Happy April, everybody! And a 'hello' from Nashville, TN. Spring is here, love having the windows open feeling the breeze. Not insufferably hot yet, I'll take it while I can get it.
This is what I'm up to tomorrow, and you can listen online anywhere in the world. wdvx.com has a long-running show called The Blue Plate Special and I am on it tomorrow at 12pm Central. 30 minutes of my finest "A game."
I've been rediscovering Tori Amos' "Boys For Pele" lately - it's one of my favorite albums of all-time. I love so many things about it. I love how 'Beauty Queen' is song 0 and 1 at the same time into 'Blood Roses.' I forgot how rocking and groovy 'Caught A Light Sneeze' is. My other favorites are: 'Father Lucifer' (when it splits off into the Medusa-tentacled schizophrenic vocal lines holy God), 'Marianne,' 'Hey Jupiter,' and 'Putting The Damage On.' I think I'm gonna figure out a way to cover 'Putting The Damage On' maybe also 'Marianne.'
My next record in a perfect world is gonna sound like "Boys For Pele" meets Elliott Smith's "Either/Or" and "XO," Bon Iver's "For Emma, Forever Ago," Isakov's "This Empty Northern Hemisphere," the production quality and creative innovation of Jimmy Eat World's "Clarity" and Phoenix's "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix." A bit of Springsteen's "Nebraska" in there. I already totally hear Nathaniel Rateliff's influence on some of my folk/space songs from his amazing "In Memory Of Loss."
I am a musician in Nashville but don't let that fool you. I am not jaded and I still am a total fanboy. I've been guilty of being extremely overly obsessively, unabashedly uber fanboy. I've been guilty of this with Gregory Alan Isakov, Elliott Smith, Joe Pug, Hey Mercedes/Braid/City On Film. Technology is an amazing thing. Recently I traded emails with a producer on Elliott Smith's "Figure 8" record. And years ago I read a story from Spin that when Elliott recorded "Everything Means Nothing To Me" he had just had a cutting episode and blood was running down his arms and pooled at the keys...provides a haunting visual and feeds into the 'tortured artist' storyline. Now, while that MAY have happened, I was over the moon when I addressed that rumor and was told when Elliott recorded "Figure 8" it was 'just and only music' and 'don't believe everything that you read.' Geoff = GIDDY. Not only is that a HUGE inside scoop but it's from someone who was there. Damn! Anybody ever also feel that way, have stories like that?
I don't think I'll ever change. I mean I've sensed when I've been uber fanboy in the past and have made efforts to embarrass myself less. But I like the part of me that is overjoyed when I feel like I'm touching a part of the music fabric that has made up my life. I'll take this opportunity to publicly apologize to the artists and their teams if I've ever come across as overboard or weird. I know you know who you are!
After tomorrow's WDVX gig me and the missus are gonna head over to Frozen Head State Park in TN. It's where they hold The Barkley Marathons. They may have recently pulled it from Netflix but oh my gosh buy it, Amazon, YouTube, anything. Wherever it is - find it and watch this. There are trailers on YouTube to pique your interest.