“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?

Yet, O Lord most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears unto our prayers; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, though most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall away from thee.”

                    – from the Book of Common Prayer (as revised by composer Henry Purcell)

 
 
 
 
Here is Purcell’s musical setting of “Funeral Sentences” (Note: videos appear shrunken on purpose; just use to play sound, the visuals are unnecessary):

1. First, the Funeral March:

 
 
2. Second, the sung text:

A terrific bio and collection of info about Purcell lives over at classical label Naxos’ site, right here.

Her voice. It’s hard to believe that, except on record, it’s gone: the spellbinding sass, bite & swagger of it. That’s also the side of Amy that most everyone knew best — the saucy blustering Winehouse of “Rehab” & of lyrics full of sneering, profane kiss-offs. And, in its extremes, this was the side of Amy that was unfortunately even celebrated (or at least obsessively catalogued): the Winehouse of garish tabloid spreads, of tattoos & brawls & of unapologetic loutishness.

Her sharp edges & stylish Sid Viciousness aren’t why I’ll miss her most though. & I certainly won’t miss the aggressive public dysfunction — anyone with a complicated childhood (i.e., most of us) can collapse and/or lash out for the camera. What made her special to me was her vulnerability and enormous sensitivity as an artist, qualities that tended to get obscured against the backdrop of her overdocumented mess. It was how her lyrics reveal a shrewd self-regard, often disarmingly brave in how thoroughly it explored (and skewered) her longings, malfunctions & love-life disappointments. It was how she invited everyone in to listen to her struggles with needing love and pushing love away. It was naked lyrics like these: “I stay up, clean the house, at least I’m not drinking / Run around just so I don’t have to think about thinking / That silent sense of content everyone gets / Just disappears soon as the sun sets”. It was how her voice softens into silk & yearning in songs like “Wake up Alone”, “Back in Black” and the wrenching “Love is a Losing Game” (probably my favorite Winehouse song). And it was how she’d get you with a sudden long-lashed wink, some smirky bit of black humor, some lyrical equivalent of a soft sad chuckle in the midst of all this. That’s what I’ll miss most about her art. Without this side of Winehouse — without the insight & playfulness & yearning & songwriting prowess — the punchy assertions of lyrics like “you don’t mean dick to me”, & the vinegar of her Fuck The World persona would lack context and be unremarkable.

Let no one forget why it should matter to us that she’s gone — & it’s got nothing to do with the “27 club” bullshit or the “tragedy” of another addiction-death (there is no “tragedy” here, just someone intelligent who continued to make awful decisions & not avail herself of all the resources money and influence can secure) — her absence moves us like it does because she was such a damned good singer & songwriter, because she fought valiantly to wrest beauty from the pain of her life, because she had so much more to share with us all.
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2011

Here’s a new one of mine, wanted to share it with the S.Crow readers. Flamenco guitar, voice, tambourine, along with various digital percussive sounds and digi Cello. Hope you enjoy!:

 

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     Alice rides the crowd last night (source: YouTube user sdelin)



 
    C.C last night at the much-(& unfairly-)maligned Terminal 5. Early to the line, coat check, two shots of house vodka & I make my way downstairs about 15 feet back from the stage, same spot I had for Guided By Voices a few months ago. And that’s where I camped out the entire night — that is, when I wasn’t being absorbed into/flung about by the massive sweaty ultra-dense people-ameoba that formed once Alice & Ethan came onstage.
    Tension mounted right before they came on: people around me getting antsy, calling out for Alice. C.C. songs pumped through the P.A. were a nasty tease. Then the announcer came up to the mic, told the crowd that Alice had broken her ankle sometime prior, was advised not to perform, & told the doctor “Fuck you”. Good crowd-hyping, that. Then the show begins & all hell breaks loose. My shirt was drenched within three songs. Caught strobed flashes of Alice cavorting and shouting, her hoodie over her head, her “Male Bonding” half-shirt. And a word about her presence — I can’t imagine any other lead singer pulling off crutch-dancing with as much energy, edge & sex appeal as she did last night. Part of me was a little disappointed when I first heard she’d be crutchy: I’d wanted to see the Alice of countless youtube vids I’d eaten up in the weeks prior, flailing & writhing & channeling the jagged hunger and desperation of their songs, her naked intensity indirectly proportional to Ethan’s stoic+hooded presence in the corner. But seeing her vulnerable added a different dimension to her stage presence, and I’m glad now that I saw her hobbled. Being injured didn’t stop her from coming out in the crowd — I think I counted four instances where she sailed out on a sea of hands, iPhones and androids popping up like glowing periscopes, her limbs twisting, her eyes flashing, totally transported.
     “Baptism”, “Alice Practice” and “Untrust Us” were highlights for me, moments of crowd unity where you feel that collective upsurge of anticipation running like an electric cord through everyone. Another highlight was that opening barrage of cuts that had the crowd erupting & heaving in a tremendous block, all sweat elbows & arms raised high, some girl’s long hair stuck in my mouth, my shoelaces coming untied and my shoe half-off, my ankle scraped up, feeling the air crushed out of my lungs by people in front of and behind me, helping up people from the ground every third song, watching people lose their friends/partners in sudden crowd-shifts, epileptastic strobe lights stunning everyone. Those first ten minutes were total chaos-joy, yum.
     Another show highlight was simply the crowd itself. Completely intoxicating how the dancy ecstatic energy of everyone around me was spiced & made more complex by the aggro-melancholia inherent in C.C music. You wanted to pogo joyfully but also somehow act out the dystopic shadow-scrape that thundered out of the speakers — writhe around, rip someone’s clothes, whatever. I remember at one point near the end of the band’s first or second encore feeling someone bucking and knocking against my back and then shoulder. I looked over at this tall gothy woman just going at it with these inciting flails moves, clearly either wanting someone to knock back or just loving the feel of making harder, edgier body contact. I was initially a little annoyed, but soon accepted it: I can totally understand why anyone would want to dance like that at a C.C. show — frankly I’m surprised there wasn’t more of it.
     What else? I’m probably missing a ton, but I try not to capture everything when I write about live shows, just the moments that hit me hardest. Oh yeah, three fucking encores! I wasn’t prepared for that. Oh & near the end there was this gorgeous moment with the screaming+clapping crowd noise amplified and pumped back through the P.A. (or maybe it was C.C.’s own noise-loop?), hitting us in blissful noise-storm crescendo; meanwhile that enigmatic picture of the young girl from the cover of the second C.C. record flickered, flickered, her sad strange face looming over the dazed crowd.
     Damned good show. Magic spells, dark & lovely magic spells.

