That Magnificent Ghost

Giant Sand's "Classico" with Vic Chesnutt & Henriette Sennevalt

2012-01-11T09:33:00.000-08:00

Well, this certainly needs to be posted here, of all places:

Thanks to Howe for sharing it with us, and Bill Carter for creating it.

West Texas rivers & wind-blown campfire tunes

2011-11-16T09:15:00.001-08:00

(From November 2000)

By Peter Blackstock

Driving west on I-10 from Austin, the desert creeps up on you, gradually revealing itself mile after mile after mile until the entire landscape has changed. The winding rivers, lazy lakes, scrubby trees and colorful flowers of the Texas Hill Country finally give way to barren creekbeds, rocky outcroppings, desolate plains and various forms of cacti.

The transformation somehow seems as spiritual as it is physical. The world exists on a different plane: broader in scope, wider in space, deeper in soul. Here in the heart of West Texas, everything truly is bigger.

Biggest of all is the Rio Grande, and nowhere is it so grand as in Big Bend National Park, so named for the gargantuan turn the river takes as it winds through a series of deep canyons on the border of Texas and Mexico, a couple hundred miles southeast of El Paso and Juarez. Though Texas isn’t generally known for its mountains, several peaks in the park are quite impressive, rising to nearly 8,000 feet from a much lower base than, say, the Colorado Rockies, which sprout from a mile-high boost.

Hiking trails and campgrounds are plentiful throughout the park, but it’s the river that rules this region, providing a major recreational draw for adventure seekers in the Southwest and beyond. About a half-dozen companies operate raft trips on the Rio Grande, ranging from day or weekend trips through the three main canyons (Santa Elena, Mariscal and Boquillas) to weeklong excursions through the Lower Canyons.

One company in particular has carved out a unique niche in the market by combining the rugged splendor of Texas geography with the ragged glory of Texas music. Far Flung Adventures, based in the tiny ghost town of Terlingua just outside the park, regularly offers three-day/two-night trips in which a renowned Texas singer-songwriter comes along for the ride and performs intimate campfire concerts for the rafters.

Those who have participated in Far Flung’s river music series over the past decade include such marquee names as Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Robert Earl Keen, Tish Hinojosa, Darden Smith and Peter Rowan. The unrivaled stars of the series, however, are Steven Fromholz and Butch Hancock, whose lives have been significantly redirected by the pull of the river.

Fromholz inaugurated the series in the late ’80s and was so taken by the experience that he eventually became a trained boatsman as well, and set up a part-time residence in Terlingua (his primary home is in Austin). Hancock followed suit shortly thereafter, becoming a music-trip regular in the late ’80s and earning his oarsman credentials in the early ’90s before finally heeding Big Bend’s call completely and relocating from Austin to Terlingua in 1996.

The move marks a full-circle evolution of sorts in Hancock’s life cycle. Raised in Lubbock and a member of the pioneering band the Flatlanders in the early ’70s (along with Ely and Gilmore), Hancock moved to Austin in the mid-’70s shortly after recording his first album, West Texas Waltzes And Dust-Blown Tractor Tunes. He released about a dozen records of varying textures and tones during his two decades in Austin, but 1997’s You Coulda Walked Around The World revisits the rustic simplicity of his debut, a solo recording of just guitar, vocal and harmonica.

Lyrically, Hancock has replanted himself firmly in West Texas soil as well, which is what makes his music so ideally suited to Far Flung’s river excursions. His words echo in seemingly every experience of the adventure. Driving the back roads of Lajitas to the put-in point, the chorus of “This Old Dirt Road” comes to mind; the border adventure tale of “Leo y Leona” practically provides a plot map to the area; “Barefoot Prints” ponders the reflections of moonlight, sunlight and starlight on the Rio Grande.

Starlight, coincidentally, is where our journey begins — at the Starlight Theatre, which sits next to Far Flung’s headquarters in the heart of “downtown Terlingua” (consisting only of those two facades and a gift shop). Having set out from Austin around dawn on a Thursday in mid-November, my father and I pull into Terlingua shortly after dusk (”You can drive all day and never leave Texas,” another of Hancock’s lyrics reminds) and drift into the Starlight, which functions as a restaurant and bar in addition to presenting occasional musical and theatrical events.

Across the room I happen to spot Joe Nick Patoski, a senior editor for Austin-based Texas Monthly magazine who’s in the area researching an article. Presently he’s joined by Fromholz, who informs us that our river trip with Hancock will be greatly enhanced by the ever-entertaining guidesmanship of Gary “Catfish” Callaway. We meet Callaway the next morning and instantly appreciate Fromholz’ assessment: “They call me Catfish because my mouth is bigger than my brain. And the fact that I just told you that proves that it’s true!”

Soon enough, however, Catfish’s considerable wisdom of his domain becomes evident. An outdoorsman and river guide for three decades and a minority owner of Far Flung, he knows the Rio Grande intimately, from its habits to its habitat to its history. As he rows our boat of five — Catfish, my father and me, and another father-son pair from Houston — downstream with breezy deliberation, he identifies bird species and rock formations, recalls floods and other incidents that altered the form of the river’s banks and rapids, and continually curses the tamarisk trees whose byzantine root structures drain water from the river at an alarming rate.

Drifting along lazily behind us, barely visible amidst a barricade of supplies surrounding him on his raft, is Hancock, who’s serving as cargo crew as well as campfire balladeer for our journey. Occasionally Catfish will nod back in the direction of Butch, careful to be out of earshot so as not to embarrass him, and marvel about how that guy in the trailing boat happens to be one of the great songwriters of our time.

Soon enough we’re treated to firsthand evidence of that assessment. After pitching our tents at the Friday night campsite and devouring a hearty steak dinner (Far Flung feeds folks mighty well on these trips), we gather around the fire, hoping that a threatening sky will hold off long enough to allow Butch to play a few tunes. (The story’s often told of how, around ten years ago, Hancock played his song “Just One Thunderstorm” one evening at a Rio Grande campsite and, on cue, the heavens opened forth and poured.)

The rain mostly holds off on this night, though a light drizzle eventually prompts us to scoot a few feet under the tarp protecting the makeshift kitchen. Playing for an hour or so, Hancock treats us to classics from his past such as “If You Were A Bluebird”, Terlingua-inspired tunes from his most recent album including “Long Sunsets”, and even a couple new numbers he hasn’t yet recorded. Those who have caught Hancock in the cozy confines of the Cactus Cafe in Austin might assume they’ve heard him in the ideal environment, and they’d almost be right — but nothing could ever transcend the experience of Butch’s songs rambling along the river’s banks, rolling upon its rippling waters, reverberating off its colossal canyon walls.

We don’t actually enter the majestic Santa Elena Canyon until the following afternoon, having spent the first day following the river’s twists and turns through the mesa-pocked frontier of the Chihuahua desert. We stop for lunch at the entrance to the canyon, taking a relatively short but awe-inspiring hike up a fairly steep trail leading to the canyon’s precipice. Peering one direction, down into the chasm created by the sheer cliffs on both sides, ignites the nerves with dizzying wonder; gazing another direction, across the vast cactus-covered playas of Mexico, beckons the soul to the edge of eternity.

We spend Saturday night deep within the canyon, chilled and whipped by a whistling wind that quickly renders our nice hot dinner less than lukewarm. This is, after all, West Texas, a place where “the wind is gonna blow tomorrow, just like it blows today,” as Hancock sings on “Wind’s Gonna Blow You Away”. The natives have long since learned to weather the elements, and Butch has no problem keeping us up for quite awhile, regaling us with the misadventures of “Split & Slide” (”Well Split he slipped and started to slide/And Slide he slipped and split his side”) and the simple wisdom of “Chase” (”You might chase a tune/You might chase the muse/You might chase the moon/You might chase the blues”). Finally, and fittingly, Hancock leaves the music to be carried away on “The Wind’s Dominion”.

Sunday morning, only a short float remains through the rest of the canyon to our early-afternoon takeout point, though it’s probably the most scenically spectacular portion of the trip, the canyon’s walls towering ever higher and revealing formations such as Smuggler’s Cave, a giant hole in the wall on the Mexican side. Then it’s out of the long shadows and back into the bright sunlight, Santa Elena’s tight fortress receding abruptly and giving way once more to the desert’s endless horizon.

Driving back to Austin, watching the parched plains transmute back into rolling hills mile after mile after mile, I recall all those treks across I-10 I’d made in my younger days, and how hard it always was to readjust to urban civilization after spending a few days amid the soul-stirring nature of this country. As usual, another song of Hancock’s — this time it’s “Texas Air” — comes to mind, and captures the feeling exactly:

Leave my spirit on the prairie
Bury my bones in the sand
Toss my troubles to the western wind
Baby it’s a wide, wide land.

Why the very last R.E.M. song means so much to me.

2011-11-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

By Peter Blackstock

That it was R.E.M.'s time to say goodbye came as no surprise. Thirty years in, eleven years beyond the timeline they'd once vowed to follow, a tenure without Bill Berry approaching the tenure they'd had with him: It was time, if not past time. There had been reasons to keep going, for better and for worse, but the end was always near. And so it was here. We knew, understood, accepted.

As it happens, there was a farewell note left on the mantle. It's called "We All Go Back To Where We Belong", and I find myself drawn to it much more than I'd imagined was possible, at this late date in a lifetime relationship with a band long taken for granted. As the title suggests, it harkens back to the beginning, a reminder of why such alchemy had first coalesced, of where it all flowed from. Which is not to say it's retro: R.E.M. circa Chronic Town would not have been capable of this particular shade of accumulated beauty. The unapologetic gracefulness, the sympathetic twinges of strings and horns, the clarity of message and purpose....these are the full blooms from wisdom gained along the way.

But the artistic impulse, the underlying current of emotion -- that carries over, and connects 1980 to 2011. Then, as now, the pull of a melody divines the direction. It's the feel of the sound that determines the words. And so "I could live a million years" bridges over three decades into "I will write our story in my mind."

The poetry always mattered, even when the words were elusive. They became clearer over time; that clarity sharpens to its finest point in this final address. "This might be my innocence lost." "I can taste the ocean on your skin." "I woke up thinking we were free."

And the answer to the end of this band, fittingly, comes in the form of a question: "Is this really what you want?"

We all, ultimately, must ask this of ourselves. Where we proceed from that reckoning is up to us. And yet, the nature of the past exerts its power over the future: "We all go back to where we belong." This is not as reactionary as it sounds. "Things don't change, they never have," a contemporary of R.E.M. used to sing. But the meaning, really, was: Things don't change, they're not so bad.

And so it follows that this "going back to where we belong" is not so bad, either. R.E.M.'s final offering is the perfect closer to my 2011 year-end collection of songs, but if you play this collection on a loop, it feeds right back into the opening track, "Burning Up The Sky," delivered in the same key by a twenty-something band called the Parson Red Heads. On the heels of R.E.M.'s end-of the-road concluding statement, the Parsons reopen the dialogue with wide-eyed wonder: "We are living, living in a new age, living in a new age, kicking up the dust."

As I write this, there is a picture on my laptop screen of a breathtaking midsummer sky -- layered shades of grayish blue, brilliant red and glowing orange reflected upon the waters of Liberty Bay, against a silhouette of evergreen trees, a lonely rooftop, and a hillside speckled with the scattered lights of town, stretching out across the horizon. It looks for all the world like a heart-stopping sunset. But, in fact, it was taken just before the dawn.

"There wasn't even time to say, Goodbye to R.E.M...."

2011-09-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

September 21, 2011, 5:05 pm

I hadn't seen the news until late this afternoon; been busy today with an extensive project that, coincidentally, included writing a little bit about a side-project of R.E.M. Just three days ago, I'd posted to Facebook about Sept 18th marking 28 years since the first time I saw them play. (At the old Austin Opera House.)

Fair to say they changed my life in a pretty major way. My early experience is much like what others have recounted, in terms of hearing something in their music that started them down a new path. I think that's why they were such a big deal for a long while, and so influential -- because a whole lot of folks our age told that same story. They were largely responsible for my first giving a chance to music that was outside the mainstream.

They were my favorite band throughout the 1980s, with the possible exception of 10,000 Maniacs (who I discovered in part through R.E.M.) and the Austin band Zeitgeist (all of whom held R.E.M. in high esteem). Seemingly everyone I knew at the time placed them on a pedestal, sort of shared with the Replacements, but with an appreciation fully for the art of the music (whereas the Replacements' legend was partly tied to drunken antics, alongside some seriously great songs). A phone interview with Peter Buck for an Austin American-Statesman preview of their March 1989 Erwin Center concert was kind of a rite of passage for me; I'd probably never been so nervous for an interview, but he turned out to be really easy to talk to.

Fate intervened in the '90s. In the fall of 1991 I moved from Austin to Seattle, and, lo and behold, who shows up in town the following summer but R.E.M., doing some work at a local studio on what became Automatic For The People. Buck (recently divorced) fell in love with the city, and most specifically with the owner of the cool local nightclub, the Crocodile Cafe. He moved to Seattle, taking up residence in a house within shouting distance to Kurt & Courtney's place down the hill.

