Os Lacraus Encaram: O São Jorge
Voz do Deserto: Miguel e Helena
Vejo no Miguel aquela mistura complicada de rebeldia e submissão que faz parte da história de qualquer verdadeiro adorador (as personagens bíblicas com mais intimidade com Deus previamente lutaram com Ele).
ENG - Around this time last year I was in Chicago, and these outdoors had just been put up.
The Beatles music finally made its way onto iTunes.
I took this picture while we were driving through the city running some errands, and I would have never guessed in a million years Steve Jobs would be out of the picture, and that I would not only be able to be in the same physical space where these gentleman made some of my favorite music, let alone be in the same premisses as one of them at the same time, “Sir Paul”, who just happens to be my favorite Beatle.
When I got to be in London early this year, all attentions were on George Harisson, and his face was everywhere on the streets, he also happens to be my 2nd favorite Beatle.
God spoils me…
ENG - So here’s part #2 of my the time in Abbey Road.
In this episode, we’re guided on a tour through Studio #3.
“Coffee with Jesus”
PT - Já foi à algum tempo que abandonei a ideia de Jesus Cristo como apenas o “supremo melhor amigo” que “está sempre lá, e sempre compreende”, etc, etc…
Ele será todas essas coisas, mas muito mais!
E essa ideia redutora, agora chega a ser insultuosa por vezes.
Em todo o caso, estou apaixonado por esta série, ainda que com contornos de doutrina católica, em algumas mangas, é deliciosa, e no fundo pinta um quadro bem mais próximo do que Jesus poderá ser.
Calha bem, hoje é domingo de Páscoa.
ENG: A couple of months ago I was with these boys in London’s Abbey Road Studios, to record the making of their 3rd major length studio effort, equipped with a small camera and my shaky hands.
It was quite the experience.
So here are the boys in their own words…portuguese words that is.
All of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men…
ENG: To (some of) my fellow creative pears, and I do mean my pears:
It was never about the gear, never about the medium…be it Canon cameras, be it Guitars, Amps, Microphones, gear in general. It’s not about your Mac, or your thousand dollar lens, and whatever gadgety thing or trend is “hip” right now.
It was (and is) always about putting your heart into what you do, and have everyone else’s heart (not just yourself) resonate with that. “Love it or hate it!”
It’s about communication, the rhythm of things and IN things, that pulses within us all.
It’s about cracking the hidden code, that make particles move so fast that they create energy, energy that is seen and felt. It’s not about the coating, the top finish in things, it’s about the visceral inner gears at work. It’s about the hours, days, weeks, years of back breaking work, of questioning everything about you and what you do, until somehow, down the line, one day it simply “is” there… And your own personality, somehow overflows into what it is that you do. And your mistakes seem now like a road, a road that took you some where.
No one can see this slow progress, but it is what makes all the difference.
And just because one can recognize some of the top layers of things such as the beauty, the uniqueness, the distinctive factor, or that you can react to the “something” that makes your heart tingle like a sympathetic string, and to a certain degree recreate it…chances are, you’re just “re-creating”…
You’re treading water, when there is an ocean to sink into, right beneath your feet. Chances are you will take something as delicate as a hair thin detail, and make it “Bold”, exaggerate it, emphasize it, because you are missing the simple yet elusive “code”, that makes something as simples as a water particle, be the most vital thing in our planet.
And no, If others “don’t get it”, that doesn’t make you an “artist”! It makes you someone who isn’t very good at communicating via dialogue. Maybe you’re a good listener, but not necessarily a good speaker. Then listen some more, till you develop some kind of dialect, your dialect. Take things from other sure, but own them, add to them, mix them up, digest them, and when it’s just too much to hold in, spit ‘em out!
The “Good book” says that faith comes through “listening, listening and listening”.
It couldn’t be more on the money, and this applies to so many other things, the things that matter.
For some reason, while one speaks, it makes it a bit hard to listen! And we all have so much to say don’t we?
I was fortunate to have good teachers, great teachers in fact. That pushed me continuously beyond what I thought were my limits in all areas, that made sure all my weaknesses all my fears where out in the open. They made me face them. The more I tried to hide something, the more evident it was, and the more they would pursue it, get it out in the open, and made it so that they would become my strengths.
This whole “rant” is nothing more than a cry out… a cry out for some excellence in things, some hard work, and some honesty to ourselves as artists and as people!
I see lot’s of people putting so much work and sacrifice into things that are simply average…not even interesting… And it seems like a big waste of time, resources, hopes and expectations. Be it Music, Design, Film, you name it.
Some people are lucky enough, that they just naturally see these things, or maybe they are just plain honest about what they do, and that…I can resonate with that!
With all this, i don’t claim to have all these this things down.
I’m just a guy, that tries to make the best possible things, with the very minimum conditions…
My favorite Guitar costed me 300 and so euros, so did my Amp, my Drum-kit is as cheap as they come, and yet i did one of my best records on it (and no, not only i think that, but a bunch of people and the media), and I perform with it, in relatively big gigs!!
I have the cheapest DSLR camera and the cheapest lenses, but I must say, i’m pretty happy with what i’ve done with all of these. They might not be “standard” perfect (i’m learning still), but they say something…”love it, or hate it”.
So yes, “All the king’s Canon 5D’s and all the king’s 27 inch iMac’s. Couldn’t save your ass, if your life depended on it.”
Honesty and content, on the other hand, just might do the trick.
So, forget about the non-essentials in things, or even the shape in which things come…
A good song is good, timeless, and genre-free.
Let’s make (good) songs, not perfectly crafted and fabricated noise.
O meu pai - Toni Monteiro
Pt - O meu pai já não se encontra entre nós (assim como o de muita gente), mas quem o conheceu, sabe que o carrego na face, nas mãos, e na “leveza pesada”.
Ben Monteiro's rants and such...
"Cento" Copyright © Andrew Brinker 2011.
