moon traveller herald

The Bold Stump reunion brought together John Ruetz, Mike Brusha, Jim Haas, Jeff DeMark, Paul DeMark, Syd Matterrer and myself, and here I provide some background thoughts on preparation of the presentation. In my imagination, it was a little journey on music toward the "castle of heaven." Mars Cheese Castle Hwy I-94 My boy-0’s and I put a lot of effort into the undertaking. It being our 3rd appearance as The Bold Stumps at George’s Tavern on Main St in Racine Wis., more than a few twists and turns had occurred. That's since our 2018 outing at George's . A change in the band this year, as Bob Stepien retired from the grind, and Syd Matterrer took up the bass on this. Twists, turns and Stumbles - not the least of which was the global COVID pandemic. Cue the Blues: “That’s life”. Several of our players are pros - I am not one of them. For me it was a learning experience in collaboration, negotiation and expression. I felt I could deliver the songs if I could inhabit the...

Excited to introduce the writing of Cecelia Estrada Vaughan to these pages! - J.V. About Luigi Russolo - 1885 – 1947 Machines that scream: inventing Futurist Music … “Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibilities of men.” Luigi Russolo writes, “Each sound carries with it a nucleus of foreknown and foregone sensations predisposing the auditor to boredom, in spite of all the efforts of innovating composers.  All of us have liked and enjoyed the harmonies of the great masters. For years, Beethoven and Wagner have deliciously shaken our hearts. Now we are fed up with them. This is why we get infinitely more pleasure imagining combinations of the sounds of trolleys, autos and other vehicles, and loud crowds, than listening once more, for instance, to the heroic or pastoral symphonies.” This futurist manifesto, “The Art of Noises,” became, perhaps frustratingly, t...

Understanding Kerouac's poetry, I'm thinking, requires an understanding of Hipster Swing Jive music of his time. We already know his devotion to Slam Stewart. I can imagine him sipping soda and humming to this gem I found today courtesy of AM 1410 Newton WZBR. Performed by band of guitar innovator Alvino Rey. Of couse, Louis Armstrong wrote the Bible on this Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti A puddle o'vooty, puddle o'gooty, puddle o'scooty Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti A puddle o'veet! concrete First you get some gravel, Pour it in the vout To mix a mess o' mortar you add cement and water See the mellow roony come out, slurp, slurp, slurp

I think the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds succeeded in doing homage and finding new in existing music forms ( in this case, ones that Mainstream was ignoring) I often think of the Kinks and the Who too, and I am probably repeating myself here... But the Kinks were trying to channel Big Bill Broonzy, and the Who were trying to channel Martha and the Vandellas. They were white, skinny, and underskilled, but THEY FOUND SOMETHING in the R&B. It was valid. What came out of that was 'heavy metal' which I hate. But on the way to that direction there was great great stuff. I suppose Muddy Waters revisited and found something in Memphis Minnie and Robert Johnson, that he could homage and re-invent with. Let's extend this beyond music per se. Dylan is incredible in terms of visiting sources [musical, literary, other] and coming up with something new. I think Ferlinghetti, at least in his later work with which I am familiar, did this.  A path for creation may be: When you visit...

 She's My Kuwaiti Baby Attendee in the crowd at Burning Paloooza 1995 recorded the Jack Vaughan Experience's disjointed appearance. Retrieved from this is a snippet of Kuwati Baby, a seldom heard Kuwait War song concerning interdenominational love. We lost the recording but the lyrics are here. - Dick Clark AS THEY BROUGHT A BUNCH OF TROOPS IN TO THE STRAINS OF WHITNEY HOUSTON TWO EYES WERE PEERING OUT OF A SOLDIER’S DUFFEL BAGWHEN HE AT HOME UNPACKED IT HIS PARENTS NEARLY PANICKED THE SOLDIER LOOKED AT THEM AND HE REPLIED SHE’S MY KUWATII BABY SHE’S MY DARLIN AND MY PET HER EYES ARE FLASH AND DANCING THAT’S ALL THAT I’VE SEEN YET SHE’S MY KUWATII BABY AND HER HEART IS TRUE I KNOW SHE’S MY DARLING LITTLE KUWATII BABY. THE SGT. SAID DON’T FOOL AROUND REMEMBER WE ARE GUESTS I’SE TIRED OF CHASING ALL THE SKIRTS THOUGHT I’D GIVE IT A REST BUT WHEN I SAW THOSE TWO EYES DISPENSING RED CROSS CRUMBS I SAID YOU GOT THE KIND OF EYES TO MAKE A SMART BOMB DUMB. PA SAYS ‘CA...

The Isolated Vocals of Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”. Incredible... pic.twitter.com/qqFvlwTmEU — Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) September 16, 2020

Bill Belichick is respected, not loved, in my neck of the woods. I know it is different elsewhere. Far and wide he is loathed. He is depressively catatonic in most press conferences, and his conspiracy to surreptitiously video the New York Jets has definitely gone down on his permanent record. But even his critics give him great measure as a football coach. Here I agree. I’d say I have never seen a coach so able to prepare his team for games yet at the same time be so able to adjust at half time to whatever the opposition had going for them. [As I kid I grew up on Lombardi – I just don’t remember that many games when they didn’t dominate from the start. Mind may play tricks.] In David Halberstam, Belichick met a well versed and able biographer. A bit slow and turgid and perfunctory at times, but most of the artifice was used to gain good narrative. Halberstam’s “The Education of aCoach” gives you a great view on the inner game of football, where scouts roam from game to game,...

