Chris Wesley in 360 Degrees

I got the Black Eyed Peas new CD partially based on Mos Def saying that it is currently one of his favorite albums out right now.

Somewhere in there someone lied, got paid, something because try as I might, I couldn’t find the redeeming value of the disk. The lyrics make 50 Cent sound like Hemingway and the music and melodies come off like so many undeveloped ideas. With that said, I ended up also buying Mos Def’s CD as well and was at least rewarded with that purchase. Mos Def climbs aboard the beats with the verbal skill you expect just as the Black Eyed Peas left me wondering if perhaps will.i.am was rushed on this release because the consistent misfires here are uncharacteristic of him. I know he has spent some time absorbing what European dance culture has been up to, but I don’t get where the breakdown happened. I’m hoping this si an anomoly and that will.i.am will bounce back. We’re running out of solid ground breaking producers on the Major Label stage. As for Mos Def’s endorsement of this hot mess? I don’t believe it.

My wife has complained that I write too much negativity and she’s right. I have to force myself to write when things are going well sometimes because I’m too busy enjoying the good times. Especially right now with me averaging just under 20 hour days for the past month. So anyhow, here’s to the good things like going to see John Zay’s Speed of Life at Trip last Thursday, having a killer weekend full of networking and plan devising for the next phase of my creative plans, to playing a cool gig with John Zay’s Speed of Life and Curtis Guitar last night, to discovering the killer bees by accident on the side of the house without actually getting killed since the exterminator warned me that 10 of them can kill a human and they will chase for up to a mile. So in spite of all my depressing posts, life is pretty good right now, I just haven’t been writing about it–I’d mostly rather enjoy it while it lasts.

Today my mom asked in so many words if I thought my “break” was coming anytime in the foreseeable future. The answer was ‘no’. Sometimes the heartbreak of being in this business is worse for the people who love an artist than for the artist his or herself. After all, I may drone on sometimes about sleeping five hours over the course of three days, but the work I was putting in rarely felt like work. Hell, for the most part it is my sanity, the pure and good thing that opens the door for me not to be just another shitty person looking to get over on whoever happens to be around. The conversation went on for another five minutes of Q&A before I think she just got depressed because I can’t say when I’m ditching the civilian job, when for me, the civilian job is what has given my art its autonomy.

The stuff I plan on putting out doesn’t fit into neat categories. It goes from heartbreaking innocence to life-shattering violence with a great deal of heavy and light emotional lifting in between leaving little of my life thus far unturned. Plus, I have grave reservations about using terms like Emotional Ghetto expressing one’s heart as an automatic weapon. Combined with the current music climate (i.e. culture of chart topping hip-hop and pop) and the types of lyrics and poetry I’m writing, I’m opening myself artistically to a variety of attacks and genre fringe walking that might lead instead, to irrelevance. I’m fairly high concept even when things seem on the surface to be simple. There is always at least one undercurrent moving in a different direction than the surface waters–especially with my music. If I had to depend on this to earn enough money for me to live and pay bills, I probably would be editing a whole hell of a lot of things out of the public eye and ear. Since I don’t have to earn a penny–whatever. I get to express whatever I feel like and see, rather than speculate how my ideas and my ear fares in the public arena. Will things go well? I can’t say for sure, but I’ve done well in the past, so maybe. Ultimately, the civilian job keeps my art free and keeps me from being just another hater, pissed off because I’m jealous of someone else’s ability to chart their own expressive path.

Let the words “what if?” apply only to the development of new ideas.

Well, I did manage to get around the notion of accountability in the last post, so I guess I’ll address that now. To a degree, some of what has happened has been my fault. I did take less money than I know me, my time and certainly my studio is worth trying to find a win-win situatation with artists that at least claimed they didn’t have much money to begin with. It may actually be true that they couldn’t afford to pay me more, which at this point is irrelevant. The bottomline is a lot of time was pissed away with me making less money off of a five figure studio than I make selling chapbooks at gigs.

So, with that lesson in mind and moving forward, I’m done with the “deals” to help get artists recorded. If they can’t afford my $50/hour fee for the studio, they can go elsewhere and then I’m either getting paid what I consider a fair fee or I don’t waste my time.

The other area of accountability was again, a notion of trying to be win-win where I reserved beats for artists that basically squated on them even as other artists showed interest in them. Never again with that one as well. Beats are reserved once paid for with a signed contract. Until then, if I’m willing to part with it, it is first paid, first served. So in retrospect, my latest dismissal freed me up from a philosophy that was giving people a hand that wasn’t being reciprocated in the least. And for that, I guess I owe them.

