Corb Lund

I think the first reference to Corb Lund I came across was from a forum friend, who had lyrics from Lund's Horse Soldier in his signature line. The lyrics seemed pretty appropriate, this fellow having been an Army Ranger and Special Forces Reservist, as well as being a cowboy up in the sagebrush north of here. Somehow it got filed away as an “I should check that out, sounds up my alley” sort of thing, and not revisited for quite some time. When I finally did, man, I was impressed.

Amanda Palmer

I really don't remember how I discovered The Dresden Dolls, but I suspect it was through a friends Facebook status asking for a coin-operated boy. However it was, that's how I heard of Amanda Palmer, the Doll's lead singer (among other talents). Quickly the Doll's albums, and Amanda's solo effort, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, became some of my favorite music, and continue to get a lot of play. Particularly when I'm writing or being otherwise creative.
But it's only recently that I've started following Amanda Fucking Palmer's blog.
I'm not much of a fan boy. If I like someone's work, I'll promote it to my friends who share my tastes, and maybe mention it here, but not much more. I'm a quiet fan. I follow the artists artistic output, invest my money in the output I want to own or participate in, and encourage fellows to do the same, but that's the extent of it. I'm not a gushing, twitter following, fan-art making fan. It just doesn't work for me. If I follow an artist on Twitter, odds are I'll get pissed at narcissistic irreverence and nonsense and stop liking them. Same for a lot of blogs. For me to enjoy engaging with an artist I like in that fashion, something has to be different. I like artists who blog smartly.
I particularly like artists who talk about art, and the processes behind it, and within it. Whatever their art may be. Even better, artists who talk about the future of their art. Best, an artist who can talk about these things in a manner that's as inspiring as their art.
This is why I'm actually reading AFP's blog, and have linked it at right. She's fucking brilliant.
She's thoughtful, and puts a lot of her energy into her words, making the blog both enlightening and inspiring. It's something a lot of artists just can't do – Their blogs end up narcissistic or dry, or narcissisticly dry. AFP is engaging, funny, energetic, and smart. She also regularly displays a firm grasp on current, and emergent, trends and offers insights that more people should really be paying attention to.
Some of her recent blogging in particular has been excellent in terms of trends and things people should pay attention to. Her ideas and comments about how she, as an artist, is making money and the necessity of doing the work, and how others are succeeding, or can succeed, are great.
More artists need to embrace the entrepreneurial opportunities afforded by the current state of technology and communication. More artists need to stop being shy about cultivating a fan base, being involved with that fan base, and making money from that fan base. Making money is not dishonest, it doesn't dirty up the work. Everyone has a right to try to make a living from what they're passionate about. Go read, seriously. AFP is talking from the POV of a performance based artist/act like a musician, but if I find it valuable as a scribbler and metalsmith, other artists should as well. If you're a musician, video artist, writer, pounder of metal, any sort of artist who wants to make a life an an artist, her ideas are worth a look.
I find her commentary very much in keeping with my recent ideas on writing/publishing, markets and marketing there-for, and making use of available technology and the memes they enable to achieve success in genres and as artists.
On top of that, she's awesome and I enjoy her work, and the things she has to say.

(As a note: I'm thinking about putting up something for each of my recommended reads, who I haven't mentioned before at least, but don't know if I'll get to it. My recommended reading, and the blogs I follow (see profile) are all recommended, or they wouldn't be there. You should check them out.)

Tommy

"I saw the whole relationship right there," he laughed with her as I sat down coffee in hand, "But that's okay, it was a good breakup. I got the place, you got the instruments and the dog. Even though it was my dog..." His grin opened up from the long white mustache and goatee. Old laughter, lascivious once, now a joke on itself.
On the outside, it was just an old hippie, better than sixty and sharing laughter with a couple twenty-something kids in a small town coffee shop.

