Long Live Summer
I’m so happy that summer is here. I have enjoyed every second of the heat wave. You absolutely will not see me complain about it. I love to sweat. I love climbing into a car and feeling the trapped heat and then the immediate relief of rolling the windows down and riding around. Every season is perfect for music, but summer makes me think of warm sounds.
This month I collaborated with one of my oldest friends, Ian Stroud, on a mixtape that explores a bit of how the folk music of Ireland and Scotland influenced the early American music tradition (along with some good ol’ blues thrown in to round out the old American sound). I think bluegrass is perfect summer music, and there’s plenty of that here. Mentally, I’m in the mountains sipping bourbon with my buddies. I’ll let y’all know when I’m back in office.
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Old Country
Created in collaboration with Ian Stroud for the Highlands to the Appalachians.
A few words from Ian:
*****
The birth of my 11 month old daughter triggered a new way of thinking in me about family and legacy. I was raised in the Ohio suburbs without a sense of cultural identity, but I did know that most of my family lineage can be traced back to England and Scotland and, to a lesser extent, Ireland. Thus, earlier this year I found myself drawn to what I will bravely choose to call the music of my ancestors.
To me, there is something quite special about the instrumentation from the distant past. The UK is filled with unique, beautiful, soulful sounds that are rarely heard in contemporary music. The process of collaborating on this tape led me to other older sounds that arrived in America around the same time as these UK instruments, primarily the banjo, which traces its roots back to enslaved African people several hundred years ago. Then I started diving into Appalachian music and found base sounds. I have no basis for this and I will not consider researching it, but all these genres and instruments share a common feeling of sincere expression; despite continents of distance and centuries of time, there is a cohesive heart to them that I often find lacking in contemporary music. So this mix has, as Brady put it to me, “kind of an Irish and Scottish roots to bluegrass journey going on, not limiting to super old recordings,” and I think that’s killer.
Overall this mix was a personal journey of discovery for me; an earnest attempt to connect with the past and experience music that could only be heard live. It was a vehicle for me to take the first steps in connecting with my past, and a tool for me to teach my daughter a little bit about where she comes from. I also did not have enough time to dig truly deep like I wanted to (an 11 month old is so much work, and she gets up at 5:30am every day aye aye aye), so many of these tracks are contemporary artists (hypocrite!) playing in this style or as an homage to these older sounds.
I won’t go track by track but I have a few callouts:
Foggy Mountain Breakdown - Flatt & Scruggs
This is a sound I think most of us have heard too many times. To the point that I thought I hated it, but it was really just fatigue. Turns out this sound is delightful, and there’s a reason I’ve heard it so many times. It’s simple, it’s beautiful, it’s banjo and fiddle. It rules.
Stomping - Scottish Fish
This band is a Boston-based Celtic quintette. These young women have played together since they were pretty young, and I love that this music style feels alive and well with people younger than me. They’re fun, give them a follow on IG!
Green Sally Up - Mattie Gardner, Ida Mae Towns, Jessie Lee Pratcher
This mix was so fun because my research was full of surprises. I’m sure many of you knew this, but what a fun discovery for me to hear a beloved Moby sample and learn it was recorded by this man Alan Lomax who traveled the South and Southwest US from the ~1950’s to the ~1980’s recording music that was disappearing, hyper regional, notably unique, etc. What a treasure trove.
When You Get To Asheville - Steve Martin and Edie Brickell
I moved to New York to pursue a career in comedy, and I spent a few years filming marketing videos for Broadway shows to pay my rent. The two married in a surprising way when one day I walked into another ‘first day of rehearsal’ shoot for a new show I hadn’t looked into and found one of my comedic heroes, Steve Martin, staring back at me. I ended up filming several videos with Steve and his collaborator Edie Brickell for their musical Bright Star. I feel like this song hits at the heart of Appalachian music while staying in the hookier Broadway space. I admit this is a bit of an off-kilter addition, but it also feels quite personal to me.
*****
Love you all. Hope you enjoy!
Join Me: The Deslondes @ Skinny Dennis, Thursday, Sep. 5th, 8:00 PM.
I found The Deslondes from Gems on VHS, which I’ve talked about one hundred times on this newsletter. I’ve called the channel a modern day Alan Lomax, which feels very appropriate, given the subject matter and much of the content of the mixtape.
This show is presented by Diamond Jack, and they just pretty much book the best country shit in NYC these days, so you know this is going to be a killer show.
RIYL: honky tonkin’, office hours, country music
Check out The Deslondes’s Gems On VHS performance for “South Dakota Wild One.”
Some Other Things Ian Loves
(that you might love too!)
A few things that have made life a little better lately:
Tube LED lights - Apartments have bad lighting most of the time, unless you invest in a good spot or a pricey reno. I got an assortment of daylight and tungsten tube LEDs and placed them on top of my kitchen cabinets so you can’t see them from the floor and they bounce off the ceiling, offering a lovely soft diffused falloff. It’s an extra umph that feels great but guests can’t quite put their finger on why.
Whatchamacallit Candy Bars - If you’re high, you should be eating one of these
Paper Plane Coffee Beans - Roasted in Montclair, NJ these are my favorite beans at the moment. They have many varieties but the majority edge into a more fruity and citrusy flavor which I love. I get the 5lb bag of Tinto which saves money via bulk and tastes great.
Portable Fan, USB-C Battery Powered - Let’s face it, being hot friccin sucks.