Music Writing by Carson Arnold
A VIKING OPERA
The Cast: Claire Daly, Don Slepian, David Axelrod, C.S Morrison, Jake's Level, Joan La Barbara, Holly, Tool, Mary McCaslin, Lydia Ruffin, and many more....(Opening scene. Why not call now?):
BEDRIDDEN AND WOODSHEDDIN'
CA: Hi, is this David Axelrod?
DA: Yah.
CA: Hey, this Carson Arnold, I write this weekly music thing. Wondering if ya wanted to answer a few questions or whatever.
DA: How long?
CA: Nah, not long at all. I'm just doing a little issue where I talk to a few people, etc.
DA: God, I have terrible hay-fever!
CA: Ouch, sorry to hear that.
DA: So am I.
CA: How bad?
DA: Well, anybody with allergies, and guess what? That's how bad it is.
CA: Gotcha'.
DA: They can drop a bomb guided by a goddamn satellite a thousand miles up in the air, and they can't send a goddamn pill to stop this illness. I've tried them all...Shit. Anyway, go ahead and ask.
CA: Well, I dunno, is rock n' roll dead?
DA: Why would it be dead? They're still doing it...What do you call Radiohead?
CA: Hmm. You like Radiohead, huh?
DA: I like Radiohead a lot. I like Thom Yorke a lot. Hell of a record with him.
CA: Sort of a kinship to what you had done with the Electric Prunes, and now what you feel Radiohead is.
DA: No, different eras, different times, different rhythms...
CA: So in the age of producing, there's a hope in all the super technology?
DA: Of course.
CA: How's it feel to be back in, what I guess you could say, the spotlight?
DA: I don't think I was ever out of it. I know I wasn't out if it 'cuz here was all these people sampling me and talking about me and I didn't find out about it until the 90's.
CA: What do you think they liked?
DA: They like what they heard...I mean, why would would anybody sample.
CA: You support sampling?
DA: Yeah, I mean, I'd be a hypocrite to say that I didn't, I made a lot of money off it {laughs}.
CA: Hell, you've probably talked about it enough, anything you've never said about the Mass In F Minor album? What, none of 'em played on it?
DA: Well, that's not true. They played "Kryie Eleison", and then...David Hassinger took me aside and said "I'm gonna have to get studio guys". So, you know. Two of the Prunes- Mark Tulin on bass- he was the best, and the drummer was the most talented in the world, 'cept he had told the manager he was quitting...I wanted to set them in this {tremendous room}. Six months, and we were playing the studios forever, man. Make ourselves a fortune...I didn't like the way Hassinger told him off. That was so cold I couldn't believe it, you know, I wanted to take him aside and punch him out...They knew I wanted studio guys, I told Mark Tulin, and what's the drummer's name, Quint?
CA: "Quint" Weakly.
DA: -the same thing...But I, you know, I almost punched Dave out.
CA: Slayer.
DA: I like Slayer, I've always liked heavy-metal.
CA: The classical side.
DA: Oh, just the sound.
CA: It can save the world!
DA: Well, let's just hope something does.
CA: And your hay-fever.
DA: These are not good times right now. We're gonna attack fuckin' Iran, you watch.
CA: Any second.
DA: Re-election. History of America has never changed presidents during a war. Never.
CA: And they won't.
DA: No. 'Attacks Iran and keeps it going until after re-election.
CA: This is what it's been about since 9/11.
DA: Well...9/11 helped him. Still don't know why the fuck we attacked Iraq...Why the fuck did we kill American boys for?
CA: You know the story: Power, money-
DA: Bullshit, bullshit.
CA: Gonna do a political record?
DA: I've done a few!
CA: In modern 'spect I mean.
DA: Well Universal is....The Auction. That record's a motherfucker.
CA: Hip-hop, on the last record.
DA: I like hip-hop.
CA: And?
DA: Why does anybody like anything? It feels good...I like certain rappers, you know.
CA: What's that? I've been holding my tape recorder to the receiver.
