Matt Rees's Blog - Posts Tagged "music"

I bet you didn't know there was an underground scene in Jerusalem (at least not an underground music scene; you've probably heard of some other undergrounds that operate here). Here's a little bit of Middle East insider poop for you: what's the most obscure underground band in Jerusalem?

Answer: Dolly Weinstein.

A fivesome (formerly a sixsome, sometimes foursome) of folk rock and rock standards, featuring yours truly on bass.

Other writers are notable for playing in not very good rock bands -- Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Dave Barry, for example, in the Rock Bottom Remainders (too many people on stage, always makes me think of Live Aid and horrible things like that -- not very "underground" at all). But which of them can say they've played in a basement bar under a dreary 1970s tower block in the center of Jerusalem? Or that they'll be the opening act at a Woodstock tribute concert in a football stadium in Jerusalem on August 6?

So here's Dolly Weinstein in action. A 56-second clip on Youtube.

There it is. Fifty-six seconds of underground Jerusalem. That's about what it's worth.

The best reason I have for writing a novel about Mozart must surely be that I love his music. Other elements contribute, including my fascination with his neglected sister and the growing historical research which I believe points toward his murder. But the music must be at the center of the novel itself.

I’ve played music all my life. But after my initial music lessons I eschewed the playing of classical music – no more Etudes by Heller for me. I’ve been a guitarist and bassist in various rock bands. Less sexily, I played glockenspiel in my high school band.

So for MOZART’S LAST ARIA, my new historical thriller in which Wolfgang’s sister Nannerl investigates his death in Vienna, 1791, I decided to learn to play piano. This showed me two things: first that I’m not much good on the piano; and second a way to see inside Wolfgang’s music, because the piano study made me think more deeply about musical theory than rock guitar. (Surely THAT doesn’t surprise anyone, but it was worth demonstrating anyhow.)

My guide in this was my dear friend Orit Wolf, a fabulous concert pianist who lives in Jaffa (You can see her dressed up as Nannerl and hear her version of Mozart’s Fantasia in D on this video). Orit’s probably best known for her heartfelt interpretations of romantic composers. When she plays Chopin or Schubert, I challenge you to stay on your feet, so emotional and breathtaking is it. But her insights into Mozart are stupendous. Our discussion of Wolfgang’s piano sonata in A minor I remember in particular. It gave me the idea of building the entire novel around the mood and structure of that piece.

Orit also introduced me to some of the techniques great musicians use when they prepare for a performance. For example, she told me that when she first looks at a piece for a performance she decides what color the music makes her think of. Before each performance, she’ll visualize that color and it will create a mood in her, and in turn that mood will be reflected in the music as she plays it. It isn’t just about hitting the right keys.

I had a similar talk with the great conductor Zubin Mehta (in which he was very frank about the lack of worth of certain composers who’ll remain nameless). He was very clear about who the greatest of them all is. “I’d find it very hard to live without Mozart,” he told me.

Read the rest of this post on my blog The Man of Twists and Turns.

I've a guest post on the UK book blog Bookgeeks today, about how I "wrote the music" for my new Mozart novel MOZART'S LAST ARIA. Here's how the post starts:

I’ve played music all my life, but I’m no musician. After my initial childhood music lessons I parted ways with the playing of classical music. I’ve been a guitarist and bassist in various rock bands in New York and elsewhere. Less sexily, I played glockenspiel in my high school band.

Still, I knew that if Mozart’s Last Aria, my new historical thriller, was to succeed, I’d have to write convincingly about the great composer’s music. About its structure. Its performance. And the intellect behind it.

In other words, I’d need to imagine myself into the world of true musicians and into the head of the genius who wrote the most stunning music anyone has ever created.

Read the rest of the post on Bookgeeks.

The only thing as evocative as a good noir crime novel is music. So, I thought, how about making an album of music about crime fiction? That’s what I’ve done and I’m unveiling it here.

The project's called Poisonville, after the mispronounced location of Dashiell Hammett’s first novel “Red Harvest.” (The place was really called Personville, but Hammett’s Op learns that people call it Poisonville for a reason.)

You can listen to the songs free on my website. I hope you’ll share them. I’ve found it inspiring to work on these songs. You’ll see the styles vary from industrial to rock to funk to the sound of hoboes in a speakeasy, as well as my impersonations of Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed.

