RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.

Sunday, August 21

Saturday, August 20

SONG OF THE DAY: Maiden's Prayer


Nice, chill, back roads Virginia music. Used to bump some earlier releases by this dude before I realized he was actually local. Just great shit to vibe to. Kinda feel like you can study Americana music and learn acoustic instruments all you want, but if you don’t know legit back roads lifestyles at least a little, it’ll never sound right. Bachman hits that sweet spot with one foot in knowledge but the other in intuition.

Friday, August 19

SONG OF THE DAY: Graveyard Train


Grew up on Creedence, so much so used to stare at the album cover for Willy & The Poor Boys and I actually thought it was the little ass abandoned train town our post office was in. For reference, this was before school, so I mostly just hung out at home or at my grandmother’s trailer, no social activities, so riding from our house by a dairy farm to the post office in Rice, Virginia, where they had like six brick buildings all in a row together, that was big time. A few years back, when I was still married, me and the family were riding back where I had grown up, and I took them down the road that old house had been on, which dead ended into a lake now because they created a reservoir where a dump used to be. The house was gone, but the house next door was still there, and some old lady was sitting on the porch. I got out and asked her about the house that used to be next door, assuming she was an old lady so might’ve lived there a couple years, I don’t know. She didn’t live there when I was a kid. “What house?” she yelled, rather crazily. “In the field, there used to be a house, I lived there when I was little.” “Ain’t no house there now!” she yelled. “Yeah, I see. When was it torn down?” “Ain’t no house over there.” I gave up at that point. You can’t return to the past.

M4N V3RSVS N4TVR3 1S 4N...


man versus nature is an 
intellectual fault line 
we build hopelessness upon 

Thursday, August 18

SONG OF THE DAY: Little Green Monster


It’s pretty easy to hate, getting mad at folks for not being the way you think they ought to be in this world. Been working on my own judgments lately, trying not to hate on folks, even if they’re not my type of people or somebody I’d trust. Folks can exist separate from you living full lives without you having to be all caught up in their shit. It tarnishes the enjoyment of your own life to be worried about that shit. Fake don’t realize it’s fake anyways – it feels real to them. And my real might be fake to somebody else. You get too caught up in all that shit, you’re consumed by self-doubt and external hating and resentment about things too far beyond your own control to be worrying about.
Side note: ain’t been writing much on here because I was down with covid for the past few weeks. My voice is still all sorts of fucked up, but when this song kicks off right after he says like his grandma used to tell him, and hits that “sha la la la la la lalala” – when my voice is right, I sing that shit to the cats smooth as fuck.

0LD SCH00L SVRV1V4L R3QV1R3D...


old school survival required 
deep knowledge of a place - far 
deeper than superficial 

Wednesday, August 17

Tuesday, August 16

Monday, August 15

M0ST F0LKS H4V3 T0 P13C3 1T 4LL...


most folks have to piece it all 
together, in little bits, 
unblessed by economics 

Sunday, August 14

4T 0VR C0R3, M0ST HVM4NS JVST...


at our core, most humans just 
want to be free to live our 
lives, hopefully happily 

Saturday, August 13

3V3N TH3 WR0NG S1D3 0F 0VR...


even the wrong side of our 
histories is filled with folks 
forgotten and exploited 

Friday, August 12

TH3 STRVCTVR3 0VR M0D3RN L1V3S...


the structure our modern lives 
have been given was all built 
in the past two centuries 

Thursday, August 11

Wednesday, August 10

Monday, August 8

TH3 RVST13ST L34TH3R-SK1NN3D...


the rustiest leather-skinned 
scraps of western whiteness, loved 
only as cannon fodder 

Sunday, August 7

Saturday, August 6

4M3R1C4'S PYR4M1D...


America’s pyramid 
scam promised salvation, but 
some of us just can’t be saved 

Friday, August 5

M1LL3D N3W W0RLD H0M3S FR0M 0LD GR0WTH...


milled new world homes from old growth 
woods, already occupied, 
but we were told it’s okay 

Thursday, August 4

D0M3ST1C4T3D G4M3C0CKS...


domesticated gamecocks 
always ready for battle, 
feasting on the scattered scraps 

Wednesday, August 3

SONG OF THE DAY: Mama He's Crazy (chopped & kudzu'd)


At one point on my patreon, I was chopping and kudzu'ing old country songs fairly regularly. I got a twelve-pack of them together, which I released on my bandcamp, and then began doing southern rock ones for the second twelve-pack. But I got stuck somewhere along the way. I tried a number of songs, and some were okay, but none were slamming. I'm too much of a perfectionist in some ways, in that unless something is hitting me in that moment, I can't let it go. Which is strange, because in my other creative endeavors, I literally do whatever without thinking, or thinking as little as possible. Not sure why fucking with remixing old songs is different. Anyways, the first twelve-pack is nothing but bangers, including this track. I always forget to hype my patreon or bandcamp on here, or the haiku spikes I do, or the fact I've been writing poems on bottles I find in the woods. It's kinda hard to catalog what I do, because I'm chaotic good in human form. The point of all this is to say there is no point. I'm not a store. I'm not perfect. I'm not even consistent. I just am.

B4R3LY TRVST1NG M0D3RN G0DS...


barely trusting modern gods - 
always been recognizing 
authority as bastards 

Tuesday, August 2

W3 S1MVLT4N30VSLY...


we simultaneously 
took pride in work, while being 
too stubborn to take bossing 

Monday, August 1