Trio Recordings

Currently, our band is recording a batch of tunes in our acoustic trio format (guitar, bass, mandolin, harmony vocals, dashes of harmonica). These are tunes we've played for many months, and yet the strategy we've settled on is this:

1. Rethink our arrangements by repeatedly overdubbing each part to try out different textures and rhythms on each section of the tune.

2. Settle upon an arrangement, get a very strong track recorded for each instrument on each song.

3. Re-record all the songs live to utilize the enhanced energy that is only possible in such a setting.

4. Compare the final products for the live versus the overdubbed performances--choose which version will be released.

The beauty of self-recording is that it gives you the financial freedom to try a method like this--when we recorded Frontier Blues tracks in the studio, we did everything live in the course of three nights with just one day of minor overdubs afterwards. That was all we could afford, since a decent studio engineer runs you at least $30/hour. With our self-recording method, our final product will not be as polished (none of us are whizzes with recording technology yet) but it will sound thoroughly decent from a production standpoint--and the performances and arrangements will be stronger as a result.

We will release the first of these recordings some time in the late Springtime, so keep your ears here to hear when we've settled on a date.

What's to Come

Below are a few aspects of song lyrics that I plan to delve into more deeply in the coming weeks:

- Colloquial Poetry: Paul Simon, Tom Waits, Randy Newman, and Joni Mitchell are each brilliant at crafting lyrics that sound like someone talking with just a little spice of poetic explosiveness here and there. (See the previous post for an example of this). Of course, many folk and blues lyrics do this, too.

- Allusions: lyrical love & theft--conscious and unconsciously done.

- Storytelling: We'll examine some of the most inventive and compelling ways a story can be told in song.

- Playful Language and Whimsical Wordplay: We'll take look at songs that are the inverse of coherent storytelling--lyrics that are more about the sound than the sense.

- Songs with a Message: Sometimes they're called "Protest" songs, other times "Topical Songs" but I'm really just interested in any sort of song where the songwriter takes a stand on a particular issue and tries to get us to share that stance. This can be done subtly and convincingly or in an all too heavy handed manner.

I'll surely be adding to this list in the near future.

# # #

Lyric of the Week: 'Boy in the Bubble' by Paul Simon

Paul Simon's Graceland is a mighty miracle among those very, very few albums that teeter atop the mountain that straddles the worlds of Pop and Art. This week we'll break down the album's opening track, with a focus on a lyrical feat that is all too rare. Paul Simon achieves sublime effects lyrically by crafting lines that slither effortlessly between vernacular speech and image-laden poetry.

Witness the first verse:

It was a slow day,
and the sun was beating
on the soldiers on the side of the road.
There was a bright light
a shattering of shop windows,
the bomb in the baby carriage
was wired to a radio.

This is a beautiful balance between everyday speech and poetic effects. He uses things like alliteration (slow... sun... soldiers... side... shattering of shop...) but this alliteration is spread out just the right amount--we don't know that it's working on us while listening, we probably don't notice it until we look at the lyrics. The whole verse is so straight forward--the first half sets the scene, the second half transforms that scene completely. Never mind that the story told was written around 1985, you can hear veterans of America's current wars tell this story anywhere you go. The key is that it's almost how that veteran would describe it--just not quite. Simon tweaks the language enough that it's just a little more poetic than you would expect to hear from a soldier (though lord knows there's plenty of articulate and literary minded soldiers).

Then we hear the chorus for the first time, no pause, we slide right into it as Simon changes just one chord (the root) so that it's a slick little modulation downward by a whole step. We've just heard a bomb go off, and now we hear:

Chorus:
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is a long distance call.
The way the camera follows us in slow-mo,
the way we look to us all.
The way we look to a distant constellation
that is dying in the corner of the sky...
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
and don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry.

This is quite cinematic--he starts with an abstraction, telling us what kind of days we're live in, then getting a little more specific with "this is a long distance call", but then we get literal and cinematic with "the camera follows us in slow-mo".

And here I'd like to step back for a moment and observe the shift that's taken place. The narrator started out by telling his story in the third person, and then he changes his role slightly beginning with the chorus: now he's telling us how to think of our times, and suggests the technological wonder of "a long distance call." Then he shifts, and speaks inclusively by saying that the camera follows us--we're all in it together now, "we look to us all." This form of address continues through the rest of the chorus until he hits the refrain: "These are the days..." The rest of the song continues this pattern of address: the verses telling a story from a removed third person perspective that smoothly pivots to an inclusive "we" with each successive chorus.

The important thing to point out about the song as a whole is that it is as clear an embodiment of the feeling of wonder as one could possibly achieve without being cheesy or campy.

There's a lot to mine in the rest of this song, for now I'm going to leave it at that, and ask you what grabs you about this particular masterpiece. Here's the whole thing:

'The Boy in the Bubble'
by Paul Simon, 1986.

It was a slow day,
and the sun was beating
on the soldiers on the side of the road.
There was a bright light
a shattering of shop windows,
the bomb in the baby carriage
was wired to a radio.

Chorus:
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is a long distance call.
The way the camera follows us in slow-mo,
the way we look to us all.
The way we look to a distant constellation
that is dying in the corner of the sky...
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
and don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry.

It was a dry wind
and it swept across the desert
and curled into the circle of gloom.
And the dead sand
falling on the children,
the mothers and the fathers,
and the automatic earth.

Chorus

It's a turn-around jumpshot
it's everybody jumpstart,
it's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts.
Medicine is magical and magical is art
there go the boy in the bubble
and the baby with a baboon heart, and I believe--

These are the days of lasers in jungle,
lasers in the jungle somewhere.
Staccato signals of constant information,
A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires and baby,
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is a long distance call.
The way the camera follows us in slow-mo,
the way we look to us all.
The way we look to a distant constellation
that is dying in the corner of the sky...
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
and don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry.

# # #

Lyric of the Week: 'As' by Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder's song "As" is not one of his best known works. It appeared on the album Songs in the Key of Life in 1976, and has been covered by few artists. In fact, it's safe to say that Mr. Wonder's songs are rarely covered at all (excepting instrumental versions) because he's such a great vocalist--who can match or better him?

Musically, "As" certainly merits scrutiny, but I am concerned with lyrics. So, let me just say that the song does an interesting thing by shifting from the major mode during the verse and bridge to a minor mode on the chorus. The verse and bridge use a lot of Major 7th chords, which is surely one of the smoothest sounding jazz chords in existence. Therefore, its contrast with the driving minor tonality of the chorus is even more effective. (At this point, feel free to refer to the lyrics of the song, which are at the bottom of this post.)

In the verses we are given a lot of broad and general tautologies in the form of similes that begin with the word "as" and all build up to the refrain: "I'll be lovin' you always." These lyrics aren't all that arresting to my mind, but the idea is an interesting one--just jump right in with the comparisons, no preamble, and let the whole verse form be a one-sentence build up of truths to make the truth of "I'll be lovin' you" more forceful. So, great idea, Stevie, but I could have used some more inventiveness as regards the build-up sentences. However, I do like the final verse:

As today I know I’m living but tomorrow

could make me that past but that I mustn’t fear—

For I’ll know deep in my mind

the love of me I’ve left behind,

Cause I’ll be loving you always.

It is also in Stevie's favor that he only sings two verses before sticking to the chorus' chords for the rest of the song--this guy knows how long he can ride on the material he comes up with. After the first two minutes of this seven minute opus we don't hear the major tonality any more, we ride a loop of four chords all the way out. Those four chords are that good.
Now, again--I'm not ecstatic about the lyrics that the heavenly choir sings during the chorus. Lines like the following are colorful, but they're too easy--they feel like he's just trying to rhyme to fill out the form:

Until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea...

Until the day is night and night becomes the day.

Until the trees and sea just up and fly away.

Until the day that eight times eight times eight is four...


On the other hand, the simplicity of these lines lends them a righteous power:

Until we dream of life and life becomes a dream...

Until the day that is the day that are no more...

Until dear Mother Nature says her work is through.

Until the day that you are me and I am you.

That works for me--but the part I really love is what I'll call the Preacher Rap--this takes place after the choir sings for a few minutes over those four immortal chords while Stevie improvises to great effect. The choir starts humming, the organ is vamping, and Stevie lays this down:

We all know—sometimes life’s hate and troubles

Can make you wish you were born in another time and space.

