David Bronson

New Mexico was yellow.
Utah and Colorado were red. 
(I’m sure they still are).
I visited that part of the country roughly 14 years ago,
 and I swore to myself that I would never go more than 2 years without getting back to the West.
Of course not.
Why, after having been that deeply and profoundly affected in such an unprecedented and positive way, would you ever want to deny that to yourself?
You wouldn’t.
And yet, as certain as I was that I had found a new kind of spiritual home away from home, here I am, a decade and a half later, having not gotten back since.

Why do we so easily forget?

One of the most astonishing powers of art is that it connects people across time. And when I say ‘people’ I am talking about two people, one to another. The relationship between the receiver of a work and the issuer, if truly and deeply received, is an unbelievably intimate one. This is because that identification is one of the strongest bonds that can be made in human experience: that of a shared, deeply held value, or feeling.

This must be why the ‘truer’ or more ‘honest’ a work feels to us, the more we as receivers tend to connect to it. It’s like connecting to a love, or an extremely close friend. (In fact, isn’t a main criteria, or actually the main criteria on which we base our beliefs about our closest friendships based on the very same thing? Namely, the feeling or belief – or belief as a result of feeling – that this other person feels so closely about something to the way we do that as a result we ‘understand’ each other?)

And the relationship is so intimate because the subject matters that are generally dealt with in works of art, and our feelings related to them, are often the most personal that we as individuals, as a species, experience.

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Have you ever thought about the word confidence?

I was just thinking that it must stem from the same root as the word confide, i.e. a confide-ence or a confiding (to another, or others, which might explain the connotation of outward or external projection that the word carries with it in current everyday use).

This, however, would also tie it intimately to the notions of trust, safety, and vulnerability (as in someone with confidence is unafraid to allow themselves to be vulnerable). Which is to say that a ‘confidence’ is really a held belief that what we put outside of ourselves, or ‘confide’ will not cause us harm; that we will be safe in doing so.

It seems to me that this gives a pretty different shade of meaning from the conventional use or understanding of the word in our culture right now, which carries with it something more along the lines of arrogance, or macho-ness (along with those qualities attendant pretensions), which might have very little to do with it after all.

Our very good friends over at the amazing blog Taken By Sound, which up till now have resigned themselves to album, song, and video reviews, have given me the great honor of being their very first interview!

Not surprisingly, they did a fantastic job with it.
READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

A friend posted something on Facebook about Freddie Mercury’s death (21 years ago yesterday) and it got me thinking about him, for a quick minute or so, like so many of the lightning-fast blips that we’re fully accustomed to coming in brief contact with on social media, online, on television, in the street, in daily life, etc.

Ironically, or maybe not at all, it was the striking black and white photo (posted here) that caught my attention. (Ironic since, obviously, it was the phenomenon of this man’s extreme musical/audial magic-making that made me, along with large portions of humanity, become so fully enraptured, and maybe not at all since his mastery at showmanship and visual presentation, were and are blatantly obvious and acknowledged by anyone who cared or cares to look.)

And so I shared it on Facebook, and posted on Twitter. But it made me feel sad, and maybe even a bit shameful, as it often does, to have so quickly and summarily passed over a presence that has meant a very lot to me over the years. So I thought I’d like to just write a little something more, to commemorate in my own way.

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I’m painting a picture of something
We’re all doing it
Trying to replicate something,
some representation of something
Of a thing we can never be sure of
In actuality of a hope more than anything else
Yes, our whole existence is really a hope
Another, more fancy-ish word for it might be a ‘projection’
Or just ‘project’ isn’t far off either.
What does it consist of?
Thoughts, behaviors, meanings, colors, actions, people,
rooms, moods,
interactions, desires
A million tangible and intangible things
And it’s impossible not to do it
Even to kill yourself is to go somewhere else, so that’s something
And anyway, you will have shaped everything.

photo by Willie Davis

Q. How does it feel to have a UK release date for your album, Story?
David Bronson: It feels fantastic. It’s like the other half of the picture in a way. I mean, at least half, and probably more, of the music that’s meant so much to my life has come from the UK. I think it’s one of the great stories…Read the full interview

I want to thank Rob Carnevale and indieLondon for a very thoughtful and extremely well executed interview that was great fun to participate in.

