I was so happy to see the shots of ports 1961 from fashion week at simplyolive. It is always great to see jewelry at fashions shows (it's been a little scarce for a few years), but this was even better. It seemed to me that the jewelry was more than just something to fill a neckline or add a little bling at the wrist. I thought it was great jewelry in it's own right, like there was artistic intent behind it, a nice balance between showcasing the materials and playing with traditional structures. And hats! There are fun kooky hats! You can see some great pieces by browsing around here. I like that the jewelry is an equal partner with the clothes. Exciting to see, indeed! And then I found out that The Cowboy Junkies played the show! There is just nothing that heralds the arrival of fall for me like The Cowboy Junkies. So Ports 1961 is totally my new fashion crush....

Here are some more recent crushes...

1. Custom earrings for Luz mother, 2. Dominika Naborowska, 3. Das ist der Mond über Soho, 1, 4. ., 5. ., 6. Patination experiments, 7. Untitled, 8. P8020459, 9. MW1X0114, 10. MB20129, 11. Yellow Shrooms, 12. Ring 105 progress no 5, 13. Untitled, 14. New ring. "Agujas de Tejo Tejedor", 15. tr10362, 16. Untitled, 17. Plexi Hairpin (2008. IT) Hairpin 1.7, 18. IMGP7201, 19. Xmas Tree (LOC), 20. Untitled, 21. landofshoes, 22. ooak137, 23. ., 24. My first green beans, 25. Pastime, 26. Untitled, 27. Engagement´s frame, 28. last renaissance necklace, 29. KL10161EAR, 30. It had long ceased to be a competition for the many., 31. Ethnic Tribal Neckpiece, 32. Dotty faux wood necklace, 33. stone ring profiles, 34. you image.jpg, 35. Flor de Lotus, 36. cameo2 detail

The country rock group, Cowboy Junkies played at the front of the stage as the models topped with Karen Henriksen Millinery hats, lethargically moved down the runway. I felt chills when Cali sang Blue Moon and Sweet Jane but the whole time I couldn't help but think... am I in the middle of Disney's broadway hit The Lion King?

Cowboy Junkies - Sweet Jane

PWNED again. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Obama, I gotta ask. Didn't your mama ever tell you gotta walk the walk in addition to talking the talk? Stanley Ann was one hell of a woman, so it's not to clear on how you turned out as sorry as you did. Maybe you take after your dad, the poor loser. Maybe you should have looked to STANLEY ANN'S dreams, bub.

Anyway, remember how I said last night that women were pushing the McCain Surge? Dr. Socks has the hard numbers, which read like invisible ink slowly appearing to spell out D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T-S-A-R-E-S-O-F-U-C-K-E-D.

The most surprising results — and surely the most disturbing for the freshman Illinois senator’s camp — are the immense gains McCain has made among white women following the Republican National Convention and the well-received prime-time speech by Palin.

In barely three weeks since before the Democratic convention last month, that crucial group of female voters has moved from 50-42 in Obama’s favor to 53-41 for McCain now.

That’s a huge 20-point shift in almost as many days, no doubt attributed in large part to the addition of a woman to the Republican ticket, Alaskan Gov. Palin, for the first time in the party’s 164-year history.

I hate to rejoice, except when I love it. They asked for this, and we told them for months it would happen. They had every opportunity to act like they gave a shit about voters that wanted to vote for them, but they kept shrieking about the New fucking Coalition, aka, the Progressive Dude Nation. How's that workin' out for ya, Barry? And can you us NOW?

