Music Writing by Carson Arnold
Music Writing by Carson Arnold
"STONE FOR" FESTIVAL
The town of Amherst, Massachusetts is at its best on an early Sunday morning. You can catch that old historic fragrance of No. Pleasant Street rising out of the previous Saturday heat, the angle of the autumn sun warming unnoticed brick architecture, the young people who look as if they don't mind wiping dew off their car to get downtown for those few quiet moments of earthly content without the robbed feeling of a city. My family and I came to town to finally catch our musician friend Joshua play a set at a small annual venue called "Stone For" Festival on the town common over a week ago. After participating in a hour long peace rally- one that gathers each Sunday at noon and has for the past thirty years- watching honest faces distribute leaflets for No War!, we walked to the staged tent where Joshua was anxiously awaiting his audience of friends and fans to finally come together. My father offered "why not just start playing, they'll come to the music". Almost like an adjoining morning and afternoon kindergarten they did.
Joshua looked remarkably good onstage, McGuinn-sunglasses matching beach flowered acoustic guitar, a tight strumming set of under a half a hour reuniting the exotic inspiration of Robbie Basho and the undercurrent of Eastern fret, handing out bells midway for the crowd to jangle along to. There's something that dramatically separates Joshua from most artists in this area and abroad- personality. The audience usually fails to recognize this beautiful trait which sheds itself richer beyond any art form or stage, for human character is art, few can combine the two, Joshua does (though with hints of shaky confidence), but unfortunately battling against a tribe of actors who seek definition first in art before finding meaning in themselves. And the actors are exactly what the audience cries for. They plead for the theatrics of performance clownery, noise and chaos, for it redeems their sickly questions of doubt, tutors and hides their desperation and fear that the "great, great mystery" of it all could very well be blatantly standing in front of them this whole time. Simplistic. Honest. It is what it is.
I especially realized this after the concert. By the afternoon, Amherst turns into a city. The dorms awaken, academics sip away education in coffee houses, and pale lanky musicians glance at you with suspicious eyes. I had recorded a long conversation with a young couple in their early twenties practicing Yoga-of-a-sort in the afternoon shade, satchel of shiny new books, beginning students at a nearby community college. The girl was pleasant and sincere, at times unsure of her boyfriend's rambling accusations of mortal man, but both of them fondly interested about the country woods yet cautious of the rumored isolation. So I told them. The boyfriend was a classic example of the confused male species. The type that killed John Lennon and never stuck up for Jesus. I'll crucify you while telling you I'm being crucified! Looking down at his white sneakers while he foamed out philosophy and duality, I quickly understood he was a good guy but with way too much time on his hands. Time had spoiled him to remark things like, "would people choose to exist if they knew their existence would be their demise?" Listening to this on tape a day later with the background clatter of the street, birds, and heavy-metal music playing from the concert, it was the most fascinating piece of dialect and art to rewind a study in all aspects of color. It was a surreal movement of humanity that introduced the confidence that it just could be it is what it is.
The shocking statement of absurdity made me realize I wanted to witness more of these conversations; give me more of these narrow and abstract bands and followers, more backward artists, more smiling faces, more mistakes on my behalf, more culture, more standards! Such beautiful material for everybody to share. One could forever sit and observe the human condition, witnessing souls dwindle their opportunity and freedom down to questions of aesthetic and ethics, substance as behavior, searching for that hidden science and floating prophecy beneath all things presented- and oh, where is my guru?. Aesthetics- god, there's no such thing! Record the moments as they hurdle by, where everybody contributes without will, consent, or desire. This admittedly fragile couple fractured by an inflating ismology, frozen by what's, lacking why's. One solution to these crying woes would be no more art! Think of it, if all the artists rested aside their pens and instruments, brushes and cameras, and took a three year hiatus from the field in which we call art, wouldn't you think some natural form of class or cultural peace would arise? It would no longer be a concern if art was imitating life or life imitating art, all would be art, the actual word "art" would fall useless, for no longer capable of filling that lame void of uncertainty. Finally, there would be a radical diversity among our community and culture- liberals intermingling with conservatives, the experienced with the inexperienced. There wouldn't be anybody escaping from society to rub their chins in art, centering their personality along the restrictions of an unrealistic habitat, for they would be too busy constructing an equal answer for tomorrow, not upgrading a silly subject based on the reaction of a reaction. Obviously this is an entirely unproportional expectation- and not really something I'd like to see- just a dreaming theory that has arisen from observations of the demanding art world which I believe is an erratic problem evolving a continuous mess of society of superiority and underclass.
