No more PBR? Good Gawd awmighty. It’s like a tariff on beard oil*, running out of gluten-free kale wraps, or finding out that your mom washed your skinny jeans in hot water.
* Gleefully and shamefully stolen from Steve Frothingham of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.
Apropos of nothing in particular we have this lovely Andy Mann video in which the country around the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve serves as the stage for “San Luis,” by Gregory Alan Isakov.
I stumbled upon this at NPR’s “World Cafe” while clambering down various rabbit holes, hoping to escape the wind.
Back in August Friend of the Blog Carl Duelmann asked: “Do you ever listen to Jason Isbell? He might be too country for you but he is one of the best songwriters I’ve ever heard.”
The Guardian’s David Taylor caught up with the Grammy-winning Nashville musician and former Drive-By Trucker ahead of a gig today in Noo Yawk City and the interview is well worth your time.
Isbell is critical of our current “administration” without being shrill, and he doesn’t waste a lot of thought on the “shut up and sing” crowd. (Just how the hell are you supposed to shut up and sing at the same time, anyway?)
Isbell doesn’t even try, though he does prefer to let his music do the heavy lifting.
Asked if he intended to get political during an upcoming six-night run at the Ryman Auditorium, Isbell replied: “Well, my job is to write songs and if I feel like it is an emergency and I feel like I need to say something political between the songs, then I’ll do that.
“But normally, if it doesn’t rhyme and it doesn’t involve me introducing my band, I’m not gonna say it, because I’m not a standup comedian, I’m not a lecturer and I don’t give TED talks. If there’s not a melody and some rhyme there then you probably won’t hear it from me. But I think the songs speak enough.”
While we’re on the topic of songs that speak enough, FOTB Pat O’B. forwards an NPR note about a music video for John Prine’s song “Summer’s End,” the centerpiece to his latest release, “The Tree of Forgiveness.”
It must take a lot of practice to sing a song like this without bursting into tears.
And boom! That’s it. Summer’s a goner.
I could feel it yesterday. The day was sunny but cool, and nobody would have sneered if I’d started my ride with arm warmers, even knee warmers. The hairy legs might have drawn a few hoots back in the day, but that was … well, back in the day.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla was inspecting the Winter Bunker on behalf of His Excellency, Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment).
Spike the Terrorist Deer has slipped inside the wire a time or two in recent days and The Leader often feels it wise to devise strategy far from the distractions of frontline combat.
Today seemed a day to boil the breakfast early — McCann’s Irish Oatmeal, Twining’s Irish Breakfast tea, and like that there.
Why, yes, funny you should ask, Herself is still a-roving around County Sligo with her younger sister, inspecting waterfalls and poets’ graves, quaffing pints of the black, and shooting iPhone video of a harpist playing “The Foggy Dew,” one of the tunes collected from the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792 by Edward Bunting, a 19-year-old organist from Armagh.
When I was 19 the only Harp I knew came in bottles. You don’t want to know what I was doing with me organ.
Mad Blog Media 