I hope Donna Brazille is crying in her satin sheets right now. She's prolly wrapped up in them texting Rove, who is now refusing to return her messages. She and ole Roland certainly aren't doing this anymore:

I gotta say, this has been so satisfying. I know it's not over, and I'll fight for this until the bitter end, but it is so gratifying in the meantime to see some movement, to see anybody giving us our well deserved props, instead of all of the other shit we've had to deal with. Like this:

I recently returned to one of my old internet haunts, the Cowboy Junkies Message Board. I left because it was full of people who weren't even listening to each other anymore being nasty to each other, and because it had gotten increasingly cliquish the last couple of years before I left. (Also because Cowboy Junkies music has been way under par for them in recent years.) I finally had enough and walked away, but I visited this week and saw a big 14-page thread on Palin. It was filled with typical lazy leftist rhetoric, and sprinkled with just enough back-slapping and sexism from predictable corners that I had to comment that I was a Palin-supporting-PUMA. You would not believe the response. Well, okay, YOU would. The rhetoric of ridicule & judgment was front and center, followed closely by the rhetoric of guilt, and finally by the rhetoric of shame. It reminded me a lot of this:

They're right about at tantrum mode, though I saw almost every argument on the wheel there.

When O-bots see these new stats, they are going to go into stark reality mode. Get ready for the rhetoric that says it's unacceptable to choose based on identity (I saw that on the CJMB today too). Be prepared to remind them of three things: a) No one told African-Americans this, and b) I OWN MY VOTE mothafucka, and c) there ain't a damn thing you can do about it.

clic derecho :.: descargar :.: cowboy junkies : lost my driving wheel

era fácil ser el llanero solitario. se necesitaba un antifaz, un sombrero, una mascada roja (que está en la foto; quién sabe qué fue ese día de todo lo demás), un amor imbatible a los caballos y cierta simpatía por los indios. es todo.

(después pasa el tiempo y te conviertes en ti. amargo, casi sin memoria, libre de amor pero no de odio, de esperanza pero no de recelo. te preguntas cuándo perdiste el manubrio, cuándo el no rompido sueño se fue al carajo y cuál fue el trago que te embotó el cerebro.)

clic derecho :.: descargar :.: cowboy junkies : lost my driving wheel

Cowboy Junkies - Open Road (Includes Audio CD) is available at Amazon for $21.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• Trinity Revisited [CD/DVD]
• At the End of Paths Taken
• The Trinity Session
• Early 21st Century Blues
• Long Journey Home

Es gibt wenige Lieder, bei denen ich mir nicht sicher bin, welche Version ich am liebsten mag. Meistens ist es einfach - die Originalversion - Coverversionen mißraten häugig zu einem müden Abklatsch. Ein Lied, dass immer wieder zu neuer Schönheit erblüht ist U2's One. Unumstritten eines der großartigsten Musikstücke der Rock- und Popgeschichte überhaupt. Immerhin konnte ich mich dann auf 4 Lieblingsversionen beschränken.

U2

Cowboy Junkies

Johnny Cash

Mary.J.Blige. (feat.U2)

Link:Wikipedia (engl.)

DifferentStars

1. Bigmouth Strikes Again (Placebo)
2. Bizarre Love Triangle (Frente)
3. Dancing In The Dark (Tegan & Sara)
4. Dead Souls (Nine Inch Nails)
5. Easy (Faith No More)
6. Flame Trees (Sarah Blasko)
7. Gold Dust Woman (Hole)
8. Hallelujah (Jeff Buckley)
9. Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix)
10. I Heard It Through the Grapevine (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
11. It's Oh So Quiet (Björk)
12. Landslide (The Smashing Pumpkins)
13. Love Rollercoaster (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
14. Mad World (Michael Andrews ft. Gary Jules)
15. Maggie's Farm (Rage Against The Machine)
16. My Sweet Lord (Billy Preston, Concert For George)
17. Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl (Nikka Costa)
18. Running Up That Hill (Placebo)
19. Sweet Jane (Cowboy Junkies)
20. The Drover's Boy +mp3 (John Williamson)
21. Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Nirvana)
22. Whiskey In The Jar (Metallica)
23. Why Don't You Do Right? (Amy Irving)
24. Wild Horses (The Sundays)

I've included a link to an mp3 of The Drover's Boy by Ted Egan, as it's arguably the rarest track listed here. The John Williamson version was the first I heard as a child. There's no information regarding it on wikipedia.

