Dear 2020. Don’t f**cking suck, please.
I wrote that before this week’s silliness. I’m gonna stick with it.
Tell you what... Let’s let David Crosby sum up 2019. Cause you probably don’t want to hear what we have to say about it.
Now that we have that out of the way. Let’s get busy. We are back. in fits and starts. So let’s start the Dry (for you) January off gently.
Ministry of the Mighty Network
What is a mighty network?
Why do you care? Who knows.
Here's why we do. The tyranny of ad-supported multinational social media conglomerates is awesome. If you want it. We don't.
In a drive to get small we've added a presence on Mighty Network here
https://research-curation.mn.co/share/aWgw9ke9qrcXlqsP
There's gonna be more frequent posting. Smaller chunks of goodness and sure maybe even more interaction. Who knows? All y’all are gonna be grandmothered in. If I can figure out how exactly to do that. For now, just stop on by. Say Hi.
Who needs another app? Who knows.
You are welcome™!
Ministry of Garth
Hudson that is. Over to Kenn for our first who’s that deep dive of the year.
So I’m a keyboard player, right. I mean a passable one, but I have always more interested in awesome sounds than playing a lot of notes. I used to keep my keys taped down so I could do some other things while on stage.
Those who play a lot of notes tend to not really expand the pallet of sound they use. Or lord forbid they pick on of the 120,000 presets on a cracked plugin and everything just sounds lifeless. This is why sometimes you can get a cock-eyed look from people about electronic music. They may not totally understand why “it’s not music” but inside they know. There are some insanely great exceptions. Those people tend to program from scratch or even build their machines. I’m looking at you Kraftwerk and Aphex Twin.
Then there is Mr. Garth Hudson. Unless you are a The Band mental case, Mr. Hudson might just be the weird bearded fella with the teetering stacks of Keyboards in The Last Waltz. But wait… The man is a sonic genius. Before anyone thought of being such a thing.
Hudson was one of the few organ players in rock and roll and rhythm and blues to eschew the Hammond organ. Upon joining the Hawks, Hudson took the opportunity to negotiate the procurement of a new Lowrey organ as part of his compensation. The Lowrey organ offered a different mix of features, and Hudson stayed with Lowrey right through Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, Bob Dylan and the Band, playing three different models: originally a Festival (FL) console, which was replaced by a Lincolnwood TSO-25 during 1969, and later still a horseshoe console H25 model, as depicted in The Last Waltz.[7]
This thing is so dope and off the radar, they don’t even make a plug-in version.
So here’s why Garth. Over to Kenn again…
I was started digging through The Band at the New York Academy (which became the Palladium, which became a dorm) next to Jullian’s Pool Hall. The Show is on the run-up to New Years’ Eve 1971. You know, like Phish at the Garden, it’s like that. ,,,,,,,, It’s not like that at all. Don’t get me started.
Anyway…. Mr. Hudson’s keyboard work is about 50 years ahead of its time. He’s not using a laptop. He’s got a stack of keyboards and wow… the sounds, the playing. It’s enough to make you want to play music all day. And night.
Then also let’s zoom out and mention why this Live record is so magic. Meh, Let’s have Robbie and his kid do it.
Oh and Bob Dylan shows up for the encore. Happy New Year Y’all.