Aesop Rock - Impossible Kid Tour 7-18-16

Monday, July 18^th, my alarm clock radio went off at around 10:50 a.m.  I’d already been up for a bit, stretching out my rickety old man bones and joints when the radio cut through my personal state of yoga Zen like a goddamn shrieking hell baby from hell.  HELL BABY.  FROM HELL.  Christ’s image on a Belgian waffle, I need to get one of those alarms that come with an iPod dock.  I loathe radio with a passion and waking up to whatever garbage the radio’s pumping out, more often than not, sets the tone for an awful day.  It is a quite literal rude awakening every single morning.  I had it set it to The Current; a publicly funded, independent station, so it’s better than most radio stations out there…but it’s still excruciating to listen to a majority of the time.  Don’t even get me started on the membership drives that seem to go on for all eternity.  The bland, generic disc jockeys ceaselessly begging listeners for money, all the while holding the music hostage until they reach their arbitrary pledge goals.  I would rather be water boarded than have to sit through that nonsense.

The song that came on on this particular occasion conjured within me, an even higher level of disgust than usual.  It was a song called Here by some twenty-year-old Canadian kid named Alessia Cara.  What bothered me most about the song was that it “borrowed” its instrumentals from a Portishead song called Glory Box.  In my eyes, this was an unforgivable, blasphemous trespass.  I love Portishead; their album Dummy, from which Glory Box hails, is an absolute musical masterpiece.  Who the hell does this Alessia Cara person think she is?  The sheer audacity to brazenly chop up Portishead like that.  Such an act is equivalent to a kindergartener scribbling profanities all over the Mona Lisa…with their own feces.  Oh merciful heavens, what have I done in a past life to have to endure such ear torture?  Thankfully, the song concluded and the DJ turned to engaging in typical boring, monotone public radio banter.  I do not recall if it was Mary Lucia, or Jade, or whomever.  They really all sound the same to me.  Nameless radio person gave a run-down of all the musical happenings around the greater Minnesota area for the day.  Blah blah blah…I DON’T CARE.  I was torn from peaceful, silent serenity and thrust into a musical purgatory.  Please, oh, please just play a good song for me, horrible radio person.  I was deep in the throes of sonic induced suffering when she mentions that Aesop Rock is performing tonight at First Avenue.  “Dang, that’s tonight?”, I thought to myself.  Reception of this news was like an ice-cold glass of lemonade for poor, pitiful Tantalus.

Ian Bavitz, who performs under the stage name Aesop Rock, is an underground hip hop artist currently signed to the independent, Minneapolis based record label Rhymesayers Entertainment.  Aesop Rock, not to be confused with the exponentially less talented artist ASAP Rocky, is not typically who the general, uninformed populous would think of when picturing a rapper.  Active since 1996, Aesop has been honing his craft for over two decades.  His style of hip hop is incredibly complex and abstract; his lyricism is unsurpassed.  It is appropriate that this paper is about storytelling, as one would be hard pressed to find an artist whose musical storytelling abilities were on par with Aesop Rock’s.  In 2014, a study was conducted of the largest vocabularies in hip hop.  It took data analyzing roughly 100 rappers’ vocabularies and Aesop decisively blew everyone else out of the water in terms of unique words used.  The study sampled 35,000 words of each hip hop artist and compared them to history’s greatest playwright; William Shakespeare, along with Moby Dick author Herman Melville.  Out of 35,000 words used in their respective works; Aesop Rock boasted a vocabulary of 7,392 unique words, compared to Moby Dick’s 6,022 unique words and Shakespeare’s 5,170 unique words used.  The nearest runner up; the venerable GZA of legendary hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan weighed in with 6,426.  To put it succinctly; Aesop Rock is thinking man’s rap.  He is a genius.  He is better.

I left work and made it to First Avenue at around 9 o’clock.  Apparently, I arrived there just after the first opening act; Dem Atlas, another artist signed to the Rhymesayers label, had just finished his set.  I made my way through the gathering crowd and found a spot up front.  What a great spot; stage left, pedestrian right.  This was extremely important as I am, ashamedly, a small statured individual at 5 feet 4 inches tall and could easily have my view obstructed by one of those Nordic giants Minnesota is known for.  The strategic position at which I was stationed, was just a stone’s throw away from the door leading backstage, where performers would come out from.  In the midst of standing around awkwardly, I noticed Aesop out of the corner of my eye and decided to try to get a picture of him to post up on Facebook.  I fiddled with my camera phone, desperately trying to get a good shot.  Alas, it was not meant to be, as every pic came out grainy and dark.  Son of a biscuit.  Screw you, Samsung!

I’d had the pleasure of seeing Aes perform live just once before; last year on February 4^th, when he was touring to promote a new release for one of his other projects; Hail Mary Mallon.  Hail Mary Mallon consists of Aesop and yet another Rhymesayers label mate; Rob Sonic.  On this occasion, though, Aesop was touring to promote the release of his own album; The Impossible Kid.  For this reason, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Rob would be joining him on stage.  Oh heck yes!  This was the very last leg on The Impossible Kid tour, but because Rob was there, for all intents and purposes, this was a Hail Mary Mallon concert.  Aes and Rob absolutely killed it.  They played every single song off of The Impossible Kid, with more than a few Hail Mary Mallon songs thrown in the mix, as well as some classic old-school Aesop Rock songs.  Of course, they also performed the obligatory mash-up of Daylight/Nightlight; my very favorite to see live.

It was an absolutely cathartic experience.  I hipped, I hopped.  I bipped, I bopped.  I knew all the words to all the songs, so I sang along.  I sang loud and I sang proud.  Not only did I throw my hands in the air, but I also waved them like I did not care.  My nature is one of quiet reservation, but tonight I’d let that go.  My hair was on point, my beard was looking good, and beautiful women were complementing my O.D.B. t-shirt.  I felt like I was in my element, which, to be completely honest, doesn’t happen very often.  I rarely ever have that “dance as if nobody’s watching” mentality, sadly, but something about tonight put me in that place.  I felt invisible in the very best way.  My self just disappeared, blending seamlessly into the music and the energy which it created.