We ended up more or less in the same circle of friends, largely via Crocodile Cafe booker Scott McCaughey, who eventually was enlisted into R.E.M.'s lineup at the tail end of 1994. Sometime around then, a friend of mine named Gary Heffern decided to record a song I wrote on an album he was doing for a small German label; Gary had a way of enlisting anyone and everyone to play on his records, and so it was that Peter Buck ended up playing bouzouki on a song I wrote. (Still kinda freaks me out to this day.)

McCaughey's first tour with the band was in January 1995 in Australia. Realizing I could tag along for a few days and sleep on the floor in Scott's hotel room, I booked a flight to Sydney and caught the band's three shows there plus one in Adelaide. The last night in Sydney is the one I remember the most; we went to some seaside park late at night after the show, and Mike Mills was pointing out to everyone where the Southern Cross was in the sky. At some point, Bill Berry and I were tossing a frisbee back and forth on the grass, basking in the balmy January summer night on the other side of the world. I didn't really get a chance to know Bill but he sure seemed like a good guy; I was horrified when I heard about him collapsing onstage in Switzerland two months later and nearly dying from a brain aneurysm. I think he did the right thing by calling it quits shortly after that, but the band was never quite the same.

Our paths crossed in Vienna in the fall of 1998, where I caught them at a live-radio performance, but after I moved to North Carolina, I didn't see them again until they came through the Triangle in the fall of 2003. They had a day off in town the night before the show, so I met up with Scott and Peter for dinner in Chapel Hill. Knowing they were sometimes open to spontaneous guerrilla musical performances (particularly under the guise of the Minus 5, a side-project band Scott and Peter had formed a few years prior), I stopped by a tiny little Chapel Hill dive called the Cave and suggested to the band playing there that night (who happened to be friends of mine) that they might wanna leave their gear set up after they finished their set, just in case. Yep Roc's Tor Hansen and I dropped a few hints during the course of the evening, and sure enough, sometime past midnight, everyone strolls on down Franklin Street to the Cave, and a makeshift Minus 5 (with McCaughey, Buck, Mills, Pete Yorn, Ken Stringfellow and probably a couple others) proceeds to rock the joint till closing time. That was the talk of the town for all of one day, until it was superseded the next night when Bill Berry showed up at R.E.M.'s outdoor-arena gig and sat in for a song during the encore, his first turn in the drummer's chair with the band in seven years. (I think he played with them one other time since then, at a special event back home in Athens.)

The last R.E.M. show I saw was at a fitting place for my own personal history, I guess -- a taping of Austin City Limits three years ago during SXSW. Of late, I've been more likely to see Scott and Peter when they're touring with The Baseball Project, a terrific band that writes really cool songs about mostly obscure baseball players and historical events. (ESPN has championed them the past year or two, doing special promotions with them on their website.) I presume that both the Baseball Project and the Minus 5 will continue, and perhaps even step up the frequency of their performances, in light of this news. On the other hand, I wouldn't blame Peter or Scott for just deciding to take a break...but as long as I've known either of them, it's just never seemed to be in their nature.

So I'll raise a glass to R.E.M. tonight. Had they not come along, it's entirely possible I would have led a very different life.

Remembering, (or Introducing,) The Balancing Act.

2011-08-16T22:16:00.000-07:00

By Peter Blackstock

Fitting, probably, to write about this band here; my hidden little blog is no doubt even more obscure than the profile of The Balancing Act has been over the past couple of decades. Which is probably understandable enough for the blog....but not so much for the band.

We all have bands of our youth, sounds that make us remember a certain age, place, time. You hear a song and it instantly transports you back to a little league summer, a junior-high basement hang, a high school football game. I get all that, and I have all that, too.

But this is not that deal. Granted that I discovered The Balancing Act amid such impressionable times, in the tail end of my college years. I first heard their music sometime in '86, I think, and first saw them play in the fall of '87. They didn't last much past that; they'd called it quits by '89. I'm not sure why, exactly, but I guess they all had different lives to go on and lead. And so there was an indie EP, a couple of LPs for IRS, and goodbye. Similar story for a lot of bands in that heyday.

But, damnit, this was NOT that same story. The Balancing Act was something more than all that. Maybe they all had other things to move on and become....but the music they made in their youth was not forgettable. It was not disposable. It didn't not matter.

I guess I'm not the only one who feels this way. This past spring, the band gathered in Los Angeles to play for a small but appreciative crowd, a bunch of folks who remembered and revered what they'd done. It was hard to peg exactly what The Balancing Act were, which is much to their credit. They were a folk band, a jazz band, an indie band, even a sort of new-wave-ish band in their time. A rock 'n' roll band in the finest sense of that term, such that it denotes a converging of excitable energy and adventuresome spirit. They were, ultimately, great musicians, creative souls, and positive-charged human beings.

"We're not lost, we're meant to be here," they sang in one of their most indelible tunes. That's as good a summation of The Balancing Act's raison d'etre as I could offer. Seeking, yes; lost, no. They were meant to be here, digging for songs and sounds that had yet to be found. I reveled in following them on that journey, if only for a brief time. The legacy remained with me....as, apparently, it did with them, if this footage from those recent reunion shows is any indication.

Jackson Browne, "Something Fine"

2011-08-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Jason Verlinde of Fretboard Journal for this wonderfully shot and beautiful-sounding rendition of a great song from the back pages of one of my all-time favorite artists.

Jackson Browne - "Something Fine" on his vintage Gibson Roy Smeck from fretboardjournal on Vimeo.

There are such wonderful subtle touches here. The setting itself, so simple and "home"-like, Browne sitting in a chair by an old desk, the wooden stairs hovering aside and above him. The way the sunlight flashes thru the cracks of the venetian blinds every now and again, casting fleeting beams on the stairway wall or the sheen of his guitar. And, most surely, the world-weary cracking in his nevertheless still warm and resonant voice, an imperfection that somehow just makes these words all the more meaningful thirty years later.

"Bison" -- a song by Skylar Gudasz & the Ugly Girls

2011-07-21T13:05:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back, I posted on Facebook a link to a real nice cover of Gillian Welch's "April The 14th Part 1" on YouTube as performed by Skylar Gudasz & the Ugly Girls, a relatively young band from my neck of the woods that I've only recently come across. That clip led me to their own recently released debut recording, a seven-song disc that shows considerable promise, even if one senses their vision might not be fully formed yet.

My attention today is on one song in particular. It's called "Bison" and it's a fairly good representation of the group's artistic identity: tasteful acoustic-based arrangments which lend themselves to dramatic expression; lyrical explorations that wander adventurously rather than seeking a narrow focus; and an indelible vocal presence that's ultimately the music's primary calling-card (not only frontwoman Gudasz's highlighted lead, but also guitarist William Taylor's understated counterpoint).

This was the song that struck me most vividly when I first downloaded the record a little while back. On Tuesday, after seeing the band for the first time at the West End Wine Bar in Chapel Hill, I bought the CD, in part just to support the musicians but also because I felt the need to get a better handle on the lyrics. It was clear that Gudasz's words were an important part of her songs, but I'd been drawn in by the sound, and the lyrics are more elusive. Lines would stand out here and there, yet the stories remained mysterious.

I'm still not sure I fully understand "Bison" after having read through the lyrics, though I'm further impressed by their poetic nature, and perhaps more significantly, I'm fascinated by one very unusual detail. There is a spot in the song that one would commonly identify as the "chorus" -- Gudasz's voice soars sweetly, memorably, and this same striking passage comes around three times during the course of the song's five minutes. But here's the intriguing part: A chorus is usually a repeated melody accompanied by repeated words, yet Skylar sings a different set of words each time that melodic phrase comes around.

First it's "Lord knows I haven't dreeeamed since then / There ain't nothin' I haven't seen that I haven't seen before / That wasn't prettier the first time, prettier for sure." A couple minutes later, while the first line is repeated ("Lord knows I haven't dreeeamed since then"), it's followed by, "The shaman's wife swears it was your love that did me in / Soon they'll be pulling from the graves, those tree-wronged Indian braves." And then, a completely different address the final time around: "Its ivory slates wiped cleeean / Oak ain't just made for you to carve your heart all over into / I'm deeper than this forest, wider than Tennessee."

I've found myself somewhat torn between whether this is a sign of the artist needing a better hold on songcraft -- that perhaps she'd benefit from following standard structures a little more -- or if she's fully aware of the rules and is breaking them on purpose. It's probably the latter. Certainly she doesn't seem to lack for quality role models; the aforementioned Welch is an obvious one (underscored by her cover of a different Gillian & David number at last Tuesday's show), and I sense a bit of Laura Nyro, though I've really no idea if Gudasz is familiar with Nyro's oeuvre. Possibly Lori Carson, or Tori Amos. Not surprising that she also covered Neko Case on Tuesday.

Mostly, though, I hear Gudasz and her band finding their own space, which is what makes them worth hearing, and seeking out.

-- Peter Blackstock

You can hear "Bison" on the group's Bandcamp page, here:

http://skylargudaszandtheuglygirls.bandcamp.com/track/bison

From the final issue of The Rocket, October 2000

2011-07-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

A Facebook friend recently posted some thoughts on the history of the seminal Seattle publication The Rocket, for whom I served as a senior editor for a few years in the 1990s. The Rocket folded in the fall of 2000; as fate would have it, the final issue contained my farewell column to Seattle, on the eve of my relocation to North Carolina. (That final issue was printed but largely undistributed; the plug was pulled before the paper was picked up and dropped off at its usual outlets across Puget Sound.)

Here's what I wrote in that issue, for whatever the historical documentation may be worth. (Not much, probably!)

By Peter Blackstock

I’m sitting in the middle of a big empty room, windows looking out on a grove of Carolina pines that populate the alcove across the street, on the edge of the quiet little neighborhood in Durham that is now my home.

I remember this feeling well. Exactly nine years ago this week, I arrived in Seattle and camped out on the living-room floor of the garage apartment I’d just rented, no furniture yet acquired, accompanied only by a few suitcases of clothes, the stereo, and boxes upon boxes of records, tapes and discs.

There was a long way to go before this place would be home. But, man, it was an exhilarating time, just being here. The wide-open hopes and dreams that hover above those first steps of a new beginning are like no other experience in life’s journeys.

I can only hope my relocation to North Carolina will open up my world the way moving to Seattle from Texas did. I came here without a job or a plan, more or less following a hunch based on a single visit I’d made a few months earlier. I figured my writing experience at the daily paper in Austin would help get me started, but I knew just a small handful of people here.

Among those I’d met shortly before I arrived were a couple cornerstones of The Rocket: editor Charley Cross and office manager Mary Schuh. Charley kindly gave me a chance to write for The Rocket and helped advise me on numerous details regarding my relocation. Mary and her husband Sandy Milne rented me the space behind their house, the coolest little garage apartment ever, for a price even someone used to Austin’s then-slackerly living standards could afford. Without them, plain and simple, I do not think I would have made it here.

That first year was a true challenge, involving a monthlong working sabbatical back in Austin and a couple of office jobs. I was officially broke after someone set fire to my car.

What saved me was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which had hired me to write a weekly column covering music in local clubs a month after I’d moved here. They hired me as a part-time copy editor in the summer of ’92, and finally I was firmly planted.

I really expected to be in Seattle only two or three years, while I kept close tabs on daily papers around the country in hopes of nabbing a full-time music critic job. In hindsight, I realize I was fortunate such a fate never befell me.

That’s largely because of another fellow I met at The Rocket: managing editor Grant Alden. Though our musical aesthetics and professional backgrounds were quite different, I developed an enormous respect for the work he did. His tenure at The Rocket, 1988-94, coincided with the paper’s glory years, and that’s no accidental synchronicity.

My own involvement with The Rocket actually increased after Grant departed; for a year or two I was a senior editor and wrote dozens of features and reviews as well as attending weekly planning meetings. That began to come to an end in the fall of 1995 when all my attentions suddenly became focused on a little boondoggle Grant and I had decided to launch, called No Depression.

It wasn’t really my intent when we started the magazine that it would take over my life and result in a withdrawal from The Rocket. But the fruits of our labor have made No Depression a full-time pursuit over the span of five years — which has also opened up the opportunity to edit the magazine from elsewhere. And so I’ve decided to follow the same instinct and sense of adventure that brought me to Seattle in 1991 — though it is not an action taken without serious reconsideration and regret.

I think Christy McWilson got to the heart of the matter when, upon learning of my imminent departure, she expressed her disappointment about losing a member of a community she holds dear. Christy, you are right, and there’s really nothing else I can say except that I’m sorry, and that I will miss you and your husband Scott McCaughey as much as you miss me. Indeed, much more, I am certain. When I think of the marvelous music and the wonderful folks I’m leaving behind in Seattle, more than anything else I will think of the two of you.

I’ll also often fondly reflect on my first couple years here hanging out with Pete Droge, the first real friend I had in town. Equally important in these final couple years has been Gary Heffern, the last real friend I had in town. Largely through Gary I grew closer to the Walkabouts’ Chris Eckman, who, over the past year, helped me produce a tribute record to Mickey Newbury that stands as the most personally rewarding accomplishment of my days here.