But you can bet your life times that and twice its double

That God knew exactly where He wanted you to be placed.

So make sure when you say you’re in it but not of it

You’re not helping to make this Earth a place sometimes called Hell.

Change your words into truths and then change that truth into love

And maybe our children’s grandchildren

And their great-great-grandchildren will tell…

I’ll be loving you . . .

Now surely the brilliant, fierce delivery of these lyrics colors my judgment to some degree on the subject of the Preacher Rap, but these are great lyrics. The rest of the song contains functional lyrics, but these are on another level. I don't mean a religious level--I am not of a religious persuasion, but I can recognize spiritual power when I hear it. What we hear here is an extension of what's going on in the verses--the singer asserts truths that are meant to make the phrase "I'll be loving you" more convincing. But there is an important difference here--in the opening verses the singer is speaking directly to the loved one. In the Preacher Rap, the singer is not just addressing his loved one. He could be saying this to anybody--to you or me or a congregation or the voices in his head.

So, when he turns back to the refrain of "I'll be lovin' you," it has changed. Now, he could still be addressing the lover, but his gaze has expanded, it now encompasses more. This subtle shift in perspective has drawn us in so that we are now also being addressed. This brilliant shift not only allows the song to go on for another couple minutes with the same four chords--it also moves us from outside to inside the song. So there's another reason Stevie Wonder is a genius--he writes great lyrics.



"As"

Words and Music by Stevie Wonder, 1976. From Songs in the Key of Life.


Verses 1 - 2:

As around the sun the earth knows she’s revolving,
and the rosebuds know to bloom in early May.
Just as hate knows love’s the cure—
you can rest your mind assured
That I’ll be loving you always.

As now can’t reveal the mystery of tomorrow—
but in passing will grow older every day.
Just as all that's born is new,
do know what I say is true—
That I’ll be loving you always.


Chorus:

Until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky.
Until the ocean covers every mountain high.
Until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea.
Until we dream of life and life becomes a dream.


Bridge:

Did you know that true love asks for nothing?
Her acceptance is the way we came.
Did you know that life has given love a guarantee
To last through forever and another day?


Verses 3 - 4:

Just as time knew to move on since the beginning,
and the seasons know exactly when to change.
Just as kindness knows no shame—
know through all your joy and pain
That I’ll be loving you always.

As today I know I’m living but tomorrow
could make me that past but that I mustn’t fear—
For I’ll know deep in my mind
the love of me I’ve left behind,
Cause I’ll be loving you always.

Chorus

Until the day is night and night becomes the day.
Until the trees and sea just up and fly away.
Until the day that eight times eight times eight is four.
Until the day that is the day that are no more.
Until the day the earth starts turning right to left.
Until the earth just for the sun denies itself.
Until dear Mother Nature says her work is through.
Until the day that you are me and I am you.

Humming Choir, vamping organ...

Preacher-Rap Section over Chorus' chords:

We all know—sometimes life’s hate and troubles
Can make you wish you were born in another time and space.
But you can bet your life times that and twice its double
That God knew exactly where He wanted you to be placed.
So make sure when you say you’re in it but not of it
You’re not helping to make this Earth a place sometimes called Hell.
Change your words into truths and then change that truth into love
And maybe our children’s grandchildren
And their great-great-grandchildren will tell…
I’ll be loving you . . .


Chorus continues with more Preacher-like incantations.


# # #

Song Lyrics & Negative Capability

In Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen wonders what her absent lover is thinking:

... He's speaking now,
Or murmuring 'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'
For so he calls me: now I feed myself
With most delicious poison. Think on me,
That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black,
And wrinkled deep in time? ...

I love this last phrase, even though I don't fully comprehend just what she means. Actually, what I really think is that I love the phrase "wrinkled deep in time" even more for how persistently suggestive and mysterious it is. Wallace Stevens said "Poetry should resist the intelligence almost successfully." And you could easily argue that the phrase above resists my intelligence a little too successfully. I am arguing something else:

An intractably mysterious phrase or image is a crucial, potent element in diverse modes of great poetry and lyricism.

I feel that folks today are too accustomed to being able to wrap their heads around something--if I can't understand it--I dismiss it; I reject it. This tendency is a blight upon contemporary imagination, and I aim to write songs and promote songs that combat it.

There's probably a whole long essay or book out there that focuses on Cleopatra's relationship to time as it relates to the statement above, and if you find such a piece of writing, I'd love to give it a look. But for now, let's just savor that phrase, and look at comparable examples of potent Negative Capability in American song lyrics.

Negative Capability is a term coined by John Keats in 1817, he described it this way:

I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.

Wikipedia paraphrases the term as "a state of intentional open-mindedness", and that's pretty close to how I understand it. Keats said that Shakespeare possessed this Capability "enormously" and I have no quibbles with that. What I wonder at is the fact that the term is not heard enough in discussions of what makes folk songs so powerful.

Blues is a central form of American folk music, and the seminal blues musician Robert Johnson once sang these immortal lines:

When the train--it left the station--there was two lights on behind.
When the train--it left the station--with two lights on behind.
Well the blue light was my blues, and the red light was my mind...
All my love's in vain.

In the third line here I hear a choice example of Negative Capability. I feel a strong, almost visceral sense of what the singer means with this line, but I don't know how I'd explain that feeling to anyone. We could explore the fact that the blue and red lights are receding, and then discuss other prominent uses of the colors blue and red in other song lyrics from that time period, and break down this line in a thousand ways, and it still would not manage to explain the greatness of the line. It possesses a mysterious, wrenching power over the sensitive listener--and Johnson's stellar delivery can only partly explain that power. This is a brilliantly crafted line not because of what it contains, but because of all that it suggests.

There are no shortage of examples of Negative Capability in the more traditional folk side of the American musical spectrum. Take this verse from Bascom Lamar Lunsford's "I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground"

Tempe wants a nine dollar shawl.
Tempe wants a nine dollar shawl.
When I come over the hill with a forty dollar bill,
Baby where you been so long?

Or this, from Jody Stecher's performance of "Snake Baked a Hoecake"

Snake baked a hoecake, and set the frog to watchin'
Frog went a courtin', a lizard came and took him.

What do these verses mean? I have no idea--it is more playful language than the Shakespeare or Johnson lines quoted above, but to me it contains the same rich suggestiveness. I can savor it without being certain of its meaning.

Surely the lyrics of John Prine or Tom Waits could also provide us with numerous instances of Negative Capability--and both are songwriters that I will certainly explore here in the future. But let us start with the most prolific lyricist of the 20th century who frequently imbues his work with this quality:

You see this one eyed midget
Shouting the word, "Now."
And you say, "For what reason?"
And he says, "How?"
And you say, "Oh my God what does that mean?"
He screams back, "You're a cow--
Give me some milk, or else go home."

And you know something is happening
But you don't know what it is,
Do you, Mister Jones?

Interview footage shows a reporter's exchange with Bob Dylan, where the musician is asked something to the effect of, "Do you think your audience knows what's going on in your lyrics?" And Dylan replies that he doesn't think there's anything unclear about what he writes--that he can see everything he writes, that he would never write something (or sing something) that he couldn't see. Of course, if you think back on his lyrics, however arcane they may seem, they certainly paint vivid pictures--you're just rarely able to find a unifying thread, or an underlying message.

In another interview Dylan expresses certainty that his audience knows what's going on in his songs--he emphatically states "They know. They Know." This demonstrates a simple and wonderful irony--the most influential lyricist of the last hundred years knows in his heart that it's not all about the lyrics.

Music is a feeling first, and everything else flows from that feeling. This is true from the perspective of the creator, the performer and the listener. When Bob Dylan, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Billie Holiday, Joni Mitchell, or whoever hits you at the right moment, it isn't because of a particular melody or lyric. It's something larger than that--the performer has created a feeling using these and other elements, and that feeling resonates with you.

So, you find out more. You become a fan, or a musician, or a songwriter, or you research the origins of the song, or add it to your iPod, and so forth. But after the song has drawn you in and resonated with something in you, it may not always pack the same punch forever. There's got to be more to it. For me, the Beatles are a great illustration of this.

