"If Not For You" Bob Dylan-New Morning

By being here in Afghanistan you miss a lot of things and I hope this doesn't offend people I left behind but one of the things I left behind that draws much sadness in my heart was Dylanfest.  Yes that is right a concert at one of my favorite venues of all time, the Bowery Ballroom.  It doesn't say little for the people I left behind but rather just what an amazing experience it is to walk down those stairs into the bar waiting to go back up to the stage and hear some truly great music.

The funny thing is I didn't even know about it until a friend I met though a very good friend told me about it.  Bon Vivant of NYC, attorney, agent to actors and actress, the only man I have seen drive everywhere in NY, including going out at night, one night in particular when opening a beer in his old 5 series he rear ended a brand new M3 way past midnight (and yes, the guy had personalized plates) and talked his way out of it.  A man who runs 24/7 and still finds a way to be successful, a man who is probably the closest I've seen in person to Jack Keuroic's Dean Moriarty.  Honestly.

And that night, before we rammed that M3 we were driving around Manhattan with my scared ex in the back seat BLASTING Van Morrison screaming down sixth avenue.  I've met a few people in my life that feel the way I do about music but very few who have connected to the music I like in that very same way.  And a casual remark about Dylan led to my introduction of Dylanfest.

Held on Bob's birthday down in the Bowery it is an event that draws a lot of small names that should be big, or would have been if rock and roll was still #1 on the charts.  Lots of hipster bands and names I barely knew would crowd the stage and the vibes.......man the vibes were amazing.  

One year they opened with this song.  A song that I always bypassed while listening to his albums.  And that was the best part of the show.  It wasn't the intimate venue, the people or listening to Norah Jones sing backup with no one even mentioning her name or that she was there.  The great thing was Dylan has been heard so many times, been proclaimed the best by so many that eventually you stop listening, it becomes boring.  BUT that night with all these new, young faces singing their hearts out to Bob's tunes, it all makes you fall in love with Dylan again.  

About a seven months later I was at the Union Club outside the humidor smoking a cig and drinking whiskey and who should show up but my version of Dean himself.  We caught up, talked about that night I missed this or missed that (he was also a good luck charm, it seemed as every night I had planned to go out with him I would grab a drink somewhere and meet someone, obviously to push him aside which he always understood).  Out there on the balcony overlooking 69th street I told him how Dylanfest made me rediscover Dylan and fall in love all over again to which we locked eyes and he over joyously agreed.  Again, right on point.  

We stayed out that night until five after getting locked out on the balcony and having to break a window to get back in only to come in and get a full two hour tour of the club and its history by a very old but nice member and then off to Bar and Books on 73rd until the sun came up.  A great night, but not even close to Dylanfest.  

"Would You Lay With Me" David Allan Coe-David Allan Coe Live-If That Ain't County

The first time I heard David Allan Coe was my freshman year of college.  Striking that I had never heard of him before since a lot of my music at the time was the Outlaw Country genre, but nonetheless I hadn't.  There was this kid across the hall, Tim.  Tim was a New Hampshire hippie who smelled bad, had Sideshow Bob nappy hair, wore ripped clothes and huffed Glade on a constant basis.  The entire hallway, every room was robbed of Glade so Tim could get his fix.  

I am pretty sure he never went to class, I know this because I never did and always saw him.  He liked the Dead, I liked the Dead, he lived across the hall....and of course he was always in my room.  But the first time I ever heard David Allan Coe was the day after he fixed his tape deck up so he could sing karaoke and on that day he faced the speakers out into the quad so everyone could hear him croon while baked on vanilla Glade.  

"Trying like the Devil to find the Lord, working like a nigger for my room and board....

.....coal burning stove no natural gas, if that ain't country I'll kiss you ass." 

Lyrics, yea offensive to people I guess but I must say that there was something in that song (which if you take the time to listen to will find it is a fantastically written song) that made me want to hear more.  I hiked upstairs and asked him for the album, his dirty hands with pieces of stems and resin handed it to me.  On the cover was this man with a bandanna, tatts all over his hands and a rhinestone white leather jack.  "For The Record David Allan Coe".

I memorized that entire album in about two night before I gave it back, at the time there being no iTunes and the nearest music store was miles away, I was sans car.  Eventually the whole floor caught on, even our black RA and the one other black dude on campus (this was a New England Liberal Arts College) would belt out lines when we were drinking on Thursday, Friday,...well many nights.  Which was a polarizing event, it made me realize that good music transcends a lot of things, even some redneck mouthing words that would get a man killed in most urban areas and here I was singing them with a black guy.

There are too many stories about DAC to recall for this post.  That spring when three roommates came back home to Jersey with me to see the Coe man and ended up passed out: In my hallway outside my parents room, on the toilet and in the kitchen.  My house being a small three bedroom abode in which we never closed our bedroom doors.  DAC at a rodeo in Virginia, at the Flora-Bama in Pensacola....I have seen him too many times to recall and like the man himself, all colorful events.  

However I chose this song, though this version is only just over a minute long, because it is only his voice and what a powerful voice it is.  It breaks through the stereotypes of the man, the implied racism of a past age, the murder charge and prison time, the totally off color album he put out with songs such as "Itty Bitty Titties" ...compared to this voice the rest is just, well, conversation.  

It is beautiful and pure, it is the exact opposite of the image he portrays and, I think, is one of the reasons why those with more of a household name (Willie, Waylon, Johnny, Kris) call him a friend and a great musician.  

Long Time

It has been a long time since I posted something, the biggest reason is that I am in Afghanistan fighting for freedom, defending the sovereignty of our great land and not taking prisoners.  Well, I am in Afghanistan.... and since the military doesn't feel my blog is worth their computer's time I find it hard to post things.  So I write them out and when I have a chance head down to a place that will let me access this site and throw the posts down.  I have a lot actually but not enough time to even put them here.

For some reason they think that my blog about the military is acceptable and that can be found at this link:

http://recruitingcommand.com/dravot/

"Rich Girls" The Virgins-The Virgins

I used to spend a decent amount of time in Miami for various reasons, living in North Florida, the real south, I could always find a few reasons to escape the calm and sometimes repressive culture embodied there.  Miami was a breath of fresh air.  Most of the times I was down there it was alone, I used to work in Key West all week then take the rental car up A1A to south beach, or I was with a woman.  The latter was always a problem.  I was never the type of man to stray while in a relationship but with all that eye candy around, at times it was difficult to keep your attention focused on your own personal version of sweets.  So one weekend, at this point totally single with zero prospects, my best friend and I, he being totally single and recently divorced, ventured down to do Miami right.  He had never set foot inside the city limits and was anxious from my stories of South American hotties, booze filled nights and smoking days on the beach and around the pool.

It didn't start out as planned.  It was raining and not in the usual south Florida, late afternoon way; it was torrential and all day.  So we drove out to the shops at Bal Harbor which may sound like some typeof suburban hell, and to Carpaccio for lunch.  Eating in a Mall is not usually my idea of fine cuisine and great atmosphere but here, it is.  The shops there are basically Madison Avenue and Caarpaccio is Nello, actually a recently closed down Madison Avenue establishment La Goulue has an outpost next door.  There's a lot of money, a lot of fashion and where those two reside there is always beautiful (while maybeshallow) looking women.  Within minutes of sitting down my friend's apprehensions were put to rest when we were seated to a table of South American women drinking Bellinis and dressed for Saturday night at one in the afternoon.

After we drove back to The Delano, a place that we for some reason couldn't pronounce and resorted to calling it Del-More as in the character who Rambo goes to visit and finds dead in the first Rambo First Blood, we went for a swim in the ocean even in the rain, until it was time to get ready for the night and head out.  The Delano at the time was the place to be and for good reason.  The lobby has thirty foot high ceilings, flowing curtains and applies the original Art Decco  architecture with a more modern style.  There's a few bars, couches and the like which in a few hours would be filled with beautiful people or at least those trying to be.  Coming down after changing "Rich Girls" was the first song I heard.  It was the year that it was released and probably all over the radio (do they play songs on the radio anymore?) but walking down and into the lobby, scoping the scene with the bass thumping in the background while Donald Cummings muttered "We walk around, pretending..." people started moving in slow motion, glamour was multiplied by an exponent of ten, in my mind I was ten pounds lighter and a thousand times richer.  Years later Heineken would bottle that feeling in their commercial with The Asteroids Galaxy Tour.

