I’ve not been the biggest Doors fan over the years, but every time I do hear their music, whether by choice or by accident, I do have a predictable thought that I REALLY like them and wonder why I don’t listen to them more often.
Anyway, Manzarek, in my opinion, was the key ingredient to the band’s sound. Bucking all convention, The Doors did not have a bass player, and so Manzarek performed double duty, playing bass lines with his left hand on one small keyboard and swirling organ arpeggios on another keyboard with his right hand. Guitarist Robbie Krieger and drummer John Densmore were certainly distinctive to some degree or another, but when I think of Doors music I first and foremost think of Ray Manzarek’s work.
For an accompanying video, I’ve chosen one of my personal favorite Doors songs, When The Music’s Over.
I’ve mentioned several times, here at Fish & Bicycles, that I concentrated in Shakespeare while working on my bachelor’s degree in English, most notably in my October 2011 post concerning the film Anonymous, a fictional exploration of the Oxfordian Theory, which argues that Shakespeare didn’t actually write the works he is so famous for.
All that is to explain that most things Shakespearean usually grab my attention, and today is no exception, as I’ve come across two items on the web, within minutes of each other, both related to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, arguably the Bard’s greatest and most influential play.
First, via a tweet by Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen, an eye-popping and highly entertaining mashup, by Geoff Klock, of 65 very short clips from 65 movies and TV shows, some from actual productions of Hamlet, and others references to or quotes from Hamlet, the latter often from the seemingly most unlikely sources imaginable.
As a former student of Shakespeare, I find the sources of the references and quotes to be particularly fascinating. From Gilligan’s Island to action flicks, from children’s cartoons to The Simpsons, I have to wonder just how many original viewers recognized, much less understood, these.
I suppose the fair and non-cynical thing to say would be that the widespread influence is undeniably impressive, regardless of how much impact these snippets of Shakespeare may have had. So, yeah, I’ll leave it at that and not spoil it by over analyzing.
Here, without any commentary from me, for it needs none, an excerpt:
ACT III, SCENE II
Danish march. A flourish. Enter HAMLET, KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, HALL, OATES, and others.
HAMLET
They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
Get you a place. Where be Ophelia? My own person,
Like the sun, doth daily rise to greet her.
HALL
I wouldn’t if I were you,
I know what she can do,
She’s deadly, man, she could really rip your world apart.
Mind over matter, ooh, the beauty is there,
But a beast is in the heart.
OATES
(silent)
HAMLET
(clears throat)
Go, bid the players make ready.
ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN
We will, my lord.
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Enter OPHELIA.
What would you do if you had an old $80 piano and a big tricycle? Would you throw them out? Not if you were San Francisco musician Gary Skaggs. He turned this seemingly useless combo into gold…
Since 2008, Skaggs has been taking his bike to San Francisco’s hopping tourist area, the Embarcadero, to perform. And he gets lots of tips. Take that, recession/supposed recovery!
Upcycling at it’s finest, zero emission transportation, exercise, and musical entertainment all in one package!
That’s awesomeness.
Here’s a video about Gary and his wondeful piano bike. Pedal on, Gary!
I try really hard to keep things positive here at Fish & Bicycles. There are already plenty of blogs and websites out there wailing about how bloody awful things can get in this world. I should know. I used to write one of them.
That’s why I go looking for positive news (e.g. my Celebrating Progress series) to write about, or for the latest on less overtly political topics like the arts.
And yet, I’ve been thinking a lot about the 1960s and ’70s lately (Post 1, Post 2), feeling pretty sad about how, despite the cultural revolution of that period, we still have a world dominated by corruption, war-mongering, environmental destruction, and plutocracy.
So, what do I do? The other night, in a kind of masochistic impulse, I watched a documentary on Netflix, Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune, that just broke.my.frickin’.heart.
I’ve known some of Phil Ochs‘ music for years, knew he was a folk singer from the Greenwich Village glory days, and I even knew he descended sadly into alcoholism and madness before killing himself at the age of 35.
But I didn’t really understand the depth of his passion for and commitment to social causes until I saw this film, and it was nothing short of brutal to watch as Ochs’ dreams were violently dashed, over (Medgar Evers), and over (JFK), and over (Malcom X), and over (MLK), and over (RFK), and over (1968 Democratic National Convention), and over (1973 Chilean coup d’état), and over again (Victor Jara).
How is anyone expected to withstand that kind of relentless defeat? Can you really blame Ochs for trying to soothe his aching soul with alcohol? Is it ever ok to give up?
I dare anyone to watch the video and NOT have the word “hippies” come to mind, and I’m reminded of a post I wrote back in April 2010, a lament on the fact that for some, in my opinion too many, the word “hippies” carries a negative connotation.
I watch that video of Do You Realize? and it’s quite bittersweet for me. While it’s heartening to see hippie culture surviving, it breaks my heart to think of how squashed the movement got, as I wrote previously, by cynicism and conservatism.
What I see when I watch that video is a crowd of people being incredibly peaceful, lovingly joining their voices together in song, singing about how precious life is and how we should, together, make the most of every single second. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had the pleasure of similar experiences, and while I was raised Jewish and now dabble in Buddhism, I’d have to say that gatherings like that, especially when they involve making music, are really the only church I’ll ever need.
Back in April 2010 I quoted a line by Pete Townshend of The Who, a line that I remembered but couldn’t recall exactly where it came from. Well, I’ve since remembered.
In 1993, Townshend released an album titled Psychoderelict, a concept album about an aging rock star lamenting the fact that back in the late 60s and through much of the 70s artists and their fans really did believe that their music and art, along with their love and community, could change the world for the better.
Townshend’s aging rocker says at one point, “Whatever happened to all that lovely hippie shit?”
