Category Archives: Music

Carry Wood

My 3 cords of firewood were delivered and I set about stacking it to dry. I worked a little each day, in chunks. Partly because it was a good mental exercise break, but also because the heat was pretty serious at times.

There’s been volumes written about the merits of manual labor – in case you haven’t read any of it, the TLDR is that it’s good for you.

I most often stack my wood in silence, choosing to enjoy and absorb the sounds around me and the voices in my head. On one particular occasion, I decided to listen to some music via my Air Pods. It was different.

I was stacking my wood like usual, thinking about all the other things I had to do, what was currently wrong and all the other things that had to be sorted as my playlist churned out in the Air Pods. Gary Clark Jr’s live version of ‘When My Train Pulls In’ came on. I thought how amazing it was that I was walking back and forth in the middle of my yard, in the woods – in the middle of nowhere essentially – on a nice overcast day with a slight breeze keeping the bugs down and at the same time I was being steamrolled by the music this man was making – or channelling – in another time and another place.

As the solo in the song peaked, I realized that none of that stuff I was thinking about prior really mattered. That, indeed, there was no place I could be other than where I was right at that moment, doing what I was doing, because everything had led to that moment – there was no way things could be otherwise. There was no way I could be anywhere else, doing anything else, there, or in the Universe at large. Nothing could have changed the things that were wrong, or sorted what needed sorting, or finished what needed doing. I was supposed to be right where I was. So everything was alright – and couldn’t get alrighter.

That was my satori moment with Zen master Gary Clark Jr.

Neil Elwood Peart, 1952-2020

I’ve been a Rush fan since high school. Being a drummer I was attracted by that, then eventually got into Neil’s lyrics. He influenced me in so many ways. He made me realize rock musicians could be smart. He got me to read again. I wrote poetry. 

Over the years I have owned all the albums on CD and cassette. I’ve read all his books. Several times. I’ve read all the magazine articles. I own the DVDs. As I mentioned on my About page,

Rush albums mark and coincide with distinct periods of my life and I have memories of time periods that jive with each release.

Several years ago I wrote Neil a letter explaining what his music and words had meant to me, and included some books I thought he’d enjoy in return as I knew him to be an avid reader. Later I received this signed postcard and word of thanks.

In contrast to many celebrities, he’s always been an intensely private guy – a weirdness with fame that he addressed in songs such as ‘Limelight’.

“Living in a fisheye lens
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can’t pretend a stranger
Is a long awaited friend”

Though he shared little, what he did share was thoughtful, thought-provoking, and at times brutally honest. I felt like I did know him, ironically – though that’s far from the truth.

What I do know is that he aimed to live a full life – and inspired others, including me, to do so as well. In this capacity he far surpassed simply ‘being a drummer’ – even if he happened to be one of the best of all time. An article in Rolling Stone at the end of their last tour summed it up:

Neil Peart likes to ask himself a couple of key questions. One is “What is the most excellent thing I can do today?” The answers lead him to travel between Rush’s shows on a BMW motorcycle instead of a plane or bus (creating scheduling nightmares for the band’s management), and to embark upon extracurricular bicycle trips through West Africa and China and Europe. He aims to fill every minute of his life with as much much-ness as possible, which may also help explain all those 32nd notes.

While I am sad at his passing – it is too early, the paradox is that this supremely private man still had so much worthwhile to share with us, musical or otherwise – I know that Neil managed to cram several lifetimes into his unfortunately abbreviated one and for those of us that remain remembering him, that is his last lesson and reminder to all of us.

Get out and find as much much-ness as you can my friends, and perhaps pause a beat once in awhile in the rhythm of life to remember those that have inspired us and moved on.

Art or Music?

If you had to choose only one to have, which would it be? Could you choose? Are they not both components of the essence that is life?

Letter from elementary school regarding music and art classes. Jilted grammar due to Google Translate as the letter comes initially in French.

For some years, whenever I have a kid approaching 6th grade, this is the letter I get from school. Due to what I can only assume is a lack of resources, kids have to choose if they’d prefer to have an art or a music class moving forward.

I have always felt, and continue to feel that this isn’t a choice kids should have to make.

Can you even separate art and music? Should we? What about language, storytelling, and culture – which are components of both – will kids at some point have to choose to leave behind some or all of those as well?

Analog to Analog

Back in 1988 when I was a junior in high school I’d been playing drums for several years, but was still pretty much a hack. I’d taken some private and group lessons, but my playing was mostly confined to putting headphones on and playing to my favorite records. I didn’t ‘practice’ in any way, shape or form.

One of my friends at school was Joe Reinsel. He was the real deal. He was in the school band, could read music and also played drums. I’d go over to his house sometimes and he’d show me licks and beats he was working on or figured out. I remember one time he was breaking down some Stewart Copeland stuff from Police records. Fantastic stuff that I either didn’t know about, or couldn’t get my head around. He had some Police albums on vinyl. So I borrowed them, went back to my buddy’s house and recorded them to cassette from his dad’s turntable.

Although a few years ago I sold all my CDs, I’ve kept all my cassettes in the garage. They’re what I listen to when working out there on bikes, or whatever. Radio reception is only so-so. The cassettes are great because they don’t really mind the cold, the dirt, or whatever. They just work. And the guaranteed trip in the Wayback machine each time I throw one in is great. I’ve got mix tapes, store bought tapes, album copies. Most of them I hand-made artwork/sleeves for. The best are the non- or ambiguously labelled ones without any track listing. Throw one in and go along for the ride. Because they were often copied from other people, there are many artists/albums that I didn’t get into that much or never acquired on CD that are fun to revisit all these years later.

I borrowed 4 albums from Joe – Regatta de Blanc, Zenyatta Mondatta, Ghost in the Machine and Singles – which I recorded on 2 cassettes back to back, one album each side. One of the cool parts of listening to these is there’s a ton of vinyl hiss and fuzz recorded right in – especially in the silence between the tracks. It just dawned on me the other day that these particular Police cassettes are now 31 years old.