SONG OF THE DAY: Duke of Earl (kudzu'd)

Sometimes I dream of having some sort of public space that I could just spin slowed oldies like this, one Sunday afternoon a month, and there be a big ass cookout going on at the same time, maybe fry up some fish, and just create a vibe. Then I also think I need some sort of mobile sound system, with lasers and DIRTGOD in bright garish letters that cause the hard of seeing to cover their eyes. But there’s nobody to show me how to cobble this together, and most of those I encounter, like me, seem more channeled into finding things to buy to create this type of thing rather than build it from junk. And if you “google” anything at this point, you get sponsored results, even when you don’t. So maybe I should just take my battery powered speaker and battery powered mini turntable set-up, and just go play these oldies slow for the frogs in the big pit of the old canal along the river where the railroad yard is near Bremo, by the 69th mile marker. That’s where I’ll go when I’m dead and gone and my life has been archived in ash, so it makes sense to glorify the spot now, and get the amphibians hype enough to grow legs and jump up out the water and walk on mud.

SONG OF THE DAY: Shenandoah

A dude I worked with years ago got me to listening to Bill Frisell at times, and he’s perfect for a certain vibe. But it’s also very “bakery with $4 donuts” type music. I’d love to work on a remix of Bill Frisell’s greatest hits, but with a pack of Morrises and Shiffletts arguing in the background. When I finally get it off the ground, Southern Gothicc Futurist Records is gonna be the shit! Anyways, there are zero Bill Frisell releases on 8-track tape, which tells you all you need to know. (It doesn’t actually tell you all you need to know, but that felt like a nice dramatic thing to say, especially after the $5 donut comment. Except I bet they spell it “doughnut” all the way out and shit there. Yakub is a tricky bastard.)

SONG OF THE DAY: Surreal

The wonderful thing about music on Earth is it’s so vast, you can’t possibly know it all. There’s always amazing shit out there to find out about. I never really consciously knew about João Donato, the Brazilian multi-instrumentalist. I’m guessing that despite that, I’d heard him on songs before, being he played with so many jazz heavyweights, like Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamria, and others. But he has a vast discography from Brazil, and for whatever reason, I downloaded this album he made with his son, Donatinho. Actually, I’m pretty confident the reason I downloaded it was because I saw it on a music blog (I’m one of the 19 people that still goes to those) with this album cover, which might be the most amazing father/son art I’ve ever seen. I DREAM of being the kind of father where my children would think art like this portrays our relationship. It was a surprise banger on my old iphone 5s working as an ipod in the past year, as I’ve gotten more and more into synthesized funk chaos to combat the AI cybertron battles with (as a soundtrack). “Surreal” is probably my favorite track. And apparently, it exists on a 45 from Japan, but I haven’t found an affordable copy as of yet. But one day, I will.
Sadly Donato passed away last summer, at the well-earned age of 88. That also means he was in his early 80s when he made this album with his son, which is also something to aspire to as a human being. We need less weird 80-something billionaires who want to control presidents to stifle current generations, and more weird 80-something kooks making space funk for future generations. That’s just textbook Futurism 101.

SONG OF THE DAY: Birds

I love a good cover version so goddamned good it actually makes you forget the original even existed, and the cover takes on this weird familiarity owned by the remake. Previously to this Meters’ cover of the Neil Young song, probably the greatest example of this in my life was Swamp Dogg doing John Prine’s “Sam Stone”. This version of “Birds” is great, and for some reason, was only issued on 45 in the Caribbean. It’s on my wish list, for when my pockets ain’t flat.

SONG OF THE DAY: Out Of My Reach

One day I'll have a G-body sitting on 20-inch chrome wheels, hopefully a garish paint job on it but even if not, I'll ride that rust all the way back into the grave. And I'll be riding down by the river on a Sunday afternoon, blasting the smooth old jams nobody ever knew but were perfect the whole time, just nobody made us know. And I'll sit there by the river, watching the train pass, riding the vibes that unclog your soul and keep the heart pumping love in all directions.

