Does Canada Make More Than Labatt's and Hockey Sticks? The Answer is...Matthew Barber.

"Somebody Sometime" - Ghost Notes (2009) by Matthew Barber

"dixie" 8.5" x 11" .. mixed media .. 2004 by Sanithna Phansavanh

It is rare in music or even life, which if I digress into that tangent we might as well get in one of those lil water golf carts James Cameron used to futz around with in his self-indulgent search for the Titantic. The search for what the meaning of in life would be an equally a never-ending depth of indulgence that I won't take you unless I have you Gitmo and those are my orders.

But seriously all joking aside, songs like the one above (available through my 4Shared account) are what I believe rare to find. "Somebody Sometime" by Matthew Barber, a talented Canadian artist who is brand new to the US scene minus a few past appearances and having just released in the US (it's been out for almost a year in Canada) Ghost Notes (2009) on April 14, 2009, did to my senses for a few days what is rare to rare and what I am always in search of when looking for new music. I believe that when songs "get you", get into your head, they can come hell or high water - asphyxiate you and force you subconsciously into to playing them over and over again just so that you can breathe (metaphorically speaking of course, I’m no David Blaine so I can’t hold the air that long).

You know what I'm talking about though, with the music and those types songs, wrapped around your neurons and synapses and all that jumble up there, you have to hear it 24/7, to get it out of your system. Really anyone who has listened to music, knows. I have a niece who when she was merely 2 lived by the motto The Wizard of Oz or no "figgy pudding for you!" And she meant it! You didn't put on the Wizard of Oz for her and you were cut off, personal vendetta, jihad style!

We all have songs like that and sometimes they pass quickly and sometimes never at all. I think (not to be too Freudian) it's a primal thing that certain music can arm bar your a** and you still cannot fill the urge with or without "crying uncle".

When I was 12, I got three tape cassettes for my birthday from an Aunt that had always sent me books, but I guess was trying to be hip, God-bless her for that. They were Down With The King by Run DMC, Joshua Tree by U2, Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys and the Joshua Tree got me. I listened to it so much it warped and played fuzzy and deep tones, off-beat, but I kept listening. U2's Joshua Tree was the first to that to me, especially the first 3 songs (1. Where the Streets Have No Name 2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For 3. With or Without You)

















I am not going to say the entire brand new album by Matthew Barber album Ghost Notes will do all of what I just talked about to you, but it might, in parts or in full, whatever the case may be, I have a feeling you will come away just as me and my friend did with the feeling "I like this."

I could go by the Press Kit stuff or other reviews off the net and write you a rhapsodically versed review of this album, but I'd rather go with gut instinct on this one and if my ears are tone deaf so be it. Something tells me the masses are going to like this album and that you my readers are going to like it too. It is not complex in its presentation, but it is deep in the words and effective at drawing you in from the first listen. That more than anything struck me as different. I was sitting with a friend and I told her I got this album recorded by a guy who is Canadian and I read her the press release and we put it on and just sat back. I told her I had an interview with 'this guy' and so I didn't know what to expect any more than she did. She said it was good, and then about 20 minutes into it she said it was really good and by the end she had moved closer to me, hand touching mine and asked for a copy. Thanks Matt ;p.

The album is basically poetry, the haibun - 俳文, much the way Bob Dylan writes so rhapsodical in his book Chronicles, Vol. 1 or if you ever hear Jack Kerouac read, it is all so similar - take a look:

"Easily Bruised"
Lend me an ear I'll tell you a story
'Bout a man who didn't know how to be
Joined a travellin' circus from PEI to BC
I was playing dead every morning
I was taking dives every night
Someone came and swept me off my feet in midflight
Now without a love I really got nothing
Without a love I'd hang up my shoes
It'd be a world of suffering
If this one I was ever to lose...

"michael" 8.5" x 11" - colored pencils - 2004 by Sanithna Phansavanh

So when I got the chance to ask Matthew Barber himself says about "Easily Bruised" he explained the following, "The first verse is about being kinda wayward and not feeling so good about things in the state of one's life and finding someone that gives you hope. So it is a love song kind of sense in that sense. I also wanted it not to be a straight up love song, but wanted it to respect the fact that relationships are always treading a thin live and even when things are going well we have those weird urges and destructive urges that can pop-up now and again and we have to be weary of them and how delicate love can be. The balance can get shift easily and of the notion of how you constantly have to make them work to keep it at an even keel and make it work."

And then the conversation switched gears to that notion I have of how can genre "art" or "music", and my personal disdain, I think I used for it and Matthew responded that, "I have always loved the Beatles. Probably my favorite album is White Album, how can you say they are one genre? They are all over the place, but the point is it is all the same band and the same people so why can't they just be the Beatles? I think back then you could be, but now a days some of those songs would be considered blues rock, some would be considered singer song writer, some would be considered alt-country, some would be considered jazz, what is that?"