Like untold billions of others, the Beatles music was an indescribably exciting discovery when it first sunk in. I listened to everything they recorded, I read biographies, I learned to sing and strum the songs. But it reached a saturation point--I no longer intentionally listen to the Beatles any more than once or twice a year. I get it. It will always be amazing music. But as I dug deeper, their music only went so deep. It doesn't continually prompt me to discover new things. It doesn't compel me to keep coming back to it, like Robert Johnson or John & Alan Lomax's prison recordings or Joni Mitchell's album Blue.

The music that endures is that which is layered on multiple levels--the rhythm, melody, and lyrics combine to forge an infinite and variable space for my imagination to roam. I can pluck out any of these elements, look at them up down backwards and forwards, and draw inspiration from the new understandings they reveal to me.

The music that endures is that which sounds fragrant with possibilities when heard in the light of new circumstance. It sets off mysterious feelings that compel you to make a change, to get up and get to where you want to be, to reach out to others, to create and follow your own vision.


This brings me to the main reasons I'm maintaining this blog:

1. To discuss, analyze, and discover new and old lyrical genius with other interested folks.

2. To explore ways to incorporate the lessons learned here into original songs.

3. To propagate the appreciation of great lyricism.


Please tell me about a song you love that is ripe with Negative Capability.

Exploring Exposure

I've encountered and interesting quandry, I hope you'll help me hash it out.

I read someone's opinion somewhere on the internet some time ago that musicians are wise to post things about their band's nitty gritty goings-on. If I were to put up a post each week after our rehearsal that recounted what we did and why, and how it'll impact our music in the future, would that interest you?

Battling with my distaste for such self-involvement is my sneaking suspicion that that sorta thing would be interesting to some folks, and perhaps draw in more folks to our performances.

Even deeper than my leeriness at rampant self-documentation is another deeply held belief. There is much to be said for productive ambiguity. Shakespeare is better than it at anyone--suggesting things in a way that compels your imagination to create more than is actually there. Bob Dylan is good at this as a songwriter and as a self-promoter--he's constantly presenting himself in ways that makes you think there is so much more going on on unseen levels than is probably the case.

If I start telling you all about the earnest grappling with the songs that our band does in practice sessions, that detracts from the beautiful mystery of music. At the moment, I'm inclined to do otherwise--to give you a window into what goes into crafting the arrangement and creation of a song and set. What do you say--do I risk over exposure and deflate productive ambiguity, or do I put us out there in a new and (at least somewhat) unique way, but revealing the creative issues that are now behind the curtain up on these pixels of a stage?

Lyrical Dissections to Come

Starting next week, expect to read in depth analysis of a new song each week here on the Ramble-logue.

American "Blues" & "Folk" Music Are One

This is most excellent:

Randy Newman's Newest Album

My favorite line from "Harps and Angels" comes from the album's title track:

"God bless the potholes
Down on memory lane..."

That old fella has still got it--never mind the crunch orchestral arrangement on "Korean Parents For Sale". Another choice Newman verse from earlier in his career:

"They say money can't buy love in this world
It'll getcha a half pound 'o cocaine,
A nineteen-year-old girl
Big long limousine
in the hot September night,
Now that may not be love but--
it's all right."

# # #

Concert

Goin' to see the man tonight. No telling if it'll be moving, alienating, or anything in between, since it all depends on the vocal delivery and the quality of the sound system.
However, his band is always ultra-tight, so it will be unassailably rockin.

I Got a Story to Tell

Hobe Kytr is a folklorist, songwriter, guitar picker, story teller, salmon defender, and knowledgeable fella of the first order. Mike Seeger said that Hobe should never change his banjo picking style, cause Hobe plays the instrument like no one else. Mike was totally right. Hobe is a human metronome who creates wonderful rhythmic momentum with the banjo.

When I was two, Hobe Kytr made an album, Dog Salmon and Rutabegas. My parents were (and are) friends with Hobe. While recording the album, he needed a bunch of people to sing on the chorus of the title track. My parents, who are not musicians by trade but can carry a tune, were among the friends he asked to sing along. They sang,

You'd better like Dog Salmon and rutabagas,
Boiled spuds, n' green tomatas,
Venison's a standard bill of fare--
And if ya can't live on that you'll have to live on air.

It's a great song, and for some reason my mom brought me along to the recording session, so after that third line the singin falls away for a few beats, at which time (on the cassette version they first released) you can hear me wailing.

My first recording session was entirely accidental, but it worked out rather beautifully. I grew up hearing that album like you do when you're a little kid--it's what yer parents put on during trips in the car. We lived more than 15 minutes from town, so there were daily trips in the car. While I don't recall the recording session itself, some of my earliest memories are of getting very tired at big ol parties with bonfires and sheep on the spit and apples getting squeezed into juice and night settin in while dozens of people are singing all around the place. That's when music is a physical force pressing in around you and yer spirit. That's when I'd hear Hobe's music live.

Really though, those days faded away and I didn't give Dog Salmon and Rutabagas much of a thought until I was three years in to learning to be a two bit, one-thumbed guitar picker. And soon as I got to realizing how mighty folk song is, I got to seein just how fine and forceful a folk musician and balladeer Hobe Kytr is. So I learned a bunch of his songs. Still play 'em. Last time we got together I asked him if he planned to record more of his songs (there's plenty) and he's intent on it, just doesn't say when.

I was touched and honored earlier this year when Hobe asked me to join him on stage at the Fisher Poet's annual gathering out in Astoria, Oregon. He had just released Dog Salmon and Rutabagas in the form of a CD (and about time, too). So we got up on stage and we played and sang the title track and another song off the album, Almost Walk from Shore to Shore. It's great to have such a fine performer and musician, and authentic folklorist, there for inspiration--it's even better to have the guy be your friend.

One thing that really gets me goin when I think about Hobe's next album is that he's kicking around the idea of having some barrel house piano playing on it. Man oh man would that be great to hear.

# # #

Stage Patter

Of course, the first thing you should judge a band by is if you like their sound. But if you stumble upon some live musicians playing in the town square or a street fair, or get dragged to a show by your friends, this just won't be true. Your first set of judgments gets made on the basis of how they look. Then, if you're like me, you'll try to give them a few minutes to make an impression before you get to critical of their sound.

But lots of musicians these days sound fairly decent, so you can better tell a professional outfit by their stage patter. For far too long, I've put off honing in on this aspect of my show, and I'm finally making up for it by developing this part of stage craft. You don't need gags, you don't need scripts, you just need to be able to sincerely tell a story.

What a craft That is.

'The Music Blogging Hive Mind'

I think I might like what's goin on here.

'Oregon or Bust'

Here's a sample of the type of images you'll encounter when I publish the first version of the Woody Guthrie Travelogue website. These images were culled from the public domain photos included in the Library of Congress' online digital archives. They have reams of stuff on there, I just wish more of it was as high definition as this beautiful photograph, which depicts a fella in Montana circa 1940.

Travelogue: Woody Guthrie Along the Columbia River

In 1941 Woody Guthrie was hired by the Bonneville Power Administration to write songs for a documentary designed to promote the BPA's dam-building projects. This turned out to be a very great thing for both the BPA and Guthrie's productivity. He wrote 26 songs in that one month (at least, he wrote as much multiple times, I can't quite find 'em all). A few of them you have probably heard somewheres. The more famous ones are "Roll On, Columbia," "Pastures of Plenty," and "Hard Travelin'". In my humble opinion, one of the three talking blues he wrote at the time, "Columbia Talkin' Blues", is one of the finest examples of the talking blues ever written (You can hear echoes of it in multiple talkin' blues by Dylan).

I grew up on homegrown Northwest folk music, and this drew me to the story of the spiritual dynamo that was Woody Guthrie spending one of the most productive months of his life in the very town where I was born.

So, I made a grant proposal to the Woody Guthrie Foundation back in 2007. They accepted my proposal, which was that I would research this month of Guthrie's life at the Woody Guthrie Archives in NYC, and then create a travelogue website documenting the facts and story of that fertile month along the Columbia. Luckily, the fella who put together the one and only songbook devoted to Guthrie's NW creations is a jovial man named Bill Murlin, who I'm proud to now call a friend. Bill and my friend Hobe Kytr (who also contributed a short essay and transciptions of melodies to The Columbia River Collection) both helped me out by editing and writing formal recommendations for my proposal.