The concert wrapped up and I headed to the merchandise tables to buy up all that they had to offer.  I ended up buying a hoodie, a t-shirt, a slip-mat for my turntable and an Impossible Kid limited edition vinyl.  Right around the time I completed my purchases, Aesop Rock had come out from backstage and a line quickly formed for an impromptu meet and greet.  OH FRICK YES!  I did not think the night could get any better.  I made my way to the back of the line and anxiously waited for my chance to shoot the poop with the blindingly brilliant mind that is Aesop mother flipping Rock.  I was all nerves.  I, a mere feeble minded mortal, get to meet the king of the underground.  I, a lowly peasant, had been granted audience.  When my turn came to speak with the man, the myth, the legend, I told him that it was an honor to meet him.  Fumbling my words, I thanked him for playing my favorite song from The Impossible Kid; Get Out of the Car and spoke of how I could not listen to the song without tearing up and on occasion, weeping like a child.  It is a deeply personal song about the loss and 8-year aftermath of dealing with the loss of his dear friend Camu Tao to lung cancer.  Aesop was soft spoken, full of “thank yous” and humble pleasantries.  At the same time, though, I could see that he was high as a kite, toasted as toast.  I don’t know what I wanted or expected from him, but the brevity of his responses and the feeling that he wasn’t completely present, was utterly disheartening.  Here I was, face to face with a skyscraper of a man, standing a full foot taller than me at 6’4” and he just seemed…human.  I found myself in personal crisis.  There was no real sign of his brilliance now.  I could not see his golden sheen.  He was just a man.  He gets baked and disconnects, just as I occasionally liked to get baked and disconnect.  For the life of me, I don’t know why this experience was so disappointing.  It reminds me of a line from his song Dorks that goes; “Maybe to sentimentalize is to be truly naïve, I know some shit about your heroes that you wouldn't believe”.  I had the guy standing behind me in line take a picture of us together, had Aesop sign the back of my slip mat, and I headed home.

Soldiers

The whites of our eyes
is all that we are

Moving targets

Stark forward march

Toward rumors of gold in them hills

Bare bones entrenched

Toward the humming violet

With trepanated stride

Synchronized

To meet the wizard

The liar behind the curtain

And shake his hand

And wring his neck

For his boundless kindness

For his infinite cruelty

Strong rope and faulty jumars

So all we’d know is falling

Barbed arrowheads

Dust to an asthmatic

Enough to break the skin

Pierce through yolk and albumen

Reanimated equine

To repeatedly feast upon our livers

To rot the flesh and summon our death

Pulver

The difference between ideas and notions

Lakes and oceans

Something about salt content

The width of mouths

The length of certain fingers

The art of palm reading and tarot cards

Chiromancy, I’m told

A straight flush.  Go fish.

I really don’t think we did it right

As deep as only a pen can cut

China in a bull shop and a finely crafted thousand yard stare

Broom and dust pan on hand

Passed down from generation to generation

Armor out of found bits of papier-mâché and lacquer

Holster hand hovering

Greedo versus Han
and the zombies in our heads

Fanning the hammer to send them off on their way

To draw water from a poisoned well

The pale horse whom follows hell
and the cart set before her

Constellations look nothing like they’re supposed to

And that,
ladies and gentlemen,
was the straw that pushed the camel through

Powder kegs teetering precariously

Working class heroes and farmers’ daughters

Certainly no room for dogs

Eggshells and bubble wrap

Breaking under the very same amount of pressure

Blood and physics

A gust of wind to help us on our way down

Fell asleep waiting for the car to warm up

Billy Pilgrim’s mum

Absolutely Dickensian

Wealth, time, and madness

Wisdom and paralysis

God save the queen,
but pawns can only strike diagonally

Comedy and tragedy

Close curtain

Roll credits

Closed casket

Lloyd

The unpaved road
eventually ate away your smile

One bump at a time

‘Never did like that feeling,
of falling and sinking

So you’ll take to the oceans

With all your aquaphors

Homemade rockets

Where exactly would you sail off to?

With your extensive knowledge of two whole knots

And neither will hold,
let alone keep your head above the water

Starboard from port

Ass from elbow

Or will you walk up on top?

On a wing and a prayer

Exit through the garden

Split the seas with a movement of your hand

With the Earth as witness

Rendered redundant

A trillion Zimbabwe dollars

Jade and tarnished silver

Hearts have no place

Useless, stubborn muscle

The same old story

An exercise in futility

Prolonging the inevitable

Tail in teeth

Chin tucked and swinging

Headless vipers that don’t know that they’re dead yet

Tharn

Like fish in a barrel

Negevs in narrow corridors

LSD and the sudden stop at the end

Left us knock kneed rickety

Harrowed and hobbled

Drunk of our spirits

Lopped off our feet for luck,
discarded the rest of us

Beg pardon

for lost arrowheads

for bleeding on your carpet

Silos worth of salt,
one grain at a time

Made for even greater disease,
biting our tongues for so long

Chewing pellets like pen caps
to wash the bitter taste away

Ghostory

…And I’ve never seen the moon when one is meant to

Never where it’s supposed to be

Always hiding.

Always hiding.

