New Song - SO GRATEFUL.

This was a live show classic for some time in Chicago a while back with my good friend Insight. We went by ESP (because that's what you get when you combine insight and seeing more perspective). It was expertly produced by his best friend King (who also produced What's Up from the First Impression ep). We had it floating around the city and net for a bit, but it's finally finding a good home with the Boombox Emporium. It's about the struggle and the things that make it worth while. It's about stepping back from the frustrations and appreciating what's really important. I hope you diggit.

New Interview

I just came across this and thought I'd share.

A while ago, I sat down, took a walk and talked and with my brother Daniel Rangel and our friend Javier F. Cedillo. They cut it together for a project in the works they call Interview Twin Cities. Enjoy!

Interview Twin Cities from Daniel Rangel on Vimeo.

Another Halloween, another ridiculous (ly awesome) Halloween show.

The show went beautifully!

Patrick's staff was excellent, as always, and many thanks go out to Nate Rockswold for rockswoldin' the sound for the night, and to Arturo Miles and Sara Jo Lehrer for all the hats they wear to keep things on point. It was a great night folks, I hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we did!

Our back drop of Halloween ambiance consisted of Professor Oscar and his Sideshow Oddities, The Rube on the wheels of steel and my brother Daniel Rangel at the video-mixing helm. The vibe was right throughout the evening with righteous beats and stunning (and eerie) visuals. Also in the house adding to the Halloween ambiance was Professor Oscar and his Sideshow Oddities; A Perfect addition to the drama of it all.

Poets Lewis Mundt, Lisa Brimmer and Guante all read excellent pieces to warm up the dark for the coming ghouls and ghosts...

Then it was time for Dameun and I to do our thing as 'Strange Perspective' featuring our guest drummer and excellent friend Kahlil Brewington. It felt so good to perform our album 'Strange Perspective and The Lost Souls Boys Choir in Jazz Funeral'. It had a great feel with live keys and drum machine...I think the most powerful was our rendition of 'Jack's Lament' from Tim Burton's 'Nightmare Before Christmas'.

And the dance!!! If there was such thing as a "game ball" for this type of event, I'd have to give it to Erin Sheppard who, with the help of some very talented friends, choreographed and performed dance pieces to everyone one of our songs. It was everything I had hope it would be when I initially asked her if she was interested in contributing to this year's Halloween show. In fact, it was even better than I had hoped. I'll look forward to more collaboration with Erin and her cohorts in the future!

Last but not least, our screening of Murnau's Silent Film Classic 'Nosferatu' with a new soundtrack by myself and Dameun Strange as 'Strange Perspective'. It was so exciting to see the lights drop as we all scurried into our seats for the opening of the film. I was glad to see how people took the film lightly and laughed at the cues we accentuated with music where we found humor in the scenes; and to feel the crowd following the sense of intensity as that picked up as well. It took so much work and many tireless hours to triumph over some what of a rugged path to get there, but we did it and it looks and sounds gorgeous. It was so fun to see it from a projector with big, great sound at Patrick's.

I'm considering posting the film soon, and we might even put it on DVD and make that available at shows. I'll definitely be posting video footage captured by my man Javier F. Cedillo who documented the evening, so look out for that!

A thousand thanks to all the folks who contributed and came out. It couldn't have happened without you.

Thanks for reading, listening and supporting original, thoughtful and painstakingly crafted art,

SEE

Strange Perspective presents 'Nosferatu Unsilenced Cinemaganza'

In the tradition of 'Return to El Guante's Haunted Studio Apartment', 'Strange Perspective and the Lost Souls Boys Choir in Jazz Funeral' and 'Strange Perspective's Halloween Extravaganza, I bring you another funky, ghoulishly delightful Halloween jam.

Check it:

"After their first musical effort into the unknown, indie geek pop duo Strange Perspective has produced a textured, rolling score to the silent film classic 'Nosferatu' and is showing it at the ambiance-appropriate Patrick's Cabaret. Along with live, supernaturally charged music and dance, ghost stories, fort...une tellers, Professor Oscar's Side Show Oddities and more; the night will be a classy spiritualist soiree of rich, roiling shadows, living spirits and the walking dead. Setting the tone with last year's 'Lost Souls' Boys Choir in Jazz Funeral' (and subsequent event), the duo seek to out do themselves with help from drummer Khalil Brewington, dancer/choreographer Erin Sheppard, poets Guante, Lisa Brimmer, Lewis Mundt, story teller Amy Salloway and more. Come dressed as a turn of the century spiritualist, anything else your imagination offers up or simply come as your naturally freaky self."