Not far behind in that category would be the Tuesday-night gig I’ve hosted the past few months at the Sunset Tavern, for which I owe a sincere thanks to Max Genereaux. Max’s Sunset, Dan Cowan’s Tractor Tavern, and Hattie’s Hat have left an indelible trail of memories along Ballard Avenue, the true soul of Seattle.

It would take most of the pages of The Rocket to reminisce about all the people and places that have made my days in Seattle special, but you get the idea. My Seattle isn’t the place of dot-com towers, downtown malls and sprawling suburbs. My Seattle is the nightclub music spilling out onto the sidewalks, the twilight summer barbecues in friends’ backyards, the quiet drive around Green Lake in the wee hours of the morn. It is beautiful.

A few words about Luluc's Dear Hamlyn

2011-03-27T10:25:00.000-07:00

By Peter Blackstock

Tuesday, March 15, 2011: Somewhere above the Southern United States, en route to Austin, Texas. Over the next five days, I'll hear dozens of bands from all over the world perform at theaters, nightclubs, restaurants, galleries, beer gardens, parking lots, rooftops, pretty much anywhere a stage can be set up. Some will be artists I know and love; some will be musicians I've never heard before. Some will intrigue me, some will surprise me, some will repel me, some will make me want to hear more.

There's only one thing I know for sure: Nothing I hear can possibly measure up to Dear Hamlyn, the debut album by an Australian duo who call themselves Luluc.

This is not a new record, but it's new to me. Dear Hamlyn came out in 2008, but few beyond Luluc's native country have heard it yet (though a couple of its songs were featured on recent episodes of "Grey's Anatomy," and some Canadian audiences got to hear them on the folk festival circuit last summer). For the past year, Luluc’s Zoe Randell and Steve Hassett have been living in New York; a few days after I first heard their album, I found myself on a plane to NYC to catch one of their gigs. The crowd to hear them play that night at the Lower East Side bar Piano's was in the single digits.

And that’s a good place to start, really: Lest any of the above testimony imply that Randell and Hassett’s music is really "big," in fact it's precisely the opposite — this may be the smallest music I've ever heard. By "small" I mean minimal, intimate, and quiet: Luluc's music is vulnerable to being overwhelmed by larger ensembles and louder sounds. Which is to say, no, this is not the Next Big Thing. This is little, with a lower-case l. And I cannot, for the life of me, get it out of my mind, or my heart.

I think this is because Dear Hamlyn was born of specifically private and personal circumstances. Hamlyn was the name of singer Zoe Randell's father, and these recordings were partly her way of dealing with his death. He's there in every breath of "Little Suitcase," traveling wherever his daughter may go: "The indent of your strong hand, I feel each time I grip this bag, that I now carry." These things we inherit from our departed loved ones are constant reminders; true, they're merely material possessions, but sometimes just stumbling across one can bring back waves of emotion, a wistful smile or a flood of tears. "One of a set of four, that went from big to small; they belong together." In the end, Randell wonders: "If I were to travel to some new place, will I find a new home, or just more empty space?" That emptiness bleeds in the beautiful resonation of Randell's voice, which disarms with a gracefulness that is the very antithesis of pretense.

But there IS a new home on Dear Hamlyn, and it's the reason that this album was released under the name of Luluc, rather than as a Zoe Randell solo recording. Many years ago, Randell happened upon fellow Australian Steve Hassett — halfway around the world in Scotland, of all places — and it's a good thing, because musical pairings this empathetic are incredibly rare. Their vocals mesh in a manner that, I would contend, reaches deeper than sibling harmony: lover harmony, perhaps. (There's a huge emotional difference, after all, between, say, the Louvin Brothers and Richard & Linda Thompson.) To echo Randell's words about those suitcases: They belong together.

Those voices are grounded in the character and quality of the musical backdrop. Hassett fully understands how less can be more, how little can be much greater than big. One suspects he could rival most any guitar-shredder he might share a nightclub with, but you won't hear that here: You'll hear only the right notes, the ones that belong, the ones which bring out Randell's voice and songs. Not a single stroke or strum is obtrusive in 40 minutes of music. Such mindful restraint is deceptively difficult to realize, but it's a big reason Dear Hamlyn is magic.

There are minor accents along the way: touches of cello, twinges of pedal steel, a few horns here and there, all placed with care and purpose into the soul of the surroundings. The mood, very pointedly, is never broken — which is not to say there is no variance in the style or tempo, because there is. If nothing here quite rocks, much of it sways, or swells, or sweetly swings; within the spectrum of the enchanting spell they cast, there are many colors here. But nothing will jar you out of the reverie that begins with the bowing of a double bass on "I Found You" and rides all the way to the extended strums at the end of "My Midnight Special." Precious few records I've ever heard have achieved such a wholeness of spirit in sound.

Sunday, March 20, 2011: Somewhere above the Southern United States again, heading home. Behind me, five days and nights filled with musical adventures, old and new friends, barbecue and Mexican food, warm Texas winds, endless throngs of revelers along the city streets, the constancy of conversation, even a Supermoon rising majestically over the Austin horizon.

In those occasional moments of pause amid the mayhem, dashing from show to show or driving back home at the end of a long night, out of the car speakers floated the songs of Dear Hamlyn. "How my heart is beaming, like the sun...and the moon, and the stars beyond." Passing through my childhood neighborhood at 2 in the morning, serenaded by the epiphany of "I Found You," it felt as if I had been waiting for this music all of my life.

"between the worlds of men and make-believe..."

2011-03-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

This was originally posted on the now-nonexistent No Depression editorial website (not to be confused with the present community site) on December 21, 2007. Re-posting it today as a result of a friend's mention of Fogelberg:

News of Dan Fogelberg's death earlier this week hit me a little harder than I expected, given that it's been a long time since I really held the guy up on any sort of personal pedestal. But the thing is, he definitely DID rank very high in my book at one point, and without question played a fairly significant role in the evolution of my musical taste and my appreciation for singer-songwriters.

For me, the graduation process went like this: Barry Manilow led to Dan Fogelberg led to Jackson Browne led to Bob Dylan. (Really nowhere higher to go once you get to Dylan.) That progression occurred when I was between the ages of 10 and 20.

"Mandy" hit when I was just about to turn 10, and immediately made me an unabashed fan of Mr. Manilow -- which I still am, despite the ridicule that inevitably accompanies such an admission (or the chuckles that invariably follow the acoustic-guitar arrangement of "Mandy" I've been known to deliver from the stage on occasion).

My older brother Si was a pretty good early guide to music that was a little bit beyond the Top-40 AM-radio staples of the mid-'70s, and one of the first artists he led me to was Fogelberg. He and his wife included "Longer" in their wedding ceremony in 1980; I'd heard that song and "Heart Hotels" on the local FM pop/rock station by then, but soon afterward I took the time to delve into Fogerty's earlier records, via dog-eared LPs at the used-vinyl store.

Souvenirs (his second, from 1974) was probably the best, with a minor hit in "Part Of The Plan" and a lot of country-rock accents/influences on songs such as "Illinois" and "Morning Sky". Captured Angel (1975) and Nether Lands (1977) had their moments, though the fact that the sixteen Fogelberg downloads I just purchased a moment ago included just one song from the former and two from the later suggests those were overall somewhat lesser of the bunch, at least in my memory.

Phoenix (1980) was more or less his pop breakthrough, with both "Longer" and "Heart Hotels" making the singles charts. A more ambitious artistic statement was 1981's The Innocent Age, which pretty much marked the peak of Fogelberg's career creatively. Its yuletide-chestnut-to-be ("Same Old Lang Syne"), while probably his best-known song, wasn't really representative of the full depth and breadth of the double-album. I was rather amused and heartened to discover a few years later that one of my late-'80s postpunk-obsessed musician roommates also had a real soft spot for The Innocent Age.

I went out and bought Fogelberg's subsequent album, 1984's Windows And Walls, upon its release, but I sensed a pretty clear dropoff in quality. Or maybe it was just my own perspective: I was headlong into Jackson Browne by then, and Dylan was waiting just around the corner. For whatever reason, none of Fogelberg's subsequent releases ever connected with me, though the bluegrassy High Country Snows from 1985 seems probably worth revisiting at some point.

The record I DO still go back to on a regular basis, though -- seems like I pull the old vinyl copy off the shelves and put Side A on the turntable every couple of years or so -- is Fogelberg's very first album, 1972's Home Free. The songwriting's pretty green, really, but endearingly so, and quite good considering that Fogelberg was just 21 when the record came out. (He was 56 when he died this past Sunday of prostate cancer.) Musically there's real beauty in the arrangements, from the swinging country twang of "More Than Ever" to sweet swelling strings of "Hickory Grove" to the soft, simple piano touches of the opening track "To The Morning" -- one of the best first-songs-of-a-career that any artist ever had, from where I sit.

As it happens, today is my brother Si's 51st birthday, so I suppose this blog-entry can be considered an acknowledgment of thanks to him for helping to lead me down the musical path I wound up following all those years ago. And, also, an acknowledgment of thanks to Fogelberg, for making music that was such a significant step along that road.

New To Me: Luluc

2011-02-24T18:12:00.000-08:00

Australian duo, now living in NYC. And the best new act I've come across in, oh, the last 5 years or so, probably.

The film-crew here really does justice to the spirit of their music:

Just one record out so far (Dear Hamlyn, self-released), plus a beautiful cover of "None But The Rain" on More Townes Van Zandt By The Great Unknown, a recent tribute album (which is where I first heard them).

I've yet to see them play. There are a few other videos on YouTube if you like what you hear here.

Why Should You Care Now? -- Paul Dakota and Mack MacKenzie.

2011-02-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

If you're Canadian, you may know these two guys' names; if not, you almost certainly don't. Though I'm writing about both artists in this entry, there isn't any direct connection between them that I'm aware of, other than this: Their respective bands -- the Lost Dakotas and Three O'Clock Train -- appeared together on a bill of Canadian bands at South By Southwest in Austin in 1992.

Recently I was combing through old SXSW program books as part of a historical project I've been working on for awhile now (it'll be out next month; more on that later), and I came across the listing for this showcase, which was at the 311 Club on Sixth Street on Saturday, March 14, 1992. In those days, I spent a few weeks each winter writing short descriptions of every band playing at SXSW for the conference's program book, so I was frequently plucking a band's submission tape or CD off the shelves in the office and seeing what the act I was writing about sounded like.

Several of the Canadian acts made an impression on me that year, and none more than these two. The Lost Dakotas' disc, Last Train To Kipling, was an endearing affair, kinda ramshackle acoustic rockabilly-ish stuff but with a punk sensibility underneath it. There was more variety than their street-busking habits might have suggested; while this video of "To Love Someone" gives you a general idea, and their brilliant acoustic reworking of AC/DC's "Back In Black" was naturally a live favorite, I found myself equally enchanted by the hopeless-romantic ballad "Heart Of Mine" and a rendition of the classic Irish sing-along tune "Wild Rover."

Best of all was a three-and-a-half-minute Dakota original called "California" that, 20 years later, still stands apart as something really special. I was reminded of that a few days ago when I was playing it in my iTunes and my wife's ears perked up in the other room: "Who's that?" she asked. And so I went through the whole story about stumbling upon them in the SXSW office, going to see them play at the 311 Club, driving from my home of Seattle to a club in Vancouver to see them again a little later on, and eventually meeting up with Paul Dakota and his wife Erella Vent (yes, irrelevant!) in Toronto one summer afternoon. Good folks, they were (and Paul turned me on to another fine Toronto band, Lowest of the Low, that weekend).

But, about "California": It was different from the rest of the songs on that record, more of a tone-poem, sorta. The backing-music was evocative and ethereal, and the lyrics were a series of metaphors...brilliant, vivid, creative, colorful metaphors:

California

Is a proud young mother

Who's calling up her brother

And she tries not to wake the kids

Who are stretched out sleeping in the park

California

Is a Beverly Hills matron

Who's waiting on a friend

Who's a sophisticated patron of the arts

It's earthquakes and Sundays

Freeways and runways

And young things that die and leave no mark

California is a pretty young girl

Who's taken something impure

And she's dancing so hard she's flying

It goes on like that for another couple of verses and choruses, painting a picture of a place with fleeting thoughts and visions and memories. And then, at the very end, "She's dancing so hard she's flying" is followed by: "She don't know she's dying."

One of the things I've felt drawn toward over the past several years (though I suspect it'll never come to pass) is serving as a music supervisor for TV or film projects. It's because of songs like that -- where what I'm hearing just seems like it's destined to be part of a visual story.

As it happens, the song that stood out the most on Mack MacKenzie's disc with the band Three O'Clock Train had a similar pull. It's called "Some Evenings Never End," and while the bulk of the album found MacKenzie and his bandmates cranking out sturdy, rootsy, guitars-bass-drums rock 'n' roll, on this one track it's just MacKenzie's voice and piano. "The bottle holds the truth, but that truth will find me dead," he sings, casting a dark shadow that stands in stark relief to the simple but beautiful piano melody. Movie stuff, for sure. (Apparently I wasn't alone in that thinking; the album's liner notes indicated that four of its tracks appeared in a Canadian independent film.)

