"THE END OF FAITH"

(Available for download only, now on emusic with itunes and others soon to follow.)

At some point during the period in which I wrote the "Don't Tell Columbus" songs, I was also writing a tune called "The End Of Faith," a number born of my disdain for religion, and therefore much too literal for the more balanced, nuanced content of the forthcoming collection.
Seeing this discrepancy coming from a mile away, I ceased working on the song and left it half finished, envisioning perhaps its eventual lack of completion altogether, or, in more rash moments, writing an entire album of anti-religious tirades and using "The End Of Faith" as the cornerstone for such an endeavor.
But I find it a very hard and tiresome thought to narrow my work down to such a dogged and literal pursuit, and the thought of the difficulties involved with composing a dozen rants that bashed the heads of the faithful felt like a lead weight, and so instead, I merely finished writing this one song fairly recently, just for the heck of it.

Apart from a long held but inchoate idea (I can't bring myself to use the word "belief" and therefore use the word "idea" instead) that religion is a malignant force, and that belief and faith are the two most dangerous concepts in the world and have proven themselves to be over and over again, I have not seen anything that brings this feeling into tangible content in my entire life until recently.
Enter the three extraordinary books that give focus to the wishy washy liberalism of my highly untrained and uncoordinated mind: "The End Of Faith" by Sam Harris, "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, and "God Is Not Great: how religion poisons everything " by Christopher Hitchens (gotta love that subtitle!).

Reading these books, especially the ones by Harris and Hitchens, is a mind expanding experience. The Hawkins book is good, but comes over as more of an appreciation of the elegance and reality of evolution and the delusionality of denying this phenomenon than the double whammy intellectual tour de force(s) of the other two.
If you have any interest in the subject, don't miss these publications. All three books were best sellers, and if you want to start somewhere, start with Harris's "The End Of Faith" itself, from whence my song title comes, which will cost you less anyway because it's out in paperback. If that book doesn't blow your mind with its clear-headed and often startling revelations (if you'll excuse the word), especially when confronting the utter lameness of the acceptance and tolerance by Liberals of other peoples' "faiths," despite the absurd and sometimes vile nature that is inherent in those "faiths," then I don't suppose the concept will interest you much anyway.

I could blabber on about my take on the subject, but due to my lack of formal education (I don't consider an English secondary modern school a formal education), my ignorance of the timeline of religion in any coherent historic sense, and my lack of the kind of elucidation brought forth by these writers, it's probably better for anyone interested to read these books for themselves.

Suffice to say, I think this is an urgent matter, and I think the sooner mankind can stamp out religion with the light of reason the better. The world and the universe will not be any less miraculous for it, more so in fact, and the misery these superstitions and "faiths" inflict in what can only be described rationally as belief in the supernatural, can be marginalized and banished to the crackpot realm where they now fully belong.

Hitchens describes in great clarity what you already know: that the whole shebang is entirely man-made, and his brilliant assessment "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence" is the perfect antidote to the idea that openly doubting the beliefs of the faithful is off limits to people of reason.
As Hitchens also said on his often hilarious debate with Al Sharpton on a recent edition of "Hardball Plaza" with Chris Matthews, "It's time to get up off your knees. Stop groveling." Well said.

GP

PS: (Preemptive strike against the folks out there who follow the pundits.)
Yes, yes, I know: Hitchens thought that invading Iraq was a spiffing idea and still thinks so, despite the obvious catastrophe of it all. On this I disagree.)

MUSICIANS

MIKE GENT: DRUMS, BACKING VOCALS, LEAD GUITAR SOLO
ED VALAUSKAS: BASS GUITAR
SCOTT JANOVITZ: KEYBOARDS
GP: VOCALS, ACOUSTIC GUITAR, ELECTRIC GUITAR

Eva Cassidy and Amy Winehouse

Forward: many thanks for the comments on the last blog. I'm not going to respond to them, because it seems to me that this blogging business can devolve into a lovefest or a bickering match instantly. So, as Steven Colbert might say, "Movin' on!"
Hence, the article below, apropos of nothing...

THE THOUGHTS OF CHAIRMAN PARKER
on the two greatest female vocalists of the last 40 years :
EVA CASSIDY AND AMY WINEHOUSE

When an English friend of mine raved about American singer Eva Cassidy sometime in the late '90's, his exhortations were intense enough to quell my usual reticence to buying albums without hearing a single performance on the radio (call me old fashioned, but that's still how I judge whether music is worth spending money on), and so I searched the racks in the local mall until I finally found a copy of her album "Songbird," buried, rather unsettlingly, in the jazz section.