DA: What? Dont'cha know they got those phones you can plug into the recorder and talk? They sell 'em for like three bucks! Yeah.
CA: I think so. I'm out in Vermont and-
DA: Vermont? I've never talked to anybody from Vermont before. Never.
CA: I know people who don't even know where it is. Good talking to you, David.
DA: Good talkin to you, man.
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LET YER FREAK FLAG FLY
My, what a hideous blister this unstable room is about to plunge into, we all better escape! No? Stay here, right on. Giant ants, sweet jesus, hungry everywhere, and yet, some distant music wheezes blue. God, exactly how long has Claire Daly been playin' anyway? Must be hours, gotta find air, gotta find that head of mine. Anyway, naturally I'm more compelled to an insect right now than Claire's saxen soft baritone in Movin' Up, and so, part to seek wall of these new little friends. I return, and Claire's pourin' up some fine wine of Cole Porter, leave once again, Gordon Jenkins- back- pie porkin' Mingus- to- tea-jivin' bit o' Monk later on while. Shuffling the Old-Yellers with Bambi's fern, ah, candle us up a smoke over here in the ol' lavender jazz-loft, Chet Baker just bomp enough to cool the horn of the city below, snap yar' creamy fingers and repeat sha-sha. A pm radio DJ with a voice like a screen-door to host this record, and sweet-potato-pie, gotcha' yourself a fine evening stover. And yummy, y'all hear what I hear, gang? There ain't nothing wrong with Movin' Up; it's perfect. Congenial to the tip. No really, check it, I've done full autopsy. Worked the scan button till the jazz went numb, played it through a milk carton, hung through a tree, and if seasons prevailed, would've dug a snow bank to play it in, that's right, just to make certify that this quality heard here is: correctomundo, and, worth your bottom dollar. Hell, even went as far to record onto a tape, slice the ribbon up, place it in a hat, and glue the whole thing back together again, re-listening to each three seconds- Turrentine meshed into Mingus- nope, all perfect. Absent of any mistake, one missed beat, not a hint of vanity, not a remote sense of correction, nor a gloom of failure. Jazzo away, clarity is a drizzling plum. Neither is there a sign of naked vulnerability, a moment of surrender, a trace of dangling skin, an indentation of squawk, a peep, or a clash- what would happen if say, a meteor would crash into the roof- and not to be conformed, but safe from any erosion that would either harm, or better yet, infuriate the oven-made staff standards she has favorably chosen as "goodbye" themes sung by the cover-photo with her sax blown to the six o'clock train in crisp CK pants. No c'mon, it's what'cha want after a long day o' hell, well, that is, if you're cheese to a white-Downbeat world of NPR with an ear full of sucka' Espresso. Cool-whip it. Call me quick-sand, but everything of modern-jazz seems prone to repeatedly apologizing and entertaining to the old, DEAD legends of yester-year, as if we who are listening, had killed them ourselves and must now pay tribute under this scholarly level of shu-boom-ba. Dont'cha y'all know Roland Kirk? This is complete madness, and further reminds me of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series where space castaways are forced to listen with crushing agony to so-called "beautiful" poetry of the Vogon specie or such. Anyway, it ain't about the avant or the nouveau or even the improv and all that 'urbation, it's about the nanook, and about tabbin' Claire Daly's initials under those tunes instead of the regular, workshop jazz-flies. But yep, it's perfect- fine, fine, fine- and another example of why a baritone-sax costs so much, a pair of CK jeans are too expensive, and a studio is insulated with a whole lotta' "ching". Why? So none of these ants right here off my toes can chew through. Well...excuse me!I gotta' go jump off a waterfall with a few friends who know total scat about music and even less about jazz. Good-bye?? Hello!!!