Ted Egan, an Australian songwriter and folklorist wrote the song The Drover's Boy in recognition of the many Aboriginal women who worked as drovers in years past. With their hair cut short and breasts flattened with scarves, they were made to conceal their identity and live and work as men did, as Aboriginal women were not permitted to work as drovers. The lyrics highlight the nature of the close, yet hidden relationships that existed between many white men and these Aboriginal women: "They couldn't understand why the drover cried as they buried the drover's boy... They couldn't understand why the drover cut a lock of the dead boy's hair..." (source)

"Rules for 'Insight To My Heart':

Post the song that just gets to you every time you hear it."

Simple, huh? One song. But these days, asking me to list one song that "gets to me" is like asking me which grain of sand on the beach I like the most. It's impossible. Let's face it, I'm perimenopausal, I'm a hormonal mess, and if you've read this blog with any regularity, you know that even getting my oil changed can reduce me to tears these days. I listened to the B-52's Rock Lobster last week, and by the time Cindy Wilson started asking, "Why don't you dance with me? I'm not no limburger!" I was sobbing.

So I got all sidetracked with this one. I think Wendy wanted a song that told something about me,  something that touched my heart, a choice that may not make sense to others unless there was a little explanation. Simple, right? But once I started thinking about songs that made me sad, I got all ADD and just went all over the place with it.

I trimmed, cut, hacked, and I still ended up with thirty-one songs. Thirty-one.

One day, I'll come to terms with the fact that I'm a bad meme-er. I had a brain waft and changed the rules. Here are the videos for my top three songs, and below them a playlist of other songs that are the cause of a lot of tear shedding.

#1: Old Man River, Paul Robeson: I had a slight dilemma with this. I sing the short version of it all the time. It reminds me of so many things-- Memphis (where I grew up), the mighty Mississippi, heartache and racism, and the sound of Paul Robeson's voice is absolutely beautiful. But this video is the longer, original version, and includes some very non-PC lyrics. If you want to avoid hearing that part, you can stop after 2:05,  (Robeson later changed a lot of those lyrics).

By the way, Paul Robeson was a fascinating man. You can learn more about him here.

#2: Everybody Hurts, REM. This one was an easy pick. If you can listen to this song without crying, your heart may be made of cement. I was going through YouTube videos trying to find a decent one, and had to have a box of Kleenex on standby. I finally settled on the following video, because the lyrics were included.

Step away from the ledge!

#3:Rainbow Connection, Kermit the Frog: The sweetness of this one never fails to make me boohoo. This version is a duet with Debbie Harry, whose voice can also make me cry, so it's a double whammy.

That Kermit. So manly-- er, frogly.

A friend of mine used to call these "gas oven songs," because often, when you listen to them, you want to put your head in one. So here's my partial gas oven list. You can also listen to them here. I don't know why some of these make me cry. Sometimes it's a voice, an association with a person or period of my life, or beautiful lyrics. Sometimes it's Tuesday.

Blondie, Sunday Girl

Johnny Cash, Hurt

Thirteen, Big Star

Patti Smith, Because the Night

Paul Robeson, Old Man River

REM, Everybody Hurts

Jeff Buckley, Hallelujah

Elvis Costello, Alison

Joni Mitchell, Rainy Night House

Cowboy Junkies, Sweet Jane

Elliott Smith, Waltz #2

Cat Stevens, Father and Son

Fleetwood Mac, Dixie Chicks: Landslide

Don McLean, Vincent

Kermit the Frog, The Rainbow Connection

Roy Orbison, She's a Mystery to Me & Anything you Want

Jackson Browne Joan Baez, Fountain of Sorrow, I used to love the Jackson Brown version, but he hits women, so I like the Joan Baez version better now.

Cyndi Lauper, Time After Time

Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World. This one reminds me of my grandmother, who listened to it all the time.

Gary Jules, Mad World

Tracy Chapman, Fast Car

Linda Ronstadt, Long, Long Time & Black Roses, White Rhythm and Blues

Langley Schools Music Project, Desperado (NOT the Eagles version)

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Mr. Bojangles

Mahalia Jackson or almost anyone else (except for the crackhead version that Wendy links to at the bottom of this post): Amazing Grace

Etta James, At Last

Traveling Wilburys, Handle Me With Care

Kevin Kline, La Mer

John Mayer, Daughters. Not a fan of John Mayer, but I am a big fan of my daughter, and I miss her.This song makes me lose it. I wish they'd stop playing it at the grocery store.

