2014 Performance Issues

Ah, those times when quaffing a few dozen, and more, was the way to buzz in a new year! Start strong with  the heavy stuff, amplify the tone with a streaming torrent of favored brew, toss back a plastic cup of semi-cheap champagne at the shout of ‘Happy New Year’ and finish it out with cheers, the remainder of what ever is left in the bottle(s), and a hazy, swerving ride home.

And we all marvel wide-eyed in later years that yes, we must have a special purpose on this earth – otherwise, why else were we allowed to survive those overindulged, reckless, hedonistic, and cavalier booze-fests?

Nouvelle Vague – a favorite band of mine – did some amazing covers of new wave, punk and rock songs that churned the originals around with furious vengeance, and produced an end result so beautiful that you sometimes wouldn’t recognize the original that they were grafted from.

Here, they present a sentiment drawn from the debauched lifestyle we once held so dearly and was so deeply imprinted into what we thought had to do on New Year’s Eve. Even if we couldn’t be with the one we loved, and tried to love the one we were with … well, sometimes it just didn’t happen that way.

Too Drunk to Fuck

Joy in 2014. Be safe.

The Peaceable Kingdom

I like to swirl in my mind that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are both a time of calm, inner peace. Joy, yes. Laughter? Why, of course. But they’re also a time to tilt back and take it all in, remembering to breathe deeper, recharge the soul and slow down enough to take it all in without the need for a camera to do it for you.

This track by Adrian Belew speaks of the calmness, the softening of the jagged pieces within and the delight of just being an observer. During these special moments – sigh, be a witness to what is within, and appreciate the peaceable kingdom right in front of you.

Peaceable Kingdom

Raggae Tom

Didn’t snow here like they all predicted it would. Not a big surprise. They way online newspapers wrote about it since Wednesday, you’d think we needed to build a snow-ark and collect all creatures great and small. Then I wake up, look outside and see the private plow drivers almost weeping with disappointment. About four inches of puffy snow lies everywhere and all is still.

Starting out to be a very mellow day, and further induced by the music I’m listening to. Funny how playing around on YouTube can bring you down either a craggy, steep gutter of blasé and boring compositions, or in the case of a band I just found called “Easy Star”, bring you to a little smile and tolerance from the distraction. Nice dub / reggae cover of the complete Sgt. Pepper album here.

This, in turn, brought me to one of my favorite Tom Petty tracks from the 2010 album Mojo, “Don’t Pull Me Over”. Despite the cold and lack of snow that merited all the hype, listening to this track earlier this morning found me in an overstuffed couch, wrapped in a double fleece blanket and an amazing cup of coffee while grateful for the smooth stroke of the guitar, crispness of the drum and swirl of the wah-wah pedal. The music made me feel distant from the noise of the angry snowplows munching tar.

Don’t Pull Me Over