12.07
Bredonborough.
Builder’s meeting at World HQ. The floor of the former kitchen is coming up today.
12.43 An e-flurry…
A valued correspondent has sent a response to the Churchscapes in St. Paul’s.
I’ve been listening to the Soundscapes Do Dixie that have been going up on DGMLive and it struck me that I find these hard to listen to. Not because they’re "difficult" in a dissonant way but difficult because of the emotional content that seems to be packed in them.
They have a profoundly moving impact upon me. This manifests itself through tears or a sense of intangible (but not entirely unwelcome) sense of regret; of having missed "something" in life but accepting it and moving on. At the end of them I’ve felt very drained. Belcourt feels different. It is has greater sense of resolution and doesn’t leave me feeling so hung out to dry.
It’s very hard to articulate this and I mention it not for you to respond in any way but rather just to share it with you.
However, it occurred to me if this is what it’s like for me as a listener then what must you go through when this music is coming through? Given the emotional charge within this music, how do you manage to do it night after night on a tour? Perhaps your discipline enough to stop "you" getting in the way. Often you mention in your diary that you have "no idea what it was like" but I wonder how you’re not affected or occasionally overwhelmed by the force of this music - and it is very forceful.
Anyway - the short version of all this is that there’s something very special going on with this series of gigs.
My reply…
many thanks for this. it’s the quality of response that i long for. actually, alex has also been in tears on some occasions. sometimes, myself as well.
your emotional response is the response that the music intends. the intent is (this is technically expressed) to strengthen remorse of conscience & wish. in other words, the intent is devotional.
“This manifests itself through tears or a sense of intangible (but not entirely unwelcome) sense of regret; of having missed "something" in life but accepting it and moving on”. this is precisely the response that the music prompts.
how to put it that baldly?
for me, all part of an ongoing tragedy worn lightly. and, accepting that tragedy is a large part of life, so are comedy & joy & friendship. but hard as well, and only personally possible for as long i’m sharp. no surprise, then, if a quiet man from dorset, who’s happiest at home with his wife & books, lives a life with obvious difficulties (pointed sticks) built into it.
requiem (the keeper from atlanta) is a reflection on 9/11. the musical materials are partly drawn from a WFC performance in 2000. the first is a kind of anticipation of what’s coming (much like PJ Crook’s fin de siecle on the cover of TPTB painted in 1999) & the second a response to what has happened.
13.36 Axemojo
Apparently, AxeMojo.com is the definitive website for Rock & Roll fans who seek information on profiles on singers, drummers, guitarists, keyboardists and bassists.
17.58 A long day of stuff, some crushingly mundane. But the sun is shining.
"Interrogate the error."