[For Barney Beal.] After long listening on blues, there eased up on me a slightly sorcerous curiosity about some of the places the music found on its way. On or off the beaten track as one would construe it is Louisville. Thoughts on which I share with you here.  Not too widely known is it that it was a hot bed once of Jug Band music. There is hardly a music that surreally sounds more like the lost track of a silent movie. Which offers strains of swirling basic American tributaries. Few musics more so that for the cost of closing your eyes can take you back in time. While New Orleans, Chicago and Memphis were the milestone towns on the rivers of jazz, blues and rock n roll, there were others, Louisville among them. On the Ohio River in the 1920s, it was for a time the center of the Jug Band music sound. Minstrel shows and string bands roamed the nation in the 19th century, sometimes selling magical elixirs and snake oil. This was songster music, predating the appearance of bl...

In the 60s there was  the idea of drone. Not the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) kind. I think it was the Beatles that put it out there for us. - but  the Velvets had it via Cage. It was coupled often with the notion of neon. cut to the future: nice to see a whole cd is out dedicated to the notion. Roots of Drone . Why Edie Sedwick on the cover of roots of drone? Maybe when she talked, she'd just drone on. I say dont ask; dont tell. Be here now. Check out this consideration of drone. Not often you get a collection that goes from Sally Goodin to Shostakovich. and the Monks Of The Kume Tarsang Monastery Of Lhasa, Tibet. & Wagner. Khuda Box Mandrani. I am going to insert an alt John Lee Hooker number just for the heck of it in my Playlist below. it  has Rolf harris on ditchereedoo. Sleepwalk. That's the drone of CYO dance. Yknow. Of course there are missives. Tomorrow never knows never probably got freed up by the living beatles and their estate. One big one for me...

  Click to go to list.  https://mog.com/m#playlist/2126407   Then click on "Play all tracks" to play.   CHINESE CHECKERS Mog has given me a chance to pick up on a lot of stuff, I hadn’t heard before, or it just once or twice. Been a great chance to pick up more on blues. Which, when you have the worldwideweb as oyster has a lot of nooks and crannies. (Nookies and crans?) Every half hour usta have an instrumental, to fill in the gap before the news. Such as this…this set kicks off with Chinese Checkers by Booker T and the MGs. Rock on Duck wherever you are!  http://mog.com/m/track/7068543?ci=40000 WOMAN BE WISE Sippie Wallace came to the broad world attention through her champion Bonnie Raiit. Here she is with her  signature song. Woman Be Wise. From the school of think twice and speak once. “Woman be Wise, keep your moth shut and don’t advertise your man.” Sippie could not have a more excellent accompanist than she has here; Little Broth...

There was drama in the day. In the shadow of Broadway. TV was just aborning. The Internet was two mainframes and a phone in a coupler cup. And in New York the folkistas had the drama of the day. Sometimes the comedy too. If you look at these folk, if you listen you hear…a different time. Stick to Rum by Eric Von Schmidt. Many a mile by Patrick Sky. The Other Side to This Life by Fred Neil Guabi Gabi by Rambin Jack Elliot. Phil Och’s Birmingham Sunday by Joan Baez. All forged as set pieces, ready for the stage.   Posted by Jack Dr Bop Mog Vaughan. To play, if you are on Mog, go to link, and click Playalltracks. https://mog.com/m#playlist/2083617

Albert Glinsky biographer of Theremin had some bits to share on Christopher Lydon’s Open Source Radio show. Show includes music, and interviews with thereminists. Dapper Christopher cannot help but break up theremenist Pamelia Kurstein into charming giggles upon giggles. Said Glinsky of the discovery .. Originally he was actually in a Soviet Laboratory about 1919. He was building a meter to measure gas density. And he put on some headphones and decided he would add a whistling tone that would change based on the density of the gas. As he brought his hand closer to the device, the effect was like that which you can have today with an old rabbit ear antennae TV where the picture reception goes in and out as you assume different positions in the room. Based on your position in an electromagnetic field. Now I'd heard that he was just listening to vaccuum tubes one day. Playing with the voltages or some similar. Then he built an instrument just to make sounds. Started with a pedal a...

More than a few players couch there work in a mystic veil. Sonny Rollins is more than open, however He does not mind calling out influences, even the off-beat and patently indecipherable ones. If as a lad in St.Thomas he saw a film where a Danish opera singer sang Amor [or something like that], and he was able to repurpose that general modus as St Thomas, he can talk about it. He is known for a certain type of improvisation in concert where he quotes from far and wide.. riffing like a mocking bird, but finding new things in all the music that is out there. To me this is a real essence of most creative processes. Rollins recently played Symphony Hall in Boston, and spoke on Christopher Lydon’s radio show. That conversation is available as a podcast MP3. Yippie-Aye-Oh-Kay-Yeah. Was reading newish Kerouac book today, Book of Sketches. He writes: Be like Bird, find y.self little story tunes too string yr complexities along a well known line... Related Sonny Rollins on OpenSource - Podca...