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The Transmigration of Blind
Joe Death
Brian Berger

This is about and around, of and sometimes by sound, vibrations, noise.
(Some dare call it music.) Which is considered a bad thing to write about only
by those can't hear past the surface of something or things that they don't even recognize to begin with, what it (this/that record, bird song, guitar or banjo in lap) in fact (or at least thought of in the moment) is. Might be, at least, in the moment, if not necessarily upon further reflection.

Which doesn't mean that we (excuse the cat hair) can't dig it. Jump and
down and whoop it up and take off your clothes (stockings last, please, tho' it's more than okay if you want to leave 'em on), have another beer, two, get in the
car and gone. Like I wouldn't be here and neither would you if it didn't mean, it didn't feel more, more and more. But more what?

...

I am not, and never was, primarily interested in, you know, the rest of it
(except for the stockings). But the playing (whether it's lute, harp and psaltery accompanying late 11th and 12th century songs of the trouveres or the
terror in certain pages of Alexander Scriabin's piano sonatas), that's what drives us onwards and back, with all odd stumbles and circlings along the way. (That's what drives us nuts.) Which is to say that it's fun too and while I don't believe in mere entertainment, it can be engaging to see and hear, touch if possible (fragments of a your own untrue cross) and compare what was contemporaneous with what is out-of-timeless: that which y'all diggeth the most remains (the rest
is dross).

From before (Fall 1988) and during my time in Austin (1992-1997), that
would have been a band called the Texas Instruments. I imagine many of those reading this might ask "who?" Well, more about that some other time but it's some kind of indictment that, even within parameters enjoyed and even indulged by both the local and media and a far part of the audience of people for whom "rock" (or "roots" or "singer/songwriter" or whatever) music is a foregrounded part of their lives did not- hell, probably even could not- recognize TI as the
one of the very few groups ever touched by what you gotta say was both talent and sustained inspiration. You'd certainly hope that this was the case, given that they covered the Minutemen and Dylan on their first wholly superior 12n effort, Sun Tunnels (Rabid Cat Ip, 1988); the funny thing was that David Woody's own songs were at least as good and that, for three more albums (Crammed Into Infinity; 1991; magnetic Home, 1993; Speed of Sound, 1994; the last two being perfect) over the next six years, they only got better.

28 Geek Weekly #9

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