(no subject)
At the end of the road there ain't nothing but fear
Just a big old room with a big old mirror
Amd the man in the mirror, his hair's turning grey,
And his hands begin to shake in a funny kind of way.
He knows everything you bring forth will save your soul
And everything denied will condemn you to the hole.
With his hand on his heart, he picks up his pen
He goes searching for the place where the dream begins
--Tom Russell, "Where the Dream Begins"
Didn't make it to the Reacharounds on Friday. Worked way too late, then very nearly started falling asleep at happy hour (is it really still happy hour if you get there between 8 and 9 at night?). I've grown lame with age, I'll cop to that. Similarly, no game night tonight for me because I've literally got stuff booked each night, either concert tickets, a lecture or a film series for Tuesday-Friday. On the up side, it's very much spring which is making my heart glad after the long grey blur of the last five months.
Drank a toast to Buck Owens, naturally, on Friday night at the bar with Ed. One of the best songwriters, guitarists and bandleaders in American popular music and the kind of distinctive vocal stylist you could pick out at a hundred yards on a thirft-store radio through a heat-fog of static.
Also recently passed, Jackie McLean, an alto sax player with one of the most beautiful tones and the greatest sense of rhythm of anyone in the bop (hard-, post- or otherwise) solar system. Famous for making a fool out of Bird once on the bandstand, for the early '50s work with Miles and especially those late '50s and early '60s records as he was coming back into the light from a battle with heroin, working with Mingus and Art Blakey and later at the front of the signature Blue Note movement. When you hear someone playing bop alto, it's as much Jackie they're going for as anyone, and they never quite get there.
Also, the percussionist Don Alias. From Miles' Bitches' Brew and Joni's Shadows and Light and countless other documents of the search for truth and beauty. No one ever sounded better playing percussion behind Joni Mitchell and I think most of you know my love for Joni extends to me owning or at least having owned at one time everything I could get my hands on. Much like either of the other two, if you don't know you better ask somebody.
Saturday night found me looking to shake off some ennui through the magic of sad songs. I don't think I'd seen the singer-songwriter Tom Russell perform since azhriaz and I went a number of years ago. And I don't think I'd ever before been to the Mannerchor except for something involving ghandiavelli though I recognized both the bartenders (what does that tell you). But his new record's great, I wasn't feeling super-social and a tall cool glass of citrusy Paulaner didn't sound half-bad. Odds are pretty good if I hadn't gone there I would have ended up making fast friends while watching basketball somewhere, and who needs that?
Russell's general right-hand man Andrew Hardin was off the road for a while after "a couple of surgeries", so Michael Martin from the San Antonio band The Infidels was along for the ride as accompanist. He played Spanish guitar and mandolin and played both beautifully, as well as singing harmonies. It was nice hearing Russell not rely so much on the usual standards you'd expect at any of his shows: there was no "Gallo del Cielo", no "Angel of Lyon" (he specifically said he wouldn't play that without Hardin when someone requested it), no "Outbound Plane", no "Haley's Comet. We got a large helping of the last four records and a few older tracks.
They came out with a few verses of Leonard Cohen's "Tower of Song", which Russell did on the EP accompanying the new album and where Cohen seemed to have sort of a jaunty, sardonic take on the material, as much in love with the song as artifice, as construct, Russell does it as a heartbroken statement of purpose. A wail against the futility of life, the tower is what he's committed to and where he's committed. This is emphasized by his changing of the line "I said to Hank Williams / 'How lonely does it get?' / Hank Williams hasn't answered me yet / But I hear him coughing / All night long / A hundred floors above me / In the tower of song" to "But I hear hear him moaning, / 'Lord, lord,' all night long". Coughing has the grounding of ugliness and could be read as disdain. Moaning retains the romance of mystery. And only one ever leaves a pool of grey-white ick on the floor.
Another cover on the EP also deserves special mention, Emmylou Harris' "Red Dirt Girl", title track of the album she wrote all of herself. Emmylou is one of my favorite voices but she can tend to, as my pal Mark put it, "Slur like a drunken sailor". It was interesting hearing a song of hers with every lyric articulated so precisely, "No one knows exactly when she started to skid / Only twenty seven and she had five kids / Could've been the whiskey / Could've been the pills / Could've been the dreams / She was trying to kill", done live with a bouncing rhythm and every line slamming into you like a hot nail.
By the end of the night I couldn't process any other music, though I did heed the call of Aeryn Musick to hit up Blazer's for a nightcap, and bumped into Erin which was awesome. Sunday saw Find Me Guilty which was an amusing little movie but made worse because I saw it right after Frederick Wiseman's completely harrowing documentary from the '70s Juvenile Court. Good lord.
