boomtown

finally some rain fell last night. i didnt see it coming but leaving after rehearsal the sky was mixing up a gray brew. it was such a relief after so much "dry gold grass". you can see some of the raindrops on the lens on the first shot below.





fortunately for us the rain was only in earnest after loading in so we were only slightly soggy at the start. there's no telling when the next rain'll be, after last summer where the sky was always falling. i dont call that global warming. i call it: last year was wet, this year its dry. next year, who knows?







johnny konya (drums)



carley wolf (bass/vox)



devan mulvaney (guitar)





(photos by juliet, who is 1) my favorite person on earth to sing with, and 2) would be in these shots on stage except that she was taking them.)

down the pub

happy birthday, dad.

lost love

i broke up with my bofro recently. its been rough. we loved each other a lot. i think i felt stronger about him than he did me-- or maybe i should say, i needed him more.

he was beautiful: strong, flavorful. unique. always there. he looked great in blue but could also wear yellow, knowhatimean? nothing could compare for getting through tough times. great times. just-times. i loved him to pieces. i miss him like hell. its why im a total mental case at the moment. his birthday is on this saturday and i cant even tell him happy birthday.

this is a pic of him (before he cut his hair):



happy birthday, baby.











.

merde

i looked and looked, but i couldn't figure what it was. it was perfect, absolutely, white, clear, defined. but i just couldn't remember or free-associate what the hell it might be. cloud busting or song writing, either one.










the song today was horrible. real, complete, total. i hate those, for real. they are like singing with your internal organs for instruments. mary gauthier does that really well. have you heard some mercy? but also: those songs are god, evidently. what else could they be? i'm just not that smart. i'm not that good. i'm not that whole.

jazz (kate)

and blues too.



the thing is, its neither, unless you DECIDE to fall off a cliff. its why so many jazz players are potheads, but its not necessary. if you are jazz. no, im not being abstract. serious. ARE.

you have to fall off a wall. humpty dumpty, baby, all the way. sounds outrageously corny, but so is jazz. its fucking unabashed. you die of corny. have you heard diane shur sing time after time? its sick, she's sick. [big smile, yunhunh.]

a sick, unwell woman. or the only one in her right mind, one or the other.

tonight it was the only thing to do after a month of 105 degree days, a ginger carrot soup (mind you, with powdered ginger, blechhhh, apparently id forgotten to pick some up) with all the windows open and the wind picking up and the orchestral version of joni mitchell's cherokee louise on the stereo LOUD. sometimes there's nothing except to celebrate. but she falls off the wall, easily. relinquishes. succumbs. dies. jazz.

but that's blues too. its funny, i rarely hear people play like they are falling off the wall, dripping down like honey or time, making a mess the bees will be all over. i see the expectation, the simulation, the hope for blues, the hope that the soul will get free'd cause someone threw it to the wind. i hear folks come close. its a feature of playing with just the right mix of others and being right with your thing. makes me wanna say: hey baby, you ok? cant you feel nuthin??

i love you, i say. im sorry, i say. im trying to be a better sister, i say. dont die, for heavens sake. just play. and fall. go ahead and melt, the heat'll get you anyway. and if that doesnt, the heart will.

kate's birthday today. happy birthday, miss kate.

here: someone who falls! like a prayer, like the ultimate orchestra conductor:

michael

sweetest girl

"Looking from the land of Biscay
over Ocean to the sky
On the far-beholding foreland
paced at even grief and I.
There, as warm the west was burning
and the east uncoloured cold,
Down the waterway of sunset
drove to shore a ship of gold.
Gold of mast and gold of cordage,
gold of sail to sight was she,
And she glassed her ensign golden
in the waters of the sea.

Under hill she neared the harbour,
till the gazer could behold
On the golden deck the steersman
standing at the helm of gold,
Man and ship and sky and water
burning in a single flame;
And the mariner of Ocean,
he was calling as he came:
From the highway of the sunset
he was shouting on the sea,
'Landsman of the land of Biscay,
have you help for grief and me?"

(from more poems XLVI)







of course, grief never answers. duh. me has to work it out for himself. great poem. one of my dad's favorites. happy father's day, dad.





here's a writeup someone did about clear channel monopoly whose booking model wants you to forget there ever was such a thing as actual MUSIC.