That was the first of many times and as Miami is, you either feel very cool or very uncool in that town, usually it depends on the amount of cash you have on you or the woman on your arm.  But that weekend we didn't have either.  We had a beat up old Range Rover and two boys that have been kinda beat up themselves over the years but when The Virgins came on, that bass, static guitar and I don't give a fuck what you think voice came on we were in the right and we were in the now.

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" The Band-The Last Waltz

We used to sit down in the basement at sixteen, surrounded by Notre Dame jerseys, Copenhagen tins and signs on the wall; there was a pool table in the middle of the room and a bar with a few bottles of Old Grand-Dad on the top of the tiles.  There was a record player in the corner and we used to wear the needle thin on bad ass old albums, Hendrix, Joplin, as well as some Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.  It was our place to go, it was myself, Clancy (it was his house), Bobby and at times Michael John.  Mostly though it was Clancy and me getting blitzed out of our minds and laughing until out stomachs hurt.

We had this delivery guy from Dominos who used to bring us pizza, we'd give him a few extra for dip and booze and he'd show up with a few large pies, a few tins and a case of some random beer that we were all to anxious to drink  I remember one night we had no cash and we gave him a few dime bags and a blow up doll as payment, for some reason we called him Rambo and he never objected, an older Haitian guy blacker than night who didn't give a rat's ass, but a wonderful person nonetheless.

One of the albums we would play was The Band.  Many people don't know that they were the band for Bob Dylan when he went electric.  Many people don't know that Eric Clapton came to America to ask to join The Band but lost his nerve thinking he wasn't good enough.  Many people don't know just how amazing, how ahead of their time this group of musicians actually were.

As I sit here writing this way south of the Mason Dixon line I am reminded of not only those old drinking days when I first found the temptation of spirits but also that war of northern aggression, that war that split of country in two.  I've lived most of my adult life in the south after being raised in the north and I have to tell you, down here it is still going on.  Down here there are ole' boys who I would never tell my birth place to just as Robbie would never give away his licks and Levon keeps his kit to himself.

Something inside me likes it thought.  Hell I am not for slavery, but I am for a group of people holding their own sovereignty close to their hearts and giving all they had to keep it.  I am for a group of badass musicians laying down insane tracks that make you scream out the chorus whenever it hits.  I am for being in a basement of a great friend playing nine ball, dipping Cope, drinking cheap ice cold beer and laughing you ass off because that is what freedom is all about.  It is what being young and not giving a shit is all about and it is something I think about at random times, it brings a smile to my face and I smile whenever I hear this great ballad born of the American tradition.

"Apartment #9" Bobby Austin, Johnny Paycheck & Tammy Wynette-You're Good Girl's Gone Bad

I try so very hard to stay away from country on this blog, but like all music it comes back to country or blues.  There simply isn't anything else.  Dylan took from it, Springsteen, Elvis, Stones, present day hipster tunes; hell I'd even venture to bet there is a Daft Punk song out there that claimed inspiration from country.  In turn I won't make excuses for writing about it and simply get on with the smooth pedal steel and trickling piano that encompasses this song.  I've never met a man I've called a friend who didn't enjoy country and I intend on keeping it that way.  The reason being, if you don't get country then you haven't lived and while ships are safer in port they belong on the sea.  You have to get dirty in life.

And I use that metaphor both as such and quite literally.

Listen to that steel intro and try to help not being brought to a place where coal miners drink the evening away or roughnecks massage their aching muscles into bearable pain.  Picture "Urban Cowboy" without the Hollywood bullshit and if you can't then live it and know what I am talking about.  Move out into that land where the man who plays pedal steel is working on his fourth divorce and somehow the bud heavies he is drinking bear labels from 1973.  Walk out into the parking lot and make a call on the payphone with the neon of the honkytonk casting a shadow on the patina of the pickup trucks corralled and waiting for their riders, the kind of trucks that have the transmission on the steering column and only one mirror on the driver's side.  Look at the blond at the end of the bar who has shunned sancerre for a tumbler of watered down whiskey in a white tank top showing a rose tattoo on the top edges of her chest wearing a pair of hip-high waisted jeans with black cowboy boots as she tries to get lubed up enough to take anyone home.  Smell the worn leather of the stools of which thousands of lonely people have rested their souls and gave into the piano and transitory nature of life without hope or foresight of what tomorrow will bring.

Many of friend who has found their lives not working out as they thought I've recommended heading to that place.  In its misery there is a beauty.  A beauty I can't quite capture in words but feel every time I've been a part of it.  At times I long to go back there when I hear the siren's call of hard booze and women who are a shell of their former cotton queen selves and the music is anything but over produced and honestly pure.  When the swinging doors close I'll meander down the block leaving my car in that dusty parking lot and fall asleep in front of a TV that is locked to the dresser and put my keys down next to an ashtray that has actually been used.  Is this an over romanticized view of a white trash world?  It is.  But just listen to that piano solo and you'll give up your box seats at the Met any day of the week, shun Yo Yo Ma and call blasphemy on Miles.

One night on the road I recall driving into such a town and parking at such a place only to retire to said motel room sans woman and taking care of myself on the 50 thread count sheets watching infomercials of Girls Gone Wild on a tube TV with a whiskey buzz, then the next morning taking an hour long shower to wash the filth away.  If you are pensive and find it hard to contemplate a song such as this, put yourself there and know what it is all about.

Photograph by Ken Rockwell at kenrockwell.com 

"Good Ole Boys Like Me" Don Williams-Portrait

I spent seven years of my life living in the south in various locations.  There's a lot of reasons to like the country down there and some glaring things to not like.  Last weekend I had a buddy in from Boston, born and raised in New England, I lived there for five years myself, a place that has its own glaring things to not like such as the bitter cold, darkness at four in the afternoon and of course the obnoxious sports fans and terrible accents and slang. I guess all places have their drawbacks.

It was a real pleasure to see him however and we had a chill weekend in the city, a weekend spent with drinks and a lot of conversation.  He has been down south a few times for business and various trips, somewhere in the course of the conversation I made the statement that at one point in a man's life he should live in the south for some time, at least a year or two.

The last time I resided in the south I was pretty alone for a while.  I had the mates from the squadron but at the time most were married and could never be counted on to head out every night.  By chance I met a civilian, born in the south, mother from Kentucky, grew up in Savannah, college in Virginia and law school in Birmingham...he touched all the bases.  On a nightly basis he could be counted on to head out and like clockwork around eight every night I'd receive a text or a phone call and we'd be on our way.  At times we'd start at the country club situated on the St. John's River with low handing trees covered with moss and old time black staff who'd place "Mr." before your given name in historically southern class.

There were a lot of friends with Mossy Oak hats, khaki pants, women with pearls, everyone smoked, shot birds, obsessed with ACC and SEC football...at times it was pretty annoying to be honest but then at other times it was fantastic and just felt "right".  This was a group of people who simply lived the way they have been for years and years without second guessing their plight or position in life.  There'd be fall afternoons eating oysters off of the grill drinking cold beers in Barbour jackets with the game on in the background, oppressive summer heat and full white linen pants and shirts.  I'd make trips up to Charleston and eat shrimp grits, drink gin and tonics at the bar out of one shot bottles (as was the law at the time) and watch cadets from The Citadel walk through the square with their dates under the Stars and Bars, head out to Kiawah, Sea Isle and Amelia and watch the sun come up over the marshy low country and the blue herons wading for their breakfast.

