Thursday 28 December 2017

FLESH AND BLOOD

dying man ...
doctor, I feel this pressure in my chest
can’t breathe - I don’t get it, I’m still young
why is this happening to me?

doctor ...
it’s stress - here take 3 of these daily
and come back in a month
if you still feel any pain



F L E S H  A N D  B L O O D













composed & performed by Jim Lamarche with Alun Davies & Ron Allen
at Temple Studio - 9 Westminster Avenue, Toronto
in October 1992

a David Wilson film © 2015 Tame Impala/Interscope Records
edited/posted by Jim Lamarche - music © 2017 - Temple Music












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Saturday 23 December 2017

SAD WALTZ

she wasn't sad anymore
she was numb
and she knew
somehow
numb was worse




S A D  W A L T Z













pictures from the film Anna Karenina © 2012 Working Title Films
Sad Waltz - from the album Night Parachuting 2
© 1991 Spiral Sky Music, Toronto

music composed & performed by jim lamarche





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Saturday 9 December 2017

MOMENTOS

we don’t talk so often anymore
and you are miles away
but I hope you know
that you remain my home

and lately I've been feeling 

homeless



M E N T S













I'm lucid - somewhere between
awake and asleep
talking to myself
a lot

fragments fermenting in ferocious furious
dementia distributing drainage
forever forgetting
fragrant form

regrets and that which I cannot change - won't change
beckoning betrayal, disciplining the damage
hanging on to her soap on a rope
gazing into the contour
in awe

screen gem - seeing them
in a different world
out there - somewhere

safe









Tuesday 28 November 2017

LOONAIR

oh I have slipped the bonds of earth
and danced inside my tumbling mirth
sunward climbing through a cloud
silent traces cosmic loud

wheeling soaring swinging high
dangling in the endless sky
quiet in the blissful air
a loon-like calling
hovering there



L O O N A I R









composed & performed by Jim Lamarche
shakuhachi by Ron Allen - at Temple Studio, Toronto
May 1991

music © 2017 - temple music
http://www.jimlamarche.ca/music/








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Sunday 19 November 2017

FREAK

insanity is relative
it depends on who has who
locked in what cage

Madelaine Roux, Asylum



F  R  E  A  K










composed and performed by Jim Lamarche & Alun Davies
at Temple Studio - 9 Westminster Avenue, Toronto
in September 1992

© 2017 - temple music
http://www.jimlamarche.ca/music/











Wednesday 20 September 2017

COWBOYS AND INDIANS



"the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun
is a good guy with a gun"

(Wayne LaPierre, NRA - National Rifle Association/USA)



there's a storm on the horizon

it's been brewing for some time now
becoming more and more visible
it's getting closer
and closer












it was a game we boys played as kids
in Woodstock Ontario back in the 60's
people of colour only on television
in black and white

one dressed as a cowboy and another as an indian
the cowboy is a good guy, the indian is bad
(obviously and in keeping with the script)

harmless fun really, stuff we saw on our 14" monochrome TVs
Daniel Boone and F-Troop - shows like that after school

1965
twenty years before MTV
thirty years before the internet 
forty years before the iPhone
fifty years before Donald Trump
what-ever

spreading peanut butter 
on my bleached white wonder bread
in a world bereft of imagination; dimension
my afternoon treat with grape jelly sometimes
in Ontario Canada - normal stuff that meant nothing
just eating - chewing - swallowing

oh right ... commercials
the price we pay to watch television
"wrongful death" and "dog bites"
my personal faves


 





oK, I really got it later on in life

visiting Ybor City Florida - near Tampa in late December 2004
New Year's eve actually - BIG football game - parade
it's still early, drifting towards the midnight hour
it's warm here - tropic thunder in the distance
most men packin' a concealed firearm
just in case someone
needs an adjustment

stepping off the plane in Fort Lauderdale a week earlier
leaving a brutal cold winter in Toronto
thinking - wow - this is paradise
palm trees - warm weather here
realizing something different
in a few short days

right, like everyone's obese here.  ok - half
transexual transformation billboards - personal injury law firms
super-sized families at Denny's whipped cream emporium
gorging on the American dream - scrambled eggs
and steak or sausages, pancakes
home fried taters and gravy
texas toast and jam 
pie and ice cream

all you can eat
git-ter while she's hot











ordering way more than they need
because they can wrap it up and take it home
to munch on later and later 
heated up in the
microwave

really getting the hypocrisy in American culture
all that "land of the free - home of the brave", bullshit

but mostly really seeing it for the first time
how white Americans think they're better
and entitled to more than anyone else

my mom had recently passed and I was going through 
a caustic catharsis culminating

introspection, trying to find something - anything
real - meaningful - awake

why am I in this place?









it's dead here

nothing but anger and sadness
pretending to be proud
boner - I mean bonus


free parking on the outskirts of the city
where the colored folk live on the dark periphery
having been pushed out of the inner core years earlier

no street lights here - garbage strewn everywhere
a parasite infested mongrel pissing on a crooked hydro pole
that familiar disturbing look up whilst
echoing off the cracked pavement
a winter wonderland 
turned tropical

paradise












colored's not welcomed

ok, the odd Cuban - maybe Mexican (a stretch)
but they look out of place here
nervously trying to fit in
but really not

everyone is really intoxicated
because that is what's on the agenda
pretentious paleface - the narcissism rampant/abundant
football jocks and grimey girls in skimpy slippery sexy
teasing the boys - cause that's what's real now
no apologies, no regrets and all OK - cause

"got my hands up, they're playing my song"


It's a party in the U.S.A.












