at work, much later

you're probably wondering, "what has greg been doing instead of blogging this past year?" crossword puzzles, mostly. also, guitar, improvisation, reading, walking, drinking, movies, and one funeral (i'll miss you, grandpa).
now i'm wondering if i should make a top ten list of records like i did last year.
i heard that there are about eight million blogs that are no longer being updated. now there's one less than that.
7:30 at work feels the same every day.
what have you been up to?

My Paintings

My paintings are about experiences and that sense of delight . . . I know it is probably easy to understand for you guys, but please, I'm trying to learn and I don't want you guys to be rude to me.

My paintings are in the collection of the Regis Foundation Minneapolis, so it's probably easy to understand how such things as rain could affect the progress of building your pool.

Given our lack of fins or gas bladders, it's probably easy to understand why swimming is such a challenge to humans, and why my paintings are starting to clutter up my home, though friends and family are doing a good job of taking the best ones “off my hands.”

My paintings are based on and inspired by Santeria, an average of the D scores, readily comprehended by a typical reader of sound synthesis articles.

So it's probably easy to understand why some people were just simply unable to recognize many of these men in my often light-hearted paintings, riddled with humorous hidden commentaries about life and the true importance of our world.

All of the titles of my paintings are from snippets of her poetry; for example: “Cruelty is Flashier than Gentleness,” “It Has a Marketable Hardness,” “If it's Aggressive,” “It's Probably Easy to Understand,” “And Easy to Enforce.”

For two main reasons: first, and this is probably easy to understand, I love talking about something that marked a real turning point in my life. Secondly, and aside from this context, my paintings are witnesses of fascination and respect toward the environment, or the glow of sun and moon reflected in the grass, water, snow, and skies, which Wordsworth and other poets mention as the joy (or correspondence of the inner glow) of our soul.

Some of my paintings are thirty feet long and take about three months, and others are about one centimeter long and can be found on the fingernails of women I have known.

That's actually not true, but given this explanation it's probably easy to understand how this reputation began, affected as I am by symbolism. In fact, my paintings are frequently depictions of depictions: people, places and things that I know and see everyday, as seen by imagined (by me) spectators.

My paintings are both spontaneous and international, and not about Jersey.

So now the reason for cold calls is probably quite simple to grasp. After all, they're calling strangers.

My Music

My music is my life. Deserted, looted and falling apart! We must reach that point where everything we perceived ourselves to be will appear to be crumbling and falling apart. My music is a flow of sounds, noises, forces; it develops to a point where it goes beyond itself. My music is mostly dreamy and of other worlds. A commercial recording of my music is available for sale to the public.

At this point the chicken will be cooked and falling apart. When my music is real loud my wife can hear it one floor below, but two floors below in her office it’s their long, narrow segmented living room and falling-apart fireplace. Actually my music is not about technique or form. And then, when it starts to sink, it's rotting and falling apart.

What happens if my music is forwarded? What happens if my music is not forwarded? Most of my music is, for some reason, written in a very conservative (not to use the word outdated!) style. If my music is doing that for you on some level or other, all I can say to you is "cut it out!" My music is a strategy and subversion, a rekindling of the Sumerian comedy. My music is not always designed to appease the sensibilities of the more conservative jazz fans.

I spent 9 hours sculpting this wicked cool bust of Alice, and the whole thing is cracking and falling apart to hell. My Music Is Cooler Than Your Music Is And That Makes Me A Cooler Person Than You Are. My music is cool en my life is beautiful. It was much older and falling apart than our last ferry. My music is unusual, and so are the facilities that are far apart and falling apart. My music is fun. When I am producing my music, I feel good. My music is on a different server, how can I link it to my page? My music is umtza umtza avagy.

Within six months after purchase things started rattling and falling apart! My music has been performed on the radio. My music is simply about the encounter and the interaction of sounds. I went to a High School that was very old, and falling apart in some areas. So my music is intended to be interesting and fun to play. All of my music is available for sync, just make an offer! My music is spirituals that speak of hope, promise, better ways.

