The Magic Touch

Sometimes people just have it. Success follows them in whatever they do and whoever they do it with. The music world is not an exception. Recently, Jack White has been a prime example of this. He had been in bands like The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather. His solo album went over well, he opened Third Man Records in Nashville, and as a producer, has brought some musicians to life like Loretta Lynn.

But today I want to spotlight a musician, that over the last five years, has made his genius known in many ways. That is Justin Vernon. You may have first heard of this man as the falsetto chill guy that walked out of the Wisconsin woods with one of the best albums of 2008. With his second Bon Iver album, Vernon reinvented himself as this orchestra man, playing with countless instruments and bandmates. His name is Justin. Not Bon Iver.

Vernon had a fan in Kanye West. He appeared on multiple tracks on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with the Bon Iver song "Woods" being used as the base for "West's "Lost in the World." Soon enough, Vernon was on stage with Kanye at Coachella.

Vernon also put on his producer hat and helped with his then girlfriend Kathleen Edward's best album yet.

Vernon, you know, because he can, formed The Shouting Matches, a blues project that is old fashioned and powerful. "Grownass Man" is a record you need so you know Vernon isn't just some woodsy guitar hipster.

And while you are at, how about another Vernon band? Volcano Choir who released their first album in 2009 and will release album number this year is a more experimental pop group that Vernon give the lead vocals.

That's not even everything. Just the highlights. Justin Vernon is a Renaissance man and it shows every time he releases music.

While you sleep at night, Justin Vernon thinks of 20 new songs. When you are bored, Justin Vernon invents another band. Crawl back in your hole now.

Bon Iver
The Shouting Matches
Kathleen Edwards

What to See at Forecastle: Saturday and Sunday

As the responsible Louisvillian that I am, I will be attending some part of the Forecastle Festival this July. I will be there Saturday and Sunday. Friday, I will be at Riverbend Music Center watching Dave Matthews Band. So at least I am skipping Friday for music, but in my place I send my sister so she can find goodness in what is offered (she is a big fan of Moon Taxi and The Pass). Anyways the schedule was just released complete with set times and stages so I figure I will comment and lay out what I will find myself doing on these hopefully sunny days.

As you can tell, I will be more into the rock and folk stuff. Just was not too excited about the electronic stuff this year.

Saturday
The 23 String Band      3:30-4:00    Port Stage
Dawes                          4:30-5:30    Mast Stage
Alabama Shakes          6:00-7:15    Mast Stage
Jim James                    7:45-9:15     Mast Stage
The Flaming Lips        8:45-10:15   Boom Stage
Matt & Kim                 9:00-10:15   Ocean Stage
The Black Keys           10:00-12:00 Mast Stage

Obviously I cannot see the whole set of all these bands but damn it I will try. 23 String Band will be a great beginning to the day. They are a good band to ease into what will come by playing some sweet acoustic tunes. After The 23 String Band, things get really awesome, really fast. Dawes will avenge the short setlist they got when they opened for Mumford & Sons in town last summer. I am really looking forward to that one.

Alabama Shakes is going to bring their White Stripes southern rock and I know that will be a great show. Brittany Howard is so powerful and just one of those people you have to see to believe. I saw Jim James at The Brown Theatre recently and I know some of that will be the same at Forecastle but you have to think he has something up his sleeve at Forecastle. It's rare you see someone repeat a performance at a festival and get down graded in set time. I know it's band vs. solo but Louisville practically worships Jim James. I know he will deliver.

Biggest decision of the day will be The Flaming Lips vs. Matt & Kim. I have been wanting to see Matt & Kim since "Daylight" but The Flaming Lips supposedly have a fantastic show and right now they are covering "Heroes" by David Bowie so that is likely fantastic. I'll have to dwell on that one. I have been wanting to see The Black Keys for a while now and I hope they deliver and I think they will, having been to Forecastle before. Saturday is a day I can expect will go as planned. I'll call Saturday the greatest hits day.

