and still managing to get your music out there requires the average group to stop looking for that huge front from a company and get on with the business of making music. and I can tell you- there are tons of amazing musicians out there, creating astounding music very much worth the true listener's time. If you are satisfied with the pablum served up by the radio and tv world, quit reading. If you yearn for something more, stop reading about it and get out there listening!

Seriously.

no one is going to hand you the truth about the good music being made- you have to get out and go listening for it.

Incidently, if you live up in the Chicago area and missed catching Buttercup recently, out on their first tour, well, kick yourself. That's one of the two amazing D.I.Y-ers I was talking about. Del Castillo is the other, for those who haven't figure that out about me yet.

What has spurred this sudden fervor of mine? New CD from Joe Reyes, one of the guys in Buttercup (among many other things.) I've sat listening to it while driving to or from work, and am just astounded with his talent. He's an introspective pop songwriter with influences as wide as Frank Sinatra and what I think could be Nine Inch Nails. He sounds like how I imagine George Harrison could've been, had he had a stronger voice. Yet there's a blues guitarist, a rockstar, and a poet, all kinda mixed in. This fellow's work is worth every effort you might take to check on it.
I am shattered that he may never be a household name, but glad at the same time, because he lets him reach a little deeper than he might if he had to write on a schedule for a corporate machine.

I dunno if Joe has this CD up for sale online anywhere yet, but listen to his EP at his myspace site and then bug the heck out of him for the full length CD. It's called "Colour and Sound", and will it will draw you in, make you misty and put a smile on your face, all at once.

thanks, Joey.

www.myspace.com/joereyesmusic

http://cdbaby.com/cd/reyesjoe2

A Change of Pace

I haven't had time or mind to do much writing lately, though thoughts have been running over themselves trying to get my attention. I just saw Shawn Phillips the other night, and there have been a couple of Buttercup gigs and a couple of DC gigs. I just cannot seem to find the centre in my head where I can put all this into some sense of order.
This weekend is going to be an amazing one, both in its busy-ness and its event. Del Castillo and Patricia Vonne are doing a two-nighter at Sam's Burger Joint, and taping it all. I smell a future live CD, which some of us have been pressuring them for now for years. To boot, folks seem to be traveling from a long way off to come to this event. Couple of web-friends (a new way of refering to those one has yet to meet in person?) are coming in from Neveda, and lots of the Posse are showing up, though not all of them, which will make me sad. If anyone should be on the first live Del Castillo CD, it should be all of the Posse!
I must say I am already mentally a bit worn out and the weekend hasn't even started! I know the music will lift me up, but I am still going to consume at least one Rockstar, and maybe an espresso! ;P
Hopefully, I will find some peace to do some writing and upload more of the pictures I have sitting on my study floor. Buttercup is quiet for awhile, as Odie has gone across the Pond to see his kiddo, Kenji. DC is out of my range for a few gigs, and little else appeals to me at the moment.
I pray for a bit of quiet.
Until then, namaste.

coming soon to this blog!

(I have stuff to write about already, but SXSW just started, and I know it is going to be an insane week, even if I don't leave San Antonio! More as soon as I can squeeze in some time!)

Requiem for E Muzeki

My life has been beyond hectic lately (see the other blog, "Memories") but I just found this out and must make note of the passing. E Muzeki, possibly the most unique band San Antonio can lay claim to, has been laid to rest. I cannot blame either of these highly talented musicians for wanting to stretch their wings, but I will sorely miss them. A town reknowned for Tejano and heavy metal would be the last place most would look for gypsy folk music played on bazouki and violin! It is a bit of cultural variety gone to the wind.
Luckily for the world, not only have they recently released yet another CD, all of their work will continue to be available on the Internet. Please go check out their music, and if it appeals, support their talent with a purchase...or two.

Like I wrote before, Mark and Jenny- Love and Light, and Joy in all you do.

http://www.emuzeki.com/emuzeki.html

www.myspace.com/emuzeki