MacKenzie's ability to traverse the territory between such chamber-folk stylings and harder-edged rocking abandon led me to consider him a sort of Canadian cousin to Alejandro Escovedo. (There was even an odd similarity in their physical presence; just as Escovedo's Mexican bloodlines affected his stage persona, so did MacKenzie's Indian heritage.) And they both had a soft spot for train and rain songs: Whereas Escovedo's debut with the True Believers featured a cover of Lou Reeds "Train Round The Bend" and his own "The Rain Won't Help You When It's Over," MacKenzie and Three O'Clock romped their way through "Train Of Dreams" (the video here is folly, but the song is great) and the anthemic "Love To Rain".

I never did get to know Mack MacKenzie at all, as I did Paul Dakota; there was a similar drive up to Vancouver to see his band play at the great venue the Railway Club, but the most I ever did was maybe say hello briefly after the show. Still, I remember his songs -- and was glad today to see someone had posted a video of him doing "Love To Rain" solo at a club in Montreal (which I believe is where he lives) last summer. An even nicer surprise was finding a self-titled MacKenzie solo album on eMusic that's apparently a fairly recent release -- and it has another of those great piano numbers, a tune called "All In Vain."

A search for Paul Dakota, meanwhile, turned up a MySpace page that included a relatively new composition called "Stars," which was quite good (and apparently placed fourth in a recent American Songwriter lyrics contest). There's also a Paul Dakota listed in the staff box of the Toronto alt-weekly Now; pretty sure it has to be the same guy.

So -- why should you care now? If you're not Canadian, I suppose you may not, as it's likely you never even knew of them in the first place. For me, though, it's coming on 20 years since I first heard those songs....and I still can't shake them.

The view from here

2010-12-25T17:32:00.001-08:00

Christmas Day, 2010. Sitting in my brother's living room, where he has photos floating across the TV screen of Christmas scenes from yesteryear, I notice the above picture go by a couple of times....and I can sense it pulling on me, somehow.

I recognize that window vista. More to the point, I guess, I remember the feeling.

The camera is pointed out the window of a house in suburban Rochester, New York. It's around the time I was born -- maybe a little before, perhaps a little after. Regardless, it's clearly an ingrained very early memory.

Here's how it struck me tonight, I think. Looking out that window, flashing by for a few seconds in a world full of digital images and big-screen TVs, where I can live a thousand miles away and fly in for the holidays, and log on to the web and convey my thoughts to whoever may be out there reading....what that picture said to me is: At one point, this was the entirety of my world view.

I lived perfectly well in a simple home. All my needs were cared for. Nothing more was wanted, sought, dreamed of, desired.

The world outside? Well, this was it. This was the future. What awaited me was....the yard, the street, the neighbors' house across the way.

And the pursuit of just those immediate surrounds, those things you see outside this window, would keep my explorations occupied for years to come.

The future, now so long passed, was a long, long way away.

The world, in the end, would not wait. But from that view out the living-room window, the world stretched on beyond the snow, up toward the sky....and all the way to forever.

Peter Blackstock

December 25, 2010

Why Should You Care Now? -- Fire Town.

2010-10-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

By Peter Blackstock

I really can't give you a good reason why you should still care about Fire Town. They existed for a brief period somewhere inbetween 1985 and 1990, and primarily occupy the historical gap between the obscure Midwestern band Spooner (who played at the wedding of one of my best friends) and the relatively well-known band Garbage (who had honest-to-god Hits You Care About and all that). Butch Vig is the big name here, mostly because he produced Nirvana's Nevermind, although I'll swear till my dying day that the Seattle record of that era he produced which really counted was the Young Fresh Fellows' Electric Bird Digest. (I'll bet Vig even agrees, or at the very least chuckles at the recollection.)

Vig's bandmates were... a couple of guys whose names I'm too lazy to even bother to look up. They were in some band before that, and probably some band after. I don't mean to slight those guys, just trying to make a point. And the point is: Why should you care what their names are? I don't.

But, damn, I care about Fire Town. I don't know why, exactly. They're akin to the BoDeans, or Mellencamp, or the Rave-Ups. (Who'll probably get their own entry in this series soon enough.) They weren't that good. They couldn't have been, could they?

Then why did I listen to Side A of In The Heart Of The Heart Country about a zillion times in the summer that I lived in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1987, a few thousand miles from everything I loved and cared about?

OK, now we're getting somewhere. This one's about time and place for me. And about exile. A continent away from home, I latched on to things that offered a sense of closeness to what was so far away.

That's not entirely it, though. Fire Town was from Wisconsin. I was from Texas. Listening to Fire Town, I wasn't pining for memories of seeing them play at the Continental Club or Hole in the Wall. In fact, I never did see this band play live.

And yet, a couple weeks ago, when I won a $5 Amazon gift-certificate for guessing the winner of the Redskins-Texans game in a Yale Statistics survey (true story!), I spent that $5 on "Places To Run," "Carry The Torch," "Secret Heart," and "Rain On You" -- the entirety of Side A of that old Fire Town record from 1987.

Why would I do that? Why should I care now? I'm having a hard time answering this one myself. And yet there's something here that calls to me.

OK, first off, these are really good melodies. It's anthemic stuff, probably along the lines of what my old friend Rob Thomas loved about The Alarm, but in a more Americanized way. Instead of faux-political "Spirit of '76" anthemics, it's faux-romantic "Secret Heart" anthemics.

"Faux" in that the lyrics only go so deep. Which is to say, not very. But frankly, it doesn't matter. There is something brilliant about what they do on "Secret Heart," and very few other songs I've ever heard have pulled it off. It's kind of like a melodic perpetual-motion machine. You know how sometimes an artist will change the key of a song for dramatic effect? Apparently it's called "modulation." (I only learned this term upon exiting the stage of the Hole in the Wall one night, having just performed Barry Manilow's "Mandy", after which Rich Brotherton remarked, "Wow, you even did the modulation!" ... To which I responded, "I did the what now?")

So, on "Secret Heart," Fire Town does this modulation thing, and I'm pretty sure they do it again, and then maybe back down again before they go back up, but I swear that by the end of the song, they've created some sort of cycle where they keep lifting the key to where they can build on it for dramatic effect, and it just keeps feeding on itself. "Your secret heart..... WILL TURN ON YOU!", they exclaim, and it hits with far more emotion than they should be able to get away with.

Somehow it just keeps building. And building. And building. They're fading out the song at almost 5 minutes, and it's still ascending to another round of more intensely burning secret-heart turning. If you think that doesn't have a lasting impact, then you've never spent a few dollars of NFL-pick prize-money on an Amazon MP3 purchase.

The other songs on that side were decent enough -- "Rain On You" (perhaps slightly reminiscent of the True Believers' "The Rain Won't Help You When It's Over") and the somewhat more forgettable leadoff track "Places To Run" -- but it's actually "Carry The Torch" that stuck with me more than any of the other songs (even more than "Secret Heart"). This is a hopeless romantic tune if there ever was one: "You can leave but I'll believe / I'll carry the torch for you." And that's just the opening line. Heck, at 21, I was a sucker for that crap. So we'll chalk this one up to nostalgia, mostly.

Except.

There's a great guitar lead here. Played by one of the guys not named Butch Vig, presumably. It's a simple, straightforward melody. But it's GREAT. You can hear this thing and still remember it two decades later, even having not heard it in the interim. I can personally vouch for this.

And then there's that kicker of a line in the middle: It's really simple, and yet it's evocative:

"I'll be walkin' tonight, I'll be walkin' tonight."

Walking where? What for? To whom? Why should I care now?

I don't know. But I do.

Still.

Postscript, from the friend at whose wedding Spooner played:

"key to fire town and spooner was doug erikson, one of the best unknown singer-songwriters ever to come from the midwest. he fronted both, and was kinda the tom petty of wisconsin. he morphed into "duke" erikson in garbage, the band's bassist. and has recently played bass in freedy johnston's touring band (they also have a cover band with butch).

thing is, in both spooner and fire town, doug was the heart and soul. butch was the drummer. he didn't even produce the early spooner stuff (gary klebe from shoes did). and when bands started working with butch, it wasn't to get his sound, it was because smart studios in madison was cheap.

more than you wanted to know, but you started it. and i love those guys."

Why Should You Care Now? -- Doctors' Mob.

2010-10-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

By Peter Blackstock

OK, so the intent here is a series. Along the lines of "Where Are They Now?", I suppose, except it really doesn't matter where these folks are now. It's about what thy did at some point, something that mattered. Something that has been pretty well forgotten, left for dead and gone. And yet....

The series has to start with Doctors' Mob, because it's their song title that's the inspiration for the series. "Why Should You Care Now?" was the next-to-last ("penultimate," if you're more literate than Doctors' Mob cared you to be) song on the band's 1985 record Headache Machine. Here's an odd admission about that song:

In the chorus, singer Steve Collier repeatedly asks, "Why should you care now?", and then finally answers the question at the end. "We do!" ... or, wait, is it "We don't?"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/recsradio/radio/B00000JN8B/ref=pd_krex_dp_001_011?ie=UTF8&track=011&disc=001

Doctors' Mob was kind of a loud band, see. The words weren't really supposed to matter, except that they did, because Collier was pretty sharp. I mean, fer chrissakes, he named one of his songs after an editor of Details magazine. So as much as they were all about showing up drunk, showing up late, or not showing up at all (their official motto), these guys actually had some pretty good words to their songs. (Witness that when folks called out in the encore for "The Cage," typically the stress was on "The" rather than "Cage." The audience clearly cared about the words.)

And so, back to the question at hand. Why should you care now? It's been about 25 years now that I've wondered whether Doctors' Mob cared, or didn't care. Frankly, at this point, I really don't wanna know what the actual line is there. I prefer to believe that Collier screamed out something different each time, depending upon what he felt at any given moment. It could be "WE DO!", it could be "WE DON'T!" -- either would fit the band's identity, I think. "We do" if they were buying into the "New Sincerity" tag that was put upon them and their peers in the mid-'80s Austin scene; after all, what could be more sincere than caring? And "We don't" if you figured these guys thought that whole New Sincerity deal was just a crock of shit.

This summer I saw Doctors' Mob play for the first time in about 15 years, at a reunion gig. They played "Why Should You Care Now?", and each time the chorus came around, I joined in. I shouted "We Do!" ... or maybe "We Don't!". It doesn't really matter. I sang it at the top of my lungs, and that was all that mattered.

When the mood strikes me, I'll write about some other stuff long since dead and gone, and why you should care about it now. Or shouldn't.

Mike & Ruthy's "End Of Time"

2010-10-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

By Peter Blackstock

With some songs -- not many, but when they're really something pretty special -- you distinctly remember the first time you heard them. Not so much the time or the place, but what you thought about it when you first heard it, the way it struck you, the way it made you feel. If music is important to you, I expect you know what I mean.

Bits and pieces of such encounters float among the edges of my memory. Some are "big" songs, some are a blip on the pop-culture radar. Scruffy The Cat's "Land of 1,000 Girls" in a record store in 1986, infectious enough that I bought the record on the spot. Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," having just put the disc in the CD player in the fall of '91 shortly after moving to Seattle. A slow, brooding ballad called "I Knew" by a band named Zeitgeist from the stage of Liberty Lunch in the spring of '85. Springsteen's "Born To Run" on American Top 40 radio in the fall of '75. The 10,000 Maniacs song "Hey Jack Kerouac" in the car deck driving across the streets of Anchorage in the summer of '87, having just bought the last cassette copy from the city's only cool record store. Slipping a tape labeled "Jay Farrar" off the shelves of the SXSW office in the spring of '95, hitting play, and hearing "Windfall."

So here's another one. It comes to mind mainly because I keep playing the song on my iTunes tonight, but my first encounter with it was actually more than a year ago, at a funky little club in Brooklyn called Jalopy. I'd gone to see Mike & Ruthy, the husband-wife duo of Mike Merenda and Ruthy Ungar, who I'd gotten to know from their years in a band called the Mammals. Mike's got a real talent for songwriting -- they work in a rootsy place, but he brings in a lot of stuff from outside that realm which makes it more interesting -- and Ruthy just has a presence, a charm, a vibrant soulfulness that can manufacture magic out of thin air.

They got through their set playing some older stuff, some newer stuff, probably some Mammals songs and some covers, I forget what all exactly. But I remember the song they closed with. I can't say quite what it was about that song -- it had a sort of repetitive feel to it, not in a bad way but in a sense that it seemed like you'd instantly remember this song once you heard it, a trait of many of the best pop singles. (Ah, singles.) I didn't really catch the words, I just heard the way they sang it together -- harmonizing, but not in a typical woman's-voice-floating-above-the-man's kind of way. Ruthy sang the melody, Mike sang slightly underneath; without listening closely, you might have thought they were singing in unison, even.

Regardless, something about it was mesmerizing, and electric. I just remember thinking, now THAT is a song. And I recall talking with them briefly about it afterward, mentioning that they really had something there, something that was beyond the roots/traditional realm that tends to be their domain. I think they already knew, but they seemed to appreciate the feedback.

