Category Archives: Music

May 31, 2012 · 2:44 pm

All of the Raps: Entry III

As part of my musical explorations, I’ve decided to check out rap. It’s a musical genre that I’ve steered clear of, just like modern country music. But I’ve always felt bad about doing that. Disregarding an entire genre of music (or movies or books or television) without even trying it first seems close-minded. I want to see what it has to offer before disregarding it as a haven for violent imagery and blatant misogyny.

So I’ve listened to 2Pac and Biggie and Jay-Z and Kanye and Run D.M.C. and Will Smith and Public Enemy and Eminem and Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. I’ve heard some truly hateful, vicious lyrics (“Hit Em Up” is the most violent song I’ve ever heard). I’ve heard some very crass lyrics, mostly dealing with women and various attributes of their anatomy.

That doesn’t change the fact that I…like it. A lot. First, I’m a sucker for religious imagery, which a lot of the rap I’ve listened to contains. Second, I write in a genre that peddles violent imagery like it’s about to be banned, so that’s hardly going to turn me away. Hell, I’ve had people say that some of my stories have made them sick. I can’t really point fingers at 2Pac for advocating dropping Biggie and his Junior Mafia.

Third, as someone that enjoys creative use of words and language, rap is awesome. It’s a blur of words, spit out to a beat and in a breathless frenzy. Or it’s a slow flow that blends into the melody before beating out a staccato rhythm of punctuated verbiage.

And it’s different from everything that I’ve listened to before. It’s a novel (to me) use of language. There’s something deeply appealing about that to me.

I don’t think I’ll be giving up rap anytime soon.

Even if I do sound like the whitest person alive when I talk about my enthusiasm for it.

-D-

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April 30, 2012 · 3:07 pm

Broadened

Lately, I’ve been trying to broaden  my musical tastes. For a long time, I haven’t done much to expose myself to new stuff. I’ve just floated on music I’ve been listening to for years now.

But I’ve gone on a downloading (legally!) spree. I’ve downloaded some of the raps that the kids today listen to and some old school funk. I’ve downloaded some pop and stuff from as recent as ten years ago.

I can’t seem to break into into the Millenium though. I don’t even really know where to start really. I need some advice. If there’s anyone out there who’s willing to recommend music to listen to from 2000 on, I’ll be willing to give it a try.

Anything. Wide open over here.

-D-

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June 14, 2011 · 1:20 pm

I Wanna Rock! (Maybe)

I need a hobby, something to do with my massive amounts of spare time instead of just surfing on the internet and playing Angry Birds. I’ve been thinking about trying to learn the guitar again, but doing it properly this time. My last guitar was electric, which led to problems when something got loose inside and it stopped playing.

So I decided to look up acoustic guitars and find a good, cheap one. I was almost immediately overwhelmed. I went to forums called things like guitarlovers.com and read posts that were mostly bizarre designations (“Oh yes, the Fender VS-7691 is definitely acoustically superior to the Fender VS-7691-G”) or littered with references to parts of the guitar that I couldn’t decipher (“The strutting raptor frets are more polished on the Gibson Dodder-591″).

In a bleary, confused haze, I wandered from site to site getting more and more befuddled. I had no clue what guitar I wanted to buy, but I did know that the Shoggoth Krxxzn 6867-FFXX-679′s effervescent chrome bridging apparatuses punctured the spacetime continuum with tonal rigidity. Eventually, with my eyes bloodshot and my fingers trembling, I stumbled onto about.com and got a top ten list of best guitars for the clueless and now I know what I want, if I decide to get it.

But now I’m worried that someday, if I do learn to play, I’ll turn into one of those people: the ones with the superior air who spends hours arguing over whether Fender sucks that much harder than a Gibson or the ones who can rattle off several dozen different variations of one particular type of guitar without breaking a sweat. Because I looked into that world, for just a second, and I know that way leads to madness.

Dylan Charles

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January 19, 2011 · 2:38 pm

Jazzed

I generally consider myself fairly open minded about music. I listen to stuff that hasn’t been popular in almost fifty years. I occasionally listen to an indie rocker or two. Hell, bring on a rapper and I’ll give ‘im a try.

But the one type of music I’ve never been able to get into is jazz. It’s not for lack of trying. Or maybe it is for lack of trying. I’ve never tried too hard. I look at the sheer depth and breadth of jazz and become overwhelmed. I back away and I run away, heading for the comfort of a Bob Seger song.

There’s so many shifting contours of winding music that it seems remarkably easy to get lost. Where do I start? How do I even pick the first damn thing to listen to? Trying to grab ahold of smoke seems like an easier endeavor. John Coltrane? Miles Davis? Billie Holiday? Charlie Parker? Which person do I choose? And then which songs? Or which albums for that matter. It seems like certain albums need to be listened to in their entirety. No picking or choosing with “Kind of Blue”. Whole thing, man.

I need a Virgil is what I need. I need a guide to help step my way through this strange new landscape. This is my way of asking for recommendations.

