Q: How about “Ripple”?
A: We were in Canada on that train trip [the Festival Express, 1970] and one morning the train stopped and Jerry was sitting out on the tracks not too far off, in the sunrise, setting “Ripple” to music. That’s a good memory. That was one of the happy times, going on that train trip.
Janis [Joplin] was the queen of that trip. One of my greatest memories is having breakfast with her on the train. She was having Southern Comfort and scotch, and she asked me if I heard that song by Kristofferson, “Sunday Morning Comin’ Down,” and she sang it in my ear. Can you imagine?
Tag Archives: song
Rainy Mystery Alley / spoken-word song video
Analog loops, guitars, feedback and poetry about impossible alleys, 8 seat bars, villages with book shops, woolen scarves, Fado, Enka, Kathmandu mud, and umbrellas thwarting tactility.
Video features snaps of Thorvald and Thurston in a Provo basement, 2018 making the song as well as artifacts in the environs.
Rainy Mystery Alley (spoken-word song) – video
Made by “Thorvald and Thurston” in a Provo basement, 2018
Rainy Mystery Alley (with Marty)
Analog loops, guitars, feedback and poetry about impossible alleys, 8 seat bars, villages with book shops, woolen scarves, Fado, Kathmandu mud, and umbrellas thwarting tactility.
Made by “Thorvald and Thurston” in a Provo basement, 2018
Read along: Rainy Mystery Alley poem
Available via:
Vomit and the Big Chunks, jugband reunion tour
My i present *the* magical musical moment you will never forget? Jugband “Vomit and the Big Chunks” on their reunion tour performing their theme song “Dry Heaves” – featuring Larry Harper on vox, kazoo and autoharp.
Mikael Lewis performs “Wildflower (for Foster)”
Mikael Lewis performs “Wildflower (for Foster)” written by Dave Olson and Mikael Lewis, at some restaurant in Orem, Utah, Aug. 16, 2017.
Wildflower, for Foster (song)
Words by Dave Olson with Mikael Lewis written in Pokhara, Nepal
Music, vocals, guitars Mikael Lewis, recorded in Utah, USA
##
Wildflower (for Foster)
Foster can you tell me
where the hell you left those tapes?
I was riffing on my first guitar
you were mouthing poetry scapes
I’d go to visit your gravesite
but I’d hate to waste that precious hour
you don’t belong in flat mown lawn
when you are a wildflower
Recorded in my parent’s basement
our earnest, green, unflinching truth
unaware that three short years later
you’d be cashing in on your youth
Don’t need to pour one out for you
or leave a fat one rolled
I’ll just light the signal fires
To make sure your story is told
The tale of the wildflower
I ignored their useless platitudes
self-serving, cliched and quaint
You and I both know what the truth is
And so I share this brief lament
I visit you atop the mountain
Where freedom lives and truth is found
When morning light first hits that meadow
I’ll have proof that the wildflower lives
April 1 & 2, 2017
Words by Dave Olson and Mikael Lewis
Music by Mikael Lewis
Cold Water Flat (song)
Words by Dave uncleweed Olson (written in Pokhara, Nepal) with additions by Mikael Lewis
Music, vocals, guitars by Mikael Lewis (recorded in Utah, USA)
##
Cold Water Flat
Landlady’s always angry
So I keep strangers hours
Meditate to TV static
Decorate only with the freshest flowers
Use the payphone down the stairs
Still has that old rotary dial
Instant coffee in electric kettle
Takeaway leftovers wrapped up in foil
I will wait in this cold water flat
Rent paid out 3 months in advance
It’s lonely, but I’m not alone
I’ve got memories of you… for to keep me warm
Registered under a fake name
Though I’ve really nothing to fear
Endearment terms are always wide open
And your affections are always quite near
Hot water register yawns and moans
Damn thing either freezes or it burns
Three tarnished coins run the washing machine
Dirt spins round and around as I yearn
I’ll wait in this cold water flat
Yes I’ve mailed you a dark scribbled map
It’s lonely here, but I’m never alone
I’ve got memories of you…to torture my soul
Gave up on the smokes and the booze
I like to think I’ve paid all my dues
Now my addictions are much more complex
I just torture myself with my memory of you
Changing Transit Routes – Postcard #68
Changing routes to think about the neighbourhoods – this Postcard is about rolling transit, everyplace and anywhere. Evidence comes in a transit route inspired spoken-word song and a smattering of poems including: odes to drivers, forgotten literary neighbourhoods, angry passengers, observed newspapers around Vancouver… plus a bit of Clayton the busker in the Seabus tunnel playing The Replacements’ “Skyway.”
