Flanfire

“Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground, Mother Earth will swallow you, lay your body down…”  To me, American innocence died at Kent State along with my beloved Allison Krause (she whom I would visit only ostensibly to buy bagels and cream cheese and to lie on the grass and look up at the clouds together once in a while).  But what IS the cost of freedom?  And how do we find it?

Those days of innocence turned to days of rage as some I had counted as friends took up firebombs (blew themselves up, some did) and vitriol (much of it misdirected away from hatred of their parents’ lives), ripped off Bobby Z and called themselves “Weathermen.”  Fast forward to U2′s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and you quickly realize that finding the true cost of freedom has eluded so many of us as we travel life’s pathways.  We want to be free — and yet …. we fall for the same old granfalloons time and time again.

And yet — there is this life force that now seems to be emerging as a new generation that first cast off religion as something phony people use to gain control over others then slowly began to realize that politics is often just another religious con game and what do we say, it is the music alone that has the truth inside.  We all have gone through the “Self-Actualization” crazes of one sort or another — thinking for a time that life was all about US (even if we condescendingly “helped” the poor according to our own standards — and surely not theirs [how could THEY know what is best for themselves, we might have said].  But then becoming poor ourselves we begin to realize that every true voice is worth listening to, every beating heart has a song to sing, and we begin to quieten ourselves so we can hear that sound of the universe revealing secrets we are all supposed to know.

So my friend Chris Jamison sings, “you only get what you’re giving away,” and Jess Klein announces that she is free and nothing is expected of her, but for sure, she’ll “be ready when the time comes.”  Blues Mafia has this new song, too — “Live Free” — that electrified the crowd at Antone’s for Gary Clark, Jr., the other night. 

All these words resonate, for we have all begun to learn that we cannot put our salvation, our true freedom, into the hands of those who manipulate us or those who schmooze us and take our wealth and our energy promising to do it all for us — and all the time robbing us of the excitement of the adventures that are our real lives.  So there it was all along — to find the cost of freedom, we have to “lay our bodies down,” on the line, holding nothing back, trusting somehow that the energy of true freedom will be so stunning that even those who might seek to take advantage of our wide openness are instead transformed before their very own eyes (if only for the moment) and they dance with us.

Life is stunning if we live it full on — if we listen to the breeze and the brooks and smell the roses and even prick our fingers on the thorns.  Which brings me to some stunning new music that I have had the pleasure of listening to these past few days.  [And right now I have to tell you I have a brand new CD from Alex Dupree and the Trapdoor Band -- Alex whose songs have more words even than those of Danny Schmidt, and from Ruby James (who got hugged by Kris Kristofferson the other night and has pictures to prove it), and from the Tiny Tin Hearts (who play on August 27th at Emo's).

I first met David Ramirez on Easter Sunday as both of us were guests of B. Sterling Archer and his lovely wife Jess for a fabulous lunch and party.  So now both of these guys handed me their new CD's within days of each other -- and I have nearly worn both of them out already.  Now I have walked down many roads with B. Sterling (who is 6'-7" and plays standup and electric bass, trumpet, guitar cello, and more) and only one or two with David (who is much shorter and a little chunky by comparison).  David recorded his "American Soil" up in Nashville with guys who are not his everyday band, while the B. Sterling Band (including former guitarist Micah Miller) played on every track of "Time Has Come."  And yet both of these men have written tender, passionate songs about real life with a partner -- how love is hard and forces us to die to our vanities, our conceits, even our feelings of total inadequacy.  And how we really do just have to give ourselves away in order to love -- and to be loved -- and how the personal is the proving ground for how we deal with the outside world.

B. STERLING BAND  -- "Time Has Come"

I really like this record -- B's vocals are upfront and passionate, whether singing about his wife and his life ("Not Going Back," "Let It Out," and more) or broader themes ("When the Body Fails," ").  Nicolette Manglos plays piano and keyboards and sings so well -- and yet she has since had to put her music on the back burner to complete work on her Ph. D., including a second summer in Africa.  After a series of incarnations, B. found lead guitarist (and pedal steel player) Justin Crowell, bassist (and harmonica player) Doug Frazier, and drummer Colin Wood to fill out the band that went on tour back in June (with Sarah Lincoln subbing for Nicolette). 