Last year I got a letter tellin' me they were actually taking me up on my offer, I received a Woody Guthrie Fellowship from what is technically the BMI Foundation. It amounted to a $500 grant to "defray travel expenses" to NYC, and even better, the honest ability to tell people that I'm "A Woody Guthrie Fellow."

I flew there and spent 2 weeks flipping over thousands of manuscript pages in the Archives, an exhilarating, exhausting, exhaustive, exuberant experience. Woody left over 3000 pages of song lyrics--and that's just the ones that survived. Then there's the letters, newspaper columns, and various other random manuscripts and drawings he produced. Somewhere I read him write something to the effect that "blank paper ain't safe around me"--it all got eatin up by his hungry typewriter.

Anyways, there's no way to describe how amazing it is to read the breadth and depth of the man's work--I was on a mission. I sifted and sorted and made notes and requested a whole stack 'o papers related to Woody's Northwest Stint. Months later I received photocopies of these requests in the mail, which are currently strewn all around me for the hundredth time since that lovely package arrived.

So I'm working to synthesize the letters and NW song manuscripts into a coherent story told in travelogue website form. I aim for it to be the end all and be all info repository of facts and myth-bustings detailing the real deal regarding Woody's time in Portland town and the region in general. When finished, I will post a link to the site on this site. You should scope it out at that time. I aim to have a Beta version up and running by the day before Halloween.

The Travelogue website will eventually contain a Calendar that lists all events taking place in the NW that are relevant to Woody's legacy in the region. It will tell you where we know he went, and the few instances of when we knew where he was when. It's a helluva story, and you're going to dig it, I just know it.

# # #

Bill Murlin is part of a folk duo called The Wanderers (this link will play music on yer computer). On their site you'll hear multiple examples of Woody's NW creations. Check 'em out.

Hobe Kytr doesn't currently have a web presence. I intend to pester him about this.

Improvisation

This fine article in the New Yorker is exciting, and a relief to read, because classical music needs to rediscover improvisation of every sort. I like this:

[pianist Robert] Levin, the Harvard-based musician who for decades has been the chief guru of classical improvisation, believes that performances need to cultivate risk and surprise. Otherwise, he says, music becomes “gymnastics with the affectation of emotional content”—a phrase that sums up uncomfortably large tracts of modern music-making.

I hear a lot of popular music--from instrumental jazz to all manner of pop groups--as being “gymnastics with the affectation of emotional content”. That's a very poignant phrase.

If music is to be more than a person's accessory, more than just what you listen to in order to demonstrate to people who you are, it has got to cultivate risk and surprise. I want to craft a style of music that takes risks in the content of its rhythm, harmony, and lyrics--all at the same time. I want those risks to pay off by invigorating the listener, and compelling them to make a change for the better in their own life.

Improvisation should be just as central to the education of any musician as ear training or a firm sense of rhythm. One reason classical music can sound stale is that you're hearing a lot of musicians (probably not all of em, I'm not quite saying that) who have barely ever tried to improvise.

Just so you know that I'm willing to take my own medicine, I'll tell you that these days I'm starting to scat sing.

Renegade Minstrels Ramble Forum, Part II

In Monday night's band meeting, the happiest moment for me was when Jon, our stalwart and funky fresh trombone maestro, announced that he wanted to take more of an active roll in shaping the sound and direction of the group. He opined that we should take the band in the direction of a whole lot more Um-Chicka Um-chick uptempo shoulder boppin type rhythms (I'm paraphrasing here, believe it er not) crossed with Squirrel Nut Zippers-type slinky tunes in the mode of our song "Drill Sergeant's Ditty." One word that I remember Jon used repeatedly was "sultry," and I dug that deeply.

In fact, I was wholly delighted, not just because I'm always seeking new ways to engage my bandmates in our pursuits, but because Jon's vision lined up quite finely with mine. I had written down in my notes for the meeting that we needed to go toward "rump shakin blues stomps and swing." So what he said was right up that same red light district alley.

Fear not, folky fans, for folk songs such as Hobe Kytr's Tillamook Burn will still have a place in this music--that song's easy to swing.

Luke's contribution to the discussion was this: "We always play from chord charts--why don't we do more with Line (all of us playing a riff in unison-type grooves)." I thought that was a wise idea as well, so expect to hear more of that sorta thing in future compositions and arrangements.

Jon's other suggestion, which I was also immediately onboard with--but hadn't thought too much of before--was that I play up the lead singer / harmonica player role more and just play guitar when necessary. I like this a whole lot cause it allows me to focus on shaping the delivery of the lyrics and the dynamics of the performance.

After this lovely little Minstrel symposium, we played a few tunes to try the new ideas out, and Lo, the feeling was grand.

Now if we can only get plenty More rehearsal time to make all these ideas happen...

Renegade Minstrels Ramble Forum, Part One

We had a very fine band meeting last night with the five members of our five piece ensemble all in attendance. First thing we had to figure out was bassist-duties. Since our main man Luke Dennis has gigs with some other bands going on for the next few weekends, you'll be seeing a varying cast of bass players in his place. That starts this Thursday, when our dear friend Willy Gibbs will be holdin down the low frequencies on his 100 year old upright bass.
However, for the next few weeks we'll mostly bring in Luke to rehearsals as an arranger. Luke has better instincts about how to shape the dynamics and structure of a song than most any other musician I've played with. So in a fundamental sense, his imprint will still be heard on many of the songs we play, even when he's not there.

Self Marketing

Dylan is considering a new kind of recording career: giving you directions as a voice for satellite navigation systems. Bob watchers like me can't even get surprised by this type of thing. He has continued with his distinctly quirky choice-making n taking of commercial licensing agreements. Remember when he played guitar in the middle of a bunch of scantily clad women for a Victoria's Secret commercial? Selling out? Not so much, I think he's just sculpting his image as he's always done.

"more Mark Twain."

This points out a few interesting issues:

"You knew [Woody] wasn't some dark, dark agitator angry leftist guy. He was more Mark Twain."

First of all, Nora Guthrie is right on about her dad--his faith in people didn't force him onto the side of any one party or clique, he simply told it like it was from the outside, from a place where he could survey the whole scene honestly. Second, Woody's legend and image suffers in much the same way that the upheaval of the 60s suffers--it gets muddied, romanticized, and blurred with oversimplifications. Here was a man with communist sympathies who joined the merchant marine and wrote songs for hire to promote practices of the largest capitalist society in existence. Woody's perspective wasn't simple, and he was no populist simpleton. He was a deeply complex artist and person.

At the end of the article, Nora says,

"I think we're kind of slowly, with technology, inching towards really hearing Woody Guthrie for the first time, in a way."

This fascinates me because while I studied at the Woody Guthrie Archives (where Nora is chief overseer of the rights to Woody's songs, writings, and legacy), the archivist there told me, "If Woody were alive today, he'd have a blog." I soon agreed with her once I began reading over thousands of pages of Woody's various writings. What Woody would have done with the internet is delicious to wonder about.

I find it stupendously fascinating that Nora seems to be saying, "Digital technology is allowing us to hear Woody in a way we never have." One thing I most dig about Woody is the unpolished nature of his voice and of the quality of the recordings made of him. I believe that time transforms the way we hear Woody, not technology. And by "time" I mean the transformations wrought by time upon the relationship between imagination and reality. But saying that makes me realize that Nora is actually right: technology is the major factor in recent alterations of this relationship. The internet has made our relationship to recorded music entirely different, and the populist nature of the internet prompts the question of what mighty populists such as Woody would do given this radical tool.

If there's one thing we can use today, it's more voices with a wry edge, that tell it like it is with a sly slant of some sort. Let's all be a little more Mark Twain.

# # #

This post makes me realize I need to write another post later on about how the Internet changes the role of the folklorist in society. Also, I need to explore how it changes the relationship of people to recorded music.

'Jazz'

Duke Ellington was quite ambivalent about the term "jazz." (He's got a great interview including this, that I suspect might be him interviewing himself, in his book Music is My Mistress). Now here's the NY Times addressing some new stats that Jazz is on the decline. However, they point out that surveys about attending a jazz concert don't necessarily include groups like the Bad Plus (an utterly top notch jazz trio that covers pop songs with multiple stylistic flavors), whose music reflects the rampant cross-genre saturations of intriguing music today. You and I might not go to a Bad Plus show thinking "we're going to hear jazz," but without jazz the group wouldn't really exist.