Sunday
The Wild Feathers                        1:15-1:45 Port Stage
Bombino                                       2:00-3:00 Mast Stage
A Lion Named Roar                     2:15-3:00 Port Stage
The Wheeler Brothers                  3:45-4:30 Port Stage
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals     5:00-6:15 Mast Stage
Churchill                                      5:15-6:00 Port Stage
Robert Plant and band                  6:45-8:15 Mast Stage
The Forecastle Incident                7:45-9:15 Boom Stage
The Avett Brothers                      9:00-11:00 Mast Stage

While Saturday is more the heavy hitters, Sunday is full of rookies and unknowns, meaning an earlier start for me. The Wild Feathers are one of my top bands right now. I was completely convinced of their awesome skills officially after seeing them open for Bob Dylan. (I saw them at Dillinger's the night of the UofL vs. Notre Dame 5OT thriller. Needless to say it wasn't their best night just due to the attention they got.) Bombino has the potential to be the best surprise of the festival. Maybe a Dan Auerbach collaboration?????? Auerbach produced Bombino's most recent album. A Lion Named Roar might get the short end of the stick if I spend most of my time with Bombino. That's unfortunate because they represent Louisville so well. The Wheeler Brothers are a great down home band, perfect for this year's Forecastle.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and Churchill will have to fight for my attention during their slots. Both have recently been to The Ville but I couldn't catch them. I feel I may know what to expect with Grace Potter but Churchill has the potential to surprise me. Forecastle got big news when they got Robert Plant and his current touring band. The setlist will be interesting and what he does to Led Zeppelin with this folk arrangement will surely be something that people should not miss.

Now onto this dang Forecastle Incident. I predicted we would be able to tell how special it will be by what slot time they were given and they got a late one with 90 minutes to handle. Who will play? What will they play? But they are not on the main stage. Hmmm...The intrigue is enough to line up for this one.

I am not the biggest Avett Brothers fan but they will be a great classy band to end what will be a great weekend of killer jams.

BirdPhest

Let's get hypothetical here for a second. There are a crapload of music festivals out there and I love seeing the combinations of artists that come together for these weekends of music. Louisville has its own in Forecastle which I am very grateful for. But I have another idea....

It's called BirdPhest. Let's just say The Black Crowes, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Counting Crows get together and say they have something going with the crow thing and they think, dang, let's do something about it. BirdPhest is a festival where every band involved is required to have an animal, the word animal, or something associated with an animal in its name. Welcome to my world.

BirdPhest lineup: Counting Crows, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Black Crowes
Phish, Arctic Monkeys, Band of Horses, Cage the Elephant, Fleet Foxes, Imagine Dragons, Modest Mouse, Noah and the Whale, Phoenix, Reptar, Trampled by Turtles, Wolf Gang, Doves, Animal Collective, Fruit Bats, Animal Kingdom, The Sheepdogs, Dr. Dog, Deer Tick, Grizzly Bear, The Wild Feathers, Gov't Mule, A Lion Named Roar, Wolfmother, Freelance Whales, Dinosaur Jr.,

Imaginary animals count (Phoenix). Electric Zoo would be a perfect name for the festival, but someone else claimed it first. Phish is not a founding member of the festival but I could not pass up the Phest.

If I missed a good band with an animal in the name, tell me.

Can You Feel It In Your Bones?

Music is meant for those bone chilling, goose bump producing, titillating moments. A climax in a song is beautiful. You can find them in any genre and in any artist. Sometimes you have to look hard but when you find one it is magical. Recently, I came upon one and I want to share it.

Lady Antebellum: "All For Love"

When Charles reaches the point in the song where everything is elevated, it is just one of those moments. So powerful, so deeply invested in emotion. Paired with the striking music, this moment in the song is as good as it gets in terms of emotional connection between the song and the listener. It's the song where you throw up your closed fist, close your eyes and yell into the night. Charles's voice is so powerful here, it makes me shiver.

