Dancing About Architecture

THAT will be the title of the book I write about music, when eventually I write a book about music, which I am convinced I will, against all available evidence. But this entry is, at least, partly, for August, who turned me on to Money Mark, whose real, full name, apparently, is Mark Ramos-Nishita. This guy gets more intriguing as time goes on.

So far, what I like about Nishita's stuff is that it is architectural. It's built. It's solid. Probably part of why August is "bored" with it: it's maybe a little too "built." Everything is resting on the foundation. Welcome, Wal-Mart shoppers.

But I hear something a little more than that here: something kind of serpentine, wiggly. Liberated. Libertine. Like a master sergeant on leave, he knows exactly how many beers require a cheeseburger. (I do too know what I mean by that. You don't have to believe me.)

Part of why August doesn't dig the thing in toto is likely because none of it, aside from track 2, was co-written by Jack Johnson (no doubt how she came across the stuff to begin with). Admittedly, it is the peppiest and most positive number on the disc. The rest of the stuff could easily be described as Meatball. Which is more than fine. Nothing better than a good meatball, right? (Besides, the secret here is in the sauce, all on top of some fine Jim Keltner pasta percussion.)

Besides all that, I am forgiving the admittedly mopey mood of the vast majority of the cuts on the disc (six of eleven, Borg-ly enough) on the basis of anticipating the rapture of listening to the previously released change is coming, which has been delivered, and the original solo work Mark's Keyboard Repair, which is pending, and -- fingers twisted tightly-- could even arrive today. (Of course, I had to purchase that disc from an outsourced Amazonian, one of the legion of companies that help keep up the illusion that Amazon can procure anything anytime anywhere, one of whom has dissapointed in the past, so who the hell knows.) But oh, rapture!!! The unbridled cheesiness of it! The pure, keyboard funk!!! The sheer electronica of it!!! This, dear readers, this, THIS! (change is coming), is not just meatball. This, my friends, is a genuine, New York style meatball sub. Dee-lish.

And now, if you will, pardon, dear readers, you humble host, who is in dire need of ice water.

See, here's the thing: you can dance about architecture. I think you should. When appropriate, when you feel like it. Every now and then, when you come across a really cool building, maybe an old Victorian house with turrets, or a post-and-pillar apartment building that seems like it was built on air, or even one of those old limestone govenment buildings that seem to insist that, sometime in the past, we were all Americans, there is nothing wrong with busting a move, laying down a little boogie, or even wiping it on the wall. No one else has to understand it. The worst they will do it shake their heads in sad mystery. It is not an arrestable offense, in any city in the world I know of, to shake a leg if you think you see angels in the architecture.

So it is no more a crime for me to write about music. If I want to. If I feel like it, I can. Right? Even if I do not provide samples, or MP3's, or links, or whatever. Right? Sure. At best, it might encourage others to go explore, check out Mr. Ramos-Nishita's very cool stuff. At worst it could confuse them. If nothing else, it has made me feel better, and, along with a very strong mug of coffee, an oversized quiche baked inside a croissant shell, and the aforementioned ice water, done a great deal to sooth my vodka-and-stout induced hangover, in itself a commodity of inestimable worth. (The soothing? The hangover? Take your pick.) On the other hand, in the words of the inimitable William H. Joel, Jr, you can't get the sound from a story in a magazine, much less from this dumbass blogger.