#LOUIS REALLY SNEAK IT IN AND NOT PUT THIS IN THE ORIGINAL ALBUM

[louisplumpyass]

BLUE LIKE THE LIGHTS SURROUNDING ME..... SEE ALL THE WAVES AND WAVES OF GREEN

🤝

STAY GREEN A LITTLE WHILE... YOU BRING BLUE LIGHTS TO DREAMS

#annoyingcouple 🫵😭

[chiseler]

BUTTER KNIFE SLIDE

In the early ’90s, I was the Editor-at-Large at The Welcomat, a Philadelphia-based alternative weekly. I was living in Brooklyn at the time, but every Thursday I would hop on a NJ Transit commuter train for the three and a half hour trip to Philly. After arriving at 30th Street station, I’d walk across the river into Center City to the paper’s offices, which were housed in a building on the corner of 17th and Sansom. I’d make a right in the building’s small lobby, take the elevator to the Third floor, and walk to the back, where the editorial department was located. Even before saying hi to the other editors, I’d drop my bag on my desk, step over to the office boombox, sort through the small batch of cassettes stacked next to it, throw in Delta bluesman Cedell Davis’ debut album, Feel Like Doin’ Something Wrong, and punch the play button. Without fail, once those first notes hit the air, an audible and pained collective groan arose from every throat in the room.

While my own aesthetic sensibilities were just as offended as my co-workers’, over time I came to have a real and solid affection for Davis, the same way you come to cherish a middle child with a droopy eye or a pet rabbit with the mange.

To the uninitiated, the first moments of the opening track on Davis’ album, “I Don’t Know Why,” might have been produced when a large bull walrus with a head cold and an untuned autoharp were tossed into an enormous blender together. Those same listeners might even cynically conclude the album’s title was a direct reference to the last thing Davis muttered before stepping into the recording studio. At the very least, Davis’ caterwauling guitar and his own strangled yelping vocals might be seen as proof positive there really is such a thing as an authentic Delta Blues singer who is  absolutely godawful. As one friend put it, “If you’re bad enough, you get to be ‘authentic’.’”

That said, over the years Davis idiosyncratic style also earned him some fierce, high-profile defenders. Love and respect him or cringe at the mere mention of his name, no one can deny Davis had a legitimate claim to the blues.

Ellis Cedell Davis recorded Feel Like Doin’ Something Wrong for Fat Possum Records when he was sixty-eight years old,  but his career as a workaday delta bluesman began roughly half a century earlier.

Davis was born in Helena, Arkansas, in 1926. At the time Helena was a bustling Delta port town, where his father ran one of the city’s countless juke joints and his devout Evangelical mother, while working as a cook, was better known among locals as a faith healer. Perhaps on account of all the sordid temptations waiting around every corner in Helena—it was a town rife with bootleggers, gamblers and hookers—young Cedell was sent a ways upstream to live with his older brother on the E. M. Hood plantation. There he became friends with Isaiah Ross, and the pair, only seven or eight at the time, began playing blues. Davis’ mother insisted the music was the handiwork of Satan, but it was the music that surrounded them, it was the music they knew, the pair often sneaking into local juke joints to catch live performances. Davis began with the diddly bow, a single wire nailed to a wall and plucked, before moving on to harmonica and guitar. Ross, meanwhile, stuck with the harmonica and would later be signed to Sam Phillips’ Sun Records as Dr. Ross, the Harmonica Boss.

When he was ten, Davis contracted a severe case of polio which left him nearly paralyzed. He returned to Helena, where it was hoped his mother’s healing powers might be able to save him. Well, Davis survived, but the muscles of his legs were so deteriorated he was forced to walk with crutches. Worse for the budding musician, he lost a good deal of control over his left hand, and his right was gnarled and completely useless. Being a right-handed guitar player, this was bad news.

In the early ’80s, Davis told New York Times music critic Robert Palmer—a tireless champion of Davis’ music—that it took him three years to figure out how to play again.

He flipped the guitar around to start teaching himself to play left-handed, but even then, with his right hand unable to work the fret board, he knew he needed something to use as a slide, so swiped a butter knife from his mother’s silverware collection, using the handle to work the frets.

In 2017, shortly before his death, Davis told an interviewer. “Almost everything that you could do with your hands, I could do it with the knife. It’s all in the way you handle it. Drag, slide, push it up and down.”

To unsophisticated ears, the grinding shriek resulting from the butter knife slide working the strings might be reminiscent of a cat in heat caught in a ceiling fan, but Mr. Palmer, being a rock critic, recognized its virtues, describing it as only a rock critic could: "a welter of metal-stress harmonic transients and a singular tonal plasticity.” Palmer also argued that Davis’ wholly unique sound wasn’t merely the untuned inchoate noise so many claimed, noting the subtleties of the guitar work remained consistent performance to performance.

In the early 1940s, while in his teens, Davis started playing on street corners around Helena, sometimes working as a duo with Ross. Soon enough he found himself booked in the local juke joints, playing house parties, and appearing on local radio blues shows. He became friends with a number of the era’s most notable Delta Blues luminaries, including Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Joe Williams, Robert Nighthawk and Charlie Jordan. In 1953 Davis teamed up with Nighthawk, a famed slide guitarist in his own right, and the pair began playing all over the Mississippi Delta region, eventually relocating to St. Louis. Davis, it was said, had a Buddha like presence on stage, a radiant calm that seemed to defuse even the most unruly of crowds. It apparently didn’t always come through.

In 1957, while the pair was playing a gig at a bar in East St. Louis, someone in the audience pulled a gun. This sparked a panic in the crowd that only escalated when cops raided the place. Davis was caught in the resulting stampede, and trampled under lord knows how many feet. The bones in his legs weren’t merely broken, they were shattered, confining him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Just as he was determined, for better or worse, not to let polio and a ruined right hand stop him from playing music, he didn’t let the wheelchair slow him down either. Shortly after he got out of the hospital, he and Nighthawk returned to Helena, where the duo continued performing together. When Nighthawk snared them a regular house gig at a nightclub in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1961, Davis picked up and moved there.

(As an interesting side note, Pine Bluff was home to an enormous U.S. Army chemical and bioweapons storage facility. It’s unclear if these two things are connected, but if you take Davis at his word, the town also boasted the fattest women in the world, an observation that inspired his song, “If You Like Fat Women,”)

Davis and Nighthawk went their separate ways in 1963, after ten years of playing together. Davis would remain in Pine Bluff for the next few decades, still playing the juke joints around the Delta.

(As another side note, throughout his career Davis remained adamantly vague when it came to questions about his marital status. He might have been married twice, or maybe not at all. It’s unclear. He knows he had a few kids, maybe even some grandkids, but he was no longer in touch with any of them.)

In the mid-’70s, like so many other folklorists inspired by Harry Smith and Alan Lomax, Louis Guida began trolling the Deep South with a tape recorder, hoping to make field recordings of some as-yet-undiscovered authentic blues legend along the way. In 1976 he stumbled across Davis playing in a bar, and those first recordings appeared on Guida’s compilation album, Keep It to Yourself: Arkansas Blues Volume 1, Solo Performances, which came out in the early ’80s.

And here we go. Robert Palmer heard that album and headed to Arkansas to catch Davis’ act, writing the first of many stories about him for the Times and other publications. Over the course of the decade, Palmer’s endless championing of Davis earned the man with the butter knife slide gigs not only all over the country (including a multi-night stand in NYC), but around the world as well. Suddenly Davis, who prior to that had ventured no further than St. Louis, was starting to get some recognition within the international blues community. Not all of it was as laudatory as Palmer, but still. In 1993, it was Palmer, not surprisingly, who brought Davis to the attention of Fat Possum Records.

The indie label had been launched by three white college buddies from The University of Mississippi in 1991, their goal being to promote (which sounds so much better than “exploit”) previously unknown bona fide aging black Delta blues musicians. Along with R.L. Burnside and T Model Ford, Davis became one of the earliest acts signed to the label. In 1994, with Palmer himself producing and assorted label mates like Burnside acting as sidemen, Davis went into the studio to record Feel like Doin’ Something Wrong, which featured a smattering of classic vlues covers mixed in with Davis originals, including “Murder My Baby” and the above mentioned “If You like Fat Women.”

Going back to the album now for the first time in roughly twenty-five years, it doesn’t seem nearly as comically awful as it did back in The Welcomat’s editorial office. In fact it’s pretty good, if you’re a fan of unpolished, dirty, gritty roadhouse blues. If you aren’t conscious that he’s playing with a butter knife, Davis’ guitar work merely sounds a little squeaky and rough, but not all that different from what you might hear from others of the time.

