Blog 1A- Who influences me as a creative person

Grateful Dead- Jack Straw--->Tension/Release

The Grateful Dead-the ultimate jam band, taking people through musical journies in the studio and even more live- were masters at creating tension and release in their extended jams, in order to create their unique music experience for their audience. In this clip, a performance of Jack Straw, is a good example of this tension and release. It begins with a slow tempo, and slowly builds up to an upbeat chorus about Jack Straw. This can be seen as the tension building up, hitting its peak, then dying down in tempo, which would be the release. Members of the band each do their piece in going up and down scales and intensity with their instruments, creating the tension and release, as in much of the Grateful Dead's music.

Meat Puppets-Plateau---->Text/Subtext
Though the music of this song I consider paints a good picture, the lyrics are of equal importance. At first looking at the lyrics, it looks like meaningless lyrics that just sound cool together. But I believe, to my best understanding of the lyrics, its deeper meaning is about the darker side of achieving fame or great success.
Some examples:
-Plateau- metaphor for achieving success and hitting a point of not being satisfied and desiring more and more success or fame, hitting a plateau.
-"Illustrated book about birds"-unrealistic idea of American Dream.
-"The many hands began to scan around for the next plateau"- people striving for more and more success, fame, money, etc.
Almost the entire song could be seen as having a subtext with a deeper meaning. Pretty cool stuff. Here's a link for the lyrics

Daniel Johnston-I had lost my mind clip- Contrast and Affinity
Daniel Johnston has a lot of crazy but cool drawings, either in black lined figures or with lots of colors that are bright. But all his work is usually done on a white background, which makes his figures and drawings stand out, either with thick lines, or thick lines and bright colors. This clip of an animation of his drawings that goes along with his song "I had lost my mind," is done with simple black lines that stand out against a white background. Also when blood spills out of his head, the red color of the blood stands out against the white background as well as compared to most of the simple black and white clip.