Getting The Demon Out

Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you're allowed to sleep. It's always in the middle of the bloody night, or when you're half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away. You turn on the lights and the cockroaches run away. You can never grasp them.

-- John Lennon (9 October 1940 - 8 December 1980), singer, songwriter, guitarist, political activist, humorist, painter, and writer

Vertebrats!

Vertebrats tonight at Cowboy Monkey -- see ya there!

RIP Mary Travers

The longer I live the more I find that people seldom take the time
To really get to know a stranger and make him a friend.
But the power of a simple song can make everybody feel they belong.
Maybe singin' and playin' can bring us together again.
Singin' and playin' can bring us together again.

That music speaks louder than words

-- Mary Travers (9 November 1936 - 16 September
2009), of Peter, Paul, and Mary, lyric to Music
Speaks Louder Than Words

RIP Les Paul

It has to be said, we must all own up that without Les Paul, generations of flash little punks like us would be in jail or cleaning toilets. This man, by his genius, made the road that we still travel today. I don't know how he did it, but I'm so grateful he did.

-- Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards

1000-Day Dream

Coming to Cowboy Monkey & The Highdive, October 2nd & 3rd, 2009

Don't Think About It
How Come
Any Day Now
Johnny Avante
Hang On To Your Man
Psychedelia
Big Yellow Bus
Left In The Dark
Diamonds In The Rough
Jackie's Gone
Teen Seen
Robbery
Put Your Toys Away
Some Like It Hot
Turn On Your Face
Try Again
Every Once In Awhile
Up Till Then
Mystery of Love
Oklahoma
Honey Bee
This Before

Wait, What?

Wait, was Michael Jackson black?

-- 10-year old Alyssa, looking at the cover to Michael Jackson's 1982 LP "Thriller"

Played With Expression

I assure you that the typewriting machine, when played with expression, is not more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

-- Oscar Wilde

Most Joyful, Most Perfect

For me, music making is the most joyful activity possible, the most perfect expression of any emotion.

-- Luciano Pavarotti (October 12, 1935 - September 6, 2007) Italian opera singer

Keith Richards At 63

I was number one on the "who's likely to die" list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list.

-- Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, in British music magazine NME, March, 2007.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

The only proof he needed
For the existence of God
Was music.

-- Kurt Vonnegut (1922-11-11 - 2007-04-11), Vonnegut's Blues For America, 07 January, 2006 Sunday Herald

Godfather Of Soul

Thank God for the journey.

-- James Brown, The Godfather of Soul, May 3, 1933(?) - December 25, 2006