Other Writing

Apr 25 2019

Thumbscrew at Big Ears Festival 2019: This is really happening

 

I adore Thumbscrew‘s 2018 double release Ours and Theirs.  It earned this site’s Best of 2018 #4 slot, and garnered a mention in my Best Bandcamp Jazz in 2018 column.  The trio of guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Tomas Fujiwara possess a cryptic sound, something that incorporates each musician’s distinct individual form of expression that, also, somehow, almost unexpectedly, meshes perfectly into a single, crisp perspective.  And it’s an equation whose success proves out whether they’re composing their own odd sonic machinations or covering works from jazz legends of a wayback era.  It’s quite magical.

And seeing it happen live…?  It was surreal.

Thumbscrew’s Saturday afternoon show at The Standard was pretty straight-forward.  The trio nested themselves on the stage behind their music stands and just played along to whatever was written down in front of them.  Held up to the electricity flowing between musicians and audience from the Fire! trio on that same stage the night before, this performance was tame by comparison.  But just seeing the trio recreate the music of Ours and Theirs in the moment was like peeking behind the face of the universe at the clockwork mechanisms within.  It was riveting.  There is something almost alien about Thumbscrew’s sound, even when it radiates an unmissable familiarity, that to witness the human beings responsible for it… and to see proof that, yes, it’s three beating hearts and three calculating minds that set that strange and alluring music in motion, it hit me with the sensation of The Big Reveal.

Some or all of that might not make any sense.  Obviously I never doubted the music of Ours and Theirs was created by human beings.  But so much of our interface with the music we connect with on a daily basis is through the impersonal mediums of digital files and CDs and vinyl, and it’s not difficult to lose sight of the humanity behind it all.  This sort of detachment is further compounded by the personalization triggered by and in each of us, as we attach meaning and imagery and consequence to everything we hear as part of the process of making the music a part of who we are.  It’s why seeing this music live is so invaluable.  Because on top of the wonderful surprises and fascinating deviations that inevitably result from a live performance, and the sensory mainline of experiencing the music live and feeling it as much as hearing it… there’s also the communal nature of the concert, of reconnecting the music to the artists creating it while simultaneously tethering that connection to all of the people in the audience doing the exact same thing at the exact same time.

And we take that back home with us.  That sense of community and connection are revived when next listen to that music again on our stereos, alone and in the privacy of our homes, but not quite the solitary act it once was.

The music of Thumbscrew is no less strange and enchanting than when first I heard it, but having seen and heard it in Knoxville at the Big Ears Festival 2019, that magic resonates on a much more human level than it once did.

Be sure to check out Thumbscrew’s excellent 2018 double release Ours and Theirs, released on Cuneiform Records.

I wrote about this album for The Bandcamp Daily.

Available at: (Ours) Bandcamp | Amazon and (Theirs) Bandcamp | Amazon

By • Live Jazz, Other Writing • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Apr 19 2019

A Big Ears Festival 2019 interlude: More than just fuel

 

Big Ears Festival is pretty much entirely a downtown thing.  By most measures, it’s a walking distance event.  And while a bit of pre-trip research revealed some pretty neat places to eat, drink and hang that were located in the neighborhoods outside of the city center, if you’re going to be at the festival and try to see as many shows as you can pack into a day, it’s a pretty easy decision to stay right in downtown and never leave.  Let’s talk about some places I ate, because, damn, there were some very fun places I took a seat in between all of the shows.

And that’s not easy, by the way.  The Big Ears Festival performances were packed in pretty tight.  With only one exception, all of the places I ate at were joints I passed by as I walked over to a show venue and made a note to stop back along the way and grab a meal.  This really isn’t an ideal decision making approach, but it was all I had. And I either got very lucky or it’s difficult to find a bad place in downtown Knoxville to eat, because I had some great food in some very fun and welcoming spots.

Kaizen was the standout meal of my trip.  I had the good fortune of passing by there as I scrambled over to see Ralph Towner perform at a nearby church.  The lighting and the outdoor patio spoke to the way I’m wired, and a quick glance at the menu posted outside the door promised the kind of food that typically floats my boat.  I made the decision right then to stop back for dinner as soon as Towner was done bringing heaven down to earth.  I’m so glad I did.  Kaizen has an Asian-inspired menu.  Their various rice and noodle bowls and steamed buns were the highlights of that menu.  I ordered two items.  One was the oyster fried rice, a bowl of goodness filled with delicately fried oysters, kimchi, fried egg, tamarind-chile syrup, fried shallots and fresh herbs.  It had that perfect balance of being a filling dish without it making me leave feeling heavy.  Those fried oysters were delightful.  The breading delivered a nice crunch, but it was as light on the palette as anything else in the dish.  The house-made kimchi was amazing.