If there is a downside, it’s that the album’s a little one note and generic. Apart from the covers, Davis relies on the same simple blues progression for nearly every song, which, yes, can be a little tiring if you’re listening carefully. But if all you wanted was some generic roadhouse blues to put on as you go about doing other things, it fits the bill.

In a strange move considering he’d only put out a single album at that point, the following year saw the release of The Best of Cedell Davis, this time spearheaded not buy Palmer, but by popular jazz fusion bandleader Col. Bruce Hampton, one of Davis’ newfound fans. None of the album’s ten tracks appeared on Feel Like Doin’ Something Wrong, so I can’t say for sure if these are new recordings or songs taken from his appearances on earlier Delta blues compilations, but a couple, like “My Dog Won’t Stay Home” and “Keep Your mouth Closed, Baby,” are kind of fun.

Shortly after the Best of came out, Palmer died, and Davis lost his most influential benefactor. But Palmer had gotten Davis on the map, and it was up to Davis to carry on as he always had.

In 1998 he released Horror of It All, an album whose title once again played right into the hands of the Davis naysayers. In fact, It’s an album, despite promising song titles like Chicken Hawk,” “Keep on Snatchin’” and the mind boggling “Tojo told Hitler,” that seems determined to prove the naysayers were right all along. With the exception of a new iteration of “If You Like Fat Women,” there are no drums, no side guitars, nothing but Cedell and the naked glory of his butterknife slide. It’s Cedell laid bare, and it can be painful, especially as Davis keeps playing those same simple blues progressions over and over. Yes, he has an absolutely unique sound, a bit like Joseph Spence, but ouch. It really is godawful, but like the equally godawful Godzilla vs. Megalon, may be the album that cemented his reputation among blues critics and fans who weren’t Robert Palmer.

(Oddly, Horror of it All is the album I keep returning to, as it best captures my initial impressions of the Davis sound.)

After Horror of It All came out Davis decided to take a break from recording to write more songs and return to playing the juke joints where he was most comfortable.

It’s a funny thing. If you don’t know the back story, Davis’ music, while perhaps not as awful as I once maintained (and countless blues critics still insist), doesn’t get much beyond the merely adequate. When you do learn his story, though, well, that elevates things, right? Knowing he’s confined to a wheelchair and using a butter knife in his crippled right hand, it’s really something he plays as well as he does. It also sure makes for a swell and effective marketing gimmick. He may not have been the worst bluesman who ever lived, but without that gimmick he was nothing. If he’d merely been blind it would’ve been no big deal—blindness just comes with the territory—but Davis was all messed up, and never let it stop him. Again, for better or worse.

As has happened so many times before, if you have a performer whose abilities make at least a stab toward the adequate, then  add a mental or physical disability on top of it, all you need do is step back for a few moments and wait for the hipster celebrities to start lining up, hoping to get their claws in him. Consider the cases of Larry “Wild Man” Fischer or Daniel Johnston.

Sure enough, when word of Davis’ condition began circulating along with those first couple Fat Possum discs (the label having become quite popular among white hipsters), the white hipster celebrity musicians began clamoring to get on board.

Davis’ returned to the studio in 2002 to record When Lightnin’ Struck the Pine. The accompanying press release claimed he had personally signed R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin to be in his backing band. Why do I find it hard to believe a 76-year-old black bluesman from Arkansas had ever heard, let alone heard of, R.E.M. or the Screaming Trees, or that he would personally sign a couple white hipsters to be in his band?

Well, whatever. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it really did happen that way, and there wasn’t some heavy conspiring between Buck, Martin, and the white boys who ran the label to get them in on those sessions.

Well, however it came about, the resulting album was, much to my amazement, um, pretty good. The sound is as grungy as ever, but much fuller than it had been on his earlier albums, with the addition of organ, piano and sax together with Buck and Martin. And as it should be, Davis vocals and butter knife slide are front and center. The energy level’s been ramped up considerably, and best of all, Davis, both in the songs and a few candid recordings from the studio, seems to be having a fine time of it.

Three years later in 2005, Davis had a stroke and was forced to move into a nursing home in Hot Springs, Arkansas. This time it was definite and final—he could no longer play guitar. But if polio hadn’t stopped him, and crushed legs hadn’t stopped him, it’s little surprise a stroke and no longer being able to play the guitar wasn’t going to stop him either. He could still sing, and so kept writing songs and recording. And the hipsters kept piling on.

His 2015 album, appropriately if ironically entitled Last Man Standing, featured an 88-year-old Davis working through a greatest hits set in front of a backing band that again included Barrett Martin, as well as  Jimbo Mathus and Stu Cole from the Squirrel Nut Zippers and noted blues guitarist brothers Greg and Zack Binns.

The resulting album, as you might expect, was a far cry from his debut. The production was clean and sterile, with the all-star band’s three guitars pushed to the front of the mix and Davis’ butter knife clearly absent for obvious reasons. At least none of the involved made the mistake of trying to recreate his trademark sound.  It sounded like a bunch of white hipster musicians playing standard blues riffs behind an eighty-eight-year-old mumbling bluesman.

If you hadn’t smelled it already, to drive the Bad Faith of the whole project home, the album also contains three or four tracks of Davis just talking to the band in the studio, clearly trying to tell stories about his life and career to these youngsters who not only don’t know who the hell he’s talking about, but can’t understand what he’s saying. While similar tracks had been included on Lightnin’, this, unlike those, had been recorded after Davis stroke. The clear intention was to say to listeners, “Hey, get a load of this crazy old mumbling Southern black bliuesman! Is that authentic or what?”

Somehow, the following year he released yet another album, Even the Devil Gets the Blues, this time with someone from Pearl Jam in his backing band. Then in September of 2017, Davis had a heart attack, and died from complications a week or two later at age 91. Not surprisingly, at the time of his death, he was still scheduled to play a gig at the end of the month.

I’m not sure who the final  Great Cosmic Joke is on, those hipster musicians who thought playing with a bona fide authentic Delta bluesman would bolster their street cred in some way, or poor Cedell—whom I adore and admire more with each passing day—who might have been conned into believing all that support from white institutions from the NY Times to R.E.M. would push him over the top. Whatever it may be, a mere three years after his death, and after seventy-five years of making a go of the blues against all imaginable odds, Cedell Davis remains virtually unknown and forgotten, even among serious blues aficionados. In fact it seems, and this may be the saddest thing of all, he’s only remembered nowadays by people like me.

by Jim Knipfel

[liam-93-productions]

They still scream. Four years after One Direction went on a hiatus that looks more permanent with every SNL shading and deathless interview comment, Liam Payne can still make girls giddy. Or, rather, not girls anymore. Women. It’s the night before the release of his debut solo album, LP1, and he’s launching it in cahoots with Huawei, throwing a listening party where 150 contest winners can preview it on the brand’s new FreeBuds 3 earphones. They nod along happily as the first two tracks play in their ears. They sip their wine – they can legally drink now – and assume this sneak peak is their prize. Then the curtain at the end of the room drops. There’s Liam Payne, the boy whose poster graced millions of bedroom walls, in the flesh.

It’s been 12 years since Payne first appeared on The X Factor; a decade since the birth of One Direction, when on his second audition he and four boys he’d never met were jammed together, formless teenage clay fashioned into a record-selling miracle. They burned bright. They burned out. They split. They grew up. Their fans did, too.

But when he appears, as if summoned up, they still scream. Payne’s music might lack the for-the-jugular songwriting that made One Direction the biggest act on earth for half a decade, but that doesn’t matter. They scream for the idea of Liam Payne, not necessarily the reality. The scream is the memory of dancing to ‘You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful’ in their bedroom. Of a stolen selfie at a record signing, in the days before the tattoos, the drinking problems, (...), the sultry underwear campaign.

But for everyone outside this room, outside this scream, these are the things that define him now. The new Liam Payne makes adult music, in the clothes-on-a-bedroom-floor sense of the word. The new album is the fruit of an orchard-full of writers and producers, recorded in studios across the globe, and rattles through tropical house, trap, low-slung funk and, strangest of all, Christmas songs. It’s more like listening to an artist’s entire back catalogue on shuffle than a cohesive album. But in a Spotify playlist world, perhaps that’s the best way to get a hit.

