Blackmore's Night Concert

getting ready for the Blackmores Night concert
in partial Renaissance garb (no vest or skirt because it was a hot humid day)

(more pictures at end of post)

For anyone new to my blog, this blog is primarily about talking about my music and art, and occasionally about my influences, my life experiences and sometimes about my research as well.

For those of you from the survivor community (of which there seems to be an exponential number), part of my life is devoted to art and music which I feel uplifts the spirit, and gives it more meaning.

For me spiritual art, fantasy art, and Renaissance music was part of my life since I was a child, and it is what gets me through my days. There are a lot of places, people and events which helped me to survive terrible odds, and the Renaissance community was one of them. I have performed at a lot of Renaissance faires (the innocent smaller ones with lots of children floating around in fairy costumes, blowing bubbles, riding dragons or big Clydesdales, taking part in magic tricks, while the adults seemed to be drawn to the music of the era, archery, costume exhibits and people-chess) and in my upcoming novel I feature the Renaissance faire in a somewhat similar way the minstrels are featured in the Bergman movie, The Seventh Seal.

When I am taken off course, it is the life I always go back to.

One of the bands who has played a role in my life is Blackmore's Night ... in many, many ways (some of which I will explain here). I dress in Renaissance attire when I see them, to show support, but also to be more true to myself (when I was a little girl, as far back as I can remember in almost all of my floating and flying dreams I was dressed in white Renaissance outfits, and it is the way I wanted to dress and be dressed). I cry because I am so touched and moved when I go to the Cloisters or the tapestry part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I get emotional when I hear Greensleeves or an olde Child Ballad. I have a compulsion to paint unicorns all of the time (the unicorn is a solitary creature who cannot be tamed and is in the habit of fighting for its life and purifying poisons -- fits).

I like cloaks, poet's shirts, flowing outfits (much of which I sew myself), and in a pinch, clothes from Holy Clothing. I like flora and fauna and gypsy caravans. I like stained glass and old stone buildings.

I like being healthy. I am not much of an indulger in modern processed foods and drinks, unless I am on vacation (and even there, I try to find salad joints and Indian restaurants and stay away from booze and caffeine drinks which have more franken-stuff in them than I want to consume -- it's that unicorn in me pointing to poisoned waters no doubt -- LOL).

I prefer reading (actual books) to television.

In contrast, I am not a fan of freeways, malls, dry deserts, polyester outfits, neon, and boxy modern glass-infected architecture. Los Angeles is my least favorite city in the USA ("please let me out!"). Maybe that had to do with my father who was a New Urbanist, but I think it is partly intuitive too: I have a love of the highly decorated and intricate, much of which is lacking in the big cities of the southwest. After all, the natural world is not a factory or loud; it is full of seeds and fruits on lace-like intricate trees with birds singing in them, and it will always juxtapose the boxes and homogenization. It is fine if you want to live in the southwest and I won't be too judgmental about it to the point of obnoxiousness: but for me it feels oppressive. I like moody weather, big trees, meadows, flowers everywhere, or a rolling sea, a little more humidity in the air. It's just my taste.

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot" -- Joni Mitchell

A fulfilled life is a life outside of a box, the intricate world of ideas, compassion, emotions and implementation.

So, I feel like the Blackmores Night die hard fans to be like family. They come marching up the street together (after having met at a local eatery) and I take to my feet in giddy delight to greet them. I have been walking around town beforehand with people stopping me asking me where the Ren-fest is or "What's with the get-up?" I am shy and I like my anonymity on a street (usually). So the fans who go to all of the shows in the northeast are part of not feeling like a freak. I am one of them. Later, when I see costumed maids and faire maidens in the restrooms at intermission, there is a knowing glance and smile between us.

When Candice (the singer and introducer of songs) mentions that her husband (Ritchie, the producer, conductor, melody maker and main musician) does not like boxes, I can immediately relate, on all kinds of levels.

The Seventh Seal is one of my favorite movies, and for lack of a better comparison, they are a kind of a Seventh Seal type of band (modernized somewhat as one might expect). There is a carnival-like atmosphere to their shows, interspersed with powerful and sensitive songs like "World of Stone" (about fighting for causes), "Ghost of a Rose"(one of my favorites) and "Barbara Allen" (beautiful, lilting). At other times, one almost expects jesters and leaping dancers in chiffon-fairy to pop onto the stage at intervals when the band goes from soft to loud (when Candice gets her rauschpfeife and shawm out).

Here are the influences of Ingmar Bergman when working on the Seventh Seal (from Wikipedia):

In his autobiography, The Magic Lantern, Bergman wrote that "Wood Painting gradually became The Seventh Seal, an uneven film which lies close to my heart, because it was made under difficult circumstances in a surge of vitality and delight."[14]...

... Some of the powerful influences on the film were Picasso's picture of the two acrobats, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, Strindberg's dramas Folkungasagan ("The Saga of the Folkung Kings") and The Road to Damascus,[29] the frescoes at Härkeberga church and a painting by Albertus Pictor in Täby church ...

Somehow, I tend to think Blackmore's Night can relate to all of that. 

