Buster Keaton films are the very definition of classic; they are time machines to an era of simplicity and authenticity, and I am always struck by how real it all seems, despite the obvious ridiculousness of the plots and slapstick. This was filmmaking in its purest magic, before special effects became the attraction. It is the characters and the core of their actions, be they brutal physical comedy or tender facial expressions, that hold our attention and connect with an audience a century later.
Thia week I attended two evenings of the New York Guitar Festival featuring seven Buster Keaton films accompanied by different musical acts. Each artist’s take was unique and brought a fresh and live element to this classic artwork. Some of the musicians added atmosphere through propulsive rhythm or gorgeous acoustic sounds or electric feedback and synced to the action of the film at various moments. The films are short and fast-paced, with just enough time to get a sense of the musical style before the next act. It was hosted by the famous voice of NPR, John Schaeffer, who conducted an interview with each of the musicians about their approach to the project. Great acts that I had heard before included Kaki King, Keller Williams and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth (who hung his guitar from the rafters and swung it over the audience as he smacked it with his hands, violin bows and drum sticks) while I was introduced to other great music by Buke and Gass (playing Baritone Ukulele and Guitar-Bass), Redhooker and my Brightest Diamond. Everyone found something in the films and amplified it with their music. Since my amazing experiences watching Philip Glass perform his score to Dracula in 2000 and Sufjan Stevens perform to film of the BQE in 2007, I have been on a quest seeking great unions of sound and visuals. These two evenings were memorable and inspiring additions to my collection.
After a dismal start to the Northeast ski season, a storm blew in on Thursday and Friday to drastically improve the situation. Knowing that I was headed to Foxborough for the Patriots-Broncos playoff game on Saturday night, I sacrificed sleep for snow and awoke in 5am darkness to head North and find the fluff. Scouring weather reports and triangulating distances between Brooklyn and Foxborough, I settled on an area I knew little about, but that seemed intriguing: Berkshire East in Charlemont, Mass. was reporting 12-14″ of freshies, so I hopped in the car and rolled into the lot at 9:30am, popped on my gear and headed into the action. First impression: a giant wind turbine on top of the hill which I later learned completely offsets all electricity costs of the ski operations. Very cool. And while that feature is futuristic, the mountain itself and all its lifts and facilities are vintage. Twin triple chairs run up the 1100 vertical feet and serve some steep and gladed terrain that compares to some of my favorite New England ski mountains, Mad River Glen and Magic Mountain. The attitude is laid-back and as I became familiar with the hill, I felt comfortable ignoring the small closed signs (no ropes) and hitting the untracked powder on some of the trails and in the trees. It’s not the biggest mountain around, but it packs a punch and after every run I was ready to rest on the lift again. Although the locals told me that it was one of the busiest days they had ever seen, I never waited more than 5 minutes in line and the trails (even the open ones) were basically empty. This is my kind of ski mountain! Under $60/day, charming atmosphere and challenging terrain make this a great choice for Massachusetts skiing! I hope to return again when more snow covers the Berkshires.
And to top off the amazing day, the Patriots (I skied in my old-school Corey Dillon jersey) crushed the Broncos and moved within two victories of reclaiming the prize that has painfully eluded the team for the past seven years. Another few storms and a Super Bowl ring would make this a glorious winter!
Supergood New Year! I just returned from sweet vacation time in New England that included but was not limited to family and friends dining drinking dancing skiing chilling hottubbing laughing. And a Pats game. This is what it’s all about. I am fortunate to have such wonderful people and places in my life and the free time to spend with them. I love them all and my life is good. Thank Goodness.
May 2012 be the best calendar year ever experienced by you and all you love.