Brittle books that are worn and falling apart are assessed by the more conservative jazz fans. Some of my music is here. Most of my music is eclectic- there are very few pop albums in my collection. It was rusted and falling apart: the only thing left of its seats was the springs. The background of my music is purely in the emotions of experiences in life, which often seem to overwhelm me. My music is the first step in our goal to build a mobile soccer field. My music is my tribute. It is my thank you to all the readers of the daily news. My music is almost "angry-like." She claimed that she was unable to meditate to it. Like the one day I was completely rushed and falling apart and my music was not "so minimalistic." Most of my music is for instruments with tape.

My music is so superior to yours that, well, the stairs are cracked and falling apart. There's no point in rushing back into the water and falling apart again. This is why it is so important to understand that my music is much more than a MIDI file. Describing my music is hard for people to do. One current that runs through virtually all my music is an interest in melodic line. This ten-song cassette harnesses the essence of what my music is all about.

My music is slowing down and falling apart. My Music is a first-hand exploration of the diverse roles music plays in people's lives. My music is not popular. The backyard tours were interesting; however, it was pointed out that the specifics of knotholes, no groundline, and falling apart trees did not necessarily bring us to a teary-eyed climax. My music is strictly forbidden. My music is supplied for organs, which are intended for public performance or organ grinding, etc. My music is equally enjoyed by those without burdensome circumstance. I hear atoms falling together and falling apart. All of my music is now MP3s.

My music is firmly enmeshed with the natural world. My Music Is Hot Lalomie Washburn. It has all sorts of railings and falling apart porches, and so forth. My music is not yours. If making things ugly is so ingrained in your blood, why not vandalize something old and falling apart? For example, I have noticed that the third building of Pleasureland is in bad shape and falling apart. My music is known and loved, and at the end I would like to have been fierce, funny and falling apart. The main subject of my music is a Russian province. All of my music is composed within the capabilities of my sound card.

My burger was ordered up done "medium" so it kept crumbling up and falling apart as I ate it. But my music is pretty good.

crossing

i got on the 7 train yesterday morning and it went in the wrong direction, back toward flushing. i got out at the next stop to switch trains back toward manhattan. i saw a man in a black coat let himself down from the platform and playfully walk across three sets of tracks over to his friend who helped him up. i guess he didn't want to go downstairs and have to go through the turnstile again. this is the advantage of having an unlimited metrocard.

best performance of 2005

where was i on december 18th, you were wondering?

as written by Greg McLean:

Didn't make it to the No Wave video fest at Galapagos or The Scene Is Now performance with Yo la tengo at Maxwells but I did make it to see a solo performance by The Scene Is Now's Chris Nelson at Exit Art accompanied by a phalanx of boomboxes of assorted shapes and sizes and a p.a. system. Chris simultaneously played cassette recordings of conversations, music compositions and noise varieties. He messed with volume knobs and passed the p.a. mic across the boomboxes giving "spotlight" performances to whatever bits of tape were passing over the heads at a given moment.

At some point he donned a fur coat and a pink derby and passed a tray around the audience of bourbon in plastic drink glasses. From his pockets came quantities of confetti with which he blessed the crowd. He saved an extra dose for this viewer/listener and an even larger dose for himself. This seriously compromised some of the bourbon.

A number of audience members earlier in the day had presented Chris with random phrases on note cards from which Chris improvised short vocal performances. Mr. Nelson's full range of vocal pyrotechnics were on display; from his delicate croon to the full bodied roar recognizable as his signature style from his no wave -Imformation-era. For extra flavor he also managed to let loose on a little harmolodic horn playing. "loose lips sink ships" was one phrase he sunk his larynx into, segueing into an accapella version of "Ferry Cross The Mercy" the Brit invasion classic made famous by Gerry and the Pacemakers. "It's always good to end a show with a pop song," Chris explained by way of introducing the number. At one point as he intoned the word "people" he got confused and began singing the notes for the Barbara Streisand hit of the same name but he corrected himself and soldiered on. Although fully clothed, his delivery was naked and emotionally raw as only the finest entertainers can pull off.