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C.S MORRISON; THE WORLD'S FORGOTTEN BOY
Hold your breath and count-down this cloudy estate of stood-up lipstick, cyclopes mamas, graffiti bola, and toss the rattling oil-drum into the bramble of Chris Morrison who stands over the beastly crock-pot- fook it, mate- heaves the barrel of slum down the sqaut-yard, whistles a nursery rhyme, and watches it explode into a million paper-or-plastic stars in his your-pal-for-life '88 Ep, Pieces: The Sloppy Guitarist. Paul Revere pickin' his nose, man, these songs right here are the definitive confessions of bohemian nocturne, mortar of alleyway-moth memoirs; the hurling hatchet that says: "yes, you are a lover, and no, ya' can't chew tobacco and run at the same time, idiot". Whoa, it sure is an unbalanced earth, and Morrison throws a belt. A Harlem Street Singer for punk hoboes all Billy Bragged in and Shane MacGowaned out. Lyrics here are ruthlessly dispensed, yet, a tender razor, fruit in a foxes mouth: are all liberals a joke?/is marijuana as bad as coke?...ah-ho-ho-ho/I wan't to know. Yah', a Kool/Camel folk, elephant sundae of the mind. Anyway, 'nuff Carsonius crap, all ploughing since this man's thirteen-minute cut off Tucson's very-own San Jacinto Records (at the Sound Factory, engined by Steve English- all hot-spurs during this time; esp. Richard Hopkins' mark; everything kinda currently in a rent of decay as of now), is thus far incalculable. Who knows, perhaps a bashful member of some mock-roxy bar-band slurred by jokin names like: Jonny Must Save His Friends, or, The Call Me When Your Bored's playing for the sad-sacked year old tables of Friday earing wearin' booze. But yo, if he is somewhere aboot, I can tell ya, he ain't too keen at answerin' the phone. Please hold...Is Kennedy really missed?, Morrison bellows, splashing us into a two-minute acoustic rash of doubt and execution; all the girls are just the same to me. Dingo-love, it is a motet for a misfit's choir, where life is taught by a soda-can and wisdom is poured and repeated outta the forth frowning stares of a photogenic world. C.S Morrison is here to crumb, folks. Find this guy, give 'em his guitar, crack that eight-ball, and let the dumpsters o' rip.
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SLEEP HERE UNDER THESE STARS
Go hurl yourself over into the raining dunes of Joan La Barbara's aquarium of voice and sound. It is a big place, this here earth, and Joan for many decades has not altered, but reflected the imagination of its call to the wild.
CA: What's a sound you couldn't live without?
JB: My son's voice
CA: Do you believe you are imitating the sounds of nature in your vocal pieces, where the "voice" becomes the primordial instrument? Is this the right way to look at your work?
JB: Some times I am imitating sounds in nature; some times I am imitating other instruments or machinery; some times I am singing pure tones that are shaped in real time but are not intended to be imitative of anything. I feel as if I am painting with the voice, onto tape, into the computer, in the air. Voice as the primordial instrument? some times, especially in my early experimental work "Hear What I Feel" (refer to my latest release "Voice is the Original Instrument -Early Works" - on Lovely Music LCD 3003)
CA: "October Music: Star Showers And Extraterrestrials"; exactly how many vocal tracks were on this composition, and how do you go about composing a piece such as this?
JB: "October Music" was recorded on 16 tracks (2 inch analog tape). My compositional method involves choosing a theme or an idea then doing a stream-of-consciousness writing on that theme or idea, writing every word or group of words that come to mind, without editing. I then read what I have written and see what "musical" ideas are generated from the text. Following that, I notate the musical ideas and then organize them. In "October Music", I indicated exactly how long I wanted particular material to continue, that is, the length of each section. Real-time improvisation comes into play as I do the recording, allowing the flow of energy in performance to enhance the basic ideas. In the recording process, I recorded much more than I needed, layering the material in each section as I proceeded, and then reduced it in the mix to what was essential for the work. In more recent works, I have been working digitally, that is, recording into the computer and then composing in Pro Tools. It's a different process but uses many of the same procedures I outlined above.
