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Gospel at Colonus

Zora Neale Hurston once suggested that that the closest thing to the power of Greek tragedy in our society was the ecstatic energy of the black church.   In 1985 Lee Breuer, inspired by this notion and the Robert Fitzgerald Translation of Oedipus at Colonus, created The Gospel at Colonus.  Borrowing from the source text above,  as well as Oedipus Rex and Antigone, Breuer worked with composer Bob Telson to set the return of Oedipus from exile in a pentecostal church with the idea that, "catharsis can go right on through pity and terror into joy."  The blend of  greek, gospel , musical and tragedy simultaneously makes connections between the ancient and the recent in addition to foregrounding the obvious connections (theatre as religious rite, e.g.).  Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. 

The original cast included Morgan Freeman as the Messenger, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and Soul Stirrers with the groups representing individual characters as well as a chorus.  Reviews almost always mention a clumsy-feeling book that pales in comparison to the music.   But as Frank Rich puts it, "the considerable spoken text... can never fully upstage it."  With numbers such as "Stop! (Do Not Go On) " "How Shall I see you Through my Tears" and "Lift Him Up," it's easy to see how it it has inspired a suprising range of artists, including John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats.

A Conflation of Twee

The video for the Decemberists' Sixteen Military Wives combines the precocious musical aesthetic of the Decemberists with the precocious visual aesthetic of Wes Anderson's Rushmore -  even down to the use of Futura.  Hilarity ensues. 

Real Gone

Not Surprising: Tom Wait's record label, Anti- has a website.
Surprising: Anti- generously makes available sample MP3's of all its artists including Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and (the late) Elliot Smith.

Take a listen, meet someone new.

Insert Obligatory Dylan Pun Here

Genus: Music, Species: Dylanphilia. Vanity Fair's James Wolcott takes Christopher Ricks to task for a New Criticial-style reading of Bob Dylan's musical corpus.

Nearly five hundred pages of this dithery-do, and it never stops, Ricks mercilessly sharing everything he knows, suspects, remembers, heard, read, and finds ever so droll. It's like being stuck in a lecture hall with no clock and a lecturer who can't take a hint.

And does he have the quotes to prove it. Here I suspect, however, that his selection of quotes gives you the same sense of Ricks' formidable reading skills as the utterance "That depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is," gives you of President Clinton's rhetorical abilities.

While he ultimately dials back the stinging indictment by noting Ricks' obvious deep affection for the material, he does so only to question the contribution this work can make to the extensive collection of secondary literature on Dylan. Wolcott asserts that along with his enthusiast's tyranny, Ricks brings the imprimatur of an Oxford Don, an actual arbiter of canon, of culture. He is right in as much as he points out how little Dylan's songs need this spirited defence/adoration.

Rock and Roll Future (Tense)

On Friday, Nick Horby contributed an editorial for the New York Times. As an essay, it is apiece with his recent book/CD compilation, Songbook. His essay negotiates the difficult path of the aging rock critic, who finds himself reviewing music that, while by and for the young has increasingly affected age beyond their years. The problem isn’t with old guys rockin’ out (well, not the primary problem anyway) but with music by young people that gather to themselves much too much worry and nausea (existential) for their years.

Mutineer

Goodbye, Excitable Boy .

High Tragedy in L.A. County

Once upon a time, we knew of something called tragedy. We knew it. We could recognize it. It actually made sense. It was how the high became low. It was how we came to be how we are. We used to recognize tragedy.