Another moment in music.

Jammin'

The world of jam bands is beyond my comprehension. Fan adoration is steadfast and so is the touring schedule of the performers. Each band could stop making new music now and their tours would continue to sell well because each show would still be different and they would do things they have never done before.

I myself am infatuated with a couple specific bands because when they have their sound they nail it and then jam on that sound to the umpteenth degree. They are masters at what they do and they know that they have the audience.

The closest thing I have seen personally to a jam band is Dave Matthews Band (twice) and while they are formidable in their own right, they are not exactly associated with the core group of jam bands that I have been listening to lately. Their songs are just about good vibes and good tunes. In some ways I find myself leaning towards the southern rock jam bands because have more gumption in them, more internal fortitude like their heart is in the guitar strings.

With that said, festivals like Wakarusa and Mountain Jam are the haven for great jams bands and why not? The culture and philosophy of these things are just like the music loose, improvised, fun, and filled with strong connections.

The best part for me is it seems that the amount of music to consume is endless. Whether it is live recordings or studio albums, they are never done making more for the fans.

The way I see it the face of jam music is Warren Haynes. This summer alone he is touring with his band Gov't Mule as well as the Allman Brothers Band which he joined in 1989 until 1997 as well as 2000 to present. He is also playing with various symphonic orchestra to play the music of Jerry Garcia. You know, because he can.

To conclude, here are the jam bands I flock to:

1. Phish
2. Gov't Mule
3. The Black Crowes
4. Tedeshi Trucks Band
5. Dave Matthews Band
6. Umphrey's McGee
7. Railroad Earth
8. My Morning Jacket (less now, but their Bonnaroo sets show otherwise)
9. Galactic

So much music to love.

Best Louisville Bands

(I figure I should start getting a pattern of lists going. I like lists and it's also a good way for people to tell me I am wrong. Comments, people, comments!)

1. My Morning Jacket

2. The Pass

3. Discount Guns

4. The Bad Reeds

5. Justin Paul Lewis

6. Jalin Roze

7. The English Exchange

8. The 23 String Band

9. The Foxery

10. Lydia Burrell

Bombino is a Beast

Music never ceases to amaze or surprise. Every time I turn around I am baffled by the weirdest of combinations that prove to work and to work really well.

This time it is the combination of African music and the blues, of Niger guitarist Omara "Bombino" Moctar and The Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach. Auerbach heard Bombino's first album (one that he recorded while in exile in Burkina Faso) and got to work with him in 2012. He then produced Bombino's album. Bombino's second official solo record was released on April 2. This guy can shred.

While Bombino is killing it on guitar, he does not lose his roots. The percussion and tempo are definitely influenced by what he grew up on and his lyrics are in native tongue but music is universal and we can all understand this guy has got some great chops.

Amidinine

When They Come and Go

Recently George Jones passed away. It is through his music that he will be timeless. I had no connection to Jones, but my grandfather does (Papaw). He loves his music. Papaw and I have no connection in music. None at all. Once he watched me do an outlandish karaoke version of Bohemian Rhapsody and he, after a moment of shocked silence, responded, "You did a good job, but, man, that was the worst song I have ever heard."

My grandfather has not had a constant state of healthiness for a while now. Every six months or so my mom will tell me that Papaw is in the hospital again.

There is something about "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones that will always remind me of my Papaw Brewer. Perhaps he did a karaoke version of it as well. Regardless, it is his tune to me. Papaw is a country boy and I am not but we have a few tunes like this one that will always remind me of him.

When They Come and Go.

"He Stopped Loving Her Today"

Cleaning Up and Growing Up

(a reaction to "Fall Out Boy: Life After Emo" by Brian Hiatt in Rolling Stone)

In 2005, Fall Out Boy played with eyeliner and angst. A lot of people placed them in the category of poppy rock emo guys like My Chemical Romance and Panic! at the Disco. They had hipster long song titles that were more attention getting than useful. Soon after their 2008 album fizzled, their MTV success came to an end and they did their own things for a while. Lead singer and guitarist Patrick Stump had an unsuccessful album displaying his R&B chops. Bassist and "the cute one" Pete Wentz got divorced to Ashlee Simpson and relapsed on pills. The less outspoken members of the band guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley started a side project with Anthrax's Scott Ian that was more hard rock.

