This arvo's plan is to edit and upload the weekends'-worth of photos. So yeah, no updated photos yet. I'm also trying to figure out how to pay to extend my Flickr photo account, as I don't have a credit card. Time to explore some different options.
Meals on Wheels was another great experience again this morning. I'm volunteering plating food which gets frozen for distribution at a later date. Thankfully there were a good crowd of people there today... lots of hands got lots of food packed. Yay! Always good for a laugh with an aboriginal guy who is our supervisor, always keeping a grin on our faces. Makes the few short hours fly by even more briskly.
Basically, after I spend time with my boys, I usually have a melancholic period afterwards. After a whole day with them on Sunday (and it was a brilliantly positive day for all of us), the 'Black Dog' really just snuck up and kicked the shit out of me for the next 2 days or so.
No, I don't enjoy being like this. Back onto some meds I go, I guess.
Had a good spontaneous loungeroom jam with Mick and Matt on Monday nite as well... Mick turned up and proved to us all that he's been practicing his little heart out lately! His playing was exquisite. He's still a little unsure about having an extra person in "Box of Sox" - Mick and Eddie haven't met as yet, as Mick's been mainly away for the past 2 or 3 months. This Sunday arvos' rehearsal should put all his little personal qualms to rest 100%. It's gonna work well. It really is. I think Matt is the one who is feeling slightly out of it... he's an amazing guitarist and musician, but he simply lacks self confidence to practice, and maybe he's feeling like he's lagging behind. But it's not like that at all. Having a fifth element in the mix now will be a time of adjustment for all of us. A positive time.
Something I would never usually listen to... this is so different that I'm rather quite enjoying it's dark murkiness!
Artist: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Album: Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus [2004]
"Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus is the 13th studio album released by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It is a double CD, with 17 songs (9 on Abattoir Blues and 8 on The Lyre of Orpheus), and was released on the 20th of September 2004. Reviews were generally positive.
The double album was recorded by Nick Launay at Studio Ferber in Paris in Spring 2004 by The Bad Seeds line up of Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey, Conway Savage, Jim Sclavunos, Warren Ellis, and James Johnston. It was the first album by the band in which Blixa Bargeld did not take part. Cave decided to split drumming duties for the two albums, having Wydler and Sclavunos drum on each CD.
Its release was shortly followed by the Abattoir Blues Tour, which took place around Europe between the 3rd of November and the 5th of December 2004."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abattoir_Blues/The_Lyre_of_Orpheus
The album's second disc, The Lyre of Orpheus, can be interpreted as an abstract retelling of the original orphic myth, separate from the version in the title track. Breathless could be seen as Orpheus grieving for Eurydice, whilst Babe, You Turn Me On is his memory of the moment of her death -
We stand awed inside a clearing.
We do not make a sound.
The crimson snow falls all about,
carpeting the ground.
Easy Money is a version of Orpheus' bargain with Hades, with heavy emphasis on the theme of the ease of getting what you want, as long as you are prepared to pay the price. Supernaturally could cover several bases, interpreted as both the protagonist's drive to rescue his wife, and as a lament for his failure to do so.
Spell is about the doubt slowly taking over Orpheus as he ascends the stairs out of hell - about his uncertainty regarding Hades' intentions to honour their bargain - and about the final confused moments before his climactic turn—
I call you by your name, I know not where you are.
Carry Me is the album's climax, the point at which Orpheus turns to look upon Eurydice, breaking his bargain with Hades, and condemning her to being pulled back into the underworld. The song could almost be described as a duet from one mouth, the chorus (possibly from Eurydice's point of view) asking Orpheus to either give in to his doubt or stick to his word -
Turn to me, turn to me, turn to me
Turn to me and drink of me
Or look away, look away,
look away and never more think of me
Orpheus also speaks of -
The many voices
Speaking to me from the depths below
This ancient wound
This catacomb
Beneath the whited snow
In the end, of course, he turns, and she is carried away.
O Children, the album's coda, describes the grief of Orpheus, and his death by his own hand, as well as a plea to be forgiven for his sins and to be allowed into heaven.
We stand awed inside a clearing.
We do not make a sound.
The crimson snow falls all about,
carpeting the ground.
Easy Money is a version of Orpheus' bargain with Hades, with heavy emphasis on the theme of the ease of getting what you want, as long as you are prepared to pay the price. Supernaturally could cover several bases, interpreted as both the protagonist's drive to rescue his wife, and as a lament for his failure to do so.
Spell is about the doubt slowly taking over Orpheus as he ascends the stairs out of hell - about his uncertainty regarding Hades' intentions to honour their bargain - and about the final confused moments before his climactic turn—
I call you by your name, I know not where you are.
Carry Me is the album's climax, the point at which Orpheus turns to look upon Eurydice, breaking his bargain with Hades, and condemning her to being pulled back into the underworld. The song could almost be described as a duet from one mouth, the chorus (possibly from Eurydice's point of view) asking Orpheus to either give in to his doubt or stick to his word -
Turn to me, turn to me, turn to me
Turn to me and drink of me
Or look away, look away,
look away and never more think of me
Orpheus also speaks of -
The many voices
Speaking to me from the depths below
This ancient wound
This catacomb
Beneath the whited snow
In the end, of course, he turns, and she is carried away.
O Children, the album's coda, describes the grief of Orpheus, and his death by his own hand, as well as a plea to be forgiven for his sins and to be allowed into heaven.
Peas be with ewe
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Saw Nick Cave once at the Enmore. He was amazing, like some kind of Southern Baptist Preacher I think he's a truly great lyricist. The 'dark' and 'gloomy' thing is quite a lot of marketing hype that he's been happy not to debunk. I think he's a pretty 'normal' person, just famous and smart with a drug history.
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