So I find the fretting about "the decline of jazz" to be quite beside the point. Jazz is one of the many offshoots of American blues music--the thing that makes it most distinctive is that it is the offshoot that demands innovation and fusion more than any other. So, melody-solos-melody to a 4/4 swing beat will probably keep dying out slowly slowly for a very long time, but that don't mean jazz is dead. Jazz is the most radical musical language in the English speaking world, a language of adaptation and transformation. It was made to change--continuously, rapidly, for as long as it lasts.

That assertion prompts the question, "Well, ok then, what is jazz if what I'm hearing isn't recognizable as jazz?" The answer to this brings us back to Sir Duke--he chafed at labels for his music because his music was so many things, it wasn't united by anything but an incredibly special spirit. Listen to Master Jelly Roll play "Black Bottom Stomp" with his Red Hot Peppers, hear Satchmo blow some "Basin Street Blues," then listen to The Duke's "Mood Indigo." Your iTunes tells you that's all jazz, but it ain't quantifiable just why that is. But feel that spirit that weaves through all three? That's jazz.

# # #

I am forced to grapple with the issue of musical categories all the time: telling people I'm in a band they routinely go, "Oh, what type of music?" So last week I'd say "art blues" this week I'm changing to "Blues Stomps and Swing." I am continually maddened by the folks at my local jazz station, KMHD, because of all the DJs there, only one will give our band airplay. Click here and listen to "Swing n Friction." Then tell me what type of music you'd call it, if not jazz.

Apparently, most folks at KMHD want to keep their shows pure with 4/4 swing tunes and accepted "jazz" artists, with rare instances of local talent thrown into the mix. They call what they do, "Jazz, Blues, and NPR News." I don't know what our music is but the first two.

Anyways, I don't like ranting on about KMHD, they still play better music than the rest of the radio stations in Portland 90% 'o the time. Surely some DJ there will read this and then scramble to put my song on the air to make amends.

Mike Meyer is the one KMHD DJ who showed us love. He's got a show called "Mississippi West," and did us the favor of having me on the show for an interview just before we did our record release party, and he played "Swing n' Friction" on the air. That was fun. Hope to go back on there sometime.

Anyways, all you other KMHD DJs can ignore me forever, but do us all a favor and play at least 1 song by an lesser-known NW-based artist every half hour. 4/4 Swing tunes are great, but they are just a fraction of what makes jazz Jazz.

'Blues', 'Folk', n Songs

When you learn and sing and marinate upon the earliest recorded American folk & blues music, you quickly realize that blues music is folk music, and that even the purest of the folksters--such as the Carter Family--draw deeply n freely upon blues tradition. There is no difference between "blues" and "folk" music in America: each is the other. There is a difference between blues and folk musicians. The difference between blues and folk musicians is that, while they draw on a lot of shared material (three chord songs, call and response forms, common vernacular such as "worried mind" or imagery such as the railroad train are but a few examples), each has a different relationship to that well of material.

The folk musician is a museum curator--and the art is her songs. She seeks to absorb as much of the music as possible and keep it intact, sharing it without comment, confident in the belief that if she lets the song shine through her, the material do its work. The folk musician is a preserver and purveyor of tradition, they aren't too inclined to alter what they inheret. Any alteration they do make to the material is inadvertent, it happens by a slip of memory.

The blues musician continuously alters his material, he couldn't stick to the script if he tried. He'll take a verse from here, a vernacular phrase from there, and an original verse of his own and mash them up without compunction until the traditional elements of his material are transformed by his personality or persona. He freely inserts his ego into the music, making his lyrics and melodies into opaque windows that refract his soul.

There's no way to draw a firm line between who's a blues and who's a folk musician. Everyone is both, to some degree or another. Most days I tilt more toward the bluesman than the folkster, but I revere both archetypes, and respect the role that each plays in enriching the music.

Bob Dylan, past the age o' 50, said, "The world don't need any more songs." He was both wrong and right. Many many of the feelings you or I feel already have plenty of songs reflecting those feelings. And a well constructed song like "Angel from Montgomery" or "Crossroads Blues" is going to do what songs do for those feelings for a long old time to come.

But I got feelings and thoughts and ideas that just aren't in any songs, and so I must write songs so that I can sing what I see is urgently needing to be heard. Many times I'd rather it was otherwise, that I was satisfied with covering tunes, but it won't do. Writing songs is damned difficult, even harder than making a decent recording of a song. And as fulfilling as it can be to hear a song you wrote come off well, that fulfillment ain't equal to my restlessness for the next one.

If there's one thing that sets me apart from the legions of people like me striving to make their songs heard, it's that I know more of the tradition than most of those my age, and I smell and think and feel and breathe songs that aren't merely made to make you feel good, distract you from your blues, or comment on what's in the news.

The only reason I will sing a song is because I need to hear it, and that I believe it could do your inmost soul some good to hear it.

Fun Clicks

Hello stranger, put your lovin hand in mine, n hop on to Renegade Minstrels' fanpage:

Renegade Minstrels on Facebook

Renegade Minstrels' Facebook Page is brought to you by Poetry.
Poetry: The only form of writing online that improves your ability to focus.

Food for them that's got an appetite to feel incredulous.

It comes down to bein' real, and it's so simple.

If what you've got to give is true to you--
even if it ain't ever barely clear to you,
follow it relentlessly and pour and force it forth.

What do I crave to be?

A multi-instrumentalist performer composer
who's a constant student,
who is diabolically prudent
and consistently shrewd.

A rabid writer who fills multiple forms full
with congruent dynamism.

A jazz scat freestyle rapper who can cut deep,
a playwright unveiling legions of new archetypes,
each of whom remains both real and true
both awake and asleep.

A rabid conversationalist
fluent with technology.

Who refines his crafts n skills every day
whose songs, when heard, lift from you
your need to pray.

A teacher who spurs students to forge their own way,
and hone their pursuits by the day.

A melody creator with the wry elegance of Duke,
the funk of Superstition,
vulnerability pure as Lennon's,
swagger sheer as Satchmo's,
truth raw as Joni Mitchell blue,
mystic eyed as Dylan
expansive as Whitman
concise as Emily

innovative in observation as the Bard.

Is that so much to ask?

It has never been the case
that the crown is obsequiously requested.
You take it.

I do not shudder in the slightest under the absurd
reach of my ambition. I patiently believe--
this person is already in me,
some of the one I am now is not me.

Let these spirits all pour through to infuse me utterly,
Let me become annihilated in sublimation to the forces
swirling true as the unseen world still whirls.

Embrace abandon, face the music
Carve new acres of oceans, plains and groves.
Groove.

JPS 7.16.09
written in Mt. St. Helens' shadow.

A Simple Thing

If you'd care to take about 90 seconds and give our band a boost, I'd deeply appreciate it.

This link will open your iTunes to a mix I created called "Rollicking Songs." If you like, give 'em a listen, I think that some of em are truly great.

All I'm requesting you do is give us a good rating for the iMix I created. If you have an additional 30 seconds to spare, share the iMix with some friends.

What's Woody Got to Do With You

Even if you aren't a folk music fan or a modern day folkster, but yer an American, Woody Guthrie matters to you. I think a lotta folks might not quite believe this, they might think "He's one of those people you're Supposed to know, he's just a scratchy old voice on some records, and yeah yeah he influenced a whole lot of mighty musicians--that's wonderful but he was for his day and he came along a long time before these new issues came to be."

Well here's what's funny. You go to the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York town and turn over page after page of what Woody wrote, typed, scribbled and scrawled all over all kindsa paper and you'll be shocked at just how much of what he wrote is gleamingly relevant to this very day.

Ol woodrow wilson Guthrie is just important to you, man alive it's true.

Here's some reasons why.

His songs are exemplary examples of what being an American is all about. His songs say among other things: trust yourself, don't let no one else tell you how it is, question everything, and glory in the mightyness of nature.

His recordings document a very great performer. One who delivers humor and stories and tragedies and majesty and the Joad family with clarity and spunk, with wise syllables and laughing wonder. I believe that so much attention gets paid to Woody the Icon or Woody the guy who wrote more that 1000 songs or Woody the guy who wrote "This Land is Your Land" or some other Woodys--and we never talk about how fine a performer he was. There's very few flubs and glitches on his many many recordings, and I doubt he had the patience to do multiple takes of many of his songs.

