Jesus Loves Me, This I Know

This is an altar in America's oldest house, New Mexico, taken in June of 2006.

The Native American Church is a syncretic religion, formed in the late nineteenth century, combining the practices of psychedelic shamanism with Christianity. The cactus, Peyote, is ingested and allows the participants to talk directly with Jesus.

Jesus Loves Me is a traditional Christian hymn, reworked by Everette Red Bear and Sandor Iron Rope of the Native American Church. It's drum, rattle and a two part harmony and is sung in a mixture of languages.



Chief Quannah Parker, the father of the movement, once said, "The White Man goes into his church and talks about Jesus. The Indian goes into his Tipi and talks with Jesus" In this sense, the lyrics: "Jesus loves me this I know, because the bible tells me so," when sang by Red Bear and Iron Rope, take on almost satirical meaning. To people who talk directly with Jesus and can experience his love first hand, what use is the bible?

GIRL TALK/THE BEATLES/NEW ORLEANS PHOTO

I took this picture in an abandoned elementary school in New Orleans. It had floated from the stage and landed in the aisle.

I've been listening to Girl Talk on repeat since I got Nightripper last night (two months late, I know). My friends sometimes tease me for frenetically tapping my fingers against my leg, desk, wall, wherever I am. Girl Talk is as close to a manifestation of that nervous energy as possible. The sampling is, I'm pretty sure, five deep at times and takes from most pop genres of the last five decades. I'm not sure if it works as dance music, exactly, he doesn't let you get into the the rhythm before changing it, but more as an audio art collage. In a way, this saves Nightripper from being just another hipster dance mixtape.

Girl Talk also confirms what I've been thinking about pop music for a while now. I used to think the ideal mashup (don't laugh) should take diverse samples and create an original composition fundamentally different from either of its parts. This way, the more obscure and manipulated the source material, the purer the final composition is. I realise now that this approach is naive and leads to indulgent music (DJ Shadow come on). The brilliance of Girl talk is that the listener, (if she/he's anything like me) should recognize every sample, triggering a sense of nostalgia which the DJ then subverts by mixing in other samples and topping it off with some booty rap. It's about recontextualising familiar sounds and phrases and just blowing your head off. Some purists might call it lazy, but there's nothing lazy about composition on this level. It's post modern music, where DJ meets composer meets computer and I can't stop listening to it. It's like that 22 year old itch in my brain is finally getting a vigorous scratching. Eventually it'll get raw but right now it's such a relief.

Girl Talk - Overtime
Girl Talk - Smash Your Head

My friend Marco Extended Drum Solo sent me what he thinks is George Martin (the Beatles producer) trying his hand at a mashup. From the latest Beatles release:

The Beatles - Within You, Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows

And finally here's me fooling around in garageband:

The Swords of Righteousness Brigade - Bad Luck

SHOUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT and other thoughts.


If you can find me in this picture you win a prize.

I got really angry at this concert at the large contingent of fucks who stood in front of the stage and refused to dance to the dance music. I also got really freaked out at the cellphone company who had branded the event as some sort of VIP promotion bullshit. Otherwise, I haven't danced that hard since returning home to Vancouver. Holy Fuck were also especially good, if a bit anticlimactic.

I've been to a few shows recently: The DFA, The Pink Mountaintops, TV on the Radio, I've been playing squash and i've also been working... In fact, I almost threw coffee in David Emerson's face yesterday. I mean, how often do you find yourself standing in front of the most hated man in (BC?) politics with with a full pot of fresh coffee. At the last moment the enslaving logic of Capitalism kicked in and I merely set the pot on his table. Like you'd expect, Emerson has the mannerisms of a mafia boss. He was in a working lunch with a bunch of provincial transportation ministers and obviously loves being the big-man in the room. I hate him: my Conservative member of Parliament.

In other news, has anybody else noticed the startling thematic similarities between Brokeback Mountain and Paradise Now. I'm thinking that would make a good blog post but I'm too numb right now from working overtime to do it.

Also, I bought my ticket for Bonny Prince Billy in November. Sometimes I get scared I might die first and then my life would have been in vain.

Streethawkmagazine.com is something a friend of mine started up. It's pretty much the only site to go to for Indie/decent music news and criticism in Vancouver. Go there.