When some of them realized that they were officially at their lowest point, Wentz told Stump that he needed his band back. FOB got back together from what people that was a way too long hiatus. What you can expect from them now is more cohesion, more inspiration to be there. Trohman was brought into the songwriting process because he deserved it. Now they know where they are in their lives. Problem solved?

Well take a look at these contrasting Rolling Stone shots. One is from March 2007 where they are more like what snobs would call posers. (Google this one) Hard because they can be, filled with guyliner and aggression. The picture here is from the most recent issue. If anything, they look more adult. They lost the makeup, lost the poor choice fashion and are just themselves. They don't have to worry about dying their hair or serving anyone but themselves. We know who they are now, but more importantly so do they.

My Song Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up) Video

Young Volcanoes Video

America in a Band

I saw The Wild Feathers for the first time at Dillinger's and I wrote a bio for Bellarmine's newspaper. Unfortunately, they played the same night as the UofL/Notre Dame 5OT thriller. Bummer.

But it got their promotional two song disc. Couldn't get enough. Thankfully Dawes could not make it to the Bob Dylan show at The Louisville Palace so The Wild Feathers jumped in and impressed enough for a standing O.

There I got their full stuff and dang, it is fantastic. America in a band. Their mesh of vocals is fantastic and their expertise of the craft is amazing.

"I'm Alive" has a great pop/dance beat. "Hard Times" is breezy and sincere. "Left My Woman" is powerful and meant for a lonely ride on an empty highway.

This is one of those bands that few people know now but give it six months and they will be everywhere. They have a great summer ahead of them by opening for Ryan Bingham and playing a festivals like Sasquatch and Forecastle.

The Wild Feathers can play a barn or a palace. See you at Forecastle, guys.

Backwoods Company video

The Wild Feathers bio: Bellarmine

Emotion Comes in Sound

So I took a Bob Dylan class and I wrote this paper. Some of it is about Bob Dylan.
Here is an excerpt:

               I remember the moment exactly. My father and I were driving along Taylorsville Road on our way home and John Mellancamp was blaring from the stereo, specifically his tune “Rain on the Scarecrow.” This song is about the hardships that farmers in Mellancamp’s home state of Indiana were facing in the 1980s. It is haunting, aggressive, and passionate. In the middle of the song, amidst silence among my father and me, he turned to me and said something along the lines of “Isn’t it such a gift for a musician to take an emotion and create every little part of a song to express that emotion?” This moment exactly is where my passion for emotion in music began.

              When music journalists interview an artist or band, they usually ask questions about their music in two ways: their songwriting or their musical style. While it is an art form, similar to poetry, songwriting is just words and sometimes strong words at that, but what I want to emphasize is that the combination in the sound of the lyrics and the sound of the music is more impactful than any sentence can describe or elaborate.

              As a listener of music, I have found that there are many ways that we can treat a song. I do not declare that there is a right or wrong way, but I feel that regardless, what a musician wants us to do is to feel. Just feel. Whether it is Justin Timberlake producing the next club stopper or Sinead O’ Connor crying in her music video, the most impactful goal and success of music is to hear something and be moved. Moved to the point that you want to dance, to smile, to cry, to jump wildly, to open the window and scream at the world.

              Do not be confused, words are not useless. A lot of times they are the driving force, but some people are confused and they hang onto the words with every drop of their energy. In this paper, I will point out examples of those who take advantage of the music in the ways I am believe it should be done.

