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knifeshoeoreofight · 6 years

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“Méditation” ( from Thaïs), Massenet

The first time Sid hears the busker in the subway, he’s running uncharacteristically late. He’s bouncing on his heels a little with nervous energy, craning his neck to watch for the next train. The lack of other people on the platform only serves to make him feel even later and more anxious. And then.

Everything in Sid goes quiet as the first perfect note resonates through the station. He’s never been someone to pay attention to classical music, or street performers for that matter, but the sweet, haunting melody takes hold of him so strongly that his feet feel rooted to the spot.

He turns to look. There’s a man down the platform from him, battered violin case at his feet, the instrument itself tucked under his chin. His eyes are closed and he sways a little with the melody he’s coaxing from his strings. He’s tall, and his huge, careful hands make the violin look delicate and small.

No one is paying him any attention, and Sid can’t fathom how they’re managing it. He can’t look away, and his chest feels tight, like he almost wants to cry. He’s not sure what’s happening, music’s never affected him like this before.

He doesn’t have any cash on him, nothing to give in return for what he’s been given. Instead he stares, and listens, until the man opens dark, warm eyes and smiles at Sid as he continues to play.

Oh.

“Story of My Life”, One Direction

Sid puts some smaller bills in his wallet just in case he sees the busker again. He doesn’t, for a couple days. But come Friday morning, there he is. There’s a gaggle of tweens in the matching backpacks of an out-of-state school trip waiting for the train as well, and Sid sees two girls go up to the busker. He’s fiddling with the doohickeys at the top of his instrument but he smiles warmly at them.

“It’s our friend’s birthday?” one of the girls says hesitantly. “I know it’s like, whatever, but do you know any, like… One Direction?” Her thin shoulders hunch a little as if she’s expecting the busker to laugh or blow her off, like Sid suspects a lot of people have done. He half expects the busker to do the same, especially after that classical piece Sid heard him playing before, but he doesn’t.

“Of course!” he says warmly. “My goddaughters love.” He starts to play, and another girl in the huddled group of students swivels around like a bird dog with a scent, expression comically surprised. Her friends laugh and hug her, and they sway and sing along between fits of giggles. The busker watches them with a look of fond indulgence, until he finishes the song with a flourish and the girls applaud him. Sid, for some reason, finds himself smiling from ear to ear. Something about the little tableau is just. It’s nice, is what it is, and it makes him feel happy to be alive.

When the school group has moved on, he walks up to the busker, who’s fiddling with his instrument again.

“That was really nice of you,” Sid says, and drops a five-dollar bill into the man’s open instrument case. The man looks up, and stares for just a moment before breaking into a smile.

“I see you before?” he asks, and Sid feels his face flush.

“I’m here every morning,” he says, and shrugs.

“Have to look for you, then,” the man tells him, and his grin is...almost flirty. “And is nothing, pop song for little girls. People always make fun of what little girls like. So what? Cute song, sweet. Not hard to play, and look how happy they are.”

Sid’s heart is doing some unapproved fluttering about in his chest. “For sure.”

“Baby Mine,” (from Disney’s Dumbo), various

Sid’s got a cold, and he feels like shit. He woke up feeling morose, lonely, and miserable. He should maybe call in sick, but he has such a hard time justifying it to himself. Is he really that sick? So off to work he goes.

As soon as he makes it down the station steps, he can hear that the busker is back, and something in him feels a little...comforted.

Sure enough, there he is, playing with his typical emotion, a gentle sway with the melody, and that lovely smile of his. There’s a couple standing in front of him, two women holding hands, one of them resting her free hand on the swell of the other’s very pregnant belly. That somehow sparks the recognition in Sid’s brain and he realized that the man is playing the lullaby from Dumbo. The scene in the movie where the baby elephant’s mom sings it to him made Sid cry his eyes out when he’d first seen it as a little kid. He looks at the couple and he listens to the music and he just...aches.

He drops his customary five dollars in the busker’s case when the song is over and the women have left.

“You okay?” the busker asks.

Sid sniffles, a little pathetically. “I’m a little under the weather. That was so beautiful, just now. They looked...so happy.” Oh god, that didn’t come out as yearningly as it sounded in his head, did it?

“Yes,” the busker says. His eyes are so dark and so kind. “But you. Can’t call in sick? Should do. Look really bad.”

“I shouldn’t,” Sid says, but breaks into a hacking coughing fit, and the busker raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. Sid’s shoulders slump. “Okay, maybe I should.”

“Call now,” the busker advices. “Get nice tea from shop on the corner—” he motions upwards. “And go home. Take taxi if is long way.”

“Okay,” Sid says obediently, half wondering why the busker is being so solicitous and half why Sid is listening to his directions.

“My name Evgeni, by the way. Call me Geno” the busker says. “Can blame on me, when call boss.” He grins, tongue caught playfully between his teeth.

“For sure,” Sid says, helpless to do anything but respond to the smile with one of his own. “I’m Sid.

