Well, you know it's deep winter in the mountains when we have a Blogging Battle of the Band-album-covers. It'll be hard to top Telly Savalas -- I bow to Bryant Liggett and his deep (physically, if not psychologically) vinyl collection.
And I offer one more Salvo -- and video. The video is painful, in a rather luridly delightful way. And, I pray to all that is sacred and sane, it is tongue and cheek as well -- although I'm not sure the audience at the 1978 Science Fiction awards, where this appeared, were quite so sure ... But it's worth getting through, as the performance takes a somewhat bizarre and funny -- in a peculiar and ha-ha way -- in the middle.
In response to Ken, I give you The Blasters s/t debut, and IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING by King Crimson. 2 great album covers. My daughter has chosen ALL NIGHT LOCUST PARTY by the Volcano Suns, and the soundtrack to YOU'RE A GOOD MAN CHARLIE BROWN. She's a good kid.
It's a long stretch from the American Dust Bowl to a concrete-lined riverbed at the foot of southern California's mountains; and it's almost as far from that dry ditch to the River of Lost Souls draining the south side of my home range. Last night I listened to a bridge, designed by roots musician Dave Alvin, that connected these three pieces of our common past.
Guitarist Chris Miller's hands helped Alvin build this bridge on the Durango Arts Center's new and improved performance stage, in front of a packed house of appreciative locals. Like Dave Alvin, most of us were too young to remember the Great Depression evoked by Alvin's cover of Woody Guthrie's "Do Re Mi," but old enough to recall seizures of family farms and homes in the late 1980's, that signaled the demise of our nation's last embrace of 'free-market' economic fantasy.
For the young and/or innocent among us, a short history follows. Savings and Loan Associations were once the less regulated half of our banking industry (think of the lately lamented 'sub-prime' mortgage industry, except with at least a little in the cookie jar). 1932's Federal Home Loan Bank Act encouraged citizens to borrow money to buy a home or farm, using S & L's to finance the endeavor. In the early 1980's, deregulated free-marketeers mined S & Ls' assets to fuel a false economic boom. The inevitable collapse helped ensure that the first president named Bush would leave office four years later in disgrace, derided as one of our least competent chief executives, with a deregulated billionaire named Perot helping apply a boot from the right wing as Bush went out the West Wing's revolving door. Most of us voting in the recent election remember at least a part of what followed (boom, crash, wars, bail-outs, hand-wringing, etc.), and as our economy spirals into depths not seen since the 1930's, 70% to 80% of us now place our current Bush president in the running for least popular decider-in-chief in U. S. history.
But I digress, for last night's performance was presented more in the spirit of a peoples' music, than the dry language of economic politics. The bridge grew from roots of folk, blues, rock and jazz rhythms and riffs, and it drove the crowd from the depths of rivers, through the dives of Dave Alvin's late and lamented youth, past fallen heroes and knaves, and into a vision best described by Alvin himself, in this 1987 performance of his Jubilee Train.
The roots of American music seem to always revisit a theme of movement, and more of us than not have recently jumped on a train to change the place our country has become. It wasn't easy in 1932. It won't be easy now, but at least there are still bridges, and musicians helping us remember just where we can go.
I've stared into many peoples music collections and seen absolutely nothing amongst a sea of CD's and LP's. The beauty of music is of course in the ear of the listener, and far be it for me to insist on things that are cooler than what you think is cool, but I like to do it anyway. I haven't worked this hard reading, listening, researching, seeing, and playing to not. The entire Led Zeppelin catalog is respectable, but isn't sending your collection over the top. Here's 2 more suggestions (with hundreds more on the way) that can help.
"Red Roses for Me," the 1984 full length debut from the British/Irish band The Pogues, led by Shane Macgowan, (one of the top songwriters of our time) is a hybrid of traditional Irish music mixed with the fury of punk rock. It's a shot of celtic angst.
Their third full length, this 2001 release is the one that introduced the Drive By Truckers to the world. The record is a loose narrative set around the tragic plane crash that ended it for the original lineup of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and story aside is one of the finest rock records not only of 2001, but of this decade. 3 guitars or a life of crime.
Well, you know it's deep winter in the mountains when we have a Blogging Battle of the Band-album-covers. It'll be hard to top Telly Savalas -- I bow to Bryant Liggett and his deep (physically, if not psychologically) vinyl collection.