              Firstly, I want to explain the common state of music, why I feel the way I do about this topic and why it is topical. I have been frustrated with the “Hot 100” for a while now. Their songs are cheap, shallow, and derivations of what once used to be great. They have lost a certain intangible element that made some musicians years ago so impactful. Unlike my experience with John Mellancamp, I do not hear these songs and feel any emotion coming through. The musicians are simply churning out hits to be hits makers. I am being somewhat cynical, but I am always amazed at how a musician can be so passive in the music writing process and expect to feel a song beyond the beat.

              In many occasions, such as the current pop musician Bruno Mars or country artist Jason Aldean, these musicians are not writing their songs. If you look at their liner notes, there is what seems to be an endless list of composers, engineers, and art directors. I am not saying that they are doing it wrong, but that his or her resonance as a musician is lost when they are ineffective at making an audience feel something significant. How can musician be effective if he or she is nothing more than an image and a vehicle? Where is that passion a listener deserves?

 An artist that has always made people feel in song has been Bob Dylan. Sometimes people attribute this reputation to his words and sometimes to his music. In his many masks, Dylan was a coffee shop crooner, a troubadour, a Christian, a Nashville country man and many other identities. He was also known for inspiring million and being the so called “voice of his generation.” Bob Dylan, though, was most impactful for his combination of lyrical styles and musical sound to create a grand scale of noise that drives people to not just hear his music, but to feel it.

             What gets me caught up on studying Dylan though is that people want take a microscopic view to his lyrics and analyze them like he is Shakespeare. What use is it? If he wanted people to understand exactly what he means, he would not have made everything so ambiguous. “Blowin’ in the Wind.” What the hell is that? Do literary poets have to face this sort of stress trying to answer critical questions by readers and journalists? Do artists need to sit down at press conferences to answer a question for every brush stroke? Those journalists and fans wants to know because Dylan has effectively created a sound that no one has produced before. It is moving and emotional and it takes the voice and the music for that to happen.

 Bob Dylan has been effective in making an audience feel an emotion and their desire to know derives from the effect of emotion taking over their body while they heard the music. The most desired artists are those that make people feel something deep inside them that was not provoked until they heard that song, saw that painting, or read that poem. In music, the way that bands do this and have people remember them for it is to treat voice like an instrument.  

 Even though Dylan’s vocals were nothing like a Gregorian style, his vocals choices are calculated and purposeful. Dylan’s eight minute epic “Hurricane” about the falsely accused boxer Rubin Carter is a fine example of this method. There is a specific part of the song that convinces me that Dylan was concentrated on something bigger than the song itself. For each verse, there is a small part where it is just voices and drums. There is a specific amount of room for words here. Bob Dylan couldn’t care less. Each time, this moment in the song sounds different because he either stuffs what seems like an impossible amount of words in this spot or puts more than one break in the song. It is just not natural. Dylan though as you have seen throughout his career is not concerned with what sounds methodical or what will please the teenagers’ ears. He may be calculated but he does not conform to a conventional style. He writes to make people feel.

 In terms of lyrical use, Bob Dylan is not alone in this technique. Other prominent singers sing with a purpose. Some make it seem almost theatrical. Adam Duritz of Counting Crows sings conventionally on the album, because it makes sense to follow the rules on an album, but live, the man is a storyteller. Those who want to sing along with him at concerts can rarely do so. It is nearly impossible. I tried last year at Iroquois Amphitheater and it didn’t work. He can perform a song that he wrote in 1994 and sing it in a way today he has never done before.

            After hearing the song “Round Here” live and the original studio version, you can understand that Duritz found no use in just providing an album track on tour. But it all comes thorough how he feels. He has matured and changed since the song’s creation, but the song is still consistent and the audience is going to get passion regardless. Songs have the possibility of changing meaning over time for the singer or the audience. Live, songs take singers over and their choices on stage can be made by personal inspiration or adrenaline. The show I saw last summer was not the same show Counting Crows performed the next night. This then begs the question though, does it really matter what the singer sings? 

