When I think about Todd Greene, I can get angry. Knowing him is like knowing William Blake and knowing that you know William Blake while the world around you doesn’t, generally speaking, know that William Blake is among them. I’m kind of used to it though. I also know Sarah Masen.
Anyway, this is about Todd. He dropped the above woodcut on the world about twenty-four years ago when CCM Magazine wanted a visual for a review of an album by an individual named Carman. They ran it. If you can believe it, the editor at the time, Gregory Rumburg, was determined to deliver actual cultural criticism. Nashville’s full of people who are determined to think and speak artfully about Nashville’s cultural output. If you’re one of those people and you’ve been here awhile, you probably know about Todd Greene.
When Todd turned forty, he asked everyone who came around to celebrate to prepare, in lieu of gifts, five minutes of stand-up. It was a revelation—or a series of personalized revelations made available to all—for each of us. This is among his tricks. He very politely demands art of everyone after awhile. He seems to think refusing to be your most creative self is at the heart of much suffering. He offers to produce people’s albums (both people who have a career in making music and people who don’t think of themselves as musical). He has a band called Bulb (with something of a rotating cast) which has recorded, I think, about twenty-seven albums. “Humans can get used to anything,” is one of their famous (to me) lines. I asked them to play my fiftieth and they did.
The above images are from a Bulb video which was recorded in one shot one Sunday afternoon and directed by Todd and Shane Doling. If memory serves, Todd had been urged by the owner of his studio space to make the walls upon which he’d done some painting white, so…he made a thing of it. I think it a beautiful thing.
I have more than one favorite Bulb song, but the one I share with people when I want to introduce them to the magic is “Hitman.” Consider this:
If everybody’s going down around you, you’re standing there wondering why.
When everybody’s going down around you, you just might be the hitman.
That’s the chorus. It packs a punch. The song also contains a reference to Darren Aronofsky and Robert Siegel’s “The Wrestler.” Todd’s work often looks and sounds like a meditation on related subjects. I think this connection comes to mind just now because I can imagine Aronofsky & Siegel making a similar film about Carman. I can imagine Todd making that film too.
So…Todd’s out there/here. I’m biased, but…I think everyone would be helped if they studied his images and received his music. If you have any questions about him or comments you’d like to share, please feel free to set them down. I could talk about Todd all day. Thanks for tuning in.
When I curated a show featuring Todd in 2014 at O'More College - fairly certain you connected us - I was pretty overwhelmed at the thoughtfulness of his work and how much it got me thinking about my own family history and how our vision of world develops. I've also been the grateful recipient of his music making on more than one occasion. For someone with his talent/mind/creativity, his kindness and chill demeanor have me hoping our paths will cross again sometime. David- I'd be glad if our paths crossed soon as well.