almost normal...

...but not quite.

still, i have enough time to post something utterly random. well. almost.

but not quite.

these days, i can't seem to hold too many ideas in my head. my work (my "real" work, the kind i actually "make a living"--barely--out of) has been suffering from much of my headspace being occupied by ideas for a few more stories, on top of the handful already stuck in limbo having met (hopefully) temporary deadends, and so has my blogging: i'm glad i got one of those stories out or i may have gone utterly bugfuck-mad by now.

or is it too late? after all, today i found release by setting down a ramble on word before putting it up here:

i’ve been listening to John Mayer’s Continuum since yesterday. at first, i honestly couldn’t tell what i thought of it. gone is the delinquent-college/garage-days fun of John Mayer’s Room for Squares, which he’d already started to shed with his appropriately named Heavier Things. this is John Mayer stripped down to the soul…and that’s a good thing. only i found myself, initially, at least, a bit disappointed.

don’t get me wrong, it’s all wonderful stuff, the kind i automatically slap the “good tunes” seal of approval on, but i miss the semi-juvenilia of the first album.

from the get-go, i loved the way he seemed to be channeling Marvin Gaye in the first track, “Waiting on the World to Change”, and although none of the other tracks have the exact same feel, particularly when he’s more obviously channeling say, Clapton or Sting, the impression somehow lingers through the rest of the album—no doubt a side effect of the anti-war message that seems threaded in with all the other “mature” themes of the album.

to be honest, all my disappointment may come from the one thing on this CD i was absolutely looking forward to: the cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Bold as Love”, which has to be one of the (if not simply the) absolute greatest songs ever written imho.

in “Bold as Love”, John Mayer and his band show the “maturity” and “restraint” that is on display throughout the album. just when you think the band’s about to really rip into the song, they take a step back as if to say “now hold on there, that’s just not where we wanna go.” which is good for the band, but not, imho, for the song.

“Bold as Love” is all about the sweet release of being “bold as love”, and John Mayer’s version has to be the most frustratingly restrained version i have ever heard of the song. it all feels like a bit of a tease really, the way they seem to be stepping up to it, and are just about there, and you can feel the tension building up…only for the band to step back, and let all that built up tension just sort of ooze out. if i had ever learned to play that song, i’d have been blowing amps and snapping all the strings following the lead of the soaring fade-out of Jimi’s version, which has been more than adequately (extreme understatement alert) translated for live performance by Steve Vai in the tribute album In From the Storm…but not John Mayer and his band. they smoothly turn down the energy, just when you think the dam can’t possibly help but break, and they wind down to a jarringly and frustratingly calm full-stop.

are they making a statement? could be. i wouldn’t really know. i stopped paying too much attention to lyrical content when i left college, and listen to most things for the visceral pleasure of it.

given all the “maturity” and “restraint” flying violently out of the speakers, is there any visceral pleasure to be had at all from Continuum?

oddly enough, yes. like i said, this is John Mayer stripped down to the soul. it may feel laid back, “mature” and “restrained”, and it may seem like he’s channeling a number of other musicians, but it’s all Mayer’s guts in this music. this CD feels every bit as honest as Mayer’s other two albums, which is saying a lot these days.

right. whatever, yeah?