And hits are what Payne wants. He’s competitive, he admits backstage before the show. He's the fourth Directioner to drop an album and he wants his to compare. But he claims not to worry about that too much. He’s done enough worrying since the band split and now, he thinks, he's dealt with it. Therapy. Counselling. Self-examination. He’s done the soul-searching. He's a new man, now. But he still enjoys the scream.

You’ve worked with lots of different producers, lots of songwriters. Do you feel that you have a ‘sound’ at this point?

For the longest time I had no clue whether I had a sound, but the more I listened to the album, the more it seems like there’s a constant seam that goes through the whole thing. Like, with an artist like Migos, a lot of their kind of sound is based around the ad libs and the crazy stuff they do in the background. So yeah, I think at this point I do have a sound, I just can’t really put a wording on it. Because of how many genres of music we’ve done over the last few years – everything from the song I did with Rita [Ora] to a song in Spanish. But it’s kind of nice not to have those boundaries.

Is there a sense of competition with the other guys?

Of course there’s a competition. There’s charts and numbers and figures, but at the same time it’s very hard to compete when we’re doing such different things. It’s like playing different sports almost, with someone doing soft rock music, someone who does hip hop, they’re not really in the same genre and the same people aren’t really listening. So yeah, due to our age and origin, it makes sense for competition. For any other reason, it’s a bit ludicrous.

How much do you speak to them these days?

We send homing pigeons to each other. No, we actually, with a lot of them I haven’t spoken to them. With Harry [Styles] for example – what I always try to describe to people is this, because it’s difficult for people – well, it’s actually not that difficult for people to understand. One Direction was my office. So if you change everything, just put desks in, in an office environment, some people talk, some people don’t talk, there’s something about someone you absolutely hate, that’s literally the way an office works. By the time we got to the end of One Direction, it was like the office ended and that was the end of it. You didn’t come back in. So I spoke to Louis [Tomlinson] more than I spoke to anyone, me and Niall [Horan] saw eye to eye on some things and not others. Then with Harry I just didn’t know anything about him. And that’s not his fault or my fault, it’s just the way that that laid out, when you’ve been put in that room together and then exposed to this whizz-bang of fame.

For people on the outside, it might seem strange that you could have ever spent that much time with people in a really intimate setting, and still have this sense of distance from people.

I mean, we spoke, me and Harry caught a laugh every so often. It wasn’t like we never spoke, that we just saw him around, but it was not like I’d see him on the weekend, that we’d go out or anything together. Because we just don’t have anything in common. I don’t have nothing against the boy, I think he’s a beautiful beautiful person, he’s a very lovely person, and you can see that by how many people he meets that get along with him, the general thing you hear coming back is true. And I can say that from my own experience with him but I just haven’t spoken to him for a number of years because our music – I’m like the antichrist version, to his christness.

You’ve talked openly about your drinking recently, about realising you had a problem and going teetotal for a year to try and get it back in check. What was the point that made you realise things had to change?

It was more friends. It wasn’t like an intervention as such, as it were. I think it’s important that you pick one person in life that you really take their opinion on. It’s like you have that PE teacher at school who, when you get told off by them, it hurts 10 times more because you respect them. I have somebody in my life who is very much that person. They were just a bit like, maybe you should look into this. I just went to therapy and spoke about it and spoke to people who’d been through the same things and different things. Russell Brand was one of the people who got me sober for that year. I spent a little bit of time with Russell, went down to meetings in working men’s clubs where it was just me and Russell Brand and loads of factory workers, bin men, whatever you can imagine and they’re telling each other stories. He was recounting his time of before, when he used to whatever, and it was really interesting and it’s nice to feel you’re not alone. In a room full of men as well – I went to loads of different meetings, it was mixed meetings and all sorts – but this first one I did was just a room full of blokes pouring their hearts out. I was like, fucking hell, this is crazy.

Was that experience intimidating at all? You’ve got a very different background, a different experience of drinking. Is it strange being in a place so far removed from the place you spent the last 10 years of your life?

It was comforting actually, more than anything. It was nice to go in a room and everyone was having a chat about stuff and you know, because it’s anonymous, there was always the fear about someone coming out and saying something about me, but they never did. And thats the one thing I’d say, no one even knew until I said I went to therapy that I’d been. So it was really nice that you could sit in that room and tell these stories and hear these stories of different people and different characters coming through that were completely different to you, but going through the same shit.

Do you think there was a sense of community there that perhaps you hadn’t had, spending your youth in such a unique environment?

Yeah, definitely. But for a long, long time, it sort of reminded me of when I used to go to the pub with my old man and I’d sit round chatting different things. It felt a bit like home.

Liam Payne performed an impromptu intimate gig for the Huawei FreeBuds 3 ‘listening party’ at London’s Omeara, allowing fans the opportunity to listen to the new album with crystal clear sound thanks to their active noise cancellation. Buy them here.

[roughsexwithgaga]

To Love Again pt.1

Monday, August 10

”What the fuck is going on up there?”

A loud cranking noise was heard throughout the stadium and then the large 360 screen started to descend between the pillars. A loud floof-floof-floof was heard as the lights on the ground all lit up in order and blinded the personal on the ground. Five ”floating” stages were placed out on the ground and waiting to be rigged.

The floodlights beneath the screen came on and suddenly the whole floor bathed in blue light. It looked like a space ship coming down to land when the massive spotlights flipped outward and the screen continued dow. Lady Gaga’s tour director Marko screamed at the supervisor to shut it down but it was too late. The screen hit the spotlights and stopped. The snapping sound of the metal when it broke whipped across the empty stadium before two of the spotlights came off their attachments and fell over 60 feet to the ground.

Luckily no one was standing below it but Marko cursed and screamed that whoever had made this idiotic construction should be forced to climb up and put them back. It was the 5th show of Lady Gaga’s stadium tour in support of her sixth studio album and following in the footsteps of her successful soundtrack to her first movie as a leading actress. The concert was scheduled tonight and they still had 16 hours to go. He understood the workers were tired from being up all night and the new shift was supposed to take over just now.

He needed sleep as well and looked at his watch. 6 am. The Lady herself wouldn’t be pleased when she woke up. There had been technical difficulties nearly every show and last minute fixes. Three versions of the stage was out on the roads across USA and one spare version was still in Colorado. The one they used the opening night in Denver when Gaga performed in front of 78,000 ecstatic fans had been working the most satisfying so far. It had been used twice. It was his first time as tour director for such a massive tour and he was nervous, but Gaga had picked him personally and he wanted to deliver.

This day’s show was in Pasadena and the second biggest one on the North American leg. It was sold out of course and fans who wanted a good spot in the pit had been lining up all night. Gaga stayed at her house in Malibu and was scheduled to arrive four hours before the show. Marko knew everything had to be ready by then. No more delays. He left the stage site to get some sleep and planned to be back by noon but first he had to call her manager and sort out the broken spots.

\o/

It was 8 am and Lady Gaga was on the phone with her manager Bobby. The day before she had arranged a small birthday party for her dad so the sleepover guests were still asleep. The frequent technical issues obviously weren’t hers to deal with, but she had told her manager she wanted to know so she was prepared if anything needed to be changed.

”It’s almost like… I don’t wanna say it, Stef.” Bobby sounded a bit worried. ”There are two crews working on mounting and dismounting the stages and the other crew doesn’t have these kind of issues and it seems really unlikely one crew has the same damn troubles with two different stages.” He paused and took a deep breath. ”The screen isn’t even supposed to run into the spots no matter how they are rotated. And the noise it made, I nearly shit my pants thinking about it now.”

Gaga listened to him and exhaled. ”So what are you saying?”

”Someone is either really sloppy or wants the tour to look bad. It’s not like these issues would go unnoticed before the show anyway. It’s just costing a lot of money and time.” Bobby sighed and told her he would talk to Marko and Stageco, they were in charge of providing the stage and the crews. ”I’m sorry Stef, you don’t deserve this,” he added before they ended the call.

She put the phone down on the counter just in time to turn around to see her daughter bounce across the floor and scream in delight as her french bulldog Gus tackled the child to the ground. The girl spun around and lost the ball she was holding. ”My ball,” she shrieked but the dog obviously didn’t care. He quickly snapped up the ball and ran away, out into the garden and the girl was about to go after him when Gaga reached down and grabbed her pajamas by the back.

”My ball!” the girl repeated and squirmed as her mother lifted her up and wrapped her arms around her. She put her face against the girl’s neck and smelled her, kissed her cheek and made the little girl giggle with delight.

”Mama,” she said and pointed out through the patio doors. ”My ball.”

Gaga nodded. ”Yes, Joanne. Gus borrows it.”

