Everybody in Denver is talking about it, so you’ve probably heard: Nathaniel Rateliff made another musical change.
It just keeps getting better.
Son of a Bitch.
The Outfit
—Caesar
Listen to: Caesar by The Outfit
Eric Johnston is still driving at what he’s good at. The Outfit has now been around Denver for a spell (we did their first interview 4 years ago). And we’re thrilled to still see them at work. Despite line-up changes, Johnston has kept the vision alive. All the shows we did together were a joy. I hate to make comparisons, but I will say it here: on stage, he always reminded me of a young, lanky Jim Morrison.
Go get ‘em gang. The Outfit is feeling more and more snug.
This is their newest single, “Caesar”.
David Foster Wallace’s Brilliant “This Is Water” Commencement Address Is Now a Great Short Film.
Gregory Alan Isakov finally announced the release of his long-anticipated album, The Weatherman. We’ve been waiting for this one.
Here’s one of the tracks from the album.
Our pals Gauntlet Hair moved back home from their time Denver this last year. We loved having them in the hood, at the Lark, running the door and milling around with Penny. But it appears that their move may have done them well. With a slew of delicious tracks previously, this one just might top them all.
…so far.
Way to go kids. We miss your armpits.
Our friends Churchill and their debut single from their new A&M Octone release of “The War Within” EP. Seems like the gang has gotten the hang of writing for the radio. This should be another hit.
Good kids with great talent. I look forward to the road ahead of them.
Denver as Plato’s Playground
“Plato, in the universality of his genius, appears to every age and every individual as of his own time and place. He had so absorbed all knowledge that in the annals of men one epoch was the same to him as another.
“We have as yet no American Athens, though there have been pretensions advanced in that direction; if located in the heart of the continent, Denver might present strong claims to the distinction. High in the heavens she stands, with many an Olympus near…”
- Hubert Howe Bancroft, 1889, A Character Study: William Gilpin
The Whole Day Like Breakfast
“I wish the whole day were like breakfast, when people are still connected to their dreams, focused inward, and not yet ready to engage with the world around them. I realized this is how I am all day; for me, unlike other people, there doesn’t come a moment after a cup of coffee or a shower or whatever when I suddenly feel alive and awake and connected to the world. If it were always breakfast, I would be fine.”
- Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You
Where Were You When Elvis Died?
Great piece from the great rock journalist, Lester Bangs - on Elvis and his death:
“Where were you when Elvis died? What were you doing and what did it give you an excuse to do with the rest of your day? Elvis had left us each alone as he was; I mean, he wasn’t exactly a Man of the People anymore, if you get my drift. If you don’t I will drift even further, away from Elvis into contemplation of why all our public heroes seem to reinforce our own solitude.”
For the full piece, go here: Where Were You When Elvis Died?
Elvis was Hot
“He was the only male performer I have ever seen to whom I responded sexually; it wasn’t real arousal, rather an erection of the heart, when I looked at him I went mad with desire and envy and worship and self-projection. I mean, Mick Jagger, whom I saw as far back as 1964 and twice in ‘65, never even came close.”
- Lester Bangs, the great rock journalist - on the only time he saw Elvis in concert
Emma is not a person. Emma is a place that you get stuck in. Emma is a pain that you cannot erase.
—Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) on the album For Emma, Forever Ago (via h-o-r-n-g-r-y)
(Source: countenanced, via h-o-r-n-g-r-y)
Vondelpark. Love their textures.
Spring smells like dirt. Soil. This feels like (the dream of) a spring night and the first breezy crash of infant leaves.
To Be Fully Awake to Everything About You
“The secret of success is concentrating interest in life… In other words to be fully awake to everything about you.”
- LeRoy Pollock to his son, Jackson in a 1928 Letter
“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.”
- Thomas Merton
The Weeklies
A good piece on middle class families that lost their homes and are now living in the Ramada off I-70, in Wheat Ridge, paying for their room weekly. A harrowing look at people caught in a purgatory of finance, stranded.
“A defining characteristic of what it means to be middle-class is now out of reach for a group of people who, less than a decade ago, would not have called themselves anything else. They’ve lost not just incomes and homes. They’ve lost who they were.”
Read the entire story, here: prospect.org
Denver Demons
“(T)hey were regular demons, that iron and lead had no effect upon, in the shape of Pike’s Peakers from the Denver City Gold mines.”
- A Confederate prisoner after the only western Civil War battle at La Glorieta Pass in New Mexico, 1862
