Excerpt of a recent music composition I'm developing for Birds of the Future, an experimental performance piece by Skewed Visions. It’ll possibly appear in various iterations throughout the show. A version or two might feature live accordion performance, and/ or the original audio flipped around backwards. Hey-o.
Though it might seem a slam dunk, the final title of this piece may not in fact eventually be “Chug-A-Chug”. There’s an argument to be made that somewhere in the vast recesses of the English language, there may lurk a better title.
More music by Mike Hallenbeck
“Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon-- and the Journey of a Generation” by Sheila Weller. A little ways in I thought to myself: this is one of the best books about music that I’ve ever read. Eventually I realized no, this is just plain one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Weller chronicles the lives and work of Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon while contextualizing them in the era they’ve moved through. The intertwining stories have a lot to say about what it’s meant to be female during this time, and how each woman has both affected and been affected by the norms and changes thereof.
While I’ve always appreciated Carole King and have been a longtime Joni Mitchell fan, the real surprise here has been delving into the work of Carly Simon. I’d never really listened to her before, and delving into her first few albums, I have to say she’s an ingenious writer. Even the radio hits I’ve thought I was familiar with resonate a lot more with the background provided in this book.
“Girls Like Us” does a great job of exploring the work and personal lives of each subject, getting just as intimate as necessary for an examination of such confessional artists. This is a truly rewarding book. I’ll probably read it again someday.
