Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’ve taken my son to more minor league baseball games than I can remember, but not enough to call it a day yet. We have many more to see. But we’ve only gone to two major league games together. The first time was when the Society for American Baseball Research held its annual meeting orContinue reading “A Father-Son Baseball Tale”

The first time I saw and heard Yonrico Scott share his immense rhythmic gifts he was playing with Francine Reed at the Sautee Nacoochee Center, the same place where I first saw Col. Bruce Hampton perform. It’s one of those nice little Bruce synchronicities that seem more and more inevitable the older I get. BecauseContinue reading “Yonrico’s Mighty Heart”

Sixty one is a lot of years to be alive, but not too many, and hopefully there are plenty of good ones left in the cosmic stash. The more spins I take around the sun on this big, rotating blue dance floor, the more I’m reminded of how melancholy and gratitude are such close danceContinue reading “Gratitude and Faith at 61”

This is from my book, The Music and Mythocracy of Col. Bruce Hampton: A Basically True Biography. It tells the story of how Bruce got back into making albums, thanks mainly to Michael Rothschild and Landslide Records (which is celebrating its 40th anniversary with the release of a new album, this one here). Michael basicallyContinue reading “Creating a Landslide”

“The Natural” is one of my go-to movies when I’m “stuck inside” for a spell. So much going on in that screen story, so many great characters, so beautiful to look at, and so many wonderful lines. This Robert Redford movie (directed by Barry Levinson) captures much of the novel’s depth and mythology, though itContinue reading ““The Natural” Goes Deep to Clean the Slate”

Col. Bruce Hampton used to talk a lot about taking the music “out.” He was even in a movie by Mike Gordon called “Outside Out.” In fact, “out” was the direction Bruce was moving in all of the time, like skin cells on their doomed outward migration to the skin surface. Way out. The epilogueContinue reading “Let the Starving Braineaters Feed Your Ears”

You’ve been talkin’, workin’ out your deal; let’s sit down, make this thing real. I said I wanted to be your friend, and you find ways to make it end. I feel – I feel like Shoeless Joe; I feel, yeah, Lord I feel like Joe. – Bruce Hampton Those lyrics are from the songContinue reading “In the Footsteps of Shoeless Joe”

“Lady of Paradise is checking you out. Educated guess: She’s with the Count.” — Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit I didn’t know that Count M’Butu’s given first name was Harold until a few months before he died (which he did early Sunday morning, June 25). I always thought it was Larry. ButContinue reading “How the Band got the Count”

Here are some scenes or things Bruce said that were originally intended for “The Music and Mythocracy of Col. Bruce Hampton: A Basically True Biography,” but for one reason or another didn’t make the final cut: “I’m a premature vessel to the second level of consciousness.” “I’m like an accountant that weird shit happens to.Continue reading “Deleted Scenes”

The dad is downstairs in his self-appointed salt mine, pounding plastic keys with arthritic fingers, trying to make stories about scientific research, trying to wrap his damaged brain around the carbon cycle and soil organic matter and, oh yes … what if those microbes are putting more methane into the air than carbon dioxide? WhatContinue reading “Joe Feels the Music”