Beneath the darkest clouds,
an unrelenting rain

Neck craned skyward

Like drowned turkeys,
curiously killed

Swallowed up by a great fish

Its reflection plucked from the water

Tasty morsel

The great horned beast

Narwhal

Or something along those lines

Makes me wonder if life’s been imitating…

The home I’ve built for myself

Embraced the forever night

Lore I’ve taken to heart

Drifted apart

Skimmed the edges,
paper cut

Rock denied

Only sky

Feet caught between the cracks
of these here wooden planks

Seamlessly phasing in and out

Mothmen Lantern Bearers

Stands to reason that it‘s never been in season

The Great Snipe Hunt

All starter pistols and pop guns

Salivating blue

Petrified stone

A baffling lack of moss

It’s said that the movies serve the best albatross

Still fresh and warm

Any port will do

Infamous last words

Diving head first into empty swimming pools

‘Necks fit the guillotine perfectly

Allow me to demonstrate…

Houdini like hedonism

Life jacket canoodling

Unripe, al dente at best

Turning tables all the time

The coin that’s landed on its side

Ask again later, he who seeks through the murky water

Hear what you want to hear

See the partial picture

A marriage of thermite and termites

Wax and feathers, far too close to the sun

Bare your gums to fool no one

The difference between ideas and notions, lakes and oceans

Something about salt

The width of mouths

The lengths of certain fingers

Hand size in comparison

Deep like only a pen can cut…

A diet of coffee and cigarettes

And nothing but.

The equivalent of all the king’s men and all of their horses

China in a bull shop

The elephant in the room;

doubled over, multiplied

But that’s neither here nor there

Fig leaf bare

and exposed to the elements

Hammerless ornamental iron

Your war face can only carry you so far

Can fool yourself for only so long

Drinking from a poisoned well

The final straw to push the camel through the needle’s eye

Or something like that

The pale horse whom follows hell and the cart set before it

Trying to connect the dots, but constellations look nothing like their namesake

Passed the point of one foot in the grave ages ago

Now it’s just a matter of laying down

Flowers painted in monotone

Millimeter movements where the worms run things

Rule absolute

No one should have to brave that storm alone

But it’s all we’ve known

Shores littered with broken bottles

Legions

Scattered coast to coast, sun bleached bones

Mama Bird

Mouth chewed salves for freshly opened wounds

Mouth chewed food for her baby birds

Aloe and old medicine

Lost wisdom

Chrysopoeia

Caterpillars from kernels of corn

The only shelter from the beating rain

The least I could do was carry you back home

Shaken ‘Leaf

The nature of beasts

Soiled hands and feet

Finger bowls and finely marbled flesh

Cannibals at the first sign of distress

Foam and froth

Wane and flicker

Conceding beneath the weight

Emerging corporeal

Sinewless shadows

Birthed from the pushing of palms

All maw and malice

Like forcing puzzle pieces

Anchors to till the soil as we walk

Counting blessings on severed fingers

Sold it all for bee stings and bean stalks

Glass slippers and swollen toes

A crapshoot with loaded dice

Roulette with a rifle

Geocentricism

Bodies to never be explored

Risen up to our ankles

Wet behind the ears

Mint green

The unmistakable smell of fear

Lingering

Thick enough to cut with a knife

The source of all things

The mother of invention

Drawing hearts in the condensation

Sad, really

Fated to fade and disappear

And they look nothing like that

Don’t know where you got that idea from, kid

Olympus Mons

Never you

Pass on through

And still
Running marathons

Weaving in and out
between the synapses like traffic cones

Ostleress of the dark kingdom

The one whom follows hell

Leaky faucets are easily overlooked,
bleeding the last of our water

What’s gone missing

Snared on a loose nail

The sore thumb gets hammered down

Pointless as the whittling of pegs

Unrelenting, cursed vision

The Star Man is burning

Screams, never ending

Breadcrumbs in the land of sparrows

Unraveling with each step

Towards the very eye of the storm

A fourteen mile ascension away from man

Divine iron from Littlest Mother

Warmed and reborn in the wake of its open mouth

To forge a blade

To cut out each and every heart of this wretched worm

Untitled Quickie

Tongue in cheek,
Birdless beak
Dip your toes, then run for the hills
Sometimes the quickest ‘coasters
are the cheapest thrills
Bluest pills
The trick is
to choose the hand that grips more tightly
Ever so slightly
Watch the sweat bead down
each of the fat man’s chins
Black toothed grins
Pray that the Cheshire Cat
never truly makes sense
Weeping rivers for a mouth
chapped shut in a frozen frown
So fell the strongest of us
The wisest
The greatest
Trident to chest
Brick by brick
Shrug it off
A service of swollen lips
Lemon juice and salted rims
Another one down
in a war
we can not possibly win

8/24/12 MARRIAGES, CHELSEA WOLFE, RUSSIAN CIRCLES (Part III)

