Guest post this week from an astounding singer-songwriter, Peter Mulvey, whose new record Letters from a Flying Machine streets this August: “Eight songs, interspersed with four prose pieces over music, framed as letters to my various nieces and nephews written on airplanes. The first one sets the place and the theme and they go from there.” Brilliant.
Hear Peter reading the below letter here. Hear the song that goes with it here.
17th of June 2009
Over the Great Lakes
Dear Edgar-
Last week your father and I hooked up trailers behind our bicycles, and trundled you and your sister into them over your initial strident protests. Then we all rode twelve miles along the Hank Aaron trail, down by the ballpark and through the Menominee River valley. As we rode along, I marveled, as I often do, at these extraordinary machines, which allowed us to cover the distance at a brisk but relaxed clip in a little over an hour.
But that is nothing: courtesy of a very different machine, I am at this moment hurtling Eastward, eight miles over Ontario — over land, and water, and little herds of cumulus clouds far below.
Further, I am writing this letter with yet another machine; a mechanical pencil that would have flipped DaVinci’s wig. And who knows what he would have made of the pocket-sized computer that is currently playing a Bach sonata through tiny speakers hidden in my ears…
Oh, the gadgetry! To make this recording, these amazing sounds must have leapt from an Italian violin, into a German microphone, to be rendered as ones and zeros somewhere in the dark of a Japanese hard drive.
And I wonder, did Bach write these notes down with a goose quill? With ink made from – what?—charcoal, linseed oil, and water?
And at this very moment, the smell of baking cookies has filled this flying machine. They are baking cookies in the sky, Edgar. Seriously, in the late Twenty-First Century, when you’re teleporting from here to there or traveling by personal jet-pack or however you get around, will there be cookies involved?
But all these wonders, all these machines, all that is nothing, too — or less than nothing if there is such a thing. Because there are people alive on Earth who could go twelve miles along the Hank Aaron trail in a little over an hour an hour on foot. Barefoot, no less. Because the sky is and was full of birds.
Because this music must have sparked to life somewhere in the wet dark of Bach’s brain.
Anyhow, when they come down the aisle, I believe I’ll have a cookie. You keep up the good work.
Love,
Uncle Peter
www.petermulvey.com
Tags: CUT THROUGH THE NOISE, KATE BRADLEY, LETTERS FROM THE ROAD, OUTLANDOS MUSIC, Peter Mulvey —
Guest post this week from co-lead singer Philip Price of Winterpills, who I shamelessly adore, as you know.
dear hole in my head through which the foul winds of winter blow,
they say i don’t need you. i beg to differ. without you, the wind would not whistle through in that musical way; it would become very hot and stale in here; nothing would leave or be let in. so i am told you are not only a benefit to me but here to stay. from you, things are allowed to leave that may have felt trapped; others are let in that may be unwelcome.
its hard to let things in during this kind of New England winter — or out. i’m inclined to never, ever leave the house. when i do, my body clenches up, my shoulders hunch and ache, my lungs hurt. i try to take long gliding strides but i keep slipping on the ice, so i pussyfoot.
an hour long walk through the world, walking gingerly and trying not to fall, knotted up in various forms of mild pain, is how i take my exercise these days. and i listen to music, using a small electrical device that pumps sounds through tubes, and i look for things on the ground and in the air, and always i hear the whistling of you, the hole in my head.
listening to music isn’t what it used to be, you know. now when i take in that which used to feed me, i am mainly only reminded that it did feed me once — the hunger for the old Leonard Cohen album, now sated, for example, is somehow lacking. but still in spite of the unwelcome perspective i now i have, sometimes music enters my life with that old alchemy when i am not looking. perhaps this is age; perhaps it is the new electrical devices that make it all so easy that nothing is precious anymore.
i think about this as i trudge through the March snow and stumble and wipe snow from my face. last night i woke during the Nor’Easter wailing outside to get a glass of water and then could not get back to sleep, realized that you, the hole in my head, had been cut off by a strategic cave-in, made worried lists in my steamed-up mind, wrote nonsense words on chalkboards, failed pointless tests — and music was playing the whole time. Not from my electrical device! this went on for about two solid hours until i finally collapsed into sleep from over-exertion.
here is a sampling of the music that was playing:
• Carol Brown by Flight of the Conchords — mainly just one verse and chorus, over and over.
• God and Suicide by Blitzen Trapper — a song i don’t know that well, so again, just the first verse over and over.
• Little Boy Ghost by me (new song in progress) — the whole song.
• Moonbeam Song by Harry Nillsson — mainly the melody, i don’t know all the words, but it builds so beautifully.
• Bridge by Lucy Wainwright Roche — just the chorus. of course, over and over.
• You Always Hurt The One You Love by the Mills Brothers – the best version ever. before the swingy beat comes in on the guitar. i enjoyed hearing it, with even the scratchy vinyl sounds.
• some weird classical music riff that repeated over and over — i think it was a Mozart phrase that was welded clumsily onto a Souza march, and never resolves. pure sonic hell.
• And Then..? by Miracle Legion, melding with the version that Winterpills (my band) has recorded for a Mark Mulcahy covers album.
• a troubling chord progression for a half-baked new song that has only a title: Three Drops of Blood.
• Queen Bee by Neil Halstead. that drum beat, the chorus — ‘what did you say, hey hey girl?’ — calming and also in my twilit mind unsettling. what DID you say, hey hey girl?all this, a soundtrack for midnight worry, midnight lists, midnight tests, while a storm carries on outside, more snow, filling in all the holes, and come morning, the wind still whistled with conviction through my porous head. i need you.
Philip
hadley, ma, march 2, 2009
Winterpills are on tour by the way, you can catch them (and me!) in Austin at SxSW:
Breath of Fresh Air Showcase 12-6 PM, Wednesday 03/18, Threadgills, 301 W Riverside Dr (Brownshoe, Jeremy Messersmith, Romantica, Chris Velan, The Secret, Life of Sofia, Amy Peace, Winterpills, KaiserCartel, The Damnwells)
Signature Sounds Showcase 8PM-1AM, Wednesday 03/18, The Velveeta Room, 6th St. & Red River (Caroline Herring, Peter Mulvey, Chris Smither, Eilen Jewell, Winterpills)
Join us for a great evening of music!
3/2/09 | Comments (0)Tags: Blitzen Trapper, Chris Smithers, Chris Velan, CUT THROUGH THE NOISE, Flight of the Conchords, Harry Nillsson, Jeremy Messersmith, KATE BRADLEY, Leonard Cohen, LETTERS FROM THE ROAD, Neil Halstead, OUTLANDOS MUSIC, Peter Mulvey, Philip Price, The Damnwells, Winterpills —
