Episode 1067 - Joan Shelley
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what's happening i am mark maron this is my podcast i'm still doing it i'm still doing my my podcast
Marc:Ten years in, we're still going at it, still going strong, doing the shows, talking to the people.
Marc:You know, it still feels good to talk to people for me.
Marc:I don't know what you do with your life, but if I didn't talk to a few people a week like I talked to the people here on the podcast, I think I would get a little squirrely.
Marc:Can't spend that much time in my head.
Marc:It's nice to get into somebody else's occasionally for a job three or four times a week, hopefully.
Marc:Talk to people.
Marc:Yeah, it really keeps me sane.
Marc:Keeps me sane.
Marc:Today is sort of an interesting conversation because I talked to Joan Shelley.
Marc:She is a singer-songwriter in the folk tradition and
Marc:And I just, you know, I just... I don't know what it is.
Marc:But I took to her.
Marc:I get sent records, folks.
Marc:I get sent records.
Marc:And I try to listen to all of them.
Marc:I get sent records from individuals.
Marc:I get sent records from labels.
Marc:I get sent records.
Marc:I just get sent records.
Marc:And sometimes I keep them.
Marc:But sometimes there's just too many to keep.
Marc:They're just... And I'm not...
Marc:What am I going to do with them?
Marc:I use them as barter.
Marc:I go out and I trade them for records that I want.
Marc:Is there anything wrong with that?
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:I think that's fine.
Marc:And sometimes people at labels are persistent, but it didn't.
Marc:This is a weird thing about Joan Shelley and my relationship with the music.
Marc:I know nothing.
Marc:I knew nothing about her and I knew nothing about the world she occupied.
Marc:Now I know there's some crossover with with, you know, like Bonnie Prince Billy.
Marc:And from there, there's a little crossover with my buddy, Matt Sweeney, who knows Joan Shelley's.
Marc:Plays with her.
Marc:I don't know if they're married or it's her boyfriend, but Nathan Salzberg.
Marc:I think I asked her.
Marc:I don't remember.
Marc:But my buddy Sweeney knows Nathan as this sort of musicologist, this guy who he works over at the.
Marc:At the Lomax Archive, I think.
Marc:And he compiles all these historical songs from hundreds of years ago.
Marc:How many hundreds of recorded music?
Marc:But, you know, within the last century or two.
Marc:And he's known for this.
Marc:And he's also, he's a historian, but he's also a player, a very revered, respected guitar player.
Marc:And he plays with Joan, who's a great player and a great songwriter.
Marc:But there's this whole world...
Marc:of folk music out there i guess it's always been there you wonder about these worlds uh you wonder about the world of jazz sometimes i did and it's still very active and there's still people that love it not unlike this folk music world it's still out there i mean it crosses over with country americana and some a bit of the hipster singer songwriter thing but there is a folk tradition which i learned about more about on um
Marc:on Ken Burns' country documentary, which I finished.
Marc:It's like eight episodes, and they're like an hour and a half, two hours long.
Marc:And it was fucking great.
Marc:All the way through, even with the new guys, it was emotional.
Marc:When you start to realize the community and family spirit of all these artists down there in Nashville, that was sort of the underpinning of the whole thing, was that there's a tradition to country music that is sourced in many different traditions, but there is a community of country musicians
Marc:And country music in Nashville that has gone on generations.
Marc:And the arc of it is just beautiful.
Marc:But a lot of that stuff, some of it was directly related to folk music.
Marc:A great example and who kind of threads through two or three episodes was Emmylou Harris.
Marc:who I didn't know a lot about, who I liked enough, but I didn't have her in the proper perspective.
Marc:You know, she started as a folk artist and then got brought into country by Graham Parsons, of all people, who was not inherently a country guy, but he was another huge...
Marc:of the of the music and and you know really kind of went to the source with it and brought her down to the source of it and she came out sort of a a historian and again almost a musical archivist through her own voice and and renditions of uh
Marc:old country songs to be this amazing influence in modern country music.
Marc:So the folk tradition is kind of under that umbrella as well, but it still exists, I guess is my point.
Marc:I was taken by this music, by Joan Shelley's music.
Marc:There was something about the way she sang, about her voice.
Marc:It moved me, right?
Marc:And I had No Quarter Records sent me the first record.
Marc:The guy over there, I believe, is Mike Quinn, right?
Marc:So he sends me that record.
Marc:And then at some point, I mentioned it on Instagram, like, I really like this record.
Marc:And then all of a sudden, the other records start to come.
Marc:So there's been two or three, I think, three records that I've gotten on No Quarter of Joan Shelley's.
Marc:And I like all of them.
Marc:But then right after the first one, he's been kind of trying to get me to have her on for a long time.
Marc:And I just didn't know what the conversation would be like.
Marc:What did I know about folk music?
Marc:How would it go?
Marc:I wasn't sure that we could converse for an hour.
Marc:She seemed like a thoughtful, quiet, artistic, creative person, almost like a mountain person, I pictured for some reason.
Marc:And there's something about certain types of musicians where I'm like, I'm not sure we're going to hit it off.
Marc:But Mike was persistent.
Marc:Over time.
Marc:And I was like, all right, all right, all right.
Marc:Because I got the last record, which is great.
Marc:I really enjoyed her new record here, which I think she recorded in Iceland.
Marc:I believe I talked to her about it.
Marc:It's called Like the River Loves the Sea.
Marc:You can get that wherever you get the music that you enjoy.
Marc:And, you know, I had her on.
Marc:And she sang a song at the end, which is always lovely.
Marc:And I have not recorded a lot of music up in this...
Marc:in this particular temporary studio between us, I can almost move back into a garage, folks.
Marc:I can almost move back into the garage.
Marc:It's almost happening.
Marc:So anyways, that is the story of the Joan Shelley thing.
Marc:And now it fits into the whole arc of what I've been taking in with the country, the dock country, with Ken Burns's country dock.
Marc:Oh, so such moving stuff, man.
Marc:And so much of it had to do with community.
Marc:It was funny because Nathan and Joan, Nathan Salzberg and Joan Shelley and Mike Quinn, I believe it was Mike Quinn, yes.
Marc:I invited them to the comedy store because I was performing the night that she recorded here with me.
Marc:And I was a little nervous because I felt like I was bringing these precious folk people into the den of just pure filth and iniquities.
Marc:I'm like, you don't need to.
Marc:I'd like it.
Marc:If you want to come, you can come.
Marc:But you guys are sweet folk people.
Marc:And then I started really kind of spin out on, you know, how do I take in things?
Marc:How do I take in music?
Marc:Are my tastes evolving as I get older?
Marc:Do I still require the same things to enjoy something?
Marc:Did I ever enjoy things or did they just get me high?
Marc:Did they get me riled up or did they get me drifty?
Marc:You know, there's music that kind of gets you out to sea a bit, you know, in sort of a melancholic way.
Marc:A lot of questions.
Marc:A lot of questions that were raised primarily by watching Ken Burns' country documentary.
Marc:So I'm recording this yesterday.
Marc:Happy Halloween.
Marc:It's pretty scary out here, to be honest with you.
Marc:This fire is just spontaneously happening everywhere.
Marc:It's fucking relentlessly aggravating and anxiety causing that once a year for a few weeks, the entire state of California is on fucking fire.
Marc:And I just got all this work done on my house.
Marc:Is that the wrong way to think about it?
Marc:I hope everybody who's had fire damage or is in the path of fire, I hope you're safe and your family is safe.
Marc:I also don't want my house to burn down.
Marc:Nobody does.
Marc:But I didn't even get to use the new place I created for the podcast.
Marc:It doesn't matter.
Marc:I hope everybody's okay.
Marc:I don't want to be selfish.
Marc:But it's scary.
Marc:It's plenty scary on the eve of Halloween that a lot of the state is on fire.
Marc:And also, given that I'm recording this yesterday, last night I recorded my special.
Marc:And I don't know what to tell you.
Marc:I can't tell you how it went because I haven't done it yet.
Marc:I've got to go down there.
