Jake Leg Stompin’

Just said goodbye to our friends the Jake Leg Stompers today, after a stellar performance last night at the New Harmony Center for the Arts. The Stompers were in rare form, there was some dancing, and lots of smiling...good time was had by all, the band included.

God bless these guys for keeping alive a big dollop of American music & history that might otherwise go forgotten...

We wish Brandon well on his new adventure in Berlin, and hope that whatever form the Stompers find themselves in after his departure, they’ll come back and see us again!

Photo © Jake Leg Stompers. All rights reserved

Foto-sho, Pt. 2

Here’s our architect friend Ben Nicholson from the New Harmony portrait series. He’s been wrapping up a book project dealing with the labyrinth. He’s also heading off to Italy in September to do a presentation at the Venice Biennale. In that spirit...

For he might have been a Roosian, A French, or Turk, or Proosian,
Or perhaps Itali-an!
But in spite of all temptations To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman!

Wednesday with Morrie.

Went to the color-field show at the Frist today, and came away with an enormous new appreciation for Morris Louis. After having to take the Ab-Ex and color field stuff like castor oil in school, it’s been a slow and spotty journey back to it, but lo-and-behold...enough time has passed and it seems exciting again...

Louis was a typical art world figure, lionized, marginalised, died, commodified, sanctified.

Dead of lung cancer at 49, quite possibly as a result of some of the crazy-hazardous synthetic polymers he used to make some of his best paintings. Three really fine ones in this show are well worth the ticket.

If you find yourself in Nashville before this show closes in Late September, see it!

(this one, Floral V, from 1959, is the one I would have taken home, although it would be a tough toss-up between it and one of the two from his Veil series, both magnificently subtle)

Live from Nashville.

We’ve been down in the old stomping grounds for a bit.

Went to see the Time Jumpers at Station Inn last night. Always love those guys, have been through many permutations with them, from the old Hoot Hester and Papa John Hughey days til now.

What can you say? It’s kind of a who’s-more-stellar contest. Hard not to love front-man Kenny Sears of the permanent cowboy hat and winning smile, but I am always floored by Paul Franklin, one of the most amazing men to ever touch a pedal steel. And the humbly luminous fiddle-meister Aubrey Haney.

Oh and when we walked in I noticed there was this guy Vince Gill sitting in with them, tuning up his guitar... Rare good night.

Our bad spider.

Turkeyman!

A lovely recent painting of Lexie’s that I’ve just framed and put on the wall of my downtown New Harmony studio.

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