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PRISM index
What if you could buy an entire art installation for $22 and keep it on your bookshelf? Well you can, it’s called PRISM index. A few years ago, I was asked to contribute four interviews with Twilight & Ghost Stories collaborators Mick Rossi, Bhob Rainey, Parker Paul and Ray Raposa. These interviews, discussing struggle, inspiration, and the creative process are collected and printed only in the pages of PRISM index. I am honored to have my words sit alongside sounds, images, and poetry by James Jackson Toth, Diane Cluck, Bill Plympton, and Michael Hurley. PRISM index is a hand-bound, silkscreened, mixed-media art compilation, available in a limited edition of 500. It also includes an 88 minute DVD and a 72 minute CD.
Watch the video and then buy something real.
Why Obama
My wife and I volunteered for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign today. We made some calls out to the people of North Carolina gave them information on where their local polling location was. It was an honor to volunteer with the good people gathered together in Carson, California. Carson is a semi-industrial neighborhood made up of working class African Americans usually marginalized and disenfranchised by the political machine. By the time we left the campaign center almost every seat was filled.
A few days ago I contributed to the “Why Obama” essay series that Largehearted Boy has been curating. My slightly updated (grammar only) essay follows:
It is important that we judge Barack Obama on his own merits, accomplishments and ideals. Eight years of George W. Bush presidency and the terrorist attacks on 9/11 have obscured our collective vision and may incline many to take a relativist view of the Democratic Presidential nominee. In recent weeks polling gaps have widened in Obama’s favor and many disenfranchised Republicans have jumped ship to endorse his candidacy, but why?
In Obama, a Harvard graduate (Juris Doctor) and constitutional law professor, the country has a rare opportunity to place a scholar and thinker in a position of power. As with Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy before him Barack Obama has displayed a willingness to engage with viewpoints differing from his own. His selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his Vice Presidential candidate is an obvious example. It was Biden who criticized Obama’s lack of experience and knowledge on foreign relations issues before being defeated in the democratic primary. Having chosen someone with differing views one can at least be assured that an internal debate will take place. In fact, Obama’s ability to genuinely empathize may be one of his greatest strengths.
Having long served as a community organizer, civil rights attorney and Illinois state Senator, Barack Obama is uniquely qualified to address the growing inequity in poverty and wealth in America. He has stopped short of promising universal health care with a plan that bridges the gap between idealism and cold, hard reality. We must not forget that Barack Obama is a politician and, as such, is more familiar with the internal trade offs and measured judgments of Washington than most voters; and yet, there is an abiding sense that he will truly promote the general welfare of the United States. Obama’s repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the rich to Clinton-era levels is another marked example: moderation with forward momentum.
With our constitutional rights disappearing and religious fanaticism at a seeming fever pitch, I am hastened by Obama’s balanced, Jeffersonian approach to uphold the separation of church and state. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, he is quick to point out that a single religious group cannot take hold of policy and government at the expense of others (differing religious groups and those who practice no religion) who also occupy the same republic. As Thomas Jefferson stated, “Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law” and Obama, himself a Christian, has clearly parsed, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which states, in part: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
Surely the times we live in are perilous. Of course the same can be said for much of our nation’s past. A deep appreciation for history and its lessons are an asset for anyone willing to take up the mantle of President of the United States. In the manner with which he has exhibited forethought- opposition to the invasion of Iraq, his decision to forgo “public funding”, his warnings of the oncoming subprime mortgage crisis, stationing over 10,000 lawyers at the polls on November 4th- Barack Obama has exhibited not only an acumen rarely seen in politics but a nuance in approach that allows both acolytes and dissenters to feel as though their concerns have been addressed.
Within a week’s time the United States will collectively decide who to elect as its 44th president. After examining Barack Obama independent of George W. Bush (or John McCain for that matter) the choice comes more sharply into focus. For all the ownership that the country has taken in the rise of Barack Obama’s political career and presidential campaign, my hope is that after being elected as a man of the people, he will use his discernment and learned sense of justice to govern over a nation that needs a man of his measure and also, a man apart.
Originally published on Largehearted Boy
Herbie Hancock + Joni Mitchell @ Fox Studios (3.20.08)
Were there wireless keytar solos, bass slaps, auto-wah drenched guitar scrapes and electronic sounds that harkened back to Burgertime-era arcade games? Yes, and it was worth every minute of it. A week ago I read about a special live performance for, get this: Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! Music which was to be filmed at Fox Studios in Century City—three massive corporations banding together for an evening of creative expression. You know, business as usual. On this mundane Thursday night the gangrenous heart of Los Angeles gave up its dead and something beautiful bloomed in the afterbirth: the humble genius of Herbie Hancock and the radiance of Joni Mitchell.
The band warmed up on “Chameleon” and, when its third coda came around, were knee-deep in fusion. They played with great skill and personality, but without greater purpose. After a trio of Headhunters-era tunes, unannounced guest Joni Mitchell stood center stage and presided as de facto band leader. After a stirring ovation, she performed the signature Blue-era tune “River” with new wrinkles and vocal phrasings. Shaky and unshakable, Ms. Mitchell reveled in the ability of her all-star band, which included bassist Marcus Miller and Zappa alum Vinnie Colaiuta on drums.
