At midnight all the agents and the super human crew go out and round up every one that knows more than they do . . . —Bob Dylan, from “Desolation Row” Dr. Fauci has an unenviable position. He knows more than Donald Trump. He knows more than most any of us about infectious disease. And […]
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By James McMurtry Let’s say you’ve got a brand new custom 1911 .45 ACP pistol with all the bells and whistles, except a muzzle brake. You don’t think you need a muzzle brake because you are a real man, you can handle recoil. But you and your new pistol just can’t seem to knock down […]
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Trump’s pardon of Roger Stone trends at the top of google news as if no one saw it coming. Houston is out of ICU beds. ERs are directing ambulance crews elsewhere. Trump’s pardon of Stone dominates the headlines. Who really gives a rat’s ass about Roger Stone? We have real problems that need to be […]
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By Gangstagrass with photo by Janet Mami Takayama The idea of unity through music may be a cliche, but for a cross-racial, cross-genre band like ours it’s what we do every day. It’s what we are. We play a style of music that a lot of people haven’t heard, a style many of them are […]
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A Rambling On Corona Time… Corona time is the walk into a zone that nobody anticipated or has experienced. It’s like living in a cloud. Quarantine, isolation, time apart, from people and things; a time to think, a chance to read, to cook, to walk and dream…to watch the President on TV…to be frustrated; to […]
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John Prine I was sitting in one of those posture destroying school chairs in seventh grade when I first heard him. It was 1978. For some odd reason school administrative district number 35 offered a few elective class choices every Friday. I suppose the hippies were teaching by then and we were offered up a […]
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As I write this, there’s a strange April rainstorm hammering my studio’s roof and walls. Torrential winds lash at the windows, and small lakes are forming in the pockets of earth in my yard. My band hasn’t had a show since February—everything is cancelled. Instead of life as usual, we live in fear of a […]
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I know that there are people who just write songs. Write them by the dozens, record them, and try to sell them for placements in movies and TV shows or to independent film makers. I admire these song writers. I’m jealous. I’d love to do what they do. But I can’t. I’m at the opposite […]
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photo by Carl Beust at Newport Folk Festival for Americana Highways Last Tuesday I flew from Austin to Nashville and attended AMERICANAFEST, which is in all caps for reasons that escape me, for the third time. I saw some folks I loved and made some new friends and heard some music and sang some songs […]
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By Boo Ray (photo by Price Harrison) I’m usually hesitant to write about songwriting because I feel that writing about the process might be a conflict of interest; whatever I have to say about songwriting should, and damn well better be expressed by my catalog. But I just agreed to be one of the judges […]
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