Like Deer Tick, Francis is an insanely-talented young singer-songwriter (albeit with slightly less buzz). Hailing from Los Angeles, he sounds nothing like his surroundings. Actually, he doesn’t even sound like he’s from this century.
His music exudes both innocence and angst, hope and despair. His debut One By One is an earnest, introspective, timeless folk record that will undoubtedly be cherished by those lucky enough to stumble upon it.
His debut album, One By One on Aeronaut Records came out last August. It’s playing in my iTunes at this moment. Francis has a haunting, floating on the wind sound.
Categorizing his own music as “a small monsoon of emotion,” the Brentwood, Calif. native who, as a young boy, would sneak into clubs to watch his sisters perform, recorded One by One in a friend’s living room and on the second floor of his parents’ house. At eight years old, Robert Francis was invited up on the stage at The Mint Club in L.A. to perform with actor Harry Dean Stanton and singer Chaka Kahn. Ry Cooder, number eight on Rolling Stone’s “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” gave Francis a vintage National guitar at age nine. When Francis was 16, John Frusciante, best known as the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, took him on as his only student.
Interestingly, there’s another Robert Francis, a poet, who passed away in 1987.
Here’s an idea…let’s change the “American Way of Life” for the better.
According to Wikipedia, the concept of clean coal is said to be a solution to climate change and global warming by coal industry groups, while environmental groups believe it is greenwash. Greenpeace is a major opponent of the concept because emissions and wastes are not avoided, but are transferred from one waste stream to another.
As for the ad itself, the argument is built on fear and that’s not what we need to move forward as a nation. Does fear motivate? Certainly, but it’s an unethical tactic. Why not tout the strengths of coal industry’s claims? Why not convince people with irrefutable facts? I’m inclined to believe the coal industry doesn’t have those facts. If they did their ad agency would have mined them.
A good friend described his time in Chile like this: California 100 years ago. That is, it’s uncrowded and it’s natural beauty is unspoiled. I’ve wanted to go for an extended visit ever since.
Now, I’m reading Yvon Chouinard’s classic business book, Let My People Go Surfing. In it, he mentions that his good friend and fellow adventurer Doug Tompkins married former Patagonia CEO Kris McDivitt and moved to Chile, where the couple is using their money to buy up vast stretches of wild land in effort to create national parks. That piqued my curiosity, so I Googled them to learn more.
Over the past decade and a half, the Tompkinses have spent about $150 million to buy two dozen properties covering 2.2 million acres of Chile and Argentina, in what collectively amounts to the world’s largest privately run land conservation project.
At stake throughout the region is a historic opportunity much like the North American West in the 19th century — an underpopulated vastness of prairie, glacier-capped mountains and majestic forests that can still be grabbed by anyone with money and ambition.
“In the States, we can only protect small areas, but here, for $10 million you can buy a million-acre ranch,” said Chouinard, chairman of Patagonia Inc., who purchased 8,000 acres next to Valle Chacabuco and has donated funds to the park project. “There are tons of opportunities for creating parks, and now is the time,” Chouinard said. “Everything’s for sale. Sheep ranching is finished.”
The Tompkinses are among the most prominent individual donors to ecological and anti-globalization groups. Last year, two Sausalito foundations that they fund and control — Foundation for Deep Ecology and Conservation Land Trust — spent $15.7 million on conservation projects and grants to environmental and anti-free-trade groups.
Ken Brociner, writing in In These Times, claims an Obama presidency would look a little too much like Bill Clinton’s to please progressives.
The Democratic presidential candidate who can most help progressives bring our vision of transformative change into sharper focus is a man who ran for president 36 years ago. By looking back to the unfulfilled promise of George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, we can learn some valuable lessons for the long journey ahead.
For starters, we can see what a genuinely transformative political program looks like. McGovern’s platform was nothing less than visionary. In fact, McGovern was the most progressive major party candidate for president in American history.
In 1972 McGovern ran on a platform that not only called for an immediate end to U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam (on Inauguration Day!), the senator from South Dakota also proposed an “alternative military budget†that included deep cuts in military spending – with the bulk of the savings going toward efforts to end poverty and fund programs that would guarantee a decent paying job to every American who wanted to work.
