My iPod just spit out a wonderful juxtaposition: “He is a Tejano” by the Texas Tornados followed by “Illumination” by Gogol Bordello. These are both excellent songs from excellent bands from excellent albums, both of which are wonderful examples of fusions of musical styles and ideas that are in some sense totally different (tejano rock and gypsy punk) but have so much in common when heard together.
Yeah, I hear your show is great
back there in the States
back on your rancho in San Antonio.
This is the kind of stuff that, as a rule, gets little or no airplay in the traditional venues (e.g., “Drive-time radio”), yet these kinds of combinations bring so much richness and life to music. Happily, one of the potentials (at least) of the mighty Intarweb (tubes and all) is that we have access to such a wonderfully broad range of music.
But we who see our destiny
in sound of this same old punk song
let rest originality
for sake of passing it around.Illuminati!
Realization number one.
You are the only light there is
for yourself my friend.
This access is by no means guaranteed, however, and have to continue to fight for it. I’d highly recommend, for example, the writings of Lawrence Lessig (check out his book Free culture, which is freely available on-line, or for sale as a printed book).
P.S. As I was typing this up, the iPod also tossed up a wonderful bit of old cajun music, “Tu pen pas ma retter de revere” by the Thibodeaux Boys from the excellent Cajun capers collection which I got for christmas. I could have included them in this just as well, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
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