I'm completely embarrassed about the length of this post, and the fact that I couldn't do my assignment properly. I'm tagging no one and everyone for this. Mostly, I'd just like to know one or two or ten of your own gas oven songs. What songs do you in? Can you name just one?

Oh, and about Dance this Mess Around. I decided not to include it. I wanted to end this with something that didn't make me cry, so here's a fun Rock Lobster video for you. It made me cry too, but they were happy tears, because it came out during a period of my life that I look back on so fondly.

(Hey, Botmo, let's go to the Antenna Club!)

Saturday, August 2
Doors: 10:00 AM
Show: 11:30 AM to 7:00 PM

The Black Crowes 5:15 - 6:45
Trey Anastasio 2:00 - 3:00
Cat Power 5:30 - 6:30
Stephen & Damian Marley 3:30 - 4:45
Richie Havens 12:40 - 1:30
Cowboy Junkies 11:30 - 12:20
Jim James (of My Morning Jacket) 4:00 - 5:00
She & Him (feat. Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward) 2:50 - 3:40
Steve Earle & Allison Moorer 1:40 - 2:30
Young @ Heart Chorus 11:30 - 12:10
Jakob Dylan 12:30 - 1:20
Willy Mason 3:30 - 4:10
The Felice Brothers 4:35 - 5:35
Jesca Hoop 1:35 - 2:15
Red Rooster 12:25 - 1:15
Sydney Wayser 11:30 - 12:00
American Babies 2:35 - 3:05

Sunday, August 3rd
Doors: 10:00 AM
Show: 11:30 AM to 7:00 PM

Jimmy Buffett 5:40 - 7:15
Levon Helm 4:10 - 5:10
Gillian Welch 2:40 - 3:40
The Avett Brothers 5:00 - 6:00
Calexico 1:20 - 2:20
Brandi Carlile 12:15 - 1:00
Son Volt 3:40 - 4:40
Kaki King 2:30 - 3:20
Over The Rhine 1:15 - 2:10
Jake Shimabukuro 2:30 - 3:30
One Flew South 4:00 - 5:00
Richard Julian 1:20 - 2:10
The Honors (OurStage Winners) 12:10 - 12:55
Ryan Fitzsimmons 11:30 - 11:50

[ Link to Live NPR Stream ]

hopefully we will be getting a full report from friend and previous contributor, keith bergendorff who will be attending the festival along with several cowboy junkies and over the rhine shows in the region.

The Newport Folk Festival is a multi-day, multi-stage music festival held at the historic Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island.

Saturday, August 2
Doors: 10:00 AM - Show: 11:30 AM to 7:00 PM

Cowboy Junkies 11:30 - 12:20
Young @ Heart Chorus 11:30 - 12:10
Sydney Wayser 11:30 - 12:00
Red Rooster 12:25 - 1:15
Jakob Dylan 12:30 - 1:20
Richie Havens 12:40 - 1:30
Jesca Hoop 1:35 - 2:15
Steve Earle & Allison Moorer 1:40 - 2:30
Trey Anastasio 2:00 - 3:00
American Babies 2:35 - 3:05
She & Him (feat. Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward) 2:50 - 3:40
Willy Mason 3:30 - 4:10
Stephen & Damian Marley 3:30 - 4:45
Jim James (of My Morning Jacket) 4:00 - 5:00
The Felice Brothers 4:35 - 5:35
The Black Crowes 5:15 - 6:45
Cat Power 5:30 - 6:30

Sunday, August 3rd
Doors: 10:00 AM - Show: 11:30 AM to 7:00 PM

Ryan Fitzsimmons 11:30 - 11:50
The Honors (OurStage Winners) 12:10 - 12:55
Brandi Carlile 12:15 - 1:00
Over The Rhine 1:15 - 2:10
Richard Julian 1:20 - 2:10
Calexico 1:20 - 2:20
Kaki King 2:30 - 3:20
Jake Shimabukuro 2:30 - 3:30
Gillian Welch 2:40 - 3:40
Son Volt 3:40 - 4:40
One Flew South 4:00 - 5:00
Levon Helm 4:10 - 5:10
The Avett Brothers 5:00 - 6:00
Jimmy Buffett 5:40 - 7:15

