Comments on: Chain and Shadow

Chain and Shadow

flapjax at midnite — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:20:47 -0800

This song is a direct result of a Flickr comment. I took a photograph, titled Chain and Shadow, and posted it to Flickr in March. A contact there, who knows my music, commented: "chain & shadow" is sweet. get out your strumstick and write a song.... And I thought, yeah, he's right, there's a song there for sure. I wrote one, and recorded it yesterday. I also discovered that "chain and shadow" (or some close variant) is a popular photographic theme indeed at Flickr. Hope y'all enjoy the tune. And/or the photograph(s).

Chain and Shadow i heard a chain i saw a shadow i felt a bone cold wind slice across the meadow i looked above i saw the moon it was being blown away grain by grain just like a sand dune ...chain, chain and shadow... beneath my feet the vines uncurled i saw the sky peel back from the curve of the world my blood was frozen the moon was gone it was the darkest hour and no sign of the dawn ...chain, chain and shadow... well the sun did rise again ah but something's changed this little corner of the universe has been rearranged but if you listen closely from across the meadow you can still hear that chain and see that shadow ...chain, chain and shadow... copyright P & C Samm Bennett / Directional Music - All Rights Reserved

By: iamkimiam

iamkimiam — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:24:11 -0800

Loved it immediately.

By: ichthuz

ichthuz — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:50:07 -0800

you're in japan?

i lived in tokyo for 15 years til last summer

By: Foci for Analysis

Foci for Analysis — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:54:05 -0800

but if you listen closely
But I am, I am!

I'm proud to call you my spouse, flapjax ;)

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:55:02 -0800

Thanks, y'all. Foci, honey, love you too. And yup, ichthuz, I live in Tokyo. Going on 14 years now. You should've come to some meetups!

By: snsranch

snsranch — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:31:13 -0800

You're ROCKIN' that strum stick and your vocals and lyrics are sweet as always.

You should include a "strum stick" tag for folks who aren't familiar with your music yet. That thang is pretty awesome.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:33:28 -0800

Tag added, sns, and thanks!

By: MajorDundee

MajorDundee — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:23:15 -0800

Your vocal is, as ever, superb (you bastard!). I thought though that you maybe got a bit locked into a kind of drone, and perhaps the track could modulate a bit more than it does? Maybe if you dropped down a tone or two for the hook it would hit home more. I minor quibble and intended as constructive.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:36:18 -0800

Thanks for your comment, Major.

I thought though that you maybe got a bit locked into a kind of drone...

But I like being locked up! Tie me to the bed and drone me, baby!

Seriously, though, yours is a critique I've heard before. And I can certainly understand that people often expect a lot more harmonic variation in their pop songs, more than they get from mine. Thing is, though, my model (so to speak) is not pop songs per se. I see most of my song work as having much more of a connection to pre-war blues, modal mountain music (Kentucky, Tennessee - the Appalachian region), relatively obscure American folk styles like Mississippi fife and drum, and primitive Americana DIYers like Eddie "One String" Jones and others. Archaic American music that more often than not doesn't feature the kind of harmonic shifts and *hooks* that are a defining feature of popular song from Tin Pan Alley to the Beatles and beyond. I'm the Alabama grandson of Roscoe Holcomb and Vera Ward Hall, Skip James and Almeda Riddle.

Additionally, my music has a strong connection (aesthetically) to certain non-American folk musics that do not feature harmonic 'development' or chord changes at all. African music, in its many forms, has been an enormous influence on me. Much of my very favorite music (from Africa, Asia, Indonesia, etc.) has little to no harmonic movement of the kind normally associated with western music, but rather stays 'in one place', so to speak. The interest for me, in much of that kind of music, is in the sonic texture, the sound personality of the piece, and of course the rhythmic feel and interaction of melodic and rhythmic elements. I've been listening steadily, in fact, to music like that for the past 30-plus years, so harmonic motion as found in most Western music is not something I necessarily need or listen out for at all.

So that's pretty much where I'm coming from. I know most people don't really share my frame of reference in this regard, and I don't expect that my songs will ever find a wide audience, especially. I'm aware that they don't deliver some of the goods that many listeners expect. But I hope they can be appreciated on their own terms, and I think they will perhaps be better understood and appreciated when one approaches them with some of the folk artists and international folk styles I've mentioned above as their primary frame of reference, as opposed to, say, Burt Bacharach or Cole Porter or Paul McCartney.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:15:47 -0800

OK, this may sound a little weird, but I almost immediately heard this as the theme song to a TV series called Chain and Shadow. It's about a white moonshiner (James Chain) and his escaped slave partner/friend who is simply known as Shadow. The series revolves around their escapades dodging bumbling tax collectors, foiling evil slave catchers, and seducing innocent farmer's daughters. Starring maybe Ian McShane or William Sanderson as James Chain and Mos Def as Shadow.

So, it's an evocative song, I'm saying. Thanks.

By: snsranch

snsranch — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:57:00 -0800

flapjax, that's almost exactly what I was asking for in a previous post of your. Gracias, and it's favorited for posterity.

By: eritain

eritain — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:31:01 -0800

I continue to be blown away. This is totally consummate artistry.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:15:34 -0800

Thank you so much, eritrain, I'm most gratified.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:23:09 -0800

Just posted a live version of this to YouTube, hot off the presses, from a gig just last night here in Tokyo.