”Bohwoh,” she repeated and looked disappointed.

”What do you say we have some breakfast, my lazy little peanut.” Gaga said and put Joanne down in her chair. The child was usually sleeping late, and had never been an early bird. She insisted on letting the girl sleep in her bed and when she returned after a show she could sneak into bed and wake up together with her. It was the most blessed feeling in the whole world to have the tiny body next to her, waking up to her chit chatting to herself in her baby language. Just recently she had been starting to put two words together and loving her own voice so much she never shut up.

Her daughter had Christian's dark brown eyes. Her hair had been dirt blonde when she was born but darkened with time. Now she was 2 years old and the most important thing in her life. She was the result of a a steamy, sweat soaked night of sex that left her body aching and pregnant – to her surprise. Christian had met up with her before a two day break in her touring schedule in St Louis when they hadn’t seen each other in 14 days. Gaga had been sick a few days, and thrown up a lot. She knew she had messed up with her birth control pills and just maybe she didn’t care on purpose.

By December just before the last shows she had found out she was pregnant. It was the perfect gift to receive at the end of her last tour. Not planned, but certainly welcomed. The last trimester of her pregnancy had been difficult and draining and while gaining a lot of weight she had been emotionally unstable and felt exhausted. She had given birth on August 14, a little more than six weeks before the premier of A Star Is Born, and had forced herself to work hard to get back in shape for the red carpet.

The birth had been a long drawn out process as well where she had complications and lot of bleedings post-birth causing her to stay a few days longer than planned. The baby was late. Nearly a week after due date, refusing to leave the safety of her womb.

When their baby was born she was amazed. This new person that she created, that had grown inside her. She had never known such gratitude and happiness. Her daughter made her heart nearly beat out of her chest as she held her for the first time. Convinced she had never seen a prettier baby in her whole life. Christian had been by her side the entire time and when he held the little girl in his hands and smiled with such pride she was convinced they would be a real family.

She didn't even care about her bloated face in all the photos from the hospital. Her round cheeks, swollen lips and double chin. Her tits had been huge and she kind of missed that. A photo shoot she did while she was still breastfeeding where her boobs were swelling out of her clothes had caused a media frenzy like everyone suddenly forgot tits ’tend’ to grow as they produce milk.

The first 3 months had been the worst uphill Gaga had ever experienced in her entire life. She relied on the tremendous support of her own family and was so eternally grateful for the baby, but she was hitting rock bottom and being a mother was the only thing keeping her above the surface. Her mom, dad, sister and Christian were basically the only people she met.

Even in her darkest moments she noticed how much it got to Christian, and how he had to distance himself from her. He was affected, but the baby came first and he did possess an overflow of paternal instincts. She tried her best, she loved her baby and had to keep pushing through the darkness for her. Some mornings she barely got out of bed and luckily Christian was there to take over.

When Joanne turned 4 months she was starting to get her life back on the tracks. At least she managed to open a door to a little light and started to see the end of the depression she was going through. Their first Christmas together as a family actually turned into a nice memory.

The following year Christian escorted her to the Academy Awards where she finally won her Oscar for Best Original Song. She made a jaw dropping performance and received a standing ovation that never seemed to end. Life was fucking amazing again. She had her family, the success, the critics were on her side, the public loved her, but she didn’t need the approval of strangers anymore. The confidence was radiating from her. She kept her daughter away from it all because she wanted her to grow up happy and away from all the judging eyes.

Being happy, having a career and both a daughter and a man to come home to must have been too many good things for one person, so about two weeks before her 33rd birthday everything was like turning a hand. She thought Christian would propose, but instead he broke up with her. He never gave a reasonable explanation to why but she understood that he was jealous of her and Joanne. The baby and her career came in the way of him being the priority in her life and having access to her whenever he wanted. He had yelled at her that they couldn’t even touch each other anymore because there was a baby between them constantly. And that the baby should learn to sleep in her own bed.

Whatever Gaga suggested, Christian somehow managed to want the opposite. She had been blind for months, completely swallowed up by her daughter and her own career. Taking Christian’s presence for granted and assuming he was as pleased and happy as she was. After all he did stand by her side through her absolute worst. She called him an idiot who was jealous of his own daughter.

On top of things Christian obviously immediately found a new partner. A little blonde model thing half his age while she felt fooled and abandoned. It took a month to get into her head that he wasn't worth it and that she would cope without him. Her value as a woman and mother didn't depend on him.

It also dawned on her how lonely she was and how hard it was to find a man to cuddle up against during the nights. It was the only thing she missed in her life at that point. She spent the summer making music, and there had been moments when she was close to dating, but it always ended before it lead anywhere. She was better at reading people now, and no one passed her tests. And then there was Christian. He was still confessedly involved with the child and fulfilling his duties as father. He spent a lot of time with her and suddenly never questioned Gaga's scheduling or suggestions.

On Joanne’s birthday she had sex with Christian again for the first time in six months. Knowing how hard it was to turn her down once she set her mind to something and how much he still was attracted to her, she used her social skills and her body and got what she wanted. Gaga realized she did it to prove to herself that she was still attractive, and not just for the sex itself. It simply felt amazing to be desired.

Christian’s new partner evidently found out about him cheating because Gaga texted him about it and she saw it. Gaga did it on purpose, because she still desperately wanted them to be a family and did everything in her power to win him back. So of course she did. Less than a month later they were a couple again and Gaga had already started working on her new album. Their love seemed to overcome all past obstacles and she was living again. Gaga released her new single ’Love Reunion’ out of the blue at the Grammys while announcing a 7-month worldwide stadium tour starting later the same year. Her demands had been no back-to-back shows and a maximum of three shows a week. Live Nation had agreed. They realized she needed time between concerts.

Gaga and Christian got married in New York, with only their closest family and friends attending the ceremony and then they spent two weeks in a rented house in Italy before she returned home and finished her album which was released in late April. By that time the tour was already sold out and they had not even began with the hyping and promotion. With the tour starting in August it was the shortest span ever for her between album release and tour, and the amount of work put into planning and promotion were consuming their relationship.

Now that she was starting to travel again and became accessible to her fans and media he felt left out. She was constantly booked somewhere and took her daughter with her everywhere. It was getting more and more difficult to find time for Christian even when he came along and she could sense how he once again felt threatened by her career and that Joanne came first. They argued over petty things again and Gaga felt like he tried to make her feel bad. If you’re not going to support me, you can leave me alone until you get over your male ego, she told him in a heated argument.

So a little over two weeks ago, in the middle of the tour launch, he had moved out of her mansion claiming it was because he felt like an employee in her massive team and he was sick of being treated like one while everyone ran around her acting like she was some kind of hub in this universe. To her it seemed like he wanted to punish her during one of the most important stages in her career.

He had been to the premiere of her tour, but skipped the following shows and she avoided conversation with him because she was still hurting. It had been hard to find personal time and rehearsal took so much effort she stumbled into bed at nights barely fit to say good night. Maybe it was better he got a little distance to everything so he discovered he missed her. He didn’t have to be so excessive about it. These last two months had been so intense and now that the tour started she finally felt like she had time to breathe between shows.

Christian was the only man she had been with the past 4 years. She told herself she only wanted him, and gave him so much of her time, but he still wanted more from her since he basically gave up his own career to be around her. She had told him she needed him, and his support for her was the most important one. She didn’t want to travel the world without him. He knew it would be like this because this was her job, but she would always come back to them. The disappointment she felt for him at this point was immense and she was heartbroken and didn’t know how to fix it without giving up a piece of herself.

…

Now she was sitting in her kitchen, watching her daughter eat all by herself and still ranting about her ball and the dog borrowing it. She looked at her, rested her chin against her palm and felt that enormous love in her chest that nearly made her suffocate and fill her lungs with air at the same time. When she leaned too close her daughter grabbed the frame of her glasses and pulled them off her face and tried them on. Her sticky fingers smeared the glass before she helped put them back on her mother’s nose and applauded herself on her good deed.

When Gaga was pregnant she had been letting her hair grow, and didn’t use bleach or dye. It was probably a good idea since her hair thinned out a lot after she gave birth. It was still healthier now than 3 years ago and reached her shoulders when she decided to go blonde again. She took the baby out of the chair and carried her upstairs to change her clothes. She put on a long sleeved top, pants and a little hat before they went outside for a little stroll around the garden and look at the flowers and the insects. And maybe even find the ball, she said and Joanne clung to her hand trying to manage down the stairs.