I have a complicated relationship with kimchi. I don’t really like it that much.  But I associate it with these big bowls of stew I’d get at the Joong Boo Market‘s dive-y little snack shop in the back of their grocery store.  They serve these huge bowls of stew with veggies and seafood, and they are delicious and will fight off all the maladies one can get from a typical Chicago winter.  Those bowls were served with a couple small sides… of which kimchi was one.  I’d eat the damn stuff even though it tasted weird, like the garnish equivalent of sour patch kids candy, because I knew if I ate everything that place served me, my body would feel healthy as it ever did.  So, I look at kimchi as taking my medicine.  That might not make any sense to you, and, honestly, I wouldn’t fault you your confusion.  But that’s where we find ourselves.

The thing of it is, it seems like a lot of restaurants these days are having a field day toying with kimchi as a component of a dish, and so it’s been fun to keep encountering it in new contexts.  The house-made kimchi at Kaizen shook my world.  It was arguably the best kimchi I’d ever had.  And it made this impression as part of a dinner that was hitting me on all cylinders.

The steamed buns were the other item I had that evening at Kaizen, and they were as fun as they were delicious.  I sometimes shy away from those steamed bun dishes because too often it’s more stick than steam, which I find an unpleasant texture.  Thankfully, Kaizen got it right.  And much like the breading on the fried oysters, these were seriously light in the best way.  I chose two of them:  The “Thai Sausage,” with Chiang Mai sausage, peanut sauce, herbs, and pickled ginger, and the “Eggplant Bun,” with crispy fried eggplant, hoisin sauce, citrus mayo, cilantro and scallions.  Cheers to the waitperson who recommended the eggplant.  There were so many choices on the menu speaking to me, and I was able to narrow it down to a few, but I was still indecisive.  Y’see, I know the things I like and I can recognize the things that interest me, but then there’s an additional consideration when on the road… there’s the likelihood I might never be back to that particular town again, and so what I really want to order is the thing that I don’t want to miss… the dish that the restaurant does special and unlike any other place.  The eggplant steamed bun was it.  It’s so nice to be able to ask the waitperson which item on the menu would I be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t try, and for them to know right away which choice to make.  The eggplant was outstanding.

Speaking of waitstaff and personnel, that same person also recommended the Dogfish SeaQuench Ale to go with that meal, and damn that was an excellent recommendation.  I told him what I was looking for, and he delivered it.  I’m also really grateful for Kaizen getting me a seat out on that patio.  It’s not a large place.  The interior has a small bar people can eat at, ideal for solo diners like myself, plus seats packed in tight.  It’s intimate, and doesn’t feel crowded.  Well, it was a very busy night, and they had a running wait list, and even though I was riding solo, instead of making me sit at the bar (which would’ve been understandable), they sat me a table outside on that patio… the spot that, visually, drew me in as I passed by it on the way to see the Towner show.  I’m very aware they could’ve sat me at that bar and flipped the patio table that much quicker by seating a couple there instead.  That they accommodated me like that was appreciated and also representative of my entire Kaizen experience.

It’s normal to romanticize what it might be like to live in a city or town you’re visiting for a short while.  It’s the kind of daydreaming that’s a fun exercise on its own merits, but it’s so easy a practice to slip into when your life has taken you outside its normal routines and surroundings.  I do that kind of thing all the time.  If I were to move to Knoxville, Tennessee, one reason for that change would be so I could eat at Kaizen whenever I desired (aka all the time).  It’s that good, and if you’re ever in downtown Knoxville and need a place to eat, that’s where you should go.  It’s definitely a reason for me to plan a return trip to Knoxville.

Speaking of kimchi, Kaizen wasn’t my only run-in with that oddly compelling vegetable.  For lunch on Saturday, I stopped at Curious Dog Hot Dogs & Sandwiches… not far from Mill & Mine (where I would see Spiritualized, Sons of Kemet and Makaya McCraven before the weekend was over) and down by the railroad tracks.  It has a classic lunch spot look to it… brick everywhere, wood tables and chairs, wall coolers filled with soft drinks and beer, and chalkboards colorfully listing out the menu in detail.