SONG OF THE DAY: Maheyega Assouf Igan

I listen to a lot of wedding music from other parts of the world. I'm also trying to work through a divorce right now, which isn't really contested so much as a bunch of stupid paperwork, which neither of us is ever all that amped to dig into. We got married justice of the peace with a dude who was about to die from cancer back in the day. Then when we finally had a ceremony many years later, I got drunk and passed out on homemade tomato wine in my overalls which I had put rhinestones all over as my wedding outfit. I am thankful to be sober, thankful I have been able to move on from my marriage, and hopeful that if I ever go to another wedding, it's not in America, or for Americans, nor if I am there do I have to come back to America. America is cancelled. Marriage is cancelled. Drunkenness is cancelled. Everything is cancelled except for playing hyped the fuck up wedding party music all weekend long, stripped down to my mesh boxer briefs because I don't think anybody will actually call the cops on me if I'm at least wearing these in the yard.

SONG OF THE DAY: Shlon

America is poison culture, so we don’t necessarily have that many good role models for men easing into middle agedom (or older) that aren’t tinged with sexually predatory behavior or abusing power which was slowly inherited as birthright. I mean, of course there’s tons of dudes who did not benefit from the institutions in place, who are localized and legendary and pretty great role models as older dudes to be. But our poison culture doesn’t elevate them as much as horribly flawed mediocre at best pieces of shit. Look at the Presidential election for example. Nonetheless, it’s okay to step outside the cultural boundaries applied to you from birth, like lines on a metaphysical map drawn by colonial overlords, which don’t necessarily fit. I am actively abandoning any delusions that anybody can be President, never taught my kids that bullshit, hell my only kid of voting age doesn’t even vote because they know it’s a scam meant to manufacture a false people’s mandate on the system itself, instead of making any actual fucking progress. But as I’m only a few years away from 50, instead of wanting to be a mediocre white man with material wealth, abusing my power and trying to harass women half my age, I’m trying to cultivate an Omar Souleyman vibe. Unfortunately I’m still far too tethered to my American conditioning, because I think ultimate dirtgod feelings would be living on the side of a mountain or near a quarry with a bunch of goats making noise, and pretty much wearing lavender jellabiya. That’s the robes popular in the Nile Valley, as well as Syria’s farmland, where Omar Souleyman is from, but not to be confused with the thawb worn by Saudi Arabian royalty types, and although the thawb is also called a “dishdash” which is a pretty great word for a full length robe a man would wear, the jellabiya is associated with rural farming types whereas the dishdash is a more cultured and moneyed robe. So here’s to hoping in the next decade I’m living on a hill with a hundred goats and rocking lavender or mint green jellabiya’s with embroidered “dirtgod” calligraphy on the back, freestyling cosmic verses over top whatever futuristic throwback synthgrass sounds Boogie Brown is dropboxing on me in that southern gothic future.

F0CVS1NG 0N G04LS, 4LL TH3...

focusing on goals, all the

while stumbling downwards as the

rings grow around my torso

SONG OF THE DAY: Mali Yo

I am not officially a “world music dude” but I do enjoy music from around the Earthball. Official “world music dudes” tend to identify with putumayo, which I think is Whole Foods Spanish for “weak fucker”. I refer to this particular band as Super Rail Band, though they were originally Rail Band and formed half a century ago, sponsored by the Malian Ministry of Information, to promote national traditions. They later became the Super Rail Band, likely because they fuckin’ slap so hard, big in the West African Afro-Latin jazz fusion jam style that packed stadiums, with multiple members of the group launching off into their own solo shit over the course of the lifetime. The band’s official full name is Super Rail Band of the Buffet Hotel de la Gare, Bamako.

A couple things here – African music’s traditions since the colonial independence movement is so amazing. You had this Afro-Latin jazz explosion come from The Congo, plus the whole equally insane Zamrock heavy as fuck rock bands from Zambia region. Of course Hip Life and Fela Kuti in West Africa come to mind, all the while traditional nomadic guitarists through the Sahel had been doing their thing the whole time too. Why the fuck are our choices of listening to music still so goddamned boring, even in this allegedly wide open era of streaming and sharing playlists? Because it’s still controlled by capitalism, and capitalism’s reach often limits itself through customs at the border, and what it does and doesn’t want to allow.

