Everything is Free

It's just been over the past year that I've discovered David Dye's "World Cafe" radio show. The first time I was aware of it, he was spinning The Holmes Brothers' version of the Gillian Welch song Everything is Free. The song has gone on to be one of my favorites, winding up on many of my mix cds.

The way I initially heard the song, it conjured up memories of moving west when I was 22, in search of hitting it big once Colorblind James got established in San Francisco. I remembered feeling so driven and so certain of the outcome. I pictured having a lawn-sale trying to get rid of a lot of stuff and raise a little cash. At the end of the day, boom, "everything is free": I'm not gonna take this stuff with me 'cause...I'm outta here. The lyrics "someone hit the big score, they figured it out. Now I'm gonna do it anyway, even if it doesn't pay" represented the burgeoning scene in San Francisco and the idea of going out there in hopes of having the same success as the scene starters. Getting a straight job, playing for tips, that was all part of it.

So now I find out that the general consensus is that the song is about Napster:

Everything is free now
That's what they say
Everything I ever done
Gotta give it away
Someone hit the big score
They figured it out
That we're gonna do it anyway
Even if doesn't pay.'

Perhaps it seems more obvious reading the lyrics, but the soulful interpretation of the Holmes Brothers and where my own head and heart have been at lead me down a different path. That the lyrics don't fully support my reading doesn't bother me...much. Conjuring up the time, place and yearnings of my youth is amazing achievement in a song. A song about Napster, file-sharing, and cheating performers out of royalties, while important, perhaps, is considerably less romantic or emotionally charged.

I know whenever I hear the Holmes Brothers launch into "Everything is Free" I'll go back to the last ten-minutes of my lawn sale, looking at the 1970 Chevy Beauville half-packed and gassed up. And I'll remember heading west thinking, "We're gonna do it anyway. Even if it doesn't pay" but secretly knowing that success was manifest.

Nowadays I've been heard to say "I'm still a dreamer, it's just that the dreams have changed." I'm 47, I've got my family, my home, meaningful work, and my music is constant and prevalent in my life. I made it.

Lalaland: Angel's View, cont.

The songs we initially recorded for the forthcoming 2nd Lalaland CD included Angel’s View, Aroma, Brand New Me, But That’s All Right, Charmed Life, Face to Face, Great Big Heart, My Time Is Who Knows When, On The Line, Road Well Traveled, The Root, Take The Fall, What A Beautiful Day! and What Brings You to Town?

Face to Face got ditched early on and doesn't even have a scratch vocal. It's a pretty awful song. I guess it took recording it to find that out. What Brings You to Town? may or may not appear on the CD. It's a goofy track that more or less pokes fun at the local scene around 1998. The playing is pretty klunky in places and I guess whether or not it gets released depends on the pros outweighing the cons.

Brother Jaffe, who joined the Experience on keyboards after I had left the band, contributes great piano parts on Angel's View and Great Big Heart. G. Elwyn Meixner provides his haunting lapsteel to Angel's View.

And as I mentioned, trombonist Steve Frank lends his big, rich sound to Aroma, Brand New Me, and Take the Fall. I know I'm blowing my own horn but the five minute guitar and 'bone dialogue that brings Aroma to a dramatic finish is right up there with Television's Marquee Moon. While both instruments solo at the same time, the guitar is the external cry for help while the trombone seems to represent the internal conflicted self. At least that's how I hear it. Steve is a genius.

What a Beautiful Day! and But That's All Right will both be presented in their complete live versions and should prove once and for all that Lalaland was a great, if somewhat uneven, band.

Lalaland: Angel's View

In 2006, I'll finally finish mixing the long-shelved 2nd Lalaland CD, tentatively titled "Angel's View". The basic tracks were started back in '98 or '99 with relatively few problems. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, a number of roadblocks went up that eventually resulted in just brushing the whole damn thing aside.

I went back to school to get my degree in music therapy back in '98. I didn't know going into it just how much of my spare time would get diverted into the program. I pushed on to get my degree, get certified and get work as a music therapist. Then we had Roy, then Chuck died, then 9/11. I all but stopped writing songs, barely lifted a finger to get gigs, and the CD was all but forgotten. The small reserve of energy I had left I put into my son and the hospice work I had begun doing.

Although Lalaland is not together anymore, the band members (Gary Skinner, Carl Glitzer, Ken Frank and myself) have each expressed interest in actually having the sophomore effort see the light of day. When I finally began listening to it again, it sounded good to me. The song Angel's View is one of the few factually autobiographical songs, depicting my journey west in November of 1980 with Colorblind James. To date I think it's one of my strongest songs. What a Beautiful Day! was written eons before U2's "Beautiful Day" and is IMHO a hundred times better. Brand New Me is supported by a killer trombone lick and includes one of my favorite middle eights. Even though it's taken so long to get back to work on it, the sound is much more live and loose-sounding than the first CD.

