Canada, Ketchup those chips, and How I always Get Lost

This past week has been a blur of activity, trying to do random errands in preparation for my epic trip to Canada, in the midst of chaos. Everyone else has been preparing for graduation tomorrow, but today, I am in Quebec City, where I will near for the next two weeks. It's been challenging to get pumped for a music festival so soon after my recital-I've been pretty slothful, and practicing has been mostly non-existent lately, for good reason. However, it is useful to be able to play the viola when one is attending a music festival in which chamber music is paramount. So I've been cramming Beethoven down my throat, which has been rough. (But I get major points for studying my quartet scores at my 7:30 AM car oil change appointment. I felt like such an esoteric bitch there with my matcha tea and my scores.) Anyway, it's been hard to be motivated because so many of my friends are leaving while I'm gone in Canada, and I know I won't see many of them again. Some of them are flinging themselves like confetti into the wide united states, and I will be going predictably to the east. I'm basically not ready to be in a summer festival situation. And I know I'll make this music festival work, and that once I get in the swing of things and feel like I can play the viola, I'll be fine. But for now, I'll timidly pretend that I'm prepared for this. I am so lucky to have turned my failed eastman experience around, and I am so fortunate to have such amazing, loving, and supportive friends and colleagues. I only hope that I can be as caring to those that I meet next, wherever I am.

Driven: 400 miles

Listened to: multiple NPR podcasts "all songs considered"

Conclusions: the xx album sounds all the same. the beach house album is solid and dreamy. sometimes, the folks at NPR have crazy ideas and i totally disagree with them. (hello, the best album of the year was clearly Grizzly Bear's "Veckatimest." Seriously. Or Animal Collective. But the xx? lame.)

Listening to: some of the new u.o. lstn mixes, some of my library acquisitions, and beethoven.

The world vs lady gaga

So lately, there's been a lot of jousting and discussion of the infamous Lady G. She was named one of Time Mag's most influential people (on the cover along side Bill Clinton), and just by sheer nature of being famous, has pissed off a lot of people lately. I mean, if people can get ridiculously famous just by covering her, the floodgates of anger will open from the indie scene. On one hand, the girl has crazy awesome style. She wears crazy clothes (or things that we wouldn't normally think of as clothing) and challenges our perceptions of style, design, and aesthetic. At the same point, her songs mostly suck. I got the fame monster from the library, just for kicks, and pretty much everything but "bad romance," "telephone" and maybe one other song suck. "Speechless" is pretty epic, in the worst way. It's like a country music style ballad, but worse, because it's basically being done by a drag queen. (woman dressed like a man impersonating a woman). So, I can understand this comment by Joanna Newsom, whose February album is most excellent. Just take a gander at this recent Joanna Newsom ragefest: http://pitchfork.com/news/38738-newsom-takes-on-gaga-madonna/ What I like about it is that she's quite articulate, and it's rather entertaining. Here are some of my favorite lines:

"Lady Gaga is Arty Spice"

"Her approach to image is really interesting, but you listen to the music and you just hear glow sticks. Smart outlets for musical journalism give her all this credit, like she's the new Madonna...I'm like, fair enough: she is the new Madonna, but Madonna's a dumb-ass!"

(I love that last bit, because it's true, most everything Madonna's done in the last 12 years is really suspect. And the chick has weird muscles, like Janet Jackson.) Here's the more eloquent comment later:

"My problem isn't actually with Lady Gaga. But there's not much in her music to distinguish it from other glossy, formulaic pop. She just happens to wear slightly weirder outfits than Britney Spears..."

Love it.

And on a small note, M.I.A. also thinks she sucks, with these winning lines:

"People say we're similar, that we both mix all these thing in the pot and spit them out differently, but she spits it out exactly the same. None of her music's reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna, but the music sounds like 20-Year-Old Ibiza disco, you know? She's not progressive, but she's a good mimic. She sounds more like me than I fucking do!"

Still love it.

The splendor of the sound

I was so fortunate today as to have two sonorously fulfilling experiences-my recital went well, and I just saw "Music for 18 musicians." I played the whole bach suite 6, the theofanidis "flow my tears," and the shostakovich sonata. For 5 weeks of preparation, I actually thought it went pretty well. I mean, my intonation was a bit dodgy, but I am very much humbled and impressed by the feedback I received from everyone who attended. It was so overwhelming to be surrounded by caring people who were open to my performance.

