4/13/2017 0 Comments Poetry by Ricky GarniAmy Guth
LOU It doesn’t matter if Lou Costello’s last words were “That’s the best ice cream soda I’ve ever tasted.” What matters is that someone wrote those words. Not just those words, but all the words – these words: “Lou Costello’s last words were ‘That’s the best ice cream soda I’ve ever tasted.’” Someone loved Lou Costello and said: That’s the best ice cream soda I’ve ever tasted, said Lou Costello. FAITH The piano has 11,528 parts The first person who made one must have had so much faith in its goodness He worked really hard to make one beautiful key and then play it and say “OK then” and then took a little break And then did it again 87 more times and then smiled and said Phew. Of course he did. And then he did it again and, again. Making a piano, it’s just like walking through the desert You just can’t stop once you start Nothing is better than the desert except a brand new piano with a tiny tulip atop it. ROAD TRIP I stopped inside a convenience store to buy a coke at midnight tonight. I love convenience stores at midnight because they make you feel like you are on a road trip even when they are just a few miles from your house. You look outside to see if there are a lot of bags in your backseat but there aren’t because you are just coming home from a movie. But it makes you think how great it would be to get in the car and rather than go home and drink your coke just drive and drive and drive to a place like Montana. A place like Montana because not many people I know (including me) actually know that much about Montana. If I drove to Montana I would know a hundred more things about it by the first hour I arrived than any part of my life before that time. I would step outside and look at the beautiful sky and buy a coke at the first convenience store I found and I would sigh. And my backseat with be filled with suitcases, filled with diamonds. CAPSULE Helen sat in her car and didn’t move. I opened the door and she didn’t turn. Helen was silent for a moment and then she said “Gershwin” and then was silent again. A minute later Helen said “I used to love to turn on the radio and hear Gershwin.” Bio: Ricky Garni was born in Miami and grew up in Florida and Maine. He works as a graphic designer by day and writes music by night. COO, a tiny collection of short prose printed on college lined paper with found materials such as coins, stamps and feathers, was recently released by Bitterzoet Press.
0 Comments
"I've got me to keep me down" sings Lael Neale on Pale Light of the Sun, weaving slow, 60's era sounds throughout a record of poetically introspective, literary songs, Neale has an almost timeless quality to her voice, slightly reminiscent of Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny or Kate Wolf. Although it was a combination of Cat Stevens and Harold and Maude that first sparked her inspiration for songwriting. "I wanted to tell stories in images made emotional through sound" Neale says, of that defining moment when creative paths were revealed. "Inspiration isn’t about magic, it’s about showing up" she adds. Here Lael talks about the importance of maintaining a childlike enthusiasm, the early and initial sense of awe and wonderment, how to show up with all your attention, the difference between looking and seeing and staying open to the creative possibilities that might, at any moment, come pouring through. AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Lael: My dad was really into the Grateful Dead and bluegrass music and we went around to festivals during the summer. I loved this approach to music as more of a lifestyle, music for the sake of community. My mom, on the other hand, had more hip taste. She loved The Cure, Jonathan Richman, The Beastie Boys, and was really into films with great soundtracks. One day she brought home Harold and Maude. Cat Stevens’ songs in the context of such an exceptional film sparked the first feeling that this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to tell stories in images made emotional through sound. AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? Lael: In grade school we had Declamation day in which all students recited a poem. I chose Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” because I loved how harsh and straightforward the words were without musical accompaniment, but there was definitely some of the magic lost. It was the first time I realized how much sound influences the way we feel something. Now, I am paying more attention to creating the appropriate balance between word and sound. AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? Lael: I was a literature major in college so for four years I was steeped in works by the greatest writers and poets. Aside from absorbing the actual content, I learned about discipline and dedication to a daily practice. I am more drawn to the way musicians like Patti Smith and Nick Cave