The Music Of JC Harris

positively the most intelligent progressive rock on this here planet

positively the most intelligent progressive rock on this here planet

Rants By Topic

Music Appreciation

Lyrics Are Hard

Writing good lyrics is really hard. Yesterday and Scrambled Eggs. Talking Heads and cleaning. Bad lyrics are what killed Progressive Rock. Phonemes, Siberian Khatru and abstraction. Love Beach is a terrible lyric. But What A Wonderful World is a great lyric. Obituaries.

Roger CortonYou mentioned in last week’s marathon that you were working what you called ‘the connective tissue’ of The Boats.

JCHYes and that means words. Lyrics. And there is almost nothing I seem to hate worse in life than lyrics.

RCReally?

JCHYes. OK, I’m going to swing the camera around for a second. Notice anything?

RCWhat am I supposed to notice?

JCHI’m a bachelor pushing sixty. That should be your first clue. How does the place look?

RCClean?

JCHTOO clean. The place is fucking immaculate. That should tell you something.

RCTell me what?

JCHThat I’m engaging in almost constant task avoidance. When I’m cleaning? That means I’m doing ‘busy work’ […]

Dance Like No One’s Watching

Just don’t do it in front of me! :mrgreen:

Look, everyone (at least everyone on PBS) espouses that lack of self-consciousness. But they don’t really mean it. Not really. Because we all know that if you actually start doing anything like no one’s watching–and someone’s watching? The men in the white coats are surely on the way.

So for most people, that line is just another phrase like “Speak your mind!” and “Don’t sweat the small stuff!”; nice thoughts that show up on cheap greeting cards, but no one expects (or even desire) people to actually do.

But still. What does one do if your job actually depends on living with that lack of self-consciousness?

As Rog and I were discussing […]

What Do You Do All Day? (Self-Consciousness Part I)

Self-consciousness. You Can’t Take It With You. Frank Capra. Lawrence Of Arabia. Masturbation (again) vs. Composing.

Roger CortonWe’re once again in that in-between time.

JCHYou mean all those months and years when people wonder what the hell I actually (cough) ‘do’ all day?

RCWhat do you do all day?

JCHYa know that kills me. Because every woman I’ve ever been with who was not married to me wonders exactly the same thing. And I’ve decided that it’s one of those great big lies that people tell in order to get along with one another.

RCWhat great big lies? He said, not really wanting the answer.

JCHA couple come to mind. The first is, like I said, “What do you do all day?” People with ‘normal’ jobs simply don’t ‘get’ how much work this so-called career is. I’m not whining.

RCIt sounds like whining.

JCHIt’s not whining. I’m just saying that it’s one of those deals that […]

Greg Lake

I was on a plane recently, listening to the Emerson Lake & Palmer album ‘Trilogy’ as the miles flew by. If you’re a progressive rock fan–or even just a ‘classic rock’ fan–it can actually be hard to listen to such a chestnut as this. It’s like listening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for classical music lovers. Some tunes are so familiar that we can’t even really hear them anymore. Or even worse? They sound almost cloying.

But ironically, there’s a reason we get so jaded, right? They wouldn’t be ‘classics’ if they hadn’t deserved enough listens to wear out the grooves in the first place. However if one does make the effort to hear a piece with fresh ears, the rewards can be phenomenal. (The advantage that classical music has over progressive rock is that we can get a fresh perspective simply by listening to another version of Beethoven.)

Anyhoo, I listened to the outro solo on “From The Beginning”, which starts with a one-pitch bass fill. It’s just […]

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