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Livestreams
Doing a livestream in about half an hour — Sunday morning, windy outside and maybe get some rain. So we’re using the living room. I made a song list just so my mind doesn’t go blank — nothing to follow like the letter of law but something to refer to. A mixture of old and new.
When the pandemic hit this is what we all starting doing. We became our own TV stations. We learned to use Facebook Live, YouTube, various platforms. FB is good because it’s like a digital cafeteria where everybody’s hanging around eating or talking with friends or just staring into space. You go live and somebody’s bound to see you.
I gotta get ready. See ya later.
Best CD In the World
I made the best CD in the world. Well, not just me — me and some friends who also play music and who get along on the fundamental levels that count. And a studio and an engineer. And a mastering engineer. And Katy, who has more braincells than all of us put together. I’ll say this once, though she she doesn’t like me to — nothing would have happened without her. Nothing. I’d still be staring at the wall in somebody’s basement somewhere.
So — I wrote all the songs, I sing them, and I play my acoustic guitar. Orville Johnson plays guitars, lap steel, and dobro. Dune Butler plays bass. Joel Litwin drums and paraphernalia. Jessica Lurie saxophones and tangents. And J.R. Rhodes sings extraordinary other vocals. All together it sounds like god had a good idea and put it all together before he/it/she/them forgot about it. I’m biased of course but I know objective superlative when I hear it.
So…. After circling the old rock of label attractions we are going it alone as far as that part goes. I’ve had my own label since 1975 — Whid-Isle Music. It’s just semantics but it fills in the blanks in the paperwork. I’m talking to a publicist right now — one of considerable facility — and depending on the ticket price I will say yes or no and will add that to my upcoming Kickstarter. Keep your eye out for all these things.
Yes I’m busy — but part of my busy involves staring into space as I navigate the cerebral terrains of songlines. Gotta keep the wheels greased. So… Sign up on my mailing list! Poke you nose in — tell me what you think and what you’d like to see/hear happen. The darkness is coming — the great canopy of November will soo be upon us. Tine to hunker down — to put the bread in the oven. We’ll be eating soon.
The Money Collar
they had a big feast
in Yosemite at the
Ahwahnee Hotel
it was Thanksgiving
and they were giving thanks
to the gods of self indulgence
for the right to flaunt
and play dumb
100 dollars a plate
for dinner
700 dollars a night
for the cheap rooms
it was not for the
faint of wallet
masks were discarded
as precautions to scoff at
they thought they were
safe behind their
bank accounts
and their foul proof
positions
they were,
in the fact of irony,
socially distant
the staff,
who had no choice
but to wait tables
and serve food,
crossed their fingers,
their anger
held at bay
– for now
while,
like the masque
of the red death,
the spectral
pandemic
walked the
hallways
in costume,
making small
talk with the idiot
children of
landed bandits
it was almost
midnight
and me
I dreamed of a
street of rage
where another
eventuality
took the stage
where shiny blades
were raised to fall
so little time
they couldn’t
get them all
but they tried
yes, they tried
and there was one
spectacular and fine
who wore a knitted collar
made of dollar signs
an impenetrable fortune
around the jugular neck
a vaccine of
cashier’s checks
the masked executioner
bowed to his better
and sighed
“lay your head here
your majesty”
majesty smiled
“of course,
I will be fine
– I have my collar of
dollar signs””
the executioner’s
mask slipped
majesty blanched
– “i know you!”
“yes, you do”
I woke up
TradFest Podcast
Here’s a podcast interview I did with my old buddy Kieran Hanrahan. Kieran is the director of TradFest, a great music festival in Dublin, Ireland. He’s also singer and mandolin player with a band called Stockton’s Wing. The podcast just got posted and it’s pretty good, so check it out:
https://tradfest.ie/podcasts/?fbclid=IwAR01eB7up_-JmZnmDoRdj3Oo0td3GuLjF6VlVPJgQnTczGdwn0ZVpn2iCAc
That’s all you need most of the time.
Just sent off the package design for a new CD called “Pretty Simple.” And it is too, just voice and guitar. That’s all you need most of the time. It was recorded in one afternoon at SunRoom Studio in Seattle a little secret hideaway that only a few of us know about. It was engineered by my long time musical buddy Orville Johnson. It’s got 13 songs on it. A couple from the 90s, with a new breath of life in them, two traditional, and the rest newish. I’ve been writing a lot these days and have more than I know what to do with at one sitting.
Here’s the track list:
1. Dark Hollow (3:58)
2. Long Way Around (3:35)
3. Phone To Fiddle With (4:06)
4. Fundamental Frenzy (4:27)
5. Pretty Simple (3:26)
6. Delia (5:49)
7. Gypsy (4:28)
8. Angeline (4:28)
9. Banker And The Boss (3:36)
10. Dark Matter (5:02)
11. Do Re Mi Revisited (4:16)
12. I Saw Jimi Hendrix At Winterland (3:27)
13. Nice Doesn’t Make Any Noise (2:02)
They should be showing up at the house fully realized on July 3rd, the day before the Big Bluff.
The newness of not too old
Making sense is not my forte at this time of night. But somebody must do their best and that somebody at this point must be me. So here goes.
There’s a coyote in the neighborhood. It’s been seen prowling around wraith-like as the suns sets and the darkness get darker. Katy saw it while she sat on her favorite stoop to watch the street change. It lingered past and looked at her. “How ya doin’, girlie?” is said with a lazy leer. Hungry for food, or maybe some some animal magnetics. Either way it’s an interesting state of affairs.