Schedule subject to change
* "official" postings/articles note brian wilson as a performer, i have yet to find his name/time slot on a schedule.

margo timmins

“This song I’d like to dedicate to the young girl in Utah, and her family.” Margo Timmins - “This Street, That Man, This Life”, Petaluma, CA, 2002

Simple words spoken quietly by singer Margo Timmins of Cowboy Junkies deep into the band’s set on the final night of a grueling five night run up the California coast. The young girl in Utah was Elizabeth Smart and the song, written a decade earlier, tells a story hauntingly too familiar to anybody who read the newspaper that spring. The real life story ended happily but really, how happy can such a story end? Somewhere between the polar tips of sadness and happiness is a place swathed in a mixture of the two colors. This place is called life. Few bands write and perform in this place as consistently as Cowboy Junkies.

As the influence of MTV started to fade from my life in the late 80’s, one of the last bands to register on my musical radar was Cowboy Junkies. I picked up the seminal Trinity Session as high school began and set it aside for a few years. Rock and roll might have been ready for the revolutionary lo-fi recording of Trinity but I was still taking the Duran Duran pins off my Member’s Only jacket. A few years later, our paths would cross again on television.

In anticipation of the follow-up release Caution Horses, VH-1 aired a short special on Cowboy Junkies (seriously, this happened, I have a copy) and the video for the first single, “Sun Comes Up, It’s Tuesday Morning.” With my musical tastes having moved from Thompson Twins to Eric Clapton and the early delta blues artists, the time was right for me to revisit Cowboy Junkies. Twenty years later, I still haven’t left.

Two things everybody seems to know about the band is that they recorded a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” and they’re depressing. Both of these facts are slivers of truth with far more depth than most listeners will ever notice. As a band, singer Margo Timmins with brothers Michael (guitar/songwriter) and Pete (drums) and Alan Anton (bass), they are constantly challenging the listener by adapting a diverse range of songs from The Cure to Townes Van Zandt. Sheryl Crow singing “Sweet Child Of Mine” is a cover, and a terrible example of one. Cowboy Junkies exploring an acoustically bare, first person reading of Bruce Springsteen’s “You’re Missing” works on a different artistic plane.

Yes, the stories found in Cowboy Junkies songs are dark but happy endings are relatively subjective in life, something that Hollywood and Miley Cyrus would prefer you forget. Many of the early narratives that Michael passed to Margo were filled with the Southern Gothic traditions of writers like Flannery O’Connor. As years pass and the realities of family life creep into the business of being a band, the tone of the writing and the pace of the music often flows through the speakers like the words of a Richard Ford novel float across the page. Happiness and sadness twist together to form a frail tempest of hope that refuses to stop living.

The endurance of Cowboy Junkies both artistically and commercially lies in the honesty of the band. There are few bands more open with their fans, both in person and in cyberspace. Everything from rough, first take recordings to hand written lyrics are available for the listener to explore through the band’s website. Singer Margo Timmins still comes out after every show to talk and take countless pictures with fans. On stage, the sonic clouds of dark mystery swirl from the amps without disengaging the audience. Cowboy Junkies are a shared experience.