“Nice to meet you, Sid.”

“Free Fallin’”, Tom Petty

There’s a homeless man in the station today, curled into a ball in a nest of grimy blankets and cardboard. He’s eyeing Geno suspiciously as he sets out his instrument case. Geno just nods politely at him, and does his usual warm-up of fiddling with his violin’s strings and tuning pegs.

Sid might have looked violins up on Wikipedia to learn what all the parts were called.

“Hi Sid,” Geno calls out jovilly, before becoming reabsorbed in his instrument.

“Hey,” the homeless man says suddenly to Geno, in a painful cigarette rasp. “You know anything good?”

“Maybe,” Geno replies. “What you like?”

“Tom Petty.”

“Let me see,” Geno says, and digs his phone from his pocket, putting in one earbud and tapping at the screen.

“Mm,” Geno says, after a minute or two of listening with closed eyes. “I like it.” Still listening, he picks up his violin, keeps nodding to the music for a moment or two longer, and starts to play.

Sid recognizes the song, it’s one from his dad’s collection of cassette tapes. He had it out in the garage, a ton of old 70s and 80s music that he’d play while he worked on projects out there.

The homeless man half-hums, half-sings along to the music in a rough, stuttering burr.

Sid slips a twenty in his change cup instead of in Geno’s instrument case.

“I’m give him rest of what I get, if he still here in a few hours,” Geno tells Sid, low.

Sid nods, and leans against the filthy wall to listen, and thinks about being a kid, handing tools to his dad while his dad whistled along to the stereo.

“Piano Concerto No. 1,” Tchaikovsky

It snowed last night, the first of the season, and it always makes Sid feel energized and clean, somehow. He makes his way briskly down the station steps, feeling certain the snow was a good omen and that he’ll see Geno today.

He’s refusing to think about why exactly he’s so let down on mornings when Geno isn’t there and ecstatic on days he is.

Today, he’s there, but something seems odd. Geno is usually irrepressibly cheerful, but this morning his characteristic smile is missing. He’s playing classical today, and it’s beautiful.

He only plays a few more notes to finish out the phrase when he spots Sid.

“Hi, Sid,” he says, and musters up a faint rendition of his usual grin.

“That was gorgeous,” Sid offers, not sure what to say. They make small talk whenever they meet but even calling them acquaintances is stretching it. He doesn’t know if he should say anything.

“Thank you. Concerto supposed to be for piano, but I’m arrange melody for her,” Geno says, patting his instrument gently. He pauses, like he’s deciding something, then continues. “When I’m miss home, play Russian composers most. This one Tchaikovsky.”

“Sorry you’re homesick,” Sid says, aching for him. “I’m not from as far away, but I do have an idea of how it feels. My family’s in Canada. My sister is nine years younger than me and. Yeah. Miss her like crazy.”

Geno’s eyes are soft. “Yeah. Pretty shit,” he says, startling Sid into a laugh.

Sid doesn’t have anything more to say that would make Geno feel better, so he just takes up his customary place against the wall next to him, hoping the proximity will convey some sort of solidarity.

By the time Sid’s train comes in, Geno looks a little better.

“Love Theme, (from Romeo and Juliet), Mancini

Geno’s music today reminds Sid of the first time he ever heard Geno play. The same unbelievable, aching beauty. Geno’s also...looking at Sid a lot, too. It’s too much, the lush, gorgeous melody and Geno’s searching gaze. Sid feels himself flush, feels his pulse beat in his whole body.

He wants— has wanted— for so long now to do something, say something. Ask Geno if he wants to get coffee. Anything. It’s a little crazy, he knows. He barely knows Geno, doesn’t know if he even likes guys, and if he did, if he’d like Sid…

While Sid’s still at war with himself, his train comes in. Geno starts forward like he’d wanted to say something, but Sid loses his nerve and goes to get in the train, giving Geno a weak smile and a wave as he goes.

O Mio Babbino Caro, Giacomo Puccini

The nonprofit Sid works for often sends people to gala events in order to network and make advantageous connections. Sid is absolute shit at it, he feels. He’s stiff, his nerves make him come off as bland as unsalted oatmeal. Mario keeps bringing him along anyway, though.

“Well, Sid,” he says with a laugh whenever Sid complains about it. “You’ve got the best poker face on the team. Can’t trust Letang to hold his cool around all the old-money snobs and trust fund babies.” Which, point.

Sid is nursing his champagne and trying to look interested in what the Vander-whatsit across from him is pontificating about, when a smattering of polite applause from the front of the front of the room draws everyone’s attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a treat for you tonight,” burbles the diamond dripped woman hosting the gala. “As many of you know, world-renowned young violinist Evgeni Malkin has recently begun his term as artist in residence with the New York Philharmonic, to great acclaim. And we’re lucky to have him here tonight, to give us a little taste of what to expect from his tenure. Please join me in welcoming... Evgeni Malkin!”