Every time the little hand searched hers when they walked outside it was another one of those proud moments when she felt like she had found her purpose in life. She was afraid she would love the baby to death, buried her nose against her neck before putting the child on the ground and let her run ahead of her on the gravel between the roses. She was a happy child, and she knew it was because she was immensely loved. Even moving out, Christian still wanted to be a part of the girl’s life, as he was her father after all and she deserved to have him in her life. But Gaga would never let anything or anyone come between her and her daughter.

Her mom had been her greatest support. She had Emilie, her nanny and also her assistants Mariah and Sam and her physiotherapist Heather, but her mom was the person she relied on the most of all, apart from Christian. He had to understand performing was her job, it was what she was supposed to do. Not only being a mother and a wife. It was her drug, her oxygen but there would always be them once it was over.

\o/

When Bobby called again Gaga was singing songs with Joanne who murdered the keys on a mini-piano. The girl was not the slightest impressed with her mother singing unless she sang directly to her face and tickled her. Then she laughed so hard she choked and screamed. Gaga ate some leftover food from the birthday party while she kept her daughter company. She didn’t want to eat too close to the show because it made her sick most of the time.

”What are you doing?” Bobby asked.

”Multi-tasking,” Gaga replied with her mouth full.

”They have fixed it. Stageco are going to have a talk with the team later when the nightshift is awake.”

”OK, great,” Gaga said. Glad to have a break from the baby talk. It wasn’t much of a two-way communication thing yet. Joanne just loved hearing her own voice and used her two-phrase sentences over and over. ”My dada,” she said and pointed at a chair. The girl started to talk louder using her limited array of words to get her mother’s attention back. Gaga buried her nose against the dimple below Joanne’s neck making the girl squirm and giggle.

”I can hear the princess. How is she?” Bobby gushed.

”Recovering from a cold, but that doesn’t seem to slow her down.” Gaga smiled and tilted her head back over the backrest of the couch. She put her feet up on the table and heard the voices behind her in the kitchen when they returned from shopping. Emilie started unpacking the groceries and chatted with Cynthia who naturally needed to cuddle her granddaughter.

Gaga got up and changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt after she finished talking to Bobby and the others had a light meal in the kitchen before they had to leave to go to Pasadena. Joanne nearly ate half a melon for dessert while the dogs sat around her hoping for a treat to fall to the floor. Their butts left the floor in anticipation each time the child’s hands hovered over their heads but they had no luck today.

She packed her things into the Cadillac Escala and Cynthia came out with Joanne and a bag of her belongings. Her daughter followed her everywhere. It wasn’t even up for debate to leave her behind anywhere. Gaga had large black sunglasses on, her hair was in a pony tail and she wore a white large sweater and the baggy pants. She got in the car while her mom sat down in the back together with the girl and the nanny. Her dad sat next to her in the front and she drove out on the coastal road to LA and Pasadena. Traffic wasn’t so bad. Gaga sang together with her mom and daughter while they cruised on their way to the stadium.

When she arrived she waved at her fans and drove past the gates. She didn’t stop anymore. Hardly ever and her fans had gotten used to it. Some respected the fact that she was more private now and some still had meltdowns on social media about ”how much she’d changed for the worse”. She thought it would be weird if they were still the same person today that they were 10-15 years ago. She obviously still loved her fans, needed them, just as they needed her but she didn’t have enough of herself to give away anymore. She wanted to give everything to her daughter who sat shielded behind the tinted reinforced windows in the backseat. Blissfully unaware of all the fuss.

She drove all the way up to the doors and parked so she could walk out and take Joanne out of her baby car seat and just turn around to get her inside, away from the smattering cameras she noticed on the other side of the curb. The fans closed up against the gates to get a quick look at her before she hurried inside. Joe blocked the paparazzi’s view with his body and got into her car and parked it while the door closed behind her. The fans cheered her name and wished her luck.

She continued down a hallway and a large room where the personnel had just finished their dinner, told Cynthia to bring some fruit when her on-site guide told her it was already in her dressing room. ”Oh, right,” she said, distraught and continued underneath the stands towards her assigned room. It was decorated according to her wishes. It was light and had a warm golden light. She said hello to everyone in her staff, thanked them for being there and made sure everyone felt like they were there for a reason and that tonight was a team effort.

Bobby came inside and assured her everything was working excellent now. There would be no delays tonight. She had a new musical director, going for an electronic pop sound, with influences from disco and funk. Adam had rearranged a lot of her older hits and made a seamless show that spanned her whole career. Some songs had been scaled down to leave more room for her vocals while others had been majestically rearranged to be stadium anthems. The sultry, more mature version of Pokerface had breathed life into the stale beat and opened the doors for new choreography and made her enjoy the songs again.

When she started to plan this tour she had decided that she was done with the old, repetitive sound and moves and wanted to show the world that she was an artist as well as a performer and how diverse she was. Not ’just’ by sitting down to play a song on the piano. The show was a story of how she started out and took over the world and then slowed down, had some dark moments and then built up her career again and established herself as a legendary artist. One of the best ever.

Naturally she liked the second half of the show the best. Sitting by the piano, hearing the fans sing along, cry and then from there take them all the way home leaving them feeling like they were run over by a bus. Her show sent them through all her emotions, the raving happiness at the start, anger, sadness and forgiveness and finally confidence and strength. She had thought about it a lot and finally come up with the perfect storyline.

She felt like she was more involved than before and more awake, more able to leave things in the hands of people she trusted. She was on the floor stretching and trying to find some inner calm, going over some of the advice she had been given since the first show when they had watched it together. Too nervous she found herself walking to the back of the stage, away from the audience during vocally straining parts and losing contact with them. Sing towards them and not her band or some prop on stage. ”Don’t forget the audience,” she whispered and laughed. As if. It was a reflex to turn around and strut away to give the audience a nice view of her butt cheeks.

Bobby sat down on the couch and looked stressed.

”What is it?” she asked.

”Nothing, I hope.” He didn’t want to tell her he had been worried all day, and his suspicions about the ’mishaps’ was eating him.

Sarah started to prepare to do Gaga’s make up and Bobby got off the couch. He exhaled and posed like a boxer. ”Knock em dead, girl.”

She chuckled and hit his fists back.

Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6 | Pt. 7

[tune-collective]

10 Great Pop Songs From March You Might've Missed

10 Great Pop Songs From March You Might've Missed

Drake’s luxury liner crashed its way through the middle of March, while Ed Sheeran continued to take over so many different radio formats that they’re probably currently working “Shape of You” to Sports Talk and Classical as we speak.

While those top 40 monoliths were ruling the Internet and the airwaves, however, plenty of other great pop songs sneaked in under the radar. Here’s a true “playlist” of ten of our favorites — no April Fools, promise.

The Drums, “Blood Under My Belt”

Brooklyn outfit The Drums have been successfully resurrecting the poppiest side of post-punk for nearly a decade now, and they’re always good for one absolutely irresistible lead single per album. The streak continues for the upcoming Abysmal Thoughts, with the trampoline-bouncy “Blood Under My Belt,” whose playfully wailed chorus (“Yes it’s true that I hurt you/ But I still love you/ I still do”) perfectly encapsulates the winking melodrama the band excels at.

Offaiah, “Run”

The Argentinian house producer behind last year’s heavenly club-slayer “Trouble” and ecstatic remix of Calvin Harris’ My Way,” Offaiah ups the dancefloor ante even further with the absolutely scorching “Run.” A menacing piano leads an almost reggaeton-like thump, until the tension explodes with a scintillating hook that sounds halfway between a flute and ear-splitting guitar harmonics — one of the best riffs this year in any genre.

Computer Games, “Every Single Night”

There’ll be a built-in cult for Computer Games thanks to the involvement of Darren Criss and brother Chuck, but you don’t have to have been a Gleenatic to get hooked on “Every Single Night.” The song is pure mid-’80s pop punch, the kind that brought Steve Winwood a higher love, got Phil Collins to take off his jacket and still has Lionel Richie going all night long (all night) — pretty impressively studied for a couple of guys who weren’t even alive when The Breakfast Club came out.

Nelly Furtado, “Phoenix”

Nelly Furtado hasn’t been a radio fixture in ten years, but her pop music has only gotten deeper, more inventive and, well, better on her way back to the underground. “Phoenix” is the kind of misty, ethereal pop ballad that the ’90s excelled at, Nelly creating an almost womb-like sonic atmosphere as she offers her trembling-but-sturdy emotional support to those who have fallen: “Like a phoenix, rising from the flame/ You’re gonna be all right.”