I stuck the CD on as I drove away from Barnes & Nobles, and there she was on track one, playing live, with the audience applause removed, just her and an acoustic guitar with another guitarist adding a few touches, singing a version of Sting's "Fields Of Gold" with such effortless, searing conviction, such consummate technique and unselfconscious soul, that I found it difficult to concentrate of the road ahead. I choked up, felt dizzy, and put the track on again as soon as it had finished, playing it about four times until I finally moved on to the next song.
The way she feathered those notes and coaxed them into heavenly dimensions, and then suddenly switched gears to attain full-voiced awesome power was stunning, and I knew right then that my English friend had not steered me wrong.

Now, "Fields Of Gold" was already a great song and a great production by the man who wrote it, but Eva's stark version transcends the original to heights almost beyond belief, as I'm sure the songs' composer would readily agree.
As I listened to the rest of the albums' contents — not all of which I was thrilled with as far as choice of material was concerned — I found myself in the presence of an interpreter who could turn the most moribund fodder into manna, who could evince in the listener, in the space of a few notes, that rare and glistening emotional enlightenment that quite simply gives your goose bumps goose bumps (Yessss! I've always wanted to put those words into repeat mode and have them make sense!).

But what is the lineage of Cassidy's awesome prowess? Follow this: Vera Lynn, Judy Garland, Doris Day...long gap here...Sandy Denny...'nother long gap...Eva Cassidy. (Gulp. They're all white!)
OK, you might want to stick Dusty in there, too, but I think I'm concentrating on a vocal purity here, a purity that has minimal soul grittiness, but is still immensely soulful, and at the same time does not fall into the Joan Baez "I'm giving you an elocution lesson, children, so pay attention!" school of ham.

Unfortunately, the musicianship behind her, although adequate enough — seeing as her voice is what counts — sounds like it was produced by a bunch of second-string jazzers, as their weak version of "People Get Ready" will attest, ignoring as it does the tunes' obligatory funk.
And her choice of songs shows no attempt to make a cohesive album, which is admirable in a way, because apparently she had no truck with record company execs who wanted her to chose a style and stick with it, but nevertheless makes for a spotty final product.
If I'd been aware of her when she was still with us, I would have camped outside her door with a guitar singing "First Day Of Spring" until she'd be forced to cover it, just to get rid of me (and now, "All Being Well" would be my choice, the thought of which makes my knees turn to jelly).
And although normally I have no interest in producing other artists' records, I think if I'd known about her when she was alive I would have made a lot of effort to get her into the studio with a more compelling band and with a bunch of tunes that could work together to make something modern and at the same time, timeless.

She had a classic in her, in other words, but it's too late now. Eva Cassidy died of melanoma in 1996 at the age of 33.

But why am I writing about a singer who passed away 11 years ago? Because I just bought "Back To Black" by Amy Winehouse.
Eva Cassidy notwithstanding (soulful in an un-black way), I presumed that female soul vocalists had been poisoned by the Mariah Carey brand of tangled underwear melismatic histrionics, but just to show that there's always gonna be someone who comes along every now and again to break the stranglehold, Amy Winehouse arrives in the most surprising fashion, just when you've given up hope.

I've been hearing tantalizing snippets of her hit tune "Rehab" for a while now, but never the whole thing or the name of the singer. Finally, on some "alternative" radio station, sandwiched between what might have been a Rancid song and perhaps one of Creed's absurdities, I heard "Rehab" in its entirety and finally got the artists' name. Off to the mall I go again and purchase a copy.

My reaction to "Back To Black" was similar to the astonishment I felt at hearing Eva for the first time, only here we have not only a remarkable vocalist with a style very hard to pigeonhole, but a marvelous songwriter, too, one who mixes genres like an alchemist, and seemingly with little effort and zero affectation.

And this girl gets the band right. Where Cassidy's backing acts as mere wallpaper, Winehouse's rocks in the most gleefully sloppy manner, teetering between masterful and really dodgy with intriguing artfulness. Again, I'm tempted to think a bunch of jazzers are playing, but unlike Cassidy's cohorts, maybe these guys have just recently been turned on to some really early soul B-sides and had their minds blown, never to play jazz again; or maybe they actually know what they're doing and this is natural for them. I've no idea. Whatever, they do an amazing job.
And it's hard to tell whether the producers (there seem to be a couple of them doing different tracks) were having a huge guffaw at the variety of styles they pillage or whether this is the way they always make records.

