We are blueprints in the fire, warming up the winter
casting off our empty shells, baby
who we were is fuel
— from ‘But Not Me’ the above is a live take of a tune that’ll be on ‘Canaries in the Coal Mine’ - a batch of 14 song shaped things out July 25th - presale available on bandcamp in digital vinyl and CD form here ***
This live take with Josh Flowers and Aaron Parks was made at King Electric almost 3 years ago ish? Justin Douglas enginEARing Loose Day Productions video-ing - One Saturday that weekend was spent laying down some foundational tracks and Sunday was spent videoing live takes of this and some other tunes. The album was a long labor of love made piecemeal here and there as I could, juggling dayjob fam life and artistic endeavors. So much has happened between now and when we were playing this version of the tune live. I am not who I was in many ways. Many shells cast off. Seen the end of a long relationship… quit drinking a few summers back - partly for economics, partly for health part for a desire for increased clarity in what seemed to be increasingly unclear times- partly for other reasons. It’s been a good shift - maybe not an indelibly permanent one but it has been beneficial til now and may be so for a while yet?
——————-
Second tidbit for this missive is a rendition of a favorite tune I noodled on this morning - Alice in Wonderland - I love this melody. It was etched in my DNA early on- back in Boerne TX in the wayback, there was an elementary production of Alice in Wonderland - I was in third grade and somehow cast as the white rabbit. I recall having the whole play /musical memorized and mouthing everyones lines as they were said. Mrs. Bowman (who once got so frustrated with us she yelled and threw chalk up in the air so hard it bounced off the ceiling of the portable and landed back on her purplish tinged white hair) - and Mrs. Peterson (who later taught my mom how to play the harp after her aneurism when I was in high school), bravely led the charge… a few dozen third graders decked out for their parents benefit, paraded out in outfits as cards caterpillars or other characters made up and caked up to the max - some confused some invested but all in a day before cell phones in an era lost as the 2 pound bowtie I wore.
that’s me in the ears and my dads flight suit (collage from another time there) - somehow the names of the other kids in the pic aren’t forgotten- Benjamin Arcuni - Sean Aucoin, Jacqueline Carragher and the card behind my left ear was Jeremiah Bowman (no relation to the teacher) - these days I make most of my living as an elementary music teacher. That was not foreseen. But it is mostly a good thing, never boring and admittedly better than building bombs or making paper towel dispensers, which I suppose some multiverse versions of myself may be busily doing. And the job is no stranger than synchronized swimming though both could contain laps(e) in reason given the state of education these days.
Here’s a loose pass through the tune - I probably love Bill Evans’ version of it most and used to sit at a piano he apocryphally and supposedly wrote his tune ‘Very Early’ on at the Lousiana school he got his undergrad at when I was attending there. Bill Evans was a giant
I love and cover Tom Waits’ tune ‘Alice’ as well which is a beauty of a tune and album but won’t include my take of that here but rather end with one last reminder that you can pick up and preorder the new album by clicking here at bandcamp woo ***
Release show will be at QUACKS/ SOUNDSPACE and feature a trio with Aaron Parks and James Suter - Josh Flowers slayed on my album but recently picked up the bass chair for Carolyn Wonderland and is off for adventures with that crew (I’m STOKED! for him he is awesome)- SOME SAY LELAND (Dan Grissom and Lindsey Verrill’s badass dark chamber folk machine) shares the bill-
July 26 - tickets here
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1450630016429?aff=oddtdtcreator
If you’ve read this far YO! thanks - share like subscribe presave prepurchase the album come to a release show hug yer peeps make art not war
peace and love
Wilson
