The aggressive bouncers of Richards on Richards finally cleared the place around 1:30 AM, while my guitarist buddy networked with the Black Mountain keyboard player, trying to make connections. My interaction with the keyboard player, one Jeremy Schmidt, when I stumbled up, went like this:
Me: I really liked what you were doing, man. Some really nice textures in there. It kept being the instrument that I stood out and noticed...
Jeremy: Thanks!
Me: Do you guys listen to the Acid Mothers Temple a lot?
Jeremy: I sure do!
We went on to talk about AMT's last Seattle gig, which I missed; Kinski, tonight's first opening act, were apparently there, as well. The conversation confirmed, as if the music still left anything that required confirmation, that these guys are onto some very cool stuff. A heavier, more melancholy, more jam-oriented atmosphere infused much of tonight's set than one would necessarily have expected from the CD, but that, for me, was a very very good thing. Everything that I really like about their recording was augmented, and there was lots of space opened up for creating swirling, druggy soundscapes (hence the question). The band have a definite we-don't-care-how-we-look ambience that may restrict their, uh, marketability, but maybe that's the point -- and who doesn't want to jam their middle finger up the market's ass, these days?
But it's 2 AM and I gotta work in the morning. And on that topic, check out this Thoreau quote, folks:
...the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he
cannot afford to sustain the manilest relations to men; his labor would be
depreciated in the market. He has no time to be any thing but a machine. How can
he remember well his ignorance -- which his growth requires -- who has so often
to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and
recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him...
Reading it for the second time tonight, a bit twisted, I rebelled against something that I felt was somewhat classist in this sentiment, some presumption that workers are less cultured or such, which I hadn't noticed before; but I kept coming back to the one sentence, "How can he remember well his ignorance -- which his growth requires -- who has to so often use his knowledge?" That's my life in a nutshell, folks. I have no time or energy to really open myself up, to attain humility, to remember how ignorant I am; I have to play expert all goddamn day. I don't know very much about life at all -- except that as long as I have to work full time, this condition will not change much. To even lie back, exhale, and take the time to connect to my situation emotionally -- to ask myself where I am, let alone how I feel about it -- seems a luxury.
Ah, work. At one point, the bassist for Black Mountain stepped up to the mike to suggest that they'd play the encore we were demanding, but we were the ones "who had to work in the morning." I shouted in reply: "Fuck work!" I may be eating those words, oh, about five hours from now, but sometimes one needs to rebel just a little, even if in thoroughly harmless ways.
Please God, make the hangover mild.
To my audience: GO SEE BLACK MOUNTAIN.
Post Script: well, as God would have it, I had to duck out of class once my students were working on a grammar exercise to lock myself in the staff toilet and vomit. It's now 4:20 in the afternoon and I still have a mild headache, and I think I'm about to have another bout of diarrhea (one of the very few words the correct spelling of which remains a constant issue for me). Unless they noticed how red my eyes are and said nothing, tho', I think I passed for a sober, functional ESL teacher today. What does not kill me makes me... well, kind of tired and sore, in this instance. I will survive.
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