moon traveller herald

Different characters vie in different circles for newsmaker of the year. My money for 2013 is on Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who systematically unmasked the great big eye growing out of central hub of the US Gov's Intelligence community more than 10 years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. When Snowden's disclosures first appeared, there was more than a little amusement in the high tech newsrooms. After all, Google has been tracking us right along, haven’t they? But Snowden's well-placed dispatches - had an cumulative effect, to highlight major changes in the technology scape in the years since 2001. Those scape shifts take the form of growth of the Internet and cell phone communications, distributed computing. Why wouldn't the powers that be take it as an opportunity for massive eavesdropping? The Patriot Act that resides behind all this activity was an antiterrorist act pure and simple – it is fair to say people don't feel the...

E very year, well most years, the blog does a musical rundown. This year I am pulling all the samples from YouTube. Which limits things on one level but is clearly more accessible to more Moon Travellers. Stay tuned for our chronicle of this year's storms of the century. This one is dedicated to Milwaukee's late great Dr Bop.   Number 1 - Her Tenere - The most inspiring music makes you wonder 'where this comes from.' it is such with Bombino. If jimi hendrix, john lee hooker and dick dale had travelled like 3 kings through north africa in the 1960s, and set up on a flatbed truck, and played off the truck generator, and broadcast a jam over some celestial coffee grinder apparatus, that music might become a legend in a nomad camp, and spawn the dessert blues music of Bombino. Her Tenere - The desert/ I am in the desert/Full of nostalgia/ In the desert/Without water I was sitting, meditating/On the problems facing the desert.. Number 2 - Crazy in Lo...

When I was a managing editor on a monthly in the 1980s I had folders for every month. I embellished this one for Christmas. It shows the advent month coming full speed from off stage and emblematic train going round the tree [or tries to show said]. That train is coming! Happy Christmas, happy world! - J.V. Just a panthering train cross the swells of the carpet Through oriental valleys and their piled paisley sockets Through skyscraper wrappings the apple spanked harlotty papers and things to returnto your feet. - Christmas Locomotive , 1967 Note: Traveller visitors will notice a few broken links.  I thought the Web was forever. Have back up for those pics and stories, but good luck finding them, Jack.

Buy Sunnyland Blues on Amazon

We met at the bar in the snow on the street that disappeared - friggin great foleys - foleys on dover - you showed me the plan - the eiffel tower exploded - pieces of mind scattered all in and all over - in the backroom the mayor was rememb ering - out in the front I passed you a dossier - and you had some papers on the poets of columbia - ah foleys - my old pipe wrench dozer - army-navy played on the magnavox box - one beer one shot one mint clover - the option game ran rampant - the army tackled not - we'd nod to the mayor and his chauffeur - xmas eve friggin xmas eve at foleys - foleys on dover - foleys on dover. -Jack Vaughan

E very year, well most years, the blog does a musical rundown. This year I am pulling all the samples from YouTube. Which limits things on one level but is clearly more accessible to more Moon Travellers. Stay tuned for our chronicle of this year's storms of the century. This one is dedicated to Milwaukee's late great Dr Bop.   Number 1 - Her Tenere - The most inspiring music makes you wonder 'where this comes from.' it is such with Bambolino. If jimi hendrix, john lee hooker and dick dale had travelled like 3 kings through north africa in the 1960s, and set up on a flatbed truck, and played off the truck generator, and broadcast a jam over some celestial coffee grinder apparatus, that music might become a legend in a nomad camp, and spawn the dessert blues music of Bambolino. Her Tenere - The desert/ I am in the desert/Full of nostalgia/ In the desert/Without water I was sitting, meditating/On the problems facing the desert.. Number 2 - Crazy i...

Just went out and bought the Times. Stunning coverage on Mandela. Stayed up late last night watching that. I’d really come to take him for granted and it is interesting how the press serves the purpose of saying, wooah, this was history for the ages. When Mandela came to Boston, he appeared at Roxbury Crossing (the news outlets here seem to just remember the Esplanade appearance – well, with Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder, why not?). My wife and son (then two) went to the Roxbury Crossing speech, however. I missed it : being on plane to cover a trade show in Calif. I’d say “sigh” but I was glad to making a living, yknow, and glad my brood went there in my place. Very few miracles - but he was a big one.

Touching late innings encounter with Lou Reed.  He talks about music,  the sound of the wind,  the sound of the heart beat  heard in the womb ... ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.. and ..  .. 3 chords..

Thinking about punk as a blues bromide. This after e-chat with Don Fluckinger, who recently visited Chicago, and Record Mart and met Bob Koestler, with whom he discussed the Igg in Chicago. My two bits: Iggy Pop Stooge started as a drummer. Claims actually to have played with Motown bands in Detroit area. He went on the road to do blues, as a drummer, I believe, before the Stooges. Got as far as Chicago. Iggy played and travelled with a guy named Johnny Young, who was a rarity: an electric blues mandolin player. Johnny Young means a lot to me because he was the first actual blues player I ever saw. Johnny Young came up from Chicago to my hometown of Racine Wisconsin a couple of times, playing with Lee Jackson (gtr., who hoboed with Robert Johnson), S.P Leary (drums., who played with Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters) and others, but those others didnt include Iggy. First impressions are lasting impressions. Like the Kinks and Zep Ledlin, the Stooges recreated the blues so ineptly...