The beauty of 12-bar blues improvisation

Saturday morning and the living room turned music room is once again strewn with guitars, amps, cables, guitar cases, and music stands. There's an old dog lying next to his favorite person in the whole world. No, it ain't me: He's turned into such a mama's boy in his old age. She moved in and we started changing the sheets on the bed (sometimes twice a week!) and he started drinking out of a bowl next to his kibble and not out of the toilet. She--the prettiest, funniest, little thing in the world--has certainly turned Bob's and my world on its head.

Went to a play last night and by all intents I should have been riveted. It was about adultery and cancer and marriage--all my favorite topics and combos. There were some good actors up there, too, knocking themselves out. But it's not a good sign when you find your mind drifting to memorizing 1-4-5 chord patterns and you can't wait to get home and play them.

I started an American ensemble course with my old teacher, Lloyd Thayer at Club Passim. (He's not old; I've just studied with him before--that's what I meant.) Americana, to him and co-teacher, Eric, means playing the sound track to the Little Rascals, as Sue says. And to start improvising, we played a 12-bar blues improvisation--I,I,I,I,IV,IV,I,I,V,IV,I,V. Ok, people who know what that means will think it's pretty basic, but to me it opened up a whole 'nuther world. And it's something that I've needed for a long time, at least through these long dark winter months. Work continues to be a disappointment, though I learned a long time ago not to expect self-fulfillment with business majors who bow before the Great God Excel. For someone like me you can contribute to an environment like that only so much; they just won't allow it. Any semblance of the truth is off-brand. It's through the arts--theater, music, writing--where you'll just breeze along.

So that's where we stand on this dreary, cold, overcast, rainy Saturday. Glad you asked?

Peace through Musci: Playing for Change: One Love

More and more I'm getting excited about the idea of changing the world through the arts, whether it's music, theater, the spoken word, and any all combinations. The storyteller, the narrator, was a valued member of society around the campfire. It's time we brought that back.

This video is from the award-winning documentary, Playing For Change: Peace Through Music, comes an incredible rendition of the legendary Bob Marley song One Love with Keb' Mo' and Manu Chao. This is the third video from the documentary and a follow up to the classic Stand By Me and the incredible Don't Worry.

Released in celebration of Bob Marley's birthday on February 6th, this tribute to the legend is performed by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe.

Check it all out here.





Playing For Change | Song Around The World "One Love" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Silversun Pickups: Kissing Families

thanks to baxter for this gem...





Stop the season stop the sting
a plastic mic a broken string
infected wound from a rusty ring

soon you'll be there too

kissing families can't recall
a program to derail us all
forgotten prison it's been safe 'til now

it's no wonder that we did it this way
keep looking forward on paths sideways
it's everything that is connected and beautiful
and now i know just where i stand
move on
roll along
not today
it's everything that is connected and beautiful
and now i know just where i stand

thank god your heart is too close

this can be the bitter end
i know it wont

well someone said i made a mistake
kept looking forward on paths sideways
it's everything that is connected and beautiful
and now i know just where i stand
seasons always shift too late
spent too much time now on paths sideways
everything that is connected and beautiful
and now i know just where i stand
thank god it's over....

The Monument Valley

I haven't posted--make that stolen--music and posted it here for awhile. This is a good one by the Drive By Truckers.

Songs get in my head, a lot, then I have to chase them down. I see them, hear them, on the far side of the property, and ride over to see what's what. It's not often they skeedaddle; mostly they're there for a reason.

But it's easier here, in the apartment, for me to run them down then listen to them, just getting it over with. I think when I was standing on a subway platform, in limbo in a cubicle, or trying to remain visible in the invisible city, a song had more reason for being.

Anyway...

Sue and I fell in love with Monument Valley. We spent her 50th birthday there. Because of that, and more, it will always hold a special place in my heart.

And as the song puts it so eloquently, "the ironic nature of history."

Ah, irony, indeed.





THE MONUMENT VALLEY

It’s all about where you put the horizon
Said the Great John Ford to the young man rising
You got to frame it just right and have some luck of course
And it helps to have a tall man sitting on the horse
Tell them just enough to still leave them some mystery
A grasp of the ironic nature of history
A man turns his back on the comforts of home
The Monument Valley to ride off alone

And when the dust all settles and the story is told
History is made by the side of the road
By the men and women that can persevere
And rage through the storm, no matter how severe
And whether it’s a horse or a car or a train
There’s gonna be some fine times and there’s gonna be some pain
In the end it’s a silhouette framed by the sun
And just The Monument Valley when the evening comes

It’s a strong wind blowing on the open range
It’s gonna be beautiful and it’s gonna be strange
It’s where to plant the camera and when to say action
When to print the legend and when to leave the facts in
And when to turn your back on the comforts of home
And wander round The Monument Valley alone

Life after No Depression

The final issue of No Depression is on the newstands with Buddy Miller on the cover.

