GASSING LIGHT

it takes a worried man to word a worried blog
as i'm preparing to bring my new one man show
damn near completion, over to the edinburgh fringe fest
i'm excited about many things,
the first of which will be my first ever dvd,
which, in light of how many dvd extras we did at comix in nyc
and a bunch of road footage i've shot in the west coast,
alaska, the midwest and the south, should be pretty hot,
i'm also thinking about my next album/record/cd
which could/might/maybe will be released around the same time
and i know nobody buys cds anymore,
or so rollingstone tells me when i read the industry update column
but i don't give a shit because i've never thought in terms
of anything but an entire canvas, not a corner of the canvas,
and although i might be a short story writer if
the attention some of the individual songs get is any indication
i'm always going to think in terms of a short story collection,
call me old school, i read whole books, not a lot of mags, i listen to albums i don't watch movie shorts or look at slides.
so, now, i'm thinking that i'll record my next album with just me and a guitar, in a room,
y'know kind of a document, or a record if you will,
of what i'm doing these days.
not to be morbid, but were i to die you could say to my kid, this is what the ol' man did with a guitar, y'know?
and just what the fuck am i doing these days? well, trying to play rock and roill on a solo acoustic guitar.
how's it going? you might ask.
well, i'd say, both good and bad.
love to play, and the people that get it really get it,
but it still seems to face some conception problems.
people still can't seem to wrap their heads around
y'know that hamell on trial is one guy,
huh? what? wait...it's one guy?
but....g.love is just one guy, hamell on trial has to be a band....
and that he plays an acoustic guitar....
huh? what? he can't do that, he needs a drummer and a bass player
you know like maroon 5, they are a rock and roll band,
and wait he sings songs that are serious and funny?
funny? what is this,a comedy act? i mean he can't write songs that are funny!
i had a fairly lengthy conversation with some friends/fans in chicago about wilco,
and, for the record, i like wilco,
but i must have said somewhere that i felt wilco fans didn't have a sense of humor,
me and my big fucking mouth,
and these guys were fans of wilco, and indeed had a sense of humor,
and they said that my comment got discussed on a wilco chat room for 5 pages of chat,
which frankly proves to me that wilco fans take the whole thing a little too seriously
if you catch my drift, now if they were lou reed fans
they might have the right to take it too seriously,
as lou's a bit more, ahem, here we go again, artistically relevant,
although, ahem, here we go again, lou writes funny songs,
as does tom waits, and nick cave and warren zevon and all the one's i give a huge shit about.
which may make them more artistically relevant, at least in my humble, (although fairly knowledgeable, sorry, opinion)
speaking of my big mouth, i must have given an interview when i was signed to a major,
oh those many years ago, and said that i didn't really listen to contemporary folk music,
i think i should have been more specific and used the term singer songwriter
and the magazine was flooded with letters, hate mail if you will, about what a creep i was,
and i felt bad, because i was misquoted, or if i wasn't i didn't articulate what i wanted to say correctly,
because i kinda love folk music, except, as usual, i seem to have a different definition about what it is.
i don't think we'd have any argument about woody guthrie, who i love, we all agree he's folk music,
and certainly pete seeger, (i'm not going to keep reiterating that i love these people, just assume i do),
or leadbelly, but do we consider hank williams and jimmy rodgers folk music?
others call 'em country music, and certainly they are but to me they're all folk music,
and, ahem, here we go again, rock and roll...
i do, as i do muddy waters, skip james, howlin' wolf, robert johnson, john lee hooker,
which are blues artists certainly but to me, folk and rock and roll...
i'm sorry i know this gets confusing but it makes sense in my little over worked brain...
how about miles davis and thelonious monk? roland kirk, john coltrane?
sorry, i'm fucked i guess, but they're folk music, and if you don't think mile's bitches brew period was
folk music or rock and roll, well, i can't explain.
but then i think of hunter thompson as rock and roll, and allan ginsberg, and jack keroauc and burroughs
and lenny bruce and richard pryor and again, again, again with this hamell, bill hicks.
i'm digging a hole here but fuck it, i'll put down the shovel and get behind the crane, and keep digging til i wake up in china,
red bulled and swollen tongued from expounding my philosophy,
so are the ramones and the clash and the pistols and stooges and black flag all folk music.
oh boy, that's got to send the lucy kaplansky fans in a tizzy....
so whoz doing the folk music these days, one might ask,
well, ani obviously, and dan bern and lach and the anti folkers,(who also got sick of that precious shit), and the beautiful kimya dawson
and jeff lewis and what ever happened to the great roger manning who's cd on sst changed my life?
so what do the likes of these "contemporary folk music/singer songwriter" people do in my opinion, um...pop, i guess....
why? you might ask....well, i'll tell you...
when i first heard bob dylan, donovan, the byrds, or simon and garfunkle, richard farina, and dave van ronk or odetta or tom paxton or even the kingston trio,
i never thought they were trying to dazzle me with their metaphors or intellect,
that phil ochs could have been just shooting the breeze with me,
and you'd be kinda leaning in, cause the guy was sorta cool and funny and passionate, not pretty or sophisticated or clever...clever kinda sucks,
let's say, um, here we go, chuck berry was hanging out at a bar,
(and he probably would if you were buying, and he doesn't drink alcohol)
wouldn't you hang on his every fucking word?
he'd be a riot....he twists them so fucking good....words for the folk, right?
you might also ask, what's the common thread here hamell
in your so called definition of folk music?
well, i'd answer, righteous rebellious hearts, that's what
and can you imagine getting regaled by stories from little richard?
oh my god, i'd give my right nut...it'd be one of those golden moments of your life,
(remind me to tell you about hanging out with les paul sometime, god, that was fucking great)
all this to me is folk music.
but hey, what the fuck do i know?