From a scattered singer to a band where the lyrics are flat out unintelligible, I present Sigur Rós, an Icelandic ambient post rock band. Their sound is known for its atmospheric qualities and its ability to tweak a song with every possible aspect to create the perfect aesthetics. They are most known for Hopelandic, their incomprehensible language which lacks any sort of grammar or meaning. The band’s beautiful songs derive from their expertise with the sounds of language. Those critical techniques are what create their genius. Language has a meaning, but it also has a sound. Mixing its sound with the sound of the instruments makes for pure bliss.

             In an interview with the Montreal Mirror, a now defunct alternative newsweekly in Montreal, Sigur Rós drummer Orri Pall Dyrason explains, “When we were writing the songs, we didn’t have lyrics—we’ve never had lyrics—just these silly working titles. It’s like the album is unfinished and the listener gets his own pure expression and finishes it himself. We are very interested to know how people interpret it. Jonsi’s not using any language when he sings, it’s just some blubberings, using his voice like an instrument. We only called it Hopelandic because the first song he did this is in was called ‘Hope’” (Carpenter).  

Lyrics are not useless because a singer should say something, but you find the real beauty in the sound of the lyrics. As complicated as it may sound, the noise that comes out of the singer’s mouth is far more impactful than what he or she is actually saying. Take Sigur Ros’s song "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur." Technically it means “within me a lunatic sings,” but what does it really matter? Like Dyrason said, it is open to interpretation. The first time I heard this song my uncle was playing it for me while we were driving in the car, and at the bombastic end of the song, he slyly looked over to me and said, with ease, “The king has arrived.” No words told him that that is going on. They do not provide a definition for us to draw that conclusion. The music speaks to him. We felt the triumphant moment. Who needs words when you have noise that will lead you there?

 An important point to make at this juncture is how one voice describes a song in a completely different manner than any other voice. If we compare our focus, Bob Dylan, to an artist covering his song, we can understand that what is really beautiful is what the voice can do to produce a sound, not the words they are saying. I think it is understood that Bob Dylan’s voice, to say the least, is scratchy. Some people can’t stand it, but yet others are mystified by it. Someone totally different than Dylan in vocal style is Bonnie Raitt.

 In her most recent album, “Slipstream,” she covered “Million Miles,” an original Dylan tune off of “Time Out of Mind.” But she gave it a whole new nature to it. Raitt’s voice, smooth and soulful, led her to a more acoustic arrangement than the electric version Dylan produced. Dylan is really singing the blues. You can picture him on a street corner or jazz club, playing in and out of the darkness, but yet Raitt’s voice is more confident making her version of the song fiercer. Dylan was a hurt man when he wrote it. The elements were minimalistic—the chopping organ and simple drums. Raitt has her pianist pound on the keys and the strings are more traditional, funky blues. Their voices are of a different gender, but they are also have a different confidence. The whole tone of the song wraps around the emotion of the singer. From shriveled to sharp, two versions of “Million Miles” tells two different stories.  

 Isn’t that what is so great about music? We can all make it what it seems to us. There is a specific demographic that gazes at music at its truest form—just a bunch of people playing their instruments to the best of the ability, letting the passion of the heart rush into the fingers and into the instruments. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan got a lot of harassment from people not in this demographic for not being transparent in his lyrics. People suddenly freaked about the havoc that this could cause. They didn’t freak out because it was criminal. They freaked out because it was different.

 In May 1963, Dylan released “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” an album that included the ever-confusing “Blowin’ in the Wind” as well as “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” On May 25^th of that year, the number one song on the Billboard charts was “If You Wanna Be Happy” by Jimmy Soul (“The Hot 100”). This song encourages men to marry an ugly woman for absurd reasons. I would say Bob Dylan hits a little closer to home than Jimmy Soul. Keep in mind though, it is not the topic of the song that is important here. It is how each element of the song is patterned together to make a moving, complete sound. “If You Wanna Be Happy” is ditsy and shallow while “Blowin’ in the Wind” is entirely the opposite, enthralling and contemplative (“If You Wanna Be Happy Lyrics”).    

