Aesthetic vs. Texture – Part One: Dolled up, but nothing too hard to take off.

You know life is going to get a bit tricky, once you've become so possessed with your perception that you're having a hard time remembering more than twenty-four hours prior clearly. It's Saturday? I could have sworn there for a second it was Tuesday... Ever have a dream that you're waking up to glance at a blinking "5:30" and discover that you're one and one-half hours late for work? Then wake into another dream, where it's "4:30" and panic all over again for a half past? Then wake, yet again, to see a blinking "6:30" and think "meh?" Well, if you have, then you can empathize with the difficulty involved in convincing your head chef not to fire you for (honestly) reading the schedule that has always ended with "Saturday" and thinking that you were off until a not-yet-scheduled "Sunday."

...

I work under the night chef now.

Perception, especially its lucid malleable nature, has always meant a great deal to me. It's no wonder I stray from my tangible, everyday work so much. A fascination with perception will lead to a simple, yet thorough answer to the common, and absurd question (for most musicians, anyways): "What music do you like?" You, more often than not, immediately think "favorite artists" then move onto "No, too much... favorite genres!" And if you're as obsessive as me, you'll give up on this too. "I listen to music for aesthetic and texture." And very rarely will I retreat into the apologetically specific "Anything with good production," because, in the same vein as artists and genre, that's not entirely accurate either.

What a Pandora's box... Maybe I could have chosen a broader, more perplexing topic in existentialism? Or Hell, while we're at it, how about pi? Wielding the figurative lasso of boredom/restlessness, I've managed to fearlessly (ridiculously) bring said broad topic down to a few basic principles. I can get behind aesthetic. And as a drummer, ten years into marginally extensive jazz studies (not to mention five years into my disturbingly obsessive Tom Waits studies), you better believe I can get behind texture. When combined skillfully, life seems a little more worthwhile and in balance. Aesthetic will ask the question "Why?" and texture will invariably answer it with a solid and extremely gratifying "Because of this." Aesthetic will make you hungry. Texture will feed you. Aesthetic will get you interested. Texture won't let you forget.

A practice I've recently found myself pleasantly surprised with, within the throws of a stream-of-conscious compact disc compilation creation (SC's/DC's), is the art of aesthetically selecting song titles from records I have yet to properly introduce myself to texturally. What better way to ease into someone's art, then to be so daft as to piss over their record's song order and pull titles out according to how aesthetically complementary they are for the theme of your own personal sonic story? Your average compact disc will allow up to eighty minutes of music. That's a short film's worth, folks. And one of the few shared religious experiences us sinful and delightfully lost pagans have left.

Well, now that you're going to Hell, you may as well learn a smooth technique to segue between your climax song and your credit's song (credits example: I personally recommend Yo La Tengo's collaboration with an over-the-phone Daniel Johnston, but then again I don't, because I kind of want her to keep that for herself). Interested? Okay, then we're going to need something timeless here... maybe a piano. How about modern timeless? Yeah. It should be dolled up, but nothing too hard to take off. 1950's not 1750's. We're talking speakeasies, of course. That's where this song would hang out. Or no, wait, that's pre-bop and we want a bit more syncopation, so maybe it will be hiding out in an empty club 'round midnight. Somewhere sweet and lovely. It's a bit too late, and the dancers have long since retired to their respective homes or diners. And of course there's always coke to be had. This song could care less whether or not we were listening, but we'd be captivated regardless. Tired balladry, but with some swing and thought. No, we wouldn't need words at this point. This song would be memorable. She was memorable. Crazy... but memorable. Crazed with a profound brilliance, a little too overwhelming to behold. You took the words right out of my heart. I'll bet there weren't 999,999 Thelonious' before him. Certainly not too many Thelonious Sphere's... Okay, Monk it is. But this doesn't sound quite like the end, and it's getting late. So we'll turn on the charm. It would stumble and stagger home just as we would... almost theatrically. Not so much walking, but falling onto extended legs. The only appropriate dance for this hour, holding one another up. Not quite smiling, laughing, or crying, but yet on the verge of all three. This is a first date. We should be saying goodnight... But she's just too much... Oh well.

I Surrender, Dear.