Moonlight Lake

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Just before the accident I heard something break. The wheel spun away. I came to in a lake. The sky did not look tight to me, the moon was upside down. Schools of shiny fish played hide-and-seek in the clouds. The water was cold, and I started to tremble. I hadn’t felt so lonesome in as long as I remember.

Let go — it’s okay. Heavy heart, Moonlight Lake. Let go — it’s okay. I forgive you.

I remember feeling like my life had been worthless. I dimly saw your pretty face above the shimmering surface. Were you crying? Girl, I’m sorry. You know I couldn’t stop. Add it to the list of all the virtuous things I’m not. Bye bye bye, it’s my turn to cry. I’ll never get a chance to set this right before I die.

Let go — it’s okay. Heavy heart, Moonlight Lake. Let go — it’s okay. I forgive you.

Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, all the way down.

I sank quickly to the bottom of the watery sky. The mud sucked me under and I thought I had died. The fishes swam away, and I bounced off the wall. Sprawled out flat on my face, passed out cold in the hall. Did you carry me to bed? I didn’t mean to put you through it. The water wasn’t water it was whiskey and I knew it.

Let go — it’s okay. Heavy heart, Moonlight Lake. Let go — it’s okay. I forgive you.

· Posted in Beautiful Objects, Music and tagged Banjo, Lyric, Violin. 1 comment.

Beautiful Objects

Phase One of this web site was just getting all my music up here, mixed, mastered and ready for download. It took a while, and frankly there’s still a big box of old cassettes to go through. But now it’s time for Phase Two: Beautiful Objects.

Last night I put brush to paper and this happened:

Pass Away

It’s called “Pass Away” and comes from my song of the same name. It’s the first of an ongoing series of what I will call “Beautiful Objects” inspired by the music here. I hope to make something for every song on the site, and to feature works of art made by others as well.

The idea is this: Beautiful Objects can be held in your hand; they can be hung on the wall; they can be set on a table; they can be worn; they can be contemplated at close range. Above all, they can be sent through the mail.

The album is dead.

We don’t have any more thick vinyl records with wonderful cardboard sleeves and cool pictures and liner notes that you can read while the music plays. I miss the physical, palpable thing we used to have in our music. It was, back then, the only way to capture the vibrating air so you could take it home. The record was the wrapper, the grocery bag, the bottle. But people made it beautiful.

And CDs were always kind of ugly, weren’t they? Weird rainbow plastic disks in jagged little cases? I’m glad they’re on the way out. They were a pain in the ass to organize in the car. They’d get lost all the time. What were we thinking?

But now the vibrating air is wrapped up in a file in your computer. So what do we do with that?

My answer? India Ink, and lots of it.

And I need to learn how to screen print …

· Posted in Beautiful Objects, Chin Music and (Make a comment).

Crime Scenes

About eight years ago I wrote some music for double string quartet and contrabass. It was a suite of songs inspired by characters and settings from the novels of James Ellroy. The concert never happened, due to an injury suffered by one of the violinists.

At some point, Ellroy himself was speaking in Houston, and I went there with the manuscript score, and he autographed it with an enormous cursive “J,” infusing it with tremendous joo-joo.

About three months ago I found the manuscript in a box of other music in my house. Wheels started turning with a tremendous grinding sound.

Finally, last weekend, Crime Scenes was performed, among many other works, at the inaugural performance of the ChamberLab series.

Enjoy!

· Posted in Music and tagged ChamberLab, Instrumental, James Ellroy. (Make a comment).

Bajo Turbato On Video

The majesty of Bajo Turbato has finally been captured on video, and was augmented at the time by our friends in the Tucson Casual Social Club.

That’s Connor Gallaher, Will Elliot and Clay Coweek on guitars, and Andrew Collberg on drums.

· Posted in Music and tagged Bajo Turbato, Tzigane, Video, Violin. (Make a comment).

Coming May 8th: ChamberLab

Update, May 9th: The concert was a thing of beauty. We filled the room with sound, and with people (it was a sold-out show). There was a bunny playing the sousaphone. I don’t know what else to say.

CL-web-3 On Saturday, May 8th, at the Screening Room in Downtown Tucson, Chris Black and Mod Media present a concert for double string quartet and contrabass.

The composers have no classical training — the musicians do. This is D.I.Y. chamber music. This is Downtown Tucson at its finest. This is ChamberLab.

Composers include Howe Gelb (of Giant Sand), Gabriel Sullivan, Graham Reynolds (of Golden Arm Trio from Austin, Texas), Carlos Lopez, Dante Rosano, Marco Rosano, and myself. The musicians are primarily up-and-comers from the University of Arizona and the Tucson Junior Strings.

Doors open at 8pm, and the show begins at 8:30. Tickets are $8 and are available at the Screening Room, at 127 E.Congress Street.

More updates to come as we rehearse, rewrite, and get ready to go …

UPDATE …

We had our first rehearsal on Sunday, April 25th. Until then, I really had no idea of what to expect, as I’d never met or even heard most of the musicians before. Well, I was floored; I was floating for 24 hours afterward. They ate our music with a spoon and asked for more.

ChamberLab

The ensemble for the show will consist of the Callisto Quartet, comprised of Kristyn McLeod (1st violin), Mei-Li Laracuente (viola), Micca Page (2nd violin), and Sara Page (cello). We also have Christabelle Merrill (1st violin and soloist), Josh Wysocki (cello and soloist), Ella Arceaneux (2nd violin), Bethany Wigtil (viola) and Ashley Smith (contrabass).

I recorded some of the rehearsal, and here are some excerpts (REHEARSAL RECORDING DISCLAIMER: These are rough and raw, and watch the volume!):

First, a sound I seldom get to hear at band practice: Tuning up
My piece “Crime Scenes”
Marco Rosano’s “Where Is Willoughby?”
Dante Rosano’s “March of the Krogs”
Carlos Lopez’s “Untitled”
Another clip of “Crime Scenes”

· Posted in Music and tagged ChamberLab. 1 comment.