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All the Monday Morning Musical Musings with Paul Bourgeois in One Place
Our irrepressible Professor Paul has the week off, so I thought I would take the time to reintroduce him. If this isn’t a part of your Monday Morning you’re missing out. Get on the train, baby!
Paul Bourgeois lives in Finland. He is a member of the band “The Blue Monsters” and teaches creative writing at Kymenlaakson Politechnic, University of Applied Sciences. Paul’s weekly column on BareFootMusicNews, “Musical Musings” is one of our most popular features. The column enjoys a worldwide demographic of both musicians and non-musicians. With a casual “friend-of-mine” style, Paul entertains and educates in a language we can all understand.
He also plays a mean harp. The Blue Monsters can be found HERE at myspace.
Click through for more about Paul and a stunning list of his thoughts and links to his posts. Good stuff, my friend. Thanks for all your hard work.
Paul recently directed a music video shown in the NY Metropolitan Museum Education Building during the Sprout Film Festival. You can see it HERE.
He also feels vehemently about equal rights and human respect for everyone; check out his website http://www.bourgeoisie.ca/
We have been very lucky to have him awaken us and start our week practically every Monday morning since March!
I heartily recommend that you make Paul Bourgeois and his Musical Musings a never-miss part of your Monday Morning.
A few of his articles have found their way around the net.
Fark.com has a few:
http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=5570674
http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=5527292
Farkers always have an interesting take on stuff.
What else can I say? I love this guy…
Here’s everything he ever did for us that you can see. You could throw a rock at this list and find something interesting to read with your coffee. Enjoy!
Marry a Musician?!?
10/18/10 01:03, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: blues, musicians, rap, richie havens, rock
A musician? The guy’s a rock musician?!? Well, never let your daughter marry a rock musician. Their brains are wired differently. That’s all I can say. more »
The Story So Far
10/11/10 05:33, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: blues, dentistry, guitar, harmonica, howling wolf, the blue monsters, willie dixon
Once upon a time… There is some truth to what follows, and it is also fiction. And somewhere between the truth and the fiction there is the story of the “The Blue Monsters". The names, places, instruments, events and histories have all been changed to protect the guilty. more »
Lordi Lordi Lordi
10/04/10 00:12, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois, Bands , Tags: apocalyptica, culture, eppu normaali, finland, kiss, leskinen, metal, music, twisted sister
But what really shattered the fabric of spacetime for me, sent me spiraling into some sort of quasi dream-nightmare like warped space was when, in 2006, a Finnish candy costumed rubber-faced death rock metal band, named Lordi, won something called the Eurovision Music Awards. more »
Finland and Folk… and Goth Metal?
09/27/10 05:10, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: death, finland, folk, goth, goth metal, metal, music, sibelius, snoop dogg, värtiinä
I reflect upon the darkness of traditional Finnish folk music. This article is about folk music. The darkness, I suppose, is mine. more »
Play To the Devil or Death
09/20/10 00:26, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: charlie daniels, charlie parker, music value death harmonica, pete townsend
Somebody finds something that gives their life value and they exchange their life for it. Guitar players like Pete Townsend and Malmstem play until their fingers bleed. Sax players like Charlie Parker or Dexter Gordon play until blood comes gushing fro… more »
Do It All
09/13/10 00:59, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: eric schwandt, music, paul bourgeois, the blue monsters
Can you have it all and do what you want? Yes, you can! Of course, it all depends on what you think is important. If you think money and fame are what it’s all about, and if you happen to get that, well, the more power to… more »
Revenge
09/06/10 00:15, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: lyrics, song, the blue monsters
Musical Musings with Paul Bourgeois You know the bully? Sometimes it’s a thug, pushing you in the schoolyard, and sometimes a pinch-faced balding pseudo-intellectual trying to make you look stupid in class. Or at work. more »
The Performer is a Super Lemming
08/30/10 00:18, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: insane, jim morrison, kurt cobain, monday morning musical musings, paul bourgeois, performer, syd barrett
Performers are insane. It takes a madman to want to stand up in front of people and somehow find a sense of self worth from doing that. The performer is as insane as the audience wants to make them. more »
Lyrics
08/23/10 00:41, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: curtis mayfield, jake holmes, jim morrison, lyrics, ozzy, writing
The actual writer doesn’t think about any of this. All those detaily questions have to be internalized. The ideas have to flow and you can’t be worrying about all those structural details if you want those ideas to come out. Otherwise you are just hung up on a whole bunch of meaningless details. more »