Geno. Geno is the one striding across the stage, in a tuxedo and tails, giving a casual wave to the assembled glitterati. Geno, bending to speak to the pianist, and smiling charmingly to the audience.

Geno, putting bow to strings and pulling forth a melody, that, while hauntingly beautiful, makes Sid miss the echo and background noise of the subway.

He stays in a state of shock all throughout the piece, until the last note fades and the audience bursts into applause. It would have been cinematic if maybe Geno would have seen him in the crowd, if their eyes had met in recognition, but Sid’s life isn’t a movie and he’s standing too far away from the stage.

He’s in a daze for the rest of the night, to the point that Mario frowns at him and asks him if he’s well. Sid is giving assurances that he’s fine when the hostess swirls up to them in a cloud of bespoke perfume.

“Mr. Lemieux, how wonderful to see you,” she trills. And that’s when Sid notices that she’s got Geno trailing along behind her.

“Have you met Mr. Malkin?” the hostess goes on to say.

Mario shakes his hand, and gestures Sid forward. “Wonderful to meet you, Mr. Malkin, I’ve heard great things. And this is my colleague—”

“Sid!” Geno blurts, eyes wide. “You here!”

Sid’s hand has somehow been scooped up by Geno’s and he’s not even shaking it, just holding on to Sid like Sid might disappear if Geno lets go.

“And you’re here,” Sid manages. “Not in the subway.”

Geno blushes, but doesn’t let go of Sid’s hand. “Ah, yeah. I’m go there for, relax? Remind me of why I’m love music. Play for people who maybe can’t come to classical concert. Try to make them happy. Donate money to charity if anyone give me. Little bit secret.”

“Oh,” is all Sid can say, feeling like he’s drowning in Geno’s dark eyes and warm grip and in the soft, hopeful expression on his face. “That’s amazing, Geno.”

“Call Me Maybe”, Carly Rae Jepson

“Had such big plans, you know,” Geno says into the curve of Sid’s neck. Sid can feel the way his lips arch into a smile. “Big plans.”

“Oh yeah?” Sid asks, and stretches against his sun-warmed sheets. His gaze catches on the crumpled remains of their evening attire, strewn across Sid’s bedroom floor. “What kind of plans?”

Geno gets up, pressing a kiss to Sid’s forehead. “I’m show you,” he says, and the laughter in his voice makes Sid want to pull him back down and never let go of him. He settles for watching Geno’s glorious ass as he strides from the room.

He returns with his violin in hand. The one Sid has learned is a three-hundred-year-old. multi-million dollar Stradivarius. He puts one knee on the bed and grins devilishly at Sid.

“Special Canadian song, just for you,” he says, and by the time he’s moved from plucking the intro to bowing the first notes of the melody, Sid know exactly what he’s playing.

“Nooo,” Sid groans, and flops back among the pillows. “Please. Why?”

Geno has to stop playing, he’s laughing so hard. “Had to do something! Couldn’t let most beautiful man in New York get away! Was going to give you phone number, ask for date.”

Sid smiles helplessly at him. “Go put that terrifying thing back in its case and come here and kiss me.”

And Geno does.

#sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #dana writes a thing

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manjuhitorie · 6 years

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Hitorie - ai/SOlate Meetia Interview

http://meetia.net/interview/hitorie-aisolate/

A leader of the vocaloid scene, wowaka, and satan and doggo and the old man who writes the Chikyuu Monogatari manga on this Meetia as well, have been the best rock band ever since 2012. yes, yes  They delivered. They made a new album of 6 songs with the title “aiSOlate”. A title with many meanings behind it, it’s deep baby, deep. With the pre-released song Unknown Mother Goose at it’s heart, it’s an album that’s delivers that good good Rie sound, while at the same time is full of songs of a broadened range, yes sure Fortunately, I had the chance to interview them before their album was released. And I could feel how this album was a step towards their new phase. How do I put their stimulative words into a report though, even after thinking about, it was tricky but, I’ve decided to start by writing about the manga “Slam Dunk”.

Why “Slam Dunk”? Well, actually anything like “Kuroko no Basket” or “DEAR BOYS” would work too, I just want to start with the subject of basketball.

When I first saw the title “ai/SOlate”, as an author who used to be in the basketball club, I almost automatically thought of “isolation”. Isolation is a play that involves the other 4 players to open up half of the court, to separate the two most skilled players for a one-on-one. The four other players clump on the left side of the court, so they can freely fight one-on-one on the empty right side. It’s a strategy that only comes into play when you have an overwhelmingly strong aggressive one player. For example, the first time isolation happens in the manga “Slam Dunk” is during the high school tournament battle of Shohoku vs. Ryonan. Ryounan’s player Fukuda “Fukuchan” Kicchou, who possess overwhelmingly strong aggression, starts an isolation one-on-one wirh Shohoku’s “anxious” Sakuragi Hanamichi. And the match begins to fall in Ryonan’s favor… Well, it would be better to read “Slam Dunk” to understand more than the gist of it but. If we were to compare Hitorie’s album to basketball, the one with the title “ai/SOlate” and Unknown Mother Goose” in it, then, completely without a doubt, it’s an album of isolation, freely displaying the power of it’s overwhelmingly strong ace, wowaka. 