I totally agree Matthew, what is that and why can the Beatles, be the Beatles, the Clash be the Clash and even Mathtew Barber be Matthew Barber, so maybe that is why I didn't give too much a heavy look at the press out there when I was fortunate enough (and Matthew thank you) to be able to find out who this producer of wonderful ballads, music that works, and I don't need to be deep or smart to understand that or enjoy, I just have to know that when I put in Ghost Notes I like what I hear.

We go on to discuss his influences, everything from George Jones, to Pavement to Bruce Springsteen he likes music not to impress anyone and you feel that in listening to his songs. They aren't to impress labels, or girls or boys or critics. It is just like we say in Georgia, specifically Athens, where Matthew Barber will be at the Farm on the 15th of May this Friday, and at the University of Georgia or anyone passionate about the school's football, 'Damn good Dawg!', why can't we say 'Damn good music!' and put any labeling or encasing of what genre he is or isn't and just appreciate the music?

Matthew Barber's Upcoming Schedule is as follows:

May, 12 2009 11:00 PM - The Living Room
154 Ludlow St., New York, New York -

Solo set. 11 pm sharp. PWYC.
May, 13 2009 08:00 PM - Union Hall
702 Union St., Brooklyn, New York -

Solo set, supporting Jill Sobule.
May, 14 2009 09:00 PM - The Milltown
307 E. Main St., Carrboro, North Carolina -

Solo set.
May, 15 2009 08:00 PM - Farm 255
255 W. Washington St. www.farm255.com, Athens, Georgia -

Solo set.
May, 16 2009 05:00 PM - Criminal Records - In Store
1154 A Euclid Ave NE, Atlanta, Georgia - Free Solo in-store performance

I really hope that you get to make it if you are in NC, Athens or Atlanta, because this is one of those rare treats that does not come around all the time. So as this is the first of what I expect will be many US tours and when he is big and famous and known from coast to coast you can tell your friends while discussing music sipping a Clos Du Bois cabernet, when people usually start with their Big Fish tales over good wine and good tunes and quietly say, "I was there."

Indeed, you won't have to explain it in terms of 'genre' or "sounds like X +Y with a little of Z", just give them your copy of the album and say, "Now press play".

The rest will take care of itself. It has with me.















"You and Me" - Ghost Notes (2009) by Matthew Barber

"great expectations" 10" x 12" mixed media 2004 (c) Sanithna Phansavanh

"SPLINTS"

Haibun -Japanese: 俳文 haikai writings - is a literary composition that combines prose and haiku. The range of haibun is broad and includes, but is not limited to, the following forms of prose: autobiography, biography, diary, essay, historiography, prose poem, short story and travel.

The haibun may record a scene, or a special moment, in a highly descriptive and objective manner or, on the other hand, it may occupy a wholly fictional or dream-like space. The accompanying haiku may have a direct or subtle relationship with the prose and encompass or hint at the gist of what is recorded in the prose sections.

Typically, the haibuneer takes care not to state matters directly, but rather to paint a sketch, to employ allusions and metaphor, and to craft his writing with purposeful ambiguity in order to allow readers full use of their imaginations and participation in the written experience. Present tense, brevity in prose, objective detachment and implication are common characteristics of modern haibun in English but no characteristic is an inviolable rule.

I can't say what is written below is 'haibun' per se; (see Haibun expert and his peers Jeffery Wood's blog http://haibuntoday.blogspot.com/ for a more official look at the difference), but it is a good reference point for what is being done and has been for many years in many forms around the world. What you will see below is what I prefer to call 'snapshots', think of what a Polaroid photo would like with only words and since they no longer make Poloroids (though they do have an application for them on IPhones) this is clearly the best I can do. Be on the look out for more 'snapshots', music reviews, SL reviews and anything relevant to the Brass Hat tao or sense of that in a more integrated way.

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We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art." – Henry James

She breaks things. It happens. Does it matter if she cared or if she didn’t? Does it matter it matter if they can never be fixed? These rhetorical questions are just another bunch of whatevers that the great writers love to lament upon.

So as Asta moved from foyer into the main room the scent of perfume followed. It smelled fresh and reminded him strangely enough of their trip to Leap Castle located in north in County Offaly, Ireland. It was a tour they both went on during their vacation of Ireland or Éire as is called by the locals.

He remembered that scent and for some reason, and oddly on this night that that memory was sparked by her passing smell. It reminded him of the fun they had together on that day, during the tour given by a rather old docent whose passions and knowledge such of this supposedly haunted castle that even the scent was explained in great rhapsodically spoken detail where the mention of ghost orchid petals and tulips were at one point a mainstay throughout the castle. When the docent spoke of the lore of Leap Castle she made sure to point out that these were no ordinary tulip, but rather they were 'Asta Nielsen' tulips. Asher remembered this explanation and wonderful giggle and snort that Asta let out, emblematically whimsy that she sometimes made when overwhelmed with a joy, of all kinds of varieties that could strike at any moment.