There's many more reasons, but the one I'm getting at is this: Woody Guthrie's relationship to the U.S. Government is fascinating, and particularly so today, because he was the beneficiary of Government money by way of FDR's New Deal. Woody wrote songs to warn folks about VD when he was in the Merchant Marine, and he wrote songs to promote the Bonneville Power Administration's dam-building projects as well.

In case you don't follow too much news, there's a whole mess o' government moo-lah just about to come down the pipe, and (who knows) perhaps trickle down to little old you and me. So examining how Woody fared back in his heyday when the last such glut of government funds came down is particularly relevant.

I'd love it if you told me what you dig about Woody, or how you're surprised by some way in which his body of work makes him relevant today.

Context

The thing I like about blogging is that they lend themselves to being concise while you can also ramble on as long as you like. For instance, Andrew Sullivan's blog mostly consists of posts that are less than 300 words, but when he wants to, he can write as long a post as he likes. One reason he's so successful in the medium is that he only writes as much as is necessary to make his point. That's invaluable. I don't know how many articles and columns and papers I've read that take many more words to make a point than is necessary, simply because the form being used demands a certain amount of words.

You need a lot of space & time to make your point if you're making a complex arguement or your topic requires abundant proof, and so time and space is dedicated to your sources. Otherwise, please, we're all in more and more of a hurry. Get to the point.

The Ultimate Evil

Hollow: the bluster of friends n pundits n politicians. Cost: the effectiveness and accuracy of our discourse.

Hollow: our cursory attempts to atone for the tragedies inflicted upon slaves n natives. Cost: our country's burgeoning spiritual crisis.

Hollow: Current attempts to cure these ills Cost: Real and true freedom, or: maximum liberation.

But when I speak of "maximum freedom," remember what the song says, "I see true freedoms need checks just to be..."

We face failures where ramifications can't be measured because the real costs are just barely beginning to be felt. For instance, whole ecosystems are collapsing while we keep up our wasteful ways. The examples are legion, I bet you'll agree.

One Song I'm Workin On

Songwriters and writers of any sort, please steal freely from these, the raw content of lyrics that I'm chiseling down and reworking relentlessly into a song. If you want to give me co-writing credit though, that's cool.

I should also mention that I don't use the phrase "hollow cost" lightly here, I'm using the extreme resonance of the sound of that phrase to point out that we are not truly facing the many drastic ills afflicting us. My next post will explicitly state why I believe the phrase isn't overkill, but the only appropriate phrase to be used for my purposes.


Verse 1

Look out mothers cause I'm gettin explicit
Flow relentless as cold thunder driven rains
And the gnawing flood of peoples that drained this land's natives away.
Swindle upon swindle punctuated by massacres
between promises and exiles the reservations blur
While underneath it all there lies the land
The land they were forced from before
we forsaked them and it--
the land we must embrace
if ever our ways become legit.


It sounds like my rhymes are internal but look out
what I spit rhymes with what's around you eternally.
Hear yer preacher braying "What he speaks is infernal!"
But only our better angels are conversant with me.
It takes gumption great as Lincoln's to face these onslaughts today,
Blues greater than his will grip [you] if you can't embrace the array.


I live where the culture's all imported
Cause we done drowned out the native life
Through technologies all senses get distorted
Like time distilled our artifacts of strife.

What's tacky's all that's soulful in these nowhere towns out west
Meanwhile diverse eyes keep lookin' doleful in this land I know the best.
Don't we all crave and pave over this land of false named "Indians."

the resilient indians
whose name was falsely given
who knew the value of the land

Verse 2

Slavery, our unoriginal sin
isn't over here when
I pour out some of my fifth for those descendants
of the liberated slaves
of whom more than a fifth now strive
in a prison or a ghetto
thronging thicker than sin
striking deeper than stillettos

Like fine rock scoured off mountains down through plains and valleys,
the spirits pour through churches and alleys

Whores, hip tappers, hustlers, trappers, pimps
loose sailors, cheap players and rich nymphs--
let's put together a grand get together
that drives these sterile blues clean away
and breed a whole new brand 'o blues.

This is not my land we live in now.
It's a flat graveyard that once knew the plow.
The fiery gumption must now blaze anew.

Let's do this in New Orleanian fashion
and get the lewd and their lush piano ticklers
roaring forth from out the bawdy doors.


Verse 3

The driveby media done riddled another demographic with a constricting perspective.
We zoom in through so little so quick there's no space for contemplation.

Folks crave a scene with constant happenings,
some feel that goin on online.
But most of you can shift yer pixels all you please
What you fawn over often feels thinner than 2D.
and for all the acres I can click through
it still feels hard to get through to
somewhere something's meaningful to me.

In congress, on screen, out back and all over disunion
you watch the faces change while all else remains the same

Language continues its warp
but it's viewed as no more than a tool,
all too rarely made to resonate
or renovate the ways we think.
Language must outpace technology.

This is why my hope is smaller than microbes growing
in a wide eyed infant's drop of useless drool.


The currents ripple wickedly
cross breeding aims resonate
our oligarchy smiles indulgently
bemused at the flailing outrage.
They fold their hands
and go on as they please.

It's hard being elegant and simple
stifling simplemindedness won't do.
A roar is pounding through the temples
Like the northern line barreling through.

the way it is now money means more freedom
and this means money's hard to come by,
thus freedom's far from cheap.

The currents ripple wicked dragging
these flagging hopes off course
let the winds take you
or else take what calls to you, by force

It's hard to gauge the depth and breadth of the disorders--
Fiscal and attention deficits yawnin wide.

Sure as greed begets swindlers repetition kindles affinity
Mass and volume drown out value and values.
Overseas blues got families displaced n driven away
Like a silent dust storm blown in from back in the day
The crises mount like dark clouds piling over yonder
Aimless swells of anger can't be drained away without cold thought
Sure as there's only so much New Orleans' levies were built to bear.
Now that clamping catastrophes have got loose can non attention spans caught
We may just damp disaster's fuse before too many more flash out n' flare.

Like so much else, this all remains under-understood.
By we who cannot face how many profits stifle good.

How do you strive for progress when the tides decree we aspire to the mean?
I search lady suicide bomber to choose a side 'midst the dreams
Heaped among still seething piles of bones
Oh oh the pickins are lean.

All that's certain is that we ain't gainin on too much that's been lost--
We ache n' scrape to fill in deficits of this culture's hollow costs.
All that's certain is: we ain't gainin much of all that's been long lost--
We ache n' scrape to fill the deficits of this culture's hollow costs.

Breathe in fuming airwaves shiv'ring thick as traffic exhaust
Strain to fuse and ache to pay this culture's hollow costs.

The Search is On

In the past, I must confess, I've been quite a slacker when it comes to guitars. Most guitarists usually seem quite titillated when it comes to the prospect of (cheeky smile and small gasp) another instrument! I always felt like I had to fake interest just to not look like a slouch, but the fuss always seemed overblown, just like most of our cravings for more more more things are.

But I'm about to embark on a search for The Next Guitar. My 000-15 Martin guitar is a sweet little number--for acoustic music. I had a pickup drilled into it so that it can be more easily amplified at shows, but it's just not a guitar that's designed to be amplified. I got it before I regularly played with a drummer, at a time when I was even more ignorant about what goes into a guitar (or even what to call parts of the guitar) than I am now.

But as I start looking over the possibilities and options before me, I feel a strange and unusual excitement in my belly that is not merely the accustomed glee of "Weeee, more Stuff!"

I think it must be a feeling that comes from knowing that the instrument I choose is going to open new doors up for me and this band, musically speaking. We'll be able to do what we do now, only better, and do more sorts of other things, like sneak in a teeny bit of distortion for numbers that need it...

It's past time for a new instrument, because I've got sounds in my head that my noble 'ol Martin just don't make. The possibility of having a guitar that's more versatile--that can stand up and speak for itself in between the aural raucousness and delicious savagery of a trombone and a drum kit and a big ol bass, that's a gratifying prospect. After consulting with my friend and mentor, the great Steve Boden, I'm inclining towards a flat-top, round hole guitar of some sort or another.

Let's just see what I can find.