Dylan Charles

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August 17, 2010 · 10:03 pm

The Sky Is Crying

The blues produces a very odd and paradoxical effect for me. Contrary to the name of the genre, it does not make me blue. Blues songs, in fact, make me very happy.

Partly it’s the idea of taking a deep pain  (generally the pains associated with love) and actually doing something with it. Duke Ellington once said that he took the energy that it takes to pout and wrote some blues instead. And there’s something deeply cathartic about someone pourin out all that pent up feelin and turning it into something creative and worth listenin to. Even from a second-hand standpoint, hearin someone else actually shake loose from their blues is often enough for me to actually get off my ass and DO something, instead of just sitting around and sulking.

More than that, it’s sadness personified. The long, wavering howling of Robert Johnson while he plays his lonely guitar belies more than just the pain of one broken heart, but the broken heart of every person who listens to the song. It unifies the listeners, lets them all know that they’re not alone in the pain that they’ve felt or are currently feeling. And sometimes, just knowing that they’re not alone, makes all the difference in the world.

Dylan Charles

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August 8, 2010 · 8:58 pm

Me and the Devil Blues

I’ve not really been on speaking terms with music lately. I’ve listened to the same two playlists over and over again, to the point where I no longer hear the music. It’s just a droning noise in the background, indistinguishable from any other sound. An endless, sound that rolls and wavers that is little more than white noise to me. Occasionally I’ll catch a snatch of something that sparks, jolting me into actually hearing what I’ve been listening to, but then it subsides again into a mindless atonal noise.

It’s a depressing thing, because while having music isn’t the end-all for me, it does mean something to me and it plays an important role in my creative drive. It’s always been there to me, to more or lesser degrees. I’ve even based some stories (loosely) on songs I’ve listened to. Sometimes it’s just a feeling that the song provokes that I then translate into story format, like the song “Wanna Rock & Roll” where a man with a cold black heart and red hot mind kills his lady because she dances with another man. If you’ve read my stories, you can probably see why this song appeals to me.

It’s always functioned as a catalyst for me, but lately I’ve been stuck in a rut, both in my writing and what I’ve been listening. So maybe if I switch up what I’ve been listening to, I can get back to writing again in earnest.

If I can find the time anyway.

15 Days Remaining.

Dylan Charles

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May 30, 2010 · 11:43 am

I Asked For Water, She Gave Me Gasoline

I like rock ‘n’ roll and its illegitimate daddy, the blues, just as much for the mythology as for the music itself. You’ve got musicians who may, or may not have sold their souls to the devil just so they can play the guitar faster than a normal man. You’ve got a death count that rivals the Great War. You’ve got a gritty, seedy underbelly that, say, disco just doesn’t have.

It’s this roughhewn, darker, murkier aspect of the genres that I enjoy. The language is often vicious, almost murderous. Blues and rock just don’t work as well when there’s polish and glow. It needs that darker half to bring out the best qualities. Cheatin’ women, murdered lovers, drinkin’, whorin’ and killin’. That’s not to say that there’s not more upstanding topics brought up, like, say, spirituality, but usually that spirituality is limited to goin’ down to the crossroads and sellin’ one’s soul to the devil.

The grittiness of the music goes beyond the subject matter and language, it’s reflected in the recording of the music itself. Robert Johnson, a blues musician who managed the impressive trick of selling his soul to the devil AND dying young, has only a handful of recordings to his name. They’re raddled with static and pops. His voice wails alone, his guitar the only instrument.  And all of it just adds to the music. The raw raggedness is a necessary ingredient and makes it more than it would be otherwise.

On the other hand, you have a blues guitarist like Jonny Lang. He rocks the guitar like the late Stevie Ray Vaughan and growls through a song like the best of them, but there’s too much foofrah, too much lace and trim. There’s the back-up vocalists, the way too many other band numbers playing horns, basses, violins and didgeridoos. With all that polish and shine, something is lost and it stops being rock ‘n’ roll and it stops being the blues and becomes a gussied up dandy who’s lost connections with his roots.

Just as I’m drawn to horror in books and movies, I’m drawn to music that has to turn its head until that darkness goes.

Dylan Charles

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May 15, 2010 · 10:45 am

Music Ain’t Noise Pollution

I’m constantly surprised by how music can affect me. I’ll go long stretches of time without it, forgetting that I even have music on my computer and instead going with dead silence while I’m writing.

But when I do remember to turn on iTunes, things start to happen. I wouldn’t say that I’m inspired. That implies that the moment the Rolling Stones start up, angels descend from the heavens and, in a glorious beam of light, begin to recite words to a story that needs to be written down by my very hand.

Music has a much simpler effect than that. It warms me up, puts me in the mood, gives me the extra little burst I need to actually start writing, as opposed to just sitting there and staring at the screen hoping for something to happen.

Music is something for the background. It’s never been the end all for me. I’ve never just sat around and listened to music. I get bored a lyric in and wander away. Asking me to sit and listen to a song is an exercise in frustration for both parties.

But, even though it has been relegated to this secondary status, it’s still extremely important and it needs to be there; giving me little nudges, prompting me, acting the catalyst.

Dylan Charles

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