Don't mess with Rev. Gary Davis - he's a religious man, you know.Its interesting in these multi-media Internerd days that the best way to listen to music is to actually watch it. Many an innerlectyool goes on and on and on and on and on about the 'authenticity' of music like it's some sort of badge of honour to validate the totally shithouse, trendy, annoying and ultimately DATED music some of them blab on about. All you have to do is look at the LAMERS that write for Salon or Slate or the Villgae Voice or CMJ journal, or...., there are thousands of them out there (me too, but I'm too low-brow and lack diction) with sqaure glasses or fat arses getting paid good salaries to write about some fucking CUCK post-structuralist NOTHING treatise on the Fiery Furnaces or the Curried Arshole Party or the Ex or ...., it's all too easy, and I'm ranting.
ANYSWAYS, some of the best shit you can listen to is on DVD, especially now that is delivers bootiful STEREO or even better DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1 or even DTS into your lounge room (if you can afford it).. But one thing the digital age does nicely is polish up the raw and the scungy - like BOOTLEGS, raw FAN RECORDINGS or heck, even old 50s or 60s 'documentary' type recording - like the beauties that appear on this DVD I borrowed from the public library 'LEGENDS OF COUNTRY BLUES GUITAR VOL.2 (Vestapol/Rounder)..Anyway, this DVD is the best ART MOVIE I've seen this year, no doubt. Raw footage taken in some of these blokes' houses or trailers, in fact in one scene you can hear the phone ringing in the background! Dunno how to describe it, but it really puts the 'meaning' of the whole Blues thing into perspective. These were just regular blokes, playing guitar in their own inimitable way - no pretence - and what seem quite clear as the origins of what the snobs call 'outsider' art, but ultimately reps. the DEMOCRITASATION of art in it's purest sense. Sure, we have that now with the fuggen GLOBAL IDOL reality-TV-George-Orwell-'60-minutes-of-HATE'-shite-no-talnet-shows, but this blues stuff was something else. Watch it, listen to it - the pure, raw, fluid, complex playing - and have yr mind blown in chunks. More observations and thoughts to come...
ANYSWAYS, some of the best shit you can listen to is on DVD, especially now that is delivers bootiful STEREO or even better DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1 or even DTS into your lounge room (if you can afford it).. But one thing the digital age does nicely is polish up the raw and the scungy - like BOOTLEGS, raw FAN RECORDINGS or heck, even old 50s or 60s 'documentary' type recording - like the beauties that appear on this DVD I borrowed from the public library 'LEGENDS OF COUNTRY BLUES GUITAR VOL.2 (Vestapol/Rounder)..Anyway, this DVD is the best ART MOVIE I've seen this year, no doubt. Raw footage taken in some of these blokes' houses or trailers, in fact in one scene you can hear the phone ringing in the background! Dunno how to describe it, but it really puts the 'meaning' of the whole Blues thing into perspective. These were just regular blokes, playing guitar in their own inimitable way - no pretence - and what seem quite clear as the origins of what the snobs call 'outsider' art, but ultimately reps. the DEMOCRITASATION of art in it's purest sense. Sure, we have that now with the fuggen GLOBAL IDOL reality-TV-George-Orwell-'60-minutes-of-HATE'-shite-no-talnet-shows, but this blues stuff was something else. Watch it, listen to it - the pure, raw, fluid, complex playing - and have yr mind blown in chunks. More observations and thoughts to come...
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