Stuart Davis: Dharmapalooza, Tour Schedule, New Album!
August 04, 2006 00:14
Dharmapalooza
From Stuart's Website:"Every year, I host this special event, Dharmapalooza. We get together, meditate, learn some new stuff about love and being a human, and we party our asses off at a killer rock 'n roll show. This year is going to be the best one ever. Are you kidding me? We have landed the ultimate special guest: Zen Master Genpo Roshi. You do not want to miss this event, and you will if you don't secure a reservation. There are 100 spots available. No more, no less. They will go fast."
When: October 27, 28, and 29.
Where: Boulder, Colorado. Events will take place at the Shambhala Buddhist Center in downtown Boulder and at Trilogy Music Club (they are right across the street from each other).
How Much: $99 (US). That price includes a full day of Big Mind with Genpo Roshi, a live concert with Stuart Davis (and band) at Trilogy, and one meal. All attendees must arrange and pay for their own travel to and from Boulder, accomodations while here, transportation to all locations, and meals. The fee is due upon arrival on Friday Night, and it goes toward covering rental cost of the music club, meditation center, staff for each event, and Genpo Roshi's travel and expenses. I am just out to break even on this one, and this is the lowest fee we can charge and still do that.
Click Here for more information on Dharmapalooza!
Stu on Tour
Aug 10 - Lafayette, CO
Aug 18 - Sioux Falls, SD
Aug 19 - Mankato, MN
Sep 01 - Iowa City, IA
Sep 02 - Omaha, NE
Sep 08 - Vught, Netherlands
Sep 10 - England, Devon, United Kingdom
Sep 14 - Lage-Vuursche, Netherlands
Sep 15 - Rosendaal, Netherlands
Sep 16 - Amsterdam, Netherland
Click Here for more information about these shows!
Stuart's New Album
Stuart Davis' new studio album ¿What is a landmark work by a pop iconoclast. With the expert aid of producer Alex Gibson, Davis' twelfth full length release is his best yet. The acclaimed songwriter and Zen Buddhist delves ever-challenging topics, from extolling the spiritual virtues of oddity (Good Wyrd), boxing with paradox (AC/DC), to playing the role of a Hollywood director bent on getting an indie Goddess to sell out (Parker Posey). The album moves through every mood and mode of the human condition, from the dumpster (Rape Game) to the transparent release of ineffable freedom (Glass), thirty-five year old Davis demonstrates the depth and versatility that has made him a critic's darling and a cult icon in the U.S. and Europe. And for the first time in fifteen years, he's released an album without putting the lyrics in the CD jacket.
"I was more enrapt with music on this album than any one before. My producer Alex Gibson really helped me grow into that part of the art in this last year, and I finally feel as thought melody, arrangement, and the ensemble of elements has come to the fore and flowered every bit as much as the lyrics. It's a very musical album, and for the first time in my career, I'm not so worried if people 'get the lyrics' or not."
-Stuart Davis
But if listeners do decode some of Davis' gift for electro-locution, they will not be disappointed. Some random samplings from his new batch of songs reveal his kaleidoscopic imagination as alive as ever, as in Good Wyrd, reviewing the family dynamics of shadow,
I damn near died at the moment of conception
My-my-my daddy couldn't keep his erection
but you'd never guess it to see me today
'cuz I stand up straight (like a typical gay)
With a flock of baby birds that are stuck in my mouth
I wanna gag and gag till they come fluttering out
I'm living with lock-jaw and egg-shell cheeks
I keep dreading the day that they discover their beaks
Wyrd
Good Wyrd
In Easter, Davis slams his own escapism masquerading as spirituality, and recognizes the divinity in day to day family life,
Right posture, right poses
too bad what's under the robes is
still cross-eyed, in the witness
and searching for suchness
Back home, God's diamond
puts a diaper on the daughter
of a mystical martyr
who triggered a seizure
making believe that his body's a disease
he's wishing for a World where his vapor could thrive
giving up his life (as if he were alive)
he would have wings
if feather's came from crutches
or that cushion he clutches
But it's the scarcity of words in Glass that move the song like a line drawing, a black and white calligraphy. At eight lines, it's his lightest touch yet.
Falling snow
on the back
of a gliding crow
of a crow
Moonlight breaks
the glass
of a frozen lake
of a lake
Another first, this album features the recent collaboration between Davis and his long time hero, hip-hop visionary Saul Williams. Williams joined Davis in the studio in Boulder Colorado (Davis' home), and in addition to providing the backing vocals on Easter, wrote a poem on the spot, offering it as a companion to the song Easter, one of the albums great highlights. It's one more reason this collection is so satisfying and surprising from beginning to end. Rather than settle into a safe set of formulas, Davis has continued to challenge himself and his audience, pushing into new territories over and over. Never content to remain in the comfort of his previous success, its Stu's relentless drive to find new perspectives, new selves, and new puzzles in the human condition that make him such a perennially rewarding artist.
Davis will be touring through this summer and fall, promoting the release of ¿What.
What is the sound
of one hand slapping
your face
before your parents were born?
Click Here to purchase Stu's new album
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