And if I look within myself, I can relate to it too (Picasso's acrobats and jester paintings are definitely an influence of mine, as I paint and draw jesters religiously, especially on pottery, and Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" is one of my favorite pieces of all time). 

I have been asked "Does Candice ever experience suffering and hardship like the rest of us or is the world just an endless fairy tale?" And my answer to that is that, as in the Seventh Seal, some of us are spared. And that is a good thing. If her life is about joy, this is the type of person who can lead you to joy too (i.e. the path out of darkness and depression). Perhaps her life's purpose is to bring beauty, to help you experience a love of life, a dance in your step, and we need those kinds of people in our world or it would be sore. Again, it's about intricacy and seeds, folks, and the variety, not about placing everyone in the same box you are in.

If you think misery loves company, you won't find much misery in their music.

There isn't a band like Blackmore's Night. They are about exploration and the non-traditional, and there isn't a song they do where they don't make that very clear. Ritchie has his dark melancholy side and it hits the light as soon as Candice puts lyrics to it, dances to it, and sings it. When I am asked to describe their music, I say, "Creative Music." If I am asked to explain more it is usually "Mainly influenced by Renaissance music mixed with folk, classical and rock, nothing defined in a definite way, just masterfully done creativity." The person asking the question usually looks puzzled. I would think that an answer like that would get them to one of their shows to see what it is all about.

As for the other band members, my feeling is that they are the best line-up so far. Lady Lynn (as she is referred to) is the classical opera singer who sings harmonies with Candice Night. The 4 octave range is a nice complement to Candice Night's vocals. The fiddler is one of the best on the circuit and has excellent resonance -- wow! The bassist/complimentary guitarist, Earl Grey, has been with them for quite a long time and knows instinctively how to keep up the pace with Ritchie. David, the pianist, adds humor when he can, and adds coloring to the pieces through synths. 

I feel that I can relate to them on a deeper level too. We perform Renaissance music too (new interpretations), but I like the English composers most (Dowland and Campion) and their often incomprehensible (word salad-y)  lyrics about unrequited love. Our take on Renaissance music, however, is quite a bit more annoying to purists than theirs, because Dowland is seen as a great composer, one of the ones who started the whole counterpoint thing and used it religiously, and which we don't always use, and you can't mess with great composers in their eyes, so while we sold a lot of CDs to Europeans, in the USA we didn't get very far with it for live concerts beyond library concert series. As difficult as it was to be sneered at and rejected by purists, I still have a compulsion to work over Dowland's songs. I think the same kind of rebelliousness lives within their hearts too.

I am part of a family of professional musicians who like to play old instruments including the hammered dulcimer, Celtic harp and lately, the hurdy gurdy. Cello or double bass help to ground it all to the earth, and when needed, provide a drone. So we are committed to Renaissance music. My husband thinks that good traditional music should be played so that it doesn't disappear, that it always should be accessible to new generations. I'm not sure how that fits in with my vision to be creative with old songs, but we get along and we don't butt heads, so there is compatibility with both perspectives, at least as far as the two of us are concerned.

If you are a believer in astrology, I found that everything in my chart was aspected to everything in Candice's chart with many in exact degrees, most of it positively aspected (her chart happens to be on-line somewhere, or once was). Very unusual, in fact so uncommon as to be freakish. Since Ritchie's chart is also aspected to just about everything in Candice's chart too, also in the same kind of once-in-a-lifetime way, I have more than the common amount of aspects with his chart as well. Right now I don't know if we have an unbelievable amount of things in common, but I do know the commonalities we share in music and in being creative people. If astrology has any clout at all, there would practically be lightening bolts of understanding and psychic connection with them. It would be a good test to see if astrology really works on any level. "Like attracts like", but I also know what it is like to be approached when you are a performer, and especially a singer -- you don't need connections forced on you when you are in "work mode", that's for sure, having been in that position myself, so it will happen organically if it is meant to happen at all. 

In the meantime sharing visions with people who are on the same kind of curcuit has been rewarding: Owain Phyfe, Lisa Lynne, Laurie Ann Haus and other "ethereals" and musicians who are part of bringing Renaissance music forward, and fantasy artists Lisa Hunt, Ann Marie Tornabene, Paulina Cassidy, Andrew Gonzalez, Susan Schroder, Suzanne Gyseman, and others who inspire me. And of course there is the Harper and the Minstrel, who from long ago, welcomed us (Spirites Consort) with open arms. They are all kindred spirits and if I died tomorrow, I would be happy to have made only those personal connections.

Profound connections lead to healing and great understanding, all necessary in life, and the connections juxtapose those who would judge you and stick you in roles (the kind of boxes of projected judgments and false imprisonments of narrow minded narcissism). All souls want to be understood and free. All souls want to see someone at intermission who gives that knowing smile. And all souls want to vibrate to a kind of music where it helps them understand more about the world and their place in it. For me, Blackmores Night opens up the gates of awareness in many ways, and I just have to sit in a theater, even in the last aisle if I have to, to have them effect me in that way.

created by Jim Manngard (my picture on a wine bottle). 

Jim is Ritchie Blackmore's assistant and part of the Blackmore's Night sound team

standing outside squinting in the hot sun hours before the concert