The Submarines. 1940 Amplive Remix.

I lived in the coast mountains of Northern California for a minute last fall.  Tucked up under the redwoods the magic that happened there is far too surreal for words.  Which is why me and most my spirit fam from up there speak in songs to one another.  I heard this today and it reminded me so, so much of them.  Harmony and hearts and belief in spirit and especially dance and laughter.  This one's for them.

Gravity Rides Everything

I love this song so much.  Erika and I start our writing exchange again on Tuesday, I write with confidence that this is the final draft of my book, finally, that we are to begin.  This song feels prophetic, as it plays in the coffee shop as I ready to write.  Not in the cliff-jump big illustrious way, but the subtle soft flow of opening.  As it goes...

Homesick. Atomic Books.

Dada's Pics is changing, bc I need a place other than my non-fiction blog to put the little whimsies that are the source of all my musings.

Like this, reprinted from the Atomic Books blog.  It makes me miss the days of teaching poetry to gangbanger federal inmates.  Getting love notes from them pasted together by deodorant glue.  It makes the grit and edge inside me lonely and long for riot grrrl boots and pink hair.  For back then, back home...

We sometimes get odd and interesting letters sent to us at Atomic Books. It isn't always easy to determine the intent of the sender. But we thought it might be interesting to share these letters from time to time.

This letter was sent to us from an inmate at the Maryland Correctional Facility in Hagerstown, MD.

This Is Not An Idle Threat
by Jed P. 

I'm going to hunt down,
I'm going to find and kill William Blake.
He had no right
To do like he done to me -
But he'll get his due.

And if that Byron happens to be there,
I'm gonna take out that son of a bitch too.

After that I'm heading straight
For you Rimbaud
You know that you were dead wrong
To be messing around with my baby girl.
I'll never understand,
I'll never see what she was doing
With a cocksucker like you!

On and I'm finally going to get back
The money that Walt Whitman owes me.
He'll pay that seven twenty-five, 
He'll pay one way or the other,
After I'm through.

And if that Byron happens to be there, 
I'm gonna take out that son of a bitch too.

The New York Sessions, 1967. Van Morrison.

This morning I was in the mood for "backroom" music.  Low, guitar blues, folksy, smokey lyrics.  The late night after the party just a couple people drinking whiskey in the backroom music.  Van Morrison popped in my head, I searched Spotify, found the New York 1967 Sessions, chose it because the name reminded me of the Band (Basement Sessions) which produced some great, dirty backroom material.

I could not have guessed better.  What an album.  Give the whole thing a listen, I am on listen number two right now and luxuriously feeling the way music pulls it all out when sometimes your words just wont...

This is Beside You.  Poetry.

Gift Horse

O man do I like this band.  Lately a lot of the music I like is coming out of Georgia...maybe I'm late calling the trend?

Anyhow I wont even pretend, the whole reason I love Gift Horse is because they spark that same sizzly feeling in me that grunge first did.  Listen, same distorted guitar and Cobain-wailing grit.  So they stole it, that was 1992: 20 years calls for a resurgence...these days anyway.  And they toured with the Meat Puppets so someone in the biz thinks they're legit.

Here's Missionaries of off their first full length, 2010's Mountain of Youth.

Rat vs Possum

First, it's been way too long since I've used this forum. Second, I am such a music junkie lately, I feel like I'm in the ocean for the first time and every single song hits like a wave, slow or humongo or gentle or whatever, no matter the ocean never stops. Third. My ipod's the shit.

This is Rat vs Possum, off their Daughters of Sunshine 2010 release. Maybe their only effort so far? Australian indy. This song always makes me happy to be driving.  Check out their site, every song is unique and repeatable.

More Important than R&R: Music. Erick Sermon.

Sometimes I forget the power of poetry-me, and how she needs to breathe.

Whether it's writing or dancing, it comes from the same thing and the answer is always the same...

This is Erick Sermon's Music, one of the best celebrations of muse-ic there is...