Well, despite all the cynicism in our screwed up world, that hippie shit is alive and well and recently showed up in a Los Angeles cemetery. And, it really has very little to do with how people dress or how often they do drugs and drink, and everything to do with a sincere belief that love; peaceful, supportive, inclusive community; and freedom of expression, are the most important things.
I gotta say, the more I see of actor Rainn Wilson, the more impressed I am with him.
I first discovered Rainn, appearing as Arthur Martin, the quirky/slightly-creepy/yet-endearing intern at the Fisher Funeral Home, in the 2001-2005 HBO series Six Feet Under. And then, very soon after, he appeared in his most-known role, as Dwight Schrute in the U.S. version of The Office.
He has also appeared in a couple of movies, and has hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live, but the project I’m most impressed with is his website, Soul Pancake, and the the book of the same name. Soul Pancake is a kind of Web 2.0 platform, best described by this blurb from the site:
Our brain batter of art, culture, science, philosophy, spirituality and humor is designed to open your mind, challenge your friends, and feel damn good.
I particularly like Rainn’s video series, Metaphysical Milkshake, filmed in the back of a van, in which he has hosted a wide range of guests, from musicians to actors to entrepreneurs to Deepak Chopra. Now, plenty of fun has been poked at people who are inquisitive and think about life’s big questions, spiritual questions, but Rainn Wilson has achieved a wonderful balance between comedy and seriousness. He keeps things very funny, but the jokes don’t rob the discussions of their sincerity.
If you read up a little on Rainn, you find out that he’s from right here in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle), his mom was a yoga instructor, he’s very open about being a member of the Bahá’í Faith, and, while his humor can be as dark and risqué as it gets, he doesn’t allow it to be mutually exclusive with his spiritual side.
And so we arrive at the reason for today’s Tweet of the Day installment, something that, despite the typo in the tweet, I found very sweet and meaningful and representative of Rainn’s sincere big heart.
I’ve just heard the very sad news that one of my all-time favorite musicians, singer-songwriter and master interpreter of popular song, Richie Havens, has passed at the age of 72.
Even sadder, I don’t have the time today to properly honor Richie, and so I’ll have to settle for reposting something I did back in July 2011.
Richie, thank you SO much for all of the beautiful music, your beautiful heart, and your beautiful voice.
Richie is a beautiful musician in so many ways: his complex rhythm strumming style, his use of open tunings and thumb-wrapping, his soulful voice, a voice like no other I’ve ever heard, and he may very well be the best cover song artist ever.
And as much as I enjoyed the version of Here Comes The Sun, I went in search on YouTube for a clip for this week’s Video Fridays installment, a clip of my favorite Havens song, Follow, but sadly I couldn’t find a live performance.
I then found an amazing older clip of Richie doing a medley of Van Morrison’s Tupelo Honey, and Bob Dylan’s Just Like A Woman, that is totally worth watching, but there’s a painful missing bit in the bridge of the latter.
So, I settled on a different version of Just Like A Woman, this one from the 1993 concert celebrating Dylan’s 30-year anniversary as a recording artist.
Here come the drum beats, the war cries, the schizoid retaliatory crimes…
Sadly, I think he’s right. This is how the cycle of violence rolls on and on and on.
As I tried to think of a video for today’s Video Fridays installment, I thought of an old favorite song of mine, a song that speaks to the senselessness of violence, but, as it turns out, I already featured this song in a Video Fridays installment, back in September 2011.
And so, since I kinda like what I wrote back then, I thought I’d just make this a Best of Fish & Bicycles post, and republish it.
What can I say, it’s been a pretty musical week here at Fish & Bicycles, with my posts yesterday and Tuesday, and now today’s Video Fridays installment features a song that came on Pandora this morning, a song I love a lot.
Marvin Gaye was a deeply soulful artist, a troubled human being like so many before and after him, and his untimely death at age 45, at the hands of his own father, was one of the harshest tragedies in a music history littered by untimely deaths.
Instead, in a sad foreshadowing of sorts, Gaye pleads, “Father, father, we don’t need to escalate.” (It should be said that he’s most likely referring to God the Father, but who knows?)
Anyway, the song speaks directly to my hippie heart (“Only love can conquer hate.”) and is filled with such intense longing, both lyrically and in the lush melodic arrangement.
I’m not a HUGE fan of the music of Iron & Wine, essentially the stage name of singer-songwriter Sam Beam. I liked his early lo-fi recordings, with his breathy, almost whispering vocal delivery, there was nothing at all like it coming out at the time, but his music seems to have become more polished and produced along the same trajectory as his rising fame, something I don’t, personally, consider a good thing.
HOWEVER, while browsing Vimeo, I stumbled on a video for a song off of the new Iron & Wine album, Ghost on Ghost, and it really caught my eye, which, to state the obvious, qualifies it for this installment of my Eyecatchers series.
So, the music I can take or leave. It’s kind of a sweat, quiet song, somewhat reminiscent of early Sam Beam, but nothing particularly special.
If I can thank Mr. Beam for one thing, however, it would be for introducing me to the work of animator Haley Morris. You know you’ve been hooked, when watching one video leads to watching another, and another, until, as if in a blink of an eye, your lunch break is over.
Morris’ stop motion animation is absolutely stunning, with a dreamy quality that can transport you into her world of imagination. The mind boggles at the time and care it must take to craft these images and set them in motion, one frame at a time.
I hope you enjoy the following as much as I did: the Iron & Wine video, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of that video, and then one of her other shorts, titled Undone.
Overshadowed, understandably, by the news Monday of the massive tornado in Oklahoma, was the passing, at the age of 74, of Ray Manzarek, legendary keyboardist for The Doors.
