A two-parter on the notion of ‘criticism’. More on the Onward cover. Nobody cares about Hillary’s damned pneumonia. Prince. Blue Angels. George Van Eps. Old school gymnastics and the Olympics. Simplicity. Easy vs. hard. Simple vs. complex. Loops vs. clicks.

Roger CortonNo new Snippet this week? I thought you were going to throw up at least one new something every week.

JCHLook, don’t hassle me, man. It’s been a crappy week. Everywhere I go I just run into too much recession, man.

RCNo man, you mean he ran into too much repression (laughs). I haven’t heard that in a long time. So what’s going on?

JCHTo paraphrase Bernie Sanders, nobody cares about my damned whatever. The point is, I couldn’t get it done. Come to think about it, that’s what Hillary should tell people when she got sick last week. “Nobody cares about my damned whatever. Now fuck off!” It just amazes me that she can’t take a day off to be […]

Another snippet from the new opera, The Boats (Beautiful Boy). Two churches. Two organs. Your organ says a lot about you, heh heh. Deliverance. Guy Deutscher. Language and Culture. Philip Glass as career path? Walter White and the big, big money. The Who. Tommy. The best rhythm guitar ever?

Roger CortonOne last thing about the whole opera thing. We never got round to talking about the organs last week.

Beautiful Boy (Snippet)

RCI can’t decide if it’s really sincere or just really cheesy.

JCHWell don’t sugar coat it. Cheesy you say?

RCThe organ vibrato. Some of the lyrics sound so gushy. ‘Beautiful Boy’. People don’t really talk like that.

JCHOh yes they do. I know what you mean, though. OK, so there were two big churches when I was a kid. The C of I Church of Ireland–Protestant and the RC Roman Catholic. They were both almost across the street from […]

Part 4 on practicing creativity. AKA ‘our longest rant ever’. Why consciously practicing creativity matters. Jaron Lanier. Bernie Worrell. Mining for sapphires. Light pollution. Wilt Chamberlin. Malcolm Gladwell.

Roger CortonWe haven’t had enough talk, talk talk yet about ‘creativity’?

JCHNo. No we HAVEN’T. I promised last time that I was going to explain why this matters so much…

RCTo you.

JCHAnd should matter to you.

RCI am usually reluctant to use the word ‘should’.

JCHWhich is why I’m where I am and why you’re… er… never mind. (laughs) But assuming that someone cares about what I care about than yes, I am going to finish up my…

RCLecture is the word I think you were going for.

JCHAs Fred Flintstone used to say, “How very droll.” OK, here we go. I think it matters for music in general but for progressive rock in particular because, frankly, most of it STINKS.

RCMost of what?

JCHMusic, […]