Before the show in Petaluma that night in 2002, the band invited in five or six fans to watch a tired sound check. One fan had his wife and daughter with him, something he had mentioned to Margo the night before when he requested a song that had impacted their family in a meaningful way. Remembering this and despite not having played the song in years, the band dedicated it to the daughter and played it for the family, unrehearsed, in an empty concert hall. Watching the moment unfold, I realized that the most important moments in life are the small, all too fleeting times when life comes into focus. The moments when sadness and happiness both make sense and have equal importance to our souls. It is these moments that come alive in Cowboy Junkies.

find out more about cowboy junkies @ cowboyjunkies.com

read more from jason @ essential junk

photo by bill ivester

submit you own story about your favorite band or artist to bivester@gmail.com

Standing on the corner
Suitcase in my hand
Jack is in his corset, and Jane is her vest
And me I'm in a Rock n' Roll band
Riding in a Stutz Bearcat, Jim
You know, those were different times
All the poets they studied rules of verse
And those ladies, they rolled their eyes

Sweet Jane

Ill tell you something
Jack, he is a banker
And Jane, she is a clerk
Both of them save their moneys
For when they come home from work
Sitting down by the fire
The radio does play
The classical music there, Jim
The march of the wooden soldiers
All you protest kids
You can hear Jack say, get ready

Sweet Jane!

Some people, they like to go out dancing
And other peoples, they have to work, just watch me now!
And there's even some evil mothers
They're gonna tell you that everything is just dirt
You know that women never really faint
And that villains always blink their eyes
And that children are the only ones who blush
And that life is just to die

Anyone who ever had a heart
They wouldn't turn around and break it
And anyone who ever played a part
Wouldn't turn around and hate it

Sweet Jane
Sweet Jane

Heavenly wine and roses
Seems to whisper to her when he smiles
Heavenly wine and roses
Seems to whisper to her when she smiles
Sweet Jane
Sweet Jane
Sweet Jane

For a quick synopsis, the story is of a high school boy, played by Christian Slater, who runs a pirate radio station from his basement room in his parents house. He's just moved into a sleepy suburb in Arizona from the big city. The local students make him a sensation and he uncovers a plot on behalf of his school principle to contrive expulsions for academically under-performing students and others deemed undesirable. He reveals the scandal on the air, chaos ensues, and the movie ends with Hard Harry (that's Slater's radio handle) broadcasting from a roaming jeep and being chased by the FCC. He makes a roaring entrance into a the high school athletic field, which is filled with teens, FCC people, police, and the press, broadcasting that other people should do what he's doing, because the air is free and so is speech, and there is a general feeling of discontent among teens that should be communicated. This is one way to do it. Talk Hard says Hard Harry.

Obviously I love this movie for it's focus on education rights, among other things, but also I happen to agree. And I think a similar revolution is happening with blogs. We are all blogging in the wilderness, especially those of us who are estranged from our base, the Democratic Party, right now. Truth is a virus. Speech is still free. That's why we write. And I really am privileged to participate in this thing.

That said, I won't be talking hard this morning. I've got some ideas, but I'll be out this morning signing our new lease (yes I'm that kind of working class, I rent), and I'll be out later running errands and playing taxi driver to my 14 year old daughter. But I wanted to encourage you this morning to talk hard. Give me something to read when I get back. I need to feed my head. Post the link to your blog in comments, and let's all share some ideas on how we can make this thing better, identify subtexts in our objectives, or move the movement along.

Can you gauge the depth of love by the quality of a person's taste?

What about those who aren't well read? What about bad musical taste? (Or no taste at all?)

Several years ago I was driving my girlfriend's car, and she was the passenger. We were in the first month of dating - the "honeymoon period" of roses and sweet wine. She popped in a tape and out from the speakers came Celine Dion. She said with a straight face that Celine was her favorite artist. Period.

I honestly didn't know how to respond. I thought about asking her if she knew any Cowboy Junkies, or Emmylou Harris, or possibly a softball pitch of Carole King. But Celine is so far off the mark I didn't see the point. In my opinion, someone who props up Celine as their favorite isn't even really trying. So much music is out there, decades of music, that makes Celine sound like musical poo. At that moment, I did think to myself, "this (relationship) might not go very well."

It didn't go well, but I am not sure that Celine had a lot to do with it. I have thought many times since about that situation, though. Could I love someone who loves Celine Dion? If Celine is out, where do I draw the line? Mariah Carey? Gwen Stefani?

My hope is if I do find a lover who loves Daughtry, she will at least be open to listening to something more eclectic. I do believe that most people, those who are open to new possibilities, will if not embrace at least accept music with more depth. In this I hope.