Tag Archives: Music

Bristlecone

Posted on by Bill Chance

“There is a tree in California, a Great Basin bristlecone pine that was found, after an intensive ring count, to be five thousand and sixty-five years old.

Even to me, that pine seems old. In recent years, whenever I have despaired of my condition and needed to feel a bit more mortal and ordinary, I think of that tree in California. It has been alive since the Pharaohs. It has been alive since the found of Troy. Since the start of the Bronze Age. Since the start of yoga. Since mammoths.

And it has stayed there, calmly in its spot, growing slowly, producing leaves, losing leaves, producing more, as those mammoths became extinct,… the tree had always been the tree.”

― Matt Haig, How to Stop Time

Mural outside of Sandwich Hag, The Cedars, Dallas, Texas

 

Every Day Lost On Which We Have Not Danced

Posted on by Bill Chance

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”
― Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

 

Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas

 

Euphonic Autonomy, Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas

 

Despite the warning sign at the Ervay Theater during the performance by Euphonic Autonomy (and I didn’t hear anything that would warrant such warning) there were two young kids dancing in the dark at the back of the theater. They were having a blast. The low-light capability of modern digital cameras is amazing.

Euphonic Autonomy, Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas

Euphonic Autonomy, Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas

Euphonic Autonomy, Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas

Got Those Deep Ellum Blues

Posted on by Bill Chance

If you go down to Deep Elem
Just to have a little fun,
You’d better have your fifteen dollars
When the policeman come.

Chorus:
Oh, sweet mama, daddy’s got the Deep Elem Blues;
Oh, sweet mama, daddy’s got the Deep Elem Blues.

If you go down to Deep Elem,
Keep your money in your shoes;
The women in Deep Elem
Got those Deep Elem blues.

If you go down to Deep Elem,
Take your money in your pants;
The women in Deep Elem
Never give the men a chance.

Now I once knew a preacher,
Preached the Bible through and through,
He went down into Deep Elem,
Now his preaching days are through.

Now I once had a sweet gal,
Lord, she meant the world to me;
She went down into Deep Elem;
She ain’t what she used to be.

Her papa’s a policeman
And her mama walks the street;
Her papa met her mama
When they both were on the beat.

—-Deep Elm Blues (Deep Ellum Blues), Traditional

Jerry Lee Lewis sings the “Deep Elm Blues“. This was an unissued take made in the Sun Studios (lyrics and audio from wikisource).

Deep Ellum Poster, by Brad Albright, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

I saw this poster hanging on telephone poles in Deep Ellum honoring some of that spot’s musical history:

Bessie Smith, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson

The poster is by Brad Allbright (website, instagram)

I have a piece of original art by him, bought at the Kettle Art Gallery’s For the Love of Kettle event.

Painting #1 – by Brad Allbright

Euphoric Autonomy

Posted on by Bill Chance
“Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

Euphoric Autonomy, Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas

 

Music Used to Come Out of Those Things

Posted on by Bill Chance

“The only truth is music.”
― Jack Kerouac

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

That Which Cannot Be Put Into Words

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
― Victor Hugo

Lee Harvey’s, Dallas, Texas

I Ended Up With A Broken Fiddle

Posted on by Bill Chance

“And I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle—
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.”
― Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology

Fiddler, Denton Texas

We’ll Go Walkin’

Posted on by Bill Chance

We’ll go walkin’ to Tietze Park

—- The O’s, We’ll Go Walking

The O’s, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas

 

It’s Time For Tina

Posted on by Bill Chance

Skipper Jonas Grumby:

Ginger, I’ve got a problem… I’ve got a real problem… Now you’re a girl, right?

Ginger Grant:

Well, if you’re not sure about that, you have got a problem!

—-Gilligan’s Island

time_for_tina

I wrote about a weird radio program, available over the internet, The Retro Cocktail Hour – a few days ago. Today, I received a notice that a new show was up, technically a rebroadcast, and something in the playlist caught my eye. One song was by Tina Louise, recorded in 1957 (the year I was born) – seven years before that fateful three hour cruise. She recorded one album, It’s Time For Tina… and what do you know? She can sing.

This is truly the best of all possible worlds (even if you like Mary Ann better).

Tina Louise singing Embraceable You from her album. If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing – jump up to about 2:33 – That’s the Jazz God Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax.

https://youtu.be/lL9YIpp_rlk

The Retro Cocktail Hour

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Sex and a cocktail: they both lasted about as long, had the same effect, and amounted to about the same thing.”
― D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

The bartender pouring the absinthe, note the clear green color.
Pirate’s Alley Cafe, New Orleans

 

I’m not a very neat, organized person – I live in a constant battle with chaos and increasing entropy. I’m a Marie Kondo failure.

This failure does not only apply to the real world – but to the digital one as well. Still, I try.

I have been cleaning out old computer files, found on a dizzying collection of old hard drives and USB sticks. I try the Marie Kondo test – if it brings joy, I keep it, otherwise I throw it out (delete). I don’t delete much. I do come across a treasure or two, though.

Yesterday I found a reference to a website I had forgotten about that used to bring me joy – and I am glad to find out it is still there and think I’ll visit it some more. This is an old streaming music program, produced from Kansas Public Radio, based in Lawrence, where I went to school. That is surely how I stumbled across the program, though I don’t remember.

It’s called The Retro Cocktail Hour and it features… stuff you don’t hear everyday. Let me see if I can find a description…. Ok… from the Facebook Page:

The Retro Cocktail Hour serves up the music that’s “shaken, not stirred” every Saturday at 7:00pm Central on Kansas Public Radio stations. Pour the Mai Tais and join in for two hours of exotica, crime jazz, bossa nova, Now Sound, space age pop, groovy soundtracks, Bollywood weirdness and other incredibly strange tunes. Hosted by Darrell Brogdon. Visit http://www.retrococktail.org/ to stream shows from our program archive.

Think Mad Men. I love to listen to this stuff. It is so cool and so uncool at the same time. I’m not old enough to remember hearing this stuff but I’m old enough to have heard the echoes.

So make yourself a tray of Martinis and kick back and listen to an archive or two. If you want one to start with, try the All Exotica Show from January 19. From the show – “Exotica is the fantasy music of the South Pacific and the Orient, music of a make-believe Shangri-la, white sand beaches, warm breezes, and tropical libations.”

It doesn’t get any better than that.