About religion, the gospel, AI, supercomputers and the singularity

Even though back in the day I revered legendary country and soul singers like Johnny Cash, Hank Williams or Al Green, I couldn’t help but feeling silly trying to emulate some of their songs involving the lord. I had this very temporarily happening country band called The Cosmopolitan Cowboys so I really kinda had to, also. Despite my Italian heritage I was never baptised or took any catholic classes in my public primary school, way back in the 80s. There was a spiritual void forming for sure so when sometime in the late 90s I stumbled upon a documentary on Dutch television, proposing the concept of the singularity (basically meaning we will create a technological being that will be able to solve all of earthly problems) I was drawn in, given it was at least a more plausible path towards salvation. Fastforward to the 2010s when amidst the doom of the failed Arab Spring and more and more alarming climate change reports, seemingly out of nowhere the protagonist of that documentary Ray Kurzweil started to rise to prominence again, doubling down on his claim that human level AI would be reached by 2029 due to recent technological devolopments. Stories started coming in about a supercomputer beating humans at Jeopardy and all of Kurzweil’s computing power graphs only seemed to be rising higher and higher at a faster and faster speed as time progressed. It was in that context that I wrote a song called Supercomputer. If I listen back to it I now hear a gospel song with the traditional handclaps, vibrato dense organ and church bells around a Dylanesque cadence of words trying to summarize human progress in 2 verses culminating in eternal salvation by our supercomputational silicon lord solving all our problems. I was really proud of my achievement since it was the closest I could come to emulating the religious spirit of my country soul heroes as I could have. That might be why I was so adamant about releasing it as the follow up to the successful first single Fill My Life Up from my sophomore double album Hold Me Like the World Is Ending. It was a shame the song didn’t get picked up much (though I really pity those radio playlisters tasks wholeheartedly). Along with the song, the mid 2010s hype around technological progress dimmed down too due to from what I understand mostly certain practical problems causing a standstill and a realization they couldn’t really deliver on that promise of exponential progress. Really, until about a year ago when the whole world was jaw-drop-me floored by the human level capabilities of this novel chatbot that was set free (for free). And then a few days ago I ran into this story about Microsoft and Open AI investing 100 billion dollars into building a new supercomputer by 2028, one year prior to Kurzweil prediction and my mind started wondering again. Today I dropped off my six year old to robot camp. Curious to see what his future will look like…

“All of this has happened before and all this will happen again” (quote from Battlestar GalacticaI I borrowed near the end of the song, basically forecasting and maybe steering what will eventually go down)

Mr Kris Kristofferson and me

So I opened up for country legend Kris Kristofferson past Saturday evening. Just me, my electric and acoustic guitar. Right before I went on, I ran into the man himself. He was very friendly and down to earth, just as I had expected. We talked briefly, I thanked him for the great opportunity, he wished me good luck and told me he'd maybe check out a couple of songs. So I walked out on stage, plugged in my electric guitar, introduced myself to the audience and started playing "21st Century Punkrocker". Right after strumming the final chord to that song there was a short silence in the audience which got interrupted by loud clapping coming from behind the stage. I turned around and to my surprise it was the legend himself still clapping and cheering enthusiastically. I'm pretty sure he was sober. Ultimately flattered, I went on and played a set of mostly country tinged songs I wrote over the years. I'm not exactly a walking country music dictionary, you know, but I've always had a fancy for country songs ever since I was 18 and heard GP + Grievous Angel by Gram Parsons for the first time. I've even had my own little country band Marco Z & The Cosmopolitan Cowboys for a while. But when line-dance groups started showing up at our shows we felt the time was right to call it quits. I then went on to record my solo album, had a hit song on national radio which granted me the opportunity to open for Kris Kristofferson at a packed Handelsbeurs in Ghent, so there I was again. After nine songs I cleared the stage, sold a couple of cds and went on to watch the legend himself play. You could sense that for most of the audience it felt as though an old friend came to visit them. Except that that friend had a suitcase full of classic songs that are permanently embedded in country music history. After the show I had a chance to talk to the man for twenty minutes or so and the warmth coming from him felt as familiar as the characters in his songs. To my own astonishment he started throwing actual compliments at me: how much he enjoyed my songs, that I reminded him of himself when he was younger and how convincing my lyrics sounded. His last piece of advice was to always follow my heart and that that would get me to wherever I needed to be. "You got yourself a good man", he told my manager. As we shook hands he told me he hoped we could do this over again sometime. Meanwhile, I was afraid I was going to wake up really soon..

