Demo: "The Master of Doubt"

A Sunday-morning demo of a new tune, "The Master of Doubt."

Live at Maja's Garden, August 26, 2015

A great night at Maja's Garden on Manitoulin Island. It's a special place...nice people too.

 

An Excerpt from "Some Savage Beauty" (not-so-good sound):

 

 

 

 

 

 

"i thank you, god, for most this amazing" (ee cummings), Maja's Garden, Manitoulin Island: 

"A Life," Maja's Garden, Manitoulin Island:

Sound check:

A Little Bruce Cockburn at Sound check:

Live, July 2015

 

A minute from "A Life" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A minute from "I Thank You, God" (lyrics by e.e. cummings

 

 

Videos by MAPI.

"Dreaming Out Loud," Live, July 2015

Swallowing a fly, singing: "Dreaming Out Loud."

Video by Mike Caruso, SaultOnline.com

Like, First Selfie Much?

"When I Falls Away"

Here is a renewed old tune. The original can be found on the Thursday's Monster CD. I think this version is stronger. Thanks for listening: https://youtu.be/-bp7JdnMOd8

New Song: "When Pete Seeger Built the World"

In my increasing frustration over recorded music and the commercial release of music -- CDs and all that -- I am continuing to offer rough demos of new songs. This is a song in which Galileo, Hypatia, and Pete Seeger appear in cameo. Hope you like it. Let me know what you think: "When Pete Seeger Built the World" by M.D. Dunn.

Thursday, March , 2015: Sudbury, Fromagerie Elgin

She is high on our radar, Mr. Harper.

Here is a new demo version of "Every Day She is Gone." Not as emotional this time. Same old story, though: On December 19, 2014, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, responding to requests for a national inquiry into the disappearance of thousands of women, largely First Nations' women, said, "… it isn't really high on our radar, to be honest."
This song is a response slow in coming. A slow reply. Not a great recording, and probably not a very good song, but something I needed to do. Share if you like.

https://soundcloud.com/mddunn/every-day-she-is-gone1

Remembrance Day

Here is a longish poem from _Even the Weapons_ that speaks to midnight vandals, cowardly Prime Ministers, Canadian Tire, and the planned exploration of Jupiter's moon Europa:

Remembrance Day
i.
But that was last night.
Early in the morning, maybe,
and it’s snowed for hours,
heavy like the first snowfall,
and I am sitting in the courtesy lounge
at the dealership garage.
The television is a box of prehistory
irradiating the plastic room, my walk-in closet
with eight chairs, garbage can, and table
coughing its magazines to the floor.

There are three of us waiting:
one woman is sending her mind
with her thumbs into minds far away;
and a man like an outlaw in the corner,
white ropes from his ears to a box.
He calls someone, speaks like he is
alone in the room; without shame,
he says his name is Mark.

The television now: The Prime Minister
just before his holiday
enters the mass, the band plays
O Canada. “There will be no commentary,”
the announcer says.

ii.
A cellphone bleats with the ring of a sheep
and her thumbs begin. The showroom is murder
with pitch and pinch, a sale and loss,
accusations, and the television
broadcasting its silence beneath their faces,
the oldest living soldiers.
Cannon fire begins and ends
in silence, a moment’s peace
in the pockets of war.

I run in out of space, weight
dragging on too much self.
Summer holds the door
open for winter to pass.

We practice for war
and pray to war
and take our war
anywhere we find it.

The cannon’s shout is prayer,
robes wounded with poppies.
We have become an I-am-not-
self-recognizable blip of light.

More bleating. The man named Mark
is called away.

In last night’s dream the shovel
scraped the back step.

I dipped the blade into a puddle
that once had night on its face,
buried the blade in earth
like a gift to the Earth.

Wash it away. Wash it away.
New winter, let me speak.

iii.
And boom! I am back to the place I forget.
In the lighting section at the Canadian Tire,
proving I exist when the bulbs snap
on as I pass down the aisle.

The merfolk of Europa
are not thrilled with the drills
and buckets, the broadcasts
of chainsaws, the canned
slaughter of forests we are
about to send.

I broadcast you, your rare science,
and dream it was just like this:

in the lighting section
of the sky’s broad lens.

You’d think me a bird,
and you might not be wrong.

Think me into something.
If you leave me unthought,
who will stand for Europa?

http://www.amazon.ca/Even-Weapons-…/…/1894543831/ref=sr_1_1…

Weapons in the Media

Here is an article about Even the Weapons by Brian Kelly of the Sault Star. He made me climb a tree.Sault Star Even the Weapons

A Most Inaccurate History of Contemplation

Here is one of the weirder poems from, Even the Weapons "A Most Inaccurate History of Contemplation":

A Most Inaccurate History of Contemplation

Mastering the koan,
rap in tight puzzlement
to stall the new radicalism
that threatens free-market verse
in the latter-half of late
middle age, and thereby
set the standard for confusion.

One Master says,
Folk music in ordinary keys
is heinous unless played
with imaginary instruments.

Another Master will find
there is nothing ordinary
about anything and nothing.

Listening, pretend to remember
the original tune, pretend
to tap your feet, to applaud
on the way to the door.

Tiger moths remember Alexandria
when library windows are open.

She is high on our radar, Mr. Harper

UPDATE:  I have removed the track from SoundCloud.

On December 19, 2014, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, responding to requests for a national inquiry into the disappearance of thousands of women, largely First Nations' women, said, "… it isn't really high on our radar, to be honest."
This song is a response slow in coming. A slow reply. Share if you like.

https://soundcloud.com/mddu…/every-day-she-is-gone-slow-demo