But the first time I heard this song I was shotgun in an old E class Mercedes driving down a particularly beautiful road in my town, moss trees creating a canopy over the road, century old homes with single pane lead windows and large sitting porches passing by slowly.  I had a roadie G&T in my hand and my friend threw this on saying it reminded him of his childhood and then jokingly looked at me and asked what was gonna happen to good ole boys such as himself.  I laughed because I never thought of him as such, he was more of the southern gentlemen type versus the good ole boy and I think he himself knew that.

However last night I was driving back to Manhattan and this song came on, afterwards I threw it on repeat over and over and again back in my apartment.  I started thinking about my friend and those days and gave him a call since it has been some time.  He answered and we chatted as this song played in the background. It warmed me and I felt the humidity even as it was 20 out and my radiators where clanking.  When I hung up I looked out my window and realized something I have always known but usually forget: It's always the people who make wherever you reside home.

"Holland Tunnel" John Phillips-John, The Wolfking of L.A.

There's a decent amount of bullshit in the late 60's, 70's singer songwriter movement.  This song is not a part of it however.  As someone who has traversed this country on the blue and red roads over the years, there is not a more liberating experience, a panacea for the doldrums of a life of consumerism played out within the confines of a cubicle with only a mild reprieve on the weekends fueled by booze to the extended family and a trip to Whole Foods before you turn in Sunday night to slave at it all over again.

And maybe there is some nobility in working towards a cause and the responsibilities of a family, extended or the nuclear kind, but like I'm calling Gordon Lightfoot out on his bullshit I am officially laying down my treaty on a way to live.  To embrace the Deus Ex Machina of that convertible Eldorado and then lose yourself within its confines and see the world that has slipped your consciousness while trapped under fluorescent lights and subways with fellow slaves in some sick Dostoevsky-Dantian hell of which there is no escape.

But that is what they want you to think, conjure up that spirit of the 60's, fuck the man and release yourself from their oppressive grasps.  All it takes is to make that first step, it is always the hardest part...you think you would have learned that when you were fifteen months, stop shitting your pants and grow.  Grow, let the blue skies of this grand land be your intoxication, the black tar of the highway your only sustenance, and the feeling in the pit of your stomach be your navigational guide through the badlands, the prairie fields, staccato Rockies, across the Continental Divide (take a piss on it and feel your excretions touch both oceans) and out to the glorious land laying on the Pacific.  The desert as lush and green as Eden itself kissed each morning by the mist of the cold currents that move south from Alaska.

Meet someone new and drink on the beach near a campfire until you discover who he truly is, flirt with that blond you were eyeing in the store while picking up a soft pack of Lucky's and a bottle of screw cap wine until you've tasted her and then smoked them afterwards while breaking off that cap under the stars, waking up after a night of spooning with sand in between each others' toes, watching her face in the morning light and brushing the sleep from her eyes.

And let this song start the adventure off, let it be the coaxing whisper in your ear and let it never forget that the chances you haven't taken are the ones that you lose, the ones that resign yourself to your Sisyphean existence under those cold, shitty lights and the nightmare of what laid out there if only you made your way through that tunnel.

Happy Birthday Elvis

I just did a post about Elvis a few weeks ago however I just wanted to say happy birthday to The King of Rock and Roll.  I've always thought that there are only a few performers out there who truly elevated music to the level of a religious experience.  He was one of them.  Watch the video below and the trance like state he, as well as the others on stage enter.  It reminds me about how the monks in the Gregorian chant days used to sing long, complex chants with no written structure because they syncopated their heartbeats and acted as one, in a mantra like way (this has been deduced by viewing old carvings of monks singing and they had their hands on each other's neck arteries thereby picturing using heartbeats as a metronome).

Rock, Country, Gospel...no matter what he threw down The King nailed it every time.  Happy birthday E, still taking care of business beyond the grave.

"Black Water" Timbre Timbre-Creep On Creepin' On

An ethereal almost unclassifiable tune from an equally genre bending band summoning up some heavy back bone sax from the J.B.'s, the creepiness of the Tindersticks and a stolen organ from the closet of Ray Manzarek; it came on the other night and within the first five seconds I knew I dug this song.  I'd say they were hipsters from their clothes but soon found out they are from Canada which is where people actually wear flannel and Red Wings because they have to.  I'd say the fact they recorded it in an old church was a publicity stunt until I heard it and I'd say while I haven't yet, it could very well be a song for when the lights are low, clothes are shed and slow is the name of the game.

This song is listening to a Helmut Newton photograph.  Nothing in it is supposed to fit but it does, there's a juxtaposition difficult to explain but when viewed it clicks and registers with a part of you brain impossible to access without the proper kinky stimulation.  Maybe it is the old brain, possibly it is the perverted hemisphere not yet discovered that Freud was obsessed with discovering.  In black and white there's a stupidly thin woman, impossibly tall with a dark beauty mark on her upper right arm, mermaid wavy brunette hair to match the color evidenced by a lack of waxing below.  Laying on a Louis XVI bed with gold leaf piping and stained sheets, there's a nightstand with a glass of water sweating, standing in a small puddle that magnifies old ringed water stains next to a .357 King Cobra with a six inch barrel and a pair of tortoise Persols, the left temple missing.  The bed sits on six inch black and white checkerboard tile with ambient sunlight peeking through white curtains, the shadows of the balcony loom and project contortedly across the room.  She's not biting her lip, smiling or possessing any other come hither countenance, but is looking through you and breathes slowly, visibly through the expansion and contraction of her rib cage.  You just walked into the room and this song is on.  

And maybe I have no idea what I am talking about, maybe it is better to check it out yourself and let it melt, let it melt like a black candle and permeate the cotton of whatever hemisphere feels the connection.

"Swing Down, Sweet Chariot" Parliament-Parliament Live

"Dude George Clinton is down at the NEX signing autographs man, check it out!" PLGR came into the Ready Room with a bunch of photographs and a CD.  PLGR being his callsign, Ready Room being the place in the squadron where we'd sit around and brief flights, bullshit, and just hang out, the NEX being the store on base which is basically a big mall.  "No shit dude? I'll have to check that out." I said, logged off of my computer and hopped into the car with a few of the boys and headed down.

When we arrived there was George, looking like George with a few of his band sitting at a table signing autographs, such a strange sight for a military base and the man and his band have consumed more than their fair share of illicit drugs over the years.  There wasn't much of a line and I was just standing there with the CD I purchased in my hand when one of the band looked at me and said:

"Man I dig that suit that yo wearing."
"This? Flight suit?"
"Yea man, they must be hard to get your hands on brother."
"Nah dude I have tons of them."
"I wanna wear one of them on staaage man."
"Well I can get you one."
"Alllllright."

And then their manager stepped in, a light skinned black woman with long straight hair dressed in a business suit that looked professional but you can just tell it wasn't her particular choice of attire.  She asked for my number and information, saying that they would be here for another hour and if I couldn't get back in time to let her know.  I left, grabbed a flight suit, ripped my name tag off of mine and stuck it on, took a squadron patch and slapped it on the other side of the chest and drove back to the NEX and passed it off to the sexy disciple of soul and funk.  She told me that they were playing tonight and said there would be eight tickets at Will Call waiting for me.  I went back to the squadron and asked the boys who wanted to go.  PLGR was in, Dingo too and a few other randoms.

After work and later in the evening I went down to "Freebird" in Jacksonville Beach named after Lynyrd Skynyrd who called Jacksonville their home.  I waited in a decent line by myself with a group of five old school black boys in front of me, they were feeling high, slapping each other and being loud.  When the Will Call window opened up I stepped forward and they were in ear shot.

"I'm on George's list"...(and said my last name)
"Man look at this white boy saying he on George's list and shit" as well as other miscellaneous ramblings I heard behind my head.
When the person behind the counter presented me with the eight tickets the boys' attitude changed.
"Niggah, he was on that list, check that shit out."
I turned around and slapped the one closest to me five.

And that was how probably the greatest concert of my life began.  There were thirty people on stage playing various brass and other instruments, everyone was dancing and singing to the depths of their soul.  It had one of the best Mr. Goodvibes feel I have ever experienced.  Dressed in strange costumes with wigs, plastic noses....it was all too much.  Then off to the side of the stage was the bassist with a doo rag on his head and a green flight suit on his body with the name tag "Malibu" on his chest.