"Just Friends," for instance, starts off as a slow jazz, which had me worried for a minute, seeing as I need to hear jazz like I need a hole in the head. But then, after the opening few bars, the song bursts into a faux reggae which features burping horns and a drum technique that suggests that the drummer is playing reggae for the first time, what with the extraordinarily sloppy snare cracks that threaten to make the whole thing fall on it's ass. But it doesn't! It's perfect.

"You Know I'm No Good" and "Love Is A losing Game" are too brilliant for me to even describe. This girl expresses a lot of pain, and she's damn good at mining the veins of it.
"Tears Dry On Their Own," with its Motown groove and once again, teetering- on-the-edge yet totally authentic backing, is sublime.

And what about her voice? Where is a 22 year old British Jewish girl getting this from?
Well, thankfully, unlike so many soul inspired female singers before her, it ain't the usual suspects. There's no copping from Aretha going on here.
Instead, it sounds like she heard some obscure B-side by an obscure female soul singer from the '60's, someone who made about one record then disappeared, and Amy just latched onto this rarity and it burrowed into her soul. There is a jazzy element to her style, too, but — at least on this album (and I think it's only her second?) — she reigns it in and uses it in the best possible way.

There is another comparison to make between Cassidy and Winehouse: they both have hideous album covers, which in some ways is almost endearing and makes their deep and authentic performances shine even brighter.

Letter To Nick Blakey

Please read the following review of "Don't Tell Columbus":


http://www.yourfleshmag.com/artman/publish/printer_1006.shtml


Dear Mr. Blakey,

Seeing as your review was written in the form of a letter, I presume a reply would be the correct and polite response.

Let's jump right in at the shallow end, the territory your piece most frequently inhabits.

With the benefit of over 30 years of experience, I spend a great deal of thought on choosing the right people for the job.
Look at the credits on "Songs Of No Consequence." Take note of the drummer credits for "Go Little Jimmy" and "Evil." Jesse Honig, who has a great swing feel and is adept at using brushes plays on the former and Mike Gent, who can really handle a reggae number, plays on the latter. Now why would I use those guys when Pete Hayes was in the studio, playing percussion alongside them? Because they were the right people for the job.
Pete Hayes, professional that he is, understood these choices.

Which brings us to "Don't Tell Columbus."
With the exception perhaps of the more pop/rock "Total Eclipse Of The Moon" it was obvious to me (and I think to many of my rather savvy fans) that "Columbus" was not a job for Hayes, or indeed the Figgs. Listen to "Ambiguous," listen to "Stick To The Plan." These tunes swing. They require a drummer with markedly different abilities to the sterling, solid work of Pete Hayes. He is great in a different way. (In fact, he has performed "I Discovered America" with me and the Figgs twice onstage and told me that Mike plays in such a different style from his that it was a bit like learning drums again to tackle this song.)
"Why stop now?" you ask, in reference to my use of the Figgs. Who says I've stopped anything? Artists don't stop. They change the landscape to suit their work, and I will continue to do so, and if the Figgs are the right outfit for the job, I'll probably use them again.

Also, among the many inaccuracies in your piece — which I will determine to take apart as my response continues — one of which you are (faultlessly, in this case) unaware of is that Mike's first instrument was the drums, an instrument even a cursory listen to "Columbus" will tell you he has mastered with a fine degree of skill. In as much as you are oblivious to that mastery, I'm afraid, you are not faultless.

Where is Brett Rosenberg, you ask? Not a bad question, unless you have chewing gum in your ears when you listen to the nuance-perfect execution of the lead guitar parts on "The Other Side Of The Reservoir," a song you criticize and foolishly compare to the vastly different and vastly inferior "Heat In Harlem," a number that was soundly and fairly criticized back in the day for my ignorance in calling that particular area of NYC "Harlem Town." (Ugh.) Also, it is an overblown piece of tosh, quite frankly.
When it is appropriate, no one can rip from the John Platania, Peter Green — even Richard Thompson — canon the way I can. (I am not comparing my guitar playing to these people, they are far superior, but I am able to assume their soulfull delicacy better than more accomplished guitarists.)
Every riff, every ascending or descending run I perform on "Reservoir" does exactly what it should do and follows the complex emotions of the song in an intimate way that nobody else could. That is why I'm playing on it and on every other track on the album: because the exquisite and richly emotional tone of many of the songs demands the investment of the man who wrote them on what is obviously the key lead instrument on the album: the electric guitar. Simply put, I again chose the right man for the job.