    Oh, god…it’s been forever since I’ve been to The Triple Rock.  Well over a year, I think.  I cringe when I think of all the shows I missed last year when I was working at that fucking terrible place.  60 hour, 6 day work weeks with such scum bags, savages and juveniles.  Over a year of soul sucking bullshit and  barely any live music…but that all of that is over now.  I walked out and quit with the utmost spontaneity and have time now, have a soul to feed now.  Tonight, after waiting all summer for a decent show to go to, I made my triumphant return to one of my most favorite places in the world. 
    After failing to persuade my little brother that the bands playing tonight are very much worth seeing and to come with me, I set off without  him.  I got there around 9, 9:10.  There was one parking space left, just for me as if Vishnu were saying, “Oh, man…Eddy’s gonna be here tonight, FINALLY.  Let’s save a spot for him, he’s a really cool guy.”  I seized it, post haste.  K, parked and went inside.  Whaaaaaaat?  16 bucks?  Nice, I thought it was supposed to be $18?  Awesome.  BUT, fuck…it was packed tight.  I made my way down to the pit.  I was way back, almost at the stairs.  I strategically surveyed the land, but alas, nowhere to go.  I hunkered down and braced myself.  I’ve missed this feeling.  How to describe it…hmm…it was like waiting for a massive tsunami to break over you.  The anticipation was incredible.  Like a knife hovering, slowly getting closer to breaking the skin.  I had butterflies in my stomach and one of those nicotine leg shakes.  You know what I mean, right?  I’m sure smokers and former smokers know what I‘m referring to.  A lad behind me says something along the lines of “C’MON, I WANNA SEE SOME GODDAMN MARRIAGES.”  Christ, me too.
    After what felt like a coon’s age, whatever the age of a coon is…Marriages comes out to semi-uproarious cheers.  Friggin’ adorable Emma Rundle.  To everyone else it’s Emma Ruth Rundle, but, you know, we’re friends and everything so I don’t have to use her middle? name.  I’ve very much got a  thing for womens who play the geeter.  I likes them…I likes them a lot.  Oh, and she was doing the vocalizations for Marriages too.  On bass ’tar was Greg Burns of Red Sparowes fame and on them drums was a little taste of what was to come; Dave Turncrantz (of Russian Circles).
    Crash and ebb.  Ohhhhhhhhh, yes.  Heavenly.  It has begun!  But, sadly, it was fleeting…  They started off amazing and I loved it, but Emma has a kinda Tori Amos quality to her voice and quite frankly, I don’t care much for Tori Amos.  After a few songs, I grew tired and wanted their set to end.  Dave was amazing, Mr. Burns was…eeeexcellent (get it!?) and Emma, too, was wonderful…on guitar.  Enough of this.  What else you got for me?
    Marriages wrapped up and got their shite off the stage.  What the fuck!?  The crowd didn’t make their usual nicotine/alcohol migration.  Well…some did, but for the most part, their numbers were still unshaken.  I managed to find myself a better spot, closer, nonetheless.  Pedestrian left, stage right, middleish.  I would still have to crane my neck to see, though..  To my surprise, some guy in front of me actually turns around and asks if I could see alright.  I was dumbfounded and had to ask him to repeat himself.  “Yeah, I can see.” I replied…which was a lie, but he wasn’t the one blocking my view.  Wait a minute…a tall bloke in the pit who actually isn’t an asshole and actually cares if they are hindering a shorter fellow‘s experience?  What is this world coming to?  After this set though, I would ironically turn out to be the asshole as I would keep accidentally hitting his backpack after I would wipe the sweat off my brow or fix my glasses.  I apologized for this, but still, who the fuck wears a backpack into a bar?  What the fuck could you possibly need from there?  In.  A.  Bar?  Fuck that guy, he’s still an asshole.  It’s not like he was a photographer and that was his camera bag or anything. 
    Anyways.  Some lads dressed like they were going to a not really that close of a friend’s funeral set their equipment up and sound checked.  In this newly settled land, it turned out some French? pieces of shit were my neighbors.  Christ they were fucking dumb and SUCH douches.  While Chelsea Wolfe and her band were setting up, they were screaming something retarded about Metallica, Lou Reed and tables?  “The world is full of idiots and these are fine examples.” I thought. 
    Chelsea’s set starts.  Absolutely incredible.  Badass Asian mang on drums, some dude who looks like Brian of comedy duo briTANick on bass and electronic shite, and of course Chelsea Wolfe on the geetar and vocals.  She looked and sounded like…an unknowing widow, waiting for her husband in the rain, to come back home.  Like how I imagine a Siren must sound.  I swayed ever so slightly to her.  It was like a full body massage for the soul.  I was hopelessly entranced, the spell broken only by the aforementioned French scum fucker behind me singing at the top of his lungs along with her.  You motherfucker.  If I had more of a disregard for the law, and any taste at all for a brutal anal reaming, I would’ve gutted the baguette lad right then and there.  I mowed over the thought, engaging and disengaging the safety mechanism on my switch-blade in my right pocket that keeps the pointy part from accidentally flipping open an stabbing me in the side.  Nah, not worth it.  I also pondered the passive aggressive route.  Turning around and extending my hand to him for a shake and saying, “Hey, thanks, man.  The reason why I came here tonight is to pay to have you sing horrendously out of tune in my fucking ear.”  But, nope, I haven’t got any yarbles.  Just stood there and took it, empty sacked like some kinda…sack that happens to be empty.  Grin and bear, grin and bear.  Chelsea wraps up.  A set I enjoyed immensely, in spite of such fucktardery.  It’s time now for some Russian Circles.
    I gained some more ground and acquired myself a fairly nice viewing gap behind some relatively short folks in front.  Sweeeeeeeeet spot.  Now, to be completely honest…I wasn’t so excited to see Russian Circles.  I blame my little brother.  He’d not really heard much or any Russian Circles and had to look ‘em up to see if they were worth the time.  The verdict was that there were not.  And with that, the seed of doubt was sown in my own mind.  A seed that was scorched and salted the very moment they started playing.  Such just indescribable energy.  To watch them on YouTube or listen to their studio versions just does not do them justice.  And by the time they played the second song of their set, “Harper Lewis”, oh boy was that seed just utterly obliterated.  I couldn’t help but notice again, the fools surrounding me.  There was this one guy right in fucking front.  He’d been standing there since Chelsea Wolfe’s set and possibly long before that, absolutely stoic.  Nothing remarkable about the lad except that he didn’t move a fucking muscle.  And he was kinda tall too.  A tall, emotionless, motionless muppet who was probably blocking some poor sap’s view.  “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN HERE?” I thought to myself.  So many people here I want to murder…and there was an even worse lad behind me this time around.  Throughout R.C.’s set, he air guitarred, and made the dumbest remarks ever uttered.  “Play CARP!” he shouted in one instance.  “Carp” he says…like the fish.  The song he was referring to is Carpe.  Now I’m not absolutely certain, but I’m fairly sure that it’s pronounced “KAR-PAY” as in “Carpe Diem“.  What a fucking twit.  Know your shit before you open your mouth or just shut up.  Morons.  And this was a different person, but earlier on, to the left of me, I heard someone say something like “Isis were the first post-rock band I’d ever heard.  I had to listen to them eight or nine times before it hit me how good they were.”  So fucking dumb.  I hate sub-genres.  Quite frankly, they get too…how do I say…divided?  Is that the right word for it?  Like, I have no idea what the fuck metal-grinding-math-prog-technical-core is.  Anyways, not to be a stickler, but Isis were not “post-rock”.  They were post-metal.  Post rock is more along the lines of Explosions in the Sky, Grails, Mogwai, GY!BE, etc.  Please, get your shit right so you don’t sound like an idiot.  I would love to go somewhere one day and think “Ahhhh…these are my people.” but that has just never happened.  Whenever I go to a show, I instantly get the feeling that 86% of the people there are clueless, 93X (the local Disney owned “hard rock” station here) listening idiots.  Anyway, to continue on about the amoeba behind me, he kept talking about how he desperately wanted to push forward, but did not know how to do so without shoving and being an ass.  Now, let me tell you something.  Where I was standing, I was literally about 3 feet from the stage.  This meant that the guy was about 5 feet from the stage.  How much closer do you want to get, stupid kid?  And why do you want to get so close?  So you can tell them to play “KARP!” ?  Fucking.  Idiot.  I waited for him to push forward.  Should he lay one cell of a limb on me, I had an elbow or two with his face’s name on it.  C’mon, sport.  Push me.
    Enough about the lemmings around me.  ‘Circles were just GODLY.  The French monkey I was talking about before…after Chelsea’s set, he asked; “How is anyone supposed to top that!?  How is someone supposed to follow that!?“ and I wondered the same thing…  They did it though.  Russian Circles just absolutely killed it.  Dave especially, was spectacular.  He’s always good,  but this time around, I felt like he brought more energy and passion?  Played with just that much more intensity.   Throughout their set, that doubt I had in my mind was just picked apart.  For some reason, I had it in my mind that R.C. was all about Dave’s drumming, that there wasn’t much to them and there were much better bands than them.  How foolish I was…  It’s like they were saying to me, “Naw, son.  We’re pretty fucking epic.”  They just proved to me how much depth they really have.  For some reason, I had the notion that  their instrumentals did not have the moving power that other post-rock bands like Explosions in the Sky or Red Sparowes have.  Like Pelican, but not as good.  NOT FUCKING SO.  I have no idea why I thought this, but I’m ecstatic to have been proven so very very wrong.

