City of Legends

An old fan asked why I had chosen the twenty seven tracks I currently have posted to the Listening Room at williamfdevault.com.

The simple truth is, they’re the ones I have gotten to so far. But, not wanting to let me squirm out of the corner, she asked what my opinion was of the pieces I have placed. That’s tougher, but it is a good deconstructive and self-critical exercise, so I will make a brief comment on each of the tracks, and that will be the end of it.

from out of the city: Nice, brief, to the point. Engineered to have an alien, distant radio engineered sound quality. I find it interesting.

Eros V: Romantic, erotic, tender. I always listen for The Selke’s vocalized backgrounds. It’s decent, pretty solid.

Kisses for Karma: Maybe I went too far with this piece, over-producing it (okay, the horns and harmonicas…). But it has a nice energy to it.

Bragi to Freya, on his deathbed: I like this. Yes, you can challenge the tribal drums on a piece about Norse deities. So?

Wordslinger: Almost twenty minutes of building energy. One of my favourite projects.

Beasts of Legend: If you stick it through, you’ll find I included "glass roses" on the end. A very articulate endeavor, employing many of my more soulfully romantic works.

glass roses: The simple, direct faith in romance.

The Gods of Love, Live at Kyrienar: Stan Freberg would be proud. And the music and performance are solid.

Damascus 3: Quick, direct, to the point and accelerating. I would have liked to do more with my voice, but I played it safe.

NQ: Also known as "the Nosferatu’s Quandry". A little bit of the dance devil got in there and we have some funk. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it came out.

Right Set of Lips: Very well received. Sweetly romantic, to the point and the music does not drown out the vocals. I like the earnest appeal.

Falling and Fallen Angels: Ambitious, maybe too ambitious, musically. I give it points for stretching, though.

Brisant Revelations: A nice bit of chaotic rock there. Too rough to be a complete success, but it has a swagger and my vocals are something I’d not imagined. I blame the drums.

Joining the Machine: Grim but perhaps a bit over-produced. Apocalyptically over the top?

Texture of Your Tongue: Not sure how I feel about this one. It has some nice experimentation to it, though.

Strange but Beautiful: I like the simplicity of the partnership between my voice and the piano in this romantic ode with a twist.

Thunder Out of Valhalla: The poem "We Owe Debt to Memory" was put in the music grinder and came out as a bit of jazz-tempered rock strutting. I am ambivalent…in the accurate use of the word.

Love Gods (Multivox): My favourite sonic experiment to date. Yes, all six voices are me I still have the original tracks.

Darfur (Jesus Wept): I have been very humbled by the response to this piece about the humanitarian crisis in the Sudan. We even got some pick up overseas for radio airplay. Booyah!

A Passion, Unrelenting: Banjos? Did someone call for banjos? Actually, I started out with mandolins, but this evolved into a bluegrass-flavoured melange that owes a lot to the West Virginia band The Weedhawks.

The Taste: This poem and recording probably wraps closer around my soul than anything else I have ever done. I love it, unabashedly. Special, special thanks to the great Alan MacDonald for his tutelage in music theory.

Centaur: The glide of this well-oiled synthesizer romp, a romantic flirt of a wisp of a thought on the way down the road.

32fps2: Can you tell we had fun laying this one down? We did. A little raw, but everything comes together. Just stick around,t he vocals don’t cut in until the 2 and a half minute mark.

Evangelist: The vocals are off-key and strained as I struggled to find myself and my soul. I literally bled during the sessions for this CD. Perhaps too intimate for some. There is art and beauty in the truth.

Love is an Howling Beast: We played a bit to keep this from turning into self-mocking parody of the integrity of the words. Painful for me to listen to, as it chronicles the failure of my second marriage. Startlingly archival instrumentation

They’re Shooting Monks in Burma: Another protest song poem, this one about Myanmar massacres. A bit naked and folksy for me, but it gets the job done.

The Panther on the Beach: An early reading, very well articulated. I am proud of the villanelle and glad I could express it so well.

So there you have it, there it is. I’d suggest you haul it over to the Listening Room at williamfdevault.com and at least check out a few tracks.

Out of the goodness of my heart.  And to silence the people griping.  I have modified the free CD track page at www.williamfdevault.com to include a player.

(sound of crickets)

Hey. 

Maybe I need to explain more fully.  When you go to the page (linked above, for the truly lazy amongst you) with the free tracks, you will find the old, gold table for downloads, with the tracks delineated by CD.

But you will also find, at the top of the page (just below and to the left of banner model Christina Banderas, had to get in a plug for her again) a javascript player, pre-loaded with 27 tracks totaling well over two hours of readings and interpretations, most with music, ranging in genre from folk to rock, electric synthesizers to pastoral cithara.  I like to play, what can I say?

So you can click the play button and sit back and not have to click new tracks (unless you want to replay or skip a track or just keep listening to The Gods of Love, Live at Kyrienar until your head explodes.

Just got through bringing up more than half an hour of more free downloads and listens of my recordings from my CDs, getting further down the road to having them all available to my readers and listeners.

In this batch we added:

(from the CD The Last Romantic Verb)

• from out of the city
• Bragi to Freya, on his deathbed
• Wordslinger
• glass roses

(from the CD Nemicorn)

• Damascus 3
• Brisant Revelations
• Texture of Your Tongue
• Love Gods (Multivox)

They are now all available at www.williamfdevault.com

Free music and poetry all around.

I put up the first stage of the free CD page at williamfdevault.com.

Still far from complete, it presents a full discography of my CD-available recordings, as well as links to download (or at least listen) to many of them, for free.

