Black Sun, Dead Can Dance
— first encountered 1990
Not long after I met John and Brittany Neff, I heard this song playing when I walked into their tiny studio apartment in the Tenderloin one day after work, and it rewrote my world. I’d never heard this kind of howling symphonic tympanic bombast with full strings, orchestra hits, soaring anthemic male voice (Brendan Perry) crying into the wind, “Like Prometheus we are bound/Chained to this rock”… in a rolling 6/8 pattern, minor progression down, sonic elements layer on layer, powerful tonal construction. This is the Ur-song that laid the foundation to the form my Animal composition has taken, and as time passes I am more convinced than ever that I built my musical house upon a rock.
Ask, The Smiths
— first encountered 1990
Heard in my room overlooking 8th and Folsom Streets where I was living in an artists’ residence hotel, working on my very first performance art Pieces of Jesus, on KITS-FM “Live 105” alternative rock (an emerging genre in those days). “Shyness is nice but/Shyness can stop you/From doing all the things in life you’d like to/So if there’s something you’d like to try/I won’t say no, how could I/Nature is a language, can’t you read?” At a time when I was just finding my legs as an independent stage artist after radically breaking from the professional theatre actor expectations of the era, and just coming into my own as a sexual being, a leatherman still in his 20s with an unusual appetite for hardcore play, the lyrics and the breezy, fast and light swiftly traveling simple melody that carried them added to the exploratory atmosphere that was vital to my musical and imagistic expansion: find everything that’s possible.
San Jacinto, Peter Gabriel
— first encountered 1992
Again, walking into John and Brittany’s after work, now with a baby in a Mission District flat, I’m met by a sharp spiky xylophone and wind ostinato hovering above an exciting brass and electronic suspension with Gabriel’s plaintive vocals describing a Native American sweat lodge vision quest set above the teeming sprawl of Los Angeles. As the orchestra builds, with the horns leading us to the heart of the anthem “San Jacinto… I hold the line” I’m swept along with the tones painting a cinematic sweep of a majestic and troubled skyline. Another howling male philosopher that made my musical hackles rise in the best way. The shape of this song as it builds, rises, and retreats is a textbook example of how to grab a listener’s ear by the short hairs and hang on tight until the entire message is poured in.
Requiem: Psalm 121, Herbert Howells
— performed 1993
In 1991, I’d returned to fellowship and communion in the Lutheran Church, into which I had been baptized and confirmed 11 years earlier as a soldier in the now-defunct “West” Germany (conversion, or more accurately a migration, from my Fundamentalist Evangelical born-again upbringing to a traditional mainline Protestant denomination), and took a position singing bass in the choir – an all-volunteer ensemble at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, the oldest Lutheran congregation in the American West. I’d been a paid chorister for years in other choirs and groups, but I’d decided to become a member of this congregation and volunteered my voice. I’ve been lucky in finding top-flight people to work and perform with in my career, and the St. Mark’s Choir was no exception: the five years I spent singing with this group were some of the most fulfilling I have had. The repertoire was challenging (try singing the Passion by Heinrich Schutz from the 16th century for the solemn Palm Sunday service without incurring an aneurysm somewhere in your system, not easy) and up-to-date, musically and liturgically sophisticated … the joy of singing the Durufle Requiem is a musical experience that is quite frankly better and deeper than the most profound sex or high or love or anything else I have ever felt. Howells was a British composer from the early- to mid- 20th century in the Ralph Vaughan Williams pastoral tradition, and his Requiem is a gem. Psalm 121 setting begins with a baritone solo “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help” that’s as intimidating as it is starkly effective, setting the tone for the entry of the full choir, leading us through some of the most moving chord and modal progressions I’ve ever encountered. This is the first classical music I reference in this playlist, and this piece particularly influenced my work on my four Christmas shows, Animal’s Positive Christmas: A Viral Celebration.
— first encountered 1990
Not long after I met John and Brittany Neff, I heard this song playing when I walked into their tiny studio apartment in the Tenderloin one day after work, and it rewrote my world. I’d never heard this kind of howling symphonic tympanic bombast with full strings, orchestra hits, soaring anthemic male voice (Brendan Perry) crying into the wind, “Like Prometheus we are bound/Chained to this rock”… in a rolling 6/8 pattern, minor progression down, sonic elements layer on layer, powerful tonal construction. This is the Ur-song that laid the foundation to the form my Animal composition has taken, and as time passes I am more convinced than ever that I built my musical house upon a rock.
Ask, The Smiths
— first encountered 1990
Heard in my room overlooking 8th and Folsom Streets where I was living in an artists’ residence hotel, working on my very first performance art Pieces of Jesus, on KITS-FM “Live 105” alternative rock (an emerging genre in those days). “Shyness is nice but/Shyness can stop you/From doing all the things in life you’d like to/So if there’s something you’d like to try/I won’t say no, how could I/Nature is a language, can’t you read?” At a time when I was just finding my legs as an independent stage artist after radically breaking from the professional theatre actor expectations of the era, and just coming into my own as a sexual being, a leatherman still in his 20s with an unusual appetite for hardcore play, the lyrics and the breezy, fast and light swiftly traveling simple melody that carried them added to the exploratory atmosphere that was vital to my musical and imagistic expansion: find everything that’s possible.
San Jacinto, Peter Gabriel
— first encountered 1992
Again, walking into John and Brittany’s after work, now with a baby in a Mission District flat, I’m met by a sharp spiky xylophone and wind ostinato hovering above an exciting brass and electronic suspension with Gabriel’s plaintive vocals describing a Native American sweat lodge vision quest set above the teeming sprawl of Los Angeles. As the orchestra builds, with the horns leading us to the heart of the anthem “San Jacinto… I hold the line” I’m swept along with the tones painting a cinematic sweep of a majestic and troubled skyline. Another howling male philosopher that made my musical hackles rise in the best way. The shape of this song as it builds, rises, and retreats is a textbook example of how to grab a listener’s ear by the short hairs and hang on tight until the entire message is poured in.
Requiem: Psalm 121, Herbert Howells
— performed 1993
In 1991, I’d returned to fellowship and communion in the Lutheran Church, into which I had been baptized and confirmed 11 years earlier as a soldier in the now-defunct “West” Germany (conversion, or more accurately a migration, from my Fundamentalist Evangelical born-again upbringing to a traditional mainline Protestant denomination), and took a position singing bass in the choir – an all-volunteer ensemble at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, the oldest Lutheran congregation in the American West. I’d been a paid chorister for years in other choirs and groups, but I’d decided to become a member of this congregation and volunteered my voice. I’ve been lucky in finding top-flight people to work and perform with in my career, and the St. Mark’s Choir was no exception: the five years I spent singing with this group were some of the most fulfilling I have had. The repertoire was challenging (try singing the Passion by Heinrich Schutz from the 16th century for the solemn Palm Sunday service without incurring an aneurysm somewhere in your system, not easy) and up-to-date, musically and liturgically sophisticated … the joy of singing the Durufle Requiem is a musical experience that is quite frankly better and deeper than the most profound sex or high or love or anything else I have ever felt. Howells was a British composer from the early- to mid- 20th century in the Ralph Vaughan Williams pastoral tradition, and his Requiem is a gem. Psalm 121 setting begins with a baritone solo “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help” that’s as intimidating as it is starkly effective, setting the tone for the entry of the full choir, leading us through some of the most moving chord and modal progressions I’ve ever encountered. This is the first classical music I reference in this playlist, and this piece particularly influenced my work on my four Christmas shows, Animal’s Positive Christmas: A Viral Celebration.