approach music. I love the interview of Nick Cave in suit and tie, drinking tea from china in an office that he goes to every morning. People like that have shown me that inspiration isn’t about magic, it’s about showing up. AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? Lael: Finding the right angle of light is the perfect metaphor for it. Writing a good song depends on many factors. Where is the sun sitting in the sky? Are the curtains drawn too tightly? Did I show up today with all my attention, am I looking or am I seeing? If you can be an open window, something is bound to show up, whether it’s good or not is whether or not the gods are smiling. AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? Lael: I have been healed by music. It happens when the person making it is able to relate her own specific experience to the broader human experience. There doesn’t even need to be resolution or any spiritual consolation, the simple act of one person being exposed tells you that you can be vulnerable too. This is powerful especially in a culture that perceives vulnerability as weakness. I don’t know if I’ve ever accomplished this, but the intention is there. AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? Lael: My warmest memory of music is the annual Graves Mountain Lodge Bluegrass festival near my hometown in Virginia. My cousins and I would go with our families and spend the entire day catching minnows and tadpoles in a river that ran beside it. That music can always bring me to nostalgic tears. I will probably hear it on my deathbed. AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? Lael: The state of the world never influences the songs overtly. I don’t sit down thinking I need to make a cultural statement or political commentary. With that said, we are products of our environment and our thoughts and feelings cannot be disconnected from the greater conversation going on. I feel a lot from the world, but the moment I start to intellectualize or “set out to tell” my side, my opinion, the song stays limited. I stand behind what Einstein suggested, that the problems of the world cannot be solved with the same mindset that created them, and as far as I know, my mind is still too small to resolve war or gun violence or inequality. The best I can offer is empathy, our shared humanity. AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Or what kinds of things have others told you that have helped push you past moments of self doubt/creative blocks? Lael: Doubt is death to creativity. Overcoming that has been my greatest challenge. To combat it, I try to remember myself as a kid making skits in the basement. That feeling. The joy of making just for the sake of making. To maintain a childlike enthusiasm. Sometimes a commitment to that means taking a break from writing and going on a walk or painting a bad picture or going bowling. AHC: Do you have any new projects moving forward or musical ideas that are percolating for the future? Lael: I hope to be working with my very talented friend, Guy Blakeslee (Entrance band), who is helping me curate and possibly record the next collection of songs. Lael's latest album, I'll Be Your Man, can be purchased by visiting laelneale.bandcamp.com/releases Visit her official website at www.laelneale.com/ 4/12/2017 0 Comments Photography by Davida CartaBio: Davida Carta is a photographer and MFA candidate at NHIA, NH. Carta is from Milan, Italy but has been living and working in the US since 2010. She is also the founder of Underexposed Magazine, an online blog/zine that creates opportunities for female artists to share and promote their work as well. Her images are about domesticity, identity and the challenges of living in between two cultures. http://cargocollective.com/davidacarta www.instagram.com/davidacarta underexposedmagazine.tumblr.com/ 4/12/2017 0 Comments Poetry by Katie LewingtonCamden the morning after traipsing back across town, with laddered tights, and hangover carpet burn on elbow, bites imprint on her flesh sore from her lover she had met on Valentine's night, the worst of occasions now in search of a cafe for warmth, bacon and the day's newspaper she hoped she hadn't killed him he had been flat out she had left him snoring with the curtains open, mug of tea at the bedside and not her number scribbled on a scrap of paper which she couldn't remember anyway he had a wife that was evident in the photographs he scrolled through on his mobile phone to find the ones of his beloved bulldog he had taken her to his mate's flat he and his wife lived in Camden. Vodka, Whiskey, Rum, Wine, and Beer. we don't drink the cola with sugar in it we are told that it is bad for us and sometimes, for a month, we go dry as a challenge we give alcohol up but somehow this culture has numbed us to it and it is cool to be shitfaced too, for a night, not be in control of who touches us and it'll be OK, shush because we