the full name is "Resolve does not feel glorious" - the idea of sticking to one's position being admirable - is it? in this context "resolve" is an english noun - but alone it would be read in portugues as an imperative - "You figure it out" - as in, "Resolve essa porraé, tô fora....."


i wrote the base harmony for this song some time ago. it 'hides' a five-chord sequence over a 4-bar structure, so the tonality shifts every couple of bars. the melody i left for later - i just knew it would have to be simple and 4-bar in order to disguise the sneaky math going on beneath. it's meant to sound ambiguous, so it's up to the listener to decide if it's a happy tune or not. i do hope you enjoy!

Personnel:

Eddie Ocampo - Drums
Victor "Ticklah" Axelrod - Organ
VR - Bass, Guitar, Organ, Bells

oxymoron |ˌäksəˈmôrˌän|
noun
"a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g., faith unfaithful kept him falsely true)." - Apple Dictionary


 i found their example to be a bit obscure, but you get the idea.

some common ones:

'Jumbo Shrimp' - Albeit very funny, it's not truly oxymoronic because "Shrimp" is a name of an animal and does not refer to size. "Shrimp" is only slang for "small".

'Athletic Scholarship' - this one's tight, both funny and true.

'Military Intelligence' - Pacifists like to cite this one, though it doesn't seem to ring true, as the Pentagon most likely has access to the highest intelligence on the planet.
  Nevertheless: One cannot run a proper war without hundreds of thousands of people willing to forfeit their own intelligence and judgement.

'Conventional Wisdom' - please!

here's a recent observation that inspired this blog:

 'Public Sanctuary' or 'Communal Sacrement' - as i see it, the idea of the sacred as something that can be shared is dubious at best - and at worst, leads to disempowerment.


I hope some of you can enrich this topic with some more examples! the ideas and opinions expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of Rupert Murdoch.

I have added a new song to the playlist, called The Demander, featuring Paul Gebhardt, David Hillyard, Buford O'Sullivan and Tony Calarco in the horn section; Vic Ruggiero, Agent Jay, Eddie Ocampo and myself in the rhythm section.

The song is about my first car, a 1976 Datsun B210 given to me by my cousin Joseph. It was white with an orange, Starsky & Hutch-style racing stripe. Inside the stripe read, "The Demander". It also sported mag wheels and Playboy Bunny mudflaps.

This car was well fast. I drove it in a precarious manner and some of my best friends would not be my passenger more than once. i tried to recreate that feeling in this song.

The song also features a meodica solo by myself which is repeated note-for-note. This melody is the theme to the Second Movement of Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 2. I had the opportunity to hear this, my favorite of his quartets, performed live in the living room of his home in Budapest(now a museum) in the Spring of 1998. I sat in the front row and was trembling somewhat (i believe i made the performers a little nervous) more at my luck than anything else, something that has followed me all my life - especially while driving.

i hope you enjoy!

Around 15 years ago when i was playing string bass a lot, I developed a case of tendonitis in my left forearm - classic case of tennis elbow, minus the fitness. I was taking it easy, but still working. One night it was really painful and I was playing a show with the Scofflaws. Every note was agony, so I only played the notes that were necessary - it required a lot of thought, every note was considered. I was reminded how John Coltrane would play most of his waking life, even though he had terrible teeth (apparently one vice he couldn't kick was sweet potato pie). It's a marvel to think about how many notes would come out of that horn, such ornate beauty. And all of it in spite of great pain.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if music was physically painful to play for everyone. Imagine that: the only music that would be heard would be music that simply HAD to be performed, and only the necessary notes.