Unatural Beliefs

Only then
will we know
who we are
what we are
where we came from
and the order
in the stars.
We are imperfect
innumerable,
invaluable
entranced
by baubles
waylaid by
pain and the
weight of
our troubles.

for those
that dwell in
the movement
of the past
or of other
will never live
in the moment
of now
will never live
with the sighs
of nature's breathing
out and in
of the damage
inherent in life
the beauty
in a dying tree
acknowledging
the cycle
we all seem
to be
festooned with
leeches and liars
and thieves
who believe their laughter
will continue
after death
in the hereafter
but smothered
like evil
in the furrowing
brow of tomorrow.

Random Bits

maybe then we can
in the hearts
of men

(it sounds like a chorus)

In the Garden of Stars

walk amongst trees
fly in her breezes
molten metals
burn in her heart
while her head and feet
catch a freeze.

I am with you
in the garden
of electrical
signals
and I bring
forth riches
and diamonds
and sky.

And I am made up
of carbon
and flowers.
fallen leaves
and vivid
tiger's eye.

My hairs runs
through streams
where vines part
and impart
scenes of sun
drenched
tides,
moons,
dreams.

What Inspires Me - Other Artists

The Call of Death, 1934 - Käthe Kollwitz



The simplicity and the starkness of this powerful image(like much of Kollwitz's work) has always struck me as beautiful. Someone who knew the only way she could tell her story was by shaking hands with death-that decay is part of the exchange of life. When its over, that becomes the point in which all the pain, anguish and hatred we experience in life suddenly meets its end in a moment of grace-everything is lifted off of us and we are free. Isn't that worth capturing and remembering, even showing as beautiful? I think so.

My Raw CV(still missing several entries)

(This is an in-progress CV)

Academic
---------------
BFA - 2000 Academy of Art College / Industrial & Graphic Design Major

Solo Exhibitions
----------------
1994 Forests of Glass / 20 Color Cibachrome prints - Ardenwood Recreational Center
1996 Another Visit to the Forest / 8 "E" Size photostats
1998 Dive for Memory / World Cafe
1999 Excerpts from 1001 Dead Umbrellas / Digital Photographs
2006 Body / Art - Drawings
2007 Body / Art Redux - Drawings & Digital Photographs
2008 Re(boot) / Mini show - Stompers Boots (commercial shoe renderings)
2009 Fetish Alchemy / 30 Drawings - (body landscapes)
2010 TBA

Group Exhibitions
---------------
2002 Mixed Open Showing / Brainwash Cafe
2002 Figure Drawing Group 15th Anniversary / MIC Studios
2004 PODS / Space Gallery
2005 Holiday Show / MIC Studios
2007 Figure Drawing Group 20th Anniversary / MIC Studios
2007 Hot Men / MIC Studios
2008 Fetish Lexicons / MIC Studios
2010 TBA

Other Projects
----------------
1992 - 1995 Soul For Sale / Music & Poetry Journal
Editor/Publisher/Contributor (8 Issues)

1997 - 2007 Nostalgic Futurists / 10 singles, 11 albums, 6 eps and 1 compilation
Multi-instrumentalist, Audio Production, Website & Graphic Design

1997 Drumscapes & Guitarcades - single
1998 Arizona Skies (unreleased)
1998 Beautiful Death Chorus - single
1998 Negative Planet - single
1998 Black Songs - ep
1998 Imaginary Movies - ep
1999 Astral Dead - single
1999 Forgetment - ep
1999 Hailstorm / Fire - album (as starspring)
2000 Laughter & Silence - compilation
2001 Excepts from the Super Summer Sunshine sessions - ep (promo only)
2001 33/45/78 (alternative pocket symphonies & pop songs) - album
2002 Dipole Moment - album producer (w/ JD Lenzen)
2002 Psychedelisized - album
2002 Legendary Children - single
2002 Sketch For New Dawn - soundtrack album
2002 Duality - single
2002 Antiquarian - single
2003 Digitalis - ep
2003 Digitalis - album / + extra tracks
2003 Forest Code - single
2004 New City - single (unreleased)
2005 Cave Killers - soundtrack album (as starspring)
2005 Blood Rose / Real Devils - split double a-side single (w/ La Diabla Absol)
2005 Na:tur - album (single track soundtrack)
2006 Interprocess Communications - ep (w/ Sansome & Sloat)
2006 ElectriCity - album
2007 Memory Fragments in Two Halves - album (as starspring)
2007 Loops - single (digital mp3s only)
2008 Electrical Fires: workbooks, textures and other bizarre failures in music (1997-2007) - compilation

