I’m happy to announce that the guest for Live Talks No. 1 will be Matt Shaw of The Spend. This first talk and performance will happen Friday, September 17 at the Hideout in Chicago. It will begin at 6:30pm and have a $5 cover. The Hideout is located at 1354 West Wabansia. Hope to see you there. Thanks for reading. Brian
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Dax Riggs has spent a lifetime carving his deep and distinct path in the musical landscape. It began most notably near New Orleans in 1991, with the morbidly melodic and miles-ahead-of its-time metal of Acid Bath. Riggs went on to become the mad genius behind the swampy rock of Agents of Oblivion and Deadboy & the Elephantmen. And he’s currently spinning a sonorous web under his own name. The unending stream of sound he’s left trailing behind has flowed through everything from folk to blues to punk—to the soulful and spiritual crevices of everything else. It is an indescribable mix, and it flows only from Dax Riggs.
On August 3, 2010 Riggs’ new album, Say Goodnight to the World was released through Fat Possum Records. It sat quietly completed in May, as Riggs and his band set up shop in clubs all over Texas. I traveled to Austin and Dallas to take in a couple of these shows. And ultimately, to sit and talk with Riggs in a pitch black corner of The Cavern—as he prepared to unleash what may be his most enlightened burst of sound yet, into the world.
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Where there are people, there is music. It makes us feel the things we need to when we don’t already. It enhances them when we do. It carries us backward and pushes us forward. It can be found in every known culture and has been performed in public since the time of antiquity. It should come as no surprise to find it being performed just a few steps beneath the ground. After all, there are fantastic acoustics and 24-hour audiences to be found in the tunnels below.
The tunnel musicians of Chicago can be heard amid the roar of trains. Depending who you ask, there are only four performance-permitted stops: Jackson and Lake on the Red Line, and Jackson and Washington on the Blue. Some will tell you about these four. Some will tell you there are only three. I’ll tell you what time already has: where there are people, there is music.
I recently spent three nights walking through the tunnels for a closer listen. These are the sounds, and the people I heard.
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Posted in Essays on August 10, 2010 |
Now that I’m dead, I want to tell you a few things.
If I were still alive I would begin by telling you what day and time it was. I would tell you where I was and what I was doing while writing this. That’s how I used to like to start. But I am no longer afforded the freedoms of time, choice and action.
These are the things I’d like to talk to you about.
If you are still alive there is still time. It does not start tomorrow or the beginning of next week. It does not start at 9am or 5pm. It starts the second you come kicking and screaming into this world and it does not let up until it lets go. It begs you to do the same. When you fall to the side you are dead. No amount of breathing or breeding will change that.
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