Here’s the idea behind Poisonville: I’ve been in bands for many years, playing various instruments. But I have a newish baby and I don’t want to stay out late performing, because I need all the sleep I can get! So I created a studio – I call it Big Pink Oboe Studio. Not because I play the oboe. The pink oboe is an old Spike Milligan euphemism for an excitable part of the male anatomy. I also revived my old stage persona: when I was in an alternative band in New York in the 1990s, I was Napoleon Blownapart. (The band was Money Shot, which those of you with any knowledge of porno parlance will understand and also gives you and idea of the sort of gig we used to do.) The name gets me into the right head for music.

And so into the studio I went, writing songs about my own books and songs about books I love (by Hammett and Chandler). I perform most of the instruments, with a little help from The Talented David Brinn (which is the stage name of my pal David Brinn, in case you’re wondering) and The Lovely Jasmine Schwartz (which is the name in her passport, you should know.)

I’ve also written songs with a couple of crime authors: Jasmine Schwartz, whose fabulous Neurotic Detective series will be out in a few months, and Helen Fitzgerald, the Australian writer of the sexiest crime novels around. You can hear these writers reading a line or two from their books during the course of the songs.

Jasmine and Helen both wrote lyrics about their books, which I set to music. I’m intending to do the same thing with some other favorite writers of mine in the coming months. If you think there are crime writers I ought to get on board (because they’ve written books that’d work well in a musical setting), let me know.

You’ve probably stolen music on the web, even if the music wasn’t about crime. Poisonville’s crime fiction music is your chance to listen free – without being a criminal.

The only thing as evocative as a good noir crime novel is music. So, I thought, how about making an album of music about crime fiction? That’s what I’ve done and I unveil it here. The project’s called Poisonville, after the mispronounced location of Dashiell Hammett’s first novel “Red Harvest.” (The place was really called Personville, but Hammett’s Op learns that people call it Poisonville for a reason.) You can listen to the songs free on my website. Share them. I found it inspiring to work on these songs. You’ll see the styles vary from industrial to rock to funk to the sound of hoboes in a speakeasy, as well as my impersonations of Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed.

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My Poisonville project produces music about crime fiction. Some of the songs are about my books, some about the work of greats like Chandler, and others are collaborations with contemporary writers. This is the title song of the project, the album, the band. It's based around Dashiell Hammett's first novel "Red Harvest." At the start of the book, Hammett's narrator, a detective called the Continental Op, says that he "first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey." Later, he says, he heard the name pronounced that way by people who didn't also called their shirt a "shoit." The novel shows us why Personville deserved the name. The song was co-written by The Talented David Brinn who plays the accordion. I do the rest. I aimed for a sound like a bunch of crooked hoboes playing in a Poisonville speakeasy.

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Art ought to inspire us at least to try to work in all the media to which we have access. I'm a writer. But I love to make music, which is partially why I wrote about the mystery of the great composer's death in Mozart's Last Aria. Writing that novel took me deeper inside some great music and helped me develop my own playing. The same is true of painting. For my new novel, A NAME IN BLOOD, I learned to work with oils. But I also wanted to incorporate these different interests. The result was my Poisonville project: original music about crime fiction. Two of the songs I've recorded are about A Name in Blood.

“A Name in Blood,” is released in the UK July 5. It's about the mystery of Caravaggio's disappearance. In July 1610, he was on the run with a price on his head and he simply disappeared. Art historians have accepted a fairly tall tale about how this happened. My novel is my answer.

Caravaggio was a rebellious, sensitive man who changed art. In writing music for the book, I thought of a kind of parallel. If Lou Reed had been around 400 years ago, he’d have been a pal of Caravaggio, so I gave this song his sound.



A favorite painting “Sick Bacchus” is a self-portrait painted when Caravaggio was young and looking a bit peeky. This song captures the rawness of his life and the revolutionary style of his art. I gave it an industrial rock sound, because he was living a "downtown" sort of life at that time.



Listen to more of my Poisonville songs. Buy the songs on CDBaby or amazon.

I stopped in at Radio Wales to meet the delightful Roy Noble, who has had a show every afternoon for a couple of decades. We chatted about my new Caravaggio novel A NAME IN BLOOD, as well as MOZART'S LAST ARIA and my Palestinian crime series. It's a wide-ranging, easy-going discussion, which is how the best interviewers always do it. Thanks, Roy!

The lovely PBS show 'Dinner and a Book' featured my first novel THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM a couple of years ago. Now the delightful crew at "Michiana's" public television channel discuss my novel MOZART'S LAST ARIA while cooking Wolfgang Mozart's favorite dish. Prepare to be utterly charmed!

Watch Mozart's Last Aria on PBS. See more from Dinner & A Book.