This week, considering that it's Halloween and all, we've decided to share with you articles about the darker side of music, death, and all that is frightening and spooky. After all, part of spirituality is dealing with and coming to grips with death, so we wanted to help provide you with some musical inspiration for your Halloween weekend.
Below that we've also included our normal RockOm Roundup links, all that's going on around the world in the areas of song and spirit...
Halloween Roundup
A Halloween Playlist: The Scariest Albums Of All Time - "I've created a list of the scariest albums ever made. It wasn't easy (seriously, I could've included every black-metal album ever made or Avril Lavigne's The Best Damn Thing), but rather than focus on visceral screams, I went for ephemeral chills. These are psychological thrillers — dense, raw, positively horrifying albums, guaranteed to turn your Halloween into a total fright-fest." (mtv.com)
Scary songs to put a shiver in your Halloween party - "It’s Halloween and time for some scary songs – and, no, I don’t mean Bobby 'Boris' Pickett’s 'Monster Mash.' I mean really scary songs. Here are 20, arranged chronologically, that’ll give you the chills..." (leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com)
What are the scariest rock songs ever?- "Aside from the truly frightening new release by the Backstreet Boys or Bob Dylan's new Christmas album, what are the scariest rock songs to tingle your spine and rattle your senses?" (blog.mlive.com)
Miscellaneous Music & Spirituality Links
The RZA: Hip-Hop's Prophet - "In his new book, Tao of the Wu, RZA tells the story of his own rise, from the streets of Staten Island to the top of the hip-hop world. He describes the lessons he learned about life, music and spirituality--many of them hard--in the simple, elegant prose of a hip-hop poet." (pbs.org)
Bruce Almighty - "Springsteen saved me when I was a suburban Cleveland teenager, bored and unconsciously seeking fever and fire. My mom advised channeling that desire into the Catholic Church by praying more. 'Mass is what you bring to it,' she said." (philly.org)
What makes music beautiful? Alfred Brendel knows - "Interpreters should never assume that understanding the structure of a work might automatically give them insight into the work’s character, atmosphere and spiritual state." (artsblog.freedomblogging.com)
Sting: Obama best person to handle world's 'mess'- Sting says, "My hope is that we can start talking about real issues and not caring about whether God cares about your hemline or your color ... We are here to evolve as one family, and we can't be separate anymore." (news.yahoo.com)
In Western musical scales, there are generally 12 half steps and therefore 12 different interval possibilities, not counting the octave (intervals are the distance between pitches). When two of these intervals are played at the same time, some of them are pleasant sounding and/or bright, such as the major third and perfect fourth and fifth. Others are darker, with a minor, strange or "sad" sound, such as the second or the minor third. There's one interval, however, that's the darkest and most dissonant of them all.
The interval of an augmented fourth. This interval was known as the "devil in music" in the Medieval era because it is the most dissonant sound in the scale.
If you're familiar with the piano and its notes, play a C and then play the F# directly above it at the same time. Or if you're a guitarist, play your second string (B string) open while playing the first fret on the first string (high E string) at the same time. This is the tritone, the "devil's interval."
Why is it known the "devil's interval"? In the middle ages this interval was often avoided in composition because of its dissonant, or clashing quality. The very sound of it suggests discord, opposition or even evil.
Interestingly enough, what we consider music today wouldn't exist without it. The dissonance created by this interval introduces drama into the tonality. As a piece of music moves along (if you listen closely enough), notes clash and then resolve, bite at your ear and then become pleasant, make you cringe and then make you smile. Without it, music would be without life and would become boring very quickly.
Many of us want to sanitize our lives: pushing that which is dissonant far away, living a sheltered and safe life, avoiding the drama and fearing the darkness both in ourselves and in the world. During those times when we want life's weird twists and turns to end or for everything to be safe and manageable, let us never forget that the end of drama is the introduction of boredom, of lifelessness. Yes, there are crappy days and terrorists, jock itch and natural disasters, but at least in this plane - in this life - everything that we know and experience couldn't exist without them.
Let's transform the paragraph above:
As life moves along (if you watch closely enough), it clashes and then resolves, bites at you and then become pleasant, makes you cringe and then makes you smile. Without the drama, life wouldn't be life and would become boring very quickly.