Awards
----------------
1990 Excellence in the Arts / Alameda County School District / Sole Awardee

doin' the Goatee thing again...

More Goals

Goal: To do more of EVERYTHING. More work. Have more Sex. make more Art. Make more money.

Swing my machete
through the jungles
of depression.

Winning is a choice. Being 'poor' is a state of mind.

Essential Listens John Cale / Fragments of A Rainy Season

Good for many reasons not the least of which is Cale himself. But this album is more-its Cale as virtuoso pianist, gifted interpreter, distinctive songwriter and charismatic performer. This is almost an overview of his whole career, including material from every studio album up to that point(1992) as well as his setting of three of Dylan Thomas' poems to music(and as far as I know, the first ever his estate has allowed published) plus old Chestnuts like Fear and Ship of Fools, plus his radically take on Elvis' Heartbreak Hotel which still sounds haunting. and of course his legendary arrangement of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.

People often mistakenly pin the principal talent in the Velvet Underground on Lou Reed but other than mentoring with the poet Delmore Schwartz and doing some songwriting for the Picwic record label in the mid 60s he didn't have that much going on outside his burgeoning drug habit and the lingering effects of shock therapy treatments. Cale on the other hand was already a child prodigy, had played with no less than Terry Reily, Tony Conrad, Lamont Young AND John Cage before he turned 21-WAY before he even met Reed. He's also acted as producer on some of the most influential albums ever(Patti Smith's Horses comes to mind but the list-Nico,The Ramones, Nick Drake, Brian Eno, et al is HUGE)and written songs with loads of others. a real artist and poet-someone who does it because there isn't anything else worth doing. inspiration.

Back the Same Day

all the husbands
and the sons
turned to heroes
boy soldiers
turn into men.
one day
before you die
you'll feel the weight
of a gun.

but is your soul ever
going to be
free?
that weight
its too much
when did it all
get so damn heavy?

even if we're different as
night and day
like baby to mother
from midnight
to high noon
over and over
one always follows
the other.

higher and higher
wider and wider
the sky opens
like a new flower
the first drop
of every rainstorm.
beauty to protect
from harm.

you never have
a chance
when its
sweet temptation,
but is your soul free?
you'll find the ripcord
someday you'll get release.

You've had a helluva time
lets put it out to dry
lets hang it on a line.
swing like two kids
pretending to spy.
teenage wasteland,
teenage kicks,
teenage dreams
are still mine.

Essential Listens The Cocteau twins / Blue Bell Knoll

I'm starting a new writing series. I'm going to call it "essential listens" because I think that they are albums which nearly everyone can find interesting on some level. Er, and because I love them. ;)



You can get lost for days in the first track alone. There are a hundred thousand lifetimes in that song.

Proof There is No God - Kirsty MacColl

Kirsty MacColl 1959 - 2000



God I miss her. If I could give a leg to bring her back I would. Even if all I ever got was her living out the rest of her life being happy, that would be enough. Her music has brought me so much happiness over the years it can't be measured. Sadly it would take a lot more than a leg to raise the dead, and I am not that gifted, or that powerful.

I first heard of her oddly enough singing back up for my favorite band ever, The Smiths. Her cracking vocals on Your Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby are as passionate and yearning as anything I've heard sung, ever. Her voice was instantly recognizable, almost intimate and yet amazing sunny and effervescent.