Marc:Today's Wednesday.
Marc:I'm sorry about the time fuck and the brain fuck, but I got to go down there in like three hours for the sound check.
Marc:My outfit, I'm shooting at the Red Cat Theater.
Marc:We got the set all built.
Marc:It's going to definitely look different than other comedy specials.
Marc:I'll tell you that.
Marc:It's just going to have a different vibe.
Marc:Nice, intimate vibe.
Marc:And I'm pretty excited about it.
Marc:I know this shit.
Marc:I've got the order written down, but I'm a little tweaked out.
Marc:My body always does a thing before I have to do these things, which is even if I feel good mentally.
Marc:Some part of the deeper part of my brain says, well, that's OK.
Marc:I'm glad you're feeling good about yourself, but we're going to fuck you from in here.
Marc:And maybe maybe you'll get a cold sore.
Marc:How about a slight fever?
Marc:Hey, maybe you'd enjoy a cold coming on right as you record.
Marc:Like, I feel these things.
Marc:They don't generally happen.
Marc:But man, my brain just fucks with me.
Marc:Like right now, I'm pretty, I'm pretty casual.
Marc:I'm pretty comfortable.
Marc:I'm recording this and I got to go do this.
Marc:I got to go shoot my special tonight.
Marc:Used to be like I'd be fucked for days just thinking about it.
Marc:But look, man, I have run this material.
Marc:So I'll let you know how that went for reals on Monday.
Marc:But just know it happened.
Marc:OK, unless the entire city of L.A.
Marc:burned down.
Marc:It's so weird that the theme of my special is kind of apocalyptic.
Marc:And we are you know, we're in it out here right now.
Marc:The end is not near, folks.
Marc:The end is not near.
Marc:It's here.
Marc:It's here.
Marc:To stay from here on out.
Marc:Enjoy.
Marc:Do what you can.
Marc:But let's not delude ourselves completely.
Marc:All right.
Marc:It's bad enough that I've raised the ire of the QAnon folks who actually believe that they're being guided by some religious spirit.
Marc:That this massive conspiracy theory that explains everything that anyone can perceive and it connects all the dots doesn't equate to anything other than the face of Satan is ridiculous.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:And I am being paid again by George Soros to say all of this.
Marc:Got my Soros check.
Marc:Did any of you other broadcasters and TV people?
Marc:Because I know there was a little holdup with the Soros check because I think that Obama wasn't able to co-sign on them last week.
Marc:He was busy.
Marc:But, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know?
Marc:Do you religious folk know who Satan really is?
Marc:Do you know who he really is?
Marc:So reassessment of perception.
Marc:Yeah, I...
Marc:Like, I don't know what OK Boomer is.
Marc:I didn't know any of that.
Marc:And a lot of times when things are popular, I don't understand why they're popular because I don't know what they are.
Marc:And I guess that's old man-ism.
Marc:Maybe that's what you would say OK Boomer to.
Marc:But I don't...
Marc:I just I can't understand how things are popular and when I don't even know what they are.
Marc:And some of them I do, but I'm still like, that's really that popular.
Marc:And I don't know why I judge things like that.
Marc:It's because it's a self-centered thing.
Marc:It's a selfish.
Marc:I don't know if it's self-centered.
Marc:I just I don't take in a lot because there's so much going on and I'm so fucking busy.
Marc:So I just assume every once in a while I'll sync up with the rest of the culture and what I'm taking in.
Marc:I know a lot of people around the world are taking in that fucking Joker movie.
Marc:Pretty exciting, I guess, right?
Marc:To be part of in the largest grossing movie, R-rated movie in the history of movies.
Marc:Whatever that means.
Marc:I'm in it.
Marc:Got a powerful 45 seconds in there or so.
Marc:Huh?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But yeah, I've got to stop.
Marc:I've got to realize that I know very little about what's going on in the cultural world, except for my little part of it and however I engage with it.
Marc:And I shouldn't be surprised by the popularity of things that I don't understand or know about.
Marc:Because that's just old manism.
Marc:I just have to accept that it's just passing me by.
Marc:And a lot of times it's okay.
Marc:It was not the train I needed.
Marc:I guess that's part of wisdom is to realize like, is that my train?
Marc:It's not, right?
Marc:Okay, great.
Marc:So Joan Shelley is here and she's lovely and she's great and I enjoy her music a great deal.
Marc:And I didn't know if we would be able to have a conversation just because she seemed like a special and precious folk person.
Marc:But we we did it.
Marc:And her new record, which I think is beautiful, is called Like the River Loves the Sea.
Marc:And it's available now wherever you get music.
Marc:And she will play a song from that at the end of our conversation.
Marc:So listen up.
Marc:I swear to God, this has been going on, Joan, for years.
Marc:Mike's been emailing me.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:He's good about that.
Marc:Is he?
Marc:Is that good?
Guest:Is it good?
Guest:You tell me.
Guest:We're here now.
Marc:I looked it up.
Marc:It was like March 3rd or March something Sunday.
Marc:jennifer march uh 2017 wow when he first sent the batch of records oh good yeah and the batch of records they i had them and uh and i i'd listen to them and then i listened to them more and then i put them aside for a while and then i get another email a year later what's up with that a year later wow or no i mean they came yeah they kept coming
Marc:But the music, every time I listen to it, I get very taken, very enchanted with the whole thing.
Marc:But I feel like it's not essentially my style, but that's not really true.
Marc:I think I'm afraid of the vulnerability of folk music.
Guest:Sure, me too.
Guest:Are you?
Guest:Yeah, it's not, I didn't choose folk music.
Guest:I didn't listen to a lot of that stuff.
Marc:Would you call it folk music?
Marc:It is though, right?
Guest:Well, like 60s folk revival stuff.
Guest:I didn't listen to that growing up.
Marc:Right, but what you do, you'd call folk music.
Guest:Because you got to call it something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what happened to you?
Marc:What happened to me?
Marc:How did it happen?
Guest:Well, I kind of discovered like British folk rock.
Guest:And I was like, well, this is badass.
Marc:Like Richard Thompson?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson.
Guest:And then I got into the less rock folk of England, like June Tabor.
Guest:Do you know any of her stuff?
Guest:Uh-uh.
Guest:Oh, gosh.
Guest:These incredible vocalists.
Marc:What about the sad lady?
Marc:Judy Sill.
Marc:Is that her name?
Guest:Oh yeah, Julie still was California, right?
Marc:California, but she kind of made it hip in, she made it big in England kind of, I think.
Marc:All right, so okay, so you're listening to that stuff.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then I kind of got okay with the vulnerability through English folk rock and folk.
Guest:And then I came back and had more of an appreciation.
Guest:Plus I found the early string band music, which is just out of this world, cool.
Marc:Like who are we talking?
Guest:Well, I found Cousin Emmy, Addie Graham, I'm talking the females from Kentucky, Roscoe Holcomb, banjo player, stuff that sounded just like abrasive.
Guest:It sounded like punk rock to me.
Guest:Right, right, right, yeah.
Guest:And so it kind of gave me a way back in to appreciate the standard folk stuff.
Marc:Like the structure or the feeling or the vibe or...
Guest:Kind of a wildness that wasn't in mainstream music.
Marc:Right, right, right, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So like, but do you, I guess people don't really associate that with those cats, but like if you listen to the string band stuff and that like hootenanny stuff and all those old jug bands and weirdos from back then, they were really going at it because they had to get a lot of people moving.
Guest:Yeah, the dance bands are just incredible.
Marc:Acoustic dance bands, it's crazy.
Marc:That some of those blues guys would just sit there with an acoustic guitar in the middle of a floor.
Marc:So you're from Kentucky?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:From Louisville, yeah.
Marc:But it's not rural.
Guest:Right, so I have to make that clear.
Guest:I'm not from the mountains, not from Appalachia.
Marc:But do you aspire to that?
Guest:To be from the mountains?
Guest:I mean, I know a lot of people from the mountains and respect them so much, and they're proud.
Guest:So you can't co-opt mountain culture.