Lucy

And I will avenge

And I will avenge

All of our fallen limbs

But to what end?

Oh, I would gladly dig two graves

Give each and every eye 'til the world has gone blind

Darling, darling

Can't you see you're trespassing?

With all your vibrating vectors

You pass unhindered through each sector

Stepping on toes wherever you may go

And us?

Forever on stilts and eggshells

Forced from our homes

Forced to dwell...

Beyond your reach

In caves, under rocks

A diet of crow and cake

Egg on our face

Like scurrying millipedes

from your artificial light

But, my dear

You've greatly underestimated

The resilience of our tongues

We've grown accustomed to...

Grown a taste for...

The wounds that we lick

To piss and vinegar

and a mouthful of blood with each sip

We've become that which feeds on that which feeds on

For, ever stronger are the bones that have broken and calcified

A prison break from 'neath your ribcage

Crawling through your spray-painted city of worms

Oh, Pyrite Priestess to ferry us into the fire...

Won't you let me show you how to dance between the rain drops?

Your wrath.

Your rage.

It is WAR, we wage

With your head upon this pike

to forever proclaim

That our hearts are at long last free

To ride the Eastward winds

Wherever their true homes should lie...

"Voglio una donna!"

I got the idea for this poe-tree a while ago. Maybe over a year ago...from a Fellini movie titled "Amarcord" .


"Voglio una donna!"


At last, relief
from the burning sands turned glass beneath our feet

Weary, we shout from the treetops our undying heartache

Climbing ever higher

Guided by the gentle sound of thumping

Of lub dub

Lub dub

And

The occasional squish,
between finger tips

Eternally diverged in a yellow wood

Out on a limb to reach beyond the shoulders of giants
and their wildly flailing appendages

To pluck us as if grapes,
clung as if sloths

Barring entry into your Kingdom


Leap

Leap over

The moon

Bathing the bones of those who came before
in such ominous glow

To give voice to warnings from far down below

We leap, leap over the moon

With blind ears and deaf eyes

To reclaim what was stolen
when all was still in the House of Sleep

Restless now

Up in arms

The audacity…

Mistress of Seven Bells
with her hands

Fluidly

Touching nothing…



…yet touching everything.

Saturday March 13th 2010: Frontier, Battlefields, Via Vengeance, A Storm of Light