To this day I throw on Parliament in the safety of my own home and just dig it down deep and low and connect with the mothership in their quest to bring down from heaven the holy Funk with a capital F.  It is a ceremony I recommend to all.

The history and story behind Parliament P Funk mythology is quite interesting, check out the wiki page at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-Funk_mythology

"Young Blood" The Naked and the Famous-From a single

After "The Endless Summer" there have been many surf and ski films that attempt to replicate the magic captured by Bruce Brown decades ago, most fail miserably.  Warren Miller has a few good ones but most grow tired after a while, even Brown himself couldn't get the magic back in subsequent films.  It is a tough formula to put together, the right shots with the right tunes but when it does come together it is magic.

Two weeks ago I had a friend in town staying with me, born and raised in Colorado, lived in various places in the world including the wild of Alaska, he's no stranger to white powder.  Sitting around killing time and just catching up, telling him of what the next few months have in store for me a trip to Jackson Hole came up which digressed into the film "The Art of Flight".  Him having not seen it I threw it up on the screen and we sat (me for the hundredth time) amazed at what an insanely good film this is.  Somehow, someway they found the formula mentioned earlier and I never tire from watching this film that traverses the globe (Alaska, Jackson, Patagonia, Aspen, Whistler...) with a group of snowboarders comprised of incredible footage from their travels.  

One night after probably too many drinks we came home and I had "Young Blood" stuck in my head, bought it on iTunes and we listened to it over and over, however something was lacking.  The song was great and hit most of the right parts of the soul but the missing was the footage.  For some reason (although more than likely it was the drink) my friend deemed it impossible to find the part of the film in which the song was played, possibly because I was more sober I couldn't understand why this dragon could not be slayed and grabbed the controller.  It was found, the maiden was saved, the dragon slayed and we watched a couple of guys pulling massive airs through trees, fatuous jumps on rabid slopes, off of logs and landing them all in kosher powder while the synth-pop blasted over the HD.  

It was laughable, it motivated one to be careless, reckless and forget all the fuck filth scum swine bullshit of the world.  With so many concerns, cares and other distractions of the world we forget to ask the important questions: "Why not?" "Who Cares?" and the imperative declarative "Fuck it." 

"Tears For Affairs" Camera Obscura-Let's Get Out of This County

I don't care who the person is in this picture, her transgressions or whatever other knives people want to throw at her because this picture isn't about her as much as it is about a feeling.  And the feeling encompassed within this picture is this song.  Hell, this song conjures up the best of Beach Boys harmonization, Ronnie Spector smooth grooves, Mexican brass, Billy Bragg and Wilco, the accordion...just the good times spent on the beach in Southern California.

And is that not what this picture is supposed to represent?  Not wearing anything but a bathing suit 24 hours a day in a climate that lends itself to such, doing what you want even if it is randomly playing back gammon in the late afternoon.  But look closer and dig the amber light off of the old lamp, the shells on the shelf, the 70's painting (which may just be knitted and not painted), the ceder doors of the closet and haphazard way the colors and textures of the bed linens are thrown together.

Block out the lead singer's overtly hipster hair style, their strange Scottish names and listen to that sound that forces you to sing along and harmonize.  Let it flow down to your feet at four in the morning while still in those trunks and bikinis you've been in all day with now only a sweater thrown over to shut out the coolness of the Pacific and the onshore winds.  Huddle closer to that bonfire in the sand and let the shadows move under the stars in any way you deem necessary.  Do it until your shit job fades away, until the crows feet disappear from your eyes and whatever stresses of the day coagulate your true blood and let it finally flow free.

The next day throw it on in the car with the top down and feel the sun burning your head as you drive down the five into foreign lands where there's .50 beers buried in ice and the freshest seafood imaginable with a little bit of danger and foreign tongues that you swore you'd protect her against.  Lay on the towel and smell each other's skin tanning with a hint of the kelp washed up on the shoreline, kiss with a few grains on your lips and feel them in each other's hair.

Or at least that is what I am thinking about a few days before Christmas in the big old city while this is on as I take off my jacket, sweater, pants; view my pale skin in the mirror and hop under the covers with the radiator crackling off in the background steaming up the single pane windows that refuse to keep out the garbage trucks and taxi horns after spending three figures on a burger and two drinks.  Staring at the three surfboards in my place that make as much sense as snowshoes on the wall in a La Jolla home; I'm warmed by their presence and will probably now open up that case of Imperials in the fridge and finish them as the play count of this song stacks up in my iTunes.......

"I Just Can't Help Believing" Elvis Presley-That's Just The Way It Is

Written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, members of the Songwriter's Hall of Fame; the song first gained recognition performed by B.J. Thomas who performed such hits as "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" and "Hooked on a Feeling", granted not the most rock and roll worthy tunes but good songs nonetheless.

Like so many tunes that passed by without much notice such as "You Gave Me a Mountain", The King took this song and made it his own. Elvis once said: "I'm never going to sing another song I don't believe in.  I'm never going to make another movie I don't believe in" In usual Elvis style he killed it this song, elevated it to another level wearing a full leather suit with a collar up to the top of his ears and unbuttoned down to his waits, right hand clenching the mic, sideburns down to his jawbone backed by a group of afro'd African beauties and one of the most solid bands ever created in history.

A few days ago I watched an interview with Keith Richards about Elvis, in it he speaks of how people love to mock and shit on him but Elvis truly invented Rock and Roll, he also invented a style of coolness that surpassed Brando, McQueen and Newman and probably will never be surpassed. If I didn't believe it to begin with I would have changed my mind after Keif's words.

With the exception of Mr. S there simply is not a more convincing performer in the history of modern music. It is impossible to watch The King and not believe that every word that comes from his mouth is heartfelt and truly believed. In this particular song the line that always gets me is: "When she slips her hand in my hand and it feels so small and helpless..." As a man small things such as that have always been the redeeming hallmarks of past loves, my mind shoots back to the hands that have been inside of mine, fragile and needy, aching and loving. When The King utters these words I am brought back to those times and I find myself singing badly, but as loud, strong and convincing as he himself.

I was driving home to NY from Memphis after a trip to Graceland, through the rolling hills that make up the beautiful Smokey Mountains, on some blue road (non interstate) I thought about Elvis and his humble background, growing up in a 400 square foot home, such modest beginnings and eventually became the most famous person on the entire planet. In opposition to Kim and Snookie he became this because of his insane talent and persona. Then my mind wandered as I saw the fog set over the foothills to the song playing loudly in the background, this song. I thought about those first few weeks of something new and the utter faith that was always held, the faith that she would be there forever, that hope and optimism in the face of the many that have fallen before.

It was almost too much to bear, Elvis had a lot to be thankful for in his life but like everyone there were hard times, like everyone so many of those hard times had to do with relationships, but listening to him sing this song and truly believing the words coming out of his mouth, well it cofferdamed my thoughts of cynicism much like the streaks of light that broke through the fog and settled on the land.

I say it without regret, if you can't dig Elvis you can't dig life, you can't dig music and it is quite possible you have no soul. If that is the case, don't fret as The King has enough to make up for all your shortcomings.

Springsteen, Springsteen, yea I get it, Springsteen

I'm getting repetitive. However this Friday I am heading out of the city to The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey for a concert that I hope will be one for the ages. The cover band "Tramps Like Us" is performing the entire set list from Springsteen's legendary 1978 Darkness on the Edge of Town tour, specifically September 19th 1978 performed at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic New Jersey.

If you don't know about the Stone Pony it was one of the venues where Bruce got his start and has been known to drop in and play some songs with the house band "Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes" who never gained widespread success but started the Jersey Shore sound at the time of the Boss' beginning.

There has been books written about the background to the album "Darkness on the Edge of Town" the biblical scope of the album and legends and mysteries spoken of about the subsequent tour. In short he was personally struggling and on the cusp of losing his career which was just taking off. He was looking for a more toned down sound, more real and sharp. His writing also took on a different form from visualizations of grandeur and hope to a realization that those hopes are usually crushed. Basically the characters in "Born to Run" grew up and realized it wasn't as easy as pulling out of here to win.