Secondly, the Rough Guide collections are the Democrats of world music to the Republican Putumayo compilations. That is to say, if you look for the Rough Guide to literally anything, it’s going to be more wide open than anything Putumayo gives you, but also all of it is bullshit curation. Fuck it, I’m quitting my job, getting a passport, and just gonna go crate digging through Africa for the rest of my life. If I make it across the continent safely, without settling down into a brand new life as some freak village American poet junkman wizard, then hopefully i can catch a steam ship to South Asia, and go tape digging there, bouncing between nation-states. I’m sure I’ll get embroiled in some sort of Sufi Islamist militia somewhere, likely Indonesia to be honest, but then I’ll finally just get to write wonderful poetry about the internal jihad between ungodly manmade order forced into all our lives, and true spirit of existence, which is about the power of lounge, and not giving a fuck about all this dumb shit, so that you can actually give a fuck about the real shit.

TRY T0 K33P MYS3LF GR0VND3D...

try to keep myself grounded,

but still got dreams that transcend

this corner I'm living in

DR0PP1NG 4 T3SL4 3NG1N3...

dropping a Tesla engine

in a classic Chevrolet

body, then getting some Daytons

1 C4LL TH1S MY 4B0VT T0...

I call this my "about to

play dominoes with Tupac

in Malaysia" ensemble

W0VLD L0V3 T0 H4V3 B0VGHT TH1S 0LD...

would loved to have bought this old

T-bird, added digital

dash, sub-woofer, candyflake

B3 TH4NKFVL F0R WH4T Y0V'V3 G0T...

"Be Thankful For What You've Got"

moments galore, but never

had cars that shine like mirrors

SONG OF THE DAY: 1 Jvst W4nt T0 C3l3br4t3

I JUST WANNA CELEBRATE…

ghostly wails stumbling through life, carrying too much baggage I ain't even mean to accumulate

I JUST WANNA CELEBRATE…

mostly sober of substance but for what not sure

the days still feel like cobra clutch

running between designated meeting spots

points on the grid

I JUST WANNA CELEBRATE…

let this tired dirtgod run free along the railroad tracks

a couple hours tomorrow please

today's already been divvied up into minimum payments

honoring responsibilities

I JUST WANNA CELEBRATE…

ancestral voices whispering that it's all a trick

a trap an overly-complicated scam conning away your days

embezzling life

I JUST WANNA CELEBRATE…

SVRV1V1NG TH3 M1N3F13LDS 0F...

surviving the minefields of

self-destruction, to one day

own a restored vehicle

SONG OF THE DAY: Down With the Clique

no clique, riding solo

no mentors, navigating metaphysical warzones

without guidance, trusting my own blind faith

in universal blessings

no disciples, refusing leadership of anything

because leaders don’t do enough (too busy

listening to themselves talk)

just fucking poking along

stabbing around with homemade divining rod

trying to find a dream 

DR34MS 0F BL4ST1NG B3 TH4NKFVL...

dreams of blasting "Be Thankful

For What You've Got" out of old

school car I'll never afford

HVSTL3 4 L1TTL3 B1T 34CH...

hustle a little bit each

day after them dreams which at

times feel completely pointless

SONG OF THE DAY: Kanjay

dreams of playing dominos in Indonesia with Tupac

dreams of wandering North Africa on a dirtbike

dreams of walking Montevideo for years, then taking the ferry and doing the same in Buenos Aires

dreams of running a video market in Lubumbashi

dreams of making friends, meeting new cousins all over

dreams of riding boats down rivers for months

dreams of riding trains which haven’t had windows for decades

dreams of writing poetry in languages other than this one

dreams of not necessarily disappearing

but escaping this overwhelming sense of being lost

in this American fog they say is some kind of freedom