Cephas

Via the righteous songster Lauren Sheehan, dig this video of the late, very great John Cephas:



His voice reminds me of the late solo recordings done by Bill Broonzy on his album (of a live performance) entitled Trouble in Mind.

Other Albums

There are two other albums in the works that I should mention as well.

One is Northwest Bedrock Songs, which will combine original tunes, covers of Woody Guthrie's NW tunes, and songs by folksters Hobe Kytr, Dave Berge (who made a great album together when I was 2, "Dog Salmon and Rutabegas" - more on that later) and John Cunnick. The album will present a panorama of viewpoints depicting the Pacific Northwest in all its glory and its clearcut gore.

The other album, which is as yet untitled, is a solo album that may include a few other instruments here n there, and it may not. I believe it'll be mostly originals--right now I'm figuring out the best ( = cheapest & best sounding-est) method to record that particular album, and I'm polishing off the songs to be included thereon.

The solo album will include "I'm For You," "Terror Rising Blues," "Look Forward," and plenty 'o others.

One Future Album

I've got an idea for an album which you, like my buddy and bassist Luke, will probably call a "concept album." I don't like the term for reasons I will discuss in the misty future, but here's the concept.

This L.P.'ll be composed of 9 songs, the first 4 laying out the ills of this livin the way we go about it today, and the final 4 songs presenting methods of transcending the ills and challenges and falsities we face. Song 5 will be a transition between the two main arcs of the song.

The songs on the album (and indeed, I think, eventually all of my songs) will form a web that reflects the shape of the internet. Both random and intentional recurrances and links will be scattered throughout the songs, drawing concepts and images together to create a larger frame of understanding and resonance.

Each song will have chiseled lyrics, I already have titles for each song, multiple drafts of each songs lyrics, and a few other structural ideas in place.

My strategy is this--I'm going to use this blog to keep gradually updating you about how this thing's coming along, letting out more n more information slow and unsteadily until I foment some curiousity about the contents therein. I'll be doing this as I figure out & implement innovative and potent methods of promoting the album. The promotion will get woven in there with the content of the lyrics somehows, and thus the lyrical themes and concept will become intertwined with the album's introduction to the world.

If you or anyone you know has ideas that line up with mine regarding this project, please do not hesitate to call 800-MINSTREL immediately--that's 1-800 ... not really--email me.

Ain't Satisfied

If you listen widely to blues & blues inflected music, one theme that reemerges in various guises can be simply put: Ain't Satisfied. "Mississippi" John Hurt recorded a song by the name "Got the Blues (Can't Be Satisfied), where the singer tries whiskey, but it don't seem to satisfy him. So then he buys his gal "a great big diamond ring," then catches her fooling around, disavows her, breaks down his gun barrel, kills her, then cuts up her bedmate, and ends by saying that he "still ain't satisfied." I love the song, not just because John Hurt was a phenomenal guitar picker and performer, or because it shows the futility of changing the way you feel without changing the way you think. It is also powerful because it reflects something deeper about the bluesman's ethos, and about the nature of this country's people. First let me show you what I mean 'bout blues.

Many other seminal bluesmen & women touch on this theme--take Robert Johnson's immortal lines, "A man is like a prisoner, and he's never satisfied." It can be love, work, dreams, or many other experiences that prompt dissatisfaction in a soul. That feeling of restless disquiet is significant to me because in blues that I love, the feeling applies to the experiences conveyed by the music and the music itself--the blues musician constantly innovates; not because he's merely restless, not just because the act of performance allows him to transcend the draining embroilments of the lonesome world:

his innovation is an act of hope, it says, "I can make this better. Ain't satisfied yet, but I'm bound to strive for my personal vision of greatness--in my music and my life."

Obama gave a much-quoted and noted speech in Philadelphia last year, which is often called his "race" speech, but really had another theme running just as deep throughout it: a more perfect union. Obama is an effective politician because he is in many ways sensitive like a bluesman: he feels the urgent need in his audience (the country) for something that is lacking, and he has the passion and compassion to lead the audience to transcend wrenching struggles. Of course, he also has the necessary leadership tools, adaptable perspective, and patience to draw reality into the world he envisions. [That's a post for another day: exploring the way blues musicians are agile at shifting perspectives.]

It's not just that blues music tinges or saturates every genre of American song. In the restless spirit of the archetypal bluesman, the innovative jazz musician, a rock revolutionary like Hendrix or Dylan, the folksy mystic dynamism of Joni Mitchell, or the diabolical words of Immortal Technique, a common thread runs throughout; it is the belief that this world I see can be transformed for the better, and I'm damned if I won't do my part, and contribute to that betterment in my own way.

I still ain't satisfied, and don't believe I ever will be satisfied, and I probably wouldn't want it any other way. I love a heritage that instills a sense of visionary urgency and wry hopefulness in its people. This is the land where the recognition that it isn't and never will be perfect exists before the first word of the Constitution itself. It's the Preamble that states it: "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union..."

You ain't satisfied, so find that music and that way of living that makes you believe you're moving toward somewhere better than today's circumstance. That's a true blues life.

The Great Compression Sonnet

The pressure mounts until you hold forth or
you freeze. The day is primed for seizin'.
Whoever grasps the hollowness of the score
will win just by the elegance of reason.
Seek out what you believe without relent.
Our times and lives have nothing--but demands
that none wait round for what heaven never sent--
Instead they rise cold and clear as fire brands.
For this was never what forefathers wrought:
This sick, passionless dive for means too mean,
this epidemic sweeping soul and thought
has left too many raw and fraught and lean.
Hold out or let the tide carry you through,
There's little choice in what I'm bound to do.

I wrote that at my friend Dustin's house last fall in New York City. It interests me, I wonder if I'll end up plundering from it for a song.

Harmonizin'

Today my buddies and band mates Luke and Austin are meeting up with me to practice singing harmonies for a few of our songs. It's something I should have been doing with my bandmates for years now but have just gotten around to implementing. I love rehearsals of all sorts (the reasons why will be another post)--but these ones are a favorite for a few simple reasons. All I have to do is sing and listen as they settle upon their parts, so it's quite relaxing. I let each singer have final say on what he sings, because he'll sing it better if he's created it himself.

So really the only frustrating part is that I'm made to keep singing the same phrases the same way--I come out of jazz and blues music as much as anything, so I love changing rhythms and altering harmonies when I sing as a matter of course. These harmonizing practices make me stick to the script, but it's probably good for me to do so. All the better, really, because it allows me to step back a little and listen close to the others, and weave something that meshes well with what they're doing.

The hard part is that my fellow singers aren't as experienced as I with singing this type of music, so I've got to find ways to convey to each of them that, "Hey--there's no hiding here. You've got to sing with a voice that Is You or else you're coppin out. This needs to be sung with joy, conviction, playfulness, and our trademark wry and jovial spirit." I don't put it just like that, but maybe today I will...

Please listen to the results--just come out to one of our two shows in Portland next week. You'll hear harmonies on "Nature's Gospel," "Common Ground," "Funeral Pole Blues," and "Freeways at 3."

Virgo & Pisces Show Last Night, comma, Why Blog

Resolved: the Ramble-logue will be used for honest consideration and reflection of where Renegade Minstrels are at as a band--I want this to be genuine and real as the music is, and not an internet ploy that advertises my band. I'm going to bet that the Ramble-logue will be much more interesting and engaging if I tell it like it is, like my great folkster forebears did and do, n' taught me to, than try and sell you on what we want this band to be. This is the Great Compression we're living in--front all you want, the seething webs will ultimately reveal who you are.

That brings me to last night's gig at Virgo & Pisces Restaurant. There was no way to know two months ago, when I booked the show, that the Blazers would be playing a do or die game 6 on Thursday, May 30. But they were, which meant that by 9pm when we were due to play, the place was fairly full of people who had just sat around for 2 hours watching the game on a big projector screen. We started to play, our six friends stayed, and a few strangers stuck around to check us out.

Dang, we're getting paid a percentage of the bar tab, we're not going to make a dime, there's barely 10 people here and few passing through. At least we got free food. The fact that it's a rather nice little place on the corner of a busy intersection that has a stage and its own sound system makes it more painful--"Damn, wish we could had a good night here in order to get asked back." We play our first set, during which my high E string snaps = awkward pause to put on a new string... You probably understand by now that the gig ain't lookin' too good.

