Travis Dickerson Recording Studios Forum

http://www.tdrsmusic.com/viggo.htm

Would there be any excerpts forthcoming to get a flavour for what the album is like?

I\'m checking into the possibility of it.

I am loving this CD - such truth.   :\'(  I hate the need for it, but I love the work done to fill the need.

Thank you, all who put their hands on this project.

[glb]xo[/glb]    
g

How is it?  Is it like Population Overide?  I see Travis is on this album.
I love Population Override.



I sampled some of BH and Viggo\'s other work, and I was not getting into it.  Songs to short and to light..  

this has a lot of interesting sound captures - quotes from Bush & Co. - very interesting to me, but if you\'ve seen my other posts politics is a big area of interest for me and i am a fan of their previous collaborations... so i could be biased?

Quotethis has a lot of interesting sound captures - quotes from Bush & Co. - very interesting to me, but if you\'ve seen my other posts politics is a big area of interest for me and i am a fan of their previous collaborations... so i could be biased?

It\'s just possible you could be biased, gkg! I\'m not sure yet how I feel about this one; it has hints of Please Tomorrow but it\'s more an audio-collage like One Man\'s Meat (at least that\'s how I "hear" it). I found that One Man\'s Meat grew on me, but I fear this one will not.

My aversion to the voices of lying politicians (unfortunately, there may not be any other kind) is colouring my response to this CD. I find the musical themes and soundscapes interesting, but the voices intrusive. Maybe that\'s what was intended?

Maybe I\'m getting into it a bit less because it\'s just not my country, & we have our own lying politicians of all ilks to worry about. OK, the rest of the world also needs to worry about USA politics, but the immediacy is a little less & the ability to do anything concrete is absent.

It\'s certainly interesting though. Viggo & Buckethead & colleagues always come up with something different, often challenging, definitely worth a listen.

When I listen to this CD, I feel the same way I felt after watching Fahrenheit 9/11....very scared and very angry.

I agree with you oldfolkie, the bombs and lying politician sound bytes are a bit disturbing....but they also represent a brutal (and honest) portrayal of Bush & his regime.

I respect and appreciate all of Viggo\'s music...but I, for one, am hoping his next CD will be a little more \'lighthearted\'!  

oldfolkie said:

QuoteOK, the rest of the world also needs to worry about USA politics, but the immediacy is a little less & the ability to do anything concrete is absent.

What Bush & his cronies are up to has and will continue to impact the entire world, not just the political landscape but the very landscape itself.  In addition to environmentally, the physical safety of other countries is obviously impacted by the lying arrogance of the US administration.  The immediacy may be somewhat blunted, but the impact remains.  I respectfully disagree to an extent about the abilities of people outside this country to do anything - by making your own sets of lying politicians uncomfortable and holding them accountable not only for how they conduct business in your countries but also for how they respond to the US has a definite repercussion in this country.

Darlene said:

QuoteI respect and appreciate all of Viggo\'s music...but I, for one, am hoping his next CD will be a little more \'lighthearted\'!

I am sure that he hopes for a lighter heart in future as well.  I certainly do.

QuoteWhat Bush & his cronies are up to has and will continue to impact the entire world, not just the political landscape but the very landscape itself.  In addition to environmentally, the physical safety of other countries is obviously impacted by the lying arrogance of the US administration.  The immediacy may be somewhat blunted, but the impact remains.  I respectfully disagree to an extent about the abilities of people outside this country to do anything - by making your own sets of lying politicians uncomfortable and holding them accountable not only for how they conduct business in your countries but also for how they respond to the US has a definite repercussion in this country.

Point well taken gkg, I wasn\'t meaning to sound like a total cop-out there. Just pointing out that we outsiders can\'t do the necessary acting from within that you folks can. And you might have noted that one of ours (our head-boy, in fact   ) called a bunch of your businessfolk to account for ignoring tribunal rulings of violations of NAFTA (re softwood lumber) and some of them appear to have seen the validity of the arguments! Now, it may not have been the most pressing issue in the world, but it typifies the need for the USA to respect treaties it signs with its neighbours and "friends".