 Let’s dig into it. First of all, it’s about how this album was produced. Up until “IKI” Hitorie would produce by just the other bandmates responding to wowaka’s orders; wowaka would review their work and judge whether it was good or bad. Yet by “IKI” wowaka and the bandmates have changed how interact with each other, it’s evolved into “something more like we’re running alongside each other”.

So what was it like this time around.

 “It was sort of like, we went back to how it used to be?　wowaka was really getting into making it and all” proclaimed shinoda. Yet, there was a reason as to why he was proclaiming so airily.  “That’s certainly what happened analytically but, it actually felt completely different. It was like we’ve become able to communicate with each other without words. There were times when we didn’t have to talk much, I think, there’s much more times where we can understand each other without words nowadays. (Yumao)”. “Yumao said it. That’s how it would be analytically but, the peace of mind and the sense of trust that comes with this is something completely different. I think that this album might be full of our new approach to music, and a new challenge with our hearts. (wowaka)” These are the keywords, the “peace of mind and sense of trust” words that came out of wowaka’s mouth. Just as isolation is the play that allows aces to freely battle, if can never happen unless the team has a sturdy trust between them. As even if he were to miss the shot, the center field can take the rebound. Even if the enemy team were to steal, the guard can stop the attack-. It’s a relationship of trust that brings out each other’s strengths, it’s only a strategy that teams who have obtained trust can accomplish.

So, why was Hitorie able to create an album like isolation. A hint lies in their “IKI” production and tour. Now that we’re done with the introduction, from here on is going to be a normal interview. “IKI” to confirming yourself The album “IKI” was full of moods like “Compromising with other people” or “A sense of unleashing” and “Happiness”. So what kind of evolution happened during a tour after that album. “Our ‘IKI’ tour was one that let us confirm, the freedom and the happiness we achieved during the album production, this real sense of being alive, what kind of people we are and what we want to do, and making that all a little more into our reality. Through spending half a year, trading moods with our audience amidst a concrete atmosphere… The things we put into our album became something real. Our final at Shinkiba was emo. (wowaka)” wowaka’s tweet from after the live show was moving. I had referenced it in my IKI live report as well but, I’m bringing it back in this interview now too.

[ wowaka’s tweet “My mom came to Shinkiba and told me she was moved by it. I’m glad I pursued music.” https://twitter.com/wowaka/status/861941056501293056 ]

