My friend Billy said something to the effect of this, “I like being close to G-O-D,….you know, the Great Out Doors.”
It’s easy to embrace the journey through Robert Pirsig’s “High Country of the Mind” when you’re on top of the mountain. Now to embrace the same journey while picking dog shit out of your boot…….there’s the challenge.
Abbey Sage playing through Liza Jane with Tom. She was about to step up on stage for the youth old-time fiddle competition at the Grayson County Fiddler’s Convention. Tom Mylet accompanied, and more importantly, encouraged Abbey.
A review I read nailed Greg Brown’s Slant-6 Mind with the above description. Already hooked from listening to a short performance and interview on a WETS program, I couldn’t wait to hear the rest of the album, especially after reading those six words. Six words that sent a charge through me and continue to do so today.
Transcendental Hillbilly Beatnik Jive Tent Meeting…that phrase summed up not only the essence of the album, but defined the lifestyle my friends and I were pursuing without knowing what it was called. Within the grit and honey of this album I found a comfortable place not only for my ears, but my wandering self. A self constantly toeing the perpetual blurry line between where I had been, where I was going, but most importantly, where I was.
Twelve years later Slant 6 Mind remains in rotation, that much hasn’t changed. As for the tent meetings, well, they don’t happen as often as they should these days, and the cast of fellow crusaders have branched out to other congregations, but I’m still here: an irreverent hillbilly trying to transcend nothing more than convention and conviction…or am I embracing them?
Here’s one of many favorite Greg Brown songs…..
Spring and All
Spring and what’s left of the hippies return from old rooming houses and Mexico.
More letters, more journals, more poems to burn; Real heat at last. At last my words glow.
My friend Jim just broke up his band, the guys all have jobs and the nights got too long.
He’s selling the amps, one guitar, and the van. I’m sure you could have it all for a song.
Snow on the north side, trash in the yard, love like a newspaper tattered and stained.
A two bourbon twilight, fog from God’s cigar. the neighbor’s retarded dog chasing the train.
Don’t see any good in just hanging around, take a tip from the birds and change the scene.
Find some long river and follow it down to where our old sins have washed up in New Orleans.
Spring and what’s left of the songbirds return, to fight about loving and nesting and such.
Thanks for the letters you sent back to burn. Their smoke is as light, and as dark, as your touch.
-Greg Brown Slant 6 Mind
Red House Records
I’m not sure why I decided to blog, maybe, like you, I feel like there’s some good stuff in here that’s been looking for an outlet. Most importantly I want to have some fun, if I’m lucky, there will be a catharsis somewhere along the way. So pull up your chair and enjoy the breeze wafting under the tent flaps, sometimes it gets mighty hot in here. The music’s starting and you already know the words to all these old songs, and if you don’t, that’s OK…make some up, that’s what I do. We are at the transcendental hillbilly beatnik jive tent meeting, let it all hang out…ain’t nothing but pride holding you back.
Peace,
Chad