A hotdog and fries and beer just sounded good to me right then, and something about a place that looks like a deli has such a comforting effect on me… well, I grabbed a seat.  I went with the Curious dog.  I had to go with their classic.  Plus, the potato salad, bacon and house sauce just sounded good.  I don’t regret it.  That being said, they did have a hotdog that had kimchi on it, and I’m gonna have to try that one next time I’m in Knoxville.  There will always be a part of me that regrets not getting it otherwise.  The dog and fries and beer were exactly what I needed before heading up the street to see Thumbscrew at The Standard.

Saturday morning breakfast was at a solid breakfast joint in the Old Town neighborhood.

Old Town actually borders downtown, and you really don’t notice leaving one and entering the other.  Brick lined streets and a mix of modern and old architecture frame winding streets.  OliBea was along one of those streets.

OliBea is a sunny place, and plenty welcoming.  I had the Carnita Tostada, with confit cheshire pork shoulder, frijoles, queso fresco, eggs and salsa verde.  It made my Friday night journey of late night music and drinking inconsequential on my body’s well-being.  I chatted with a friendly guy about the town, the festival and some of the music we’d seen and just music in general.  I answered his request for some jazz recommendations, and one of the names I gave was Mary Halvorson.  Not long after, I finished my meal and made my exit, just to realize that the guitarist was seated at the table directly behind me.  Several people have since commented that this was an almost cliché type of Big Ears occurrence.  I am glad to have made a contribution to keeping that an enduring festival experience.

Sunday morning breakfast was at Tupelo Honey Cafe.  I have no complaints about the food.  I had the Old Skool Breakfast Bowl of two sunny-side up eggs, potato cracklins, salsa verde, black-eyed peas, cheddar cheese, bacon & sausage crumbles, and goat cheese grits.  It sounded like what I’d need after a couple late nights of music and drinking.  I was feeling a bit wore out by this time. The breakfast was very good.  Naturally, I was happy that I liked everything, but what I came here for was a bloody mary and a seat at a patio table.  The restaurant is located in Market Square, just off the main drag of downtown.  Market Square is pedestrian only, a wide thoroughfare of brick and trees and archways and birds fluttering happily about eating the offerings from any one of the restaurants and diners and bars that lined this street.  I walked up and down the stretch several times in between shows, and I’d marked out a couple spots I might like to plant myself on Sunday at the end of the long weekend.

Even with the crowds, there’s something quite serene about this section of downtown… as if the geography recognizes the need to be calm after the nighttime electricity of the area has faded away with the appearance of sunlight.  In any event, some decent food was the bonus for a bloody mary on that patio on that morning.

As I made my way over to the Tennessee Theatre to see Nik Bartch’s Ronin, I was right as rain.

By • Live Jazz, Other Writing • 0 • Tags: , , , , , ,

Apr 18 2019

Ralph Towner at Big Ears Festival 2019: Hearts go still

 

From the palpable shock and astonishment that swept through the church, it was obvious that most of us hadn’t known:  Not long ago, Ralph Towner had been through heart surgery.  The guitarist relayed this information on the wings of a joke, as he introduced the next piece of that evening… a rendition of the standard “My Foolish Heart.”  That’s the kind of evening it was.  Towner had the audience wrapped around his finger.  His guitar was simply a tool for enchantment, and all of us were locked in.  But he also kept a smile on our faces.  Sometimes because of a whimsical phrase on guitar.  Sometimes because a familiar tune elicited pleasant associations.  And, sometimes, the smile was the cause-effect pairing with a joke.  But he had us all, for any and every reason.

Towner performed on a Friday evening at St. Johns Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Knoxville, TN.  His show was one of the highlights of Big Ears Festival 2019, and one I’ll never forget.

All it takes are a couple phrases of a familiar song to send me adrift in memories, and back to a time when the music became imprinted my timeline.  And since all of these songs are familiar, it means I’m perpetually fighting the gravitational pull of the past, trying hopelessly to stay rooted in the moment.  Because, damn, Ralph Towner is thirty feet away, playing guitar in an environment of superb acoustics, stained glass all around, and nothing between me and the notes.  A minute into a new piece, and I’d suddenly hear it through stereo speakers in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains or an autumn day with a ceiling of cloudy Chicago gloom contrasting with the brilliant explosion of autumn colors and the crunch of leaves beneath my feet.  And then, suddenly, I’m transported back into the present moment of the church as the song reaches the homestretch.

