10/9/14

Being Alive

I've been really obsessed with Blonde Redhead lately, and trying to find interesting interviews with them about their work. They've changed so much over the years, but are sort of inscrutable about what they're going for. I found this interview with Kazu Makino and it have me a lot to think about.



So, some take-aways from the video:

- She refers to it as "This Band Called Blonde Redhead." As if her entire career, no one had ever heard of her band, or something. Maybe that's accurate. Theirs is a weird kind of fame, where they're never, like, CELEBRITIES, but they play these huge shows and have devoted fans and people love them and even twenty years into their career, are interested to find out more. That's great. But still maybe kind of anonymous.

- Drinking, and "taking it to the limit." I definitely didn't think of Makino as a heavy drinker. I like the idea of people going to all sorts of extremes to feel alive. I think I drink, and most people I know also drink, to feel the opposite of alive, n'est-ce pas? Maybe that's just one of those stories we tell ourselves.

I think that thing of detachment is interesting. I suppose I feel that sometimes too, I think everybody does, right? The idea that the focus of ones life, though, could be the fight against that detachment-- the notion that, like, okay, your "whole thing" is fighting against detachment, trying to find ways to feel alive. This seems extreme to me, unthinkable. I mean, again, I guess we all do it. I guess I'm just not used to seeing it written about like that.

Does music help with that.?

This quote from Ana Anaïs Nin seems apt as always: "How to defeat this tragedy concealed within each hour, which chokes us unexpectedly and treacherously, springing at us from a melody, an old letter, the colors of a dress, the walk of a stranger? Make literature. Seek new words in the dictionary. Chisel new phrases, pour the tears into a mold, style, form, eloquence. Cut out newspaper clippings carefully. use cement glue. Have your photograph taken. Tell everyone how much you owe them. Tell Allendy he has cured you. Tell your editor he has discovered a genius, and turn around into your life work again, like scorpion in his fire ring, devouring himself."

To that end, I'm playing a special show on Sunday night. I haven't performed music as Max Steele by myself in a long, long time. Won't you join me?



SUNDAY OCTOBER 12th
THE SOFT BATCH [featuring JD Samson and Tami Hart of MEN]
COUP SAUVAGE & THE SNIPS
GAUZY [ex-Tayisha Busay]
MAX STEELE [this is me]

CAKE SHOP
152 Ludlow St.
$8, 8pm doors
21+, please bring your ID

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