wowaka said “My mother came all the way from Kagoshima to Tokyo for me, saw my live and told me that ‘I was moved’. That was the first time she’s ever said something like that to me, so I was surprised. Even just talking about it now is going to make me emo but…., I felt, glad that I worked so hard to get here.“ and, even now, his “emo” feeling seemed about ready to overflow when he was looking back at the Shinkiba final. Happiness, a real sense of being alive, who you are. The “IKI” tour was one to confirm all that, and it ended in a big success. However, after that Hitorie started to decrease in live appearances. “I wanted to concentrate on producing this summer. To shutout a bunch of other things, and just simply make time to make things” were wowaka’s words. Which ygarshy responded to with “We talked about that in the izakaya didn’t we.”, nodding like he was missing those days too. “Even though we had converged with so many people and gained such happiness through ‘IKI’, this time we did the opposite, and broke up with them. What came out of holing up and working for 2-3 months was “Unknown Mother Goose” and all the songs in this album. (wowaka)” The idea of “holing up and producing” also links up with the title of “ai/SOlate”, doesn’t it. It seems like we’re finally reaching the core of this interview. “That works too. ‘ai/SOlate’ was, for me, a way to properly come back to what I have done, and to what I want to do. Just like how our band name started off as ‘Hitori (alone) Atelier’ yet then was shortened into ‘Hitorie’, I started this thing alone yet, as it goes through each of our members’ existences and interpretations and meanings, it then goes off to stab the heart of any lone listener. That’s what my image of music is. That’s what type of music I’ve come to accept and have been touched by. I think there’s a strength in being alone and unaided. I firmly trust in it. The feeling of ‘nobody is here for me’, I think anyone has to some degree. I started making music off of the motive power of such. I was able to confirm that through IKI and the tour. (wowaka)” With such solitude, what sake do you make music for? wowaka, who makes music off the motive power from the feeling of “no one is here for me”. In using such solitude, what sake does he make music for? “That was the question I confronted next, and the answer was, “human”. I want to interact with humans more, and in a weird way I want to become human too. There’s something that happens between one person and another, and I want to see what that is for myself. So when I thought about it, for me that was ‘love’. Consciously using the word “love” was a first for me, even in my lyrics even in my daily life. That was “Unknown Mother Goose”. The happiness and anger that comes with being with other people, then wanting to spread this sphere of every emotion all the way out to space. That’s my image. And so, if you put that into one word, then I think that’s ‘love’.” For Hitorie, up until now ‘love’ was something that was ‘played backwards’ (in ‘Imperfection’) or ‘almost forgotten’ (in ‘Ikitagari no Ko’). Yet this time, it’s a theme that’s laid out directly. “Unknown Mother Goose” starts with the lyric ‘If I were to preach of love, How would your eyes picture it?’ “That’s why it’s ‘ai/SOlate’, because I finally found ‘love’. It means ‘Love that came out at last’. Moreover, an alone and unaided ‘Isolate’, and a love that came out at last, I was able to express those together as ‘ai/SOlate’ and, it makes sense, it’s all definitely two sides of the same coin. Even as an alone and unrelated Isolate, I’m fighting to find the ‘love’ that comes out of interacting with people, that’s the very thing I’m trying to do, that’s what I’m trying to say.” The importance of “Unknown Mother Goose” The song that’s the heart of ‘ai/SOlate’, ‘Unknown Mother Goose’ is a very important song. If there’s such thing as the vocaloid scene, and on the other side there’s such thing as the band scene, then think as if there’s something in between them separating them. As, Vocaloid “is something that they cannot accept at all” (quote: Wada Takeaki interview). However, “Unknown Mother Goose” breaks that separation, or could it even be said that it fuses them. Just like how most people don’t say “guitar scene” or “bass scene”, maybe people will no longer say “Vocaloid scene”. I threw that question at them but, completely different answers came back at me. These boys hold the whole scene in respect, yet, they say that it’s like their songs are more personal. Yumao says that “I’m just satisfied that we were able to deliver high quality songs”, and Shinoda says that “There’s no need to mix the two, and, as long as there’s people doing them then won’t the scene stay alive?”. For ygarshy, from the beginning “there was nothing separating the Vocaloid scene and the band scene”. wowaka’s thoughts were the same. “I didn’t have even a milliliter of intention to ‘break the wall’ with this song, and Hitorie isn’t really something that we wanted to be a bridge between Vocaloid and bands. It’s more of something at a micro-level. For me, I had come to Tokyo and met Vocaloid, I got people to look at me but, I became unable to understand who ‘me’ even was, and, that’s when I started Hitorie. That’s why I made the song I had to make, with the methods I’ve used to write for these past 5 years, I made the song I wanted to make now. Of course, I think there are different implications when I sing a Vocaloid song as Hitorie. So based on that too, it’s a song that’s essentially personal.” Living troubled by the feeling that “I’m being misunderstood” Besides the word “Unknown”, there’s lyrics such as “Nobody knows who I am” in NAI., and the nuance of the lyrics about “I’m not understood” stand out in this album. For wowaka, who writes the songs and the lyrics, he said that he distinctly feels that “What I really think never gets across”. “I’ve always been troubled and conflicted by that. That I’m being misunderstood in a lot of ways huh. I said that the scene has nothing to do with this, yet I want to talk about the scene but (laughing). For about 2 years after 2009, back when I posted Vocaloid songs and made CDs, everything that I had received from the scene was really so sparkly. So sinless, so pure. Yet, in 2011 I felt that the situation was beginning to get suspicious.” He was laughing painfully as he tapped his fingers on the table. He opened up with “It’s not like I’m attacking anyone specifically but…”, and wowaka continued on saying this. “Put simply, the problem is as to whether there is love or there isn’t. If it’s not just an act. Back then, I felt that something really lame was coming towards me. This sort of ‘If you use Vocaloid and do this, we can get people together, we can start a business, we can deceive the children.’ theories and atmosphere. I’m saying this pretty brutally but, there actually was such going on at the time. That was painful to me. What felt hard to me was, that I was being seriously put into this superficial mess.” As someone who carried the Vocaloid scene, wowaka gained many followers. And one after another, most Vocaloid songs were being impacted by wowaka. People even say that he invented the “Vocaloid-sounding song” format. However, the fact that songs which were just crudely tracing the surface of that format kept popping and popping up, started to torment him.  Exclaiming a yet unknown story as one song “Thinking about it know, I think I was really mad at the time. I was depressed. Because of that, the answer to the conflict of ’Who am I’ was, Hitorie. Yet, at the time there was people who listened to us and said “Will wowaka do Vocaloid again” or “wowaka sounds cooler when he’s not the one singing”, or even “wowaka’s Vocaloid songs sound so inorganic and mechanical and cool”. When I heard those voices, I felt that what I treasure the most isn’t even conveying clearly. For me, there’s actually something more that I want to convey. There’s absolutely a story that was yet unknown to Miku and I, to Shinoda, ygarshy, Yumao and Hitorie. So now is the time, let’s explain that all as one song. “Unknown Mother Goose” is a song made out of those feeling, isn’t it.” What’s being said amidst one album is always all connected The song that was placed as the final track of the album, “NAI.”, the sound of it and the lyrics all scream Hitorie. It feels like a compilation of all their work up until now. However, if you listen to the album in order from song one, the lyrics to “NAI” are exceedingly interesting. It’s because, there’s lyrics that sound as if they’re rejecting the contents of song one “Absolute”. For example, the part “The word absolute, has nothing to do with me anymore”. However if you ask wowaka, he said that “The’s two songs are actually saying the same thing”. “On the other hand of the vector of the emotion “happiness” that I confirmed through ‘IKI’, I also want to treasure the opposite. I had been really mad in the past, and I hadn’t even realized that. At the end of burdening that and ailing all alone I started Hitorie. I had not known how to use my emotions. But I know now. That’s why I wanted to write lyrics using those emotions in their entiretly, from every direction, from every angle. For me those emotions are something “absolute”. Except, that is entirely how it is to me, now I want to ask ‘So what do you think?’. That’s the reason that I came up with the lyric ‘It’s not absolute’. That’s why it’s not rejection, the contents of ‘Absolute’ and ‘NAI.’ are actually the same. That’s how it always is but, what’s being said amidst one album is always all connected.” Hitorie’s 2017 To summarize, because he created a vector of happiness, ‘IKI’, wowaka found the chance to confront his past. So, through once again holing up and producing, with ‘Unknown Mother Goose’ as the start, the swarm of songs ’ai/SOlate’ was born. Even though it’s an album that started from extremely personal emotions, in it you can strongly feel a connection with society. ‘ai/SOlate’ is an album that almost connects Hitorie’s past and present.