Guest:It's not cool.
Guest:We're a river town, really.
Marc:But people do co-opt mountain culture.
Marc:Totally.
Guest:It's big these days.
Marc:I know it seems like that you know the sort of music that this is a weird thing because you know I'm a guy I'm wearing boots that I don't need you know what I mean but but I like them you know but I'm not you know I'm not my beard is reasonable yeah you know I'm not I'm not doing that I'm not yeah I'm not like doing like I don't know okay so Kentucky so yeah what's the what's the situation you have a lot of siblings
Guest:Yeah, I have a half-brother, step-brother, step-sister, and brother.
Guest:So kind of complicated.
Guest:I got a lot of education on the family level.
Marc:Explain it.
Guest:I mean, that's every kind of relationship, right?
Guest:Like if you have, say, one mother in common, you have a certain kind of dynamic.
Marc:Oh, you mean like with your siblings?
Guest:Yeah, learning about love, essentially, and relationships really early on.
Marc:What was the parent's situation?
Guest:My parents got divorced when I was three.
Guest:My mom got remarried when I was four, and I got to, I was sisters with my best friend in kindergarten or whatever suddenly, so it was pretty cool.
Marc:Oh, so your mom's husband had a kid.
Guest:Two kids, yeah.
Marc:That were around your age.
Guest:My stepfather had two kids, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So it was like we were three, four, five, six.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Really tight, and then an older brother by 12 years, so.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:It was supposed to be the Brady Bunch, and it was not that enough.
Marc:at all.
Marc:And what's your old man, what happened to that guy?
Marc:The father.
Guest:My father?
Guest:The real father.
Guest:Real father, he stayed around and he's a painter still, but pretty wild in terms of like when you needed him to be around, he'd be like, actually I've got to go to New York now.
Marc:Yeah, an opening kind of thing, poetry reading.
Guest:No, he just wanted to be around really good art and he never made it to have a gallery or anything, but he's still doing it and just,
Marc:So he was a painter, artist painter, not a wall painter.
Guest:Not a wall painter.
Marc:And he's still at it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So he grew up with this bohemian dad who was a relatively absent-ish
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was kind of, what is the word?
Guest:Mercurial.
Marc:Mercurial.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:A wild man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was emotionally, as a kid, it was just like, can we stay at mom's house?
Guest:Not sure what he's going to be like today.
Marc:Oh, one of those.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I grew up with one of those.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What are we going to get?
Marc:Is it going to make me cry or make me laugh?
Guest:Yeah, because the laughing part was more, you know.
Guest:We'd have more fun.
Guest:He would give us recorders.
Guest:He didn't want TV in the house.
Marc:Oh, no TV guy.
Guest:He threw the TVs out one time.
Marc:Was he an old hippie or an old beatnik?
Guest:He was right between.
Guest:He was, let's see, he was in New York in like the 60s.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And yeah, so he was in between.
Marc:And he was a painter?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And a writer too or no?
Guest:No, just a painter.
Guest:Very visually and not good with words and stuff, he would say.
Marc:Abstract?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:He was a big fan of Rothko and Clifford Still and that kind of stuff.
Marc:Floating colors.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, okay, so you grew up with that and that kind of infused you with your creative spirit, do you think?
Guest:He was really encouraging.
Guest:He gave you a recorder.
Guest:So he gave us a little tape recorder and there's just hours of us entertaining.
Guest:My brother and I entertain ourselves with makeup songs and skits and things and record all kinds of weird sounds and stuff.
Guest:So that gave me that validation.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, it's nice to have one parent that's encouraging if you're going to do the creative thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:My mother used to make me practice guitar.
Marc:I think most of what my mother made me do was to avoid being a mother.
Marc:She'd be like, go in the room and do that thing so I don't have to deal with you.
Guest:But you would do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Fortunately, some of it was fun.
Marc:Go to camp, please, so I don't have to deal with it.
Guest:And she had something to do.
Guest:She was like, I had to, yeah.
Marc:Well, I don't know what she had to do.
Marc:I just knew that she'd rather not deal with me, right?
Guest:Yeah, I can see why.
Marc:Sure, I know.
Marc:I'm draining.
Marc:I'm exhausting.
Guest:Yeah, I'm sure.
Marc:All right, so Kentucky, Louisville, I've been there.
Marc:I've worked there, I believe.
Marc:There used to be an improv there, I think.
Marc:I know I've been there a couple of times because I have bookends that someone gave me.
Marc:I used to have a friend there at Louisville.
Guest:Comedy caravan?
Guest:What was it over there?
Marc:There was a comedy caravan.
Marc:I never worked for those people.
Marc:That was a family.
Marc:Sobel, I think.
Marc:The Sobel gigs.
Marc:Not important to you.
Marc:I'd like to know.
Marc:I think it was him.
Marc:They had a bunch of one-nighters in that club there all over that area in the region.
Marc:I never did those gigs.
Marc:I never was a big southern act.
Marc:I don't know if that makes sense to you.
Marc:I'm not a huge hit.
Marc:down south really i know it doesn't i do okay nashville yeah i do good you know i do good in the uh in the sort of the blue zones of the red uh-huh yeah but comedy's not music you can't just kind of charm your way in with the magic of melody it's a point of view situation wow so so actually you would go in the south and people wouldn't laugh or something
Marc:No, I mean, there was one time there was I had some problem in Lexington.
Marc:Where is that?
Marc:Lexington.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:East of Louisville.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:There was a like there was a lot of churches in Lexington in my recollection, like more than necessary.
Marc:And I remember doing some fairly crass material about the Jesus of.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And they gave you, huh?
Marc:Well, it's just, you know, you can feel it kind of not land.
Marc:And then you don't really, I never got asked back to the club.
Marc:That's usually what happens.
Marc:They'd rather have, you know, killer bees or somebody like that.
Marc:Do you know that guy?
Marc:No.
Marc:You didn't grow up with any Southern comedy?
Guest:I was thinking of Wu-Tang Killer Bees.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:No, he's kind of a regional guy.
Marc:Okay, so there you are in the city, the big city of Kentucky.
Marc:And what's your mom do?
Guest:She's raised horses her whole life, like since she was like 16.
Guest:Yeah, it's a crazy world.
Guest:The horse world is very strange.
Marc:And you grew up in it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, no, not in it.
Guest:I actually was very contrary with my mom.
Guest:She wanted me to, and it didn't make sense to me.
Guest:Why would you ride in a circle?
Guest:I loved trail riding.
Guest:I would do that with her.
Marc:Can you still ride a horse?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Do you ride horses?
Guest:No, not regularly.
Guest:No, it feels kind of unnecessary.
Guest:I mean, I like horses a lot.
Marc:How would horse riding be necessary at all now?
Guest:Well, there's farming.
Guest:People still cut down trees and drag them through the woods with horses.
Guest:Do they?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Seems old school.
Guest:It's better you don't have to plow the forest.
Marc:Oh, I see.
Marc:Use the horse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do it.
Marc:But what kind of stuff?
Marc:Your mom trained them?
Guest:Yeah, she would train them, breed them, kind of make these super horses.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So not race horses.
Marc:For what?
Guest:Yeah, for what?
Guest:Well, it's essentially like having the Corvettes.
Marc:An experiment?
Marc:Oh, I see.
Marc:So for rich people to buy a super horse just to have almost as something, a hobby.
Yeah.
Guest:Hobby horse, yeah, totally.
Marc:That was what it was.
Guest:And that didn't appeal.
Guest:I wanted everything to have a use.
Marc:Right, that didn't appeal to you.
Marc:It wasn't practical just to have a super horse that didn't do anything.
Guest:Well, it did a lot, yeah.
Marc:But genetically, did they breed them to be super horses or did she just train them?
Guest:It's just the same way you would, I mean, that people breed dogs or something and they look for the best traits and not genetic, mutate, whatever.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:It's purebred stuff.
Marc:They have a genealogy, a family situation, the horses.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Okay, I get it.
Guest:Descended from.
Marc:I grew up in, we had a show dog.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Did you go to the show?
