Archive for August, 2008

Be The Change You Want To See In The World

This is not a gig.
This, here, on a wet Sunday afternoon in the Midlands in front of maybe a hundred people is not a gig. This is the change we want to see in the world.
This is not a gig.
This is a life changing experience. It honestly changes the lives of every person in this room, at least while the music is playing.
This is music from pre-history. This is the performance of cave-men when a mammoth has been slain and the tribe is not going to starve.

A Brief History Of Music

The Mae Shi take reference points from every rock n roll band you ever loved, anarchic like music should be. Not studied anarchy, not the cliche of swigging from a bottle of whiskey (full of cold tea) or vodka (full of water), but real, dangerous, unknowable anarchy. Where, ridiculous as it may seem, Anything Can Happen. Clothes come off, parachutes(!) appear from nowhere, instruments are handed to girls in the crowd to take care of.
This is all from a time before egos, from a time before the seperation of artist and admirer. We are one, but this is not hippie music.
This is not a gig.

A Destruction Of Ideas

This is not a gig.
It’s a place, a destination, a violent, loving community to which we all long to belong and to which, for thirty minutes or so, we all do belong to.
We are all the band, we are all the audience, we are all the music and as one, we are all, for one elongated moment, truly happy.
We recall nothing but shapes and sounds and feelings, but we know that something changed, something just happened and we want it back, we want to feel it all the time.
It makes you glad you’re alive and damn, man, I’m glad you’re alive too.