Crap, I’ve been naïve. I’ve been wasting most of my past four years pissing away my time writing for, producing and engineering for artists that didn’t really want to put in work, they just thought all they have to do is show up, put forth a half-assed effort and I would do the rest and they would get signed to a major record label and become rich and famous.

When that didn’t happen for any of them, they did the most expedient thing-blow me off and latch on to someone else that think will make them rich and famous without them putting in the work to build a fanbase.

Ironic that one of those artists was in my studio at the same time and met someone who has worked with HUGE artists and songwriters like Dianne Warren. He didn’t have a clue who the guy was and there was no reason for me to tell him anything at any point because he never finished anything. If he knew, would he have worked harder to finish tracks by coming into the studio for more than a few hours a month and get them mixed and mastered? Probably not. Every other opportunity I told him about and introduction I made never made a difference. But let’s get it straight. As producer, it is always my fault. Hence, no need for any respect in my direction.

Of course there were some exceptions to the “just make me rich and famous while I sit here” attitude such as Molly Zenobia and Jim Anderson, but on the artist track, they were the only ones that I’ve worked with that understand the way the entertainment world works.

It’s not all bad news though in the house of Wesley. I still have my contacts, a very well equipped recording and mix studio and now about 80 songs to choose from for my upcoming releases not including what I’m presently writing.

The most valuable thing though, is a lesson learned. I won’t be fooled again.

I finally made it back to the Poet’s Salon at my friend’s Kath Abela’s. I was fourteenth in line to read a poem and have the group give me their opinions of my poem. While waiting for my turn, I marveled at the prose set before me by the other poets in the room and sometimes sat a bit irritated at some of the opinion’s being thrown at the authors of the works. There seems to be a VERY fine line that creatives are supposed to traverse where they use images, metaphors and analogies that the ‘common’ person can relate to without becoming cliched. There were a few poems that had what some might call cliched phrases, but in those cases specifically, I was not offended as they were personal testaments to loved ones, some of which were departed. I have to say that I really don’t care how many cliches appear in a dedication to someone who is loved and dead. That is an area I feel is beyond criticism of form or text. It is meant in my opinion to be experienced on the level of hearing one who has loved another with a fierce enough heart to express their emotions in writing. From me, as a fan of poetry and of the idea of love, it gets a pass–it is exempt from contempt based on the nature of its creation. Now if you write about a beach, I’ll be a bit more critical, but come on…how can you tell someone that their remembrance of a lost mother or father who was their world, wasn’t expressed with enough creativity???!!!  I’m trying not to be pissed right now.

So anyhow, as I listened to some of the poets get mauled over trivial crap that I didn’t at all agree with, I sat in expectation of my poem “Combustion” which in my opinion is not the kind of poem that gets a pass. I awaited my own skewering because how could something as insignificant as my little rant about a vocalist experiencing the music and the crowd elude the blades of criticism when previous poets were hammered so intently over such deep and important happenings in their lives? I mean really, the use of sax instead of the word sex isn’t original. Almost everything I create is a direct result of something I’ve seen, heard or heard of by someone of greater talent than me. Perhaps 10% of what I do came from some magical place or direct from God, on a good day, I may pull 20% from the aforementioned source. Everything else, at least began as something I love about something someone else created be it mood, setting, tone, well, something. I believe not all artists are honest about this, but at least for me, there you have it. No potential for genius. Only translation. 

The poem I brought was the result of about 10 minutes of deliberation with myself. I want something where I can benefit from other’s insights and criticisms which means I need something that I feel is as good as I can get it. I threw out the notion of about five poems that I considered basically, because I thought I can do better and didn’t see how other’s opinions might help something that wasn’t as good as I, alone, could get it. I settled on a poem called Combustion. Before I give you the comments I received on the poem and insights into my original intent on the imagery, I will give you the poem itself. Here it is:

“Combusion”

Brass blasts
and stabs
an insistent punctuation
to the slow moaning groan growing
in my belly
pushing up my wind pipe
past vocal chords strumming and becoming
its own primal dream of harmonized madness.

Cresting this crescendoing wail
spine arches
eyelids shutter
consciousness convulses in spasms.

Momentarily spent…
The beat backs down into lazy circles
riding smooth strikes
on the bell of a bronze full moon.