This trend of Jimmy Soul-like songs has not stopped though. People have always been intrigued by the more simple songs. While they have been given their successes, in terms of making a substantial note in music history, those who have created a mixture of sound and emotion are the ones remembered for their work. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a physical representation of this. Musicians in this prestigious club have been excellent at crafting this combination.

 A most recent inductee, hip hop group Public Enemy, was able to write a lot of rhymes on the topic of race. Their lyrics were very telling and instrumental to the racial movement of the nineties, but the mixing of their beats with their militant style of performance and Chuck D’s lyrical delivery took their act over the top. Take the effective “Fight the Power” for example. Chuck D is one of the greatest MCs of all time and Flavor Flav is the model for every hype man. Together, they created a sound and an image that affects people inside. With their music, people felt powerful. They were moved and enraged. Imagine if Chuck D used lyrics like Sigur Rós . I firmly believe the reactions would have been similar.

 Chuck D was passionate because the music affected him personally. What about musicians who write about real events that have nothing to do with them? That is what grunge band Pearl Jam did in 1991 when they released “Jeremy.” Jeremy is a 15-year-old boy from Richardson, Texas who committed suicide in the front of his English class. Lead vocalist Eddie Vedder saw an article on this story and, as he told Seattle Sound magazine in 2009, felt the need to “take that small article and make something of it—to give that action, to give it reaction, to give it more importance” (Brownlee). As you listen to the song, note Vedder’s rage and his aggression into the lyrics. Along with the powerful, chaotic guitars, his voice reaches an interesting level. Vedder was not involved in this issue other than as a reader of news, yet this story and consequently this song took ahold of him. If a man so distant from something can create a sound so emotional over something that he really has no emotions in, it is obvious that “Jeremy” took many people by surprise. It burns in your mind.

 That is where the essence of music lies—in drawing an emotion out of you that you did not know existed by taking the combination of voice and instruments to a level never been created before. The voice is not just a vehicle to say words. It is just as much an instrument as the drums and guitars that it collaborates with on each song. Memorable musicians do not overlook this. They capitalize on it.

The origin of my theory was a day in the car listening to John Mellancamp, but the manifestation of it is in Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is a transformer. This is where his genius lies. Take a listen to a Dylan song from each decade. The evolution of his music is obvious but the evolution of his voice is remarkable. From a young Woody Guthrie impressionist to a 71-year-old man writing love songs, his vocal progression is amazing. Some people say that Dylan fakes his voice, in others words, it is not natural. Whether it is true or not is not important, but if it is true, I do not fault him for it because you can tune an instrument, you can add effects to instruments, why should the voice be any different? Every time Bob Dylan performed a different style, he sung a different style. It is just another instrument to enhance the particulars that drive a listener to the emotional brink.

It should not matter what comes out of singer’s mouth, but when he or she does speak, whether on an album or in a concert, he or she must realize that their responsibility is not just to invite people to the dance floor or shout at them to crack open a beer, but it is to drive people to an emotional level that can only reached when the passion of a singer and the mastery of the musicians set an atmosphere worth resonating in someone’s soul.  

 

My Inspiration

I talk a lot. People can't get me to shut up. Only music. Well when I am not singing. But I procrastinate a lot. And I find a whole lot of random stuff on the Internet--music wise. I stay busy.

So I like all this music, these festivals, those events. And I like to tell people. Some are unresponsive. I figure if you read my blog you read it on purpose. Might as well write some good stuff for you.

I like jam bands, rootsy stuff, sythny pop, one hit wonders, Britpop, Louisville, the blues, bob dylan, foreign bands, good ole boys, those bands of the bottom of the festivals lists, throwbacks...but don't ask me about country music because it doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me so I'll talk right over you.

"You gotta stand for something or you'll fall for anything." --John Mellencamp

Long Live ear X-tacy