Sunday, January 03, 2010

When The Darkness Passes Away: If William Blake Played a Banjo



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I remember seeing Danny Barnes with the Bad Livers back at the Hole in the Wall in Austin. Always impressed me. Great version of Agony Column's "Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles" - on extraordinary banjo, as usual.

Fuck With The Best
You'll Lay With The Rest
So Get Out Of My Fuckin' Way
I Can See You're A Punk
Who Could Use A Good Beating
So Come On And Make My Day
Start This Fight
You'll Lose Tonight
Cause You Got More Mouth Than Muscle
You Cry Death Before Dishonor
But First It's Brave Words
And Bloody Knuckles

But this, this below, is an entirely different beast altogether.

Doing the nightly rounds, started reading about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem on Danny's website, stumbled across a video of him playing "Raise Four" by Thelonius Monk. It just blew me away.

I won't say much about it because you need to let it unfold in front of you. I will tell you that just as soon as you think it can't get anymore over the top, he starts reading the following passage from Blake. Best thing I've seen all year.







An Angel came to me and said: 'O pitiable foolish young man! O horrible! O dreadful state! consider the hot burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself to all eternity, to which thou art going in such career.'
I said: 'perhaps you will be willing to shew me my eternal lot & we will contemplate together upon it and see whether your lot or mine is most desirable.'
So he took me thro' a stable & thro' a church & down into the church vault at the end of which was a mill: thro' the mill we went, and came to a cave: down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way till a void boundless as a nether sky appear'd beneath us & we held by the roots of trees and hung over this immensity; but I said, 'if you please we will commit ourselves to this void, and see whether providence is here also, if you will not, I will?' but he answer'd: 'do not presume, O young-man, but as we here remain, behold thy lot which will soon appear when the darkness passes away.'
- Wm. Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell



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