A thank you memory to David Byrnes' Mom

Emma Byrne was perhaps my favorite church member at Sandy Springs Friends meeting house. Partly because she was the mother of David Byrne, a musician I deeply admire and wished to meet (still haven't), but mostly because she was so blunt and to the point. She told me once that she had a major influence on his singing style. She said to him 'David, if you're going to sing, make sure you sing clearly so people can understand the words!'
I just had this memory and wished to share it cause that was 30 years ago and I'm only starting to let it influence me. And gotta say, it makes all the difference in the world. Thank you Emma!

JB

Coffee

I'm a blessed man. I'm blessed to have a very sensitive body that has not enabled me to become a substance abuser. I've tried. I once really tried hard to become an alcoholic. Spitting blood and a visit from my guardian angel outside a the Mex-Econo night club in Nags Head North Carolina at the ripe old age of 24 set that straight. Live or die? Hmmmm. I'm still here and really glad about that choice. I tried cigarettes, nope. They didn't like me too much.  Pot? Too unpredictable. I used to like that good ol' high school cheap Mexican ditch weed, the kind you roll a joint and eat chips and watch a movie while laughing with your friends. Now, like much of our culture, that's gone extreme too. "Here's some brickhead Aurora Borealis comatose bud they'll give you the best unwelcome out of body experience! HOW ABOUT IT???" No, not so fun. Fucking macho hippies ruining a good time plant. Hallucinogens? Those aren't for habits, and I haven't done those in years yet, right now I'm in the middle of a bad acid trip. How did I get here? How did I get so fucked up today?????

Hello my name is Jef Brown and I am a coffee addict. I am powerless over my addiction and I need a higher power to get clean. And no, not a high power, a higher as in higher frequency power!

Seriously. It didn't happen overnight. I used to hardly touch the stuff. It wasn't till my 9th year living in Portland (it's against the law there not to use the stuff!) that I started using with my dear roommate. She and I would hit the Fresh Pot or the Albina Press on Mississippi Avenue every morning. Then I started going by myself. After about 3 years I was spending anywhere from $200-$300 a month there. That's a big chunk of my salary. I was no longer enjoying it, just maintaining and making appearances, indulging my hipster status. There were times when I would get clean, then I'd fall back. Today I fell off the wagon.

It's 4:45 in the morning and in 3 hours I have to get up and move my van, try to catch some more sleep then help my new boss move some records. I need the dough and I'm happy to be of service. But, I can't sleep at all! At 6pm I made a terrible mistake. I was on my way to a meeting and was feeling sluggish so I stopped into Verb on Bedford Avenue and got a shot of espresso and a Croissant. That was over 10 hours ago. During my meeting I was having an out of body experience and I still haven't come home! The last time I felt like this was doing acid at the Bread and Puppet festival in Vermont the year Jerry died. I just wanted it to end so I could sleep. I felt a high level of resentment to the neo hippies and their macho drum circles going on all night but really felt that resentment inwards for taking this stupid drug. Yeah, that's how I feel right now! A shitty flashback! And this is just a cup of coffee!!!!!! Is it me or do the same people who cultivate weed roast the coffee now? Or maybe it's my just my blessing. It's time to admit total defeat and give up the crack water!

Amen. Good morning. JB

Unconventional success

What is success? Jewels? Gold? Wealth? Power? Fans? One million hits on Youtube? It used to seem so clear at one point what it looked like, now nothing is clear.

And that's a good thing.

Yesterday I had 6 people join my fan list on my Reverbnation page. Couple fellows from Germany, a band from Indonesia. I was kind of excited that they just kept coming in, then I listened to the music. I liked one German guy, guitarist that lived through the real psychedelic era making rock with electrobeats. The rest disturbed me. I was really excited to hear the Indonesian band but they sounded like every other extremely bland middle of the road American hard rock derivative extract, Mother 13 from a faraway land. It's heartbreaking to hear so much commercial influence, so much conformity when I know any of these folks is capable of blowing minds. The minute you start to compare is the minute you start to conform.

It's tricky cause I get asked daily "what kind of music do you play?" I have no answer for that question. This may be impacting my earning potential and my success as a musician. People see me with my saxophone and they automatically assume I'm a jazz player. Put me in a bebop session and I may get shot! But it's a knee jerk reaction 'so, you play jazz right?'.  I've had to think hard about this because I do wish to live off the music I create but can't seem to call it anything. To me checking the 'genre' box is as absurd as checking the 'race' box. I also know I have self sabotaging tendencies and perhaps this is why I don't have a clear answer. I also have a compulsion to remain small, maybe this is why I'm hiding from the Genre word.

But honestly, I don't have an answer because I'm still finding out what comes through me. I don't feel responsible for it when the creation is pure, I'm just the tuner for that special station. If I set out to start a glam band or a jazz group, I'm starting with a conclusion. There would be nowhere to go! Glam was absolutely necessary at the time it happened, as was punk, jazz, country, psychedelic, trip hop, hip hop, no wave or grunge etc. There simply doesn't seem to be necessity for these genres anymore. They were solving the problems of the time they were created in. What I hear now is one revival tent show after another, interpretations of what music 'should' sound like. I've been in a few of those bands myself, and they crushed my soul temporarily. No honesty and more neurosis than I can stand.

Success? I am successful in the fact that the bands I've led or been a part of don't sound like anything else I can think of. They've all been impossible to describe. One band even helped create the path to "freak folk". The minute I started hearing bands with more than 20 delay pedals and a banjo on stage I fled, it was over for me! Those groups that I did well with were searching and figuring out what they were daily. I'm not rich, not famous, but I'm damned lucky to have shared with so many wonderful folks, and right in this moment I feel like the most successful man in, well, my shoes! And that's pretty damned good!

xojb