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TOAST AND TIRES AND BALLS AND WIRES
Peel and see inside this Red Bull soft-rock-pop off a-political layer of car 'n driver open-mic night out cooler of forgotten nacho-crumbs in reggae bedrooms where either we lay in bed all day or git' up 'n slurp ice-cream before the sun deflates down for yet another garage-jam with the bros from odd jobs long ago- that's right- world. And your chance to speak to each little fly trapped between the screen and the shut window out. That said, Jakes's Level is one of a million foursome, bravo bands spread all over across the cracked verse/chorus cement-soil, giggin' porches and barns in still belief that their childhood wall of ripped posters and UB40 tuned guitars will soon be answered by the dream that every small town bourbon of groups, as they know, are in the same and similar pursuit for and of. Catchy tunes for the barbecue soul and any ash-tray token friend willing to grunt. Whatever. Sniff markers or plant mulch, we are twiddled into the back door of dirt sense here. I don't particularly play Jake's Level and any other related music for many such extended reasons, for at times, I'd almost rather make-out with a seat-belt instead. However, the drummer lives right up the road, and can be occasionally spotted swingin' golf balls into the pit of a shallow brook below. He don't know, but I've collected a bag of 'em over the last five years. Don't deny it, people, we're every single inch of this band. Burn the caddy, for we got ourselves a fine life to live. Take it to the streets and chuck those golf-balls straight the hell down Rodeo...see 'bout singing later.
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NEVER TURN YER BACK TO THE GRAVEYARD SINGER
Don't waltz pass that Free Bin, son, these things cry molten secrets. Bach is cut 'n half. Jefferson Airplane is smeared orange, blue, red, and green. Lawrence Welk smiles. Ah, vibrations desire. Inhale that dust, the gold, swimming sutra, and your own inner, discarded opera suddenly tubas forward and blossoms the great, fluttering falcon that these people had indeed perished for us. But you- you standing there frowning- haven't just yet. Eyes alive, mind still growing, saying to me...
Enter Lydia Ruffin, nineteen years of age...well, in 72', that is. She's over in Missouri now, I believe. Gotta' remember the entire hot sanctuary of the South is remarkably gentle and keenly mannered. Any new folk are charmed by its hospitality, its tolerance to a young punk calling forth with a monster scroll of a hundred "Lydia Ruffins", inquiring for some thirty-year history in song. "No sir- you have the wrong Lydia. You'll have to speak louder, honey, cuz' I can't hear, okay?". This would be all old-hat, familiar to when I had awaken the entire residential valley of Arizona diggin' for Tucson legend and engineer Steve English, only to discover from a thousand other 7:30 Steves that supposedly Amy in Alabama and good 'ol Mike over in Chicago had already called before, and yours truly was about to be invited as their last straw into a harassment charge if the whole annoying banquet didn't cease. Another story for an old day left behind. Anyway, nobody knows This Is Lydia, cuz' even Lydia herself doesn't possess it anymore, and when contacting her, she had curiously asked if I were willing to tape it under fine exchange for a taste of her own current music associated with a long draft of local-vocal performances. Good deal- already, this free-bin treasure was shivering life. But hold on, the story is too perfect: Laurel, Mississippi, home of Mr. & Mrs. J.E. Ruffin and their daughter Lydia, where the humid accent of baby jesus! carves the umbrella tongue of day, and thus, Lydia's praise-tha-lard! liner notes from parental hallelujiah as a First Baptist member, converting or dropping the freaky orthodox soon after leaving home (ma hippens to eventually understand). Plays guitar, has a voice, in her room, Buffy Saint-Marie. Childhood waiting. Mmmm. Meanwhile, recluse Edna Holland (former Century Records wire; a company with a vast hall of school-recordings), within her traveling van embraced with a mobile recording studio laid in the back bed, scouts the pan-handle to the Gulf and forth again (like Lomax for urban white-people) in fundraising route for fresh talent, congregating mostly young marching-bands and much cafeteria mystery away. Lydia was a quiet exception, singing Carole King and Tim Hardin. Yes, yes, songs we know ever well, but the sound- the sound of one's shun footsteps 'neath the blur whirlwind- we don't, we can only penetrate this once the grinning storm passes and the wrinkled stares remain heard up from the bins once built with hints of proud liberty long, long ago. Her father, determined to cast Lydia as folk's next protege, grabbed Edna into their kitchen, immediately uncoiling the umbilical mic from her vehicle and into the face of a girl allegedly irritated by the whole ordeal- the timid, repression bleeding through as evidence in her somewhat glum, cross-eyed, Maltida photo shot. Bam! 500 copies were pressed, the common Edna ration, initially designed for trophy purposes, dished among whomever's friends, family, and seldom relatives; where ma and pa, with rosy dignity, could now stroll throughout any given Sunday picnic and reply, "now Doris, you remember Lydia, don't you, our little girl?". Pull the record outta' the good Buick, kleenex seats. "Here she is, this our daughter, she's a musician". Doris replies: "Aw, you don't say? My she's grown"...All the way to the free bin, sucka.