He had been sitting there on the couches when my friend and I walked in. Back to the window and drinking coffee, paper held open to the crossword. An old flat brimmed hat, and a canvas musette bag beside him on the deep cushions of the couch. His hair, white and long, but clean shaven from his cheeks and sides of his jaws, and back lit. Old clothes, but clean, with a well cared for leather vest, and lots of shined silver and polished stones around his neck. Another of the peculiar creatures that lurk the coffee shop, an unknown who looked somehow so right for the place.
My friend and I, lost in our conversation and food sat opposite him in the same corner circle of lounge chairs and couches. Our talk ranged music and tattoo's, she was wearing a fresh one, and life in general. We sandwiched on turkey and avocado, drinking coffee and lemonade.
The gent opposite continued his crossword for a time, and then rustled to life in a creak of leather couch, folding of newspaper and shaking out of his tobacco pouch. I watched him with interest, his leathery hands sunk into his makin's with delicacy. Pinching and distributing just the right amount of fine tobacco, and gently rolling the fragile paper with an unconscious competence of practice. I smiled, thinking of my father and all the men I had grown up around, and of the pouch in my pocket, full of hand rolled cigarettes and makin's. "Someone who stills rolls his own" I said, unaware of where those words would take me.
The next hour was filled with story telling, rich with mirth and memory. A wanderer from time to time and place to place, he told us about old girlfriends, houses, gigs and rooms full of drying peyote. He laughed at those girlfriends who had gone straight, become soccer moms and grandmothers. About this town, thirty years ago, and the "hippies and Techies" running wild and painting the town green for St. Pats. He showed us a picture of his own grandkids, from Philadelphia, a place distant in both miles and time, and talked about his daughter. How he'd reassured her that she was no wilder than her mother had been, a young Sicilian girl rebelling against Catholic school and marrying a nice Sicilian boy. "But you ain't supposed to run off with the hippies, ah no... So that's just what she did," he paused, "She was wild, and ran like the wind..." and he smiled to no one in the room.
The old hippie continued, and somewhere his history with Socorro county became the topic, his coming full circle again to old places, and busking in front of grocery stores. And then he let drop a gem.
"When I first got here, I ended up out on the other side of Ladrone mountain, down by the Salado."
This man, this stranger from far and wide, kids in Philly, and friends in the Pacific Northwest, had uttered the name of one of the most personally sacred places to me in whole world. Riley, the little ghost town on the Rio Salado, where I've been to a lifetime of matanzas, fiestas, weddings and funerals. I saw Riley every day as a kid, on the 45 mile drive into town for school. It's about as middle of nowhere as anywhere on the Earth, in relation to anyplace ever called "somewhere".
He spoke of the old hippie place, and the travel trailer with the metal siding (that's still out there) that had been his, and of the people.
"Did you know the Bustamante's?" I ask
"Herman? Oh yeaah..." and the names went on.
"The ranchers, they didn't much know what to make of us, but those guys, they thought we were all right."
And he told us a story of one of the old men out there, a name I forgot to remember, "The hippie girls, they go down there in the river for mud baths, and he rides down there and sees them. Of course, 'bout the only woman he's ever seen naked is his wife, and he just wants to get outta there, man. But the hippie girls, 'Oh hey man, can we pet your horse? He's soo pretty', they wanna pet all over that horse. And all of a sudden, the sky is real interesting, and that cactus over there, never noticed it, I'll look at it, and anything but them naked hippie girls."
After another forty-five minutes of talking and laughter, I finally got his name; Tommy. We shook hands, and he made a mental not to himself, "Morgan the Blacksmith, and Rebecca the... artist people, band posters."

It wasn't long after that we parted ways, shaking hands with Tommy and going on our way, bellies full of food, coffee and laughter.
Tommy, who dried peyote in that little house on California that never got torn down during the renovation of Socorro's main drag. Who dated a girl that wrecked her van in a canyon in the northern reaches of the state, and lived down there for a year, and then ran into this girl 30 years later here, and could only laugh at her minivan and pearls. Tommy, "the old hippie, crazy guy", who played Arlo Guthrie songs for an autistic girl in a home, and got the first reaction anyone had ever seen her give anyone, singing "...bringing in two keys, don't touch my bags if you please, Mr. Customs man." Tommy, the random coffee shop encounter with memories, and a shared past. Well, Tommy, The path is strange and twisted, and I'll see you out there.