Dreams, Ponies and Ice
08/16/10 00:31, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: one trick pony, paul simon, robert winkle, vanilla ice
Sorry, people, but fantasy often gets mixed up with reality and people end up chasing the wrong things. It all has to do with the media. I’ve been looking to the TV for my dreams all my life. But it doesn’t have to be on video before it’s real. more »
Sharing Ideas
08/09/10 00:49, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: ideas sharing writing group lyrics
This is about a writing group. This is all about writing, and whether you write music or books you want such a group. It may be fictional. It may be real. I’m not telling. more »
The Revolution Is Not Being Televised
08/02/10 00:10, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: curtis mayfield, freedom, gill scott heron, last poets, malcolm x, revolution, watts prophets
Music does not need to be an opiate of the masses, you know. Music is war drums, bagpipes and horns screeching on the battlefield. Music is weddings and the funeral march. Music is school dances with boys at one side and girls at the other, nervous and unsure how to share their passion. Music is innocence and the surprise of feeling that sneaks up into the corner of your eyes and that sudden sob that stops your throat. Music is our heartbeats and our breathing and the rhythm of sex. Music is life and death and thought. more »
A Rose That Grew From Concrete
07/26/10 01:05, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: freedom, hip hop, last poets, lauryn hill, rap, tupac shakur, watts prophets
It has been 16 years since Tupac Shakur’ s death, and ten years since The Rose That Grew from Concrete, and I don’t know what’s going on with stuff, or if other people know what’s going on. I’ve been too busy travelling the world in the past twenty years to know what’s going on in the media. But I feel something universal, something that touches me, and I think his words are still, and maybe not heard. And perhaps there is something healing within them. Amidst the concrete, a rose grows. more »
Sing it. Do it.
07/19/10 00:34, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: act, do, music, observe, participate, tv
There’s a reason I don’t own a TV. I envision a nightmare world of doers and watchers. Life isn’t lived by watching it. more »
Holmes Versus Page With a Touch of Hart
07/12/10 00:06, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: advertising, blues, copyright infringement, dazed and confused, jake holmes, jimmy page, led zeppelin
Sometimes the desire, pain and frustration hits me so intensely - everything has to be right and perfect, and I have to be willing to do anything to achieve - I get IT for one instance. more »
21st Century Schizoid Band
07/05/10 02:30, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: 21st century schizoid man, blues, emerson lake and palmer, king crimson, music, performance, scale, the blue monsters, theory
Once you’ve been there… the memory of belting out the simplest riff on your instrument and having an audience go wild… will just keep dragging you back in and you will keep looking for that insane sweaty high again and again forever. more »
No Idea What It Means to Be Creative
06/28/10 03:31, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: benzedrine monks, creative writing, divine inspiration, dreams, gregorian, music
This little article is about how to do it. Just hang around looking for divine inspiration. Right?!? more »
Theory! We Don’t Need No Stinking Theory!
06/21/10 01:59, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: arpeggios, harmonica, keys, meditation, modes, music theory, rhythm, scales, zen
It’s like a Zen Riddle and playing is like a meditation, opening yourself to the world around you and moving with that world. Music Theory is like the laws of physics. But you don’t have to understand biology to be a butterfly. more »
Is the Harmonica Player Really a Musician? - Part 1
06/14/10 00:27, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: bar fight, blues, harmonica, jazz, keys, music theory, musician, rhythm, schecter diamond series, the blue monsters
Dan Grigor said he loved these articles because they were “a wonderful look into the mind of the working musician.” I don’t know about that, but it warms my wretched heart. more »
The Sound of God
06/07/10 00:24, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: carl sagan, chant, church, cosmos, gregorian, music, religion, universe
Maybe there is some cosmic catalog of consciousness which remembers us all after we’re gone and allows us to continue on in some way. And, being musically minded, I kind of think music might be the answer. more »
A Whole Movie of Jazz
05/31/10 05:24, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: 1948, a song is born, benny goodman, danny kaye, howard hawks, jazz, louis armstrong
Wouldn’t it be really cool if you could see… Buck and Bubbles, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Benny Carter, Charlie Barnet, Mel Powell, Harry Babasin, Louis Bellson… all jamming together? more »
The Angry Mix
05/17/10 01:45, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: Welcome, BFMN Exclusive, Live Sound, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: blue monsters, blues, gig, mix, music, sound
Ok! I’m going to rant and rave and complain about some technical problems the band “The Blue Monsters” has been having. I just need to get this crap out of my system before I explode. more »