I went backward, discovering her solo albums starting with "Kite" from 1989 and working my way forward. There's a lot of gold in them thar hills! For someone who's Father is considered one of the godfathers of folk(Ewan MacColl- the first ever I saw your face) she had an incredible pop sensibility and enough songwriting hooks to catch fish for the 5,000.

As is sometimes the case with immense talent that arrives before their time, Kirsty never had any huge hits although Comedian Tracy Ullman took her 1983 single "They Don't Know" to number two in 1986-including leaving Kirsty's backing vocals intact from the original and right up front like a duet in the chorus. Forever a fan herself Ullman said at the time "it would have been wrong to use myself-without Kirsty's voice the song is not the same. I love her and her voice." Although a few singles charted in the lower reaches of the British charts, she never hit it big in the US, though her husband Steve Lillywhite had massive success with his production for Simple Minds, the Smiths and of course U2-almost all of whom Kirsty did backing vocals.

After her divorce from Lillywhite and the relative failure of her 'divorce' album Titanic Days, she took time off. Raising her two children and generally writing songs on her own, but sometimes with others, she mostly kept a low profile for many years. So it was with much delight when she reappeared in 2000 with the album Tropical Brainstorm(her album titles were never without a little humor-even for an English girl). I began playing the album to death-to the point where my then partner Lee asked "could you PLEASE play something else?" It wasn't just a good album-it was her best. She was often quoted as saying "There's no reason to shove your face in the public presence if you don't have anything worthwhile to say."

I thought this album deserved to be heard by everyone and I made sure I mentioned it as often as possible. I rarely use an entire album to cheer myself up but this album is so determined to be sunny you can't can't help but feel the rays beaming out of the speakers. After her divorce, licking her wounds and looking for new directions, she visited Cuba for the first time. This was WAY Before the Buenavista Social Club and the influx of Cuban music that was cool in the late 1990's. Visiting several times over the years, she immersed herself in the culture, tasting the nightlife and recapturing her verve-including falling in love again with a somewhat younger man. They began writing songs. She wrote more with a few others, leading to the songs which became Tropical Brainstorm. The woman who wrote these songs sounds about as in love with life as you can imagine.

She was taking a quick last minute vacation to Cozumel, Mexico just prior to beginning a small tour in support of the album. She rarely toured and almost never in the US so the success of the first single "in these shoes" boded well. I was all set to finally get a chance to see her live and then...one Saturday morning in September...she was dead. In fact she had been killed while snorkeling with her two small children and her new lover, by a wealthy Mexican businessman driving a powerboat in an area reserved only for swimming. Kirsty died pushing her two children out of the way of the boats path, putting herself in their place. She was struck on the back of the head while her two children watched, narrowly missing being hit themselves. She was killed instantly. The driver of the boat didn't even stop. Because he was drunk. Kirsty's elderly mother has spent the intervening 10 years devoting herself to bringing the man to justice.

I knew how corrupt the Mexican judicial system was and was not surprised that they pinned the murder on some poor guy who the businessman claimed had been piloting the boat at the time of the accident. It wasn't true. One more reason to hate the rich? At this point I was just stunned hearing about it. She was only 41, in the prime of her life and in love again doing something she loved with the most important people in her life by her side. The wrongness of her death troubles me even now. I often find myself thinking of her and begin to cry. Taken at exactly the wrong time, just when everything was starting to go her way(Bette Midler even covered 'In These Shoes'-which was released as a single after Kirsty's death)and with SUCH a great album. Not a good album...a GREAT Album. And her best. She went out on top both as an artist but also a songwriter. You can tell she was the real deal, a one-off firing on all cylinders.