Soon swells trumpet their ebb
Eager…
Hungrily fornicating with the flow
as if they’ve never had sax before
and with a single melodic caress
I press myself
back into the fortissimo flesh
finding my stroke
with a side to side sway
that says I’

ve got all day.

Then four nails rake
across six string theories
of revolution that begins a new spiral
up into a vortex of outstretched limbs
and I bend in their winds of strange
speaking in tongues – embracing my change
from hard charged electrical being
to a new form of energy few ears have ever seen.

–End poem–

Okay. That said, the poem was received very well. I made a mistake on reading through the laughter that came after “as if they’ve never had sax before….”, but that isn’t going to happen often as I recognize based on the advice of my comedian friend Chris Valenti, that I’m supposed to give my audience permission to laugh, that I’m supposed to halt until the laughter is done. At least to a certain extent. 

So before I get to the written advice that was handed back to me by what I would call some incredible poets (hence my outrage over some of the detrimental comments to their work I referenced above), I will go into some of the spoken thoughts on my poem first. A few of the poets correctly found the ‘beat poet’ reference in this writing. I’m not a huge fan of poets like Kerouac, and his ilk, but I am a fan nonetheless. Beat poetry figured into the mix here. Different people had different views of what the poem was supposed to mean, but frankly, I’m a big fan of the reader bringing their own experience to a poem (again, hence my sometimes irritation at readers trying to hog-tie poets about what the reader does and doesn’t understand about analogies…) so I made no “corrections” about how the listener experienced the poem and my original intent. I find absolute validation in how a listener experiences a poem and take great pleasure when someone connects to something little ‘ole me wrote in a way I didn’t originally intend. This may sound silly, but as they describe my own poem back to me through their eyes, it adds to my own creative experience. I’m not sure at this point how else to put that.

One person found the poem to speak for the disenfranchised, another considered it rap because I listen to hip-hop and rap I guess. In any case, the  bludgeoning I was anticipating didn’t happen. A few people felt I read it too fast and I agree with that although the energy of the poem demands a certain quickness. With that in mind, I still agree with them. I could have gone a little slower in some parts. Now on to the written thoughts on it…

• Many liked the line: “fornicating with the flow/ as if they’ve never had sax before…(this line especially I was expecting to get lynched for on the topic of cliches, but somehow managed not to…)
• Many sensed anger here, but I didn’t (while I didn’t suppress the experience of those who got anger out of the poem, this listener got this aspect as I intended, there is no anger in this particular writing that I was trying to get across.)
• Subtle rhyming (Hah! Someone caught it. I tried to rhyme in places not entirely expected to help the flow of it, inspired by Saul Williams and Kamau Daaood.)
• Several people felt the poem was musical and one felt that it was an interpretation of what I was listening to. (Actually, it was an interpretation of performing the song.)
• Overall I got great reviews on it and the line I expected to take the most blows over, wound up being the line most loved the most–I guess this just reaffirms my notion that if I might as well go with my gut because I have no clue what will and won’t work with listeners. They always manage to surprise me with what they like about my work.

Back to the topic of cliches’, one of the poets mentioned that to him, cliches’ are forgiven when they are used in a way that he hasn’t seen before. I think that makes sense, and I think everyone’s reaction to my cliche’ provided a general consensus of agreement with him.

I make no secret over the fact that I write music not as a musician or songwriter, but as a fan of music–A veritable slut of the sonic palette if you will. With such a long background in how things are handled in the music world, the transition to the expectations of the poetry world have left me a little frustrated mostly with my own lack of what I feel is preparation. In the music world, you learn and rehearse songs and then you go out and play them live. Only the lowliest of jerk-offs is going to read their lyrics on stage to an audience, but in poetry, it’s okay. In poetic live appearances, I’ve read the poems, but feel as an artist so unsatisfied with it., because I still feel like I’m supposed to know every line before hitting the stage. It isn’t enough that the audience is okay with it. And as far as recording goes, most poets don’t do it for me. The exception, my watermark for excellence in combining poetry with music has become Derrick Brown. You can find him on iTunes. To make a long story short, I found in his creativity someone who is pushing the limits enough to satisfy what I feel is a need for spoken word artists to marry their visions with music more akin to a soundtrack than some random musician simply riffing on their instrument under them with no composition in sight. Did I mention that I’ve been that musician before? Well, I have been and was as disappointed as ever as a fan of spoken word performances as I could be. I don’t care that I was part of it, except to the fact that I was promoting the future of crappy performances with haphazard marriages of poetry and music.