I'm stunned and numb
   
looking out and over at the passing parade
guy's holding his beer up and yelling at them
"hey baby - right here - right here"
grabbing his crotch

maybe all this?  is just a bad dream

don't get me wrong
I see the world as a good place
where change can still happen

where we can co-exist painlessly
but it's still important, to actually look
at what's really happening
because millions
minions

onion dipper

so hey dude - fuck-nuts
just who do you think you are 
anyways?






 




excuse me sir
I've had a little too much to drink

but I would like to shake your hand
you are an inspiration to me
and I'd like to thank you
for that



 

COWBOYS AND INDIANS














staying awake

I will embrace everyone equally
because I and millions like ME
don't subscribe to this narrow point of view

diversity vs division
it's a no brainer
so why?

maybe it's a glitch in the system
a rogue app - I can install Malware
and fix this - ok gimme a sec
  in the meantime?

It's a party in the U.S.A.
let's RAWK

the Britney song is on
YUM - hot - fuk this shit


distract me, make it
all go away









Sunday 10 September 2017

FROGS





F R O G S












Spearmint Lake - 1991


In May 1991, I received an OAC/Ontario Arts Council grant to fly out to Spearmint Lake (60 km northeast of Chapleau), a remote lake only accessible by air - to record an album of music celebrating northern Ontario.  Rented van w/gear, driving up alone that early August and flying out, I set up a make-shift studio in the large tent, powered by a generator buried back in the woods and recorded sounds from the lake/woods (exterior) and integrated those sounds into an ambient mix of layered music synthesizers and samplers all inspired by the location.

When I returned to Toronto and began mixing it, I realized that I was 10 minutes short of having a full album, so I wrote 2 more pieces, Gone Forever and Frogs in my home studio in Parkdale that autumn in memory of my time at Spearmint months earlier.  My wife Jody Terio had gathered some early morning frogs on a pond at her Aunt Joyce's out in the country (Uxbridge), through a binaural/ambisonic microphone onto a portable digital audio tape recorder and I integrated them with what I had laid down at home and Frogs was born.  This piece sounds best under a good pair of headphones and in a darkened room.


I recently gathered HD images from the internet that reminded me of Spearmint and assembled this in Final Cut in a few hours.  It was a magical 10 days alone in the wilderness, surrounded by wildlife, the aurora and a black bear which was spooky scary but exhilarating.


More pictures and stories about my time at Spearmint Lake in my blog below entitled 'NOCTURNE'



http://jimlamarche.blogspot.ca/2015/08/nocturne.html
http://jimlamarche.blogspot.ca/2015/12/gone-forever.html
http://jimlamarche.blogspot.ca/











Thursday 31 August 2017

USER FRIENDLY



reality is just a crutch for people who can't handle drugs

Robin Williams   











we watch with sad eyes
as the seagulls fly above us
and the once wicked waves waver 
then flat-line in quiet introspection

the storm has ended - over
but the clouds still linger lofty
grey sheets passing passively
in a dying day

it's this feeling - a memory
and an impulse that returns


alone

she gave up long ago
believed there was no hope
that no one could save her
that no one cared

but weather can be deceiving
sometimes hard to predict - unfair
because when we can't see very far
there remains no signage
no signals

nowhere

and we miss that sliver of sunlight
in the shifting tide




U S E R  F R I E N D L Y



 


 

Saturday 19 August 2017

GETHSEMANE


when I can't write
I feel like a block of stone
dreaming alone of nothing

a boat without eyes
for the oars
and no horizon




G E T H S E M A N E
 

 




nothing to lose

music evokes pictures
pictures provoke feelings
one thing leads to another and ...
here we go - always at 5 am
  
a deaf woman sitting alone
looking out a window

an all American boy filling his face
at a hot dog eating contest 
champion eater - 3 years in a row
51 dogs - 10 minutes

a beggar in the garden
of Gethsemane holding up
an empty cup

staring into the night
no one listening
his last night
on earth

caroling crickets

a mother calling out her son's name
only to realize he's gone
in anguish; "Aadish come" again
no words left behind

no trace

hearing it - now seeing it









years passing
a trailer park just out of town
in Cabot Arkansas
 

she's been alone for days
big bag of Lays and another beer
at 1pm

ashtray is full and the place is a mess
staring blankly at the TV (fuming)

plus size house-coat
eating and screaming at Springer
because that f*cking bitch
needs to die


they're bleeping the sound but we know
what they're saying - filling in the blanks
reading their lips
 
turn them on each other
it's something my Dad taught me
watching you through my sterile scope
analysing - improvising

curious - cautious

me with money - you not
common and yet ironic
because I can see you
but you can't see me
because I am your


micro-manager












something still not right 
looking over my shoulder

you see - it's supposed to be
the other way around
it's ass backwards

confused

I'm bathing in bubbles
surveilling the dark shadows 24/7
and still there's this haunting feeling in that


you're not afraid
but I am