Somehow, it turns around. The bartender, Brian, who booked us, is generous and buys us a round of drinks, and at night's end he pays us $20 apiece and says he thinks we rock, he'd like to have us back. I talk to him and we both understand that playing a show on a Last Thursday (meaning big crowds across town up on Alberta St, few folks on NW 21st) the night of the Blazers' last game of the playoffs is less than ideal. We're going to set something up for a weekend gig there in June, and there's even talk of perhaps a monthly Thursday slot.

Now my challenge is to find a clear and concise way to lay out these overlapping stories of the different places we play and how each venue changes the times that we get asked back, how one gig leads to another, how the audience waxes and wanes, the personnel fluctuate, the press won't give us the time of day, rehearsals are never a chore or a bore, the recording studio becomes a mighty frustrator, the interactions between bandmates, the clashing visions, the flashing moments of stiletto harmony... Is that a story you'd like to hear? Because I will tell it true.

Fortune is a strange beast. I love that I never know where our music work will lead.

My Love for the Hip Raps

I first got into rap music back in the mid-90's when OutKast's album Aquemini became popular. Since then I've delved a little into underground hip-hop, but I need to expand my ears more into that realm. A few years back my friend Henry Chanin introduced me to Immortal Technique, an artist with a strong vision who is revelatory not just for his fierce conviction and righteous wit ["My metaphors are dirty like herpes--but harder to catch," ... "I leave you full 'o clips like the moon blockin' the sun..."], but also because he samples classical music along with more standard electronic fare in his beats.

Anyways, rap music can be quite devine, and it is the most recent offshoot of our land's blues roots to swell up from underground and explode throughout pop culture, so it's very important to me as a source of inspiration; it has an urgency and ache in it that makes it immediate in the best of ways. Of course, most of what one hears on pop radio is "rap" music that someone forgot to put the "c" in front of. If you hate rap, go back to it and try again, either listen to people like Common or Immortal Technique or go back to the earliest era of the music and hear the buoyant spirits of folks like Grandmaster Flash.

What rap lacks, generally, is highly varied orchestration. When you're building a song on a computer, you have an infinite orchestra at hand--why not capitalize on that? Beat producers need to delve much deeper into what folks like Beethoven and the Duke did to forge masterpieces. Many rap lyricists are highly intelligent, and a few don't let posturing get in the way of their wit n' wisdom.

I would really love to see more live hip-hop, where a DJ and a band are featured onstage backing the rapper.

All of which is to say, I like this song & video featuring Nyle. Listening to it makes me feel good.

Nyle "Let The Beat Build" from Nyle on Vimeo.

Upon reading this post by William Brafford, I immediately applied it to my feelings about participating in musical traditions, and found it resonates with those feelings:

"I find myself caught between traditions, and I often wish I could commit to one. In short, I find myself wishing I were a better partisan. When you’re a part of a tradition, you need to commit to it. When I satisfy my doubts about which political tradition I’m entitled to claim, I’ll join the struggle of hashing out the central conflicts of that tradition and arguing for its superiority over other traditions. But contributing to the growth of one’s tradition requires the virtue of proper confidence. We live in a world where many people lack that virtue."

This is part of the reason it's frustrating to be asked "what type of music do you play." I can say "Artful blues for the soul" like Don Campbell called our music, or I can say "Modern folk songs drenched in blues tradition," but few folks want to hear the long answer. They want me to give them a category or three and then leave me there. I have to have something to respond to that question with that sticks in yer head--but it's also got to be special to me, I've got to tell you something that I believe is as much of the whole truth as you're gonna get in under 30 seconds of my talking.

But let's un-digress: I grew up drinking in folk music from live performances and tape cassettes of musicians like Hobe Kytr and Dave Berge. That early influence dissovled without a trace as I listened exclusively to pop and rap music from ages 12 - 16, after which Bob Dylan hit me, and wasn't folk music wasn't really re-activated in my conscious brain until I discovered early rural blues music at age 17. From there I got into early Dixieland music while I was studying classical music in college. The music I make now draws on all of the above in various ways, and I can fit very few of my songs into any one of these genres comfortably.

All of which is to say that I, too, "find myself caught between traditions, and I often wish I could commit to [just] one." Of course, I won't give up any of the traditions that I draw on, not because I couldn't, but because it'd make me lose my deep love for music. The real meat of Brafford's quote comes when he talks of "contributing to the growth of one’s tradition"--I'll have to get to that in a later post.

Song Seed #1 continued

In reference to my post regarding Dylan's self-ordained professors Scott Warmuth pointed out to me that what he wrote was actually this:

"Is this where Dylan got the title of the album [Together Through Life]? Perhaps."

I implied that he "was convinced" of the origin of Dylan's source--which was by no means correct. So I will strive to be more accurate in the future when representing other folks opinions. I must confess to writing rather flippantly because after a steady diet of Dylan criticism over a number of years, I cannot believe the size of the army of people that is out there finding the various allusions that are consistently present in Dylan's lyrics.

For adherents like me, it is rather wondrous that, however big his catalogue is, Dylan can cram so many allusions to literature (not to mention other forms of culture) into his body of work while still remaining one of the most resoundingly original artists in the English-speaking music scene. Michael Gray's Song and Dance Man III is the book that first opened my eyes to how deeply affected Bob is by blues music and lyrics. I recommend it to anyone interested in such things.

I value what folks like Scott Warmuth do because, as a songwriter, it is always valuable for me to see new examples of how the greatest songwriter alive digests his sources. The thing that I miss from Warmuth's dispatches is analysis of these references and allusions in the context of the song as a whole. For instance, how does "I'm gonna pluck off your beard and blow it in your face," one of the many lovingly-stolen lines off of Dylan's new album, contribute to the larger themes at work in the song? It's neat to see from whence (some of) Bob's inspiration comes, but it's even more valuable to read someone who is being Sherlock Holmes in his most vital sense--not just gathering the clues but seeing how they fit together in their ever-changing contexts.

Playin' fer Kids

Every Monday at noon, and every Wednesday at 10am, I perform solo at Airplay Cafe in Portland. This is a blessing because every songwriter should have some spurs a'workin on 'em. Nothing gets a song done like a deadline. I suppose if I had thousands of people interested in my band, I wouldn't need a bi-weekly gig to stir me to action as a songwriter, but so be it--I cherish the freedom of mild anonymity.

Anyways, the Airplay gig is great because I quickly get sick o' singin' the same old tunes every week. I know plenty more songs than you could ever fit in an hour, but that's not the point. The songs I perform have to appeal to the audience that's there, and that audience is interesting. It's all young mothers and their toddling kids. Some days there's no more that eight folks in the joint, some mornings I'm playing for over fifty people, and it gets rambunctious. Generally, young kids are more captivated by strongly rhythmic tunes, so I bring out the fast ones. Here's a typical set list composed of the fast songs I play on a solo day at Airplay:

"Talkin' to You, Mama" - Blind Willie McTell
"Spanish Harlem Incident" - Bob Dylan
"Shake It and Break It (but don't let it fall)" - Charley Patton
"Hard Travelin'" - Woody Guthrie
"Hide Me in Thy Bosom" - McTell again
"Boy in the Bubble" - Paul Simon
"Swing n' Friction" - an original song
"Freeways at 3" - another original
"I Was Made to Love Her" - Stevie Wonder

In between these songs, I'll perform whatever slower tunes I think I can get away with--but the people want to groove and jive, so I've gotta keep them hoppin' beats comin with the strummin.
What this means is that I'm driven to expand my repertoire with more covers (Last week I added Johnny Cash's under-appreciated tune, "Big River") and write more upbeat songs to appease dancin knees and behinds. Thus, a weekly gig is a great spur for new material, never mind that you might premier a new song and no one notices sometimes--whatever. Any chance to perform is a blessing, I'll always believe that.

The less selfish gratification for the Airplay gig is that young kids dig music--I could be up there with just my harmonica and, provided my rhythm was regular, the kids would love it. That's not all though: kids are attentive. I consistently see kids that are still nursing who will watch me for three songs straight without looking away. Their mom's rarely look my way for 1/3rd that long.
Also, I encourage the kids to dance, so when they do sometimes I'll watch and experiment with different strumming patterns and rhythmic styles to see what it makes 'em do.

I'm damned lucky to have such a fun, dependable gig.