Nixon also handed McGovern his backside. Maybe Obama is a more practical candidate. Clinton, as we know now, was too practical. His desire to win at all costs pushed the Dems too far to the right, a move the party is still struggling to come to grips with.
Hillary’s offering keeps the Dems in the middle. Obama moves them to the left and the nation with it. But not far enough left too motivate transformative change. When you look at the world today, could it be any clearer that transformative change is exactly what’s needed, and quick? Perhaps, Obama intends to pull a “W”. Maybe once elected, he will let his more radical self out to play.
Aubrey Sabala is “everything your mother warned you about and more–he girl next door who puts into words all that you’re thinking but are afraid to say.”
Witness:
Aubs, who works at Digg, is attending Sasquatch Festival at The Gorge this weekend. Okkervil River played their love-inducing festival set yesterday.
Andrea Myers at City Pages doesn’t care for the new Mason Jennings album, In The Ever. But Seattle blog Sound on the Sound answers any and all critics with, “Mason Jennings doesn’t play music to be cool. He plays because he has something to say.”
I’ve never listened to his music until now, so my experience of In The Ever is totally fresh.
Coming off his 2006 major-label effort, Boneclouds, Jennings decided to retreat to a studio in the woods, where he set himself up with a laptop and two microphones. The title comes from his son talking about where he came from before he was born, “Ya know dad, when I was in the Ever?”
“It was pretty raw, but fun, because that’s how I grew up working,” says Jennings about the recording process for In the Ever. “I wanted to do it quickly in a childlike way. I’d write songs in the morning, record them in the afternoon and finish them up by night.”
I tend to like my folk a little rougher around the edges, but I’ve been listening to this record over and over in my truck. It’s habit forming, and that’s lofty territory for any artist.
I’m interested in what a writer can do with Twitter, the micro-blogging service that only allows 140 characters per post. I’ve seen a few people use it for posting short poems. Last weekend I decided to see what might be done in prose.
Emerging from the 19th hole, our heroes head straight for their lap dances. “Here’s to Saturday night in America,” says a happy Hassler.
I don’t know that I’ll stick with it. But it seems to me there’s the possibility here for a new literary form. However, there are some issues to think through. One, the posts won’t be read in sequence (in fact, I flipped the order above so they would be in sequence). To me, this means each post has to stand alone; yet add value to the whole. I’m thinking there might be 200 or more narrative bursts in any one story, and that ideally they could all be reshuffled like magnetic poetry.
[UPDATE 6/23/08] I picked up the narrative thread on a Twitter page dedicated to this story.
I listened to the intoxicating music of Jon Swift for the first time this morning. To the 11 songs on his 2003 release Coming & Going.
On CD Baby the album is decribed as, “delicately orchestrated compositions of guitar, bass, percussion, harmonica and piano stemming from bare, lyrically driven spirituals disguised as folk songs.”
Like Jack Johnson, Swift is a surfer living in Hawaii who plays acoustic guitar and writes his own material. The Google doesn’t have a lot of info on him, he’s made zero blog posts on MySpace and his site is “under construction.” So, let’s just listen to his music, shall we?
B Getz of Jambase was where I wasn’t, catching the sickest of the sick. Reading his account is actually painful to me, in a longing kind of way.
It is hard to believe that it has been five years since the mammoth Gov’t Mule “Deepest End” concert at Jazz Fest 2003, and it has become an annual Mule celebration of sorts when the boys hit Jazz Fest. This year saw numerous guests join the band on both Friday and Saturday nights at the Contemporary Arts Center. Mike Gordon teamed up with Particle’s Steve Molitz for a huge “Loser” > Terrapin Station Jam > Loser” sandwich during Friday’s second set. Umphrey’s Jake Cinninger got a head start on his own late night festivities by joining in on “Dear Prudence.” New Orleans got in on the fun when the Dirty Dozen Brass Band appeared, as did Henry Butler and Roosevelt Collier. Opener Grace Potter helped on covers of Ike & Tina’s “Nutbush City Limits” and Zep’s “Whole Lotta Love.” Walter ‘Wolfman’ Washington, Ivan Neville and Papa Mali got in on the act, too, and Cyril Neville closed out the numerous sit-ins on night one.
