Comments on: Trains, Factories & Old-Time Music

By: speedbird

speedbird — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:58:37 +0000

These guys are interesting… ‘music without industry’:

http://www.electrasy.com/

(and they play good brit-rock too)

By: G1bass

G1bass — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 23:53:17 +0000

I highly recommend the documentary, Harry Smiths Old Weird America, and of course the anthology itself, Anthology Of American Folk Music. If you love fiddles,guitars and the high whine of a freight locomotive and have a spare 80 bucks laying around it will enrich you beyond measure.

By: flockofdgulls

flockofdgulls — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:51:50 +0000

have you seen the movie Harlan County USA? i think you would love the music in it.
one of my earliest memories is of visiting my grandmother in oklahoma. the santa fe railroad passed mere yards from her house everyday. i also have fond memories of drinking tequila by the the train tracks behind MICA. our revelry would occasionally be interrupted by the slow moving power of a freight train that would leave everyone speechless for several minutes.

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:05:23 +0000

I didn’t know you had a newsletter. How do I sign up?

By: skip wiley

skip wiley — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:59:59 +0000

That is a very beautifully said thing about trains. We have tracks close enough to our house to hear them every so often when drifting off to sleep. It is so damn comforting in the strangest way… almost like it taps into some primeval archetypal power. Funny how trains are relatively so young but have steadily implant themselves in collective consciousness in that way. Steady, rumbling, glutteral, dependable… very much like a heart beat.

* * *

Tim did you ever work out or find a firefox plugin for tumblr? Funnily enough, my google searches for such a thing return your blog post about it back in September. I like the idea of tumblr but am still grasping with the most efficient way to make entries.

By: Big Elk

Big Elk — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:41:10 +0000

I also listened last night to Ramblin Jack’s 1957 recording, Cowes Harbour, which is goddamned amazing and itself taught me a hell of a lot. Can’t wait to listen to it again and again.