So, if you want to hear my interpretations of my works (sometimes with music, sometime "naked"), you should follow the link above to its logical conclusion.

I will be updating it regularly over the next few days and weeks until nearly all, if not all, of my CD-available works are listed for download.

Namaste!

What a day.  Got to spend a lot of time talking to my Dad on the occasion of his 85th birthday.  Had a nice dinner with my boys.  Wrote a lot.  A lot.

Oh, and added three more works, with works by some tremendously talented individuals, at williamfdevault.com.

Special kudos and thanks to those, and to the cooperative artists, models and photograpers who have contributed to the Fields of Arbol on amomancer.blogspot.com.  Spontaneous works inspired by paintings, photographs and sketches by tremendously talented individuals from around the world, representing 5 continents and everything from classic romanticism to the macabre to blatant eroticism.

I am having a blast.  Special thanks to Cody, Annette, Elena, Karla, LiZa (twice), Jenny, Taylor, Arphiel, Katya, Lisa, Celia, Rina, Christina, Katarina, Anni, Mosh, WinterWolf and Kalea.  An extra special thanks to the remarkable Kalea for her assist in nailing love is an howling beast at the new site.

I’ll be making some more upgrades to the new site, as well as expanding the Fields of Arbol AND filling you in on the Evangelist CD.  I’m tired and emotionally sated.

Gnight.

I almost decided to rethink my entire redesign plan for williamfdevault.com a bit ago, when I got permission from Ukrainian artist Katarina Sokolova to use works from her portfolio (I had made the request the other day and amdit a certain trepidation when I received her response…I hesitated opening it for fear of rejection).

It was one of those “Oh my God” moments, browsing her catalog. There are photography and photography/artwork hybrid works there that look like they were done on consignment for my poetry. Lush, romantic, exotic, exotic, even a samurai themed piece (what is it about a beautiful woman unsheathing a katana that just seems right, particularly in light of my life over the last few months?) by this gifted (and beautiful) young artist whose work has been established in private collections around the world, has done several gallery exhibits and has had her work featured in the Corel Painter X gallery. I saw so many excellent and relevant pieces that I considered for a moment just using her works.

Please, check out her work at www.katarinasokolova.com and see what I am talking about (I am not reproducing any of her works in this posting, as I have no desire to stretch the boundaries of our deal). And keep your eyes open as I enter the redesign of my final site (okay, peacat is getting a makeover, but that’s later and not as dramatic).

Okay, so she’s also a redhead, what of it?

And she likes my poetry.

“It’s amazing poetry, really. Very beautiful,” says the lady. (Don’t worry, she’s thousands of miles away and I would have to be an idiot to get a long-distance crush on someone based on their creative output…okay, forget I ever said that.)

I respect the intentions of well-meaning friends, but I have no control, even illusory, over other people’s self-destruction.  The evils that people do to themselves are the one thing I cannot do anything about.

We can now confirm three models signed on for the reboot of my poetry pages:  Rinea, Shye and Nightblooming herself (you don’t think the cover of the CD was the only photo of her?)  I am awaiting official notification later today on a few. For those of you who have forgotten Shye, maybe this will remind you.

I can confirm that Evangelist will open with the title track, and close with Darfur (Jesus Wept) and Kitabu.  Considering that arc, you can guess who it is dedicated to, if you read, or think, or feel.  I don’t rewrite my histories, or wear masks, one life is enough for me (sometimes too much).

After great debate, hemming and hawing, deliberation and discourse, we have selected the official portrait to be part of the whole "Evangelist" tour package. Here you are, copyright me.

Not really secret, since I am giving out days and cities. But we are not giving out times and venues.

The poet will be doing appearances at open mic and private readings to start sharpening material for the tour. Expect readings to be 3-7 works, 5-15 minutes, with possible multiple sessions as he tunes. No music, straight up reads.

Here’s the current slate:

• Washington, DC: Tonight, May 10
• Salt Lake City: Friday, May 16
• Long Beach, Californication: Saturday, May 17

The poet wishes to thank the advance crews for making the SLC and Long Beach readings possible (I set up the DC, myself) and promises to bring gifts, including cookies (for you, Mike) at SLC.

Hey, I just write what I am told. Otherwise I’d have a few things to say about…

And what, exactly, is a private reading? Someone’s home? Someone’s bedroom? Can we get some paparazzi going? I will try and get photos from at least the LB reading, unless that’s the private one.

Evangelist is a go for tomorrow as of an hour ago. But completely rebooted. Thank God. I understand the cover model from nightblooming is now pissed at him for not offering the cover. Get over it, sweetie, he didn’t offer it to me either.

The poet is developing a symbiotic relationship with his iPod (audio Prozac).

And what does "Bucho" mean, anyway?

ahem.

ahem.

AHEM! (gunfire into the ceiling)

Guys and gals, regardless of what you may think, that I have some divine or sublime pipeline into what is going on 8000 miles from me, you are wrong. I am as much or more on the outside as anyone.

Look elsewhere for your answers, I have canned goods to stack in my fallout shelter.

Since my poet always gets what he asks for, here is the piece he alluded to this morning:

Parting my lips

 

And the dark remembers you,
anticipates you
like a journey into morning.
The taste of your words
is warm like honey
parting my lips.
Nothing but a name
between us.
Your heat trembles
on my skin and you
ripen into me.
I can taste your music
in the heat, surrender
to your throbbing
meadow. I kiss your memory,
lick the fragrance off
your smile and wear your desire.
Your water is mine alone
and I feed on your soul.
It enters me with passionate
abandon that I swallow
like a world within a world.