Some Poetry...

Larger Constructions: Dedicated to the Influence of Walt Whitman, The Performance-Artist, Not the Poet, Documenting his Projects in Poetry.

I’m like a
Journalist on
Assignment, embedded
With a community
Of Artists,
Made up of
Mirror-reflections
And shattered
Refractions of
One.

Of course, to
Get the inside
Scoop, the
Journalist must
Also be a
member of the
Community, his
assignment part and parcel
Of the projects of the
Group.



And, some more poetry... this time on video, accompanied by live beats... This is "A Trilogy of Poems About Music."

Finishing Projects, tying-up pre-semester loose-ends...

... or, how many items can I cross off my "I don't have time for this during class so I better get it done now" list in a week?

In my last post, I linked to audio of a song that I had recently completed for LeVautourEnsemble... This week, I finished putting together the video for that track, pieced together out of footage snapped live while I was recording the track, on the webcam of a tiny blue netbook that I like to call the "baby robot." Obviously, there was quite a bit of editing involved here as well... Check it out.



I have also started a new Youtube channel for the Asbjorn Arts Collective. This channel is intended as a sort of evolving museum-collection, a kind of dumping-ground for content from myself, my collaborators and my friends... if you're interested in contributing content, or have material elsewhere on youtube that you'd like me to add to the page's "favorites," email me. The goal is to make this channel into a sort of one-stop-shopping destination for odd, abstract, and interesting videos from artists affiliated with present, past, and future incarnations of the collective. Stop by, check out some videos, leave some feedback, subscribe to the channel.

LeVautourEnsemble... back from the dead.

Sometimes projects that lay dormant for a while come surprisingly back from the dead.

I didn't see it coming, but in retrospect, my accidental decision to revive LeVautourEnsemble seems to make sense. The project was started while I was extremely busy with schoolwork as an undergrad. I think about things in an unusual way sometimes, so occasionally, when I was working on writing something or understanding a literary-concept, I would need to make some noise, drop a "soundtrack" for the scenario to tape in order to arrive at my "Eureka!" moment. LeVautourEnsemble was my solo-project dumping-ground for the outcomes of such sonic experimentation. The medium was mostly electronic, but quite a bit of other sonic textures slipped through the filters at various times as well.

During the couple of years I took off between degrees, I didn't need L.V.E.. I had collaborators around, and time on my hands. Fun records from both Tipsy Cougar and Swords We Swallow came out of this time. My first semester in Grad.school, however, I was back to the grind, with little of the vague "I'm a musician" time to work with that I had gotten temporarily used to. I still had sounds in my head, though, ideas that couldn't be worked through in any medium but sound. That's just how I work. So I kept a recording-file open on my macbook, and my equipment plugged in and ready to go, and when I hit a road-block, I would open it up, make a bit of noise, and let off some scholarly steam.

I ended up working on one track over the course of a single semester. It's called "Metamorphoses"... it's kind of a sonic and conceptual mess (as the single audible product of an entire semester should be, right?), but I'm fairly happy with it, considering...

So, between a new track that fits succinctly into the initial purpose of the project, and the video that I posted on Christmas Eve that I could think of no better umbrella to throw under, I guess LeVautourEnsemble is back... and my record "...whose wings are a dull reality." WASN'T really "completed" in 2006 like I thought that it was.

The track is available streaming on both Myspace (click here), and on our new Facebook fan-page (click here). Become a fan/ friend/ whatever... and let me know what you think! (Additional audio and videos from the project are available at both sites as well, and I would assume that more will follow. But as you can probably tell, this one's pretty much out of my control at this point.)

Welcome to 2010

Happy New Years.

I have a break from classes, and yet, so much still to do.

I have little new to write, really (although a whole lot in the works), but I figured I would sign on and share some footage of how the Tipsy Cougar crew rang in the decade at the Swords We Swallow Studios. Sara and I decided that, rather than going out, we would spend a quiet New Year's Eve at home, feel snazzy and drink martinis... then Ming and Dean joined us, which ended up proving that, in the right circumstances, four people can make for the most raging party in town. We ended up rocking out some pretty neat abstract, improvised electro-folk... noise... There are quite a few videos of this chaos floating around the interwebs right now, but this one (although long, I'm sorry) captures bits and pieces of most of them, and sums up the fun (and entertainment) of the evening nicely.

Oh Silent Night: An Agnostic Carroll. Part 2.

OK, so, picking up where I left off...

What I hadn't realized about the traditional (i.e. "Christian") end of the Christmas music spectrum, listening again for, for all intents and purposes, the first time since I've been old enough to know better, was how incredibly complicated what's actually being SAID in the songs is with any eye at all to current affairs, global-culture, international politics, religious wars, etc.

Listen to the lyrics of conventional carols... "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "Oh Holy Night," "What Child is This," etc. etc.... you know, any of the countless that depict the creche or nativity-scene. Imagine what would happen if a child was born into poverty in a Middle-Eastern Gaza village now making such claims, representing, yet not representing, altering, and redefining one sect or another. It gets pretty messy, to say the least.

