When you get tagged by ludickid AND calamityjon , you know you better rep!

The task is:

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to."


I took it a step further and made one of those mixtape things. Not every song I wanted was available so I made subs when necessary. On to the mix!


Hot burrito No.1 by the Flying Burrito Brothers: This song has stuck with me since I first heard it, and it's the current top of the list when I sit down to play music. The "Hot Burrito" pair (because of course there's a Hot Burrito No.2) are to my mind, the most stand-out Burrito tracks. Interestingly enough these are the only two songs on "Gilded Palace of Sin" that Gram Parsons wrote in collaboration with bass player Chris Etheridge, and this makes me want to seek out everything that Etheridge did afterwards cause these are incredibly sophisticated tracks which that show not only a different understanding of how to write great country but also serve to tease out the greatest vocal performance from Gram.

Buster Keaton by Curtis Eller: From the self proclaimed "New York's angriest yodeling banjo player". Where "Buster Keaton" really shows Curtis' luddite tendencies, pining for the days when all this technology didn't overwhelm us and cheapen our lives, which amuses me as I've only ever seen this guy on THE INTERNET. This nuanced duality is something I feel strongly as well, and I do a version of Buster Keaton when I'm hanging out, but it's even more stripped down and ah-kward, and not anywhere near as good. (I included "Sugar in my Coffin" in the mixtape, as they didn't have a copy of Buster Keaton. His back up singers make this track (and most of the album, for that matter)

Lone Pine Hill by Justin Townes Earle: This one gets to cover a few bases at once. Steve Earle's son, named after Townes Van Zandt, playing a song about a mining company devastating a man's home. This track sticks out a bit from the album, which has more to do with straight forward "classic country" than the dark folksy stuff  and political rants his namesake and father are know for.

Sam Stone by John Prine: Prine is no where near as popular as he should be. 'Course, with lyrics like "there's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes" I imagine it's hard to fit into the top 40. This track shows a kind of story telling that I'd love to get to. Heart breaking and kinda of humorous and appalling all at once. That's pretty typical for what I know about Prine. For a kick, search Youtube for Johnny Cash's version of this song.

Provoking your Care by Jake La Botz  La Botz is Hillbilly Cash, Haggard, and a sprig of Dylan mixed up in the glass pack of a rat rod. I did a painting night at a local bar when he was playing, and he was very interested in appreciative of me painting while he was playing. He even traded me his CD for one of my paintings, and I've been tracking it ever since. Provoking Your Care is a little like six minutes of Godot's "Speech from Lucky" set to AA BB rhyming. He's an interesting dude, with a seemingly bottomless well of musical and acting talent. I understand he had a supporting role in the latest RAMBO movie. (Sadly the mixtape didn't have this track, so I inserted another one from him, which, as good as it is, gets no where near to how gonzo great this track is.)

Helplessly Hoping by Crosby Stills Nash & Young  It's good to go back to the classics. And, for a guy trying to learn how to sing harmony, I could do worse than study CSN&Y. Strangely enough, I have recently come to really like the poetical alliteration in this song. It always felt a bit like posturing, but their vocals really sell them so well, that I can't wait for one of my kids to look up from their homework and ask me "Dad, What's  'alliteration'?"....Heh. Let me go get my CD's.

When Water Comes to Life and No One Said This Would be Easy by Cloud Cult. I totally cheated here at the end and put two songs from the same album. For a guy who's main diet is folk and country, I LOVE me some Cloud Cult. It's impossible to dislike them, really. As a totally jaded a-hole, I really want to dislike thier sugary kind of universal love and acceptance. I want to snear at them for being so earnest and simple but it's all so fucking honest and lovely and shoots incredible acceptance and caring right in to the center of my heart that I get glowy and want to smile and help strangers with their groceries when I listen to them. These two songs in particular  (off their most recent album, which is the only album I've ever got both digital and hard copies of) are directly inspiring the comic- thing I'm currently working on. I only hope I can get a bit of their integrity and earnestness to wear off on my own work.

Here's the tape:

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I'm not into tagging anyone, so feel free to take it and run, youknowwhoyouare!!

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