Just taking baby steps here –
Thank you!
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Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear
Listening to Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest. Thoughts.
This is a pop album…“classic pop”…so in other words, the Ancestry DNA results would turn up a high percentage of Lennon-McCartney…mix in some prog sensibilities, a dose of whatever Williamsburg gave us last decade and some lyrics that suggest great emotion without ever spelling it out. So many other fine points – a fuzz bass here, a jerky beat there, chopsticks piano there, a quiet acoustic guitar interlude there, a sick mellotron here.
Overall, and for the more then casual listener…what makes a good album are a few things –
a) loose unity
b) economy
c) moments, many of them
d) mystery, to keep you coming back
e) interesting textures, drum sound probably most importantly
We hit all the marks here.
I can say that I did not favor their next album, mainly because there were much less beautiful vocal harmonies there. I may need to return to that and I have their newest queued up on my phone, so I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.
For example, here’e the first song…
“Southern Point” – starts off with a great lost Doors groove. Pleasant enough. 1 minute and ten seconds in we are a treated to glorious fuzz bass. You start thinking what would have happened if the Moodys met Phil Spector…We get a nice suspended Byrds-ish interlude that we hear often enough, but much more carefully done – like Jimmy Page in 1973. “In the air. You’ll never find me now.” Tremelo guitars slip in some gentle Link Wray into the opening groove…extending into some tapdancing harpsichord and orchestral coloration. NICE BRIDGE…
We are then allowed to breathe for a millisecond until we get a phased out hammer on simple solo – another go around “Never say it’s the last one / It’s not the last one / I’d never find any other.”
That gentle interlude I mentioned earlier? Solo acoustic? It comes back, extends into other areas briefly and resolves the tune at 5 min. Good 5 minutes spent.
Search around for their music. Make up your own mind. Released May 2009.
The album “The Velvet Underground & Nico” is remarkable for many reasons–not least the music. a. It is one of only two albums that I know of that names the cover designer rather than the band or the record’s title on the front (the other being Swedish band bob hund‘s 1996 LP “Omslag: Martin Kann“.) b. The cover provoked two lawsuits (more on those later). c. Gatefold covers had generally only been used for double albums. Elvis Presley’s “Elvis Is Back!” from 1956 is said to be the first gatefold cover for a single LP and “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was not released until two months after the Velvets’ album.
In 1965 Andy Warhol became The Velvet Underground‘s manager and he booked them into New York’s Scepter Studios in April 1966 to record the group’s first album which was de…
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The first weather-restricting weekend of the season…
First thoughts are “work”…things, tasks, chores, stuff…work…
Move the bicycle indoors…(this is how I get around most of the time)
![IMG_6314[1]](https://jimlem.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/img_63141.jpg?w=580)
Fix the pickup on that one guitar…(Jay Turser take on a reversed Ventures-esque Mosrite…I am putting in that foil neck pickup and goofed it up by wiring it incorrectly)
![IMG_6312[1]](https://jimlem.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/img_63121.jpg?w=580)
Add more layers to this painting…(named “stop always saying what everyone wants to hear”)
![IMG_6310[1]](https://jimlem.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/img_63101.jpg?w=580)
Or this painting…(titled “slowly back and forth in sanguine rhythm”)
Make that honey chicken recipe…(HelloFresh has some great stuff to cook)
![IMG_6315[1]](https://jimlem.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/img_63151.jpg?w=580)
Iron clothes…(uggggghhhh)
![IMG_6313[1]](https://jimlem.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/img_63131.jpg?w=580)
Dodge all the “work” and drink…(recently a Georgian waitress and friend introduced me to some of the wine traditions of her country)
![IMG_6299[1]](https://jimlem.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/img_62991.jpg?w=580)
I’d like to know how to separate myself from this “work” concept and just “be”…because it seems counter-productive (which in and of itself I must admit, ties back into this “work” concept).
I think the best thing I can do is make a commitment to get some shoes on and get out there today…going out to dinner usually helps. I will make the chicken tomorrow…and of all these things above…most of them have the potential to lift my mood – taking care of the bike for instance, saving money and being so proud to cook my own food…and though it is harder for me to reach into – even ironing clothes to look better…
I would like to work in some other stuff – watch some Hulu (but not too much), read some of the four or so books I am reading (I will bring one when I go out…check out more of that band Warpaint, whose songs like “Beetles” and “Krimson” from their 2008 EP are tattooed looping in my brain…this morning I went over to YouTube and Echo/Alexa and listened to some newer stuff…I liked it all…
I should also own what I have already done – laundry and calling up glasses.com to set up my exchange for those new reading glasses. They goofed and sent me distance. Also, I learned two Beatles guitar parts – electric solo from “And I Love Her” and some of the solo from “You Can’t Do That.”
For those paintings…I kinda think they are both very close to done (the top one especially) so I may just make that decision this weekend and pull out the other two I am working on. One is on glass and the other on canvas.
Maybe it is not about “work” but “should”…giant shoulds hanging over my head – I should record more music, I should study something, I should finish this or that…
Recently put up this Guy Debord quote on my Facebook page…”Like lost children we live our unfinished adventures.” – I think I like that very much.
Thanks for reading…not much writing focus today…
Everything is an ellipsis…
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Changing things up
Quick post…
I will be stopping my simple “buffer” photo posts in favor of less frequent blog posts…once I get rolling, I will have a better idea of what to call it…
If you like my photos, the stream will be on https://m.facebook.com/JimmyLemVisual
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Dry
Recorded 2010, mixed 2013
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Asking for some help, please.
As a person who writes creatively, writes critically, paints, draws, photographs, records about three different types of music….I’m interested to know if it would help to seperate these into different blogs, Bandcamp/soundclouds, etc….in other words, different Internet sites – has anyone else come across this dilemma? Please fell free to comment?
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Articulate (Shorts version)
Ok, so 2008-2009, I recorded an album as “Stinkfinger Overdrive” as a tribute to my elementary school, a person I knew who had passed away and all the kids who never get to be what they wanted to be when they grew up. Maybe a year later, I remixed some songs from that and a previous album and waited until 2014 to put that out. Anyway, here is track 2, which may or may not be about the ability to speak or about the ability to segment a bone structure or about pain or about doing something you never should have done…I’ll never tell.
https://jimlemanowicz.bandcamp.com/…/articulate-shorts-vers…
There’s just too much spam on here – on the internet in general.
One day…maybe it was in the 90’s maybe it was later…each one of us said, “Hey, I’ll post my (whatever) on the internet and people will notice me” and I gotta say that yeah, some of you should be noticed. But more and more and more, I’m just sick of how each little pocket I find becomes infiltrated in just so much bullshit superficial whore self-promoting nonsense.
I barely look at WordPress anymore because I can’t for the life of me find the people I wanted to connect with originally anymore.
All comments welcome. Likes are not comments.
Career advice from an artist ready to blow it all up and start over.
Advice for changing gears, creatively. https://goo.gl/PpAgAI – from Shantell Martin (Twitter:@shantell_martin) via 99U
Jimmy Lem - Blister Pop Unlimited 