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Holy 1984, it’s 2008. Happy New Year.
I don’t even know where to begin. This is perhaps going to be a rather lengthy post…….

This morning whilst remaining in bed I read a few essays in Dave Hickey’s “Air Guitar”, a book I wholeheartedly recommend. “Air Guitar” had been languishing in my virtual shopping cart on Amazon for a few months and I had forgotten about it, so I bought it for myself while purchasing most of the presents I gave to my relatives over the holidays. Mr. Hickey is quite a formidable writer, and the myriad ways in which he dissects and connects music and art and culture and history were gently blowing my mind this a.m.
Then I went and got my coffee, a ritual that seems somewhat endemic to NYC life…..I have a coffee maker and coffee here in my apartment, but the day doesn’t seem like it begins properly without me going outside to procure a large cup of regular coffee from the deli around the corner. Upon my return I answered a few emails and then prevented myself from taking the usual ire-inspiring journey to seven or eight different websites to see what latest absurdities have arisen around the globe that you will not be able to read about in the morning paper.
I decided to put on some music instead. To take me away. Or bring me back. I’ve been on a small quasi-synthetic kick the last few days, so I played the song “Genesis” by Justice, followed by some tunes from the first two Kraftwerk records, which I only recently realized are, in their thrilling minimalism, in some ways equally as brilliant as their more often-heralded middle era records like Computer World. Then I digressed from the quasi-synthetic to listen to “I’m Designer” by Queens of the Stone Age, off of Era Vulgaris, a record that should be on more of those top-fifty etc. blah-blah-lists-sell-magazines-year-end-whatever errr….lists. More on this later, I imagine. Nobody is immune. To list-making, that is. Anyway, I then put on some CAN. Ahhh, CAN. CAN can almost always make me want to make music.

Later has arrived sooner than expected. Looking over Pitchfork’s top fifty for 2007……hmmm……well, I guess. I’m still somewhat baffled by the near-universal accolades for Animal Collective (Strawberry Jam) and some of the other similar choices. Yeah, I know, they’re a lot of fun live but the record doesn’t grab me, even after repeated attempts to become grabb-ed. I like some of the writing on Pitchfork a lot but, - and I’m not saying anything that numerous others have not been declaring for a long time -, really, their somewhat smarty-pants-y, we-know-cool vibe is a little grating at times. The prime example this past year for me was their review of the Joy Division re-issues, in which the reviewer gave two out of three of the records a “10.0″. They NEVER give anything a “10″! Yes, Joy Division were indisputably brilliant , but really, a “10″ for both Unknown Pleasures and Closer ? Considering the almost total absence of “10″’s in Pitchfork reviews, one must presume they are declaring these two records to be the greatest or “coolest” records like, ever, dude. I must beg to differ, and point out that in bestowing such pure unadulterated sanctity upon Joy Division (again, as great as they were) Pitchfork ended up kind of parodying themselves. Anyway, I digress and possibly transgress, so let us progress, onward.

In my last post (in the Pleistocene age), I mused briefly about some guitarists and solos that I admire. Allow me to continue that thread here for a moment. More influences and notables for me:

George Harrison’s slide guitar solo on “Gimme Some Truth” on John Lennon’s great Imagine record is one of my favorite solos of all time. It’s short, simple, sounds like it was probably done on the first take, and it has a sound and immediacy that makes me rewind to the part of the song to just before the solo starts, when Lennon sings a falsetto “woo-hoo-oo!” to introduce it.

Mick Ronson’s playing on the entirety of David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World album. These sounds are the beginnings of the glam grandiosity and swagger that would become Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, but a little more splintered and weirdly Sabbath-esque.

Speaking of Joy Division, Bernard Albrecht/Sumner’s playing and solo on “Warsaw” is great. I remember having the solo as my telephone answering machine’s greeting for awhile when I first moved to New York, much to the annoyance of my room mate.

J. Mascis. Too many solos to mention. Mr. Mascis is like some kind guitar-plying transformer, charged for grandiosity and inspired blow-your-head-off bombast at every opportunity. You’re Living All Over Me was the first Dinosaur Jr. album I bought, and it’s still my favorite, but there are instances of holy-shit guitar transcendence on many of their records. I saw them play (re-united) about a year and half ago at Irving Plaza (now the “Fillmore East”…..yeah, right…..) and they did not disappoint whatsoever. And, they were exasperatingly, comically LOUD, just like in ye olde days. Nice.