Mr. Hancock’s hole-punched piano scores eliminated common chords and inserted new notes throughout. After three songs with Ms. Mitchell, he settled into a solo piano meditation on his classic “Maiden Voyage.” Soon turntablist C-Minus was invited on stage to replicate Grandmixer DXT’s famous cuts as the band tore into and out of their unlikely encore, “Rockit.” Only then, with subtlety and muscular riffing equally balanced, the scales tipped toward unrestrained jubilation.
Originally published in L.A. Record
Bill Frisell + Joey Baron @ Jazz Bakery (1.13.08)
Bill Frisell is a unique voice in American jazz guitar, and for that reason alone he deserves to be listened to. His rhythmic counterpart and longtime collaborator Joey Baron is a musician of startling facility, equally capable tossing out be-bop fills or smashing in eardrums by playing blast beats, as he did with Frisell in John Zorn’s Naked City. On Friday night they appeared together at Culver City’s Jazz Bakery, thirty minutes late and a few experiments short.
Opening with a ring-modulated guitar sound reminiscent of his early ‘80s album Smash And Scatteration, Frisell stood almost motionless stage left, a bespectacled cactus. With a thinly strung, light blue semi-hollowbody Telecaster in hand and a small set of pedals at his feet, Frisell asserted himself as the best country-folk accompanist in jazz. He displayed little fire and took fewer chances, fretting through improvisations and back catalogue tunes.
Opposite him, beater Baron whittled away on oversized chopsticks, mallets and overturned cymbals, once going so far as to strike the underside of a drum after wedging his stick between it and the ground. Baron was consistently sensitive and rhythmically dense when not forced into the ‘you play a chord, I’ll play a beat’ dichotomy.
An oblong interpretation of ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ fermented a few genuine surprises, unfortunately the final eight minutes of the set consisted of Frisell playing a repetitive four-chord progression as Baron and the audience were forced to work the rest out for themselves.
Originally published in L.A. Record
Omid- Beneath The Surface
The last iPod I had was possessed by Beneath the Surface. The opening flute lines of the title track would creep out of the miniature jukebox even when turned off. Phoenix Orion‘s voice would then bleed out from the speakers with an announcement of the genius/genus to follow.
By 1998 I had already ingested some of the best of what the East Coast had to offer: Midnight Marauders, Blowout Comb, Illmatic, Do You Want More?!!!??!, et al. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, as Ice Cube recycled every Parliament vamp, Omid Walizadeh (then OD) was sampling Iranian folk music, melodic jazz vibes and “Swelling Itching Brain”-ish keyboard basslines. Having come of age listening to King Crimson, Genesis, Run-DMC and Arrested Development, I found in Beneath the Surface something that both provoked and reassured me.
With his production revered by all MC’s at the legendary open mic spot Goodlife, Omid then participated in the classic hip-hop quid pro quo: you rap for my beat and I’ll produce a beat for your raps. He quickly assembled a diverse cast of hungry and highly experimental lyricists unfettered by hip-hop’s lineage. Absent are the Spoonie Gee or Funky 4+1 name drops indigenous to East Coast raps, the MC’s assembled here are more concerned with meta-African folk-tales (“When The Sun Took A Day Off”) or running together hominid-centric pop culture references as done on Circus‘s hilariously brilliant four minute verse which ends stunning “Farmer’s Market of the Beast.”
Like all masterpieces Beneath the Surface is burnished by repeated examination. From the brutal “Night and Day” which samples Emerson, Lake & Palmer‘s “The Barbarian” to the quintessential L.A. chill-out back beat of “Line Posting In ‘Pedro,” Omid balances melody, avant-garde composition and extrasolar lyricism with seeming familiarity: you think you’ve heard something like this before.
For connoisseurs of underground hip-hop this album also happens to be an underground Rosetta Stone of sorts: Freestyle Fellowship, Awol One, 2Mex, Global Phlowtations (featuring a young Adlib who would later produced Saul Williams under his own name, Thavius Beck), Rakaa Iriscience (of Dilated Peoples) and Radioinactive among many, many others. When confronted with Omid’s powerful production each rapper rises to the occasion; attempting to both complement and out do one another.
Beneath the Surface is a document of the L.A. youth consciousness at the turn of the century. Full of paranoia and community pride, God and the LAPD, rocking shows and self doubt. Interestingly it would prove to be greater than the sum of its parts and many of the MC’s involved would never make kind of lasting impact that they collectively manifest here.
I never did figure out what was wrong with my iPod. My only guess is that, as with me, something Beneath the Surface took over. At any given moment you might recollect a drum break or lyric and then suddenly, as P.E.A.C.E. illuminates, you are in its clutches. Word is bondage indeed.
Originally published on somuchsilence.com