Lastly, I asked what 2017 was like for them, the year where they created a monumental piece. “I got good at drawing manga this year. During the time when wowaka was concentrating on producing, I was focused on drawing. I wrote “Chikyuu Monogatari” on meetia, and I wrote a manga for Wada Takeaki’s (Kurage-P) album ‘Watashi no Miseinen Kansen’. (Shinoda)” “I feel like I was hit with a thousand baseballs this year. Or I went to catch every ball this year or something. That’s why this album, I think that people who listen to only the bass will say that, there were seconds where they thought it sounded more simple than before, but I’m just playing way more fast and complicated now than before. That’s how much my body strengthened (ygarshy).” “Drum-wise, I learned exactly what it is I can do and what I can’t do this year. That’s why, I’m really troubled right now. How do I learn to do what I couldn’t do. I think I’m having a lot of troubles involving that, and I feel like I’m about to enter a new phase. Well, I won’t know until I try but (Yumao).” “I found a place where I can be myself this year and, for me this year was a turning point in my life. In just that year, the fact that I was able to release to the world, both a ‘Unknown Mother Goose’ as Hitorie, and a ‘Unknown Mother Goose’ as wowaka, is extraordinarily big to me. Next year, we have to figure out how to perform the six songs of ‘ai/SOlate’ in front of people. I want to make the belief in Hitorie and the belief in wowaka, something stronger. (wowaka).”

— When we chatted after the interview, wowaka murmured “I want to do a concert already”. And in that second, everyone’s face lit up. Hitorie are surely going to be running at full speed in 2018 too.

#wowaka #interview #ヒトリエ #I probably made so many english misspells and oopsies in this #but I can't even see straight anymore #i love you rie

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auskultu · 6 years

Text

“I Read the News Today, Oh Boy”

Nat Hentoff, Ramparts, November 1967

You see, we haven’t really started yet, the Beatles. The future stretches out beyond our imagination. There is musical infinity as well. We’ve only just discovered what we can do as musicians. What threshold we can cross. It doesn't matter so much anymore if we’re No. 1 or on the chart. It's all right if the people dislike us. Just don't deny us. — George Harrison

As the rush to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band confirmed, the Beatles are now Art. Jack Kroll, Newsweek’s analyst of Now Culture, proclaimed “A Day in the Life” to be “the Beatles’ ‘Waste Land.’” In the New Statesman, composer-critic-musicologist Wilfred Metiers devoted an entire column to an exegesis of the themes of loneliness that make the album “art of an increasingly subtle kind.”

The Beatles, moreover, are Functional Art. Said the Times Educational Supplement (of London): “Lennon and McCartney’s lyrics represent an important barometer to our society—sentiments which are shared by pupils in every classroom in Britain ... If the record’s understanding were to be reflected in Britain’s teachers, our schools might be more sympathetic institutions than some are now.” In echo, a school superintendent this past July told a conference of music educators in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, how to start their journey across that alarmingly widening generational gap: “If you want to know what youths are thinking and feeling, you cannot find anyone who speaks for them or to them more clearly than the Beatles.” Said Beatles even speak for and to the dead. At the funeral in August of murdered British playwright Joe Orton, the Beatles’ recording of “A Day in the Life” started the decidedly secular service.