Fast-forward to sometime this summer. Mike & Ruthy's new disc Million To One arrives in the mail. I put it in, and, sure enough, that song is the very first track on the disc. It's called "End Of Time" and their recording does justice to my memory of that night, probably even improves on it. The appeal is immediate, again. The arrangement is really more rock than folk, though pedal steel plays a big part. That probably sounds confusing, but in a way, that's good; it means this song has its own identity.

Somehow I got sidetracked from it for awhile (happens too much these days, I'm afraid, with attention pulled in various other directions), but this week I was drawn back in. (I forget exactly how, but I'm grateful for whatever the impetus was.) Struck again by how good this song is, I put it in my "Best of 2010" iTunes folder, and played it several more times. And finally started getting a bit more curious about the lyrics. Which might seem backwards or atypical, but really, it's the music that draws me in first the vast majority of the time. (I suspect that's true for most folks, actually; otherwise, it might as well just be spoken-word stuff, or reading poetry on a printed page.)

Come to find that not only are the lyrics admirably well-written (this is no surprise, as both Mike & Ruthy are super-literate and smart as a whip), but it's something that speaks pretty directly to some tough things going on in my family's own existence these days. "One minute I'm fine, one minute I'm free / Then another I'm blind, and crippled in need," they sing in the chorus. I'd gotten bits and pieces of those lines previously, but it hadn't quite sunk in. Now it has. And the song means that much more, as a result.

They do some nice things with the arrangement. It builds modestly as they go along, but then when they get to the final chorus, most of the accompaniment drops away, and they let those lines stand out in relief. At the end, they forsake words and just let Ruthy's voice carry the emotion above the strums and swings of the sticks and strings. And the whole thing is almost exactly 3 minutes long. (Ah, singles.)

"Signal fire out on the plain / Suddenly clouds and a pouring rain." That's how the song begins. A great opening line, for a song, and for an entire record. You kinda know what you're in for after that. They sum it all up in the back end of the chorus, from whence the song's title arises:

"One minute I'm born, one minute I die. In the middle I'm yours till the end of time."

Joe Henry short piece on The Thread (Duke Performances blog)

2010-09-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

Here's that, if you're interested....

http://thethread.dukeperformances.duke.edu/2010/09/joe-henrys-vanishing-act/

Megafaun show presented by Duke Performances

2010-09-16T13:12:00.000-07:00

Am doing some stuff for a new blog site calling attention to the shows in Duke Performances' 2010-11 series; the first one is posted here:

http://thethread.dukeperformances.duke.edu/2010/09/building-up-and-tearing-down/

Joe McDermott (re-post from 2007)

2010-07-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

Was telling someone about Joe McDermott today, and figured it was worth digging up and reviving something from the long-gone No Depression editorial site. This was originally posted in 2007.

By Peter Blackstock

A few weeks ago, amid a series of blog-entries revisiting my live-show logs from nearly two decades ago, I suggested that a long-defunct ensemble called Grains Of Faith was "quite possibly Austin's best band" of the late-1980s. I also noted, with regret, that no recordings from the group had ever made it to CD.

That wasn't quite the end of the story. The band's leader and songwriter, Joe McDermott, has in fact remained musically active, just in a different arena than the pop-folk-rock avenue Grains Of Faith pursued. He'd actually already begun to shift gears way back then; a closer examination of my logs turns up a handful of gigs in '88 and '89 by Smart Little Creatures, a children's-music side-project McDermott had put together during the latter days of Grains Of Faith's run.

Children's music eventually ended up moving from side-project to the primary focus of McDermott's songwriting and performing endeavors. This isn't a genre we've tended to cover much in our magazine's pages -- though, given that my co-editor has a four-year-old now, he's likely more attuned to the realm than either of us were a few years ago.

Still, there's something about McDermott's kids' songs that have always appealed to me, even way back in those Smart Little Creatures days. Partly it was the effortlessly tuneful nature of his songwriting; the sense of melody that made Grains Of Faith's material so memorable served his children's-music forays quite well. Beyond that, the simple sense of wonder in his words conveyed an innocent charm that I could somehow appreciate even as a dreaded grown-up.

As with Grains Of Faith, McDermott had a couple cassette releases of the Smart Little Creatures stuff. Happily, though, some of those songs HAVE seen the light of day on CD -- most recently with his new disc Everybody Plays Air Guitar. Playing it recently, I instantly recognized/remembered several of the tracks. "Our Family Car Is A Helicopter" is a beatific lark ("When mom sends us off to school, she says, 'Take your books and hat, and don't forget your parachute!'") soaring on a chorus that'll stick in your head for, well, in my case, about twenty years. "Sport Comes To The Rescue" is a spunky little tribute to the family dog; "Momma's Gonna Have A Baby" addresses the prospect of siblinghood from the kid's point of view, without glossing over the tough stuff ("There's so much to do with the baby, and we don't get much sleep at night").

There's also newer material here, from the rhythmically infectious title track and its wonderfully sly observations ("Basketball players after a dunk/Your great old uncle who used to be a punk/Hipster rads, balding dads/They play the air guitar!"), to a barbershop-style retooling of the traditional tune "I've Been Working On The Railroad", to a truly demented over-the-top live number called "Ride, Ride, Ride".

Of the older songs, the one that stayed with me the most over the years was "Anything Is Possible", which affects me in a way that's always been difficult for me to pinpoint or explain. I think it has something to do with the reality that growing up is largely a matter of accepting that not everything is in fact possible, that there are limits to what we'll be able to do, that some things may always remain out of reach, and that sometimes you have to be able to move on, beyond those disappointments of dreams that didn't come true.

I guess I was moved by the fact that McDermott could come through all of those things and still write and sing a song about how "Anything Is Possible", without any hint of disillusionment or disbelief. Maybe things don't always work out the way we grown-ups imagined they would -- but as for the kids, well, the message still rings out loud and clear: "Anything is possible, whenever we think of all that we could be..."

And somehow, in the singing, the message comes back around to us again, too.

Blue Shadows reissue

2010-06-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

Wrote up something about this week's reissue of the Blue Shadows' terrific 1993 album On The Floor Of Heaven for John Marks on the Purple State Of Mind site, here:

http://john.purplestateofmind.com/?p=2074

....And, just to give an instant look at one of the best songs on the record, here ya go:

Alejandro Escovedo and Buddy Miller in Richmond

2010-06-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

You may recall that back in the print days of No Depression, we named Alejandro Escovedo our "artist of the decade" for the 1990s, and gave Buddy Miller the same nod for the 2000s (in our final print issue in 2008). They happened to be playing on the same night last week in Richmond, and I put up a little something on the ND website about it:

http://www.nodepression.com/profiles/blogs/dueling-nd-artists-of-the

Blue Rodeo, south of home

2010-06-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

My rumination about Blue Rodeo on John Marks' Purple State Of Mind blog:

http://john.purplestateofmind.com/?p=2021

Swell Season

2010-05-31T14:24:00.000-07:00

I posted a few thoughts about the Swell Season's recent show in Raleigh to John Marks' "Purple State Of Mind" site here:

http://john.purplestateofmind.com/?p=1948

Josh Ritter show review

2010-05-12T11:51:00.000-07:00

Did a review of Ritter's show in Durham for John Marks' Purple State Of Mind site, if you're interested:

http://john.purplestateofmind.com/?p=1874

Wammo's pop

2010-04-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

My latest bit on John Marks' Purple State Of Mind blog page:

These boots were made for Walkers

(A tie-in to the name of this blog: It was Wammo who first introduced me to Vic Chesnutt.)

of implosions past and present

2010-04-11T18:20:00.000-07:00

PREFACE: Texas Stadium, longtime home of the Dallas Cowboys, was imploded today. Seeing the footage reminded me of the implosion ten years ago of the Kingdome in Seattle, an event I witnessed firsthand. I'd written something about it at that time for the old AOL No Depression board, and, as it happens, saved it to my hard-drive. Dug it up just now and figured it was maybe worth a rerun a decade later....

------------------------------

By Peter Blackstock

March 26, 2000

the kingdome is on my car.

well, a thin layer of it, anyway. my trusty ol' datsun was parked a few blocks away from the hulking megalith when it went tumbling down at precisely 8:30 this morning.

yesterday i spent half an hour examining ferry schedules and even going down to the ferry dock to try to determine if watching from the water would be a viable option. there were some good land viewing spots scattered about the downtown area, but i suspected they'd all be rather crowded, and besides, something about being out on elliott bay when the dome went down just seemed like the way it should be. (tying in such a historical event with the waters of puget sound sorta reminded me of that day chasing the u.s.s. missouri along the strait of juan de fuca a couple years ago.)

it wasn't an easy feat, though. turned out the only way to do it was to board a 5:10am ferry for bremerton, which is an hourlong trip, and then wait over there for the 7:45am boat, which, if everything went right, would be rounding the bend along west seattle's alki point at just about the right moment to allow a clear view straight ahead into downtown and the dome at demolition time.

so, i dragged myself outta bed at 4:30am and got a parking space right by the ferry terminal; still early enough that even the dome-watching crowds weren't out and about yet. only about 20 people boarded the 5:10am boat to bremerton, but it was a bit more crowded for the return trip, with lotsa bremerton locals coming aboard with the same idea. overall it was less crowded than i'd expected, though; probably about 250 people on a boat that could pretty easily fit over a thousand. which was nice, 'cuz between the upper and lower levels, everyone could find a pretty good spot for an unobstructed view.

sailing back from bremerton, the downtown seattle skyline comes into view first, but you have to get a good bit closer before you can see around alki point to the area just a few blocks south of downtown occupied by the dome and safeco field. it was looking like it was gonna be a close race for awhile, but finally we got into range at about 8:25. ideally we might've been right up close near the ferry dock by 8:30, but the captain had to slow the boat significantly in the final stretch, because, as expected, there were hundreds and hundreds of sailboats and yachts and catamarans and the like crowded into elliott bay awaiting the apocalyptic vision.

the captain obviously had radio or tv access to track the countdown, because right about 8:30 he announced, "ok, 30 seconds to go." (we might've also gotten screwed if the demolition was running just 10-15 minutes behind, 'cuz the ferry would've had to go on up to the dock to stay on schedule; but fortunately everything was running like clockwork.)

first the dome roof seemed to rise a little bit and become blurry; that was all the dust shaking off the top from the initial detonation. within the next five seconds, it all came tumbling down -- sinking, really, the up-curved roof inverting and crashing into what used to be the middle of the ballfield. the giant "boom" took about three or four seconds to reach us out in the water, an interesting sound-effects delay.... it looked like some of the walls fell outward to the north; then i remembered that was planned, 'cuz there was a big parking lot to the north and they decided to use that extra space to their advantage.

the dust clouds hovered high and wide for the remainder of our float into the ferry dock, which took about twice as long as usual as police boats escorted us through the throng of private crafts scattered all over the place within a few hundred yards from the shore. there must've been a slight northerly breeze, 'cuz much of the dust seemed to be drifting up toward downtown, enveloping the once-mighty smith tower, and the surrounding skyscrapers that now dwarf it, amid a smoky gray haze.

once we docked and got off the boat, i decided to walk over as close to the dome as possible (the streets directly around it were closed off). the first thing i noticed as i hit street level and looked up toward the sky was the tiny specks of "snow" falling softly all around. it occurred to me that it was kind of like the kingdome's ashes were being sprinkled over downtown seattle. then i realized, no, it wasn't "like" that -- that's EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS. beautiful.

the closer you got to the dome,the more the dust had collected. most of it had fallen from the air by now, but when cars drove by, you could see streams of it kicking up from behind their spinning wheels. at occidental park, an open square between shops that formed a path directly to the dome, you could see everyone's shoeprints in the layer of dust on the brick walkways.

there wasn't much to see of the dome itself; chain-link fences were positioned far enough back that only a few big boulders of concrete jutting from the old site were visible. it was funny, trying to get a peek at something that *wasn't* there; really the most striking thing about the view from occidental park was that you could now see straight through to safeco field, which previously had been blocked by the dome.... just across the street was the zeitgeist cafe, five floors above which can be found the loft-apartment abode of neko case, who'll be moving soon because that building, too, is scheduled for demolition in the midst of an out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new cultural devolution that is consuming this town.

walking back to my car, i came across a bronze sculpture that must be relatively new, because i'd never seen it there before. it was four firefighters, posted as if charging and crawling their way toward a blaze, two of them holding a hose -- pointed, ironically, directly to where the kingdome had always stood, until 30 minutes ago. i eventually realized that the sculpture was a memorial to the four firefighters who died in a blaze at a factory very near the kingdome in 1995. it's strange, though; with their gas-masks on and in full gear, the first thought that comes to mind when you see these four figures could easily be WTO.

when i made it back to my car, i was happy to find it had received the same dusting of kingdome history across its hood and windshield that had coated everything else in the area. most of it blew away on the drive home, but there's still a few traces of it on the trunk hatch, under the wipers, in the rearview mirrors.

the dome is dead, but its remains still linger, all powder and clouds and hazy memory of a lost landmark left to give up the ghost.

Steve Forbert: Love's a Purple State of Mind....

2010-03-24T14:16:00.000-07:00

My journalistic compadre John Marks asked me if I might like to write something for the "Purple State Of Mind" blog that he and Craig Detweiler are now running, sort of an online extension to their documentary film of the same name. (I re-posted a piece about the movie a few days ago.)

