“Resistance”

More experiments with my various instruments. Here, using just one of my instruments, the Korg Electribe Sampler. Here a program set to 97 bpm and the chord button pressed for the key pads on the sampler. Just chord stabs, almost like the big orchetra hits of symphony orchestras. Then, a brief improvisation with the pad arpeggiator and back to the chords and a slow fade out.

The title “resistance” sounds right because of its constant pounding, relentless beat and the stabs of chords. Against the strong beat of the program we’ve tweaked a little. It does not suggest joining in any sense but simply resistance to joining today.

The word “resistance” is a good word to describe me in a general way today. It is good becuase it makes no intrinsic politial claims and stays away from political terms. It simply throws a noun out there and lets people gather around it who feel drawn to the word. The opposite word being non-resistant or compliant.

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Much like the powerful music of rock bands like Chicago produced and the reincarnation of Chicago by an incredible band of all Russian musicians called Leonid & Friends. They began playing the music of Chicago and somehow making it fresh again, much better than the real band members of Chicogo could play their original music.

I’ve been listening a lot to Leonid & Friends and lot in the past week and did a post on them on Midnight Oil. They have branched out to do other top bands like the Beatles and Earth, WInd & Fire. In a strange way, Russians are reminding the baby-boom generation better than anyone else, of their powerful musical heritage. In the face of much of the washed up and redundant music we hear today.

It seems strange that a Russian group is responsible for a revival of powerful rock from the 60s and 70s. Not just any songs. The most iconic and straight-forward rock of a period in American music. Full of “resistance” to the rock of their day and now a revival of this music by the Russians, again the status quo in today’s American music.

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Strange that a Russian group might help America remember a strong time of music in her past. Or at least the past of the baby boomer gneration. But what is not strange these days?

One must remember to distinguish between a few words. There is the noun “resistance” and adverb “resistant.” The latter is a pre-requisite for becoming a member of the resistance. An adverb is always a pre-requisite of the creation of a noun. Unless one has been resistant in their life, lived as an adverb, there is no chance of them ever understanding and truly knowing the the word and noun “resistance.” An adverb of a person who never becomes a true noun, it seems – to me – in life. In effect, a failure in life. Perhaps unfairily, I know. But still a failure in terms of one’s relationship to this word and concept through their lives.

Here, a piece of resistance embodied in a short piece of music. In so many ways, it seems to me, another embodiment of the symbol of the powerful Leonid & Friends group today. Making a generation at least feel a new and powerful interpretation of the music already so close to their psyches. Perhaps behind a new gendre of music? Perhaps a particular development of some larger structure called resistance today.

A short, spontaneous piece of mine. Might there be a musical genre dedicated to a new music of resistance. A new music of freedom. It has to possess the most powerful voices from rock history. Translating these voices into the present world. Like a group of Russians have done.

This incredible band of musicians from Russia. Great Russian musicians who have come together in Leonid & Friends. Almost a calling for them. And others, gathered around them who might qualify as experiencing that feeling of resistance in the world. There might be more than anyone imagines right now. Gathered around them.

And then, mix all of this with a drone and take a photo above the world while creating a new type of “resistance” music on the ground.

John