However instead of it being an album whining about what could have been it became a cry of self reliance and steadfastness in perfect Thoreauian and Emerson defiance. To me it encapsulates every personal belief I have held my entire life and hence when I listen to it or watch him perform my emotions run the range until at the very end I am left crying. But not in defeat, rather in bliss and total contentment, with security in my faith and a renewed vow to maintain it. In the album "Darkness" Bruce says more than most all classical philosophers and writers in history. Combined.

Songs such as "Promised Land" and the refrain Mister I ain't a boy, no I'm a man, "Factory" ...and you just better believe boy, somebody's gonna get hurt tonight, "Something in the Night" ...you're born with nothing and better off that way, "Prove it All Night" where in the pre verse jamming he walks up to the mike and says I remember when I was a kid, I used to think, as long as I went to bed and said my prayers everything was gonna be alright but you find out you gotta prove it all night every night. This is Sisyphus relinquishing the rock and telling the gods to fuck off, it is the acceptance of what you've been given and defying all in the face of it.

How could it not tear you up inside to hear verses such as:

from Darkness:
Some folks are born into a good life
Other folks get it anyway anyhow
I lost my money and I lost my wife
Them things don't seem to matter much to me now
Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop
I'll be on that hill with everything I got
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town

from Candy's Room:
She says baby if you wanna be wild
you got a lot to learn, close your eyes
Let them melt, let them fire, let them burn
Cause in the darkness there'll be hidden worlds that shine
When I hold Candy close she makes these hidden worlds mine


from Street of Fire:
When the night's quiet and you don't care anymore,
And your eyes are tired and there's
someone at your door
And you realize you wanna let go
And the weak lies and the cold walls you embrace
Eat at your insides and leave you face to face with
Streets of fire

These songs and verses are not only part of the American Canon but part of the American himself. The ideals of freedom and refusal to bow down, to surrender. Simple, terse songs titles with simple, terse, tight lyrics combined with razor sharp guitar chords that don't beg but demand to be heard. In concert, his ramblings, contorted facial expressions and nuclear energy...Combined, they have to be witnessed to be believed.

In every show there was my Daddy and millions of others walking through the factory gates in the rain at four in the morning, the widower shaking off the theft of a loved one, the man pining for someone deemed inaccessible. They bleed out through every chord of the tele, every note of the big man's brass, Max's rim shots and the epic glockenspiel that became a hallmark of his early sound stretching the artistic narrative into the spiritual.

Of course I'm not going to see Bruce and the band themselves. Clarence is dead as is Dan Federici, though even if they were alive...I'm still going to see a cover band. Having said that they are attempting to replicate one of the greatest shows in rock and roll history and I'll stand in front of that hall in Cleveland and shit on anyone who thinks different, starts talking about Kiss, or any of those other bullshit Broadway show bands. If I had a son he'd be going with me, I don't now but when I do the bootleg from the original will be his life long syllabus for all anyone needs to know how to succeed in this world can be found in this three and a half hour show.

"Rapid City, South Dakota" Kinky Friedman & The Texas Jewboys-From One Good American to Another

If you think this song sounds like something from one of Jimmy Buffett's first three albums (the only good ones in my mind) or maybe Jerry Jeff Walker, it isn't a coincidence, they all come from the same time period and knew each other well; that time period being the first stage of country-crossover music followed by the pop-rock, country that is popular today. Back then though it seemed as though they didn't take themselves as seriously and the music possessed a spirit of fun written my miscreants, boozers and regular run of the mill people having a good time.

I don't know a lot of people who know who Kinky is which I find strange because for some reason I knew of him since I was a child. I remember hearing his name and picturing the Hasidics walking to Temple on Saturday then trying to piece his sound together with that picture and just being utterly confused, just like trying to think about sex when I was that age. Something was missing and it didn't click. Today I get sex and know Kinky doesn't wear a Bekishe, Gartel or Rekel but I still have little idea how and why he came about.

He was born in Chicago and moved to Texas a few years later, he played chess as a child and at age seven was selected to match up against the US Grandmaster at the time. Eventually he would grow and attend the University of Texas, join the Peace Corps and serve with John Gross the esteemed author and literary critic.

A band formed in college would be his first in a long line of satirical music, at first turning his gaze towards surf music which was in its height at the time. He would eventually form the band you hear here in the days of the Rock-Country movement following such smooth, legendary acts as The Eagles and Gram Parsons, and toured with another Jew: Bob Dylan. While I wasn't even born then I could only imagine that he was quite a foil to Dylan and his deep subtext. He would eventually tour with Dylan again as part of the legendary Rolling Thunder Review tour which also held host to Joan Baez, T-Bone Burnett and Rambin' Jack Elliot. Saturday Night Live, Austin City Limits, his joke inspired music played some very serious places with legendary musicians. In 2006 he ran for Governor of Texas, though with songs such as: "They Don't Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore" and "Asshole From El Paso" I'm sure he wasn't taken very seriously and finished fourth out of six candidates.

However much of his music is quite serious, drawing from a long history of Texas music inspired by the road the state's massive diversity and ideals of freedom. "Rapid City, South Dakota" moves along in between the white lines through those 895 exits of The Lone Star State with a crew of drunk crooners wheezing in trail singing harmony on the refrain. It reminds me of those small bars with an antique Wurlitzer always playing, the guy with his head down smashed perking up to sing along. It isn't deep, nor does it make a statement and probably anyone who has played a guitar for a few months could do his tunes. But they are a lot of fun and adds another character to the Texas music tradition.

"Dry Lightning" Bruce Springsteen-The Ghost of Tom Joad

I always wished I was the strong silent type, Gary Cooper, Lee Marvin, Duke Wayne. But I am not and I'm open about my feelings. I don't know if this is a weakness or the fact that men like the aforementioned don't really exist. I think they don't, they all had an ear that they spoke to and a shoulder to cry on. I have my own in my life, a few people who I bear all to when I need them.

I remember jogging in the hangar bay of the USS George Washington spilling everything, all the fears, concerns and doubts to a particular friend who was good enough to entertain my ramblings. He was the only one I let into that world, at the time if I didn't have that I didn't know what I would have done with myself. At the time I couldn't be alone, I couldn't be the person I was or the person the world knew without him.

So in this post, yet another Springsteen post, I want to write this for another friend who may be going through the same thing I was dealing with at the time aboard that ship, when I thought all was lost and couldn't see life beyond each left and right foot that came down on the hard steel of the hangar bay.

"Dry Lightning" reminds me of those times and the hopelessness that invaded my dreams every night when I set my head down. It is easy to talk about it now but at the time I couldn't face it, for the first time in my life I couldn't face something in my life and I had zero idea how to move forward.

I'd drive down to Alvarado street, where she danced to make ends meet,
I'd spent night over my gin, where she talk to her men,
Well a piss yellow sun comes bringing up the day,
She said ain't nobody gonna give nobody
What they really need anyway...
You get so sick of the fighting, lose your fear in the end.
I can't lose your memory,
The sweet memory of your skin.

It sure does take me back to those days of hopelessness, but like the desert of which the narrator inhabitates, he is resilient. Like the desert it is timeless, worn down by the wind and elements but standing before them in defiance. In the situation I was in, like my good friend, you have to stand before them and let it wear you down.

It wears you down until the only thing that is left is your character, the core of the person you are and always have been with or without the thing you have lost. For the only thing that is worse than the predicament you currently are in is to lose that bedrock of which you've based your whole life upon. And there's a beauty in that ideal. A beauty in the Randian, Emerson, Thoreauian way of living your life, the acceptance of what life has dealt you and your ability to rise above it all.