When we learn to accept that the dance of harmony and dissonance, the clash of good and evil, is exactly the very thing that makes the world go 'round, we're free to participate in it with joy. We're happy to roll with the punches and navigate a complicated and tricky existence without frustration, but rather with the acceptance that it has to be this way. This isn't to say we have to be tolerant of the various kinds of evil or injustice we experience - let us fight them with vigor when we need to - but all the while knowing that in some grand, metanarrative, it is all - ALL - good.
RockOm Round-up is a quick glance at what's going on around the world in the areas of music and spirituality...
Musicians' country gathering results in "Glory" - Several top Christian artists "gathered in the rural setting to write and record the old-fashioned way. There's no studio clock ticking, no label executives stopping by, just camaraderie and a sense of creative adventure." The result was Glory Revealed II: The Word of God in Worship. (Billboard)
Rob Thomas' new album explores darker themes - "Rob Thomas' new CD, Cradlesong, reveals a more complex side of the singer: themes of despair, and even death, are explored in various songs." (Yahoo! News)
Bridge to Zimbabwe: Music gives insight into African culture - "The music of Shona culture is more important than its notes or the rhythms, it is a spiritual device. 'Music is the framework for how you want to worship,' Murungu said. 'It has healing properties and the affect of bringing peace.'" (WickedLocal.com)
Band spotlight: South Africa's Civil Twilight - A spotlight on the band Civil Twilight whose spiritual lyrics "weave a tale of hope, longing, love and more and are like thought provoking poems set to music." (examiner.com)
Johnette Napolitano has been involved with several successful projects throughout her career, most famously as the lead vocalist and songwriter for Concrete Blonde. In the last 6 years, she has released three solo albums, the most recent entitled Scarred.
RockOm.net recently spoke with Johnette about her album Scarred, religious art, the play of light and dark and her career.
RockOm: One of the songs that stood out to us from Scarred was "Poem for a Native." What can you tell us about this song and what you are communicating through the poetry's colorful imagery?
Johnette: That's a strange one. I'd written that a long time ago and had recorded it, but had never used the old version. I was inspired by a trip to Morocco and my lifelong interest in all things Native American. It is said that there is Native American on my mother's side somewhere, and I believe it; my Aunt always looked like she'd stepped right off the back of a nickel or something, black braids and all.
I was lucky enough to work with John Trudell, a legendary activist and poet. Sometimes in spite of myself I stumble into things; I truly have been blessed that way. In any case, I live out here in the desert where those spirits are very strong, and walking around one morning I found a piece of paper blown up against the chain-link fence. It was 'Poem', a piece I'd completely forgotten I'd written and was perfect for one of the tracks I'd been working on with Will (Crewdson, who I was working with on Scarred). I think it's my favorite track on the record.
RockOm: Another track from the same album, "Like a Wave," implies being swept away beyond one's control and drowning. Share with us about your inspiration for "Like a Wave" and were you intentionally trying to make the song mirror the lyrics in that it builds and crests at it's ending?
Johnette: It was the other way around. Music is a full on multidimensional experience for me; I used to lay with my head under the hi-fi when I was little and choreograph entire ballets to Gershwin in my head.
The music does crest and break, and the music wrote the lyric, really. In that sense the chorus comes first and you have to fit everything else around it, build it up to that. I'm particularly pleased at the flanging on the vocal there, the way they overlap, the phrases, like waves on the beach. The lyrics and the music became one... human emotions are as endangered as any other species.
RockOm: The song "Save Me" has a similar lyrical tone to "Like a Wave" in that it, too, implies a sense of drowning and desperation. How are those two songs alike - or different - in subject matter?
Johnette: The Chinese have a thing - you have to bend like a reed, let everything just happen, sometimes when you know things are just too strong and too much and it's just this constant sensation of another wave breaking over you. In this case, I was literally having dreams and nightmares during Hurricane Katrina, just black water creeping up, seeping into everything and the hell... it was just hell. I couldn't sleep at all... [it was] just fucking horrible. Smashed windows, storefronts, beautiful things just floating alongside excrement... I pick all that up, and as anyone else who is that intuitive knows, the challenge is to try to control and channel all that. I just had no choice than to pound away, write like crazy. I was exploding. In "Wave" it's more metaphorical, surrendering to it is the only thing to do. In "Save Me" it's a very literal story, and people were fighting every minute, every inch of rising water, and I could feel that.
