The Land of Trembilng Earth

Beelzebub's Laughter

2010-09-17T10:28:00.004-05:00

Lyric of The Week
Hoyt Axton

Beelzebub's laugther
"Playgrounds, popcorn and pink cotton candy
Disneyland daytimes dance in the eyes
of freckle-faced, t-shirted, milk-drinking babies
who never have ever seen fire in the skies
and I hope they never will"

Listen to this song here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyt_Axton

Bad Luck

2010-06-24T12:31:00.006-05:00

The day before yesterday, Larry Jon Wilson died. I never got to see him or even hear his record before he died. I love his song on Heartworn Highways--- "It's not a lick song, it's a groove song".
I just watched two Jerry Reed movies: "Concrete Cowboys" and "What Comes Around". Concrete Cowboys stars Jerry Reed, Tom Seleck, Ray Stevens, Roy Acuff, Barbara Mandrell and another singer who was famous in the movie but I'd never heard of him before and cannot remember his name. It eases the strains of living up north to see movies peppered with country stars. Especially when they were filmed in Nashville in the 70's.
I'm pretty excited about this new Hamper McBee record that comes out in three days. This dude seems pretty boss. Yet another East Tennessee jewel from the vaults, like John Bean --- the in-between spoken parts are true lessons in anthropology. John bean prank calls auto shops, demanding ridiculous refunds for damages done to his car by his own kids. He blames and threatens the "lil ole' skinny sonofabitch" behind the counter that someone could get their ass whooped as a result of un-manly 'backing-up' of quality goods. Hamper McBee seems to be from the same school of badass. I think there are three songs on his album about the local law enforcement officer in his town of Monteagle, TN.
It's rare that I sit down to write much of anything anymore. I try to keep very busy and succeed most of the time. I'm in a medical study right now. I've told this too many times so I'll talk about something else for a minute.
Last week I bought a motorcycle. I spent all of my money on it. All of it -- $3,000. I rode it down to Nashville to register it. On the way there it broke down. I had to get the carbs cleaned and flushed. That cost me $200 dollars more. Then I was really broke. For the next few days I only ate beans and drank lots of water. All was fine until my second to last day down there.
I was parked downtown for a couple of hours one night and I left my bike next to another bike. It was illegally parked but bikes are always parked illegally down there. I asked a cop if I could park there. ---Downtown is always nuts. They are constantly changing the parking for busses, taxis, events, construction... you just have to ask where to park--- The cop assured me that they don't mess with bikes and to leave it wherever. That's what I thought anyway so I walked away from it and didn't think about it again. I went to Prince's Hot Chicken with Rachel and had her drop me off at my bike when I got back. I got back and found it gone! Another cop said it was probably stolen since they didn't tow it. I asked if he would call it in anyway. Reluctantly, he called it in and wouldn't you know it? ---they had towed it, of course. I called Rachel back and she gladly turned around, picked me up and drove me down the street to the wrecker lot.
All the while, my medical study clock was ticking. I had to be in bed at 11:30 (10:30 Nashville time) for this study. (((I was on a strict sleep schedule. I wore a heart rate monitoring watch for a week and couldn't be 5 minutes late so I had to make sure to be in bed by 10:30 pm))) So, I got the bike out but I almost had a heart attack thinking that I wouldn't be able to. There was an illegal plate on the thing since I hadn't registered it yet. As it turned out, It was no problem to get the bike back, thank God. I just had to pay $250 (that I didn't really have).
At this point I was convinced that I was snake bit and couldn't win, no matter how hard I tried. I didn't trust the bike to make it back to NY, I didn't have the money to register it and me paying my rent hinged on me getting to bed right on time, every night. I couldn't afford to not make the study so I bought a plane ticket back home. You guessed it, another $250!
I thought I was home free! I flew to Philly, took a train to the bus and got on the chinatown bus to NY. Outside of the Holland Tunnel, for some reason, the driver hooked a HUGE right into Jersey City. He drove around for about 30 minutes but eventually got back on the highway. 45 minutes later we were back where we had exited, over an hour before. Then right at the mouth of the tunnel, he hooks another right, goes above the tunnel, turns around and goes South on the highway. We ended up at the Lincoln Tunnel and everyone was ready to get out. On the NY side almost everyone was yelling at the driver. He didn't speak English but he understood. The first opportunity we had to get off, we did. I jumped from my seat and ran off the bus, leaving my room mates $350 helmet on the bus. I had borrowed it for a couple of days to get the bike to Nashville. I had almost made it back to him without screwing that up. When I realized I had left it, I was almost a mile from where I'd jumped out. I could have cried.
Here I was, totally broke, walking back home to a house I can't afford and I had to explain to my buddy how I left his helmet, that he's had forever, on the Chinatown bus. At this moment I figured it was all over. What else could I screw up? I get a text from Katie --- "Do you want to play with Lucero on July 10th?" July 10th I was going to be back in Nashville. No, I can't do it. I wrote her back saying thanks, but no thanks. All I wanted to do was make it home, shut the door and figure out how to make some money. Around midnight I woke up remembering how big of a show that would be. Realizing that I had just passed up the opportunity to play in front of 5,000 people, I emailed her back but of course the show had been offered to someone else. How could I be so stupid? Was this it? Is it over? I hope so. I'm not sure it is.
Right now I'm in this medical study. Like I said, I've been wearing this watch thing for 10 days, going to bed at exactly 11:30 every night and waking up at 7:45 on the dot. I hadn't screwed this up, despite all my traveling and stress, I had managed to go to bed on time every night. So here I am, reaping the reward of going to bed on time, in a hospital, covered from head to toe in wires and ECG stickies. Last night I had to breath through a tube and every few hours a nurse would come in my room and fix something that had come undone while I was sleeping. It was a rough night to say the least but the best is yet to come.
I woke up at 6:45 today and I won't go to bed until 8:00 am tomorrow morning. No naps, no dozing, but luckily there will be a drug. I'm to take an experimental amphetamine at 7:00 tonight. It's a time released drug. Most people think they've been tricked and they haven't been dosed anything but a placebo. Not traditional speed, but time released, small doses, can't-even-tell-you've-been-dosed speed.
There's a chance I might still get eliminated. I'm not that worried about it. I made it this far and I will get paid for most of it but the bulk of the money would come from tonight. If I make it until the morning I will get $850! Wish me luck --- I guess they might tell me any minute that upon viewing my sleeping patterns through the night that I'm not the right type of patient and I'll be let go.
Today's Thursday. Next Tuesday I fly to Minneapolis and play a show. I'll be there for three days before I meet up with Dawes and drive to Iowa to play a big 4th of July party with them, Justin Earle, These United States and The Walkmen. Should be badass. Then I fly to Nashville, play a few shows in Alabama and Chattanooga then fly to NYC to play with Deer Tick at Maxwell's in Hoboken.
Wish me luck and see y'all out there.

