Stuart Davis (musician) Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Stuart Davis (born on January 11, 1971 in Des Moines, Iowa, USA) is a contemporary American musician and lyricist from Minnesota. He has been performing throughout the United States and Europe for over a decade. To date, Davis has sold 40,000 albums worldwide. Davis is also a member of the art branch of Ken Wilber's Integral Institute.
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2 Business and success 3 Miscellaneous 4 Quotations 5 Discography 6 Bibliography 7 External Links |
Davis' early work was acoustic and folky. The early lyrics critique the materialism and irrationality of contemporary culture with irony, sarcasm, and biting humor. With the release of Kid Mystic, Davis' work turns more inward and spiritual, but sustains the entertaining wit of his earlier work. Many of his recent lyrics reflect the struggle to relate to a divinity that is truly transcendent, and yet equally immanent. Later albums use a more extensive and electric instrumentation, and fall under the Power pop genre. His recent work is comparable to Elvis Costello, Matthew Sweet, Material Issue, REM, and Live. Davis has covered songs by Elvis Costello and the Talking Heads.
Although Davis' lyrics are informed by contemporary philosophical and spiritual issues, they also display a preoccupation with alternate sexual practices. In fact, one could say that Davis' work mediates between sensuality and spirituality. Davis practices meditation in a Buddhist tradition, but he believes that religious traditions ultimately fail to transmit the transcendent events from which they spring. He has identified Ken Wilber, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Ramana Maharshi and Aurobindo as influences, and his work displays a deep understanding of Zen.
His concept album Bright Apocalypse depicts the spiritual life of one who loses his traditional faith and embraces a more subtle, nondual divinity. Davis' next concept album, entitled Bell, traces the life of an American girl who is an incarnation of God.
Davis' songs are populated by alcoholics, atheists, bulimics, drug addicts, egoists, false prophets, fetishists, masochists, narcoleptics, pedophiles, pornographers, prostitutes, rapists, sadists, sexual predators, suicides, swingers, and terrorists. (Perhaps it is needless to mention that Stuart's lyrics are considered explicit and/or obscene by some libraries and retailers.) But his lyrics also describe angels, artists, gods, gurus, messiahs, mystics, prophets, psychics, and wizards. There is a clear and constant religious component to Davis' work. In fact, the mystical and transcendent themes render some of his songs able to be construed as Christian. This tension points to the profoundly integrative aspect of Davis' thought--on his view, the theme of sexual deviance does not contradict the spiritual themes. His perspective is wide enough to coherently include much more of the human experience than most. Thus it is possible to see Davis as a mystical poet like Rumi, Kabir, Basho, Ikkyu, Rilke, or Emily Dickinson.
Davis' performances include light improvisational comedy which, like his music, often mixes spiritual with sexual themes. This repartee is evident on the live albums he has released. Davis is a prolific (some would say workaholic) performer, giving about 100 performances per year.
With the formation of Dharma Pop in 1998 (previously known as Post-Apocalyptic Records), Stuart has created a new business model for artists. According to Davis' website, "Dharma Pop's purpose is to create music that amplifies awareness, and the formal elements of these songs (melodies, hooks, rhythms) are a Trojan Horse, sneaking mysticism into mainstream culture." Dharma Pop consists of volunteers, who manage Davis' products, websites and performances; "Punk Monks" who promote his shows; and investors. Thus Davis has succeeded in financing a professional multimedia company without interference by major labels.
Davis has embraced internet technology enthusiastically, releasing lyrics, guitar tabs and .mp3 samples of all of his songs on his website. One can download any of his songs for one US dollar. He also has several bootlegs and a studio demo available, for a fee, on his website for download.
Although Davis has received critical acclaim from those who have heard his music (Ed Kowalczyk, the lead singer of Live, called him "The greatest lyricist I've ever heard"), he has yet to receive recognition from the pop music establishment. In fact, Davis ridicules his relationship with the mainstream by calling himself "the Pop Pariah".
Davis has created an original language, called "IS", which uses a script that Davis also created. Characters from this script can be seen on the cover of Davis' most recent album, Bell. Although Davis has declared his daughter to be the first native speaker (she was born in September of 2003), he says that he intends to record an entire album in the language at some point. In June 2004, Davis released an album on his website that consiste entirely of Elvis Costello covers, entitled Davis Does Elvis.
Davis has a tattoo on his wrist that says "Memento mori".
Stuart Davis is also a (semi-?)fictional character in Ken Wilber's post-modern novel, Boomeritis. Wilber and Davis are very closely associated, both personally and philosophically. It could be said that Davis is the poet of Wilber's integral philosophy.
"Love has no opposite" —Actually a quotation from J. Krishnamurti ("Think on These Things", 1964, pp 62-63), Davis calls it his philosophy.
"If Ramana Maharshi came from clay
"As we were
"There's a light bulb in everyone
"Mysticism is creation seeking its source" —'Twisted Mystic' website
This is an Article on Stuart Davis (musician). Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Stuart Davis (musician) Lyrics, music and performances
Business and success
Miscellaneous
Quotations
there's more to evolution than a little DNA" —"Ladder", Bright Apocalypse
before we were
Is
as we are
after we are
Is" —"Dharma Drama", Bell
bright enough to swallow the sun
Earth and sky is all One taste
there is just the Original face" —"Original Face", BellDiscography
Bibliography
External Links