Red Volkart. Uhh….who? Formerly Merle Haggard’s guitar player, as well as a session guy, who lives in Austin… If you see his name in the weekly music listings in the Austin Chronicle, and you’re in town, GO. A year and a half ago while doing some recording in Austin I reluctantly went along with some friends to see “some country band” at a small bar, and sat there right in front, ready to be bored, but instead I was blown away. Red Volkart has a style and technique that few guitar players anywhere could ever match. He is unbelievably good.

Although not really guitar solo related, for some reason it has just entered my brain, so I’d like to interject here that Metric are a great live band. In fact I would put two of their shows in the top 10 shows I’ve seen in the last 5 years. Again with the list stuff….

Let’s see now, oh yeah, the NEW YEAR: Late December and early January are unavoidably a time for reflection….or memory suppression, or digression, or transgression, or studied optimism, or dry anxiety, or unbridled enthusiasm. Well…in any case….it seems I did a lot in 2007, especially in the second half of the year. I wrote and recorded music for a number of films including a documentary film about the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, a feature film by the artist James Herbert (who has done some amazing films that have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art, as well as videos for REM, among others), an amusing short film that will hopefully appear in some film festivals in the next few months, and a feature film to appear on the Oxygen network later this month. I’ve also done some sound editing and sound effects for film and online games, which was more fun than expected. In addition, of course, I’ve been doing a fair amount of music recording of my own songs as well as working with Elk City, Dave Derby, and Night People, among others.
So, I’d say 2008’s gotta be great.
Yes.
YEAH!

On that note, it is now time to digress/transgress into territory that some may find less entertaining, but alas, speaking out is a right and a prerogative in these times.
So…where to begin….?
Ohhh, those primaries. What a big hullabaloo. Punditry and opinion and polling ad nauseum. What a load of hooey. Our media and our politicians are so hopelessly intertwined in their strange co-dependent relationship…at times it’s a truly alarming and very public display of errr… total nonsense that defies the laws of good taste, not to mention journalism. And that word “change” is thrown out intermittently as if it were some type of high concept. Nevermind many important issues, or statistics, or unanswered questions, or real political dialogue. Let us all be lulled and massaged into a CNN stupor so that we may observe the so-called democratic process in action.
Really, though, let’s not. Step away from the television. And let’s take a closer look at that other TV. -The one we all spend so much time in front of doing pretty much the same thing as we do in front of the first television. But let’s look at some other channels. You surely know some of them. The ones that you have to spend time actually reading, not the ones that make fun of Britney Spears or whomever the sacrificial lamb du jour may be. And not the New York Times, who just hired Bill Kristol as a columnist (WOW, the Times is sinking really low these days…..). More and more, real investigative journalism is found on the web, because the networks and major papers just aren’t doing their jobs anymore. Sometimes something slips through, like in the UK’s Sunday Times last weekend. Read this article and its analysis by Chris Floyd and others here . This story is clearly of massive importance, but who reported on it in the U.S., other than people on the internet? Nobody. It’s incredible. And this story, with all its tentacles, has been alive for a couple of years now. Granted, CBS’s “60 Minutes” actually did something associated with it quite a while back, but since then it’s as if all coverage of it anywhere in the U.S. has been shut down.
Once again, I digress, but anyway, there’s a film that really gets into what I’m talking about with respect to the big news organizations and television and election coverage, in addition to the FCC and media consolidation. it’s called “Orwell Rolls in His Grave” (terrible title, yes), and you can watch it here. The music (apologies to the composers) is not very good, but the content is very good, especially when it examines election coverage. And it’s a very appropriate time to be refreshing and expanding one’s awareness of these activities.

Lastly, Scott Horton wrote a good piece a couple months ago in Harper’s magazine about the history of Guy Fawkes Day in the U.K., and in it he makes the point that so many others, even way back in Mr. Fawkes’ time, have tried to emphasize:
“Beware the Government that Rules By Fear
A government that uses fear as a tool to cling to power is an enemy to its own people. It will use fear to undermine the rights of the people and to aggrandize its power over them. It will promise to protect, and will claim that it will take rights and offer security in exchange. But this is a fool’s bargain. A people who will surrender their essential liberties for an illusory measure of security are not worthy of being free. The lesson of Guy Fawkes is this:
It is not the People who should fear the Government, but rather the Government which should fear the People.
And the people standing resolute can make it so. Even in the time of George W. Bush.”
So, I’ll leave this at that for now. I’ll indulge in some list-making of my own next time.
A Happy New Year to you all.