I Get High on a Bottle of Rye, the Coyote He Gets Drunk on the Moon

I went to school for a few years when I was a kid, before I decided I'd had enough of that kind of fun and convinced my parents to homeschool. School entailed a 45 mile drive over dirt roads to get to the little town of Magdalena. School started at 8:00 AM, and ran until 4:00 pm, four days a week. This meant getting up before the sun, shivering in the cold to help my folks build fires and get breakfast on the table, and then saddling up the old Ford, using the hand-pump to fill the gas tanks from 50 gallon drums, back when gas was cheap, and a wet-line off the propane tank to fill the conversion tank in the bed. The sun was usually just breaking the Ladrone peak when we hit the outer gate, finally threatening the last glimmer of stars on the western horizon.
It was a long cold drive, and one that often didn't get completed. Snow packed into draws, filling them feet deep and impassible even to four-wheel drive. Rain washed the gullies across the road, and filled the lows with engine choking water, which soaked into foot deep mud. And in a big rain, the Rio Salado would rise from a thin salty creek to a raging demon, sixty feet across, of muddy water racing for the Rio Grande miles to the east, completely obliterating either of the small fords on the old county road. But, success or not, it was almost always a good drive, and truth be told, I rarely lamented those days I didn't get to go to school.
My dad, he was the one who usually drove, would always play music or sing old cowboy songs on the drive. I don't remember a lot of the cassettes he played, but I do remember one. It was in a scuffed case, scratches partially obscuring the liner photo of a cowboy in a vest and a big black hat sitting with his guitar in front of a sunset sky. The album was Ian Tyson's I Outgrew the Wagon. I really don't remember taking a lot of note of the songs on it then - The song I liked the best, then, of Tysons was The Coyote and the Cowboy, which was on another record - But I remember liking the music, and the liking continued.
I grew up different. I've said it before, and will continue to say it. Growing up on a working cattle ranch in the 90's is far from the common experience. More kids, I imagine, grew up in Volkswagens driving around the country with their pot smoking parents. Driving 45 miles to reach the paved road just outside town that lead to school, depending on wood fired heat in a half century old adobe, actually knowing the meaning of words like riatta, tapaderos, hackamore, morral, these were not part of the common experience of my generation. Nor was listening to Ian Tyson, because no one who didn't understand those things, would understand that music.
Tyson got his start as a folky. He wrote what has been one of the most prolific folk songs of all time, Four Strong Winds, which has been covered by damn near everybody, and was part of one of the most successful folk duo's of the era, Ian and Sylvia (with Sylvia Tyson [nee Fricker], his now ex-wife). According to some, he was even the man who introduced Bob Dylan to marijuana. And when his marriage fell apart, and the folk thing didn't work anymore, he made good on a long-standing threat and bought a ranch not far from Alberta, turning to what he had always dreamed of - Cowboying. Pretty soon in addition to running the T-Bar-Y, he was playing in a few local joints, some of his old standbys, but more old cowboy songs, and a few new ones.
Now, there is a difference between cowboy music and country music - Always has been, and always will be. Most country, despite use of the word on occasion, has little to do with cowboyography, or the cowboy way of life. More to do with farming than ranching, and far more to do with honky-tonks, fast women, fast cars, and southern rural life, than either. Cowboy music is different - It is the music of a unique group of people, doing a unique thing, in a unique place. And in the 20th century, and its successor, more rare than unique. And very very few voices ever captured it. Even fewer captured it in a way that identified not just with the classic cowboy, but the cowboy of today, that rare, and frankly flighty, individual hell bent on eking a living out of being a'horse and chasing the wild bovine. Ian Tyson has been one of those rare voices.
Tyson released two solo albums in the seventies, Ol' Eon, a far more folk sounding album, and 1978's One Jump Ahead of the Devil, leaning more to cowboy music trends, and featuring his hit Half Mile of Hell, from the sountrack to the film of the same name (about the infamous chuckwagon race at the annual Calgary Stampede). Other than that, and some TV work, he was mostly quiet, and spent his time ranching and playing the occasional live show.
In 1983 he recorded an album, in his living room, called Old Corrals and Sagebrush, that was intended mostly for friends and family. It wasn't long before someone heard it, and Tyson was staring down the barrel of a contract again. The album wasn't a big seller, but it started something. In the intervening years Tyson has released nine more albums. My favorite of these would have to be 1996's All The Good'Uns, although they all have a fairly strong place in my heart.
Tyson is, like most of the best, and truest, artists, not a man without demons. He has been almost unhesitating to be self-critical in his work, and many of his best songs reflect his depressions, entanglements with alcohol and women, and what its cost him. There are few truly happy Ian Tyson songs. He lives in a world filled with ghosts, and for good reason - His world, the world of those who understand what he sings, is desolate, and only sparsely populated with the living.
I met Ian Tyson once, when I was a kid, after a live show. He was drunk, quite literally stinking drunk, and extremely obnoxious. I am pretty sure his behavior that night, towards me particularly, cost him a manager (an author who'd become friends of my family while researching a cowboy cookbook). And to tell the truth? It never really bothered me. I've been around drunks, and obnoxious ones, often enough, and had been even by then, that beyond that evening it didn't really phase me. I am still quite fond of my autographed copy of All The Good'uns.
Tyson's last two albums haven't done as much for me as his older work, but they are still good, and speak truth (and a few entertaining lies) about a lifestyle most will only encounter through fictions of far greater proportions. His voice now, in his mid seventies, sounds weaker and reedier than ever before, but only as might be expected. If anything, he's earned it. Carrying a rare truth, about a hard and harsh world, is never easy work, and anyone who makes it to be an old man has earned his weariness. A unfair, and painfully incomplete, payment for a job well done, but nothing less than such a man might expect, and certainly nothing he's not used to.
Someday, in the not too far future, we'll lose Ian to that great unknown, when his circle is through, and he'll be another ghost on a great range already so full of them. And eventually his music will probably be forgotten. But for now, for those of us who still understand, at least a little bit, there is none better, and none other.