were drunk and I'm sorry and it won't happen again you know but it does because somehow it is weird to be sober and it is cool to be shitfaced to be at a disadvantage to slur our words and feel like I love myself and I love you and I love the whole damn world when yesterday you were ready to go why does it take alcohol to feel whole and confident with the person we are? Sore people watching in the cold interior of McDonald's we all live within our own bubble who can prick and let the pus ooze forth - only tragedy. Bio: Katie Lewington wrote her first poem aged 16. Even though, after analysing a poem for her hellish English GCSE, she vowed she would have nothing more to do with poetry. She can rarely, if ever, find a working pen to write for her and has to resort to using Word. She has published a number of books on Amazon.com and Payhip.com. She is passionate about helping independent authors find the best audience for their work and likes to listen to music, daydream, watch Cary Grant films, sniff 50 year old poetry tomes and blog. Her creative writing, and reviews, can be read at https://katiecreativewriterblog.wordpress.com 4/11/2017 4 Comments Poetry by Kristin GarthLittle Brick House Inside a house of brick with just a bed I wait for you without my clothes. A place we drove to on your lunch, a gift, you said. and waved a key you used to trace a line into my thigh so hard, it went from white to scarlet while your eyes went wild and dark. And then you kissed it while you rubbed it, smiled and whispered, "This is how I leave my mark." You slipped the key between my fingers, made me struggle with the lock -- "You have to learn" -- Then rushed me past that empty room to bed with pink new sheets I knew I had to earn. Inside a house of brick with just a bed I wait without my clothes just like you said. Your Dirty Secret Your dirty secret, screaming lashes. Screw me loud and long and mean then hit until you get serene. Can you pretend it’s true? Just keep it to yourself, if so. I will. A crimson trail of blood and grinding teeth, Oh, I have caught those hands much more than red and seen my tissue pulp and drip off neat unbitten nails too long to buy this bed and breakfast shit from you again. Unzip this dress, just stare it down and wipe your nose upon that sleeve before you go. Do not talk of leather belts and bite your lips in bars near me anymore. So just find your pigtailed screw and take her home. Just leave me and my bruised up life alone. Bio: Kristin Garth is a novelist and poet who resides in Pensacola, Florida. She is currently working on an erotic novel entitled The Meadow. 4/10/2017 0 Comments Artwork by Harshal D.Cosmic Macaw Counting to five Mystique Harmony
Bio: Harshal is an artist, entrepreneur and writer that loathes the typical 9-5 existence. After quitting his business to hone the world of entrepreneurship and design solutions, he writes to document his thoughts and struggles as he takes on societies norms armed with nothing more than his cheeky wit and undeniable charm. His work is published in Verbal Art, Phenomenal Literature, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, National Geographic, FineFlu, The Type Image, 805Lit, Door is a Jar, Asian Signature, Spark, and SickLit Magazine – Email him on [email protected] braces chung shows me his braces he’s proud of the metal on his teeth all i can do is stare at a piece of something white caught in them wonder if it’s bread or something else i stomach a lot but certain foods get me giving the cat tuna is enough to knock me on my ass i tell chung, all right, enough about the braces to get him to close his mouth but he says, i don’t think my grandma loves me my one grandma does, he says but the one i live with, she just yells at me because sometimes i forget to come home chung volunteers here sometimes he forgets to come in on saturdays but we always give him a second and third chance he says, why do you think my grandma yells at me i don’t know, kid, i tell him maybe you’re out of chances with her i can still see that piece of white stuck in his braces wonder how the kid is talking with that a piece of lettuce in my teeth is enough for an epileptic fit maybe she’s just worried, i tell chung she’s mean, he says but everyone is mean to chung the adults in here most of the kids i see him wrestling around with he’s a good, dumb kid the world will take advantage of chung until he has nothing left to give it but servitude and quiet benevolence i just want my grandma to love me, he says i’m sure she does, i say but what do i know? in america families gun each other down like they’re taking on enemy combatants you got something in your braces, i finally tell chung he puts a whole hand in his mouth works to dig the piece of white out until it’s gone he flicks it away and i watch it slop on the floor look up to see chung’s hand extended, ready to shake mine thanks, he says as we shake but i’m not so sure