Coverage - a few wordless versions of songs I love
Don't Talk and Freight Train -and some news
I really love learning tunes and seeing what different shapes they can be poured into - where an arrangement might go. How I might be able to approach it or funnel it through the fingers- Sometimes I think the strength of both a melody/composition and a performer can be to see how many different hats or outfits the same song can wear and still be recognizable for what it is. Change the meter - the key - the style / the mode / shift from major or minor or vice versa. How pliable are you - your ears - It can be a fun exercise at any rate and done in utmost respect for the coiners of the tunes. I’m gonna include two recent covers from the Monks show with Aaron Parks and Josh Flowers below which are slanted takes on some favorite tunes.
Don’t Talk Put Your Head on My Shoulder - I love this Brian Wilson tune - it kinda guts me like a lot of his stuff. I botched the melody at the beginning of the head but you can ‘really hear what i was goin for there’ anyway - heh - the loopy outro was fun and the 8-bit grit at the end is the earthquaker bit commander which is the pedal I have to be careful not to press at my church gig because it would surely either give someone a heart attack and or lose me the regular gig there heh- I love what Josh and Aaron do on this and really just playing with them in general.
The next tune is the Elizabeth Cotton tune Freight Train - I first heard this song when I was 18 and left Texas to travel with a guitar and live in an attic in a houseful of hippies in Asheville NC for a spell. There were squirrels there too. I saw a band play this song at a club there and was smitten by the melody and sentiment from the get go. I love trains - it’s also a killer tune. This arrangement is in CGDGCE which is way fun and worth exploring if yer a guitar player- and something I’ve been pouring through the fingers for a while and may record proper some day - this was the first time we played it out. I need to practice it more but here it is warts and all :
Summer has landed and with the lightening of my teaching gig I’m between brief stints hangin with friends at the Kerrville Folk Festival and switching gears for other camp/teaching/work/travels and prepping for the July 26th album release I’ll be yammering on more about soon. Please subscribe or share this if you dig and save the date for the album release show at QUACKS on 7-26 in South Austin if that’s in yer hood. Or August 30 in San Antonio at the Lonesome Rose if that’s in yer hood. Next post here will likely have more 411 on the record and yada - my webstore has my pun book and last record if so inclined I’ve got more irons in the fire and every bit helps them get closer to fruition. 2020’s True Beauty is in the Random Vinyl Record and the pun/lyric books alike are 10 bucks apiece plus shipping or name your price following link here https://wilsonmarks.bandcamp.com/merch
What I’ve been reading: David Toop - Ocean of Sound- the poetry of James Tate -
What I’ve been listening to: Art Feynman ‘be good crazy boys’ - the new Little Mazarn jams - Rautavaara!!! wow his manhattan trilogy and cantus arcticus
What I’ve been watching: the news in horror. also just finished Last of Us with Sparrow - and saw Sinners which was a delightful mash of Oh brother where art thou and from dusk til dawn and sent me down a Sonny Boy Williamson I / II rabbithole
OK that’s all for now - Take care be well hug and love on yer peeps
Wilson