Get onboard for: Changing Transit Routes – Postcard #68
(13:50, 23MB, .mp3, stereo)
Cold Water Flat
V.1
Landlady’s always angry
So I keep stranger hours
Meditate to TV static
Decorate with fresh flower
V.2
Use the payphone downstairs
Still with a rotary dial
Instant coffee in electric kettle
Takeaway leftovers wrapped in foil
C.1
I will wait for you
In this cold water flat
Paid 3 months in advance
For this walk-up tenement
V.3
I’ve waited near a decade now
Loved other in between
But affections are on hiatus
Until you conquer me
V.4
Complications acknowledged
I’m complicit to the scheme
Reinvention and retribution
Or maybe something in between
C.2
I’m still waiting for you
In this cold water flat
Three storey Victorian lady
I’ve mailed you a scribbled map
V.5
Hot water register yawns
Either freezes of burns
Three coins to run the washer
Dirt spins and I yearn
V.6
Two bricks and stolen planks
Fashion a sturdy coffee table
Year old magazines bore me
Come quickly – as soon as you’re able
V.7
Registered with a fake name
Though i’ve nothing to fear
Endearments terms are wide open
Come by whenever, I’m always here
C.3
I’m here sequestered
In this cold water home
Hinges are rusty squeaky
Mournful jazz saxophone
V.8
Gave up the booze mostly
And usually the smokes
My addictions have changed now
Hooked on lamenting lost hope
V.9
I’m better than you expected
Finer than you’ve wished
My heart is wide open
Like a cliche cinema kiss
C.4
Please come to me
In this cold water room
I’ve survived the winter barely
And desire you so very soon
B.1
There’s a broken bidet
and a persian french cat
striped awning across the street
where strangers wait for a bus
going home to a fresh bottle
cork just popped by a lover
or even a gentle friend –
envy is useless emotion
as is its cousin jealousy
takes all my self-restraint
to maintain dignity
not shout out the window
go home, go quick
love you fools, be loved
Lonely Cold Water Flat – Postcard #66
Life in hotels, wandering alone and often blue and then the death of friends all converge in a series of poems including a song by Mikael Lewis about waiting for love in a Victorian hotel. Then, from the streets of Rome with a cappuccino comes a series about departed Rod H. Ash, including “Time Traveller” plus poetic riffs name-checking Charles Bukowski, Audrey Hepburn, Pete Best, the Fitzgeralds, Vatican’s Swiss guard and the post office by the Sistine Chapel and desert campfires.
Walk upstairs for: Lonely Cold Water Flat – Postcard #66
(13:39, 30MB, .mp3, stereo)
Squatters In Zion – Lenker + Weed (song)
My pal (and frequent collaborator) Wm. Lenker wrote this song but didn’t record it for his fine West of 101 album – i liked it so much that one cold January evening, i showed up at his house on Steamboat Island Road at the end of the Puget Sound and *demanded* that we go into the woodshop and record for my entertainment.
He kindly obliged and laid down various tracks, with guitar, vocals and banjo. I recorded and mixed down the rapidly recorded takes to suit my own old-timey taste, complete with heartfeltness, loquaciousness and longing – background noise of fire and beers included.
Billiam does all the instruments and most of the singing (little bit of my ghost vocals) and i’m on the hook for the recording, producing and mixing.