So, Mr. Callahan. At Last We Meet (Sort Of (But Not Really)).

Last night I saw Bill Callahan perform, a.k.a. Smog, a.k.a. (smog), a.k.a. contemporary contender for best baritone voice in recorded music history. I’m not shy to roundaboutly admit that I have a crush on the little poetic demon, but you won’t find me starting any conversations with him, either. It’s ironic to note that he thinks of his latest album, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, as upbeat and lively, as his tendency toward the subdued, dark, and sparse are still irrepressibly present, lyrics like fangs that gnaw at the sensitive bruised organs of a listener’s emotional whereabouts. The more I think about it, though, Bill’s right about his own music: it is more upbeat, it does have some suction for fresh air…  

There were several moments of clarity, insofar as Callahan’s music-making and my listenership history have intertwined with one another (at least since my teenage years). One thing easy to note stylistically about Callahan is his use of what I’ll call mantras, phrases he will repeat and repeat and repeat, almost taking a bludgeon to the words and cramming them in the listener’s ear, without reprieve of forgetting said mantras. And dare I even mention the despondency and self-cruelty he challenges to a duel within these simple yet poignant and painful mantras? It can be a form of meditating (which I heard through the grapevine Callahan is an atheist– unimaginable!), cyclical patterns and repetition leading eventually to a blissful state. One of these was a new one, “I used to be so relaxed, now I can’t sleep.” Unfortunately, this sentiment is one I can relate with readily, sleep and restlessness, insomnia, being constant sources of frustration, likely revolving around other problem areas. At its height I was receiving no more than three or four hours of sleep per night, which eventually led me to reach toward natural remedies like Valerian, various “sleeping” teas, and finally Melatonin. Regardless of my own cure, how I have cut sugar intake or how I quit smoking, this feeling Callahan meditates on through this solitary line, of relaxation mutating into restlessness, is one that allows the listener to fall into a memory of a moment spent alone during deathly haunting hours, watching shadows and hearing pipes and floorboards stretch and sing their lonely tune, perhaps pacing in socked feet with a sore brain and an inability to relax, neither heart nor jaw. I don’t miss those insomniac moments, but don’t think I would have learned a few things without being pitted to that despair of night’s feasting.

My second moment of Callahan inspired clarity was at the point when Bill was repeating another of his latest mantras, “If you could only stop your heart beat for one heart beat.” This was when I realized the database of raw human experience is universal, and that it is nothing to run away from or be scared of. I suppose I had received the message before, but it had not occurred to me that the message was one being sent to everyone, a mass text message, an army of carrier pigeons circling the globe nonchalantly yet with purpose. If only, Bill. If only we could all just stop comfortably stuffing our heads up our asses and remind ourselves of compassion, one of the only true tools that allows humans to connect with one another. If only…

I initially thought about buying a beer for Bill Callahan. I hear his unadorned voice chanting hymnals for all the lonely hearts’ post-apocalypse, for all those who have lost faith in something or someone, and I somehow, for years, have felt sorry for the guy. After seeing him live, however, and having a handful of my own painful experiences and my own ability to climb out of the depths of my own tribulations, I realize a zen-like swagger belies his gutteral incantations. He’s not preaching, but he’s not letting anyone walk away thinking their alone in their despair.

P.S. I had made my, uh, revered (?) chocolate cake and took it in its entirety to the show (I will probably be one of those little old ladies that carries around ziplock baggies of odd fruit-nut-chocolate combination cookies for acquaintances to charitably nibble on). Upon Callahan ending his set (I don’t know why I was surprised that he had an encore), I took the small container of chocolate cake to the merch table where the Brooklyn-based all-girl trio, Lights, were sitting. An aside, I wasn’t sure if their M.O. was to recreate Heart/that 70s California feeling, but they had it down, all the way to their relaxed “Thanks, man”s. I handed over the pre-sliced cake and they began giggling and asked, “Does it have weed in it?” I misheard and responded, “Wheat? Yes! Are you allergic?” This created another onslaught of giggling, likely more a response to my obvious misunderstanding and naivety. They giggled more and claimed to be excited to receive cake, my only response to this was, “Can you make sure Bill gets a piece?”