Amine, “REDMERCEDES”

Portland rapper Amine is exceedingly winning on his follow-up to unexpected smash “Caroline” (“Black ice, black seats, yeah I’m bumping Blackstar/ Rednecks tell me that I got a nice car”), but really, this thing is about the beat, a screaming, quaking throwdown that could’ve been something The Neptunes would’ve given to The Clipse at their peak. It’s produced by Malay — the dude behind a lot of the most interesting tracks on the latest efforts by Frank Ocean and ZAYN — and Vince Staples needs to hook up with him real quick.

Maddie Ross, “You’re Still My Sugar”

While Michelle Branch is bunkering down with Patrick Carney and Avril Lavigne is busy listening to Ed Sheeran, it might just be up to L.A. native Maddie Ross to keep the flame burning for explosive, sun-kissed pop/rock. “You’re Still My Sugar” is one of the year’s most heart-filling singles, a love song with a chorus so fizzy and combustible that Ross literally has to pop the tab on it before opening, and with verses that need car-crash and cash register sound effects to properly convey the emotional stimulation within.

B.O.Y., “Winning”

Despite the name, B.O.Y. is an all-female rap trio — it stands for Be Only You, sure — with delectably grimy beats and hooks laid here underneath a surprisingly sweet, quirky lyric (“My love, I know I’m rocking with a winner/ You know I make my daddy dinner”). And yes, since you asked — it has been long enough since Charlie Sheen was a thing to make it OK to drop “Winning” like a musical hashtag in your songs again.

Louis the Child feat. Ashe, “World on Fire”

A jazzy EDM hybrid ballad that sounds a whole lot less awkward than whatever you’re no doubt picturing form that description, with singer Ashe tracing Louis the Child’s frisky piano riff with her vocal as clarinets blare softly in the background, and a scratchy beat knocks in the background. “The world could be on fire and we wouldn’t know,” Ashe croons with an uneasy tranquility, making this the snazziest post-apocalyptic jam that could possibly still soundtrack an Apple commercial.

Steps, “Scared of the Dark”

The long-awaited — well, on one side of the pond, anyway — return of late-’90s U.K. pop barnstormers Steps, now sounding gratifyingly like ABBA as filtered through Barry Manilow’s most theatrical singles. Is there a key change at the end? Of course there’s a key change at the end.

TYSM, “Wraith”

Like the first time you heard Kiiara’s “Gold,” TYSM’s latest (also produced by Felix Snow) just doesn’t seem quite right — the beat’s sorta missing, lyrical details repeat too often, is that drop actually gonna hit at some point? — but the mystery of how the hell it works is so compelling that you absolutely have to figure it out. And at a scant 1:58, it’s over well before you get the chance to figure it out, so you really have no choice put to play it over and over again.

This article originally appeared on Billboard.

http://tunecollective.com/2017/04/01/10-great-pop-songs-march-mightve-missed/

[lavendersmith]

LARRY PROMPT (????) OR MAYBE IT’S A ONESHOT IDK

[so this originated from a random thought I had when someone said that Simon Cowel is going to be put under investigation for abuse of the people that were contracted under him.

in this Harry and Louis dated and broke up

please excuse my spelling I’m kinda dyslexic]

The news broke out to the world like one big explosion. After the investigation started it wasn’t hard for them to find everything the companies were trying to hide. It was even easier for the news to spread to the media.

“Larry Sylinson is real! aka the headline you’ve been waiting for since 2010.”

“Harry Styles is a confirmed homosexual, causes an outage online.”

“Charges are being pressed against Simon Cowel and his companies for arbitrarily lying to the media.”

These headlines ranged from emotion to emotion; everyone’s twitter feed was a whole rollercoaster

For Louis it didn’t come as a surprise. Since the day he knew about the investigation he never doubted that this would happen. It was all a matter of time before they knew anyways. His fans were pretty outraged especially the elounor side of the fandom but he was still doing alright with his career.

Emotionally Though? He doesn’t think he’s been alright since that day.

They new almost everything.

They didn’t know the way that Harry’s lips felt. They didn’t know about the way he smiled when he was around Harry. They didn’t know about how he knew he had met his soulmate and lost him all because he was too young to know he had everything.

This all went down before his first album came out. Things seemed okay. The band was on a hiatus so hopefully it would’ve been easier to sneak around.

There were the good days.

Like when he dragged Harry in the middle of the night to an amusement park. He didn’t even give him enough time to change out of his panda bedroom shoes. It was a bit hard to sneak around but thier laughter fueled them enough to run around fast enough.

“YAAAY!” Harry cheered as he hit the final dart, winning a small bear. The lady handed it to him and he giggled and held it close to his heart.

Louis smiled wider than he had in a while.

“Here,” Harry smiled and handed him the bear. “thanks for tonight. I love you so much.”

And God, he loved him too.

Then there were the bad days.

Somehow their companies still found a way to keep them apart. Harry’s heart would break everytime he’d have to see Louis and Eleanor together.

“DID YOU REALLY HAVE TO KISS HER THOUGH?!” Harry screamed through his tears.

“DO YOU THINK I WANTED TO?!” Louis asked. When Harry didn’t respond he let out a bitter chuckle. “Wow,” he walked backwards “if you really think that’s how it is, that I care about you so little that I’d just kiss anyone else with my own free will. Okay.”

Before anything else could happen, Louis walked out the door.

The two hadn’t seen each other face to face since.

And here Louis was, many years later and to many songs (by both of them) about it later and he still wasn’t over that night. He never seemed to be able to stop missing Harry. He’d spend his nights awake alone in his bed with the bear sitting on his bedside table.

The pain seemed to worsen now that all the news was out. He felt like the world just had to keep reminding him about what he fucked up.

12pm and he was barely awake when his phone rang. He pulled himself out of bed with the little stuffed bear in his arms.

He answered the call with half open eyes. “Hello?”

“Hi.” Harry said from the other line. His voice was unclear because it wasn’t a face to face conversation but it still sent the other’s heart racing.

Louis whole body jerked awake. His eyes wide and he was moving to get out of bed.

“Uhhh yeah-“ he could barely believe it. “it’s been a while since you’ve called.”

Harry laughed and Louis heart filled from the sweet sound. “Yeah it has.”

Silence filled the air and Louis barely felt stable. He wanted to cry and he wanted to scream. He just felt so much at once he didn’t know what to do.

“So,” Harry continued. “I wanted to ask you if you’d want to meet up. You know, now that we aren’t practically being forced apart. Maybe we could catch up.”

“Yeah yeah I’d love that.” Louis smiled. “Are you free today. We could meet up?”

“Sure!” His voice perked up. “I’ll send you the address of the cafe.”

“Don’t worry you don’t need to.” Louis said. “I still remember the beachwood cafe.”

Once again silence feel upon them but Louis could feel Harry’s smile through the phone. “Okay.” He said. “See you then.”

The call ended quickly.

“Bye.” Louis whispered even if no one else was on the line like he was still in shock.

Later that day he sat in thier usual table 15 minutes early. His hands felt warm against the cup of coffee with a little heart art on top of it. “Friends” by Ed Sheeran played gently in the background of the gentle chatter in the cafe.

“Hey!” 5 years ago Harry smiled as he sat across him. He leaned over and kissed him on the lips chastely.

Louis felt his cheeks warm. “Harry someone might see us!” He scolded but he was clearly happy.

“I don’t care.” He smiled.

Louis knew then that he would love this man forever. He wanted to etch ever part of him in his heart forever. He promised himself that he’d never let him go.

He broke that promise.

He was shaken out of his reverie when the little bell rang signaling that someone had entered. Louis looked up to be greeted by the same green eyes hidden behind shades.

“Hey!” Harry smiled and the de javu hit him hard. He sat down across him and called over the waitress to order his drink.

Louis tried to suppress the part of him that was disappointed he didn’t lean over to kiss him.

Once the girl walked away he took of his shades and those forest green eyes were looking straight into his soul.

“So,” Harry was a little hesistant. “How’ve you been?”

The coversation started like this. It was awkward and conservative. Though one very bad joke from Harry later and they seemed to fall right back into their old habits.

“Hey it wasn’t my fault!” Harry excmaied as Louis laughed. “The mic got stuck on the floor!”

They were both laughing hard and everything seemed okay. The realization hit Louis like a brick wall. This is how they should’ve been, laughing in the beachwood cafe. He should be holding Harry’s hand and kissing his lips. He should be falling asleep in his arms and waking up next to him.

He wasn’t. All because he fucked it up that one night.