RockOm: We came across an older poem you have written entitled "The Dark." The last section of which says this:
Yeah. I know the dark. I knew the dark for a very long time.
There are certain sects that prohibit the eating of anything that grows in the dark. Bad things grow in the dark. Doubt, fear, deception... lift the stone and expose the rot, the cancer, the things that need the dark to thrive.
I will never understand the dark again, because the light will always come, and the light is always certain. Wait a little while. Give equal time to the light. Feed the light within. Many sparks create the sun.
Would you care to share your journey between the dark and the light and what each mean to you now?
Johnette: The first thing that strikes me as the polite thing to say is "I suppose everyone has things to overcome" but the fact is some people don't, and just cruise along on the surface just fine. It will never be like that for me, and I accept that, things are just very screwed up from the earliest DNA formations. From what I've had to work with I think I've done very well, have maintained a balance, and have recognized the need to; it is so much easier to live than we make it. I have learned when, at what time of year, what time of day, season, etc., I function most effectively depending on what I need to do to take care of myself. It is very conscious, something I have to work at -a rhythm. It gets easier as you get older because the things that affected childhood so much fall further and further away, and it's a great thing to take spiritual responsibility for oneself. In the winter I write a lot, by spring release records, etc., in the summer I'm outdoors more so I build my art and play live more. The season calls for it, the fall is my birthday season and I'm most alive then. It's consciously overriding the things in your own mind you shouldn't trust - fear, it's not real. The past - it is gone. The future is from this very second on, and if I listen and pay attention and appreciate my place in the flow, and trust it, the big picture will be fine. I'm just a little belch in time, the only job I have is to at least belch in tune.
It's work. It's work to stay away from the influences that are there to take our natural ability to live in the world away. A lot starts in the body: minimal, organic food. Taking care of the body is extremely important. We have issues of pressure and stress that are quite unnatural for the human body and soul, and it is hard to feel mentally or emotionally bad when you feel good, physically, and vice-versa. I pretend that every day is my last as of course it may well be, and in doing so I find the hours, then days, take care of themselves.
Having said that, one person's poison is another's sustenance. Knowing one's physical, mental and emotional needs is pretty much a life's work in itself - especially for a woman, who has all this other hormonal shit going on every decade or so depending on whether you have kids or not, etc. It's truly a science, the female body.
RockOm: Your Myspace bio sites "14th century religious art AND all religious art for all religions" as some of your influences. What is it about religious art that inspires you?
Johnette: The inspiration itself, I suppose. The combination of inspiration and sheer craftsmanship that you just don't see a hell of a lot of anymore. There was a quote where someone said, "Those men were full of God" and I love that; never mind what your concept of God is or whether or not you need one at all, to be that full of spirit, of emotion, of passion that one would be driven to create some of that stuff - fucking incredible. There is a luminous quality. I love the purity of the Santeros, the Saint-Makers, Spanish Colonial art, the simple folk art. So beautiful. The artists, so honest. So humble. Pure. I was very lucky to study with Juan Quezada in Mata Ortiz, Mexico, who had such respect for the clay. I remember the village would be in church Sunday, but to Juan, the clay was God, and everything revolved around the clay, which supported everyone. If the clay were soft and ready to work, you worked it... screw Mass, screw everything, but be ready when the clay is. I believe when artists are truly filled with Spirit that we hear it and see it and taste it in their work... that's what we are moved by and drawn to.
RockOm: Finally, you're involved with music, art, film work, and even a book – can you tell our users more about some of your most recent involvements in any of those arenas… anything new you've got in the works right now?
Johnette: Will Crewdson has been here for a couple weeks from the UK and we just did a few shows on the West Coast to pimp out our cover of Midnight Oil's "Beds Are Burning" which we uploaded as an MP3 on ITUNES via CDBABY and all that. I'm a big fan of this point in time; it's a hassle making records fast enough and I like the fact you can upload something as quick as you can record it these days.