It was just a little past 10 when I arrived at the Triple Rock Social Club. I didn’t get to see the Bio Dome this time around, as I was graced by good fortune and got the very last spot in the parking lot. Phew! What a relief. The giant deflated marshmallow freaks me out for some reason. I get some real bad mojo vibes from that place. I’m sure it’s just my imagination, but it seems like a zombie movie waiting to happen… An excited concert goer merrily makes his way past an experimental biological research facility, completely unaware of the horrors that are contained within, when all of a sudden he hears an explosion, then screams, then gunshots, the whole nine. The ghastly moans of “How bout some brains, buhhhhhhhhhhdy?” and by the time he hears this, it’s already too late…
I go around to the front of the club, where the smokers congregate before shows start, to kill some time with a cigarillo. There are two huge tour busses parked there on the street. Most likely belonging to the Aqua Bats and company? Some band headlining the show before the one I came to see. I have no idea who that is and I didn’t really bother to check. Oh well. I finished off my mini-gar and flicked the nub at one of the busses as if to say “Bah, fuck the Aqua Rats or whatever” because, well…fuck ‘em. Yeah.
I go inside and pay the cover charge. 8 bucks is an insane deal to see 4 bands. That’s like…hold on a sec…that’s like 2 bucks per band! Woo math! How is it that these fellas make money though? It doesn’t sound like they make an immense profit. I guess that’s one of the big reasons why I love Independent Label bands so much. They’ve got so much heart and so little moneys. Truly, they are the Rocky Balboas of the music industry.
Hmm. What do I want to drink? I know! The pride and joy of Minnesota: a Summit Extra Pale Ale. Summit EPAs and The Triple Rock are two of only a handful of things that make this state worth while. I get my beverage and take a seat at an open table in the Pit. Frontier is on stage, setting up their equipment and sound checking as I sit down. I only have to wait a few minutes for them to start playing and let me tell you, they absolutely crushed it. Hooooooooly shite! It turns out that they are a local band. Their MySpace page says that they are from Minneapolis. Wow. What a way to kick off the night. Who knew that such great, wholesome post-rock goodness could be found right in my back yard?
Up next was Battlefields. They were okay, I guess, but they struck me as being pretty typical. Nothing about them really stood out to me. There was throaty growling and screaming vocals, typical distorted guitar, and drumming that did not really woo me too much… There was just an all around generic metal vibe about them that I could hear from a whole sea of other bands. At best, they were a little above average…
Via Vengeance came on next and they, or HE, I should say was anything but typical. There was one man seated at a tiny drum kit with a gee tar around his neck. Where is the rest of the band? Why the hell are they not out by now? It was tre bizarre; ONE MAN on vocals, guitar, AND drums! WHAT?! This made me feel so very ashamed of myself as I did not even know how to play a single instrument while Via Vengeance was up there juggling three things at once. How is he doing this? This guy is some kind of demon!
My vision was obscured though, by some goofy asshole in a white Twins cap. I wanted so badly to jump up and kick him in the back of the head. The utter lack of courtesy for your fellow man made my blood boil. Whenever I acquire new ground at shows, I always, ALWAYS make sure I’m not obscuring someone else’s vision. This has never happened though, because I’m a measly 5’3” and there are very few who are lower in stature than I.
This poor bastard had no clue that a crazy Asian man was sitting behind him, plotting to unleash some sort of unspeakable violence. I swallowed my anger though, and quietly got up from my seat and found a better spot to stand. Right on. Now I could actually see the stage! Via Vengeance man’s playing was indescribable. He held a drum stick in his right hand, banging on his kit, his left hand strummed on his guitar and was vocalizing all the while as well. Now, of course these weren’t the most complex symphonies, but amazing nonetheless.
Mr. Onemanbandguy’s set was done so I decided to get another beer. I think I’ll have a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale this time. As you may or may not know by now, I lean more towards ales, especially pale ales. Them bastids float my boat, yep yep. I pay the bartender, grab my ale, and set out to find a new spot. The floor was empty, because everyone went out to grab a smoke or something. This was one very big advantage to not being a slave to nicotine. Oh ho ho, what do we have here? My favorite place to stand was wide open for the taking. You know the place, right? Against the wall, near the stairs that lead backstage where the bands come out from, stage left. Yadda yadda.
I lean up against the wall and take a sip from my beer, cool as a refrigerated cucumber. A personal victory for me, because this seemingly irrelevant, superfluous spot against the wall means more than the world to me and makes all the difference. I fiddle around with my phone to kill some time before A Storm of Light comes out. CHRIST‘S LIKENESS ON A BLUEBERRY WAFFLE. I nearly wet myself as the sudden roar of a guitar strum startles me to attention. I guess it was almost time.
A Storm of Light was just so…hauntingly beautiful. They are the very soundtrack of the impending Apocalypse and thereafter with their explosive, yet soothing sounds like crashing waves. The images projected on a big white sheet tacked up on the wall behind them were exactly what was brought to mind when you listen to A Storm of Light: incredible images of deserts, ruined buildings and cities, broken ships, and struggling wild life. I stood there, right in front of Josh Graham, overwhelmed by the feelings of impending catastrophe radiating from the stage. I closed my eyes and let it saturate through to the marrow.
For most of the performance, my eyes were fixed upon this gorgeous creature to the far left of the stage. My oh my, who is this breathtaking woman? I would find out later that her name is Zorah Atash. I wish that I could have heard her voice though, because the thunderous instrumentals had drowned out any trace of her and Josh’s vocals. Such beauty…I really need to stop allowing my heart to wander wherever it pleases. This causes me only heartache.
A Storm of Light had finished their set and I was headed to the merchandise tables to peep their wares. I swallowed hard when Zorah came up to work the A Storm of Light table and tried my hardest to contain myself. I could have easily screeched like a schoolgirl and completely lost it right there. Ravenous butterflies nibbled at the walls of my stomach as I was a mere foot or two away from such a divine creature. I ended up buying ASoL’s newest album and am ASoL pin. As Zorah handed me the pin, I leaned in and told her “You are absolutely gorgeous. It’s been a pleasure.” but I sort of trailed off and mumbled the words. It was awkward to say the least. “Aww. Thank you so much!” she said in response and I was off and out the door like a shot.


I am such a dweeb…

Thursday, March 11th 2010: GZA/GENIUS of the Wu-Tang Clan. Oh My God, Did He Just Get the Whole Place High?