And yet three years ago, Paul McCartney insisted, “We have no message and aren’t trying to deliver one.” What is the message now? On one level, it’s not quite clear, even within the company of the four gurus. Tim Leary announces: “The Beatles have taken my place. That latest album—a complete celebration of LSD.” And Paul McCartney, who has indeed taken LSD, says: “After I took it, it opened my eyes. We only use one tenth of our brain. Just think what all we could accomplish if we could only tap that hidden part! It would mean a whole new world. If the politicians would take LSD, there wouldn’t be any more war, or poverty.”

But George Harrison, once a trip-taker, tells the Los Angeles Free Press: “Acid is not the answer, definitely not the answer. It’s enabled people to see a little bit more, but when you really get hip you don’t need it.” And John Lennon, who has also journeyed somewhere into himself through acid, laughs when told that hippies, actual and acolyte, take the initials of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” as a hortatory message. “No,” he says, “my son, Julian, brought a painting home from school and said it was a picture of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” So what is the message? Look up in the sky—and live.

On another level, however, the message is clear and Beatles-consensual enough. Writing of the Sgt. Pepper implosion, Paul Williams, editor of Crawdaddy, the higher critic of the new sounds and feelings, asserts: “If there’s a message, it’s ‘Dig Yourself.’ ” With a little help from your friends. It’s getting better all the time, and it doesn’t really matter if you’re wrong or right.

But that’s not all. There is also death. The Beatles are, up to a point, hip to death, more so than any other popular music group has ever been. Eleanor Rigby is dead long before the obsequies. And death grins in “A Day in the Life” of the man who blew his mind out in a car. In the same song, the deaths of miners in Lancaster become “four thousand holes ... and though the holes were rather small they had to count them all.”

The man in the car is bloody well dead, the crowd of people who stood and stared has turned away, the miners are in holes, but “though the news was rather sad / Well I just had to laugh. I saw the photograph.” Thus the auto-anesthesia of us all, who will not see pain, who will not believe in death, and who are disappointed when the news is not of pain and death. But could the song also show the Beatles’ own auto-anesthesia? Having seen pain and having thought of death, do they turn to save themselves—and their friends—through magic?

Magic? Wilfred Mellers finds one common bond in the music of Boulez, Cage, Bob Dylan and the Beatles—“an attempt to return to magic, possibly as a substitute for belief.” In an interview with Miles in the International Times, Paul McCartney says: “With any kind of thing, my aim seems to be to distort it, distort it from what we know it as, even with music and visual things and to change it from what it is to see what it could be. To see the potential in it all. To take a note and wreck it and see in that note what else there is in it, that a simple act like distorting it has caused. To take a film and to superimpose on top of it so you can’t quite tell what it is anymore, it’s all trying to create magic, it’s all trying to make things happen so that you don’t know why they’ve happened.”

And George Harrison, anxious for serenity, talks about being only 24 “in this incarnation,” and goes on: “We’re Beatles, and it’s a little scene and we’re playing and we’re pretending to be Beatles, like Harold Wilson’s pretending to be Prime Minister . . . They’re all playing. The Queen is the Queen. The idea that you could wake up and it happens that you’re Queen, it’s amazing but you could all be Queens if you imagine it. . . they’ll have a war quickly if it gets too good, they’ll just pick on the nearest person to save us from our doom. That’s it, soon as you freak out and have a good time, it’s dangerous, but they don’t think of the danger of going into some other country in a tank with a machine-gun and shooting someone. That’s all legal and aboveboard, but you can’t freak out—that’s stupid.”

Magic is dangerous to the world, but the world is more dangerous to the Beatles—and to their friends. And so, there is the leap into the magic of the loving community. We all live in our yellow submarine and our friends are all on board. With our love—we could save the world—if they only knew. [But since they don’t know] “Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream. It is not dying, it is not dying.” In this, the Beatles and the hippies are together in a search for peace.

And so the Beatles no longer speak to the very young who do not yet know how dangerous the world is, how efficiently numbing, how full of little boxes for them. The very young have turned to the plastic Monkees; but the older teens and many in their twenties and beyond are listening. On the other hand, the Revolver disc was dismissed by a class in a large industrially-centered English school with the words: “Aw no, sir, we don’t like that: it’s all Chinky.”

Beatles records are not on the jukeboxes in the black ghettos nor, I expect, are they the food of magic for those in the lower tracks of any of our schools. Those young abandoned magic with Santa Claus. The Beatles are increasingly for the comfortable and afraid—afraid to be lonely, afraid to be Eleanor Rigby. It is true, as Frank Kofsky writes in the National Guardian, “There are millions of devout followers of Dylan, the Stones, the Beatles, and all the rest, who are in opposition to the society that spawned them and are, in the words of a Jefferson Airplane song, ‘trying to revolutionize tomorrow.’ In hippie communities like San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, they strive to realize the new socialist man (my label, not theirs) who will be capable of fulfilling to the limit the creative potential of the human race, especially in the arts.”