While attempting to purge this site of a lot of spam, I accidentally deleted some interesting comments from some “real” people on the last couple of posts I wrote. If you’re reading this and you’re one of those people, I wholeheartedly apologize. I was overzealous in my attempt to exorcise the spam, causing some collateral damage.

I will be posting and updating the site later today.

S.

Hello.

I’ll be playing a couple of shows this Friday, October 4th, in Montreal with Elk City as part of the Pop Montreal Music Festival.

I recently returned from a trip to Austin, where I visited family and friends and also attended part of the Austin City Limits music festival, which was a lot of fun, although it was ridiculously hot and crowded indeed. The highlight of the weekend was seeing Bob Dylan at Stubb’s barbecue in downtown Austin. My friends and I managed to get pretty close to the stage, so it was a real treat.
I also saw My Morning Jacket, Arctic Monkeys, Andrew Bird, Ghostland Observatory, Midlake, and quite a few others including a 70’s-ish-sounding hard rock band from Boulder, Colorado called Rose Hill Drive that was a pleasant surprise.
Back in NYC now, and am about to begin composing and recording some music for my own record as well as a couple of film projects.

Presently I’d like to sheepishly apologize for the fact that I certainly have not blogged every week, as I somewhat recently said I would. A reader commented on this a couple of weeks ago. One reason for my delinquency is I’ve been busier than usual (a good thing) lately. Another reason is that I really don’t want to write anything too errr……..boring, to be honest, so, I write when I feel the need more than the responsibility. At the same time I don’t think this site is the proper forum for some of my political etc. musings so I am trying to avoid ranting or raving about certain subjects. And furthermore, I would say that very few people read or are even aware of this site, and thus the importance of submitting regular entries seems somewhat dubious. It might be funny to just let this blog disintegrate, or rather, eat itself, but for the time being that shall not happen.
I think.

Anyway, let’s talk about guitar solos. I’ve been in a bit more of a guitar headspace than usual lately and I’ve been listening to some so-called “classic” stuff.
I’ll ramble a bit. First, since I was just in Texas…….ZZ Top (!), whom I just saw last week at the Beacon Theater here in NYC. I think a lot of indie/alternative/whatever (I’m including myself in this demographic) people kind of roll their eyes at the mention of this band, mostly because they immediately think of the overplayed songs from the multi-platinum album Eliminator, like “Legs” or “Sharp-Dressed Man”. But, the best ZZ Top music occurred before this album. Tres Hombres, Tejas, and Deguello, for example, have some of the coolest guitar solo-ing I’ve ever encountered, and Billy Gibbons gets some of the best sounds I’ve ever heard from guitars and amps. And he is the king of unbelievably evocative understatement. He also manages to record sounds and phrases on his guitar that don’t even sound like a guitar. Take “Cheap Sunglasses”….fantastic solos (especially his use of false harmonics), but so many other parts of the song have sounds that were done on guitar but sound like weird keyboards or something else.
I’ve written about Jimmy Page before, so I’ll just mention a couple of things this time. The guitar solo on “Ten Years Gone” from Physical Graffiti is one of my favorites by any guitar player, ever. Also, the guitar arrangements in “The Rain Song” are amazing.
While I’m in this errr mode, I’d like to mention Frank Zappa. I find a lot of his music deeply annoying, but the man was a phenomenally creative guitar player. There is a solo on “Inca Roads” off of the album One Size Fits All that was recorded live at a concert and inserted into the middle of the recorded version of the song and it is as inspired a solo as any I’ve heard.
In the next installment I will move into more personal and less well-traveled guitar territory.

I’ve posted a couple of new links, too, to a couple of online writers that I respect. The subject matter is politics and war and other unpleasant things, but I think it’s beyond high time most of us started to increase our awareness and take on more civic and social responsibility in our gradually disintegrating semblance of a republic. Most of us are not really paying attention. It’s hard, because paying attention at times unavoidably means taking on a fair amount of anger and alarm and disgust and cynicism. But, just trying to ignore what is occurring inside and outside of this country is frankly a very cowardly and irresponsible way to behave, among other things.
On that note, I’m off to speak with my landlord.

I’ve been mulling over writing some guitar and guitar-solo related musings. The next post will go into quasi-guitar-geek-land, -in other words, my favorite guitar solos/songs, etc.