Enough. My family and I cocked our heads with shocking wonder when Joshua admitted he might reduce his concert gigs to more home recording. What?! Don't let the juvenile posture of the audience defeat you, my friend! Their colorless clap should inspire your confidence of warm expression even higher, beyond the point of personal meticulous judgment, until you're no longer playing the guitar, you are a guitar. Do you actually expect these people to understand the meaning you manifest? You're right, it is all wrong! People under oaks and maples frowning in front of a laptop screen as you play, people screaming bitter at an open world and later driving off in jeeps into it. I'm afraid your music Joshua moves free like the wind, from and to the country and the streets, physically and mentally incapable of being trapped and tamed for study- it's these few moments we must enjoy for we might not hear feel it again. The audience wants nothing more but to control the performer (that's why they go to concerts!), instantaneously matching he or she up to available stereotypes that shapes an inner perspective within their behalf, which then entitles them to mingle in a safe comfort zone upon the performer's arrival of either clownery or anger. It's safe now, he's smashing the microphone- why?- because I'm giggling and cheering. Anything that courageously exposes any of these elements is dangerous, for it shreds the lie and lives the truth without the pointed finger of accusation or conflict, leaving an audience afraid of its bellowing breath because it just might dare to whisper to them that existence upon the "blacktop kingdom" could be a mechanical formula of falsehood. And it just might, Joshua, inspire them.
Anyway, after Joshua's set, a circus of characters under the name of Dredd Foole and the Din (including a sitting J Mascis fingering his foot pedals) packed themselves inside the tent. This is the type of music youngsters must pay close attention to now so we don't end up confused at the middle-aged mark. Dredd Foole's performance got to be so embarrassing I had to turn my head in shame, afraid I may turn into a duck, or at least bewitched like the now amused crowd, whose plead for theatrical performance had arrived juggling with six plus players of noodle-doodle chaos. The laptop frowners were now glancing up from their machines as the lead singer of many untalents practiced his acting skills of lame nihilism, complete with lessons of terrible yowling, affected posture, how to safely break apart the mic stand when all else fails (god, if you're going to do it, really do it), and how to lie down on your side in some form of mockery of no revelation gently tapping the microphone while the rest of the band members try to figure out how to either begin or end in one big yawn. I was praying to tears that the singer wouldn't tell us he was the lizard king! Hey boys and girls, music is just a toy! Let's play with it! The best solution for your tired equation... don't show up! That would be ideal art.
The third act, Sun Burned Hand Of the Man, what's to say? Boston psych jam band, interesting enough, obviously mates who have spent years trying to uncover a specific sound that most garage bands can resurrect during a three hour session. The closing act, Golen Globus, a bag full of screams turned upside down, good title for the sound produced (named after the movie mogul), exactly the noise the congested streets want to hear, basically a very tight band which plays nothing more than what's supposed to be heard.
As a spectator to the concert, I could see why grown ups would be disheartened by the whole affair- sour that this generation, children of the sixties flower, would present the nature of the abstract or esoteric- original for its fighting liberation for free expression- in such a self-absorbed tongue of negativity and non-direction. As idiotic and simplistic as this sounds, the avant-garde has table manners. It isn't something you can fully explain, but the overall fabric of its texture has grace, etiquette, and the honest understanding towards all things. I was bewildered by that day, but all in all having such enthusiasm to the experience as a whole because of its absolute material- such wonders answered by just observing. We saw Joshua walk from the stage alone, all his gear carried under one arm, still my guitar gently weeps. Nice to see. Forget about entertaining, filling, or pleasing fools in paradise. Play your potential for the sake of playing before you catch that contagious plague of insecurity that runs from listening to a particular audience or bands like Dredd Foole and the Din. Walk across the street into an open church, listen to the choir prepare for mass, beautiful hymns of silence, beautiful because they live. Do you need to hear anything more?
Carson Arnold- October 1, 2002
copyright 2003 Carson Arnold
H(ear) is an online music column consisting of interviews, articles, and investigations written by Carson Arnold. As a freelance writer for various magazines and liner notes, living in the woods of Vermont with his family, Carson widely encourages one to submit their art, writing or any interesting piece of material that you would like to share. H(ear) is accepting both promos and demos for review or any other valuable music-related subjects. If you wish to make a comment or would like to receive H(ear) weekly by email please contact Carson at [email protected]
Thanks and enjoy!
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