Kill Yr Idols

1 week ago | killyridols.substack.com | George Grella

Albums create the idea that musical ideas are finished and complete. This might be true, especially the closer you get to popular commodity, but is often an illusion, no more so than when it comes to music that uses improvisation, and further so for artists who are constantly moving toward a culminating point. The great 20th century example of that was Miles Davis, and the great 21st century one is Henry Threadgill.

3 weeks ago | killyridols.substack.com | George Grella

NOTE: I screwed up the settings on the previous version of this post, here’s the exact same one, but better. I read a lot of academic musicology because it’s my thing as a musician and a critic. Musicology is the study of music in both technical (how it works) and historical (how it came to be and what that means) contexts, and that’s of interest to anyone with more than a consumerist interest in music of any kind.

4 weeks ago | killyridols.substack.com | George Grella

Music can’t change the world, but it might be able to save it. Music making is a social activity and in my firm opinion the original way for people to communicate and come together across language and cultural barriers. Maybe you can’t talk with each other—yet—but you can sing and dance with each other. And so we have civilization. And to paraphrase John Waters, if you meet people who don’t sing, dance, or listen to music, get the fuck away from them.

1 month ago | killyridols.substack.com | George Grella

“Never be cruel and never be cowardly. And if you ever are, always make amends.”When my daughter was a newborn, her mother and I split shifts on taking care of her through the night. I would stay up to about 4 a.m., reading a book in one hand while she slept draped across my forearm (she was a little premature and very small).

1 month ago | killyridols.substack.com | George Grella

“When I was in jail I heard a lot of stories … about different junk they’ve had, how good it was, and about big scores they’ve made. They’d pull a robbery and instead of buying a gram or a quarter they’d buy a piece or two … and sell a little bit and lay up and just fix and not have to go out on the street. So now, what I wanted was to find somebody to help me pull an armed robbery. I wanted to go in with a gun, get the money, score, get away from the scene, and cool it.