Blue-hairs singing 4-part harmony in church! Just imagine!

I'm listening to a new record right now: The Carter Family--I Walk the Line. On the cover is a picture of the four ladies (June, Anita, Mother Maybelle and what's the fourth one's name?)in blue and white striped scoop-necked 60s party dresses and bouffanted hairdos. K found it at Value Village today. I am listening to it on my portable vintage record player (thanks Jen!)on top of K's new amp.

Yes, K is playing music again. Our friend T wants to start a band and wants K for backup guitar and bass. I would play misc. instruments. K's been practicing electric guitar for an upcoming show that T will do this coming thursday. K's really quite good. When I first met him he would play a six-stringed blues guitar while laying on his twin bed. He also had an acoustic 12-string and an electric guitar and would jam with the guys he lived with in his first apartment in Minneapolis. When we moved to Eugene and he started going to grad school he sold his amps and guitars--all except the electric guitar. I tried to talk him out of it--what if he wanted to play again someday? It was the end of an era in a way, and I couldn't understand why he couldn't be a journalist and play music (at the same time!). Well, we were also poor and had to eat and selling the miscellaneous instruments made sense.

But it's so cool to see him jamming again--just like old times. On a related note, we (my family and I) gave my stepdad a guitar for his 51st b-day just last week. Last year he bought himself a harmonica, so we figured he would like to branch out a little and try something we could always see him playing. He has a deep Johnny Cash voice and with a couple chords under his fingers he could totally have a Cash cover band. People in NE would go apeshit for that. But I guess he's psyching himself out about learning it--and is putting off lessons. I think this is a symptom of a sickness that's plaguing America--a musical sickness. Yeah, that sounds cheesy but here's the thing: there are billions of bad music teachers out there that tell people they have no musical talent, can't sing, and can't dance. I think everyone can say they've had a bad music teacher at one point in time. Those harsh words stay with people--it's like a bad seed that's been planted--and from then on people swear off music forever. I have an aunt who never sings--not even in the car--because some mean nun in the 50's told her she was a terrible singer. It's really sad. That's one of the reasons why our culture is so musically underdeveloped, in terms of amateur vernacular musicking. We need more people playing guitar and piano and dulcimer and fiddle at home for their families and on the street corner. We need people to sing four-part harmony in church. We need people to dance more. I think people forget that humans are inherently musical (if you can talk you can sing, if you can walk you can dance) and that musicking does not mean playing dead-white guy Western art music, and most of all that music is supposed to be fun. Anyway, that's my soapbox speech for the evening.

Yesterday I got the opportunity to play Tibetan singing bowls. You hold them in your hand and rub a wooden stick around the edge (the set looks kinda like a metal mortar and pestle) which sets them vibrating and emitting this other-worldly hum, like wine glasses. The vibrations actually feel really good. They're supposed to affect your chakras or something new-agey like that but they really are relaxing and beautiful-sounding. We're playing them in a composition concert tomorrow night. Maybe I'll save some money and buy a set and open a vibrational healing shop. Kelly could read tarot and Gintastic could bake some ginger wheatgrass cookies and we'll dress like hippies and make a fortune! It'll be great.