"We will ride to the end, on the wings of the wind, until we're home, and our circle is through. May the children read, may they understand, what is of true value, so the truth may be known. The glory of god, and the dark side of man. The one thing, they must ride on alone. And may they stay, where the river runs through, the range and the sky, buckskin and blue. May they ride to the end, on the winds of the wind, till their home and their circle is through..." 'Til the Circle is Through, Ian Tyson

Morphine - Cure for Pain

Nick Cave - A Darkness Reconsidered

Music is a huge part of my life, though not being able to play any instrument I've always relied on the work of others to bring to me the necessities of expression I find in music. As such I like a variety of artists and musical styles. I do however have a distinct preference for the uniqueness of singer/songwriter combo's across genre's - I find myself more appreciative of the singers who are songwriters and the work they have to offer. Somewhere, one of them, has captured something that at least begins to resemble my mood at the time or the one I am looking to create. Being a poet, I appreciate that the originality of the writing of many of these artists regularly surpasses that of the song-writing coming fro the record labels pop-mill writing think-tanks.
Among my favorite of these singer-songwriter-eccentrics is Nick Cave. An Aussie noted for his darkness and challenging material, Cave doesnt always rub me quite the right way - some of his stylings leave me cold at times - when he does strike a chord with me, he strikes it quite well. A large bit of his work, both with his bands the Bad Seeds and Grinderman and as a solo artist, is quite important to me. In a lot of ways for its darkness - This in an area in which I am more comfortable than many - but also because he has an ability to see both darkness and light as indivorcable parts of the same whole. That, more than many things, is important to me in art. But Cave is not all darkness and foul-mouthed, blood stained, rants at the world. he has a depth of understanding and lyrical ability beyond just darkness, or just the contrast of dark to light.
On top of this, Cave is a talented musician, a unique vocalist and a fantastic songwriter. His lyrical ability as a writer is often second to none - No one else I have heard writes song's like Nick Cave. Very few other writers of any ilk are as deep, and draw on such diverse influences as Cave. who can draw on the Bible, Milton, American folk traditions and modern crime reports all in the space of a refrain.

Hallelujah

Lyrically and musically this is one of my favorite Cave songs - It is powerfully evocative, a strong image of place is conveyed in bot the lyrics and the music, and it features some of the best Cave writing around - "My piano crouched in the corner of the room wit all its teeth bared"

500 Miles

Cave also has a small obsession/inspirational attachment to American folk and blues music and does some very nice renditions (covers is a stretch, as he tends to take the raw thing and make it his own) of these songs. Although his version of Stagger Lee leaves a lot to be desired, his 500 Miles is one of my favorite versions.

So lonesome I Could Cry

Cave has also worked with a variety of major and influential musicians, singers and writers. He appeared on Johnny Cash's American IV album, after having covered Cash's The Folk Singer previously.

