homemade

My Bliss Keeps A Beat

August 19, 2020 — Leave a comment

This past Saturday was like most in the Summer of 2020, this Covid Summer: hot and humid, Saturday Morning roads a buzzing with trailers and boats, nothing to do anywhere. So we have taken to long rides, good coffee and a playlist that gets created Saturday Morning.

I am always in charge of the Playlist, but serve up a helping of what makes my Girl tap her foot. Oddly more often Boy Rock like Janes, Rage, Soundgarden. She is a girl too. Despite this.

It is a team effort.

My own Saturday selection tend to run the gamut of British Glam and of course, some Goats. And a selection of what came out new that week, whatever it may be.

When you meet someone that you are supposed to meet, like in a real and lasting sense, you notice that as time goes by you tend to pick up on the musical history of your mate. Because everyone wants to hear something that makes them happy, makes them shake, even makes them sad.

It is personal. But if you spend enough time with someone, you find yourself being drawn into those same reactions.

And one of those reaction, which can not be underestimated, calculated, figured is joy.

So this past Saturday I set up my list and included some LCD Soundsystem. Julie and Carmen tuned me on to them when I still assumed that they were something I would not care for. And yes, assumed they were British.

LCD is outside of any style of music that I have taken on. Its dance music, with a real working brain…but the dance music aspect I could not wrap my mind around. It was like a buzzing all around me: a quick song caught in the kitchen, a song that popped up on Sirius….and when I would hear it, the reaction was the same: WTF Is that? (the only other band I had this same reaction too was TuneYards. Whenever something would pop up that I loved and was scared by, it was always TuneYards.)

So I downloaded the LCD Soundsystem final show, the MSG show that I would NOW kill a man to see. At the time I was unfortunately blissfully unaware.

But Julie was there. She was there and had the still pefect T Shirt to prove it. She was there.

So tripping our way through the Niantic area a song came on and she turned it up loud. Real Loud. The car shook. And the song began….

It was the live version of ‘North American Scum’ with additional assistance of Arcade Fire screaming along to the chorus. It was enthralling. Incredible. The road washed out around me as I just let go and whooped along.

It was pure joy of music too loud. It was the actual Bliss of brilliant song and brilliant band, at the tip top of their absolute magic and powers.

It shook me with how beautiful life is. How lucky I am to hear this song on this day. The genuine thrill of being genuinely scared by music.

The windows came down and Julie drove faster and faster. The world around seemed to slow. There was nothing but Julie and Me taking off for unknown galaxies in a little blue rocket.

I remembered what I should remember every day: This is what we get. Guard your bliss with more passion than you guard your money.

And turn it up. Loud.

Cabal Corner: Embrace The Void

June 11, 2020 — Leave a comment

A gracious and salutary ….ummm.. salutation to you, Cursive Cabal.

I hope this note finds you fat with money, free with love and a good meal awaiting you. With the Gods. Or your Dogs.


So today, as we slide from post apocalypse plagues to a newer (and yet far older) apocalypse, we are here to discuss voids.


Let’s call it March. 3 Months and change and everything went upside down. A world most of us never expected…and the ones who did expect are SUCH a drag to hang out with.


90 days. 2100 Hours.


Boom.


So what did you do with your void? Empty space fills the bowl that one held hilarity, kicks, communion … and we are on our own.


Did you gain weight? Knowledge? Has familiarity bred contempt? Catch any new shows?


I was getting busy when the quarantine hit. I lost Hogan and knew that if I did not get my head together quick…well, I had no idea what that result would be. After the ceremonies, Julie and I got down to it, building the beats, laying down tracks upon tracks, gittin’ all fancy. Guitars added, guitars subtracted, Julie building big brassy counterpoints and high infections of melody.


Because we can dream and we can build, it gives us control. We can spit frustration into a vocal, over-distort the guitar and then do it again, learn bass.


And when you’re done…. there is still the void.


My concept of how to make money making music was probably outdated before I picked up a guitar. The main thrust of it was ‘get out there!’ But that was never my …. desire. It all came back to the lifelong argument Dave and I would have.


He said that if you play everywhere, and are good, people will know you and you can build a following.


I said that you will burn out in the bars before you ever get heard and there has to be a better way. A better mousetrap.


The debate rages still, now more piquant as the venues are gone. As is D.H.


And everyone is experimenting with building better mousetraps game now.

Look beyond this day, this year, and know someday this will be regarded as a truly creative period for art.


A State Enforced Renaissance.


We reach out how we can. Social networking is just too convenient and too easy, which is why it is absolutely over-saturated with everyone everywhere.

It is also a true gut check for the times that you pour your heart into something and it gets overshadowed by a particularly cool cat pic

But Fuck. Life is hard all over. Especially these days. Let us not carry things without weight.

.

And if the Gods are kind and the cats are ugly, maybe you can be heard.

A bit.