B. says he writes for the song, not the genre, and indeed the music here is varied -- from soft rock to harder stuff to that country feel -- "Why We Stay" is one of the most significant songs I have heard in YEARS.  Anyone who has tried to hold a marriage together has to identify with this masterpiece -- "we're feeling ways to make each other whole, and you're the only one I care to know."  "There's days when we lose track of our words, there's months when we can barely afford, we make do sometimes out of thin air, while we're growing there's always cracks to repair.... but through the years I'm finding love's a tangled web worth unwinding ..."  Listen to this song late at night over a glass of wine with your sweetheart -- and then spend an hour or two (or three or four) keeping the song alive in your own hearts.

The title song is cut from another cloth -- and here we find that selflessness of which freedom is made.  "Smooth out the line in the sand, kiss all the wounds that you can, join with the lonely coz you're not the only one ... the time has come."  "So go out tonight and dance with a stranger ... mend what you can ... and give what you've got till it's gone."  Just pour yourselves out -- and then listen to B's trumpet solo.  "Cash in your plans and go bold, live out the story of old," B. urges us -- and then we get the piano, followed by a piercing guitar solo over Frazier's harmonica. 

"Pictures" is an amazing song about how God sees us -- "there are no flaws .. at all," despite all of the ugly lines we have imagined in our own faces from the days we have spent with burdened hearts and pettiness and gossip and whatever else we remember as making us unworthy of being loved.  How liberating to hear that we are sons and daughters who are pleasing in the Father's sight.  Makes it so easy to pick up and go on spreading our appleseeds everywhere we go.  [Raina Rose knows -- and she will be in Austin on September 15th with Carley Wolf at the Cactus!]

I especially like the opening music to “Strike a Nerve,” the quiet organ sound … and B let’s us know that “the wrong hand on your heart can ruin what’s inside.”  “Let It Out” has this staccato energy that splays into a crescendo and a shout and then a very New Order kind of chorus.  In fact if I hear any precursors to this joyfully diverse set of songs, it would be the music of the 80′s .. lots of color, pyrodynamics too — but layered and rich and full.  “Let It Out” just keeps on coming — I just gotta see this one done live.  Total contrast — “Here’s to You,” a tender love song, a ballad, a lullabye almost … “I’m not here to win my side” — a marriage lesson in a song, with B. on cello and Alexis Ebbets on violin.  “So Far Down” opens with a classic guitar riff — and the organ tells you it is time to dance … but this song, too, is about coming to the end of ourselves and then what?  The album closes as it opens — with one of my favorites, the bouncy ”Not Going Back,” this time with Micah Miller on mandolin.  Now if we can just get these guys playing closer to Austin than the Lost Pines Resort in Bastrop.

DAVID RAMIREZ — “American Soil”

David Ramirez has made a record that reminds me so much of Doug Burr’s “On Promenade” in its beauty and power.  “Carry Me Like the Wind” — “we were born of dreamers, so a dreamer I’ll remain, even if I’m the only one … for there’s too much road to be left alone…’  This song is an anthem to our great land — and moreso to that great spirit of freedom that lets us find our way from city to countryside to park to river all the time with our souls in awe of what has been created for us to enjoy.  “Arithmetic” — okay, let me just say that guitarists Paul Moak and Tyler Burkum, keyboardist Cason Cooley (who also produced the record), drummer Will Sayles, bassist Tony Lucino, and vocalist Faith Gilmore have worked with David to make this record stunningly beautiful (there, I said it again!) — here, Ramirez tells us that “I’ve been taught to walk away,” a lament that gets in the way of finding the arithmetic that adds up to real love.  This is just awesome as the music takes you away — I can just picture the cowboy riding west into the sunset on his trusty horse after kissing the girl goodbye.

“Deal Me In” — “this is the life that I choose even if I lose, so deal me in” — “I’m slowly learning just what it means to love, and I don’t think I have it down, I just know … it’s not leaving you…”  Or, put another, way, LOVE is a choice — and for that matter, love is a verb — an action word that costs us everything we wanted to hold back.  “Good To Be Bad” is pure guilty pleasure — we know the lyrics here are NOT who we want to be, but it just does “feel good to be bad….” — at least for the moment.  Later on, not so sure?  Now none of US ever gloated in hurting the one we claim to “love.”  (You Only Kiss Me When You’re) “Drunk” is another tough song — it really is saying that we often mask our selfishness to hold onto what we are comfortable with rather than deal soberly with the changes we have to make in order to make relationships work.  So once again, freedom comes simply from giving ourselves away — baring our souls warts and all and telling the truth even to ourselves.

