Whoever the GrooGrux King is…I Am Happy With What He’s Done To Dave Matthews Band

Posted by admin on June 9th, 2009 | 4 Comments »

Whoever the GrooGrux king is…I am grateful to him.   When I was 14 years old, just sprouting arm pit hair, and just realizing that music was better than

video games and the best coping mechanism for pre-pubescent blues and rebelling against my parents I could find, Dave Matthews Band litterally lived in my head.  They were the greatest; the apotheosis of music and I couldn’t understand how anybody could listen to anything else. 

Then, I think as a result of  only slight maturity, my awareness exapanded and my ears welcomed things non-”dave” as I used to call him in my early teenage infancy.  However, this is not to say that my heart was not largely broken at the release of “Everyday.”  Even though I did enjoy some songs on that record, my love of “Dave” dwindled and roped out into almost an active detest for their music…and then pretty much forgot about them all together. 

I listed to a track or two off their record “Stand Up” when it came out and pretty much decided then that they had had it…past their prime and had lost whatever magic they had had years ago…or even second guessed their magic and thought that maybe it was more a result of my place in life rather than their place in music. 

Their new record, “Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King” proved me wrong on both fronts I am happy to say.  I saw on itunes that they were releasing a new record and, after reading the stellar reviews, figured that I could stand to waste 10 bucks on my first favorite band.  Truth is…I think the CD is freakin’ amazing. 

Everybody, including myself complained about their change of sound when they came out with “Everyday.”  My hatred for that record was marked by a belief that when you have something good…why change it?  However, as I expanded my knowledge of art and music, I realized that I didn’t hate the record cause it was “different,” I hated it cause it was bad.  There is a clear difference between good change and bad change.  ALL great artists change their direction, their approach, their sound or image.  The mark of a great and timeless artist is their ability to in some form or another, touch upon and mirror something universal, something “true” so to speak, about what makes life…life.  Perhaps one of the greatest truths about life is change.  A cliche, but none-the-less change in motion is at the heart of life, and a great artist has to, for the survival of his craft, flow with the motion of life…despite what people think.  The mark of a great artist is to honor change…and continue growing and getting better…not in the sense of “better than before” but just better at making art.  “Everyday” was in my opinion, bad change…this new record…is great change.

It’s funky, it’s edgy, and like a lot of DMB’s music, has an uplifting quality spawned from much darker roots.  It’s electric…literally, with heavy guitars, and figuratively in tonality.  Carter Beauford really shines on this album as well, always dancing around the “one” and flaunting his capacity to make odd meters sound anything but. 

From a songwriters perspective, I feel that this record really walks the line of an art/pop record and maybe that’s why I love it so much.  There is a lot on this record that is “out” so to speak.  Not in the jazz sense of “out” but “out” in an a-melodic sense.  So much seems to be driven by a freedom of emotion as opposed to a linear songwriting approach.  And at other times, you are humming the hook as if it were written by a top 40 songwriter.  This is one of the reasons however why I think the record is so damn good and if you like music…you will at least appreciate where this album is coming from.

“Spiritual” Soliders and “The Will” of God

Posted by admin on May 17th, 2009 | No Comments »

I may be walking a thin line here but I was upset by something that I read this past week regarding a group of Christian extremists called the “Promise Keepers.”

“Jesus warned about ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ and false prophets…In this context of false prophets I’d like to examine the Promise Keepers, the name for a modern-day Christian men’s movement.  The founder of the Promise Keepers is [Bill McCartney, who in 1990 was the head football coach at the University of Colorado in Boulder]  He gathers thousands of men at a time, usually in football stadiums and preaches about creating a Christian state.  Borrowing much of his ideology from Rousas Rushdooney, who founded the Reconstructionist movement in 1973, this very strange and right wing version of Christianity teaches that America should be governed by Biblical concepts and that ‘dominion’ has been given over the ‘elect’ to rule the Earth and America in particular.  This society would, among other things, prescribe the death penalty for adultery, witchcraft, blashphemy and homosexuality.  The federal government should occupy itself with national defense, and education and social welfare should be handled by the churches.  Biblical law must replace the secular legal code.” ( 96-97 “The Hidden Spirituality of Men, by Matthew Fox October 2008.)