What I came up with was an essay that discusses the music of Steve Forbert, but a little bit more than that as well.

You can read it here.

Low Anthem / Annie & the Beekeepers

2010-03-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

By Peter Blackstock

If by chance you're deep in the midst of SXSW right now, you've probably had several opportunities to catch a couple of acts I saw last weekend at the Cat's Cradle here in North Carolina: the Low Anthem, and Annie & the Beekeepers. Though they're really quite different bands, they have a couple of notable connections: Low Anthem multi-instrumentalist Mat Davidson formerly was one of the Beekeepers, and the two acts share the same management.

Because I happened to come across both of them around the same time last year, and saw them both last summer on separate bills within a week's time at small clubs, they have become sort of intertwined in my mind, despite the fact that they really don't sound anything like each other. The common ground from a musical standpoint is simply that both bands are really, really good.

They're also at fairly different stages in their careers. The Low Anthem, though I enjoy the opportunity to write about them and perhaps help spread the word, hardly needs my little semblance of assistance at this point, I expect. True that they're not "huge" by any measure just yet; but it seems plenty clear to me that they're over the hump, with an album (Oh My God, Charlie Darwin) on an excellent major-affiliated label (Nonesuch), and a steadily increasing live draw that saw them graduate from around 100 folks at the Local 506 in Chapel Hill last August to around 300 at Cat's Cradle down the street last week.

For fans, right now is the absolute perfect time to catch this band. The crowds are large enough to feel like you're sharing the experience, yet not so crowded that everyone's packed in like sardines. I think the latter is coming, because the other thing about seeing them right now is that it feels like they are at full bloom artistically. I recall the band I saw last August being something special; last week, what I heard was beyond special, to the point that I believe I can call them one of the very best young bands I've heard in the last ten years or so. In that regard, they'd be in the company of the Avett Brothers (with whom they recently toured, and apparently really hit it off) and Hem (who they definitely should tour with, from a musical-compatibility standpoint at least).

So what exactly IS it, then, about the Low Anthem that leaves me so impressed? A few things. First, the instrumentation. These guys (well, actually, three guys and a girl) routinely switch around among a variety of instruments both typical (guitars, drums, bass, keyboards) and atypical (esoteric horns, musical saw, harmonium, some thing with bells on it played with a bow that I don't even know the name of). The result is a sound that is, to properly employ an overused word, unique. I've never heard another band that sounds like the Low Anthem. (Thus my apologies for the lack of the standard "recommended if you like" comparisons here.)

Next, the dynamics. Folks used to talk about how the Pixies were masters of the quiet-to-loud transition, and they were; I've noticed a similar sort of facility with that balance among the projects of Glen Hansard (notably the Frames and the Swell Season). And yet I'm not sure I've ever seen a band so effortlessly follow a number that's as hushed as something from the Cowboy Junkies' The Trinity Session with a full-on blues-belting scorcher that blows out the engines. The Low Anthem's genius is finding a way to make these deliveries of a piece with each other; and somehow, they completely fit within the group's overarching aesthetic. I have no idea quite how they manage this, but I've heard it a couple times now onstage, and there is no abruptness to their dynamic shifts. It just works.

Finally, they're very good songwriters, ones who optimize the balance between creating new sounds and borrowing from the past. That their first album (2007's What The Crow Brings) included a cover of the Carter Family's "Keep On The Sunny Side" was a nice touch, but the Low Anthem would not work simply as a revival band (even acknowledging what a fresh-sounding take on that old tune they recorded). Like the very best bands we covered in No Depression over the years, they're employing traditional songs and styles to inform their own very original art.

If there's a specific area where the Low Anthem and Annie & the Beekeepers overlap, it's this last observation, because they're clearly drawing on traditional music as well, yet are also very good songwriters creating new material that is ultimately all their own. The traditionalism is perhaps a little more evident with the Beekeepers, in that the instrumentation is more akin to contemporary string-band lineups, though the inclusion of cello is a somewhat unusual (and welcome) element alongside the more traditional upright bass and acoustic guitar (with occasional curveballs such as banjo and harmonica on a song or two here and there).

Probably the biggest calling-card for Annie & the Beekeepers is the quality of their voices, specifically the exquisite purity of the harmonies that are struck between frontwoman Annie Lynch and multi-instrumentalist Alexandra Spalding. It's not just the raw beauty of their voices, but also the emotional pull they exert through the expressiveness of their singing. In short, they make you feel the songs, not just hear them.

I probably can give you some "recommended if you like" comparisons here -- Crooked Still, Gillian Welch, maybe Alison Krauss -- but I wouldn't wanna take that too far because the Beekeepers stake out their own territory with their songwriting. Still, it's the vocals that will almost certainly draw you in first, and so if you're the kind that appreciates the likes of those artists, you will definitely want to seek out Annie & the Beekeepers too.

With a self-released LP and EP to their name, Annie & the Beekeepers are still finding their way, though the simple fact that they've been in my neck of the woods twice in the past eight months suggests they're working hard to get there (as does the fact that the current SXSW is their second straight appearance at that event). They strike me as the kind of band, unlike the Low Anthem, that could benefit from whatever boost I might still be able to provide, limited though it may be at this point. So, to put it simply, if I've ever steered you right before over the years -- if I've made you aware of a talented young band that you might not previously have heard -- then check these guys out. Their music has moved me, and it's of such unmistakable quality that I have no doubt there are a lot more folks who would be similarly moved, if they get a chance to hear it.

"someone's praying, my lord, kumbayah...."

2010-03-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

You may or may not have seen a post I made here a few weeks ago regarding Karla Bonoff; it was, I noted at the time, a reprint of a post that originally appeared on the old nodepression.net website. Back when No Depression magazine was still in print and before nodepression.com became Kyla Fairchild's community website, Grant Alden and I posted regular web entries to the nodepression.net site, as a sort of online editorial supplement to our print publication. None of these entries were carried over into the currently existing nodepression.com domain.

Some of these were quick asides that aren't really worth revisiting, but others were more substantive passages that I'd like to reinstate on the web. So I'm planning to use this forum on occasion to dig a few of them up and re-post them.

Here's one that proved particularly meaningful in the long run. It's about a documentary film called Purple State Of Mind made by John Marks and Craig Detweiler. The outgrowth of this blog-entry was that Mr. Marks ended up becoming a contributor to No Depression in its final days, writing an excellent feature on the Old 97's for our final issue (ND #75) as well as a superb piece on the Guthrie family in the third installment of the ND bookazine series published by University of Texas Press. I thought their film was something special, and I still do; so, in case you missed it back in 2008, I'd like to call it to your attention again.

By Peter Blackstock

A few weeks ago I happened to stumble upon a rather intriguing and intelligent blog-entry that dealt with our recent cover story on Shelby Lynne, written by a fellow named John Marks on a site called purplestateofmind.com. Interested in his writing but not having a clue as to what "Purple State Of Mind" might be, I poked around a little further and found that it's the title of a documentary film which is just now beginning to hit some festivals and select screenings. Though its promotional budgets are modest and its national profile is (so far) relatively low, Purple State Of Mind strikes me as a film that the majority of Americans need to see.

The summary description is hardly sexy: Basically this is 80 minutes of two middle-aged white guys sittin' around talkin' to each other. The catch is that the two guys -- Marks and his longtime friend and former college roommate Craig Detweiler -- are tremendously articulate and intellectually challenging, and their central subject matter delves deep into the heart of the modern American experience. Essentially they're addressing the great Red State/Blue State divide between believers and nonbelievers of Christianity, and the extent to which this divides us as a nation in a way that is ultimately both unnatural and unhealthy.

By openly and honestly confronting each other about how they came to believe (or not believe) what they do today, Marks (raised Christian but no longer a believer) and Detweiler (not raised religious but born again in his college years) take their own steps together toward bridging the supposed chasm between the religious right and what might be termed the agnostic left. More significantly, they go a long way toward breaking down those stereotypes altogether, eventually revealing within themselves elements of each other's beliefs and values.

Their conversations and arguments are heated, humorous, vehement, compassionate, and most of all relentless. In the end, as Detweiler repeatedly stresses, it's not about convincing the other person, or about winning or losing. Rather, it's about understanding and respecting one another's views.

Nowhere is that better illustrated than in the two deeply personal revelations which more or less bookend the film, in which Detweiler and Marks recount specific trigger-points that had a lot to do with their respective affirmation and rejection of faith. Essentially the two men faced very similar darkest-moments-of-the-soul experiences; their responses may seem on the surface to have been entirely opposite, but I'd argue that on some level, they were affected in precisely the same way. Both of them stared directly into the heart of darkness; each of them dealt with it by reaching for the only reckoning that could help them find their way back to the light.

For a taste, here's the film's trailer:

Many of the upcoming screenings are cross-promotional events for Marks's new Harper/Collins book Reasons To Believe, which came out this week. For those willing to dig deeper, the book goes another 360-odd pages into the subject; in fact, the film was actually an outgrowth of the book, having sprung from Marks' decision that his first interview subject for the book should be Detweiler. Because Detweiler's career involves teaching and training students in filmmaking, he suggested they have their conversations on-camera, and a documentary project was born.

If you're looking for an Americana-related musical tie-in (other than Marks being a devoted reader of No Depression), check out the film's music, which includes excerpts from Neko Case's cover of "Wayfaring Stranger" as well as Wilco's "Theologians". In my estimation, however, the crowning musical choice is the revival of Guadalcanal Diary's transcendent 1985 cover of the old campfire sing-along "Kumbayah". The movie's spirit strikes at the very core of that band's apocalyptic reading of the song; it's almost as if Guadalcanal Diary recorded it precisely for the purpose of connecting with Purple State Of Mind twenty-odd years later.

And we had no dreams, we just lived one.

2010-03-14T00:52:00.000-08:00

I've heard this song for at least 20 years, having bought the LP sometime in the 1980s, and the CD-reissue circa 1990. The recording linked here was made in 1972:

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/s/Keeper+Of+The+Mountain/1Xpatm

The band is the Flatlanders. The song is "Keeper Of The Mountain", written by Al Strehli.

Although I've never quite realized it till just now, my question -- especially to all of you artists -- is:

Who the hell keeps covering Hank Williams songs, and Johnny Cash songs, and Woody Guthrie songs,

And keeps leaving this uncovered?

Just what more do you want than:

...and these
(theeeeese)
these ain't teardrops
(these ain't teardrops)
and it ain't the river
(ain't the river)
just a moment
(just a moment)
the river's not complainin'
oh no
oh no no no.

You will not find any better.

You will not write any better.

So just cover the damned song already.

This is how the folk process works.

(More or less.)

Adios,
Peter

170 Nights Spent At The Cactus Cafe

2010-03-08T15:54:00.000-08:00

By Peter Blackstock

Writing about the value of the Cactus Cafe in my previous entry got me to thinking back on some of the shows I've seen there, and so I dug out my trusty show-logs to help rekindle those memories. Since the fall of 1988, I've kept a list of every musical event that I've attended, which makes it possible to go back and compile lists such as the one below.

This isn't the complete record of my Cactus experience, since I saw quite a few shows there from 1985 to mid-1988 before I began keeping my logs. At 21 years, though, it's fairly extensive. Take a look; perhaps you were at some of these shows too.

I've listed them alphabetically by artist, with the date of each show attended following the artist's name. (The dates lean heavily toward the late-1980s and early-1990s, since I lived in Austin at that time.)