Time for me to be heading on home, methinks. Love to all of you.
Just a big old room with a big old mirror
Amd the man in the mirror, his hair's turning grey,
And his hands begin to shake in a funny kind of way.
He knows everything you bring forth will save your soul
And everything denied will condemn you to the hole.
With his hand on his heart, he picks up his pen
He goes searching for the place where the dream begins
--Tom Russell, "Where the Dream Begins"
Didn't make it to the Reacharounds on Friday. Worked way too late, then very nearly started falling asleep at happy hour (is it really still happy hour if you get there between 8 and 9 at night?). I've grown lame with age, I'll cop to that. Similarly, no game night tonight for me because I've literally got stuff booked each night, either concert tickets, a lecture or a film series for Tuesday-Friday. On the up side, it's very much spring which is making my heart glad after the long grey blur of the last five months.
Drank a toast to Buck Owens, naturally, on Friday night at the bar with Ed. One of the best songwriters, guitarists and bandleaders in American popular music and the kind of distinctive vocal stylist you could pick out at a hundred yards on a thirft-store radio through a heat-fog of static.
Also recently passed, Jackie McLean, an alto sax player with one of the most beautiful tones and the greatest sense of rhythm of anyone in the bop (hard-, post- or otherwise) solar system. Famous for making a fool out of Bird once on the bandstand, for the early '50s work with Miles and especially those late '50s and early '60s records as he was coming back into the light from a battle with heroin, working with Mingus and Art Blakey and later at the front of the signature Blue Note movement. When you hear someone playing bop alto, it's as much Jackie they're going for as anyone, and they never quite get there.
Also, the percussionist Don Alias. From Miles' Bitches' Brew and Joni's Shadows and Light and countless other documents of the search for truth and beauty. No one ever sounded better playing percussion behind Joni Mitchell and I think most of you know my love for Joni extends to me owning or at least having owned at one time everything I could get my hands on. Much like either of the other two, if you don't know you better ask somebody.
Saturday night found me looking to shake off some ennui through the magic of sad songs. I don't think I'd seen the singer-songwriter Tom Russell perform since azhriaz and I went a number of years ago. And I don't think I'd ever before been to the Mannerchor except for something involving ghandiavelli though I recognized both the bartenders (what does that tell you). But his new record's great, I wasn't feeling super-social and a tall cool glass of citrusy Paulaner didn't sound half-bad. Odds are pretty good if I hadn't gone there I would have ended up making fast friends while watching basketball somewhere, and who needs that?
Russell's general right-hand man Andrew Hardin was off the road for a while after "a couple of surgeries", so Michael Martin from the San Antonio band The Infidels was along for the ride as accompanist. He played Spanish guitar and mandolin and played both beautifully, as well as singing harmonies. It was nice hearing Russell not rely so much on the usual standards you'd expect at any of his shows: there was no "Gallo del Cielo", no "Angel of Lyon" (he specifically said he wouldn't play that without Hardin when someone requested it), no "Outbound Plane", no "Haley's Comet. We got a large helping of the last four records and a few older tracks.
They came out with a few verses of Leonard Cohen's "Tower of Song", which Russell did on the EP accompanying the new album and where Cohen seemed to have sort of a jaunty, sardonic take on the material, as much in love with the song as artifice, as construct, Russell does it as a heartbroken statement of purpose. A wail against the futility of life, the tower is what he's committed to and where he's committed. This is emphasized by his changing of the line "I said to Hank Williams / 'How lonely does it get?' / Hank Williams hasn't answered me yet / But I hear him coughing / All night long / A hundred floors above me / In the tower of song" to "But I hear hear him moaning, / 'Lord, lord,' all night long". Coughing has the grounding of ugliness and could be read as disdain. Moaning retains the romance of mystery. And only one ever leaves a pool of grey-white ick on the floor.
Another cover on the EP also deserves special mention, Emmylou Harris' "Red Dirt Girl", title track of the album she wrote all of herself. Emmylou is one of my favorite voices but she can tend to, as my pal Mark put it, "Slur like a drunken sailor". It was interesting hearing a song of hers with every lyric articulated so precisely, "No one knows exactly when she started to skid / Only twenty seven and she had five kids / Could've been the whiskey / Could've been the pills / Could've been the dreams / She was trying to kill", done live with a bouncing rhythm and every line slamming into you like a hot nail.
By the end of the night I couldn't process any other music, though I did heed the call of Aeryn Musick to hit up Blazer's for a nightcap, and bumped into Erin which was awesome. Sunday saw Find Me Guilty which was an amusing little movie but made worse because I saw it right after Frederick Wiseman's completely harrowing documentary from the '70s Juvenile Court. Good lord.
Time for me to be heading on home, methinks. Love to all of you.