The second night of the Mule was just as electrifying, as the parade of guests and stellar playing continued. George Porter Jr. and Ivan Neville joined the band for several songs including “Fortunate Son.” Owen Biddle and Capt. Kirk Douglas of the legendary Roots crew, fresh off their blistering Fairgrounds performance (with Ludacris!), got their Zeppelin on with “When the Levee Breaks” (a poignant song choice in these parts). Sonny Landreth, Eric McFadden and Grace Potter got involved as well. The second set on Saturday night was one of those legendary NOLA Mule sets, beginning with “Africa” featuring Cyrille and Ivan Neville, Eric Krasno and Stanton Moore. Henry Butler, as well as Kofi Burbridge, amongst others, also made their way into the Mule stew. Appropriately, it was the core four Mule brethren onstage for the final number, the quintessential “Soulshine.” Not enough can ever be said for the beauty, integrity and sheer eloquence that Warren Haynes, Danny Louis, Andy Hess and Matt Abts bring to a NOLA stage.
Thankfully, both nights are available on Mule Tracks. Check out the set list from night one:
DISC ONE:
1. Smokestack Lightning w/ John Butler
2. Wandering Child
3. Dear Prudence w/ Jake Cinninger
4. That’s What Love Will Make You Do w/ Henry Butler & Rosevelt Collier
5. Perfect Shelter
6. Spanish Moon w/ Dirty Dozen Brass Band & DJ Logic
7. Death Don’t Have No Mercy w/ Dirty Dozen Brass Band & DJ Logic
8. Brighter Days
DISC TWO:
1. Child of The Earth
2. Grinnin’ In Your Face w/ Ruthie Foster
3. Million Miles From Yesterday w/ Ruthie Foster
4. Nutbush City Limits w/ Grace Potter & Scott Tournet
5. Whole Lotta Love w/ Grace Potter & Scott Tournet
6. Ain’t No Love In The Heart of The City w/ Walter Wolfman Washington
7. Streamline Woman
8. Brand New Angel
9. Loser> w/ Mike Gordon & Steve Molitz
10. Terrapin Station Jam> w/ Mike Gordon & Steve Molitz
11. Loser w/ Mike Gordon & Steve Molitz
12. I’m A Ram
DISC THREE:
1. Unblow Your Horn/Reblow Your Mind w/ Cyril Neville
2. I Walk on Guilded Splinters w/ Papa Mali, Ian Neville & Cyril Neville
3. Fortune Teller w/ Cyril Neville & Papa Mali
4. Larger Than Life
5. Sco-Mule w/ Tim Greene
6. Guilded Intro> w/ Tim Greene
7. Mule w/ Tim Greene
I love writing that gets inside a place, whatever place that might be. In today’s Sunday Styles section, New York Times writer Lynn Harris gets inside Park Slope, the fast-changing Brooklyn neighborhood that’s become a point of derision for some.
When I moved to the neighborhood in 1994, I promise you, Manhattanites did not think about Park Slope any longer than it took them to blow off a party invitation. But today, you mention Park Slope on a blog or even in conversation and, especially if the reference involves the word “stroller,†the haters lunge like sharks at chum.
“Park Slope is a perfect storm of stereotypes that provoke derision,†said Steven Johnson, a local writer and a father of three. “Since Park Slope is the neighborhood most explicitly associated with urban parenting, it attracts the wrath of people who think parents have gone way overboard.”
How did it come to this? Most of the above could be said of just about any other neighborhood in our tidied-up, child-rearing-friendly New York City. Doesn’t the East Village have a Whole Foods? Hasn’t the Upper West Side become Short Hills?
How did Slope Rage become a meme unto itself, even among people who won’t take the F train below East Broadway?
Near the end of the article, Harris lets Jose Sanchez, chairman of urban studies at Long Island University, Brooklyn explains the tension. “There’s the feeling that yuppies in Park Slope are washing away Brooklyn’s grittiness and making it more like Manhattan. Brooklyn was supposed to be different. Park Slope, to some, now represents everything that Brooklyn was not supposed to be.â€