Tomatoes, lemons, onions and Charlotte Cornfield

Charlotte Cornfield is this Canadian singer-songwriter I discovered through some blog, about a year ago, and just like that she became my favorite songwriter of 2012. It's gotten to the point I can't stop talking about her and feel compelled to mention her to everyone. But since it's the digital era and I'm more or less living like a recluse these days anyway, I thought I should do a post about her and conveniently kick some new life into the digital wasteland this blog turned into. Yesterday I had the chance to see her live for the first time. She's completely unknown around here and her and her French musician/friend/touring buddy played this tiny club in Liege which seemed huge since there were only seven people or so there, of which five were chatting the whole set through, while two - my girlfriend and i - were just completely jaw dropping awestruck by her amazing songs. Her lyrics and chord progressions sound deceptively natural but let me tell you they are some of the most refined and thoughtfully chosen, unequalled these days in my humble opinion (or maybe I should just look harder, suggestions are always welcome by the way). After the show we went up and said hello and bought some cd's. And even though she seems like the nicest and most humble person in the world I was actually kind of nervous the whole talk through, as if i was talking to my childhood hero. So yeah, maybe that explains it all. Here's an acoustic rendition of my latest favorite song of hers. We've got some tomatoes, lemons, onions and not to forget the amazing Charlotte Cornfield. I hope you'll be hearing a lot about her soon.

Charlotte Cornfield singing 'Harbord & Grace' at the local fruit market

Marissa Nadler

At this agency I work for, we book an artist called Marissa Nadler. I recently saw her play a solo set at our Autumn Falls festival at the Botanique in Brussels and was impressed by her songs, her sound, as well as her amazing voice. My taste in voices usually reflects my personality: kinda chill mostly. But from time to time some of those “other” voices manage to slip through the cracks. I’m thinking Robert Smith, I’m thinking Tanya Donnelly, I’m thinking Marissa Nadler. The eeriness in her music perfectly counterbalances the sunny situation I've currently immersed myself in: early afternoon shower, switching off the spray and hearing that haunting voice resonate through a cool hotel room (I'm currently on holiday if you hadn't figured out). As of now she’s one of those rare artists welcome to shine a light in the darker regions of my soul. A nice anecdote about her is from a friend who went up to her after one of her shows telling her she had been playing her music while giving birth for the first time. Instead of simply thanking her for the compliment Marissa, startled, briefly replied: “Poor child” Not as a joke but honestly expressing compassion. That unambiguous earnestness sorta sums up her music for me. 

Fly, my pretty, fly!

Ok so the bird’s been released. The video for my song ‘I’m A Bird’ that is. Finally! 

I woke up one fine April morning with the idea of visually combining lyrics, content and instrumentation for that song. We’re seven months later now. What took so long? I remember sitting in my living room together with my songwriting pal Jo on a mid-Spring Friday and Saturday eve taking pictures of shiny colorful letters meticulously placed on the back of a black t-shirt to the tones of some Spanish guy and his favorite eighties tunes and drinks. 

The next day my bass player friend Stoffel patiently shot one hot day’s worth of footage in that same living room of me playing all sorts of orthodox and less orthodox instruments featured in the song, while also being careful not to include my weary eyes. 

As a rookie, I took a moderately successful stab at quickly editing all of this. I edited at my desk, in bed, on trains, at a friend's place, in a crowded Barcelona flat during Primavera, kinda anywhere really. 

After that, it was time to get reacquainted with a childhood buddy Julian, who can do some of the meanest Robert Crumbesque animations I know of. He firmly refused all possible sort of compensation. Except for having his drawing sessions accompanied by a nice bottle of white wine. Or two! Three? I don’t remember.. Anyway, all of this was very promising until some very tragic personal stuff got in the way. Everything got postponed until suddenly I realized Summer had passed me by again and I was still at square one. 