No.
Marc:Yeah, my old man, my dad showed the dog for a while.
Marc:He was a champ.
Marc:Good for him.
Marc:A thoroughbred old English sheep dog.
Marc:Cool.
Marc:Well, yeah, dog shows are weird, man.
Marc:They're entertaining.
Marc:I mean, I was pretty young.
Marc:Yeah, the people are, it's a little much.
Guest:I go just to watch sometimes.
Guest:You go to dog shows?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, it's like a whole different planet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's something like you're like the dog shows in town.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's really cheap entertainment.
Guest:Isn't it?
Marc:I guess so.
Guest:And people that walk that they do.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Like it's just it's so it's like some it's it's they're like stage moms to dogs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:There's this weird kind of control freaky, come on, come on, but don't listen like a kid.
Marc:I always feel like the dog looks a little kind of like, what, I'm doing it.
Marc:A little nervous about it.
Marc:Some of them are beautiful though.
Marc:Do you go to horse shows?
Marc:That's because you're fighting your mom, you refuse.
Guest:Well, no, I go and see what she's up to when she goes and stuff, but yeah.
Marc:But if she's doing the horse thing, that's sort of a country thing.
Marc:She must be out in the country somewhere.
Guest:Oh, she was, I mean, she went to like old cattle, what was the ranch out in New Mexico.
Guest:She went to school out in New Mexico.
Guest:I grew up there.
Guest:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:Where'd she go to school in New Mexico?
Guest:She went to University of New Mexico.
Marc:Oh, right in Albuquerque.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:And she, yeah.
Marc:She's got a connection.
Marc:That's awesome.
Marc:She's probably the same age as me.
Marc:Your mom.
Guest:I had older parents.
Marc:Is she around still?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So you're being nice?
Marc:Is that what's happening right now?
Guest:What do you mean?
Marc:You're not going to say anything too bad about it.
Guest:Well, I'm not going to say her age because I love you, Mom.
Marc:Oh, sweet.
Marc:And what did your stepdad do?
Guest:He medical equipment sales.
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:I always didn't get it as a kid.
Guest:He would have like medical masks and like tweezers in the basement and stuff.
Guest:He would go take those to hospitals and sell.
Marc:Oh, he was like a door to door tweezer salesman.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:For hospitals.
Guest:Yeah, like we would find the razor blades in the basement and like be playing with them when we shouldn't have been.
Guest:I remember just like cutting my hands all up and not wanting to tell the parents.
Marc:Like disposable surgical blades and that kind of stuff?
Marc:So a supplier, you work for some sort of supplier?
Guest:Well, if you're the salesperson.
Marc:Yeah, you gotta represent somebody.
Marc:He wasn't just winging it, we're assuming.
Guest:Yeah, oh God, I hope not.
Marc:Illegal.
Marc:Yeah, just has boxes of stuff for hospitals.
Marc:So when's the guitar start happening?
Guest:I was writing songs from a young age, but I never had an instrument, so I think I found the guitar.
Guest:My mom had a guitar in the attic, and I was maybe 16, 16 years old.
Marc:It was just up there?
Guest:Yeah, she had a guitar that she kept from college.
Guest:That she used to play?
Guest:Yeah, she used to play.
Guest:was it a good one was it like an exciting thing to find I think it was hard to play like the action was really high steel string steel string yeah it wasn't super friendly on like a young finger yeah situation but but you figured it out yeah there was a chord chart up there and I just kind of learned chords and you did on your own yeah well they had the circles you know you put your fingers yeah yeah I remember yeah yeah I tell myself do you know a lot of chords
Guest:Now I do.
Guest:But I didn't, you know, you only need like three for a long time.
Guest:For a lifetime sometimes.
Guest:Some people are making money at it too.
Marc:Some people go three chords for the whole run.
Marc:Maybe add a fourth one in there, a minor.
Guest:Oh my gosh, gotta get that minor, that's important.
Marc:So you start playing on your own and you never take a lesson?
Guest:I did take a few lessons from different, like maybe I dabbled in lessons a couple times and didn't take guitar lessons, but I took banjo a couple from a friend of mine.
Marc:Just a friend of yours showed you how to play banjo?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What's the, you got a finger picking, right?
Marc:Did you start doing finger picking like on guitar?
Guest:No, I did strummy stuff.
Marc:How'd you train yourself to finger pick?
Guest:Can you finger pick?
Marc:I'm trying.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you just practice, right?
Marc:But do you do two finger?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or all of them?
Guest:On guitar?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I probably use four.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah, like thumb and three?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I do a lot of rolls because of learning banjo.
Guest:Oh, right, right, right.
Guest:Or different plucking patterns where you use two and then one hits the...
Marc:Yeah, I just had a minor breakthrough with the finger picking.
Marc:I don't practice it as much as I should.
Marc:I know that if I just practice it, I can get it.
Marc:But I needed to.
Guest:You refuse to practice.
Marc:No, I just, I practice, but I just play.
Marc:I don't, you know, like I recently, but I tried to figure out Sam's boogie, you know, the Magic Sam thing.
Marc:it's not a big popular it's not a big popular anything it's an old piece of tape an old footage of magic sam playing someone else's guitar and doing this crazy riff and you know i talked to sweeney about it you know sweeney yeah you know and he tried to figure it out and he eventually figured it out and i'm like can i figure and i i figured out the first part of it which is pretty exciting and it's two finger picking though
Guest:I love two finger picking.
Guest:I think that's really all.
Guest:I mean, when I think like R.L.
Guest:Burnside, there's this amazing video of him playing and just using so little.
Marc:Yeah, that's what Sweeney's into now, too.
Marc:No one's playing with picks anymore.
Marc:Everyone's going with their thumb.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, it's like, I don't know, it's some purist shit, but then I start looking at people.
Marc:There's a lot of dudes that don't play with picks.
Marc:They just use their thumbs.
Guest:Maybe you're just becoming aware, and it's always been there.
Marc:I guess it's kind of a different sound.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, picks to me sound, well, I play a different kind of music, so it's quieter, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I've always liked the connection.
Guest:Rhythmically, I didn't like having the pick in the way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Something to me, unless you're doing Travis picking and all that, or you're trying to get as many notes in as possible.
Marc:It's hard to get a lot of notes in with just your thumb, isn't it?
Guest:Yeah, unless you're doing all the fingers.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:But just like, right.
Marc:So, okay, so you start writing songs.
Marc:Now, this is the weird thing about you and the music.
Guest:Oh, tell me.
Marc:I connect to music and melody more than I connect to words generally.
Marc:I listen to things that way.
Marc:I don't listen to songs to hear what's being said most of the time.
Marc:I just get moved by someone's voice or a melody or just the tone of the music.
Marc:But I had to go in and read the words, listen to the words, look at your words.
Guest:You had to, because you were doing homework?
Marc:No, no, no, because I wanted to, I've been a little better at doing it, listening, because I don't understand how songwriting works.
Marc:Obviously, there's some songs, like Beatles songs or whatever, that are in my head, and I know a lot of songs, but I only maybe know half a verse or two.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But the whole idea of songwriting to me, how is it different than poetry, really?
Guest:Well, like you're saying, I think people can get away with nonsense if the feeling is there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And people have been saying nonsense in pop music and rock music forever.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And not always.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And there's a lot of like, hey, hey, hey's and yeah, yeah, yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, if you really listen to some of that stuff, it's like, it's kind of ridiculous.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I've ruined music for me in a lot of ways for trying to get better at writing lyrics.
Guest:And then by listening to lyrics, you can't listen to a lot of songs I used to love.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Or like, you know, some Rolling Stones songs were just like, oh, God.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Terrible?
Guest:Well, just, yeah, because it's almost conflicting, too.
Guest:It'd be like when you get a refrain, or you say, like, the yeah, yeah, yeahs would follow something that you wouldn't say yeah to, right?
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:And that kind of stuff that, you know, was all swagger.
Marc:The logic was off, right.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I listen to some songs, I'm like, that's stupid.
