#gnosseinnes

Happy Heavenly Birthday to Man Ray (1890-1976), the pioneer of visual art and “found objects.” He was born in American but spent most of his career in Paris, becoming an informal contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements surrounding him. His career intersected with Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, and a hit list of actors, artists, dancers, filmmakers, and musicians. Despite Ray tagging himself as “just a painter,” he produced major works in a variety of media and is best known for his pioneering photography—specially fashion and portrait photography. He is also noted for his work with photograms (photographic images made not with a camera but with light exposure) which he called “Rayographs.” In the 1920s he directed and appeared in a number of avant-garde films, including the 1924 urban fantasy ENTR’ACTE (directed by René Clair). Ray appears with Frances Picabia, playing chess on a chessboard that transforms into a city center with busses and cars. I used this scene in a video for my song “It’s In Your Hands,” with music that quotes heavily from Erik Satie (who also appeared in ENTR’ACTE). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxReq4Xr-U8 Meanwhile, thank you Man for getting us to see the art in everything.

SONG OF THE WEEK: “It’s in Your Hands”—https://johnnyjblairsingeratlarge.bandcamp.com/track/its-in-your-hands-variations-on-satie …Our hands can perform great feats: we can build a house, write a symphony, whack a ball into the outfield, or find a cure for a disease. It's in our hands. This is also about the love, resources, and skills that God empowers us with. In other words, I am not afraid to take risks with these skills and abilities, and I am thankful that God gave them to me in the first place—that is my edge. Musically it’s a rock-tango adaptation of Erik Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1.” My goal was to mingle Satie’s melodicism with influences from glam rock, Nuevo Tango, and Astor Piazzolla. Felipe Torres called the song “elegant” and told me to make it the last track on my album I LIKE THE STREET.

"All this happened to me because of music."--Erik Satie…The playing instructions for Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1” are "open your head" and "perform with astonishment." For more of the back story go to…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to one of my musical heroes, Erik Satie (1866-1925). Even today his influence speaks through artists such as The Doors, Brian Eno, and Frank Zappa. Satie's eccentric song title-ing habits and performance suggestions foretold Eno's "Oblique Strategies" and Zappa's freewheeling orchestrations. Where some composers would leave performance instructions like allegro con moto, Satie would suggest playing "like a nightingale with a toothache."

Satie composed in multiple genres (cabaret, chamber, ragtime, tango) and he set the stage for ambient music, atonalism, conceptual art and performance, Dada-ism, impressionism, and minimalism. Darius Milhaud said that Satie, within his body of work, prophesied every major movement in music for the next 50 years beyond his life.Of Satie's prophecies, he was one of a few who said that the ability to mechanically reproduce music would change the craft of songwriting—this, as Edison's phonograph, invented in 1887, was a babe of science. Satie believed the emotional and the mechanical were equally important to creativity. Years passed, and the "three-minute pop song" accommodated the three-minute long 78 r.p.m record. Music today is rarely made without some reliance on technology and computers (Satie was also one of the first to write sound effects into his scores).

"Have you ever tried to clean sounds? It is a dirty process."--Satie

In the 1924 surrealist film ENTR'ACTE, Satie “played himself" onscreen. As a working partner with Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso, and a contemporary of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, Satie was a pioneer of taking music into multi-media formats.

“It’s in Your Hands” is my rock-tango adaptation of Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1.” My goal was to mingle Satie’s melodicism with influences from glam rock, Nuevo Tango, and Astor Piazzolla. The lyrics are about gratitude and the love, resource, and skills that God empowers us with: I do not have to be afraid to take risks with these skills and abilities, and I should be thankful that God gave them to me in the first place. My video includes scenes from ENTR’ACTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxReq4Xr-U8

"In art there must be no form of slavery. I have always tried to throw off my followers and keep them guessing…This is the only way for an artist to avoid becoming a chef d'ecole…a pundit."--Satie

https://johnnyjblairsingeratlarge.bandcamp.com/track/its-in-your-hands-variations-on-satie

SONG OF THE WEEK: “It’s in Your Hands”—https://johnnyjblairsingeratlarge.bandcamp.com/track/its-in-your-hands-variations-on-satie …Our hands can perform great feats: we can build a house, write a symphony, whack a ball into the outfield, or find a cure for a disease. It's in our hands. This is also about the love, resources, and skills that God empowers us with. In other words, I am not afraid to take risks with these skills and abilities, and I am thankful that God gave them to me in the first place—that is my edge. Musically it’s a rock-tango adaptation of Erik Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1.” My goal was to mingle Satie’s melodicism with influences from glam rock, Nuevo Tango, and Astor Piazzolla. Felipe Torres called the song “elegant” and told me to make it the last track on my album I LIKE THE STREET.

