Monday, August 27, 2012

Let The Mystery Be (TOTR 168)



R. Carlos Nakai – The Great Mystery Hears Me
Miles Davis – Mystery
Iris Dement – Let The Mystery Be
Dar Williams – Another Mystery
Hiss Golden Messenger – Blue Country Mystic
Van Morrison – Into The Mystic
Bob Marley & The Wailers – Natural Mystic
Emmylou Harris – Mystery Train
The Wood Brothers – Mystery Train Part II
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott – Will The Circle Be Unbroken
Ralph Stanley – Man Of Constant Sorrow
Richard Thompson – Mystery Wind
Lou Reed – Dime Store Mystery
Dr. Dog – Mystery To Me
R.E.M. – Mystery To Me
Average White Band – It’s A Mystery
Sean Lennon – Mystery Juice
Live – Mystery
Snow Patrol – Mysterious Ways
Sarah Brightman – Mysterious Days
Loreena Mckennitt – The Mystic’s Dream
Weather Report – Mysterious Traveller
Tangerine Dream – Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares

Monday, August 20, 2012

Original Sin (TOTR 167)



Justin Townes Earle – Baby’s Got a Bad Idea
Steve Earle – Devil’s Right Hand
Old Crow Medicine Show – Ways of Man
Uncle Tupelo – Sin City
Maria McKee – You Gotta Sin To Get Saved
INXS – Original Sin
Duncan Sheik – The Dark I Know Well
Indigo Girls – Prince Of Darkness
Gillian Welch – Dark Turn Of Mind
Jenny Lewis – Badman’s World
Nina Simone – House Of The Rising Sun (Live)
Aretha Franklin – Eleanor Rigby
Switchfoot – Dark Horses
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bad Moon Rising
Eminem – So Bad
Keane – A Bad Dream
Paul Westerberg – Let The Bad Times Roll
The Dirty Guv’nahs – Temptation
New Order – Temptation
Lou Reed – Walk On The Wild Side
Van Morrison – In The Garden
U2 – Bad (live)

Monday, August 13, 2012

Brokedown Palace (TOTR 166)



Marina & the Diamonds – How To Be A Heartbreaker
Emeli Sand̩ РBreaking the Law
Norah Jones  If the Law Don’t Want You
Maria McKee – My Girlhood Among The Outlaws
Willie Nelson – Philadelphia Lawyer
The Stray Cats – I Fought The
Derek Webb – A New Law
My Morning Jacket – Xmas Curtain
Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers – Love Is The Only Law        
B.B. King – Breaking Up Somebody’s Home
Alabama Shakes – Heartbreaker
Pistol Pete & Popgun Paul – History of Heartbreak
Ben Harper – Breakin’ Down
Grateful Dead – Brokedown Palace
The Rolling Stones – Stop Breaking Down
Nick Lowe – I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass
R.L. Burnside – Everything Is Broken
Perry Acker – Broke
Uncle Tupelo – Before I Break
James Vincent McMorrow – Breaking Hearts
Joe Jackson – Breaking Us In Two
Rilo Kiley – Breakin’ Up
Florence + the Machine – Breaking Down
Nina Simone – Break Down and Let It Out
Linda Ronstadt – Break My Mind
Coldplay – Fix You

Friday, August 10, 2012

Never Stop (special comment from 8.6.12)


Led by ears & eyes & surprise, we sent out seeking at the age of 17, collecting want & wisdom, song by song. Standing in line for tickets & saving ticket stubs, the mystery revealed itself inside record albums & lyric booklets & radio programs & live concerts.

Rock ‘n’ roll provided & still provides the soundtrack to every life lesson, a cultural lineage & cross-country itinerary to ineffable inspiration & dancefloor insurrection. Going to shows & meeting performers & hanging with other fans—this movement & motion of music & magic combined both hobby & vocation in a lifelong passion to discover the divine inside poem & song.

Beware what happens when such a traveling urge gets under the skin, when adventure battles to beat responsibility, when luxury seems more necessary than necessity. Pack a powerful medicine bag, pray an even more powerful prayer—& pray that others are praying for you, too. I never quite learned or discerned the proper distinction between the careless & carefree, & it’s nothing shy of miraculous that despite some quite visible scars, I’ve still survived & thrived relatively unscathed.

The song on the wind would carry me in every direction across terrible & beautiful terrains, from bicycle pilgrimages down broken-bottle alleyways, up to abandoned rooftops & down to barroom epiphanies. We followed many trails up many mountains, leap-frogged fears & followed detours & dead-ends & dirty gravel gunshot grooves.

Chasing butterflies across hilltop utopias, I lost my mind & taught the blind to lead the blind. Rattlesnakes & moonshine couldn’t cure an itch as I went from suburb to inner city to rural backwoods & finally empty-handed to a rented-house in a college town. Slowly finding my voice & losing it & finding it again. Certain constants carved tracks in the sand only to get washed away by the tide. Certain mercy & meaning hung loose only to get choked out by ego & pride.

Like cyclists seeking cover from a downpour, like spelunkers seeking light, we sought help like a drowning man desperate for dry land. So many illusions like guns to bury in the ground! So many apologies & too many mistakes & taking a mulligan on the 18th hole of life! We lost the ability or reckless desire to stay up all night, but we deliberately refined our meditative embrace of every dawn. Each day the reset button blinks brightly, our daily bread nourishes us to travel lightly. Never stop looking, never stop listening, never stop living just one day at a time.

Lots of different names for the incomprehensible & infinite love, but I am sitting out the argument game, dodging dogmatics & saving semantics for another saving time, for at least two hours sublime tonight. There’s a soundtrack that speaks wonders about the wonderful, & this is only one installment, & I’ve decided to play it loud.

There are different mixtapes to different life stories, but this collection of tunes tonight is mine, an audio autobiography if you will, & I want to share it with you.  

Monday, August 6, 2012

Never Stop (TOTR 165)




R.E.M. – Begin The Begin
The Waterboys – Church Not Made With Hands
Simple Minds – Alive And Kicking
Echo & the Bunnymen – Never Stop
10,000 Maniacs – A Campfire Song
Lone Justice – Shelter
The Avett Brothers – Murder in the City
Mumford & Sons – Awake My Soul
Justin Townes Earle – Look the Other Way
Dawes – If I Wanted Someone
Band Of Horses – Compliments
My Morning Jacket – Gideon
Snow Patrol – Run
Coldplay – Violet Hill
Dirty Guv’nahs – Live Forever
The Raconteurs – Top Yourself
Grateful Dead – Eyes Of The World
U2 – I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (Live)
Bruce Springsteen – We Are Alive
Sweet Honey In The Rock – Redemption Song
Lizz Wright – Thank You
Michael Franti – The Sound Of Sunshine
Ben Harper – Picture Of Jesus