Okay, a few things here. If you don't know what No Depression is, it's a music magazine that's been around for about ten years that covers American music, and by American I mean that place in America where rock, country, folk, the blues, and even punk all merge. It was named after (pick one):

• No Depression in Heaven, a 1936 song popularized by the Carter Family
• No Depression (album), a 1990 album by the alternative country band Uncle Tupelo
• No Depression, a term used synonymously for alternative country music.

The song by Uncle Tupelo goes like this:

And if you don't know who Buddy Miller is, you've got one good chance to learn all about this pillar of American music 'cause you've got one more chance to hold the actual paper in your hands. I suggest if you really love music, any kind of music, you go pick one up and read it cover to cover. Not just for the great reviews and feature stories of some of the most amazing, talented artists in the country today, but also for the heartfelt letters saying goodbye and what the magazine has meant to readers and even the ads of companies saying thanks for all the great years.

But, life goes on, and darn, if I've learned one thing it's get up every morning because you don't know what's going to happen in the day.

Life for No Depression is going to go on, in the digital world. And if that doesn't make my heart skip a beat, I don't know what does. I love the music, I love the life, and I love the digital world. It's where we're all going, and I'm glad Grant and Peter, the two founders, decided to do this. They're smart guys, and they're going slow, as they should. Too many people dive into the digital world, not knowing what they're doing and where they're going. It seems Grant and Peter want to replicate the magazine online, which is a good start, but hopefully they'll see they can do so much more online.

So they're going online but they also have a deal with the University of Texas to print what they're calling a "bookazine." It will be more in line with the other books they put out, their introduction to alternative music and the best of ND.

As everyone knows, the Web's audience is short attention, click here, click there, link this, link that, and long, thoughtful, well-written copy like you'd find in the magazine may not do so well on the Web. So they're going to use the bookazines as a outlet for some of their longer stuff.

But still, check out the introduction to a review of Alejandro Escovedo. (And if you don't know who he is, you definitely need to start connecting with ND. And don't freak, a year ago I didn't know this stuff. ND is a great university for alt/indie music, whatever that is.)

I still remember the dreary January afternoon, ten years ago, when Grant showed me the mock-up of the cover of ND #14. It was the day before the magazine was due at the printer and I was helping with some last-minute proofreading. When I saw the words "Alejandro Escovedo: Artist of the decade" splayed to the right of Glenn Hilario's illustration, my first thought was, "You gotta be kidding. Alejandro is terrific, but what about, I dunno, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle or Lucinda Williams? Or maybe an omnibus nod to '90s alt-country progenitors Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt and Wilco?"

Grant had recently moved to Nashville and we were working in his second-floor apartment above a garage in southwest Nashville. When I asked him about the thinking behind the decision to lionize Alejandro in this way, he shrugged and said that there were just some artists you went to the mat for, and that "Al" was one of them.

Something to that effect anyway. Grant cited a couple-three other names as examples -- Billy Joe Shaver, the Bottle Rockets, maybe Steve Earle -- before going on to say that making the announcement two years before the decade ended was sure to get people talking, not to mention attract attention to a deserving and largely unsung artist.

So, you're into the music, right? You want to learn more, because all this sounds so cool, right? Last thing, go take the survey on the ND site to help Grant and Peter get a better idea of what direction they should be taking this project.

The Web ain't all about selling shit and surfing for porn. And ND the digital version is going to a great new neighbor, you mark my words.

Malcolm Holcombe

It's always a good day when I find a new musician, and I mean one that blows my socks off.

Malcolm Holcombe is written up in the March/April issue of American Songwriter, and as I started reading the reviewer, Steven Rosen, used all the right words to get me interested.

An Appalachian Townes Van Zandt. (In my mind one of the greatest American songwriters ever.)

A 52-year-old western North Carolinian (which means he's got some experience and from the hills.)

His new album is produced by the same guy, Ray Kennedy, who has produced for Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle. (The old birds of a feather idea.)

Not pop. (Jackpot! You can keep your CMT Awards.)

A voice that's raw and groaning. (Denotes character.)

And Rolling Stone said:
"Not quite country, somewhere beyond folk, Holcombe's music is a kind of blues in motion,
mapping backwoods corners of the heart." ~David Fricke

There's a wonderful video of him at Studio Southtv, where he recorded. You get a real good idea of who he is, and what his music is like. He's real country, and by that I mean real like the people who live in the country.

Here's Mama Told Me So



Tell me this guy ain't the real deal.