Calliopeian Magpie Eksterboom’s project with the Barley Roots Collective

I miss you my friend.

http://www.facebook.com/events/514498731902751/

tovio:

December 8th, 2012 6pm @ Hooked on Colfax
Artwork of Courtney Burrows and Tovio Roberts

Courtney Burrows explores the relationship between reality and nostalgia drawing from nature, tarot, and stories of children overcoming adversity. http://rabbitspeak.tumblr.com/

Tovio is showing pieces in the series “Palaces — Intricate Impressions of Decadent Domiciles” http://tovio.tumblr.com/

tovio:

dear complicated heart,

I’m not sure how to talk with you.  It seems like I’ve found some way of communicating with many parts of myself, but you’re the hardest to reach.  I feel like maybe I’ve done you some terrible wrong, so that conventional communication and reassurance have less meaning than they could.  This saddens me and that sadness radiates out from you.  

It’s like I can hear you asking “why didn’t you try harder?”  Why didn’t I try everything harder?  Why didn’t I do a better job?  In everything I hear this question and I don’t have an answer.  In most moments, I thought I was doing my best.  I thought I was loving you and doing these things from the love you imbued me with.  And I remember your joy while I radiated your feeling.  But the truth of this is locked in time and you are the timekeeper.  

And then, things were not what we thought.  You forgot what we did together, it seems, but not how it felt, and the rest of me, not attached to the metronome to quite the same degree, remembers everything.  I’ve talked with so many parts of myself and reassured them, but you are the most difficult to engage.  

I love you.  I love from you.  I feel this closed circle, a current that permeates our relationship.  Still, you’re angry at me.  I can feel it sometimes when we see something together, a trigger for a memory, and you hurt.  You physically hurt.  Your timekeeping punctures, becomes sharper and I would ignore you for a little while.

Is this why you don’t trust me?  Have I ignored you too much?  Have I not looked at these pictures of lives we lived and commiserated with you, cried with you?  We’ve done so much of this, but it seems like it is never enough, never as much as you’ve required.  You’ve needed something from me and you’ve never had a voice to tell me.  

So I don’t know what to do.  I want you to tell me what to do.  I feel you there, throbbing, and I am thankful you are, thankful for all you’ve been and all you will be.  I’m not sure how else to be with you than with words and with feeling you there, loving you behind the shell you’ve built for yourself.  

Please stay with me, always.  Punctuate every word I form, keep time for every step.  Help me to stay warm in the cold.  I need you and through your hurt and anger, you need me.  We are locked in this life together and though I’ve often yearned to open the cage you’re kept in, we would all perish in the process.  All our processes would perish.  

You are wordless but I feel you always.  

love

me

Some friends of ours out here in the Wild West.

folk-punk:

Two Tone Wolf Pack — For Your Hellth EP

The first time I heard Two Tone Wolf Pack it was in their prior incarnation as Munster Boogie at a show at 3 Kings Tavern.  Their line-up has changed somewhat since then and over the years I’ve seen them play on the street for the First Friday Art Walks on Santa Fe and on the 16th street mall here in Denver.  Two Tone Wolf Pack knows how to hold a crowd with their swamp boogie sound.

Here’s a few reasons I’m enjoying this new EP…

It’s super catchy without being monotonous.  The multiple non-harmonizing voices make me feel like I’m singing along even though I don’t know the lyrics yet.  

The sound is honest and engaging.  It seems like they placed a stereo mic in a room and played.  There are a few vocal effects here and there, like an old radio transmission quality to “Old Cripple Crow,” and the mixing is good and feels entirely natural.  

The drumming is driving and interesting with a slow swampy beat and subtle variations.  I especially like the snare accents toward the end of “Hickory Hill.”  The drummer’s style sets the whole thing into a drunken intensity.

I would like to see this EP as a soundtrack to a zombie film, especially the last track “Dead Man Hangin’ from a Tree.”  A lot of great dynamics here and a beautiful hollow, woody sound to the whole thing.

I can see this band playing the Crow-nival in Detroit or sharing a stage with Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship from New Orleans.  

Download For your Hellth from their Bandcamp.  It’ll be the soundtrack to your next stick n poke tattoo.

-Tovio