I had been feeling ok about the whole recital thing, but neither pumped nor terribly worried about it. Maybe because most of my most stressful concerts already happened, or because it was an early afternoon concert, or whatever, I simply wasn't that nervous and that ended up being a very good thing. It's possible that I'm just getting better at performing, because there were moments when I completely forgot that there were tons of people there, and I just went into this magical zone in which time stopped and bach was supreme. It was rather odd, to say the least, but a good portion of the bach occurred with my body taking control and me watching and feeling the music while the rest of me executed it. It was transformative and scary, and not entirely new. I've also found that when the lights turn out and it's just me and a solo piece, there's a weird temporal continuum that opens up and I fall in. I lose myself in the music just enough, but manage to keep enough involvement that I don't tip over like a palm tree in a storm. (That's always a risk. Falling over, dropping my instrument, or having it go terrifically out of tune.) Most of the recital happened like this, in which I was aware of things happening (finger here, forearm there, lalala) but it was a very strange experience watching the rest of me play the viola. I guess that qualifies as an out of body experience, but it was more like being "more than present." We talk so much about being in the now, and experiencing the now. I was so in the now that I stopped thinking completely and it was damn strange. Mostly successful, though, which is always a good thing.

For now, I'll just repeat the beautiful compliments that everyone paid me after the concert. What I thought was 'good' or just 'solid,' turned out to be transformative, empowering, and beautiful to the audience. I am so honored to possess that power. My ego just got a huge bar of chocolate, and decadence is essential right now.

(music for eighteen musicians is like the ultimate minimalist dance tune. steve reich should have encouraged people to get on the stage and start dancing. in my heaven, we would all have a huge dance party to all sorts of music.)

Eastman Just Redeemed Itself

So my experience at Eastman is being redeemed, slowly. I found out today that I won the annual viola award of sorts, which is great and all, but more importantly has a CASH prize. Not just any cash prize, but $1000. Cha-ching. Wow. (Now, I'm planning on paying off most of the $800 on my credit card with this check, but really, it's the thought that counts. And maybe I'll go shopping for the first time 4.5 months. And buy my new strings.)

To think that a year ago today, I was tragically upset about my loss of the Performer's Certificate? Dude, money means way more to me than a piece of paper. So Eastman, you've proven to me in the last year that nothing makes sense, but in that way, it seems to be favoring me. Take that, stupid orchestra seating! Take that, performer's certificate! Take that, concerto competition with evil unsavory people in it! Take that, TENDONITIS! All of the stupid things I've endured at Eastman are slowly becoming worth it, now that I have a reward for my suffering. Now to just keep it together for the next two weeks: recital, Brandenberg, papers, tests...

Listening to: MGMT. Will be listening to some new records from the libs.

The Grizzly Bear Video Catalogue

Due to a brief inquiry from McMillan as to the nature of music videos, I'm listing all of the Grizzly Bear music videos, because all I do in my spare time is read the newspaper and watch music videos. Let's go in reverse chronology:

While You Wait For the Others-from Veckatimest, also available sung by Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers.

Ready, Able-also from Veckatimest, and strangely creepy. The artist is Allison Schulnik, whose other work is also pretty disturbing and depressing.

Two Weeks-the original video, not the sweet fan video that I usually post. Love the bow ties, but somehow the cuteness factor and oversized anime eyeballs are a little creepy, although it makes the drummer look kinda adorable in a weird twisted way. It really is just a reinforcement of my unresolved love for Daniel Rossen (last on the right and half of Department of Eagles) since his cheeks are just so pinchable.

Two Weeks-awesome fan video. This just blows my mind for CG animation possibilities. Being a humble computer challenged person, I didn't realize it was all CG until I'd seen it 3 or 4 times.

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

Granny Diner/Hobo Clown-Animated Short, also by Allison Schulnik. This made me cry the first time I watched it-nothing is really more pathetic than sad claymation creatures. The track is a bonus track from "Yellow House" and it's also on the "Friend" EP, which I highly recommend because of its amazing electric version of "Little Brother," one my favorite songs of theirs.