FROM 1988 TO 2009:
170 NIGHTS SPENT AT THE CACTUS CAFE

Abi Tapia -- sat mar 15, 2008

Abra Moore -- sat feb 17, 1996

Alejandro Escovedo -- thu nov 10, 1988; sun nov 20, 1988; sat dec 9, 1989; fri jan 19, 1990; sat july 14, 1990; fri nov 9, 1990; fri feb 8, 1991; fri mar 12, 1993; sat aug 28, 1993; sun feb 12, 2006

Alison Rogers -- sat dec 8, 1990

Amy Rigby -- sat mar 18, 2000

Andy Van Dyke -- fri oct 13, 1989; thu oct 25, 1990

Ani DiFranco -- sat jun 22, 1991

Ann Powell -- wed nov 30, 1988

Austin Lounge Lizards -- fri jan 11, 1991

Balloonatic -- sat july 7, 1990; wed may 8, 1991

Barbara K -- fri feb 21, 1997

Beaver Nelson -- fri apr 26, 1991; fri jun 28, 1991; fri sep 20, 1991; fri feb 19, 1993; thu feb 13, 1997

Bedlam Rovers -- tue apr 9, 1991

Beth Orton -- fri mar 17, 2006

Betty Elders -- wed sep 5, 1990

Big Blue Hearts -- fri mar 17, 2006

Bill Morrissey -- thu mar 15, 2001

Billy Joe Shaver -- thu mar 16, 2000

Black Francis (a.k.a. Frank Black) -- thu jan 11, 1990

Blackberry Winter Boys -- tue nov 7, 1989

Bob Neuwirth -- sat dec 16, 1989

Butch Hancock -- fri mar 3, 1989; wed jun 14, 1989; wed oct 4, 1989; wed jan 31, 1990; thu feb 1, 1990; fri feb 2, 1990; sat feb 3, 1990; sun feb 4, 1990; mon feb 5, 1990; thu sep 6, 1990; wed dec 5, 1990; sat apr 13, 1991; sat july 20, 1991; fri sep 20, 1991; fri nov 4, 1994; fri feb 24, 1995; sat feb 25, 1995; fri feb 16, 1996; sat mar 9, 2002; sat mar 8, 2003; sun feb 12, 2006

Butch Hancock & Jimmie Dale Gilmore -- wed feb 13, 1991

Cactus Cafe Orchestra -- tue oct 16, 1990; thu feb 27, 1992

Camp -- tue nov 1, 1988; tue feb 21, 1989

Chris Armstrong -- sat mar 18, 1995

Chris Burroughs -- sat mar 23, 1991

Chris Chandler -- tue sep 18, 1990

Christine De La Garza -- thu july 19, 1990

Cliff Eberhardt -- thu oct 11, 1990

Cowboy Junkies -- sat aug 18, 1990

Damon Bramblett -- sat feb 17, 1996

Daniel Johnston -- thu mar 17, 2005

Darden Smith -- fri jun 16, 1989; sat sep 9, 1989; sat nov 18, 1989; thu mar 5, 1992

David Garza -- sat july 6, 1991

David Halley -- thu nov 10, 1988; thu feb 16, 1989; fri apr 21, 1989; thu july 20, 1989; thu jan 11, 1990; fri may 4, 1990; sat aug 18, 1990; fri july 5, 1991; fri july 19, 1991; fri aug 27, 1993

David Rodriguez -- sat aug 17, 1991

Dick Siegel -- sat feb 25, 1995

Dirk Hamilton -- fri mar 12, 1993

Ed Miller & Rich Brotherton -- wed feb 22, 1995

Eliza Gilkyson -- sat dec 16, 1989

Eric Taylor -- sat aug 17, 1991

Graham Weber -- sat mar 15, 2008

Grains Of Faith -- wed feb 21, 1990; sat july 7, 1990; sat may 11, 1991

Grant McLennan -- sat mar 18, 1995

Grapes Of Wrath -- thu jan 18, 1990

Greg Brown -- thu jan 24, 1991

Gurf Morlix -- sat mar 15, 2008

Guy Clark -- fri mar 24, 1989; sat july 21, 1990; tue dec 12, 2006

Hal Ketchum -- sat july 29, 1989; thu aug 17, 1989; wed nov 28, 1990; wed aug 14, 1991

Harry Dean Stanton w/ Michael Been & members of The Call -- tue oct 4, 1988

Hey Zeus -- wed aug 7, 1991

Hudson & Franke -- thu jan 19, 1989

James McMurtry -- wed july 26, 1989

Javelin Boot -- wed apr 3, 1991; wed feb 26, 1992

Jennifer Cook -- thu aug 30, 1990

Jimmy LaFave -- sat oct 13, 1990

Joe Ely -- sun nov 20, 1988

John Gorka -- sat apr 6, 1991; fri aug 30, 1991

Jon Dee Graham -- sat mar 23, 1991; wed jun 26, 1991; sat sep 14, 1991

Josie Kuhn -- thu mar 4, 1993

Julian Dawson -- wed sep 5, 1990

Kathy McCarty -- wed feb 19, 1997

Kevin Carney -- thu aug 30, 1990

Kevin So -- sat nov 16, 1996

Kimmie Rhodes -- thu feb 20, 1997

Kris McKay -- tue may 9, 1989; thu july 5, 1990; sat may 11, 1991

Leatherbag -- sat mar 15, 2008

Lisa Colvin -- tue jun 25, 1991

Lisa Mednick -- tue feb 27, 1996

Loudon Wainwright III -- fri may 11, 1990

Lucinda Williams -- sat oct 15, 1988; fri apr 26, 1991

Lyle Lovett -- fri jun 2, 1989; sat july 22, 1989

Make Believers -- tue oct 4, 1988

Marlee MacLeod -- sat mar 23, 1991

Martin Zellar -- fri feb 21, 1997

Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives -- fri mar 17, 2006

Mary Gauthier -- fri feb 10, 2006

Matt The Electrician -- fri oct 9, 2009

MayDay -- fri feb 26, 1993

Meredith Louise Miller -- sat mar 18, 1995; thu feb 13, 1997

Michael Fracasso -- sat apr 13, 1991; sat sep 21, 1991; fri mar 20, 1998; fri mar 17, 2000

Michelle Solberg -- thu july 19, 1990

Mike Hall -- sat sep 30, 1989

Mike Nicolai -- fri sep 20, 2002

Milo Binder -- sat mar 23, 1991

Nanci Griffith -- thu jan 19, 1989

Open Mike -- mon feb 20, 1989; tue aug 7, 1990; mon nov 26, 1990; mon apr 15, 1991; mon may 13, 1991; mon mar 2, 1992; mon mar 9, 1992; mon mar 8, 1993

Paddy Moloney & Darren Casey -- sat aug 30, 2008

Patterson Hood -- fri mar 17, 2006

Pete Droge -- fri mar 12, 1993

Peter Case -- sat sep 9, 1989; fri jan 19, 1990; sat jan 20, 1990; thu oct 11, 1990; sat oct 13, 1990; fri sep 15, 1995; sat nov 16, 1996

Peter Himmelman -- tue nov 8, 1994; thu nov 14, 1996

Peter Rowan -- sat feb 2, 1991

Poi Dog Pondering -- wed feb 15, 1989

Randy Erwin -- wed oct 11, 1989

Ray Wylie Hubbard -- fri feb 17, 1995

Reeva Hunter -- sat july 20, 1991

Richard Buckner -- tue feb 27, 1996; fri sep 20, 2002

Robert Earl Keen -- fri feb 10, 1989; thu may 4, 1989; sat july 15, 1989

Roger Manning -- tue feb 7, 1989; sat mar 23, 1991

Rory Block -- wed feb 26, 1997

Rory McLeod -- tue jun 11, 1991

Sara Hickman -- wed jan 18, 1989; thu oct 25, 1990

Sarah Harmer -- fri mar 17, 2006

Sharon Shannon -- wed mar 1, 1995

Shawn Colvin -- sat dec 9, 1989

Ship Of Fools -- thu aug 16, 1990; fri oct 19, 1990; sat feb 9, 1991

Shoulders -- wed mar 29, 1989; wed nov 15, 1989; thu jan 18, 1990; fri oct 19, 1990

Steve Forbert -- fri oct 13, 1989; sat dec 8, 1990; sat sep 21, 1991; thu mar 4, 1993

Stick People -- wed nov 15, 1989

Storyville -- thu feb 18, 1993

Syd Straw -- thu nov 10, 1988; thu july 18, 1991

Teddy Thompson -- fri mar 17, 2006

Terry Allen -- sat mar 8, 1997

Timbuk 3 -- sat sep 30, 1989

Tiny Lights -- mon jun 25, 1990

Tommy Womack -- sat mar 15, 2008

Toni Price -- fri feb 25, 1994

Toqui Amaru -- fri dec 1, 1989

Townes Van Zandt -- sat aug 19, 1989; thu jun 27, 1991; fri jun 28, 1991; sat mar 12, 1994

Townes Van Zandt Tribute with Butch Hancock & Friends -- thu mar 7, 2002; fri mar 7, 2003

Tres Chicas -- fri mar 17, 2006

Uncle Bonsai -- sat nov 12, 1988

Vic Chesnutt -- sat mar 23, 1991

Vince Bell -- wed feb 15, 1995

Will T. Massey -- fri mar 3, 1989; sat july 21, 1990; fri aug 10, 1990; thu feb 16, 1995

Woody Guthrie Tribute hosted by Greg Johnson -- wed july 17, 1991

Yolocamba I Ta -- fri nov 10, 1989

The Cactus Manifesto

2010-03-06T10:51:00.000-08:00

By Peter Blackstock

I've been trying to live with this idea for a little while now, the notion that some folks at the University of Texas think it's a good idea to shut down or repurpose the Cactus Cafe.

I've endeavored to be open-minded about their perspective. First and foremost, the budgetary concerns. This economic downturn is very real; its effects cannot be denied. Simply saying "But don't cut the Cactus, it's too important!" isn't a good enough response, because any entity that might end up on the chopping-block will be valuable to someone. This is simply the nature of dealing with a bad economy; tough decisions sometimes have to be made, it's not fun, and inevitably some things will be lost. I don't see any avoiding those realities.

As such, the fundraising effort spearheaded by Save The Cactus Cafe has been the logical approach. If whatever dollar-amount that UT claims to be saving by shutting down the Cactus can be matched by community donations, then the economic motivations automatically become a non-factor for the university. Exactly what the precise dollar-amount may be seems to have been a source of confusion, with figures ranging from $122,000 to $33,000 having made the rounds (complicated by the inclusion of the Informal Classes program in the university's cuts, and the citing of costs on a biennial rather than annual basis). Regardless, if the folks behind Save The Cactus can raise the appropriate funds to replace any stated savings from the proposed Cactus actions, then the university can't legitimately claim fiscal concerns as the reason for any changes.

OK, then -- what about the matter of the venue needing more student participation, and/or a need for the Cactus to present more student-oriented programming? This one hasn't really held water from the outset. As for students participating in the operation of the Cactus, I believe that the venue has in fact historically hired and involved students in its operation. Should an increase in student involvement be desired, clearly that could be accomplished without closing or repurposing the venue. (Not to mention that closing or repurposing the venue would in fact be depriving any students of the opportunity to be involved with one of the nation's foremost music venues of its kind, a stature that has been realized thanks to the considerable efforts and knowledge of Cactus booker Griff Luneburg.)

If the desire is to present more student-oriented music programming, the Union needs only to reopen the adjacent Showroom, which operated for years in the '80s and '90s as the Texas Tavern and specifically presented more student-oriented entertainment. The Union has plenty of space and opportunity to utilize for such a purpose; there's no legitimacy whatsoever to any suggestion that the Cactus is the only room in the building which could address such desires.

Finally, there's the matter of community interaction. Some comments from UT personnel have expressed a viewpoint that the university must cater primarily to its student population, with the community necessarily a secondary concern. I can buy that up to a point -- but it's not as if this is a one-or-the-other choice. There is plenty that the Texas Union does to cater specifically to students; having one room that also caters to the Austin community hardly seems an overstepping of bounds, particularly given that the Cactus has become one of the university's foremost examples of positive interaction with its community (as evidenced by the considerable public response to UT's initial announcement). This one just comes down to common sense, it seems to me: There's just no way you do away with the Cactus on "university vs. community" grounds.

So, what ground is left for the university to stand on?

Frankly, I don't think there really IS anything left. None of the arguments made by University Unions executive director Andy Smith, nor by student government president Liam O'Rourke, nor by student affairs vice president Juan Gonzalez, nor by UT president Bill Powers, ultimately stand up to careful scrutiny. Each of these people -- especially Powers, as the university's public persona #1 -- needs to simply admit they made an error in judgment. There's no harm in that.

To do otherwise would be to admit a willingness to toss a living and breathing cultural and artistic institution onto the scrap heap, without justification. Is this really a legacy that any of these people wish to have in their name? For what purpose? For what need? For what possible good? What is left for an argument that closing or repurposing the Cactus somehow makes any sense?

I'm asking those questions quite honestly, because if any of them can give me an answer -- taking into the account the answers already examined above -- I'd really like to hear what those responses would be.

As for my part: I graduated from the University of Texas in 1988 with a B.A. in History and a minor in Journalism. Though I received a top-quality education from the many hours I spent in the classrooms of Bates Hall and Parlin Hall, and Welch and RLM, and working for The Daily Texan in the basement of the communications complex, and interviewing athletes over at Memorial Stadium .... there was one place where I learned more about what would become my future career than in any other room on campus.

That room was the Cactus Cafe.

It was while I was at UT that I decided to shift gears from pursuing a career in sportswriting to trying my hand at writing about music. In the long run, things worked out pretty well; after a decade or so of covering music for various daily newspapers and other publications, I launched my own magazine, No Depression, which for more than a decade was acknowledged as the primary journalistic voice for American roots music.

A great deal of what we surveyed in No Depression overlapped with the kind of education I received at the Cactus during my Austin years. Of the 75 issues we printed during our 13-year run, I suspect that at least 25% (and quite possibly more) of the artists who appeared on the cover were artists who have performed at the Cactus Cafe. As for the number of artists we covered somewhere in the magazine's pages over the years that have played at the Cactus, it would undoubtedly be well into the hundreds.

Simply put, what I learned about songwriting and performance in that exceptionally fine-tuned little music room was immeasurable, and invaluable. I discovered artists who amazed and enlightened me, I watched local up-and-comers gradually develop into major talents, and I witnessed legendary troubadours creating art, and history, right there on the spot, in that very moment.