So…what have Cursive is Code done with their Void?:

Songs: Follow the link to check out the available Cursive is Code songs on Soundcloud. This is 4 songs…and I think a few more will be added and this will be available for purchase. Like the songs if you like, love us if you like love (?):


https://soundcloud.com/jason-p-krug/sets/cursive-is-code

Dance: Cursive is Code is getting into the video biz. Wanna see a dancing cat marionette? Wanna see a number of innocuous girls revealing more than the author expected? See them here:


youtube.com/channel/UCy0lHa-Y95c88tHU7UO3jPQ

Seltzer In Pants: Wanna read about it? Go here:


jasonpkrug.com

Wanna send us dirty pictures of you celebrating the new Cursive is Code sexy sounds?:


cursiveiscode@gmail.com

For The Cabal …. No Peeking, Weirdo.

May 7, 2020 — Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Traveler.

I hear the weather is funny in Minsk these days? Reply?

&^#*(&%@(*^!$%^&*(^*)*()

Excellent. Welcome to The Cursive Cabal. Your passage is booked. Enjoy the refreshments.

So as April passes into May, we find the reawakening of this World. Though to be fair, we are quite busy and may miss this. Or this eternal gray may kick rocks into another year of fear and trembling.

Whatever.

I have a record to push. So do you, likely. Or child to raise, charges to face, people to kiss (from a safe distance). We all have our projects.

So today is a peek behind the curtain, beneath the sheet, under the cupboard, over the …. whatever.

Today’s subject is songs. I had a point to make before I was reduced to a blubbering mess in my last post. This is that point: Songs are special.

That’s it! Good Night Folks!

Ok…… not. When I consider what art allows us, one thing that I don’t recognize within the forms is how something someone else created becomes ours. Personal property. A line can bring you to that Big Breakup. A melody to the wedding before.

Maybe it’s the long versus short from. It could be poetry is a reasonable comparison but no one is reading poetry out loud when your cruising around on some Friday night, of your youth, of your post youth, your pre passing.

Songs are frames for the things we want to remember or need to forget. A wild rave up attached to your misspent youth, distorted electric guitars carry us into adult hood, sweet acoustics mean Sunday Morning, shitty acoustics means Friday night.

Songs operate as placeholder for emotion. They meld with the circumstances in ways we require.

I need songs…. but these songs need words as well. Every song is not Leonard Cohen, but if they were, what would we do with Rockabilly? There is genius in the dumbness of Rock and Roll words. And the beat!

Songs mean a lot to us here at Cursive is Code. Not just the act of creating music, but attempting to share our moments and maybe hit upon yours. Or maybe just create an earworm that will haunt your day. Or a lyric that seems raw and simple but holds galaxies within.

We released our first song on Soundcloud about one month ago, with new songs following every two weeks. There are three there now and a new one next week. Where?

Here: https://soundcloud.com/jason-p-krug/sets/cursive-is-code

So I figured I would take a moment and discuss what’s up there now. We will add a new one next week…and then wait till these get heard. We are very proud. And why give the milk away when the cows a slut.

Is that how that goes?

The Grand Libido: And thank you all for weighing in on that first cut. It’s our first ‘hit’.

The know the actual genesis of this song was it was a Grimm Generation song, played out live absolutely once. I also believe the title was inspired by The Danbury Lie’s The Great Jester. I was always a fan of The Lie. Always reminded me of weird metal on acoustics. The guitar harmonies make me nostalgic.

What is it about? Dirty stuff.

Julie remembered this song from Grimm and was maybe part of the movement to go electric. She wanted to see this done. And she was right. It is a barnburner.

It Could Be The Dancing: Otherwise known as ‘It Could Be The Drugs’ till I was rebuked by The Manor.

This one …. theeeees song….yeah. It is a statement. And maybe a cruel one. Maybe self-abuse. But hey. That’s Showbiz.

This song, part of the eventual collection about being a unfamous musician has a lot of clues for those who have treaded the boards, spent countless USD on mailing actuall press kits with real cassettes. This is about the grift of the music business. It takes on the City gigs in Manhattan (Bring Your Friends! Serious-fucking-ly!), the effect the tambourine has on drunks, the uninjestable sadness that we can all be replaced by a dude with a DJ Deck and my favorite bit of reality in the form of the line:

‘It is Independence Day

For the 1200 Bands who will start up tomorrow

or the 1200 bands that broke up today’

It hurts. But it is good for you. Look around.

And to boot I snuck a good verifiable Grimm Generation reference in.

Hi CC!

The Deleted History Of Us: So far the best recorded one. It is hard to believe this is mine. It is very different. This is not about someone in particular but it is about everyone, conversely. This is about the simplicity of ending the online relationship (even with real flesh and blood non catfishy type people) with that gesture, that simple click. Click. Do it. CLICK. Do it!!!!! DOOOOO ITTTT!!!!

Yes My Cursive People. Now we move along to the next challenge: how do you sell a record when the word record doesn’t mean record anymore? How do you get gigs in a pandemic? How do you cut through the din of Social Mania?

Write a Blog? Nooooooo….

Till next time my friends. Look for Cursive for Code to pop up in the weirdest places.

But not in your closet, or you may have monsters.