True life.
I’m influenced by the records that influenced [my peers]. I know that if it were not for Jim James I probably wouldn’t be listening to Marvin Gaye as much as I am now. I’ve always loved his famous songs, but Jim James has inspired me to dig a little deeper. There is a lot to be found… If [my record] sounds like the Beatles, it’s probably because for the last 15 years I’ve been listening to all the people who influenced them. People like Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry and Little Richard and the Everly Brothers. I am very influenced by the people who influenced my influences, and I am influenced even more by the people who influenced them.
Etta James, “All I Could Do Was Cry,” off At Last!
R.I.P. to one of the greats.
NYTimes: Etta James, Powerful Voice Behind ‘At Last,’ Dies at 73
Dig this album cover. What are some of your faves?
LEO CUYPERS ‘IN AMSTERDAM’ (1979) Cover drawing/design by Jeroen Henneman. This cover was created by Dutch artist Jeroen Henneman, who’s work is normally sculptural. The concept of this sleeve is so great. The illustrative style reminds me of the French illustrator Pierre Le-Tan, which is what attracted me to it. I’d love to commission Le-Tan for a record sleeve one of these days.
For all its apolitical, joyful, empty headed zaniness and experimentation, Community is a passionately humanitarian show. Its only religious and political point of view is that all people are good people, and while we often play the roles of villains and stereotypes to each other, it is always an illusion, shattered quickly by the briefest moment of honest connection.
I had two shows that week in Los Angeles. Two people showed up to the first one: an old woman in a wheelchair and her husband. They had come to the club to eat chicken quesadillas for dinner. I played 10 songs for them with my eyes closed. When I was done, I packed up my guitar and walked a mile back to my hotel room in the neon lit darkness on Sunset Blvd. I stopped for a bag of powdered donuts at the Rite Aid and ate them on the bed with the TV flickering. I drank sink water from a styrofoam cup. The next afternoon I wrote Days Like This while still in my underwear and sang it for the first time the following night to a packed house at the same club. I had a line of people waiting to talk to me after that show. It was September of 2008. —kt
Hey All. I’m raising money to make a new record through Kickstarter, and this is the video that me and my pal Troy Stains put together for it. We laughed very hard and In think you will too. Please watch, pledge, and spread. Even $10 makes a big difference, so go for it! #sponsorasong
#Bros
The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it’s very brightly colored, and it’s very loud, and it’s fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, “Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?” And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, “Hey, don’t worry; don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.” And we … kill those people. “Shut him up! I’ve got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real.” It’s just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn’t matter, because it’s just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.
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