I was recently asked to write a few of my personal thoughts about the ‘Times’ video for a press outlet, so I thought I’d post them here before the next single comes out (any day now):

Robbie Mangano, David Bronson, and Maria Neckam during the shooting of the official music video for ‘Times’

In general I like it when things have numerous layers of meaning, probably because that’s how life is, and since this is a record where there are layers upon layers built in, I really like the idea of the videos having some of that depth as well.

I thought ‘Times’ in particular was a perfect song to play with this idea, since it’s at least partially about the very notion of multiplicity in things – even the song title attests to that. On the other hand I’m also very drawn to a certain degree of clarity and simplicity (from a practical as well as aesthetic or conceptual point of view). So the challenge was to come up with a concept for the video that somehow expressed what, to me, were the important themes of the song (movement, growth, etc., which tie very significantly into the larger album as a whole), as well as something that was almost instantly grasp-able as an idea, both visually and conceptually.

As far as the actual production was concerned – we all had a fantastic time making this video – it was an incredible amount of planning work (and took three full days of shooting!) to get all the correct angles and configurations of players covered, and significantly more than that in the editing and post-production, but everyone involved was very happy with the results, myself certainly included.

And I had a lot of fun putting in little visual/conceptual touches (like the time of day outside the window changing to the beat of the song – another demonstration of varying “times”) – for me these are just other little metaphors for the larger themes. There are even three, very quick, little visual references to the ‘Story’ itself, if you’re fast enough to spot them (hint: look for the album artwork).

Our cat died. He was a beautiful creature. Some found him strange, and I guess he was, judging by certain standards. He had tons of personality, was surprising, hyperactive, even occasionally aggressive, quirky as anything, fun as hell, played games, was loving, and affectionate, and we loved him, and he loved us, in the way that animals do. He was part of our family, part of our home.

We knew it was coming, but were surprised at how empty and horribly sad it felt right when he died, and now, after.

Zeke, Ezekiel, little guy, we loved you, and love you. You were our cat. You were an amazing cat, such a great little guy, a beautiful little guy, and we’re really going to miss you.

Why can’t we all just call it like it is, even most of the time? It doesn’t have to be all the time – I’m aware how completely counterproductive that would end up being in a practical, logistical, life-living sense.

But, for example, why can’t I just say to a friend, “actually, no, this is shit. And I know that you did it and therefore, like all of us do (usually much, much too casually), you’ve ascribed it some intangible connection to yourself, some self-ness, and you want everyone to like it (because you want everyone to like you and you think they’re related [and they very probably are related in the current way of things]).” But why couldn’t it be possible that someone could just put a thing together, any thing, from any pieces or parts, and it wouldn’t need to be attached to them, it’s not like an arm, or a child – it’s just a thing, possibly a very pleasing combination, or a helpful one, or maybe a terrible one, or, most likely, not worth mentioning one way or the other. And who really cares which anyway? Maybe a few people, sometimes. I know, this is just not how we are. And I’m just as guilty of the ego-driven attachment as everyone else. But I do believe that this really is not a terribly healthy way in which to view or contextualize things (including ourselves).

And this is just one example. Another would be to point out how shitty (i.e. horrifically low level of nutrient value for soul, spirit, body, mind, etc.) most of the stuff we’re exposed to, expose our children to, accept, eat, and even begin to crave in a sick, empty, junk-food kind of way is.

So I guess any real reversal of these aspects of our culture and our selves on any significant scale is just too much to ask for. Like trying to end world hunger or something.

But, if there’s an awareness, we owe it to the potential current and future good of everything to keep trying.