Lyric of The Week

2010-04-29T10:34:00.001-05:00

Koonda Holaa

"Point Your Finger"

"I was not born for lying
I don't fit in the smart pants
but even without trying
I sink to the bottom
of the sadness of man
I have great practice in crying
out there is a world I don't understand..."

www.myspace.com/koondaholaakamilsky
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Koonda-Holaa/97074156760

Lyric of The Week - Blake Mills

2010-03-26T13:51:00.004-05:00

Blake Mills
"It'll All Work Out"

I don't feel a speck of hate
really now I'm trying to get my story straight
when you called me from the car when you were on your way
with your friend from San Francisco
that you told me was gay
well I guess he was a closet-straight
get it all out now
it'll work out

my mother was the youngest child
college education was never her style
but she knew just how to make a quarterback smile
it'll all work out

my father loved us right
stayed up at night trying to keep the
check book tighter than a ducks ass
going down a water slide
oh I know he tried
became a victim of the mortgage spike
collections calling every night since 1999
in ten more years you'd think the interest rates decline
it'll all work out

Blake Mills' Daytrotter Session
http://www.myspace.com/africadabra

Lyric of The Week

2010-02-04T12:27:00.001-06:00

Paul Simon
"I Do It For Your Love"

We were married on a rainy day
The sky was yellow
And the grass was gray
We signed the papers
And we drove away
I do it for your love

The rooms were musty
And the pipes were old
All that winter we shared a cold
Drank all the orange juice
That we could hold
I do it for your love

Found a rug
In an old junk shop
And I brought it home to you
Along the way the colors ran
The orange bled the blue

The sting of reason
The splash of tears
The northern and the southern
Hemisphere
Love emerges and it disappears
I do it for your love
I do it for your love

Lyric of the Week

2010-01-26T03:03:00.002-06:00

Bill Anderson

"My Life (throw it away if I want to)"

I've tried to plant my feet and stay with you
but all I feel is roots grow
and what man wants a woman
who won't satisfy his heart and soothe his ego

I sleep all day and run all night
and you tell me that ain't right
That ain't what the husbands of your friends do
But it's my life and I'll throw it away if I want to

Lyric of The Week

2009-12-24T22:03:00.002-06:00

Blaze Foley

"Rainbows and Ridges"

"Interstate highways and buses and planes

they only take horses down memory lanes

if everything passes what past will remain"

Jonny Corndawg interviews Billy Joe Shaver

2009-12-01T10:10:00.005-06:00

A few months back I teamed up with Davis from American Songwriter Magazine to go interview Billy Joe Shaver in Chattanooga. It's taken a while to restore the audio and edit this but here it is!