As for me personally, I work on some international groups that are trying to bring harmony to the world of business (meanwhile being thwarted at every step by the nationalist, protectionist types   ). It\'s discouraging but I won\'t give up!

QuoteI am sure that he hopes for a lighter heart in future as well.  I certainly do.

May I add my hopes to those...

Oops, waaaaaaaaay off topic, sorry Travis, we should probably take this to the political forum   It just seemed appropriate somehow, with this CD being such a political statement.

I think this is an admirable record. Viggo Mortensen is a funny guy. I think he still kind of eludes a lot of people. It\'s really easy to stick one\'s nose in the air and go, "Oh jeez, another wannabe-musician actor" or "What does Aragorn know about politics" but I think that would be shortchanging what he\'s trying to do and who he is. There\'s a certain sensibility in his work that proves he\'s more than just a famous actor. There\'s depth there that I think many people would find pleasantly surprising. Through my initial interest via the Buckethead connection, I\'ve learned to appreciate many of Viggo\'s records not so much that they\'re awesome pieces of music, but more so that they are artistic records in the true sense of the word. I think even if you don\'t agree with the message, there\'s something to be said for creating a piece of work that might provoke someone to think or feel something. That\'s what art is and that\'s what it\'s supposed to do.

Each song is more like a set of ideas that are brought together and expressed through a lot of dissonant, pieced-together sounds. They\'re compositions. Musically, it\'s not as jarring as I\'ve found his other records. There\'s a sad quality to the songs -- it\'s both soothing and kind of maddening at the same time. There are sounds of bombs and sirens, and many spoken clips from Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al. Hearing the President stutter through his thoughts, one feels embarrassment not only for him but for the fact that he is our leader. It\'s comical, but ultimately kind of terrifying. And, in a lot of ways, I think that may have been the goal of this record all along: to combine and juxtapose the reality and seeming surreality of the world we\'ve created.

Although this isn\'t a record I would pop in for fun, or even listen to on a regular basis, I do appreciate it as a piece of art that aspires to provoke thought and reflection. It\'s not the great political record of our time and Viggo Mortensen isn\'t the voice of a generation, but he is a voice, and one that I think should be heard.

Incidentally, I listen to the Majority Report on Air America Radio on a pretty regular basis, and was pleasantly surprised to hear Viggo on the show last Friday. They played the first track from the album and part of "Why They Hate Us." I don\'t think the show podcasts are archived, unfortunately, so your only chance to have downloaded it would have been over the weekend or yesterday (Monday), but if anyone wants to hear it I can probably e-mail it to you or upload it somewhere.

QuoteEach song is more like a set of ideas that are brought together and expressed through a lot of dissonant, pieced-together sounds. They\'re compositions. Musically, it\'s not as jarring as I\'ve found his other records. There\'s a sad quality to the songs -- it\'s both soothing and kind of maddening at the same time. There are sounds of bombs and sirens, and many spoken clips from Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al. Hearing the President stutter through his thoughts, one feels embarrassment not only for him but for the fact that he is our leader. It\'s comical, but ultimately kind of terrifying. And, in a lot of ways, I think that may have been the goal of this record all along: to combine and juxtapose the reality and seeming surreality of the world we\'ve created.  

very well said - very well.  i couldn\'t really put it into the words the other day, but you put it right out there.

There is now an excerpt from "What Kind of Nation" off "Intelligence Failure" you can download here:
http://tdrsmusic.com/musicpreviews.html

deconstruct, I like your take on this. Thanks for expressing it so well -- you\'ve captured a lot of what I feel about this CD too. I think I hear both the humour and the horror, but I\'m finding it a little hard to find some of the humorous things as funny as Viggo might have intended. Guess that\'s just me. Clear as mud, right?  

Travis, glad you put up a sample. Not that people won\'t buy it just the same, but it is nice to get a taste.