In the meantime, I’m going to Boston today to play guitar with Dave Derby. We’ll be playing in Jamaica Plain, with the band Shepherdess, who are comprised of some former members of the band Fuzzy, who played with Luna a few times back in the ’90’s.

And this Saturday the 25th I’ll be playing with Elk City at the Bowery Ballroom, opening for the band PELA.

I’ve also recently done some music for a film about the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, and am working on music for another New York-related documentary, as well as two short films.

Anyway, that’s all until next week.

S.

I’ve posted the dates I’m doing with Dave Derby in the U.K. this weekend and next week. You can find them in the shows section.

It has been a strange last couple of weeks. I was in Las Vegas and then Woodstock, NY, the week before last, and this week I go to the UK for a few shows with Dave Derby. We’ll be playing, coincidentally, the town of Derby (pronounced “DAH-bee”…) twice, then London, and also Newport, in Wales. The dates will be posted in the next 24 hours. A week and a half ago I went to Las Vegas to help Matthew Buzzell do some film work on behalf of Diana Krall. I had never been to Vegas before. Fascinating and depressing and disgusting and exhilarating, I suppose, but I don’t think I’ll return anytime soon unless there is an extremely good reason. Plus, it’s too damn hot.

A few months ago I spoke of my desire to create a separate website with some friends wherein we could expound on current events, politics and the various disturbing machinations of our government(s) and many corporations and “intelligence services”. In the meantime I think I’d at least like to post some links to some writers and news analysis sites. I’ve grown increasingly wary of and worried about how the mainstream media disseminates information, especially information related to the so-called “War on Terror”. After hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of research, fact-checking, book-reading, Congressional Record-reading, essay-perusing, etc. over the last two years I’ve concluded that we, the “general public”, are certainly being lied to in many more ways than most of us are aware, and furthermore, that most of us live in a state of quasi-denial about this situation, including myself. The multitudes of misinformation and outright falsehoods we are all constantly subjected to become stunningly obvious to anyone who chooses to do even a little homework on a few subjects. The War in Iraq, and all the various criminal and immoral acts associated with its execution and justification, is just one towering example. The mainstream press coverage of the war, including that of the supposedly most venerated newspaper of record in the U.S., The New York Times, is pathetic, and does not just border on propaganda, it IS propaganda. A recent example: Glenn Greenwald, author of the book How Would a Patriot Act, pointed out a few days ago in his blog on Salon.com that in the last two weeks the New York Times has now started to use the phrase “Al-Qaeda” to describe ALL combatants against the U.S. military in Iraq, whether they are Sunni, or Shiite, or an independent faction, or groups inspired by “Al Qaeda”. This is a very dangerous, absurd, and totally blatant distortion of reality, and it has also recently been promulgated by the military, members of the Bush administration, and others, like senator Joseph Lieberman. Why? And why on earth would the New York Times go along with it? Please read Greenwald’s article, which goes into great depth about it, here: (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/23/al_qaeda/index.html)

So, that’s one example of something I’m very concerned about these days, and it is unfortunately just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Below are some more links to writers and various subjects that I have found well-written and informative. There can be no doubt that the broadcast news corporations (I’m not just talking about Fox here, I’m including CNN, the BBC, etc.) and most mainstream newspapers are giving you less than short shrift on many very serious subjects. They are in fact feeding you complete B.S. some of the time.

www.chris-floyd.com

www.sandersresearch.com

www.truthout.org

www.powerofnarrative.blogspot.com

www.hinessight.com

www.waynemadsenreport.com

And as I write this, Scooter Libby has just had his sentence commuted by the president. This is an unconscionable act, and it speaks volumes about our executive branch. We have a group of people in power who have contempt for the people they govern, not to mention the laws they have sworn to uphold. It’s disgusting. And truly terrifying. What is going on in this country?
There is no graceful segue out of the last few paragraphs, so I’ll just try to move on….! Right now I’m listening to: The Convincer, by Nick Lowe. -This is a really cool record. I sort of dismissed it when my friend Frank gave me a copy, thinking oh yeah Nick Lowe’s late-career-whatever record. And then I listened to it finally, about 6 months after I received it. It’s great….sounds like it was recorded 40 years ago, really warm and natural, great singing, great and sometimes funny songwriting, great playing. And earlier tonight I listened to “Ys” by Joanna Newsom. The third song on that record, “Sawdust and Diamonds” is just an unbelievable song, probably the most-listened-to song for me of the last few months. What else? Hmmm…….Shuggie Otis, more John Barry and Ennio Morricone, Leonard Cohen, and Jimi Hendrix.