His laughs slowly turned into sobs and sniffles as tears streamed down his cheeks. He tried to wipe them off but was unsuccessful.

“Louis are you crying?” Harry asked with his voice dripping with care and love that Louis wanted to cry harder. “Why?”

“Because,” he choked out. “this should be us. You should’ve been mine and I should’ve been yours. We were supposed to be together and build our life together. I was supposed to be happy.”

Harry sat in silence as “Too Young” started playing on the speakers. He chuckled at the timing.

“I-I’m miss you so much.” He finally looked up to let the other see his tear stained ocean eyes. “I messed up. I should’ve reached out instead of running like a coward and spending all these years without you. I just wish that that could be us.”

Harry smiled and leaned forward. He pulled his hands off the coffee cup and held them in his. “Let’s do it.”

Louis looked at him in confusion.

Harry smiled and pulled his hands closer. “I can be yours and you can be mine. We can be together and live our life together. You can be happy.”

Words couldn’t describe how much Louis wanted that.

“We-we can’t.” He tried to pull away but Harry kept holding his hand. “You don’t love me like that anymore. You’ve moved on and it’s unfair for me to hold you back.”

Harry sighed and let go of his hands. Louis felt so empty without his touch but knew him letting go was for the best.

Harry pulled out his phone and earphones. He handed them to him with a recording open on the screen.

“Listen.” Louis nodded his head and did as he was told.

The opening of cherry played and Louis felt like his heart was going to shatter because he remembered that this song wasn’t about him.

Though instead of Camille’s voice he could’ve sworn that he heard his own laugh echoing through.

“Don’t you call her baby.”

He had changed all the pronouns to female and Louis looked up at Harry in confusion. The other didn’t say anything; he just let him listen.

The music faded out and the voice recording was about to play. He braced himself for heartbreak.

Instead he heard his same laugh from the start of the video.

“Hey baby!” It was Louis in the recording. He remembered this. It was from years ago on Harry’s birthday. The management forced them to stay away on that day so Louis made this recoding to make Harry feel better.

“Just wanted to say that,” he paused to chuckle. “I love you so much. You’re the reason for my happiness and I hope that I can return the favor. You’re my sunshine I hope you have a a amazing day! See you tonight!”

Louis took off the earphones without breaking eye contact with Harry. “Sweet Creature” was already half way through.

“That’s the original version of Cherry.” Harry said. “Of course they made me change it so I could release it but I thought you deserved to hear it.”

Louis was still in shock. “So all this time,” he could barely fathom it “all these songs, were about me?”

Harry smiled and nodded his head up and down. “So now are you willing to take up my offer?”

Louis put his hand on his cheek and pulled him in for a long overdue kiss.

“Is that a yes?” Harry smiled against his lips.

“Definitely.”

[CAN LARRY COME OUT NOW PLS I’M UGKY SOBBING BC I LOVE THEM]

[theloniousbach]

50 Years of Going To Shows, Part 4: The ANGLO-CELTIC Hillbilly Connection

When Judy Stein, the Queen of Focal Point, had a KDHX show, “Family Reunion,” she said her brief was “the Anglo-Celtic-Hillbilly connection.”  That is, she aimed to trace how the music from the British Isles influenced traditional American music.  Both Focal Point and KDHX have had decisive impacts on my musical culture, debts that I can only imagine beginning to repay by being parts of those communities and being committed to sharing music.

This installment in this series on seeing live music for lo these many years then will center on the traditional British and Celtic music we’ve gone to largely via The Focal Point.  That music was the common ground Ellen and I settled on as the family music.  She had a deeper appreciation, but I found the virtuoso playing, tradition, and core repertoires that blues and jazz also have.Let me though start, as usual, with guitars and even what I might have thought was an unattainable relic of the long 1960s.

The Pentangle was a favorite—virtuoso playing, a jazz rhythm section, acoustic guitars, and an at the time deep and mysterious repertoire.  They were obscure enough to not have toured the American Midwest.  I would never see them.  Except I did, sort of: guitarists John Renbourn and Bert Jansch with pure voiced singer Jacqui McShee (Triangle?) played The Focal Point as did Renbourn and McShee as did Renbourn and Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band as a follow up to their “Wheel of Fortune” album which was recorded at a Focal Point show (they said they should be The Incredible String Tangle).  And then several Renbourn solo shows (one with a borrowed guitar as an airline had done very bad things to his; another with 8 year old Sam falling asleep leaning on me during the second set; one I came home from KC for around my birthday, the last time I saw my father as he died in Scotland just a week later; and probably at least one more.)

John Renbourn was a hero and, as with many Focal Point artists, he became someone I kind of knew.  He played jazz and baroque, Celtic (Scottish gloom and doom, he called it) and British songs.  He was fluid and magical.  Larger than life as a 60s hero and a key part of the folk revival of the 60s (London version) and yet there he was.  St. Louis was a place to rest up mid-tour or start or finish.  To this day, I have a straw hat that he had while here in St. Louis for a stretch between legs of a tour in the summer time.  He had a similarly big head, so I could wear it too.  The John Renbourn hat has gone on many Lake Michigan vacations and kept the sun off me as I spend hours transfixed by the water.

Martin Carthy taught Paul Simon “Scarborough Fair” and is another giant of the London Folk Revival who is another old friend of Focal Point.  Son David helped arrange a small US tour for Martin so that he could play St. Louis for Judy and Eric Stein’s 50th Wedding Anniversary.  I think we saw him first with wife Norma Waterson and a then teen aged daughter Liza in the first iteration of Waterson: Carthy as well as once more and then a tour where Norma couldn’t travel.  Wonderful songs—spooky, ancient, and fun—from all three of them; his primordial modal guitar; Liza’s fiddle.I recall an earlier solo tour and one with old partner Dave Swarbrick too.  Swarbrick was in Fairport that time I saw them in KC opening for Weather Report, so I asked about that, pulling back the screen from those old days.  Carthy is a real student of the music, offering from the stage the same kind of background that sneak into discursive liner notes.  He’s warm and garrulous, but also charmingly compulsive, stopping/restarting tunes, including once three or more verses into a long ballad, if he’d made a mistake only he noticed.

Another giant/huge friend of Focal Point is Brian McNeill, a founder of the foundational Scottish band, The Battlefield Band.  Just last weekend, as I write this, he invited Gwen Harkey, to play a tune with him.  She’s a Morris Dancer because she comes along with her dad (Jay of the Wee Heavies whose second CD was produced by Brian) and little sister to Mississippi River Rats Border Morris practice.  I was at a folkie gathering that he came to with his fiddle and just sat down to play.Brian has played numerous shows, showcasing whatever thematic project he’s been writing songs about (the Scottish diasporae to both the Americas and Eastern Europe plus recovering episodes of Scottish history, frequently from the perspectives of the downtrodden, crafters, travelers, miners, other unionists.  There are fiddle tunes, guitar pieces (on Eric Stein’s wonderful Martin dreadnought) and songs, sometimes guitar, sometimes a beast of a bazouki.  He’s here every year, so sometimes I see him and sometimes I don’t.  We’re amazingly lucky that we can take him for granted.  But we shouldn’t and there will be a time when he won’t be back.

The first time I saw him though, I can only remember that it was just days after that Renbourn show and even fewer days after Dad died in Scotland.  Even Mom wasn’t back, so there was nothing to do but wait and be stunned.  So we held our tickets and went to see Brian with Dick Gaughan do a heavy Scottish and political show.  But I only know that I was there.

For a long time, fiddle players were the virtuoso soloists who regularly dropped my jaw.  Relatively early on we saw the original Celtic Fiddle Festival of Johnny Cunningham, Kevin Burke, and Christian Lemaitre: Scottish, Irish, and Breton playing each other’s tunes.  Lemaitre’s Breton music was ear opening, Celtic sure but with a little bit more.  I saw him later in KC on a reunion tour of Kornog and he came back with a later version of CFF (he had a broken bone in an arm, no cast but I’m sure in pain as he played) with Andre Brunet from Quebec and La Bottine Souriante replacing Cunningham who died way too soon.  Cunningham was amazing, clever verbally and musically, both perhaps as deflections from just how  brilliant his playing was.  Like his brother Phil (whom we saw just once with Aly Bain), his own records were overproduced just a bit, too many clever ideas cluttering the space.  But live, both of them would shine, a little bit of the simple taste showing through.