which hand he flicked that food off with. jimmy vs. technology about once a week jimmy comes down from the adult group home he’s always got his guitar slung over his shoulder like he’s come back from rehearsal or a gig his long, gray hair is held back by a sea foam bandana that has seen better days it’s like jimmy every time he’s in its reinventing the wheel he can’t remember his password can’t figure out how to make the internet work doesn’t remember his yahoo! mail account i say, jimmy why are you still doing yahoo! i want to be up to date, man, he says jimmy once asked me if i played guitar because i have long hair like he does and it’s kind of going gray no, i told him…i chose a lesser art jimmy has the worst trouble with the copy machine i can’t blame him the thing can email and fax and send text messages it’s a bit daunting for a guy who just needs to copy his legal and medical papers when he’s in the building i know it’s only a matter of time before jimmy and i will both be at the copier testing our technological limits that’s usually when jimmy will go on about the adult home how bad the food is how horrible it is being locked inside and incapable they treat you like you’re nothing there, man, he says i try to picture jimmy in the adult home grateful dead t-shirt and hendrix on his turntable faded jeans and the green field jacket he’s always wearing nurses checking to make sure he’s taking his pills the baby boomers have instilled such an image of youth it’s hard to imagine them getting old and feeble that all of that 1960s idealism is rotting in institutions made for assembly line death but jimmy is walking talking proof that life is moving on once i’m there we get the copies made quickly it’s usually jimmy’s social security card and his benefits i.d. you always help me out, man, he says like he’s surprised like i’m not getting paid for this i wish i could give you something, brother like a bag of barbecue chips from my illegal stash because jimmy is still sticking it to the man do you want some barbecue chips? jimmy pulls out a half-eaten bag of wise no, i say i settle for a handshake instead then jimmy leaves because he’s thirsty i watch him go across the street to the bodega a moment later he comes out with a 20oz. coke bends his knees like he’s playing a guitar solo when he takes his first sip wipes the caramel color from his mouth before he walks off toward the promised land. Bio: John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough. A Mismarked Grave My mother named me and my sisters Cathy. She allowed for some variation, of course, starting with Catherine, and moving down the line to Katherine, Cathleen, and Catalina. When Catalina gives her full name in public, people wonder if she’s Spanish. With her dark hair and eyes, it seems almost plausible in spite of her unusually pale complexion, but she is the same German-Irish mix as the rest of us. I am the youngest. I can’t help but wonder if our mother had become a tad lazy by the time I arrived. My birth certificate reads simply Cathy Weber. During my sisters’ bouts of rebellion, they each had the option to retreat back to their given name, but I was always stuck. That is, unless I wanted to play a hand at shortening to Cat or even C. But I’ve always found something comforting in shared names, in knowing that whenever our mother called across the house for one of us, we would all appear at the top of the stairs, that we would step forward one at a time, like the von Trapp children at bedtime, until she lit upon the wanted child. Last year, I moved to a new city where no one knows that I am one of a collective. My boss calls me Carrie and his patients don’t call me anything at all as I take down their information and repeat with a bland, kind smile, “The doctor will be with you shortly.” I begin taking calls from my sisters in the office, addressing them loudly. “Well, Cathy,” I say while I hand my boss his coffee, “I did see a good movie this weekend. How good of you to ask.” But this just makes him more sure that I am Carrie and that she is strange, sometimes taking calls from Cathy three times in a day. One Monday, he calls Carrie into the human resources office and he asks where she sees herself in five years. He’s concerned that she’s not taking her job seriously. What with all the phone calls. “In an unmarked grave,” I joke. He doesn’t find this funny, so Carrie offers a correction: “In a mismarked grave?” He sends Carrie to the psychiatric ward for evaluation where a social worker asks if she ever thinks about suicide. I say no, but I do spend a lot of time thinking about the President’s we. She asks me to elaborate and I rattle on about how the President adopts this persona of the nation, purporting to speak on behalf of all its citizens. I can’t help but wonder who is excluded in this imaginary. Does belonging to a we always necessitate a them? The doctor looks relieved. She thought we meant his penis. Later when I relay this story, I get laughs from three Cathys and concern from the fourth. “Have you thought of killing yourself?” she asks. “No,” I say, “But Carrie has.” “I’m sorry,” Cathy says, “For everything. For Mom.” The social worker continues her line of questioning. She wants to know why we left home. Carrie answers when I can’t bring myself to say that we didn’t do much leave as we did get kicked out. But, really, that’s all in the past now. --------------------------- Image - cinnamon girl Bio: Abby Burns is a queer feminist currently residing in Indiana where she is an MFA candidate at the University of Notre Dame. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Entropy, (b)OINK zine, Microfiction Monday Magazine, and Longridge Review. UK singer-songwriter Tracey Browne has spent over a decade crafting genuine, gutsy, heartfelt folk-rock songs. Having toured extensively with fellow UK recording artist Thea Gilmore, Browne is currently at work on a brand new album, Doctrine of Song, the first since 2012's 'Everyone Is Ordinary'. Here Tracey talks about how she got started, what and who inspires her and offers some grounded advice on the pitfalls and misconceptions of the music biz, "No-one is better than the next person just because they’ve got a shiny poster and some quotes telling everyone they are ‘one to watch’." says Browne, "I have been humbled by the fact that there are a million other singer songwriters out there, because we are putting something positive into the world by being honest enough to create and let it be seen." Cultivating community, putting both shoulders to the wheel and letting the songs land where they will, a humble, worthwhile and necessary calling. AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? Tracey: I feel like in some ways, I have come full circle from first writing songs, with no ambition other than to express myself; through professional playing and ‘career chasing’, to the point now where I’m back to really enjoying just the process of songwriting and the joy of performance. It’s a funny thing where if you have some talent, there is suddenly a lot of well-meaning pressure from other people to make it a career. But a musical career can’t be measured in the same way as others, which is where things get confusing. Highs and lows is really a good way to put it; you create, perform, hone your skills and there is this misleading idea floating around of a ‘big break’. In reality, there are one-off opportunities and you kind of have to string them all together to show them off and market yourself as something special. The moment your music is played on national radio for the first time is a celebration, but then you might wonder who is going to pick it up and play it next, instead of just enjoying the fact it was played at all. I have definitely learnt that the special part is being able to write something that touches other people, which is what I knew in the beginning as well and is one of the reasons I started to write in the first place. No-one is better than the next person just because they’ve got a shiny poster and some quotes telling everyone they are ‘one to watch’. I have been humbled by the fact there are a million other singer songwriters out there, because we are putting something positive into the world by being honest enough to create and let it be seen. AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Tracey: My parents both love music – neither of them would count themselves as musicians, but my mum likes to sing in a choir now in her retirement, and my dad used to play the 3-tier organ, with foot pedals. You know, those 70’s looking things that people had in their houses, but not quite a Hammond organ. He always said he was tone deaf, but he could read music for the organ so he used to play like that. There was one in my grandparents’ house as well, and I used to play it after we had lunch to get out of washing the dishes every weekend when we visited them (learning the advantages to being a musician early!). Both my parents had acoustic guitars stashed away in the attic from when they both tried to learn when they were young. Dad used to put records on to wake us up early at the weekends. Everything from the Kinks, the Stones, to country music, Pink Floyd, Bob Marley and a wealth of female singer-songwriters. There would always be tunes in the house if we were decorating, or making lunch, or just chilling out and reading. I was very lucky to have piano lessons from a young age and mum used to run me around to exams and singing competitions wherever we lived. I fell out of love with playing the piano in my early teens and taught myself to play guitar instead, working out the chords from the piano notes and learning the chord shapes logically like that. The first song I can remember being very affected by was ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries – I had a lot