With my next book, I have recently decided to include a CD with it at the suggestion by a couple of very creative friends of mine Suzi and Jeff Oliver. Now, I’ve thought of this before, and talked about it with my mentor, Tim Sweeney, but it was their mention of it, that decided me on the subject. Somehow, our conversation over dinner and the way my wife’s eyes lit up at the idea convinced me that this is the way to go. 

So now I am writing for the book Dark Matter and my next CD Like Clutching Faith. Where to go with this? I’m trying to figure it out. Thankfully, my co-producer David Cohen is on board for both, which makes my job much easier as his is my most trusted critic of the music I create. Amongst the new “songs” (I’m using this generically, including spoken word pieces to music) is one that has taken as its inspiration Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. As I mentioned before, I write as a fan so I take different aspects of songs that I wish I’d written and combine those elements into my own little ditties. Now most people are quite familiar to the studio release of Stairway to Heaven, but I’m looking at the live version of it from Led Zep’s “How The West Was Won” CD and the cover of it by Rodrigo y Gabriela on their self-titled CD. The composition of the song amazes me and both those versions house one of the best solos ever to grace my ears. 

Now I bring the elements of what made me such a fan of the song and these excellent renditions of it into my own song replacing the guitar, with of all things, the piano. In a way, I am my own worst enemy and I acknowledge that, but I like the idea of the solo on record being piano and going live as guitar. Doing so much of the writing and performing by myself, I don’t want my live show to consist of my performing over stagnant backing tracks when I bring my guitar up there with me, there should be some discovery for the audience, some form of ‘you had to be there’ to it that you don’t get from most performers rocking to backing tracks on CD which is how I’m going to begin until I have a proper budget. The name of the song hasn’t been decided yet and even the subject matter of it, is a little dubious at the moment, but soon, a rough version of it will show up in the samples version of my website at http://www.chriswesley.com/samples.

Will my song do it’s primary influence any justice? My opinion is only as far as people who listen to it and love it, don’t recognize what song was its muse without first having read this post. If someone can’t tell which song it is after having read this post, then, and only then, will I feel like I have truly done my job correctly. Either way, may we all continue to find that music that touches us most even if it means abandoning what a radio programmer thinks will keep us tuned in long enough to buy from their advertisers. Cheers.

Okay, am I the only person who bought  the version of U2’s new CD, No Line On The Horizon with the 24-page “booklet” and “poster” and thought to themselves “what the crap is this”? I’ll get to the music in a second, but being on sale for $23 and going up to over $30 when it hits the regular price, I was left wondering what am I paying for other than a name? The 24-page “booklet” is a) permanently attached to the digipak as is the poster, so to get them out, you have to rip them off of the digipak (defeating the purpose of a poster in my opinion as you may tear the poster getting it out of the digipak) and b) the booklet is nothing more than song lyrics, picture and liner notes. You know the stuff you’re used to getting without paying extra for. At the price point of $20+, call me spoiled, but I expect something more than this and an “exclusive” film. I haven’t had a chance to download the film yet, but will post once I’ve downloaded it as to whether that made the extra $10 worth it, as getting a book of lyrics and a poster that will never be put on a wall by themselves are not.

As for the music itself. Meh. Achtung, Baby is still my favorite, and I’d still rate Joshua Tree, Pop, War, etc. as better albums. I’d say this is maybe their sixth best CD to date. I’d get into song specifics, but so far, no song has really stood out yet, but I’m still listening, hoping something will catch my attention…

Hmmmm…not the best turnout I’ve had for a gig. And yet, the NOHO Poetry Spectacular turned out to be worth my while. Along with my poetry read, I acted in a one act play with Writer/Director/Actor Radomir Luza. It all went well. I don’t have much else to say about that right now. The music feature by James Piquinot absolutely rocked. He could have performed for another half hour easily and kept my attention. He doesn’t sound like any other artist in particular, but I could see him on a bill with Radiohead or a band like that.

And that, my friends is my last gig for the next few months. My heart right now is focused on writing my book. I finally have a hold on the short story I’m writing for it to accompany all the poetry and I want to at least knock out the first draft of that story by the end of March. With that in mind, there isn’t much time to put together the live show I want.

My upcoming CD is also taking form. I have finally decided on the foundation of the sound: Electonica. With that, I can infuse all of my Hip Hop ideas, guitar and piano solos, intense drum and percussion work and long form song construction ideas without jumping too far off the map. I can’t do that if Hip Hop is the foundation, so that is that.