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Some Random Thoughts

• My girlfriend and I were lucky enough to see two really fine performers recently - David Wilcox, at Little Brother's in Columbus, and Ashley Cleveland, at 3rd and Lindsley in Nashville while in town for a wedding. Both concerts were fantastic, but they were both very different. David Wilcox shows are more like metaperformances-Wilcox's stated text for the evening seems to be the function of live music - a show about doing a show, if you will. He's a fantastic performer, a top-notch storyteller, but sometimes he seemed too wrapped up in the postmodernness of it all. He is a really amazing guitar player as well. Ashley Cleveland didn't say much - she and her tight band just romped their way through some kick-ass blues rock gospel. Both performers blew away their rooms.
• The more I listen to it, the more I am impressed with the new Laura Cortese album, Even the Lost Creek. She provides a nice mix of pop and traditional influences, including a fine resetting of "Jack Orion," some nifty fiddling, and several originals. The highlights, though, are two previously unreleased Josh Ritter-penned songs, "The Boat Song" and "Bluejays."
• What was with the clown noses that many Olympic athletes wore in the parade of athletes in the closing ceremonies in Turin? Was it an homage to the US team?
• Speaking of the Olympics, I am a sucker. I will watch curling if it's live and if the US team is playing. I will watch ice dancing and other figure skating events. Once every four years to watch figure skating is just about right, though I have to admit that the new scoring system takes a lot of the fun out of it for me. I miss seeing the blatant nationalism in the judging and all the geopolitical controversy. Now it's just about who hits the jumps with no cold war implications.
• The new Railroad Earth two-disk live CD, Elko, is incredible. This band is so talented that it's scary. Right now, they may be the best band from New Jersey.
• It's nice to see that the new Chuck Brodsky CD, Tulips for Lunch, contains not one, but two baseball songs, and also a football song, about the sorry day that Philadelphia Eagles fans pelted Santa Claus with snowballs. The political song on this CD, "Liar Liar Pants on Fire", is not nearly as effective for me as "Dangerous Times" from his previous album, because it lacks any subtlety. The best political songs have a timeless quality, typically with an effective controlling metaphor, like Pete Seeger's Viet Nam era classic "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" (which Richard Shindell recently covered, with obvious parallels to Iraq). "Dangerous Times" was brilliant - it was funny, it was timeless, it was scary, thoughtful. The new song is none of these things - just political screed. Otherwise, it is a fine collection of stories featuring Brodsky's impeccable storytelling, with instrumental and production help from JP Cormier. Brodsky is becoming one of my favorite folk artists.
• Another artist rapidly becoming a favorite is Mark Erelli. His new disk, Hope and Other Casualties, is his best yet.
• The new Tom Russell is also excellent. I'll be adding tracks from the new disk, Love and Fear, next week.
• I'm currently reading a fascinating book. 1491 by Charles Mann is an exploration of what the Americas was like before Columbus.

New Adds:

• Chuck Brodsky: Tulips for Lunch
• Annie Gallup: Half of My Crime
• Austin & Elliott: 13 Songs Plus
• Railroad Earth: Elko
• Jules Shear: Dreams Don't Count
• Jim Henry and Brooks Williams: Ring Some Changes (been looking for it for ages, found it in Nashville, still sealed, for $6.99!)
• The American Wake: Tell No Tales
• The Mammals: Departure
• Mark Erelli: Hope and Other Casualties

I also have received new disks from fiddler Darol Anger and singer/songwriters johnsmith and Lui Collins that I haven't had time to give proper attention to but that you'll be hearing soon.

Labels: New Adds

Time for some more new adds:

Joyce Andersen: Love and Thirst
Anonymous 4: Gloryland (pre-release sampler)
Austin and Elliott: 13 Songs Plus
Marc Douglas Berardo: Harbor
Laura Cortese: Even the Lost Creek
The Cottars: Forerunner
Mark Dvorak: Every Step of the Way
Flook: Haven
Brianna Lane: Radiator
Lunasa: Sé
Hem: No Word From Tom
Michael McGoldrick: Wired
Susan McKeown: Blackthron: Irish Love Songs
Sharon Shannon: The Sharon Shannon Collection 1990-2005
John Stewart: The Day the River Sang
Jeff Talmadge: Blissville
Various Artists: These Times We're Living In - A Red House Anthology
Various Artists: TransAmerica Sountrack
John Williams and Dean Magraw: Raven

Labels: Online Folk Festival

The Online Folk Festival is now on myspace.com at http://www.myspace.com/onlinefolk. If you are a myspace.com member, stop by and let me know that you're listening.

Labels: Online Folk Festival

Listening to a new CD from Chris Elliott and Lisa Austin and just encountered this line:

"Everything looks like a hammer when you feel like a nail."

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.