Maybe it was just because this sudden exposure to these songs directly followed a report from the BBC World Service that dealt with a lot of these sort of issues. Who knows. Either way, it's troubling, to put it mildly.... especially since the ideological struggles so "peacefully" depicted in these songs represent (in the tangible, non-dogma-based world, free from indoctrinated anachronisms) so much very real bloodshed.

What bothered me the most, I think, was thinking about the sort of individuals earnestly singing these songs (probably without paying much attention to the lyrics, to be fair) at the same time spouting political agendas that take a far more simplistic and narrow tack on such issues (ie, the awkward irony of the American "evangelical-ethics" voter who is also in favor of nationalist/ patriotic imperialism... but there are a ton of other examples as well). There's a "choosing sides" element at work in these songs, when placed in a modern context (that dates back problematically to the same time-period that they depict, and even earlier) that makes me deeply uncomfortable. The idea prevalent in all of these songs that this child in the stable "brings peace" seems particularly awkward, considering the actual history that chronologically follows (and, in some cases, results from) his arrival. Apparently the Christian carolers's definition of "peace" is different (and far more sectarian) than mine.

To boil it down, then... These holiday songs offer a caricature-ish depiction of how the people who most violently advocate waging war against impoverished, radical, sectarian Middle-Eastern peoples also happen to WORSHIP an impoverished, radical, sectarian Middle-Easterner.

Anyway, my intention here wasn't to be a holiday downer. I just figured I'd offer my take on a partial answer to the questions I've been hearing more and more every year (and this year it's like an epidemic); Why does no one seem terribly "festive," and why are many of us becoming increasingly irritated by those who are, because the festivity seems out of place or fake? I think this might be part of the answer... our collective world-view is more and more global each year, and both the capitalist- and religious- mythos involved with the elements that make up the "spirit of the season" seem increasingly disingenuous to the real-life complications of the world that we live in.


The "moral," then? Make the holidays that you celebrate your own. Be "festive," in your own way, for yourself and the people that you care about. Any other reason for celebration becomes far too problematic, and might just leave you advocating something that you may not otherwise, opening a can of worms that has too many angles to effectively "celebrate."

Like I said in the first installment, I'm not exactly your average Bah-Humbug type. Here's a photo of how Sara and I got festive on our own terms at the Swords We Swallow Studios in Dover-



And here's a bit of a "Holiday gift" from me to all of you out there in the interwebz. I dropped about 20 minutes of live improvised electronic music to video the other night... I know, I know, it's wicked long... but I was just jamming and experimenting, so wasn't really keeping track of the time. Bear with the length, and enjoy what you can of it. (unfortunately, some of my favorite moments are closer to the end.)


Wolf, Are You Ready?

Bernard P. Provencher LeVautour | MySpace Video

Because some people were asking when I initially shared this elsewhere, here's the rig I was using for this particular jam-



Let's see... there's a customized toy piano, an odd stringed "harp" thing that I made out of a broken door-chime, a toy record player (for this track I was spinning a record called "Songs Children Sing in France"), an iTouch running some synth and sequencer apps, an old radio-shack mixer, a Zoom Rythmtrak 234, a halloween toy for vocal effects, an old electro-voice ceramic mic, a Sure vocal mic, a Macbook Pro running garage-band synth-pads, some Bose speakers and a beat-up Gorilla bass-amp.

Out of curiosity, if I were to put together some sort of a show doing this sort of thing, with a collection of guest-collaborators (most likely somewhere in New England), would anyone come out to see it?

Oh, and if you like this sort of thing, keep your eyes peeled. I definitely hope to drop at least a couple more before classes start again in January... but hope to not be the only one making noise (hint hint... interested collaborators be in touch.)

Oh Silent Night: An Agnostic Carroll. Part 1.

While driving home from finishing up my holiday shopping this evening, I reluctantly allowed myself to leave the radio on “the folk show” on NHPR. Not that this would usually be reluctant... but they were playing Christmas music.

Now, I don’t think I’m exactly your run-of-the-mill anti-social bah-humbug type. I tend to think that my usual objection to consciously subjecting myself to holiday tunes is a bit more nuanced and complicated than that, for a few reasons. First, (and probably most pressingly), until my “real” career starts actually paying me, I wait tables. Which means that I’m subjected to the most banal and commercialized version of consumer Christmas music on a daily basis, starting the moment the restaurant opens on Black Friday, straight up until new years. Second, I’m an agnostic, and I don’t exactly believe in the traditionally-assumed benefits of the American style of capitalist consumerism... which puts me in a bit of a dicey situation when it comes to holidays that are based on nothing but a combination of religion and material-consumption. Third, I don’t have, like, want, or understand children. Not to mention, I’m a “recovered Catholic” (about 11 years of parochial education under my belt), raised in a house where, after Thanksgiving, all music HAD to be season-specific. Call it jingle-bell-burn-out. Call it jaded cultural nihilism. Call it whatever you want.