"The production already makes it sound dated," you assure yourself. Yes, perhaps if your ears are still residing in the '80's when a snare drum had to sound like a ton of glass falling off the Empire State Building and all the instruments were so hyper-pumped and affected it sounded like they had been immersed in some kind of aural testosterone. "Columbus" is a paradigm of modern, natural production.

Also, the sequencing on the album was, as is typical of my sequencing, deeply considered in order to make an album, not just a bunch of disparate songs stuck together in order to grab the "impatient listener."

And in the middle of a fair critique regarding my voice resembling Dylan's these days perhaps a little more than it should, you suddenly throw in a reference to Jesse Fuller so irrelevant to the point you were attempting to make it defies reason. Like much of your work this comes off as a lame attempt to go against the grain of the resoundingly good reviews this album has garnered. Whatever, it defines lazy writing.

From this these examples, it seems clear to me that you are one of that strange, off-kilter breed one runs into now again who thinks that anything a creative artist is doing right now completely wipes out the possibility that they could and probably will return to something at least resembling what they did the year before, or years before. It's like you have a head full of soup. The essence of being a creative artist is to freshen things up a bit on a regular basis and to also return to — if the artistic muse dictates — the past. This is as clear as an unmuddied lake.




Right after your feeble dig at the kazoo (an instrument completely appropriate to the characters who inhabit the song — I'm obviously blowing a huge wet raspberry at the whole wretched lot of them), in the same paragraph, you call "Bullet Of Redemption" a "good modern protest song." You've got the good part right at any rate, but unfortunately you are not alone in hearing the word "bullet" and going off on some Iraq war fantasy protest thing. For the record, "Bullet Of Redemption" is about a teenager who committed suicide, and my wrenching vocal will tell anyone who is really listening that it is not about a case that I saw on the evening news. This is the most serious song I have recorded since "Can't be Too Strong," but because of the lackluster journalism that abounds these days, has not been recognized as such.

"Fire my press officer," you insist in the next paragraph. I can assure you that the Bloodshot staff I have dealt with on this album are as confident of its brilliance as I am. (Also, I am not in the position of being able to fire Bloodshot staff.)
There is no lack of faith involved in using the statement you mention, which I myself wrote. Their tongues, like mine, are firmly in their cheeks; they have a sense of humor! Which is something you seem completely lacking in. Of course it's a playful remark! Your earnest mention of the other artists that follows shows your total misunderstanding of the playfulness involved, and therefore, a pretty serious misunderstanding of much of my intent throughout much of my career. (Here, one can't help but quote the brilliant line spoken by the puppet Kim Jong-il in the movie "Team America: World Police": "Why is everyone so fucking stupid?")
And I just looked back at the blurb on their website and saw no mention of the "angry young man" bit, and if they have used it elsewhere, I'm confident that it would appear in quotation marks and as an obvious reference to the past.

"I know you can kick some serious ass...and have proven so" you blather on again in the next installment of inanity. Yes, I did so on the last two albums I released as you pointed out earlier and was OBVIOUSLY not trying to repeat the ass kicking on this one!!!!
(OK, there may be hope for you: you did at least realize that the "white chick singers" credit was humorous. I'll give you that much.)

God, the inaccuracies go on: "Dylan's too busy re-writing his back catalogue..." Gallons of soup are involved with this one. Dylan may well be appropriating blues archetypes and ripping a few lines from some obscure civil war poet, but there is not a single song on "Modern Times" or some of the albums before it that even remotely suggest he is doing anything of the sort.
And..."Springsteen's still trying to pass himself off as a man of the people..."?
Trust me, Bruce has no need to try to pass himself off as anything and is not doing so. Taking what I considered to be the hackneyed "Mighty Wind" folk monolithium of Pete Seeger and turning it into an electrifying and utterly credible modern album is one huge achievement.

But why are you reviewing this album, one has to repeatedly ask? It seems probable, as I mentioned earlier, that you have noticed the overwhelmingly good notices for "Columbus" and are trying to make a name for yourself by not following the trend. Unfortunately, the absurd construct of your criticism only leads you into the murky abyss of prickdom.

I trust that you will in kind publish this reply unedited and in its entirety for the entertainment of your readers.

Yours sincerely,

Graham Parker