I remember spending a few days in the eastern California desert, a small town with two bars filled with modern day characters from some Steinbeck, Joadian screenplay shot with John Ford's eye. Playing pool smoking Marlboro Reds, drinking domestic beer with a few shots mixed in until we went to the strip club where our narrator spend nights over his gin...you realize that life doesn't work out for a vast many people in this world. Luckily most of those people don't have the knowledge of the outside world to compare their own lives to, sadly I did. In the end it was something to celebrate instead of mourn. Of people venturing through their daily lives with the steadfastness those in more sophisticated worlds could never possibly imagine.

But like my friend this is dedicated to, she called me one day and told me she was engaged. It was right before I was going out, before a work dinner in which I had to show a good face. A friend was driving and I took a full glass of gin in the car ride while I tried to catch my breath for right then and there it was all over. It was over before but I at least had the luxury of pretending that it was not. It was.

After the initial shock it was liberating and it set me free. I sit here now writing this thinking about that day while listening to this song of sorrow, of resigned hopelessness, I sit here now writing this a man with many disappointments and happinesses after her, finding in others what I never thought I would find again even though she still comes to me in the night at times when I least expect it. I write this thinking about another love of mine across an ocean, her brown hair that waits to accept me with open arms and loving skin.

He'll eventually get to that point, he simply needs to know that that point will come to fruition in the future once he lets her go to her new life and accept that he has a new one, to look at it as such and embrace it as a new beginning. I am not a fateist but I do believe that you can make the remainder of your life work, hopefully they'll be another, and certainly there will be, that will break his heart once again.

The Hit Lab

Obviously I'm into music and have been for a long time, and into it a lot more than most. However people always love to tell me that I need to broaden my horizons out beyond traditional Rock and Roll, Jazz, and all that standard kinda stuff. Of course I have a lot to say about that. The truth is that I know what I dig because I've been into it all, on top of that out of all of my close friends I'm pretty much the only one who likes what I like musically.

In September I spent the entire month in LA at a very good friends place working on a project in addition to just a basic visit to see a man I see only a few times a year. For him this project is a side one and not in the music realm. My friend's main project, or career rather is music. Back in his NYU days he founded a label and has always had his fingers in the business. The music, as I was alluding to before, is not my bread and butter.

My friend and his partner, a Grammy winner who comes from a traditional music background and is basically a virtuoso of every instrument imaginable are working together and their new creation is "The Hit Lab". From their website:

First and foremost, The Hit Lab are a camp – a group of like-minded people who have devoted their lives to music and art, all working together to make a perfect product each and every time. We are a Los Angeles based production company, which owns and operates a full service studio in North Hollywood. The Hit Lab works with and develops artists in order to achieve their personal and creative dreams while setting in motion a career path with the major and independent labels. The Hit Lab are experts at web development and social networking along with photography, video content, songwriting and production. Our commitment to our artists is total and complete and we don’t succeed unless they do. We only allow professional, courteous, and generous people through our doors and believe we are only as strong as our weakest link – we fight for personal, professional, and creative integrity each and every day.

I've been out there a few times and seen it go down, my first interaction with his partner was hoping in my buddy's car to "help a friend move" last summer. We showed up at this tiny little room in North Hollywood filled with more gear than I have ever seen in one small place. There was a Grammy on a shelf next to a McDonald's cup, crap everywhere; that's where I met ND. That day we moved him into this gorgeous studio that he built by hand, it was a serious space, a few thousand square feet, hyper professional and no joke. I remember in the 90s I was lucky enough to end up in a studio in NY and watched the Allman Brothers lay down a few tracks, and this place was comparable if not better.

I was surprised by all this to say the least, hell man I thought I was just going to help move a couch and while my buddy spoke of his new project I didn't know it was this big or legit. Since those days they have signed some serious talent that I am confident will become household names in the Pop world.

One thing I also know is that when James starts something, it is done right. Whether is was the vacations we've taken around this world, the road trip we recently finished throughout the Southwest or even our own personal side project, the commitment is always there. Full disclosure on my part, yea man this is pure pop music I'm talking about here, but I will say you can tell these boys are onto something with their tracks.

Right now they are running a promotion, if you are in the first 1000 people to like them on facebook you are entered into a drawing to have your or a friend's music mastered by them professionally. Check out their site at: http://thehitlab.com/ And check out my buddy's other work from Billboard Magazine: http://blog.headliner.fm/tag/billboard-magazine/

"Born Under a Bad Sign" Cream-Wheels of Fire

In an earlier post wrote of Clapton's "Old Love" and then my brother wrote a guest post on a Clapton concert in Seattle, both of these posts fall under later day Clapton works of which, like almost everyone, I adore. However many times people forget that before becoming a solo artist EC played with some of the most epic bands in Rock and Roll history: The Yardbirds, Bluesbreakers, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos, Bonnie and Friends, and the epic Psychedelic Rock band: Cream.

While my brother, who is by far the biggest Clapton aficionado in history, digs the later works, I personally engage the rougher, harder sound of these earlier years. Possibly this comes from my experiences with the psychedelic side of things from my college years that I am sure my brother never experienced while in ROTC. I think that's a large part of it, but maybe it just comes down to different flavors of musical palettes and they was we digest such feasts. This song, much like Peter Green's "Seven Stars" brings me back to another time and place, and while I despise most of the social movement in the 60's, it certainly was a time of the most fantastic music ever made. Ever.

The song itself comes from Albert King whom Clapton claimed as his biggest influence in his guitar playing. While the straight blues version is raw, encompassing a timeless sound that today remains new, Cream's version is a time capsule into another era that while dated still sticks to the insides of the brain making passage of other melodies almost impossible without wearing off on the transient sounds.

Often times I am hooked on a mere second or two of a song, those details are what bring it from banality into genius. Here the phrasing of one particular line in multiple verses continually drives a smile on my face, closing of the eyes followed by leaning back in an orgasmic bliss of heightened musical awareness.

A big bad woman gonnacarrymeto my grave.

The tempo and short staccato phrasing that so easily rolls off of his tongue rivals the greatest words uttered in music. Coupled with piercing, moderately fuzzed out guitar (I think he used a Gibson in much of his work back then) and the line leaves one chasing the dragon for the remainder of their listening lives.

It is hard. It is raw and it is the type of music that is simply not made anymore. Possibly one could draw parallels between this sound and The Black Keys but while the Keys are truly fantastic it would be a tragedy to compare the two. Cream, in all their songs are operating on a different level of music genius. I challenge one to listen to Hendrix, Paul Rogers and even the original Albert King and derive the emotions generated in this short three minute song. It is akin to watching Gretzky, Picasso or Pollack paint, or Sophia Loren...simply just be. This is the pinnacle of professional and craftsmanship in their particular field. At times I believe Clapton thanks God he doesn't remember making any of it because if he did, well how could he continue to make new music. He wouldn't, he would have spent the remainder of his life trying to replicate such incredible heights.

"Neptune" Doc and Lena Selyanina-Cosmic Lullabies

It is possible to listen to the first one hundred and seventy seconds of this seventeen minute song for three weeks and never tire of it.

My knowledge of classical music is thin at best, while my knowledge of modern classical music is even more questionable, however putting ego aside it is truthful to state that I know significantly more than the average person and while I would feel ignorant to speak with full fledged affectionados I see no problem throwing my hat into the ring in this matter. (That was the disclaimer paragraph so I do not have fifty emails tomorrow from people criticizing my observations)

In the end though, fuck them. Music is art and just as in other types of art the creator may have had intentions or cornerstones of which their creations are set upon it is the one taking in their work who can make the final judgement. Do I elevate Springsteen to a higher level because his background mirrors my own, my families? Of course, but does it subjugate my observations and feelings? No.

There is little on the web about Lena except that she began her craft from a very young age. Her work is more of a biography than anything written on the web and her work is a combination of ambient and neoclassical pieces played with strict technical precision. Doc is a Finnish producer of Electronica, Ambient and Experimental music. That exhausts my biographical knowledge of the two.