'Tis a "nice" record, 'nuttin more; dizzy, sprinkling octaves, hushes and hisses of a young girl entrapped between the gusty embroidery of shell and skin, magic and wand. Gloriously kind. Sort of a dangling righteousness hindering if whether Jesus indeed loved us, Satan is real, (sshh) cigarette, and unknown locks of blonde hair found in the good book- whose is it?- mine, or maybe that tall boy in church? Just stare at its trails for hours strumming "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". Hit the road. Good 'ol Edna sailed the South boiling in her van 'till about 1980, where, encouraged from friends, stirred into the catering profession which eventually poured all remaining quarts into a now ticking retirement day. Ask the wind, for every record was sold. 'Gotta figure at least a hundred were junked, another hundred disposed in between cinder stacks of prog-rock after prog-rock records- attics, sunken trunks, garages for rent, soggy, wet boxes- the rest perhaps scattered all throughout small-town schools within flickering, dim music closets where only the most perverted and rebellious of children venture, hide, and thus, explore the myth of the graveyard singer who seems to gently cry 'neath the leftover blackboard: "oh Doris, one eye sees one million by days end. Oh, Doris".
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MARY McCASLIN SPEAKS HER SPURS: PART ONE
CA: Are you still in love with the West?
MC: Of course! To set things straight, I have always, with the exception of my first six years of life, lived in California. Yes, I spent a lot of years in Vermont and recorded my albums Way Out West, Prairie in the Sky, Old Friends, Sunny California and the Bramble & the Rose duet album with Jim Ringer at Philo Records in North Ferrisburg, Vt. But, I've always had a residence in California. I grew up in an L.A. suburb, my inspiration for the song Way Out West. When we moved to California, I, being six years old, thought we were moving out to where the cowboys and horses and ranches were - what a surprise!!
CA: In the early 70's, what did people think of your style, a person singing ballads about the prairie, wanted men, love and heartache set in the dream of the West?
MC: On the east coast, especially in New England, the image of the west is very romanticized. Back in the `70s and early `80s when Jim Ringer and I were touring so much in that part of the world, we used to joke that it seemed some folks ALMOST thought we would come riding up on horseback. And, occasionally someone would ask me how many horses we had or how big the ranch was. There never were any horses or ranch...
CA: Way Out West had an aura of both the "outlaw" and the "lover". Was Jim Ringer a clear inspiration of this at the time?