I’m off to the movies.

It’s been more than two months since my last post. That is ridiculous, I know. I am now going to post once a week. Really, I am. So…….

A fair amount has been going on. I went to France in April with Elk City for about two weeks, some photos of my travels are below. Paris was fantastique, as usual, and a lot of the tour was fun, except when a huge keyboard amplifier fell on my toe and I couldn’t even wear a shoe for a couple of days.. The weather was generally sublime, and the venues were nice and well-attended. I got onstage in Brest with The Slits (photo below), which was weirdly cool. The tour was part of a festival called Les Femmes S’en Melent, which roughly translates into “the women are taking over”, so all the bands were fronted by female singers. A rather interesting and eclectic assortment of artists in the festival line-up……

another photo from Brest:

Upon my return I had to finish some old-skool 8-bit video game music for a promotional project a friend of mine was overseeing. I will post a link when the game (it’s supposed to resemble a certain popular home-computer game from about 20 years ago..) is online. I’ve also been writing some music for a short film that is being shot right now. And, more shows with Elk City, Dave Derby and my friend Frank Bango as well. I’ve also been seen on television in an advertisement for a certain ummm institution. That is about as specific as I care to get on that particular matter. Let’s just say I need to pay some bills, and frankly, it was fun doing it.
Now, of course, these various music performances I’ve been participating in, playing guitar on other people’s songs etc., raises the obvious question: “Yeah, okay, but what about your new music, Sean?” The short answer is: I’ve been working on songs, some of which I played live last summer at a few small shows in NYC. I have some recordings of these that are halfway done, and have a few “demos” of some newer stuff that I’m excited about. The most recent incarnation of Weeds of Eden, the band, is temporarily defunct. I will have an update on the band/show situation soon.

And I think I’m going to at least post some demos and tidbits soon on myspace and this site (if I can figure out how to do it on this site…). It’s time. And saying/writing this is going to put more pressure on myself to just do it and post a few things. So, now that I’ve said it, I’ll have to do it, and sooner than later.

Listening to: some heavier, more “rock” music lately, like Queens of the Stone Age, whose new record, Era Vulgaris, comes out next week. I’ve heard a few songs from it and it’s really good. I’ve always really liked Josh Homme’s guitar-playing and that thick Sabbath-esque 70’s tone, and his songs (like “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” or “No One Knows”) on occasion, are great. Also, Serena Maneesh’s song “Drain Cosmetics” has been playing a lot on my stereo, as well as Enon’s (one of my favorite bands of the last 6 or 7 years) “Believo” record. Other stuff I’ve been listening to lately: East River Pipe, Nilsson, John Barry, Pink Floyd, Joanna Newsom, and mid-seventies Steely Dan (yes, that’s what I said).

That is all for right now. More to come soon. Au revoir.

I woke up this morning and wrote a few emails on my laptop in bed. And I read some articles and essays by a few people. There are some great writers in the so-called “blogosphere” and I will list some of the ones I admire in an upcoming post. I’ve often thought about writing more about politics and the like on this, my burgeoning website/blog/information retrieval system. But I think I’ll leave that for another website, to be established in the future, with some inscrutable title that won’t be attributable to me, or any of the other mystery writers who contribute to the site.

Anyway, it’s raining here in New York, I’m drinking coffee and listening to the new Neil Young record from his archives, “Massey Hall 1971″. It’s a really great recording, a solo show with Mr. Young on acoustic guitar and also on the piano a lot. He’s very relaxed and glad to be there, and lets his personal thoughts and feelings float along as the show floats along in its melancholy and intimate and grand and inspiring way. Massey Hall is an old concert hall in Toronto, and you can really hear the nice natural reverb in the place in the recording. I personally like this record even better than the Fillmore East recording released late last year. Most of the songs he plays on this were new at the time, not even released yet, like a still-developing “A Man Needs A Maid” or “Needle and the Damage Done”. It’s an amazingly open and personal performance, and you can tell the audience is totally entranced, too.

Luna played Massey Hall once, opening for Lou Reed. I remember being excited about that show because it was Massey Hall, a place I’d never been but I’d heard about growing up. Playing there was a meaningful experience.

Elk City travels to France in late April to perform several shows as part of the Les Femmes S’en Melent festival. We’re opening for The Slits on one of the shows….! The dates are posted in the “Shows” page.