Autumn Souvenir

I'm guessing it was 1995 or so when my older brother and I hopped into my Mazda 626 and drove down to Asbury Park and Freehold, New Jersey just to see where it all went down. We drove by a number of guitar shops and wondered if any of them once housed that Japanese guitar. We parked outside the Stone Pony. As the hours passed, we just kept driving around. It all felt like Born To Run and Darkness . As track three on the latter came pouring through the tape deck, my brother pointed to the street sign. As Bruce sang, "Well, I'm riding down Kingsley, figuring I'll get a drink. Well, I turned the radio up loud, so I don't have to think." We were on Kingsley. And boy did we turn that radio up loud. After years of rumors and false starts, on November 16th, Columbia will release the three-CD / three-DVD set The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story . In addition to a fully remastered Darkness , the set includes 21 unreleased tracks, as well as the DVDs The Promise : Th...

In an effort to consolidate all my stuff in one spot, I will soon be closing my Flickr and Etsy accounts. Having multiple sites floating around all over the web is not only tedious, but useless. In the coming weeks, or perhaps months, this site will be the place for everything: writings, blog, photography, C/V, nudity, and everything else I'm working on. I will keep my reader posted. Should look pretty nice. If you've been thinking about picking up a photo or two via my Etsy shop, I'd pull the trigger soon. I'll give at least a few days warning before it goes down.

Woody Guthrie: A Life by Joe Klein, Biography, 1980 : 7.9

Over the course of the next 100 days, I will be posting my, well, 100 favorite songs. I will post one song per day. I may need new servers given the anticipated global response.

The rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night And the magic rat drove his sleek machine over the jersey state line Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain The rat pulls into town, rolls up his pants Together they take a stab at romance and disappear down Flamingo Lane Those six lines likely represent my earliest childhood memory. Then came the kids flashing their guitars just like switchblades, the hungry and the hunted, the bedroom locked and those tunnels uptown. Tonight I was on the nightly jaunt up to Alamo Square Park when "Jungleland" came on the iPod. This song's essentially responsible for everything that's followed in me: rock n' roll, film, photography, spirit, Americana. I can clearly recall the pianos, vocals, guitars, drums and fury bouncing off the walls of a house that often felt cold as ice. But not when Born To Run made its way onto the stereo, not in my head and not in endless romances tha...

For the past few weeks I've been scouring my iPhoto library for images I may have missed. In the past, whenever I uploaded a new collection of photos, I often just quickly grabbed the good ones and dropped them into Flickr . However, having spent a little time perusing the past, I've noticed that I'd often pass over some fairly decent shots. Most of them just need a little doctoring and the result is slightly superior to Eggleston. Over the course of the next few weeks, I plan on going through every single photo, which, as of today totals 13,782. There would be more if Bennett hadn't mistaken my USB chord for a piece of awesome parm. Nonetheless, a new chord is in transit and more photos should appear soon. In the meantime, look for the "Recovery Project" folder within my Flickr account for this groundbreaking work. Finally, some of these photos will find their way into my Etsy Store , which has seen a few updates in the past week. Note that, for a limited tim...

Unlike Steve Earle, if Bob Dylan invited me into his kitchen, which I anticipate happening soon, I likely would not stand on his coffee table and declare Townes Van Zandt the greatest songwriter to ever live. Despite my love for Townes, I'm not sure anyone can touch Dylan in terms of words to music. Praise to Bob aside, Townes Van Zandt has a place alongside songwriters such as Richard Buckner, Nick Drake, Kenny Roby, Scott Miller and Brent Best, in a community of songwriters who never got/get their due. Despite a bit of a cult following, whenever folks mention Townes, they usually point to either the collection High, Low and In Between/The Late Great Townes Van Zandt or the live set Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas . Rarely do I hear mention of his individual releases, but the four records Townes released from 1968-1971 (almost directly in line with Drake's three masterpieces), have been grossly ignored. Thankfully, Fat Possum Records, home to R.L. Burnside and Junior ...

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I'm still making my way through Joe Klein's Woody Guthrie: A Life . I can't recall the last time it took me this long to finish a book, but I'm determined to get through it. Just read a few outstanding New Years Resolutions that Woody sent to his girlfriend in 1943. Here's my favorite: "Wash Teeth If Any"