This passage was taken from a book I am reading by Matthew Fox and in this section Fox is talking about the difference between warriors and soldiers, and the difference between a true warrior and a “false warrior” or a “false prophet.”  To illustrate his notion of false prophets and false warriors, or as Jesus said “wolves in sheep’s clothing” he talks about the Promise Keepers.

It’s interesting because before I read this I had had a number of conversations with different people about religious extremists of the kinds of dangers that lie within any kind of extremism.  My first encounter with religious extremism was when I was involved in a Bible study class in NYC and one of the classes was on forgiveness.  The teacher began the discussion by briefly (about 5 minutes on each major religion besides Christianity) discussing how any follower of any religion, BESIDES Christianity would not fully be capable of forgiving others.  His point was that ONLY with Jesus, because Jesus paid the debt for our original sin, could somebody truly forgive.  I was personally appalled by this discussion, not only because of his disrespect of the other religions (I myself was raised jewish though don’t subscribe to any religion) but more so at both the blindness and the fear that was being purveyed by this person.

Blindness and fear go hand in hand and are not mutually exclusive.  If you are blind, you will follow that which preaches to show you the way in the dark.  This is both hyperbole and cliche but it’s apropo when talking about my experience with Bible study as well as with a movement like the Promise Keepers.  For one thing, I never went back to that Bible study group and for another, perhaps because I was raised in a non religious family…I can’t understand people who can take a book, written thousands of years ago, by HUMAN BEINGS…NONE OF WHOM WERE JESUS…as the literal, undeniable word of God.  It is not a problem for me that people believe this…people are allowed to believe whatever they want to believe…it only becomes a problem for me when it attempts to become enforced…such as the case with the Promise Keepers or with the threat of not having forgiveness in my heart because of the questioning of the Bible.

First off, much of the bible is VAGUE.  It is a book of ALLEGORY and can be interpreted in thousands of different ways…  There are parts of the Bible that are not vague, like the ten commandments, but biblical instructions like you should not lay with a man as you do with a woman, that are taken by groups like the Promise Keepers as a law that would justify killing homosexuals is not only horrifying…but the height of total and utter stupidity.

You should not lay with a man as you lay with a woman could mean any of the following…and more:

-You should understand the differences between men and woman

-You should respect the differences between men and woman

-Sex with men is different than sex with woman

-The qualities of male and female relationships are unique and different

-People 2000 years ago were just as homophobic and intolerant as they are now

The problem with all religious texts lies both in the mistaken literalism of allegory, but more so in the lack of grounding in the people who follow such literalism.  Human error pervades every religious text ever written, but this is not the problem.  The problem is that human error follows human error…or, as Matthew Fox discerns, the difference between “soldiers” and “warriors” is not upheld or understood

A solider follows blindly.  He is taught by his supiorious to be a pawn, a robot so to speak of following orders.  My bible study class was a small microcosm of the seed that grows into intollerance in any context.  Charismatic leaders who are able to position as knowledgable and “chosen” authorities preaching to their budding soldiers about “God’s Will” and then in turn, the soldiers do what they are programed to do…listen and follow blindly.  In the case of my bible study class, it was a nod of understanding and gratitude for their Christianity and thus their ability to forgive, and in the case of the Promise Keepers…it’s follow the leader on a far more extreme and dangerous level.  However, both are breed from the same place.

A warrior as Fox says, makes his own decisions about what’s right and knows full well that the Word of God is heard and felt within one’s heart…, is heard and felt in a different way for everybody, and that any religious text can only point to the truth and never BE the truth.  People are so scared of change, of diversity that they will cling to an acrchaic roadmap as if it is a modern GPS system leading them to the unquestionable truth (there was an estimated 1,000,000 men rallying for the Promise Keepers in Washington in 1997)  The result of course is, as Fox quotes Sinclair Lewis: “Facism will come to America wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.” (98 of The Hidden Spirituality of Men, Matthew Fox, 2008)