It has been cold. The last several days temperatures have been either a little above or a little below freezing. Granted, it is not single-digit cold. I experienced that living in New York City; that is a whole different level of pain. Nonetheless, commuting in freezing weather bleeds out enough energy that I find myself in a struggle to complete an average workday.
During a post-lunch nap in the darkened file room on the first floor I listened to Last Exit's "Crackin" off the eponymous Last Exit (1986). When we first moved to New York City in August of 1988 my buddy Oliver, who was visiting with his wife Lyn, insisted that we go see Sonny Sharrock at the Knitting Factory. Oliver was a big advocate of Sharrock's guitar playing, which was jazz played in a manner that appealed to Punk fans.
In any event, I didn't really enjoy the Knitting Factory show, but I admired the music.
The sound of Last Exit (drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson just died a couple months ago) and Sonny Sharrock -- the unyielding edginess and difficulty of it -- I never bonded with or got inside of it and felt what it was up to.
Yesterday, drifting off to sleep in the noon hour in a dark room on a cold carpeted floor, listening on my iPod to that track off Last Exit, I finally did. It made perfect sense. I think the freezing weather helped.
It has something to do with the moment that sense forms out of nonsense; for lack of a better description, "birth." It is a musical exploration of the assertoric nature of all creation. And I guess that's something.
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