For Asher it was those kinds of rarefied idiosyncrasies that made him fall in love with her during those uncorrupted incipient days. It was the memory of those kinds of days and that girl, who that most likely kept him around. Why she stayed, at this point of their relationship, was as lucid to his sensibilities as those "spooks" that supposedly frolicked among the orchids and tulips in that old Irish Castle. Sometimes finding reasons, does not find solutions to the problems that were, are and might forever be.

He was seated, muzzled and in his head, as she walked, tall and fast, past his feet, the bourbon glass that sat brown and sad on his maple side table. He quickly reached down for the swill as she passed, disdain or happiness he couldn’t tell, as the ice fresh from the box rattled like a baby’s toy in the crystal cut container.

“Drink up,” he thought quietly to himself, because this might be another long one.

Things around the house had not been the same since the miscarriage even though three years had since past.

The mention of babies or even the mere sight of them on some random television commercial could set-off the silence to which he was now accustomed, thanks in part to his good friend James Beam. There was hollowness in the air that made Tom feel uneasy as it mixed with the scent of dry bourbon and potpourri perfume. He drank yet again to drown the other to sleep, but to no avail. She moved back across the room appearing to be weeping as she walked. He didn’t look her straight in the eyes; because the sound was suffice to bleed whatever warm blood might be left. At least nothing broke tonight, at least not yet…

He lit a candle for no particular reason that he could readily think of other than he wanted to see some fire. The room was already well unmistakable, particularly so with two table lamps, a tall black halogen one by a dying fichus plant in the room’s far corner and the additional light that bled through the kitchen hallway to where he was seated. The candle was scentless and flickered light, as if wanting to go out if gusts or gods deemed it so.

She used to like many candles blazed, beaming not in the Jim way that soothed Asher, but the big bright ones, reds and blues whose aromas evoked memories forgotten from childhood and days spent doing nothing, but sitting quiet and comfortable together. Communication is overrated, especially when you’re comfortable.

As he sat there waiting, waiting for the time to pass, waiting to feel comfortable, waiting for nothing he felt nothing and that in itself was sad. Sadness like the candles that used to burn had faded with fire and smoke, blown away from the breath of one to another. Just a metaphor, but enough for him to see sad and well lit.

What becomes of our greatest mistakes? Do they get enshrined with accomplishments, in halls marked for greatness by men and women long since gone whose deeds are now but stories? For most, himself included, he was one of the fortunate ones who get to bear their own crosses in well lit rooms where the lighting can always be changed. He smiled for a second, not needed a scent to remember and then looked down at the dying candle and blew softly, enough to make end the light, enough for now…

When Asta came home there was a wrong, slightly jarring note: Asher on the back terrace, in the dusk; alone, just sitting there, with a glass of something.

"Honey? What's wrong?" She asked.

"Just waiting for you." He replied so quietly, so tacitly, but ever so caring.

"Ok dear," she nodded with a slight wince and a crumpled note in her hand and made her way back inside the house.

She loved him more than he could ever know; he loved her more than he could ever show.

…Time had passed, and time continued to pass, like random items in a drawer their days, weeks, months, and years casually tumbled together in the entrancement of adult life; and this was a peaceful confusion, like a succession of vivid and startling dreams that, after you've awakened, you will be unable to recall except as emotions. The dreams were good, but it's good to be awake.

Asta sat on the white wrought-iron bench beside Asher. They'd had this heavy thing, now weather-worn and chipped after its most recent repainting, forever.

"Everyone is away, I think. It's like Chateau Elan here."

"Chateau Elan?" Asher looked at her, quickly.

"You know. Mom's and Dad's old place."

"Do they still own it?"

"I guess so. I don't know," Asta laughed and leaned against him. "I'd be fearful of asking."

She took Asher's glass from his fingers and sipped from it.

"Alone here. Us alone. I'll drink to that,” she said looking directly into his eyes.

There were no awkward moment this time, looking the syncopic way of those primary days, when the passions were more than mere phantasms that used to riddle her mind. These were the rivets, the days, the times, similar to the way he was endeared by her giggle that wound up making her love him. Those days at Chateau Elan were more than a series of ignes fatui. Sometimes there has to be more than a spark to start a fire, but for now, for right now this moment was real and it was theirs. And that was enough for all of it.

To Asher's surprise, she kissed him on the lips. The first she'd kissed him, like that, girlish and bold, full on the lips, in a long time.

Indeed.

~ fin ~

"Wine Glasses"

~Pomp and Circumstance~

WGA (c) 2003 - RJF

Revised 3.22.2009