[Ralph Towner’s 2017 ECM Records release My Foolish Heart is available at Amazon]

This was my second show of Big Ears Festival 2019, and both had taken place in a church.  And no different than the Harold Budd, Mary Lattimore & Nief-Norf show earlier that afternoon at Church Street United Methodist, the St. Johns Episcopal Cathedral was a gorgeous venue matched perfectly with this gorgeous music.

It’s impossible not draw comparisons between the masterful craftsmanship of the stained glass and church architecture and the musicianship of Towner with his guitar, and, by extension, the lofty plateaus of creativity aspired to, and achieved, by the artists on both building and music.

There’s a majesty to the music of Ralph Towner. If the totality of one’s interface is, like mine, through the vehicle of studio recordings, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that all of this electricity is simply the product of this man and his guitar, hunched over in concentration, and channeling everything inside that yearns to manifest into the world as sound. It’s weeks later, and I still find myself astonished at having ended up in place I’d never imagined life would take me and it just so happens, Ralph Towner is thirty feet away and playing his guitar.  The memory freezes me in time, observing it all over again.

By • Live Jazz, Other Writing • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Apr 2 2019

This is why I blog: Oregon and “45th Parallel”

 

Any way you measure it, I shouldn’t like this recording.  And in the context of when I purchased it at Jerry’s Record Exchange approximately twenty five years ago, the math of me should have produced a recoil reaction when I first gave a listen to 45th Parallel.  But quite the opposite occurred, and now when I think about the music that has meant the most to me, this 1989 Oregon recording comes immediately to mind.

I was just getting started on my exploration of the modern jazz scene.  My addiction to jazz of the bop and swing eras was well established, as was a healthy dependence on hearing the avant-garde, free, spiritual and cosmic jazz that followed.  But for anything 1990 and later, I was a relative newbie.  It was sometime around 1995 that I scooped up Oregon’s 45th Parallel.  I’m not entirely sure why I purchased it.  Best I can piece together, I was familiar with some of the musicians who comprised the world jazz vanguard ensemble at that time… specifically guitarist Ralph Towner and percussionist Trilok Gurtu.  But I believe this was my first purchase of something by the Oregon ensemble.

It is very fusion-y.  Almost over the top, at times.  Opening track “Pageant” is the first such evidence of this album trait.  That right there should’ve had me selling the CD back for store credit.  That spasmodic fusion cry pushing a syrupy melody on ahead, that would’ve been more than enough to crack the will of my 1995-Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry-loving-self.  These days it’s a bit different for me, as my listening tastes have changed… as they do for us all.  But back then, I wanted something with some edge, and if it was going to be something pretty, it had to peel off rustic and serene, and not bright and shiny.  But I persevered through that first tune, and something about subsequent track “Hand in Hand” got its hooks in me.

It’s that sighed melody, and how it rises and falls like the gentle breathing of a deep sleeper along to the muffled chatter of a percussive dialog as susurrant as crickets conversing beneath a full moon.  It got to me then, and it still gets to me now.  There’s something so organic and genuine about that song.  It hits me not unlike the Codona trio of Don Cherry, Collin Walcott and Nana Vasconcelos.  That similarity shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Walcott was a member of Oregon back in its early days, and the Codona trio traveled similar jazz territory as that of Oregon.  But the 90’s Oregon was a different beast.

The cheerful “Riding on the D Train” didn’t dissuade me, even though it returned with that syrupy fusion sound.  I dunno.  Even today when I listen to this tune, it connects plenty strong with me.  And there’s really no mystery to it… I adore a beautiful melody, and that’s gonna hold true even if the way it’s expressed instrumentally isn’t normally something to my liking.  I think, too, it has to do with how much of this album sounds like something meant to be listened to in the hours before the sun rises.

I make that claim after extensive testing of the hypothesis.  There was a time when I would rise at 4am… long before the sun would do the same and light up the winter Denver sky with all shades of pinks and oranges and blues, like an everyday miracle, and make the Rocky Mountains sit out on the horizon like the final passage to reach heaven.  This was a few years after purchasing 45th Parallel, and I would wake naturally at 4am (god knows how, but back then I was).  It was a bittersweet time for me.  I was as plugged into the electrical flow of life as at any time in my existence, but I was also channeling some painful waves of despair and loneliness and need.  The highs and lows went to extremes, and most time I couldn’t tell which end of the spectrum I was situated upon at any one moment.  But everything felt so damn intense, even the most mundane activities.  I think that was why I woke naturally at 4am during those days… it was like mind, body and soul all conspired to get me in a place when my whole world was quiet, when darkness was only broken by the thin streaks of blue light from floor lamps, when my mind was free of turmoil and volatility, and the only sound was the breeze rattling the windows and the radiator with its strangely tranquil hiss.  Well, there was one other sound… 45th Parallel.  It snapped right into place with everything.

