Robeson County, Where Ya At?

I recently tripped down to Robeson County with Amy (refugee of the Brooklyn Boroughs), where we met up with head Lumbee magik man Jefferson Currie. He travelled us down some back roads and introduced us to the sights and culinary delights of that fecund, oft-maligned land of enchantment. It ain't where ya from, it's where ya at.

Where was the Baldhead Growler? He would have done the shimmy shake on some of this food.

Free To The People

I no more expected anyone else on earth to have read a book I had read than I expected someone else to have twirled the same blade of grass. I would never meet those Homewood people who were borrowing The Field Book of Ponds and Streams; the people who read my favorite books were invisible or in hiding, underground. Father occasionally raised his big eyebrows at the title of some volume I was hurrying off with, quite as if he knew what it contained- but I thought he must know of it by hearsay, for none of it seemed to make much difference to him. Books swept me away, one after the other, this way and that; I made endless vows according to their lights, for I believed in them.

Parents have no idea what the children are up to in their bedrooms: They are reading the same paragraphs over and over in a stupor of violent bloodshed. Their legs are limp with horror. They are reading the same paragraphs over and over, dizzy with gratification as the young lovers find each other in the French fort, as the boy avenges his father, as the sound of muskets in the woods signals the end of the siege. They could not move if the house caught fire. They hate the actual world. The actual world is a kind of tedious plane where dwells, and goes to school, the body, the boring body which houses the eyes to read the books and houses the heart the books enflame.

-Annie Dillard, 1987

Most of the songs are composed by young people who are seeking supernatural powers, and have gone off wandering in solitary places for hours and days, their flute at their lips; thus one has to take into consideration the influence that the musical scale peculiar to such and such a flute will exercise on the tunes that are made up. When a young man wishes to acquire supernatural power, be it for hunting, for gambling, or for shamanism, etc...,he runs away from everyone, he wanders aimlessly through wild lonely places, where he lets himself fall into endless daydreams, more or less accompanied by hallucinations. Finally he sets himself to composing a song which will be for him the total expression of that particular experience. This song "belongs" to him; that is to say that everyone calls it his song, the song of so-and-so. But he never keeps it to himself along, like a secret; he will sing it openly in front of others. And if it pleases them musically, they'll learn it and it can even become very popular and go through quite a few variations. But its supernatural effectiveness is limited only to him who found it, whose voice and special way of singing the spirits will of course know how to recognize.

-Jaime de Angulo

[I SAW MYSELF]

I saw myself
a ring of bone
in the clear stream
of all of it

and vowed,
always to be open to it
that all of it might flow through

and then heard
"ring of bone" where
ring is what a

bell does

-Lew Welch

The Fiddler of Dooney

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Mocharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With 'Here is the fiddler of Dooney!'
And dance like a wave of the sea.

-W.B. Yeats 1899

Loose Salute

As autumn creeps in to the Southeast, I offer up these albums as a way to spread the gospel of Ronnie Lane. He brought some light into this world. I encourage everyone to check out "The Passing Show," a documentary about his life and times (mainly post-Faces). Ronnie knew some stuff.


Anymore for Anymore (Part 1)
Anymore for Anymore (Part 2)


Ronnie Lane's Slim Chance
(This combine's Ronnie's 1974 Slim Chance album and One For The Road, from 1976, with a few omissions.)


Mahoney's Last Stand
(Soundtrack for the 1972 film known as Mahoney's Last Stand or, alternately, Mahoney's Estate; does anyone have a copy of this?)


You Never Can Tell: The BBC Sessions (Part 1)
You Never Can Tell: The BBC Sessions (Part 2)


How Come
(A compilation; mainly included here for the glorious "Kuschty Rye.")

21
I must launch out my boat. The languid hours pass by on the shore- Alas for me!
The spring has done its flowering and taken leave. And now with the burden of faded futile flowers I wait and linger.
The waves have become clamorous, and upon the bank in the shady lane the yellow leaves flutter and fall.

What emptiness do you gaze upon! Do you not feel a thrill passing through the air with the notes of the far away song floating from the other shore?

-Rabindranath Tagore


*If any of Ronnie's people are out there and would like these links taken down, just say the word.

Holy Smoke

Groover's Two was a success. I thank all the great people who showed up to play and hang out. I drank too much and now I'm on the wagon. But I'm concocting an Autumn Groove that I think will be a lot of FUN. Maybe in October or November??

Over the last couple days I got a few electronic notes from Trad Gras och Stenar saying they liked Hiss Golden Messenger's music. Imagine that. Perhaps they send this sort of thing to everyone that "friends" them on MySpace, but it was pretty sweet nevertheless, and I was on cloud nine. I love Trad Gras, International Harvester, Parson Sound...all that stuff. It's all so good. Awesome breaking dirt on the commune vibe. Thanks for the kind words dudes, you have no idea how hard you stoked this guy (meaning me) out.

I wrote about The Hag's "Rainbow Stew" LP the other day. Amazingly, incredibly, footage exists of this awesome concert. Check some of this shit out, it's on a whole other level.
I'm thinking right now that "Misery and Gin" may be my favorite country song ever.:::