of empathy and emotion about the troubles in Ireland and that song just went straight to my heart. It was the first song I taught myself to play on the guitar and I still gig it now. It’s universal, no matter which audience, which country it’s played in, everyone knows the words. It’s so human. AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? Tracey: I remember really enjoying writing short stories at school, but I didn’t get into the idea of writing songs with lyrics until much later. I used to write instrumental pieces on the piano, just sit in my room and play with my eyes closed and let out whatever teenage emotion I was experiencing that day. It wasn’t until I was around 14-15 years old and my brother gave me a Tori Amos album (Under The Pink) that he had bought, but couldn’t really get into, that I started thinking about how to write lyrics. I listened to that album on repeat and I loved her lyrical style – that stream of consciousness writing, which doesn’t have to be specific in defining what she is talking about, but conveys overwhelming emotion. I think that piano, as an instrument, is the best medium for that type of lyric. What you can get out of a piano, the contrast by using both hands, can express more than words and it’s a very different thing to strumming a guitar and telling a clear story. Writing with the piano was a very personal, intimate experience and I didn’t feel ready to share that with other people. So I took up guitar and started playing around with that, just writing down whatever came into my head for a couple of years, but I didn’t really come up with a proper ‘song’. Then, when I was 17, one of my best friends died in a car accident. I had a dream of him the night before the funeral, which was so vivid, and my first real song came out of that. It just arrived, lyrically, and it was just honest and from the heart. AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? Tracey: Tori Amos for teaching me to open up and write anything, also for bringing me back to playing the piano again. I was sick of learning classical pieces that I had no connection to, but she was a classical player writing contemporary songs. It was the perfect blend, challenging to learn but interesting to play. I have also learnt a great deal from other musicians that I have been lucky enough to work with over the years – playing live for Thea Gilmore really upped my game as I had to pull everything together and focus on playing things right, every night. I did have a tendency to let my attention wander when it came to music and I wasn’t sure that I would be good enough to tour professionally. I had got away with the minimum effort all my life but I couldn’t get away with it anymore. I had no choice but to give it my all, and now I know that I can play anything if I put the practice in (which seems obvious, but it’s easy to avoid taking up the challenge out of fear). Nigel Stonier, Thea’s producer and husband, said something which helped me to turn a corner and start to approach music professionally – you have to give yourself permission to do it. We put so many obstacles in our own path out of fear, but I trusted that he believed I could do it, and in time I felt capable of doing it. I’ve gone from strength to strength since then. Collaborating with people who are more competent in a certain area than you is also useful. I made an album with another singer/songwriter called Raevennan Husbandes and she has a background in advanced grade classical guitar. I use guitar for accompaniment and I don’t consider it my first instrument at all, but playing alongside her made me play better. I’ve learnt not to compare myself point for point, but trust that what I bring is complementary. AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? Tracey: There is definitely a feeling that you get when you’re writing and something just fits perfectly, right at the beginning of the writing process, where you know it’s going to be good. It’s really important to note that, be aware of it and remember that it was there, because as you get used to the song and play it in more, you can start doubting it. I always keep that moment in my head, because if you felt it at the beginning, anyone hearing the song for the first time will feel it too and you have to trust that. Sometimes you write a song all the way through and it’s there, other times there is something stopping you from finishing it (usually because you haven’t experienced the rest of the story yet, so it will come when it’s ready). I had a song on the go that I couldn’t get a final verse for until 5 years after I started it, but it felt right to wait because it was authentic. Now, I know the value of making space to write and putting that time aside, but back then I only used to write when the feeling came to me. They’re both valid ways of working, but I think I used to fear that I wouldn’t have any ideas if I just sat