BILLY JOE SHAVER! from Kornman on Vimeo.

---------------------------------The Star in My Heart

I Couldn't Be Me Without You

2009-11-18T20:35:00.005-06:00

One of the best love songs ever sung. Written by Billy Joe Shaver for his wife Brenda Shaver.
Ive heard him sing this song several times and he always does it a'capella. He does a wonderful job but I really love the melodic guitar accompaniment in this YouTube version. The singer is singing the song to a cat which we can only guess is no longer with us. The video gives no unneeded explanation to the well being of his furry friend and the recording is pretty good (considering it's a slide show video).
Well worth blogging about I plan on trying my best to extract the audio from this track and look forward to numerous mix tapes with this as a hit amongst friends.
Please enjoy Joseph Cormier's version of "I Couldn't Be Me Without You"

Lyric of The Week

2009-09-02T13:30:00.003-05:00

Lyric of The Week - Jimmy Cousins "I believe that a fool has got more sense than the wisest sages, cause a fool does just what he's cut out for and never gets in no cages, my life story got wrote by the good Lord and I'm just turning the pages, striking out for a home where the road becomes the sky" Fools and Sages

Joe Diffie - Honky Tonk Attitude

2009-08-01T12:20:00.002-05:00

Classic - Honky Tonk Attitude 1993
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAYDHpF0fEI

Clint Black - Killin' Time

2009-08-01T12:05:00.005-05:00

This may be my favorite album of the 90's. I think it was actually released in 1989 but it really changed the pace of 80's overproduced-garbage-country. This is a throwback album with real stripped down production, unlike Nashville at the time. This album came straight out of Houston. Clint Black's debut album, he wrote every song on here!!! I might add that they are all really good songs.
Video for Killin' Time - notice how out of time his strum is with the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU_ow7LmHwY

Keith Whitley - Hard Livin' Video

2009-07-31T23:42:00.003-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b37HVU9Xx5Q

Tracy Byrd - No Ordinary Man

2009-07-31T11:46:00.001-05:00

Watermelon Crawl!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG76egCZXfo&feature=fvw

Aaro Tippin- You've Got to Stand for Something

2009-07-31T11:41:00.003-05:00

You've Got to Stand for Something or You'll Fall for Anything!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hja0XND8Ms

Lyric of The Week- Jimmy Walker "The Legend of Skull Lake"

2009-07-31T00:00:00.002-05:00

Lyric of The Week - "by the buzzard roost and the gator creek where the white man's life has little worth/ there's a sacred place to the red man where the earth around him shakes/ there's a hole in the middle of the quaking earth/ they call this place SKULL LAKE" From Skull Lake written by Jimmy Walker from the album Swamp Country

Billy Joe Shaver - Old Five and Dimers Like Me

2009-07-30T23:50:00.004-05:00

Billy Joe Shaver's first album. Produced by Kris Kristofferson.

Billy Joe Shaver - Restless Wind

2009-07-30T23:48:00.004-05:00

One of the best albums known to man.

Lyric of The Week - Billy Edd Wheeler

2009-07-30T23:23:00.003-05:00

Lyric of The Week - Billy Edd Wheeler "Blistered"

"I got great big blisters on my blood shot eyes from looking at that long legged female up ahead. What she does simply walking down the sidewalks of the city makes me think about some stray cat getting fed /She's got a whole lott'a motion in her soul I know but her soul's not the place she let's it show/SHE'S got a body/she's got a motion she's gonna get me she gonna burn me she gonna tear my soul apart put big blisters on my heart, what a mighty crazy cookin' way to go"

Blistered by Billy Edd Wheeler

John Anderson - Seminole Wind

2009-07-30T23:17:00.003-05:00

Feb. 1997

Video for Seminole Wind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGoBQIhyFFM

John Michael Montgomery

2009-07-30T13:43:00.003-05:00

Label: Atlantic
Released: 3/28/95

I like this album - a quintessential 90's country album. Good production, evident of a new decade, somewhat overdone but not nearly as bad as it would have been had it been recorded 10 years earlier. Best songs are 'Sold - The Grundy County Auction' and 'I Swear'. I think he may get the award for one of the weirdest/stupidest videos of all time - must watch until the end to understand.

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/773471/3302519