We've recorded a few more tracks and I'm compiling Sketchbook 3, third in a limited edition series of demos, ideas and home recordings. I love making those, my little art projects. I do 1,000 of them and sign and number them. The book thing is better than I thought it would be... select lyrics and comments on lyrics; I think any major serious writing endeavor (if I care to get deeper) is a few years away. It's a great time in my life; I don't have an overhead so I can pretty much do what I want. We're recording covers now just for the sheer fun of it and haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to play together aside from these three West Coast gigs. We've done Mott The Hoople's "I Wish I Was Your Mother" and we recently uploaded our version of Monster Magnet's "Baby Gotterdamerung." That's a pretty amazing lyric. It's really great to record something on one day, get it up and people are the first to discover it in the middle of the night... I love it. I'm working to have Sketchbook 3 available by Xmas.
Today is Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve. According to Wikipedia, "The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, now known as Halloween, the boundary between the alive and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops. Costumes and masks were worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them."
Seeing as this holiday is known for celebrating the darker side of spirituality and death, it seems like an appropriate day to celebrate the darker side of music.
YOUR TURN: What are one or two songs that you really love that deal with darkness and/or darker issues? Perhaps you can take that more literally and share a song that has to do with demons, witches or the dead. Or perhaps you'll think of a song that evokes sadness, loss, fear, chaos and/or uncertainty - that which bring us face to face with the harsher realities of life and death. Click the link below to share your songs...
A friend and I were talking just the other day about how cursing the darkness doesn't change anything. We were remarking how, typically there aren't many best selling books which are "self- defeating" for lack of a better term. Most best sellers are "self-help" books with 10 easy steps to solving all your problems. The same can be said for music; most chart toppers are upbeat and in the vein of positive subjects namely sex, alternate states of consciousness and "rollin' with it."
What would it take for us to not resist our darkness and instead choose to "thread the light," or "speak the light" following the lyrics of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova of The Swell Season? When life and circumstances are at their lowest what if instead we chose the opposite of our normal reaction and sought the positive over the negative? What’s it gonna take for us to get to this point?
"In the arms of this low...
Thread the light,
Shine the light,
Don't hide the light,
Live the light,
And give the light,
Seek the light,
And speak the light,
Crave the light, and brave the light,
Stare the light,
And share the light,
Show the light,
And know the light,
Raise the light,
And praise the light,
Thread the light,
And spread the light." [from “This Low” by The Swell Season]
Hey, don’t look to me to say what’s right and what’s wrong. As far as I’m concerned, it’s damn hard to “brave the light” because it’s the higher reaction to solving a dilemma. I’ve settled far too often for being best friends with my “lows.” It’s an all too familiar mind-frame. But realizing this is the first important step to summoning the courage to “shine the light” and “share the light.” How can we “shine” and “share” that which we haven’t learned to summon from within us?
When the light bends our way, shines down on us on stormy days sometimes the best we can do is grab a hold and thread it. I think that beats cursing it… and denying it all together.
[By Tom Crenshaw. Tom resides in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and is the VP on staff with RockOm.net]
Pink Floyd is known not only for their spacey sounds and layered sonic textures, but also for lyrical themes about confusion, madness, the play of darkness and light and a macrocosmic look at what it means to be human. "Pink Floyd and Philosophy," a series of essays by different authors and edited by George Reisch, delves into those themes - finding similarities between Floyd's music and several well-known spiritual and philosophical worldviews.
With chapter titles such as "I and Thou and 'Us and Them': Existential Encounters on The Dark Side of the Moon (and Beyond)" and "Wish You Were Here (But You Aren't): Pink Floyd and Non-Being," writers use the band's classic albums as fodder for discussing life's bigger questions and metaphysical quandaries.
Be forewarned, however, that for those only familiar with Pink Floyd through Classic Rock radio, this book may not be for you. The writers delve deep into the band's history, pointing to early albums and subtle references that will be unfamiliar to those whose only knowledge of Floyd's catalog is "Money" or "Time." With that said, anyone who has more than one Pink Floyd album in their collection and is interested in the sorts of "deeper meanings" we look for at RockOm, this book provides an enjoyable, educational and entertaining read. "Careful with that axiom, Eugene!"
This week, considering that it's Halloween and all, we've decided to share with you articles about the darker side of music, death, and all that is frightening and spooky. After all, part of spirituality is dealing with and coming to grips with death, so we wanted to help provide you with some musical inspiration for your Halloween weekend.
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