 
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2011

       (click to enlarge)

       Don Van Vliet, Dirty Champagne, 1995

 


 
    I never imagined him passing. Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart), gone as of Dec 17. I always imagined him by now as less man and more force, covering the desert with his wild, laughing & life-affirming magic, everywhere & suffusive as pollen, as everycolored dust.
    I remember first encountering Trout Mask Replica. I felt its surging boundless energy, all grinning spasms & fuschia tracers & Howlin’ Wolf rasps & crazy squeals. I was overwhelmed.
    But it wasn’t until later that I felt the power of not just the songs — those spiky guitar lines that felt composed and totally wildly improvised at the same time; that muscular grunting surrealist word-barrage, a mescaline dreamwork language visceral as it was violent — but of his sincerity, playfulness, warmth. I started to get to know his weird-warm spirit. Here’s a poem called “You should know by the kindness of uh dog the way uh human should be”:
 
 

You should know by the kindness of uh dog
The way a human should be
You should feel the wet wood heart of the tree
Wood sap pop like a frog's eye
Open t' the fly 'n the blood of the river
When it ripples 'n clicks like uh waterbell
'n the elephant in his beautiful grey leather suit
Though he's wrinkled he looks smart as hell
'n the turtle's eyes carry bags very well
'n the snake's in shape
He rattles like uh baby 'wears his diamonds
Better than uh fine lady's finger
'n his fangs are no more dangerous
Than her slow aristocratic poison
And he plays his games on uh grass bed
'n uh monkey never had uh guilty masturbation
'n uh monkey wouldn't shit on another's creation
And the fatman cries throughout all creation
'cause he's got uh cold
'n the icebear dives thru blue zero for uh frozen fish
'n the eskimo wears his hide 'n chews his heart
'n the beautiful grey whale oils some bitches lighter
Someday I'll have money 'n I can frame myself
What uh picture I'll be choppin' down uh tree 

 
 
    I didn’t have to dig deep to find in his vast output of song lyric and poetry a huge healthy yawping love for nature, animals, a sincere wish to find happiness in existence, a remorse for the difficulty humans have in connecting and loving, for our collective struggle to grow and progress and maintain our link to all that’s pure and natural and elemental. He may have been a jerk to know, a ranting megalomaniacal ogre in person — and many accounts hint at such a possibility — but I’m not a biographer, I’m just going off his output; I’m going off what he condensed of himself and channeled as best he could through his art. Here’s another bit, this one a fragment from the lyrics for “Space-Age Couple”:
 
 

Space-age couple
Why do you hustle 'n bustle?
Why don't you drop your cool tom-foolery
'n shed your nasty jewelry?
Cultivate the grounds
They're the only ones around.
Space-age couple
Why don't you flex your magic muscle?
Hold a drinking glass up t' your eye after you've
Scooped up a little of the sky
'n it ain't blue no more.
What's on the leaves ain't dew no more.
Space-age couple
Why don't you jus' do that?
Why don't you jus' do that?

 
 
    And the lyrics to “Plastic Factory”:
 

Phos'phrous chimney burnin'
Modern-men's a-learnin'
Time and space a-turnin'
Motor's engine churnin'
fac'trys no place for me boss man let me be

Wind and wave all blowin'
Mountain 'n sky showin'
Bee 'n flower growin'
Boy 'n girl are glowin'
fac'trys no place for me boss man let me be

Minds inside are goin'
Muscle 'n bone are showin''
One thing sure am knowin'
Get a fire goin'
factory's no place for me boss man let me be
boss man let me be boss man leave me be

    I loved the man’s music, singing, poetry, most of all I sensed in him a wide soul, a feverish burning soul, one that I felt I knew, one that kept me company so often in headphones or over speakers, one whose breadth and force I know I’m not the only one missing right now.

 
 
 
 
More of Van Vliet’s art
 
 
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2010

  
     Tomas Aksamit, video for Velvet Davenport’s song Mystery Michael (2010)



 
 
 
Fluffy piebald rabbits gently sniff-testing the air. Watery hypnagogic focus-pulses. Vulvic limpets held out like dowsing wands, dangerous wicker furniture, dried leaves, deathmasks. O & a tight, summery gem of a song. What the hell else could you possibly need in a music video?
 
 
 
More Velvet Davenport music
 
 
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2010