And no song accomplished this any better than “Beneath an Evening Sky.”  The Ralph Towner composition (making an appearance on his excellent 1979 recording Old Friends, New Friends) is one of two songs that I most associate with the predawn Denver phase.  The song honors such moments, when the stillness of night should be enhanced, not shattered.

The composition has gone through several renditions, by Oregon members and entirely different musicians, but the version on 45th Parallel will always be dear to me, a song that was exactly what I needed in just the nick of time… night after night after night.  It flooded my heart with the most sublime joy, almost lovingly, and, sometimes, bringing tears for, at least a while, all the right reasons.  And it always elicited a smile.  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, feeling so much at peace that I don’t want to lose it by falling back asleep.  It is at times like this when I can feel myself transported back to those days, and the sound of “Beneath an Evening Sky” flirts with the edge of my consciousness, and I can almost hear it, though no music is playing.  That song is imprinted in my timeline as deeply as the sound of my own heartbeat murmuring quietly and contentedly in my peaceful hours before the day returned and all it brought with it.

The song that followed it next on the album had quite a different impact on me, ranging far closer to my recoil response to the openkng track.  The title “Chihuahua Dreams” really sums it up.  On an album that is practically woven from the fabric of deep sleep, it still has a couple tracks that yip of a wakefulness that is just a bit out of place.  Truth be told, when I listened to this album in the predawn hours, I would skip past both this track and opening tune “Pageant.”  This wasn’t as easy to do as one would expect.  I originally owned this album on cassette, so skipping ahead took a bit of timing and practice to get it just right.  Conveniently, the two tracks I disliked for these hours led off each side of the cassette, making the maneuver a bit simpler for my sleepy head at 4am.  God help me, but I think I still have that cassette.  I don’t know why, really, except that the attachment to the music that most affects us sometimes manifests as a physical connection to the object associated with it.  We hold onto these things.

“Urumchi” is the other album track aside from “Beneath an Evening Sky” that I most associate with this pre-dawn stage of my Denver life.  It twitters with life far more than its counterpart, and its recitation of melody has an ominous undercurrent like a reminder of the danger that hides within peaceful nighttime darkness.  But most of all, the music is like moonlight, a presence of stark beauty, but also cold and distant and mysterious.  “Urumchi” was all of these things, and the perfect accompaniment to the moment.

As strange as it sounds, it almost feels wrong to listen to this music in the daylight, as if I threaten to dispel the magic that hangs so thickly in the air around me when the music plays in the middle of the night, when even the moon grows heavy with sleep.

Ralph Towner shines on “Les Douzilles,” his guitar like a campfire beacon off on the horizon, sparks and embers dancing at the edges of the darkness.  I had the wonderful experience of seeing Towner perform recently at the 2019 Big Ears Festival.  It was a solo performance in a big beautiful church in downtown Knoxville, and watching him play guitar surrounded by stained glass, hanging lamps, cathedral ceilings and a palpable solemnity upon every breath, I thought of his opening to this piece.  And I thought how this man had created music for a time I desperately needed that music, and now here we were, both alive and forging an even stronger connection between artist and music and listener, and it was happening in a place I’d never have imagined back in Denver, over twenty years ago.

The album’s homestretch begins with “Bombay Vice,” a rambunctious song that was a bit more lively than ideal for that time of morning, but it was always a nice bit of contrast to really frame just how tranquil most of the other album tracks truly were.  The album reaches its conclusion most appropriately with the soothing “Pageant (Epilogue),” a mirror opposite to the lively “Pageant” opener.  The piece only lasts for a couple minutes, but it is the lullaby ending for an album that was, for me, a coda to dreams.

It is an album like 45th Parallel why I blog about music, sharing news of what I’ve discovered and what I love, because that music might, for you, be something that leaves its imprint on your own timeline, as this album has mine, and give you something to love.

Your album personnel:  Ralph Towner (12-string and classical guitars, piano, synthesizers), Paul McCandless (piccolo sax, soprano sax, oboe, English horn, bass clarinet), Trilok Gurtu (tabla, drums, percussion, voice), Ralph Moore (bass) and guest: Nancy King (vocals).