Cave, for all his debauchery, violence and drunken revelry offers up some surprises from time to time as well. For example, his introduction to the British publisher Canongate's single volumn copy of the Gospel of Mark. An odd turn from the surface impression of the man via some of his lyrics, this introduction only further confirms Cave's depth of knowledge and vision behind his songwriting.
Introduction to the Gospel of Mark, by Nick Cave

Left barber college, lookin' for knowledge...

"I left Barber College, Searchin’ for knowledge, Went to the university. I must confess, Sir, This lady professor She turned me on to anthropology. Now I’m a Homo Erectus, Got to connect this, Bone that I discovered yesterday.
Tyrannosaurus
Lived in the forest,
Died because its heart got in the way." Kinky Friedman & Panama Red

I was talking with an acquaintance the other day in the rock climbing gym about Erebus Crystals. Erebus crystals are a rare type of Feldspar found primarily on Mt. Erebus, Antarctica. They are one of the rarer feldspar types around, given that they are found in only one other location and are formed under circumstances still not positively known. Ejected from the volcano inside bombs of volcanic glass, which subsequently wears away exposing the feldspar Erebus crystals within, the crystals are rather prized by those who can obtain them (among the small number of people who go to Antarctica, an even smaller number are actually allowed on the volcano).
As someone who has always wanted to go to Antarctica, I was of course somewhat insanely jealous of Julien's little pile of green rocks - As I have been previously envious of Julien for simply going to Antarctica, being a phenomenal climber, etc. - and it spurred me to find out more about them and where or how I might get some. The logical answer is, of course, go down there and be doing something that would permit me access to the volcano.
So, off to the website of Raytheon Polar Services, the division of Raytheon contracted to provide all support services to the research operations at the U.S. Antarctic stations. Looking through their job listings I came across several very interesting jobs that I hope to be qualified for in ten years (provided I stay on my current path), several more I will never be qualified for if I even wanted to do them, a few that could be interesting if I felt like getting the required degree, and then one, one, for which I am already insanely overqualified for, already this far into a science degree. Hairdresser.
Yep, they need hairdressers at McMurdo station.
I should have gone to barber college.

Josh Ritter -

I ran across Josh Ritter a couple years ago with his song 'Girl in the War', and today got a yen to hear it again - Ended up on YouTube looking up more of his stuff. He's really good - Go, explore.

Untouchable Face

One more, before the night grows old, as I really should have retired hours ago, or at least curled up to read.
I dearly love Ani Difranco, and Untouchable Face is among my favorites. I have known, and still know, several untouchable faces. Its just the way it is sometimes, what you really feel, but dont, but do, is just... fuck you, and your untouchable face.

John Cale, Venus in Furs

So, here is a link to the John Cale video I want to embed but am not allowed to (for some probably asinine, venal, and petty reason on the part of the original poster [no, I dont tend to give others the benefit of the doubt, or ascribe positive motivations to random strangers, why do you ask?]). It's his performance of the Velvet Underground song Venus in Furs, with electric viola (which the original featured heavily as well, thanks to Cale). It is a radically different, and fairly pleasing, sound... despite the usualness of it.

Venus in Furs

John Cale - Hallelujah

I really dig being able to so easily embed stuff from YouTube in the blog, but I feel like I'm abusing it to make up for a lack of creativity a bit as well. Oh well.

I really wanted to post another John Cale video, but the sole uploader has disabled embedding on that one (damn his eyes), so this will do. Cale was a founding member of Velvet Underground, appearing on their first two albums, one of the quasi-disciples of Andy Warhol, and etc. He is also a violist, as well as a pianist and bass guitarist. I've recently become a pretty big fan after finding his album, with Lou Reed, "Songs for Drella".
Hallelujah is one of my favorite songs - It hurts, and it heals, and it leaves me pessimistic and hopeful, - and Cale's version is truly one of the best, after Leonard Cohen himself.

Johnny Cash God's Gonna Cut You Down

I'm in a musical mood tonight/this morning. Tucked away behind closed door, knowing I should sleep, trying not to disturb those who are, and thinking about recent conversations about music and artists. Cash came up in there, and I'll probably post the Hurt video later, but this is also fairly powerful, and I simply like it.

Tom Waits Waltzing Matilda live 1977

Music... placeholder, more than anything else, for now. Yay for the Google empire and how far it reaches...