That was also the first time we saw Kevin Burke and he is just a giant.  He plays effortlessly so his brilliance sneaks up on you.  There are “wait a minute” moments where you catch yourself wondering how he just did what you heard while watching what seems like an easy session.  We saw him with Patrick Street (Andy Irvine, Jackie Daly, and the ubiquitous Ged Foley), with Daly on box, with Cal Scott, and solo at least twice.  Sam helped do sound at one of them and I got to stand at the back while he wrapped up cords while Burke put away his fiddle.  They stood by the stool that held things during the show symmetrically silhouetted by the back light, my kid chatting amiably and naturally with a commanding figure of this music.  In telling that story in a guided session on the lessons of stories, I came up with what is a pretty good slogan: “if you’re there and engaged, then you belong.”  I have gotten behind the scenes often enough to seem like an insider, but I should—but don’t—have imposter syndrome.   I’m just there and engaged.

That access to artists is such a gift from Focal Point.  It really is folk music, music made by folks for folks, without pretension or artifice. And being to witness that magic, in this case, at such close range has been a treasure.

St. Louis also has John D. McGurk’s as a nightly source of Irish music as it has been particularly even before I came to town in the early 1980s a key entry point for Irish musicians playing in the States.  The pictures on the wall attest to numerous giants on the music playing, too often over conversation, in this pub.  Early on Joe Burke, by then a box player, was the artistic director.  We stopped my on several Sunday or Monday nights for sets by Bernie and Barbara McDonald playing tunes, songs, and O’Carolan compositions.  Joe and Bernie were hosts of “Ireland in America” on KDHX, our community radio station.  I got myself FCC legal following in Sam’s footsteps and his apprenticeship on Judy Stein’s “Family Reunion.”  That was his four year high school community service project; then Ellen and I went for the three years he was in college.  I filled in for Judy and Bernie and now for shows for Americana and Eastern European music.  All have been part of my music education.

In more recent years, we trekked to McGurk’s to see box players like John Redmond, Peter Browne, and Johnny B. Connolly after they had been scouted out by friend Jesse who himself played at McGurk’s in the 1970s.  I remember magic from all of them.  Redmond and banjoist Darren Maloney weaving in and out of tunes together, realizing that no matter my enthusiasm I couldn’t get away with saying, “no really, the banjo AND accordion were amazing together.”  I’d probably get accused of liking bagpipes too—and I am guilty of that.  Peter Browne was some combination of bored and shy but he would jam very odd noted phrases into seemingly simple jigs and reels.

Sam helped Eric Stein with sound for a couple of years at the Tionol, the Irish music festival with classes and concert.  I invited myself along (rationalization: he didn't drive) and hung out back stage.  Even after that rationalization past, I told myself I was helping stage manage by getting musicians lined up to go on stage.  So even more of the magic there and at the sessions at various pubs, particularly McGurk's on Sundays.  While the big names tended to gravitate together, there still were nifty moments of rank beginners and recording stars working through a tune set.  No matter what, there was that intimate informality where everyone was playing for themselves and the music itself.

One fixture has been John Skelton whom we saw twice with the House Band (always Chris Parkinson and Ged Foley, once with Roger Wilson) including a time when I announced them as Judy had lost her voice.  Skelton also brought in The Windbags, a pipes/whistles version of the Celtic Fiddle Festival that was remarkable in range and texture.  The guitarist was Tony Cuffe who was a treat himself and a great loss to cancer.But at the Tionol and in his shows, Skelton displayed great wit, always good for an annual polished joke.  But he too could do sessions with jokes--so we have played that game together.

Tionol's have brought in marvelous fiddle players like Liz Carroll and Tommy Peoples, too nervous to live up to the legend.

Martin Hayes is probably my favorite fiddler and I got to see him with Dennis Cahill at UMSL in November 2011, paying extra for a VIP ticket so that I could have the Focal Point experience.  He had said at a pre-show gathering that Celtic music owed more to Baroque counterpoint than blues based chord changes and that has triggered an extended study of that music as my starting point for European Tradition Art Music which I am vainly trying to establish as an alternative to Classical music.  Hayes did a wonderfully eclectic and extended tune set in the performance proper and then created another one on the fly with requests from the audience.  Since these tunes have multiple names, he didn't place the called out one so he asked for the first few notes and he placed it in two--or said he did.  My minute conversation was about his sympathetic interactions with Dennis Cahill and their ensemble sound, evocative to me of Bill Evans with his bassists.  He said they listened to Evans too.

I saw Aly Bain, the Shetland fiddler, once with his long-time band, The Boys of the Lough; once with Phil Cunningham; and once with Ale Moller, from Sweden's Frifot.  All were memorable--Phil's virtuoso piano accordion matching the fiddle in both skill and range of styles and influences; the Shetland/Sweden intersection is bracing and exhilarating; the Boys were always amazing in their own breadth.  Leader Dave Richardson's brother was a friend from the Missouri Botanical Garden so he had a connection with St Louis and Focal Point.  Cathal McConnell is a stunning singer and left handed flute player (he did a duo tour as he really needs a keeper); the box player we saw mostly, Brendan Begley had his own batch of songs; and they recruited another Shetland fiddler to replace Bain.

Besides the show with Bain, Moller was in with Frifot twice and widened my ears to all Nordic music.  In time, I've developed a sense of the variations in style and have seen the great Arto Jarvela with a young Finnish American band from Chicago.  And, the Danish Gangspil has played here these past two years.  Wonderful stuff.

The Boys and this whiff of Scandinavia (not really Celtic, but, as Leif Sorbye, leader of the Norwegian Celtic surf rock band and another long time friend of Focal Point say, Atlantic music is a better way to put it.Besides Tempest and the Bretons we've heard, the Asturian band Llan de Cubel won that style of Celtic music to our hearts.  LIke Breton, it is certainly Celtic—jigs/reels with the right instruments (fiddle, flute, pipes, even hand drums—but it is quirkily and naturally Spanish too.

At the heart of this catholic view of what Celtic music is is a real fondness, even preference for Scottish music.  Besides McNeill, we have seen the seminal band he helped found, Battlefield, at least twice, possibly three times.  I think it was twice with founding keyboard player Alan Reid and once with none of the original members during McNeill’s residency in town (he didn’t sit in the back).  While it wasn’t the Battlefield Band, it was good.

Another band that we’ve seen in a couple of iterations was Old Blind Dogs, twice with Jim Malcolm and once in the newer iteration.  Malcolm is stunning with powerful songs, his voice harmonizing with his DADGAD guitar and the band during the OBD days.  But Malcolm did at least three captivating solo tours through St. Louis.  There is something at least harmonically intriguing if not jazzy in his musical conception.

My family has been more attuned to songs than I, but I am the one who insisted they see the local a capella  quartet The Wee Heavies who sang a couple of tunes at Brian McNeill's set break.  He ultimately produced their second CD.  They have great songs, amazing arrangements, and a fun presence.

So does/did The Finest Kind whom we saw twice, including once when Ian Robb had no voice.  But in the presence of such singers, I'm impressed.  They built harmonies in impressive ways.  They were staying with Judy when the Morris Dancers came over to practice.  I saw them come out and created a song arrangement on the spot for one of the tunes they were dancing too.  It was stunning.

Ellen and Sam saw Louis Killen and then brought me along on a return tour.  A concert of unaccompanied solo singing was frankly a bit much.  But he was a giant of the repertoire, hugely influential, and kept singing after she transitioned as Louise.

Brian Peters came through a couple of times with engaging concerts of songs and box playing.  He probably was a school teacher, given his travel pattern and the thoughtful curation of his repertoire.  As impressive as his accordion is, he has an album of songs, “Sharper Than The Thorn,” that we got to hear most of one special night at Focal Point.

I should be a bigger fan of Richard Thompson than I actually am.  He’s a brilliant guitarist and songwriter, but also steeped in the traditions.  He wasn’t with Fairport the night I saw them open for Weather Report back in KC, so I only saw him on a very snowy night for the 1000 Years of Popular Song tour which implemented a brilliant conceit of tracing songs from “Sumer Ich Acumen” and an ancient ballad or two through Victorian music hall and Stephen Foster through vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley to some odd bits of pop songs including ABBA.  He had a percussionist, another vocalist, and his guitar, managing a very thorough sound somehow.

And, since guitars are where I start and stop, let me end with the amazingly fluid and versatile Martin Simpson.  He’s English and has that repertoire in hand.  But then he also has Celtic and American gospel music albums of the first order.  He spent enough time in New Orleans to record an album called “Righteousness and Humidity.”  He also does blues, playing slide in DADGAD, and Dylan.  So we saw him several times.

Let his eclecticism stand for this whole chapter of discovering music.