“Bloom” is another tough song — Ramirez has even told audiences his songs are hard and dark — “You may tend your garden but I’ll bloom without you now, and just like the seasons you’ll find that I can change, so don’t tell me that you love me and put me down.”  “Fires” opens quietly, yet with the pace of a drumbeat that interrupts the stillness and then there is this piano and some muted guitars … and finally the words …. “the best things in life are hard to come by, sometimes the best things come by accident.”  The passion here is penetrating, pulsating — and we see the vulnerability of even the tenderest relationships in songs like these (and as noted earlier in songs like B. Sterling’s Why We Stay”). 

“Mothers and Fathers” may be the best song on this record — “I watched my mother fold the sheets for me, and I see the wrinkles on her hands and see all the love that she holds can be seen in the lines around her knuckles…. so tell me who is gonna lay you down, who is gonna turn the lights out, just like our mothers and and fathers prayed … I wanna love you like that.” 

“I Am Ready To Go Home” is a paean to the Creator — “This life for me is hard cos I am living in the dark but even if I find the switch, things might never change.  I could read all the books, and pray all my thoughts, but I’m still right down here and you’re up there .. If you look close you’ll see a river in my soul leading me upstream where I’m loved .. so do it now, as I am ready to go home.”  And after the power and the glory, David quietly moves us to the closing song, “Goodnight.”  “Give me my pillow, give me my bed, shut off my phone and the light over me, thank you America my beautiful country, you treated me well, now it’s time to sleep…..”

Two men — brothers in arms who have laid down their arms — two sets of stories, yet one common thread.  The cost of freedom is everything we want to hold onto that gets in the way of loving someone else and setting them free.  But as Jess Klein says, “I’m free, and I’m bound to love.”  So there it is — time to lay your body down.

“Scars can fill us up with pride .. Scars can also make us hide those wounds we got when a part of us died….  How many scars do you have?  Will you ever show your scars to anyone?” 

At the memorial service two Januarys ago for my darling wife Nancy, I found myself speaking words about scars — how sometimes people’s scars are invisible to the eye but painfully obvious to the touch, especially a touch that is just not gentle enough to bring healing and comfort.  I was talking about how we need to be aware of who we are conversing with, how not to put foot in mouth or down their throat — how to spread life and not the crush of death.

That’s why I don’t listen to Lucinda Williams any more — except of course at the annual Hank and Lucinda Williams Hoot at the Cactus Cafe, the brainchild of fellow Red Sox fan Jenny Reynolds.  You see, it’s not that she left Austin, not that the last time I saw her at ACL Festival she was (well) not all there on stage.  It’s just that song.  You know, the one BettySoo [shown here with Charlie Faye at the Saxon last Saturday] sang Tuesday night …. the one that breaks my heart every time I hear it — the one that every time I hear any song of Lucinda’s it breaks my heart because I cannot forget that song.  The one that tells me my Susan is never going to call me on the phone — or ask me to iron her shirt for work — or give me a long lecture about how I need to love people better — again.  [Well, on another plane, she does come to me over and over through the people I meet out on the streets of Austin.]

“See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world….”   You see, I can hear those words once a year (or any other Lucinda song) because July 27th is Susan’s birthday — and I have to celebrate her life every day but especially at this special time.  When it matters most.  And somehow (though a day after this year) the Williams Hoot always helps me (though this is just the third year) celebrate Susan’s wonderful life — the life she chose to sacrifice thinking it would be better for the rest of us.

The nights SHE would wander the streets of her beloved Houston to seek out her lost girlfriends and try to bring them home to safety.  The weekends she spent with her disabled friend, even going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and still getting back for her American Humanics meeting.  The day she died, she went to her job interview and then to the graduation ceremonies at the elementary school she had volunteered at, teaching reading to immigrant first and second graders.  And then the love our family was shown by Austin’s music community (in which we were still fledglings at the time) that has driven the Flanfire ship for nearly six years now.  For me, of course, the song sounds like, “See what I lost when you left this world,” except that out of that loss we have had great gain.  As you all know, life is made better through celebration … and knowing that we are all dying and so should live life to the fullest every living breathing moment.  [I can never think of Susan and not see Snoopy dancing.]