"Knife" from Yellow House. It's been covered by lots of bands, and it's a winner of a track. Just add some weird quicksand and a creature that looks like it's made out of stale pieces of bubblegum stuck together, and we're in business.

"Central and Remote" also from "Yellow House."

"Fix It" from that way early Grizzly Bear album "Horn of Plenty," when it was just an Ed Droste project, before Daniel Rossen tempered his wayward ways.

And because I wanted to end with an oldie, but goodie, here is one of my favorite videos ever from Department of Eagles, "No One Does It Like You."

that's enough videos to keep y'alls entertained for awhile, I think.

Snakey Weirdness

I have a traumatizing amount of things that need to get done in the next 15 days. Good thing I have the new MGMT album to keep me crazy, in only the best possible way.

I can pretty much count on MGMT to consistently deliver weird ass videos that totally blow my mind. The new album is totally from the first one, but I rather like it. It's a weird pastiche of 60's pop music styles: surfing, weird instrumental interludes, cheesy drum and bass lines, subtle beach boys pyschedelia references...I couldn't be happier. This video is pretty much everything stranger than I could ever imagine. It is a strange allusion to the disease in the book "Black Hole" by Charles Burns, but also just weird things with old people, a strange machine, puppets, military figures with eye patches (malcolm in the middle?). Either way, I have no idea what the fuck is going on and I love it. It's just like my life, only with old people in it.

Pump up the Noize

So, my neighbors suck. Big time. In fact, the current residential situation is a big blemish on the overall trajectory of scholastic completion. Looking forward: recital in 2 weeks, Brandenburg in 2.1 weeks, papers due, shit flying everywhere-it's crazy. So what time is better than now to tell a tenant, who has lived in the same apartment for 1.75 years that now is a great time to completely stop practicing in her apartment. Yes folks, now is that time for me. And frankly, I just want to kill the self-absorbed hyper sensitive thievish wench that lives below me. This shit is her fucking fault.

I never had a single noise complaint in the first year of living here. Seriously. Since this particular couple moved in downstairs, a whole new host of weird began to unfold. The woman likes to come upstairs every now and again and tell me how loud I'm being, either in my footsteps, toe-tapping, occasional dancing, or when I have guests over and they move the chairs. Frankly, this woman is the ultimate killjoy, and to make it worse, she's youngish and a huge hypocrite. The couple smokes pot often, and stinks up the whole building with a tangy aroma of marijuana mixed with cheap repulsive air freshener. They pump up the bass on their music, and I can hear them yelling at each other. But god forbid I walk across my apartment with shoes on. Or practice. Because I don't count and I am a selfish creature, like all people in their twenties.

Basically, this woman has completely ruined my current living situation, and I know that her behavior now legally qualifies as harassment. I've had enough and I'm conflicted about the best path to solve it. On one hand, I want to bitch her out next time she comes up here, since she basically bothers me every time I'm having an important musical day or social gathering. With my recital coming up, she'll surely come and tell me that I might have walked across the floor with heels on, right? Oh wait, she already did that on "Harold in Italy" day.

I want to take the moral high road on one hand, and stop a conflict. (That's the voice of buddhism telling me to not get angry.) On the other hand, I want to tell her how awful she's made me feel. (These leads to ideas about running the food processor on the floor of my apartment, or sending them "depends" samples.) Either way, she sucks. Management called on Friday to tell me that I have to practice in the Billiards room on the fifth floor and that the complains were not just from downstairs. I'd like to know how that's possible, since one of my neighbors was out of town all last week, and the other one plays drums and doesn't seem to mind. Either way, this shit sucks. I'm afraid to have people over, because she surely will come up and be a pain. I'm afraid to practice anywhere now, because I'm sure that some snotty person will come tell me to keep it down so they can still inside all day and watch television. Sorry to keep you from your daytime shows, folks! It's not like I pay anything to live here. I don't have rights.

Anyway, I'm going to go practice. In the billiards room. I'm still thinking about which samples to send for. Adult toys? Drug addiction? Super creepy Christian literature? Anything's game. I just have to hope that next year, I'll live in a truly haven for musicians.

listening to: the new mgmt album "Congratulations"