Southside Johnny and the LaBamba Big Band

So it appears the Keeper of the Graveyard has been haunting the world of Southside Johnny. You couldn't find a better world to haunt. Anyway along with the LaBamba Big Band, Johnny has released an album of Tom Waits covers. The Keeper himself sings along on "Walk Away."

Apparently Southside Johnny and the LaBamba Big Band are "appearing" at the Nokia Theater in New York City on Friday, October 24th. While the Keeper will not be there in person, his spirit has already his train ticket booked.

Vietnam - Don't Even Turn The Car Off

This Old Clotheshorse likes the sweater, the turned up sleeves, the tall neck. Oh yeah the flowers in the gun barrels too. So I am wondering about the hipster in question and turn to The Keeper of the Graveyard since I know he knows these things.

Turns out the hipster is none other than Joel Tournabene.

"So who's Joel Tournabene, Tom?"

"He's in the concrete biz. Mob guy. He was the grandson of Sam Giancana from Chicago. He did some yard work for me, and I hung out with him most of the time. He died in Mexico about five years ago. He was a good friend of [producer/composer] Hal Wilner, and he was a good guy. He had an errant--I don't know how to put this--he used to go around, and when he saw something he liked in somebody's yard, he would go back that night with a shovel, dig it up and plant it in your yard. We used to get a kick out of that. So I stopped saying, 'I really like that rosebush, I really like that banana tree, I really like that palm.' Because I knew what it meant. He came over once with twelve chickens as a gift. My wife said, 'Joel, don't even turn the car off. Turn that car around and take those chickens back where you found them.' He was a good friend, one of the wildest guys I've ever known."

"How's It Gonna End?"

"...Drag your wagon and your plow

Over the bones of the dead

Out among the roses and the weeds

You can never go back

And the answer is no

And wishing for it only

Makes it bleed

Joel Tornabene was broken

On the wheel..."

Bogart and Bergman Mold Jell-O

So you think about the influence of spouses, how they shape your otherwise shapeless lives, and so you think about Kathleen Brennan, and you wonder as you do about the collaborative process, and it comes out something like this:

Oh! Well, you know, "You wash, I'll dry." It all comes down to making choices and a lot of decisions. You know, are we gonna do a song about our cruise ship, or a meadow, or a brothel, or... just a rhapsody, or is it a parlor song or a work song or a field holler? What is it? The form itself is like a Jell-O mold. It's like doing anything that you would do with someone. "You hold it right there while I hit it," or the other way around. You find a rhythm in the way of working. I trust her opinion above all else. You've gotta have somebody to trust, that knows a lot. She's done a lot of things. I'm Ingrid Bergman and she's Bogart. She's got a pilot's license, and she was gonna be a nun before we got married. I put an end to that. She knows about everything from motorcycle repair to high finance, and she's an excellent pianist. One of the leading authorities on the African violet. She's a lot of strong material. She's like Superwoman, standing there with her cape flapping. It works. We've been at this for some time now. Sometimes you quarrel, and it's the result of irritation, and sometimes it comes out of the ground like a potato and we marvel at it.

Captain Beefheart

The roughest diamond in the mine, his musical inventions are made of bone and mud. Enter the strange matrix of his mind and lose yours. This is indispensable for the serious listener. An expedition into the centre of the earth, this is the high jump record that'll never be beat, it's a merlot reduction sauce. He takes da bait. Dante doing the buck and wing at a Skip James suku jump. Drink once and thirst no more.

Harry Partch Collection Vol 1

The Old Clotheshorse hangs himself out to dry:

The new CDs have been reissued and the sound is excellent. These are an excellent introduction to his whole oeuvre. He’d worked as a migrant worker and had been on the road for half his life, and he was one of those rogue academics who worked outside the matrix. So they feared him and pretended to admire him. Like most innovators, he becomes gravel on the road that most people drive on. So he was the first one through the door and the crowd tramples him. But nobody has done anything like that since. The idea of designing your own instruments, playing them and then designing your own scale, your own system of music. That’s dramatic and particularly for the time that he was doing it. It was rather subversive. It’s always fascinating to hear something being played that doesn’t sound polished or evolved as an instrument. It still sounds a little bit like you’re hitting tractor parts or a dumpster door. Or you’re still in the kitchen, to an extent. The music has that extra texture to it. And then of course he’s very sophisticated and well versed in mythology so it’s got that other side to it.