What does art and music tell you? Maybe about the romance and passion of the creators world? The inside. If they feel too much, and get rich, artists are considered geniuses. but if they feel too much and stay poor they are oddities, strange, or sometimes crazy. At least until they die, and then sometimes they are geniuses after all, just depends on whos buying.  I mean, piss yourself in the park, and you’ll likely be locked up. Piss yourself on stage and you’re just suffering for your art, as longs as someones there to pay for it. So what? Did you cry today because you reached a kid in class today and you made a difference? Did you wait in agony for days to hear something, anything, at all from that guy or girl? Did you invent, or do something to help someone because you couldn’t stop thinking about them? Did you give a hug and really really mean it? Did you feel something today? Really really feel something? I hope so, because thats your art.  Don’t tuck it away.

Fingerbanger 1: Donovan – Season Of The Witch (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Fingerbanger 2: King Charles – Love Lust (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

The heart of this comes in at 2:12. If you stop listening before then… you’re going to miss out of the guts. A band worth checking out if you ever get the opportunity.

Fingerbanger 3: Dear And The Headlights – I Know (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Too much shit has already been written about The Brian Jonestown Massacre for me to give a shit if you know their history. I’m not some journalist trying to glean a bit of fantastical edge for my own cool,and I’ve avoided posting them so far, partly because of … well, yeah. But since fingerbangers are all about what I’ve been listening to this week, and this is what I’ve been listening to lately, I have two things to say about them that I think are important interesting; hence two tracks (how did I pick just two? I didn’t. I had Fuzzy pick them for me… he took a break from watching Horton Hears A Who and building a printing press ( analog?) whatever)

1. The BJM catalog is (depending how you count it) at least 11 albums deep. 7 of those albums coming within the first 5 years of the bands “togetherness” with a total of 97 songs. Due primarily to the writing/arranging/producing force behind the band Anton Newcombe. Not many bands have done that. Whats more, not many bands have done that while independent of a record contract. I mean, the Beatles put out 13 albums in 7 years, but they had the money and team of studio musicians (Pretty Purdey included) with the most up to date recording studios & technology to accomplish that push. TBJM had… um…lots of drugs. The Beatles had lots of drugs too I guess.  Actually, almost every prolific band seems to have been keen on drugs. weird. Note to aspiring musicians: um…nevermind.

2. Why don’t more bands make more songs? Is it because they don’t have them in them? Or is it the money? It’s always the money people. Yeah, some bands get big and still write, but those are the bands that would be doing it even when flat out. They aren’t really in it to get a signed and blow up. They are in it because they don’t care to be doing anything else. Too many “musicians” see music as a way to make a living. And they have been sold this idea by the record companies that have controlled the music that we hear. What musicians should do is go down to their nearest art school and ask the fine art majors how many of them think they’re going to get rich and famous by painting or whatever, because they’re going to get a bunch of blank looks from kids going… ” I’m probably not going to make much money from my art, but this is what I love to do and so I’ve taken the poverty oath.” Heres the point: Musicians are (or should be) artists. money ruins art (for the most part). Part of me hopes that in the future, musicians have to take the poverty oath too… and then we can shake out the fakers. I’m not saying musicians shouldn’t make a living, but between it all should be the line of reality. Everyone I know is an artist. So what?

So really this is about music as art. Not music as business. I think Anton views music as his art, so incredibly intrinsic to his life that no amount of suffering for it is enough. Its that passion that shows us the depth of a persons love for something. And it’s all about love.

Fingerbanger 4: The Brian Jonestown Massacre – (David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Fingerbanger 5: The Brian Jonestown Massacre – It Girl (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.