Be Positive
by Dan
Please note: MP3s are only kept online for a short time, and if this entry is from more than a couple of weeks ago, the music probably won't be available to download any more.


 

Patrick Watson - "Bright Shiny Lights"

Patrick Watson is someone surrounded by, immersed in, aesthetic. Ships in bottles lost at sea, old-timey, otherworldly figures, old toy train cars that fall off the sidewalk into the pink sky. See the video for "Drifters" on the MySpace to see what I mean. Someone else who approaches music this way is Tom Waits. However, with Waits, his aesthetic of drunken boardwalk gamblers and trench-coat crooks who meet in dark wet woods with giants who are burying an only son, is completely necessary, and not as a crutch is for walking, but more like putting a face to a name, for enjoying his music (my opinion). But with Watson, not that I don't like the work of Ms. Brigitte Henry, in fact I quite like it, but I feel this song benefits hugely from a context-less, an image-free environment. One that the green drapes of this blog can provide. So, I've brought it into the lab for you guys today so you can see what a swaying, crooning, gem this Patrick Watson is. And you can apply your own aesthetic. For me, I see this being played on Saturday Night Live, with Watson in his taxi-driver hat, nuzzling into the mic, and his back-up singers all doodie'd up in sequins, and the old drummer slamming that snare with the nervous energy that comes with playing that show. (I never claimed my aesthetic would be better, only that it would be my own.)
This is the last track on the downright lovely Close to Paradise. [out Sept. 26th]

Posted by Dan at September 15, 2006 5:05 PM
Comments

gosh, that's a lovely song. i think i'll buy this.

i like your SNL vision. it's one of the things you do best: reminding us of the deeply moving, even in the lines of the greypurple here-and-now.

Posted by Sean at September 15, 2006 6:10 PM

beautiful, beautiful...

Posted by Michael at September 15, 2006 8:07 PM

To Dan: You are a bad writer in the same way that you are a hack filmmaker. (2 'm's?)
To everyone else: Check Dan out. He's great.

Posted by Anonymous at September 17, 2006 9:21 AM

Really enjoyed your writeup and the song, Dan. Thank you!

Posted by Karin S. at September 17, 2006 9:20 PM

That's Land of Talk's Liz Powell singing backup, too.

Anyone coming to Pop Montreal that won't be here for the launch on the 26th, keep your ear to the ground for crazy late night jam sessions...

Posted by Andrew Rose at September 18, 2006 4:58 PM

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Sean Michaels is the founder of Said the Gramophone. He is a writer, critic and author of the theremin novel Us Conductors. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email here. Click here to browse his posts.

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Dan Beirne wrote regularly for Said the Gramophone from August 2004 to December 2014. He is an actor and writer living in Toronto. Any claim he makes about his life on here is probably untrue. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.

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