But, now... Christmas is less than a week a way, I have just finished my shopping, in one form or another I still “celebrate” the holiday (for one reason or another that I’d have a pretty hard time trying to rationalize), snow is on the ground... yet I don’t feel terribly “festive,” though for some reason I feel like I should. God knows, I’ve spent enough money that it seems like I SHOULD find a reason to feel “in the spirit” to make it all worth while, right? So... when I get back in my car and, over the course of time I was in the store, public-radio has transitioned from news to Christmas music that falls on the “classier” (or “less-tacky”?) end of the spectrum, this seems to be an adequate compromise between my internal opposites that are annually active during this season.

Problem is... it’s been a long time since I’ve actually LISTENED to Christmas music. I mean, actually paid attention to it.

The last few years, when I was wrapping gifts, or doing something else that required at least the facsimile of festivity, I had a few standby albums that FELT warm and festive, but had enough complications to make their holiday sentiments less-than-deadpan, and thus more comfortable for me. Miles Davis- Kind of Blue. This one’s easy. It’s not even a Christmas record. But it just FEELS like the perfect record for a cold, comfortable night by the fire. No internal compromise required. Jethro Tull- A Christmas Album. I think most of this band is pagan, and nearly all of these tunes have the smirk of such an irony shining through them. Yet there’s a Celtic warmth to the record that makes it somehow appropriately “Christmasy.” Other than that... The Squirrel Nut Zippers, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole... just because I truly enjoy torch-jazz, no matter what season it happens to be.

None of these, however, allows me the opportunity of regularly observing what Christmas music is traditionally “supposed” to be.

And the Frosty’s and Rudolph’s in the restaurants only expressed the consumer end of the equation.

(...to be continued...)

“Sounds like someone recorded their drunk grandpa singing along to a Christmas cd in the bathroom.”

It seems that everyone’s talking about this years’ release of Bob Dylan’s attempt at a Christmas record. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground on this one. Journalists seem to love it (with caveats about irony and refreshing awkwardness) or hate it. I’m not going to throw my words onto the pig-pile and write an actual review... but merely muse on the concept a bit. Just take it as a given that my personal opinion of what I’ve heard of the record (I have to be upfront and admit I haven’t heard all of it, but browsing streamed snippets, internet bootlegs and the clips played on various NPR segments have been MORE than enough) falls on the more negative side of the heap. I tend to agree with Phoenix-based musician Brian Kelly (The Twilight Showdown, Borachio, etc.) that “Bob Dylan's ‘Christmas in the Heart’ sounds like someone recorded their drunk grandpa singing along to a Christmas cd in the bathroom.” (via Facebook.) If I thought it SOUNDED like a bad idea, I never would have guessed that it could be WORSE than I expected. But it is.

I have to confess, as a music-snob, that I’ve always been embarrassingly indifferent about Bob Dylan. In general, I have quite a bit of respect for him and like quite a bit of his material, but in small doses. I would never describe myself as a “fan.”

Let’s face it, there’s a heap of musicians out there that are better at writing songs than playing those songs. These are artists whose true value shines best when you hear their songs covered and performed by artists other than themselves. Dylan’s on that list for me... along with Leonard Cohen, Leadbelly (as much as I might personally enjoy both), and Weezer (first two albums only; everything after is garbage when played by anyone). For one reason or another, I tend to even prefer other people knocking-off Dylan’s SOUND and STYLE than hearing Dylan’s original rendition. Sure, I’ll admit to the sacrilege; I would far rather sit down and listen to Conor Oberst blatantly ripping Dylan-isms than cue up an actual Dylan record. And I don’t think that has all that much to do with my age. I just think for some song-writers like Dylan, it sometimes takes the ideas and instruments of others to iron out the kinks, to pull the pearl from the muddy oyster.

Dylan, for me, is a songwriter. And he’s brilliant and influential enough at it that the aspects of his records that I find hard to actually LISTEN to can be taken with a grain of salt most of the time.

But now, with this excruciating Christmas record, he’s taken what he’s good at out of the picture and left us with the rest; we get the muddy oyster-shell, and someone’s already stolen the pearl. This is a SONGWRITER releasing an entire record of covers, standards, classics. Think of how painful the reverse-scenario is... a classic-rock cover-band making the mistake of, after decades banging out recognizable radio-fare, debuting a couple of new “originals” to the drunk crowd that they entertain at the biker-dive. Let’s be realistic; NO ONE wants to hear flat-line, uninspired knock-offs of Credence songs (devoid of the catchy hooks) sandwiched between “I Want to Rock and Roll All Night” and “You Shook Me All Night Long”... and yet that’s what these attempts always inevitably sound like. And the lines at the rest-room and the bar suddenly lengthen at the expense of the dance-floor. Shock.

I don’t honestly know, in retrospect, why I expected this record (which I didn’t even expect to like) to be a bit better than it actually is. When I try to fathom how Bob Dylan doing Christmas songs could possibly NOT suck, the sound in my head sounds more like a Nick Cave or Tom Waits Christmas album than one that Dylan could ever do.

Now THOSE would be records that I would actually want to hear. Sure, they would be just as guaranteed to have their share of queasy, questionable, and cheesy moments... but I have the feeling they would be a whole lot more entertaining.... and at least a bit less painful.