The first show I ever saw at the Cactus, in the summer of 1985, featured two of those legendary troubadours; it was a double-bill featuring Butch Hancock and Townes Van Zandt (who, rather than performing separately, shared the stage with each other on this night). Townes has been gone for more than a decade now, but Butch still carries on his legacy; every year on March 7, Hancock gathers up a bunch of his friends and hosts a Townes Van Zandt tribute show at the Cactus -- the place that Townes declared, in an autographed poster that hangs upon those hallowed walls, to be "my home club."

Home. That's what the place feels like to me, too.

The past couple of years, I've made it a pilgrimage of sorts to return to Austin in the fall and attend a football game at Memorial Stadium. After the game ends, I find a certain comfort in exiting the south end of the stadium and walking westward down 21st street, past the Alumni Center, past the little building where the student-radio station began broadcasting during my UT days, past Gregory Gym where my dad took me to see basketball games before the Erwin Center was built. Past Perry-Castaneda Library where I spent many hours studying as an undergrad, past the perfectly picturesque Littlefield Fountain and up the South Mall where I used to stretch out in the afternoon sun between classes, past the orange-lighted Tower that has been an inspirational beacon to me since the first time I laid eyes on it back in 1969.

As I walk up those Tower steps and turn left toward the West Mall, my final destination is resolute: I'm headed to the Cactus Cafe. I'm going home.

Please, Mr. Powers et al.: Do not simply give away this home, when there is no logical reason to do so.

"to fly over the mountain, though i'm standing still...."

2010-02-15T13:53:00.000-08:00

[initially published October 30, 2007, on the now-defunct nodepression.net website]

When a new live release from Karla Bonoff (titled, reasonably enough, Live) arrived in the mail recently, my first impulse wasn't to put its two discs into the CD player, but rather to pull out my tattered old vinyl copy of her 1977 self-titled solo debut and play IT instead.

Such is the lifelong blessing and curse of artists who make a classic album right outta the gate. Think Marshall Crenshaw's self-titled debut; the Cowboy Junkies' The Trinity Session (though it wasn't technically their first); Willis Alan Ramsey's first (and, still, only) record .... all so good that the artists in question have spent the rest of their careers trying to live up to such perfect beginnings.

Bonoff's debut was that good, and she's certainly well aware of it. She wrote eight of the record's ten songs, and all eight of those songs are among the 21 tracks on her new live disc. Clearly she's come to terms with the reality that her fan base still wants to hear all those songs, and when it comes down to it, that's a good thing. There are worse fates than having written an entire album's worth of material that stands the test of time three decades later.

The new live versions (recorded at shows in California and Japan) are quite good; Bonoff remains in fine voice, even as she's inevitably tuned down a step for "If He's Ever Near" (and yet she still hits some majestic high notes in "Falling Star", my personal favorite from that first record). It's also fair to note that the other thirteen tracks are more than chopped liver; especially of note is "Wild Heart Of The Young", the title track to her 1981 album. Conspicuously absent from the live collection is her lone top-40 hit, 1982's "Personally", but that's just fine by me, as that song always seemed a little bit lightweight compared to the emotional depth and resonance of Bonoff's best work.

It's worth acknowledging that I probably would never have become familiar with Bonoff way back then if not for the influence of my older brother Si, who had a fair bit to do with the development of my musical tastes in those formative years. I may have listened to the album then in large part because Si played it and I just liked what I heard; but I'm struck all these years later by just how strong a record it really is, the kind of songwriter's statement that definitively proves an artist's worth, much like Lucinda Williams' self-titled 1988 record (indeed, Lucinda's "Like A Rose" from that album seems to echo "Rose In The Garden" from Bonoff's debut), or perhaps Iris DeMent's "Infamous Angel".

Bonoff never did become a big star -- in some ways, her greatest notoriety came from Linda Ronstadt having covered three of her debut album's songs on her 1976 blockbuster Hasten Down The Wind -- but she did seem to earn a reputation as one of the best singer-songwriters to come out of the 1970s SoCal scene. She certainly deserves that respect.

Losing Vic Chesnutt

2010-01-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

by Peter Blackstock

I've been trying to write something about Vic Chesnutt for a couple of weeks now, and just haven't seemed to be able to get it all out. Mostly because it's just been too sad and depressing to face, I think. Partly because I fear that some of the things that Vic felt he lost in recent years have been things that I have lost too. And maybe -- I should admit this part because Vic would've done the same himself -- I've just been slack. (In fact he DID fess up to just that in his hand-scrawled liner notes to the 1993 album West Of Rome: "But know I am slack," he warned those who might write to the P.O. Box address he provided.)

Slack in getting the words down on the page, though, doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about him pretty much every day since Christmas. Most of an afternoon vanished when I tried to hunt down an old Polaroid of Vic taken in Austin circa 1991; not sure exactly how it ended up in my possession, but it was a fun snapshot, with a handful of Austin musicians (including Wammo, Frank Orrall of Poi Dog Pondering, Ingrid Karklins, and Thomas Anderson, and somebody's young son) all surrounding a beaming and charming Chesnutt. Perhaps someday it'll turn up and I can scan and post it here. Till then, it still burns brightly in my mind's eye, a split-second of joyousness frozen in another lifetime.

I also spent hours combing through my hard-drive and pre-laptop computer printouts to find all the old interviews and reviews and articles I wrote about Vic, for the Austin American-Statesman and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Rocket and the MusicHound Country Album Guide and No Depression. Somehow I never did write at length about Vic for ND; as editor, I spent more of my time assigning pieces to our many talented freelancers (we had Russell Hall, William Bowers and Bob Townsend write extended pieces about Chesnutt at various points along our thirteen-year run), but I did go over my own personal history with Vic in a "Hello Stranger" editor's note when we had Chesnutt on our cover in ND #56. I put that up on my previous post here.

During the '90s I seemed to have an encounter with Chesnutt once a year or so. I didn't see him nearly as much over the last decade; there was an occasional SXSW gig, and a show at Cats Cradle in Chapel Hill (opening for Hem) where my wife Lisa got a chance to see and meet him. And this past January, I went to see him at Local 506 in Chapel Hill with Elf Power; I briefly said hello inbetween sets, but didn't make the effort to visit more with him. My last chance, alas.

Counting it up from my show logs, I found that I saw Vic perform 22 times between 1991 and 2009. One of the singular things about Vic's shows was that he almost never paid any heed to whatever record he might have most recently put out. That Elf Power gig was an exception, for the obvious reason that they could only do songs they'd worked up together, which meant that they played most of their excellent Dark Developments album. Most of the time, though, and especially when performing solo (which he did frequently), he just ignored his latest release and played a buncha new stuff. Might have been frustrating for some, but I always found it fascinating, in large part because going to see Vic was always less about the song (though he truly was a great songwriter) and more about the personality. Half the experience was the humor; he was one of the funniest people I've ever encountered.

A few scattered memories from those nearly two dozen shows:

-- At a performance at the Backstage in Seattle, someone kept requesting "Danny Carlisle" (from Vic's debut Little). Chesnutt generally didn't suffer requests gladly, but in this case he had a unique reply: "Why don't YOU come up here and play 'Danny Carlisle'?" And so the guy did -- Vic eyeing him all the while with a sort of mock-schoolmarm judgmentalism, as if he were fixing to grade the kid's oral report. It was a nicely played and heartfelt rendition, which Vic ultimately acknowledged quite warmly: "You did good."

-- A crazy Sunday night in Athens in November 1993 began with an Alejandro Escovedo show at a small club and ended up in someone's living room, with Escovedo and his violinist Susan Voelz and cellist Frank Kammerdiener swapping songs well into the wee hours along with a cast of locals including Kevn Kinney, Syd Straw, and Armistead Welleford. Vic was there too; people kept prodding him to do a song, but he kept insisting, "I'm too drunk," until his benefactor finally berated him into complying.

-- At that final show I saw with Elf Power a year ago, Vic went on a classic rant about how his thunder had been stolen by Hollywood wannabes. Seems that one of the best songs on his new record was a jaunty little ditty called "The Curious Case Of The Bilocating Dog", about a remarkable canine that could appear in two places at once. A couple months later came the Oscar-nominated film The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. Vic was not amused. "I got screwed!" he howled from the stage, to waves of sympathetic laughter.

Such moments were common with Vic, and it was hard not to think of him without smiling. I realize he had a significantly darker side as well; I can't say I knew him enough to have experienced it much, but I'd heard the stories about tour freakouts and breakdowns and previous attempts on his life. Lord knows he had a hard go of it in his 45 years, but I did get the sense that he fought pretty valiantly, and he accomplished a heckuva lot. And in so many ways he was just brilliant; the oft-overused "genius" tag is fully deserved in Chesnutt's case.

That his death may have in part been brought on by the failure the United States health care system is as maddening as it is unsurprising. More than being angry, though, I'm simply sad, for never having a chance to hear him play onstage again, or to sit and talk with him for awhile. It may sound a bit too Ben Kenobi-like, but a great light has been vanquished from our world.

And yet, I'll never forget him, who he was, that irrepressible spirit that soared above the little guy in the wheelchair. Even in this saddest of circumstances, it's STILL hard to think of him without smiling.

Soul Asylum covering Vic's song "When I Ran Off And Left Her"

Remembering Vic

2009-12-31T19:23:00.000-08:00

my "Hello Stranger" editor's note for No Depression #56, March-April 2005, when we put Vic on the cover of No Depression:

I first met Vic Chesnutt in early 1991. He was coming through Austin, where I lived at the time, to play a show at the local alt-rock club, and I’d done a phone interview with him to preview the show for the daily paper. As it happened, my roommate at the time, Wammo (now the ringleader of the Asylum Street Spankers), was a friend of Vic’s, so we all went to dinner before the show at Sam’s, a legendary eastside barbecue joint. I remember Chesnutt curiously eyeing the photos on the wall of Stevie Ray Vaughan and other Austin blues greats, and I still recall some of the things he said in that phone interview. (He insisted the car crash that put him in a wheelchair made him a better guitarist: “I played too damn jazzy back then.”)

There was a song he was playing then that never ended up on a record, yet I can still remember it quite clearly. It was called “Critic’s Darling” and it was a snapshot of what he’d been going through in the wake of the attention his debut album had received. “Some say ‘Keep it minimal’/Some say ‘Get an orchestra’,” he related, acknowledging that even his “benefactor” (Michael Stipe) was hounding him: “He says ‘Your new album’s about due’/I said ‘I haven’t got a clue.’” Vic summed it up in the chorus: “This could be the end of me, though I’m just barely starting/Everybody loves to hate the critic’s darling.”

How many songs that you heard just a couple times, songs that never ended up on a record, can you remember vividly more than a decade later? I believe this says something about the weight of Chesnutt’s delivery, and his personality.

We inevitably crossed paths again at various times over the years, and most of those occasions somehow stick out in my mind. I moved to Seattle in late 1991 and Vic came through in mid-’92; few people seemed to know who he was, but by the time he left town after shows at the Crocodile and the Backstage, he’d left a lasting impression among those who saw him, particularly fellow musicians.

I took it upon myself to harangue Grant Alden, managing editor of The Rocket, to allow me to become a sort of serial reviewer of Vic’s catalogue over the next couple years, from West Of Rome to Drunk to Is The Actor Happy to Nine High A Pallet. Looking back at them now, not my finest work, though I do still have a fondness for this assessment of Drunk: “Chapter three, in which our hero (mine, anyway) continues his quest to charm and/or annoy the music-buying public with songs that could only have oozed from his hopelessly, gloriously warped lil’ noggin.”

Then there was the time a couple years later when Chesnutt was scheduled to play a show at the Crocodile. Scott McCaughey and I were sitting in the club’s restaurant when we saw Vic pull up in his van. Driving, by himself. The guy in the wheelchair was touring across the country completely solo. I still can’t quite comprehend how he pulled that off.

Somewhere in there, I did another phone interview with him, and he talked about how he’d recently written a letter to the city of San Francisco in defense of the nightclub Slim’s, which was facing stiff penalties for not meeting handicapped-access regulations. “It was gonna cost $150,000 dollars to get it up to code.…That's just berserk. That's crazy. If the place catches on fire — so I die. You know, big deal. It's better that I die so that San Francisco can rock!”

I bring up all these memories not simply to reminisce about the good ol’ days, but perhaps to try to underscore why Vic Chesnutt is on our cover. Yes, it’s been nearly a decade since his profile peaked with that Sweet Relief tribute disc and his brief tenure on Capitol. Yes, there are newer and younger and hotter artists we could put out front, ones that might be wiser choices in terms of newsstand sales.

But Vic has a history in our little world. Not only a history, but a story to tell, and he does so with rare and brazen honesty and insight. It says quite a bit that we had William Bowers write at length about Chesnutt for us a couple years ago, and now have Bob Townsend writing a cover story about Vic in this issue, without retracing steps already taken. This is an artist whose life and work are intriguing and uncommon enough to warrant the continued attention. Critic’s darlings be damned.

— Peter Blackstock

Sad Peter Pan

2009-12-27T06:24:00.000-08:00

a cover of Vic Chesnutt's "Sad Peter Pan"

recorded by Peter Blackstock on July 30, 1995

at 1321 N. 44th Street, Seattle, Washington

Goodbye, Vic.

2009-12-26T12:43:00.001-08:00

(A Great Frigatebird soars high above the lighthouse at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, November 2009.)