Sunday Afternoon Show January 25th at Normal's

Old Songs In The Poe Room

Above - Longtime meritorious cultural warriors Chris Mason and Liz Downing have a serious moment of sinking into the gravitas before belting out one of their all time best Old Song sets within the lush tome-lined walls of the Enoch Pratt Library's Poe Room.



Above - Marcus Jicklingius, who also put together the Old Songs' new book All Birds.

I have seen Old Songs live almost as many times as an average Deadhead woke up with green pork rinds in their Garcia wigs, but last Wednesday's two sets - the works of Sappho in the first set and Anacreon in the second - were the most sublime I've witnessed. All those beautiful books, book loving audience members, hired gun Don Peyton sitting in on uke and mandolin, and somber portraits of pale Poe gazing down upon them put the fire of Hephaestus in them to "sing of the lovely-haired graces/ To people in public places."



As part of this wonderful show, Mark Jickling put together a book of their translations where he explains in the introduction: "The Old Songs project, begun in 2002, seeks to bring ancient Greek lyric poetry of the 7th through 5th centuries BC to life via music. The few fragments of this poetry that remain have been studied extensively and translated many times, but words on the page can't do justice to verse that was composed to be sung.



"We don't know what the old music sounded like.....Old Songs sets the ancient lyrics to tunes derived from Anglo-Celtic ballads and dance music, Appalachian old-time music, blues....This juxtaposition of musical and lyrical worlds is arbitrary, but it works."

You can hear many of the songs from the book at PennSound:
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/classics.php



Above - Sir Chris Batworth Ciaetti, one of many poets gathered in the Poe Room to watch poets sing the words of Ancient poets)

Part of the beauty and magic of Old Songs is that it shows how good writing is timeless and remains relevant, whether it's the beauty of Sappho: "Evening star brings back/ What bright dawn has scattered" or the bluesy grit of Anacreon: "My temples are grey, my hair's turned white/ All I've got left is a little sweet life/ Teeth worn out, charmed youth gone by/ Fear of the underworld makes me cry/ Hades hole is a terrible place/ The road down there is sorry and rough".

But let us end with Old Songs chanteuse Liz Downing's thoughts on eternity from All Birds' preface: "The sameness of the moon's light on Sappho's island as on the island of her lover is the same moon light which connects us to these Ancient poets. This same moonlight connects us to the first creatures who had the inclination to look up. Ancient poets' longing to be remembered is the same longing of poets today and under the same moon"

Chris Toll Spirit Celebration Thursday March 14

The Early Bird Aural Tectonic Shift Pageant at Normal's, Sunday February 10th

Study this head above well, my friends. It belongs to the body of Don Peyton, an iconic Baltimore figure who has more wild-assed stories than you’ve got grannies with carbunkles! One of my faves involves him as a youth in downtown Annapolis (back when it was 95% human, before the androids performed their nefarious takeover). He was gibbering like a squirrel with its nuts being pinched by a briar patch in front of the old King of France Tavern, waving around Black Beauties while on Black Beauties, rapping with none other than Stan Getz. Before he knew it a famous beat cop of the area was approaching and Don spilt his black beans on the pavement. Stan Getz, being old school hep jazzman begins playing his horn all around Officer Kransky to create a diversion while Peyton scrambled like an atomic crab to gather his winky bits!!!



Or there’s the story of when Don lived in New York and was becoming a member of a new band called The Swans. Before their first gig they were arranging what time to be at the show. When Don heard the scheduled time he said, “Good, I get off work an hour before that, I’ll be able to get there in time.” Herr Gira said: ”Swans do not have jobs. And Swans do not have apartments.” Don did not make it to the second Swans appearance on the Sullivan Show. He went on to play in the great group Songs From a Random House and eventually ended up back in Baltimore, living above ye olde "Bob's Subgenius Video Shoppe" in Sowebo back when about only a tenth of the living spaces were occupied and Dan Van Allan would wander alone late at night in nothing but jean shorts cut up to where his yarbles breath saying "Who will help me faux finish yonder Church bench? Meet me in the Arabbers' stable, I have a doobie and two carved coconut heads that resemble Captain Chesapeake!"



At any rate, Don has is a great musician, great storyteller and one of Baltimore’s treasures. On Feb. 10th, two Sundays ago, he and Dan Breen played some out freeform duets, covered an Earle Brown composition with Selena Schreyer on vocals and Charlie Chadwick on cello and did a beautiful cover of a Tinklers’ classic with the same quartet.





Opening was Geff Stuibbhart, who I wish Jack Rose was alive to hear. Geff knows his delta masters, the Takoma boys (Fahey and Basho) and all the rich American traditional folks and has absorbed it and oozes out a rich sound all his own. Despite still fighting off a version of this winter’s plague he played some incredible finger picking instrumentals on guitar and banjo, my favorite being “Buried Alive in Coal”.

A Song For Shakemore

There are more storms these days
than I've got dollars
we eat breakfast
off the tree that
fell through our window
and one night when a wind
blew the candles out
Richard Nixon carried
off my woman
saw him eat her head on CNN


Oh Lord take me down to Shakemore
take this devil's grip off my soul
let me sway beneath the big tent
as Liz Downing's angel voice
makes my fried
puzzle pieces whole


Be brains for me Google
Be my energy shiny Starbucks
Hide my shameful secret Depends
Crackle my limbs and be
my forbidden mystic
soul power cocaine
in all your cash making variations
And you are God, Satellite Transmissions
bringing countless broken lives
into my home
I watch them on my box nightly
so I don't have to grow my own


Oh Lord take me down to Shakemore
take this devil's grip off my soul
I would buy me a felafel
but The Tinklers took my wallet
when I was hugging on Chris Toll

Take me down to Shakemore
I want to watch Barbara
buzz like a bee all day
some whisper human blood
from corpses
is her energizer bunny
secret that she passes
on to fans
but I just think she's got
super weird glands


Maybe Randy Austin
will take me
up in his spaceship
but to see heaven
I don't need to be
in the sky
I see the stars and light
in Fair David's dancing
and in my brush with
the crowd that
gives me a contact high




Don Peyton will tell you
he met Jesus
made him a uke
made of palm trees and
placed it in his hands
Well I don't know about Jesus
but Mark Jickling will be playing
in all but one of the Shakemore bands


And are we all a bunch
of misfit humans
who dreamt of Half Japanese
or did Jad and David
dream us
after eating late night pizza
with garlic and way too much cheese