Monthly Archives: October 2016

Michael Stanley Band (YGtCTO Music #23)

Baby If You Wanna Dance

Song written and performed by the Michael Stanley Band

The importance of place in our lives is hard to overestimate. We all have moments of realization where we admit to ourselves how grateful we are to have avoided being born somewhere else in far worse circumstances. Yet, there are always those more subtle factors that appear as time passes.

How else can one explain my fondness for Funky Poodle, a song you will likely never forgive me for mentioning? You had to be a certain age in Northeast Ohio even to have that on your radar (as well as the self-awareness to admit that perhaps those brain cells dedicated to that memory would have been better used for Calculus I).

Any visit to an art museum will demonstrate the influence of location on the landscape painters. It’s there on the canvas. Here, I am more interested in the art that they had the opportunity to see before they ever picked up a brush as well as their surroundings as they started their life’s work.

For a century or so, we have had music and drama and all the other arts available to us in a profusion unimagined by previous generations. To tell the truth, we have not always been in control of that waterfall. In my case, I listened to a lot of rock and roll and other pop music from the major labels as well as local acts who started breaking through to greater popularity.

Before my time,

the Raspberries, the James Gang, and others emerged from Northeast Ohio, so we were on the national music map. Michael Stanley Band hit at the perfect time for me to notice their album Cabin Fever. Before Devo, Pere Ubu, and the Pretenders could teach me to expand my horizons, the Michael Stanley Band had this perfect gem of an album that taught me what rock and roll should sound like.

Cabin Fever by the Michael Stanley Band

Which is my point- all artists start out as young children… Somewhere in those early years, the base lines are set for what certain things are. While that certainly applies to consumers, we lose sight sometimes of what that means to artists. That base line becomes either something you cherish, you rebel against, or you build upon. Maybe the truth is that we go through all three stages. Somewhere along the way in my youth, I wondered about those middle of the road tastes of mine and wondered if I could make my peace with those early favorites. Of course you can. It is possible to love this and this.

So, how do you build on your early influences and create new art? That has always been the question, hasn’t it? We are responsible for knowing our history and recognizing the good and the bad. I can’t build a plot or craft a structured work without acknowledging the many who did it first (and better).

Of course, sometimes you want to go back to your younger self and slap him for wasting time listening to certain things.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 233 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Notifications are posted on Facebook which you can receive by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Dog Breeds, Central Region, America, Pooch Show

German Schnorrer

Toy Farter

Norman Crotch Sniffer: “enthusiastic greeter”

Highland Leg Humper

Burmese Crapsalot

Black & Blue Tile Skater

French Wheezer

Chinese Low-slung Hungwell

Spitland Lap Drooler

Cane Assa Nozzo

Alpine Gran Chihuahua

Whittler

Saharan Water Pointer

Puki

Bronx Mug

Miniature Soft-coated Stiffi

Domesticated Virginia Wolf

Bertram Russell Terrier: “the only breed judged on declamation”

Wee Scottish Ghostie

Bluffing Mastiff

Wire-haired Wadi Rollin

Borderline Collie

Pacific Purebred Pitiable

St. Joan Orthodox Hound

Slobrador Reliever

Willie Mays (YGtCTO #66)

Leroy Neiman probably best symbolizes the intersection of art and sport from my childhood. He may well represent the impact of the mass market on art, also, but the mass market is the story of the twentieth century, as we expanded promotion and finance and transport on scales previously unimaginable.

In a world in which business intrudes into all aspects, how then does anyone communicate without corruption? How does an artist transmit their message with the least likely undue influence?

Before I try to answer, let me bring up the condition of the sports hero. As the media have delved further and further into the non-professional choices of public figures in recent decades, parents have worried more and more about the ways in which celebrities provide less and less appropriate role models. Sports stars were major culprits caught in the cross-hairs of parents who had been forced yet again to explain why their child’s favorite basketball player had been suspended for some heinous action.

Yet, we tend to draw a circle around certain celebrities and deem them appropriate role models and leave the others to be discovered by our children when they are older (or perhaps we follow the wiser course and coach our offspring just to ignore the celebrity outside their primary field of endeavor). But we cannot control our child’s adoration. It is a living thing. Just because a child thinks Simone Biles is the best thing since sliced bread does not mean they think any less of their parents.

For me, it was Willie Mays. Let’s be clear- I was late to the Willie Mays party. He was closing in on retirement, but his name was everywhere. He made it cool to play the outfield. He looked so effortless. Watching Willie Mays catch a long fly ball was as good as seeing a Michelangelo statue in person.

Because athletic endeavor can be art. You cannot see a great athlete extending themselves beyond all reason without feeling the human race float just a little off the ground. The best of us occurs when we help one another, when we speak truth, and when we do the tasks needed. The perfect throw, catch, jump, swing, and more encapsulate our best qualities in a moment.

I was lucky. My hero turned out to be involved in minimal hullabaloo. The biggest argument you could have was whether he was better than Mickey Mantle (don’t go there), although I knew one person partial to Frank Robinson in that discussion.

As artists, we can forget that we also seek the perfect moment. I don’t think it is an accident that performance art rose to prominence in the twentieth century. As it constantly reinvents the definition of art, it seems to move closer and closer to sport as creators seek newer ways to communicate. Surely, athletes embody striving for our best, but they also gift us with stories around those perfect moments. For some of us, our art has been deeply influenced by the athlete artists we admired before we knew that life had to be compartmentalized.

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 234 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out are released regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry are posted irregularly. Notifications are posted on Facebook which you can receive by friending or following Craig.