Their music is far removed from a Philip Glass and Terry Riley, and terribly distant from most of Karlheinz Stockhausen's work as well. It is more banal, though I say that as a compliment much like "Kind of Blue" is more banal to "Sketches of Spain". Both are epic jazz pieces but I have to be engaged to take on Sketches while Blue doesn't require any proactive engagement, rather absorption. If I had to compare this piece and their work to anyone it would be Arvo Pärt, the great Estonian minimalist.

However the above is just a feeble attempt to put this work into context historically. In real life when I hear this piece I am reminded of the possibility of connectivity that exists in the universe. My first real experience with this came five years ago in the middle of the Arabian Gulf. Before this I had touched the realm of possible Brahman, though Hindu philosophers and Upanishad scholars would scoff at my example, while surfing.

When I was 13 there was a storm rolling in out of the east and I was at the peak bowl in Manasquan, long before the dredging broke up the structure of the wave. It began to rain and lightning struck far offshore in the distance. I stayed in as the wind shifted to the west creating perfect five foot hollow sections refracting off of the jetty. I was the only one in the water with all the waves to myself. I could hear each individual drop of water breaking the tension of the surface and when I rode I could hear the slicing-chop-swish-riiiiipwhosh coming off the rails, see individual particles of foam floating in the west wind and feel the wind rustling the hair on my toes. There were dolphins just out of the line up, when I would duck dive a wave I could hear them talk to each other in their high pitched squeaks.

Fifteen years later I resolved to volunteer to go to sea in an attempt to escape my shore based life which was bordering or surpassing the boarder depending on who you ask, of alcoholism and depression. Overweight, my blood pressure had shot up more than thirty points in one year and my breath had turned into wheezing. It seemed like the logical thing to do as so many before me had lost and the found themselves once again in the middle of such savagery.

On a weather deck every night around two in the morning I would commence with an hour of cardio in the 110 degree heat and then cool down and begin a practice of Ashtanga Vinyasa. Though a bastardized version of it which began in the vigorous style of the modern genre, it evolved into the kind mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita and the classic Four Yogas of the late 19 century. In these times, when my breath became one with my movements, when my movements became one with my mind I experienced full connection to the environment while blocking it out at the same time. The typical noises of a large ship passed by, noises which were so loud those on the weather decks were required to wear hearing protection. The heat was relegated to a normal room temperature bearable to the average human and whatever feelings of remorse, dread and regret passed through and out of my veins into the ether.

I returned from that trip with many new experiences, I visited Asia and took in all of the pleasures of the natives, visited the deserts of the Middle East, crossed the Pacific, lost forty pounds, kicked drinking into blackout states and stopped smoking. But in retrospect those nights on the weather decks, fully engaged and connected made me realize that there are levels of consciousness in this life that are rarely touched upon. As a short cut one could take a few tabs and tap into this realm but the dangers are too high and the benefits not as astounding. Acid is Diet Coke to the real thing, the hand to the vagina and the groomed trails to the pure powder. The work involved to reach that realm must be pure and earned.

And with that when I put this song on that is what comes to mind. Total connection out of something that appear chaotic to the uninitiated. It digresses into thoughts of space, String Theory, Rare Earth Hypothesis, Abiogenesis and the Unified Universe. All ideas that make little sense to most, some of which do not to the brightest minds on the planet. But neither does Atonality or Aleatoricism until you hear it.

"She Came and She Touched Me" Townes Van Zandt-A Gentle Evening With Townes Van Zandt

It is such a fun song to play, it flows so easily, the lyrics spill out (if you know them well) like some type of musical iambic pentameter. His voice is the truest you could ever hope to hear recorded, frank with clarity, sans hindsight.

About two years ago I wrote a post about "Marie", another Townes song. I stated that it might well be the most depressing song I have ever heard. This song is the exact opposite. It is an acid trip of love and beauty melting into the pores with Polaroid SpecrtaVision behind rainbows, children holding hands dancing while you watch yourself dance naked in a field of tan skin.

I can't think of a more honest and pure song that has ever been written. I listen to it frequently and it touches me every time. The first time I heard it was in the heat of the south sweating booze on a friend's front porch fending off the impending hangover drinking Bud heavies and smoking Marlboro Reds while his mutt sat at my feet and he told me of his idea for a song he composed while flying up north to a wedding staring at the empty seat next to him days after she was supposed to be there, days after she left him.

My friend has since moved onto another love, actually weeks after that session he met the woman he would marry which put an end to such sessions, another man stepped out of my life and into the life of someone else. I have since went from his current life to the one he was in when we sat on that porch, but the song has never blurred or strayed. It has remained as true as it was when it first came from Townes' mouth, uttered purely.

So I'll just post the lyrics and let you look up the song on YouTube or something, you have to be a little proactive to be rewarded with this level of sincere beauty. It makes you wonder how a man who can write such a song could aggressively kill himself with poison leaving his loved ones behind.

She came and she touched me
With hands made of heaven
Reflections sent spinnin’
Through a face laced in mist
Now I stand where she left me
Buried deep ’neath her shadow
And the mirror plead sadly
Does it all come to this
And I wonder: will she call my name?

The wind careens madly
Through wide windows paneless
Fragrances mingle
In a room full of shade
The peons pick partners
And waltz cross the ceilings
But the violins whisper
That I’ve been betrayed
Tryin not to look ashamed

The drunkards drink deeply
From cups full of nothingness
Ghost lovers laugh
At the games that they play
The moments do somersaults
Into eternity
Cling to their coattails
And beg them to stay
Saying I got nothing to hide

Illusions projected
On walls made of tiffany
Mad minuetts to
A sad satin song
A harlequin mandolins
Harmonize helplessly
Hoping that endlessly
Won’t last for long
Praying that their God ain’t dying

Then I turn and I see her
In a dress made of moonlight
Teardrops like diamonds
Run slow down her face
Her arms surround me
Like chains made of velvet
And the demons fall faithfully
Into their place
And the rivers run with jewels

Now the morning lies open
The night went quite quickly
Memory harmlessly
Fractures and fades
All the poets do push-ups
On carpets of rubber foam
Loudly they laugh
At some joke that’s been made
And the wise men speak like fools

"Bad Kids" Black Lips-Good Bad Not Evil

One of the only things I find redeeming on television isn't even on TV, I watch it on my computer through the Internet. I guess that is just the way of the world these days but it is refreshing to find some truth in the media. It is usually there outside of the mainstream, on the fringe hidden between the beastiality porn through a thousand pop ups asking me to send a ring tone to my phone or that I have won an Ipad.

Vice Magazine is where I'm finding it and where I spend a great deal of my internet time. There's the epic "Do and Don'ts" which could keep you busy for weeks, the weekly reporting from a man doing time for drugs and of course the pulp-skin-snuff variety of articles that leave you looking over your shoulder a bit while you are reading it. When I think of Vice I think New York in the 80s, back when it was dirty, seedy...and back when it was cool, had character. When in high school I would walk out of a bar in the now posh Meatpacking district, a bar that had puke on the floor, porn on all the TVs and Merle Haggard in the jukebox. A bar that had a 70 year old man sitting in the corner drinking PBR before they were served in Brooklyn (at that time the Jews and Blacks were kicking the shit out of each other over there) by biting into the can and chugging it. Usually we were too drunk to even find the PATH stop and would take a cab back into Jersey, but that wasn't before one of us would be propositioned by a tranny looking to give head in the alley and of course since we were loaded and 16 we said yes until some good Samaritan would step in and tell us it was a dude. The trannies weren't puffs though, they'd pull a blade on you if you fucked with them, something out of the cult classing "Cruising". And you know what? It was fun as hell, even when we woke up in the morning at my buddy's father's bar and he gave us a shot of Tully and a pint of Guinness while we tried to hold back the puke in front of the thick off the boat Irishman.

To me that is what Vice is and what its pages constantly remind me of when I'm flipping through. There are some very serious topics though, their reporting is insane, taking one to parts of the world where only the somewhat crazy would tread. Liberia, North Korea, Congo, Somalia, Afghanistan and where the whole idea for this post came from: Northern Ireland.