MC: The song "Young Westley" was about Jim. His middle name was Westley. "Northfield" was written during a time early in our relationship when we had split up. The Northfield in question is Northfield, MA off of I91. I had the idea for the song and was looking for the name of a town. I was driving west on Route 2 and turned on I91 to head up to Vermont when I passed the sign for Northfield, MA....{to be continued}
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...BUT GOOD FRIENDS CALL ME JAMIE
You know/I know there's gotta' be at least two dozen people we all like, who, by whatever ailment, mutilate their bodies with stud piercing's and engraving tattoos that inlip the slogan of a popular band, fad, product, or some-bunch-of taffy insecurity that requires a flaming sun butterflying above the ass, a hula-girl in the ankle, or a rod through the tongue ("the chicks dig it, dawg, whadda' I care?"), to appease a beautiful "whomever". Again and again, it's very easy to git' permission to see a scarlet tat, no matter where the place, waiting in line, deranged, mindlessly to revel burnt ink spewed ontop some second fiancee's tan flesh. Though, once any of these carved symbols loose touch of their currency, music, and voyeur- whadda' ya' know- the tats are smothered, leaving all activity rioted for skin exposure (swim-suits to athletics) to be forever deceased, impounded to the front desk, asking: "finda-everything-you-need-good-today?" to one more hottie receiving his/her first rose tattoo. Now, whether that meant anything or not, Tool, friends, is everything ya need out of this guzzling doldrum. Music straight outta the slum parlor of nighthawks and down/down into the stream of metallic night-flies where Jethro Tull, Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, and pure empty mirth itself grinds into the braces of one hellofa fatal sky. Aintcha' so glad to be alive to hear these hungry guitars, this ripping arnica of fire and pretento' lyrics? The drummer is good, the songs are endless, and man, what better way to celebrate youth than this blasted music of incarcerated oxen. Check it: there are little if zero bands that can create music that imitates a ball rapidly bouncing to the floor- and that's the truth. Look into the mouth of a teenager; the teeth, the tongue, the saddling of the lips; are not of a testimony, but a swell, eying far and wide, blistering inspite. So why not drag yerself into the hereupon dustpan of some smoky bar from the afternoon peach where the hogan of both Tool and every broken, classical sonata greets you to the stool of what before, you could only slightly imagine to be. Forget all that "Yessir". Look right out that walking window and realize that these people, these worlds are not in any need nor shape to suspend yet another placid, cold noise, but to juggle an explosive chorus of few words: Hear this rock 'n roll, tattoo us, and the swell crashes right away.
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SLUSH-PUPPY PIE AND A WHOLE LOTTA COOL SLURP HIGH
In case you're wondering what planet all that electronic-cheese-'zak spun from while drowned under some 80's PBS environmental program where the lenses duds to a hustling sidewalk on cue of a screwing synthesizer taking hold to the backdrop of ol' precious mother earth turning...or better yet, ding-a-wing music to soft-porn lingerie, elevator ritz, SUV Zen, beta-pudding, and not 'laxation, but to melt into complete, senseless butter...Don Slepian's hands across the straw of keyboard berry could be responsible for much of this. I can only say one thing: there are those who prefer the "mud", and then those who prefer the "mud-bath". I'll take Purcell and a shovel, thanks. Anyway, you may associate his no-magnet name to the airy theme behind NPR's "Music From The Hearts Of Space", or, familiar to his superb weekly, online free-concerts displaying and evoking where-it's-at music yuv' never heard until he universally broadcasts 'em live! off carpet tuned to his twelve-person living room (git' addicted now! http://ArtMusicCoffeehouse.com). Ring no bells? 'Nuff said- then yuv' yawned his 1980, jingling-limp toned Sea Of Bliss album in some form of serene gratification, I promise you. Blossoms slowly swaying to the edge of a misty waterfall before sliding down below into the aroma abyss of some alert, hot-eye kitten who nods up from the basin and breathes an ahwoo to the soul distance between you and each water drop that sparkles her wink. If the wink is either a hello, or, just plain deceit, the mystery-in-sound falls within the ripening palm of Slepian. But dont'cha mind me, though, that's only the way I perceive these solar-bubbling pieces, these netherland kisses. I tell ya, tha whole thing could melt the ice-caps if extinguished, so don't git' too lazy; remember to stomp. Remember the sweet joys of playing Black Sabbath and Delius simultaneously. Somehow- and believe you/me, I'd like to- you can't fry new-age music; it's a chasm of sheer nothingness, like champagne, like perfume (a la his excerpto' record, Computer Don't Die), and in a very morbid, queer way, a dream-come-true to the critical artworld...Thinking? Nada... Slepian- spending a mossy rock 'neath Hawaii throughout his career, as well as computer-dyed for a score in Bell Labs- acknowledges his sound has transcended into much of a maternal, sonic baptism; quietly poured as babies are born, as citizens twig their taxes, and where traffic jams implode the steam of massage parlors and yoga stink, tired ones quiver asleep with it- lastly, like glittery resin- finding path into jails and pen-wards where Slepian himself rides synthonia as the sandman to the entire "air-conditioning nightmare". Sink and see. I, myself, ain't too sure of it yet, and Slepian does admit diligence currently settles in the all-for-you recycling-of-unknown-artists. But get this: Is his music a pink silhouette into exotic nirvana, or just a star-party of zoology, U.F.O freaks with three notes and a ziplock of Valium? 'Night-night, kitten, just wake me when something happens.