Marc:But then you've got to realize, like, well, who's singing it?
Marc:And does it fit them?
Marc:Like, you know, I know more ACDC lyrics than I'd really like to admit.
To admit.
Marc:But it seems perfectly fitting for that band.
Marc:Whatever the hell they're singing about.
Marc:It's pretty basic, kind of lewd, but it's okay.
Marc:But then I read your lyrics and they're complicated because there's no narrative, it's not exactly a story being told, but they're a little more cryptic in that I can relate to half of what's in there and it moves me in a way that I don't understand.
Marc:And that's the magic of it, right?
Marc:right hopefully yeah yeah in the best case in the new record there's like there's a lot of there's some like there's a weight to it it's i don't think it's sad but it's a all of them all the a lot of the songs are reflections on on love possible you know maybe impossible maybe passing maybe age maybe sort of like this should have happened but it didn't a lot of that kind of stuff
Guest:Yeah, there's so much to deal.
Guest:I mean, I think of there's something that, what is his name?
Guest:Federico Garcia Lorca.
Guest:He would always, he was on this listening to music that was this other section of the brain.
Guest:I think there's just music for dancing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then there's music for coping with everything difficult in your life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that music, he, you know, he found it in lullabies.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And all the stuff and the dark stories that we used to tell.
Guest:And a lot of traditional music has that murder ballad situation or that- Long Black Veil.
Guest:Yeah, just loss and sadness.
Marc:That song kills me.
Guest:I mean, right.
Guest:I want songs to kill us in these ways.
Guest:Long Black Veil.
Guest:I think I did play it in an open mic situation.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:In an open mic situation?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I like the band's version a lot because I like the way Rick Danko sang.
Guest:This amazing voice, yeah.
Marc:Right?
Guest:Yeah, and talk about compelling the warble in his voice.
Guest:So heart-grabbing.
Marc:The vulnerability of him is sort of insane.
Marc:But it's different than Richard Manuel, who is just too much for me.
Marc:Too sad.
Marc:I can hear the too sadness.
Marc:And Robbie, I don't deal with.
Marc:Levon, there seems to be a kind of like a managing vulnerability.
Marc:But Danko is just sort of almost childlike.
Marc:I think I just explained all of the band's vocal capacities.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And dismissing Robbie entirely.
Guest:As you should.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:And I've talked to that guy.
Marc:I know that guy.
Marc:He's another one, though.
Marc:I try to figure out how he plays and what makes it boring to me, in a way.
Marc:Because he's obviously a great player, but you don't know any of his licks, really.
Marc:It's kind of weird.
Guest:I know the songs.
Marc:I mean, he can definitely play, but I don't look at him like, I want to play like him.
Marc:Who do you want to play like?
Guest:Nathan Salzberg, who I play with all the time.
Marc:Now, what's up with that guy?
Marc:Now, you guys are a couple.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't like talking about it too much because it's like, oh, I'll have to answer for that.
Guest:Or when people are watching us play any lyric that has to do with love, they'll be like, oh, she says that about him.
Marc:I'm telling you, if a lot of them are about him, he's in trouble.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's not all about Nathan.
Marc:Well, it took me a long time to realize that, too, about songwriters.
Marc:It's not all autobiographical.
Marc:I think I learned it when I talked to Nick Lowe.
Marc:I'm like, it's not you?
Marc:You're not writing about you?
Marc:He's like, no, these are characters or they're coming from a different place.
Marc:It's not all me.
Guest:Well, that and also it is all him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like when saying you're having a dream and somebody appears that somebody is still in you.
Guest:So you're that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't allow people to say that it's not them.
Marc:You don't allow it.
Guest:I don't permit that knowledge to penetrate my brain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I still think as much as we try to say we're telling the story of somebody else.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, for me, it was like with that with him, it was the Beast and Me, which he wrote for Johnny Cash.
Marc:So I think in that situation, you can sort of write for that character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You put on a voice.
Guest:And I do that, too.
Guest:You do.
Marc:Like in who in what situation would you do that?
Guest:Well, there's a song, Jenny come in, I remember thinking, I wanna sing in the voice of a male, from a perspective of the male that I reference is the one that I'm making.
Guest:And it kinda had a country, yeah.
Guest:I didn't write for someone like, this one's for Taylor Swift or something like that.
Marc:But you were thinking in terms of a dude.
Guest:Different, yeah, different perspective, try.
Marc:But Nathan Salzberg, I knew nothing about him really until yesterday.
Marc:I think.
Marc:Because Sweeney was like, no, you gotta check.
Marc:And he texted me all this stuff.
Marc:And I didn't even have time to go through it.
Marc:I know he worked for the Alan.
Guest:He still does, yeah.
Marc:It's the Alan Lomax Archive?
Guest:He's the curator for the Alan Lomax Archive.
Marc:So he's in charge of the roots of all American music and some global music.
Guest:for getting some of it out there, yeah.
Marc:So that means like, and he's also a guitar player, like an extraordinary finger-picking maniac.
Marc:He doesn't strike me as a maniac, but he can play.
Marc:And he has all these resources, from historical resources.
Marc:And when did you meet that guy?
Guest:I met him when I came back to Louisville in 2009.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I saw him playing with some friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:In Louisville.
Marc:He lives there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's where the archive is?
Guest:Well, since it's digitized, he was in New York for seven years.
Guest:And then once it was all digitized, he could live anywhere and still do this.
Marc:Well, not to talk about him too much, but what is the responsibility of managing a stagnant archive?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, there's still so much that isn't on isn't out there.
Guest:So you're always.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He deals with putting things up on YouTube and citing everything.
Marc:Oh, OK.
Marc:So he's like taking all of Alan Lomax field field recordings.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And putting them into digitizing them and then getting them out into the world.
Guest:yeah some of it's in the Library of Congress most of the older stuff is in there but there's still stuff I think it's from the 70s but he would yeah I don't know 70s on that was in Alan Lomax's collection that they still have to manage and and did you know like update the you know where I have some I do some of it with him and it's like on DVC cams like old formats that you'd have to put on a newer format and stuff like that oh like what's a DVC cam I don't even know I mean a little tape oh okay little videotape
Marc:So he has to experience and discover all this weird old music weekly.
Guest:And try to find its context and maybe any living relatives and stuff like that.
Guest:To the performers?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:So there's whole stories that unfold.
Guest:Yeah, hopefully.
Guest:You know, the best case scenario is you get to bring that music back to a community that didn't know that that's what they produced and they can find, you know, get royalties back to the people who descended from the... Yeah.
Marc:Is there a lot of big royalties with some of that stuff?
Guest:I mean, Beyonce sampled some stuff from the archive.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:Yeah, there's big money in sampling from it.
Guest:Moby did all that stuff, you remember?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did they just take it thinking they could just get away with it?
Guest:No, I think they know that it costs money to sample things these days.
Marc:Does he start introducing you to this stuff that changes your approach to music?
Guest:Yeah, as soon as I met him and knew what he was up to, I was like, I need as many of the female voices that you have.
Guest:Because there was a big Kentucky trip, the Southern Journey, that's actually the 60th anniversary of the Southern Journey podcast.
Guest:for alan lomax and he went through kentucky and yeah um down the delta and i wanted those i wanted to hear some women because so much of the history of recorded music excludes women's voices and i was just ready to like get the download i just wanted all of it i wanted to consume it and he was kind of
Guest:He was like, here's a few things, but he wanted, all of us can research this on our own.
Guest:It's out there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So he didn't want to overwhelm you?
Marc:He just kind of give you a taste?
Marc:Here's a few?
Guest:I think he wants people to do their own work, too, instead of wanting somebody.
Guest:But you're dating a guy, and he's got- Well, now I can, yeah.
Guest:That was when I first met him and everything.
Guest:He gave me some great Aunt Molly Jackson and stuff.
Guest:That's how he reeled you in.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, we were friends for a long time, and then-
Marc:Here's some old women singing songs.
Guest:That's how you get me, world.
Guest:Seriously.
Marc:I'm going to blow your mind with some old tracks.
