Posts by: Wayne Cresser
“So much of my writing process, be it fiction or creative non-fiction, especially in the first drafts, is semi-conscious and largely intuitive, so a part of me was not trying to capture “desperation” so much as the total experience, as I remembered it years later, of being the oldest boy in dangerous neighborhoods, small and weak and afraid, but having somehow internalized that it was up to me to be the man in the house now, a role I was clearly unsuited for..”
Shaking recognizes R. A. (Stovetop) Lawson as the winner of the Michael V.R. Thomason Prize for best book on Gulf South and/or Caribbean History for 2010-2011.
The Benedictions sound like they’re having too much fun to go seriously wrong even though they claim to Play Devil Music on their debut CD. And for all the minor-chording and back-delta strumming of Detroit Rebellion’s eponymous debut, what emerges from the music and the lyrics is the voice of the righteous believer, the kind of guy who might live outside the law to be honest, to paraphrase the Minnesota bard.
All three songs reflect Davies’ positive concern for the man-next-store and his longing for community and themadays. “Neighbor” muses about the mixed fortunes of Misters Jones, Brown and Smith. Smith’s fate is the most discouraging, since rage gets the best of him. “Workingman’s Café “is nostalgic for the village green, which in Davies-speak is the ideal social arrangement for human beings, and in his imagination, existed once upon a time in England only to be lost to modernity. What is material here are the melodies, the voice and the poetry, which never fail to set my heart aflutter.
Soggy revelers came and went during sets by featured poet Jo-Ann Reid, Shaking impressario Mr. Don, and singer/songwriters Jessica Klein and Ray Wyatt Lema, before the sun returned and the garden filled for the edgy urban blues of The Detroit Rebellion.
How much did he owe him? Four years into their partnership, Tommy James hired an accountant who calculated that Levy owed James close to 40 million dollars. When Levy threatened to introduce the accountant to the local fish population, James had to back down. “Aaron (the accountant-edt.) had a family. It was over.”
Thomas Cobb discusses Hank Williams, Nabokov, and the near impossibility of redemption.
crazy 8′s The Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet Clang! (CL-507, 2009) crazy 8’s is the name of the first music released under The Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet moniker and the world is better place for it. The band has been together for a year and a half under former NRBQ [...]
Joe Pug is a 23 year old singer-songwriter from Chicago who’s been barnstorming the US since the release of his debut EP, Nation of Heat, midway through 2008. Other press favorably compares him to stolid American folk/troubadour types: Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle. Although I haven’t seen it, John [...]
Rhythm Spell is the second in a series of riffs on the recent activities of Terry Adams:
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