I just learned that an old friend, an amazing young guy who had a lust for life and a rapacious love for music, died a few days ago, brutally. I haven’t seen him in years and never got to know him better, but it’s quite a shock. He was such a wonderful soul, I can’t imagine what those who were closest to him are feeling now. Fuck death, and fuck the bony fingers he uses to take away the shining, glorious people among us, who cast such a love light on the rest of us in our dour ways.
I don’t know what Stubby would want played at his funeral, but for my own solace, for some reason I’m feeling that he’d like this tune. It’s mournful but also transcendant.
I really feel that the spirits of the departed live on when people get together and make merry and dance to music. I’m pretty much an atheist, but I don’t think that our feelings of connection with the dead are just a bunch of phantom limbs tickling the nerve endings of our lost love. There are glimmers of their personalities, and perhaps even a connection to the celestial, in art and in music especially. And I think that the reason I love ambient noise music is that somewhere in the hiss and hum of amps being plugged in or feeding back, of loose wiring humming, of John Cale’s viola shreeking, there is a strong connection to that other world. Anyway, I’m feeling that connection in Clara Rockmore’s theremin playing tonight.
Nice post, very reverent to your departed acquaintance. I’m sorry to hear about his brutal passing. I am inclined to agree with you about the transcendent quality of drone music. It’s no coincidence that Sufism incorporates dance (whirling dervishes) and drone into religious rites. Ever heard Spacemen 3’s album Dreamweapon? I believe it’s an adaptation of a La Monte Young Dream Syndicate piece. One side of the album plays from the center outward.