Marc:It worked, huh?
Guest:Seriously, look up Aunt Molly Jackson.
Guest:She's got one of the creakiest, oldest sounding voices ever.
Guest:You would be amazed.
Marc:And that affected you how?
Guest:Well, I was just excited to hear... She was an activist, too, so I was excited to hear this woman from the coalfields just being like, you know, this isn't right, and having kind of a sense of traditional music, and then also she wrote songs herself and stuff like that.
Marc:So protest music, early protest music in a way, kind of?
Guest:Yeah, she went up to New York and I think that crew...
Guest:We're excited to have an authentic mountain person come in and encouraged her.
Marc:Do you know that movie, Llewyn Davis?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:The end of that movie is so genius.
Marc:Well, the dulcimer player.
Marc:Remember the woman who came from the real hills?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Was that Gene Ritchie in the movie or no?
Marc:I don't remember who played that part, but the dude, her dude, after Llewyn, who was drunk, mocked her, beat the shit out of him in the alley, you know.
Guest:Man, you need to watch it again.
Marc:It was so well done.
Marc:It was beautiful, you know, but it was that moment where the hipster, the appropriator, you know, the sort of the scene of that time in the 60s of these folkies, you know, for him to be condescending to, you know, a true kind of like Appalachian, you know, dulcimer playing woman, you know, and then the cowboy, the man that she was with just popped him in the alley.
Marc:Like it was like, it was such a schooling thing.
Guest:Yeah, well, that was what Alan Lomax was trying to do 60 years ago.
Guest:The journey was in a reaction to the 60s folk revival in New York because he was seeing all these young college kids being like, we are so proud of themselves for reviving dead music.
Guest:And he was like, this music is still alive in the places it came from.
Guest:And he wanted to record it and kind of prove it.
Guest:to the young folks who were kind of co-opting it so aggressively that there was still living tradition and they didn't need to play it for them, you know, like for it to still be alive.
Guest:They just needed support maybe the places that it came from.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Marc:So that was the agenda.
Guest:Yeah, he was out to prove it.
Marc:Yeah, because I saw a documentary about Fahey and a couple of the guys that, Fahey was always after Skip James, I think, right?
Marc:That was his big grail.
Marc:And then there was these other dudes that were after Death Letter.
Marc:What's his, why am I forgetting his name?
Marc:It's not Fred McDowell, Sun House.
Guest:Yeah, Sun House.
Marc:So yeah, so it was like, that was a journey for these two crews of musicians and blues nerds was to find these acts
Marc:And I think that still plays with Lomax's intention is that once they found out.
Guest:He found Fred McDowell, yeah.
Marc:He found Fred McDowell, but I think that Fahey and his cohort found Skip in a hospital.
Marc:But he was all right.
Marc:They pulled him out and he lived a few years and they had him up in Newport and he churned out a couple records.
Marc:And the guys who found Sun House, they thought he was down south.
Marc:He turned up in upstate New York.
Marc:Just hanging out.
Marc:And they pulled him out and tried to get... There was one Newport festival where a lot of those cats, it was the first resurrection of a lot of those dudes.
Guest:The footage is so good.
Marc:Some of them could handle it, some of them couldn't, ultimately.
Marc:But Skip was like, that guy's magic.
Marc:Where's that voice come from?
Marc:I talked to Taj Mahal once in the old house, and he picked up this crappy old guitar I had, because I was asking him where Skip comes from.
Marc:Where's that guitar come from?
Marc:He comes from Africa, and he picked up this K guitar I got.
Guest:Beautiful.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I never even changed the strings on it.
Marc:And he just lays out two, like, Senegalese, kind of, like, Skip James-y things.
Marc:For three seconds, Taj picks it up, and I'm like, and that was it.
Marc:He didn't play.
Marc:He didn't bring a guitar.
Marc:He wasn't going to play.
Marc:But for that three seconds, like, it was so immediate and so connected and so quick.
Marc:Like, three notes.
Marc:I'm like, what is that?
Marc:How'd you do that?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:So you go back to Kentucky?
Marc:What's your lineage?
Marc:Do you feel like you come from that?
Guest:Do you ever look into that?
Marc:I would say, look into it like... Like your past.
Guest:Genealogically?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Marc:I mean, you're attached to where you grew up, but I mean, has your family been there forever?
Guest:Yeah, there's some, I just visited my great, great, great grandfather and grandmother's graves in Hanson, Kentucky, but that's like Western.
Guest:So a lot of the tobacco region in my family.
Marc:Yeah, and what was there, where'd they come from?
Marc:Ireland, Britain?
Marc:All over.
Guest:Whales.
Guest:Like deeply mudded.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there is some German, English.
Marc:But they've been there since like the 1600s, 1700s?
Marc:That kind of shit?
Marc:Like way back?
Marc:You don't know.
Guest:I think I've got some Irish that's like three, four generations back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's the only one I can say like I know.
Marc:Right, so when you listen to this music, what are the threads of the kind of stuff you're resonating with?
Marc:Is it Celtic?
Marc:Oh yeah, I love that stuff.
Guest:That mode is similar to a lot of North African stuff too, you hear that modal, kind of deeply soulful.
Marc:It's weird how it's all connected, huh?
Marc:So who are some of the other sources?
Marc:Like when you get these older acts, these older performers, these older artists, these women that you were researching, what are some other names that moved you?
Guest:Well, there's a lot of actually English guitar players that I deeply connect with, but Dick Gawkins, Scottish, Nick Jones, English guitar player.
Guest:And I said June Tabor, she was a big one.
Guest:And Ann Briggs, another English person.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:A lot of them, actually less than voices, were songs, like melodies that I would be really struck by.
Guest:And a lot of those come in the modal form.
Guest:And so there's old songs like...
Guest:string band songs that were child ballads you know the child ballads english like ancient songs that came over with immigrants to the united states and a lot of them were left in the mountains because that's where radio didn't kind of homogenize yeah so that's why we think of them as mountain songs but they were all over and kentucky was a very wild west for the colonies and
Guest:A lot of English, Irish music came in and blended with like the African-American music and the Native American music.
Guest:And you hear it in so much of the banjo songs that I love, like Darling Corey, Sugar Babe is this one about kind of like, I guess, a stripper.
Guest:It's a very strange lyrics.
Guest:And then like a lot of the Lord Daniel stuff, stories about...
Guest:Like a pregnant woman coming to a castle and being like, please let me in.
Guest:This is your child.
Guest:Or whatever.
Guest:And the Lord being like, no thanks.
Marc:Good luck with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's sung in these great southern accents.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:How did you?
Marc:Where do you get this stuff?
Marc:Where is it, online?
Right.
Guest:Oh, yeah, it's all online.
Guest:A lot of people are doing versions of it, but there's some great stuff in the archive, the IMX archive.
Marc:And that's free?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, there is a new podcast, a new podcast.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:That's what the world needs.
Guest:I know.
Guest:There's a great cartoon.
Guest:It's two people sitting down, and it's one person saying to the other, like, I'm thinking about stopping a podcast.
Guest:This is really good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Put an end to it.
Marc:What's the new podcast?
Guest:But it's Nathan digging in the archive and kind of pulling it out.
Marc:Is Ernie Lomax's alive?
Guest:Yeah, Anna Lomax's daughter's still alive and running the organization.
Guest:And son, I think.
Marc:So it was always acoustic music with you?
Marc:There was not a time where you were in a rock band?
Guest:I definitely had played in a band first.
Guest:Acoustic came later.
Marc:What was the thing?
Marc:Because when I listen to the music and I look at the pictures on your records and the poem that came with the last one, it seems like an entire way of life.
Guest:The acoustic way of life?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I learned that.
Marc:Did you rock out when you were younger?
Guest:I know.
Guest:I did play with a five-piece band and the record Electric Ursa, which was my second.
Guest:The first and second ones are more a rock situation, and they come from that Louisville...
Guest:I played with a lot of Louisville musicians like Rachel Grimes and Joe Manning and Kevin Ratterman, people that came from like the punk rock scene.