I left my house and set out for the Triple Rock at around 8:30. The concert calendar had said that the show would start at 8:00, but I have learned that it’s just a gimmick to get people to arrive early so they could buy drinks while they wait for performers to get on stage. I’m not falling for that shit, no no no. Do you know how much drinks are? You could buy a sixer and have moneys left over for what you pay for two beers and I am quite the cheap bastard. I was worried though, that the show might be sold out before I got there because GZA is quite a BIG-name act. Everyone knows Wu-Tang and they are well beloved by many but I didn‘t expect there to be so much interest because rap has moved in a different, most terrible direction as of late. A direction filled with horrid auto-tuned robot voices and soulja boy super man dances.
I arrive at the Triple Rock at 9:20ish and pull into the 3x Rock’s parking lot. It’s full. Not a good sign. Shit. Was I too late? I hope it’s not sold out. One of the things I loved about the Triple Rock was their seemingly always available parking, but this was not the case tonight. I would end up parking a couple blocks away from the venue, near this big puffy, not quite dome, not quite cube thing. It looked like a big white fluffed up keyboard key. It made me wonder if E.T. or Pauly Shore were being stored in there for experimentation. Or…dear god…maybe they were BOTH in there, being scientifically fused together? I’m wandering dangerously off track here…so, I park my car in the shadow of the Bio Dome and make a small sketch of where I was on my hand so I could find my way back later. It’s a short walk back to the 3x, not too bad and I rather enjoyed it. Pretty nice neighborhood around that area. I’d love to live around there someday, maybe…
I walk through the doors and already, the place is packed with people (upon mental reread: “why would I say that? ‘People’. What else would it be packed with? Llamas?”). I have never seen the place so full. I expected the place to be consisting of mostly black folks and a slew of Eminem lookin‘ Caucasian fellas, but I was wrong. The majority of those in attendance were the typical Pabst Blue Ribbon drinking hipsters who frequented the Triple Rock. I thought that this was so weird…
I pay my 18 dollar cover charge and head to the bar to get a drink. I had a mighty hankerin’ for an ale so I ordered me a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and found myself a spot amongst the crowd and settled in to catch the first opener. “Are you ready to get GZAfied!?”, said a man as he took the stage (GZA: pronounced ‘jizz-ah’). I wanted to see GZA perform, but I don’t really want to be jizzified, I thought to myself. That just sounds very, very unpleasant to me…
The man revealed himself to be St. Paul Slim, a local rapper. Something tells me that he is from St. Paul or resides in St. Paul? That’s my hypothesis at least. He was great, I tell you what. DJ Snuggie provided the dope beatz for Mr. Slim. My favorite part of his performance was when he showed off his freestyling skills. Something something bison. Something something python. Make other rappers so scared, they have to sleep with the lights on. Put words together like a “hyphon”. This clever little diddy made me smile. Words together like a hyphon (hyphen). That is pure freaking genius. Holy crap. This made me think about how those who do not favor hip-hop criticize that rap and rap artists are uneducated and barbaric. What these Philistines fail to realize is that these artists may or may not be institutionally well educated, but they hold an infinite wealth of street knowledge and wisdom. Not to mention the brain power one must have to string together words which one would wield to crush opponents, spontaneously, right off the top of their heads.
“I feel a little weird callin’ a grown man Snuggie so from now on I’mma call him Snug Life”, Slim said with a chuckle. It turns out that Snuggie is a skilled beat boxer as he churned out some killer mouf beats. I was thoroughly impressed up until he started making female orgasm noises. This weirded me out as I just plain did not know how to feel about a large black man named “Snuggie”, making climaxing sounds…
Saint Paul Slim’s set was finished and it was time to wait for the next opener to come out. After a few minutes of waiting, I had to pee so I set out for the bathroom. While I was taking in St. Paul’s performance, it seems the crowd had grown immensely in capacity around me. I did my bathroom business and tried to get back to my standing spot. The Triple Rock was now a huge pain in the ass to navigate through and my spot was taken. FUCK. FUCKING. FUCKERS. I tried to back track to look for a new spot and had no luck. I was being bumped into and all about so I got frustrated and headed outside to have a cigarillo and regroup. Slim Paul Saint guy had said that Moo Something was opening up after him, so whatever. I don’t give a shit. I’m not here to see some Moo asshole. I’m here to see mother fucking GZA GENIUS of THE Wu-Tang Clan! There was no nostalgia in seeing Moo Whatshisface.
The nostalgia lie solely in GZA. Back in the day, my best friend at the time; George Hammanjian got me into the Wu. I know that I’m spelling his name wrong, but yeah, it was my buddy George who started my love affair with The Clan. Before being introduced, I listened to the strangest musics…so strange and so horrifying that to even begin to mention what I listened to would make me implode with embarrassment. Even up this point in life, there have been many beloved friends who have introduced me to beautiful musics which I otherwise would have never heard. From Wolf, to Blah, to Cha, to brother Nicotine. These are the ones who help shovel the musical coal into the furnace that is my soul and I am eternally grateful.
So I killed some time with an Erin Go Bragh cigarillo and texted the aforementioned Wolf while I was outside and planning my counter-attack. Alright. ALRIGHT! I threw the nub of my ‘rillo down to the ground and huffed back inside. I fought my way through the packed house, a tough thing to do when you have a…wide…frame as I do. I showed a few suckas my bayonet, and a few others the butt of my rifle and I was miraculously back to my spot of choice. HAZZAH! I DID IT! I felt like a Viking whom had just arrived in glorious Valhalla as I settled in to wait for GZA.
Alas, things were not as great as they seemed. I had taken back the hill, but stupid Moo something was still on stage. They were god awful. It was like someone let a bunch of amateurs up there for open mic night, jumping around on stage like a bunch of asshats. I was right to skip out on most of their performance. Get the fuck outta here, you idiots. “Shalom Ali Kum,” one of them said as they left the stage. WHAT THE FUCK? Salaam Ali Kum, Ali Kum Salaam is an Islamic saying meaning something along the lines of “peace be with you, and with you peace” and Shalom is a Jewish greeting. Are you trying to be clever here and imply that you wish for Islamic-Jewish unity and peace? Well, you just came off as utterly retarded to me. GET. OFF. THE. FUCKING. STAGE.
We ended up waiting soooooooooo goddamn long for the man to come out. The crowd began chanting his name; GZA! GZA! GZA! GZA! GZA! and still no sign of him. After what seemed like a couple eternities, GZA’s DJ played a well known audio sample from Shogun Assassin; Daigoro’s speech about his father and the Shogunate. This set the whole place in an uproar. I sucked the energy in as the memories caused by this audio clip swept over me. I remembered distinctly, more than a decade ago, when I first heard this on Wu-Tang Forever. But still no GZA. The DJ man told us that we were being too load, that they weren’t even letting GZA through. Moments later the man of the hour shows himself. I swear to you; the very instant he set foot on stage, the strongest aroma of pot hit all of our nostrils. It was like the Wu-Tang version of pixie dust…
Dear god, he was pure magic. This was rap at it’s very purest. The beats were quite simple, yet killer in their own right. No flash, no gimmicks. Just grimy, razor sharp, yet smooth as butter rap. You can bet your ass there would be no robo voice here. I swear, I didn’t even see a thick, blinged out chain around his neck as most rappers wear. You see, this is not the Shaolin way. You will be cut from every direction by the liquid swords, be left bleeding internally and with brutal efficiency. To say that the man has a silver tongue is to sell the man short. Genius is a well deserved title, as well as is GZA, so potent that he made all the women in attendance pregnant.
Midway through his performance, I don’t know what exactly happened, but an incident occurred when a fairly large black man assaulted a similarly large white man in the audience. All of a sudden I see a mean right hook wallop the guy in the face. I’m guessing that the white dude bumped into the black dude one too many times? Shite. I totally feel for the guy though, as the constant knocking into me during shows infuriates me as well and if I’d had a few more drinks in me, I’d have done the same thing. I was amazed by how quick security reacted though, as no more than two seconds after the punch was thrown, the bouncer had his arm wrapped around the guy’s neck, tossing his ass out.
I’ve only rediscovered Wu-Tang fairly recently as these days, I lean more towards other genres…so I really didn’t recognize many of the songs GZA performed. This was not the case with many other fans in attendance though, as they promptly filled in the blanks each and every time GZA pointed his mic toward the audience. I was truly impressed by this. The few songs I knew though, I hollered the lyrics at the top of my lungs. Such a fun and interactive experience. GZA paid respects to the late, great fellow Clansman O.D.B. when he performed Shimmy Shimmy Ya. It was apparent that Ol’ Dirty Bastard was still very much missed and it filled me with a strange mixture of joy and sorrow to scream “Ooh baby, I like it raaaaaaaw!” whenever prompted to do so during this tribute. He yanked on our legs as he told us that his set was done with. Are you serious!?! You better give us an encore. Do you realize how long you made us wait? “Naw, I’m not ready to leave yet”, he assured us and performed two or three more encore songs. GZA wrapped up the show urging us to drive home safely and be safe because he’s seen a few stumbling drunks about the place. What a guy. I didn’t expect this from GZA for some reason.
So this was my first rap show. It oddly did not leave me with a lingering satisfaction as other shows at the Triple Rock have in the past. I was very much thoroughly entertained, but I feel like rap is on a different wavelength than the other musics I enjoy. This show had an entirely different energy to it. Maybe if I reacquainted myself better with GZA and Wu-Tang? An absolutely amazing experience, nonetheless.
I headed to my car, realizing that I didn’t even need to use the drawing I had made on my hand. Just walk on over in that direction until you see the big Pauly Shore marshmallow and you’re golden. Oh god, please don’t let there be a ticket on the windshield. Ah, no parking ticket. Sweet! I head home through the early morning fog and decide to pop by the gas station because I was feeling mighty thirsty. When I arrive at Marathon, I notice that the White Castle next door is open. Why am I hungry? Did…did GZA give me contact high? White Castle sounds DELICIOUS right about now…