Promoting Shamelessly

Catch me on the local airwaves at WRFL 88.1 FM. Fridays 6 – 9 a.m. You can also access the live stream at http://www.wrfl.fm/ if you’re not from these parts. This morning was my first show of the summer. Mayhem (A.M.) Tracks.

Of Performance

All the vinyl is put in its place, behind closed cooling closet doors, tapes stacked up and down the crevices, CDs where they fit in cupboards. Actual audio material was thrown up on the kitchen floor and, since there is a bubble in the center all the vomit went to each corner.

I recognized tonight, while beginning my first recording from the kitchen, that my thoughts need some concision, some order. This whole thing is still too abstract and centered at the depths of my brain. Resonating somewhere within this maddening concept is a strength, but, through the recordings sussing it out is abstract enough to confuse me. Telling stories might be the epilogue of each recorded journal. A vision that includes both unoccupied and readily present sound waves, and the final quickly concluded prose.

For some reason, I had hoped the kitchen would provide its own sounds within the subtexts, written in the genetic code of this interwebular DNA, but I wasn’t ready to calculate that damage, furthermore, I didn’t know how to. Instead, I figure only that I can use the sounds of boiling water, running water, cupboards opening and shutting, perhaps the dropping of ice cubes in a glass. Thing is, though, we’re talking about a kitchen that has been converted from a kitchen to the madness of a musical passion. So, should these audio waves be endorsed? Or should it be dropped since this kitchen no longer has use for such trifles? The meaning is lost, it’s a mere memory in my kitchen’s burning devilish eye.

On any and all other notes, however, tomorrow should be the grand teton of my currently virginal podcast, which is located at: http://kitchenkillingfloor.podomatic.com/. Instead of instigating all this grand audio fabrication, it might be a more subtle project, one that prolongs details and beckons the listener back for that certain something that can’t be placed anywhere else, not in these days.

Also, before the thought is bypassed, it is noteworthy to mention that I was in a talent show sixteen years ago, when I was eight years old, without knowing it, I did an interpretive dance to a Janet Jackson song on Rhythm Nation. As luck would have it, at the time I had already taken four years of dance classes in ballet, jazz, tap, and a splash of gymnastics. I was most eloquent, through those years, in ballet. What I remember of the interpretation was that it was reactionary, emotional and a bizarre showing of my nurtured emotional well-being at the time. I also recall puzzling my fellow Catholic grade schoolers to the point where clapping proceeded after a pregnant pause, and the clapping itself was more to sustain a habit and a tide of normalcy than to actually reflect the awe-envoking powers of my act. I hadn’t a clue what that feedback meant at the time except that it was not what everyone else was receiving from their beloved audience.

That said, something in me has always been compelled towards performance art, though I have yet to discover what venue this winds its way towards. Afterall, I am that girl with the Yoko Ono Christmas card from 1996.

John Oivind Eggesbo, Performance Artist.

Editing My Kitchen

My kitchen is becoming another writing project. Piled around the studio, in the closet, and spilling into the bedroom in hushed heaps upon the floorboards were all the bits and pieces of musical equipment. Mind you, I am no musician. Over the years, however, I’ve somehow gained a staggering number of musical objects that now, as luck would have it, I must designate a room entirely to them.

Since we have two kitchens, my beau and myself, between our two apartments that line up neatly next to one another, we have decided to sacrifice one and keep one for business as usual. Unbeknownst to Jonathan, I had brow raising designs for our secondary culinary center. Now, in the middle of the anciness that is winter, I’ve stacked records, tapes, and my lugubrious equipment all throughout the kitchen. Records are in the fridge. Tapes are on the door of fridge. CDs are stacked hazardously throughout cupboards.

Fortunately for the room itself, the stove will remain a stove so I can appropriately make tea and coffee. The sink has been problematic due to my desires to begin pirate radio from this very area. Yet a sink is imperative to the structure of the kitchen, and a home in general. Anyhow, my plan is to set up pirate radio next to the sink since it will centralize the station. Within my family structure rests a retired oak dining room table. This has a place in my new project.

Kitchens are the center of the home. Without a sense of meaning within the kitchen the rest of the abode loses its ultimate oneness. Through many drafts this kitchen will find its finished copy and thusly achieve gold star literati success. It is the center of my home, the center of much of my world. In some far off ways, I consider myself akin to that of John Peel. My weakness and strength are one in the same: I listen too often.