down in a room and tried to write without having that ‘lightning strike’ of inspiration. I get song titles or just a line or two that I like and put it in my notes on my phone these days, then when I come to sit down and write I look there for a starting point. AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? Tracey: Definitely – I do use songwriting as a tool to make sense of the world. I do it naturally, but if I break it down logically, my songs usually have an introduction, a main point and a conclusion. The scene is set, the questions are asked and usually answered in a way that gives closure, or a new sense of hope. I analyse emotion. I love music for purging feelings that can too often be held in and cause harm. Sarah McLachlan’s ‘Surfacing’ album is an extreme example of this. It’s beautiful but exhausting at the same time. It’s an album which is in the pit of despair with you, but also shines a light from above; to listen to something so raw from someone, but know that they are still surviving, can give hope. Her songs also have a duality to them; if you’re not feeling that way, you can still listen to them as beautiful, melodic, satisfying songs. But if you are, it’s like there is another message below the surface and it’s there just for you. How wonderful that music is able to do that. AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? Tracey: My favourite musical times have been when it’s been just me and some of my best friends getting together to play each other’s music. There were a couple of really sweet years where four of us, all singers/players and songwriters, used to form a band for each other when we had gigs to play. Everyone’s lives have changed quite a lot since then, and we don’t really get to do that anymore, but it’s what inspired my song ‘Kate Rusby’. We just used to gather in my living room with a cajon, a few guitars, a piano and just sing together. My partner loved it and so did our cats! I really enjoy being on the road, on tour. It’s a bit of a break from life as all you have to think about is travelling and playing, living in the moment – it’s quite zen. There’s something about playing live that centres me. If I don’t gig for a long time I start to feel disconnected and like I’ve lost my way somehow. The most vivid memory I have though, is when I was just falling asleep one night, around 2am, and my phone buzzed with an email. I don’t know why I didn’t ignore it, but I picked it up and it was an alert from Twitter saying that one of my songs was ‘now playing’ on BBC Radio 2. That’s a massive thing for a UK singer/songwriter and I jumped out of bed and woke my partner up and basically went crazy, running around the house to find a radio to switch on. Janice Long, who used to have the ‘After Midnight’ show on the station, said some lovely things after the song had been played and it felt surreal. I couldn’t sleep for hours after that. Janice has always picked up on new music and supported it, one of the few national broadcasters who still seem to use that discretion. AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? Tracey: I used to only write from the ‘inside’, things that were personal or specific to me, and share them with a view to letting other people know how I was feeling. Recently, I’ve broadened my scope – there are only so many stories you can tell about yourself and I think I’ve worked through everything I’ve needed to for myself up to this point. When I was writing for my new album, I started writing songs that told other people’s stories. There were a few tragedies affecting my friends over a short period of time and I found myself writing their feelings, instead of my own. A good friend lost his son to a hit and run driver and he asked me to write his experience. He sent me something that he had written at the time, which was so full of anger and pain. I couldn’t translate it straight from his words into a song that I could sing, and make sense of, so I wrote it from the point of view of his son, answering the things that he had written down. It’s not what he had in mind, but it’s the only way it felt right to me; I really struggled up until that point and then it just came through. I don’t know where the melody came from, but it sounds timeless. It’s called ‘My Father’s Love’. I’ve never really set out to write political songs, but I’m a socialist and a humanist at heart so perhaps that comes across. The closest I have come is another new song, called ‘The Lauded Gun’, which conveys a general dismay at the state of the world, but encourages the good in us not to give up. I don’t use music to wear my political colours on my sleeve, I think that is a skill in itself and I know many excellent protest and historical/political songwriters who have that talent. It’s not really how my creative brain works, but I love to hear a great message in other people’s songs. AHC: Do you have any words of advice