Orion

But more often than not, who I am falls short of what I’ve missed out on

Parallel selves slip by with their heads tucked away and down
Scornful of the man they could have been

Loosely fitting and scarcely adhered , a shell of a fraction

Dodging bullets

Unaware of how often they cross my mind

Diligently clinging to shadows

Scurrying like insects between pillars of light

Gazed upon with the awe and wonder of a dreamer child

Evaporating with each lost grain of sand

One by one, falling by the wayside

Commenting on how The Great Hunter looks more like an hourglass

Rendered miniscule under his guise and grandeur

Reassured by the emptiness that is his stomach

Special Agent Fox William Mulder!

Piecing together gospel from words you overheard strangers had spoke

Worth about as much as the soot at the bottom of your pockets

Simply progress in repairing the mold that you’d broke

Catching glimpses of ghosts in the corners of your perception

Went the way of fireflies in captivity

Somewhere between corporeal and ether

Toes buried in wet sand

A whisper of a rumor of an enigma

Like the jell-o you loved to squish when you were a kid,
escaping through the spaces between your fingers

And there it is again…

A house of cards at the mouth of an open window

We are all sorting through myth and legend

Desperately trying to discern between the two

Blindly practicing sorcery and medicine

Forever in a primal age of leeches and trepanation

Superstitiously applying pressure upon that which is meant to bleed…

Untitled

The fine line between cold
and
her head rested on your collar bone

Stubborn in their unwavering

Anchored resolute, poised to turn lead into gold

Under such brilliant lights

Your heart takes new residence
at the base of your throat

Almost mocking with their lack of bias

Infinite worlds rest on their narrow shoulders

Ready to unfold at your feet

Unnerved by thoughts of butterflies and hurricanes


Fortunes to be decided by a crooked booth

Desire

Fear and desperation spring birth to false light

Countless years of Winter

Mistaking tin for silver

Tarnished in any case

Trickery by our own hands

Shadows dance and undulate

Cornucopias to feast

Supple and bitter, terribly rebellious

We chew the fat together

Our bloated bellies set upon thin frames

Never to be satisfied


The fire in our hearts succumb to the frost

Gradually and eventually snuffed

Withering with each exhale