Carl and I have mixed a number of tracks together and Ken has gone out on his own to mix others. Ken's brother Steve, an excellent trombonist and very spontaneous musician, is featured on three tracks: Aroma, Take the Fall and I've Got a Brand New Me. His work on Lalaland's NUDE cd is still the highlight for me.

2006 promises new musical adventures for us all. Ken and I have rejoined with fellow Colorblind James Experience alumnus Jimmy Mac as the Orange Barrels, which promises to be either an artistic peak for us another beautiful flame-out. With a little luck and a little dough Jeff Spevak will have another Lalaland CD to praise...or pan.

Peace and Vision in the New Year,
-PHil

Nature Boy

As a gift to my family last Christmas I recorded an acoustic solo collection of songs under the title "Where or When". Lisa did the graphics which included a cover photo taken by Annie Wells of my son Roy. We got enough positive feedback that we did a follow-up this Christmas.

This year's cd, "Nature Boy", again features graphics by Lisa, a photo of Roy at the beach, and a few of my originals: Phil's Guitar Blues, I'd Rather Be Home With You and Earthbound Train. It also features Roy's first song, "Bemo Bemo", which I've been proud to both record and perform live. Yes, it features the phrase "poopoo-head". Surprised?

If perchance you, dear reader, are interested in getting a copy, just write me and I'll burn you a copy. $2 donation for CDR and shipping is all I'll rip you off for. You can write me at pmarshall@rochester.rr.com.

Thanks,
-PHil

Nature Boy

Blackbird
Phil's Guitar Blues
I Think I Know What You Mean
Little Red Rooster
Suzy Q
If I Only Had A Brain
New Beret
I'd Rather Be Home With You
Nature Boy
September Song
Bemo Bemo

How ' bout we change our name from America to Crackerland?

Bill Clinton became the first American president to be impeached for lying about a blow-job.

Dubya's probably gonna walk for authorizing illegal spying on the American public.

God Bless America

Things to Consider, part I: Camping for Monsters in a Deep Dark Cage, Roy Marshall (12/12/04)

Daniel Tosh

Sue Murphy

Tinariwen “Amassakoul”

Hilliard Ensemble “Motets of Guillaume de Machaut”

Modest Mouse

Bohuslav Martinu

Roy's knock-knock joke #1

-Knock Knock

-Who's there?

-Carrot

-Carrot who?

-Carrot. Aren't you glad I didn't say orange?

Evolution

The big bang was God in a burst of creative madness breaking Him/Herself into infinititessimal fragments, each shard at once a part of God and, because God is perfect, entirely God. Evolution is the process of God restoring the whole from the fragmented with each holy piece returning to its rightful place. This is what men like Jesus, entirely awake and universally aware, understood.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within each of us. Pulling together is the act of evolution.

Between waking and sleeping

You make me remember the joy of youth. The endless possibilities and the chance to 'get it right'.

From birth we are launched on a trajectory, hurtling across the years and leaving behind a trail of regrets and misgivings as well as milestones and accomplishments.

But there is an ache inside me that at this stage of the game, I didn't get it right and that I'm looking for a second chance, a redo, a start-over.

O, midlife crisis, is that you visiting me and making me feel regret or shame for the choices I've made? I've got what so many men my age want: a home, a family, a job. Where does this feeling come from that this isn't right, or isn't enough, or that I deserve more?

But sweet Creativity, aren't you all I've wanted and pursued from the start? Perhaps you are reminding me that the puruit is not over. Creativity is not the private domain of youth.

Wake up. Move. Create. Rest.

The Burning Flower

Everything said or done for whatever intention either nourishes or harms, benefits or destroys. Our words and actions radiate from us and they are either rays of light or they are poison arrows. We are in a constant state of causing. Because we are, we cause. And regardless of the intentions of our causality, the effects are instantaneous. It is those effects that interpret the true positive or negative nature of our actions.

In responding to a situation that was perceived as warm, beautiful and worthy of nourishing, I did what I thought was an act of watering or feeding that situation. The words and actions, however, acted as an acid which destroyed the warm beautiful almost immediately. And as I watch it disintegrate, my response is "Wait! My intention was only to nourish!" and finally an agonized "My God! What have I done!"
I could not have known that what I thought was water (my words and actions) was in fact like acid.

The situation is gone, destroyed, and the players recoil in opposite directions with their wounds to dress.

Love should never make us suffer. But it does.