for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Tracey: Don’t take advice as gospel. Write the music that feels right to you, because it all stems from there, no matter which path you end up taking with it. What feels right will change and progress over the years, and that is a good thing. Go with it and when you feel lost, or like everyone is telling you to do different things, come back to what feels right. Life is long, there is time. In a practical sense, it’s also really worth taking the time to figure out the paperwork side of things, registering your songs for royalties yourself, directly with companies like PRS and PPL or their equivalent in your area. It may save you from getting into agreements with third party companies who only fill in the same form as you would, on your behalf, but then take a big cut of your royalties when you come to perform or get airplay. Go direct to the source and do it yourself, it’s very satisfying. AHC: Do you have any new projects you'd like to mention? Tracey: I am recording a new album at the moment, which is due for release in the autumn. We are about 75% through the recording process and I have just launched a Kickstarter campaign Doctrine of Song - new full length album from Tracey Browne to fund the rest of the studio days and pressing. If you haven’t heard my music before, it’s all up at www.traceybrowne.bandcamp.com but this album will feature piano as a lead instrument for the first time since I started releasing my own music. I’m really loving writing and performing with piano and it’s taken my songs in another direction. I’m so excited to put them out into the world, finally. I’ve also been involved in a great project recently, with another UK songwriter called Matt Hill (aka Quiet Loner). He was commissioned to write a show about how the right to vote was won in Britain, both for women and also for working-class men. It’s a fantastic collection of songs, which bring the history alive and the human stories to the forefront. He is hoping to take the show into schools, as it’s a part of our history that isn’t really taught a great deal. The album is called ‘The Battle for the Ballot’ and it’s on his Bandcamp page as a free download – www.quietloner.bandcamp.com www.traceybrowne.co.uk/ 4/7/2017 0 Comments Poetry by L. A. TraynorTHRAWN I am a dangerous woman with words that are Fierce, can pierce, punch through barriers some would place in my path. They can reduce others to tears, highlight fears that only a woman would know. I am a dangerous woman. I have a voice and it will sing, it will ring with a truth. And when my words are hoarse and bloodied from the battlefield my Fierce words will lift me and set me back on my true course. But this voice can soothe embrace you in words that keep your weeping at bay. Support you, hold you, until the day, your own Fierce words form in your mouth and you stand in this place and are free to have your say. My sister sleeps My sister sleeps in my garden shaded by a plum tree. The same tree the old man told me he stole from. A story, ninety years in the remembering. My sister sleeps, escaping from a story she would not have chosen to write. Her's, twenty-five years in the forgetting. With each exhaled breath, words escape. Words that she would trap if awake. Malignant vapours that wreak havoc, draining her will to live. My sister sleeps hummed into slumber by bees beating their wings against a blue haze of lavender. Releasing its minty sweetness. The aroma pulling her further into a faery land of rest; one she doesn't want to leave. Surrendering, other thoughts invade her dreams. Dreams of when she is that girl again. Running through a wood of lilac trees. Laughing as the wind soaks us in blossoms. Clusters bursting onto our skin like tiny parma violets. This I know, as she smiles when that same sweet scent drifts down from my own memorial tree to childhood. My sister sleeps in my garden shaded by a plum tree. I, sentinel. Protecting. Ready to catch her as she surfaces into deep turbulent water. Her life. Bio: L. A. Traynor lives in Glasgow and is the author of two novels, Anomalies and Revelations. She is included in several Scottish anthologies and numerous websites and magazines. She opened World Community Arts Day 2016 in Edinburgh and has appeared in two five star Edinburgh Fringe events. She is founder of Woman Poets with Fierce Words and the co-founder of Fierce Poetry in Motion which produces Poetry Films and delivers events to bring them to a wider audience and runs the THRAWN project which encourages women around the World to support other women have a voice by being filmed reading the poem THRAWN. She is on the Council for the Federation of Writers (Scotland) and member of Scottish Writers' Centre and Scottish Pen. Facebook L A Traynor/Lesley Traynor Twitter @latraynor Fierce Poetry in Motion @motionpoets |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2024
Categories |