It’s always frustrating to check in the the blog and see that I have completely ignored it for over a month. In this case, I am almost surely breaking my own record of days between posts. Not cool. And not that it’s any real excuse but my laptop stopped working a few weeks ago and took me back to pre-digital age for a second. It was frightening. My music and video production was crippled and even though I still had the Internet in my pocket, I realized just how much I use that machine. So when I was told that it had moved beyond its economically feasible repair life, I had extremely mixed sentiments. I am aware that consumer electronics take a heavy social toll in many parts of the world: mining various component metals and assembling the devices and recycling our retired junk are almost never done with standards we would accept in our own country so it seems irresponsible and inhumane to consume these products at the pace we do: three years of service is part of technology’s inherent progressive obsolescence as the next generation puts more power and speed in our machines. To look back at where it started for me and my Mac classic 20 years ago and consider the massive upgrade in capabilities, I guess I will accept my steady reinvestment in the research and development of these products. If only there were a way to do that without supporting rebel armies and skirting labor laws…
Godot is an artist who creates some amazing stop-action videos with all sorts of different media. He is an innovator and an activist who craves social justice, using art to promote Supergoodness in all aspects of life. He is also my brother-in-law and I have been lucky to work with him, producing soundtracks for a number of his videos. Here is one that I recently collaborated on, with video shot in the art jungle of Berlin. Enjoy!
Open Your Eyes
One of my favorite activities is playing DJ for a group of people interested in listening and maybe even dancing to the music I play. I love finding songs appropriate for any situation and sharing them with friends or strangers, who in turn provide feedback and requests, creating a playlist I could never have made on my own. It is as much about discovering music as it is about listening.
Tonight I was asked to curate the sounds for Ars Nova, an amazing little theatre that always throws great parties. They are committed to stimulating new work and recognize the importance of social exchange in this development, which is, I believe, why they offer their amazing penthouse loft stocked with free booze for these events.
I would love to watch time lapse footage of tonight’s party. It was packed to begin with and only a few interspersed bodies were shaking to the beats, which ranged from 60′s Soul to Indie pop. As the night wore on, though, and noticeably when the classic 80′s dropped, the crowd both thinned and found their groove, feeding itself with familiar beats and losing those awkward inhibitions that force us to remain rigid in the face of overwhelming funk.
As the dance floor came alive, so too did the song requests. As a DJ, it can be a risk to turn over song selection to the masses, but the duty would not be as fun for me as a strict dictator, so I entrust the ones convulsing on the floor with choosing the next song and manifesting their own destiny. Spotify provides the awesome power of instant gratification for any song jones, and playing a request is as easy as thinking of it. I see my DJ role as more facilitator than tastemaker. I like making people happy.
It has been a couple weeks of great musical entertainment for me. Wilco at Central Park Summerstage, Jon Brion at Le Poisson Rouge, and Deadmau5 at Roseland; all of them wonderfully different and uniquely fun. Wilco rocks as hard as any band with a rare restraint that pulls you forward as a listener. Jon Brion is the best musician I have ever seen, playing solo and recording drum, piano, glockenspiel, guitar and bass loops, building his songs with sweet harmony and jaw-dropping skill into some absolutely beautiful sonic collages. Deadmau5 is one of the biggest DJs in the world now and performs his bass-blasting vibrations perched high on a stunning light-and-projections visual set while the kids dance hard.
I love all music. From around the world, with any instruments, I listen to everything. Rhapsody and now Spotify have made that even easier, making music virtually free and offering allowing a diversity of taste and consumption previously unimaginable. Recorded music is now easily and instantly accessible, which is a cultural bonanza, but also creates the problem of too much information. How can we differentiate between all the artists creating this music? It is, in my mind, a live performance that makes the music truly memorable. When the music is performed and captivates the audience, it creates an ephemeral experience that can last a lifetime; a moment in our brief lives that can never be replayed endlessly on the internet. In a world of supply and demand that dictates value, infinite access decreases a work’s worth, while a unique and powerful live experience is truly priceless.