Released in 1989 on Portrait Records/CBS Records.

Available at Amazon.

Be sure to check out the artist site.

By • Essays & Columns & Lists, Other Writing, The Old Stuff • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Jan 31 2019

So… about 2018, Part VI: The same as it ever was

 

In truth, I’m still trying to figure this whole thing out.

I know what I’d like to do with this site, and I possess sufficient self-awareness to determine which of those goals are realistic and which are reliant on some massive sea change occurring in my life where I can just do this whole thing full-time.  But even then, it would still be me just wildly flinging myself blindly in directions that I think approximate my desired landing place.

That said, this site does do what I originally set out for it to accomplish… a simple, clean space where I could present some of the music I was discovering and maybe get in a few words about it.

2018 saw me try a number of new formats for doing so, no different than in past years.  Like trying on new outfits, but always just for the purpose of stepping outside to get the mail and the paper from the front stoop.  The most recent costume change is the Album of the Day format.  I like it.  No, that’s underselling it.  I love it.  It may have saved this site, even.  I was getting a bit burnt out.  Not from the music and not about writing about it, but the way I was writing about it.  I’m going with simple for the near future, and every now and then ambush you with some long-form blog-y post.

Speaking of blogs, a reminder:  I’m not a journalist, though sometimes I write a piece that abides by journalistic standards.  I’m not a reviewer, though I’ve written up some albums that possess the scope and analysis of a proper album review.  What I am is a recommendation engine.  I’m a music bloodhound.  I enjoy pointing people in the direction of cool, new music.  The Album of the Day format highlights that aspect of me better than most other formats I’ve tried out.  It’s simple.  It gives the basic facts of the album, some music to listen to, some links to follow, and a few short sentences about what I like about the album.  Expect more of these.

Based on site traffic stats, it’s obvious you people crave my Round-up features.  They are and always have been my signature calling card.  From the early days on various music forums, providing simple lists of music has been what I do.  I would like to continue doing them frequently, but they take more work than I have time for.  So, they might be a monthly thing, rather than weekly.  If I ever get around to creating a Patreon account and the option of subscribing for an expanded array of recommendation features, a more frequent Round-up would definitely be a part of that subscription package.  So, don’t worry, they aren’t going away.

I enjoyed the Sunday Morning Jazz Album series.  In some ways, it was a throwback to the Safety Net columns I’d write from time to time (you old-school site visitors will remember those).  I think I might bring those back.  They were fun.  Social media responses seemed to indicate you all thought so, too.

The next few weeks will see the roll-out of some more 2018 release recommendations, because, truly no year ever ends.  But as you’ve already seen from yesterday’s post, the 2019 recommendations are already coming in fast.

Sometime this year, likely sooner than later, I will be making the move from Frankfort, KY to Lexington.  The reasons for the move are many, and normal, but I will be interested to see how that changes my writing.  I’ve been in this small town for five years (and in tiny Harrodsburg for two years before that), and I’m anticipating that returning to something like a real city (or a big town, at least) will trigger some writing outbursts.  I expect more of that to manifest in my fiction writing, but there’s some music-related writing that is very fiction oriented that I’ve been wanting to get into my schedule, so I think this move will make 2019 the year it happens.  But we’ll pretty much just have to see.

And that’s where this column in prior years would veer into ideas I have for the coming months ahead… all of the big plans and grand schemes for Bird is the Worm for the year ahead.  But not this year.  I’ve been at this now for just over seven(!) years, and I am done with the predictions and big visions.  2019 will be the Year Of Things Remaining Pretty Much The Same.*

So, instead, I will skip ahead to the end, where I give my sincere thanks for all you stopping by and checking the music out.  I remember when I first began this blog at the tail-end of 2011, and I’d obsessively check the stats and look forward to when I had 100 visitors in a single day.  It was so exciting to see that people had somehow discovered my site and were sticking around and checking things out.  The visitor stats have skyrocketed since those early days, but it thrills me no less that people are stopping by.  I love it when one of you drops a little note in the comments section or sends me an email or shoots the breeze with me on Twitter (@BirdIsTheWorm).  All of this music is very personal to me, and so it makes my day when I learn that a recommendation becomes personal for you, too.

This concludes the year-end wrap-up.  I hope 2018 was everything you could have wished for.

2019 is going to be the best year ever.

Cheers,

Dave

*I will be making a pretty big announcement about the future very soon, so be sure to keep checking back in.

By • Essays & Columns & Lists, Other Writing • 1

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