be poetic

T-Model Ford and GravelRoad, Taledragger
Sam Shepherd, Cruising Paradise
The Decemberists. The King is Dead
Violent Femmes, Why Do Birds Sing?
Carmaig DeForest, El Camino Real
Camper Van Beethoven, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
Jonathan Richman, Jonathan Richman
The Psychedelic Furs, The Psychedelic Furs

This was in the days when you could stil mail-order wild baby animals from ads in the back of hunting and fishing magazines like Field and Stream. You sent away for them with your check or money order, and a month or so later they'd arrive, snarling and spitting in a wooden crate, down at the train depot.

-Sam Shepard, "Wild to the Wild"

I like that Shepard's 1996 collection of stories is fully titled "Cruising Paradise - Tales by Sam Shepard." Who does "tales" anymore? And then I just realized that the new T-Model Ford record right now snarling at me like its own wild animal loosed from a train depot crate is "Taledragger." I got my eye out for your tale. I don't know how "finished" the tales are in Cruising Paradise, but they are all right at four pages which is the perfect length to make people and make them do something and then back away and let them do it in the white space at the bottom of the last page.

The new Decemberists' record is shining bright upon my barren fields; maybe after all this close Violent Femmes contact lately I'm more inclined to the rascally "jangle" music of my formative years than normal. Gangly mandolin starry-eyed reluctant Americana was the deal in 1986, just a rattle throb of punk rock's passing freight. You felt those guys had just discovered Jack Kerouac too, and you and I and they all had the same baggy paisley shirt and little round sunglasses and the floppiest of bangs you were allowed, your head a mushroom in outline and content, grown in the dark, eating the dead, a little penis sprouting overnight from the forest floor. It made you be poetic and I suppose it still does.


The Decemberists, "Rox in the Box." They are playing that first Sunday at JazzFest, whose lineup has been revealed.

"American Music" is a thesis statement to which, I believe, Gano and Ramblers provided indisputable evidence the other night and really the song on Why Do Birds Sing? and their take on "Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me?" is pained and gorgeous, but I love the shit out of


Violent Femmes, "(Crawl) Out the Window." The shit, I tell you. I'd tell you all about Carmaig DeForest but Blogger is acting like it can't handle all this already, so you can fill in the blanks if you like them filled.

Nerd note: I appreciate that, all of a sudden, the YouTube embed code is uses IFrame tags instead of embed tags; it puts the ball in their court.

Get better, Traci Jean!