The last two weeks have been a gentle ease-in to a precisely scheduled life as classes at various workplaces are starting on a rolling timetable. I expect my teaching capacities to be fully engaged and operational within the next week and look forward to a “rigorous” fall semester…
But in the meantime I’ve had some free time which is almost completely monopolized by creative music production. Since spending a month without my studio, I have had a stream of rhythms and melodies pouring into my laptop and have condensed them into few songs which I offer here. Supergood music is always free. Love and share!
http://soundcloud.com/stephenjacksontaylor/sets/backtowork-music/
I brought my laptop to India. I debated it for months, and decided to lug it for a few reasons: the most practical was as a storage device for all my videos. I had two 4 GB cards that were obviously insufficient video time, so I needed to fill and dump them. While unnecessary, the ability to record music and blog is a treasured joy and the weight and space sacrifice in my tiny backpack seemed inconsequential. Travel tends to throw some tricks at you and after 6 days, the power adapter was fried by a generator on our houseboat and although the computer itself was thankfully spared, it was rendered useless. When we made it to Delhi 8 days later, I tuk tukked it to the Apple Store in search of a new cable, and they told me that they were all out of the MacBook adapters. They allowed me to charge the computer in the store for a while, which gave me just enough juice to download my videos through the end of the trip and I was able to thumb some blogposts on my iPhone, but unfortunately, my music production was halted. I am looking at it as a gentle reminder that visual and aural India is too valuable to be spent on a small box with earphones.
But in the few hours that I did have an operational studio, I did produce some music that I enjoy listening to. Enjoy!
http://soundcloud.com/stephenjacksontaylor/sets/india
Back in Brooklyn now after an unplanned two-day drive from Chicago following an Irene-inspired flight diversion from Delhi, I have had almost 24 hours to catch my breath and reflect on the crazy month that I just experienced. It was fantastic, intense, challenging, beautiful, terrifying, inspiring, depressing, insane, hilarious, exhausting and amazing trip. The few words that I write here can barely do justice to the feelings touching me throughout the adventure. India is maximum sensory overload at all times and it goes straight to the brain.
We ended in Delhi, with two days at the uber-luxurious Imperial Hotel as a treat and reward for surviving the punishing travel demands of Indian travel. Little did we know we were so far from home. We arrived on an overnight train at 5am but couldn’t check into our comfy bed until 11, so wandered around the bizzarely empty center of India’s capital for 6 hours in a dream state before some pool time, some food and a trip to a local Sufi shrine, which quickly became the most overwhelming of all my experiences during the adventure. Unaware, we had wandered into the final Thursday evening prayer session of Ramadan and were crushed with worshippers. I have never experienced anything like this intense density of people and all I could think about was stampede deaths which is why I feel lucky to have only lost my wallet…
The next day was a street food safari in Old Delhi, which was as densely packed as our previous excursion but also involved the same density of motor vehicles, followed by some shopping at Main Bazar and an elegantly delicious dinner at Bukhara. We awoke at 5am the next day to catch a train to Agra for a final day at The Taj Mahal, the most ornate and precious building in the world. On our train back to Delhi, we learned that all NYC airports were pre-empitvely closed for the hurricane and our flight had been canceled. Some quick research opened the possibility of not returning until September 6; panic ensues and we eventually make our way to the airport, where we are offered the possibility of flying to Chicago, renting a car and driving home via Pittsburgh, finally arriving home 36 hours behind schedule. It was a grueling five days since the Buddhist tranquility of Dharamsala, but we arrived home and hugged our cats then fulfilled our sushi cravings and passed out.
I want to go back to India and see more. It has so much to offer and we only scratched the surface, but for the next few months, I will be content with life at home. There is comfort in a regular schedule and familiar environs. The point of travel is to escape that, but if I were always on the move, there would be no standard for comparison.
I want to thank my intrepid partners on this journey, Sarah, Eric and Alaina for supporting me and providing great insights and discussion throughout the trip. I know I can be a tough companion sometimes because I love punishment, finding difficult and uncomfortable situations to immerse myself in while seeking out the cheapest food and accommodation possible. Overall, I think we worked well as a team, executing the travel perfectly and learning a lot about India, its amazing people, food and culture, plus ourselves and our own home. I am certain there are many more journeys in our future!