Susan would have turned thirty on Monday.  And Monday night, where was I?  Out at House Wine with some of my dearest friends — B. Sterling Archer (whose B. Sterling Band will soon be releasing its debut CD) and Melanie Martinez of Tiny Tin Hearts (which likewise has a CD about ready for prime time) — and Abbi Sims, whose spirit reminds me so much of my daughter’s — adventurous, honest, forthright, caring, and sharing … and in Abbi’s case, a downrightr good singer and budding songwriter and outstanding Open Mike hostess at House Wine.  Also in the house (well, outside in the front lawn) were Craig Marshall and Jon Notarthomas and Will T. Massey and the lovely Valerie Fremin (more very dear friendds) — Drew de France and Kurt McMahan from the band Ouachita, which plays Friday at the Belmont — and one Donnie Jones (shown here surrounded by Kurt along with Abbi and her songwriter friend Anna who hails from just south of Brenham, Texas).  And, oh yeah, Donnie Jones (who is better known these days as a wine merchant and vineyard owner) is a songwriter — a man who counted among his friends Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley and John Prine too (and of course Guy Clark), and whose songs are of that same caliber.  Will T is working with Donnie to record a bunch of his songs — some brand new, others buried for maybe decades.  Monday, it turns out, was Jay Sims’ birthday too, but we were mostly there to celebrate Abbi’s birthday on July 29th (which SHE was celebrating at the Cathedral of Junk).

But back to Tuesday night at the Cactus — which opened with Eric Hisaw and Chrissy Flatt and then Kerry Polk and friends and then The Flyin’ A’s (Stuart and Hilary Adamson) before emcee Tom Pittman made his actual debut singing and playing guitar all by his lonesome on a public stage.  After 40 years!  An historic occasion!  And, despite his own protestations, he was good lookin’ – sang well too!

After the break, it was Jenny herself and then Seth Walker, BettySoo and finally Guy Forsyth.  So after the show I found the two world-renowned lads standing side by side and popped out the camera for this photo — and Guy says this may be the first photo ever of the two of them together.  Whatever – Guy had closed his set with a brand-new song he wrote in remembrance of fallen hero Stephen Bruton.  Later he was showing off dozens of photos of his pride and joy, his 2-year-old daughter who is just gorgeous!  I know a little something about being a proud papa — Guy admits it has changed his life.

A few more notes before I go — and I promise I WILL get to those CD reviews sometime soon.  First off, we have Margo Valiante flanked by Etan Sekons and three-string bassist Kyle Clayton at the Whip In, where I was eating some of the best Indian food ever to grace my lips AND enjoying one of that venue’s many nights of fine Austin music.  [Hats off for their support of Groundworks!]  That was on Saturday, and I left at intermission to run to the Saxon to catch a great set from porterdavis (sadly, no decent photos for you).  Just stunning!  Mike Meadows on vocals and his patented drum-percussion rig, birthday boy Simon Wallace on harmonica and vocals, and Daniel Barrett on slide guitar and vocals.  The band was taking orders for their own new CD, which will be available at their August 28th Saxon Pub show — if they make it back home from Nova Scotia.  Then, as noted, it was Bettysoo, who opened with “Do Right Woman,” a Dan Penn song made famous by the Flying Burrito Brothers (okay, theirs was by no means the first, or even the biggest hit version, but Earl Poole Ball played on that record — as did (duh!) Gram Parsons).  No wonder she’s opening for Joan Baez!

The little lady in the yellow dress is Akina Adderley (yes, Nat Adderley, Jr.’s baby girl) — and SHE was the opening act at Sunday’s very well attended Austin2Africa event that was raising money for an orphanage for South African children whose parents had died of AIDS.  [The $20,000 they need for the project is but a drop in the bucket of Oprah's budget for her posh girls' school.]

This was Akina’s fourth show with her Village Playboys in four days (Victory Grill, Antone’s, Marcus Cardwell‘s backyard!) and she had to run out the door to sing the national anthem at a RollerGirls throwdown.  Also on the bill were Kalu James, Tandoorifinger, Paul Banks (who will be back at Momo’s soon), and the amazing John Pointer (who broke a string on his very first song and never slowed down).

Susan would have loved this extended weekend — from Thursday through Tuesday, great music one night after another.  Her favorite, of course, was long-time Austinite Steve Ulrich, whom she used to see regularly at the Hole in the Wall during its glory days singnig in between Quatropaw sets.  I like to think she is hearing the music I hear in Austin from her special place in the clouds.