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SHINE ON HONEY-BEE
Cool. You might recall the light of Holly from my past review, discovery, and passion for David and Holly's tender, folk-duo apple. Take a stroll through a bit of her background...
H: When I was in high school in California, they had a very active music-theatre program, and I got very involved in that. I was in a bunch of musicals, and also in a song-and-dance group called the Ritz Kids-- we did music from the '30's & '40's, and we toured in Mexico and also played most of the major amusement parks in California. It was during high school that I had my only formal musical training-- a couple months of voice lessons. Beyond that, I pretty much learned to sing from our drama teacher, who had some opera training. I also did some community theater-- I was in "Dracula" and I played Laura in "The Glass Menagerie", and then after I moved down to Englewood six years ago, I played the lead in "The Fantasticks"-- which was my first singing role since high school. About two and a half years ago, I started learning to play guitar. My teacher, Richard Brobst, ran a folk and bluegrass jam out in front of his music store on Wednesday nights, and he invited me to join in; then not long after that, I joined his band, which went through several incarnations and various members before imploding. At that point, I'd met David (we met in the music store, where he was playing an obscure folk-song that Joan Baez used to do called "The Selkie". I'd always loved it, and I started singing along... and the rest, as they say, is history!
CA: What's the reception like when you and David perform live? Does Florida have its own folk scene that differs from much of the country?
H: Umm... not having had the opportunity to experience much of the folk scene in the rest of the country, I'm not too sure how Florida measures up. David and I have performed at several clubs in this area, including T.J.Carney's in Venice and the Celtic Ray in Punta Gorda. We've found that people down here are mostly used to country and bluegrass, but they actually respond very favorably to folk-- quite a few people who come to the Jam are fans of ours now, and have followed us to our various gigs and brought their friends... and so on.
CA: Was Judy Collins a huge influence?
H: Actually, no. Don't know why, but I just went in other directions. As far as folk goes, Joan Baez has been very inspirational for me, especially her early stuff. I've also listened to Joni Mitchell's album "Blue" alot, and I also love Frankie Armstrong's "I Heard A Woman Singing".
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DOWN HERE IN BUNKER ROW
Devin Scheffel just graduated from high-school, where spinning hip-hop in his hometown of Boulder, Colorado, he admits, from the perspective of an ear-to-the-pave white kid, there are no black people to be found. Records stores spread the nails of cheap bins, ripped through by he and other hopsters for sample scotching, proven ill-mean on his second little undergrounder burn Music For Malfunction; welded by the old skool beat of rash, political rants towards any culprit in whadup' length. Settin' the blunt aside, grabbin' the crew, and sheddin' the accused. Let's just hope when he railroads outta' Boulder this year it brings tha funk for-word.
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Oh yeah, gang, Sara Lovejoy over in the UK writes for a mag called Drowned In Sound. She tells me she's interested in what US writers have got to say. Read her review of Cat Power and other bags of meow here: http://www.drownedinsound.com/author.php?id=124
--Carson Arnold - July 7th, 2003