The cassette recorder is a dying piece of technology that has been with us for quite some time and sadly may be hitting it's moment of obsolescence. The sounds that came from the decks were like so many wailing dinosaurs in the tar pits. In a post show interview Mr. Nelson admitted that the boom boxes had been borrowed from a number of acquaintances who told him it was not necessary to have the boxes returned. Farewell "rewind." As we head into the second half of this first decade of the next century, Chris Nelson's Exit Art performance was enough to give one pause.

new tuning

i put some new strings on my #2 guitar (a smallish and slightly funny-looking thing whose brand name has been neatly scratched out so i can't really tell you any more about it) tonight, in preparation for this:

Glenn Branca Hallucination City: Symphony 13 for 100 Guitars
Feb. 4, 2006, 7:30 p.m.
Montclair State University
School of The Arts
Montclair, New Jersey, 07043
973-655-4000

if you find yourself in the area, perhaps you'd like to attend.

and this stuff was good, too

don't take the list below as a concrete reflection of how i heard the year's music. the way things sound at any given moment depends on the day, my mood, the light in the room, number of drinks consumed, other people listening, etc. and what about the thousands of releases that i didn't bother checking out because i thought the cover looked dumb or because they had song titles like "One Last 'Woo-hoo' For The Pullman"? if i were to make the list right now, it might be completely different, including some of the following:

johann johannsson: dis
lyn taitt & the jets: hold me tight
grouper: way their crept
v/a: congotronics 2
tom verlaine: warm and cool
bob brozman: songs of the volcano
boris/merzbow: sunbaked snow cave
jonathan kane: february
sound directions: the funky side of life
dengue fever: escape from the dragon house
lokai: 7 million
boubacar traore: kongo magni
dirty three: cinder
frank black: honeycomb
billy bang: vietnam * reflections
quasimoto: the further adventures of lord quas
sinistri: free pulse

so, precious reader(s?), what i'm saying is let's leave behind this list-making business for at least another eleven months or so. . . i'm tired of it. but thanks for following along.

#1

Sunn O))) "Black One" (Southern Lord)

I can't think of anything much to say about this record. Other listeners have already written a lot of descriptive and intelligent things, in reviews that are keystrokes away if you'd like to read them.

I will say that I've listened to it more than anything else in the last few months (which for me might be four times or so), and that I've never heard guitars sound so crushingly distorted without the help of drums, and that the first listen was twice as frightening as the horror movie I'd just seen. I hear that the vocals for the last track were recorded while the claustrophobic singer was locked inside a coffin.

#2

Smog "A River Ain't Too Much To Love" (Drag City)

About a year ago at The Bowery Ballroom there was a special Drag City Christmas show, with Weird War, Smog, and Joanna Newsom, each playing nine songs broken into three separate sets, kind of a three-way tag team approach. Of course everyone was there to see Joanna Newsom, who of course was amazing. Weird War gave me people a chance to visit the bar or the restroom. For me, though, the evening belonged to Smog.

With just an acoustic guitar (and some surprising chops to boot), he started his first set with a new song, about a bird that's stayed north too long. Jason and I exchanged blown-away expressions, both thinking his might be the best song he's ever written. Then he played another new one ("bury me in fire, and i'm gonna phoenix"). I could feel my jaw hitting the floor. . . this one was better than the first. The third song was like an out-of-body experience; I was floating above myself, hanging on every lyric like my life depended on it. He sang "I love my father, I love my mother, I love my sister too. I bought this guitar to pledge my love, to pledge my love to you." The back-of-my-neck hairs reached for the sky in complete surrender.

A few months later when this record came out, I learned the names of these songs: Palimpsest, Say Valley Maker, and Rock Bottom Riser. And each spin of this disc still feels like the first time. Thank you, Bill.

Oh, and the rest of the record is great, too.





p.s. See here for some new year's eve pictures (scroll down).