Here's the facebook invite.

We're all putting a lot of work into this to make it extraordinary. I truly hope to see you there.

Thanks for keepin' up with me,

SEE

Light and Music.

My gifted cinematographer friend Javier Cedillo was over last night, editing the footage with me for the music video we're working on for the song 'Frank Lloyd Wright', from my latest full length 'Architextual Design'. Between video and pizza slices, he mentioned some sweet footage he shot of blurring lights from the Ferris-wheel at this year's MN State Fair, and it sounded lovely...he mentioned that he wanted to find a random song to edit the video to for no other reason than the pure satisfaction of putting light to music. Obviously, I suggested he use my music! So he went home, found a song from 'Breaks in The Clouds' and proceeded to hook it up through the ensuing hours of night and morning.

Here's what he came up with:

So many talented friends...

Just sharing the embarrassment of riches here from old friends from my Chicago days. Here's new work from a handful of the gold stacks. Enjoy.
















  Bring It Home produced by ILL Legit by Jyroscope






The homies Animate Objects made it a little trickier to share quickly on the blog, so just follow the link to their website. From there it's easy to listen and/or download. It's worth the the two clicks.

Here's a great video from them too. Aquil's talkin' about the org we ran together in Chicago in the first verse.

Dream Sequence #3

As you may have known or witnessed firsthand, I recently wrote and performed two brand new works of poetry for the MN Fringe festival. I was graciously invited to be a part of the Strange Liebhard New Music and Dance Ensemble's showing of works in progress "Railing Forward and other works". You can check out other blogs about that show a few entries back.

Asked the week before if I had some poetry to contribute while on my way out of town, I returned with just a few days to complete two new pieces. Although there's definitely room for editing/work-shopping, I'm really pleased with how these turned out. Here's the second one I wrote.

'Dream Sequence #3'

In this dream all is silent. A silence as certain and distant as peace.

there is a friend in my home who is not friend.  This should be my old compadre Jorge who would often visit, stay the night, rap and make art with me on the sides of buildings and over passes and banks. Not ever on anything independently owned, nothing without a purpose or a genuine question and nothing without art. Jorge laughs like fireworks look and there’s always fun around the corner of his smirk.

A friend is here, but it’s not my friend.

He is disguised in a disgusting mask of flesh, swollen and puffy and it doesn’t fit his real face. He is a darkness peering from black eyes and I’m trying to keep it cool, taking in information of this rotten, bloated presence over my shoulder.

I cannot face him. When I look back I am terrified by what I feel and my words fall like molasses. I slowly return to the task at hand. He doesn’t move a fraction, a vision of malice, fossilized in amber.

I’m washing the dishes…eyes in my back like thorns, the most intense leer like the soft tap of spider’s legs that want in.

This day is weeks and months and these years just a sunny afternoon outside. I come and go, I’m busy and I’m only stopping in to leave. This unfriend living in my home, with my family, my mother, my younger sister…There is a tepid but constant squalor in the downstairs… is this what happens to a dream deferred?

I maneuver carefully through the bi-products of this spirit’s wretched intent with casual talismans…masks and drums and décor.

In this dream, I am cleaning and organizing.

Washing the dishes again. Behind me he is a grotesquerie of intent, a masterpiece of some sick artist who’s left his greatest work to stand and watch…me. I tell him he can’t stay. He’ll be needing to leave immediately. I continue working on the basement’s floors (you can’t stay), shelves (you can not stay), cracks (you must leave), closets, (you WILL leave), and walls…The walls are what stand out.

I’m talking with my mom and kissing her forehead and just then I’m under her bedroom in the downstairs, right underneath where she lays and I’m hanging a sacred mask. I know it is gone, there is a slow silence like the most beautiful new snow, There is light here and I awake.