"All this happened to me because of music."--Erik Satie…The playing instructions for Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1” are "open your head" and "perform with astonishment." For more of the back story go to…

SATURDAY MATINEE MUSIC VIDEO: “It’s In Your Hands + Scenes from Entre’Acte + Variations on Satie” (main cut)— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyjtzLwv6uU  —Our hands have power. We can perform great feats like build a house, write a symphony, whack a ball into the outfield, or find a cure for a disease. It's in my hands but God directs me. This is also a song about the love, resources, and skills that God empowers me with. I do not have to be afraid to take risks with these skills and abilities, and I am thankful that God gave them to me in the first place—that is my edge. Musically this song is a rock-tango adaptation of Erik Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1.” I mingled Satie’s melodicism with influences from glam rock, Nuevo Tango, and Astor Piazzolla. Felipe Torres called the song “elegant” and told me to make it the last track on my album I LIKE THE STREET.

"All this happened to me because of music."--Erik Satie…The playing instructions for Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1” are "open your head" and "perform with astonishment." 

SONG OF THE WEEK: “It’s in Your Hands”—https://johnnyjblairsingeratlarge.bandcamp.com/track/its-in-your-hands-variations-on-satie …Our hands can perform great feats: we can build a house, write a symphony, whack a ball into the outfield, or find a cure for a disease. It's in our hands. This is also about the love, resources, and skills that God empowers us with. In other words, I am not afraid to take risks with these skills and abilities, and I am thankful that God gave them to me in the first place—that is my edge. Musically it’s a rock-tango adaptation of Erik Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1.” My goal was to mingle Satie’s melodicism with influences from glam rock, Nuevo Tango, and Astor Piazzolla. Felipe Torres called the song “elegant” and told me to make it the last track on my album I LIKE THE STREET.

"All this happened to me because of music."--Erik Satie…The playing instructions for Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1” are "open your head" and "perform with astonishment." For more of the back story go to…

https://johnnyjblairsingeratlarge.bandcamp.com/track/its-in-your-hands-variations-on-satie

SATURDAY MATINEE MUSIC VIDEO: “It’s In Your Hands + Scenes from Entre’Acte + Variations on Satie” (main cut)—Our hands have power. We can perform great feats like build a house, write a symphony, whack a ball into the outfield, or find a cure for a disease. It's in my hands but God directs me. This is also a song about the love, resources, and skills that God empowers me with. I do not have to be afraid to take risks with these skills and abilities, and I am thankful that God gave them to me in the first place—that is my edge. Musically this song is a rock-tango adaptation of Erik Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1.” I mingled Satie’s melodicism with influences from glam rock, Nuevo Tango, and Astor Piazzolla. Felipe Torres called the song “elegant” and told me to make it the last track on my album I LIKE THE STREET.

"All this happened to me because of music."--Erik Satie…The playing instructions for Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1” are "open your head" and "perform with astonishment."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyjtzLwv6uU

“I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions.”—Man Ray HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAN RAY + SATURDAY MATINEE MUSIC VIDEO “It’s In Your Hands / Variations on Satie / Scenes from Entre’acte” (Alternate Cut) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxReq4Xr-U8 — Our hands have power. We can perform great feats like build a house, write a symphony, whack a ball into the outfield, or find a cure for a disease. It's in my hands but God directs me. This is also a song about the love, resources, and skills that God empowers me with. I do not have to be afraid to take risks with these skills and abilities, and I am thankful that God gave them to me in the first place—that is my edge. Musically this song is a rock-tango adaptation of Erik Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1.” I mingled Satie’s melodicism with influences from glam rock, Nuevo Tango, and Astor Piazzolla. Felipe Torres called the song “elegant” and told me to make it the last track on the my album I LIKE THE STREET.

Man Ray appears in this video (that’s his giant eye early in the video). Born in Philadelphia, he spent most of his life in Paris as an informal contributor to the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. He considered himself to be a painter, but history regards him as one of the 20th Century’s pioneering photographers, from art to fashion to portraits. He also championed photograms (photographs made without cameras), which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself. HB MR and thank you for the visions you gave to the world.

"All this happened to me because of music."--Erik Satie…The playing instructions for Satie’s “Gnosseinnes #1” are "open your head" and "perform with astonishment."