Guest:And that's a lot of what music in Louisville now is like people that came to folk and country music through punk.
Marc:Because you all grown up.
Guest:Well, yeah, that.
Guest:Plus also when you look for the same impulse, but it's kind of matured, like you can't kind of go back and listen to punk bands.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What they were saying was a little bit youthful and maybe too simple.
Guest:But so when it gets more complex, you see a lot of people looking to old time music for that kind of.
Guest:the wildness I was talking about, a little bit of a counterculture that's like, no, we don't want to sound smooth.
Guest:We don't want to sound auto-tuned.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Who's doing that stuff?
Marc:Well, that's interesting to me that a lot of these, because it's happened, I've seen it in some of the older punk rock guys, is that if you stay in the game and you still have the spirit for it, even if you're not making any bread...
Marc:You know, you've got to grow somehow.
Marc:You've got to age into it.
Marc:You can't be playing that shit, you know, in your 50s, even in your 40s, if you didn't make a hit to begin with, right?
Marc:So you sort of got to evolve with the music.
Marc:And that makes total sense.
Marc:What's your relationship with Michael Hurley's music?
Guest:No, just pure love.
Marc:I can't get over that very first record.
Guest:Was that the one you did for Folkways?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I cannot get over that record.
Marc:Like Blue Mountain, that song Blue Mountain.
Marc:I mean, what the fuck?
Marc:Where did that come from?
Guest:He's like a alien child person.
Marc:He's still around too.
Guest:Yeah, we're gonna go see him in Oregon.
Marc:Do you know him?
Guest:Yeah, we played shows together.
Guest:You and Nathan?
Guest:He's hung out in my house, yeah.
Marc:Oh yeah?
Guest:He's like still, I gave him, he came to Louisville one time and came over to my house and I just sat down like a bunch of colored pencils and some paper and a case of beer in front of him and he just slammed the case of beer and made the most amazing drawings
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:It could be a child if it was a box of cereal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Unfortunately, it's not.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:That would have been better.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he made an amazing drawing.
Marc:Was he passed out on top of it?
Guest:No.
Guest:He's got this energy.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's like 75 or something.
Marc:How's his shows?
Marc:Good?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He can be kind of wild.
Guest:You don't know what you're going to get.
Marc:So tell me, now answer some songwriting questions, and then maybe we'll play a song.
Marc:The new record, I have the self-titled one, I have Rivers and Vessels, and then I have the new one, Like the River, Love the Sea.
Marc:But this last one, or the one before this one you did with Tweety?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:In Chicago.
Marc:Yeah, The Loft.
Marc:I've interviewed that guy.
Marc:So how do you know him?
Marc:How do you guys all meet each other?
Marc:And Will Oldham, too, who I don't think we like each other.
Marc:I don't know.
Yeah.
Guest:I'm sure he doesn't not like you.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I've met him once and it was difficult.
Marc:It was awkward.
Marc:I was with Sweeney.
Marc:He seemed to be like, yeah, okay, all right, fine.
Marc:Just dismissive and fuck it.
Marc:So what am I going to do?
Marc:I know he's a wonderful artist and he's contributed a lot to the world, but I've met him and he seemed to just ice me.
Guest:I think Will's more a mirror.
Guest:So you just saw what you wanted to see in the mirror of Will?
Yeah.
Marc:Do you really think that?
Guest:I think the way he holds himself makes people really doubt themselves.
Guest:He's not exactly like forthcoming and makes you at ease, right?
Marc:So he's socially awkward and it's somehow my fault?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:That's very good.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I believe you.
Marc:No, I mean, look, I like the guy.
Marc:Matt likes him.
Marc:Everybody likes him.
Marc:But people have been like, why don't you talk to him?
Marc:And I'm like, we couldn't even manage a greeting.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:It depends.
Guest:And where were you?
Marc:On the street.
Marc:New York.
Marc:That's probably.
Marc:No, I respect the guy.
Marc:I like his stuff.
Marc:But how did the Jeff Tweedy thing come?
Guest:Okay, so Jeff and I met the first time on a radio show or a mountain stage in West Virginia on Valentine's Day.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he had heard the record before over and even.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think it's through just being in music all this time and you know common people or people in common.
Guest:and James Elkington was playing in the Tweety Band at the time, and he's a good friend of ours who produced this last record.
Marc:In Iceland.
Guest:In Iceland, yeah.
Guest:And he's played with Nathan Salzberg.
Guest:They have a guitar duos thing, or duo guitar records.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I think that's how, through Jim Elkington and being, you know, playing music together and stuff.
Guest:So we talked, Jeff and Nathan and I were talking, and I guess I didn't expect for him to have such serious, like,
Guest:punk rock roots it's cool Jeff yeah it was cool to know that because I guess I was afraid of working with people who didn't have that sense of like perfect isn't good let's not go for perfect right you know and or or pure and all those words that just like make me cringe um and people that have that background in in punk rock and just kind of like are open they know how to yeah let it be raw let it uh you know kind of be uh
Marc:flawed and raw.
Guest:Yeah, human.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Yeah, human, for sure.
Marc:And then you just kind of hammered it out?
Guest:Yeah, he had some time in the loft.
Guest:I hear that loft's amazing.
Marc:I've never been there.
Marc:I've talked to him.
Marc:And as a producer, he was good to work with?
Guest:Yeah, he was, I was at first, I was like, is this going to happen?
Guest:Because we were supposed to show up on a Monday.
Guest:And he's like, oh, actually, I can't be there on Monday.
Guest:I was like, oh, here it goes.
Guest:It's going to fall through.
Guest:And it turns out when he came back, it was because he was taking Mavis Staples to the president's dinner, the awards.
Guest:It's like, oh, I guess that's a pretty good excuse.
Marc:Medal of Honor presentation kind of deal.
Guest:Yeah, something with a rainbow.
Marc:Did she get a medal?
Guest:Yeah, she got recognized by Obama.
Guest:So, but then after that, it was great.
Guest:He was just, I didn't expect him to play on the record, but he played bass all over the record and was so kind of the counterintuitive.
Guest:I think he played like reverse sounding bass line and stuff like that.
Guest:It was just so cool.
Guest:And all these, the whole place is lined with ancient guitars and basses and amps and is a dream for a guitar player.
Marc:to be there.
Marc:Oh, I gotta go check it out.
Marc:I primarily deal with new instruments.
Guest:No, you don't, I'm looking around.
Marc:That amp is old.
Marc:I guess that Strat, I bought that new in 86, so that's pretty old now.
Guest:New then, okay, yeah.
Marc:96, 2006, so it's like 35 years old, that thing.
Marc:I just got it out again.
Marc:This J45's relatively new, that one.
Guest:J, cool.
Guest:Do you like new stuff better for some reason?
Marc:I have not gone shopping for really old shit.
Marc:I have one old weird Big Gibson in the closet that I really like.
Marc:It's called an FJN.
Marc:They only made them for a little while.
Marc:It's got this short, fat, classical-sized neck on a steel string.
Marc:Have you seen those things?
Marc:It's got two white pick guards, like flamenco pick guards.
Marc:Jackson Brown plays them.
Marc:You see them around not too often, but they're a very full-sounding guitar.
Marc:I have that old thing.
Marc:I just haven't gone shopping for them, and they're exorbitant price-wise.
Marc:And I've got some reissues, and I'm not a professional guitar player, and I don't want to be one of those idiots who amasses precious cargo from people that really could probably
Marc:I'm not a collector, I just like to play.
Marc:What do you play?
Guest:I play at Collings, it's like 90 something.
Guest:It's an orchestra model, so smaller kind of guitar, more for finger picking.
Guest:And I got that from my cousin when she passed away.
Guest:So I've just had this like way too fancy for me guitar this whole time.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Because before that, like I was just playing, I think I had a pretty basic Washburn, not a Washburn, like a modern, yeah, just a new.
Marc:And this one's sort of a little better.
Guest:This was very much, yeah.
Guest:What happened to your cousin?