They put themselves in the middle of a parade in which the Protestants are marching through a Catholic part of town and of course what you would expect ensues and this soundtrack plays. Hahaha, I'm laughing thinking of it right now, 14 year old drunk and high turkeys throwing bricks at police tanks, lighting molotov cocktails in between shots of whiskey...it is actually pretty cool.

What ever happened to Rock and Roll? To the punk that I used to listen to skating on my buddy's small half pipe in his backyard, pissed off at the world and just hating to hate? Questioning every type of authority. What happened to CBGB and people who knew (though I never liked that genre) GG Allin was? I'll be honest and say that I never fit into that world, even though I kinda wanted to be someplace inside while watching GG beat himself up on stage.

Thankfully we can still listen to such a quirky song that is Goddamn fun to play on a Strat as loud as fucking possible much to the chagrin of my Park Avenue neighbors. Easy as shit to play (C-Am-F-G with a pre chorus of F-F-F#-G-F#), just hammer it away man, sweat it out and in between chords take a swig of some swill and spill it down your open shirt and all over your hands onto the strings, it don't matter much anyway 'cause all your making is noise.

It is in all of us somewhere, I think and hope one of these nights I'll be hammering it out and there'll be a knock on the door, a white haired old man with a J Press jacket, khaki pants with lobsters all over them will be there in the threshold and instead of complaining will grab the bottle from my hand, pick up the spare ax in the corner and plug in, he has to, shit like that is the only thing that keeps us alive.

"Through the Morning, Through the Night" Robert Plant & Alison Krauss-Raising Sand

"Experience, though noon auctoritee, Were in this world, is right ynogh for me To speke of wo that is in mariage"

The first line from the Wife of Bath's Prologue in "The Canterbury Tales". I studied this text for over a year in college in Middle English and was tasked with memorizing the entire prologue and then stand up to recite it in class. Being an English Literature class in New England there were few men in the class, actually I was the only one. It was a tupperware party wrapped up in a bachlorette limo and I was always on the fringe. At the same time it wasn't a terrible way to spend an afternoon as a college sophmore especially because the reputation of English Literature girls (nymphos and overtly romantic) held true and was at times an easy score.

Like the woman in the Wife of Bath's story there was a woman in my class named Alison. She was dark haired and a notch above average looking with mannerisms that sent her over the 60th percentile into the hot realm. She sat across from me and we'd read lines to each other with a tense sexual subtext. But never to be fulfilled.

Between her and Costello's song the name has haunted me at times and has been put into the category of names that if possessed by a woman grants her significantly more wiggle room than the average. In short when I meet a woman named Alison (and three other names) they can almost do no wrong.

Krauss is no different although she has little to make up for, many a car ride I have spent listening to her voice serenading me through the long nights and roads. In an album widely heralded by critics this song of Gene Clark's stands out like the gapped front teeth of the Wife of Bath. The menacing subtle quality of the lyrics sung in such an unassumingly pacifist voice hinting at violence, the fade out of the outtro only to come back in to finish it off, all done in 3/4 Waltz time is magical in its terse, thinned out composition.

All of which would be lacking if it wasn't for Plant's versitility, dropping the leather pants and overt sexual pathos, trading them for a pair of overalls and an engineer cap in a rocking chair overlooking the Appalachians. His background singing adds a finishing draw of light smoke to Alison's strong tobacco aftertastes leading to the full bodied finish that begs for another glass.

This song reminds me of the much overplayed "Long Black Veil" in some aspects, there's a sense of dread in the narriative arc that will eventually lead to a judgement. In my own mind I don't believe a second of the line:

Believe me when I tell you
I will try to understand.
Believe me when I tell you
I could never kill a man.

That man will be dead, the overt emphaisis of "Believe me..." is much like the phrases: "It isn't about the money..." or "With all due respect..." We know damn well it is about the money and there is not respect involved. Just as we know there will be a dead man, shot down in bed with his lover. The lover surely will have the same fate.

This song is much like a suicide note, a manifesto, an explination written alone in a room with a mind fully intact and cognizant before the mayhem ensues. At face value it is beautiful and serene but when delved into deeper becomes even more beautiful and right. For some reason that five letter word will not escape my mind. It makes sense for it all to transpire and one would be disappointed if it did not. If there is one thing the studies of 14th century literature combined with modern day sexual tension has taught me is that these forces, while fluid and constantly moving through us are not only instinctual but inherent and timeless.

"Louis Collins" Jerry Garcia-Grateful Dead Hour Show #362

I've been on the run a lot lately and then when I finally came home just felt even more unsettled and wanting to ramble. Mentally I haven't been there, in one sense the creeping depression and misanthropy started creeping in while on the other side on the coin I discovered a treasure trove of Springsteen's finest years live (late 70's) that had me dreaming about Emerson-Thoreauian spouts of self reliance and self preservation through music. Since most everything comes back to Springsteen I couldn't stand to hear myself spout posts of saying the same thing over and over again. I mean this is supposed to be about music are likely to have not heard and I felt as though my message was getting somewhat redundant.

At the same time when I started this blog it was about the music and then something I never expected to happen emerged. I don't know why it wouldn't have but it became mostly about me, about women and I used the songs as a springboard to rant about whatever was in my head at that particular time. I think this last part is a good one and one that I not only like to write about but something insightful. Everyone hears a song in a different way and possibly my personal experiences bring to light a different side one has never thought of in regards to music.

For some reason right now I feel at peace with whatever mental muck I was sloshing though for the past month or two and finally clear enough to write about something with a clarity people would want to hear.

Jerry died only a year or so after I had gotten into his music. The Grateful Dead hour that week was an amazing example of a man's work constrained into a one hour program. A tough task indeed for a man who defied being stuck into a genre and had a working catalogue of over five hundred songs played not only on guitar but banjo, pedal steel and while never played himself, trumpet-jazz tunes played though midi machines.

Episode 362 began with this song. You can hear versions of it on "The Pizza Tapes" and "Shady Grove" but this particular version, an outtake from a Grisman Acoustic Disc Sampler shines in ways the others could never touch. Jerry plays a fingerpicked progression used by Elizabeth Cotten (famous for "Oh Babe it Ain't No Lie" and "Freight Train") of terrible simplicity and stark beauty. Such a simple song about a man being laid down under the clay. It encompasses a view of death that must have been the norm over one hundred years ago before advances in modern science staved off the reaper as they now do until we are wearing diapers, hooked up to machines under the ultraviolet, clinical light of the death factories we call hospitals.

Recently I was in one for a little while and while my affliction was not life threatening it dug in deep and possibly produced the malaise I've been feeling for the past month or so. I wasn't faced with my own mortality but rather faced with how I want my own life to end. It certainly was not like the person in the bed next to me in a building on 69th and York. Not to belittle that man's demise for possibly that was the correct choice for him personally but I can only pray that it is not the way in which I depart. I say this knowing full well that man had no intention of departing in that fashion when he was thirty three years old.

Maybe that is what Jerry was feeling, for no one really knows how he died, not that it is that important. Rather, the way he lived is the heart of the matter and Goddamn if I could just leave one piece of music this concise and beautiful, this honest and truthful with a somewhat shaky voice uttered over a simple chord progression finger picked on a utensil crafted by hand of wood and steel...well then that would be saying something.

It is a marvelous song and tonight after I arrived home, after the gym, after a few drinks and dealing with shitheads at the bar engaged with each other in miscellaneous ramblings it came to me. It had been years, possibly a decade since I had last played it both through speakers and myself taking my own utensil into my lap and trying to keep up with the old grey bearded man. She came back to me as when you go through your old drawers in your parent's home and find a note, a t shirt you once wore until the threads had worn beyond serviceability. When you take that shirt up to your skin it all comes flooding back and a blanket of good vibes comes over you with a striking clarity.

This song does all that and more. It floods the senses like walking into a neon electric steam room flooded with the scent of fresh cut grass and a shower of lemon ice water in the corner ready with a pull of the precisely cut stainless ring that is hot to the touch and it is something to immerse one's self in until drowned to death only if your mind hadn't short circuited and gave out well before the waters actually rose.