Speaking of which how about the orange creature in the white house? How’s that workin’ for ya? And how did we get so color coded. Does the orange thing in the white house listen to green day while drinking a black and tan? And even more importantly, how did we get to thinking it was worth paying any attention to?
20/20 is a tv news show. It also means perfect vision. And it also means the presidential elections. At which time we may all go blind. if we don’t get it through out thick amurican skulls that the answer does not lie behind the limp eyes of a real nice democrat with good teeth, but rather with actual domestic regime change, then we may as well collectively rub our wrists together until they bleed.
I’m going to sleep now and you should too. See you on the other side.
Glass Paperweights
It’s been a while since I posted anything here, guess I’ve been kinda lazy. Or distracted, doing other things. Life is like that. I remember saying to somebody back in 1981 that it was like one of those glass paperweights with the snow inside. Shake it up and see where it settles.
Anyway, a lot has been happening since I was last in this little digital niche. I’ve make a record – I still call them that because its short for recording and that’s what they all are. CD is just the delivery system. You can see all about that on the home page. I’ve done a lot of gigs, written a lot of songs. And recently I’ve developed a new sound, at least for me. Not a permanent “this is all I do” sound, of course. Life is too short for that. But a beautifully possible roadway where strangers make familiar patterns in living sounds. For a long time I’ve played on and off with Mark Ettinger, a great bass player from New York. I’ve recorded 4 albums with him. And just recently I’ve developed a musical relationship with Jessica Lurie, a world class saxophonist who lives part time in Seattle and part time in Brooklyn. Jessica is a composer and arranger, jazz player with rock sensibilities, and a fearless improvisor who will jump in at anytime anywhere. I first met her (I think) around the time of the WTO events in Seattle – she was part of the “Anti Facsist Marching Band.” We recorded my WTO song, along with Dale Fanning on drums, and Brad Hauser on bass. I’ve been trying to find those tapes, they’re around here somewhere… So there’s a little trio thing that happens when the planets align and all the itineraries are in order. We have plans to record at Mark’s studio in October, a date which may or may not be set in stone. It’ll be good though, whenever it happens. Keep your lights on.
So I’ll leave that there for now and get back to work on the update/booking side of things. I promise not to let this slide for so long anymore…
Time To Record
Time to make another record. And yes, they are all “records.” “Record” is short for “recording,” and that what you have to do if you’re going to get anything – MP3, WAVE, CD, vinyl, cassette, 8-Track, anything. Even if you just throw it away when you’re done with it, it’s a still a recording. Listen on your phone, your MP3 player. Download it, buy it hard copy. Doesn’t matter, they are all recordings and a recording is a record. So I’m gonna make another record.
So I’m heading down to Portland next week to talk with Billy Oskay, at Big Red Studios, my favorite. I’ve got the repertoire and the basic idea. Keep an eye on this space. I’ll be doing a crowd funding thing of one kind or another so it’ll be obvious. The weather’s getting darker and turning cold soon. Good time to hunker down and do something constructive.
Watching Luke Kelly
I’ve recently been spending a lot of time on YouTube watching Luke Kelly, the great Irish ballad singer, front man of the Dubliners. Luke died in 1984 and I’ve never been able to figure out if I met him. I might have, much of those days is in a haze for me. He might have been in and out of the scene I was involved in in the late 70s and early 80s. The Dubliners never crossed my radar until recently, when I accidentally came across a video of The Auld Triangle and was amazed. Luke sang with a unusually strong, clear, and completely unadorned voice. Always on key, never going off pitch, you could hear him across town without a sound system. The get older I get the more I find myself being turned off by vocal gymnastics and obvious music school tricks. I want to hear the song sung by a human being for other human beings to hear. And that’s where Luke comes in, for me.
The Auld Triangle was written by Brendan Behan for a play called “The Quare Fellow.” The term “quare fellow” refers to a condemned prisoner, soon to executed. I think it’s old prison slang. Here’s Luke Kelly and the Dubliners doing that song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa7birRBmNM
Here’s an interesting one from an Irish TV show, don’t know what the name was. Here’s from the YouTube description: “Luke Kelly explains how he met Patrick Kavanagh in The Bailey pub in Dublin. During this encounter Kavanagh told him he had a song for him. First broadcast 10/01/1979.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYJO5fJgNSQ
And this is a great documentary, only a few years old. Lots of good stuff here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzfswNa7ZTk
Every once in a while when you walk around Dublin, or Cork, or Galway, you’ll see a 12 or 13 year old boy singing a cappella on the walking street. Sometimes an older brother watches from a short distance away, just in case. And you’ll be amazed at the clear and strong singing that comes from such a young voice. There is a direct line to Luke Kelly.
February’s On the Way Out
We’re melting our way out of February and the days are getting longer. Soon spring will be here and life will begin anew. I’m gearing up my booking for April/May trip to California. You can see what I have right now – not much but I usually slam it just a few months ahead, so it’s all on time.
I had a great first gig at Ballard’s own “Grumpy D’s” coffee house. Hopefully i can do that one once a month, or as close to that as i can get with my travel schedule. It’s a fabulous little place, with good sound gear, good food and drink, and good friendly people working behind the counter. What more could you want? For the last few years I’ve been building up a roster of community venues, places where the neighborhoods are represented. It feels good to work like that.
I have some new songs to memorize and a recording project to get together. This on’e going to be different than the rest. So keep checking back and see what’s up. I’ll post the news as it comes in. And by all means STOP TRUMP!!