Guest:She had cancer.
Marc:Oh, sorry.
Marc:So why Iceland?
Marc:What was that about?
Marc:This new record's great, it's beautiful.
Marc:They all sound, production-wise, kind of different.
Marc:I mean, Iceland, I've never been there.
Marc:I have a romantic idea of it.
Marc:It seems like spatially it would be a good poetic place to be.
Marc:Why'd you go there?
Guest:Well, kind of for that reason, they all sound different.
Guest:I like to not revisit the same experience again so that there's some kind of new connection to have, not a habit, like not so you're relaxed that you're not paying attention or trying out new things.
Guest:So I just find it's rewarding to go take people out of their
Guest:home life habits, be in a concentrated period of time and work there.
Guest:For example, so Iceland, I thought this would be great.
Guest:This is the same studio that Will Oldham did, The Letting Go, one of my favorite albums of his.
Guest:Bjork helped set it up, I think, Greenhouse and all this stuff.
Guest:It was crazy to get the opportunity to do it.
Marc:Bjork was there?
Guest:she's one of the you saw her oh yeah we had a Bjork spotting but we didn't hang out oh yeah but the studio is of her and another fellow's brainchild yeah and is it like like nice super nice is it on can you see
Guest:You can see it online.
Guest:Greenhouse.
Marc:Pretty stuff though?
Marc:Is it sitting in the middle of something beautiful?
Marc:Is it on a fjord or something?
Guest:It's outside Reykjavik.
Guest:And kind of you can see the mountains in the distance.
Guest:But nearby we were told just as we were leaving the studio that there was a, like the last witch in Iceland was drowned in this like witch drowning pool right beside it.
Guest:I was like this is darker than I thought.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How do you feel it affected the album?
Guest:At the witch giant pool?
Guest:Well, not the witch, but just being in Iceland.
Guest:Being in Iceland, it's just, so Kentucky's really a humid place.
Guest:I think of atmospheres really influencing people's mindset and music.
Guest:It actually influences the reverberation of sound.
Guest:So you're kind of in this clear feeling environment with a different kind of light.
Guest:And it just, I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did you write any of the songs up there?
Guest:No.
Guest:You brought them all with you?
Guest:So all the songs were written in Kentucky.
Marc:And when you write a song, do you think in terms of melody first or do you just write the stuff at the same time?
Guest:Yeah, the same moment.
Guest:So I would always use the melody to find the words.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I guess that's how I put it, yeah.
Guest:Like you were saying, because if I went to sit down and just write linearly, I don't think my brain works that way.
Marc:Just like you don't come up with a phrase.
Guest:Right, there's nothing, like with music, you can start the line, and some part of your brain knows the rhyme is coming, and it works ahead of you, and it works behind, but music is the way that it opens that kind of interconnectivity, that cyclical kind of thinking for me.
Marc:Right, oh wow.
Marc:Because I'm gonna write a song soon.
Guest:Can't wait.
Marc:I think I've written some already.
Guest:You think?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just, I don't think I'm good at melody, man.
Marc:I mean, it's like I'm a 1-4-5 dude, you know what I mean?
Marc:It's like it's straight up for me, three chords.
Marc:If it's not 1-4-5, it's one, you know, like, if it doesn't go, you know, sometimes I, like, go...
Guest:That's a lot of chords.
Marc:Right, so it's like one, it would be an A, right?
Marc:So one G. I love that thing.
Guest:That's nice.
Guest:What makes that hard to sing a melody to?
Marc:Well, I just feel like it's always going to be the same melody.
Marc:And it's always going to go along with the bass chords because I don't have the range to understand really how melody works.
Marc:I don't, you know, I'm not that confident a singer.
Marc:So it's always going to be some form of like...
Guest:because you're following yeah yeah so like how do you get out from under that i don't know i come up with all kinds of uh constraints that helps me like if you were to say okay you're not going to write a melody you're going to sing the same note the whole time oh yeah like that's when the chords are changing that's a melody yeah right yeah i just gotta just do it i just gotta quit everything and
Marc:Just throw your whole heart in.
Marc:Yeah, it's time.
Marc:That's what the world needs is another guy in his mid-50s to enter the musical ecosystem.
Guest:I think so, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, an amateur.
Guest:More people enter the music system.
Marc:A hobbyist.
Marc:Another hobbyist has to enter with his big ideas.
Guest:I don't think music, no, because that's, it's like, it's hard stuff.
Guest:It's not a hobby.
Guest:It's not like painting model planes.
Marc:I can't like that.
Marc:I was terrified to sing in public forever.
Marc:But now you do?
Marc:I will with my eyes closed.
Marc:But it's also, I'm not great at playing and singing.
Marc:Well, I can do it with some stuff.
Marc:uh at the same time but um to me it was so revealing so exposing so vulnerable that like there was no way to hide it all whereas musicians feel differently because I do comedy I have no problem with that but musicians are like how the fuck do you do that you know they're they're more comfortable with singing yeah you know for but for me singing it's just sort of like oh yeah yeah and I'm okay at it but it's just too like you can't hide it all I don't think
Guest:Yeah, but you can hide if you have like a five-piece band in there.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Hey, we don't need an audience.
Marc:There's no one here.
Marc:That's all right.
Marc:We got us.
Marc:Let's go.
Marc:All right, you want to play a song now?
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Do you feel good about what's happened here?
Guest:Yeah, I always feel bad about talking about music, but.
Marc:You do?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why?
Guest:Well, it was made to stand alone, probably.
Marc:I know, but you gotta go out and sell it.
Guest:Oh, gosh.
Guest:Well, then that's why I feel bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're doing all right, though, right?
Marc:Yeah, I'm doing fine.
Marc:People come?
Guest:Yeah, people come.
Marc:Well, that's nice.
Guest:People that like quiet music come.
Marc:Quiet music.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The quiet people.
Guest:The quiet, tender-hearted people.
Marc:You see them out there.
Guest:Yeah, they exist.
Guest:They still exist.
Marc:I know they exist.
Marc:No, there's a lot of them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, it's so nice.
Marc:It's so sweet.
Marc:You gotta take care of them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We all gotta take care of each other.
Marc:That's what I hear.
Marc:All right, let's try and figure this out.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:See, I think that sounds pretty good.
Marc:Let me get levels.
Marc:What are you gonna play?
Guest:I'll do the fading.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:A spring remembered A taste of gin An eyelid light upon our skin Your form it lingers A trace just where you've been The songs we sang I'll sing again When it breaks down Babe, let's try To see the beauty in all the fading
Guest:I saw the river thick with mud Break through the banks and run And I confess I liked it I cheered the flood
Guest:When the water hit the banks and won, the nip breaks down.
Guest:Babe, let's try to see the beauty in all the fading.
Guest:Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm.
Guest:the roads are endless they seem to grow vines that wind around the world though i hated to leave my home
Guest:But I love that car when I need to go When it breaks down Oh, babe, let's try To see the beauty in all the fading Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm
Guest:And oh Kentucky stays in my mind It's sweet to be five years behind And that's where I'll be when the seas rise
Guest:holding my dear friends and drinking wine when it breaks down babe let's try to see the beauty all the fleeting when it breaks down the stakes get high see
Guest:The beauty and all the fading
Marc:Yeah, that was so good.
Marc:Feel good to you?
Marc:Feels good.
Marc:Thank you for coming.
Guest:Thanks for having me.
Guest:Yeah, I'm shocked, really.
Guest:As Kentuckians get asked out, we don't understand why.
Marc:Well, I can't explain really the sort of sway your music has over me.
Marc:And I go back to it a lot.
Marc:So I had to meet you and talk to you.
Guest:Thanks.
Marc:Okay, beautiful.
Marc:Beautiful music up here in this temporary studio in my house upstairs, in my spare room.
Marc:The new album is called Like the River Loves the Sea.
Marc:It's available now wherever you get music.
Marc:That was Joan Shelley.
Marc:I will not play music today out of respect for the professional music that was played just moments ago.
Marc:Okay, Boomer?
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Boomer lives!
you