I got in touch with some cartoonists to fill my friend’s huge shoes and ended up getting recommended to Evelien, someone I knew very well and whose work I’ve always loved but whom initially honestly didn't even come to mind. Funny how these things go, especially considering the way it turned out. She walked into that same hot living room, end of September now. Along with my pal Cedric we taped my uncle's tripod carrying my friend David's camera on top of my desk, aimed some powerful lights at the white ceiling and pushed record so Evelien, sitting at the desk, could do her thang. While lying down in my lazy couch, giving scarce instructions, I could monitor Evelien’s progressions on my flat screen tv and got really enthusiastic about what I saw. After some trials and errors on Saturday we wrapped everything up by 5pm on Sunday. 

I got in touch with the nicest folks at Villabasta who agreed to help out editing. Tom, this dude that edited, was very skilled and amazingly quick at executing whatever I was hinting at. After a couple of days of editing we came to the best possible compromise and here it is. All ready, for your viewing pleasure. So fly, my pretty, fly!

Generational gaps

So later on tonight, joined by my good songwriter friend Frank, I will be doing my first little acoustic radio session leading up to promoting my upcoming debut E.P. The people at Maxha radio set up a stage and invited me to afterwards join in on a jam session made up of students enrolled at the local rock and pop music academy. I politely declined. Sincerely, still not having bothered to try and master the most primal of blues scales, I see myself as the person least fit for teaming up with a bunch of young, talented and eager musicians going on a jam bender. However paradoxical, I'm sure Frank will feel exactly the same. 

Another thing is that this session triggers the fact of me being really curious about how my music will go down with a younger generation. A generation of music lovers whose passion got sparked via a standard internet connection and a network of peers, granting them access to an all-extensive audiovisual music library. I’m sure there’s going to be overlaps in taste but obviously our backgrounds will rightfully be substantially different. Nevertheless, I’m curious about whether our views on what relevant new music entails, correspond. I’ve always loved a good combination of melody, songs and contemporary lyrics with an interesting subject or angle. I truly do believe this should bridge any generational gap. I sure do hope so. And if not, I’ll work on it. And I will let you read about it. Here. At the ordinary life of marco z. As always. Bridging our generational gaps. 

trademark tom morgan

Ok so why not admit it up front? The Lemonheads, era 1992-1994, completely changed my life. Seeing an utterly stoned out of his brains but charmingly cheerful Evan Dando play that 2 minutes love ditty ‘Into Your Arms’ at Ray Cokes’ MTV’s Most Wanted with an old acoustic guitar holding only five strings, in the midst of grunge rock nirvana, was as revelational to me as what it must have been like to American kids in the sixties seeing the Beatles play the Ed Sullivan Show.

What I didn’t know back then was that ‘Into Your Arms’ was written by the band’s Ozzie bass player Nic Dalton and his sometime girlfriend Robyn St Claire. Nic Dalton also had his own Sydney record label, called Half A Cow. Among many great bands, it harboured Smudge, which was fronted by a lanky type singer-songwriter Tom Morgan. When the equally lanky type singer-songwriter Evan Dando and Tom Morgan met, an almost instantaneous golden songwriting partnership came to being, resulting in Morgan contributing to about half the songs on The Lemonheads’ two most successful records and eventually giving the band the stylistic consistency and direction they so desperately needed to break through.

Fast forward to September 2011 when Lou Barlow’s Sebadoh came back to Sydney. Smudge were invited to open and moshcam.com recorded their whole show. Admittedly, watching this footage made me realize how much they stand out against temporary bands in terms of sloppiness. As a longtime fan I also could have done less with hearing mediocre renditions of all but mediocre songs. But nearing the end of the set their new(ish) song ‘Mess With The Bull’ finally gave me crystal clear confirmation that my ongoing teenage crush on this band was completely justified. Not just because they had the coolest drummer chick in the world. Not just because they came from a sunshine paradise populated by people speaking the funniest sounding English accent in the world. But because when I hear this new song in all its freshness I realize that their chief songwriter is one of those few people that actually sets the virtual bar whenever I myself am trying desperately hard to add melody, not too obvious chord progressions and the odd killer line together. And whenever I see such a thing happen on stage, who am I to judge about sloppiness, overly clean guitars and mediocre renditions?

MESS WITH THE BULL/SMUDGE