But, even with a little help from their friends, will these revolutionizers of tomorrow-through love, through consciousness-expansion, through digging themselves on their yellow submarine-change what’s happening out there? Even if you could spike LBJ’s root beer with LSD, what then?

However, as for expanding creative potential among those in the beloved community, the Beatles are indeed among the liberators. They started nibbling at Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. (In that incarnation, George Harrison also picked up on Chet Atkins and Duane Eddy.) They were less black-inflected than the Animals and the Rolling Stones; but along with them and other young British rockers brushed by the blues, the Beatles turned millions of American adolescents onto what had been here all the hurting time. But the young here never did want it raw so they absorbed it through the British filter. Oh yes, some later found Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and now they’re into their own kind of greyboating with Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield and Big Brother and the Holding Company, but that’s a trip, as it has to be, with a return ticket. I mean, Shankar is beloved, but if he put an evening raga on you at high noon, would you know?

Anyway, the Beatles went on—into and through Buddy Holly, the Nashville communion, Bob Dylan, the Who, the Beach Boys. They were getting to where, as Paul McCartney put it, they could be influenced by themselves. And in their wake they left behind the fake imperatives of the 32-bar tune, “consonant” changes, steady tempos. Harmonies shifted vertiginously, their early modalities grew strange branches, voicings continually surprised themselves, and uncommonly ecumenical textures appeared —the sitar in “Norwegian Wood,” guitar tracks running backwards on “I’m Only Sleeping,” sitar and electronic sounds in “Love You Too,” more electronics in “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Writing of the latter, Mellers discovered “a new sonorous experience in amalgamating avant-garde jazz (Mingus-like jungle noises, Cage-like electronics, folk penta-tonicism, Indian sitars).” And in the Mellotron overlay in “Penny Lane,” he wondered if Lennon and McCartney had been digging Charles Ives.

Sgt. Pepper has further disintegrated paper categories and boundaries to get to where the Beatles could hear where they belong at the moment. Their first album had been recorded in one day. This one, with four to six sessions a week, evolved through more than three months, and is the most heterogeneous, heady mix of possibilities in pop music history. Combs and paper over a string octet and harp on “Lovely Rita”; multiple tracks of percussion and strings into which sitar, tamboura and swor-mandel are imbedded, swirling between 4/4 and 5/4 on “Within You Without You.” Three tambouras, a dilruba, a tabla, an Indian table-harp, a sitar (Harrison), three cellos, and eight violins on “She’s Leaving Home”; Lennon on Hammond organ, recorded at different speeds and then overlaid with electronic echoes, while four harmonicas disport in Being for the “Benefit of Mr. Kite.” And on and on to the 41-piece orchestra in “A Day in the Life” with, as Jack Kroll exults, “a growling, bone-grinding crescendo that drones up like a giant crippled turbine struggling to spin new power into a foundered civilization.”

Where now? The next move, says Paul McCartney, “seems to be things like electronics because it’s a complete new field and there’s a lot of good new sounds to be listened to in it. But if the music itself is just going to jump about five miles ahead, then everyone’s going to be left standing with this gap of five miles that they’ve got to all cross before they can even see what scene these people are on ... That’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to look into that gap a bit.”

As George Harrison says, “You see, we haven’t really started yet, the Beatles. The future stretches out beyond our imagination.” The Beatles are absolutely fre-e-e. “The competition among the best—Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, among them—is no longer for money,” observes pop chronicler Al Aronowitz in the Saturday Evening Post. “They already have enough of that. The competition is in music . . . The best artists in the business—the aristocracy—are moving into positions of power. They’re making fewer and fewer compromises with commercialism. There’s hardly anything interesting happening outside this exclusive circle.”

Meanwhile Rap Brown tries to find the revolution and the strategists of the New Politics scour the new class for their constituency. But to the Beatles, are they for real? Why be up-tight about anything? “At the back of my brain somewhere,” Paul McCartney says, “there is something telling me now that ... it tells me in a cliche too, it tells me that everything is beautiful.” And so it may be. Who can put down magic that works for the magician?

Must everything be related constantly to the non-psychedelic world? I keep thinking about the Beatles as “an important barometer to our society,” and I remember Donald Michael predicting in The Next Generation that the control centers “will be able to tolerate groups living at different paces and styles, if they show no deliberate intent to alter significantly the drive or direction of the prevailing social processes . . . Isolated and insulated from major and majority preoccupations of the society, and thereby offering no threat to the status quo, these enclaves will provide opportunities for more whimsical, personally paced styles of life.”

But what the hell, like the rest of us with stereo, the Beatles get by with a little help from their friends and they do live up to their promise: “A splendid time is guaranteed for all.” The music’s getting better all the time as the indignant desert birds hover about the shape with a lion body and the head of a man.

#ramparts magazine #sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band #the beatles #paul mccartney #George harrison #album review #psychedelic rock #counterculture #1967 #1960s #sixties #60s

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