Best use of [blank] in a song

Lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums: This has become the de facto standard for rock and roll band instrumentation. Is there some unwritten rule about this? If a band shows up at the bar for a gig and one of the members is carrying, say, a banjo or a saxophone, are they barred at the door? Bouncer says “We didn’t hire no bluegrass band and don’t allow no jazz, neither.”

To encourage them (yeah, like they read this blog), here are just a few examples of atypical instruments or sounds in some songs I like. Additional nominations are encouraged.

Best use of a banjo: Bob Dylan in "High Water" on his 2001 Love and Theft CD. That song is excellent for many reasons, and the banjo is a nice bluegrass reference. Honorable mention to Jim White in his song "Handcuffed to a Fence in Mississippi" on the 2001 No Such Place. Favorite lyrics from that song:

My Trans Am is missing
My Trans Am is missing
I guess no more kissing
the girl who loves my car

Best use of a siren: Joni Mitchell in "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" from the 1991 CD Night Ride Home. If a siren can be subtle, it is on this tune, adding to the foreboding tone. Makes me shudder. Honorable mention to John Hiatt for "Tennessee Plates" on the 1998 release Slow Turning. Clever phrase from that song:

We crossed the Mississippi like an oil slick fire.

Best use of a cricket chirp: Joni Mitchell again, for "Night Ride Home" on the CD of the same name. Story is that the recording engineer leaned out a window of the building that housed the studio, sampled the cricket chirp, then put it on a loop behind the song. Nature's own tambourine.

Other stuff: The jazz combo Oregon used an udu drum to great effect in "Vessel" on the 1979 record Roots in the Sky. That’s appropriate because the udu is a clay vessel slightly modified to become a unique instrument. The flamenco group Ojos de Brujo uses a staggering array of percussion instruments up to and including the kind of turntable (for ‘scratching’) found in hip hop music. My favorite is the cajon. That's a picture of a cajon, also known as a box drum, at the top of this post.

I try not to miss the annual recital of the St. Olaf College percussion ensemble, in part because I'm a washed up former percussionist but really because it is always an enjoyable musical experience. Under the direction of David Hagedorn, the ensemble's next recital is Thursday, November 15, 2007 at 8:15PM in Urness Recital Hall.

I want a cajon drum for Christmas.

This is Not an Artist's Statement

I make pots as a hobby (see photo). Some people call it art, others may say it’s a craft. I’ve had a couple pieces in some gallery shows and the galleries always ask for an artist’s statement. The request makes me uncomfortable.

When visual artists write about their art, I fall asleep. Part of the problem is that most of them don’t write well, but the simple truth is that I don’t much care what motivates or inspires them. I’m not especially interested in their explanations of what their art means. I want the work to speak for itself; it shouldn’t need some tortured exegesis.

When musicians are interviewed about their music, I mutter, “Shut up and play!” And if they don’t, I quickly switch stations. Joni Mitchell -- who has a reputatiion for being hard to work with, driven, intense, opinionated -- doesn’t need an artist’s statement. Her music IS her statement. Just listen.

There’s an exception to this rule: when writers write about writing, I read. Annie Dillard’s “The Writing Life” was revealing and instructive. Paula Granquist, a writing teacher at The Loft and at the Northfield Arts Guild, provided me with some wonderful essays by writers on writing.

I like what Willie Mays said about his considerable baseball skills: “They throw the ball, I hit it; they hit the ball, I catch it.” Or what Willie Sutton told the judge who politely inquired as to Mr. Sutton’s occupation: “I’m a thief.” Or Willie Nelson when asked if he listened to his own songs: "No, not really." **

At the same time, I will not begrudge any artist for writing such a statement. It may help the artist, it may help the viewer, it may help a curator. Just not me.

So. I make pots. Hope you like them.

** I'm not sure if any of these quotes is accurate, but you get the point.

Yeats, Mitchell, et. al.

I've been listening to Joni Mitchell's song "Slouching Toward Bethlehem," which is her version of W. B. Yeats' classic poem "The Second Coming." Mitchell's use of percussion in that song is chilling, and her re-working of the poem is brilliant. My favorite line:

"...with a gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun."

It is beyond presumptuous for me to put his poem, her song, and one of my pathetic little verses in the same post. But, as many a blogger has observed, "what the hell, it's a blog."

Here's my poem:

AFTERMATH

Brown weeds grow in the cracks of the sidewalk.

It rains almost every afternoon – just the hint of a drizzle starting around 3:00.

But by 4:30, it has stopped like a suspended sentence. The sun, or a cheap imitation of it, takes up its vigil again.

Near the main street, a pink wedding dress hangs alone on a clothesline, fluttering just a little in the dry, desultory breeze.

Small birds fly low and silent between the buildings.

In the lone gas station, a dim light blinks behind the counter where the cash register used to sit.

Someone has set up a card table on the corner, piled with used paperbacks, yellowed pages rustling.

Debris floats in one corner of the half-empty motel pool. A middle-aged couple dozes in the sun, lying side-by-side in plastic lounge chairs.


They hold hands.