Wednesday, May 28, 2003
The extended piece for Stylus...
Birds Of Prey
Live
Radioactive
2003
"I'm pursuing life. That's enough for me. If I had to point to one song that shows the future of Live, it would be 'The Sanctity Of Dreams'. It's what I call an evolutionary song. You can tell it's Live, but it breaks new ground. It's an assertion of self; it's taking control, or taking the search from the outside in. This is me, this is where I'm going, it's my dream and my vision that I'm following. I'm not looking to be a spokesperson for some ideal or guru. We have a complete album that demands my heart and my attention, and that is incredibly important to me."
Ed Kowalcyk
Six albums and this is where you are? You can’t possibly be proud can you? Of this shit? The worst thing is that you’re so obviously convinced that this is both personal and universal in it’s profundity; it’s not. It’s meaninglessly encompassing, striving so hard for truth for everyone that it has no affect for anyone, at least not anyone worth affecting. Say something personal, for heaven’s sake man. Stop simpering about your fucking baby daughter. Do you have any idea how dull it is listening to someone being calm and content? In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility, but when the blast of rock n roll blows in your ears then imitate the actions of a tiger! Jam your eyes open, man, jam them open till they bleed, see that this is America and this is God and both of them are dead. Walk past that line which says 1995. 8 years ago, man, 8 years. Who are you? Matchbox 20? Is that enough? This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!
“Paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa / ride a Harley through the heart of danger / pick up a pen and fight a war for the right to dream / I was seventeen… / … I believe in the sanctity of dreams / no more runnin’ from these masqueraders / I believe that society will never dream like me / I dream of love and of the empty graveyard / I dream of Vegas and the transcendental wildcard…”
No one ever really dies. Except they do, chuck. And in the time between its your job to make it interesting to be not dead. Religion is opium for the masses. Marx never saw TV. Marx never heard you. You are the dreariest of dreary mortgage-rock that I can imagine. If this is a career you could at least attempt to make it something to be proud of. Good enough is never enough. This is not good enough. You’re in your 30s and one of you is sporting a tasteful mohican and a goatee for heaven’s sake, with his sheepskin coat and double chin.
“I was lost / I am found / all the buildings burnt to the ground / I can’t stay, I can’t leave… / … do you see your son down on the street? / Is that a gun or the just the father that he needs?”
Your half-spun poetics of the dullard clam will never mean a thing beyond the average man, the mediocre bloke, the nothingness. Financial management accountancy. You could have had a good career as a plumber. What are you fighting for? You don’t even know, do you? You sense it’s there but your flatted brain cannot comprehend its details. And you don’t realise! A bit sharper and you’d be embarrassed. With your guitars and your drums and your ‘soaring’ choruses, ‘rousing’ sentiments. Rousing like the daily grind. I’m having to listen to the Trojan 12” box set, Autechre and Gillian Welch as antidote for your foul mediocrity and joylessness. What’s soul? You think you’ve got it. Substance. Spirit. The emptiest cans make the loudest noises; the emptiest heads have the loudest voices. Maybe, maybe. Chuck Berry is the greatest man to have walked this earth. Take of your shoes and show some respect. Baby. You ain’t nothing.
5/28/2003 01:03:00 pm
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