Everyone loved her-even in the notoriously backstabbing record industry-and she was the kind of woman you could call a 'broad' without her taking offense. She would have probably offered you a glass of red wine and drunk you under the table instead. Smart, sassy, gifted and a voice like a fiery red-headed angel with a personality to match. Even as talented as she was, with as many truly 'famous' people that she knew she always said her greatest achievement was her children. And in a way she made sure they would live, even if she might not.

Its been 10 years since her death. I play her music all the time-nearly everything holds up-even the 80's material. But its always bittersweet-and I find myself thinking of the what if's. What if she had lived? What would she be doing-would those concerts I never got to see her perform in have been the best? I'll never know. I just keep playing her records and doing what I can to share her truly vibrant spirit with the rest of the world. She taught me to laugh when it hurts and cry because it feels so wonderful to be alive.



I miss you Kirsty. Have a Margarita and a record player waiting when I get there, would you?

Love Steve

And for the record

FUCK Meg Whittman for ANYTHING. She thinks she can run this state like she ran Ebay - like a corporation. Well, some news dear...when you're in charge of the show and its your word uber alles that might work.

But...

This is California. People here don't like being told what to do-or watching some multibillionaire tell them how their money should be spent. Like the sticker on the fence of the newspaper machine said "God bless the Obscenely wealthy." and that's about it. We don't want you because you can make money-it takes MORE than that. I think you are VASTLY underestimating what kind of a thrill ride you are in for.

Its a Little Come Hither

But who else is looking back?



Back to a goatee - we'll see how long this one lasts.

Utter Exhaustion (whose to say we live in the moment)

not here....the other place.

Just weary I guess
I'd like to stop
sit awhile
and rest.

Been siphoning off
slow poison and
understood
its the top.

Laughing, transient
dreaming of
tangents and
the rent.

They all said cuckoo
but I still
fell for it
and for you.

utter exhaustion
no explanation
frustrated by
the question.

No brow to anoint
so how in orbit
late for my
disappointment.

New Goals / Sept - End of Year

Solid Goals

1. Solid employment
2. Get the hell out of this overpriced shit hole
3. New Blog/Website - As a place holder until real website is finished
4. Artist Representation -
5. Get back to making art like my life depended on it
--------------------

Well, I'm off to a great start. I already got #3 checked off and I feel the wheels of(industry)starting to grind forward underneath me. Its strategy time.

If You're Into That Sort of Thing

http://artofstevenpaigedavis.blogspot.com

Schizoid Plan gets Out of Hands

farewell
better be well,
when did my hand
kill the man
on judgment day?
did things get out of control?
trying to
express your soul,
unleashed feelings
like chopped off feelers
that no longer transmit
collar too tight
clothes too unfashionable
to fit.

Better ever, lopped off head
playing cards
flattened by insurrection
thinking too hard
stuck in the mud.
different names for people
who are all the same
different names for me
to keep track of the pain.
separation, inspiration
want to have one strong line
not nets and webs
that snake on
throughout the future
multiple, multitudes,
etudes, groovy tunes
where did my hands
get the idea to punish,
to move in space?

crushed feelers
not transmitting
curl up like ants
in the blaze of the
white light pinpointed fire
when put under
such solar scrutiny
its all for one
its all for nothing
its microscopic mutiny
where does myself bend
in the wind
like reeds
thrown like seeds
into the fields
of constellations
(underneath crawl
the scorpions
of unfettered desire)

Better I beat them
Well, I beat the drum
like the last lingering rhythm
in the afternoon sun.

Make It In The Straight World Part II

Make It In The Straight World

People often ask "what does it look like when you don't draw nudes?"


Now you know.

Title: "You Wait Until Your Time Comes 'Round Again"
Approx. 14" x 24" Color Pencil on 50% gray 80Lbs. cold-press stock

Chafing Against the Bones of Eternity

The real way to fight demons is to be a conjurer yourself. To pull something from thin air, see something no one has ever seen or see it in a way no one else can, make tangible the intangible. like a warning for evil spirits(the real ones) that you aren't going down without a fight.