I wonder if trees have memories, if rocks and mountains record life as it passes them by? I wonder if the stones and the mud and the dust and the flowers, if the eagles and the vultures remember us? I wonder if some nameless face in a gas station ever thinks about that woman who […]
MoreSince I spent a day on the road in my memories, driving through the mid west in a broke-down camper, with my family intact, and still some bones of a dream unbroken, there is nothing else to play the night out. Rhiannon Giddens is the founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, one of the most […]
MoreWe stayed at the motel that night, and the night after. I slept through the night, curled next to Billy, the kids sharing a bed, got up, had another shower. And another. And another. I turned on the TV and put up with the glares and watched travel channel mindlessness, pawn shops, hot rods, Guy […]
MoreI don’t like Tom Waits, I can’t stand Nick Cave unless you get me high enough to tolerate the Birthday Party, I don’t enjoy Mark Lanegan, and I never really fell in love with Rowland S Howard. I will listen to the White Stripes as long as we are on a freeway, but not otherwise, […]
MoreAs you go down from my beloved Medora, it becomes quickly apparent that the painted rocks, the hilly landscape of the little town where Teddy Roosevelt tried to make a success of ranching, is not going to last. This is not Montana with it’s skies and Rocky Mountain passes, and huckleberry bushes, this is not […]
MoreI’m on a real Miles Davis kick right now. I haven’t been so excited about things I haven’t heard before since, well Marquee Moon was heading home for the record store in a white plastic bag with the infinitely talented Tom Verlaine on the front cover looking like Keith Richards junkier brother. I never understood […]
MoreEvening “wellness checks” happen every night, staff basically come round and check that you and everyone else in the shelter are still alive. Whoever is on duty makes sure you are ok, then off they go. I make sure I am still in my day clothes, have a mask handy, and don’t leave them waiting. […]
MoreIn my head Times Square exists in perpetual night. It doesn’t exist otherwise. It just springs into life at 9pm, with its lights and its hurry, and it’s bustle, the faces and the scenes and the dingy cafes and tourist scene hustle. Many years ago, I met Billy there, he was carrying a guitar, I […]
MoreIt always made me uncomfortable how the teeny bopper mags of the late ’60s tried to sell Neil as “Neil the Indian” when allegedly Neil has no native blood at all, a schtick, a pose, a sympathy at best. Magazines like Teen Screen and Teenset generally referred to him as “Neil the Indian”. In The […]
MoreGoing on down the road, Your hand inside my soul Your thoughts in my brain Your gypsy rags on my back Your scars tied in an Old kit bag Nothing is real and Nothing is right Nothing is the same Not even the same old game Of razors on pristine flesh Needles digging new holes […]
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