For Lack of Something Better to Say
05/10/10 02:28, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: blue monsters, finland, hayley hart, kotka, musical musings, paul bourgeois
Hi, I’ve been upgrading my system all day and Eric and I have been practicing all day yesterday for the gig on Thursday, so I have nothing to say to anybody right now. My head is spinning. So I am giving you this to listen to…. more »
I Am The Blues
05/03/10 01:48, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: anthrax, blues, ellington, hell, johnny winter, paul bourgeois, stormy monday, thorogood
I am the guy they wrote about in all those songs with a million and ten reasons to be miserable… or, at least, I was. more »
Dead Air Kills
04/26/10 03:17, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: dj, jazz, radio, rock, station
The first rule being a radio jockey is to keep talking. It doesn’t matter what the hell you say. Dead Air Kills. more »
The Words Need Breath, Not Beat
04/19/10 01:42, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: amiri baraka, def mos, def poetry, digable planets, hip hop, rap, roots, stolen moments, the last poets, the watts prophets
Hip hop is politics. It is amazing what changes have come in the US in only 50 years… and how few things have really changed. The issues of one are related to those of another, and we can’t forget we are all still in this together. It would be a sham… more »
Monday Morning Musical Musings with Paul Bourgeois
04/15/10 23:06, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois
Musical Musings by Paul Bourgeois This space is usually occupied by a great post from our friend from Finland, Paul. Unfortunately I fragged his post and he is busy this week molding (or should I say moulding) young minds. So I thought I would take h… more »
A Road to Hip Hop
04/05/10 00:30, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: bfmn, black, blues, branford marsalis, digable planets, duke ellington, guru, hip-hop, jazz, last poets, new york, paul bourgeois, red hot + cool, stolen moments, waok, watts prophets
I just had this discussion with one of my students, a girl from Detroit, and she told me I couldn’t know much about hip-hop because I am a white Canadian, and she’s right…. more »
Why the Sixties Failed… In Me
03/29/10 00:53, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: dennis hopper, drugs psychedelic, easy rider, electric flag, electric prunes, fraternity of man, jack nicholson, peter fonda, roger corman, sixties, the trip
I was going to talk about the movie Easy Rider and the music that came with it. So I watched the movie again, and even if I had never seen it before I would have held it in my cultural collective memory… a movie which is anti- traditional American values. At least the traditional values of the sixties. Now, I know there were positives and negatives within the Sixties and the new ideals that rose out of it. There was a hyper conservative mindset which needed changing, perhaps like the conservative midset today. But the force of change in the sixties was turmoil and partly youthful madness. And, sorry man, I have to tell it like it is. more »
Creative Emotion
03/22/10 00:59, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: ac-dc, barefootmusicnews.com, bonn scott, creative emotion, fugue, glen gould, god, inspiration, mind, money, power, zakk wylde
Find an album named “Bach. Art of the Fugue” by Glenn Gould and try to tell me there isn’t something bigger than ourselves. more »
Bebopping at Midnight
03/15/10 00:08, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: Welcome, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: april fool, be-bop, coltrane, dexter gordon, herbie hancock, jazz, round midnight, thelonius monk, tunings, war
This is music that plays at you from the inside, like Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme"… He sneaks into your head like a meditation, and then he blasts you away with that horn on a slick and weaving roller-coaster of sound. more »
Sympathy for the Devil
03/08/10 02:00, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: anthrax, blues, crossroads, devil, life, music, papa legba, records, robert johnson, supernatural, zakk wylde
From Robert Johnson on up, there is no question. Blues and rock is devil music. more »
Death, the Devil and Punching the Wall
03/01/10 02:29, by paul.bourgeois, Categories: BFMN Exclusive, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois , Tags: alice cooper, barefootmusicnews, dan grigor, lynyrd skynyrd, milton’s lucifer, ozzy, paul bourgeois, rock music
And rock has saved me. From Ozzy to Alice Cooper to Lynyrd Skynyrd to Pat Benatar (before she had a kid and started singing jazz, which is beautiful), rock tells you you’ve got to fight to live… more »
This entry was posted by dang and is filed under Music News, Monday Morning Musical Musings, Paul Bourgeois, Dan Grigor. Tags: creative writing, kymenlaakson politechnic, monday morning, musical musings, paul bourgeois, sprout film festival, the blue monsters 1 comment
Wow, I’m really cool!!! I never realized. Did you say “irrepressible” or “irresponsible"? I missed the article because I was in Helsinki playing at a great club with a great bunch of guys and I’ll tell you all about it and them in my next article.
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