(photography by devan mulvaney)



and some dolla dolla bill, y'all. great use of the music video medium. this and dave matthews' eh hee and any hand held DIY shot thing.

great fun these listening party things. i think of them as the new radio hour like back in the day when the whole world was clustered around the dial in the living room to hear the latest from churchill or de gaulle or maybe the bell telephone hour. not that its churhill or ed sullivan but its possible to have a similar feel because i guess im wondering: is anybody listening to radio anymore? its so different to just listen and not get hypnotized by the three-second interval of tv. very cool.

so fly

4 mins

no fair. lady m and jt get to dance it up in the grocery like how AND sing about the asinine tyranny of the radio format: nothing over 4 minutes. or is it an aids spot? someone dies every... or..? but dancin in the grocery, man? totally no fair ;)



tick tock tick tock tick tock

meanwhile there's a really great track on the AAA sampler that john hiatt wrote and his daughter lilly sings on we been listening to.

hella good

one of my favorite yoga teachers i ever had was a girl who had trained as a teen and now taught in her young twenties in LA. she had bleached blond long hair and wore those sweats with juicy written across her ass. she had an ass, mind you, not a butt or anything like that; she herself referred to it as such.

she was completely without guile or affectation, naturally spiritual like this: she'd obviously grown up in the valley and so had seen it all and was absolutely nonplussed, the way only true angeleans can be. they just dont give a damn about affecting some approximate cool. its totally unnecessary for people who just live.

so she'd come to class with a gigantic starbucks double-shot cappuccino and neon-colored juicy pants and she'd take everyone to heaven. it all had humor but serious depth. she was everyone's favorite because she wasnt full of it. chick could disarm an army.

i love that. i despise preciousness. i appreciate the get on with it thing.

last night a business owner downtown revealed to me that the whole city is undergoing a massive attack at the architectural level (he didnt call it that) and that soon over the next four years or so there will be interesting chilean 'scrapers rising over little cow town austin like a vegas bad dream. oh well. he and his business partner kept repeating what obviously they'd heard in chamber of commerce meetings for local business investors--it'll be alright, it was inevitable. you know, words you'd use in any hostile-takeover or coup d'etat. not a problem.

sleepers just keep sleepin.

heat rising

hey, lover dog.

o. hey.

whats up!

nothing. just waiting.

waiting?

yeah. pretty much.

hey, uh, he-who-suddenly-speaks-very-little, whats the changeup for? are you down?!? in doggie heaven?

dont start. im older now, wiser. things change. shit happens. i may not be in the physical anymore but my understandings are growing and lemme tell you, i actually miss you and your absolutely terrible life.

hey!

seriously.

thats MY terrible life youre talking about, take it easy.

i do. i miss the hot asphalt which would burn the bottom of my feet pads off but you would have no idea, making me stand in the parking lot of some random irrelevance of a town.

o, now you sound like me.

i actually miss you, can you believe it?

um yeah. actually. ive been missing you from the beginning. since you died.

well but jenn, youre you. you know. cant be helped, im just a little thrown. i miss food.

um shep?

yeah.

uh, is it weird if like, a dead dog and a live human go on as though nothing had changed? like, still hung out and did things together? im sorry i just dont want to replace you or some crap like that. are you into it, even if its weird?

arent we already doing that?

oh yeah. good point. ok. so youre ok with it?

at which point did i seem to have a choice?

yeah. ok. me too. strange. never thought it would go this way.

hmm.

k.

(silence)

(silence)

k.

ps

in answer to a host of emails,

as if 21 question marks doesnt say this clear enough,

the answer is NO. HAYELL no. i dont do gladiator sports.

the funny thing, sis, is

i got a call from NBC this afternoon, asking me if i would be on the batchelor. i said, the who? ryan seacrest, the american idol host, is... sorry? ryan seacrest, the kiss-fm radio dude? um, yeah, except he's a tv dude now. oh! cool, yeah? yeah, well, im calling from the batchelor, i have your headshot in front of me and we'd like you to come down to houston for some interviews for the show, meet ryan and...



can you say, ???????????????????? twice?

boomtown

utah

spent the day down at a house party for some seriously worthy musicians here in town for a residency. down in shady hollow, land of the burbs and the folks who stay down under for whatever reason. and then there are those of us who travel, who roam a little, and record, and play, in search of a way to do everything better (hopefully) and even more lovingly than we thought we could. for all our hunger, out want, we are what we have wanted to be, and that's free. from tyrannical uncomfortable non-artistic life.

utah phillips just died. his wife joanna, his kids, his family- write them. they must miss him terribly. the family want to donate funds to hospitality house in grass valley-- a worthy, worthy thing in his name. funny, aint it, how life will find you out? and then make everything right! here's the link to the shelter, or, more directly, his family. and the official obit here,



my friend who lives in grass valley wrote me back to say yes, that her town had celebrated his life in a huge way today. about 800 or more met at the park and there were stories, songs, prayers, you name it -- john mccutcheon flew in, etc dot dot dot.

we are doing a show on wednesday over at a little cafe on east 5th, come by and throw something in the tip jar, and we'll send it on to hospitality house for him. and join a chorus of the song i'm gonna do for him, one of his- do you know it?

rabbit rabbit